Thought I was gone forever? For awhile I did too. Anybody still listening? I understand if you’ve moved on to sweeter pastures, but I took some needed time to reflect on whether or not I was doing the best thing I could be doing right now with this blog. To be honest, I’m not sure. There are a ton of things that interest me, but unfortunately I haven’t exactly been feeling like the world is my oyster so-to-speak. I realize I’m not the only one who is experiencing difficulty in these economically agonizing times, but I have been dealing with this economically agonizing situation going on six years now. At the same time, I realize things could be worse. However, when you are obsessed about where your next dollar is going to come from, if any, you really start to reevaluate how you spend you time. After six months of thinking, well, I realize I still don’t have any answers (feel free to chuckle).  

What I have realized is that I still hate store bought baked goods, and I still love sweets even though I gained all the weight I lost prior to moving here back (though I lost seven pounds of it again in the last 6 months! Hey, it’s better than nothing. AND it’s great when I get to eat my sweets, and not exercise for an hour and a half like I used to when I originally lost that weight before moving – oh, and sorry for the RIDICULOUSLY long babble-on!). And I still have this blog. I hope I still have my readers, but if I’ve lost some of you I hope to bring you back, and I hope to attract more. I have some ideas to keep you reading, but if there’s anything you’d like to see me write/do (except pat my head and my belly at the same time…it’s just not possible) please let me know. I want to encourage you to keep coming back.

I intend on getting to the comments on the last post before my hiatus for no other reason than they were are such heartfelt responses to a heartfelt post and I feel the need to respond in kind, and then there were those comments that were actually questions that I need to answer. As to the rest of the unresponded comments, I want to let you know that I appreciate them all so much. I struggle with depression, and they really do brighten my day. Unfortunately I sometimes have the darnedest time getting to things, and I’m afraid I’ll never catch up on all those I missed responding to, and I apologize for that. I’m really sorry for not being a good blogger for these past months. Thankfully I feel like I’m on more of an even keel and I’m ready to get back into the swing of things.

Without further ado, I bring you the New York crumb cake. This was FAB! And were I not the insane perfectionist-wannabe I am it probably would’ve only taken a little over an hour from prep to out of the oven.

As I am still the “insame perfectionist-wannabe” it took half the day, most of which was spent breaking apart the crumb topping into exquisite pea-sized crumbs. One of these days I’ll learn not to take it all so seriously, but as it stands I like to do things right…at least once at any rate.

I ardently wish that I could include the recipe here but I am forced to refrain from such a public display of neighborly knowledge in fear of the dreaded CI police. Honestly, I don’t even want to mention the publication’s full name for no other reason than to prevent increasing their PageRank. Needless to say the editor has a propensity for writing prissy op-ed pieces in the New York Times on the evils of us plebes sharing our little scribbles with the world since we don’t have any “real experience, the hard-won blood-on-the-floor kind.” Perhaps I don’t have “blood-on-the-floor” kind, but I do have zest, butter, and batter…among other things.

I’m no expert, and I certainly don’t purport myself to be one. That said, the journey of the inexperienced on the road to experienced I think is a valuable one. I guess the question might be, are all roads to experience worthy? I’d answer yes. If you all end at the same destination, then why is someone who trained at home versus at a culinary institute any less worthy to the family they are serving the fruits of their labor (and experience) to. My Grandmother never took a cooking class in her life. From what I’m told her Mother didn’t know how to cook for all the cabbage in Poland. Somehow, some way, she taught herself. Through the prism of her own inexperience she was able to fail and learn what not to do, which I think can be nearly as important as what to do. She was the best cook I ever knew, and I’m thankful for the road to experience that she took.

I’m sure she had the help of neighbors and friends. There’s a rich tradition among cooks of all nations (and levels of experience) of sharing. Food and sharing just seem to go together. I think most people would agree with that philosophy. This obsession that one publication has with the reprinting of recipes smacks of greed and narcissism. It’s unfortnate that it can’t evolve with the times and enjoy the rewards of sharing. One thing I’ve learned in blogging is word-of-mouth…you ain’t kidding. Mention something in passing on here, and you’ll never guess where it may end up. Dissemination of information is a good thing. That’s part of the reason we got out of the Dark Ages. It’s unfortunate because I actually love the publication in essence. The information provided is fantastic, albeit a tad dry. I have to say that it’s one of the most informative and educational out there. The attitude of the editor needs to change before I become a public advocate for it.

That said, this is one of the best crumb cakes I’ve ever tasted. And, if you desire the recipe, use my contact form (Contact tab at the tippy-top of the page) to contact me. You never know what I might just blurt out in an informal email conversation over coffee. Just like Grandma used to do

Holy cow am I late on this one. This was actually supposed to be for the Daring Bakers challenge last month. Jenny Bakes supplied a simple enough cheesecake recipe to follow, but I just couldn’t do it. I can’t handle another cream cheese, brick-in-my-stomach-after-eating cheesecake experience. It’s good going down, but an unruly house guest to my stomach later.

So I hemmed and I hawed all month long….what the heck was I going to do? I want to participate in the challenge, but the thought of cream cheese brick syndrome left me nauseous. I know that some of the other DBers had similar issues with cheesecake and did some tweaks, so I began a search for a light alternative. Then I remembered Martha. That’s right, the woman who started it all for me and the very first baking book I bought offered salvation in a ricotta cheesecake *cue the angels singing with light shining down from the heavens*

(To appease the DB powers that be: The April 2009 challenge is hosted by Jenny from Jenny Bakes. She has chosen Abbey’s Infamous Cheesecake as the challenge.)  

Every day I look at cookbooks. I page through and wonder, “What do I want to make?” Not that my oven isn’t already full, but there’s always tomorrow. When contemplating this month’s DB adventure I vaguely remember coming across a drool-worth pic in Martha Stewart’s Baking Handbook for a ricotta cheesecake. The thought of ricotta didn’t necessarily jazz me, not that I have anything against ricotta but it never occurred to me to use it in a cheesecake. The key for me was the description of the cheesecake in the book, “Although rich, this cake is lighter than traditional cheesecakes because it calls for ricotta instead of cream cheese.” Sounds good to me. My stomach is appeased. Not only that, I didn’t have to worry about using some store-bought chemically laden cookies for a crust since the recipe didn’t call for one…a crust that is.

But hey, this is a Daring Bakers challenge right? This recipe is self-described as have a fifteen minute assembly time with no worry about crust preparation since there is none…where’s the daring in that? What could I add to a cheesecake to make it more daring? Some exotic fruit…big deal. Thanks to the interlibrary loan system, I was able to find inspiration in Bo Friberg’s Professional Pastry Chef. While perusing the pictures I came across a chèvre cheesecake topped with vanilla bean cream (pictured top right here). Great idea! My only issue was the cream was made with sour cream…another brick-in-the-stomach inducing substance for me. So what to do?

I’m not sure what made me think of panna cotta. It was probably a subconscious memory of yet another Martha concoction she highlighted last month on her show. I wish it was a conscious memory because then maybe I wouldn’t have run into any problems…more on those later. *ugh* Instead of using the vanilla bean cream on top, I thought it would be great to use vanilla bean panna cotta.

The last element I decided on was a fruit. Despite my desire to go for something unconventional like mango or apple, after going through all the fruits under the sun in my head, I gave in to the typical strawberry. It’s not that I’m not open to new flavors, but they were on sale. Cheap rules. I rounded the cheesecake agenda with a clear glaze, from the book Professional Baking, used to coat the strawberries. Thanks to a little ingenuity, what started out as a simple cheesecake turned into an elaborate production.

So I had everything planned out. But you know what they say about best laid plans…

I started with the cheesecake first, of course. This was probably the easiest part of my day. The only thing I think I would change is either making a smaller recipe or getting a larger cake keeper. I ended up having to use a 10 1/2 instead of a 9 inch pan because I was worried about fitting not only the cheesecake batter, but also the panna cotta in the pan. Once I finally had the cake finished I couldn’t cover it with anything because it was just way too big.

I got the pan prepared and decided to wrap it with aluminum foil even though the recipe didn’t call for a water bath. You’ll see later why this is a good idea. Then I mixed everything together but the egg whites, then beat those until they looked like the Himalayas. The next step was folding in those egg whites.

Pour everything into the pan and shove in the oven. An hour later I took a peak. I was looking at something that looked more like a soufflé than a cake. The cake had risen above the top of the pan. At this point I thought, there goes the panna cotta idea. Not only that, mine looked a heck of a lot darker and cracked than the one pictured in the book. My instincts were that the cake would sink when cooling and thankfully, this time, they were right. By the time I had taken the cake out of the oven and took this photo it had already sunk quite a bit and still had further to go.

Some of you may be saying that the idea of having a panna cotta topped cheesecake is something only to be found in some bizarro parallel universe, but I found out that I’m not the only one to think of this, which could have really come in handy during assembly if I was a smarter baker. After coming up with this idea on my little own-some, I discovered in the same Bo Friberg’s Professional Pastry Chef that gave me the idea to top it with something actually included a panna cotta topped cheesecake. In this case it was a recipe for a mascarpone cheesecake topped with cassis panna cotta. The cassis is credited to crème de cassis, a black currant liqueur. I was making a ricotta cheesecake with a vanilla bean panna cotta, but figured that the assembly instructions would essentially be the same.

The instructions in the book talked about using a strip of acetate to facilitate the panna cotta topping staying on top, but I didn’t have any acetate and frankly didn’t really know what he was getting at in how to use this implement at the time. I was rereading it just now, and I think I might have an idea on how to use it in the future. Here’s what it says, “Place a strip of acetate, 1 to 2 1/2 inches wide, around the inside perimeter of the cake, pressing it down 1/4 inch (6mm) between the baked cheesecake and the side of the pan.” I think I get it now, AND I think if I had used that I wouldn’t have ended up with a floating cheesecake, but more on that later.

So I whistled my way into the dark without the acetate and started the panna cotta recipe. Initially I was going to use the vanilla bean panna cotta recipe that was in Bo Friberg’s book. I’m not sure why, but when I saw that the recipe called for 7 cups of heavy cream I didn’t think twice. For some reason, I wasn’t born with any sense of measurement. My sense of direction isn’t too bad, but if you want me to tell you whether it’s one or fifty miles from my house to the local grocery store I really couldn’t tell ya. The same thing goes for cups, tablespoons, teaspoons, etc. It’s not as bad as my sense of distance, but it’s not far off. So 7 cups….it’s a lot, but it might as well have been 50. At least I thought better of it and decided to go with a half recipe. You really should be laughing by now because I am.

I measured out 3 1/2 cups of heavy cream and I started to get nervous. That’s a HUGE amount of heavy cream. And I’m supposed to add another cup of milk to that? No way! The milliliter conversion in the book (680 ml to 7 cups – ha!…you’ll see why in a moment) should have tipped me off that there was a big typo somewhere here, but I had no idea how many milliliters were in a cup (236 per cup by the way…ha! is right since the proper conversion should have been over 1652 ml). It took me maybe fifteen minutes of going back and forth between the kitchen, the book, and the computer to finally decide that this wasn’t going to work. A better baker would have realized the mistake and corrected the recipe herself, but I am not that baker. It was Professional Baking to the rescue. With measurements of quantities under 2 cups sounding more reasonable I was reassured.

As I had already wasted a bunch of time figuring out that I couldn’t work with the original recipe, I went with someone else’s. I don’t want to taint anyone’s opinion of this book, because it looks good otherwise and has great reviews to boot, but that was a bad mistake. Freaked me out. But you have to roll with the punches in the kitchen….if you can’t take the heat…as they say, and my cheesecake was getting cool.

According to Friberg’s book, I needed to let my “cake cool until it is just slightly warm; do not allow it to cool completely” before pouring the panna cotta on top. Time was a wastin’ and I needed to get this panna cotta show on the road. I found the use of gelatin to be another esoteric ingredient, which like yeast seems to possess magical properties. You’re in a situation where you know that you should end up with something resembling a solid once cool. The only thing required of you is trust that the element of gelatin will work its magic and turn the liquid you are stirring into a creamy solid. I was a bit lacking in the trust department, and kept waiting to see some mystical thickening process to take place. I waited so long that my cake was really quite cool by the time I put the concepts of cold and gelatin together and decided that I was going to have to dump the pot on the cake and just chill it already. So that’s what I did.

I’m not sure if it would have made a difference if the cake was on the warmer side in what happened. For the first 10 to 20 seconds everything appeared to be ok. It actually stayed on the top of the cheesecake and I breathed a sigh of relief as I got my camera and started taking pictures. Then it started to happen. The panna cotta mixture started to disappear.

Initially I thought that it was actually being absorbed by the cheesecake which was disconcerting. By this time I gave up on the idea of a success and just hoped that it tasted acceptable. Then the panna cotta was completely gone.

Or so I had thought. I took a bunch of pictures and decided to get this thing in the fridge so it could do whatever it was going to do. That was when I realize what happened to the panna cotta….it sunk to the bottom of the cheesecake. Yep, this is where that “floating cheesecake” comment comes into play. The cheesecake was floating on top of the panna cotta in the pan. I thought that it could work…hopefully. I wasn’t happy with the way the top looked, but if I could still get a layered look out of this cake I was happy. I couldn’t wait to see how it was going to turn out.

The next day I went to take the cheesecake out of the fridge to release it from the pan. This is about where I was really happy that I wrapped the pan in tin foil despite no water bath. I could feel it when I took the pan out of the fridge, the bottom was spongy. I knew that some of the panna cotta had seeped out of the pan. I pulled back the tin foil and found…

Not a good sign, but maybe it could still be salvaged. I pressed on and removed the sides of the pan to reveal…

Woo-hoo, it worked….sort of. It wasn’t exactly what I was going for, or what I expected but it still looked pretty cool. I wasn’t happy with the overall aesthetics, but ultimately the only thing that mattered was whether it tasted good. Still, I ended up throwing together some vanilla bean whipped cream to pipe all over the cake. The only thing I had left to do was a strawberry rehearsal and the glaze, before I could finish the assembly.

I finally got the thing put together in a visually pleasing assemblage. It was a ton of work, but I think the effect was worth it.

“How did it taste already?!” you ask. It was phenomenal! I never really liked cheesecake but this was fantastic. No brick in your stomach syndrome, just a light, almost custardy cloud in your mouth, and finally your stomach. And I loved the panna cotta and whipped cream with it. I’m glad that the panna cotta didn’t work out as planned because I might have not included the whipped cream and the three together were great. That said, if you don’t want to go to that much work, just make the cheesecake and you’ll still have a happy tummy.

So if you ever wondered if a cheesecake floats, I think this baking adventure answered that question. Here’s a slideshow with more pics of the process:

Ricotta Cheesecake with Vanilla Bean Panna Cotta, Whipped Cream, and Strawberries

Notes on assembly:
I’m going to repeat some of this later, but I thought I should give you a basic plan of attack from the beginning. Start with the cheesecake. Give the cheesecake a little time to cool down before you start the panna cotta because you don’t want it to be too hot when you pour it on. It’s up to you if you want the panna cotta on the top or bottom of the cheesecake.If you want it on the top you’ll have to use the acetate method, “Place a strip of acetate, 1 to 2 1/2 inches wide, around the inside perimeter of the cake, pressing it down 1/4 inch (6mm) between the baked cheesecake and the side of the pan.” I can’t vouch that it will work out as planned as I haven’t tried this myself. If you want your cheesecake to float and have the panna cotta on the bottom then I suggest letting the cheesecake cool completely before pouring the panna cotta on. I think that that probably contributed to the panna cotta going on the bottom.

Whatever you decide to do, once the panna cotta is on, chill the whole thing in the fridge for at least 4 hours or, preferably, overnight. The day you are going to serve this, I would slice up the strawberries next. I had two containers, but only used probably half of one. It’s a good idea to do a strawberry rehearsal of sorts. Basically on the bottom of a similarly sized pan, plan out the pattern of the slices. This way you know how it’s going to go when it’s time for placement on the cake, and you don’t have to worry if you have enough of the right size/shape of slices. Then put together the clear glaze for the strawberries. After that, it’s time to whip up the cream. You can just slather that on with a spatula, or fill up a piping bag with a star tip like I did and pipe your heart out. Once the cake is covered, dip your strawberry slices into the glaze, shake off the excess, and place in your rehearsed pattern on top of the cake. Congratulations! You’re done!

Ricotta Cheesecake

adapted from Martha Stewart’s Baking Handbook

3/4 cup sugar, plus more for pan
1 1/2 pounds fresh whole milk ricotta cheese, run through a blender or food processor until smooth
6 large eggs, separated
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt

Preheat the oven to 375 F. Generously butter and sugar a 10 1/2-inch springform pan. Wrap the outside bottom and sides of the pan with a double layer of aluminum foil. In a large bowl, whisk together the ricotta, egg yolks, flour, half the sugar, and salt until combined; set aside.

In another bowl, mix the egg whites on low speed until foamy. With the mixer on high speed, gradually add the remaining sugar, beating until whites are stiff and glossy, 3 to 4 minutes.

Using a rubber spatula, fold a third of the egg-white mixture into the ricotta mixture until combined. Gently fold in the remaining egg-white mixture until just combined. Pour into the prepared pan, and bake until center is firm and the top is a deep golden brown, about 1 hour.

Notes on assembly: Let the cheesecake cool a bit before starting the panna cotta.

If you’re just going to make the cheesecake without any of the other elements I have here follow these instructions: Transfer to a white rack to cool 10 minutes. Place another wire rack on top of the pan, and invert the cake onto the rack to remove from pan. Reinvert cake and cool completely, top side up.

Vanilla Bean Panna cotta

adapted from Professional Baking by Wayne Gisslen

1 1/4 cups milk
1 1/4 cups Heavy cream
1/2 cup  granulated sugar
2 1/2 teaspoons gelatin
1 vanilla bean, split and scraped

Heat the milk, cream, vanilla bean and sugar until the sugar is dissolved. Bring to a simmer. Remove from heat, and let stand for 10 minutes.

Soften the gelatin in cold water. Add the softened gelatin to the hot milk mixture and stir until dissolved. Strain the mixture and pour on top of the cheesecake. Allow to cool completely before chilling in the refrigerator for at least 4 hours, preferably, overnight.

Notes on assembly: You could slice the strawberries up now, but I would wait to do it right before you whip the cream. They’ll look better if they’re sliced the same day they’re served. Again, I suggest doing a placement rehearsal on the back of a pan.

Vanilla Whipped Cream

2 cups (16 oz) heavy cream
1/3 cup confectioners sugar (or to taste)
1 vanilla bean (or 1/2 tsp vanilla extract)

If you’re not using a vanilla bean you can skip this first step. Place cream in a bowl. Cut the vanilla bean in half lengthwise and scrape seeds into cream. Add bean to cream; whisk to combine. Cover mixture and refrigerate for 1 hour. Strain cream mixture into a chilled bowl.

Make sure the cream and all equipment and utensils are well chilled.

Beat the cream on medium until it forms soft peaks. Add the sugar (and vanilla extract if using). Continue to beat until the cream forms stiff peaks but is still smooth. Do not over-beat or the cream will become grainy and then separate to form particles of butter.

Notes on assembly: Once cheesecake has chilled, release sides of the pan from the cake. Cover the cake with the whipped cream using an offset spatula or a piping bag with your choice of tip, in my case it was the star tip.

Clear Glaze

adapted from Professional Baking by Wayne Gisslen

1/4 cup water
1/2 cup light corn syrup
1/4 cup granulated sugar

Mix the ingredients together and bring to a boil. Stir to ensure the sugar is completely dissolved. Apply while still warm but not hot.

Notes on assembly: By now you have your slices of strawberries all ready to go. Dip them in the glaze and place them in your chosen pattern on top of the cake. Enjoy!

Buongiorno! Megan of My Baking Adventures leads us to Italy, the land of Tiramisu with Dorie’s Tiramisu Cake. In an attempt to be faithful to the recipe, I’ve been all over town trying to find mascarpone cheese. My last ditch effort was at a natural food store on Tuesday, but no luck. I know some people have been able to find it at Publix, Walmart (gah!) even, but I did not. Thankfully I came across a great website that gives (somewhat cryptic at times) substitutions for mascarpone cheese, as well as others.  

The site is aptly named Cook’s Thesarus and really is a gold mine for those of you, like me, who have trouble find those (sometimes not so) difficult to find ingredients. The entry that was particularly helpful in my current conundrum was that for Fresh Cheese. You’ll find the substitutions for mascarpone cheese a little more than halfway down the page. There are a couple of options, but I chose to use ricotta since I had some left over from my DB cheesecake (which I still have to post!). I used around 7 ounces of ricotta, then got up to the 8 ounces with some whipped cream cheese. I added two tablespoons of heavy cream, and threw it all in the blender until smooth. It may have been a bit too smooth because my frosting was more of a dripping icing.

Obviously this recipe is a tiramisu inspiration, and not a strict illustration of the classic. You might imagine that the history of this Italian favorite stretches as far back as the French Madeleine. That’s what I thought until I did a little searching. It turns out tiramisu was born in the ripe old year of 1983 (approximately, some say ‘81, and others ‘71…talk about ancient).  As with the Madeleine, tiramisu has a hotly debated past. Some say it was in the watery alleyways of Venice, others somewhere in Greece, and the most credible seems to be credited to an Italian immigrant in Baltimore. Whatever happens to be the truth or what you choose to believe about its origins, tiramisu is a favorite enjoyed the world over.

This recipe called for using chocolate chips in the middle which kinda turned me off to the whole thing. I love chocolate chips, but I’m funny about textures and I can do without having a crunch to my cake. I decided to go with a dusting of cocoa powder. Then at the last second I was inspired to finely grate some chocolate to sprinkle on top of the cocoa powder. Good idea! It gave the needed extra chocolate flavor (to make up for an exclusion in the frosting) yet without the crunch.

I’ve been having sink trouble. The last two days the sink with the garbage disposal has been backed up (I’m getting a plunger specifically for the sink tomorrow…if anyone has any ideas for an unclogging operation I’m all ears!). The whole “state of the sink” was disturbing my calm the entire time I was trying to complete this cake. For the most part everything with the cake went fine, except when it came time to make the frosting. First off, no mascarpone, which no matter what you try and substitute it with doesn’t taste like mascarpone…go figure. Still, I’m thankful for the substitution ideas otherwise I wouldn’t have attempted this at all and I really enjoyed the cake.

I encountered my second problem when blending my cheese substitution…I got a little carried away. I could actually pour the frosting over the cake like a glaze. I don’t think it was supposed to have this kind of texture. My last snafu was an omission. When assembling the cake, you put some of the filling in the middle and save the rest to use as frosting for the outside of the cake. That went fine. However, when I came to the part of adding a tablespoon or so of the espresso extract to the filling to make the frosting, I almost forgot it. Actually, I had to make more since I had unintentionally thrown out what I had previously made. So I made some more. Then forgot to add it to the frosting. Oops. Good thing this cake calls for the coffee syrup otherwise it wouldn’t taste like coffee at all.

I don’t know what possessed me to make the TWD stencil. The process was easy enough. I printed the letters, cut them out with an Exacto, then placed them on top of the frosting and dusted away. I had some trouble getting the D off as you can see. Otherwise it was simple enough to make in a properly working kitchen. I strongly recommend giving it a try. Definitely a winner, without espresso flavored frosting and all.

You know the song in Alice In Wonderland, “A very merry un-Birthday to you!” Well, a very merry un-Iron Cupcake challenge to you! At least I’m going to try since I obviously did not make the deadline…yet again…this month. I still managed to get a cupcake designed and baked though, and that’s what the challenge is really all about right…baking cupcakes outside of the box!

I really wanted to branch out with this month’s Iron Cupcake flavor inspiration of soda pop. There are so many sodas to be had out there other than plain ‘ol cola…red apple, crushed melon, green tea, lavender…there’s even orange cola. Being the bohemian that I am, I wanted to experiment with one of the more uncommon flavors. My only problem was that I couldn’t find any of them available locally. Sorry dear reader, but I’m not going to make a special 45+ minute trip galavanting across Florida trying to find Kumquat soda. If I had had more foresight (which I should have by now) I would have known that I live in a proverbial no-man’s land whose only fizzy consolations come in plain Coke and Pepsi Co. flavors, and I could have simply ordered something unusual from somewhere exotic…like Scottsdale. *sigh* But I didn’t. So I was stuck with cherry.

The words, “She couldn’t decide,” should probably be engraved on my headstone when I go. I perused the gleaming shelves of the internet, eyes shinning with wonder of all the flavors to be had. Seriously though, it comes down to me being cheap. I reeeally didn’t want to pay the shipping for soda of all things. Soda should be on every corner, in every household, and available to all in every conceivable flavor…and then some. I actually came across a set of commemorative Thanksgiving Day sodas. I am not kidding. We’re talking Green Bean Casserole, Cranberry, Mashed Potatoes With Butter, and of course the ubiquitous Turkey & Gravy. This cornucopia of flavors didn’t really say, “Put me in a cupcake!”

Also, I got sidetracked by the egg cream. I guess I should say inspired, but the word “inspired” suggests visions of good things to come. Those visions turned out to be a mirage, and didn’t materialize. I actually made an old fashioned egg cream, which my Mom (a born and bread, native New Yorker herself, as am I!) thoroughly enjoyed, but I being from a younger generation didn’t have them same nostalgic feelings to warrant the calorie intake. Don’t get me wrong, they aren’t bad. They’d probably be wiz-bang great if I had better syrup than Hershey’s but I didn’t feel like making chocolate syrup from scratch. I attempted a small cupcake recipe using a homemade egg cream and the results were….well, kind of like playdough with the slightest hint of chocolate. I certainly couldn’t come to you all with chocolate playdough, so I finally gave in and used cherry. What goes better with cherry than chocolate, which wasn’t the easiest decision for me since while I’m a chocolate FREAK, I could pass on chocolate cake most times. White or yellow cake with a good chocolate frosting though….you better have the brick house otherwise this wolf will blow your house down for that cake.

The other problem I encountered was how the heck could I come up with a recipe for a cupcake that included soda as an ingredient….logistically speaking. In most cases, cooking is a more forgiving science that can be nudged and cajoled into becoming tasty. Baking on the other hand is more exacting and if you forget a teaspoons worth of something you end up with some nice paperweight cupcakes. Who knows what the heck is in soda that might wreck havoc on your tasty treat.

Believe it or not there are very few true recipes on the web for cake that includes soda as a main ingredient (well, at least until this challenge). Most of the recipes I came across were all for using cake mixes *gasp* So I was back to the drawing board. The nice people at Rose Levy Beranbaum’s Forum gave me waaaaay too much credit, thinking that I actually knew how to augment the amount of baking powder to the amount of acid in the soda. I looked through, what I thought was, every cookbook I have in the house trying to find a blueprint for my carbonated cake device. Even my two favorite cake books, Tish Boyle’s Cake Book and Rose Levy Beranbaum’s Cake Bible were barren of a decent blueprint. Keep in mind, this was all BEFORE I gave up on my quest for a far-out flavor of soda. Prior to resigning myself to cherry, I had been thinking of a white or yellow cake recipe. Once I accepted my fate of cherries and chocolate, wouldn’t ya know it, while trying to find a good buttercream recipe in the meantime, I discovered the resolution to my recipe quandary in Martha Stewart’s New Classics. Not only is there a recipe for chocolate cake, but also yellow cake that are perfect blueprints to use when experimenting with the bubbly.

The next step was frosting. I don’t know why I decided to do a buttercream but I did. I’ve had mixed results with buttercream. Every time (including this one) I’ve attempted it, it tastes like a lightly flavored sweet stick of butter. I like butter, but not that much. I have the book Professional Baking by Wayne Gisslen from the library and thought surely there would be a good Professional recipe that would taste divine since it was Professional. I will give you the recipe, but be forewarned that while a classic buttercream recipe, if you have taste buds like mine, well…these aren’t the buttercream droids you’re looking for. That said, I do think I can make a buttercream in the future that should do nicely for people who like butter, but not that much. Please see my notes in the recipe for some augmentations to make it a bit (and I mean a bit, this ain’t light baking after all) less artery hardening.

So, cupcake recipe…check. Frosting recipe….check. The elements of my design just didn’t seem to cut it as worthy of an Iron Cupcake. What could I sweeten the pot with (so to speak) to transform my plain Jane chocolate cherry concoction into an effervescent exaltation of cake. Why chocolate covered cherries of course! That’s right, I got a jar of maraschino cherries, covered them in chocolate, and dropped them in the batter. Yum!

I have to say that this is the best damn chocolate cake I ever tasted. I’m not a chocolate cake person, but this one made me a believer. The chocolate covered cherries are great, but this cake would be great all on it’s own. These cupcakes are best eaten the same day (I know it may be tough for some of you, but I know you can soldier on), although they have kept very well for a couple of days in the fridge. If you must refrigerate, take them out of the fridge about 20 minutes before you eat them. I think they’re better at room temperature.

Cherry Midnight Cupcakes

I’d start out this recipe by making the cherries, if using them. Please don’t go out and buy a box of those stick-a-big-spoon-o’-sugar-in-my-mouth concoctions that pass for chocolate covered cherries in the stores. While I haven’t tried dropping those in a cupcake, I think they would probably overpower the flavor of the cupcake. Either that or they’ll burst while baking and you’ll end up with some kind of mutated cupcake that dribbles cherry cream. The cherries are the easiest part of the recipe, so I do recommend making them yourself.

Chocolate covered cherries

3/4 cup chocolate (I used a combination of bittersweet and milk, but I think it’s really up to your tastes)
24 maraschino cherries (approx.)
(You will want to double this recipe if you want a lot of cherries in your cupcakes. I wish I had actually.)

Melt the chocolate over a double boiler. Evenly coat the cherries.

Place coated cherries on wax paper. You’ll see in the picture that I put mine on a dish, but after hardening they were tough to get off the dish, and not the wax paper (which I didn’t take a photo of). If you want to put them on a plate it’s not a huge issue, just be prepared to have to pry them off. Put the cherries in the refrigerator (I put mine in the freezer since I didn’t think about the fact that they needed to harden until I had already started my cake batter) to harden.

Chocolate and Cherry Soda Cake

(Adapted from Martha Stewart’s Basic Chocolate Cake recipe in her book The New Classics. This made 21 cupcakes for me.)
1 1/4 cups unsweetened cocoa powder
2 1/2 cups cake flour
2 1/2 cups sugar
2 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 1/4 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/4 teaspoons salt
2 large eggs plus 1 large egg yolk
1 1/4 cups room temperature cherry soda
1 1/4 cups buttermilk
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
Chocolate covered cherries (to taste)

Preheat the oven to 350F. Line your cupcake pan with liners.

Sift together the cocoa, flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, and salt in a mixing bowl. Add the eggs, yolk, soda, buttermilk, oil, and vanilla. Mix on low speed until smooth, about 3 minutes.

Scoop the batter into your cupcake liners. Cut up the cherries and drop a few pieces into each batter filled liner. Use a toothpick or a knife to push the cherries down a bit below the batter. Try not to push them down too much. (I only used one cherry, cut in half, in each cupcake. Next time I’ll probably put in two, so you may want to double that chocolate covered cherry recipe.) I left maybe a quarter inch from the top and these babies domed like giant mushrooms, which made it a wee difficult to make any kind of pretty flower pattern with icing. Next time I’d probably fill them a bit less so I can have more doming area for icing.

Bake, rotating the pans halfway through,until a cake tester inserted into the centers comes out clean, about 25 minutes. Let cool in the pans for 10 minutes then remove to cool completely.

Cherry Vanilla Buttercream

(I cobbled this recipe together from Martha’s vanilla buttercream recipe in The New Classics book, as well as a swiss buttercream recipe from the book Professional Baking)
1 1/4 cups sugar
1 vanilla bean
4oz egg whites (I think this is probably around 3 large egg whites. Do go with just 3 if only using 2 sticks of butter. If you want to use the full 3 sticks, then I’d do 4 egg whites.)
3 sticks of butter, softened (If you’re like me and don’t like to feel like you just frosted your cupcake with butter, then cut this down to 2-2 1/2 sticks.)
4 tablespoons of shortening
1 1/2 teaspoons of vanilla
1/2 cup maraschino cherry juice (or to taste)

You can do this first step in either a food processor or a blender. I did this in a blender. Drop the vanilla bean into the sugar after scraping the vanilla seeds into the sugar.  Process or blend this mixture until you can’t see any large chunks of bean left. Sift into a bowl, and discard any large pieces of vanilla. You’ll need to use a very fine mesh sieve for this. If you’d rather not do this step, then add more vanilla extract. Personally, I love seeing those little vanilla seeds throughout the frosting.

Place the egg whites and sugar in a stainless-steel bowl or in the top of a double boiler. Beat with a wire whip over hot water until the mixture is warm (about 120F).

Using either a hand mixer (what I have) or a standing mixer, whip at high speed until stiff peaks form and the meringue is completely cool.

Little by little, add the soft butter and continue to whip. Add each piece after the previous one has been incorporated. In the same way, whip in the shortening, if using, or the additional butter. When all the fat has been incorporated, whip in the vanilla and maraschino cherry juice. Continue to whip until the buttercream is smooth. (Forgot to take a pic of the finished frosting, sorry.)

There’s no big assembly instructions with these. Just frost and eat. Or not frost and eat. These were crazy good. I hope you give them a try!

I know I didn’t acknowledge Easter at all this month, so this is my little nod to the holiday. I actually scored this great cupcake stand at HomeGoods after Easter and had to use it for my pics.

Our TWD selection this week is brought to you by Holly of Phe/MOM/enon. It’s the 15 Minute Magic: Chocolate Amaretti Torte! The “15 minute magic” part really only applies if you have a food processor. If you are food processor-less, and as temporally challenged as I am then this may take you quite a bit longer. That being said, this was relatively easy to make.  

The first challenge I encountered when contemplating this torte was sourcing the Amaretti di Saronno cookies. I don’t remember how many stores I checked, but I couldn’t find any in my area. No big surprise there, but I was crossing my fingers and toes that I might get lucky…oh well. I did get lucky with some Scharffen Berger chocolate on ebay no less (SCORE!), but that story is for another time. Jennifer from Keep Passing the Open Windows was kind enough to supply everyone with a recipe for the cookies. Amanda from Amanda’s Cookin’ supplied the precise weight of cookies needed. This is what I love about the TWD group…everyone is uber helpful! I really need to get more involved!

Please forgive the slideshow, but I really loved the way this turned out. I couldn’t stop taking pictures. I know, I make myself sick.

If you search around you’ll see a plethora of amaretti cookie recipes. I have a feeling that mine didn’t come out quite right, but they worked for the torte at least. Out of the oven the cookies were great, but given a day or two, they turned into something you might want to use when building a house. Maybe they’re supposed to turn into rock after a day? Somehow I doubt any successful recipe is supposed to turn into a rock after a day, but denial can be a wonderful thing. Now these beauties done by Amanda look NOTHING like the ones I made. They look delicate and beautiful, while mine on the other hand are worthy of violence. But hey, the torte came out fine so who cares. Right?? The only thing I can remember doing differently (other than doing this in a blender rather than a food processor) is I rolled mine in sugar, rather than sprinkle it on.

If you decide  to make this, know that you will need 2.75 ounces of cookie for the recipe. For those of you who are decrying the measurement given by weight….get a scale! Seriously. If you’re passionate about baking, then get one. Once you have one, experiment with measuring out a cup of flour a couple of times and you’ll see how the “dip and sweep” method can really screw your recipe over.

One thing I wanted to note was how to tell the done-ness of the cake. Dorie says to bake it for 25 to 30 minutes. My oven seems to be a gremlin from hell and while a few things actually get overdone once in awhile (don’t ask me why, that’s the reason for calling it a gremlin), it almost always takes at least an extra third of the original time extra. In this particular case it took an extra 10 minutes. BUT, this is my freak oven, so when baking this in your, hopefully angelic, oven check the thing after 25. Dorie did add the caveat to the 25 to 30 minutes of, “or until a thin knife inserted into the center of the cake comes out almost clean.” I used a toothpick. This is when I took it out of the oven:

Dorie also mentioned that the cake, “will dome slightly and the top will look dry; it might even crack.”

What she doesn’t realize is that almost every cake I bake domes, and generally it’s more than slightly. Of course there’s the odd disaster as well, but we don’t really want to remember that. Let’s focus on the positives, and this time according to the directions my cake turned out as planned because after Dorie describes what normally is considered grounds for harakiri in cake-dom, she says, “don’t worry” and she was right. Woo-hoo!

Speaking of positives, this is my first successful enrobe-ment! I have never been able to cover anything with chocolate neatly. My experience has always ended as a partially covered item that I later try to patch up while the chocolate is hardening before my eyes, only to give up and go for that messy, spikey look. I believe I owe my current success to two things. One, I decided to make an extra half of the recipe. This extra half gave me a little more product to work with in that initial pouring stage. And two, Dorie provided a great recipe for the glaze. It poured beautifully and didn’t set up too fast so I could pour a little more where needed. So, if you haven’t had any success with pouring a chocolate glaze over your cakes in the past like I have, try Dorie’s recipe and making a little extra while you’re at it. One thing to note about the recipe – follow it. Go figure. I did not. That’s why I have those little air bubbles in the chocolate, not that it mattered for me in the final result, but if you were looking for the glistening chocolate lake effect then you definitely should follow the recipe exactly. See, I didn’t wait for that full minute after pouring the cream over the chocolate. I just started stirring away like a monkey on a drum. I ended up have some tiny chunks of chocolate that were refusing to melt. I decided to get out my whisk, which solved the bits of unmelted chocolate issue, but introduced a chocolate bubble conundrum. A more patient person would have thought to give the glaze a rest for a few minutes to work the bubbles out itself, but….I guess I’m not a very patient person. Hence the bubbles.

I didn’t get the idea of decorating the top of the cake the way I did from Dorie. While she does recommend sprinkling the top of a slice with crushed amaretti or toasted almonds, she doesn’t mention anything as time consuming as what I decided to do. I actually got the idea from another cookbook, Pure Chocolate by Fran Bigelow. She has a recipe for a bitter almond chocolate tart (that I’ve never made) that’s decorated much more beautifully than my torte. She must have some kind of special sliced almond hunting squirrel’s like Willy Wonka because I had trouble find enough “pretty” slices to cover my torte. Even with some defective almond slices I still think it’s one of the prettiest things I’ve ever made.

You will want to make some kind of creamy accoutrement for this dessert. It is rich as hell and you will want some kind of milk product to chase the chocolate with. I chose a improv-ed vanilla whipped cream. I took a cup of heavy cream and added a couple of tablespoons of homemade vanilla syrup. There’s probably a better, more professional way to make vanilla whipped cream, all bespeckled with vanilla seeds but I was in a rush and the syrup was handy. If you don’t want to go to all that trouble, then a nice vanilla ice cream would work.

So to sum up, this will satisfy the chocolate freak in your family, but make sure you supply the milky chaser or they will feel like they entered that milk commercial with the guy in Hell.

At the beginning of March I had great plans and was really getting into a groove. One of those was a concoction for March’s Iron Cupcake theme of Nuts and Seeds. I came, I baked, but again did not conquer because I was unable to get my post up before the 24th. Oh well.

When contemplating the theme, while hazelnuts certainly tugged on my tongue it was lemon that tenaciously stalked my taste buds. For some reason I’ve had citrus on the brain for a couple of weeks now. This predilection wasn’t chastened with March’s Tuesdays With Dorie selection of the French Yogurt Cake, which optioned making it a layer cake with lemon curd. But what to do with a lemon on your mind when you need a nut or seed? Turn to poppy seeds of course!

Now I can’t create a recipe from scratch to save my life so I turned to my trusty books. Thankfully I still had Tish Boyle’s The Cake Book from the library. I think this is probably the best cake book I’ve ever come across although I do like Nick Malgieri’s Perfect Cakes a whole lot too.

The only lemon poppy seed recipe in Tish’s book was one for a pound cake that just wasn’t going to work for me as a cupcake. Thankfully Tish didn’t leave my proverbial lemon twisting in the wind. Her “Lemon Lust” cake seemed to fit the bill of a soft-crumbed, airy delight that would respond well to the cupcake format. I decided to use the cake layers from this recipe as a foundation. Essentially it’s the same recipe except for the addition of a couple of tablespoons of poppy seeds.

Now you may be thinking to yourself, lemon poppy seed…meh, big deal. To be honest with you, the whole inspiration of going with something lemon at all was the lemon curd that I had added to my French Yogurt Cake. I can’t tell you how many batches of the stuff I went through between the cake and these cupcakes, but I have at least three containers of left-over egg whites floating around in my fridge as evidence, and that’s after using two batches worth for the fluffy meringue frosting. I’m addicted. Seriously, I can’t make lemon curd anymore otherwise you’ll soon be hearing about an egg shortage on the news. That and I’ll need a chainsaw to widen the door to my house so I can leave.

Lemon curd was always the best thing about any lemon meringue pie I’ve ever attempted. I say attempted because I’ve yet to have a success. Alton Brown’s recipe is pretty much the standard for me mainly because of the flavor if not the consistency. If you are intent on making a pie with this curd, make sure you cook the hell out of it. The version I’m including here is for one that results in a creamier texture, not suitable for cutting into slices, unless you like your pie slice to run for the border of your dish. Still, if you follow Alton’s recipe exactly you would get lemon soup, that while is delicious requires a bowl and spoon to eat. Be warned. The technique I use in this particular version won’t hold well as a slice, but won’t leak out of your cupcake either.

One thing to note, I halved the cake (NOT the curd or frosting) recipe when I made it. I ended up with 10 cupcakes exactly (although one was a wee short). Given that, this recipe should make about 20 cupcakes, or at the very least 19. I believe that the lemon curd and frosting recipes as given should be able to cover a full recipe of the cake, as I had a TON of curd and frosting leftover (I didn’t mind though!) after filling and frosting my 10 cupcakes. One nice thing about the combination of lemon curd and meringue frosting recipes, is that neither egg yolk or white will go to waste since each recipe requires the other.

Lemon Poppy Seed Cake:

3 cups (12oz/342g) cake flour
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons poppy seeds (or 4 if you like) when I halved the recipe I include two tablespoons which I found to be a bit much, but you might not that’s why I included using 4 as an option
1 cup (2 sticks/8oz/227g) unsalted butter, softened
1 3/4 cup (12.3oz/350g) granulated sugar
4 large eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 teaspoons finely grated lemon zest
1/4 cup (60ml) strained freshly squeezed lemon juice
2/3 cup (160ml) whole milk

Position a rack in the center of the oven and preheat the oven to 350 F. Line your pan with cupcake liners.

Sift together the cake flour, baking powder, salt, and poppy seeds into a medium bowl. Whisk to combine, and set aside.

In the bowl of an electric mixer, using the paddle attachment, beat the butter at medium speed until creamy, about 30 seconds. OR, if you are standing mixer-less just beat with your trusty handheld. Gradually add the sugar and beat at high speed until well blended and light, about 3 minutes. Scrape down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula. Reduce the speed to medium and add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition and mixing until blended. I probably beat the mix for at least 30 seconds after each egg addition. Add the vanilla extract. Beat in the lemon zest and lemon juice until blended. Reduce the speed to low and add the flour mixture in three additions, alternating it with the milk in two additions and mixing just until blended. Spoon the batter into the prepared pans, dividing it evenly.

Bake the cupcakes for 20 to 25 minutes, until they are golden brown around the edges. Cool the cakes in the pan for 15 minutes then remove from pan and cool to room temperature.

Lemon Curd:

4 egg yolks (reserve whites for meringue)
1/3 cup cornstarch
1 1/2 cups water
1 1/3 cups sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons butter
1/2 cup lemon juice

For those of you who would like to try this in a pie, see italicized instructions interspersed.
Whisk egg yolks in a medium bowl and set aside.

In a medium saucepan, combine cornstarch, water, sugar, and salt. Whisk to combine. Turn heat on medium and, stirring frequently, bring mixture to a boil.

Once it starts to boil, this is how it will start to look.

This is the next stage after the initial boil

Boil mixture for two minutes (not less, if it’s a bit more no big deal), whisking constantly. It will have reached the proper stage once it looks kind of like a thick melted plastic. IGNORE THE FOLLOWING 2 SENTENCES IF MAKING CUPCAKES: If using in a pie boil for at least three minutes, still whisking constantly. You’ll want to whisk it at the thick melted plastic consistency for at least a minute.

Ready to temper egg yolks.

At this point you’ll want to remove the mixture from the heat. One whisk-full at a time, add hot mixture to egg yolks and stir until you have added at least a third of the mixture. Pour the egg mixture into the saucepan.

Egg yolk mixture into saucepan.

Bring to a slight simmer. Turn heat down to low and cook, whisking constantly, for another two minutes. IGNORE THE FOLLOWING SENTENCE IF MAKING CUPCAKES: If using in a pie, cook for at least three minutes.

Using a rubber spatula add the lemon juice and butter.

USE A RUBBER SPATULA! for this part.

Mix on low heat until the butter has completely melted and become incorporated into the mix. Continue stirring with the spatula for another minute to two minutes.

Ready to cool.

Transfer mix into a heat proof bowl and cool to room temperature. If not using immediately, refrigerate in an airtight container. IGNORE THE FOLLOWING SENTENCE IF MAKING CUPCAKES: If using in a pie, pour mixture directly into pie shell half-baked or otherwise depending on your recipe.

Finished curd.

Meringue Frosting:

4 large egg whites
Large pinch of salt
1 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup light corn syrup

Half fill a saucepan with water and bring to a boil over medium heat. Combine the egg whites, salt sugar, and corn syrup in the bowl of an electric mixer and whisk by hand, just to mix together.

Initial mixture.

Regulate the heat under the pan of water so that it boils gently and place the bowl on the pan. Whisk gently just to keep the mixture moving until it is hot (about 130 F/55 C) and all the sugar is dissolved.

Ready to use electric mixer.

Place the bowl on the mixer with the whisk and whip the icing until it has cooled and become white and fluffy. It should hold extremely stiff peaks.

Finished frosting.

To assemble:

Once the cupcakes have cooled you can fill them with lemon curd a number of ways. I chose to actually cut the middle of the cupcake out, fill with lemon curd, then replace a portion of what I removed on top.

Filled cupcake.

Filling cupcakes.

Cover with frosting and you should be good to go. The cake, curd, and frosting together is a fantastic blend of flavors that my entire family really enjoyed, and this inludes my more finicky cousin.

Filled and frosted cupcakes.

GOOD GRIEF! Hello all. I’m so sorry for the delay. The accursed state of my blog for the past month has been due to some mysterious issue that has yet remained a mystery despite being magically fixed with the latest version of code from DiyThemes. According to the Thesis theme creator, “your server is handling URL-based variables differently than pretty much everyone else’s server that I’ve ever encountered”…lucky me. Unfortunately this isn’t the first time that I’ve blighted with a rare problem that afflicts an astronomically limited number of the populous. The week-long eyes-glued-to-the-computer-screen bender I endured in an attempt to fix my blog produced a copious amount of stress that triggered a spondylitis episode that left me nearly bedridden for the last couple of weeks. Arthritis sucks. I’ve had it since I was 18, and let me tell you it isn’t any easier to deal with before your 65.

So, that’s the reason for the crazy delay in posting. Shesh, I’ve got to stop writing posts like this. I know prior to this last pause in posting I was finally feeling like I was getting into a groove, and almost caught up with where I wanted to be with the blog. Oh well. Sorry about that. If at first (or second, or third, or fourth, or…) you don’t succeed try, try again right??

But I digress, you came here to hear about this intriguing cake from Dorie that apparently is a staple in the repertoire of every family in France. This selection is brought to you by Liliana of My Cookbook Addiction. According to both Chocolate & Zucchini and Foodbeam, in France this is most likely the first cake that you are taught as a child.

I believe that the traditional recipe is for a simple, unadorned cake which is what is given in Dorie’s book. Dorie being the outside-of-the-box kind of lady she is, did provide a “Playing Around” option for a layer cake that I decided to try. Alton Brown’s lemon curd along with Nick Malgieri’s fluffy white icing rounded out my experiment. (If you want the recipes, stay tuned for my Iron Cupcake-but-not post later this week.)

Chocolate & Zucchini describes the cake as, “a fluffy, cloud-like and moist affair, not too sweet…” I guess my lack of French genes is showing again because while I had a not too sweet moist affair, fluffy and cloud-like it was not. The cake tasted fine enough, although not sweet enough for me, go figure. The lemon curd and icing made up for it though. My only issue was that it tended to sit like a rock in my stomach after eating. Mom loved it though and couldn’t get enough. Maybe I don’t have a refined enough palate, or perhaps (and most likely) I did something wrong yet again.

Just wanted to give everyone a heads up that my blog is having a problem (in case you haven’t noticed). What you are viewing is not supposed to be the norm for the blog. The font is incorrect as well as mini-me sized. I’m trying to work with my theme developer to fix the problem. If anyone is a tech guru, my blog is in fact supposed to be in Helvetica, and my post headers (of course) should be displayed in a larger point than the body. I have no idea why this is happening. Hopefully it will be resolved soon. Until then, (please) stay tuned…

My first true visual disaster in a Daring Bakers challenge. Who knew that I could screw up a three ingredient recipe? What you see here is actually an illusion. I know, it looks pretty appetizing (at least I think so). However, I had to perform radical surgery to get the cake to look so appealing. Despite that fact, I am IN LOVE with the taste of my visually disastrous cake. I have to add that while I love the cake, the coconut ice cream (recipe below) and strawberries really put this dessert over the top.

The February 2009 challenge is hosted by Wendy of WMPE’s blog and Dharm of Dad ~ Baker & Chef. We have chosen a Chocolate Valentino cake by Chef Wan; a Vanilla Ice Cream recipe from Dharm and a Vanilla Ice Cream recipe from Wendy as the challenge.

While our hosts were kind enough to include two recipes for vanilla ice cream, we had the freedom to choose any flavor our little hearts desired. As luck would have it I just picked up Dessert FourPlay (nudge, nudge, wink, wink, say no more! Sorry, but I couldn’t help the Monty Python reference) by Johnny Iuzzini. While perusing this tome of sugar porn, the stars aligned, doves took flight and silver trumpets rang out when I came across a DIVINE recipe for coconut ice cream. It was meant to be. Thoughts of tropical islands, Polynesian gods, and creamy coconut ignited my imagination and the genesis of a rich chocolate, coconut and strawberry confection was conjured in my mind’s eye.  

The instructions we were given mentioned that, “the finished cake will taste exactly like the chocolate you use.” I went with a conglomeration of favorite chocolates (that I can buy locally).

I included 2 bars of Lindt Milk Chocolate, 1 bar of Green & Black’s 70% Dark Chocolate, approximately half a bar of Cadbury Milk Chocolate, what was left of a bag of Green & Black’s Milk Chocolate, and I made up the rest of the weight with Guittard Milk Chocolate chips. I’m sure that there’s some pastry chef out there laughing his/her ass off from reading this list, but I never said I was a professional.

Everything melted beautifully and tasted pretty darn good considering the mutant-style mixture I came up with. The batter came together with no apparent problems, “apparent” being the operative word here. A couple of pan options were thrown out by our hosts, but I decided to go with a plain round, since I thought it would be easy to unmold. I also decided to throw a bit of the batter in a diminutive loaf pan, with hopes of creating some sugar porn of my own.

If someone could please explain to me what went sooooo wrong with this cake I would love you for it. I realize that some other people had some trouble with some dipping in their cake. A few people even referenced the word “crater“, but mine actually collapsed into itself like the house at the end of Poltergeist, a radical difference in my opinion. Just look at the small one.

Besides a possible poor selection (ha!) of chocolate, I think it was at the point of baking where I also may have gone wrong. The instructions were to bake for 25 minutes in a 375ºF oven, or until an instant read thermometer reads 140ºF. Lacking an instant read thermometer (curses!) I had to go by the time. I decided to peek in at around 20 minutes. Low and behold both pans had a balloon of chocolate cake rising toward the heavens. I’ve run into this problem before, but generally only when I’ve filled my cake pan to the gills with batter. I followed the instructions and only filled my pans 3/4 of the way full. Still, I had my beautiful balloons.

I waited another 5 minutes and checked again, and the balloons had already deflated some. I shut the oven off and left the pans in for another 5 or so minutes praying for the best. By the time I actually removed the pans each had already started to crater. After waiting the required 10 minutes before removing the cake from the pans, they had collapsed in on themselves completely as you saw in the small loaf. The larger round cake was more of like a plateau surrounded by the grand canyon.

The vision before my eyes at that moment caused a similar collapse of pride in my baking skills and I was at a loss for what to do. I thought, “Well, I suppose I’ll get them out of these pans and see if they settle into a more pleasing shape of some sort.” What started out as a disappointment rapidly turned into a disaster when I foolishly tried to remove the cake from the pan. I was still reacting to my bruised ego, and wondering “Where did it all go so wrong?” to myself when I completely lost my head and just flipped the pan over in an attempt to remove my cake catastrophe from the pan.

Despite its misshapen appearance, the cake tastes pretty good. I probably should have let the cake cool completely in the pan before attempting removal. Also, I would probably only make this cake in a springform or removable bottom pan in the future. It will make it much easier to remove. I realize that some people actually got a cake-looking cake rather than a collapsed torte (if any of you are reading, tell me your secret!), but for those of you who don’t seem to have the cake-looking-flourless-chocolate-cake skill then it’s pans with removable bottoms all the way. All that being said, check out these cross section pics. I tried to capture the beautiful color. It almost looks like there are layers.

I had to include a pic of it in the sunlight. Look how it shimmers!

While those pictures are great, due to the unattractive condition of my cake as a whole, I wracked my brain for an agreeable plating concept to display my creation. What did I come up with? Coconuts. That’s all I came up with. Coconuts. I went out and bought one. Unfortunately I bought a bad one, so I couldn’t actually eat it, which was what I was planning on doing with my tasty prop after I was finished with it.  I was wondering why I had a HELL of a time getting the damned thing to split in half properly. I believe it was due to said “bad-ness” but who knows. Coconuts are notoriously hard nuts to crack. Yes, a coconut is in fact a nut. Don’t break out the nutcracker just yet though, according to some botanists, it’s also a fruit (or a dry drupe, but it depends on the botanist your run into). Apparently nuts fall under the fruit umbrella because they are the part of a plant that carries the seeds, the coconut being the seed…the whole thing. So, grains are even considered fruits. Weird huh? That really puts the whole food pyramid (or is it stepladder now) the USDA touts out of whack.

I was looking at the thing in the supermarket wondering how the heck I was going to split it open so I could use it as serveware. I decided to check the handy-dandy internet for advice. Turns out I’m not the only one in need of a good nut-cracking technique (get your minds out of the gutter!) because there were several articles written up as well as videos on the subject. I feel the one I’m including here gives the best explanation of what to do, but I would suggest using the back of a hammer, unless you have the knife of Thor, God of Thunder, and the strength to match. I finally resorted to the hammer after banging on my coconut with the back of my crummy cleaver for about 10 minutes without making a dent. It still didn’t really want to break open, but I do think it was due to the bad nature of my coconut and not necessarily the technique.

While I didn’t end up plating the whole dessert in the coconut, I did take a few snaps of the coconut ice cream melting in it.

So there you have it folks. I hope I’ve provided you with some semi-informative ramblings on how you too can screw up a three ingredient recipe. One thing that did come out beautifully in every way was the ice cream. The Daring Bakers were kind enough to include a link to David Lebovitz’s instructions on how to make ice cream without an ice cream maker which came in handy since that’s another item my kitchen is lacking. The only thing I would add to his instructions are be prepared to spend more than 3 hours finishing this stuff. Maybe it’s my freezer, but it took me a heck of a lot longer. I think I’d probably mix it every 45 minutes in the future rather than half hour. Enjoy!

Coconut Ice Cream

(from Dessert FourPlay by Johnny Iuzzini)

1 1/2 cups plus 1 tablespoon (372 G) Whole milk
3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons (210 G) Heavy cream
1/2 cup plus 1 tablespoon (45 G) Nonfat milk powder
2 tablespoons (30 G) Invert sugar (see below for recipe – woops, forgot it! Don’t stone me! I’m adding it now.)
4 teaspoons (24 G) Light corn syrup
1/4 cup plus 3 tablespoons (90 G) Granulated sugar
3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons (225 G) Canned coconut milk

Set up an ice bath in a large bowl.

Put the milk, cream, milk powder, invert sugar, corn syrup, and granulated sugar in a saucepan and bring to a simmer over medium-high heat, stirring to dissolve the milk powder and sugar. Bring to a boil. Mix with an immersion blender and pour into a medium bowl. Set into the ice bath and chill completely, stirring often. Add the coconut milk and mix thoroughly with the immersion blender. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight for the flavors to mature.

Freeze in an ice cream maker (or if you don’t have an ice cream maker follow instructions here). Pack into a plastic container and freeze for at least 2 hours before serving.

Some Tips For Making Ice Cream and Sorbets
* Make the base the day before for all the infused ice creams and sorbets. That way the flavors have a chance to ripen and develop in the refrigerator overnight.
* Make sure the base is very cold before you start churning it in your ice cream maker.
* For best results, churn the ice cream or sorbet the morning you plan to serve it. These ice creams and sorbets should cure in the freezer for at least 2 hours before serving, but they will be at their best when they’ve had a few more hours in the freezer.
* Move the ice creams and sorbets to the refrigerator 10 minutes before serving, so they soften a little before you scoop them.

Invert Sugar

2 1/4 cups (450 G) Sugar
1 cup less 1 tablespoon (225 G) Water
2 teaspoons (10 G) Fresh lemon juice

Combine the sugar, water, and lemon juice in a small saucepan. Bring almost to a boil over high heat. Reduce the heat and cook at an active simmer for 30 minutes. If you taste the mixture at this point (careful, it’s hot!), there should be no hint of acidity.

Transfer to a heatproof jar and let cool completely before using. Store in the refrigerator. Like simple syrup, it lasts for months in the fridge. Invert sugar creates a smoother texture and softer mouth-feel in ice creams, sorbets and other frozen desserts. It helps the ice cream from becoming too dense and rock hard.

I’ve been thinking about doing an Iron Cupcake challenge for awhile now, and I couldn’t resist this month’s flavor, coffee. I can’t promise something every month especially since I’m not exactly great at following someone else’s recipes, let alone tinkering with my own. Despite that fact I think I created a yummy little cupcake, if I may say so myself.

Some of you may be asking, “What praytell is an ‘Iron Cupcake’?” Well, it is a challenge in which, “bakers from anywhere, all over the world, to take place in the ultimate flavor challenge and promote world peace, one cupcake at a time.” The way it works is there’s a flavor picked every month and you take that flavor as your inspiration to create culinary bliss inside your mouth through the medium of…a cupcake. But wait there’s more! You can win stuff too! Here’s the booty:

Our February ETSY PRIZE-PACK is from artists:
* something to warm your cupcake heart by DIANA EVANS
* as well as a pair of cupcake earrings from LOTS OF SPRINKLES.
* PLUS, IronCupcake:Earth can not forget our good friend, CAKESPY, who is now going to be doing a piece for our winner each month until further notice – sweet!
As an added bonus for February, SWEET CUPPIN CAKES BAKERY AND CUPCAKERY SUPPLY will be tossing in a variety of cupcaking supplies.
Last and certainly not least, don’t forget our corporate prize providers: HEAD CHEFS by FIESTA PRODUCTS, HELLO CUPCAKE by Karen Tack and Alan Richardson, JESSIE STEELE APRONS, TASTE OF HOME books, a t-shirt from UPWITHCUPCAKES.COM. Iron Cupcake:Earth is sponsored in part by 1-800-Flowers. All voting in the Iron Cupcake challenge takes place at No One Puts Cupcake in a Corner. Voting ends March 6th.

When I contemplated attempting this challenge, I concluded that a cupcake template would be required. I don’t have the first clue as to how much baking powder versus soda versus what-the-heck-ever is require to create a tasty cake, so some kind of blueprint was in order. I searched every book in my house to no avail. Thank God for the internet! I must give a tip of the hat to vanilla sugar for her Cinnamon Espresso Cake. While I changed the recipe quite a bit, it was from her foundation that I was able to include one of my favorite ingredients….brown butter!

I apologize for not being more diligent in taking note of how long these suckers took to be baked, but just give it ten minutes, rotate the pan, another ten, then start checking with a toothpick to see if they’re done every five minutes or so.

One thing I was happy to find in The Cake Book by Tish Boyle (FAB book!) was a recipe for caramel espresso buttercream frosting. The only think I changed there was I halved the recipe, except for the amount of espresso. After trying this experiment, I suggest you use half the amount (so just follow the recipe I include here as written). Tish had it right and the extra espresso was a bit too overpowering when it was atop a double-shot cupcake.

The cupcake alone was fantastic. Without the frosting, the brown butter flavor really came through and was balanced by the coffee. The addition of the frosting made the coffee flavor a bit too overpowering for me, so next time I’ll either follow Tish’s recipe exactly or maybe even choose a different flavor of frosting. If you are a freak for coffee flavor then you will lose your mind over these. My Mom, a freak for coffee, was raving.

Double-Shot Espresso Brown Butter Cupcakes:

1   3/4 cup cake flour
2   tsp baking powder
1   1/3 cup sugar
3/4   cup half and half
2   eggs
2   tablespoons instant espresso
1/8   tsp kosher salt
1   tsp vanilla
9   tablespoons butter (browned)

Preheat oven to 350ºF. Line your cupcake pan with liners.

Brown the butter: In a small saucepan heat butter over medium high heat til completely melted, all the while swirling the pan. Lower the heat to around medium and keep swirling the pan until the milk solids turn a reddish brown color. You should also be able to smell a nutty aroma from the butter. This process may take about ten minutes. Don’t forget to keep swirling the pan. Once the butter has browned, strain through a cheesecloth or extremely fine sieve. I go into more detail about my success and failure with browned butter in this post.

In a large mixing bowl, sift together the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and espresso powder.

In a separate bowl whisk the half & half, eggs, and vanilla.

Whisk the egg mixture into the flour until almost combined. Using a rubber spatula, fold in the browned butter until the batter is smooth and all the butter has been incorporated.

Scoop batter into cupcake liners. I had enough for exactly twelve cupcakes, with a bit lick from the bowl left over.

Now here comes the tricky part. Unfortunately I wasn’t as vigilant about the amount of time I left these suckers in the oven. I believe they only took about twenty minutes, maybe twenty five. One way or another, in my oven I have to rotate the pan approximately halfway through baking otherwise I won’t have an evenly baked product. I would advise you to do the same.

I know I baked them for ten minutes and rotated. Then after another ten (maybe fifteen?) minutes I started checking to see if they were done. You’re looking for a toothpick to come out clean

Cool the cupcakes in the pan for 10 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack.

Caramel Espresso Buttercream:

(Again, this recipe can be found in The Cake Book by Tish Boyle. I halved the recipe because I just didn’t need five cups of buttercream. You should have more than enough to ice the twelve cupcakes.)

1/2   cup plus 2 tablespoons of firmly packed dark brown sugar (I used light brown, because I’m not crazy about molasses)
1/2   cup plus 2 tablespoons of heavy cream
1/4   cup light corn syrup
1/8   teaspoon salt
2   large eggs
2   sticks unsalted butter, slightly softened
1   teaspoons vanilla extract
1/2   tablespoon espresso powder, dissolved in 1 tablespoon hot water

In a medium saucepan, combine the sugar, heavy cream, corn syrup and salt to cook over medium high heat, stirring constantly until the sugar is dissolved. Stop stirring and increase the heat to high.

Meanwhile in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with te whisk attachment, begin beating the eggs at medium speed. When the sugar syrup reaches 225ºF on a candy thermometer, increase the speed of the mixer to high. Continue to cook the sugar syrup until it reaches 238ºF.

Remove the pan from the heat and with the mixer off, immediately pour about 1/4 cup of the hot syrup over the beaten eggs. Beat at high speed until blended, about 10 seconds. Turn the mixer off and add another 1/4 cup syrup. Beat at high speed for another 10 seconds. Repeat this process until all the syrup is used. Using a rubber spatula, scrape down the sides of the bowl, then beat at medium high speed until the egg mixture is completely cool, about 5 minutes. When you touch the mixing bowl, it should be cold.

At medium speed, beat in the butter, 1 tablespoon at a time. Add the vanilla extract and coffee mixture, increase the speed to medium high and beat the buttercream until it is smooth and shiny, about 4 minutes.

The buttercream can be stored in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 6 hours, or refrigerate for up to a week; bring to room temperature before using.