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

20Aug2020

THE MYSTIFYING HURRICANE ROLL

Posted in Cake by sallybr

Last month I was watching a video on youtube and on the side bar a little cake got my attention because it was so whimsical. I clicked on it and found out it was the so-called Hurricane Roll. I have no idea who “invented” it, but most are made by Oriental bakers with the patience of Buddha. Patience, I don’t have, but still decided I had to make one. To make a long story short, I confess that I made FIVE. Not because they were nice and easy, but because the first three attempts did not give me the desired hurricane effect. At most, I got a tropical storm. I learned a lot during the process of trial and error, and will share with you the recipe and method that finally worked well for me.

RED HURRICANE ROLL WITH MORELLO CHERRY FILLING
(from the Bewitching Kitchen)

for a 10 inch square cake

for the meringue:
110 g sugar
6 egg whites
pinch of cream of tartar

for the cake batter:
110 g milk
80 g butter, melted
85 g cake flour
15g dry milk powder
1/8 tsp vanilla paste
1/8 tsp salt
6 egg yolks
raspberry flavor from Amoretti (optional)
red gel food color
Morello cherry jam for filling (or any other filling you like)

Spray a 10-inch square pan with baking spray and cover it with parchment paper.

I use a handheld mixer to make the batter, so I start with the meringue. Whisk the egg whites with cream of tartar until it gets foamy. Add the granulated sugar very slowly and whisk to soft peaks. Reserve.

No need to wash the beater, move on to make the egg yolk component. Whisk the milk with the melted butter and vanilla in a bowl. Sieve the dry ingredients on top, whisk gently until fully combined. Add one egg yolk at a time, whisking well after each addition. Remove 135g of this batter to another bowl, add 1 tsp raspberry flavor and red food dye to taste. To this bowl, add 100g of the reserved meringue and fold gently. Place in a piping bag, no need for piping tip. Reserve.

Add what is left of the meringue to the white cake batter, and fold gently. Pour into the prepared pan – add gently the red batter on top to cover it completely, you can use an offset spatula to help even the surface.

Now do the hurricane effect. I used the handle of a wooden spoon, making stripes all over the pan back and forth horizontally, with the handle all the way into the bottom of the batter. Move it slowly. Then do the same thing in the other direction, perpendicular to the first. Bang the pan gently to release bubbles and even the surface.

Bake at 325F for 10 min, reduce temperature to 300F and bake for 25 minutes longer, but check the center of the cake so that it does not over-bake and gets dry. Remove from oven, wait 2 minutes and invert the cake on a towel sprinkled with powdered sugar. Trim the edges that tend to get too dry and interfere with rolling. Roll while warm, let it cool. Unroll, spread jam (or any filling you like), and roll back again. Place in the fridge for a couple of hours before slicing. If all went well, you should see a nice color effect due to the partial mixing of both colors.

ENJOY!

to print the recipe, click here

Comments: The recipes I tried before failed to mix properly. Still made delicious cakes, but I was left with a simple roll cake like this one, made with lemon flavor and pitaya powder (clearly did not use enough, there was barely any hint of color in the second batter after baking).

Another attempt produced what I called a “Tropical Storm” effect, in which the hurricane was almost there but not fully… In this case I went with a classic vanilla/cocoa combination, and the filling was Chocolate Russian buttercream.

If you are familiar with Swiss roll cakes, you might find the method I used a bit strange, as the egg yolks are added in the end, without any intense whipping to generate more volume. There is actually a reason for it. If you do a regular batter, it will be denser, and the two colors will not mix properly. The other thing to keep in mind is that you need to be aggressive mixing the batters in that criss-cross pattern. Insert the handle all the way to the bottom (you can use a knife, chopsticks, a very small spatula also works), and work your way slowly as shown in the drawing above.

if you do that you will be rewarded with a nice effect that will become evident the moment you cut the edges. I’ve been playing quite a bit with this technique so expect a few more rolls coming on the blog soon. Apart from the hurricane effect, there is a lot you can do with two colors of cake batter. I wish I had kids around, it’s the type of bake that they would love to play with.

Disclaimer: no, we did not eat five roll cakes. I often get asked how come we don’t weigh a ton with all the sweets around. Everything I bake is donated to Common Table on Fridays. Most things I try a little bite for quality control, but that is about it.
The last time I made a dessert for the two of us was…
Valentine’s Day!

Common Table of August 08th, 2020
(I bet you are you not surprised that I keep photo records of all my weekly bakes)

ONE YEAR AGO: Pop-Tarts with Strawberry Balsamic Jam

TWO YEARS AGO: Ptichye Moloko, a Russian Dessert

THREE YEARS AGO: Cheesy Low-Carb Zucchini Tarts

FOUR YEARS AGO: Blogging Hiatus

FIVE YEARS AGO: Apricots, Three Ways

SIX YEARS AGO: Up Close and Personal with Kale

SEVEN YEARS AGO: Black Berry Cherry Sorbet

EIGHT YEARS AGO: Asparagus Pesto

NINE YEARS AGO: Chocolate and Chestnut Terrine

TEN YEARS AGO: Under the spell of lemongrass

ELEVEN YEARS AGO: Greens + Grapefruit + Shrimp = Great Salad!

27Oct2018

ON A HALLOWEEN ROLL

Posted in Desserts, Desserts, Sweets by sallybr

It’s the season of pumpkin and warm spices, of sweaters and scarves. This pumpkin cake roll would shine in any Halloween party, perhaps with a side of appropriately decorated macarons…

PUMPKIN ROLL WITH HONEY CREAM CHEESE FILLING

Full recipe is available at Bluprint.

My modifications:

I used 1.5 teaspoons of a Speculoos spice mix (awesome stuff!) in place of cinnamon, ginger, and nutmeg.

I omitted the nuts on the topping, and just added colorful sprinkles.

To print the recipe, visit Bluprint.

Comments: This recipe was brilliantly demonstrated by Abby Dodge in her Craftsy class called “Beyond Grandma’s Cake Roll: One Pan, Six New Cakes.” I loved it, and want to make every single concoction she shared, including pretty cool “wrapped cakes.” Clever idea with very adorable results. I know I sound like a broken record, but I am always happy with Craftsy baking classes, every single one has superb, often unexpected gems of wisdom. In this particular case, Abby’s method to roll, unroll, and fill the cake is outstanding, I feel totally confident I can pull it (or maybe I should say roll it) without fear from now on. Of course, I shall regret these very words in the near future (sigh). Baking has this amazing way to throw you some curve balls.

I used speculoos spice mix, something I impulse-bought a while ago and cannot live without, the smell is amazing, it’s just that perfect combination of spices found in my very favorite cookie in the known universe. Yes, I know I could make my own mix, but there’s something sexy about that bottle, ready and waiting for me.

You can roll the cake in two different ways, from the long end you will end up with more slices and less roll. Perfect if you need to feed a crowd. But, if you are going for the most harmonious look when sliced, roll from the short end. Smaller cake, more roll.

The filling, a honey-cream cheese mixture, is absolutely delicious, goes perfectly well with the flavor of the cake. The icing is a white chocolate ganache, but you could serve the cake just with a light coating of powdered sugar, for a more austere look (and considerably less calories). It’s your kitchen, it’s your call… Roll the way you see fit (somebody stop me now).