06.27.09
Posted in British, Cuisines, Dessert, Dips & Spreads, Foodblog Events, Fruits, Pies & Tarts at 12:55 am by julie
The June Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Jasmine of Confessions of a Cardamom Addict and Annemarie of Ambrosia and Nectar. They chose a Traditional (UK) Bakewell Tart… er… pudding that was inspired by a rich baking history dating back to the 1800’s in England. This was a fun one for me because I’d heard of bakewell tarts, but never seen or tasted one. They turn out to be surprisingly easy to make, and scrumptious with tea—go figure!
Although there are a variety of ways to make a bakewell tart, our recipe was composed of a rich shortbread crust topped with layers of jam and frangipane, a moist almond filling. We were allowed the option of using either store-bought or homemade jam, and since it is strawberry season AND right around Father’s Day and our 10th wedding anniversary, I made fresh strawberry jam for Jeremy, his favorite.
Now, I’ve done jams a few times in the past and it is not my forte. I tend to get paranoid that it hasn’t cooked long enough, thereby far overcooking it and ending up with fruit candy that won’t come out of the jars. This time I carried home 4 pints of gorgeous Oregon strawberries a mile home from the market, and promptly dumped every last one of them out on my front porch as I tried to dig my key out of my pocket. An inauspicious start, to say the least. Since my berries were now all bruised and dirty, the clock was really ticking. I immediately rinsed them all off individually and used them right away, since bruised and/or wet berries will spoil in the blink of an eye. Considering my previous track record, I decided to try my hand at freezer jam, which apparently uses an ungodly amount of sugar and gives the berries a kind of artificial citric acid tang. It was totally easy to do, but I think it didn’t really show off the natural flavor of the fruit, and it set up pretty soft. I followed the instructions exactly, but my berries were quite juicy, so I wonder if that affected the outcome. In the end, I really think I just need to come to terms with traditional jamming and keep practicing.
The next day, with 5 pints of sort-of set strawberry freezer jam at the ready, I proceeded with my tart. I did my crust in the food processor, and it came together in no time. After giving it a short stint in the fridge, I rolled out my crust and got it into the tart pan with a little help from plenty of bench flour and a jumperoo to keep the baby from making a break for the dog’s water bowl every 10 seconds. Then we made frangipane to the tune of “Oh Susannah” and “London Bridge is Falling Down” while the crust set up in the freezer for 15 minutes. Quick smears of jam and almond filling, and the tart went into the oven for half an hour.
It came out darker than I expected, which may be because 200 degrees Celsius is actually 392F, not the 400F that the recipe indicated. Guess I should have looked up the exact conversion. I got it out in time, but I wouldn’t call this frangipane “tanned”.
We gave it a few minutes to cool and set, and then dove into it with dollops of vanilla whipped cream. It was absolutely delicious; all three of us loved it, and it only lasted us about two days. I think I see many more bakewell tarts in our future! In the meantime, be sure to check out all the daring tarts 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
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05.28.09
Posted in Cuisines, Dessert, Foodblog Events, Fruits, German at 8:59 am by julie
I’m a little late with my DB challenge this month, but better late than never, right? The May Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Linda of make life sweeter! and Courtney of Coco Cooks. They chose Apple Strudel from the recipe book Kaffeehaus: Exquisite Desserts from the Classic Cafés of Vienna, Budapest, and Prague
by Rick Rodgers. I was pretty excited about this challenge because I’ve never made a classic strudel before, and I’ve had my eye on this book for some time now. But I still ended up waiting until the last possible moment to make it, possibly because my 14-month old finally decided he was tired of sitting around and learned how to crawl. I’ve spent the last month chasing him around and trying to keep him from upending the dog’s water bowl. Anyway, last night I finally buckled down and made my strudel. I stuck with the filling called for in the recipe, just because we love apple strudel, but now that I know it isn’t that intimidating to make, I hope to experiment with other varieties also.
I started out with the dough, which was lovely and soft and made a tiny amount. I think I hand-kneaded it longer than the recipe suggested, just because it was so agreeable to work with. Then I wrapped it up in plastic wrap and left it alone for probably two hours while making and eating dinner.
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Finally I couldn't put off the stretching portion of the recipe any longer. I used my portable dishwasher as a little table---it is about 2.5 feet square---and a large flour-sack towel as a tablecloth. The dough rolled out pretty darn thin just using the rolling pin, and I gently stretched it over the edges of the table by sliding my hands under it. I ended up with a few small holes around the edges due to my long fingernails, but it actually went much more smoothly than I could have expected, and I was pleased with the thinness I was able to achieve.
I left the rum-soaked raisins out of the filling, just because I don’t like them. My apples were Cameos, so I cut down the sugar a bit to make up for their lack of tartness. They were starting to get juicy from contact with the sugar, so I drained them a bit before spreading over the dough. My dough ended up more square than rectangular, so I just picked an end and got to it.
Rolling up the strudel was the other part that had me worried, but it worked out alright. I didn’t really get the need for the cloth while I was stretching it out, but it totally made sense once it came time to roll. More difficult was the transfer from the cloth to the baking sheet—I was really afraid that I would tear holes in the dough trying to get the cloth out from under it, but it survived all the tugging.
After 30 minutes in the oven, my strudel came out looking golden brown and delicious. Difficult as it was to wait, we gave it a good 45 minutes before cutting into it, and it was still piping hot inside. I had hoped to serve it alongside some vanilla or cinnamon ice cream, but the timing just didn’t work out. However, it was delicious all on its own—the strudel dough came out paper-thin and crisp, just as it should, and the filling was pure apple, not too sweet or spiced. I was a little worried about sogginess, but the bread crumbs certainly seemed to take care of that issue.
This was a really fun challenge, so many thanks to the hosts. Maybe now I’ll be brave enough to try out one of my Italian strudel recipes too. Be sure to take a look at the Daring Bakers Blogroll to see all the amazingly creative strudel variations out there!
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
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10.09.08
Posted in Cuisines, Dairy, Dessert, Fruits, Ice Cream, Italian, Pies & Tarts at 7:37 pm by julie
I apologize for the long delay in getting back to the story… Nolan came down with his very first cold last week, and I caught one to commiserate, so we’ve generally been pretty fussy and sleepless around here. For once, the little guy fell asleep on Daddy’s chest instead of mine, so here I am. Anyway, our friends brought over a beautiful cake from Konditorei for the party, but I was feeling like an overachiever and wanted to provide another option, particularly in view of all the luscious fruit that was in season. To keep it relatively simple, I opted for a freeform summer fruit galette, filled with local peaches. Thinking I might combine the peaches with something else, I stopped by one of the berry stands, even though I don’t much care for berries personally. Blackberries are particularly low on my list because I find them to be so gritty and sour, not to mention pernicious and thorny. But somehow, for the sake of politeness, I found myself agreeing to sample all the berries at the stand, and was pleasantly surprised. Not only did I eat my very first non-sour blackberry, but I also realized that boysenberries were in season, and impulsively bought two pints.
I used all my fresh fruit to make a peach-boysenberry crostata following the summer galette recipe in Dorie Greenspan’s book, Baking: From My Home to Yours
. (What is the difference, by the way? In some recipes, galettes and crostatas appear to be the same thing, just French and Italian, respectively.) I made the pie crust in my food processor the day before the party, then rolled it and filled it and baked it off the next morning. I’ll definitely use this crust again, as it produced very flaky results and wasn’t too fussy to work with. Wish I could say the same for the peaches, which refused to slip their skins neatly despite two blanchings. The galette was absolutely simple to put together, and looked beautiful until I poured the simple custard over the fruit: it spilled right over the sides of the crust and burned, so it was fortunate I had the foresight to be baking on a silpat. I’m still not quite sure what it added to the finished galette, and it made such a sloppy presentation that I saved it as a tidbit for the guests of honor to sample, rather than putting it out for everyone. It was, however, delicious, both at room temperature and sliced straight from the fridge the next day. Jeremy wasn’t really interested in trying it at first, but said it had really grown on him by the time we finished it off, and I, who love nectarines but not peaches (especially cooked ones), am now very tempted to make the custardy peach pie from the same book next summer.
Since I still had over a pint of boysenberries leftover after the galette, I offered to make Jeremy some boysenberry sorbet or something. He countered with a request for vanilla ice cream with boysenberries swirled through it, so I adapted David Lebovitz’s raspberry swirl ice cream. The recipe calls for slightly mashing and macerating the berries with sugar, then layering it through freshly churned custard-style vanilla ice cream. This sounded good in theory, but when I actually made the ice cream this way, my berries froze up rock solid in the ice cream and made a difficult, if tasty, eating experience, not to mention that the seeds were really bothering me in this application. If I were to do this again, I would either just macerate the berries and spoon them over the ice cream as we served it, or puree and sieve the fruit with a higher sugar content (to keep it from freezing rock solid) before layering it much more thinly in the ice cream, or just stir it right into the custard and lose the swirl aspect. It looked pretty, but just wasn’t worth the effort, and we ended up eating around the berries, which was a terrible waste.
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08.18.08
Posted in Dairy, Dessert, Fruits, Ice Cream at 10:40 am by julie
Since we had to suffer through several straight days of 100F+ weather, I was determined to make a batch of ice cream to combat the heat. The Orange Popsicle ice cream from The Perfect Scoop was the perfect candidate for several reasons: It gave me a means to use up a big bag of sweet little clementines I’ve been trying to eat singlehandedly for several weeks; it called for half-and-half and sour cream, both of which I was able to run to our little corner market and pick up in a matter of minutes (they don’t carry whipping cream); it is a blender recipe, which is awfully convenient for chilling and later pouring into the running ice cream machine; and most importantly, it isn’t a custard-based recipe, which means no heat required!
I was a fan of orange creamsicles growing up, and with my addition of vanilla extract (the original calls for orange liqueur, which is not my thing), this recipe matches that flavor beautifully, with a creamy texture and refreshing hit of citrus. I predict that this ice cream won’t last the weekend in our fridge. But I have to admit that I actually liked the textural contrast of crunchy orange popsicle and creamy vanilla ice cream in the original treat, so I’m also tempted to make plain vanilla ice cream sometime and top it with orange granita to get that citrus crunch.
Creamsicle Ice Cream
2/3 C sugar
Grated zest of 5 clementines
1 1/4 C freshly squeezed clementine juice
1 C sour cream
1/2 C half-and-half
1 tsp vanilla extract
In a blender, pulverize the sugar together with the zest until very finely ground. Add the remaining ingredients and blend until the sugar is entirely dissolved. Chill thoroughly in the refrigerator before churning in your handy-dandy ice cream maker.
Source: Slightly adapted from The Perfect Scoop, by David Lebovitz (p. 50).
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06.29.08
Posted in Bread, Breakfast, Dessert, Dinner, Foodblog Events, Fruits at 10:45 am by julie
I was excited when I found out that this month’s Daring Bakers challenge would be Danish braids, but the time commitment of making laminated dough must have been more intimidating than I was willing to admit, because I procrastinated until almost the last moment to make it. Finally, impending hot weather made me spring into action this past Thursday.
I took advantage of Nolan’s early afternoon nap to make the dough, or detrempe, using clementine zest and juice, vanilla paste, and ground cardamom from an elderly bottle that I know I should replace. The dough was not kind to my stand mixer, and kept trying to escape out the top of the bowl, so I had to babysit it. It came out rather firm and very slightly tacky, and went in the fridge while I made the butter block, or beurrage.
Then I remembered that my stand mixer bowl always screws itself up tight when I make dough, so much that I can’t actually unscrew it myself. Jeremy was still at work, so I ended up having to wash out the bowl while it was still attached to the mixer. Bah. I left everything for half an hour to go pump and feed the little guy (who, I have to brag, was having an incredibly cheerful day, probably to make up for the post-vaccination shriekfest of the evening before).
The actual lamination process took much less dedicated time than I had expected: four turns half an hour apart, each requiring no more than about 5 minutes at once. Piece of cake… or Danish, as the case may be!
The next day, around the same time of afternoon, I sauteed up some Fuji apples and pondered my other filling options while making the braid. This process was pretty straightforward, and I took other Daring Bakers’ advice to make sure that my cut slices were long enough to completely cover the filling and anchor with a little pressure on the opposite side.
Two hours and an egg wash later, my braid went in the oven, only slightly enlarged from its original state. I baked for 5 minutes at 400F as the recipe called for, then turned down the temp to 350F and left it in for just another 5 minutes, after which it was nicely browned. Once it had cooled a bit, we ate slices with vanilla ice cream and a drizzle of the syrup from the sauteed apples.
The leftovers were polished off for breakfast yesterday morning, graced with a drizzle of simple powdered sugar icing. I was pleased to note that the bread softened up a bit to that ideal Danish texture after its overnight rest.
Fortified with apple Danish, I settled on using the remainder of the dough on smaller pastries with a variety of shapes and fillings. This was really fun to play with, and I didn’t even have the energy to get as creative as many of my fellow Daring Bakers did. I made 3 small Danishes with dollops of leftover grape pie filling I pulled out of the freezer, and a few mini chocolate croissants. I also made two types of bear claws. The first four had the traditional cinnamon-almond filling, made with homemade almond paste; for the rest, I added some golden raisins and my leftover sauteed apples, finely chopped, to the almond filling at Jeremy’s request. I got everything made up, egg washed and proofing in my 85F-degree house (it was 100F outside at this point), and we tried vainly to cool down with scoops of ice cream; I topped Jeremy’s scoop with the last few spoonfuls of apple-almond-raisin filling, and he was in heaven.
I couldn’t be happier with the way this dough turned out, especially after being so intimidated at the prospect. I envisioned butter squishing out the sides like toothpaste, but it was actually very easy to work with. It might have been a different story if I had attempted to laminate it in yesterday’s heat, though; as it was, I was very careful to roll out the portions for my small pastries in two batches to keep it from melting. The baked pastries were light and flaky with clearly discernible layers; the flavor was predominantly of orange, which I blame solely on my old bottle of cardamom (Penzeys, here I come!). The dough was so fun to shape, and made me feel almost like a professional baker. I definitely hope to make it again and play with flavors, shapes and fillings, now that I know it isn’t nearly as hard to make as it appears to be. Plus, those bear claws were awesome!
Thanks so much to Kelly of Sass & Veracity, and Ben of What’s Cookin’? for choosing this recipe, which came from Sherry Yard’s The Secrets of Baking Be sure to check out all of the gorgeous, creative Danishes at the Daring Bakers blogroll here.
Bearclaw Almond Filling
1/4 C butter
1/3 C firmly packed brown sugar
1/2 C almond paste (I used homemade; see below)
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp grated lemon zest
Melt and simmer for about 2 minutes the butter and brown sugar. Remove from heat and stir in the remaining ingredients. Cool slightly before using.
Almond Paste
8 oz whole blanched almonds
8 oz powdered sugar
1 egg white
1/8 tsp almond extract
Combine almonds and sugar in a food processor and pulse until finely ground. Add egg white and extract and continue to pulse until mixture comes together as a thick smooth dough. Unblanched almonds can be used, but will affect the color of the paste. Makes about 2 cups.
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
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06.15.08
Posted in American, Cuisines, Dessert, Fruits, Pies & Tarts at 9:27 am by julie
For a while there, it was starting to feel like we already had our summer this year: exactly one weekend of 100F weather about two weeks ago in the midst of a neverending torrent of cool, grey, windy, rainy days. It’s June, for heaven’s sake! At last it is starting to warm up a little. Anyway, we had a surplus of apples in the house, so in honor of the faux-fall weather, I made some apple dumplings for dessert last week.
This is a combination of recipes that works well for me. I generally make the full batch and freeze the extra apples before baking, so we can have apple dumplings on demand for a while. In this instance, I only had time to prep 2 apples before Nolan started fussing, so I refrigerated the dough overnight and used it the next evening for another two apples. It is a soft dough because of the shortening, and didn’t even require warming up to room temperature before I could roll it out. I used gala apples because that’s what we had, and they worked nicely in this context, but I typically use Granny Smiths. I also prefer to serve this with vanilla ice cream, but we didn’t have any.
Apple Dumplings
1 C AP flour
1 C white whole wheat flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
2/3 C shortening
1/2 C milk
6 apples, peeled and cored
Lemon juice
Cinnamon sugar
Brown sugar
Unsalted butter
1 1/2 C water
1 1/2 C sugar
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
3 T butter
In a food processor, combine the flours, salt and BP. Add the shortening, and pulse until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs; add the milk all at once and pulse just until the dough forms a ball. On a liberally floured surface, roll out the dough into a rectangle about 1/4″ thickness; cut into 6 squares large enough to completely enclose an apple.
Dip an apple in lemon juice, then roll in cinnamon sugar. Place in the center of a square of dough, and stuff its core with alternating spoons of brown sugar and little cubes of butter, packing it down until you run out of room. Gently pull the dough up around the apple and seal it, trying to avoid leaving any holes that the juices could run out from. They are supposed to be homey and rustic-looking, so patch away if you need to. Place in a small glass or stoneware casserole or pie pan large enough to hold all the apples you want to bake. Repeat with the remaining apples. (If you don’t want to bake and eat all the apples in one sitting, you can wrap each extra one in aluminum foil at this point and freeze them.)
Preheat the oven to 375F. In a small saucepan over medium high heat, bring the sugar, water, cinnamon and nutmeg to a boil. Remove from the heat, add the butter, and swirl to melt. Pour the sugar syrup over the apples, and bake at 375F for 35 minutes, or until the apples are tender when you insert a knife. As they come out of the oven, spoon the caramelized sugar syrup over the apples’ crusts before it cools. Serve with vanilla ice cream if desired.
If you froze some of your apples, you can bake them off right from the frozen state. Just remove them from the foil, stick them in a dish and cover them with freshly made sugar syrup, and bake them for a few extra minutes, until the apples are tender.
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05.28.08
Posted in Cake, Dessert, Foodblog Events, Fruits at 12:29 am by julie
Since I had to skip last month’s Daring Bakers challenge due to having a newborn, I was determined to participate this month—but I have to admit that when I found out the challenge was to make an Opéra Cake I very nearly changed my mind. Opéra Cakes are beautiful, classy layered confections, and I didn’t see how I would possibly have enough time around the little one’s feeding schedule to make one. Upon reviewing the recipe, however, I realized that the various components of the cake were not time-consuming individually, and that I might be able to squeeze them in—baking the joconde here, boiling simple syrup there—and make it work, as Tim Gunn would say.
The traditional Opéra Cake is very dark, flavored with chocolate and coffee, but a major part of our challenge was keeping the cake light in color in honor of Barbara’s Taste of Yellow LiveSTRONG event. The recipe provided called for almond joconde with vanilla buttercream and a white chocolate mousse and glaze, but we were given free reign with the flavors as long as they remained light and springy in color. My first thought, to go with the white chocolate, was cinnamon and almond praline, but I had some leftover coconut milk and pineapple spears in the refrigerator, so I ended up doing a Piña Colada Opéra Cake instead. Piña coladas may not inspire opera, but they are still song-worthy, after all.
I started on a warm Saturday morning by feeding Nolan and coaxing him to take a nap in his swing. Then I made a mad dash for the kitchen and whipped up some pineapple curd, the main flavor component of what would be a pineapple mousse. I based my curd on a Cooking Light recipe, and in just a few minutes it was covered with plastic wrap and chilling in the fridge. I had just enough time—and pineapple juice—to make a pineapple-flavored soaking syrup for the joconde, and then it was time to feed the little guy again and pump for his next meal.
At the next opportunity, I made a quick run to the little market down the street for a dozen eggs. The batter for the joconde was fairly straightforward, especially since I decided to save my sanity and purchase almond meal rather than making it myself (I wanted to avoid a grainy texture, and save myself some time). I used a true jelly roll pan (10×15), but I only have one, so I had to bake my layers one at a time. Fortunately, that only took about 9 minutes per layer and the batter was no worse the wear for waiting. Unfortunately, it was over 90F outside by that time and over 83F in our house, so the searing hot kitchen was not exactly a fun place to be. My cakes turned out of the pan perfectly and cooled to (above)room temperature while I ran back to take a breather and feed our patient little sticky bun yet again.
Jeremy took a turn entertaining Nolan while I made masaman curry for dinner. Since I had to wait for the rice to cook anyway, I decided to make my buttercream while prepping the few ingredients for the curry, a bit of a bold proposition since I’d never actually made Italian buttercream before and was nervous about the hot sugar syrup. It heated to 225F faster than I anticipated, and my finished buttercream was on the runny side due to the residual heat in the kitchen, but it didn’t separate or scramble or fill up with shards of hardened sugar—and it was delicious. I flavored the sugar syrup with vanilla paste, and the buttercream with a few tablespoons of coconut milk and a drizzle of coconut extract.
After dinner and another bottle of breastmilk for the sticky bun, I cut my cakes, brushed them with soaking syrup, and layered them with the buttercream. The cake went back in the fridge to congeal while I whipped cream and folded in the pineapple curd with some melted and cooled white chocolate. As I spread it on top of the cake, though, I realized the mousse was the same shade of ivory as the buttercream. I had been hoping it would be more yellow like the curd. Oh well—it tasted good!
Before bed, I also thinly sliced our last spear of pineapple and dried it in a 200F oven for about 2 hours with a sprinkle of turbinado sugar, to use as a garnish. The next morning, I had a moment to make and set the white chocolate glaze, then hastily trimmed the edges of the cake and decorated it with dried pineapple “flowers.” I was hoping to put on some final touches of piping, but that is when Nolan’s patience really ran out. I managed to photograph the cake and cut two pieces, but then ended up having to eat my slice over about 45 minutes while simultaneously trying to calm down a very unhappy baby. It’s hard to eat with someone sucking on your finger. 
The cake was delicious, though the flavor was predominantly of coconut. I love coconut, so that wasn’t a problem at all. The pineapple syrup helped keep the joconde layers nicely moist, the buttercream was silky smooth, and the mousse was softly set, squishing pleasantly out from under the white chocolate glaze. One of the big surprises was Jeremy’s comment, upon nibbling through some of the trimmings as I finished up the cake, that the white chocolate glaze was really delicious. We are in the dark chocolate camp through and through, and generally turn up our noses at white chocolate, excepting minor garnishes and white chocolate-macadamia nut cookies. I blame the high quality Guittard white chocolate wafers for this seeming non-sequitur.
If I had it to do differently, I would definitely cut down the amount of cream I whipped into the mousse, and maybe add a drop of food coloring to make sure it maintained that bright yellow coloring. I might try doubling the curd recipe and doing a curd layer in the center of the cake. I would also consider adding shredded coconut to the buttercream and toasted coconut sprinkled over the glaze before it set; shreds or thin slices of fresh or roasted pineapple between the layers or stirred into the mousse would also be an option. I purposely avoided adding elements like shredded coconut or pineapple to my own cake, however, because the texture would have irritated me. The glaze, delicious though it was, came out on the thick side (and I understand many others felt the same), so I would use a higher proportion of cream to white chocolate next time.
In the design department, I would have liked to do a bit of piping with colored white chocolate. I was very pleased with my dried pineapple flowers, but might have inserted them before the glaze was completely set, and I would definitely let the cake settle longer (and use a hot knife) before trimming the outside edges, as they were decidedly ragged.
This was a wonderful challenge. The cake was beautiful and delicious, and making it gave me a lesson in new-mama time management as well. I made joconde and Italian buttercream for the first time, and I realized that I actually only dislike white chocolate when it is of the waxy, tasteless low quality variety. It was great fun coming up with flavor profiles for a light-colored Opéra Cake, but I’d love to try making the traditional coffee-chocolate version someday as well. Thanks so much to Lis of La Mia Cucina, Ivonne of Cream Puffs in Venice, Fran of Apples Peaches Pumpkin Pie, and Shea of Whiskful for hosting this month’s Daring Bakers challenge; you can find the recipe, in all its glory, on their sites. There are some really spectacular Opéra Cakes out there today, so make sure to check out the Daring Bakers blogroll.
Pineapple Mousse
This version represents the adjusted ratio of cream to curd that I would use if making this mousse again. My original version used a cup of cream, which gave me a very light pineapple flavor and lots of extra mousse.
1/2 C sugar
1 T cornstarch
1/8 tsp salt
1 C pineapple juice
2 T fresh lemon juice
1 egg
2 egg yolks
2 T butter
1/2 C plus 2 T whipping cream
1/2 C white chocolate baking wafers
Combine the first 3 ingredients in a medium, heavy saucepan, stirring with a whisk. Stir in juices and egg and yolks; bring to a boil over medium heat, stirring constantly with a whisk. Reduce heat, and simmer 1 minute or until thick, stirring constantly. Remove from heat; add butter, stirring gently until butter melts. Spoon mixture into a medium bowl; press plastic wrap directly on the surface. Refrigerate the curd for about 1 hour.
In a small bowl, whip the cream until stiff. Meanwhile, melt the white chocolate with the 2 tablespoons of cream and cool. Gently fold the chilled pineapple curd, then the white chocolate, into the whipped cream. Refrigerate the pineapple mousse to set for 3 hours or overnight.
Source: Adapted from Cooking Light
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
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05.09.08
Posted in Baby Food, Dinner, Fruits, Meats, Sausage at 4:55 pm by julie
Despite my strictly limited time for cooking these days, I’ve been trying to continue making decent meals, even if they end up being served at odd hours based on Nolan’s ever-changing naptimes. This particular recipe for brats with a creamy compote of apples and onions is one I first made the week before he was born, and again several weeks later because we both liked it so much.
I have to admit I only gave it a try because of Molly’s gorgeous description at Orangette. I’m not generally a fan of sweet-and-meat combinations, but that’s something I’ve been trying to get over, and this recipe is definitely a big step in the right direction: the brats are so deeply savory that they really stand up to the sweetness of the apple compote. Plus, they remind me of the wonderful food descriptions in Farmer Boy, and Almanzo’s favorite fried apples’n'onions. I served them with egg noodles to take care of any remaining creamy sauce, and would definitely add a vegetable side or a salad if I had time to squeeze it in.
Update 7/7/08: I’ve made this dish several times now, and it still doesn’t fail to disappoint. Tonight I used Fuji apples with great success, and accompanied the brats with homemade spaetzle.
Update 2/10/09: I made this for dinner again tonight with homemade spaetzle, and Nolan loved it. He had tastes of everything: finely chopped sausage, onion, apple, and noodles. I saved the apples out of the compote, and have been mushing them up in his oatmeal for the past few days. My oatmeal mix right now is a cup of water to 6T oatmeal and 2 T Bob’s Red Mill buckwheat cereal; it makes enough for about 5 quarter-cup servings, and I dish the extra into my silicone muffin pan and chill until they form congealed discs, then move them to a baggie. They reheat beautifully covered in the microwave for 25 seconds with a little water to steam in. Then I cool it down with some plain yogurt, smashed fruit, and a little maple syrup and cinnamon.
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03.30.08
Posted in Cake, Dessert, Foodblog Events, Fruits at 12:05 am by julie
I’ve had a pretty bad record of procrastination when it comes to Daring Bakers challenges. The rapid decline of strawberry season last July meant that I really had to rush in order to make my Strawberry Mirror Cake, but since then, I’ve taken a much more leisurely approach to the deadline. With our own little sticky bun due to finish baking at any moment, however, I knew it would probably be a bad idea to put off baking the March challenge: Dorie’s Perfect Party Cake in Baking: From My Home to Yours, a white layer cake with lemon buttercream, coconut and raspberry preserves. It looked so fresh and cheerful in the photos that I thought it would be a perfect fit for our baby shower on March 7th, and the timing couldn’t have been better. Plus, I’m not big on lemon, so I figured that it was the perfect occasion to get a bunch of folks to help us eat it up.
A few days before the shower, we went to Costco, and while Jeremy was poring over the muffin options, I meandered over toward the fruit aisle and delightedly discovered bags of Cara Cara oranges on display. I’d never even heard of them before this year, but I took the rave reviews on faith and lugged a huge bag of oranges into our shopping cart. That night I tried one out and found them absolutely delicious, if a little hard to peel and section (or maybe I’m just too used to satsumas now). In case you aren’t familiar with them, Cara Caras are a pink-fleshed orange known for being especially sweet and only mildly acidic, with a flavor reminiscent of a cross between oranges and ruby red grapefruit. As soon as I took a bite, I knew that I wanted to flavor and garnish my challenge cake with these oranges, so after some consideration, I ended up making a Cara Cara creamsicle cake with cherry preserves and candied orange slices.
The cake itself was incredibly easy to make. My only adjustment was using vanilla paste rather than lemon zest rubbed into the sugar. They came out pale and tender and gently domed, the latter counteracted by cooling them on the rack upside down. I’ve never done a real layer cake before (unless you count Jeremy’s German chocolate skyscraper cheesecake from last month), so my biggest concern was cutting the layers in half without mangling them or coming out all crooked. Somehow it all worked out beautifully, though.
The buttercream was the next hurdle to tackle, but I had more confidence in this arena after making two flavors of Swiss meringue buttercream for my Yule log in December (which, incidentally, feels like just a few weeks ago… where has the time gone??). I followed the directions and didn’t hover in the kitchen while my stand mixer did its thing, and lo and behold: perfect satiny smooth buttercream with nary a curdle in sight. My buttercream was flavored with fresh Cara Cara orange juice and zest, plus the vanilla extract called for, and it ended up delicately colored and scented with orange.
The third element, which I actually started working on first, was the candied orange slices. At first I intended to just candy the peels, but that pink-tinted fruit was so lovely that it seemed a waste to scrape it all out. Also, the process for candying whole slices was a little less onerous in terms of blanching, so I was able to spend a little less time on my feet, always an important consideration when you’re 38 weeks pregnant and counting. My orange slices simmered away in sugar syrup while I made and baked and cooled the cake layers, then continued soaking while I whipped up the buttercream. Before assembling the cake, I laid the slices out on a rack to drain, and strained the orange-infused syrup that remained. I couldn’t bear to let the latter go to waste, so I brushed each cake layer with some syrup before spreading on the cherry preserves (pureed to a smooth, spreadable consistency with my hand blender) and buttercream.
I had to assemble my cake on an ordinary dinner plate, due to limited storage and presentation options. That was actually the most challenging part of the whole challenge, because the cake was nearly the same size as the plate. The waxed paper I used to keep the mess down was very effective at that job, but got in my way while trying to frost the bottom portion of the cake. Fortunately for me, coconut disguises a host of frosting ills, and looks pretty to boot! The frosted, but ungarnished, cake went in the refrigerator overnight, and the candied oranges were left out to air-dry. I turned them a few times to make sure they weren’t gluing themselves to the rack, and at lunchtime on party day, I coated them with granulated sugar and fanned them out on top of the cake. As Dorie recommended, I gave the cake a few hours to come up to room temperature before the shower.
There wasn’t much time for photography during the shower, since I was busy serving cake and chatting and opening gifts. I managed to snap a few quick photos after the party, and it was a good thing I did, because my cake disappeared in the blink of an eye. I think it is safe to say that it was the best-received dessert I’ve ever brought to work. Everything about it worked perfectly, as I suppose I should expect from a Perfect Party Cake. The cake itself was fluffy and light; the orange buttercream was silky-smooth and not overpowering, which I find can be the case with citrus desserts; the cherry jam, which I would ordinarily snub my nose at for cake filling, blended perfectly with the orange and vanilla flavors, and presented no textural problems for my palate; and the candied oranges were just the right touch on top, soft enough to cut through easily while I was doling out slices and completely edible. I liked it so much better than I expected to, that I was actually very disappointed to find that only a single slice was leftover for us to take home. But there were still 8 egg yolks in the fridge crying out to be made into pierogies and butterscotch pie, so I didn’t mourn for long.
Many thanks to Morven for choosing a great March recipe; you can find the original version on her blog. I’ve had the cookbook for several months, and would likely never have chosen this recipe to bake for myself. Even though I fooled around with the flavorings, it was a rousing success, so I tip my hat to the Daring Bakers for pushing me, once again, out of my comfort zone. That’s why I’m a member, after all! Be sure to check out the hundreds of other Perfect Party Cakes (as if you could miss them!) on the Daring Bakers Blogroll, to see how everyone else fared.
Perfect Party Cake
For the Candied Orange Slices
1 Cara Cara orange
1 1/3 C water
2/3 C sugar, plus more for coating the slices
For the Cake
2 ½ C cake flour
1 T baking powder
½ tsp salt
1 ¼ C buttermilk
4 large egg whites
1 ½ C sugar
2 tsp vanilla paste
1 stick unsalted butter, at room temperature
For the Buttercream
1 C sugar
4 large egg whites
3 sticks unsalted butter, at room temperature
¼ C fresh Cara Cara orange juice
1 tsp orange zest
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
For Finishing
2/3 C cherry preserves, pureed with a stick blender until spreadable
About 3/4 C sweetened shredded coconut
Getting Ready
Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Butter two 9 x 2 inch round cake pans and line the bottom of each pan with a round of buttered parchment or wax paper. Put the pans on a baking sheet.
To Make the Candied Orange Slices
Using a sharp knife, cut the orange into 1/4-inch thick slices, removing any pips. Meanwhile, bring the water and sugar to a boil in a large saucepan. Add the orange slices to the pot, cover and reduce the heat so that the syrup simmers gently. Cook, turning the slices every so often, until they are completely soft, translucent, and candied; start checking for doneness after about half an hour. Remove the slices from the syrup and drain on a rack; strain and reserve the syrup. Allow candied slices to dry overnight, then toss in a bowl of sugar until coated; shake off any excess sugar.
To Make the Cake
Sift together the flour, baking powder and salt. In a medium bowl, whisk together the buttermilk and egg whites.
Whisk together the sugar and lemon zest in a mixer bowl or another large bowl and rub them together with your fingers until the sugar is moist and fragrant.
In a stand mixer, beat together the butter and sugar with the paddle or whisk attachment at medium speed for a full 3 minutes, until they are very light.
Beat in the vanilla paste, then add one third of the flour mixture, still beating on medium speed. Beat in half of the milk-egg mixture, then beat in half of the remaining dry ingredients until incorporated. Add the rest of the milk and eggs beating until the batter is homogeneous, then add the last of the dry ingredients. Finally, give the batter a good 2-minute beating to ensure that it is thoroughly mixed and well aerated.
Divide the batter between the two pans and smooth the tops with a rubber spatula. Bake for 30-35 minutes, or until the cakes are well risen and springy to the touch – a thin knife inserted into the centers should come out clean. Transfer the cakes to cooling racks and cool for about 5 minutes, then run a knife around the sides of the cakes, unfold them and peel off the paper liners. Invert and cool to room temperature, right side up (the cooled cake layers can be wrapped airtight and stored at room temperature overnight or frozen for up to two months).
To Make the Buttercream
Put the sugar and egg whites in a mixer bowl or another large heatproof bowl, fit the bowl over a plan of simmering water and whisk constantly, keeping the mixture over the heat, until it feels hot to the touch, about 3 minutes. The sugar should be dissolved, and the mixture will look like shiny marshmallow cream. Remove the bowl from the heat.
Working with the whisk attachment or with a hand mixer, beat the meringue on medium speed until it is cool, about 5 minutes. Switch to the paddle attachment if you have one, and add the butter a stick at a time, beating until smooth. Once all the butter is in, beat in the buttercream on medium-high speed until it is thick and very smooth, 6-10 minutes. During this time the buttercream may curdle or separate – just keep beating and it will come together again.
On medium speed, gradually beat in the orange juice and zest, waiting until each addition is absorbed before adding more, and then the vanilla. You should have a shiny smooth, velvety, pale orange buttercream. Press a piece of plastic against the surface of the buttercream and set aside briefly.
To Assemble the Cake
Using a sharp serrated knife and a gentle sawing motion, slice each layer horizontally in half. Put one layer cut side up on a cardboard cake round or a cake plate protected by strips of wax or parchment paper. Spread it with one third of the preserves. Cover the jam evenly with about one quarter of the buttercream. Top with another layer, spread with preserves and buttercream and then do the same with a third layer (you’ll have used all the jam and have buttercream leftover). Place the last layer cut side down on top of the cake and use the remaining buttercream to frost the sides and top. Press the coconut into the frosting, patting it gently all over the sides of the cake. Decoratively arrange the candied orange slices on top of the cake.
Serving
The cake is ready to serve as soon as it is assembled, but I think it’s best to let it sit and set for a couple of hours in a cool room – not the refrigerator. Whether you wait or slice and enjoy it immediately, the cake should be served at room temperature; it loses all its subtlety when it’s cold. Depending on your audience you can serve the cake with just about anything from milk to sweet or bubbly wine.
Storing
The cake is best the day it is made, but you can refrigerate it, well covered, for up to two days. Bring it to room temperature before serving. If you want to freeze the cake, slide it into the freezer to set, then wrap it really well – it will keep for up to 2 months in the freezer; defrost it, still wrapped overnight in the refrigerator.
Source: Adapted from Baking: From My Home to Yours, by Dorie Greenspan (p. 250-252, 468).
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
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01.28.08
Posted in Dessert, Foodblog Events, Fruits, Pies & Tarts at 10:33 am by julie
It’s the end of the month, so here comes the January Daring Bakers challenge: a classic Lemon Meringue Pie. This was definitely a new one for me, in part because Jeremy and I would ordinarily choose whipped cream over meringue any day of the week and twice on Sunday. I also have to admit I’m not big on lemon desserts in general. But even with two strikes against it, I was not about to let this month’s challenge make me admit defeat…just procrastinate until the last possible moment.
The crust was straightforward since I used my Cuisinart, though I had to add a little additional ice water before it would form a ball. I decided not to make one large pie because it is just the two of us, and this isn’t the sort of dessert that will keep in the fridge. Instead, I rolled out half the dough to make two freeform tartlets and 6 small rounds for parfaits or stacks; the other half of the dough was cut into slightly larger rounds and tucked into the 9 cups of my silicone muffin pan.
Into the oven they all went, and came out nicely golden and crisp and rather shrunken. The muffin-cup tarts fared the worst in the latter department, but I didn’t worry about it too much. At the time I was more concerned about the fact that my camera battery had just died and it was getting along in the evening. We frantically tracked down the charger and watched part of a movie while the battery juiced up again, and finally, at about 9:45pm, I got started on the curd and meringue. I juggled both at once to save some time, and it ended up working out well, though rather hard on the nerves.
Since the curd recipe first called for boiling some water, I separated my eggs and used the pot as a bain marie to warm the egg whites to room temperature. By the time I got the meringue set up and whipping, the curd was ready for sugar and cornstarch, and I just turned off the stand mixer when I noticed the meringue getting to soft peak stage. Meanwhile, the curd thickened up beautifully, and stayed reasonably thick even after I added all that lemon juice, which had been of concern. I used the juice of about three Meyer lemons, gleaned with help of my freshly-acquired—and already dearly loved—wooden citrus reamer. (Meyers are more fragrant and less tart than your standard lemon, which suits our tastes to a tee. It was lucky this is the time of year for them.) My only adjustment to the meringue was to use superfine sugar instead of granuated sugar, just because.
The muffin tartlets each got less than two tablespoons of curd followed by a dollop of meringue. I piled curd in the center of my freeform tartlets, then started getting paranoid that the action of spreading meringue over it would push the curd over the edges and make a horrible sticky, weepy mess. To avert that from happening I barricaded the curd with a ring of meringue around the edges of the crust before covering the middle. That worked well, and would have been easier if I had bothered to pipe the meringue with my pastry bag. Being nearly 11pm and already past my bedtime, I just used a spoon. My meringue sculpting skills could definitely use more practice, but I was running out of energy quickly, so we made do with some rather conservative spikes and swirls. (If you need pretty, go back and look at my yule log from last month’s challenge. I was happy with how that one came out.)
The real test was putting the meringue-crowned tartlets back in the oven. Previous Daring Bakers reported bouts of runny curd and weeping meringue, so I made sure my curd was still hot when I applied the meringue. My real fear was that my oven—which tends to run cold, and never works properly for items that require broiling—would take too long to undercook the meringue and ruin the texture of the curd. I left them for 5 minutes and peeked through the door, still expecting to see stark white foam, but instead, the meringue was already so toasty brown that the peaks were about to start burning. At least that means it was cooked, right?
I gave the tartlets a scant 20 minutes on a cooling rack and served them up, still slightly warm in the center. As you can see from the above photo, there was no weeping or running to be found. The curd stayed nicely set, and the crust was crisp and flaky. The Meyer lemon flavor was not overpoweringly strong, and the meringue actually reminded me of nothing so much as toasted marshmallows. It was a far cry from the tasteless foam I’ve had to scrape off restaurant pies in the past; Jeremy agreed and even went so far as to say that he liked the extra “caramelization” on top.
I have quite a bit of curd leftover, some of which will be used for lemon parfait thingies; I have no doubt we’ll find a good use for the rest. The muffin tartlets have been stashed in the freezer for single-serving desserts this week. I checked on them this morning and discovered that while the crust and curd have frozen, the meringue is still sticky and soft—was that supposed to happen, because of the sugar content or something? Strange and fascinating.
Update 1/29/08: As the above photo shows, they thawed out perfectly after an hour or two of sitting at room temperature. Just as good as fresh tarts. The meringue never did solidify in the freezer, though.
So this was another Daring Baker dessert that surprised us in a good way, allowing me not only to try out some new baking techniques, but push my personal envelope flavor- and texture-wise. We have Jen at The Canadian Baker to thank for choosing this month’s challenge recipe, which can be found here. Be sure to visit the Daring Bakers blogroll to see everyone else’s creations!
Update 2/12/08: I just thought I’d add that I found what I personally considered to be an almost more satisfactory parfait topper than whipped cream: nonfat vanilla yogurt and toasted coconut. With the leftover lemon curd, you could hardly make an easier dessert, and not (quite) so heavy on the hips. When I ran out of curd, I seriously considered making more just to eat it with my yogurt.
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
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