I Blog What I Bake

“Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn and caldron bubble. Fillet of a fenny snake, In the caldron boil and bake…”  Often times, this kinda how I feel (and probably look) when I am cooking something up in the kitchen. However for this post I did not set foot in the kitchen, but just wandered around Chelsea Market in downtown New York.

I love the name of this little bakery and before Sunday I had never heard of it. Apparently it’s got quite a following. I loved being in the dark about this place because I had no one’s opinion, judgement or review to go on but mine. I wasn’t excepting a transcendental food moment nor was I expecting the brownies to suck. For the record, they did neither.

I should mention that all Fat Witch Bakery makes are brownies. Appropriately they are called “Witches”. Cute, right? Not being one to limit myself, I bought a Java Witch, Fat Witch(original), Red Witch(cherries) and Smores’ Witch. The brownies were $2.50 a piece.  I didn’t consider this too pricey since I have seen smaller cupcakes sell for $3.00 and I have bought brownies before that actually cost upwards of $4.00 a piece (MISTAKE!). Anyway, I unwrapped all the brownies and my husband and I attacked them with enthusiasm. Overall, I really enjoyed them and they were far better than the brownies I reviewed previously from The Vermont Brownie Company.

The Java Witch was my favorite, it had the best texture an the chocolate flavor was PERFECT. Not overwhelming and not super sugary. The Smores’ Witch was good, but only for two bites. After that I couldn’t even look at it because of the sugar overload. The Fat Witch was the most fudgey and the Red Witch was the most “meh”.  That one didn’t do anything for me, I did not like the texture of the cherries in the brownies. I should also mention that my husband didn’t like any of them. At all. They were too rich for him. So, would I recommend this place? Yes. But limit yourself to one Witch at a time.  :)

Witch Graveyard…

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!

Who doesn’t love chocolate chip cookies?  They are about as traditional as you can get in the kitchen. Well, except for Apple Pie. I have been making the same chocolate chip cookie recipe for YEARS.  I have stuck to the old school Nestle Tollhouse back-of-the -bag recipe. Never fails.

But every now and then it’s good to change things up and when I saw this recipe on My Baking Addiction I had to make the leap. There were two reasons this cookie intrigued me. One, this is not your average cookie. It’s 4 ouces!!  If you are from NYC and have been to Levain Bakery you know what a 4 ounce cookie feels like. It can feed you for a day. Diet be damned. Two, the recipe calls for cold butter which I have never seen in a cookie recipe.

Just a note, I made one batch of these smaller, about 2 ounce and they didn’t turn out quite as great. They were too dense. So to stick the gigantic cookies!

Giant Chocolate Chip Cookies

Courtsey of My Baking Addiction

2 sticks cold and cubed unsalted butter
1 cup granulated suagar
1 cup light brown sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
2 3/4 cup all purpose flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
2 /1/2 cups good quality semisweet chocolate chips or chunks
1 cup of walnuts

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, cream together butter and sugars until well blended and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, mix in vanilla and beat until well incorporated.Add flour, salt, baking soda and mix until just combined. Gently fold in chocolate chips.

Transfer the dough to a clean work surface and gently mix dough by hand to ensure even distribution of ingredients.
Weigh out the dough into 4 ounce portions and gently roll into a ball.

Place each on a sheet pan lined with parchment paper and bake in the oven with 15-20 minutes, until very lightly browned.
Let cool on a rack. Or eat them nice and hot!

Printable Giant Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe

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

“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

One of the best bits of summertime is all of the fresh fruit and not only it’s availability, but it’s cost! I can finally buy a pint of raspberries for under $4.  Yay!

I love raspberries. They are one of my favorite fruits and one of the few raw fruits that my husband is not horribly allergic to.  That being said, I try to get these little berries into as many recipes as I can. This is the first time I tried putting them into cupcakes. Truth be told, they did not turn out as expected in the first go around. I over-beat the batter and turned them into raspberry muffins. Tasty? Yes. Cupcakes? No.  So, a word to the wise, DO NOT put the raspberries into the batter whole. Chop half, puree half and then FOLD them into the batter.

I made two options for the topping to go on these cupcakes because I couldn’t decided which I wanted to use, so I used both. The first is a raspberry cream cheese frosting, the second is chocolate ganache topped with a whole raspberry. One note, if you do the ganache it is best to serve them fairly soon after adding the ganache. I like my ganache a little more liquid than set.

Raspberry Cupcakes Recipe
Basic Vanilla Cupcake Recipe from “Magnolia Bakery”.

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

Raspberry Cream Cheese Frosting

1 8oz package of cream cheese, at room temperature
1 stick butter, at room temperature
3 cups confectioners sugar
1 pint fresh raspberries

Chocolate Ganache

8oz semisweet or bittersweet chocoloate
3/4 cup heavy whipping cream
2 tablespoons unslated butter

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Line two muffin tins with cupcake papers.  In a small bowl, combine the flours and set aside.

Chop one half of the raspberries. Set aside. Puree, or just mush with a fork, the remaining raspberries. Set aside.

In a large bowl, on the medium speed of hand held mixer, cream the butter until it’s smooth. Add the sugar and beat until fluffy. About 3 minutes. Add the eggs, one a time, beating well after each addition.

Add the dry ingredients in 3 parts, alternating with the milk and the vanilla. With each addition, beat until the ingredients are incorporated but do not over-beat! (unless you want muffins)

Using a rubber spatula, scrape down the batter in the bowl to make sure the ingredients are well blended.

Fold the chopped and pureed raspberries into the batter

Carefully spoon batter into cupcake liners, filling them about 3 quarters full. Bake for 20-25 minutes. Allow to cool in the muffin tin for 10 minutes before removing them and placing them on a baking rack to cool completely.

Now, for the cream cheese frosting.

Cream together the cream cheese and the butter. Slowly beat in the confectioners sugar one cup at at time. Beat in 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla. Add 1 pint of raspberries and beat until incorporated. Spread, or pipe, over cooled cupcakes.

For the chocolate ganache…

Place chopped chocolate into a heat resistant bowl. Set aside.  Heat cream and butter in a saucepan over medium heat. Bring just to a boil. Immediately pour the boiling cream mixture over the chopped chocolate. Allow it to stand for about 5 minutes. Whisk until smooth. Gently spoon ganache over cooled cupcakes and top with a fresh raspberry.

Enjoy!!

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 !