Bakin-n-Bacon

Happy Birthday to Ellen Degeneres...

...and to me. Yes, I share a birthday with Ellen Degeneres (and my cousin Lisa S - Happy Birthday!). Oh, and General Douglas MacArthur. An odd group, we Aquarians (or are we Capricorns now?).

Anyway, a lot of people feel sorry for me because I "have to" bake my own birthday cake. My close friends know that I look forward to it each year. It allows me an opportunity to splurge on ingredients make exactly what I want.

This year my  henna tattoo inspired the design and ingredients in my pantry inspired the flavors. I wanted to use some hazelnuts that were languishing in the freezer, and I also had a hankerin' for orange cake. I don't know why; I just did. Finally, chocolate must be involved. That's a given. Oh, and booze, too.

So I took my favorite cake recipe, added orange zest and subtracted a bit of sugar. Why would I, of all people, remove sugar? So I could add liquor and sugar! I brushed Grand Marnier syrup on the layers.

The filling was a hazelnut praline buttercream. I remember now why I hadn't used all those hazelnuts earlier: they are a pain to skin. First you have to blanch the nuts in boiling water. Then you (allegedly) get the skins off by rubbing the hazelnuts in a kitchen towel. This never works for me and I end up rubbing each hazelnut individually to remove the skin. It took me well over an hour to do 12 ounces. I think fraternities would be well served to replace their potentially dangerous and litigation-inducing hazing rituals with hazelnut skinning. Having to skin pounds of hazelnuts would prove beyond a doubt who was dedicated enough to join their ranks. (And if the pledges are buff, by all means let them do it shirtless, at my house - and I'll take the hazelnuts, please.)

Aaannyway, once I was done skinning the hazelnuts I toasted them, chopped them and poured boiling hot caramel over them (I must really hate hazelnuts to do all of those awful things to them). When the hazelnut praline was cool, I broke it into pieces and pulverized it in the food processor until it resembled coarse flour. It seems like a lot of work to get sweet hazelnut dust, but hey, my birthday is only once a year, right?

I stirred this hazelnut praline powder into a batch of buttercream icing. That's *real* buttercream for those who are keeping score: eggs and sugar heated to 160 degrees, whipped into a frenzy, then drowned in butter. Boo yah! And, yes, I remembered the booze - I threw in a few tablespoons of Frangelico.

After that I moved on to the chocolate frosting. It is from Cook's Illustrated, their foolproof chocolate frosting. Normally I really like this frosting but there was no joy in Mudville with this batch. I can't blame it on the recipe, though. I like to chill my cake before icing it because it is easier to frost (i.e., sturdier). However, this frosting set up very fast on the cold cake and it changed color due to the temperature difference. When I went over it for the second layer to even it all out, parts of it remained darker. My coworkers kindly thought I was going for a marbled effect but I wasn't.

This cake taught me a couple of lessons. First, I should quit trying to make square cakes. They are too difficult to frost when you don't make them very often. I did a decent job on the bottom, round layer. It looked pretty good! Then I added the misshapen square top and it wasn't so good anymore.

The second lesson is that I should never, ever, try to draw cake decoartions freehand. I'm just not adept at illustrating. I'm decent at copying and tracing, though, so I should have made a pattern for the design.

Even though it didn't look as great as I wanted, it did taste good. The texture was just what I wanted and the flavors complemented each other. Now on to planning next year's cake...

 

Cookie Time!

This holiday season is the first for me at my new job, so I wanted to make a good impression with my cookie trays.

I didn't make as many varieties as I had hoped due to a weather-related delay. Spending 4 hours shoveling 20 inches of snow puts a dent in the baking activities! At least I'm getting exercise (and I only hurt my back a little...). It seems that this winter I will stay in shape. We've had, I believe, five major snows and today is only the first day of actual winter! When retirement time comes I'm ready for a warmer clime. Only about 18 more years LOL...actually not LOL, *sigh*...

Back to the cookies. I made a chewy ginger cookie (top left), Cook's Illustrated's peanut butter (left bottom), a super vanilla shortbread with the perfect texture (left middle ring of cookies), my latest recipe creation - chewy cranberry cookies (center of both trays), lavender lemon (center of left tray), Cook's Illustrated coconut macaroons (top center), Marilyn's Toffee (bottom center), monster cookies (right tray), and Swedish Brunli (stars in center of right tray). The Brunli are gluten free and consist mainly of almonds, egg whites, spices and some cocoa powder. I think the recipe came from Fine Cooking but I am not certain.

The monster cookies (with M&Ms) were the first to go, followed closely by the vanilla shortbread. I shaped the shortbread into balls and flattened them with a snowflake cookie stamp. You can't see the detail in this photo but there were adorable! The stamp was a real pain to use, though. I spent a lot of time with a toothpick unclogging it.

If anyone wants the shortbread, ginger, or cranberry cookie recipes, please post a comment below!

Baby, it's cold outside...turn on the oven!

When the view from the windows is like this, little is better than staying indoors, turning on the oven, and baking up your own storm.

I've begun making the dough for what could end up being a dozen types of cookies I plan to take to work on Monday. Double recipes of twelve different cookies in one weekend with only one oven is a bit ambitious, and the weather is sucking the ambition right out of me, but I'll still give it a shot. Right now I've just finished a double batch of Marilyn's Toffee (not counted in the dozen...making it a baker's dozen, I guess).

I also talked to the toffee's namesake this afternoon and she doesn't recommend doing a double batch, but since I rarely heed good advice I did it anyway. The pan did end up being terribly scorched and I had to employ three different cleaning methods to restore it to a workable state, so perhaps the time savings were not so great. The toffee turned out perfectly, however, and is now resting until tomorrow, except for the occasional edge piece that somehow falls off in my fingers and then into my mouth.

Here is the list of cookies that I'm planning (subject to change on a whim, of course):

1. Chewy cranberry cookies, drizzled with white chocolate (was going to dip the edges in white chocolate and pistachios, but I'm out of pistachios and ... see photo above...)
2. Cook's Illustrated's Best peanut butter cookies (subscription required for recipe).
3. English Ginger Cookies - a recipe from an elderly batchelor attorney in my hometown.
4. Sesame Cookies - I haven't decided on which recipe to use yet.
5. Coconut macaroons, also from Cook's Illustrated.
6. Monster cookies - my adapted Mrs. Field's cookies with M&Ms
7. Shortbread - plain, simple, and simply divine.
8. Chipotle Mexican chocolate sandwich cookies - from Better Homes & Gardens Christmas Cookie issue
9. Tuiles or pizzelle - I haven't decided yet
10. Swedish Brunli - chewy almond cookies. These are gluten free for a special friend.
11. Peppermint meringues
12. Some type of chocolate cookie or brownie. With bourbon (a little in the cookie and a lot in me).

Wish me luck!

(PS there aren't aliens in the tree - it's the reflection of our dining room lights in the window.)

Custard Pie, Just Because

So I have leftover pie crust in the freezer and I pull it out because we are having friends over for dinner, only I forget about it and make a different dessert instead. Oops. Now I have pie crust but no good plan to use it. What's a girl to do?

I thought about the kinds of pie I could make, what ingredients I had on hand, and how much effort I was willing to put in after working all day (the real wrench in the works). After discounting anything that involved more effort than cracking open an egg, I decided on a simple, classic custard pie. These are not popular anymore, but I don't know why. They are simple and delicious.

I opted to stir in jarred lemon curd in lieu of the traditional nutmeg seasoning. The spoon lickings were good.  Now the difficult part - waiting for the pie to cool. This will probably be my midnight snack.

Since I read Michael Ruhlman's book Ratio, I have thrown out all my pie crust recipes in favor of the simple ratio of 3 parts (by weight) flour to 2 parts butter to 1 part water. I can whip up the crust in no time flat using a food processor, and it's always flaky and tasty. Sometimes I use lard, but since I have to dig down in the chest freezer to get at it, I usually take the easy path and use butter.

This pie is made in a vintage Pyrex pie pan that is about 8 inches in diameter. I also have an old 7-inch pie. Since there are just the two of us here, I like to use these smaller pans so I don't have to make quite as much - not that I wouldn't eat it, but I probably shouldn't eat an entire pie by myself in two days. It has happened before!

I used the custard pie filling recipe from Cook's Illustrated, but if I had memorized the ratio from Ruhlman's book it would have been even easier. If I had an iPhone or iPad touch, I would download his app. But alas no such technology for me.

You say it's your birthday...

and I bake a you a cake. It seems to work that way recently, at any rate.

Since someone is born every minute of every day, I reckon I would be safe making a birthday cake daily, but even for me that might be a bit much (at least while I have to work for a living).

The one at left was an impromptu lemon cake made in less than 4 hours after I found out about the birthday. That time includes  mixing, baking, icing and decorating. I'm sure a pro would scoff at the length of time it took me, but the person to whom I gave it was mighty impressed.

I used the white icing on either side of the flowers to cover up crumbs in the icing. For some reason it reminds me of wreaths given to jockeys upon winning a race. Also, I apparently can't center the writing using my mycronic eyeball. Remind me to measure next time.  

Looking on the bright side, I'm really starting to dig rosettes for borders but they do take more time (and more icing) than shells. Here's a close-up of the rosette border:

 
I'm also on a sugar pearl kick until the next thing comes along.

Below is another cake I made recently - I can't even remember who it was for, but it likely for a guy since I used green icing (for all my idiosyncracies I usually make very traditional cakes using standard guy or girl colors). Before I starting trying to put diamonds and squares on the sides of cakes, I had no idea of how difficult it would be. This is my best effort yet, but you can see I have a way to go. It makes me admire pros that much more. I should probably use royal icing to make the lines, but my idea of planning ahead usually means I am decorating at 10:00 p.m. the night before I take the cake in to work, which precludes making a batch of royal icing on a whim. Even though I can operate on 4 hours of sleep, no one wants me to. I get a little crabby (just ask my husband).  

 

Until next time, Happy Baking!

 

Quest for Fabulous Cookies



Recently Michael Ruhlman published a cookie contest on his great website. I'm all about cookies and contests, so I plan to enter. The problem is that the recipes must be original - and none of my "original" recipes (not to be confused with "Original Recipe" which, I believe, the Colonel has trademarked) are knock-your-socks-off cookies. So I need to develop a recipe between now and November 28. Realistically I only have this weekend to do it since I am out of the house 12+ hours per day for work. Thanksgiving Day will of course be consumed by turkey and the trimmings, and I have to work on Black Friday (although thankfully not at a retail store!).

This is the first attempt, but sadly I don't think it will be the winner. It's quite a fine cookie, but I just don't think it has the pizzazz to make it to the top. It's a fig/orange filling spiked with orange liqueur surrounded by a flaky slightly sweet dough. I used a 5-pointed star cookie cutter and folded over the points, pinching them together at the top, to make the shape. I like this better than doing pinwheels, which provided the inspiration.

The trouble with this cookie is that you need to like figs to like it, and I'm not convinced there will be enough fig fans on the judging panel. I took these to work today and only a handful people even took one (although the ones who did thought they were good).

The "kiss" on the top is white chocolate ganache. I used this to add a touch of sweetness.

Although the photo above is not bad, it took many shots to get there. Did you ever think a cookie could look menacing? Well, I think this photo comes close:

 
Maybe menacing is too strong a word but it sure looks grumpy to me.

Fig/Orange Peekaboos

Dough:
9 ounces (2 cups) all-purpose flour
3 tablespoons granulated sugar
1/4 teaspoon table salt
1 tablespoon fresh or 1 teaspoon dried orange zest
8 ounces (2 sticks) unsalted butter, cold and cubed
1/2 cup cream

Filling:
6 ounces figs, chopped fine
1/4 cup fresh orange juice
1/4 cup water
1/4 cup Cointreau or orange Curacao
1/2 teaspoon ground coriander
1 tablespoon fresh or 1 teaspoon dried orange zest
pinch salt

For the dough:
Stir together dry ingredients including orange zest in food processor bowl. Add butter cubes and pulse just until butter pieces are about pea-sized. Add cream and pulse about 8 more times or until begins to come together. (Dough will be crumbly).

Turn dough and bits onto clean countertop or large pastry board. Gather up all the dough into a big mound. Using the heel of your hand, push down on dough about halfway down the mound, moving away from you as you go down (frisage for those of you in the know). Work your way around the mound using this technique until all crumbly bits are incorporated and dough is cohesive.

Pat or roll dough into a 10 x 13-ish rectangle. Fold one short side over to the middle, then the other side. Fold both sides toward each other (you will then have four layers). Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate until completely cold, about 3 hours (or overnight if you wish).

For the filling:
Combine all ingredients in small saucepan. Bring to a boil over medium heat, and simmer gently until thick. Set aside to cool.

Remove dough from fridge and roll out to about 1/8 inch thickness on a lightly floured cutting board. Cut out stars using a floured 2.5-inch (or so) 5-pointed star cookie cutter. Place one teaspoon of filling into center of each star. Fold over points of the star to meet in the middle; pinch together well (or they will come apart - trust me on this).

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Place filled cookies on parchment-lined baking sheets. Bake until lightly golden brown (about 14 minutes). Remove to a cooling rack.

When cookies are cooled, pipe a dollop of white chocolate ganache on top if desired (I used 3 ounces of white chocolate to 1 ounce of cream). Makes about 36 cookies.

Java Buttons

I made these cuties for an office event this morning. turns out the event is actually next week (DOH!). So I guess I will find something else to bring next Tuesday.

I started off making Flo Braker's Java Sticks from Sweet Miniatures, but then I remembered why I hadn't made that recipe again: the dough is way too stiff to pipe into sticks, as the recipe suggests.

Furthermore, as I tasted the dough, it occurred to me that Ms. Braker must be from the Upper Midwest. Those cookies are bland with a lowercase b. Even though I have enjoyed success with many of the recipes in that cookbook, none of them have knocked my socks off in the flavor department. Maybe I just expect too much; maybe my palate is jaded, but I really don't think so. I think that for most sweets and desserts, sweet is supposed to be enough. But dammit, I want flavor. The cookie's flavor should explode in your mouth and make you say "MMMMmmmmm" nom nom nom. 

So I tasted the cookie dough this morning before I baked it. It was insipid. I doubled up on both the vanilla and espresso powder, added a few more pistachios, and boosted the salt. They were then much, much better. I think next time I might add an egg white but that might take it too far toward chewy in the texture department. Still worth a trial, though.

The cookies were finished with a swirl of white chocolate and a pistachio garnish. Mmmm, yummy.

Recipe to follow (although it's still a work in progress).

 

Easy to make, but to package...not so much

Recently I made the Thousand Dollar Bars recipe from the King Arthur Flour website. The bars are supposed to be like Twix(R) bars, one of my all-time favorite candy bars.

Of course, I can never make any recipe just as it is written, so I made my own caramels for the caramel layer (the recipe instructs you to melt down store-bought caramels and add cream to achieve the right consistency). However, even major brands like Brach's are not made with butter, so of course I couldn't use them. (I am such an ingredient snob!) Besides, the recipe I have for caramels (received from an online friend, Pennie), is quite easy if a little time-consuming.

The recipe makes 5 pounds of caramel, so I had a lot left over. I cut the slab o'caramel into bite-size pieces and took them to work. If I had the time, I would have cut squares of wax paper and wrapped each caramel individually, since they tend to glue themselves back together if not wrapped. But wrapping takes a long time. I calculated once that if I made each caramel 1 x 1/2 by 1/2 inches, it takes over 3 hours to wrap one recipe's worth of caramels. Plus, my carpal tunnel gets aggravated doing it. It's times like these that I think maybe I should have had kids.

Since the caramels are so time-consuming to wrap, I rarely make them. Once upon a time I included  them in my holiday treats package, but it just got to be too much. However, after eating a handful of these perfectly soft, buttery treats (does 6 caramels constitute a healthy breakfast?), I have resolved to make them more often.

The Thousand Dollar Bars that prompted the caramel making were only 'meh.' The shortbread base was too crumbly. The ratio of chocolate was also a bit too high. My coworkers devoured them, as usual (although they also devour insipid store-bought treats that taste like cardboard). I've had requests to make them again. I probably will, but I am going to aim for a crunchier base. They weren't bad, by any means, but they didn't quite live up to my expectations.

I've fallen out of touch with Pennie, but I am sure she won't mind if I publish her recipe (she allowed it to be published on the Cook's Illustrated Bulletin Board a few years back).

Pennie's Caramels

1 pound unsalted butter
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 pounds light brown sugar
2 (15 oz.) cans sweetened condensed milk
16 ounces light corn syrup
2 tablespoons vanilla

Line a large rimmed baking sheet (I use a half sheet pan, 13 x 18) with parchment. Set aside.

In a large (6-8 qt) stockpot, melt butter over medium-high heat. Stir in salt and sugar until well moistened. Add remaining ingredients and, stirring constantly, bring to a boil.

Boil, stirring frequently, until mixture reaches firm ball (245-248 degrees F) stage.  This will take quite some time - I'd say 20-30 minutes.



Immediately pour into rimmed baking sheet. Do not scrape the pot (there may be scorched bits on the bottom). Let cool until firm, 6-8 hours or overnight.

Cut into squares and wrap in wax paper. Keep in the fridge if it is warm in your home or for longer storage. I have no idea how long these last because I either eat them all or give them away within a few days. I suspect they will last for several weeks in the fridge.

Wedded Bliss...

Even though I love baking, I normally don't do wedding cakes. They are too stressful, and I don't want to face the wrath of a Bridezilla who learns that her cake cracked on the way to the reception hall. But in this case I made an exception - it was for my brother, who was married last weekend.

Since I live over 400 miles away, I did not transport the assembled cake. Instead, I baked and froze the cake layers and made the icing in advance. I assembled the cake at my other brother's house, then made a short trip with the three cakes (still not assembled) to the reception venue. There I stacked the layers, and added the shells and decorations.

I would have preferred to create a fancier cake with fall colored flowers (all the better to hide the imperfect icing!), but I deferred to the bride's wishes and made a simple cake.

To throw a little excitement and uncertainty into the equation, I created a brand new cake recipe. Before I have mostly made white or yellow cakes, which use all whites and all yolks respectively. But I hated having to find a use for the remainder of the eggs in either case, so I was determined to make a whole egg cake that suited my preferences for texture and flavor. I've been working toward this goal but hadn't yet perfected it. Now I have come close, and the recipe is below.

Since I knew the cakes would be frozen a few days and have to travel, I brushed them with a sugar syrup after baking to make up for the inevitable moisture loss that would occur. It worked well, and I received many compliments on the texture and flavor of the cake. Many people asked me what was in the cake to make it so moist. They seemed surprised to learn that the cake had so few ingredients: butter/oil, sugar, eggs, flour, salt, milk, vanilla and baking powder. There was no "secret ingredient" as they all expected. And of course it didn't contain any mono- or diglycerides, guar gum, other emulsifiers, artificial flavorings, artificial colors, or unpronounceable mystery chemicals as you will find in a cake mix.

Let me digress but for a moment on the myths of cake baking. I hear people say it's too hard, or, more often, it takes too much time to bake a cake from scratch as opposed to using a mix. For a cake mix you still need to measure oil, water, crack eggs, and beat for 2 minutes. My cake is pretty similar; you only have to measure flour, sugar and baking power in addition to those things. Really, how much more time would it be to do that than to tear open the box and bag enclosed within?

But back to the matter at hand. The cake was well received, the bride was happy, and I got to eat leftover cake the next day.

Not Quite White, Not Quite Yellow Cake

2 1/2 cups (10 ounces) cake flour
1 1/2 cups (10 ounces) sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt (if using unsalted butter)
1 1/2 sticks butter, softened to room temperature (65 degrees) 
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 cup milk (whole or 2%), room temperature
4 whole eggs, room temperature
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line 8" or 9" cake pans with parchment (for more even rising, affix moistened Magi-Cake Strips to the pans). Mix flour, sugar, baking powder and salt (if using) in a large mixing bowl or (better) in the bowl of a standing mixer. Blend together well.

Add softened butter and vegetable oil; mix to blend until clumpy (~20 seconds).

Mix milk, eggs and vanilla in small bowl. Add all but 1/2 cup to flour mixture and mix on high speed (medium high if using a stand mixer) for 1 1/2 minutes. Scape down bowl. Add remaining 1/2 cup milk mixture and blend on medium high speed (medium on stand mixer) for an additional 30 seconds.

Scrape bowl and stir thoroughly to incorporate any stray flour or butter bits. Pour batter into prepared pans and bake until light golden brown on top and toothpick inserted into center of cake only has a few loose crumbs on it (20-30 minutes depending on your oven).

Cook cake in pans for about 10 minutes then invert onto a cooling rack. Brush both sides with a couple tablespoons of 1:1 sugar syrup if you won't be serving the cake the same day. Frost as desired when completely cool.

Cookie Monster

Sigh. No matter how tasty, few cookies photograph well. They all merge into a nondescript sea of brown.  

These were made for a company picnic that my office had a couple of weeks ago. I only planned on making the Kahlua Chocolate Chip (far right) and Peanut Butter (top center), but was goaded into making more. Someone asked what I was bringing, and I said "just cookies." He replied with something like, "I'm sure you will redefine cookies." Now the pressure was on. I didn't just need to bring cookies, I needed to bring COOKIES!

I didn't have much time, either. That conversation happened Monday afternoon and the picnic was Wednesday. I really wanted to do Amadeus cookies (from Saveur magazine), but was afraid it might be too hot for the chocolate the cookies are dipped in. Linzer cookies would have livened up the looks, but I didn't have time to roll out and cut the dough. So I decided upon Financiers (because I had almond meal to use up) and Cocos (from Flo Braker's Sweet Miniatures).

The Cocos received the most compliments. They were very light in texture but really popped with coconut flavor. I can hardly think of a cookie less healthy than this one. Lots of butter, lots of coconut and plenty of sugar. Which, of course, makes them taste great.

I am looking forward to this year's Christmas cookie tray. I need to gather my recipes and decide which cookies will made the grade this year. Cocos have already proven themselves, but the field is wide open for the others.