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

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

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

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

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!

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

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

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

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

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

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)

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)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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!

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

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

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

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)

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

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

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!

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

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

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!

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

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....