My Baking Adventures

Last night we attended a birthday party for one of Sabrina’s friends. This girl is a huge cake fan, so we whipped up chocolate cupcakes and did half with vanilla icing, and half with chocolate icing. I let Sabrina do her thing with the fondant decorations, and here’s what she came up with………….

And a full view…………

I really like this one……….

It was so hot, I had the air conditioning blasting in the car right onto the cupcakes to keep the icing from sliding off. I didn’t want to risk walking through the parking lot, so David had to drop me off right in front of the hotel so I could run inside the air-conditioned lobby.

And to think, only another 3 months of this! Yay!!

Well, if you were expecting the Apple Cheddar Scones, SURPRISE!

I didn’t make them - I was having a dinner party last weekend and the scones really wouldn’t have been the appropriate dessert.

I went back and checked out the desserts that had been made before I joined, and I chose the Hidden Berry Cream Cheese Torte. It looked simple enough and besides, almost everyone likes cheesecake!

Of course, without reading the directions thoroughly first, I pulled out my box of graham crackers and food processor. DUH! So I put those back and out came the flour, sugar, butter and eggs. Dorie describes it as a vanilla cookie type crust, easy enough to either roll out, or press in. Guess which I chose? If you guessed press in - ding! Move onto the next section! I only had a 10″ springform pan, so the crust didn’t make it all the way up the sides of the pan.

After a quick pre-bake, it was ready:

A thin layer of chunky strawberry jam:

Now onto the filling. I subbed ricotta for the cottage cheese, blended it really well, and added a splash of vanilla, and fresh grated nutmeg. Here it is, right after I removed it from the oven:

And a side view:

And one more, after I cut it. I didn’t want my dinner company to see me photographing the desserts, so I waited until they went home, took it from the fridge, and snapped away:

Now for the most exciting part: one of our guests is a professional pastry chef. (Can you say nerve racking? Pressure?) Well, he loved the dessert so much, he said it was balanced and texturally perfect. So the first thing I did was give him half of the torte to take home. Then I gave him a copy of the recipe! This is a dessert I will definitely make again, especially with different flavors of jam. And the crust has so many possibilities! I think it was even better the next day, when everything had a chance to co-mingle.

Oh, and just so you know, I also made the Quintuple Chocolate Brownies, without the white chocolate icing. Those were a flop. User error I suppose, my guest informed me that they were overdone by about 5 minutes.

Yes, that was painfully obvious from the first bite!

Coming up next week, Double Crusted Blueberry Pie!! (And I happen to have a freezer full of blueberries!)

I found myself with a few hours free in between loads of laundry, and I asked Sabrina if she wanted to play around with the Hello, Cupcake! book we bought a few weeks ago. I also bought a Wilton instructional book and treated myself to new piping tips, since the ones I have are at least 8 years old and some have rust on them. So armed with fondant, icing, vanilla cupcakes and some imagination (and some ideas stolen from other blogs), this is what we created:

Sabrina’s first try with the piping bag and leaf tip - she was going for a sunflower but came out with a carnation: (the base is an oreo)

Next up - I went to flip the laundry, and when I returned, she had made this:

Now I was really jealous - I don’t think I could have done that on my first try!

Then we moved onto sunflowers - it took a bit of practice to get the rhythm down with the tip:

Then, bears in bikinis - do you have any idea how HARD it is to pipe onto something as small as a Teddy Graham?

A closer look at bears in bikinis:

Then we moved onto the butterflies - of course, I couldn’t find any licorice in the house for antenna:

I tried to make a pool ball - but after I got the green stripe down, I realized I didn’t have any white or clear crystal sugar for the sides:

And last, but not least, a simple fondant flower:

But of course, we discovered who the flower thief was:

So after all of this, Sabrina looks at me and says, “That was so much fun! Can we do it again tomorrow?”

I should have my membership to Costco terminated. Every time I go, I walk out with more fruit than I know what to do with. I’ve gone through 12 pounds of cherries in the past 3 weeks, along with the stomachache to prove it. Last time, I pawned off 2 pounds of cherries and 2 pounds of strawberries onto my mom.

This week, it was blueberries. David loves blueberry muffins (which was a shock to me, after 14 years of marriage!), so I tried a new recipe to surprise him with the other morning. Well, I wasn’t paying close enough attention because instead of 1/4 cup of butter, I used 1/2 cup. Of course, I had a greasy mess in the pan. So I filed them into the “Trash” file and tried again. They came out okay, just not up to my normal standards.

Back to my regular recipe - I’ve made this into crumb muffins here, as well as espresso chip muffins. The verdict? Well, Sabrina, who claims to like blueberry muffins, picked out the blueberries and just ate the muffin. David, however, loved them!

Remember the scene in “Casino”, where Robert De Niro’s character tells the pastry chef that he wants “an equal number of blueberries in each muffin”? And the look on the pastry chefs face? That’s how I felt as I was dropping the blueberries into the batter. Either that, or I have a serious case of OCD.

Well, let’s not go there.

Mix-In Muffins - Gourmet Magazine

1 ½ cups all purpose flour
1/3 cup sugar
1 ½ tsp baking powder
¼ tsp baking soda
¼ tsp salt
½ cup butter
1 cup sour cream
1 large egg
1 tsp vanilla

1 ½ cups blueberries, rinsed and patted dry

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and line 12 muffin cups with paper liners.

In a large bowl, mix together flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Set aside.

In another bowl, melt butter. Add the sour cream, egg and vanilla and blend thoroughly. Stir the butter mixture into the flour mixture just until combined. The batter will be very thick.

Add the blueberries and stir gently. Divide the batter between the lined cups and bake for 18-20 minutes, or until tester inserted into center comes clean. Cool completely on wire rack.

So now, I have 1.8 pounds of blueberries left. I thought about a blueberry pie, but that’s just too, blueberryish. Maybe something with lemon or cheesecake? As long as it doesn’t have oats or nuts, David will eat it.

Any suggestions?

My mom loves meringue, and several years ago I made a meringue shortcake for her birthday instead of a traditional birthday cake. She still talks about it, and so tonight I’m going to surprise her with another cake just like the she remembers.

Following my trusty recipe from Williams-Sonoma Fruit Desserts, I made my meringue. The rings expanded so much that my 7″ circles are now more like 10″ circles. Oh well, more meringue to love!

The secret to great meringue is low, dry heat. Well, I should have baked these outside, since you can’t get any drier than this weather - the humidity is at 4%. Yes, my skin feels it too! I baked them at 275 degrees for 2 hours, then propped the door open and left them in overnight. They are crisp, light and dry. Perfect! I had so much meringue left over, that I piped a bunch of kisses rather than throwing out the leftover. Well, Alexander had never tried one before, and I think he ate 10 - before telling me he couldn’t believe how great they were! Ha!

Here’s a pic of the kisses - I put three on a plate, put a rosette of whipped cream on them, and crowned the cream with a raspberry. Oh, I put a strawberry in the center, too. Pretty impressive, huh?

Now for the big guns: Here’s the meringue cake. I followed the same format as the cookies, putting whipped cream between the layers and topping it with the fruit. Next time, I will put a layer of pastry cream between the cream and meringue.

Basic Meringue - Williams Sonoma Fruit Desserts

6 egg whites
¼ tsp cream of tartar
1 cup sugar

Preheat oven to 275 degrees. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper and trace three 7” circles onto the paper. Flip paper over and set aside.

Place egg whites in mixer bowl. Using electric mixer, beat whites until well mixed. Sprinkle cream of tartar over whites and continue beating until foamy. Gradually add the sugar and continue beating until stiff, shiny peaks form. Total mixing time should only be about 4 minutes.

Pipe meringue into circles on baking sheets. Alternatively, you can pipe kiss shaped cookies.

Bake meringue for 2 hours. Turn oven off and prop door open. Leave meringue to cool completely. Remove from parchment paper. Meringues can be stored for several days on a rack (not the refrigerator).

Here’s a photo from the pops I made yesterday. I was so pleased with the way they turned out. I used chocolate cake with chocolate icing. I definitely like this better than the vanilla. Of course, I like almost anything chocolate so I shouldn’t be surprised.

I hope the birthday girl liked them!

Here we go again - file this under “it looks so easy but it wasn’t”. I had a bunch of cupcakes left in the freezer and saw the Martha Steward “hi-hat cupcakes” on Kimberly’s blog. I happened to have the cupcakes and the egg whites for the meringue topping, so I broke out the hand mixer and fired it up!

I heeded Kimberly’s advice about beating the frosting, since hers started to slide off the cupcakes as she dipped them. It whipped up perfectly, and the piping was a breeze.

Except then I knocked the tray and all the frosted cupcakes went flying onto the floor. The dog almost got nailed but she scooted away in time. They landed in a perfect pyramid, so I salvaged the ones on the top and dumped the rest.

I found a few red velvets in the freezer so I pulled them out to add to the vanilla and started again. After they were formed into “swirly-heads”, I set them in the fridge to chill while we had lunch.

Then I melted the chocolate, added a little vegetable oil and waited for it to cool down.

When the chocolate was nice and cool, I started dipping - WHOA!! All the icing started to slide right off the cupcake!

So I tried again - DOUBLE-WHOA! Ok, I can see where this is going. I tried Sabrina’s suggestion, doing a “Jackson Pollack” style. Well, that worked!

Maybe my expectations were too high - I envisioned a “magic-shell” type effect. The meringue was nice and cold, the chocolate wasn’t warm at all - where did I go wrong?

I think I need to create a new category - un-natural disasters!

For the kids end of the school year party, I wanted to do a variation on Martha Stewart’s black and white cupcakes. Her recipe is chocolate and vanilla cupcake batter placed side by side in the pan liner and baked. It looks so unique, and I really wanted to try something different instead of the same thing over again.

However, I wanted to stick with my trusty and reliable vanilla recipe from Magnolia Bakery since it works so well every time. But I didn’t want to just add cocoa powder to the batter because it doesn’t always add enough chocolate “punch”. So I made one recipe of vanilla batter, and then used Magnolia’s recipe for chocolate cupcakes using melted unsweetened chocolate - then piped the batter into the cupcake pans side by side. Well, I had enough batter for 3 dozen cupcakes plus enough left over to use my cool “ice-cream-cone” cupcake pan my mom bought for me from Williams Sonoma.

Hugely successful - the flavor was outstanding, and to top them off, I used Ina Garten’s cream-cheese icing recipe. I used the opportunity to practice my piping skills - I think they came out pretty good!

The kids went crazy for them, and one of the parents took the 4 leftover cakes home “for later”. Gotta love it!

Magnolia Bakery Vanilla Cupcakes

1 1/2 cups self-rising flour
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
2 cups sugar
4 large eggs, at room temperature
1 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Line two 12-cup muffin tins with cupcake papers.
In a small bowl, combine the flours. Set aside.
In a large bowl, on the medium speed of an electric mixer, cream the butter until smooth. Add the sugar gradually and beat until fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add the dry ingredients in three parts, alternating with the milk and vanilla. With each addition, beat until the ingredients are incorporated but do not overbeat. Using a rubber spatula, scrape down the batter in the bowl to make sure the ingredients are well blended. Carefully spoon the batter into the cupcake liners, filling them about three-quarters full. Bake for 20–25 minutes, or until a cake tester inserted in the center of the cupcake comes out clean.
Cool the cupcakes in the tins for 15 minutes. Remove from the tins and cool completely on a wire rack before icing.

Magnolia Bakery Chocolate Cupcakes

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
4 large eggs, at room temperature
6 ounces unsweetened chocolate, melted and cooled to room temp
1 cup buttermilk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Line two 12-cup muffin tins with cupcake papers. Set aside.
In a small bowl, sift together the flour and baking soda. Set aside.
In a large bowl, on the medium speed of an electric mixer, cream the butter until smooth. Add the sugars and beat until fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add the chocolate, mixing until well incorporated. Add the dry ingredients in three parts, alternating with the buttermilk and vanilla. With each addition, beat until the ingredients are incorporated, but do not overbeat. Using a rubber spatula, scrape down the batter in the bowl to make sure the ingredients are well blended and the batter is smooth. Carefully spoon the batter into the cupcake liners, filling them about three-quarters full. Bake for 20–25 minutes, or until a cake tester inserted in the center of the cupcake comes out clean.
Cool the cupcakes in the tins for 15 minutes. Remove from the tins and cool completely on a wire rack before icing.

**Place the vanilla batter into large ziploc bag and seal. Cut a small opening in the corner of the bag and pipe the batter into half of the cupcake liner. Repeat with the chocolate batter and bake at 350 degrees for about 20-25 minutes, or until tester comes clean. **

Ina Garten’s Cream Cheese Icing

1 pound (4 sticks) unsalted butter at room temperature
1 1/2 pounds cream cheese at room temperature
1 pound confectioners’ sugar, sifted
1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

For the icing, combine the butter, cream cheese, sugar, and vanilla in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, mixing just until smooth.

Just a quick pic of Alexander’s birthday cake from the other night. I have been practicing my images, since I can’t draw worth anything. I traced the outline of the character in melted chocolate, then flipped it onto the cake - it stuck to the white icing and then I just filled it in with colored icing. I was very happy with the way it came out - except my messy writing. I tried to write his name in chocolate - but three tries later, I got so frustrated that I gave up and left it. It didn’t matter - he was thrilled all the same. I am so out of practice with my Wilton piping. But (once again) I was rushing and we all know what happens then…………………..

As if I didn’t have enough going on last week, I found myself with a block of cream cheese and leftover orange zest biscotti. So I did the only rational thing I could think of.

I introduced these:

To this:

And here’s what happened:

And for the finale, a gratuitous cheesecake shot:

The Ultimate Cheesecake - courtesy of Tyler Florence

Crust:
2 cups finely ground graham crackers (about 30 squares)
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 stick unsalted butter, melted

Filling:
1 pound cream cheese, 2 (8-ounce) blocks, softened
3 eggs
1 cup sugar
1 pint sour cream
1 lemon, zested
1 dash vanilla extract

For the Crust:
Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F.
In a mixing bowl, combine the crust ingredients with a fork until evenly moistened. Lightly coat the bottom and sides of an 8-inch springform pan with nonstick cooking spray. Pour the crumbs into the pan and, using the bottom of a measuring cup or the smooth bottom of a glass, press the crumbs down into the base and 1-inch up the sides. Refrigerate for 5 minutes.

For the Filling:
In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat the cream cheese on low speed for 1 minute until smooth and free of any lumps. Add the eggs, 1 at a time, and continue to beat slowly until combined. Gradually add sugar and beat until creamy, for 1 to 2 minutes. Add sour cream, lemon zest, and vanilla. Periodically scrape down the sides of the bowl and the beaters. The batter should be well mixed but not over-beaten. Pour the filling into the crust-lined pan and smooth the top with a spatula.
Set the cheesecake pan on a large piece of aluminum foil and fold up the sides around it. Place the cake pan in a large roasting pan. Pour boiling water into the roasting pan until the water is about halfway up the sides of the cheesecake pan; the foil will keep the water from seeping into the cheesecake. Bake for 45 minutes. The cheesecake should still jiggle (it will firm up after chilling), so be careful not to overcook. Let cool in pan for 30 minutes. Chill in the refrigerator, loosely covered, for at least 4 hours. Loosen the cheesecake from the sides of the pan by running a thin metal spatula around the inside rim. Unmold and transfer to a cake plate. Slice the cheesecake with a thin, non-serrated knife that has been dipped in hot water. Wipe dry after each cut.