"Let's talk about vanilla"

Or we can talk about ducks. Texans will understand.

I must confess, I hardly ever use vanilla extract. There, I said it.

99 times out of 100 I will use vanilla beans. I know, you are thinking "OMG that's so expensive". I have found that it isn't. For the last few years I have been getting them from this place. So for ~$20 you can get a pound of beans. Of course, you can get a qt of extract for ~$50. So it might be a wash in the end, but for my money, nothing beats the look of those tiny little seeds of awesomeness in icing or cream brulee. And in my tiny little kitchen, where am I going to store a quart of vanilla? With the beans, I throw them in sugar and viola!, I end up with vanilla sugar

"It has carrots in it, it must be good for you"

The following recipe makes a boatload of cake. And since I was just doing some cupcakes, I trimmed it down by 75%.

Sugar 3 lb 5 oz
Cake flour 2 lb 8 0z
Baking powder 1.25 oz
Baking soda .75 oz
Cinnamon .75 oz
Salt .5 oz
Eggs 28 oz
Olive oil 48 oz
Vanilla 1 tblsp
Carrots, grated fine 2 lb 5 oz
Walnuts, chopped 1 lb (pecans work just fine too)



In a mixing bowl fitted with the paddle, mix the sugar, cake flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, salt and eggs on low for one minute.
Add a few clicks of speed and mix for 4 minutes.
Reduce to the lowest speed and gradually pour in the olive oil.
Add the vanilla
Add the carrots and walnuts and mix until just combined.



One quarter of the recipe made 25 cupcakes and an 8 inch cake. I'll post pictures later of the cake. But the process is the same as the chocolate cake I made the other day. Only this time, it will be with cream cheese icing.

This icing is the easiest icing ever. The formula is a breeze to remember

Cream cheese 1 lb
Powdered sugar 8 oz
Butter 4 oz
Pinch salt
Vanilla .5 bean

As you can see, starting with whatever the cream cheese weighs, take half of that amount and that is the amount of powdered sugar. And half of the sugar is how much butter.

A couple of caveats
1) the cream cheese and butter need to be room temp with no lumps. No one likes lumpy icing.
2) sift the sugar.
3) only ever mix of low. If you crank the speed up, the result will be a runny mess that won't hold its shape. So go slow.

Celiac patients need not apply

mmmmm bagels

High gluten flour 6#
Pure gluten 5 oz
Water 3# 8 oz
Yeast, instant 1 oz
Malt 1 oz
Salt 2oz
Egg for egg wash 1-2
Poaching liquid (2 gallons water, 6 oz honey, 2 oz baking soda)
(I divided this recipe by a third)

Oven at 450

Mix yeast and water, let proof for a few minutes
Throw that in the KitchenAid and start mixing in the flour/gluten.
Autolyse
Add the rest of the ingredients and mix until you get a windowpane.
Let rise
After it has risen, divide it into 4 oz balls


Then using your fingers, poke holes in the balls and flatten them out. Make them... you know...bagel-like


Let them rest for a few minutes while the poaching liquid comes to a boil. Once it does, reduce it to a simmer.

Throw the proto-bagels in the liquid (as many as you can fit at a time) and simmer for 1-2 minutes each side.



Store them on a clean towel until they are ready to bake. When you are ready, brush with egg wash and hit the baking sheet with some oats. Bake until brown.


And of course, pay homage to the princess

Finished cake

After you cut the cakes in half, it helps to line them up, plumb the sides and level the top. I cut a notch into the cake as a reference for when I am building it.



















Filled the layers with buttercream and put a thin crumb coat on the cake, then into the freezer to set













Once the crumb coat is hard, it's time for the rest of the buttercream

















Some would stop there, but I usually add a layer layer of poured ganache. Annnd done

Chicks dig gerbet macaroons

you will need to start with the following ingredients

7 ounces egg whites (room temp is best)
5 ounces sugar
1 tablespoon dried egg whites (optional, I didn't have any)
8 ounces almond flour (I used pistachios)
16 ounces powdered sugar














if desired, food coloring - any color that reflects the selected interior filling. I used cocoa powder. just enough to make them chocolate colored

to make the almond flour (in this case pistachio flour) use a food processor to grind the nuts with the powdered sugar


















Almost there














run it until the mixture looks like sand















you will need to have a pastry bag with a plain tip and a couple of sheet trays with parchment or a silpat















in mixing bowl whip the egg whites to froth.
















stir sugar and dried egg whites together, add to the frothed egg whites and whip to medium stiff peaks


































fold almond flour mixture into the whipped egg whites. the batter should have a light shine, not a dull, matte look.
















pipe the macaroons with a medium plain tip. as big or as small as you want them. they should not spread too much.

rest for 20 minutes before baking. if you don't they tend to crack.
















bake at 400 for approximately 12 minutes or until firm.

















remove from silicone mat when cool
















fill with lemon curd, ganache, any flavored butter cream, jam, etc.














when you assemble them. remember they are very fragile. use a twisting motion similar to how you split open oreos, just reversed














Like I told you, she likes ice

Chocolate cake so good you'll slap yo mama

Just kidding mom :)

First thing's first

BUTTERCREAM

I use the recipe from Rose Levy Beranbaum's The Cake Bible. That woman knows her stuff. If you don't have a copy, turn this off and go get one. Then come back and finish reading. Then send me $20.

I find the recipe in the book to be a bit too small for a 4 layer 10 inch cake. So I multiply it by 1.5. In the recipe below, the italicized numbers are her original amounts.

Egg yolks 6 oz / 4 oz
Sugar 8 oz / 5.25 oz
Corn syrup 8.5 oz / 5.75 oz
Butter (soft) 1.5 # / 1#
Chocolate (melted and cooled) 9 oz /up to 6 oz

Beat the yolks until light in color.
Combine sugar and corn syrup in a small pot. Bring to a rolling boil. The entire surface should be covered with large bubbles.


















Beat the syrup into the yolks in a steady stream. Don't let the syrup hit the whisk. You will end up with chunks of sugar in the icing. If it happens, just fish the largest pieces out. You can tell the people eating the cake that it's "Toffee". People will believe anything.

Once all the syrup has been added, let the mixer go until the contents are completely cool.

Once cool, gradually add in the soft butter. Then add the chocolate. Below is the picture I took right as the whisk gave up the ghost.

Let me be clear
If you add the butter before the yolks/sugar mixture is completely cool,
you will be boned.
Or if you add the chocolate in and it's still warm,
you will be boned.
The butter will melt and it will just be a mess.

Once all this is done and you are bone free, wrap it up and throw into the fridge. Once it sets, make sure to let it come to room temp before you use it.

GANACHE

Make this after the cakes are in the oven. Super easy.

Cream 1 pint
Corn syrup 3 oz
Chocolate (chips or chopped up) 1.5#
Butter 1.5 oz

Bring cream and corn syrup to a boil. Meanwhile, place chocolate and butter in a bowl. Pour cream over chocolate in 4 or 5 steps, stirring in between. If you stir in too much air it won't look as nice and glossy. So go slow and do not use a whisk.

THE CAKE

Butter (melted) 10 oz
Eggs 6
Buttermilk (room temp) 16 oz
Hot coffee 16 oz
Vanilla 1T
Salt 1t
Sugar 1#14
Cake flour 1#
Cocoa 8 oz
Baking powder 2t
Baking soda 2t

Using a Kitchenaid with a whip attachment, mix melted butter and eggs until smooth.
Add buttermilk, coffee, vanilla, salt, sugar
Sift the rest together and add in at low speed. Scrape the bowl often.
The batter will be very liquid. Pour into 2 10 inch pans (sprayed with Pam and coated with sugar)
Bake at ~350 until set.










Once cool, cut them in half.
Layer the cake with the butter cream, leaving enough icing to do the exterior. Put a crumb coat on and throw in the freezer for a bit. Once hard, use the rest of the buttercream and back into the freezer to set.
To finish, pour the ganache over the cake. and again, back to the fridge to set.

Pictures of the completed cake to follow.

And as always, she lubs her some ice

Another one bites the dust

Well, time to buy a new whip attachement

Autolyse

I was making some bagels earlier and it occurred to me that when the popular TV cooks bake bread, you never hear anyone mention autolyse.

An autolyse is super simple. When you are mixing up the bread, you add all the flour and water in the recipe to the mixer. Once it is just incorporated: stop the mixer, and wrap it with some plastic wrap. That's it. You don't even need to remove the dough hook.










































Once the time is up, add the rest of the ingredients and mix in. Boom! done.

You will find your total time of mixing the dough is reduced. So if you are controlling the temp of the dough, no need to add extra heat from friction. And the chance of overworked dough is lessened. As well, I think the texture of the dough is improved by this progress.

So the next time you are making bread dough, think WWRD? He would autolyse that bad boy is what he'd do.

When the sun hits your eye like a big pizza pie....

Dough

4 cups flour. (I use high gluten flour. but bread flour will do)
~1.5 cups 2% milk.
Yeast 1 packet, whatever. You just need yeast
2 tblsp kosher salt. If you use table salt, use 1 tblsp
1.5 tblsp butter (soft)

Mix the yeast into the water and let sit for a few minutes

Mix the water and flour in a Kitchenaid until it's just coming together. Stop the machine and cover with a towel or saran wrap. Let sit for ~20 minutes.

After rest, add salt and butter. Mix well.

Roll into a ball and let rise until doubled in a covered bowl

That recipe made 3 pizzas. So plan accordingly. And I used a tomato sauce on these pizzas. If you want the recipe, let me know.

After the initial rise, I divided the dough into thirds and put the oven to 450. I thought I would experiment with a silver pan and a dark pan. Sure enough, the dark pan had a better, crunchier crust.

Here I got the cake pans and poured some olive oil in the bottom. enough to coat the bottom. I covered them and let them rise for a bit. This picture is pre-rise.













While I waited for the dough to rise I sautéed some schrooms with balsamic until nice and brown













Then let them drain. I hate soggy pizza













Then I gave the dog some ice. She loves her some ice



















After the dough had risen, I dressed it with tomato sauce, pepperoni, schrooms, and "cheese, Grommit". Let it go for ~20 minutes and this came out













After it cooled for a minute, the crust was nice and chewy on the inside. but crunchy on the outside

Spling lolls!

Had a roommate is college who was Asian (he probably still is). He used to make the best fried rice you ever had. Of course it helped that his family owned a Chinese restaurant.
I used to tell him that he had an unfair genetic advantage. He would just mutter something in Cantonese and walk away. I did manage to pick up a few tricks from him along with a few choice Chinese cuss words.

Spring rolls are pretty open to interpretation. I used whatever I had on hand. In this case it was:
cucumbers
carrots
peanuts
fish sauce
maifun (noodles)
cilantro
wrappers

I have used; asparagus, basil, shrimp, tofu... the list goes on and on. The point is, use what you like (or have).

One caveat, most of the time spent on this recipe is in the prep.

Peel and shred carrots
Chop up cilantro
Peel cukes. Cut in half lengthwise, scrape the seeds out and julienne them.
Chop up peanuts

I like to combine the cukes and cilantro in one bowl, the peanuts and carrots in another. Flavor the carrot mixture with as much or as little fish sauce as you like.

Throw the maifun into some barely boiling water for ~5 minutes. Drain the water and we are set to go.

You will notice in the back I have the wrappers in a cake pan filled with water. Let them soak until soft, just a few minutes.



Once the wrappers are soft, pull one out and place on a towel. If you don't get the excess water off, you will have soggy spring rolls.

The rolling process is easy enough, but takes some practice to get right. Lay out the wrapper, and add your fillings in more of less a line mimicking the desired final shape


Fold the sides in


Then roll into a umm cigar shape. Yeah cigar.




Ending up with an object shaped vaguely like a cigar


After this is done, make sure to give the dog some ice, she lubs her some ice