08.18.08
Posted in Dairy, Dessert, Fruits, Ice Cream at 10:40 am by julie
Since we had to suffer through several straight days of 100F+ weather, I was determined to make a batch of ice cream to combat the heat. The Orange Popsicle ice cream from The Perfect Scoop was the perfect candidate for several reasons: It gave me a means to use up a big bag of sweet little clementines I’ve been trying to eat singlehandedly for several weeks; it called for half-and-half and sour cream, both of which I was able to run to our little corner market and pick up in a matter of minutes (they don’t carry whipping cream); it is a blender recipe, which is awfully convenient for chilling and later pouring into the running ice cream machine; and most importantly, it isn’t a custard-based recipe, which means no heat required!
I was a fan of orange creamsicles growing up, and with my addition of vanilla extract (the original calls for orange liqueur, which is not my thing), this recipe matches that flavor beautifully, with a creamy texture and refreshing hit of citrus. I predict that this ice cream won’t last the weekend in our fridge. But I have to admit that I actually liked the textural contrast of crunchy orange popsicle and creamy vanilla ice cream in the original treat, so I’m also tempted to make plain vanilla ice cream sometime and top it with orange granita to get that citrus crunch.
Creamsicle Ice Cream
2/3 C sugar
Grated zest of 5 clementines
1 1/4 C freshly squeezed clementine juice
1 C sour cream
1/2 C half-and-half
1 tsp vanilla extract
In a blender, pulverize the sugar together with the zest until very finely ground. Add the remaining ingredients and blend until the sugar is entirely dissolved. Chill thoroughly in the refrigerator before churning in your handy-dandy ice cream maker.
Source: Slightly adapted from The Perfect Scoop
, by David Lebovitz (p. 50).
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08.04.08
Posted in Dairy, Dessert, Foodblog Events, Nuts, Grains & Legumes at 5:53 pm by julie
The first week of August is World Breastfeeding Week, an event designed, as the name implies, to promote breastfeeding on a global scale. As you may have noticed from my previous posts, breastfeeding is a big part of my life right now, even though I have to come at it a little sideways. Nolan has had latching issues from Day One, so I’ve been exclusively pumping for him since Day Two. It is a huge time investment—I just did some quick math, and estimate that I’ve spent at least 360 hours attached to that pump since Nolan’s birth 19 weeks ago (that is a conservative estimate, based on 8 20-minute sessions per day… it sometimes takes 30 minutes per session, and I pumped 9-10 times per day the first month or two, while establishing my supply). With all that effort, I produce just barely enough for Nolan on a daily basis, with perhaps a few ounces to store in the freezer against future need. But it is such a worthwhile investment, and I consider myself incredibly lucky to have both the supply and the time to pump for my son.
I realize that breastfeeding may not be an option for every family, but it is so incredibly beneficial for both mother and baby that it is certainly worth attempting, even for a short period of time. I am bound and determined to at least reach 6 months, and a year or more if possible.
In case you were wondering what set off this little discourse on my foodblog, you can thank Linda at Make Life Sweeter! for hosting an event called Got Milk? in honor of World Breastfeeding Week, for which this post is my entry. Anyway, off the soap box and on with the food.
I had some praline paste leftover from the filbert gateau even after whipping up a batch of praline ricotta pancakes. It didn’t amount to much, but I couldn’t bring myself to throw it out, so I used it to flavor some vanilla pudding instead. I adapted a recipe from Dorie Greenspan’s Baking: From My Home to Yours, using 1% milk rather than whole milk. It worked out alright, but I imagine the texture would be a bit creamer and less gloppy with a higher fat content. I’m not convinced that her method of using the food processor to make the pudding was worth the extra dishes, however; the stove-top tempering method has always worked just fine for me.
Praline Pudding
2 1/4 C 1% or whole milk
6 T sugar
3 T cornstarch
1/4 tsp salt
3 egg yolks
2 T butter, room temperature
2 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 C praline paste/powder
Bring 2 cups of milk and 3 T sugar to a boil in a medium saucepan. Meanwhile, in a blender or food processor, blend remaining 3 T sugar and egg yolks for 1 minute. Add remaining 1/4 cup milk and pulse just to mix. Then add cornstarch and salt and pulse a few more times.
With the machine still running, very slowly add hot milk mixture. Process for a few seconds more, then pour everything back into the saucepan. Whisk without stopping over medium heat until the pudding thickens and some bubbles pop on the surface. Do not let it boil completely, so if it hasn’t thickened yet, turn down the heat. Scrape the pudding back into the machine (avoiding any scorched spots) and pulse a few more times. Add butter, vanilla, and 3 T praline paste, and pulse until evenly blended.
Pour the pudding evenly into 6 4-oz ramekins or cups. Press a piece of plastic wrap over each surface. Refrigerate for at least 4 hours. Serve with a sprinkle of praline powder or some caramelized nuts.
Source: Adapted from Baking: From My Home to Yours, by Dorie Greenspan (p. 384).
Praline Paste
1 C (4 ½ oz.) hazelnuts, toasted/skinless
2/3 C sugar
Line a jelly roll pan with a silpat, or lightly buttered parchment.
Put the sugar in a heavy 10-inch skillet. Heat on low flame for about 10-20 min until the sugar melts around the edges. Do not stir the sugar. Swirl the pan if necessary to prevent the melted sugar from burning. Brush the sides of the pan with water to remove sugar crystals. If the sugar in the center does not melt, stir briefly. When the sugar is completely melted and caramel in color, remove from heat. Stir in the nuts with a wooden spoon and separate the clusters. Return to low heat and stir to coat the nuts on all sides. Cook until the mixture starts to bubble. Remember – this is an extremely hot mixture. Then onto the parchment lined sheet and spread as evenly as possible. As it cools, it will harden into brittle. Break the candied nuts into pieces and place them in the food processor. Pulse into a medium-fine crunch or process until the brittle turns into a powder. To make paste, process for several more minutes. Store in an airtight container and store in a cook dry place. Do not refrigerate.
Source: Great Cakes by Carol Walter
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08.03.08
Posted in American, Chocolate, Cookies & Candies, Cuisines, Dessert at 2:12 pm by julie
I don’t often follow, or even really notice, food fads. For instance, I completely missed out on that whole molten chocolate cake craze until this past June. I made a batch of Dorie Greenspan’s Korova cookies for Christmas in 2005, without a clue that they would become popular enough to rename World Peace Cookies in her Baking book of 2006—maybe I was actually ahead of the curve on that one. And I’ve never yet made a loaf of no-knead bread, popularized by the New York Times article, though I do mean to try it at some point.
The current foodblog fashion trend was also set by the Times, and this was one I couldn’t resist for long: big, chewy, golden brown chocolate chip cookies adapted from a recipe by Jacques Torres. Even though my heart will always lie with David Lebovitz’s low-and-slow recipe, I can’t help but try out other variations.
The Torres cookies are good ones indeed, and I can see what all the fuss is about. They have that classic flavor, with tons of bittersweet chocolate and just the right balance of buttery crunch and chewy innards. I divided my dough between two baking days (after about 24 and 72 hours, respectively), some plain and some sprinkled with fleur de sel. I didn’t have quite enough cake flour, so about an ounce of that was subbed with all-purpose. I used a 1/3 cup measure for a total of 2 dozen cookies, and baked some for 19 minutes, the rest for 16.
What we thought: While warm, all I could taste was chocolate (I used Ghirardelli bittersweet chips). Once they had cooled, all the cookies stayed soft in the center, though we both preferred the texture of the 16-minute cookies, which looked very underdone coming out of the oven. I liked the salt-sprinkled cookies more than Jeremy did, since he isn’t a huge salt fan, but since I also like dipping my cookies in milk, and salt + milk = yuck, I ended up leaving the salt off all the 72-hour cookies for that purpose.
I like the advance prep aspect of this recipe, since I could make the dough while Nolan was napping and then bake at my next opportunity, but the cold dough was a pain to work with. If I use this recipe again, I’m going to portion the dough before chilling it, and then let it rest as 1/3-cup pucks, stacked in a container between sheets of waxed paper. I’m still not entirely convinced they were worth the extra trouble of waiting for the dough to rest 36 hours, however; a more scientific comparison might be in order, baking off both freshly made and well-rested batches of dough. 
Either way, you can hardly go wrong with fresh chocolate chip cookies, so I understand the wave of popularity!
Jacques Torres’ Chocolate Chip Cookies
2 C minus 2 T (8 1/2 ounces) cake flour
1 2/3 C (8 1/2 ounces) bread flour
1 1/4 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 tsp coarse salt
2 1/2 sticks (1 1/4 C) unsalted butter
1 1/4 C (10 ounces) light brown sugar
1 C plus 2 T (8 ounces) granulated sugar
2 large eggs
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/4 lb bittersweet chocolate disks or chips, at least 60 percent cacao content
Sea salt
Sift flours, baking soda, baking powder and salt into a bowl. Set aside.
Using a mixer fitted with paddle attachment, cream butter and sugars together until very light, about 5 minutes. Add eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Stir in the vanilla. Reduce speed to low, add dry ingredients and mix until just combined, 5 to 10 seconds. Drop chocolate in and incorporate gently. Press plastic wrap against dough and refrigerate for 24 to 36 hours. Dough may be used in batches, and can be refrigerated for up to 72 hours.
When ready to bake, preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a nonstick baking mat. Set aside.
Scoop 6 3 1/2-ounce mounds of dough (the size of generous golf balls) onto baking sheet. Sprinkle with a pinch of sea salt and bake until golden brown but still soft, 16 to 20 minutes. Transfer sheet to a wire rack for 10 minutes, then slip cookies onto another rack to cool a bit more. Repeat with remaining dough, or reserve dough, refrigerated, for baking remaining batches the next day. Eat warm, with a big napkin, or cooled, with a big glass of milk. Yield: 1 1/2 dozen 5-inch cookies.
Source: New York Times
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07.30.08
Posted in Cake, Chocolate, Dessert, Foodblog Events, Nuts, Grains & Legumes at 12:07 am by julie
I love being a Daring Baker. Every month I get to try out a new recipe, often one I would never have chosen myself—either because it has an intimidating number of steps, or requires a technical skill I haven’t yet mastered, or perhaps because it involves texture and flavor combinations I wouldn’t seek out. These past few months since my son was born, I have particularly looked forward to my Daring Bakers challenges because they are one of the few things I still make time to do for myself (even if everyone I know benefits from the finished products also). That also means that part of the monthly challenge becomes simply finding that time, around the needs of a 4-month old baby.
This month’s challenge was a filbert gateau with praline buttercream, from Great Cakes by Carol Walter, a gorgeous ganache-glazed hazelnut confection with ribbons of satiny buttercream. I decided right away that I wanted to make it to share with my in-laws, who were coming to visit us (but mostly Nolan) around the middle of the month. Their methods of event planning always keep us on our toes, and we didn’t know exactly when they would be arriving until the day before their flight, so I couldn’t start prepping the cake in advance. Luckily, they took a detour to visit more family in Coeur d’Alene, so I had a chance to go out and find hazelnuts, and then make the cake in an evening marathon with just the finishing touches to take care of the next morning.
This cake is chock full of hazelnuts. They are grown in Oregon, but it’s the wrong season for them, so they were a little hard to track down. Bulk bins are my friend. The first order of business was to get them skinned and toasted. I had quite enough of hazelnut skin stabbing under my fingernails when I made that sublime gianduja gelato a few months ago, so I tried a different method this time: blanching them in baking soda water, supposedly a foolproof technique. I don’t know if my hazelnuts were just being unusually stubborn, but I blanched them twice, attacked them with my vegetable scrubber (it will never be the same!) and still ended up spending about an hour scraping skin off each nut with my fingernails. It may not have been literally painful, but the clean-up afterwards was a real bear. I officially hate skinning hazelnuts.
The cake batter came together with Nolan’s assistance. In other words, once I got the toasted nuts out of the oven, I wore him in a sling while I worked. He did great most of the time, watching everything very intently, but started getting warm and cranky right about the time I was folding the sifted nut meal into the aerated batter. I ended up popping them in the oven at top speed, and after a bottle of milk, Nolan spent the rest of the evening napping like a little angel.
A few notes about the cake layers: The recipe requires you to sift the mixture of nut meal, cake flour and cornstarch through a mesh strainer to catch any stray chunks of hazelnut. By the time I was done sifting, I had about half a cup of coarse meal resembling sand caught in the strainer. Rather than let it go to waste, I incorporated it into my praline.
Also, the recipe calls for a 10″ cake split into three layers. That prospect was pretty scary, and I didn’t own a 10″ pan, but I honestly intended to purchase one and go through with it. I ran out of time to get to the kitchen store, however, so in the end I split the batter between two 9″ pans, and cut each of those in half for a total of 4 layers. As per the instructions, I just greased and floured my pans, and my cakes both wanted to stick on the bottoms. I know a few people had related incidents that led to huge holes in their cakes; one of mine nearly broke when it released at a bad moment, but I got away with just a minor crack. Parchment-lining the cake pans might be wise for this recipe.
Once Nolan was ensconced in the bedroom for the night, it was safe to proceed with the more dangerous element of this cake—the praline. This recipe uses the dry method to make caramel, which no longer worries me thanks to the milk chocolate-caramel tart from last August.
I popped the resulting hazelnut brittle in the fridge to chill while working on the buttercream. This particular Swiss buttercream comes together in the opposite manner of the one we used for our yule logs: the meringue is prepared first, and while the butter creams, you fling sticky dollops of meringue into it until—if all goes to plan—you end up with glorious, smooth, light buttercream. While I was still beating the meringue, the praline had hardened and was sent into the food processor for several minutes, until it had been ground into a paste with a packable consistency akin to brown sugar. Incidentally, this praline recipe makes more paste than you will need for the gateau; I highly recommend using some of the leftovers in these ricotta pancakes. Yum!
Here is where I’m not sure if my technique was off or if the recipe is flawed. As smooth as my praline paste appeared to be, when stirred into the buttercream, it tended to form little clumps. No amount of whipping improved the graininess, but since my buttercream didn’t break, I was still reasonably satisfied. The slight praline crunch did give it a certain charm, and the flavor was magnificent.
Before collapsing into bed at 1:30am, I managed to slice and assemble my layers. I used a vanilla-scented soaking syrup and remembered to add whipped cream on top of the buttercream layers, little difference though it would turn out to make. The assembled layers set up in the refrigerator overnight, and the next morning, after breakfast with my in-laws, I trimmed the edges of the cake as best I could and glazed it with apricot preserves to seal in the crumbs.
Next came the ganache. I used Scharffenberger 70% because I had it on hand, supplemented with less than an ounce of bittersweet Ghirardelli chips. I still don’t have an offset spatula (something else I had intended to get at the kitchen store), so I used a chef’s knife to smooth the top of the cake and a small spreader for the sides. I didn’t quite achieve a mirror finish, but it was still glossy and luscious, and many willing fingers assisted with the clean-up of the ganache that dripped under the cake.
I had some reserved buttercream to use for decorating my cake. Remembering how uncooperative buttercream can be when cold, I made sure to give it plenty of time to come back toward room temperature before attempting to pipe it. While I waited, I decided to make some caramelized hazelnuts for garnish. All I did was caramelize some sugar, skewer the hazelnuts with toothpicks (not on their seam), twirl them quickly through the caramel, and then stab the toothpick into the bottom of my mesh strainer. I kept the strainer on top of a deep bowl to catch the drips, and that was that. Not quite as fun, but nearly as effective as Tartelette’s apple-on-the-dishwasher trick in its own way, I’d like to think.
The scariest part of this cake was easily the piping. I’ve never piped frosting in my life, although I bought a basic set of tips back in December. I picked out the leaf tip from the batch and dove in, buttercream still on the solid side. That changed quickly as it started melting from the heat of my hands and squishing out the top of the bag. Turns out my leaf tip is a pretty small one, and the chunks of praline paste kept clogging it up, leading to some seriously thick and thin sections as the frosting backed up and then splooshed out all at once. If I had been smart, I would have reserved some unflavored buttercream for decorating before adding the praline paste. Ah well! In any event, I clearly need MUCH more practice with piping, and probably some different tips. Maybe I should go buy a can of frosting just to practice with… Anyway, it could have been worse, and the caramelized hazelnuts were a nice touch, I thought.
The cake was delicious, with a definite hazelnut flavor. I personally think that the Scharffenberger chocolate tasted a little too fruity for the hazelnuts; something a little more bitter would be more to my taste, or some Valrhona Noisette Noir Gianduja would fit this cake like a glove. I couldn’t taste the apricot or the whipped cream at all, and I left out the liqueurs called for, but didn’t miss any of those. I also didn’t let the cake sit at room temperature for more than about half an hour after it set, but our house was warm and the buttercream had already started softening in that time, and would have turned to mush if I’d waited longer (plus, we were hungry!).
There have been lots of comparisons by other Daring Bakers between this month’s challenge and April’s Opera Cake, since both included syrup-brushed layers of nut-based genoise and buttercream, with a finishing glaze. Many seem to prefer this cake to the opera cake because it is less sweet, but that never bothered me because of my extreme sweet tooth. I actually loved the mousse element of the opera cake and enjoyed the pina colada flavoring I chose for it, so the two cakes are about on par in my estimation. If this gateau had a more balanced chocolate-hazelnut/gianduja flavor, however, it would win hands down.
Thanks to Chris of Mele Cotte for choosing this interesting and delicious recipe, and be sure to check out all of the hundreds of more professionally decorated gateaux than mine on the Daring Bakers’ blogroll.
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06.29.08
Posted in Bread, Breakfast, Dessert, Dinner, Foodblog Events, Fruits at 10:45 am by julie
I was excited when I found out that this month’s Daring Bakers challenge would be Danish braids, but the time commitment of making laminated dough must have been more intimidating than I was willing to admit, because I procrastinated until almost the last moment to make it. Finally, impending hot weather made me spring into action this past Thursday.
I took advantage of Nolan’s early afternoon nap to make the dough, or detrempe, using clementine zest and juice, vanilla paste, and ground cardamom from an elderly bottle that I know I should replace. The dough was not kind to my stand mixer, and kept trying to escape out the top of the bowl, so I had to babysit it. It came out rather firm and very slightly tacky, and went in the fridge while I made the butter block, or beurrage.
Then I remembered that my stand mixer bowl always screws itself up tight when I make dough, so much that I can’t actually unscrew it myself. Jeremy was still at work, so I ended up having to wash out the bowl while it was still attached to the mixer. Bah. I left everything for half an hour to go pump and feed the little guy (who, I have to brag, was having an incredibly cheerful day, probably to make up for the post-vaccination shriekfest of the evening before).
The actual lamination process took much less dedicated time than I had expected: four turns half an hour apart, each requiring no more than about 5 minutes at once. Piece of cake… or Danish, as the case may be!
The next day, around the same time of afternoon, I sauteed up some Fuji apples and pondered my other filling options while making the braid. This process was pretty straightforward, and I took other Daring Bakers’ advice to make sure that my cut slices were long enough to completely cover the filling and anchor with a little pressure on the opposite side.
Two hours and an egg wash later, my braid went in the oven, only slightly enlarged from its original state. I baked for 5 minutes at 400F as the recipe called for, then turned down the temp to 350F and left it in for just another 5 minutes, after which it was nicely browned. Once it had cooled a bit, we ate slices with vanilla ice cream and a drizzle of the syrup from the sauteed apples.
The leftovers were polished off for breakfast yesterday morning, graced with a drizzle of simple powdered sugar icing. I was pleased to note that the bread softened up a bit to that ideal Danish texture after its overnight rest.
Fortified with apple Danish, I settled on using the remainder of the dough on smaller pastries with a variety of shapes and fillings. This was really fun to play with, and I didn’t even have the energy to get as creative as many of my fellow Daring Bakers did. I made 3 small Danishes with dollops of leftover grape pie filling I pulled out of the freezer, and a few mini chocolate croissants. I also made two types of bear claws. The first four had the traditional cinnamon-almond filling, made with homemade almond paste; for the rest, I added some golden raisins and my leftover sauteed apples, finely chopped, to the almond filling at Jeremy’s request. I got everything made up, egg washed and proofing in my 85F-degree house (it was 100F outside at this point), and we tried vainly to cool down with scoops of ice cream; I topped Jeremy’s scoop with the last few spoonfuls of apple-almond-raisin filling, and he was in heaven.
I couldn’t be happier with the way this dough turned out, especially after being so intimidated at the prospect. I envisioned butter squishing out the sides like toothpaste, but it was actually very easy to work with. It might have been a different story if I had attempted to laminate it in yesterday’s heat, though; as it was, I was very careful to roll out the portions for my small pastries in two batches to keep it from melting. The baked pastries were light and flaky with clearly discernible layers; the flavor was predominantly of orange, which I blame solely on my old bottle of cardamom (Penzeys, here I come!). The dough was so fun to shape, and made me feel almost like a professional baker. I definitely hope to make it again and play with flavors, shapes and fillings, now that I know it isn’t nearly as hard to make as it appears to be. Plus, those bear claws were awesome!
Thanks so much to Kelly of Sass & Veracity, and Ben of What’s Cookin’? for choosing this recipe, which came from Sherry Yard’s The Secrets of Baking Be sure to check out all of the gorgeous, creative Danishes at the Daring Bakers blogroll here.
Bearclaw Almond Filling
1/4 C butter
1/3 C firmly packed brown sugar
1/2 C almond paste (I used homemade; see below)
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp grated lemon zest
Melt and simmer for about 2 minutes the butter and brown sugar. Remove from heat and stir in the remaining ingredients. Cool slightly before using.
Almond Paste
8 oz whole blanched almonds
8 oz powdered sugar
1 egg white
1/8 tsp almond extract
Combine almonds and sugar in a food processor and pulse until finely ground. Add egg white and extract and continue to pulse until mixture comes together as a thick smooth dough. Unblanched almonds can be used, but will affect the color of the paste. Makes about 2 cups.
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06.28.08
Posted in Cake, Chocolate, Dessert at 10:44 am by julie
My blog posts are starting to get backed up, but Nolan is cooperating right now, so here we go!
Jeremy and I celebrated our 9th wedding anniversary on June 19th. We couldn’t really get out anywhere with the little one to take care of, but we made up for it with a slow-cooked dinner using my shiny red anniversary present: a 5-quart oval Le Creuset that I’ve had my eye on for several years. I love it—the perfect shape for so many of the cuts of meat I braise, and not quite as heavy as Big Red. I immediately christened it with a Yankee pot roast, accompanied with a side of potato-celeriac mashers.
For dessert, Jeremy’s only request was something to go with vanilla ice cream. Because he had given me a cute little heart -shaped ramekin in addition to the dutch oven (not to mention a copy of the The Zuni Cafe Cookbook… I love you, honey!), I immediately thought of making molten chocolate cakes. Believe it or not, I missed out on that whole fad—not only have I never baked them, to my knowledge I’ve never even had one in a restaurant. I’m still not quite sure how I managed that, because they’re right up my alley. Anyway, I chose a simple version from Baking: From My Home to Yours, dividing the batter between the heart ramekin and 4 6-oz. round ones. You can find the recipe online here.
These little cakes performed their given function beautifully—they were great with vanilla ice cream. The portions were just the right size, and their innards were indeed nicely gooey, even though they don’t bother with ganache filling like many similar recipes. Make sure you use a chocolate you would be happy eating straight, because that’s all you taste: I used Scharffenberger 70% dark.
The best part about this dessert, though, was how mommy-friendly it is. I mixed up the batter in a few minutes early in the afternoon when I had a free moment, and just popped the covered ramekins in the fridge for later. When we were ready for dessert, all I had to do was preheat the oven and pop two ramekins in… and the same went for the next night too!
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06.15.08
Posted in American, Cuisines, Dessert, Fruits, Pies & Tarts at 9:27 am by julie
For a while there, it was starting to feel like we already had our summer this year: exactly one weekend of 100F weather about two weeks ago in the midst of a neverending torrent of cool, grey, windy, rainy days. It’s June, for heaven’s sake! At last it is starting to warm up a little. Anyway, we had a surplus of apples in the house, so in honor of the faux-fall weather, I made some apple dumplings for dessert last week.
This is a combination of recipes that works well for me. I generally make the full batch and freeze the extra apples before baking, so we can have apple dumplings on demand for a while. In this instance, I only had time to prep 2 apples before Nolan started fussing, so I refrigerated the dough overnight and used it the next evening for another two apples. It is a soft dough because of the shortening, and didn’t even require warming up to room temperature before I could roll it out. I used gala apples because that’s what we had, and they worked nicely in this context, but I typically use Granny Smiths. I also prefer to serve this with vanilla ice cream, but we didn’t have any.
Apple Dumplings
1 C AP flour
1 C white whole wheat flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
2/3 C shortening
1/2 C milk
6 apples, peeled and cored
Lemon juice
Cinnamon sugar
Brown sugar
Unsalted butter
1 1/2 C water
1 1/2 C sugar
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
3 T butter
In a food processor, combine the flours, salt and BP. Add the shortening, and pulse until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs; add the milk all at once and pulse just until the dough forms a ball. On a liberally floured surface, roll out the dough into a rectangle about 1/4″ thickness; cut into 6 squares large enough to completely enclose an apple.
Dip an apple in lemon juice, then roll in cinnamon sugar. Place in the center of a square of dough, and stuff its core with alternating spoons of brown sugar and little cubes of butter, packing it down until you run out of room. Gently pull the dough up around the apple and seal it, trying to avoid leaving any holes that the juices could run out from. They are supposed to be homey and rustic-looking, so patch away if you need to. Place in a small glass or stoneware casserole or pie pan large enough to hold all the apples you want to bake. Repeat with the remaining apples. (If you don’t want to bake and eat all the apples in one sitting, you can wrap each extra one in aluminum foil at this point and freeze them.)
Preheat the oven to 375F. In a small saucepan over medium high heat, bring the sugar, water, cinnamon and nutmeg to a boil. Remove from the heat, add the butter, and swirl to melt. Pour the sugar syrup over the apples, and bake at 375F for 35 minutes, or until the apples are tender when you insert a knife. As they come out of the oven, spoon the caramelized sugar syrup over the apples’ crusts before it cools. Serve with vanilla ice cream if desired.
If you froze some of your apples, you can bake them off right from the frozen state. Just remove them from the foil, stick them in a dish and cover them with freshly made sugar syrup, and bake them for a few extra minutes, until the apples are tender.
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05.31.08
Posted in Chocolate, Dessert, Ice Cream at 8:19 am by julie
I was left with a good quantity of Guittard white chocolate wafers after finishing my Opéra Cake for the Daring Bakers, not to mention 5 unaccounted-for egg yolks. That combination just screamed white chocolate ice cream to me, so I sent Jeremy to the grocery store for heavy cream with the promise of brownie sundaes for our Memorial Day dessert.
Nolan has started to fall into a kind of natural schedule, which includes 5-7 hours of sleep overnight (sweet!), lots of naps during the morning and early afternoon, and a very wide awake period from dinnertime straight through to about 1:00am. Making dinner these days generally means racing at top speed back and forth between the hot stove and the sobbing baby in the next room, culminating in a finished meal just as my timer goes off to pump milk. Sigh. So I had time during the afternoon to cook up the base for the ice cream, research potential brownie recipes, and blanch the ribs for dinner.
Then I was sidetracked by a phone call from my cousin. When we hung up, Nolan was wide awake, wanting to be held, and dinner was off to a late start. Jeremy appeased the little guy long enough for me to get the ribs fried off and simmering in their sauce, then I popped him into his little throne on the kitchen table and stood next to him, making brownie batter at top speed and possibly breaking some sort of record in an effort to get them in the oven before he became inconsolable. With that sort of pressure, I turned to a brownie recipe I’ve made several times before, which doesn’t require unsweetened chocolate and produces perfectly ooey-gooey brownies every time. I further shortened the prep time by using bittersweet chocolate chips and the microwave, rather than chopped chocolate and a bain marie; I think the pan was in the oven baking within 5 minutes, and I just barely managed to squeeze in a past-due pumping session before they were done.
Classic Bittersweet Brownies
6 1/2 oz bittersweet chocolate chips, such as Ghirardelli
7 T unsalted butter, cut in several chunks
1 C sugar (or less; these come out quite sweet)
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 tsp salt
2 cold eggs
1/2 C flour
Preheat the oven to 350F, and line a 9×9 pan with foil or parchment, extending up past the edges of the pan on two opposite sides for easy removal after cooking.
In a microwave-safe bowl, combine the chocolate chips, butter and sugar. Microwave just until chips and butter are melted (for mine, I did 60 seconds at 80% power, stirred, then back in for 30 seconds at 60% power); stir with a wooden spoon to combine, then add the vanilla and salt. Beat in the eggs one at a time, then the flour, and stir just to combine; the batter should be thick and glossy. If desired, now is the time to add mix-ins like nuts or chocolate chunks. Pour into the prepared pan and bake for 20 minutes, until the brownies begin to pull away from the sides of the pan and the top is crinkly and appears dry; a toothpick inserted should still come out quite gooey. Cool for 10 minutes, then carefully remove from the pan using the parchment or foil edges and allow to cool to room temperature on a rack before cutting into squares.
Source: Slightly adapted from Bittersweet, by Alice Medrich
After dinner, I had another short reprieve to clean up the kitchen and get the ice cream churning. It came out a lovely ivory color and elusively flavored with cocoa butter. No other garnish necessary, we scarfed down melting dollops of the silky stuff over warm brownie squares (Jeremy even managed it while balancing a wide-eyed, windmilling Nolan), and it was a perfect way to end the evening… at about 11:45pm, as it so happened.
White Chocolate Ice Cream
8 oz white chocolate, cut into small pieces
1 C whole milk
2/3 C sugar
pinch of salt
5 egg yolks
2 C heavy cream
Place the white chocolate in a large batter bowl and set a mesh strainer over it. Meanwhile, in a medium saucepan, heat the milk, sugar and salt until the sugar dissolves. In a small bowl, whisk together the egg yolks and temper them with the warm milk mixture by drizzling about half of it into the yolks very slowly while continuing to whisk. Return the yolk-milk mixture to the saucepan and continue to cook over medium heat, stirring constantly until the custard thickens enough to coat the back of a spoon.
Remove from the heat and pour through the mesh strainer into the bowl with the white chocolate. Stir until the white chocolate melts, then stir in the cream. Place the bowl in an ice bath and continue stirring until it comes down at least to room temperature, then chill thoroughly in the refrigerator before freezing in an ice cream machine.
Source: The Perfect Scoop, by David Lebovitz
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05.28.08
Posted in Cake, Dessert, Foodblog Events, Fruits at 12:29 am by julie
Since I had to skip last month’s Daring Bakers challenge due to having a newborn, I was determined to participate this month—but I have to admit that when I found out the challenge was to make an Opéra Cake I very nearly changed my mind. Opéra Cakes are beautiful, classy layered confections, and I didn’t see how I would possibly have enough time around the little one’s feeding schedule to make one. Upon reviewing the recipe, however, I realized that the various components of the cake were not time-consuming individually, and that I might be able to squeeze them in—baking the joconde here, boiling simple syrup there—and make it work, as Tim Gunn would say.
The traditional Opéra Cake is very dark, flavored with chocolate and coffee, but a major part of our challenge was keeping the cake light in color in honor of Barbara’s Taste of Yellow LiveSTRONG event. The recipe provided called for almond joconde with vanilla buttercream and a white chocolate mousse and glaze, but we were given free reign with the flavors as long as they remained light and springy in color. My first thought, to go with the white chocolate, was cinnamon and almond praline, but I had some leftover coconut milk and pineapple spears in the refrigerator, so I ended up doing a Piña Colada Opéra Cake instead. Piña coladas may not inspire opera, but they are still song-worthy, after all.
I started on a warm Saturday morning by feeding Nolan and coaxing him to take a nap in his swing. Then I made a mad dash for the kitchen and whipped up some pineapple curd, the main flavor component of what would be a pineapple mousse. I based my curd on a Cooking Light recipe, and in just a few minutes it was covered with plastic wrap and chilling in the fridge. I had just enough time—and pineapple juice—to make a pineapple-flavored soaking syrup for the joconde, and then it was time to feed the little guy again and pump for his next meal.
At the next opportunity, I made a quick run to the little market down the street for a dozen eggs. The batter for the joconde was fairly straightforward, especially since I decided to save my sanity and purchase almond meal rather than making it myself (I wanted to avoid a grainy texture, and save myself some time). I used a true jelly roll pan (10×15), but I only have one, so I had to bake my layers one at a time. Fortunately, that only took about 9 minutes per layer and the batter was no worse the wear for waiting. Unfortunately, it was over 90F outside by that time and over 83F in our house, so the searing hot kitchen was not exactly a fun place to be. My cakes turned out of the pan perfectly and cooled to (above)room temperature while I ran back to take a breather and feed our patient little sticky bun yet again.
Jeremy took a turn entertaining Nolan while I made masaman curry for dinner. Since I had to wait for the rice to cook anyway, I decided to make my buttercream while prepping the few ingredients for the curry, a bit of a bold proposition since I’d never actually made Italian buttercream before and was nervous about the hot sugar syrup. It heated to 225F faster than I anticipated, and my finished buttercream was on the runny side due to the residual heat in the kitchen, but it didn’t separate or scramble or fill up with shards of hardened sugar—and it was delicious. I flavored the sugar syrup with vanilla paste, and the buttercream with a few tablespoons of coconut milk and a drizzle of coconut extract.
After dinner and another bottle of breastmilk for the sticky bun, I cut my cakes, brushed them with soaking syrup, and layered them with the buttercream. The cake went back in the fridge to congeal while I whipped cream and folded in the pineapple curd with some melted and cooled white chocolate. As I spread it on top of the cake, though, I realized the mousse was the same shade of ivory as the buttercream. I had been hoping it would be more yellow like the curd. Oh well—it tasted good!
Before bed, I also thinly sliced our last spear of pineapple and dried it in a 200F oven for about 2 hours with a sprinkle of turbinado sugar, to use as a garnish. The next morning, I had a moment to make and set the white chocolate glaze, then hastily trimmed the edges of the cake and decorated it with dried pineapple “flowers.” I was hoping to put on some final touches of piping, but that is when Nolan’s patience really ran out. I managed to photograph the cake and cut two pieces, but then ended up having to eat my slice over about 45 minutes while simultaneously trying to calm down a very unhappy baby. It’s hard to eat with someone sucking on your finger.
The cake was delicious, though the flavor was predominantly of coconut. I love coconut, so that wasn’t a problem at all. The pineapple syrup helped keep the joconde layers nicely moist, the buttercream was silky smooth, and the mousse was softly set, squishing pleasantly out from under the white chocolate glaze. One of the big surprises was Jeremy’s comment, upon nibbling through some of the trimmings as I finished up the cake, that the white chocolate glaze was really delicious. We are in the dark chocolate camp through and through, and generally turn up our noses at white chocolate, excepting minor garnishes and white chocolate-macadamia nut cookies. I blame the high quality Guittard white chocolate wafers for this seeming non-sequitur.
If I had it to do differently, I would definitely cut down the amount of cream I whipped into the mousse, and maybe add a drop of food coloring to make sure it maintained that bright yellow coloring. I might try doubling the curd recipe and doing a curd layer in the center of the cake. I would also consider adding shredded coconut to the buttercream and toasted coconut sprinkled over the glaze before it set; shreds or thin slices of fresh or roasted pineapple between the layers or stirred into the mousse would also be an option. I purposely avoided adding elements like shredded coconut or pineapple to my own cake, however, because the texture would have irritated me. The glaze, delicious though it was, came out on the thick side (and I understand many others felt the same), so I would use a higher proportion of cream to white chocolate next time.
In the design department, I would have liked to do a bit of piping with colored white chocolate. I was very pleased with my dried pineapple flowers, but might have inserted them before the glaze was completely set, and I would definitely let the cake settle longer (and use a hot knife) before trimming the outside edges, as they were decidedly ragged.
This was a wonderful challenge. The cake was beautiful and delicious, and making it gave me a lesson in new-mama time management as well. I made joconde and Italian buttercream for the first time, and I realized that I actually only dislike white chocolate when it is of the waxy, tasteless low quality variety. It was great fun coming up with flavor profiles for a light-colored Opéra Cake, but I’d love to try making the traditional coffee-chocolate version someday as well. Thanks so much to Lis of La Mia Cucina, Ivonne of Cream Puffs in Venice, Fran of Apples Peaches Pumpkin Pie, and Shea of Whiskful for hosting this month’s Daring Bakers challenge; you can find the recipe, in all its glory, on their sites. There are some really spectacular Opéra Cakes out there today, so make sure to check out the Daring Bakers blogroll.
Pineapple Mousse
This version represents the adjusted ratio of cream to curd that I would use if making this mousse again. My original version used a cup of cream, which gave me a very light pineapple flavor and lots of extra mousse.
1/2 C sugar
1 T cornstarch
1/8 tsp salt
1 C pineapple juice
2 T fresh lemon juice
1 egg
2 egg yolks
2 T butter
1/2 C plus 2 T whipping cream
1/2 C white chocolate baking wafers
Combine the first 3 ingredients in a medium, heavy saucepan, stirring with a whisk. Stir in juices and egg and yolks; bring to a boil over medium heat, stirring constantly with a whisk. Reduce heat, and simmer 1 minute or until thick, stirring constantly. Remove from heat; add butter, stirring gently until butter melts. Spoon mixture into a medium bowl; press plastic wrap directly on the surface. Refrigerate the curd for about 1 hour.
In a small bowl, whip the cream until stiff. Meanwhile, melt the white chocolate with the 2 tablespoons of cream and cool. Gently fold the chilled pineapple curd, then the white chocolate, into the whipped cream. Refrigerate the pineapple mousse to set for 3 hours or overnight.
Source: Adapted from Cooking Light
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05.11.08
Posted in Cake, Chocolate, Dessert at 8:24 am by julie
(I took this picture one-handed, while trying to calm down the flailing, crying baby in my other arm at the same time. Happy Mother’s Day!)
As you may have noticed, I wasn’t able to participate in the Daring Bakers challenge for April. (I fully intend to bake May’s challenge, by the way, and have already purchased the ingredients. Now to formulate a plan of attack for breaking it down time-wise… I’m thinking it would be a good Mother’s Day project for me.) I can count on one hand the baked goods I had time to make in April: peanut butter-chocolate chip cookies, no-bake cookies, some rather blah cinnamon muffins from the King Arthur cookbook, a batch of buttermilk biscuits, and some chocolate chip cookies. Not exactly exciting, but we take what we can get these days. (I thought I had already written up my no-bake cookies, but maybe not. They aren’t anything special, but we like them… I’ll snap a shot and write them up next time I make some.)
I was dying to try out something new but still relatively easy, and I hit on the Light Chocolate Pound recipe in Alice Medrich’s book, Bittersweet. It was low fat, not overly complicated, and didn’t even require me to dirty a board chopping chocolate—right up my alley! I don’t have a tube pan of the appropriate size, so I substituted in the “bundt” ring in my 9″ springform, which turned out to hold just the right amount of batter. Releasing the finished cake from its clutches turned out to be an ordeal though, despite the pan’s non-stick coating and my preventative spray of oil. Good thing I wasn’t serving it to company, but a drizzle of ganache will cover a multitude of sins in any case. I cheated with a jar of Scharffenberger ganache we were given at Christmas, but this cake would be delicious with a little icing glaze or even just a puff of powdered sugar. I should also note that this is one of those cakes that improves overnight: I found it a little dry right out of the oven and thought I had overcooked it, but it was much more moist the next day (when we ate wedges of it with our fingers like snack cakes!).
A Light Chocolate Pound
1 C plus 2 T sugar
1 C AP flour
1/2 C unsweetened natural cocoa powder (not Dutch-processed)
3/8 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
4 T unsalted butter, softened
1 cold large egg
2 cold large egg whites
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
1/2 C cold low-fat (1%) milk
Position a rack in the lower third of the oven and preheat to 350F. Spray a 6-cup tube pan with vegetable oil.
In a large bowl, whisk together the sugar, flour, cocoa, soda, and salt. Add the butter, egg and whites. Set a timer for 2 minutes and begin beating with an electric mixer on medium speed. When the dry ingredients are moistened but not wet, increase the speed to high and beat until the 2 minutes are up.
Combine the vanilla and cold milk, and add to the batter. Start at low speed, then slowly increase to high speed and beat for exactly 2 minutes more total. Scrape the batter into the pan and spread it evenly. Bake just until a wooden toothpick inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean, 35-40 minutes; do not overbake. Cool in the pan on a wire rack for 10 minutes, then unmold onto the rack to cool completely. Serve dusted with powdered sugar or drizzled with icing or ganache.
Note: The original recipe called for a teaspoon of espresso powder, but I left it out, because I don’t have any and I am not a coffee fan anyway (and yes, I know all about coffee’s affinity for chocolate.) Add it if you like! Also, I misread the instructions and added 3/4 tsp of baking soda instead of 3/8 tsp; then I attempted to scoop some of it back out when I realized my mistake, but I’m sure there was more soda in my cake than intended. It made absolutely no difference that I could tell, and we were happy with the texture of the cake.
Source: Bittersweet, by Alice Medrich
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