Project Birthday Cake

I had come across this cake recipe on Smitten Kitchen's blog months ago, and decided that it would be the perfect way to celebrate my 25th birthday. The cake itself is a pink lady cake - it is basically a white cake batter with pureed strawberries added to make the batter slightly pink.

The recipe noted that you could add pink food coloring to give the cake more of a pink hue, but I kept it au naturale - I figure if I'm going to add food coloring, I could add it to any cake batter, so I would let the pink lady cake batter shine on its own.

The batter was used to make three individual cakes to be assembled into one massive cake. I realized in the course of this extravaganza that this was slightly too much batter to fit comfortably in my stand mixer, and had more than my fair share of batter overflowing onto the counter. After some trial and error though, everything got mixed in the mixer together and then into the pans and into the oven. Once the cakes were ready, they could be assembled into the three-tiered behemoth they were destined to be. In hindsight, it seems obvious that this would be an overwhelming amount of cake, but really, when else would justify making something so beautiful?

One thing to note is that in the original recipe, it instructs you to just layer the cooled cakes on top of each other - I did that this time around, but next time, I would probably take a serrated knife to level out the tops of the cakes so they would sit better, and maybe even to remove the slightly crispier sides if I was feeling ambitious. In between the layers of cake went Martha Stewart's Swiss meringue buttercream. I followed the recipe which made a full 9 cups, and I was left with quite a bit extra. Next time I would make only 2/3 of the recipe. Also, I followed Smitten Kitchen's instructions to use 2/3 of a cup of frosting between each layer and I even added some extra, but I still felt like it could have benefited from extra in-between frosting. In any case, I tinted a bit of frosting pink and decided to try my hand as piping for the first time. I was really excited at how it turned out.

Finally, I added some lovely sugar flowers in various colors that I had picked up from my favorite cake decorating store.

All in all, I was very proud of my first real celebration cake - I served it at a birthday tea party co-hosted with the IF, with so many yummy foods, I came home completely sated and then some. I enjoyed the subtle strawberry flavor of the cake, and I thought it paired well with the buttercream frosting. Between the dense cake and the rich frosting though, I was definitely feeling weighed down after eating my hefty slice, but I guess that is what birthdays are for. I have to say that after many years of bad birthday experiences, this was one of the best birthdays I have had in quite some time.

Yeasted Meringue Coffee Cake: Daring Bakers March 2011 Challenge

The March 2011 Daring Baker’s Challenge was hosted by Ria of Ria’s Collection and Jamie of Life’s a Feast. Ria and Jamie challenged The Daring Bakers to bake a yeasted Meringue Coffee Cake.

When I first saw the challenge, I couldn't help but think to myself how this recipe bore a striking resemblance to the December Daring Bakers challenge of Stollen, at least in appearance, anyway. Fortunately for me, it was a lot more up my alley. The recipe itself reminded me of a babka - a yeasted rich dough filled will chocolate and cinnamon sugar - except that this recipe yielded a wreath-shaped cake and was also filled with a layer of meringue.

The IF and I gathered early on a Sunday morning to take on this recipe. We began by mixing up the dough and letting it rise, which was a fairly painless process. The recipe aptly instructed that we were to, "...knead the dough for 8 to 10 minutes until the dough is soft, smooth, sexy and elastic." While I have heard dough described as elastic, and maybe even soft and smooth, sexy is not how I usually think of dough. The thing was, that our dough really did seem sexy - we couldn't keep our hands off it! We watched as our dough went through all the phases of maturity - unformed childhood, awkward adolescence with bulges and bumps all over the place, the shaggy frat boy stage, and finally, sexy and smooth. Once we set up the dough to rise, we began prepared the fillings: meringue, cinnamon sugar, and chocolate chips.

When the sexy dough had risen, we separated it into two, one for the IF - Hugo, and one for me - Bill (or Javier, depending on who you ask). The IF and I rolled out Hugo and Bill, respectively, and filled them with a layer of meringue, then the cinnamon sugar, and then the chocolate chips.

Rolling them up proved to be the biggest challenge of the day - first into a log and then into a wreath - as the meringue was bursting through the rolled dough. Fortunately, everything came together after baking. After another rise and an egg wash, it was into the oven for Hugo and Bill and what came out were two beautiful browned coffee cakes. Below, first Hugo and then Bill.

We couldn't wait to taste, and cut some slices of Hugo while he was still warm. In short, the coffee cake was very tasty. On the pieces we tried, no meringue remained after baking, but instead left a pleasant moistness throughout the cake where it had been.

Overall, I thought the recipe made a very nice dough that was fairly easy to prepare. The IF and I spent a lot of time entertaining ourselves while the dough was rising, but this could be a very nice cake to make while also preparing other foods or taking care of tasks around the house. While we stuck to the traditional fillings provided as part of the recipe, I could definitely see trying out different fillings and making this again for a tea party. Yum! I'm off to eat some more cake!

Florentines & Panna Cotta: Daring Bakers February 2011 Challenge

The February 2011 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Mallory from A Sofa in the Kitchen. She chose to challenge everyone to make Panna Cotta from a Giada De Laurentiis recipe and Nestle Florentine Cookies.

After the prior month's outrageous baking challenge, I was happy to have some recipes that were a little bit more fool proof and low stress. At least, so I thought.

I had been wanting to make panna cotta for a while - for the prior month's challenge I had made a yogurt mousse using a vegetable-based gelatin, and I was excited to try this newly-discovered product in other recipes. As it happened, I was already planning on making a panna cotta for a friend's dinner get-together later in the week the challenge was posted. I had found a recipe for a buttermilk panna cotta, which I thought would have a nice tangy flavor.

Already being versed in the peculiarities of the veggie gelatin, I re-wrote the recipe in a way that I thought would work with its particular needs. I began by heating cream, lemon peel, and sugar in a small saucepan - sure, the recipe called for a medium saucepan, but I didn't think that would be necessary. The procedure said to bring it to a boil, so I let it do its thing on the stove while preparing the gelatin with my back turned. Next thing I knew, gushing sounds were coming from the stove top, and a billowing mess of frothy cream was everywhere. Fortunately, it provided a good reason for cleaning the stove and an even better educational experience of learning how to open the stove top for cleaning. Also, fortunately, I had some extra cream, so I could still proceed on my panna cotta mission.

To that end, I softened the gelatin and added it to the cream mixture and brought everything to a boil. It was at this point that the mixture should normally be cooled before the buttermilk and vanilla are added so that the buttermilk doesn't curdle. However, since the veggie gelatin is quick-setting, I had to act fast. I decided standing outside whisking it for a few minutes would be good enough. And then instead of adding the buttermilk and vanilla to my cream mixture, I added it to them (remember the small saucepan instead of the large one?). In any case, I mixed it all up and found that I had a quite a mess on my hands. It appears that the cream-gelatin mixture had already started to set so that once I added it to the buttermilk, I had chunks of gelatinous cream floating in a sea of purple buttermilk (due to the addition of the vanilla). I hoped that this would remedy itself as it set, and so I set the mixture in the refrigerator and crossed my fingers. There may have been someone I was trying to impress at the dinner I was attending, so I was going for a crazy amazing dessert, not a lumpy, watery, purple, mess.

I meticulously checked on the panna cotta and wiggled its pan throughout the following hours, and only got more and more worried as no signs of cohesion could be detected. I headed out for the afternoon and came back to an unchanged unfortunate panna cotta disaster. There is no evidence of this first attempt - consider yourself spared.

Fortunately for me, I had prepared for this and picked up the ingredients for the florentines on the way home. I decided to cut my losses on the panna cotta, and go for my attempt at dessert number two of the day. The florentines were easy enough to mix up, though the actual baking of the cookies took quite a bit of time. However, being in a frustrated baking state and nervous about how things at the dinner would go, maybe it was best I had something to focus on. I packed up the baked cookies and chocolate chips and headed to my friend's place for dinner to assemble them.

The cookies turned out wonderful, and everyone at the party enjoyed them, including the guy I was trying to impress. I had tried florentines before from Whole Foods and gave up before I finished the box, but these were way better.

I finished the panna cotta saga this past evening with the IF. We fashioned a panna cotta smackdown. In one corner, a panna cotta with agar agar, coconult milk, and yogurt...

...and in the other corner, Giada's recipe using the veggie gelatin.

The winner? I vote for Giada's recipe, but I'd add some vanilla, lemon, peel, and use less gelatin next time. The first panna cotta tasted mostly like thick yogurt to me - we added some berry sauce to make it more tasty. Overall, I found the veggie gelatin panna cotta to be quite smooth, while the IF reported small bits of agar agar that remained in its panna cotta - otherwise, I think both would work well, although the agar agar might be better to use in another attempt at a buttermilk panna cotta. Also, good to know, both panna cottas set much faster than traditional varieties - in only about an hour or so.

On a more personal note, in case anyone was wondering, I'll report that cookies can't buy you love. But then, would I really want to date someone who'd only want me for my cookies? No, no I would not.

Torta Della Nonna

After the January Daring Bakers Challenge, I was left with a lot of left over pastry cream. And not only did I have a lot of it, it was quite a runny pastry cream at that. Hating to throw away food, I began scouring the Internet for a solution to my creamy debacle.

Fortunately for me, I am not the first one to find myself in such a situation, as I came across a blog post, "What do you do with left over Pastry Cream? Make a Torta Della Nonna of course!" So, torta della nonna it was.

The dessert is essentially a crostata filled with pastry cream and covered on top with a solid crust. Since I had also been looking for an opportunity to make crostata, this all worked out perfectly.

I made the crust as per the recipe's instructions and found myself with a coarse dough that would not form together. After spending way too much time trying to knead it together on my own, I decided I would give adding a little more liquid a whirl, so I added about a tablespoon of water to the dough. Like magic, it all started coming together into the smooth dough it was destined to be.

I rolled the dough out - on a piece of plastic wrap as suggested - and had no problems with tearing. I had never used the plastic wrap technique before, but I think it worked well. After the bottom croust was in, it was time to fill with the pastry cream and cover with the top crust. Since the cream was so thin, it started to bulge above the top crust, and I began to have visions of disaster. I sealed the cream in as best I could and brushed the top with an egg wash.

The recipe called for the torta to be baked in a pan with a removable bottom - since I did not have one, I used a standard cake pan. The torta baked up with no problems, and I left it on a wire rack to cool. I attempted to remove it from the pan in one piece with no luck - I was irrationally worried that if I breached the crust the pastry cream would all come spilling out. Of course, the pastry cream had cooked in the oven and had taken on a custard-like consistency, so my fears were abated.

The final product was quite the looker. Unfortunately, it is a little rich as a breakfast, although that didn't actually stop me from eating it like one. I also brought it to enjoy with friends and it made a great dessert - eating the torta reminded me just how good homemade baked goods are.

I did have some dough left over from the torta, and I attempted to make some mini-tarts with a jelly filling in my muffin tins. This did not work out so well. If I were to do it again, I would roll out the dough into cookies, and then fill jam following Briciole's recipe for frollini.

Yogurt Mousse, White Chocolate Sauce, and Raspberry Sauce

For last month's Daring Bakers challenge, we were tasked with making a joconde sponge cake, then molding it and filling it with the fillings of our choice. The filling began with a layer of the joconde, then a yogurt mousse, lemon curd, raspberry sauce, and white chocolate sauce. While the lemon curd came from Trader Joe's the recipes for the remainder of the fillings can be found here.

Raspberry Sauce

Adapted from Bon Appétit, August 1993

Ingredients

1 12-ounce package unsweetened frozen raspberries

6 tablespoons sugar

1 tablespoon cornstarch

Preparation

Cook frozen raspberries, sugar, and cornstarch in heavy medium saucepan over medium heat until mixture resembles jam and is reduced to 1 cup, stirring frequently, about 15 minutes. Cool and enjoy.

White Chocolate Sauce

• Adapted from Bon Appétit, December 2003
• 
  
• Ingredients
• 
  
• 5 ounces white chocolate, chopped
• 1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons sour cream
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preparation

Stir chocolate in top of double boiler over simmering water until melted and smooth. Remove from over water; whisk in sour cream and vanilla. Cool completely and enjoy.

Yogurt Mousse

Adapted from Gourmet, May 2006

I used a vegetable-based gelatin product, Natural Dessert's Unflavored Jel Dessert, instead of the usual animal-based product, so I had to amend the recipe a bit to make it work.

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 teaspoons unflavored vegetable-based gelatin
• 1 cup whole milk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 (4- by 1-inch) strip fresh lemon zest
• 1 (32-oz) container well-stirred whole-milk yogurt
• 3/4 cup chilled heavy cream

Preparation

Drain yogurt in a paper-towel-lined sieve set into a bowl in refrigerator, discarding liquid occasionally, 8 hours, then transfer to a clean bowl.

Beat cream with an electric mixer at high speed until it just holds soft peaks.

Scrape seeds from vanilla bean pod into remaining 3/4 cup milk in a 1-quart heavy saucepan, then add pod, sugar, and zest and bring to a simmer over moderate heat, stirring until sugar is dissolved. When milk mixture is almost at a simmer, sprinkle gelatin over 1/4 cup milk in a small bowl and let stand 1 minute to soften. Stir gelatin mixture into milk mixture until dissolved. Remove lemon zest, then stirring frequently for two minutes to allow mixture to cool slightly. Since the vegetable based gel is quick-setting, it is important to move quickly once the gelatin has been activated.

Add milk mixture gradually to yogurt, whisking. Fold whipped cream into yogurt mixture gently but thoroughly. Chill mousse, covered, until set, about 2 hours.

BISCUIT JOCONDE IMPRIME/ENTREMET: Daring Bakers January 2011 Challenge

The January 2011 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Astheroshe of the blog accro. She chose to challenge everyone to make a Biscuit Joconde Imprime to wrap around an Entremets dessert.

I was excited about this challenge, as it looked like a very beautiful technique. The actual execution was a bit more trying. One key conclusion is that it would have been helpful to read the posts with everyone else's comments before beginning as opposed to immediately after. Oh well - now I know for next time.

We began by preparing the colored paste for the joconde - we used green since we planned to serve the completed dessert at a festival celebrating the new year for the trees later that week. We spread the paste and created a wave design. We noticed that the paste went on a bit thick - others commented that only 1/7-1/3 of it was really necessary - oops! In hindsight, I think we would have made less paste and piped it instead of spreading it.

Next we spread the joconde batter on top of the paste and proceeded to bake it in the oven. As a result of all the extra paste, the cake run over off the pan, creating some oven excitement. It also cooked much faster than expected. Unfortunately, again, because of the extra paste, not very much of our design could be seen.

Next came the task of assembly. We measured the cake and cut it into long strips for our event cake, which were then frozen to stay fresh, and we used the remaining cake to make individual desserts for us to enjoy that evening. Due to the thickness of our joconde (again, from the extra paste), it was hard to maneuver. We eventually rememdied this problem by slicing the cake into top and bottom pieces.

For the final version of the dessert, the joconde was molded in a springform pan. The filling began with a layer of sliced joconde, then a yogurt mousse, lemon curd, raspberry sauce, and white chocolate sauce. The lemon curd came from Trader Joe's; the recipes for the remainder of the fillings can be found in my next post. The yogurt mousse in itself was an adventure, as a vegetable-based gelatin product, Natural Dessert's Unflavored Jel Dessert, was used instead of the usual animal-based product. It is a quick setting gel, so I had to amend the recipe a bit to make it work.

I was crossing my fingers that the dessert would not fall apart after we took it out of the pan, and hurrah, it did not!

STOLLEN: Daring Bakers December 2010 Challenge

The 2010 December Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Penny of Sweet Sadie’s Baking. She chose to challenge Daring Bakers’ to make Stollen. She adapted a friend’s family recipe and combined it with information from friends, techniques from Peter Reinhart’s book.........and Martha Stewart’s demonstration.

It has been a while since I've posted on this blog, although I certainly haven't been lacking cooking and taking pictures. At the urging of a friend, I recently joined the Daring Bakers, and as a member, I will be preparing a designated recipe each month and will be posted pictures and comments here. Maybe this mandatory posting will get me back into posting the results of my own creations as well.

In any case, I have to say that at first I was less than thrilled when I found out that this month's recipe was stollen. Not celebrating Christmas, it's not a traditional holiday food for me; nonetheless, I proceeded eagerly. As I discovered, the dough is yeast-based and very rich, and is very much flavored with citrus. One of the add-ins to the dough was candied citrus peel, which had to be prepared from scratch. It was a good opportunity to try out this technique in addition to making the stollen itself.

In the end, the stollen came out looking beautifully. If I made it again, I would perhaps change up the dried fruits and reduce the degree of citrus flavors in the dough.

I'm looking forward to seeing what recipe will be up for next month!

Blueberry Pie with Cornmeal Crust and Lemon Cream

Over the summer, one of my classmates got the idea that we should organize a group trip to a "Pick Your Own" blueberry farm. As it happened, a group of about 8 or so budding economists made our way out of the city and into the blueberry bushes. After some navigational challenges, we made our way to the farm and began picking (and eating) blueberries all morning. I had thought that I had solid blueberry skills, having grown up near the self-proclaimed blueberry capitol of the world, Hammonton, New Jersey, but alas, I was put to shame. In the end, I still made it home with 3.5 pounds of blueberries and no idea what to do with them.

It turns out that when life hands me blueberries, I make pie. Having never made a pie crust before, I was a little nervous. I also wanted to do something a little different. It is in this state that I came across the following recipe for blueberry pie using cornmeal for the crust. While I still aspire to make a traditional crust in the near future (and still have more than enough blueberries to make my aspiration a reality), I thoroughly enjoyed the unexpected flavor of the cornmeal, and I thought it complemented the blueberries well. The lemon cream finished the entire experience wonderfully.

Blueberry Pie with Cornmeal Crust and Lemon Cream
Adapted from Claudia Fleming in Bon Appétit, July 2008

Makes 8 servings

Ingredients

Crust:
2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1/4 cup cornmeal (preferably stone-ground, medium grind)
3 tablespoons sugar
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup plus
6 tablespoons (1 3/4 sticks total) chilled unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
1/4 cup nonhydrogenated solid vegetable shortening, frozen, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
4 tablespoons (or more) ice water

Filling:
5 cups fresh blueberries (about 27 ounces)
3/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup cornstarch
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
1 tablespoon water
Milk (for brushing)
1 1/2 tablespoons raw sugar

Lemon Cream:
2 cups heavy cream
1/4 cup sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
Zest from 1 lemon

Preparation

For crust: Blend flour, cornmeal, sugar, and salt in processor. Add butter and shortening; using on/off turns, blend until mixture resembles coarse meal. Add 4 tablespoons ice water; blend just until moist clumps begin to form, adding more ice water by teaspoonfuls if dough is dry. Gather dough into ball. Divide dough in half; flatten each half into disk. Wrap disks separately in plastic and chill at least 1 hour. DO AHEAD: Can be made 1 day ahead. Keep chilled. Soften dough 10 minutes at room temperature before rolling out.

For filling: Combine blueberries, sugar, cornstarch, lemon juice, and 1 tablespoon water in large bowl; toss to blend. Let stand at room temperature until juices begin to form, about 30 minutes. Preheat oven to 400°F. Place rimmed baking sheet in bottom of oven. Roll out 1 dough disk between 2 sheets of generously floured parchment paper to 12-inch round. Peel off top parchment sheet; invert dough into 9-inch-diameter glass pie dish. Carefully peel off second parchment sheet. Gently press dough into pie dish, pressing any cracks together as needed to seal and leaving dough overhang. Spoon filling into pie crust.

Roll out second dough disk between 2 sheets of generously floured parchment paper to 12-inch round. Peel off top parchment sheet. Carefully and evenly invert dough atop filling. Peel off second parchment sheet. Trim overhang of both crusts to 1 inch. Fold overhang under and press to seal. Crimp edges decoratively. Cut five 2-inch-long slits in top crust of pie to allow steam to escape during baking. Lightly brush top crust (not edges) with milk. Sprinkle with raw sugar.

Bake pie 15 minutes. Reduce oven temperature to 350°F and continue baking until crust is golden brown and filling is bubbling thickly through slits, about 1 hour 15 minutes. Cool pie completely on rack. While pie is baking, make lemon cream. In a medium-sized bowl, whip heavy cream quickly with a wire whisk or electric mixer until the cream is slightly thickened. Add the sugar and vanilla, and continue to whip until soft peaks form. Stir in lemon lest. To serve, cut pie into wedges and top with lemon cream.