Daring Bakers: Cheesecake

The April 2009 challenge is hosted by Jenny from Jenny Bakes. She has chosen Abbey's Infamous Cheesecake as the challenge.

This post is bare-bones for now... alls I can say is WOW was this cheesecake easy, amazing, and will be made again. Has already been made again, actually... more later.

Easter: Deviled eggs

This post comes after a weekend of holiday cooking, first for Passover and then for Easter. I love both holidays, and will share with you one of my favorite recipes.

Lemon-Dill Deviled Eggs:

This recipe is an amalgam of the many deviled egg recipes I found on the web, which are all variations on the same theme:
eggs+mustard+mayo+anything else= YUM.

I'm including some of my own cooking philosophy here, too: The appeal of deviled eggs is the taste and the uniform look, in equal proportions. Luckily, the egg makes this pretty easy for the chef, since it's white with a smooth texture.

However, there is some technique here.




The two tricky parts are The Boiling of The Egg and The Piping of The Filling.

I'd say don't even bother making the eggs if you don't pipe the filling... Why go to all the effort of peeling a dozen eggs if you are just going to shlopp in the filling with a spoon? I mean, the taste will be the same, but you are only selling yourself short.

The recipe:

1 dozen eggs+ 2 (old are best! easier to peel!) Why plus one? Well... stuff happens. Boil yourself two extra eggs, just in case one bursts during boiling, or cracks while you peel it, or looks funny when you cut it.
1 teaspoon mustard
1/3 cup mayo
1/2 teaspoon lemon juice
zest from 1 lemon
1/4 teaspoon ground pepper
3 tablespoons chopped dill
paprika, preferably smoked, for garnish

1. Boil the eggs: Put your eggs in the bottom of a pot. Add water to cover them 1 inch. Add 1 teaspoon salt to the water. Heat the water till it simmers, then keep it simmering for 10 minutes. DON'T overcook these puppies, you want the filling to be creamy, not dry. Using tongs, remove eggs to a bowl of ice water, let sit until they feel cool to your touch.

2. Peel the eggs. Tip: on the flatter end of the egg, there is usually an air pocket. This is a good place to start peeling. If there are shell bits stuck to them, rinse and dry thoroughly.

3. Cut eggs in half. Over a medium bowl, place a sieve. Squeeze out the filling gently into the sieve and mash it through the holes with a spoon. OK, so you could forget the sieve and just mash it with a fork, sure. But must I remind you, you have ALREADY peeled the eggs! That was the hard part! Go the extra mile here and feel like a winner.

4. Put all other ingredients in the bowl, mix, adjust for seasoning. Mmmm.

5. Get your pastry bag out and choose a nice fat tip. Fill the bag and pipe the filling into the eggs, really pushing it down so there is a mound of filling for each egg. This is not like cake decorating... we want maximum fill, not a nice little nubbin. You should have exactly enough filling for all the eggs, plus a few squirts to put on top of some cucumber slices.

6. Make it pretty with dill, paprika, lemon zest, etc. Enjoy!

Daring Bakers: Homemade Lasagna Noodles

The March 2009 challenge is hosted by Mary of Beans and Caviar, Melinda of Melbourne Larder and Enza of Io Da Grande. They have chosen Lasagne of Emilia-Romagna from The Splendid Table by Lynne Rossetto Kasper as the challenge.

I had a super time with this challenge, using it as an opportunity to have a fancy-shmancy dinner party for six friends. OK, so the lasagna took two days, loads of planning, two rooms (for hanging the noodles) and myriads of pots and pans, but it also gave forth pure gustatory pleasure and heaps of leftovers.

The components of the challenge were as follows:

1. Make spinach lasagna noodles. This involves 10 ounces of spinach, which is two of those large plastic containers of baby spinach.

To make the noodles:

- Make a well of flour on your counter. Add the pulverized spinach, and eggs.

-Mix with a wooden spoon. Why wooden? I dunno.







-Kneed for 10 minutes, then let rest, covered, for several hours.












-Cut dough into 4, and roll out each section.














-The rolling isn't so much about pushing and squishing as it is about stretching and pulling.






First, you pull it along the length of the rolling pin, then you hold the dough down on the counter and pull the rolling pin up with the dough attached. Confusing? You betcha.













-The dough should ultimately be thin enough to be translucent.






-Cut noodles into thick strips, then hang to dry over kitchen towels draped over brooms. Or, you know, hang them on that pasta rack that you have stored in your cupboard, right next to your pasta machine, which is next to your dough-kneader, which is next to the package of store bought pasta.





-Cook noodles in salted water for 2-4 minutes. These noodles are sooo tasty right after you have made them!




2. Make a ragu. The Daring Bakers recipe called for many kinds of meat, as well as milk, and I substituted with a mushroom ragu. I changed the recipe by chopping up the mushrooms ridiculously small so that they would have a consistent mouth-feel, almost like a meat sauce. I would totally make this sauce again- you can add any kind of mushroom! I chose the four pictured here.

3. Make a bechemel. This is a white sauce of milk, flour, and butter. Since I had one guest who does not eat dairy, I made two bechemels: one dairy and one with hemp milk and cashew butter to replace the milk and butter. Both turned out great- arguably the cashew butter sauce was better! Something about the nuttyness of it made the lasagna feel rich and creamy.

4. Layer the noodles, the ragu, and the sauce with parmesan cheese, bake it, and eat it.


You can see some other examples of Daring Bakers' lasagna interpretations here. Also, check out the original recipe here.

Thanks to Andy and Diana for taking lovely photos! You can see more of Diana's work here.

Bye bye, TWD: Chocolate Prune Cake with Armagnac

The time has come to say goodbye to Tuesdays with Dorrie, the weekly baking group that makes recipes from Dorrie Greenspan's book Baking, From my Home to Yours.

I loved you well, with your cakes and cookies and muffins. You inspired me to start a blog. You taught me new techniques with butter and with chocolate. You introduced me to new ingredients (such as Armagnac, below). You inspired me to attempt creative food photography.

You made me feel happy and loved, with your fabulous comments. You made me feel like part of a community. You gave me a reason to run out to the store late at night to buy the one, two, or ten ingredients I needed on Monday night. You gave me an excuse to make cookies and cupcakes for friends. You inspired me to make ambitious desserts for dinner parties.

2008 was a great year, TWD, but 2009 will be a healthier year without you. I bid you adieu with last month's Most Expensive and Troublesome dessert, the Chocolate Prune Cake with Armagnac. While I loved the dense crumb of the chocolate cake, made with a little flour and a lot of ground, toasted pecans, and I love prunes, and I loved learning about the history of Armagnac, I did _not_ love spending $40 on a bottle of alcohol whose primary purpose was to soak a bunch of prunes. Harumph. And ok, so only a half cup or so went into the prunes, but still.

Goodbye, TWD. I will think of you fondly, make granola cookies often, and visit your pages.

Daring Bakers- Flourless Chocolate Cake

Imagine a chocolate cake that's rich, fluffy, and dark as all get-out. Then put a dollop of tart-sweet strawberries in the middle... yum! Every month, food bloggers around the world participate in the Daring Bakers challenges, which motivate us to make ever-more complicated and delectable dishes; this February we made Flourless Chocolate Cakes.

The challenge wasn't too hard because I didn't make the ice cream that should have gone with the cake. Long ago, my mother asked me whether or not she should save the old ice cream maker, and I said, "No! I am never going to make ice cream." Now I don't really regret that decision... but I do hold it forth as an excuse. I have to set limits on my cooking somewhere, and Ice Cream is where I draw the line. Your line might be different, say, at Pickling or Canning or Bread Baking. You may have no lines, and spend all your time in the kitchen.

But the cake itself was fabulous! The first round turned out the best because I used bitter and semi sweet chocolate. The second round was missing a bit of sugar. I will certainly keep this cake in my repertoire due to its simplicity and versatility. I halved the recipe, by the way, and used ramekins instead of a heart mold.

Chocolate Valentino
Preparation Time: 20 minutes
16 ounces (1 pound) (454 grams) of semisweet chocolate, roughly chopped
½ cup (1 stick) plus 2 tablespoons (146 grams total) of unsalted butter
5 large eggs separated

1. Put chocolate and butter in a heatproof bowl and set over a pan of simmering water (the bottom of the bowl should not touch the water) and melt, stirring often.
2. While your chocolate butter mixture is cooling. Butter your pan and line with a parchment circle then butter the parchment.
3. Separate the egg yolks from the egg whites and put into two medium/large bowls.
4. Whip the egg whites in a medium/large grease free bowl until stiff peaks are formed (do not over-whip or the cake will be dry).
5. With the same beater beat the egg yolks together.
6. Add the egg yolks to the cooled chocolate.
7. Fold in 1/3 of the egg whites into the chocolate mixture and follow with remaining 2/3rds. Fold until no white remains without deflating the batter. {link of folding demonstration}
8. Pour batter into prepared pan, the batter should fill the pan 3/4 of the way full, and bake at 375F/190C
9. Bake for 25 minutes until an instant read thermometer reads 140F/60C.
Note – If you do not have an instant read thermometer, the top of the cake will look similar to a brownie and a cake tester will appear wet.
10. Cool cake on a rack for 10 minutes then unmold.


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.

Thanks to Husna, Noah, Andy, and my parents for sharing this tasty dish!

TWD: World Peace Cookies

The black tie of cookies. Not too sweet. Handsome, but not too pretty. Deep, rich chocolate- the finest chocolate- cut into chunky morsels. And then the catch: tiny grains of sea salt to tickle, tease, and elude your palate.

The texture is buttery without being crumbly, moist but not gooey, crisp but not crunchy. The scent is divine.

This week's Tuesday's with Dorrie challenge, where cooks from around the globe bake recipes from Dorrie Greenspan's book "Baking, from my Home to Yours," was a success. See other successes here.

The one thing I didn't post... the cookies before I cut them. See, um, you roll the chunky chocolate dough into a log, then chill it, then cut it. And, well, there was no way I could make that log o' chocolate look appetizing.

In fact, I have another log waiting in my fridge, ready for baking, and it kind of repulses me. Um.

Daring Bakers: Tuiles du Coeur

This month's Daring Bakers Challenge involved a lot of... equipment.

We made "tuiles" and no, I don't have a good grasp on how to pronounce that, though the French teacher said "Tool" was accurate. It just feels wrong, I suppose.

Here's the description taken from the Challenge on the Daring Bakers Website:
"Traditionally, tuiles are thin, crisp almond cookies that are gently molded over a rolling pin or arched form while they are still warm. Once set, their shape resembles the curved French roofing tiles for which they're named."

On to the equipment:

Silicon Baking Mat
Stencil
Offset Spatula
Tuile pan

I had none of these things, so I went out and bought 50% of them, the Silicon Baking Mat ($10 at Weggies and the Stencil ($18 for a stencil, plus $12 shipping, because not a single store in Syracuse had anything close.) I declined to buy the Offset Spatula and the Tuile pan.

For my 50% efforts, I got halfsies returns. My Tuiles have a pretty heart shape (gracias Stencil) and they slid right off the pan (merci Silicon Baking Mat). HOWever, the tuiles were a b**** to spread on the pan due to my inadequate, floppy, and flat spatula. Furthermore, they never achieved a lovely curvature, since I didn't have a curvy pan.

Not surprisingly, I managed to get one beauteous batch and one batch that burned. Half perfect hearts, half brown and crusty... Portents for Valentine's Day this year? Hope not. I offer you the loveliest of the photos here, with one of the better hearts displayed on a bit of vanilla ice cream dotted with raspberry sauce. Tres delicieux.

This month's challenge is brought to us by Karen of Bake My Day and Zorra of 1x umruehren bitte aka Kochtopf. They have chosen Tuiles from The Chocolate Book by Angélique Schmeink and Nougatine and Chocolate Tuiles from Michel Roux.

TWD: Savory Corn and Pepper Muffins

These muffins were tasty... but nothin' to write home about. I made them with black bean chili flavored with chipotle and smoked paprika, topped with local cheddar. The chili was amazing, though! You can see more samples of corn muffins here.

Tangelo and Lime Pie

This pie was the perfect winter dessert: tart, creamy, sweet filling, and crumbly, rich, pecan and graham cracker crust. Yum.

But tangelos are very seedy; be prepared to pick them out! (Or just use clementines like the recipe calls for...)

TWD: Rewind Granola Grabbers

I've had a rather busy few days... school starting up again, and several incidents involving fighting, injured, and visiting pets. Now that these have passed, I will share with you my Tuesdays with Dorrie rewind: I made Granola Grabbers instead of the pear tart.

These tasty little nubbins hit the spot for school lunches, gifts for friends, and a stolen treat for the dog I am sitting.

To enjoy others' interpretations of this week's true challenge, go here.

Daring Bakers: The Log

Happy New Year! This post is long, so here's the setup:


1. introduction to my experience making the Yule Log

2. Explanation of the Yule Log challenge from Daring Bakers Website, with a few additions in green from me

3. Link to the Daring Bakers Blogroll, where you can explore all the other pretty yule logs!




1. I LOVED making the log. It took weeks of planning the flavors, purchasing the ingredients, (no, Wegmans does not sell mango puree) and days of cooking, photographing, and decorating. I learned SO MUCH from making this log, mainly because it was about 10 different recipes in one. Most of all, I am proud to have conquered my fear of caramel. Thanks ever so much to Diana, for being there to take photos and for lending moral support. You can see more of her work here.






2. Introduction to the log from the Daring Bakers website:

This month's challenge is brought to us by the adventurous Hilda from Saffron and Blueberry and Marion from Il en Faut Peu Pour Etre Heureux. They have chosen a French Yule Log by Flore from Florilege Gourmand

SO, what is a French Yule Log you say and how is it different from the Yule Log we made last December if you were a member then?

In France you can buy two kinds of Yule log, either the Genoise and Buttercream type that we made last December, or what is more commonly purchased which is a frozen Yule Log very reminiscent of an ice cream cake, only often it’s not made of ice cream but rather frozen mousse of some sort. In French this is called an entremets which is sometimes loosely translated in English as simply a cream dessert. This also means that this recipe is not holiday-specific, it is also just a scrumptious dessert recipe.

This recipe comes almost entirely, except for one small labeled portion and some of the variations courtesy of our dear Daring Baker Fairy Tartelette, from the website: Florilège Gourmand (address above) which belongs to Flore (who has not disclosed her last name to me in my exchanges with her) and is unreal. Her website is in French and different portions of the recipe have been pulled from the recipes in the entremets section.

So, to the business of our Yule log:

#1 DO NOT PANICK when you see that this document is 18 pages long. The actual recipe is not 12 pages long, it’s more on the order of 3-4 pages once you choose your flavors.
Marion and I believe in Culinary Freedom and wanted to make this as fun and accessible as possible for everyone around the world.

#2 THE CHALLENGE RULE is that you MUST MAKE ALL 6 of these elements for the log:

1) Dacquoise Biscuit This is a egg white and almond meal cake that stays very light and puffy, and can be formed into different shapes.

2) Mousse I chose to make a mango mouse instead of chocolate. Good choice!

3) Ganache Insert I made a white chocolate caramel ganache.

4) Praline (Crisp) Insert Based on comments from other Daring Bakers who said the crisp was hard to cut, I made the coconut crisp (with homemade Lace Gavottes) outside of the log. I cut the crisp into stars to decorate the log.

5) Creme Brulee Insert I made a cardamon creme brulee.

6) Icing The assembly will essentially be a Dacquoise Biscuit at the bottom, and the inserts inter-layered with mousse, with an icing finish.

That’s about it for rules. Oh yeah, please have fun!

3. Now that you have been fully acquainted with French Yule logs, check out other people's creations here.

No Tuesdays with Dorrie... Chanukah party!

I have been cooking up a storm, but not for TWD. Feel free to check out other people's butterscotch pudding creations here.

Here is a shot of me turning some latkes for my Chanukah party. We had applesauce, Israeli salad, and Jason even brought "Chanukah Balls," the traditional fried dessert of choice for this Jewish holiday. Of course, most of us just bought Dunkin' Donuts. Jason is a cooking overrachiever, and I hope to taste more of his creations soon!

TWD: Yet. Another. Cookie. (Buttery Jam!)

Welp, I am officially underwhelmed. After many straight weeks of recipe hits, this buttery jam cookie from Dorrie Greenspan's cookbook, Baking, from My Home to Yours, was a tasteless, texture-free flop. And that dough was so sticky! So hard to get off the spoon! Ah well, win some, loose some.

And it's not like I'm not eating the durned things. For more (and more interesting) takes on this cookie that sticks in your throat like the words "I broke your blender", go to Tuesdays with Dorrie.

TWD: Sugar Cookie!

A quick posting this week for a quick cookie: sugar cookies! Tuesdays with Dorrie, the weekly baking group that makes recipes from Dorrie Greenspan's book, Baking, from my Home to Yours, made sugar cookies this week. Check em out here.

Caution: woe betide the baker that does not refrigerate this dough for copious amounts of time. You will end up with a sticky mess.

Suggestions: go for the lemon peel! Go for it! Adding lemon zest to sugar cookie dough makes the flavor subtle and fragrant, alluring and memorable. Also, try subbing whole wheat pastry flour, just because it tastes so good!

Thanks to Diana for this photo. You can see more of her delightful photography here.