Break Time

I know you're expecting a food post but it's just not going to happen today or for the next few days.  Things around here have been crazy busy with making cakes for parties and lots of visitors.  I have a lot to tell you about... spinach turkey meatloaf, peanut butter pretzel brownies, lemon poppy seed muffins and frosting cups to name a few... but I just don't have time to write about it right now.  Why?  Because I have another big event I'm baking for right now.  Remember Ball Week?  My dear friend is getting married this week and I have to make 400 balls for the wedding so all writing is on hold while I mix, roll and dip until I can't dip anymore.

Don't worry... I'll be back soon with more goodies.

Love ya!
Julie

I Love Lucy Cupcakes

I love it when hard work pays off.  I stressed quite a bit about these cupcakes but all the hard work and cake tests paid off because everyone at the party raved about the cupcakes.  Yeah for me!

My cousin (not the one who just graduated from Medical School - we had her party yesterday, remember?  I'm talking about her sister) is having a baby girl in July.  There's just so much to celebrate and you can't celebrate without cake.  Three kinds of cake to be exact.

When I asked what cake and icing flavors the future mama liked I got a list that went like this.  "No chocolate (cake or icing).  She does like vanilla, peanut butter, strawberry cake, cream cheese, butter cream, raspberry, Oreo, carrot cake...."  I would normally have attributed this kind of a list to the fact that she was pregnant but I know my cousin and how much she loves cupcakes so I was pretty sure I would have gotten the same list even if she wasn't preggo.  I tried my best to incorporate as many of these flavors into her desserts as possible and I think I did pretty well.

The theme of the baby shower was I Love Lucy so it was pink hearts all the way!  Please allow me to show you all the love...

The first cupcake was an Oreo Cupcake with Oreo Cream Cheese Frosting.  The link will lead you to the original post about these cupcakes and the recipes.  I used Cupcake recipe #2 and the Cream Cheese Frosting recipe.

For the toppers, I cut out fondant hearts in two sizes which was a super easy way to decorate these guys.

The second cupcake was Carrot Cake with Maple Cream Cheese Frosting.  Oddly enough, finding a carrot cake recipe that I liked was the hardest thing to do... it took me 4 recipe tests to get to these and I really like them.  Plus, they're not ugly like most carrot cake.  I will absolutely never make carrot cake again without this frosting - it's just that good.

These cupcakes are donned with sugar hearts.  They're basically colored sugar pressed into cubes.  I used this tutorial which was really easy to follow - I highly recommend it and since you're using cookie cutters to make the shapes you could make them in any shape you want.

My person opinion is that the third cupcake was the best.  It was the most interesting flavor combination with strawberry cake, peanut butter mousse filling and strawberry rose frosting.  (If you're looking for the recipes on the links, I used Cake #3 and Mousse #1) The combo may sound a bit strange but peanut butter and strawberries go together so perfectly!

Since the strawberry frosting on these was already pink, I just used pink heart sprinkles to decorate these guys... super easy!

Image stolen from my cousin because she's a better photographer than me, by far!

I will absolutely be keeping all three of these cupcakes in my repertoire - they were great and everyone had good things to say about them.  Plus the glowing mother to be loved each one of them and that's what matters most.

Julie

Blue Hombre Daisy Graduation Cake

I accidentally made a wedding cake.  Well, it didn't look like a wedding cake but it was certainly as big as a wedding cake.  No joke, this thing was super tall.  It was supposed to feed 45 people but it easily would have served 80 as we barely even touched the bottom tier. 

I figured that because I only have 9", 8" and 6" pans that I definitely needed three tiers to feed everyone.  What I neglected to do was to adjust the amount of batter I made so each of the three layers in each of the three tiers was pretty thick - hence the skyscraping cake.

No one got married to deserve this cake (and who says you can only have a ginormous, multi-tiered cake on your wedding day anyway?) - the person who received this cake worked much harder than a bride, she graduated from medical school.  My sweet cousin worked her precious little tail off to become a Doctor so as far as I'm concerned she deserved the tallest cake I could make.  Let's consider it a deposit for all the free medical advice I'll be receiving in the future.

This cake is the benefactor of some of the cake testing I conducted a few weeks ago - the white cake to be precise.  What I didn't test at the time was making the cake hombre (you know, different colors inside) but, to my delight the coloring came out really well.  Although, I did learn that the cakes bake much darker than they look in batter form which I will note for future reference.  I was a little worried that the darkest layer was a bit smurfy, but in the end it turned out OK.

There was another surprise lurking inside this cake (besides the unforeseen blue when you cut into it) and that is champagne.  Using champagne buttercream to frost the cake was a total no-brainer because you must toast a graduate - it's the rules.  Plus, my cousin is a big wine fan... she gets it from me.

I covered the whole thing in white fondant and cut flowers out of the remaining fondant in varying shades of blue which was a hint to what awaits inside.

It had been a while since since I'd worked with fondant so there were some minor issues with cracking, but luckily I could cover those all up with strategically placed flowers.  All in all, I'm pretty darn pleased with how this cake turned out.  Plus, the graduate liked it so that's all that matters!

The vanilla cake recipe can be found here.

Champagne Buttercream

Ingredients
3 1/2 cups Powdered Sugar
1 cup Butter, at room temperature
1/2 tsp Vanilla Extract
3 1/2 T Sweet Champagne

Instructions
On medium speed, beat the sugar and butter together in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with paddle attachment until light and fluffy (about 3 minutes).  Add the vanilla and champagne and beat on medium speed for another minute.

Enjoy!
Julie

Decorated Sugar Cookies

Somebody pinch me, I can't believe this really happened!  Someone actually paid me money to bake something... seriously.  I'm totally over the moon because someday I will get to bake and plan parties and entertain all the time and not have to commute to work and sit in front of a computer anymore (except to blog of course, I wouldn't leave you people all alone, I know how much you need me.)

A lovely lady asked me to make sugar cookies for a baby shower.  The cutestest part is that the cookies are in the shape of neck ties... for a little baby boy shower.  A-D-O-R-A-B-L-E.  Have I told you how much I love showers?  They're my favorite kind of parties because they are all about presents and dessert... two of my favorite things.

The colors on the invitation were white, green and blue which so I made sure the cookies matched perfectly with the theme.  I lined each of cookies with royal icing and flooded it with the same color to create a clean background for each tie.  Then came the fun/stressful part.

Why is it also stressful?  Because someone is paying me money for these so they can't suck.  It's one thing to make something for yourself that's no good.  It's kind of OK to give away things that aren't perfect (CA's coworkers get a 90% of the treats I reject for being ugly - but only if they still taste good).  However, it is completely unacceptable to take money for something that's ugly or tastes like crap.  Period.

I had no doubts that these would taste good.  I've used these recipes for sugar cookies and royal icing countless times and they are foolproof.  I was a little stressed about the designs, I wanted them to be cute and colorful and look like actual ties.  I don't think I hit the nail on the head as far as tie accuracy.  About halfway through decorating CA asked if I wanted him to bring all his ties down so I could look at the designs but I declined.  He also felt compelled to point out that the design on the knot of the tie shouldn't be oriented in the same direction as the design on the bottom.  Thanks for your input babe (insert sarcasm face here). Whatever, I think they're pretty darn cute and my client was happy too.

Sugar Cookies
makes approximately 30 large cookies

Ingredients
1 1/2 cups Butter, softened
2 cups Sugar
4 Eggs
2 tsp Vanilla Extract
5 cups All-purpose Flour
2 tsp Baking Powder
1 tsp Salt
1/4 tsp Cream of Tartar

Instructions

In a medium bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder, salt and cream of tartar.

In a stand mixer with the paddle attachment, cream the butter with the sugar, beating on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes.  Add the eggs and vanilla and mix on low speed until combined.  Add the flour mixture and mix on low speed until just combined.

Refrigerate the dough for at least an hour until chilled (it can be chilled overnight as well).

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Roll out the dough to a 1/4 inch thickness and cut into a desired shape.  Bake for 8-10 minutes until set and barely golden brown.  Allow the cookies to cool completely before decorating.

Royal Icing

Ingredients
3 egg whites

1/4 tsp Cream of Tartar

4 cups (1/2 lb) Powdered Sugar
Instructions

Add the egg whites and cream of tartar to the bowl of a stand mixer with the whisk attachment.  Whisk on medium speed until the egg whites are foamy.  Add the powdered sugar and mix on low speed until combined.  Turn the mixer up to high speed and beat until the icing is smooth and shiny, about 3 minutes.

Color the icing with gel food coloring, if desired.  Use the icing to trace outlines and decorations on the sugar cookies.  To fill the cookies, thin out the icing by adding water 1/4 tsp at a time.  (I find this tutorial to be very helpful).  Let the cookies dry completely.

Enjoy!
Julie

Baking Bouchon - Recipe 37: Caramels

These taste way better than those Kraft caramels and I even like those.  Today I decided that pretty isn't everything.  I like to go back and forth between the theory that pretty matters and that sometimes it doesn't. (In food, people.  I am not having a debate about whether pretty matters in people.  Sheesh, this isn't a real blog about real issues so don't get on my case.)  I've decided that whether pretty matters depends on two things.

1.  How good it tastes.  The better it tastes the less pretty matters.
2.  Who's eating it.  The better I know the people eating it the less pretty matters.  Strangers are way judgier.

So, that's my theory on pretty.  For today, anyway.

So these caramels didn't turn out to be the prettiest things in the world but man, were they tasty.  I always knew that caramels had cream in them - that's what takes the cooked sugar, which would otherwise be hard - like candy - and makes it soft - like caramel.  I didn't know you could substitute different stuff for the cream - like creme fraiche (and technically, a little sour cream because I didn't have enough creme fraiche).  I don't know what it did to the caramels exactly - I guess I'd have to make it with cream and compare it to really know, but I like to think it made an enormous different... mostly because that crap is expensive.

There's actually another weird thing in here -  glucose -  which is a type of sugar that is pretty much like corn syrup (and now I'm wondering if corn syrup would work because again... crap's expensive).  You melt that down and add granulated sugar a little at a time (which is supposed to keep it from crystallizing which it would do if you dumped it all in at once).  That gets cooked until it get crazy hot (350 degrees) and starts to turn brown, aka caramelize.  Once that happens you add butter and then the creme fraiche which had vanilla beans scraped into it.  It bubbles like mad and the temperature drops pretty significantly so you keep cooking it until it reaches 242 degrees which is pretty much soft candy stage.  You would think that all that cooking of sugar and bubbling and craziness would be where I had some drama (because it normally is and I end up burning the sugar and having to start again) but that was not the case this time.

The drama came when I went to pour the hot caramel onto a pan to cool.  Somehow I read the instructions that said to dump it into an 8-inch square pan as dump it onto a sheet tray.  Yeah, that's more than twice the size.  I noticed very quickly that I had screwed up because there was no way the caramels were supposed to be that thin.  So, the next 2 minutes went something like this.  I shouted for help.  CA came running in.  I cursed loudly.  I grabbed a smaller sheet tray.  CA and I attempted to lift the plastic wrap off the large tray and transfer it to the small tray.  The plastic wrap melted out of CA's hands and fell onto the baking sheet.  I grabbed my 8" square pan (not sure why I didn't do that in the first place) and sprayed it with cooking spray (not ideal since the instructions said to line it with plastic wrap).  I scraped the contents of the small sheet tray into the square pan while CA held what was left of the caramel covered plastic.  I finally got all the hot caramel into the square pan.  I apologized for CA for all the drama.  He went back to watching baseball.  I breathed heavily and tried to stop sweating.  Oh yeah - and all of this has nothing to do with why the caramels aren't pretty.

The evidence - which was quickly discarded.

Luckily, after all that business, I got to rest for a little while because the caramel needed to cool before it got cut into individual caramels.

What was also lucky was that the caramels actually came out of the pan after not following the instructions and just spraying the thing with cooking spray.  It came out all in one piece and things were looking relatively promising.

Things still looked promising after I cut the caramels and did I tell you that these things taste so freakin' delicious?  Well, they are!  Plus you can see little vanilla bean specs in them which I just love.  I can't even describe to you how creamy these caramels are.  They're ridiculous.

Unfortunately, they refused to hold their shape.  I put them in a plastic container with cellophane in between them and they pretty much just flattened out and became a mass of caramel again.  I had to take them all back out and re-cut them.  I let them sit out on the counter overnight hoping they'd firm up again which they did, somewhat, but they were still super flat.  Hmmmm.  I'm not sure what happened here.  I either cut them too soon or didn't cook the caramel to quite high enough of a temperature.  I'm thinking maybe the latter because I'm sure they were room temperature when I cut them.  Oh well - these are good enough that they can be ugly.  I forgive them.

Julie

Baking Bouchon - Recipe 36: Pithiviers

What's that you said?  Actually, I've never said this word out loud because I don't know how.  It's French and I don't speak French.  It's the same reason they put numbers on the menus at some Asian restaurants and I am not ashamed to order #9.  I'm too embarrassed to try to pronounce the actual words and I appreciate the owners of these establishments saving me from myself.  That, of course, is no excuse for why I order by number at a fast food restaurant, that's just laziness. 

Pithiviers are rounds of pastry, usually puff pastry, that have filling stuffed in between.  So, basically, it's a hand pie or a mini pie or a dessert hot pocket.

This pithivier is filled with Frangipane.  Huh?  I know, another French word.  I don't know how to say that one either.  It's almond filling.  This version is almond cream mixed with pastry cream.

Luckily, I still had some puff pastry in the freezer from my puff pastry experiment so this recipe came together pretty quickly.  Unfortunately, that's the last of my stock and there are a few more recipes left in the cookbook that call for it so next time I'll have to make the pastry too.  I'll deal with that then, but for now I'm grateful I don't have to 'cause it's a lot of work.

The first step in making the frangipane was to make more pastry cream.  I've made this pastry cream three times before and each time I've made it with custard powder and each time it's been progressively more successful (as in progressively less thick and chunky).  The recipe says that you can use either custard powder or flour but I hadn't tried the flour version yet.  Mostly because I went to all the trouble of finding custard powder so I was darn well going to use it.  However, today I did not have any on hand,  so flour it is.

The difference was astounding.  The photo on the left shows today's version on the top and the previous version on the bottom.  Can you believe that's even the same thing?  It's crazy.  The flour version is significantly lighter in color and much less chunky.  In fact, I cooked the flour version significantly longer than the custard powder version and it was still much smoother.

So.... pretty much, I'm never buying custard powder again.  Never, ever, ever, ever.

To complete the frangipane I also needed to make almond cream to mix with the pastry cream.  This was actually pretty darn easy.  In fact, you don't even cook it which is weird because it has eggs in it.  However, since it's going to get cooked inside of the pastry, I'm not concerned about it.

The almond cream contains butter that is whipped up with powdered sugar, thickened with flour and almond meal and bound together with eggs.  It came together super quickly which is a nice change of pace.  Some of the fillings in this cookbook are awfully complicated, have crazy ingredients and take forever to make. 

Composing the frangipane is as easy as stirring together the pastry cream and the almond cream.  That's it.  This filling is pretty tasty, especially if you like almonds.  CA is a huge almond fan so I was quite hopeful that he'd like this one.  I like almonds too, and I liked the filling, but it ain't no diplomat cream, which is still the best filling on the planet.

The recipe calls for making one huge pithivier but anytime I make a big old dessert, CA and I have a terribly difficult time eating it all.  I much prefer giving desserts away and it's much harder to give away slices of something than it is to give away individual items.  For that reason, I decided to make these in 3 1/2 inch pastries instead of one big 9 inch pastry.

Each round gets a healthy swirl of frangipane and a lid.  Each pastry gets a bunch of slits along the side which is not only pretty, but it's also supposed to keep the two pieces of pastry from separating while they are baked.  A little bit of egg wash makes the pastries bake up nice and brown.  Finally, each pastry gets a little design etched into the top of it that becomes far more prominent as the pastry bakes and puffs.

These little girls are quite pretty.  They puffed up so nicely and turned a beautiful, golden brown.  I like to think of them as statuesque.  Unfortunately, they weren't all perfect specimens.

Some of them got all leaning tower of Pisa on me.  I guess I didn't line up the top and bottom pastries very well which caused them to topple.

In addition, I got totally freaked out by the puddle of butter that ended up on the bottom of the pan.  (Do you see that business all over the baking sheet up there?  It was positively liquidy.)  To be honest, it was quite off putting... for about a minute.  Then I forgot about it and ate it anyway.

These little girls are pretty yummy.  They're not super sweet.  The pastry is light and flaky and the frangipane kind of melts into the pastry.  CA loved them and said they'd be perfect for a brunch because it's kind of like having an almond croissant.  I told him that almond croissants were much later in the cookbook and he had to wait.

Julie

Carrot Cake Redemption

I couldn't let it go.  I made all those carrot cakes last week and they were all terrible and hideous.  However, I am not a quitter and it's just carrot cake, not rocket science.

I was flipping through my Williams-Sonoma Cake cookbook the other day and took the time to more closely read the recipe for Carrot Cake.  When I was on my quest to find recipes for the carrot cake comparison, I considered this one but the ingredients didn't look any different so I ignored it.

Upon closer examination, I realized that this recipe is totally different from all the others.  Instead of shredding carrots and mixing them into the batter, you cook the carrots, mash them up and mix that into the batter.  The process reminds me of pumpkin cake or even banana bread and I've always had great success with both of those.

I was intrigued and had to try it immediately.  It didn't have any big carrots on hand - which I usually prefer to use in baking - but I had some baby ones so I whipped these puppies up.

Why have I never thought of this before?  Why haven't I seen a million recipes like this?  Am I just missing them?

There's nothing else strange about the batter - it's got flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, eggs, brown sugar, milk and melted butter.  I like the idea of brown sugar in cake, particularly one that has spice to it.  I also am SO glad there's no oil in this cake.  The cake probably could have taken it, but after last time, I couldn't.  The original recipe also has walnuts and currants in it, but I wanted pure carrot cake, so I left them out.


First you boil the carrots, drain them and mash them in the food processor.  Next, stir together the eggs and sugar, add the milk and butter, then add the dry ingredients and finally the carrot puree.

To me, the batter looks exactly like pumpkin muffins, which it should because it's pretty much the same thing.

These look perfect - no sunken centers or oily residue on the bottom of the cupcake.  Thank God!

They taste great and are super moist.  I might cut back on the spice just a little bit - but only in the summer.  In the winter these would have the perfect amount of spice.  I would also ice them with maple cream cheese frosting.  Obviously. 





Since these were so successful, I'm sharing the recipe below.  I left out the walnuts and currants but you're welcome to add them back in if you want to. 

Carrot Cake
adapted from Williams-Sonoma
makes approx. 18 cupcakes

Ingredients
3/4 lb Carrots
1 1/4 cups All Purpose Flour
2 tsp Baking Powder
1/2 tsp Baking Soda
1/2 tsp Salt
1 tsp Cinnamon
1/2 tsp Nutmeg
2 Eggs
1 1/3 cups Light Brown Sugar
1/2 cup Whole Milk
1/2 cup Unsalted Butter, melted
1/2 cup Currants (optional)
3/4 cup Walnuts, toasted (optional)

Instructions
Peel the carrots and cut into 1 inch pieces.  Place the carrots in a medium saucepan and cover with water.  Cook for 15 minutes or until tender.  Drain and let cool.  Puree the carrots in a food processor.  You should have about 1 cup of carrot puree.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Line the cups of the cupcake tin with paper liners or spray with non-stick spray.

Sift the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg together onto a sheet of waxed or parchment paper.  Set aside.

In a large bowl, whisk together the eggs and brown sugar until well combined.  Whisk in the milk and melted butter.  Whisk in the dry ingredients and then the carrot puree.  Using a large rubber spatula, stir in the walnuts and currants (if using).

Scoop the batter into the prepared muffin tins, filling 3/4 full.  Bake for 15-20 minutes until a tootpick inserted into the center comes out clean.  Let cool in the pan for 5 minutes, then remove the cupcakes to a wire rack to cool completely.

Ice cupcakes with maple cream cheese frosting or your favorite cream cheese frosting.

You can also cook this in a 8" square pan and bake for 45-50 minutes.

Enjoy!
Julie

Baking Bouchon - Recipe 35: Cranberry-Currant Batard

Bread is back!  Unfortunately, someone got the brilliant idea to put dried fruit in it.  I guess it's not terrible, in fact, I kind of liked it.  Maybe I'm getting used to this modified fruit business.

The most important thing about getting ready to make this bread was to revive my levain.  I originally made this levain (basically a bread starter) for the Campagne Boule and instead of continuing to feed it for weeks between making bread, I stuck it in the refrigerator.  Apparently you can keep it there to sleep forever and then just take it out and feed it for a couple of days to wake it up again.

The dough comes together pretty easily with all purpose, rye and whole wheat flours, yeast, levain, water and salt.  Once that gets kneaded for a while you mix in the cranberries and currants.

These guys rose up really well!  After a couple of hours they were pretty huge.  Unfortunately when I transferred them to the oven they deflated a little so the loaves weren't quite as puffy as I'd hoped.

The bread baked up nice and golden brown but I had one minor issue.  One of the loaves of dough stuck to the board when I was transferring it to the oven so it got a little bent.  A lot bent.  It looked kind of like a candy cane.

I mentioned this fact to CA and he said "Oh, I thought you did that on purpose."  I'm not sure who is making candy cane shaped bread out there, but CA will apparently buy it from you.

My biggest complaint is that the crust on this bread wasn't as crispy as I would have liked.  If you remember, this cookbook uses a method of generating steam in the oven right when you put the bread in that involves heating rocks and metal chains and spraying them with water.  The steam is supposed to make the crust crispier.  Instead of using the water gun like I usually do, I took a pitcher and dumped all the water in very quickly which generated a lot of steam and made me super optimistic that the crust would be really crispy.  It just wasn't.  Maybe this whole steam thing is a myth.

The bread turned out OK, all things considered.  Yes, it had dried fruit in it, but I'm over it.  Yes, it's crooked, but I'm cool with that too.  Yes, the crust wasn't crusty enough, but whatever.  It still tasted good.  Plus, I put butter on it and that makes everything better.

Julie