I Blog What I Bake

I realize there have been many “Baking Shorts” lately and not too many full posts. Things have been a bit hectic. But I will get back to doing full instructional posts with lots of pictures soon.  For now, the shorts will be it.  It’s okay though, there is not much to say about these cookies other than that they are awesome chocolatey, espresso-y (yeah, I am making up adjectives now) goodness. Enjoy!

Cappuccino Cookies

6 ounces of good quality semisweet chocolate chopped
1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons of butter
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 eggs, room temperature
1 teaspoon of pure vanilla extract
2 tablespoons of dark chocolate cocoa powder
3/4 teaspoons of baking powder
1/4 teaspoon of cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon of salt
1 tablespoon of instant espresso plus on tablespoon hot water
1/2 cup confectioners sugar for rolling

In a double boiler melt together the chocolate and the butter, whisking frequently. Combine the espresso and hot water together until the espresso is dissolved and add to the chocolate and butter. Set aside to cool slightly.

In a medium bowl combine the cocoa powder, baking powder, salt, cinnamon and flour.

In a large bowl beat together the eggs and the butter. Add the vanilla. After the chocolate mixture has slightly cooled, beat into the butter and egg mixture.  Slowly stir in dry ingredients.

Cover and refrigerate for about 2 hours or until the batter is stiff.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Scoop out tablespoon sized balls and roll in confectioners sugar. Place on baking sheet lined with a Silpat or parchment paper and bake for approximately 10 minutes.

Printable Recipe: Cappuccino Cookies

Recently a friend of mine (you know who you are) got me thinking about Macaroons. Having never made them before I decided to give it a whirl. They came out AMAZING and are ridiculously easy to make. So you here you have it. A simple recipe for Macaroons that came straight from Joy of Baking.

Coconut Macaroon Recipe
From www.joyofbaking.com

4 Large eggs whites, at room temperature
1 cup granulated white sugar
1/4 teaspoon of salt
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/2 cup cake flour
3 cups sweetened coconut

In a stainless steel bowl, placed over a saucepan of simmering water (do not let the bowl touch the water!), whisk together the egg whites, sugar and salt. When this mixture is warm to the touch and nice and creamy, remove from the heat and stir in the vanilla extract, flour and coconut. Cover and refrigerate for about  hours.

Line to cookie sheets with parchment paper or a Silpat and preheat the oven to 325 degrees.

Place small mounds (heaping tablespoons) of the batter on the lined cookie sheets, spacing several inches apart. Baked for about 15-20 minutes or until golden brown. Let cool on baking sheet for about 10 minutes and then place on wire rack to cool completely.

Makes about 2 dozen Macaroons.

Printable Coconut Macaroon Recipe

I am a klutz. After years of dance training one would think I would be graceful. No.  I drop things all the time, walk into walls and trip over my own feet. I fall UP stairs.  So when things like red food coloring come out I always proceed with caution. Despite all my best efforts I get red food coloring all over the kitchen and myself (and to think I want a culinary torch!).  Word to the wise, should your food coloring drip, spatter or spill WIPE IT UP IMMEDIATELY. This will save you from permanently staining your lovely granite countertops. Your clothing. Your cat. Whatever.

The cake portion is yet another Magnolia recipe. It’s been a solid Red Velvet cake recipe. I have made a couple of my own edits over the years, but by and large it’s Magnolia’s.  I got a little funky and instead of doing a cream cheese frosting over the entire cake, I only put the cream cheese in the middle and decided to pour white chocolate ganache over the top. I should have let the ganache cool for a little longer than I did so it could thicken. It was still too molten when I poured it on the cake and didn’t quite have the effect I was going for since it thinned out so much (and dripped all over the place). I also used vanilla extract in the ganache, omit this. It changed the color of the ganache and gave it a brown tinge. Ick.  If you don’t like ganache or don’t want to make it you can just double the cream cheese frosting recipe and cover the whole cake it it. You can also make this into cupcakes. Just adjust the cooking time to 15-20 minutes instead of 30-40 minutes.

Red Velvet Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting & White Chocolate Ganache

CAKE (adapted from Magnolia Bakery Red Velvet Cake)

3 1/2 cups of cake flour (not self-rising)
1 1/2 sticks of unsalted butter, softened
2 1/4 cups white granulated sugar
3 large eggs, room temperature
2 small bottles of red gel food coloring (I use Spectrum brand)
3 tablespoons good quality unsweetened cocoa powder
1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 1/2 cups buttermilk, well shaken
1 1/2 teaspoons cider vinegar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

CREAM CHEESE FILLING

1 8oz block of cream cheese, softened
1/2 stick unsalted butter, softened
1/4 cup sour cream
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2 tablespoons of half and half, milk or heavy cream
3 cups confectioners sugar

WHITE CHOCOLATE GANACHE

1 11oz bag of good quality white chocolate chips
1/2 heavy cream
2 tablespoons of unsalted butter

In a medium bowl sift together the cake flour and the cocoa powder. Set aside.

Using a hand held mixer, in a large bowl cream together the sugar and the butter until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes. Add the eggs one at a time beating well after each addition. Beat in vanilla. Beat in red food coloring.

Combine buttermilk and salt in a measuring cup.

STIR in the flour mixture in 3 additions, alternating with the buttermilk mixutre. Do not use beaters, this will make the cake very dense. I prefer light and fluffy. Do as you wish.

In a small bowl combine the baking soda and cider vinegar and watch the 3rd grade science experiment unfold (you’ll see what I mean). Stir mixture into batter.

Distribute batter evenly amongst the two prepared pans and bake in a 350 degree oven for 35-45 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.

Allow to cool in pans for 15 minutes, turn out of pans and allow to cool completely on a baking rack.

While this is cooling make the cream cheese frosting and ganache.  For the cream cheese frosting beat on 8oz block of cream cheese, half a stick of unsalted butter and a quarter cup of sour cream together in a medium bow. Add half of a teaspoon of vanilla extract, 1/2 cup heavy cream and beat. Slowly add approximately 3 cups of confectioners sugar. Spread frosting over one layer of cake. Place remaining layer on top.

For the ganache, melt together an 110z bag of white chocolate chips and 1/2 cup heavy cream in a double boiler. Stir constantly. Once smooth and melted take off of heat and had 2 tablespoons of butter. Stir until melted. Allow to cool and thicken and pour SLOWLY over cake. You may not need all of the ganache.

To assemble the cake; once cooled, apply cream cheese frosting to one layer. Top with other cake layer and pour thickened ganache slowly over the top, letting the ganache make it’s own way down the cake.

Slice and enjoy! This cake is huge, share with many friends!

I realize I make a lot of things with bananas. There always seems to be two lonely bananas in my house that just never get eaten. They sit there in the fruit bowl all by themselves turning brown.  What’s better than baking them into something?

After my banana bundt cake debacle a couple of weeks ago, I was itching to make something with browned butter. I came across the original recipe for this bread durning some mindless web searching. I added the crumble, the glaze and did some other minor tweaks, but it had me at Bourbon. I needed no other reason to make this.

After a 9pm run to the liquor store for a bottle of Maker Mark, one ruined pot of brown butter and much clanking around in the kitchen, this is now the only banana bread I will ever make.

The bread turned out moist and flavorful and the Bourbon Glaze was great. Had a great hit of the Bourbon flavor.

So next time you have a some overripe bananas lying around, don’t throw them out…bake them into this!!

Bourbon Browned Butter Banana Bread with Oatmeal Crumble and Bourbon Glaze
Adapted from www.pioneerwoman.com

Bread
6 tablespoons of browned butter
2 large eggs
2-3 ripe bananas mashed with 1 tablespoon agave nectar or honey
2 tablespoons of bourbon
1/2 cup plain sour cream
2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
2/3 cups brown sugar
1 teapsoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoons nutmeg
1/4 teaspoons ginger
1 pinch of salt

Crumble
1/3 cup flour
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup white sugar
1/3 cup oatmeal
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 cup of cold unsalted butter, cubed

Bourbon Glaze
5 tablespoons of confectioners sugar
3 tablespoons of bourbon
1 teaspoon agave nectar or honey

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a loaf pan with parchment paper and butter and flour the pan.

To brown the butter, place butter in a small saucepan over medium heat. The butter is done after it bubbles, foams, turns a carmel color with little brown bits and smells kinda of nutty. Be careful not to burn it. Let the butter cool. (The cooling is important! If you add the hot butter to the eggs, you will scramble them. Yuck.)

Mash bananas with 1 tablespoon of agave nectar or honey.

Beat the eggs in a medium bowl. With a wooden spoon, mix in the mashed bananas, bourbon, sour cream and cooled butter.

In a separate large bowl whisk together the flour (sifted) baking soda, sugar, spices and salt.

Add the wet mixture to the dry mixture and stir gently until combined. Do not over-mix unless you want dry dense bread. You don’t want that. Trust me.

Pour mixture into the prepared loaf pan.

For the crumble combine oatmeal, brown sugar, white sugar, flour, cinnamon, nutmeg. Cut in  1/4 cup of cold unsalted butter using a paster blender, a fork or your hands (using your hands is the most fun) Add crumble on top of the bread batter and bake for 60 minutes.

Allow to cool in pan for 10-15 minutes. Turn out of pan and let cool completely on a baking rack.  Once cooled, drizzle Bourbon Glaze over the top.

Slice and serve!

Printable Recipe:Bourbon Browned Butter Bread with Oatmeal Crumble and Bourbon Glaze

I have definitely been on a fruit kick. Summertime makes me abandon heavy desserts. When it’s 95 degrees and humid outside the last thing I want to be eating is some kind of cream based concoction. Although, that’s a lie. The shortbread base of these lemon bars is pure butter. I don’t know what’s heavier than that. ANYWAY.

Lemons go with with just about any berry. I chose blackberries because I have already used strawberries and raspberries in recent posts. These would be amazing with strawberry. I’ll try that sometime soon. Back to the recipe at hand.  The aforementioned shortbread base is phenomenal. You can repurpose this for just about any bar recipe; brownies, blondies you name it. It is super simple to prepare, just so long as you have a food processor.  My advice is to make the blackberry sauce first and leave it to the side until its time to add it to the lemon portion. This recipe comes together very quickly once the shortbread is done.  I have also included some images of plain lemon bars that I made, just in case there are those of you that have no interest in the blackberries.

Blackberry Lemon Bars with Hot Shortbread Base
Shortbread base from www.epicurous.com

Hot Shortbread Base

1 1/2 sticks (3/4 cup) unsalted butter
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup packed light brown sugar1/2 teaspoon salt

Cut butter into 1/2 inch pieces. In a food processor process all the ingredients until the mixture begins to form small lumps. Sprinkle mixture in a 13×9x2-inch baking pan and with a metal spatula press evenly onto bottom. Bake the shortbread until golden, about 20 minutes. Prepare the filling while this is in the oven.

Blackberry Lemon Filling

3/4 cups fresh lemon juice
Zest of one lemon
1 cup white granulated sugar
4 Large eggs
1/3 cups flour
1 pint fresh blackberries

Pulse blackberries and 1/2 cup of sugar in a food processor until blended. Heat blackberry mixture in a small saucepan over medium heat for about 5 minutes. Press heated mixture through a wire-mesh strainer. Discard the solids and reserve the liquids. Set aside.
In a medium bowl, whisk together the eggs and sugar until well combined. Stir in the lemon juice, zest and flour. Pour immediately over the hot shortbread. Take the blackberry liquid and drizzle it over the lemon mixture. Reduce oven to 300 degrees  and bake for about 30 minutes. Allow to cool completely in pan. Once cool, dust with confectioners sugar if you would like.

If you don’t want to use the blackberries, just negate the entire step from the recipe and will have delicious traditional lemon bars. Enjoy!

Printable Recipe:Lemon-Blackberry Bars

When I started this blog I said that I would post my failures as well as my successes. Well, here ya go. My Brown Butter Banana Cake debacle. I had some bananas that I need to either use or throw away. I didn’t want to make yet another banana bread so I decided to do something different. I had seen a few recipes using brown butter lately so I Googled Brown Butter Banana Cake to see if there were any for a cake. I found what looked like a really good one and got started.

There are two things that went wrong here.

One, I used a 30 year-old bundt pan. Why? The recipe called for a bundt pan and I don’t have one. My mom was nice enough to rummage around in the basement and find a pan from 1979. I floured and buttered this thing within an inch of his life and it still did not want to come out! I am now convinced that bundt pans are the reason non-stick was invented.  Second, I messed up the recipe and forgot 1/3 cup of flour. Disaster. Instead of being fluffy the cake was dense and overly moist. Good taste, HORRIBLE texture.

There you have it. My Brown Butter Banana Cake debacle. I will try this again once I have my own pan. For now, I have posted the recipe below so you can try it. If you do, send me pictures and I will post what this poor little cake was supposed to look like.

Brown Butter Banana Cake with Chocolate Chips
Source: www.finecooking.com

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter
1 1/3 cups granulated sugar
3 large eggs
1 cup finely mashed ripe bananas (2 medium banans)
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon of salt
1 2/3 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
2/3 cups mini semisweet chocolate chips

Position a rack in the center of the oven and heat the oven to 350 degrees. Butter and flour a 10-cup bundt pan. Tap out excess flour.

Melt the butter in a medium saucepan over medium-low heat. Once the butter is melted, cook it slowly, letting it bubble, until it smells nutty or like butterscotch and turns a deep golden hue, 5-10 minutes. Remove the pan from thereat and pour browned butter through a fine sieve into a medium bowl and discard the bits is the sieve. Let the butter cool until it is very warm rather than boiling hot, 5-10 minutes.

Using a whisk, stir the sugar and the eggs into the butter. Whisk until the mixture is smooth, about 1 minutes. Whisk in mashed bananas, vanilla and salt. Sift flour and baking soda directly into the batter. Pour the chocolate chops over the flour. Using a rubber spatula, stir just until the batter is uniformly combined. Don’t over-mix.

Spoon the batter into the prepared pan, spreading it evenly with the spatial. Bake until a skewer inserted into the center comes out clean, 40-45 minutes. Set the pan on a rack and cool for 15 minutes.. Invert cake onto rack and remove the pan. Let cool until just warm and then serve immediately or wrap in plastic and store at room temperature for up to five days.

Brown Butter Banana Cake Recipe

“Girl I love your peaches wanna shake your tree…” I couldn’t stop singing this to myself as I was dancing around my kitchen putting together these individual peach cobblers. Appropriate, no?

Anyway, I planned on these being plum cobblers, but couldn’t find any nice black plums. After the fact, I learned  that plums are not quite in season yet, hence the difficulty in finding them. Oh well. These turned out great! The inspiration came from The Bitten Word, they had posted cherry cobblers, but I didn’t want to take on pitting a million cherries. Some days I am all about the mess and the challenge. This past Sunday was not one of those days. Peeling peaches was as far as I was willing to go with the prep work. The cobbler topping for this recipe is delicious. It’s a biscuit-like topping and I’ve never had that before on a cobbler. It was so good I just baked the extra rounds of dough I had so I could eat them on their own. Another great thing about this recipe is that pretty much all the sugar comes from the sweetness of the peaches and since the cobblers come in such neat little packages this is perfect dessert to serve to company!

Individual Peach Cobblers
Serves 8
Adapted from “The Bitten Word”

3 3/4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
4 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
1 cup white granulated sugar
3/4 cups (1 1/2 sticks) very cold unsalted butter
2 cups very cold heavy cream, plus more for brushing
9 medium sized peaches – peeled and sliced
1 tablespoon plus one teaspoons corn starch
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. In a bowl, combine flour, baking powder, salt, and 1/2 cup sugar. Using large holes on a box crater, grate butter into flour mixture. With a fork, stir in cream until dough just comes together. On a floured work surface, roll out dough to a 3/4 cinch thickness with a floured rolling pin. With a knife or biscuit cutter, cut out 8 to 12 rounds or squares of dough.

Earlier this week I was commissioned  to bake 3 dozen tie-dyed cupcakes for a middle school event. I wasn’t sure if I would blog this, but they turned out so cute and so many of you asked about them I decided to put them up. Having never made a tie-dyed pastry of any sort, figuring out how to do this was a challenge and really fun!

I just got the last of the green food coloring off my skin today.

How to assemble the cupcakes:

• Line a cupcake pan with cupcake liners
• Make your favorite vanilla cupcake recipe. (I use Magnolia Bakery’s)
• Separate the batter into 3 bowls
• Add red dye to one bowl, green to one bowl and yellow to the last bowl
• Add one spoonful of each color to each cupcake liner
• Swirl design in using a toothpick or wooden kitchen skewer
• Bake according you your chosen cupcake recipe
• Allow to cool in cupcake pan for 10 minutes, turn out and let cool completely on wire rack

Frosting:

• 2 sticks of unsalted butter at room temperature
• 4-6 cups confectioners sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 tablespoon of whole milk
• Food coloring (whichever color you prefer)
• Beat the butter on the medium speed of an electric mixer until smooth
• Add the sugar alternating with the milk and vanilla
• Add the food coloring of your choice
• Beat until it reaches a spreading consistency

Happy little cupcake army.

There are tons of recipes that I want to put up on the blog, but I only have so much time. So, I have decided to do some baking “shorts”.  I’m not really sure what else to call them. “Micro-posts” sounds weird. Anyway, these won’t have a million pictures or stories to go along with them . Just good food.

I adapted this recipe from the Strawberry Bread recipe on My Baking Addiction. The Limoncello glaze was delicious! But if you don’t have, or have never heard of, Limoncello, you can substitute fresh lemon juice or lemonade.

Strawberry Lemonade Bread with Limoncello Glaze
Adapted from My Baking Addiction “Fresh Strawberry Bread”

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
3/4 cup white sugar
2 eggs, room temperature
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 tablespoon fresh grated lemon zest
2 tablespoons fresh squeezed lemon juice
1/2 cup buttermilk
1 1/2 cups fresh strawberries, roughly blended

Glaze
4 tablespoons of confectioners sugar
1 tablespoon of Limoncello (or lemon juice or lemonade)

DIRECTIONS

Bread:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Grease and flour a 9×5 inch loaf pan and line with parchment paper.
I a medium bowl sift together the flour, salt, baking powder and baking soda. Set aside.
On the medium speed of an electric mixer beat the sugar and butter together.
Beat in the vanilla, lemon zest and lemon juice.
With a wooden spoon or spatial, stir the flour mixture into the butter mixture until just blending. Add the buttermilk and still only until just combined. Be careful not to over mix.
Fold in the strawberries and bake in a 350 degree oven for 50-60 minutes.  Allow bread to cool in the pan for 15 minutes. Carefully turn it out of the pan and allow to cool completely on a baking rack.

Glaze:

Stir together 4 tablespoons of confectioners sugar with 1 tablespoon of Limoncello. Once bread has cooled completely, pour over the top and spread. If the glaze is to runny add a little more confectioners sugar.

I’m on a berry kick lately. It must be the weather. Sunshine and heat make me want fruit. I’ve also been reconnecting with my “More From Magnolia” cookbook. As I was flipping through it on Saturday afternoon I came across the Strawberry Shortcake recipe. The whole of my experience with Strawberry Shortcake has been those packaged angel food cakes you buy at grocery story, topped with Cool Whip and strawberries. Not that appealing.  I was excited to attempt my first homemade Strawberry Shortcake!  Overall, this was fairly easy to make. My cake layers didn’t come out perfectly even, but I fixed that with a leveler. Also, my cake frosting skills are still a work in progress, but I think I’m getting better at it. I think.

Strawberry Shortcake Recipe from Magnolia Bakery

Cake
1 1/2 cups self-rising flour
1 1/4 cups unbleached all purpose flour
1 cup (2 sticks of butter) softened
4 large eggs, at room temperature
1 cup whole milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Whipped Cream Filling/Frosting
2 cups heavy whipping cream
1/4 cups confectioners sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Berries
2 pints (4 cups) ripe strawberries sliced in half
2 tablespoons of sugar

Grease and lightly flour 3 9×2-inch round cake pans, line the bottom with parchment paper. Do this step even if you working with nonstick pans.

In a small bowl combine the flours and set aside.
In a large bowl, on the medium speed of an electric mixer, cream the butter and the sugar until smooth (about 3 minutes).  Add the sugar gradually and beat until fluffy.
Add the eggs on at a time, beating well after each addition. Add the dry ingredients in three parts, alternating with the milk and vanilla. With each addition beat until the ingredients are incorporated, but do not overbeat. Using a rubber spatula, scrape down the batter in the bowl, making sure all the ingredients are well blended.

Divide the batter among the prepared pans and bake for 25-30 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Let the layers cool in the pan for 1 hour. (YES, one hour. You can wait.) Remove from the pans and cool completely on wire rack.

To make the cream filling whip the heavy cream with the sugar and vanilla until stiff peaks form. How long this will take depends on how cold your cream is. I recommend chilling the bowl you will be using in the fridge prior to making the whipped cream.

Once the layers have cooled completely (LET THEM COOL OR THEY WILL MELT THE FROSTING…I’m not yelling you, just warning you) spread one-third of the whipped cream filling over the bottom cake layer, followed by one-third of the berries. Repeat with the remaining layers.  After all the layers were assembled I used the rest of the whipped cream to cover the whole cake, you can leave the sides bare if you choose.

I used 8 inch cake pans, because I didn’t have three 9×2 inch pans. Result? A REALLY TALL Strawberry Shortcake.  It was so good.  I would recommend serving this as soon as you can. The whipped cream frosting can be temperamental in the summer heat and putting cake in the fridge dries it out in no time.

Enjoy!

ps – my next post involves the left over strawberries I had from this recipe