“A Touch of Class Cakes” is enthusiastic about making cakes that not only look great but taste even better.  Over the years, many people have commented to us that they have eaten cakes that looked pretty but the taste was disappointing.

“A Touch of Class Cakes” believes that the flavor of a cake should never be compromised for the sake of aesthetics.  We use only the freshest, purest, and best ingredients that we can buy.  We have also painstakingly researched and taste-tested each of the recipes that we use in our cakes, and are always on the hunt for more.  (Our significant others and teaching colleagues love us for this because they are our guinea pigs!)

We plan to use this blog to share our findings with the world.  Here you will find tips on baking as well as recipes, links to baking and cake decorating resources, and pictures of our creations.

We’ve decided to start off with a series on essential cake baking “rules”.  Each segment in this series will be about the little things that can make the difference between an “okay” cake and a cake creation that will have your guests coming back for seconds!

Part 1:  Ingredients

Cake baking is really very easy but it is also a science, so when you set out to bake a cake, you must remember that the right ingredients are essential to success.  Many a would-be baker has experienced the flat or misshapen cake, the overcooked or underdone cake, or worst of all, the terrible-tasting cake.  Some of these horrors can be chalked up to a missed step or ingredient or a mediocre recipe, but more often than not the fault lies with the ingredients.  We have learned that “chintzing out” on ingredients or substituting an essential ingredient is the culprit to a bad cake.

Before we get to the importance of some key ingredients, though, let us take a moment to talk about the all-important recipe.  All bakers begin their foray in the kitchen with a recipe that caught their eye.  But where did that recipe come from? 

We are hopeful that it came from a time-honored family recipe that has been passed down for generations or from a legitimate source such as a treasured cookbook.  However, with the development of the Internet, that is no longer always the case.  Please understand that we are certainly not out to malign any of the wonderful resources that can be found online, but bakers should be wary:  not all cake recipes are made alike!

Websites like “Allrecipes.com” and “Cooks.com” are wonderful cyber communities that offer a free resource for thousands of recipes  “Allrecipes.com” even claims that “all recipes are great recipes” but we have found that is not always true.  These websites both permit users to submit recipes in a variety of ways.

“Allrecipes.com” features three types of recipes:  (1) Kitchen-Approved recipes (from members that have passed through their editorial process, meaning that they have been put into their format and database and their nutrition information has been calculated by their cooking experts); (2) Personal Recipes (recipes from members which have not gone through the “Allrecipes.com” editorial process); and (3) Custom Recipes (customized versions of Kitchen-Approved recipes, which have been altered and saved by a Supporting Member of “Allrecipes.com”).

“Cooks.com” does not have these same levels of recipe submissions.  On that website, users simply add a recipe by supplying the name, category, ingredients, and preparation instructions.  The recipe is then listed on the “Cooks.com” recipe database for anyone to use.  We have discovered many a recipe on this site that has an error in ingredient amounts, is missing essential steps, or is written so haphazardly that it is hard to follow.  Thankfully, we know how to weed out the good from the bad recipes from our years of experience baking, but that is not always the case with many users.  Therefore, we suggest exercising extreme caution when using sites such as these, and when in doubt, stick to a tried-and-true cookbook.  (See our list of suggested cookbooks that we both own and have used with great success.)

Now that we have the recipe issue settled, let’s talk about ingredients!

Since we are discussing cakes, there are three essential ingredients that all cakes have and that you must never compromise on:

1) Flour -Most cake recipes call for either all-purpose flour or cake flour.  Contrary to what some people believe, there IS a difference!  According to Rose Levy Beranbaum (author of Heavenly Cakes and The Cake Bible), “bleached cake flour and all-purpose bleached flour can be used interchangably when either is indicated as long as the weight used is the same.”  Mrs. Beranbaum goes on to say that cake flour produces a more “tender crumb” than all-purpose flour, so keep this in mind if you want to achieve the same level of tenderness as the recipe claims to produce.  She also suggests that when you want to substitute all-purpose flour for cake flour that you use the following formula:  for 1 cup of cake flour use 3/4 cup of all-purpose flour plus 2 tablespoons cornstarch.  Something else to keep in mind is that flour can go rancid, so unless you are able to store it in an air-tight container, you might want to get into the habit of keeping your flour in a plastic freezer bag and store it in the freezer.  We at “A Touch of Class Cakes” use unbleached flour because we prefer our flour to be processed as little as possible.  There is not much of a difference between bleached and unbleached, so it really is a matter of personal preference.  A final note:  do NOT substitute cake flour in recipes that call for all-purpose flour because your end result will be too tender and fragile!

2) Eggs - Most cake recipes call for large eggs.  We suggest using USDA-grade large eggs.  Do NOT substitute a different size egg because doing so will effect the volume and texture of the cake.  However, there is a loophole in this rule.  A really good recipe will give the values for the eggs required in both weight and volume.  If this is the case, then you can weigh the whole egg – yolks and whites – to find out how much of the type of egg you have to use with your recipe.  Believe it or not, even eggs in the same grade and size class can vary in weight, so this is good thing to get into the habit of doing.  Sometimes a recipe can call for four eggs but depending in their weight, you might have to use more or less to achieve the correct weight.  Finally, always use eggs at room temperature.  We generally gather our ingredients for a cake and set them out on the counter for about a half hour before we begin the recipe (this is called mise en place, a French culinary term for “everything in its place”).  If you forget to do this, you can always put the eggs (in their unbroken shell) in hot (not boiling!) water for five minutes to get them to “room temperature”.

3) Butter - All butter has a standard fat content, so be sure that you are using a high-quality unsalted butter.  Why unsalted?  Because this allows you to control the salt content in your recipe and it has a fresher flavor than salted butter.  We at “A Touch of Class Cakes” generally use Land O’Lakes butter because it is a high-quality but not too expensive option.  (Tip: Whenever it is on sale at the local supermarket, we stock up and freeze it until we are ready to use it!)  Like the eggs, your butter should be at cool room temperature (between 65-75 degrees Farenheit).  This is hard to do when the temperature outside is very warm, so you need to plan ahead before you bake so that the butter is just right!

We hope that these tips will come in handy for your future baking endeavors.  If you have any further questions, we would be glad to try and answer them for you. Come back for part 2 in our “Kitchen Rules” series: Bakeware and other handy supplies.

Happy baking!

Christina and Meghan

I went to an all-girl’s party last Sunday and volunteered to bring desserts, knowing I’d be using these gals as taste-testers.  I figured it was a good chance to try out Rose Levy Beranbaum’s new book, Rose’s Heavenly Cakes.

Those of you familiar with Beranbaum know that she wrote the Cake Bible and is considered an authority on all things cake.  I had the Cake Bible but got rid of it in one of those massive cleaning sprees for which I’m known.  I just didn’t use it.  It was unnecessarily complicated and each cake had way too many steps involved for the end-result.  But what the heck, I thought I’d give this new book a try.

Well . . . same feeling.  I know I promised to try at least 3 recipes from each book but I only managed 2 from Rose’s new one.  These were the two simplest, most straight forward recipes and both recipes were more complicated and convoluted than I like.

The first, Apple-Cinnamon Crumb Coffee Cake, (pg. 49-51) had multiple steps, dirtying multiple bowls BEFORE I finally assembled everything together.  Was all this work worth it?  It was good–there’s a layer of fresh apples and crumbs in the middle, sorta like a layer cake–but it wasn’t spectacular.  Good, but not great.  Certainly not worth the effort involved.

Same for the Gateau Breton (pg. 69-70).  This is a cross between a pound cake and shortbread, says Beranbaum, but mine was definitely on the shortbread end.  It didn’t look anything like the picture–her cake was smooth and sorta satiny looking.  Mine was crumbly and dense.  Tasted good, but then again, it should have considering how much butter went into it.  

Both of these recipes contain nuts and at the last minute I remembered that the host is allergic to nuts.  I whipped up a super easy Lemon Bars recipe that’s an old standby for me.  Quick, dirty, delicious.

So guess which one the ladies preferred?  The time intensive, super difficult, fancy-pants cakes from Beranbaum’s new book or the super easy Lemon Bars?

Yep–everyone raved about the Lemon Bars.  Just goes to show you that simple and straight forward is often best.

Super Easy Lemon Bars

Makes 1 9 inch square pan or about 16 bars.

1/4 cup confectioners’ sugar

1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened

1 cup flour

pinch of salt

2 eggs

1 cup sugar

2 T fresh lemon juice

zest of 1 small to medium lemon

2 T flour

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Cream confectioners’ sugar with butter until fluffy.  Add 1 C flour and salt.  Mix well.  Press mixture into bottom of greased 9 inch square pan.  Bake 15 minutes.  Remove from oven.

While crust is baking, beat eggs in a mixing bowl.  Add sugar, lemon juice, lemon zest, and 2 T flour.  Pour batter over baked crust.  Bake 20 more minutes.

As for Heavenly Cakes:  Loved the pictures.  Got some good ideas, especially for cake presentation, but I’ll apply them to recipes that are more straightforward.  I give this one a 2.

2 Stars

Thick, soft knee socks.  A warm bed.  The public library system.  Hot coffee.  Frozen fog hovering over the lake where I run.  Barack Obama.  Snack-sized Snickers Bars.  I’m thankful for so very many things, big and small.  This Thanksgiving, I’m grateful for my younger sister, and the week of planning and shopping and cooking she did so that Michael and I could waltz over mid-afternoon with a few plates of appetizers and plunk ourselves down in a couple of squashy armchairs with glasses of wine while Sissy and her boyfriend Duane finished cooking a spectacular Thanksgiving feast. 

On my way home from work on Wednesday I stopped off at the Sausage House for a stick of their spectacularly garlicky hard sausage.  I sliced this up with some Manchego cheese for a simple meat and cheese tray.  Then on Thursday afternoon at Michael’s place, I made a batch of Turkey Meatballs with Raisins and Pine Nuts, a recipe that I’ve been waiting for the right opportunity to try.  I substituted regular raisins for the golden raisins that the recipe called for, and had to guess at the proportions for the yogurt dipping sauce, as the recipe didn’t include amounts. 

When we arrived at Sissy’s and started on the appetizers, my 14-year old nephew was quietly amused by the oblong slices of sausage:  “These look like little bones!”  he chuckled.  The meatballs turned out just right: juicy, with the crunch of pine nuts, a hint of cilantro, and the sweetness of the raisins offset by the sharp yogurt tang of the dipping sauce. 

Sissy’s several day long cook-a-rama was nearly done, and Duane, resplendent in a white chef’s jacket, finished the last-minute items in the kitchen–filling devilled eggs, mashing potatoes, and stirring gravy. 

When we sat down at the table, it was to a feast.  We passed dishes of roasted turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, dressing, and asparagus from hand to hand.  It was the little touches, however, that made the meal special: cranberry sauce that was savory. not sweet, and freshly made Parker House rolls at every place.  “Why are they called Parker House rolls?” my nephew asked. 

Sometimes when I look at my tall nephew or listen to his deep voice, it is hard to remember the baby he once was.  Other times…I glanced across the table to see him silently building a mountain of mashed potatoes with a deep caldera at the top, which he carefully filled to the rim with gravy.  And instantly, I saw the roly-poly blonde baby again, the grimy toddler asleep in his car seat after an afternoon at the park, the little boy sitting on a stack of phone books to reach the Thanksgiving table, holding my hand as we crossed the street, dressed up for his first communion, declaring that he’ll never stop loving Pokemon no matter how old he gets, singing a solo in the middle-school musical, graduating from eighth grade; they are all there after all, just obscured a little by facial hair.

After we finished dinner, Sissy retired to the kitchen to whip cream, and returned with a pumpkin pie and a pecan tart, over which she waxed eloquent.  My sister is a baker extraordinaire–part artist, part alchemist; she reads cookbooks like novels and her Cake Bible like, well, Holy Scripture. 

The pumpkin pie, she explained was made with the best organic ingredients–no canned pumpkin, no sweetened condensed milk.  The crust was lined with ground pecans and gingersnaps to provide a layer of flavor and keep the butter crust from getting soggy. 

I initially passed up the pecan tart, as pecan pie is just too sweet and gooey for me.  However, Sissy explained that this tart, with it’s even ratios of cream cheese crust, filling, and pecans, was different.  Not only was there less goo than the usual pecan pie, but it was also made with golden syrup instead of corn syrup to avoid cloying sweetness.  She brought out the jar and let us stick our fingers in to taste the syrup, which had a rich, caramel flavor.  Finally, she said, she garnished the tart with bittersweet chocolate to further balance the sweetness. 

After this description, I had to have a piece of each, with plenty of bourbon-laced whipped cream on top.  Oh mercy.  I was an instant and loyal devotee to the Royal Order of the Most Honored Pecan Tart.  A bite of pie and a bite of tart and a bite of pie and…nom nom nom. 

Finally, when the dessert plates were scraped clean, Duane left for work with a plate of dinner wrapped up for the employee who was working the holiday for him.  My nephew disappeared with his pie, and Michael and I said our good-byes and rolled down the front steps like blueberry girl and boy.

I’m thankful for family and friends, for growing up and growing older together, for memories and tradition, for warm hospitality, and good food and drink. 

Sissy’s dessert recipes came from The Pie and Pastry Bible, by Rose Levy Beranbaum.

Chocolate Lace Pecan Tart Recipe

Pumpkin Pie Recipe

The fried pies received universal acclaim.  Allen ate five on Monday, saving me from the task of batting clean-up on the second batch.

Since we fried two turkeys Thanksgiving morning, I skipped another round of fried pies.  I would have had to fight for time in the hot oil, and, I was concerned that our families would feel deprived if the more traditional pie weren’t available.

The Pie Bible author, Rose Levy Beranbaum, suggests two solutions for soggy pumpkin pie crust.  One, press a mixture of ground gingersnaps and pecans into the pie crust before filling it with the pumpkin custard.  Two, bake the pie on the floor of the oven.  Great results!

I used a Pyrex dish with a flat bottom, which she recommends.  I saw a note from someone who used a pie pan with small feet, and it turns out the direct contact with the heat is part of the magic.  Our oven has a small indentation in the bottom, so my pie actually didn’t have total contact, resulting in a crust with slightly overcooked edges everywhere it came into contact with the oven floor, and not as cooked where it didn’t meet the floor.  For years, I’ve wanted a baking stone, and now I have one more reason to get one.

Rose’s Favorite Flaky & Tender Pie Crust worked very well, save for the oven floor mishap.  It rolled out like a dream.  If you fear pastry crust, try this one.  Very forgiving.  Her Great Pumpkin Pie also worked well.   I actually found her website difficult to navigate, and the recipe written in a somewhat confusing manner, so printed it all out and read it through several times to be sure I got it all right.

Finely-processed gingersnaps and pecans.

The pie crust rolled out, turned under, and somewhat crimped.

Not as pretty, but highly effective, once the pecan-gingersnap mix is added.

The recipe calls for pre-cooking the pumpkin mixture.

Whirled around after bubbling a bit over the stove.

Much silkier once the eggs, cream, and milk have been blitzed in.

I used my leaf-cutters for a first round of garnish, but they were too small, so I hand-cut these from leftover pastry from another recipe.

It almost looked like chocolate when it came out!

Last night, a friend celebrated his 30th birthday and, like most foodies, he wanted to make dinner. He chose to make timpano, something he and his fiancée saw in a movie called The Big Night. It’s basically a sort of pizza dough stuffed with pasta, sauce, sausage, meat, hard boiled eggs, cheese, and I don’t know what else. Let me just say that this was fantastic and I have to make this dish at some point in the future. It’s baked inside a domed shaped vessel similar to a mixing bowl, like this:

Once it’s baked, you flip it over and it looks like this:

Served in slices that make you smile and rub your belly in appreciation:

With dinner, we ate fresh baked bread that Jay made that afternoon. It comes from a Rose Levy Beranbaum recipe (found here) and it is amazing. The bread is so nice and thick, rich, and full of yum.

For the birthday boy, I made the Perfect Party Cake. This time, however, I’ve used the recipe as detailed in Dorie Greenspan’s book. Personally, I preferred the original Dorie version (which can be found here on tablefare’s blog) much more than the one I made for my birthday.

Covered in shredded coconut.

I have long enjoyed store bought Scottish Shortbread cookies , till I learned just what a few simple , but fresh , quality ingredients could produce. The trick is cold fresh unsalted butter , not over working the dough and a low slow baking. You simply cannot go wrong with this recipe from Rose Levy Beranbaum.

Makes about 4 dozen cookies

1/4 cup confectioners sugar

1/4 cup granulated sugar

1  1/4 cups butter (2  1/2 sticks ) , refridgerated and cut into 8 to 10 pieces

2  1/2 cups all purpose flour

Preheat oven to 275*F.

Place sugars in food processor and process until very fine . Add butter ;pulse until sugar dissapears . Add flour ; pulse until no dry flour particles remain . (Mixture will be moist and crumbly .)

Place in plastic bag and press together to form dough . Knead lightly until dough holds together. Remove from bag . Shape dough into 1 inch balls .

Place on unbuttered cookie sheets 2 inches apart . Flatten each with a cookie press , fork , or bottom of a glass lightly moistened with water . Bake 45 minutes to 1 hour or until pale golden . Remove from cookie sheets ; cool completely on wire racks .

I decided to try the new tins I got in Paris and made Pan de Mie. This is a very fast bread to make, I think it took around 3 hours start to finish.
The recipe I used came from the book “the bread bible” by Rose Levy Beranbaum. One of my favourite books – it has a wide range of bread recipes and also has detailed explanations of the techniques and equipment that are used.
I didn’t take a huge number of pictures, but you don’t need that many to see whats going on.

Here is the dough resting for a few minutes before shaping. I used my KitchenAid mixer to do most of the work – the dough turned out a lot wetter than I was expecting so I ended up not adding all the liquid and added a bit extra flour.

The finished loaf. Had a few problems overall, first – the recipe used a tin larger than the one I have – I tried to get around this by not using all the dough, but I obviously used to much because it rose out of the edge of the tin when baking. This made removing the lid halfway through very difficult. The other problem was I mustn’t have greased the lid enough because when removing it a part of the loaf got dragged with it – although I managed to patch it up again and it turned out alright.

It has a quite compact crumb, which I guess is due to the lid. The crust was very thin and very crisp – I’m not sure it was meant to be that hard but it tasted good. For being such an easy bread the taste was very good and it made great toast. I will make this again for sure as I know I can improve upon it.

My friend Emma got me thinking about macarons, the French sandwich cookie that is found everywhere in France but almost nowhere here.  The cookie part is made from almond paste, sugar, and egg whites, which make them sound like Passover macaroons, but they’re not at all.  The cookies are filled with either ganache, buttercream, or jam.  Emma was born in France but grew up in the U.S., she recently married Sylvain, who is French, and so got a whole bunch of macarons from her in-laws when they came for the wedding.  Emma said her mother-in-law brought over a box from Ladurée, the famous Parisian pastry shop.  If you’ve never seen the macaron displays at Ladurée, they really are amazing — different flavors and colors, packaged like little jewels.

Emma was thinking that was it now going to be a very long time to go without macarons, and the prospect left her feeling a bit sad.  I knew I had made things like them before so I invited Emma over to try and make them.  Then I started looking for a recipe.  I figured Dorrie Greenspan’s Paris Sweets would have one.  But while Dorrie has a whole page describing macarons in rapturous detail, she says “Unfortunately for us, real French macarons are hard to find in America and difficult to make at home.”  So I turned to Nick Malgieri next, and he had a recipe for chocolate macarons that he said came from Jacques Torres.  So I went to Jacques’s Dessert Circus, and sure enough, there was a recipe for the classic almond macarons.  Lucky thing, since Emma was going to be over this morning to make them!

It really was easy — equal weights sugar and almond paste mixed well together, then add enough egg whites to be able to pipe them into small circles on a parchment-lined baking sheet.  For two 8-ounce cans of almond paste you need 2 cups plus 3 tablespoons sugar, and about 4-5 egg whites.  Then you sprinkle the piped circles with a little sugar, and bake at 375 degrees until they’re lightly browned.  The tricky part, according to Jacques, is getting the cookies off the parchment.  What he suggests is to take a quarter cup of water and pour it on the baking sheet under the parchment as soon as the cookies are out of the oven.  The steam from the water hitting the hot baking sheet softens the paper and loosens the cookies — and it worked! 

So then the question was the filling.  We made Rose Levy Beranbaum’s neoclassic buttercream and added vanilla extract.  Simple (and calorie-laden), but good.  Here’s the finished product.  Not too shabby!  Not as smooth as Ladurée’s, but really good.  (With a pound of butter in the buttercream, they’d better be good.)  So don’t be afraid to make them at home (assuming that you have a couple of hours, a stand mixer, a pastry bag, a pound of butter, and some almond paste sitting around anyway…)

Cheers!

Tom

© istockphoto.com/Sergey Skleznev

A baker I am not. The whole scientific process intimidates me.

I still shudder when I think about the impact salt can have on yeast.

Did you know that salt can kill yeast? That’s heavy! How do I keep salt and yeast separated long enough for the yeast to have a fighting chance?

I believe bakers are different from normal, everyday folks. Bakers are born with an innate ability to judge things that I cannot.

They know what the dough should look and feel like, and how high it should rise before punching it down. And by punching, do they mean actually hitting the dough with brute force?

A baker’s vocabulary is a secret code with undulating terms such as proofing and scaling, creaming, foaming and of course, the muffin method. It’s a conspiracy.

Bakers know what’s missing after only one bite of a cake or bread. My talented, if militant, Chef instructor in beginning baking class, took one bite of my angel food cake and said, “You forgot to add vanilla, didn’t you?”

How did she know that?

I tasted it and didn’t notice vanilla was missing. It tasted like a sugary but dry sponge. It is a sixth sense that I, as a savory cook, do not have.

Testing the bread and pastry recipes for my cookbooks proved to be enormously rewarding for me, and perhaps I learned more than I thought I did during six weeks of baking and pastry classes during my culinary training.

If I can bake breads and cakes, anyone can. You do have to follow the directions, as the ingredient amounts and seemingly inane processes are developed for a specific purpose, like creating a chemical reaction that causes the bread to rise.

It’s not as free form as creating a sauce, which is driven entirely by taste and appearance. But baking has its sweet rewards.

The smell of freshly baked bread is outdone only by the first bite into a hot buttered slice of soft, yeasty bread.

It’s worth the stress of mixing, kneading and punching and keeping the peace between salt and yeast.

Recommended bread books:

The Bread Baker’s Apprentice by Peter Reinhart

The Bread Bible by Rose Levy Beranbaum

Professional Baking, 5th Edition by Wayne Gisslen

Well, not quite. I have been reading more that usual, but it’s hard to devour books anymore when I’m drowning in shitloads of tedious schoolwork. Anyway, f homework, let’s talk books.

I mentioned before that I’m done with Sherman Alexie’s The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. I’ve been putting off writing a review, but since I’m fed up with pointless homework, I’ll probably write it tonight.

Also, I’m near finished with My Jim. It’s been taking a while because I only open it when I’m on the bus. It is due back tomorrow, so you’ll see a review for that real soon.

Another book that I recently picked up, but didn’t mention, is Seattle Architecture: A Walking Guide to Downtown. Complete with pictures, location, maps, and history, it’s a fascinating piece compiled by the Seattle Architecture Foundation– which puts it number one on my credibility scale.

Guides aren’t really reading material, but I read it, and I liked it. My brother is an architecture buff, and growing up around that, I’ve gained somewhat of an interest in aesthetically pleasing and/or historically significant buildings. It’s fun to know the history behind the structures that I frequently pass.

If you follow my blog regularly, you’ve probably noticed that I have more books coming in than I have time to read. To add to the growing pile on my longboard, I’ve picked up two more holds from the library today, two that I’ve been waiting quite some time for: What I Talk About When I Talk About Running and The Bread Bible.

What I Talk About When I Talk About Running is a memoir by Haruki Murakami. An acclaimed author (After Dark, Hard-Boiled Wonderland, and many more), Murakami trained for well-known marathons when he wasn’t writing. In the book, he relates running to life. That’s all I know about it so far, but having been a runner, I’m excited to start digging into it.

The Bread Bible, a hefty, 1.5 inch thick book, is really bible like. I’ve only flipped through it, but it looks like the go-to book for anything and everything relating to bread. If I don’t get too busy this weekend, I’ll likely try a recipe.

 Now for the review…

Orange pound cake, my last-minute Easter dessert.

I hadn’t given a lot of though to Easter this year, besides Wonk the Plank’s Easter basket. Maybe I was too busy making matzoh, but Easter kind of slipped my mind.

But I’m going to an Easter dinner this Sunday, and I realized yesterday that I had no idea what to bring for dessert. I wanted to make something quick and simple, but that would still wow my hosts. So I scoured through my favorite recipes, and came up with this quick Easter dessert guide:

Gateau Breton
Ya’ll loved the Gateau Breton. I don’t think I’ve gotten as many commenters swearing that they were going to make one of my recipes before. This large, round, cake-like shortbread is soft, sweet, and deeply buttery. For Easter, I’d add a couple teaspoons of lemon zest to the dough and serve the cake/cookie with fresh fruit and whipped cream.

Martha Stewart’s Chocolate Shortbread Fingers
These cookies are amazing – rich, soft, deeply chocolaty, with a hint of cinammon that makes them absolutely to-die-for. While they may not be specially Easter-ish, these are so good that you really won’t care.

Orange Pound Cake
And finally, my own-last minute Easter dessert – my take on Rose Levy Beranbaum’s perfect pound cake. Faithful followers of this blog will remember that Rose’s pound cake made an appearance in the February Pound Cake Project — and, at the end of the month, her buttery pound cake was my favorite recipe. I changed a couple of things: added some orange flavoring to the dough and added an orange glaze. This cake could be dressed up with raspberries and whipped cream to make it suitably fancy for Easter. Or it could be served as a sweet addition to your Easter brunch.

Orange Pound Cake
Adapted from The Cake Bible, by Rose Levy Beranbaum

Ingredients
2 tbs heavy cream
2 tbs orange juice
3 large eggs
1 ½ teaspoons vanilla
1 tbs packed orange zest
1 ½ cups sifted cake flour
¾ teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon salt
13 Tablespoons unsalted butter, softened

Icing Ingredients
Approximately 1 cup powdered sugar
2 tsp orange juice

Directions

Preheat your oven to 350 Fahrenheit. Butter a six-cup fluted tube pan, or a 8 inch by 4 by 2.5 inch loaf pan.

Lightly whisk together cream, orange juice, eggs and vanilla in a medium bowl.

Place sugar and orange zest in a large bowl and combine with a fork, until the oil from the orange zest has mixed into the sugar and turned it a light orange color. Add the flour, baking powder, and salt and mix on low speed for 30 seconds, until blended. Add the butter and half the egg mixture, and mix until dry ingredients are moistened. On medium speed, beat for one minute. This will aerate and develop the cake’s structure. Scrape down sides.

Add the remaining egg mixture in two batches, beating for 20 seconds between each addition. Scrape down sides.

Pour batter into prepared pan. Smooth surface with a spatula. Bake for 35-45 minutes (55-65 minutes if baking in a loaf pan), until a wooden toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Let cake cool on a rack in the pan for 10 minuets before inverting onto a greased wire rack. If using a loaf pan, flip the cake over so the top is up.

In a small bowl, mix together the powdered sugar and orange juice. I really don’t ever measure my ingredients with I make this icing, I just start by adding the a tiny bit or orange juice to the powdered sugar until I reach my desired consistency. I like an icing that is thin enough to drizzle over a cake, but not so thin that it doesn’t melt into the cake. If you feel the icing is too thin add some more powdered sugar, and if it is too thick then add some more orange juice.

When the cake is completely cool, drizzle the icing over the cake. I like to do this with a fork, as the icing will drip off the tines of the fork and make rather lovely patterns.

If desired, serve with fruit and whipped cream.

Happy Easter!

Matzoh, just in time for Passover.

I had never eaten matzoh before I made it last weekend. In fact, I probably still haven’t eaten what my Jewish friends consider “real” matzoh, since my free-form flatbreads looked very different from the perfectly square packaged crackers that line the shelves of my supermarket’s Passover display.

But as Passover begins at sundown Wednesday, I thought it was a propitious time to try to make my own matzoh. I was also not in the mood to try any of the Easter-themed recipes that were popping up on food blogs, and which were overly-cute and finicky. I didn’t much feel like making tiny rabbits out of marzipan or baking individual cakes in the shapes of Easter eggs.

Matzoh, in contrast, was simple and savory — with a rich religious and cultural heritage that didn’t involve me piping dozens of carrots in multi-colored frosting. It was exactly what I was looking for.

I loved the deep brown color of the matzoh.

This recipe is from Rose Levy Beranbaum’s book, The Bread Bible, but the recipe is originally from Noel Comess, founder of Tom Cat bakery in Queens, New York. The recipe takes liberties with the original recipe for Matzoh, which is traditionally made from plain flour and water. Beranbaum adds olive oil for crispness, and salt, wheat flour, and rosemary for flavor. According to Jewish law, the dough must be baked eighteen minutes after the dough is mixed, otherwise it is considered “leavened” and unsuitable for Passover. But Beranbaum’s dough rests for a full 30 minutes before shaping.

But while this matzoh is not strictly kosher for Passover, it is a recipe well worth adding to your year-round baking arsenal. The flavors are earthy and satisfying, with the rosemary and salt adding a savory punch to the simple dough. The matzoh make a loud and satisfying crackling sound when you tear off a piece, which adds to their appeal. These matzoh would be perfect alongside any meal, no matter what the occasion.

Maybe I’ll even make some for Easter dinner.

Matzoh, closeup.

Mediterranean Matzoh
Adapted from The Bread Bible, By Rose Levy Beranbaum

Ingredients
2 3/4 cups unbleached, all-purpose flour
1/4 cup whole wheat flour
1 1/4 tsp salt
1 cup water, at room temperature
1/4 cup olive oil, plus extra for oiling the dough
1/2 tablespoon rosemary, finely chopped

Directions
In a large bowl, whisk together the all-purpose flour, wheat flour, and salt. Make a well in the center of the flour mixture and pour in the water, olive oil, and rosemary. If you are using an electric mixer, mix with a paddle attachment until the dough comes together and cleans the sides of the bowl. If you are mixing the dough by hand, use a spatula, bench scraper, or your hands to mix the dough. If the dough is not coming together, you can add some more flour one teaspoon at a time until it forms a ball.

Remove the dough from the bowl and knead by hand flour one to two minutes on a floured work surface. The dough should be smooth, elastic, and satiny.

Pour a teaspoon of olive oil onto a plate. Turn the dough in it, until it is coated with olive oil. Cover the dough and plate with plastic wrap and let sit at room temperature for 30 minutes.

While the dough is resting, place a rack in the center of your oven and place a baking stone on it. Preheat your oven to 450 degrees Fahrenheit.

Cut the dough into six equal parts, shape into balls, and flatten into disks. Cover lightly with plastic wrap and let rest 10 minutes.

Take one of the balls of dough and place on a well floured work surface (keep the other balls of dough covered until you are ready to work with them). With a rolling pin, roll the dough into a rough circle, 12 to 13 inches in diameter. As you roll it out, lift and turn the dough at regular intervals, re-flouring the work surface as necessary, to keep it from sticking. You should try to get the dough as thin as possible – otherwise your matzoh will be too doughy and will not crisp up.

Dust a baking sheet with flour or corn meal. Gently lift the dough onto the prepared baking sheet and place in the oven on top of the baking stone. Cook for 3 minutes. Open the oven and pierce any large bubbles that have formed with a knife to deflate.

You will need to flip the dough, which is best done by using a pancake turner to lift the dough off the baking sheet and flip onto your pot-holder covered hand. Then gently placing the flipped dough back onto the baking sheet. Bake for 3-5 minutes more, until the bubbles are lightly browned.

When done, take the baking sheet from the oven and use a spatula to transfer the matzoh to a rack to cool.

You will have just enough time while one matzoh is cooking to roll out the next matzoh. Repeat this process with the next five balls of dough.

Okay, so I’m sick.  Sick again.  Still sick.  No matter how I look at it, and I’ve looked at it through every lens possible, I’m sick.  And have been for several weeks now.  I know, I’ve told myself that I don’t have cancer.  And that’s true.  No broken bones, etc.  Just flu-like, cold-like, sinus-infection yuck.  Every joint in my body aching, no energy, stuffy, downright cranky-making yuck.

So now you know.  I keep thinking, it’s easier to go through surgery, for god’s sake!  At least they give you drugs to manage the pain levels, and mostly, you’re expected to drop out of life for a while.  With this, I just get, “Gee, you’re still sick?  You’ve been sick for so long.”  As if I could change it.  And if I could I would.  It doesn’t feel good.  But for now, I’m just wishing my February away.  Because my skin hurts.  Because the place where my hair follicles reach into my scalp hurts.  Because I’ve gone through two, count ‘em, two, giant pots of chicken noodle soup and if you so much as ask me if I want soup or tea, I might bite your head off.  (Please accept my sincerest apologies now.)  Because my poor family, starved from lack of home-cooked food, did what any red-blooded American family would do at a time like this: they went to, I kid you not, KFC!  And never mind that I hadn’t eaten KFC for approximately 40 years, I asked them to bring me home some.  Uh-huh.  No wonder I’m not getting well . . .

I’m not the kind of person who wishes time away, much.  Too much death at too young of an age really makes me want to cherish every moment of life.  Mostly I do.  But not now.  Right now, I want to be someplace warm (which for a native Californian means over 70 degrees, thank you very much), and I want to feel the air on my skin as warm as soothing bath water.  I want to relax all these aching muscles and joints and I want to breathe soft air and be able to drink a cocktail.  Alas, I’ll have to wait, and heal, and soon it will be March and so on, and this too shall pass.  Yawn.  Aren’t you glad I stopped by today?

Well, I’ve had a few good days in the last few weeks, and on those days I have been baking, as usual.  Last week my son’s dear third grade teacher had a birthday.  I made her a yellow cake (with a touch of white chocolate in the batter), with lemon curd filling and classic lemon buttercream frosting.  Highlight of my week to be able to feel well enough to take that to her!  I strangely declared (after returning from the doctor’s office later in the day), “I want to make cakes!”  And why not, I ask?  Cakes are the ultimate everyday celebration food, true?  A cake is used to mark birthdays, weddings, parties.  Just seeing a cake makes one feel celebratory.  They’re kind of like champagne, that way.  They scream, “Party!”  (Confession: cakes are not actually my favorite kind of dessert to eat, but oddly enough they are my favorite to make.  The art and science of them amazes me endlessly.)

All the recipes for this cake are found in The Cake Bible by Rose Levy Beranbaum.  Sometimes her cake and frostings are too buttery and not sweet enough for tastes these days.  (Most of the kids did not eat the buttercream frosting, and some of the adults followed suit.)  But the recipes are incredibly well-tested classics, and if you are looking for old-fashioned taste, as far from a grocery-store bakery cake taste as you can get, she’s your gal.

It looks simple, but this all-butter pound cake was divine.

According to Larousse Gastronomique, the pound cake originated in England before traveling to France and, eventually, to America, where it became the basis for the American butter cake. The pound cake takes its name from the recipe, which originally called for a pound of eggs, a pound of flour, a pound of butter, and a pound of sugar.

Master baker Rose Levy Beranbaum used the pound cake as a starting point for developing her other cake recipes in The Cake Bible. When she created her pound cake recipe, she started with the traditional recipe and tweaked it to make the perfect, tender, buttery pound cake. Her pound cake recipe includes milk (for moisture), extra butter (for a tender crumb and excellent flavor), and baking powder (also for a tender crumb).

After making the Shirley O’Corriher pound cake, with fifteen ingredients and complicated multiple steps, Rose Levy Beranbaum’s recipe was a breeze. And I actually liked this pound cake more – I loved the deep, rich, buttery flavor of the cake, which O’Corriher’s recipe lacked. While this cake wasn’t quite as “melt-in-your” mouth as O’Corriher’s texture-wise, it was also much less sweet, which was much more to my taste.

So far, this looks like it may become my go-to recipe for pound cake, although who knows what the rest of the Pound Cake Project has in store.

Perfect Pound Cake
Adapted from The Cake Bible by Rose Levy Beranbaum

Ingredients

3 Tablespoons milk
3 large eggs
1 ½ teaspoons vanilla
1 ½ cups sifted cake flour
¾ cup sugar
¾ teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon salt
13 Tablespoons unsalted butter, softened

Directions

Preheat your oven to 350 F. Butter an 8 inch by 4 by 2.5 inch loaf pan, or any six cup loaf or fluted tube pan.

Lightly whisk together milk, eggs and vanilla in a medium bowl.

Place dry ingredients in a large bowl and mix on low speed for 30 seconds, until blended. Add the butter and half the egg mixture, and mix until dry ingredients are moistened. On medium speed, beat for one minute. This will aerate and develop the cake’s structure. Scrape down sides.

Add the remaining egg mixture in two batches, beating for 20 seconds between each addition. Scrape down sides.

Pour batter into prepared pan. Smooth surface with a spatula. Bake for 55-65 minutes (35-45 minutes if baking in a fluted tube pan), until a wooden toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Let cake cool on a rack in the pan for 10 minuets before inverting onto a greased wire rack. If using a loaf pan, flip the cake over so the top is up.

Popovers, take one.

One of the problems with being an amateur baker who, unfortunately, must work to make a living, is that it’s incredibly easy to fall into baking ruts. As much as I want to try new recipes, I never know if they’re going to work, and I hate wasting my precious time and energy on a failed project. This fear drives me back to the tried-and true crowd-pleasing recipes that I know will come out perfect every time, which is why I’ve made more batches of America’s Test Kitchen Molasses Spice cookies than I can count.

But in 2009, I want to stretch my baking chops. So I decided to do an experiment. Every month I want to choose a new baked good to focus on—pie, pound cake, devil’s food cake, etc.—and try a bunch of different recipes for that item. Hopefully, this project will hone my baking skills, force me to bake things I’d never bake on my own, and, of course, have something to chronicle for my domestically obsessed readership. Plus I now have several excellent cookbooks on hand, and this is a perfect excuse to try them out.

After a little culinary soul-searching, I decided that January was going to be popovers month. Why? Well, for one thing, they’re fast and easy to make. I can serve them with dinner for two nights in a row without inciting protest from WonkthePlank, who loves them. When done right, they taste delicious, with a salty, buttery and crisp brown crust, and soft, springy middle. And there’s a certain magic in a good popover—the liquid batter looks like it’s too soupy to bake into anything at all, but the mystical force of the oven transforms it into towering brown puffs of dough. That kind of magic is why I love baking.

My first popover attempt was based on Rose Levy Beranbaum’s recipe from the The Bread Bible, which is hands-down my all-time favorite cookbook. In the book, Beranbaum explains that popovers are a type of batter bread, meaning that the dough contains a double amount of water than a basic bread dough recipe. Basic popover recipes call for mixture of flour, eggs, and milk, but Beranbaum adds melted butter, salt and sugar as well. Despite their towering height, popovers do not use yeast or any other leavener. Instead, when placed in a hot oven, the milk in the batter creates steam, creating that magnificent rise.

Beanbaum’s recipe also calls for Wondra flour, which is a low-protein, highly-processed, granular flour that dissolves instantly in liquid. General Mills calls it “quick mixing” flour that can be used for gravy or sauces, but many bakers have found that it works well in certain breads and cakes. Wondra flour is perfect for popovers because the flour absorbs the liquid instantly, so the batter can be baked immediately. Many traditional popover recipes call for the batter to sit for several hours before baking, during which the flour becomes fully hydrated.

In my admittedly small amount of research on popovers, I’ve found that there’s variation in the way that popovers are baked. Some recipes call for popover batter to be poured into a buttered muffin or popover tin and then placed in a hot oven. However, the Beranbaum recipe calls for the buttered tins to be heated for a couple of minutes in a hot oven before the batter is added. This is the traditional way that Yorkshire puddings are made—although, in that case, they are cooked in beef drippings, rather than hot butter.

The recipe below is an adaptation of Beranbaum’s Bread Bible recipe, which I made last Friday night. While the popovers did, indeed, rise to stupendous heights, I think they almost rose too much. One of my favorite parts of a popover is the spongy, soft middle that clings to the crisp, brown crust. When I made these, there was an abundance of brown crust and not enough spongy middle. Still, if you like a crusty, buttery popover, then this recipe is for you.

Popovers
Adapted from The Bread Bible, By Rose Levy Beranbaum

Ingredients
1 cup plus 3 tablespoons Wondra Flour
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp sugar
1 cup whole milk
2 large eggs
4 tablespoons butter, melted.

Before you do anything, make sure that your eggs and and milk are at room temperature. I cheat by warming the milk in the microwave until it is just slightly cool to the touch, and placing the eggs in a bowl of hot water for several minutes.

Preheat your oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit, for at least half an hour before baking.

Mix together the flour, sugar, and salt with a whisk. Slowly whisk in your milk. Whisk in the eggs, one at a time, beating for one minute after each addition. Continue whisking until the batter is smooth. Add two tablespoons of the melted butter. At this point if you’re not making the popovers immediately, you can cover the bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate the dough up to 24 hours. I suggest pouring the batter into a liquid measuring cup, as this will make it much easier to pour into the muffin or popover cups when the time comes.

With a pastry brush, coat a 12-cup muffin pan or six cup popover pan with the remaining two tablespoons of melted butter. Place in the oven for 2-5 minutes, to heat the butter until very hot and starting to brown. Really keep an eye on the clock, because it’s very easy for the butter to burn (it happened to me on Friday), especially if you’re using a blasted nonstick muffin pan, like me. The dark coating means my muffin pan conducts too much heat, and is very prone to burning my creations. If the butter burns, then you need to melt more butter while cleaning out the pan and begin the whole process over again. Trust me, it’s a pain.

Once the butter is hot, take the pan out of the oven and pour the batter into the popover or muffin cups. The cups should be half full. Return to the oven and bake for 15 minutes. Lower the oven temperature to 350 degrees Fahrenheit, and continue baking for 40-45 minutes if using the popover pan, and 20-25 minutes if using a muffin pan.

Do not open the oven during baking! This is the route to a fallen popover. They should “pop” well above the top of cups, creating large poofs of crispy goodness. Remove from the oven, and allow to cool on a rack for five minutes. Or, if you are like me and anxious to get them to the table, drop them into a bowl lined with a cloth napkin, and serve right away.

These delightful cookies are not only eggless but taste great. Originally they were called Mom’s coconut kisses from Rose Levy Beranbaum ,one of the formost food writers of our time. The only issue I had with these cookies is the use of fresh coconut.I am sure ,if one had the time ,it would be great ,but, I find it tedious and complicated. I use one of two alternatives . You may either purchase the coconut pregrated from the freezer section of your supermarket or Asian store or , I use this in a pinch, resaturate unsweetened dessidicate coconut and wet the dry coconut with vanilla extract ,lemon juice and a teaspoon of water. Allow the coconut to sit ,undisturbed for 15 minutes then use in the recipe. Ofcouse whatever you do ,just make the cookie.

3  1/2 cups freshly grated coconut

7 fl oz condensed milk

2 tbs cornstarch

1 tsp lemon juice

1 tsp vanilla extract

pinch salt

In a medium bowl ,using a wooden spoon , mix all the ingredients together until well blended, but do not add all the milk until you check the consistency. The mixture should be moist and hold together. If necessary add up to 2 tbs extra milk.

Using a rounded cookie scoop  form 1 inch mounds 1 1/2 inches high. Place about 1 1/2 inches apart on the prepared baking sheet.

Bake for 15 to 20 minutes or until most of the cookies surface is light golden. During baking  rotate the cookie sheets from front to bottom and back to front.

Transfer to wire racks to cool completely.

Store , refridgerated or freezer in an airtight container.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Mousse Tart

I am big with the love for Rose Levy Beranbaum. Her Cake Bible has been an invaluable reference to me over the years (especially when making enough cake to feed 500 people), her Bread Bible has made Jeff a very happy man… but I haven’t done much with the Pie and Pastry Bible until now, although it’s been on my shelf for a few years, among the other pie and pastry books.

(Yes, I have a cookbook Problem. Comes from being a librarian for so many years. Books just sort of accumulate. And they’re organized. Right now the baking books are sort of taking over – it used to be 50/50 with the baking/cooking, but no longer. The chocolate section alone takes up nearly a whole shelf.)

Mostly, I think that’s because I’ve never been a real big pie baker. Which is funny, because I love pies a lot more than I love cake. I think it’s probably because I mostly bake for other people, mostly for special occasions, and they like cake. It just seems to fit.

However, with the business and trying to find the right things to make for the coffee shop/wine bar, pies are back on the menu, and so I need to do a lot of testing!

Today’s recipe was the further attempt to make the ultimate indulgence for those who can’t get enough of peanut butter and chocolate, and if Jeff is any indicator, I’ve hit it right on the nose.

(I let him have his sample slice, and he finished it before I wrapped up the rest of the tart to put back in the fridge and then stood there making puppy dog eyes at me and asking winsomely for another slice, please? I said no. I am cold-hearted and cruel and want him to be healthy and live to be 100.)

Me, I’m not a fan of peanut butter (another reason I’ve never made this before). I didn’t like it as a kid, and while I can tolerate it now, I just don’t really like it. But I had a bite, and the crust is delightfully chewy (it uses a PB cookie recipe), the peanut butter mousse fluffy and peanut-buttery, and the chocolate ganache topping perfectly chocolatey. We won’t discuss the decoration I attempted to pipe on top with milk chocolate – obviously, I’m going to need to work on that idea a little longer (and no, I’m not posting it and you can’t have it for Cake Wrecks, as I didn’t sell this to anyone. Someday I aspire to get into Cake Wrecks, but it’ll for something a heck of a lot more fantastic than dribbly piping.)

Chocolate Peanut Butter Mousse Tart
From Rose Levy Beranbaum’s Pie and Pastry Bible

Makes 1 large or 8 small tarts

Sweet Peanut Butter Cookie Tart Crust
[I doubled this recipe - made measuring things easier, and it freezes forever, so I just put half in the freezer so I could make tartlets later]

Makes one 9.5 x 1 inch tart, or 8-10 four inch tartlets

Ingredients

1/2 cup Bleached All-Purpose Flour (I used Lily’s)
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/16 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup packed light brown sugar
2 tablespoons sugar, preferably superfine (I used regular)
4 tablespoons unsalted butter at room temperature
1/2 cup smooth peanut butter, preferably Jif, at room temperature
1/2 large egg (beat before measuring)
1/4 teaspoon pure vanilla extract.

Into a small bowl, sift together the flour, baking soda, and salt. Whisk to combine well.

In a mixing bowl, beat both sugars until well mixed. Add the butter and peanut butter and beat for several minutes or until very smooth and creamy. Add the egg and vanilla extract and beat until incorporated, scraping the sides of the bowl. At low speed, gradually beat in the flour mixture just until incorporated.
[Can be stored unbaked, refrigerated up to 1 week; frozen about 1 year]

Press into pan, or roll out between two sheets of waxed paper into an 11″ circle and gently press into tart pan. Make sides about 1/4″ thick and trim even with the top of the pan.

Line the pan for blind baking using parchment or a coffee filter and pie weights. I would also highly recommend putting some foil liners over the edges of the dough, as it sort of went nuts and explody and crisped a lot when I blind-baked it.

Bake at 425F for 5 minutes, then lower to 375F and continue baking for 15-20 minutes until set. Lift out the weights with the parchment (you’ll lose some dough, this is normal), prick lightly, and continue baking 10 to 15 minutes more until it’s light golden brown. Cool completely.

I had my serious doubts about this crust, at this point. It looked burned on the edges and undercooked in the middle. Apparently, this is correct. Jeff says that it was perfect, although perhaps a bit crisp at the edges (which is why I recommend the foil covers).

You can see the crust better, here.

Peanut Butter Mousse

Ingredients

7 tablespoons cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup peanut butter, preferably Jif, at room temperature
1/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
3/4 liquid cup heavy cream, softly whipped

In a mixer bowl, preferably with the whisk beater, beat the cream cheese, peanut butter, and sugar until uniform in color. On low speed, beat in the vanilla. Beat in 1/4 cup of the whipped cream just until incorporated. With a large rubber spatula, fold in the rest of the whipped cream until blended but still airy. Scrape the mousse into the prepared tart shell and smooth the surface so that it is level. Refrigerate the tart while preparing the ganache. [I refrigerated overnight with no problems]

Pie sans ganache

Milk Chocolate Ganache Topping

Ingredients

3 ounces milk chocolate (I used Guittard 38% soleil d’or, amazing stuff)
2 ounces bittersweet chocolate (I used Callebaut 70% thick)
1/3 liquid cup heavy cream
1/8 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Make chocolate very small. Bring the cream to a boil. Pour cream over chocolate, let sit for a minute, then stir until emulsified (you can use an immersion blender if you like, or do this in a food processor). Add vanilla. Let cool to room temperature (I cooled to lukewarm. I am impatient).

Pour the ganache over the peanut butter mousse in a circular motion, so that it does not land too heavily on any one spot and cause a depression (if you’ve refrigerated overnight ,this isn’t really an issue). With a small metal spatula, start by spreading the ganache to the edges of the pastry, then spread it evenly to cover the entire surface. Refrigerate the tart for at least 2 hours to set.

Store at room temperature up to 1 day, refrigerated up to 5 days, frozen up to 3 months. (Wrap after freezing to preserve shiny coating on ganache).

The slice Jeff had. Pay no attention to the blob.

Mmm.  Yes, this is going into the repertoire!

Cupcakes we can believe in.

In DC, election day is kind of like the World Series, the Olympics,and Christmas morning, all rolled into one. Every one in DC has been talking about the 2008 election since, well, the 2004 election was over.

So, in honor of my chosen candidate (Barack Obama), I created my very own Obama Cupcakes. I decided that traditional flavors suited this candidate best who, really, is running on as down-home a platform as there ever was (lower taxes for the middle class, better education, sensible foreign policy, reaching accross the aisle).

These cupcakes are for change!

And what’s more traditional than the classic pairing of vanilla and chocolate? I used Rose Levy-Beranbaum’s Perfect All-American Chocolate Butter Cake recipe (so appropriate!), which yielded 18 chocolate cupcakes. For the frosting, I used this vanilla frosting recipe from the Magnolia Bakery in NYC. I actually thought that the cake came out a little on the dry side, and the frosting was slightly grainy—it didn’t have that silken smooth texture that I’m constantly seeking in a frosting. My quest for the perfect frosting continues.

But despite their flaws, these cupcakes were still enjoyed by all. So happy election day everyone! Now go vote!

A plateful of Obama-supporting cupcakes. Don't these make you want to go vote?

The Princess has been going through a lot this past week—no thanks to state laws requiring eye and dental exams by October 15. School must be stressing her out, too. I would hear her in the middle of the night yelling at someone to leave her alone. Stressful times call for chocolate, and I think I have the perfect recipe.

It’s amazing what they’re learning in kindergarten these days. On top of phonics and writing letters and numbers, her class is learning about the earth, the different layers that make it up, how it spins, Pangaea, and the continents. They even simulated a volcanic eruption in class, pouring red-dyed vinegar over baking soda. Sounds neat, doesn’t it?

The vinegar over baking soda reminds of me of a chocolate cake recipe, that I had to swear to never divulge to another soul. Anyway, it’s one of the best chocolate cakes I’ve ever had. It has no egg or dairy, but it is rich, moist, and absolutely delicious.

It’s supposed to be a secret recipe that Daniel got from a friend, who probably got it from another friend or family member, but after doing a quick search on Google, I see variations of it listed throughout the web. (So, Daniel—the secret’s already out!)

The secret ingredient is vinegar. When vinegar reacts with alkaline-rich cocoa powder and baking soda, magic happens. Even non-foodies respond, “This is pretty good,” or they may simply grunt and just stick out their plates for more.

Many of you may be wondering, “But won’t this make the cake taste like vinegar?” Believe it or not, it doesn’t taste like vinegar at all. The reaction between the acid (vinegar) and base ingredients (cocoa and baking soda) creates gases within the batter. The gluten in the flour maintains the moisture produced by the gases within its cells. The fat from the oil and the crystalline structure of the sugar help the cake retain its structure. Everything works together to create perfection!

The secret to making this cake is having everything in place and working very fast, especially as the chemical reaction happens pretty quickly. I recommend using Droste or Penzey’s Dutch-processed cocoa—either brand is key for a super-smooth, melt-in-your-mouth texture. (Hershey’s unsweetened cocoa just isn’t the same.) I did a quick read on Rose Levy Beranbaum’s blog and learned that Dutch-processed cocoa produces finer bubbles vs. the regular cocoa. She recommends using Green and Black’s 100% organic Dutch-processed cocoa, which is something I’d like to try. (If you ever have a chance to read her book, The Cake Bible, I highly recommend it—it’s one of my all-time favorites!)

The question I have is whether or not using apple cider vinegar vs. the standard distilled white vinegar makes a difference. Perhaps I will need to do an experiment and have a side-by-side taste test?! (In the past I had just used white vinegar)

Here’s the recipe. (For those who do not have any dietary restrictions, feel free to substitute with dairy ingredients wherever soymilk or margarine is specified.) Enjoy!

Chocolate Cake (No Longer Secret Recipe)

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.

Mix the following dry ingredients thoroughly:
1 cup sugar
1 1/2 cup flour
1/3 cup cocoa powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt

Grease metal baking pan with margarine and dust pan with a small mixture of cocoa powder and flour to keep from sticking. (Silicone baking pans are not recommended!)

Mix the following liquid ingredients in a separate bowl:
1 cup cold water
2 tsp vanilla
2 tbs vinegar
1/2 cup vegetable oil

Pour wet ingredients into dry, mix quickly without overmixing, pour into pan, and bake immediately for 20-25 minutes.

Note: Cake is done when it springs back when touched lightly in the middle. Cake tester must come out clean as well.

___

Chocolate Icing
1 lb. powdered sugar
4 tbs cocoa powder
1 stick margarine
6 tbs soymilk or water*
1 tsp vanilla

Mix powdered sugar and cocoa powder. Melt margarine, add soymilk or water and vanilla. Remove liquid mixture from heat, add dry ingredients to wet, and mix thoroughly.

Note: Beware—this makes a lot of icing! Also, the icing may not be the right consistency immediately—it may seem too liquidy. Sometimes it helps to let it solidify a bit in the fridge. If it still seems too liquidy after about 10-15 minutes, mix in some more powdered sugar. Experimentation is key!

*Depending on the audience, I may use a chocolate liqueur instead of the soymilk or water. Yummy! (Chocolate liqueur has dairy…)

My Lavender Lemon Honey Birthday Cake is well on its way to being completed, and I couldn’t be more satisfied.

In an uncharacteristic move for me, I decided to plan ahead and make the cake layers in advance. So I am quite pleased to say that they are currently sitting in my freezer on a makeshift system of wobbly cooling racks that have been stacked on top of each other.

I decided to make the cake layers the weekend before my birthday because making The Beehive Cake, which I started two days before it was served, was way too stressful. I was so consumed by making sure that each of the cake’s elements came together, I almost fell into that hostess trap where you’re too worried about how the food will turn out to be any fun to talk to.

However, while I’ve been good about starting this cake in advance, I’ve still manged to have several bone-headed moments during its creation. In a much more characteristic move for the space-cadet that I am, the cake had a brush with disaster in its very infancy — all because I never paid attention in chemistry class and completely forgot that lemon juice curdles milk.

You see, I decided to modify a Cake Bible recipe and add some lemon flavoring to Rose Levy Beranbaum’s White Velvet Butter Cake recipe (which I doubled). The White Velvet Butter Cake is a slightly different recipe than the Downy Yellow Butter Cake, which I used to create The Beehive Cake. Instead of using whole eggs, the recipe uses only egg whites. The resulting cake has an exceptionally tender crumb and is a pale, creamy color. It perfectly fulfills my desire to make the Blanche DuBois of cakes — the ultra feminine, ultra girly type of cake best served at a bridal shower, baby shower, or other feminine event.

As I explained in the Banana Bread entry, The Cake Bible uses a two-stage method for mixing cake batter, by first mixing together the dry ingredients, butter, and a little liquid (stage one), and then beating in more liquid in small additions (stage two). The White Velvet Butter Cake uses a combination of egg whites, milk and vanilla in stage two, that is added to the stage one mixture.

And it’s here that I got a little tripped up and almost ruined the cake.

To create a lemon-flavored cake, before mixing my dry ingredients together I added the zest of four lemons to the sugar, beating the two together with the paddle attachment of my Kitchen Aid Mixer. This makes it more difficult for the lemon zest to clump up, which often happens if you add it straight to the wet or dry ingredients (and no, for the record, I didn’t think of this method myself, as much as I would have liked to. I think my mother saw it on America’s Test Kitchen and told me about it).

However, I wanted to add some lemon juice to the batter too—I though it would give the cake an extra lemony oomph. So I did what any girl who didn’t pay attention in chemistry class would do — I added half a cup of lemon juice to the egg white/milk/vanilla mixture.

Immediately I realized that something was wrong. Small globs of pinkish goo began to coagulate in my bowl. I frantically whisked the mixture, hoping the globs would be incorporated back into the egg whites. But they only seemed to get bigger and grainier, and their strange pinkish huge deepened.

Then, something in the back of my brain switched on, a deep knowledge that I probably gained in my childhood while watching Mr. Wizard.

“It’s curdling,” I thought. “The lemon juice is curdling the milk.”

I knew that I didn’t have enough eggs to start over (the double recipe uses nine egg whites), so I had to somehow save the cake.

In a move that I think I learned about on the food network somewhere, I instinctively picked up a fine mesh strainer. I could see that the milk was floating in salmon-colored clusters on the top of the bowl, but that the egg yolks/vanilla/lemon juice mixture looked relatively fine below.

I poured the mixture through the strainer, which left a gelatinous mass of curdled milk, mingled with some residual egg whites, in the strainer bowl. Victory! The egg whites came through the curdled milk experience relatively undamaged, and the White Velvet Butter Cake (Now With Lemon) was back on track.

Because there seemed to be quite a bit of egg white that didn’t make it out of the strainer, I added an additional two whites to the liquid. I was worried that the lemon juice would somehow curdle the cake batter when I added the egg white/vanilla/lemon mixture to rest of the batter, but it held together fine.

And now I can happily say that the cake came out just fine. I actually made an extra cake layer that Dave and I ate on Sunday, and the cake was exactly the way I wanted it — light, delicate, and silky, with that pale porcelain hue that I so desired.

Now I can’t wait to make the lavender-lemon mousse filling and honey buttercream frosting, which I think I’ll probably do on Friday night.

Let’s just hope that I have thoroughly learned my “lemon juice will curdle milk” science lesson this time.

My birthday is coming up next week. For most people birthdays bring up lots of questions: what do you want to receive? Should you do a night out on the town, or a dinner at home? Did you really think this is what your life would be like by this age? My god, I’m how many years old now?

But for me, the great question is: how do I top The Beehive Cake?

Yes, The Beehive Cake: my last great cake creation, as captured by the cellphone camera of CupcakeMonsterLee.

This cake, which I made a month ago for my boyfriend Dave’s birthday (shout out: he blogs about investing and business-y type things at wonktheplank), was my grandest creation yet. It was conceived in a fit of madness and daring, and was inspired by a Martha Stewart cover that Dave and I glimpsed in the grocery store, and that probably drove up sales of Williams Sonoma’s beehive-shaped cake pan by, oh, three hundred percent or so (really, who’s going to actually go out and purchase a specialty cake pan that she will use once every five years, if not to emulate The Martha?).

Dave thought that it looked so ridiculous, so over-the-top, that of course he wanted me to recreate it for his birthday. For reasons that are still unclear to me, Dave gets a tremendous kick out of elaborately decorated cakes. In fact, he’s still chuckling about the carrot cake I made for his last birthday; the large, cartoon-like frosting carrots that adorned the top sent him into fits of uncontrollable laughter.

Right away, after choosing The Beehive Cake as my new project, I decided against the specialty cake pan. After all, half the fun of making elaborate cakes is figuring out how exactly you will achieve the impossible, and buying a beehive-shaped cake pan that does most of the work for you takes the fun out of it. Instead, I decided to create The Beehive Cake the old-fashioned way: with multiple tiers, frosting, and, of course, a lot of food coloring.

My first step was to make a double recipe of Rose Levy Beranbaum’s All-Occasion Downy Yellow Butter Cake from The Cake Bible , which turned out to be perfect for this project because it was sturdy and easy-to work with. I made four layers using cake pans of slightly varying sizes and, once they had cooled overnight, used a serrated knife to round the top of each layers, making them more dome-like.

My next step was to make the frosting and filling – and herein lies the fatal flaw of The Beehive Cake. The frosting and filling I chose were just too sweet for the already-sweet cake layers, and the end result was a little cloying. For the yellow frosting I used butter, milk, powdered sugar and melted white chocolate (and of course, lots of food coloring), but the powdered sugar and white chocolate was just too much. Same thing for the milk chocolate filling – the chocolate and the powdered sugar set your teeth on edge.

Another problem was that I didn’t make enough frosting to execute my original plan of piping yellow frosting all around the cake. Instead, I had to resort to my back-up method: after I sandwiched the layers together with the milk chocolate filling, I spackled on the yellow frosting and smoothed it down with a flat spatula. This method is definitely easier than piping frosting, but it always shows imperfections, and lacked the smoothness that I was seeking.

I was much more pleased with how the little bees that covered the cake came out (I think you can just make them out in the picture), which I made by using chocolate covered-almonds and piping on stripes and eyes using remnants of the yellow frosting. I created the door to the Beehive using the leftover milk chocolate filling, and edging it with white chocolate chips.

In the end, The Beehive Cake had the spectacular look I was going for, but at the end of the day the damn thing was just too sweet. However, this is the wonderful thing about baking: even though it wasn’t perfect, even though it had some flaws, everybody still loved it. Or, if they didn’t, they were far too polite to let me know the truth.

So it brings me back to my original question: how do I top The Beehive Cake?

Obviously, I’ll be focusing more on the flavor of this cake, and trying to make it sweet and celebratory without being cloying. I’ve already decided that I want my flavors to a freshing combination of honey, lemon and lavender, since we’ll be eating this in August in DC and, if history is any judge, it will be 105 degrees out. I may even try to make a more traditional buttercream and see if I can’t achieve the flavorful, but not too sweet, frosting that I’ve been seeking.

As the look of the cake, I’m still waiting on that flash of divine inspiration. Which reminds me, I’ve been meaning to check out the latest Martha Stewart cover.

]]>