Baking Experiments

Oatmeal Buttermilk Bread with Flax and Walnut Oil

2009-09-01T21:32:00.000-04:00

This is a variation on the Oatmeal Buttermilk Bread recipe from the Macrina Bakery and Cafe Cookbook. I used walnut oil instead of canola oil and I exchanged one half cup of AP flour for one half cup of ground flax.

The dough was a little stickier than last time. I think I may need to only remove 1/4c of AP flour and add the 1/2c of flax. Also, the bread didn't rise as much as I thought it would. I think I need to let my oats cool down more before adding them to the yeast. I think I may have killed some of the yeast.

As you can see the bread came out of the oven with a beautiful golden crust. I remembered to put the oats on the top this time :P If you look closely you can see the bits of flax in there.

The bread came out sooooo good! Chris and I picked up a pyrex loaf pan at the goodwill store ($5 and a little elbow grease with a magic eraser and its as good as new!) so I made two loaves this time instead of the one huge one that I had last time. I lowered the oven temp to 375° this time (I think my oven is off ten degrees or so though) and reduced the baking time by 5 minutes.

I love the nuttiness that the walnut oil and flax give, it's subtle but there. The crust has just the right amount of crustiness to it and the inside is soft and fluffy.

I ate about half of one of the loaves by myself today... I had it toasted with apricot jam this morning, with my chicken salad at lunch and had a ham and cheese sandwich for dinner. Seriously, I can't resist it!

Sundays with Macrina: Brioche

2009-08-23T22:48:00.003-04:00

Chris wanted to make Brioche, so we used the recipe in Macrina... all I can say is WOW! So buttery, so light, so..... mmmmmmmmm.

Sundays with Macrina: Brown Sugar & Almond Coffee Cake

2009-08-18T12:13:00.003-04:00

On Saturday Chris was out with The Guys and I was kinda bored and couldn't decide what do to and I thought 'hey, I haven't baked anything in a while...' So I broke out the Macrina book and flipped through to find something that I could make with stuff I already had in the house. I found this Brown Sugar and Almond Coffee Cake that calls for fresh or frozen raspberries. Well, I had frozen mixed berries (raspberries, blackberries and blueberries) and I thought that was good enough. So I follow the recipe and it says I need a 9x9" pan to make this cake in. Well, I don't have a 9x9 pan, I only have an 8x8 pan. I poured it in and it was clearly too full and so I changed it to my higher sided round baking dish, thinking that it could at least hold it in if it puffed up a lot.

Well.....
I think the combination of the heavy almonds on top and the fact hat my oven is slightly tilted resulted in the almonds sliding off onto the bottom of the oven and making a huge mess. I really don't even think a 9x9 pan would have been big enough for the amount the cake rose.

This cake is delicious. It was super moist and really tasty. I happen to love almonds and almond flavored anything so it was perfect for me. I didn't really get a brown sugar taste from the cake and I probably would have named it Berry Almond Coffee Cake instead but either way, it was really great. My only complaint was that the berries sunk to the bottom, which I kind of suspected they would do. I thought about tossing them in flour to prevent this from happening but I thought that if I needed to do that, the book would have said so. Either way, yum. I will be making this again, but first I need to find a pan that can contain it properly :P

Homemade Chocolate Covered Marshmallows

2009-04-12T10:59:00.000-04:00

On one of the few days I've been able to come home early from work recently, Chris and I decided to try and make marshmallows. We tried two recipes, one from Alton Brown and one from the Culinary Institute of America Cookbook. The CIA recipe was much more involved and the texture came out kind of weird. Also, the recipe called for honey as well as sugar and I personally don't like the flavor of honey in my candy. Great in mead, good in tea, candy = blech. The AB recipe was SO easy. You do need a stand mixer though. It was quick and fun to make and really tasted marshmallow-y. Better than marshmallow-y even because they came out fluffy and just a little gooey (which you combat with plenty of powdered sugar). I loved them so much that I cut them out with some spring shaped cookie cutters I have (flowers and butterflies) and then dipped them in chocolate and covered some of them in coconut and brought them to Easter dinner at Chris' family's house. Then I brought some to work and to our friends.

I'm seriously considering starting a marshmallow business. They were AWESOME! I tried a couple with cocoa powder but it made the texture weird. The fully covered ones were delicious but also seriously messy. The half covered ones were elegant and tasty with just enough balance of sweet marshmallow and bitter dark chocolate. The coconut just made it over the top in my opinion but then I love anything covered in coconut. Next time we make these, I will definitely get some good pictures so you can see how easy they are to make.

Sundays with Macrina: Fresh Fruit Muffins, Strawberry

2009-04-05T10:50:00.000-04:00

This is the first time I was unhappy with something I made from the Macrina Bakery & Cafe Cookbook. It was completely my fault though. I thought the muffins looked done, toothpick test came out clean and they were in the oven longer than the recipe said. I don't know if it was the weather that day or just me not doing something right but they didn't bake all the way through. Of course I didn't realize this until AFTER I'd given some to Vina and her husband.... ugh. The flavor of the muffin part was good, but I really didn't like the flavor that the strawberries added. They also made the cooked part of the muffins soggy and wet (I HATE the texture of soggy bread). I would probably make these again, maybe with blueberries or cherries, just to see if they come out better.

St. Patty's Day Cake

2009-03-24T10:31:00.000-04:00

You didn't think I could let St. Patty's go by and NOT make a Chocolate Guinness Cake, did you? And of course it had Bailey's Buttercream on the inside. I made this for our St. Patty's day dinner at our friends house. Chris made Irish Soda Bread but I don't think he took any pictures. Seriously though, I have to get him to make it again and take some pictures because it was GOOOOOD! Although I don't know which was better, the bread, the cake or Vina's KICK ASS Corned Beef and Cabbage dinner. I ate so much that I ran back to our house to change out of my jeans and put sweatpants on (only after all the other already wearing sweatpants people yelled at me for thinking I should wear jeans in the first place :P) It was a great dinner with awesome friends... in other words, the best it could have been.

Sundays With Macrina: Oatmeal Buttermilk Bread

2009-03-24T10:02:00.000-04:00

This week I wanted to try my hand at another bread from the Macrina book. There are a ton of recipes for stuff other than bread but you can really tell that bread is Leslie Mackie's passion.

I didn't get to take any pictures of the actual making of the bread, but it was really easy. I wanted to try a starter bread but I do not have a food scale and I think starter breads are really one instance where you have to use one. So I opted for this loaf instead.
And like everything else I've made from the Macrina Bakery & Cafe Cookbook, it was excellent. It came out really crusty on the outside (actually I think I may have baked it just a few minutes too long) and soft and fluffy on the inside. The only problem I had was with slicing it and that's just because I don't have a lot of experience slicing bread so my slices were THICK. I used this loaf all week for toast and to make sandwiches for lunch. It has a wonderful nutty flavor but its mild enough that it doesn't over power your sandwich. I don't know if you can tell but it also came out HUGE! Each slice was bigger than my whole hand with my fingers spread out. I think my stoneware pan, even though it says is 5x9, is not. I might try getting a metal pan but I really love the way the stoneware bakes.

I will definitely be making this bread again. It was SO delicious. I did leave off the oats that were supposed to be sprinkled on top... I really just forgot but also Chris doesn't like bread with 'stuff on it'.

Sunday's with Macrina: Morning Glory Muffins

2009-03-15T21:24:00.000-04:00

This week's pick from the Macrina Bakery & Cafe Cookbook was Morning Glory Muffins. They sounded hearty and energizing and I thought they would make a great on-the-go breakfast. The recipe is supposed to make 12 muffins, but I made jumbo muffins so it only made 6.

I don't usually start off with a picture of the ingredients but in this case the sheer amount of them is definitely worth the top picture. These muffins contain: raisins, nuts (once again I swapped pecans for the walnuts called for), carrot, apple, pineapple, flour, sugar, raw sugar, salt, canola oil, eggs, baking soda, coconut, cinnamon, and lemon juice, butter and vanilla. And then the prep work....

I soaked the raisins in hot water to make them plumpy...

Toasted and chopped the nuts....

Shredded carrot....

... and apple...

Juiced this amazing lemon...

Don't even get me started on how I forgot to take pictures of my first ever chopping of a fresh pineapple....
Mix it all together in the super secret Macrina way...

Fill the tins to the tippy top....

(and I mean full!)

Then bake!

Ok that picture isn't the best but I really couldn't wait to eat this muffin! They smelled SO good baking! I can't even begin to describe how tasty these muffins are. I thought that all of the different ingredients would be overwhelming, but they weren't. My only complaint is that they were kind of crumbly.... don't get me wrong that didn't stop me from gathering all the crumbs up and squishing them so I could make sure I got all the scraps :P Chris loved them, I loved them, they were absolutely worth all the work that went into them. I will definitely be making these again!

Sunday's With Macrina: German Pancake with Apples, Rum, & Brown Sugar

2009-03-08T18:41:00.011-04:00

I picked this recipe to do first because Chris and I were looking for something fun to make for breakfast with stuff we already had in the house. The only thing we had to run out for was the apples. Also, because we wanted something a little heavier than a muffin or a scone.

Here's how it came together:

We had to substitute a few things for this recipe. The main thing was the rum. The recipe calls for dark rum, but we didn't have any and since we live in NY, liquor stores don't open until noon on Sundays. We only had Captain Morgan's Parrot Bay Passion Fruit Rum in the house, so we used that. The other two things were minor. First, I don't own a 9" saute pan, I own a 10" saute pan so we used that. Second, we don't drink whole milk, we buy 2% milk so that's what we used.

Wet ingredients: eggs, milk, vanilla

Dry ingredients: flour, kosher salt, sugar

Melting the butter.

While that melts, mix the dry and wet ingredients together until there are no lumps.

Then you pour the batter into the saute pan

After it cooks for a few minutes and starts to brown around the outside, you pop it into the oven to bake.

Meanwhile, you take the cut up apples...

And mix it with the melted brown sugar, butter, cinnamon, rum mixture.

Stir to coat and then cook them for a little while.

This is what the pancake looked like right before I pulled it out of the oven. It kinda made me crack up.

Then it deflated a little and we poured on the apples and dusted with powdered sugar.

Wow. Soooo goood. The pancake wasn't too heavy and really had a nice flavor. It was a great brunch and so easy to make that we will definitely make it again. The only thing was that the apple mixture was a little on the sweet side, but we are blaming that on our choice to use the fruity rum instead of dark rum. We may try it with a different fruit next time. Maybe apricots.

I'm so glad I chose this for the first recipe! I had a really hard week at work last week and wasn't so much in the mood to cook but I thought, hey, this is why I decided to do this in the first place. Chris and I had a lot of fun making it (and eating it!) together.

Challenging Myself... with Macrina

2009-03-03T10:03:00.002-05:00

I am going to bake my way through the Macrina Bakery & Cafe Cookbook by Leslie Mackie. Cooking, in general, has always been something I love. When I was little I would pretend I had my own cooking show whenever I made something, even just PB&J. But baking... baking is my true passion. There is nothing like the feeling of taking something freshly baked out of the oven, the smell, the heat, the golden brown crust, the perfectly baked cake... it's like love in solid form. So why am I starting this adventure?

My job is stressful but it is not hard to do nor does it require a lot of brain power. Lately it has been a bit more stressful than usual because they are closing my office and moving my branch into another office to be shared with the team that is there from the company that took mine over. My boss is being moved to a different location than the rest of us, which leaves me as The One In Charge. So I've been working longer than usual hours and am a bit more stressed because of the extra responsibility and trying get all my work done while also doing all the things my boss normally does.

My point is that when I come home, I am mush. I don't use my brain at work, which I think is more tiresome than if I had to use a lot of brainpower. I do the crossword on my lunch everyday just so that I have at least 20 or 30 minutes of thinking to do during the day. I am not challenged at work. I do not have rewarding experiences at work. I mostly deal with complaints and problems, which can be wearing on the spirit. When I come home lately, I can't seem to get my brain to turn on to engage with Chris for more than watching TV. I'm cranky, I don't want to talk, I don't want to cook... I just want to put my pajamas on and veg out on the couch. Which is unfair to Chris and causes unnecessary stress on our relationship.

So what is the solution? Well, I can't just up and quit my job. It's a "good" job. So since I can't just quit, I've decided that I need to take matters into my own hands and challenge myself more. Do more things that require brainpower. (I also need to do more things that challenge me physically, but that's another topic for another day)

I've been reading through Carol Blymire's blog Alinea At Home, where she is cooking her way through the entire Alinea cookbook by Grant Achatz. She also finished cooking through the French Laundry Cookbook by Thomas Keller. Carol is really inspiring. I really could go on and on about her blog but really you should just head over there and check it out.

So why Macrina? Because there are things in there that I have only dreamed of baking. Intimidating sour doughs, croissants and other pastries....Things that will be hard, possibly frustrating, might make me cry but will be ultimately rewarding. The breads in this book sound so inviting to bake. There are also cakes, cookies, muffins, tarts, pies... the works. I also love the section toward the back that has the Cafe Favorites with savory dishes that make your mouth water just by reading the title like Egg Scramble with Delicata Squash, Spinich, Smoked Provelone & Beurre Blanc Sauce and German Pancake with Apples, Rum & Brown Sugar.

So I am going to make at least one new recipe per week from the Macrina book on Sunday. I hope to come out of this adventure a bit more intuitive about bread baking, more confident about pastry and with experience in a broader range of baked goods. I also want to gain a sense of accomplishment and a better understanding of what my plans are for the future. I also, for at least one day a week, want to feel passionate about what I am doing.

Wish me luck!

Cookies!

2008-12-21T19:50:00.000-05:00

So for Christmas, Pat and Courtney got us a Silpat. Pat said that it would change my life. Well, I know what a Silpat is supposed to do and it sounded to me like the same thing that my Pampered Chef Stoneware Bar Pan was supposed to do. Non-stick, even baking, best cookies ever. So I put them up head to head on Sunday morning and made two batches of cookies. The first batch was White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Cookies (recipe found here) and the second batch was White Chip Chocolate Cookies found on the back of the Toll House bag of white chocolate chips (and here).
Now I was going to post pictures of the top and bottom of each batch Silpat vs. Bar Pan, but honestly they came out almost exactly the same. The bar pan *did* cook a little more evenly, the bottom was done *exactly* the same amount as the top (one of the things that PC boasts is that food cooks at the same time all around) and the Silpat had the bottoms a tiny bit more done than the tops. Both Chris and I preferred the Silpat doneness, the little crisp on the edges was really nice but the middles were still soft and gooey.

Silpat top:
Silpat bottom:

Ok now I just feel bad and have to post the PC cookies too. Sorry about the bad lighting on the next one but it just wasn't working for me.

PC top:
PC bottom:On to the chocolate cookies!

Silpat top:
Silpat bottom:

PC top:
PC bottom:
So now you can see that they are pretty much the same. That said, I am in LOVE with the Silpat. It doesn't say on the PC website but the Bar Pan must weigh like 6lbs. I'm constantly worried about dropping it and honestly, its a little to hard on my wrist to carry it one handed, which makes it really hard to hold the pan and shut the oven. The Silpat weighs... I dunno... 4oz? maybe? Bar Pan: hard to store. Silpat: currently rolled up inside of a paper towel tube on the shelf. (Thanks btw to whoever blogged that a few weeks ago, I can't remember who but its a great tip) Both products are non-stick (I've cooked bacon a few times in my Bar Pan so its got a nice coat on it) but the Silpat seemed to be better at it. The PC cookies got a little squished from the spatula when I was moving them to the cooling rack. The Silpat cookies were perfectly round.

The winner? Silpat, hands down. I am so happy with it. If you make cookies, even once a year, you should get one (or two!) of these. It is totally worth it. I'm thinking about getting another one.

As a side note, if you like White Chocolate Macadamia Cookies, make that recipe! They were seriously some of the best Chris and I have ever had. And that is a favorite cookie for both of us.

We Were Christmas'd SO HARD!

2008-12-18T18:51:00.004-05:00

That's what our friend Pat told us the other day. He sent Chris a message that said 'I Christmas'd you SO HARD!' And it's true, we were. Now I'm not trying to brag or anything, and try not to get too jealous now, but here's what my Mom got us for Christmas:
Uh yeah... I've wanted one of those since I was like 12. It's so beautiful, even covered in flour like it is in the pic :P I've already made another loaf of Challah Bread and two cakes.

The first cake was for our friend Vina's birthday. It was a red velvet cake with white chocolate cream cheese frosting and homemade cannoli cream in the middle. Yes, I did say homemade cannoli cream. One of our friends gave us the recipe a while ago and I forgot (I know! How could I?!) that we had it. Let me just say, YUM!

The second cake was for our Potluck at work. It was a Chocolate Guinness Cake with Chocolate Ganache and yep, you guessed it, cannoli cream. (It made two pounds! I couldn't waste it!) I can't tell you how well the cannoli went with this cake. Oh. My. God. It was perfectly balanced between sweet and spicy (there's cinnamon in the cannoli cream). I put the absolute thinnest layer of ganache that I could to avoid making it too rich. I'm talking less than 1/8" thick.
I dusted cocoa powder on the top for some decoration but by the time I got to work it had seeped into the ganache. I think it may have made it better.
Ok that's not the most appetizing picture ever but that's because the leftover cake has been in the fridge since Monday and I forgot to take a slice picture until tonight (Thursday). I don't care, it's still delicious (of course, I had to eat the slice :P)

Back to being Christmas'd so hard:

These are gifts that some of our friends got us. Pat and Courtney got us the Silpat and the 8" chef's knife. Tom got Chris the CIA cookbook and me The Cake Book. Wow. Just wow. Awesome gifts. We are so excited to use all of them.

Now, not all of our awesome gifts were of the cooking nature....

If you read my other blog We Cook Together, you may already know that we are HUGE Giants fans. Anthony got us these awesome jerseys! Brandon Jacobs (27) for Chris and Eli Manning (10) for me. We already wore them on Sunday :)

I can't wait to use everything!!! And of course we are going to have to whip up some yummy goodies for everyone :)

Handmade Challah Bread

2008-11-07T15:24:00.001-05:00

We were having my uncle and his girlfriend over for dinner last night and I decided to make some homemade Challah. I got this recipe from the Macrina Bakery and Cafe Cookbook. I don't have a stand mixer so I made this by hand. 15 minutes of kneading dough is very good therapy!

After its first proof (2 hours) you form the loaf and then let it proof for another 45 minutes. I don't know if you can really tell but the loaf in the above picture is much smaller than the one below (after proof).

It only bakes for 30 minutes and comes out so beautiful!

I have to say that this has been my proudest moment baking. I made a delicious loaf of bread, by hand, for the first time. I really just want to run back to the kitchen and make more!!

Pumpkin Ginger Crème Carmel

2008-10-13T14:54:00.000-04:00

Chris and I were going to have dinner at my uncle and his girlfriend's house a few weeks ago and I said that I would bring dessert. I decided that I wanted to have something autumnal. So I went searching through my many, varied cookbooks. A while ago I had subscription to Food & Wine and they randomly sent me a cookbook. I took a look at it and tossed it aside because I thought that Food & Wine's Best of the Best was going to be the best recipes from Food & Wine from that year and I already had all the recipes in the magazines taking up space on my shelf. Well, I pulled it down to see if I could find anything in there since I haven't looked in it and most of my Food & Wines got tossed when we moved. It turns out that it is the 100 best recipes from the top 27 cookbooks published in the year 2000. Wow. It's awesome.

So I found a recipe for Pumpkin Ginger Crème Carmel that is from the cookbook The Olives Dessert Table. It called for eight 5-ounce ramekins but I only have 8-ounce ramekins so I made 6. I think I should have left them in a little longer because they were a little soft.

I decided to decorate them with Pepperidge Farm Gingermen.

This one had a broken leg. I ate him so he wouldn't feel bad about it.

Looked mushy but tasted yummy.

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Bread

2008-10-04T20:22:00.000-04:00

Saturday seemed to be the first day of fall that I could really enjoy. I opened up the windows and let the cool air in. I sat in the recliner and had a cup of hot tea. I was just thinking of the season, the leaves, the crisp air. It got me started on all things fall.

My favorite fall icon is the pumpkin. I love everything about it. It's shape, the warm orange color, the flavor, the smell. I especially love pumpkin when used in baked goods. So as soon as I realized that I had some pumpkin purée in the pantry, I went in search of a recipe. Now this took quite some time. I own a pumpkin cookbook. There are many websites dedicated to pumpkins. Many people seem to think they have the best recipe for pumpkin x. I settled finally on this recipe (second one down on the page) from the Pumpkin Patch website.

This recipe had promise. The ingredient list looked great and contained things that were already in my kitchen. It was easy to make. It smelled wonderful baking. It tasted....meh. There was definitely too much nutmeg going on here. I would cut it down to a scant teaspoon instead of the tablespoon requested. It was so over powering. There is no pumpkin, no chocolate, no pecans... just nutmeg. Its a beautiful bread. Golden. Moist. Just too much nutmeg.

Changes I made to the recipe:
1) I used pecans instead of walnuts
2) I used apple cider instead of water
3) I didn't have enough veg. oil so I used 3/4 c oil and 1/4 c melted butter.
4) I probably used a little more than 1c of choco chips because I wanted to finish off the last bit I had. I used a mix of Hershey's Special Dark chips and Ghirardelli Bittersweet chips.
5) I do not own three loaf pans. I have one. So I used one loaf pan and one Bundt pan. Came out great. I did lower the oven temp because my pans are dark. (325° for the first 45 min then to 300° for the last 15 min)

I will definately be making this again, but with the change to the nutmeg. I was thinking of using pumpkin pie spice mix instead of the nutmeg and cinnamon. I'll have to play with it a little to see how it comes out.

Chocolate Guinness Cake II

2008-08-28T09:13:00.008-04:00

On Friday, we had our friend, Anthony, over for dinner. To make dinner even better, I decided to make Chocolate Guinness Cake with "Bailey's" Buttercream and Chocolate Ganache. Anthony's brother, Mike, joined us for dessert after he got out of work. It was fantastic and so delicious. So much so, that we brought the rest to The Guy's house the next day for fear of eating the whole thing by ourselves!

There's nothing quite like three guys telling you how awesome you are through mouthfuls of chocolate cake :P

Things I did differently this time around were:

1) I used Guinness Stout instead of Draught (the first time the store didn't have Stout). I liked it both ways but this way was creamier and richer as opposed to the breadiness of the first Chocolate Guinness Cake.

2) The addition of the Bailey's Buttercream. It was so good. Not too sweet and the flavors went together perfectly. This buttercream is very thin and will need to be put in the fridge if you are going to use it on the outside of the cake.

3) Chocolate Ganache on the outside. This is not the same Ganache recipe I used for the first attempt. This one is much better, smoother and tastier. I decided to pour the Ganache and let it run down the sides however it wanted as opposed to trying to cover the whole cake. I did this because I didn't want the richness of the Ganache to overwhelm the cake. It worked exactly as I wanted.

**Edit on 8.30.08 to answer Danny's comment**

Danny said: "wow! what's the difference in taste between this one and the red velvet cake from my birthday?"on August 28, 2008 at 2:40 PM

This cake is different from the red velvet cake in that it is much moister and has a definite chocolate flavor. The red velvet is smooth when you eat it but it doesn't quite melt in your mouth the way this one does and it has a very nice flavor but it is hard to discern exactly what that flavor is other than to say it taste like red velvet cake, it's not vanilla, it's not chocolate, it's ???. I really am not a chocolate cake person. I think it is usually okay at best. Bare that in mind when I tell you that this is my favorite cake. It's not too rich, it's not overbearing, the texture is amazing, you are not sick of it by the end of the slice like most chocolate cakes. In terms of how hard they are to make, I would say the red velvet is harder, but not by much.

**end edit**

Here's how it came together:

Guinness and Butter in a pot on the stove:

Lining the pans with parchment paper (notice that I saved the butter wrappers to butter the pans with):

When the beer starts to boil you add the chocolate (mmmm):

Whisk until smooth!

All of the dry ingredients combined and mixed in a bowl:

Beat the eggs with the sour cream:

Until foamy:

Mix it all together and you get yummy cake batter:

Enough to fill 3 9 inch round pans very nicely:

Next is the buttercream:

Remember to scrape down the bowl!

I don't buy Bailey's Irish Cream, I buy Emmet's because its just as good and cheaper:

The buttercream was a little soft, I think because of the temperature in the kitchen:

I didn't really care because it was going in the cake, not on top:

Delicious with a glass of milk!

The buttercream started oozing out after I cut the cake:

Chocolate Guinness Cake recipe found on epicurious.com
Bailey's Buttercream recipe found on The Cupcakery Blog
Ganache recipe from Macrina Bakery and Cafe Cookbook

Lemon Poppy Bread

2008-08-17T19:17:00.004-04:00

This recipe is by Emeril Lagasse. I found it here on foodnetwork.com. It was very easy, I had most of the ingredients in the house and even though it is technically a muffin recipe it worked very nicely as a quick bread with a little extra time in the oven. The only ingredients you may not keep regularly in your pantry would be the buttermilk, which I had due to another recipe use, and the poppy seeds, which I found very easily in the spice aisle of Waldbaum's (our local supermarket).

I made this in my stoneware loaf pan. It came out perfect. Moist, golden, not too heavy. Chris loved it. I hated it. I don't know if it was the buttermilk or too much lemon or what but there was a very sour-ish taste that I just did not enjoy. It wasn't tart, it was sour. (my buttermilk is fine, it's only a few days old, smells good) I really wanted to like it, I generally love lemon poppy bread/muffins, but this one I just did not like one bit. I think next time I will try to substitute the buttermilk or try a different recipe entirely. I chose this one because it did not involve plain yogurt, of which I have none. If you like the flavor of buttermilk, by all means, make this recipe. It really came out looking and smelling wonderful.

Anyway, back to the kitchen.....

Cupcakes? No, Cupcake Cake!

2008-07-27T11:12:00.002-04:00

We went over our neighbors' house for a little barbecue and I decided to make Gâteau À L'Orange (orange spongecake) Cupcakes with Crème Pâtissière (custard filling) and Crème Au Beurre (butter cream) flavored with Eau De Rose (rosewater). If the French didn't tip you off, I got all the recipes from Julia Child's book 'Mastering the Art of French Cooking' (40th Anniversary Edition).

On a side note: if you do not have this book, you should buy it. It's excellent. There are tips and directions for everything from buying the right produce to how to use a knife effectively to how to perform seemingly hard culinary feats with ease (such as Soufflé and Roux). It is a teaching book, meaning sometimes it sounds like a textbook, but the directions are so explicit that you can't help but cook a delicious meal.

Back to our regularly scheduled blog...

So Julia's spongecake is supposed to be just that, cake. I decided to try it as cupcakes. Everything went very well, except that I left them in the oven too long, waiting for the tops to be golden brown while the bottoms burned. I thought 'oh no. what do I do? make a new batch? not bring cupcakes?!' Then I was hit with a very clever plan. I would make a cupcake cake!

Since only the very bottoms were burned I was able, with the help of Chris and Danny, to slice off the burnt part and have left the very delicious and nicely cooked tops of the cupcakes. I inverted 9 of them and placed them in a pyrex square dish, spooned over my custard, topped with right-side-up cupcake tops and then iced each cupcake with the Rosewater Butter Cream.

The verdict?

Cake? delicious!
Custard? delicious!
Buttercream? tastes like soap! ew.

It may not have come out very beautiful, but it sure was yummy (once you scraped off that icky pink stuff, what was I thinking with that color?).

So, they weren't the beautiful masterpieces that I envisioned when I started.... so what? This is the lesson of 'you can't always be perfect and sometimes that's ok'.

Orange Chiffon Cupcakes

2008-04-28T19:52:00.001-04:00

This weekend we were invited to our friends' house for a cookout in honor of her Mom visiting. I decided to make something new that I had never made before. I have been playing around with what flavors I wanted to try out and how I would decorate them. The inspiration for these came from the classic orange/vanilla creamsicle. Another big part of the deciding factors for these cuppies were the fact that I have not gotten to play with my new flower cutter or veiner at all since they arrived about three weeks ago in the mail from A & H Cake Design (and a special thanks to Louise from CakeJournal for telling us which cutters/veiners she uses!).

Anyway they turned out fabulous! The cake was light and fluffy with just enough orange flavor. I just used a regular lemon chiffon recipe and substituted orange for anything lemon and low acid orange juice for the water. The icing (adapted from this recipe on epicurious.com) was delicious and not too sweet (I used less butter and less sugar and more vanilla than recommended).

They were perfect for our first cookout of the season and I cannot wait to try some more of my ideas for flavors!

Anyway, back to the kitchen!

Chocolate Guiness Cake

2008-03-16T20:01:00.001-04:00

On Friday, we had two of our friends over for dinner since they helped us move into our new apartment in February. Chris was doing all the cooking (yes, I am a lucky girl, aren't I?) so I decided to make Chocolate Guinness Cake.

I first heard of this from Cupcakes Take The Cake. Immediately I knew that Chris and our friends would love it so I went in search of a recipe. I used the one I found on epicurious.com. The only changes I made were that we only had Guinness Draught in the house and not stout so I used that instead and my local grocery store did not have dutch-process cocoa so I used the old standyby Hershey's Cocoa Powder since I was on a schedule and didn't have time to travel to a different store.

Just out of the pan:

The cake came out fantastic. Moist and rich with a good balance of chocolate and a certain 'breadiness' as Chris put it, which I take to mean that even though the cake was quite dense the texture and taste is that of a much lighter cake. It was creamy on the tongue but not in such a way that it stuck to your mouth in an uncomfortable manner. It sliced beautifully and each slice held together very nicely, which I was a little surprised at considering the texture of the filing.

I did attempt the chocolate 'icing' that the recipe called for, but it did not turn out very well. This may have been because of my brain lapsing during my shopping trip and only buying 12oz of chocolate instead of 16oz, but I also think that the cream to chocolate ratio (2 cups cream to 16oz chocolate) would have been off anyway. The 'icing' did not harden in the refrigerator even though I had it in there for about 4 hours. It ended up being a lumpy mess. So I filled the cake with the chocolate mixture and dusted the outside with powdered sugar instead (I also did not level the top layer because it looked too delicious the way it was perfectly rounded).

I am so glad I decided to do this. The chocolate mixture was definitely too sweet to have iced the whole cake with. It was good for the filling in a very thin layer (because of the runnyness of it) but would have overpowered the cake if it had been all over.

The first slice:

Our friends each requested to take an extra slice home with them.

Next time I think I will try it again with this recipe I found on The Cupcakery for Bailey's Buttercream. I still don't think I will ice the whole cake, I will probably just serve each slice with a nice piped dollop of the buttercream next to it on the plate.

Overall: a delicious cake that I will definitely be making again in the future.