masarap!

LITTLE THINGS

2010-11-17T09:47:00.001-05:00

Orange-cinnamon buttermilk pancakes.

Adapted from Martha Stewart via Smitten Kitchen, July 2008.

Never again will I wonder what to do with leftover buttermilk. These light, sweet pancakes come together quickly, keep warm on a 175° baking sheet, are delicious with the syrup I picked up at Soergel's orchard/market a few weekends ago. A half batch is plenty for two people, but I stuck with 2 tbsp sugar and haven't yet bothered to whip the egg whites separately for extra fluff.

Pumpkin cupcakes with bourbon-caramel cream cheese icing.

Cake adapted from David Leite via Smitten Kitchen, Nov. 2008;

icing from Cupcake Bakeshop, Dec. 2005.

I'm pretty fascist about the moistness of baked goods, and this pumpkin cake is plush. Spicy. Not a frosted muffin. Also loyal to various cream cheese icings, but this one - a new try - is pretty good; I did have some still-cold flecks of unmixed cream cheese in the end, and had to rewarm/beat, which is why it looks more like a glaze here. Were I to redo, I'd pipe the frosting into a little nest and spoon some of the super boozy bourbon caramel (more of a butterscotch) inside.

Peanut butter brownies with bittersweet ganache.

Adapted from Smitten Kitchen, Oct. 2007.

Blueberry scones. Adapted from Mom (on your right).

These are the insanely moist whipping cream scones my mom used to make (the classic is with craisins) and still makes, when I visit home, which is where I'll be for most of next week. Usually she bakes them off at five a.m. and leaves them warm in a bowl in the oven. This is why scones of the world disappoint.

Lemon-thyme cakes with blackberry buttercream.

Adapted from Roopa at Raspberry Eggplant, here and here.

Finally, I made this little army for the Pitt welcome (back) potluck back in August. I've posted this meringue buttercream a dozen times but it really is remarkable: silky, buttery but not saccharine, takes whatever flavoring -- in this case, a blackberry puree that does the work of food coloring and flavor both.

...

It's been a hard semester, hence a three-month blog silence. But I am here.

IT MEANS I LOVE YOU

2010-08-11T18:09:00.003-04:00

Rich chocolate versus puckering citrus: August birthday face-off.

Sour cream chocolate cake, german chocolate filling, cinnamon whipped cream. Coconut, bittersweet ganache.
Adapted from various recipes in Sky High.

Jenny requested german chocolate, which I'd never made. So I toasted coconut and pecans, made dulce de leche by slow-baking sweetened condensed milk, substituted my favorite fudgy-moist chocolate cake for the recipe's cola cake (which still interests me but is reviewed as more fluffy and dry), and opted for a whipped topping in hopes of offsetting the germanic filling. The cake was dreamy, the filling still cloying for my taste, and the whipped cream started to look curdled halfway through icing -- this, and my hasty ganache prep caused my chocolate to seize. But it piped okay. For translation, see entry title.

Then Brett came through town on his birthday eve, so I did the following from 12-2 a.m. :

Lime curd tart, blackberry sauce.

Adapted from Ina Garten and Smitten Kitchen, April 2010.

I really love the simplicity and impact of a tart. Ina's recipe produces a creamy, bright curd, and her technique of grinding the zest with the sugar prior to cooking prevents the gray-green weirdness that sometimes afflicts lime desserts. Revisions: added an egg to the crust -- which, wow, tasted like a sugar cookie thanks probably to the addition of vanilla, and I did have to frankenstein it together in the pan but it baked perfectly. Might cut sugar in the curd (I like it very tangy) and slow-cook the sauce to reduce/thicken a bit but otherwise, the flavors were there. As was Frank.

Thank you for your visit(s).

IT'S YOUR FACE

2010-07-27T17:09:00.002-04:00

So there's a bit of baked-good-backlog.

Cardamom fennel mini cupcakes, mango buttercream, candied fennel.

Recipe by Roopa at Raspberry Eggplant, Oct. 2007.

I brought these to a garden party hosted by the owners of Dozen Bakeshop, for whom I currently work (selling, not baking). To the anonymous dining room voice who complimented their "fake vanilla flavor" while I was refilling in the next room: 1, you might attend to your corrupted palate, as there was a whopping quarter-teaspoon of vanilla in a batter that produced 46 cakes; 2, I use the good shit, not the watery imitation. So cool it.

Incredible meyer lemon sticky rolls, prior to frosting with cream cheese glaze. Adapted from blog-favorite the kitchn.

Sour cream chocolate cake, cream cheese buttercream (Italian), coconut. Adapted from various recipes within Sky High: Irresistible Triple-Layer Cake.

Triple chocolate tart.

Adapted from Gourmet, Sept. 2008.

This was bananas. The crust base is Newman's chocolate letter cookies, then a truffle-like bittersweet filling and a thin, shiny glaze. I added just a pinch of cayenne to the filling, subbed Frangelico for water in the glaze, topped with some Aguni salt I bought way back when at the South Bend farmers market, and paired with fresh almond-scented whipped cream and raspberries.

Baking in the summer months in an un-air-conditioned kitchen with sealed windows: never easy. Sometimes people misinterpret my working in a bakery as access to better facilities, but this modest laboratory is actually where the magic happens -- meet our kitchen:

Counter. Note the indispensable lamp. Canisters and framed chart of world revolutions thrifted in Fairfax and Wintergreen, Virginia, respectively.

Brave little stove. Cast iron skillet, Le Creuset dutch oven. Above fridge: food processor, many cupcake molds, and my beloved cake spaceship -- you think it's crazy to spend $30 on cake transportation, until you're trying to stabilize two dozen birthday cupcakes on the bus.

And finally, my baby, the red stand mixer. A most cherished gift.

And I'm just realizing you can see me in it, weird.

So concludes the tour. It's not much, but it works.

IF THEY WERE ME AND I WAS YOU

2010-06-24T13:07:00.005-04:00

Cardamom saffron cake, alphonso mango buttercream, candied fennel.
Recipe by Roopa at Raspberry Eggplant, Nov. 2007.

Plum frangipane tart.
Adapted from Smitten Kitchen, Feb. 2008.

Earl grey cake, kumquat marmalade (between layers), almond meringue buttercream.
Recipe by Roopa at Raspberry Eggplant, Jan. 2008.

Chocolate, toffee, bacon. Bourbon meringue buttercream.
Cake adapted from Chockylit at Cupcake Bakeshop, Oct. 2009; frosting modified from Roopa's plain swiss meringue buttercream.

Notes:
I guess I think of baking a birthday cake as fulfilling a particular wish. The bacon cupcakes were for a woman in the department. Loved the addition of bourbon to the swiss meringue. Split a dozen between bacon (the birthday wish) and vegetarian (only toffee); the cupcakes were a bit dry for my taste but novel enough.

I'd been wanting to revisit Roopa's earl grey cake since first making it for Raechel, and this was for my girl Caroline's 20th. Only after purchasing ingredients for a key lime ginger cake did I receive her text preferring the tea flavor profile, haha. No worries -- I love this cake above all others.

That said, the mango buttercream is the silkiest, easiest-with-which-to-work buttercream frosting I've ever made. Ever. I didn't actually have a slice of this one (lost my appetite after a string of decorating/travel-related stumbles, but I think despite 90+ degrees the Indian-inspired paisley turned out okay) but it tasted (and smelled) pretty good in process.

Met a handful of undergrads at Caroline's party who invited us to dinner later in the week. Since one is originally from Paris, I wanted to make frangipane, subbing summer red plums for poached pears. They made a fabulous dinner: feta-stuffed eggplant rolls, caramelized brussel sprouts, herb-marinated grilled lamb ribs. I overworked and burned the crust, but hypnotized everyone from noticing with glazed plum spirals.

I'm feeling the solstice. Suddenly, all this time to bake. Climate troubs: frosting requires constant chilling, layers benefit significantly from flash-freezing (see Deb's super helpful tips here) -- but I love seeing how bringing dessert lights up the room, or backyard. Candle notwithstanding.

INVENTORY

2010-02-27T21:49:00.004-05:00

Meyer lemon tart with almond olive oil crust, blackberries. Adapted from Gourmet, May 2008.

Milk chocolate soufflé with nougat cream. Adapted from Bon Appétit, Feb. 2010.

Coconut macaroons, with & without milk chocolate ganache. Adapted from David Lebovitz, June 2005.

Final February baking projects: standby lemon tart, for impromptu Film potluck. Behold a neon curd known to induce marriage proposals.

This was my first soufflé. Successfully halved the recipe from the original 8 servings. Had some egg-incorporating anxiety (do I stop folding, to preserve airiness? or continue, to avoid eventual egg white chunks?), which resulted in stooped soufflés, but the flavor was pleasant if mild -- the full creaminess of the milk chocolate couldn't stand up to the heat -- and the nougat cream, surprisingly delicious. Like a Toblerone.

I had eight egg whites in the fridge for a week after yolking for this lemon poppyseed cake, which I ended up tossing after one sample slice. Total milquetoast; still looking for a bundt recipe worthy of my Heritage pan. Anyway: after comparison shopping macaroon recipes, I'm satisfied with this one. Used Whole Foods' very fine-grated unsweetened coconut, and just-moist hands to roll the chilled, pre-cooked "dough." Slightly crisp outside, dense and chewy inside.

And finally: I just started working at Dozen Cupcakes. Short term, this means I'll be pocketing a steady stream of expired baked gooderie and saying ganache more times a day than anyone should. Long term, I can now meet the food service requirement for admission to CIA. More school! Just kidding. Sort of.

CALL ME BRUCE BOGTROTTER

2010-02-10T01:18:00.002-05:00

Chiffon cake soaked with rum and coffee simple syrup, quick fudge frosting. Adapted from Smitten Kitchen, Aug. 2009.

Sour cream chocolate cake with peanut butter cream cheese frosting & chocolate peanut butter ganache. Adapted from Smitten Kitchen, August 2008.

Clementine almond cake. Adapted from Nigella c/o Smitten Kitchen, Jan. 2009.

Nothing keeps an old house warm like constantly preheating the oven.

Notes: Brought the chiffon as a social lubricant to my poetry workshop's weekend retreat in Bedford, PA. The rum/coffee syrup smelled delicious and kept the (very thin, by the way) layers moist, but the "quick" fudge frosting - it comes together in ten seconds in the food processor - is forgettable. Probably wouldn't make this again.

The chocolate peanut butter cake, however, is already a second-run. I haven't tasted this incarnation yet, but know from the last that the cake is box-mix-moist, the frosting tangy and heavy on peanut flavor, and the ganache is more chocolate (semisweet) than saccharine. A must-try if you know someone who appreciates this combination.

Clementines and almonds: it's a winter cake. Gluten-free, it's just whole clems (processed or chopped very fine, after two hours boiling), ground almonds (or almond meal/flour), eggs, sugar, a hit of baking powder, poof! Cake. I added vanilla and almond extracts and a very thin glaze (confectioners sugar and clem juice). Result: wet-moist, deep citrus flavor. Suited to breakfast. Definitely butter and line and re-butter a pan, as reviews caution that this is hard to extract. I'm not usually one for restriction-recipes (or baking by Nigella, following the Guinness cake disaster of 2008), but this is unusual and adaptable to whatever citrus you like (e.g. Meyer lemons, satsuma mandarins).

BUTTER AND SUGAR IN 2010

2010-01-06T12:49:00.008-05:00

First bake of 2010: Butterscotch pecan tart, c/o Bon Appetit, Jan. 2010. I have long promised Steven a butter pecan cake, to follow from one of his favorite flavor profiles, and this was a sort of variation; he's professed it his #1 favorite new recipe so far. Skipped the scotch-spike and made regular, amazing, homemade whipped cream. Note: the original crust recipe is bullshit. Mine was dry, cracked in the oven, and smelled like burning. Dumped it and restarted with Deb's default sweet tart shell. Next time I'll add her warm butterscotch sauce for temperature/textural contrast.

Otherwise: the recipe blurb describes this as a cross between butterscotch pudding and pecan pie, and while I haven't made either, I'd file it under the latter. It's multi-step but not at all overwhelming; its worst aspect is all the waiting involved (chilling/freezing/parbaking the crust, cooling the butterscotch, room-temping/beating the egg whites, plus two hours cooling). Keep an eye on the pecans, as they brown in the oven rather spontaneously. The butterscotch is fucking intoxicating, especially with half a teaspoon of brandy added along with vanilla to the egg yolk mix. Next time I would rough chop only the pecans that line the shell, and keep the top layer whole for a better (less "rustic"?) presentation.

It's been about three years since I started baking at all: boxed mix and quick breads in the house on Edison. No longer a burner of break-and-bakes, I'm happy to say.

LOOK AT THE PICTURES

2009-11-22T19:01:00.008-05:00

Nutmeg maple cream tart. Reduced maple syrup custard with fresh nutmeg. Adapted from NYT via Smitten Kitchen, Nov. 2007.

Brownie mosaic cheesecake. Cheesecake with chocolate crust, embedded fudge brownie cubes, and dark ganache. Adapted from Smitten Kitchen, Aug. 2007.

Chocolate cake with peanut butter cream cheese icing and semi-sweet peanut butter ganache. 8" triple layer. Adapted from Smitten Kitchen, Aug. 2008.

Apple pie with all-butter crust and homemade whipped cream. Adapted from the one and only Mom.

Pumpkin cupcake with maple cream cheese frosting. Adapted from Smitten Kitchen, Sept. 2008.

Quiche with shiitakes, shallots, gruyere and thyme. Adapted from Madame Quiche's Quiche au Fromage, Epicurious, Jan. 1999.

Pear-almond tart. Bosc pears poached in vanilla-ginger syrup, frangipane filling. Adapted from Smitten Kitchen, Feb. 2008.

On my wish-list: Sky High: Irresistible Triple-Layer Cakes, Martha Stewart's Cupcakes, those fancy white cupcake liners and brown mini-loaf liners for gifted banana breads. On deck: any excuse to make eclairs.

HELP, I'M ALIVE

2009-10-18T14:02:00.006-04:00

Oh, hi. Haven't touched this since April, in part because my beloved Nikon's battery door is broken and I've subsequently been on picture-taking hiatus. I also moved to Pittsburgh, where I spend the bulk of my days underlining passages (see: Occupation) and vainly seeking comfort in tiny glasses of Bushmills. Took awhile to get used to baking in a new kitchen, but let's face it: like shoe storage, there is no "enough" counter space. Following some disasters (burned apple muffins, broken plum cake), I'm slowly adjusting, and thanks to Steven's lovely photography, I bring you: Guinness cupcakes with Baileys buttercream icing.

Adapted from Smitten Kitchen, Jan 2009.

Ingredients:

Equipment: cupcake/muffin pan(s), a piping bag/tip if you're into that, and an apple corer if you want to go the whole carbomb way and fill these with whiskey ganache.

Deb says this makes 20-24 cupcakes. I made 12 for my Literary Criticism class & one 8" round. I've made these before with the ganache filling, but didn't get enough whiskey flavor to justify the work involved (cooling, coring, and filling each cake -- though, piping in the ganache is weirdly gratifying). If you skip this step, the cakes are equally enjoyable, and come together quickly.

Cake:
1 cup Guinness
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder (preferably Dutch-process)
2 cups all purpose flour
2 cups sugar
1 1/2 tsps baking soda
3/4 tsp salt
2 large eggs
2/3 cup sour cream

Ganache:
8 oz. bittersweet chocolate
2/3 cup heavy cream
2 tablespoons butter, room temperature
at least 2 tsps Irish whiskey

Baileys buttercream:
2 1/2 cups confections sugar
1 stick (1/2 cup or 4 ounces) unsalted butter, room temperature
at least 4 tablespoons Baileys (I used 1/4 cup)

Procedure:

Cakes:

1. Preheat to 350, line baking cups. Bring 1 cup Guinness and 1 cup butter to simmer in a large saucepan over medium heat. Once simmering, add cocoa powder and whisk until mixture is smooth. Cool while you move on.

2. Whisk dry (flour, sugar, baking soda, salt) in large bowl to blend. Have you ever just whisked sugar and flour together, rather than creaming sugar with butter? Crazy.

3. Using an electric mixer (I used handheld), blend the sour cream and eggs. Carefully add the chocolate beer mixture and mix to combine. Add flour mixture and beat on low to integrate. Use a rubber spatula to fold batter together, getting at any dry/unblended spots. Here, I transferred the batter to my 4 cup glass measure, because pouring from a spout really eases/speeds up filling the cupcake liners. Fill each about 3/4 of the way, and bake about 17 minutes. Cool on rack.

Ganache:

1. Chop up the chocolate and transfer to a heat-proof bowl. Heat up the cream to just under simmering, and pour it over the chocolate. Let sit for a minute, then stir until smooth. Add butter and whiskey. Cool.

2. You want the ganache thick but spreadable. Use a 1" cookie cutter (who has one?) or apple corer to hollow each cupcake -- be careful not to cut all the way through. Put the ganache into a piping bag (or Ziploc with the tip cut off) and fill each cupcake to the top.

Buttercream:

1. Whip the softened butter (a stand mixer helps) until very light and fluffy.

2. Add the powdered sugar a few tablespoons at a time. Deb attributes this trick (going gradually) to the Martha Stewart test kitchen; it may feel weird to add so much sugar, so slowly, to butter, and expect frosting to just happen. But happen it does. Taste as you go. When the frosting looks thick enough to spread, drizzle in the Baileys, and taste, and find your own balance between texture and flavor.

3. Ice the cupcakes. I used a wide star tip to make swirls, as pictured, and shaved a little leftover dark chocolate on top to finish.

Some people think the Guinness bakes out, but these cakes are light and moist regardless. See Deb's original post or Irene's detailed adaptation for a more nuanced account.

BEFORE I LOVED EGGS

2009-04-30T17:34:00.010-04:00

First, I've made about a million things since Earl Grey cake, mostly tests of recipes from Deb's archive. Whole wheat apple muffins (incredible), "Car bomb" cupcakes (boozier and better a day later), pear ginger coffee cake and sour cream poppyseed bundt cake (both forgettable). Even currently waiting for two and a half sticks of butter to soften, so I may join the legion of bloggers who've eulogized David Leite's nearly year-old perfect chocolate chip cookie. But I'm not in the mood to format fractions, so here follows the long-researched Chicago French Toast Round-Up.

You know those things so irresistible their presence alone necessitates indulgence? Like Blade on TNT. Fried plantains, red-velvet-and-cream-cheese cupcakes, an Old-Fashioned. And, up until this past winter, french toast. While I've recently come to the savory side of well-done (both quality and cook time) eggs, thanks to Brett's paper-thin sriracha omelets and grana padana-laced scrambles, my heart belongs to the sweets. Here, modest findings accumulated over line-braving weekends between 2006 and 2009.

1. Raspberry french toast @ Victory's Banner

Being OCD about wet ingredients and potential sog, I order the fresh raspberry sauce on the side. The bread (challah, I think) is thick-cut but light, gently sweet, and only dusted with powdered sugar. You can finish the plate without feeling like crying. It's as if the transcendental aura so adamantly performed by the servers suffuses the french toast, saving it from the saccharine density from which most other toast suffers. This is my far and away favorite french toast in the city, and possibly anywhere? (Blue Moon french toast with fresh fruit and vanilla ginger syrup, I think of you).

2. Two-cream challah french toast @ Earwax (pictured)

Not for the nascent sweet tooth: two slices of thick challah stuffed with pastry cream (think lighter than the typical éclair, with a bright sweetness) and topped with whipped cream and sliced strawberries. Yet this toast turns out an unexpected lightness (which is then challenged by my/your insistence on veggie sausage patties and potatoes). I'm usually turned off by stuffed toast since it's invariably a cream cheese sandwich (I'm looking at you, Caffe DeLuca: your banana french toast was a fucking atrocity), but this, this is different. Big enough to share but I no longer want to.

3. Sunday Brunch french toast @ M. Henry

Left ambiguous because those crazy Andersonvillains are always changing it up. I've had a surprisingly delicious brie and granny smith french toast, an ambitious-if-cloying Key Lime pie french toast, and heard stories of mascarpone and Grand Marnier. Their plain old toast (last ordered with a small platoon of strawberries crowning the top slice) is pretty great, but the inventions are worth coming early.

& now, the losers. In no particular order:

* Housemade Brioche french toast @ Hot Chocolate

There's a lot to like about Hot Chocolate: its proximity to BCBG and Nine West, their eponymous drink menu, the breakfast pastry sampler thing which really blew my hair back. The french toast, sadly, is ordinary. Even heavy. A big-ass portion on a little rectangular plate. Even Joseph gave it a miss.

* Brioche french toast @ Lula Cafe

Came here for brunch on my birthday, felt ambivalent at best toward the toast and downright hostile toward my blackberry bellini. Like Hot Chocolate, Lula seems to rest on the laurel of brioche to produce a worthy french toast. It doesn't work.

* Kitchen sink french toast @ The Bongo Room (Wicker Park)

Just kidding. It was pineapple rhubarb: "brown sugar crusted brioche on top of warm pineapple rhubarb compote topped with fresh strawberries, strawberry coulis and candied ginger gelato." All those on-top-ofs and topped-withs and I ordered the components all separate, which our impossibly likable server accommodated kindly. I can't say the isolation saved this toast - for me, too many elements, all of which tasted more like granulated sugar than fruit. I'm not wooed by most candying and crusting (see: cornflake-crusted french toast, or mortal sin; exception: M. Henry's oat-crusted toast and pancakes), but perhaps you are, like so many Chicago brunchers loyal to the Bongo Room. For me (again), their elaborate combinations evade subtlety and inspire the urge to brush teeth.

* Plain french toast @ Bite

Bite, I love your dinner specials, your buffalo tofu and your homemade desserts. I think you are the perfect casual date restaurant and I've reconciled myself with your oppressively policed "Close the door before you open the second door!" policy. However, your french toast is totally regular diner french toast: two slices of nondescript bread that tastes only like bread and comes with not-for-real syrup and sometimes fruit. It's fine, but I'm glad I eat eggs now.

I can't remember the toast at Milk & Honey. I haven't been to Toast or Yolk. I watched my fellow french toast loving friend Chase eat some pretty insipid looking stuff at Nookie's Too (and my "spring" frittata was garbage). I've only enjoyed a single stolen bite of the chai french toast at Orange, but am happy to join any takers in giving them a fair shot. Even higher on my to-eat is Sweets & Savories.

EARL GREY CAKE w/ KUMQUAT MARMALADE and ALMOND BUTTERCREAM

2009-04-19T12:34:00.010-04:00

Me: What would you like for dessert? Any requests?

Raechel, blowing in from Palo Alto for all of 48 hours: Obviously anything is fine, but if you're up for trying something new, can you make an earl grey tea cake? I've never had one but it just sounds like it should be good?

If you're coming to visit me, particularly in South Bend, you get a dessert. Ingredient of your choosing. That's my way of purposing what would otherwise be (and often is) entire cakes/pies/tarts for myself (minus about four bites for Brett, unless it's lemon-based), and getting some direction (it's not easy for an obsessive-compulsive to privilege one recipe over another, or branch out when certain flavor profiles consistently satisfy). Which, speaking of, I can't wait to try the car bomb cupcakes featured at smitten kitchen, spotless and navigable home of indexed cake recipes & my new porn.

Anyway.

Earl grey cake: this recipe comes to me/us from Roopa at her dessert & vegetarian resource raspberry eggplant, and as I wrote her in a borderline sycophantic email, it's not only inspired flavor-wise but wonderfully user-friendly, right down to the suggested time tables and upright mixer settings. Both unusual and accessible, this layer cake comes together stresslessly and yet is special enough to produce the appropriate levels of triumph (baker) and desire (eaters). I am, consequently, rabid for perfect layer cakes, of which I can confidently say this is one.

Adapted from raspberry eggplant, Jan. 30 2008.

Ingredients:

Equipment: Two 8" (Roopa used 9, but 8 worked great) cake pans, stand mixer (if not for cakes, then for frosting). Optional but useful: candy thermometer.

Cake:
8 bags of Earl Grey tea (I used Twinings)
1 1/3 cups whole milk
6 large egg whites, room temperature
2 tsps vodka
¾ tsp vanilla extract
¼ tsp almond extract
2 ¼ cups cake flour, sifted, plus 2 tablespoons for the pans*
1 ¾ cups granulated sugar
4 tsps baking powder
1 tsp salt
12 tbsps (1 ½ sticks) unsalted butter, cut into teaspoon-sized chunks, room temperature

* In lieu of cake flour, I put 2 tbsps of corn starch in the cup and filled the rest with all-purpose. Kind of eyeballed the remaining ¼ cup.

Kumquat marmalade:
8 ounces (2 cups) of kumquats
½ cup sugar
½ cup water

Buttercream:
4 egg whites
¾ cup + 3 tbsps sugar
2 ½ sticks (10 ounces) unsalted butter, cut into small chunks, room temperature
½ tsp almond extract

Procedure:

Cakes:

1. Set an oven rack in the middle position. Preheat to 350. Spray/butter the bottoms of your cake pans, line greased bottoms with parchment paper (do this) and re-grease, dusting with flour.

2. Cut open 4 of the tea bags and pour their contents into a small bowl. Bring ½ cup of the milk to a strong simmer (scald, don't boil). Pour the hot milk over the tea and let it steep for 5ish minutes. Pour the milk and tea mixture into a fine mesh sieve and strain the milk into a small bowl, pressing on the tea leaves to extract all of the milk. Pour the tea-infused milk into a measuring cup and pour in the remaining milk to make 1 cup. You may not need all of the remaining milk.

2a. If your tea is coarse, pour the contents of the remaining 4 tea bags into a clean spice grinder and grind the leaves to a fine powder. Since Twinings is already fine, I just jabbed at it with my mortar.

3. Using a fork, mix the milk, egg whites, vodka, and extracts together in a bowl and set it aside. These are your wet ingredients.

4. Sift the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, and ground tea into the bowl of a standing mixer or a large bowl. Using the paddle attachment, mix the dry ingredients together on the lowest speed for 5 seconds. (If using a handheld mixer, stir the dry ingredients with a large spoon.) Add the butter and increase the speed to 2 or mix on low speed of a handheld mixer. Mix until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Note: I found these instructions right on, in terms of times and settings.

5. Add all but ½ cup of the wet ingredients and mix at medium speed (6 on a stand mixer) for 1 ½ minutes. Add the remaining ¼ cup and mix for another 30 seconds. Scrape down the sides and mix for another 20 seconds.

6. Divide the batter evenly between the two pans and spread it out to the walls and smooth out the tops. Bang the pans against the counter a few times to even out the batter.

Arrange the pans on the oven rack so that there is at least 3 inches of space around each pan. (This allows for proper air circulation and even baking.) Bake for 23-25 minutes; a toothpick should come out clean.

Let the cakes cool in the pans for 5 minutes, then invert them onto a plane and then onto a cooling rack. Let the cakes cool completely before assembling.

Marmalade:
1. Wash and dry the kumquats. Cut them into thin slices (no thicker than 1/8”) and remove all seeds. This will take forever unless you have mad knife skills. Be careful.

2. Bring the sugar and water to a boil in a small saucepan. Boil for 2 minutes, then add the sliced kumquats. When the mixture starts to bubble, reduce the heat to medium and cook until the kumquats are very tender and the mixture is thick, about 20-25 minutes.

3. Strain the mixture over a bowl, pressing on the kumquats to release the syrupy juice. Reserve the kumquats in a bowl and return the syrup to the pan. Cook on medium low until it's reduced by half, about 10-12 minutes. Add the reduced syrup to the kumquats and stir well to combine. Let the marmalade cool completely. You can slow cook the syrup awhile, it'll smell incredible, assuring you you're doing it right. If it doesn't look congealed enough, it should be glossy and spreadable once it's cooled.

Buttercream:
1. Add the room temp. egg whites and sugar to the bowl of a standing mixer. Put 1-2” of water in a small saucepan and bring it to a boil. Reduce the heat so that the water simmers. Put the mixer bowl on top of the saucepan and whisk the egg whites and sugar until all of the sugar has dissolved, the mixture becomes opaque, and the temperature reaches about 110 F. (If you don't have a thermometer, make sure that all the sugar is dissolved and that the mixture is very warm – this will take about 3-4 minutes.)

2. Put the bowl on the mixer and, using the whisk attachment, whip the whites for 8 minutes on high speed (mixer speed 10). They whites will be very thick and glossy and the bowl should be completely cool the touch. If the bowl is not cool, continue beating until it is.

3. With the mixer running on high, add the butter to the bowl one piece at a time, waiting until each piece is incorporated before adding the next. After all the butter has been added, continue beating until the mixture becomes very thick and smooth and looks like frosting. Here, as the meringue kind of deflates, it may look very weird before it looks very good.

4. Add the almond extract and mix on medium speed for 10 seconds to fully incorporate. Switch to the paddle attachment and beat briefly on low to remove air bubbles from the frosting.

To assemble, level the completely cool cakes with a serrated knife. Flip the lower layer so it's flat bottom is now the top (where you'll spread the filling). Spread the cool kumquat marmalade all over this lower layer. Top with upper layer. If you're going to decoratively pipe on the cake, reserve about ¾ cup of the buttercream frosting (and if you don't have pastry bags, look at this handy tutorial to Macgyver one from parchment).

You want to start frosting by applying a crumb coat, or a thin, uniform coat of not very much frosting at all that holds in the cake's crumbs and provides an even surface for the pretty coat. Once the crumb coat is applied, put the whole cake in the fridge until the crumb coat is fairly hard...

...at which point, you'll apply the rest of the buttercream with your Wilton spatula, decorate with reserved frosting and whatever else (I'm a piping greenhorn. I did some primitive stars around the cake's border and used a round cookie-cutter to create circles of ground almonds, only to elicit Raechel's excitement for "Mickey Mouse.").

This cake keeps extremely well, refrigerated overnight and removed to come to room temperature - the buttercream should be slightly softened - before serving. And finally, what it actually tastes like, lest the ingredients fail to sell themselves: whether or not you like tea, this cake is moist, textured, fragrant. Herbal. Subtly citrusy, thanks to Earl Grey's bergamot, which marries smoothly with the marmalade, the foil for which is the rich, nutty buttercream. If you've ever enjoyed a vacuumed-sealed plastic cup (or subsisted through college on iced coffee with almond), this entire cake - but particularly its frosting - will smack of bubble tea. Bubble tea! No greater evocation.

MEYER LEMON TART w/ ALMOND CRUST

2009-03-26T15:37:00.003-04:00

When Brett and I started dating over a year ago, I became obsessed with training him to respect dessert. Something he and my mom have in common: for them, dessert is take-or-leave, never exceeding once a day, and preferably citrus. I've made permutations on lemon layer cake, lemon shortbread bars, a pretty handsome lemon-marbled cheesecake, but this tart from Gourmet's May 2008 "Cooking Vacations" is hands-down the shit. Top with raspberries, as here, or blackberries (even better), whatever's 2 for $5.

The magazine (which credits the original recipe to Rosa Jackson @ Les Petits Farcis) writes, start to finish, 4 hours. Perfect to make in the morning, anticipating dinner.

Adapted from Gourmet, May 2008.

Ingredients:

Equipment: 9" round tart pan with removable bottom, food processor.

Dough:

4 tbsps almonds with skins, toasted and cooled

1 and 1/2 cups flour

1/2 cup confectioners sugar

pinch of fine sea or kosher salt

1 stick cold unsalted butter, cut into 1/2" cubes

2 large egg yolks

6+ tbsps fruity olive oil*

*They write, "preferably French." I use Meijer's organic mild oil. Also, the original recipe calls for half as much dough, but trusty reader reviews convinced me to make double, and the proportion is exactly right.

Filling:

3 large lemons (or, a small bag of Meyer lemons and 1-2 regulars)

3/4 cup granulated sugar

2 tsps cornstarch

2 whole large eggs + 2 large yolks

1/2 stick unsalted butter, cut into 1/2" cubes

2 tbsps of the same olive oil as above

Procedure:

1. To toast the almonds: arrange in a shallow pan, bake @ 350 degrees until golden and fragrant, 5-10 mins.

2. Once almonds are cool, pulse to a fine powder in the processor. Add flour, sugar, and salt; pulse to integrate. Add the cold butter and pulse until mixture resembles coarse meal. Notes: To cube butter, I like to slice a stick along the long side, flip and slice the same way, and then make evenly spaced perpendicular cuts. Then I put the cut-up stick (still on its paper) back in the fridge to re-chill. Also, with a crust like this, avoid overprocessing - some small butter lumps are okay in the "course meal" stage, as they'll expand and get flaky delicious.

3. Add egg yolk and oil (one tbsp at a time) and pulse until a soft, just-blended dough is formed. For similar doughs, you can pinch a bit between your fingers and see that it sticks. Spread dough evenly over the bottom and up side of the pan - this step takes me awhile, but it's worth it. Try doing the bottom first, then pressing dough up beyond the edges and carefully trimming them off with a knife or rolling pin. Chill the dough in the bottom of your fridge, uncovered, until very firm. This prevents shrinking once it's baked. While the dough's chilling, you can preheat your oven to 425, rack in the middle (so rarely does it leave the middle).

4. Bake your tart shell until golden brown all over, about 13 mins. Transfer to a rack to cool completely.

5. While it's cooling (or you could do this while it's chilling/baking), grate enough zest to measure 2-3 tbsps, and squeeze enough juice to measure 3/4 cup. The curd tastes a little sweeter and slightly more complex with Meyer lemons, since they're nice and sweet. You can add a little bit of orange juice to regular lemon juice for a similar effect? I've never tried that but imagine so.

6. In a medium saucepan over medium heat, whisk together the lemon zest, juice, sugar, cornstarch, whole eggs, and yolks, bringing to a strong simmer, just under a boil, whisking constantly. This curd is crazy simple but can boil suddenly, cooking the eggs (unsightly egg curd!) and creating craters of blistering curd, which hurts. So whisk and watch. Let it thicken and get glossy, about 2 minutes at its highest heat.

7. Remove from heat and whisk in the butter and olive oil until smooth. If you do have cooked egg bits, strain them out. To assemble, simply pour the curd into the cooled shell and chill 2-4 hours, until set.

You'd be surprised how easily this tart comes together. The product: rich crust offset by truly tangy curd, crowned with natural sweetness; I've witnessed a self-proclaimed slave to cream sauce (not you, Steven) exalt this over flourless chocolate cake.

CINNAMON ROLLS w/ CREAM CHEESE FROSTING

2009-03-25T17:07:00.001-04:00

Oh am I a sucker for cinnamon rolls. See: years of patronizing airport Cinnabons, or my first year at Lula's, before they altered (irrevocably) their recipe. This formula is everything one could hope for: fluffy, sweet but not cloying dough, ribbons of cinnamon sugar paste - and more so for one who's never worked with yeast, but fortunately owns a stand mixer with a paddle attachment.

Adapted from Bon Appetit, March 2008.

Ingredients:

Dough:

1 cup whole milk

3 tbsps unsalted butter

3 and 1/2 cups unbleached ap flour, divided

1/2 cup sugar

1 large egg

2 and 1/4 tsps rapid rise yeast

1 tsp salt

Filling:

unsalted butter, room temperature

golden brown sugar

good cinnamon (I use Vietnamese, from my farmer's market)

Frosting:

cream or neufchatel cheese

powdered sugar

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

optionally, I like 1/2-1 tsp of Kahlua

Procedure:

1. Combine milk and butter in a glass measuring cup. Microwave until butter melts. Pour into bowl of stand mixer (can you do this in a regular stainless steel bowl with a hand mixer? potentially, I imagine), and add 1 cup flour (sift first), sugar, egg, yeast, and salt. Note: I just measure and add the yeast dry. Some googling led me to believe that the warm milk allows for the yeast to expand as is, so dissolving into water first isn't truly necessary.

2. Beat low (setting 2-4) with paddle attachment for 3 mins, occasionally scraping the bowl. Add 2 and 1/2 cups flour. Beat on low until the flour is absorbed and the dough is sticky; if the dough is super sticky, add flour by the tablespoon until it pulls from the sides of the bowl, forming a cohesive clump. However you imagine bread dough to look, this is what you're looking for.

3. Turn dough out on lightly floured surface, and knead until smooth and elastic. Form the dough into a ball or lump, and transfer to a large, nonstick-sprayed bowl. Gently turn the dough lump to coat. Cover with plastic wrap and a dishtowel. Now, the thrill: let the dough rise in a warm, draft-free area until doubled in size. 2 hours on the counter, or less in a 150 degree oven, or even on a burner of a recently-off oven.

4. Toward the end of the rise, make your filling. I don't include measurements here because it's really subjective: you're adding cinnamon and sugar to softened butter to make a paste that you'll spread across the dough. Make enough for maximum ooze, once rolled and baked. I like a higher cinnamon-to-sugar ratio, but that's me.

5. Ok, dough completes its 1st rise. Punch it down, remove from bowl, transfer back to freshly floured work surface. Gently roll the dough out to a 15x11-ish inch rectangle. Spread filling over dough, leaving a 1/2-inch border. Starting at one long side, roll the dough (carefully!) into a log, keeping the roll as tight as possible. With the seam side down, slice the log into 1/2 to 3/4 inch slices - the best way to do this without damaging the integrity of (i.e. razing down) the roll, is to slip a long piece of thread until the log, and pull the two slack ends toward and past each other, so that the dough is cut as they cross. I think Buffy decapitated a vampire like this once.

6. Spray your container (I use a pyrex casserole dish) with nonstick, and set the rolls down cut side up. Cover with plastic and towel again. Note: at this point, you can refrigerate the dish(es) overnight, removing them in the a.m. for the final rise and bake. Impress brunch company. Or, if you're into consecutive steps, let the dough re-double another 45 mins. I've made these both ways (straight through & pausing overnight) and they're fucking amazing either way.

7. Position rack in the center of the oven and preheat to 375. Bake rolls until tops are golden, anywhere from 13-20 mins. My oven takes about 18 mins with no threat of the tops burning, but some reviewers of this recipe prefer to cover the rolls with foil for the last 5.

8. Make frosting. Combine ingredients to your liking, whether it's one large, refrigeratable batch or as-you-eat.

These rolls don't require frosting to be delicious, and are pretty great microwaved for about 2 days after. Not that they'll last that long.