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

Sun-dried Tomato & Olive Tapenade| Reflecting Back

Every New Year, rather than making resolutions, I take a moment to reflect on what I’ve done in the past year, and I was flipping through my agenda. In the summer before freshman year, I bought this agenda that I’d intended to use for the school year. It was a fairly plain one, about the size of a novel and covered in camel colored canvas with a little pocket on the front. Little did I know that I would end up using this agenda for the next three years, and how attached to it I would become.Three years later, the pages are covered in my hand writing and random little scribbles, the spine is no longer a spine but rather a mass of tape, and I had doodled on the cover so much that it looked like I had attempted to color the entire thing with my pen. Looking at the ratty old thing I still managed to call an agenda, it amazed me how far I had come in the past three years and how fast that time had passed. I remember as freshman I thought I wouldn’t make the next four years. I’m now a junior in high school, taking my SATs and ACTs and getting ready for college.

Moving along to the food portion of this post, these are sun-dried tomato and Kalamata olive tapenade crostinis. Sun-dried tomatoes are one of my favorite things, and they play a huge part in this tapenade. They’re slightly salty and mostly sour accented with a tinge of sweetness, the olives add a deeper flavor to the mix, and the brie complements it all by adding an earthy but creamy undertone. I really love the complex mix of flavors in this, and this has definitely become one of my favorite snacks to come home to after school. Plus, it’s really quite a simple recipe, and great for parties (you can definitely make this ahead of time, and just make sure you have a loaf of bread nearby!).

Sun-dried Tomato & Kalamata Olive Tapenade

adapted from this blog

NOTE: I actually feel like this tastes the best a day after it’s made, because the garlic’s flavor is absorbed much more into the tapenade.

Ingredients

• 1 loaf bread (I used ciabatta, french bread is great too!)
• Brie Cheese (typically comes in whole wheels, I reccommend one 5 inches or more in diameter)
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 4 oz. Kalamata Olives coarsely chopped
• 7 oz jar of sundried tomatos (note: if you have tomato halves it will be approximately 21 tomato halves, and  be sure to julienne them!)  (Note: if your tomatos are preserved with oil, drain the oil out of them as best you can, and don’t worry about the tapenade being greasy, it will be fine!)

Instructions

1. Slice your bread into 1.5 cm slices.
2. Toasting the bread: preheat the oven to 400 degrees, and toast the bread until the edges start becoming golden, approx. 5-8 minutes.
3. Put the sun-dried tomatoes, olives, and garlic cloves into the food processor. Pulse until coarsely chopped. Be careful not to over pulse the mixture or you might end up with a sort of a paste.
4. To serve place a slice of brie on the bread( the slices of brie should be able to cover the entire piece of bread), add 1/2 tablespoon of tapenade on top, and serve :)

Enjoy!
~Deepshikha

Strawberry Tart | Me

Dear Readers,

I’m sorry I haven’t been around…

I’ve been caught up in some of my business(which involved staring at textbooks and math equations relentlessly)…

If you’re a new reader, hello and welcome :)
Hope are enjoying it :)

This is going not going to be one of my usual posts, it’s going to be somewhat more quick and direct because at the moment I am busy, and I just wanted to post something quickly…

Also, some of you commented and emailed me for step by step pictures of each of posts, and here’s why I don’t want to do this:

I have nobody around most of the time to take pictures for me, so I’ll have to take them myself. No it’s not because I’m lazy, it’s because I will get involved in what I’m making and forget to take pictures, so you’ll probably end up with half of the pictures for all the steps…

I will try however :)

I know I’ve said this before, but just in case you don’t know: if some of you have questions about anything, feel free to email me, or just leave a comment below, and I’ll reply to your email and/or comment! My email is: thenexperiments@live.com. If you want to tweet me as well, go ahead! My username is @thenexperiments (there’s also a follow button on the side somewhere).

Now about this tart I’m supposed to be talking about… I’ve had this recipe, and these pictures for a while now, except I never got around to posting, and I forgot about it, until now when I realized it was strawberry season, and this would be perfect for use!

I really love this tart. Its crust is amazing, and ridiculously flaky and buttery. The pastry cream, isn’t fully solid but it ta

stes great, and it uses a only a little of heavy cream(I’m really attempting to find recipes for things without heavy cream, its notoriously bad for you! How ever I am being a little hypocritical, considering the tart shell, but I cannot not use that shell! its amazing!)…and the topping of the fresh

strawberries really just is great :) It adds a fresh taste to it :)

Hope you try and enjoy it!

Fresh Strawberry Tart

• 1 pack of strawberries(16 oz.) quartered.
• tart shell(recipe below)
• pastry cream (recipe below)

Use this recipe from David Lebovitz for the tart I followed the whole thing exactly, and he has pictures of certain steps as well :)

Pastry Cream

Modified from Barefoot Contessa in Paris via Culinate

• 5 large egg yolks at room temperature
• 3/4 a cup sugar(I didn’t fully fill each of the cups to minimize the sugar content in this  somewhat)
• 3 tbsp. corn starch
• 1 1/2 cups of scalded milk(scald the milk by heating it at a medium, until it develops a skin on top and that skin starts to rise and turn off the heat before the whole thing boils over. note: scald this right before you start the first step of this)
• 3/4 tsp. pure vanilla extract.
• 1 tsp. rum
• 1 tbsp.unsalted butter
• tbsp. heavy cream

1. Whip up the eggs and sugar, until it become a very pale, almost white-ish yellow and the mixture will be very thick.
2. If you are using a mixer, lower the speed of the mixer and add in the corn starch. if you are doing this by hand, simply mix in the cornstarch.
3. Then while constantly mixing pour the scalded milk into the egg yolk and sugar mixture. Don’t stop mixing, or the eggs may scramble.
4. Pour all of this, in to a medium pan, and put it on medium heat stirring with a whisk.
5. After a while this will start to look at though it is curdling, so at this point start stirring vigorously with the whisk.
6. after a while it will come together a little bit more and that is when you put in the rum, vanilla extract, butter, and heavy cream. Stir it in and continue to cook for a minute, then remove from heat.
7. Grab a strainer, and put it over a a bowl and strain the mixture.
8. Cover the bowl of the mixture, and put it in the refrigerator until it is cool.

To assemble tart:

1. make sure pastry cream, and the tart shell are cooled down completely.
2. pour the pastry cream into the tart shell. Be careful, the tart shell is a little delicate, and spread it out evenly.
3. top the whole thing with the strawberries, you can simply toss them on there, or arrange them like I did, what ever you like.

Note: this recipe for this tart can be pretty flexible.

So you say you want lime and coconut tart? Add approximately a teaspoon(taste and adjust) into the pastry cream, and a half cup of coconut, and top the whole thing with shredded coconut.

Or if you want a black forest gateaux inspired one, cut up some maraschino cherries, and mix them into the pastry cream, and replace some of the flour inthe tart dough with chocolate powder, and cover it all with a chocolate glaze perhaphs.

Be creative, and if you have any questions email me.

Hope you enjoy!

Blondies | Hello Spring

I love spring, its one of the most beautiful seasons, with birds coming out of hibernation, flowers blooming, and the very best part: more sunlight.

The lack of sunlight is one of the biggest reasons I despise winter. The sun used to set at five everyday, and even then it was so drab and depressing because the sun almost never came out from the clouds…but now a five, the sun is still out shedding its vibrant rays of sunshine upon us.

I would say flowers are my very favorite part, however I have ridiculous pollen allergies…although I’m not experiencing  the allergies that badly this year, the occasional sneezing fits…well they’re not fun.

I remember back in first grade where they used to be truly horrible, that one day in class my teacher took pity on me, and let me be teacher for half a day, because she felt bad for me. She even colored my project in for me. I loved that day, and i still do :)

But even with that I still think spring is wonderful. And to celebrate I baked some of my favorite baked goods: Blondies.

I really love blondies. In fact I love them more than brownies!

Just because I’ve encountered a lot of confusion when I’ve mentioned blondies, I ‘ll explain what they are: Like chocolate cake is the opposite to vanilla cake, the opposite to brownies, are blondies! Where brownies depend upon chocolate to flavor it, blondies depend on butterscotch like flavor. Both have the same density(between a cake and fudge), its simply their flavoring that differentiates them.

They are amazing, so buttery and lighter in taste than brownies, which are rich and somewhat heavy tasting.

Blondies

Adapted from Whipped 

• 1 c. unbleached all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp. baking powder
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/2 c. & 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 1 c. brown sugar
• 1 large egg
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
• any extra toppings that you want such as nuts or chocolate chips and such.

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees farenheit.
2. Line an 8 inch baking pan with baking parchment, or aluminum foil.
3. Sift together flour baking powder and salt into small bowl. Set aside.
4. In a medium saucepan melt the butter down, and cook until it starts looking brown and smells nutty.
5. Add the brown sugar, and continue to cook until this darkens slightlfy, smells like butterscotch and the sugar is fully melted down. *If the sugar for some reason isn’t melting, which has happened to me sometimes, remove it from heat and put it in a medium sized bowl letting it cool for two minutes, then add in the eggwhisking the whole time. If you stop whisking the eggs will scramble. If the sugar starts chunking up its okay! Mix as much as you can until the bottom of the bowl feels very mildly warm to the touch, then grab a sieve, and drain the what ever liquid-y parts you have in to a small bowl and reserve that. Grab your food processor, and put the chunky sugar parts in the sieve into the food processor and blend until it is no longer chunky, then put this back in the medium sized bowl that you started with, and add that liquid part that you had reserved. Stir in the vanilla.* How ever if your sugar did properly melt down, remove it from heat, stir it a little with a wooden spoon until cool down a little for approx 4 mins. Then add in the eggs and the vanilla mixing constantly.
6. Stir in the flour mixture, and any additional toppings that you chose, spoon the batter into the baking pan, and spread it evenly.
7. Bake until the center of the batter seems set(approx 20-25 mins)
8. After taking it out, let it cool completely, then remove the baking parchment or aluminum foil, cut and enjoy! :)

~Dee D.

“Not So Nutella” Brownies | A Craving

I woke up on valentines day with my ears still ringing from my alarm and a utter craving for something chocolaty and baked. The simple answer to that craving? Chocolate cake. But then again it was five thirty and in the morning and the possibility getting any chocolate cake was near impossible, so I rushed off getting myself ready for school, and for the whole week kept this chocolate craving at bay.

Finally on Thursday, I had time. We had a four day weekend ahead, which meant a lot of time to bake, do home work and anything else I fancied at that moment.

After I got off the bus that afternoon, I walked up the icy driveway, fiddling the the worn edges of my scarf and trying to remember where I had kept my go-to chocolate cake recipe. I was quite sure I had either stashed it in one of my desks drawers or I had book marked it. I rushed into the house, pulled off my coat, and scarf and dashed into the study.

After a frustrating ten of searching through dozens of recipes, papers, and a menagerie of my sisters art utensils with no results, I finally set off to sort through my book marks, a scarier prospect, considering I had hundreds of recipes bookmarked. I went through at least two dozen links before finding some: a recipe for Nutella brownies.

I love nutella, and I love brownies, and then finding these two combined while having a craving for something chocolate and baked? It was like finding gold.

With much zest I scribbled down the recipe and rushed off to the kitchen to bake them. A jar of nutella and fifteen minutes later, I had these in the oven. Another half an hour later I had these out of the oven, with one excited sister watching them like a hawk.

After they cooled, I cut into them, and finally tried one. But I was slightly dissapointed. They tasted excellent. But not like nutella, just like really good brownies. The hazelnut taste seemed to have completely vanished and all was left was the chocolate taste.

My sister insisted they did taste a little like nutella but I didn’t see it at all.

You’re probably wondering why I bothered sharing this recipe with you even though it was a dissapointment.

Well, because: Even though they didn’t taste like Nutella they tasted rich and chocolaty, and have the most amazing crinkly  crust on top(which you  saw in the pictures above) with a perfect dense, fudge-y inside, which is my vision of a perfect brownie.

Take a closer look at the inside:

Doesn’t it look absolutely and completely moist and delicious?

“Nutella” Brownies

Adapted From: ricardocuisine.com

• 1/2 a cup of all-purpose flour(unbleached)
• 1/4 a tsp of salt
• 1/2 a cup of butter(melted and cooled slightly)
• 1 1/3 a cup of nutella
• 1/2 a cup of brown sugar
• 1 tsp. of vanilla extract
• 2 eggs(large)

1. Preheat the oven to 325 F.
2. Sift together the salt and the flour in a bowl. Set aside.
3. Then in a different bowl, beat the nutella, brown sugar, vanilla extract and eggs together until completely smooth.
4. Then add one third of the flour mixture and one third of the butter to the nutella mixture and blend until smooth.
5. Repeat step three until all the flour and butter is used up.
6. Pour the batter into a eight by eight baking pan lined with either foil or parchment paper.
7. Bake until you can put a tooth pick and it comes out with only a couple of crumbs.
8. Cool for a hour, and then cut and enjoy :)

~Dee D.

Daring Bakers | Apple Crostata

I don’t know why, but I always have the urge to make things that sound fancy, exotic and or french. Souffle? Creme Brulee? Tiramisu? Petit Fours? All of those are a result of this strange urge that I have.

And so, when I saw this month’s daring bakers I was immediately intrigued. Crostata? It sounded pretty exotic to me, and looked like a cross between pie and a tart, two things which i love. Immediately i started making the dough for thepasta frolla(the crust dough), mixing and kneading away happily. Then after I finished with that and put the dough in for a two hours, and decided to think up fillings. I started out wanting to make a creamy thick filling, so then i was thinking of a variety of pastry creams. Then I saw 3 perfect little apples sitting on the counter top, that stood out starkly due to their beautiful  golden and scarlet hues.

And obviously, those beautiful apples are what i used for this crostata, and it came out delicious, and very seasonally appropriate.

The 2010 November Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Simona of briciole. She chose to challenge Daring Bakers’ to make pasta frolla for a crostata. She used her own experience as a source, as well as information from Pellegrino Artusi’s Science in the Kitchen and the Art of Eating Well.

Oh, and happy late thanksgiving all!

I hope you had awesome thanksgivings and I hope you stuffed yourself like crazy :)

Apple Crostata

For the pasta frolla:

• 3/4 a scant cup of powdered sugar
• 1 3/4 a cup of all purpose unbleached flour
• a pinch of salt
• 1 stick(eight tablespoons) of cold grated butter(take the stick of butter out of the fridge cold and grate it using the larger holed side of a grater and then place it in the fridge again for ten minutes)
• the lemon zest of half a lemon
• 1 and 1/2 tsp of cinnamon(you can tweak this a bit, i just kept adding a little by little until i thought i would taste good, only problem was i didn’t know how much so i’d say approx. that)
• 1 large egg beaten lightly

1. Whisk together the powdered sugar, flour and salt.
2. add in the butter, and rub or cut the butter using a pastry cutter in to the flour mixture until like course bread crumbs.
3. make a little indentation in the bread crummy mixture and pour in the egg(remember to save a teaspoon to glaze the dough later when it’s being baked)
4. Add the zest into the little indentation, and mix it all together.
5. You will now have dough, that you want to knead it until it comes together in a ball. Then shape it into a circle and refrigerate wrapped in plastic wrap it for the minimum of 2 hours or over night.
6. two hours take the dough out and roll it out between two pieces of plastic wrap until it’s 5 mm thick, take off one side of the plastic and flip it over onto the dish that you’ll be baking it in. Delicately press the dough in to  fit the pan, and cut off any excess dough hanging over the edges of the dish and press it into the sides and middle.
7. Take a fork, and stab the bottom with it in several places(to let any air from air bubbles escape)
8. Make the filling(recipe below) and put the apples in however you like it. I staggered the apples in rows since my crostata was squared shaped, and there was two layers( i used an 8×8 pan).
9. Glaze whatever crust is exposed with that saved 1 teaspoon of egg.
10. bake at 375 degrees until the crust is golden.

Apple filling

• 3 small apples peeled, cut in half and then cut again into thin 2 mm slices
• 1/3 a cup of brown sugar
• 1 1/2 tsp of sugar (adjust this to your tastes)

Mix this all together in a bowl.

Tastes great with a scoop of vanilla ice cream :)

and one last thing:

My late thanksgiving list:

I’m thankful for

• My adorable and sweet little sister.
• My  loving parents.
• My amazing and slightly eccentric friends.
• My awesome food blogger friends, Adriana, Jeannie and Sheena.
• For living the way I’m living.

~Dee D.

Cinnamon Rolls | Fall

It’s on days like this where I could curl up with a book and a mug of strawberry milk(my favorite). The sky’s a perfect blue, the sun’s shining radiantly and beautiful golden and scarlet leaves are scattering across my lawn. I love perfect fall days, and I love fall in general. In my head it’s the cinnamon, apple, pumpkin, peach, brown sugar, and brown butter season. All of the lovely warm, homey flavors that warm you inside and out. And the colors of the food’s too, warm cinnamon-y browns, apple scarlets, and pumpkin oranges. They’re all just warm and comforting.

I really haven’t baked anything that fall themed this season, mostly because I haven’t had any time, with the new workload of homework, and with the times that I did have free, I was just busy. So finally when i finally did find a non busy time, I wanted to bake something simple, easy to make and fall themed, and so I made these cinnamon rolls.

These are amazingly delicious and soft, with the sweet, warm swirls of brown sugar, brown butter and cinnamon. You honestly don’t even need the icing. These were devoured within minutes right after I took them out of the oven, with the cinnamon butter filling bubbling on the sides of t

he perfectly hypnotically swirled rolls…

Cinnabon™ Knock-off Cinnamon Rolls

Makes approx. 20 or less

Adapted from Tartelette

Starting out with the dough…

• 2 1/4 a tsp. yeast
• 1 cup warm milk(make sure it’s from 105 ° F- 110°F. If it’s any less the yeast won’t activate you will end up with dense, hard rolls, or if you make it too high, the yeast will die, and you will still end up with dense hard rolls)
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1/3 cup brown unsalted butter, melted and slightly cooled
• 1 tsp. salt
• 2 eggs
• 4 cups all-purpose flour(and some more afterwards)

Filling

• 1 cup packed brown sugar
• 2 1/2 tablespoons ground cinnamon
• 1/3 cup unsalted brown butter at room temperature

1. In a large bowl add in the yeast and the milk, and stir around a little until all the yeast is fully dissolved.
2. Add the sugar, the brown butter(still liquid-y but slightly cooled, you should be able to touch it for a bit, if it’s too hot it may cook the eggs a little), salt and eggs. Mix well. It’ll be very liquid-y still.
3. Sift in the flour cup by cup(it doesn’t make a difference if you dump in the whole thing or not, but it’s just easier).
4. You now have a giant lump of  pale sticky dough. Get some flour, shape it into a neat dough ball and leave it in a warm(not hot or it’ll cook) place to rise. Check back in a half an hour or until the dough has risen and doubled in size(it’s look really big compared to what you last saw, and if it isn’t let it stay there for a little more. It has to rise or else you will end up with dense cinnamon rolls) a tip I learned from 17andbaking: microwave a cup of water in the oven for 3 minutes and then leave the dough in there. It’s a perfect place because its warm and moist.
5. Meanwhile the dough rises mix together all the ingredients for the filling and leave it in the bowl. it should look very brown and feel grainy due to the brown sugar.
6. After the dough has risen take it out again and flour the place your working on, and roll it out evenly to a 21×16 rectangle( if you don’t get it even you will have “interestingly” formed swirls, that won’t be all that pretty, and sometimes if you roll it out unevenly enough you’ll have too much dough in one place and it won’t taste right. also, if you over knead it it will become elastic-y and very hard to roll out!
7. Spread the cinnamon sugar butter filling all over the dough, and roll it up starting from the longer 21 inch side and now you have this giant dough log thing.
8. Cut it up the giant log thing into 2 and half centimeter pieces and put into a greased pan, evenly spaced out, a little more than in the picture shown below.
9. Let the rolls rise again.
10. Bake at 400 degrees until light golden brown on top(approx 10 mins).

Icing

For the icing:

• 1/4 cup unsalted butter at room temperature
• 1/4 cup (2 oz.) cream cheese at room temperature
• 1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
• 1 tablespoon whole milk
• 1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

Cream the butter and cream cheese vigorously. Then add the powdered sugar, and milk and vanilla extract.

Pour over cinnamon rolls and enjoy!

(They’re best served warm)

~Dee D.

Chocolate Chip Cookies | Smiles

Everyone loves chocolate chip cookies. It’s almost a solid fact. Well, excluding those who dislike chocolate(and possibly cookies). 

These cookies make people smile all the time. Like my sister today while I was baking them. She the most beautiful smile on her face today as she wandered into the kitchen.

“Watcha doin’?” She asked sounding like a girl from her favorite show, while here eyes were completely glued to the warm cookies I had place on the counter.

“Baking cookies.” I replied with a smile turning around to get the next batch, purposefully going slowly. Sure enough when I turned around to place the cookies on the counter top, my sister had disappeared along with a cookie leaving only a smudge of chocolate on the baking paper.

The thing is, that with these cookies, you get a variety of textures, and sometimes flavors. Each recipe is different in it’s own way, and they match different people’s tastes. Some people may like extremely soft cookies that melt in your mouth, others extremely crisp ones. I like really chewy ones with slightly crisp outsides that are fully cooled and don’t have a trace of warmth. And I swear this recipe I found is perfect for that.

Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookies

Slightly adapted from original recipe from Words to Eat By

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 a cups of flour
• 1/2 a teaspoon salt
• 1/2 a teaspoon baking soda
• 1 stick of cold butter(cubed)(this one stick of butter is also know as 1/4 a pound of butter)
• 1/2 a cup of sugar
• 3/4 a cup of brown sugar
• 1 1/2 tsp of vanilla extract
• 1 large egg
• 1 cup of chocolate chips or chunks

Method:

Note: I did this all by hand. As in I literally stuck my hand in to the bowl. Working with spoons and things on chocolate chip cookies annoy me because it’s a dough and I just prefer sticking my hands in there. That and using your hands makes creaming a whole lot easier…

1. Sift together the flour baking powder and salt in bowl.
2. Now in a seperate bowl cream together the brown sugar the regular sugar and the butter until smooth.
3. Add in the egg and the vanilla extract until well mixed.
4. Slowly mix in the flour in adding it batch by batch
5. Lastly add in the chocolate chips or chunks.
6. Put the dough in to the fridge for 45 minutes.
7. Take it out and take a chunk of each cookie and flatten it out to a circle of any size you want(remember the bigger, the better the center will be just don’t make it crazily huge…I made them thinner and slightly bigger than my palm)
8. Bake at 350 degrees F and make sure you rotate the pan every few minutes if  you have an oven that does heat evenly. Bake until the edges start turning a golden brown.

Enjoy with a glass of milk! :)

~Dee D

 

Daring Bakers |Sugar Cookies

My first day of high was…interesting. I really can’t call it fun, nor can I call it drop dead horrible. The worst thing was that I got continually lost. No, I am not direction challenged or anything of that sort, it’s just that the school is huge. I know, I know, all high schools are huge. But I swear I think my high school is extra huge. For some reason I always seem to end up on the opposite side of the school from the place I need to get to! It’s just…annoying. A conversation between me and the hall monitor- Me: Hi, can you help me find my bus please? Her:Oh sure, what’s your bus number? Me: 8 Her: Oh dear, that’s actually at the other end of the school. Me:<twitching with anger silently>.

Anyways it has gotten better, and I can find my way to all of my classes and now my only pain is the long hours of homework…It makes me seriously miss my middle school…

But thank god I got Daring Baker’s done before school started, other wise I would have had absolutely no time to get anything in!

The September 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Mandy of “What the Fruitcake?!” Mandy challenged everyone to make Decorated Sugar Cookies based on recipes from Peggy Porschen and The Joy of Baking.

I was immediately excited after reading about this! I’ve always wanted to decorate sugar cookies, but never really had a chance to, considering I have a health conscious family and they tend to shy away from anything that involves the word sugar and has icing on it. So here was my chance to finally decorate!

So I went out to the store and bought everything with these beautiful mehndi -ish designs in my head, and then I came back and read all of the rest of the challenge. And then I realized it had to be September themed(as in if there is anything important to you in September you make that). It put a serious damper on my mehndi ideas but, I was still happy. Except I had no idea what sort of theme to do now.

So I listed a bunch of things that were going on in September for me:

• School
• Good-bye to constant visits to NYC
• Fall
• Asian Pear Picking(a tradition my family has, and every year we go to this Korean farm a couple of miles from our house, and pick this amazing, amazing pear…so crisp and juicy and with just the right touch of sweetness)

And that’s all I had. And slowly eliminated some on them only to end up with one.

• School -The last thing I wanted to do was remind myself of school.
• Goodbye to constant visits to NYC
• Fall – too many people would be doing that
• Asian Pear picking – How am I supposed to illustrate this? My cookie would end up decorated looking like a bunch of yellow circles with stems poking out on top…

And so goodbye to NYC it was. The story behind it? Well in the summer every year we have constant and random trips to NYC, but they always end when school starts because we don’t have enough time:( So these cookies were my good bye.

These look nothing like New York, but I always thought of it as the crazy city so I figured, why not actually make this crazy city?

And so I did, and I think this was pretty decent for my first time using Royal Icing. I will have to work on that though…the icing is little messy…okay maybe not a little…

So anyway want to learn how to make these?

Okay so first start out with the sugar cookies:

Sugar Cookies

• ½ cup + 7 Tbsp Brown Butter(or regular butter)at room temperature
• 3 cups + 3 Tbsp All Purpose Flour
• 1 cup Caster Sugar / Superfine Sugar
• 1 Large Egg, lightly beaten
• 1 tsp Vanilla Extract / Or seeds from 1 vanilla bean

Directions

Leave your butter out until it’s room tempreture! I always forget and then end up sticking it in the oven for a couple of minutes and ending up with uneven warmed butter. I doesn’t do anything, it just makes it harder to cream.

And making brown butter: Heat up a skillet and chop your butter up into slices and toss them on the skillet. Wait for it all to melt and continue waiting and watching the butter, and look for it turning a chocolate brown and smelling lovely and nutty(it’s an amazing smell!! I love it so much!) and then pour into a bowl and freeze for about five minutes or until it’s solid, and then after that just mix it up until its smooth and your good to go :)

1.Cream together the butter, sugar and any flavourings you’re using. Beat until just becoming creamy in texture.

Tip: Don’t over mix otherwise you’ll incorporate too much air and the cookies will spread during
baking, losing their shape.

2. Beat in the egg until well combined, make sure to scrape down the sides of the bowl.

3. Add the sifted flour and mix on low until a non sticky dough forms. Tip: I don’t have a stand mixer so I find it easier to switch to dough hooks at this stage to avoid
flour flying everywhere.

4. Knead into a ball and divide into 2 or 3 pieces. (This makes it wayyy easier, trust me)

5. Roll out each portion between parchment paper to a thickness of about 5mm/1/5 inch (0.2 inch)
Refrigerate for a minimum of 30mins.
Tip: Recipes commonly just wrap the whole ball of dough in clingwrap and then refrigerate it for an
hour or overnight, but by rolling the dough between parchment, this shortens the chilling time and
then it’s also been rolled out while still soft making it easier and quicker.

6. Once chilled, peel off parchment and place dough on a lightly floured surface.

7. Cut out shapes with cookie cutters or a sharp knife.

8. Arrange shapes on parchment lined baking sheets and refrigerate for another 30mins to an hour.
Tip: It’s very important you chill them again otherwise they’ll spread while baking.
Re-roll scraps and follow the above process until all scraps are used up.
Preheat oven to  350°F.
Bake until golden around the edges, about 8-15mins depending on the size of the cookies.
Tip: Bake same sized cookies together otherwise mixing smaller with larger cookies could result in
some cookies being baked before others are done.
Tip: Rotate baking sheets half way through baking if your oven bakes unevenly.

9. Leave to cool on cooling racks.

10. Once completely cooled, decorate as desired.
Tip: If wrapped in tinfoil/cling wrap or kept in airtight containers in a cool place, un-decorated
cookies can last up to a month.

Okay now…

Royal Icing:

• 2½ – 3 cups Icing / Confectioner’s / Powdered Sugar, unsifted
• 2 Large Egg Whites
• 2 tsp Lemon Juice
• 1 tsp Almond Extract, optional

Directions

1. Beat egg whites with lemon juice until combined.

• Tip: It’s important that the bowls/spoons/spatulas and beaters you use are thoroughly cleaned and
grease free.

1. 2. Sift the icing sugar to remove lumps and add it to the egg whites.

• Tip: I’ve listed 2 amounts of icing sugar, the lesser amount is good for a flooding consistency, and the larger amount is for outlining, but you can add even more for a much thicker consistency good for writing. If you add too much icing sugar or would like to make a thinner consistency, add very small amounts of water, a few drops at a time, until you reach the consistency you need.

1. 3. Beat on low until combined and smooth.

• Use immediately or keep in an airtight container.
• Tip: Royal Icing starts to harden as soon as it’s in contact with air so make sure to cover containers with plastic wrap while not in use.

Consistency:
• Mix your royal icing according to the recipe/instructions.
• Separate into 2 different bowls, one lot of icing for outlining, the other for flooding.
• For the outlining icing, drag a knife through the surface of the Royal Icing.
• If the surface becomes smooth at around 10 seconds, the icing is at the correct consistency.
• Tip: If your icing is too thick, thin it by adding a few drops of water. Mix, count to 10 seconds, then if it’s still too thick, add a few more drops of water, repeat, etc.
• Tip: To thicken your icing, add small amounts of icing sugar until thick enough for the 10 second test.
• For the flooding/filling icing, drag a knife through the surface of the Royal Icing.
• If the surface becomes smooth at around 3-4 seconds, the icing is at the correct consistency.
• Tip: If your icing is too thick, thin it by adding a few drops of water. Mix, count to 3-4 seconds, then if it’s still too thick, add a few more drops of water, repeat, etc.
• Tip: To thicken your icing, add small amounts of icing sugar until thick enough for the 3-4 second test.

Colouring
• Separate Royal Icing into separate bowls for each colour you plan on using.
• Tip: Make sure to cover the bowls with cling film or a damp cloth to prevent the top from setting and then making lumps
• Using a toothpick, add gel or paste colouring to each bowl and mix thoroughly until desired colour is reached
• Tip: You can use liquid food colouring but you might not be able to get the desired strength of colour, liquid colouring will also thin out the icing so you’ll need to add more icing sugar to thicken it again.

Prepping and Filling Your Bag
• Attach your icing tips to the piping bags using couplers
• Tip: You don’t need to use a coupler but it makes it easier if you want to change tip sizes
• Tip: A size 1 tip is best for doing intricate details. A size 2 tip is good for some details and outlining. Fill or flood with sizes 2 – 5.
• Tip: You don’t need a piping bag, you can use a parchment cone or ziplock bag with a tiny bit snipped off the corner. I would however recommend getting a piping set if you don’t have one as it will be much easier and more precise.
• Stand the piping bags in glasses with the tops of the bags folded over the top of the glass.
• Fill your icing bags with each coloured icing.
• Tie the ends of the piping bags with elastic bands.

Decorating: Outlining
• Fit the piping bag with a size 2 or 3 tip.
• Tip: Or snip a very small bit of the corner off of a parchment cone or Ziploc bag
• Hold the piping bag at a 45 degree angle above the cookie where you want to start the outline.
• Gently squeeze the piping bag and start moving in the direction you want to outline the cookie.
• Start lifting the piping bag away from the cookie so that the flow of icing falls onto the cookie, making it an even and neater outline.
• As you start to reach the beginning of the outline, bring the piping tip closer to the surface of the cookie to meet the start of the icing outline.
• Tip: If you’re doing an intricate cookie, like a snow flake, you won’t be able to lift the tip as far away from the cookie.
• If you’re doing a different colour border, eg a black border, let the outline dry before flooding. If using the same colour for the outline as you’re flooding with, begin flooding after doing the outline.

Decorating: Flooding
• Fit the piping bag with a size 2-5 tip, the bigger the area being filled, the bigger the tip.
• Tip: Or cut slightly more off the corner of a Ziploc bag to create a slightly larger opening.
• Quickly zigzag back and forth over the area you want to fill.
• Tip: You need to be quick when flooding the cookie so don’t worry too much if it’s not filled in neatly.
• Using a toothpick or clean paintbrush, push the icing around into the gaps that are still remaining.
• Either pick up the cookie and tip it from side to side to even out the filling, or lightly bang the cookie down on your kitchen counter.

Decorating: Melding Colours
• If you would like to add lines or dots to the base colour that you flooded the cookie with so that they meld and dry as a smooth surface, you need to add the lines/dots/patterns as quickly as possible after flooding and smoothing the surface of the cookie.
• Tip: Make sure to have all the colours you’re planning on using ready and close by so that you can switch between colours quickly
• Simply pipe other colours onto the flooded surface in patterns or lines which you can either leave as that or then drag a toothpick through to make marbling patterns.

Decorating: On top of flooding
• If you’d like to do other patterns/outlines or writing on top of the flooded surface so that they are raised above the flooded background, simply allow the icing to dry, preferably over night.
• Fit the piping bag with tip sizes 1-3.
• Pipe patterns or write on top of the dry icing
• Tip: For writing, the consistency of your icing should be thicker rather than thinner, drag a knife through your icing and when the surface smoothes around 12-15 seconds, the consistency is correct.

Packaging and Storing
• Once fully decorated, allow cookies to dry for 24 hours in a cool and dry area.
• Stack cookies in an airtight container, from largest cookies at the bottom, to smallest and more intricate at the top, with parchment or wax free paper in between the layers.
• Store in a cool and dry area with the container’s lid firmly sealed.
• Will last for about a month if stored this way.

Hope you have fun making your own and enjoy!

Enjoy with a glass of milk! (seriously. I know most people usually have chocolate chip cookies with milk but I like these with milk too, because it downplays the sweetness)

Chocolate Souffle & HS

Summer time has diminished down to a week. Exactly and precisely a week. And I’m scared. I’m starting high school this year, but I have no idea what it’s like. I’m hoping crazily that it won’t be like movies make it out to be. Mean, nasty girls glaring at you constantly, and being shoved and jostled constantly into walls simply trying to get to your next class, where you’re tortured with a variety of circles, squares and triangles in geometry. How lovely does that sound?

And then the supposed work load? That just terrifies me all the more. Apparently I won’t even have time to eat, forget making things to eat. My blog posts’ll probably dwindle down to a post a month maybe? I certainly hope not. I really enjoy making things, photographing them and writing them up for this blog.

Ahh, I’m really going to miss these lovely summer days, as hot and scorching as they are…And also my nice warm lunches…and all this spare time…and my variety of desserts that I make weekly… speaking of which I made souffle! And I was very successful doing so!

I love chocolate souffle. I truly, truly do. I’ts all lovely and light, and sweet and chocolaty. But why, oh why, does fall down so very fast? What you see in these pictures are nothing compared to what they were in the oven. My mom was terrified that they explode or something because if they do, they hit the oven walls, and when they hit the oven walls they start burning and what if it starts a fire??

But anyway back to the temperamental-ness of souffle. It deflates crazily quick. Like in two minutes or three minutes.

Let me show you some pictures:

It’s annoying isn’t it?

Actually I have no idea how long it took to go completely concave(but it started falling approximately ten seconds later right after i pulled them out of the oven)… I had to rush off to somewhere after I took these out of the oven…

But it won’t take too long. I have no idea how Aran G. from Cannelle et Vanille keeps hers up long enough to take awesome pictures…it’s crazy. You really should take a look at them. Very impressive. I simply love her pictures…

That and I also hate the look on top of it. Cracked uneven and ugly. So, after as I was eating this, i noticed the sides came off the dish absolutely cleanly, and the sides were absolutely smooth. So, then it hit me: why not flip it over? I did, and all the pictures you’ve been seeing so far, exempt from the picture directly above this section and the one above that, are flipped.

Here’s the recipe:

Oh and one last thing: The quality of chocolate you use makes the souffle.

Here we go.

Chocolate Souffle

(this is a meringue based souffle by the way)

From Saveur

makes 14 oz

• 3 tablspoons milk(of any sort)
• 4 and 1 1/2 tablespoons of sugar(keep ‘em seperated) & a bit more for dusting the souffle dishes
• 4 oz of semi sweet chocolate(finely chopped)
• 2 eggs yolks
• 3 egg whites
• Confectioners sugar to sprinkle on top!

1. Preheat your oven to 375.
2. Brush the dishes you are using to bake this souffle(stick with things smaller than 2 and a half inches deep and 6 six inches in diameter, it helps rise) with butter using vertical strokes(helps the souffle rise), and then dust them with sugar.
3. Put the milk and the four tablespoons of sugar in a small sauce pan over medium high heat until the sugar if fully dissolved, and then add the chocolate, and let it sit for a little. Then turn off the heat and stir it up until the chocolate is fully melted. Then scrape it into a bowl and let it cool down for ten minutes, and beat the two egg yolks in.
4. In a different bowl beat the egg whites until it’s foamy, at which point you add in the remaining(1 and a half tablespoons) of sugar and beat until you have stiff peaks.
5. Gently fold in the egg white mixture into the chocolate mixture 1/3 at a time until you can no longer see any white streaks. Then spoon into the dish(s) you are using(fill to the top!) and put in the oven for approx. twenty minutes or until it appears to be fully risen. It should look like this, except in the oven:

1. now after it’s cooled down a little and deflated a bit, push in the edges hanging out, so that the bottom is even, and there is nothing hanging out outside or over the rim of the dish. You should be able to run a finger over the top of the dish and around the dish without the souffle interfering.
2. then simply place the place you with to serve it on on top of the dish, making sure it is centered, and flip!

1. Dust a bit of sugar over the top for presentation, and garnish with leaves, strawberries, what ever you like :)

And voila! There you have your souffle!

Enjoy( and beware of the collapsing)

~D.D.