Chocolate Chip Cheesecake Bars

After sitting around the hospital, waiting to see my new niece, all day, I had a lot of baking energy when I got home. And I had been planning what to make all day. I still had some chocolate chip cookies left from a few nights ago, and knew they'd make a great crumb crust. So, upon returning home, I went to work. The chocolate chip cookies worked great for a crumb crust, because they required little additional butter. The chocolate chips plus about a tablespoon of butter provided enough fat to get the crumb crust perfect, and I worked the filling out by taste.

Ingredients:

• 10 oz chocolate chip cookies
• 1 tbsp butter, melted
• 1 lb cream cheese
• 6 oz sugar
• 1 oz yogurt
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 3 eggs
• 5 oz chocolate chips
• 4 oz chocolate
• 2 oz heavy cream

Directions:

1. First, process the cookies in a food processor until they get to be fine crumbs, then drizzle in the butter and pulse until combined.
2. Press this into the bottom of an 8-Inch Square Baking Dish and preheat the open to 300 degrees F.
   
3. Beat the softened cream cheese, sugar, and yogurt together until smooth.
4. Beat in the vanilla and eggs. Then mix in chocolate chips and pour onto the top of the crust.
5. Bake for approximately 30 minutes, or until just set.
6. Cool fully.
7. Scald the cream in a small saucepan.
8. Pour over chopped chocolate and whisk until smooth.
9. Immediately pour onto the top of the cheesecake bars. Allow to set, approximately 10 minutes.
10. Refrigerate or enjoy right away.

Share on Tumblr

The most viewed recipe on FoodGawker: A review

If you've ever visited the site FoodGawker (which my traffic stats tell me you probably have), you've probably seen these cookies. They're the kinda funny looking square chocolate chip cookies which are (as of this post) the most visited link from the site, and the third most favorited. So I had to try them.

Recipe can be found here.

I followed the recipe exactly (which I rarely do) and the cookies looked beautiful.

The taste, though, is not for me. I'm not a big shortbread fan. Shortbread is dry and doesn't have a lot of flavor. And, honestly, these cookies were just like every other shortbread I've tried. If you like shortbread, you might love these. I, however, did not. That's not to say anything bad about the cookies, they're just not my cup of tea.

Have you tried these? What're your thoughts?

Share on Tumblr

Egg Custard Tarts

A week or so ago, a friend sent me a link to Serious Eats' write-up on the best egg custard tarts in New York. I knew I wanted to make them right away. I've never had one, but they sounded not-too-sweet and absolutely delicious. But alas, I was neck deep in my series on cake and they got put off. Until today.

These were nice and easy (since I already had puff pastry in the freezer) and were a great late-afternoon project. The filling recipe makes enough filling for about a pound of puff pastry, rolled to about 1/4 inch thick, not counting the scraps.

Makes: Approximately 9 tarts

Ingredients:

• 1 lb puff pastry, thawed
• 4 oz water
• 4 oz evaporated milk
• 1.5 oz sugar
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 3 eggs

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
2. Roll out the puff pastry to 1/4 inch thick and cut rounds approximately 3 inches across (or use tartlet pans). Place the puff pastry into muffin tins, stretching the dough as little as possible. Freeze for 10 minutes.
3. Combine all remaining ingredients in a bowl and whisk to combine. Fill shells with custard to about 3/4 full.
4. Bake for 15 minutes, or until custard is set.

Have you ever had these before? What's your favorite thing about egg custard tarts?

Share on Tumblr

Create a perfect sponge cake recipe in 5 minutes

I left sponge cake as the pinnacle of this series of posts for a reason. It has amazing taste and texture, and is an incredibly versatile type of cake. There are tons of wildly different sponge cake recipes out there, so you may have a hard time if you're looking to compare this to something, but I assure you, it works.

Components of a sponge cake recipe:

• Driers: In a sponge cake, you use fewer driers than you would for a shortened cake. It is possible to make a sponge cake with the same exact recipe as a creaming method cake, but it doesn't produce the best cake (and contains butter, which sponge cake normally lacks). For two 9 inch rounds, I start with about 6 oz of driers.

• Sugar: There are a few considerations to make when figuring out how much sugar to add. The amount of sugar should equal the weight of the eggs (or slightly surpass it), and should also surpass the weight of driers.

• Eggs: Generally the weight of eggs equals the weight of sugar. It is also important that it exceeds the weight of the driers.

• Liquid: Here we get to the fun part, where everything comes together. The first consideration is that the weight of liquids and eggs exceeds the weight of sugar. The combined weight of the liquids and the sugar must also be less than the combined weight of eggs and flour.

And that's it. Really, it's that easy. Be sure to remember a little bit of salt and some flavorings, and then your recipe is complete. Here's an example of a recipe created this way.

Ingredients:

• 4 oz eggs
• 4 oz sugar
• 3 oz flour
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 2 oz milk
• 1/4 tsp almond extract

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F and prepare pans by lining the bottoms with parchment paper. Do not grease.
2. In a mixer, whip the eggs and sugar on medium-high speed until light and airy - 3-5 minutes.
3. Mix together the flour and salt and fold into the egg mixture.
4. Mix in the milk and almond extract.
5. Pour batter into prepared pans and bake for approx 15-18 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean.

And what did I do with this cake? Made cake balls, of course.

I'm considering doing a post on the classifications of ingredients (driers, tenderizers, etc) to wrap up the series on cakes. Would anyone be interested? Leave a comment and let me know!

Share on Tumblr

Ciao Bella White Chocolate Gelato

Today we're taking a little break from our cake series, because I wanted to make something cold and this gelato is amazing. I recently picked up The Ciao Bella Book of Gelato and Sorbetto: Bold, Fresh Flavors to Make at Home and this is the first chance I've had to use it. I've never had Ciao Bella gelato before (and hadn't actually even heard of it until a few weeks ago), but I'm now a fan.

Ingredients:

• 2 cups whole milk
• 1 cup heavy cream
• 6 oz white chocolate, finely chopped
• 4 egg yolks
• 1/4 cup sugar

Directions:

1. Combine the milk and cream in a saucepan and heat over medium heat until scalded.
2. Add the white chocolate and whisk until smooth
3. Whisk the sugar into the egg yolks and temper by pouring a bit of hot cream while whisking.
4. Whisk the yolks back into the cream and heat over medium heat until the mixture has thickened enough to coat the back of a spoon.
5. Chill in an ice bath, then overnight in the fridge.
6. Churn in an ice cream maker and then freeze for at least 4 hours.

This isn't any sort of paid advertisement, but you should go get the book.

Share on Tumblr

Angel Food Cake - Recipe Development for everyone

Continuing our series on cake, today we're going to knock angel food cake out of the park. Looking back, this probably should have been the first post in the series, because it's so easy. You ready for this?

First, use equal weights egg whites and sugar. Then, use 1/3 of that weight in driers (flour, cocoa powder, etc). And that's about it. Really. I mean, you should add some things like a little bit of salt and a touch of vanilla extract, too, but it's honestly that simple. Here, I'll make one up right now:

Berry Angel Food Cake

• 10 oz egg whites
• 1/2 tsp cream of tartar
• 10 oz sugar
• 3 tsp strawberry extract (I don't figure most people have this lying around, so you can also use vanilla)
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 3.2 oz flour (Preferably cake)
• 2 cup fresh berries
• 1 cup heavy cream
• 1/2 cup sugar

1. First, preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
2. Whip the egg whites with the cream of tartar, salt, and extract. Sprinkle in the sugar and whip until  stiff peaks form.
3. Sift the flour over the egg whites and fold in "gently but quickly."
4. Pour into an angel food cake pan and smooth out the top.
5. Bake for approx. 40 minutes, or until the top is golden and a cake tester (toothpick or paring knife) comes out clean.
6. Turn the pan upside down to cool. To remove, run a knife along the sides.
7. Whip up the cream, sugar, and about 1/4  of the berries until stiff peaks form.
8. Fill the cake, frost the cake, and enjoy the cake.

See how we got there? Egg whites, a little bit of cream of tartar to help the egg whites whip up, equal weight of sugar, a little bit of flavor from the extract and the salt, and 1/3 of the weight of the eggs in flour. It really is as easy as that. Take the next two minutes and write your own recipe (don't be afraid to spice it up a bit) and then comment and tell me how painless it was. Then, when you bake the cake and your guests ask where you got the recipe, puff out your chest and tell them you created it yourself!

Share on Tumblr

Butter Cakes and You - Recipe Development for everyone

I've got a new focus for the blog (and from the sounds of it, you're all down too): recipe development. It's something I've been really into lately, and I firmly believe that coming up with your own recipes (which actually work and taste great) is something everyone can do without spending hours and hours on them. So right now, we're digging into cakes! I posted a little bit about this a few days ago in my Chocolate Zucchini Cake post, but I'd like to go into a bit more, and look at another cake formula which follows the same rules.

We'll go on to look at other types of cake later, but for now, we'll master the classic butter cakes. Pound cake, "shortened" cakes, and most other cakes that use the creaming method fit in this category.

Flour:

I always start a recipe with flour. For two cakes 9 inch rounds, I usually start with 2 cups of flour. Flour, in the world of cake ingredients, is known as a drier. This means that it gives structure and body to a cake. In the world of cake ingredients, there are also other common driers. Specifically things like cocoa powder.  Because they behave similarly, you can substitute other driers for part of your flour in a cake. It is important to do exactly that, though, and substitute. If you simply add cocoa powder to the 2 cups of flour you need for two 9 inch rounds, you'll end up with dry, tough cake. But if you follow the rules and use 2 cups of driers, you can substitute no problem. (Note: You still need to use a good amount of flour itself, however, for structural purposes.) The driers are also the one set of ingredients in cakes that you need to know both the weight and volume of.

(Note: In an ideal world, we'd all use cake flour for almost every cake, but I do realize that many of us don't really have access to it, and many of us don't like to keep uni-taskers (to borrow from Alton Brown) around. Your cake should turn out no matter which flour you use.)

Other Dry ingredients:

When I say other dry ingredients, I really mean leaveners and salt. The leaveners are the reason it is important to know the volume of the flour. To leaven one cup of flour, you need about 1 1/4 tsp of baking powder, or 1/4 tsp of baking soda. My leavener of choice is usually baking powder, unless I'm making something like a lemon cake, where I want the flavor of lemons to shine through without so much acid. Then I use baking soda, because it counteracts some of the acid in a cake. Salt is a bit more of a grey area. I usually add somewhere between 1/4 tsp and 1/2 tsp for two cups of flour, depending on the flavor of the cake. Salt in a sweet brings the flavors to the perfect level for our taste buds. Salt adds a lot to caramel or chocolate flavor, but too much salt is easily tasted in flavors like vanilla.

Sugar:

In a cake made by creaming butter and sugar together, sugar plays a greater role than just sweetening and tenderizing. Sugar is needed to trap air bubbles in the butter, which gives the cake part of its leavening. For this reason, a good amount of granulated sugar is needed. Some honey, molasses, etc can be substituted, but not much. For this style of cake, the total amount of sugars (granulated or liquid) should be equal to or slightly less than the weight of the driers. 

Eggs:

Eggs play a few different roles in cake balancing. the give structure, they moisten, they tenderize, and they leaven. The nice thing about eggs in a cake recipe is that you don't have too much choice. The weight of the eggs and the liquid combined should be equal to the weight of the driers. In this case that would mean about six eggs is equal to the weight of flour for two 9 inch rounds. But to add this many eggs would mean that you could add no liquid. Normally I try keep eggs at no more than 50% of the weight of the flour, because otherwise you have a very thick batter and are likely to get too tough of a case. 

Liquid:

Using the rule of liquids and eggs combined weighing as much as the flour, the liquid is then easy to figure out by subtracting the weight of the eggs from the weight of the flour. Common liquids for cakes are milk, buttermilk, and sour cream, but get creative! This is a great place to introduce flavors.

Butter:

Shortening is definitely NOT an option. But the amount of butter is easy to figure out, too. The weight of the butter in a cake recipe should be equal to the weight of the eggs.

And it really is that simple. Cream together the butter and sugar, add the eggs, and alternately mix in the dry ingredients and liquids. It'll take you maybe 5 minutes to write your own cake recipe using this method. I don't know about you, but I've spent a lot longer searching blogs for cake recipes.

So here's an example recipe that I came up with while writing this post. They're s'mores cupcakes, before summer ends and we all move on to holiday desserts.

Recipe:

• 1 1/2 cup flour
• 3 graham crackers (this comes out to 1/2 cup graham cracker crumbs)
• 2 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 5 oz butter, softened
• 6 oz granulated sugar
• 2 oz brown sugar
• 3 eggs
• 4 oz milk
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1/2 oz honey
• 3 oz chocolate chips
• 3 egg whites
• 3/4 cup granulated sugar

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
2. In a food processor, process the graham crackers until they are a fine powder.
3. Whisk together the flour, graham crackers, baking powder, and salt.
4. Cream together the butter and sugars until light and fluffy.
5. Add the eggs to the butter, one at a time, scraping the bowl between additions.
6. Add half of the dry ingredients and beat until just combined, then alternate in the wet ingredients (milk, vanilla, and honey) with the rest of the dry ingredients. Mix in the chocolate chips and spoon into prepared cupcake tins.
7. Bake for approximately 15 minutes and allow to cool.
8. Over a double boiler, gently stir together the egg whites and 3/4 cup sugar until they reach 140 degrees. Then transfer to a mixer and beat until stiff peaks form.
9. Pipe meringue onto cooled cupcakes and toast with a torch.

Texture-wise, the cakes turned out great. Taste-wise? Equally great. I would probably up the amount of brown sugar and lower the granulated a bit, as well as put a little more graham cracker instead of some of the flour, but I had a hit (according to my wonderful fiance [yes, I still pretend her opinion is unbiased]) the first time around. So please, friends, next time you go to make a cake or cupcakes, try this out! Then comment and let me know how it went for you.

Anything you're confused about?

Any special topics you'd like to see in future recipe-development posts?

Share on Tumblr

Developing a recipe for Zucchini Chocolate Cake

In the next few posts we're going to look at recipe development (since apparently you're all into that sort of thing). Specifically developing recipes for cakes. I'll go into a little more detail on the balancing of it all later, but here's a look at my process for developing a chocolate zucchini cake recipe.

If you have a garden with a zucchini plant in it, you understand the need to find new things to do with zucchini.

I started coming up with my recipe by choosing a flour amount. I decided two cups would probably make a cake size I'd be happy with. But since I wanted it to be chocolate, I substituted 1/2 cup of the flour for cocoa powder. To leaven that 2 cups of dry ingredients, I knew I needed about 2 1/2 teaspoons of baking powder, so that's what I wrote down next. Salt is sometimes a tricky ingredient. Most of us know that it needs to go in there somewhere, even in a sweet recipe, but have no idea how much to put in. Just the other day someone on my twitter feed was complaining about people writing recipes calling for "a pinch" of salt, because desserts really do need a bit more salt than that. I decided to start with 1/4 teaspoon, which is usually a pretty good bet. Now that my dry ingredients are out of the way, I move on.

To determine how much of the other ingredients I need, I first need to weigh my flour (in this case flour and cocoa powder). It weighs about 9 1/2 ounces. For a normal (shortened) American-style cake, I add an equal weight of sugar. I figure that the average cake in this style has 3-4 eggs. I go for 4 and figure that each weighs about 1.67 oz. Together that's about 6.7 oz of eggs. I subtract that from the weight of my flour (9.5 oz) to get the weight of liquid that I should add. I write down 2.7 oz of liquids. I decide to go with 2 oz of milk, and rely on my zucchini for the other .7 oz of liquid. I add 1 cup grated zucchini to the recipe.

Finally, I figure the fat. I want to use butter and a tiny bit of melted chocolate. In this style of cake, I want  a good amount of fat. I go for 6 oz of butter and about 1 oz of melted chocolate.

And there I have my initial, pre-testing recipe.

• 1/2 cup cocoa powder
• 1 1/2 cups AP flour
• 2 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 6 oz butter, softened
• 1 oz chocolate, melted
• 9.5 oz sugar
• 4 eggs
• 1 cup zucchini, grated
• 2 oz milk

Then the steps were as follows: preheat the oven to 350, cream the butter, sugar, and chocolate, mix dry ingredients together, beat the eggs into the butter, add the zucchini, alternately mix in the dry ingredients and the milk.

About 20 minutes later, when it came out of the oven. I could tell the cake was going to be soft and moist. I frosted and decorated it and dug in. Then came time to change the recipe. My two critiques were that it wasn't quite chocolatey enough (although that was remedied with chocolate buttercream) and that there wasn't quite enough zucchini.

I think next time I'll up the zucchini to 1 and a half cups and up the cocoa powder to 3/4 cup, changing the flour to 1 1/4 cup.

More to come on developing your own recipes for cake (including sponge and angel food)!

Share on Tumblr

More chocolate chip cookies

Today, I baked chocolate chip cookies. I baked them because chocolate chip cookies are nearly the best dessert to make when you're short on time. And because everyone loves them. Today I wanted to bake something and then get back outside. At this point in the year, my mentality is to snatch any sun I can. It's possible that this will be the last, the way this summer is going. But I'm so glad I made these, because they're a different kind of chocolate chip cookie. They're a lot like the chocolate chip cookies you find in an ice cream sandwich. My favorite plain old chocolate chip cookies are still Jacques Torres's, but these are awesome ice cream sandwich vessels. And they're from one of my favorite books, In the Sweet Kitchen by Regan Daley.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup butter, softened
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 3 cups plus 2 tablespoons AP Flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 16 oz chocolate chunks

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
2. Cream the butter and sugars until light and fluffy.
3. Beat in eggs and vanilla, scraping down the bowl between additions.
4. Sift the flour, soda, and salt together and add to the dough until just combined.
5. Knead in chocolate chunks.
6. Spoon onto baking sheets and bake for 12 to 17 minutes until golden.

Share on Tumblr

A tale of two brownies

I was going to start this post with "It was the best of brownies, it was the worst of brownies," but then it would have sounded like the post was about a really bad brownie, which I promise you it isn't. Instead, it's about putting my post on how to develop a brownie recipe into practice. I thought it would be helpful to put up two recipes I wrote using the tips and talk about them a bit. Let's start with the cakey.

Cakey:

• 6 oz softened butter
• 1 cup white sugar
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 2 oz chocolate - melted
• 3 eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 1/2 cups AP flour 
• 1/2 cup cocoa powder
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt

Method: Creaming

I started developing this recipe by looking at the fat. This was meant to be the extreme cakey/soft side of the brownie universe. I chose to use mostly butter because I knew that it would lead to soft brownies. Because I wouldn't have much chocolate in the recipe if I went this way, I added cocoa powder. I knew, also, that eggs contribute to a fluffy, cakey brownie, so I used a relatively high proportion of them. The baking powder also helps the brownies to have that nice airy crumb that just screams "cake." And lastly I knew I needed a lot of flour to give them structure. Once I had decided on how much flour (and normally you'd adjust this during the baking process, but I had guessed right), I went back and adjusted my baking powder. Since there are effectively 2 cups of flour (lump in the cocoa powder), I needed 2 tsp of baking powder to get them the perfect amount of rise. And the amount of sugar? That was simply an educated guess. I usually figure about twice as much sugar (by volume) as butter is a good place to start. As far as the amount that a recipe will make, that's something you really only learn once you've made the batter. Then you look through your pans and figure out how many what you just wrote down makes.

It was probably two weeks after I developed this recipe that I put it to the test. To my delight, it worked just like I'd created it to. These brownies are on the verge of a chocolate cake.

Fudgy:

• 8 oz dark chocolate
• 2 tbsp  butter
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1/4 tsp espresso powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup flour

Method: Melting

I started these fudgy brownies with a lot of fat in the form of chocolate. Because chocolate is harder than butter at room temperature, brownies made with it will be chewier than those made with butter. I also kept the eggs down in order to not get too much of a cakey structure. I also kept the flour to a small amount for this reason. These were a super simple recipe, and they turned out just like I hoped. The batter was so thick going in that I had to use a spatula to spread it out in the pan! I think next time I might try even less flour, but these still turned out really fudgy and delicious.

So I hope that gave everyone a good example of a couple of recipes for radically different brownies. You too can put my brownie tips to use and write your own recipe for any type of brownies you want.

What's your all time favorite brownie recipe? Does it follow these guides?

Share on Tumblr

Know your ingredients: Sugar

I've often wished that I didn't love sugar the way I do. Wouldn't it be so much better if sugar had the nutritional content of raw spinach? But, as usual, reality wags its finger at us dreamers, and we're forced to choose moderation instead. Boo. Hiss.

If any of you read my chocolate post, you may remember that I said sugar was the most difficult ingredient to bake with. That, to put it plainly, is because sugar is finicky. We'll start picking it apart by looking at the different types of sugar.

Types of sugar:

• White sugar: Also called table sugar, cane sugar, granulated sugar, or just plain sugar in recipes, white sugar is crystalline sucrose. Made by refining and filtering sugar cane and (more commonly) sugar beets, this is the go-to sugar for sweetening baked goods, making caramels and candies, creaming cookies, and whipping meringues.
• Superfine sugar: Also called caster (or castor) sugar, superfine sugar is simply a smaller granule of white sugar. It's main benefit is that it dissolves more easily. This makes it undesirable for aeration (creaming, whipping, etc), though. Sometimes superfine sugars contain cornstarch or other additives, something to be mindful of when purchasing and baking with it. You can also make your own using a food processor or spice grinder.
• Powdered sugar: Also called confectioners sugar, 10X sugar, and icing sugar, powdered sugar is most often used to make icings. It is white sugar which has been pulverized into a powder and mixed with a small amount of cornstarch to prevent caking.
• Sanding sugar, coarse sugar, rock sugar, etc: These are sugars left in a very coarse granule, usually used as garnish. Often you see them colored.
• Brown sugar: Both the light and dark variety are made the same way: by adding some molasses (a product of sugar refinery) back into refined white sugar. Brown sugar is more moist and needs to be compacted to be accurately measured by volume. Has a slightly caramelized flavor.
• Raw sugars: This category contains a lot of uncommon sugars such as demerara, muscovado, turbinado, piloncillo, and jaggery. These sugars are partially refined, containing various amounts of molasses. Though they are normally softer than other sugars, there is a lot of variety between the various sugars.

Sugar preparations:

• Boiling: Boiling sugar involves cooking sugar (and usually a bit of water), into a certain temperature, at which point it cools with certain characteristics. These temperatures are generally called stages. Sugar crystals are constantly changing in alignment and structure as they cook, resulting in the different stages of cooked sugar. The lowest temperature at which a change occurs, called thread stage, is 230 degrees F. The next state, soft ball, occurs at 234 degrees F and is used for applications like fudge. The firm ball stage occurs at 244 degrees F and is used for caramels. At 250 degrees F sugar reaches the hard ball stage, at which point it can be used for things like divinity and nougat. Sugar's first crack stage is soft crack, at 270 degrees F. Taffy is sometimes made from sugar at the soft crack stage. At 300 degrees F, sugar is at the hard crack stage, at which point suckers and hard candies are made. Sugar caramelizes at 320 degrees F and burns above 350 degrees. When boiling sugar I find it helpful to grease the sides of the pan, add an acid such as lemon juice to the sugar, and brush down the sides of the pan with water while cooking. The reason for these steps is to ensure proper crystallization, since it only takes one stray crystal to turn an entire batch of sugar. Boiling sugar is why the ingredient gets my award for most finicky. Some of the stages are only four or five degrees off of each other. This means a very accurate thermometer is needed and a very patient and watchful eye. Sugar also tends to make jumps in temperature when it is cooking. It'll hover around 230 for 5 minutes, but then jump up past 250 within 30 seconds. Needless to say, boiling sugar can cause frustration.
• Creaming and whipping: Creaming and whipping both involve incorporating sugar and air into other substances. In the case of creaming, the "other substance" is normally butter. Beating together rough sugar crystals creates friction in the mixer which helps to incorporate and trap air better. The sugar gives the aerated butter stable structure. The same thing goes for cream and egg whites. The structure that sugar gives to the whipped cream or whites helps them to keep aerated for much longer. 

The information for this post comes from CookWise, an amazing book called In the Sweet Kitchen by Regan Daley that everyone should check out, and a small bit from myself.

And that's sugar. If I missed anything, I'm counting on you all to let me know.

Share on Tumblr

My finished Threadcakes entry

Right now, I don't want to eat, bake, or decorate cake. I don't even want to see any pictures of a cake. I'm officially caked out.

It's finally done, though. The project that's been taking all my kitchen time from blogging and you wonderful people is finished. There was a lot of learning involved, though, so that's always good. This was my second ever fondant cake and it came with one key lesson: never try to cover a cake straight from the freezer with fondant. It sweats and generally does bad things. But in general, it went pretty well and was good practice. Without further ado, here are the pictures.

And that's about it. I've still got a lot of 'shoulda's, but overall I don't think it turned out too bad.

Do you have any fondant or gumpaste tips that you learned the hard way?

Share on Tumblr

Recipe development

Recipe development has always been something I've been really interested in. I've been thinking about doing more posts on the subject. Is that something you guys and gals are interested in too? Leave a comment and let me know.

Share on Tumblr

Raspberry Cheesecake

I'll confess, most of my baking energy has gone toward completing my cake for Threadcakes. But when faced with some fresh raspberries, I knew something needed to be done. And that something? Raspberry cheesecakes. These are easy to make and very hands-off, so get baking and have a great dessert for tonight.

Also, look out for a big change (and did I mention the re-opening of the shop?) coming to Confectious!

Serves: 4

Ingredients:

• 4 graham crackers
• 1 pinch cinnamon
• 1 oz butter
• 8 oz cream cheese
• 1 egg
• 1 tbsp vanilla extract
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 3/4 cup raspberries
• 1/2 tbsp AP flour

Directions:

1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F.
2. In a food processor, grind graham crackers into a powder and add cinnamon.
3. Stream in melted butter and press into ramekins or silicon jumbo muffin pan.
4. Bake these for approx. 7 minutes.
5. While the crusts bake, combine cream cheese, egg, vanilla, sugar, and raspberries in the food processor. Pulse until combined and smooth, then pulse in the flour until just mixed.
6. Pour filling onto cooled crusts and bake in a water bath at 300 for approx 30-40 minutes.
7. Dust with powdered sugar or top with whipped cream and enjoy.
    

Share on Tumblr

Threadcakes 2011

I'm not sure if any of you have heard, but the Threadcakes contest 2011 is almost over.

Threadcakes is a site devoted to cake designs based off of Threadless t-shirts. Needless to say, the cakes are pretty amazing. I'm excitedly plotting and working on a cake of my own, based off of this shirt.

Here are a few of my favorites from other decorators:

All images belong to threadless.com and threadcakes.com

So check out Threadcakes and stay tuned for a post on my cake.

Share on Tumblr