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.