BAKING WITH THE HEART

Posted in Breads, Cake, Chocolate Bonbons, Cookies by sallybr

WELCOME TO MY 1700th POST!

Valentine’s Day is almost here! Some don’t care for it, some enjoy each minute. Whatever team you are on, here are some bakes that you can try this week, or anytime love is on your horizon… Without further ado, one recipe and eight ideas for you. Read on…

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BLUEBERRY CURD SWISS ROLL CAKE
(filling adapted from Caroline’s blog)

for the decoration:
50g butter, softened
50g powdered sugar
50g egg whites
50g all-purpose flour
black and red gel colors

for the cake:
130g cake flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
5 large eggs, at room temperature
200 g granulated sugar
Zest of 1 lemon
1/2 teaspoon lemon extract
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
¼ teaspoon kosher salt
2 tablespoons butter, melted and cooled

for the filling:
https://www.easyonlinebakinglessons.com/blueberry-orange-curd/
I did not use plums, and used a little gelatin to thicken it further (see comments).

Make the piping decoration by beating the butter with powdered sugar in a small bowl until fully combined. I used a hand-held electric mixer. Add the egg whites and beat for a couple of minutes. Add the flour and mix by hand with a spoon, divide in one small portion to dye black, one larger portion to dye red.

Make a diamond pattern with a Sharpie pen on parchment paper, and add heart shapes. Flip the paper so that the writing is at the bottom, and pipe the outline black. Freeze for 10 minutes. Quickly fill the hearts with red paste. Freeze again while you make the cake.

Heat oven to 350°F. Sift the flour and baking powder into a small bowl. Reserve. Place the eggs and sugar in the bowl of a standing mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Beat until the mixture form ribbons, about 12 minutes. Add the lemon zest, lemon extract and vanilla. Beat until combined. Sift the flour mixture over the beaten eggs, fold gently. When the flour is mostly incorporated, add a little bit of the mixture to the melted butter, whisk well. Pour that into the cake batter, whisk gently to disperse. Pour over the frozen parchment paper placed in a half baking sheet, and smooth the surface.

Bake the cake until it begins to pull away from the sides, 12 to 17 minutes.

Transfer the pan to a cooling rack, cover the cake with a towel and let it cool for 10 minutes. Remove the towel, sift a little powdered sugar over the surface and flip it over parchment paper. Gently peel off the paper with the design, flip the cake again over a clean towel. Starting with a short side of the cake, roll the cake gently, using the towel to support the cake as you go. Let the cake cool all rolled up in the towel, seam side down.

Carefully unroll the completely cool cake, spread the blueberry curd filling, then roll it again. Wrap the cake in plastic and refrigerate for at least 3 hours, overnight is best. When ready to serve, slice a small piece of each of the ends, so that it looks more polished.

ENJOY!

to print the recipe, click here

Comments: I haven’t made a patterned roll cake in a while, so I really enjoyed this little adventure. I messed up while making the curd (sorry, Caro!), did not cook it enough, so after 10 hours in the fridge it was still too loose. Lesson learned. I made a gelatin mass with 1 tsp gelatin + 5 tsp water, warmed it to dissolve in the microwave. I heated up the curd to about 60 C and added the melted gelatin. Mixed well and allowed it to cool slowly, then placed in the fridge overnight. It was perfect to use next morning. Huge thank you to my friend Gary for the advice to deal with the curd. I added a very small amount of pink gel dye to the cake batter, but that is optional. I did not include in the recipe, as the cake will look perfectly ok without it.

The cake was moist and tender, the blueberry curd absolutely delicious!
The combination of orange and blueberry is a real winner, thank you Caro!

And now, time to share a few ideas, you can use any recipe you like, or some that are already in my blog

CHOCOLATE-COVERED OREOS

I used white Wilton candy melts to cover Lemon-flavored golden Oreos, and once that was set I made the heart decoration with Royal icing. First piped the black outline, let that set a bit and flooded the center with pink.

COMIC-STYLE HEART COOKIES

Comic-style, so popular these days! I followed a recent tutorial from Amber (join her club here) to make these babies. Some steps shown below.

POLKA-DOT HEART COOKIES

Super simple design, just flood, air-brush with a stencil and add some Royal icing transfers. A little bead border is of course more than welcome…

ZENTANGLE HEARTS, TWO WAYS

For a modern look, just flood with any color of your choice, and then use a food safe pen to draw the design…

For a modern but romantic look, just play with flowers…

BICOLOR HEART COOKIES

For those who do not care for icing, these will be a huge hit. Just mix two recipes, chocolate and plain, cut shapes and mix-and-match the centers. Bake and you are done!

MINI-BONBONS WITH MARSHMALLOW FILLING

I used candy melts to coat tiny silicone molds with heart shapes (available here). Placed a mini-marshmallow in the center and covered the molds with melted chocolate. Once that set, I un-molded the bonbons and drizzled white chocolate for the decoration, adding a little sprinkle heart on some of them.

POLKA-DOT HEART SOURDOUGH

For the recipe, check my blog post with a click here.

I hope you’ve found some inspiration in this post for your future bakes, and please enjoy the weekend ahead, particularly if you are a football fan!

ONE YEAR AGO: Roasted Cauliflower with Chickpeas and Quinoa

TWO YEARS AGO: A Savory Phyllo Pie

THREE YEARS AGO: Nut-Free Lady Grey Macarons

FOUR YEARS AGO: Mini-Heart Cakes for your Valentine

FIVE YEARS AGO: Blue Moon Milk

SIX YEARS AGO: Slow-Cooked Chicken Meatballs

SEVEN YEARS AGO: Zesty Flourless Chocolate Cake

EIGHT YEARS AGO: Maple Pumpkin Pecan Snacking Cake

NINE YEARS AGO: Silky Gingered Zucchini Soup

TEN YEARS AGO: Sweet Fifteen!

ELEVEN YEARS AGO: Sesame and Flaxseed Sourdough

TWELVE YEARS AGO: Green Beans with Miso and Almonds

THIRTEEN YEARS AGO: Saturday Morning Scones

FOURTEEN YEARS AGO: White Bread

18Jan2024

IT IS NOT THE RECIPE

Posted in General by sallybr

No recipe today, quite the opposite. My passion for baking has made me join many groups on Facebook related to cookie decorating, macarons, patisserie in general. One of the most common requests in those groups is “I want to start baking macarons… please give me a foolproof recipe”… or… I want to make decorated sugar cookies, but I want a cookie recipe that won’t spread, and the BEST Royal icing that will be easy to work with. Similar requests for bread baking, or pie crust, or laminated dough… Basically they believe that “the best recipe” is the answer to all issues. Guess what? It is not. Just to give one basic example, you can make macarons using three very different methods for the meringue (French, Swiss, Italian), and they will ALL work, if you add to it the one key ingredient no one lists in any recipe: PRACTICE.

About a year ago, I fell for something I saw advertised. A cookie recipe that was so good that you could only get it by paying for it through the author’s etsy shop. I was so intrigued, that I confess I did pay. I paid almost $20 to get ONE recipe for cookie dough, which is probably the price I pay for most cookbooks I own. It turns out that magical recipe was almost exactly the one I’ve been using for a long time, with minor differences. It taught me a big lesson. It is NOT the recipe. It is your experience, the “feel” you develop for something once you do it over and over and over.

Royal icing is tricky. Consistencies need to absolutely perfect depending on what you want to do with it. I’ve been decorating cookies on a regular basis for at least 3 years and I can tell you that every single recipe out there will work once you get used to it, once you PRACTICE. No recipe will replace practice. Some recipes tend to attract a lot of attention, because all of a sudden a group of seasoned bakers start praising it and then those who are just beginning their baking journey will try it. If that fails, they assume THEY are the failure. Trust me, most recipes can work if you allow yourself to get acquainted with the different steps, and commit to practicing it. Yes, I do sound like a broken record today…

Do I have recipes I consider excellent and tend to go back to all the time? Yes. My Grown-up Spicy Chocolate Cookie dough is one. My default French macaron recipe is another. But even those, it took me MANY attempts at making and optimizing it, until I felt comfortable with them. I now add different flavorings to the chocolate dough, omit the chipotle, take it into different directions with orange or cardamon, but the overall procedure is the same and I am confident about tweaking it because I have made it more than 100 times. If my dough behaves different one day, I can tell, and I can do the adjustments because I got the “feel” for it. No recipe gave it to me, it was just practice. Over, and over.

Sugar cookies are another example. Some recipes omit baking powder and add cornstarch. I am quite fond of that basic approach. After trying many different versions, for my particular goals, a little bit of baking powder is a good thing, but not as much as most recipes call for. Yes, baking powder makes the cookies rise UP, which is not a bad thing. But it also gives them a rounded edge I don’t care for if I am decorating with Royal icing. I rather have a more flat surface all the way to the edge. Omitting baking powder completely is perfect in that sense, but the texture of the cookie suffers. So I use 1/4 tsp of baking powder for a nice compromise (a favorite recipe of mine is this one, but I vary the flavors all the time). It works for me, but it took me months of tweaking, observing the results and testing again. And again. Another whole universe is stamped cookies in which keeping the design is a must . Different molds behave better with some recipes than others. No single recipe will be a winner. But once you commit to finding what works for you, it will all fall in place.

Bottomline is, every time someone begs for the perfect recipe and expects success, I tend to roll my eyes to the ceiling a bit. You want the perfect recipe? Be ready to work for it. You have to make it happen in your kitchen, with your oven, your ingredients and for your personal taste. No one, absolutely no one can do it for you. Baking is one of the most rewarding activities, if you enjoy the path. Including the failures, the mistakes, the less than stellar results. Don’t expect the perfect recipe to be handed to you, instead make it materialize. Work with it, and above all, make your path fun!

ONE YEAR AGO: Pfeffernusse

TWO YEARS AGO: Clay Pot Pork and Tomatillo Braise

THREE YEARS AGO: Vegan Chocolate-Dipped Cinnamon Cookies

FOUR YEARS AGO: Lemony Barley with Shrimp and Spinach

FIVE YEARS AGO:Black Rice with Roasted Cauliflower

SIX YEARS AGO:La Couronne Bordelaise

SEVEN YEARS AGO: A Special Birthday Dinner

EIGHT YEARS AGO: Duck Confit for a Special Occasion

NINE YEARS AGO: Tuscan Grilled Chicken and Sausage Skewers

TEN YEARS AGO: Celebrate Wednesday with Pork Tenderloin & Apples

ELEVEN YEARS AGO: Salmon Wellington

TWELVE YEARS AGO: The Green Chip Alternative

THIRTEEN YEARS AGO: Weekend Pita Project

FOURTEEN YEARS AGO: Let it snow, let it snow, eggs in snow

28Dec2023

UBE LINZER COOKIES

Posted in Cookies by sallybr

Another adventure with ube, my newfound love. For these cookies I went the extra mile and made the jam myself, from frozen grated ube that I bought at one of our Asian grocers in town. The process is simple, in fact quite similar to making Brazilian brigadeiros and results in a smooth, not too sweet delicacy perfect to fill cookies. I opted for a little air-brushing to decorate the tops instead of the usual showering with powdered sugar.

UBE LINZER COOKIES
(adapted from Instructables)

FOR THE UBE JAM:
1/3 cup condensed milk
1/4 cup evaporated milk
2 tbsp butter
1/2 cup grated ube
1 tsp ube extract
1/8 tsp salt
Squeeze of lemon

FOR THE COOKIE DOUGH:
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, softened at room temperature
1/3 cup icing sugar
1 large egg yolk
1 tsp ube extract
1 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup almond flour
pinch of salt
Extra icing sugar for dusting

Make the jam: Combine condensed milk, evaporated milk, and butter in a pan over medium heat. Stir until butter is melted in low heat. Add grated ube. Stir continuously until thickened, it should take about 10 minutes. Add ube extract, salt, and a squeeze of lemon juice. Continue stirring until you reach the consistency of thick pudding, about minutes longer. Remove from heat and let cool at room temperature.

Make the dough: Using a paddle attachment, cream together butter and icing sugar. Add egg yolk.
Continue to cream together until pale and fluffy. Add ube extract. Mix until throughly combined.
Add all purpose flour, almond flour, and salt. Mix just until combined. Roll the dough out, cut shapes, and for half of the cookies, cut a design of your choice in the center.

Bake the cookies at 325F for 15 minutes. Once cool, spray a pattern on the cookies with the cutout, if so desired. Spread ube jam on the underside of the bottom cookie layer, so that the smooth side is on the outside. Find matching tops and make a cookie sandwich.

ENJOY!

to print the recipe, click here

Comments: If you can find frozen grated ube, you are in luck! Having tried both kinds, I can tell you that the home-made jam is much better, both in taste and texture. Totally worth the extra work. The Linzer cookies had a nice flavor and amazing color just from the ube extract.

To make the pattern I used a simple stencil and air-brushed white color over the naked cookie, after baking and allowed to come to room temperature. You can of course omit this step and just cover the tops with powdered sugar, but I find those hard to transport and eat without getting the fingers all coated with sugar. Your kitchen, your rules…. At any rate, these are truly delicious, and if you want a very unusual take on Linzers, I cannot think of a better version. MAKE IT!

ONE YEAR AGO: Four Festive Macarons

TWO YEARS AGO: Cuccidati, from Tina to You

THREE YEARS AGO: Festive Macarons to Welcome 2021!

FOUR YEARS AGO: Episode 6, Cookies in The Great American Baking Show

FIVE YEARS AGO: Brazilian Chicken and Heart of Palm Pie

SIX YEARS AGO: Roasted Butternut Squash with Walnuts and Tahini Sauce

SEVEN YEARS AGO: The Complicit Conspiracy of Alcohol

EIGHT YEARS AGO: Candy Cane Cookies

NINE YEARS AGO: Macarons: Much better with a friend

TEN YEARS AGO: Our Mexican Holiday Dinner

ELEVEN YEARS AGO: The Ultimate Cranberry Sauce

TWELVE YEARS AGO: Edamame Dip

THIRTEEN YEARS AGO: Gougeres

FOURTEEN YEARS AGO: Beef Wellington on a Special Night

21Dec2023

UBE MACARONS

Posted in macarons by sallybr

Are you familiar with this Philippine ingredient? I was not, until my dear daughter-in-law Courtnie professed it to be her favorite flavor for all baked things… I was intrigued. Read a lot about it, gathered ingredients and went to work. For the macarons you will need ube extract and ube jam, which you can make yourself or buy it ready at the store. We do have a couple of great Asian markets in town and they carry exotic ingredients from all over the planet. For this adventure, I used store-bought jam, but stay tuned for my next post about it, in which I will show you how to make the jam from scratch.

UBE MACARONS
(from The Bewitching Kitchen, adapted from several sources)

For the shells:
200g Icing/powdered sugar (1 ⅔ cups)
115 g Almond Meal (1 + scant ¼ cup)
115 g egg whites at room temperature (approx. 4 eggs)
1/8 tsp of cream of tartar (optional)
100 g granulated sugar (½ cup)
¼ tsp ube extract
1/8 tsp vanilla extract

Line 3 heavy baking sheets with parchment/baking paper or Silpat mats. Layer the powdered/icing sugar and ground almonds/almond meal in a food processor. Pulse until the mixture looks like fine meal, about 12 pulses. Pass through a sieve and transfer to a small bowl or to a sheet of parchment/baking paper. Set aside.

Place the egg whites and cream of tartar in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment. Make sure that the bowl and the whisk are impeccably clean. Starting on medium speed, whip the whites with the cream of tartar until they look like light foam. The whites should not appear liquid. The foam will be light and should not have any structure.

Slowly rain in the granulated sugar in five additions, trying to aim the stream between the whisk and the side of the bowl. Turn the speed up to high. Continue to whip the meringue until it is soft and shiny. It should look like marshmallow creme (marshmallow fluff). Add the vanilla and ube extract. Whip the egg whites until the mixture begins to dull and the lines of the whisk are visible on the surface of the meringue. Check the peak. It should be firm. Transfer the whites to a medium bowl.

Fold in the ground almond/almond meal mixture in two increments. Paint the mixture halfway up the side of the bowl, using the flat side of a spatula. Scrape the mixture down to the center of the bowl. Repeat two or three times, then check to see if the mixture slides slowly down the side of the bowl. Add drops of gel color and mix them briefly with a toothpick. Put the mixture in a piping bag fitted with your choice of piping tip (round, ¼ or ½ inch in diameter or 6 – 12 mm). If you don’t have a macaron mat, draw circles on baking/parchment paper about 2inches/5cm in diameter & turn the paper over before placing on the baking sheets. Pipe shells, I like to count numbers in my head and use the same count for each shell so they end up similar in size.

Slam each sheet hard four to six times on the counter/worktop. Let the unbaked macarons dry until they look dull but not overly dry. Drying time depends on humidity. In a dry climate, the macarons can dry in 15 to 20 minutes; in a humid climate, it can take 35 to 40 minutes.

While the macarons are drying, heat the oven to 300 F (150 C/130C Fan oven/Gas Mark 2). Bake one sheet at a time on the middle rack. Check in 11 minutes. If the tops slide or move (independently of the ‘feet’ when you gently twist the top), then bake for 2 to 3 more minutes. Check one or two. If they move when gently touched, put them back in the oven for 1 to 2 more minutes until they don’t move when touched. Let the macaroons cool for 10 minutes before removing from the pan. The macarons should release without sticking.

Assemble the macarons: find two macarons similar in size and add a good amount of filling to the bottom of one of them. Place the other on top and squeeze gently to take the filling all the way to the edge. Store in the fridge for 24 hours for perfect texture.

Make the filling:

UBE BUTTERCREAM
100g Unsalted butter, room temperature
65g Cream cheese, room temperature
50g Ube halaya (If you can’t find any use ½ tsp ube extract and 20g icing sugar)
¼ tsp Ube extract

Whisk butter, cream cheese and ube halaya together until light and fluffy. Add ube extract and mix until well combined. Transfer to a piping bag fitted with a star tip. Match similar sized macaron shells with each other, fill and sandwich the cookies. Decorate the top with Royal icing swirls and sanding sugar, if so desired, or leave them plain. Keep in the fridge for 24 hours for perfect texture.

ENJOY!

to print the recipe, click here

Comments: I am pretty happy with these! The ube gives the macarons a very interesting flavor, cutting the sweetness a bit. If you have never tried ube, please do so, you might fall in love with it, as I did… Big thank you to Courtnie for bringing this ingredient to my attention!

ONE YEAR AGO: Christmas Sourdough

TWO YEARS AGO: Star-Shaped Sun-dried Tomato Bread

THREE YEARS AGO: Cranberry White Chocolate Tart

FOUR YEARS AGO: I dream of Madeleines and a Tower of Cheesecakes

FIVE YEARS AGO: Dominique Ansel’s Chocolate Mousse Cake

SIX YEARS AGO: Slow-Roasted Eye of the Round Beef

SEVEN YEARS AGO: Steam-Roasted Indian-Spiced Cauliflower

EIGHT YEARS AGO: Creamy Zucchini-Mushroom Soup

NINE YEARS AGO: Ken Forkish’s Pain au Bacon

TEN YEARS AGO: Carrot and Cumin Hamburger Buns

ELEVEN YEARS AGO: Potato Galettes a l’Alsacienne & Book Review

TWELVE YEARS AGO: Caramelized Carrot Soup

THIRTEEN YEARS AGO: Miso-Grilled Shrimp

FOURTEEN YEARS AGO: Pain Poilane

6Dec2023

BAKE IT BETTER, THE BOOK & THE VIRTUAL SPOT

Posted in Cookbook Reviews by sallybr

Wondering what to give to that friend who loves to bake but seems to own every single gadget known to mankind? Here is a suggestion for you: offer Matt Adlard’s Bake it Better, still hot from the press! And if you want the gift to be even more special, add to it a membership to his virtual cooking school, where every month a series of two or three recipes of increasing complexity are shared. Not just the recipe, but a super detailed video tutorial to make it happen flawlessly in your own kitchen. And when you join the site, you will immediately gain access to the closed Facebook group, where you can hang out with other baking-addicts such as yours truly… To order the book, click here… To get the membership-gift, click here.

I will now share a few recipes I’ve tried from this wonderful book, which recently was the focus of a nice baking weekend with my friend Tanya (see post about it here). The recipes are listed in the order I made them.

CHOCOLATE CHUNK BROWNIES

These are fudge-y, intensely flavored, and have a crackly topping made more special with the drizzle decoration. Matt is known for always gilding the lily in unexpected ways, often simple touches that add a lot to the final bake.

TOASTED MILK POWDER AND BROWN BUTTER COOKIES

What is different and unique about these cookies is the use of toasted milk powder plus browned butter. If you have ever heard of “bronze butter”, this is pretty much the easiest way to achieve that level of buttery intensity. His trick to add a few chips right when the cookies are out of the oven make them look pretty professional… Yes, it is the “bake it better” at work!

ALL-BUTTER SHORTBREAD

These are very special cookies that remind Matt of his Dad’s special cookies baked at his restaurant. Matt’s technique is quite straightforward, with small details that make this one of the simplest bakes of the book, but with amazing complexity of taste and texture. I aded just a little pattern on top with a rolling cutter.

PEANUT AND WHITE CHOCOLATE COOKIES

These are simply amazing! Delicious cookie that bakes soft and tender, with a puddle of peanut butter in the center. The whole design and simple decoration is typical of Matt, taking a humble cookie into a cute playful presentation through the little details. These cookies were a huge hit with our departmental colleagues.

TIGER MADELEINES

My favorite bake of this series, it required me to buy a special silicone pan for the madeleines because to do the coating with tempered chocolate you cannot quite use metal pans. Totally worth it.

Once again the traditional madeleines are made super especial by just splitting the batter in two portions, adding chocolate to one of them and making a simple pattern with a piping bag. Genius. Coating the back with chocolate just ties the whole thing together, but you can conceivably skip that step, and just bake them in a regular, metal pan. They are spectacular!

I hope you enjoyed this little peek into Matt’s first (and let’s hope NOT last) cookbook! If you love to bake or if you are a beginner baker and would like to learn perfect technique, this book is for you. Apart from the recipes I listed today, I was honored to test a few other recipes from the book while Matt was writing it and I can tell you that the Cardamon and Orange Custard Tart is simply to die for…