It's that time of month again, where the food blogging world is alive with posts all making the same recipe. This month the hens went on strike, and the cows needed some time off, so no mountains of eggs, and no vat loads of heavy cream were used in the creation of what might end up being 400 loaves of Tender Potato Bread, all courtesy of the Daring Bakers! That's right, the Daring Bakers have grown to the 400 number, and while not everyone did this month's challenge recipe, I am sure I am not the only person who made more than one batch of it.
We owe this months' recipe to Tanna, our hostess for the month of November. She challenged us to follow the recipe exactly, to a certain point, and then let loose the Daring Baker in us and see what we could come up with.
What I came up with was one very huge loaf of bread. And I do mean HUGE!
My bread baking experience started with a question - how many ounces in a pound? It's 16, btw, in case you didn't know. So for me, 1 1/2 potatoes was enough to get me between the 8 and 16 ounce guideline given to us for the quantity of potato needed for the recipe. I am so glad that weight was given, because if I had followed the 4 medium potatoes, I'd have had over 3 pounds of potato in my bread! And that would have been way too much!
Yes, this dough was a bit sticky, but other than that, it was nice to work with. It rose nicely, it baked up quickly and with a good crust, and it tasted mighty fine, warm, slathered with butter.
I wish I could say I enjoyed it the next day, but I didn't. I guess I am an eat bread warm from the oven kind of girl. Oh well.
Seeing as this was my challenge recipe, I did have to make it more than once. (Okay, maybe have to is a bit strong - I wanted to.) So last week I pulled out my potatoes and got working on a second batch of the bread, making a very large Focaccia instead of a loaf, studded with lots of scallions, and topped with fleur de sel and freshly ground black pepper, which I served with a homemade cauliflower soup. (Sorry, all my pictures for that one turned out blurry and boring, so no pictures!) Fingers of the focaccia were perfect for sopping up the soup.
I'm not sure if I will make this bread again, it will go into the "Maybe" tab of my Daring Bakers' recipe binder. While we enjoyed the flavor of it warm, after the first day no one in my house ate it. The children, who had inhaled it the first night, each took a bite the next day then turned up their noses and asked for something else. Feed back from my test guinea pigs (friends) was favorable, even for the next day, unless I am making it for a large crowd, I can see alot of bread going to waste.
Many thanks to Tanna for this month's recipe, not something I would have thought to try on my own. Be sure to check out as many of the other Daring Baker's blogs as you can, before you get sick of bread!
Daring Bakers November: One cannot live on bread alone
Goodmorning Winter
The view outside my kitchen window this morning. Yes, the children are thrilled. No one who has to drive is though.
My husband, leaving for swimming this morning before 6 am, so it must have snowed all night.
Have a good day everyone!
Happy Birthday Daring Bakers!
I'm sure I'm not the only one who was caught off guard yesterday by the announcement of the Daring Baker's First Birthday!
Sure, I've been a Daring Baker since January, but back then we were just a bunch of gals baking croissants together on one day. We didn't actually get the name Daring Baker's until later. Which is probably what threw me when I read both Ivonne and Lis' posts (plus saw Lis' lovely cake on the DB blog - and I so do think you could have made that Lis!)
There is no way I could let the occasion pass by without some sort of treat, even if that treat was going to be a day late!
So before he left this morning, I told my husband I was going to make a cake for the Daring Baker's and what kind would he like? He was very thoughtful for awhile and then finally said, "Lemon. Hey, I didn't pick black forest!" (And I guess it says a little something about our relationship that he did not even bat an eye when I said I was going to make a birthday cake for my online baking group.)
I doubt he is expecting this as a lemon cake though - Lemon Souffle Cake from Tish Boyle's The Cake Book. He only said lemon, he didn't say anything else, so I'm sure he is expecting a layer cake with icing rather than a lighter than air souffle that has to be scooped out of the pan. But this is about the Daring Baker's, part of which is trying new things and stepping outside of our comfort zones. My comfort zone had never made a souffle before, let alone a souffle cake, so lemon requirement met, that's what I chose to make!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY DARING BAKERS!!!
Oh you mean you want the recipe now? Oh well, alright....
Lemon Souffle Cakefrom Tish Boyle's The Cake Book
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
3 large eggs, separated
1 cup sour cream
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
2 teaspoons finely grated lemon zest
1/4 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice
Position a rack in the center of the oven and preheat the oven to 325F. Butter the bottom and sides of an 8 inch square baking pan.
In a medium bowl, stir together the sugar, flour and salt - set aside.
In another bowl, whisk together the egg yolks, sour cream, melted butter, lemon zest and lemon juice until blended. Pour this mixture over the dry ingredients and stir until blended.
In the bowl of an electric mixer, using the whisk attachment, beat the egg whites at medium low speed until frothy. Gradually increase the speed to high and beat until the whites just form stiff peaks. Do not overbeat. Gently fold the beaten whites into the batter. Scrape the batter into the prepared pan.
Place the baking pan in a roasting pan or larger baking pan. Pour enough hot water into the roasting pan so that it comes 3/4 inch up the sides of the square pan.
Bake the cake for 30-35 minutes, until it is puffed and set in the center. Remove the pan from the water bath and place it on a wire rack. Let the cake cool for 10 minutes before serving.
To serve, cut the cake into squares. Scoop each square onto a plate and serve immediately.
This cake is best served the day it's made.
Here you go Tartelette!
Still no new lens for my camera, so still taking pictures from the other side of the room, but I think I am working out some bugs. Can't wait to be able to take major closeup pictures (so you buggers who keep outbidding me on ebay for my lens - CUT IT OUT!!!)
However, the loss of that last auction did not stop me from making this cake, a major blast from my youth, earlier in the week - German Chocolate Cake. The same one that the dangerous trio of Tartelette, Lis and Mary made together when they had their amazing gathering.
After seeing the picture of it in Lis' blog, I bugged Tartelette for the recipe, which she very quickly provided for me. Oh yippee!
My mother and I think my grandmother used to either make or buy German Chocolate Cake with brown sugar coconut icing. At least that's what I remember being in it (and it was my most favorite part of the cake.) So I skipped the peacans in the recipe and upped the coconut some, and enjoyed it with these mini bundts of the cake. (Aren't mini bundts cute?)
Now if you look at the other pictures, the one on Lis' blog, and the one on Mary's, you'll see they each have a chocolate glaze over their cake first. I don't know where it is in the recipe, nor have I ever had it with a glaze before. So mine doesn't have one. Instead each piece I had involved lots of the coconut icing. Yum. Yum. Yum!
This cake was a little dry for me, but it could have been my over baking, this being the first time I've used the pans. The batter is almost moose like, which I found odd, but it seems to work. And the icing is to die for!
So thanks Tartelette! It's taken me all week to blog about the cake, but I feel slightly better now and I'm sure the cake didn't hurt!
Dinner, dessert and a camera
So I have received a "new" camera, a digital SLR which I am very much enjoying taking pictures with. Not the camera I really want, but one that will do me well for awhile.
It has one small problem right now - the lens that I have is a 40-150mm zoom lens, which means I can take great distance pictures, but have a bit of an issue taking up close pictures. Every "close up" picture I have taken so far has been done from a distance!
Here are two pictures I have taken this week, both items I made, and the fun story of how I managed to get the shots.
First, broccoli soup, dinner.
I really wanted to make a broccoli soup for dinner for some reason. Not sure why, especially since my 3 boys are not huge fans of most soups, even less so when it is dinner. I, on the other hand, like the warmth of a good soup for dinner, with nice bread. Most of the time I respect their preferences and don't make soup, or if I make it, make it for lunch, but occasionally I do my own thing and they live with soup for dinner.
I did some web surfing for a good recipe and did not find any one recipe that grabbed me. But it did confirm that I already knew what was supposed to be in my soup, so I just made it up as I went along. And actually wrote down what I did (I'm trying to make this a new cooking habit.)
I accidentally over salted my soup, but even that was not noticeable once I added some shredded cheddar cheese to the soup. And like most soups, it tasted better the next day - I just finished the last bowl for my own lunch today.
So taking this picture wasn't too horrible - I placed it on my dining room table with as much light as I could get (it is now getting dark very early here.) Then I stood as far back as I could in my dining room and tried to get a good picture. It's not a huge room, so I was limited for space. With nothing but a zoom lens, I can't be too close or the camera will not take the picture.
I think this one worked out fairly well.
My next recipe came from Cream Puff and is the Caramel Cheesecake with sea salt she posted about recently, another thing made that I drooled over. I don't have the proper sized ramekins for the recipe, and I admit, despite several Daring Baker's challenges involving caramel, that I am still nervous a bit about working with it.
And yes, I burnt the first batch of caramel. Should have taken a picture of the way the caramel ended up when I poured it down the sink. That would have been a cool picture!
The second batch of caramel I did not let get as dark, I probably should have let get a bit more amber, but it still tasted wonderful. And the cheesecake was just what I needed.
I admit, I did forget to give the extra sprinkling of sea salt on the top, but the salt in the caramel was a nice touch. It was good. Alright, I inhaled it.
So this picture had my oldest son laughing, trying to get into the shot. I had set a place mat on the floor at the bottom of my stairs. I had the front entrance light on, as well as the dining room light on, and placed the cheesecake on the mat. Then I climbed up the stairs and zoomed in. He kept trying to put his hands in the picture and would laugh whenever he heard me click. Eventually I showed him how close I was zooming in and how his hands were no where to be seen.
I added a few pictures to my Flickr account recently, as well as adding the link to the side of my blog, so feel free to take a look at the pictures there and let me know what you think. Alot of the pictures on there are from my little Nikon but if you click on a picture it will tell you which camera it was taken with.
Hopefully I will get another lens soon, and not have to be 6 feet back from something when taking a picture. Unless I want to be.
Broccoli Soup
2-3 heads of broccoli, stalks peeled and chopped, florettes reserved separately
1 medium onion, chopped
2 cloves of garlic, chopped
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon butter
1 carton low salt chicken stock
1/4 teaspoon fresh grated nutmeg
1 cup Half and Half cream
2 teaspoons of salt, divided
1 teaspoon of pepper
1 cup grated cheddar
Heat large pot over medium high heat. Melt butter with the olive oil, and saute the onions and broccoli stalks until softened, about 8 minutes. Add the garlic and saute for an additional 2 minutes. Add stock, reserved broccoli florettes and nutmeg, as well as half of the salt, cover and simmer for 10 minutes, or until the broccoli is tender, but not over cooked. Reduce temperature. Using a slotted spoon, remove half of the broccoli florettes to a bowl. Puree the soup in the pot using a hand immersion blender until mostly smooth. Add the cream, the balance of the salt and the pepper and stir together. Return the broccoli to the pot. Taste, adjust seasonings and check the temperature. When it is all where you want it to be, ladle into soup bowls and sprinkle with cheese and enjoy.
Tasting my way to a happier place
I've been felling very down and out lately. Functioning but not happy.
To help me break out of this, or at least escape for awhile, I called on a good friend of mine, Bam Bam's Mom, and said I needed to go out and have some fun. What we did was up to her, but I needed out!
She did not disappoint!
Knowing how much I enjoy food and how much of a foodie I've become, BBM, decided to take me out for a blind menu tasting, right here in Ottawa! (She told me she had been looking for a Molecular Gastronomy tasting but had just missed it by a few days - who knew we could do this in Ottawa?) I would never have thought of looking for this here, but she found a hotel, Brookstreet, whose restaurant Perspectives, had a menu tasting for us to try.
So here is the story of our meal that night.....
Our server let us know that the menu was heavy on seafood, something neither of us objected to.
It started with a lobster consume, with watercress, and a lobster spring roll, served with a black, Hawaiian sea salt.
The consume was very salty and reminded me of miso soup, which I like. The spring roll was crispy on the outside while the lobster was cold on the inside. Dipped into the black sea salt on the plate, it was wonderful! And the salt drizzled all over the watercrest reminded me how long I had been wanting to try watercress and how much I would enjoy it on my own sandwiches.
The next course was an oyster treat. It started with an oyster in the shell on one side of the plate, and some honey chipotle tempura oysters at the other end of the plate. At the bottom of the glass of oysters was a type of seaweed with some sesame oil (at least that is what we thought), which gave a nice balance of acid with the sweetness of the oysters.
In between these two oysters was what was called an "Eight Element Salad." (We repeatedly questioned our server about what each bit was, with my taking both notes and pictures - she was endlessly patient with us and kept her smile the entire evening.) BBM and I tried to dissect that salad, trying to figure out what all the elements were. This is what we came up with: watercress, carrot, red pepper, crispy parsnips, cucumber, cubed pineapple, oil and some kind of vinegar. Even if we were wrong, it was very tasty and even had me eating bits of cucumber.
Continuing on the seafood road, the next dish involved bay sea scallops, served in the shell, with a truffle cream, porcini mushrooms and a tiny bit of pasta. This was a bit difficult to eat, since you had to try and get around the outsides of the bay scallops to get at them inside. But once you did, it was lovely!
The crispiness of the parsnips worked very well with the softness of the mushrooms, and the mild truffle cream gave it an elegance and a feeling of indulgence. Just what two tired mother's need on a rainy Saturday night.
The next course was considered to be the main of the evening. It consisted of New Zealand lamb with a blueberry sauce, a cauliflower puree and cold beef cheeks in natural juices. There was supposed to be a blueberry blue cheese with it, which my friend could not eat, but our plates were mixed up and she got the cheese and I did not. I tried the cheese, however, and thought ugh, then went oops - I am allergic to penicillin and probably should not have been eating blue cheese, just in case. So ignoring that - the lamb was meltingly tender, and went well with the blueberry sauce. It took us awhile to identify the puree (okay, we never did) but once told it was cauliflower, we both went, "Oooh, so that's what that is!" The cold beef cheeks were not very cold and tasted very much like a rich, well done stew meat. It was the kind of meat that I could serve to my family with mashed potatoes, provided I didn't tell them what it was!
Now because BBM could not eat the cheese course, the chef very kindly decided not to serve it to her and have her not eat it, but instead substituted something for her. She didn't ask for a substitute, so to me this showed the quality of the restaurant - they wanted her to be happy and enjoy her meal, not have to skip an entire course! So we were both surprised and a bit confused when a different server presented her with this dish - watermelon marinated in triple sec, with a cranberry passion fruit sorbet and a drizzle of very good balsamic around the edge.
I got to try both aspects of this dish - the watermelon was very good, slightly orangy, and did not taste at all like it was loaded in alcohol. The sorbet was wonderful, with the cranberry flavor being predominate. If you hadn't known about the passion fruit, it would have been missed, it was so mild. Very nice.
So while she enjoyed that, I got to try the cheese course, something I admit I have never done before. There were three types of cheese, all local from Lanark County; a Highland Blue, Bonnechere Brie and a Flower Station cheese. The cheeses were served with some crusty bread slices, some more watercress with a balsamic drizzle and some cranberry chutney, as well as a bowl of candied walnuts. I skipped the blue cheese and went straight for the brie with the bread. And even though I don't like walnuts, I tried one with the brie and glazes and enjoyed it. The brie was wonderfully creamy and I loved it. The Flower station was a kind of cheddar and was okay but nothing compared to the brie.
Our final course of the evening was the dessert course, which gave a variety of things to try, though I don't think either of us could figure out how they all went together. First there was a pistachio ice cream (with a hidden piece of cake inside, on top of a "plate" of gold-starred chocolate,) next to a lychee and raspberry gelee, and followed up by a pumpkin cheese cake with thin layers of chocolate. The pistachio ice cream was wonderful, with and without the cake, and could have been 3 times larger and I still would have eaten it. The gelee was tart and sweet at the same time, a lovely contrast. The pumpkin cheesecake, I'm sorry, was just a bit wierd. Lots of pumpkin flavor, not much cheesecake. The pistachio ice cream more than made up for the cheesecake though!
By the time we were done, neither one of us was ready to eat anymore. Even though the portions were not full sized, or huge, they were big enough that by the time we were at the end of the courses, we were both full. And it had been a very enjoyable evening, of two good friends, enjoying a culinary adventure and an evening of chatting about life and food! Something I hope to repeat again with BBM!
By the time the evening was over, I was feeling better. Yes, the problems that had been dragging me down are still there, but I felt better able to deal with them. And knew that I had a very good friend willing to let me vent and pour my heart out to her over a the course of an evening and six courses! Thanks BBM!
Happy Halloween!
The children are done trick or treating, and the loot has been checked. Now while my family curls up on the couch and enjoys our yearly viewing of The Nightmare Before Christmas, please enjoy a treat from our home to yours - some lovely chocolate cookies!
The recipe for these cookies comes from Nicole over at Baking Bites, who posted about some very cool mummy cookies some time ago. I've had that page open since then, and finally got them finished late this afternoon. My mummies don't look nearly as good as hers (my white chocolate was not cooperating so I moved on to ghosts covered in a glaze of icing sugar and milk and some plain bats,) but they sure taste good!
I hope you have had a wonderful Halloween!
(And yes, that is my little pumpkin, all dressed up! I didn't have time to carve it up, any further than to pull out the seeds.)
Getting in under the wire: Grow Your Own 2007, Part 3
Sorry Andrea! I am really doing this at the last minute but didn't have too much of a choice!
You see, that lovely pumpkin I grew in my backyard grew a friend, and just recently was harvested, just in time to be carved up for Halloween! (The second one did not have enough time to turn completely orange before we got frost and all the vines shriveled up and fit nicely into a yard bag.)
For those of you who like pumpkin for eating and are now sitting there thinking, "Oh what a waste of a good pumpkin - carved into a jack-o-lantern!" Yes, it is true, my little guy is going to get a face, but he was always planted for that purpose and was specifically a jack-o-lantern type pumpkin, not a sweet pie pumpkin, to begin with.
His seeds, however, were always destined for snacking! The only part of a pumpkin that my children like to eat, and every year look forward to. They don't enjoy taking the seeds out of the "guts" but once they've been toasted and salted, they love them!
Simple is how I toast up pumpkin seeds. One year I tried something a bit more spicy and the seeds went untouched until I finally threw them out. But when tossed with olive oil, salt and pepper, then roasted on a sheet pan at 425F until golden and crispy? They are a hit!
Can't wait to see what everyone else comes up with from their garden fare! It has gotten a little to cold for gardens here in Ottawa (though it was beautiful today and supposed to be even nicer for the kids out trick-or-treating tomorrow night!) so I am looking forward to seeing what comes out of the ground in other, warmer parts of the world!
Now to rush this off to Andrea and hope I made it in time!
Holy Cow We are Growing Again!
Latest count has the Daring Baker's at 299! Wow!
And to think, when I did my first challenge back in January, we were SEVEN!
Can't wait to see what we make for November. :-)
The Daring Baker's do Custard!
Yes it sounds a bit "naughty" but other than the calorie count, there was nothing bad about this month's challenge, chosen by wonderful Mary of Alpineberry - Bostini Cream Pie!
Yes, you read that correctly.... I said Bostini Cream Pie, not Boston. No mistake there. This decadent dessert was Mary's choice, a favorite of hers from Donna Scala & Kurtis Baguley of Bistro Don Giovanni in the Napa Valley and Scala's Bistro in San Francisco. And having made and eaten some, I can understand why!
I chose to make mine for dessert for the grown up's at Thanksgiving this year, while the children ate caramel apples. Normally they would have gotten the better dessert, seeing as I love caramel's, but this time I think we got the best!
The challenge actually consists of three different recipes, if you could call the chocolate glaze a recipe (equal parts butter and melted chocolate.) A deliciously light custard, a mildly orange sponge cake and a slightly warm chocolate glaze. Mary gave us a bit of leeway with the flavoring, provided we kept the colors the same, and gave us permission to be creative with the plating. Unlike the Boston Cream Pie, however, which is cake, then custard, then cake, then chocolate, ours had to be custard, then cake, then chocolate.
Our friend Fanny, of Foodbeam fame, suggested early on after the unveiling the idea of using wine glasses. Seeing as I don't own 16 ramekins (or really even four), I loved the idea of the wine glass and ended up being the first of many to show a picture of a wine glass style Bostini! Thanks for the inspiration Fanny!
Now onto the recipe. I've made custard before, and sponge cakes, but this recipe surprised me a bit with the ingredients list:
13 -14 egg yolks
1 whole egg
9-10 egg whites
3/4 cup whole milk
3 3/4 cup heavy cream
and sugar
Sounds pretty heavy, doesn't it? Yet despite the massive amounts of eggs and cream, this custard was light and airy. Completely unexpected! Having gotten all my eggs ready in advance, as well as all the rest of my mise en place for the custard, it came together very quickly and thickened up nicely. But it did not want to go nicely into the wine glasses without leaving splotches all over the sides! I finally had to get creative and used my rarely used turkey baster to "squirt" custard evenly into 8 wine glasses.
Sorry, I didn't get a picture of that. Probably should have.
Both the cake and the custard I made the day before our Thanksgiving feast, so that all I had to do for dessert was to cube up the sponge cake (I baked mine in my grandmother's tube pan and had 3/4 of the cake left after making 8 Bostini's), place the pieces on top of the custard and make the glaze for drizzling. I admit I did the glaze by eye, rather than by measuring out tablespoons of melted chocolate and butter, but it seemed to work out perfectly.
I did have one odd complaint about the dessert - the wine glasses I chose to serve them in did not give enough room to let fingers in to "lick" clean the sides of the glass! Which didn't stop us from trying.
This challenge was alot of fun. Not complicated, but fun!
And while we all very much enjoyed the flavors, I'm not sure how often I could justify making a dessert that uses that many eggs and so much cream!
Big Thanks to Mary for her choice in this month's challenge! Don't forget to head on over to the Daring Baker's Blogroll and check out some of the other presentations. Some of them are so gorgeous you will not believe it is the same dessert!
Bostini Cream Pie
(from Donna Scala & Kurtis Baguley of Bistro Don Giovanni and Scala's Bistro)
(makes 8 generous servings)
INGREDIENTS:
Custard (Pastry Cream)
3/4 cup whole milk
2 3/4 tablespoons cornstarch
1 whole egg, beaten
9 egg yolks, beaten
3 3/4 cups heavy whipping cream
1/2 vanilla bean (or 1 tsp pure vanilla extract)
1/2 cup + 1 tablespoon sugar
Chiffon Cake
1 1/2 cups cake flour
3/4 cup superfine sugar
1 1/3 teaspoons baking powder
1/3 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup canola oil
1/3 cup beaten egg yolks (3 to 4 yolks)
3/4 cup fresh orange juice
1 1/2 tablespoons grated orange zest
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 cup egg whites (about 8 large)
1 teaspoon cream of tartar
Chocolate Glaze
8 ounces semi or bittersweet chocolate
8 ounces unsalted butter
INSTRUCTIONS
To prepare the custard (pastry cream):
Combine the milk and cornstarch in a bowl; blend until smooth. Whisk in the whole egg and yolks, beating until smooth. Combine the cream, vanilla bean and sugar in a saucepan and carefully bring to a boil. When the mixture just boils, whisk a ladleful into the egg mixture to temper it, then whisk this back into the cream mixture. Cook, stirring constantly, until the mixture is thick enough to coat the back of a spoon. Strain the custard and pour into 8 large custard cups. Refrigerate to chill.
To prepare the chiffon cakes:
Preheat the oven to 325°F. Spray 8 molds with nonstick cooking spray. You may use 7-ounce custard cups, ovenproof wide mugs or even large foil cups. Whatever you use should be the same size as the custard cups.
Sift the cake flour, sugar, baking powder and salt into a large bowl. Add the oil, egg yolks, orange juice, zest and vanilla. Stir until smooth, but do not overbeat.
Beat the egg whites until frothy. Add the cream of tartar and beat until soft peaks form. Gently fold the beaten whites into the orange batter. Fill the sprayed molds nearly to the top with the batter.
Bake approximately 25 minutes, until the cakes bounce back when lightly pressed with your fingertip. Do not overbake. Remove from the oven and let cool on a wire rack. When completely cool, remove the cakes from the molds. Cover the cakes to keep them moist.
To prepare the glaze:
Chop the chocolate into small pieces. Place the butter in a saucepan and heat until it is just about to bubble. Remove from the heat; add the chocolate and stir to melt. Pour through a strainer and keep warm.
To assemble:
Cut a thin slice from the top of each cake to create a flat surface. Place a cake flat-side down on top of each custard. Cover the tops with warm chocolate glaze. Serve immediately.
I'm sorry Cream Puff!
We waited for you to come claim your birthday cake, but finally could not resist anymore and had to start without you!
Seeing as there is no cake left now though, I guess I'll just have to tell you all about it instead.
This is a variation of Peabody's Pumpkin Butterscotch Cake , made with applesauce instead of pumpkin puree, making it my Apple Butterscotch Cake. On wow was it sweet!
I like pumpkin, but as usual, no one else in my house does. Except for the seeds - they like the seeds that I roast up after we carve the pumpkins on Halloween, but that is a few days away still. So rather than dismiss the recipe because of the one ingredient, okay the main ingredient, I decided to change it instead.
I started out by taking apple sauce (sorry, it was from a jar, I'd run out of the homemade stuff I'd had on hand) and reducing it in a small pot until it was much thicker. I used that in place of the 3/4 cup of pumpkin puree in the cake and the cake came out moist and full of flavor!
I accidentally screwed up the filling the first time, forgetting to actually let the sugar caramelize before adding the cream - it was a Doh! moment. I caught it before I added the butter and started over, but it meant I was a bit short on cream for the frosting afterwards, which worked out alright as I had 1/2 cup of whipping cream left, and also had a full container of half and half cream which I used to make up the difference. Sure the frosting needed a bit more chilling before it would thicken up nicely, but it worked in the end.
Oh, I also omitted the nuts in the filling, which I think were actually needed to temper some of the sweetness (and bitterness) that comes with homemade butterscotch.
Like I said, Cream Puff, this cake was very sweet (sweets for the sweet maybe?) The two different types of butterscotch would have both worked with the cake by itself (though I did not actually like the filling butterscotch), and there was alot left of both! The fridge had to be stored in the fridge to keep the icing firm, but it also helped to keep the cake moist longer.
I hope you had a wonderful birthday and maybe next year we will wait for you a bit longer?
A long distance thank you!
Looking at my blog over the last year, there has been alot of belated and delays and such. You'd think I was frequently late and disorganized.
I'm not, really I'm not.
So even though I've had these wonderful cookies for quite awhile now, I'm not late.
A little background probably would help at this point.
A little while back, two of the Daring Baker's decided to host a Blog Event called the Risotto Relay. Make a risotto, post about it, and you could win a package of Tin Tams. If you are from Australia, you know what a Tim Tam is. But if you are from Canada, Tim Tam's sound like a knock off of Timbits. That is what I always thought when I heard the name Tim Tams, though it never matched up with what I had heard and seen of Tim Tam's from the Down Under blogs that had mentioned them.
Now I like risotto. The other three members of my household, however, don't. Sure you can make a small batch of risotto for one or two, but sorry, I don't have time for making something for one person and something different for everyone else. So I sadly declined the invitation to participate, and my chance to win the package of Tim Tams.
That's where Stephanie came in to my rescue!
Stephanie, a fellow Daring Baker, has relocated to Australia, and was sympathetic to my desire to try Tim Tams. She offered to send me some by mail and I was happy to accept!
Now when Stephanie made her offer, I was expecting a small package containing something about the size of a chocolate bar. What I wasn't expecting was a good sized box with not one but FOUR different kinds of Tim Tams!
Original, Dark Chocolate, Chewy Caramel and Latte!
Holy Cow!
My initial plan had been to try all four types before blogging a huge thanks to Stephanie, who asked me to let her know what the three types she hadn't tried yet were like. But since I am conserving them, if I wait until we are done all of them, it might be awhile before she would get to hear how the tastings went. (And I must add that I am showing remarkable self restraint in not having inhaled all of them yet.)
So far we have eaten the Original and the Chewy Caramel. The Original were very good, nothing like what I was expecting. Layers of cookie, sandwiching a chocolaty filling, and covered by chocolate. The Chewy Caramel was even better and reminded me of a Twix bar, which is good because it will be alot easier for me to get a Twix when I crave those Tim Tams than it will be for me to replenish our supply of Tim Tams. (The shipping on them alone makes that cost prohibitive.)
Haven't opened the other two packages yet, so I can't yet give my opinion of them, but I'll get there!
So another huge THANKS! to Stephanie for this great gift! The offer of some Tim Horton's coffee is still there if you want it! I won't try sending you Timbits though.
The rest of the weekend
It certainly isn't perfect, and leans more towards a shuttle than an airplane, but it made my little guy very happy!
I finished this around midnight on Saturday for a Sunday party. When I walked away I wasn't happy with it but knew if I stayed up and kept looking at it, I'd be at it for alot longer.
One thing about this cake is that I free formed everything. The base of the plane is the same chocolate cake as I used for the star cake, baked in a 9x13 and cut down and stacked with strawberry jam in the middle, then curved slightly with a breadknife. The nose of the plane is a combination of the chocolate and vanilla cakes, cut and put in until I was happy with it. The tail, the wings and the back wings are all from a 9x9 vanilla cake that I cut various pieces off of to get the shapes I wanted.
This plane really needed more color but at midnight I kept looking at it trying to figure out what I wanted where and just couldn't, so left it as is. I didn't hear any complaints, not even about the big finger mark that was in the nose of the plane the next morning. (Though none of the 3 finger suspects would admit to touching it.)
When I brought this into the gymnastics party yesterday, I got alot of compliments and was also asked by several people if I did this for a living, did I have a card and did I take orders. I don't think I'm quite ready for that yet. I'd like to play alot more, take a few more Wilton courses, and become more comfortable with the process before I go that way.
Why I've been too busy to blog this last week
Okay it was more than just this cake. There was the first hot dog day at school (major problems I helped solve, but did not create,) the first Subway day (my responsibility and it went pretty well) and the first pizza day (which also went well.)
I went into this cake a) knowing about what I wanted it to look like and b) having not worked with fondant every before. As well as c) not having any fondant tools at all.
I managed to bake the cakes for this cake on the Thursday, with the party being on Saturday, allowing me to start the fondant on Friday night.
I very quickly learned that fondant is tougher to shape than I had thought it would be. I'm a big Ace of Cakes fan and love to see how they effortlessly roll and then smooth on their fondant. I'm sure if I ever make 30+ cakes a week, I too will find it effortless to roll and smooth out as well. But for now, rolling fondant is hard work! And kneading color into it is hard on the hands and wrists!
The package of Wilton fondant I used was very clear that to get a smooth finish with the fondant, you needed to have a perfectly smooth cake. Hahahaha Are they serious? Who gets a perfectly smooth cake without tonnes and tonnes of practice? Not me, that's for sure!
Still, I didn't end up with bumps all over the place, and think some of the rough spots on my cake could have been avoided if I had been willing to run out and buy a fondant smoother instead of using my hands and what tools I could improvise with.
Actually my biggest frustration was my missing cookie cutters. Turns out I had lent some of them to a friend, but I am still missing the star cutout from my linzer cookie set, with the itty bitty star, the one I wanted to use to ring the bottom of the cake with tiny stars. Oh well, I did with what I had and the birthday boy was happy.
I, on the other hand, was reasonably satisfied, but not exactly happy with my results. What I wanted and what I got were close enough. But just close enough.
For cakes I used recipes from Tish Boyle's Cake Book, which I've owned for awhile but had not used yet. The bottom round of the cake is the Sour Cream Chocolate Layers on page 124 (which actually ended up being a bit too crumbly for the buttercream.) The top round is the Basic White Cake Layers from page 119, which is a great cake for decorating with, sturdy and heavy enough, but a little bland flavor wise. Probably a completely different cake if you add the lemon zest to it, but as I was catering to a 5 year old, I took the option of omitting it.
This cake ended up being much bigger than I needed for the party we hosted on the day of my little guy's 5th birthday. Partially because the birthday boy chose the menu for his party and by the time we were ready for cake, only the kids were really interested in more "sweets."
Sorry, no pictures of that feast, but the menu broke down like this: double cream brie cheese with maple syrup, brown sugar and cashews, served with melba toast crackers, maple and brown sugar breakfast sausages, crispy bacon, hot waffles, strawberries in syrup, banana slices, apple brown sugar compote, homemade blueberry syrup, maple syrup, and whipped cream in both regular and chocolate. Yes, we had a waffle bar for my son's birthday dinner. Followed by cake and 3 different types of ice cream.
Then we cleaned everything up and got ready for the next party. More on that later!
Thanksgiving, delayed
I have been a chicken with my head cut off lately. Between work (paid and unpaid stuff, mostly unpaid) and holidays and this last weekend birthday stuff, I have not been reading blogs much, let alone updating my own!
Things are calmer this week. Cleaning up to do, prepping for winter, but no huge hurry to get everything done today. Or even tomorrow.
With this breather, I am able to show off what few pictures I managed to get for the Thanksgiving dinner I prepared last weekend for my cousin and his family, as well as my in-laws. I was pretty pleased with how well it went, as well as how relaxed I managed to be for it. I made alot of food, but managed to time things so that the only time I felt rushed or anything was in the setting it all out, still warm, while making the gravy.
So starting at the top, turkey, spaghetti squash, seasoned green beans, broccoli salad (provided by my cousin's wife, yummy!), sweet potatoes, stuffing, mashed potatoes with gravy. Missing from the picture is the cranberry sauce I made to go with the turkey.
I "treated" myself to a roasting pan this year. Not the lovely Paderno or Lagostina, or even All-Clad I would have loved, but instead a simple President's Choice one from the grocery store that should serve me well for quite awhile. It is nice and heavy, solid, with a removable rack, and held my 6kg turkey with ample room.
After weeks of reading recipes for brined turkeys, herb stuffed turkeys, flavor injected turkeys, I chose to skip them all and go with simple. After washing and trying the big fresh bird, I dried it off, seasoned the cavity before stuffing some onions in it, smeared butter under the skin and then seasoned well with salt and pepper. I covered the breast and roasted my bird, occasionally adding a bit of water to the bottom of the pan.
The previous night I had made up my stuffing, using a loaf of fresh "stuffing" bread from Farm Boy (white bread seasoned with sage.) I cut the bread up into big chunks while sauteing half an onion and 2 stalks of celery in some butter and oil. Before adding the bread chunks, I bloomed some poultry seasoning with the onions and celery, then tossed in the bread. After ensuring each piece of bread had been coated with the oil and seasonings, I added a few splashes of chicken stock, just enough to moisten the stuffing together. The stuffing rested in a covered baking dish overnight, until it was time to go into the oven about 45 minutes before dinner was served.
The spaghetti squash and sweet potatoes I had prepared earlier in the day, cooked until almost done then finished off in the oven while the turkey rested. Both were done simply - the squash cut in half, deseeded and oven roasted face down, then tossed with a bit of butter before serving. The sweet potatoes were cubed and tossed with olive oil, salt and pepper, then roasted until soft on the inside with a slight "crunch" on the outside. I ate cold ones later on as a snack.
My potatoes were made using lots of warm cream and butter. I was tempted to add some cheese to these, mostly because I love cheesy potatoes, but decided that I didn't want too many conflicting flavors. Afterall, the turkey is supposed to be the star of the meal, and cheese added to the potatoes would only have taken away from its shine.
Everyone was very complimentary of dinner, and clean up was done very quickly with lots of help. I had plenty of left overs but thankfully have a second fridge able to hold them all! (If we ever move, one of my fridges is going with me - a second fridge is a luxury I will not willingly give up!)
Dessert was a generational affair this year. The adults had a wonderful, sophisticated dessert that I will post about later, but the kids didn't mind. They had their own thing to do.
I think I earned the title of Coolest Mom/Cousin that day. Afterall, how many kids got to make and decorate their own caramel apples on Thanksgiving? I know of four.
I had a recipe for making my own caramel with cream and sugar and such, but the fun of unwrapping a bag load of vanilla caramels was much more tempting (and less time consuming.) So while the children set up their places, choosing what candies they wanted on their apples from the selection I had put out for them, I melted the caramels with some cream and covered each apple with a thick layer of caramel. Then they went crazy decorating! 
As a final touch, I melted some milk chocolate and drizzled the chocolate to the thickness and coverage the child wanted.
Yes it was alot of sugar but the kids loved it, and then worked some of that "energy" off by entertaining us to a wild dance show to the very loud singing of Crazy Frog.
I hope everyone else had a wonderful Thanksgiving, filled with family and friends and lots of good food!
Family Food Tasters
Recently I received an email from Carlen at The Spice Depot, asking if I would be willing to try out their new Grind Fresh spices and do a review on my blog. I'd never been asked this before, but was thrilled with the idea of getting to try a new spice blend and see what I could come up with.
What a wonderful surprise to find that not only did I get two full sized jars of spices to try, but I also received from Carlen a great reusable fabric bag! I love reusable bags, as my husband could probably tell you from the size of the pile of them that has quickly outgrown the small basket I keep them in.
My two spices for testing were the Spicy Chicken and the Salad blends. I admit I had no idea what to do with the Salad. Spicy chicken is fairly simple, even if I only sprinkle it all over a roaster before putting it in the oven. But dried spices on salad? I don't think I've ever seen that.
But if I can be creative coming up with kids crafts for preschool, surely I could figure out a way to use the Salad spice. First though, the Spicy Chicken.....
I decided not to go the route of simply roasting a chicken seasoned with the blend. Yes, that would have been the simple solution, but who needs simple? Instead I decided to make some crispy, spicy, breaded chicken wings. Deciding upon that also gave me the idea of how to use the Salad blend, generously sprinkled over sauted green beans and served with the chicken.
Dinner that night was amusing. My children took their job of taste testing and rating the seasonings very seriously. My oldest even decided there had to be a scale, between 1 and 10, by which we all needed to use to properly give our opinions. Which was even cutter in that his brother didn't quite get the concept so was rating the beans at 1 million and the chicken at zero. Then he changed it to 4 and 1 - the number of each that he had eaten.
I very much enjoyed the green beans, as did my children. I had sauted the fresh beans in a hot pan with some olive oil and butter, then added a splash of water to steam them a bit, before adding 12-15 grinds of the seasonings on it before serving. The grind came out nicely, not too coarse, but also not too fine. If you look closely at the picture, you can see bits of the spices on the beans, which I liked. The flavor was very mild, with no one spice standing out, but giving it a bit more ooomph than a traditional salt and pepper seasoning. My oldest son gave them a rating of 10 out of 10, having decided that while he couldn't quite figure out what the seasonings were, he liked them much better than "plain" beans.
We will be using this blend again - perhaps I can even liven up cauliflower enough to get them both to eat it!
The chicken was a bit more difficult to judge. Yes, it was a bit spicy, but other than spice, again there was no seasoning that jumped out at any of us. My oldest did ask if there was Paprika in it but I think it was more from the picture on the bottle than from flavor. The flavor also tasted a bit better after a few bites - his initial rating was 5/6 out of 10, but by the time he was done his one wing, he had increased his rating and asked if I was going to make these again.
Again the spice was easy to dispense, though it took alot more turns of the grinder to get a good amount of seasonings in the marinade and in the breadcrumbs. Being able to see the coarseness of the grind as I added them into things was handy, but I could not even tell you how much I put in terms of measuring.
I'm going to use the Chicken Spice again, but next time I'm going to try it in hamburgers and see how it fairs.
From the looks of the Spice Depot website, these blends aren't readily available yet, but if you happen to come across one, they aren't a bad thing to add to your spice cupboard, and you might find having a blend very handy at dinner time!
Thanks, Carlen, for letting me try these out!
Crispy, Spicy Breaded Chicken Wings
1 1/2 pounds chicken wings and/or drumettes
1 cup plain yogurt
30-40 grinds of Always Grind Fresh Spicy Chicken seasonings, divided
2 1/2 cups Panko bread crumbs
cooking spray
Place wings in large non-reactive bowl. Add yogurt and about 10 grinds of the seasoning, mixing well so that every wing is coated. Set aside in the fridge for 30 minutes. (Put on some music, dance!)
Preheat oven to 425F. Spray baking sheet well. Mix together bread crumbs and 30 or so grinds of the spicy seasoning. If you like things very spicy, add more.
One at a time, remove wing from yogurt, give a shake to remove any extra yogurt, then dredge in seasoned panko crumbs. Place breaded wing on baking sheet. Repeat until all the wings are covered, being sure they do not touch each other on the pan. Spray the tops of each wing with some cooking spray.
Bake for 20 minutes, then turn the wings over and bake for another 5-10 minutes.
No sauce required - Enjoy!
Daring Bakers Challenge: I think I have a problem!
For any of you who have been reading my Daring Baker's posts since January, you may have noticed a trend with me. Whenever the new recipe becomes available to us Daring Baker's, I print out the recipe and tape it up to my kitchen cupboard. Usually before wonderful Mary has a chance to make the printable version, I have faked it and taped it. Yes, even when I was the host, I still put it up on the cupboards.
This way it is nice and handy for reference, and it is available for me to jot notes down on it while actually making the recipe. Plus with it being front and center in my kitchen, there is no way I can forget to make it.
So when Marce decided we were making Cinnamon or Sticky Buns for the September challenge, I was thrilled and hit print! The recipe has been up on my doors for several weeks. Which is where I run into a problem. A big one.....
I don't want to take it down!
And if I don't take it down, where will I put the October challenge recipe from Mary?
See? That's a problem.
Marce, I think the recipe you picked was so good that I will be making it on a regular basis. As soon as I pick up some more instant yeast and whole milk. So maybe this afternoon.
Having given us a choice between the cinnamon and sticky bun variations, I decided to start with the sticky buns. I knew I would be making both versions, but wanted to start with the caramel since caramel and I are soul mates together.
OMG was this dough ever a pleasure to work with! Soft and supple, it mixed together much quicker than the recipe said it would, it rose beautifully and it rolled out to a nice rectangle in about 2 rolls of my rolling pin. Heck it took longer to cream the original butter and sugar than it did to roll out this dough!
And if I thought waiting for the second rise to occur was torture, I was wrong. It was smelling the amazing smells from my oven while they cooked that was the real torture. Knowing I would have to wait for the buns to finish cooking, then to let them cool a bit so I wouldn't burn my tongue eating them. Mmmmm and when we could eat them, melt into your mouth softness and caramel! These were so good I instantly decided to banish the families traditional Pillsbury cinnamon buns from our home at Christmas to replace them with these!
A few survived the initial assault of 6 of us on those buns, to be enjoyed the next morning for breakfast. Warmed up quickly in the microwave with a touch of butter, they were still absolutely divine!
With such a roaring success, I had to immediately made the cinnamon buns and see how they compared. And luckily did not have to go far to find the recipe again.
Again, the dough was a pleasure to work with. If every dough was that lovely, I would not be adverse to working with it more often. Yes, like some of the other Daring Baker's, I lost some of the cinnamon to the counter when I picked up the rolls, but having pressed it into the dough a bit, my loss was minimal.
Again the smells from the oven were wonderful and torture at the same time. To distract myself from them, I mixed up the glaze of icing sugar and milk. Holy cow is there alot of glaze for one little batch of rolls! Four cups of icing sugar is waaay too much.
These buns were good, very good, but nothing compared to the sticky buns. But then again, how oh how could a simple cinnamon bun with an icing sugar glaze dare to compare to the sweetness that is a caramel sticky bun? It just can't. Perhaps if the icing had been a cream cheese based version instead of just icing sugar, there might have been a comparison. Afterall, the basic dough and cinnamon sugar is the same, it is just the topping that is different.
Still, these were wonderful as well and will also be made again.
Oh, yes, typical of me, I made yet another batch of the recipe, back to the sticky buns. This time, though, instead of the raisins, I used apple. Chopped fine, I put apple inside the bun, with the cinnamon sugar, as well as sprinkling the tiny pieces all over the caramel before putting the buns on top to rise. Again the flavors were wonderful, but if I were do to the apples again, I would have to leave them in larger pieces as the little ones almost melted into the buns and the glaze, leaving only a hint of apple flavor in the caramel. Still very good, still the same almost divine softness of the buns.
I think I'm getting hungry just thinking about those buns!
By far this has been my favorite recipe that I've done with the Daring Baker's. The first that I made multiple times because I wanted to, rather than because I thought something needed fixing or changing. The first that I will be keeping and making over and over and over and over again. And did I mention I will be making them again?
Thank you so much Marce for your wonderful choice!
Now you have two choices - either go make some now (see Marce's blog for the recipe), or go read about the buns and experiences of the other Daring Baker's by heading on over to the Daring Baker's Blogroll! Then you really will want to run to your kitchen and start baking!
Cupcake Hero to the rescue!
When Laurie announced she wanted to do a cupcake event, I was all for it! I Love cupcakes! And my children Love cupcakes. Yes, that is Love with a capital L. Love. Love. Love.
And what isn't to love. Small sized so you are given instant portion control. Extra icing without having to have the over iced corner piece of a cake. Goodness in a small package.
And when she said the theme would be lime, I had visions of making a key lime cupcake, with graham cracker in a lime flavored cake, lime zest flecked whipped cream topping a lime curd center. Oh how I can just taste it now!
I never found a recipe for it though, and just did not have the time for making it up, not with all the extra things I have signed up for lately (I am now the newly "elected" treasurer of my children's school council.) I thought things would settle down and I would have the time, but I didn't and found myself running out of time. With the deadline tomorrow, I had to resort to drastic measure.
Yes, I made cake from a cake mix. With jello. And pudding. (And whipped topping mix, which I forgot to add to the picture.)
Heck, these cupcakes could probably qualify for the Retro Recipe Challenge, hosted by Delores, but I'm submitting them as my entry to be a Cupcake Hero instead!
I understand this recipe showed up in a woman's magazine sometime in the 50's. Can't say which one (I wasn't born yet,) but my grandmother must have clipped it, made it and her 4 children enjoyed it as she made it from time to time when I was growing up. I remember making it for the first time when I was in high school, as part of an English assignment where we were writing articles for a fake newspaper and I did a culinary review on the cake, plus brought it in to class for all of us to share. It was a huge hit.
These days I rarely use cake mixes anymore, and the jello boxes that are in my pantry have been there for longer than I should admit. But I had to deliver some of these cupcakes across the street to my neighbours because it is so good that I would happily eat several of them without thinking about it. (If I thought about it, I'd probably eat even more!)
So, how to make them....
Make a lemon cake mix according to the box directions. Mine took 3 eggs, 1/3 cup of oil and 1 1/3 cup of water. Put the cupcake batter in 18 - 24 paper lined muffin tins. You need to line these, you can't just spray them. That little paper cup is very important!
Bake them and then let them cool, in the pan.
When they are cool, make the lime jello but only use 1 1/2 cups of water instead of the usual 2 cups. Set the jello aside for a few minutes, and use a fork to poke 3 or 4 holes in each cupcake. You will want to give the fork a little giggle while it is in the cupcake, to make a large enough hole. These holes are the channels for the jello.
Spoon in 1 tablespoon of jello in each cupcake, slowly so you don't spill. When all the cupcakes have jello in them, start over and put in another tablespoon of the liquid. This is where those paper cups are necessary - they catch the jello that sinks down to the bottom of those channels make with the fork.
Chill the cupcakes, still in the pan, for at least 1 hour, but 2 is better.
After they have chilled for awhile, put 2 cups of milk into a large bowl, then add the lemon pudding (instant pudding, not cooked pudding), and a package of whipped topping and whip them together into the milk for 2 minutes. Let the mix sit for five minutes and then spoon or pipe the "icing" onto the cupcakes.
Chill them if you aren't going to eat them right away. Which we did.
Aren't they pretty?
Now you can technically make these cupcakes using any flavor combination, but my personal favorites use either lime jello or cherry jello. I can't see using a different flavor cake or pudding for the icing, but someone else might like it.
Now if you'll excuse me, I should probably put the last few in the fridge, before we eat them all.
