Alicia's Birthday, holla!

You know you want some.
Trust me, it was BETTER than it looks.

Our friends Leila and Ronald left Wednesday, and Alicia's birthday was Thursday, but I was in need of a day of R&R after being up all night Monday, then out late Tuesday. So I made the cake a day late and determined we'd make do eating cake @ the office a day late.


After much deliberation the description I received from Alicia of her preference was chocolate cake with lemon and raspberry; she left the details up to me.


I went for the same dense chocolate cake I made for Tom, hoping to make it shine a little more without all that moussey-ganacheness overpowering it. The first one sunk (I think the bottom of the springform is too thick. It's heavy and perhaps next time I 'll let it cook longer) a little in the middle, so splitting it horizontally to make 2 layers was out. SOOO, while the Black Raspberry Muffins were baking (I don't know how to do just one thing) D & I rode our bikes superfast to the store for brown sugar so I could make a second layer.

Oddly, the first thing I did was make a lemon glaze which contained















Approximately

1 lemon's juice
3/4 tsp lemon zest
enough water to cover the bottom of the pan
approx 1/2 cup sugar

This acted as a crumb coating, and also slipped in that lemon Alicia was after--- in retrospect I would add more than the conservative amount I did, as, in the grand scheme of things, the lemon played such a minor part you scarcely noticed its existence.


Black Raspberry Buttercream Frosting

150g butter, softened
2-3 cups icing sugar
1 cup frozen black raspberries, thawed and mashed
1/4 cup milk
Optional-- Raspberry Liquor (i.e. Chambord)

1. Cream the butter. Add the icing sugar and raspberries and beat well. Add liquor if desired. For less seeds, strain part or all of the raspberries before adding them. If you find you need more liquid in the frosting, add milk gradually until it reaches the consistency you're after.

Assembly
Cut cakes horizontally so they're even, lay one on your serving dish or cake round, pour part of lemon syrup on and spread around until it soaks in. Slather frosting, especially on the edges so it sticks out. Add top part of cake and pile the frosting on, cake decorator style. When you have it close to what you're going for, dip a knife in water and carefully smooth the top and sides, repeatedly dipping until the entire cake is complete.

Cocoa Buttermilk Birthday Cake Cupcakes with Peanut Butter Frosting

Lately I've been really into baking. I usually keep it in decent moderation, the sweet with the not sweet when it comes to the kitchen-- maybe it is the unseasonably cool weather, or the knowledge that summer must come sometime but before it did I was going to take advantage of the baking-friendly temperatures.

Pretty much every recipe I come across I feel the need to play with and alter in some way. This was no different. I discovered this post while browsing and instantly printed it off. Even in black and white it stood out and instantly took up residence in the forefront of my baking mind. Which is to say, it took me 2 months before I went for it. You may notice, if you follow the link, the recipe is for birthday CAKE (not cupcakes). Well, a cake isn't as easy to portably share, so, I took it another direction-- details below. I ended up increasing the sugar and cocoa on a whim-- but that made these too dry. Lesson learned.

Cocoa Buttermilk Cupcakes with Peanut Butter Frosting
adapted from from Baking: from my home to yours and Barefoot Contessa

Ingredients:

2 cups all purpose flour
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
½ teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
7 ounces unsalted butter, room temperature
1 3/4 cups granulated sugar
2 large eggs
2 large egg yolks
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1 cup buttermilk
5 ounces bittersweet chocolate, melted and cooled
Countless amounts of miniature peanut butter cups, smashed or cut up.

Peanut Butter frosting recipe follows

Directions:

Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Butter a cupcake tin, set aside. I didn't want to do them all that way, so I did another pan with paper liners.

Whisk together the flour, cocoa, bak

ing powder, baking soda and salt.

Working with a stand mixer, beat the butter on medium speed until soft and creamy. Add the sugar and beat for about 2 minutes, until it is thoroughly blended into the butter. Add the eggs one at a time, then the yolks one by one, beating for 1 minute after each addition and scraping down the sides and bottom of the bowl as needed. Beat in the vanilla. Add the dry ingredients alternately with the buttermilk; add the dry ingredients in 3 portions and the buttermilk in 2 (begin and end with the dry ingredients); mix only until each new batch is blended into the batter. Scrape down the bowl and fold in the melted chocolate, folding it in with a rubber spatula. Pour the batter in the muffin tin. Pour the rest in muffin tins with paper cups

Bake until the cakes feel springy to the touch. Transfer the cupcakes to racks and cool to room temperature.

To Create the Cupcake-Cakes: Use a serrated knife to cut the cooled cupcake as you would a hamburger bun. Spread some frosting on one half and sandwich, then add frosting to the top and sprinkle the smashed up peanut butter cups. *Note: I tried it 2 methods, one piping and one smearing on for the messy look and found I favored the smashed up PB cup-messy icing combo. No matter how you do it, they are delicious.

Peanut butter frosting:
adapted from The Barefoot Contessa

Ingredients:
~2 cup confectioners’ sugar
1 1/2 cup creamy peanut butter
5 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1/3 cup heavy cream

Directions:
Place the confectioners’ sugar, peanut butter, butter, vanilla, and salt in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment. Mix on medium-low speed until creamy, scraping down the bowl with a rubber spatula as you work. Add the cream and beat on high speed until the mixture is light and smooth.

**Halfway through icing them, I decided the frosting was overkill on the PB and added more cream-- bad idea. You get too much of that going and it doesn't incorporate well because the PB is so intense.

Lime Night

Tonight I took our dog Millie for a long walk, hoping to educate her in how to walk at a pleasant pace, instead of her typical pulling-at-the-leash-so-hard-she-suffocates-herself-while-simultaneously-rearing-up-on-two-legs. She is a healthy dog, but when we take her for walks she sounds like she's in the middle of an asthma attack, and it alarms other pedestrians. We walked to our neighborhood Safeway and back-- a 2 mile jaunt, round trip. While at Safeway, I stopped in and purchased a few limes, coconut & coconut extract in preparation for my meal plans. Toward the end of our walk she let up a little on her constant leash-straining. With practice, she might get it!

I made Coconut Lime Cupcakes, recipe courtesy of my sister Sarah, a soy ginger broth-y soup for dinner, and a tofu/greens stir fry for our bentos tomorrow.

The evening started with a big pot of amaranth then I made the cupcake part, the soup, then stir fry and finally finished the cupcakes.

These are amazing cupcakes. The texture (dense cake, creamy icing, crunchy coconut) is great, and the cupcakes themselves bake up bigger than you'd expect + they're pretty good by themselves. When I tried to get D to guess what the flavor of just a cupcake was, he came back with "Lemon-Fennel.... no... Lemon-Kale." Maybe I'll have to try that combination out just so he can taste the difference, 'cause I have no idea where he got that.

I added coconut extract to the cakes, as per my sister's suggestion, and 2 or 3 times the lime zest/juice on the icing. So they're like BAM! LIME!

Coconut Lime Cupcakes
yield: 18 cupcakes

6 TB butter

3/4 cup sugar

1 egg

1 TB grated lime zest

1 tsp lime juice

1 1/2 c. flour

1/2 tsp of EACH salt, soda, and powder

1 c. sour cream

Beat the butter and sugar till light and fluffy. Beat in the egg, lime zest and juice, Mix well. Sift together the dry ingredients. Add sour cream and flour mix alternately. Mix till all is just combined- do not over mix. It is really easy to do Bake in a preheated oven at 350 degrees for 25-30 mins. Cool completely before frosting.

Icing:

1/4 cup whipped cream

2 TB butter

1 tsp. lime juice

1 tsp grated lime zest

1/2 tsp coconut extract

3-4 cups powdered sugar

toasted coconut for garnish

Beat the butter then add in zest, juice and extract. Slowly add the cream and beat until the mixture is stiff. Add in the sugar, one cup at a time, more or less depending on how thick you want the icing.

Organic Soy Ginger broth from TJ's + fresh ginger, tofu, chard from our garden, spring onion, lime juice + zest, hoisin sauce, tamari, a dash of red wine vinegar, amaranth. I decided to make it a light dinner 'cause we ate kind of late.









For our lunches tomorrow: Amaranth on top in the blue + stir fry (tofu, kale, chard, potatoes, spring onion, asparagus, ginger, garlic, lime juice + zest, black pepper thai sauce)

Strawberry Basil Sorbet

Today D & I went to the farmer's maket where the perfectly ripe glistening strawberries were definitely taking center stage. While I was standing in the long line to pay looking at the little bunch of basil and 2 pints of strawberries, I suddenly remembered the recipe Bethany sent me for Strawberry Basil Sorbet. When I initially read it I was skeptical, but she assured me it was delicious. Realizing I needed more supplies for my sweet under taking, I traded 2 pints for half a flat, and a second bunch of basil. I'm glad there was such a long line or I wouldn't have thought of it!

Here's the recipe and process, as sent to me (I doubled it):

Strawberry Basil Sorbet
serves 2-4

What You'll Need...
1 lb. of strawberries
1/4 cup of sugar
1/2 cup of water
juice of 1 lemon
1/2 tablespoon of fresh basil or Thai basil

What You'll Do...




1) Hull and chop the strawberries, puree.








2) Push the strawberry puree through a strainer. Add the lemon juice, sugar, and water and whisk. Chill for an hour, then pour into the ice cream maker and proceed following the manufacturer's directions.


3) Roughly mince the basil, add to the ice cream maker when there are only 5 minutes left of churning.




4) Serve right away or place in the freezer to set up in a tightly sealed container. (Pictured after setting)

Dense Chocolate Cake Deliciousness

For part 3 of 4 in Tom's week of birthday celebration, I made a cake. The criteria, as laid out by Tom himself were that the cake be chocolate, and at once very rich and sickly sweet. After sifting through my recipes for half an hour over dinner, I decided to make dense chocolate cake with dark chocolate mousse, covered in ganache with chocolate icing.

The cake part went smoothly-- the mousse not so much. Word to the wise-- don't try to substitute part of the whipping cream for half and half. It simply will not work. I ended up cooking it to get it to thicken, but it tasted good so no harm, no foul.

I had to make a minor adjustment when I lost part of the cake when extracting it from the pan, but after filling the void with chocolate covered strawberries, it looked intentional! All in all Tom was very happy and noted the cake exceeded expectations.


Recipes, followed by assembly

Dense Chocolate Cake
1 c. unsalted butter at room temperature
1 2/3 c. light brown sugar
2 large eggs, beaten
1 t. vanilla extract (subst: grand mariner, rum, espresso)
4 oz. melted, cooled, dark bittersweet chocolate
1 1/3 c. flour
1 t. baking soda
1 c. + 2 T boiling water

Cream butter and sugar until light and creamy. Add eggs and vanilla extract. Gently fold in melted chocolate, careful not to over mix. Sift flour and baking soda together, stir in alternately with boiling water.

Pour into prepared pan (buttered & cocoa-ed), bake @ 375 for 25 minutes, drop to 325 for 15 minutes. Let cool.

Dark Chocolate Mousse
3/4 # Dark bittersweet chocolate
3 eggs
2 cups heavy cream whipped to soft/med. peaks

Melt chocolate over double boiler. While chocolate is warm, whisk eggs into chocolte. Whisk 1/3 of whipped cream into each chocolate, fold in remaining cream.

Ganache
1# bittersweet dark chocolate
1 c. cream (I used part cream, part half and half)
2 tsp corn syrup

Mix together til melted, add corn syrup.

Chocolate Buttercream Icing
Milk
Icing Sugar
Melted chocolate
Butter

I mix these in varying proportions based on what's on hand until I get what I'm looking for. I store it in a disposable icing bag + coupler in the fridge (wrapped in plastic wrap) and anytime I need some chocolate frosting, I put the tip on and bam! Very convenient.

Assembly:
Make everything above before you start, then when the cake is cooled, cut it in half so you have two layers, slather a bunch of mousse in there, put the second half on top. Put on the serving dish of your choice and pour ganache (not too much!) on top. Use a spatula (the kind decorette shops sell specifically for frosting things) to direct the ganache where you want it to go. Let it set (I did so in the freezer, overnight) and decorate. The colored bits are colored rice paper. In the picture one of the strawberries is missing; Tom went for it before I got a picture. =]

Macarons Revisited

For part 2 of 4 in Tom's Birthday Celebration Week I decided to make macarons. This was partially in preparation for going to OK, and for my mum's birthday. I decided to double the recipe below. I would not recommend doing the same, as over mixing to incorporate all the ingredients does not fare well on the whole meringue-y concept. This effect was exaggerated when I decided to make 3 "flavors." The almond ones were the last I did and I think I let them sit too long before piping them, as they were much more liquid-y, less like the "magma" viscosity that I was going for. Needless to say, those ones ran together. Here it is in the process. Plate for my mum, bag for OK, plate for work.

Pistachio-- added pistachio cream to the batter.
Rose-- first I tried making rose syrup, which was going well til I let it go a minute too long and it started to turn into rose caramel. Instead I tried reducing the remaining rose water on hand and adding it, but the flavor was near undetectable.
Almond-- almond flavoring and extra almond flour.

The middles were all a ganache-- just chocolate and a bit of cream.
THIS is where I got the recipe, as with the gianduja ones.

Macarons (basic)
181 grams almond flour
243 grams powdered sugar
138g egg whites
3 grams egg white powder
2 grams of finely ground sea salt
81 grams granulated sugar

In a large bowl, sift together the almond flour, powdered sugar and salt. Set aside.
In the bowl of an electric mixer, add the egg white and the egg white powder. Whip in medium speed until egg whites start to increase in volume. I know a lot of recipes say to whip the egg whites at high speed but I find that it is better to start slower to build a better structure for the meringue.

When the egg whites are almost fully whipped and very fluffy, slowly start adding the sugar, sprinkle it in. After all the sugar is incorporated, continue to whip the meringue in high speed now until semi stiff peaks have formed. This is when we will add the orange zest and the food coloring.

Add the meringue to the almond flour and powdered sugar mixture and with a spatula, fold the meringue into the dry ingredients. This is called “macaroner” and is also a tricky part. It is better to fold slowly and test a couple of macaroons because it is possible to over fold this mixture. We are looking for a shiny mass. For this amount of ingredients, I would say that it will only take about 10 to 15 strokes. But again, it is better to check for consistency. We are looking for a mass that spreads a little but not too much otherwise our macaroons will be flat.

Pipe the mass onto half sheet pans lined with silpats. Sprinkle the wet macaroons with dried lavender leaves. Make sure to pick out any stems or hard pieces.

Let them sit at room temperature for about 30 minutes so they dry. We want the tops to not stick to our finger when we touch them. This will ensure a crack-free macaroon.

Have your oven preheated at 325 degrees. Bake one sheet pan at a time positioning it in a middle rack. Bake for about 8 minutes and rotate sheet pan to ensure even baking. It should take about 14 minutes but that depends on the oven. We want to be able to pick up the macaroon without it falling apart but we don’t want to over bake it either. It is better to bake it slowly so no browning occurs. Remove them from the oven and slide the silpat onto a cold surface. Let them cool on the silpat.

Black Raspberry Muffins

Dang, I forgot to snap a picture when I was making these. Anywho, they were Part 1 of 4 of the Week of (my boss) Tom's Birthday Celebration. I saw Black Raspberries when I was at TJ's and couldn't resist, not knowing what they would become. This recipe came from Joy the Baker, and it is amazing. I made a double batch the night before work the next day, and they went super-fast. I will say, since the double batch was a bit more intense to handle, I had to mix more and the batter for these babies was pur-ple. Not in a bad way, though.

Black Raspberry Breakfast Muffins

adapted from The Gourmet Cookbook (which I think I need to get a copy of)

3/4 stick (6 Tablespoons) unsalted butter

1/3 cup whole milk

1 large egg

1 egg yolk

3/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

3/4 cup sugar

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

3/4 teaspoon salt

1 1/2 cups berries (I used frozen black raspberries)

Put a rack in the upper third of oven and preheat to 375 degrees F. Generously butter or spray muffin cups. This recipe makes 12 standard muffins. If using paper cupcake liners, you don’t have to grease the muffin pan.

Melt butter in a small saucepan over moderately low heat; remove from heat. Whisk in milk, egg, yolk, and vanilla until well combined.

Whisk together flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt in a medium bowl. Add milk mixture and stir until just combined. Gently but thoroughly fold in the berries.

Divide the batter among muffin cups and spread evenly. Sprinkle generously with turbinado sugar. Bake until golden and crisp and a wooden pick or skewer inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean, 18-20 minutes Cool in pan of a rack for 15 minutes, then run a knife around edges of muffin tops and carefully remove from cups. (I used paper cupcake liners, and didn’t have to grease the pan.) Serve hot, warm or at room temperature.