01.27.10
Posted in Baby Food, Chocolate, Cookies & Candies, Dessert, Foodblog Events, Snacks at 1:28 pm by julie
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. I’d never actually eaten a nanaimo bar before, but I was familiar with them from the Willamette University Bistro’s offerings, so I was very curious to see what they were like. I make simple graham crackers all the time for my son, and have actually made the Nancy Silverton grahams before as well, so those weren’t new to me.
The graham cracker recipe used for this recipe is definitely sweeter than my basic one, but it also has more flavor (not that my son minds one way or the other). Since we don’t have dietary restrictions at our house, I just used some flour I already had on hand: 1 C AP flour, 1 C whole wheat flour, and as a nod to gluten-free baking flours, 1/2 C oat flour ground from rolled oats and 2 T buckwheat flour. I made the full batch of crackers so as to have extras for snacking.
My dough came out quite sticky, but I’m told that was pretty common, and some flour on the board and rolling pin made it perfectly workable. My crackers took a few minutes longer than the suggested time to bake, but maybe that was because of my choice of flours.
As you can see, my taste tester approves! They are especially good for teething 2-year molars.
The crust for these cookies is a bit unusual, cooked briefly on the stovetop, then patted into the pan. It stays soft and chewy, and the nuts and coconut give it some crunch. I used a 9″ pan instead of the 8″ called for, so my bars came out a little thinner than intended.
I didn’t have access to custard powder, so I flavored the middle layer, essentially an American buttercream, with vanilla paste. I had some trouble getting my chocolate melted and cooled to a good consistency for spreading over the buttercream, so it wasn’t as smooth or shiny as I might have liked, but it served its purpose well. The finished bars were incredibly sweet, but we ate them all in about two days, so apparently we didn’t mind a bit. 
There were enough graham crackers not only for snacking, but for several pies with graham cracker crusts, so I also made a coconut cream pie (it did not cut neatly enough for photos!).
All in all, this month’s challenge was interesting and very tasty, but not so much what I would term “daring.” That doesn’t mean I won’t be making nanaimo bars again; in fact, I’m fully planning on taking inspiration from all the amazing variations that our Daring Bakers came up with. Maybe one day I’ll even come across some custard powder and try the real thing.
Nanaimo Bars
Bottom Layer
1/2 C (4 ounces) unsalted butter
1/4 C granulated sugar
5 T unsweetened cocoa
1 large egg, beaten
1 1/4 C graham cracker crumbs (store-bought or homemade)
1/2 C almonds, finely chopped
1 C coconut, shredded (sweetened or unsweetened)
Middle Layer
1/2 C (4 ounces) unsalted butter
2 T plus 2 tsp heavy cream
2 T vanilla custard powder (such as Bird’s), or other flavoring (vanilla, coconut, mint, peanut butter, fruit—sky’s the limit)
2 C powdered sugar
Top Layer
4 ounces semi-sweet chocolate
2 T unsalted butter
For bottom layer: Melt unsalted butter, sugar and cocoa in top of a double boiler. Add egg and stir to cook and thicken. Remove from heat. Stir in crumbs, nuts and coconut. Press firmly into an ungreased 8 by 8 inch pan.
For middle layer: Cream butter, cream, flavoring, and powdered sugar together well. Beat until light in colour. Spread over bottom layer, and chill.
For top layer: Melt chocolate and unsalted butter over low heat. Cool. Once cool, pour over middle layer and allow to set.
I am a member of the Theta Class of Daring Bakers, inducted in July 2007. Below is a list of previous challenges:
Strawberry Mirror Cake – July 2007
Milk Chocolate and Caramel Tart – August 2007
Cinnamon Rolls and Sticky Buns – September 2007
Bostini Cream Pies – October 2007
Tender Potato Bread – November 2007
Traditional Buche de Noel – December 2007
Lemon Meringue Pie – January 2008
French Bread – February 2008
Perfect Party Cake – March 2008
Opéra Cake – May 2008
Danish Braid – June 2008
Filbert Gateau – July 2008
Chocolate Éclairs – August 2008
Lavash Crackers and Dip – September 2008
French Yule Log – December 2008
Tuiles – January 2009
Chocolate Valentino and Ice Cream – February 2009
Lasagne of Emilia-Romana – March 2009
Abbey’s Infamous Cheesecake – April 2009
Apple Strudel – May 2009
Bakewell Tart and Homemade Jam – June 2009
Chocolate Marshmallow Cookies – July 2009
Dobos Torte – August 2009
Vols-au-Vent – September 2009
Macarons – October 2009
Cannoli – November 2009
Permalink
11.27.09
Posted in Chocolate, Cuisines, Dairy, Dessert, Foodblog Events, Italian at 12:09 am by julie
The November 2009 Daring Bakers Challenge was chosen and hosted by Lisa Michele of Parsley, Sage, Desserts and Line Drives. She chose the Italian Pastry, Cannolo (Cannoli is plural), using the cookbooks Lidia’s Italian-American Kitchen by Lidia Matticchio Bastianich and The Sopranos Family Cookbook by Allen Rucker; recipes by Michelle Scicolone, as ingredient/direction guides. She added her own modifications/changes, so the recipe is not 100% verbatim from either book.
This challenge was a lot of fun because although we love Italian food, my family had never even tasted cannoli. I’ve done a bit of frying, so this wasn’t a particularly nerve-wracking challenge, but it did give me a handy excuse to buy a deep-fry thermometer and a spatter screen, which will hopefully make a big difference in the quality of my fry sessions and the amount of clean-up afterwards.
I made my cannoli dough several hours in advance. I had no marsala and briefly contemplated attempting mirin (since it is a sweet wine), but in the end I chose to use plain old white wine, and I used a few tablespoons over 1/2 C, enough to give me a kneadable, but not sticky, dough. The recipe didn’t specify Dutch-processed or natural cocoa powder, so I used the latter. While it hung out in the refrigerator, I made a batch of fresh ricotta to divide between my cannoli and the homemade cannelloni I decided to prepare for dinner, for the sheer synergy of it all. Thank heavens for the pasta roller attachment on my stand mixer!
After dinner, I started heating the oil and dividing my dough into 1″ spheres. The oil was a blend of about 3:1 extra virgin olive oil to canola, partly because cannoli are Italian and I was channeling Mario Batali, and partly because I ran out of canola. While I heated it up to about 375F in a heavy 4-quart saucepan, I rolled out my first four cannoli in the pasta roller, thinning them out to setting 6, which gave me about 5″ rounds to wrap around the forms. I had no trouble with the dough sticking to my roller or shrinking back; actually, it behaved very well and smelled delightfully of cinnamon.
I fried my cannoli two at a time. The oil temperature was a little hard to keep steady; mostly it kept wanting to creep above 375F, so some of the shells got a little darker than I had planned, but none tasted burnt. The recipe called for turning them as they fried, but mine just rolled back whatever way they wanted, so that didn’t really happen. I should also note that I never had a problem with my olive oil smoking, despite temperatures that occasionally got above 400F.
While they fried, I prepared the next two forms, which went in for a bath when the first two came out to drain. I was able to carefully remove the hot forms from the hot cannoli by keeping a thin cloth in each hand and gently twisting the shell free. For the first night’s batch, I then dunked the hot forms into water to cool them quickly for the next round; they caused some spattering in subsequent frying due to water droplets inside the hollow forms, so the next night I just gave them an extra minute to cool and skipped the dunking.
Using my pasta roller, I was able to make a dozen large (5-6″) cannoli shells with half the dough. For the most part they blistered very nicely, and I suspect that has to do with a combination of factors, namely the amount of moisture in the dough and the temperature of the dough relative to that of the oil. My shells blistered better when the oil was at least 375F and the dough was still cold. Several shells near the end of the frying session, with the dough at room temperature, almost didn’t blister at all.
For the first batch of cannoli shells, I made a filling of about 1 C freshly made and drained ricotta, 4 oz cream cheese at room temperature, 1 tsp vanilla paste, and about 1/3 C sugar. It was thick and lovely, and tasted like a cheesecake. I piped it with a star tip into my cooled shells, and had just barely enough to fill the lot. Because it was so thick, I was able to fill the extra shells and keep them in the fridge overnight with very little sog factor.
A few days later, I had time to fry up the other half of the cannoli dough, so I played around a bit more. Using a second batch of fresh ricotta, I made two new flavors of filling, chocolate and banana cream. Both used a base of about 1 C fresh drained ricotta and 4 oz cream cheese; the chocolate was flavored with about 1/4 C sugar and 1/2 C melted semi-sweet chocolate, while the banana cream was flavored with 1/3 C brown sugar, a pinch of cinnamon, and most of a very ripe banana. In addition, I dipped the ends of my cannoli shells into melted chocolate and toasted unsweetened coconut before filling. Both of these fillings were tasty, but the original simple vanilla filling was our family’s unanimous favorite. I should also note that the banana filling was of a moister consistency, and caused the leftover cannoli to soften considerably; I ended up deciding to save most of it to swirl through loaves of pumpkin bread.
We made short work of the lot, and even our 20-month old dug in. These were a lot of fun to make, and incredibly versatile. Every variety we tried tasted great, looked elegant and impressive, and were much easier to make than expected. Since I can have the shells and filling ready in advance, I will definitely be making cannoli for guests in the future, and it would be fun to try savory varieties too. Thanks so much to Lisa Michele for choosing this recipe, and check out all of the amazing cannoli at the Daring Bakers Blogroll!
Lidisano’s Cannoli
Makes 22-24 4-inch cannoli
CANNOLI SHELLS
2 C (250 grams/16 ounces) all-purpose flour
2 T (28 grams/1 ounce) sugar
1 tsp (5 grams/0.06 ounces) unsweetened baking cocoa powder
1/2 tsp (1.15 grams/0.04 ounces) ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp (approx. 3 grams/0.11 ounces) salt
3 T (42 grams/1.5 ounces) vegetable or olive oil
1 tsp (5 grams/0.18 ounces) white wine vinegar
Approximately 1/2 C (approx. 59 grams/approx. 4 fluid ounces/approx. 125 ml) sweet Marsala or any white or red wine you have on hand
1 egg white
Vegetable or any neutral oil for frying – about 2 quarts (8 C/approx. 2 litres)
1/2 C (approx. 62 grams/2 ounces) toasted, chopped pistachio nuts, mini chocolate chips/grated chocolate and/or candied or plain zests, fruits etc.. for garnish
Confectioners’ sugar
Note – If you want a chocolate cannoli dough, substitute a few tablespoons of the flour (about 25%) with a few tablespoons of dark, unsweetened cocoa powder (Dutch process) and a little more wine until you have a workable dough (Thanks to Audax).
CANNOLI FILLING
2 lbs (approx. 3.5 C/approx. 1 kg/32 ounces) ricotta cheese, drained
1 2/3 C (160 grams/6 ounces) confectioner’s sugar, (more or less, depending on how sweet you want it), sifted
1/2 tsp (1.15 grams/0.04 ounces) ground cinnamon
1 tsp (4 grams/0.15 ounces) pure vanilla extract or the beans from one vanilla bean
3 T (approx. 28 grams/approx. 1 ounce) finely chopped good quality chocolate of your choice
2 T (12 grams/0.42 ounces) of finely chopped, candied orange peel, or the grated zest of one small to medium orange
3 T (23 grams/0.81 ounce) toasted, finely chopped pistachios
Note – If you want chocolate ricotta filling, add a few tablespoons of dark, unsweetened cocoa powder to the above recipe, and thin it out with a few drops of warm water if too thick to pipe.
DIRECTIONS FOR SHELLS:
1. In the bowl of an electric stand mixer or food processor, combine the flour, sugar, cocoa, cinnamon, and salt. Stir in the oil, vinegar, and enough of the wine to make a soft dough. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead until smooth and well blended, about 2 minutes. Shape the dough into a ball. Cover with plastic wrap and let rest in the fridge from 2 hours to overnight.
2 Cut the dough into two pieces. Keep the remaining dough covered while you work. Lightly flour a large cutting or pastry board and roll the dough until super thin, about 1/16 to 1/8” thick (An area of about 13 inches by 18 inches should give you that). Cut out 3 to 5-inch circles (3-inch – small/medium; 4-inch – medium/large; 5-inch;- large. Your choice). Roll the cut out circle into an oval, rolling it larger and thinner if it’s shrunk a little. (A pasta roller also works nicely for this step. Divide the dough into 1″ balls, flatten one slightly, and roll it through from the widest setting to the smallest.)
3. Oil the outside of the cannoli tubes (You only have to do this once.) Roll a dough oval from the long side around each tube/form and dab a little egg white on the dough where the edges overlap. (Avoid getting egg white on the tube, or the pastry will stick to it.) Press well to seal. Set aside to let the egg white seal dry a little.
4. In a deep heavy saucepan, pour enough oil to reach a depth of 3 inches, or if using an electric deep-fryer, follow the manufacturer’s directions. Heat the oil to 375°F (190 °C) on a deep fry thermometer, or until a small piece of the dough or bread cube placed in the oil sizzles and browns in 1 minute. Have ready a tray or sheet pan lined with paper towels or paper bags.
5. Carefully lower a few of the cannoli tubes into the hot oil. Do not crowd the pan. Fry the shells until golden, about 2 minutes, turning them so that they brown evenly.
8. Lift a cannoli tube with a wire skimmer or large slotted spoon, out of the oil. Using tongs, grasp the cannoli tube at one end. Very carefully remove the cannoli tube with the open sides straight up and down so that the oil flows back into the pan. Place the tube on paper towels or bags to drain. Repeat with the remaining tubes. While they are still hot, grasp the tubes with a potholder and pull the cannoli shells off the tubes with a pair of tongs, or with your hand protected by an oven mitt or towel. Let the shells cool completely on the paper towels. Place shells on cooling rack until ready to fill.
9. Repeat making and frying the shells with the remaining dough. If you are reusing the cannoli tubes, let them cool before wrapping them in the dough.
DIRECTIONS FOR FILLING:
1. Line a strainer with cheesecloth. Place the ricotta in the strainer over a bowl, and cover with plastic wrap and a towel. Weight it down with a heavy can, and let the ricotta drain in the refrigerator for several hours to overnight.
2. In a bowl with electric mixer, beat ricotta until smooth and creamy. Beat in confectioner’s sugar, cinnamon, vanilla and blend until smooth. Transfer to another bowl and stir in chocolate, zest and nuts. Chill until firm. (The filling can be made up to 24 hours prior to filling the shells. Just cover and keep refrigerated).
ASSEMBLE THE CANNOLI:
1. When ready to serve, fill a pastry bag fitted with a 1/2-inch plain or star tip, or a ziplock bag, with the ricotta cream. If using a ziplock bag, cut about 1/2 inch off one corner. Insert the tip in the cannoli shell and squeeze gently until the shell is half filled. Turn the shell and fill the other side.
2. Press or dip cannoli in chopped pistachios, grated chocolate/mini chocolate chips, candied fruit or zest into the cream at each end. Dust with confectioner’s sugar and/or drizzles of melted chocolate if desired.
I am a member of the Theta Class of Daring Bakers, inducted in July 2007. Below is a list of previous challenges:
Strawberry Mirror Cake – July 2007
Milk Chocolate and Caramel Tart – August 2007
Cinnamon Rolls and Sticky Buns – September 2007
Bostini Cream Pies – October 2007
Tender Potato Bread – November 2007
Traditional Buche de Noel – December 2007
Lemon Meringue Pie – January 2008
French Bread – February 2008
Perfect Party Cake – March 2008
Opéra Cake – May 2008
Danish Braid – June 2008
Filbert Gateau – July 2008
Chocolate Éclairs – August 2008
Lavash Crackers and Dip – September 2008
French Yule Log – December 2008
Tuiles – January 2009
Chocolate Valentino and Ice Cream – February 2009
Lasagne of Emilia-Romana – March 2009
Abbey’s Infamous Cheesecake – April 2009
Apple Strudel – May 2009
Bakewell Tart and Homemade Jam – June 2009
Chocolate Marshmallow Cookies – July 2009
Dobos Torte – August 2009
Vols-au-Vent – September 2009
Macarons – October 2009
Permalink
10.27.09
Posted in Chocolate, Cookies & Candies, Cuisines, Dessert, Foodblog Events, French, Nuts, Grains & Legumes at 12:58 pm by julie
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. I knew it was coming, sooner or later, and I’ve always been nervous about baking macarons, with very good reason. I made a batch of pistachio macarons once, before I really knew what they were; Nigella Lawson’s description was irresistible, but they came out sticky, lumpy, and so sweet that my husband wouldn’t eat more than one bite. I could barely remove them from the sheet pan. I’ve never tasted a real macaron, or even seen one outside of photographs, so I’d like to think that had some effect on the outcome.
My food, savory and sweet, has come a long way in the four or five years since that incident, in part thanks to taking part in 23 Daring Bakers challenges now. But when it comes to macarons, apparently I’m still at square one.
I decided to try my hand at chocolate macarons, mostly to divert my husband from eating all the Halloween candy before the trick-or-treaters get a shot at it, and my post is a little late because I was holding out to get parchment, almond meal and powdered sugar at the grocery store. When I finally got there on Tuesday, however, they didn’t have almond meal in stock and I totally spaced out the powdered sugar, so I ended up having to make both in the food processor anyhow. Superfine sugar, cocoa, and almonds all went in, and a fine brown powder came out. I sieved it to remove the larger bits of almond and lighten the texture before folding into my egg whites.
I made the cocoa-almond meringues in Baking: From My Home to Yours a month or two back, and they had a similar ingredient list and process, although they aren’t neatly piped. My meringues looked like airy rocks and had a large air pocket between the crisp shell and chewy base.
The macaron batter seemed to deflate even more than that meringue batter did, which didn’t seem like a good sign. Still, I carefully piped out row after row of neat little rounds… which promptly spread to twice their size and threatened to merge into sloppy amoeboid shapes. Not a good sign.
I baked them off anyway according to the recipe, and they set up into bumpy brown pancakes: no frilly foot, no dome, no nothing. Clearly something went awry. Was it my ingredients? My folding technique? The fact that I flavored them with chocolate? I’ll only know with further experimentation and lots more practice.
Anyhow, I filled my little bellyflop cookies with a simple ganache of 3 oz Valrhona chocolate and 1/3 C heavy cream, and gave some to my taste testers. Nolan instantly recognized them as chocolate and ate a whole cookie without sharing with his dad. He usually crams food into his mouth whole, but these had just the right tender texture for him to practice taking big-boy bites. And my husband has been mostly distracted from the Halloween candy. So even if I can’t call these cookies macarons, I’d still call them a big success. Thanks so much to Ami S. for choosing this very challenging challenge, and check out the infinite variety of real macarons baked up by our Daring Bakers at the blogroll.
I am a member of the Theta Class of Daring Bakers, inducted in July 2007. Below is a list of previous challenges:
Strawberry Mirror Cake – July 2007
Milk Chocolate and Caramel Tart – August 2007
Cinnamon Rolls and Sticky Buns – September 2007
Bostini Cream Pies – October 2007
Tender Potato Bread – November 2007
Traditional Buche de Noel – December 2007
Lemon Meringue Pie – January 2008
French Bread – February 2008
Perfect Party Cake – March 2008
Opéra Cake – May 2008
Danish Braid – June 2008
Filbert Gateau – July 2008
Chocolate Éclairs – August 2008
Lavash Crackers and Dip – September 2008
French Yule Log – December 2008
Tuiles – January 2009
Chocolate Valentino and Ice Cream – February 2009
Lasagne of Emilia-Romana – March 2009
Abbey’s Infamous Cheesecake – April 2009
Apple Strudel – May 2009
Bakewell Tart and Homemade Jam – June 2009
Chocolate Marshmallow Cookies – July 2009
Dobos Torte – August 2009
Vols-au-Vent – September 2009
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08.27.09
Posted in Cake, Chocolate, Dessert, Foodblog Events at 6:08 pm by julie
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 Cafés of Vienna, Budapest, and Prague
. I was excited about this one at first because of its source, a book that has been on my wishlist for some time. It is a classic Austrian pastry composed of five airy layers of vanilla sponge enrobed in dark chocolate buttercream and topped with a caramel-glazed cake layer, both for decoration and for the more practical purpose of prolonging storage at room temperature. I’ve made variations of all of these elements during my tenure as a Daring Baker, so the part of the recipe that most concerned me was finding time to make it, now that I’ve got a fully-fledged toddler in the house.
The cake batter was a very simple one: egg yolks beaten until pale with sugar and vanilla, with whipped egg white and cake flour gently folded in. I had no cake flour, so I subbed in a mixture of sifted all-purpose flour and cornstarch. The batter is then spread in a 9″ circle on parchment, and baked just for a few minutes until golden. I used a rotation of 3 sheet pans, and the cakes were all cooling inside half an hour.
After cooling, the cakes had to be carefully peeled off the parchment and trimmed into 8″ rounds. I was grateful for this instruction because the edges of my cakes were less than precise; then again, I freehanded the trimming with my kitchen shears, so they still probably didn’t quite match up at the end. Next, I whipped up the buttercream, eggs foamed up with sugar and heated with dark chocolate over a bain marie. I used Valrhona chocolate and ordinary granulated sugar, rather than the caster sugar called for. Although I cooled my buttercream base in the fridge and thoroughly softened my butter, I ended up with some pretty soupy frosting, so I decided to refrigerate it overnight rather than using it immediately. I suspect that the extra-large eggs I used were a major contributor to the consistency; perhaps adding more butter would have made a difference.
Before calling it a night, I went ahead and made the caramel for the topping. This recipe uses both water and lemon juice, and made an incredibly foamy caramel as it cooked down. I cut one cake layer into wedges and laid them in a circle on my silpat, and then poured the caramel over. One of the wedges was folded in half by the molten sugar, so I had to gingerly slide it back into position, then begin the somewhat frustrating process of trying to push the caramel out from around and between the wedges of cake. I did what I could until the caramel cooled, and then trimmed the edges a bit more the next day with my kitchen trimmers, but they still didn’t look as clean as I would have liked.
The buttercream, however, fared much better after a night in the fridge. It was still spreadable but not runny, and I was able to assemble my cake. I’ll be storing it in the refrigerator, though, because I suspect that the frosting would melt off if I left it out.
The finished Dobos Torte was tasty, but not spectacular for the amount of effort I put into it. It was pretty sweet, but the almond garnish helped counteract that a bit. I actually didn’t care for the caramel topping at all, mostly because I found the lemon flavor overpowering and ill-suited for the chocolate, but also because it made the cake kind of hard to eat. It did give the cake a beautiful, distinctive look, though. All in all, this was a fun cake to try out, and I appreciate its traditional origins, but I would probably go with another recipe if I really wanted to wow guests. Many thanks to our hosts, and be sure to check out the hundreds of fabulous Dobos Tortes on the Daring Bakers blogroll!
I am a member of the Theta Class of Daring Bakers, inducted in July 2007. Below is a list of previous challenges:
Strawberry Mirror Cake – July 2007
Milk Chocolate and Caramel Tart – August 2007
Cinnamon Rolls and Sticky Buns – September 2007
Bostini Cream Pies – October 2007
Tender Potato Bread – November 2007
Traditional Buche de Noel – December 2007
Lemon Meringue Pie – January 2008
French Bread – February 2008
Perfect Party Cake – March 2008
Opéra Cake – May 2008
Danish Braid – June 2008
Filbert Gateau – July 2008
Chocolate Éclairs – August 2008
Lavash Crackers and Dip – September 2008
French Yule Log – December 2008
Tuiles – January 2009
Chocolate Valentino and Ice Cream – February 2009
Lasagne of Emilia-Romana – March 2009
Abbey’s Infamous Cheesecake – April 2009
Apple Strudel – May 2009
Bakewell Tart and Homemade Jam – June 2009
Chocolate Marshmallow Cookies – July 2009
Permalink
07.27.09
Posted in Chocolate, Cookies & Candies, Dessert, Foodblog Events, Ice Cream at 2:55 pm by julie
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. We were given the choice of making either or both of these two cookies; I would have liked to try both of them, but our waistlines could only handle one. I chose the mallow cookies, since I’ve never had the guts to make my own marshmallow before. To be perfectly honest, I’m not a huge fan of marshmallows, mostly because of their rubbery texture and one-note sugary taste, but I’d always heard that the homemade variety is a completely different species from the store-bought sort, so I was very curious to know if that were true.
These cookies came together over the course of several days for me, in part because of the heat wave we’ve been having here in Oregon, and in part because our former sticky bun is now able to toddle around after me and cling to my leg, which slows down my progress tremendously. (He also pilfers my fish turner, spider, and various other kitchen implements, but that’s another story.) I made the dough one evening, stuck it in the fridge, and didn’t get around to baking it off until the next day. I had to do a double-take when I realized the recipe called for storing it as a chilled disk, rolling it and stamping out shapes, because I had kind of assumed it would call for slicing it from log form like so many refrigerated cookie dough. It rolled out fine, but made so many cookies that I ended up freezing half the dough—in a log—to use another time.
I didn’t have a cookie cutter as small as the one called for in the recipe, so instead I used a 2″ round biscuit cutter. My cookies puffed up quite a bit when I baked them, so I may not have rolled the dough quite thin enough. I decided to slice most of them in half while they were hot, which worked beautifully and gave me a more wafer-like cookie.
When it came time to make the marshmallow, I realized that I was out of light corn syrup. I took a risk and substituted dark corn syrup in its place, and the color of the heated sugar syrup made me worry that my marshmallows would end up beige and molasses-flavored. As it turned out, however, they whipped up white as snow, and the flavor had just a whisper of brown-sugar complexity that married nicely with vanilla. It would have been helpful if the recipe had specified an amount of whipping time for the marshmallow. Mine took a good ten or fifteen minutes at high speed to whip up to a stiff consistency after I added the sugar syrup, about long enough for the mixture to cool, which I doubt was a coincidence.
My house was so warm that my marshmallow didn’t want to hold its shape for long, so as soon as I got all my cookies piped out, I ran the tray down into our cool basement and crossed my fingers that the mallow wouldn’t end up melting and running all over the place. Since I didn’t bake all the dough at one time, I had about half of the marshmallow leftover, and I poured that freeform on a silpat dusted with powdered sugar, to use for another purpose.
Several hours later, the mallow was more set than tacky, so I went ahead and did the chocolate coating before bedtime. I was tired and cranky from the heat, so I didn’t bother with a bain marie; I just used semi-sweet chocolate chips and melted them over low heat in a saucepan. It worked out fine; no burning, seizing, or otherwise. However, I did run out of glaze before all the cookies were coated, so I had to make more. They went back on a silpat in the basement overnight. (And I have to just say, these look so much like Tagalongs, I might have to make some from that log of extra dough in my freezer…once the weather cools back down, that is!)
The next day I went downstairs to check on the mallows, and the chocolate was still gooey. A good 24 hours after that, it was still not totally set up, even in my cool basement, so I think only the fridge will suffice this time of year—we’ve had over a week of temps in the upper 90’s, are supposed to top 100F for the next few days, and it has got to be at least 85 degrees in my house. The second I pick up one of these cookies to take a bite, it starts melting all over my hand, but the few I’ve managed to taste are absolutely delicious, worlds better than any marshmallow product I’ve ever purchased, so the rumors are true. Homemade marshmallows are worth the fuss. Nolan loves the cookies too, but I think they are about the messiest possible cookie to cut up and share with a baby—crumbs, melting chocolate and sugary goo. We had slightly better luck feeding him our alternative marshmallow application, below.
I cut up the excess marshmallow into sticky cubes and used it in a recipe Jeremy has been requesting to combat the heat—homemade rocky road ice cream. The ice cream base was from The Perfect Scoop, made with a combination of Dutch-process cocoa, Valrhona bittersweet chocolate and Guittard milk chocolate. I mixed it after processing with roasted chopped almonds and the homemade marshmallow, and it is easily the best rocky road we’ve ever had.
This marshmallow recipe stayed pretty sticky and hard to cut up; I’m not sure if that was caused by the heat or an error on my part, or if that’s just how this recipe intended them to be for the cookies. I’ll have to try a stand-alone marshmallow recipe this winter for hot chocolate and s’mores. I was a little afraid my cubes would dissolve when I stirred them into the ice cream, but as you can see, the marshmallow maintained its structural integrity and worked very nicely with the ice cream.
Thanks so much to Nicole and the Daring Bakers for pushing me to give homemade marshmallows a chance. This was another fun challenge! And be sure to look at all the gorgeous mallows and milanos at the Daring Bakers Blogroll!
I am a member of the Theta Class of Daring Bakers, inducted in July 2007. Below is a list of previous challenges:
Strawberry Mirror Cake – July 2007
Milk Chocolate and Caramel Tart – August 2007
Cinnamon Rolls and Sticky Buns – September 2007
Bostini Cream Pies – October 2007
Tender Potato Bread – November 2007
Traditional Buche de Noel – December 2007
Lemon Meringue Pie – January 2008
French Bread – February 2008
Perfect Party Cake – March 2008
Opéra Cake – May 2008
Danish Braid – June 2008
Filbert Gateau – July 2008
Chocolate Éclairs – August 2008
Lavash Crackers and Dip – September 2008
French Yule Log – December 2008
Tuiles – January 2009
Chocolate Valentino and Ice Cream – February 2009
Lasagne of Emilia-Romana – March 2009
Abbey’s Infamous Cheesecake – April 2009
Apple Strudel – May 2009
Bakewell Tart and Homemade Jam – June 2009
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06.01.09
Posted in Chocolate, Cookies & Candies, Dessert at 4:39 pm by julie
This edition of Leftover Night is dedicated to desserts, all of which incorporate chocolate because we are irredeemable chocoholics. First up, we have The Chewy, from Alton Brown’s chocolate chip cookie episode. Yes, I tried another one. We found this recipe pretty disappointing, unfortunately. While it was “soft-baked” after the fashion of a store-bought Chips-Ahoy cookie, that really isn’t what I think of as chewy—I prefer the denser chewiness of a cookie that is full of brown sugar and slightly underbaked. But the real problem we had with these cookies was the amount of salt called for. We didn’t notice it too much when they were fresh from the oven, but by the next day, they tasted so salty as to be nearly inedible. I won’t be using this recipe again, but if you try it, I would highly recommend easing back on the salt levels.
Next up we have the chipster-topped brownies in Baking: From My Home to Yours
. These baked up nice and thick, but were sort of unremarkable warm from the oven, which surprised me a little. I really couldn’t even taste the chocolate-chip cookie topping until they had cooled. Don’t get me wrong, these were very tasty, moist, decadent brownies; I’m just not sure they were worth the extra effort and dirty dishes involved in the cookie layer.
Finally, we have millionaire’s shortbread, which tastes just like a caramel Twix bar. These are a little messy to slice and eat, but absolutely delicious. I made mine with half AP and half rice flour for that extra crispness, and my caramel was homemade dulce de leche. Shortbread isn’t Jeremy’s favorite, but he liked these a lot too, so they go in the permanent recipe file.
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04.07.09
Posted in Appetizers, Baby Food, Bread, Cake, Chocolate, Dessert, Dips & Spreads, Nuts, Grains & Legumes at 6:41 pm by julie
Amazing as it may seem (well, to me at least), our little boy turned one year old near the end of March. My mom flew out for the celebration, which was a small family affair combining Nolan’s birthday party with his dedication. I was mostly busy straightening up the house for company, but I made several savory hors d’oeuvres for our guests to snack on.
This is my homemade grissini with whipped spinach and chickpea hummus. The grissini was a recipe from the King Arthur cookbook, and made enough breadsticks for a week’s worth of snacking. I seasoned them variously with za’atar, smoked paprika, sesame seeds, and Parmesan cheese, and Nolan loved them, with or without a dip in the hummus. I also stuffed some split baby bell peppers with a mixture of feta and ricotta, but those were all eaten up before I remembered to get a photo.
Of course, the highlight of Nolan’s birthday party had to be his cake. Knowing that Nolan is already a big chocolate fan but not wanting the mess of chocolate frosting, I went with the devil’s food white-out cake in Baking: From My Home to Yours. It made the perfect baby birthday cake: moist and chocolatey, but not too big or fussy, and with that crumb coat, it just begged to be eaten with chubby little fingers.
Nolan had never eaten sweets more than a pinch at a time, so we weren’t sure how he would react to a whole slice of cake. But he dove right in without the slightest hesitation and proceeded to eat the entire thing. He didn’t even make all that big a mess, considering. My husband also posted a little video of Nolan chowing down on our main website if anyone is interested.
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02.28.09
Posted in Cake, Chocolate, Dessert, Foodblog Events, Ice Cream at 12:18 am by julie
You may have noticed that I left out any mention of a dessert in my Valentine’s Day post. But no Valentine’s Day (or any other holiday—or most weekdays, for that matter) would be complete without a dessert, preferably something chocolatey. And this month’s Daring Bakers challenge filled that need admirably. 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. Decadent chocolate cake and ice cream—who could ask for more?
For me, the most difficult part of the challenge was acquiring a good quality chocolate on a shoestring budget. Although most of the time I am content to use bittersweet Ghirardelli bars from the grocery store, I was determined (in the spirit of the challenge, of course) to try out a brand we’d never eaten before. Chocosphere carries more options than I could shake a stick at, but I went with Valrhona Le Noir Gastronomie, a 61% bittersweet. I decided against a higher cocoa content because I was concerned about bitterness, considering the lack of sugar in this recipe. The 1Kg bag of fèves I purchased was more expensive than I would have liked, but on the plus side, I now have just over a pound of excellent chocolate leftover for another recipe.
The cake itself was incredibly easy to make. I went my usual route and melted the chocolate and butter in the microwave, and then it was just a matter of stirring in the yolks and folding in the beaten whites. I was stumped at first by the 50 sq. in. pan requirement, because I don’t have any springforms or cake pans smaller than 9×9, a deficiency I will someday have to rectify. But after taking my tape measure to every dish in the kitchen, I went with a small ceramic casserole of about 6×9, and couldn’t resist saving a bit of batter for my lone heart-shaped ramekin. The casserole went in for 25 minutes, and the ramekin joined it after the first 10.
They both turned out beautifully, and I had no problems with sticking. I decorated the heart with a simple cloud of powdered sugar, and attempted a stencil on the larger valentino that also incorporated cocoa powder.
As for the ice cream element of the challenge, I’ve tried countless ice cream recipes since receiving an ice cream maker a year or two ago, more than one of which was a variety of vanilla. And I was out of heavy cream. So I took the liberty of making peanut butter frozen yogurt instead, adapted freely from several recipes in The Perfect Scoop. It turned out very well, and beyond the obvious perfections of the chocolate-peanut butter pairing, the sweet tang of the yogurt proved a good counterpoint to the bittersweet chocolate. Too bad Nolan isn’t quite old enough yet to sample peanuts.
All in all, this was one of the more straightforward challenges, and I have to admit it was a welcome one. The cake really does showcase the chocolate you choose. The texture is a bit like crumbly velvet at room temperature, and reheats to fudgy decadence with just a few seconds in the microwave, a perfect Valentine’s dessert that lasted us several days. Thanks so much to Dharm and Wendy for choosing this month’s challenge, and check out all the other chocolate valentinos at the Daring Bakers Blogroll.
Peanut Butter Frozen Yogurt
3 C plain yogurt, whole or lowfat
3/4 C sugar
1/4 C brown sugar
about 2/3 C peanut butter (I used natural, and didn’t really measure)
1 tsp vanilla
Combine all ingredients in a blender, and process until homogenous. Chill in the refrigerator for several hours or overnight, then churn in an ice cream maker according to the manufacturer’s instructions.
I am a member of the Theta Class of Daring Bakers, inducted in July 2007. Below is a list of previous challenges:
Strawberry Mirror Cake – July 2007
Milk Chocolate and Caramel Tart – August 2007
Cinnamon Rolls and Sticky Buns – September 2007
Bostini Cream Pies – October 2007
Tender Potato Bread – November 2007
Traditional Buche de Noel – December 2007
Lemon Meringue Pie – January 2008
French Bread – February 2008
Perfect Party Cake – March 2008
Opéra Cake – May 2008
Danish Braid – June 2008
Filbert Gateau – July 2008
Chocolate Éclairs – August 2008
Lavash Crackers and Dip – September 2008
French Yule Log – December 2008
Tuiles – January 2009
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01.29.09
Posted in Chocolate, Cookies & Candies, Dessert, Foodblog Events, Ice Cream at 6:16 pm by julie
This month’s challenge is brought to us by Karen of Baking Soda 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’s Finest Desserts. And thank goodness they chose something so light and versatile, because I wasn’t able to try my hand at one of the recipes until this morning!
Payday isn’t until tomorrow, so the cupboards are looking a little bare. Part of this Daring Bakers assignment was to pair our tuiles with something light: a dip, a mousse, a sorbet, something fruity, you get the idea. I had the ingredients to make a chocolate-coconut sorbet from The Perfect Scoop, so I decided to pair that with a simple vanilla tuile. I was able to mix up the sorbet base before Nolan woke up this morning, but he’s been getting up earlier and earlier these days (a bit sad for me, as I was able to get so much done in the mornings when he slept until noon), so he got to supervise the tuile construction from his high chair. I cooked up the egg yolks leftover from making the batter, and they kept him busy while I worked.
The pizza dough I made the other night had screwed my Kitchenaid mixing bowl too firmly into the base for me to remove myself (this always seems to happen when I knead dough in it), so I took a chance and whipped up the tuile batter in my food processor instead, making sure to pulse as little as possible to avoid overbeating it.
I first made a single test-tuile by simply smearing some batter on my silpat with a spoon, trying to keep it thin and even, and pulling it out of the oven when the edges were just starting to brown. I shaped it over my rolling pin for simplicity’s sake, and although it came out a little spongy, eventually it did harden into a little cookie-taco thing. I would definitely recommend doing test-rounds, because the recipe was not very specific about how thick the batter should be, and with such delicate wafers, the difference between a soft cookie and a burned one could be a matter of seconds since every oven bakes in its own time.
While the cookie sheet cooled down, I decided to make a quick stencil for my next batch of tuiles, realizing how much easier that would make spreading the batter thinly and uniformly. I didn’t really have time to get creative with the shaping, since Nolan’s interest in the egg yolks was flagging, so I cut out long strips to shape into curls, and a wider rectangle to make cigars. I would have loved to make ice cream cones for the sorbet, but lacking any sort of cone shaper, that will have to wait for another time, maybe this summer. For the stencils, I just cut my shapes out of a piece of cardboard salvaged from a Costco-sized box of Mini-Wheats, slightly more sturdy than your average cereal box, but still less than a millimeter thick. The batter spread easily over it with my new off-set spatula.
I curled the strips around #13 straight knitting needles to make my corkscrews. It took a few rounds to get the right balance of baking time (6 minutes in my oven was ideal for the stenciled shapes) and shaping speed. I think I burned a few of my fingers a little in the process—those cookies are HOT while they are malleable!—but eventually I got a few decent curls, and I even played around with decorating my batter as the recipe suggested.
This photo shows my learning curve. I had definitely improved by the time I ran out of batter, but I could really use more practice. I can understand how people could really get into the creative aspect of making tuiles: they are incredibly fun and versatile, with thousands of options for shapes and flavors and whimsical decorations. Having made these, I now want to try making Parmesan salad cups and almond-butterscotch lace ice cream cups and fortune cookies and tuile flowers and butterflies and all number of things.
I had to photograph the sorbet fresh from the churn so it started melting really quickly, and I wasn’t able to get a very good photo of it. I’ll have to try again once it’s ripened in the freezer for a bit. It tasted great with the tuiles, however; they made delicious little scoops that tasted just like fortune cookies. I was surprised at the rather small yield of the batch, and under my present circumstances, it did seem like kind of a lot of work for the outcome, since they require rapt and immediate attention that doesn’t combine well with the demands of a 10-month old. But it was still fun to try, and whetted my appetite to play with tuiles again in the future.
The recipes are available at our hosts’ websites, and be sure to check out the wild creativity of all the other Daring Bakers at our blogroll!
I am a member of the Theta Class of Daring Bakers, inducted in July 2007. Below is a list of previous challenges:
Strawberry Mirror Cake – July 2007
Milk Chocolate and Caramel Tart – August 2007
Cinnamon Rolls and Sticky Buns – September 2007
Bostini Cream Pies – October 2007
Tender Potato Bread – November 2007
Traditional Buche de Noel – December 2007
Lemon Meringue Pie – January 2008
French Bread – February 2008
Perfect Party Cake – March 2008
Opéra Cake – May 2008
Danish Braid – June 2008
Filbert Gateau – July 2008
Chocolate Éclairs – August 2008
Lavash Crackers and Dip – September 2008
French Yule Log – December 2008
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01.01.09
Posted in Cake, Chocolate, Cookies & Candies, Cuisines, Dessert, Foodblog Events, French at 12:01 pm by julie
The cake was a big hit at the party. I sliced it almost straight from the freezer, and it could have benefitted from a few more minutes of thawing. A large sharp knife for better leverage, warmed with hot water, helped make the slicing easier. Everyone seemed to like how it tasted too, but it’s hard to go wrong with so much cream, sugar and chocolate! I was pleased to note that the finished cake wasn’t overwhelmingly sweet. The milk chocolate mousse was pretty darn sweet on its own and in the little parfaits I made up with the leftover cake scraps and coconut crisp. But in its frozen state, surrounded with dark chocolate icing and ganache, it all seemed pretty well balanced.
As I mentioned above, I had leftovers of many of the elements. I made four little mousse parfaits, and the next day I used my leftover ganache to make truffles, rolled in coconut crisp crumbs.
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