claire797
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Posts posted by claire797
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Cakes from scratch are all I make. I like watching people eat it when I take one someplace. They know it is different, and some are not sure if it is better or worse. My scratch layer cakes are lighter and have a more open crumb than box mixes. I think beating the egg whites and folding them into batter at the last makes a differnce, though I have read cake books that claim no benefit is derived by this method
Guess it depends on what recipe, right? I have a scratch recipe that involves folding in beaten egg whites, and it's definitely one of my best scratch white cakes. I'm surprised a cake book would say it "makes no difference" whether you fold in whites, because adding egg whites to a batter (you'd think, right?) would make a cake lighter and airier. My best scratch cake recipes involve 3 things.
1) bringing all ingredients to room temperature (something I must plan ahead of time)
2) sifting, sifting sifting (something messy, which I don't enjoy, which leads to more cleaning)
3) and using beaten egg whites, which leads to more appliances and more cleaning
Doing those 3 steps gets me the results I'm looking for, but including those 3 things is NOT *as* or even close to as convenient as dumping a box of cake mix in a bowl and beating it up with oil, eggs and water.
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Maybe the answer really lies in whether or not you are a cake person or a frosting person.
For instance, if a mediocre (not, bad -- but not great) cake has a spectacular frosting, then I'm likely to forget how mediocre the cake part was. Given that, I'm not as picky about whether a cake is scratch or box as some others might be. You'll never catch me scraping the frosting of a piece of cake or leaving it behind -- unless it was really nasty frosting. However, I could see myself eating the frosting off and leaving the cake behind.I wish we could all get together for a big cake taste-off and see how many of use really could taste the box taste
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I grew up eating boxed cake mix. The flavor has always reminded me of good times, birthday parties, etc. etc. etc. Over the past few years, as I've learned how to do more scratch baking and have baked for more (and pickier!) people, I've grown self-conscious about my cakes and am now one of those people who can, er, "taste the box". I own all the Cake Mix Doctor books, still recommend various cake mix recipes to friends, like the idea of cake mix and its convenience, but can't eat a cake mix cake without detecting the mix and then feeling lazy for not using a scratch recipe.
If I come upon a crazy, creative recipe using cake mix (Midori cake, for instance), I'll try it. I also like using plain white cake mix in some enhanced or doctored recipes. It's the artificially flavored butter or yellow cake mixes that I'm starting to have a problem with.
As for making scratch cakes that aren't as good as box cakes, I hear you! I've made a BUNCH of scratch cakes that just didn't cut it. To make a really good scratch yellow or white cake, you have to be fairly meticulous with ingredients, methods etc.
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Wendy, this is awesome!!!
I am especially impressed with you cookbook collection. I noticed you have a lot of my favorite dessert books -- in particular, Richard Sax Classic Home Desserts. I LOVE that book. Keep up the great blog.
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The King Arthur Cookie Companion has a great homemade graham cracker recipe. You might want to Google for it or check KA's baking circle web site.
As for marshmallows, I have no opinion. Someone out there surely has a good homemade recipe. Those are one of those things I keep meaning to make and just never get around to it.
For chocolate, you can use whatever type you want, but S'mores scream Hershey's Milk Chocolate to me, because that's what we used while sitting around a campfire back in the mid seventies. I'd use homey Hershey's Milk Chocolate and then throw in a higher quality chocolate for some juxtaposition action :).
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Hooray! Thanks For bringing it back!
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King Arthur has a very good selection.
http://shop.bakerscatalogue.com/items/catC78subC291.html
They get their oils from a company called Lorann
If quantity and price is more of a concern than selection, you might want to buy a huge bottle of La Vencedora vanilla. I was skeptical when I first purchased it, after hearing about the issues with vanilla from Mexico, but this brand is safe, cheap and tastes good (if not better) than some other vanillas.
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One time I got all excited about Financiers, made a lemon/blueberry one.
The sous chef tasted it and said "WOW! GREAT muffin!"
So, there you go.
Aww man. That means I have to try one. I guess the secret is finding the perfect recipe (of course).
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Wow. Thanks for the review and pictures. I love Secrets of Baking and have had my eye on the financier recipes. I've hesitated because it just didn't seem like the overall results would be worth the output. Not that it's incredibly complicated, but toasting the almond meal, whipping the egg whites and dealing with pan size adjustments just gave me pause.
Now if someone comes in and says the financier is worth it, I'll go ahead and try it. Just seems like there are too many better recipes.
That said, I LOVE that book and thing Sherry Yard is a genius.
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Her low-fat fallen chocolate souffle cake is one of my favorite desserts. No one would ever guess that it's missing fat.
On the other hand, I made her Bittersweet Decadence Cookies. They looked gorgeous and tasted great on the first day, but by the second day, they were a little more dry than some of the other double chocolate cookies I make. I'll probably make them again just to make sure I didn't do something wrong.
I've also made The Best Brownies Patrick mentioned. They are incredible.
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A few years ago, I had a surplus of the stuff in my pantry so I came up with a cookie recipe. It sounds a little trashy, but these cookies are actually very good. You can pick whatever flavor you want to make based on whatever flavor you have. I had the best luck with the honey & nut flavor, but the maple flavored ones were good too.
I realize this won't help you much since you're stuck with the plain flavored. However, you could try my recipe and just throw in some extra sugar.
Oatmeal Packet Cookies
1/2 cup margarine or butter (1/2 cup)
1/4 cup packed dark brown sugar (or up it to at least 2/3 if using plain oatmeal)
1 egg
6 packets honey & nut or other flavor instant oatmeal (or other sweet flavored)
3/4 cup flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup plain yogurt
1 cup semisweet chocolate morsels
1/2 cup chopped toasted pecans
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
2. Beat together margarine, brown sugar and egg.
3. In a separate bowl, combine oatmeal, flour, baking soda, cinnamon and salt.
4. Stir oat mixture into margarine mixture and mix until well combined.
5. Stir in yogurt to make a thick batter.
6. Drop by rounded teaspoonfuls onto greased cookie sheets.
7. Bake for 10-12 minutes or until cookies are golden around edges
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Best cheesecake trick I ever learned was from the pastry chef at my very first restaurant job. Take two dozen Kraft caramels and peel off the nasty plastic sheets. Place caramels in a pyrex cup measure and melt in the microwave. Pour over the bottom of your graham cracker or other crust and let set.
Wow, that sounds good. How long do you need to let the caramel set?
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There's a revised Pillsbury version over on http://www.bakeoff.com.
Also, Shirley Corriher just published her own revision. Here's a link to the recipe.
http://www.vittlesvamp.com/archives/2004/1..._alert_m_1.html
I wonder if you could make mini tunnel of fudge cakes.
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This is my adaptation of a basic New York Cheesecake. Don't be put off by the orange extract. There's just enough there to give it a bit of dimension.
Ultimate New York Style Cheesecake With Shortbread Crust
Crust:
2 1/2 cup flour, all-purpose
1 1/2 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup sugar
2 large egg yolks
1/4 teaspoon orange extract
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
Note: This makes plenty of crust -- you may have some leftover, but it's better to have too much than too little
Filling:
5 packages cream cheese ( 8 oz each)
1 3/4 cups sugar
1/4 cup heavy cream
3 tablespoons flour
2 large egg yoks
5 large eggs
1 teaspoon lemon extract
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon orange extract
Prepare crust: In large bowl, with mixer at low speed, beat flour, butter, sugar, egg yolk and lemon extract until well mixed. Shape dough into ball; wrap with plastic wrap and refrigerate 1 hour.
Preheat oven to 400-degrees. Press 1/3 of dough onto bottom of 10" x 2 1/2" springform pan; keep remaining dough refrigerated.
Bake crust 8-10 minutes ot until golden; Cool. Turn oven control to 475-degrees.
While crust is cooling, prepare filling: In large bowl, with mixer at medium speed, beat cream cheese just until smooth; slowly beat in sugar, scraping bowl often with rubber spatula. Using VERY low speed or a wooden spoon, add cream, flour, egg yolks, eggs and extracts; beat until smooth -- do not over beat after adding eggs.
Press remaining dough around sides of pan to within 1-inch of top. Pour cream cheese mixture into crust.
Bake cheesecake 12 minutes. Turn oven control to 300-degrees; bake 35 minutes longer. Turn off oven; let cheesecake remain in oven 30 minutes.
Remove cheesecake from oven; cool completely in pan on wire rack. Cover and refrigerate at least 4 hours or until well chilled.
When cheesecake is firm, loosen sides of pan.
If possible, chill overnight.
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So why is it called a Bundt pan and not a Dalquist or a Nordic pan?
Funny you should ask. In Amy Sutherland's book, "Cook-off, Recipe Fever In America" she tells the story of how it got its name in a chapter called "The Tunnel of Fudge Woman".
According to Sutherland, a group of women from the local Hadassah chapter went to Dahlquist's office and asked him to duplicate a pan one of them had inherited from her German grandmother. The woman whose pan it was called it a "bund" pan -- bund, being the German word for gathering. Dahlquist recreated his own version and added a "t" so that he could trademark it.
Patrick, those are some nice mini-bundts. I almost made banana mini bundts today as well.
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Or if you wrote it here, you could call it "Leavening Las Vegas".
Or if you had a bakery in Las Vegas, you could call it "The House of The Rising Bun".
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I will be baking several dozen sugar cookies for my wedding and I was wondering how long either the frozen dough or frozen baked-off cookies will last? I googled it and got as short as 3-4 weeks and as long as a year for baked cookies, and about 4-6 weeks for frozen dough.
Thanks.
Larry
I wouldn't freeze it any longer than 6 weeks. Sure, you could freeze it longer, but I've noticed that dough that's been frozen for a very long time results in cookies that just don't taste quite as good. I wouldn't freeze the cookies themselves. I freeze cookies all the time, and they're just not as good as fresh cookies or even dough that's been frozen and freshly baked.
Then again, it's a wedding and everyone is going to be drinking and eating other food. If your sugar cookies aren't 100% perfect, probably nobody will care. But I won't lie and say there's no taste difference between dough that's been frozen for a long time and dough that hasn't.
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Is her cocoa nib cookie recipe in this book? We've done it a few times in school, and they're really outstanding cookies. I love the texture the nibs add to the cookies, which otherwise would be fairly uninteresting shortbread.
That Sicilian Gelato is amazing. I hunted down the recipe to give my brother-in-law after we gave them a Cuisinart ice cream maker for Xmas. Now getting him to buy something other than Hershey's cocoa...
She's got one called Nibby Pecan Cookies -- could that be it? In the variation, she omits the nuts, increases the nibs and adds cocoa. Sound familiar?
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Have you done any sort of chocolate hazelnut flavored ice cream? Maybe something that incorporates Nutella? Chocolate Hazelnut With a White Chocolate Ganache swirled through it?
Another combo that might be good is Dark Chocolate Ancho with chunks of biscochito cookies.
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Wow! I'm just now checking the thread (don't know why it's taken me so long) and am very happy to hear that a few of you have tried the pie recipe I posted.
Fern, thanks for all your suggestions. I'll try upping the vanilla, but will probably keep the salt the same since I generally use salted butter in my pecan pie. I'm guessing you're an unsalted butter user.
Chefpeon, I hope Fern answered your questions. Her answer is pretty much what I would have said. When I said "let the sugar melt a bit" I just meant let it sit there and kind of dissolve a little before adding the eggs. I put that in the directions because that's the way I've always done it. However, if Fern says you don't have to, then I guess you don't have to. What you would NOT want to do is keep stirring the sugar/butter mixture over low heat....which is probably why my wording is confusing
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This has to be the best shortbread ever. I haven't tried it yet, but I think it would be even better with browned then re-chilled (a Sherry Yard trick) butter.
Here's the recipe. It's terrific without using browned butter, but if you're up for experimentation, I'd be interested in knowing it works out with browned butter.
The Best Shortbread Ever
1 cup regular salted butter, cold (or melt and brown butter then chill to re-firm)
3/4 teaspoon vanilla
2/3 cup confectioners sugar
1/2 cup cornstarch
1 1/2 cup flour
Place cold butter, vanilla and confectioners sugar in food processor. Pulse until creamy. Add cornstarch and flour and pulse until mixture comes together. Transfer to a large bowl and press mixture (it will be very crumbly) together by hand.
Press flat and cut in shapes. Bake at 350 for 12-15 minutes.
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Hi All- I'm writing in a semi-panic. My favorite ice cream recipe involves a custard. I worked really hard not to overshoot, the thickening point, however I ended up with miniscule chunks of what I think are scrambled eggs. CAn I simply strain i t or will I end up with grainy ice cream if I try to use this custard base? Any help would be appreciated. I plan to churn this ice cream tomorrow.
Thanks again.
as an fyi- the recipe includes 8 egg yolks, 1.25 cups of sugar, 2.5 cups of milk and 2.5 cups of heavy cream.
I've had this happen before. In my case, straining worked just fine. There's enough fat in that recipe to prevent graininess even if you're missing some egg yolk.
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Here's the one I've been using. It outstanding -- smooth, rich, and sweet but not overly sweet. It has a deep flavor from the toasted pecans and browned butter.
Pecan Pie
3/4 cup butter
2 cups light brown sugar, packed
3 eggs
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1 1/2 cups pecan pieces
9 inch unbaked pie shell
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
In a large skillet, toast pecans. Remove from skillet.
Add butter to skillet and heat over medium until browned. Reduce heat and stir in brown sugar. Let brown sugar melt a bit and turn off heat. Let cool for about 5 minutes.
In a separate bowl, mix eggs, salt and vanilla. Stir in butter/sugar mixture and pecans. Pour into unbaked pie shell Bake in preheated oven at 350 degrees for 45 minutes.
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Candy Sushi
in Pastry & Baking
Posted
Wow!! You are talented! I like the Swedish Fish rolls.