alpineberry

Coffee, Beer, and Beer Coffee Cake

2012-02-12T15:55:00.000-05:00

I am quite taken by the treats in the pastry case at Blue Bottle Coffee. It seems that their pastries are meant to be paired with coffee. I guess third wave coffee places take into account "coffee pairing". It's similar to pairing wine or beer with food, but I think there is a bit more leeway when pairing food* with coffee.

Blue Bottle has olive oil rosemary shortbread, St. George Spirit's absinthe biscotti regina, and saffron snickerdoodles just to name a few. And there are the modern art inspired desserts at the SFMOMA location. But the most intriguing of the pastries is the stout coffee cake topped with pecan and caraway streusel. So in honor of SF Beer Week, a 10-day long festival that celebrates the amazing beers from Northern Californian breweries, I offer you this coffee cake recipe.

The stout coffee cakes at the Bay Area Blue Bottle locations are made with San Francisco's Magnolia's Stout of Circumstance (oatmeal stout, 6.20%ABV). For their Brooklyn location, they use Brooklyn Brewery’s Black Chocolate Stout (Russian imperial stout, 10.00%ABV). Since Magnolia does not sell bottles of their Stout of Circumstance I had to find an appropriate substitute. After consulting the guys at Healthy Spirits I decided on Fort Bragg's North Coast Brewing's Old Rasputin (Russian imperial stout, 9%ABV).

And although I am not much of a beer drinker, I am married to a beer geek. He leans towards IPAs (double hops, triple hops, oh my!). So beer is a big part of our lives. I absolutely adore this stout coffee cake. Mine tasted a bit different from the one Blue Bottle sells, but it's a pretty close approximation and almost as good.

I really enjoy caraway seeds so I use about 1.5 teaspoons (as opposed to just 1 teaspoon) in the streusel when I make this cake. If you're not a caraway fan, you can omit them, but I suggest using them at least once to fully appreciate what the pastry chef at BB intended. Caraway adds a very nice flavor and pairs well with the stout's maltiness and with a nice cup of coffee.

[*A lot of people say "Sriracha goes with everything", but my husband and I like to say that coffee goes with everything. But that is not always the case. When we are eating something that I don't think goes with coffee, I always ask my husband if what we're eating would go with coffee. Do you think this carnitas burrito goes with coffee? Bulgogi and kimchi? Salted fish fried rice? Rib eye steak with blue cheese butter? Um, not so much.]

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Nutella Rugelach Bar Cookies

2012-02-05T02:51:00.005-05:00

February 5th is World Nutella Day. American bloggers in Italy, Sara and Michelle, began the holiday in 2007 to celebrate and eat that wonderful chocolate hazelnut spread called Nutella.

I participated in that very first World Nutella Day in February 2007 by baking Nutella Cheesecake Brownies and again in 2008 with my Valentine's Day inspired heart-shaped Hazelnut Nutella Sandwich Cookies.

It's been far too long since I've used Nutella. So for this 6th annual World Nutella Day I am showing some chocolate hazelnut spread love with these Nutella-filled rugelach bar cookies. I found the recipe on Hungry Rabbit and he calls them "rugetella" since it's a combination of rugelach and Nutella.

I'm not sure what my problem is but I always have trouble rolling out and making the traditional crescent shapes when making rugelach. I mean, I can do it, but I seem to always end up with some very irregular shapes and sizes. So baking the cookies in a pan and cutting them into fingers/rectangles was so much easier for me. Same great taste and less work!

Since it's supposed to be all about Nutella, a chocolate HAZELNUT spread, I embarrassingly admit that I didn't have any hazelnuts and substituted walnuts in my cookie. It was a decent last minute substitution, but next time I will definitely use hazelnuts. My sincerest apologies to Nutella for this little faux pas.

All that cream cheese and butter definitely makes a very rich and extremely flaky dough. That's the beauty of rugelach dough. And it was a great showcase for Nutella, but I can see that a sour cherry jam or bitter orange marmalade would be great as well.

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Chocolate Malt Cake

2011-12-09T01:00:00.028-05:00

I absolutely loved reading Christina Tosi's Milk Bar cookbook. I loved reading about the development of her recipes as well as the process of creation through necessity. I will use much of the information as inspiration for my own experiments in the kitchen.

The book was like a glimpse into the mind of a sugar-fueled pastry savant. I actually read this cookbook from cover to cover. I read the forward and introduction. I read all the head notes, side notes and foot notes. I read through a lot of the recipes too. The book is organized into sections based on what Tosi calls "mother recipes".

Even though the mother recipes are not complicated, the sheer number of different components that can go into making any final completed dessert can be a bit overwhelming.

This chocolate malt cake is a perfect example of using multiple components to create a final product. Making milk crumbs to go into the berry and cream cookies was just one tiny step beyond making cookies without the milk crumbs. Making the oatmeal cookies from scratch to grind for the crack pie crust was just one tiny step beyond using commercial cookies to grind for the crust.

This chocolate malt cake has many tiny steps. Chocolate brownie-like cake layers are soaked with malted chocolate syrup, and then layered with a malt-fudge sauce, milk crumbs and toasted miniature marshmallows to create an over-the-top mess of sweetness. Thank goodness Tosi is fine with store-bought commercial marshmallows otherwise I would've made marshmallows from scratch too.

I made this cake (all the components and the assembly too) in one afternoon which may have contributed to feeling overwhelmed. But many components can be made ahead of time which is what I should have done. I forgot to add the Ovaltine to the milk crumbs so they are a bit pale. My cake layers sunk in the middle and it was hard to cut my finished cake into neat slices. But most of Tosi's desserts are not about the way they look. It's about the taste and a childlike sugar addiction!

This cake was sweet. And chocolaty. And malty. And totally excessive which can be a good or bad thing. I actually felt a little gross after eating a small slice. But I tend to get that way when having too much Ovaltine or other malted milk products. But if you're into this kind of thing (the sweet-chocolaty-malty-excessive part not the feeling gross part) then I suggest trying it out.

Alpineberry note: I actually made this cake using a recipe on the Bon Appetit magazine website before the Milk Bar cookbook was released. So the recipe below varies from the one in the Milk Bar cookbook.

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Bourbon Chocolate Bundt Cake

2011-11-15T01:00:00.005-05:00

Today is National Bundt Day. November 15th was first designated as such 5 years ago by Nordic Ware, a U.S.-based kitchenware company best know for their Bundt ™ pan. For the past 3 years Mary, The Food Librarian, has celebrated by making 30 bundts in the 30 days leading up to National Bundt Day. It's an impressive feat and I am amazed by how many different bundt-shaped pans she owns. It's quite a collection!

She asked her readers to join the fun by making a bundt of our very own. I decided to booze it up and make a bourbon-soaked chocolate bundt cake using a recipe I found in the New York Times. The recipe calls for 1 cup (250 ml) of bourbon or any other whiskey. That seems like a lot of alcohol and you can definitely taste it, but I don't think it's too much. I'm not at all a drinker and I thought it was the perfect amount of bourbon to go with the dark chocolate cake.

And what makes bourbon even better? Luxardo cherries of course! I jazzed up the cake up by drizzling it with a Luxardo cherry glaze. This cake is not quite breakfast food. Some people at the office were still drunk at lunch time. I'm only slightly kidding. :)

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Berry and Cream Cookies

2011-11-07T01:23:00.004-05:00

I guess I've been in a Christina Tosi mood lately. She's the pastry chef at Momofuku's Milk Bar in New York City and her Milk Bar cook book was just released in late October. I made Milk Bar's amazing crack pie recently (using the LA Times' version of her recipe not the recipe in the Milk Bar book which is slightly different) and her kitchen sink cookie, the compost cookie, remains one of my favorite go-to recipes. Then I saw Christina Tosi's blueberry and cream cookie recipe on Martha Stewart's site and I had to bake some right away. (BTW, the blueberry and cream cookie recipe in the Milk Bar book is different from the Martha Stewart one I used here.)

Tosi was inspired to make a cookie that tasted like a blueberry muffin and I have to agree that the dried blueberry version really does taste like the top of a blueberry muffin. The muffin top is the best part of the muffin, don’t you think? I think it's the addition of the milk crumbs. Even though the extra step of making the milk crumb streusel seems fussy, I think it's really the key to making this cookie taste like a muffin.

I've made these cookies using only dried blueberries and another batch using a mix of dried blueberries, cherries and strawberries. All photos in this post are from the mixed berry batch.

Instead of making 14 very large cookies like the recipe states, I usually make about 4 dozen small cookies since I have a lot of mouths to feed. It's all about portion control. I might have assumed that 14 very large cookies would have encouraged people to share since a single cookie is quite large, but they still take one whole cookie. If it's big, they take one. If it's small, they take one or maybe two. Even if they took two cookies there would still be 24 servings instead just 14.

If you have fewer mouths to feed or if you keep company with people who like to share, I recommend making them super large like the recipe states especially if you want cookies that have soft centers and crisp edges. It's hard to get that texture when the cookies are portioned out into 48 small ones. Even so, the small cookies are still really, really good.

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Povitica

2011-10-27T01:08:00.004-04:00

I love making yeasted enriched breads. Even though most enriched breads are more bread than pastry, the fact that they are enriched with milk, eggs and butter makes them seem more like dessert. For this month's Daring Bakers' challenge hostess Jenni asked us to make povitica, an Eastern European dessert bread. It can also be known as potica, nutroll, kolachi, or strudia.

I went old school and put away my Kitchen Aid stand mixer. The dough came together quickly and easily using a wooden spoon and a big mixing bowl. It was a sticky dough so I had to knead it for some time before it came together for the initial rise.

Then came the fun part - rolling and stretching. I covered my work surface with a large sheet of cheesecloth and started rolling out the dough with a rolling pin. The dough was really easy to work with and never stuck to the cheesecloth. When it got to about 18 x 18-inches, I lifted the dough off the cloth and started stretching it using the back of my hands and arms. The goal was to get it thin enough that I could read through it.

Dough so thin that I can read through it!

Jenni suggested that we try the traditional walnut filling, but I wanted to use poppy seeds. I used a poppy seed honey filling recipe that I normally use for filling hamentaschen. As you can see I didn't have enough filling to spread over all the edges, but it still turned out just fine. (In hindsight I should have spread the poppy seed filling thinner so that it covered more of the dough. The sliced loaf would have been prettier with evenly spaced layers of dough-filling-dough-filling. Oh well! Live and learn. )

Then I folded the rolled up poppy seed filled dough like a snake into my prepared loaf pan. For my other loaf, I spread the stretched dough with some apricot jam, a light sprinkle of finely ground almonds and some dried cranberries. I rolled it and then twisted the roll into the pan.

When the loaves came out of the oven I couldn't wait to slice into them. The smell was amazing. There really is nothing quite like the scent of freshly baked bread still hot from the oven. After patiently letting it cool in the pan for 30 minutes, I turned them out onto a wire rack.

They tasted as good as they looked. The dough had a hint of sweetness and was very moist. Both flavors were delicious, but my favorite one was the cranberry. Even though I am on a self-imposed low-carb diet, I had a slice a day until the cranberry loaf was all gone!

Who knew something so pretty would be so easy to make? A big thanks to Jenni for the recipe and please visit the Daring Kitchen for a slideshow of other bakers' poviticas.

The fine print:
The Daring Baker’s October 2011 challenge was Povitica, hosted by Jenni of The Gingered Whisk. Povitica is a traditional Eastern European Dessert Bread that is as lovely to look at as it is to eat!

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Crack Pie

2011-10-05T18:21:00.002-04:00

If you follow the food media, then you know about crack pie. I mean, Crack Pie ™. Yup, I believe that Momofuku has trademarked the name. I did not have a chance to visit Momofuku's Milk Bar during my last visit to New York City, but I will definitely go to Milk Bar during my next trip to NYC. And I will try Christina Tosi's Crack Pie ™. If the real thing tastes anything like the pie I baked today, then I will gladly pay $44 for the pie. Although, if the real thing does taste anything like the pie I baked today, then I actually don't need to buy the pie ever again since I can do it myself.

When I first set out to make the crack pie, I wasn't sure which recipe to use. Searching the internet resulted in 2 or 3 "official" recipes from Tosi. Her Milk Bar cook book is coming out this month and it will probably have yet another version of the recipe. I decided to go with the recipe published in the LA Times.

The recipe yields two 10-inch pies. I don't have any 10-inch pie pans, so I used one 9-inch pie pan (1-inch deep) and one 10-inch tart pan (3/4-inch deep). My pie version had a lower crust to filling ratio. The bottom crust was less distinct and melded into the thick and gooey layer of filling. My tart version had a higher crust to filling ratio. The crust stayed distinct and crisp. The thin layer of filling was less gooey and a tad more set than the filling in the pie version.

I had a hard time deciding which version I liked more. If I had to pick only one then I choose the tart version. I really liked how crisp the salty and sweet toasted oatmeal cookie crust was in the tart. It had a perfect amount of the sweet, buttery filling. Not too much and not too little.

^tart version^

^pie version^

The pie version was delicious too, but most of the bottom crust was slightly softened with the yummy filling and was not crisp enough for me. The side crust stayed crisp, but I wanted more crispy crust with every bite of my slice and not just at the edge. A 10-inch pie pan would actually result in the perfect ratio of filling to crust and just the right crispiness which is probably why the recipe says to use 10-inch pie pans (duh!). I will be running out soon to buy a couple pans since I will definitely be making this pie again.

There is an incredible amount of hype surrounding this pie. Many swoon over it. But there are just as many haters. Many of the dissenters have tried the pie at Milk Bar and were less than impressed. They tried the real thing and felt it was just so-so and would never pay to eat it again. I have no problem with that. But even more of the dissenters are people who have not tasted the Milk Bar Crack Pie ™ and have only tasted their own homemade version made using one of those "official" recipes. A lot of people are flabbergasted that anyone would have the nerve to charge $44 (or whatever price) for a simple pie and criticize a pie's cost instead of the taste of said pie. A more fair criticism would be that they would never pay $44 for the pie they made.

[BTW...Yes, I know we're in a recession and $44 for any pie in any economic climate can be considered excessive, but this is a luxury item not unlike $5 lattes or $100,000 cars.]

Initially I was a little worried about serving my crack pie since it's quite cosmetically challenged. It's very brown. Even the dusting of powdered sugar didn’t help dress it up. It was hard to slice and get out of the pan cleanly. When I set the pie out to serve, I wasn't sure what to call it. Should I just say it's a chess pie with a salty, toasted oatmeal cookie crust? Would it be presumptuous to label it "crack" pie? What if people didn't get the name? Or even worse, what if they did get it and didn't agree that it was as addictive as crack? My worries were totally unfounded. Everyone who tried my pie absolutely loved it and said it totally lived up to its name. Someone told me that butter is her favorite food group.

Crack Pie
(Recipe from LA Times February 11, 2010)
Makes two 10-inch pies

LA Times Note: Adapted from Momofuku. This pie calls for two 10-inch pie tins. You can substitute two 9-inch pie tins, but note that the pies will require additional baking time, about 5 minutes, due to the increased thickness of the filling.

Alpineberry Notes:

-- Instead of a 9x13 pan to bake the oatmeal cookies, I used a half-sheet pan and spread the batter out to about 9x13.

-- Instead of two 10-inch pie pans, I used one 9-inch pie pan and one 10-inch tart pan.

-- My baking time for the pies was different from what is stated in the LA Times recipe. My total baking time was 40 minutes (350F for 20 minutes and then 325F for 20 minutes).

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Cocoa Oatmeal Muffins

2011-09-27T15:41:00.000-04:00

I totally wanted to dust off my rolling pin and participate in this month's Daring Bakers' croissant challenge, but I just couldn't find enough time to fit it in before the posting deadline. Croissants have been on my baking to-do list forever and I don't think I will be marking it off anytime soon.

I've been baking less since I've been trying to eat less sugar lately. I don't like using sugar substitutes like stevia (Truvia), sucralose (Splenda) or aspartame (Equal, Nutrasweet). They all have a funny aftertaste. And those sugar substitutes don't do well in most baked goods anyway since real sugar not only adds sweetness but aerates, moistens and adds structure to the baked good. Sugar substitutes can only add sweetness.

This cocoa oatmeal muffin is by no means health food and is definitely not low in sugar or fat. It is seemingly healthy due to the oatmeal. I love the deep, rich flavor of the unsweetened cocoa powder. And as strange as this might sound, it tastes just like a bowl of oatmeal (but with chocolate!).

Cocoa Oatmeal Muffins
(makes 15-18 muffins)

2 cups old-fashioned rolled oats (not quick-cooking)
2 cups buttermilk (low fat is okay)
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder (natural not Dutch-processed)
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp kosher salt
2 large eggs
3/4 cup granulated sugar
2/3 cup vegetable oil (like canola or grapeseed)
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
1/2 cup chopped bittersweet chocolate (optional)

Preheat oven to 350 F. Line 15-18 standard-sized muffin wells with cupcake liners.

Combine rolled oats and buttermilk in a large mixing bowl. Let mixture sit at room temperature for about 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.

In another bowl, whisk flour, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder and salt to combine. Set aside the dry ingredients.

Add eggs to the oats-buttermilk mixture and mix well. Add sugar and mix well. Then add oil and vanilla extract and mix well.

Add the flour-cocoa mixture to the wet ingredients and fold until the dry ingredients are just incorporated. Gently fold in chopped chocolate (if using). Do not over mix. The batter should still be slightly lumpy.

Fill your muffin wells about 3/4 full. Bake at 350 F until muffin tops have risen slightly and a cake tester inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean (a few crumbs are okay), about 20-25 minutes.

Baklava

2011-06-27T00:08:00.015-04:00

Whenever I think of fresh handmade phyllo I always think about Shaharazad Bakery, a little shop in the Sunset district of San Francisco. The shop has been closed for years now, but from what I remember, the owner made excellent phyllo. A true artisan. I think he was the only person in San Francisco who sold fresh phyllo dough made by hand. He had a table in the back room that was just the right size for pulling out the dough. Sadly the shop closed when he retired.

For this month's Daring Bakers' challenge, host Erica asked us to make our own phyllo dough. It's so much easier to grab a box from the freezer section at the market, but making phyllo isn't that hard. The recipe Erica provided was the exact same recipe as the strudel dough recipe we used for the May 2009 Daring Bakers' challenge. The only difference was the rolling method. For the strudel, we rolled and stretched the dough into one big sheet. For the phyllo, we cut off small balls of dough and rolled each ball into a thin sheet. Rick Rodger's recipe is a really good one and it's so easy to handle.

Erica also wanted us to use our phyllo to make baklava. Baklava is a dessert made of layers of buttered phyllo and nuts. After it's baked, you pour a hot sugar or honey syrup all over and allow it to soak in. It's not difficult to make since most of the work is just assembling the layers. Oh, but then there's the waiting. It needs to sit in that syrup for a few hours to soak up all that sweet liquid goodness before you can eat it. If you want instant gratification, then you need to look elsewhere.

I'm not sure what nuts make a baklava an authentic one. The internet has a lot of "traditional" or "authentic" baklava recipes using all kinds of nuts. So for my nut filling, I used whatever I had in the house - walnuts, almonds and white sesame seeds. My husband thought the sesame seeds gave the baklava a vaguely Asian flavor that he found a bit overwhelming, but I really liked the sesame flavor. I've always found baklava too sweet which is why I never make or eat it, but I think that sweetness is the appeal of baklava for most people. So if you like 'em syrupy sweet, then this baklava recipe is for you. But I'm a girl who can eat her pancakes without maple syrup or butter so I won't be making baklava again any time soon.

The fine print:
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.
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Burger Macarons

2011-06-08T00:59:00.008-04:00

For months I have been obsessed with the idea of a Parisian macaron (gerbet) that looks like a burger. I finally got around to making some just in time to celebrate the upcoming Father's Day, a day typically associated with the outdoors and firing up the grill, on June 19th. And what is more father- and grill- friendly than burgers?

The macarons that I make always seem to look like little burgers. So instead of fighting my macaron's burger-like quality, I decided to embrace it fully with these whimsical "burger" macarons. I sprinkled some sesame seeds on my macaron shells before baking them so that they would look like burger buns.

For the burger patty, I felt a ganache or buttercream would be too smooth. I wanted something that had the texture of a real burger. So I made a chunky sesame butter by grinding sesame seeds with a bit of oil and salt. I combined that with some melted milk chocolate. I used milk instead of semisweet or bittersweet since its mild chocolate flavor would not overwhelm that of the sesame. I formed the chocolate sesame mixture into patties.

To complete the burger theme I had to come up with a couple garnishes. I didn't want to use colored fondant since that would be just for looks and not flavor. I wanted to use ingredients that would complement the milk chocolate and sesame filling as well as the almond shell. I like the combination of sesame with coconut, so I tinted some dried, shredded coconut with a tiny bit of green food dye. Voila - lettuce! And for those that like a little tomato on their burger, I thinly sliced sour cherries.

I haven't quite gotten the hang of making a good looking macaron shell yet. I keep trying but my shell is not correct. It's always smooth but very tissue thin instead of delicately sturdy. But at least my shells are not wrinkled. And I still haven't eliminated that air pocket under the shell. Oh, and that foot. The ruffled foot is never quite right. It sticks out beyond the border of the shell.

I've been using the French meringue method where the granulated sugar is beaten in with the egg whites. After so many not quite successful attempts using the French meringue method, I think I should explore other ones like the Italian meringue method where a hot sugar syrup is added to the egg whites. All in due time.

But in the meantime, please enjoy the cuteness of my "burger" macarons.

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Maple Mousse

2011-04-27T02:12:00.001-04:00

This month's Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Evelyne who asked us to make a maple mousse. Evelyne is from Quebec where spring typically begins with a pilgrimage to a sugar shack ("Cabane a Sucre"). The party continues with a feast of eggs, ham, peas, pork rinds, beans, pancakes, bacon and pies - all served with maple syrup.

The maple mousse recipe she gave us makes a mousse that is silky smooth with a pure maple flavor. There's really no substitute for the flavor of real maple. I had a couple different bottles of maple syrup in my pantry, but since this challenge was about the sugar shack tradition I used the syrup from Canada.

She also asked us to make an "edible container" to fill with our maple mousse. Her suggestion was to make a bacon cup, but she gave us the freedom to make any vessel for the mousse as long as it was edible. And even though the Daring Kitchen was having a contest for the most creative container, I was feeling very uncreative. I ultimately made tart shells from desiccated coconut and maple syrup.

I really liked the flavor of the maple mousse with the coconut tart shell. The shell had a toasted nutty flavor that complemented the maple mousse. The coconut shell was very much a like a crispier version of a coconut macaroon. The only problem I encountered was trying to get the shells out of my muffin tin without breaking.

Since both the maple syrup mousse and coconut shells were on the very sweet side, I decided to add some chocolate to half of my tarts. I had some bittersweet chocolate ganache leftover from another baking project so I added a layer of ganache to the coconut shells before layering on the maple mousse. It's a strange idea to add chocolate to cut the overall sweetness of the tart, but it really did tame it since the chocolate was on the dark side (85% cacao). I liked the addition of chocolate, but felt that it overpowered the maple mousse. I think Evelyne was right to suggest bacon as an accompaniment. The savory bacon would have went nicely with and cut the sweetness of the mousse without hiding the maple flavor.

Thanks to Evelyne for a fun challenge. That's another notch on my Daring Bakers' belt. This is the 43rd challenge I've participated in since joining the group in February 2007! Check out the other DB creations at the Daring Kitchen and be sure to vote for your favorite edible container.

Blog-checking lines: The April 2011 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Evelyne of the blog Cheap Ethnic Eatz. Evelyne chose to challenge everyone to make a maple mousse in an edible container. Prizes are being awarded to the most creative edible container and filling, so vote on your favorite from April 27th to May 27th at http://thedaringkitchen.com!
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Snickerdoodle Blondies

2011-04-11T16:43:00.004-04:00

I don’t know how I came across the snickerdoodle blondie. I was most likely food porn gawking taste spotting photo grazing when I spied a photograph of them. The cinnamon flecked crackly sugar crust atop the moist blondie base was so inviting that I could practically smell the vanilla cinnamon scent that's so characteristic of snickerdoodles. I could not wait to whip up a batch.

After some link hopping I found Julia's blog Dozen Flours and the recipe for this genius creation. Generally speaking, the name blondie means that it's a brownie without chocolate (and therefore blond instead of brunette). And, believe me; you will not miss the chocolate since the cinnamon sugar topping makes these blondies wipe-the-drool- from-your-face-insanely delicious.

I felt like I had died and gone to heaven when I took my first bite of the still warm from the oven snickerdoodle blondie. For a brief moment heaven was a playground covered in cinnamon sugar sand. I hope you feel the same way.

Other goodies you might like:
Snickerdoodle cupcakes
Snickerdoodle cookies
Cardamom cupcakes with chai frosting

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Meringue Coffee Cake

2011-03-27T00:04:00.001-04:00

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.

Even though it's called a coffee cake it does not contain any coffee (unless you want to use coffee as a flavoring then it would be a coffee coffee cake). It's also less of a cake than it is a bread. But if a bread contains enough butter, eggs, milk or sugar, I guess it can be called a cake. Regardless of its name, you can call it delicious.

The yeasted dough was a breeze to handle. After kneading, it was smooth and not at all sticky. After it had risen and was ready to be filled, the dough offered no resistance to the rolling pin. In fact, I didn’t even use a rolling pin for the second half of my dough. I just patted it out into a rectangle.

At first the meringue seemed like an unusual addition, but the meringue acted like a neutral binding layer between the dough and the ingredients in the filling. Upon baking, the meringue had melted and soaked into the bread leaving behind a hint of sweetness and allowed the filling to shine through. I filled mine with five spice powder, walnuts and chocolate chips.

The only tricky part was to roll it up jelly roll style and then into a ring without squeezing out any of the filling and meringue. I also needed to be sure the seams were well pinched so all the filling and meringue stayed inside.

For my first ring I cut slits in the shaped dough after the dough's second rise, but the cutting seemed to deflate it a bit. So for my second ring, I cut the slits immediately after I had filled and shaped it and let it do its second rise already cut. No deflation here.

As much as I like the sweet filled bread, after tasting it I knew that this dough would be equally good in a savory application. After my office's weight loss challenge ends next month and I can allow myself to indulge a bit every once in a while, I am definitely going to use this dough with ingredients like cheese or pork.

From the feedback I received, it seemed that this cake had a nostalgic quality to it. Quite a few tasters mentioned that it reminded them of something their grandmothers baked. That's the best compliment that I could receive.

Thanks to Jamie and Ria for a lovely and versatile recipe. Please check out what the other Daring Bakers created by heading over to our kitchen.

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Dreaming

2011-03-07T21:03:00.004-05:00

I realized that I was pretty cranky when I wrote my previous post. I blame it on my diet. I'm participating in a New Year's weight loss challenge at the office. We're in week 8 right now and even though I'm doing fairly well - there are 20 participants and I am currently in the top 3 overall "losers" - I am constantly dreaming about food. In the beginning I was dreaming about pizza from Flour+Water, but now I am dreaming about dessert.

Being on a diet and living in one of the best food cities in the country has been tough, but I guess dieting is tough no matter where you live. Over the past two months I've learned to adjust my eating habits. I've always had fairly decent habits. I eat lots of vegetables and fruits, very little processed/packaged foods, and 98% of the time my drink of choice is plain water. I always bring my lunch to work and my husband and I only eat dinner out 2 or 3 times a month. But my portion size was out of control and desserts were hard for me to pass up. So instead of changing what I eat, I've just changed how much I eat. Before I put any food in my mouth, I always stop and ask myself if it's worth using my limited daily allotment of calories on it.

I can still have a 4505 Meats cheddar bratwurst when I go to the Ferry Building, but instead of eating the whole thing, I will eat a third of the bratwurst and none of that delicious bread that it comes nestled in. On the bright side, I can have all the sauerkraut I want. And that 4505 sauerkraut is definitely yummy enough to make me almost forget the other two-thirds of the bratwurst. I've survived Chinese New Year celebrations, fried chicken and cream biscuits at Prospect, and a pasta tasting at Perbacco.

You would think that I could make things easier on myself if I stopped baking during the weight loss challenge. But asking me to stop baking is like asking me to stop breathing. I just cannot survive without it. And I have been baking a lot lately. Most of it's been tempting, but not blog worthy. I've been able to resist the florentine cookies and lemon mousse cake I made for the Daring Bakers' challenges as well as the chocolate cake I made for Valentine's Day. I usually take one or two bites of what I make just for quality control purposes. Have you ever had just one bite of chocolate cake? It's really, really hard to stop after just one bite. But I did. And that's how it's been for weeks.

But my resolve is starting to wane. And it's all because of these damned pumpkin donut muffins. Damn the internet for bringing these to my attention. Damn Martha Stewart. Damn. Damn. Damn.

These baked pumpkin donut muffins are so hard to resist. They are insanely good. Baking them in a miniature muffin pan gives them the appearance of donut holes which adds to their appeal. They are moist and spicy with that lovely crackly sugar coating.

One bite and I was hooked. I could not stop at just one bite. One bite turned into 2 into 4 into 10. I ended up eating two whole mini muffins. And, yeah, I know, those calories are not going to hurt me, but in the long run every calorie adds up. I guess it just means that I have to stay on that treadmill a little bit longer.

Although I am now constantly dreaming about these pumpkin donut muffins, they are way too dangerous for me to make again. However, the recipe is too good to keep to myself. So bake 'em at your own risk.
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Creamy Not Dreamy

2011-02-27T00:08:00.006-05:00

I've always been on the fence about panna cotta. I've eaten both sweet and savory panna cottas quite a few times, but only when it's part of a restaurant's tasting menu or as an amuse bouche. My most recent one was a savory cauliflower panna cotta with caviar. I would never actually order panna cotta if I had a choice. It's not something I gravitate towards. And I'm not a fan Giada de Laurentis and the Food Network either, but they came together for this month's Daring Bakers' challenge.

Hostess Mallory from A Sofa in the Kitchen asked us to make Giada's panna cotta from the Food Network website. And since making the panna cotta didn’t involve any baking, Mallory randomly threw in a cookie recipe for us to try too. I really wanted to skip this month, but I felt that I should participate since I had the time and both recipes were pretty easy.

Panna cotta is an eggless custard. The most basic sweet version is cream and milk cooked with some kind of sweetener (like sugar or honey) and then some gelatin is added to stiffen it up. If you plan to serve the panna cotta in a cup or goblet, then you can get away with less gelatin. If you want to unmold the panna cotta onto a plate and expect it to somewhat hold its shape, then a tad more is needed. But panna cotta should never be stiff enough to "wiggle and jiggle" like Jell-O.

I desperately wanted to like this month's panna cotta. I tried to stack the deck in the panna cotta's favor by using some great ingredients - Tahitian vanilla bean, orange blossom honey, Strauss Family Creamery heavy cream and milk. I plated my panna cotta with a sauce I made with bitter orange marmalade and homemade citrus simple syrup (that I had left over from making candied citrus peels). The sauce went really well with the sweet, creamy panna cotta. Sadly I was not converted. It was a waste of good ingredients. My panna cotta turned out very smooth and creamy, but I guess I just don't like panna cotta. Now I finally know what side of the fence I am firmly planted.

chocolate glazed oatmeal florentine cookie sitting next to the panna cotta

I liked that the florentine cookie recipe that Mallory chose for us was a simple one bowl recipe that came together quickly. And even though the cookies were not really in line with my own personal preferences, I will most likely make the cookies again in the future. The florentine cookie tasted fine on its own, but I thought it was a strange addition to the panna cotta. They did not pair well together at all.

Can you tell that I was not excited about this month's challenge? I know, I know. That's not the Daring Bakers' spirit that I should be exhibiting. Maybe it was too hard to top the grandeur of last month's jaconde imprime wrapped entremets challenge?

My own preferences (or should I say prejudices?) aside, people seemed to enjoy the dessert. I got quite a few requests for the panna cotta recipe so it must have been pretty good. So don't let my dislike of panna cotta turn you off. Try it and decide for yourself.

Blog-checking lines: 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.

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Lemon Mousse Cake

2011-01-27T00:01:00.043-05:00

This month's Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Astheroshe of the blog accro. She challenged us to make a biscuit joconde imprime to wrap around an entremets dessert. A joconde imprime is a decorative design baked into a light sponge cake providing an elegant finish to desserts/torts/entremets/ formed in ring molds. Entremets is an ornate dessert with different layers of cake and pastry creams in a mold. The joconde imprime is the outside cake wrapper of the entremets dessert.

The only requirement this month was to learn the technique of the joconde imprime. We could make any size or shape entremets and we were allowed to fill our entremets with anything we liked. When the challenge was revealed to us in the DB private forum, I was quite excited to try my hand at something so beautiful. Those fancy decorated cake-wrapped desserts in patisseries have always fascinated me. I just assumed that it was difficult and best left to the professionals.

At first glance making an entremets seems intimidating. And I won't lie. There are many steps. But each step was not difficult at all.

The cake wrapper is made of two different cake batters - the decor paste and a sponge. The decor paste is spread thinly (or piped out) onto a silicone lined sheet pan and a design is made in the paste. I made diagonal stripes using a cocoa decor paste. The lines are a little crooked and unevenly spaced since I was doing it free hand.

To make sure the design isn't disturbed, the designed paste is placed in the freezer to harden a bit before pouring the sponge cake batter over it. Gently spread out the sponge cake batter evenly without disturbing the decor paste design.

After it has baked and cooled slightly, turn it out of the pan. Let it cool with the decorated side up. My cake is sitting on a powdered sugar dusted sheet of parchment paper on a wire rack. The powdered sugar helps prevent the undecorated side of the cake from sticking to the parchment and the parchment keeps it from sticking to the wire rack.

Determine how much cake you will need to create the wrapper. (The formula for the circumference of a circle comes in handy.) I cut some strips of parchment paper as a template and fit them inside my 8-inch diameter ring mold to make sure it was correct. Then I used those strips of parchment as a template for cutting out two strips of decorated cake.

Fit the decorated cake strips around the inside of the ring mold (decorated side out). Make sure the strips and the bottom cake round fit snugly in the mold. I used an 8-inch cake pan with a removable bottom as my mold. Now it's ready to be filled.

I made a lemon mousse to fill my entremets. The mousse was a combination of homemade lemon curd (a great way to use up some of the egg yolks leftover from making the joconde) and whipped heavy cream. And it was all fortified with a bit of gelatin. The cake strips and rounds were soaked with a tart and sweet lemon syrup. Then I topped it all off with a thin layer of gelatinized lemon curd.

As you can see from the photo below, for the middle cake round I just pieced together an 8-inch diameter round from whatever cake I had leftover after cutting out strips of the decorated joconde. I didn't want to waste or make more cake than I needed.

I think I did a decent job for my first try at a joconde imprime and entremets. The finished cake was so pretty. The joconde sponge cake was delicious, moist and very easy to work with. The mousse was light and lemony. And the lemon curd topping really gave the dessert a big lemon zing.

This was a great challenge. I would have never tried this on my own. Now that I know how simple it is to do I plan on making entremets of all flavors. Thanks to the host Astheroshe and all the Daring Bakers!

Blog-checking lines: 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.

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My New Favorite

2010-12-18T00:08:00.002-05:00

When I was in London in October I made sure we had time to have lunch at Ottolenghi. Ottolenghi is everything I want in a food shop. Huge platters and bowls of the most colorful and delicious salads. I'm not talking about sad wilted lettuce greens with a couple of chunks of pale tomatoes. I'm talking about grilled broccolini with mild red chili peppers and toasted garlic or roasted potatoes with sunchokes, olives, lemon and sage or red rice and quinoa with orange, pistachios and arugula.

But Ottolenghi is really known for their lovely pastries, cakes and cookies piled high on cake stands and trays. From obscenely large multicolored, multiflavored meringues to perfectly precious cupcakes, muffins and teacakes and bow tied cellophane bags of cheese straws or cookies, their abundant display of baked goods beckons you inside.

I find the place stylish yet unpretentious. It isn't frou-frou or fancy. Just great imaginative food done well with quality ingredients. Even though San Francisco is a food mecca, I have yet to find someplace similar.

I first tasted these amaretti at Ottolenghi's Islington location. Like most things in London, they were not cheap. 5.50 GBP for a bag of 7 cookies. Since it's basically lightly whipped egg whites stirred into ground almonds, I could easily make them at home. Armed with my copy of the Ottolenghi cookbook, I cranked out a batch of the amaretti. Two days later I baked another batch. And yet another batch.

This amaretti is now my new favorite cookie. I used dried apricots, bergamot orange zest and orange blossom honey in the ones pictured. But this recipe is so versatile that any dried fruit and citrus zest you like can be used. I like dried cherries with orange zest, dried blueberries with lemon zest or dried cranberries with lime zest. You can use any honey you like or even agave nectar.

My amaretti always seem to turn out a bit softer than the ones sold by Ottolenghi, but I'm not complaining. They have a wonderful almond flavor that is given a spark by the citrus zest. I love the jewel like nuggets of apricots. I think the powdered sugar coating is non-negotiable but the cookies will taste just as lovely without it.

Amaretti
(adapted from Ottolenghi: The Cookbook)
(makes 20 biscuits/cookies)

180 grams ground blanched almonds
120 grams sugar (granulated, superfine or caster)
1 tablespoon finely grated citrus zest
a pinch of kosher salt
2 large egg whites
1 tablespoon honey
1/2 tsp pure natural almond extract
60 g dried fruit, roughly chopped
powdered or icing sugar for rolling

[Note: For this recipe I always weigh my almonds and sugar so I cannot vouch for the volume measurements. According to joyofbaking.com, 180 grams finely ground almonds = 1 3/4 cups and 120 grams granulated sugar = 1/2 cup + 1 tablespoon + 2 teaspoons.]

Preheat your oven to 170C/340F. In a large mixing bowl, mix together the ground almonds, sugar, citrus zest and salt. Rub everything together with your fingertips to disperse the zest evenly. Alternatively, give it quick whirl in a food processor.

Using a stand or hand mixer, whip the egg whites and honey until medium peaks form. Fold the meringue and almond extract into the almond and sugar mixture. Add dried fruit. Your dough should be a soft but malleable paste.

With your hands, roll the dough into 20 balls or logs or whatever irregular shape you desire. Roll them in powdered sugar. (I like to use a small ice cream disher to scoop out 20 balls of dough. Then I shape each ball into a flattened log and roll them in powdered sugar.)

Place on a baking sheet tray lined with parchment paper and bake at 170C/340F for about 12 minutes. They should turn a very light golden color, but stay relatively pale and chewy in the center.

Cardamom Cupcakes with Masala Chai Frosting

2010-11-11T21:47:00.001-05:00

This truly autumnal cupcake is chocked full of warm spices like cinnamon, ginger, clove and cardamom. I topped it with a masala chai frosting to complement the spices in the cupcake.

Chai is the generic word for tea in many South Asian countries. So when you hear someone say "chai tea" they are actually saying "tea tea" without realizing it. In America chai usually means masala chai which is a brewed tea with spices, some kind of sweetener and milk.

For my frosting I began by making a custard. That may sound a bit strange, but it's something I've been trying out lately when making frosting. I steep warm milk with a healthy dose of my desired flavoring (like tea or coffee) to create a fragrant and flavorful brew. I combine it with egg yolks, sugar and cornstarch and cook it until it becomes slightly thickened. Then I beat the custard until it cools down before adding the butter.

I have used this custard method frosting with loose tea leaves, coffee beans or fresh herbs like mint and thyme. This time I took a short cut by using spiced black tea bags instead of using loose black tea leaves and whole spices and it worked pretty well.

chai custard

The tea custard base makes for a very rich and silky buttercream frosting that has a lovely spicy tea flavor and isn't too sweet. This frosting might be a bit too soft to hold its shape after piping so if you're hoping to do that, you can always leave out the 2 tablespoons of honey and mix in 3 or 4 tablespoons (or more if you like) powdered sugar to help stiffen up the frosting.

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Looks Like A Donut

2010-10-27T00:05:00.007-04:00

Hostess Lori of "Butter Me Up" gave us not one, but four donut recipes to use for this month's Daring Bakers' challenge. And she let us play with any flavors we wanted. With so much freedom you'd think that I could've completed the challenge as asked. But I did not.

Yes, I made donuts. But instead of deep frying my donuts, I baked my donuts. My baked donuts looked like donuts, but they didn't really taste like donuts. I mean, they tasted good, but they were not donuts. I really don't think you can call it a donut unless it's been fried. And for my baked donuts I didn't even use one of the four DB recipes provided. I used a recipe from the back of the baked donut pan that I bought. I'm a bad Daring Baker.

fully baked but super pale on top

But I had an excuse. I just got back from a 10-day trip to the United Kingdom and I didn’t want to deal with deep frying anything in a vat of hot oil. I just wanted to eat a huge flavorful carne asada burrito at my favorite taqueria. I just wanted to go to the farmers' market and get some much needed vegetables and fruit. I just wanted to cuddle with my cat and get over the jet-lag. I just wanted to watch the SF Giants make it to the World Series. :) That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Blog-checking lines: The October 2010 Daring Bakers challenge was hosted by Lori of Butter Me Up. Lori chose to challenge DBers to make doughnuts. She used several sources for her recipes including Alton Brown, Nancy Silverton, Kate Neumann and Epicurious.

To see the recipes provided by Lori for the challenge, just click here.

BAKED DONUTS
(adapted from the recipe that came with the Wilton donut pan)
(makes 12 donuts)

2 cups cake flour, sifted
3/4 cup granulated sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp salt
2/3 cup buttermilk
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
5 tbsp unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly

Preheat oven to 425°F. Spray Wilton donut pan with nonstick cooking spray.

In large mixing bowl, sift together cake flour, sugar, baking powder, nutmeg and salt. Add buttermilk, eggs and butter and beat until just combined. Fill each donut cup of the Wilton donut pan approximately 2/3 full.

Bake 7–9 minutes or until the top of the donuts spring back when touched. Let cool in pan for 4–5 minutes before removing. Finish donuts with glaze. Donuts are best served fresh.

Maple Glaze

1 cup powdered sugar
3 tbsp maple syrup
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

In small bowl, stir together sugar, maple syrup and vanilla extract until sugar is completely dissolved. If glaze is too thick, mix in a few drops of water until the consistency is to your liking. Use immediately to glaze donuts.

Apples and Plums

2010-10-08T02:57:00.002-04:00

Apples

The local apple season typically begins with the floral and crisp Gravenstein apples showing up at the farmers' market around mid-August. Four weeks later the Gravensteins are all gone, but that's when the season really kicks into high gear. Every Saturday at the Ferry Building farmers' market during apple season, I can find no less than 25 different varieties of just harvested apples. Most are heirloom varieties. Every characteristic you would want in an apple can be found: tart, sweet, floral, spicy, herbaceous, winy, tropical, good for baking, cooking and eating out of hand.

Last weekend I picked up all kinds: Spitzenburg, Bramley Seedling, Cinnamon Spice, Connell red, Mutsu, Hawaiian, Winesap, Kino's Orange Red, Idared. I wish I could've brought home more, but my husband and I can only eat so many apples in a week.

My original intention was to make some applesauce with my bounty, but the apples were all too fresh and delicious to not grab and eat. So I didn't have any left to make my applesauce, but that didn't stop me from making this applesauce quick bread. Whether you use store bought applesauce (like I did this time) or make your own batch of homemade goodness (like I had originally intended), this quick bread, like the name implies, is so simple and easy to make.

Plums

It's a little strange to be writing about plums and apples in the same post since plums are typically a late summer fruit and apples are definitely an autumnal treat. I am quite sad that the summer stone fruit season is over, but I am very happy that autumn and the apple season is here.

When I was at the farmers' market a couple weeks ago, I found some tiny blue damson plums. Damson plums are normally used for making jam but I decided to use them in a "tart/cookie". For my "crust" I used the sugar cookie dough that I had leftover from the last Daring Bakers' challenge since the sugar cookie dough that we used was pretty much a pate sablee (sweet tart dough).

I cut my rolled cookie dough into 3-inch rounds and fanned out slices of the damson plums. I sprinkled them with some turbinado sugar and then baked them at 350 until the edges were lightly golden brown. It was a lovely way to use up the rest of the cookie dough and to celebrate the last of the summer plums.

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Decorated Sugar Cookies

2010-09-27T02:54:00.001-04:00

For September's Daring Bakers' challenge hostess Mandy of "What the Fruitcake" asked everyone to make decorated sugar cookies. I've never been a fan of rolled sugar cookies. Maybe because I suck at rolling out anything at all. Whether it's a pie crust or cookie dough, I'm just not good at it. I'm an even lesser fan of decorated sugar cookies. Maybe it's because I suck at decorating especially when it involves piping. And for the record, I am also not a fan of those "ace-of-cakes-cake-boss" cakes.

Mandy chose a sugar cookie recipe from Peggy Porschen. I had no idea who she is so I had to Google her. She is the pastry chef/proprietor of a bespoke cake business in the UK. After checking out her website I realized that her work seemed familiar to me. It turns out that the publishing house Clarkson Potter had sent me a courtesy copy of her book "Simple Spectacular Cakes". Her work with cakes and cookies is absolutely stunning, but I still wouldn't want to waste my calories on a decorated sugar cookie. I always find sugar cookies way too sweet. And when you add the icing on top, well, that's just a toothache waiting to happen.

Mandy also wanted our cookies to showcase what September means to us. September has always meant back to school. But it also means that the California apple season is in full swing. So I decided to decorate my sugar cookies like apples.

I decorated my cookies using the using the "flooding" method. “Flooding” a cookie is a technique used when covering a cookie with royal icing. First, using the royal icing, I outlined the area I want to flood. The outline acts as a dam. Then I filled or flooded inside the outlined area. My flooding did not go as well as I hoped. To get a good flood of icing, the icing must be at the correct consistency. I thought that my icing was fluid enough to fill the area that I had outlined, but it was still too thick. So to cover the surface I had to spread the icing using the tip of the pastry bag. And while I was spreading it around with the pastry tip, more icing was flowing out of the pastry bag onto the surface. So my cookies ended up with a pretty thick layer of icing.

I'm not very good at decorating so I thought my apple cookies just seemed a bit sad and pathetic. So I came up with a plan to sandwich the apples cookies with a salted caramel filling and shove a stick in it. Ta-dah! Caramel apples on a stick!

I made the salted caramel filling by making a caramel sauce and adding a healthy pinch of Maldon sea salt. When the sauce cooled down I added a little bit of room temperature butter and some powdered sugar until I liked the consistency.

The finished cookies were still way too sweet for me and a little difficult to eat on a stick, but they were way more interesting than what I had before.

The fine print:
The September 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Mandy of "What the Fruitcake?!" Mandy challenged everyone to make Decorated Sugar Cookies based on recipes from Peggy Porschen and The Joy of Baking.

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Baked Alaska

2010-08-27T01:02:00.001-04:00

For this month's Daring Bakers' challenge, hostess Elissa asked us to use beurre noisette (more commonly known as browned butter) to make a cake. But there is nothing common about browned butter. It's butter that has been heated until its milk solids turn brown. The browned milk solids impart that toasty, nutty flavor and scent that is characteristic of beurre noisette.

Elissa wanted us to use the browned butter cake in one or two ways: baked Alaska and ice cream petit fours. Baked Alaska is basically a disc of cake topped with ice cream, covered in meringue which is then lightly toasted with a flame. The ice cream petit fours are tiny ice cream sandwiches covered in ganache. We could use any flavor of ice cream as long as it's homemade from scratch and the cake part of the dessert must be the browned butter cake. I decided to just make the baked Alaska.

Even before I made the browned butter cake I knew that it would be super-duper rich since there are almost 1o ounces of butter in this one 9x9-inch cake. That's a whole lot of rich. To combat the richness I decided to combine it with tart ice cream. The super lemon ice cream from David Lebovitz's "The Perfect Scoop" sounded just perfect. It was super lemony as the name promised, but since it was an eggless recipe, it wasn't as creamy as the custard based ice creams I am used to. But of course the dessert would not remain eggless for long. The sweet and fluffy meringue would soon join the party.

I've always associated browned butter with the colder months. Summer is not the season for browned butter. Or so I thought. The cake was practically (well, figuratively) dripping with butterfat. But it's so delicious that I didn't care about the season or the calories.

The only issue with the cake being all about the butter is that it wasn't the right cake to use in a frozen dessert. Cold butter is solid so a cake chocked full of butter would be quite solid when chilled. And normally that wouldn't be a problem. Just take the cake out of the cold and let it come to room temperature before serving. But this was not an option with the baked Alaska since it was topped with ice cream. The ice cream would've been a puddle if I waited for the cake base to come to temperature. So we thought the frozen cake actually tasted like a stick of butter.

My husband said the only way to enjoy the baked Alaska was to eat it in parts. So we first ate the lemon ice cream and the meringue off the cake base. Then we popped the cake base into the microwave for a few seconds to warm it up. Whatever lemon ice cream was still clinging to the cake had melted and soaked into the now warm disc of cake. It was freakin' delicious! So even though we had to deconstruct the baked Alaska to work around the texture issue, it worked out nicely in the end.

Blog-checking lines: The August 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Elissa of 17 and Baking. For the first time, The Daring Bakers partnered with Sugar High Fridays for a co-event and Elissa was the gracious hostess of both. Using the theme of beurre noisette, or browned butter, Elissa chose to challenge Daring Bakers to make a pound cake to be used in either a Baked Alaska or in Ice Cream Petit Fours. The sources for Elissa’s challenge were Gourmet magazine and David Lebovitz’s “The Perfect Scoop”.
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NectarineTurnovers and a Kitchen Makeover

2010-08-09T04:15:00.005-04:00

The Bay Area is having its coolest summer in decades. Today's high temperature in San Francisco was 60F. If you are experiencing sweltering summer weather (like in the Midwestern or Southeastern US), baking might be the last thing on your mind. But for me, turning on the oven was a welcoming blast of warmth.

I went a little overboard buying nectarines at the farmers' market. (Blossom Bluff Orchards - I adore you!). I could've made a pie with my lovely yellow nectarines, but it was much quicker to make turnovers which are essentially hand pies.

I already had some homemade puff pastry thawed and ready to use, but any good high quality store bought all-butter puff pastry dough like Dufour brand will make the task even easier.

These turnovers can be made with any summer stone fruit: nectarines, peaches, cherries, plums would all work well.

So if it's not too hot to turn on the oven, I highly recommend making these. Don't you think these little pocket pies would be a perfect surprise in a back to school lunch box?

I thought I would mention how much I regret missing last month's Daring Bakers' challenge which combined a jelly roll cake with homemade ice cream. I have a perfectly good reason other than laziness for missing it. The husband and I decided to do some tiling and painting in the kitchen. You can see the kitchen pictures and the turnover recipe after the jump.
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Chocolate Pavlovas

2010-06-27T04:25:00.011-04:00

I've been a total blog slacker lately. I haven't posted anything since last month's Daring Bakers' challenge. I wish I could say that I was busy with work, travel or the World Cup. Or that I haven’t had the time to bake lately. But I don't have any excuses. Work is, well, work and that's as busy as it has always been. My next big vacation isn't until the fall. And I value sleep over watching the World Cup. Besides, the constant drone of the vuvuzelas during the broadcast have been driving me, and probably every one else, batty!

I've been baking like a mad woman, but it's been mostly repeats of stuff I've already posted on alpineberry - red velvet cake, macarons, almond lemon tea cake, yogurt cake, palmiers, fruit cobbler, black bottom cupcakes, banana bread and cheesecake. I'm still on the hunt for a great chocolate brownie recipe. Last week I tried the fudgy brownie recipe in last month's Fine Cooking magazine as well as Alice Medrich's cocoa brownies. Both were decent and the co-workers enjoyed them tremendously, but neither was what I've been looking for.

I've also been playing with my newest toy, a Cuisinart ice cream maker. So far I've made Vietnamese coffee ice cream, chocolate-peanut butter ice cream, strawberry sorbet and dark chocolate ice cream. The recipes are from David Lebovitz's The Perfect Scoop. The chocolate ice cream is made with both Dutch-processed cocoa powder as well as bittersweet (72%) chocolate. It was by far the absolutely best chocolate ice cream I have ever eaten. Thanks David!

Despite all that time spent in the kitchen, I didn't photograph any of it. I didn’t want to set up the photo lights. I didn’t want to think about what to say in a blog post. I just wanted all that food to just be food. Can you tell that I've been in a blogging rut? Sigh.

So I wasn't sure if I was going to participate in this month's Daring Bakers' challenge. I've been on the fence about continuing to participate in the DB challenges the past few months. When I first joined in February 2007 there were just 10 of us. In fact, of those original 10 ladies, Elle and I are the only ones still active. Despite the huge success of the Daring Kitchen (which includes both Daring Bakers and Cooks), I miss the intimacy of a small group.

a more traditionally shaped shell on a pool of creme anglaise mascarpone sauce

But the daring spirit lives in me for another month. This month's challenge was hosted by Dawn of Doable and Delicious. She asked us to make a chocolate pavlova with a chocolate mascarpone mousse based on a Francois Payard recipe. Pavlova is a crisp meringue that is typically served with whipped cream and fruit.

For the shape of my cocoa meringues, I took inspiration from the photo in Francois Payard's Chocolate Epiphany. I filled a silicone mold with the meringue to make half-spheres. The spheres were a bit rough on the outside, but I found the spheres charming nevertheless. The full sphere reminds me of the Death Star. I also piped some shells into a more traditional shape.

The verdict? The cocoa meringue was crisp on the outside and pillowy soft on the inside. It was light as a cloud and melted in my mouth. Mascarpone was a nice twist to the dark chocolate mousse filling. The cream anglaise mascarpone sauce seemed a bit superfluous, but it was a nice complement to all that chocolate.

See what the other Daring Bakers thought of the challenge.

The fine print: The June 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Dawn of Doable and Delicious. Dawn challenged the Daring Bakers’ to make Chocolate Pavlovas and Chocolate Mascarpone Mousse. The challenge recipe is based on a recipe from the book Chocolate Epiphany by Francois Payard.

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Pile of Puffs

2010-05-27T00:01:00.003-04:00

For our Daring Baker's challenge Cat of Little Miss Cupcake asked us to make a piece montée (aka croquembouche). The classic piece montée is a tall cone shaped tower of pastry cream filled cream puffs that are dipped in chocolate or caramel. The puffs are bound together with caramel to hold the cone shape.

There are 3 components: pate a choux (cream puff dough), pastry cream (to fill the cream puffs), and caramel or chocolate glaze (to "glue" the filled cream puffs into shape).

Making pate a choux is something I've done many times. You have to make sure the flour gets cooked until the dough forms a ball and there's a film on the bottom of the pot. Then it's ready for the eggs. I cheated a little and beat in the eggs using my KitchenAid stand mixer instead of by hand. The machine really helps work the dough so that the gluten will develop and hold the structure of the puff. But I've done it by hand in the past and have gotten successful puffs that way too. Using the given recipe and piping 1x1-inch puffs, I got 45 puffs which is way more than the 28 mentioned.

I didn’t really want to make a tall tower since it would be hard to transport it. So I made a sad little pile of cream puffs to photograph and keep for me and my husband. Thankfully Cat said we didn't have to make it super tall and that we're only required to make it a “mounted piece” meaning that it has some height. I know mine barely has any height and is a poor excuse for a croquembouche, but two people can only eat so much dessert. I filled all the remaining puffs, glazed them with chocolate and served them as individual cream puffs.

Even though Cat provided some recipes for pastry creams, she also gave us the freedom to use any crème patisserie we liked. I decided to make a coconut pastry cream since I was already making some for another baking project. I didn't feel like working with hot molten sugar so I chose to "glue" my puffs with melted chocolate instead of a caramel glaze. To finish them off I gave it a light dusting of finely shredded desiccated coconut just so you know that it's coconut.

So there you have it. Another Daring Bakers' challenge completed! To learn more about the Daring Bakers or to join the bakers, check out The Daring Kitchen.

The fine print:
The May 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Cat of Little Miss Cupcake. Cat challenged everyone to make a piece montée, or croquembouche, based on recipes from Peter Kump’s Baking School in Manhattan and Nick Malgieri.

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Malted Chocolate Cupcakes

2010-05-17T21:50:00.002-04:00

Even though I regularly shop for groceries about once a week, I only go to the Asian supermarket once, maybe twice, a year so I tend to stock up on necessities. But I also tend to buy some things that I might not need like that big jar of Ovaltine I bought in early 2009. For those of you who have never heard of Ovaltine it's a brand of sweetened malted cocoa drink mix. My mother used to make it for me and my brothers when we were young. It seems like it was a pretty popular drink among Asian children back then. I think I haven’t had Ovaltine in almost 30 years! When I bought that jar of Ovaltine I planned to use it to make a malted chocolate cake, but I just never got around to it. Until now.

The recipe for the cake batter is adapted from "The Sweet Melissa Baking Book" by Melissa Murphy. It's one of the best recipes for devil's food cake I've tried recently. Melissa Murphy really knows her stuff. The cake had a wonderful chocolate flavor. There are two chocolates in the batter: unsweetened chocolate and Dutch-processed cocoa. The combination really gave the cake a deep chocolate flavor. The addition of coffee enhanced the chocolate and also added moisture. The sour cream also contributed to the moisture and tenderness. The cake was moist and not mushy at all. It held together really well when sliced.

I made cupcakes instead of a layered cake. The addition of chopped chocolate covered malted milk ball candy to the cupcake batter is optional. Adding them to the batter seemed like a good idea at the time, but when the cupcakes were baked, if any piece of candy happened to touch any part of the paper cupcake liner it stuck like crazy. Next time I would skip the addition of malt balls to the cake batter.

Even though I added some Ovaltine to the cake batter, I'm not sure if I could detect it in the final product. But I wasn't too concerned about the lack of malt in the cake since the frosting would have lots of Ovaltine. I made a butter and confectioners' sugar frosting with a healthy dose of Ovaltine thrown in. It was sweet and malty with just a hint of cocoa. It was the perfect complement to the devil's food cupcake.

When the cupcakes were all frosted and sitting prettily on the kitchen countertop, the air was filled with the scent of malt and chocolate. The aroma was so familiar and comforting. It really took me back to my childhood.

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Opera Cake

2010-04-21T17:19:00.008-04:00

My nephew is the first born of my parents' first born (aka my older brother). The year was 2000 which was the year of the dragon. But it wasn't just any year of the dragon. It was the year of the golden dragon which only comes around every 60 years. That made it a very auspicious year to have a baby. So sometimes I call him the "golden child" because of that. Well, that and the fact that he's the first born son of a first born son. Very important in Chinese culture. He is a very sweet and intelligent child. He's also a great big brother to his younger siblings.

I cannot believe that my nephew is 10. It seems like he was born just yesterday. For the celebration, I made an opera cake. A typical opera cake is layers of almond cake soaked in coffee syrup, a layer of coffee buttercream, a layer of chocolate ganache and a topping of chocolate glaze. I know it's not your typical birthday cake for a 10 year old. And it's a sophisticated taste for a child, but we prefer to try "fancier" cakes when it's a gathering of just the immediate families. I made sure to increase the amount of chocolate glaze since anything enrobed in chocolate would make most children happy. (It makes most adults happy too!) Don't worry - he'll be celebrating with his friends with pizza and Costco cake this weekend.

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Orange Tian

2010-03-27T00:38:00.003-04:00

Jennifer from Chocolate Shavings is our host for the March 2010 Daring Bakers' challenge. She presented us with an orange tian which she made for the first time a few months ago at the Alain Ducasse Cooking School in Paris, France. An orange tian is a layered dessert: a base of pate sablee, orange marmalade, whipped cream topped with fresh orange segments and served with a caramel and orange sauce.

In the interest of full disclosure, I did not have time to make my own orange marmalade so I cannot comment on the marmalade making part of this month's challenge. Instead I used one of my favorite local brands, Frog Hollow Farm navel orange marmalade. I also skipped the caramel. I didn’t even make the pate sablee using the recipe Jennifer provided since I already had some in the freezer leftover from some previous baking endeavor.

But I do have an excuse. My March was very busy. At the office my team was at the end of our launch cycle which is typically the busiest and craziest time. To make a busy time even busier I was in Quebec for a week just days before the launch. (My vacation was planned way before the launch schedule was finalized.) I also celebrated my birthday with a lengthy (5 hour!) but wonderful dinner at Manresa in Los Gatos. We had some relatives visiting from out of town and spent a couple nights hanging out with them. And then we had two baby parties (one red egg and ginger and one birthday) to attend. This left me with hardly enough time to devote to this month's DB challenge.

I did manage to whip together a quick version of the tian. I made two 3-inch tians: one using Cuties brand mandarin oranges (see first photo above) and the other with navel oranges (see photo below). Supreming oranges is something I do often since I like the way membrane-free segments look in salads (and I prepare a lot of salads with citrus fruits). All you need is a sharp knife. I only used half the amount of gelatin in my whipped cream layer since I knew that my heavy cream had a high enough fat content to hold its shape after unmolding and I don't like that slightly rubbery texture that cream takes on when gelatin is added.

I didn't freeze my assembled tians. I just let them chill in the refrigerator until it was time to serve them. Unmolding was easy and the orange segments looked really pretty. Unfortunately, I didn't really like the taste of the final product. It tasted like whipped cream with orange segments and a sugar cookie, which is really what it was, but I guess I was hoping that the sum would be greater than all its parts. Maybe the caramel would've made a difference? Even though I was disappointed with my results, I'm glad I was able to complete this challenge.

navel orange tian

The fine print:
The 2010 March Daring Baker’s challenge was hosted by Jennifer of Chocolate Shavings. She chose Orange Tian as the challenge for this month, a dessert based on a recipe from Alain Ducasse's Cooking School in Paris.
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Compost Cookie Bars

2010-03-20T18:26:00.005-04:00

I didn't visit the much talked about Momofuku Milk Bar the last time I was in New York City. I did eat at Momofuku Noodle Bar where I indulged in a bowl of their famous ramen and those amazing pork belly buns, but never made it to Milk Bar. Milk Bar is best known for their crack pie and their compost cookies. The compost cookie recipe has been floating around the internet ever since Christina Tosi, Milk Bar's pastry chef, appeared on Live with Regis and Kelly.

In the past the cookie probably would've been called a kitchen sink cookie (as in a cookie with everything but the kitchen sink thrown into it), but in this very environmentally conscious day and age, compost cookie sounds much more trendy. I think what really makes it a compost cookie is the addition of used coffee grounds. Yup, used grounds. I've read that others who have tried the compost cookie recipe thought the coffee grounds didn't really add much to the cookie, but I whole-heartedly disagree. Even though my grounds were used (and therefore much of the "coffee-ness" was already extracted) I could still taste the coffee in my cookie. Maybe it depends on the freshness and type of coffee beans used and how long the used grounds have been sitting after extraction? My used grounds were from locally roasted Blue Bottle beans ground right before making my pour over coffee and the used grounds had only been sitting around for a couple hours. I loved the flecks of coffee throughout the cookie. Of course you don't have to use used coffee grounds. Adding some unused ground coffee would work too (but it would be less compost-y).

The recipe calls for refrigerating the cookie dough for at least one hour before baking to prevent the cookies from spreading too much. I was crunched for time so I skipped the chilling and just spread the just made dough into a baking pan to make cookie bars. After spreading the dough in the pan I gave it a nice sprinkling of Maldon sea salt to play up the salty sweet nature of my cookie bar.

You can use any combination of add-ins and snack foods like chocolate chunks, butterscotch, nuts, dried fruits, candies (like chopped up peanut butter cups, Snickers, Rollos), breakfast cereal, salted pretzels, salted potato chips, oatmeal. I went with 60% cacao chocolate chips, Rice Krispies cereal, crushed salted pretzels and sliced almonds. Use whatever you like - sky's the limit!

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Daring Bakers Pick Me Up

2010-02-27T02:27:00.002-05:00

Time for another Daring Bakers' challenge. This month's challenge was hosted by Aparna of My Diverse Kitchen and Deeba of Passionate About Baking. They came up with an amalgamation of recipes for a tiramisu. Their challenge recipe is based on recipes from The Washington Post (newspaper), Cordon Bleu at Home (cookbook) and Baking Obsession (blog).

Tiramisu is typically custardy mascarpone cream layered with ladyfingers/savoiardi biscuits soaked in espresso. A little bit of booze like marsala or rum is usually present too. We were required to make the mascarpone cheese and ladyfingers from scratch. We were also required to make the zabaglione and pastry cream for the custardy cream layers.

I've never thought about making mascarpone from scratch since I can buy an 8 ounce tub for about $3 around here. The recipe looked fairly straightforward. Who knew it was just heated heavy cream and lemon juice? I used a really nice 36% butterfat organic cream. Unfortunately, even though I heated the cream for 30 minutes in a stainless steel bowl in a skillet of simmering water, my cream never got any hotter than 170F. The instructions said it would get to 190F in about 15 minutes. So I forged ahead anyway and added the lemon juice and waited for the curds to form. That never happened either. So after another 10 minutes I just poured my "cheese" into my cheesecloth lined strainer. After the overnight refrigeration I expected that some whey would have drained out. Nope, my "cheese" looked no different than it had when I first pour it into the cheesecloth and it looked nothing like creamy mascarpone.

Then I tried to remove my mascarpone from the cheesecloth. It was stuck on pretty tightly. So tight that when I forcefully scraped it off the cloth, all I got was a block of "cheese" covered in lint. I thought cheesecloth was supposed to be lint free? Maybe I got the wrong kind of cheesecloth? (I used a 100% unbleached cotton cheesecloth.) So I scraped off the linty side of the mascarpone and saved the unlinty part to use in my tiramisu. Thank goodness we only needed 1/3 cup for the tiramisu.

I love ladyfingers. When I was a little girl, sometimes my dad would take me with him while he went to Ahren's Bakery on Van Ness Avenue to pick up some pastries for the restaurant. The bakery workers were always so nice to me. While I waited for them to fill my dad's very large order, they always handed me a giant cookie from the bakery case. I felt so special. But the best part of our trips to Ahren's was the bag of soft ladyfingers that we would bring home. Sets of five ladyfingers were lined up next to each other waiting to be pulled apart. I can still recall that soft, airy interior with that wonderful crispy, sugary crust. I wonder if Ahren's was still around today and I ate one of their ladyfingers would I still love it as much as I did as a child? I'd love to say yes, but the truth is probably not. The most flavorful ingredient is nostalgia.

I loved this ladyfinger recipe. They remind me of those from my childhood. I couldn't help but sneak a few bites everyday. Well, maybe I had more than a few bites. By the time I was ready to assemble my tiramisu three days later, I only had enough ladyfingers for two layers instead of three. I plan to make these ladyfingers again and again.

In the past I've only made tiramisu recipes that had a zabaglione with mascarpone. But this recipe had the unusual addition of a pastry cream. It was also a bit strange that it only called for a teeny tiny amount of mascarpone cheese. Typically mascarpone makes up a large portion of the cream layers. The zabaglione was easy to make. The method for the pastry cream was a bit different than I am used to since the cold milk was combined with the egg then cooked. I am used to warming the milk, adding it to the eggs and then cooking it until thick. I think the cold milk method took longer to thicken than the warm milk method, but the resulting pastry cream was just fine.

We were allowed to assemble our tiramisu any way we liked. I decided to use an 8-inch round springform. If I knew ahead of time that I was going to use a round cake pan for assembly, I would have piped my ladyfinger batter into 8 -inch disks instead of individual fingers. It would've made for a nicer presentation.

Overall the tiramisu was delicious. But what's not to like about whipped cream, custard and coffee soaked ladyfingers? Even though I found the whole recipe to be a bit overly complicated and fussy for a tiramisu and I would probably never make this exact version of tiramisu ever again, I'm so happy that I have gotten such a great ladyfinger recipe out of this DB challenge. Okay, I'm off to have another slice now.

The fine print:
The February 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Aparna of My Diverse Kitchen and Deeba of Passionate About Baking. They chose Tiramisu as the challenge for the month. Their challenge recipe is based on recipes from The Washington Post, Cordon Bleu at Home and Baking Obsession.

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Coconut Goodness

2010-02-21T00:57:00.003-05:00

During a recent trip to New York City my brother Rich wanted to stop at Magnolia Bakery. He had tried Magnolia's coconut cake once before and absolutely loved it. Since we were close enough to the Rockefeller Center location of Magnolia we walked over to have a slice. As we approached the bakery we saw the huge line of about 40 people wrapped around the corner storefront. I've never seen such a long line for any bakery except perhaps Tartine Bakery here in San Francisco. We decided that no cake was worth that wait especially since it was about 40 degrees F that night. (We're wimpy Californians.)

I told Rich that I would make him a coconut cake when we got back from NYC. I delivered on my promise by making him some coconut cupcakes. It has all the components of a layered coconut cake but in cupcake form.

The cupcake batter has coconut milk, shredded coconut and coconut rum. The filling is a coconut pastry cream. The cream cheese frosting has some of the coconut pastry cream mixed in and then the whole thing is topped off with some toasted coconut.

I don't know how much more coconut goodness I could've packed into this cupcake, but I did my best to really max out the coconut factor and I think I succeeded. So if you're looking for a cupcake that really screams coconut from head to toe, this one is for you.

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Sesame Coins

2010-02-09T20:53:00.001-05:00

Every few years the Presidents' Day weekend coincides with Valentine's Day or with the Chinese New Year (aka the lunar new year). There is a confluence of the three this year which means my three day weekend will not be exclusively for rest and relaxation, but for observing Chinese New Year traditions.

The house must be cleaned and all laundry must be done before our Chinese New Year's Eve's dinner on Saturday. I have to wash away any bad luck that might have accumulated over the past year. The dinner signifies the beginning of the lunar new year so I don't want to do any sweeping after the meal or on New Year's Day. Otherwise I will sweep away the good luck of the new year.

There must be a new sack (or at least a significant quantity) of rice in the house so that we won’t go hungry in the new year. A big bowl of candy or sweets would be nice too so that the new year will be a sweet one. The traditional sweets are candied lotus root, melon, coconut, water chestnuts, and lotus seeds displayed in a lacquered candy box, but any candy will do. This year I'm setting out a bowl of almond torrone imported from Italy.

I need at least one pomelo, a large pear shaped yellow grapefruit, which symbolizes prosperity. Another necessity is tangerines with the stems and leaves still attached. The Chinese word for tangerine sounds like "gold" and will invite luck and wealth in the new year. The stems and leaves signify growth and longevity. Navel oranges are welcomed too since their round shape signifies wholeness and the golden color represents wealth. I'm not too strict about the citrus tradition. As long as I have one pomelo surrounded by any leafy citrus, I will be fine. This year I found some gorgeous blood oranges with stems and leaves at the farmers' market, but in the past I have used meyer lemons with leaves and stems from my backyard tree since they are also golden and round-ish. Blood oranges are extra nice since they are red on the inside. In my opinion, nothing is better than something that is red and gold for Chinese New Year.

Which leads me to the best tradition - red envelopes. The red envelopes are decorated with symbols and images in gold. The color red symbolizes good luck and vitality. The envelopes are filled with crisp bills since the use of brand new money symbolizes a new beginning. The red envelopes are usually given by the married to the unmarried. Although some families, like mine, take a generational approach to red envelope giving during Chinese New Year. Even though I am married, my parents, and other relatives who are a generation older than I am, still give me red envelopes for Chinese New Year.

So what do these sesame coins have to do with Chinese New Year? Tahini isn't a particularly Chinese ingredient, but it's really just sesame seed butter and, well, sesame seeds are used a lot in Chinese cooking. And these cookies are sweet and look like golden coins (wealth and prosperity) and they are round (wholeness and longevity). So make some and have a prosperous new year!

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Nanaimo Bars

2010-01-27T01:12:00.004-05:00

Lauren of Celiac Teen asked us to go gluten-free for this month's Daring Bakers' challenge. She gave us a recipe for gluten-free graham crackers to try out. But being the kind hostess that she is, she also gave us the option to be wheat-based if we could not find the three specialty flours used in the gluten-free version. I was able to find two of the three flours very easily. Tapioca flour and sweet glutinous rice flour are available in most regular supermarkets around here. Also, my mom always has both in her pantry since they are widely used in Chinese cooking. But I was not able to find the third one, sorghum flour, even at Whole Foods Market. So I decided that I would have to pass on the gluten-free this time.

The graham cracker dough was really easy to whip up in the food processor. But my dough was extremely sticky. I am already handicapped in the dough rolling area so handling sticky dough just made it even harder for me. After rolling the first half out as best as I could and docking the dough to somewhat resemble graham crackers, I decided to just roll the rest into little balls to make round graham crackers.

Oh, I should have mentioned that it didn’t really matter to me what my crackers ended up looking like since I would be smashing the crackers into crumbs to make Nanaimo bars as part 2 of this month's challenge. According to Lauren, Nanaimo bars are a classic Canadian dessert created in none other than Nanaimo, British Colombia. This was also fitting since the Olympic winter games are being hosted in Vancouver, BC next month.

The middle layer of the Nanaimo bar is called a custard layer, but it's really more like a layer of frosting. And it's my least favorite kind of frosting too. It's that one dimensional, sickly sweet butter and powdered sugar kind. My addition of nut butter improved it a bit by making it less one dimensional, but it was still way too sweet for me. I did not want to buy custard powder to make this layer. Lauren said that we could substitute instant vanilla pudding mix, but I never buy instant pudding mix since I'm a "from scratch" girl. I found an acceptable substitution (from Nigella Lawson) of cornstarch, sugar, vanilla extract since custard powder is just that along with some food coloring too.

The bottom layer is made with graham cracker crumbs, almonds, shredded unsweetened coconut and some Dutch-processed cocoa powder. This was my favorite layer. I liked the fragrant coconut, the hint of cocoa and the nuttiness of the almonds. I used ground almonds which added a pleasant chewiness to the crust. The top layer was a simple glaze of melted chocolate and butter.

After tasting the frosting alone, I had no desire to even try the fully assembled bars. I just brought it all to the office. I was surprised that they were very well liked by my office mates. I heard words like decadent and sinful. It was a good thing I cut them into tiny 1 by 1 inch squares. I did save one piece at home for my husband who said that when the frosting was combined with the crust it was not as sweet as you would think. So I took a tiny bite and he was right. Even though I still thought the bar was too sweet, the crust really helped to temper some of the sweetness from the frosting.

Overall, the Nanaimo bar was not something that I would make again, but I enjoyed making the graham crackers and I vow to make them gluten-free in the future.

The fine print:
The January 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Lauren of Celiac Teen. Lauren chose Gluten-Free Graham Wafers and Nanaimo Bars as the challenge for the month. The sources she based her recipe on are 101 Cookbooks and www.nanaimo.ca.

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It Began With Brownies

2010-01-20T03:44:00.001-05:00

... and ended with some cookies.

I've been trying out different chocolate brownie recipes lately. Some recipes have been good, but not great. And some have been downright bad. I don't know if it's me or the recipes, but I have yet to find a recipe that I love. I have always had trouble making simple chocolate brownies. Pate a choux? No problem. Cheesecake? A breeze. Molten caramel? Piece of cake. But your basic chocolate brownies? Hit or miss. It's not rocket science. It's brownies for heaven's sake! Ugh. I don’t know what's wrong with me.

One particular batch of brownies turned out pretty dry around the edges, but was okay in the middle. I really hate wasting food, so I cut off the dry borders and stored them in the freezer. I brought the middle piece to work to share with the folks at the office.

What was I storing those edges for? I had no idea. Maybe I would make brownie chunk ice cream if I ever got around to buying an ice cream machine (since making my own ice cream is one of my 2010 resolutions). Or maybe I would blitz them in the food processor and use them with the cake crumbs ala red velvet kisses (a perfect treat for Valentine's Day). But then I remembered seeing a recipe for brownie chunk cookies in a past issue of Bon Appetit magazine. At the time I thought it sounded a bit weird and I hardly gave it second thought. Who would ever think to put brownie chunks into a cookie? Apparently someone did. And boy was I glad!

It's basically a chocolate chip cookie where baked chocolate brownie chunks are used in lieu of chocolate chips. I would have expected that brownie chunks baked into a cookie would turn hard or dry considering that they would be double baked. But I guess that the cookie batter (with the butter and sugar) did a good job of hydration. The formerly dry brownie edges were somehow transformed. Imagine if I had started with moist brownies!

I did make some minor changes to the recipe. I made the cookies smaller than specified in the original recipe and, therefore, I cut my brownie chunks smaller too. I mixed in the brownie chunks really well so that they were more crumbly than chunky. I liked that the little bursts of chocolate brownie were almost indistinguishable in texture from the cookie itself. But feel free to gently fold in the brownie chunks if you want them to stay a bit more distinct in the cookie. I got some nice compliments about the cookies from my co-workers.

As strange as I initially found the idea of putting brownies into cookies, it's really quite genius. And since my chocolate brownie trials are ongoing, it's a great way to use up all those not so successful batches of brownies.

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Lemon Triple Threat

2010-01-06T04:15:00.002-05:00

Happy New Year! I hope your holiday season was delightful. I guess the proper thing to do in January is post about a low-fat/low-calorie dessert. But if you know anything about me you know that I don't do low-fat/low-cal dessert. I believe that you can eat dessert as long as it's in moderation. So even if you're watching your waistline, it's okay to have a cupcake every once in awhile. And if I had to pick just one cupcake in the whole wide world, then this lemon cupcake is the one I would choose.

For the cupcake batter I took my meyer lemon cupcake recipe and tweaked it slightly. I replaced some of the buttermilk in that recipe with heavy cream and lemon juice. I filled the cupcakes with a homemade lemon curd and then frosted it with a nice swirl of lemon buttercream. Even though I have an endless supply of meyer lemons from the tree that keeps on giving, I decided to use regular lemons because I really wanted that assertive lemon flavor in all three components.

The buttercream recipe is based on Dorie Greenspan's Swiss buttercream (from her perfect party cake). I decreased the vanilla, increased the amount of lemon juice and added some lemon zest to really up the lemon factor. When you taste it there is no doubt that this is a lemon buttercream.

The lemon curd is very loosely adapted from a recipe on Helen's website. When I first saw her recipe I knew it was exactly what I had been looking for. Most of the time lemon curd recipes have butter, but Helen's recipe has no butter. It's lip-smacking (or should I say lip-puckering?) and absolutely delicious. I could eat a tub of it with nothing but a spoon and smile. (But I have to refrain since I need all of it to fill 2 dozen cupcakes).

Sure, you can use store bought lemon curd. Or you can simplify and just leave out the lemon curd. The unfilled cupcake with the lemon buttercream is still very lemon-y and quite delicious. But if you're going to have just one cupcake it might as well be an awesome one. And the lemon curd filling really elevates this cupcake to awesome.

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Home

2009-12-24T22:07:00.005-05:00

For December's Daring Bakers' challenge we were asked to bake and decorate a gingerbread house. Anna of Very Small Anna and Y of Lemonpi gave us two recipes for gingerbread. Anna provided a recipe from Good Housekeeping magazine and Y's was from The Great Scandinavian Baking Book by Beatrice Ojakangas. I decided to make a half portion of Y's recipe. I didn't use the spices that the recipe called for since we did not plan to eat the gingerbread. I didn't want to waste any spices since they are expensive. But I did add just a bit of ground ginger and cinnamon to give a nice spicy holiday scent. The other requirement was that our entire house must edible. Nothing like cardboard or glue to help support the house was allowed.

This was definitely more like a construction and decorating challenge than a baking challenge. The dough came together easily and rolled nicely. I created a template for my roof and walls using a file folder and then cut out the pieces from the rolled dough before baking.

I made one large house and one tiny house. I cut simple triangles for my trees using the leftover dough.

Royal icing made with meringue powder was my glue and assorted candies were my decoration. A bed of finely shredded desiccated coconut provided the snowy landscape. I was amazed that the pieces of my house actually fit together since I'm not known for my assembly skills and I was equally amazed that the royal icing glue held it all together without drooping or sliding.

This was my first ever gingerbread house. Overall it was a fun challenge which brought out the child in me. :) Happy holidays to you and your family! See you in 2010.

Gromit's view from the sky

A perfect landing

The fine print:
The December 2009 Daring Bakers’ challenge was brought to you by Anna of Very Small Anna and Y of Lemonpi. They chose to challenge Daring Bakers’ everywhere to bake and assemble a gingerbread house from scratch. They chose recipes from Good Housekeeping and from The Great Scandinavian Baking Book as the challenge recipes.
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A Decent, Honest Cookie

2009-12-03T21:16:00.002-05:00

Even though I consider myself more of an optimist than a pessimist, I am also a realist. And the reality is there are some people out there who do some bad things. So when you lose your wallet you would expect that it's lost for good and that your identity might be compromised (i.e. stolen). Just when you think that the world can be a pretty messed up place someone does something to remind you that people are good. Like when you get a postcard in the mail saying that the sender found your wallet and had no way to contact you except by using the address on your driver's license. And if you are indeed the rightful owner of said wallet please call them to describe the wallet and its contents and then come to their house to claim the wallet. It's comforting to know that there are still truly decent, honest people in the world!

What is more decent and honest than a chocolate chip cookie? Not to say that other cookies are any less decent. In fact, I would say that all cookies are decent. Maybe I should call chocolate chip cookies comforting.

A few weeks ago someone asked me if I had a chocolate chip cookie recipe on my blog and it was at that moment that I realized I have never posted one. When I first started making chocolate chip cookies, like many American home bakers, I used the Nestle Toll House chocolate chip cookie recipe found on the back of the bag. In high school and college, any homemade chocolate chip cookie was delicious so Toll House cookies sufficed. And I continued to use the Toll House recipe for many years after that, but it always bothered me that I would get inconsistent results with that recipe. I'm sure the Toll House recipe is a good one, but it was just incompatible with me. Even to this day I have no idea what I was doing wrong in the kitchen. So after many more unhappy batches, I finally abandoned the Toll House recipe and searched for a new one.

It was around that time when former Chez Panisse pastry cook David Lebovitz's "Room for Dessert" came out. I was a big fan of SF Bay Area pastry chefs at the time (and still am a big fan) and I bought every cookbook written by my local "pastry heroes". From the very first time I tried David Lebovitz's recipe many years ago to this very day, I always get great consistent results.

Chocolate cookie recipes are a matter of personal taste. There are a million recipes out there for chocolate cookies and everybody has their favorite recipe for chocolate chip cookies. Some might even claim that their recipe is the best. I would never call this recipe perfect or the best, but it's the one that really works for me, so it's the best one for me.
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Rum Raisin Apple Cake

2009-11-16T02:50:00.004-05:00

For the past couple months I've been buying tons of apples from the farmers' market every weekend. I can get varieties that are not available in the supermarket. Arkansas Black, Philo Gold, Wickson, Connell Red, Northern Spy and Spitzenberg just to name a few. Sadly the local apple season is coming to end and I'll have to go back to eating supermarket apples that have been in cold storage for who knows how long before showing up at supermarket for sale.

I recently brought home some red Rome apples from the farmers' market. They were so crisp and juicy. They were labeled as "dry farmed" and I'm not sure if that had anything to do with how delicious they were. Red Rome apples are perfect for this rum raisin apple loaf cake.

This cake is one that I can whip it up in no time at all. It's full of apples and rum soaked raisins. The recipe is from Francois Payard's "Simply Sensational Desserts". I modified it just slightly. The original recipe says to cut the apples in wedges of 2 different sizes and lay them nicely into the cake batter so that when it bakes you'll see the perfect wedges of apples neatly tiled up next to each other. I decided to simplify it by just dicing the apples and mixing them into the batter.

Soaking the raisins in rum keeps them moist and adds a nice flavor to the ordinary raisin. Even if your raisins are very fresh to start, I still recommend soaking them. There's just something magical that happens when you let dried fruit sit in a little bit of booze. But if you are pressed for time you can skip the soaking step and just add the quantity of rum and dry raisins directly to the batter. Either way, the rum is not overwhelming. There's just enough to remind you that it's there.

The area of cake immediately surrounding each apple nugget stays slightly moist from the juicy apple and provides a nice contrast to the cakier parts of the cake. Someone even said it tasted like bits of custard surrounding the apple.

Even though it's optional I highly recommend brushing the baked loaf cake with the apricot glaze. Although the cake is already very moist and will keep well, the glaze helps retain moisture longer. And it adds a lovely shine to this simple cake.

Thanks to everyone for comments about their favorite vegetable in my zucchini post. And the winner of the King Arthur Whole Grain Baking cookbook giveaway is Claire. She also loves zucchini. Congratulations Claire!

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I Heart Zucchini

2009-11-05T03:47:00.005-05:00

I love zucchini. I eat it year round. It's my absolutely favorite weeknight vegetable since it's so easy to prepare. Just slice them up and put them in some boiling water with a pinch of salt. I could eat it every night. And I actually make zucchini bread because I really like it not just because someone had a bumper crop of zucchini.

Zucchini bread was one of the first things I ever baked on my own. When I was 15 my best friend Nora gave me a recipe for zucchini bread and she said it was easy and delicious. I thought it was strange to have zucchini in a dessert, but I tried it and she was right about it being delicious. All through my high school years I made zucchini bread over and over again. I remember sitting at the dining room table grating the zucchini by hand with my mom's old box grater. Even to this day I grate zucchini by hand. I know it's faster to use a food processor, but I like doing this particular task by hand.

But whether you love zucchini like me or just tolerate it, when zucchini is combined with chocolate it can't be bad. When I saw this chocolate zucchini cake recipe on the King Arthur Flour website I just had to make it. It definitely uses more chocolate than zucchini. I think the zucchini is more for moisture and texture than flavor. But every once in a while you'll encounter a green fleck which I find rather pretty. Regardless of the reason, it's a good way to add more vegetables to your diet.

GIVEAWAY

I am giving away the King Arthur Flour Whole Grain Bakingcookbook. (The cookbook has a whole wheat flour version of this chocolate zucchini cake too.) Please leave a comment on this post before 11:59pm PST on November 12, 2009 and be sure to mention your favorite vegetable. I will select one comment at random. I plan to contact the winner by email so please make sure you have a valid email address associated with your user ID. Unfortunately I can only ship to U.S. addresses. My sincerest apologizes to my international readers.

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Pumpkin Thing

2009-10-31T03:44:00.004-04:00

The premise behind the You Want Pies With That? event is to make a pie based on the chosen theme. Then everyone who made a pie that month can vote for their favorite pie and the baker with the most votes gets choose the theme the following month. Jeanette and I had the honor of choosing a theme for October. We decided on "Masquerade Pie" - make a pie that has a secret.

We suggested that "You can conceal your pie's secret identity (with a robe of dark chocolate, maybe?) or disguise your pie as one thing when it's really something else (like a mock apple pie deceptively made with Ritz crackers instead of apples). You can use a mysterious, unusual or surprising ingredient in your pie or if you're more inclined to step out from behind the mask, you can reveal a secret recipe or technique."

I decided to make something that I hesitantly call pumpkin pie squares. The recipe is based on a recipe I got from a restaurant in the West Portal neighborhood of San Francisco. I've been making this recipe for over a decade now, but I never know what to call it. That restaurant called it a pumpkin pecan pie, but that name never seemed right to me. So I ended up calling it that "pumpkin thing". The restaurant makes the recipe in two 9-inch round pans, but I found it easier to make the recipe in one 9x13-inch cake pan or one 10-inch round springform pan. If I make it in the 9x13 pan I call it pumpkin pie squares, but if I make it in the springform, it's just that pumpkin thing.

The dirty little secret to the pumpkin thing is the use of boxed cake mix. The cake mix, which is sprinkled on top of the pumpkin batter in the pan, becomes the crust when you invert the baked pumpkin thing. I am almost embarrassed to say the words "cake mix" when people ask me what's in the crust. The pumpkin thing is one of my two most requested recipes. The other is the toffee almond bars which also uses boxed cake mix. What is it about cake mix that people love so much? I will never understand it.

The internet is filled with variations of this recipe and most of them are named pumpkin dump cake or similar. But no matter its name, it's no secret that people love the pumpkin thing.

Pumpkin Pie Squares
(aka Pumpkin Thing)

One 30-ounce can of pumpkin puree (not pumpkin pie mix)
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1/3 cup light brown sugar
One 5-ounce can of evaporated milk (not sweetened condensed milk)
3 large eggs
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoons ground ginger
1/8 teaspoons ground nutmeg
1/8 teaspoons ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon salt
One 18-ounce box of yellow cake mix (Pillsbury or Better Crocker brand)
1 cup chopped pecans
8 ounces (1 cup) unsalted butter, melted and slightly cooled

Line one 9 x 13 x 2-inch baking pan with parchment paper and coat with baking spray.

In a large mixing bowl combine pumpkin, both sugars and evaporated milk. Beat in eggs, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, cloves and salt and then pour batter into the prepared pan.

Sprinkle half the cake mix over the batter. Sprinkle on the pecans and then the remaining cake mix. Drizzle with melted butter.

Bake at 350F for 60-70 minutes or until golden brown.

Cool in pan for 2 hours on a cooling rack. Loosen and gently invert onto a serving platter. Carefully remove the parchment paper. Leave it pumpkin side up.

Chill in refrigerator for at least 2 or 3 hours before slicing.

Macarons with Salted Almond Butter Filling

2009-10-27T02:04:00.007-04:00

I am writing this post as I munch on a Miette chocolate macaron that my husband bought me. That should tell you how well my macaron making experience went during this month's Daring Bakers' challenge. Ami S. asked us to make macarons using a recipe from Claudia Fleming’s The Last Course: The Desserts of Gramercy Tavern. We could use any filling our hearts desired.

[Note: Macarons, which originated in France, are meringue sandwich cookies typically made with almonds. They should not be confused with macaroons (you know, those coconut ones).]

I have always wanted to make my own macarons, but laziness usually prevails. It's much easier to just pop over to Miette or Paulette (both in Hayes Valley near my beloved Blue Bottle), but they can be pricey at $1.50 and $1.60 each respectively. I never leave without 2 macarons. And more often than not, it's more like 6 or 12! But the DB challenge was a perfect opportunity to try making them myself.

I read posts by Helen, Duncan and Veronica. I watched videos in French even though I couldn't understand 90% of what they were saying. I religiously read the DB private forums about macaron making. I ordered an insanely large bag of blanched almond flour online and stocked up on plenty of eggs and confectioners' sugar. And I started early in the month, soon after the challenge was first announced, which is uncharacteristic for me since I always wait until the very last minute to try the recipe. The great part about starting so early was that I was able to try the recipe many times before the posting date.

Attempt 1
Unblanched (skin-on) almonds (Trader Joe's almond meal). I aged my egg whites at room temperature for 24 hours and whipped them to stiff peaks. Single sheet pan. I tried both parchment and silicone baking mats. No problems removing the macarons from the pan using either. Macarons have the ruffled foot, but the foot extended beyond the border of the shell. Some had fissures and cracks. Helen's advice was to mix less and to stack a second sheet pan underneath the first to promote even heat distribution. The almond skins gave the macarons a more pronounced almond flavor, but the skin-flecked shells appeared less refined than ones made with blanched almonds.

Attempt 1: Batter flattened out nicely.

Attempt 1: Some shells developed fissures.

Attempt 2
Blanched (no-skin) almonds (Honeyville almond flour). I aged my egg whites at room temperature for 24 hours and whipped them to stiff peaks. I used a second sheet pan and silicone baking mats. No problems removing the macarons from the pan. I was careful to gently fold in the almond-sugar mixture into the beaten egg whites. The ruffled foot did not extend beyond the border of the shell (yippee! - that's how it's supposed to be). But I had a huge air pocket under the shell (blah! - not what I want) and they looked like hamburger buns which my taste testing co-workers found amusing. Using blanched almonds gave the macarons a more delicate flavor than those made with unblanched almonds.

Attempt 2: Foot ruffle good, air pocket bad, looks like hamburger bun.

Attempt 3
Blanched (no-skin) almonds. I aged my egg whites at room temperature for 24 hours and whipped them to stiff peaks. I used a second sheet pan and silicone baking mats. After watching some how-to videos and reading the DB forums, I decided to mix in the almond-sugar mixture with purpose instead of gently folding. Advice was to "fold and press" to incorporate the almond-sugar and to somewhat deflate the batter. The batter should be smooth and "flow like magma". Also, I tested the batter by making sure a ribbon of batter drizzled on top of the rest of the batter would disappear within 30 seconds. After piping out the batter I also gently rapped the sheet pan to release any large air bubbles.

My baked macarons were flatter than in attempt 2, but the ruffled foot extended beyond the border of the shell and I still had that pesky air pocket under the shell. The macarons would not come off the silicone baking mat even after letting them cool for a couple hours. So I had to bake them in the oven until they would come off. That extra baking time darkened the shells to a light golden brown. They still tasted good but a bit toasty. The photo at the beginning of my post is from attempt 3.

Attempt 3: Shells darkened from extra baking to get them off the silicone mat, darned air pocket still there.

Attempt 4
Method and results identical to attempt 3, but I didn’t bother re-baking them to remove them from the silicone mat. I just scraped them off the silicone mats with an icing spatula. They were a sticky mess but the thin delicate outer shell remained intact.

Attempt 4: Batterlooks promising.

Attempt 4: I just can't get the ruffled foot right.

Even though they all tasted really good with the salted almond butter filling I made, I would consider all four attempts failures. Attempt 2 had the best ruffled foot as it did not extend beyond the border of the shell. Attempts 3 and 4 had the right flat shaped but the ruffle was wrong and I still had that air pocket. I need to figure out how to get rid of the air pocket! It happens when I gently fold the almond-sugar mixture into the beaten egg whites and it also happens when I "fold and press" with purpose. I am getting pretty good at piping out the macaronage into circles of the same size. I am now officially obsessed with making them over and over again until I get it right. Then I will no longer need to buy them anymore.

The fine print:
The 2009 October Daring Bakers’ challenge was brought to us by Ami S. She chose macarons from Claudia Fleming’s The Last Course: The Desserts of Gramercy Tavern as the challenge recipe.
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The Scent of Cardamom

2009-10-20T21:42:00.004-04:00

The taste and scent of cardamom is hard to describe. It's very distinct and unique. If you're familiar with it, there is no mistaking it. If you're not familiar, then you might say it's floral with a hint a ginger. I would never describe it as spicy. Cinnamon is spicy. Ginger is spicy. Cardamom is not. I am at a loss for how else to describe the mysterious and exotic cardamom.

The yogurt along with the half pound of butter makes this coffee cake moist and definitely not low in calories. But the cardamom permeates each bite and gives the illusion of something bright and fresh that belies any sense of heaviness. The sweet filling is the perfect counterpoint to the fragrant cake. The cinnamon scented walnut filling holds its own yet does not compete against the cardamom infused cake. If you like cardamom chances are you'll love this coffee cake.

Cardamom Coffee Cake
(adapted from "The Bake Sale Cookbook" by Sally Sampson)
(makes one Bundt cake)

Filling:
3/4 cup chopped walnuts, lightly toasted
1/4 cup brown sugar
2 tbsp granulated sugar
2 tsp ground cinnamon

Cake:
2 cups all purpose flour
1 tbsp baking powder
1 tbsp ground cardamom
1/8 tsp salt
8 ounces (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened at room temperature
2 cups granulated sugar
2 large eggs, at room temperature
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
2 cups whole milk plain yogurt (or sour cream)

Preheat oven to 350F. Generously butter and flour a 12-cup capacity Bundt pan.

To make the filling:
Combine walnuts, both sugars and cinnamon in a bowl. Mix well. Set aside.

To make the cake:
Sift together flour, baking powder, cardamom, and salt. Set aside.

Place butter and sugar in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment. Beat until light and fluffy, about 3 to 5 minutes. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition and scraping down the sides of the bowl before each addition. Beat in vanilla.

Add half the flour mixture and beat well. Add 1 cup of the yogurt, continuing to beat. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and beat in the remaining half of the flour mixture. Add the remaining 1 cup of the yogurt and beat well.

Pour one-third of the batter into the prepared Bundt pan. Sprinkle with half of the filling mixture. Repeat and top with remaining one-third batter. Bake at 350F until the cake pulls away from the sides of the pan and a tester comes out clean, about 60 minutes.

Cool for 20 minutes in the pan and then invert on a rack. Cool to room temperature. Dust lightly with powdered sugar if desired.

Vols-au-Vent

2009-09-27T01:30:00.010-04:00

Steph of A Whisk and a Spoon was the gracious hostess of this month's Daring Bakers' challenge. She chose vols-au-vents made with homemade puff pastry. It's not the first time the Daring Bakers were challenged to make laminated dough. There was the Gateau St. Honore challenge in May 2007, the Danish braid in June 2008, and croissants in January 2007. Of those 3 challenges, I only took part in the Gateau St. Honore and we were not required to make our own puff pastry, so I used store bought for my St. Honore.

So this is my first time making puff pastry. I never tried before since it seemed too time consuming to make it myself when I can easily buy high quality all-butter puff pastry from the supermarket. Dufour makes a great puff pastry and so does Trader Joe's. Dufour costs $10/pound and Trader Joe's is much cheaper at $4/pound but my TJ no longer stocks it. But a challenge is a challenge and I was looking forward to trying my hand at making my own.

Steph was nice enough to link to a video of Michel Richard making puff pastry on PBS's Baking with Julia (Child that is). I remember seeing this many years ago when the TV series first aired and I thought that puff pastry was best left to the professionals. But as I watched that video earlier this week I thought that it seemed quite do-able. Of course Michel Richard made it look so easy. I mean, the man has been doing it for decades.

There is very little active time when making puff pastry. It's mostly waiting for the dough to rest. And the resting period between turns can be as little as 30 minutes and as long as a day so the dough making process was flexible enough to fit into my busy schedule. I did have some trouble when my beurrage (aka butter layer) broke through the dough layer after the third turn. Despite chilling it between turns, the butter was very obviously present with every subsequent turn. It seemed that my puff pastry was doomed to fail, but I completed my turns and hoped for the best.

Vols-au-vent is a puff pastry case designed to hold a filling. My vols-au-vent did rise pretty well so my worries about the butter breaking through the dough during the turns were put to rest. But I think I got some egg wash on the cut sides of my dough which prevented a higher rise. But it was still high enough to hold a decent amount of filling.

Steph gave us the freedom to fill it with anything. I decided to sauté some diced bananas in butter, brown sugar and lemon juice to make my filling. I wanted to top it with ice cream, but all we had in the house was pistachio ice cream. To complement the pistachio ice cream I made a praline. I caramelized some sugar (to the light amber stage), tossed in some pistachios, and spread them out on a Silpat to cool.

Even though I had a little mishap with the beurrage, I was very happy with my vols-au-vent and the puff pastry making process. And since I only used a third of the dough to make the vols-au-vent I still have lots of puff pastry for a future use. I'm really glad I finally made puff pastry and I will definitely be making my own from now on. And it's budget friendly too. It cost me less than $3.00 to make 2 1/2 pounds of all-butter puff pastry dough. That means my cost per pound is $1.20 which is a significant savings over buying all-butter puff pastry from the market. So thanks to hostess Steph, DB founders Lis and Ivonne and the rest of the DB gang.

The fine print:
The September 2009 Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Steph of A Whisk and a Spoon. She chose the French treat, Vols-au-Vent based on the Puff Pastry recipe by Michel Richard from the cookbook Baking With Julia by Dorie Greenspan.

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Daring Dobos Torte

2009-08-27T04:24:00.006-04:00

This month's Daring Bakers' challenge is co-hosted by Lorraine of Not Quite Nigella and Angela of A Spoonful of Sugar. They chose Dobos torte.

According to Angela and Lorraine, the Dobos torte is a five-layer sponge cake, filled with a chocolate buttercream and topped with thin wedges of caramel. It was invented in 1885 by József C. Dobos, a Hungarian baker, and it rapidly became famous throughout Europe for both its extraordinary taste and its keeping properties. The recipe was a secret until Dobos retired in 1906 and gave the recipe to the Budapest Confectioners' and Gingerbread Makers' Chamber of Industry, providing that every member of the chamber can use it freely.

I originally planned to pass on this month's challenge because it's summer time and I wanted to spend as much time away from the kitchen as possible. Even though we only need to complete 8 out of 12 challenges per year to maintain good DB standing, as the posting date approached, I felt guilty for skipping one due to laziness. I blame it on my OCD. I just like knowing that I can check this one off my list. So at the last minute I threw this cake together.

The sponge cake recipe was straightforward. I was too lazy to bake the cake in six rounds so I just spread the batter in two half-sheet pans and cut out rectangular layers. My sponge layers ended up too thick since I used only two half-sheet pans for the whole quantity of batter. I should have used three pans instead of two. My frosting and cake layering skills need some work. It bothers me that my buttercream layers are so much thinner than the cake layers.

I've only made Swiss meringue buttercream before so using whole eggs for this particular buttercream recipe was new to me. Even though I used a 60% cacao chocolate, I felt the buttercream was too sweet. But I really enjoyed the whole egg method. The chocolate buttercream turned out super rich due to the egg yolks and the buttercream did not feel too greasy or taste overly buttery. The recipe was also very forgiving. I thought my chocolate-egg mixture was cool enough to start adding the butter, but after beating in all the butter my buttercream was still a bit runny. So I chilled it in the refrigerator for 15 minutes and then beat it until it was the proper fluffiness.

I didn’t want the caramel coating on the top cake layer to be so hard that it would be impossible to fork through it so I thought that adding a little butter to the caramel might help. When the sugar reached a medium amber color I added a generous tablespoon of unsalted butter and swirled it until melted and proceeded to coat my cake layer. I had a minor mishap involving the hot pan and my sink so I was distracted. I was distracted for less than a minute but it was long enough that the caramel I poured over the cake layer had already started to set so I was unable to coat the cake layer as well as I should have.

I could fork through the caramel coated cake layer without any problems. I was worried that the caramel might be too hard or stick to my teeth but it wasn't and it didn't. The caramel shattered perfectly and melted it my mouth. I'm not sure if it turned out so well because I took the sugar to the correct stage or because I added the butter.

I read somewhere that the caramel coated cake layer was the key to the Dobos torte's "keeping properties". Well, I can't speak to that, but I can say that the caramel coated cake layer technique is something I will keep with me and use for other cakes. The caramel coated cake layer was my favorite part of the Dobos torte.

The fine print:
The August 2009 Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Angela of A Spoonful of Sugar and Lorraine of Not Quite Nigella. They chose the spectacular Dobos Torte based on a recipe from Rick Rodgers' cookbook Kaffeehaus: Exquisite Desserts from the Classic Caffés of Vienna, Budapest, and Prague.

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Cherry Tart with Almond Streusel

2009-08-07T03:20:00.003-04:00

The premise behind the monthly event You Want Pies With That is to make a pie based on a given theme. Then everyone who made a pie can vote for their favorite pie and the baker with the most votes gets to host and choose the theme. This month's host Jacque chose the theme "Nuts About Pie".

The last of the season's sweet cherries are still available in the markets so I wanted to make a tart with them before they're all gone. I knew I could incorporate nuts into the tart crust, but I wanted my pie to be nuttier. Then I found inspiration in a past issue of Bon Appétit - a streusel made with almonds, crystallized ginger and orange zest. I knew it would go perfectly with the cherries. I used meyer lemon zest instead of orange zest and I think it was a good decision. But I am always looking for ways to use up my endless supply of meyer lemons so it was not only a good decision but an easy one.

The crumbly streusel clung to the sweet cherry filling providing each mouthful with the toasted nuttiness of almond, the subtle spice and mild heat of ginger and the floral fragrance of meyer lemon. Even though the almond crust, cherry filling and streusel are magical together, I wanted to scrape off the streusel from the top of the tart and eat it all. Yes, the streusel topping was that good. It would've been a crime not to share something so delicious so I had to show restraint. But believe me when I say I'll be using that streusel to top anything that I can.

Sweet Cherry Tart with Almond Streusel
(makes one 9 1/2 x 1-inch tart)

Almond crust:
2 ounces ground blanched almonds
3 tablespoons granulated sugar
4 ounces (8 tablespoons) unsalted butter, cold, cut into 1-inch cubes
5 ounces (1 cup) all purpose flour
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 large egg yolk
2 tablespoons heavy cream

Streusel topping:
2/3 cup all purpose flour
1/3 cup granulated sugar
2 tablespoons finely chopped crystallized ginger
1 teaspoon finely grated orange or meyer lemon zest
1/8 teaspoon salt
4 tablespoons (2 ounces) unsalted butter, chilled and cut into 1/4-inch cubes
1 teaspoon almond milk (or cream or milk)
2/3 cup sliced almonds

Cherry filling:
24 ounces sweet cherries, pitted (I used Bing)
1/4 cup granulated sugar
2 teaspoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
3 tablespoons cornstarch

Make the dough for the crust:

In a food processor, add the ground almonds and sugar and pulse to combine. Add the butter cubes and pulse about 15 times or until no loose bits of almonds/sugar remain. Add the flour, zest and salt and pulse about 15 times or until the butter is about the size of small peas.

In a small bowl, whisk the egg yolk and the cream. Add it to the mixture in the food processor bowl and pulse until the ingredients are just barely incorporated, about 8 times.

Dump the mixture into a plastic Ziploc bag and flatten the dough. Chill dough in refrigerator for 30 minutes or until firm enough to roll out.

Roll the dough to an 11-inch dough circle and line a 9 x 1-inch tart pan with a removable bottom. Trim the dough so that it's even with the edge of the pan. Patch any holes or tears with the excess dough. Chill the tart shell in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes before baking. [Note: If you find the dough too sticky to roll out, you can press the dough into the tart pan with your fingers. Try to get an even thickness. You probably won’t use up all the dough. Excess dough can be baked like a sugar cookie.]

Make the streusel topping:

Blend flour, sugar, crystallized ginger, zest, and salt in a food processor. Add butter; using on/off turns, blend until coarse crumbs form. Blend in milk (mixture will resemble moist coarse crumbs). Transfer mixture to medium bowl. Stir in almonds. Set aside. [Note: Streusel can be made one day ahead. Cover and chill in refrigerator until needed.]

Make the cherry filling and bake the tart:

Position rack in center of oven and preheat to 400F.

Gently toss cherries, sugar, and lemon juice in large bowl. Let stand 10 minutes. Add cornstarch to cherry mixture and toss gently to coat. Place chilled crust on a rimmed baking sheet to catch any possible spills from the tart. Transfer cherry mixture to chilled crust. Bake at 400F for 30 minutes.

Remove tart from oven and reduce oven temperature to 375F. Sprinkle streusel topping evenly over cherry filling. Return tart to oven and bake until crust is golden brown and cherry juices are bubbling thickly, about 30-40 minutes. Transfer to a rack and cool completely before serving.

Mallows and Milans

2009-07-27T01:43:00.012-04:00

This month's Daring Bakers' hostess Nicole at Sweet Tooth chose chocolate covered marshmallow cookies (aka mallows) and milan cookies from the Food Network website. Both are from pastry chef Gale Gand and are homemade versions of Nabisco's Mallomars and Pepperidge Farm's Milanos. I've never tried Mallomars and didn’t even know about their existence until Harry (played by Billy Crystal) declared them the greatest cookies of all time in "When Harry Met Sally". Milanos were a favorite snack while I was in college. Back then there were only two varieties - original and mint. Orange, raspberry and others came along much later.

I really enjoyed the mallows. The cookie dough was very straightforward and easy. My only problem was the stated yield in the recipe was completely wrong. I rolled my dough 1/8-inch thick as stated and I was on my way to getting 12 dozen 1-inch diameter cookies. Luckily I only cut out about 50 cookies and saved the rest of the dough for the future.

I've never made marshmallows from scratch and was excited to try it. It's pretty amazing that the fluffy, runny, sticky mess sets up so nicely. It was a lot of fun and tasted much better than store bought. Instead of piping the marshmallow onto the cookies, I made them in a potato starch coated baking pan and cut them into disks after they had set up. Of course I didn’t really think it through and the marshmallow disks wouldn't stick to the cookie. I tried using fruit jam or peanut butter to stick them onto the cookie base but I felt that it detracted from the delicate flavors of the marshmallow and cookie. So I just placed them on the cookie base. The chocolate glaze coating held them in place just fine.

The recipe for the milan cookies appeared very straightforward. But I messed up somehow. Maybe I misunderstood the piping instructions, but I ended up with a lot of tiny cookies. Like the recipe instructed, I used a 1/4-inch plain tip and piped out 1-inch long sections which could give me enough to make over 200 miniature cookies instead of 3 dozen Milano-sized sandwich cookies. Maybe I was supposed to pipe out 1-inch wide sections instead of 1-inch long sections? I actually stopped after piping two sheet pans worth so I ended up baking about 80 miniature cookies.

The flavor of the cookie was okay, but the texture of my cookies was nothing like a Milano. Mine were much thinner than those used in Milanos and were like chewy tuiles. Not good. Maybe my batter was too runny? I didn’t have time to redo the cookie batter so I continued on with the recipe anyway. I made the chocolate ganache filling and assembled the sandwich cookies. I did not enjoy these at all. I should have cut my losses early by only assembling a few cookies for the photographs, saving the ganache for something else and then tossing the rest of the cookies into the compost bin. Yes, I disliked my cookies that much. I felt they were a total waste of good chocolate.

So this month was 50-50 for me. My mallows were good. My milans were bad. I'm sure the other Daring Bakers fared better than I did.

The fine print:
The July Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Nicole at Sweet Tooth. She chose Chocolate Covered Marshmallow Cookies and Milan Cookies from pastry chef Gale Gand of the Food Network.

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Blueberry Hand Pies

2009-07-06T21:00:00.008-04:00

Rebecca of Ezra Pound Cake and I had the honor of choosing the theme for this month's You Want Pies With That. We asked the participants to come up with a pie that reminds them of a "Taste of Summer". Summer can conjure up seasonal fruit or carnival foods, but it can also be about sunburns and bored kids. I was one of those bored kids.

The concept of over scheduled children driven around by a "soccer mom" didn't quite exist when I was growing up. My parents didn’t send us to camp or summer school. In fact, it was okay to leave children at home alone unsupervised for a few hours back then. My brothers and I would hang around the house and try not to destroy the house or each other.

My mom never let us have any junk food normally. But during the summer break we could occasionally go to the corner store and pick out something sugary. I always chose a Hostess Fruit Pie. I know it sounds gross and I am a bit ashamed to admit that I like it, but a 9 year old me thought it was delicious. [Note: Hostess Fruit Pies are commercially produced hand pies.]

So I decided to bake some miniature blueberry hand pies as a tribute to that childhood summertime treat.

Blueberry Hand Pies
(22-24 mini hand pies)

1 quantity of Flaky Pie Crust (see recipe below)

Blueberry Filling:
14 ounces blueberries
6 tbsp granulated sugar
5 tsp cornstarch
2 tsp finely grated lemon zest

Optional glaze:
1 egg, lightly beaten with 1 tbsp water
1-2 tsp granulated sugar

To make the filling:
Combine all ingredients in a bowl and mix well.

To assemble the hand pies:
Roll out your chilled dough to about 1/8-inch thick. Using a 4-inch round cutter, cut out 4-inch circles. (You can reuse the dough scraps once. Lay the scraps, side by side slightly overlapping and roll them between plastic wrap. Refrigerate dough for at least 15 minutes before cutting out more circles from the rolled scraps.) You should get about 22-24 circles.

Spoon about 1 to 1 1/2 tablespoons of the blueberry filling, leaving a 1/2-inch border. Brush the edges lightly with cold water (to help the dough stick) and fold dough in half. Using your fingers, press the border to seal it and then press the border using the tines of a fork. Refrigerate filled hand pies for 30-60 minutes.

To bake:
Preheat oven to 400F. If desired, brush the chilled turnovers with egg glaze and sprinkle lightly with sugar. Use a sharp knife to cut 3 steam vents into the top of each turnover. Bake at 400F for 15-20 minutes or until the pastry is lightly golden and the filling is bubbling. Let hand pies cool for 15 minutes before serving.

Flaky Pie Crust
(makes 20 ounces dough - enough pastry for 22-24 hand pies)

7 ounces (14 tbsp) unsalted butter, cut into 3/4 inch cubes
11 1/4 ounces (2 1/4 cups) bleached all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp baking powder
5 to 7 tbsp ice water
1 tbsp cider vinegar

Divide the 7 ounces (14 tbsp) of butter into 2 portions: 4.5 ounces and 2.5 ounces (9 tbsp and 5 tbsp). Refrigerate the 4.5 ounce portion and freeze the 2.5 ounce portion for at least 30 minutes.

Place the flour, salt and baking powder in the bowl of a food processor fitted with the blade. Process for a few seconds to combine.

Add the 4.5 ounces of (refrigerated) butter and process for about 20 seconds or until the mixture resembles coarse meal. Add the 2.5 ounces of (frozen) butter and pulse until the frozen butter is the size of peas.

Add the 5 tbsp of ice water and the vinegar and pulse 6-7 times. Pinch a small amount of the mixture to see if it holds together. If not, add another 1 tbsp water and pulse 3 times. Try pinching again to see if it holds together. If not, add the final 1 tbsp water and pulse 3 times.

Divide the dough in half. Wrap each portion with plastic wrap and flatten into discs. Refrigerate for at least 1 hour and up to 2 days.

Dare to Bake Well

2009-06-27T02:51:00.003-04:00

Umm, I mean bakewell. Tart that is. Co-hostesses Jasmine of Confessions of a Cardamom Addict and Annemarie of Ambrosia and Nectar challenged us with a bakewell tart for this month's Daring Bakers' recipe. The history of the bakewell tart is a bit fuzzy. According to Jasmine and Annemarie, today's version of the bakewell tart/pudding typically falls under one of two categories. The first is the "pudding" where a layer of jam is covered by an almondy pastry cream and baked in puff pastry. The second is the "tart" where a rich short pastry holds jam and an almondy sponge cake-like filling. The version they came up with is a combination of the two: a sweet short crust pastry, frangipane and jam.

The first element was an easy to make dough for the short crust pastry. They encouraged us to put away the food processor and make the dough by hand. Grating frozen butter into the flour mimics the processing that a machine would do. My only problem was a lot of butter stuck to my box grater. I was unsuccessful in my attempts to extract every bit of butter out of the grater's teeth, so I just threw in another tablespoon of butter into the mix. Problem solved. To reduce the amount of water and increase the fat, I used heavy cream instead of water in the dough. No one said this was low fat baking!

They gave us the freedom to use any flavor of jam and it could be homemade or store bought. I decided to use a mango jam given to me by a friend. And then I exercised some creative license for the final element - the frangipane filling. Even though I love almonds, I used macadamia nuts instead of almonds in the frangipane filling. I'm not sure if I can still call it frangipane if it doesn't have almonds. I toasted the macadamia nuts in the oven and let them cool completely before blitzing them in the food processor. I made sure to add a small amount of the confectioners' sugar from the filling recipe. The confectioners' sugar absorbs some of the oils released from the nuts and prevents the ground nuts from turning into nut butter. I also added a bit of dark rum and vanilla to the filling to round out the tropical theme.

The end result was quite amazing. It was like eating a tart and cake at the same time. The cakey nut filling was divine. It was rich and moist. The perfume of the macadamia nuts paired wonderfully with the sweet mango jam. The crust was flaky and buttery, but sturdy enough to encase all the goodness of the jam and cakey filling. I could cut super thin slices and it held together beautifully which was important since I was taking slice after thin slice and eating it sans fork and plate.

The fine print:
The June Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Jasmine of Confessions of a Cardamom Addict and Annemarie of Ambrosia and Nectar. They chose a Traditional (UK) Bakewell Tart... er... pudding that was inspired by a rich baking history dating back to the 1800's in England.
See This Recipe >>

Snickerdoodle Cupcakes

2009-06-21T21:59:00.005-04:00

I've been spending most of my time on my professional life (aka "the day job") during the last few weeks. The project will be completed within the next few days and I hope to be back to my baking and blogging life very soon after that. I did have time to make cupcakes for a baby shower recently. I made four varieties for the shower. Three were tried and true, but this fourth one, the snickerdoodle cupcake, was a new recipe I created.

It's a cinnamon cupcake topped with a cinnamon-sugar crackle. The cinnamon-sugar mixture is sprinkled on top of the cupcake batter before they go into the oven and it bakes into a crispy, crackly, cinnamony shell atop each moist cupcake. I then frosted each with a swirl of Swiss buttercream and then sprinkled the buttercream with more cinnamon-sugar to add a bit of sparkle. They were a big hit.

Snickerdoodle Cupcakes
(24 cupcakes)

Cupcakes:
3 cups cake flour
1 1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
12 ounces (3 sticks / 1.5 cups) unsalted butter, softened at room temp
2 cups granulated sugar
4 large eggs
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
1 1/4 cups (10 fl. oz.) buttermilk

Cinnamon-Sugar Topping:
1 tbsp granulated sugar combined with 1 tsp ground cinnamon

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line 24 (4 fluid ounce capacity) cupcake wells with paper cupcake liners. Sift together the flour, cinnamon, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Set aside flour mixture.

In the bowl of a stand mixer, using the paddle attachment, cream together the butter and sugar until fluffy, about 2-3 minutes on medium speed. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition, scraping down the sides of the bowl as necessary. Beat in the vanilla.

Alternately add the flour mixture and buttermilk beginning and ending with the flour mixture. Fill each well approximately two-thirds full. Sprinkle some of the cinnamon-sugar topping over the batter. (You might have some cinnamon-sugar leftover. That's okay. Just use it to sprinkle on top of the frosting.)

Bake cupcakes at 350F until a skewer inserted into the middle of a cupcake comes out clean or when the top springs back after lightly pressed, about 20-23 minutes. Allow cupcakes to cool in pan for 5 minutes then remove cupcakes and cool on wire rack. Cool completely before frosting.

Swiss Buttercream
(enough to lightly frost 24 cupcakes)

1 cup granulated sugar
4 large egg whites
3 sticks (12 ounces) unsalted butter, at room temperature
2 tbsp milk (I used low fat)
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon (optional)

To Make the Buttercream
Put the sugar and egg whites in a mixer bowl or another large heatproof bowl, fit the bowl over a plan of simmering water and whisk constantly, keeping the mixture over the heat, until it feels hot to the touch, about 3 minutes. The sugar should be dissolved, and the mixture will look like shiny marshmallow cream. Remove the bowl from the heat.

Working with the whisk attachment or with a hand mixer, beat the meringue on medium speed until it is cool, about 5 minutes. Switch to the paddle attachment if you have one, and add the butter a stick at a time, beating until smooth. Once all the butter is in, beat in the buttercream on medium-high speed until it is thick and very smooth, 6-10 minutes. During this time the buttercream may curdle or separate – just keep beating and it will come together again.

On medium speed, gradually beat in the milk, waiting until each addition is absorbed before adding more, and then the vanilla and cinnamon (if using). You should have a shiny smooth buttercream. Press a piece of plastic against the surface of the buttercream if not using immediately.

Daring Bakers Stretch and Roll

2009-05-27T03:02:00.004-04:00

This month's Daring Bakers' challenge is upon us again. Co-hosts Linda of Make Life Sweeter and Courtney of Coco Cooks chose strudel. They gave us the freedom to fill our strudel with whatever our hearts desired. Their only mandate was that we must make the strudel dough.

When the challenge was announced, I was excited as well as apprehensive. Never in my life did I think I would make strudel dough. I've always thought that strudel making takes decades to perfect and those proficient use secrets passed from generation to generation. However, I was pleasantly surprised at how simple the dough was to make. Rick Rodgers' recipe for strudel dough was truly wonderful. The dough was really easy to handle. Using a floured cloth to line my countertop, the dough didn't stick at all and it stretched tissue-paper-thin without tearing. And stretching it was so much fun too - I was actually giggling while doing it! Luckily no one but the cat was around to witness my silliness.

Traditionally apples are used, but apples are out of season right now so I decided to make a cherry strudel. Since cherries exude so much liquid I knew I would need a thickener. The recipe the hosts provided uses bread crumbs to absorb some of the fruit juices exuded during baking to prevent a soggy crust. I read that cornstarch can be used in place of the bread crumbs, but cornstarch needs to come to a boil to become thick and the baking time in the oven would not allow the cherries to reach that temperature. So I cooked my cherries on the stove top with the cornstarch and some sugar until it became thick. Problem solved.

Even though I had used some cornstarch, I still wanted to use some crumbs in the strudel, but I did not have bread crumbs (or even bread) in the house. My choices were chocolate genoise trimmings or panko. Using either would probably be blasphemous, but genoise seemed like the lesser of two evils. Since I introduced chocolate in the form of crumbs, I though I would add some chopped chocolate to the strudel too.

Overall the strudel was delicious. The pastry shell was strong enough to hold in the cherry chocolate filling but was at the same time delicate and flaky. The only criticism of my strudel was the ratio of filling to strudel pastry was high. I would have liked more layers of the flaky pastry. This was the 25th DB challenge that I have completed and I learn something new with each challenge. I already see myself making some kind of savory strudel for dinner in the near future and when autumn comes I will be making an apple strudel. Thanks to Courtney and Linda for choosing a great recipe which stretched my baking repertoire.

The fine print:
The May Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Linda of make life sweeter! and Courtney of Coco Cooks. They chose Apple Strudel from the recipe book Kaffeehaus: Exquisite Desserts from the Classic Cafés of Vienna, Budapest and Prague by Rick Rodgers.

Cherry Chocolate Strudel

16 ounces bing cherries, pitted
3 tbsp granulated sugar
4 tsp cornstarch
Pinch of salt
2 tsp freshly squeezed lemon juice
1/8 tsp pure almond extract
Strudel dough (see recipe below)
1/2 fresh bread crumbs
5 tbsp unsalted butter, melted, divided
1/3 cup finely chopped bittersweet chocolate

Make the cherry filling:
In a medium, non-reactive saucepan, stir together cherries, sugar, cornstarch, salt and lemon juice. Allow mixture to sit for 10-15 minutes to allow the cherries to exude some juices.

Over low heat, bring mixture to a boil, stirring constantly. The juice will thicken and become translucent. Allow it to simmer for 1 minute. Transfer to a clean bowl and stir in almond extract. Allow mixture to cool completely.

Heat 1 tablespoon of the butter in a small skillet over medium heat. Add the breadcrumbs and cook whilst stirring until golden and toasted. This will take about 2 minutes. Let filling cool completely before using.

Put the rack in the upper third of the oven and preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C). Line a large baking sheet with baking paper (parchment paper). Make the strudel dough as described below. Spread about 3 tablespoons of the remaining melted butter over the dough using your hands (a bristle brush could tear the dough, you could use a special feather pastry brush instead of your hands). Sprinkle the buttered dough with the bread crumbs. Spread the bread crumbs about 3 inches (8 cm) from the short edge of the dough in a 6-inch-(15cm) wide strip. Sprinkle the chocolate over the bread crumbs. Spread the cherry filling mixture over the chocolate.

4. Fold the short end of the dough onto the filling. Lift the tablecloth at the short end of the dough so that the strudel rolls onto itself. Transfer the strudel to the prepared baking sheet by lifting it. If necessary, curve it into a horseshoe to fit. Tuck the ends under the strudel. Brush the top with the remaining melted butter. Using a sharp knife cut a few steam vents in the dough.

5. Bake the strudel for about 30 minutes or until it is deep golden brown. Cool for at least 30 minutes before slicing. Use a serrated knife and serve either warm or at room temperature. It is best on the day it is baked.

Strudel Dough
(from Kaffeehaus – Exquisite Desserts from the Classic Cafés of Vienna, Budapest and Prague by Rick Rodgers)

1 1/3 cups (200 g) unbleached flour
1/8 teaspoon salt
7 tablespoons (105 ml) water, plus more if needed
2 tablespoons (30 ml) vegetable oil, plus additional for coating the dough
1/2 teaspoon cider vinegar

Combine the flour and salt in a stand-mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Mix the water, oil and vinegar in a measuring cup. Add the water/oil mixture to the flour with the mixer on low speed. You will get a soft dough. Make sure it is not too dry. Add a little more water if necessary.

Take the dough out of the mixer. Change to the dough hook. Put the dough ball back in the mixer. Let the dough knead on medium until you get a soft dough ball with a somewhat rough surface.

Take the dough out of the mixer and continue kneading by hand on an unfloured work surface. Knead for about 2 minutes. Pick up the dough and throw it down hard onto your working surface occasionally.

Shape the dough into a ball and transfer it to a plate. Oil the top of the dough ball lightly. Cover the ball tightly with plastic wrap. Allow to stand for 30-90 minutes (longer is better).

It would be best if you have a work area that you can walk around on all sides like a 36 inch (90 cm) round table or a work surface of 23 x 38 inches (60 x 100 cm). Cover your working area with table cloth, dust it with flour and rub it into the fabric. Put your dough ball in the middle and roll it out as much as you can.

Pick the dough up by holding it by an edge. This way the weight of the dough and gravity can help stretching it as it hangs. Using the back of your hands to gently stretch and pull the dough. You can use your forearms to support it.

The dough will become too large to hold. Put it on your work surface. Leave the thicker edge of the dough to hang over the edge of the table. Place your hands underneath the dough and stretch and pull the dough thinner using the backs of your hands. Stretch and pull the dough until it's about 2 feet (60 cm) wide and 3 feet (90 cm) long, it will be tissue-thin by this time. Cut away the thick dough around the edges with scissors. The dough is now ready to be filled.

YWPWT: Egg Custard Tarts

2009-05-07T02:36:00.005-04:00

This month's You Want Pies With That theme "Family Favorite Pie" was chosen by Natalie of Oven Love. She asked us to use a family favorite dessert as the inspiration for our pie or tart.

A childhood sweet that I still love to this day is Chinese egg custard tarts aka "dohn-tot". They can be found on dim sum menus and in Chinese bakery cases everywhere. In fact, there is a cafe in New York City called Egg Custard King. But I have it on good authority (my brothers) that their namesake egg tarts are no match for Golden Gate Bakery's egg tarts. There is always a slow moving line for the egg tarts at this San Francisco Chinatown bakery. The wait can be as long as 15-20 minutes on weekends. The tarts at GG Bakery are pricey at $1.15 each, but the lightly sweetened silky egg custard encased in a flaky pastry shell is worth it. In general, dohn-tots are best eaten warm, but if it's still delicious when cold, you know you have winner.

The owners of GG Bakery close the bakery at least once or twice a year for a 4 or 5 week long vacation. And when they reopen, they always seem to raise the price of the dohn-tot by 5 or 10 cents. I heard from my parents who heard it through the Chinatown rumor mill that they always raise the price to pay for their long vacations. But I think they raise the prices because demand is high and simply because people will still line up for them.

The origin of the dohn-tot is unclear. Some people believe that they are similar to a Portuguese egg tart called pastel de nata and made its way to Hong Kong via Macau, a long time Portuguese colony.

I've never felt the need to make my own dohn-tot because I can easily get one from GG Bakery. Also, a lot of the dohn-tot recipes I've come across have a shortbread crust as opposed to the delicate but much more labor intensive puff pastry shell. In my opinion, it’s not a dohn-tot if it has a shortbread crust. For this month's YWPWT, I decided to try my hand at making dohn-tot.

I found this recipe for Portuguese custard tarts in an old issue of Saveur magazine. It sounded great because the crust is made using a rough puff pastry dough. Rough puff pastry is not as difficult to make as traditional puff pastry but it's still extremely flaky. It's perfect for this application. The custard filling recipe called for blueberries and passion fruit, but I left out the fruit to make the tarts more dohn-tot-like.

I liked the way my tarts came out. I was afraid that the custard filling would be a bit too sweet, and it was, but not when paired with the buttery, flaky tart shell. The filling had a nice flavor, but it wasn't as silky as I hoped it would be. But, overall, I think this was a good first attempt. The custard tart was very reminiscent of dohn-tot.

Egg Custard Tarts
(makes 2 dozen)
(adapted from Saveur Magazine #95: Portuguese Custard Tarts)

Crust:
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 1/4 cups (10 ounces) unsalted butter
1/2 tsp salt

Custard filling:
1 cup granulated sugar
1 1/4 cups whole milk
3 tbsp all purpose flour
6 large egg yolks
1 tsp pure vanilla extract

Crust:
Toss together 1 1⁄2 cups flour, butter, and salt in medium bowl. Add 6 tbsp. ice water; form into a rough ball (don't mash butter). On a floured surface, shape dough into a 6" × 12" rectangle. Fold like a letter. Roll out into a 6" × 12" rectangle; fold again. Roll out and fold 3 more times. Cover; refrigerate for 1 hour; repeat rolling and folding process 2 more times. Cover; refrigerate for 1 hour.

Roll out dough into a 12" × 18" rectangle. Tightly roll up long side to form a cylinder. Cover; refrigerate for 1 hour. Cut crosswise into 24 slices. Working with 1 slice at a time, lightly flour, roll into a 3" circle, and press into 2 1⁄2"-wide, 3⁄4"-deep pie tins with sloping sides. Transfer to baking sheet and cover; refrigerate.

Custard:
Put sugar and 2⁄3 cup water into a small pot. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat without stirring; reduce heat to medium and boil for 5 minutes. Be careful - this sugar syrup is hot.

Whisk together 1⁄4 cup of the milk with the 3 tablespoons of flour in a large bowl. Bring remaining milk to a simmer and, while whisking, pour hot milk into the milk-flour mixture. Whisk in sugar syrup and let mixture cool until warm. Whisk in the egg yolks and vanilla to make a custard.

Preheat oven to 400°. Fill each tart by two-thirds with custard. Bake until pastry is light brown and custard has just set, 16–18 minutes. Let cool on a rack.

The Creamiest Cheesecake

2009-04-27T01:22:00.005-04:00

Time for this month's Daring Bakers' challenge. Host Jenny of Jenny Bakes presented us with an easy challenge - cheesecake. She gave us the freedom to do any flavor cheesecake and any kind of crust as long as we used the recipe she gave us as the starting point. The recipe comes from Jenny's friend Abbey. Abbey's recipe was very similar to the recipe that I've been using for years. My batter is made with three sticks (24 ounces) of cream cheese, 3 large eggs, 1 cup of sugar, and a little heavy cream and/or butter. Any number of flavors can be added to the batter and, over the last 15 years, I have tried many combinations. The major difference between my usual recipe and Abbey's is the amount of heavy cream. I usually use about 2 to 4 ounces heavy cream which adds some mellow richness to the cheesecake. Abbey's recipe uses a full 8 ounces. Oh my, how decadent! Not that I'm complaining. If you're going to make cheesecake, might as well make the richest, creamiest one you can.

Many people love cheesecake, but I am not one of them. Most of the time it's too tangy-sour-cheesy for me. Even so, I've baked a lot of cheesecakes in my lifetime and people are always impressed by homemade cheesecake. Cheesecake is not as hard as people imagine it is to make, but let's keep that little secret between you and me.

Since I'm not a fan of cheesecake, I prefer batters with flavors that downplay that cream-cheesiness. I know that defeats the purpose of a cheesecake. One of my favorite flavors is espresso/coffee. I gave up coffee about a year ago due to health reasons, but I can still have one very teeny-tiny cappuccino every few weeks. Having one is pretty much a special occasion for me. I can tell you the exact details surrounding each one I've had in the last 6 months. Can you tell how much I miss drinking coffee? For my birthday last month my husband asked me what I wanted to do. I said I wanted to go to the Blue Bottle Café at the Mint Plaza and share a cappuccino. Hey, what can I say? I'm a cheap date.

Anyway, like I was saying, espresso cheesecake sounded really good. I didn’t want to do a graham cracker, cookie, shortbread or pastry crust, so I decided to make a chocolate brownie for my crust using a recipe from Tish Boyle's "The Cake Book". The brownie bottom was a perfect complement to the espresso bean flecked cafe latte filling. The bottom layer was like a really moist and fudgy brownie and the filling layer was extremely smooth and creamy. It must be from all that heavy cream. That Abbey really knows her stuff. Thanks to hostess Jenny for sharing this great recipe. So there you have it. Another DB challenge under my belt - that makes 24 and counting. I can't wait to see what's in store for next month.

The fine print:
The April 2009 challenge is hosted by Jenny from Jenny Bakes. She has chosen Abbey's Infamous Cheesecake as the challenge. Please visit Jenny Bakes to see the original recipe for Abbey's infamous cheesecake.

Brownie Bottom Latte Cheesecake
(One 10-inch cheesecake)

Brownie Bottom Ingredients:
4 ounces bittersweet chocolate, coarsely chopped (I like using 60-72%cacao)
4 ounces (1 stick) unsalted butter, cut in 8 pieces
1 tbsp instant espresso powder
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs
1/2 cup all purpose flour

Cheesecake Ingredients:
24 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature
1 cup granulated sugar
3 large eggs
1 cup (8 fl oz) heavy cream
2 tsp pure vanilla extract
2 tsp instant espresso powder dissolved in 1 tbsp hot water
2 tsp finely ground espresso beans

Make the brownie bottom:

1. Preheat the oven to 325F. Lightly butter the bottom and sides of a 10x3 inch springform pan. Line the bottom with a circle of parchment paper and butter the parchment. Cut two or three 18-inch squares of heavy duty aluminum foil and wrap the foil around the outside of the pan.

2. In a double boiler, heat the chocolate and butter until just melted. Add the espresso powder, vanilla and salt, Whisk in the sugar until well combined. Whisk in the eggs, one at a time, whisking well after each addition. Stir in the flour until just incorporated.

3. Scrape batter in the prepared pan and smooth the batter into an even layer. Bake the brownie for 25 to 30 minutes until a tester inserted in the middle comes out with a few moist crumbs. Place the pan on a cooling rack while you make the filling. Increase oven temperature to 350F.

Make the cheesecake filling:

1. Combine cream cheese and sugar in the bowl of a stand mixer and cream together until smooth. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition, scraping down the bowl in between each egg. Add heavy cream, vanilla extract, espresso powder mixture, ground espresso beans and blend until smooth and creamy. Don’t overbeat.

2. Pour batter into your baked brownie bottom and gently tap the pan on the counter a few times to bring all air bubbles to the surface. Place pan into a larger pan and pour boiling water into the larger pan until halfway up the side of the cheesecake pan. (The foil wrapped around the pan should help keep the water from seeping into the cake.)

3. Bake at 350F for 45 to 55 minutes, until the edges are set and the center is still a little wobbly. You don't want the cheesecake to be completely firm at this stage. Close the oven door, turn the heat off, and let the cheesecake rest in the cooling oven for one hour. This lets the cake finish cooking and cool down gently enough so that it won't crack on the top.

4. After one hour, remove cheesecake from oven and lift carefully out of water bath. Let it finish cooling on the counter (about 2 hours), and then cover and chill in the refrigerator. Chilling it for at least 4 hours before cutting is important. Otherwise the cheesecake won't be completely set and might be runny when you cut into it.

How to remove the cheesecake from the springform pan:

Run a thin bladed knife along the sides to loosen the cake from the pan. Undo the latch of the springform and remove the ring. Run a thin blade or spatula underneath the parchment paper to loosen the cheesecake from the bottom of the springform pan. I like to use an icing spatula for this. Now place a piece of parchment on top of the cheesecake and then place a plate on top of the parchment so that the cheesecake is sandwiched between the cake pan bottom and the parchment-plate. Invert. Remove the cake pan bottom and gently peel away the parchment from the brownie. Place your serving platter on the brownie and re-invert so that the cheesecake is right side up. Remove the plate and parchment from the top.

Chocolate Truffle Tarts

2009-04-19T17:02:00.004-04:00

I'm not posting as often as I would like since I've been extremely busy with work lately. I do apologize and I hope you'll be patient. The craziness at work should settle down in the next five or six weeks. I'm still trying to bake and post for Daring Bakers and YWPWT, but I haven't had much time otherwise. I've dug back into my Flickr archives and found this lovely tart I never posted. The crust is an almond cookie crust with some grated orange zest. The zest is optional, but I think the combination of orange and almond works really well with the raspberries and chocolate. The chocolate filling is a truffle cake batter with some raspberry jam mixed in. The batter is baked in the prebaked cookie shells and then I topped the tarts with gorgeous fresh raspberries when I was ready to serve them.

Chocolate Truffle Tarts with Raspberries
(makes seven 4 3/4-inch x 3/4-inch tartlets)

6 ounces bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped
6 ounces unsalted butter, cut into 1-inch cubes
4 large eggs, at room temperature
1 large egg yolk, at room temperature
1/3 cup granulated sugar
3 tablespoons all purpose flour, sifted
1/4 cup raspberry jam, at room temperature
(I prefer seedless jam but with seeds can work too)
7 prebaked 4 3/4-inch x 3/4-inch tartlet shells
(see "Sweet Almond Cookie Crust recipe below)
Fresh raspberries

1. Preheat oven to 375F.

2. In a bowl set over a pan of simmering water (the bottom of the bowl should not touch the water), combine the chocolate and butter and stir occasionally until smooth and melted. Set aside.

3. In the bowl from a stand mixer heat the 4 whole eggs, 1 egg yolk and sugar, set over the same pan of simmering water, stirring occasionally to prevent curdling, until mixture is just warm to the touch.

4. Attach bowl to the stand mixer, and using the whisk attachment, beat on medium speed until just lemony yellow and doubled in volume.

5. Whisk the flour into the chocolate mixture. On low speed, add the chocolate mixture to the eggs all at once. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and continue to mix until well combined, about 1 minute. Add the raspberry jam and mix for another 30 seconds. At this point the batter can be refrigerated, tightly wrapped, for up to 5 days. Or you can use it right away.

6. Pour batter into the seven prebaked tartlet shells. It's okay to fill the shells all the way to the top. (You might have some batter left over.) Bake at 375F for 13-16 minutes until the filling is just set and slightly wobbly in the center. Allow tartlets to cool for at least 30 minutes. Carefully remove the tartlet from the pans. Top with fresh raspberries and serve.

Sweet Almond Cookie Crust
(makes enough dough for seven 4 3/4-inch x 3/4-inch tartlets)

2 ounces ground blanched almonds
3 tablespoons superfine or granulated sugar
4 ounces (8 tablespoons) unsalted butter, cold, cut into 1-inch cubes
5 ounces (1 cup) all purpose flour
2 tsp finely grated orange zest (optional)
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 large egg yolk
2 tablespoons heavy cream

Directions for making the dough and prebaking the crusts:

1. In a food processor, add the ground almonds and sugar and pulse to combine. Add the butter cubes and pulse about 15 times or until no loose bits of almonds/sugar remain. Add the flour, zest and salt and pulse about 15 times or until the butter is about the size of small peas.

2. In a small bowl, whisk the egg yolk and the cream. Add it to the mixture in the food processor bowl and pulse until the ingredients are just barely incorporated, about 8 times.

3. Dump the mixture into a plastic Ziploc bag and flatten the dough. Chill dough in refrigerator for 30 minutes or until firm enough to pat into the tartlet pans.

4. For seven 4 3/4-inch x 3/4-inch tartlets, divide the chilled dough into 7 equal portions. Press each piece of dough evenly over the bottom and up the sides of each tartlet pan. Chill the tartlet shells in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes before baking.

5. Preheat the oven to 425F. Bake for 5 minutes at 425F. If the dough starts to puff in places, prick it lightly with a fork or press down lightly with your fingertips. Reduce the oven temperature to 350F and continue baking for another 5-8 minutes or until it turns pale gold, feels set but is still soft to the touch. Cool tartlet shells (still in the pans) on a wire rack.

The Ultimate Pick Me Up

2009-04-07T02:11:00.006-04:00

This month's You Want Pies With That? hosts Jacque and Natashya chose the theme "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous". They asked that we make a pie based on someone famous. It can be inspired by them or something you'd like to serve them if they ever dropped by. Our famous celebrity must be someone who has had more than 15 minutes of fame. So all you reality show hacks can apply elsewhere.

Champagne wishes and caviar dreams

For the uninitiated, the premise behind YWPWT is to make a pie (or anything pie-ish like a tart) inspired by the chosen theme. Then everyone who made a pie can vote for their favorite pie and the baker with the most votes gets to host and choose the theme the following month.

Tiramisu is a dessert typically made from ladyfingers soaked in espresso and Marsala and then layered with a mascarpone cream. Tiramisu means "pick me up" in Italian. The dessert will do that to you because of the espresso and booze. I decided to turn a typical tiramisu into a tiramisu tart. I made a tart shell with pate sucree which is like a sugar cookie dough. I then sweetened some mascarpone cheese and blended it with some whipped heavy cream. I also made a genoise (sponge cake) and soaked that in an espresso-Kahlua syrup. Then I layered the cream and soaked genoise in the tart shell (which I first brushed with some melted chocolate) and I topped it off with a dusting of cocoa and some bittersweet chocolate shavings.

Now what does tiramisu have to do with Brad Pitt?

Could it be the sweet, dreamy clouds of mascarpone cream?

Perhaps the smoldering, dark espresso?

Or maybe it’s the simple fact that no matter how bad a day you've had, this sight has to be the ultimate pick me up.

"Brad Pitt Me Up" Tiramisu Tart
(makes one 9-inch tart)

Four components: pate sucree, genoise, espresso syrup, mascarpone cream.

1. Pate Sucree (Sweet Dough Crust)
(makes 14 ounces)

4 ounces (8 tbsp) unsalted butter, cut into 8 pieces
3 tbsp granulated sugar
1 1/2 cups (200g / 7 ounces) all purpose flour
1/8 tsp salt
1 large egg yolk
2 tbsp heavy cream

In a food processor with the metal blade, pulse the butter and sugar about 15 times. Add the flour and salt and pulse again about 15 times or until the butter in no larger than small peas.

In a small bowl, stir together the egg yolk and cream. Add it to the mixture and pulse until just incorporated, about 8 times. The dough will still be crumbly.

Empty onto a large sheet of plastic wrap. Using the plastic wrap press the dough together, kneading it a few times until the dough becomes one smooth piece. Flatten into a 6-inch disk.

Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes, until it's firm enough to pat into the pan or to roll.

You will only need 11 ounces of the dough to line your 9 x 1-inch tart pan. Save the rest of the dough for another use. It's important that your tart pan be at least 1 inch deep. I used a springform pan and made sure that my dough came 1 inch up the sides. Also, be sure to use a pan with a removable bottom - it'll make it easier to get your finished tart out.

Roll your dough in between lightly floured sheets of plastic wrap to about 1/8-inch thick circle. Trim the edges of the rolled dough so that you have 11 1/2 inch circle. Gently transfer dough to your pan and press into pan, making sure that the dough comes up at least 1/8 inch above the rim of the tart pan. If the dough tears, just patch the holes with scraps. Wrap the lined pan well and refrigerate for 6 hours if you have the time. The longer rest period will help decrease the shrinkage during baking. But if you're pressed for time, refrigerate for at least 1 hour.

Preheat oven to 400F. Remove the plastic wrap and line the dough with parchment (pleat the parchment to make it fit nicely). Fill the parchment with pie weights. Bake at 400F for 5 minutes. If the dough puffs in places, prick it lightly with a fork. Lower the heat to 375F and bake for 15 to 20 minutes or until set. Lift out the weights with the parchment, prick lightly and continue bake for 10 to 15 minutes. (So total baking time would be 30 to 40 minutes). Let crust cool in the pan.

pie weights

2. Genoise (Sponge Cake)

3 large eggs
1/2 cup granulated sugar
4 tbsp unsalted butter, melted
1/2 cup cake flour, measure and then sift 3 times

Preheat oven to 350F. Prepare one 9-inch round cake pan by buttering just the bottom. Line with a parchment circle and butter the paper.

Fill a medium saucepan halfway with water and bring to a simmer. Combine the eggs and sugar in the bowl of your stand mixer and place the bowl over the simmering water. Insert a thermometer. Whisk constantly until the temperature reaches 110F, about 3 to 4 minutes.

Remove from heat and attach bowl to your stand mixer. Using the whisk attachment, whip on high speed for 5 to 8 minutes or until the eggs are three times their original volume, are thick and pale yellow and form a ribbon that doesn’t dissolve when drizzled from a spatula.

Turn down the mixer to medium speed and whip for 2 more minutes. This helps the form to stabilize. Decrease speed to low, stream in the melted butter and mix for 15 seconds. Remove bowl from mixer.

Add the flour. Fold in gently with a balloon whisk, maintaining as much of the foam as possible.

Pour the batter into your pan. Tap the pan lightly on your countertop three times to eliminate any air bubbles. Then, using the same jerking wrist motion you would use to toss a Frisbee, swing the pan around on your countertop so that the batter is forced up the sides of the pan. This will prevent a dome from forming in the middle of the cake.

Bake 25 to 27 minutes. Test for doneness by lightly touching the top of the cake with your finger. The indentation should spring right back if it's done. If it's not done, bake another 5 to 10 minutes.

Let cake cool in pan for 15 minutes, then invert onto a cooling rack, gently peel off the parchment. Cool for at least 2 hours. Slice the cake horizontally to get a 1/3-inch thick disk or cake. Make sure the disk will fit inside your baked tart crust. If necessary, trim some of the edges to make it fit. Save the remaining cake for another use.

3. Espresso Syrup

4 tsp instant espresso powder (I use Medaglia d'Oro brand)
2 tbsp granulated sugar
2/3 cup water, divided use
1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract
2 tsp coffee liqueur (like Kahlua brand)

In a small saucepan, stir together the espresso powder, sugar, and 1/3 cup water. Bring to a boil, stirring constantly to dissolve the espresso and sugar. Remove from heat and add remaining 1/3 cup water, vanilla and liquor. Can be made 1 day ahead (store in refrigerator).

4. Mascarpone Cream

1 8-ounce container mascarpone cheese
1/2 cup confectioners' sugar
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
2 tsp coffee liqueur (like Kahlua brand)
1 cup heavy cream

Put mascarpone, sugar, vanilla and liqueur in a large bowl and whisk until smooth.

Working with a stand or hand mixer, whip the heavy cream until it holds firm peaks. Using a rubber spatula, stir about 1/4 of the whipped cream into the mascarpone mixture. Gently fold in the rest of the whipped cream with a light touch (you don’t want to deflate your mixture). Use immediately.

How to assemble your tiramisu tart

Place your disk of genoise on a sheet of plastic wrap and brush with half the espresso syrup.

Make sure your baked tart crust has cooled completely. Leave tart crust in pan. Melt 1 ounce bittersweet chocolate. Warm 2 tablespoons of heavy cream and stir into melted chocolate until well combined. With the chocolate mixture, "paint" the bottom of your crust. This helps to moisture proof the tart crust so that it doesn’t get soggy.

Spoon half of the mascarpone cream into your chocolate painted tart crust, spreading the cream gently and evenly with an offset spatula. Place the genoise disk, syrup side down, on top of the cream. Brush genoise with the remaining syrup. Spread remaining mascarpone cream gently and evenly on top of genoise. Dust with unsweetened cocoa powder. Refrigerate tart at least 3 hours before serving.

Daring Bakers Make Lasagna

2009-03-27T04:14:00.004-04:00

When co-hosts Mary of Beans and Caviar, Melinda of Melbourne Larder and Enza of Io Da Grande announced that March's Daring Bakers' challenge was lasagna, I thought about passing on this one. I don’t usually skip any of the Daring Baker challenges, but lasagna falls outside of what I normally blog about here on Alpineberry (which is mainly pastries, baking and desserts).

I admit I have blogged about a savory tart before, but that was about making a flaky pie dough. And, yes, I blogged about pizza for the October 2008 DB challenge, but that was more about making the yeasted dough for the crust. To me, making pizza dough seems to be more like making bread. I know that the key part of this month's challenge is to make our own pasta dough, but making spinach lasagna with a béchamel sauce and meat ragu feels more like cooking than baking. I know it's a fine line. Technically something is baked if it went in the oven. I guess you can argue that pizza also straddles the line between cooking and baking. But would a roast chicken be considered baking? I mean, it's baked but is it baking? I don't know. We could argue the semantics for days.

I think our hosts may have chosen lasagna as a way to celebrate the launch of our new website The Daring Kitchen and a new group called the Daring Cooks. Yup, that's right. We're no longer just Daring Bakers anymore. We're cooks now too, hence, the new Daring Kitchen. Even though the lasagna is the Daring Bakers' challenge recipe and not the inaugural Daring Cooks' challenge recipe, I'm not going to argue with the powers that be. After some consideration, I knew I could turn this month's challenge into something that I could post on my blog. I decided to create a sweet "lasagna" dessert.

I wanted to be sure to honor the main part of this month's challenge - making the pasta dough. Instead of spinach pasta, I decided to make a sweet pistachio pasta dough. And instead of béchamel and meat ragu, I decided on a white chocolate mascarpone cream and a diced strawberry "ragu". My idea was to deep fry the sweet pasta dough and then layer it with the cream and strawberries.

I had to make up a recipe for the sweet pistachio pasta dough. Using the spinach pasta dough recipe as the basis, I omitted the spinach, decreased the amount of flour and added some sugar and pistachio paste. I used canned pistachio paste which is a mixture of ground pistachios, oil, and sugar. My dough was difficult to knead by hand and to roll out. It took some time but I managed to get the dough nice and thin. I think I built up some arm muscles working that dough. My resulting pasta dough wasn’t as elastic and stretchy as traditional pasta dough, but, for the most part, it had the texture and feel of fresh pasta. The dough wasn't as green as I wanted and it lost any semblance of green after I deep fried the pasta squares.

The white chocolate mascarpone cream was very straightforward. I just made a white chocolate ganache, mixed in some mascarpone cheese, chilled the mixture and then beat it until fluffy. My ragu of strawberries was even simpler. Just dice some strawberries, toss in a bit of sugar and let them macerate for a few minutes.

The sweet lasagna dessert was pretty delicious. The fried pasta squares had just a hint of pistachio and was just sweet enough. The cream was rich and decadent and the berries were sweet and tart. It was a good combination of flavors and textures. The only thing I didn’t like was my fried pasta squares were a bit crunchy so it was difficult to break through the top layer of the lasagna with a fork. The bottom two layers were easy to break since the cream and berries softened them a little. Overall, I would say it was a great success.

The March 2009 challenge is hosted by Mary of Beans and Caviar, Melinda of Melbourne Larder and Enza of Io Da Grande. They have chosen Lasagne of Emilia-Romagna from The Splendid Table by Lynne Rossetto Kasper as the challenge.

To see the recipe for Lasagne of Emilia-Romagna, please visit our hosts Enza, Melinda, and Mary.

Sweet Pistachio Pasta Dough
(enough to make about 36 3x3 inch squares of pasta)

220 g all purpose flour
2 large eggs
4 tbsp pistachio paste
2 tbsp sugar
Pinch salt

Mixing the dough:
Mound the flour in the center of your work surface and make a well in the middle. Beat together the eggs, pistachio paste, sugar and salt in a bowl. Scrape mixture into the well. Then gradually start incorporating shallow scrapings of flour from the sides of the well into the liquid. As you work more and more flour into the liquid, the well’s sides may collapse. Use a pastry scraper to keep the liquids from running off and to incorporate the last bits of flour into the dough. Don’t worry if it looks like a hopelessly rough and messy lump.

Kneading:
With the aid of the scraper to scoop up unruly pieces, start kneading the dough. Once it becomes a cohesive mass, use the scraper to remove any bits of hard flour on the work surface – these will make the dough lumpy. Knead the dough for about 3 minutes. If it is too sticky to move easily, knead in some flour. Continue kneading about 5-10 minutes, or until the dough has become satiny, smooth, and very elastic. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap, and let it relax at room temperature 30 minutes to 3 hours.

Rolling:
With a rolling pin, roll out a quarter of the dough at a time and keep the rest of the dough wrapped. Lightly sprinkle a large work surface with flour. Shape it into a ball and begin rolling out to form a circle, frequently turning the disc of dough a quarter turn. Keep rolling until the disc becomes larger and thinner. The goal is a sheet of even thickness. The sheet should be pretty thin (about 2 mm). Cut into squares about 3 by 3 inches. Repeat with remaining dough.

Fry the dough:
Heat a pan half-filled with vegetable oil to 375F. Fry the pasta squares in batches for 20-30 seconds, until golden. Carefully remove and drain on paper towels. Cool before assembly.

White Chocolate Mascarpone Cream
9 oz high quality white chocolate, finely chopped
9 oz heavy cream
12 oz container of mascarpone cheese
1 tsp vanilla extract

Combine chocolate and cream in a heat proof bowl and set bowl over a pot of simmering water (or use a double boiler). Stir occasionally until chocolate is melted. Whisk in mascarpone and vanilla extract. Cover and chill in refrigerator for 1 hour. Using the paddle attachment on a stand mixer, beat until fluffy.

Strawberry "Ragu"
1.5 pounds strawberries
2-4 tbsp sugar

Hull and dice the strawberries. Toss with sugar. The amount of sugar you need will depend on the sweetness of your berries. Let sit for 10 minutes.

Assemble your sweet lasagna:
Top one fried pasta square with 2 tablespoons of white chocolate mascarpone cream and spread cream to cover the square. Take care not to break the pasta square. Top the cream with diced strawberries. Repeat with another layer (fried pasta, cream, strawberries). Set a fried pasta square on top and dust it with powder sugar. Serve.

Eat Good Cake

2009-03-14T03:25:00.004-04:00

I've been so busy lately that I've been neglecting my poor little blog. I already missed last month's "You Want Pies With That?" and sadly I couldn't get my act together to participate in this month's event either. I feel particularly bad about it since today is Pi(e) Day (as in 3.14). So I’d like to apologize to my fellow YWPWT participants. I will definitely get back to making pie next month.

I did manage to throw together this carrot cake though. Spring is right around the corner and spring reminds me of bunnies and bunnies eat carrots. So I guess you can say I've just had carrots on the brain lately and there was a bag of organic carrots in my refrigerator calling out to me. I used a recipe from Dorie Greenspan's "Baking From My Home to Yours" and tweaked it a little bit. I scaled her recipe down to make a shorter (two layer) cake instead of a taller (three layer) cake. Also, I replaced some of the granulated white sugar with brown sugar to add a bit of that molasses flavor, decreased the amount of cinnamon and added some orange zest. I really liked Dorie's addition of shredded coconut to the cake batter. I adapted a Martha recipe for the frosting. The addition of orange juice and zest to the frosting really brightens up the flavor of your typical cream cheese frosting and pairs nicely with the cake.

Everyone, including me, really liked the cake. It was moist and flavorful and not at all dense and the frosting was just sweet enough. I was a bit surprised with how many people said to me "I don't normally like carrot cake...but I love this one." My response to them was "I guess you don’t like bad carrot cake."

Carrot Cake
(Makes one 9-inch layer cake)

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup light brown sugar, firmly packed
3/4 cup canola oil
3 large eggs
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
2 tsp finely grated orange zest
2 1/4 cups grated carrots
2/3 cup coarsely chopped pecans or walnuts
2/3 cup shredded coconut (unsweetened or sweetened)
1/3 cup dried cranberries (or raisins)

Preheat oven to 350F. Butter two 9x2-inch round cake pans, line the bottoms with parchment paper and butter the paper.

Sift together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon and salt. Set aside.

In the bowl of a stand mixer using the paddle attachment, beat both sugars and oil together on medium speed until smooth. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition, scraping down the sides of the bowl as necessary. Add vanilla extract and orange zest and beat batter until batter is smooth.

On low speed, add the flour mixture and mix only until the dry ingredients barely disappear. On low speed, mix in the grated carrots. Then remove the bowl from the mixer and, by hand, gently mix in the nuts, coconut and dried cranberries.

Divide the batter evenly among the two prepared cake pans. Bake at 350F until a thin knife inserted into the center comes out clean and the cakes have just started to come away from the sides of the pans, about 35-45 minutes.

Allow cakes to cool in the pans about 10-15 minutes, and then run a thin knife or an offset spatula around the edges to loosen the cake form the pan. Invert cakes onto a cooling rack and peel off the parchment paper. Reinvert the cakes and let them cool completely, top sides up.

Orange Cream Cheese Frosting
(enough to frost a 9-inch two layer cake)

8 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature
4 ounces unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/2 tsp finely grated orange zest
1 tbsp freshly squeezed orange juice
1 3/4 cups confectioners' sugar, sifted

In the bowl of a stand mixer using the paddle attachment, beat the butter on medium high speed until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Add the cream cheese and beat until combined and fluffy, about 2 minutes, scraping down the sides of the bowl as necessary. Beat in the orange zest and orange juice. Gradually add the confectioners' sugar and continue to beat until the frosting is smooth.

Chocolate Valentino

2009-02-28T03:20:00.007-05:00

Our wonderful co-hosts Dharm and Wendy gave us an easy and delicious flourless chocolate cake recipe called "Chocolate Valentino" for this month's Daring Bakers' challenge, but they also asked us to pair it with a homemade ice cream. Even though the challenge recipe was one of the easiest Daring Bakers' recipes we've had to date, I had to turn to Ben and Jerry for help with the second part of the challenge. It's been about 9 or 10 years since I've made my own ice cream and my ice cream machine was not stored in my garage as I originally thought, but actually stored at my parents' house. So my apologizes to Wendy and Dharm for failing the ice cream part of the challenge.

The "Chocolate Valentino" recipe comes from Chef Wan, Malaysia's eccentric rock star chef and food ambassador. It simply contains chocolate, butter and eggs. I don't think a cake can get much easier than that. Because there is nothing to hide behind, the cake will taste only as good as the chocolate used, so I used my favorite brand for baking - Valrhona. I used a 70% cacao chocolate because I didn’t want the cake to be too bittersweet. Also, less cacao means more sugar and more sugar means more moisture added to the cake.

The batter was a breeze to whip up. Like with most flourless chocolate cake batters, the most technical part was making sure the egg whites were not over beatened. They should be beaten to stiff peaks but not dry (they should still be shiny and glossy). At this stage, the egg whites will provide the maximum expansion for a souffle-like result and excellent moisture inside when baked. Over beaten whites will make the cake dry. Of course folding the beaten whites into the chocolate-yolk mixture with minimal deflation is also key. You want to maintain the air you worked so hard to achieve. Deflated egg whites will give you a flat cake.

soufflé-like

I divided the recipe into 3/5 which was the perfect amount to fill three heart shaped ramekins. It was also easy to divide the recipe into 3/5 since the original recipe called for 5 eggs. The cakes puffed up and then settled down a bit while they cooled, leaving a nice crust. I must say that they turned out great. It was melt-in-your-mouth tender and so delicious when paired with the ice cream.

it melts in your mouth

Chocolate Valentino

Ingredients:
16 ounces (1 pound) (454 grams) of semisweet chocolate, roughly chopped
½ cup (1 stick) plus 2 tablespoons (146 grams total) of unsalted butter
5 large eggs separated

Note: For a real Valentino, bake it in a heart shaped pan or cut it out into a heart shape. You may use any shape pan that gives you an area of 50” - 6x8 or 7x7. An 8” spring form pan works with great results as do smaller pans or ramekins.

1. Put chocolate and butter in a heatproof bowl and set over a pan of simmering water (the bottom of the bowl should not touch the water) and melt, stirring often.
2. While your chocolate butter mixture is cooling. Butter your pan and line with a parchment circle then butter the parchment.
3. Separate the egg yolks from the egg whites and put into two medium/large bowls.
4. Whip the egg whites in a medium/large grease free bowl until stiff peaks are formed (do not over-whip or the cake will be dry).
5. With the same beater beat the egg yolks together.
6. Add the egg yolks to the cooled chocolate.
7. Fold in 1/3 of the egg whites into the chocolate mixture and follow with remaining 2/3rds. Fold until no white remains without deflating the batter.
8. Pour batter into prepared pan, the batter should fill the pan 3/4 of the way full, and bake at 375F/190C.
9. Bake for 25 minutes until an instant read thermometer reads 140F/60C. (Note – If you do not have an instant read thermometer, the top of the cake will look similar to a brownie and a cake tester will appear wet.)
10. Cool cake on a rack for 10 minutes then unmold.

The fine print:
The February 2009 challenge is hosted by Wendy of WMPE's blog and Dharm of Dad ~ Baker & Chef. We have chosen a Chocolate Valentino cake by Chef Wan; a Vanilla Ice Cream recipe from Dharm and a Vanilla Ice Cream recipe from Wendy as the challenge.

My 3/5 recipe ingredients:
9.6 oz (273 g) chocolate
3 oz (6 tbsp/87.6g) unsalted butter
3 large eggs, separated

Ben and Jerry's pistachio ice cream to the rescue

Not My Grandmother's Chocolate Cake

2009-02-23T02:33:00.005-05:00

This is the very first chocolate layer cake I've ever made. To me chocolate layer cake is a very "American" cake. The kind of cake grandmothers all over the country have made using family recipes that have been passed down from generation to generation. I imagine that every family has their own version. But my family doesn’t since my parents are immigrants and I am a first generation American. My family has amazing recipes for dumplings, soups, Chinese tamales (zong zi) and New Year's cake (nian gao), but we have nothing for chocolate cake.

I wasn't sure if I was going to like this chocolate cake from Ina Garten's "Barefoot Contessa at Home" since I find most American-style frosted layer cakes too sweet. Well, it's mainly the frosting that I find too sweet. But it looked so good when she made it on her television show that I had to try it myself.

The cake is basically a one bowl chocolate cake. Put all the dry ingredients in a big bowl and mix in all the wet ingredients. Just like Ina says on her show "How easy is that?". The cake is dark and moist with the coffee adding a subtle flavor that really enhances the chocolate. The frosting is a very basic butter frosting. Cream some softened butter in a bowl, add a little bit of powdered sugar, and then add some melted chocolate. I like to use a bittersweet chocolate (like 70-85% cacao) so that the frosting isn’t overly sweet. The frosting is smooth and satiny. It's easy to spread on the cake layers without making a gloppy mess.

I was pleasantly surprised by how much I liked the cake and the frosting. In fact, I liked this cake so much that I've made it three times this month - twice as a layer cake and once as cupcakes. This tasted exactly like what I imagine an American chocolate cake should taste like. A co-worker told me that my cake looked so perfect that it couldn't be real. Not perfect as in precise or elegant, but perfect as in exactly how an old fashioned chocolate cake is supposed to look. Now that's the biggest compliment this first generation girl could hope to receive.

Chocolate Cake
(Adapted from Ina Garten's "Barefoot Contessa at Home")

1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups granulated sugar
3/4 cup Dutch-processed cocoa powder
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 cup buttermilk, shaken
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 extra large eggs, at room temperature
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 cup freshly brewed hot coffee (or hot water)
Chocolate Frosting (see recipe below)

Preheat oven to 350F. Butter two 8-inch round cake pans. Line with parchment paper, then butter and flour the pans.

Sift the flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder, and salt into bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment. Mix on low speed to combine the ingredients. In another bowl, gently whisk together the buttermilk, oil, eggs and vanilla extract. With the mixer on low speed, slowly add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix to combine.

With the mixer still on low speed, add the coffee and stir just to combine. (I like to cover the stand mixer with a large dish towel since the coffee might splash.) Remove bowl from mixer. Scrape the bottom of the bowl with a rubber spatula to make sure everything is well combined.

Pour batter into prepared pans and bake for 35 to 40 minutes, until a cake tester comes out clean. Cool in the pans for 30 minutes, then turn them out onto a cooling rack and cool completely.

Place one layer, flat side up, on a flat plate or cake pedestal. With a knife or offset spatula, spread the top with frosting. Place the second layer on top, rounded side up, and spread the frosting evenly on the top and sides of the cake.

Chocolate Frosting

6 ounces semi or bittersweet chocolate (I like using 70-85% cacao)
8 ounces (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 1/4 cups confectioners' sugar, sifted
1 tablespoon instant coffee or espresso powder
2 teaspoons hot water

Chop the chocolate and place in a heatproof bowl. Set the bowl over a pot of simmering water and stir chocolate until just melted. Set chocolate aside to cool to room temperature but still melted.

In the bowl of a stand mixer with the paddle attachment, beat butter on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add vanilla extract and continue beating for 1 more minute. With the mixer on low speed, slowly add the confectioners' sugar. Increase speed to medium and beat until smooth and creamy, scraping down the sides of the bowl as necessary.

Dissolve the coffee/espresso powder in the hot water. With the mixer on low speed, add the melted chocolate and dissolved coffee/espresso to the butter mixture and mix until blended. Don't whip. Spread immediately on the cooled cake.

(Note: Ina's recipe uses 1 raw egg yolk in the frosting, but I decided to leave it out of my frosting.)

Velvet Kisses

2009-02-09T02:34:00.007-05:00

Valentine's Day and chocolate seem to go hand in hand. But during the past few years I associated Valentine's Day with red velvet cake too. It must have something to do with the red. So when I saw Angela combine the two into a "kiss" I knew exactly what I would be making this weekend. It's such a cute idea to make red velvet cake kisses covered with chocolate. (For those who don't know, they are inspired by Hershey's Kisses candy.)

I started with a red velvet cake recipe (which I adapted from Martha Stewart's site). I prefer my cake without a lot of food coloring so I guess it's more like mahogany velvet than red velvet. When the cake was cool, I broke the cake into crumbs. Then I bound the crumbs with a cream cheese frosting and formed the "kisses". After letting them chill in the refrigerator, I glazed them with a chocolate ganache.

I have to be honest and tell you that I felt like I had made a big mistake by making these kisses. It felt wrong to break up the cake into crumbs. It felt just as wrong to mush up the cake crumbs with frosting. And it was definitely wrong to handle any food so much. When I tasted the mixture before forming the kisses, I was pretty disappointed with the texture and taste. But I couldn't do anything about it so I forged ahead and continued as planned. I shaped the crumb mixture into kisses and let them sit in the refrigerator overnight.

The next day I made the glaze and proceeded to coat my kisses. When the glaze had set, I tried one and I no longer felt that it was all a big mistake. The cake was super moist, but not mushy, and they were dense without any toughness. I've always felt that red velvet cake didn’t have a dominant flavor (very light cocoa would be the best way to describe the flavor). I feared that the chocolate glaze would completely overshadow the delicate cocoa-ness of the cake, but the chocolate glaze really complemented the cake and actually brought out the cocoa in the cake. Overall I was pretty happy that it worked out so well.

Red Velvet Cake

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder (natural not Dutch processed)
3/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup flavorless oil (like canola or grapeseed)
1 large egg
1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract
2 to 4 tsp red food coloring (optional)
1/2 cup buttermilk
1 tsp vinegar (white or apple cider)

Preheat oven to 350F.

Generously butter one 9-by-2-inch round cake pan. Sprinkle with flour, and tap out the excess. Set your pan aside.

In a medium bowl, sift together cake flour, cocoa, baking soda and salt. Set aside your dry ingredients.

In the bowl of a stand mixer, mix the sugar and oil on medium speed until well combined. Add egg and beat well. Add vanilla extract and food coloring (if using), and beat until well combined.

Add flour mixture, alternating with buttermilk, scraping the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula as needed. Add vinegar to batter, and beat for 10 seconds.

Pour the batter into your prepared pan. Bake until a cake tester inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean, about 30 to 35 minutes.

Transfer to a wire rack to cool in the pan for 10 minutes. Remove cake from the pan, and return to the rack to cool completely.

Cream Cheese Frosting

8 ounces cream cheese, softened at room temp.
2 tbsp unsalted butter, softened at room temp.
1 cup confectioners' sugar, sifted
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

In the bowl of a stand mixer, beat cream cheese and butter until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes on medium speed. Add sugar and vanilla and beat until combined, about 2 minutes.

Chocolate Ganache Glaze

6 ounces semi or bittersweet chocolate*, finely chopped
*(54 - 72% cacao works well)
1/2 cup (4 fluid ounces) heavy cream

Place chopped chocolate in a medium heat proof bowl. Heat cream over medium heat until it comes to a gentle boil. Pour cream over chocolate and let it sit for 1 minute. Using a spoon or rubber spatula, gently stir the mixture until well combined.

How to assemble your "kisses"

Crumble the cooled cake either by hand or using a food processor. Place the cake crumbs in a large bowl. Add the cream cheese frosting and stir until well to combine the cake crumbs and frosting. The crumbs should hold its shape when gently squeezed together.

Shape your cake kisses by hand. I made my kisses approximately 2 inches high with a 1.5 inch diameter base. I was able to get 28 kisses, but the yield will vary depending on your size. Place the kisses on a sheet pan and refrigerate for at least 1 hour and as long as overnight. This chilling period will help the kisses hold its shape and allow the frosting to "soak" into the crumbs.

While the kisses are chilling, make your glaze. Place your chilled kisses on a wire rack set over a rimmed sheet pan (to catch any excess glaze). Spoon some glaze over each kiss to cover completely. Allow glaze to set, about 15 minutes.

Tuiles

2009-01-29T02:58:00.003-05:00

For January's Daring Bakers' challenge, hostesses Karen (aka Baking Soda) of Bake My Day! and Zorra of 1x umruehren bitte inspired us to do something light. And what could be lighter than tuiles? Tuiles are wafer thin butter cookies. Our only requirements for this challenge were to make at least one of the tuile recipes they provided us (vanilla, chocolate, nougatine, or savory), shape it any way we like and pair our tuiles with something light and refreshing.

Tuiles are traditionally molded over a rolling pin while still hot from the oven to create an arched shape that resembles curved French roof tiles hence the name "tuile". The key to making tuiles is spreading the batter just right. It shouldn't be too thick or too thin. Too thick and they will bake up chewy. Delicious but chewy. Too thin and they will be too brittle to shape or not sturdy enough to be used as a vessel (like a bowl or cone/cornet). But I would err on the side of too thin because I prefer a light, almost see through quality, especially if I'm shaping the tuiles the traditional way.

To create 4-inch round tuiles, I cut a paper plate to make a template. Getting the thickness correct took some trial and error. My first 2 batches were too thick and my next two batches were too thin. Even though I eventually got the desired thickness, I still couldn't shape my tuiles into small bowls like I wanted. So I ended up with shallow ruffled wafers. They were still quite pretty but not what I originally planned.

I wanted to pair my tuiles with a fruit sorbet but I didn't have time to make my own sorbet. Instead, I topped my tuiles with a few frozen raspberries and I dusted them with just a bit of powdered sugar. When the raspberries thaw just a little bit, they taste just like sorbet. It was a perfect accompaniment to the tuiles.

Tuiles
(Recipe from “The Chocolate Book” by Angélique Schmeinck)

Yields: 20 small butterflies/6 large (butterflies are just an example)
Preparation time: batter 10 minutes, waiting time 30 minutes
Baking time: 5-10 minutes per batch

65 grams / 1/4 cup / 2.3 ounces softened butter (not melted but soft)
60 grams / 1/2 cup / 2.1 ounces confectioner’s sugar, sifted
1 sachet vanilla sugar (7 grams or substitute with a dash of pure vanilla extract)
2 large egg whites (slightly whisked with a fork)
65 grams / 1/2 cup / 2.3 ounces sifted all purpose flour
1 table spoon cocoa powder/or food coloring of choice (optional)
Butter/spray to grease baking sheet

Oven: 180C / 350F

Using a hand whisk or a stand mixer fitted with the paddle (low speed) and cream butter, sugar and vanilla to a paste. Keep stirring while you gradually add the egg whites. Continue to add the flour in small batches and stir to achieve a homogeneous and smooth batter/paste. Be careful to not overmix.

Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and chill in the fridge for at least 30 minutes to firm up. (This batter will keep in the fridge for up to a week, take it out 30 minutes before you plan to use it).

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or grease with either butter/spray and chill in the fridge for at least 15 minutes. This will help spread the batter more easily if using a stencil/cardboard template such as the butterfly. Press the stencil on the baking sheet and use an off sided spatula to spread batter. Leave some room in between your shapes. Mix a small part of the batter with the cocoa and a few drops of warm water until evenly colored. Use this colored batter in a paper piping bag and proceed to pipe decorations on the wings and body of the butterfly.

Bake butterflies in a preheated oven (180C/350F) for about 5-10 minutes or until the edges turn golden brown. Immediately release from baking sheet and proceed to shape/bend the cookies in the desired shape. These cookies have to be shaped when still warm, you might want to bake a small amount at a time or maybe put them in the oven to warm them up again. (Haven’t tried that). Or: place a baking sheet toward the front of the warm oven, leaving the door half open. The warmth will keep the cookies malleable.

The fine print:
This month's challenge is brought to us by Karen of Bake My Day and Zorra of 1x umruehren bitte aka Kochtopf. They have chosen Tuiles from The Chocolate Book by Angélique Schmeink and Nougatine and Chocolate Tuiles from Michel Roux.

Cookies and Cream

2009-01-19T16:34:00.002-05:00

I had some Oreo cookies leftover from making my chocolate espresso praline tart so I decided to use them up by making a cookies and cream cupcake. I saw a lot of recipes on the internet using cake mix to make the cupcakes but I don’t like the taste of cakes made with cake mix.

So I used a simple vanilla cupcake recipe and added some crushed Oreo cookies to the batter. The cupcakes turned out nice and moist and I liked the way the interior looked with the flecks of cookie crumbs. But overall I found that the cookies crumbs didn't really add much in terms of flavor or texture. Even though I was disappointed with the results, everyone still enjoyed the cupcakes. But who doesn't love a cute cupcake, especially when you don’t have to pay $3 for one?

Oreo Cookies and Cream Cupcakes
(24 cupcakes)

2 3/4 cups all purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
8 ounces (2 sticks/16 tbsp) unsalted butter, softened at room temp
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
3 large eggs, at room temp
1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup (8 fl oz) whole milk, at room temp
1 1/2 cups coarsely crushed Oreo cookies

Preheat the oven to 350F. Line 24 standard sized (3.5-4 oz) cupcake wells with paper liners.

Sift together flour, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.

In the bowl of a stand mixer using the paddle attachment, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes on medium speed. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Mix in vanilla.

On low speed, add the flour mixture in two parts, alternating with the milk, beginning and ending with the flour. Fold in the crushed Oreo cookies.

Divide the batter evenly among the 24 cupcake wells. Bake at 350F until cupcakes are golden and a tester inserted in the center comes out clean, about 18 to 20 minutes.

Cool cupcakes in pan for 5 minutes then gently remove from pan to cool on a wire rack. Cool completely before frosting.

Buttercream Frosting
(enough to lightly frost 24 cupcakes)

4 ounces (1 stick / 8tbsp) unsalted butter, at room temp
2 to 2.5 cups confectioners' sugar
3 to 4 tablespoons whole milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Beat the butter with an electric mixer until fluffy, about 30 seconds. Sift in 2 cups confectioners' sugar, 3 tablespoons milk, and vanilla. Beat on low speed until sugar is incorporated. Increase the speed to medium and beat until light and fluffy. Adjust the frosting consistency and sweetness with the remaining 1 tablespoon milk and the remaining 1/2 cup sugar. Frost your cupcakes.

It's The Glaze, Baby

2009-01-12T01:17:00.004-05:00

Almond and lemon are two great flavors that come together in this amazing cake. I first made this flavorful almond lemon tea cake over 15 years ago and it's become one of my most cherished recipes. The recipe is from Flo Braker's "The Simple Art of Perfect Baking". So imagine my surprise when I found a similar cake being sold at Tartine Bakery (for $3/slice). I ran home and I checked my Tartine Bakery cookbook and, sure enough, the recipe they use is Flo's.

The almond paste makes this cake super moist and rich. If you love almond paste, you will adore this cake. And I really love anything made with almond paste. But the thing that secured this cake a permanent place in my heart is the oh-so-yummy lemon glaze. The glaze shell not only adds a bright flavor to the almond rich cake, but it also helps to seal in the moisture. The glaze is brushed onto the still warm cake, and dries to a lovely, sparkly finish. When you take a bite of this cake, the glaze gives way, almost cracking in your mouth, and releasing a wonderful burst of citrus. If it was socially acceptable, I would slice off all the glazed edges of the loaf to keep for myself, leaving the center almond loaf behind. I could nibble on the edges all day long. I do live in polite society so I share (reluctantly) with others. But I always keep the first slice (the edge slice) for myself.

Almond Lemon Tea Cake
aka Crystal Almond Pound Cake
(adapted from Flo Braker's "The Art of Simple Baking")
(makes one 9x5-inch loaf)

Cake ingredients:
3/4 cup sifted pastry or cake flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/8 teaspoon salt
5 large eggs, at room temperature, lightly beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
7 ounces (3/4 cup) almond paste, at room temperature
1 cup granulated sugar
8 ounces (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature, cut into 16 pieces
1 tablespoon finely grated meyer lemon zest

Glaze ingredients:
3/4 cup granulated sugar
6 tablespoons freshly squeezed meyer lemon juice

Position a rack in the lower third of an oven. Preheat to 350°F. Lightly butter and flour a 9x5-inch loaf pan; tap out the excess flour.

To make the cake...

Sift together the flour, baking powder and salt twice. Set aside.

In a small bowl, combine the eggs and vanilla. Whisk to just combine. Set aside.

In the bowl of a stand mixer using the paddle attachment, beat the almond paste on low speed until pea-size crumbs form, about 30 seconds to 1 minute.

Slowly add the granulated sugar in a steady stream and beat until incorporated. This should take about 2 to 3 minutes. If you add the sugar too quickly, the almond paste won't break up as well.

almond paste and sugar

On low speed, beat in the butter, tablespoon by tablespoon. This should take about 1 minute. Scrape down the sides of bowl.

Increase speed to medium and cream the mixture until lighter in color and fluffy in appearance, about 3 to 4 minutes.

Still on medium speed, slowly pour in the eggs, cautiously at first, tablespoon by tablespoon. After each bit of the eggs have been absorbed, add more. If at any time the mixture appears water or shiny, stop the flow of eggs and increase the speed until a smooth appearance returns. Then decrease the speed to medium and resume adding the eggs.

Continue to cream, stopping the mixer to scrape down the sides of the bowl at least once, until the mixture appears fluffy, velvety and white, and has increased in volume. Including the time to add the eggs, this should take about 2 to 3 minutes.

Fold in the meyer lemon zest. Then fold in the flour mixture.

Spoon the batter into the prepared pan and smooth the surface gently with an offset spatula. Bake until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean and the top springs bake when lightly touched, about 45 to 50 minutes. Transfer the pan to a wire rack and let the cake cool in the pan for 5-10 minutes.

Make the glaze while the cake is cooling in the pan...

In a bowl, stir together the sugar and meyer lemon juice until smooth.

Set the wire rack over a sheet of parchment paper or foil to catch any drips of glaze. Invert the loaf pan onto the rack and lift off the pan. Using a pastry brush, generously brush the entire warm cake with the glaze. Let the cake cool completely on the rack, at least 3 hours, or until the glaze has set. The cake is fragile when warm so don’t try to move it.

When the cake is cool, gently transfer it to a serving platter by crisscrossing 2 large icing spatulas or the base of a 2 part tart pan to lift the loaf. Serve at room temperature.

glaze…mmm, mmm, good

I Resolve to Eat More Pie

2009-01-04T20:30:00.004-05:00

I'd like to wish everyone a very Happy New Year. I hope the holidays were good to you and your family. Like many people do each year, I made some New Year's resolutions. In addition to the usual stuff like exercise more, eat healthier, spend less, save more, I have a couple resolutions that are not so usual.

Stop buying shoes. I just counted and I have 34 pairs of shoes. Thirty four may not seem like a whole lot, but I guess it is if you consider the fact that I don’t have to dress up for work. I can wear pretty much whatever I like to the office, so it's not like I have the excuse of needing work shoes vs. non-work shoes (casual, dress, sports). I've worn each pair at least once this past year so it's not like they are just taking up space in my closet. But I really only wear 8 or 9 pairs most of the time. I blame all those shoe websites that offer free shipping and free returns. Those sites just make it soooo easy to shop from home.

Learn to make macarons. I never hesitate to buy one (or two) of each flavor from Miette whenever I'm at the Ferry Building. It can really add up considering they cost $1.50/each. Although having so many trial batches of macarons around the kitchen won't help me stick to the "eat healthier" resolution, it will help with the "spend less".

Now this pie might not be the best way to kick off the new year, but that's exactly the point. Co-hosts Nic of Bakeologie and Carrie of Cooking With Carrie chose "Resolution Breaker Pie" as the theme for this month's "You Want Pies With That?" event. They wanted us to create a pie or tart so irresistible that we just can't help but to throw our resolutions out the window and just indulge.

I decided that my tart must have chocolate and coffee. To make it even more decadent, I used Oreo sandwich cookies for my crust. Using the Oreo cream filling along with some butter helps to hold the cookie crumbs together.

The next layer is dark chocolate ganache. Nothing but chocolate and heavy cream. Oh yeah!

I topped the ganache with a creamy espresso mascarpone mousse. Mascarpone is a rich cow's milk cheese that has about 60-75% fat. It's sometimes referred to as Italian cream cheese. Mascarpone has a mild flavor that is less tangy than Philly cream cheese. It's more like heavy cream than cream cheese. The espresso mousse reminds me of a less intense espresso ice cream.

To make my tart even more tempting, I topped the espresso mascarpone mousse with ground pecan pralines. The praline added a nice crunchy contrast to the smooth and creamy mousse. And I love the combination of pralines with espresso.

I finished the tart with a drizzle of melted dark chocolate. The tart was really delicious and even better than I imagined it would be. Now that's what I call a resolution breaker.

Chocolate Espresso Praline Tart
(makes one 10-inch tart)

Crumb Crust

28 Oreo brand sandwich cookies
4 tbsp unsalted butter, melted and slightly cooled

1. Process cookies in food processor until fine crumbs form.
2. Add melted butter and pulse until just moistened.
3. Press crumbs evenly into the bottom and up the sides of a 10-inch tart pan with a removable bottom. (My tart pan has a 10-inch diameter and the sides are 1-inch high.)

Chocolate Ganache

5 ounces dark chocolate, finely chopped (I used a 71% chocolate)
4 fluid ounces (1/2 cup) heavy cream

1. Place chopped chocolate in a heat proof bowl.
2. Heat cream over medium heat until it just comes to a boil.
3. Pour hot cream over chocolate and let sit for 1 minute.
4. Stir gently until combined.
5. Pour ganache over crumb crust.
6. Chill in refrigerator for at least 30 minutes.

Espresso Mascarpone Mousse

8 ounces mascarpone, softened at room temperature
2 tbsp granulated sugar
1 tsp finely ground espresso beans
1 tsp instant espresso powder (dissolved in 2-3 tsp heavy cream)
1 tsp powdered unflavored gelatin
1 tbsp water
4 fluid ounces (1/2 cup) heavy cream
1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract

1. In a large bowl, beat mascarpone, sugar, ground espresso beans, espresso powder / heavy cream mixture until creamy, about 10 seconds.
2. In a small heat proof bowl, sprinkle gelatin over the water.
3. Let sit for 5 minutes.
4. Set gelatin in a pan of simmering water and stir occasionally until dissolved. (Keep gelatin warm while you beat the cream.)
5. Beat the heavy cream until it begins to form soft peaks.
6. Add the vanilla and warm gelatin. (It's important that the gelatin is warm or it will clump when added to the cream.)
7. Continue beating until stiff peaks form.
8. Fold whipped cream into the mascarpone mixture.
9. Spread mousse over the chilled ganache / crust.
10. Chill in refrigerator for at least 1 hour.

Pecan Praline

1/2 cup store bought or homemade pecan pralines (or candied pecans)

1. Grind pralines in a food processor until you have fine crumbs. Some larger pieces are okay.
2. Sprinkle over chilled mousse.

Decorate

Drizzle with melted chocolate and serve. Store tart in refrigerator for up to 3 days.

That Which We Call A Log

2008-12-28T03:22:00.016-05:00

...by any other name would taste as sweet.

I hope everyone had a nice holiday. My husband and I have been "celebrating" non-stop since the week before Christmas. From the holiday potluck at the office to the annual winter solstice dinner ("tong yuan") at my parents' house and now the Christmas parties, I feel like I've been eating non-stop. And we still have 2 more holiday events to attend before New Year's Eve. I decided that the Christmas Eve soiree at my brother's house would be the perfect place to serve the French yule log that I would make for this month's Daring Bakers' challenge.

The hosts for the December 2008 challenge are Hilda of Saffron & Blueberryand Marion of Il en faut peu pour etre heureux and they chose the most amazing recipe for us to try. It's a French yule log. Well, it's actually an entremets which, according to Hilda and Marion, can be loosely translated as cream dessert. This French yule log is very different from the genoise roll filled with buttercream that we did for last December's DB challenge, but no less decadent. I used 19 ounces (540 g) of chocolate, 4 ounces (113 g) of butter, 7 eggs, and 27 fluid ounces (785 ml) of heavy cream (35% fat content) to make my dessert for the challenge.

We were required to include six components in our dessert - dacquoise biscuit, mousse, crème brulee, praline crisp, ganache and icing. Marion and Hilda let us choose any flavors we wanted for the components and also allowed us to assemble it in any fashion as long as all six components were present in the completed dessert. The recipe document was quite intimidating at first glance but each of the six parts included flavor variations which made the document seem much longer and more complicated than it actually was.

The mold

I wanted to a do a half-pipe. So my dear husband bought a short length of 4-inch diameter PVC plumbing pipe from the hardware store and cut it in half lengthwise to make a half-pipe mold. I cut some cardboard semi-circles to make "ends" for the mold. I didn’t have rhodoid or sheets of acetate, so I cut a sheet protector (from the office supply store) to line the mold. I held it all together with tape. It's not pretty but it does the job.

The dacquoise biscuit

I chose to make an almond dacquoise. I wasn't sure if it was supposed to be crisp like a meringue or if it was supposed to be soft like a sponge cake or genoise. Mine was soft which made it easy to line my mold. I had no problems with the recipe. I baked mine in a 10x15x0.75-inch pan and it was done in the time the recipe said it would be done. I had enough dacquoise to line the top and bottom of my half-pipe mold and some leftover too.

Dacquoise on the top and bottom of the pre-iced log.

The mousse

I made a chocolate mousse with 56% Valrhona chocolate. The technique of making a pate a bombe was a new one for me. Pate a bombe is cooked sugar syrup beaten into egg yolks and it can be used to make mousses more stable. Even though the sugar syrup was heated to 244F (118C) before it's added to the egg yolks, I was still a bit worried about using raw egg yolks in my mousse. So I deviated slightly from the recipe given to us. I beat my egg yolks until they were slightly lightened in color and beat in the hot sugar syrup. I then continued to beat the mixture over a low flame for 3-4 minutes to keep the mixture warm. Then I removed it from the heat and beat the mixture with my Kitchen Aid stand mixer until it was thick and cool. My only issue with the pate a bombe was that my KA whisk attachment could barely reach the yolk-sugar mixture at the bottom of the bowl even though I have the small (5 quart) model. So I got a good work out and beat it by hand until it had increased in volume enough for the KA whisk to reach adequately. The chocolate mousse was silky and delicious.

The crème brulee

The only problem with the vanilla crème brulee recipe that I heard from the other Daring Bakers was the very low baking temperature. I've made many crème brulees and I've never baked any at a temperature as low as 210F (100C). So I cheated and baked mine at 300F for 35 minutes. I used a water bath (bain marie) to protect the custard from over baking and it came out perfectly. I baked mine in a lined 9x5-inch loaf pan and it ended up about 2 cm thick. Some other Daring Bakers mentioned that they found the frozen creme brulee to be rather icy, but luckily mine was extremely smooth and creamy.

I couldn't fit everything into my half-pipe mold so I made a small "log" in a 3x5-inch loaf pan with the extras. This small one doesn't have a second layer of dacquoise on top; there's only the base layer.

The praline crisp

I was not able to find gavottes, a French lace crepe wafer cookie, to make the praline feuillete and I was too tired to make the gavottes, so I used crushed Rice Krispies cereal. I also didn’t want to go through the trouble of making my own praline since I only needed 2 tablespoons. I had some candied pecans so I just blitzed some in the mini food processor and used that instead. I used a 70% Valrhona chocolate. I loved the praline crisp and I will definitely make it again.

The ganache

The recipe was very straightforward and easy. I don't know the reasoning behind using caramel. I guess it's supposed to add some depth of flavor to the dark chocolate ganache. I had some ganache leftover so I made chocolate truffles with the leftovers. I even rolled some of the truffles in powdered sugar and made a snowman.

The icing

I was a bit worried about making the icing after reading some comments on the DB forum. Some other DBs were having problems with the icing not setting up properly or having an icing that was like a rubber skin. Instead of using the dark chocolate icing recipe which uses cocoa powder, I used the variation provided for the milk chocolate icing. But in place of the milk chocolate, I used a combination of 56% and 85% Valrhona chocolate. My icing set up properly and tasted delicious. The only problem I had was trying to smooth the icing over the log after having poured it over the log. This left unattractive streaks in the finish. I should have just poured the icing and not touched it.

Decorated with chocolate leaves made by brushing melted chocolate on clean lemon leaves.

Overall impression

Everyone at the party just loved the dessert. Some people thought that I bought the yule log and they were quite impressed that I had made it myself. My favorite part was the frozen crème brulee and the praline crisp. I had no trouble cutting through the log since I took it out of the freezer and put it in the refrigerator 2 hours before serving.

I couldn’t get a good clear photo of the inside of the half-pipe log during the party. But here's a so-so shot while we were serving it at the party.

I was hesitant when I first learned what we were doing for this month's challenge. The recipe looked a bit overwhelming and time consuming. Turns out it wasn't hard at all and I absolutely loved every minute I worked on the dessert. This is exactly what I wanted to get from joining the Daring Bakers. I learned a new technique (pate a bombe), I got to practice caramel making (I love using the dry sugar method now), and the praline crisp was just genius. I can use all the individual components in a multitude of recipes in the future. This month's challenge showed me the endless possibilities of entremets. A huge merci to Marion and Hilda and be sure to check out our blogroll.

The recipe is quite long. If you would like to see the recipe I used to make my log, please go to my Google document or visit Marion or Hilda's blog for the recipe with all the variations.

Sources:
This month's challenge is brought to us by the adventurous Hilda from Saffron and Blueberry and Marion from Il en Faut Peu Pour Etre Heureux. They have chosen a French Yule Log by Flore from Florilege Gourmand.

The source of the December 2008 challenge recipe is Florilège Gourmand.

The author who wrote the original recipe which served as inspiration for the challenge recipe is Flore of Florilège Gourmand.

The hosts for the December 2008 challenge are Hilda of Saffron & Blueberryand Marion of Il en faut peu pour etre heureux.

Perfectly Simple

2008-12-15T03:37:00.001-05:00

This almost flourless chocolate cake is the simplest dessert to make for the holidays. There's no layering, filling or frosting. No chilling or rolling. It's just pure chocolatey goodness in an easy single layer cake. The recipe is from the very talented writer and baker, Fran Gage. Since it was printed in the local newspaper a couple years ago I've made it numerous times and it's always a crowd favorite. If they only knew how easy it was to make. Using the best bittersweet chocolate already gets me more than halfway to the finish line. Melt that with some butter, whip some egg whites, a few flicks of my wrist and voila!

Like with many flourless (or nearly flourless) chocolate cakes, the most technically challenging part of the recipe is folding the beaten egg whites into the chocolate batter without deflating the egg whites. Since there is no chemical leavening, the cake's "lift" will come from the air incorporated into the egg whites. The key to keeping the air you worked so hard to achieve is to lighten the chocolate batter with about a third of the whipped egg whites. Mixing in a little bit of the whipped egg whites will make the chocolate batter less dense and that'll make it much easier to gently fold in the rest of the egg whites without losing too much of the volume. But other than that, it really is straightforward. (The other challenge is resisting the temptation to devour the entire cake all by yourself!)

BTW, the recipe says to serve the cake inverted, but I wanted to preserve those lovely meringue-like shards on top of the cake so I served mine right side up. And that is the only change I made to this perfect recipe.

Fran Gage's Almost Flourless Chocolate Cake
(Makes one 9-inch cake which can serve 8)

7 ounces 70% bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped
14 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into chunks
1 cup granulated sugar, divided into 2/3 cup and 1/3 cup
5 large eggs, room temperature, separated
3 tablespoons cake flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
Powdered sugar and/or cocoa powder for decorating

Preheat the oven to 350°. Line the bottom of a 9- inch round cake pan with parchment paper.

Melt the chocolate and butter in a double boiler or a bowl that fits snugly over simmering water. When the two are mostly melted, remove from the heat and whisk together. Cool slightly. Whisk in 2/3 cup of sugar, the egg yolks, then the flour and salt.

Put the egg whites in the bowl of a stand mixer. Beat them with the whisk at medium speed until they start to foam. Add one-third of the remaining 1/3 cup of sugar and beat whites until they become opaque, then add a second third of the sugar. When the whites start to increase in volume and the whisk leaves traces in them, add the last of the sugar and turn the mixer speed to high. Beat until the egg whites form soft peaks, but still look wet.

Using a spatula, fold one-third of the egg whites into the chocolate mixture. (This first third will help to lighten the chocolate mixture and make it less dense so you can fold in the remaining two-thirds without too much deflation of the egg whites.) Now gently fold in the remaining two-thirds of the egg whites into the chocolate mixture.

Pour the batter into the pan and bake until a skewer inserted into the center comes out clean, or with only a few crumbs clinging to it, 35-40 minutes.

Cool on a rack.

To unmold the cooled cake, run a table knife around the edge and invert the cake onto a serving plate. Peel off the parchment paper.

Decorate the cake with powdered sugar and cocoa powder: Sift a light dusting of powdered sugar on top of the cake. Put a small brioche mold upside down in the middle of the cake. Lightly dust the cake with cocoa powder, then lift off the mold.

Serve by itself or with sweetened fruit puree or a dollop of whipped cream.

Sugar and Spice

2008-12-08T04:06:00.003-05:00

I've mentioned my love of pumpkin before and pumpkin pie is a great way to enjoy it. But pumpkin pie isn’t just for Thanksgiving, is it? I like baking pumpkin pies all year round, but mostly from Halloween through the New Year. Especially when it's combined with aromatic spices. In addition to the usual cinnamon, I always like a healthy dose of ground ginger in my pie.

This pumpkin pie was on the cover of November's Fine Cooking magazine. I really liked the use of heavy cream instead of canned evaporated milk in the pumpkin pie filling. The custard filling seems smoother and, in my opinion, filling made with heavy cream just tastes better since it doesn't have that "cooked-canned" taste that the evaporated milk can impart. Although I wouldn't turn down a slice of pumpkin pie just because of the type of dairy used.

Sugar & Spice Pumpkin Pie
(adapted from Fine Cooking Issue #95)

For the crust
1/4 tsp table salt
6-3/4 oz (1-1/2 cups) unbleached all-purpose flour
5 oz (10 Tbsp) cold unsalted butter, cut into 1-inch pieces

For the filling
15-oz can pure pumpkin puree (not pumpkin pie mix)
2 large eggs
1 large egg yolk
1 cup heavy cream
1 tsp vanilla extract
3/4 cup lightly packed light brown sugar
1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp table salt
1/8 tsp freshly grated nutmeg
1/8 tsp freshly ground black pepper
1/8 tsp ground cloves

Make the crust

In a small bowl, stir the salt into 1/3 cup very cold water until dissolved. Put the flour in a food processor and scatter the butter on top. Pulse until the mixture forms large crumbs and some of the butter is in pieces the size of peas, about 8 pulses. Add the salt water and pulse until the dough begins to come together in large clumps, about 7 pulses. You'll still see some butter pieces. Shape the dough into a 1-inch-thick disk, wrap in plastic, and chill for at least 1 hour or up to overnight.

On a lightly floured surface, roll the dough into a circle 16 inches in diameter and 1/8 inch thick. Transfer to a 9-inch ceramic, metal, or glass pie plate, easing the dough into the bottom and sides and then gently pressing into place. For a traditional crimped edge, trim the overhanging dough to 1/2 inch from the edge of the plate. Fold the overhang under and crimp decoratively. (Or you can make the fancier edge decoration with the trimmings.) Wrap and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes or up to overnight, or freeze for up to 2 weeks.

Blind-bake the crust

Position a rack in the center of the oven and heat the oven to 400°F. Line the chilled pie shell with parchment and fill it with dried beans or pie weights. Bake until the sides have just set and look dry, 16 to 20 minutes (lift the parchment to check). Remove the weights and parchment and bake until the edges are light golden and the bottom is pale and completely dry, about 5 minutes. If the dough starts to bubble while baking, gently push the bubbles down with the back of a spoon. Let the crust cool completely on a wire rack before filling.

Make the filling and bake the pie

Heat the oven to 325°F. In a large bowl, whisk the pumpkin, eggs, egg yolk, cream, and vanilla. In a small bowl, mix the brown sugar, cinnamon, ginger, salt, nutmeg, pepper, and cloves. Whisk the sugar mixture into the pumpkin mixture.

Pour the filling into the cooled piecrust. Bake until the pie is set around the outside but still slightly wet and jiggly in the center, about 1 hour. The filling will continue to set as it cools. Let the pie cool completely on a wire rack and then refrigerate for at least 2 hours and up to 2 days before serving.

A Yuletide Carol

2008-12-03T02:25:00.003-05:00

The lovely Anne Strawberry is hosting this month's You Want Pies With That?. The premise behind YWPWT is to make a pie (or anything pie-ish like a tart) inspired by the chosen theme. Then everyone who made a pie can vote for their favorite pie and the baker with the most votes gets to host and choose the theme the following month. Anne Strawberry asked us to make a pie inspired by our favorite holiday song. What a fun theme!

The hardest part for me was deciding which holiday song is my favorite. The local "easy listening" radio station always changes its format this time of year and plays holiday music 24/7 beginning the weekend before Thanksgiving through Christmas. I'm sure you have a radio station in your area that does the same thing. So I've been listening to a lot of holiday tunes. Even though it's not really a Chistmas-y song, I really like "Last Christmas" by Wham! (aka George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley). I was a teenager when MTV first aired and I just loved the fabulousness of the Wham! music videos. The neon. The cheesy dancing. And the saxophone in Careless Whisper. But a pie inspired by heartache didn’t seem to evoke holiday spirit.

So I decided to go with my all time favorite, "The Christmas Song" written by Mel Torme and Bob Wells. It's sometimes known as "Chestnuts roasting on an open fire". The lyrics are heartwarming.

Chestnuts roasting on an open fire
Jack Frost nipping at your nose
Yuletide carols being sung by a choir
And folks dressed up like Eskimos

Everybody knows a turkey and some mistletoe
Help to make the season bright
Tiny tots with their eyes all aglow
Will find it hard to sleep tonight

They know that Santa's on his way
He's loaded lots of toys and goodies on his sleigh
And every mother's child is gonna spy
To see if reindeer really know how to fly

And so I'm offering this simple phrase
For kids from one to ninety two
Although it's been said many times many ways
Merry Christmas to you

I know it's not the most inspired choice since chestnuts are a food and could easily be translated into a pie, but it really is my favorite song. Whether sung by Nat King Cole or Tony Bennett or the Carpenters, I always stop to listen when it's playing.

I didn’t find many chestnut pie recipes "out there" on the internet, but I remembered seeing a chestnut and pear tart in my Dessert by Pierre Herme cookbook. I love pears and I love chestnuts. I would've never thought to combine the two but Pierre Herme mentions that they are a natural complement. Who am I to question him? A tart with diced pears and chestnuts nestled in a custardy, clafoutis-like filling sounded pretty good to me. So I forged ahead and made his tart.

The filling had just a hint of sweetness and was creamy. The combination of pears and chestnuts are nice but very subtle. Neither one stood out and tasters couldn't identify what was in the tart unless I told them. I liked the look of the phyllo crown that adorned the tart and I liked the crunch, but the phyllo didn’t really add too much flavorwise. Overall I think my tart looked great but the taste was just okay. I'm sure if I ever had the opportunity to taste one from his bakery in Paris I would change my mind. The Picasso of Pastry can't be wrong.

I don’t believe that the changes I made greatly affected my results. My modifications:
- I used a different tart dough recipe for my tart shell since I had already made some dough a couple weeks ago.
- I didn't want to buy chestnut puree since I only needed 3 tablespoons. So I made my own by simmering some roasted chestnuts in a bit of heavy cream and a pinch of sugar. When the chestnuts were soft, I pureed the mixture.
- I used Greek yogurt instead of crème fraiche.
- My phyllo decoration was made with broken sheets of phyllo because I didn’t plan ahead and thaw my phyllo dough ahead of time. It would've been much prettier if I had used full sheets of phyllo.

Chestnut and Pear Tart
(from Desserts by Pierre Herme by Dorie Greenspan)
(makes one 26 cm tart)

Crust:
Enough tart dough to line a 26-cm shell (see tart dough recipe below)

Instructions for partially prebaking the tart shell:

Place a butter tart ring or tart pan on a parchment lined baking sheet. Working with one piece of dough, on a lightly floured surface, roll the dough to 1/16 to 1/8-inch thick. Fit the dough gently into the bottom and up the sides of your tart ring or tart pan. Cut off the excess dough so that the edges are flush with the sides of the ring. Chill tart shell for at least 30 minutes before baking.

Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 350 F.

Line the tart shell with foil or parchment, fill with beans or rice and bake it for just 15 minutes. Transfer the pan to a rack and allow the crust to cool to room temperature.

tart ring lined with dough

Filling:
2 to 3 very ripe medium pears (Comice or Bartlett pears are good here)
Juice of half a lemon
3 tablespoons unsweetened chestnut puree (stir before measuring)
2/3 cup whole milk
1/3 cup crème fraiche
1 1/2 teaspoons Scotch whisky
1/4 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs
2/3 cup dry bottled chestnuts

Instructions for filling and baking the tart:

Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Core and cut the unpeeled pears into small (about 1/3 inch) cubes; you should have about 2 1/2 cups of fruit. Toss the pears in a bowl with the lemon juice to keep them from darkening and set aside. (Pierre likes the extra flavor and texture he gets by keeping the skin on the pears. If the skin on your pears is thick, or if keeping the skin on doesn't appeal to you, by all means, peel the pears.)

Scrape the chestnut puree into a medium bowl and, using a whisk, stir the puree to loosen it, and then blend in the milk and crème fraiche. One by one, add the whisky, sugar and eggs, stirring until the mixture is smooth. There's no reason to be overzealous - you're aiming to make sure the filling is smooth, not airy. With your fingers, break the chestnuts into small pieces and scatter them over the bottom of the crust. Turn the pears into the crust, spreading them evenly over the chestnuts, and then pour in the filling (you might find this easier to do if you put the baking sheet with the tart shell into the oven before you pour in the filling); depending on how much or how little your crust shrank during baking, you may have some filling leftover.

Bake the tart for 35 to 40 minutes, or until a slender knife inserted into the custard comes out clean. Remove the tart from the oven and, keeping it in the pan on the baking sheet, set it on a rack to cool. (You can make the phyllo topping while the tart cools or do it later, at your convenience.)

chestnuts and pears scattered

pour in the custard

Phyllo decoration:
3 sheets phyllo
Confectioner's sugar

Instructions for phyllo decoration:

Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 450 degrees F.

Place the outer circle of a 10-inch tart pan on a baking sheet. Working with 1 piece of phyllo at a time, and keeping the other pieces under a damp cloth, scrunch the phyllo to fit it inside the tart ring. Neatness doesn't count here, so just get the phyllo, with all its hills and valleys, into the ring and then pat it down lightly. Repeat with the 2 remaining sheets, piling the sheets one on top of another. Dust the top of the phyllo crown evenly but not too heavily with confectioner's sugar and slide the baking sheet into the oven.

Bake the phyllo for 5 to 7 minutes, or just until the top sheet is shiny and caramelized. Remove the baking sheet from the oven and let the crown cool to room temperature.

To serve, remove the tart from its pan, transfer it to a serving platter and top with the phyllo.

Keeping: The tart should be served at room temperature - it's really best kept out of the refrigerator - and eaten the day it is made.

Tart Dough
(makes enough dough for three 26-cm tarts)

13 ounces (3 sticks plus 2 tbsp) unsalted butter, slightly softened
1/3 cup plus 1 tbsp milk, at room temp
1 large egg yolk, at room temp, lightly beaten
1 tsp granulated sugar
1 tsp salt
3 1/2 cups all purpose flour

Put the butter in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Beat on low speed until creamy. Add the milk, egg yolk, sugar and salt and beat until mixture is roughly blended about 1-2 minutes. (It's okay if the mixture looks curdled.) On low speed, add the flour in 3 or 4 additions. There is no need to wait for the flour to be thoroughly incorporated after each addition. Mix until the ingredients come together to form a soft, moist dough that doesn’t clean the sides of the bowl but does hold together. Don't overmix.

Gather the dough into a ball and divide it into 3 pieces. Gently shape each piece into a thick disk and wrap with plastic wrap. Allow the dough to rest in the refrigerator for at least 4 hours or up to 2 days.

(Note: You will only need 1 of the 3 pieces for the chestnut and pear tart. You can save the other 2 pieces for another use. The dough can be wrapped airtight and frozen for up to 1 month.)

Molten Sugar Time

2008-11-29T00:21:00.004-05:00

I have to admit that when hosts Dolores of Culinary Curiosity,
Alex of Blondie and Brownie and Jenny of Foray into Food announced that November's Daring Bakers' challenge recipe was caramel cake with caramel frosting I was not thrilled. I don’t like caramel and I will begrudgingly eat it only if it's combined with chocolate. But I always try the recipes for the DB challenges and I wasn't going to skip this month just because I don't like caramel.

Since I was hosting Thanksgiving at my house this year, I was pretty busy in the days leading up to Thanksgiving Thursday. Between working full time, getting the house ready, grocery shopping and making everything for dinner from scratch, I wasn't sure if I could find the time for the challenge. I was also providing some desserts for another Thanksgiving dinner at my parents' house on the Sunday before Thanksgiving. I also had to turn down an order for miniature pecan pies since I was worried about over extending myself. Unfortunately I didn’t make the caramel cake earlier in the month so I had no choice but to squeeze it in with all the other turkey day preparations I was doing.

I pretty much stuck to the recipe like we are supposed to do each month. But I decided to turn the cake into cupcakes so that it would be easier to share at the office. I expected the cake to be a bit heavy and dense, but it ended up being surprisingly light and tender.

I'm always a bit nervous when working with molten sugar, but it gets easier every time I caramelize sugar. I didn't take the caramel too dark because I wanted a subtle caramel flavor.

I also made only half the recipe for the frosting. I felt the frosting was a bit too sweet so I also used a hefty amount of sea salt to cut some of the sweetness. The salted caramel frosting ended up being quite nice. It was silky and the salted caramel flavor went really well with the cupcakes. Overall I was quite surprised that I enjoyed this month's recipe. That's the beauty of the Daring Bakers. Try something I wouldn’t normally choose to bake and then end up liking it.

I've included the original recipe. But here are the changes I made for my cupcakes:
* I made 18 standard sized cupcakes instead of one tall 9-inch round cake. I baked the cupcakes until the tops were light golden and the cupcake springed back when lightly pressed, about 20 minutes.
* I felt the 1/2 tsp baking powder in the original recipe was too little so I increased the amount of baking powder to give the cake a bit more lift. I used 3/4 tsp baking powder.
* I replaced some all purpose flour with pastry flour to make the cake a bit more tender. I used 1 1/4 cup all purpose + 3/4 cup pastry flour.
* I made half the frosting recipe and it was enough to frost all 18 cupcakes. I used a hefty amount of sea salt to really cut some of the sweetness. Of course, you should salt to taste.
* I forgot to brown the butter for the frosting. I think it would've been nice to use browned butter since it would enhance the caramel flavor and add some depth to the frosting.
* I made half the caramel syrup recipe so that I wouldn’t have too much syrup left over. Half was enough for both the frosting and the cake. I still had some syrup left over so I drizzled it over some frosted cupcakes.

RECIPE SOURCE
- Caramel Cake with Caramelized Butter Frosting courtesy of Shuna Fish Lydon as published on Bay Area Bites, the KQED food blog.
- For additional guidance on the cake, Shuna’s got some information posted on her blog and on the KQED site too.

CARAMEL CAKE WITH CARAMELIZED BUTTER FROSTING
(makes one tall 9-inch single layer cake)

10 tablespoons (5 ounces) unsalted butter, softened at room temp
1 1/4 cups granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/3 cup caramel syrup (see recipe below)
2 eggs, at room temperature
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 cup whole milk, at room temp

Preheat oven to 350F. Butter one tall (2 – 2.5 inch deep) 9-inch cake pan.

In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, cream butter until smooth. Add sugar and salt & cream until light and fluffy.

Slowly pour room temperature caramel syrup into bowl. Scrape down bowl and increase speed. Add eggs/vanilla extract a little at a time, mixing well after each addition. Scrape down bowl again, beat mixture until light and uniform.

Sift flour and baking powder.

Turn mixer to lowest speed, and add one third of the dry ingredients. When incorporated, add half of the milk, a little at a time. Add another third of the dry ingredients, then the other half of the milk and finish with the dry ingredients. {This is called the dry, wet, dry, wet, dry method in cake making. It is often employed when there is a high proportion of liquid in the batter.}

Take off mixer and by hand, use a spatula to do a few last folds, making sure batter is uniform. Turn batter into prepared cake pan.

Place cake pan on cookie sheet or 1/2 sheet pan. Set first timer for 30 minutes, rotate pan and set timer for another 15-20 minutes. Your own oven will set the pace. Bake until sides pull away from the pan and skewer inserted in middle comes out clean. Cool cake completely before icing it.

Cake will keep for three days outside of the refrigerator.

CARAMEL SYRUP

2 cups sugar
1/2 cup water
1 cup water (for "stopping" the caramelization process)
In a small stainless steel saucepan, with tall sides, mix water and sugar until mixture feels like wet sand. Brush down any stray sugar crystals with wet pastry brush. Turn on heat to highest flame. Cook until smoking slightly: dark amber.

When color is achieved, very carefully pour in one cup of water. Caramel will jump and sputter about! It is very dangerous, so have long sleeves on and be prepared to step back.

Whisk over medium heat until it has reduced slightly and feels sticky between two fingers. {Obviously wait for it to cool on a spoon before touching it.}

Note: For safety reasons, have ready a bowl of ice water to plunge your hands into if any caramel should land on your skin.

CARAMELIZED BUTTER FROSTING

12 tablespoons (6 ounces) unsalted butter
1 pound confectioners' sugar, sifted
4-6 tablespoons heavy cream
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2-4 tablespoons caramel syrup
Kosher or sea salt to taste

Cook butter until brown. Pour through a fine meshed sieve into a heatproof bowl, set aside to cool.

Pour cooled brown butter into mixer bowl.

In a stand mixer fitted with a paddle or whisk attachment, add confectioner's sugar a little at a time. When mixture looks too chunky to take any more, add a bit of cream and or caramel syrup. Repeat until mixture looks smooth and all confectioners' sugar has been incorporated. Add salt to taste.

Note: Caramelized butter frosting will keep in fridge for up to a month.
To smooth out from cold, microwave a bit, then mix with paddle attachment until smooth and light

(Recipes above courtesy of Shuna Fish Lydon)

Yum

2008-11-24T03:58:00.003-05:00

Peanut butter. Toffee peanuts. Fleur de sel. My co-workers told me these salted peanut butter toffee cookies were insanely delicious. Need I say more?

Salted Peanut Butter Toffee Cookies
(adapted from Pure Dessert by Alice Medrich)
(makes about 50 cookies)

1 1/3 cups (6 ounces) all purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp coarse sea salt (like fleur de sel)
4 ounces (8 tbsp/1 stick) unsalted butter, softened at room temperature
2/3 cup firmly light packed brown sugar
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1 large egg, at room temperature
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
1 cup smooth natural peanut butter
[Be sure to stir PB well to blend in the oil before measuring]
1 cup (5 ounces) toffee peanuts, coarsely chopped

Preheat oven to 325F. Line cookie sheets with parchment paper.

Whisk the flour, baking soda and salt in a medium bowl to combine. Set aside.

In the bowl of a stand mixer, cream butter and both sugars on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Mix in egg and vanilla. Scrape down the sides of the bowl. Mix in peanut butter. Add the flour mixture and mix until the flour is incorporated.

Pour the chopped toffee peanuts in a shallow bowl. Scoop 2 level teaspoons of dough for each cookie and shape into a 1-inch ball. Roll the ball in the chopped peanuts to coat heavily, pressing any bits that fall off. Place the coated balls 2 inches apart on the line cookie sheets.

Bake the cookies until they are lightly colored on top, about 14-17 minutes. The cookies will seem soft to the touch but will firm up as they cool.

Seeing Stripes

2008-11-17T03:13:00.006-05:00

Don't be jealous. San Francisco experienced record high temperatures this weekend. It was 80F on Saturday. I know it's mid-November and Thanksgiving is right around the corner but apparently no one told Mother Nature. It was the most gorgeous and sunny weekend and I had no inclination to bake or cook. Thank goodness for delicious takeout from my favorite Thai restaurant. So I'm digging into my repository of unblogged items to bring you this recipe for zebra cake.

The zebra cake has made its way around the blogosphere for some time now. But it was a couple weeks ago that I finally got around to making the cake. The zebra cake is mostly about the way it looks. Alternating stripes of vanilla and cocoa make for a visually interesting cake. And people were quite impressed with the striped effect. But that's where the impressiveness ended for me. Other people liked the cake, but I found it a bit bland and lacking in flavor. I think I expected a bit more of a pronounced chocolate or cocoa flavor. On the plus side, the cake was quite moist due to the cup of oil in the batter and it had a nice texture. I also liked that it wasn't super sweet.

Creating the stripes was not difficult, but it does take some patience. You start by ladling some of one batter in the center of your cake pan. Then ladle some of the other batter right on top and in the center of the previous batter. As you add each of the alternating batters, it'll push the batter already in the pan and will spread out into a ring pattern by itself. The key is that both batters are fluid enough (but not too runny) and that both the vanilla and cocoa batters are similar in viscosity. Adding too much cocoa powder would make the dark batter too thick and hinder the spreading. Making sure the batter was the right consistency so that it would spread correctly is the reason for the lack of cocoa flavor.

I really wanted to like this cake. I read so many raves about it that maybe I had unrealistic expectations. But don't let my opinion about the taste stop you from trying it. Maybe I have weird taste buds or maybe because as I get older I have something against things that are more style than substance. (Geez, I'm beginning to sound like a crabby old lady. Heck, just call me practical.) Like when I fell in love with this beautiful faucet and had to have it even though the manufacturer did not offer a side spray option. I've learned to live without the side spray, but occasionally I do wish I had one.

Zebra Cake
(makes one 9-inch round cake)
(recipe adapted from here)

2 cups all purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
Pinch of salt
4 large eggs, at room temp
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup whole milk, at room temp
1 cup canola oil
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
2 tablespoons Dutch-processed cocoa powder

Preheat oven to 350F. Butter a 9-inch round cake pan. Line with a parchment circle and butter the parchment.

Sift together flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside.

In the bowl of a stand mixer, combine eggs and sugar. On medium speed, beat until the mixture is light and creamy. Add milk, oil, and vanilla extract and beat until well combined.

On low speed, add the flour mixture and mix until the flour is just incorporated.

Divide your batter into 2 equal portions. Keep one portion plain. Add cocoa powder into another and mix well.

Scoop 3 heaping tablespoons of plain batter into the middle of your prepared cake pan. Then scoop 3 tablespoons of cocoa batter and pour it in the center of the plain batter (yes, right on top of the plain batter). Continue to alternate between the plain and cocoa batter (always pouring it in the center right on top of the previous batter) until you use up the batters.

Bake at 350F until golden or until a cake tested comes out clean, about 40 minutes.

Cool for 15 minutes in pan and then remove cake from pan to cool on a wire rack.

Best of Both Worlds

2008-11-10T00:44:00.005-05:00

Sometimes I can't decide between vanilla crème brulee and a chocolate tart for dessert. For some strange reason, if both are on a dessert menu and nothing else strikes my fancy, then it usually comes down to those two items (both of which I like equally). If I'm dining with companions who like to have dessert after dinner and are the type of people who like to share dessert, then maybe I would have a chance to taste both. But if none of my companions want to have crème brulee or a chocolate tart then I'm out of luck. I've always thought to myself "Wouldn't it be great if the two could be combined into one single dessert?" I've seen crème brulee tarts and I've seen chocolate crème brulees, but it's not exactly what I had in mind.

After scouring my many cookbooks, I came across a photo of an apricot tart topped with a caramelized disk of crème brulee in Sherry Yard's "The Secrets of Baking". It wasn't exactly what I wanted, but it gave me the inspiration to come up with my own version.

First I had to decide on the chocolate tart. Instead of doing a refrigerated chocolate ganache made from equal parts chocolate and heavy cream for my tart filling I opted for a chocolate truffle cake batter since it would be sturdy enough to support a disk of crème brulee. Most chocolate truffle cake batters could work as a filling for this tart. The recipes usually have names like chocolate intensity, chocolate oblivion, chocolate indulgence, well, you get the idea. The ingredients are usually just chocolate, butter, eggs and sugar. Some recipes, like this one, have a bit of flour too. The cake batter is baked in the tart shells until it's just set. The center is still a bit gooey when you take it out of the oven but will take on the texture of a chocolate truffle when cooled. A sweet nutty crust like an almond pate sucree complements the dark chocolate truffle filling perfectly.

For the vanilla crème brulee disks, I used Sherry Yard's recipe. The custard is baked in a large baking dish, frozen and then disks can be cut out with a cookie cutter. That woman is a genius with desserts. I would've never thought to do something like that in a million years, but I'm so glad that she did.

This chocolate truffle tart with vanilla crème brulee is definitely not everyday food, but it's perfect for special occasions or holiday entertaining. There are a lot of components to this dessert, but each can be made in advance. But the final assembly should be done on the day you plan to serve it and the tart should be served as soon as the tops have been caramelized. I know it seems like a crazy concoction, but it was really worth all the effort. The smooth and creamy custard with the caramelized sugar combined with the rich chocolate truffle encased in a sweet sugar cookie crust is my best invention to date. I'll never have to choose between the two again.

Chocolate Truffle Tart with Vanilla Crème Brulee

Ingredients for Crème Brulee
3 cups heavy cream
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 vanilla bean, split and scraped
6 large egg yolks
Additional sugar to caramelize the tops

7 (4 3/4-inch x 3/4-inch) tartlet shells made with Sweet Almond Cookie Crust, prebaked (see recipe below)

1 recipe Chocolate Truffle Cake Batter (see recipe below)

Directions for crème brulee:

1. Preheat oven to 300F. Make sure you have a 9x13 inch baking pan and another baking pan large enough to hold the 9x13 inch pan.

2. Bring the cream, 1/2 cup sugar, vanilla bean and scraped seeds to simmer in a large nonreactive saucepan over medium heat. Remove from heat, cover pan with lid and let cream steep for 15 minutes.

3. Gently whisk the egg yolks in a large bowl.

4. Remove the vanilla bean and gently whisk the cream into the egg yolks. When the cream and egg yolks are incorporated, strain the mixture through a fine meshed strainer into a clean heatproof bowl.

5. Pour the mixture into the 9x13 inch baking pan and set it in the larger pan. Add enough hot water to the larger pan to come up halfway up the sides of the 9x13 inch pan. Cover loosely with foil (Take care not to let the foil touch the crème brulee.) Bake at 300F until crème brulee is set, about 40-45 minutes. Remove pan from water bath and set on a cooling rack for 1 hour. Cover with plastic wrap and freeze overnight.

6. Remove crème brulee from the freezer. Place a sheet of parchment paper on a baking sheet pan. Run the edge of a paring knife dipped in hot water around the crème brulee. Flip the crème brulee out onto the parchment paper. (If you have trouble getting the crème brulee out of the pan, place the inverted pan on the parchment paper lined baking sheet pan, and warm the bottom of the pan with a warm towel or with a hair dryer. The heat will loosen the crème brulee until it falls onto the parchment paper. If the top is too melted you can put it back in the freezer for a few minutes before cutting.)

7. Cut out seven circles using a 3 1/2- or 4-inch cookie cutter. Immediately place the circles back in the freezer until it's time to brulee the tops and assembly your tarts. You will have some crème brulee leftover.

Chocolate Truffle Cake Batter
(enough cake batter to fill seven 4 3/4-inch x 3/4-inch tartlets)

6 ounces bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped
6 ounces unsalted butter, cut into 1-inch cubes
4 large eggs, at room temperature
1 large egg yolk, at room temperature
1/3 cup granulated sugar
3 tablespoons all purpose flour, sifted

Directions for cake batter:

1. Preheat oven to 375F.

2. In a bowl set over a pan of simmering water (the bottom of the bowl should not touch the water), combine the chocolate and butter and stir occasionally until smooth and melted. Set aside.

3. In the bowl from a stand mixer heat the 4 whole eggs, 1 egg yolk and sugar, set over the same pan of simmering water, stirring occasionally to prevent curdling, until mixture is just warm to the touch.

4. Attach bowl to the stand mixer, and using the whisk attachment, beat on medium speed until just lemony yellow and doubled in volume.

5. Whisk the flour into the chocolate mixture. On low speed, add the chocolate mixture to the eggs all at once. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and continue to mix until well combined, about 1 minute. At this point the cake batter can be refrigerated, tightly wrapped, for up to 5 days. Or you can use it right away.

Sweet Almond Cookie Crust
(makes enough dough for seven 4 3/4-inch x 3/4-inch tartlets)

2 ounces ground blanched almonds
3 tablespoons superfine or granulated sugar
4 ounces (8 tablespoons) unsalted butter, cold, cut into 1-inch cubes
5 ounces (1 cup) all purpose flour
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 large egg yolk
2 tablespoons heavy cream

Directions for dough and prebaking the crusts:

1. In a food processor, add the ground almonds and sugar and pulse to combine. Add the butter cubes and pulse about 15 times or until no loose bits of almonds/sugar remain. Add the flour and salt and pulse about 15 times or until the butter is about the size of small peas.

2. In a small bowl, whisk the egg yolk and the cream. Add it to the mixture in the food processor bowl and pulse until the ingredients are just barely incorporated, about 8 times.

3. Dump the mixture into a plastic Ziploc bag and flatten the dough. Chill dough in refrigerator for 30 minutes or until firm enough to pat into the tartlet pans.

4. For seven 4 3/4-inch x 3/4-inch tartlets, divide the chilled dough into 7 equal portions. Press each piece of dough evenly over the bottom and up the sides of each tartlet pan. Chill the tartlet shells in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes before baking.

5. Preheat the oven to 425F. Bake for 5 minutes at 425F. If the dough starts to puff in places, prick it lightly with a fork or press down lightly with your fingertips. Reduce the oven temperature to 350F and continue baking for another 5-8 minutes or until it turns pale gold, feels set but is still soft to the touch. Cool tartlet shells (still in the pans) on a wire rack.

To assemble the tarts:

1. Preheat oven to 375F. Pour cake batter into the seven prebaked tartlet shells. It's okay to fill the shells all the way to the top. (You might have some batter left over.) Bake at 375F for 13-16 minutes until the filling is just set and slightly wobbly in the center. Allow tartlets to cool for at least 30 minutes. Carefully remove the tartlet from the pans.

2. Remove the crème brulee circles from the freezer and place one circle on top of each tart. Sprinkle each circle with 1 tsp sugar and caramelize the tops using a kitchen torch. Serve immediately.

Sources:
Crème Brulee recipe adapted from "The Secrets Of Baking" by Sherry Yard
Chocolate Truffle Cake recipe adapted from "Desserts By The Yard" by Sherry Yard
Sweet Almond Cookie Crust recipe adapted from "The Pie and Pastry Bible" by Rose Levy Beranbaum