Recently in baking Category
Post necromancy! It has been salvaged from the dead! Been a busy few weeks at home. We had the State Fair, Yard Sale, Richmond Folk Festival, new hardwood floors, decorating for Halloween, soccer, gym, etc. During that time I've managed a few batches of cookies and a few cupcakes, and a four layer cake.
First we have some buttermilk cupcakes with a chocolate cream cheese
icing. My daughter loved the cupcake base (she cannot have much cow
based products - cooked butter and cooked milk seems to be ok.in small doses)These cupcakes were a hit with everyone. The icing was incredibly stable for piping, and the use of single origin cocoa made the chocolate flavor very prominent.
Next up we have strawberry cupcakes with an Italian strawberry buttercream icing. These were shipped off to wine night. I think mint would have been great added to the icing. If I make them again, I will probably add some mint.
Third, we have some mini cookies and-cream-cheesecakes. These were
incredibly cute and tasty, The perfect size for cheesecake. I made a
batch of these for the wives of the neighborhood. Then I made a second
batch to bring in to work. They are wonderful little cheesecakes with a
cookie as the base, instead of the typical pulverized crustThese were so popular at work, I get regular requests to make them again. My boss even bought me the cookies and cream cheese to make a new batch. They freeze quite well, so I can make a batch, freeze them all, then take them on the VRE up to DC. When I get to work, they are very cold, but not frozen anymore. This way they stay nice and firm, and keep their shape.
My neighbor asked me to make a birthday cake for her. I was going to start with 8 inch pans, but I had to feed 8 adults and 4.5 kids. The 8 inch pans weren't going to cut it. I went out and got some 9 inch pans, and man they are big. The cake ended up huge,much larger then a four layer 8 inch cake.
I made a red velvet cake with fresh strawberries between the layers, iced with an ermine icing. I have an older blog post about red velvet cupcakes. I just adapted that recipe for the layer cake. I got to try out a cake edger for the first time, and I even made an attempt at writing on the cake. They all thought it looked great, I thought it looked messy, always my worst critic.
Lastly, we have chocolate cupcakes with a raspberry buttercream. I used fresh raspberries and freeze dried raspberry powder to strengthen the flavor of the icing. this was my first attempt as piping two colors at the same time, and I have much better ideas for it next time. I got cupcakes that were right/left colored, instead of a nice swirl through the icing. The chocolate was rich and moist, and the icing was nice to look at and silky smooth.and just for the cuteness factor, here's my daughter with some chocolate chip cookies -- she LOVES them.
The Little Chef helped
me make these cookies, first he wanted to roll them in some smoked
paprika, but I managed to steer him to the colored sanding sugar. After
a little discussion about how much of the confetti sugar he could eat,
we got to business rolling the logs in the sugar.After a stint in the freezer, we cut the cookies and baked them up. He was 'taking a nap' when these baked, and devoured a few warm ones when he woke up. When we were playing at the neighbors house, every time he went inside the house, there were more cookie crumbs on his mouth. I think he ate 4 or 5 cookies that afternoon. He also loves the sugar sprinkles, I think I could put them on anything and he would eat them :D Anyways, if a four year old likes these cookies, anyone will. At work, they were a big hint. Many people asked what the flavor was because it is a little hard to place.
Today we have a light,
fluffy, and child fearing peppermint cookie. I
loved the cookies, all the parents liked the cookies, the kids, they all
hated them. No rhyme or reason, they just took
one little bight and then put them back. they taste like peppermint candy canes - all the kids eat them, but apparently not in cookie form... As for
the cookies, some were sandwiched in chocolate, and others were plain.
The plain ones were bight size and best taken in one bight. They disintegrated when you bit them, an explosion of
sweet and peppermint on the tongue, and not much else was left in the
mouth. The chocolate ones were even better. The ganache was a rich dark chocolate and complimented
the peppermint very well. IT added a depth of
flavor that was completely missing from the ones without the chocolate. A hint of bitterness and saltiness toned down the
peppermint and created a wonderful morsel of goodness.
I got the color in the
cookies by painting a few streaks down the side of the piping bag. The
only issue I had was getting the chocolate ganache to cooperate with me. I was a little impatient with the cooling process,
then forgot about it. So it took some massaging
to get it to leave the piping bag without taking the tip with it.
Next up on the cupcake train: delectable devils food
cupcakes. With these, you start with a
great cupcake base, and then you just start adding stuff to them without
telling anyone. These cupcakes are ripe
for filling; something deserves to go inside so they can be happy. Some might think custard, or some weird store
bought icing substitute, but marshmallow fits the bill the best.
What kind of marshmallow should go inside? Obviously, homemade marshmallows, what other
kind are there? Well, in a pinch, marshmallow fluff might be acceptable, but
not in my house :)
Flavors:
Plain is just too plain, you need something to jump out and surprise
your cupcake patrons. First, think about
your icing. If you use the recipe here,
it will have a strong cocoa flavor, so you need something to compete with and
compliment that flavor at the same time.
Some favorites with chocolate are orange, lavender, mint, raspberry, and
cherry.
I chose a vanilla orange filling for these cupcakes. First, you have to let the cupcakes come to
room temperature, or you will have a huge mess on your hands. I have a few recipes for marshmallows; I
chose to use the one that I adapted from the elBulli recipe for passionfruit
marshmallows. This is a moister
marshmallow, this helps keep the cupcake from drying out.
I should have already mentioned this - if you don't have a stand
mixer, you will either lose an arm making this recipe, or have to compromise
some of the parts and use store bought replacements.
The marshmallows will make your stand mixer work a little
overtime, but it will make enough to fill 36 cupcakes AND probably another
60. So you will end up with homemade
marshmallows afterward. Friends and
family will gladly take them. If you
cannot find anyone to take them, start drinking list of hot chocolate, or go
camping....
Where were we? Ok, you have
the cupcakes made and the marshmallows in the stand mixer, the next step is to
pipe the filling into the cupcakes. This
should be easier, but it's just a mess.
The marshmallows are beyond sticky; i suggest using gloves when you load
the mess into the piping bag. Use a
plain round tip, and test the amount to pipe inside the cupcake. The goal is to get a decent amount of
marshmallow in the cupcake; it is easy to underestimate how much you piped in.
Once they are all piped, you need to take the remaining
marshmallows and spread them in a pan, or pipe out strings for mini mallows.
Follow this link to learn about the recipe.
Icing: Chocolate Swiss Buttercream. This produces a wonderful
icing every time that is delicate and flavorful. Using cocoa instead of chocolate alters the
flavor and makes it a little more ...
chocolaty. Get a good Dutch processed
cocoa and give it a try. Making this can
be a little different. You whisk the egg
whites and sugar over a double boiler before whisking in the stand mixer, then
you add in the butter two tablespoons at a time (along with the cocoa) until
you have a stable buttercream. Many
people have issues making Swiss and Italian buttercreams. If you follow the directions and use a candy
thermometer when needed (depending on the icing you are making). I've
never had a batch that I could not recover if it tried to break. If you try this and it breaks, I can probably
help.
For piping, I use an Ateco 825 tip with most of my icings. I love the shape and size of the output, many
people have asked me about this, so I thought I would share that here.
Pipe the buttercream and eat some cupcakes :D Recipes after the break.
In the past few months, I've gotten into baking
cupcakes. Lots and lots of cupcakes. So far, I think my favorite recipe would be Red Velvet. They are light and fluffy, and the ermine icing is to die for. I chose to skip the expected cream cheese icing, and went with the traditional ermine icing (boiled milk). This icing is different from the heavy cream cheese icing that most people are used to.Ermine butter-cream icing is similar to it's French, Swiss, and Italian counterparts, but instead of using egg yolks or egg whites to create the emulsion, it uses boiled milk and flour to create a suspension. It's similar to a roux, but the lack of a fatty medium, prevents it from technically being called a roux.
How is it different? Well, French and Italian butter-creams are smooth, very very smooth. The ermine icing is a little more dense, but the suspension of the milk and flour makes it unexpectedly smooth, while having a bit of texture at the same time. The recipe is a classic that has fallen out of use in the last 20 to 30 years. I personally think the ermine icing is superior to the heavy and dense cream cheese icing you typically see on red velvet cake. I feel the cupcakes should have an icing that compliments the airiness of the cake. not one that overpowers the cake and brings so much strong flavor to a delicate cupcake.
The Neighbors LOVED these cupcakes and have even asked for them to be made into a birthday cake. I brought them to work up in DC and I think I was almost mugged on the metro getting to my building.
The Icing can be made ahead and stored in the refrigerator or icebox, just make sure to bring it to room temperature and beat it in the mixer before you pipe the icing out. The consistency of the icing is made to be piped. It held up quite nicely with the two tips I used.
The Red Velvet recipe comes from the cookbook: Martha Stewart's Cupcakes The cupcakes are light and fluffy, there is a nice chocolate flavor in them, and, with the addition of food coloring, they come out nice and red. I tried making the cupcakes without the food coloring first, but the cocoa powder and vinegar gave it a weak, almost sickly, brownish red color. There was no taste difference with the addition of the food coloring, so I say go for it. Side Note - This cookbook is amazing. I don't care if you hate Martha - the recipes in here are gold
Recipe after the break
Everyone likes chocolate chip cookies, I'm a fan of the thin and crispy ones, my wife likes the chewy ones, and our son likes anything you give him. I've seen Alton Brown make thin and crispy ones, I've made toll house cookies, and every variation across the board. A few months ago i set out to make the perfect chocolate cookies for us. I estimate 20 to 25 batches of cookies were baked to come up with the one the family like the most.
Brown sugar makes a chewy cookie, white sugar makes a thin, crispy cookie. With this recipe, i have opted for more white sugar for a thin edge, and some brown sugar to keep part of the cookie thick and chewy. I chose to use baking powder and baking soda to keep the cookie from spreading too much, and the addition of the baking powder adds a subtle salty taste to the final product, which everyone has enjoyed.
The liquor adds a nice hint of flavor to the cookie that can be hard to identify, but it also serves another purpose. The additional liquid helps the spread, and ensures crispy edges with their high sugar content. Rum is a great flavor, but amaretto works nicely, as well as grand mariner. Ricard was noticable by me, but the taste testers didn't mind the additional bitter hint. I think I will try sambuca next time. Mint liquors would also be interesting to play with.
Why parchment paper? Well, there is nothing better for cookies. I have tried non stick pans, i have tried silpat. Use parchment paper! The cookies never stick to it, and you can use it over and over. I have two scoops to dish out the cookies. If you do not have a scooper, you can use a tablespoon to drop the cookies on the parchment paper lined pans. The scoop I use to make chocolate truffles is perfect for small, children size, cookies. And the larger scoop makes nine sized adult cookies.
Let the cookies rest for 5 minutes on the cookie sheet, then transfer them to a cooking rack. The edges are crispy, and the centers are nice and chewy
If you decide to use this recipe, go ahead and tell me how they came out, and what you used in them. Perhaps I will try adding some bacon next time I make them ...
I thought about this for a while and asked some friends what type of cheesecake they would like. I offered up two options. Chocolate passion fruit or honey lemon lavender.
I checked Whole Foods and they actually had passion fruit. It was the first time in two years I have found actual passion fruit in Richmond. Usually you can only find a juice blend. The actual fruit is much tarter then the juice - which is cut with apple juice. This worked very nicely with the bittersweet chocolate. To alter the texture of the cheesecake, I used half cream cheese and half marscarpone cheese. The cheesecake was quite dense and solid. It cut very well, and held its shape. The crust stayed dry and had a really good texture. Three quarters of the cheesecake was distributed to neighbors. I Think I gave too much away.
Since the cheesecake came together so easily, I decided to make a second one. This time I made a honey lavender lemon cheesecake. I decided to experiment with this one. I made a lemon shortbread crust. This was one of the easiest crusts I have ever made. I made a little on the thick side, and I think that was a good idea. Once cooked, the crust had a wonderful lemon taste, with the dry crumb of a shortbread cookie. I used some lemon curd I had sitting in the ice box, mixed it with a small amount of the cheesecake mixture to prevent a bad memory from reoccurring. I once made a cheesecake with a lemon curd swirl - when I unmolded it, all the swirls separated and it fell apart. Cooked cheesecake and liquid lemon curd. Adding some of the batter lets the lemon curd fully incorporate/cook with the rest of the cheesecake, while still keeping the swirl look.
This cheesecake held its shape quite well, but was 100% creamier then the chocolate one. It even won over the neighbor who said that lavender would taste like cleaner. She loved it. I think it is the best cheesecake I have ever made. My wife even liked it, and she usually doesn't like cheesecake.Unfortunately, I forgot take any pictures of the finished product
By request of on of Jen's friends, I'm going to make a post about my English muffins. In an attempt to save some money, I started making English muffins for breakfast. I wasn't sure how they would turn out at first, but they are quite easy to make, and can be completed in one day, which is always nice.I'm using a recipe from A Bread Bakers Apprentice. It has a handful of ingredients, and is very easy to complete. I've made three batches of muffins, and they get easier each time. No special equipment is needed, well.. you will need a cast iron griddle or skillet to cook them, besides that, it's all straight forward.
Ingredients are flour, butter, milk, yeast, salt, sugar, and corn meal.
The recipe makes six large English muffins, the tops and bottoms are crispy, while the center is soft and full of nooks and crannies (if you open them correctly). The corn meal is used for dusting, otherwise, they would never release from the parchment paper when you go to cook them.To cook them - warm up a griddle and oven to 350 degrees. Once it is up to temperature, drop three of the muffins on the griddle and cook for seven to eight minutes. Flip them over and cook fro the same amount of time. When you put them on the griddle, you may hear they crackle and pop, this is normal and nothing to be concerned about. The goal is to get a nice dark crust on the bottom before flipping. They will come to a medium brown in two to three minutes, but may take up to eight minutes to get the nice rich brown you are looking for. They are very resilient to burning, so if you keep an eye out for the color after 5 minutes, you should not have any problems.
Once cooked on both sides, place the muffins in the oven for 8 minutes to insure the centers are cooked through. Then cool on a rack until room temperature. We keep ours chilled, and fork separate them before toasting in the morning. To get the expected texture when toasting, you really need to use fork to separate them, otherwise, you get a uniform smooth cut with no where for the butter/lemon curd/cheese/etc to go.These can easily be completed in an afternoon. When the little chef gets a little bigger, I think he would have fun helping me make these. Since everything is done on the griddle, they are easy to shape, drop, and flip.
Recipe after the break ---
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.The cookies are very fragile, and if they are too thin, they break when forming. If they are too thick, they are hard to chew, but very easy to mold. Getting the balance between the two were a little hard, but I got about 55% that allowed me to form them.
After breaking and shattering countless thin crisps, I got a little disenfranchised with these cookies. But, I needed to finish the challenge. We were supposed to make some topping, dip, soup, or other accompaniment.
My first attempt had a dollop of lemon curd, then topped with fresh meringue, a little caramel syrup and lime zest. The second attempt was ice cream based. Ice cream was way too cold. My wife liked the meringue, I think it would have been better with a whipped cream, but we did not have any at the time.
The rest of the cookies will be served with a port wine-chocolate dipping sauce. 
This holiday season, we decided to bake most of our gifts. I made lemon sable cookies, biscotti, stolen, cinnamon raisin bread, marshmallows, brioche, and some Portuguese sweet bread. Everything turned out well.The Lemon Sable cookies were first. They were slightly lemony, with hints saltiness and sugar. They had the perfect balance of sandiness and chewy.
Next was the biscotti. There were multiple batches of these Italian twice baked cookies. The Little chef helped me make a few batches of what he calls "Mixer cookies"
We made honey lavender-lemon, mixed fruit (cranberries, cherries, and raisins) and spice, chocolate chocolate, and chocolate chip. The little guy loves these cookies. These were based on the Dorie Greenspan recipe - I really like the addition of corn meal in the recipe. It adds a nice touch of texture that is so often missing from these cookies.
For the stolen, I soaked some zante currants, golden raisins, tart cherries, and craisins in Myers rum and ginger alcohol. With the addition of cinnamon, nutmeg, cardamom, cloves, and some Navan liquor made the stolen very moist and flavorful. They rose nicely, and when dusted with powdered sugar, looked very festive.
Everything else was straight forward. The brioche was the best thing I made this season. It's hard to screw up bread with a pound of butter and 5 eggs. We had that at New Years brunch at Piet's place, and for the worlds best French toast the next day. I'll be making the brioche again in the next few weeks, it smells so good when baking, and when slightly toasted or grilled, so much flavor comes out.
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