Pumpkin Coffee Cake

Pumpkin Coffee Cake - made October 29, 2011 from Crazy for Crust's blog

I think I've mentioned before that one of the things I enjoy about blogging is getting exposed to all the other foodie blogs out there.  Unfortunately I can't follow them all and even the ones I do follow, I don't always have time to read all the entries.  But when I'm lucky, I have the right timing to not only catch up on some of the blogs but also catch a yummy-sounding and looking recipe like this one from Crazy for Crust.  Dorothy has an awesome blog and I encourage you to check it out for not only some delicious goodies but also some very clever and creative concoctions.  When I saw this one for Pumpkin Coffee Cake (click on the blog title to go to the original recipe on Dorothy's blog), it looked too good to pass up.  I still had leftover pumpkin puree from the Brown Butter Pumpkin Cupcakes and just enough milk that the recipe called for.  Plus I love streusel and coffee cake so it was a no-brainer to try this out.

I've learned to trust Dorothy's recommendations as she and I seem to have similar tastes.  This was validated by this recipe.  She loved this one and so did I.  It was super easy to make and turned out really well.  The cake is moist and the streusel on top crisped up to provide a nice contrast to the soft texture of the cake.  The only thing  I changed is I didn't have pumpkin pie spice so I substituted cinnamon instead.  Still turned out great - thanks, Dorothy!

Lemon Chess Bars

Lemon Chess Bars - made October 26, 2011 from The Cake Mix Bible from Publications International (book #174)

I'm getting close to the end of my baking challenge.  I think I have only a couple dozen more books to go.  At this point, I confess, I just want to be done with the thing.  Not really just to lift my self-imposed ban of buying new baking books but also because my enthusiasm for it is flagging.  It was a good idea for awhile and good discipline for me to stick with what I have and to understand I don't have to buy every shiny new object, aka baking book, that catches my eye.  Matter of fact, I'm so overwhelmed with what I already have that my enthusiasm for more baking books has waned a bit.  It's hard to keep being acquisitive when you look at what you've already bought yet rarely use.  I'm all for shopping and I support retail therapy when needed but at the end of the day, it's just so much stuff.  And I know something I buy with such enthusiasm today will likely be a Goodwill donation in the future.  It's just a matter of time until I like something better or do a purging declutter because I get overwhelmed by how much I have.  This isn't a complaint as I'm one of the lucky ones to have that problem.  But it is a factual observation of my patterns of behavior.  Fortunately I've managed to tone down that acquisitive behavior in recent years.  I just still need to purge some of the by-products of that behavior, aka "all this stuff" from past years.

This recipe came from one of those books - something I don't understand now why I bought it, considering I don't really believe in cake mix.  I also don't believe in cream cheese so I'm not sure why I picked this recipe to try, likely because it looked easy and because it seemed like something I would like.  I was wrong.  It was easy enough to put together but I don't really like cream cheese unless there's only a little of it and it's paired with chocolate.  That wasn't the case here.  Other people who like cream cheese might like these bars for the very reason I didn't care for it: tasted too much like cream cheese :).  On to the next recipe and the next cookbook in the challenge.

1 (18.25-ounce) package white or yellow pudding-in-the-mix cake mix

2 eggs

1/3 cup vegetable oil

1 package (8 ounces) cream cheese

1/3 cup sugar

1 teaspoon lemon juice

1.    Preheat the oven to 350⁰F.

2.   Combine cake mix, 1 egg and oil in large bowl; stir until crumbly.  Reserve 1 cup crumb mixture.  Press remaining crumb mixture into ungreased 9 x 13-inch cake pan.  Bake 15 minutes or until light golden brown.

3.   Combine remaining egg, cream cheese, sugar and lemon juice in medium bowl; beat until smooth and well blended.  Spread over baked layer.  Sprinkle with reserved crumb mixture.  Bake 15 minutes.  Cool in pan on wire rack; cut into bars.

Snickerdoodle Cupcakes

Snickerdoodle Cupcakes - made October 23, 2011 from Martha Stewart's Cupcakes

Another recipe from Martha Stewart's Cupcakes book, mostly because I had it out and when I was flipping through it and saw the Brown Butter Pumpkin Cupcake recipe, I also saw this recipe and wanted to try it as well.  Martha's version called for frosting it with vanilla frosting and dusting it with sugar and cinnamon on top.  I've included the frosting recipe below in case you want to try it Martha's way.  Or you can follow my version to make it a little more snickerdoodle-y.  That is to say, I brushed the top with melted butter then dunked it in a cinnamon sugar mixture, rolling it right around to get that mixture adhering to the melted butter.  YUM.  I liked my way better, not only because I'm not a frosting person but also because the cinnamon sugar topping really makes it more of a snickerdoodle cupcake to me.  The cupcake itself is a nice cinnamon-flavored cupcake, great texture, soft, moist and all a cupcake is meant to be.  But the melted butter-cinnamon-sugar combo really made the cupcake.  The only thing I would do differently next time is make these as mini cupcakes.  They'd be smaller but then you could roll the whole thing in cinnamon sugar rather than just the top for more all-over goodness.

1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
1 ½ cups cake flour (not self-rising), sifted
1 tablespoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon, plus ½ teaspoon for dusting
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 ¾ cups sugar, plus 2 tablespoons for dusting
4 large eggs, room temperature
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1 ¼ cups milk

1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Line standard muffin tins with paper liners. Sift together both flours, baking powder, salt and 1 tablespoon cinnamon.
2. With an electric mixer on medium-high speed, cream butter and sugar until pale and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating until each is incorporated, scraping down sides of bowl as needed. Beat in vanilla. Reduce speed to low. Add flour mixture in three batches, alternating with two additions of milk, and beating until combined after each.
3. Divide batter evenly among lined cups, filling each three-quarters full. Bake, rotating tins halfway through, until a cake tester inserted in centers comes out clean, about 20 minutes. Transfer tins to wire racks to cool completely before removing cupcakes. Cupcakes can be stored up to 2 days at room temperature, or frozen up to 2 months.
4. To finish, combine remaining ½ teaspoon cinnamon and 2 tablespoons sugar. Using a pastry bag fitted with a large plain tip (Ateco #809 or Wilton #1A), pipe frosting on each cupcake. Hold bag over cupcake with tip just above top, and squeeze to create a dome of frosting then release pressure and pull up to form a peak. Using a small, fine sieve, dust peaks with cinnamon sugar. Cupcakes are best eaten the day they are frosted; keep at room temperature until ready to serve.

Fluffy Vanilla Frosting
1 ½ cups unsalted butter, room temperature
1 pound confectioners’ sugar, sifted
½ teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1. With an electric mixer, beat butter on medium high speed until pale and creamy, about 2 minutes.
2. Reduce speed to medium. Add the confectioners’ sugar, ½ cup at a time, beating well after each addition and scraping down sides of bowl as needed; after every two additions, raise speed to high and beat 10 seconds to aerate frosting, then return to medium. This process should take about 5 minutes. Frosting will be very pale and fluffy.
3. Add vanilla, and beat until frosting is smooth. If not using immediately, frosting can be refrigerated up to 10 days in an airtight container. Before using, bring to room temperature and beat on low speed until smooth again, about 5 minutes.

Caramel Coconut Oreo Brownies - Take 2

Caramel Coconut Oreo Brownies revisited - made October 24, 2011, adapted brownie recipe from Cooking with Convection by Beatrice Ojakangas (book #173)

If at first you don't succeed, try another recipe.  I was determined to conquer this brownie since I pseudo-invented it for my Oreo fixation and it had to be better than my last attempt.  I think I finally got it right with this version or at least better.  I made the changes I suggested last time in that I baked them in a 9" baking pan so they wouldn't be so thick and take so long to bake and I tried a different brownie recipe.  This one is still fudgy but not so much as to be mousse- or pudding-like.  It also helped that I baked it longer than I might normally have if I was making this as standalone brownie.  This took about 40 minutes in my oven before I was satisfied with the toothpick test.

The Oreo crust makes a crisp contrast to the brownie and the chewy coconut caramel layer in between also offers a good texture contrast.  It did seem a trifle too sweet to me though but that's possibly because I've now tried variations of this brownie a couple of times and I was overloading on the sugar.  But at least this version has three distinct layers that you can see instead of everything mushing together.

Brownie baking tip: To make cleanup more easy, every time I bake brownies or bar cookies, no matter what the recipe says, I line the baking pan with foil and spray with nonstick cooking spray.  When the brownie is done, all you have to do is lift it out using the foil and lay it out on a cutting board to cool and cut.

Oreo Cookie crust
1 regular-size package of Oreos (minus the 3 or 4 - cough - that I ate), processed to crumbs in a food processor
4 tablespoons butter, melted and cooled
1 teaspoon vanilla

Caramel Coconut layer
1 11-ounce package of caramel bits
3-4 tablespoons of milk (I didn't measure exactly but you want the caramel to be fairly free-flowing liquid, not too thick)
1 cup of coconut (add more if you're a coconut freak like me)

Brownie layer
2 ounces unsweetened chocolate

8 tablespoons butter

2 eggs

1 cup sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

¼ teaspoon salt

½ cup flour

1.    Preheat the oven to convection bake at 325⁰F (or 350⁰F for a non-convection setting).  Line a 9-inch square pan with foil and spray with nonstick cooking spray.
2.   Combine crust ingredients and spread evenly in the bottom of the pan.  Bake for 10 minutes. 

3.   Melt the caramels and milk.  Add coconut.  Spread carefully over hot crust, taking care not to disturb the cookie crumb crust.  It's easier if you drop in small dollops over the crust rather than trying to spread it out from one big clump.
4.    Place the chocolate and butter in a small saucepan over the lowest heat and stir until melted together.

5.   With an electric mixer, beat the eggs, sugar, vanilla and salt on low speed in a mixing bowl until light.  Add the chocolate and butter mixture.  Stir in the flour.  Pour the batter into the baking pan. over the caramel layer.

4.    Bake on the center rack for 35-40 minutes or until the brownies are just barely set.  Remove from the oven and cool completely before cutting.

Cocoa Fudge Cake

Cocoa Fudge Cake - made October 23, 2011 from Carrot Cake Murder by Joanne Fluke

You can see the moist layer where the frosting melts into the cake - yum....

My cousin Christine asked me to bake for her son's school's bake sale and of course I said I would.  I fell back on this recipe for chocolate cake because it's both easy to make and it called for spreading the frosting on top of warm cake.  I have two other recipes that call for the same thing and both of them are "bomb" as my niece would say so I thought this recipe would follow in their footsteps.  Plus it comes from the same Hannah Swensen culinary mystery book that I got the red velvet cookies from so it needed no other endorsement.

I also discovered Joanne Fluke has a new book out that aggregates all the recipes from her previous Hannah Swensen books.  I barely managed to control my "we wants The Precious!" response and diverted my hand, twitching to click "Buy It Now", to click on "Add To My Wish List" instead.  But that's just a delaying tactic.  You know it's just a matter of time before I buy the darn thing.  I have to keep reminding myself of the baking challenge I haven't finished yet that's supposed to preclude me from buying anymore new baking books until I've made at least one recipe from the ones I already own.  Not to mention the fact that I already have all of Joanne Fluke's Hannah Swensen mystery books so it's not like I don't already have these recipes ("but it would be all conveniently in one book instead of multiple ones", inner Gollum whines).

Anyway, this is a very liquid batter so it doesn't take long to bake and has a soft texture, like from a box mix but better tasting. This is similar to the other chocolate sheet-cake type recipes I've made before and I like it just as well.  It's soft and moist and the frosting melting into the top of the cake is the perfect touch.  When you need something quick and easy to satisfy a chocolate fix, this is a good go-to recipe.  Another winner from Carrot Cake Murder.

2 cups granulated sugar

2 cups flour (dip and sweep method)

1 cup butter

1 cup water

3 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder

½ cup milk

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 teaspoon baking soda

2 eggs, beaten

1.    Preheat oven to 350⁰F.  Line a 9” x 13” baking pan with foil and spray with nonstick cooking spray.

2.    In a large bowl, stir the sugar and the flour together.  Set it aside on the counter.

3.    Put the butter, water and cocoa powder into a saucepan and bring it to a boil over medium heat.

4.    Pour the cocoa mixture over the sugar and flour, and mix it all up together.

5.    Whisk the milk, vanilla extract, baking soda and eggs together in a small bowl.

6.    Add the egg mixture to the large bowl.  Stir until thoroughly incorporated.

7.    Pour the batter into the prepared baking pan.  Bake for 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean.

Chocolate Frosting

½ cup butter

3 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder

1/3 cup milk

1 one-pound box of powdered sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1.    Place the butter, cocoa powder, and milk in a medium-size saucepan.  Bring them to a boil, stirring constantly.

2.    Remove the pan from the heat and add the vanilla.  Stir in the powdered sugar, ½ cup at a time, until the frosting is thickened, but still “pourable”.

3.    Pour the frosting on the hot cake and spread it out quickly with a spoon.

 

Brown Butter Pumpkin Cupcakes

Brown Butter Pumpkin Cupcakes with Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting - made October 22, 2011 from Martha Stewart's Cupcakes

I love this cookbook. Half of it is very "Martha", as in filled with fancy things to do with cupcakes that no normal, decorating-impaired person like myself, can actually do.  And some are decorated so fancy that most people would probably rather admire them than eat them.  But the recipes are usually very reliably good and there are some simple, straightforward ones sprinkled in with the fancy.  I usually stick to those.

I didn't start liking pumpkin until recently and although I still don't like pumpkin pie (it's a texture thing), I do enjoy other pumpkin baked goods, namely anything cakey.  Or cupcakey.  Plus I've already established I love the flavor of browned butter.  Add a cinnamon cream cheese frosting and this shrieks "it's fall" to me.  The original recipe calls for glazing it with a brown butter icing but I was in the mood for something more "frosting" than "icing" so I went with my own version of a cinnamon cream cheese frosting.

These came out slightly more dense than a typical cupcake, probably because not a lot of air gets beaten into the batter.  The browned butter flavor wasn't very pronounced and would probably have been brought out more with the brown butter icing.  The pumpkin flavor tended to dominate.  But overall, I liked this cupcake.  It was moist and tasted like a good little pumpkin cake.  More importantly, it wasn't overly spiced like some pumpkin baked goods tend to be.  For the cinnamon cream cheese frosting,  I used 4 tablespoons of butter, 8 tablespoons of cream cheese, 1 teaspoon of vanilla, 1 teaspoon of cinnamon and enough powdered sugar to make it the consistency I wanted.  I never measure but it was probably in the neighborhood of 2 1/2 to 3 cups.

¾ cup (1 ½ sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature 1 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
¼ cup fresh sage leaves, cut into chiffonade (optional - I left it out)
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon cinnamon
¼ teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
1 cup canned pumpkin puree
1 cup packed light brown sugar
½ cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs

1. Preheat oven to 325°F. Brush standard muffin tins with butter; dust with flour, tapping out excess. In a saucepan, melt the butter over medium-low heat. Add the sage, if desired, and continue to cook, swirling occasionally, until butter turns golden brown. Skim foam from the top, and remove from heat. Pour into a bowl to stop the cooking, leaving any burned sediment behind; let cool.

2. Whisk together the flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves. In another bowl, whisk together the pumpkin puree, both sugars, eggs, and brown-butter mixture. Add flour mixture, and whisk until just combined.

3. Divide batter evenly among lined cups; filling each three-quarters full. Bake, rotating tins halfway through, until a cake tester inserted in centers comes out clean, about 20 minutes. Transfer tins to wire racks to cool completely before removing cupcakes. Cupcakes can be stored overnight at room temperature, or frozen up to 2 months, in airtight containers.

4. To finish, dip top of each cupcake in icing, then turn over quickly and let set. Cupcakes are best eaten the day they are glazed; keep at room temperature until ready to serve.

Twix Brownie Bars

Twix Brownie Bars - made October 22, 2011 and modified from Delicious Discoveries blog with brownie recipe adapted from Ultimate Chocolate by Patricia Lousada (book #172)

When you think of Halloween, many people think about the costumes and dressing up, spooky decorations, orange, black, and scary movies.  For me, it's always been about the candy.  I hated dressing up in costumes, even when I was a kid.  It was just so unnatural to put on some get up and pretend to be someone else or something that you're not. What was the point??  It wasn't my thing.  I think I was just born old.  However, in that wonderful American tradition of trick or treating every October 31st, I would shamelessly set aside those scruples and head out into the neighborhood with my friends in the name of candy gathering. I'd have my plastic pumpkin pail and chant out "trick or treat!" with the best of them.  The "good houses" were the ones who gave out snack-size Snickers, Twix, Almond Joys and Kit Kats.  The BEST house in the neighborhood was the one who gave out the full-size bars.  Serious joy.  You have to understand, my parents never bought candy.  It was bad for our teeth, bad for our health,  a waste of money, blah blah.  So Halloween to a kid with my sweet tooth was probably better than Christmas.

Now, as an adult, I don't really buy the Halloween candy except to give out and/or to use in baking.  My sweet tooth has evolved to a higher level of snobbishness than "grocery store chocolate".  But I still have fond memories of the candy I used to enjoy during Halloween time.  Twix was one of them, mostly because of the shortbread.  And the caramel.  Plus the chocolate.  Okay, I liked all of it.  So naturally, I also liked the concept of the homemade Twix bar that's made with a shortbread base, a brownie layer, topped with a caramel layer and enrobed in chocolate.  Now this is right up my alley.

You want 3 distinct layers: shortbread crust, brownie then caramel layer

I adapted this recipe from Delicious Discoveries' blog and made a couple of modifications, mostly cutting out the initial chilling steps.  You don't want the shortbread to get too brown in the first baking, just a pale golden, since it'll keep on baking when you bake the brownie layer on top of it. But don't underbake it either because you want it to bake enough to provide a crisp texture.  Follow the proportions of the caramel layer I listed below as that set up perfectly when chilled.  If you add too much heavy cream, your caramel won't set up and will be too liquid which will make it difficult to enrobe in chocolate.  Too little cream and your caramel will be too hard and chewy.

The pieces before enrobing, cut into small rectangles and brush off the crumbs

The last step calls for enrobing in chocolate.  Normally, chocolate should be tempered first if you're going to use it as a coating.  By that, I mean it needs to be melted and raised to a certain temperature, depending on the type of chocolate you use but typically it should be to 100-105 degrees F (dark chocolate on the higher end, white chocolate on the lower end, milk chocolate in the middle).  Raising them to the higher temp destabilizes the crystals.  Then you add a "seed" chocolate which is a piece of solid chocolate in the same flavor you're using, i.e. add a milk chocolate seed to melted milk chocolate, dark to dark, etc.  Once you add the seed chocolate, stir the melted chocolate around it until it's in the proper working temperature.  For milk chocolate, that's 86-88 degrees, for dark chocolate 88-90, for white chocolate 80-82.  The seed chocolate allows the melted chocolate a template to re-form their crystals around.  Once your melted chocolate is at the working temperature, you can now use it for enrobing.

They really do look like little Twix bars....from a distance :)

What happens if you don't temper chocolate first?  When your chocolate cools and sets, if isn't tempered properly, you'll see greyish streaks on your enrobed product.  That's the cocoa fat that separated out.  It doesn't affect the taste but your end product won't look as pretty.  Tempering chocolate isn't hard but it can be time consuming and if you don't have a tempering machine, you at least need a good thermometer, preferably an instant-read digital thermometer.  I do have a tempering machine but I don't normally use it unless I'm making a batch of homemade truffles or a lot of things that need enrobing.  My digital thermometer ran out of batteries long ago and I have yet to replace it.  Which means I didn't temper these properly.  Some turned out okay, some came out a little streaky.  But I was in a hurry because I wanted to get these done and set so I could package them up and make the Saturday mail to send them out in a care package.  Hopefully the recipients don't mind.

The close up

Shortbread layer
1 cup flour

1/4 cup sugar

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, softened

Caramel layer
11 oz bag Kraft caramel bits

2 Tablespoons heavy cream

Brownie recipe for 8 x 8 pan

Good quality milk or semisweet chocolate for enrobing

Brownie recipe from Ultimate Chocolate by Patricia Lousada

½ cup butter

1/3 cup (45 g) cocoa powder

2 eggs

1 cup sugar

½ cup self-rising flour (I substituted 1/2 cup all purpose flour + 1/4 teaspoon baking powder + 1/4 teaspoon salt)

¾ cup walnuts (optional)

1. Preheat oven to 350⁰F.  Line an 8” square baking pan with foil and spray with nonstick cooking spray.
2. For the shortbread layer: beat butter until soft and creamy, add sugar and flour and mix until it forms a dough (do not overbeat).  Pat into an even layer in prepared pan and bake for 20-25 minutes until golden brown.
3. While shortbread is baking, prepare brownies: melt the butter in a small, heavy-based saucepan, then stir in the cocoa until blended and set aside.
4. Beat the eggs until light and fluffy.  Gradually add the sugar and stir in the chocolate mixture.  Sift the flour over the top and fold it into the mixture.  Fold in the nuts, if using.
5. Once the shortbread layer is done, pour the brownie mixture over it in an even layer and bake for 30-35 minutes, or until just cooked through and springy to the touch. 
6. Place pan in the refrigerator to cool. Once brownies are firm, heat caramel bits and heavy cream until uniformly liquid. Pour melted caramel over brownies and spread evenly. Refrigerate again until firm. (Do not cheat this step.)
7. Grab the ends of the foil and remove from pan. Peel the foil off the sides and bottom and place the brownies on a cutting board and cut into thin bars. Melt chocolate for enrobing and dip bars, placing on a wax paper lined baking sheet until chocolate is set.

Caramel Coconut Brownies with Oreo Crust

Caramel Coconut Brownies with Oreo Crust - made October 16, 2011, base brownie recipe adapted from All About Chocolate by Carole Bloom (book #171)

After the last 3 kinda ho-hum baking experiments, I needed to go back to my baking bench strength - brownies.  They're my baking comfort zone and I wanted to send another care package to my nieces.  I had already sent one (or 3) to my niece who's at a school further away from us.  My mom had bought her a bunch of mostly Asian food at her request because apparently you can't get coconut juice, ramen noodles, Choco-Pie, Pocky, Yan-Yan and Asian chex mix (my niece's term for it) where she now lives.  But like any Filipino lola (grandmother) who can't bear the idea of her grandchild not having the food she wants, my mom went a little overboard in all the stuff she bought for my niece.  As in, I couldn't fit it all in 1 large priority mail flat rate box.  So I sent one box and promised my niece I'd send the rest later on.

It's now later on and I have just enough room left in the new box to squeeze in some brownies.  Plus I wasn't seeing my other niece for a few weeks so it was time she got a care package of brownies from me too.  She had visited earlier and my mom already loaded her up with food a couple of weeks ago so least I didn't have to send her a month's worth of groceries too, lol.

This time around I experimented with a coconut caramel layer.  First I made an Oreo cookie crust for the bottom layer.  You may notice I'm going through an Oreo crust phase, similar to when I went through the nutella crunch topping phase for all the brownies I was making.  There's nothing more to it than I want to sneak in a few Oreos as a snack but use up the rest of the package in the brownie crust so I don't end up eating the whole package.  Don't ask why I don't just buy the snack pack that comes with 6 Oreos.  Then that would be admitting that I buy Oreos just to consume them whereas if I buy the full package, the primary intent is to use them in brownies to give away, not for direct consumption by me.  Trust me, there's a logic to that which only I can follow.

The next layer was melted caramels (I melted the 11-ounce bag of Kraft caramel bits with a few tablespoons of heavy cream) to which I mixed in about a cup of coconut.  I love coconut and caramel and this thing already had an Oreo cookie crust so what was another (few) thousand calories?  Lastly, I adapted this brownie recipe from Carole Bloom's book.  The modifications I made is I didn't beat the eggs and sugar like she instructed because I didn't want a lot of air in these brownies and wanted them dense.  I also increased the flour to half a cup so it wouldn't be fudgy soft.

You can tell the brownie layer isn't well baked

In an 8-inch pan, this actually makes a fairly thick brownie.  You need to make sure you bake it long enough.  Angle the toothpick for the doneness test so that your toothpick is mostly going through the brownie layer.  If you hit the caramel layer, your toothpick will come out with goo, whether the brownies are fully baked or not.  I wasn't trying to underbake these brownies but I inadvertently did.  The toothpick test wasn't quite clean but the crumbs clinging to it looked right and it wasn't raw batter.  So I took them out after 30 minutes or so.  I should've left them in for longer because the caramel layer keeps the brownies from baking that quickly.  They're still good but would've benefited from a longer baking time.  As it was, I felt only the edges and corners were edible - the middle pieces were too "raw batter" to be nothing more than just barely past liquid stage gooeyness.  If I had been making a chocolate pudding, this would've been a success.  As it is, this now makes the 4th ho-hum baking experiment.  Yikes.  I don't think I've had this bad of a baking streak in awhile.  Now I feel like I have to make it up to my nieces and send them another package soon with better brownies.  I have a reputation to maintain, lol.

Oh, update to this post because after I wrote all the above, one of my nieces got her package and her thank you text to me read: "Brownies....are heaven.  Quite possibly my new favorite ever."  Huh.  Go figure.

In any case, learn from my mistakes!  I would recommend doing something like this in a 9-inch pan so the brownies aren't quite so thick and the 3 layers are a bit thinner.  This will help the top brownie layer bake more.  I also want to try this with a different base brownie recipe, one that has a bit more of a dense texture rather than a soft one.  You can tell the brownie will be softer and be more of a mousse-like texture if it has only a small amount of flour in it like the original recipe for this did.  Because the caramel layer is already soft and liquid-y, your brownie layer should be a bit firmer and something you can really sink your teeth into.

7 ounces bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped

6 ounces (1 ½ sticks) unsalted butter, cut into small pieces

4 large eggs, at room temperature

1 cup sugar

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1 teaspoon dark rum

1 teaspoon instant espresso powder dissolved in 1 teaspoon water

1/3 cup all-purpose flour (I used ½ cup)

Pinch of salt

1.     Preheat oven to 350⁰F.  Line an 8” square baking pan with foil and spray with nonstick cooking spray.

2.     Place the chocolate and butter together in the top of a double boiler over hot, not simmering, water.  Stir frequently with a rubber spatula so they melt evenly.

3.     In the bowl of an electric stand mixer using the wire whip attachment, beat the eggs and sugar together until they are very thick, pale colored and hold a ribbon when the beaters are lifted, about 5 minutes.  Blend in the vanilla, rum and espresso.

4.    Combine the flour with the salt and add slowly to the egg mixture with the mixer at low speed.  Stop and scrape down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula and mix again.

5.    Take the double boiler off the heat, remove the top pan from the water and wipe it dry.  Pour the melted chocolate and butter into the mixture and blend thoroughly. 

6.    Pour the batter into the prepared pan.  Bake the brownies in the preheated oven for 30 to 35 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted 2 inches in from the edge still has moist crumbs clinging to it.  The center will be very moist.  Remove from the oven and cool completely on a wire rack.

Cinnamon Apple Bumpy Bread

Cinnamon Apple Bumpy Bread - made October 16, 2011 from Butter Sugar Flour Eggs by Gale Gand (book #170)

Although you can get apples year-round, autumn is the best season for them and overcast, rainy days always make me want apple desserts. Apples are my rare exception to including in desserts rather than having the fruit only in its natural form.  Apple cobbler is a favorite comfort dessert and almost the only kind of pie I'll eat is apple.  I normally don't like any kind of fruit in bread either and when we made panettone in culinary school, I persuaded our chef instructor to let me make it with chopped up chunks of milk chocolate instead of the traditional fruit.  (Although I don't necessarily like chocolate and bread together either, that version of panettone turned out pretty well.)

Upon reading this recipe, it struck me as a form of monkey bread, something else I also want to make someday.  The basic elements are the same: let the dough do a first rising, break off chunks and roll into dough balls, (for monkey bread, you also roll them in butter/cinnamon/sugar). put together in the pan and do a second rising.  For this recipe, the hardest part was rolling the dough into balls because the apples got in the way and made it messy.  I ended up cutting into chunks and squishing together in the pan without doing a lot of rolling.   Oh and I skipped the apple pie filling - from a can, are you kidding?  When it's the prime season for fresh apples?  Instead, I large-diced 2 Fuji apples, cooked them until crisp-tender with 2 tablespoons of butter, 2 tablespoons of brown sugar and 1 teaspoon of cinnamon and used that as the filling.  Skipped the egg yolk entirely.

View from the top

After all that, I really want to say that this turned out great and will become an autumn staple in my baking arsenal.  Sigh.  Not so.  This didn't turn out like how I wanted and I'm not sure how much is my fault and how much is due to the recipe since I messed up enough to shoulder the entire burden.  First, I wasn't sure how viable my yeast was and I didn't have enough time to proof it to check before I used it.  Second, since I was short on time, I only let it rise long enough as dictated by the recipe, not by how much I maybe should have depending on how it looked after the first and second rising.  Third, never make any yeasted product when you don't have enough time.  The biggest problem with this bread is, because either my yeast wasn't active enough or I didn't let it rise enough or both, the bread came out too dense and heavy.  The texture wasn't bread-chewy.  It was more like really heavy, dense bread that didn't rise enough..... because that's what it was.

It also didn't have as much flavor as I expected considering the fresh apples, the melted butter slathered on all over and the cinnamon sugar sprinkled on top of that.  With all that and I still didn't think it was sweet enough, you know there's a problem.  But I really want this recipe or some semblance of it to turn out so I will likely try it again at a later date - when I have more time. Ugh. I almost didn't blog this one and wanted to ignore it so I wouldn't have to admit to the failure but this blog is about my baking odyssey, not about just the ones that turned out.  Failures are important to acknowledge and learn from as well, in baking, blogging and life.  Even when I don't want to admit it :).

For the bread

½ cup plus 2 tablespoons lukewarm water

¾ teaspoon salt

3 tablespoons sugar

2 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into pieces

1 ½ ounces fresh yeast or 3 ounces dry yeast

3 cups bread flour

1 egg

For the filling

2 ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 ½ tablespoons sugar

¾ cup canned apple pie filling

1 egg yolk

For the glaze

4 tablespoons (½ stick) unsalted butter, melted

¼ cup sugar

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1.   Butter a 7-cup loaf pan and place it on a baking sheet.  Butter a large bowl.

2.   Make the dough: In a mixer fitted with a dough hook, mix the water, salt, sugar, butter, yeast, flour, and egg at low speed for 8 minutes.  Remove the dough to the buttered bowl and cover with a damp cloth.  Let rise in a warm place for 1 hour.

3.   Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured work surface and roll out into a large circle, about 14 inches in diameter and 1/8” thick.

4.   Add the filling: Place the cinnamon, sugar, apple pie filling and egg yolk in the center of the dough.  Fold one side of the dough over the filling, then the other, as though you are folding a letter.  With a large knife, chop the dough into 1-inch pieces.  Using your hands, lightly toss the dough pieces together, turning them over.  Push the pieces of dough back together into a loose loaf and transfer to the pan.

5.   Cover with a damp towel and let rise in a warm place until the dough is 1 inch above the pan rim, 1 to 1 ½ hours. 

6.   Heat the oven to 350⁰F.  Bake the loaf until golden brown, 30 to 40 minutes.  Let cool in the pan, then turn out onto a wire rack.

7.   Make the glaze: While the bread is still warm, set the wire rack and bread on a sheet pan.  Thickly brush the bread on all sides, including the bottom, with melted butter.  Mix the sugar and cinnamon in a large shallow dish and roll the loaf in the cinnamon sugar.  Return the bread to the rack and let cool completely. 

Butterscotch Shortbread

Butterscotch Shortbread - made October 15, 2011 from Shortbread by Jann Johnson (book #169)

I love shortbread.  It's got the whole butter thing going on and good shortbread is worth every (astronomical) calorie.  When you make shortbread, be sure to use fresh butter - it doesn't have to come straight from the dairy farm but don't use butter that's been sitting in your refrigerator for weeks either.  Butter is such a key component of shortbread that its flavor will definitely come through so use the good (fresh) stuff.  When spreading the shortbread dough, you also want to take care to spread it as evenly as possible.  Shortbread isn't just about taste; it's also about texture.  If your shortbread is uneven, the thinnest part will bake faster and may be of a perfect texture while the thickest part may be underbaked and be cakey rather than have the melting-soft-crisp texture of good shortbread.

My favorite shortbread is from Regan Daley's In the Sweet Kitchen but I wanted to try this recipe as well and see how it stacks up.  Similar to the Butter Toffee Crunch Shortbread recipe, it uses rice flour which adds to the tender texture of shortbread.  Although it didn't call for it, I also added chopped up butterscotch chips to give it an additional butterscotch flavor which is what I enjoy from Regan Daley's recipe.

Despite the addition, this didn't measure up to my favorite shortbread recipe.  It was good but I preferred the other one.  The most common problem with most shortbreads is too much butter and this fell into that category.  I baked it for even longer than the recipe directed since I knew another common problem - and a mistake I've made more often than not - is not baking shortbread long enough and not getting the crisp texture.  Because of the high amount of butter relative to the flour, I don't think baking this even longer would've solved the texture issue.  It's just meant to be a softer and chewier shortbread because of all the butter.  The brown sugar flavor was good and I'm glad I added the butterscotch chips but if you want to try a great shortbread recipe, try the Butter Toffee Crunch Shortbread recipe first.

1 cup flour
2 tablespoons rice flour
¾ cup butter, softened
½ cup dark brown sugar, packed
¼ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla

1. Preheat oven to 275°F. Lightly butter 8” round pan, preferably one with a removable bottom. In a small bowl, whisk the flours together; set aside.
2. In a medium bowl, with an electric mixer on low speed or a wooden spoon, beat the butter until light in color, about 1 minute. Gradually mix in the brown sugar and salt. Add the vanilla and continue beating until mixture is well combined. Scrape down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula. Gradually mix in the flours until just combined. The dough will be soft.
3. Press the dough evenly into the pan and smooth the surface of the dough. Use a fork to score the dough around the outer edge.
4. Bake in the center of the oven for about 55 minutes or until pale golden. Place the pan on a rack and let the shortbread cool completely. Transfer the shortbread from the pan to a cutting board. With a sharp, thin knife, cut into 16 wedges.