Fudgy Chocolate Cake

Fudgy Chocolate Layer Cake - made March 26, 2011 from Classic Home Desserts by Richard Sax (book #70)

I wasn't planning on baking today even though I was meeting friends for a movie and late lunch because I had plenty of baked goods stored up in my freezer from baking this past week.  But the expiration date on my carton of buttermilk was fast approaching and that always spurs me to baking action.  The easiest way to use up a lot of buttermilk is typically in cakes, certain breads and muffins.  Bread and muffins aren't always a good care package component though so I went with this chocolate cake recipe instead.  It's from yet another cookbook that I've had for at least 15 years, if not longer, and I've packed and moved it through at least 3 homes and have yet to make a recipe from it.  I do remember this book being a gift from a friend and I don't know why I've never baked from it.

But the good thing about my baking challenge to bake at least one recipe from every cookbook I own is it forces me to do just that and rediscover cookbooks I've long taken for granted as part of my bookshelf decor.  There seem to be a lot of good recipes in this as I flipped through it last night looking for something that'll use up the bulk of the buttermilk I had left in the fridge.  At 1 1/2 cups buttermilk, this cake fit the bill.  However, although it's literally called a layer cake, I made it in a 9 x 13" pan instead of two 9" round cake pans.  Mostly because squares of cake from a 9 x 13 pan are much easier to package and distribute amongst different care packages and goodie bags than slices of a 2-layer cake.

Both cake and frosting were easy to make but I must say the recipe didn't make very much frosting.  It's just the right amount for icing the top of the 9 x 13 cake but if you make this as a 2-layer cake, you might want to 1 1/2 times or double the frosting recipe or else you might run out of frosting to do both the top and the sides of the cake.  And I say that as someone who doesn't like a lot of frosting on my cake.  This is a good basic chocolate cake with chocolate frosting. It's got the light cakey texture we associate with box cake mixes but infinitely better flavor than a box mix.  Use a dark cocoa (not Hersheys please but something a little more upscale) since the chocolate flavor comes from the cocoa - the darker, the better.  Overall, I liked this cake as it was moist and had a good, deep chocolate flavor.

Cake

1 ¾ cups all-purpose flour

¾ cup plus 3 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder

1 ¼ teaspoons baking soda

1/8 teaspoon salt

¾ cup (1 ½ sticks) unsalted butter, softened

2/3 cup sugar

2/3 cup packed light or dark brown sugar

2 large eggs

2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

1 ½ cups buttermilk

Glossy Dark Chocolate Frosting

½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened

1 cup confectioners’ sugar, sifted

2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

3 ounces unsweetened chocolate, melted and cooled slightly

1.    Preheat the oven to 350⁰F.  Butter the bottom and sides of two 9-inch cake pans.  Line the bottoms with rounds of parchment paper cut to fit; butter the paper and set aside.  Sift the flour, cocoa, baking soda and salt onto a sheet of wax paper; set aside.

2.    In a bowl with an electric mixer on medium-high speed, cream the butter with the white and brown sugars until light.  Add the eggs, one at a time, beating thoroughly after each addition.  Add the vanilla.

3.    Lower the speed to slow and add the dry ingredients alternately with the buttermilk, beginning and ending with the dry ingredients.  Mix just until blended, no longer.  Divide the batter between the prepared pans; smooth the tops.

4.    Bake until the cakes shrink slightly away from the sides of the pans and a toothpick inserted in the centers emerges clean, usually 25 to 30 minutes.

5.    Cool the cakes in the pans on wire racks for 10 minutes.  Carefully loosen the cakes from the pans with the tip of a knife and invert onto the racks; carefully peel off the paper.  Turn right side up and cool to room temperature.

6.   In a bowl with an electric mixer, cream the butter with the confectioners’ sugar until very light.  Add the vanilla and melted chocolate and beat until shiny and smooth.

7.    Place 1 cake layer on a serving platter; spread with a small amount of the frosting.  Top with the other layer; frost the sides and then the top, swirling the icing.  Let the cake stand for at least 30 minutes before cutting.  Serve at room temperature.

Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookies

Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookies - made March 26, 2011 from Room for Dessert by David Lebovitz (book #69)

In case you ever wonder why I always seem to predominantly make cookies and brownies, I do a lot of care packages and goodie bags to give away to friends and family and those are the easiest things to make and give away.  I probably should expand my baking repertoire a little more but what must be baked must be packaged up and given away so that sometimes limits my options.  I've spoiled myself over the years in eating only the freshest baked goods, often within minutes after coming out of my oven.  Once they're cool and more than a few hours old, I've lost interest and focus on finding them a good home.

In fact, one of the reasons I started this baking blog in the first place was to blog about not only how recipes have turned out but also what I would recommend people can do to make them better so they can bake them on their own.  If you don't bake, it's hard to know the joys of a freshly baked chocolate chip cookie 10 minutes out of the oven or the moist fudginess of a really good brownie when it's barely cool.  Sure you can buy the stuff but it's just not the same as making it yourself or having immediate access to someone who does.

I also try to match my baking to who I'm seeing and what their favorites are.  I'm meeting several different chocolate lovers for dinner and lunch this week so a chocolate chocolate cookie seemed like the right thing to put in their goodie bags.  Really, you have to like anything that repeats the word "chocolate" in its title.  If you look at the recipe, you'll see the high proportion of chocolate as an ingredient compared to the other ingredients.  That means, by all chocolate holiness, please use the best quality chocolate you can.  I used Valrhona 70% for this particular recipe.  You can also use Lindt, Callebaut, Scharffenberger or something equally hi-falutin'.  But use the good stuff.  Trust me, it's worth it.

What I liked about these cookies is they didn't spread at all.  Slice the logs thick for thick cookies and they'll stay that thick.  Which is hardly surprising considering the large amount of chocolate in them and relatively smaller amount of everything else. Never overbake chocolate chocolate cookies.  With this much chocolate in them, it's okay if they're underbaked because the chocolate will set once it's cool.  Baking them 9 minutes (or less) ensures a fudgy texture.  If you overbake them, they'll be dry.  And that would be a waste of good chocolate.  Since these seemed pretty sturdy, I think they'd ship okay in a care package and hold up in the mail.  But you should still pack them carefully so that they won't move around much, if at all, in the package.

Given the high amount of chocolate in these, it should come as no surprise that they pack a serious chocolate punch.  As chocolate-loving as I am, even I drew the line at just having one cookie.  At a time.  The inside was moist and fudgy, almost like eating baked fudge.  If you have a chocolate lover in your life, make these for them and prepare to accept their undying love and adoration.

1 pound bittersweet chocolate, coarsely chopped

4 tablespoons (½ stick) butter, cut into pieces

1 cup walnuts, toasted

4 large eggs, at room temperature

1 ¾ cups sugar

½ teaspoon vanilla extract

½ cup flour

½ teaspoon baking powder

2 cups chocolate chips

1.    Melt the chocolate and butter in a bowl set over a pan of simmering water, stirring occasionally.  Meanwhile, coarsely chop the walnuts.  When the butter and chocolate have melted, remove from the heat.

2.   In a standing electric mixer, using the whisk attachment, whip the eggs, sugar and vanilla at high speed until they form a well-defined ribbon when you lift the whisk.  Remove the whisk and attach the paddle to the mixer.  Turn the speed to low, and mix in the melted chocolate mixture.

3.    In another bowl, stir together the flour and baking powder, then add them to the batter.  Add the chocolate chips and the nuts.  Chill the dough until it is firm, at least 30 minutes.

4.    On a lightly floured surface, roll the dough with your hands into three 10-inch logs, 2 inches in diameter.  If the dough is too cold and firm, wait until it becomes malleable.

5.    To bake the cookies, position the oven racks in the center and upper part of the oven and preheat the oven to 350⁰F.  Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

6.    Slice the logs into ½”-thick cookies, and place them on the baking sheet, evenly spaced.  Bake for about 9 minutes.  Rotate the baking sheets and switch racks midway through baking.  Once they have cooled, store the cookies in an airtight container.

Honey Barbecue Chicken Pizza

Pizza Dough - made March 25, 2011 from The Practical Encyclopedia of Baking by Martha Day (book #68)

I've been craving pizza lately - you know, the kind with the thick, chewy crust, melted cheese and good toppings.  My usual tastes in pizza toppings are pretty simple: sausage and pepperoni (carnivore, remember?), Canadian bacon and pineapple, and one of my favorites: barbecue chicken.  I have a coupon for a free pizza from Pizz'a Chicago and I love their pizzas but it always seems a little, well, piggish, to buy a pizza just for my own personal consumption, especially one of their yummy, thick crust pizzas.  I'd love the first piece, talk myself into a second piece out of sheer gluttony, then be sick and hate myself if I ate the rest.  So I'm waiting until I have guests over to order from Pizz'a Chicago.

But I still want pizza so why not make my own?  I usually cheat on homemade pizza and the times I don't buy a Digiorno pizza are the times when I buy a Boboli crust, pizza sauce in a jar, cheese and toppings.  I've never actually made homemade pizza dough.  But the recipes I looked at seemed pretty simple.  If I could make bread, I figured I could make pizza dough.  I chose this recipe from the Practical Encyclopedia of Baking because it looked the easiest.  This is one of those books I don't remember actually buying but have probably had for years and never used it.  I just liked looking at all the pictures (rolls eyes).

I have to admit I still "cheated" on the rest of the pizza - honey barbecue sauce in a jar.  I know, I know.  I did cut and cook the chicken on my own though, lol.  Cut it into the size I wanted for the topping, stir fried it with some salt, pepper, thyme and oregano then mixed half of it into the barbecue sauce and let it cool while I waited for the pizza dough to rise.  The great thing about making your own pizza is you control what goes on it.  The best pizzas in my opinion are loaded with toppings.  Not necessarily a ton of cheese but I like my barbecue chicken pizza with lots of chicken.

Below is the recipe for the pizza dough - top with whatever sauce and toppings you prefer.  I didn't manually knead the dough but used my KitchenAid and dough hook to do all the work.  I ended up baking it for about 22 minutes at 425 degrees.  The pizza turned out okay.  I wouldn't say the crust is anything to brag about - it's a pretty basic white bread dough, not overtly buttery and flaky like Patxi's in Palo Alto but still crunchy around the edges and chewy elsewhere.  It was good and now that I know how easy pizza dough is to make, I'm going to be looking to experiment more with making my own homemade pizzas and trying out other pizza dough recipes.

2 teaspoons active dry yeast

¾ cup warm water (105⁰-110⁰F)

2 ¼ cups flour

1 teaspoon salt

1 ½ tablespoons olive oil

1.    Put the yeast in a small bowl, add ¼ cup of the water, and let it soak 1 minute.  Whisk lightly with a fork until dissolved.

2.    Sift the flour and salt into a large warm bowl.  Make a well in the center and add the yeast mixture, olive oil, and remaining warm water.

3.    Using your fingers, gradually draw flour into the liquids.  Continue mixing until all the flour is incorporated and the dough will just hold together.

4.    Turn the dough onto a lightly floured surface.  Knead it until it is smooth and silky, about 10 minutes.  Shape the dough into a ball.  Put it in an oiled bowl and rotate to coat the surface with oil.

5.    Cover the bowl with plastic wrap.  Set aside in a warm place to let the dough rise until doubled in bulk, about 1 hour.  Turn the dough onto the lightly floured surface again.  Gently punch down the dough to deflate it.  Knead lightly until smooth.

6.    Roll out the dough into a round or square about ¼” thick.  Transfer it to a lightly oiled metal pizza tray or baking sheet.  Add the topped as directed in the recipe.  Bake in a preheated 425⁰F oven until the pizza crust is puffy and well browned.  Serve hot.

Touch of Grace Biscuits

Touch of Grace Biscuits - made March 24, 2011 from The Bread Bible by Rose Levy Berenbaum (book #67)

I wasn't going to bake today since my lunch plans with a friend today got canceled so I didn't need to make up any goodie bags.  But I woke up to our 13th consecutive day of rain this morning and while it hasn't rained 24/7 for 13 days (we've had pockets of dry weather for a few hours here and there), we now have flash flood warnings, mudslides, wind advisories, and a ground that's getting over 95% saturated.  My Pavlovian response to the cloudy, stormy weather?  "Hey, I bet a warm fresh biscuit slathered in butter would taste really good."  And you know how once you have something in your head, it won't get out unless you do something about it?  Yeah, hence today's baking experiment with biscuits.

This is from the Bread Bible by Rose Levy Berenbaum.  I've had her Cake Bible book for years and got the Bread Bible because I like her recipes.  They're easy to follow and almost always come out. Which doesn't explain why I've hardly ever used this book before.  In fact, this may be the first recipe I've made from it.  Oops.  Well, what matters is I'm using it now, right?

This recipe was really easy to throw together.  But she wasn't kidding when she said the dough was soft, like mashed potatoes.  I could barely form the dough balls, even when rolling it in the 2nd cup of flour because it was so soft.  I put the biscuits in an 8" round cake pan as I was forming them but there was only enough dough to make a ring around the cake pan and not fill it entirely.  Next time I would make them in a 6" round pan so they'd be more squished in there and could prop each other up.  When I baked them, they didn't rise as much because they were so spread out.  Regardless though, these were pretty good.  The outside was crunchy and the inside was melt in your mouth mealy/chewy like good bread should be.  There was a slight tang because of the buttermilk not being offset by any baking soda but that helped make this a more savory bread.  All in all, a nice treat on a cold, stormy day.

1 cup all-purpose flour
½ cup cake flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

¾ teaspoon salt

3 tablespoons sugar

¼ teaspoon salt

3 tablespoons vegetable shortening, cold

1 ¼ cups heavy cream or buttermilk or a combination of the two

1 cup all-purpose flour

1 tablespoon melted butter, cooled, optional

1.     Preheat the oven to 475⁰F for 30 minutes before baking.  Have an oven shelf at the middle level and place a baking stone or baking sheet on it before preheating.

2.     In a medium bowl, whisk together the flours (the 1 cup all purpose + ½ cup cake flour), baking powder, and salt.  Add the shortening in teaspoon-sized pieces and, with your fingertips, press the shortening into the flour until pea-sized or smaller.

3.     Stir in the cream and/or buttermilk.  The biscuit dough will be very soft, like mashed potatoes.  Allow it to sit for 2 to 3 minutes; it will stiffen slightly.

4.     Spread the 2^nd cup of all-purpose flour in a pie plate or cake pan.  To shape the biscuits using an ice cream scoop or a large spoon, scoop up a biscuit-sized lump of dough (a heaping spoonful) and drop it onto the flour.  Sprinkle the top lightly with some of the flour.  Pick up the biscuit with your hand and shape it into a round, gently shaking off any excess flour; it works well to hold the biscuit in your left hand with fingers partially closed so that the thumb and index finger form the letter C.  With your right hand, tamp down the top of the dough so that the biscuit is 1 inch high and 2 inches wide.

5.     Put each biscuit in the cake pan as soon as it is shaped, placing them snugly-up against each other so that the soft dough will rise up instead od spreading sideways during baking.  If desired, dip the brush in the melted butter (avoid the milk solids that will have sunk to the bottom) and brush the top of the biscuits.

6.     Place the biscuits in the oven on the hot baking stone or baking sheet.  Raise the heat to 500⁰F and bake for 5 minutes.  Lower the heat to 475⁰F and continue baking for 10 to 15 minutes, until biscuits have doubled in size and are lightly browned.

7.     Allow the biscuits to cool in the pan for 1 to 2 minutes, then empty them onto a plate.  Pull the biscuits apart and split them in half, preferably using a three-tined fork to keep them from compressing and to create a rustic rough split rather than a clean cut.

Tres Leches Cake

Tres Leches Cake - made March 22, 2011 from America's Test Kitchen Family Baking Book

I first tried Tres Leches Cake from Savory, a Vietnamese restaurant in Mountain View, and was hooked on the first bite.  They served theirs with the creamy topping just a little bit frozen so it was almost like eating ice cream on top of soft cake.  It's really quite good.  For those who haven't had it yet, Tres Leches Cake is a yellow cake that's soaked in a 3-milk mixture (hence the name) then topped with a whipped cream topping.  Because it's supposed to absorb so much liquid, the cake itself is moist to the point of being almost custard-like.

I don't actually own the America's Test Kitchen Family Baking Book so this doesn't count towards my baking challenge.  Instead I got this recipe from a friend who tried the recipe from this cookbook and raved about it.  I love recipes that have been personally recommended by people I know so naturally, I couldn't resist making it myself.

I recently ordered some cans of dulce de leche from amazon which were cheaper than my usual source of Williams Sonoma and I wanted to try it out with this recipe.  One of the 3 "leches" or milks in Tres Leches is sweetened condensed milk and dulce de leche is the cooked, caramelized version of sweetened condensed milk so I wanted to see if this would work just as well, especially since  the directions call for heating the sweetened condensed milk until it turned "slightly darkened and thickened".  Essentially, that's turning sweetened condensed milk into dulce de leche so I just skipped that step and started off with dulce de leche in the first place.

The tres leches mixture made quite a bit of liquid so I was a little nervous about pouring all that liquid over the cake.  I spooned 1/3 of the milk mixture slowly over the cake, giving it time to absorb.  That seemed like plenty already and I still had another 2/3 to go.  I gave it a few more minutes to fully absorb then went back to spooning the 2nd third over the cake.  I really hoped the America's Test Kitchen people knew what they were doing. The cake looked like it had absorbed enough, thank you.  I was afraid if it had too much liquid in it, I'd be eating some soggy milky cake.  But, in for a penny, in for a pound, so I let it sit some more then spooned the last third over the cake.  I wouldn't advise pouring all of the milk mixture at once.  You need to give the cake time to absorb the liquid slowly.  You do refrigerate it and let it sit for hours before you do the topping layer so I assume that's when the liquid gets fully absorbed and the cake gets its tres leches-iness.

I let it chill in the refrigerator overnight and sure enough, all of the liquid looked like it had been fully absorbed.  The pan was not-so-surprisingly heavy considering how much liquid was poured into it. I tried the taste test piece without the whipped cream topping as I not only don't like whipped cream but the last thing this cake needs is more calories (believe me, my taste test piece was tiny and I feel like I should walk another 7 miles just to work it off). The cake is really good and definitely absorbed the 3-milk mixture although not in a consistent pattern.  It's much like the espresso mixture in a tiramisu soaks the ladyfingers or a simple syrup soaks a genoise.  It's still cake but definitely "soaked" cake.  And tasty.  But then again, I love the dulce de leche flavor so I'm probably biased in favor of it.  Mine is probably more of a dulce de leche flavor than the original recipe intended since Savory's Tres Leches cake didn't have that same flavor.  But I think I prefer the dulce de leche version and am glad I made it this way.

Just for comparison, mine is a far cry from the professional Tres Leches Cake they serve at Savory :).  But I still like the homemade version as well.

Tres Leches Cake

Milk Mixture
1 (14-ounce) can sweetened condensed milk
1 (12-ounce) can evaporated milk
1 cup heavy cream
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Cake
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter
1 cup whole milk
4 large eggs, room temperature
2 cups sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Frosting
1 cup heavy cream
3 tablespoons corn syrup
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1. For the milk mixture: Pour condensed milk into large microwave-safe bowl and cover tightly with plastic wrap. Microwave on low power, stirring and replacing plastic every 3 to 5 minutes, until slightly darkened and thickened, 9 to 15 minutes. Remove from microwave and slowly whisk in evaporated milk, cream, and vanilla. Let cool to room temperature.

2. For the cake: Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 325 degrees. Grease and flour 13 by 9-inch baking pan. Whisk flour, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon in bowl. Heat butter and milk in small saucepan over low heat until butter is melted; set aside off heat.

3. With electric mixer on medium speed, beat eggs in large bowl for about 30 seconds, then slowly add sugar until incorporated. Increase speed to medium-high and beat until egg mixture is very thick and glossy, 5 to 7 minutes. Reduce speed to low and slowly mix in melted butter mixture and vanilla. Add flour mixture in three additions, scraping down bowl as necessary, then mix on medium speed until fully incorporated, about 30 seconds. Using rubber spatula, scrape batter into prepared pan and bake until toothpick inserted into center comes out clean, 30 to 35 minutes. Transfer cake to wire rack and let cool 10 minutes.

4. Using skewer, poke holes at 1/2-inch intervals in top of cake. Slowly pour milk mixture over cake until completely absorbed. Let sit at room temperature 15 minutes, then refrigerate uncovered 3 hours or up to 24 hours.

5. For the frosting: Remove cake from refrigerator 30 minutes before serving. With electric mixer on medium speed, beat heavy cream, corn syrup, and vanilla to soft peaks, 1 to 2 minutes. Frost cake and slice into 3-inch squares. Serve. (The assembled cake can be refrigerated for up to 3 days.)

Linked to Sweet Tooth Friday

Boston Cream Pie

Boston Cream Pie - made March 22, 2011 from Chocolate American Style by Lora Brody (book #66)

As many know, Boston Cream Pie isn't actually a pie but is a yellow cake filled with pastry cream and topped with a chocolate glaze or ganache.  I've had a fancy individual-sized version of Boston Cream Pie when I was, appropriately enough, in Boston but it didn't really feel like a real Boston Cream Pie because it was presented as a fancy little yellow cake with cream filling.  I pictured Boston Cream Pie to be more homey and less artfully professional.

So I decided to finally make my own Boston Cream Pie.  I found 2 recipes in a couple of different cookbooks that called for a chocolate pastry cream but I decided to veer from that to make the regular vanilla pastry cream.  I normally don't like creamy centers or custard-y type things but oddly enough, I love pastry cream.  Well, I love the pastry cream I make from my CIA recipe.  So it was a no-brainer to substitute that pastry cream in this recipe and make a yellow cake filled with vanilla pastry cream and topped with a chocolate glaze for this Boston Cream Pie.

I needed it for a dinner tonight with a couple of friends but it's always risky to try a new recipe for company in case it doesn't turn out.  The prudent thing to do is taste test it first but you can't very well make a 9" cake and cut out a taste test slice before bringing it to the dinner.  It'll look like you're bringing leftover cake after you've had a piece.  Tacky.  I solved the problem by making this into mini Boston cream pies and baking individual-size desserts in my molten chocolate cake pan.  One recipe made 9 little cakes, plenty to taste test from and serve tonight.

I baked the cakes and made the pastry cream first then went for a 7-mile walk to run some errands before I came back home to make the chocolate frosting and assemble the cakes.  I did the taste test cake first.  Hmmm.  Can't say I loved it.  Which was unfortunate because the cakes smelled so good coming out of the oven and seemed like just the right texture.  But once they cooled then I sandwiched them with the chilled pastry cream and topped with the warm chocolate icing, the combination wasn't as good as I had hoped.  I think it's because I prefer slightly warm cakes.  The vanilla cakes, when at room temperature, seemed a little dense.  They weren't dry exactly but not as good as if they were warm.  Fortunately I had only assembled one cake.  I've decided to bring the rest with me, unassembled, and plan to put them together at my friend's house, warm them up slightly then top them with the chocolate icing.  Warm cake, warm pastry cream and warm icing - all good.  Next time, I'll search for a recipe that produces a lighter, more moist cake.

Cake

2 cups (9.4 ounces) cake flour

2 ½ teaspoons baking powder

½ teaspoon salt

1 ½ sticks (6 ounces) unsalted butter, at room temperature

1 ¼ cups (10 ounces) sugar

2 extra-large eggs

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

¾ cup (6 ounces) whole milk

Pastry Cream

3 extra-large egg yolks

¼ cup (2 ounces) sugar

3 tablespoons all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

¼ teaspoon salt

1 1/3 cups (11 ounces) milk

4 ounces bittersweet chocolate, coarsely chopped

2 tablespoons (1 ounce) unsalted butter

2 tablespoons Bailey’s Irish Cream liqueur

Glaze

6 ounces bittersweet chocolate, coarsely chopped

2 tablespoons (1 ounce) unsalted butter

1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon light corn syrup

¼ teaspoon salt

1.    Preheat the oven to 350⁰F with the rack in the center position.  Spray a 9 ½” springform pan with nonstick cooking spray.  Line the bottom of the pan with a circle of parchment paper.  Butter the parchment and dust with flour, tapping out the excess flour.

2.    Cake: Sift the cake flour, baking powder and salt into a medium bowl and set aside.  Place the butter and sugar in a large mixing bowl.  With an electric mixer on high speed, beat until light and fluffy.  Reduce speed to medium and add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.  Beat in the vanilla.  Reduce the mixer speed to low and add the flour mixture alternately with the milk, beginning and ending with the flour.  Mix to combine them well.  Pour and scrape  the batter into the prepared pan.

3.    Bake for 35 to 40 minutes or until the top is golden brown, the cake has begun to pull away from the sides of the pan, and a cake tester inserted into the middle of he cake comes out clean.  Transfer the cake, in its pan, to a wire rack; let it cool completely in the pan.

4.    Pastry cream: Whisk the egg yolks, sugar, flour, vanilla and salt together in a medium metal bowl.  Place a large sieve over another medium metal bowl and set aside.  Pour the milk into a medium saucepan and bring to a simmer over medium-high heat.  Whisk about half the hot milk into the egg-yolk mixture, then pour the egg-yolk mixture into the remaining hot milk.  Whisk constantly over medium heat until it thickens and boils.  Use the whisk to reach all over the bottom of the pan so that the pastry cream doesn’t burn.  Let the mixture boil for 30 seconds, then remove from the heat.  Strain the mixture through the sieve; use a rubber spatula to push the pastry cream through the sieve.  Add the chocolate and butter, stirring until the chocolate has melted completely, then stir in the Bailey’s Irish Cream.  Press a piece of plastic wrap onto the surface of the pastry cream and refrigerate until firm, about 1 hour.

5.    Glaze: Place the chocolate, butter, 2 tablespoons of water, the corn syrup and salt in a medium metal bowl set over, but not touching, a pan of simmering water.  Stir the mixture until the chocolate has melted and the glaze is smooth.  Use while warm or else refrigerate until you’re  ready to use then reheat until it’s smooth and pourable.

6.    Assemble the cake: Release the sides of the pan, invert the cake onto a wire rack and remove the pan base and the parchment paper.  Re-invert the cake.  Use a long, serrated knife to split the cake layer in half horizontally.  Place the bottom half, cut-side up, on a serving plate.  Spread the pastry cream on the cake, then top with the second split layer, cut-side down.  Pour the glaze onto the top of the cake; use an offset metal spatula to smooth the glaze over the top of the cake so that it spills over the sides.  Don’t spread it on the sides, let it spill naturally.

The cake can be kept, loosely covered, in the refrigerator for up to 3 days.

Crema Gianduja Brownies

Crema Gianduja Brownies - made March 20, 2011, recipe adapted from Golde's Homemade Cookies by Golde Hoffman Soloway (book #65), original recipe called Golde's Best Brownies

I don't normally experiment much with a recipe when I make it for the first time since I want to see how it turns out the way the recipe creator intended.  But in this case, I was in a more adventurous mood and brownies are fairly easy to experiment with since they can be pretty forgiving.  I'm still on my nutella kick and I still had most of the jar of crema gianduja that I had picked up in Melbourne's Little Italy so I decided to play with that.  If you don't have gianduja, it's fine to use Nutella - just warm it up for 20-30 seconds in the microwave to make it easier to work with.

Golde's original recipe calls for making this in a 9 x 13" pan but I finally found my 10" square pan and was in the mood for thick brownies so I decided to use the smaller pan. Since I was experimenting anyway, might as well push the envelope.  Past experiments with adding nutella to brownies taught me the flavor doesn't come out that strongly against the chocolate.  It pops better against a non-chocolate flavor.  So for this brownie, I tried to go high octane on the gianduja - I added 1/2 cup to the batter itself then I dropped dollops of it within the brownie itself before baking.  And to get really pushy, after I took it out of the oven, I dropped dollops of Nutella on top of the hot brownie and as it softened, I spread it like frosting.

For the most part, I'd consider this adaptation of Golde's recipe a success.  The brownies came out thick, moist and fudgy.  The gianduja flavor was still subtle except for the Nutella frosting layer.  It's more of a semisweet or milk chocolate type of brownie instead of a dark, dark chocolate brownie but I liked it just as well.  The only problem was, although I lined the baking pan with foil and sprayed the foil with nonstick cooking spray, the brownies stuck to the foil and were hard to peel off.  This is because they were so moist and fudgy so it seems like a small price to pay.  If you make these, you can line the pan with parchment paper as that might peel off more easily than foil.  

1 cup butter (Golde's original recipe called for 1 cup of shortening)

4 ounces semisweet chocolate (I used Lindt 70%)

1 cup crema gianduja or nutella, divided (for plain chocolate brownie, omit gianduja)

4 eggs, beaten slightly

2 cups granulated sugar

1 ½ cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 ½ teaspoons salt

2 teaspoons vanilla

1 cup chocolate chips

3 tablespoons light corn syrup

1.    Preheat oven to 350⁰F.

2.    In top of a double boiler, melt butter and chocolate.  Add 1/2 cup crema gianduja and stir to mix. Pour into a large bowl and let cool for 10 minutes.  Add the lightly beaten eggs and then gradually add the sugar, mixing thoroughly.

3.    Sift together the flour, baking powder and salt.  Add to the chocolate mixture and blend well.  Mix in the vanilla and corn syrup then add the chocolate chips.

4.    Pour half the batter into greased 10 x 10” baking pan lined with foil and sprayed with nonstick cooking spray.  Drop dollops of the remaining 1/2 cup crema gianduja over the batter and cover with the remaining brownie batter.  Bake for 25-30 minutes or until toothpick inserted near the center comes out with moist crumbs, not raw batter.  Cool pan on wire rack.  Cut into squares when cool. 

Texas Pecan Pie Bars

Texas Pecan Pie Bars - made March 20, 2011 from The Pastry Queen by Rebecca Rather (book #64)

I was running low on pecans so when I happened to be at Costco a couple of weekends ago, I went to buy the usual 2-lb bag I normally get.  Costco is one of the places where I get certain baking ingredients because it's cheaper there for the quality: Nestle Tollhouse chocolate chips, C&H granulated & brown sugars, eggs, butter and pecans.  Last time I had to get a bag of pecans, I remember being slightly dismayed that they had gone up from $8.99 to $9.99 a bag.  So imagine my utter shock when I saw that they were now $14.99 a bag.  Holy crazy expensive Batman!  Has there been some blight on pecan production in the past several months that I hadn't heard about?  Because that's a serious price jump.  Much as I hated the thought of shelling out $15 for a 2-lb bag of pecans, past experience has taught me that if Costco's price was that high, other places would have it even higher.  And that was borne out later when I checked Target, Trader Joe's and amazon.  So I bit the bullet and bought the bag.  It's safe to say I spend more on baking ingredients than I do to feed myself "real food".  But we all have to have a hobby and mine is more innocuous and less expensive than, let's say, skydiving, bungee jumping, parasailing, skiing, golfing, etc.

So it was time to try the very expensive pecans on this recipe for pecan pie bars.  I'm not normally a fan of the typical pecan pie.  I don't like the gelatinous stuff that makes up the filling for the pecans to rest on.  A pecan pie should be stuffed with pecans, not gelatin.  So I was hoping this recipe would be different.  The original recipe listed below as is calls for a 12" x 17" pan.  That's a trifle too big, even if I were to share it with my former coworkers so I made half the recipe.  I had planned to bake it in a 10 x 10 pan because 12 x 17 = is 204 so half a recipe in a 10 x 10 = 100 works just right.  Unfortunately I couldn't find my 10 x 10" baking pan which was frankly irritating because it could only be somewhere in my kitchen pantry or cabinets.  Yet it remained elusive.

So I used a 9 x 9 pan to make thicker bars and also put some crust and filling in mini tart pans.  This probably still came out thicker than it should have.  I baked it longer because they were thicker.  The top layer formed a crust and browned fairly quickly but I knew it couldn't be done yet.  I left it in the oven for over 40 minutes until the top was as brown as I dared to have it without burning.  The toothpick test doesn't work here because when I poked one in, it broke through the crust, leaving the crust in pieces and showing the layer just beneath the crust was liquid.  Yikes.  I took it out anyway because I didn't want the top crust to burn and just hoped that once the bar cookies had cooled completely, the liquid would jell into something a little more solid.  Fortunately, it did.

Taste-wise, I liked these - the coconut gives it some chewiness and distracts from the jelly-like texture of the filling.  I had toasted the pecans before I used them and their flavor really comes out, just like in a pecan pie.  Appearance-wise though, I'd consider them a FAIL.  Because I baked them for so long and the top crust was so "crusty", they didn't slice cleanly and instead broke apart because the layer underneath was jelly-like.  That's probably because I baked them in too small of a pan so the bars were too thick to cook properly.  After the bars had cooled, some of the liquid hadn't firmed up and still oozed out between the slices, making them look worse.  Next time, they should be made thinner so the top crust won't be able to form so thickly.  I would also cut the filling recipe in half to 1 part crust (i.e. if you make half the crust recipe, make only 1/4 of the filling to go with it) and stuff it with more pecans than the recipe calls for.  Oh well.  It's good to fail once in awhile - it's how to learn and make things better.

Crust

1 ½ cups (3 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature

1 cup firmly packed golden brown sugar

4 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon salt

Filling

8 large eggs

6 cups firmly packed golden brown sugar

¼ cup bourbon (optional)

6 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted

2 tablespoons vanilla extract

1 cup all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon salt

2 cups sweetened flaked coconut

2 cups pecan halves

1.     To make the crust: Preheat the oven to 350 F.  Grease a 12 by 17-inch baking pan with butter or cooking spray.  Using a mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, beat the butter in a large bowl on medium speed about 1 minute.  Add the sugar and beat about 1 minute, until fluffy.  Add the flour and salt; mix on low speed until evenly incorporated but still crumbly.  Press the mixture evenly over the bottom of the prepared pan.  Bake the crust for 15 to 20 minutes, until it has darkened to a deep golden brown.  Leave the oven at 350 F.

2.     To make the filling: Whisk the eggs and sugar in a large bowl until blended.  Stir in the bourbon, butter, vanilla, flour and salt, then the coconut and pecans.  Pour the filling over the crust, spreading evenly.  Bake until set, 25 to 30 minutes.  Cool thoroughly, at least 30 minutes, before cutting into 3-inch squares or diamonds.

Lemon Loaf Cake

Lemon Loaf Cake - made March 19, 2011 from The Golden Pear Cafe Cookbook by Keith E. Davis (book #63)

Now that we've "sprung forward" with the time change last week, I'm switching gears temporarily to lemon, which always struck me as a spring and summertime dessert flavor even though I seem to get much of my fresh lemons from friends' lemon trees in the winter.  My mom bought me a lemon tree that I planted in my backyard a couple of months ago.  Anyone who knows me knows I have the world's worst green thumb.  Plants see me coming and shudder in horror at the havoc they sense I can wreak.  I over water.  I under water.  I neglect.  I hover.  And I am inept at gardening.  At my last house, I had my entire backyard paved over so I wouldn't have to deal with it and I spurned suggestions of having potted plants on the patio.  No sense endangering flora or fauna at my hands.

At my current house though, I decided to take a stab at growing a lemon tree.  I'm thinking ahead to future lemon bars, lemon cakes, lemon cookies and such.  And maybe I can break the curse of being a plant killer.  It was touch and go initially with my lemon tree when I first planted it.  My mom supplied me with all the accoutrements: tree, potting soil, shovel, little spade and instructions.  I followed them to what I thought was the letter - planted it in a corner of the yard that got the most sun and was higher than the rest of the backyard so the water would flow down and not bog it when it rained, mix in the potting soil so it could have some nutrients, dig a little moat around it so when I do water it, the water would seep down to the roots, etc.  I mostly got it right.  When my mom came by later to inspect my handiwork, she didn't think I had dug the hole deep enough or used enough potting soil.  Sigh. 

Nevertheless, the lemon tree seems to have adapted well enough.  We did have a cold snap where I thought it would die and (at my mom's advice), I covered it with a plastic tarp to keep it from freezing.  The initial buds looked like they were going to turn black and wither because it was so cold and some of the leaves did turn brown and fall off (you can see some of the light brown on the leaves that "recovered" from the cold snap).  But the weather's been warming up and it looks like new growth is coming from the tree.  So yeay, I haven't killed it yet.  Although the deluge of rain we've had in the past few days and more of it promised for next week makes it look like my lemon tree is temporarily drowning.  Which I'm going to chalk up as "not my fault."  That's usually my mantra with plants.

So that's my incredibly long lead-in to this recipe for lemon loaf.  The lemons from this didn't come from my tree since my tree isn't even really blossoming yet but they did come from a church friend's lemon tree.  And hopefully I'll be able to use my own lemons someday for this recipe and others like it.

I only made a half recipe since I only needed one loaf, not two.  I poured the batter into mini loaves since they're cuter, easier to give away, slice and eat and because my mini loaf pans are newer and bake better than my older, regular-size loaf pans. If you read the directions closely, you'll see it calls for a lot of beating and mixing as the flour is added to the batter.  Normally I'm not a believer in mixing the batter a lot once the flour is added since you don't want to develop the gluten and make the cake tough but in this case, since it uses cake flour instead of all-purpose flour, the additional mixing aids the cake in getting aerated and there's less worry about having a tough texture or crumb.  Cake flour is softer than all-purpose flour with less gluten to develop.  Still, I didn't follow the instructions exactly to let it beat for so long.  Old habits die hard, cake flour or not.

If you like lemon, don't be afraid to get generous with the lemon zest that gets added to the batter.  Although a lot of the lemon flavor will come from the glaze/lemon syrup you brush on after the cakes are baked, the zest also adds flavor from within the cake itself.  When you zest, just be careful you're only getting the outer, yellow part of the lemon and not the white pith underneath.  A microplane zester is fantastic for zesting.

On the glaze, glazing can be a bit tricky.  This is actually more of a thick soaking syrup than what you'd picture a typical glaze to be.  It's meant to flavor the cake so you don't want to pour it all at once.  Do an initial brush of glaze all over each cake, let it sit for a few minutes to absorb, then brush again.  How much you use depends on your flavor preference for a strong or a light lemon flavor.  I don't like it too strong so I hardly ever end up using all of the glaze.  But don't use too light either or you won't end up with a very lemony cake.  Overall, I like this cake.  I tried a taste test when it was just the slightest bit lukewarm.  It wasn't too lemony for me and the cake texture was soft and fluffy, lighter than a pound cake but not airy like a sponge cake.  In essence, it was the perfect cakey texture.  The rest of the taste test piece was actually pretty good at room temperature as well.  You can taste the lemon and savor the texture even more then.

Lemon Cake

1 ¾ sticks (¾ cup plus 2 tablespoons) unsalted butter

 2 cups granulated sugar

2 large eggs

Grated zest of 1 lemon (about 2 tablespoons)

3 cups cake flour, sifted after measuring

1 ½ teaspoons baking powder

1 ½ teaspoons kosher salt

Juice of 1 lemon (about 2 tablespoons)

1 cup plus 3 tablespoons whole milk

Lemon Glaze

Juice of 3 to 4 lemons (about ½ cup), strained several times to remove all pulp

½ cup granulated sugar

3 tablespoons coarse or large-grain granulated sugar, for topping

1.     Position a rack in the center of the oven.  Preheat the oven to 350⁰F.  Spray two 8 ½” x 4 ½” loaf pans with nonstick spray.

2.    Combine the butter and sugar in a large mixing bowl of a stand mixer and mix at medium speed with the paddle attachment for 8 to 10 minutes or until mixture is light and fluffy.  Using a fork, gently beat the eggs in a small bowl.  Add the eggs to the butter mixture and mix them at medium speed for 1 minute.  Add the lemon zest.

3.    Measure out the cake flour and sift into a separate bowl.  Add the baking powder and salt and stir the ingredients just to blend them.  Add one-third of the flour mixture to the butter mixture and mix them at low speed for about 1 minute or until the flour is completely incorporated.  Add the lemon juice and 1 cup plus 1 ½ tablespoons of milk.  Mix them at low speed until they are completely incorporated. Stop the mixer and scrape the side of the bowl and the beaters with a rubber spatula after each addition.

4.    Increase  the mixer speed to medium and mix the batter for 30 seconds.  Add one-third of the flour mixture and mix it in at low speed for 1 minute.  Add the remaining milk and mix it in until it is incorporated.  Increase the mixer speed to medium and mix the batter for 30 seconds.  Add the remaining one-third of the flour mixture and mix it in at low speed for 1 minute or until it is completely incorporated.  Increase the speed to medium and mix the batter for 1 minute.

5.    Scrape the batter into the loaf pans, dividing it evenly and smoothing the surfaces with a spatula.  Bake the cakes for 35 minutes; then rotate the pans 180 degrees to ensure even baking.  Bake them for 30 minutes longer or until a toothpick inserted into the center of each cake comes out clean.

6.    While the cakes are baking, make the glaze: cook the lemon juice and sugar in a small saucepan set over high heat until the mixture comes to a boil.  Immediately remove it from the heat and keep it warm.

7.    When the cakes are done, remove them from the oven and use a pastry brush to spread each with half of the glaze.  Sprinkle 1 ½ tablespoons of coarse sugar on each cake.  Cool the cakes in the pans for 20 minutes before removal.

Farmstead Apple Crisp

Farmstead Apple Crisp - made March 19, 2011 from The All-American Dessert Book by Nancy Baggett (book #62)

Spring is supposed to officially arrive tomorrow afternoon but someone forgot to tell the weather that since it's been pouring rain for the past couple of days and an even bigger storm is forecast for tomorrow.  On the down side, that seriously curtails my long walking sojourns.  On the positive side, there's something about cold, rainy weather that makes me want to bake.  Okay, there's something about breathing that makes me want to bake but you know what I mean.  Rainy weather is about comfort food: a bowl of hot soup, a plate of spaghetti and meatballs, a cup of hot chocolate, fresh warm bread, newly baked chocolate chip cookies and for me on this fine, rainy day: apple cobbler.  Or rather, apple crisp.

Cobbler and crisp are actually two different things although many people use them synonymously.  If you want to be a stickler, cobbler usually involves some kind of dough on top whereas a crisp usually has a streusel-like topping.  I've often seen crisp toppings involve oats, nuts, and brown sugar whereas cobblers commonly don't have oats or nuts.  My favorite apple cobbler recipe was actually meant to be apple bars but I like serving it as cobbler.  While I love that tried and true recipe, this time I thought I would try a crisp and see how I like the oat topping with it.

When making an apple dessert like apple pie, cobbler, crisp, etc, one important aspect is what kind of apples to use.  It's all a matter of personal preference so there's no one "right" answer.  There was a time when I only baked with Granny Smith apples because they were tart and offset the sweetness of the rest of the dessert.  Now I like to experiment and mix it up with other types of apples like Braeburn, Fuji and so on.  The only apple I won't bake with or eat for that matter is Red Delicious.  I don't like the mealy texture and prefer my apples to have a crisp texture.  If you use really tart apples for baking, cut back on the lemon juice if it's called for in the recipe.

For this recipe, I used 2 large Granny Smith apples and 1 medium-ish-sized Braeburn apple.  I only wanted to make a half-recipe of the crisp although I made a full recipe of the other filling ingredients (except for the apples) and only a half recipe of the topping (confusing enough?).  As convoluted as that sounds, I'm glad I made it that way because there was a little more juice in the filling so the apple part wasn't dry and just the right amount of topping for the reduced amount of apples I used.  I loved this crisp - the oat topping got crunchy in the oven and not only offset the sweetness of the (extra) juicy filling but added texture to the dessert.  I might still like to have some dough for the bottom so next time I might combine the bottom dough from the Apple Crumble Bar recipe with the crisp topping from this recipe - best of both worlds.  If you do add ice cream to this - and you should because otherwise, what's the point? - let the crisp cool for at least 20-30 minutes so the ice cream won't immediately melt over a too-hot crisp.  Just a bit warmer than lukewarm is the perfect temp.

Filling

1/3 cup packed light brown sugar

2 ½ tablespoons all-purpose flour

½ teaspoon ground cinnamon

7 ½ cups peeled, cored and coarsely sliced tart, flavorful apples, such as Stayman, Rome, Granny Smith or Pippin (I used Granny Smith and Braeburn)

1 ½ tablespoons fresh lemon juice

2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted

Topping

¾ cup all-purpose flour

¾ cup old-fashioned rolled oats

2/3 cup packed light brown sugar

½ cup walnuts or pecans (optional)

8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted

1.    Position a rack in the middle of the oven and preheat to 350⁰F.  Coat a 7 x 11-inch baking pan with nonstick spray.

2.    In a large bowl, stir together the brown sugar, flour and cinnamon until blended.  Stir in the apples, lemon juice and melted butter, tossing until the apples are coated with the brown sugar mixture.  Spread the filling evenly in the baking dish.  Bake for 25 minutes.

3.    Meanwhile, make the topping: In a medium bowl, stir together the flour, oats, brown sugar, and nuts (if using).  Add the melted butter, stirring until incorporated.  Sprinkle the topping evenly over the apples.  Press down lightly.  Increase the oven temperature to 375⁰F and bake for 25 to 30 minutes longer, or until the top is nicely browned and the filling is bubbly.  Transfer to a wire rack.  Let cool to warm for at least 30 minutes.  Spoon into bowls and serve with ice cream or whipped cream, if desired.

The crisp will keep, covered, at room temperature for 24 hours or refrigerated for up to 3 days longer.  Let come to room temperature before serving.