Baking Meetup #1 - Cookies

Baking Meetup #1 - Cookies - held September 15, 2019

Caramel Apple Bars (left), Reese's Chip Cookies (top left) Almond Crescent (top right), Chocolate Chip Cookies (right middle), No Bake Lentil Bars (bottom)

One of the things I wanted to do after I settled into my new house was to start a baking meetup in order to meet other baking-minded people. I had a lot going on over the summer and leading into fall but I finally made the time to set up the meetup and hosted the first one at my house.The idea of the meetup was for each person to bring a dessert they'd made along with the recipe to share with the other members. My original plan was for the members to make a dozen for sharing and a dozen for giving away to a nonprofit. It was a good idea in concept and I still believe in it but, being new to Reno, I hadn't yet established many contacts in the nonprofit world who I knew well enough to make the offer for homemade baked goods. So we settled on just sharing among the attendees for now, although I would still love to establish contacts with nonprofits who could use the desserts.

I originally thought we could do a "baking circle" that my friend and culinary school classmate, Annie the Baker, told me she did. A baking circle has a baker's dozen of 13 members who met regularly. So I capped the limit of the meetup at 13.  In hindsight, I'm not sure how I thought I could eat 13 desserts. So it was a good thing that for the first meetup, we had only 6 members show up. 5 people brought something and the 6th confessed her planned dessert didn't turn out but we were glad to see her anyway. Not just so we could all meet and make new friends but also because we needed more eaters for the 5 dozen desserts that showed up, lol.

This post is light on pictures. I was so busy chatting with my fellow bakers that I forgot (a first for me) to take pictures of each dessert. The only pic I have is the one I took of my own plate. Erk,

Each month's meetup has a baking theme and this first one was Cookies. I wanted something easy to get things started and figured cookies would be easy enough. For my own, I made the ubiquitous chocolate chip cookies but I offered two different kinds to see if people could taste the difference. One was Gideon's Bakehouse Copycat Chocolate Chip Cookies that had cake flour and bread flour and the butter was creamed. The other one was the Basic, Great Chocolate Chip Cookies I made for Shyla's wedding and had all-purpose flour and melted butter. It was also a chance for me to make both doughs again and note the differences. I've discovered that while I thought the higher altitude in Reno didn't make much difference to cookies, I've realized it does. Even though I baked from frozen dough like I always do, my cookies are spreading more than when I baked at sea level in the Bay Area. Fortunately, they still tasted good, although no one could really tell the difference between the two. Neither could I.

Here are the other recipes everyone else brought - logging them here even though I don't have decent pictures of them so I can share with everyone else in the meetup who couldn't attend. We held our second baking meetup last weekend and I did a better job of taking pictures there so stay tuned for that post shortly.

from Kim

from Vikki

from Rochelle

from Mary

Shrimp Pad Thai

Shrimp Pad Thai - made September 30, 2019 , modified from Piggy Out

I think pad thai is going to be my go-to dish from now on whenever I want to cook something quick and easy. This recipe is similar to the first one I tried in terms of its ingredients. I substituted tamarind concentrate for the ketchup since I still had some and because I don't like ketchup.

I learned from experience last time and only soaked the rice noodles in tap water, not hot water. When I added it to the pot along with the sauce, that cooked the noodles well enough without making them too mushy like last time. The only mistake I really made is I didn't take the pot off the heat soon enough and the sauce dried up a little.

This pad thai still tasted pretty good but next time, I would remove it from the heat while there were more sauce still coating the noodles. Oh, also, make sure you dissolve the palm sugar in hot water first before adding the rest of the sauce ingredients. Otherwise, nothing really melts the palm sugar and you'll have crunchy bits of sugar in your pad thai, I rectified that for this recipe and it worked pretty well.

14 ounces thin rice noodle
1 cup bean sprouts (I left out)
8 ounces large shrimp
3 eggs, beaten
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 medium-sized shallot, thinly sliced
2 Thai chilies, thinly sliced (I left out)
2 stalks green onion, chopped
olive oil

Sauce
1/4 cup boiling water
3 tablespoons brown sugar (I used palm sugar)
2 tablespoons white vinegar
2 tablespoons fish sauce
1 tablespoon soy sauce
2 tablespoons ketchup (I used tamarind concentrate)

1. Prepare the rice noodles according to the package directions. Drain, add about 3 tablespoons olive oil and mix well to prevent sticking.
2. In a mixing bowl, pour the 1/4 cup boiling water over the palm sugar and stir until dissolved. Whisk together the rest of the sauce ingredients; set aside.
3. Preheat 1 tablespoon of olive oil in a wok over medium heat. When hot, add the beaten eggs, stir and cook until soft scrambled. Transfer to a plate and set aside.
4. Increase heat to medium high. Add 2 tablespoons oil.
5. Add garlic, shallot and Thai chili. Stir and cook until fragrant.
6. Add sauce and rice noodles. Toss until the noodles are thoroughly mixed with the sauce. Add shrimp and stir until cooked. Add scrambled eggs and green onions. Serve immediately.

Classic Pound Cake

Classic Pound Cake - made October 1, 2019 from Perfect Cakes by Nick Malgieri

The origins of pound cake was that it required a pound of each of its ingredients: a pound of butter, a pound of sugar, a pound of flour and a pound of eggs. Hence, "pound" cake. No chemical leaveners and likely no pricey vanilla extract.

I've never personally made a pound cake of those proportions but always pictured something really dense since there were no Kitchen Aid mixers back then to beat and aerate the batter and a true pound cake didn't have chemical leaveners like baking soda or baking powder to also help with the rise.

This recipe from Nick Malgieri doesn't either and if you back-calculate against the original pound cake proportions, the measurements don't quite line up to a pound of each but I did use my trusty Kitchen Aid mixer to beat air into the batter and the pricey vanilla extract for flavoring. For once, I even beat the butter and sugar for the required 5 minutes. Usually, I never beat as long as the recipe suggests as I'm always leery that the butter will become too soft and melt into the batter. But I did this time and the butter-sugar mixture was definitely "light" by the time the 5 minutes were up.

Due to the higher altitude at which I'm baking, I did increase the oven temperature to 350 degrees F and left it there for the entire baking time. I find this necessary to make sure the cake bakes quickly enough to set the structure before it fully bakes. I made this as 3 mini loaves instead of 1 big loaf. It's just easier to store and serve that way.

This is a good, straightforward, classic pound cake. It does have the expected dense texture and a tight crumb. While it wasn't as buttery as I expected, it was a bit flavor-neutral. I think this would be great served warm with melting butter or would be a perfect tea-cake to serve at an afternoon tea.

1/2 pound (2 sticks or 16 tablespoons) unsalted butter, softened
1 cup granulated sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
5 large eggs, room temperature
2 cups cake flour, dip and sweep method, sifted after measuring

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Line a 9 x 5 x 3" loaf pan with parchment paper, lightly spray with nonstick cooking spray and flour.
2. Place the butter and sugar in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment and beat on medium speed until very light, about 5 minutes.
3. Beat in the vanilla. One at a time, beat in 3 of the eggs, beating until smooth after each addition.
4. Reduce the mixer speed to low and beat in one-third of the flour mixture, then another egg, beating until smooth after each addition. Stop the mixer occasionally and scrape down the sides of the bowl with a spatula. Beat in another third of the flour, then, after flour has been absorbed, the last egg. Scrape again and beat in the remaining third of the flour mixture until just combined.
5. Pour the batter into the prepared loaf pan. Bake for 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 hours or until the cake is well risen, cracked on top and golden and a toothpick inserted into the center emerges clean or with a few moist crumbs.
6. Cool the cake for a few minutes then unmold it onto a rack and turn right side up to finish cooling.

Lemon Bars with Lemon Curd

Lemon Bars - made September 13, 2019 from Pastry and Beyond

I have a tried and true lemon bar recipe that everyone loves but every once in awhile I like to try a new recipe for lemon bars. Just in case. I found a really good one that way so it never hurts to keep an open mind to new recipes. Says Recipe ADD Queen.

I haven’t made lemon bars in a long time though and I think I might’ve lost my touch. The lemon curd part turned out fine but the crust? Not so much. Most, though not all, crusts for lemon bars are made by cutting cold butter into a flour-sugar mixture. The key is to cut the butter in fine enough and thoroughly enough so that it’s evenly dispersed and when baked, makes a crust, not a floury layer not held together with enough dispersed butter. 

Guess which one I did? Yep. Too floury. I don’t know if I just didn’t cut the butter in properly or enough or if the recipe held too much flour. I assume the former as the original blog looks like the crust was fine. Which is not how my crust turned out. Sigh. On the plus side, the lemon curd layer was good. The only issue I had with it is it absorbed the powdered sugar dusting really quickly. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing as that shows the top layer is moist. But, for looks, you want to only dust with powdered sugar literally right before serving or it’ll look like you don’t have any powdered sugar on top at all.

dry crust, too floury

Crust
1 1/4 cups (175 grams) all-purpose flour
1/2 cup minus 2 teaspoons (95 grams) granulated sugar
1/2 stick or 4 tablespoons (115 grams) unsalted butter, cut into cubes

Lemon Filling
3 large eggs
1/2 cup and 1 tablespoon (120 grams) granulated sugar
1/3 cup lemon juice
2 teaspoons lemon zest
2 teaspoons (30 grams) unsalted butter, melted and cooled
1 tablespoon (10 grams) all-purpose flour
powdered sugar for dusting the tops of the bars

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line an 8" baking pan with foil and lightly spray with nonstick cooking spray.
2. Crust: mix the flour and sugar in a medium bowl. Add in the cubed butter and cut butter into flour mixture with a fork or two knives until the butter is the size of small peas and the mixture looks like breadcrumbs.
3. Spread the mixture evenly in the prepared pan and bake for 20-25 minutes until golden brown.
4. Filling: mix the lemon zest and sugar in a bowl with a fork or rub with your fingertips to increase the lemon flavor. Add the eggs and whisk until well combined. Add the cooled melted butter and lemon juice; mix well. Add flour and mix until incorporated.
5. Pour filling over hot baked crust. Bake for 12-15 minutes until the filling is set but still soft. Cool to room temperature. Just before serving, generously dust with powdered sugar and cut into squares.

Soft Sugar Cookies

Soft Sugar Cookies - made dough September 17, 2019 from Easy Family Recipes

I already have a new favorite sugar cookie recipe from Butternut Bakery that I discovered a couple of months ago so I wasn't really looking for a new one. But the pictures of Soft Sugar Cookies from Easy Family Recipes looked so good that I decided I had to make it for myself.

Turns out I have another new favorite sugar cookie recipe now. This isn't as sweet but tasted amazingly good and I loved, loved the soft texture. You get that from underbaking so please bake only until the edges are set and look golden brown. The middles might look a little raw and that's okay. Take out of the oven and let sit on the cookie sheets to bake a little longer but don't bake in the oven until it's puffy or cracks appear in the middle. They may be cooked all the way through by then and you'll miss out on the soft, dense texture.

This is my favorite kind of cookie. Make sure you use fresh butter and real vanilla. With this kind of classic simplicity, the taste is due entirely to the quality of the ingredients you use.

Really nice dough, easy to work with, not dry or crumbly, not too soft or sticky

1 cup unsalted butter
1 1/4 cups granulated sugar
1 egg
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract (I used 1 teaspoon vanilla extract and 1/2 teaspoon vanilla bean paste)
2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt

1. In the bowl of a stand mixer, cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Add in the egg and vanilla; mix until just combined.
2. In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt.
3. Add the flour mixture to the butter mixture in three additions, beating until just combined after each addition. Do not overmix.
4. Portion the dough into tablespoon size dough balls. Flatten slightly into thick discs. Cover and chill or freeze for several hours or overnight.
5. When ready to bake, preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line baking sheets with parchment paper. Evenly space dough discs on prepared baking sheets. Bake for 9-11 minutes or until center is just set. Remove from oven and let cool on baking sheets for several minutes. Transfer to wire cooling racks to cool completely.

Chocolate Sour Cream Bundt Cake

Chocolate Sour Cream Bundt Cake - made September 17, 2019 from Damn Delicious

As the blog says, this is damn delicious. Because it was.

Now that I live in higher altitude, I initially thought I would have to make some baking adjustments for "normal" recipes to turn out. But 9 months of baking in Reno hasn't really affected my baked goods, except possibly needing to bake them a little longer than usual.

However, I did realize I've been making mostly cookies and I'd already proven to myself (multiple times) that I don't live at a high enough altitude for my cookie recipes to be that impacted.

But I also realized I haven't really been baking cakes. It wasn't a conscious omission. It's just that when I've baked for my sister's Open Houses or for my parents' social engagements or just their own consumption, it's been more practical to make cookies for easy sharing since they're already individual portions.

So it was time to put a cake to the test. I didn't really alter this recipe in terms of ingredients or mixing method. Instead, based on my cookie baking experience at a higher altitude, I briefly increased the baking temperature.

The recipe calls for baking it at 350 degrees F. I preheated the oven to 375 degrees F and once the oven hit 350, I put the cakes in. Once the oven had fully preheated to 375, I left it at that temperature for 5 minutes then lowered it back down to 350 for the rest of the baking time.

The purpose was to get the cake structure to set quickly at the higher temperature so it wouldn't collapse as it finished baking. Not sure if that made any difference but the cakes did rise correctly and didn't collapse so I'm not going to quibble with it.

And, like I said earlier, this was damn delicious. Great chocolate flavor, perfect soft, tender crumb.

I didn't have any heavy cream when I made this (I thought I did but turns out it was the day of the expiration date and the cream had solidified - eek) so I made my own glaze with a combination of powdered sugar, cocoa and whole milk. It worked out well enough and added a nice richness to the softness of the cake crumb.

This made 3 mini bundt cakes and 2 cupcake-size cakes. I could've used a regular Bundt cake pan but I was in the mood to use my mini Bundt pans and am glad to say the cakes came out of the pans cleanly.

As always, watch the baking time and don't overbake these. Smaller cake pans require less baking time.

Cake
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup granulated sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 cup unsalted butter
1/3 cup cocoa powder
1 cup water
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs
1/2 cup sour cream
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Chocolate Glaze
1/2 cup heavy cream
1 1/2 tablespoons granulated sugar
4 ounces bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped
1 1/2 tablespoons corn syrup

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Lightly coat mini bundt pans with nonstick cooking spray.
2. In a large bowl, combine flour, sugar and baking soda; set aside.
3. In a small saucepan, combine butter, cocoa powder, salt and 1 cup water over medium heat. Cook, stirring, until melted and combined, about 2-3 minutes. Pour mixture over dry ingredients and stir, using a rubber spatula just until combined. Beat in eggs, one at a time, until well combined. Beat in sour cream and vanilla until well combined.
4. Pour batter evenly into bundt pans. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out with a few moist crumbs. Remove from oven and let cool for 10 minutes before inverting cakes onto a wire rack.
5. Make the glaze: combine heavy cream and sugar in a small saucepan over medium heat. Remove from heat and stir in chocolate and corn syrup. Whisk until smooth. Drizzle the glaze evenly over the top of the cakes, allowing to drip down the sides. Let glaze set before serving.

Arroz Caldo - Filipino rice porridge

Arroz Caldo - made September 14, 2019 from Pilipinas Recipes

If it seems like I've been cooking more, it's because I have. Although I prefer baking to cooking, I'm finding cooking isn't as hard as I once thought and while I will always prefer baking, I've been pleasantly surprised lately that what I've been cooking has actually turned out and hasn't been an onerous experience.

And by "turned out", I mean the dishes have tasted like they're supposed to taste. Not just good to eat but how other, more experienced cooks have made them. Case in point, this Arroz Caldo. Arroz Caldo is the Filipino version of savory rice porridge, flavored with ginger and saffron, often made with chicken and traditional arroz caldo includes a boiled egg in each serving. It's comfort food all the way in Filipino cuisine

The beauty of arroz caldo is, beyond how easy it is to make, is you can make it as thick or as soupy as you want. Just thin it with chicken broth if it gets too thick or boil it as bit longer if it's too soupy. It's all in your preference.

Boil the eggs separately and add the peeled, whole boiled egg when you serve the arroz caldo. I like to soft boil my eggs then add it to the pot once I've turned the heat off. Arroz Caldo can also be made with tripe but I don't care for tripe so I left it out and went with chunks of boneless, skinless chicken breast instead.

Saffron is freaking expensive but you only need a pinch or two for flavoring. I cut the ginger pieces rather large so they'd been easier to see (and fish out) so you don't eat the actual ginger. It's also there for flavoring.

Top with crispy garlic

2 tablespoons vegetable oil
3 garlic cloves, diced
1 1-inch piece of fresh ginger, peeled and diced
1 small onion or shallot, diced
pinch of saffron
1 pound of boneless skinless chicken thighs, cut into 1-inch pieces
1 cup jasmine rice
5-6 cups low-sodium chicken stock or water
2 tablespoons fish sauce or salt, to taste
2 tops of green onions, thinly sliced for garnish
2 small limes or calamansi
Soft-boiled whole eggs, shelled

1. In a pot, saute garlic in oil over medium heat and cook until golden brown and crisp, about 2-3 minutes. Transfer garlic to plate lined with a paper towel to drain; set aside.
2. Add ginger, onion and saffron to the pot and cook until translucent, about 3 minutes. Stir in the chicken and brown for 5-6 minutes.
3. Add rice, chicken stock and fish sauce or salt.
4. Cover and bring to a slight boil, them simmer over low heat. Simmer until the chicken and rice are cooked through, stirring frequently, about 25-35 minutes. Add more stock or water, depending on how thick you want the porridge. Add boiled eggs. 
5. Serve in bowls and top with crispy fried garlic, and green onion with lime juice and fish sauce on the side.