MARCH DESSERT OF THE MONTH

Check the mail DOTMCers!
Today, I got the most beautiful surprise! A charming dessert, perfect for Springtime from our Miss March, Amelia! I had never heard of Posset or Friands before! It seems Posset is an old English pudding drink, similar to a nog. I know I speak for all of us when I say I cannot wait to dip in.
I found a tidbit on this historic dish! Thanks so much Amelia!!!

lemon-glazed butter cake!

A friend I work with has a birthday tomorrow and so I made him this cake. I flipped through my cookbooks and magazines last night looking for a real simple, yummy cake and found this in a spread titled, “Cook Smart: Transformers” in this month's Gourmet! I think this line in the article roped me in, “ Lastly, there is no way we could leave you without a classic Lemon Glazed Butter Cake. This one will become your new best friend.” Perfect and besides being easy, the ingredient list was not at all exotic!

Added plus, lemons remind me so much of spring!

HOMEMADE BERGER COOKIES

Perhaps you have been to Baltimore, MD and found yourself peering at a dark chocolate covered biscuit like cookie. Berger's cookies as far as I can tell can only be found within the "Balmer" area. I first had one many a year ago and though I can't say I am as mesmerized by them as I once was (the ingredients are quite scary), I do find them a fascinating regional treat. Much like the whoopie pie or the It's It and what is not to like about a cakey cookie and a thick ganache top??

The first two pics are of the store bought original that Marty was so kind to bring back for me on a recent Lp buying trip. I poked around the web a bit trying to frankenstein together a recipe and decided to cull from some whoopie pie cake recipes. A simple ganache would make my thick shiny icing. As you can see from the pics, my ganache, (which was vegan as I had no cream at home) did not keep it's shine. I know better than to not measure when baking but I figured a recipe as simple as Ganache (one part cream, two parts choc) would lend itself to some messing around. Wrong. The end result is very pleasant just not exactly what I am seeking. The recipe below is what I did, I would suggest finding a tried and true ganache if you intend to try these out. These will make a fine bring along dessert to picnics this summer once I get the ratios right.









Cakey cookies
3 ½ cups all-purpose flour
1 ¼ teaspoons baking powder
1 ¼ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
2/3 cup vegetable oil
½ cup yogurt
1 ½ cups granulated sugar
½ cup firmly packed light brown sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Oven at 350F
Sift together the flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt.
Beat together the oil and sour cream for 1 minute until combined.
Add the sugars, then eggs one at a time.
Stir or slowly beat in the flour mixture. Chill for at least half hour
Parchment line a cookie sheet.
Pipe the batter out into small rounds. I oiled my fingers and pressed them down. onto a parchment lined cookie sheet.
Bake for 8 minutes or up to 12 if your circles are large.

Vegan Ganache (two parts choc, one part soy)

Bittersweet or dark choclolate
soy milk
1-2 tblsp maple syrup
Chop up your chocolate
Put chocolate and syrup in a stainless steel or glass bowl over simmering water. In another pan bring Soy Milk to a boil. Take off heat and pour over chocolate and syrup until smooth and melted. Take each cookie and using a fork, stab it beneath and dip the domed side into the ganache, swirling to cover, place on parchment to set.

ALMOND BUTTER COOKIES

I have never been into peanut butter cookies. I know I am a weirdo but all throughout my life, I passed on the ones with the Hershey kiss in the center and steered clear of the classic fork tined cookies. Recently a co worker brought in some peanut butter cookies without the tines, and with such a toothy, chewy and dense texture I had to make some at home. I wanted to try almond butter as, like I said, straight Peanut Butter and I are not so into each other...

Almond Butter cookies.
These could be made vegan easily, by using an egg replacer.

1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup butter, room temperature (I used vegan buttery sticks)
1/2 cup almond butter
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla or almond extract
1 1/4 cup flour
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt

Mix flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt in a bowl. In a mixer, cream the butter. Add the sugars to butter and beat one or two min. Add almond butter and egg. Slowly and in parts beat in the flour mixture.
Refrigerate a few hours.
Preheat oven to 375 and roll into 1 inch balls and roll into course sugar. Bake, keeping your eye on them for 12-15 minutes. Stay closer to 12 if you want them chewy.

Apple Galette

After my debacle on National Pie Day, I feel the need to redeem myself with crusts and apples. We made this in "crust" class (ha ha ha) on Saturday and it was so easy and turned out well.

Apple Galette
Of course you can make this with a regular crust recipe, this one uses half whole wheat pastry flour and vegan ingredients.

Vegan Crust:
Dry ingredients:
3/4 cup whole wheat pastry flour
3/4 cup unbleached white flour
2 T. maple crystals
1/4 t. baking powder
1/4 t. ground cinnamon
pinch sea salt

Wet ingredients:
1/3 cup coconut oil (room temperature, partially solid-not liquefied)
1 T. vanilla extract
2 T grade A maple syrup
3-5 T. ice cold water

1. In a medium bowl, sift together dry ingredients. Use whisk to fully combine.
2. Add oil to bowl. Using pastry cutter, blend oil into flour. Dough should have a coarse, sand-like consistency.
3. Add vanilla, 1 T. water and maple syrup to dough with wooden spoon. Mix to combine.
4. Slowly add water to dough one T. at a time. Dough should just hold together and be wet. Don't overmix!
5. Place dough in plastic wrap. Flatten to disc shape and refrigerate 10-15 minutes only.
6. Take out dough, allow to rest until workable.
7. Roll out dough between 2 layers of parchment paper. The trick is to roll from center out, not all the way across. Dough should be about 8" around and no more than 1/8 inch thick.

Galette Filling

2 Large Apples, peeled and sliced about 1/8" thick
1 T. lemon juice in 1 C. water
1 T. coconut oil
2 T. maple crystals
1/4 t. ground cinnamon
1 t. vanilla extract

1. Place sliced apples in bowl with lemon juice and water
2. combine maple crystals, cinnamon and vanilla
3. In medium saute pan, heat oil. Add apples and spice mixture and cook until apples are slightly tender but not mushy

4. Preheat oven to 375
5. In rested rolled out dough, fan apples in concentric circles over center of dough
6. Fold dough over apples (you can get creative in your design, if there is too much dough in one area it can affect the taste)
7. Place dough in refrigerator for 30 minutes (after baking for 15 minutes, glaze crust with maple syrup)
8. Bake for 30 minutes until crust is golden brown and firm to touch. Cool, slice and serve

Guilt Free Cookies

This past week we made some yummy cookies in class, no refined sweeteners and most with whole wheat pastry flour and vegan. Here are some of my faves.



Macaroons (yield about 24 cookies)

I made these ones. They are not vegan but are gluten free and turned out well. Using maple crystals you make a caramel to sweeten the cookies. I asked why you don't just used maple syrup and I guess the crystalline structure of sugar and the maple crystals is what makes it work. I liked these a lot.

Ingredients:
1 1/4 cup maple crystals
3/4 cup water
1/8 t. sea salt
3 large egg whites (room temp)
2 t. vanilla extract
3 cups shredded coconut (puled in food processor to a fine powder)

Procedure:
Preheat oven to 325. Line 3 half sheet pans with parchment and lightly oil.

1. In a small pot, combine maple crystals, water and salt. Bring to a boil and simmer together until the mixture thickens to a caramel like texture (about 10 minutes.)

2. Combine egg whites and vanilla in a medium bowl and beat to form soft peaks.

3. Very gradually, fold slightly cooled maple caramel into beaten egg whites until combined. Slowly fold in pulsed coconut. Cover and refrigerate 10-15 minutes.

4. Using small scoop, drop batter onto lightly oiled, parchment baking sheets. Bake for 15-20 minutes or until firm and bottoms of cookies are slightly golden.

5. Let cool 15 minutes and devour!



Rolled Fig Cookies (yield about 24 cookies)
This is more complicated but was so yummy and pretty, tastes like a fig newton but better. Vegan too!

Ingredients:
Dough:
Dry:
3/4 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1 1/2 C. unbleached white AP flour
1/4 cup + 2 T. blanched almonds, ground to a fine meal (measure then grind)
1/4 t. cinnamon

Wet:
pinch sea salt
2/3 C. maple syrup
1/2 melted coconut oil* (or canola oil)

Filling:
2 C. black mission figs, stems removed
3/4 C. apple juice
2 t. vanilla extract
1/2 t. cinnamon
pinch ground cloves
pinch sea salt

*coconut oil is GREAT. Really helps the texture in vegan baking and has lots of health supportive properties.

Procedure:
For the dough:
1. Line one standard sized baking sheet with parchment paper
2. In medium bowl, sift together flours, almond meal and cinnamon using a wire whisk to combine.
3. In separate smaller bowl, whisk together salt, syrup and oil.
4. Pour wet mixture into dry mixture. Mix together.
5. Divide dough evenly, flatten dough into disks and wrap in plastic wrap. Place in refrigerator 10-15 minutes.
6. Pre-heat oven to 350 while dough is resting and preparing filling.

To prepare filling:
7. In a small pot, combine figs, juice, vanilla, cinnamon, cloves and salt. Simmer 5-7 minutes or until softened and drain, reserving liquid.
8. Process fig mixture in food processor to make a smooth spreadable paste.

To assemble:
9. Roll each dough between 2 pieces of parchment paper to about 1/8" thick. Trim so that dough roughly measures 10"x6".
10. Spread cooled or room temperature filling over rolled out dough. Roll dough jelly roll style as tightly as possible.
11. Place dough in freezer for 10-15 minutes or until quite solid.
12. Using a bread knife, slice dough into 1/8" rounds. Place on cookie sheet and bake 10-15 minutes. Cool and serve.

Baking Naturally

(photos courtesy of Toshiko Sato!)

Yesterday's class was all about converting, that is taking recipes using conventional ingredients (white sugar, white flour, eggs, canned additives) and one step at a time replacing the conventional ingredients with natural ones and ideally ones that have some health supportive properties. It wasn't easy and some of them weren't successful at all. We all had one recipe to work with, chocolate chip cookies, oatmeal raisin cookies, banana bread, chocolate brownies and we were making carrot cake. The fruit ones of course seemed to be the easiest to convert but we had some BRUTAL results. It seemed logical to replace the white sugar with date sugar and a little molasses but the date sugar dried everything out even before we got it in the oven and the texture was just horrible. Our best result in the vegan zone was with an arrowroot slurry as egg replacer, coconut oil instead of canola, and maple crystals instead of white sugar. They were light and fluffy, not too sweet and definitely the prettiest.

In the other groups the ones that created interesting results were using cashew flour (just ground cashews) in the oatmeal raisin cookies. This produced tuile like results that were beautiful and tasty. Those are my favorite kind of cookies so I was psyched.


Here are some of the nuggets I gleaned from the exercise:

A good egg replacer is 2 Tablespoons Arrowroot mixed with 3 Tablespoons Water.
A bad one (in our results)was the flax egg (1 Tablespoon ground flax combined with 3 Tablespoons Water.)
Avoid date sugar!
Maple crystals are a pretty easy white sugar substitute. In most of the conversions the maple taste was barely noticeable if at all. Of course the color is a factor.

I'm gonna start experimenting with using panela and agave (agave seems to be having some sort of controversy these days so who knows if people will accept it as a natural substitute in a few months. My main goal is to try to minimize the use of refined ingredients as much as possible but not sacrifice taste texture and common sense.

CHOCOLATE MOUSSE CAKE!

This cake was other worldly. My pictures are not even close to doing it any kind of justice. It was a chocolate genoise, with layers of dense chocolate mousse, covered in whipped cream.
I need a better camera.

SWEET WEEKEND

Due to Vday being TODAY, a Saturday, there will be many desserts. I made some cookies but a true slap my hiney and call me Sally Valentine sweet is coming later......

WHEN I FALL IN LOVE I FALL HARD

I made that chocolate tart. Again

National Carrot Day (in lieu of national pie day)

Since I did not get around to posting this on National Pie Day, I found another reason to celebrate some recent pie escapades inspired by DOTMC: National Carrot Day, which is today, February 3rd. Like Molly N, I made a savory pie -- the rebel of pies, the savory and typically crust-free Shepherd's Pie. It had lots of carrots in it, though the hit of the vegetable mix was roasted celery root. Because I just saw my favorite crust punk band, Amebix, I opted to use a crust in this Shepherd's Pie. I confess that it was a store-bought crust, which takes away all my punk and DOTMC points.

I did not follow a specific recipe but here are a few highlights of the pie:

• Mashed Potatoes With Garlic and Rosemary from Angelica Home Kitchen
• 1 cubed celery root roasted with 1/2 of a chopped onion, a pinch of thyme and salt
  

To complete the recipe...

• (If you use a crust) Pre-cook it for 10-minutes so the bottom cooks a bit
  
• Sautee 1 large yellow onion in 3tbsp oil with carrots and celery until they soften
• Heat Light Life Smart Ground in an oiled skillet
  
• Add 3/4 cups corn and 3/4 cups of peas (or green beans) to carrots and celery
• Toss in roasted celery root and onion (above) to the veggie sautee
• Remove crust from the oven or lightly oil a 9x9" baking oven-safe baking dish
• Layer the Smart Ground so the bottom is covered, add vegetable mix and spoon mashed potatoes onto the top so it forms a 1" covering on top
• Bake for 30-40 minutes and cool for 10 minutes

Today is also the official halfway point of winter. I probably won't post again until it's blueberry picking time, but I promise to post photos of the pies after that adventure, too.

Sticky Toffee Pud

Hello ladies,
It's been ages since I've posted...haven't been making many sweets, what with my ever-expanding posterior...expansion, but I wanted to share this treat that I made for our very fab (and recently British-themed) Supper Club.

My brother-in-law in a sous chef in England and has worked at some great restaurants, including a Michelin rated place in Bath, where he learned this Sticky Toffee Pudding recipe from a very well-respected dessert chef.
It's fairly decadent and I don't even serve it with a little vial of clotted cream like he does...

It should be served warm, so that the top if all melty and gooey and the cake dissolves in your mouth in an amazingly buttery, toffee-tinged heap. I personally find the dessert rapturous and have to physically restrain myself from eating huge quantities. It has a weirdly addictive quality to it.

Here's a pic, with the recipe below:


Ingredients:
(Set oven to 350- and use only the upper/top rack for this cake)

2 eggs
1 1/2 + cup- self-rising flour (more than one and a half cups, but not quite one and two-thirds cup)
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup dark brown sugar
1/4 cup of sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup butter

1/2 cup butter (for sauce)
3/4 cup of dark brown sugar (for sauce)
small pinch of salt (for sauce)
1/3 cup of heavy cream (for sauce)

1 1/3 cup of pitted, rough chopped dates
2 cups water

Sauce/Topping:
Melt 1/2 cup of butter, the 3/4 cup of dark brown sugar, small pinch salt, heat on medium until all the sugar is dissolved and not grainy, then slowly add the heavy cream. Mix well and set aside, as it must be cooled down before pouring over baked pudding.

Cake/Pudding:
In another saucepan, put in the pitted dates and cook in the 2 cups of water, a dash of vanilla, simmering until dates are tender and reducing the liquid by half. Set aside to cool down a bit.

In a bowl, mix eggs, white and brown sugars, vanilla, and the rest of the butter together. Once mixed well, slowly add flour, baking soda, dry ingredients.
Slowly add dates and their fluid to the batter. It will get foamy if the water is still warm. Don't panic.

Pour into a well greased pan (or ramekins/muffin tins, etc).
Bake for 30-40 minutes, or until top of cake is sponge-y firm and golden.

Pour sauce all over the cake as soon as the cake is out of the oven. Get it in everywhere, poke little holes throughout (you can use chopsticks), for maximum surface absorption.

Serve warm- or microwave each serving for 30 seconds.

CAKE TESTED. LANG APPROVED

This teacake of Tara's was so so so good! And adorable. I forgot to add the baking powder- and it still was delicious and dreamy! I had blueberries and some raspberry syrup which went perfectly with the delicate lemon. I will definitely put this in my go to recipes for last minute yet still elegant cakes. Thanks, Tara!

IF YOU MAKE ONE CHOCOLATE TART THIS YEAR

Make this one..

DOTMC JANUARY

Lovely Miss Tara sent a tea cake recipe with some tea bags to encourage us! I am making this for this todays's House marathon...I mean Superbowl. Check in later for pics!Thanks Tara!!

NATIONAL PIE DAY LA PEQ STYLE

So in honor of the one week anniversary of National Pie Day I am finally posting my NPD effort.

I'm not really a baker but I do enjoy the process of it and I want to get better. I made this savory tart at xmas and it was a big hit and I was thrilled with the crust results. For this pie I decided to try not to use refined sugars and went with maple crystals and grade B maple syrup (which has a deeper flavor) and that worked really well. In the crust I used butter from my raw dairy and that had a great flavor.

The positives: it was pretty easy to make (I'm not the best crust roller outer as you can see) and it tasted great.

The negatives: I forgot to egg wash the top crust so it wasn't shiny and I didn't let it rest long enough before breaking into the first piece so it sort of fell apart but was in better shape on days 2 and 3. 

I shall keep on it!

here's the crust recipe, for the sweet pie you just add a bit of sugar or in my case maple crystals to the dry ingredients and double it:

Recipe: Savory Pie Crust Time: 20 minutes, plus chilling

Time: 20 minutes, plus chilling

1 cup plus 2 tablespoons (about 5 ounces) all-purpose flour, more for rolling

1/2 teaspoon salt

8 tablespoons (1 stick) cold unsalted butter, cut into about 8 pieces

3 tablespoons ice water, more if necessary.

1. Combine flour and salt in a food processor and pulse once or twice. Add butter and turn on machine; process until butter and flour are blended and mixture looks like cornmeal, about 10 seconds.

2. Put mixture in a bowl and add 3 tablespoons ice water; mix with your hands until you can form dough into a ball, adding another tablespoon or two of ice water if necessary; if you overdo it and mixture becomes sodden, add a little more flour. Form into a ball, wrap in plastic and freeze for 10 minutes or refrigerate for at least 30 minutes. (You can refrigerate for up to a couple of days or freeze for up to a couple of weeks.)

3. Sprinkle a clean countertop with flour, put dough on it, and sprinkle top with flour. Use a rolling pin to roll with light pressure, from the center out. If dough is hard, let it rest for a few minutes. If dough is sticky, add a little flour; if it continues to become sticky and it is taking you more than a few minutes to roll it out, refrigerate or freeze again.

4. Roll, adding flour and rotating and turning dough as needed; use ragged edges of dough to repair any tears, adding a drop of water while you press patch into place.

Yield: Dough for one 12-inch tart.

DESSERTS CIRCA 1923

My good pal Dave found these on an old book site and sent them to me. Aren't they so dreamy.



Praktische Konditorei Kunst, dated 1923