The Bread is in the Baking

So I'm going to let you in on a secret: I've made pie crust from scratch maybe twice. And I work in a pie cart. WHAT'S WITH THAT?
First off, my main job in the pie cart is helping roll out crust and assemble the pies. I also help with making the savory pie filling sometimes and cutting up fruit and veggies. But my boss always comes into the cart with dough already made, so I still don't know how to make the amazing flaky crust he's got.
I always thought making pies didn't take any skill. What's the big deal? You make some dough, roll it out, cut up some fruit throw it in the crust, pop it in the oven. But I realized that yes, this is all easy except for one thing. The crust.
Bad pie crust is the worst. It either just falls apart or is really chewy. You need something in between and it also needs to have a good flavor all of it's own.

Well, after scouring the internet I found out a way to make some pretty damn good flaky crust.
Instead of using cold water use hard alcohol. Since the alcohol evaporates more than water does your crust becomes flakier, but still holds together.

After looking at some different recipes I mashed a couple together to make the dough and then used my own knowledge on what tastes good together (and what was in my kitchen) for the filling.


Vanilla Peach Gallete

For the pastry dough:

1 1/2 cup flour
3/4 teaspoons salt
1/4 cup sugar
6 ounces cold butter, cut into pieces
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon sugar
2 1/2 tablespoons vodka (I’m going to assume that the more expensive you use the less alcohol-y your crust will taste)

For the fruit filling:

4 peaches, peeled and sliced
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 cup sugar
the juice of 1/4 of a lemon

1 egg (for an egg wash)

Place a rimmed baking sheet onto the center rack of the oven. Preheat oven to 400º.

To make the pastry dough, add the flour, salt, cinnamon and sugar to a deep bowl; whisk to combine. Scatter the butter pieces over flour mixture and use your fingers to cut in the butter (this can alternately be done in a food processor). Sprinkle the vodka over the butter-flour mixture and stir with a fork until the dough forms a ball, pat the ball down into an even disk. Wrap in plastic and let rest in the refrigerator for an hour.
After you've peeled and cut up the peaches, In a bowl toss them with the sugar, cinnamon, vanilla and lemon juice. Place the now cold dough on a lightly floured piece of parchment paper, dust the top of the dough with more flour and place another piece of parchment paper on top. roll the dough out, peeling the parchment paper off the dough and flipping after every couple of rolls until you have a 16-inch circle. Place the dough and the bottom piece of the parchment paper on a cookie sheet.
Carefully place the fruit into the center of the dough leaving the excess juice behind. Fold the dough border up and over to cover the fruit, forming a crust. Bake 40 to 45 minutes, or until pastry is a deep golden and the fruit is bubbling in the center. Let cool for 10 to 15 minutes. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Total Time: About 2 1/2 hours

I just want to start this out by recognizing the food blog I got this recipe from: Smitten Kitchen. If you've never checked out this blog, go look at it.

Right now.

Okay, now to the cake. This is a really wonderful rich chocolate cake. The wine makes the cake light and fluffy while also giving it a bit more depth. I love it. I made it for one of my close friends for her birthday and I just doubled the recipe so I can make a layer cake for a joint birthday party some other friends of mine are having tonight. It's also the perfect 21st birthday cake, cause it's got alcohol in it, but it's still really luxurious, so it's not one of those cakes that slaps you across the face, screaming "ALCOHOL" at you. Make sense?

Chocolate Wine Cake

Cake
6 tablespoons (85 grams) unsalted butter, at room temperature
3/4 cup (179 grams) firmly packed dark brown sugar
1/4 cup (50 grams) white granulated sugar
1 large egg + 1 large egg yolk, at room temperature
3/4 cup (177 ml) red wine, any kind you like (being a college student, the three buck chuck from Trader Joe's worked just fine)
1 teaspoon (5 ml) vanilla extract
1 cup + 1 tablespoon (133 grams) all-purpose flour
1/2 cup (41 grams) Dutch cocoa powder
1/8 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon table salt
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Preheat the oven to 325°F. Line the bottom of a 9-inch round cake pan with parchment, and either butter and lightly flour the parchment and exposed sides of the pan, or spray the interior with a nonstick spray. In a large bowl, on the medium speed of an electric mixer, cream the butter until smooth. Add the sugars and beat until fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add the egg and yolk and beat well, then the red wine and vanilla. Don’t worry if the batter looks a little uneven. Sift the flour, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon and salt together, right over your wet ingredients. Mix until 3/4 combined, then fold the rest together with a rubber spatula. Spread batter in prepared pan. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, or until a cake tester inserted into the center comes out clean. The top of the cake should be shiny and smooth, like a puddle of chocolate. Cool in pan on a rack for about 10 minutes, then flip out of pan and cool the rest of the way on a cooling rack. This cake keeps well at room temperature or in the fridge. It looks pretty dusted with powdered sugar.

You know that stuff that you can get at the candy stores? Let me be more specific, it's covered in chocolate and when you bite into it and it's crunchy and crumbly all at the same time. It's one of my favorites and I stumbled on a recipe for it!
It's also gluten free, so my housemate was able to get in on the treat. Making this is super simple and the last few steps made me feel like I was a five year old on 4th of July.

Chocolate Sea Foam


1/4 cup grams honey
1/2 cup minus 1 tablespoon light corn syrup
2 cups sugar
3 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

Prepare a sheet pan (preferably with sides) with a piece of parchment paper or aluminum foil and brush it with a thin coating of butter or oil.

Combine the honey, corn syrup and sugar in a heavy-bottomed saucepan--one large enough to allow the mixture to quadruple in size (which it will do when you add the baking soda at the end). Moisten the mixture with enough water so that there are no dry patches of sugar; then wash down any stray sugar crystals that might be clinging to the side of the pan.

Set the pan on high heat and cook and cook and cook until a candy thermometer reaches 300 F or, if you don’t have a thermometer, until the mixture turns a light amber color. While the mixture is cooking, do NOT stir it at all. Stirring can cause the sugar to seize (one moment it’s fine, one moment it’s hard and crystallized). Don’t worry about it mixing properly, it will do that on its own when it starts to boil.

When the honeycomb is sufficiently cooked, take the pan off the heat. Dump in all of your baking soda and whisk vigorously until it is well combined; while you whisk, the honeycomb will foam up dramatically. After the soda is whisked in, gently pour the mixture out onto a prepared pan and allow to cool completely, about one hour.

Once cool, break into smaller pieces and dip in chocolate if desired. Store in an airtight container or the honeycomb will suck moisture out of the air, leaving an unprotected initially crisp candy sticky and gooey in a matter of hours.

Total Time: About 2 hours

So I got off work yesterday and checked my phone to see if I had any missed calls, and I did! From my extended family in town inviting me over for dinner! I called back and said that I would love to come for dinner (and it was a good thing I did, because dinner was delicious). But you can't go over to someone's house last minute for dinner empty handed, so I went on the trusty FoodGawker and found a really quick and easy recipe for coconut cake!
Seriously, this is one of the easiest recipes ever. It takes about 15 minutes to mix all the ingredients together (and I did this all by hand, so imagine doing this with a mixer!) and then you pop it in the oven for 45 minutes and voila! It's also light, airy and not too sweet.
The only thing I changed in this recipe is that it asks for cornstarch (which is a thickener) and I didn't have any, so I added more flour (the recipe asked for 1 tbs of cornstarch so I added 2 tbs of flour) instead and it worked fine.

Coconut Cake
1 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 cup and 2 tbs flour
1 1/4 cup sugar
1 1/4 cup shredded coconut
125 g melted butter
3 eggs
3/4 cup milk
powdered sugar for sprinkling

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit because this is not going to take long!
Mix flour, baking powder and coconut and mix. In a separate bowl, beat eggs and sugar until pale creamy and then add the milk and cooled butter to the mixture and stir together.  Mix the dry and wet ingredients together, adding the liquid ingredients slowly. Then Grease an 8 inch angel food cake pan with butter or vegetable oi and then sprinkle it with flour and remove the excess flour.

Pour the dough into pan and level the top. Bake 40-45 minutes, checking the cake with a toothpick or small knife. Cool cake 5 minutes in the form, then turn over onto a wire rack.
Sprinkle it with powdered sugar and serve.


Total Time: About an hour

I came home from work today and I was craving something sweet, but being low on money I could only use supplies I had in my kitchen and the only oil I have in my kitchen right now is olive oil. I'd seen some cake recipes floating around the interwebs with olive oil in them instead of vegetable oil or butter and was interested in giving one of them a whirl.
This one was the only one that fit my parameters exactly and it came out really great (so great, I'm pretty sure I've eaten half of the cake by myself...). This cake is dense and silky with wonderful flavor and the glaze really helps bring out more of the flavor.

Lemon Olive Oil Cake
3/4 cup olive oil (don't feel the need to use really fancy olive oil, I got mine from Trader Joes)
1 large lemon
1 cup all-purpose flour
5 egg yolks
4 egg whites
3/4 cup plus 1 1/2 tablespoons sugar
1 cup powdered sugar

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease an 8 inch springform, or 9 x 5 inch loaf pan with olive oil and line with parchment paper. Grease the parchment paper and then dust with flour.

Grate the lemon zest from the lemon and mix together with the flour in a medium bowl. Juice the lemon.

Quickly beat together the egg yolks and 1/2 cup sugar for about 3 minutes and then slowly beat in the olive oil and 1 1/2 tablespoons of lemon juice. Add the flour mixture and fold in gently with a wooden spoon or spatula.

  Using a mixer, beat 4 egg whites high speed with the whisk attachment until foamy. Continue to beat on high, slowly adding 1/4 cup of sugar until soft peaks form. Fold the egg whites into the cake batter until just combined. Pour into the prepared baking pan and sprinkle with the remaining sugar.

Bake until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, about 45 minutes. Cool for 10 minutes in the pan, then remove to a wire rack to cool completely.

Prepare the glaze by whisking together the powdered sugar 1 tablespoon of the fresh lemon juice. Add more lemon juice if necessary to get the desired consistency and pour over the cooled cake. 

Yesterday I was lazing around in my bedroom and my mom peaked her head in.
"We're having company tonight, what should we make? I was thinking ratatouille and then some meat."
"Salmon?"
"We always do salmon..."
"yeah, but salmon is good."
"Okay, so Salmon, ratatouille and polenta?"
"Yum."
"We need a dessert, can you make it? It just needs to be chocolate."
"Sure thing."
So I went online and searched my favorite food blogs and found a chocolate pistachio cake.
Now, I don't like pistachios. I did at one point, but I think I ate too many in one sitting and got sick, so I don't like them anymore. Even if they are kind of fun to crack open. But what my family does really like are walnuts. And walnuts and chocolate go really well together. So I substituted walnuts for the pistachios and the cake came out beautifully!
This cake is not a light cake, if you want it to be lighter I would try substituting some of the regular flour with cake flour (but don't take my word on it, I haven't tried).

Chocolate Walnut Swirl Cake with chocolate ganache

Chocolate part of the cake

1 cup flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/3 cup butter (room temp.)
1 and 1/8 cup sugar
2 eggs
3/4 cup plain yogurt (greek is fine)
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/3 cup chocolate chips (plus a little extra)

Walnut part

1 cup flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/3 cup butter (room temp.)
1 and 1/8 cup sugar
2 eggs
3/4 cup plain yogurt (greek is fine)
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/3 cup chopped walnuts

Ganache:
120 g (3 oz) semisweet dark chocolate
125 ml (1/2 C) whipping cream
(this ganache is a bit bitter, if you want it to be sweeter I'd ad 1 tsp of sugar)

Preheat your oven to 360 F. Grease a 10-inch cake or loaf pan, preferably nonstick with a removable bottom.

Prepare the chocolate batter.
In a food processor, mix together sugar and butter until fluffy. Add in eggs, one at a time, mixing between each. Add in the yogurts and the vanilla extract and mix again. In a medium bowl, combine the flour with the baking powder, baking soda and the cocoa mixture. Add the flour mixture into the food processor and mix again until just combined. Pour the batter into the cake pan, and reserve in the refrigerator.

Rinse the bowl of the food processor, and prepare the walnut batter:
Mix together the sugar, butter. Add in the eggs, one at a time, mixing between each. Add in the yogurts and mix again. In a medium bowl, combine the flour with the baking powder and baking soda, and the chopped walnuts. Add into the food processor and mix again until just combined.

Take the cake pan out of the fridge, and sprinkle the chocolate chips evenly over the surface of the chocolate batter. Gently pour the pistachio batter on top, and smooth out the surface with a spatula. Put into the oven to bake for about an hour or until a cake tester comes out clean. Let rest for five minutes on the counter, then turn out on a rack to cool completely.

Prepare the ganache:

Melt the dark chocolate with the whipping cream in a double boiler (or in a bowl set over a saucepan of simmering water), stirring with a spoon regularly until completely melted and velvety. Let the ganache rest in the fridge until it has thickened a bit, about 30 minutes to an hour, and frost the cake using a small spatula.

Let the cake cool completely before frosting.

Total Time: About 2 hours

The beautiful picture was taken by my dad! Thanks!

Okay, so before I made this, I thought that making your own icy treats was really hard. I'd see ice cream recipes and just think "nope, too hard. Can't do that" and move on to the other recipes.
So now I'm just going to tell you from experience:
MAKING ICE CREAM IS REALLY REALLY EASY.

You just need the right machinery to make it, and by machinery I mean you need an ice cream maker.

This recipe for frozen yogurt is really good, I adapted it from a recipe from Tartlette. The original recipe on that site is for Asian Pear Frozen Yogurt, but they aren't in season so I used raspberries instead, from the backyard.
Fancy fancy!

Raspberry Frozen Yogurt

2 Cups of fresh raspberries (or whatever fruit you want to use)
1/4 teaspoon freshly squeezed lemon or lime juice
16 oz. Greek yogurt (use a little less if you don't like it too tart)
1/2 cup sugar (use a little more if you like it sweeter)
generous pinch of fine sea salt

Rinse and strain raspberries and sprinkle lemon/lime juice over them then place in blender and puree until the raspberries have become a smooth jam-like consistency. Mix greek yogurt, sugar, salt and raspberry puree in a large bowl, cover with plastic and place in the fridge for 1 hour.
Churn the mixture in your ice cream maker according to manufacturer's directions (which is about 30 minutes of really really annoying noise).

NOTE: This recipe does take some planning in advance, your ice cream mixing bowl needs to be frozen before you can churn it, which takes about a day to do. My family just leaves the bowl in the freezer all the time, so whenever we feel like making something with it, it's ready to use.

Total Time: About 2 hours

It's the end of my sophomore year at college and I had a can of pumpkin under my bed, not something I really need to bring home, soooo what's a girl to do?
MAKE PUMPKIN BREAD, or a pumpkin loaf as I like to call it since there's no yeast in it and you don't have to let it rise, and those are the defining characteristics for bread to me.
I found this recipe online, it's pretty decent. Very light and soft. I would like a stronger pumpkin taste, but it's nice and sweet. I changed the recipe a little, I substituted some pumpkin pie spices for one of the cinnamon tsp (because I only had about a teaspoon of it left). I was unable to add pecans, because I didn't have any, but I think it would probably make it taste better and add some crunch.

Pumpkin Loaf
3 1/3 cups Flour
3 teaspoons Cinnamon
1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
2 teaspoons Baking soda
1 teaspoon Baking Powder
1 1/2 teaspoons Salt
2 2/3 cups Sugar
2/3 cup Vegetable Oil
4 Eggs
1 can (15 oz) Pumpkin
2/3 cup Water
1/2 cup Pecans chopped (optional)

Preheat oven to 325.
Mix dry ingredients together. Beat sugar and vegetable oil together until blended (mixture will still look dry). Add eggs, 1 at a time, until blended. Add pumpkin and mix thoroughly. Add dry ingredients a little at a time, alternating with water. Mix in pecans Pour batter into 2 9x5x3 or 5- 5 3/2x3 loaf pans. Sprinkle tops of loaves with cinnamon sugar before baking.

Bake at 325 for 55-60 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Let cool for 15 minutes before removing from pans. If you use smaller pans it will take about 50 minutes instead, not a lot less time.

 Total Time: About 1 hour and 30 minutes

These are one of my favorite desserts. I first had one in Portland at Ken's Bakery, which is one of my favorite Bakeries, the other favorite being Bakery Nouveau. One in Portland, one is Seattle.

ANYWAY, back to Canelés. Canelés are a french pastry with a dark caramelized outside and a soft dough center. They have a rich buttery flavor and you can add citrus zest to give them more of a bite, if that's what you like. They come in a many sizes, but you need a specific mold in order to make them. The mold helps make the outside of the Canelé hard and crunch, while leaving the inside creamy.
The mold I use can be found on amazon, I bought a silicon mold that makes 18 tiny canelés, but I'm probably going to buy some larger molds soon. The silicon mold works very nicely because it's very easy to pop the canelés out, but if you get any batter on the outside of the mold it'll stains the mold.
I've tried a couple of variations of this recipe and I only achieved success with the last recipe. I've made the recipe a little simpler and added a little more flour. The batter can also be left in the fridge to use later for about 3 days. You'll just need to stir it back together.

Canelés
2 cups whole milk
18 tablespoons sugar
3 teaspoons vanilla extract or 1 vanilla pod, split
4 tablespoons butter
16 tablespoons flour
2 egg yolks
3 teaspoon dark rum
Butter for the molds(unless you're using silicon molds, than none is needed.

Preheat the oven to 375.

In a medium saucepan heat milk, sugar, vanilla, and butter until butter has completely melted. Let cool completely (and remove vanilla pod if you used it).

When milk is completely cool add the egg yolks and rum, and then gradually add the flour. Mix with a whisk until batter is smooth and no flour lumps.

Butter molds with melted butter and let stand for 2-3 minutes. Spoon batter into molds just below the rim.

Cook for about 1 1/2 hours. If you use smaller molds you will only need to cook them for about an hour.

Total Time: About 2 1/2 hours

Note: My dad pointed out a couple weeks ago that I had used a couple different spellings for "canelés". I changed this entry so the spelling is the same throughout the post, BUT I have found different variations on the spelling including: Canelle, canele, cannele and cannelle. All the different spellings will turn up different recipes.

This is really tasty, but not like any doughnut you've every had. It's very bread-like, but sweet and a little flaky. If you think this recipe is going to be healthy because it's baked, it's not: you dip these doughnuts in butter. I got this recipe off of this site, which has a lot of other great recipes you should check out too.
I've changed the recipe a tiny bit, but not a lot. Mostly, I've made some of the ingredients less specific.

Baked Doughnuts
1 1/3 cups warm milk
1 packet active dry yeast (2 1/4 teaspoons)
2 tablespoons butter
2/3 cup sugar
2 eggs
5 cups all-purpose flour
A pinch or two of nutmeg, freshly grated (optional, I haven't used it)
1 teaspoon salt

Toppings
1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 tablespoon cinnamon

Place 1/3 cup of the warm milk in the bowl of an electric mixer. Stir in the yeast and set aside for five minutes or so. Be sure your milk isn't too hot or it will kill the yeast. Stir the butter and sugar into the remaining cup of warm milk and add it to the yeast mixture. With a fork, stir in the eggs, flour, nutmeg, and salt - just until the flour is incorporated. With the dough hook attachment of your mixer beat the dough for a few minutes at medium speed. If your dough is overly sticky, add flour a few tablespoons at a time. Too dry? Add more milk a bit at a time. You want the dough to pull away from the sides of the mixing bowl and eventually become supple and smooth. Turn it out onto a floured counter-top, knead a few times (the dough should be barely sticky), and shape into a ball.

You can also do all of the above by hand.

Transfer the dough to a buttered (or oiled) bowl, cover, put in a warm place (a slightly heated oven works too) and let rise for an hour or until the dough has roughly doubled in size.

Punch down the dough and roll it out 1/2-inch thick on your floured countertop. You can cut out your doughnuts with a big round cookie cutter or a large mug, just press down firmly on the rolled out dough. you can use a smaller cookie cutter or a shot glass to stamp out circles.

NOTE: You may have trouble getting your dougnuts moved after stamping out the center so try to do it on the baking sheet your going to use.

Transfer the circles to a parchment-lined baking sheet. Cover with a clean cloth and let rise for another 45 minutes. Preheat your oven to 375 degrees as you wait for your dough to rise again.

Bake until the bottoms are just golden, 8 to 10 minutes. Start checking at 8 minutes. While the doughnuts are baking, place the melted butter in a medium bowl. Place the sugar and cinnamon in a separate bowl.

Remove the doughnuts from the oven and let cool for just a minute or two. Dip each one in the melted butter and a quick toss in the sugar bowl. Eat immediately if not sooner. They taste best warm!

Makes 1 1/2 - 2 dozen medium doughnuts.