A cake of holiday cheer

It felt like a pretty good baking weekend--two recipes made and photographed, as well as some cookie dough made to bake during the week.  I really meant to have a post written yesterday, but I decided it was a better idea to go to bed early.  I stayed up entirely too late on Saturday night (after midnight!) so I could finish the book I was reading.  And to be honest, because I was enjoying the solitude.  I haven't had nearly enough time to myself lately, and it's been making me cranky and unfocused.  Sadly today wasn't much help as far as that goes, since I was at work later than expected.  But I still hope to get the girls to bed early so I can have some quiet time.  Quiet time with a mug of tea and another piece of this cake. =)  

I made this Eggnog Bundt Cake for our annual holiday potluck with the Italian genealogy group.  I can always count on them to help me eat cake (so I don't eat it all myself).  To be honest, I'm not a fan of eggnog.  But when I read the recipe, I realized that it doesn't actually have any eggnog in it.  Instead, it incorporates the flavors associated with eggnog.  There's a full teaspoon of freshly grated nutmeg in it, along with a bit of dark rum.  While I don't like eggnog, I'm a fan of nutmeg, and rum. =)  To make the flavors stand out, they're mixed into a cup of the cake batter which is then used to make a swirl in the cake.  The cake is topped with a simple powdered sugar glaze that includes a little more rum.

The verdict?  Well, most of the cake disappeared pretty quickly, so I think it's safe to say that it was a success.  The taste was good, and so was the texture--the cake had a good level of moistness.  The only thing that didn't work as well as I'd hoped was the swirl.  Mine ended up mostly at the bottom of the cake.  I'm not sure if that's because of the pan I used (my Fleur de Lis pan) or something else.  I'll have to try it again in my Classic Bundt pan to see what happens.  I also cut back on the rum in the glaze (using about a teaspoon) because I knew my girls wanted to try the cake.  I'll have to make it again with more when I'm just serving adults.  

If you'd like to try this recipe for yourself, you can find it in this year's Cook's Illustrated Holiday Baking newsstand issue.  It's also available to subscribers of the Cook's Country website.  

Spice is nice

Well, I'm more than ten days in now, and so far the posting every day thing is going pretty well.  I'm not entirely happy with all the posts, but none are really bad.  And I feel like I'm making progress toward my goal of just getting the words out.  Today's post is a bit more extensive than the past few, since I had the time to take some better pictures.  I'm playing around with different spots in my house to find some good lighting, and this spot was pretty successful.

As you may be able to tell, today's featured ingredients are nutmeg and rum.  One of my favorite blogs is the one written by the folks at King Arthur Flour.  The posts are always entertaining and informative, even if the recipe isn't something that I plan to make.  But sometimes I read a post, like this one last Monday, and know I have to make the recipe as soon as possible.  Nutmeg Bites sounded fabulous, especially once I got to the part about the rum icing. 

The great thing about these cookies is that they're really easy to make.  No particular mixing order--you pretty much just dump everything in the mixer.  It's a straightforward ingredient list, with flour, sugar, butter, egg, salt, vanilla, and a full teaspoon of freshly grated nutmeg.  Once the dough comes together, you stick it in the fridge for an hour to firm up.  I actually left mine longer than that without any problems.  I used my #70 disher to scoop the cookies.  My bake time was a little longer than the 8-10 minutes stated in the recipe; I let them go until they were clearly starting to brown on the bottoms.  While the cookies cooled, I mixed up the icing, which consisted of powdered sugar, a little butter, and some dark rum.  

The verdict?  Mmm, these are wonderful.  I love cookies like these--almost like shortbread, but easier.  The rum in the frosting was very strong right after I mixed it up, but mellowed a bit after a day or two.  In fact, I think that overall, the cookies were better after a day or two.  Nutmeg has become a favorite spice of mine, and I enjoyed the fact that there aren't any other spices in these cookies to distract from the nutmeg flavor.  

If you'd like to give these a try for yourself, you can find the recipe here at King Arthur Flour.  I will definitely be making these again, and probably putting some in my holiday gifts.  

Fruitcake, Italian style?

I'm slowly but surely working my way through the BBA Challenge.  It's taken me longer than I expected, but I'm still enjoying baking through all the recipes in The Bread Baker's Apprentice.  I have jumped around a little bit lately.  One of the recipes I initially skipped over was Panettone--I got to that point in the "P" section back in July.  I wasn't in the mood for a holiday bread then, so I decided to save it for closer to Christmas.  This past weekend was the perfect time, since it was the weekend of our annual potluck with the Italian genealogy group.  It was a crazy weekend due to work stuff, but I'm glad I had time to make this recipe--it gave me a chance to get geeky about bread dough.

The panettone recipe starts with a wild yeast preferment--it's the first dough in the book to use a sourdough starter (which can catch you by surprise since it's not in the sourdough section).  Rather than make the sourdough starter from BBA, I used the one that I developed using the method in Reinhart's most recent book, Artisan Breads Every Day.  It's a firm starter with about 67% hydration.  Since the BBA one is 100% hydration, I got to do some math!  I know, I'm crazy like that--math is fun. =)  

First, I converted everything to grams, since I find that much easier to work with.  For the sponge, you need 200g of 100% hydration starter, 225g milk, and 125g all-purpose flour.  So the starter is contributing 100g each of water and flour.  There isn't any other water in the sponge, so I needed 100g of water from my starter.  With my starter being 67% (meaning 2 parts water for 3 parts flour) I would have to use 250g to get 100g of water.  The total flour for the sponge is supposed to be 225g--100g from the starter, and the additional 125g.  My 250g of starter has 150g of flour, so I only needed to add 75g of additional flour.  The 225g of milk did not change.  Did I totally lose you yet?  It wasn't really that scary, was it?

I went with dried fruit rather than candied.  I ended up using 170g of golden raisins, 85g of dried cranberries, and 85g of dried apricots (snipped into small bits with my kitchen shears).  I used light rum for the alcohol.  For other flavoring, I used maybe half a teaspoon of Fiori di Sicilia (the 1 tablespoon called for in the recipe seems outrageous--that is very strong stuff) along with about half a teaspoon of vanilla and a few drops each of lemon and orange oil.  I didn't have my fruit in time to do an overnight soak, so I used heat to speed up the process.  I put the fruit in a medium saucepan with about 1/4 cup of water.  I brought it to a boil and them simmered it until most of the water was absorbed.  Then I removed it from the heat and added the rum and flavorings.  I let it macerate for a couple hours, until most of the liquid was absorbed. 

Other than that, I mostly stuck to the recipe.  I left out the almonds.  I did use SAF Gold yeast, and had no problem with my dough rising.  I let the dough rise until it was about one and a half times its original volume, then stuck it in the fridge for the night.  For the first hour it was in the fridge it was still rising quite a bit, so I deflated the dough a couple times.  When I pulled it out the next morning, the dough had mostly filled my 4-quart container.  I shaped the dough while it was cold.  I had decided to make lots of mini panettones--I formed 25 at 70g each.  2 dozen went into cute little wrappers (that you can find at Sur la Table) and one went into a greased 4 oz ramekin.  The dough took about 90 minutes to proof, then I baked the minis for about 30 minutes (at which point they were 190ºF and golden brown on top).  

The verdict?  These were a big hit with the Italian crowd.  I was a bit worried that they weren't sweet enough (I don't eat much panettone, so I had no frame of reference).  A couple people assured me that they were just right.  I sent some home with the people who enjoyed them the most, and had a few left over.  They made a great breakfast for a couple of days.  (It's got fruit, so it's perfect for breakfast, right?)  I can definitely see myself making these again during the holidays.  I even have a dedicated panettone spatula now--boy, that Fiori di Sicilia is strong stuff.  I think the spatula will smell like it forever. =)

If you'd like to try this recipe for yourself, do yourself a favor and get your hands on a copy of The Bread Baker's Apprentice.  It has many wonderful recipes.  Check out the BBA blogroll to see how others did with this recipe (though most made it quite a while back).  For other yummy yeasted creations, check out Yeastspotting (including this great post on holiday breads).  

Yo ho ho

Little known fact about me...I've never been drunk.  No, not even in college.  Not because I don't drink at all; I'll have a glass of wine (very rarely two), pint of cider (the alcoholic version) or the occasional mixed drink, but that's it.  (Just not a beer drinker--I keep sampling, but none of them appeal to me.)  It's a control thing with me, as in, I'm just not willing to give it up.  And nowadays, more than one glass of anything just puts me to sleep. =)  Funny thing is, thanks to all the cooking and baking I do, I actually have a fairly well-stocked liquor cabinet.  Vodka, rum, bourbon, scotch, port, sherry, apple and raspberry brandies...  all purchased in the name of food.  That's my story and I'm sticking to it. =)  

I'd have to say, though, that my favorite is rum.  I have two bottles of that--one light and one dark.  The light one mostly makes its way into fruity drinks.  (Handy tip--if you take some of this tasty berry sorbet I made a few weeks ago, and add some light rum and a little lime juice, you have yourself a very tasty frozen drink.)  The dark rum mostly makes its way into desserts, often those involving chocolate.  This week's Tuesdays with Dorie recipe actually caused me to buy a new bottle of dark rum, since the old one was pretty much empty.  So thank you to this week's hostess, Wendy of Pink Stripes, who picked Rum-Drenched Vanilla Cakes for us to make.  Now what's not to like about a recipe with a title like that? =)  

This was a pretty easy cake to make.  I didn't realize until I pulled out my book to make it that it actually uses melted butter.  So no creaming, and no having to remember to take butter out to soften.  There are several variations, but I went with the original, which uses vanilla beans for flavor.  I couldn't decide between my Bourbon and Tahitian vanilla beans, so I used one of each.  I love Dorie's method of rubbing aromatic ingredients into granulated sugar to maximize flavor (and now have done it with many recipes, not just hers).  The mixing method for this recipe is interesting.  First you whisk together the vanilla sugar and eggs, then mix in some rum and heavy cream.  Next up are the dry ingredients (flour, salt, baking powder), and the melted butter gets whisked in at the end.  Then the batter goes into a couple of loaf pans to be baked.  For a change, I actually remembered to lower the oven temperature to 325F (from 350F) since I was using Pyrex pans.  My loaves baked for 55 minutes and were a lovely golden brown when I took them out.  I did make a small change with the syrup that I brushed on the warm cakes--I used turbinado sugar rather than regular granulated.  I figured it would pair nicely with the molasses notes in the dark rum.

The verdict?  I absolutely loved this cake!  And I will be making it again, soon.  The rum and vanilla really work well together.  You can certainly taste the rum from the syrup, but it's not overpowering.  I took most of one loaf to G's daycare teachers, and I understand that it didn't last very long at all. =)  It certainly didn't take us long to finish off the other loaf (though I did share a few pieces at work).  I'm thinking of making it again this weekend for a 4th of July party that we're going to.  I'd like to try it as a bundt cake, rather than two loaves.  

If you'd like to make it for yourself, head over to Wendy's blog for the recipe.  And be sure to check out this week's Leave Your Links page to see what everyone else thought.