made with my own 2 hands

pumpkie pie bars

2011-11-27T09:35:00.001-05:00

This one is an oldie but a goodie for me. I clipped the recipe many years ago from Kraft's Food and Family magazine and have made it many times.

Pumpkin Pie Bars
(from Kraft Foods)

1 1/3 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup sugar, divided
1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
3/4 cup cold butter
1 cup old-fashioned oatmeal, uncooked
1/2 cup chopped pecans or walnuts (I used walnuts because that's what I had)
8 oz. cream cheese, softened
3 eggs
15 oz. pumpkin puree (not pumpkin pie filling)
1 T pumpkin pie spice*

Heat oven to 350 degrees F. Line a 13 x 9-inch pan with foil, with the ends of foil extending over the sides; grease foil using pan spray.

Mix flour, 1/4 cup sugar and all the brown sugar in a medium sugar; cut in the cold butter using a pastry blender or 2 knives until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Stir in the oats and nuts.

Reserve 1 cup of the oat mixture; press the remaining mixture into the bottom of the prepared pan. Bake 15 minutes.

Bottom crust before baking...

... and after.

Beat cream cheese, remaining sugar, eggs, pumpkin and spice with mixer until well blended.

*If you don't have pumpkin pie spice, feel free to substitute a mixture of equal amounts of cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and allspice (or use whatever proportions and whichever of those spices you prefer).

Pour the mixture over crust...

... then sprinkle top with reserved crumb mixture.

Bake for 25 minutes, then cool for 10 minutes.

Use the foil overhang to lift the dessert out of the pan and place on a wire rack to cool completely before cutting. Cut into 24 bars to serve.

I love making these in the fall -- the creamy pumpkin custard marries well with the chewy sweetness of the oat/nut streusel and the buttery bottom crust. It's terrific for a little pumpkin pie fix!

it's apple season!

2011-10-12T16:40:00.000-04:00

I made these cute cupcakes a few weeks ago, in celebration of the boys' return to school. The cake itself was from a mix (Wilton-approved Duncan Hines Dark Chocolate Fudge) that I happened to have on hand. The icing was the Chocolate Frosting recipe from The America's Test Kitchen Family Baking Book. I don't know what the problem was with my icing recipes this summer -- maybe it was just the increased warmth -- but they typically did not turn out well at all. I remember it being a fairly cool day, inside and out, and still the icing turned out soupy, about the consistency of warm pudding, even after refrigerating the icing for several hours before piping. It was such a disappointment. You can see that the icing in the photo doesn't look very sharp; I took this picture after chilling the iced cupcakes overnight. After about 15 minutes out of the fridge, the piped icing lost much of its definition.

For the toppers, I tinted some fondant with Americolor soft gel pastes -- Super Red for the apples, and Leaf Green for the leaves. I really love this product -- the colors turn out bright without using a ton of gel paste; I much prefer them to Wilton icing gel colors. I also painted on a little straight gel paste for some highlighting on the apples so they wouldn't look quite so flat. I love how they turned out!

gourmet's pumpkin muffins (by way of smitten kitchen)

2011-10-05T13:03:00.000-04:00

The boys' high school is holding a mini college fair today and the parent board sent out a call for baked yummies for the visiting college reps, so I searched for a seasonally appropriate (and easy) muffin recipe. The obvious choice was pumpkin. I didn't feel like rolling the dice and risking the scorn of the dried fruit or nut averse, so this recipe totally fit the bill. Just pumpkin puree and spices in the batter and topped with cinnamon sugar... what's not to love?

Pumpkin Muffins

(adapted from Smitten Kitchen)

Batter:

8.5 oz. all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 cup canned solid-pack pumpkin (not pumpkin pie filling)

1/3 cup canola oil

2 large eggs

8.75 oz. sugar

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon ginger

1/8 teaspoon cloves

1/8 teaspoon nutmeg

Cinnamon sugar:

1 tablespoon sugar

1 teaspoon cinnamon

Place oven rack in the center position and preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line a muffin tin with paper liners.

Combine flour and baking powder in a medium bowl and whisk together. In a large bowl, whisk together pumpkin, oil, eggs, 8.75 oz. sugar, salt, baking soda and spice until smooth, then whisk in flour mixture until just combined. Stir together ingredients for the cinnamon-sugar in a small bowl. Divide muffin batter evenly into the muffin liners, then sprinkle tops with the cinnamon sugar.

Ready to go in the oven! I used a scoop to divvy up the batter, but had to make two passes to use up all the batter. In a perfect world, I'd have more scoops, in varying sizes.

Bake until golden brown and a wooden skewer inserted into the center of the muffin comes out clean, 25 to 30 minutes. Cool in pan on a rack for 5 minutes, then transfer the muffins to the rack and cool until warm or room temperature. Makes 12 muffins.

summer birthday cake #3: america's test kitchen's devil's food cake with cream cheese frosting

2011-08-06T12:22:00.002-04:00

C. requested a chocolate cake with cream cheese icing for his birthday. I selected the Devil's Food Layer Cake and Cream Cheese Frosting from The America's Test Kitchen Family Baking Book. I have to say I no longer hang on to ATK's every word when it comes to baking, as I've had a few of their recipes not turn out well (including one which caused Team Awesome to blow our grade on the Baking For Health and Wellness practical). No issues with the Devil's Food Cake but the Cream Cheese Frosting was really disappointing. It was too soft to work with in spite of being well-chilled. I know it's a cardinal sin in the cake business to even attempt using cream cheese icing in the summer, so I was already asking for trouble, but I believe this recipe was a bit wonky to begin with. This morning I conducted a postmortem and compared the ratios with the cream cheese frosting recipe I ordinarily use (from the Philadelphia Cream Cheese folks). ATK's uses a quarter of the amount of confectioner's sugar that Philly's does, slightly more butter and includes a small amount of sour cream (which the Philadelphia Cream Cheese recipe does not have). I really should've compared the recipes before making the icing and recognized that there might be a problem with the ATK recipe. Baking is a science, so call this a failed experiment.

Icing failure or not, it was an adorable cake. I enlisted the birthday boy, AKA fondant modeler extraordinaire, to create the figures for his cake. My original idea was to model little schnauzers but he has more experience than I do with making dogs so I asked him if he might like to give it a go. He suggested making something else entirely. Recently he's been on a Pikmin kick so he created different figures from the game. He mixed the colors and modeled everything himself. Clearly he's the real artistic talent in our family. (Happy 14th birthday, C!)

The Wollywog squashing a blue Pikmin.

Different pellets, and a purple Pikmin carrying a marble.

Dwarf Red Bulborb

stracciatella ice cream

2011-08-05T17:15:00.001-04:00

This is the first batch of ice cream we've made this summer. When the warmer weather rolls around, I always intend to make lots and lots of ice cream, but I somehow put off pulling out the ice cream maker. It's really not such a big deal -- retrieve box from the cellar, put the bowl in the freezer overnight, mix up the ice cream base and chill, then spin in the machine. But as with many things, I manage to procrastinate... I'm not sure we made any ice cream last year. Anyway, C. suggested we make some chocolate chip ice cream, so when we got home from our annual Cape vacation, I set the above process in motion.

The recipe is from David Lebovitz's The Perfect Scoop. The base is a French-style (i.e. using an cooked egg custard mixture) vanilla ice cream (see the recipe on David's site here). Instead of using actual chocolate chips, which would have turned into hard little tooth-breaking rocks in the freezer, I made stracciatella or Italian-style chocolate chips by drizzling melted bittersweet chocolate over the ice cream at the end of the spinning process (scroll way down on this page to read how to make stracciatella) and then breaking up the chocolate bits as it cools and hardens. The tricky part is incorporating the hot melted chocolate into the just-spun and still very soft ice cream without rendering it all into a soupy mess. I found this really challenging (sometimes I really wish I had a couple more hands) and although there was a bit of melting, it refroze just fine.

I think this is the first time I've made a French-style ice cream outside of pastry school. Before JWU, the idea of tempering a heated liquid into egg yolks would've petrified me, but now I've done it with such frequency that it doesn't require much thought. The egg custard base produces a much smoother, creamier ice cream than the easier Philadelphia-style ice cream (which uses an uncooked base and doesn't contain eggs). It is easily the best ice cream I've made at home thus far.

summer birthday cake #2: flour's yellow birthday cake with fluffy chocolate ganache frosting

2011-08-03T17:54:00.001-04:00

My darling and very easy-going husband requested a yellow cake with chocolate icing for his birthday this year so I decided to try a recipe I'd been eying for awhile: Yellow Birthday Cake with Fluffy Chocolate Ganache Frosting from Flour by Joanne Chang. The photo in the book looks delectable -- thick layers of yellow cake, filled and iced with light brown (thanks to the incorporation of lots and lots of air), super fluffy icing. As you might be able to deduce from the artfully-lit photo above, mine didn't exactly turn out that way. The cake was fine -- a little dense, but moist enough for a scratch cake and not excessively greasy the way many scratch yellow cakes seem to turn out (not greasy = dry; moist = greasy). I followed the icing recipe to the letter, but it came out soupy. It was the consistency of cake batter -- imagine trying to ice a cake with that. I can't quite decide what went wrong. Basically, you melt the chocolate with heavy cream over a double-boiler and let cool completely. Then you whip the butter and cream that with confectioner's sugar, salt and flavoring. Finally you add the chocolate-cream mixture and whip 'til it lightens and thickens. Easy-peasy, right? No. The most obvious culprit might be excessive warmth, but my kitchen wasn't particularly hot that day. I even went so far as to see if there were any corrections to the recipe posted on Flour's website, but nadda.

In the end, it was yummy, if very frustrating. It was impossible to ice and smooth, and very difficult to decorate. Chilling the icing before piping just made it go straight from wet to rock hard, so I gave up on that. I attempted to pipe buttercream flowers on the top, but they just sank under the soupy icing. Piping on a border was out of the question. Yuck. The peeps were very understanding and appreciative nevertheless and proclaimed it delicious. I have the sweetest family!

summer birthday cake #1: henri's chocolate cake by zoe bakes

2011-06-13T16:54:00.001-04:00

People tease me when they hear that I bake my own birthday cake. They think I have to bake my own cake, rather than want to bake my own cake. But I spend so much time baking what others want, it's a treat to bake something of my choosing.

This year, I baked Henri's Chocolate B-day Cake (it's a Devil's Food Cake) topped with Dorie Greenspan's Chocolate Malt Buttercream from Zoe Bakes. The cake itself is a recipe that I've turned to on a number of occasions, including here and here. Instead of baking it in a single 3-inch tall, 8-inch round pan and torting the cake, as Zoe recommends, I baked two layers in 2-inch tall, 8-inch round pans. The biggest reason for this was that I don't own a 3-inch tall 8-inch pan. Also, I didn't feel like torting the cake. But mostly the first thing. Instead of prepping the pans in the conventional manner (grease, flour and parchment), I brushed on the handy-dandy pan grease that's never ever failed me in the past few hundred times I've used it. Maybe this recipe has less fat or is too soft, or I just don't know why, but the corners stuck like a, well, like a really bad compound word. Next time, I'll be lining the bottom with parchment in addition to using the pan grease.

Broken cake aside (13-year-old C. thought the stuck parts made a fabulous breakfast, by the way), I spackled the missing bits with the Chocolate Malt Buttercream and moved on. I was inspired by Zoe's decorating job on her site, but somehow my big dots looked like something less appetizing. I think it's the brown icing that pushed the resemblance over the edge. Luckily, it's a very scrumptious cake -- the cake is moist and tender and the icing is rich and chocolatey. It's one of the rare cakes where no one leaves a glob of excess icing on the plate. It's soooo good -- I love, love, LOVE this cake!

That's one cake down, and three more to go in our house this summer!

cake balls

2011-04-06T09:00:00.002-04:00

One of my internship goals is to come up with ways to use up the large amounts of cake trimmings we discard each week. Every cake layer we bake gets leveled (so it's nice and flat) and the excess goes in the trash can. My fellow intern actually created the goal for the both of us, which may explain why I have some ambivalence about what really can be done with the scraps. As the owner pointed out, the cake may not cost anything for us to use, but any additional ingredients we employ to create a sellable product will.

Misgivings aside, the cake scrap goal remains, so I experimented with making cake balls out of my own cake scraps at home. Basically you crumble up some cake, smoosh the crumbs with some icing, and pack the mixture into balls. After freezing the balls (so they are firmer and easily to work with), you dip them in melted coating chocolate and let set. If you want to make cake pops, you follow the same procedure, but place the balls on sticks (I know, kinda obvious... duh).

I was rather unenthused about this whole experiment as I suspected that making cake balls is too labor intensive and costly a way to repurpose the cake scraps. But... surprise, surprise -- the cake balls are YUMMY! I used yellow cake with canned (sorry, I'm a busy girl) vanilla icing, and dipped them in melted Wilton Candy Melts. I still don't know if they are a good fit for the bakery, but they'll make a delicious treat for my circle.

a sneaker

2011-04-05T09:00:00.005-04:00

While I was making roller skate number 1 last week, my darling 13-year-old son sat alongside and crafted a fondant sneaker. He's amazing at modeling little objects -- he's also done a lot of work with Sculpey and modeling clay.

Love the bull's eye detail on the back!

a tale of one, two, three, four! roller skates

2011-04-04T18:08:00.001-04:00

The bakery where I am interning recently took an order for a small tiered birthday cake and the customer requested a fondant roller skate topper. So I've been working on one. Or a few.

I did attempt number one just as a total first draft without consulting my boss for specifics; I just whipped it up in my kitchen in about half an hour.

This is roller skate number 1. I also made a little bow to go on the laces, but it looked funny so I removed it. I brought it into work and the owner loved it! She suggested that we just tweak it a little and use it. Somehow that day I was uncharacteristically optimistic and told her, "Nah... I'll make another one, better than the first!" Easier said than done. I made my second roller skate at the bakery and as I was lacking all the things I'm used to using -- my usual fondant, tools, lighting, workspace... it all went pear-shaped. And it took a long time to make that disaster too. Ugh.

Roller skate number 2. It looks like a clown shoe. The brand of fondant we had at the bakery dries much faster than what I use at home, so the surface looked all slouchy and wrinkled. Satin Ice, I don't care how much the Cake Boss loves you... you made my afternoon a living hell. The wheels are not attached because we removed them to dry (otherwise, they get kind of flat under the weight of the skate). The one improvement I made was the addition of the tongue, which my boss had suggested. I hate, hate, HATE this one.

This weekend, I made two more skates at home.

This is number 3. I liked it, although I thought it might be slightly too long for the 6-inch cake it's topping and I wanted it to have a little more height. I tried to get cute with my exacto-knife and made some stitching around the top collar and the tongue, but it ended up looking kind of meh.

Number 4 -- my favorite; we'll see what my boss says. I haven't attached the laces yet because I am thinking of putting them on after the wheels are attached, so the laces drape down the proper distance. The toe of this skate is a little more contoured and maybe slightly less cartoonish than numbers 1 and 3. I also made a variety of wheel sizes for this one (although they can go on any of the skates, really).

It's been an interesting and worthwhile learning experience, but I really hope I don't have to do another one, at least not for this particular cake!

irish soda bread with raisins and cranberries

2011-03-14T17:45:00.001-04:00

I did a little holiday baking on my day off from my internship today. St. Patrick's Day is later this week, but I won't have a lot of time to putter around in my own kitchen on that day so we're having our Corned Beef and Cabbage tonight instead. And of course, I had to bake Irish Soda Bread too. I don't really eat soda bread with the meal but usually have it with tea (or coffee!) during the week.

Typically, I make American-style Irish Soda Bread -- that is, I add caraway seeds. I just like the way they make the bread taste, although I know they aren't to everyone's liking. This year, however, I opted to try a new twist. No caraway seeds, but (and this was an epiphany to me) the raisins and dried cranberries are soaked in Irish whiskey! Tell me, what says St. Paddy's Day better than a little Jameson's in your soda bread?

I found the recipe on Serious Eats, and converted the recipe's volume measurements into weight because I prefer scaling my ingredients to washing a lot of measuring cups. I also used dried buttermilk powder (I use Saco) rather than fresh buttermilk. It's great stuff -- you add the powder to the dry ingredients and add the appropriate amount of water when you incorporate the wet ingredients. Store it in the refrigerator and you don't have to worry about wasting half-used cartons of fresh buttermilk. You can also substitute soured milk (1 tablespoon of white vinegar per 8 oz. of milk, stirred and left to rest for 5 minutes before using), but I think the buttermilk powder yields better results.

Irish Soda Bread with Cranberries and Raisins
(adapted from Serious Eats)

1/2 cup (2.25 oz.) dried cranberries
1/2 cup (2.75 oz.) raisins
1/2 cup (8 oz.) Irish whiskey (or hot water)
4 cups (17 oz.) bread flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
2 tablespoons (1 oz.) unsalted butter
2 tablespoons (1.5 oz.) honey
6 tablespoons (2 oz.) dried buttermilk powder
1 1/2 cups (12 oz.) water

Combine the cranberries, raisins and whiskey (or hot water). Cover and set aside to rehydrate for at least 30 minutes, or overnight.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees and line a baking sheet with parchment.

In a medium mixing bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, salt and dried buttermilk powder. Whisk to combine. Cut the butter into slices, then work it into the flour with your fingertips until it is fully incorporated. Add the honey, water and the cranberries and raisins with the soaking liquid. Stir with a wooden spoon until all the liquid is absorbed.

Flour your work surface lightly and turn out the dough. It will still be sticky -- try to avoid adding more flour. It's helpful to flour your hands and use a bowl scraper or a spatula blade to help you maneuver the dough around. Form the dough into a 6-8 inch disk about 1 1/2 - 1 3/4 inches high and place it on your prepared baking sheet. Cut an X in the top of the dough across the top, about 1/2 inch deep.

Bake at 375 degrees for 50-60 minutes, until the bread is nicely browned and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool on a rack. If you like a softer crust. cover the bread with a clean kitchen towel as it cools.

ciabatta!

2010-10-08T11:58:00.001-04:00

Fresh out of the oven! The recipe's from Peter Reinhart's excellent Artisan Breads Every Day.

peanut butter chocolate toffee cookies

2010-10-07T13:14:00.000-04:00

I love browsing in the baking goods aisle in my local grocery store. I particularly love looking at all the different kinds of baking chips -- semisweet, bittersweet and milk chocolate chips, white chocolate chips, peanut butter chips, butterscotch chips, cinnamon chips, and on and on. Among my favorites are Heath Toffee Bits. There are two varieties -- Bits O' Brickle, which are just the toffee bits, and Milk Chocolate Toffee Bits, which are pretty much chopped-up Heath Bars. I found this recipe on the back of the bag of the latter. Ordinarily, I prefer not to bake with shortening, but I decided to bake them as written to see how they'd turn out. I was concerned that substituting butter for the shortening would produce cookies with too much spread and that were too thin. And they are pretty thin, even with the shortening. Maybe next time I'll try them with the butter and substitute baking powder for the baking soda (baking soda contributes to spread). One more thing: the recipe cautions to be careful to not overbake the cookies. However, the cookies looked a bit raw at the 8-minute mark so I baked them for another minute or two. Even then, I thought the centers were a bit iffy. I had to cool them on the baking sheet for longer than the recommended 2 minutes as well; they were just too soft and fragile to move at that point.

The verdict on the cookies? Thin and chewy, with crisp edges -- I love how the peanut butter and chocolate toffee bits play against each other. Give them a try!

Heath Bits Peanut Butter Cookies

(from Hershey's Kitchens)

Makes about 3 dozen cookies.

1/2 cup (95g) shortening

3/4 cup (202g) creamy peanut butter

1 1/4 cups (284g) packed light brown sugar

3 tablespoons milk (I used 1%)

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

1 large egg

1 1/2 cups (181g) all-purpose flour

3/4 teaspoon baking soda

3/4 teaspoon salt

1 1/3 cups (8 oz. pkg.) Heath Milk Chocolate Toffee Bits

Preheat oven to 375°F. Beat shortening, peanut butter, brown sugar, milk and vanilla in large bowl until well blended. Add egg; beat just until blended. Combine flour, baking soda and salt; gradually beat into peanut butter mixture. Stir in 1 cup bits; reserve remainder for topping. Drop by heaping teaspoons about 2 inches apart onto ungreased cookie sheet; top each with reserved bits. Bake 7 to 8 minutes or until set. Do not overbake. Cool 2 minutes. Remove to wire rack. Cool completely.

fresh pineapple salsa

2010-07-06T17:36:00.001-04:00

Alert: this post does not describe any home-baked goods. It's 100 degrees out today, people.

I love that happy serendipity that occurs when you have the impulse to make something and then you discover that you already have all the ingredients you need to make said something. Especially when those ingredients are odds and ends that probably wouldn't have been used in a timely fashion otherwise. Such was the case when I decided I wanted to make pineapple salsa today. I had fresh pineapple, half of a Vidalia onion, a lime I bought some time ago for goodness knows what, and a jalapeno and some cilantro from my garden. And then I found this recipe on the Whole Foods website. I've adapted it slightly, but it's essentially the same. I enjoyed it spooned on to some Blue Ginger Black Sesame and Sea Salt Brown Rice Chips I had in my pantry.

Fresh Pineapple Salsa
(adapted from wholefoodsmarket.com)

Makes about 2 cups.

2 cups diced fresh pineapple
1/4 cup chopped cilantro or to taste
1/4 cup finely chopped sweet onion
1 jalapeno pepper, finely chopped
Juice and zest of 1 lime
Sea salt to taste

Toss all ingredients together in a large bowl. Serve immediately or cover and chill until ready to use.

revisiting an old favorite

2010-07-05T14:29:00.001-04:00

Last summer I discovered a new favorite -- grilling flatbreads. They are quick and simple to make, and so much fun, and everyone loves to eat them. Yesterday, I made Grilled Asiago Rounds and Zucchini Caponata from King Arthur Flour's Bakers' Banter. Both recipes are so easy and sooooo good. Check out the links above for the recipes as well as how-to videos.

I was outside grilling the breads yesterday morning so we could take them along with us into Boston for the fireworks. L. said he could smell them in his sleep. The last time I made this I thought it lasted a bit longer -- maybe a couple of days, but the only reason we didn't finish it all last night was because I only brought two-thirds of the batch of flatbreads and caponata with us. We had other goodies as well, and really, who needs that much food for just one evening? I took a lot of abuse for that decision. Rest assured, we finished the rest of it today.

happy fourth of july!

2010-07-03T16:45:00.006-04:00

I made these for a cookout this weekend. I glazed them with white icing and then dotted the cookies while the icing was still wet with red- and blue-tinted icings. Then I used a toothpick to swirl the colors around. The results were pretty cool-looking -- they reminded me of the trails of color that fireworks leave in the sky as they die out.

The cookies themselves were from the Holiday Cookies recipe from The America's Test Kitchen Family Baking Book. WPR.org posted the recipe here so I won't repost it, but it's one I've used before. I love it because it's easy to work with and the cookies are soft and have great flavor. The icing is the shiny cookie glaze from The King Arthur Flour Baker's Companion Cookbook.

King Arthur Flour's Shiny Cookie Glaze
(reposted from Serious Eats, with my adaptations)
3 1/2 cups (14 oz.) confectioners' sugar, sifted
6 tbs. (3 oz.) milk
1/4 cup (about 1.25 oz.) meringue powder
1 tsp. clear vanilla extract
Wilton icing colors

Place the sifted confectioners' sugar and meringue powder in a medium-sized bowl. Add the milk and vanilla to the sugar and meringue powder and mix on low for 4 to 5 minutes, until the glaze is the consistency of molasses. Adjust the consistency with a tablespoon of water if necessary. Add icing color if desired. Important: keep the glaze covered while working with it to keep it from forming a skin or hardening up.
Use the spoon for apply the glaze to the cookies and spread using the back of the spoon, removing any excess. Place on a drying rack to let the excess glaze drip off and let the glaze harden and dry for several hours or overnight.

And here are some from the "let's get rid of the rest of the dough and the icing" batch. They were decorated a bit differently!

english muffins, hitz-style

2010-07-01T17:28:00.004-04:00

I recently finished my first year in the Baking and Pastry Arts program at Johnson and Wales University. Many of the formulas we used in my breads and Viennoiserie classes came from Ciril Hitz's books, Baking Artisan Bread and Baking Artisan Pastries and Breads. Chef Hitz is our department chair at JWU and occasionally teaches in the weekend program (in which I am enrolled). So far, my interactions with him have been limited to relaying messages from him or hitting him up for equipment and/or supplies, including one occasion in which I narrowly missed (by inches!) whacking him in the face with a transfer peel. So unless he's forgotten or he's extremely forgiving, I'm actually pretty happy I haven't had him for an instructor yet. Come to think of it, I'm pretty sure we all look the same in uniform anyway, so it probably doesn't matter.

This English Muffin formula is from Baking Artisan Pastries and Breads. It's different from my previous attempt in that these muffins are baked rather than cooked on the stovetop. The batter is scooped into the muffin rings and proofs on a sheet pan for an hour before they're baked. Unfortunately, I only have four rings, which isn't a problem when you're cooking them the other way because you can only fit four rings in a pan anyway, but it is an issue when you have to proof a dozen at once. I ended up using the four rings, plus the four largest circle cutters from my school knife kit. I know: 4 rings + 4 circle cutters = 8 muffins, not 12. This was not apparent to me even though I was overfilling the molds because I had extra batter. There's a reason all the math I do involves a calculator; I clearly can't even count. At any rate, no serious harm was done, as they turned out fine.

We really enjoyed the chewiness from the multigrain soaker that was added to the batter. Chef Hitz suggests using a packaged seven-grain mixture, but I made my own three-grain combination -- oats, flax seeds and wheat bran -- basically what I could scrounge up from my freezer stash. There's also some white whole wheat flour in the batter for additional nutritional oomph. The crumb wasn't as filled with nooks and crannies as a store-bought muffin, but this might be due to my improvisational molding (and overfilling). I didn't hear anyone complain though!

happy bday, pj!

2010-06-30T18:12:00.005-04:00

My first post post-school year! This was a little something that I baked for my darling husband's 45th birthday a week ago. The cake was Hershey's "Perfectly Chocolate" Chocolate Cake with Philadelphia Cream Cheese Frosting. The icing job came out looking a little rough but it was sweltering that day and I had to chill the cake for 15 minutes for every 2 minutes of work I got done because otherwise the icing was turning to soup. By now, I've had plenty of experience working in hot kitchens, but since it was for just us, I didn't sweat it too much. I would've liked to make the sides a bit smoother before combing them though.

Hershey's "Perfectly Chocolate" Chocolate Cake

(from Hershey.com)
About 10-12 servings.
2 cups sugar
1-3/4 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup Hershey's Cocoa, sifted
1-1/2 tsp. baking powder
1-1/2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
2 eggs
1 cup milk
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 tsp. vanilla extract
1 cup boiling water

Heat oven to 350°F. Grease and flour two 9-inch round baking pans.

Stir together sugar, flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt in large bowl. Add eggs, milk, oil and vanilla; beat on medium speed of mixer 2 minutes. Stir in boiling water (batter will be thin). Pour batter into prepared pans.

Bake 30 to 35 minutes or until wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes; remove from pans to wire racks.

Philadelphia Cream Cheese Frosting
(from Kraftrecipes.com)
Kraft says this is enough to ice two 8- or 9-inch layers; I made 1 1/2 times the recipe to be safe and it was barely enough.

1 8-oz. pkg. Philadelphia Cream Cheese, softened
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) butter, softened
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 16-oz. pkg. powdered sugar (about 4 cups), sifted

Beat cream cheese, butter and vanilla in large bowl with electric mixer on medium speed until well blended. Add sugar gradually, beating until well blended after each addition.

soft dinner rolls

2010-05-07T11:29:00.006-04:00

I'm currently finishing up my next to last class for the school year -- Principles of Artisan Bread Baking. It's the first year class that I had been waiting for all year, and while it's been fun and thoroughly educational, it's also so well within my comfort zone that I haven't felt terribly challenged. Perhaps it's a mental thing -- I'm simply not petrified of failing in this class. However, there's one thing that has me completely stymied: "braiding" dinner rolls. I put that in quotations because it's not really a braid -- it's made from a single strand of dough -- but it's twisted to look like a braid. I've been over it many times and had Chef and more adept classmates show me the technique again and again and I'm confident I'm doing it the same way they are.... it's just that the final product doesn't look quite right to me.

My practical is this Sunday and I know the dinner rolls are one of the products I will be graded on. I have to make a total of three shapes -- the braid, a twist and a dog bone (sort of like a double twist). I'm not concerned about the last two. I made rolls today and practiced the braid. About halfway through the dough I think I may have had a breakthrough but then again, I'm not sure. We'll see on Sunday.

classic french bread

2010-03-03T14:39:00.008-05:00

Even though I've haven't been posting regularly lately, I do still bake (recreationally speaking) very regularly. My hard drive is chock full of photos of baked goods, but I can't find the time to blog any of it. However, JWU will be out for the summer in 12 short weeks and rest assured, I plan to resume my regular posting.

One of the things I've been making regularly at home has been bread. My go-to bread lately is the Classic French Bread from Peter Reinhart's most excellent Artisan Breads Every Day (and I'm not just saying that because he thanks me -- and over 500 other people -- on page 215) -- it's just a straightforward, tasty, really consistent recipe. What I love most about it is that with a little bit of planning and very little fuss, we can have quality bread with dinner. Peter's method in this book is to mix the dough the day (or a few days) before you intend to bake. You then refrigerate the dough overnight (or up to 4 days). While the dough is in the fridge, the flavor develops and deepens. On baking day, you shape the loaves, then proof and bake. It really produces some of the best bread we've ever eaten.

chocolates

2010-02-22T11:16:00.003-05:00

I'm currently in the midst of Chocolates and Confections class at school. The class is really more like part chocolates - part really hard science class (at least for me). At any rate, above is a picture of some of what I made yesterday. On the top are peanut butter pralines (with rice krispies for crunch), painstakingly hand-dipped in lovingly table tempered milk chocolate. Arranged on the bottom of the sheet pan are mocha ganache-filled pralines, dipped in milk chocolate and garnished with cocoa nibs. We also made a raspberry ganache that we will cut and dip next Sunday. By the end of the (very long) day, we were all chocolate-covered! Thank goodness for Oxyclean.

scali rolls

2010-02-02T11:50:00.005-05:00

I made these the other day when I needed something bready to go with the chicken chili I was making. The recipe is from Bakers' Banter, and looked like something I've made a number of times before. Unfortunately, as it so often happens these days, I didn't manage my time very wisely and when it came time to braid and divide the dough, I was scrambling. I haven't braided dough lately and couldn't quite remember how best to go about it and then I kind of hacked the braided loaves into irregular lengths. Oh well. They were still tasty.

gingersnaps

2010-01-30T09:57:00.006-05:00

I have a tremendous soft spot for all things ginger, but I particularly love ginger cookies. My favorite ginger cookie is the double ginger cookie that we bake for our church's Holiday Fair. They are a little plump (not much spread, but good rise) and are half-dipped in white chocolate. The combo is heavenly. But I don't have that recipe.

I had a hankering for ginger cookies the other day and perused my cookbooks for something that would fill my craving. I found a recipe for Gingersnaps in my old stand-by -- The Fannie Farmer Cookbook. I had some misgivings about the recipe, namely that it contained shortening, but in the end, I couldn't taste it at all. The cookies were chewy and pleasantly gingery... everything I was looking for. And even P. (who doesn't share my ginger cookie fixation) enjoyed them immensely.

whoops! an omission

2010-01-06T17:05:00.005-05:00

I forgot to call out the brownies in the first photo in the last post. They are on the left, below the Raspberry Wreaths and above the Harlequins. The brownies themselves were actually from a King Arthur Flour recipe and we glazed them with chocolate ganache (not part of the original recipe).

another practical is upon me

2010-01-06T16:11:00.009-05:00

I'm wrapping up the first segment of my second trimester next Sunday -- Cookies and Petit Fours. I'm shocked to find that I will soon have four Baking and Pastry classes under my belt; it seems like such a short time ago when I was so overwhelmed and crazy from the pace of the classes. Now it seems (mostly) like old hat.

Below are a few of the items we made during this segment.

Clockwise from top left: Raspberry Wreaths, Chocolate Biscotti, Checkerboard Cookies, Almond Spritz, Arachides, and Harlequins.

The Raspberry Wreaths have a layer of short dough on the bottom, with butter spritz dough and a raspberry jam filling on top. Chocolate Biscotti have chocolate chips in the cocoa-flavored dough. The Checkerboard Cookies are made with vanilla and chocolate shortbread. The Almond Spritz contain almond flour and are garnished with a sprinkle of almond flour and slivered almonds. The Arachides are filled with a mixture of Pralinosa (a hazelnut-flavored paste) and peanut butter and are dipped in ganache and sprinkled with toasted peanuts to finish. The Harlequins are made from short dough and are filled with orange jam.

Above are another Petit Fours -- Japonaise Mochas. They are tiny Japonaise wafers sandwiched with a layer of a mocha-flavored Swiss Buttercream and are finished with a little more buttercream on top, a drizzle of chocolate and a mocha coffeebean. These were P.'s favorites!

And last are the Petit Fours Glacé. Two layers of frangipane, spread with thin layers of orange jam and topped with a thin layer of marzipan. The whole thing is glazed with a layer of poured fondant and decorated with a chocolate filigree. The sugar in these makes my heart race!

scenes from a busy fall trimester...

2009-12-10T09:27:00.006-05:00

Here are just a few of the things I've baked the past few months. There's so much more than I just didn't have time or forgot to photograph -- sorry.

Practicing Palmiers at home for my Classic Pastry practical back in October. I blame the cheap butter.

Some sort of chocolate chip bar cookie... not for school. I honestly can't remember what they were or where the recipe came from.

Dutch Apple Galette, from first day of Pies and Tarts class.

Lattice Apple Pie, also from Pies and Tarts class.

Ungarnished but partially eaten Turtle Pie.

Chocolate Cream Pie -- a big hit with the kids at Thanksgiving.

Lemon Curd Tartlets (my favorite) and Fruit Tartlets.

This is actually from the first day of Winter Trimester -- Linzer Torte from Cookies and Petit Fours class.

napoleons

2009-11-02T17:25:00.003-05:00

Here's another goodie from my Classic Pastry class -- Napoleons.

I'd only had Napoleons once before, many years ago at the bakery of my best friend's mom. At the time, I couldn't see what all the fuss was about. I don't know whether my tastes have changed or if this formula was more to my liking, but these were awesome. Three crisp layers of puff pastry with layers of diplomat cream in between, topped with poured fondant. Every single morning last week, I had half a Napoleon with my wake-up coffee and the second half mid-morning with my tea. It's a miracle I can still button my jeans!

goodies to go

2009-10-19T20:46:00.002-04:00

Here is a better picture of the pastries, taken after I got home (using my usual camera and not my phone). Here's what the boys got to see and eat... the rest of the pieces of pastry ended up in a dining room at school.

pictures from class

2009-10-19T20:26:00.006-04:00

Here are some pictures from my day in Classic Pastry class yesterday:

Above is the Jalousie I made. A Jalousie is made with puff pastry and is filled with frangipane (almond cream) and slices of apple.

Next is my Band de Fruit. Similar to an open-faced Jalousie, the Band de Fruit has a layer of pastry cream and is topped with strawberries, orange slices, raspberries and kiwi.

And last is my favorite -- the Pithivier. Between the two sheets of puff pastry is a smear of apricot jam and a mixture of frangipane and pastry cream. I love how it looks!

another friday, another french boule

2009-10-09T07:03:00.001-04:00

This is to accompany tonight's dinner -- homemade Potato Ham Soup. I made the bread from Peter Reinhart's Classic Boule recipe.

nick of time cranberry-white chocolate (and a whisper of oatmeal) drops

2009-10-08T08:51:00.006-04:00

One of the perks of being a habitual baker is that I usually have a fairly well-stocked pantry. And even when it's not well stocked, there are usually enough odds and ends that I can pull something together in a pinch if necessary. Case in point -- this morning I received the call to send in a sweet goodie with L. for tonight's teen book group. After perusing my pantry, I managed to cull enough oatmeal, dried cranberries and white chocolate for this recipe from the King Arthur Flour site. I didn't have a ton of any of these particular ingredients so I halved the batch (just as well -- we have a lot of other baked stuff in the house already).

poached pears

2009-10-07T09:48:00.004-04:00

Something else I made in class -- poached pears. Although I love fruit, cooked or raw, I had never tried poached pears before. These were Bosc pears, poached in a syrup of wine, sugar, water and assorted spices. They were surprisingly good!

blueberry muffins

2009-10-06T21:37:00.007-04:00

The best blueberry muffin recipe yet! This one was from the King Arthur Flour website and is simplicity itself -- no spices, no lemon peel, no almond extract, just blueberries. I took the King Arthur Flour folks' suggestion and used Wyman's Wild Maine Blueberries instead of the whatever-brand frozen blueberries I normally use when it's not blueberry season. Wyman's blueberries are consistently sized (small) and this allows each muffin to have a nice, even distribution of berries. The muffins were moist and tender -- so good!

diplomat cup

2009-10-06T21:29:00.005-04:00

One of the items I made as part of my practical exam last Sunday. This was one of several Diplomat Cups I made -- two layers of Diplomat Cream (equals parts Pastry Cream and whipped cream) with bits of poached pear in the middle, topped with a Chantilly Cream rosette and a chocolate filigree that I piped. Not the most beautiful specimen but the other filigrees got a bit smooshed in the box on the ride home.

on-the-fence brownies

2009-10-06T21:20:00.004-04:00

Another in my quest for homemade brownie perfection (or "just like it came from a box" which is C.'s criteria for the perfect brownie). The King Arthur Flour Cookie Companion features three different basic brownies -- fudgy, cake, and this one -- on-the-fence, for those who like something in between. I think they're wonderful -- nice rise like a cake brownie, but moist and fudgy too. And I love the extra boost of chocolatey goodness from the chocolate chips.

artisan boules

2009-10-06T21:07:00.004-04:00

For the past few weeks we've been having homemade soup and home-baked breads for dinner on Friday nights. It's perfect for those evenings when the four of us aren't able to all sit down to eat at the same time. Here are a couple of boules I made from the master recipe in Artisan Breads in Five Minutes a Day.

trying to get caught up

2009-10-06T17:04:00.005-04:00

I made this Whole-Wheat Zucchini Bread last month when we had a bumper crop of zucchini, including one 2 1/2-pound zuke. The recipe is from the King Arthur Flour Whole Grain Baking Book. It has all good stuff in it -- zucchini, cinnamon, nutmeg, raisins and grated lemon zest -- not to mention it's good for you. On paper, it's a wonderful bread; it was moist and flavorful, qualities one doesn't typically associate with whole grain baked goods. Sadly, for some reason it just didn't hit the spot for me.

busy not baking (much)

2009-09-18T17:17:00.002-04:00

No, I haven't fallen off the face of the earth. The last 2 1/2 weeks have been a head-spinner -- the boys went back to school, I went back to school, not to mention jury duty, soccer practices and games, pep band rehearsals and football games, school open house nights... that's just a small part of the list. Recreational baking has had to take a back burner, for the most part, for the moment. Once things settle down a bit I will be able to get caught up with posting some of the things I did find time to bake. Have patience...

birthday chocolate cupcakes for ann

2009-08-31T08:32:00.009-04:00

Sometimes all you need is a wee taste of chocolate. Suzanne Lenzer wrote a great post for Mark Bittman's blog back in June in which she featured the legendary Maida Heatter's recipe for chocolate cupcakes with chocolate ganache frosting (adapted from Maida Heatter’s Book of Great Desserts). I was so charmed by the accompanying photo that I filed the recipe away for later use.

Yesterday we belatedly celebrated my dear mother-in-law's birthday and I wanted to bake something chocolate for the occasion. Cupcakes were perfect because they are portion-sized, sophisticated-looking and easy to share (and transport). While the recipe was simple to make, I found the cake itself to be a little dry and not quite as rich as I had hoped -- thankfully the ganache picked up some of the slack. I decorated the cupcakes with more flowers (daisies, purple pansies and yellow rosebuds) from my stash.

Happy Birthday, Ann!

garlic grilled bread and eggplant caponata

2009-08-29T14:13:00.014-04:00

More grilled bread, more caponata! I made this to take along on our trip west to see James Taylor at Tanglewood (the summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra), although we ended up eating much of it at home the next day since it poured the evening of the concert and it was difficult to handle a large golf umbrella and a glass of wine and bread and caponata all at once.

Like the earlier grilled bread and caponata, these recipes were from King Arthur Flour's Bakers' Banter. This dough was made with garlic-infused olive oil and contained no cheese. It also had a higher ratio of semolina to flour which gave it more of a pita bread (without the pocket) texture -- chewier and less soft than the Asiago bread. Sadly, the garlic flavor was so subtle as to be barely discernible. I wasn't crazy about this bread and found myself wishing for the Grilled Asiago Rounds.

The eggplant caponata was very like the zucchini caponata I made before, just with eggplant instead of zucchini. The chunks were a little less defined (mushier) than in the zucchini caponata -- just a little different but still very tasty.

grilled asiago rounds and zucchini caponata

2009-08-14T16:32:00.009-04:00

I made these grilled flatbreads outside yesterday during one of the drizzliest days we've experienced this summer. Not really how I planned it, but whaddya gonna do?

The recipe is from King Arthur Flour's excellent blog, Bakers' Banter. It's not my first try at grilled bread, but it's definitely my most successful. What's better than moist cheesy bread, hot off the grill? Everyone raved about it! And it was so simple to make -- definitely going to make this one again this weekend. Alongside the bread, I served this Zucchini Caponata. The basil was from our garden -- it was fragrant and fresh tasting and we were happy to get to enjoy some of it before the bugs ate all of our basil plants to the ground.

david lebovitz's roasted banana ice cream

2009-08-13T08:36:00.001-04:00

This is another of David Lebovitz's recipes from The Perfect Scoop. The Traveler's Lunchbox posted a terrific interview with David a couple of years ago and included this recipe. It is sooooooo good -- I was standing over the sink scraping the dregs out of the ice cream maker bowl with a spatula because I just couldn't stand any going to waste. It's so simple to make -- you roast cut-up bananas with a smidge of butter and some brown sugar, then puree the resulting gooey goodness with whole milk, a skosh more sugar, vanilla, fresh lemon juice and a little coarse salt. Chill and then freeze in an ice cream maker (The Traveler's Lunchbox provides an alternate method using an immersion blender for those who don't own an ice cream maker). The ice cream is rich and creamy, surprising when you remember that there's no cream in the mix. There are endless possibilities for different variations -- looking at other blogs I see that people have added chocolate chunks, nuts, rum, raisins, even peanut butter. I love it as it's written -- it's summertime comfort food!

oatmeal cinnamon chips cookies

2009-08-12T14:58:00.010-04:00

I have a real weakness for oatmeal cookies. Maybe it's because I can tell myself that they aren't really naughty to eat, but are actually very healthy, like teeny disc-shaped bowls of oatmeal. I found this recipe on a bag of Hershey's Cinnamon Chips.

Texturewise, they resemble Oatmeal Scotchies -- thin, delicate and chewy. I don't love how fragile they are -- not great for gift giving or even storing for that matter. They are fairly light tasting, particularly when you take into consideration what I consider an almost ungodly amount of butter. And I love the caramel-tinged cinnamon chips. But all in all, they're really just an average tasting batch of oatmeal raisin cookies. It won't stop us from polishing them off lightning fast, but I don't think I will be making them again.

a pair of blue birds

2009-08-10T20:17:00.003-04:00

C. and I had some fun this evening making these birds out of fondant. His previous fondant bird sort of melted in the fridge so I promised C. we'd recreate him. C. named his creation (on the right) "Birdy," after our late parakeet. I haven't named mine (on the left) yet; his predecessor was called "Morty." Any suggestions?

birthday pupcakes

2009-08-06T17:41:00.003-04:00

For as long as we can remember, our son C. has been crazy about dogs. At first we attributed it to a longing for a pet we couldn't have, as L. is allergic to dogs and cats. But two years ago, we found a breed that didn't trigger L.'s sneezes and headaches – miniature schnauzers – and we got one of our own. I thought that perhaps C.'s enthusiasm might lessen just a tad, but no – if anything, having Daisy in our lives has only intensified his zeal. For his birthday this year, two of C. and my common interests came together – we made dog cupcakes.

We consulted Karen Tack and Alan Richardson's wonderful Hello, Cupcake! Irresistibly Playful Creations Anyone Can Make for instructions. Initially we planned to make cupcakes representing each of the breeds featured in the book – dalmatian, collie, beagle, bulldog and (of course) the schnauzer among them – but forces conspired against us and in the end, we decided just to make the West Highland terriers that are shown on the book's cover.

The Westies are made using a standard-size cupcake for the body/base and a mini cupcake (on its side) for the head. With the addition of some cleverly cut mini marshmallows and artfully applied frosting – voilà! You have yourself a cute little pupcake.

Tack and Richardson make it easy for the newbie decorator to master. They encourage the use of cake mixes and canned frosting, and give instructions on how to use ziplock bags instead of pastry bags to apply the frosting. C. found a recipe in the book that explained how to enhance the boxed cake mix by substituting buttermilk for water and adding an additional egg. He was eager to try it, so try it we did. Although the authors suggest using canned frosting in the book, I read on their website that recently there have been reader complaints about changes in the consistency of the store-bought frosting. Tack and Richardson now recommend that readers use the Almost Homemade Buttercream Frosting recipe in the book instead of the canned stuff. It's made with Marshmallow Fluff, butter (a lot of it!), vanilla and confectioners' sugar, and seemed simple to make so we tried that as well.

Although we made the cake using the modifications suggested by the authors, I really didn't feel like it tasted much different than if we had simply followed the directions on the box. Admittedly, it's been a very long time since I've eaten a boxed mix cake so I could be wrong. The Almost Homemade Buttercream Frosting tasted to me like sweetened whipped cream – buttery, but not excessively sweet. It held up OK, but (predictably) became runnier as it warmed from the heat of our hands. Next time, I will try adding a little meringue powder to stabilize it.

C. was a natural at decorating the cupcakes using the ziplock baggies, but I just couldn't get the hang of it. I ended up using a parchment bag and a small star tip for my frosting, which C. proclaimed was “cheating.” However, by the end I think he had to concede that the baggie method had its share of problems – the baggies would stretch or split from the pressure and it was often difficult and frustrating trying to gently squeeze frosting through the small cuts in the baggie (the cuts were to mimic the use of a tip). I really love the designs in Hello, Cupcake! but I think I would prefer to execute them using conventional decorating equipment.

The finished pupcakes were very cute – almost too cute to eat. C. ate the body of one last night but still hasn't brought himself to eat the head. I really hope that I don't end up with a container full of little Westie heads in my kitchen by week's end!

(Happy 12th Birthday, C.!)

my kid takes kakes for kids

2009-07-30T15:41:00.000-04:00

This creation is by my 11-year-old son C., who recently took a Wilton Kakes for Kids project class at our local Michael's store. He iced a single-layer Devil's Food Cake (recipe courtesy of Zoe Bakes) with ready-made icing and used icing tubes (all from Wilton) to decorate the cake. The design he came up with was badminton-themed, which is fitting because badminton is one of our favorite summer pastimes. First he added a leaf border using a leaf tip (obviously). He outlined the racket and the strings (including a contrasting logo) with a round tip, and filled in the handle with a star tip. The birdie was made using round and leaf tips to make the feathers and round and star tips for the red cork base. And finally C. added a blue bird that he modeled from fondant in class (a la Morty). Sadly, he wasn't feeling well after class so I stuck the cake in the refrigerator when we got home. By the time he was well enough to eat cake (a few days later), the little bird had suffered from being refrigerated. Fondant creatures + fridges = sticky, soft, squishy mess.

C. did an excellent job with his cake and I was really impressed with how he came up with his own design and used all the techniques he learned in class to execute it. I'm really looking forward to our next project -- C.'s birthday cupcakes!

brownie truffle mousse cake

2009-07-25T15:44:00.010-04:00

For L.'s birthday cake, he chose this cake from Nestlé's Very Best Baking site. Nestlé rates this recipe as "challenging," but I would say it's more laborious and time-consuming than challenging. (Although it becomes challenging if, like me, you don't read the instructions carefully -- I left out the flour on my first attempt -- don't ask how!)

The cake starts with a brownie base, which is then topped with a layer of chocolate ganache, followed by a layer of chocolate mousse. The sides of the cake are made with chocolate rolled wafer cookies (I used Pepperidge Farms Chocolate Creme Petite Pirouettes). Finally, the top is drizzled with some of the reserved ganache and garnished with cut strawberries.

As gorgeous as this cake was, it tasted even better! The brownie bottom was more cake-like (but dense) than fudgy, and was somewhat light on chocolate flavor. This was actually a good thing since the other layers were so rich. The crunch/chewiness of the wafer rolls added an interesting texture to the smoothness of creamy layers, and the flavor of the strawberries played nicely with the chocolate. Nestlé says the cake serves 12, but I think one could get away with smaller pieces than what is suggested. I cut the cake into fairly slim pieces -- 16 slices total -- which was just about right, given how rich and chocolatey the cake is. This cake is definitely one I'd make again to impress any chocolate lover. My birthday boy certainly loved it!

birthday blueberry muffins

2009-07-24T10:24:00.004-04:00

My eldest turns 15 today. One birthday several years ago, he decided he would like blueberry muffins for breakfast and the tradition stuck. Occasionally his special day would fall during our vacation week and he'd have a blueberry muffin from a Cape Cod Dunkin Donuts instead of a homemade one, and the years we were home, very often the "homemade" muffins were from a boxed mix.

This year's birthday muffin recipe is the Our Favorite Blueberry Muffin from the King Arthur Flour site. It's a little different from many that I've looked at -- a little almond extract, no lemon zest, and the muffins are topped with a sprinkling of cinnamon sugar. They are very tender and light, and very fitting for a special birthday breakfast. Happy Birthday, L.!

english muffin toasting bread

2009-07-23T14:36:00.005-04:00

More fun with overproofing here. I thought I was being super watchful but I misjudged how warm my kitchen was and how quickly the bread was proofing -- it was ready a good 15 - 30 minutes earlier than expected and I was caught with an unheated oven -- doh! But enough about that; let me tell you about this bread!

I first read about the English Muffin Toasting Bread on the Baker's Banter last winter. I'm not sure what made me remember it now, but we were running low on bread and it sprang to mind. Much like English muffin batter, it's made from a very wet dough and contains both yeast and a smidge of baking soda for leavening. The inside of the loaf pan is dusted with stoneground corn meal. The result is a bread which, tastewise, bears a remarkable resemblance to an English muffin, but without the messy dance of flipping half-cooked batter and muffin molds on a hot griddle. When sliced and toasted, the bread's exterior is slightly crunchy and the interior is smooth and creamy. The crumb wasn't as open and craggy I was expecting, but that's probably due to the loaf's sinking in the oven. But the best part of this recipe may be the quickness with which one can whip up this bread -- a mere 90 minutes from start to finish! I'm looking forward to trying this one again -- I'll let you know how it goes!

bread baker's apprentice's white sandwich bread

2009-07-19T17:16:00.004-04:00

We're staycationing this week and (this is really unrelated) we've been trying to eat down our fridge and pantry (and stay out of grocery stores). We ran out of bread (all those sandwiches we've been making for our beach days!) and so I whipped up the white bread (variation 1 for those of you with the book) from The Bread Baker's Apprentice. I was super-diligent this time and kept a close eye on the bread so that it did not overproof. Still, the loaves were not super tall -- I was expecting more oven-spring -- but they were a beautiful golden-brown and had a rich buttery flavor. This morning P. made fried egg sandwiches (with cheese and bacon) on toast from this bread. Yum! :-)

damn the anadama

2009-07-13T08:17:00.002-04:00

The story goes that Anadama Bread was created when a crusty old New Englander came home after a long day's work to discover his wife Anna had run off and all that was left for his dinner was a pot of cornmeal mush and molasses. He tossed some flour and yeast into the slurry and baked it, cursing "Anna, damn 'er!" ("Anadama" to non-Yankee ears) all the while.

This is my first try at Anadama Bread (from The Bread Baker's Apprentice) -- I decided to give it a whirl after hearing great things about the results from BBA Challenge participants. Alas, I overproofed my loaves and they turned out rather sunken and flat. I can't win sometimes -- either my kitchen is too cold or too warm, depending on the season. I'm sure the Anadama will be great for our sandwiches today, though. Our crazy New England weather has finally cleared up after weeks of rain, so we're heading to the beach!

obsessed with flowers

2009-07-12T15:47:00.003-04:00

Ever since I began learning how to make flowers in my Wilton classes, I've become rather preoccupied with thoughts of flowers. Their relative size, color(s), shape, construction... it's all suddenly become fascinating to me. C. has been attending day camp for the past two weeks and during my 17 mile drive to and from camp twice a day, I passed hundreds of blooming day lilies, just as I was learning how to make Easter lilies in class. I've always loved those vibrant orange to copper-hued day lilies, so I made a bunch out of royal icing for my finale cake. I didn't end up using them for that, but they will undoubtedly make their way on to another cake this summer.

wilton course 3 finale cake

2009-07-08T14:10:00.008-04:00

Today was the final day of my Wilton Course 3 class. It was also the last class of all the Wilton classes offered at my local Michael's, since I have already completed Course 1 and 2 and the Fondant and Gum Paste class. However, lest I get too big for my britches with all this cake decorating know-how, the cake gods made sure just about everything that could go wrong in my prep for today's class went wrong. A brief (and partial) accounting follows. My cake layers (I made extra) bubbled over in the oven, making a smoky, burnt mess, which I then had to chisel out (this happened twice!). My layers crumbled and/or broke (yes, every single one of them) when I removed them from the pans to cool. My crumb coats of icing were full of crumbs (which is supposed to happen), as were my final coats (not supposed to happen). By the end of my baking and frosting day yesterday, I was sick to death of this cake, and I hadn't even had class yet.

Rear view

This morning, I somehow managed to transport the cakes to class without further damage. We spent the morning assembling the tiers and decorating our cakes with the royal icing flowers we had made and dried in advance. All in all, I'm satisfied with the results -- it isn't quite what I had envisioned but I'm mostly relieved that it's finished and we can finally eat it. :-) The cake is the Chocolate Fudge Groom's Cake from the Wilton site, iced with the Buttercream Icing (half shortening, half butter -- a compromise over the all-shortening Class Buttercream which I've been whining about since I started my first Wilton class back in February). It's a good combo -- I ate enough trimmings yesterday to know. The purple petunias were for C. -- I promised him a purple-themed cake a while back.

Flower detail

When I started my first Wilton class last winter, all I wanted was to learn a little something about cake decorating so I wouldn't make too big a fool out of myself when I did my cake classes at Johnson and Wales. I didn't expect to love it, or even be good at it. To my surprise, I found the classes to be really enjoyable and personally gratifying. As my mother-in-law said to me recently, "Those classes really worked out for you, didn't they?" As always, a million thank you's to Evelyn for being the best teacher an uncoordinated, unartistic person could hope for -- positive, supportive, patient and most of all, always good-humored. I am so grateful we crossed paths.

monday morning bagels

2009-07-06T09:17:00.003-04:00

Do you want to know a secret? Homemade bagels are crazy easy to make. They're even easier than baking a batch of muffins (although they do require a wee bit of planning) and are far more impressive in my opinion. I baked this batch from Peter Reinhart's wonderful Bread Baker's Apprentice and topped them with a blend of coarse kosher salt, poppy seeds and toasted sesame seeds.

garlic bread sticks

2009-07-05T17:32:00.015-04:00

C. is a huge devotee of garlic bread sticks. And as a result, we've sampled many different recipes. Actually, I guess we're all fans, because we have a tendency to turn almost any individually sized baked good into some sort of garlic bread stick variation -- garlic pretzels, garlic biscuits, garlic knot rolls.

I bookmarked this recipe for the Bakers' Banter's Soft Bread Sticks a couple months ago. They compare them to Pizza Hut's bread sticks, which I've never had, but if these bread sticks are any indication, they must be very tasty. This recipe is a variation of BB's Blitz Bread (which I made last summer). The texture of the bread sticks is reminiscent of a focaccia, but unlike a traditional focaccia, these are super fast and super easy to make -- from start to finish in just a couple of hours. The bread sticks are light and have a little crustiness to them, thanks to a second turn in the oven, and are rather addictive. I actually baked them for C. to take to camp for lunch tomorrow but we couldn't help sneaking several. But no worries -- the recipe makes 3 dozen!

what a difference a year makes

2009-06-22T16:25:00.005-04:00

Today is my dear husband's 44th birthday! For the occasion, I baked the same cake I made him last year -- Cook's Illustrated's Devil's Food Layer Cake with Whipped Cream Frosting. The difference between last year's cake and this year's are 3 1/2 Wilton courses.

Last year's cake

This year's cake

The whipped cream isn't as easy to work with as buttercream icing, but I think I did a decent job. I made the flowers in Course 2 and dried them for future use (I have boxes and boxes!). The leaves are buttercream icing tinted with moss green icing tint.

red velvet package cake

2009-06-17T13:23:00.003-04:00

This is the cake I decorated today in my Wilton Course 3 class. It's far and away my favorite of those that I've done so far. Underneath all that fondant is a Red Velvet Layer Cake (from The America's Test Kitchen Family Baking Book) topped with Philadelphia Cream Cheese Frosting.

lemon blueberry muffins

2009-06-15T15:43:00.008-04:00

Here are the facts about me and blueberry muffins. I've never had a store-bought or bakery-made blueberry muffin that I've liked. I generally like my own homemade (from scratch) blueberry muffins (made from a variety of recipes). Lastly, my favorite blueberry muffins are from the packaged mixes that contain the little cans of "wild blueberries."

My son L. is a great connoisseur of blueberry muffins. He loves them so much that they are his chosen birthday breakfast each July. So who better to critique these muffins from The America's Test Kitchen Family Baking Book? L's verdict -- "They're really good." Did I mention L. will be 15 next month? He's a teen of few words. :-)

I will elaborate -- they are tender and moist, and surprisingly very lemony (there's only zest in the batter, no juice). In fact, the lemon flavor almost overwhelms the blueberries. This won't be my go-to blueberry muffin recipe, but it's wonderful for a change of pace (or for the lemon muffin lovers out there).

oatmeal date cookies

2009-06-14T15:55:00.004-04:00

Essentially the same cookie as the oatmeal raisin cookie I made a couple of weeks ago -- I just substituted dates for the raisins. I thought they would be amazing, as I LOVE dates, but they were just okay. The relatively pure sweetness of the dates just didn't contribute anything special to the cookies. I also inadvertently overbaked them; I used my new cookie scoo p instead of shaping them by hand, so these cookies were about half the size of the earlier cookies. The overbaking actually makes them quite crunchy and somewhat more interesting texture-wise, but I still prefer the raisins.

san francisco-style sourdough bread

2009-06-12T12:14:00.005-04:00

I fed my sourdough starter last week (over six months along now and still alive and well!) and made a couple boules of San Francisco-style sourdough bread. I wasn't sure what being a "San Francisco-style sourdough" meant exactly, so I did a little research.

According to Peter Reinhart's Crust and Crumb: Master Formulas For Serious Bread Bakers:

What makes this a San Francisco-style bread is a sour rather than mild starter, a wet rather than firm mother sponge (as in pain au levain), and an intermediate "build." Using both wet and firm starters develops a more rounded flavor. You could make a dough directly from the barm sponge but it will be slacker and spread out rather than up. It also won't have as much complexity of flavor. The firm starter makes a big difference; it allows you to step beyond good bread to incredible bread.

And incredible bread it is. In the past 3 days, we've had it just about every way you can imagine, including countless grilled cheeses (made with jalapeño jack cheese -- so good). In fact, as I type, another batch is proofing... :-)

awesome pb lovers' cookies (aka get well soon cookies)

2009-06-11T13:31:00.009-04:00

I love reading food blogs, as is evidenced by the lengthy list on the right sidebar. One of my favorites to comb through is Anna Ginsberg's Cookie Madness. Some months ago, Anna posted the recipe for the Get Well Soon cookies she had created for a sick friend and I immediately bookmarked it for future use. I made them today for L.'s book group gathering and have taken the liberty of rechristening them (just for today) "peanut butter lovers' cookies," because (hopefully) none of the kids present are sick. These soft molasses-tinged peanut butter cookies, with chopped up Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, Dove Dark Chocolate and Reese's Pieces, are quite addictive. P., who is not normally a big peanut butter cookie kind of guy, couldn't stop eating them.

david lebovitz's strawberry frozen yogurt

2009-06-09T12:20:00.007-04:00

I bought an ice cream maker last June, and spent much of last summer making ice cream from the recipe booklet that accompanied the machine. I even made up some recipes of my own. And I was pretty content to leave it at that. There was one ice cream cookbook that piqued my interest though -- pastry chef David Lebovitz's The Perfect Scoop. Every time I saw it at my local bookstore, I would look through it longingly but decided I would wait to buy it this summer. Since I am now on a cookbook acquisition moratorium, that purchase will have to wait. Thankfully, David's recipe for Strawberry Frozen Yogurt is posted on his blog so I don't have to miss out. The recipe is so simple. First you cut up strawberries, add sugar and let sit for a couple of hours.

Then the strawberries go into the blender with yogurt, a smidge of lemon juice and a dribble of vodka or kirsch (if you wish). Pulse until almost smooth.

Then pour the mixture into your ice cream maker and whirl away until frozen. It takes about 20 to 25 minutes in mine.

Put it in the freezer to freeze until hard. It's really yummy stuff -- so bright and fresh tasting. And I love the simplicity of the ingredients. I just can't wait for summer weather to come to New England so we can really enjoy it in earnest!

double chocolate chunks revisited

2009-06-08T15:08:00.006-04:00

The last time I made these I ran out of confectioners' sugar and wasn't able to photograph them powdered as intended. I made these yesterday for an end-of-school-year party. The recipe is from King Arthur Flour and can be found here. Double Chocolate Chunks are soft and cakey, dotted with gooey chocolate chips. The espresso flavor really shines too. It's rather hard to tell when they're done since they are so dark and so soft... I've found that the best way is to taste one or two!

easy cinnamon bread

2009-06-06T12:30:00.004-04:00

Last holiday season I picked up a bag of Hershey's Cinnamon Chips (a seasonal offering in these parts) with this bread in mind. I'm embarrassed to report that it has taken me until now to get around to baking it. In any event, King Arthur Flour's Easy Cinnamon Bread is a quirky little offering. Part yeast bread and part quick bread, it tastes like a not-too-sweet cinnamon coffee cake. The cinnamon chips are interesting too -- I thought they'd be intense pellets of pure cinnamon flavor, but they are more like cinnamon-tinged butterscotch chips and lend pleasing bursts of spicy ooey-gooey goodness to the bread. I highly recommend having a thick slice, preferably toasted and buttered, alongside your morning coffee.

carrots, cream cheese and fondant

2009-06-03T13:20:00.007-04:00

Today was the last day of my Wilton Fondant and Gum Paste cl ass. It's my usual M.O. to bake a chocolate cake for my Wilton class cakes, although it's not necessarily my preference. I wouldn't mind a white cake with raspberry filling or something different every now and again, but I've been told by the guys (well, one 11-year-old guy actually) that it has to be chocolate or else they (he) won't eat it. And I don't want to be the only one eating all this cake!

However, we've had a fair amount of cake in recent weeks, and will continue to, between all the birthdays and my next class, so I decided to be daring and veer off the chocolate path. I baked the Carrot Layer Cake from The America's Test Kitchen Family Baking Book and iced it with Philadelphia Cream Cheese Frosting from the Kraft Foods site. America's Test Kitchen's carrot cake is very basic -- just carrots. Some of the other recipes I looked at contained nuts, raisins, coconut and/or pineapple. I couldn't settle on which of those other ingredients I'd want in my cake so I just decided to go basic. (It's a good thing too, because P. later told me he wouldn't have liked any of those other ingredients.) I've made the Philly Cream Cheese Frosting many times in the past. It's a cinch -- just 4 ingredients (cream cheese, butter, vanilla and confectioners' sugar) -- and goes great with all sorts of cakes. Try it and you'll never use canned again.

After icing, I covered the cake and cake board with fondant and added the final touches during the class. I like how it turned out although I do wish I had done something a bit more creative (the ideas were straight from the book) -- I tried to come up with something different, but ran out of time. Also, I would've liked to use a different color combo (I used these colors in an earlier class) but I was trying to use up the supplies I had.

C. -- I know I owe you a purple cake -- we'll see what Course 3 brings.

And lastly, as always, I'd like to thank my instructor, Evelyn, for her unwavering support and endless patience.

Favor box atop the cake.

portuguese sweet rolls

2009-06-01T08:37:00.003-04:00

Except for the odd grilled cheese or (plain) pasta day, C.'s not a school lunch kind of kid. And I fear I've spoiled him by having fresh baked goods at the ready. In the past, he'd often take a few pieces of baguette or sometimes these garlic and cheese biscuits (easy to make in a jiffy), but since he's gotten his palate expander, crustier breads are off limits and I've been on a quest to find something more appropriate.

I baked him some Portuguese Sweet Rolls for this week's lunch. I omitted the lemon oil because I didn't think that would fly with him, and the vanilla as well, because I didn't remember tasting vanilla in the rolls I've had before. Per the instructions, I baked them in two 9" round pans. After proofing and baking, they had puffed up to the point that they touched, so they have flat sides. In spite of rotating the pans and tenting them with foil mid-bake, the tops browned a bit unevenly and the bottoms browned a lot more than I would've liked (I'm thinking this is due to the higher fat and sugar content). C. didn't care -- he was pleased as punch!

After shaping the rolls.

Cooling after baking.

happy birthday to me!

2009-05-31T13:24:00.008-04:00

In our house, summer is just like one continuous birthday party. First up is my birthday in May, followed my husband's in June, then L.'s in July and C.'s in August. I'm not even mentioning all the other family members (and our dog!) whose birthdays also fall during the summer. So it's kind of fun (and challenging) to come up with ideas for the different cakes we'll be enjoying. I usually pick something chocolate on chocolate for my cake, because I know this is probably my only opportunity to have that -- everyone else always chooses some sort of white frosting (vanilla buttercream, cream cheese, whipped cream, etc.) for their (chocolate) cakes.

A few weeks ago, I came across this post on Zoe Bakes. In it she describes the cakes she baked for her son's Henri's birthday. Her Devil's Food Cake with Chocolate Malted Buttercream called to me, so that's what I selected for my cake this year. I baked my own cake (because that's what I do), with assistance from my baking apprentice -- my 11-year-old son. The guys also made dinner for me -- Soda Can Chicken (our favorite summer chicken preparation), broccoli salad with dried cranberries, and twice-baked potatoes, a specialty of C.'s., who piped the potatoes into the skins himself. And L. made Ro*Tel queso for a starter. With my meal, I had Sam Adams Blackberry Witbier. The meal was wonderful -- thanks to my guys for treating me so well!

C.'s Twice-Baked Potatoes

oatmeal raisin cookies

2009-05-30T14:33:00.007-04:00

Oatmeal raisin cookies fall into a gray area for me. While I acknowledge that they are cookies, the fact that they also contain oats and raisins allows me to tell myself that they are more health food than guilt-inducing treat. I've even been known to let my kids eat oatmeal raisin cookies for breakfast. I understand that this smacks of bad parenting in some people's eyes, but I stand firm.

Tomorrow L. and his compadres in his teen youth group are going on a hike at Blue Hills, so I decided to bake Oatmeal Raisin Cookies for their trek. I made a different recipe than my usual -- this one was from The America's Test Kitchen Family Baking Book (read Andrea's Recipes' post about the same recipe here). I had misgivings initially because unlike the one I usually use, there is no molasses in America's Test Kitchen's recipe. Also the recipe does not contain that spice which screams oatmeal cookie to me -- cinnamon (but I added some anyway, in addition to the nutmeg in the recipe). The resulting cookies are oversized, and crisp but chewy, very much like the America's Test Kitchen's chocolate chip cookies. L. can't stop eating them -- hopefully there will be some left for tomorrow!

pain d'epi

2009-05-28T19:37:00.003-04:00

In the spirit of such Internet bake-alongs as Tuesdays with Dorie and The Daring Bakers, a group of ambitious baking bloggers recently started The BBA Challenge, in which they are baking every recipe from The Bread Baker's Apprentice by Peter Reinhart. Such a challenge very much intrigued me because I am, at the core, a bread baking devotee, but I was reluctant to participate because I've been feeling kind of overwhelmed by my dwindling time as a full-time at-home parent, particularly with the kids' summer vacation coming up. Then I remembered that I recently completed my very own "bake Peter Reinhart's entire book" challenge, baking from his upcoming Peter Reinhart's Artisan Breads Every Day, for which I was a tester (one of 500 or so!) for 6 months.

During the course of the testing, I purchased Artisan Breads in Five Minutes a Day by Jeff Hertzberg and Zoe Francois, but never found a moment to bake from it before now. So earlier this week I baked the Pain d'Epi (Wheat Stalk Bread), which I selected because (a) I've never made Pain d'Epi before and (b) it was one of the recipes in the book that used bread flour (which was all I had in large quantities in the house at the time). Each recipe in the book makes enough dough for a few loaves -- the idea being that you mix up a large batch and retard it in the fridge until you are ready to make some. You can then lop off a hunk and bake a loaf at a time, saving the remainder for another day.

As this was my first attempt at baking from the book, I haven't yet gotten the technique down. It's actually really simple... maybe too simple for me. I'm not used to being so carefree with my bread baking and I actually like fussing over and kneading the dough. Artisan Breads in Five Minutes a Day is relatively freewheeling in that regard. I like very precise instructions (which is why I love Peter Reinhart so much, I guess). I also live and die by my kitchen scale. Artisan Breads in Five Minutes a Day measures ingredients by volume rather than weight and refers to dough sizes as "a grapefruit-sized" or "cantaloupe-sized." I suppose this makes it very beginner-friendly and low on intimidation, but it's not a natural fit for me.

My Pain d'Epi (four separate loaves) varied a lot. Generally I would say the 30 minute final proofing was inadequate -- my loaves barely rose. I should've gone with my gut and proofed them longer. Also -- something odd -- the bread was really salty. The recipe called for 1 1/2 tablespoons of salt for a 4-pound batch of dough. I didn't question this but the resulting saltiness was overwhelming. My salt-loving 11-year-old even pronounced it "too salty to eat." I noticed that another recipe in the book (the master recipe) calls for 1 1/2 tablespoons of kosher or coarse salt, which would actually be less salt (if measured by weight) than 1 1/2 tablespoons of table salt. I'm wondering if that was a detail that got lost somewhere?

Anyway, next up from Artisan Breads in Five Minutes a Day -- I'm going to go back to the beginning and make the master recipe. I'll let you know how it turns out.

more fun with fondant

2009-05-22T10:01:00.009-04:00

This week we covered cakes in fondant -- judging from the wrinkles I have a lot of work ahead of me. We also practiced different decorating techniques using fondant and gumpaste -- draping, a handkerchief overlay, a ribbon garland and a ribbon border.

Draping and handkerchief overlay

Ribbon border and ribbon garland

My instructor recommended we use a pound cake or a carrot cake for a base, since fondant tends to be too heavy for sponge cakes. To meet our household requirement that all cakes be chocolate, I made Deep Chocolate Sour Cream Pound Cake from The Cake Book by Tish Boyle (I found the recipe on Chubby Hubby's blog here). The cake was very indulgent (3/4 of a pound of butter and a cup of sour cream will do that to a cake), but moist and scrumptious. It even made the Wilton (Crisco-laden) Class Buttercream seem tasty. At least I thought so. (L. said it was dry but mushy. Teenagers excel at tact.) I used natural cocoa rather than the Dutch-processed cocoa Boyle calls for. If you're looking for an over-the-top chocolatey cake, I recommend making it with Dutch-processed cocoa as written. I baked the cake in two 8-inch rounds rather than in a loaf pan; if you do this the baking time is approximately 55 minutes. Baked this way, the recipe produces a 3 1/2-inch tall layer cake.

I'm looking forward to next week's class -- no cakes, just flower production!

tiramisu

2009-05-18T13:55:00.021-04:00

Tiramisu is a popular Italian dessert, made with ladyfingers, mascarpone cheese, egg, sugar, espresso and cocoa. Some versions also include alcohol (such as brandy or Marsala wine). Whenever I see tiramisu on a dessert menu, it's a must-order, but I had never attempted making it at home before now.

I found this recipe in my binder of ripped-out magazine pages and decided I would try to overcome my distrust of all things Rachael Ray and try it out (I know, if I was so distrustful of RR then why did I save the recipe in the first place? Chalk it up to my love of tiramisu.). I had already done exhaustive research on the Internet and had yet to find what I thought was The Definitive Tiramisu Recipe so it seemed as good as any. The Everyday with Rachael Ray recipe called for savoiardi, which are crisp ladyfingers; I've seen other versions which use soft cakey ladyfingers. After combing my local (usually well-stocked) supermarket and finding no savoiardi, I decided to make my own. Here's the savoiardi recipe I used, found on Allrecipes.

First the savoiardi. The process itself wasn't too tough, although I had trouble incorporating the flour into the mixture. I probably stirred some of the air out of the batter in the process, even though I deliberately tried not to do that. Sometimes with folding in ingredients, it's better to be decisive than careful and slow. I also had a little difficulty piping the batter on the parchment-lined pans. I guess I'm just not adept at working with drippy stuff in pastry bags -- the batter ran out the other end almost as fast as I could fill the bag! When I took the baked savoiardi out of the oven, though they were golden and firm as instructed, the surface felt a little sticky to the touch. I baked my second pan a little longer and they were browner than I would've liked but less tacky. I ended up flipping the first batch over and gave them a couple more minutes in the oven.

Now that I had my savoiardi, I made my tiramisu. Here's the process in a nutshell. I mixed espresso, brown sugar and vanilla together (no booze, because I was making it to share with my kids) and set that aside. I whisked together egg yolks, sugar and heavy cream, first over heat in a double boiler, then over/in a bowl of ice water. As it cooled, the mixture thickened up and became more custard-like. I then whisked in the mascarpone. To assemble, I dipped the savoiardi in the reserved espresso and lined the bottom of an 8 x 8-inch pan with them. Then I spread a layer of the mascarpone mixture, followed by another layer of savoiardi, and a final layer of mascarpone. After chilling for a few hours, I topped the dessert with some homemade whipped cream, a sprinkling of cocoa powder and some dark chocolate curls.

P. and L. both really loved the tiramisu but I felt it was just too rich and heavy. (And believe me, I don't say that often. I'm the girl who always finishes her dessert. And has seconds.) The cake to custard ratio was off; there wasn't enough cake, and there was way too much creamy stuff. I actually felt sick after having just a half-portion. (I had another half piece the next day to be sure. Still ugh.) I'm just going have to keep hunting for The Definitive Tiramisu Recipe. And until I find it, I'm going to keep ordering tiramisu off the dessert menu.

three-chip cookies

2009-05-15T09:12:00.004-04:00

Happy National Chocolate Chip Day! Wait, you didn't know it was Chocolate Chip Day? To be honest, neither did I, and I probably never would have known had I not been desperately scouring the Internet for a cookie recipe that would use up all the odds and ends I have in my pantry. And so it was fitting that I ended up with the Jumbo 3-Chip Cookies on Nestlé's website.

I halved the recipe as I didn't have enough of the various chips or nuts to make a full batch and also opted to make smaller cookies to make the half batch go farther. The cookies are of the classic Toll House cookie model -- very thin, almost crisp, buttery -- except with three different kinds of chocolate chips (semi-sweet, milk and white chocolate). I have to confess that I think the charm is mostly in the name and the appearance of the cookies since I found it difficult to distinguish tastewise between the semi-sweet and milk chocolate chips, and the white chocolate flavor was completely overwhelmed by the other darker chips. One positive note: since I usually don't add nuts to my chocolate chip cookies, I was pleasantly surprised by how nicely the hazelnuts I used complemented the other flavors. I'm not sure I would go out of my way to make these again, but they were just what I was looking for this afternoon.

the easiest whole-wheat bread ever?

2009-05-14T12:19:00.006-04:00

I was really intrigued by this recipe from King Arthur Flour Whole Grains Baking. The dough isn't kneaded; rather the ingredients are mixed into a batter which is proofed in a loaf pan for an hour and then baked. The instructions seemed so avant garde -- when have I ever gone from mixing ingredients to oven-ready loaf in just an hour?! I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised that it turned out kind of... ummm... flat. I later found the recipe posted on King Arthur Flour's site (renamed "No-Knead 100% Whole Wheat Bread"), now with more extensive proofing instructions. Apparently, I should have let if proof slightly longer, although I doubt another 30 minutes would have made much of a difference -- my bread barely rose at all in 60 minutes (this was as expected, according to the book instructions). If only I had done a little more research -- but sometimes I just want to bake without overthinking things, ya know?

Appearances aside, the bread is soft and moist, and the flavor of the molasses really shines. It toasts up beautifully too!

fun with fondant

2009-05-13T17:12:00.005-04:00

This is the little guy I made in my Fondant and Gumpaste class this morning. I've decided to call him Morty. If you'd like to make a little friend of your own, the directions are here.

C. remarked that the eyes were a bit close together, but that was actually deliberate on my part; I was thinking Gromit of Wallace and Gromit.

mother's day and whoopie pies

2009-05-11T13:56:00.011-04:00

Until yesterday, I had never eaten a whoopie pie. Apparently this is something I should be ashamed of. However, even without having eaten one, I had a firm idea of how a whoopie pie should taste. The exterior should be moist and chocolatey. The filling should be sweet, but not cloyingly so, and it should have some lightness to it -- kind of like whipped cream, but not exactly. And most of all, it should not contain shortening. Apparently making whoopie pies without shortening is a deal breaker, but I was determined to find out how to make them sans Crisco for my Mother's Day cookout.

The America's Test Kitchen Family Baking Book's Whoopie Pie recipe calls for filling made with butter, confectioners' sugar, vanilla, Marshmallow Fluff (or Marshmallow Creme for you folks outside of Fluffland) and a pinch of salt. The recipe is super simple to make -- I had a doozy of a cold this weekend and still managed to do a beautiful job if I do say so myself (indulge me, I'm sick). I premade the batter and filling and put them in the fridge overnight, and then scooped and baked the batter in the morning. After cooling them on a rack, I then filled them with the ooey gooey filling and served. The filling wasn't quite what I expected -- it was sweet and sticky and a little overwhelming with its sugary messiness. The pies were pretty big too -- only my teenage son was able to eat a whole pie in one sitting and a few of us had trouble even finishing a half. Luckily we are an informal bunch and none of us minded wearing whoopie pie on our hands and faces. For a prettier (and tidier) presentation, I would try baking them in cupcake tins and then filling the centers. But what fun would that be?

a learning experience: double chocolate muffins

2009-05-08T14:05:00.021-04:00

I've always been told that baking is a science and not an art (unlike other culinary endeavors). Proportions and chemistry are to be respected and not messed with. At the same time, some of the best bakers are the ones who push the envelope and experiment and tweak. The key is to remember that for every successful baking experiment, there are a hundred failures.

I recently checked out a handful of baking books from my local library, and once I got over my initial "I have to buy a copy of each of these books" impulse, I resolved that I would select and bake one recipe from each. My first selection was Chocolate Zucchini Muffins from The Only Bake Sale Cookbook You'll Ever Need: 201 Mouthwatering, Kid-Pleasing Treats by Laurie Goldrich Wolf and Pam Abrams, adapting the recipe as I saw fit. With that, my current streak of making unproblematic baked goods came to a screeching halt.

Here are some of the ways I changed the recipe and what I learned:

(1) The recipe calls for 1 1/2 sticks of butter (or 3/4 cup), which way exceeds my personal "acceptable use of butter in a 12-muffin recipe" policy, so I substituted unsweetened apple sauce for (I thought) a third of the butter. As it turns out, I actually added 4 oz. (1/2 cup) of apple sauce to the 4 oz. (1 stick or 1/2 cup) of butter rather than 2 oz. (1/4 cup), which resulted in an additional 1/4 cup of liquid. This caused problems later down the road (see (4) below).

(2) I also cut a 1/2 cup of the sugar, since I thought a ratio of 2 cups of sugar to 2 1/2 cups of flour was a bit excessive. The finished muffins were perfectly fine in the sweetness department.

(3) I did not squeeze out the shredded zucchini. The recipe calls for 2 cups of shredded zucchini ("about 4 medium zucchini") ; my 2 cups came from only 1 1/2 medium zucchini. Even though the recipe did not suggest squeezing out the excess liquid, doing so would have compacted the zucchini (likely to the tune of 4 zukes). So I was off on that measurement.

(4) When I filled the muffin pan, I had way too much batter, which completely stymied me at the time. I had enough to fill the cups to almost full, and enough leftover from that to make 6 mini muffins. The reasons why? See (1) and (3) above.

(5) When the recipe says to fill the muffin pan cups about two-thirds full, it's best to fill them just that full. Not more. If you have too much batter, grab another pan.

(6) I've been on a bit of a paper wrapper-free muffin kick and greased the muffin pan lightly. Unfortunately these muffins stuck like, well, something really sticky. In hindsight, this was likely due to the reduction in fat in my version.

(7) My finished muffin tops merged together so I had to cut them apart (ugliness ensued). Furthermore, the muffins stuck to their cups and I had to jimmy them loose (more ugliness) and all of them tore apart to some degree in the progress (an extra helping of ugliness).

(8) It seems the extra liquid in the batter made the crumb finer and more cakelike than muffinlike. This didn't hurt the taste, but it helped if you closed your eyes when you ate them.

They are actually fine-tasting muffins, just not presentable to anyone you want to impress. Since I made them fully planning to share with friends and coworkers, this was a bit of a blow. Because now I have to eat them all myself.

Many-Mistakes Double-Chocolate Muffins
(with corrections)
adaptation of Chocolate Zucchini Muffins
from The Only Bake Sale Cookbook You'll Ever Need

301g unbleached all-purpose flour
40g natural cocoa powder, sifted
2 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
113g (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
2 oz. unsweetened apple sauce
3 large eggs
2 cups shredded zucchini, with liquid squeezed out
1/2 cup milk
112g semi-sweet chocolate chips (preferably mini chocolate chips)

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Line muffin pan with paper muffin wrappers. Whisk together the flour, sifted cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda, salt and cinnamon in a medium bowl. Cream butter and sugar in a mixing bowl until light and creamy. Add applesauce and mix until combined; mixture may look curdled -- this is fine. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing until combined. Add half the flour mixture, then half the zucchini, followed by half the milk, and repeat with the remainder of each, mixing each until combined before adding the next. Fold in the chocolate chips. Fill each muffin cup two-thirds of the way full. Bake for 25 minutes, or until the the tops spring back when lightly touched. Remove from oven and let rest for 3 minutes before removing muffins from the pan to dry on a cooling rack. Makes 12 muffins.

(You can also make mini muffins with the batter; bake at 375 degrees F for 15 minutes. Makes approximately 24 mini muffins.)

cranberry-white chocolate muffins

2009-05-05T11:48:00.014-04:00

My husband often teases me about how I would rather spend untold amounts of money to use up leftover ingredients than simply discard them. Followers of this blog are aware that last November I overbought fresh cranberries whilst in the throes of autumnal mania and have been chiseling away at them ever since, little by ever so little. This morning I finally used up the last of my formerly fresh, now frozen cranberries. (And there was much rejoicing.)

I've long been a big fan of the flavor (and color) combination of cranberries and white chocolate and have made cookies and scones on many occasions featuring these two ingredients. While pondering what to do with my remaining cranberries I had a flash of inspiration -- why not give them the cranberry and white chocolate treatment?!

I started with the recipe for Big Beautiful Muffins in The America's Test Kitchen Family Baking Book. Like many other recipes from the folks at America's Test Kitchen and Cook's Illustrated, the instructions suggested many different ways to adapt the recipe to suit my fancy, so I felt comfortable playing around a bit. I added 3/4 cup of chopped cranberries (still frozen) and 3/4 cup white chocolate chips to the batter. Those amounts seemed appropriate when compared to the other variations, but in the end, I felt the muffins could've used more of both, perhaps a cup of each instead. The recipe makes a dozen and are big as advertised, perhaps a bit too big for a standard muffin pan. The muffin tops fused to each other and required a bit of pulling apart when I removed them from the pan. This resulted in jagged edges -- not all that pretty. The good news is the muffins were tender (I didn't overmix -- yay!). An additional note: I substituted 2 ounces of unsweetened applesauce for 2 ounces of the 4 ounces of melted butter, and didn't miss the fat in the finished product at all.

Next up... getting rid of those chopped dates from last December!

zucchini-cranberry muffins

2009-05-02T20:41:00.005-04:00

I'm still trying to get through my frozen cranberries from last fall. Who knew it would be so tough? It seems like a lot of recipes call for dried cranberries, and those that don't are of the cranberry-orange flavor pairing. And I've exhausted the cranberry-orange canon.

I found this recipe by way of The Food Librarian's wonderful blog. It's originally from Martha Stewart's Baking Handbook. I'm not ordinarily a Martha fan. I don't want to go into it; I've never met the woman so it wouldn't be nice for me to expound on my feelings about her in a public setting. But the idea of a cranberry muffin recipe that called for fresh or frozen cranberries and no orange sucked me in. I substituted 2 ounces of unsweetened applesauce for half of the vegetable oil, but I otherwise made it as written. They are lightly sweet and making them without wrappers makes the outsides have a little crunchy chewiness to them -- yum! I felt they could use a little more cinnamon though -- I'll double the amount next time and maybe substitute in a little whole wheat flour, because... I still have more cranberries in the freezer!

crusty french boule

2009-04-21T15:37:00.004-04:00

Not much baking so far this week. It's April school vacation in Massachusetts and the boys are home so I've been spending my time doing the things they like to do -- eating barbecue, playing video games and shopping for music. Who am I kidding? I love doing those things too.

First though, I baked up some dough I mixed last week and had been retarding in the fridge. I had intended to make more baguettes but didn't have the patience on Sunday so I just shaped it into a boule. My slashes weren't very deep so the top looked a little puckery, but it was really good. We've been having it with eggs (fried and poached) the past few days, and I've had a couple of slices slathered with Nutella for tea. Yum. :-)

chewy choc-oat chip bars

2009-04-17T12:12:00.004-04:00

Chocolate chips and oatmeal are always a winning combo for me. In fact, I love oatmeal in almost any cookie, but I'm not sure everyone does, and chocolate can certainly make it more palatable for those folks. Oat bran/fiber AND chocolate? How can you lose?

Usually when I bake goodies for L.'s teen gatherings, a few come home, so I wasn't too concerned that I wouldn't get to sample one later. However, this time there were no leftovers at all. So you'll have to take L. and friends' collective word for it that they were delicious. The recipe was from Nestle's Very Best Baking site, and they were a snap to make and contained ingredients that most bakers have handy -- which was a very good thing for me since I had forgotten to pick up a snack at the grocery store for L. to take!

cinnamon rolls

2009-04-15T16:44:00.002-04:00

Because our house is not filled with nearly enough sugary stuff like lemon squares, chocolate chip cookies, Easter candy galore and such, I felt it was important to bake cinnamon rolls this morning. These differ from the rolls I made in December in that this dough is not quite as rich and eggy as the earlier dough. I drizzled the tops with a simple glaze. I made just a half batch -- eight rolls -- so I can still feel good about myself. I think I can still feel good about myself. Talk to me tomorrow.

susan ziegler's lemon squares (via ruhlman)

2009-04-15T15:26:00.007-04:00

I'm trying to get caught up with my blog posts -- it's been really busy this week and while I continue to bake, I just haven't had time to post.

Michael Ruhlman is an author, food writer and blogger. His latest book, Ratio, has quite the buzz going in foodie circles right now. I haven't read it yet, but it's on my list. He recently wrote a post about his disdain over the use of boxed lemon square mixes. I have to confess, I've only ever made lemon squares from a mix -- and I thought they were pretty good. But it's been a few years and I now try to not use boxed baking mixes at all and his post inspired me to make them for Easter. Actually, if it were a perfect world, I would've baked a lemon meringue pie but my last attempt was so abysmal I thought it best not to (I can't get the meringue to not weep, and that makes me weep). Lemon squares are an acceptable substitute.

Ruhlman's lemon squares (actually Susan Ziegler's, his childhood neighbor) are equal parts base and curd. He says one can tweak the balance as one sees fit, but 50/50 is fine with me. The finished lemon squares were a little fragile but had terrific flavor -- tangy, sweet, buttery. I loved the shortbread quality of the base, and by Day 2 the base had acquired a little bit of a very pleasant crunchiness. The recipe makes 16 fairly small squares, so if I were planning on making enough to share I'd make a second pan.

french baguettes

2009-04-09T15:43:00.005-04:00

It's been awhile since we've had a nice traditional baguette. These are half-sized since they are only about a foot long. I shaped them this morning after retarding the dough in the fridge the past few days, proofed a while, then threw them on the preheated stone, et voilà! Freshly baked baguettes with tonight's Spaghetti Bolognese!

sourdough cheese bâtard

2009-04-04T15:30:00.004-04:00

Another cheese bread -- this one is a crusty sourdough version of the cheese sandwich bread I posted earlier. It's stuffed with just sharp cheddar this time and is a thing of beauty. I particularly love how the cheese erupted out of the slashes. :-)

crackers!

2009-04-03T18:54:00.003-04:00

My first attempt at making crackers! I was hesitant to try making them because it seemed like it would be pretty complicated, but it's actually very straightforward and simple. They are actually much easier than most things I bake. These crackers are full of good things (and are a great source of Omega 6 fatty acid) and are topped with sesame seeds. I've been noshing on them as they've been cooling and can't wait to actually try them with cheese!

wilton course 2 finale cake

2009-04-03T08:55:00.007-04:00

Last night was my last class of Wilton Course 2. Pictured above is my finale cake for the class -- the birds were made from a mixture of confectioners' sugar, water and Wilton Color Flow (essentially powdered egg whites, I'm told). The flowers were made from Royal Icing and were all made in advance and dried. I did the basketweave pattern and the rope borders during class (click on the picture for a larger image). The underlying cake is Cook's Illustrated's Devil's Food Cake, which I've baked once before for P.'s birthday last summer. Big thanks as always to Evelyn for her encouragement and tireless patience.

cheese sandwich bread

2009-04-02T11:24:00.005-04:00

This is a soft cheese-swirled bread I made yesterday in a loaf pan. It didn't rise as high as I had hoped -- I let it proof beyond the suggested time, but in the end I was concerned about overproofing (and its special ramifications) and popped in the oven, hoping for some serious oven spring. I stuffed the bread with a mixture of sharp Cheddar and feta. Some large voids occurred when the cheese melted down, making it look rather rustic, but rendering it problematic for use in sandwiches!

whole wheat sourdough bread

2009-03-28T08:34:00.009-04:00

I refreshed my still-kickin' sourdough starter to make this whole grain sourdough bread yesterday. In addition to the whole wheat flour, I added brown rice and oats to the dough, which resulted in a moist and very flavorful bread. My only complaint was that where some of the brown rice made contact with the hot baking stone, those rice bits became very hard, so some mouthfuls of bread had a little painful surprise when you bit down. No idea why this happened, because I didn't have this problem with earlier loaves containing brown rice.

whole wheat hot dog buns

2009-03-24T16:38:00.004-04:00

OK -- I do realize it seems a bit hypocritical to be making whole grain buns only to put a whole-fat, highly-processed, chemical-laden meat product in them. But dietary improvements are best made gradually, yes?

I took some of the dough from yesterday's whole wheat bread and shaped them into hot dog buns. They came out really well, if a bit irregular -- it adds to their charm, I think. And now I can feel a little better about my family eating hot dogs for dinner while I go out to eat with my book club (they're not complaining).

100% whole wheat sandwich bread

2009-03-24T14:09:00.010-04:00

We are solidly a whole wheat bread family when it comes to store-bought breads. I freely admit that white bread makes the best toast and grilled cheeses so occasionally we will get Scali Bread for a treat, but I really prefer to stick to whole wheat for our daily bread. But when it comes to homemade bread, I've always been somewhat reluctant to bake whole wheat bread -- whole wheat always conjures up images of dense, leaden, inedible bread to me. I know I'm not the only one who feels this way or else why were whole grain breads given a bad rap for such a long time.

Yesterday I baked a 100% whole wheat (yes, that's all whole wheat flour -- no white flour at all) sandwich bread which might make me a homemade wheat bread convert. It's moist and light(ish -- it IS whole wheat after all) and the crumb is small and even but not at all dense. Hopefully even C. (my biggest white bread connoisseur) will feel the same way about it. Now if only I can figure out how to make good homemade double fiber bread!

thick and chewy chocolate chip cookies

2009-03-21T07:50:00.006-04:00

Another skiing treat. These are definitely the most attractive chocolate chip cookies I've ever made. And they are delicious too -- crisp yet chewy, and thick in the middle, even though they are made with butter and no shortening. I've never before been able to make a chocolate chip cookie without it becoming flat as a pancake once it goes in the oven. There are all sorts of secrets as to why these look the way they do, so obviously they're from the clever folks at America's Test Kitchen, by way of The America's Test Kitchen Family Baking Book. Personally, I still love the King Arthur Flour Crisp Chocolate Chip Cookies best tastewise -- their crisp, buttery, caramel-y quality just can't be beat in my book, plus I love my chocolate chip cookies overdone (even burnt!) -- which is something the ATKFBB recipe doesn't recommend. Nevertheless, I assure you these cookies won't last long in our house -- we love homemade chocolate chip cookies in all their variations!

P.S. -- P.'s review: "These are GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD!"

coffee cake muffins

2009-03-20T13:01:00.006-04:00

Above is the picture of a half-eaten coffee cake muffin. I'd like to tell you that I purposefully photographed a cross-section of the muffin because I wanted to show the cool layer of streusel but the truth is I forgot to take a picture before I took a bite out of it. I could've unpapered a second muffin so I could photograph an intact muffin, but if I did that, then I'd have to eat it, and if you had any idea how much butter was in one of these babies you'd understand why that wasn't advisable.

My boys (the young ones and the one that's a bit older) are going skiing tomorrow and I spent the day baking up goodies for them to take along for the ride. I baked C.'s signature chocolate chip muffins and whipped up some coffee cake muffins for the chocolate-chip-muffin-weary. I love coffee cake, but I'm especially fond of muffins (see the Irish Soda Bread Muffins post), and while I would never buy coffee cake muffins (primarily because of their fat content), I am more than happy to clog my arteries with the homemade version. I found this recipe in The America's Test Kitchen Family Baking Book. I think I should've baked them sans paper wrappers as instructed, because when I removed the finished muffins from the pan, I was left with pools of melted butter where the muffins had been. The streusel also stuck a bit to the paper, but not badly. So I'm going to have pack the guys some wet wipes, but ooh, are they good...

roasted three-seed bread

2009-03-19T15:15:00.004-04:00

This was actually a variation of Peter Reinhart's Roasted Three-Seed Bread (from Brother Juniper's Bread Book). The original recipe has sunflower, pumpkin and flax seeds, and I added a few more. It's actually very, very good -- medium crumb, great crust -- and this is coming from someone who doesn't really like breads with nuts and twigs. I have no problem with the smaller seeds of the bread world, actually, but sunflower and pumpkin seeds (at least in store-bought breads) tend to be a little too prominent for me to ignore. In this bread they all blend together in the dough in a sort of seedy symphony. Now if only I had splurged on some of that nice Irish butter when I was at the grocery store, my happiness would be complete.

chocolate stout cake

2009-03-18T10:14:00.006-04:00

St. Patrick's Day is not a day which usually makes me think of dessert, unless dessert is a pint of the black stuff. But recently I became aware of a wonderful creation called Chocolate Stout Cake. I've long been a fan of chocolate stouts -- Young's Luxury Double Chocolate Stout has to be one of my all-time favorite after dinner drinks -- but I never really contemplated actually making a chocolate cake with a stout. This particular recipe came from the Bakers' Banter (once again, I was thinking of a particular baking project and voilà, they post their version of it a few days later). Their version makes a huge cake -- the three 8" layers, when assembled, almost touched the roof of my cake carrier dome. Unlike their version, my frosting never set up like a spreadable frosting -- it was more of a drizzle-over variety chocolate ganache. No matter... it was yummy. The festive green decorating was for C. who felt that a plain chocolate top was not very St. Patrick-y. The cake itself was dark (presumably from the stout because it was not heavy -- in spite of the pound of butter) but light -- and you could taste a bit of the stout flavor in the cake itself, although the ganache overwhelmed that flavor when eaten frosted. Most of all, it was a lovely break from all the heavy Wilton-frosted cakes we've had of late.

irish soda bread muffins

2009-03-14T17:30:00.002-04:00

There's something so much more appealing to me about muffins over their larger quick bread loaf cousins. Quick breads seem to dry out when they're sliced, the slices don't transport well and the serving size is inexact (my slices seem to exceed the recommended limit) and I would like to continuing baking while wearing my current clothing size. And maybe there's just something about individually sized baked goods. Anyway, I was thinking about how it's the time of year for Irish soda bread again when I saw the Baker's Banter post on Irish Soda Bread Muffins. Perfect!

I adapted the recipe somewhat based on what I had at the ready in my kitchen. I substituted the same weight of 100% whole wheat flour for the white-whole wheat, even though I know that the whole wheat is slightly heavier than the white-whole wheat. I compensated for this by adding an additional tablespoon of milk to the batter. I also substituted dried cranberries for the currants/raisins, making it a truly Irish-American creation. The result was a slightly sweet, moist and tender muffin -- perhaps a bit sweeter than I would've liked, but chockfull of cranberries. I wish now that I had added a bit more caraway seed (I love caraway) -- the recipe suggested a possible range of 1/2 teaspoon to 2 teaspoons. I think it could've definitely used the additional teaspoon. All in all, this one is a definite keeper. Éire go Brách!

soft pretzels

2009-03-13T09:55:00.003-04:00

This falls under the category of keep doing it until you get it right. Here's another attempt at the soft pretzels. Even though they were still puffy and still not that dark, these pretzels were plenty tasty. I made a half batch and made some savory (garlic) and some sweet (cinnamon sugar). I was definitely partial to the cinnamon sugar ones although everyone else preferred the garlic. These were all that were left by the time I got my camera.

neo-neapolitan pizza dough

2009-03-10T14:30:00.004-04:00

It's a pizza night again! This is a variation of the Neo-Neapolitan pizza dough from Peter Reinhart's American Pie: My Search for the Perfect Pizza. The crust is thin, crispy, chewy -- just amazing -- and so simple to make. The top pizza is a buffalo chicken pizza -- mozzarella, roasted chicken breast marinated in Ken's superb Buffalo Wing Sauce, liberal amounts of crumbled blue cheese and sliced scallions. The bottom one is C.'s special pizza -- cheese only, no sauce.

march madness cookies

2009-03-10T12:11:00.006-04:00

These are the cookies are made for the March Madness party at our church. The base is just a simple sugar cookie -- the Holiday Cookies recipe from The America's Test Kitchen Family Baking Book. I tried to make the accompanying cream cheese glaze from the same book, but it just didn't work out -- it was all watery and lumpy and just didn't look promising so I chucked it. I ended up making the shiny cookie glaze from the Gingerbread Roll-Out Cookie recipe in The King Arthur Flour Baker's Companion, which turned out wonderfully. I tinted the glaze with Wilton Icing Colors in copper, and once that hardened, I piped on black (no-butter) buttercream lines. I thought the cookies were really tasty -- soft and reminiscent of Lofthouse's frosted cookies. They were totally addictive and great with a cup of hot tea!

raspberry cream cheese brownies

2009-03-10T11:58:00.005-04:00

I used to really dislike any sort of fruit flavoring combined with chocolate. You know those fruit cream filled chocolates in the Russell Stover's boxes? Like that. But I've come around on the raspberry-chocolate combo in recent years, partly because of my affection for the chocolate raspberry nut bars from Nestle's Very Best Baking. And I've always loved cream cheese brownies. So I was hopeful that a marriage between raspberry, cream cheese and brownies would be a winner. And it was! I made a huge pan of about 4 - 5 dozen brownies (cut small -- they are rich, as you would expect) and P. took a platter of them to church. [Insert giant hoovering sound here] they were gone in a flash. :-)

ciabatta

2009-03-07T11:26:00.005-05:00

Here are a couple photos of the absolutely amazing ciabatta I made last night. I thought I'd made ciabatta before, but whatever it was that I was making, it wasn't this. These were like you dream they would be -- a thin crisp crust with a chewy crumb with large irregular holes. I could make just this bread for the rest of my life and be happy.