They say the Irish have a wicked sense of humor. Case in point: this recipe.
Lets see if you can figure out what the ingredients in the following photos ultimately made.
Okay. Let’s stop here a moment. For those of you keeping track, we’ve seen mashed potatoes, egg yolks, grated chocolate and soft-peaked egg whites. Not to mention the almond flour I forgot to photograph.
I swear, this is one of those recipes where someone’s (Irish?) grandmother opened the pantry and decided to add a little of this and a little of that. What’s that you say? Those are the best kinds of recipes? I have to agree.
Behold, the potato cake!
It’s got potatoes but doesn’t taste potatoey. It also has chocolate…but doesn’t taste particularly chocolatey. Huh.
This cake is pretty fantastic with just a dusting of powdered sugar.
Or, assuming this really was someone’s grandmother’s recipe, take it one step further (as my own grandmother would have done). And take some of this:
And add it to some of this:
To make some of this:
Either way, you can’t go wrong even if the recipe has you wondering if its author might have kissed the blarney stone one too many times.
Irish Potato Cake
Original source: Traditional Irish Cookbook; Full and Plenty (1960), Maura Laverty
pilfered and adapted by TMH from www.europeancuisines.com Ingredients
1/2 lb (225g) butter
2 1/3 C (450g) granulated sugar
4 eggs (separate the whites and yolks, keep both)
3 standard squares (90g) baking chocolate
5 TBS (50 g) almond flour/ ground almonds
1 C (150g) cold mashed potatoes
2 1/2 C (300g) cake flour
1/2 t cinnamon
2 t baking powder
1/2 t salt
2/3 C (150 ml) milk
additional flour/cocoa for prepping pan
Preheat oven to 350 degrees
Prepare a bundt or tube pan by buttering and then “flouring”
Grate the chocolate with a fine grater or food processor.
Sift the flour once by itself and a second time with the cinnamon, baking powder and salt. Set aside.
Cream butter with the sugar until light and fluffy. Add in egg yolks one-at-a-time beating well after each. Stir in the grated chocolate and ground almonds. Add in flour alternating with milk beginning and ending with the flour.
In a separate bowl, whip egg whites until stiff but not dry. Fold egg whites into cake batter.
Spoon batter (it will be very thick) into prepared pan and bake for 50 minutes or until an inserted toothpick or skewer comes out clean.
Remove from the oven and allow to rest in the pan for at least 20 minutes. Cool on rack and dust with confectioner’s sugar.
Chocolate Whiskey Icing
4 ounces bittersweet chocolate or chocolate chips
1/4 C cream
1 TBS whiskey (or to taste)
Bring cream to a simmer in a heavy saucepan. Turn off heat and add chocolate. Let sit for 5 minutes. Gently whisk until chocolate is combined. Stir in whiskey.
A work colleague (and fantastic baker) introduced me to this cake recipe several years ago. And I’ve been exploiting it ever since. This is by far my favorite way to make chocolate cake. It is dark and not as sweet as some chocolate cakes, which makes it a perfect foil for the globs of buttercream I like to slather on top. And, if you are so inclined (as I am from time to time), it gives you a good excuse to pop the little widget on the Guinness can or bottle and enjoy a pint or two while baking.
This cake recipe is a little unusual in that you start it by boiling together a couple of cups of a good stout beer, butter and cocoa. Strange brew indeed.
While the brew cools a bit, beat together eggs and sour cream.
Then the beer mixture is added to the sour cream.
After this, the dry ingredients are incorporated.
The result is a gorgeous, silky cake batter. I’ve made layer cakes, sheet cakes and cupcakes with this recipe.
Here is the do what I say, not what I do portion of the post. I thought it would be cute to make mini cupcakes without the wrappers so that when I topped them with the frosting they’d look like little beers. Good idea in theory, a little short-sighted in operation. First, if making cupcakes, only fill each cup about 2/3 full. In the picture below they are filled to the top. Not a good idea. Second, these guys need wrappers. Despite oiling the already non-stick pan, I had a heck of a time getting the little buggers out of the pan. This recipe will make about three dozen full-sized cupcakes, six dozen babies or two eight-to-nine inch cakes.
While this cake would be fantastic topped with a cream cheese or sour cream frosting, my go to is an Italian buttercream recipe from Gourmet magazine. Hey–you know how some people have the dates of their deceased loved-ones in decals across the back windows of their cars. Do you suppose there is a foodie out there with a Gourmet Magazine RIP on their car? Just wondering.
Anyhow, Italian buttercream starts by creating a sugar syrup. Yes, you’ll need your candy thermometer.
While the syrup is coming up to temp, egg whites get whipped into soft peaks with a little sugar and salt.
Then things get really fun. Start up your standing mixer and slowly add the hot syrup in a steady stream.
This is going to heat things up a bit. Don’t worry though, keep that whisk attachment (or handmixer) going.
It wouldn’t be buttercream without the butter. The butter gets added a tablespoon at a time.
At some point it will start to look like something has gone horribly wrong. It hasn’t, keep on whisking.
A little later you’ll think, really, this isn’t right. It is.
Eventually, the whole mess will come together and you’ll have beautiful, smooth butter cream frosting.
What you do after is up to you. Me? I topped my little stout cupcakes with a dollup of butter cream and dusting of sanding sugar.
If what TD says is true about there being a sandwich in every beer, there is definitely a cake in every pint!
Chocolate Stout Cake
Bon Appetit, September 2002
Ingredients
2 C stout (such as Guinness)
2 C (4 sticks) unsalted butter
1 1/2 C unsweetened cocoa powder
4 C all purpose flour
4 C sugar
1 1/2 t salt
1 T baking soda
4 large eggs
1 1/3 C sour cream
Preheat oven to 350 degrees and prepare pans
In a saucepan, bring stout and butter to a simmer over medium heat. Add cocoa powder and whisk until mixture is smooth. Cool slightly.
Whisk together flour, sugar, baking soda and salt in large bowl. In a separate bowl or standing mixer, beat eggs and sour cream to blend. Add stout mixture to egg mixture and beat to combine. Add-in flour mixture and blend briefly on slow speed until just combined. Divide batter as desired. Bake cakes until tester inserted into center comes our clean, 18-35 minutes.
Vanilla Buttercream
Gourmet, January 2004
This recipe makes about 6 cups frosting
Ingredients
4 large egg whites at room tempurature
Rounded 1/4 teaspoon of salt
2/3 C water
1 1/3 plus 2 T sugar
4 sticks (2 C) butter, cut into tablespoon pieces and softened
2 t vanilla
Combine whites and salt in a very large bowl. Stir together water and 1 1/3 cups sugar in a 3- to 4-quart heavy saucepan until sugar is dissolved, then bring to a boil over moderate heat, without stirring, brushing any sugar crystals down side of pan with a pastry brush dipped in water.
When syrup reaches a boil, start beating egg whites with an electric mixer at medium-high speed until frothy, then gradually add remaining 2 tablespoons sugar and beat at medium speed until whites just hold soft peaks. (Do not beat again until sugar syrup is ready.)
Meanwhile, put thermometer into sugar syrup and continue boiling until syrup registers 238 to 242°F. Immediately remove from heat and, with mixer at high speed, slowly pour hot syrup in a thin stream down side of bowl into whites, beating constantly. Beat, scraping down side of bowl with a rubber spatula, until meringue is cool to the touch, about 10 minutes in a standing mixer or 15 with a handheld. (It is important that meringue is properly cooled before proceeding.)
With mixer at medium speed, gradually add butter 1 piece at a time, beating well after each addition until incorporated. (Buttercream will look soupy after some butter is added if meringue is still warm. If so, briefly chill bottom of bowl in a large bowl filled with ice water for a few seconds before continuing to beat in remaining butter.) Continue beating until buttercream is smooth. (Mixture may look curdled before all of butter is added but will come back together by the time beating is finished.) Add vanilla and beat 1 minute more.
Note: buttercream will freeze very well in an air-tight ziplock bag.
The February 2011 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Mallory from A Sofa in the Kitchen. She chose to challenge everyone to make Panna Cotta and Nestle Florentine Cookies.
Let me tell you, as daring and fun as this adventure was, most of all, it was easy. A snap. Easy as pie. A piece of cake.
Let’s start with the panna cotta. Panna cotta is the result of what would happen if jello and pudding got together and had a love child. It is cold and creamy but also has more body than creme brule. Panna cotta is elegant enough to serve as a dinner party dessert–and yes, easy enough to actually make from scratch.
The party gets started by softening some unflavored gelatin in water. And this is about where I diverged from the original challenge. The original recipe is from Giada De Laurentiis. Now, I like Giada just fine (and TD likes her considerably more than just fine). But, I sort of had an itch for coconut panna cotta. So, that’s what I made.
While the gelatin was…wait for it…gelling, I mixed coconut milk, heavy cream, sugar and vanilla together in a heavy sauce pan and heated it until just warm. Then I mixed in the softened gelatin and whisked until everything was combined.
After this, the mixture went into glasses and then into the fridge.
That’s all. Seriously.
Really, I promise. That’s it. With the panna cotta cooling, I turned my attention to the florentine portion of the challenge.
Well, first I made an offering to the Kitchen God.
Since I had already gone a different direction with the panna cotta, I figured why not continue with the florentine. Still feeling tropical, I added shredded coconut and some chopped macadamia nuts to the cookie’s dry ingredients.
The method for this cookie is really fun. After mixing together the dry ingredients, butter is melted in a sauce pan. Once melted, you dump in the dry ingredients et voila! Instance cookie dough.
These cookies spread very thinly. Not wanting giant florentines, I spooned scant teaspoons of dough on to parchment-lined baking sheets leaving plenty of room in between each.
Once they come out of the oven, let them cool and harden on the parchment. When ready to fill, match the cookies up, flip them over and gently fill with melted chocolate. I used both bittersweet and white.
By the time I filled sandwiched the last florentine, the panna cotta was set-up. I also added a thin layer of lime gelee to the top of the panna cotta. I just couldn’t help putting the lime in the coconut.
It’s almost like being in Hawaii. Almost.
Coconut Panna Cotta
Reprinted in the LA Times, December 10, 2003. Original source: Hawaiian Cooks, Roy Yamaguchi, Ten Speed Press
Total time: 15 minutes, plus 4 hours chilling time
Servings: 6
2 envelopes granular gelatin
6 tablespoons water
2 cups coconut milk
1 1/4 cups heavy cream
3/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
In a small bowl, combine the gelatin with the water until softened.
In a small saucepan, combine the coconut milk, cream, sugar and vanilla. Place over medium heat and warm until hot to the touch (about 110 degrees). Add the gelatin and stir until dissolved.
Pour into 6 (6-ounce) ramekins or custard cups. Cover and refrigerate for 4 hours, or until set.
Lime Gelee
Recipe by Daniel Boulud
1 t unflavored gelatin
1/2 C sugar
1/4 C fresh lime juice
1 t lime zest
Food coloring if your husband says the first uncolored batch doesn’t look limey enough
In a small cup, sprinkle the gelatin over 1 tablespoon of cold water and let stand until softened. Fill a medium bowl half full of ice water.
In a small saucepan, combine 1/4 cup of sugar with 2 tablespoons of water and simmer over moderate heat just until the sugar is dissolved. Remove sugar syrup from the heat and whisk in the softened gelatin until dissolved. Stir in the lime juice and zest. Set the saucepan in the ice water bath and stir until the gelee has cooled. If you have any gelatin clumps, strain mixture. Pour into desired serving cups and chill until set.
I love this cookie recipe. Like, cookie monster style love it. It is so simple and elegant and universally delicious that I really, really wish I had invented it. But I didn’t. Pierre Herme did. And then Dorie Greenspan re-christened the recipe with its current namesake. For that, they both may very well deserve a Nobel Peace Prize. Or at least a nomination.
This cookie is effectively a chocolate sable. It is buttery, crumbly and very, very chocolatey. The best part? You can make up few batches, store them in the freezer and then bake them off at will.
The recipe starts with cocoa. My weapon of choice when it comes to cocoa is this valrhona cocoa powder I buy by the pound at Surfas in Culver City, CA.
At the end we’ll add some chopped chocolate (or in my case, teeny tiny chocolate chips).
So where were we? Oh yes, the middle. Butter and sugar are creamed in the usual way. And then the secret ingredient is added: Fleur de sel. French sea salt. If you don’t have any in your pantry, it is well worth the small investment I promise! Following this, the remaining dry ingredients are added and mixed in either a standing mixer or by hand until just combined.
Then, it’s time to get brawny. A few more folds by hand until the flour disappears (but really, just barely).
Add in the chocolate (chips, chunks, or nuggets).
Roll into a log and then into the fridge (or freezer if you don’t plan to bake them in the immediate).
When ready to bake, slice the log and place dough disks on baking sheets.
And in about ten minutes, you’ve got nirvana.
These are truly perfect as-is. Really. But then I started thinking. If willing to compromise the sandy texture just slightly, I bet they’d make fantastic sandwich cookies.
So, once I got to the part where the dough should have been rolled into a log, I just rolled it into a ball and chilled the dough. Out of the fridge, I rolled-out the dough (between two pieces of parchment–you do not want to add extra flour) and punched out circles. Working the dough in this way does make them less crumbly and more cookie-like.
And that’s why I added some chocolate-nutella frosting in the middle.
World peace: two ways.
World Peace Cookies
This recipe has appeared in a variety of venues. Dorie Greenspan/Pierre Herme
Ingredients
1 1/4 cups all purpose flour
1/3 cup natural unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
11 tablespoons (1 stick plus 3 tablespoons) unsalted butter, room temperature
2/3 cup (packed) golden brown sugar
1/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt (I’ve used kosher with equal success)
5 ounces extra-bittersweet chocolate chopped into small pieces (or tiny chocolate chips)
Sift together flour, cocoa and baking soda in a medium bowl. Set aside. In a standing mixer or using an electric hand-held mixer, beat butter until smooth but not fluffy. Beat in both sugars, vanilla and salt until fluffy; about 2 minutes. With beater speed on low, add flour mixture and mix until dough just starts to form. Switch to a spatula and fold dough a few more times until all flour is integrated. Fold in chocolate. Roll dough into a log (or two if you want smaller cookies). Wrap in plastic and chill until firms, at least 3 hours.
Preheat oven to 325 degrees.
Line baking sheets with parchment. Using a sharp knife, cut logs crosswise into 1/2 inch-thick rounds. Space 1-inch apart on baking sheets and bake until cookies appear dry (11-12 minutes). Let cool.
If making sandwich cookies (a TMH variation)
Follow steps through forming a log with the dough. Instead, form dough into a flattened ball and chill for at least 3 hours. Once firm, roll-out dough 1/4 at a time (it will be tough to work with at first). The chocolate bits will work as a thickness guide. Punch-out cookies with a circular cookie cutter. Place on parchment-lined baking sheets and bake for 9-10 minutes (less than the original because they will be cooler).
You can fill these with anything. I just added about 4 TBS of nutella to a cup of this ganache in the pictures above (I happened to already have the ganache in the fridge).
Raise your hand if you have ever been on a date to C&O.
So, you too share the fellowship of the knot? That’s what I thought.
Like Dittie Reese and Saks, C&O is an institution to Los Angeles area college students and those who wish they still were. I suppose the food is okay. Pasta and lots of it. However, that isn’t what draws the crowds to this rowdy, no reservation restaurant just steps from the Venice Pier. Nope. It’s the free flowing Chianti, hourly house-wide renditions of That’s Amore and most importantly, it’s the garlic knots.
When eating at the C&O, the strategy is simple. First: try to finish-off the giant carafe of house chianti they set on the table at the beginning of the meal (I swear that thing must be at least 1500 ml) . Second: always make sure the garlic knot plate on your table is completely empty every time one of the waitstaff comes by with the huge platter of steamy, garlicy, crunchy, soft little dough balls so that they pile on a maximum refill.
Some say they are sent from heaven. Some say from hell. Either way, these little nuggets of goodness are indescribably good. And you know what? I figured out how to make them.
I’ve been trolling for a recipe for garlic knots for some time. And like Goldilocks and the three bears, nothing I found seemed quite right. So, I set aside the porridge, put on an apron and came up with my own recipe. I then vetted my little creation with some self-described C&O garlic knot fanatics (hi Erin and Randy) during the Superbowl and voila! We had a winner.
I started with a basic pizza dough recipe. My current favorite comes from the Joy of Cooking. I’m also pretty confident you could use some ready-made store-bought dough as well. The one trick I use is to make the dough and then retard the fermentation by letting it sit in the fridge over night. Then, I pull the dough out of cold storage, oil it up and let it rest in a towel-covered bowl for at least a couple of hours.
This recipe makes about five dozen garlic knots. However, if the temptation of 60 knots is a little too much, half the dough right after it has come together, seal one of the balls in a zip-lock bag and then freeze it for future use. The size of your garlic balls is highly personal and completely up to you. I like them to be about two bites. For this size, half your dough, and then continue to half the resulting pieces evenly until you get 32 little nuggets.
Working with the dough one piece one-at-a-time, roll the ball into a snake of about four-inches.
Then, wrap the snake around your fingers like this.
And poke one of the ends around the back and up through the middle. This whole action happens quickly and is very easy to do after the third of fourth try.
Most of the time the result will be a cute little knot. But remember, the dough is sticky so, if the result is more of a blob, don’t worry about it.
The knots go into a nice hot oven for 12-15 minutes or until they begin to turn golden. If you’d like to heighten the effect, brush them with an egg wash before cooking them.
While the knots are in the oven, it’s time to get busy with the garlic sauce. The recipe I’ve listed below should be considered more of a general guideline. Exact quantities aren’t all that important here. Begin by gently melting a wodge of butter with some olive oil.
Next comes the garlic. Again, it’s a matter of taste on how many cloves. I use four or five and consider myself to have a fairly moderate garlic tolerance. How you dispense the garlic is also a matter of taste. I like to use a microplane and sort of melt the garlic. You could also mince it or use a garlic press. Completely up to you.
Once melted, minced or pressed, the garlic goes into the butter-oil bath.
While the fats and garlic are warming up to one another, chop up some flat leaf parsley.
Add the parsley to the garlic mixture and some salt to taste. The salt is important to this recipe because it serves as an abrasive to create more surface area for the sauce to stick to.
Okay, maybe that last part was total B.S.. The salt is still important though.
Once the knots come out of the oven, toss the still hot rolls with the sauce. You’ll have several batches of knots if making the whole recipe. All you need to do is divide up your sauce into the number of pans of rolls and then add a little each time a batch comes out of the oven. How you keep your balls warm in the interim is totally up to you (actually, they’ll be just fine sitting in the bowl).
It’s as easy as that folks! This is a great party food because the crispiness of the balls will stand up to the sauce even after they’ve cooled (and they re-heat very well which shouldn’t be an issue because there won’t be any to re-heat).
Still not feeling the complete C&O experience? Let me sweeten the deal a bit: Dean Martin. Cin-Cin!
Garlic Knots
dough recipe adapted from The Joy of Cooking
Note: I usually make the entire recipe, divide it in half, freeze half and use the remaining for the knots. You’ll get about 30 knots from half the recipe.
Dough Ingredients
1 1 /3 C warm water (105 to 115 degrees)
1 package (.25 oz) active dry yeast
3 1/2 to 4 C all-purpose flour
2 TBs olive oil
1 TBs salt
1 TBS sugar
Sauce Ingredients
(remember, these are approximate, experiment to desired taste)
4 TBS butter
1/4 C olive oil
4 cloves of garlic
1/4 C chopped parsley (I like Italian flat-leaf)
salt to taste (I like to use kosher salt)
In the bowl of a standing mixer (or large bowl if you are going to do this by hand), add warm water and yeast. Let mixture stand about 5 minutes until the yeast is dissolved and the liquid is frothy. Using a paddle attachment, mix in the first 3 1/2 C of flour, olive oil, salt and sugar until combined. Switch to the dough hook and knead for about 10 minutes or until the dough is smooth and elastic, adding extra flour as needed.
If using entire batch of dough, seal in a zip-lock bag and let sit in the fridge over night (otherwise, divide dough into two bags stashing one in the freezer and the other in the fridge).
When ready to make knots, remove dough from the fridge, fold it into a ball and place in an oiled bowl, turning so that the entire ball of dough is coated. Cover bowl with a towel and let dough rise in a warm spot for two or three hours.
Preheat oven to 400 degrees with rack in the center.
Once dough has doubled in size, punch down and turn-it-out onto a floured cutting board or surface. Using a sharp knife, divide dough into desired number of dough nuggets. Working one by one, roll the ball into a snake and quickly tie the snake into a knot. Place finished knots on parchment lined-baking sheets and bake for 12-15 minutes.
To make sauce, combine butter and oil in a saucepan and warm over low heat. Mince, chop or grate garlic into the butter and oil mixture. Add in parsley and salt to taste.
When knots come out of an oven, immediately dump into a large bowl. Add sauce and toss until balls are evenly coated. Repeat process until all balls are baked.
TD: That doesn’t have pink peppercorns. And is big with chocolate cake and chocolate filling and chocolate frosting.
ME: But no peppercorns?
TD: No peppercorns.
For my valentine? Anything. And so chocolate love cake was born.
The concept for this cake isn’t particularly unique or even fancy. You’ve seen this cake a hundred times. In fact, when you get down to it, this cake is a darned cliche. Like chocolate molten cake or New York cheesecake. But. A cliche is a cliche for a reason and as well worn as this cake is, it does deliver.
The recipe that follows combines what I think is the best of all fudge recipes. The cake has a buttermilk and unsweetened chocolate base (as opposed to a cocoa base) to which I have added mini chocolate chips. The filling/frosting also begins with unsweetened chocolate. Then the whole thing gets covered in toasted almonds (or walnuts or pecans…or well, you get the picture). Shall we get started?
Unsweetened chocolate, sugar and vanilla are added to water and cooked until combined.
The fudge is then cooled down in an ice bath. Stir the cooling sauce often or you get grainy fudge (I know this from experience).
Once chilled, the fudge is added to the usual list of great cake suspects: sugar, butter, yadda yadda yadda. Then the buttermilk and dry ingredients are incorporated by alternating between the two beginning and ending with the flour.
Oh, let’s back up a minute. While your butter is creaming, butter your pans. Then, line the bottoms in parchment and finally “flour” each pan with cocoa. Using cocoa instead of flour keeps your chocolate cake looking chocolatey.
Okay, now back to the finished batter. For this recipe, I’ve used six-inch cake pans. The recipe easily yields enough batter for three six-inch pans or two eight or nine-inch pans. To get evenly sized cakes, I zeroed-out my scale with a separate empty bowl and then transferred the batter to said bowl. I divided the total weight by three and then added the appropriate amount to each of my pans. Alternately, you could just eye-ball it.
Here comes extra-special cake tip #2 (#1 one was the thing about the cocoa if you are keeping track). Once the cakes are completely cool, double wrap them in plastic wrap and freeze them solid. Frozen cake is much, much easier to work with than cake at room temperature.
Level out each frozen cake. Then decide how many layers you’d like your finished cake to be. And then, very carefully, cut each cake with a large serrated knife (I use a bread knife). It’s okay if you don’t get them completely level: that’s what frosting is for.
Now it’s time to frost. The frosting recipe I’ve included below makes plenty for a two-layer cake. For three layers, consider one-and-one-halving the recipe.
After filling your layers, you may want to add a crumb layer to the whole cake before frosting the entire construction project. This is super duper cake tip #3. A crumb layer is a very thin layer of frosting–kind of like putting down a layer of primer before painting a room. It makes your final layer of frosting much neater looking.
Of course, I did this and remembered that I was going to cover the entire cake in almonds. But, I did feel better knowing how nice the frosting looked under the almonds.
Here is cake tip #4. To keep your cake plate clean, slip parchment paper under the edges of the cake. Frost and then carefully remove the parchment. The result is a nice, un-frosted cake plate.
I have to admit, I don’t really have any advice on how to successfully stick your nuts to the outside of the cake (oh, good grief TD, we are still talking about cake). I just took handfuls and carefully pressed the nuts into the side of the still-soft frosting. It worked well save for the huge mess I made on the kitchen counter. Word to the wise: do this over a rimmed baking sheet and you will save quite a bit of time in clean up. I don’t know why I didn’t think of this in advance. Must have been distracted by the nuts.
Behold: Chocolate Love Cake.
Love, love love.
All you need is love.
Love in an elevator…oh wait. Have I gone too far?
Still stuck on the part about the peppercorns? For reasons I don’t exactly understand, TD is convinced that I have an evil plan to infuse peppercorns into all of my baked goods. Pink peppercorns to be specific. Setting aside the fact that we don’t even have any peppercorns in the pantry (pink or otherwise), I’ve decided that this is code for something. I’m just not sure what…
Chocolate Fudge Layer Cake with Chocolate Fudge Frosting
Cake Ingredients
(adapted from Cooks.com)
2 C sifted cake flour
2 t baking powder
.5 t baking soda
.5 t salt
3 squares unsweetened chocolate
.66 C water
1.5 C sugar
1 t vanilla
10 Tbs butter at room temp.
3 eggs
.33 C buttermilk
1 C mini chocolate chips or chunked chocolate of your favorite variety
To make cake
Preheat oven to 350 degrees
Butter, line with parchment and flour (or cocoa) your pans.
Sift flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt into bowl, set aside.
Cook chocolate, water and .25 C of sugar in saucepan over low heat stirring constantly until thick and smooth. Transfer to a bowl set in ice water, stirring often. Add vanilla.
Beat butter and remaining sugar in large bowl until fluffy. Beat in eggs one-at-a-time. Add chocolate fudge mixture and blend.
Beginning and ending with your sifted ingredients, add in flour and buttermilk alternating beating well after each addition. Fold in chocolate chips.
Pour into prepared cake pans and bake for 35 minutes or until the tops of the cakes spring back when touched.
Remove from pans, cool completely and freeze if desired.
Fudge Frosting
(according to the recipe I pilfered this from it is an adaptation of a recipe from Sky High)
Ingredients
6 ounces unsweetened chocolate melted and cooled
4.5 C confectioner’s sugar
24 Tbs (3 sticks) unsalted butter at room temp
6 Tbs whole milk, half-and-half or heavy cream
1 Tbs vanilla
2 cups toasted and chopped nuts of choice
To make frosting
Cream together butter, sugar and milk. Add in chocolate and vanilla, beat until desired consistency. Makes about 5 cups.
Alas, I could not resist matching up deliciously gorgeous and in-season blood oranges with Valentine’s Day. If the name bothers you, you can do what my friend Cameron has done when attempting to get her kids to eat the blood oranges off of a tree in her yard. Just call them rainbow oranges. My rainbow orange valentine. That works too.
Blood oranges remind me of the trip we took to Italy a couple of springs ago. We spent some time in a teeny tiny little fishing village where a little pastry and coffee shop served blood orange juice in the mornings. As soon as the server set down the sunset-colored juice on that first morning, I knew I had a new favorite color. I’ve taken advantage of using blood oranges at any turn ever since. So, while looking at the heaping bowl of blood oranges I brought home from the market a couple of weekends ago I thought, why not blood orange cheesecake?
This recipe is actually adapted from a recipe I found in, gasp, Cooking Light magazine (though the original calls for normal oranges…how pedestrian!). While this blog does not claim to ever attempt to be healthy, it’s always nice when recipe happens to naturally lean in that direction. And I this one does it well.
This recipe starts with about a dozen blood oranges that have been sectioned. To do this, first lop-off the top and bottom of the orange so that you have a stable base. Then, with a sharp knife, cut the peel from the orange while following its contours from top to bottom. Make sure to remove any of the pith that might remain.
Then, I like to hold the naked orange with one hand and using a pairing knife, carefully cut between the membranes so that the two cuts come together in a V shape. If done right, your original orange will look like this:
And your sections will look like this:
This part is a little time consuming but can be done well in advance.
Now it’s time to make a base. The original recipe is scaled to an eight-inch spring-form pan. Mine is nine inches. Even with adjustments in the original, I thought the final crust was too thin so I’ve made some changes in the recipe I’ve included here.
The crust begins with either ground graham crackers or gingersnaps. I love the combination of ginger and orange and so ground up some of my new favorite ginger cookies.
Melted butter and a bit of sugar are added to the crumbed cookies.
And then into the pan and into the oven for a few minutes. The strange greasy looking spots in the photo below are actually pieces of crystallized ginger.
While the crust is in the oven, it’s time to mix together what seems like an unfathomably ridiculous amount of dairy. There is so much cream cheese and yogurt in this recipe that as soon as I opened the first envelope of reduced-fat cream cheese, Petting Zoo’s bionic cow product senors activated and she appeared out of nowhere demanding a piece of the action. As gentle as Bella the cat is, I did have a quick moment of wondering whether I’d have to physically defend my bowl of “cream.” Luckily, she was easily distracted by the promise of a kitty treat or two. In addition to 24 ounces combined fat-free and reduced-fat cream cheese, I used a lowfat Greek yogurt in place of the originally called for sour cream and really liked the outcome.
Then, into the oven with just enough time for me to make a confession. Before this post I was a virgin. Well, a cheesecake virgin. As in, I’d never made it. I have no idea why not, I just never had. Which probably explains why my beautifully spongy looking cheesecake after one-hour of baking looked like the Bride of Frankenstein at 75 minutes. I think I went wrong at a couple of junctures. First, I should have used a water bath. Even without any previous cheesecake experience, I should have known better. Second, I should have re-oiled the sides of the pan after baking the crust. Finally, I’m pretty sure I over-baked the poor thing. Oh well, guess I’ll just have to keep trying.
Luckily, when it comes to cheesecake, a crack or two does not have to mean disaster. Remember those blood oranges? Well, we are going to make a little sauce with marmalade and then decorate the top.
You can add the orange sections in whatever pattern you’d like. I went for a sort of spiral-rose design.
Look at that color.
Seriously–how enticing is this hue?
I was a little skeptical about what kind of texture reduced fat dairy could derive. Turns out, it’s lovely. And, if I hadn’t made it and been privy to the less than full-octane ingredients, I wouldn’t have had any idea.
I’m telling you, this was good stuff. If I was my Valentine, this is what I would make for me.
(Blood) Orange-Glazed Cheesecake with Gingersnap Crust
Blood oranges, sectioned (I sectioned about a dozen to make the pattern shown here but you can mix it up however you would like)
Preheat oven to 325 degrees
For crust, combine gingersnap crumbs, sugar and butter tossing with a fork until moist. Press into a bottom of a 9-inch springform pan coated in cooking oil. Bake for 5 minutes.
To prepare filling, beat together cheese and yogurt in a large bowl or standing mixer at high speed until smooth. Add the flour, sugar, orange juice and vanilla. Add the eggs and whites one-at-a-time until combined.
Pour the cheesecake mix into prepared pan and bake for 70 minutes or until almost set. The cheesecake is done when the center barely moves when the pan is touched. Remove cheesecake from oven and run a knife around the outside edge. Cool to room temp and remove sides.
To prepare the topping, combine marmalade and juice. Spread half of the mixture over the top of the cheesecake. Arrange oranges over cheesecake and top with remaining marmalade mixture. Cover and chills at least eight hours.
I was excited to get to brush off my college french for this month’s Daring Bakers’ Challenge. Then I realized that being able to ask for the location of the library or discotheque isn’t of much use when making pastry. Oh well.
The January 2011 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Astheroshe of the blog accro. She chose to challenge everyone to make a biscuit joconde imprime to wrap around an entremets dessert.
Is biscuit jaconde imprime simply Greek to you? Well, it was to me until I read the challenge several times. And watched the suggested video. And scoured the links included in the challenge.
It turns out this challenge is actually two methods put together to create a single entity of deliciousness. A biscuit jaconde imprime is really just a fancy dessert wrapper made out of a very flexible sponge cake with a pattern in it. The entremets refers to the filling the biscuit jaconde imprime houses.
This recipe starts with paste. A pastry paste which will give the cake its fanciness. For this recipe, I piped the paste on to a silicon baking mat. More traditionally, a very thin layer of the paste is spread onto the mat and then a pattern is done in relief. As a note, I halved the paste recipe and still had plenty left over.
I did this pattern free-hand but if you wanted something specific, you could easily trace your pattern on to parchment, slip it under the mat and then trace with your paste.
The pattern then gets some time in the freezer to firm-up.
While the pastry is resting, it’s time to make the cake. In my case, I added a couple of tablespoons of cocoa powder but you can make it any color you would like.
Returning to the paste, once firm to the touch, the mat is fitted into a half-sheet pan.
And then the sponge batter is poured over it.
After a very quick turn in the oven, the silicon mat is inverted on to a flat surface.
And when peeled-away, the pattern is revealed. Cool or what?
Once the cake is completely cool, it is ready to mold. I used two four-inch spring molds. However, because you are done with the baking process at this point, you aren’t limited to baking pans. Foam board and duct tape could be equally as effective if you wanted to get really groovy with your shapes.
I first lined the bottom of the pans with plastic wrap and then lined the inside of the mold with parchment that was cut to stick out vertically by a couple of inches. I cut the strips of sponge to reach just under the height of the mold.
A quick calculation and homemade compass helped me with the diameter of the bottom and middle layers.
And then it was time to fill. The instructions of the challenge said the entremets could be anything. ANYTHING. So, my mind went to ice cream. And ganache. I’m a little worried that this bastardization could get my spatula confescated, but the instruction did say “anything.”
Each little mold was filled with alternating layers of the extra sponge, mint chocolate chip ice cream and ganache. Once the mold was filled to the top, into the freezer my little friends went for a couple of hours.
Once completely solid, I un-molded the spring-form ring and added a final layer of ganache to top the whole thing off. My understanding is that the jaconde imprime often only goes half-way up the dessert with other delectable layers topping it off as sort of a penthouse floor. For this attempt, I played it conservative and took advantage of the support of the cake.
And then, back into the freezer. The top should have been completely smooth. That it isn’t is a complete rookie error on my part.
Once more frozen, I unwrapped each of the cakes
Here is the pattern on the bottom. I know, nice outlets.
A little detail work with the extra ganache and a cherry on top. Et voila! My take on an ice cream cake.
It isn’t perfect, but was really fun to make . Unlike a souffle or the French macaron, this is one of those recipes that is passably successful if you simply follow the steps carefully.
As a note. If you are thinking of doing this with ice cream, once completely frozen, the layers are much more defined than the picture below. This cut was made only a couple of hours after I completed the cake. A day or two later, I cut it again and the layers were very clean.
I’ve included the recipe here verbatim as posted by accro
Joconde Sponge
YIELD: Two ½ size sheet pans or a 13” x 18” (33 x 46 cm) jelly roll pan
Ingredients:
¾ cup/ 180 ml/ 3oz/ 85g almond flour/meal – *You can also use hazelnut flour, just omit the butter
½ cup plus 2 tablespoons/ 150 ml/ 2? oz/ 75g confectioners’ (icing) sugar
*Note: How to make cake flour: http://www.joythebaker.com/blog/2009/09/how-to-make-cake-flour/
Directions:
1. In a clean mixing bowl whip the egg whites and white granulated sugar to firm, glossy peeks. Reserve in a separate clean bowl to use later.
2. Sift almond flour, confectioner’s sugar, cake flour. (This can be done into your dirty egg white bowl)
3. On medium speed, add the eggs a little at a time. Mix well after each addition. Mix until smooth and light. (If using a stand mixer use blade attachment. If hand held a whisk attachment is fine, or by hand. )
4. Fold in one third reserved whipped egg whites to almond mixture to lighten the batter. Fold in remaining whipped egg whites. Do not over mix.
5. Fold in melted butter.
6. Reserve batter to be used later.
Patterned Joconde-Décor Paste
YIELD: Two ½ size sheet pans or a 13” x 18” (33 x 46 cm) jelly roll pan
COCOA Décor Paste Variation: Reduce cake flour to 6 oz / 170g. Add 2 oz/ 60 g cocoa powder. Sift the flour and cocoa powder together before adding to creamed mixture.
Directions:
1. Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy (use stand mixer with blade, hand held mixer, or by hand)
2. Gradually add egg whites. Beat continuously.
3. Fold in sifted flour.
4. Tint batter with coloring to desired color, if not making cocoa variation.
Preparing the Joconde- How to make the pattern:
1. Spread a thin even layer of décor paste approximately 1/4 inch (5 millimeter) thick onto silicone baking mat with a spatula, or flat knife. Place mat on an upside down baking sheet. The upside down sheet makes spreading easier with no lip from the pan.
2. Pattern the décor paste – Here is where you can be creative. Make horizontal /vertical lines (you can use a knife, spatula, cake/pastry comb). Squiggles with your fingers, zig zags, wood grains. Be creative whatever you have at home to make a design can be used. OR use a piping bag. Pipe letters, or polka dots, or a piped design. If you do not have a piping bag. Fill a ziplock bag and snip off corner for a homemade version of one.
3. Slide the baking sheet with paste into the freezer. Freeze hard. Approx 15 minutes.
4. Remove from freezer. Quickly pour the Joconde batter over the design. Spread evenly to completely cover the pattern of the Décor paste.
5. Bake at 475ºF /250ºC until the joconde bounces back when slightly pressed, approx. 15 minutes. You can bake it as is on the upside down pan. Yes, it is a very quick bake, so watch carefully.
6. Cool. Do not leave too long, or you will have difficulty removing it from mat.
7. Flip cooled cake on to a powdered sugared parchment paper. Remove silpat. Cake should be right side up, and pattern showing! (The powdered sugar helps the cake from sticking when cutting.)
Preparing the MOLD for entremets
Start with a large piece of parchment paper laid on a very flat baking sheet. Then a large piece of cling wrap over the parchment paper. Place a spring form pan ring, with the base removed, over the cling wrap and pull the cling wrap tightly up on the outside of the mold. Line the inside of the ring with a curled piece of parchment paper overlapping top edge by ½ inch. CUT the parchment paper to the TOP OF THE MOLD. It will be easier to smooth the top of the cake.
Preparing the Jaconde for Molding:
Video: MUST WATCH THIS. This is a very good demo of the joconde and filling the entremets:
1. Trim the cake of any dark crispy edges. You should have a nice rectangle shape.
2. Decide how thick you want your “Joconde wrapper”. Traditionally, it is ½ the height of your mold. This is done so more layers of the plated dessert can be shown. However, you can make it the full height.
3. Once your height is measured, then you can cut the cake into equal strips, of height and length. (Use a very sharp paring knife and ruler.)
4. Make sure your strips are cut cleanly and ends are cut perfectly straight. Press the cake strips inside of the mold, decorative side facing out. Once wrapped inside the mold, overlap your ends slightly. You want your Joconde to fit very tightly pressed up to the sides of the mold. Then gently push and press the ends to meet together to make a seamless cake. The cake is very flexible so you can push it into place. You can use more than one piece to “wrap “your mold, if one cut piece is not long enough.
5. The mold is done, and ready to fill.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0e1DsyDtcd0&feature=related
Disclaimer:
*Note: The Daring Kitchen and its members in no way suggest we are medical professionals and therefore are NOT responsible for any error in reporting of gluten-free ingredients. If you have issues with digesting gluten, then it is YOUR responsibility to research the ingredient before using it. If you have allergies, it is YOUR responsibility to make sure any ingredient in a recipe will not adversely affect you. If you are lactose intolerant, it is YOUR responsibility to make sure any ingredient in a recipe will not adversely affect you. If you are vegetarian or vegan, it is YOUR responsibility to make sure any ingredient in a recipe will not adversely affect you. Please consult your physician with any questions before using a product you are not familiar with. Thank you! 🙂
Last weekend we were invited to a dinner party by our soon-to-be-wed friends Ron and Ashley. Ron’s parents were out of town and he promised a serious rager. So, TD liberated my varsity jacket of its protective plastic garment bag and claimed it as his “costume.” To make-up for my husband’s cross-dressing, I baked up a batch of Nutella brownies as a host-gift.
Oh, Nutella.
This really is a mini-post because the brownie recipe is, of course, my tried and true, never fail, always pleases recipe. To make a good thing even better, all you need to do is drop dollups of Nutella throughout the batter once it is in the pan. Then, take a knife and run it through the batter creating pretty little Nutella swirls. Finally, bake as usual. The beautiful thing about adding Nutella is that baking doesn’t really change its consistency which means you’ve now added rich, nutty and supple to moist, decadent and slightly crumbly. Wait…we are talking about brownies right?
Once completely cooled, cut and wrap them up in a pretty box. Then, dust off your red Solo plastic cups and you are armed for some serious shenanigans. Or, a beautiful dinner party, which is really what Ashley and Ron had in store for us!
Oh, and we figured the goodies might come in handy should Ron’s parents discover we had a party at their house while they were out of town.
On the first Saturday of December, I lost a bet. Again. So, now that the holiday dust has cleared I figured it was time to pay-up.
When it came to deciding exactly how to make-up my debt, I knew I had just the thing. While I had already bookmarked the recipe before the madness of the end of the year, not one but two people sent me the same recipe saying that it “sounded like me.”
Boy was I glad the recipe wasn’t for sauerkraut. Or pigs in a blanket.
Nope, this little cookie is sweet. And citrusy. And most importantly, very, VERY glittery. And I for one, never, ever pass up the chance at using glitter. Especially the edible kind.
The dough is very similar to shortbread. No eggs and a good amount of cornstarch.
Then the dough gets rolled into tiny little balls. The recipe calls for a scant teaspoon but I found it easier to weigh each at .25 ounces.
Naked balls.
Are you ready? Because here come the sparkles.
Each ball gets rolled in sanding sugar until it is a sparkly little sphere. When you are rolling the ball, don’t worry about keeping the shape, you can easily re-shape it back into the perfect orb once you’ve reached sparkle saturation.
And now the magic happens. During the baking process our little disco balls transform into perfect little cookie buns.
Oh, but we aren’t done yet. Not even close. Each one of these lovely little glittery globes gets matched up with a mate and then filled with a lemony buttercream-like frosting. If your frosting is melty (as mine was), just pop it into the fridge for half an hour before filling the cookies. Otherwise, the two halves will slide when you try to put them together.
That’s right, these nuggets are even sparkly on their undersides.
I think you know what comes next.
While not quite as brilliant as a trip to Tiffany’s, they are ooh and ahhh worthy. These sparkly sandwich cookies have earned instant classic status in the Misanthropic Hostess’ arsenal of go-to treats. How cute would these be wrapped-up in pairs of two as party favors?
And maybe, just maybe, they’ll pay off my football debt and bring my team good karma into the new year.
Post script.
We agree these are adorable little sparkly sandwiches of goodness correct? You associate that description with this recipe don’t you? Okay, now I’m going to ruin it. When I gave one to TD he immediately asked where its eyes were? Huh? To him they look like muppets. Or worse yet, South Park heads. Boys.
Glittery Lemon Sandwich Cookies
The sources for this recipe are multiple. I believe it first appeared int he December 2008 issue of Gourmet magazine. However, it has more recently appeared in The Gourmet Cookie Book (I’m guessing these babies were 2008’s best thus earning a place in the now retired magazine’s new cookbook). And, I swear I saw a similar recipe in a Martha Stewart holiday publication. I used the magazine version of the recipe from Gourmet but assume they are the same.
I’ve kept the ingredients the same but slightly altered the method. I find that rolling out all the balls and then dipping in sanding sugar is more efficient than rolling-out a pan, dipping, getting glitter everywhere and then repeating.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Position rack in center of oven. Line two baking sheets with parchment.
Sift together flour, cornstarch and salt. Set aside. Cream butter. Then cream-in confectioner’s sugar until fluffy. Beat in eggs, zest and vanilla. At low speed, mix in flour mixture until just combined.
Roll a scant teaspoon (about .25 ounce) into a ball. Repeat until all dough is used (I just lined these up on an additional parchment-lined bake sheet).
Fill small bowl with sanding sugar. Roll ball in sugar until completely covered. Reshape if necessary. I found the sugar stuck better if I gave the ball a quick roll between my palms before dipping.
Space sugared balls about 3/4 of an inch apart (dough will spread). Bake 12-15 or until the tops of the cookies just crack but remain pale.
Let cool on parchment or cooling wire.
For Filling
Beat together all ingredients in a large bowl until well blended. Transfer to a sealable bag or pasty bag. Refrigerate for 15-30 minutes.
Match-up halves and fill one-half with filling.
The filling will be soft so finished cookies are best kept chilled.
