Scrumptious Sweets

August 1, 2020–So as some of you know one of my plans after I complete the CIA, food not spies, is to visit friends and pay for my stay via food. Well, one of my friends, YMDT, took me up on it although I haven’t graduated from the CIA. Frequent visitors will realize that the countertops are different. The recipe comes from the July 2020 issue of EW magazine and is compliments of Jimmy Wong. After the dry ingredients of AP flour, baking powder, kosher salt (omitted since I had salted butter), and ground ginger after sifted together, you stir in the blueberries.

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Next comes the wet ingredients of buttermilk, eggs, grated fresh ginger and lemon zest, vanilla extract, and melted butter.

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After mixing the wet ingredients together you use a spatula to gently fold the dry into the wet. Instead of using muffin cups I scooped the batter into a greased mini-loaf pan and baked in a 375 degree oven for about 30 mins.

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These muffins definitely have potential. I didn’t have a microplane so wasn’t able to get as much zest and grated ginger as I needed. I also think the flour and ground ginger may have been old. The end result turned out more like Blueberry-Ginger Buttermilk BREAD vice MUFFINS. Since the Chef said these were supposed to be a replacement for Banana Bread maybe the consistence was correct but I’ll hold my final review until I have the proper tools. That being said, YMDT loves them and at the end of the day that’s really all that matters.

May 9, 2020–The Dram Classic was an awesome event. During breakfast on the last day we all agreed to do Dram II. The weekend of May 9th was the agreed upon weekend. Little did we know that COVID would hit. It was touch and go for a while but we got the invitee list down to 10, maintained Social Distancing, and renamed the event to COVID Dram. I, of course, was asked to bring a dessert. The winning recommendation was a Red Velvet Cake. Using a combination of AB’s recipe and numerous others on the internet I went to work. The MEP included: all-purpose flour, cake flour, cocoa, baking soda, kosher salt, espresso powder; dark brown sugar, unsalted butter; low-fat buttermilk, red liquid food coloring, white vinegar, and vanilla extract.

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While the oven was heating to 325 degrees, I prepared two square baking pan with cooking spray and parchment paper. Mixed the dry ingredients then the butter/brown sugar until it is light in color followed by some eggs.

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Add the flour mixture in thirds alternating with the buttermilk mixture.

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Divide the batter evenly between the prepared pans, bake until the cake springs back when pressed or reaches an internal temperature of 205 degrees. Cool in the pans then on a rack until completely cooled before frosting.

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The frosting is your basic cream cheese frosting made with cream cheese, butter, vanilla, salt, and, powdered sugar. Refrigerate for about 10 minutes to firm up.

Let the frosting begin.

Although the above looked amazing I knew I had to step it up for my friends attending the COVID Dram.

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May 3, 2020–Depression Era Cake is a type of cake that was commonly made during the Great Depression because the ingredients included little or no milk, sugar, butter or eggs since they were either expensive or hard to find. Although we are not in a Great Depression, COVID-19 has resulted in a lot of people cooking making normal ingredients almost non-existent. I still don’t understand the run on toilet paper but that’s for another discussion. The trick of the “depression cake” is that it substitutes cheaper ingredients for the more expensive, harder to find ones. Chef Michael Zebrowski of the CIA (food not spies) explains that vegetable oil replaces butter, vinegar and baking soda replace the eggs, etc. Although I had plenty of the usual baking ingredients I decided to give this a try. During C-19 there were numerous websites listing the required ingredients: AP flour, sugar, unsweetened cocoa powder, baking soda, apple cider vinegar, vanilla extract, vegetable oil, and cooled brewed coffee.

First you preheat your oven to 375°F and grease an 8-inch round or square pan. Whenever I make something with chocolate I dust the pan with cocoa instead of flour.

Mix the flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda, and salt in a bowl. Poke three holes into the mix.  Mix the vanilla, vinegar, and oil then pour into each hole–don’t ask me why?!?!?!

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Add the coffee and stir the ingredients until well blended.

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Add to the pan. Bake for 35 minutes, or until the top is set but springy. Cool the cake in the pan.

I topped it with a chocolate ganache; you can also enjoy it plain.

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Although it looked tasty I decided to take it up another level by adding a simple white chocolate ganache.

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It turned into my version of a Hostess Cupcake.

April 26, 2020–It seems like if I’m not getting a dessert recipe from my ATK cookbook, I’m getting it from an episode of Good Eats. When I saw this one I thought, “What could be easier?!?!” If you like fudge but don’t like the ‘work’ of making fudge then this is your recipe. This particular recipe allowed me to use up some of my peanut and almond butter and COSTCO bag of powdered sugar.

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First you line and butter an 8×8 baking sheet with parchment paper. Next, combine the butter and peanut/almond butter in a large microwave-safe bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Microwave for 2 minutes on high, remove from microwave and stir until smooth. Return to microwave and cook on high for 2 additional minutes. Remove from microwave.

Add the vanilla and powdered sugar to the mixture and quickly stir to combine with a wooden spoon. As the mixture starts to lose its sheen and becomes hard to stir, add half of the chocolate chips, then spread in the prepared pan.

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To differentiate between the two butters I added white chocolate chips to the the one that contained almond butter.

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Refrigerate until completely cool.

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Since they were a little plain I decided to do my best Jackson Pollock with a bourbon ganache.

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Cut into bite size pieces and store in an airtight container at room temperature for up to a week; if they will last that long!

April 18, 2020–“DoubleTree reveals official chocolate chip cookie recipe.”  THEY DID WHAT!?!?!?! Of course, I had to make these and include them as part of my Sunday dessert delivery! You should have all of the ingredients: butter, granulated and light brown sugar, eggs, vanilla extract, freshly squeezed lemon juice, flour, rolled oats, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, semi-sweet chips chocolate chips, and chopped walnuts.

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After you preheat oven to 300°F, cream butter and sugars in the bowl of a stand mixer. Add eggs, vanilla, and lemon juice. Blend until light and fluffy. Blend in flour, oats, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon.

Remove bowl from mixer and stir in chocolate chips and walnuts.

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Portion about 3 tablespoons of dough with a scoop onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper about 2 inches apart. Bake for 20 to 23 minutes, or until edges are golden brown and center is still soft.

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This was so easy, and I had the chocolate, I also made a batch where I replaced the walnuts with bittersweet, milk, white, and semi-sweet chocolate chips.

April 11, 2020–No, I do not own stock in America’s Test Kitchen (ATK). They just have great recipes so I’m always using them. I bought some limes from COSTCO in order to make gin/vodka gimlets. Unfortunately, depending on how you look at it, I had a lot of limes. Before they went bad I decided to zest and juice all of them. The zest went into a bottle and I froze the zest. Now what to do with this large volume of product? Looking through my many cookbooks, but mainly ATK, I found this quick and easy recipe. I had everything but the animal crackers. I thought about just using graham crackers but when ATK makes a recommendation there is science behind it so off to the store I went. You’re basically making a crust using animal crackers, brown sugar, butter, and salt to support the lime filling. Bake the cost at 325 degrees for 15-18 minutes until it is golden brown.

While the crust is baking and cooling you make the filling. In a bowl, stir cream cheese, lime zest, and salt with rubber spatula until thoroughly combined. Add sweetened condensed milk and whisk vigorously until no lumps remain; whisk in eggs. Add lime juice and whisk until incorporated.

Pour filling into the cooled crust.

Bake for 15-20 minutes. Cool on wire rack for 1 to 1 1/2 hours. Cover with foil and refrigerate until thoroughly chilled, at least 2 hours. Loosen edges with paring knife and lift bar from baking pan using foil extensions; cut bars 

They’re small so I’ll have one plate, please.

April 9, 2020–As a result of daily telework I’ve been catching up on my America’s Test Kitchen recordings. Since I’m eating actual breakfast more often I’ve been making blueberry lemon pancakes or waffles, buttermilk biscuits, etc. After viewing this episode from Season 19, I knew this would be a great addition and variety to my mornings. As with all of their recipes they have a “Why This Recipe Works” section. They use a food processor for mixing the cake and the streusel topping.  To ensure the cake remained tender despite the use of the food processor’s blades, they used the reverse-creaming method.  This allowed for the flour’s proteins to be coated with fat and prevented them from linking up and forming gluten when water was added to the batter.  Having a thick batter kept it from rising over and covering the streusel and baking it in a springform pan allowed for a fuss-free unmolding that kept the streusel intact. I know it may sound like you’re using a lot of tools and maybe you are but I have them and never use them so this was right up my alley.

You should have all of these ingredients in your pantry: pecans, brown and white sugar, flour, cinnamon, salt, butter, baking powder and soda, salt, eggs, vanilla extract, and milk. Let’s make the streusel first.

While the oven is heating to 350 degrees, process the pecans and brown sugar in your food processor. Then process the flour, cinnamon, and table salt in the pecan/sugar mixture.  Add the melted butter and about a teaspoon of water. Continue to pulse until mixture clumps like wet sand.  Remove to a bowl.

Now, let’s make the cake.

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Pulse the flour, sugar, cinnamon, baking powder and soda, and salt the food processor. Add the butter and pulse until butter is mixed in.  Add the milk, eggs, and vanilla.  Pulse, scraping down bowl until it comes together.

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Pour batter into a greased and floured 9-inch springform pan and smooth out the top.

Add streusel from the outside to the center.  Do not press into the batter.

Bake, on a sheet tray, for 45-55 minutes. Allow to cool on a wire rack for 15-minutes.  Remove springform and allow to cool for at least 2-hours. Remove from pan with an offset spatula.

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Remove a slice and enjoy!

March 23, 2020–These truffles have been saved on my web browser since I first saw them in an August 2019 Food52 email. They are a a recreation of Royce’s famous Nama Chocolate truffles. Yi Jun Loh describes them as “somewhere between a liquid and a solid,…silky, salaciously smooth squares of chocolate ganache dusted” with cocoa powder. Although the ingredient list is simple, short and it comes together pretty quickly…it takes a lot of time to cut 1″ x 1″ squares of chocolate. Original recipe calls for Kahlúa or brandy, but of course I used bourbon; specifically Buffalo Trace Bourdon Cream.

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After lining a 10 x 10″ baking pan (I used an 8″ x 8″ pan) with parchment paper you put your GOOD chocolate (at least 60% cacao) in a heatproof bowl. Add the cream and butter to a pot and heat until it reaches about 176 degrees.

Pour the cream/butter mixture over the chocolate and stir until the chocolate is completely melted then add the bourbon cream; if using, and why would you not.

Pour this mixture into the previously prepared pan, spread it evenly, then freeze for 2-3 hours.

Now comes the hard part. Remove the chocolate from the freezer and then remove it from the pan. Using a ruler, umm you know I’m not going to eyeball this, cut the chocolate into squares. Much like a cheesecake, you will need to dip your knife into hot water; wiping dry, before cutting. This step too for–ev–er!

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Using a sieve, dust cocoa powder over the chocolate squares.

I had some edible gold stars so I sprinkled those on top.

The truffles can be stored in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 4 days; like they would actually last that long.

February 28, 2020–After missing out on the Pappy Dinner during the Bourbon Classic in Kentucky we decided to host our own event. It was broken out of two nights with three different events: Tequila, Scotch, and Bourbon. I wanted to pair food with the liquors and during my search I discovered that flan paired well with añjeo tequila. WD and MW just happened to be on WDs annual trip to Cabo where they’re served a dessert that I discovered to be a chocoflan. There were numerous recipes on the interwebs but I decided to go with one by Marcela Valladolid.

The mise for the cake was pretty straight forward: butter, sugar, an egg, flour, baking powder & soda, cocoa powder, and butter milk. For the flan: a can of evaporated & condensed milk, cream cheese, eggs and vanilla.

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Cream the butter and sugar in a stand mixer, add the egg, then sift in the dry ingredients alternating with the buttermilk. Blend until combined.

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Meanwhile blend the flan ingredients until smooth. Spray a bundt pan with butter and coat it with cajeta. Pour in the cake batter, evenly spreading it in the pan. Slowly pour in the milk mixture.

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Cover the pan with foil, put it into a water bath, and bake in a preheated oven until a toothpick comes out clean. Through the magic of science the batters switch places while cooking–the cake is now on top and the flan is on bottom!!

After the cake has cooled, run a knife around the inside, invert a large, rimmed platter over the Bundt pan, grasp tightly, and flip over. If it came out cleanly you have accomplished your second magic trick. Scrape any remaining cajeta from the pan onto the cake, garnish with chopped pecans and eat or cover and refrigerate for 24 hours.

February 7, 2020–I saw this on the new season of Good Eats. The episode titled Let Them Eat (Icebox) Cake. Although AB is one of my food heroes, I of course had to adjust his ingredient list. Substituting thin vanilla and chocolate Oreos for chocolate wafers and replacing some of the heavy cream with bourbon cream.

To ease in the removal of the cake you line an 8-by-4-by-3-inch loaf pan with plastic wrap, leaving enough overhang in each direction to completely cover the top. You then line the bottom and sides of the pan with your cookie of choice.

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Sprinkle the gelatin over 1/4 cup cold water in a small saucepan/metal measuring cup and “bloom” at room temperature for 5 minutes. Gently warm the mixture over low heat until just melted.

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Remove from the heat and stir in the coffee liqueur, espresso powder and vanilla.

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Whip the heavy cream, powdered sugar, and salt in a stand mixer until soft peaks form.

Reduce the speed to low and drizzle in the cooled gelatin mixture and whip to stiff peaks. Comment: When working with gelatin, work fast as it will begin to set and form lumps.

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Fill the prepared pan 3/4 of the way with the whipped cream mixture. Insert the remaining cookies vertically into the whipped cream and spread the remaining whipped cream evenly over the cookie rows.

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Fold the excess plastic wrap over the cake and refrigerate for at least 8 hours and up to 24.

When you’re ready to serve, pull back the plastic wrap and invert the cake onto a serving dish.

Slice and serve immediately.

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