Angel Food Cupcakes | Spring

The past few months for my have flown right buy in a flurry of school, changes and revelations. My parents finally agreed to let me wear contacts , I’m getting my braces off in a matter of weeks, and I’ve stopped procrastinating so much. While that is great, I’ve also had a revelation about going off to college. Initially, college seemed amazing to me, to be able to start over new, by yourself in a different environment, and meeting new people. But the more I thought about it, what I loved about college suddenly started to be the very thing that also frightened me about college. I would be miles away from my family, friends, or anything that was even vaguely familiar. Is it odd that I wish I was my geeky little freshman self again, so that I would still be ages away from going to college? As great as it is to try new things (something that food has definitely taught me), the overly sentimental part of me still wants to cling on to the small world I live in right now. 

But I do want a fresh new start, just like spring, and these cupcakes. The seasons and my thoughts definitely inspired me to find and make these cupcakes, and I think they’re the perfect spring snack. Spring reminds me of light, bright, and fruity tastes, and these cupcakes have all of those flavors. The light and fluffy angel food cupcakes are topped with whipped cream and a couple of strawberries and raspberries.

Angel Food Cupcakes w/ Whipped Cream  & Berries

Recipe Adapted from Alton Brown

4 dozen cupcakes

• 1 1/2 cups sugar (or castor’s sugar)
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup cake flour, sifted (if you don’t have cake flour, you can make some! 
• 12 egg whites (the closer to room temperature the better)
• 1/3 cup warm water
• 1 vanilla extract
• 1 1/2 teaspoons cream of tartar
• Whipped cream
• strawberries & raspberries (any sort of berry you want, those two are just the ones I prefer)

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
2. If you have regular sugar: Blend the sugar for about 2 minutes until it is superfine. if you have castors sugar, you can skip this step
3. Sift half of the sugar with the salt the cake flour in a medium bowl and set the remaining sugar aside.
4. In a large bowl, use a  whisk to thoroughly combine egg whites, water, orange extract, and cream of tartar for two minutes. Then, using a hand blender, slowly sift the reserved sugar into the eggs beating continuously at medium speed to achieve medium peaks
5. Once the eggs are whipped to medium peaks, sift the flour over the mixture, 1/4 a cup at a time. Repeat until all of the flour mixture is finished.
6. Carefully spoon mixture into an lined cupcake tray and fill 3/4 of the way up. Bake until the tops of the cupcakes are turning slightly golden, and you can insert a tooth pick between the liner and the cake and have it come out clean.
7. Cool completely & top with whipped cream and berries to your liking :)

Happy spring & I hope you all enjoy :)

Deepshikha

Summer ’12 | Cookies & Cream Italian Ice

The past few months have passed in a whirl of SAT prep work, sweet sixteens, summer assignments, taking long runs and reading books. It sounds so typically teenager-ish but it was amazingly relaxing and great break from all the stress, work, and deadlines of school. And in this time, I also learned many things:

1. It’s hard to stop procrastinating. Really. I thought my procrastinating habit was because I was stressed during school, and that without any stress during the summer, I wouldn’t procrastinate on my summer assignments. That  is the worst lie I ever told myself.

2. Photographing anything frozen and prone to quick melting is hard.  Really. Originally I’d intended to do an entire ice cream series for you guys, but after spending about five minutes trying to scoop a perfect ball of ice cream, only to have it melt and slide all around the bowl… I know the trick to photographing frozen things is to work fast, but its pretty hard.

3. Italian ice is great. Its super easy and quick to make + it really cools you down on summer days. They’re also easier to photograph than ice cream, because you don’t have make it look perfect, just serve with whipped cream garnish, and that is the end of it :)

Anyways, here’s the recipe to an ice recipe that I’ve made several times over the summer :) It’s very simple, but it tastes great, and is easy to make so here you go…

note: I’m not quite sure that this dessert should be categorized as an italian ice because it does contain milk & ice cream, however, it does resemble italian ice more than anything to me, and has a similar texture…

Cookies & Cream Ice

Serves two

1 big scoop of vanilla ice cream

4 oreos cookies

1 cup of milk (whole is preferable, but 2 % is great as well) & two table spoons (keep separated)

1. In a blender blend together all of the above ingredients until smooth, then pour it into a ice cube tray, and freeze until completely solid (this should take a three hours or more depending on how cold your freezer is)

2. Remove frozen cookies&cream mixture from ice tray and place in blender and add two table spoons of milk into the blender, and then blend the mixture until smooth :)

Keep cool & enjoy :)

Deepshikha :)

Pantone Cake | Happy Mother’s Day

My mother always wears red lipstick. I’ve never seen her wear any other color, and it’s almost as if the lipstick is a part of her.

Even as a toddler I remember her wearing red lipstick…

…and I may have also grafftied several walls with those lipsticks….

Because of the lipstick, the first color that comes to my mind when I think of my mother is a bright, vibrant red, which is what inspired this cake for her.

My original idea was to have a rainbow cake with six layers, however, I felt that was too  random. I still wanted to do a colorful cake however, so I thought of the various pictures of Pantone swatches I’ve been seeing on pinterest and tumblr lately, deciding to do a red gradient cake. One problem remained: usually when you do a gradient of red, it starts out pink, and pink was not a  color I associated with my mother’s character at all, thus I did a yellow to red gradient instead, which also reminded me of summer, her favorite season.

I had very little time, so by the time the cake layers were baked and ready to use, I didn’t have time to whip up icing, crumb coat the cake, wait for it to dry and then ice the entire thing. Instead I just used a white chocolate glaze on the whole thing,  which I now regret doing because the cake with glaze doesn’t taste as great as cake with icing. However by itself, it was great,with a soft and spongy texture.  For that reason, I’m only going to include the cake’s recipe, not the glaze, so instead I reccomend pairing the cake with swiss meringue butter cream(for which Kaitlin of Whisk Kid has an amazing step by step guide for).

White Cake 

Adapted from Whisk Kid

• 2 sticks (226 g) butter, room temp
• 2 c (426 g) sugar
• 5 egg whites, room temp
• 2 teaspoons vanilla
• 2 1/2 c (426 g) flour
• 4 tsp baking powder
• ½ tsp salt
• 1 1/2 c (355 ml) butter milk at room temperature
• Red and Yellow food coloring.

Preheat the oven to 350F degrees. Oil and line some 9″ cake pans(however many you have, I only have two so I reused them)
Sift together the flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside.

Cream the sugar and butter, then add the egg whites and add them a little at a time. Add the vanilla and mix until fully incorporated. Then, alternating between wet and dry, add the milk and flour mixture in two parts.

Divide the batter amongst 6 bowls, (i just used my one cup measuring cup, and divided it up  among six bowls, but you can do it by weight as well, just make sure you weight the bowl you’re using before you put anything in it, and then weight it after you’re done preparing the batter, then subtract the weight of the bowl before from the weight of the bowl after, and then divide it by six and put that amount of batter into each bowl).  Next add the food coloring, here are the ratios for it

1st bowl: add as many drops as red food coloring as you want until it looks vibrant enough to you.

2nd bowl: add and yellow food coloring, and keep it to a ratio of 2 red drops to every one red drop(so basically if you ad five yellow drops, then you have to add ten red drops, that way it makes it more of a reddish orange). Don’t start out with ten yellow drops then, have to put in twenty red drops, the mixture will probably be overwhelmed by red, and it won’t look too different from the plain red. Start out with about four yellow drops and add eight yellow drops, until it looks like an orange tinged red to you.

3rd bowl: add red and yellow food coloring in equal amounts to make a regular orange.

4th bowl: add red in yellow food coloring, in the reversed ratio thats in the 2nd bowl, so basically 1 red drop to two yellow drops, to make a lighter more yellowy orange.

5th bowl:  add just yellow food coloring

6th bowl: just leave alone. it’ll be your white layer (  I made a white layer for my cake, however I just ate it plain instead of using it, because I ruined it because i forgot to line the pan before i put it into the oven.)

I’ve only given you the  ratio for the colors because I did this entirely by how it looked to me, and if the color of the batter was vibrant enough, so, keep in mind, that whatever color you see in the batter is exactly the color it will be after it bakes, it won’t darken or lighten or anything.

When you remove them from the oven, let them rest on the cooling rack, in the pan, for ten minutes, then remove it from the pan, and cover it and put it in the fridge to cool quickly, and then frost them with whatever you like.

Tip for frosting: Do a crumb coat, since this is a extremely colorful cake, any stray crumbs from the cake will look really bad if it gets into the icing.

for those who don’t know: a crumb coat is a thin layer of icing that you put on the cake and let it dry so that a layer forms around the cake to prevent crumbs from straying into the whiteness of your icing.

Happy Mothers Day!

~dee

Christmas | Red Velvet

Christmas is one of those seasons that has a contagious mood, and it makes everyone want to be happy. The lights, the colors, and the happiness of the season is amazing.

My family isn’t Christian, but since we’ve been in America  for so long, we’ve taken on some of the traditions, and added many of our own.

The week before Christmas when I was four I  saw a red velvet cake for the first time. This may sound strange,  but in my little four year old head there were only to types of cupcakes: chocolate and vanilla, and chocolate was the better one.  When I saw this red velvet cupcake, frankly: it blew my mind, I was amazed, and immediately obsessed. So for that Christmas, a new tradition started: we would have red velvet cake for a snack on Christmas along with our tea. A strange tradition, yes, but it’s something I just love and look forward to every year.

The tradition has altered a little, now instead of just having cake, my sister decided that cupcakes were I quote: In style, and definitely cuter. Admittedly, I don’t like red velvet cake as much as I used to, the cake part’s flavor isn’t all that amazing. However my mother and sister are great fans, and I still remain a fan of cream cheese icing on the cake, so the tradition remains.

Red Velvet Cupcakes

From Confetti Cakes Cookbook, via Smitten Kitchen

• 3 1/2 cups cake flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 1 ½ cup canola oil
• 2 cups granulated sugar
• 3/4 cup of melted and slightly cooled semi sweet chocolate
• 3 large eggs
• At least five table spoons of food coloring (this can be increased or decreased by the red color you want, since this recipe has a good amount of chocolate in it, it takes a whole lot more coloring to make it red and same goes for any other colors you feel the urge to try out)
• 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
• 1 ¾ cup buttermilk
• 2 teaspoons baking soda & 2 1/2 teaspoons white vinegar mixed together

1. Preheat oven to 350 and line cupcake tray with liners.
2. Whisk together the cake flour and salt in a medium sized bowl.
3. Mix together the canola oil, sugar, the chocolate and the eggs( don’t put the chocolate in immediately after heating it! Let it cool down a little, other wise it can scramble the eggs) in a large bowl until smooth.
4. Add the food coloring
5. Add the butter milk and the flour alternately to the oil/egg/sugar/chocolate bowl, and mix to smoothness, then add the vinegar/baking soda mixture…
6. fill the cupcake trays
7. bake for about 25 minutes(i reccomend letting it bake fifteen minutes, then coming back and checking, every five or six minutes after), until you are able to put a tooth pick in it, and pull it out cleanly.

The Icing.

• 8 ounces cream cheese, room temperature
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter room temperature (you need it at room temperature, other it won’t blend smoothly)
• 3 cups confectioner’s sugar, sifted  ( you may need more if you want a stiffer icing, in these pictures i used 4 1/2 cups)
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 1/2 teaspoon espresso (optional, i just find that it adds something extra to the whole cupcake)

1. Mix together cream cheese, butter, vanilla extract, and espresso.
2. add cup, by cup of sugar and beat it, till fluffy and light. (mixers make it easier)

Note:  When frosting this, note that cream cheese frosting can be a little heavy, which is why i piped the icing on the pictures above a little flatter than i normally would.

Enjoy, and happy holidays!

Simple Spinach Dip

School has finally started again, and as have the hectic days filled with work. Days seem to get shorter, and fall is soon approaching. The leaves haven’t yet fallen, but you can feel it in the air. I’d say fall is one of my favorite seasons, with its warmth of flavors, the colors, and even fall fashion. Its the season of pie, cinnamon, apples, and pumpkins. However, summer is also one of my favorite seasons, and one of the vegetables I see as part of the summer is spinach. It may seem strange, but its very much like summer, bright, vibrant and good for you. This post is a good bye to summer.

This spinach dip is a simple easy spinach dip, and you can add more to it to add a bit more of your own flavor to it. I’ve never made this recipe the same, not even once. What is here is simply a base, that you can add to, and make it better.

Simple Spinach Dip

adapted from Sailu’s Kitchen

• 1 3/4 a cup of spinach
• 1 tbsp. of butter
• 1 1/2 tbsp. flour
• 1 c. of milk
• 3 tbsps. of cheese
• 1/2 tbsp garlic
• any other ingredient you feel you want to add, to give it a little more flair :)

1. Parboil the spinach, adding a little bit of water to the bottom of a medium sized pan(until its about centimeter deep), and cover. Check every couple minutes, and cook until wilted.
2. Turn off the heat, and strain the spinach with a sieve to remove the water. Set aside
3. In a pan, melt the butter, then add the flour. Cook until slightly browned.
4. Add the milk and cook for approx 5-7 minutes on high-medium, until the flour/butter mixture is smoothly blended in.
5. Add the cheese, and anything else you want to add(such as more cheese/ different cheese or artichokes, or increasing the garlic, or instead using roasted garlic or whatever you feel is right)
6. Add in the properly drained spinach ( if theres too much water left in the spinach, it could mess with the consistancy of the dip).

Sometimes I even use this dip for a sandwich.

Bon apetit & happy fall!

~Dee D.

Daring Bakers | Strawberry Vanilla Bavarian Cake

As a child, I never figured I would end up baking. Never, ever, ever even thought of that. I’d always figured my singular hobby would have been reading, and writing stories, something I’d always loved and still love. But here I am today, baking and making dessert almost every week…

I have no idea when I truly started baking…I suppose it was when my mom discovered that she loved warm brownies with ice cream. We’d stand by the counter in the afternoons, mixing together brownie mix, following the directions word by word, with my sister and I arguing over who got to stir the mixture. In the end, I would stir for a minute, and then my sister would take a turn, stirring over zealously for a minute.  My mother would then pour the mixture into an aluminum lined baking pan, and leave it in the oven, and then my sister and I would jockey for the best view of the brownies, in the end, most of the time, I would win, and sit there watching the brownies like a hawk.

Finally when they were done, grab a carton of ice cream, three bowls, three spoons, the warm brownies, and eat away happily.

Then one day, I decided I was old enough to make them myself. I wandered into the kitchen and happily poured mixed and baked a bunch of brownies. They came out great, and I was soon dubbed the brownie maker of the family. From there on I baked only brownies. Why? I suppose it never occurred to me to bake anything else.

A couple years later, it finally did occur to me to bake something else. It was a couple of days before Christmas and I was sitting at my desk drooling at beautiful pictures of festive cookies and cakes, when I realized: You can bake. Why don’t you make these? Immediately I started flipping through pages of recipes looking for something my family would enjoy but wasn’t too complex, and well, I happened upon a recipe for blueberry muffins.

Immediately I wandered into the kitchen, and started mixing away. My sister wandered over and crinkled her brow, confused, “Brownies aren’t polka dotted.” She stated plainly.

I started to laugh and replied, “These aren’t brownies.” Now she looked even more perplexed. “They’re blueberry muffins!”

“Blueberry muffins?” She frowned even more, but stayed silent and wandered off. Mean while, I poured the batter into a buttered bread pan, since I didn’t have a muffin tin, and sat and waited for them to bake. When the blueberry loaf came out of the oven, perfect and golden I was probably the happiest girl in the world. It was excellent, soft and buttery, with the fruity flavor of the blue berry dancing about. After that, my confidence escalated, and I started baking more and more. I now wanted to make my favorite dessert, Tiramisu. It took a couple of tries to perfect the recipe, but I got there. My next recipe? Flan. Then crème brulee, and the list seems to go on and on from there, to now, where I bake a various different recipes almost every week. It strange, how my love for baking was born from a box of brownie mix…

The January 2011 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Astheroshe of the blog accro. She chose to challenge everyone to make a Biscuit Joconde Imprime to wrap around an Entremets dessert.

I think this is probably my most favorite challenge so far. It allowed so much freedom, and was amazing. My Entremet filling was strawberry and vanilla bavarian layered upon each other, to create a light, creamy and delicious strawberries and cream like filling, which I’ve loved as a child. Even though the sponge didn’t come out perfect, it was still delicious. I’m definitely making another variation of this, and fixing my mistakes.

My mistakes:

There were way too many air bubbles when I piped the design which lead to a very holey design.

I need to use almond flour that don’t have the almond skins in them, since it adds a speckled look to the Jocode Imprime.

Putting in the vanilla bavarian too late, when it started to gellify.

Using such big mold for this

But over all it was pretty great :) I like this very much and will make it again.

NOTE: The recipes for the Joconde Sponge and paste are full size, I only used a quarter of the Joconde Decor Paste, and the whole recipe for the sponge. It all depends how you mold this dessert and what exactly you do…(but trust me, you won’t need more than a quarter of the Joconde decor paste). Also considering I made a pretty large dessert, some of this can be halved depending on how much you want. My entrement/impreme was made in a 9×3 circular spring for pan. Also, If you don’t like either of these fillings, you can replace it withanything else you want that has a stable enough consistency. Chocolate mousse, tiramisu cream, cake, cookies if you like…it goes on and on. Also if you do decide to switch things up, do not attempt to variate a recipe that has gelatin in it by adding a tropical fruit(such as kiwi or pineapple) to it. There are enzymes in those fruits that prevent the gelatin from setting up.

Joconde Sponge

YIELD: Two ½ size sheet pans or a 13” x 18” (33 x 46 cm) jelly roll pan

• Ingredients:
• ¾ cup/ 180 ml/ 3oz/ 85g almond flour/meal - *You can also use hazelnut flour, just omit the butter
• ½ cup plus 2 tablespoons/ 150 ml/ 2⅔ oz/ 75g confectioners’ (icing) sugar
• ¼ cup/ 60 ml/ 1 oz/ 25g cake flour *See note below
• 3 large eggs – about 5⅓ oz/ 150g
• 3 large egg whites – about 3 oz/ 90g
• 2½ teaspoons/ 12½ ml/ ⅓ oz/ 10g white granulated sugar or superfine (caster) sugar
• 2 tablespoons/ 30 ml/ 1oz / 30g unsalted butter, melted

*Note: How to make cake flour: http://www.joythebaker.com/blog/2009/09/how-to-make-cake-flour/

Directions:

1. In a clean mixing bowl whip the egg whites and white granulated sugar to firm, glossy peeks. Reserve in a separate clean bowl to use later.

2.Sift almond flour, confectioner’s sugar, cake flour. (This can be done into your dirty egg white bowl)

3. On medium speed, add the eggs a little at a time. Mix well after each addition. Mix until smooth and light. (If using a stand mixer use blade attachment. If hand held a whisk attachment is fine, or by hand. )

4.Fold in one third reserved whipped egg whites to almond mixture to lighten the batter. Fold in remaining whipped egg whites. Do not over mix.

5.      Fold in melted butter.

6.      Reserve batter to be used later.

Patterned Joconde-Décor Paste

YIELD: Two ½ size sheet pans or a 13” x 18” (33 x 46 cm) jelly roll pan

Ingredients

• 14 tablespoons/ 210ml/ 7oz/ 200g unsalted butter, softened
• 1½ cups plus1½ tablespoons/ 385ml/ 7oz/ 200g Confectioners’ (icing) sugar
• 7 large egg whites – about 7 oz / 200g
• 1¾ cup/ 420ml/ 7¾ oz/ 220g cake flour
• Food coloring gel, paste or liquid

COCOA Décor Paste Variation: Reduce cake flour to 6 oz / 170g. Add 2 oz/ 60 g cocoa powder. Sift the flour and cocoa powder together before adding to creamed mixture.

Directions:

1.Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy (use stand mixer with blade, hand held mixer, or by hand)

2. Gradually add egg whites. Beat continuously.

3. Fold in sifted flour.

4. Tint batter with coloring to desired color, if not making cocoa variation.

Preparing the Joconde- How to make the pattern:

1. Spread a thin even layer of décor paste approximately 1/4 inch (5 millimeter) thick onto silicone baking mat with a spatula, or flat knife. Place mat on an upside down baking sheet. The upside down sheet makes spreading easier with no lip from the pan.

2. Pattern the décor paste – Here is where you can be creative. Make horizontal /vertical lines (you can use a knife, spatula, cake/pastry comb). Squiggles with your fingers, zig zags, wood grains. Be creative whatever you have at home to make a design can be used. OR use a piping bag. Pipe letters, or polka dots, or a piped design. If you do not have a piping bag. Fill a ziplock bag and snip off corner for a homemade version of one.

Strawberry Bavarian:

Adapted slightly from All Recipes

• 1 quart fresh strawberries, sliced
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1 (.25 ounce) envelope unflavored gelatin
• 1/2 cup cold water
• 2 teaspoons lemon juice
• 1 tsp. lemon zest
• 1 cup heavy whipping cream

1. In a big bowl add together the strawberries, sugar and lemon zest, and let it sit there for twenty minutes.
2. In a very small saucepan sprinkle the gelatin evenly over the water and let it sit for a minute. Then turn the stove on and heat it until the gelatin is completely dissolved. Stir in the lemon juice and pour the whole thing into the strawberry mixture, and stir the whole thing until it’s cooled
3. Whip the whipped cream till thick and stiff, and fold it into the strawberry mixture gently. If it seems too thinly textured for a bavarian, then leave it in the refridgerator for approx. six minutes and check continuously until it does thicken. Pour immediately into yourJoconde Imprime.

Vanilla Bavarian

Adapted Slightly From Tartelette

• 8 egg yolks
• 1/2 cup (100 gr) sugar
• 2 cups (500 ml) whole milk
• 1 vanilla bean (or Two and half tablespoons extract)
• 2 tablespoons powdered gelatin, sprinkled over 1/4 cup water
• 1 cup heavy cream

1. Whisk the eggs and sugar until the become much paler than they were before.
2. In a large sauce pan with the heat on low, bring the milk and vanilla bean(split and scraped) or vanilla extract to a boil. Take off the stove and pour slowly over the egg yolks whisking constantly.
3. Then pour it back into the sauce pan and cook on low until the cream coats the back of the spoon you are stirring with. If you have a vanilla bean, remove it. Turn off the heat, and add the gelatin until it’s completely melted then let it cool to room temperature.
4. As soon as you add the whipping cream, you have to use it immediately!

Assembling the Dessert:

1. Start with a large piece of parchment paper laid on a very flat baking sheet. Then a large piece of cling wrap over the parchment paper. Place a spring form pan ring, with the base removed, over the cling wrap and pull the cling wrap tightly up on the outside of the mold. Line the inside of the ring with a curled piece of parchment paper overlapping top edge by ½ inch. CUT the parchment paper to the TOP OF THE MOLD. It will be easier to smooth the top of the cake.

2.      A biscuit cutter/ cookie cutter- using cling wrap pulled tightly as the base and the cling covering the outside of the mold, placed on a parchment lined very flat baking sheet. Line the inside with a curled piece of parchment paper overlapping.

3. Trim the cake of any dark crispy edges. You should have a nice rectangle shape.

4. Decide how thick you want your “Joconde wrapper”. Traditionally, it is ½ the height of your mold. This is done so more layers of the plated dessert can be shown. However, you can make it the full height.

5. Once your height is measured, then you can cut the cake into equal strips, of height and length. (Use a very sharp paring knife and ruler.

6. Make sure your strips are cut cleanly and ends are cut perfectly straight. Press the cake strips inside of the mold, decorative side facing out. Once wrapped inside the mold, overlap your ends slightly. You want your Joconde to fit very tightly pressed up to the sides of the mold. Then gently push and press the ends to meet together to make a seamless cake. The cake is very flexible so you can push it into place. You can use more than one piece to “wrap “your mold, if one cut piece is not long enough.

7. The mold is done, and ready to fill.

8. Now, choose which ever filling you would like to put on the bottom layer then make that first and fill it up. (I reccomend the vanilla bavarian). Then make the second filling and pour it over.

9. You are done! Now simply remove all the wrappings and such, and enjoy :)

~Dee D.

Mocha Pots de Creme | Later

As a little child, I always knew definitely what I was going to be. If you asked me, I’d give a definite answer. A doctor. A scientist. An astronaut. A writer. But as I grew up the that changed. I became more focused on what was here in front of me, and didn’t bother thinking about the future. And now when I’m so close to time to decide, I have no idea. My parents friends always ask me, and every time I reply, “I’m not quite sure yet…”

Now that it’s winter break and I actually have time to sit down, and think about it and well…I still don’t know what I want to do.

So I asked a close friend what she thought I should do. She replied, “Do what you like to do best.”

So I sat there and I thought about it for a moment. I liked to do a lot of things. Bake. Write. Swim. Read. The list seemed to go and on. But what did I like to do most? It came down to baking and writing. You may be thinking, Wait, Dee. Writing? Are you sure you want to do that? I know I’m not that great of a writer on here. I’m actually more of a creative writer, not so much an informative one.

Although I don’t know where I would go with creative writing. So that narrowed it down to baking. I actually would love to open up a cutesy little bakery of my own. A small bakery, like Crumbs and Magnolia and just as cute.

But yet, I’m still not sure, and probably won’t be sure till the last minute.

But to take my mind off that I baked something. When taking a bite of what I baked, you first find the most obvious flavor first: a rich coffee flavor, creamy and delicious. Then if you wait a second, you’ll find the briefest flash of a chocolate flavor. It’s amazing.

I present to you: Mocha pots de crème.

Mocha Pots De Crème

Adapted from Real Kitchen via Whisk Kid

1 1/2 c heavy cream
1/4 tsp vanilla extract
1/8 c whole black coffee beans (I replaced that with instant coffee powder, and put in a little more than 1/8 a cup of that)
3 egg yolks
1/4 c  sugar
1 1/2 Tbls brewed espresso coffee, cold
1 oz (28 g) semisweet chocolate, melted and cooled

1.    Preheat your oven to 325 degrees farenheit.

2.    In a small saucepan, bring the heavy cream vanilla and coffee beans to a brief simmer in a small saucepan. Don’t let it boil. Then strain the mixture to take out the coffee beans.

3.     Meanwhile…Whisk together the sugar and egg yolks until the egg yolk lighten and become lemony in color and the sugar is dissolved. Then pour in the heavy cream mixture slowly, whisking continuously or else the mixture will curdle.

4.    Stir in the coffee and chocolate.

5.    Pour the mixture into ramekins, and put them in a shallow baking pan with water that goes halfway up the ramekin.

6.    Bake until just the center is slightly jiggles a little. If you make them in ramekins that are approximately eight ounces then the baking time sound be around a half an hour.

7.    After they’re done let the ramekins cool a little for approximately ten minutes them chill them in the refrigerator for two hours(at the least).

~Dee D.

Petit Fours & Daring Bakers

The August 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Elissa of 17 and Baking. For the first time, The Daring Bakers partnered with Sugar High Fridays for a co-event and Elissa was the gracious hostess of both. Using the theme of beurre noisette, or browned butter, Elissa chose to challenge Daring Bakers to make a pound cake to be used in either a Baked Alaska or in Ice Cream Petit Fours. The sources for Elissa’s challenge were Gourmet magazine and David Lebovitz’s “The Perfect Scoop”.

I may have developed a grudge against ice cream.

And I don’t think the ice cream likes me all too much either…

Seriously.

Last time I worked with ice cream it didn’t work out all too well.

And this time making these petit fours? It was messy. Like with ice cream melting all over the place. Why can it not stay nice and solid for like five minutes or something? Arg.

But other than that i rather enjoyed(especially the brown butter!!!) this challenge, and loved how it came out all little and cute(although not exactly perfect).

I’m not sure if can see the coffee ice cream layer because it’s practically the same color as the brown butter pound cake i used and it’s not all that thick.

Oh, and let me tell you about the brown butter. It is magical stuff. Seriously. I love the stuff, mostly because of the smell. Yes the smell…all warm and nutty and creamy and amazing. Oh and by the way for those of you who don’t know what brown butter is, its just simply butter cooked until it turns a dark honey color. I was ranting about browned butter to my father, and he said: “There is no such thing as brown butter.” He though it was a type of butter, not simply cooked butter.

I was slightly disappointed with the brown butter pound cake though…neither the taste nor the lovely, lovely smell of the browned butter remained. And it turned out a bit dry, but I thought that was simply me because I sort of forgot about it(i was working on my summer reading essays), but when I read another bloggers post, I realized it wasn’t just me with the dryness problem…but I didn’t have an issue with that after I assembled the whole thing, because the richness of the coffee ice cream and the chocolate glaze pretty much over powered the brown butter pound cake, and the the melt-y ice cream must have been absorbed by the pound cake which made it bit more moist.

And over all, these came out delicious!

But anyway here we go with the recipe:

Coffee Ice Cream

• 1/2 Cup of milk (i used two percent)
• A pinch of salt
• 1/4 a cup and 2 tablespoons of sugar
• 1  and 1/2 tspns of instant coffee
• 1 cups heavy cream
• 3 large large egg yolks
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

So now we start out with the milk, the salt, the instant coffee and the sugar, in a medium sized sauce pan, and heat that until it starts to steam, and then remove it from heat and let that cool down to room temperature. Meanwhile set up an ice bath( basically a large bowl filled, partially with ice and water, with a smaller bowl on the ice water). Grab a strainer, and pour the heavy cream into the strainer over the smaller bowl of the ice bath. Then in another bowl beat the egg yolks together(lightly) and then heat up the milk in the saucepan until its warm, and slowly pour it little by little, and constantly whisking(otherwise the eggs will scramble). Once the egg yolks are warmed up pour the egg yolk and milk mixture back into the sauce pan which you had previously used and let that cook over low heat, and stir constantly with something you can scrape the bottom of the pan with. The mixture will eventually thicken to a custard which can thinly coat the back of the spatula. Go grab your strainer again and strain(if you don’t you’ll end up with weird little lumps throughout your ice cream) this mixture into the heavy cream, and stir that up and until the whole mixture is cooled down. Now mix in that one tsp. of vanilla extract.

If you have a ice cream maker: Cool it for several hours and then churn according to your manufacturers directions.

If you don’t have an ice cream maker: Simply let freeze for about 45 minutes, and then stir the mixture vigorously. Check back in a half an hour and stir vigorously again. Continue doing so until the whole mixture is completely frozen and appears to be like ice cream.

Now on to…

The Brown Butter pound Cake

1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

2 bars and 3 tblspns of butter(or just 19 tablespoons) all sliced up

2 cups of sifted cake flour(not self rising)

1/2 tspn salt

1/2 cup of light brown sugar

1/3 cup of granulated sugar

4 large eggs

Firstly preheat your oven to 325 degrees farenheit. Then grab a skillet over medium heat. Warm it up a bit and then add the butter. Stir the butter around until the butter turns a darkened honey color or chocolate. Finally when it turns that color pour into a bowl and leave it in the freezer until it solidifies.

Now whisk together the sifted cake flour, baking powder, and the salt. In a seprate bowl beat the brown butter the light brown sugar and regular sugar with an electric mixer until light and fluffy(this should take about 2 minutes). Then beat in an egg at a time, and then finally add the vanilla extract and then lastly add the flour baking soda and salt mixture.

Flour and butter a 9 x 9 pan and scrape the batter out into it, and smooth the top over with a rubber spatula(or a clean hand). Bake until you are able to insert a toothpick into the center which will come out clean and the top is golden brown.

Let the pan cool down for about fifteen minutes and then flip over on a rack.

Next…

The Chocolate Glaze (make this when i say so in assembling the petit fours)

a heaped cup of semi sweet chocolate chopped finely

1 cup of heavy cream

1 and 1/2 tablespoons of agave nectar(or light corn syrup or golden syrup)

2 tsp. vanilla extract

Bring the heavy cream and light corn syrup to a boil in a sauce pan over medium heat continuously stirring. Turn the heat off and add in the chocolate, and let it sit for 30 seconds to let it melt in and then stir once again to completely melt the rest of the chocolate. Finally stir in the vanilla and let it cool a little before glazing the petit fours.

Finally Assembling the petit fours.

Let the ice cream warm up a little.

line the 9×9 pan you used for baking the pound cake with plastic wrap and and spread the ice cream around evenly and freeze for a two hours.

Meanwhile using a cake leveler or a knife cut the pound cake in half, from the sides, not from the center so you end up with two large thin cake layers.

Then after the two hours, put one layer of the brown butter pound cake and top with the layer of ice cream and then top that with the last layer of pound cake.

And then freeze again. I did this over night, but several hours should do the trick.

Okay now the next step is where I had my ice cream disaster.

Make the glaze

Now take the cake and ice cream out of the freezer, and now you have to cut it up into squares approximately one and a half inches in size.

My issue: When i started to cut it it was fine. After a while when I was cutting it up the ice cream was melting and hence, it pretty much squirted out of in between the petit fours.

place all petit fours in the freezer on a tray lined with parchment paper and a good amount of space in between.

Then glaze the petit fours, taking each out of the freezer placing each petit four on a fork and pouring the glaze over. You may have to reheat the glaze a couple of time if it get really gloppy and thick. Heating it will thin it out.

Place each one in the freezer after glazing.

Finally decorate and serve!

I used white chocolate to decorate mine.

Hope you enjoy!!

~D.D.

P.S. Thank you Elissa for this awesome challenge :)

I loved it!

Julia Child & Chocolate Mousse

Last night as I was sorting through my email I opened up a news letter from Saveur about recipes from movies. I, of course, was instantly interested, mostly because I wanted to find out how to make ratatouille(a dish that wins over a harsh critic?? It must be good!). But along with ratatouille I found a recipe for Julia Child’s chocolate mousse, and immediately dug out my recipe book and scrawled it down. Of course I wanted to try it out. And so I did, and i turned out awesome(although a little denser than I thought).

I ended up with a whole brownie tray sized amount of the mousse! Wayyy to much for my health conscious family(funny how a girl who likes sitting about making desserts ends up with one) so i ended up giving half of it to neighbors.

But it was fairly easy to make, and apparently you can make it entirely by hand(my scrawny arm muscles and I tried. Frankly it did not work out.)

Go here for the recipe: http://www.davidlebovitz.com/2008/05/perfect-chocola/

I followed the whole thing word by word, so I see no point in restating the whole entire thing. Just one small thing, if your going to do it by hand, be prepared for sore arms and make sure you set out some time because it’ll take a while…

Mmmm, it’s so good!

~D.D.

My First Daring Bakers & Failiure

This years daring baker challenge was a swiss roll ice cream cake(click on the link to see what it is), and I’ll have to say, mine did not come out all too well…Firstly I nearly forgot to do the challenge. It’s almost a go figure sort of thing, because I seem to forget so much(like that time I forgot to put the eggs in my sugar cookies…lets just say the that it didn’t turn out all too good…). Secondly, it’s blazing hot(at a high of ninety degrees :( ), and the last thing I’d want to attempt to make is an ice cream cake. The ice cream didn’t for even two seconds outside of the freezer, and so when I tried to add it to the cake it melted through the holes in between the swiss rolls,  and coated the top of the whole cake & possibly was absorbed by the cake(hence why it looks really strange and wrinkly as you see…If you want to see really pretty and normal looking swiss roll ice cream cakes i suggest you google it since mine is kinda ugly…)

And then the bottom layer of ice cream took ten seconds to melt into liquid, as you see up there in the very first picture. But even with the strange, messed up appearance, it actually tasted a lot better than I actually thought it would taste like.

Since we daring bakers were allowed to modify and flavors and tastes, I changed some the original vanilla and chocolate flavors of the ice cream to coffee and dark chocolate. I also added a pinch(literally) of instant coffee to the cream of the swiss roll. But as you can see it didn’t change the appearance at all.

Okay so here we go:

Swiss Rolls Recipe

Adapted from Sunita Bhuyan(of Sunita’s World)’s origninal recipe

*You will definitely need a hand mixer for this

• 6 eggs( medium sized)
• 1 cup of caster sugar(like regular sugar, but finer, although not as fine as confectioners, you can buy it at a store(it’s also called superfine sugar, or fruit sugar, or quick dissolving sugar)
• 6 Tablespoons of regular flour sifted together with 5 tablespoons of natural unsweetened dark cocoa powder
• 2 tablespoons of boiling water

Firstly preheat your oven to 400 degrees, and grease and line a pan or two (11×9 or atleast something close) with grease proof baking paper.

Okay, so now we start out with the caster sugar and the eggs. Blend those together using the mixer, until they turn a white color. It seems sorta impossible, but yes it does happen, even if it takes a bit, so just be patient and pay attention to color and foaminess of the mixture. It should be really thick and foamy. Thick enough to trail on the surface and remain there for a couple of seconds. Then take mix-of-flour+cocoa and fold that into the mixture little by little(gently, you don’t want to squish the foaminess). And now fold in the boiling water. Then put half of the mixture in one pan, and if you have a second fill it with the other half, and stick the pan(s) in the oven.

And now while that stuff bakes, lets make the cream.

For the filling:

• 2 cups of whipping cream(NOT heavy whipping cream, since the fat content is higher, and it tends to be slightly greasier)
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 5 tablespoons of caster sugar

Add the all the ingredients to a bowl, and whip it together using the hand blender, until it’s thick and frothy, and like whipped cream.

Now back to the cake-y thing. Cut off the crisp edges, and place a towel upon it , and keeping the towel on it, roll it up, and place it on a rack to let it cool. Do this for both of the cake things, and when it is cooled,  unroll the cakes, and spread the cream thickly on the cakes keeping away from the edges(about a half an inch or so). And now roll up both of the cakes, and you can keep them in the fridge for as long as you want(although the shape gets more oval than round) or just cut it up right now.

So now after you cut it up, get a bowl of some sort(i used two cake pans and put half in one and the other half in another) to put the whole desert into and now line that with cling wrap and line all the swiss rolls around the inside of the bowl.

Nowww, Ice cream #1: Dark Chocolate Ice Cream

• 2 cups of whipping cream(once again, not heavy whipping cream)
• 1 cup of caster sugar
• 3 tablespoons of natural unsweetened dark cocoa powder

Okay, so now start with the sugar and the cocoa powder and using a mortar and pestle(like me :D) or food processor grind that together. Now pour that and the cream into a sauce pan(stir it using a whisk) and heat it until little bubbles form on the sides of the pan and then let the mixture cool. Then put it in a freezer safe container and stick it in the freezer for about a half an hour or so. The edges of the mixture should start to freeze,  and stir it up vigorously and leave the pan in there again and check on it a bit later, and then stir it up again. Continue repeating this process until it’s fully frozen and ice cream like.

Ice Cream #2

• 2 cups of whipping cream
• 1 cup of caster sugar
• 1 1/2 tablespoons of instant coffee

This is pretty much the same as the chocolate ice cream. Grind together the coffee powder and the sugar and then add it into a sauce pan with the cream and heat it up until there are little bubbles around the edges, and then let it cool then pour it into a freezable pan and let it sit for a half an hour or so, and stir it up and continue doing so until solid.

Now the hot fudge sauce(this goes in between the two ice creams)

You need…

• 1 cup of caster sugar
• 3 tablespoons of natural unsweetened dark cocoa powder
• 2 tablespoons of cornstarch
• 1 1/2 cups of water
• 1 tablespoon of butter
• 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract

Now add the caster sugar, the dark cocoa powder, the cornstarch and the water into a sauce pan and stir it up over heat using a whisk. This may take a bit, but eventually it will become thicker and gloppier, and fudge saucy. And thats when you take it off the stove and add in the vanilla extract and the butter.

Now putting it allll together.

You already have the bowl lined with the plastic wrap and swiss rolls, so now we use the the first layer of ice cream(i used coffee).

Make sure it’s softened and sorta “pour” it into the swiss-roll-lined-bowl and stick that in the freezer so that layer can freeze(approx. an hour). Now pour in the fudge sauce, and put it back in the freezer so that can firm up(approx. an hour). And then after that hour take it out again, and add the chocolate(softened) ice cream layer and let that freeze for an hour also, and then tada! You’re done :)

Well, you gotta flip the cake over too, but you can do that all by yourself :)

Note: If the cake decides to be stubborn and not come out, wipe the outside of the bowl with a hot wet towel, or just tap on it.

~D.D.