tiramisu kisses

I decided to make french-style macarons again today, only I had trouble deciding on a flavor. Then I remembered the instant coffee in the cupboard, along with the marcapone cheese I had made a while back (when I was contemplating making canoli for the Nov Daring Bakers challenge- that never happened, mostly because I was in charge of Thanksgiving dinner at our house, and who has time to fry canoli when all that's going on?).

So I made little tiramisu kisses. Coffee meringue cookies, sandwiched with a white chocolate marcapone filling and some chocolate ganache (because honestly, who doesn't like chocolate ganache?). I used a different macaron recipe from the Oct 2009 Daring Bakers Challenge, this time the one that came in my Dec Food&Wine by François Payard. He uses soft ball stage sugar to make the meringue, and I have a soft spot for Italian meringue after working at Sarah's. I omitted the red food coloring and added 2 tsps of instant coffee to the meringue before folding in the almond/sugar mixture.

The cookies turned out well, only some of them kind of exploded in the oven. The rest puffed beautifully and had the distinctive feet. My personal theory is that the cookies on the bottom tray (that kind of exploded) heated up too quickly and thus exploded.

Marscapone filling:

2 oz white chocolate, melted

8 oz (approx) marscapone cheese, softened.

-combine white chocolate with marscapone, mix well.

The assortment of cookies:

One that kind of 'sploded:

Perfect:

The only thing about french macarons is that they remind me of little hamburgers and thus I always have to remind myself that no, actually, they are sweet and fantastic.

gingerbread house!

The December 2009 Daring Bakers’ challenge was brought to you by Anna of Very Small Anna and Y of Lemonpi. They chose to challenge Daring Bakers’ everywhere to bake and assemble a gingerbread house from scratch. They chose recipes from Good Housekeeping and from The Great Scandinavian Baking Book as the challenge recipes.

I finally got around to baking/making this today. Kevin and I were originally going to do some post-Christmas shopping, but then it was snowing and didn't stop. So I baked instead.

Okay. So I tried the recipe from the Scandinavian Baking Book first, but it was way too dry, and then I made the mistake of leaving it in the fridge for way too long and not wrapping it so that it was airtight. So that batch of dough went in the trash (sad). I wasn't feeling like trying that recipe again, and I didn't have the ingredients for the other recipe (I don't keep heavy cream on hand, though maybe I should), and since it was snowing (still) and the snowplows had not come by after they did at about 10:30 am, I used Google and found a recipe by Chris Broberg. This was simple, I had everything I needed, and the cookies tasted great fresh out of the oven. After a few hours, they had hardened up- good for gingerbread house-making, not so good for eating. But still, yummy. Kevin was dipping his gingerbread men in milk (I think it might work better in hot cocoa, since he soaked them for a while to get them soft).

Anyway.

I used a (very rough) hand-drawn template for my house:

Baked gingerbread house pieces:

Next step was the royal icing. I obviously didn't use enough egg whites, because the icing was way too stiff to pipe (at least out of a plastic bag- I'm working on getting some pastry bags and tips- as in, I asked for them for Christmas, but we haven't taken the effort to go out and get them yet. And yes, I realize it's past Christmas at this point). After it started flinging out of the bowl and covered my brother's sweater, I decided we were done. Since it wouldn't pipe, I used my hands. This was definitely a two-person job: I got my fingers sticky with icing as I slathered it all over the joints of the house, and my brother was useful and held the walls together until they could stand up on their own. As far as I know, the thing hasn't fallen apart (but I left it in the kitchen about an hour and a half ago, so who knows what may have happened by now).

Here's a slideshow of (part of) putting the house together. We used Skittles and Starbursts for decorations, mostly because I didn't have the forethought to get any holiday-related candy or food coloring (I keep forgetting we have no food coloring in the house). The Skittles and Starbursts are leftovers from Halloween. Halloween 2008. But Skittles and Starbursts are pretty generic, and it's not like I was planning on eating this house later anyway (I think my brother may have other plans).

What Kevin plans on doing with the gingerbread house when I'm not looking:

And here, for your viewing pleasure, is a rotating view of the house. I tried setting it to music, but it was way to large to upload (since I looped the video 11 times to make it last as long as the song), sadness.

This was a lot of fun. Maybe I'll do it again next year (possibly with icing that pipes properly). :)

merry christmas

Little knitted gifts:

For my sister, a pair of mittens that open to be fingerless mitts:

I started from the pattern given on Knitty.com for their "Fetching" fingerless mitts, modified the cables, and added a mitten top and thumb cap.

A lacey scarf:


This one is the Juliet Scarf by Louisa Harding

A lacey beret:

This one is the Grace Lace beret.

For my brother, a knitted sweater. It looks best on a person, so here he is:

This was the Woven Bands Pullover by Hana Jason

For my mom, a knitted lace scarf:


Estonian Lace Scarf by Nancy Bush

For my dad, a knitted scarf:

Pattern from Cotton & Cloud

french kissing

The 2009 October Daring Bakers’ challenge was brought to us by Ami S. She chose macarons from Claudia Fleming’s The Last Course: The Desserts of Gramercy Tavern as the challenge recipe.

I've never made macarons before. Not to get them confused with macaroons, which are the American version made with coconut. These however, were fantastic. They're made with almond flour or meal (recipe here). And apparently they're really hard. Well- I didn't find them really hard to make yummy, but I did find it difficult to make them pretty. These are delicious- chewy, sweet, and almond. I do think that you have to think carefully about the flavors and filling, because I can easily imagine this becoming sickeningly sweet and therefore not as yummy.

Take 1: Plain almond macarons with an orange dark chocolate ganache filling. Okay, except bumpy and cracked.

Take 2, part 1: Green tea macarons with plain dark chocolate ganache filling. Better, but not as much rise, and still many were cracked. But these are definitely my favorite- not too sweet, and I love the green tea/chocolate/almond combination.

Take 2, part 2: cinnamon apple macarons with plain dark chocolate ganache filling. Almost complete failure. Some of them burned, almost all of them cracked- if not while baking, then while trying to remove them from the sheet. And they were a little on the sweet side.

Someone made a bacon macaron with cream cheese/cheddar filling. I don't know how I feel about that, because the cookie base is mostly egg whites and sugar. But it's intriguing. The one I really really want to try is a pumpkin pie macaron, but the grocery store was out of pumpkin. (I KNOW, right??)

snug as a bug in a rug

Finally finished my rug:

It's about 2.5 ft in diameter, a pretty decent sized rug. Though I sewed the tube together a bit too tight so it kind of curls up unless you pat it down when you pick it up and put it back down again.

My sister was like "why are you making a rug?? you should make something useful!" only seriously, what was I going to do with the colors that went into this rug? I certainly didn't have enough of anything to make anything else, and at least here the colors are supposed to be a little odd.

Projects: mittens for my sister, and possibly Christmas presents for the rest of my family. Not that it's easy to think of something to knit for my parents, because they don't really use any of the stuff I've made them in the past. :P

vol au vents

The September 2009 Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Steph of A Whisk and a Spoon. She chose the French treat, Vols-au-Vent based on the Puff Pastry recipe by Michel Richard from the cookbook Baking With Julia by Dorie Greenspan.

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I've done homemade puff pastry before, but the cheater version where you grate frozen butter and mix it with flour and a little bit of water, and roll it out like usual. It's easier to incorporate the butter and the rise was pretty similar to the real thing. This one was much harder, and took much longer. I think it was worth the try once, but if I want homemade puff pastry again, I'll probably do the cheater version. Though I probably have about a pound of this stuff sitting in the freezer waiting for inspiration.

I really like puff pastry, but my main issue with it is that very few things you make with puff pastry last more than a day. And I much prefer sweets to not (because who in my house is going to eat not-sweets that I make?), but it was hard to think of anything terribly creative.

So the shells turned out nicely, and I filled them with a simple chocolate cream (really simple- instant pudding mix + milk + heavy cream) and fresh fruit. They were pretty, and yummy, but a lot of work for not very much. I dunno. Maybe someday if I get extremely creative, it will be something to experiment more with.

Vague thoughts about using the rest of the pastry for palmiers or similar cookies, since those last (and are delicious). But only vague thoughts.

I hope next month's challenge is more appealing to me. I guess the problem with this one was- who was going to eat it? I couldn't really transport it because then the pastry would get soggy and gross. I couldn't make a bunch and leave it for a week for my dad to snack on. It had to be consumed within a few hours of assembly, and that just isn't happening with my current schedule.

Anyway. Que sera sera.

dobos torte

The August 2009 Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Angela of A Spoonful of Sugar and Lorraine of Not Quite Nigella. They chose the spectacular Dobos Torte based on a recipe from Rick Rodgers' cookbook Kaffeehaus: Exquisite Desserts from the Classic Caffés of Vienna, Budapest, and Prague.

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This sounded fantastic- chocolate buttercream, thin layers of sponge cake, and hazelnuts. Though it turned out I didn't use that many hazelnuts (12, to be exact), since I didn't put any on the side of the cake.

I went for a square cake. It didn't turn out as prettily as I had envisioned- it never does. :P But it still tasted pretty good.

This was the first time I made a cake where you beat the egg whites and yolks separately, but it was a beautiful, light cake batter.

The cake was baked in layers- thin layers. I got a workout wrestling with the oven door, but I can get it to work with two heavy-duty oven mitts on and a bit of elbow grease.

Mmmm, chocolate buttercream.

The caramel topping was the hardest part, and I probably put way too much caramel on the cake (a cake layer, cut in pieces, with caramel poured over it.) I kept watching it boil, thinking "dontnucleatedontnucleatedontnucleate"- and it didn't. Perhaps the first time I've made a wet caramel where it didn't nucleate or burn. But this one had lemon juice in with the water and sugar, perhaps that helped? And I'm sure using superfine sugar helps too.

Anyway. I put it together, and added some raspberry jam, because who doesn't like chocolate and raspberries? cake-chocolate buttercream-jam-repeat.

I was not very happy with how the caramel pieces looked on top, I should have done triangles and put them around the edge of the cake but didn't think about it until too late. And the caramel was too thick on the cake, so it was difficult to eat. We have a stack of caramel pieces sitting in the fridge (the cake is gone).

I got 8 layers of cake out of the recipe, I think my layers were probably thinner than the recipe intended, but I think it worked pretty well. So my cake was 7 layers, plus the layer that was used for the topping.

On my baking wish-list is a piping bag with a set of pastry tips. I had a little buttercream left, where I could have done some pretty decorations but I don't have the tools. Also on that list is a stand mixer, but I think the piping bag + tips is considerably cheaper.

My torte did taste pretty good, but it wasn't stunning. Maybe the disappointing presentation detracted from the taste for me. Still, my dad liked it a lot (maybe he does have a sweet tooth after all).

cookies and cupcakes

The July Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Nicole at Sweet Tooth. She chose Chocolate Covered Marshmallow Cookies and Milan Cookies from pastry chef Gale Gand of the Food Network.

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So, I'm at home. And so is my brother. This is the brother who said to me the other day "I'm so glad you love to bake!" And when I asked him why, he replied "because I LOVE to eat!!"

So when time came for this month's baking challenge, I asked him what he wanted, marshmallow cookies or milano cookies. He voted for the marshmallow first. (Then he realized that this would take a while, since the cookies had to bake, the marshmallow had to set, and the glaze had to set. He was mildly annoyed, being one for instant gratification. But he got all the cookies he could eat and then some, so y'know, sometimes patience is its own reward.)

Apparently, homemade marshmallows are little more than an Italian meringue with some gelatin in them. Who knew?

Anyway, these cookies are a not-so-sweet cookie topped with a dollop (that's such a nice word, "dollop", hehe) of marshmallow, dipped in a chocolate glaze. They were pretty good. Real marshmallows stay sticky though, who knew?

Pre-dipping:

a tray of extra marshmallow:

Dipped cookies:

I really wanted some white chocolate or something to drizzle over these, but alas, we had nothing I could think of to use at home. Que sera, they were good anyway.

So, at home, I'm dealing with my mother's oven, which is broken (the oven works fine, it's the door that requires two people to shut it after you open it), so I made these cookies in the toaster oven. It's a nice toaster oven, and fairly large as toaster ovens go, but it's still just a toaster oven (I have to be careful, I might hurt the toaster oven's feelings). And so I only baked about a third of the cookie dough for the first round. Then I got lazy, and made squares instead of circles (easier to cut) and made s'mores. I just cut up the tray of leftover marshmallow and sandwiched them between cookies and orange chocolate ganache (leftover from the milano cookies). They were pretty good, except the cookie part was too thick. I'll have to go thinner next time.

s'mores:

I did eventually make the Milano cookies as well. I love Pepperidge Farm Milano cookies. And now I know how to make them. This time I had my brother help me wrestle with the oven, so the cookie baking went much faster, but since the oven door doesn't open well and the glass window needs serious cleaning, I ended up burning a lot of these, how sad. However, they were delicious and tasted pretty similar to the pepperidge farm cookies. My sister was home last week and tried some and was like "huh. this actually tastes like a milano cookie. good job." Actually, I got the same response from everyone in my family. Let's be fair, they don't actually know what I mean when I say "I like to bake" because I got really into baking in grad school. And I don't bake at home as much, mainly because the oven's broken.

A tray of milano cookies:

My brother decided that this would be a good arrangement for the cookies. Hardy-har-har.

And then, I had 8 egg yolks left over (plus a good deal of orange chocolate ganache). So what did I do? I made sponge cake. Or more accurately, sponge cupcakes.

vanilla sponge cake with an orange chocolate ganache topping.

Even my dad likes the cupcakes. And my dad isn't a big sweets fan.

fin.

bakewell tarts

The June Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Jasmine of Confessions of a Cardamom Addict and Annemarie of Ambrosia and Nectar. They chose a Traditional (UK) Bakewell Tart... er... pudding that was inspired by a rich baking history dating back to the 1800's in England. Recipes are on the host blogs.

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Alrighty. I think I mentioned that I joined The Daring Kitchen, which has monthly baking challenges and monthly cooking challenges. This was this past month's Daring Baker's Challenge (which I think I was supposed to post yesterday, which was the reveal date, but I totally forgot).

I made mini bakewell tarts. Mostly because things in miniature are awesome (in my opinion). These appear to be pretty similar to the baked tarts they sell at Sarah's, where I was working (my last day was last Thursday, how sad), in terms of pastry crust + fruit (jam here) + almond cream (frangipane). I made these for Bible study snacks for GCF, they disappeared pretty quickly.

I stood in the jam aisle at Wegman's to figure out what to use. I wasn't quite in the mood to make my own jam (though I did do that this past weekend with the roomies, we made strawberry freezer jam but that's another story). I decided for blackberry, plus some canned pears, and some chocolate (not all together, as you'll see in the pictures below). Emily has rubbed off on me, I couldn't just use pear jam (though pear + almond is a pretty delicious combination), because then the whole thing would've been beige.

So, pre-filling:

blackberry jam

blackberry jam + canned pear slices

chocolate chips

Coming out of the oven:

I put an almond slice on the plain blackberry ones- I think this caused some confusion at bible study, cause these were the most that were left.

And a little pear slice on top of the blackberry-pear:

And a little chocolate chip on top of the chocolate ones:

They were, suffice to say, delicious. I will have to make these again sometime. Perhaps a larger tart next time, but I love bite-sized things. They're just that much cuter.

And so pretty inside!

I had a lot of dough but only a little bit of frangipane (the almond cream filling) left, so I made this free-form "large" tart- by large I mean it was probably about 5 inches in diameter. A layer of jam, some pear, and almond filling. Mmm.

I made 1 batch of frangipane but 2 batches of the shortcrust pastry dough, to make 48 mini-tarts. (This makes sense, since when you reduce size, for the same volume [frangipane filling] you'll increase the surface area [pastry crust]. See, some of my education is occasionally useful. Only occasionally.)

a photo update

On my drive to Boston, not last weekend but the weekend before, it was raining pretty hard and I saw all sorts of rainbows. Absolutely gorgeous. I even saw a double rainbow at one point, but couldn't get a picture. Rainbows always make me think of Noah, and God's promise after the flood, and thus they always make me smile. (I also always think of an angle of 42 degrees, after that awful physics proof we had to do junior year in high school with Mr. Rylander.)

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I've been in a baking mood, so this past weekend I made a swiss roll. It's basically a simple sponge cake, with strawberry jam inside, rolled up. Much easier than it looks. It tastes okay, nothing stellar. I have recipes for chocolate rolls, which I want to try, but that requires things like baking chocolate that I didn't have on hand. However, since this was so easy to roll up, I won't be intimidated by the idea of it and might make it sometime.

I joined this website called the Daring Kitchen, and they have a monthly baking challenge and a monthly cooking challenge. I plan on doing both, but we'll see how time works out. It seems like a fun and exciting way to get new recipes. Next week (I think?) I get my first baking challenge, yay!

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I borrowed Joe's ice cream maker to make strawberry sorbato for these floats (which, by the way, were pretty fantastic), and I still haven't returned the ice cream maker (I will, soonish). Ice cream maker has made it on to my list of "appliances I want to own someday". Also on this list are a washer/dryer set, a stand mixer, and a sewing machine. About in that order, I think. Ice cream maker may be before or after sewing machine, I haven't thought it through that much. I made some mango ice cream, which turned out to be ridiculously easy and really really good. (My goal was actually to make a mango gelato, but I still haven't determined what the difference is between gelato and ice cream in terms of ingredients or technique. So I'll just call it ice cream to be safe.)

Recipe:

2 cans (14 oz? maybe?) of tropical mango (in the international foods aisle at Wegman's) in light syrup

1.5 c half and half

1. puree mango (with syrup) in a blender

2. strain to get all the fibery stuff out

3. mix with half and half

4. put in ice cream maker, churn until ready, freeze until firm.

I suppose I could've used fresh mangos, but the other recipes I found (yay google!) told me to take fresh mangos and combine with hot simple syrup, I figured the effect was the same as just using canned mangos in light syrup (which is just sugar and water, same as simple syrup, I checked the ingredients on the can first).

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My latest knitting project is a knitted rug, made out of leftover yarn from the half a dozen (or more?) blankets I've made over the years. I have a small dresser filled with yarn and knitting supplies, I've got to use it up somewhere. I also have a crapload of sock yarn, but I'm not quite in the mood for knitting socks. Must think of other things to do with sock yarn... In the meantime this is keeping me busy, though I'm running out of ideas for color combinations, and I think it needs to be several feet larger in diameter before I'm through.

Safety pins are holding it in place, so that I can see how the colors look as I go. I envision at least a 3 ft diameter rug, but possibly larger if I can make it.