Berry good dessert

After all the craziness of the past several weeks, it was really nice to go out for dinner on Saturday.  The daycare periodically does Parents Night Out, and we try to take advantage of it when we can.  (We also spent part of our evening grocery shopping at Central Market once we were done, but it was nice to do it by ourselves.)  We had a lovely meal, but as is usually the case after having an appetizer and entree, neither of us had room for dessert.  Since we enjoyed the food so much, I'd love to see what the restaurant does with dessert sometime--of course J would point out that I say that all the time, but we never do it. =)  

The whole thing got me thinking, though.  One reason that I'd like to go out for dessert is to be inspired and get new ideas.  On the other hand, my standards are pretty high these days--more often than not, I could probably make something at home that would be better.  And why spend calories on something that isn't really worth it?  I was reminded this weekend of how far my skills have improved over the past few years, when I made the French Strawberry Cake that was last week's pick for Tuesdays with Dorie.  Once upon a time, I would have been rather intimidated by a cake like this one, but instead I just thought it would be fun.

First off, my apologies to Sophia and Allison, our hosts for this week, for being so tardy with my post.  (Being out of town unexpectedly will do that to you.)  But I'm glad I finally found the time to make this lovely seasonal cake.  I admit to being a little crazy, though--I actually made the batter for the genoise totally by hand.  Why?  Just to see if I could.  Besides, I figured I could burn off at least a few calories that way. =) 

I played around just a little with the recipe.  For the cake flour, I used KAF's unbleached cake flour blend.  I used extra large eggs, since that was what I had on hand.  Since my eggs were right out of the fridge, I placed them in a bowl of hot water to warm up while I got everything else together.  For whisking both the egg mixture and later the whipped cream, I used my really big balloon whisk (rather than a spatula) and one of my biggest bowls.  I find that when whipping things by hand, using both of those makes the process go faster.  I also used the balloon whisk to fold the dry ingredients into the egg mixture, a trick I learned from making Rose Levy Beranbaum's chocolate angel food cake.  I baked the cake in an 8"x2" round cake pan lined with parchment paper, for about 26 minutes.

I must have done something right, because my cake rose right to the top of the pan.  I had no trouble slicing it into three layers.  I assembled the cake on a cardboard round, layering the cake with the macerated strawberries and some of the whipped cream mixture.  Then I coated the cake with a crumb coat of the whipped cream.  I made extra cream (roughly double the original amount, I think) because I wanted to do a bit more decorating with it than the original recipe called for.  I decided to use my 1M tip to pipe large stars all over the surface of the cake.

The verdict?  I'm quite happy with how this cake turned out.  It was a big hit with all of us.  Brianna was quite disappointed this evening when she found out that we'd already eaten it all.  Next time, though, I will probably use more strawberries.  (I kind of guestimated the amount, since my container was measured in pounds, rather than dry pints.)  I'm also curious how it would be with other fruit, so I'll have to make it again to try some variations.

If you'd like to try this lovely cake for yourself, you can find the recipe on Sophia's blog or Allison's blog.  And be sure to check out the Links to see how the rest of the TWD bakers fared with their French Strawberry Cakes.  

One of those days (Cooking the Books)

I've been having one of those days.  Except that it's not the usual one of those days.  It started with me getting up at 5 because I was scheduled to work all day today.  That schedule usually means that I have to drop the girls at school and daycare before I go to work at 8:15 or so.  But things didn't go as planned.  Brianna was still complaining of a really sore throat when I went to wake her up.  She'd been telling me the same thing for most of the weekend.  I checked, and it was red.  But it didn't look that bad, and since she hadn't been running a fever I figured that she was suffering from a virus and not strep.  I could tell she wasn't quite herself, though, since she napped for about 3 hours on Sunday afternoon.  

So I had the always fun parenting dilemma...  B didn't seem that sick, but sending her to school probably wasn't a good idea.  At the same time, I was worried about leaving my coworkers shorthanded.  Jamie had already left for work, and it was doubtful that he'd be able to come home early to stay with B.  I just love it when the parenting guilt wars with the work guilt--nothing like having an unexpected day off that you can't really enjoy because you feel like you're supposed to be somewhere else.  I did get to take a nap, but it wasn't a very good one.  I ended up feeling sort of restless and out-of-sorts all day.  I did get some reading time in, but couldn't really settle on anything.  And writing was right out.  I've been trying to get this post done for my Cooking the Books event for two days, and just haven't been able to figure out what to write, which is why you're getting my sad story.  =)

Maybe some dessert would make me feel better.  We had Brianna's favorite soup for dinner, this chicken chowder from Cook's Country.  Naturally, since B loves it, Gillian hates it.  (I decided not to fight that battle tonight, and just made G a sandwich for dinner.)  I like it just fine, and soup is nice because it generally leaves room for dessert.  This particular one was inspired by the new book J got me for Mother's Day--Alice Medrich's new Sinfully Easy Delicious Desserts.  The idea is that you can make lots of great desserts from simple, tasty components.  What I came up with first was sort of a mini ice cream tart/sundae.  

The base was a simple butter cookie.  Central Market has an event going on called Passport France, and they've had a lot of great French products and ingredients available.  I bought some Breton salted butter, and turned to Dorie's Around My French Table to figure out what to do with it.  Naturally, she didn't let me down, and I found a recipe for Sablé Breton.  I didn't want to do a full-size tart, but there was a Bonne Idée for making slice and bake cookies with a variation on the dough, so I went with those.  I didn't add any salt, since my butter was nicely salty, with noticeable crunchy crystals in it.  I did roll the log of dough in a combination of sparkling sugar and a bit of fleur de sel before slicing it up for baking.

Besides the great butter, I also picked up a package of dark muscovado sugar on my shopping trip.  My new Medrich book has several caramel-type sauces in it.  One is a simple mixture of muscovado sugar, cream, a bit of salt, and a splash of rum.  It was really easy to make.  For the final component of my dessert, I wanted something that would provide a contrast to the richness of the cookie and sauce.  I found what I was looking for in one of my earlier Medrich books, Pure Dessert--sour cream ice cream.  It's a non-custard ice cream, which really allows the sour cream flavor to shine through.  The technique for making it is similar to the one in my Jeni's ice cream book, and I tweaked the procedure just slightly to make it even closer (I added a bit of corn syrup to the milk/sugar mixture, and boiled it for several minutes before adding the cornstarch in a slurry).  

For the final dessert, I started with a cookie, topped it with a scoop of ice cream, and drizzled warm tropical sugar sauce over the top.  The verdict?  Yum!  All of the components are really tasty, and work well together.  There's a great contrast of sweet and salty, cold and warm, soft and chewy/crisp.  The cookies are also great with a cup of tea.  My favorite part was the ice cream.  We also ate some of it topped with fresh strawberries--the cold tartness of the ice cream is a great foil for fruit.  I can't wait to try it with peaches, too.

I definitely encourage you to check out all of the books that I mentioned.  Your local library might even have them!  To get you started, you can find the ice cream recipe here.  This is my contribution to our spring Cooking the Books blog event; you can find links to the other contributors in this main post.  If you'd like to join in, submissions are welcome anytime this week.  If you'd like to be notified of future events, send me an email at diskitchennotebook at gmail dot com and I'll add you to the list!  

Definitely my cup of tea

I don't like the taste of coffee.  I like the smell, and I don't mind adding espresso powder to chocolate recipes, but I don't like the flavor of coffee or most coffee-flavored things.  But that's okay, because I'm a tea drinker instead.  If I'm in the right mood, I'll drink fruity or herbal teas, but I mostly drink black teas, with milk and a bit of sugar.  My current favorites are from Stash--I order a lot of loose tea, but get some of my favorites in teabags, too, for the convenience.  I don't have to do that as much anymore, though, since they also make these handy filter bags so I can just make my own.  If I had to pick one favorite, it would be Christmas Morning, which I drink year-round.  I love the combination of flavors, especially the bit of jasmine.  

I make a lot of tea at home, and most mornings I'll fill my travel mug as well, but occasionally I run out of time.  So sometimes I'll get my tea fix at Starbucks.  I originally only went there for hot chocolate, then sometimes I'd get hot tea.  I really like their iced tea, too.  Then one day I discovered tea lattes (though I don't get one often, since they're more expensive).  Not the chai ones, since I don't like the chai they use, but black teas lattes.  The only problem is that the newer cashiers always seem so confused when I order one.  It took three or four visits for the latest guy to get it right--first he put it in as a coffee latte and I had to get it re-made.  Then he put regular black tea, which I caught, but in the process I didn't get the non-fat milk I requested.  Then the most recent time, he tried to do that again, but someone looked over his shoulder and showed him where the right button was.  We'll see what happens next time...

I admit, I sometimes succumb to the siren call of the pastry case at Starbucks as well.  The only problem is that the baked goods usually look better than they taste.  I do like the Maple Oat Pecan scones, but I tried a piece of lemon cake recently and was very disappointed.  Except for the tart icing, it tasted like it was made with lemon extract and it was too sweet.  It reminded me of why I need to make sure that I have homemade baked goods available for breakfast.  We're set for the beginning of this week, at least.  One of the first things I read in my Google reader is any new blog post from King Arthur Flour's blog.  A couple weeks ago they had one about a delicious-looking lemon streusel cake.  It immediately went on my list of things to make, but somehow I got sidetracked during my vacation and didn't get to it.  I thought about it again yesterday when I was trying to figure out a plan for Sunday breakfast.  I decided that I wanted to change things up a bit, though, and make it into muffins instead.  

I took an educated guess and figured that two-thirds of the batter would be about right for a dozen muffins.  I was hoping that would work out, since it was reasonably easy to reduce the ingredients by a third (the original batter called for three eggs, for instance).  I always have pecans on hand, so that was my choice for the nuts.  I didn't have the lemon juice powder, but the recipe says you can use extra lemon zest.  Since I wanted a bit of tartness that the zest alone wouldn't provide, I added a little citric acid to the topping and batter.  I also used the optional lemon oil in the batter.  The only change I made to the mixing method was an accident--I melted the butter for the streusel.  I've made plenty of other crumb toppings with melted butter, so I just went with it.  After I mixed up the topping ingredients, I put the mixture in the fridge so the crumbs would firm back up.  I divided the batter and topping evenly among the 12 muffin cups, using a scant quarter cup of batter for each (I used my #16 disher to fill the cups).  I stuck with the 350º baking temperature and my muffins took about 20 minutes to bake.  Once they had cooled for a few minutes, I drizzled lemon glaze on top of them.

The verdict?  I wasn't sure if I'd like the combination of lemon with cinnamon, but it ended up being quite tasty.  We all liked the muffins a lot, although Gillian wasn't thrilled that I had pecans in the topping.  She picked them all out.  If I'd chopped them fine instead of leaving them in bigger pieces, she might not have noticed them.  In any case, I'm sure this will be a repeat recipe around here.  The amount of batter ended up being just right for a dozen muffins, too--no messy overflow.  

If you'd like to try the original cake, you can find the recipe here at King Arthur Flour.  I love that their recipes give you the option for volume or weight, including both ounces and grams.  I'm including my ingredient list here as well.

Lemon Streusel Muffins - ingredients

For the streusel:

60 grams all-purpose flour

1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

zest of one lemon

1/4 teaspoon salt

pinch of citric acid

60 grams unsalted butter

60 grams coarsely chopped pecans

70 grams light brown sugar

For the batter:

160 grams all-purpose flour

1 1/4 teaspoons baking powder

scant 1/2 teaspoon salt

1/8 teaspoon citric acid

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

75 grams unsalted butter, softened

140 grams sugar

zest of 2 lemons

1/4 teaspoon lemon oil

2 eggs

150 grams sour cream

For the method, refer to the original recipe.  

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).

I like big bundts, again

Happy National Bundt Day!  I'm excited once again to be celebrating the day with Mary the Food Librarian.  This is her third year of I Like Big Bundts, where she's baked 30 Bundts in 30 days, leading up to National Bundt Day on November 15th.  I missed the first year, but last year I joined in with an Espresso Gingerbread Bundt.  I've been on the lookout for a good recipe for this year, and finally settled on one.

I went shopping on my day off last week, heading down to the outlet malls in San Marcos.  We have outlets closer to home, but not the specific stores that I was looking for--Crate and Barrel and Williams-Sonoma.  WS in particular ended up being quite dangerous.  I've been wanting a cake stand for a while, and finally bought myself one.  It seemed perfect for showing off my bundt.  You can also see my makeshift cake dome, which is the bowl from my salad spinner.  It's the perfect size! =)  The cake recipe that I used comes from one of the other acquisitions from my shopping trip--a copy of Sarabeth's Bakery: From My Hands to Yours.  At 50% off, I just couldn't pass it up.  There are several yummy looking bundts, so it was just a matter of picking one.

I decided to make the Ruby Cake, so called because it has a raspberry filling hidden inside, along with some bittersweet chocolate.  I love those flavors together, so this was definitely my first choice to make.  The batter itself is a rich one, loaded with butter and sour cream, though lighter on the eggs (only 3) than some I've made.  The batter is made by the creaming method, and came together with minimal effort in my stand mixer.  The recipe calls for using two piping bags to put the batter and filling in the pan, but I didn't follow the instructions for that.  I just spooned half the batter into the pan, made a trough for the filling, added the jam and chocolate very carefully so they weren't near the edges of the pan, and topped them with the remaining batter.  It worked fine.  I really wanted to use my Heritage Bundt pan for this cake.  The recipe calls for a 10-12 cup pan, so I thought I'd be okay.  I baked my cake for just under an hour.

The verdict?  Well, I wish I'd left the cake in the oven a bit longer. Or used a different pan. Or just put less batter in the pan I used.  The cake rose about an inch about the top of the pan, but didn't overflow at all.  It seemed to test done, but the middle (near the raspberry part) was definitely a little under-done.  While it might not have been exactly to my taste, the texture didn't stop my coworkers from devouring it. =)  My friend Nancy pointed out that lots of people like under-done cake.  Better that than too dry, I guess.  And as I'm writing this on Monday night, I'm now laughing, since Brianna's opinion of the cake is that it could be a little more moist. =)  She also thinks that it needs more chocolate.  G pronounced it pretty good.  My only critique of the flavor is that it needs a bit more salt to balance out the sweetness.  (I'll probably use a full teaspoon next time, instead of half.)

I did like the cake enough that I'm sure there will be another attempt at it.  If you'd like to try it for yourself, you can find the recipe here.  You can also find it in Sarabeth's book, of course.   Don't forget to head over to Mary's blog for her post today, which includes the list of all the bundts she's baked this year.  She'll also have a round-up with lots of fabulous bundts from other bakers later this month.

Quite a mouthful

I've been making ice cream for a long time.  I got my first ice cream maker shortly after college, and it served me well for a long time.  But it finally died, and I got a new one about three years ago.  I've actually used that one a lot more, in part because it came with two freezer canisters.  One has a permanent spot in my freezer.  Whenever I take it out, I replace it with the other one.  Well, this weekend I went a little crazy and crammed both canisters into the freezer so I could make more than one flavor on the same day, in anticipation of my Ice Cream Week plan.  

This week's Tuesdays with Dorie recipe fit nicely with my plan.  Spike of spike.does.stuff picked Sour Cream Chocolate Cake Cookies for us to make this week.  How's that for a long recipe name? =)  I wasn't originally sure if I was going to make these, but then I read the P&Q.  Several people mentioned using the cookies to make ice cream sandwiches.  Perfect!  Amazingly enough, with all the ice cream and cookies that I've put on this blog, I've never actually put the two together.  It's about time. =)

I can understand why the cookies turn out cake-like, because you end up making more of a batter than a dough.  You cream butter with regular and brown sugar, then add vanilla and melted chocolate.  Next in are a couple eggs.  Then you alternate adding dry ingredients (flour, salt, baking soda, cocoa powder--no spices in mine) with sour cream.  I used my #40 disher to scoop out the cookies, and ended up with 45.  I baked them for 12 minutes.  Once the cookies were cool, I paired them up and froze a bunch of them before making the sandwiches.  

As for the ice cream flavors, I made The Darkest Chocolate Ice Cream in the World (another impressive title) from my new cookbook.  (Some are also filled with Roasted Strawberry Buttermilk Ice Cream, but that's another post.)    For the chocolate ice cream, you first make a chocolate syrup, using coffee, cocoa powder, sugar and bittersweet chocolate.  I'm used to chocolate recipes calling for coffee or espresso powder to enhance the chocolate flavor.  We don't usually have coffee on hand, though.  Rather than turn to instant espresso powder the way I usually do, I tried something new.  I've read on several blogs about Starbucks VIA instant coffee.  So I picked some up at the grocery store.  Since I needed half a cup of coffee, I used half the packet in half a cup of water.  It worked well, but the finished syrup tasted strongly of coffee, more than I wanted it to.  I'll definitely use the VIA powder again, just less of it.  For the chocolate, I used one of my favorites, Scharffen Berger 62%.  (I would have used 70%, but didn't have any.)  I used Scharffen Berger for the cocoa powder as well.  

The verdict?  The ice cream sandwiches were a big hit with the girls.  The cookies worked great, since they don't get super hard, even when frozen.  Since I had a lot of cookies, I also sandwiched some with chocolate-hazelnut spread and took them to a friend as a treat.  They were quite well received.  

If you'd like to try the dark chocolate ice cream, you can find the recipe here.  For the cookie recipe to make these yummy sandwiches, head over to Spike's blog.  To see what everyone else did with this week's recipe, check out the Links.  And don't forget to check back for more of Ice Cream Week!

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.)  

Two, but far from terrible

Just a week or so ago, I wrote about my 2nd blogiversary.  The early days of my blog weren't that exciting, as I was trying to figure out what the heck to write about.  But at the beginning of February (2008), I read a post on Peabody's blog about this cool new group that she'd joined called Tuesdays with Dorie.  A couple days later I got myself a copy of Baking From My Home to Yours and signed up for the group.  I was pretty well convinced that I was crazy to join a weekly baking group. =)  But I can't begin to say how glad I am that I did.  I've made lots of wonderful desserts and lots of wonderful friends.  It's hard to believe that this group has been going for two years now!  Last year, we celebrated with a pick from Dorie herself.  This year, Laurie came up with the idea to vote on a recipe to make.  We actually ended up with two options, Tarte Tatin and Cocoa-Buttermilk Birthday Cake.

The variety of recipes we've made over the past two years has also led me to increase my collection of baking equipment.  One thing I still don't have, though, is a cast iron skillet.  (I really need to do something about that one of these days.)  Unfortunately, that's one of the best pans for making Tarte Tatin, and I don't own anything that would work well.  I will make the tarte at some point, but not this week.  That left me with chocolate cake.  I actually made it for Gillian's birthday in October (though with a different frosting), so I knew it would be good.  For the cake, I did get to use pans that I acquired for a previous TWD recipe--my 6" cake pans.  Their inaugural use was for Bill's (not so) Big Carrot Cake.  I knew we didn't need a great big cake to eat, since we're still recovering from all the holiday sweets.  And luckily, we had extra mouths to help eat the cake as well, since Jamie's parents were here.  I halved the ingredients and made the cake as directed, including the optional melted chocolate, and just adjusted the baking time slightly for the smaller pans.  This time I used a sour cream-based chocolate frosting that is a dream to work with.  I went for simple decorating this time, but it does pipe extremely well, too.

The verdict?  It's no surprise that everyone enjoyed this cake, since we've had it before. =)  And it was nice that we had extra family here to share it with.  Both my girls love the chocolate-chocolate combo, so they were very happy to see this for dessert.  My favorite part was actually the frosting I used--it has a great flavor and texture.

You can find the recipes for both the cake and the tarte by heading over to Laurie's blog.  Here's the recipe for the frosting I used:

Chocolate-Sour Cream Frosting
(adapted from Fine Cooking)

4 ounces unsweetened chocolate, chopped (I used Ghirardelli 100% chocolate pieces)
1 ounce (2 tablespoons) unsalted butter
5 1/3 ounces (2/3 cup) sour cream (not reduced fat)
12 ounces (about 3 cups) powdered sugar
pinch salt
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Place the chocolate and butter in a small microwave-safe bowl.  Microwave for 1 1/2 to 2 minutes on 50% power, then stir the mixture until the chocolate melts completely.  Set aside.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the sour cream, powdered sugar, salt and vanilla until smooth.  Whisk in the chocolate mixture and continue mixing until the frosting is smooth and creamy.

Be sure to check out the creations of all the other great TWD bakers.  And here's to another two years (or longer) of yummy baking!

A sweet anniversary

I meant to do this post yesterday, but with all of the holiday stuff going on, I just didn't get that far.  Yesterday was my blogiversary!  Hard to believe that I've been at this for two years now.  It's pretty amazing when I think about all the neat baking things I've accomplished since I started blogging.  And even better, it's great to think about all the wonderful blogging friends I've made.  Brianna and I made a brief stop at Starbucks yesterday so I could pick up some gift cards.  While we were waiting, she had to look at everything, of course.  One thing that she noticed was a bunch of madeleines displayed by the register.  She took one look and pointed out to me, "You've made those!"  And she's right, though I haven't baked any since we did them for TWD last year.  They're on the long list of new things that I've tried due to the influence of a baking group or blogging event.  It's not that I didn't do a lot to baking before I started blogging, but the interaction with others has definitely inspired me to try so many new things.  I'll talk about some more of them when I get to my year-end wrap-up next week, but there's one that I want to share for today.

I've certainly made lots of Christmas cookies this year, thanks to the 12 Days of Cookies.  I realized that I wanted to do something a little different for the daycare teachers and my employees, since they've already been the recipients of many of the cookies I've made this year.  So I decided to try my hand at some different sorts of candy.  I made fudge and caramels, but wanted something else.  Then one of my new Twitter friends mentioned making pralines.  That reminded me of a recipe in the Martha Stewart Holiday Sweets magazine that I picked up right at the beginning of the holiday season.  Pecan-Sour Cream Pralines sounded like just the right thing.

When I first started blogging, I'd rarely made caramel--maybe once.  It scared me, quite a bit in fact.  But over the past two years, I've made it many times, including here and here, and with very messy results here.  Thanks to all that experience, sugar syrup no longer scares me the way it did.

It helps that I have a great digital thermometer to help me with things that need to be cooked to a certain temperature, as the praline mixture did.  You start by melting a couple tablespoons of butter, then adding white and dark brown sugars and sour cream.  The mixture is brought to a boil, then cooked to a temperature of 240 degrees F.  I can set my thermometer to tell me when it reaches a certain temperature (either when heating up or cooling off).  Much less stressful than having to constantly check the temperature.  Once the mixture is done cooking, you turn off the heat and stir in bourbon and vanilla, which makes it bubble a lot.  Then after a couple minutes, you add the pecans and stir until the mixture starts to turn opaque and thicken a bit.  Working fairly quickly, you drop spoonfuls of the mixture onto a parchment-lined baking sheet and let them cool until set, about 30 minutes.

The verdict?  These are really, really good.  Sweet, yes, but the salt helps a bit with that.  I've already made two batches because I gave away most of the first one as well as part of the second.  That's probably a good thing, since I've had to restrain myself to not eat them all.  How can you go wrong with pecans and brown sugar and bourbon? =)  They've been a hit with everyone else who's tried them, as well.  If you'd like to try these for yourself, you can find the recipe here.  I definitely recommend it!

Pretty in Pink

This week's Tuesdays with Dorie recipe of Blueberry Sour Cream Ice Cream was chosen by Dolores of Chronicles in Culinary Curiosity.  The first thing you may have noticed about my version of this dessert is that it's definitely not blue.  Or even purple.  Those who have been reading my blog for a while are probably aware that I don't like blueberries, but that I do love raspberries!

Yes, I did make a few modifications to this week's recipe.  When I first looked at the recipe, I noticed that it makes a fairly small batch.  In fact, I don't think I've put such a small amount of ice cream base in my ice cream maker before.  I should have thought more about that before I started.  Besides substituting raspberries for the blueberries, I also tried using some homemade creme fraiche in place of the sour cream.  Other than that, I stuck pretty closely to the recipe.

One thing I should mention is that the last time I made ice cream (about a week ago), I killed the motor on my ice cream maker.  The ice cream maker had a freezer canister with a plastic lid where the motor fit into the top.  I didn't actually burn out the motor--the plastic cover for the motor attachment broke off, and then some of the bits of the motor fell out.  But when I stopped and thought about it, I realized that it was 15 years old.  So it had a good life.  But I wasn't sure I wanted to spend money on a new ice cream maker right now.  The canister was still perfectly fine, and I remembered that I also had a hand-crank for it.  So I thought I'd try to convince Brianna that it would be fun to help me make the ice cream by hand.  =)

It might have turned out okay.  But the quantity of ice cream was just too small.  It wanted to freeze to the sides of the canister before we really had a chance to churn it.  It quickly became impossible to turn the crank.  So I gave up and scraped shards of ice cream into a container to put in the freezer.  I did try to eat some of it, but it wasn't very good at all.  Poor texture, and not very good flavor either.  Edited to add: Simply substituting the creme fraiche for the sour cream resulted in too much fat, I think.  The ice cream had a really greasy mouthfeel to it.  If I try the creme fraiche again, I'll add some milk as well.

I decided to try again.  First, let me introduce you to my newest kitchen appliance:

Thanks to Pamela for the great information that Williams-Sonoma has this ice cream maker for a good price that included a second freezer canister.  Woohoo!  Multiple ice cream flavors on the same day!  =)

I decided to think positive and came up with proportions for a larger batch.  Here's what I decided on:

1 12-ounce bag of frozen raspberries, thawed

1 cup granulated sugar

juice and zest of 1 lemon

1/8 teaspoon salt

12 ounces heavy cream

8 ounces reduced-fat sour cream (since the creme fraiche didn't work out the way I'd hoped)

I cooked everything but the cream and sour cream together as indicated in the original recipe. I increased the simmer time to 5 minutes due to the larger quantity.  Since I didn't want raspberry seeds in my ice cream, after a spin in the blender I pushed the mixture through a fine-mesh strainer.  I stirred in the cream and sour cream and chilled the mixture for several hours before trying out my new toy.

The verdict?  This stuff is fantastic!  Tart and refreshing as well as very creamy.  Just the thing to beat the August heat (and summer-long heat wave we've been having).  I will definitely be making this one again.  As with most homemade ice cream, it definitely gets a little hard after a day or two in the freezer.  My solution for that is to stick the whole container in the microwave for about a minute on 10% power, just enough to soften it a bit.

Want to try the blueberry version?  Head over to Dolores's blog for the recipe, or check out a copy of Baking From My Home to Yours.

Cupcakes for Daddy

Jamie's birthday was actually Friday, but we always grocery shop on Friday nights, and I didn't have a chance to make anything before then.  It worked out better to wait until today anyway, so Brianna could help.  She wanted to make cake, but it would take us forever to eat, so I convinced her that cupcakes would be better.  And hey, we got to buy new cupcake liners and sprinkles!  There was no question what flavor they would be--"Chocolate with chocolate!"  Fortunately, that's Jamie's favorite as well as Brianna's.  =)  And Gillian didn't complain either.  (My favorite is vanilla cake with chocolate frosting.)

For the cupcake recipe, I turned to my trusty source, Cooks Illustrated.  I made a couple of small modifications to the recipe, and they turned out great, as always.  I had a bit more trouble with the frosting.  I originally wanted to do something light, like a chocolate whipped cream, but my chocolate/cream mixture broke.  So I dumped in some powdered sugar, unsweetened cocoa and a bit more melted chocolate along with a pinch of salt and beat it all together.  I'm not going to give the recipe, since I'm not sure I could duplicate it (or if I should), but it was decent.  Edited:  Okay, so Jamie thought the frosting was great--he really liked the texture.  So I'll have to see if I can get it to come out the same way again.  =)

Super Chocolatey Sour Cream Cupcakes

(adapted from Cooks Illustrated)

8 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into 8 pieces

2 ounces semi-sweet chocolate (I used El Rey Bucare 58.5%)

1/2 cup (1.5 ounces) dutch-processed cocoa (I used Valrhona)

1 teaspoon instant espresso powder

3/4 cup (3.75 ounces) all-purpose flour (I use King Arthur)

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

3/4 teaspoon baking powder

2 large eggs

3/4 cup (5.25 ounces) granulated sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla (I used 1/2 teaspoon double-strength)

1/2 teaspoon table salt

1/2 cup sour cream

Preheat you oven to 350 degrees. Line a standard-sized 12-cup muffin pan with cupcake liners.

Place the butter and chocolate in medium heatproof bowl. Heat the butter and chocolate in the microwave for 2 minutes on 50% power. Stir until the chocolate is completely melted, microwaving for additional 10-second bursts if needed.  Whisk in the cocoa powder and espresso powder. Set the mixture aside to cool until just warm to the touch.

Whisk the flour, baking soda, and baking powder together in a small bowl to combine.

Whisk the eggs in a second medium bowl to combine; add the sugar, vanilla, and salt and whisk until fully incorporated.  Add the cooled chocolate mixture and whisk until combined. Stir in about one-third of the flour mixture until incorporated, then half the sour cream. Alternate stirring in the remaining flour and sour cream, ending with the last third of the flour.

Divide the batter evenly among the muffin pan cups. (I use a #16 disher for this.)  Bake until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cupcakes comes out clean, 18 to 20 minutes.

Cool the cupcakes in the muffin pan on a wire rack until they are cool enough to handle, about 15 minutes. Carefully remove each cupcake from the muffin pan and set it on the wire rack. Cool the cupcakes to room temperature before icing, about 30 minutes.