Jenny Bakes

Malva Pudding

2012-01-30T23:30:00.000-05:00

This past week, I was reading Moxyland by Lauren Beukes for my Around the World reading challenge. Beukes is South African and Moxyland is also set there. As I researched desserts for South Africa, I was looking for something a little different this time - not something that had to be native but representative of the blend of cultures.

I was torn between melktert (milk tart, like over on What's Gaby Cooking?) and malva pudding, both of which were absolutely everywhere. Malva pudding has even been on Oprah, recreated for her by the famous Art Smith. He is famous, I swear. At least on this blog. Then I came across this story about South African home cooking and comfort food on Honest Cooking, and that solidified my desire to make a malva pudding.

Remember, there is a big difference between what Americans call pudding (a thick, set custard) and the rest of the world calls pudding. In this case it is a moist cake, made moister by pouring a syrup over the top at the end of cooking. This is apricot jam based, and every recipe I looked at was emphatic that it must be served with custard. Luckily I still had some birds custard powder from the import store. You can see in the picture that I've not exactly perfected it yet (mine is gloppy).

This was delicious, but I didn't come close to being able to eat one serving of it. It is very rich, very sweet, and very very South African.

South African Malva Pudding (from Honest Cooking)
Serves 6-8

2tbsn unsalted butter
1 cup / 250dl sugar
2tbsn smooth apricot jam/preserves
2tsp white vinegar
2 cups/ 500dl flour
2 cups/ 500dl milk
2 eggs
2tsp baking soda
pinch of salt

Syrup :

1 cup / 250dl sugar
1/2 cup / 125dl boiling water
3/4 / 190dl cup unsalted butter
1tsp vanilla extract

1. Pre-heat your oven to 180°c / 356°f and grease a 20cm square pie/baking dish.
2. In a large saucepan, melt the butter, sugar, apricot jam and vinegar together until the sugar has dissolved and the mixture is smooth. Remove from the heat and allow to cool for 5 minutes. Meanwhile sift the flour.
3. Alternating, add the flour and milk until the mixture is smooth and thick.
4. Add the eggs one by one, beating well after each addition.
5. Add the baking soda and salt and beat well.
6. Pour the mixture into your prepared baking dish and bake for 30-45 minutes until the pudding is dark and baked through (a skewer inserted should come out clean).
7. In a small sauce pan, heat the syrup ingredients and cook until all the sugar has dissolved.
8. Pour the syrup over the cooked pudding and allow to stand for 10 minutes before serving with custard. (In South Africa it would be a sin to serve this with anything other than UltraMel custard but you can use any custard you can find)

Po'e - Tahitian Fruit Pudding

2012-01-15T23:34:00.000-05:00

This month for the Around the World challenge, I visited Tahiti by reading Frangipani by Celestine Vaite. Two recipes come up for baked goods and desserts, at least in internet searching - coconut bread that seems to be a hotel or maybe French influenced tradition, and po'e. I was very interested in po'e, which was described as a fruit pudding, typically served as part of the traditional tamara'a barbecues, after being baked in the fire pit. A very poetic description of po'e within its meal context can be read on Islands.com.

The main recipe I found online for po'e is posted on The Polynesian Kitchen blog, and that is the one I used. It is pointed out that traditionally this would be cooked wrapped in banana leaves, over a fire, but the recipe is adapted to the modern indoor kitchen.

Po'e is basically a fresh fruit, pureed and mixed with cornstarch or arrowroot, a bit of sweetener, and then baked. It is served by being topped with coconut cream, and I found references online for serving it hot as well as serving it chilled. The smell of my banana po'e was so enticing, there was no way we were going to wait for this to chill before trying it the first time! On the French language blog La Cocinera Loca, you can see a wonderful photographic step by step demonstration, even if you can't read the directions.

I thought this was delicious, and different. I love that you can do the same method with almost any fruit - I came across multiple mentions of pumpkin, yuca, and papaya variations.

Po'e

4 to 6 servings

* Ripe bananas, peeled and cut into chunks -- 6-8 Bananas
* Brown sugar -- 1/2 cup
* Arrowroot or cornstarch -- 1 cup
* Vanilla -- 2 teaspoons
* Coconut cream -- 1 cup

Method

1. Preheat oven to 375°F. Puree the bananas in a blender or food processor. There should be enough puree to make 4 cups.
2. Mix together the brown sugar and arrowroot or cornstarch. Add this mixture and the vanilla to the bananas and process well. There should not be any lumps of starch. Adjust sugar to taste.
3. Butter a 2-quart baking dish and pour in the puree. Bake for 30-45 minutes, or until the pudding is firm and bubbling. Remove from oven and allow to cool. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate until well chilled.
4. Cut into cubes and place into a large serving bowl or in individual bowls. Top with a dollop of coconut cream, a little more brown sugar and serve.**

Variations-

**Boil and Cook the Bananas on the stove until the fruit turns brown. Add in remaining ingredients and stir until combined. Butter a 2-quart baking dish and pour in mixture. Bake for 30-45 minutes, or until the pudding is firm and bubbling. Remove from oven and allow to cool. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate until well chilled.

** Try substituting papaya, mango, pineapple, canned Pumpkin or other tropical fruits for some of the bananas. Just make sure there is a total of 4 cups of fruit puree. Ripe plantains can also be substituted for the bananas. For juicier fruits, you will probably have to add more arrowroot or cornstarch.

Notes

* Coconut cream is the thick coconut milk that rises to the top of a can of coconut milk. Don't shake the can before you open it and you can skim it right off the top.

Caraway Seed Cake

2012-01-08T16:26:00.002-05:00

In Dubliners by James Joyce, there is a story called Counterparts. The main character, Farrington, moves in and out of pubs in Dublin. As I was reading the stories in this volume, I started marking the food words that I hadn't experienced so I could research them later - barmbracks, blancmange, and then what is mentioned in this passage:

"The curate brought him a glass of plain porter. The man drank it at a gulp and asked for a caraway seed. He put his penny on the counter and, leaving the curate to grope for it in the gloom, retreated out of the snug as furtively as he had entered it."

While Joyce may have meant a literal caraway seed (this could be a drinking tradition), any search I did of "caraway seed" and Ireland brought me to a variation of the caraway seed cake! I have had bread with caraway seed in it before, but never something sweet. I'd already made soda bread in the past, and endless scones, so I was looking for something new to me.

Caraway seed bread may be new to me, but it isn't new to Ireland. According to Imen over on the I Married an Irish Farmer blog, caraway seed cake is merely a variation of the Madeira cake, which dates back at least to the 18th century in Ireland. The Maderia cake, really just a pound cake of sorts, is thought to have been developed to eat while sipping Madeira or port wine. It is very much an afternoon tea type cake, and would have been far more likely to be consumed by women, in groups. She has a recipe on her site, but I found a version I wanted to try over on Rosa's Yummy Yums. Rosa is someone I've "known" for several years through the Daring Bakers, so I trusted her recipe! The two recipes aren't much different - Rosa adds a bit of almond meal and uses orange zest for the lemon, while I went back to the lemon for a more traditional flavor profile. We will just pretend that Rosa doesn't call this an English cake. I'm sure it is impossible to keep delicious baked goods a secret for long anyway!

Caraway Seed Cake
A variation of the recipe on Rosa's Yummy Yums

Ingredients:
3/4 cup unsalted butter
1 cup granulated sugar
1 Tbsp lemon zest
1/2 tsp almond extract
3 eggs
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 Tbsp baking powder
2 Tbsp ground almonds (almond meal/flour)
1/3 cup milk or buttermilk
3 Tbsp caraway seeds

1. Cream butter, sugar, and zest.
2. Beat in almond extract and eggs, one at a time.
3. Blend dry ingredients together and add slowly to mixture, alternating with milk.
4. Stir caraway seeds in by hand.
5. Bake in loaf pan at 350 F, 50-60 minutes.
6. Let cool, slice, and serve!

It is my personal opinion that since this is so close to a pound cake, you probably want to serve it with something, like fruit and whipped cream or some kind of spread. It could be that I'm just not pound cake's biggest fan.

I made this to accompany my Irish reads for the Around the World Challenge. Both were easy reads, and recommended.
Dubliners by James Joyce (my review)
A Greyhound of a Girl by Roddy Doyle (my review)

Croatian Black Pepper Cookies (Paprenjaci)

2012-01-02T22:11:00.000-05:00

This year, I am doing a reading challenge called Around the World in 52 Books with a group in GoodReads. Making the list of what I wanted to read and hunting down the books online and in used book stores has been a blast, and I will be posting reviews in GoodReads and in my reading blog, Reading Envy.

Of course, reading 52 books didn't seem like enough. I started to wonder if I could challenge myself to do a baked good from every country too. Either a bread or a dessert. I'm not sure I'll have time every week, but I'm going to try!

Most of the time, I will hunt down a recipe before reading the selected book, but I might find myself changing my mind based on what is in the book. I definitely did that this time around. I was all set to make a Povitica, which is a nut bread prominent throughout eastern Europe, particularly the former Yugoslavia. As I read The Tiger's Wife, I kept coming across mentions of pepper cookies in the beginning of the book. I got curious, did some internet research, and I found such interesting anecdotes connected to paprenjaci that I changed directions.

The one recipe I find online was originally posted by a man named Nitko, who lives in Zagreb and seems to have posted many of his grandmother's recipes online. These have been copied and reposted many other places on the internet. His recipe for paprenjaci was promising, but contained lard, and everything was in grams. I don't eat lard, and wanted a recipe I could share, so what you see below is my take, as close to the original as I could make it.

Croatian Black Pepper Cookies (Paprenjaci)

Ingredients

6 oz butter, at room temperature
1/2 cup plus 2 tbsp sugar
1 3/4 cup flour
1 tablespoon ground black pepper*
1 teaspoon ground cloves
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
2 tablespoons light honey
1 egg
1 1/4 cup walnuts, ground (measured first)
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg

Directions

Cream butter, sugar, and honey. Mix in egg. Mix in spices, then nuts and flour. Chill dough at least two hours. Roll out and use cookie molds or cookie cutters. Bake at 350 for 12 minutes.

* - These are pretty peppery. Given the chance to make them again, I might do just 1 tsp.

According to WikiTravel, paprenjaci are said to reflect Croatia's tumultuous history because they combine the harshness of the war periods (pepper) with the natural beauties (honey). This fits right in with the story in The Tiger's Wife. Come read my review!

Holiday Cookie Redux

2011-12-31T00:48:00.001-05:00

It turns out that I got so excited about my gingerbread trees with lemon icing, I forgot to talk about the other cookies I made for the holidays!

I made a new kind of swirl cookie, trying to top last year's orange-nutella pinwheels. I instead made Alton Brown's Chocolate Peppermint Swirl Cookies, but they weren't quite as good. The peppermint candies get too hot in the cookie and the carmelized sugar can overbake the cookie itself.

The chocolate crinkle cookies, or what my family always called "wagon wheel cookies," is just a recipe I make every year. I absolutely can't celebrate December without them.

The best cookie, pictured up in the right corner, almost bland looking, may have been the best one! Since it is a tweak on a Martha Stewart recipe, I'm including it here for your baking pleasure.

Cranberry Pistachio Icebox Cookies

3 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 sticks unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup sugar
1 large egg
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
3/4 cup pistachios, shelled (measure after shelling)
3/4 cup dried cranberries

Directions

Whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt in a large bowl. Beat butter and granulated sugar with a mixer on medium-high speed until pale and fluffy. Beat in egg and vanilla. Reduce speed to low. Add flour mixture, and beat until combined. Stir in pistachios and cranberries. Divide dough in half. Form each half into a log, either a round or triangular shape. Chill several hours. Slice dough crosswise slightly thicker than 1/8 inch. Reshape if needed. Bake at 350 degrees on parchment-lined baking sheets until firm, 12 to 14 minutes. DO NOT OVERBAKE! The color will not change drastically when they are done.

Looking Back at 2011

2011-12-31T00:36:00.000-05:00

Resolutions are made to be broken! In my case, resolutions are made to be gleefully ignored, stomped on, and tossed out the window the minute something shiny comes along. So this will not be my wrap-up post detailing how I fulfilled my 2011 Culinary Resolutions. Nope. Move along. Nothing to see here.

Okay, wait, come back. Just for a bit. Let's talk about what I did accomplish, what I've learned, and what tasty treats I've unleashed onto the world in 2011. (That's more like it!)

Favorites of 2011
I went with a top 5. I couldn't exclude any of these recipes, all of which were made for the first time in 2011. These are JennyBakes approved, five-star, guaranteed recipes. Each numbered item links directly to the recipe, so click away!

1. Gramercy Tavern's Gingerbread
I realize I just posted about this, but it was seriously good. This is why holiday baking posts are so difficult; I find something we love that I have to make again, and I run out of space to make new desserts. Add this one to the repeat pile!

2. Pumpkin Cinnamon Roll Pancakes
These were amazing and quite a visual treat, but the real reason they were on this list is that I started hearing about them at work. One student said a professor talked about them in class, and another professor came into my office to thank me for the recipe. (Hi friends!) You know pancakes are good when they get brought up in music theory class!

3. Pistachio Cranberry Icebox Cookies
Ha! When I first started this blog post, I realized I never ever blogged these, which explains why you see an early 12/31 post for Christmas cookies. This was another recipe that I heard about for days after I brought them to work. There were theories that I used fancy butter (nope, I always buy the cheap generic stuff!), and when I shared the recipe I got weird reactions like "I'll never be able to make them like you." People. Don't be afraid of baking. They are just sugar cookies with stuff in them.

4. Red Wine Chocolate Cake
The second recipe in my top five from the Smitten Kitchen blog (seriously excited to own her cookbook when it comes out!), and another cake with rave reviews. In fact, this might be my personal favorite of the list. I loved the way the red wine elevated the chocolate, and the texture of this cake was also fantastic.

5. Rosemary Shortbread
I first tasted this at a work function (we have a lot of people who love to cook!), and I hearby apologize to shortbread for thinking I didn't like it. This recipe proves me wrong. I can still taste it ....

Oh how I've learned!
I may not have learned about fondant like I'd planned, but I did get a chance to meet a local chocolate maker and play with his chocolate in recipes. That was a highlight of the year! I also did a lot more alternative baking - vegan, gluten-free, and trying to make things set up with agar-agar. I hope I can keep challenging myself to be more adept at those kinds of recipes, since there seem to be an increasing number of people who identify with those dietary choices.

Gramercy Tavern's Gingerbread

2011-12-27T12:09:00.000-05:00

Half of the recipes I mark to make later are from Smitten Kitchen, but I can't help it, that blog is amazing!

You can find the recipe to Gramercy Tavern's Gingerbread on the Smitten Kitchen blog, but I have a few things to say about it.

Make sure you heat the Guiness (stout) and molasses in a pan at least twice as big as the liquid. Bringing those to things to a boil isn't the problem, but prepare for great fizzing explosions when you add the baking soda. I destroyed an oven mitt on that step.
Do everything you can to grease the pan. I listened and did butter + nonstick spray + flour and still lost a few chunks. Those chunks were chewy and amazing, but there has to be a way to get it out cleanly.
MAKE THIS TODAY. You won't be sorry. The end.

Daring Bakers December 2011 - Rye Sourdough Bread

2011-12-27T11:38:00.001-05:00

Our Daring Bakers Host for December 2011 was Jessica of My Recipe Project and she showed us how fun it is to create Sour Dough bread in our own kitchens! She provided us with Sour Dough recipes from Bread Matters by Andrew Whitley as well as delicious recipes to use our Sour Dough bread in from Tonia George’s Things on Toast and Canteen’s Great British Food!

This was my first foray into sourdough bread making, and unlike most Daring Bakers months, I knew I could not procrastinate and make something the last day. I actually began the starter, affectionately named Gertie, on the 16th or so. I could post a picture of her here, but she is very sensitive to how she looks. Just picture a gloppy, bubbly, tan mass, and there you go. (Sorry, Gertie). If I had been a better sourdough starter mother, I would have remembered to feed her after I baked her first loaf, but I failed. It is just as well; this bread wasn't my favorite ever, but it is more of a taste thing. I'm pretty sure the result is what I was looking for. You can find the recipe on Jessica's blog, where there are also recipes for country wheat sourdough, and an interesting looking gluten-free variety with brown rice flour.

The second part of the challenge was to make something to put on a toast version of our bread. With the cold weather and lots of time spent indoors during the holidays, Nathaniel and I had been craving Welsh Rarebit anyway, so even though I didn't challenge myself on that part, it was still delicious! The dark, smoky, murky flavors of the Welsh Rarebit, created by the Worcestershire and ale, is a perfect pairing with a sourdough like this.

I use Alton Brown's recipe, kind of. I was horrified at the idea of using cream instead of milk, when almost every recipe you'll find uses milk. There is already so much fat with the cheese and butter, that I just couldn't do it. With the milk, this recipe is quite rich, so I just can't imagine it any richer. He also only called for 4 slices of toast, but this easily smothered 8 thick slices of the rye sourdough.

JennyBakes Take on Alton Brown's Welsh Rarebit

Ingredients:
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/2 cup ale
3/4 cup milk
8ounces (approximately 2 cups) shredded Cheddar
2 drops hot sauce
8 slices toasted rye bread

Directions:
In a medium saucepan over low heat, melt the butter and whisk in the flour. Cook, whisking constantly for 2 to 3 minutes, being careful not to brown the flour. Whisk in mustard, Worcestershire sauce, salt, and pepper until smooth. Add beer and whisk to combine. Pour in milk and whisk until well combined and smooth. Gradually add cheese, stirring constantly, until cheese melts and sauce is smooth; this will take 4 to 5 minutes. Add hot sauce. Pour over toast and serve immediately.

Happy Holidays!

2011-12-25T08:00:00.000-05:00

Whatever holiday you celebrate, or if you simply enjoy your time with family, I hope you have a wonderful time! Best wishes for 2012....

Happy Birthday!

2011-12-24T23:09:00.001-05:00

Every Christmas Eve, we celebrate a birthday. Not Jesus! Nathaniel! His old standard used to be the mint chocolate chip roulade cake from Baskin Robbins, but as there aren't any left around these parts, and he is married to someone who likes to bake, I have done some experimenting the last few years.

This year he asked if I could also make the ice cream part. Usually I wimp out and buy good ice cream from the store - Ben & Jerry's, Haagen Daaz, whatever I know is good. After all, I've not had the best luck in ice cream making. Too icey, too eggy, too solid, not enough flavor, and so on. I was thinking back to the one time I was happy with what I made - the hazelnut gelato from the Ciao Bella book. I decided to make two kinds of gelato, and stack this cake high. One is the typical mint chocolate chip, and one is the reverse of that.

I started with the plain base and the chocolate base in the Ciao Bella book. After they had chilled, I stirred in 1 tbsp creme de menthe and 1/2 tsp peppermint extract into each (this sounds like a lot, and was a lot more than the recipe called for, but honestly I wouldn't have wanted any less!). When the ice cream maker started sounding like it was working hard, I dumped in whichever bits I was adding (chopped semisweet chocolate or mint chips). Then I put the mixtures into the same cake pans I'd baked the cakes in, to make it easy to put together.

This was delicious! It looks a bit unfinished, because I didn't ice it at all, but taste-wise it didn't need it. I used the Black Magic Cake recipe I found randomly online, and it was great.

Green Olive and Gruyere Loaf

2011-12-22T20:51:00.001-05:00

I have tried making no-knead bread before, but was unhappy with the overly crusty nature of it. I've taken to watching Martha Bakes, despite the feeling that she could have been more original with her name. I mean, come on Martha. JennyBakes? Barbara Bakes? We've all been around, baking, longer than you. But anyway.

She had a bread episode where she made this marvelous looking green olive and gruyere no-knead bread, elegantly referred to on her website as "Olive and Cheese Loaf." It is DELICIOUS. A little salty. If I make this again I might rinse the olives more. It worked great, although I baked it in a springform, lacking a dutch oven pan I could put in the oven. Why can't it just go in a bread pan? I'm not sure....

Gingerbread Trees with Lemon Icing

2011-12-19T22:46:00.005-05:00

If you've never had gingerbread and lemon together, you are missing out. I love fresh gingerbread with lemon curd, and I wanted to try the combination in a cookie for the holidays. I had seen a gingerbread tree cookie recipe on Martha Stewart's website, where she had these elegant lines of lemon icing with the clear sanding sugar, so I copied the idea!

I used Bakerella's gingerbread cookie recipe, because I originally planned to make the cute snowman heads. I deemed them too time-intensive, this time around. (They are SO CUTE though, please click on snowman heads to check them out!).

Since Martha gave me the idea, I used her lemon icing recipe. These were a big hit! Definitely the best cookie recipe of the 2011 season.

Salty-Sweet

2011-12-04T22:40:00.001-05:00

I blame the internet, again, for forcing me to make cookies when we already had Thanksgiving dessert laying around. And just like half the time, it was the couple at Two Peas and Their Pod who were to blame!Check out the recipe for Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars with a Salty Pretzel Crust that they posted over on TastyKitchen.com. They are salty, sweet, and chocolatey - a perfect treat.

Cranberry-Glazed Pumpkin Pie

2011-11-25T14:45:00.001-05:00

Not someone who could just make one dessert on a holiday, even with only two of us, I snagged another recipe to try from the Thanksgiving recipe index over on The Bitten Word. The flavors are what drew me in - of course gingersnap, pumpkin, and cranberry are all holiday flavors, but together? Hmm, had to try it. (Suddenly, I am taken back to 2009, when a recipe with a similar idea drew me in, and I made the pumpkin spectacular pie. It also was a bit disappointing).

Disappointing? Well, yes. Part of it may be my failure, and possibly a lack of experience with home baked pumpkin, which I think has more moisture than canned. So while the edge of the crust was scorching, the middle still jiggled a bit. But I knew I had overbaked my pumpkin flan (see previous post) and didn't want a repeat of that! So I may have taken it out too soon. Then adding what is basically a homemade cranberry sauce to the top probably heated up the slightly undercooked area twice. Cutting a clean slice was a challenge. I also ran out of walnuts because I had to make the crust twice - the first time I read the amount of butter as 4 oz instead of 4 tbsp, which would have been a hot mess if it had ended up baked that way. So while I didn't have any walnuts to top the pie, I could still taste them cleanly in the crust, which was a nice antidote to the sweetness of everything else.

I think I'd need to try the recipe again before labeling it a failure. Honestly, I'm not a fan of pumpkin pie straight, so I liked the idea of an unusual crust and a tart topping. It did look pretty in the pan too.

Cranberry-Glazed Pumpkin Pie

Recipe from Food and Wine Magazine

Ingredients

Crust

8 ounces gingersnaps, crushed (1 1/2 cups)
1/2 cup walnuts
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted

Filling and Toppings

1 cup canned pumpkin
1/3 cup light brown sugar
1 tablespoon honey
3/4 teaspoon ground ginger
3/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
Pinch of ground cloves
2 large eggs
3/4 cup heavy cream
1/4 cup fresh orange juice
1/4 cup water
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
2 cups fresh or frozen cranberries (8 ounces)
1/2 cup walnuts

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350°. In a food processor, pulse the gingersnaps with the walnuts until finely ground. Add the melted butter and pulse until the crumbs are moistened. Press the crumbs evenly into a 9-inch glass or ceramic pie plate.
In a medium bowl, whisk the pumpkin with the brown sugar, honey, ground ginger, cinnamon, salt, ground cloves, eggs and heavy cream. Pour the pie filling into the crust. Bake for 35 to 40 minutes, until the crust is deep brown and the filling is just set around the edges but still slightly jiggly in the center; cover the edge of the crust with strips of foil halfway through baking to prevent burning. Transfer the pie to a wire rack to cool.
In a medium saucepan, combine the orange juice with the water, granulated sugar and flour and whisk until smooth. Add the cranberries and cook over moderate heat, stirring, until the liquid is thickened and glossy and the cranberries just begin to burst, about 5 minutes. Carefully pour the hot cranberry glaze over the pie and refrigerate until well chilled. Sprinkle the walnuts on top of the pie just before serving.

Make Ahead

The pie can be refrigerated for up to 3 days.

Spanish Thanksgiving Feast 2011

2011-11-25T14:17:00.001-05:00

Since we don't eat meat, Thanksgiving is always a fun adventure in cuisine we might not have tried before. In 2009, we played with Native American ingredients. 2010 saw the first attempts at making tamales and other Mexican treats. While Spain isn't far from Mexico, I'd been dying to try making paella. Armed with a paella pan actually purchased in Europe that I borrowed from a co-worker, I tackled the following menu:

Sangria
Mushroom paella
Pumpkin flan

I had this sangria recipe before, at a friend's house, probably for one of the international dinner nights she hosted. I remember going there one day after work to drink the leftovers. This sangria is not kidding around! Orange juice, lemonade concentrate, brandy, triple sec, sliced lemon, orange, and lime, and maraschino cherries floating around in there. I made it Wednesday afternoon and let it chill over 24 hours, which is essential for a good sangria. The wine I used was a pretty full-bodied Bordeaux from Chateau Bel Air. I know, I should have used Spanish red wine, but I had this on hand and it worked great.

The sangria recipe includes some optional ingredients - sugar, which I added because of all the citrus elements, but I don't really think it needed it. It also says you can serve it with carbonated water, but I wanted it to drink more like wine and less like fizz. I think that was a good decision. I think if I had not cared about making it husband friendly, I might have made it more Thanksgivingesque by pouring cranberries into the glass. Even if they wouldn't add flavor, they would look pretty!

Then on to the paella. I had never made paella, largely because I kept reading that it isn't paella without the pan. I'm lucky to work with a bunch of librarians who are also foodies, so when I sent out an e-mail asking if anyone had a paella pan, I was not disappointed.

As far as following the recipe goes, the first change I had to make was to find a substitute for chicken stock. I originally purchased vegetable stock, but ended up using mushroom to really emphasize the flavor of the mushroom. I do think that is why the saffron color is not as vibrant as it is in many paella pictures I've seen, since mushroom stock is around the color of beef stock, and tends to muddy up the color. Taste-wise, the decision was a good one. The recipe also called for ham, which I obviously wasn't going to use. We had recently tried these field roast frankfurters, a vegan meat substitute, that were reminiscent to me of polish sausage I'd grown up eating. While it might look like hot dogs in there, which would be unappealing, the flavor was much more complex. I think having a protein in there really made the dish more of a meal and less of a side. (After all, traditional paella is usually chock full of seafood and meat). Since we go vegetarian but not vegan, I was still able to add the butter and manchego at the end. You can't see them in the dish, but the final creamy and glossy texture is definitely due to those two ingredients, and the cheese adds an incredible flavor dimension.

The last recipe for the meal was a pumpkin flan. Is there anything more Spanish for dessert? I had several different recipes bookmarked, one which called for cream cheese, but then on the 2011 Thanksgiving recipe index put together by the guys over on The Bitten Word, I found a newly published recipe for individual pumpkin flans from Bon Appetit.

The recipe is great, flawless even. This baker, on the other hand, is incredibly flawed. I had exactly enough sugar on Wednesday night to make the caramel, so of course I completely destroyed it. My brave and calming husband Nathaniel went to WalMart on Thanksgiving day to buy more sugar, and I tried it again. And... again. I finally figured out that I was being too timid; that the sugar really needed to be cooking on medium-high to get to that amber color without too much crystallization. Or it could be that as I scrubbed the burnt sugar out of the pan the second time, I gave an edict to the evil kitchen god of caramel, my nemesis. Whatever, it worked the third time, and the custard mixture was all ready to go in the fridge.

Unfortunately, that isn't the last time I was thwarted. I was so worried I'd underbake that I overbaked these a tad. You can see that above in the little dots. So they ended up tasting a little eggy and not quite as creamy as they should have. Definitely bake these closer to the 20 minute time than 25, I'd say. And maybe remove them from the water bath earlier than I did. Still, you could taste the subtle pumpkin and steeped spices, which paired nicely with the caramelized sugar, a light and not too sweet ending to a Spanish Thanksgiving feast!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Baking your own pumpkin

2011-11-25T14:11:00.001-05:00

I've always wanted to try baking my own pumpkin, and finally got around to it this year. There are plenty of sugar pumpkins for sale, so I just bought a cute one and brought it home. I found recipes online where people suggested a baking/roasting temperature of anywhere from 300-450. The part that made me skeptical is that all of them including roughly the same amount of baking time. They can't all be right! I picked somewhere in the middle and split the pumpkin in half (not easy using my dull knives; really need to get them sharpened), and put it cut side down on the cookie sheet.

As you can see, I probably let it go too long. The shells were completely hard and sunken in, and there was some sugar-char on the edges. Still, I scooped it out and stuck it in the fridge, forgetting the very important step of pureeing it before adding it to recipes. That just made it more difficult to incorporate into my recipes. Next time I'll know better. The color was definitely less intense than the canned pumpkin I can find in the stores, and that makes sense, considering that many of the canned "pumpkin" you find is actually squash of a different variety (usually hubbard, I think). Here's to actual pumpkin in pumpkin dishes! Stay tuned for how I used it. I still have half the pumpkin left after using it in two recipes!

Ultimate Pumpkin Waffles

2011-11-06T20:59:00.003-05:00

I woke up this morning with pumpkin waffles in my head, although I'd never made any before. The version in my head was quite decadent with candied nuts and whipped cream, but I did not have those things (veiled reference to So I Married an Axe Murderer, you have to see that movie if you haven't!).

Like any other day with a good idea, the internet is my friend. It is rare to find something that nobody else had thought of. This is why I have not yet posted the red velvet pancakes in my head - they've been in other people's heads too! In my searching, I came across an entire blog devoted to pumpkin waffles. This blogger was not joking in her quest to develop a pumpkin waffle recipe! I knew this was the one I had to try.

You can find this recipe on the Pumpkin Waffles Blog, pumpkinwaffles.wordpress.com. But since U.S. Copyright Law says that recipes can't be protected, I'm going to go ahead and copy and paste it here. The original blog has great photographs of the steps. If you make it, please head over to his/her blog and let him/her know how much you liked it. That's what I plan to do! This recipe isn't too sweet, the spices are nicely balanced, and you can actually taste the pumpkin.

Ultimate Pumpkin Waffles, from pumpkinwaffles

Ingredients:

• 1/4 cup light brown sugar
• 3 Tbsp. cornstarch
• 1 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1 3/4 tsp. cinnamon
• 2 tsp. ginger
• 1/4 tsp. cloves
• 1/2 tsp. freshly grated nutmeg*
• 2 large eggs
• 1 cup whole milk
• 1 cup canned solid-pack pumpkin
• 4 Tbsp. unsalted butter, melted and warm
*Grated and lightly packed into the spoon, use 1/2 tsp. Grated and loosely scooped, this is about 1 tsp. of nutmeg. If you have to use pre-grated, dried nutmeg, use 1/4 tsp.

Directions:
1. Lightly oil the waffle iron with vegetable oil, and set it to the desired temperature.
2. Combine brown sugar and cornstarch in a large bowl. Whisk together to break apart the cornstarch. Add the remaining dry ingredients, and whisk to blend.
3. Separate eggs: yolks go in a medium sized bowl and whites get set aside in a smaller bowl.
4. Add pumpkin and milk to the egg yolks. Whisk to blend and set aside.
5. Whip egg whites with a hand mixer on high until stiff peaks form - about 1 1/2 – 2 minutes. Set aside.
6. Pour melted butter into the yolk/milk/pumpkin mixture. As you pour, whisk to combine.
7. Add the pumpkin mixture to the dry ingredients, and mix them together until just combined. A little lumpiness is fine. That will smooth out when the egg whites are added.
8. Slide the whipped egg whites out of the bowl and onto the mixture you just prepared. Gently fold them in until no white bits are obvious.
9. Once the waffle iron is heated, you’re ready to pour the batter!

Secret Agent Cookies

2011-10-29T23:36:00.005-04:00

These cookies have a funny little story from today, but I can't tell you what it is.

No really. I mean, I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you.

What I can tell you is that this recipe from Two Peas and Their Pod will not disappoint you. The pumpkin isn't the prominent flavor, but this is a soft, delicious, fall cookie. They call them gingersnaps, but they aren't that snappy - I'd call them pumpkin ginger cookies.

Ginger Cookie Pumpkin Ice Cream Sandwiches

2011-10-18T03:00:00.000-04:00

It can't be fall in my house without making big soft ginger cookies. This year I was looking for new things to try, and decided they would be perfect for ice cream sandwiches. Their softness would hold up to freezing and still be pliable enough to eat with something cold inside. I made the pumpkin ice cream from The Craft of Baking, because that is the recipe David Lebovitz cited in his blog post with a pumpkin ice cream recipe, and I own it! This is the first time I've made ice cream that didn't turn to stone in the freezer, and is pleasantly pliable but not too soft. It may be the lack of cooking, really. The egg yolks are tempered but not cooked again on the stove. Maybe that was a mistake in the recipe, but the taste is delicious and creamy and very very pumpkiny. I did add a bit of pumpkin powder from the herb store in addition to the canned pumpkin, and I think it added a dimension of flavor.

I hear what you're thinking. Pumpkin and ginger make sense for fall, but not ice cream sandwiches! That may be true in most of the world, but here in South Carolina the temperature went back to the upper 80s today, so we are dying for cold treats. I just wasn't ready to completely let go of fall!

Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffins

2011-10-17T17:31:00.003-04:00

Having finally wrestled a pantry full of canned pumpkin away from the guy who usually beats me to the store to buy it for his dogs, fall baking has been going full force in October! First were the pumpkin cinnamon roll pancakes, which were amazing. I made a gluten-free version of harvest muffins after a week of eating no wheat, but most of them were thrown away instead of consumed. That's all I'll say about that! I made another half batch of "real" harvest muffins later, which is something we have every year.

Still, I can't just make everything I always make just because we like it. So I went looking for a recipe similar to the old Starbucks pumpkin cream cheese muffins. I found this promising recipe on The Girl Who Ate Everything's blog, and these were tasty. In fact, I think I prefer the pumpkin part to the harvest muffin pumpkin part (it could be the butter vs. oil difference; these have oil and were very tender). I even skipped her streusel topping, but I'm sure that would add to the decadence. I also didn't chill the cream cheese part for 2 hours, just mixed it with the powdered sugar and popped it in the freezer until I was scooping batter into the muffin tins. It worked just fine without the extra time. Also, I divided the recipe in half, because this recipe makes 24! Even half made a good 14.

Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffins
Source: Annie's Eats
Makes 24 muffins
Print Recipe

Ingredients:
For the filling:
8 oz. cream cheese, softened
1 cup powdered sugar

For the muffins:
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 teaspoon ground cloves
1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
4 large eggs
2 cups sugar
2 cups pumpkin puree (see Note)
1¼ cups vegetable oil

For the topping:
½ cup sugar
5 tablespoons flour
1½ teaspoons ground cinnamon
4 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cut into pieces

Note: A standard sized can of pumpkin is 15 ounces, just shy of 2 cups (16 ounces). You could open another can if you want and freeze the extra or just use one can which is what I did. The amount is so little I don't think it makes a difference in the final product.

Directions:
To prepare the filling, combine the cream cheese and powdered sugar in a medium bowl and mix well until blended and smooth. Transfer the mixture to a piece of plastic wrap and shape into a log about 1½-inches in diameter. Smooth the plastic wrap tightly around the log, and reinforce with a piece of foil. Transfer to the freezer and chill until at least slightly firm, at least 2 hours. The mixture will still be somewhat soft but firmer.

To make the muffins, preheat the oven to 350˚ F. Line muffin pans with paper liners. In a medium bowl, combine the flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, pumpkin pie spice, salt and baking soda; whisk to blend. In the bowl of an electric mixer combine the eggs, sugar, pumpkin puree and oil. Mix on medium-low speed until blended. With the mixer on low speed, add in the dry ingredients, mixing just until incorporated.

To make the topping, combine the sugar, flour and cinnamon in a small bowl; whisk to blend. Add in the butter pieces and cut into the dry ingredients with a pastry blender or two forks until the mixture is coarse and crumbly. I always get inpatient here and mix it together with my hands so that it looks like the texture of wet sand. I know you aren't supposed to do it this way but I'm impatient. Transfer to the refrigerator to chill until ready to use.

To assemble the muffins, fill each muffin well with a small amount of batter, just enough to cover the bottom of the liner (1-2 tablespoons). Slice the log of cream cheese filling into 24 equal pieces. Place a slice of the cream cheese mixture into each muffin well. You want to put the cream cheese lower than you think because it will rise a lot during the baking process. Divide the remaining batter among the muffin cups, placing on top of the cream cheese to cover completely. Sprinkle a small amount of the topping mixture over each of the muffin wells.

Bake for 20-25 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack and let cool completely before serving. I like them warm, cold, and room temperature.

Smitten Kitchen Red Wine Chocolate Cake

2011-10-09T22:22:00.000-04:00

Here I continue my salivating over Smitten Kitchen - her beautiful pictures and enticing recipes that I'm never sorry I tried! I had just been given a bottle of red wine at work, and knowing how I never drink more than a glass, I came across her recipe for red wine chocolate cake. I knew I had to try it.

What does red wine taste like in chocolate cake? Well I think you'll be surprised when you try it (DO try it). Rather than it being winey or adding a fruity twinge to the cake, it creates similar magic to coffee or coke in a chocolate cake - liquid but not dairy, so the chocolate just comes through. It tastes... like chocolate. Unaltered. Delicious.

Pumpkin Cinnamon Roll Pancakes

2011-10-09T22:13:00.000-04:00

I've had this recipe bookmarked for a week or so, but that was still TOO LONG TO WAIT for these amazing pancakes. Head on over to RecipeGirl for the recipe and step by step instructions for Pumpkin Cinnamon Roll Pancakes. You will not be sorry. These should be required for fall!

Daring Bakers September 2011 - Croissants

2011-09-27T22:13:00.000-04:00

The Daring Bakers go retro this month! Thanks to one of our very talented non-blogging members, Sarah, the Daring Bakers were challenged to make Croissants using a recipe from the Queen of French Cooking, none other than Julia Child!

I had actually made croissants before, from a different Julia Child recipe, and had a better result than I did this time around. I'm not sure of the difference. At one point I think I rolled out one too many times, but that should have created more layers, not the deflated croissants I ended up with. The last time I also chilled between EVERY step, and this time didn't do that because the recipe didn't ask me to.

Oh yeah, also, I tried making chocolate croissant dough by substituting 1/4 cup of the flour with cocoa powder. As you can probably tell by my attempt at a double chocolate croissant, it didn't exactly work out. The dough was way too dry and never really recovered, and butter was poking through at every turn. I wanted to try something new! Perhaps I should have done it by weight instead of volume.

Rosemary Shortbread

2011-09-25T19:20:00.000-04:00

My co-worker has brought rosemary shortbread to two library functions and my reaction has been a little like... hmm, but I don't like shortbread. But that smells really good. Oh god, I guess I DO like shortbread! I begged the recipe off of her, and it can be found on Epicurious.com, and also below.

I'm not really convinced I have been converted to the shortbread fan club (don't tell the Scottish contingent of my relatives), but this particular shortbread is delicious. The combination of sweet with the savory rosemary is compelling, and confuses your tastebuds enough to go back for more. Do I like this? Yes I do! I used rosemary from my garden.

Sorry for the dim picture. I made this batch for a friend who had hit a milestone in her dissertation process, and sent it off the next morning. It is too bad she doesn't live closer, because she loves shortbread, and this is best fresh out of the oven.

Rosemary Shortbread
2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 tablespoon chopped fresh rosemary
1 1/2 sticks (3/4 cup) unsalted butter, softened
2 tablespoons mild honey
1/2 cup confectioners sugar
1 tablespoon granulated sugar
Garnish: small rosemary sprigs
Special equipment: parchment paper

Preheat oven to 300°F.

Whisk together flour, salt, baking powder, and rosemary in a bowl.

Mix together butter, honey, and confectioners sugar in a large bowl with an electric mixer at low speed, then add flour mixture and mix until dough resembles coarse meal with some small (roughly pea-size) butter lumps. Gather dough into a ball and transfer to a lightly floured surface. Knead dough until it just comes together, about 8 times. Halve dough and form each half into a 5-inch disk.

Roll out 1 disk (keep remaining dough at room temperature) between 2 sheets of parchment into a 9-inch round (trim as necessary). Remove top sheet of parchment and transfer dough on bottom sheet of parchment to a baking sheet. Score dough into 8 wedges by pricking dotted lines with a fork, then mark edges decoratively. Arrange rosemary sprigs (if using) decoratively on top of dough, pressing lightly to help adhere, and sprinkle dough with 1/2 tablespoon granulated sugar.

Bake shortbread in middle of oven until golden brown, 20 to 25 minutes. Slide shortbread on parchment to a rack and cool 5 minutes. Transfer with a metal spatula to a cutting board and cut along score marks with a large heavy knife.

Make another shortbread with remaining dough.

Apple-Cream Cheese Bundt Cake with Praline Glaze

2011-09-25T19:11:00.001-04:00

When I saw this recipe in Southern Living, I knew I'd be trying it out! We live close to apple orchards with a wide variety just over the border in North Carolina, so it easy to have an abundance of apples. I bought a 1/2 bushel (what was I thinking) and so far I've made two dehydrators full of dried apples, and this cake. It isn't quite as delicious as my Grandma's, but there is a lot going on in this cake - nuts, apples, spices, cream cheese swirl, and praline glaze. Something for everyone.

Apple-Cream Cheese Bundt Cake
Recipe from Southern Living September 2011

Ingredients

    CREAM CHEESE FILLING:
    1 (8-oz.) package cream cheese, softened
    1/4 cup butter, softened
    1/2 cup granulated sugar
    1 large egg
    2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
    1 teaspoon vanilla extract

    APPLE CAKE BATTER:
    1 cup finely chopped pecans (I was cheap and just bought the little 1/2 cup bag in the baking aisle)
    3 cups all-purpose flour
    1 cup granulated sugar
    1 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
    2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
    1 teaspoon salt
    1 teaspoon baking soda
    1 teaspoon ground nutmeg Since mine was freshly ground, I used about half this.
    1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
    3 large eggs, lightly beaten
    3/4 cup canola oil
    3/4 cup applesauce
    1 teaspoon vanilla extract
    3 cups peeled and finely chopped apples (about 1 1/2 lb.) I used Mutsu, and it only took 2 to get to three cups!

    PRALINE FROSTING:
    1/2 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
    1/4 cup butter
    3 tablespoons milk
    1 teaspoon vanilla extract
    1 cup powdered sugar

Preparation

    1. Prepare Filling: Beat first 3 ingredients at medium speed with an electric mixer until blended and smooth. Add egg, flour, and vanilla; beat just until blended.
    2. Prepare Batter: Preheat oven to 350º. Bake pecans in a shallow pan 8 to 10 minutes or until toasted and fragrant, stirring halfway through. Stir together 3 cups flour and next 7 ingredients in a large bowl; stir in eggs and next 3 ingredients, stirring just until dry ingredients are moistened. Stir in apples and pecans.
    3. Spoon two-thirds of apple mixture into a greased and floured 14-cup Bundt pan. Spoon Cream Cheese Filling over apple mixture, leaving a 1-inch border around edges of pan. Swirl filling through apple mixture using a paring knife. Spoon remaining apple mixture over Cream Cheese Filling.
    4. Bake at 350º for 1 hour to 1 hour and 15 minutes or until a long wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool cake in pan on a wire rack 15 minutes; remove from pan to wire rack, and cool completely (about 2 hours).
    5. Prepare Frosting: Bring 1/2 cup brown sugar, 1/4 cup butter, and 3 Tbsp. milk to a boil in a 2-qt. saucepan over medium heat, whisking constantly; boil 1 minute, whisking constantly. Remove from heat; stir in vanilla. Gradually whisk in powdered sugar until smooth; stir gently 3 to 5 minutes or until mixture begins to cool and thickens slightly. Pour immediately over cooled cake.

Nutella Cake Balls

2011-09-12T22:08:00.000-04:00

Cake balls are a simple but delicious treat that my husband has been begging me to make for months. I'm not sure who first came up with them, but I'm 98% certain it was a bakery that often had cake remnants that they were just throwing away.

The next time this happens to you - dump about the same amount of tasty frosting, mush together, form into balls, chill, and dip in some form of chocolate. Decorate as desired. Cake, transformed. :)

Nutella Cupcakes

2011-09-11T18:58:00.000-04:00

I don't have as much to say about these, except that you should try this recipe!

I wanted a chocolate cupcake recipe, but I wanted it to be more than just chocolate. I entertained thoughts of chocolate peanut butter, and chocolate mocha, but those seemed too common. (I know, what was I thinking? Never enough chocolate.)

Then I stumbled across MyBakingAddiction.com and the recipe for Nutella cupcakes. I was sold! The recipe on the site is more of a concept, and when it said to start with your favorite chocolate cupcakes, I used the recipe from America's Test Kitchen for ultimate chocolate cupcakes. (I'm not linking to it because while it is free, you have to register each time, such a pain). I'm not sure what I did differently but they were a bit dry and crumbly today. Boo! But once you gouge out the middles, fill them with Nutella, and top them with a frosting that is also half Nutella, who cares. :)

Teal Velvet Cupcakes

2011-09-11T18:54:00.000-04:00

Don't adjust your set. They really are that color. Ack! Well, let me explain....

I was preparing cupcakes for my annual student workers meeting, and I had been foiled on every count for the non-chocolate cupcake. The store was completely OUT of pumpkin, both Thursday and today. Apparently this is not because people are getting excited about making fall desserts once we're past Labor Day, no. Some guy regularly comes in and buys all the cans to feed his dogs. *shakes fist* I really wanted to make pumpkin cupcakes with maple cream cheese frosting, but didn't want to go to Wal-Mart.

Another favorite is red velvet, of course, particularly here in the south. I had a bunch of food coloring on hand, everything but red. I decided that blue velvet would be cool (and possibly more appealing than neon green, which I also seem to have in abundance). Blue velvet! Like blue suede! Or like the horse story! I squirted an entire tube in, and ended up with more of a teal.

Well, teal isn't all bad. They were for my music library student workers, and the two official decor colors for the music building are purple and teal. I could say I did it on purpose! Sure, let's go with that. It tasted okay, not too chemically (a clear sign I did NOT use enough dye, ha), and I decided to just go ahead and see what happened when I baked them.

As you can see above, that teal turned into a deep forest green with a few blue undertones. I guess I can blame the butter, or the buttermilk. That is not teal. That is definitely not blue! It is more of a.... okay, it is green. And everyone knows you should not make food green that didn't start out that way. It makes people think of mold and decay. I could have started over, but as usual I had left my baking project until the last minute, and it was too late to turn back.

I thought about making some kind of atrocious icing color, maybe make use of those neon food colorings for once, but decided to just let the cream cheese icing be, and sprinkled a few candy pearls on top.

By the way, I used the red velvet cupcake recipe I found on the Brown Eyed Baker blog, which she in turn found in the Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook, and was very happy with the texture.

I'm just not sure I can recommend the teal.

Grandma's Apple Cake

2011-09-09T21:38:00.001-04:00

I may have posted this before, but this is a recipe I've had in my life since I was born. My mother makes it, my grandmother, her mother, and her grandmother. I don't know where it comes from originally but at this point it is part of my own history, and I now share it with you.

Frances's Apple Cake
1/2 cup oil
1 3/4 cup sugar
2 eggs
5 cups apples, diced (I used jonagold, some of the first apples of the year!)
2 cups flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup walnuts

This recipe came to me with just ingredients, but in general I mix the diced apples with sugar, then the beaten eggs and vanilla, then mix in the dry ingredients, nuts last. I often leave out the nuts or use hazelnuts instead.

Bake at 350F for 1 hour.

Sometimes I also add a generous sprinkling of cinnamon to the mixture, but it doesn't really need it. This time I did!

Double Chocolate Oatmeal Balls

2011-09-03T19:48:00.000-04:00

One day, when I was learning to temper chocolate, I started to do a Google search for items covered in chocolate. Google thinks it knows what you wanted, and started to suggest "Chocolate Covered Katie?" Hoping it wasn't porn, I clicked on the link, and discovered her healthy dessert blog. I scanned through the entries with sheer and utter skepticism, but the comments were consistently positive.

The recipe I kept looking at was for fudge babies (please click on her link for that recipe as well as her own variations), which she described as a homemade Larabar. I was looking for new things to eat for snack or breakfast that I could make ahead of time and wouldn't be bad for me, so I thought it couldn't hurt to give them a try.

I used walnuts, dates, a little handful of oats, a little vanilla, a pinch of salt, cocoa powder, and ended up adding a little agave since I was using drier dates than the brand she recommended. Then I formed the mixture into balls and stuck them in the fridge. I was surprised too. They don't taste overtly fruity like so many vegan things do, the lack of flour isn't a problem because you can taste the nuts in a good way. My addition of oats made every bite remind me of the double chocolate oatmeal cookies my Mom used to make, only these are much better for you, not to mention that I can only eat one at a time.

Gluten-free, vegan, and these could also easily be made raw with the omission (or different choosing) of 1-2 ingredients. But I just call them tasty.

Daring Bakers August 2011 - Dark Chocolate Truffles filled with Chili-Chocolate Ganache

2011-08-27T14:57:00.001-04:00

The August 2011 Daring Bakers’ Challenge was hosted by Lisa of Parsley, Sage, Desserts and Line Drive and Mandy of What the Fruitcake?!. These two sugar mavens challenged us to make sinfully delicious candies! This was a special challenge for the Daring Bakers because the good folks at http://www.chocoley.com offered an amazing prize for the winner of the most creative and delicious candy!

I was most excited because the challenge involved tempering chocolate, something I had never done by hand before. During my brief stint working at DeBrand Fine Chocolates in Indianapolis in 2001, we would make some garnishes out of tempered chocolate, but had fancy tempering machines that we just had to turn on. I went with the double boiler method, and after my candy thermometer decided my bowl shape/size wasn't conducive to candy making in the batch of sponge candy I torched (NOT PICTURED, haha, it was terrible), I decided to try to do it by feel. I know, this might sound crazy. Tempering chocolate is Very Serious Business. But I thought maybe it is more like baking bread, where the measurements are precise except for when they aren't, and it is more important to develop a feel for how the dough should feel, and make slight adjustments.

My bonbons or truffles (I think I'll call them truffles since they are chocolate inside chocolate) ended up with that perfect shiny snap, so I feel like I am not completely wrong in thinking you might be able to temper chocolate by sense. I heated up about 2/3 of the chocolate until it was melted, smooth, and had started to heat up (definitely not even close to boiling). I removed it from the heat and stirred chocolate drops in until they stopped melting easily, then put it back on the heat for a minute or so until it got glossy again. I had a plastic mold, and through trial and error discovered that the easiest way not to make a mess of things was to drop some of the chocolate into each divet, swirl it around with a brush until it had coated the sides, and then chill it. The first batch, I tried doing it where you ladle chocolate over the whole mold and pour the extra back into the pot, and all I really made was a huge mess!

For the insides, I made two kinds of ganache. One was a dark chocolate mixed with ancho chili powder, a sprinkle of cayenne, and a sprinkle of cinnamon. The other was a milk chocolate ganache with a little Irish cream. The milk chocolate took a lot longer to get to the appropriate consistency, so we ate most of it as a snack later that week.

The truffles were tasty. Shiny and a good snap as you bit in, very soft and smooth in the middle, with a little bite due to the spices. Now that I have more of a hang of it, I think it would be simple to do again.... simple but not cheap. Making chocolates is an expensive venture! I think I may use this method the next time I make such things as peanut butter balls, just to have a better finish on the outside. I usually just melt down bags of chocolate chips, but using a tempered chocolate will really class things up a bit. Next time I will also plan ahead better and order bulk couverture chocolate online. I couldn't find any in local stores, and did buy some off of a chocolate shop in Asheville, but I couldn't rely on them as a source (it isn't like they have that chocolate on their menu or anything!).

David Lebovitz's Gluten-Free Brownies

2011-08-12T21:52:00.001-04:00

Yesterday I was reading through the blogs in my foodie folder in Google Reader, and as soon as I saw David Lebovitz's recipe for Gluten-Free Brownies, I knew I had to make it. I had made the original recipe from Ready for Dessert, and liked what he said he did in replacing the flour. It involves cornstarch, and several of the comments to his post asked about replacing that. Apparently you can replace it directly with potato starch if necessary. I used cornstarch.

My picture doesn't look as dark or fudgey as his in the original recipe post, but I blame the bright noon sunlight. These might compete in my brownie files as our favorite brownie recipe. The best thing I can say about them is that you have NO IDEA they are gluten-free. No weird taste. No weird texture. It is a brownie through and through, down to the crackly tops that you need! It was the perfect recipe to use the rest of the chocolate I got from Mast Brothers, plus some chocolate chips. Instead of nuts, I stirred in additional chocolate chips, which I'm not sure I can recommend if you intend to eat an entire piece! Completely over the top.

Green Tomato Bundt Cake

2011-08-06T18:52:00.000-04:00

Every once in a while I will make something that I'm not sure I'll like, and still can't decide after it is over if it was "good." This Green Tomato Bundct Cake, from Paula Deen on the Food Network, is one of those cakes. A friend of mine made this recipe a bunch last summer and swore by it (although she recommended skipping the glaze). I loved the concept; it seemed so southern to use green tomatoes in a cake! I kept thinking of it in the off-season but finally remembered to pull it out once I started seeing green tomatoes at the farmers markets again.

A lot of reviews claimed that nobody could tell these were green tomatoes! That it was so amazing and delicious and mysterious! My problem was that they were too obviously green tomatoes. They were so firm, even in a small dice, they hadn't developed enough sugar to absorb into the cake, and their tartness really stood out. The cake itself was delicious, the spices and nuts (and currants that I used) were heartwarming and would be perfect for fall.. without the green tomatoes.

It seems I have a verdict after all!

Breakfast in Sicily

2011-07-30T17:50:00.000-04:00

Ever since I read Sweet Honey, Bitter Lemons: Travels in Sicily on a Vespa by Matthew Fort, my imagination has been running wild. Breakfast of fresh, warm brioche buns, torn apart and dipped into chilly coffee granita, topped with lightly sweetened whipped cream?

In fact, this so captured me that for a while I was thinking about starting a new international breakfast blog, featuring the amazing meals you can only find other places. It turns out that several people are doing that already, so I will leave them to it, as long as they leave the Sicilian breakfast of champions to me.

The coffee granita recipe I used came from the aforementioned travel book, but any recipe that makes granita the slow way would do. The slow way being pouring liquid into a shallow container and scraping it with a fork every fifteen minutes until you have ice crystals that are almost in a mush texture, finely separated and not liquid at all, but delicate. This is what separates Sicilian granita from other mass-produced flavored-shaved ice varieties. Also from what I've read, you can find many varieties of granita at breakfast in Sicily - fruit flavors for instance - but I can't imagine anything better on a sunny morning than coffee granita!

Daring Bakers July 2011 - Fresh Fraisiers (Mûrier?)

2011-07-29T00:45:00.000-04:00

Jana of Cherry Tea Cakes was our July Daring Bakers’ host and she challenges us to make Fresh Frasiers inspired by recipes written by Elisabeth M. Prueitt and Chad Robertson in the beautiful cookbook Tartine.

Fraisiers are named after strawberries, and if a blackberry is la mûre in French, it is possible that I've actually made a mûrier here, but I can't be certain.

One of my co-workers and fellow foodies brought me some lavender from some organic fields in Utah, the kind intended for baking and cooking with. I adapted the recipe to infuse lavender into the pastry cream, and it was quite fragrant. My final product is a bit messy, but only because a fraisier depends on gelatin for that firmness and I keep trying to use agar agar in place of it. The last time I used it I let it set up too much, resulting in a slightly clumpy end product, and this time I think I erred on the opposite side, and my cream didn't entirely ever set up.

I made the coconut version of the cake, a lavender cream, and fresh blackberries. That combination also makes up a perfume combination I wear a lot in the summer, so it was a bit surreal creating a dessert with the same flavor/scent combination.

At the end of the day, this was absolutely delicious. I am not a person who is bothered by the flavor/smell of flowers in my food - I have embraced rose in baked goods and candy for years. I'm not sure it would be for everyone!! But it seemed perfect for summer.

Happy Blogiversary to Me!

2011-07-26T17:52:00.003-04:00

Well, I can't really believe it, but this is the 5th anniversary of JennyBakes!

I'm on a brief break from work, with some vacation days to burn through before August 1 when it all rolls over, and today had a lazy day full of finishing season 4 of Brothers & Sister on Netflix and baking a pie. Now, most of the time, when celebrating such an event as a blogiversary, I of course would make something that I could serve to a lot of people. But I'm not going to be around a lot of people until next week, and ever since seeing this recipe for French silk chocolate pie on Serious Eats, I just haven't been able to get it out of my head. So today was the day, add sprinkles, and celebrate.

French Broad Chocolates - Asheville, NC

2011-07-19T23:01:00.002-04:00

Imagine a serene chocolate lounge where you can sip chocolate drinks (or beer and wine, if you'd prefer), consume chocolate desserts, and munch on handcrafted chocolates. Imagine it has generous seating, vegan options, and is open as late (or later) than your favorite coffee shop.

It exists! I've been! The French Broad Chocolate Lounge in Asheville, NC, is it. Their extensive menu is amazing if not a bit overwhelming, since everything is chocolate. I was there on a very hot day and had the cold sipping chocolate, which blended dark chocolate, coconut milk, and an infusion of my choosing - I went with the chai one, and it was delicious.

In addition to their own chocolate creations, French Broad Chocolates sells artisan chocolates from a handful of small-batch producers. It is a place to go to more than once, in order to sample a wide variety of chocolatey treats.

Cookbook Review - Sweet & Skinny

2011-07-17T22:59:00.002-04:00

When I first received a copy of Sweet & Skinny by Marisa Churchill, I will admit to being a bit skeptical. I have seen too many low-fat or low-calorie dessert cookbooks that take abundant advantage of tasteless items like Cool Whip Free and artificial sweeteners.

Instead, Marisa Churchill plays with texture and flavor and freshness and creates elegant, tasty desserts that you wouldn't even have to excuse to your guests.

I had my eye on several recipes in the cookbook that I plan to make at a later date, and was largely constrained by a feeling of seasonality, but damn if that pear and chocolate gingerbread upside down cake from the holiday section not call my name! The recipe I have dogeared to try in the not too distant future are the strawberry-black pepper meringues.

I couldn't resist making two very summery, fresh tasting recipes from Sweet and Skinny. First I made the Buttermilk Panna Cotta with Berries. I used local blackberries I bought at a market in Brevard, NC, that were just dying to be treated with respect. I also finally accomplished my goal of substituting agar agar powder for gelatin with a good result. Gelatin is a pretty frequent ingredient recipe throughout the book to help with mouth feel without adding fat, but as a vegetarian I don't eat it. Luckily there are sea-vegetable substitutes.

The second recipe I made was the Deconstructed Key Lime Pie. I tweaked a few things there too, since I had a whole bottle of key lime juice, I went straight (and it was tart!). I don't miss the crust. Would anyone? I also just left the gelatin out of the egg whites for the topping, since I was going to be serving it right away.

I'm looking forward to making more out of this book, and adopting some of the tricks in some of my usual recipes.

Deepest Darkest Chocolate Cheesecake

2011-07-10T19:38:00.003-04:00

After I saw Anne Thornton make this cheesecake on her new Food Network show Dessert First, I couldn't get it out of my head. As I was narrowing recipes down for my birthday, it kept rising to the top of my list, so I decided not to make "regular" cake this year, but to have cheesecake instead!

If you are looking to feature a particular chocolate, this is the dessert for you. I zipped up to Black Mountain Chocolate for another pound of dark chocolate to bake with, and used all of it in this recipe. It was completely worth it! After a few days in the fridge, we ended up leaving it out at room temperature to allow it to be as creamy and silky as it could be. The recipe doesn't instruct you to bake the cheesecake in a water bath, but the next time I make it, I definitely will. It would have been a little creamier and not suffered from cracks. I knew that, but decided to just do it as written first.

This was very chocolatey, very dark, and the glaze on top just makes it spectacular!

Another note about the recipe - I substituted graham crackers for the chocolate wafer cookies. I think chocolate wafer cookies must be a regional thing, because I see them in recipes all the time but have never actually encountered any myself. Once I tried substituting Oreos but they were far too greasy. Until I find these elusive cookies, I will just keep making graham crusts!

No need to wish me happy birthday; it was several weeks ago at this point, I'm just behind on blogging lately!

Happy Red, White, and Blue Day

2011-07-04T23:00:00.002-04:00

Strawberry shortcake seems so patriotic. Only because strawberries are ripe around what we call independence day. For these cute shortcakes, I used Anne Thornton's recipe, with a few changes - I added chopped up mint and thyme from my garden into the dough itself, not just with the berries. I didn't have an orange, so I skipped it. And I didn't add nearly as much sugar as was called for to the fruit.

All the fruit and herbs in this recipe come from our garden! Earlier today, the blueberries looked like this:

From Gardening

How can you resist? As far as patriotism goes, one of my English friends pointed out that strawberries and cream is a rather English dish. Hehe.

Lemon Poppyseed Scones

2011-06-29T22:45:00.001-04:00

Lemon Poppyseed Scones
Originally uploaded by watchjennybake.

In my alternate life, I opened up my own tea room instead of becoming a librarian. A quirky place, where people would come for special events as well as for everyday, popping in for tea and a scone and leaving blissfully happy and relaxed.

I recently got the cookbook for Alice's Tea Cup and found the place that has always lived in my imagination. I wanted to make every recipe in the book, and started with these lemon poppyseed scones.

Sometimes, it is nice that people have similar dreams, to make sure they actually come true!

Daring Bakers June 2011 - Baklava and Homemade Phyllo

2011-06-27T19:53:00.003-04:00

Overhead view of baklava
Originally uploaded by watchjennybake.

Erica of Erica’s Edibles was our host for the Daring Baker’s June challenge. Erica challenged us to be truly DARING by making homemade phyllo dough and then to use that homemade dough to make Baklava.

In true JennyBakes fashion, I waited until the day before I needed to post the challenge to try the recipe. I hemmed and hawed for a while, because I had enough hazelnuts, but also had some chocolate chips sitting around, so I ended up making what another Daring Baker's five year old has deemed "choklava," using a generous helping of chocolate chips in with the nut mixture.

I have made Danish pastry before, puff pastry (once, never again), croissants, and even strudel, but never had I attempted making phyllo dough before. I mean... the store makes it so easy, I can just buy a box and whip up practically anything! But I faced this challenge head on. I'm not afraid of tearing delicate dough. I don't mind spending two hours rolling out golf-ball-sized balls into paper thin dough sheets. No really, I don't. And really, that was time consuming but not terrible.

Several other Daring Bakers had said the recipe had too much syrup, and I wish I'd listened, because my end result was a bit too gooey and syrup for my tastes, and oh so sweet! I partly blame the chocolate, maybe it hampers moisture absorption a bit. It is still satisfying to pour the syrup over the pastries right out of the oven and listen to the sizzle and bubble. Twelve hours later, though, they were still wading in the goo. I still gave them to people. If there is a lesson over and over, it is to trust my instincts!

A few changes I made in the recipe, which you can see on Erica's blog once she posts, was to fiddle a bit with the spices - I added cardamom and used more orange than was called for, and the entire house smelled like the holidays! I think if I made phyllo again, I would use my old lowfat use nonstick cooking spray between the sheets trick, and make something savory with it.

Bakery Review - Cakehead Bakeshop - Spartanburg, SC

2011-06-25T20:48:00.002-04:00

The Cakehead Bakeshop is a newer bakery in the Upstate, located inside the same building as the Little River Coffee Bar, right next to my favorite new bookshop, Hub City Bookshop. So you might as well plan to spend the morning or afternoon in these three places!

The baked goods at Cakehead Bakeshop are described on their website as "rustic," but don't let that word scare you. They sell old-fashioned cakes that you can order whole or buy by the slice, pies, cookies, scones, and biscuits; there was even a tomato pie on the counter the day I stopped in. But the cupcakes are far from rustic - each type is unique and topped with something fun, but more than that - they are delicious. So many places that make cupcakes focus on look and give you something dry, crumbly, or greasy, but these were perfect - moist, flavorful, and perfectly (but not too) sweet.

If you want their breakfast fare, which is sold out in the coffee shop, come early! I was there at 10 am and all the scones were gone for the day. This seems like a relatively small operation with great potential, and I hope they find success in Spartanburg!

Fresh Peach Soup

2011-06-19T18:18:00.001-04:00

Fruit that is ripening too quickly or just on the brink can be turned into fruit soup! This is just four peaches whizzed together with a bit of fresh ginger, orange juice, lemon juice, and a splash of cream.

I'd rather just eat the fresh peaches, after all the work it takes to blanch and peel them! But fruit soup is a lovely dessert in hot weather for a light meal.

Georgia-Style Peach Cobbler

2011-06-18T20:34:00.002-04:00

Last weekend we bought peaches from Strawberry Hill USA, an early clingstone variety called Junegold. I would like to go back later on in the season for freestone peaches which are much easier to deal with!

I knew I wanted to make peach cobbler but hadn't been 100% happy with the recipes I'd tried in the past. I started to see a funny trend of "Georgia style" cobblers, something I'd never heard of. It started with a Paula Deen recipe, but was a technique I saw repeated. I gave in and used the recipe at Vintage Victuals. The basic technique is melting butter in a pan, pouring the batter in, topping it with the fruit, and as it bakes the batter bakes up around the fruit. (This reminds me of clafouti, actually, but the ingredients are different).

I made a happy mistake of leaving the butter melting in the oven too long, and it was all brown and nutty when I poured the batter in, but decided to keep it, and was a delicious contrast to the sun-ripened peaches!

Roasted Cauliflower Hand Pies

2011-06-06T21:47:00.003-04:00

As a baker, I'm often feeling like I never spend enough time making food for actual meals, just tasty treats for breakfast and dessert! The fiftieth time I flipped through Martha Stewart's Pies & Tarts, I really honed in on this recipe for roasted cauliflower hand pies. For one thing, it was vegetarian, which is a must in our household. For another, it called for manchego, my favorite cheese, and sounded somewhat Spanish in flavor.

The crust has manchego in it, and it is also used inside the pies, which also have a hazelnut paste (roasted nuts, garlic, lemon, rosemary, olive oil), roasted cauliflower, and manchego. These are RICH but delicious, and so vibrant in flavor. They would be really nice offered with something more acidic, maybe as part of a tapas meal.

Bluebarb Pie

2011-06-06T21:41:00.003-04:00

I knew I froze batches of rhubarb for a reason. I've had Martha Stewart's New Pies & Tarts: 150 Recipes for Old-Fashioned and Modern Favorites sitting around for a bit, but it was for a funny reason. Every time I picked it up and looked through it, every single thing sounded good, and I couldn't decide what to make. That is so rare for me in a cookbook! But the pictures are vibrant, including a great how-to section in the back (which I utilized for my lattice work you see above, and it almost belongs more on the coffee table than in the kitchen.

Almost. I didn't want to make the rhubarb crumb pie, because I wanted to make something bluebarb, not knowing what that flavor combination would be like. So when I lacked the 7 cups of blueberries, but had 3, I took it as a sign to pull the rhubarb out of the freezer. What you see above is basically the exact recipe for the blueberry pie with half rhubarb. After tasting it, I should have compensated for the tartness of the rhubarb by adding a bit more sugar, but the colors in the pie are so beautiful, and it just tastes like summer and spring, all in one pie.

Wonder Buns and BabyCakes

2011-06-06T21:13:00.002-04:00

I've had the cookbook BabyCakes Covers the Classics on my kitchen table, begging to be experimented with, for over a month now. I did half-heartedly make a modified version of gingerbread pancakes, which were delicious, but it took a while to commit to buying all the required ingredients.

Because vegan and gluten-free baking is expensive, y'all! No joke. I planned to make two recipes that use the same basic dough, and I had to buy gluten-free baking flour, arrowroot, xantham gum, brown rice flour, and agave nectar. Some of these ingredients I will use anyway, but unless I do more gluten-free experimenting, I'm not sure where the rest will go. The other part of gluten-free baking that I'm torn on is that I feel a little witchy stirring ingredients together that are so foreign to me. (I never saw eye of newt, though).

Okay, okay, I'll do some more experimenting. This cookbook is vibrant and has some creative groupings that make you want to bake despite the ingredient limitations you might have. The other recipe I picked to try was Hamentaschen from the "From the Old Country" section. It told me to use the basic pastry dough recipe from page 32, but as that had cinnamon in it, my dough was a lot darker than what was shown in the picture. In the end, my cookies unfolded while baking, but I am very willing to blame that on my inexperience with working with gluten-free dough!

So, how did everything taste? I've done vegan experiments with pretty good success, but gluten-free baking is another animal entirely. I'd say that you should expect everything to be denser, more hearty because of the mixed sources for the flours, and to be somewhat temperamental. But if you are required to eat a gluten-free diet, this book and the other BabyCakes cookbook are probably a good place to start. They seem to have done a great job at covering the things you would really crave - including an entire chapter on donuts! Gluten-free donuts, is that even possible? Try it and see.

Cocoa Brownies

2011-06-05T10:30:00.003-04:00

I was pretty sure I had already blogged these Cocoa Brownies from Smitten Kitchen, but apparently not. I don't know, maybe I was thinking I am always posting about my experiments with her recipes and felt silly doing another one. I'm not sure! Then I went on vacation, blah blah blah.

Seriously, everyone knows that I'm a huge Dorie Greenspan fan (made her blueberry crumb cake again this weekend, so delicious), but I seriously think Deb from Smitten Kitchen could easily influence all of us as much. Her blog just makes you want to cook and bake and eat!

My local grocery store, which I prefer first because it is closest to my home but second because everyone who works there is friendly and efficient, seems to only be stocking Special Dark cocoa powder these days. I really must speak to them about this, because while it would be nice as an option, it is not "normal" cocoa powder! I had a little deja vu while making this recipe, since the last time I made a cocoa brownie recipe was when I was experimenting with black cocoa powder. That time, I was using Alton Brown's cocoa brownie recipe. Both are great, but they are really different. Alton's is cakey, and depends on a long beating of eggs at the beginning of the recipe. Deb's only uses two eggs, and very little flour, and I'm not sure they even fully set up until I'd put them in the fridge for a few hours. We just kept them there, because they were so delicious cold, besides being fudgy chewy deliciousness.

Stay tuned for more posts - I'm trying out some recipes from some new cookbooks in the next few days, and have pâte brisée chilling in the fridge....

Rhubarb Streusel Muffins

2011-05-22T01:08:00.002-04:00

I'm a copycat! There are some blogs that I could spend the rest of my life imitating. I had rhubarb in my freezer from a month ago when it was fresh locally but I had no time to bake, and it has been constantly in the back of my mind. So when Deb from Smitten Kitchen posted this recipe for rhubarb streusel muffins, I knew I was set.

Sometimes I think Smitten Kitchen is the new Dorie (who was the new Julia).

East Coast Coffee Cake (vegan)

2011-05-14T18:42:00.002-04:00

This morning, I had no eggs in the fridge. It was too early and I was too lazy to go anywhere to buy eggs, so I decided that today was a good day to try another vegan recipe! I had tofu in the fridge too, so started out my vegan recipe searching by looking for a muffin or scone with tofu in it. Somewhere along the way I found a post on Vegansaurus for East Coast Coffee Cake, which they found in one of Isa Chandra Moskowitz's many classy vegan cookbooks. I swear that Isa has written half the vegan recipes out there worth trying. I read the comments carefully and made a few changes, which I present to you here. But please do visit the original recipe and check out Ms. Moskowitz's book Vegan Brunch for even more amazing ideas.

East Coast Coffee Cake

Ingredients:
For the topping:
1/2 cup flour
1/3 cup brown sugar
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp. nutmeg
3 tbsp canola oil

For the cake:
3/4 cup soy milk
1 tsp. apple cider vinegar (I used distilled white because otherwise I had rice or balsamic, meh)
1/3 cup sugar
1/2 cup canola oil
1 tsp. vanilla
1 1/4 flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt

Instructions
Preheat over to 375F. Grease a pan equal to or smaller than an 8" square. I used a 5x8 one because I wanted it a little thicker. Mix the milk and vinegar together and set aside to curdle for five minutes.

Make the topping:
Mix together flour, sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg. Pour in 2 tbsp of the oil and toss with a fork, add additional tbsp until mixture is evenly moistened.

Make the cake:
In a large bowl, mix milk mixture, sugar, canola oil and vanilla. Stir in flour, baking powder and salt, and mix until smooth.

Pour batter into pan. Evenly sprinkle the topping over the batter.

Bake 25 minutes before checking it for the first time. Mine was perfect at 25. You might consider lowering the temperature to 350, which is what would usually be called for in a baked good.

I could taste that this was oil instead of butter, but it has a beautiful crumb and makes a delicious breakfast treat!

Chocolate Dreams (and would we really call this cake?)

2011-05-08T19:40:00.002-04:00

The dark chocolate drops I got from Black Mountain Chocolate were never going to last very long. I couldn't get them off of my mind. I wanted to make a dessert that would really feature the flavor of the chocolate!

I was remembering this episode of America's Test Kitchen that tried making the most chocolatey cupcake ever. A lot of what they discovered stuck with me - butter and other dairy can mask chocolate's flavor, etc. In the end, I didn't want to use a recipe this complicated with different kinds of chocolate, when what I wanted to do was pay homage to the actual chocolate I had brought home.

I stumbled across a post on David Lebovitz's blog about his Chocolate Idiot Cake, that John Scharffenberger used to like because of the way he featured his chocolate. That idea sold me on it, but I knew I didn't have enough chocolate to make the full recipe. I have this cute little 6-inch springform pan, and basically made 3/5 of the recipe. If you're doing the math, that was roughly 6 oz of the chocolate drops, 4 tbsp butter, 3 eggs, and 1/2 cup + 2 tbsp sugar. It worked out okay. I still ended up baking it the entire hour and fifteen minutes before it was really set in the middle, but in a water bath it would have been difficult to burn.

I'm still mulling over two questions about this particular baking experience. #1 - Would I call this a cake? Well, nope. It has absolutely no flour and no crumb. It has the texture of cheesecake but is lighter in your mouth. It is buttery. Maybe more like French silk pie filling. Or a whipped ganache, except firm. Ha, well, I'm beginning to see why Mr. Lebovitz called it cake. What other name would work?

#2 - Did this satisfy my requirement of showcasing the chocolate?
I'm not sure about this one. It was absolutely delicious, to be sure, but melting the chocolate down and adding more fat and sweetness does take some of the original bite and roundness and mouthfeel away. What I would like to do is line up a bunch of different chocolates and make 5 versions of the same dessert, using singular chocolate in each, and then compare. Next time.

Contemplating Waffles

2011-05-08T19:30:00.002-04:00

I still have not fully Conquered the Waffle. You know, found that one recipe that puts any other waffle to shame. The one that is crispy and tender and flavorful and stands up to fruit and whipped cream and syrup and anything else you might pour on top of it.

I went searching online this morning. One of my favorite internet searches to do when looking for a good recipe is just to add the word "best" to anything. So I found a post on SeriousEats.com called The Greatest Waffle Recipe Ever but I had been hoping for something with buttermilk. As I read the comments, several people said that the key was folding in whipped egg whites, and several mentioned a recipe from Cook's Illustrated. That is the recipe I made, although Cook's Illustrated's site tends to lock down until you have a paid account. So I will help you out and link you to what looks like half of the recipe in a comment in the blog.

A few of my comments, and why I think I am not quite to the best waffle yet. I did like the slight crunch of the cornmeal, but this added a savory element that reminded me of the Creamed Mushrooms on Cornmeal Waffles recipe I made over on my somewhat neglected cooking blog. I loved that recipe, in fact seeing it makes me want to make it again, but I'm just not sure I want that getting in my head when I'm eating a sweet waffle. Another comment said you have to add vanilla, so I did at the end of the waffle making, and honestly I'm torn. Vanilla automatically makes it sweet and aromatic, but it may throw off the balance a little.

I think I may have thrown everything off from an authentic tasting anyway by storing them in a 200F oven while I baked them all. That always is a downfall of waffles, the fact that only one can be made at a time.

So tell me your waffle tricks and favorite recipes!

Mexican Chocolate Ganache Tart

2011-05-05T22:08:00.002-04:00

Happy Cinco de Mayo! My favorite story that came from the Cocoa Roastery Tour was the connection to Mexico in how the founder of Black Mountain Chocolate got started. I held this in my head for a week or so, knowing today was coming up, intending to combine all the traditional flavors of Mexican chocolate into a dessert.

After recent forays into gluten-free baking, I had some almond meal on my hands. I came across a recipe for a tart crust using it solely, no other flours, and adapted it for the dessert. I didn't find it to be as successful as I would have liked, but I will include it until I play around more. Maybe just a pâte brisée would have been better, but I wanted the crunch and flavor of the almonds without having them interfering with the texture of the chocolate.

So here is the recipe I made. It may need further tweaking.

Mexican Chocolate Ganache Tart
Makes one 8-9" tart

Crust:
2 cups almond meal/flour
1/4 cup powdered sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
1 pinch of salt
1 egg white
1/4 cup butter, melted

Mix ingredients with a fork and break up any large chunks of almond. Press into a tart pan with removable sides. Bake at 400 for 15-20 minutes, or until golden brown. Cool completely.

Mexican Chocolate Ganache:
10 oz. Black Mountain Chocolate Dark Chocolate Drops*
1 1/4 cups regular whipping cream
1-2 cinnamon sticks
1-2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper

Heat cream in small saucepan over medium heat until steaming and a little bubbly, but do not allow to boil. Mix in spices and let the cinnamon stick steep for about 5 minutes.

Put the chocolate drops into a small mixing bowl. Pour the hot cream (through a strainer!) over them and let sit for 5 minutes, giving them time to melt gently. Stir together until smooth and pour into cooled crust. Ganache will set up in a few hours at room temperature or in 45 minutes or so in the fridge.

Slice into small wedges and serve with whipped cream if desired. (This is rich so small is a good idea).

*You can chop up other types of dark chocolate, but are you sure you want to? ;)

Black Mountain Chocolate and Cocoa Roastery - Swannanoa, NC

2011-05-05T21:55:00.003-04:00

Last weekend, Nathaniel and I had the opportunity to tour the Cocoa Roastery at Black Mountain Chocolate. It was a special treat to meet one of the handful of artisanal chocolate makers in the entire country and to hear about his creative journey, as well as having a tour of how the chocolate is actually made. With a little pleading of some of the other tour members, we even got to taste a tiny batch of cocoa beans that had been grinding in a smaller machine that he learned cocoa roasting on (surprisingly delicious despite being incredibly bitter). I left giddy. Maybe it was the aroma of chocolate in the air. Maybe it was getting to witness chocolate at its source. I left with ideas whirling through my head of what I wanted to try.

Have you ever tasted fresh chocolate? I mean really fresh, from bean to bar? At the end of the tour we tasted the most recent batch (labeled 70% cacao) and bought some to bring home too. To me, fresh chocolate from Black Mountain Chocolate is slightly fruity with this roundness to it. The bars have a great shine and snap to them, just as they should.

If you are close to North Carolina, you should sign up for a Cocoa Roastery. These smaller tours are a new thing, but it looks like they'll be doing them every Saturday through the end of the year. You can also follow them in Facebook and Twitter.

Stay tuned for experiments with the chocolate that I brought home with me. I'm not going to lie - it is tempting to just eat it plain rather than risk muting the flavor in some kind of baked good. But I had some ideas....

Welcome Spring!

2011-04-24T23:19:00.001-04:00

I know this is the second recipe in a row I have linked to from Two Peas and Their Pod, but when I saw this recipe I knew I'd make it the very first time I had my hand on local strawberries. Saturday, we went hiking a bit around the waterfalls of North Carolina around Brevard, and drove along the Blue Ridge Parkway to Asheville. People were selling boiled peanuts and strawberries everywhere, so we were happy to buy some of each!

This cake is simple, lovely, and flavorful. It is amazing what an hour in the oven does for strawberries. I used almond extract instead of vanilla, and I read in the comments on the blog the recipe comes from that adding orange or lemon zest was also tasty. Also, we ate this for breakfast. We have no shame. :)

Easter Candy Cookies

2011-04-22T22:12:00.002-04:00

I follow a bunch of blogs, and Two Peas and Their Pod posted a chocolate pudding cookie the other day with mini robin eggs in them. It linked back to their vanilla pudding cookie recipe. I went searching for mini robins eggs and when I couldn't find any, bought a bag each of Reeses milk chocolate peanut butter eggs and Hershey milk chocolate eggs with candy shells. I decided to make the vanilla pudding cookies with the Hershey. The first few sheets had just the eggs but I was worried they weren't chocolatey enough, and added chocolate chips.

My student workers loved these cookies! They are soft and sweet and the big candy coated hunks of chocolate certainly didn't hurt! I have (not-so-secret) plans to make the chocolate version with the peanut butter eggs inside.

Speaking of pudding. Has everyone been watching Top Chef Masters? This last episode had Celina Tio and her chocolate "puddin'" and everyone kept saying "puddin'" without the "g" and it was making me crazy. Is there a technical difference between "puddin'" and "pudding?" Is "pudding" somehow trademarked? I wanted to strangle her. She should have been sent home just for using that word alone. Phew, okay, I feel better now.

Pudding isn't always bad. It is amazing in these cookies. Make them, add something interesting, and eat!

Pumpkin Gingerbread Pancakes

2011-04-18T21:38:00.002-04:00

I started out intending to make one of the vegan, gluten-free recipes from BabyCakes Covers the Classics, but it was a lazy, rainy, weekend morning and I didn't have all the ingredients for any of the recipes. Vegan baking is challenge enough; gluten-free baking is crazy as far as what you need in your pantry. I had xantham gum a while back when I was experimenting with vegetarian marshmallows, but it had gone bad and got thrown out. I've never owned rice flour or arrowroot powder. I had sent N- to the store for gluten free flour mix and ended up with Bob's Red Mill GF Biscuit Mix, so I needed to do some experimenting.

I felt like I was pretty close to what the Gingerbread Pancakes recipe was going after, although I didn't have xantham gum, applesauce, or agave nectar. I read online that for simple baked goods like pancakes, the xantham gum wasn't really needed, but then realized it was in the biscuit mix. So, check! Applesauce was more of a mystery. I knew people often substituted applesauce for fat in recipes, but didn't want to add more fat, as the recipe already called for a 1/2 cup of melted coconut oil. After a little hunting around online, I found a site that said you could use pumpkin and applesauce interchangeably. I had pumpkin, so check! I didn't have agave nectar, but knew that you could sub agave nectar for granulated sugar at about a 2/3 ratio. There was already molasses in the recipe, so I used sugar less than was quite right, knowing we'd be putting maple syrup on top!

The pancakes I ended up making were absolutely delicious, once I had thinned the batter down enough that I was making pancakes instead of dough balls on the griddle. The bean flour in the biscuit mix added a nice hearty flavor to the fall flavors, and the pumpkin paired incredibly with the gingerbread flavors. With 1 tbsp ground ginger and 2 tbsp vanilla, these are high in flavor, just missing all the disagreeable ingredients that some people can't enjoy.

Pumpkin Gingerbread Pancakes
based loosely on BabyCakes' recipe for Gingerbread Pancakes

2 cups Bob's Red Mill GF Biscuit Mix
1 tbsp ground ginger
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp ground cardamom
1/4 tsp ground cloves
2/3 cup canned pumpkin (not pumpkin pie filling)
1/2 cup melted refined coconut oil, plus more for the pan
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/3 cup dark molasses
1 1/3 cup rice milk (started with 2/3 cup and kept adding)
2 tbsp vanilla extract

Whisk together dry ingredients. Add the wet ingredients (and pumpkin) and stir until batter is smooth. On a griddle over medium heat, grease with coconut oil. Working in batches, pour 1/4 cup batter into the pan for each pancake. Cook for 2 minutes, then flip and cook on the other side for 2 minutes more. Transfer to a plate and repeat with the remaining batter.

The Cook

2011-04-11T15:20:00.003-04:00

I came across this poem and loved it, this is just the first half. The National Book Foundation has been doing features during National Poetry Month of the poets who have won the award in the past. Lisel Mueller won in 1981.

The Cook
After Vermeer

I
No wonder she thinks there's more
where everything came from

a girl as round as the jug
that never runs dry

her arms thick cream, her yellow bodice
filled with anticipation

the bread before her risen
in the same light in which she stands

(Lisel Mueller, from The Need to Hold Still)

Dairy Free Strawberry Soup

2011-04-10T15:59:00.002-04:00

I've had David Leibovitz's "Vegan" Strawberry Ice Cream recipe bookmarked since last summer. I liked all the experimenting he had done, and was interested to try his non-dairy, pretty much non-fat strawberry ice cream recipe. At that point, strawberry season was long past in the south, and it seemed to deserve fresh berries.

Lately strawberries from Florida have started to show up in abundance in the stores. Local fruit is still a month away or so, but I couldn't wait. I bought the rice milk, decided to add 2 tbsp of the Kirsch to try to keep it from freezing too solid, and made it in one night. I did use the honey, so I won't call it vegan, since most vegans I know don't eat honey. So let's just be happy with calling it dairy-free!

It was delicious right out of the ice cream freezer, but was still ridiculously hard out of the freezer. This is just going to be a problem with homemade ice cream of all varieties until I start figuring out how to add additives (which I'd rather not). This recipe is probably more likely to get hard because there is no fat in it.

But then something miraculous happened. I had left it out to thaw, and ten minutes later it was still hard as a rock, so I kind of forgot about it. A few hours later, half of it was still a soft solid, but the rest was a beautiful soupy texture. Why throw it out? Strawberries, rice milk, sugar, honey, and kirsch make for pretty amazing strawberry soup. Plus it is getting warm but isn't quite ice cream weather. A chilled soup is just about perfect for the start of our strawberry season.

Daring Bakers March 2011 - Meringue Coffee Cake

2011-03-27T15:24:00.004-04:00

The March 2011 Daring Baker’s Challenge was hosted by Ria of Ria’s Collection and Jamie of Life’s a Feast. Ria and Jamie challenged The Daring Bakers to bake a yeasted Meringue Coffee Cake. It seemed pretty simple, although I'd never thought to bake meringue inside of something else, and I had no idea how it would turn out.

I decided to make this with what I already had in my house, which meant my filling was orange zest, cardamom-sugar, hazelnuts, and chocolate chips. When the meringue bakes, most of it kind of absorbs into the nebulous center of the coffee cake (which is really more of a rich dough, almost like a brioche). There were a few crunchy parts that squeezed out between the cracks, and I liked that flavor. I wish there had been more of that texture inside, but I'm not sure how to make that happen!

This is a great framework recipe that I'd love to play more with. Some of the savory versions people have been making look amazing too. Please click on the links at the top to see the recipe as posted by the hostesses.

Banana Bread (vegan)

2011-03-20T23:13:00.003-04:00

I was in San Diego a year ago for the Music Library Assoc, where I survived almost entirely on food purchased at Ocean Beach Peoples Food Co-op. I picked up their cookbook while I was there, and it has provided some great vegan recipes, something that has been on my mind lately.. I was thumbing through it tonight with my bunch of very ripe bananas in mind, and came across a recipe for banana bread that I had almost everything for. I adapted it a bit, and this is what I made:

Vegan Banana Bread
2 bananas + 1 cup chopped bananas
1/2 cup apple juice
1/3 cup vegetable oil
2/3 cup maple syrup
1 tsp lemon juice
2 tsp banana liqueur
2 cups all purpose flour
2/3 cup hazelnuts, chopped
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda

Preheat oven to 350. Mash the 2 whole bananas and mix with apple juice. Add the oil, maple syrup, lemon juice, and banana liqueur. Mix the dry ingredients except the nuts, then add to the wet ingredients and mix just until blended. Fold in the chopped bananas and walnuts. Place into a lightly oiled 8 x 3 1/2 x 2 1/2 inch pan and bake for 25-40 minutes or until done.

Sparkle Ginger Cookies (Vegan)

2011-03-19T23:14:00.002-04:00

Sometimes recipes change hands between friends and you don't know where they came from, and this started as one of those instances. Delicious ginger cookies that happen to be vegan! I discovered they come from Vegan With a Vengeance, highly recommended. I didn't have turbinado sugar so I used holiday colored sugar, and it added a nice little crunch.

I have a co-worker who went vegan for Lent and I was feeling badly for all her negative experiences, so I decided to provide a positive one. Not everything vegan has to be a sacrifice! And especially not these.

Never Been to Paris

2011-03-07T21:11:00.002-05:00

I haven't been to Paris (I always have to say "yet" because I am an optimist) but books have let me travel there. The most recent was The Sweet Life in Paris by David Lebovitz, which was a great travel and foodie read about being an outsider in an amazing "and perplexing" city.

I have followed David Lebovitz in Twitter and Facebook for quite some time now, so I wasn't surprised to laugh along with his stories of awkward culture clashes and trash-day outfits, nor was I shocked to find delicious sounding recipes. I wasn't quite expecting that I'd feel inspired enough to attempt making macarons for the first time, just to feel like I was somehow close to being there. I haven't made it to any of the trendy NYC bakeries that have started offering French macarons, much less Ladurée in Paris, but I can now say I have made them for myself. They weren't exactly perfect, rather fugly in fact, but delicious and easy enough to attempt again.

I have my eye on quite a few other recipes from The Sweet Life in Paris - there are some tasty sounding fig things and more fun things to do with meringue, as well as a blue cheese cake that I can't even taste in my head. I had the ingredients for spiced nuts on hand, so I whipped those up in between steps for the macarons. I think it is safe to say that David Lebovitz himself is no longer an outsider in Paris. He has provided insight into a culture that is known as unwelcoming but may just be misunderstood (or untolerated), and this would be a useful guide for anyone considering a visit.

Bakery Review - Philly Cupcake - Philadelphia, PA

2011-03-05T15:54:00.002-05:00

Even if you didn't know you'd be passing by, it would be hard to miss Philly Cupcake. It is located on the busy and interesting corner of 12th and Chestnut in Philadelphia, and is brightly lit with eye-catching color and cupcakes in lit up china cabinets (there may have been chandeliers; I have to admit to being too dazzled to take enough pictures). Add to that later hours than you might expect (8 pm most nights!) and your eye is pulled in. This is one of the places I was taken on an evening bakery visiting spree with the friend I met at last year's Music Library Association Conference, who had already been a reader of my blog. Her taste was impeccable, and it is always better to go places with someone in the know. (Thanks Emily!)

A lot of cupcake places win on the visual aspect but then don't taste very good. I am happy to say this is not the case with Philly Cupcake. I got a half dozen that were tasted over the course of a week, but did get two chocolate coma cupcakes to give one away to a friend. In the picture, in the top row you see the classic chocolate cupcake with chocolate buttercream, something with chocolate and cherry (not listed on their website, may have been a seasonal/experimental one), and chocolate coma (wow, seriously, so chocolatey!). Bottom row: empty spot for chocolate coma #2, some kind of pistachio-rose cupcake with pistachio marzipan and strawberry buttercream, and black velvet with cream cheese icing. The black velvet was my favorite - a spicy but very tender chocolate cupcake!

Philly Cupcake also sells other treats like brownies, cookies, even pupcakes for dogs. There were vegan options but I neglected to try any of those flavors.

If you are visiting or live in Philadelphia, you might consider following them on Facebook or Twitter, where they often post new flavors, special deals, and other sugar-fueled excitement.

Scones & Bones & Crumpets

2011-03-01T11:45:00.003-05:00

Scones & Bones (A Tea Shop Mystery) by Laura Childs comes out today! I was happy to receive an advanced readers copy, and immediately went to the back to see what recipes were included. The tea shop mysteries are fun to read, featuring Theodosia Browning, proprietor of a tea shop in Charleston, SC. If you want to start at the beginning, look for Death by Darjeeling.

I was happy to see a recipe for crumpets in Scones & Bones. They have always been on my to-make list, so I tried that recipe right away. Crumpets are also known as griddle cakes, and to me are the perfect cross between pancakes and English muffins. They have yeast, and the dough has to sit for a while, but they are not as bready as English muffins. I love how they are cooked simply in a frying pan or griddle and you never have to turn the oven on. I made two at a time in a pan, using the only two cookie cutters with handles that would work - half my crumpets were heart-shaped!

Crumpets are traditionally served with butter and jam or honey, but you don't have to start there! They also are great with savory spreads or used in a sandwich. I made an egg, cheese, and vegetarian bacon sandwich with mine, and since I was mimicking the McDonald's McGriddle, I added a dot of maple syrup. Strange but delicious!

Raspberry White Chocolate Layer Cake

2011-02-27T09:11:00.004-05:00

Yesterday was the baby shower for a good friend. Her name starts with an M, as does her yet-to-be-born baby girl. Pink was required, and dragonflies are the nursery theme, so I decided to combine the two. The new mom is a vegetarian, so I had originally planned to make some kind of fabulous non-gelatin strawberry bavarian cream layered masterpiece, but anyone who has read my baking disaster post about agar agar knows I have not yet conquered the sea vegetable beast. When I regrouped and went a different direction, I kept seeing raspberry and white chocolate, since I knew I'd be making white chocolate dragonflies.

The cake is really a combination of 3-4 recipes. The white cake layers come from Dorie Greenspan's Perfect Party Cake from Baking: From My Home to Yours, which really is perfect (I've blogged it in March 2008 and July 2009 in various versions I've made). This time I made the cake layers according to the recipe, so they were light and slightly lemony. I wanted white chocolate in the cake as well, so I made the white chocolate whipped cream that is part of the Black and White Chocolate Cake in the same cookbook.

When I assembled the cake, I split the layers, spread each with raspberry jam, topped that with white chocolate whipped cream, and sprinkled that with fresh raspberries. I made the raspberry buttercream from The Modern Baker by Nick Malgieri, and that's the color you see on the cake. No food coloring, just raspberries!

The white chocolate dragonflies are just melted white chocolate discs that I stuck in a ziploc and piped onto parchment paper lining bent to let the wings stand up. Overall, I think the fresh raspberries in between the layers as well as in the icing really clinched the flavor.

Daring Bakers February 2011 - Coconut Panna Cotta with Pomegranate-Strawberry Gelee

2011-02-27T09:04:00.002-05:00

Coconut Panna Cotta with Pomegranate-Strawberry Gelee
Originally uploaded by watchjennybake.

The February 2011 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Mallory from A Sofa in the Kitchen. She chose to challenge everyone to make Panna Cotta from a Giada De Laurentiis recipe and Nestle Florentine Cookies.

I am pretty certain I have made florentine cookies before, but I knew I'd never made panna cotta. There is always a subset of bakers who do alternative versions of the recipes, veganizing them, or making them gluten free. I decided this would be the month I would conquer agar agar, a sea vegetable that is often used in place of gelatin in recipes, making it vegetarian where gelatin is not.

Well, it was a great idea. I could not find the agar agar powder anywhere, and figured agar agar flakes were close enough. Well, that's not exactly the case. Agar agar powder can be handled almost exactly the same way as gelatin, sprinkled over water, and so on. The flakes do not dissolve nearly as well. So for my first attempt I made panna cotta based on Giada De Laurentiis's panna cotta recipe, substituting coconut milk for the whole milk and adding a cinnamon stick to the simmering cream. The agar agar flakes just never really dissolved, in either the pomegranate-strawberry gelee or the panna cotta. The fruit mixture had more of a gelled texture, but I imagine that was the pectin naturally in the berries, rather than the agar agar setting anything up. It was a soupy, loose-pudding gloppy mess. The flavor was good, but it was difficult to get past the texture!

Attempts #2 and #3 were even worse. This time I decided to try a chocolate panna cotta recipe from Epicurious.com, cutting back on the sugar as Mallory recommended in the challenge. At this point I had asked for help in the Daring Bakers forums, and Audax, baking genius, had recommended boiling the agar agar flakes in water for 12 minutes or so before adding them to the mixture. I tried this, keeping it at a rolling boil, and a skin of the agar agar would colllect at the sides and top of the mixture. 8 hours later, I had achieved the texture of melted ice cream. I went to the Eden Foods website for more advice, and they recommended the 12-minute trick, also suggesting you could grind the flakes with a coffee grinder before soaking in water. For attempt #3, I soaked the ground up flakes in water for 5 minutes before boiling, and I thought I was getting somewhere, because they soaked up the liquid like gelatin does. I tried combining it with the mixture I'd already made that hadn't set up, but that resulted in the melted ice cream plus gelatinous string mixture you see pictured above. Ugh, I threw it away. I didn't really succeed at my challenge to make this work, but I really want to try finding the powder. It just should not be this difficult. We won't even speak of the coffee gelee I tried to make, which never thickened beyond being very sweet coffee.

At least the Florentine Cookies were good. I didn't have corn syrup in the house, but I did have Golden syrup, so I used that in place of it and it worked just fine. Next time I'd definitely pull back on the sugar a bit, and maybe add some orange zest to the cookie or the chocolate. The recipe the Daring Bakers used was from Nestle, so you can try it too!

Bakery Review - Termini Brothers Bakery - Philadelphia, PA

2011-02-18T18:50:00.004-05:00

I was first introduced to sfogliatelle by Alex Guarnaschelli on her show on Food Network called "Alex's Day Off," the Italian Dinner episode. Unfortunately, the Food Network posted for the pastries was severely edited and the reviews are terrible, so I wasn't about to try it, and wouldn't recommend you do either.

In the ChowHound forums, as I prepared my trip to Philadelphia, I kept running across mentions of the Termini Bros. Bakery, a south Philadelphia institution that also has a stand in the Reading Terminal Market, which would be a block or so from my hotel. I saw that they had highly acclaimed pastries, including the elusive sfogliatella, so I added that to my list of things to track down.

I went to the Market three times and never saw the pastry, because by the time I was there for lunch or in the afternoon, they were sold out. The last day I was there, I was in the Market for a committee meeting brunch, and snuck over to the Termini Bros. They had half a tray of sfogliatelle left, so I bought two to take home.

Sfogliatelle (is that plural? I confess my Italian isn't good) are interesting as pastries go. The outside is crisp with a bunch of thin layers, and it is filled with ricotta (the two I bought had a few pieces of citron inside as well). It is filling and not very sweet, but delicious. Definitely a distinct pastry, and I'm glad I got to try it.

My co-workers got to enjoy assorted cookies from Termini Bros., which included fig bars, pignoli, macaroons, and amaretti, all of which smelled delicious. They also had beautiful cakes and torrone in the case. If you end up in the Reading Terminal Market, or near any of their four other locations in Philadelphia and New Jersey, they are definitely worth a visit!

Happy Valentines Day!

2011-02-18T18:40:00.002-05:00

Er... it was. I had returned home from Philadelphia the night before, so I asked for an easy Valentines Day. I said I would make dessert, and skimmed through Twitter for inspiration. I came across this post for Berry Brownie Trifle from Two Peas and Their Pod, and knew it was meant to be.

Yes, it was easy. But also tasty! I made brownies from a box (gasp) and added raspberry jam to whipped cream, but at least I whipped it from scratch.

Those mini trifle dishes are deceptively huge inside. We had leftovers for later in the week.

Sometimes, it doesn't have to take all day to make a holiday special. And sometimes, someone else's idea is worth using!

Pear Entremets with Biscuit Joconde Imprime

2011-02-06T22:20:00.003-05:00

Better late than never. I had everything purchased to make the January Daring Bakers Challenge, but ended up out for the count with a bad cold for an entire week! I wasn't going to let it all go to waste though, and finally made it over the weekend.

The January 2011 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Astheroshe of the blog accro. She chose to challenge everyone to make a Biscuit Joconde Imprime to wrap around an Entremets dessert. You can read the challenge and original recipe in its entirety on her blog.

I always see pears in the store in January, so I decided to take that flavor and run with it. I found a recipe for Pear Walnut Spice Cake by Gale Gand, topped it with a cinnamon bavarian cream of my own creation, and topped that with a carmelized pear. In my vision of this dessert the carmelized mixture formed its own layer on top, but my bavarian cream was too delicate and the heat melted it. I was lucky to end up with it still looking moderately okay after being thrown into the freezer.

It was a nice flavor combination, although with the joconde it ended up being like double-cake. The pear walnut spice cake was a bit heavy inside, and while it tasted good, this would have been better with a mousse or another bavarian cream. I do think this skill is a useful one, and really enjoyed making the decorative biscuit joconde imprime.

Take Back the Tea Party Trifle

2011-01-19T22:03:00.002-05:00

Thursday, January 20, is Take Back the Tea Party Day. It is a holiday that a friend and I came up with, sick of politics, sick of animosity. We decided to take back the tea party, full of deliciousness and elegance.

What better tea party treat than a traditional trifle?

I've actually never made trifle before. And I didn't *exactly* follow a recipe, so I'm not sure how it turned out yet, but I think the picture makes it look like a giant dessert goblet. I looked through hundreds of pictures and recipes and they all seemed to include some kind of cake, some kind of fruit, and some kind of creamy mixture somewhere in between custard, pudding, and whipped cream. Well, those things I can do.

First, I started with pound cake. Since one of my goals for the year was to find a go-to pound cake, I went with the Million Dollar Pound Cake recommended by a friend, Laura G2. I did something wrong, clearly, since it didn't come out of the pan very well. It is a good thing I'd intended it for trifle all along! I trimmed off the top, sliced it up, and sandwiched strawberry jam in between the slices. The slices got diced into 2" cubes.

I made a cooked vanilla pudding, and after it cooled slightly, it was mixed with some fresh whipped cream and a jar of lemon curd. I cooked some frozen cherries and blueberries (mid-winter not being the most seasonal of times to decide to make a trifle!), and used the juice from that to soak the cake layer. I didn't want to use alcohol this time around because of all the pregnant women at work. Nobody wants to be excluded from a tea party!

The fresh fruit I saved for the outward facing layers- strawberries on the bottom and kiwis around the top. I basically layered cake - fruit - cream, repeated, and took it to work to stick in the fridge until tomorrow. It must weigh 25 pounds. I hope there isn't too much liquid inside, but it will probably still taste delicious.

Because that's what tea parties should be... delicious.

Check out the Worldwide Take Back the Tea Party Event, and feel free to join in on the celebration!

Candied Kumquat and Vanilla Bean Cheesecake

2011-01-16T21:55:00.002-05:00

Last year, I purchased kumquats and they went bad before I ever did anything with them. This year, I was determined to do at least one thing! I had come across a recipe for orange cheesecake with candied kumquats, which seems to be the go-to kumquat recipe on the web. I've heard other suggestions, like kumquat screwdrivers, which also sound delicious.

Ever since last April when I hosted the Daring Bakers Cheesecake Challenge, I knew I'd want to return to the delicious and creamy cheesecake recipe provided by my good friend Abbey from Tastes Like Burning. While I used the candied kumquat recipe in the original link in this post, I adapted Abbey's cheesecake recipe for this dessert. I candied the fruit first, and then used 2 tbsp of the remaining syrup instead of the lemon juice and liqueur in the cheesecake. Then I took about 1/4 cup of the candied fruit and diced it up, folding it into the cheesecake before baking (I was baking a 6 incher this time around).

Honestly, I felt like the cheesecake was the best part. The candied kumquats on top threw off the balance a little, especially since their flavor was already so present in the cheesecake itself, and the sweet-tart was lovely with the creamy cheesecake.

At least now I know what to do with the mysterious miniature citrus fruit that appear every winter. (Now I just need some ideas for what to do with the candied kumquat syrup! Maybe some kumquat soda is in our future....)

Julia Child's Pound Cake (Le Quatre Quarts)

2011-01-09T17:36:00.002-05:00

One of my baking resolutions for 2011 is to find a go-to pound cake recipe!

I got a lot of great recipes from people who read the blog or follow me in Twitter, and I'm excited to try them over the course of a year.

I was thumbing through the second volume of Mastering the Art of French Cooking by Julia Child since I got it for the holidays, and stumbled across a cake recipe called "Le Quatre Quarts." I knew that I would have to start with Julia!

It isn't quite exactly pound for pound on the ingredients, and the recipe does have a few interesting quirks. First of all it is only large enough for an 8" round pan, so if I made it again I'd have to work with the ratios to fill a bundt or loaf pan. (It might just need to be doubled). The most interesting thing was how it is mixed - first the eggs, sugar, and citrus zest. Then the flour. Then the butter, which has been whipped into a mayonnaise texture. I was skeptical but followed her exactly, and was pleased with the results.

The best part of the cake didn't end up in the served dessert - it domed up too much and had to be trimmed off, but that part was crackly and sweet. The rest of the cake had a fine crumb but wasn't dry. I made Julia's Creme du Citron from the next page to fill the middle of the cake, and it was like a creamy sweeter lemon curd.

Nursery Cupcakes

2011-01-05T22:51:00.002-05:00

We seem to have a lot of babies coming at work (don't drink the water). For today's baby shower, I made little miniature cupckes, some with little faces! Most had little kissy mouths, but some looked like they might be crying or singing. I got the idea from What's New Cupcake? a book with cute ideas that relies a little too heavily on pre-made foods.

With the rest of them, I just did pink swirls and little pearls.

Congratulations to Andrea and Dave!

Baking Resolutions for 2011

2011-01-02T13:28:00.002-05:00

I'm all over the blogosphere making resolutions for 2011 today. I've always been a big believer in setting goals, but last year's resolutions were pretty vague or huge, and I didn't do them very well. This year I'm setting resolutions for gardening and cooking as well, because there are some things I want to do!

Picking five baking resolutions was difficult. I want to try the ones I failed this year again, but I've made some of them more specific so I'm more likely to accomplish them. I could use some feedback on #5, and you'll see why!

1. Find a go-to pound cake recipe
Now that I'm a southerner, it is almost blasphemy that I don't have a go-to pound cake. I've been collecting recipes this year from Facebook and blog feeds, and I'm excited to try a few of them out. I don't mind using someone else's recipe as my go-to recipe, but maybe I can tweak one and really make it my own. Most traditional pound cake recipes are passed down, so if you want to pass me yours, please do!

2. Trifle - make one.
Yeah, this might look familiar since it was an unfulfilled goal for 2010. Poor, lonely, anxious trifle dish. Luckily, this will pair nicely with resolution #1. I also have my "Take Back the Tea Party" event coming up on election day, so that would be more than appropriate!

3. Poured fondant.
Last year I made a pretty nebulous cake resolution. This is one of the ways I've broken it down. I've never made poured fondant, and I want to find a classic recipe to have in my back pocket. I would accept using it on cupcakes or to make petits fours, but at least one of those things. Luckily I have some baby showers coming up that this would be perfect for.

4. Rolled fondant
It's baaaaaack! I have only made the marshmallow variety, and have fully intended to make the classic rolled fondant. I've even had long conversations through blog commenting about it, and know whose recipe I want to try first. I just need to DO it.

5. Savory breads
This is the one I really need help with. I need to find a way to make it more specific, or quantifiable. I don't want to do multi-day sourdough beast bread yet, maybe in 2012. First I just want to get more comfortable with yeast baking, kneading, rising, the usual. I have Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day. I have Baking with Julia. I have the Bread Baker's Apprecntice. I have the recipes but don'to know where to start. Any suggestions? I made a similar resolution last year and did nothing!

There it is. Resolutions I rejected but might happen anyway (because once they attach in my brain I can't get rid of them) include the brioche tart that made Julia Child cry, raw cheesecake, and gum paste flowers.

What are your baking goals for 2011?

Happy New Year!

2010-12-31T22:25:00.002-05:00

It has been quite the year for baking projects. I just wanted to take a quick moment to wish all of my dedicated readers a happy new year! Pretty soon I'll post my culinary resolutions for 2011, but today is all about celebrating.

For our celebration I decided to make one of the desserts from Around My French Table by Dorie Greenspan. As my readers know, I think she is one of the Goddesses of Baking, and I was really looking forward to this cookbook. It hasn't disappointed me, and I'll review it soon once I've tried more recipes from it.

On to the cake! I chose the recipe for Michael Rostang's Double Chocolate Mousse Cake because she says that it is one of her favorite desserts, and I loved that you could serve it three different ways. The entire cake is made out of chocolate mousse, and first 1/3 of it is baked as a sort of crust. From there you can do three versions - one where you pile the rest of the mousse on top and serve it as is (but chilled), one where you bake the rest of it and serve it warm (still with two layers), and the last, which she said she preferred, where you bake the two layers but then chill it before serving. I wish I'd had the pan the recipe calls for, because I only had a 10 inch springform, so my layers are quite a bit thinner than they should have been. Other than that, I always trust Dorie's judgment, and served it the third way. It was delicious - creamy and rich! I was worried it would taste just like a flourless chocolate cake, but it is a lot lighter than that in texture, and the bittersweet chocolate did not taste too bitter (and I sometimes find that to happen).

I'm not going to provide the recipe here. Around My French Table should go right next to your two volumes of Mastering the Art of French Cooking. :)

What did you make for your holiday?

Checking in with Culinary Resolutions of 2010

2010-12-27T18:27:00.002-05:00

Back on January 2nd of 2010, I decided to make culinary resolutions for the year. I figured with the amount of time I spend in the kitchen, and the fact that I love baking, would mean that finally I would be making resolution I could keep!

Wrong! So wrong! Well, at least not all of them. I have listed the original goal in italics and discussed whether or not I followed through, and if so, how.

1. Make the third of the laminate doughs. I have made danish pastry (twice, actually) as well as puff pastry. 2010 will be the year I tackle croissants!
I am proud to say that I actually made croissants in 2010, and they were a huge success! After making puff pastry I swore I never would again, but croissants would be a pleasure. The only problem is, they are best fresh, and a person can only eat so many! And that's more than that person (ahem) should be eating....

2. Bread baking - I was given The Bread Baker's Apprentice for Christmas and I am so excited to get started. Looking back on several Daring Bakers Challenges, I have made his lavash, pizza dough (I make this all the time now!), and sticky buns. I'm looking forward to spending more energy learning about savory, non-sweet, yeast breads.
Other than pizza dough, I failed on this resolution. Pizza dough doesn't count to me because I've made it before for a Daring Baker Challenge, and continue to make that recipe frequently, as it was perfect. Not too long ago I made pizza dough from a different recipe that was the final straw for my mixer. I've made several sweet yeasty things, but that was not the resolution.

3. Cake decorating - I need to buy my own decorating supplies, or get my Mom to send me my old stuff from back when I first took the Wilton classes. I made marshmallow fondant in 2009, but I want to tackle the more standard stuff. I also want to try modeling chocolate. I have no aspirations to become a cake decorator, since technically I used to work as one in a bakery without all the fancy stuff, but I definitely feel I have a lot to learn!
Well, um, my Mom sent me my cake decorating supplies in November, and that is as far as I really got. I did get inspired to do some chocolate work as a cake decoration, a fairly easy technique that I tried again for a baby shower. Otherwise, I seemed to make cakes that didn't need decoration. I made cakes, okay? Just not pretty ones. There was the mocha study day cake, my diva chocolate cake for my birthday, Racines Cake from David Lebovitz's new cookbook, and many others. Full confession - I've had my old cake decorating supplies plus another box of pans of all shapes for two months and they remain unopened. Guess what is going on next year's list!?

4. Trifle. I have a beautiful trifle dish that has never been used. Shameful!
Yeah. Still shameful. I had every intention (even every ingredient) to make pumpkin gingerbread trifle for Christmas, but by the time we got there, after cookies and candy and stollen and birthday cake, I just couldn't face any more sweet stuff. Someday....

5. To be intentional about seasonal ingredients. Horror of horrors - last year I skipped both the peach and apple seasons in my area, which are possibly the best fruits coming out of southern North Carolina and northern South Carolina. Really, no excuse. :)
This year was the first year I had a garden, so I had seasonal ingredients up to my eyeballs, but not a lot to bake with (until I get more into savory baking, see #2).

However I still managed to do a good lot of baking with seasonal ingredients. My rhubarb fling included strawberry rhubarb pie and a rhubarb tart, but my raspberries that started out so promising were completely devoured by Japanese beetles, as were most of my strawberries.

July saw blueberries (some from my own garden) being made into crumb cake and breakfast cake. I did manage to throw my own herbs into a sweet/savory sweet potato pie.

During Apple season, I actually went to two different apple orchards around the Hendersonville, NC region. Part of the trouble is I often repeat recipes I have always made, and didn't photograph everything. I made my Grandma's apple cake recipe, crock pot apple sauce, and then did manage a few new things - caramel apple cake, Nick Malgieri's Breton Apple Pie (so pretty), and a Torta di Mele for the November Daring Bakers Challenge. I did discover in all of this that I have a new favorite baking apple - the mutsu! It is firm like Granny Smith but not as tart, and I adore it. So despite my apparent bypassing of peach season yet again, I feel like I accomplished this culinary resolution fairly well.

Despite my failings, I feel like I kept these in the back of my mind throughout the year. What is a resolution for, after all? I may need to make the cake one more specific or narrow if I want to continue with it, but stay tuned for 2011's culinary resolutions!

Holiday Cinnamon Rolls

2010-12-27T15:26:00.002-05:00

One of the luxuries of the holidays, at least for me, is getting to do leisurely baking projects, even if something takes three hours on a morning before we can eat it. Who cares? There is coffee, there are books to be read, and snow to watch.

This year Nathaniel wanted cinnamon rolls for his birthday, and so I went off hunting for a good recipe. I wasn't enamored with the one I made back when I worked at a bakery, as it was rather bland. Sticky buns came up because I made them back in 2007 for another Daring Bakers Challenge, but they destroyed my oven and I wasn't anxious for a repeat of that mess. Plus they really do depend on nuts to balance out the sweet, and I was hoping for something more tender.

I ended up just doing a search for "best cinnamon rolls recipe" in Google and found two contenders - Alton Brown's Overnight Cinnamon Rolls and a Cinnabon Copycat Recipe. When I'm going to make a recipe from an internet site for the first time, I take advantage of the reviews. I knew both of these recipes were probably good because over 300 people had reviewed each of them and they still were five stars, which is always a good sign. But I was seeing some trends in the recipes. There were several comments that Alton's recipe was too dense, that they ended up too hard, too browned. I didn't want to risk it, as I really wanted a tender recipe. The reviews with the other recipe mainly took issue with the directions, which were terrible, not even including information proofing the yeast or a second rise, but said that with the correct steps the recipe itself was good. I also didn't want to use margarine, and thought some of the ingredients needed to be clarified.

(Does anyone out there have their own favorite cinnamon rolls recipe? Leave a comment and let me know!)

So with no further ado, here is the recipe that I used. The ingredients come from the recipe on Food.com, but the directions are mine.

Holiday Cinnamon Rolls

Ingredients:
* 1 (1/4 ounce) package dry yeast
* 1 cup warm milk
* 1/2 cup granulated sugar
* 1/3 cup butter, melted and cooled slightly
* 1 teaspoon salt
* 2 eggs, lightly beaten
* 4 cups flour

FILLING
* 1 cup packed brown sugar
* 2 1/2 tablespoons cinnamon
* 1/3 cup butter, at room temperature (NOT melted)

ICING
* 8 tablespoons butter, at room temperature
* 1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
* 1/4 cup cream cheese, at room temperature
* 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
* 1/8 teaspoon salt

1. In a small bowl, heat milk until pleasantly warm, not hot. Sprinkle yeast over and let dissolve, about five minutes. The mixture can be stirred if some of the yeast on top isn't mixing in. You want to see it become a little gooey, maybe with a few bubbles on the sides, to make sure the yeast is working.

2. In a large bowl, combine flour, sugar, salt, and mix briefly. Add in melted butter, milk and yeast mixture, and eggs. Mix with wooden spoon or paddle mixer until incorporated. Switch to kneading hook or remove mixture to a floured surface.

3. Knead dough for 5-8 minutes by hand, or in a mixer at low speed for 5 minutes. Dough should be soft but not sticky, and hold an impression when it is poked.

4. Lightly oil a bowl. Place dough inside, first covering the top in the oil. Cover the bowl lightly and let it rise in a warm, draft-free place for 2 hours, until doubled in size.

5. Punch dough down. Roll out to a rectangle, about 21-24 inches by 16 inches. Spread softened butter out on dough. Cover entire surface. Sprinkle with brown sugar and cinnamon mixture, except for the last inch along a long side. It will be pretty thick, use all of it and pat it down evenly.

6. Roll tightly from the long side that has filling to the edge, ending with the piece just with butter, and use that to seal the tube. Rest it on this part to slice.

7. Slice 1-inch rounds, discarding the very ends if desired. Place in greased pans - one 9x13 or 3 cake rounds, leaving room for dough to expand. At this point the dough can be covered and chilled overnight, and taken out for an hour before baking. If you wish to bake immediately, cover and let rise until double or at least poofy, 1.5-2 hours. Remove the covering before baking!

8. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Check after 10 minutes. Depending on the thickness of the rolls, you will probably need 5-10 more minutes. I like to take mine out when they are just getting to be golden brown on top and are barely cooked through inside (but not doughy).

9. While they are baking, mix the icing together until smooth. Spread on rolls immediately when they come out of the oven. Serve hot!

Happy Birthday!

2010-12-25T00:09:00.003-05:00

Okay, it isn't what you think. This is not a happy birthday Jesus cake. My husband Nathaniel was born on December 24th, several years ago. For years and years, his yearly birthday cake was the chocolate chip mint roll cake from Baskin-Robbins. Back in 2007, I begged him to let me make something better, but that pretty much failed. This year, he had already agreed to let me make his cake before learning that all three Baskin-Robbins in Greenville closed.

I wanted to still pay homage to the chocolate and mint combination, so I used a Mint-Chocolate Roulade recipe from Southern Living for the cake part. I've been obsessed with Charlotte Royale since considering it for the Daring Bakers challenge I hosted (I ended up picking cheesecake), and I often return to this beautiful Charlotte Royale on Axis of Aevil. I didn't even read their directions, just modeled what I was doing after their pictures. I froze the roulade to make it easiest to slice, then lined a random bowl with plastic wrap and then slices of the rolled cake.

Inside are three pints of ice cream. The one at the top is Haagen Daaz Mint Chocolate Chip. In the middle is Ben & Jerry's Coffee Heath Bar, and on the bottom is Ben & Jerry's Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough. True, I could have really been challenged by making my own ice cream for this, but I wanted it to be good, and I haven't really sorted out the texture in my homemade ice cream yet.

I thought this was terrific! At the end of the day it isn't that time consuming, particularly if you use store-bought ice cream like I did. If I made it again, the one thing I would change is the filling for the roulade. I made whipped cream and it turned pretty icy in the freezer.

After the fact, I realized this was almost exactly what the July Daring Bakers Challenge had been, even though I missed it. To show I was at least trying to do the recipes, here are my required blog-checking lines - The July 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Sunita of Sunita’s world – life and food. Sunita challenged everyone to make an ice-cream filled Swiss roll that’s then used to make a bombe with hot fudge. Her recipe is based on an ice cream cake recipe from Taste of Home.

Daring Bakers December 2010 - Stollen

2010-12-23T23:37:00.002-05:00

The 2010 December Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Penny of Sweet Sadie’s Baking. She chose to challenge Daring Bakers’ to make Stollen. She adapted a friend’s family recipe and combined it with information from friends, techniques from Peter Reinhart’s book.........and Martha Stewart’s demonstration.

I enjoyed this challenge! I knew I would need to bake this for people other than the man I married, who refuses to eat fruit in bread. Haha! Luckily my work holiday party was last Friday, so I planned to bring a stollen wreath as my contribution (we do potlucks or pitch-ins now, which works great because we have a lot of great cooks in the library!).

I'm still not a master of yeast breads, but I really enjoyed working with this dough. It had a great feel to it, and I kneaded it by hand. I recently spent $150 getting my KitchenAid repaired and I'm too nervous to have it do any heavy labor. That's okay, because I actually enjoy kneading the dough, and I think I get a better sense of when it is ready when I'm touching it.

The major change I made with the recipe was simply in what fruits I used. I substituted dried cranberries for the raisins, and used dried apricots rather than citrus, although I kept the orange zest in the recipe. I also didn't have rum, so I soaked the fruit in a mixture of Grand Marnier, orange juice, vanilla extract, and almond extract. I also used Oregon hazelnuts, roughly chopped, because I have a bunch to use and I love their flavor!

The picture of the slice is a bit blurry, because I'm still getting used to a new camera. I loved the tenderness of the stollen, and how it could have so much flavor while still being dense and rich. I snagged a bit of the leftover to take home to play with, and it was great toasted!

Then someone in the Daring Kitchen forums mentioned that they were going to make french toast, and I thought that was a great idea! I'm a fan of using what I have on hand, so my custard was made from eggs and Silk nog that I needed to use up, and it made my fruity stollen into amazing french toast!

I talked Nathaniel into trying a bite. I thought it was so delicious, not dried out like some store-bought stollen I've tried, that surely the fruit would be secondary to the sheer beauty of the stollen I had made. Hahaha. He looked like he wanted to scrape his tongue off.

I wanted him to have a good experience with it, and had an idea about infusing extra flavor into the dough during the milk scalding stage, so I pledged to make a version without any fruit or nuts. I also read a bit more in The Bread Baker's Apprentice, and Peter Reinhart pointed out that the formula for stollen dough is almost identical to that of panettone, meaning you should be able to use the doughs interchangeably in the various shape options. This sparked another idea, of making little individual panettone with my new dough.

While the milk heated, I added a cinnamon stick, and also added some instant coffee to it before it cooled down. I added about 1/3 cup of chocolate chips and cinnamon chips to the dough while I kneaded it, and these all melted and made ribbons of darkness in the dough. I added an additional 1/3 cup of the chips to the various portions of dough before forming it. I made half into mini-panettone (using Reinhart's idea of just putting them in a muffin tin), and the other half into one typical stollen loaf.

Oh how I wish it had turned out! The coffee and cinnamon were pretty much in the background, and except for in the bites containing chocolate, the dough lacked the richness and moistness of my first stollen. I should have found a way to compensate for the alcohol-soaked fruit. I could tell the dough was too dry, but in my head this translated to it not needing to bake as long. Bummer.

It will still make good french toast....

Orange Nutella Pinwheel Cookies

2010-12-12T23:25:00.002-05:00

Over a year ago, I saw a recipe for Orange Nutella Pinwheel Cookies, and bookmarked it for "later." It made such an impression that it was in the back of my mind as I started planning for holiday baking this year, and I went back to look for it (here is another blogger who made them without the orange, and her pictures are stunning).

The dough for these is a little persnickety, but the end result is so good! And the first time you slice your knife into the chilled pinwheels and see how perfect they look, you will know it was worth it.

I changed the recipe a tad by using almond extract (by necessity, I was out of vanilla, but I think it was a nice touch), adding some ground hazelnuts to the batter and decreasing the flour slightly, and sprinkling ground hazelnuts on top of the nutella before rolling up the dough.

I will probably add this to the holiday cookie list. This year, I made two batches instead of making sugar cookies, gingerbread, or wagon wheel cookies!

Gifts for Bakers - Gourmet Cookie Book

2010-12-03T16:58:00.004-05:00

I think if I had my way, this cookbook would be called the Gourmet Retro Cookie Book instead of just the Gourmet Cookie Book: The Single Best Recipe from Each Year, 1941-2009". I loved the idea of having one representative recipe from each year for almost seventy years, and it was really interesting to see words change (cooky used to be the preferred spelling, crazy!), recipe layout change, and how technology has made some recipes that used to be complicated so simple.

The recipes are printed as they were printed in Gourmet Magazine through the years, but each one has editorial notes. I found these to be very helpful, often including information on using appliances that didn't exist when the recipe was published to make it easier, as well as hints as to what a step should look like, a shortcut, a substitution, or freezing/bulk suggestions. I definitely followed some of the editorial suggestions in both recipes I made, and they added a lot of clarity to the process.

The pictures in the book are interesting too - everything is an aerial shot, very simple, but it is always nice when a cookbook has a photo for each recipe, and this one does.

The first recipe I made from the Gourmet Cookie Book, was the very first recipe, Cajun Macaroons, from 1941. I'm still not quite sure what makes them "Cajun," exactly, but they appealed to me because I had egg whites in the fridge and almond paste in the pantry, and beyond that they only required three more ingredients.

These cookies were fantastic. They look a little bland, but they have so much flavor, and an interesting texture with a crunchy outside and chewy centers. Super easy in my food processor, and I'd make these again in a heartbeat.

The other recipe I made was from the 1990s, Mocha Cookies. According to the Gourmet Cookie Book, the 90s were the chocolate decade. These are shamelessly rich and super addictive, and I will make these again for sure. My only complaint is that the recipe makes it sound like you should mix them as little as possible (I always assume that with the "fold" word instead of "mix") but I had a few that didn't taste sweet at all because the unsweetened chocolate was the prominent ingredient. So when I make these again, which is going to happen for sure, I'll just mix it all a little better.

I wondered if buying this cookbook was redundant, because so many recipes from Gourmet magazine are traditionally available on Epicurious.com. But from what I can tell, the recipes on that website don't go back this far, and I couldn't find either there. This is a great retrospective cookie recipe collection that I think is a great addition to any kitchen. And honestly, who doesn't feel a little nostalgic about the demise of Gourmet Magazine? Retro... nostalgia... it suits baked goods somehow, especially during the holidays.

And just for full disclosure, I did get access to this title through NetGalley, so thanks to them for letting me take a look!

Daring Bakers November 2010 - Crostata

2010-11-27T23:40:00.002-05:00

The 2010 November Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Simona of briciole. She chose to challenge Daring Bakers’ to make pasta frolla for a crostata. She used her own experience as a source, as well as information from Pellegrino Artusi’s Science in the Kitchen and the Art of Eating Well.

Earlier in the month I had some Mutsu apples from Justus Orchard in Hendersonville, NC. I'd been wanting to do something interesting, and along came the Daring Bakers Challenge. All it said was that I needed to make the crust recipe provided, in a tart mold, and then I could put pretty much anything I wanted to inside.

I kept finding recipes for Torta di Mele (Apple Tart in Italian!) but most of the recipes were in Italian too. Along the way I kept running across recipes for Alsatian Apple Tarts that looked more along the lines of a crostata type tart - thinly sliced fruit, custard, and a rich crust. I ended up making Dorie's version since I had that cookbook at home, but used the challenge version of the crust.

The recipe was a bit confusing, because I had way more apple than one layer's worth, and other pictures I'd seen of other versions seemed to have multiple layers. So against my instincts I added another layer. This meant the layer on top wasn't covered by the custard and had a much denser texture, and some of the edges browned, and it probably wasn't as picturesque as it could have been. Still, it tasted good!

Gifts for Bakers - As Always, Julia

2010-11-26T14:53:00.002-05:00

I was lucky to get a review copy of As Always, Julia: The Letters of Julia Child and Avis DeVoto, edited by Joan Reardon, through NetGalley. As if I needed to love Julia Child even more! But seriously, for people who are already fans, reading the letters between Julia and Avis will be a treat. Most of the letters are from the 1950s, when Julia was relocating frequently and working on what would become Mastering the Art of French Cooking, and Avis was smack in the middle of the politics and culture of New England.

I was amazed yet again by the sheer number of times Julia would tweak each recipe, including the Reine de Saba, which I made two summers ago for my Julia Child party.

I learned a lot, and laughed a lot. It comes out December 1. You can read my longer review here.

Happy Thanksgiving!

2010-11-25T20:04:00.002-05:00

Since we don't eat meat, I tend to plan something different every year for Thanksgiving. Last year was Native American food, 2006 was mushroom crepes, 2008 was peanut butter and jelly since we were on the road to a cruise in Florida.

This year I had my heart set on Mexican food, but recipes I hadn't made before. It all started when I came across Post Punk Kitchen's recipe for Butternut Rancheros, which I could tell from her pictures would be fantastic (and was!). But that didn't seem elaborate enough, and I knew this was the time to tackle tamales. Thanks to the loan of a few Bayless cookbooks and some steaming baskets, I was ready to go! (I made the spicy mushroom tamales from Rick Bayless's Mexican Kitchen, and made the masa recipe from the bag.)

So what do you have for dessert with Mexican food? I had bookmarked a recipe for pumpkin pie flan, but I knew my in-laws were bringing a Deep-Dish Pumpkin Pecan Pie from Strossners. This baker couldn't NOT make a dessert on a holiday, however.

My alternate dessert was Mexican Chocolate Pots de Creme, a recipe from Stephanie Prida at FoodandWine.com. It was simple but so worth it! It takes the flavors of the chalky Mexican chocolate tablet and transforms it into a decadent, smooth dessert. I thought I had overcooked it, but after putting it through a sieve everything seemed just fine.

The other somewhat sweet recipe I made was Spicy Pumpkin Seed and Pecan Brittle, a recipe I picked up from SeriousEats.com. Although I figured out too late that I don't have an actual candy thermometer, merely a thermometer that goes up to 220, I guessed at the 300 and it turned out fine. This candy is an amazing combination of salty, sweet, spicy, and crunchy, and the flavors seemed perfect for this meal and for fall!

Bakery Review - Cupcake Couture and Catering, Greenville, SC

2010-11-22T11:07:00.002-05:00

In one of the recent Living Social deals in my city, they featured cupcakes by Cupcake Couture & Catering. This was a bakery I hadn't tried yet, so I took advantage of the deal.

I picked up a box of dozen cupcakes, which were smartly packed in mini marshmallows so they wouldn't move around. We had strawberry, red velvet, coconut, butterfinger, marble, and a few other kinds.

My favorite flavor was the double strawberry - both the cupcake and icing had a fresh strawberry flavor, nothing fake or cloying.

I'm not sure I'd pay the full price for cupcakes there, but I think the cupcakes they sell just with icing are cuter than the ones with the awkward fondant cut-outs. That's a personal preference, of course. But I can tell they are using high-quality ingredients, because the flavors are good.

Lemon Ginger Bars

2010-11-18T21:20:00.002-05:00

Every time a new Harry Potter book or film comes out, I try to make treats to go along with it. In 2007, I made a fugly treacle tart and pumpkin pasties. Last summer I made a much cuter treacle tart (Harry's favorite) and cauldron cupcakes.

A few days ago, I saw a post on Nick Malgieri's blog for Lemon Ginger Squares To be honest, the flavor combination sounded a lot like what you end up getting from a treacle tart. I couldn't get it out of my head, so I have justified making it for Harry Potter Day by saying it sounds like something they could have served at Hogwarts. English-inspired desserts have more of an adult palate required, with ginger and lemon being very prominent in these bars.

Since my local favorite grocery store does not have crystallized ginger on the shelf, I did leave it out. I'm sure it would have made these bars even tastier. Also I read the recipe wrong at first, so I added one stick of melted butter, then the egg and lemon, and THEN the other stick of melted butter. I probably need to make the recipe again, properly, to do it justice. But it is delicious, and an intense flavor for a little bar cookie.

Gifts for Bakers - Desperate Cupcakes

2010-11-18T14:00:00.002-05:00

As we approach Thanksgiving, you might be pondering what to get the baker in your life. I recently got a copy of Desperate Cupcakes by Anita Dyette. I wasn't sure what to expect, but inside is page after page of silly cupcakes dressed up in their own scenes. There are zombie cupcakes, cupcakes in the park, cupcakes getting married, well, you get the picture. The artistry is impressive, but it is all for the sake of a giggle at these desperate cupcakes.

Pumpkin Scones with Spice Glaze

2010-11-07T14:18:00.002-05:00

I didn't have a go-to recipe for pumpkin scones, so I literally picked the first hit from a Google search. I almost didn't use this recipe because it claimed to be a copy of the Starbucks scone recipe, and I find Starbucks scones to be dry and tasteless, depending on an overload of glaze for some semblance of freshness. But knowing that most recipes that claim to be copies usually aren't, I chanced it.

A lot of the reviewers suggested doubling up on the spices, only using the spice glaze instead of the original overkill of two, and adding vanilla to the one glaze. I followed all of their advice, and they didn't steer me wrong.

These were delicious and tender. The egg in the batter makes for a nice density, and the pumpkin replaces most of what would normally be heavy cream, making these quite a bit lower in fat than the usual (although there is still a hefty amount of butter, so don't get carried away and call them lowfat). We had these for breakfast this morning with the Rainforest Alliance Certified Guatemala coffee from The Brown Bean in Brevard, NC, which we ground fresh and brewed with freshly ground nutmeg.

Taking Back the Tea Party

2010-11-03T20:47:00.001-04:00

No matter what your beliefs - tea parties are for scones and cute little sandwiches. I urge you to plan your own tea party on Thursday, January 20, 2011. Because tea parties should be delicious!

Link to WorldWide Facebook Event here

Caramel Apple Cake

2010-10-31T23:14:00.003-04:00

Happy Halloween! This year for the work party I knew I wanted to do something with the rest of my Mutsu apples, and thought of caramel apples in cake form in the shower one morning. A quick internet search revealed several delicious-looking recipes, but this one won because it was simple, and I needed to make a double batch!

I won't retype the recipe into my blog, since you can find it everywhere online, like here.

Candy Corn Failure

2010-10-27T21:11:00.004-04:00

Happy Halloween! I was originally planning to bring this to a work party, but I'm going to have to make apple cake or something else, because I don't think I need to try a recipe more than two times!

Ever since I saw the Cakespy post on homemade candy corn, I have intended to try making this sugary treat. I couldn't believe the response from people.

"Why would you do that?"

"Ugh, I hate candy corn."

"Isn't that just corn syrup and coloring?"

As anyone who knows me knows, these types of comments only made me want to make candy corn from scratch that much more!

I tried for the first time last night, using Cakespy's recipe as written. I got about 3 minutes into the cooking time and my instincts told me to pull it off the heat, but I didn't listen. Well hello, following my instincts lesson. Nice to see you again.

By the time the mixture had even partially cooled, it was all dry, crumbled, and impossible to get out of the pan. Total failure, I didn't even take pictures.

In the comments of Jessie's original post, there was a link to a similar recipe in The Washington Post, which included a cooking temperature instead of just minutes. I was just about right with my gut reaction the first time around, because the mixture reached 225 at 3 minutes in.

The next stage is the other part of the recipe that hasn't worked well, where you let the mixture cool. The recipe says 30 minutes to an hour, but I only waited 30 and that wasn't enough time to work with the mixture before it was too dried out and crumbly to properly knead and work color into. I was only able to make candy corn with about 1/4 of the mixture, and even that didn't stick together very well between the colors. I think the value of the commercial candy corn made by machines instead of by hand is that they can add color to magma-hot boiling sugar without fear of injury. I'm just not sure that this recipe is a great idea for the home cook.

Or maybe my sugar just boils hotter than anyone else's. :)

The Pizza Dough that Broke the Mixer

2010-10-27T20:57:00.002-04:00

I had it in my head that I wanted pizza with carmelized onions, blue cheese, and barbecue sauce. I usually make the Peter Reinhart recipe, which is fantastic, but I always get into trouble if I don't plan a day ahead. And sometimes you just have to have pizza right that minute!

One of the cookbooks I use a lot for baking is A Passion for Baking. I'm not going to include the recipe here because you should buy it for yourself, but I had to try the recipe that claimed to be the "best pizza dough ever."

I think the true secret to her claim is the method - you barely mix the ingredients together and let it sit and bloom, and after shaping the crusts and putting on the ingredients it rises one last time. I'm not sure if this attempt is a fair representation, because my Kitchen Aid of less than two years of age's motor QUIT while kneading the dough. I was frazzled and didn't knead it any longer after I got the bowl down, but I think it had already gone for the recommended 5 minutes.

The funny thing is, I don't even mind kneading dough, and actually enjoy it. I was just sticking to my guns of using the recipe as written the first time.

So the dough didn't have as much give to it as the Reinhart dough, and I really had to struggle to roll it out as thin as we like it. While baking it puffed up quite a bit, and was chewy and thick. The toppings combo was delicious (although you can see in the picture that I may have gone overboard when 'carmelizing' the onions), although the crust was pretty dominant. Knowing what I know now, if I made this recipe again I'd use a lot more sauce to help the balance.

In the meantime, I'm approaching Thanksgiving, and always do more baking in the fall, and I need to get my mixer fixed! There is a certified technician in town, so cross your fingers!

Breton Apple Pie

2010-10-23T23:11:00.002-04:00

I had a beautiful bag of Mutsu apples from a little farm stand between Flat Rock and Hendersonville, NC, just begging to be made into a delicious baked good for fall. Mutsu apples are a cross between Golden Delicious (for sweetness) and Indo Apples from Japan (a sturdy baking apple similar to Granny Smith, from what I can find out), so I thought they'd hold up well in a pie.

In this Breton Apple Pie from The Modern Baker by Nick Malgieri, the apples are prepared and cooked on the stove before they are spooned into the crust. The crust had more of a sugar cookie taste to it than pie crust, and looked beautiful when it came out of the oven.

The springform pan I baked this in is pretty dark, so I should have thought to turn the oven temperature down by 25 degrees. Since I didn't, some of the bottom of the crust got darker than I would have liked. I didn't have any other 10" pans. Malgieri says this recipe is freezer-friendly, and I think the next time around I might make it in a 9" cake pan instead. That way I can use a few less apples but end up with a slightly higher "pie."

Boston Cream Pie

2010-10-02T18:07:00.002-04:00

Something Nathaniel said in passing yesterday as I was making my grocery shopping list made me announce, "That's it, I'm going to make a Boston Cream Pie." I hadn't ever made one from scratch. Who knows what triggered it?!

I used the yellow cake recipe that I used earlier this week for cupcakes, and froze one layer for later. I used Gale Gand's pastry cream recipe for the filling, which used up almost all the egg yolks I had leftover from making the perfect party cake the other day. Nice when it all evens out.

I topped it with a slightly runny ganache, but it was good - homey. In the slice you can even see the vanilla beans in the custard.

Hey, if you've been following JennyBakes in Facebook, I discovered that the notes aren't importing. While I try to talk to a real person at Facebook to get past my error message, I may start manually posting to the page. But you've missed a lot if that's the only way you see me. Sorry about that.

Baby Shower Cakeage

2010-09-29T13:20:00.004-04:00

One of my co-workers is having her first child, and I was asked if I could make a cake for the work shower. I had been wanting to play more with the chocolate work that I tried earlier from The Whimsical Bakehouse so I decided to make little ducks and frogs to go with her colors of yellow and green.

For the cake itself, I went with Dorie Greenspan's Perfect Party Cake, which truly is the perfect party cake. I've never made it exactly as written - there was "Da Lime in Da Coconut" version made for a Daring Bakers challenge, and the Peanut Butter and Jelly version from my birthday last summer. This time around I used the basic cake recipe, but omitted the coconut from the assembly stage, and used lemon curd instead of raspberry jam. So it was definitely lemony but still delicate, and the color accompaniment was nice. Unfortunately it was gobbled up so I don't have any pictures of the inside!

I mentioned I had planned frogs so I could do yellow and green, but I didn't have any chocolate-friendly coloring in green. So I made purple frogs instead. I used my go-to yellow birthday cake recipe for the cupcakes, which I don't think I've ever blogged! I might as well include it here. It uses a cake mix as the base (shh, don't tell) but is so tender and delicious! I think both the cake and frosting come from The Cake Mix Doctor which I used all the time when I worked at a tearoom where we had to come up with new ideas a lot. I don't own a copy myself, but have used this recipe for years! All I have written down is the ingredients, no instructions, but just use the usual cake instructions (350 F, the usual range for cupcakes vs. layers, and mix everything together for frosting.... haha, amazing what those of us who bake all the time take for granted!).

Basic Layer Cake
1 cake mix (I usually use yellow, pudding in the mix, not butter recipe)
1 cup whole milk (or whatever you have on hand, nonfat, buttermilk, etc)
8 tbsp butter, melted (or oil, but butter tastes better)
3 large eggs
2 tsp pure vanilla

Fluffy Chocolate Frosting
8 tbsp butter, room temperature
2/3 cup cocoa powder
3 cups powdered sugar
1/3 cup whole milk (or whatever)
2 tsp vanilla
1/4 tsp salt <--- don't leave this out!

Pumpkin Nutella Bread

2010-09-19T12:40:00.001-04:00

Pumpkin Nutella Bread
Originally uploaded by watchjennybake.

We keep getting hints of fall and I had bookmarked this recipe from Two Peas and Their Pod to make once I had Nutella and pumpkin in my pantry at the same time. I couldn't get the recipe out of my head, so that didn't take long.

It tasted really good, but all my Nutella clumped at the bottom when cooking. I did make it all in one loaf unlike their mini loaves, and that might have provided more stability for the chocolate!

Sweet Potato Pie with Rosemary Cornmeal Crust

2010-09-11T19:48:00.001-04:00

Sweet Potato Pie
Originally uploaded by watchjennybake.

This may seem a bit out of season, but I used rosemary from my garden, so that ties it into summer.

The recipe is from Southern Living. The crust is all-butter, requiring some extra chilling steps, but has a nice crunch to it with the cornmeal inside.

This wasn't really my thing. I probably wouldn't make it again, but at least I can say I have made this southern staple at least once!

G.O.R.P. Cookies

2010-09-04T12:05:00.003-04:00

A while back, we had eBook Boot Camp in the library, and I needed an appropriate snack. What do you have for boot camp other than G.O.R.P. (Good Old Raisins and Peanuts)?

Exactly. So I made these cookies. Because of the high amounts of sugar, these are crunchy, not chewy the way I prefer. That didn't stop other people from eating them!

G.O.R.P. Cookies

1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup margarine, room temp
1/2 cup butter, room temp
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
2 cups oats (I used non-instant)
1 1/2 cups flour
3/4 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
3/4 cup roasted peanuts
3/4 cup raisins

Cream together sugars, margarine, and butter. Add eggs and mix well. Add vanilla. Gradually mix in dry ingredients. Stir in peanuts and raisins by hand. Drop by spoonfuls on a parchment-paper lined cookie sheet, and bake for 12-14 minutes at 350.