Tag Archives: BakingKick up the traditional brownie with an ultra creamy cheesecake topping.
It is that time again, time for Tuesdays With Dorie (TWD) and Melissa of Life in a Peanut Shell, is our hostess this week. Melissa must have known that I needed the perfect dessert for us to bring to a BBQ last weekend when she picked Dorie’s Espresso Cheesecake Brownie. When I pulled up the September schedule Saturday morning, I was thrilled to see what was pick for the week. I have always loved brownies with a cheesecake topping but these were double the fun. The cheesecake was flavored with espresso and then topped with a creamy topping made of sour cream and sugar. These brownies are sure to please even the most discriminating group! Be sure to pour yourself a big glass of milk and head over to the TWD blogroll to indulge even further. Recipe: Espresso Cheesecake Brownies 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.
“The Dobos Torta is a five-layer sponge cake, filled with a rich chocolate buttercream and topped with thin wedges of caramel. (You may come across recipes which have anywhere between six and 12 layers of cake; there are numerous family variations!) It was invented in 1885 by József C. Dobos, a Hungarian baker, and it rapidly became famous throughout Europe for both its extraordinary taste and its keeping properties. The recipe was a secret until Dobos retired in 1906 and gave the recipe to the Budapest Confectioners’ and Gingerbread Makers’ Chamber of Industry, providing that every member of the chamber can use it freely.” quoted from the Daring Baker’s Forum. The recipe is fairly easy. The sponge cake was very simple to make and came out very light and springy. I decided to make individual tortes so I cut the cake into 24 small circles. The butter-cream was also very light but I was very disappointed as I used a very dark chocolate and it came out very light in color, this was not what I had wanted. The topping to the torte is a caramel topping that is made with lemon juice, I used orange with a touch of cardamon added. The topping was suppose to be some sponge cake that was drizzled with the caramel topping, I was not sure about this, so I practiced on some extra pieces of sponge cake. I was glad I did as I thought the caramel would make the cake too chewy. Instead, I attempted to spin the caramel into “spun sugar”, which ended up being a very fun process and I spent a good part of the afternoon spinning away! The end result was light and very flavorful dessert. I would make this again, but I would try to use a different butter-cream as I would have preferred it to have a much darker look and taste. A big thank you to Angela and Lorraine for being our wonderful hostesses this month and for picking a great challenge. Be sure to check out the Daring Bakers blogroll for more tortes as well as Food Wishes to see what else we had for dinner that night! Recipe: Dobos Torte Equipment
Prep times
Sponge cake layers
Chocolate Buttercream
Caramel topping
Finishing touches
Directions for the sponge layers: NB. The sponge layers can be prepared in advance and stored interleaved with parchment and well-wrapped in the fridge overnight. 1.Position the racks in the top and centre thirds of the oven and heat to 400F (200C). 4.In another bowl, using clean beaters, beat the egg whites until soft peaks form. Gradually beat in the remaining 2/3 cup (81g) of confectioner’s (icing)sugar until the whites form stiff, shiny peaks. Using a large rubber spatula, stir about 1/4 of the beaten whites into the egg yolk mixture, then fold in the remainder, leaving a few wisps of white visible. Combine the flour and salt. Sift half the flour over the eggs, and fold in; repeat with the remaining flour. Directions for the chocolate buttercream: NB. This can be prepared in advance and kept chilled until required. 1.Prepare a double-boiler: quarter-fill a large saucepan with water and bring it to a boil. Lorraine’s note: If you’re in Winter just now your butter might not soften enough at room temperature, which leads to lumps forming in the buttercream. Male sure the butter is of a very soft texture I.e. running a knife through it will provide little resistance, before you try to beat it into the chocolate mixture. Also, if you beat the butter in while the chocolate mixture is hot you’ll end up with more of a ganache than a buttercream! Directions for the caramel topping: 1.Choose the best-looking cake layer for the caramel top. To make the caramel topping: Line a jellyroll pan with parchment paper and butter the paper. Place the reserved cake layer on the paper. Score the cake into 12 equal wedges. Lightly oil a thin, sharp knife and an offset metal spatula. Angela’s note: I recommend cutting, rather than scoring, the cake layer into wedges before covering in caramel (reform them into a round). If you have an 8” silicon round form, then I highly recommend placing the wedges in that for easy removal later and it also ensures that the caramel stays on the cake layer. Once set, use a very sharp knife to separate the wedges. Assembling the Dobos 1.Divide the buttercream into six equal parts. An easy appetizer or addition to a light meal, classic pizza dough is rolled very thin, seasoned with very fresh herbs, sea salt and a drizzle of olive oil – deliciously summer.
 A few of you may know Margaret of Away to Garden. Away to Garden is a lovely site about … gardening. Last summer she kicked off a food blogging event called Food Fest, along with Deb Puchalla. I enjoyed reading about it during the duration, unfortunately, I was only able to participate once with some outstanding corncakes. Great news, the event is back and this time there is a new crew along with MargarChez Us › Add New Post — WordPresset: Matt of Matt Bites, Diane & Todd of White on Rice Couple and Jaden of the Steamy Kitchen. The first week of Food Fest is all about herbs. I keep a couple big pots on our deck, immediately by the kitchen door, these pots are full of: chives, verbena, basil, rosemary, mint, spearmint, chocolate mint, lemon thyme and French Thyme. I use them on a daily basis. I try to only grow the herbs I use, you will hardly find many dried ones in our house. I love the way they make the kitchen smell as well as how they make our food taste. This week was all about cleaning out our fridge/freezer and what I found was a tub of pizza dough in the freezer. After thawing it out, rolling it very thin, coating with some coarse cornmeal, I covered the top with lots shallots, thyme, and rosemary, finishing with a drizzle of good olive oil and sprinkle of sea salt. It baked up golden and fragrant and was a wonderful addition to a bowl full of the “perfect” scrambled eggs with chives and white truffle oil.
 Recipe: Herbed Flat Bread1 serving pizza dough coarse cornmeal handful fresh herbs, minced 2 shallots, sliced thinly olive oil, drizzle sea salt, sprinkle Heat oven to 425. Roll out pizza dough, very thinly, on a table sprinkled with cornmeal. Carefully move rolled out pizza dough to a parchment paper covered baking sheet. Sprinkle shallots, herbs and sea salt over the top, drizzle with olive oil. Bake for 8 – 10 minutes until golden and crisp. Serve. Eat. Leftover Challah is turned into moist bread pudding with the addition of ripe summer nectarines and still firm blueberries. A egg custard flavored with cardamon and vanilla makes the flavors of summer even more exotic!
Remember that Challah I made? Well, I tucked the leftovers into the freezer with the intention of turning it into bread pudding. Laudalino and I both love bread pudding, it is a nice comfortable dessert for us both. A couple years ago we got hooked on the bread pudding at Tartine Bakery, if you don’t go to Tartine for anything else, go for the bread pudding. Everyday they have a different flavor: stone-fruit, banana, currants, etc… In fact, we were going there every Sunday, for breakfast. Yes, breakfast! We would have two coffees, a pastry and a big bowl of bread pudding; we had to stop, 5 pounds later and once we realized we really could not afford these $30 bread pudding breakfasts every Sunday! I knew this extra challah would come in handy. I had some very ripe nectarines as well as some very sweet but not too soft blueberries. I toasted the challah, lightly and layered it with the fruit. Before baking, I covered the mixture with a very fragrant egg custard. I lightly pour some custard in, let the bread soak it in, and then pour more custard. I do this until all of the custard is used and the bread is well soaked. Then I slowly bake it. The end result is a very creamy egg custard bread pudding! Recipe: Nectarine and Blueberry Challah Bread Pudding1/2 loaf of challah, lightly toasted and torn into chunks 4 cups whole milk 8 eggs, cage free and organic preferred (taste better and better color) 1/3 cup dark brown sugar 2 teaspoons cardamon – or any flavoring you like 2 teaspoons vanilla 4 ripe nectarines, cut into chucks – you can use any fruit you like 2 cups blueberries Preheat oven to 350. Butter a large baking dish, I like to use a souffle dish for this recipe. Make layers of bread and fruit. Mix together the milk, eggs, sugar, cardamon and vanilla until well mixed. Pour some of the egg custard over the bread and fruit, let it soak into the bread, then pour more egg custard over. Continue doing this until all the custard is used and has soaked into the bread. Put your dish on a cookie sheet and bake for 50 – 60 minutes, until set. You may have to cover with foil if it gets to dark. Serve warm. Eat. Ciabatta is my go-to-bread for not only dipping in olive oil but for easy grilled cheese sandwiches. Cinnamon rolls are favorite breakfast treat, who does not like “candy” for breakfast!I am terribly behind on my BBA Challenge posts. I am getting ready to work on the next challenge but felt guilty jumping ahead before telling you about these two wonderful challenges. Ciabatta and Cinnamon Rolls don’t really go together but we did have the all in the same weekend. Both recipes were very simple, especially the cinnamon rolls, I was able to whip them up in an afternoon. The Ciabatta did require a little pre-planning (note to self, read recipe before getting ready to start) as the poolish and the biga need to sit overnight.
 Ciabatta normally has an open crumb texture with lots of holes. Notice the nice tight crumb of ours? I am not sure what happened? I used the poolish method and followed the instructions exactly. I felt very optimistic about this bread, that is until I began cutting it open. The flavor was delicious and as long as I just told people it was “bread”, they would have never known it was suppose to be Ciabatta. Any insight would be appreciated?? I would love to master this recipe!
 Cinnamon Buns are the ultimate breakfast treat and I decided to make them for an early morning coffee with my sister, Daniele and brother in-law, Shawn. The recipe was very easy and flowed so smoothly, no hiccups. I decided to flavor them with cardamon instead of cinnamon and a deep orange frosting – the two flavors were great together and definitely more of an “adult” cinnamon bun as the kids who tested did not care for them. I made these a couple years ago and I definitely liked the end result of that recipe better. These cinnamon buns deflated upon baking and looked more like disks. I would try them again, though, before going back to my original attempt. Lightly sweetened brioche dough is pressed into a tart pan and filled with jam and fresh plums, to make a wonderful breakfast treat.
 I was so excited to finally be the hostess for the Tuesdays with Dorie challenge. I have been a big fan of Dorie Greenspan’s must have book, Baking from My Home to Yours, since the first time I made something from it. If there is not any other baking book to own, this is it, there is everything from yeast recipes to quick and dirty cookie recipes. I have been secretly hoping for the past year that no one would pick the Brioche Plum Tart recipe as I really wanted to make it; so happy when I received the email about being the hostess this week. I love brioche. It is just one of those simple pastries that one can do so much with, from eating simply with jam to adding fruit. I was especially excited to try a tart using a yeast based dough and the addition of stone fruit made it even better. I am such a big fan of summertime stone fruits. The dough did have be made the day before as you will get better results after letting it set over night. I liked that the dough was sweeter than a traditional brioche recipe. The finished dough is filled with jam and then sliced plums. I could not find plum jam so I used a sour cherry and rhubarb jam, which gave the very sweet summer plums a nice slightly tart taste, reminded me of the candy Sweet Tarts. As well, I did not use walnuts, instead I used slightly toasted pecans. I made this tart for an early Saturday morning coffee with my sister and brother in-law and brought the remainder up to Lake Tahoe for our annual get away with our friend’s Evelyn & Will. It was a huge success with everyone, as who wouldn’t want a little dessert for breakfast! Be sure to grab a cup of coffee and check out all the other Brioche Plum Tarts over at TWD. Next, Susan of Sticky, Gooey, Creamy, Chewy will be tickling our taste buds with a Raspberry Blanc-Manger – cannot wait! Recipe: Brioche Plum Tart1 1/2 teaspoons active dry yeast 1/3 cup whole milk, just warm to the touch 2 cups all purpose flour 3 tablespoons sugar pinch of salt 5 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled 2 large eggs, at room temperature 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract about 14 ripe plums, preferably italian prune plums 2 tablespoons coarsely chopped walnuts, almonds (I used pecans) 3 tablespoons sugar 1/4 cup plum jam (I used sour cherry with rhubarb) To make brioche: Put the yeast and warm milk in the bowl of a stand mixer and stir until the yeast is dissolved. Add the rest of the ingredients to the bowl, and fit the mixer with the dough hook, if you have one. Working on low speed, mix for a minute or two, just to get the ingredients together. Increase the mixer speed to medium and beat for 7 – 10 minutes, stopping a few times to scrape down the bowl and the hook, until the dough is stretchy and fairly smooth. The dough will seem fairly thin, more like a batter than a dough, and it may not be perfectly smooth – that is fine. Transfer the dough to a clean bowl, cover with plastic wrap and leave it in a warm place until nearly doubled in size, 30 – 40 minutes. Deflate the dough by lifting it up around the edges and letting it fall with a slap into the bowl. Cover the bowl again with plastic wrap and put it in the refrigerator. Slap the dough down in the bowl every 30 minutes until it stops rising, about 2 hours. Then if you’ve got the time, leave the dough in the refrigerator overnight – it will be tastier for the wait. To Make The Tart: This tart looks prettiest when it’s made in a fluted pan. You can use either a 9-inch metal tart pan with a removable base or a porcelain baking dish, the kind sometimes called a quiche pan. Generously butter the pan. Press the chilled dough into the bottom of the pan and up the sides – don’t worry if it’s not even. Cover the pan loosely with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes. While the dough is in the refrigerator, prepare the filling. Halve and pit the plums. If you are using large plums, cut each half into 2 or 3 slices. Set aside. Toss the chopped nuts with the sugar and set aside. Remove the tart pan from the fridge and push and press the dough up the sides of the pan. Spoon the jam onto the dough and spread it over the bottom. Arrange the plums cut side down in a concentric circles covering the jam. Scatter over the nut mixture, and cover the tart lightly with a piece of plastic wrap. Place the tart on a baking sheet lined with parchment or a silicone mat and let it rest in a warm place for 30 minutes. Meanwhile, center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 425 degrees F. Uncover the tart and bake for 20 minutes. Cover it loosely with a foil tent to prevent the crust from getting too dark, and continue baking for another 10 minutes, or until the fruit juices are bubbling and the crust is firm and beautifully browned – it will sound hollow when tapped. Transfer the tart to a rack to cool for at least 45 minutes before serving. Challah also known as hallah or challot is a traditional braided bread eaten during Sabbath and other Jewish holidays. Jewish tradition, Sabbath and holiday meals begin with a blessing over four loaves of bread, two on Friday night and two on Saturday afternoon.
For week five of the Bread Bakers Apprentice Challenge, we made Challah. I love Challah and always look forward to the holiday season, when I can find it in our neighborhood bakery. Now, I am happy to say, I do not have to wait any longer. This challenge was incredibly easy and I have to say I was very impressed with how well I did (I kept yelling to Lenny to come see the “Challah”) and how the bread came out. I started the bread late in the afternoon and by bed time we had fresh baked bread for our breakfast. The recipe was very easy to follow and everything happened just as stated in the recipe, from resting times to baking times. The Challah came out golden in color, light in texture and very flavorful, not too yeasty or eggy, just perfect. If you would like to see what other Bakers from the BBA Challenge are doing be sure to check out the blogroll, wonderful things are coming out of their ovens! Following you will find some photos I took showing part of the process:
Besides eating Challah by itself, it is my choice of bread for French Toast as well as bread pudding. It soaks up the egg batter perfectly. The morning after making the Challah we used some of it to make a golden blueberry French toast and saved the rest (as we are traveling) to make bread pudding later on. I have two French Toast recipes that I love using Challah for, one of them I will share with you over the holidays but for now I will share our traditional French Toast recipe, which is perfect for an easy breakfast or brunch dish.
 Recipe: French Toast1 egg 3 tablespoons whole milk or half and half 1 teaspoon sugar, prefer raw or unrefined 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract couple grates of fresh nutmeg slices of challah 1 tablespoon butter Whisk the egg and milk in a shallow bowl. Add the sugar, vanilla and nutmeg and whisk until blended. Dip the bread slices in the challah, both sides for about 30 seconds each side. Heat the butter in a frying pan, be careful not to burn it, add the dipped bread slices and cook until golden, about 3 – 5 minutes per side. Serve. Eat. |
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