The Bake More

TWD: White Loaves

2012-02-07T01:00:00.001-06:00

Hello Tuesday! Tuesday with Dorie that is. Today is the start of a new baking adventure using the world famous book Baking with Julia. This week's TWD selection of White Loaves is brought to you by Laurie and Jules. You can find the recipe on Jules' blog.

So how did my loaves fare? Take a look...

Lovely, puffy, loaves. Loaves so full of yeast I feared they would take over my kitchen.

Just out of the oven. Can't you just smell the aroma of freshly baked bread?

Ah, bread. If it weren't for you I would still fit in my pants!

TWD: Apple Nut Muffin Cake

2011-10-03T17:57:00.005-05:00

Dorie had a kitchen emergency and turned her Apple Nut Muffins into cake. I did the reverse and turned Dorie's Apple Nut Muffin Cake into muffins!

Yum. Apples, nuts, raisins, nothing says Fall like apple desserts.

This week's Tuesdays with Dorie selection was made by Katrina of Baking and Boys.

Thanks, Katrina, for a winning selection!

TWD: Cocoa Salt and Pepper Shortbread

2011-09-21T20:27:00.003-05:00

This week's Tuesday with Dorie selection was made by Tia of Buttercream Barbie. I was intrigued by the thought of salt & pepper in a sweet cookie so I quickly baked up a batch, but...

...I wasn't impressed. The salt & pepper that I sprinkled on top added a surprising kick when you took a bite, but the cookie itself was kinda dull. I ate a couple and thought, "These just aren't worth the calories."

Maybe they needed more sugar (they weren't sweet at all). Or maybe they needed more cocoa. Hard to pin-point the problem, but they were definitely not a "keeper".

Sorry Dorie. This is the first recipe from the book that I didn't care for...

TWD: Clasic Brownies

2011-09-12T23:26:00.001-05:00

I tend to prefer cakelike brownies over fudgy brownies, but these fudgy little gems were pretty darn good. Dorie Greenspan in "Baking from My Home to Yours" describe them as "Fudgy but not gooey, intensely chocolaty, dry on top and melty in the middle." That about describes them perfectly.

Many thanks, Anne, of Anne Strawberry for making this week's TWD selection. Go to Anne's web page for the recipe and check out TWD - Tuesdays with Dorie for links to the other "Classic Brownies" renditions.

Amanda's iPhone Cake

2011-08-28T15:21:00.005-05:00

My 10 year old niece wanted an iPhone for her birthday. Her dad said “NO, absolutely positively NO”, so I made her an iPhone cake instead. She got a kick out of it, and her friends did too.

I can't believe it, but this is the first decorated cake that I’ve made in over a year and a half. It has been a rough, rough 18 months. To emotional and upsetting to think about decorating cakes, but I’m hoping and praying that things will get better.

Anyway the cake is half red velvet and half chocolate fudge. I made the app icons out of polymer clay and the rest of the decorations are made from Wilton’s fondant. Yuck!! I think that stuff tastes like flavorless wax, but a kid at the party actually loved the stuff. Weird kid.

Here are the app icons coming together. The assembly wasn't hard, but it was very time consuming. I think I spent about 8 hours making all the 17 app icons. My favorite is the "Map". It has little tiny roads, an interstate sign, and a red push pin. Too cute.

TWD: Golden Brioche Loaves

2011-08-23T01:01:00.002-05:00

Dorie Greenspan's Golden Brioche Loaves have long been on my baking "to do" list, but it took Margie of Tea and Scones to push it to the top of my baking agenda. Margie selected the recipe for Tuesdays with Dorie's weekly baking assignment. Check out Margie's blog for the recipe and TWD for other version of this French classic.

So how did my first attempt at Brioche go??
Well not too bad, it baked up slightly darker than "golden", but it still had a great taste and light, pillowy texture.

So here it the life cycle of my Brioche (in pictures of course)...

Step 1: Yeast, water, milk, flour, and salt after a few quick pulses.

Step 2: Add the eggs.

Step 3: Add the butter, a little bit at a time. This step took FOREVER. Who would have thought it would take so long to incorporate the butter into the dough.

Step 4: All the butter incorporated into the dough. Beat for about 10 minutes till the dough pulls away from the side of the bowl.

Step 5: Transfer to a bowl, and let the "rising" begin.

Step 6: A few hours later, let the "rising" end.

Step 7: Cut the dough into two (or four) equal pieces. (I didn't have two 8 1/2 x 4 1/2 loaf pans so I used four mini pans. ) Cut each piece of dough into 4 equal pieces and roll into logs.

Step 8: Arrange 4 logs crosswise in the bottom of each pan. Sticky, sticky dough.

Step 9: Leave the dough at room temperature until the dough almost fills the pans. Oops, my loaves rose a little too much.

Step 10: Bake the loaves until golden brown. I cooked mine for about 25 minutes and they came out a bit too brown and a little dry. So next time I would stop at about 20 minutes.

So like I said, a little dry and a little too brown, but not half bad for my first loaf of Golden Brioche!!!

TWD: Cream Scones

2011-07-11T21:00:00.002-05:00

Light, moist and delicately crumbly. This simple scone has lovely taste and wonderful texture. I had one and then another, and when no one was looking, I had a third.

And apparently I wasn't the only one to think these scones were amazing, cause all 12 of these little beauties disappeared in just a few minutes.

Thanks Lynne of Cafe LynnyLu for an excellent Tuesdays with Dorie selection. It is now one of my favorites. Check out Lynn's site for the recipe or find in on page 17 of Dorie Greenspan's Baking From My Home to Yours.

PS: I did make a few minor modifications to the recipe. I used 7 tablespoons of butter instead of 5, I used 4 tablespoons of sugar instead of 2 (plus I sprinkled some additional sugar on top), and I added a teaspoon of almond extract. I baked them for 19 minutes (my oven runs hot) on a baking stone.

I hope yours turn out as amazing as mine :)

TWD: Chocolate Chunk Muffins

2011-07-04T17:46:00.004-05:00

I've been a bad blogger lately :(

I've been baking goodies once, twice and even thrice a week, but not blogging about any of them (bad, bad, blogger). What can I say: work, life, parties, holidays, watering my drought parched lawn, lots of things have gotten in the way.

But today on this sweltering July 4th afternoon, I made some mid-year resolutions...

1) I will blog on everything I bake,
2) I will stop using my treadmill as laundry line and start exercising again, and
3) I will try to see the good in people and situations. Note to self: stop being so negative.

So here is my first blog in a while, TWD's Chocolate Chunk Muffins. So good, so chocolaty, so moist and delicious. Thanks, Bridget of The Way the Cookie Crumbles, for a great selection.

Next week Cream Scones (yummm, my favorite).

TWD: Maple-Cornmeal Drop Biscuits

2011-05-17T17:07:00.004-05:00

Not much to look at, but mighty tasty nonetheless.

Many thanks Lindsey from A Little Something... Sweet! for selecting this week's TWD recipe: Maple-Cornmeal Drop Biscuits.

Think cornbread, think scone, then think of them merged together. Yes, that's it! That is what these little gems taste like. Crumbly and soft with just a hint of sweetness. Very good. Too good to eat just one.

Thanks, Lindsey, for a great selection.

TWD: Pecan Shortbread - Fiasco

2011-05-15T11:57:00.003-05:00

I was in a mood for shortbread, so I decided to try out Dorie Greenspan's Pecan Shortbread.

Should I describe my attempt as a failure? A fiasco? An unmitigated flop?

I don't know what I did wrong, but whatever it was, my "wrongness" was major.

Too much butter?

Not enough flour?

I thought I measured everything correctly, but apparently NOT.

Instead of nice, sharp edged squares, everything spread into one thin sheet of butter, sugar, pecans, and flour. It tasted good (like pecan taffy), but it was definitely unappealing.

Oh well, file this one under "misadventures".

TWD: Brown Sugar Bundt Cake

2011-05-10T21:06:00.003-05:00

This week's Tuesdays with Dorie selection of Brown Sugar Bundt Cake was made by Peggy from Pantry Revisited. The recipe actually calls for pears and prunes (neither of which I'm found of), but the "Playing Around" options said to omit the pears and prunes and stir in chopped nuts. Yes. I loooove nuts. So here is my Brown Sugar-Nut Bundt Cake.

Very soft and tender texture, and extremely moist to boot.

Thanks, Peggy, for a great pick.

TDW: Basic Marbled Load Cake

2011-05-03T01:03:00.000-05:00

My Pick!!!! My Turn !!!

After 1-1/2 years, it is finally my week to host TWD. I selected Marbled Load Cake because it just begs to be fiddled with. Dorie offered several "playing around" suggestions, and I went with the white and dark chocolate variation. Other suggestions included orange, peppermint, cardamon, coffee. I can't wait to see what amazing flavor combination the creative bakers at TDW come up with.

My Marbled Load Cake saga started out well. I didn't panic when my batter curdled, cause, Dorie, the baking goddess told me it might happen.

Marbling the batter was fun. (Although I ended up eating a lot batter before it made it to the pan. Hey I had to catch all the batter that dripped from the spoon.)

And the final swirls made it look so pretty.

But alas my oven is having serious problems, and is causing be no end of grief. I really think it is inhabited by demons or other such mischievous beings. The temperature goes up and down on its own, and sometimes even shuts itself off on occasion. I really believe the thing is toying with me. It is trying to destroying what little baking confidence I have/had.

Case in point: I only baked my marbled loaf for 55 minutes (and not the suggested 80-90 minutes), and still I ended up crispy edges.

But I didn't let a cruel oven and burnt edges stop ME! I just did a lot of edge trimming, slathered each slice with chocolate sauce and vanilla ice cream, and ate Chocolate Marbled Load Cake until every last crumb was gone.

Everything is better with chocolate, even extra crispy cake.

Here is the recipe from page 230 of Dorie Greenspan's BAKING from My Home to Yours:

Basic Marbled Load Cake

2 cups plus 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 1/4 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoons salt
1 1/2 sticks (12 tablespoons) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup granulated sugar
4 large eggs
1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1/2 cup whole milk )
Choice of flavorings

1. Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 325°F. Butter and flour an 8 1/2 x 4 1/2 x 2 1/2 inch loaf pan. Place the pan on an insulated baking sheet or on two stacked regular baking sheets.

2. Whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt.

3. Working with a stand mixer, preferable fitted with a paddle attachment, or with a hand mixer in a large bowl,beat the butter on medium speed until smooth, about 3 minutes. Add the sugar and beat for another 2 to 3 minutes. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in the vanilla. Don't be concerned if the batter curdles and stays curdle--it will be find.

4. Reduce the mixer speed to low and alternately add the flour mixture in 3 additions and the milk in 2, beginning and ending with the dry ingredients, just until each addition is incorporated.

5. Divide the batter equally into two bowls. Add the flavorings of your choice to each bowl of batter.

6. Dollop spoonfuls of each batter randomly into the prepared pan. Plunge a table knife deep into the batter and zigzag the knife through the batter a few times. Be careful not to over mix the batter as you'll lose the marbled effect and end up with a muddy-looking loaf.

7. Bake the cake for an hour and then check on it. If it looks like it's getting too brown but needs more baking, cover the bread loosely with a tent of foil. The cake may need up to 30 minutes more to bake, depending on your oven, how dark your baking pan is and what additions you've made. The cake is done when a thin knife or cake tester inserted in the middle comes out clean.

8. Transfer the cake pan to a rack to cool for 15 minutes and then remove it from the pan and continue to cool it (right side up) on the rack until it's room temperature.

TWD: Cornmeal Shortbread Cookies

2011-04-26T01:05:00.001-05:00

This week's Tuesdays With Dorie selection of Cornmeal Shortbread Cookies (page 130 of Dorie Greenspan's: BAKING From My Home to Yours) was made by Valerie of Une Gamine dans la Cuisine.

Now I'm a BIG fan of thick, crumbly Scottish shortbread (think Walkers), so I was a little disappointed in these cookies. They were a little too thin and a little too sweet, so they just didn't "taste" like shortbread. And those little buggers spread like crazy. For the second batch I even pre-cut the squares and chilled the dough before baking, but I still got the same mis-shaped results. Yes, I know I'm whining.

If these cookies had been called sugar cornmeal cookies or sweet butter-cornmeal crisps, I would have raved about their taste and the surprisingly pleasant texture that the cornmeal adds, but I was fixated on the traditional and my mind couldn't cope with this different spin on shortbread. I know, I know, the problem is with me and not the cookies.

But one thing I simply loved about this recipe was the awesome tip about rolling out the dough in a zip-lock bag. No mess, no fuss, and best of all no clean-up.

Simply genius. Thanks Dorie.

And thank you, Valerie. Your selection really was tasty.

TWD: A Tourtely Apple Tart

2011-04-19T01:06:00.001-05:00

This week's Tuesdays with Dorie selection of A Tourtely Apple Tart (page 306 & 307 of Dorie Greenspans' Baking From My Home to Yours) was made by Jeanette of The Whimsical Cupcake.

I halved the recipe and made four mini tarts. Isn't he cute?

I had a little trouble adjusting the baking time and temperature for my mini portions, but even with their crispy brown edges the tarts tasted great. They could have been a little sweeter and a little juicer, but not too bad for my first attempt at Dorie's Tourtely Apple Tart.

Thanks Jeanette

TWD: Pecan Powder Puffs

2011-03-29T01:01:00.001-05:00

Pecan Powder Puffs, Mexican Wedding Cookies, Pecan Sandie... This cookie is called many different things, but regardless of the name it is delicious. Tender, melt in your mouth cookie speckled with ground pecans, and sprinkled with powdered sugar. Yummmm... You can't eat just one.

Mixing these cookies was quick and easy, especially since I took Dorie' suggestion and mixed the dough in a food processor.

But I did have a little trouble with the baking. I chilled the dough for about 3 hours, but I guess my hot little hands softened the butter as I formed the balls. The cookies spread like crazy. Poor little Pecan Powder Pancakes.

For the second batch I rolled the dough into the little balls first and then chilled them for a few hours. This time they baked up perfectly round little domes of puffy pecan delights.

I baked these gems for my Mom's 77th Birthday on March 20th. She got a laugh from the 77 candles I had on her cake. She had no trouble blowing them all out, and no, the smoke alarm did not go off.

Steve's Pecan Parline Bars

2011-03-27T09:35:00.008-05:00

This last week has been a nightmare. On Monday, March 21st my younger brother, Steve, went in for a colonoscopy and they found a mass the size of a baseball on his colon. The doctor said it have been growing there for 10 years. On Wednesday (his birthday) he had a CT scan that found spots on his liver. The whole family is numb with shock and disbelief, he is only 44 and has three kids.

On Saturday we had his birthday party, and I made him his favorite dessert: Pecan Pralines Bars. Here is the recipe I used, but I subbed half the white sugar for brown sugar.

Here is my brother, always happy, always smiling. He is having surgery on Wednesday, March 30 to remove a part of his colon. He will start chemo right after that...

If you are over the age of 40, please, please go and get a colonoscopy. Even if you don't have any symptoms. Most doctors say you don't need it until you are 50, but don't risk it. You are playing Russian Roulette with you life.

I scheduled my appointment (I'm scared to death about what they might find), now you schedule YOURS!!!!

TWD: Corniest Corn Muffins

2011-03-13T09:17:00.003-05:00

I always seem to be running late these days: no time exercise, to time to garden, and worst of all no time to BAKE. (I also don't have time to clean the house, but in my mind that is a good thing.) So here I am 4 days late with my Tuesday with Dorie post. Sorry fellow TWDers.

This week's selection of Corniest Corn Muffins (page 4 of Dorie Greenspan's Baking From My Home to Yours) was made by Jill of My Next Life.

Over my life time I have baked a lot of Corn Bread and tried a lot of different recipes but I've always gone back to Martha White's Sweet Yellow Corn Bread (yes a box mix). Everyone in the family loves it and it is always the first thing to go at gatherings.

But I have to say Dorie's Corniest Corn Muffins recipe may have Martha's box mix beat. The CCM's texture was great, it was full of fluffy air pockets and crunchy corn. It was moist and slightly sweet, and almost perfect. Next time I'll add more corn, maybe a little more sugar, and bake it a little less. I baked for 17 minutes and mine came out a little too brown.

So thanks Jill for making a great selection. I have a new favorite Corn Bread recipe!

On a different subject take a look at the roses I found at Walmart of all places. You can't really tell in the picture, but they have a greenish-yellow color. Very unusual and beautiful. And only 8 bucks for a dozen. What a bargain.

TWD: Toasted Almond Scones

2011-02-23T21:19:00.006-06:00

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways...
I love your Toasted Almonds
I love your Ground Almonds
I love your Chopped Almonds and Almond Extract too...

Sigh, Almond Scones are one of my favorite things so I was so excited when Mike of Living Out West selected them for Tuesdays with Dorie's weekly baking assignment.

The ingredients were typical scone stuff and came together beautifully, but as Dorie warned in her book the dough was very, very sticky. What a mess!!!

But I just floured my hand extra well, and voila, nice pretty wedges.

Oops, I forgot to separate the wedges before baking (I'm getting so forgetful in my old age), but they still came out looking pretty nice (or at least I thought so). Plus they puffed up like a Puffer Fish on steroids. Truly amazing. I guess it was all that baking powder in the mix :)

So how did they taste?

Well honestly I was just a little disappointed.

I have a horrendous sweet tooth and these scones had just a hint of sweetness. I guess I could have slathered it with jam, but I didn't have anything suitable (scone worthy) in the frig.

But I didn't despair. I had mixed a full batch and froze half the dough, so I'll bake up the second half and have another taste test this weekend. Yea, more scones. This time I'm gonna drench those little babies in Blackcurrant jam and Jersey Cream. I'll let you know how they taste.

TWD: Chocolate Oatmeal Drops

2011-02-15T01:01:00.001-06:00

This week's Tuesdays with Dorie selection of Chocolate Oatmeal Drops (page 75) was made by Caroline and Claire of Bake With Us. Many thanks, Caroline and Claire. I was in desperate need of a chocolate fix.

Now I don’t know if I did something wrong, but my cookie dough was more like cake batter than Toll House slice-and-bake. The picture doesn't capture the true runnyness (sp) of the mix, but take my word for it, it almost oozed.

The cookies spread like crazy during baking, and at the suggested 12 minute baking time they came out a little crisp and singed around the edges. For the second batch I chilled the dough till it hardened and only baked them for 10 minutes.

They came out perfect. Nice domed cookies with very little spreading, crunchy outside with soft, chewy middle. Perfection.

Again, many thanks Caroline and Claire, and you too Dorie!

TWD: Nutty Chocolatey Swirly Sour Cream Bundt Cake

2011-01-28T08:14:00.000-06:00

This week's Tuesday with Dorie selection of Nutty, Chocolatly, Swirly Sour Cream Bundt Cake (page 182 of Baking From my home to yours) was made by Jennifer of Cooking for Comfort.

I've always had trouble with swirly Bundt cakes, so I took to heart all the suggestions made by the bakers who finished on time (unlike me). I buttered and floured the hell out of my non-stick Bundt. I carefully kept the swirly stuff away for the edge of the pan. Several people had a problem with the second swirl layer separating from the main body of the cake when the cake was removed from the pan, so again I followed their recommendations and completely covered the final swirl with batter.

[ Oops, I forgot picture of beautiful batter and swirly center, so you'll have to use your baking imagination. ]

Some of the TWD bakers also reported that the cake was cooked before the suggested 60 minutes, but somehow I missed that one. I was reading the news paper waiting for my oven timer to go off (it still had five minutes to go), when I smelled something burning!!!! I yanked that sucker out of the oven, but the damage was done. Sigh... I over-baked again.

To makeup for my blunder I whipped up a little ganache and poured it all over the top of the cake, and as an added touch I sprinkled mini chocolate chips on top. Nothing covers up mistakes like chocolate.

TWD: Lemon Poppyseed Muffins

2011-01-18T01:00:00.000-06:00

This week's Tuesday with Dorie pick was made by Betsy of A Cup of Sweetness. And what did that amazingly psychic woman select? Why my all-time favorite Dorie recipe: Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins. Yum.

I want to be buried with one of these muffins.

Their aroma was refreshing, their taste: tangy yet sweet. The only complaint my family had with regards to these muffins was ...

"MORE ICING, PLEASE".

"Lots more icing, PLEASE."

Well at least they're polite.

White Cake Taste Test

2011-01-10T12:30:00.002-06:00

A few members on Cake Central recently kicked off a Great Scratch Off - White Cake Taste Test. Yeah, White Cake! I’ve been on the hunt for the "perfect" white cake recipe so I joined the fun. Eight recipes were selected for the comparison (see list below). I would have liked to try them all, but I was pressed for time so I selected four to sample: one made with shortening, one with buttermilk, one with just butter, and one with sour cream.

Here are links to the eight recipes that Cake Central selected for the comparison:

King Arthur Flour - Tender While Cake - I would have liked to try this recipe. It is the standard "butter" recipe, but it also give the option of using vanilla yogurt or whole milk. I've always wondered how yogurt would impact the taste/texture of a cake, but I didn't have any King Arthur Flour so I had to scratch this one from my "to bake" list.

Rebecca Sutterby's - White Velvet Cake - Buttermilk recipe with vanilla bean paste. I didn't have any vanilla bean paste, so this one got scratched also.

Cook Book Maniac's adaptation of Rose Levy Beranbaum's - White Velvet Cake - This is a butter recipe which also uses heavy cream. Sounds delicious, rich, and oh-so-fattening. I really wanted to include this one and make a five layer cake, but I was confused by some of Cook Book Maniac's instructions. In particular the instruction of cook at 175 degrees (no mention of Celsius or Fahrenheit) and only use one 9x2" pan. I could make the assumption that the temperature was Celsius, but the one pan had me stumped. Seemed like too much batter for one pan. I also had a run-in last year with the Rose Levy Beranbaum's folks when I included her Red Velvet Cake in one of my taste test. I didn't want a repeat of that drama, so I dropped this cake from my lineup.

Cook's Illustrated White Layer Cake - This is a Butter recipe with lots of egg whites. I included this recipe in my taste test. Here is what the finished cake looked like:

Elisa Strauss' (from confetti cakes) - Vanilla Cake - This is another Butter recipe with lots of egg whites very similar to the Cook's Illustrated recipe.

K8Memphis' version of Sylvia Weinstock Yellow Cake - Sylvia's famous Sour Cream Yellow Cake recipe modified (reduced the egg yolks) by K8 to make the baked cake look less yellow. Here is what it looked like.

GroupRecipes' Delicate White Cake - This is a Shortening based recipe with no butter. Here is what it looked like. Very snowy isn't it? No butter in the batter makes the cake very white.

Rebecca Rather's - White on White Buttermilk Cake - Lots of butter and buttermilk in this recipe. Not intended for anyone worried about their cholesterol.

So here are all the cakes stacked and waiting to get iced.

For this taste test I had 11 lab rats (oops, I mean family members). They were told to evaluate just the cake and not the cake/icing combination. Each taster was given a slice of cake and I interview each and made notes of their comments. They were asked to rank the cakes from 1-4. #1 being their favorite and #4 being their least favorite.

And based on the ranking of my lab rats,

The WINNER of my White Cake Taste Test IS ...........

************************************************************************
With an overall score of 1.6 .............

************************************************************************
The pure BUTTER recipe from Cook's Illustrated White Layer Cake

Yeah, Three Cheers for Cook's Illustrated White Layer Cake !!!!
************************************************************************
The score board is as follows:

#1 - First Place went to Cook's Illustrated Butter cake with a score of 1.6,
#2 - Second Place went to Rebecca Rather's Buttermilk cake with a score of 2.4,
#3 - Third Place went to Group Recipes' Shortening cake with a score of 2.5,
#4 - Fourth Place went to K8Memphis' Sour Cream Cake with a score of 3.4

Under the guidelines of the Cake Central Great Scratch Off - White Cake Taste Test the
Judging Criteria included:
1. Flavor
2. Texture/Crumb
3. Moistness
3. Ease of Recipe
4. Cost of Recipe
5. Ability to convert into cupcakes

So here are my remarks on each cake:

* The Sour Cream Cake (left most cake in picture, 4th Place Winner) K8Memphis' version of Sylvia Weinstock Yellow Cake

Flavor - Nice flavor when eating, but leaves a strong after-taste in your mouth. Most of the lab rats described the cake as having a strong, unidentifiable flavor.
Texture/Crumb - Very dense but you can still see the crumb.
Moistness - Very moist almost to the point of wetness.

* The Butter Cake (second from left in picture, 1st Place Winner) Cook's Illustrated White Layer Cake

Flavor - Rich, buttery flavor. Very nice smell.
Texture/Crumb - Medium crumb. Not as fluffy as the shortening cake but not as dense as the buttermilk or sour cream cakes. Crumbs visible when you cut into the cake. Nice, fluffy, moist feel in mouth.
Moistness - Perfect moistness. Not dry and not too wet looking or tasting.

* The ButterMilk Cake (third from left in picture, 2nd Place Winner) Rebecca Rather's White on White Buttermilk Cake

Flavor - Great flavor, rich and complex.
Texture/Crumb - Dense, but you can still see some crumbs.
Moistness - Very moist, a little wet looking, compacts in your mouth when you eat it.
Other Notes: Best flavor but did not like the texture as much as the shortening or butter cake. Cake was very rich and overpowered the normal vanilla buttercream icing. Tasted much better when paired with a rich, chocolate icing. Also did not work well as cupcakes: lots of collapsing and shrinkage.

* The Shortening Cake (right most cake in picture, 3rd Place Winner) Delicate White Cake

Flavor - Sugary flavor, not enough extracts. Would add more vanilla and also some butter extract.
Texture/Crumb - Light, airy, fluffy. Loose crumb, lots of little crumb holes.
Moistness - A little dry. If more moisture (and butter flavor) could be added to the cake it would be perfect.
Other Note: Not enough batter, layer not thick enough. Baked for the suggested 20 minutes but next time I would only bake for 18 minutes.

So did this taste test help me to find that "perfect" white cake recipe? Well to be honest, No.

I loved the flavor of the Buttermilk cake, the texture of the Butter cake and the light, airiness of the Shortening cake. If only I could smash all the cakes together, I would have the perfect White Cake recipe.

Hummmm....

I wonder if I could start with the Shortening recipe, use buttermilk instead of milk, double the vanilla, add some almond and butter extracts..... I wonder what it would taste like? Any thoughts, any opinion?

Hummmmm......

Snowman Face Cake

2011-01-09T16:23:00.003-06:00

I’ve been a bad blogger lately. I’ve been baking a lot, but I just can’t find the time to sit down and post a few words and pictures. Same old excuses: new computer software at work, beaucoup overtime, people yelling, systems crashing, stress up to my eyeballs, yada yada, yada.

But today turned out to be a good sit at home day. The New Orleans Saints lost the first round of the playoffs (no Super Bowl for them this year), it is raining cats and dogs outside, and it is cold, very, very cold. Wow, it must be 40 degrees outside, burrrr, frigid (well at least for New Orleans).

So here is my first post of 2011. I had planed on making an elaborate, multi-tiered cake for our Christmas day gathering, but of course I ran out of time. At the last minute I whipped up a box cake mix and slapped on some icing.

It came out really cute and best of all it only took about 20 minutes to decorate. It actually took longer to color the icing than it did to pipe the cute little snowman face. Go figure. Many thanks to jdbhoward on Cake Central from whom I borrowed/stole the idea from. Thanks, jdbhoward.

Duck Sugar Cookies

2010-12-19T17:46:00.003-06:00

At the last minute a friend asked me to make some cookies for a baby shower. I frantically dug through my box of cookie cutters and couldn’t find one “baby” related cutter. WHAT!!!! I didn’t realize my collection was so deficient.

In the end I had to settle for an Easter Duck cutter that I thought looked a little baby-ish.

Not too bad...

They don’t scream “baby shower”, but the mother to-be didn’t seem to mind.

TWD: Caramelized Apple Shortbread Cake

2010-11-26T15:34:00.016-06:00

A few days ago I discovered Dorie Greenspan's Cranberry Shortbread Cake, and I like it so much I decided to make it again, this time with apples.

First I caramelized the apples with sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, and ginger. I wish you could get a whiff of the smells coming from this skillet. Warm, spicy and oh-so Fall-like. Happy, happy, days.

After the apples had cooled, I grated my frozen shortbread cake dough into the pan and topped it with the apples. Yes, grated. I read somewhere that grating the dough creates a lighter, more delicate crust and it is true. Next time give it a try, you won't be sorry. Just watch those finger-tips!

A layer of Apple Butter...

And the rest of the grated shortbread dough. Note: I used too much dough on the bottom, so the top layer looks a little bare.

And if it wasn't sweet enough I topped the finished cake with cinnamon glaze. Can anyone say sugar coma? But hey, what a way to go.

Caramelized Apple Shortbread Cake

Adapted from Baking From My Home to Yours pg 208-209 & 408

For the Cake:

Ingredients:
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
Pinch of salt
7 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/2 cup sugar
1 large egg
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Directions:

Whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt.
With an electric mixer beat the butter on medium speed until soft and smooth.
Add the sugar and continue to beat until the sugar dissolves into the butter.
Reduce the mixer speed to low and add the eat, beating until it is absorbed.
Beat in the vanilla.
Add the flour mixture and using a sturdy rubber spatula mix only until it is incorporated.
Divide the dough in half, pat into a ball, wrap in plastic wrap and freeze until solid.

For the Caramelized Apples:

Ingredients:
3 medium apples, cored, peeled and sliced
3 Tablespoons Unsalted Butter
3 Tablespoons Sugar
1 teaspoon Cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon Nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon Ginger

1/4 - 1/2 cup Apple Butter (optional)

Directions:

In a large skillet over medium-high heat melt the butter, then sprinkle the sugar over the melted butter.
Cook the butter and sugar for 1 minute or so. You want the sugar to caramelize but not burn.
Add the sliced apples and spices to the skillet and toss to evenly coat the apples with the spices, and butter/sugar. Cook until they are tender but not soft, 3 to 5 minutes.
Transfer the apples and buttery liquid to a plate.

Assembly:

When the dough is frozen solid, preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
Line the bottom and 2 sides of a 9 x 5" loaf pan with parchment paper, allowing 2-3 inches to extend over the 2 sides. Lightly butter the parchment paper and non-covered side of the pan.
Remove one ball of frozen dough and grate into the prepared pan. Distribute evenly.
Spoon the caramelized apple on top of the bottom layer of dough.
Cover the caramelized apples with the Apple Butter (optional).
Grate the other half of the dough on top of the apples.
Bake at 350 degrees F for 35-40 minutes, or until the top of the cake is lightly golden brown.
Cool for 20 minutes. Run a blunt knife on the two sides of the cake not covered by parchment paper. Lift the cake from the pan using the parchment paper sides as handles.
Add a glaze if desired.

TWD: Not-Just-For-Thanksgiving Cranberry Shortbread Cake

2010-11-09T18:03:00.004-06:00

I just got back from vacation ( a Carnival cruise but thankfully not the one that was stranded at sea with no power and water), so I had to scramble to get this week’s assignment finished on time.

Ta-Da
Not-Just-For-Thanksgiving Cranberry (Blueberry) Shortbread Cake

This week’s TWD selection was made by Jessica of The Singleton in the Kitchen (click here for recipe). Way to go Jessica, you made a delicious choice.

Because of my late return I didn’t have time to go to the store and get cranberries, so I had to raid the refrigerator and use what was on hand. The only non-moldy fruit I could find in the frig was some slightly expired blueberry fruit spread. It wasn't too, too expired so I decide to take a chance. (I'm such a rebel.)

Like many other TWD bakers, I grated the dough instead of trying to roll it out to the correct size. The grating was a lot easier but also a lot messier.

So how did it taste?

Pretty darn good.

Kinda like a cross between a sugar cookie and a scone. Crunchy on the outside, soft and moist on the inside. Not too sweet, with a little tartness from the fruit. In the book Dorie also suggest using caramelized apples instead of cranberries. I think I’ll give that a try for Thanksgiving. I’ll let you know how it goes…

TWD: Pea-NOT-tiest Blondies

2010-11-02T01:00:00.003-05:00

I made my last Houston-New Orleans commute on Friday, October 29th and the next morning I pulled out my pans and started BAKING. Yahoo! An almost two month exile from my kitchen and my weekly Tuesdays with Dorie fix was finally at an end.

And what was I fortunate enough to get to bake?
Peanuttiest Blondies.
Lucky Me. One of my favorites.

This week’s selection was made by Nicole of Bakeologie. The recipe can be found on page 119 of Dorie Greenspan’s book: BAKING From My Home to Yours, or on Nicole's blog site.

Now I’m a great lover of Peanuts and Peanut Butter, but my family falls more on the “great hater” side of the Peanut Butter fence. So I had to make some minor adjustment to Dorie’s fabulous recipe. I subbed Almond Butter for the Peanut Butter and replaced the peanuts with a medley of four nuts: almonds, cashews, hazelnuts, and pecans.

It was yummy. Moist, chewy and oh-so nutty... So my version my not be Peanuttiest Blondies, but they are certainty the Nuttiest Blondies.

TWD: Double Apple Bundt Cake

2010-10-14T18:47:00.011-05:00

I've been MIB (missing in baking) lately due to my temporary relocation to beautiful, exciting downtown Houston. Every few weeks I make the 5 hour drive home, and on my last visit I actually managed to bake something.

Yummy, yummy Double Apple Bundt Cake. Many thanks to Lynne of Honey Muffin for selecting this delectable, apple delight for Tuesdays with Dorie's weekly baking assignment.

In her recipe, Dorie, mentioned that the grated apples might make the butter look curdled, so I didn't worry when my mix looked like this...

Kinda gross, huh?

But I've learned to trust Dorie, and as usual everything turned out fine.

I only have two more weeks in Houston so hopefully I can get back to my regular baking schedule soon.

TWD: Peanut Butter Crisscrosses

2010-09-07T01:00:00.000-05:00

This week’s TWD selection was made by Jasmine of Jasmine Cuisine and her choice was Peanut Butter Crisscrosses. Thanks Jasmine, Peanut Butter Cookies are one of my favorites.

But as usual I ran into some technical difficulties: this time with the crisscrosses. Those little suckers just wouldn’t stay put. I push my tines deep into the cookie dough, but the baked cookies showed hardly a hint of a PB’s cookie signature mark. Anyone else have this problem? I wonder if my dough was too soft, or if I should have refrigerated the cookie dough after making the tine impressions??? Who knows... Life is a mystery. But with the marks or without, these were some darn good cookies.

I also made a batch with mini chocolate chips. They were good, but not as good as the “classic” version.

Update on the job front: Today is my first day at the new job! Yeah! I can’t wait to get started. The last few months (since the layoffs were announced) have been traumatic and depressing. I lost a lot of hair from the stress, gained 15 pounds, and had constant headaches that bordered on migraines. The last six months have not been fun. But hopefully all my “angst” is over and life can get back to normal. Fingers crossed.

TWD: Espresso-Chocolate Shortbread Cookies

2010-08-31T01:00:00.000-05:00

This week’s Tuesday with Dorie was selected by Donna of Life’s Too Short Not to Eat Dessert First.

Now I’m not a fan of coffee flavored desserts, but these weren’t half bad. A little less coffee/espresso and a little more sugar and these chocolate shortbread cookies would have been perfect for my coffee-adverse taste-buds.

And I was really WOWed by the tip about rolling out the stick dough in a zip-lock bag. Why has it taken me 40+ years to learn that trick? Thanks Dorie, I’m always learning something new from you.

Update on the job front: Only one week till I start my new job!!! Yea!!!

I’ve been working as a “temp” since I was laid off in June. It is/was a good job except for the fact it offered no benefits. And being uninsured really had me worried. I must have had a hundred nightmares about getting into a car accident and having to pay hospital bills out of pocket! Yikes! Come on September 7, I need a good night's sleep.

Katrina: 5 Years Ago Today

2010-08-29T18:00:00.002-05:00

August 29, 2010. A rainy, gloomy kinda day in New Orleans, so much like that faithful day five years ago that it is eerie. I feel like I should do something to mark the 5 year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, but what? I’ve been watching videos on You Tube, talking to friends and family, and flipping TV channels watching all the documentaries on “The Storm”.

It is so strange to think that five years ago I was trapped in a hotel room (with 15 other people, 5 dogs, 3 cat, a rabbit, and a hamster) knowing that my home, my job, my life were being washed away…

Here are some photos I took along the way...

TWD: Crunchy and Custardy Peach Tart

2010-08-24T01:00:00.011-05:00

This week’s “Tuesday with Dorie” selection of Crunchy and Custardy Peach Tart was made by Rachel of sweet tarte (how appropriate).

Now I’m not a fan of custardy desserts, but this tart made a convert out of me. It was delicious. Delicate fruit, creamy custard, crunchy topping, and a flaky crust. The “flaky crust” part is not true to Dorie’s recipe which called for a “Sweet Nut Tart Dough”, but I was lazy and just used a ready made crust instead of making my one. Sorry Donna. Sorry Dorie.

Here are the tarts about to go into the oven. Not knowing if I would like the tart, I cut the recipe in half and made four mini tarts instead of one big tart. I also just diced the peaches instead of making the elegant “fan pattern” that Dorie suggested. I know, I know, I’m a lazy bum.

Here are the tarts just out of the oven. That mess you see on the pan is from the streusel topping that accidentally slid off the tarts (what a waste of good topping). Dorie suggested leaving the pan in the oven as you sprinkle the streusel on top of the tart, but this didn’t work for a klutz like me. I burned my hand in two places reaching into the oven, and I also lost some of the prize streusel as it slid off the mounds of peaches. Poor streusel.

Any here is the final product. Ta-da. Sweet peaches, creamy custard, flaky crust, and crunchy almond topping. What more could a girl ask for?

Side note on the job front... I got a job!!!! I'm starting on September 7th. I have to go to Houston for 2-1/2 months of training, but then I'll be back home in time for Thanksgiving. To celebrate I went on a shopping spree this weekend, buying things that I have been putting off for months: a new garbage disposal (the old one broke a few months back), a new vacuum cleaner (the old kept spitting things back at me), new tires and windshield for my car (need to be safe on my trips back and forth to Houston), and a new purse (just because). Hopefully now my life can settle back into a normal routine. Looking for a job was extremely stressful and VERY frustrating, and I hope to never have to do it again!

Pound Cake Love

2010-08-21T19:41:00.006-05:00

I’m a lover of all things Pound Cake, and this recipe is by far my favorite. It is a combination of two excellent recipes I found on Food.com (formerly RecipeZarr.com). Elvis Presley’s Favorite Whipping Cream Pound Cake and Five Flavor Pound Cake.

Both cakes are excellent but in different ways. The Elvis cake is dense and rich and simply melts in your mouth. It has that crunchy-sugary top that is the hallmark of a great pound cake. The Five Flavor cake is lighter and fluffier, and has a heady mixture of scents and flavors that fill your nose and mouth and make you snatch up slice after slice. It is additively delicious.

So in my quest for the ultimate pound cake I combined my two favorites. The dense, richness from the Elvis recipe and the "explode in your mouth" flavors from the Five Flavor recipe.

Here is “Pound Cake Love” ready to go into the oven. I cut the recipe in half and made a it in a single load pan.

Just out of the oven. The sides were a little burnt and tough, but just look at that crunchy, sugary top. No glaze needed here.

In the end I sliced away the overcooked sides and bottom to expose the soft, moist underbelly of the pound cake.

Yumm. I’m in Pound Cake heaven.

Pound Cake Love

Ingredients:

• 3 cups sugar
• 1/2 lb butter (2 sticks), softened
• 6 eggs, room temperature
• 3 cups cake flour, sifted twice
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 cup whipping cream (heavy cream)
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon butter extract
• 1 teaspoon coconut extract
• 1 teaspoon almond extract
• 1 teaspoon lemon extract
• 1 teaspoon rum extract (optional)
• 1 teaspoon pineapple extract (optional)

Directions:

• DO NOT preheat the oven, this cake goes into a COLD oven
• Butter and flour a 10 inch tube pan
• Sift together the flour, salt, and baking powder. Sift a second time and set aside.
• In a measuring cup combine the cream and 1 teaspoon of each of the 5 (or 7) extracts.
• Cream together the sugar and butter until light and fluffy (3-5 minutes).
• Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.
• Mix in half the flour mixture, then the whipping cream, then the other half of the flour mixture.
• Pour into prepared pan.
• Set in COLD over and turn heat to 350 degrees F.
• Bake 60 – 70 minutes, until a wooden skewer inserted in the cake comes out almost clean. Do not over bake or it will come out dry, if anything err on the side of undercooked.
• Cool in pan for 5 minutes, and then remove and set on a wire rake to cool completely.

TWD: Chewy, Chunky Blondies

2010-07-27T01:00:00.001-05:00

Nicole of Cookies on Friday picked this week’s Tuesday with Dorie selection: Chewy, Chunky Blondies.

Chewey, gooey, and oh-so sweet, but sadly not my favorite “Dorie” recipe. I prefer more “cake-like” brownies/blondies so the gooeyness of these blondies made me a little sad. Sad that I had to eat the whole pan and not enjoy it only little bit. NOT one bit I tell you.

I did love the look and taste of the uncooked cookie dough. Yumm…

Side note on the job front… My 30-day temp job was due to end on July 30th, but today I was added as a speaker for an August 6th meeting??? I’ll have to ask my boss tomorrow. Keep your fingers crossed. Maybe I’ll be getting a paycheck for a few more weeks.

TWD: Brrrrr-ownies

2010-07-13T01:00:00.000-05:00

This week’s TWD selection of “Brrrrr-ownies” was made Karen of Welcome to our Crazy Blessed Life.

According to Dorie Greenspan, Brrrrr-ownies are as frosty as a nor’easter thanks to the handful of York Peppermint Patties that are added to the mix.

Now I had planned on following this recipe to a “T”, but somewhere between my grocery cart and my Sunday afternoon baking marathon the peppermint patties DISSAPEARED. I’m not accusing anyone of being a peppermint pattie thief. But just to let you know, Matthew, your minty fresh breath gave you AWAY!!!!

So what is a Brrrrr-ownie with peppermint patties? I guess just an intensely rich piece of bittersweet chocolate heaven.

Delicious.

Side note on the job front… My last day of work with ENI Petroleum was June 25, 2010, but a friend got me a 30+ day temp job (at another oil compnay) filling in for someone out on maternity leave. So I have another few weeks before I officially join the ranks of the unemployed. Hopefully I’ll find something permanent in the next few weeks.

Emeril: Apple Coffee Cake with Crumble Topping and Brown Sugar Glaze

2010-07-11T08:33:00.014-05:00

I wanted to bake something with apples for the Fourth of July, and I found a recipe for Apple Coffee Cake with Crumble Topping and Brown Sugar Glaze by Emeril Lagasse. The cake looked and sounded yummy, and because it had a 5 star rating (among 176 reviewers) on the Food Network I decided to give it a try.

Here is the finished product, and I’m definitely in the minority because I didn’t care for this “cake” AT ALL.

It had a nice flavor, but it just didn’t "taste" like cake. It had no distinct crumb or texture, and had a squishy, spongy feel in my mouth. It reminded me more of bread pudding. I also didn’t like the color. All the components: the cake, apple and topping, all had a grayish-brown tint so everything just merged into one big mass. You couldn’t tell the apple from the cake from the topping. It didn’t look appetizing at all (unlike Emeril’s picture).

The cake started out with such promise. Here it is being mixed...

And spread into the pan...

With the crumble topping...

And just out of the oven with it's warm brown sugar glaze ...

So I guess I must have done something incorrect because all those reviewers on the Food Network can’t be wrong.

TWD: Dressy Chocolate Loaf Cake

2010-06-22T01:00:00.004-05:00

This week’s Tuesday with Dorie baking assignment was chosen by Amy of Amy Ruth Bakes.

I’m a lover of all things chocolate, so I had such high hopes for this cake. The batter mixed up like a dream: thick, creamy, and very, very tasty.

But I missed judged the time needed to make the cake ( the cake came out of the oven at 11:15 am and I had to be at our Father’s Day party at noon), so I sliced and frosted the cake while it was still steaming hot. Of course the frosting melted on contact with the hot cake and the suddenly liquid chocolate oozed all over the place.

And the taste?

Well, honestly, I was a little disappointed.

I found the cake bland and the bottom and sides of the loaf were very hard. Maybe I cooked it too long -- I probably cooked it too long. -- I have a very bad habit of doing that :(

Here is a peek at the inside. My cake may not have been the best tasting thing at the party, but I just loved the look of all that warm chocolate oozing out and dripping down the sides. Ahhh chocolate.

Side note on the job situation: Only three more days till the pink slips come out! I wish Friday would hurry up and get here cause I keep swinging from deep depression at losing my paycheck to overwhelming joy at finally getting away from a job that was slowly killing me. I guess this emotionally roller coaster is normal????

So what should I do on my first Monday of unemployment? I think I may go back and start baking all of the TWD recipes I missed!

TWD: Raisin Swirl Bread

2010-06-15T01:00:00.001-05:00

Before this week I was a Raisin Bread virgin. I had never tasted a slice in all my (shhh 47) years on this earth.

I was missing so much, so very much. Just take a look...

Soft, tender-crumbed sweet bread with a swirl of cinnamon sugar and plump, juicy raisins. Many thanks to Susan of Food.Baby for selecting such a great baking project.

Job update: Only 8 days till the pink slip arrives. I bought an individual health insurance policy yesterday because COBRA was just too expensive! My work policy ends at midnight on June 30th and the new policy start at 0:01 am on July 1st. Is that cutting it too close? I guess I should have overlapped them by a day but I didn't think about it at the time. Oh well, next time I'll know better.

TWD: Tender Shortcake

2010-06-08T16:52:00.006-05:00

Cathy of The Tortefeasor chose Tender Shortcakes for this week's Tuesdays with Dorie recipe.

Strawberry Shortcake is one of my all time favorite summer treat. Sweet biscuits, sweet berries, and sweet cream. Sweet.

Still in a funk about my impending job loss. 13 more days till I join the ranks of the unemployed. Oh well, at least I will have more time to bake and blog. Everything has a silver lining.

Deep Dark Chocolate Cake with so-so Chocolate Frosting

2010-05-24T14:27:00.009-05:00

My brother's annual crayfish boil was on Saturday, and for this year's party I decided on Chocolate Cake with Chocolate Frosting. Yummmmm. My favorite.

I scoured the listing on RecipeZaar and decided on:
Sue B's Chocolate Cake and
Courtly's Chocolate Frosting.

The Sue B's cake turned out amazing. It was dense, moist and as black as midnight. It had a melt-in-your-mouth texture, and you could really taste the cocoa and rich buttermilk. It was truly scrumptious. Just take a look at that color and extra moist texture...

Now the frosting, well.... That was not such a success.

The frosting had a light, airy consistency that was really appealing. BUT light and airy goes hand-in-hand with soft and unstable. Below are the steps involved in making the frosting. 1) beat together the butter, sugar and cocoa. 2) pour in the cream and whisk. 3) add the melted chocolate (cooled to room temp). 4) whisk until smooth and shiny.

Well the frosting came out smooth and shiny, but it was so soft and runny it kept oozing down the side of the cake. I finally had to place the cake in the refrigerator just to keep the frosting from sliding off.

I also didn't care for the color: I thought it looked a little anemic (especially when placed next to the deep, dark chocolate cake).

So I whipped up a batch of ganache and poured it over the top of the cake. Much better looking, or at least I think so...

But in the end the ganache wasn't enough to hold the soft, airy frosting in place, and a mini catastrophe ensued. The cake was inside the house, but the 76 degree temp was still to much for the frosting to handle. By the time I had slice up half the cake the frosting was oozing off the sides and the top layer of cake kept sliding off (note to self use dowels next time).

So if you want to use this frosting (which really tasted good) only risk it when the temperature is less than 70 degrees.

TWD: Apple-Apple Bread Pudding

2010-05-18T01:07:00.001-05:00

Honestly, bead pudding is one of my least favorite desserts. It is a texture thing with me. Soft, squishy. Not my cup of tea at all. But my mom LOVES bread pudding, so I decided to participate in this week's Tuesdays with Dorie challenge even though I wouldn't be eating any of it.

So here it is, Mom, this one is just for you. Enjoy.

One thing this challenge did teach me is not to fear bread pudding. I always envisioned it being a complex and challenge dish, but actually it was quite easy. Just a few sautéed apples, a little layering of bread ...

Add the egg and cream sauce, and voila bread pudding just waiting to be baked. Oops, I didn't have enough bread so just ignore that uncovered portion in the lower right corner.

And just out of the oven. Oh so warm, creamy and squishy.

So what did Mom think of the Apple-Apple Bread Pudding? Well she proclaimed it delicious. Butttttt, she did say it needed to be thicker, the bread should be in pieces and not whole slices, and it need A LOT more sauce.

This week's TWD selection was made by Elizabeth of Cake or Death?

Elizabeth, my Mom says THANKS for a great selection.

TWD: Berry Tart

2010-05-11T01:00:00.003-05:00

My journey into Tuesdays with Dorie’s Quick Classic Berry Tart started out bad, very, very bad.

I forgot the milk boiling on the stove and it boil over and flowed everywhere. What a MESS!!! I ended up with milk baked onto my electric cook top. What a royal MESS!!!
I “pulsed” the tart dough a little too much in the food processor and ended up with a gooey paste instead of a sandy, shortbread consistency.
The tart shell cooked unevenly and the edges were burnt to a crisp and the center was raw.

I didn’t get a picture of my cook top, but here is the, ummm, tart shell. I removed the foil after 25 minutes of baking and this is what I found...

Doesn’t it look appetizing? Burnt edges and soft, underbaked middle. Yuck.

I started again, and the second time I used my hands to mix the dough instead of the food processor. The shell came out much nicer the second time around. I also decided to use a pie plate instead of the suggested spring-form pan. Here is the second attempt at the tart shell. Much more appealing it think.

In the end (and after much heart ache) the Berry Tart came out quite nice looking. And it tasted pretty damn good to boot.

So many thanks to Cristine of Cooking with Cristine for selecting this week’s TWD challenge. It was well worth the effort.

Chocolate-Almond Coconut Layer Cake

2010-05-03T12:23:00.014-05:00

One of my favorite candies in the world is Almond Joy. Yummm. Luscious coconut, crunchy almonds, silky chocolate. What more could a person ask for?

How about cake?

Here is a concoction I threw together last weekend. My version of Almond Joy Cake.

It started out as Shubox Café's Coconut Layer Cake, but the cream cheese icing came out so soft and runny that I decided to cover-up by boo-boo with a crust of sliced almonds.

Almonds and coconut got me thinking about Almond Joy candy bars so I added a layer of melted chocolate and a ring of shredded coconut.

It tasted pretty damn good if I say so myself. Not to sweet, but oh-so rich and satisfying.

Chocolate-Almond Coconut Layer Cake

Cake Ingredients:

2-3/4 cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1-3/4 cups sugar
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
10 oz (1-1/4 cups) sweetened cream of coconut (such as Coco Lopez)
4 large eggs, separated
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon almond extract
1 cup buttermilk
1/2 teaspoon Cream of Tartar

Preparation:

* Preheat oven to 350 deg F.
* Butter and flour two 9-inch diameter cake pans.
* Whisk flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt together in a medium bowl.
* Using an electric mixer beat sugar and butter until fluffy (about 3 minutes).
* Add sweetened cream of coconut to butter/sugar mixture and mix until incorporated. (Important Note: be sure to stir the cream of coconut before measuring. It settles and separates in the can.)
* Beat in eggs yolks (one at a time) and extracts.
* On low speed, mix in 1/3 of dry ingredients and then half of buttermilk. Mix in another 1/3 of flour mixture, and then the other half of buttermilk. Mix in the final 1/3 of flour by hand.
* Using clean, dry beaters, beat egg whites with cream of tarter until stiff but not dry peaks form.
* Fold the beaten egg whites into the batter.
* Divide cake batter between prepared pans.
* Bake cakes until tester inserted into center come out clean. 35-45 minutes.
* Cool cakes in pan for 10 minutes and then turn cakes out onto racks to cool completely.

Coconut Cream Cheese Frosting

Frosting Ingredients:

2 (8-ounce) packages cream cheese, room temperature
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, room temperature
4 cups powdered sugar
4 ounces ( 1/2 cup) sweetened cream of coconut (such as Coco Lopez) - you can add less Coco Lopez if you want a stiffer frosting consistency.
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preparation:

* Beat cream cheese in medium bowl until fluffy.
* Add butter and beat to blend.
* Add sweetened cream of coconut and vanilla extract and beat.
* Add sugar and beat until well blended.

Chocolate Ganache

Ganache Ingredients:

2 oz milk chocolate morsels
2 oz semi-sweet morsels
3 Tablespoons heavy whipping cream
1-1/2 Tablespoons butter

Preparation:

* Place all ingredients in a medium bowl and microwave at 50% power for 30 seconds.
* Stir and microwave for another 30 seconds at 50% power.
* Allow to cool completely before using.

Cake Assembly:

Shredded Coconut
Almond Slivers

* Place 1 cake layer on cake plate and spread 1 cup of Coconut Cream Cheese Frosting over cake layer.
* Sprinkle 1 cup sweetened shredded coconut over frosting.
* Top with second cake layer.
* Spread remaining frosting over top and sides of cake.
* Press almond slivers into frosting on sides of cake.
* Pour cooled chocolate ganache over top of cake. Using a spatula spread chocolate to top edge of cake.
* Sprinkle coconut around the top edge of the cake.
* Store in refrigerator until frosting and chocolate are set.
* Let cake stand at room temperature for 2 hours before serving.

Ghirardelli Lava Cakes - Disaster

2010-04-30T11:27:00.007-05:00

Don't you just love Lava Cakes?

Ooey, gooey molten chocolate flowing from a warm bed of chocolate cake.

Sigh. Too bad my lava cakes didn't turn out that way. Here they are in all their disastrous glory.

I knew I was in trouble from the get-go. The first part of the recipe had you prepare a frozen ball of chocolate that would be inserted into the cake batter just before baking. The recipe said to melt chocolate and cream together, refrigerate it until firm, and finally roll the chocolate into six balls. Well my chocolate would never harden! (Did I accidentally use too much cream? Or not enough chocolate? ) I even put the chocolate into the freezer and still it wouldn't harden.

Finally I just gave up, mixed up the cake batter and spooned the still soft chocolate centers into the batter.

After the suggested baking time I pulled the pan out of the oven. They looked pretty good, and I had high hopes for success.

But after tipping the cakes out of the pan, this is what I found.

DISASTER.

But what my lava cakes lacked in beauty they made up in taste. Yummy! I may have to try them again this weekend and figure out what I did wrong.

Here is the recipe if you want to give it a try.

TWD: Sweet Cream Biscuits

2010-04-19T21:41:00.008-05:00

This week's Tuesdays with Dorie selection was made by Melissa of Love at First Bite. She selected Sweet Cream Biscuits on page 23.

I have to say that I LOVE biscuits. They are my comfort food and rank right up there with chocolate and ice cream. So I'm sorry to say that I didn't like these biscuits at all (sorry Melissa and Dorie). I felt like they were missing something important, something vital.

Here they are about to go into the oven.

And just out. They are a little brown, but that is the way I like them. I love the outside toasty and crunchy and the inside moist and fluffy.

I ate one and felt a big let down. It just tasted so bland and uninspiring. Maybe if I had covered them in gravy or jam they would have tasted better, but just as a standalone biscuit they left a lot to be desired. I'll probably give the recipe another try (one day) just to see if I did something wrong.

TWD: Swedish Visting Cake

2010-04-13T01:00:00.003-05:00

This weeks Tuesdays with Dorie was chosen by Nancy of The Dogs Eat the Crumbs. Nancy selected Dorie’s Swedish Visiting Cake which is located on page 197 of Baking: From My Home to Yours.

Thank you Nancy!

This cake as moist, almond-y, and oh so good. In fact it is one of the best things I've tasted in a long, long time.

All hail Dorie and her Swedish Visting Cake. Those cake toting Sweds can visit me any time.

TWD: Mocha-Walnut Marbled (Bundt) Cup Cakes

2010-04-06T01:00:00.003-05:00

This week's TWD was hosted by Erin of When in Doubt…Leave it at 350. She chose Mocha-Walnut Marbled Bundt Cake on pages 180 and 181 of Dorie Greenspan's Baking: from my home to yours.

After last week's Coconut Bundt Cake I didn't want to do another Bundt, so I made Mocha-Walnut Marbled Cup Cakes instead. And in honor of Easter I topped my cupcakes with a chocolate ganache bird's nest loaded with pastel eggs (aka Jelly Belly). Too cute, the idea came from Simplebites.

Taste-wise the cakes were good but not great (I liked last week's Coconut cake better). I really couldn't taste the ground up walnuts that were added to the batter..

And I found the mocha-chocolate component a little bland (read: needs more chocolate).

Here are the cupcakes about to go into the oven.

And a freshly baked cuppie with steam still escaping. Hot, hot, hot.

The cup cakes were moist, dense and very heavy. In hind-sight baking them as cupcakes my not have been the wisest choice. I'm sure they would have tasted a lot better as a Bundt cake.

But they still looked cute even though they weren't the best tasting things in the world.

TWD: Coconut Tea Cake

2010-03-30T01:00:00.000-05:00

This week's Tuesday with Dorie assignment, Coconut Tea Cake, was selected by Carmen of Carmen Cooks. Let me say that I love coconut and I adore cake so I was in heaven. Yummm. I also had some leftover Strawberry Marmalade and some flavored whipped cream from the March 2010 Daring Bakers' assignment so I slathered it on my Coconut Tea Cake as well.

Triple Yummmm.

Here is the batter being prepared. The recipe called for Coconut Milk, which I had a hard time finding. Wally-World had sweetened coconut water and sweetened coconut cream, but no unsweetened coconut milk. I almost had to make my own (go figure, I was able to find instruction/recipe on the web), but my next-door-neighbor just happened to have a can. What luck. I traded her half a Coconut Tea Cake for a can of coconut milk.

Here is the cake about to go into the oven. The batter looked a little thin and watery, but I have faith in Dorie's recipes so I didn't worry.

I did fret about the length of cooking time. Dorie suggested 60-65 minutes, but I have a oven possessed by temperature demons so I started checking the cake at 45 minutes. At 50 minutes my cake tester came out clean so out of the oven came the cake. It was nicely brown and smelled like a coconut dream. Dorie didn't suggest a glaze for her tea cake, but in my book everything taste better with glaze/frosting/icing so I found a glaze recipe that used up the extra coconut milk. Not content with just a glaze, I encrusted the coconut cake and more shredded coconut.

Ahhh, life is good thanks to Tuesday with Dorie.

DB: Orange (Strawberry) Tian

2010-03-27T20:16:00.007-05:00

The 2010 March Daring Baker’s challenge was hosted by Jennifer of Chocolate Shavings. She chose Orange Tian as the challenge for this month, a dessert based on a recipe from Alain Ducasse’s Cooking School in Paris.

To me The Daring Bakers' Challenges are always a struggle not so much in the technical aspect (I love learning new things), but in the flavor arena. I'm a wuss when it comes to trying new foods, and I have some very strange likes and dislikes. Citrus is one of the things I'm not overly fond of. Orange juice hurts my stomach, and the white pithy stuff that surrounds the orange segments is very unappetizing to me. I know, I know, I'm weird.

So this month's Orange Tian posed a dilemma. To Orange or not To Orange? I chose Not to Orange. I swapped out the Orange Marmalade for Strawberry Marmalade and used strawberry slices as my topping instead of orange.

The recipe I used for Strawberry Marmalade did include tangerines, so I saved some of the tangerine segments and made one token "Orange" Tian.

Below are the many steps that went into making the Tian.

The Pate Sablee were quick and easy to whip up.

Jennifer of Chocolate Shavings suggested a baking time of 20 minutes, but my Sablees were toasty brown after just 13 minutes.

Next came the Strawberry Marmalade which was made from strawberries, tangerines, sugar, vanilla, strawberry extract and cinnamon. The marmalade took a long time to cook (about 30 minutes), and at first taste was a little bitter. I added more sugar, more vanilla and a little bit of mint. It tasted better after the adjustments.

The whipped cream was a snap to whip up.

Then the assembly. I lined the pan with parchment paper and arranged the fruit. I made one orange and the rest strawberry.

Added a layer of whipped cream.

And topped with a Pate Sablee that had been slathered in marmalade.

I froze the pans for 3 hours and then popped the frozen concoction out with just a twist of the pan.

Everyone who sampled the Tian said they were superb. And what really made my day was that the people who sampled both the Orange and Strawberry Tian said the strawberry was better. Thanks Jennifer from Chocolate Shavings, I really enjoyed your challenge.

Sprinkles Cupcake Mix - Review

2010-03-23T12:52:00.009-05:00

I attended a friend's baby shower recently, and came home with a tube/box of Sprinkles' Dark Chocolate Cupcake Mix (I won one of the silly shower games). Now I had heard of Sprinkles before but had never tried one of their cupcakes. And honestly after sampling the cupcakes produced from their mix I don't think I would be in a hurry to buy the original. The cupcakes (from the mix) were moist enough, but I found them very bland and unexciting. There was no explosion of flavor or pop of taste, and if I'm paying $14 for a box of cupcake mix I expect an end product that makes my taste buds stand up and sing.

I made the Sprinkles cupcakes for my Mom's 76th birthday party. I always buy her birthday cake from Swiss Confectionery (the BEST tasting cake in New Orleans), but some last minute additions to the party list made me fear that I wouldn't have enough cake (a serious crime in my family). So I pulled the Sprinkles mix from the pantry and whipped up some cupcakes in less than an hour.

I did make one change to the Sprinkles cupcake: I added a cookie crumb crust. I grind up Lorna Doone shortbread cookies, mixed them with sugar and butter, press the crumb mixture into the bottom of the cupcake liner, and bake the crust for five minutes until it sets. My Mom LOVES cupcakes with cookie crust.

Next came the mixing of the Sprinkles cupcake batter. The sequence of mixing was a little different than normal. 1) Cream the butter then added the dry mix to the butter, 2) add the eggs, 3) and finally the milk. The batter was thick and luscious looking, but even at this point it was a little lacking in flavor.

I spooned the batter on top of my pre-baked cookie crust, and then baked the cupcakes for 20 minutes. My oven runs a little hot so I always remove my baked goods at the lower end of the baking range.

I didn't think the trademark Sprinkles "dot" looked festive enough for a birthday party, so I skipped the blue and black dot and used my own sprinkles.

Looks cute, but taste-wise the cupcake was unremarkable. Even the cookie crust and luscious frosting wasn't enough to perk up flavor of the Sprinkles cupcake.

Triple Chocolate Chip - Chocolate Almond Cookies

2010-03-09T08:23:00.010-06:00

Every morning I run on the treadmill and while I'm sweating and panting and cursing my fat thighs I watch cooking shows. Go figure. The other day I watched an Ina Garten - Barefoot Contessa episode entitled Baking Basics. She baked some soda bread and some savory palmiers, but then Kathleen King, of Tate's Bake Shop, came on and together they baked Double Chocolate Almond Cookies. Oh-la-la. As soon as the treadmill timer hit 30 minutes I hopped off that torture device and started yanking ingredients out of the pantry. (No wonder I can't lose any weight, I get off the treadmill and bake cookies!)

But before I actually started to bake I pulled up the recipe on the Food Network web site and read all the reviews. Yes, all of them. Most people LOVED the cookies, but a few complained that the dough was dry and the finished cookies were crumbly. One reviewer suggested adding another egg to the recipe, and another suggested reducing the amount of flour.

I took all the comments to heart and adjusted Kathleen King's recipe slightly. My final cookies were wonderful. Everyone agreed that they were the best chocolate-chocolate chip cookies ever. Thank you Kathleen and Ina, this has become my new Go-To chocolate-chocolate chip cookie recipe.

Triple Chocolate-Chocolate Chip Almond Cookies
Adapted from Kathleen King's Double Chocolate Almond Cookies

Ingredients

• 2 -1/3 cups all-purpose flour
( IMPORTANT, sift the flour and then measure, if you don't sift you will use too much flour and the cookies will be dry)
• 3/4 cup Dutch-processed cocoa powder
(I used Hershey's Special Dark Cocoa, it give the cookie dough a pitch black color)
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
(Kathleen's recipe called for 3/4 tsp, but I used unsalted butter so I upped this a little)
• 1 -1/4 cups (2 -1/2 sticks) UNSALTED butter, softened to room temperature
(Kathleen used salted butter, but I only had unsalted butter in the house. I upped the amount of salt accordingly.)
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 cup firmly packed dark or light brown sugar
• 2 large eggs
( I added another egg to combat cookie dough dryness)
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 cup white chocolate chips
• 1 cup semisweet chocolate chips
• 1 cup milk chocolate chips
(I decreased the volume of semisweet chips and added some milk chocolate. I think the lighter color of the milk chocolate really stands out against the dark cookie dough)
• 1 cup almonds, toasted and chopped

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt.

In the bowl of an electric mixer cream the butter and sugars. Add the eggs one at a time mixing until the yolk disappear. Add the vanilla and mix until incorporated.

Add the flour mixture and continue mixing on low just until combined.

Add the chocolates and almonds and using a spatula mix until combined.

Using a small ice cream scoop (2 Tablespoon size), drop the dough two inches apart on sheet pans lined with parchment. Note: the cookies don't flatten or spread very much so if you like flatter cookies press the ball of cookie dough down with moist finger tips.

Bake for 12-15 minutes. (My convection oven runs hot, so I only baked my cookies for 12 minutes. The outsides were crispy and the insides were soft and chewy.)

Cool the cookies on the cookie sheets. The cookies should be very soft when they are removed from the oven. They will firm up as they cool.

TWD: Thumbprints for Us Big Guys

2010-03-09T00:01:00.000-06:00

This week's Tuesday With Dorie assignment was "Thumbprints for Us Big Guys".

Sigh, I must have done something wrong, because here are my cookies before baking...

and after...

Before, After. Before, After. Please scroll back and forth and as you view my latest baking misadventure make soothing sounds of pity and comfort. On days like this I need all the pity and comfort I can get.

Honestly I don't know what went wrong. The dough went together with out any mishaps, and (as instructed by Dorie) I rotated my two cookie trays half way through the suggested baking time. When my timer went off at 14 minutes (suggested baking time was 15-18 minutes), I checked my cookies and found confusing mix of results. Some of the cookies were round and puffy with a nice little depression in the middle, while others were as flat and crispy as tuiles. Even on the same cookie tray some were showpieces and others were flops. Huh????

Was the butter the culprit? If I didn't mix the butter and flour well enough would random chucks of butter cause some cookies flatten during baking? I guess that is a question for Dorie and other baking gods and goddesses out there. Hellooooo anyone out there?

But from my two trays I did find a few cookies that were presentable. Here they are sprinkled with powder sugar and waiting for the jam to be poured into the thumbprint depression.

One great trick I did learn from this recipe was to fill the cookie depression with boiled jam. The heat liquefies the jam so that it pours like water.

And once the liquefied jam cools, it jells into a smooth, mirror like surface. Amazing. Astounding. Jam-marvelous. Isn't astounding the things you can learn from cooking blogs?

Charlene's 40th Birthday Cake

2010-03-03T11:30:00.006-06:00

My sister-in-law's sister, Charlene, turned 40 on Saturday, February 20 and her husband threw her a blow-out, over-the-hill surprise birthday party. But to keep Charlene from suspecting that she was getting a BIG party, we had a combination birthday party/Mardi Gras crawfish boil on the Tuesday before her "real" party.

And you know what? I was asked to bake the birthday cake for the Mardi Gras party!

Wahoo!

I'm very new to cake decorating, so I consider it an honor when someone wants me to make the cake.

But because I'm new to cake decorating problems seem to crop up at every turn. My biggest issue involved the large "40" gum paste topper that I made for the cake. The "40" looked perfect as it dried atop my counter, but as soon as I lifted it and tried to insert it into the cake it began to crumble. To compound the crumbling issue I realized (too late) that I had cut the support wires too short. I wanted the "40" to stick up above the flowers, but no matter what I did the heavy topper kept sinking into the cake. Grrrr…

Once I delivered the cake to the party house, I did some quick repairs and managed to elevate the "40" using some of the pink curly things and a lot of butter cream icing. The topper looked pretty unstable so I quickly picked up my camera to snap a picture, and, and, and…. The stupid battery in my camera was dead.

Stupid camera.

Stupid me.

I knew the battery was low, but I didn't think it would just give out on me like that. Oh well live and learn. You'll just have to take my word for it, the cake looked much better with the "40" not crouching shamefully behind the flowers.

But even with all my problems the birthday girl seemed happy with her cake, and she was completely surprised when she walked into her real over-the-hill birthday party.

As for the crawfish boil, it was a success too. Yummy, yummy crawfish soaking in their spicy bath water. Corn, potatoes, sausage and other veggies too.

Lets EAT!

MS: Brown Butter Toffee Blondie

2010-03-02T12:38:00.001-06:00

TOO SWEET!

That was my first impression of Martha Stewart's Brown Butter Toffee Blondies. Ultra sweet, tooth achingly sweet, hyperactive kids bouncing off the walls sweet.

The mixing process for the Brown Butter Blondies started with, surprise, surprise, browning butter. I had never browned butter before, and instead of being prudent and watching a how-to video on YouTube I just kinda winged it. In hindsight I think I browned it a little too much (okay I burned it), but the scorched butter didn't seem to negatively affect the taste.

See all the black flecks floating around? That's the butter :(

But I didn't let crispy butter stop me.

And the batter ended up looking luscious, black specks and all.

I didn't have the walnuts that the recipe recommended so I substituted macadamia nuts. And because white chocolate and macadamias go hand-in-hand, I subbed 1/2 cup of toffee chips with 1/2 cup of white chocolate chips. Look at that mound of chunky batter. I would give you the spatula to lick if I could.

So this Martha recipes gets a thumbs up (from both me and the party goers), but be aware that it is very, very sweet. If you like cakier blondies, you might want to try a different recipe.

DB: Tiramisu

2010-02-27T10:25:00.013-06:00

The February 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Aparna of My Diverse Kitchen and Deeba of Passionate About Baking. They chose Tiramisu as the challenge for the month. Their challenge recipe is based on recipes from The Washington Post, Cordon Bleu at Home and Baking Obsession.

When I saw the February 2010 Daring Bakers’ Challenge I groaned. Tiramisu. Two tastes I hate most in the world (coffee & pudding) rolled into one dessert. I seriously considered not doing the challenge, but then I remembered my mom LOVES Tiramisu so I figured I could pawn the whole thing off on her.

The Tiramisu was composed of a lot of individual parts that made up the finished product. Mascarpone cheese, Savoilardi Biscuits, Zabaglione, pastry cream, and sweetened whipped cream. Each had to be made from scratch and then assembled.

First came the Mascarpone cheese. I had trouble from the beginning. You were supposed to use pasteurized whipping cream and using a double boiler, heat it to 190 degree. I don't have a double boiler, and all I could find at the store was ultra-pasteurized. I use an improvised double boiler, but no matter how long I heated, I couldn't get the temperature of the cream to rise above 170 degrees.

Finally I took the pot of cream out of my improvised double boiler and set it directly on the heat. The temperature shot up to 190 within seconds and the cream started to thicken.

After cooling, the mascarpone cheese went into a sieve lined with cheese cloth (I didn't have cheese cloth so I used a kitchen towel), and then into the frig for overnight chilling.

Next came the Zabaglione (what in the heck is that?). Egg yolks, sugar, Marsala wine, vanilla and lemon zest, heated gently (in that double boiler again) until it thickens.

Pastry cream next. Same kinda ingredients: egg yolks, sugar, milk, lemon zest, vanilla, heat until thickened.

Now the cookies. Yes! Something I might actually eat. Whip together the egg whites and sugar and then add the yolks.

Add the flour to the egg mixture and fold gently.

Pipe the batter onto a parchment lined baking pan.

Sprinkle the cookies with powdered sugar and then bake for 15 minutes. I think I might have baked my cookie a little too long. They were a little hard and the bottoms were very brown.

With the cookies baked and my mascarpone, zabaglione, and pastry cream chilled it was time to start assembling the Tiramisu.

I de-sieved my mascarpone and found a hard lump. It was supposed to be soft and smooth, but mine had the consistency of cold butter. In other words: hard-as-a-rock. I guess using that ultra-pasteurized whipping cream did me in.

But I moved on. I beat my mascarpone till it softened a little and then dumped in the pastry cream and zabaglione. Looks kinda gross huh? Like jars of baby food all dumped together. Did I mention I don't like "cream/pudding" desserts. This kinda grossed me out.

Now comes the assembly part. Dip the Savoiardi biscuits (Lady Fingers), into sweetened coffee and line the bottom of the pan with the moist cookies.

Top with the cream/pudding mixture and then more cookies.

Refrigerate overnight, and then server. My Tiramisu wouldn't set, so I stuck it in the freezer to harden it up enough to cut.

And yes I did taste some. It had a lemony flavor and I didn't taste much coffee at all (which is a good thing for me).

So all-in-all the Tiramisu challenge was very enjoyable. I had a lot of fun making the individual components and assembling the finished product was a breeze. And you know what? Everyone who tried the Tiramisu honestly seamed to enjoy it (some even asked for seconds, and one person wanted thirds), and in the end making your guest happy is what is really important.

I'm sure glad I didn't skip this month's challenge. Thanks Aparna and Deeba for introducing me to a great new dessert.

TWD - Rick Katz's Brownies for Julia

2010-02-22T12:16:00.011-06:00

I know I'm a little late but here is my posting of "Rick Katz's Brownies for Julia", which was due on February 9. This recipe was selected by Tanya of Chocolatechic for the weekly Tuesday with Dorie challenge.

I'm a chronic procrastinator, but you know what? Sometimes procrastination pays off! I took all the lessons learned by the "on-time" TWD bakers and tweaked the recipe to conform to my taste (I prefer cakey brownies). Several of the TWD bakers commented that the finished brownies were VERY gooey, and others stated that they were almost impossible to cut. To combat the gooeyness some bakers added more flour and others increased the baking time. I did both.

Ta Da! My version of "Rick Katz's Brownies for Julia"

Mixing wize, this brownie batter was one of the most involved I've encountered. In one bowl you melt the chocolate and butter, in another bowl you whisk together the eggs and sugar. Slowly drizzle half the egg-sugar mixture into the melted chocolate, stirring all the while to keep the eggs from cooking in the warm chocolate.

Beat the remaining half of the sugar-egg mixture until it doubles in volume.

And then gently fold the fluffy sugar-eggs into the chocolate mixture.

Sprinkle the flour over the chocolate mixture and fold with a spatula to incorporate. Spoon the batter into the pan. I opted for individual ramekins instead of one large pan. I figured the ramekins would solve the problem of un-cutable brownies (as reported by other TWD bakers), and the individual servings would reduce the gooeyness of the brownies because there would be more crunchy edges and less soft center.

Just out of the oven. I baked them for 30 minutes at 350 degrees.

Still hot from the oven the center of the brownie was pleasantly moist, but as it cooled the center hardened and became cakeier (sp). If I had to do it over I would reduce the cooking time to 25-27 minutes.

But there probably won't be a next time.

While the brownies were good, they weren't good enough to justify the involved mixing process and the number of dirty bowl and utensils that littered my counter top. Not only am I a procrastinator but I'm a lazy procrastinator.

Cinnamon Bun Cookies

2010-02-18T12:28:00.014-06:00

Something that had long been on my baking "To Do" list were Cinnamon Bun Cookies. The name alone is enough to fill my nose with remembered scents of yeast, cinnamon and sugar. Ahhh Cinnabon where art thou?

But despite my fevered anticipation (or may be because of it), my Cinnamon Bun Cookie experience was not up to par. I had both assembly and baking issues, and honestly I just didn't think they tasted all that great. I thought there was too much cinnamon and the cookie part was kinda bland.

So now the recap:

The dough was easy to prepare. Here I am rolling it to 1/8" thickness between two sheets of waxed paper. Since discovering this method a few months ago I have never gone back to "floured surface" method. Using the wax or parchment paper eliminates the mess, the sticking, and the real hazard of adding too much additional flour to the cookie dough.

Here is the dough topped with its cinnamon-sugar filling. Notice how close I have the cinnamon-sugar to the long edge of the dough. Uh-Oh, this will come back to haunt me.

The rolling up of the dough was a little tricky. The dough got very sticky and tore in a few spots. I also had an issue with the center of the dough rectangle being thicker than the ends, so my log rolled uneven. This caused another set of problems during baking.

Here is the dough getting sliced. The center pieces looked really nice, all perfectly round and tightly rolled, but the pieces cut from the ends were lopsided and malformed (notice I didn't photograph them).

I take that back, I did photograph some of the deformed looking end pieces. To get rid of the gaps between the cinnamon-sugar and cookie dough layers I tried squishing it tight together. But ultimately my squishing didn't help.

Just out of the oven and Cinnamon Bun Cookie disaster! The outer ring of dough and cinnamon just kinda collapsed and fell flat. I was so disappointed.

With the second batch I squished the cookie rolls even tighter but the sides still fell over. Thinking about it now, I probably didn't leave a large enough sealing edge of dough. I probably scattered the cinnamon-sugar too close to the outer edge of the roll-up so there wasn't enough dough-to-dough contact to form a tight seal.

Poor little Cinnamon Bun Cookies how unlovable you look, but it is amazing how many flaws you can cover up with a little bit of icing.

So all-in-all not a very satisfying baking experience. The Cinnamon Bun Cookies tasted okay, but not good enough to warrant a second baking attempt.

If you want to see what they SHOULD look like, check out The Recipe Girl's version (and not mine).

Homemade Oreo Cookies

2010-02-14T09:11:00.011-06:00

Homemade Oreo Cookies have dominated the blogoshphere lately, and they have gotten such rave reviews that I had to give them a try.

And you know what? All those bloggers were right. These things are fantastic. I’m a long-time lover of Oreos, but the homemade version is better, much, much better. The filling is a perfect copy-cat of the Oreo filling but the homemade cookie wafers are sweeter, slightly softer and so much better than the originals.

The cookie dough is just basic stuff: flour, cocoa, baking soda and powder, salt, sugar all whisked together, and then add the butter and eggs to form a soft dough.

Next form the cookies dough into round balls and flatten. I used a small tablespoon size ice-cream scooper to get cookies of a uniform size, but this made the cookies too big. The guests at the party wouldn’t take a whole sandwich cookie, everyone cut it in half and took just one piece. BUT I did notice that within seconds of tasting the cookie everyone, and I mean everyone, came back and scooped up their second half.

Also be warned: during baking these cookies spread A LOT. Leave lots of space between the cookies. My first batch spread so much that the cookies had to be cut apart. They also come out very flat. When they first come out of the oven they are nice and puffy, but they soon deflate. I kinda like the look of the puffy cookies (I wish they would have stayed like that), but they look more like the real thing once they had flattened.

The cookie filling was easy too. Typical buttercream frosting. The only thing I would do differently next time would be to use a clear vanilla extract. The regular brown stuff gave the filling a slightly ecru, off-white color.

And I didn’t put enough filling in between the cookies. :(
I was afraid I would run out so I was a little consertative with my filling swirls.

I ended up with about half the filling left over. Next time I’ll really load them up with filling and make Double Stuff Homemade Oreo Cookies. Yummm…

Homemade Oreo Cookies

Ingredients:

For the chocolate wafers:

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup unsweetened Hershey’s Special Dark Cocoa (the special dark gives the cookies a very dark color)
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 to 1 1/2 cups sugar (sweetened to your liking)
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons (1 1/4 sticks) room-temperature, unsalted butter
1 large egg

For the filling:

1/4 cup (1/2 stick) room-temperature, unsalted butter
1/4 cup vegetable shortening
2 cups sifted confectioners sugar
2 teaspoons clear vanilla extract

Directions:

Preheat to 375°F.
In the bowl of an electric mixer whisk together flour, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and sugar.
Add the butter, and then the egg. Continue mixing until dough comes together in a mass.
Take about 2 teaspoons of dough and roll into a ball. Place balls on parchment paper-lined baking sheet approximately two inches apart. Important: the cookies spread a lot so make sure you separate them by 2 inches. With damp fingers, slightly flatten the dough ball into a disk. Bake for 9 minutes, rotating once for even baking. Set baking sheets on a rack to cool.
To make the filling: Cream together butter and shortening. At a low speed gradually add the sugar and then the vanilla. Turn the mixer on high and beat for 2 to 3 minutes until filling is light and fluffy.
To assemble the cookies: Scoop the filling into a pastry bag fitted with a 1/2 inch round tip. Pipe a circular swirl on one cookie. Place another cookie, equal in size to the first, on top of the cream and press the two cookie together.
Enjoy with a tall glass of milk.

Condensed Milk Pound Cake - Disaster

2010-02-10T14:11:00.005-06:00

Do you ever get the feeling that you have forgotten something important?

Not something monumental like forgetting you kid at daycare, but something embarrassing (and expensive) like leaving the lawn sprinklers on all night. It's funny how the mind works. You remember that you forgot something, but not what you forgot. Talk about irony.

Well that is how I felt Saturday afternoon in my pre NFL Superbowl baking frenzy. I was trying out a new recipe for Condensed Milk Pound Cake and the whole time I was mixing the batter I had this nagging suspicion that something was wrong. The batter came together easily, but it just didn't look right. I thought my anxiety might be over the eggs (the egg whites had looked goopier than normal).

But they passed the "sniff" test and the finished batter looked and tasted fine.

In the end I ignored the "some thing's not right" feeling, poured the batter into the pan, and started baking.

It hit me about 15 minutes later: SUGAR.

I had forgotten to add the 1/2 cup of sugar that the recipe called for. Damn, damn, damn.

It was too late the pull the batter out of the oven, and I didn't have another can of condensed milk to start the pound cake over. Did I already say damn? Damn. Note to self, if you feel like you have forgotten something, YOU HAVE.

Stop, take a breather and review the recipe. Mother Nature gave you those instincts for a reason, girly.

Anyway, here is the finished pound cake. It looked okay, but it was definitely not sweet enough to be called dessert. But all was not lost. Once I slathered it with icing (leftover from my Geaux Saints Sugar Cookies) my low-sugar pound cake tasted just fine.

Geaux Saints -More (good luck) Sugar Cookies

2010-02-07T10:48:00.004-06:00

I know, I know... More Saints Sugar Cookies, but I've come to believe that they bring good luck.

And I BELIEVE...

I BELIEVE the Saints can win the SUPERBOWL!

Go Saints!

Bless you Boys!

Who Dat!

Who dat say they gonna beat them Saints?!

Who Dat!

TWD: Milk Chocolate Mini Bundt Cakes

2010-02-02T12:08:00.009-06:00

This week' assignment at Tuesdays with Dorie was one of my favorite so far: Milk Chocolate Mini Bundt Cakes. Chocolate batter, chocolate filling, chocolate topping, could a chocoholic ask for anything more?

But I do have one gripe---where is the line between fudgy cake and brownies? This dessert is called "cake", but I found it very brownie-like in consistency. It was dense and crumbly with a wet, fudgy layer. The taste was out of this world (I ate two of those little suckers myself), but my analytical mind wants to know: is it a cake or is it a brownie?

The recipe instructions start out with the filling. Simply whisk the nuts, sugar, and cocoa until combined.

Next melt the milk chocolate and allow to cool. The recipe calls for 7 oz of milk chocolate, but I had read some of the messages on TWD that the cakes weren't chocolaty enough so I used 5 oz of milk chocolate and 2 oz of special dark chocolate. The recipe also calls for "premium" chocolate, but I just used run-of-the-mill Hershey bars. Call me unsophisticated, but I love the way Hershey taste.

The batter was quick and easy to combine, but very thick, almost like cookie dough in texture. Here it is after the flour was added, but before the chocolate.

Chocolate!!!!!

The addition of the melted chocolate thinned the batter somewhat, but not a whole lot.

Next came the assembly. Batter, filling, batter. I should also mention that I search in 4 different stores and couldn't find the 6-cavity mini Bundt pan that Dorie used. I found a 12-cavity Bundt, but not a 6-cavity. In the end I used a jumbo muffin pan. The end product wasn't as cute as Dorie's but my family didn't seem to care.

Just out of the oven. I baked my muffins for 20 minutes, but I think they would have been perfect at 19 minutes.

The one issue I had with the recipe was the "Glaze", which was just chocolate and corn syrup. Sounds easy enough, but mine didn't work. Chocolate seizer set in as soon as I put the corn syrup into the warm chocolate. Yikes! I tired reheating the supposed glaze, but it just got even harder.

But a lot of other bakers at TWD had the same problem with the glaze, so I didn't feel completely foolish. In the end I just whipped up some ganache and squeezed it on top of my mini cakes.

So all-in-all another tasty Dorie recipe. I haven't had one fail yet.

DB - Nanaimo Bars

2010-01-27T00:01:00.015-06:00

The January 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Lauren of Celiac Teen. Lauren chose Gluten-Free Graham Wafers and Nanaimo Bars as the challenge for the month. The sources she based her recipe on are 101 Cookbooks and http://www.nanaimo.ca/.

---
Thanks, Lauren, for selecting a unique baking challenge. My baking horizons have expanded tremendously since joining the Daring Bakers.

Lauren of Celiac Teen gave us the option of baking gluten-free or regular wheat graham wafers. I opted to make the regular flour graham crackers. The cracker dough came together nicely, but I had a lot of trouble cutting and lifting the sticky dough off the rolling surface. In the end I fell back on my sugar cookie method: 1) roll the dough between two sheets of parchment paper 2) chill the dough till it is stiff 3) cut out the shapes from the half frozen dough. No mess, no sticking, no problem.

Here is the dough just out of the frig. Stiff as a piece of plywood.

The Nanaimo Bar itself was a little time consuming to assemble, but nothing that a Daring Baker couldn't handle.

The bottom layer was the most involved. The first step was to bake graham wafers/crackers. I've never considered myself a lover of graham crackers, but these things were good. They tasted like thin, crispy honeyed shortbread cookies.

I also cut a few crackers in the shape of Fleurs de lis.

Geaux Saints!!

Next stop Miami and the Super Bowl !!!

Back to the Nanaimo Bars... next the cocoa, butter and sugar where melted together and then an egg was added to the mix as a thickener.

Next add the graham cracker crumbs, nuts and coconut to the chocolate mix.

And dump it all into the pan and let it cool.

The middle layer was a mix of butter, vanilla pudding mix, milk and powdered sugar that was beat until smooth.
I had a little problem spreading the custard layer (it was thick and not at all custard-like), but I just used my fingers to gently push the custard around without disturbing the chocolate crust layer underneath. Added bonus I got to lick all the custard off my fingers.

The top layer was just a thin layer of melted chocolate.

So all-in-all another fun and tasty Daring Baker Challenge, but if I had to describe Nanaimo Bars in one word it would be "sweet". If I make them again I would change a few things to better suit my tastes. For the crust (bottom layer), I would reduce the amount of sugar by half, use unsweetened coconut (sweetened coconut was just too much sugar), and increase the amount of graham cracker crumbs. I would also add some vanilla extract to the custard layer to punch up the flavor.

The recipes selected for Daring Baker's is always interesting and challenging, and I can't wait to see what they have in store for us in February.

The Smallest Saints Fan

2010-01-26T11:33:00.004-06:00

Weighing in at 3 1/2 pounds, Peanut, has to be one of the smallest New Orleans Saints fan around. I had a cute little Saints sweater for her to wear, but she ran away every time she saw it. She is definitely not a fashionista.

Geaux Saints - Graham Crackers

2010-01-23T22:41:00.009-06:00

I needed to bake some graham crackers for a dessert I’m assembling and I decided to make Fleur de lis graham crackers instead of plain-Jane rectangle ones.

Geaux Saints!!

I also wanted to redeem my self for the color mix-up of last week. So I went to Hobby Lobby and bought some GOLD icing. Ohhh it’s sparkly too…

Now I’m not a big fan of graham crackers (I more of a shortbread kinda girl) but these things were tasty. Almost like thin shortbread cookies with a hint of cinnamon.

Delicious.

So....

So tomorrow is the big NFC Championship Game (January 24, 2010): New Orleans Saints vs Minnesota Vikings in the Superdome at 5:40 pm central time.

I hope the Saints win.

I pray that the Saints win.

I don’t want to be unsportsmanlike, but I want Brett Favre to get sacked 10 tens and throw 5 interceptions. I want the Vikings to lose, lose, lose.

Here is the Saints latest fight song: Stand Up and Get Crunk. It sure does get the blood pumping.

Geaux Saints!

Who Dat!

One more win and we are off to Miami.

Please, please, please, please…

Update:

Yahoooooo.....

We're going to the SUPER BOWL!!!!!

Saints: 31, Vikings: 28

Graham Crackers

2-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
8 ounces (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/4 cup packed dark brown sugar
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup honey

In a bowl, whisk together the flour, salt, baking soda, and cinnamon.

In the bowl of an electric mixer, combine the butter, dark brown sugar, granulated sugar, and honey. Mix on medium speed until well combined, about 1 minute.

In two additions, add the dry ingredients, letting the first fully incorporate before you add the second.

Divide the dough in half. Place the first half between two sheets of parchment paper, and roll into a rectangular shape about 1/8 or 1/4" thick. Roll out the second half of dough between two additional sheets of parchment paper. Refrigerate the dough sheets for about 15 minutes until stiff. Note: The dough is much easier to cut if it is very cold and stiff.

Remove the dough sheets from the refrigerator and peel off the top sheet of parchment paper. Cut the graham cracker dough into the desired shape.

Using a fork, prick the top of the dough in several places.

In a preheated 350 degree F oven, bake the crackers for 12-15 minutes or until then are golden brown.

Cool on a wire rack.

Geaux Saints - Sugar Cookies

2010-01-17T18:20:00.022-06:00

Geaux Saints !!!

I won a pair of tickets to the New Orleans Saints' Divisional Game in the Superdome, and in honor of the occasion I baked some Fleur De Lis Sugar Cookies. Don't tar and feather me, but I didn’t have any gold food color so I had to use orange. Sorry, sorry, sorry. I'll get some gold for next week's game. (see my second attempt here)

I also didn’t realize (until I got to the Dome and saw the big Fleur De Lis on the playing field) that the Saint’s color scheme was actually Gold-White-Black and not White-Gold-Black like I made my cookies. Silly me.

The recipe I use for cut out sugar cookies is called "No Fail Sugar Cookies - NFSC" and is very similar to the recipe that Toba Garrett uses in her books and in her classes. The cookie dough has to be chilled before cutting out the shapes and again before baking, but that is a small price to pay for a sugar cookies that hold even the most intricate shapes. But the best part is... They taste really, really good.

No Fail Sugar Cookies – NFCS

Ingredients

3 cups sifted all purpose flour
1-1/2 teaspoons baking power
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter
1 cup granulated sugar
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla or almond extract

Instructions:

In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugar with an electric mixer for 2 minutes. Scrape down the bowl. Mix for another 2 minutes. Beat in egg and vanilla. Beat until well combined.

In a separate bowl, sift together baking powder, salt and flour. Add the flour mixture 1 cup at a time to the butter mixture, blend at medium-low speed. Blend in the last cup of flour by hand. Do not overmix or the cookies will be tough.

Place about half the dough between two sheet of parchment or wax paper. Roll out the dough to the desired thickness (1/8 – 1/4"). Place in the refrigerator. Roll out the second half of the dough between more wax paper. Place in refrigerator. Chill both sheets of dough for 15 minutes or until it feels stiff. Note: the stiffer the dough is, the easier it is to cut out the intricate cookie shapes.

Remove one sheet of dough at a time and cut out the cookies. Placed the cutout cookies on an ungreased parchment lined cookie sheet. Put the cookie sheet into the refrigerator and chill for 10 minutes. This step is not absolutely necessary, but I found that the cookies hold their shape better if they are cold when they are place in the oven. Re-roll leftover dough scraps and repeat the processes.

Bake at 350 degrees F (preheated and stabilized) for 8-10 minutes or until the edges just start to turn brown.

Here are a few more pictures from the Saints vs the Cardinals in the Dome. I had a blast. Love ya guys. Deuuuuuuuce!! Reggieee, Reggieee, Reggieee! WHO DAT! WHO DAT!

Outside the Dome it was a sea of Black & Gold...

But there were a few Cardinals fans (just a few)...

The Saints are on the field...

The Half-Time Show...

A few of the fans...

Some fans showed their support for Deuce McAllister who is/was a favorite of the "Who Dat Nation". Deuce McAllister was released from the Saints' roster in February 2009, and re-signed on Friday January 15, 2010. Friday afternoon our office was abuzz with rumors that Deuce was coming back. A few hours later, when the news was confirmed, the offices halls were filled with the resonating call of “Deuuuuuuce”.

Game Over. Saint's - 45, Cardinals - 14. Bless you Boys.

Leaving the Dome..

See ya next week at the Dome.

Who Dat!!!

Geaux Saints!!!

See ya in Miami!!!

I hope...

TWD: Sables

2010-01-12T12:55:00.011-06:00

I wanted to catch up on some TWD assignments that I had skipped for one reason or another, so yesterday I baked a batch of Sables (page 131-133 of Dorie Greenspan: Baking From My Home To Yours).

Can I say WOW!

Sables, oh Sables where have you been hiding all my life? Buttery, crumbly, and melt in your mouth good. These little gems were a cross between shortbread and sugar cookies and for added oomph they were encrusted in crunchy grains of coarse sugar. Delicious.

My pictures don't the cookies justice, but believe me they tasted amazing. I devoured/inhaled five cookies in less than two minutes. Yikes, a minute on the lips, a life time on the hips.

The cookies were really easy to mix. Just lightly blend the butter and sugars, and then add the egg yolks.

Next dump the flour in all at once, and mix just until incorporated. According to Dorie, the secret to light, crumbly Sables is not to over mix the flour.

Roll the dough into a log and refrigerate for at least 3 hours. I left mine in the refrigerator overnight and the log was as hard as a brick when I took it out. Brush the log with whisked egg yolk, which acts like glue, and then coat with coarse sugar.

Slice the log into 1/3 inch cookies and bake on a parchment or silicone lined baking sheets for 17-20 minutes at 350 degrees F.

I only baked my cookies for 14 minutes and I had a problem with the edges of the cookies browning too much.

I also noticed that on some of the cookies, the decorating sugar slid off as the cookies baked. I think I used too much egg wash, and, yuck, the pure yolk gule left a yellow film on the side of the cookies that was still visible even after baking. Next time I'll use a milk wash instead of yolks, and I'll squish the coarse sugar firmly into the side of the dough log. I'll also lower the oven temperature to 325, and bake on a baker's stone instead of a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper.

Hopefully I can get the outside of the cookies to look as perfect as the inside tastes.

TWD: Caramel-Topped Flan

2010-01-10T09:30:00.010-06:00

For this New Year’s Day luncheon I decided to bake something “different”. After all the Thanksgiving, graduation & Christmas get togethers I figured family and friends were tired of my usually offering of pralines, brownies and sugar cookies. I polled for suggestion and my nine-year-old niece, Amanda, pleaded for Crème Brulee. She said she just “adores” Crème Brulee. (Insert tweeny scream here.) I think her obsession has something to do with the movie High School Musical or was it Twilight?
Oh well, not important…

In preparation of my first attempt at Crème Brulee I pulled out my well used copy of Dorri Greenspan’s Baking: From my home to yours, flipped to page 392 and skimmed the ingredient list. Cream: check, Milk: check, Eggs and Sugar: check, check. Blowtorch: che…. Wait a minute,

Blowtorch?

Umm, No. My teeny, tiny kitchen doesn’t boast a blow torch, or 20 individual Crème Brulee baking dishes I would need for all my lunch guest. Sorry, Amanda, no Crème Brulee for you.

But I happened to flipped to the next page in Dori’s book and found Caramel-Topped Flan. The ingredient list was exactly the same as the Crème Brulee. Humm… Flan - Crème Brulee - Flan. Almost the same thing, right?

So the baking began. It was New Year’s Eve afternoon and I was already baking three other desserts, AND I was peeling 15 pounds of shrimp that would go into our traditional New Year’s Day gumbo. No firecrackers or watching "The Ball" drop for me (or in the case of New Orleans residents we watch The Baby New Year (dressed this year as a Saints Player) drop/float down from atop Jax Brewery).

Making the Flan wasn’t too difficult, but there were a lot of steps which required lots of different pots and pans. Here is everything ready to go: 1) The eggs waiting to be whisked with the sugar. 2) The empty 8” round cake pan waiting to go into the oven to heat-up. 3) The pot with the cream and milk. 4) A roasting pan lined with paper towels (this is for the water bath that the flan cooks in). 5) The pot to make the caramel. 6) And you can’t see it in the picture, but I have a big measuring cup filled with water heating up in the microwave (I don’t have a tea kettle to warm it on the stove). Whew, can you say dirty dishes?

First, the 8” round cake pan goes into a preheated 350 degree oven to warm. Meanwhile, start cooking the caramel. Dorie said to cook it for about 5 minutes till it turned amber colored, but mine took about 8 minutes before it turned golden. From left to right are 1 minute of cooking, 5 minutes and 8 minutes.

Next, remove the hot cake pan from the oven (use a good potholder) and immediately pour the hot caramel into the pan. Swirl the pan to make sure the caramel coats the entire pan. WORK FAST. The sugar cools and hardens surprisingly quick. Set the pan aside and move onto the Flan.

Turn the heat on the pot with the cream and milk and bring it to a boil, meanwhile start whisking the sugar and vanilla into the eggs. Now comes the fun part: while still whisking the eggs, drizzle about ¼ of the hot milk into the egg mixture. Don’t dump all the milk in a once or the eggs will curdle and cook. Keep drizzling milk and whisking until all the milk is incorporated.

After all the milk has been added, skim off the bubbles and foam that your vigorous whisking has churned up.

Put the caramel coated cake pan into the roasting pan. Pour the custard into the cake pan. Put the roasting pan into the oven. Pour enough hot water into the roasting pan to reach about halfway up the side of the cake pan. My roasting pan was a little shallow, so I didn’t quite reach the halfway mark.

Bake for 35 minutes at 350 degrees, or until the top is golden brown in patches.

Let it cool to room temperature and then refrigerate for a least 4 hours. I let mine rest overnight. When ready to serve, run a knife between the flan and the pan, and invert onto a wide lipped serving platter. Make sure the rim of your platter is pretty high. Mine wasn’t high enough and I some of that luscious caramel topping sloshed out.

So how did it taste. Well, Amanda, gave it the thumbs down. It wasn’t Crème Brulee and she wouldn’t even taste it. The other guests thought it was so-so. But my Mom, who is a great lover of Flan, though it was pretty good (she ate all the leftovers). She did say that it needed to be sweeter and need more vanilla extract, but other than that it was pretty good. High praise indeed.

Maybe I’ll try it again one day.

TWD: Cocoa-Buttermilk Birthday Cake

2010-01-05T12:22:00.012-06:00

This week's TWD assignment allowed us to select between Tarte Tatin and Cocoa-Buttermilk Birthday Cake. As a lover of all thing chocolate I, of course, selected the Chocolate (Cup) Cake.

The cake batter came together really easy and the creamed butter, sugar and eggs looked especially light and fluffy.

The recipe gave the option of adding melted chocolate to the batter, but I decided against using it. I wanted the cake to be light and fluffy and I was afraid the melted chocolate would make the cake too dense and brownie-like.

I also decided on cupcakes instead of a fancy layered cake.

Just out of the oven. The cupcakes didn't puff up much and the color looks a little pale, but...

...they sure tasted great. Thanks again, Dorie.

PS: I also didn't have any malt powder to make the prescribed frosting, so I whipped up a chocolate ganache instead. Chocolate cake with chocolate frosting. Nothing better on earth.

TWD: Dorie's Favorite Pecan Pie

2010-01-01T18:11:00.007-06:00

Things were crazy busy during December, so I didn't get a chance to bake ANY of the Tuesday with Dorie December assignments. I felt so guilt that on New Year’s Eve (afternoon) I was in the kitchen baking not ONE but THREE TWD assignments.

The first one finished was “Dorie’s Favorite Pecan Pie”. The dessert was going to a New Year’s Eve party, so I wanted the pie to be more finger-foodish.

Ta Da – mini chocolate pecan pies.

Like any pecan pie, it is a breeze to throw together. Pretty much dump all the indigents into a bowl, give it a few stirs, pour it into a pie shell, and bake. Dorie’s Favorite Pecan Pie is different from most because it contains chocolate, cinnamon, and espresso powder.

So has Dorie’s Favorite Pecan Pie become mine? Well honestly, no. I love chocolate. I love Pecan Pie. But for some reason I didn’t like the two combined.

I think I’ll stick with my go-to Maple Pecan Pie recipe. It is sweet, gooey, and the maple flavor gives it a unique taste.

Cream Cheese-Coconut-Pecan Pound Cake

2009-12-29T14:35:00.008-06:00

I love pound cake and I adore coconut, so when I found a Southern Living recipe for Cream Cheese-Coconut-Pecan Pound Cake I thought I had died and gone to heaven.

The recipe called for bourbon in the batter, but I substituted it for an equal amount of heavy cream. I know people say that the bourbon intensifies the flavor of the cake, but I just don't care for liquor in my baked goods (no Tortuga rum cakes for me). I also baked the cake in mini loaf pans (7) instead of one large tube pan. The mini loaf pans had two advantages: 1) I could split the batter and make some with coconut and some without (weird family members who hate coconut) and 2) any loaves that remained uneaten by the end of the party could be sent home with guests and thus kept away from my greedy pound cake lovin lips and hips.

Here are the loaf pans waiting to go into the oven. I divided the batter between seven of the eight available wells. I could have used all eight, but I thought that it would make the loaves too flat.

Just out of the oven, puffy, golden brown and oh-so tempting.

Waiting for their bath in shiny glaze.

The original Southern Living article gave two glaze options. One was a plain powdered sugar glaze and the other was a brown sugar-praline glaze. I always go for the more calorie packed option, so I opted for the praline glaze. Here is the glaze cooking on the stove.

After I drizzled the praline glaze over a few of the loaves, I decided I didn't like the way it looked. The glaze looked splotchy and coarse, and it didn't flow like I wanted. Plus it hardened immediately and I didn't have time to smash the coconut into the glaze.

So I whipped up a batch of shiny butter cream icing, and used it instead of the praline glaze. The butter cream stayed soft for a while so I was able to coat the entire thing with coconut flakes. Perfect.

And here are the few slices.

While stuffing my face with pound cake I did noticed that the loaves with coconut in the batter were moister than the loaves without the coconut. Did the coconut help to hold moisture during baking? The loaves were all baked at the same time and the pans were rotated halfway through the baking period, so the only thing different was the coconut.

So don't omit the coconut, without it the finished cake is slightly dry.

If you want a deliciously moist pound cake without coconut and pecans try Elvis Presley's Favorite Whipping Cream Pound Cake. It is one of the best pounds cakes I have ever tried.

Cream Cheese-Coconut-Pecan Pound Cake
from Southern Living - December 2004, 2008

Ingredients

* 1 1/2 cups butter, softened
* 1 (8-ounce) package cream cheese, softened
* 3 cups sugar
* 6 large eggs
* 3 cups all-purpose flour
* 1/2 teaspoon salt
* 1/4 cup bourbon (I used heavy whipping cream)
* 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
* 1 cup chopped pecans, toasted
* 1/2 cup shredded coconut

Preparation

* Preheat oven to 350 degrees. On a baking sheet, spread pecans in a single layer and bake for 5-7 minutes or until lightly toasted and fragrant. Cool completely.
* Reduce oven temperature to 325 degrees.
* Beat butter and cream cheese at medium speed with an electric mixer until creamy.
* Gradually add sugar, beating at medium speed until light and fluffy.
* Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating just until the yellow yolk disappears.
* Sift together flour and salt; add to butter mixture alternately with bourbon (or milk), beginning and ending with flour mixture. Beat batter at low speed just until blended after each addition.
* Stir in vanilla, pecans, and coconut. Pour batter into a greased and floured 10-inch/12-cup tube pan. (I used 7 mini loaf pans.)

* Bake at 325° for 1 hour and 30 minutes to 1 hour and 35 minutes or until a long wooden pick inserted in center of cake comes out clean. Cool in pan on a wire rack 10 to 15 minutes. Remove from pan; cool completely on wire rack. (I baked my mini loaf pans for 35 minutes.)

Brown Sugar-Praline Glaze
from Southern Living - December 2004, 2008

Ingredients

* 1/4 cup butter
* 1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar
* 1 teaspoon light corn syrup
* 1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
* 2 Tablespoons milk
* 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preparation

* Melt butter in a 1-quart saucepan over medium heat.
* Whisk in brown sugar and corn syrup; cook 1 minute.
* Add powdered sugar, milk, and vanilla; whisk until creamy (about 2 minutes).
* Remove from heat and use immediately.

Shiny Butter Cream Icing
from Tongue-N-Cheeky

Ingredients

* 2 cups powdered sugar
* 2 Tablespoons butter, melted
* 1 teaspoon vanilla
* 1 Tablespoon corn syrup
* 1 teaspoon heavy cream

Preparation

* In a large bowl, combine all ingredients. With an electric mixer, at medium speed, beat until mixed well.
* If thinner consistency is desired, add corn syrup by the teaspoon.

Snowy Chocolate (Brownie) Baby Cakes

2009-12-28T12:06:00.006-06:00

Last year in Southern Living's December 2008 issue there were the cutest little Christmas cupcakes called Snowy Chocolate Baby Cakes. These little gems were simply upside-down chocolate cupcakes topped with white glaze and garnished with red cinnamon candies and fresh bay leaves.

I didn't get a chance to make them in 2008, but I put them on my list of "Things to Bake for Christmas 2009". And surprise, surprise I actually made something on my list. Here they are…

Too cute.

The original article in Southern Living used a doctored devil's food cake mix for the cupcakes, but I already had Birthday Cake on my Christmas menu so I decide to make baby brownie cakes. I used a Curtis Stone brownie recipe adeptly named "Best Fudge Brownies". And believe you me they are indeed the best fudgy brownies I've baked (so far). They are not fudgy to the point of goo, but not cake-like in the least. They are just right.

Even the batter looked yummy...

Baby Brownie Cakes just out of the oven...

One of the brownie cupcakes stuck to the pan, but the rest dropped out without a problem...

I iced the brownie cupcakes using the Winter White Glaze recipe given in the Southern Living article, and I garnished with mini M&Ms and mint leaves (I didn't have any cinnamon candies or bay leaves). I had a little trouble with the mini M&Ms bleeding into the white glaze, so make sure the glaze is completely dry before topping with the candies. The M&Ms may not melt in your hands, but they sure do melt on wet sugar glaze. The mint leaves also caused a bit of crisis because they started to wilted after just a few hours. Next time, I'll solve all the problems by making the garnishes out of fondant.

Best Fudge Brownie Cupcakes
from Relaxed Cooking with Curtis Stone: Recipes to Put You in My Favourite Mood

Yield 8 cupcakes

6 ounces good quality bittersweet chocolate, (60-70% cacao). Chopped
6 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 tablespoon Lyle’s Golden Syrup or light corn syrup
Pinch of salt
3/4 cup sugar
2 large eggs1/2 cup all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
2/3 cup coarsely chopped walnuts

To make the cupcakes:

Position an oven rack in the center of the oven and preheat the oven to 350F.
Using a standard 12 wells cupcake pan, generously spay the top of the pan and 8 of the wells with non-stick cooking spray (or line with paper cupcake liners)
Stir the chocolate and butter in a small heavy saucepan over low heat until they melt and the mixture is smooth.
Stir in the syrup and salt. Remove from the heat and set aside.
Using an electric mixer, beat the sugar and eggs in a large bowl for 2 minutes or until the mixture is thick and light.
Slowly stir in the cooled chocolate mixture.
Add the flour and baking powder, and stir just until blended; then stir in the walnuts.
Divide the batter equally among the 8 cupcake wells, filling them completely.
Bake for about 25 minutes, or until the cupcakes puff and crack on top and a skewer inserted into the center of one comes out with fudgy crumbs attached.
Remove the cupcakes from the tin and let them cool completely on a wire rack.

Winter White Glaze

Yield: 2 cups

4 cups powdered sugar
1 Tablespoon meringue powder
1/4 cup (or more) hot water

Beat together all ingredients with an electric mixer until smooth. Add more water as needed to achieve a pourable consistency.
Use immediately. Cover the glaze surface directly with a damp paper towel or plastic wrap to prevent a crust from forming.

Enjoy.

Brown Sugar Butter Buttons

2009-12-27T17:18:00.012-06:00

A beautiful photo on FoodGawker lead me to a posting by Tongue-N-Cheeky for Brown Sugar Butter Buttons. The cookies looked so cute and cheeky that I decided to give them a try.

The dough came together beautifully…

And the cookies baked up without any problems.

Tongue-N-Cheeky said that the Butter Buttons baked up flakey and surprisingly hollow. I was dying to see the hollow center so as soon as they were out of the oven I cracked one open. But instead of a hollow center I found an ooey, gooey mess.

Sad and dejected (I wanted hollow cookies) I abandoned the baking sheet of failed Butter Buttons and went on to making my next holiday treat. A few hours later I picked up a Button, broke it open, and prepared to photo document my failure. But instead of a gooey mess, I found a perfectly hollow cookie. Amazing. I don’t know how it happened, but it did. Somehow in the cooling process the inside of the cookie shrank and a cavern formed in the center.

Isn’t baking a strange and wondrous thing? If anyone can explain the physics/chemistry of how the cavern forms in the cookie I would appreciate it.

As far as the taste, well honestly, I didn’t care for them much. The cookie was ultra sweet and very crisp. I don’t think I’ll make them again, but I sure would like to know how that hollow center formed.

Cran-Apple Crisp Pie

2009-12-26T17:31:00.004-06:00

I wanted to bake an apple pie for our Christmas Day lunch, but I couldn’t decide which recipe to try. Should I use a recipe that called for pre-cooking the apples or one that used raw? Raisins? Nuts? Did I want a double crust pie or one with crumble? The possibilities were infinite.

In the end I decided to use Dorie Greenspan’s Cran-Apple Crisp recipe but baked in a 9” deep-dish pie shell instead of a soufflé dish. Like all of Dorie’s recipes, it turned out yummy.

Here are the filling ingredients just waiting to be tossed together.

And here are all the yummy sugar-coated goodness squeezed into their pie-shell home.

And the crumb/crisp topping. (Not very pretty, huh?)

Such a shame to hide all those beautiful bright red cranberries and crisp green apples, but I new the end product would be delicious. Thanks again Dorie. Your recipes never disappoint.

Cran-Apple Crisp Pie

Adapted from Baking From My Home To Yours – Dorie Greenspan

For the topping
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup (packed) light brown sugar
1/2 cup old-fashioned oats
1/2 cup shredded sweetened coconut
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1 stick (8 tablespoons) cold unsalted butter cut into small pieces

For the filling
4 medium apples, peeled, cored and cut into 1/2 inch chunks
1 cup fresh or frozen cranberries (if frozen, don’t thaw)
1/2 cup raisins (dark or golden)
1/2 cup pecans
2/3 cup sugar
1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 - 9" deep-dish pie shell (frozen or home made)

Getting Ready:
Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 375°F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or aluminum foil.

To make the topping:
Put all the topping ingredients in a large bowl. Using your fingers or a fork, cut the butter into the topping mixture until mixture resembles coarse crumb. (You can make the topping up to 3 days ahead and refrigerate it in an airtight bag.)

To make the filling:
Toss all the filling ingredients together in a large bowl. Place frozen (or home made) pie shell on the lined baking sheet. Pour the filling into the pie shell, and spoon the topping evenly over the top of the filling. Bake 40-45 minutes or until the topping is golden and the fruit juices are bubbling up around it.

Sweet Chicken Bacon Wraps

2009-12-24T23:03:00.006-06:00

WOW! Can I say it again? WOW!

These little bacon-chicken wraps were a huge hit at our Christmas Eve party. I baked three batches and within minutes of each batch leaving the oven they were gone. Everyone wanted the recipe and to me that is a sure sign of success.

This recipe is compliments of Paula Deen. Thank you Paula.

Sweet Chicken Bacon Wraps

Ingredients
1-1/2 lbs boneless skinless chicken breasts
3/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar
2 tablespoons chili powder

Directions

Preheat oven to 350°F.

Cut chicken breasts into 1-inch cubes.

Cut each bacon slice into thirds. Wrap each chicken cube with bacon and secure with a wooden pick.

Stir together brown sugar and chili powder. Dredge wrapped chicken in mixture.

Coat a rack and broiler pan with non-stick cooking spray. Place chicken on rack in broiler pan.

Bake at 350°F for 30 to 40 minutes, or until bacon is crisp.

Whipped Shortbread Cookies

2009-12-14T11:59:00.003-06:00

"Uncle Bill's" recipe for Whipped Shortbread cookies has been sitting in my "to bake" box for ages. I found the recipe on Recipe Zaar and at the time of this posting there were 227 review of the recipe with 99% of them being positive. With all of those 5 star ratings I decided to give them a try.

The ingredient list was very basic: butter, flour, icing sugar, vanilla. And the cookie dough came together quick and easy.

They look simply scrumptious unbaked...

But honestly I was a little disappointed in the finished product. The cookies were tasty, but they were so tender and delicate that they crumbled and dissolved as soon as they touched my lips. I had no chance to bite down on the little buggers and chew. Big disappointment. To me chewing slowly and reverently is a huge part of the whole "cookie" experience.

I also wish mine had come out a little thicker. My dough was a little soft and sticky (I should have added more flour), and the cookies spread substantially during baking. They ended up big and round and flat as pancakes.

Christmas is right around the corner, so I'm going to try these cookies again. Hey, 200+ positive reviews on Recipe Zaar can't be wrong! But this time I'll add a little more flour (to give the cookie more bulk) and substitute half the icing sugar for regular granulated sugar (so they are not as delicate).

I'll let you know how it goes.

Red Velvet Cake Taste-Off: Round 2

2009-12-03T11:48:00.019-06:00

In mid-November I conducted a taste test of Red Velvet Cake recipes (see blog entry here). I baked 8 different cakes and recruited 25 people to sample and rate the entries. The undisputed winner of the Red Velvet Taste-Off : Round 1 was:

Cake Man Raven's Red Velvet Cake

But the day after I compiled my results, I ran across yet another distinctive Red Velvet Cake recipe. This one was from Rose's Levy Beranbaum book Rose's Heavenly Cakes. The actual cake is called Rose Red Velvet and for its fat is uses butter and oil. It also uses more eggs than any of the other recipes I tested. The person who brought this cake to my attention said it was better than Cake Man Raven's! That got my attention. Better than Cake Man Raven? Red Velvet Cake Taste-Off #2 was on.

For this round I baked three different recipes:

Rose's Red Velvet - Rose Levy Beranbaum - the challenger
Cake Man Raven's - because it had won the first round of the taste test
Waldorf Astoria recipe with a tweak - My original reason for conducting this taste test was to find a recipe that mimicked the Red Velvet Cake sold at Piccadilly Cafeteria (the absolute best RVC). Flavor and color wise I think the Waldorf cake comes the closest, but it is not nearly as moist as Piccadilly's. So in this test I added 1/4 cup of light corn syrup hoping to give it a little more moisture. Sadly my tweaked Waldorf did not produce a copy cat of Piccadilly RVC. Granted my tweak cake was better than the original, but still not measure up to Piccadilly's caliber.

So here are the three cakes all stacked up:

And sliced open:

So which do you think won? Which do you think looks the best?

Well the winner yet again was Cake Man Raven's Red Velvet Cake.

The Waldorf cake came in second and the Rose Red Velvet cake came in third. In this round I only had 9 taste testers, as opposed to the 25 testers in round one. Two of the tasters (the kids) picked the Rose cake as their favorite (they said it was the sweetest), but the other 7 had it as their least favorite. One of the biggest complaints about the Rose RVC was that it was too dry and two people remarked that it had a spongy, angel food cake texture. If you want to see a spreadsheet listing all the results click here.

So after two unbiased tests, the oil based Red Velvet Cake is still reigns as the undisputed favorite.

BUT even as I write this someone handed me yet another RVC recipe. It is Red Velvet time of the year. This one used uses brown sugar instead of white and a 1/2 cup cocoa. I must test this recipe, so stay tuned for round 3 of the Ultimate Red Velvet Taste-Off (some time around Christmas).

DB - Nov 2009 - Cannoli

2009-11-27T12:23:00.005-06:00

The November 2009 Daring Bakers Challenge was chosen and hosted by Lisa Michele of Parsley, Sage, Desserts and Line Drives. She chose the Italian Pastry, Cannolo (Cannoli is plural), using the cookbooks Lidia’s Italian-American Kitchen by Lidia Matticchio Bastianich and The Sopranos Family Cookbook by Allen Rucker; recipes by Michelle Scicolone, as ingredient/direction guides. She added her own modifications/changes, so the recipe is not 100% verbatim from either book.

I’ve never had much luck with fried deserts, and this month’s cannoli challenge was no different. I wouldn’t saw it was a total failure, but neither was it a success. Look for yourself:

A little too brown and a little too thick, and I didn’t care for the taste at all. I couldn’t see spending more money and time on something I knew I wouldn’t eat, so I skipped the filling. I know, I know, I’m a bad Daring Baker.

Here is the dough just out of the frig and waiting to be rolled and cut.

I didn't have any cannoli forms so as suggested, I used pasta shells.

Here are a few cannoli waiting to go into the grease.

Again, the final product. I guess my grease was too hot, because the cannoli browned much too quickly (after about 1 minute). I lowered the temperature of the grease, but I still had trouble. A few cannoli popped apart and a few wouldn't slide off the pasta shell. I fried a few "cannolipoleons". The flat disks looked better than my rolled attempts, but they all tasted kinds doughy and bland. I guess the "pizazz" of a cannoli comes from the filling and not from the dough itself.

Ultimate Red Velvet Cake Taste-Off: 8 Cakes, 25 Testers, 1 Winner

2009-11-21T09:42:00.031-06:00

I've always been a big fan of Red Velvet Cake, and my absolute favorite RVC comes from Piccadilly's Cafeteria. Their version is very dense and moist and full of tangy, buttermilk flavor. They used to put pecans in the icing, but they stopped doing that because of nut allergies and law suit threats. What a sad, sad day that was when the waitress handed me that piece of cake sans pecans.

But I digress; the point of this blog post is to share the results of my Ultimate Red Velvet Taste Test. Here are the contenders all stacked up.

I started the experiment by scouring the internet for Red Velvet Cake recipes. There were a LOT! But most of the recipes fell into three categories: those containing Oil, those containing Shortening, and those containing Butter. There were also a few that used combinations of the three different fats, and some that deviated drastically from the norm.

My first step was to build a spreadsheet to help compare and contrast the different recipes and help decide which cakes to test (click HERE to download the spreadsheet). A lot of the recipes I looked at were exactly the same, so the spreadsheet only has recipes that are different in some way. The recipes fall into specific categories of: butter, oil, shortening, combination, and other. In the butter, oil and shortening categories I selected one recipe as the base, and noted how the other recipes in that category deviate from the “base”.

The largest percentage of recipes I found used BUTTER as the fat. The butter recipes I included on the spreadsheet are:

Sylvia’s Red Velvet - from Emeril’s site
Joy of Baking’s Red Velvet (same as Epicurious’ Red Velvet)
Grandmother Paula’s Red Velvet – from Paula Deen at the Food Network
Montclair Martha’s Red Velvet – from Martha Stewart
Hummingbird’s Red Velvet
Magnolia Bakery’s Red Velvet
Brown Derby Red Velvet
Cooks Country Red Velvet
Christmas Red Velvet - from The Pastry Queen, Rebecca Rather

The recipes are very similar with just minor changes in sugar, cocoa, and vinegar content. In the end I selected Paula Deen’s version as the "typical butter” RVC . I also selected Rebecca Rather’s version because it added sour cream in addition to the butter.

In the OIL category of RVC are:

Cake Man Raven’s Southern Red Velvet (same as Apple a Day and Saveur)
Rachel’s Red Velvet – from Martha Stewart
Sara Moulton’s Southern Red Velvet
Smitten Kitchen's Red Velvet Cake from “The Confetti Cakes Cookbook” by Elisa Stauss
Bobby Flay’s Red Velvet Cake

Because it is so famous, I selected the Cake Man Raven version. I also selected Bobby Flay’s version which uses a combination of oil and butter.

Next were the SHORTENING RVCs. This category had the smallest number of recipe variations but it includes the most famous of them all: Waldorf Astoria Red Velvet Cake. I also found a variation of the Waldorf recipe that included Cane Syrup. The syrup recipe looked interesting (could Cane Syrup possibly be the secret to Piccadilly's unique RVC?) so I included it in the baking lineup.

Last but not least is the OTHER category of RVC recipes. I recently received a copy of Melissa Gray’s book All Cakes Considered which includes a RVC recipe that contains no buttermilk. Hummm. I was curious enough to add her version to the experiment.

So in the end I settled on 8 different RVC recipes to use in my taste test:

Grandmother Paula’s Red Velvet Cake – Paula Deen (butter)
Cake Man Raven’s Southern Red Velvet (oil)
Waldorf Astoria Red Velvet Cake (shortening)
Bobby Flay’s Red Velvet Cake (butter & oil)
Louisiana Red Velvet (shortening & cane syrup)
The Pastry Queen, Rebecca Rather’s Christmas Red Velvet Cake (butter & sour cream)
Melissa Gray’s Dark-Chocolate Red Velvet Cake (no buttermilk, sour cream)
Duncan Hines Red Velvet Box Mix – YES a box mix. I wanted to see how a box mix compared to the scratch recipes.

On the morning of November 16, 2009 the baking began. I set up an assembly line, preheated the oven, and began to mix, whisk and bake. Seven hours later I was finished. Whew, what a marathon. The next morning I hauled everything to work: eight cakes, a huge tub of cream cheese icing, plates, forks, and a stack of scoring sheets.

Once at work (I got there an hour early), I unwrapped and iced all the cakes and added sprinkles to each so the taste tester could identify them. Blue sprinkles, green sugar, yellow balls, each cake had its own unique topping.

Each cake was sliced into thin wedges and a wedge of each was placed on a plate.

The tasters themselves were carefully selected because of their love of cake and their familiarity with Red Velvet Cake in particular. There are over 200 people in the office and only 25 of them got cake. Some people where kinda pissed that they weren’t “selected”, but hey, you can only get so many slices from a cake. It is also worth noting that the cakes were frosted but the testers were asked to base their cake critique on just the cake and not the cake and icing combination.

The result sheets trickled in during the day (some people didn’t want to eat their cakes until lunch), and I was amazed at the variety of responses. What really gave me pause were the critiques of the icing (remember I told them that the icing wasn't part of the test). One person, in addition to the cake ratings, rated the icing. She loved some of the icings and hated others. She said one had a “flour” taste and another she said didn’t have enough sugar. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that all the cakes had the exact same cream cheese icing. The only thing I can figure is that the icing took on different flavors and nuances when eaten with the cake. Strange how the mind and taste buds work.

But on to the results. I know you are dying to know which cake WON.

Drum roll please.

The winner of the first Ultimate Red Velvet Taste-Off is...

is...

Cake Man Raven’s Red Velvet Cake

The oil based cake beat out the butter. Are you surprised? Shocked?

Here is a detail ranking of cakes.

Note that “1” is the best possible score, and “8” is the worst possible score. The cakes were ranked 1-8 with the taster's favorite cake given a score of "1" (first place), their second favorite given a score of "2" (second place), and so on. Their least favorite cake was given the rank of "8" (eighth place). Also, 5 people didn’t give me back my sheets (yet).

In FIRST place: Cake Man Raven’s Red Velvet Cake – score 2.85

11 people gave it a “best cake” scores of 1 or 2, 8 people gave it an “average” score of 3, 4, 5, or 6, and 1 person gave it a “worst cake” score of 7 or 8.

Common Tasters Comments: Moist, light and fluffy, melts in your mouth. Although one person said it was dry, another said it had no flavor, and a third said that it tasted like a “box” mix. Ironically the person who said this cake tasted like a box mix gave the Duncan Hines cake very high marks.

In SECOND place: The Pastry Queen, Rebecca Rather’s RVC – score 3.8

6 rated it the “best”, 13 rated it “average”, 1 rated it “worst”.

Common Tasters Comments: Moist, too dense, a little sticky, packs in the mouth, mushy, less sweet. One person said it had a soapy taste.

I found the the Pastry Queen's cake looked the best. It was light and fluffy and had a bright red color. I did have trouble applying the icing though, the surface of the cake crumbled and the fine crumbs bled/mixed into the icing.

In THIRD place: Waldorf Astoria Red Velvet Cake – score 3.85

5 rated it the “best”, 12 rated it “average”, 3 rated it “worst”.

Common Tasters Comments: Dry, good flavor, chocolaty, traditional.

In FOURTH place: Duncan Hines Red Velvet Box Mix – score 3.9

6 rated it the “best”, 11 rated it “average”, 3 rated it “worst”.

Common Tasters Comments: Chocolate taste, light and airy, good texture, light flavor, a little dry and bland.

In FIFTH Place: Louisiana Red Velvet – score 4.05

7 rated it the “best”, 7 rated it “average”, 6 rated it “worst”.

Common Tasters Comments: Dense, a little sticky, not sweet enough, don’t like the flavor, strange taste, rum-like flavor, traditional red velvet, fruity flavor.

The Cane Syrup in this cake caused a love-it or hate-it reaction in the taste-testers. This cake definitely had a “different” taste and people either devoured it or tossed it in the trash.

In SIXTH Place: Grandmother Paula's Red Velvet Cake - Paula Deen – score 4.7

4 rated it the “best”, 11 rated it “average”, 5 rated it “worst”.

Common Tasters Comments: Buttery, pleasant taste, light & moist, moist but crumbly in the mouth, too gooey, sticks to the roof of mouth, too soft, needs to be denser, needs more texture, okay taste but weird texture.

I was surprised that the “butter” cake rated so low because in my mind everything is better with butter.

In SEVENTH Place: Bobby Flay's Red Velvet Cake – score 5.75

1 rated it the “best”, 12 rated it “average”, 7 rated it “worst”.

Common Tasters Comments: Chocolate taste, a little drier than others, don’t like, fluffy, bland, no flavor, good taste but more like devil’s food than red velvet.

It really surprised me that Bobby Flay’s recipe ranked so low. I thought the combination of butter and oil would produce a winning cake.

In EIGHTH Place: Melissa Gray's Dark-Chocolate Red Velvet Cake– score 7.1

0 rated it the “best”, 6 rated it “average”, 14 rated it “worst”.

Common Tasters Comments: Does not taste like Red Velvet, dry, bland, slightly bitter, more like devil’s food cake, too dense and firm.

This cake was universally disliked in RVC taste test. In my opinion the cake itself had a good taste, if slightly on the dry side, but it just didn’t taste like Red Velvet. It was more like a yellow pound cake with red food color and cocoa added.

Click HERE to see all the results.

So what do you think of my results? Do you agree or disagree. I was really surprised at the diversity of opinions on each the cakes and I’ve come to realize that one cake will never satisfy all the people all the time. Next time I bake a three layer Red Velvet Cake I’m going to make each layer a different recipe: Cake Man Raven, The Pastry Queen, and Waldorf Astoria. Hopefully my Threesome Red Velvet Cake will satisfy everyone.

PS: I’m also thinking about doing another round of RVC testing. I still can’t believe that Bobby Flay’s recipe came in so low (did I do something wrong?), and I found another recipe by Rose Levy that uses butter and oil (like Bobby’s) but only uses egg whites instead of whole eggs. I still have some buttermilk and red food color left over from the first round, so I’m going to preheat my oven and start RVC baking again.

Update December 3, 2009:
To see the results of the Red Velvet Taste-Off - Round 2 click here.

TWD - Chocolate-Chocolate Chunk Muffins

2009-11-15T17:12:00.010-06:00

I know these Chocolate-Chocolate Chunk Muffins were not on the Tuesday with Dorie baking schedule, but I was baby-sitting this weekend and I wanted to bake some the kids would enjoy.

But alas, they weren’t the hit I thought they would be. The kids devoured the leftover batter, but they didn’t care for the finished muffin at all. The biggest complaints were not enough chocolate chunks, not sweet enough, and TOO DRY. Way, way too dry.

The first step in the muffin mixing was melting the bittersweet chocolate and butter in a small bowl. Amanda, my niece, said it smelled divine.

Here are all the pieces-parts waiting to be mixed together: the dry, the wet, the melted, and the chunks (chocolate chunks that is).

Here is everything all mixed up. I didn't think it had enough chocolate chunks, so I threw in an extra handful. In hindsight I should have thrown in three handfuls, some oil, and a little extra vanilla.

Into the oven they go, twelve lovely little muffins to be.

Amanda really liked the taste of the batter. She licked the bowl clean.

Just out of the oven, 375° for 18 minutes (2 minutes less than Dorie suggested). They sure do look good.

But looks can be deceiving. They were a big dissapointment in the taste department. In attempt to mask the dryness, I whipped up some ganache and slathered the top in chocolate stripes. It helped a little, but not much.

I felt they just needed something more. If I ever make them again, I'll add more chocolate, more sugar, more vanilla, and maybe some oil (for extra moistness).

Dorie Greenspan's Chocolate-Chocolate Chunk Muffins

6 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
4 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped into chunks, divided
2 cups all-purpose flour
2/3 cup sugar
1/3 cup cocoa
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/4 cup buttermilk
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 375°. Line your muffin pan with paper muffin cups or butter it well.

Melt the butter and 1/2 of the bittersweet chocolate.

In another bowl whisk together the flour, sugar, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.

Combine the buttermilk, egg, and vanilla in a bowl.

Pour the buttermilk mixture and the chocolate/melted butter mixture into the bowl with all the dry ingredients. Using a rubber spatula, gently and quickly stir to blend. Stir in the remaining bittersweet chocolate.

Divide the batter evenly between the muffin cups and bake for about 20 minutes or until a thin knife inserted into a muffin comes out clean. Let the pan cool on a rack for 5 minutes then remove the muffins.

TWD - Cran-Apple Crisps

2009-11-10T00:01:00.003-06:00

For this week's Tuesdays with Dorie I tried the Cran-Apple Crisps (minus the cranberries). They were not the prettiest things to look at, but they sure were tasty.

Per Dorie Greenspan's instruction, the topping is made first which is a mixture of butter, brown sugar, oats, flour, coconut, cinnamon and ginger.

Dorie said to put all the ingredients in a food processor and pulse until the mixture resembles "big curds". What the heck is a "big curd"??? I just mixed until the butter chunks were pea size. Close enough I guess. I also hate dirtying more dishes than absolutely necessary so I used my fingers instead of a food processor. A little messy, but one less appliance I have to clean.

Next toss all the "filling" ingredients together: apples, cranberries (I used pecan instead), raisins, sugar and little bit of flour.

Into the bowls the filling goes...

And then sprinkle the "crisp" on top of the filling.

Just out of the oven.

Like I said before, not the prettiest desert, but it taste like heaven. Sweet, spicy and oh so appley (sp). The perfect fall dessert.

Pecan Pie Cookies

2009-11-04T19:38:00.004-06:00

Awesome, that is the one word that came to mind when I bit into this cookie the first time. Totally awesome. The cookie part is tender and buttery and the filling is a cross between pecan pralines and pecan pie filling. Delicious.

Here is the pecan pie filling ready to be spooned into the cookie "pie shell".

And the cookie dough ready to receive said filling. I used the round end of a lemon zester to make the cavity in the cookie dough, but the hole didn't look big enough so I used my fingers to widen and deepen the depression.

Then I heaped the cavities with the pecan mixture. Don't be scared to overfill. The filling is well behaved and didn't over flow the cookie shells (too much).

Yummm.... What a flavor combination. But as a true connoisseur of all things pecan, I think the filling taste more like pecan pralines than pecan pie. But regardless of the name you use, they are fantastic.

The original recipe came from Land O’ Lakes, and I made just a few tweaks.

Cookie Ingredients:

1 cup firmly packed brown sugar
3/4 cup unsalted Butter, softened
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
pinch of salt

Filling Ingredients:

1 cup chopped pecans
1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1/4 cup whipping cream
1 tablespoon light corn syrup
1 teaspoon vanilla

Heat oven to 350°F.
In a medium bowl whisk flour, baking power and salt.
In another blow combine butter and brown sugar and beat until light and fluffy.
Add egg and vanilla to butter/sugar mixture and mix until combined.
Reduce speed to low; add flour mixture. Beat until well mixed.

Shape dough into 1 1/4-inch balls (approximately 1 generous Tablespoon of dough). Place 2 inches apart onto ungreased cookie sheets. Make indentation in each cookie, and then hollow and widen the indentation with your thumb.

Combine all filling ingredients in small bowl.
Fill each cookie with 1 rounded teaspoon of filling.
Bake for 8 to 12 minutes or until lightly browned (I baked mine for 12 minutes and they were perfect.)
Cool 1 minute; remove from cookie sheets.

I Heart Faces - Week 43 - Balloons

2009-11-02T20:47:00.002-06:00

This week’s theme at I Heart Faces is "Balloons". This is a picture I took of my niece at her 16th birthday. Go to I Heart Faces to see more "balloon" inspired photos.