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
Permalink
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.
Permalink
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!
Permalink
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
Permalink
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
Permalink
03.29.08
Posted in Cake, Chocolate, Dessert at 12:17 am by julie
It’s hard to believe, but our little guy is already a week old. I think that constitutes a reason for New Orleans sheet cake! Since it is my personal favorite birthday cake, I had planned to bake this cake on Nolan’s original due date of the 13th and freeze most of it to eat after he was born—but amid other preparations, I never got the chance. Fortunately, however, my parents are still here visiting and they graciously offered to bake it for us today.
Nolan won’t be eating any cake for a while yet, but we’ve been eating extra slices on his behalf, never fear. We’re currently working on building his appetite so that he can regain his birthweight, and he appears to be making some good progress.
New Orleans Sheet Cake
I think most of the country knows this cake as a Texas sheet cake, and I’m not quite sure the origin of my family’s name for it. For those who aren’t familiar with it, it is moist, gooey and fluffy at the same time, and only about as thick as a brownie. It freezes beautifully, and is at its very best alongside a scoop of good vanilla ice cream.
1 stick unsalted butter
1 C water
4 T cocoa powder
1/2 C canola oil
2 C sugar
2 eggs
2 C AP flour
1/2 C buttermilk
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon
Grease a 15×10x1″ jelly roll pan.
Mix and bring to a boil in a heavy saucepan the first 4 ingredients. Add remaining ingredients in order and mix well. Pour into the jelly roll pan, and bake for 25 minutes at 375F. Watch not to overbake. Cool and frost.
Frosting:
6 T milk
4 T cocoa powder
1 stick unsalted butter
1 lb. sifted powdered sugar
4 tsp vanilla
1 C chopped pecans or walnuts
Bring to a boil in a heavy saucepan the milk, cocoa and butter. Add remaining ingredients and mix well. It is better to ice the cake while it is still a little warm.
Permalink
03.14.08
Posted in Chocolate, Dessert, Pies & Tarts at 1:03 pm by julie
Have you ever seen the book Gator Pie? It’s a cute little children’s story about two alligators named Alvin and Alice who come across a pie in the swamp and plan to share it, but more and more gators start showing up and wanting their own fair share. Essentially it’s a non-threatening way of introducing fractions to kids, with pie and reptiles.
I was bound and determined to celebrate Pi Day (today, 3/14, for those of you without math geek tendencies) with an actual pie this year. Since Gator Pie is out of print and I couldn’t get my hands on a copy to remember just what sort of pie all those alligators were fighting over, I had to come up with another alternative. I considered taking another crack at my great-grandmother’s recipe for butterscotch pie: my mother, grandmother and I have all been trying unsuccessfully to make it for years. It always tastes great, but has the consistency of creme anglaise, which doesn’t work so well when you’re trying to cut it into slices. (I suspect we were all using milk with a lower fat content than she did.) That will have to wait for another day, though; butterscotch is not Jeremy’s favorite, and I’m not about to consume an entire pie on my own, even if I totally could at this point in my pregnancy.
Actually, the last time I asked Jeremy what he had been craving in terms of desserts, he asked for a chocolate coconut pie, and I just so happened to have some undedicated egg yolks crying out to be custardized in the fridge. Sounded like fate to me! There are a few different ways of approaching chocolate coconut pies: One of these days I’ll have to make a haupia pie again, for the blog’s sake, but I knew Jeremy was thinking more along the lines of the German chocolate pie from Marie Callender’s, which is awfully tasty too. In the end, I settled on Dorie Greenspan’s chocolate cream pie recipe because it used up all those yolks. Dorie actually has a chocolate-coconut variant with flaked coconut simmered in cream until it gets all thick and gooey, but I didn’t have quite enough cream on hand, so I just tossed coconut right into the chocolate custard.
This pie was delicious and easy as—well, you know what—to make. I started out the day before by making up some pate brisee from my usual recipe (I believe it is the Martha Stewart one, which works pretty reliably but produces more of a tender crust than a flaky one) in the food processor. I love making crust by hand with my pastry cutter, but it tends to take me so much longer than when I use the Cuisinart that the butter starts warming up. On the other hand, with the latter, you have to make darn sure that you don’t over-process, which can happen in the blink of an eye. The little disks of dough rested overnight in the fridge, and got the usual blind-baking treatment (pricked with a fork, weighted under parchment paper; baked at 375F for 15 minutes, then weights removed and the crust continued baking until golden). While the crust cooled, I whipped up the filling, using Ghirardelli bittersweet chocolate chips and adding a big handful of coconut at the end. I took Dorie’s suggestion of an ice bath to speed cooling time, piled it in the crust, and that was that! Chocolatey-coconutty goodness with a dollop of fresh whipped cream! I personally think it was better than the Marie Callender’s version, because it was super-creamy and not too sweet. If I were an alligator, I would definitely fight for a slice.
Chocolate Cream Pie
2 C whole milk
4 egg yolks
6 T sugar
3 T cornstarch, sifted
1/4 tsp salt
7 oz bittersweet chocolate, melted
1/2 C (or more!) sweetened shredded coconut
2 1/2 T unsalted butter, cut into pieces, at room temp
1 pie crust, blind-baked
Bring the milk to a boil (I heated mine in the microwave). Meanwhile, in a large heavy-bottomed saucepan, whisk the yolks together with the sugar, cornstarch and salt until well-blended and thick. Whisking without stopping, drizzle in about 1/4 C of the hot milk in order to temper the yolks; then, still whisking, add the remainder of the milk in a steady stream. Put the pan over medium heat, and continuing to whisk constantly, bring the mixture to a boil; boil for 1-2 minutes, then remove from the heat.
Whisk in the melted chocolate and coconut. Let sit for 5 minutes, then whisk in the bits of butter, stirring until fully incorporated. Press surface with plastic wrap and refrigerate; or place the pot in a large bowl of ice cubes and cold water and stir occasionally until the custard is chilled, about 20 minutes. (Store up to 3 days in the fridge at this point if convenient.)
When ready to assemble the pie, whisk the custard vigorously to loosen it up and spoon into the cooked pie shell, stopping just short of the rim. Smooth the top and serve chilled slices with a dollop of freshly whipped cream.
Source: Very slightly adapted from Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan (p. 352-353).
Here are a few more pie options, just in case chocolate cream doesn’t tempt your inner gator:
* Mom’s Grape Pie
* Cinnamon Crumble Apple Pie
* Paradise Pumpkin Pie
* Lemon Meringue Pie
This post is my entry for Kitchen Parade’s Pi Day event. I love pie, and don’t make it nearly often enough, so I’m very excited to try some of the other recipes submitted.
Permalink
02.07.08
Posted in Cake, Chocolate, Dessert, Foodblog Events at 9:13 pm by julie
Jeremy’s favorite and most often requested birthday cake is German chocolate. When we were first married, I made them with cake mixes and canned frosting, but oh, how far I’ve come. I made a pretty tasty version last year. And while he was away at school in New York City—over his 30th birthday, I might add—I connived a way to turn a chocolate yogurt loaf cake into an inside-out German chocolate cake (frosting in the middle) so I could safely send him a birthday cake in the mail. But I’m not sure if any German chocolate cake from this point on will ever be able to compare with the one I made for Jeremy’s birthday on Sunday. If you have a weak heart, consider yourself warned:
This is the German chocolate skyscraper cheesecake from the Junior’s Cheesecakes cookbook. I got the book back in November due to fond memories of Junior’s from Jeremy’s grad school days. Although almost every recipe in the book is drool-worthy, I somehow haven’t gotten around to trying one out until now.
My prior experience with baking cheesecake has been limited to an old family recipe. It’s a simple one with few ingredients, and I always cooked it in a graham cracker crust until the top was quite brown, then served with cherry pie filling (just the cherry goo part for me, no actual cherries please!). I didn’t make it often, but just enough that I couldn’t really understand why the thought of making a cheesecake seems to strike fear in so many bakers’ hearts. (Perhaps, for that reason, it would be a good Daring Bakers project one day?). Maybe that’s why the thought of baking a two-layer cake with a New York-style cheesecake sandwiched in the middle didn’t make me cringe. I have to admit, though, that once it was actually underway, I started to doubt myself.
I bought all the ingredients for the cake the previous weekend, but since then, one of the bricks of cream cheese was repurposed for emergency bagel-smearing needs. I anxiously watched the morning slipping away until Jeremy could run back over to the store for me, and by the time I got started on the cheesecake layer, it was already around 1:30pm. According to the book, both the cheesecake and chocolate cake layers needed several hours of cooling time on a rack, followed by time in the fridge (and freezer in the case of the cheesecake)—in other words, this recipe is the polar opposite of the all-in-the-pan cake I last wrote about. Then there is the fact that my oven is not the most reliable, and I pictured my cheesecake coming out of the oven with an uncooked and sunken center and a scorched top. I muttered to myself that, even if it did come out poorly, the flaws would be hidden in the middle of all that cake and frosting. However, it was too late to back out, and a good thing too: Foil-wrapped and water-bathed, my cheesecake was done exactly when the recipe indicated it should be, perfectly set and lightly golden on top. Not only did it never crack or sink, it pulled gently from the sides of the springform as it cooled, and performed beautifully in the finished cake, as you will see.
The cake batter was a little fussier, and the cooled layers threatened to crack a bit when it came time to wrap them in plastic wrap for refrigeration, but they held up just fine in the end, and the trimmings indicated the cake itself was very fluffy and light and German-chocolatey. I also toasted nuts and coconut while the oven was still hot. By this point it was past dinnertime, so I paused long enough to make a big batch of lamb kefthedes and spinach-mashed potatoes for dinner, and watch the post-Superbowl episode of House.
Then it was right back to the stove to clean up and make the frosting. This is the part of the recipe I feel a little sketchy about. It took quite a bit longer than described at a hard simmer to achieve a golden-brown color, and when I started adding nuts and coconut, it stiffened up in a hurry. I ended up adding less coconut than called for, and after a half-hour cooling period in the fridge, it was so hard and crumbly that there was no way I could spread it on the cake; my solution was adding a bit more cream for lubrication and zapping it for a few seconds in the microwave. At least then it more resembled frosting than candy, and I was able to gently smudge and press it over the layers. The cheesecake layer was a walk in the park by comparison. I didn’t bother trying to frost the outside edges of the top cake layer as the recipe indicated, even though there was probably enough frosting leftover to do so; it would never have stayed put.
Finally, around 11:00pm, I sliced that sucker open and we gave it a try. The first slices were a little messy to extract, but after setting up in the fridge overnight, all the layers melded and made slicing a piece of cake (sorry, I couldn’t resist). The cake parts tasted like good German chocolate cake, but oh-my-gosh, the cheesecake was heavenly! I’m still a little in awe that I produced it myself, because it really does taste exactly like the cheesecake we bought from Junior’s. As Jeremy put it, it was perfectly creamy and neither too airy and light, nor too dense and rich. I have actually been a little sad since Sunday that we don’t have any upcoming events that would warrant my bringing a fresh cheesecake to, or even anyone at hand to share this spectacular cake with. After all, how on earth are we going to be able—and more to the point, should we even try—to eat the whole thing ourselves? (Answer: I’m guessing a good chunk will end up in the freezer for future indulgence.)
This post is my entry for the Serendipity Bake-Off being hosted by Familia Bencomo. I think it’s impressive-looking without needing additional decoration… at least that’s my story, and I’m sticking with it!
German Chocolate Skyscraper Cheesecake
Cheesecake Layer
3 8-oz packages cream cheese (use only full fat), at room temp
1 1/3 C sugar
3 T cornstarch
1 T vanilla extract
2 extra-large eggs
2/3 C heavy whipping cream
Early in the day, preheat the oven to 350F and generously butter the bottom and sides of a 9-inch springform pan. Wrap the outside of the springform tightly with foil, covering the bottom and all the way up the sides.
Put one package of cream cheese 1/3 C sugar and the cornstarch in the bowl of a stand mixer and beat on low until creamy, about 3 minutes, scraping several times. Blend in the remaining cream cheese, one package at a time, scraping after each. Increase the mixer speed to medium and beat in the remaining sugar, then the vanilla. Blend in the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in the cream just until completely blended.
Gently spoon the batter into the prepared springform and place in a large shallow pan containing hot water that comes about 1″ up the sides of the springform. Bake at 350F for about 1 1/4 hours until the edges are light golden brown and the top is slightly golden tan, looking set and no longer wet. Remove the cake from the water bath, transfer to a wire rack, and cool in the pan for 2 hours. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate (still in the pan) until completely cold, about 4 hours. Place in the freezer, still in the pan, for at least half an hour before assembly, or overnight if you are preparing in advance.
Cake Layers
1 1/2 C sifted cake flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
4 oz German’s sweet baking chocolate
1/2 C water
3/4 C unsalted butter, at room temp
1 1/2 C sugar
3 extra-large eggs, separated
1 tsp vanilla extract
3/4 C buttermilk
1/2 tsp cream of tartar
Once the cheesecake is out of the oven (make sure to remove the water bath), start the cake layers. Generously butter the sides and bottom of 2 9-inch round cake pans. Line the bottom of both pans with parchment paper, but don’t let the paper come up the sides.
Sift the flour, baking powder and soda, and salt together in a small bowl. Melt the chocolate in the water in the microwave or in a small saucepan over low heat, then set aside to cool. Cream the butter and sugar together in a large bowl on medium speed until light yellow and creamy. Add the egg yolks one at a time, beating well after each. Blend in the melted chocolate and vanilla. Using a wooden spoon, stir in the flour mixture, alternating with the buttermilk and blending well after each addition.
Beat the egg whites and cream of tartar together in a clean bowl on high heat until stiff peaks form. Stir about 1/3 of the whites into the chocolate batter to lighten it, then fold in the remaining whites. Don’t worry if you still see a few specks of white, since they’ll disappear during cooking. Divide the batter evenly between the two pans and bake at 350F until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out with a moist crumb, about 30 minutes. Cool the cakes in the pans on a wire rack for 15 minutes, then turn them out onto the rack and gently peel off the paper liners. Let the cakes cool completely, about 2 hours, then cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate until ready to assemble the cake.
Frosting
1 1/2 C chopped pecans
1/2 C sliced almonds
1/2 C chopped hazelnuts
4 C angel flake coconut, plus 1/4 C for sprinkling
2 C sugar
2 T AP flour
1 C heavy whipping cream
1 C whole milk
1 C (2 sticks) unsalted butter
1 T vanilla extract
Once the cakes are out of the oven, spread out all the nuts on a large rimmed baking sheet and toast at 350F until golden, about 5 minutes, tossing once or twice. Set aside to cool. Toast 1/4 C coconut the same way until golden brown and set aside for garnish.
When you are nearly ready to assemble the cake, mix the sugar and flour together in a large saucepan. (This is when I moved the cheesecake to the freezer.) Add the cream, milk, butter and vanilla, and stir until well combined. Cook and stir constantly over medium heat until the mixture thickens and turns golden brown, about 12 minutes. Remove from the heat and stir in the toasted nuts and untoasted coconut. Refrigerate until the frosting is thick enough to spread, about 30 minutes.
Assembling the Cake
Remove the cheesecake from the freezer and let stand at room temperature for 10 minutes (if frozen overnight). Place one cake layer, top side down, on a cake plate. Spread with frosting. Release and remove the frozen cheesecake from the ring of the springform, then release and remove from the bottom of the pan (I slid a thin knife around the bottom, then flipped the cheesecake bottom and all onto the cake layer and gently pulled the pan bottom off the now-top of the cheesecake.). Spread with some more frosting. Top with the remaining cake layer top side up, and frost the top of the cake and the sides of the top cake layer only. Sprinkle the top evenly with toasted coconut. Refrigerate the cake until ready to serve (if the cheesecake was frozen overnight, it will take about 2 hours to thaw enough to easily slice). Use a sharp straight-edge knife, not a serrated one, to cut it.
Source: Junior’s Cheesecakes Cookbook, by Alan Rosen and Beth Allen, pg. 160-161.
Permalink
02.02.08
Posted in Cake, Chocolate, Dessert at 10:38 am by julie
I haven’t been doing as much cooking lately as I usually do. My excuse is that I’ve got old lady hips now, so standing in the kitchen for any amount of time inevitably ends in me hobbling back to the sofa to rest my swollen ankles. Good thing March is next month! In the meantime, I’ll take this opportunity to share a simple little cake I’ve made quite a few times, most recently a few weeks back.
This was the first recipe I made from In the Sweet Kitchen, and it’s still the primary reason I use the book—although the flavor pairing and substitutions charts frequently come in handy as well. The most recent time I made it, I went from scratching my head, thinking, “I wish we had something for dessert,” to eating cake in less than an hour and a half. So it’s a great quick-fix and doesn’t make many dirty dishes, all good things when you’ve got on your achy old lady hips. I have to admit to speeding up the cooling time for the cake by popping it in the freezer for about 15 minutes once the frosting was ready to go, which worked out perfectly.
All-in-the-Pan Chewy Chocolate Cake
1 1/2 C AP flour
1 C sugar
1/4 C unsweetened cocoa
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
6 T canola oil
1 T white vinegar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 C cool water
Quick Chocolate Butter Icing
1/4 C unsalted butter, room temperature
2 C confectioners sugar
2-3 T milk or water
1 1/2 T unsweetened cocoa
1 tsp vanilla extract
Preheat the oven to 350F, and get out the butter for the icing, if using. Sift together the flour, sugar, cocoa, baking powder and salt into an 8×8 or 9×9 ungreased square baking pan. Stir well with a fork or flat whisk, making sure to get the corners of the pan. Make three wells in the dry ingredients (small, medium and large); pour the vegetable oil in the largest indentation, the vinegar in the medium one, and the vanilla in the smallest. Pour the water over everything. Again with a fork or flat whisk, stir until all the ingredients are well-blended, making sure to catch all the dry pockets that may form around the corners and edges. Don’t beat, just mix until most of the lumps are out and the batter is fairly uniform (no patches of overly thick or runny batter).
Bake an 8×8 cake for 30 minutes, or a 9×9 cake for 23-25 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean and the top is springy when touched lightly. Transfer pan to a wire rack to cool completely before cutting or frosting. Because it is a very moist cake, it can tear if cut too soon, and of course you don’t want the icing to melt. While waiting for it to cool, make the icing, if using.
Icing: Cream together the butter and 1 C of confectioners sugar until the butter is well distributed; it will still be dry and powdery. Stir in 1 T milk or water, then sift the cocoa powder over and cream to blend. Mix in the vanilla, then the second cup of confectioners sugar. Add as much remaining liquid as necessary to achieve a thick creamy icing.
To serve, either cut the cake into squares and simply dust with confectioners sugar, or spread with icing (there will be plenty; you don’t have to use it all unless you really like icing!). Serve with vanilla ice cream or a glass of cold milk, and try not to eat the whole pan in one sitting.
Source: In the Sweet Kitchen, by Regan Daley, p. 407-409.
Permalink
01.09.08
Posted in Chocolate, Cuisines, Dairy, Dessert, Ice Cream, Italian, Nuts, Grains & Legumes at 11:33 am by julie
I think I was just meant to make gianduja gelato last week. When we ate through that tin roof ice cream so quickly, I had Jeremy take a gander through the book and pick out our next flavor. He couldn’t decide between roasted banana ice cream and gianduja gelato, but I thought the choice had been made for us because I definitely had bananas but only a small stash of hazelnuts. We had a rough day on Thursday, so I decided that some fresh roasted banana ice cream was in order for a pick-me-up. I took the book in the kitchen to start gathering up ingredients, and it fell open right to the gianduja, which has a pretty mouthwatering photo. I ended up digging around in the baking cupboard to find out how many hazelnuts I actually had, just in case; it turned out that I had precisely the 1 1/2 cups needed for the recipe, no more, no less. That sounded like fate to me.
The recipe was one of the more complicated that I’ve made from The Perfect Scoop, but the results are infinitely worthwhile. First you toast, skin, and chop the hazelnuts, then soak them in a mixture of warm milk, cream and sugar for an hour. The nuts are then strained out and squeezed to retain every last drop of hazelnut-infused milk, which is transformed into a custard base on the stove. Finally, you combine it with a mixture of warm cream and melted milk chocolate, chill it with an ice bath and a trip to the fridge (and/or freezer, if you want to expedite the process as I did), and churn it up into hazelnut heaven.
This gelato came out perfectly smooth and creamy, with a pronounced flavor of hazelnuts and just the right amount of subtle support from the milk chocolate. If there were any more—or darker—chocolate, the hazelnuts would have been lost and all that careful steeping pointless. If you wanted to make a plain hazelnut gelato, I think you could leave the chocolate out entirely with no detriments: I found myself scraping dribbles of hazelnut creme anglaise from the cooled saucepan with my finger because it was so delicious. Another option that I believe would work equally well is substituting toasted and ground almonds or pistachios for the hazelnuts, with or without chocolate.
I have to wonder if this should really be called gelato, however. David Lebovitz certainly has more first-hand experience with the stuff than I do, but I’ve always thought that the primary difference between gelato and ice cream was that gelato had less fat and frequently no eggs at all. Fat coats the tongue and can consequently mute flavors over time, and I thought part of the reason that gelato is so intensely flavored is because it is by nature lower in fat, sometimes even using corn starch as a thickener instead. Please correct me if I’m wrong, but I was surprised to see a gelato recipe calling for more cream than milk and a custard base involving 5 egg yolks. It’s a minor point, because gelato or ice cream, this gianduja stuff is absolutely heavenly, and I don’t think we’ll be able to resist making it again and again.
I won’t provide the recipe here. You can find it reproduced on Serious Eats. However, to be honest, even if all the other ice cream I’ve been churning out over the last year wasn’t enough to tempt you, this gelato is definitely worth buying the book for, and an ice cream maker too if you don’t have one already. I’m just sayin’.
Permalink
« Previous entries