Tuiles

I seem to be waiting until the last minute with everything this month!  Though I think my TWD gingerbread is as last minute as it gets... =)  I deliberately waited until this week to make this month's Daring Bakers challenge, though.  I knew I'd be on vacation and I'd have more time available.

This month's challenge is brought to us by Karen of Bake My Day and Zorra of 1x umruehren bitte aka Kochtopf. They have chosen Tuiles from The Chocolate Book by Angélique Schmeink and Nougatine and Chocolate Tuiles from Michel Roux.

They wanted to give us something that could be easily mixed up from ingredients already in our kitchens.  I'm sure I'm not the only one who has been meaning to try my hand at tuiles, but just haven't gotten around to it.  We were required to use a specific recipe, shape the tuiles in some way, and pair them with something light.  

I knew I wanted to make some sort of cup out of mine to meet the shaping requirement.  I made some delicious sorbet last week that I could put in the cups, and that fit the requirement that we pair our tuiles with something light.  After mixing and chilling the batter, I took part of it and tinted it pink with some gel food coloring.  I used my small offset spatula to spread large circles of batter on my sheet pan that I had lined with non-stick foil (I love that stuff!).  Then I had some fun decorating them with spirals and dots.

I think I had the batter a bit too thick, and it took about 9 minutes for the tuiles to start turning a faint brown around the edges.  I think I baked them too long, because when I tried to shape them over a ramekin, they cracked.  So I made some more, baking them for a couple minutes less.  They were okay to shape, but I wish I'd been able to get them a bit more brown, for better flavor.  Later I had the idea to make some thinner freeform tuiles for a garnish, and I was able to get them much more brown.  

The verdict?  I found that although the formation of the tuiles looks fairly simple, getting a good result can be a bit more difficult than it at first appears.  I definitely want to try this again to see if I can get a better result.  I'd also like to try another recipe to see if I can get something that's more crisp while still flexible enough to shape.  Brianna and Gillian seemed to enjoy eating the pieces from my broken first attempt, and Brianna asked if I could make bowls like that again some time.

If you want to try your hand at this month's challenge, head over to Karen's blog or Zorra's blog for the recipe.  And be sure to check out the Daring Bakers blogroll to see what everyone else came up with!

Spicing up dessert

Okay, I think this is the latest I've done a Tuesdays with Dorie post that was still technically on time.  This week's selection comes from Heather of Sherry Trifle.  She chose Fresh Ginger and Chocolate Gingerbread.  I hear about gingerbread a lot from Gillian, actually.  At her daycare, the children have various things in the classroom (cubbies, placemats) labeled with their names and a picture of something that starts with the same letter as their name.  Gillian's is a gingerbread man.  I appreciate that they took the time to find something that starts with the soft g sound (I guess giraffe would have worked, too).  =)

I like most things that are chocolate, and I like baking with spices as well.  But I was a bit skeptical about combining the two, especially after reading some of the reviews from the other bakers.  And my chocolate stash is somewhat depleted at the moment, after making chocolate birthday cake and cupcakes over the weekend.  I started to add up just how much chocolate I used, and I think it was about 2 pounds all together.  Scary, huh?  But it was for a 13"x9" cake and two dozen cupcakes.  Anyway, since I'm a bit tired of chocolate right now (crazy, I know!), I did make a couple of small changes to the recipe.

This recipe calls for fresh ginger as well as dried, and you have the option of adding stem ginger (or crystallized ginger) as well. There's some melted chocolate in the batter and some chunks stirred in at the end. And then you finish everything off with a chocolate glaze.  I used my microplane grater on the ginger, and only grated about a tablespoon of it.  One taste was enough to remind me that, like garlic, the finer you chop or grate ginger, the stronger it tastes.  One tablespoon (as opposed to two) was plenty.  I used the full amount of dried ginger, cinnamon and cloves.  As I was mixing the dried ingredients together, I realized that I'd forgotten to add the salt.  That's when I realized that the recipe doesn't have any, so I added a quarter teaspoon.  I didn't add any crystallized ginger.  For the 2 ounces of melted chocolate, I used some El Rey 70%.  I had part of a bag of semisweet mini chips left in my pantry, so I added those instead of chunks of chocolate (3 ounces).

I made sure I used my 9" square baking pan.  And thanks to Kim for the great idea to line the pan with a parchment sling.  I baked my gingerbread for 40 minutes.  When I first tested it, I thought it wasn't done, then I realized that I'd hit some chocolate chips with the toothpick. =)  I let it cool for a bit, but we dug into it while it was still warm, since I wanted to get this done sometime tonight...

The verdict?  I liked it quite a bit, and Jamie did as well.  I skipped the glaze and just topped the warm gingerbread with some vanilla ice cream.  That was a great match.  The chocolate didn't stand out a lot, but did add something to the cake.  I could still taste the spices, and there was a bit of a bite from the fresh ginger.  I can see myself making this one again if I'm in the right mood. I'll have to see what Gillian and Brianna think tomorrow.

If you want to give this one a try, head over to Heather's blog for the recipe.  And check out the list of bakers over at TWD to see how everyone else did this week.  

Hit or miss

For those who are looking for this week's TWD, it'll be coming a bit later on Tuesday.  My dad has been here for a long weekend, so I haven't been spending much time on the computer.  And Brianna's birthday (6 already--where does the time go?!) was on Sunday, so we're still recovering from chocolate cake and cupcakes.

I may have mentioned this before...  When I was growing up, it was tradition that for your birthday you got to pick what to eat for dinner and what kind of cake you wanted.  Brianna's pick for dinner was hamburgers and french fries.  The bucket of dough in my fridge came in handy for making burger buns.  =)  Dad asked me what my favorite birthday dinner used to be.  I'd have to say it was ravioli.  But I haven't found that particular sort of ravioli in years.  They were frozen.  There were 50 in a package--two sheets of 25 each (5 x 5), and you had to snap them apart before dropping them into the boiling water.  No idea what the brand was, but both the meat and cheese ones tasted different from (i.e. much better than) the ones I can buy in my grocery store now.  

As for the cake, that changed for me over time.  I can remember having a few spice cakes.  And I really liked angel food cake (with either chocolate or raspberry glaze) for quite a while.  But yellow cake with chocolate frosting was ultimately my favorite, and still is.  Brianna's hasn't changed since she was old enough to tell me what kind she wanted--"all chocolate."  

This year was no different.  I used the same chocolate cake recipe that I've been using for the past several years.  It's the Simple Chocolate Sheet Cake from Cooks Illustrated (Jan/Feb 2001).  I played around with it just a bit this year.  I added about a teaspoon of instant espresso powder to the chocolate mixture.  I also mixed the batter differently, although that wasn't really on purpose.  I just started mixing without looking back at the recipe.  =)  Since I was planning on taking the cake out of the pan to decorate it, I also lined the baking pan with parchment.  

As usual, the cake turned out great.  Next up, frosting.  I stuck with another tried-and-true recipe, the Dark Chocolate Frosting from the Feb/Mar 2006 issue of Cook's Country.  It's more or less a ganache frosting, made in the food processor.  As usual, I got it too warm trying to melt all the chocolate, and had to whisk it over a bowl of ice and water to get it to firm up.  For the trim (pink, of course), I just whipped up a quick buttercream consisting of butter (8 tablespoons), powdered sugar (about 4 ounces, I think), milk (a couple tablespoons?) and a bit of salt.  I overdid it a bit on the food coloring and ended up with a pretty bright shade of pink. =)  The decorating was nothing fancy.  For the fourth birthday running, it was a Princess cake, complete with Belle, Aurora, Ariel and Cinderella.  Buying those toppers is some of the best money that I've ever spent (about $10, if I recall correctly).  

The verdict?  The cake was a big hit with everyone--kids and adults alike.  Some kids may dislike dark chocolate, but not mine. =)  And it's really not all that hard to make.

So that was for Brianna's actual birthday and party on Sunday.  Since her birthday fell on the weekend this year, I told her I would make cupcakes for her kindergarten class on Monday.  Since the weekend was pretty busy, I didn't make them until Monday morning.  I've made a few chocolate cupcake recipes, but for some reason it didn't occur to me to use a recipe that I've made before.  Instead, I decided to try the Devil's Food Cupcakes from the same article as the frosting (Cook's Country).  Unfortunately, that didn't go as well as I hoped.  

The recipe makes 24 cupcakes (the amount I needed), but I only have one muffin/cupcake pan.  So I made two half-batches.  I think something is wrong with the leavening, because for both batches, the cupcakes rose nicely but then sank in the middle when they started to cool.  The cupcakes also spread out too much on top, and then the edges broke off when I took them out of the pan.  I thought that I'd overfilled the cups in the pan, so I put a bit less batter in each one for the second batch, but that didn't help.  They still spread on top, and just ended up with bigger dents in the middle.  

Fortunately, I was making these for a bunch of 5- and 6-year-olds who would just think "Hey, more room for frosting!"  So I kept going.  For the frosting, I wanted something that wouldn't be too sugary-sweet.  I made what was more or less a whipped ganache.  It was on the soft side, since I ran out of time to chill it, but it was quite tasty.

The verdict?  I spent several hours making cupcakes, and they were devoured in under two minutes. =)  The frosting really was pretty fantastic.  I won't bother making the cupcake recipe again though.  It clearly has issues, and the taste isn't good enough for me to want to spend a lot of time fixing it when I have some other perfectly good recipes that work.

Want to try some of these yourself?  The America's Test Kitchen recipes are only available to website subscribers and those who buy the magazines and books.  If you subscribe to the Cooks Illustrated site, the Sheet Cake recipe can be found here.  It's also in Baking Illustrated (page 342).  The Dark Chocolate Frosting can be found here on the Cook's Country site.  And if you want to see if you have better luck with the cupcakes, that recipe is here.  Here's the frosting I made for the cupcakes:

Creamy Whipped Ganache Frosting

12 ounces heavy cream

4 ounces semisweet chocolate (I used El Rey 58.5%)

4 ounces bittersweet chocolate (I used a combination of El Rey 70% and Ghirardelli 72%)

6 ounces powdered sugar

pinch salt

Chop the chocolate into small pieces and place in a heatproof bowl.  Heat the cream until very hot. (I microwave it for 1 1/2 to 2 minutes in 30 second bursts to make sure it doesn't boil over.)  Pour half of the cream over the chocolate and let it sit for several minutes.  Stir the chocolate and cream mixture together in small circles, starting at the center and working your way out in increasingly larger circles, until it forms an emulsion.  Carefully stir in the other half of the cream.  Let stand at room temperature until the mixture thickens a bit.  With a hand or stand mixer, beat in the powdered sugar.  Continue to beat until the mixture lightens and eventually forms peaks, kind of like making whipped cream (6-8 minutes?).  You want it thick enough to pipe, but still somewhat soft.  

I know, it's a picture of Gillian on a post about Brianna's birthday.  But it was too cute to pass up. =)

Surprise! No berries here

This week's Tuesdays with Dorie recipe was chosen by Mary Ann of Meet Me in the Kitchen.  She chose Berry Surprise Cake for us to make.  You're supposed to bake the cake (a thick layer of genoise), slice off the top, hollow out the middle, fill it with cream filling and berries, and put the top back on.  This is a great pick for some of our southern hemisphere bakers, who should be able to find berries in season.  But I knew I wouldn't be going with fresh berries for mine, since they'd be quite expensive if I could even find decent ones.

My first thought was to use frozen raspberries, and I did buy some.  But I was afraid they'd be too juicy once thawed to work very well.  Then I thought about just using them anyway, but cutting up my cake layer to make trifle with the cake, filling and berry sauce.  From what I read on the P&Q this week, a lot of people had problems with their cakes sinking in the middle.  I was not one of them, though.  I made my cake this morning, and it turned out perfect.  One thing that I think helped was how I folded everything together for the batter.  I used my biggest balloon whisk.  That's what I always use when making angel food cake from scratch, and it works great.  My cake was beautifully even, and I just couldn't cut it up.  So back to the drawing board...

Another idea that had been floating around in my brain was finding a way to use up the rest of the blood orange juice I bought for my sorbet.  And citrus is a nice in-season flavor.  I decided to make orange curd (thanks to LW for her comment on the P&Q that put the idea in my head).  I knew that I couldn't just substitute orange juice for lemon in a lemon curd recipe, since oranges are less acidic.  I ended up combining a couple recipes and using about 1/4 lemon juice and 3/4 orange juice.  I would have added more lemon, but I only had one left.  The curd turned out pretty good, though not as thick as I would have liked.  I'll post the recipe when I have a bit more time.

I also used some of the blood orange juice to make the soaking syrup for the cake.  I used 1/2 cup of juice and 1/4 cup of sugar and let it boil for a bit longer than a minute to reduce it somewhat.  Then I added a tablespoon of Grand Marnier--not my favorite liqueur, but I thought it would be good with the orange.  When making the cream filling, I also increased the sugar to 2 tablespoons, since a number of people said it wasn't sweet enough, and I agreed.  After folding the whipped cream into the cream cheese mixture, I also folded in half a cup of my orange curd, stopping before it was completely mixed in.

For the cake assembly, I cut the top off my cake and hollowed out the middle.  Then I brushed the inside of the cake with my orange syrup.  I followed that with a thin layer of orange curd.  I only had room for about half of the cream mixture, so after putting the top back on the cake, I spread the remaining cream on top of the cake and skipped the sweetened whipped cream that Dorie has in the recipe.

The verdict?  We really enjoyed this one.  I like the contrast between the firm cake and the soft filling.  I'd like to try it again when fresh berries are in season.  I'm picturing a sophisticated version of strawberry shortcake. =)  Gillian liked it, once we convinced her to stop playing with the cake and eat it.  Brianna thought the orange curd was too tart, so she might like it better with another flavor.  Jamie liked what he could taste, though his allergies were making it difficult.  

Be sure to head over to the Tuesdays with Dorie page for a list of the other bakers so you can see what they've come up with this week.  And you can find the original recipe over at Mare's blog.

Change is good

Like most people, I'm usually somewhat resistant to change.  Don't fix what ain't broke, right?  So I was a bit apprehensive when I got my December/January issue of Fine Cooking, and read that they were planning some changes for the magazine and website.  I got busy with the holidays and forgot about it.  Then I opened my mailbox a week or two ago and pulled out the February/March issue.  It definitely looked a bit different, but good.  I've had time to read through the entire issue now, and I think I like it.  There are a number of things I want to try, including making croissants (one of the things I'd like to accomplish in 2009).  

I don't read magazines straight through.  I thumb through the whole thing when I get it, just to get an idea of what's in there.  But then I jump around, depending on what's most appealing and how much time I have at the moment.  So it took me a few days to get around to reading the article on oranges.  I like oranges, but don't really go out of my way to cook or bake with them.  For instance, much as I love chocolate, I'm not that big a fan of chocolate and orange together.  And for savory recipes, I love lemon, but never really thought about using oranges.  Then I saw the recipe for Blood Orange and Mango Sorbet.  Now that sounded really good.  

The recipe calls for juicing blood oranges and cutting up fresh mangos.  I took a couple shortcuts. =)  I needed 2 1/2 cups of the orange juice.  Fortunately, Anna over at Cookie Madness had a post about blood orange juice a few days ago.  I was able to find cartons of it at Central Market.  And for the mango, I actually used frozen mango chunks (12 ounces).  I pureed the mango pieces with the orange juice in my blender.  Then I heated a cup of the puree with a cup of sugar just until the sugar was dissolved, and mixed it back into the rest of the orange/mango mixture.  I added the tablespoon of lemon juice called for in the recipe, but didn't have any orange zest since I just bought juice.  And the great thing about using the frozen mango is that the mixture was quite cold, so I didn't have to wait for it to chill before churning it.  (Keeping a canister in the freezer all the time is great for spur of the moment frozen concoctions.)  

The verdict?  This one was a hit with everyone!  Brianna and Gillian loved it, and Jamie really liked it too.  I kept sampling it all afternoon. =)  The flavor is a great combination of sweet and tart--very refreshing.  And the color is lovely.  I'll definitely be making this sorbet again.

I'm also submitting this to Ivonne over at Cream Puffs in Venice for her Magazine Mondays event.  If you want to try this sorbet, you can access the original recipe here. (Right now, at least, it's available whether you subscribe to Fine Cooking's website or not.)

A future in food styling

I know I said the challah would be next (and it's coming as soon as I finish writing the post), but I'm taking things a bit out of order.  When I was off last Wednesday, I mixed up a batch of light whole wheat bread using the Artisan Bread in Five method.  It's pretty similar to the master bread recipe that I started with.  You just substitute a cup of whole wheat flour (I used King Arthur white whole wheat flour) for a cup of the all-purpose flour.  After I mixed it, I let it rise at room temperature for a couple hours and then put it in the fridge.  I pretty much ignored it until Saturday morning.  When I checked on it, I noticed that the dough had deflated some.  So I stirred it around in the bucket with a spatula, thinking that might get the yeast going some more.  And it did.  When I checked it again this morning, it was bubbly and had risen back up somewhat.  I took out a pound of the dough and made a batard with it.  After letting it rise at room temperature for about an hour and a half, I baked it for 35 minutes.

The bread was cool just in time for lunch, so I used it to make some sandwiches for Brianna and Gillian.  Chicken and mozzarella cheese for Gillian, chicken and "orange cheese" (sharp cheddar) for Brianna.  It's funny how they're different about so many little things... =)  After cutting the sandwiches in half, I turned around to get a couple plates out of the cupboard.  When I turned back, Brianna told me, "Look, Mommy!  I stacked it up so it looks nice.  Will you take a picture of it?"  "Sure, I can do that."  "And then will you put it on the computer?"  How could I say no? =)

Maybe later...

This week's Tuesdays with Dorie recipe was chosen by Rebecca of Ezra Pound Cake.  She selected Savory Corn and Pepper Muffins for us to make.  I still haven't made the muffins, and can't decide if I'm going to.  If I get to them this evening, I'll definitely make some changes to the recipe.  I don't like jalapenos and cilantro, and can't eat bell peppers.  I was thinking that cheddar cheese and some scallions would make for a tasty (and still savory) muffin.  

In the meantime, be sure to head over to Tuesdays with Dorie to check out the blogroll and see how others fared with this one.  We have a bunch of new members, too!  And visit Rebecca's blog for the recipe if you'd like to give these muffins a try.