Coconut Pull Apart Rolls

Coconut Pull Apart Rolls - made February 16, 2014 from Not Quite Nigella

Over President's Day weekend, I was on a bender to clear out recipes that I've been meaning to make for awhile now, both  from pinterest and from my baking books. I'd planned on making these coconut rolls (from pinterest) twice now and both times I was thwarted, the first time because I didn't have enough time to do a yeasted dough and the second time because I didn't have yeast in the pantry (that was literally a showstopper).

Before the second rise

The stars finally aligned over President's Day weekend and I had both enough time and yeast to make it work. I don't make bread that often and certainly not often enough to be that good at it. I remember from when I made it in culinary school but back then I was also taught by my favorite chef instructor who'd apprenticed to become a baker when he was 16 and living in Germany. The man could bake bread like no tomorrow. He taught me how to be able to tell when the gluten had developed enough in kneading (when it's elastic enough to stretch and make a "window pane" without breaking), when dough hadn't been beaten enough or been beaten too much and what the consequences would be.

After the second rise, just before baking

Unfortunately, in the years since then, I haven't retained as much bread baking knowledge as I could wish. When I only have time to bake nights and weekends, breads aren't high on my list of things to make, partly because of the time constraints and partly because I have less of a stop mechanism when it comes to good bread as I do with sweets. But I'm glad I finally got to make these coconut rolls. The dough itself was easy enough: throw all the ingredients in the mixing bowl and let the dough hook do its job. My only moment of pause was knowing when it had been kneaded enough. It didn't pass the window pane test but it looked okay: elastic, came together, good doughy consistency. And as you can tell from the pics, it rose well enough in the second rising when you actually shape the dough into a log and cut into pieces.

You want to make the filling while the dough is in its first rising to give the filling enough time to cool before you spread it over the dough. My filling did thicken slightly as I boiled it but it was runny enough that after I spread it over the rectangle of dough, rolled it up, sliced it and arranged the slices in the pan, the liquid leaked out and by the time the rolls had risen and were ready to bake, I could see a layer of liquid at the bottom of the pan.

Fortunately, the liquid absorbed back into the rolls as they baked and the finished product was bread dough slightly tacky on the bottom but not wet or mushy. The bread part of the roll was pretty good but my favorite was the coconut filling. The only thing I would do differently next time is make more filling and add a lot more coconut. Remember the coconut rolls I like to get at Asian bakeries like Sheng Kee? This was similar to that in taste although heavier in texture. Still, this one's a keeper. The coconut filling adds the sweetness so that you don't need to do a glaze. If you do decide to up the decadence level, then I would do just a simple royal icing-type of glaze and sprinkle the top with flaked coconut. These are best eaten warm.

Dough
½ cup milk
1 egg
2 cups bread flour
½ teaspoon salt
30g/1 oz butter
2 tablespoon sugar
2 teaspoons yeast

Filling
1/3 cup sugar
¼ cup milk
¾ cup coconut flakes
1 beaten egg to brush the rolls

1. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a dough hook, mix all of the dough ingredients until elastic (about 4-5 minutes using a dough hook, 6-8 minutes if kneading by hand). Place in a warm area for 1-2 hours until doubled in size.
2. In the meantime, mix the ingredients of the filling and cook in low heat until a slightly creamy sauce. Do not over cook. Cool.
3. Grease a large loaf tin with oil. Knock the dough back by punching it with your fist and roll it open to a rectangle of approximately 1/3 to ½ inch thick. Spread the coconut filling on top of the dough. Roll it and cut into 16 pieces. Place the rolls in the greased loaf pan and let it rise in a warm place for approximately 30 minutes until they look snugly fitted together.
4. Bake in a 220C/440F oven for 15-20 minutes.

Restaurant Review: Honey Thai

Honey Thai - lunch on February 3, 2014

You ever have one of those days at work when you just want to curl into the fetal position and rock back and forth? If you're the only one having that kind of a day, you shut your office door and hope no one hears the whimpers coming from within. If the person in the office next to you is having a similar day, you consign the leftovers you brought from home to perdition and you both go out to lunch.

Inside Honey Thai

Which is how my coworker and I ended up at Honey Thai. She said it's her favorite place to go to for pad see ew. Ironically, Honey Thai is located near my old condo but I'd never been there before. As always, I like trying a new restaurant - more material for my blog.

Soup

The standard soup that comes with the lunch specials has a thicker broth than other Thai restaurants I've been to. It wasn't as spicy which I was grateful for so my bland taste buds were fine with it. Now, I would normally go for the pad thai whenever I try a new Thai place but I was trying to limit my carbs and up my protein intake (I'm going to lose these last 10 lbs if it kills me) so I somewhat reluctantly ordered the Thai grilled chicken instead. It comes with a scoop of rice but I didn't eat much of the rice and focused on the chicken instead. The chicken comes with a side of the house sauce but I'm not much of one for dipping into sauces so I ate it mostly plain. It was okay. The portion size was decent for a meal under $10 and there was definitely enough to be filling, even with skipping most of the rice. I didn't find it too flavorful though despite it being marinaded. That's probably where the sauce I didn't eat comes in.

Thai Grilled Chicken

I did try some of my coworker's pad see ew and she's right; that one was a winner. The flavor was great and the noodles were perfectly done, not too clumpy or thick. If the pad see ew was any indication of their noodle dishes, I will have to return when I'm feeling less virtuous and order the pad thai.

Vegetarian Pad See Ew

Service was a bit slow even though they weren't crowded for the lunch hour. We had to wave the guy over to take our orders and again to bring us the check after we'd eaten. I guess the plus side is they don't try to rush you out. We did that on our own since we both had to get back to the office but it was a nice break from the fetal position rocking-back-and-forth motion I had going on earlier.

Salted Caramel Apple Crumble

Salted Caramel Apple Crumble - made February 16, 2014 from Lauren's Latest

I'm a sucker for warm apple cobbler in almost any form, be it called cobbler, crisp, grunt, fool or crumble. And the picture from Lauren's Latest sucked me right in. What did I do for new recipes before I found all these visually appealing ones on pinterest? (Answer: I used my baking books and relied on the ones with lots of pictures.)

I liked this recipe, not just for the salted caramel addition but also because it could be made in a cast iron skillet. I bought an 8" cast iron skillet ages ago, probably because there was some kind of skillet cornbread I wanted to make. I can't remember actually making the cornbread and I've been hanging onto this cast iron skillet for years now. About time I used it.

Since it was a bit on the small side, I only could fit half the apple recipe, i.e. 2 Granny Smith apples. But by the time I realized that, I had already made a full recipe of the topping. Not to worry, I'm rather fond of crumble topping so I didn't see any harm in using a double amount of it. How's that for rationalization?

When making the topping, one trick I learned from Martha Stewart is to squeeze streusel topping into large clumps then when you break it over the apples, be sure to still leave large "crumbs". That is, you don't want fine, powdery crumbs as much as nice big clumps. The large crumbs bake up crisp and provide a nice texture that's a great contrast to the softness of the baked apples.

I thought this recipe was delicious. I was especially careful to cover the salted caramel all over with crumble topping as I knew if it was exposed to heat, it would get hard and chewy when cooled. Some of it did bubble up between cracks in the topping, especially around the edges but not too much. The only drawback is I did find it a bit too salty. You add salt to the apples when they're cooking and, combined with the Trader Joe's salted caramel I used, it was just a tad too salty for my bland taste buds. Next time I think I'd go with a regular caramel sauce. Regardless, I loved the crumble topping and this makes for an awesome sweet treat in winter - comfort dessert at its best.

3/4 cup salted caramel sauce (storebought or your favorite recipe)

Crumble
1 cup all purpose flour
1/3 cup packed brown sugar
1/3 cup granulated sugar
6 tablespoons softened butter
1/2 teaspoon salt

Apples
4 granny smith apples, peeled, cored and sliced
2 tablespoons lemon juice
2 tablespoons butter
1/4 teaspoon salt

1. For the crumble- combine all ingredients together using a stand mixer. Mixture will be crumbly, but stay together when squeezed. Set aside.
2. Prepare apples and toss in lemon juice. Cook apples in a large cast iron skillet over medium low heat in butter to draw out moisture. Sprinkle with salt to draw out all the moisture possible. Drain apples and place back into skillet. This process should take about 5-7 minutes of cooking.
3. Pour 3/4 of prepared caramel sauce into the apples and stir gently. Squeeze the crumble topping into large clumps and break it off over the top of the apples, covering completely. Bake at 350 for 20 minutes or until topping is browned. Cool slightly and serve warm with vanilla ice cream if desired.

Banana Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

Banana Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting - made February 8, 2014 from The Food Mentalist

I had been letting a bunch of bananas ripen on my counter for a good month or so. Holiday baking wiped me out of overripe bananas and I had to start over. I gauge the passage of time by the ripening state of my bananas. When they had finally blackened enough to my satisfaction, I went looking for a recipe to use them with. I'm still on my never ending quest to make a banana cake like the one from Icing on the Cake; it's been a good 6 months (at least) since I last had that cake so I was due for another seemingly futile experiment to try and replicate it.

I tried out this one from The Food Mentalist. Initially I was concerned the baking temperature was a bit low as I don't normally bake cakes at temps below 300 degrees F. But I went with it because if it didn't turn out, I didn't want it to be because I screwed up and didn't follow the directions. It turned out pretty well and my coworkers liked it when I brought it into work but it still didn't have the fluffy texture I was going for. I think that was more my fault than the recipe's though as I could've baked this a trifle longer than I did. The toothpick came out clean, I turned the oven off and let it continue baking for another 5 minutes but it was still a bit heavy in texture rather than fluffy. The flavor was fine but you can tell from the pictures (and for the life of me, I couldn't take a good one) that it was a bit dense and moist rather than cakey and fluffy. Maybe that's a sign that I need to go back to Icing on the Cake and get myself a piece of their banana cake.

1 1/2 cups bananas, mashed, ripe

• 2 teaspoons lemon juice

• 3 cups flour

• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

• 1/4 teaspoon salt

• 3/4 cup butter, softened

• 2 1/8 cups sugar

• 3 large eggs

• 2 teaspoons vanilla

• 1 1/2 cups buttermilk

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• Frosting:

• 1/2 cup butter, softened

• 1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese, softened

• 1 teaspoon vanilla

• 3 1/2 cups powdered sugar

1. Preheat oven to 275°F /135C.
2. Grease and flour a 9 x 13 pan.
3. In a small bowl, mix mashed banana with the lemon juice; set aside.
4. In a medium bowl, mix flour, baking soda and salt; set aside.
5. In a large bowl, cream 3/4 cup butter and 2 1/8 cups sugar until light and fluffy.
6. Beat in eggs, one at a time, then stir in 2 tsp vanilla.
7. Beat in the flour mixture alternately with the buttermilk.
8. Stir in banana mixture
9. Pour batter into prepared pan and bake in preheated oven for one hour or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.
10. Remove from oven and place directly into the freezer for 45 minutes. This will make the cake very moist.
11. For the frosting, cream the butter and cream cheese until smooth.
12. Beat in 1 teaspoon vanilla.
13. Add icing sugar and beat on low speed until combined, then on high speed until frosting is smooth
14. Spread on cooled cake.

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Restaurant Review: Free House

Free House, Berkeley, CA - dinner on January 30, 2014

The Campanile on the UC Berkeley campus

I was at my alma mater, UC Berkeley, last month to attend their Spring Career Fair for my company. There was a possibility I was going to be able to hire an intern for my team and it was a good way to meet some of the potential candidates firsthand. I haven't done college recruiting for several years so it was nice to be back on campus. I was making bets with myself how long it would take before I started thinking to myself, "was I ever this young? Man, I'm old." It wasn't more than half a dozen times. In the first 30 minutes.

I met a number of bright young students, some who seemed more mature than I ever was at that age and others still eager and shiny like a new penny, brimming with the optimism and fervor of youth. I occasionally feel a bit  tarnished myself after - gulp - 20 years in the workforce (not counting 2 years of grad school and a year off for culinary school, eek) so it's nice to be reminded of how I once faced the road they're about to travel on. Alas, if only I knew back then not to take life so seriously or feel that getting a summer internship or a post-graduation job was going to determine the outcome of the rest of my life. It didn't and it won't for these kids either but like me, they'll learn it when the time comes.

Outside Free House

But I really did enjoy the event and talking to more than a hundred students for 5 hours straight. I also enjoyed meeting up with one of my nieces who attends Cal and going out to dinner with her after the career fair was over.  We were trying to decide where to go since Berkeley has such a plethora of wonderful places to eat. When she was listing out options, she mentioned "sweet potato fries" at Free House so I stopped her litany of choices and let the fries be the deciding factor.

The inside

Free House is literally just off the Berkeley campus, on Bancroft. From the outside it doesn't look like a restaurant as it's housed in a stately old building built in the 1920s. Inside, it's got more of an English library feel, sans the books, with the hardwood floor, rafters and fireplace. Or maybe like a ski lodge. Without the snow outside. What is outside is a seating area which is where we opted to dine, made comfortable by a heating lamp.  Although honestly, this was the time when our climate was pretending it was late spring instead of January winter and the temperature was pretty comfortable. No polar vortex here.

Freehouse Grass Fed Burger - $10

As you can expect in Berkeley, Free House also sources locally and their grass-fed beef is from Marin Sun Farms, same as where Bierhaus and Paul Martin's source their beef. My niece went with the burger while I got the Steak Frites. We had decided early on we would also get the sweet potato fries as the appetizer since that was the main reason we went to Free House in the first place.

Steak Frites - $15

Both our entrees were good although I could've done without the red wine shallot butter on my steak. Too sweet and just not my thing. The handcut fries that came with my order were okay, not quite crisp but you can tell they were "real" potatoes without a whole lot done to make them into anything else but honest to goodness potatoes. But it was the sweet potato fries that took up most of my taste buds. They were sometimes crisp, always mealy and just plain good. The kind of good that reminds me why I'm obsessed with sweet potato fries in the first place and why, as my niece tells me, people come to Free House. I can't blame them. If I was still going to Cal, I'd probably put in an order to go for the sweet potato fries on my way to or from class. Every day.

Sweet Potato Fries - $8

For Berkeley, Free House might be a little pricey since most college kids usually eat in the $8-$10 range or less but after working the student crowd for most of the day as part of my job, it was fine by me. And cheaper than many other places I've gone to that didn't have such excellent sweet potato fries.

Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies - made dough on January 31, 2014 from The Culinary Capers

Whenever you see an oatmeal chocolate chip cookie recipe pop up on my blog, it's safe to think "oh, Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookie Rick must be in town." Because you'd be right and I got together with our old group, cookie bags in hand to distribute to all the dinner attendees. And, for Rick's sake, one of those cookies has to be oatmeal chocolate chip.

Thanks to pinterest, it's a simple matter of searching for it across the site, scrolling past picture after picture of every conceivable type of oatmeal chocolate chip cookie, skipping all the ones that have more than the words "oatmeal" and "chocolate chip" in their title with a polite no-thank-you to "gluten free!" "banana" "raisins", "peanut butter" and anything else that deviates from the purity intended for an oatmeal cookie that's got chocolate chips and only chocolate chips in it. I selected this one from The Culinary Capers because a picture says a thousand words and her picture had "yummy" written on it a thousand times over. As a bonus, there's also a great blog post that accompanies the recipe so do click on the recipe title to go to her site and read it.

I did have to break my normal rule for oatmeal chocolate chip cookies that there be more oats than flour in the recipe. Otherwise it's just a chocolate chip cookie with oatmeal in it. But there was only a 1/2 cup difference between the two ingredients so I thought that would be close enough. The batter was thick, as all good oatmeal chocolate chip cookie doughs should be. I made the dough balls fairly big, about the size of golf balls and froze them before I baked them off the night before I needed them. They didn't spread much (always a good sign).

In general, I thought this was a good cookie. Because of the higher amount of flour, it really did seem more like a chocolate chip cookie with oatmeal in it than a true oatmeal chocolate chip cookie. It didn't have as much chewiness from the oats as I would've liked but it's still a good cookie, not too sweet and nicely chubby.

3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
3 cups old-fashioned rolled oats
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter at room temperature
2 1/4 cups firmly packed light brown sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 12-ounce package chocolate chips or chunks

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a large bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Stir in the oats.
2. In another bowl, using an electric mixer set on medium speed, cream together the 1 cup butter and brown sugar until smooth. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add the vanilla and mix to combine.
3. Reduce the speed to low and add the flour-oat mixture in 2 batches, beating well after each addition. You should have a stiff dough. Stir in the chocolate chips.
4. Grease two baking sheets. Roll golf ball sized lumps of dough between your palms to make a nice little sphere. Place the cookies about 2 inches apart on the baking sheets, and bake for 10-12 minutes, or until the edges are just golden brown, and the middles are not doughy.
5. Let them sit on the baking sheets for a minute or two (they will keep cooking on the sheets) then transfer them to a wire rack to cool.

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Red Velvet Nutella Lava Cakes

Red Velvet Nutella Lava Cakes - made February 7, 2014 from Half Baked Harvest

Ah, the crowning glory of my Valentine treats for the week. This is something you can make at home for you and your sweetie that takes relatively little time and effort yet is fitting decadence to mark the occasion. If you have these dessert shell pans, it'll be even easier. I got the original recipe from Half Baked Harvest but with my dessert shell pan, I went with the lazy baker's version of molten chocolate cake.

Which means you bake the cake batter in the dessert shell pan, making sure to grease them well so the cakes will come out easily and intact when you turn the pan over. One recipe below filled my 6-cavity pan perfectly.

Then you fill the cavities almost to the top with nutella. If your nutella is a bit on the solid side because it's cold, warm it up in the microwave just enough to be easy to pour or spoon into the cavity. You want it somewhat flowing and soft because this is the lava part.

Next step is to drizzle (be generous) salted caramel over the whole thing. I used ready-made salted caramel from Trader Joe's but you can use whichever you like, including making from scratch.

Finally, don't forget the ice cream. Right before you serve this, top it off with a scoop of vanilla ice cream and dig in. This is best served when the cake is still slightly warm, the nutella and salted caramel are melty-warm and the ice cream is newly scooped. You'll get that flowing lava/molten chocolate effect although in this case it'll be molten nutella and caramel. I'm okay with that.

If you don't own a dessert shell pan, I've left Half Baked Harvest's original recipe as is below so you can do it the non-lazy way and include the ganache filling that'll make up your molten center. I didn't have heavy cream at the time I made this so I opted for the nutella filling. Just don't overbake the cake because you do want it moist, regardless of filling or no filling. What I liked about my version is this took almost no time to make. I worked from home last Friday, logged off at 5:30, turned my oven on, made up the batter while the oven was preheating and after baking, unmolding, and adding the nutella filling, salted caramel and ice cream, I was taking my first bite of this by 6 pm. No lie. Didn't take me that long to consume it either. Easiest dinner I've ever made, ha.

4 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped
1/4 cup unsalted butter
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
3 large eggs
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1-2 teaspoons red food coloring
coconut whipped cream, whipped cream or ice cream, for serving (optional)

Ganache
4 1/2 ounces (about 3/4 cup) semi-sweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup canned coconut milk or heavy cream
1/2 tablespoon vanilla extract

1. Make the ganache: in a microwave safe bowl add the chocolate and coconut milk (or heavy cream). Microwave on high for 30 second intervals, stirring between each until melted. Once melted stir in the vanilla extract. Cover and place in the fridge.
2. Grease 6 (4 ounce) ramekins or 4 (6 ounce ramekins) and place on a baking sheet.
3. Heat the chocolate and butter together on low in a small saucepan, stirring until just melted. Remove from the heat and stir in the flour and salt until smooth.
4. Add the eggs to a large mixing bowl. Using an electric mixer beat the eggs and slowly add the sugar until the eggs are pale in color, about four minutes. Add the vanilla extract and food coloring, mix until combined. Pour in the melted chocolate mixture and use a rubber spatula or wooden spoon to fold the chocolate into the eggs until just combined. Divide the mixture among the prepared ramekins.
5. Spoon about 1-2 heaping teaspoons of the chilled ganache (you will not use it all) into the center of the ramekins. Use a spoon to scoop the red velvet mixture over the ganache. Cover the ramekins and place in the fridge for 15 minutes.
6. Meanwhile preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. After 15 minutes remove ramekins from the fridge and place in the oven. Bake for 10-20 minutes (10 minutes for 4 ounce ramekins and 18 minutes for 6 ounce ramekins). Loosen the edges of the cakes with a butter knife and turn out onto plates. Serve immediately with whipped cream or vanilla ice cream.