I Blog What I Bake

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

This just was released and I thought I would share for those of you who love food blogs. The text below is copied directly from the 55 Knives page.

“The 55 Knives book is a collaborative project from some of the web’s top food bloggers in a simple, easy to download format.  The authors included in the project were picked not only because of their expertise in the kitchen but also because of their ability to write well about food.

Each of the 55 bloggers will have a chapter where they will present one or two of their favorite recipes.  Some recipes will be simple and some might be more complicated (Individual Beef Wellingtons!).  Don’t worry though, the complicated recipes will have crystal clear instructions.

In addition to the recipes, each chapter will have a story explaining why that recipe is important to that author.  Some of the recipes have been in families for generations and some are newly created.  I think you’ll find the stories to be touching, funny, sincere, and above all else, entertaining!”

55 Knives is available for sale !

I feel like it has ben FOREVER since I have posted anything. Sorry about that, but this recipe is worth the wait.  This one comes directly from My Baking Addiction and the second I saw these I knew I would have to give them a try. I am so happy I did! They are perfect delicious chewy sugar cookies with just a little punch of tart. LOVE.

I did run into a minor situation while making these cookies. The recipe calls for shredded unsweetened coconut. I went to three stores and only found sweetened coconut. So I improvised and bought an actual coconut (only after the fact did I realize I should have gone to Whole Foods for unsweetened shredded coconut). I have never cracked a coconut. The result? My husband in the basement with Google and some power tools. Needless to say the coconut never saw what hit it and I got my shredded unsweetened coconut.  It was a lot of effort for a cookie, but it was worth watching Brian so determined with that coconut. Love you babe.

RECIPE

2 3/4 cups of unbleached all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
1 1/2 cups white sugar
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
Zest of one large lime
3 tablespoon fresh squeezed lime juice
1/2 cup unsweetened coconut
1/2 cup sugar for rolling cookies

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

Printable Recipe: Lime Coconut Cookies

First things first, toast the shredded coconut. Place in a 350 degree oven for 10-15 minutes until the coconut starts to turn a little brown. Cool before adding to cookie batter.  My husband also shredded the coconut for me. I was losing patience.

In medium bowl combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Set aside.

Using a hand held mixer beat the sugar and butter together until very light an fluffy.

Beat in egg, vanilla, lime zest and lime juice.  Stir in the toasted coconut. Slowly stir in the flour mixture until everything is well incorporated.

Next, roll rounded teaspoonfuls of dough into balls and gently roll them in sugar. Place about 1 1/2 inches apart on a cookies sheet lined with either parchment paper or a Silpat.

Bake in 350 degree oven for 8-10 minutes. They needed the whole 10 minutes in my oven.

Allow the cookies to cool for a few minutes on the sheet and then move them to a cooling rack.

Enjoy!!!

After multiple guest blog posts over on I Blog What I Eat, the iBlog folks have given me my own blog! I now have you all to myself. Welcome to I Blog What I Bake!

So you all know, I am not a trained pastry chef and I’ve never so much as taken a single class at a pastry school.  I’m an experimenter and I bake because I love it and I love sharing my baked goods with others. (Although I think my husband is convinced I just enjoy destroying the kitchen a few times a week.)  Most of what I will make for this blog I have never made before.  The recipes will be an assortment of of my own creations, other food bloggers recipes and tasty treats from various food magazines and TV shows. I promise to blog my kitchen catastrophes (believe me, there are plenty) as well as the happy moments.  If you want to know more about me I will eventually get around to posting a mini-bio in the “WHO” section.  Okay, on with today’s post!

On Wednesday my niche of the country got inundated with snow. Trapped in the house with nothing to do, I decided to make what came to be known as a Chocolate Snowball Cake. Fitting given the 20 inches of snow that was falling at the time. This is a dark chocolate cake with cream cheese frosting that has been smothered in shredded coconut.  The idea for the flavor combination came courtesy of  “The Best Thing I Ever Ate” on the Food Network. (One of the chefs was raving about a similar cupcake.)  There wasn’t a recipe available, so I just took my favorite dark chocolate cake recipe(thank you Hershey’s), my own cream cheese frosting recipe and a couple of bags of shredded coconut and went to town.  A bit of advice, have a vacuum handy. The coconut gets EVERYWHERE.

CHOCOLATE SNOWBALL CAKE RECIPE

DARK CHOCOLATE CAKE

Courtesy of herseyskitchens.com
2 cups granulated sugar
1 3/4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
3/4 cups dark cocoa powder (Hersey’s Special Dark)
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 eggs (room temperature)
1 cup whole milk
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup boiling water
2 9 inch cake pans
Parchment Paper

Preheat oven to  350 degrees

JILL’S CREAM CHEESE FROSTING RECIPE
2 8oz blocks of  room temperature cream cheese
1 stick of room temperature butter
2 cups confectioners sugar
3 tablespoons of whole milk
1 - 1 1/2 cups of Cool Whip (I tend to eyeball this part)
1 1/2 bags of sweetened shredded coconut for topping

Here is just about everything you are going to need. I like to get everything I will be using out all at once. Nothing is worse than searching for ingredients half way through only to learn that you don’t have a key element. I have done this before and it has resulted in 10pm excursions to the grocery store.  Totally ruins the baking “mood”.

Before you do anything else, line two 9 inch cake pans with parchment paper and butter and flour them. As I have mentioned in other posts, this will seriously reduce the amount of praying you will have to do when it comes time to turn the cakes out of the pan.

After you are done prepping the pans, combine the sugar, flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a large bowl. Sifting of these ingredients is highly recommended.

Add the eggs, milk, oil and vanilla and beat on medium speed of an electric mixer for about 2 minutes. Next, STIR in the boiling water. The only reason I can think of for stirring and not beating here is the chance for boiling hot water to go flying. Not usually a good thing. Just a note, this batter will be thin.  Pour the batter evenly into the prepared pans and place in the center of an oven preheated to 350 degrees and bake for 30-35 minutes. The time depends on your oven.  You can check the progress by sticking a toothpick into the center of the cake. When it comes out clean, your cake is done!

Once the cake is out of the oven let it cool in the pans for about 10 minutes.

After 10 minutes, turn the cake out onto a wire baking rack and let them cool completely. Remember to remove the parchment paper from the bottom of the cakes!

Time for the frosting! The picture above is the only one I remembered to take while making the frosting, so written instructions is all  you’re going to get here. Place the cream cheese and butter in a large bowl and beat on medium-high speed of an electric mixer until combined and creamy. Alternately add the milk and confectioners sugar , starting and ending with the sugar.  Next, beat in the Cool Whip until combined and frosting has reached spreading consistency. If you are wondering why I add Cool Whip, it’s because I often find cream cheese frosting’s to heavy. The Cool Whip was a nice easy way to lighten up the consistency.

Please forgive the funky pictures. They are a somewhat blurry and the lighting is odd. I will get better at this. Promise. ANYWAY, take one of the layers and place it on cake stand. I like to line the cake stand with pieces of parchment paper so I don’t get icing all over it. Spread a nice even layer of frosting onto the cake and generously sprinkle with shredded coconut. You don’t need a ton of frosting here, just enough to hold the layers together.

Next, apply the top layer and scoop all of the remaining icing onto the top of the cake.  Using an offset spatula (or whatever you have handy) slowly work the icing over the cake and down around the sides until it has been evenly distributed and cake is completely covered.  Generously sprinkle coconut all over the top of the cake. This is supposed to look like snowball after all. Next comes the fun part. The only way to get coconut onto the side of the cake is basically by throwing it at the cake.  Have at it. Your cake is now complete!

Thanks everyone for checking out my blog!  Please follow me and all the other iBlog sites! On that note, www.iblogwhatieat.comis having a contest for McCormick & Schmick’s gift cards for Valentine’s Day. Go check it out!