First and Foremost Brownies

First and Foremost Brownies - made April 9, 2011 from Brownie Points by Lisa Slater (book #81)

That's what these are officially called in the Brownie Points baking book so that's what I'm putting down.  Not that they're necessarily my first and foremost brownies but that's mostly because it's hard for me to play favorites.  People always ask me what my favorite brownie recipe is.  That's like asking me to look at my hair and pick a favorite strand. The main reason I don't have a favorite is I don't like to limit myself to just one.  There's a whole world of brownie recipes out there and I feel the need to try them all.  I won't necessarily love them all but I do love trying out new recipes for them.

I have a chance to donate to another bake sale where the proceeds are going for Japan earthquake relief.  My cousin Christine's son Jason is in kindergarten and his school is hosting the bake sale on Tuesday in Cupertino.  If there's one thing I love more than baking, it's baking for a purpose.  Most people assume that if I didn't have to work for a living, I'd open a bakery and bake all day.  Not so.  While I wouldn't mind baking all day, baking for my own business and/or a bakery feels like work.  My dream, "post-retirement" job would be to bake for charitable organizations and events: like providing baked goods as snacks after races to benefit the American Cancer Society or the Susan G. Komen Foundation or any other good cause. Baking for volunteers working on a Habitat for Humanity project or an environmental clean-up project.  Baking for after-school programs, soup kitchens, shelters for battered women and children, homeless shelters and the like.  I can't do it full-time as of yet since I still have a mortgage to pay and something has to pay for the baking ingredients but that would be my goal for down the road.  In the meantime, looks like I'm baking for bake sales for a good cause.

I changed the directions slightly for this recipe.  The original recipe called for browning the butter and letting it cool for 10 minutes before pouring it over the bittersweet chocolate, letting the chocolate melt and blending them together.  I tried that.  Didn't work.  The browned butter wasn't hot enough to melt all that chocolate, even though I had chopped it into small pieces for easier melting.  Instead, I would recommend that after browning the butter in a saucepan, transfer it and the bittersweet chocolate to the top half of a double boiler and stir until the chocolate has melted and the mixture is combined.

This is a nice fudgy brownie, like a moist slab of chocolate goodness.  Adding the salt at the end brings out the saltiness a bit more so if you're one of those people who like sweet and salty together, this is a good brownie to try.  I frosted it to make it a little more eye-catching for a bake sale but I think I would actually prefer these plain.

8 tablespoons butter

8 ounces bittersweet chocolate

½ cup brown sugar

½ cup granulated sugar

3 eggs at room temperature

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

½ cup all-purpose flour

¼ teaspoon kosher salt

1.     Preheat oven to 300°F.  Line an 8 x 8-inch pan with foil and spray lightly with nonstick cooking spray.

2.     Melt the butter and cook until it becomes light brown and smells wonderful.  

3.     Pour over the chopped chocolate in the top half of a double boiler set over hot water and stir until chocolate has melted and mixture is smooth.

4.     Transfer to a mixing bowl.  Add the sugars and mix well.  The mixture will be grainy.

5.     Add the eggs one at a time, mixing until the batter is glossy and thick.

6.     Add the vanilla, then the flour, mixing only enough to incorporate the flour.

7.     Add the salt and mix briefly.

8.     Pour into the prepared pan and bake for 25 to 30 minutes.  The edges will be firm but the center will be slightly soft, yet puffed.  Remove from the oven and chill completely.

9.     Slice into bars, wrap well and store in the fridge for up to a month or in the freezer for up to 6 months. (I recommend the freezer even for short periods as refrigerating tends to dry out most baked goods.)

Nutella Banana Bread

Nutella Banana Bread - made April 8, 2011 from Baking Junkie's blog

Yes, I'm still going through the Costco-size nutella 2-pack in my pantry.  I'm actually almost done with the second jar so my nutella experiments are drawing to an end.  Until I make the next Costco run anyway.

This is yet another recipe that I saw from Sweets for a Saturday #1 (hopefully you're seeing the pattern now when I come across recipes that intrigue me that aren't necessarily from one of my cookbooks).  I already have a great banana bread recipe that I like and that has stood the test of time for years.  Like Baking Junkie, at first I thought I might try just swirling nutella through my original banana bread recipe.  But I decided I might as well go all the way and try this Nutella Banana Bread recipe as is.


The batter was easy to put together and mixing a cup of the batter with the melted nutella smelled really good.  I baked this in 4 mini loaf pans rather than 1 big loaf pan, mostly so I could give the small loaves away.  I didn't try too hard to swirl the batters together since I like the distinctiveness between the two.

This was pretty good, especially if you like banana and chocolate flavors combined together.  I've discovered I'm a bit more of a purist so when I'm in the mood for banana bread, I think I just want banana bread as is.  However, I do think I want to try adding nutella to my banana bread recipe and see how I like it.  My recipe makes a slightly more cakey, rather than "quick bread-y" banana bread and is a little sweeter than this so I'd be curious to see how the nutella pairs with it.

Dulce de Leche Crunch Blondies

Blondie Squares - made April 8, 2011 from Chocolate by Nick Malgieri (book #80)

Nick Malgieri's Chocolate baking book is what it sounds like: recipes featured around chocolate.  So it's with a sense of irony that I not only chose a blondie recipe to try but I deliberately omitted the chocolate chips that were in the original recipe that had qualified this as something with chocolate for the baking book.  I didn't do it to be willful but I needed a blondie recipe to experiment with to make dulce de leche bars and this was in the "Still Need to Make" file ready to go.  So I went.

Ever since I did the Peanut Butter Crunch Brownies and the Nutella Crunch Brownies, I've been wanting to make a dulce de leche version of the same but sans chocolate.  Usually I'm sparing with dulce de leche because I normally buy it from Williams Sonoma and at $10 for a 16-ounce jar, I want it to last or at least be able to use it for more than 1 recipe.  But, in my typical addiction to shopping at amazon, I found a more reasonably-priced option for dulce de leche that lets me be a little more creative with it more often.  The quality of the Nestle version isn't quite as good as the Williams Sonoma jar but for the amount of baking I want to do with it, it's a reasonable alternative.

I left out the chocolate chips in this recipe only to stick to a pure blondie bar.  The original recipe is below in case you don't approve of my changes and want to make the blondies as Nick Malgieri intended.  If you want  to go on my caloric ride, here's what I did: Make a half recipe of the below and bake in an 8 x 8" square pan.  Omit the nuts and the chocolate chips.  Bake until the bars are golden brown.  In my oven, that took slightly under 30 minutes.

Warm up a 13.4 oz can of dulce de leche until it's liquid and spreadable (careful not to burn it; I microwaved mine for 30 seconds and that worked fine).  Add 1 to 1 1/2 cups rice krispie cereal and stir to blend.  How much rice krispie cereal you add is up to you.  If you prefer more crunch, add more crispy cereal.  If you prefer less crunch and more sweet, add less cereal.  Spread over the warm blondie shortly after it comes out of the oven and let set.  Eat.  Workout.  A lot.

Nah, in all seriousness, my little experiment didn't turn out.  The rice krispies softened in the dulce de leche so there wasn't the crunch I had hoped for like there was in the chocolate brownies. It was more chewy or soggy depending on your viewpoint.  Which is disappointing because I was going for crunchy.  And yes, my Rice Krispies were still fresh and crispy before I added them to the dulce de leche.  Bummer.  On the positive side, the blondies themselves were quite good, like dark brown sugar bars.  So they still made a good base for the blondie.  It's just the topping that didn't turn out, at least not with the cereal. I think the rice krispies absorbed the moisture of the dulce de leche so they lost their crisp.  FAIL.  Back to the drawing board.

ETA: it occurred to me that what would make these blondies a success instead of a failure is to substitute coconut for the rice krispies.  They would add flavor and chewiness to the dulce de leche blondie.  The blondies themselves taste great and using coconut instead of rice krispies wouldn't add crunch but they wouldn't get soggy either.

2 ½ cups all-purpose flour

½ teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking soda

16 tablespoons (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened

1 ¼ cups granulated sugar

¾ cup firmly packed dark brown sugar

2 large eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

½ cup coarsely chopped walnuts or pecans

2 cups (12 ounces) semisweet chocolate chips

One 10 x 15 x 2-inch jelly roll pan, buttered and lined with buttered parchment or foil

1.     Set a rack in the middle level of the oven and preheat to 350˚F.

2.     In a mixing bowl stir together the flour, salt and baking soda to mix.

3.     Beat the butter with the sugars until combined.  Beat in the eggs, one at a time, and finally the vanilla extract.

4.     Stir the flour mixture into the butter mixture, then the nuts and chips.

5.     Spread the batter in the prepared pan and bake for about 30 minutes, until well risen and firm to the touch.  Cool in the pan on a rack.

6.     After the cake is cool, invert onto a cutting board and peel away the paper.  Cut into 2-inch squares.

Storage: Keep the blondies in a tin or plastic container with a tight fitting lid.  Or wrap individually and freeze in a tightly closed plastic container.

German Chocolate Cake

Michele's German Chocolate Cake - made April 6, 2011 from Chocolate Cake by Michele Urvater (book #79)

You can see the left side is in danger of falling - eek

I can't believe I haven't blogged about a German chocolate cake yet.  Then again, I also haven't made a German chocolate cake in ages.  This is one of those rare, rare exceptions I make to the "no nuts" rule in cakes.  And technically the nuts are in the frosting so it's not that bad.  I love German chocolate cake because it's a chocolate cake with coconut and I love both coconut and chocolate.  German chocolate cake, as most people know, doesn't have anything to do with Germany or Germans.  It didn't come from there, wasn't invented there and there's no significance to it in Germany.  Rather, the sweet chocolate was invented in the United States by Sam German so they named the chocolate after him.  I typically prefer my chocolate on the dark and fudgy side and almost swapped out the sweet chocolate for the bittersweet chocolate in this recipe but I decided not to blaspheme the original intent of the German chocolate cake and just went with it.  At least this time.

What made me choose this recipe to try is it's got a slight variation to the typical German chocolate cake in that it adds espresso powder and sweet chocolate to both the cake and the frosting.  Sometimes German chocolate cake is overly sweet given the sweet chocolate, the brown sugar frosting and the coconut.  I hoped Michele Urvater's variation might offset that sweetness. I baked the cakes in 3 8" round cake pans since I didn't have enough 9" round cake pans.  They baked for about 40 minutes before they seemed done.  There was a crust to the top of each which made poking a toothpick into the center of the cake a bit problematic because once the crust was broken, the cakes caved in at the toothpick's point of entry.  Hmm, that wasn't good.  Fortunately the frosting was going to cover up the little craters so I didn't worry about it too much.

sadly, you can't even distinguish the layers!

After I put the three cake layers and the frosting together, I got good news and bad news.  The good news: this cake could well be one of the best I've ever made.  The taste and texture were both excellent, not too chocolaty or too sweet and the soft texture was superb and addicting.  This is cake as it should be.  The espresso powder and chocolate in the frosting were very complementary to the cake, the coconut and the nuts.  If you don't like the taste of espresso or coffee, leave out the espresso powder in the frosting but you can leave it in the cake as the espresso taste isn't strong in the cake.  I don't care for a strong coffee taste so next time I'll leave the espresso powder out of the frosting.

The bad news: this is also one of the most delicate cakes I've ever made.  As in fragile.  As in the second layer broke apart when I tried to place it on top of the first layer.  Which made the third layer lean because the 2nd layer wasn't even and the cake threatened to fall apart.  I had to hurry up and take the picture before anything broke off and took a dive off the cake.  Consequently, my 3-layer cake looks a little lame.  This was also difficult to cut because the cake layers were so fragile and you can't even see distinct layers and frosting in between. So these pics aren't making the cover of a baking magazine anytime soon.  But don't let appearances deceive you.  This is a delicious cake.  Kudos, Michele Urvater.  This recipe alone was worth the book and I'm glad I picked this one to try from it.

Cake

4 ounces German sweet chocolate or bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped

½ cup milk

1 tablespoon instant espresso coffee powder

2 ¼ cups (10 ounces) cake flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

½ teaspoon baking soda

½ teaspoon salt

2 sticks (8 ounces) unsalted butter, softened

2 cups (15 ounces) superfine sugar

4 large egg yolks

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 cup unsweetened coconut milk

Topping

1 cup packed (7.5 ounces) light brown sugar

1 cup heavy cream

1 stick (4 ounces) unsalted butter

1 tablespoon instant espresso coffee powder

3 large egg yolks

4 ounces German’s Sweet chocolate or bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped

1 ½ cups sweetened coconut flakes

1 ½ cups (6 ounces) toasted pecans, finely chopped

1.     In a small saucepan, combine the chocolate with the milk and espresso coffee.  Over low heat, bring the mixture to a simmer, stirring.  Remove from the heat and transfer it to a bowl to cool to room temperature.

2.     Position the oven racks so they are both as close to the center of the oven as possible.  Preheat the oven to 350⁰F.  Lightly butter and flour three 9 x 2-inch round cake pans, tap out the excess and line the bottoms with parchment circles.

3.     Sift the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt twice, and set it aside.

4.     With an electric mixer on low speed (or with a stationary mixer fitted with the paddle attachment), beat the butter for 1 minute, or until light.  Slowly add the sugar, about 2 tablespoons at a time, and when all of it has been added, continue to beat on medium speed for 2 minutes, scraping down the beaters and sides of the bowl as needed.  The mixture will look fluffy, like something between mayonnaise and whipped cream.

5.     Add the egg yolks one at a time, beating for 10 seconds between additions, then add the vanilla and cooled chocolate and beat for a few minutes longer, or until the mixture is smooth.

6.     With a rubber spatula, fold the sifted ingredients into the batter in three additions, alternating with the coconut milk in two additions.  Beat with an electric mixer on low speed for 1 minute, or until blended.

7.     Transfer the batter to the prepared pans, smooth the tops and rap the pans sharply on the counter to break up any large air bubbles.  After the first 20 minutes of baking, rotate the pans from back to front and top to bottom so they bake evenly. Bake for 35 to 45 minutes, or until a tester inserted in the center comes out dry. 

8.     Cool the cakes to room temperature in their pans on a wire rack.  Run a knife around the edges to loosen the cakes from the sides of the pans.  The layers should shrink quite a bit once they cool down.  Unmold and peel off the paper circles just before filling.

To fill and frost:

1.     Set aside ¼ cup of the brown sugar.  In a small saucepan, combine the remaining ¾ cup brown sugar with the cream, butter and espresso and bring to a simmer, stirring.  Remove from the heat.

2.     Combine the egg yolks with the reserved ¼ cup brown sugar.  Slowly drizzle some of the hot cream and sugar into the yolks, whisking constantly so the eggs don’t curdle.  Add about half of the hot liquid to the yolks, then return the yolk mixture to the saucepan.  Stirring continuously with a wooden spoon, bring the liquid to a simmer and cook over very low heat until it has thickened and steam rises from the pan.

3.     Pour the filling through a sieve into a clean bowl and whisk in the chopped chocolate until it melts.  Cool to room temperature, then add the coconut and pecans.

4.     Center one cake layer, upside down, on a cardboard round cut slightly larger than the cake.  Frost it with 1/3 of the filling.  Set the second layer turned upside down over the filling and frost it with 1/3 more of the filling.  Top with the last layer, set upside down, and spread with the last of the filling, leaving the sides unfrosted.

Storage: Keep in the refrigerator, wrapped airtight in plastic, and eat within 3 days.

Checking in on my baking challenge

I started my baking challenge on October 21, 2010 with Marble Molasses Pound Cake from Southern Cakes by Nancie McDermott.  78 cookbooks and 5 1/2 months later, I'm not even at the halfway mark yet in terms of how many cookbooks I have left to bake from.  I've been going at a pretty steady clip lately though so I can't complain.  Rome wasn't baked in a day.

This challenge has been beneficial to me in several ways.  First, it's good to realize exactly what and how much I have.  Second, it's even better to use what I already have.  Third, it's best to leverage the knowledge from both to keep myself from buying more.  Let's face it - it's ridiculous that I have so many cookbooks I hadn't even realized that I have duplicate copies of several and that I never knew that until I started taking a good look at all my cookbooks.  It's also ridiculous that I've had some of them for years and never used them.  Two of the books are still shrink-wrapped, for crying out loud.  And it's the height of incredulity that I still get tempted to buy more.

I was in Sur La Table yesterday and discovered their baking book, The Art & Soul of Baking, on the clearance table for $19.99.  I had a $10 coupon for any purchase which is why I was in Sur La Table in the first place.  That would've made what was originally a $40 book a $9.99 + tax purchase.  It was exactly the type of baking book I like - big, hardbound, lots of recipes, and lots of mouth-watering pictures.  My inner Gollum shrieks, "We wants The Precious!" when I see it.  But haven't I already done this dance?  Many times?  On my bookshelves at home are dozens upon dozens of cookbooks that me-Gollum has already purchased over the years.  Some are used.  Some are not.  All are on my shelves.  78 of them have been part of this challenge so far.  More than 78 remain to be tried. (Insert inner conflict here.)  It was with an incredible amount of reluctance that I put the book back on the clearance table and walked away.  It wasn't about spending the money (and I love a bargain so this was almost physically painful to pass up).  It was about not giving into the want because it wasn't a need.  I know that same book is in my local library and I can check it out anytime, look through the pictures, (cough) I mean recipes, choose which ones I want to try and return it to the library when I'm done.  I don't have to own it.  I just want to.  But sometimes I can't give into Gollum because I know once the initial urge passes, I won't feel the need want to own the book anymore and later on, I'll be glad it's not one more thing gathering dust on the bookshelves and guilting me into using it so that I didn't buy it for nothing.

So the book remained on the clearance table and I spent my coupon on some overpriced Scharffenberger unsweetened chocolate instead.  Now that I do "need" for the next time high end chocolate is called for in a recipe.

Alton Brown's Chocolate Chip Cookies...sort of

Alton Brown's Chocolate Chip Cookies - made April 3, 11 from Kate's Kitchen Trial and Error blog

You'd think at some point I would stop trying out chocolate chip cookie recipes.  I've tried dozens, maybe hundreds, of recipes trying to find THE chocolate chip cookie so spectacular I'm willing to forsake all others and stop my love affair with the search for THE chocolate chip cookie.  Someday.  But not today.

This was linked up to Sweets for a Saturday that I participate in every week as do many others.  That's the great thing about all those links - so many other foodie blogs to discover and new recipes to keep trying.  Since I have made so many different chocolate chip recipes, I look for something a little extra or different to induce me to try out yet another one.  What caught my eye about this one is the use of bread flour, something I've never used in a cookie recipe before.  According to Alton Brown, that's supposed to make it chewy.  Hmm, okay, I'll give it a shot, although none of my cookies last for a couple of days long enough to test it out but only because I keep cookie dough in the freezer and only bake off exactly what I need with no leftovers.  Kate also mentioned how her other go-to recipe for chocolate chip cookies from Cook's Illustrated calls for browned butter.  That's intriguing to me too so I decided to try this recipe with browned butter and see how it would turn out.

Browned butter is what it sounds like: instead of merely melting the butter to liquid, you keep heating it until the milk solids in the butter turn brown and take on an aromatic nutty flavor.  Be careful when you brown the butter and don't use too small of a saucepan as it does bubble up and you don't want it to spillover.  Keep stirring it as you want it to brown, not burn and the bubbling of the butter may keep you from seeing how brown the liquid underneath is getting.  You'll know when it's done by the fragrance - nothing smells as good as browned butter.  It will also be, appropriately enough, brown.  Once you've browned the butter, let it cool until it's lukewarm.  You don't want to make the dough while the butter is still too hot.  It might cook the eggs before you completely incorporate them or melt your chocolate chips.

I needed the cookies to serve at my afternoon dessert party for my cousins and their families but one of my 6-year-old guests doesn't like chocolate.  But he will eat white chocolate (I call it "vanilla chips" when I talk to him but they're really white chocolate, shhh) so I split the cookie dough in half before I added white chocolate chunks to one half of the dough and milk chocolate chips to the other half.  I've included the modifications I've made to the recipe below.  If you want the original one, please click back on the title of this post to take you to the recipe on Kate's blog.  I will say that the cookie dough smelled really good so if you're the type to snitch cookie dough, this might tempt you and not leave enough dough to be baked.  Fortunately I don't believe in eating raw cookie dough so all I did was sniff and inhale.

The cookies turned out pretty well.  They stayed thick and baked up nicely chewy in the middle and a little crisp at the edges.  The browned butter taste didn't quite come through like I had hoped but it was still pretty good.  I don't think I'd give up my quest for THE chocolate chip cookie just yet but this is a nice addition to my repertoire of "how many different chocolate chip cookies can I make?".

On a completely separate note, one of my online fitness friends said she met Alton Brown in person and that he was really a nice guy.  Love hearing that.  Thanks for the cookie recipe, Alton.

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter
2 1/4 cups bread flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 1/4 cups brown sugar
1 egg + 1 egg yolk
2 tablespoons milk
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 cups semisweet, milk or white chocolate chips or any combination (your choice)

1. Melt the butter in a saucepan over low heat and keep stirring/cooking until butter has turned brown and has a nutty fragrance.  Pour in a large mixing bowl (or bowl of your stand mixer) and set aside to cool to lukewarm.
2. In a separate bowl, sift the flour, salt, and baking soda together. Set aside.
3. Add the sugar and brown sugar to the melted butter and cream on medium speed, about 2 minutes. Add the egg, yolk, milk, and vanilla extract and mix until combined.
4. With the mixer on low, slowly add the flour mixture until combined. Stir in the chocolate chips.
5. Portion into cookie dough balls using an ice cream scoop and chill the dough balls at least two hours or overnight.
6. When your dough is chilled, preheat oven to 375 degrees F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
7. Place dough balls on the cookie sheet, leaving ample room between them, as they spread while baking.
8. Bake for about 15 minutes, or until golden brown. Cool for a few minutes on the baking sheet before transferring to a rack to cool. Store in an airtight container.

Zeppoles

Zeppoles - made April 3, 2011, recipe from the Culinary Institute of America Baking & Pastry Arts program

One of my favorite things we made at the CIA were zeppoles, deep-fried Italian dough balls sweetened with ricotta cheese.  We made all kinds of fancy, too-beautiful-to-eat concoctions at CIA but my favorites tended to be the simple, humble-looking yet tasty foods.  Basque Cake filled with Pastry Cream is a top favorite.  Zeppoles are a close second.  I rarely make zeppoles because a) deep-fried anything should only be eaten in moderation and b) they're so good that moderation sucks.

But I was having my cousins, their significant others and their kids over for a dessert get together this afternoon so it seemed like the perfect time to make zeppoles.  By sheer "I learned to share in kindergarten" mantra, that meant I couldn't hog the whole batch to myself and had to share with others.  Okay, I can do that.  Even though they're hard to resist.  The outside is crisp crunchy and the inside is soft and chewy, almost like a sweet cakey bread.  You can fill them with anything but I prefer them plain so nothing interferes with the taste of sheer fried goodness. Zeppoles are best served warm, sprinkled with powdered sugar (like beignets) shortly after frying.  I had to refrain from "accidentally" frying them all too soon before my guests arrived.  That sharing thing again.  Although I don't deny I answered the door dusting powdered sugar off of myself.

1 cup flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

2 teaspoons sugar

¼ teaspoon salt

1 cup ricotta cheese

2 tablespoons milk

1 teaspoon vanilla

1.     Sift together the dry ingredients.

2.     Gently beat ricotta cheese with vanilla and milk.  Add dry ingredients.  If batter still seems a little dry, add a little milk until batter is slightly firmer than the consistency of the ricotta cheese and there's no more loose flour. Do not overmix.

3.     Drop by spoonfuls into hot oil (350˚F).  Fry 3-4 minutes (they should flip by themselves) until golden brown.

4.     Drain on paper towels, then sprinkle with powdered sugar while still hot.

Streusel Squares

Streusel Squares - made April 2, 2011 from Great Cakes by Carole Walter (book #78)

My final contribution to the bake sale for Japan is streusel cake.  The bake sale is 10-2 pm on Sunday, April 3 and I thought at 10 am, not everyone might be up for a chocolate brownie and might want something more brunch-y instead like a morning coffee-cake type of sweet.  I love streusel cake.  The best one I ever remember having was when I was working for Pacific Gas & Electric in San Francisco when I was right out of college.  For meetings, we'd order in these coffee cakes and I remember them being so moist, buttery and sweet.  I loved that cake.  My taste buds have changed since then and I may not like the same things now that I did back then (which is a good thing since I was also 30 pounds heavier back then - yikes).  But I still remember that coffee cake quite fondly.

Carole Walter is another good cookbook author I recommend for beginning bakers.  Her recipes are detailed and easy to follow and she includes basic instructions that remind novices not to forget the scrape the sides of the bowl during mixing, how to prep a baking pan, etc.  I have a few of her books and tend to skip most of the directions since I have my own method of doing things but her recipes are generally pretty good.  I did vary this one slightly though by substituting brown sugar for the granulated sugar in the streusel topping.  I'm not sure if that was a typo in the book or if she really meant for people to use granulated sugar in the topping.  I've never had a streusel or crumb topping with just granulated sugar so I took the liberty of putting in brown sugar instead for a more traditional streusel.

This cake turned out to be excellent.  I baked it for a little less than 40 minutes before the toothpick came out clean.  At first I thought I might've overbaked it because that's what a clean toothpick usually signifies but the cake was just right with a fluffy, tender texture.  There's so much beating of the batter that the soft, fluffy texture is almost a given so don't shortchange that step.  This is a great vanilla cake to hold the streusel as the topping got a bit crunchy during baking.  It's almost like having nuts in the topping but only the crisp ones that don't soften and steam during baking.  It might not be the coffee cake I remember from PG&E but it comes pretty close.  I enjoyed the taste test piece as much as I did Martha Stewart's Classic Crumb Cake.  I may try making it again with granulated sugar in the streusel and see how that turns out.  As with most cakes of this type, they're best served warm so you get the best contrast between the soft texture of the cake and the crunchiness of the topping.

Streusel Topping

1/3 cup (2/3 stick) unsalted butter

1 ¼ cups unsifted all-purpose flour

2/3 cup sugar (I used brown sugar)

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Cake

2 ¼ cups unsifted all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

½ teaspoon salt

¾ cup (1 ½ sticks) unsalted butter

1 cup superfine sugar

2 large eggs

1 large egg yolk

1 ½ teaspoons vanilla extract

1 cup milk

1 large egg white

1.     Position a rack in the lower third of the oven and preheat to 350⁰F.  Butter a 9 x 13 x 2” pan.

2.     To make the streusel topping; melt the butter (30 seconds in the microwave usually does it).  Cool slightly.  Add the flour, sugar and cinnamon all at once and stir with a fork until the mixture forms small crumbs.  Take a handful of the crumbs and make a fist to press the mixture into a large clump.  Then separate into smaller clusters, at least two or three times the size of the original crumbs.  Repeat until all of the crumbs have been reshaped.  Set aside.

3.    To make the cake: Sift together the flour, baking powder and salt.  Set aside.

4.    Cut the butter into 1-inch pieces and place in the large bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment to soften on low speed.  Increase speed to medium-high and cream until smooth and light in color, about 1 ½ to 2 minutes.

5.    Add the sugar, 1 tablespoon at a time, taking about 6 to 8 minutes to blend it in well.  Scrape the sides of the bowl as necessary.

6.    Add the eggs and additional yolk, 1 at a time at 1-minute intervals, scraping the sides of the bowl as necessary.  Blend in the vanilla.

7.    Reduce mixer speed to low.  Add the dry ingredients alternately with the milk, dividing the flour mixture into three parts and the milk into two parts, starting and ending with the flour.  Mix just until incorporated after each addition.  Scrape the sides of the bowl and mix for 10 seconds longer.

8.    Spoon the batter into the prepared pan and smooth the surface with the back of a tablespoon.  Beat the egg white lightly with a fork.  Using a pastry brush, spread about half of the beaten egg white over the top of the cake batter.  Discard the remainder.  (The egg white helps wht streusel adhere to the top of the cake.)  Sprinkle the entire surface of the batter generously with the streusel.  Gently pat the crumbs into the batter with the palm of your hand; do not press hard.

9.    Center the pan on the rack and bake in the preheated oven for 40 to 45 minutes, or until the cake is golden brown on top, begins to come away from the sides of the pan, and the streusel is crisp.  A toothpick inserted into the center should come out dry.

10. Remove the cake from the oven and set on a cake rack to cool.  When ready to serve, dust the top with confectioners’ sugar and cut into squares.

Can be stored at room temperature for up to 5 days.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Fusion Brownie

Chocolate Peanut Butter Birthday Fusion Brownie - made April 1, 2011 from Celebrate with Chocolate by Marcel Desaulniers (book #77)

Still baking for the bake sale for Japan on Sunday.  I've committed to donating at least several dozen brownies which I figured meant making a couple of different kinds of brownies in 9 x 13 pans.  Except I forgot my idea of a brownie is smaller than perhaps what people would want to buy at a bake sale.  Meaning I had to cut the brownies into larger pieces because, let's face it, if I were a customer, I'd want a big brownie to make it worth my while.  Not something small, wimpy and just meant to be a taste test piece.  So each 9 x 13 pan was only yielding me 9-12 (good-sized) brownies.  Not to mention I apparently suck at cutting each piece the same size so rather than having very obviously different sizes (why pay the same price for something smaller when someone else got a bigger piece??), I had to trim some of the behemoth pieces down to large.  Not that I wasted the smaller pieces since they're going into care packages and possibly towards the dessert gathering I'm hosting at my house on Sunday.  In any case, that still meant I had to make more brownies.  And since I have recipe ADD, I had to make different brownies than the ones I've already baked so far.

Sticking to what I think would sell and what seems to be a favorite with adults and kids alike (except those with peanut allergies), I settled on another chocolate & peanut butter combo only this time I upped the ante to peanut butter cream cheese to go with the chocolate.  This brownie has peanut butter both in the cream cheese batter and in the chocolate batter itself.  I left off the part about garnishing with chopped peanuts and instead sprinkled with chunks of Reese's peanut butter cups after the brownie had baked and while it was still warm so the peanut butter cups would melt slightly into the top.  It just seemed a little more visually appealing and I figured anyone who likes peanut butter and chocolate together wouldn't mind some peanut butter cups either.  You could even add peanut butter chips to the chocolate batter if you wanted to go all out.

This baked up into a nicely thick brownie.  I didn't time it exactly but I don't think I baked it for as long as the recipe called for, maybe 40-45 minutes instead?  Bake only until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out with moist crumbs, not completely clean.  When I marbleized the batter to swirl the peanut butter cream cheese and the chocolate batters, I deliberately didn't smooth the top and left them craggy from the marbleizing.  I thought the top would smooth out in baking but it actually remained a bit craggy.  I decided I liked that rougher look better and it made for better nooks and crannies for the peanut butter cups to adhere and melt into.

If you like peanut butter cups, you'd like this brownie - it essentially is the brownie version of a peanut butter cup.  The peanut butter cream cheese layer is slightly more dense than the brownie layer but both are moist and the flavors complement each other nicely.  I don't really taste the cream cheese, just the peanut butter.  Although, given the thickness, maybe this is more like a dense peanut butter chocolate cake rather than a brownie.  Either way, chocolate & peanut butter lovers, here you go.

Peanut Butter Cream Cheese Fusion

¾ cup creamy peanut butter

4 ounces cream cheese, cut into 1-ounce pieces

2 tablespoons granulated sugar

1 large egg yolk

1/3 cup sour cream

Chocolate Peanut Butter Brownie

4 ounces (1 stick) unsalted butter, cut into ½-ounce pieces

2/3 cup all-purpose flour

1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1 teaspoon baking powder

¼ teaspoon baking soda

4 ounces semisweet baking chocolate, coarsely chopped

4 ounces unsweetened chocolate, coarsely chopped

1 ½ cups granulated sugar

5 large eggs

¾ cup creamy peanut butter

¼ cup sour cream

1 ½ teaspoons pure vanilla extract

Make the peanut butter cream cheese fusion

1.     Place the peanut butter, cream cheese and sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle.  Mix on low speed for 30 seconds; then increase the speed to medium and beat for 1 minute until combined.  Use a rubber spatula to scrape down the sides of the bowl and the paddle.  Add the egg yolk and beat on medium for 30 seconds.  Scrape down the sides of the bowl and the paddle.  Add the sour cream and beat on medium for 30 seconds until combined.  Remove the bowl from the mixer and use a rubber spatula to finish mixing the ingredients until thoroughly combined.  Set the mixture aside at room temperature until needed.

Make the chocolate peanut butter brownie

2.     Preheat the oven to 325⁰F.

3.     Lightly coat the insides of a 9 x 13 x 2-inch nonstick rectangular baking pan with cooking spray.  Line the bottom of the pan with parchment paper or foil then lightly coat the paper or foil with more cooking spray.  Set aside.

4.     In a sifter combine the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, and baking soda.  Sift onto a large piece of parchment paper and set aside.

5.     Melt the 4 ounces of butter, the semisweet chocolate, and the unsweetened chocolate in the top half of a double boiler; stir until smooth.  Set aside.

6.     Place the sugar and eggs in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle.  Beat on medium-high speed for 4 minutes until slightly thickened and a pale ivory color.  Add the chocolate and butter mixture and beat on medium speed for 30 seconds to combine.  Operate the mixer on the lowest speed while gradually adding the dry ingredients; mix until incorporated, about 35 seconds.  Scrape down the sides of the bowl.  Add the peanut butter, sour cream, and vanilla extract and mix on low to combine, about 15 seconds.  Now beat on medium for 20 seconds.  Remove the bowl from the mixer and use a rubber spatula to finish mixing the batter until thoroughly combined.

7.     Immediately pour about half (about 2 ¾ cups) of the brownie batter into the prepared pan and spread evenly to the edges of the pan.  Pour the Peanut Butter Cream Cheese Fusion over the top of the brownie batter and use an offset spatula to spread evenly to the edges of the pan.  Now pour the remaining brownie batter over the fusion layer and again spread evenly to the edges of the pan.

8.     Marbleize the brownie by dipping the flat blade of a dinner knife into the batter to the bottom of the pan, then lifting the blade of the knife out of the batter in a folding motion like the roll of a wave, repeating about 12 times throughout the batter in the pan.  Smooth any air pockets on the surface of the batter with a spatula.  Sprinkle the peanuts evenly over the batter.  Bake on the center rack in the oven until a toothpick inserted in the center of the brownie comes out clean (I prefer when the toothpick comes out with moist crumbs, not raw batter), 53 to 55 minutes.  Remove the brownie from the oven and cool in the pan at room temperature for 30 minutes.

"Pecan" (or M&M) Fudge Brownies

Pecan Fudge Brownies - made April 1, 2011 from Mary Engelbreit's Cookies (book #75) + Fudge Frosting from A Passion for Chocolate by Meredith Press publishing company (book #76)

You know me well enough by now to know that I generally don't add nuts to brownies unless they're a topping or a bottom crust layer.  This is another brownie for this weekend's bake sale for Japan and my friend Robbie said popular bake sale items are traditionally chocolate and caramel items and that "anything with M&Ms goes early".  Robbie is a mother of 3 so I'm going to take her word as gospel.  I also have 6 nephews under the age of 10 (actually I have way more than that but these 6 are the geographically closest to me) and my experience with them and my nieces as they were growing up is that kids also usually don't like nuts, whether they're allergic to them or they just haven't developed the taste for them (yet).  So one plain fudge brownie, frosted with chocolate frosting and dotted with plain M&Ms coming up.  Visually, they're appealing as well since the bright M&M colors show up well against the chocolate frosting.

The brownie batter is pretty basic and could not have been easier to mix together.  I substituted chocolate chips for the pecans (of course).  As they baked, the brownies formed a very thin layer of that crusty film some brownies get.  I've never cared for that crust but in this case, it doesn't matter since I covered the top with frosting.  Start the frosting only after you take the brownies out because it comes together quickly and you need to use it right away before it hardens.  Make it like a ganache: after the evaporated milk, butter and sugar boil for 5 minutes, pour it directly over the chocolate chips and corn syrup and whisk until glossy, smooth and free of lumps.  Then spread immediately over the brownie.  I added the M&Ms right after the frosting so they'll adhere to the top before the frosting sets.

This isn't a brownie I necessarily advocate eating warm.  The chocolate won't have set so it'll seem a little mushy.  But once it cools, it's nice and fudgy.  It's a personal choice though so you can't really go wrong with however you eat it.  After all, it's chocolate.

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter

4 ounces unsweetened chocolate, coarsely chopped

4 large eggs

2 cups sugar

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

¼ teaspoon salt

¾ cup plus 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour

1 ½ cups pecans or walnuts, coarsely chopped (5 ¼ ounces)

1.     Preheat oven to 350˚F.  Grease a 13 x 9-inch baking pan. 

2.     In a medium saucepan, melt the butter and chocolate over low heat.  Remove from the heat and let cool for about 10 minutes.

3.     In a large bowl, mix the eggs and sugar with a wooden spoon until well blended.  Add the vanilla, then gradually stir in the chocolate mixture and the salt.  Gradually add the flour, mixing until smooth.  Stir in the pecans.

4.     Spread the batter in the prepared baking pan.  Bake for 25 to 28 minutes until the brownies are just set.  A toothpick inserted in the center will not come out clean.  Do not overbake.  Set the pan on a wire rack to cool completely then cut into 24 squares.

Fudge Frosting

One 5-ounce can evaporated milk

½ cup sugar

2 tablespoons butter

1 ½ cups semisweet chocolate pieces

1 tablespoon light corn syrup

1.     In a medium saucepan, combine evaporated milk, sugar and butter.  Cook and stir over medium heat until the mixture comes to a boil.  Boil for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.  Remove pan from heat.

2.     Add semisweet chocolate pieces, stirring until melted.  Add corn syrup; stir until combined.  Use frosting immediately.