What I did during my spring vacation

I was on vacation last week--we didn't go anywhere, since I was the only one off (spring break for Brianna was a month ago), but it was a nice break from work.  I realized this weekend that I actually accomplished quite a few things on my to-do list.  I got some annual doctor appointments out of the way, including my first mammogram.  Gotta love getting older... =)  (It was kind of a weird experience, but not that bad. I've certainly endured more uncomfortable things--after all, I gave birth to two children.)  I bought some new sandals and gave myself a pedicure so I'm ready for all the warm weather around here.  Of course, then I had to paint two smaller sets of toenails as well.  I even got to have both lunch and dinner out with my husband.  I took him to lunch on Wednesday for his birthday (and made him cupcakes, too), and then the daycare did parents night out on Saturday.  Two nice meals sans kiddos in one week--unprecedented!

Surprisingly, I didn't do as much baking as I originally expected to.  But for a change, I did get a jump on making the latest TWD selection--I baked it over a week ago, in fact.  This week our recipe is Lemon Loaf Cake, and our hosts are Truc of Treats and Michelle of The Beauty of Life.  As I was reading over the recipe (contributed by Norman Love), I realized that I was already familiar with the mixing method for the cake batter.  Both Dorie's Rum-Drenched Vanilla Cakes and the French Pound Cake from Flour are mixed up in a similar fashion.  Instead of creaming butter and sugar together, you start off by mixing the eggs and sugar together.  Then you fold in the dry ingredients, and finally the liquids (cream and melted butter).

I like loaf cakes, but was in the mood for something different this time.  Gillian asked me recently why I hadn't made anything in the "bug pan" in a long time.  Since I previously used it for the Flour pound cake, I figured it would also work well for this recipe.  I was lucky enough to find the pan (pictured above) at Costco last spring, which made it much more affordable for a Nordic Ware pan.  It only has a 3 cup volume, though, so I knew I'd need to put the rest of the batter in something else.  I have some small loaf pans, but ended up going with my 6-cup bundt pan.  

Besides my pan choices, I did tweak the recipe in a few other small ways.  I borrowed Dorie's tip from recipes in Baking and rubbed the lemon zest into the sugar before combining it with the eggs.  I also used a bit more salt--1/4 teaspoon--and for the cake flour, I used King Arthur's Unbleached Cake Flour Blend.  After baking, I left the bugs unadorned, but couldn't resist dressing up the bundt cake.  After I removed it from its pan, I brushed it with a lemon syrup while the cake was still hot.  Then once it cooled, I drizzled it with a lemon glaze as well.

The verdict?  We liked both versions.  This is my favorite type of pound cake--I love the texture of it, and it never seems dry to me like others do sometimes.  I like the extra punch of lemon added by the syrup and glaze on the cake, and enjoy how the tart topping makes a nice contrast to the sweeter flavor of the cake itself.  The lemon flavor was milder in the bugs, but definitely still there.  We all ate those shortcake-style with macerated strawberries and whipped cream, and they were delicious.  I need to use that pan more often--the girls really love the fun shapes.

If you'd like to give this recipe a try, you can find it on Truc's blog or Michelle's blog.  Be sure to check out the other lemony Links, too!

I love it when a plan comes together

I was off on Wednesday this week, since I had to work today.  I was up early to get everyone out the door and also because I had an appointment scheduled for 9:00am in downtown Austin.  I had a bit of time before I had to head out, so I read some blogs and chatted with friends on Twitter.  I was trying not to think about the fact that I was kind of hungry--my appointment was for a health screening, which meant fasting for blood work.  Let's just say that reading food blogs probably wasn't helping. =) 

One of my favorite blogs to read is the one from the bakers at King Arthur Flour.  There's lots of yummy stuff on there, and it's so nice to have step-by-step instructions with photos to accompany so many of their great recipes.  It's not unusual for me to read one of their posts and want to drop everything and head for the kitchen.  That was definitely the case when I saw the post for Italian Easter Cheese Bread.  My friend Kayte was on Twitter at the time; she's been in a bread-baking mood and was quite happy to jump in and make it with me.  Margaret decided to joined us as well.  I went to my appointment, ran a couple errands, and was home before noon so I could get started.  Kayte had to start a little earlier, and Margaret got a bit ahead of me as well, but we still got to compare notes as we went along.  

One of my errands was a stop at Crate & Barrel.  I only went in for the chopsticks...

The dough for the cheese bread is basically a lean brioche--it calls for several eggs plus a yolk and half a stick of butter.  It doesn't have any sugar, though; instead it calls for freshly ground pepper (I used black since I don't care for white) to reinforce the savory nature of the bread.  Since the dough is pretty soft, I used my mixer for all the kneading.  Once the dough starts to come together, you mix in a bunch of grated cheese.  I went with Parmigiano Reggiano, but you could also use Romano or Asiago.  I love the fact that KAF gives options for volume as well as weight (in either ounces or grams) for their recipes.  But I realized I was in trouble when I discovered that the 1 1/4 cups of grated cheese translated to 170 grams (6 ounces)!  I didn't have that much cheese, so I ended up just going with the 95 grams that I had and hoped that it would still work out.

I frequently make breads that are baked on my baking stone as freestanding loaves.  To be honest, I don't really like traditional "sandwich bread" for sandwiches, though it is nice for toast.  The cheese bread called for a pan, though, and gave a couple of options.  It can be baked as a round, in a brioche or pandoro pan, or you can make a pretty loaf by braiding the dough and then putting it in a loaf pan.  I actually don't use my 9"x5" pan very often, so this was a good chance to get it out of the cupboard.  In the pan, my loaf took 30 minutes to bake, at which point the internal temperature was about 195ºF.  

The verdict? Even without the full amount of cheese, this is some really tasty bread.  I especially like it toasted with butter.  I haven't had a chance to try yet, but I was thinking that it would make really good croutons.  I used it for B's lunch one day and she said she liked it.  I definitely plan to make this bread again, maybe with a different cheese next time.  

You can find the recipe here on the King Arthur website.  Kayte and Margaret have posted their loaves as well.  I'm so glad that we were able to bake together this week!  I'm also sending this over to YeastSpotting, where you check out lots of other great breads.

Tarts and Pi

I was excited to see the second pick this month for the TWD-Baking with Julia group.  Our group of hosts (Steph, Spike, Jessica & Jaime) chose Chocolate Truffle Tartlets for us to make this week.  I love chocolate, and I love tarts.  I like pie too, but there's something great about a tart--I really like crust, and the ratio of filling to crust in a tart is just right for me.  In addition to dessert tarts, I like to make savory ones as well.  

In the course of my TWD journey, I've acquired a lot of bakeware.  It's a testament to my love of tarts that even 4+ years ago, before I started TWD, I owned tart pans in several sizes.  I know I had a 9 1/2" one and an 11" one, as well as a set of half a dozen 4 1/2" tartlet pans.  I might have even had the 10 1/4" one already.  In an attempt to make smaller tarts--so I could make them more often with less guilt (since most tart crusts have lots of butter), sometime in the past year I picked up 6" and 8" ones.  Oh, and I also have a 14" x 4 1/2" rectangular pan that I love.  

I knew I wanted to make half the recipe, which would be three tartlets.  I didn't want to figure out a good way to divide that between four people, so I decided to make a larger tart.  So I had to determine what size to use.  That led me to one of my favorite baking activities, doing the math. =)  Yes, I know most of you are shaking your heads, wondering if I'm crazy.  But I really do enjoy it.  

My tart pans are all about the same in depth, so I really only had to do a calculation of the surface area.  The recipe says it makes six 4 1/2" tartlets.  So for one, it's 2.25 x 2.25 x π, or about 16 square inches.  For six, that's a total of about 96 square inches.  I planned to halve the recipe, so I needed a pan with about 48 square inches in area.  My 8" tart pan has an area of 4 x 4 x π, which is about 50 square inches.  Close enough!

Even though I was making half the recipe, I went ahead and made the full amount of tart dough.  I didn't want to mess with half an egg yolk, and I figured I could just freeze the extra dough.  As I've mentioned before, I prefer natural cocoa powder, so that's what I used.  In this case it was Hershey's since I didn't think the flavor of the crust would stand out due to the filling (so no point in breaking out the really good stuff).  As instructed, I left the bottom out of the tart pan (never done that before!).  The 8" pan fit nicely on one of my quarter sheet pans that I lined with parchment.  

I got a nice upper body workout making the filling.  I know that my stand mixer doesn't do a good job whipping small volumes, and I hate dragging out my hand mixer (it's a bit buried in one of my cabinets).  So I grabbed my balloon whisk and a big bowl and beat the egg yolks, vanilla and sugar by hand.  It really wasn't bad, since I was using the right tools for the job.  I added a big pinch of salt to the sugar when I was adding it; I find that it adds a lot to chocolate desserts.  For the filling, I used 60% chocolate (Agostoni discs that I buy at Central Market).  I skipped the cookies in the filling, not being in the mood for crunch.  Instead, I increased the amount of chocolate chunks (to about 100 grams total for my half recipe).  I don't care for white chocolate, so I used a mix of milk chocolate and dark chocolate for the chunks.  (I got into my supply of Trader Joe's chocolate that I brought back from our trip to Ohio early last summer. )  To make the chocolate easier to cut into chunks without it breaking into lots of little shards, I microwaved the bigger pieces of chocolate on 10% power for about 30 seconds first.  

I wasn't sure about the baking time for my 8" tart versus the tartlets.  I ended up baking the empty crust for 14 minutes.  (I froze it beforehand to make sure it would hold its shape while baking.)  My filling took 15 minutes to be dry on top and apparently set in the middle.  The tart had a chance to cool for over an hour before we cut into it, so it was pretty close to room temperature.  

The verdict?  I must have guessed well on the bake time, because the texture of the tart was perfect.  I have no doubt that we'll be making this recipe again--it was really delicious.  Brianna was a bit disappointed that the texture wasn't the same after the tart had been in the fridge overnight--she liked the slightly oozing texture it had at room temperature.  The tart was very rich; I'm not sure how anyone would be up for eating a whole 4 1/2" tartlet.  We got 8 servings out of my 8" tart, and I think I'll stick with that size in the future. 

If you'd like to give this recipe a try, you can find the recipe in the book, of course.  You can also find it by visiting this week's hosts.  To see what everyone else thought of the Truffle Tart(lets), check out this week's Links!  

p.s. I'll be back tomorrow with some cupcakes, since today is my birthday! =)

Don't fear the caramel

It seems like it's been quite a while since I made anything with caramel.  It's not that I was consciously avoiding it, but I realized that the last time I attempted it was when I had my difficulties with the microwave caramel sauce back in October.  (I'm happy to report that my hand is all better--you can barely tell where I burned it.)  I decided to revert to my old way of making it on the stovetop, and definitely won't go months without making it next time.  So what exactly prompted me to start caramelizing sugar again?  A cake.  And what prompted me to make the cake?  A new pan!  It's a Christmas present of sorts--I spent some of my Christmas money (thanks, K&L!) on a very cute little 6-cup Bundt pan.  For the record, it's possible that my collection is getting a bit out of control, though Mary still has me beat. 

The new 6-cup pan is in the back, between the Heritage pan (left) and Kugelhopf pan (right)

Speaking of Mary, I have her to thank for the cake inspiration.  Back in November when she was celebrating National Bundt Day with her latest round of 30 bundts in 30 days, Mary also did a giveaway.  She invited everyone to bake and post a cake on National Bundt Day, and then drew a name to receive a copy of Cake Simple, a book full of bundt cakes.  I was the winner!  The book is from Christie Matheson--if the name is familiar, it may be because she also worked with Joanne Chang on the Flour Bakery cookbook.  

Since I was eager to use my new pan, I started by looking through the recipes that called for a 6-cup pan.  (There are also recipes for 10 or 12 cup pans, as well as a chapter on minis.)  The one that immediately caught my eye was the recipe for the Salted Caramel Bundt.  First you make a caramel syrup, which is used in the cake and in the glaze.  The cake itself is made with the creaming method, and comes together pretty quickly.  There's almost too much batter for the pan, but it worked out okay.  My cake took about 45 minutes to bake. 

The verdict?  This was pretty tasty!  The cake is really moist.  I didn't really care for the texture of the glaze, so I may change that up a bit next time (no cream, I think), but it did add to the caramel flavor.  As I was making the cake, I thought that the method (using the caramel syrup in the batter) seemed really familiar.  Then I realized it was because I've made the cake before in a different form--this Caramel Cake with Browned Butter Frosting.  

I'm sure I'll be sharing more recipes from this book in the future, but for now, here's the recipe for the Salted Caramel Bundt.

Salted Caramel Syrup

(adapted from Cake Simple by Christie Matheson)

1/4 cup (60 grams) + 1/2 cup (120 grams) water

1 cup (200 grams) granulated sugar

1 teaspoon light corn syrup

1/8 teaspoon fleur de sel or other sea salt

Put the quarter cup of water, the sugar, and the corn syrup in a small saucepan with high sides and mix until combined.  Bring the mixture to a boil, then cover the pan with a lid for about 2 minutes to allow steam to clean the sides of the pan.  Remove the lid and cook the mixture, watching carefully, until the sugar turns a dark amber color.  Swirl the pan so that the sugar will color evenly.  Remove the pan from the heat and carefully add the remaining half cup of water--the mixture will bubble up furiously, so stand back.  Put the pan back over medium heat and whisk to dissolve any hard bits of caramel that may have formed.  Whisk in the salt, remove the pan from the heat, and let the syrup cool to room temperature before using in the cake or glaze.

Salted Caramel Bundt Cake

(adapted from Cake Simple by Christie Matheson)

2 cups (240 grams) all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon table salt

10 tablespoons (about 140 grams) unsalted butter, slightly softened

1 1/4 cups (250 grams) granulated sugar

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 large eggs, at room temperature

1/3 cup (about 90 grams) salted caramel syrup

1 cup (240 grams) whole milk, at room temperature

Preheat the oven to 350ºF.  Grease and flour the inside of a 6-cup Bundt pan or spray it with baking spray (I use Pam for Baking).  

Whisk the flour, baking powder and salt in a small bowl until combined.

Using a stand mixer with the paddle attachment, cream the butter and sugar together on medium speed until light and fluffy, 2-3 minutes.  Beat in the eggs, one at a time, then add the vanilla.  With the mixer on low, slowly add the caramel syrup and beat until incorporated.  Add the flour mixture alternately with the milk (flour, milk, flour, milk, flour), beating just until the flour is incorporated.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan and smooth the top.  Bake the cake for 45 to 55 minutes, until a toothpick inserted midway between the outside of the pan and the center post comes out clean.  Let the cake cool in the pan on a rack for 15 minutes, then invert the cake onto a rack and let it cool completely.  

Caramel Glaze

(adapted from Cake Simple by Christie Matheson)

2 tablespoons (30 grams) unsalted butter, softened

1 cup (115 grams) powdered sugar

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 tablespoons caramel syrup

large pinch of sea salt

1 tablespoon heavy cream

Whisk all of the ingredients together in a small bowl until the mixture is smooth and pourable.  Add additional cream to thin the glaze if necessary (I actually thinned mine with more caramel syrup, too).  Drizzle over the cooled cake.