alpineberry

Blueberry Hand Pies

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

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

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

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

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

Blueberry Hand Pies
(22-24 mini hand pies)

1 quantity of Flaky Pie Crust (see recipe below)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dare to Bake Well

2009-06-27T02:51:00.002-04:00

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

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

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

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

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

Macadamia Mango Bakewell Tart
Makes one 23cm (9-inch) tart

One quantity sweet short crust pastry (recipe follows)
One quantity macadamia nut frangipane (recipe follows)
125ml (4 US fluid ounces) mango jam

Assembling the tart
Place the chilled dough disc on a lightly floured surface. If it's overly cold, you will need to let it become acclimatized for about 15 minutes before you roll it out. Flour the rolling pin and roll the pastry to 5mm (1/4”) thickness, by rolling in one direction only (start from the centre and roll away from you), and turning the disc a quarter turn after each roll. When the pastry is to the desired size and thickness, transfer it to the tart pan, press in and trim the excess dough. Patch any holes, fissures or tears with trimmed bits. Chill in the freezer for 15 minutes.

Preheat oven to 200C/400F.

Remove shell from freezer, spread as even a layer as you can of jam onto the pastry base. Top with frangipane, spreading to cover the entire surface of the tart. Smooth the top and pop into the oven for 30 minutes. Five minutes before the tart is done, the top will be poufy and brownish.

The finished tart will have a golden crust and the frangipane will be tanned, poufy and a bit spongy-looking. Remove from the oven and cool on the counter. Serve warm, with crème fraîche, whipped cream or custard sauce if you wish.

When you slice into the tart, the filling will be firm, but slightly squidgy and the crust should be crisp but not tough.

Sweet short crust pastry

225g (8oz) all purpose flour
30g (1oz) granulated sugar
2.5ml (½ tsp) salt
110g (4oz) unsalted butter, cold (frozen is better)
2 large egg yolks
2.5ml (½ tsp) vanilla extract (optional)
15-30ml (1-2 Tbsp) cold water or heavy cream

Sift together flour, sugar and salt. Grate butter into the flour mixture, using the large hole-side of a box grater. Using your finger tips only, and working very quickly, rub the fat into the flour until the mixture resembles bread crumbs. Set aside.

Lightly beat the egg yolks with the extract (if using) and quickly mix into the flour mixture. Keep mixing while dribbling in the water or cream, only adding enough to form a cohesive and slightly sticky dough.

Form the dough into a disc, wrap in cling and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes

Macadamia Nut "Frangipane" Filling

125g (4.5oz) unsalted butter, softened
125g (4.5oz) icing (confectioners') sugar
3 large eggs
2.5ml (½ tsp) pure vanilla extract
5ml (1 tsp) dark rum
125g (4.5oz) macadamia nuts (weigh, lightly toast, cool and then grind finely)
30g (1oz) all purpose flour

Cream butter and sugar together for about a minute or until the mixture is light and very fluffy. Scrape down the side of the bowl and add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. The batter may appear to curdle. In the words of Douglas Adams: Don’t panic. Really. It’ll be fine. After all three are in, pour in the vanilla extract and rum and mix for about another 30 seconds and scrape down the sides again. With the beaters on, spoon in the ground nuts and the flour. Mix well. The mixture will be soft, keep its slightly curdled look (mostly from the nuts) and retain its pallid yellow color.

Snickerdoodle Cupcakes

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

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

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

Snickerdoodle Cupcakes
(24 cupcakes)

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

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

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

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

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

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

Swiss Buttercream
(enough to lightly frost 24 cupcakes)

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

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

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

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

Daring Bakers Stretch and Roll

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Cherry Chocolate Strudel

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

YWPWT: Egg Custard Tarts

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Creamiest Cheesecake

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

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

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

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

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

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

Brownie Bottom Latte Cheesecake
(One 10-inch cheesecake)

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

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

Make the brownie bottom:

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

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

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

Make the cheesecake filling:

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

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

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

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

How to remove the cheesecake from the springform pan:

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

Chocolate Truffle Tarts

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

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

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

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

1. Preheat oven to 375F.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Directions for making the dough and prebaking the crusts:

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

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

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

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

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

The Ultimate Pick Me Up

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

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

Champagne wishes and caviar dreams

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

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

Now what does tiramisu have to do with Brad Pitt?

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

Perhaps the smoldering, dark espresso?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

pie weights

2. Genoise (Sponge Cake)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

3. Espresso Syrup

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

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

4. Mascarpone Cream

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

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

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

How to assemble your tiramisu tart

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

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

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

Daring Bakers Make Lasagna

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Eat Good Cake

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

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

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

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

Carrot Cake
(Makes one 9-inch layer cake)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Chocolate Valentino

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

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

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

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

soufflé-like

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

it melts in your mouth

Chocolate Valentino

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

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

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

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

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

Ben and Jerry's pistachio ice cream to the rescue

Not My Grandmother's Chocolate Cake

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Chocolate Frosting

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

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

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

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

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

Velvet Kisses

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

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

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

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

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

Red Velvet Cake

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

Preheat oven to 350F.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Cream Cheese Frosting

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

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

Chocolate Ganache Glaze

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

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

How to assemble your "kisses"

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

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

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

Tuiles

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Oven: 180C / 350F

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

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

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

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

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

Cookies and Cream

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

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

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

Oreo Cookies and Cream Cupcakes
(24 cupcakes)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Buttercream Frosting
(enough to lightly frost 24 cupcakes)

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

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

It's The Glaze, Baby

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

To make the cake...

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

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

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

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

almond paste and sugar

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

glaze…mmm, mmm, good

I Resolve to Eat More Pie

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Crumb Crust

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

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

Chocolate Ganache

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

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

Espresso Mascarpone Mousse

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

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

Pecan Praline

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

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

Decorate

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

That Which We Call A Log

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

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

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

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

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

The mold

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

The dacquoise biscuit

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

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

The mousse

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

The crème brulee

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

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

The praline crisp

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

The ganache

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

The icing

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

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

Overall impression

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Perfectly Simple

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Cool on a rack.

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

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

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

Sugar and Spice

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

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

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

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

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

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

Make the crust

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

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

Blind-bake the crust

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

Make the filling and bake the pie

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

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

A Yuletide Carol

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Instructions for partially prebaking the tart shell:

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

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

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

tart ring lined with dough

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

Instructions for filling and baking the tart:

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

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

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

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

chestnuts and pears scattered

pour in the custard

Phyllo decoration:
3 sheets phyllo
Confectioner's sugar

Instructions for phyllo decoration:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Molten Sugar Time

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sift flour and baking powder.

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

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

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

Cake will keep for three days outside of the refrigerator.

CARAMEL SYRUP

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

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

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

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

CARAMELIZED BUTTER FROSTING

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

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

Pour cooled brown butter into mixer bowl.

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

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

(Recipes above courtesy of Shuna Fish Lydon)

Yum

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Seeing Stripes

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

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

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

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

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

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

2 cups all purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
Pinch of salt
4 large eggs, at room temp
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup whole milk, at room temp
1 cup canola oil
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
2 tablespoons Dutch-processed cocoa powder

Preheat oven to 350F. Butter a 9-inch round cake pan. Line with a parchment circle and butter the parchment.

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

In the bowl of a stand mixer, combine eggs and sugar. On medium speed, beat until the mixture is light and creamy. Add milk, oil, and vanilla extract and beat until well combined.

On low speed, add the flour mixture and mix until the flour is just incorporated.

Divide your batter into 2 equal portions. Keep one portion plain. Add cocoa powder into another and mix well.

Scoop 3 heaping tablespoons of plain batter into the middle of your prepared cake pan. Then scoop 3 tablespoons of cocoa batter and pour it in the center of the plain batter (yes, right on top of the plain batter). Continue to alternate between the plain and cocoa batter (always pouring it in the center right on top of the previous batter) until you use up the batters.

Bake at 350F until golden or until a cake tested comes out clean, about 40 minutes.

Cool for 15 minutes in pan and then remove cake from pan to cool on a wire rack.

Best of Both Worlds

2008-11-10T00:44:00.005-05:00

Sometimes I can't decide between vanilla crème brulee and a chocolate tart for dessert. For some strange reason, if both are on a dessert menu and nothing else strikes my fancy, then it usually comes down to those two items (both of which I like equally). If I'm dining with companions who like to have dessert after dinner and are the type of people who like to share dessert, then maybe I would have a chance to taste both. But if none of my companions want to have crème brulee or a chocolate tart then I'm out of luck. I've always thought to myself "Wouldn't it be great if the two could be combined into one single dessert?" I've seen crème brulee tarts and I've seen chocolate crème brulees, but it's not exactly what I had in mind.

After scouring my many cookbooks, I came across a photo of an apricot tart topped with a caramelized disk of crème brulee in Sherry Yard's "The Secrets of Baking". It wasn't exactly what I wanted, but it gave me the inspiration to come up with my own version.

First I had to decide on the chocolate tart. Instead of doing a refrigerated chocolate ganache made from equal parts chocolate and heavy cream for my tart filling I opted for a chocolate truffle cake batter since it would be sturdy enough to support a disk of crème brulee. Most chocolate truffle cake batters could work as a filling for this tart. The recipes usually have names like chocolate intensity, chocolate oblivion, chocolate indulgence, well, you get the idea. The ingredients are usually just chocolate, butter, eggs and sugar. Some recipes, like this one, have a bit of flour too. The cake batter is baked in the tart shells until it's just set. The center is still a bit gooey when you take it out of the oven but will take on the texture of a chocolate truffle when cooled. A sweet nutty crust like an almond pate sucree complements the dark chocolate truffle filling perfectly.

For the vanilla crème brulee disks, I used Sherry Yard's recipe. The custard is baked in a large baking dish, frozen and then disks can be cut out with a cookie cutter. That woman is a genius with desserts. I would've never thought to do something like that in a million years, but I'm so glad that she did.

This chocolate truffle tart with vanilla crème brulee is definitely not everyday food, but it's perfect for special occasions or holiday entertaining. There are a lot of components to this dessert, but each can be made in advance. But the final assembly should be done on the day you plan to serve it and the tart should be served as soon as the tops have been caramelized. I know it seems like a crazy concoction, but it was really worth all the effort. The smooth and creamy custard with the caramelized sugar combined with the rich chocolate truffle encased in a sweet sugar cookie crust is my best invention to date. I'll never have to choose between the two again.

Chocolate Truffle Tart with Vanilla Crème Brulee

Ingredients for Crème Brulee
3 cups heavy cream
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 vanilla bean, split and scraped
6 large egg yolks
Additional sugar to caramelize the tops

7 (4 3/4-inch x 3/4-inch) tartlet shells made with Sweet Almond Cookie Crust, prebaked (see recipe below)

1 recipe Chocolate Truffle Cake Batter (see recipe below)

Directions for crème brulee:

1. Preheat oven to 300F. Make sure you have a 9x13 inch baking pan and another baking pan large enough to hold the 9x13 inch pan.

2. Bring the cream, 1/2 cup sugar, vanilla bean and scraped seeds to simmer in a large nonreactive saucepan over medium heat. Remove from heat, cover pan with lid and let cream steep for 15 minutes.

3. Gently whisk the egg yolks in a large bowl.

4. Remove the vanilla bean and gently whisk the cream into the egg yolks. When the cream and egg yolks are incorporated, strain the mixture through a fine meshed strainer into a clean heatproof bowl.

5. Pour the mixture into the 9x13 inch baking pan and set it in the larger pan. Add enough hot water to the larger pan to come up halfway up the sides of the 9x13 inch pan. Cover loosely with foil (Take care not to let the foil touch the crème brulee.) Bake at 300F until crème brulee is set, about 40-45 minutes. Remove pan from water bath and set on a cooling rack for 1 hour. Cover with plastic wrap and freeze overnight.

6. Remove crème brulee from the freezer. Place a sheet of parchment paper on a baking sheet pan. Run the edge of a paring knife dipped in hot water around the crème brulee. Flip the crème brulee out onto the parchment paper. (If you have trouble getting the crème brulee out of the pan, place the inverted pan on the parchment paper lined baking sheet pan, and warm the bottom of the pan with a warm towel or with a hair dryer. The heat will loosen the crème brulee until it falls onto the parchment paper. If the top is too melted you can put it back in the freezer for a few minutes before cutting.)

7. Cut out seven circles using a 3 1/2- or 4-inch cookie cutter. Immediately place the circles back in the freezer until it's time to brulee the tops and assembly your tarts. You will have some crème brulee leftover.

Chocolate Truffle Cake Batter
(enough cake batter to fill seven 4 3/4-inch x 3/4-inch tartlets)

6 ounces bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped
6 ounces unsalted butter, cut into 1-inch cubes
4 large eggs, at room temperature
1 large egg yolk, at room temperature
1/3 cup granulated sugar
3 tablespoons all purpose flour, sifted

Directions for cake batter:

1. Preheat oven to 375F.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Directions for dough and prebaking the crusts:

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

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

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

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

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

To assemble the tarts:

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

2. Remove the crème brulee circles from the freezer and place one circle on top of each tart. Sprinkle each circle with 1 tsp sugar and caramelize the tops using a kitchen torch. Serve immediately.

Sources:
Crème Brulee recipe adapted from "The Secrets Of Baking" by Sherry Yard
Chocolate Truffle Cake recipe adapted from "Desserts By The Yard" by Sherry Yard
Sweet Almond Cookie Crust recipe adapted from "The Pie and Pastry Bible" by Rose Levy Beranbaum