Blueberries!

With blueberries being $0.99 a pint at my local green grocer (well more like Chinese Superstore extravaganza - they sell everything there) I figured I'd buy a half-dozen and see what I could make with them.


Blueberries are technically not really blue, but purple. But it doesn't matter, the color is still so wonderfully rich and inviting, it would be a crime not to bake with them.



Of course, with the trusty internet on hand, I scoured Epicurious.com for a quick and easy recipe. And yes, the site delivered in the form of a Blueberry Crumb Cake.

And what I got was a light, fluffy, richly blueberry cake with just the right amount of crunch/texture on top for the crumble.

A perfect way to celebrate the blueberry in my opinion. Well, other than eating them fresh with some vanilla ice-cream.

Yum.

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!

Bake-Off!

The bake-off idea was one I had been contemplating for over a year, based on a previous unfulfilled attempted from another yelper (Yelp.com is where yelper's hang out). With NYC being as diverse as it is and as a result having more restaurants than one could possibly know what to do with - people would like food. And possibly like to cook, and maybe even like to bake. In the summer.

On July 18, 2009 the weather was perfect. I had confirmation from the powers that be (a.k.a. Parks Department) that my event could be held and people said they would show up.

And some of them did and we had a good ol' time with my special "lemonade", gorgeous weather and lots of sugary confections. There were categories to be judged on and the ever popular, err, popular vote.




I made my Chocolate Chocolate Cookies and Orange Carrot Cake Cupcakes:













And here were some submissions from our other intrepid bakers:


Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

Chocolate Caramel Brownies

Sm ores Cookies

Once again, food = love, and baked goodies = big love.

Can't wait to do this again next year!

*photos courtesy of Nina C.

Stay Tuned

This is a temporary post that will force me to elucidate on my fantastically flawed bake-off, which happened on a sunny Saturday in early July.

to be continued...

Rain, Rain, Go Away!

In an effort to spread my love of baking among the Yelp community, which I am very vocal member of, I decided to host a bake-off.

The gist of the event was that people interested in baking would participate by bringing their homemade baked items to a pre-determined location in, oh say Central Park, and we would all compete for "prizes."

I was very excited because the turnout for the event exceeded my wildest expectations. And then it rained all week.

And on the day of the bake-off.

So I was naturally incredibly angry at the weather (futile, but necessary) and also at a loss as to what to do with my pre-baked goods. I made two batches of my Grapefruit Yogurt Cake in mini-cupcake format.

Luckily I have brothers. And neighbors. And co-workers.

What I am hoping is that my next attempt will actually be more than just an attempt.

Stay tuned!

Frozen, not stirred.

Lame James Bond pun aside, making ice-cream is just as labor intensive, if not more so, than baking a cake.

The recipe is simpler, but the process requires a lot more patience. So when I finally decided to use natures bounty of berries (strawberries) to make some ice-cream, planning went into this endeavor.


A day in advance, I had to freeze the ice-cream attachment for my KitchenAid and make sure that it was properly covered so that there is no contamination from other items in the freezer. Next, I had to make sure to find a simple enough custard based ice-cream recipe. And what do you know? Epicurious had one, which of course I modified. Modification in the sense that I used lemon extract instead of lemon rind and I didn't add the chilled macerated strawberries to the semi-frozen custard mixture, but rather some fresh frozen strawberries I'd been saving for a while.

The addition of the frozen strawberries actually helped the custard mixture set-up better, because in previous ice-cream making experiments it had turned to mush after adding stuff to the custard base.

And here's what else I learned - custard based (or French-style) ice-cream is moons and stars better tasting than American-style. It's also a lot fattier, so eat in moderation.

Enjoy!

Orange you glad I made it?

So, more oranges. This time, not because they tempted me while carelessly arranged on the greengrocer's aisles, but rather because a family friend dumped a sackful on my mother's table and she wasn't sure what to do with them.

Well, where there's a fruit, there's a recipe.


Actually, all I did was modify my Grapefruit Yogurt Cake recipe to make it an Orange Mini-Cake with Chocolate Drizzle recipe.

How? Simple, substitute orange zest for grapefruit zest. Use orange extract instead of vanilla, but instead of 1/2 teaspoon, use only 1/4 teaspoon. I also baked the cakes in a mini-muffin pan for 30 mins, as opposed to a loaf pan for 50 mins. Came out fine.

As for the syrup, it is the following:

Ingredients
1 cup of fresh orange juice
2 tbsp of sugar
1 tsp of orange blossom water (optional)

Directions
Mix together all ingredients, bring to a boil then reduce to a simmer until the mixture is slightly syrupy. Cool before use.

To assemble, just place the mini-cakes in a shallow baking dish and brush on the cooled syrup until all the syrup is gone. Let the cakes stand for about 30 mins to absorb the remaining syrup and completely cool.

As for the chocolate drizzle, well whatever you like to use is fine, but a good simple recipe is simply melting 1/2 cup of semi-sweet chocolate chips in your microwave and mix until smooth. I like to add a little vegetable oil to make it glossy and not coagulate too quickly.

I used three oranges in this recipe - nine more to go!

Mother's Day!

So, today is Mother's Day and I decided that I would rouse myself early and make my mother brunch instead of going nuts about booking a reservation at a restaurant.

Like with most brunches, I like to combine sweet and savory dishes because it's not technically breakfast (sweet) or lunch (savory), so why not have both together? My menu was:

Eat
Scrambled Eggs with Sun dried Tomatoes
Chicken Sausage
Cherry Tomato and Feta Salad (with walnuts)
Marble Pound Cake with two sauces on the side (chocolate sauce and strawberry sauce)
Crudites with a Greek Yogurt dip
French Toast Pudding
Drink
Blood Orange Spritzer (non-alcoholic)
Vegetable Juice (with herbs and spices)
Tea
Coffee

Pretty nice spread, right? Well since this is a baking blog, I must tell you that of course I baked something. But it wasn't the Pound Cake - that I bought from the store and jazzed it up with the sauces. I made the French Toast Pudding because I wanted to make French Toast, but didn't want to deal with all the battering and frying. This was an easy way to get all that French Toast goodness without a lot of work.



I found the recipe on Epicurious.com, but I modified it as follows:


Ingredients

12 (1-inch-thick) baguette slices (cut on a long diagonal)
3 tablespoons fresh espresso
3 cups whole milk
3 large eggs
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
dash of Cinnamon
1/2 cup plus 1 tablespoons sugar, divided
1/2 cup of dried cherries
Cinnamon for dusting

Directions
Preheat oven to 400°F with rack in middle and generously butter a 13- by 9-inch shallow baking dish or pan (3-quart; preferably glass or ceramic).

Arrange bread in 1 layer in baking dish and sprinkle the dried cherries evenly over the bread. Whisk together espresso, milk, eggs, vanilla, dash of cinnamon and 1/2 cup sugar until smooth.

Pour custard over bread, then turn slices over several times so they soak up as much custard as possible. Sprinkle top with remaining 1 tablespoons sugar.

Bake until puffed and set, 25 minutes. Cool in dish on a rack 10 minutes, then dust with cinnamon.

This was the perfect accompaniment for the brunch and it was really quick and easy to make - it looked fabulous in the dish and it tasted like a good piece of French Toast. Allowing it to cool for that last 10 minutes allows the remaining custard to set properly, so you don't get a pudding but a really nice piece of "French Toast."



And my momma loved it, so there's all the endorsement you need to go and make a batch for your next brunch!

Choc Choc Chocolate!

I was discussing tattoos and addiction with a friend earlier and we were arguing about the nature of addictions. At one point, I mentioned that by her definition, I should be a chocolate addict. And then I realized, hey you know? I probably am!

I crave it when it's not around. I try to deny myself it, only to find that the next time I have a piece it's that much better. So why deny the addiction?

In the spirit of addiction, I decided to pull out an old recipe that I saved from my internet browsing for a chocolate cookie recipe.

I ended up wanting to make it even chocolaty-er (not a word, but you know what I mean) and modified it to the following:

Fudgey Chocolate Cookies

Ingredients

1/2 cup margarine (salted is fine)

1/2 cup light brown sugar

1/4 cup white granulated sugar

1 extra-large egg

1 1/2 tsp of strong coffee

1 cup all purpose flour

1/4 cup + 2 tbsp cocoa powder (I used Nestle here, but you can be fancier)

1 tsp teaspoon baking powder

1/8 teaspoon salt*

1 cup of semi-sweet chocolate chips

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F and place rack in center of oven. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

In the bowl of your electric mixer (or with a hand mixer), cream the margarine and sugars until light and fluffy . Add the egg and coffee and beat until incorporated. Add the flour, baking powder, cocoa powder and salt* and mix until well incorporated. The mixture should have the consistency of a thick frosting. Fold in chocolate chips until fully incorporated.

Using two teaspoons, measure out spoonfuls of the batter onto the lined baking sheets.

Bake for approximately 14 minutes or until the the cookies are still soft in the center but are firm around the edges. Remove from oven and let cookies cool on baking sheet for about 5 minutes before removing the cookies to a wire rack to cool completely.

Makes about 2 dozen pieces of chocolaty goodness!

*Only add salt if you're not using salted margarine. You can also use butter, but it'll be a different cookie.

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!