The darkest hour

Do any of the rest of you get up early to bake?  I've always been more of a morning person than a night owl.  Plus, there's something so nice about being up before the sun, when the day is still so quiet and undisturbed.  I get so much more done then than if I stay up late to finish something.

Today, it was getting up to make a batch of Swiss meringue buttercream.  (Dorie's recipe from BFMHTY.)  I've made it so many times now, I could practically do it in my sleep. =)  It helps that I had leftover egg whites in my fridge.  I made the cupcakes last night--the Ultimate Chocolate Cupcakes from Cook's Illustrated, minus the ganache filling--and this way they had plenty of time to cool completely.  B surprised me by saying that if she had to pick just one frosting flavor, it would be vanilla.  (She originally wanted me to do a chocolate/vanilla swirl.)  She picked the wrappers, and we decided pink edible glitter would coordinate nicely.

It's so fluffy!!!

Flavor of the month

So here we are at the end of January.  For the most part, my new FOCUS plan is off to a good start!  I did get derailed slightly during the past week--my dad & his girlfriend Judy (who is really great) got here in time for Brianna's birthday last Wednesday and went home Sunday afternoon.  That was okay, though, because I only had one item left to fill in on my list when they got here--the Ingredient focus.  When I came up with the list, I figured that one would be an opportunity to highlight a new ingredient each month.  But I wasn't feeling it.  I considered--and discarded--several possibilities, but nothing was really grabbing my attention.  Since part of my goal this year is to focus on things that have value for me instead of just doing things because I think I should, I didn't want to force myself to make something that might or might not get eaten.  I was also running out of time, so that was a factor. =)  

Some of my best ideas come as I'm lying in bed at night before I fall asleep.  I've taken to keeping one of my notebooks handy so I can jot stuff down more easily so I don't lose it.  Sunday night, what was going around in my head was the fact that my ingredient and pantry categories were already sort of overlapping.  I also wanted to blog about Brianna's birthday cake.  I was also thinking about the new cookbook I bought last Friday.  Something in my brain put all of those things together and got them to gel.  I didn't want to write about ingredients (I'll combine that with pantry going forward), I wanted to write about flavors.  

I've mentioned before that around here, the preferred cake flavor for everyone but me is chocolate.  When I asked B what kind of cake she wanted, I fully expected her answer of chocolate cake with chocolate frosting.  But she surprised me with the filling--she started to ask for vanilla, like last year's cake, but then changed it to raspberry.  Chocolate and raspberry is one of my all-time favorite flavor combinations.  Sold!  I'm not sure exactly what it is about those two flavors that works so well together.  I also like cranberry with chocolate, so I think it has to do with the fruity tartness in contrast to the rich chocolate.  Whatever it is, I'm not complaining. =)  Our favorite filling is Swiss meringue buttercream, for its smooth, creamy texture.  I've tried different ways to flavor it, with varying success.  This time, I turned to the raspberry sauce from my copy of Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams at Home.  It was fabulous in ice cream, and I thought it would work well in the frosting, too.  

B decided she wanted a rectangular cake rather than a round one.  I learned a long time ago that it's a total pain to try to slice a regular 13" x 9" cake horizontally to form two layers.  Instead, I have a couple of quarter sheet pans.  My go-to chocolate cake recipe is the Chocolate Fudge Cake from The Cake Bible.  I love that it gives the option to use natural cocoa powder, which I prefer, and it's made with brown sugar, which contributes to the moist fudgy texture.  The recipe calls for two 9" round pans, but I find that it works great for two thinner 13" x 9" layers.  The baking time is shorter--about 20 minutes. I line the pans with parchment, and let the cakes cool in the pans.  

When I was ready to assemble the cake, I flipped one of the layers onto my serving tray and peeled off the parchment.  I spread the cake with a thin layer of straight raspberry sauce (which is more like jam than sauce in texture), then topped that with a nice layer of the raspberry buttercream.  I then flipped the second cake layer on top (and removed the parchment from that as well).  I put the cake in the fridge so the filling would have a chance to firm up while I made the chocolate frosting.  My favorite recipe for that is a great recipe from Fine Cooking.  It uses sour cream, and I love how the tang cuts through the sweetness of the powdered sugar in the frosting.  It's also really easy to mix up with a bowl and a whisk.  Once the cake had chilled a bit, I covered it with the chocolate frosting.  I used more of the raspberry buttercream to decorate the cake with a shell border around the bottom and stars around the top, as well as a festive message.

The verdict?  Using the raspberry sauce to flavor the Swiss meringue buttercream works very well--you still have a smooth texture.  I've tried using fruit puree in the past, and it tends to be too watery and make the buttercream break.  The raspberry sauce is also tart enough to balance the sweetness of the frosting, plus it makes it such a lovely pink color.  As for the flavor combination, this was a winner, no surprise there.  You can really taste the fruit, and it works so well with the rich chocolate.  I also love the contrasting textures of the silky buttercream and denser chocolate frosting.  

Part of the fun is figuring out what flavors appeal to you, and I love pulling together components from different sources to see how they work together.  I encourage you to do the same, but figured I'd share the ones I used here in case you're looking for inspiration.  The Chocolate Fudge Cake recipe can be round in The Cake Bible.  If you aren't fortunate enough to have a copy, your local library might.  The Chocolate-Sour Cream Frosting recipe can be found in this post (adapted from Fine Cooking).  There are lots of places to find Swiss meringue buttercream; my go-to is Dorie's recipe, which can be found in this post.  The raspberry sauce is pretty straightforward to make, and can be found in the middle of this article in the Post-Gazette (I used regular raspberries, not black).

Wordless Wednesday - Star bright

(cupcake recipe here, glitter here)

That's the way I like it

I've been trying to write this post for the past week, and just haven't been able to figure out what to write.  Then last night I opened up my Google Reader, clicked on the latest Baking Banter post, and started laughing.  Why?  Because I'm a proud DBCB, and have been for a long, long time.  What's a DBCB, you ask? A Designated Birthday Cake Baker, of course.  Meaning that I bake birthday goodies for all the people I work with.  I've been doing it for about 15 years, and it's always appreciated.  Sometimes it's cake, sometimes cupcakes.  I've made strawberry shortcake a couple times, and several cheesecakes.  I'll come up with something on my own if necessary, but I certainly take requests.  The one that sticks out most in my mind is the German Chocolate Cake I made a few years ago for one of my employees.  I absolutely detest coconut, so I didn't actually sample the topping or the finished cake.  Fortunately, it was  a hit.  And everyone was amused by the fact that along with the cake, I also brought the rest of the bag of coconut to work.  I wasn't about to let it stay in my house!

For this latest cake, I didn't have to do anything traumatic like buying coconut.  =)  I asked M, the birthday girl, if she had any special requests.  She commented on how much she liked the texture of the frosting on the cupcakes I'd brought in a while back.  They were topped with Swiss meringue buttercream, which I've made many times.  Her only other request was something non-chocolate.  As Brianna would say, she likes chocolate, but it's not her favorite.  So I decided to go with a classic vanilla cake topped with vanilla buttercream.  I thought M would be happy with it, and I suspected that no one else would complain.  It's kind of like my favorite plain cheese pizza.  Most people might not request it, but no one will turn it down if it's around!  

For the cake, I used my favorite white cake recipe from The Cake Bible, the White Velvet Butter Cake.  I added a tablespoon of rainbow non-pareils to the batter to make the layers more festive.  You just have to work quickly to fold them in, so you don't end up with streaks of color in the batter instead of just polka dots.  I wanted a taller cake, so I baked the batter in 8" round pans, rather than the 9" ones called for in the recipe.  The layers took about 40 minutes to bake.  

As I mentioned, for the frosting, I knew I wanted to make a Swiss meringue buttercream.   I decided to try out a new recipe, from The Sweeter Side of Amy's Bread.  The main difference is that it uses about 20% shortening instead of all butter, which is supposed to help keep the frosting a bit more stable at room temperature.  As hot as it's been here lately, I wanted all the help I could get to keep the frosting from melting.  

When I was assembling the cake, I topped the bottom layer with vanilla buttercream, then had the idea to add something else.  I still had some of the raspberry "sauce" that I used for this ice cream, so I spread it on top of the frosting, before adding the second cake layer.  The whole cake got covered in buttercream, then I piped rosettes around the top (thanks to another Baking Banter post for the inspiration) and a shell border around the bottom.  The finishing touch was some rainbow sparkling sugar.

The verdict?  This cake was a huge hit with the birthday girl and everyone else who tried it.  The frosting was still rather soft, but I think it did hold up a bit better than my usual all-butter SWBC would have.  The raspberry filling in the middle was just what the cake needed--a tart contrast to all the sweetness.  I'll definitely be using that again.  

I had a lot of fun making this cake.  I love the way it turned out.  One of my favorite parts of baking is pulling together a bunch of components from different sources to make something new.  I might not make this exact cake again, but that's okay, since I'll enjoy making the next one just as much.  I encourage you to pull some books off your shelves (or find recipes online, if you prefer) and do the same thing.  Have fun!

The big one (well, one of them, anyway)

About a week ago, I was having a conversation with (my 4yo daughter) Gillian as we were in the car on the way to the daycare.  I asked her if she knew that she was going to get to stay home with me on Monday (Presidents Day, the 21st).  "Yes! That's my day off!"  "Do you know what else it is?"  "Is it your birthday?"  "Yes, it is.  How old do you think I'm going to be?"  "100?"  Thanks, kid.  =)  

So yes, this past Monday was my birthday.  While I'm not quite 100, it was one of those birthdays with a zero at the end.  When I told Gillian which one, she insisted that we count from 1 to 40, just because she could.  Again, thanks. =)  I didn't really have any special plans for the day, in part because I knew Gillian would be home with me all day.  We went to Costco (and G was very disappointed in the lack of samples on weekdays), and did some baking.  

I was thrilled to get lots of wonderful birthday wishes from family and friends.  My family knows me well--my in-laws sent a baking-themed card, my sister Kate & her husband Jeff sent a gift card to King Arthur Flour, and my Dad and Judy sent a gift card to Sur la Table.  Time for some shopping! =)  (I already have my eye on this pullman pan. Though I still don't understand why they don't just sell the lid with it...)  The big question everyone kept asking, though, was who was making my birthday cake?  

There are two answers to that. The Friday before my birthday, one of my bankers made a cake for me and brought it to work.  It was one of my all-time favorites, yellow cake with chocolate frosting.  She was a little worried that I wouldn't like cake from a box mix.  My thoughts on that?  Any cake that someone else makes for me is awesome!  Plus, who doesn't like box yellow cake?  =)  It was fantastic.  

I also made cake for myself on Monday.  Gillian helped a bit with stirring and licking beaters. =)  Unlike the rest of my immediate family, I prefer vanilla cake with my chocolate frosting.  Since I was in the mood for raspberry filling, I decided to make white cake, since I think it works better than yellow for that.  My go-to recipe for white cake is in one of the first baking books I ever got, The Cake Bible.  It's the White Velvet Butter Cake.  One of the great things about making white cake instead of yellow is that I got to get some of the egg whites out of my freezer. =)  For the filling, I got to use more egg whites, since I made my favorite Swiss meringue buttercream, flavored with raspberry.  And I went the easy route for the frosting--I can probably make the sour cream-chocolate frosting in my sleep, I've made it so many times now.  I like lots of layers, so I sliced each of the 9" layers in half so I had four layers of cake with filling between them.  I didn't want to mess with decorating, so I just swirled the chocolate frosting on the top.  Brianna and Gillian insisted it needed something more, so we added some multicolored non-pareil sprinkles.

The verdict?  Well, that's kind of a silly question, since I made it with flavors that are my favorites.  Honestly, though, I might change the frosting next time.  The raspberry buttercream was fantastic with the texture of the cake.  The chocolate frosting was a bit heavy for the whole thing.  I might have to try it with chocolate buttercream for the outside next time, or maybe a milk chocolate ganache glaze.  It was still very tasty, though, and was eagerly eaten by everyone here.  

If you'd like to try making the White Velvet Butter Cake, you can find the recipe here.  The Sour Cream-Chocolate Frosting is in this post of mine.  And the Swiss Meringue Buttercream is in my post on Dorie's Perfect Party Cake.  (I added about 1/4 to 1/3 cup of raspberry fruit butter to the buttercream to flavor it. Raspberry jam should work as well.)  

Strawberry cupcakes forever

I've been really good lately.  I haven't bought a new cookbook in ages.  (Ages meaning a couple months.)  Then I broke my streak by buying two in two days.  The second one was this morning--I ordered Dorie's new book on Amazon.  (Surprisingly, my order said I may have it by the end of the week. Wow. And cool!)  The first cookbook I bought yesterday at Half Price Books--a copy of Martha Stewart's Cupcakes.  I have several friends who are members of the MS Cupcakes Club, so I've heard lots of good things about it.  In fact, I thought about buying it back when it came out, but decided that I just don't make cupcakes often enough to justify it.  But I couldn't pass up the opportunity to get it for half price.  Now I just have to restrain myself and not go crazy buying cool cupcake papers and other decorating stuff.  It seems I have the same love for decorating supplies that I have for office supplies.  Which is why I do my best to stay out of both Michael's and Office Depot. =)

So of course I had to make something right away.  After flipping through the book, what caught my eye right away was the lovely pink Strawberry Cupcakes--strawberry cake with strawberry Swiss meringue buttercream frosting.  (I have to say, one of the things that appealed to me about this book is that Martha uses a lot of Swiss meringue buttercream, which is a favorite of mine.  Gotta do something to use up all those egg whites leftover from making ice cream!)  Since I just bought a bunch of strawberries when grocery shopping, these cupcakes seemed like a great place to start.  

The recipe makes a lot--it gives a yield of 34--but since I only have one muffin tin and didn't need a huge number of cupcakes, I made a third of it.  It wasn't too difficult to cut the ingredient amounts in thirds, especially since I converted everything to grams first.  I couldn't find any notes in the book about what weights Martha uses for flours, so I went with a fairly standard 4.5 ounces (about 125 g) for AP flour and 4 ounces (about 115 g) for cake flour.  The batter is made with the creaming method, and finely chopped strawberries are folded in at the end.  I ended up with 11 cupcakes.  The frosting is pretty standard as well.  Even though I knew I wouldn't need that much, I made a full recipe of plain Swiss meringue buttercream, since it's kind of hard to make a small amount in a stand mixer.  I just froze half of it and added fresh strawberry puree to the rest.  I originally added the strawberries to a third of the plain frosting, but I think I had too much puree, because the frosting broke and wouldn't come back together no matter how much I beat it.  I think I added too much liquid for it to handle, so I added in some more of the plain frosting and beat it all together.  That solved the problem.  So now I have a bunch of plain frosting and a little extra strawberry frosting in my freezer.

The verdict?  Well, Brianna and Gillian certainly gave them two thumbs up.  =)  I think they were excited to see cupcakes for dessert, since we hardly ever have them except for birthdays.  I'll have to report back with my verdict later, since I'm way too full from dinner to eat one now.  Well, and because I might have sampled just a bit of the frosting before dinner... The frosting is definitely delicious.  Edited to add: Okay, I finally tried one. Yum! It's nice to have non-chocolate cake for a change.  (Everyone here but me likes chocolate/chocolate the best.  I prefer vanilla cake/chocolate frosting.)

If you'd like to try these for yourself, you can find the recipe here.  I can't wait to see what other fun cupcakes I can find to make.  Gillian has already put in a request for the monkey ones for her birthday. 

And one to grow on

I love birthdays.  It doesn't matter if it's mine or someone else's.  I love presents, and special dinners, and cake, of course.  My birthday and Jamie's are exactly 7 weeks apart (okay, except for leap years, when there's that extra day in there).  I'm the older one.  Most of the time that's no big deal, unless it's a birthday of some significance.  Like next year will be--we turn 40 next year.  And if the last major milestone was any indication, I'd better start looking for obnoxious birthday cards now.  Because the year we turned 30, Jamie got to all the good cards before I did.  Yes, cards.  Like, 3 or 4 of them.  I had to work much, much harder to find something appropriate to respond with. =)  This year, the only real significance that I noticed with the difference in our ages was the census.  As I was filling out the form, it said to put ages as if the form was filled out on April 1st.  That means that for official purposes, I am 39, while Jamie got to be 38.  That hardly seems fair, does it?

But I decided to be nice and make some yummy birthday cupcakes for him anyway.  =P  I can't get away with making cupcakes for Gillian or Brianna most of the time.  They want an actual cake.  (Okay, now that I think about it, I ended up making cake and cupcakes for Brianna, one for home, the other for school.)  But Jamie seems to be okay with cupcakes, or at least he's never told me that he isn't.  As I've mentioned before, everyone in this house likes chocolate cake with chocolate frosting the best, except for me.  So I had at least some idea of what I would be making.  The question was whether I'd be using recipes I'd made before, or something new.

As I was standing in the checkout line at Central Market the Friday night before Jamie's birthday, I looked over the cooking magazines as I usually do.  (They have a really great selection.)  The new Cooks Illustrated caught my eye.  One of the recipes mentioned on the cover was Ultimate Chocolate Cupcakes.  That sounded perfect.  I picked up the magazine and skimmed the article.  Chocolate cupcake, with ganache filling baked in, and chocolate Swiss meringue buttercream on top.  Wow.  More than perfect.  Keeping my fingers crossed, I put the magazine back, and reminded myself to check the mail when we got home.  Sure enough, my copy of the magazine was waiting for me in the mailbox.  

There were a few expected things in the recipe, and a few unexpected ones.  As is often the case with chocolate, coffee is added to enhance the flavor.  There actually isn't any dairy in the batter itself.  The butter is replaced with oil (plus there's fat from the chocolate).  Since coffee is the liquid rather than buttermilk, a little vinegar is added to react with the baking soda for leavening.  And the flour used is bread flour, to help strengthen things so you don't end up with crumbs everywhere when eating the cupcakes.  To add more chocolate flavor (in case bittersweet chocolate and cocoa powder aren't enough), ganache is dolloped on top of the batter before baking.  It then sinks, to make a creamy chocolate center for the cupcakes.  Finally, there's the amazing frosting.  I love Swiss meringue buttercream, but have never made a chocolate version. 

The verdict?  Wow.  These are some wonderful cupcakes.  As promised, the cake is not too crumbly.  And the frosting is amazing.  The only thing that needs some work is the filling.  While it was quite tasty, it sank almost to the bottom of the cupcakes.  I'll have to play around and see if I can do anything about that.  We will definitely be having these again!  The birthday boy enjoyed them a lot, as did the girls.  If you'd like to try them for yourself, I definitely recommend picking up a copy of the magazine.  It's the May/June issue of Cooks Illustrated, which should be available for a while yet.  You can also get access to that recipe and many more by subscribing to their website.  And for some other great recipes from magazines, check out Ivonne's blog for Magazine Mondays.  

Filbert Gâteau with Praline Buttercream

Since I sent in my request to join the Daring Bakers back in February, I've eagerly awaited the start of each new month.  It's so much fun to see what interesting new challenge will be presented.  This month was no different.  In fact, I had the day off from work on July 1st, so I was able to check out the new recipe and see some of the early responses to it.  This month's selection came from Chris of Mele Cotte--Filbert Gâteau with Praline Buttercream.  It's a long recipe, but mostly because you have to make a bunch of different components before assembling the finished cake.  A bit intimidating at first, but I survived the Opera Cake, so I didn't think this would be too bad. =)

One thing I did notice was that this recipe was for a pretty large cake, so I knew I'd need to find some people to help eat it.  My first thought was that I could take it to an annual 4th of July party that we attend.  So I headed right out to the store (yes, on 7/1) to buy hazelnuts and apricot preserves, the two ingredients that weren't already in my pantry.  But as I thought about it more, I realized that this might not work well--the party was outdoors in the Texas heat, probably not the best place for a cake like this.  And I was going to have a hard time finding the time to get everything done.  

So the hazelnuts and preserves languished in my pantry for another three weeks.  Last week I had another day off during the week, so I decide to tackle the praline paste while my kids were at daycare and not underfoot.  Super hot caramel and small children just seems like a really bad idea...  First I had to skin the hazelnuts.  Easier said than done.  First I tried roasting them and rubbing the skins off.  That didn't really work very well.  Bits of the skins came off, but not enough.  So then I tried boiling them in water with baking soda, as someone suggested on the DB boards.  That worked quite well for loosening the skins, but it still took longer than I would have liked to separate the nuts from the skins.  Not something I want to make a habit of.  Once I was done, I put the nuts back into the oven to dry them out some.  

Next was the caramel.  I've never actually made a dry caramel before, so I was a bit nervous about this step.  It turned out not to be too bad, though I'm still more comfortable with the wet method.  I got the nuts more or less coated with the caramel, and turned them out onto a pan lined with non-stick foil (love that stuff) to cool.  Once the brittle was cool enough to handle, I broke it up some and put it in my food processor.  Then I processed the heck out of it.  Eventually, it turned into a paste, but it took some patience.  My finished paste wasn't completely smooth, but it was close.  The texture of it actually reminded me a lot of the inside of Reese's peanut butter cups.  

Since I was on a roll, that same evening I made the Swiss buttercream.  I've made buttercream before, but the method for this one was a bit different.  Instead of adding butter to the meringue, you add the meringue to the softened butter.  But it worked fine for me.  I used rum for my flavoring.  And once the praline paste was added...  Wow!  I don't usually go for caramel-y sweet things, but boy was that stuff good!  And it kept well in the fridge until the weekend when I could finish the cake.  Once I was ready to use it, I let it sit at room temperature to warm up, then put it back in my stand mixer and beat it with the paddle attachment until it came back together. 

I made the full recipe of the buttercream so I would be sure to have enough for decorating, but I decided to make a small cake with only half the genoise recipe.  Since the original cake was to be baked in a 10-inch pan, I did the math and determined that my 7-inch springform would be the right size for half.  The genoise was pretty straightforward to make, though it took longer to bake than I expected (about 33 minutes).  I let it cool overnight, and on Sunday I finally got down to assembling the cake.  First I divided the cake into three layers with my serrated bread knife.  I brushed each layer with rum syrup (I made half the recipe of that, too) and layered it with the buttercream.  I brushed the top and sides of the assembled cake with apricot glaze.  While the cake chilled, I prepared the ganache glaze.  I used one of my favorite chocolates, Scharffen Berger 62%, as well as some more rum.  Pouring the glaze over the cake went pretty smoothly (pun intended).  Once the glaze set, I had fun piping stars around the bottom and on the top of my cake.  I added some hazelnuts for decoration as well.

The verdict?  I'm not sure if I'd ever had hazelnuts before I made this cake.  I'm still not sure how much I like them by themselves.  But the praline buttercream is absolutely fantastic.  I had to put the leftovers of that in the freezer so I wouldn't just stand here in my kitchen and eat it with a spoon.  The ganache glaze was fun to do, and looked really neat when I was done.  I'm not the biggest fan of nutty cakes, but I did like the whole thing put together.  And I tried some neat new things, which is part of the fun of the Daring Bakers.  

Wow, it's taken me longer than I expected to type all that out.  Not as long as the full recipe, though.  =)  For that, head over to Chris's blog, and don't forget to check out the creations of all the other Daring Bakers!