Lemon Bars with a Chocolate Twist

I've been making my lemon bars for ages now. I think I first posted about them four years ago when I started writing this blog as part of a grad school project. Now, I am well-versed in all things digital communications and I've been baking and sharing my baked goods ever since.

Lemon bars are one of my favorite things to eat, err, bake. The basic lemon bar recipe has a shortbread base and a very simple custard "filling", which makes the recipe infinitely adaptable to additional flavors and ingredients.

What can make a Lemon Bar even more decadent and wonderful? Why, chocolate of course. A simple ganache adds panache (ha!) to an already wonderful treat.

Lemon Chocolate Bars
Ingredients for shortbread
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup confectioners (powdered) sugar
pinch of salt
1/2 cup butter or shortening

Ingredients for filling
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1/3 cup fresh lemon juice
1 tsp lemon zest
2 tbsp cornstarch

Ingredients for ganache
3/4 cup semi-sweet chocolate
1/3 cup heavy cream

Pre-heat oven to 350 deg F. In a bowl, using either your fingers or an electric mixer on the lowest setting, mix together all the ingredients for the shortbread until the mixture comes together as large crumbs. Place the mixture in a 9x9 pan and press into the pan, making as even as a base as possible. Bake for 15 mins, then remove to cool.

While the crust is cooling, prepare the ganache and filling. For the ganache, heat the heavy cream until just under boiling and pour over the chocolate chips. Mix until chips have melted and the ganache is smooth. Set aside to cool completely. For the lemon filling, using an electric mixer, beat together the sugar, eggs and lemon zest until a light and lemony color. Add the lemon juice and beat well. Using a spatula, fold in the cornstarch.


When the shortbread is only slightly warm, spread the ganache over the shortbread as evenly as possible. Carefully pour over the ganache the lemon mixture - don't worry if some of the ganache combines with the mixture, it'll even out during baking.

Bake for 25 minutes at 350 degrees F or until the filling is relatively firm. There might be a light brown crust on top - you can cover your baking dish with foil to avoid it. Cool completely before cutting and serving with a dusting of powdered sugar. Decadent is an understatement when you bite into this.

Gone, but not forgetting.

I have been so busy, once again, with life's many challenges. But I have been baking as well and I mean to post recipes once I get my act together.

Highlights include:

• My first attempt at a proper buttercream - eggs and all! (I know, sad)
• A horrible fat free chocolate cookie recipe I invented. (never again!)
• A beautiful yellow cake.
• A wonderful blueberry cobbler.

And some other bits and bobs of sugary goodness here and there.

To be continued.

Gimme a little sugar...brown sugar brownies that is.

A good friend of mine makes these amazing muscovado sugar brownies that are rich, fudgey and droolworthingly delicious.

They are wonderful and now I am thinking I need to get him to make me some soon. I did not have muscovado sugar in my pantry, but I did have some lovely regular brown sugar so I decided to make a version of his brownies.



I also wanted to reassure myself that my baking prowess did not desert me - my last two baking attempts were less than satisfactory. I've since confirmed that the organic flour I used was the culprit. Thank god for regular all-purpose! Not to mention, for this particular recipe, I was able to use my wonderful new food scale. Yes, I did not have a food scale until recently. I love it.


Brown Sugar Brownie (adapted from All Recipes UK)

Ingredients
25g unsweetened chocolate
60g semi-sweet chocolate pieces
100g unsalted butter
1/2 cup white sugar
100g dark brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 eggs + 1 egg yolk, beaten
100g all-purpose flour
3 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 tsp baking powder

Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F and grease an 8 x 8 baking pan. In a double boiler (or a bowl over a pot of simmering water), melt the chocolate and the butter together. Once melted, set aside to cool. Add the white and dark brown sugar to the cooled chocolate mixture and mix well. Stir in vanilla and then add the eggs and mix until fully incorporated. Sift together the flour, cocoa and baking powder, and fold into the chocolate egg mixture. Do not over mix. Pour the mixture into the prepared pan and bake for 25-30 mins or until a toothpick comes out clean when inserted into the brownie.

 Let cool slightly and then cut into your serving size. I got 16 pieces out of this recipe - they only lasted a day. These are fudge-y chocolate-y goodness.

Donuts

Ever since I saw an episode of Chuck Day's Off on the Cooking Channel on donuts, I've been wanting to make donuts.

I promptly borrowed my neighbor's deep fat fryer (portable)and set up my limited counter space so I had a kind of assembly line going. The key to frying and not burning your apartment or house down is to have something like this set up so there's no question on the order in which things should proceed.



But what about the dough? Using this Chuck fellow's recipe, I was able to have wonderfully yeasty, but not overwhelmingly so, munchkin-sized donuts:



What's the recipe? Well you can google it, or I can just list it here:

Donut Extravaganza (courtesy of FoodNetwork Canada)

Ingredients
1 teaspoon active dry yeast (5 ml)
2 cups warm milk (approx. 105C) (500 ml)
1/2 cup granulated sugar (125 ml)
1/2 teaspoon salt (2 ml)
2 eggs, beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla extract (5 ml)
4 1/2 cups all-purpose flour (1,25 L)
1/2 cup butter
Oil for deep frying
Powdered sugar for garnish

Directions

In a food processor sprinkle yeast over the warm milk; stir to dissolve and let stand for 5 minutes. Add sugar, salt, beaten eggs and vanilla. Blend thoroughly. Add flour and then using a stand mixer with a dough hook, beat until smooth. You can also kneed the dough by hand for about 5 minutes. Add butter and blend until thick. Cover with plastic wrap and chill at least 4 hours or overnight.

Roll the dough out on a floured surface to 1/2-inch in thickness. Cut the dough into 1 inch-round doughnuts using a circular cookie cutter (or alternately, a can). Cover with a plastic wrap and let rest for an hour in a warm place. Deep fry at 360F (185C) for 1 to 1 and a half minutes until lightly browned on both sides. Drain on paper towels.



I made the chocolate caramel and lemon creme filling that the recipe came with, and when shared it was unanimous that the lemon creme was the favorite among the eaters.



There is nothing like warm, fresh donuts bursting with creme filling. It's actually a little obscene, come to think of it. Obscenely good that is!

Irish Car Bomb?

Ever since I saw the recipe while perusing through smittenkitchen.com, I came across a recipe that I've been wanting to try out ever since I bought a six-pack of Guinness Extra Stout for a BBQ recipe. The BBQ sauce was a hit, and I finally got around to making these Irish Car Bomb Cupcakes yesterday.

What exactly is an Irish Car Bomb? Well, according to Wikipedia (my go to source for instant laymen knowledge)

An Irish Car Bomb is a beer cocktail which is a variation of the boilermaker. It is made with stout (e.g., Guinness), Irish Cream (e.g., Baileys), and Irish whiskey (e.g., Jameson).
The name refers the drinks Irish ingredients and to the car bombings notoriously used by the Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA) during the Troubles. The Jameson whiskey is floated on top of the Baileys in a shot glass, and the shot glass is then dropped into the stout. Once mixed, the drink must be consumed quickly because it will curdle.

The cake recipe itself was really easy to make, and it almost felt like the additional carbonation from the Guinness made for a seductively moist cake. Not to mention the maltiness of the Guinness melded perfectly with the organic cocoa I used.



The whiskey ganache was also relatively simple to make, but I think I erred in this case by not using a higher cocoa-content bitter chocolate. Next time, I think 65% or higher would work better. Read on and I'll tell you why.



The reason is because the frosting is so goddamn sweet! It's all butter, sugar and then Bailey's Irish Cream. With a higher cocoa-content in the ganache, I feel that the frosting will be balanced out. However, my brother's liked them - but my brother's liking my baked goods is subjective - they eat anything with sugar in it!



In the end, the cupcakes were a success and one of my brother's friends said that they would pay me for a batch. Pay me with gratitude.

The jury is out on whether I would like to be paid in "gratitude". Baking is hard work!

More Orange!

Yes. I admit. I am in love with all things orange in baked goods. I am at this moment dreaming of an orange custard, kissed with Grand Marnier in little Angel Foods Cake cups. With a drizzle of chocolate. Dark Chocolate.

*drool*

But since it was the evening, and I wasn't too keen on whipping egg whites till "just so" - I decided to hop on Epicurious and see what I could find with Orange + Cookie + Chocolate. There's something about the brightness of citrus and the dark, sultry flavor of semi-sweet chocolate that works in such a wonderful way.

So armed with my zester, chocolate chips and this recipe - I decided to make me some Orange Oatmeal Cookies with Chocolate Chips.


I decided to use the zest of an entire small orange for this recipe, because I find that I like the intense flavor of orange in cookies, and the 3/4 tsp recommended by the recipe didn't seem to cut it.



I also used some of my secret ingredient in the recipe. I can't tell you what it is, because it's a secret. But then, what's the point of me posting the recipe and telling you that I modified it without telling you what the mods were, right? It's like souping up a car for a friend and not giving them the specs afterwards. Not a good idea.

So my secret ingredient is *drum roll* - Moroccan Orange Blossom water. My brother brought back a liter of it from when he was last in Marrakesh and I've been using drips and drops of it in a lot of my citrus-based baked goodies. Just a half-a-teaspoon in this recipe, but it adds so much to the cookie.



And they are so easy to make! Just two bowls, some elbow grease and literally 30 mins and voila - some tasty cookies. And you don't need the fancy flower water to make the cookie any better than it already is - I just like to be fancy sometimes.

Enjoy!

Shortbread

One of my closest friends, a tall Jewish red-head, has come back down to the motherland (Brooklyn) to celebrate Passover with her family.

We were discussing various dietary restrictions and how to make nontraditional meals without breaking the rules of keeping kosher. Somehow, this made me start thinking about my various dietary restrictions (no beef, no pork and no salt & meats on Thursday).

Then I got to thinking about her fiance, who is lactose-intolerant, a friend of my brother who cannot eat anything with wheat in it.

Now, tomorrow is Thursday, which means I don't eat anything with salt (until after 6 pm) or meat for the entire day. However, I also am going to a classmates home and I feel bad not bringing anything.

Enter shortbread.

It's a really simple basic recipe that is versatile enough to add stuff to without affecting the integrity of the cookie too much.

I made two kinds, an Orange Shortbread Cookie and a Chocolate Shortbread Cookie. The former is a recipe I found off the Internet, and I modified by substituting butter-flavored shortening for butter and added a whole lot more orange zest. The granulated sugar, was actually turbinado in this case and it added an richer sweetness to the cookie (in my opinion).



Now, the Chocolate Shortbread, well that was a work in progress. Not so much progress, as I didn't like the recipe I found and I thought I could do better. I take liberties with my baking now and again.

Here's the recipe I came up with:

Ingredients:

3/4 cup of flour
1/4 cup cocoa powder
1/8 tsp salt
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp instant coffee powder
1/2 cup butter-flavored shortening
3/8 cup sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla

Directions:

Preheat oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit.
Sift together flour, cocoa powder, salt and baking powder and set aside.

In a medium mixing bowl, cream butter-flavored shortening, sugar and coffee powder until light and fluffy.

Add the flour mixture to the butter mixture and blend until a soft dough forms. Add vanilla and mix well.

Using a teaspoon, measure out spoonfuls of dough onto the cookie sheet and pat down to resemble a flattened round cookie. Bake for 15-20 minutes in the middle rack of your oven until the cookies are slightly puffed.

Remove from oven and cool completely before removing from the baking sheet. Store in a cool place or eat them right away with some espresso or just a good old fashioned glass of milk.

I like shortbread cookies because they are easy to make, and they taste good and in this case, my lactose-intolerant friends can have them too.

The kosher for passover stuff will be coming this weekend. ;)

Wheat Allergy? Lactose Intolerant? No problem.

I made these for the sufferer of the above intolerances and what do you know, they were a hit!

Deep Dark Chocolate Cookies (courtesy of Epicurious.com)

Ingredients
Nonstick vegetable oil spray
1 1/2 cups bittersweet chocolate chips (about 9 ounces), divided
3 large egg whites, room temperature
2 1/2 cups powdered sugar, divided
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tablespoon cornstarch
1/4 teaspoon salt

Directions
Preheat oven to 400°F. Spray 2 large baking sheets with nonstick spray. Melt 1 cup chocolate chips in glass bowl in microwave, stirring twice, about 2 minutes. Cool slightly.

Using electric mixer, beat whites in large bowl to soft peaks. Gradually beat in 1 cup sugar. Continue beating until mixture resembles soft marshmallow creme. Whisk 1 cup sugar, cocoa, cornstarch, and salt in medium bowl to blend. On low speed, beat dry ingredients into meringue. Stir in lukewarm chocolate and 1/2 cup chocolate chips (dough will become very stiff).

Place 1/2 cup sugar in bowl. Roll 1 rounded tablespoon dough into ball; roll in sugar, coating thickly. Place on prepared sheet. Repeat with remaining dough, spacing 2 inches apart. Bake until puffed and tops crack, about 10 minutes. Cool on sheets on rack 10 minutes. Transfer to rack; cool.


Note: These cookies are good with a little cup of espresso, or just when you need a pick-me-up.

I Scream, You Scream, We all Scream for Ice Cream!

Oh yeah. I finally got it - the ice-cream maker attachment for my KitchenAid mixer. I know that technically making ice-cream isn't baking as there is no heat involved. However, a liquid does turn into a solid so the chemistry is still inherent in this process.

I figured that I would go with something simple, something classic, something chocolate. So I made this very rich chocolate ice-cream, which was really simple to make. And for the first time ever on this blog (drum roll) here's the recipe!


Ingredients

14 oz can of sweetened condensed milk
1/3 plus 2 TBSP of Ghiradelli Cocoa Powder (dutch processed)
2 cups of heavy cream
1 cup of whole milk or half/half
1 tsp of vanilla

Method

1) In a pot over medium heat, combine the condensed milk and cocoa powder. Whisk well until no lumps appear and until the mixture is slightly thickened (about 7 minutes).

2) Let the mixture cool slightly, then add slowly the heavy cream, the whole milk or half/half and the vanilla. Whisk all ingredients until well combined.

3) Refrigerate until cold.

4) Prepare in your ice-cream maker per it's instructions.

5) Happy Ice-Cream!


One thing I found in the process of making the ice-cream mixture is that the heated combination of the condensed milk and cocoa powder turns into a reasonable ganache. Well, not so much ganache as a great easy filling for a cake, or a frosting for cookies or brownies.

I think I am going to see if my guess is true by baking a cake and making the above as a filling!