Cake and Commerce

Wedding Cake Making in Berlin: My Waterloo?

I begin writing this post suffering from jet-lag; four hours into my slumber, I wake up suddenly, not sure where I am or what time it is. The sleeping pill I've taken has only worked for half its promised life and I'm awake and ready to start my day.

Only problem? No one else is. I'm in Berlin, Germany, in a chic apartment in Mitte in the former East Berlin, and everyone else is asleep.

And then I remember yesterday: the cake day to end all cake days.

I have come to Berlin for a single reason. My sister is getting married and I promised to make the wedding cake. I'm not sure whose idea it is. During good times, we each claim the idea as our own. During stress, we each blame the other for suggesting that I make the cake.

Its been one of those days when neither us wants to take credit for suggesting that I make the wedding cake.

Everything was promising enough at the outset, at least superficially. After wrangling over the cake and the cake flavors, we finally arrived at a combination that both the bride and the baker did not find objectionable. She knew better than to request red velvet (I have made it three times in my life, under duress each time, for people affiliated with Coca-Cola) or a combination of chocolate and raspberry, regardless of how well it is liked by "everyone". Because it was to be a smaller wedding - I would need to bake for no more than 60 people - I would not be baking a mile-high cake with more internal complexity than a car engine. A blessing, I thought.

For days leading up to my departure from the US, I collected things I thought would be helpful in making the cake in Germany and would save money on ingredients, priced in the unfavorable Euro. I collected chocolate, knives, equipment, bottles of vanilla, cheap bags of confectioners sugar, baking pans, gum paste, dowels, an oven thermometer in Fahrenheit, vanilla beans, more chocolate, cardboard cake boxes, cardboard cake circles, a variety of piping bags and tips - anything to make shopping a less prominent feature of my work. The bag weighed 48.5 lbs at the Delta ticket counter. I checked it in.

My sister and her fiance met me at the airport and drove me first to the grocery store to buy ingredients ("Germany's Supermarket of the Year, 2007) to the home where I would be baking and assembling the cakes, a gorgeous modern home in a comfortable suburb about 1 hour by subway from my sister's place. The kitchen was huge, with an American-style refrigerator, a two-compartment restaurant style sink, and the feature of the room, a retrofitted American Viking stove with four burners and a center grill.

The host showed us where to store the things - a basement pantry full of specialty baking items and an outdoor storage room with its own refrigerator. It was guest baker paradise. I was ready to bake.

The next morning my sister escorted me on the S-Bahn (the subway) to the 'burbs. Though she had a lot to do to get ready for her wedding, now only 3 days away, she helped me with some of my mise-en-place.

When we arrived our host was just returning home after dropping his kids off at school. He showed us around the kitchen. And then he showed us the Viking Range, which proudly anchored the kitchen.

Pointing to it, he says, "This oven is a piece of crap."

"We had to get it retrofitted in Holland. It hasn't been the same since."

"It is illegal in Germany for a stove to just automatically light when you turn the knob. So we had to have it altered to code."

"The burners can be difficult to light. This one takes 45 seconds to catch and hold"

OK. The oven would be a challenge. But I had my oven gauge that would help me ensure the oven would stay at the correct temperature for baking my cakes. I was confident. I got to work, my sister at my side.

The first sign of things to come was The Dropping Of The Buttermilk. In Germany, some buttermilk is package like yogurt, with a simple foil lid over a paper cup. For some reason, as I tried to move the buttermilk from the store room to the house, it slipped from my grip and fell to the floor, making a sickening thud and spilling its contents. My sister kindly cleaned it up for me while I got the rest of my cakes organized. Not a good start.

I whipped out two cakes in rapid succession: Grandma's Chocolate and my 'famous' Banana Bread (I'll add here that none of my output was gluten-free or dairy-free). When I was checking one of my banana breads, it too slipped from my grip and landed upside-down on the oven door.

Oven 1, Linsey 0. 

The chocolate cake was a semi-disaster, too. The heat in the oven was too intense, the pan too thin and it rose inconsistently. I lost half of it to an unwanted cake dome (middle rise 2x-3x higher than rest of cake). I whipped up more  banana bread and some cheesecake to make a filling for the chocolate cake. And started measuring out the next set of ingredients. I lowered the temperature and put on the convection.

I checked the items in the oven. Slow. Very slow. Time to turn up the oven.

Nothing.

Nothing at all. I checked everything. Twice. Three times. Panicked, I realized the temperature was falling rapidly. The oven had stopped working.

My sister called the host who was now running errands. Nothing like this had happened before. She flipped switches, turned knobs. Nothing.

The ignition had died. The electricity in the gas range had died. And with the electricity, so went the oven.

I started to panic. Why had I agreed to do this cake? Why here? Why this oven?

I was intensely frustrated. When I bake, I get in the zone, and anything that presents an obstacle is removed without ceremony or politeness. A broken oven was more than an obstacle. It was an impossibility. I was screaming mad. So much wasted time and energy and ingredients.

I paced. I washed dishes. I fumed. Could our host repair the oven? Seemed unlikely.

And then we had a deus ex machina moment. My sister's best friend Anna walked through the door, a few requested ingredients in hand, and began ordering us around. We would clean up and move the entire baking operation to her house. The pans in the oven? Yes. The pre-measured flours and ingredients for the other cakes? Yes. I would come back to the home the next day to use their KitchenAid to make icings and fillings, but otherwise all baking would continue at Anna's.

She helped organize me, my things, and calmed me down. My sister left to get errands done. While we cleaned and got ready for the cross-town move, the host returned and started taking apart the oven.

It was toast.

The electrical system had failed.

Apologizing for our possible complicity in its death, we thanked our host and dashed back into the city to capture what remained of the day.

I prayed I would not have to remake the cheesecake. The anemic looking banana bread was not going to make it. But i had three more cakes all measured out and ready to mix. It would be quick.

And then I saw the new oven I was baking in. It was a gorgeous Miele. That fit one cake at a time.

One. Cake.

And the first cake would be the slow-cooking cheesecake.

Here it is getting moved in the lift at Anna's building. Sad, sad cheesecake:

It was going to be a long day.

Eight hours after arriving at my second destination, I placed the last cooled cake into the freezer. I hadn't quite as many cakes as I would have liked to have completed, but it would certainly be enough for 60 people. I was still panicked - was there really enough cake - but I had to let it go. I had just completed a thirteen hour day, which included two cross-town subway rides, a car ride, and two ovens (one broken). For such a long day, I felt remarkably unaccomplished.

Because I still had a ton ahead of me: making fillings and a vast amount of buttercream. And then I had to actually decorate the cake, another ordeal without a cake spinner, that lazy-susan-like wheel pros use (and I have, in storage unfortunately) to create even cakes.

To say I was anxious is probably understating it.

The next day I went back to the house in the 'burbs to use their KitchenAid. I spent three hours making icings and fillings as my host tackled his oven, pushing it back from the wall and unscrewing all necessary parts to reduce the labor he'd be charged by the tech coming over later in the day to fix it. Smart man.

Anna arrived with her car and her baby in tow just as the oven repair guy showed up. We packed my things, including every ingredient I had hauled to the house and stored in their basement pantry, their refrigerator, and their freezer, into a couple bags and returned to the city where the rest of the cakes were stored.

There wasn't much time. That evening my sister's fiance was celebrating his 40th birthday and I had to get home early enough to make it before the party started. My mother and my sister's future in-laws were going to be there and there was no way I could be late for the event, which started a mere 4 hours from the time Anna brought me back to her house.

Anna had cleared out a few shelves in the refrigerator for me. I moved the cakes from the freezer to the refrigerator to thaw overnight and I placed the fillings that needed refrigeration, such as the pastry cream for the banana layers, in there as well. I said my good-byes and ran to the S-Bahn and made my way back to my hotel across town in Mitte.

Day 2: complete. Linsey 1, Oven 1. Moving on to the next round.

The third day was also going to be slightly abridged. My mom and I woke up around 9 am, ate a leisurely breakfast, drank espressos, and waited for the imminent arrival of one of my best friends, Ed, who was flying in from New York that morning. I would take Ed with me to Anna's house, and he'd try to work in a nap while I filled the cakes.

By the time Ed arrived, unpacked, and ate, it was after noon. We rushed across town to Anna's place in Charlottenburg. While Ed chatted with Anna and a few other friends who had also just arrived, I frantically sliced, filled, and iced cake. I had only a few hours to get everything done before the rehearsal dinner that night. My goal was to get everything crumb-coated before leaving for dinner back in Mitte.  

Because the outside temperature was unusually warm for this time of year, I would not be able to complete the cake and store it outside until it was needed the next day. It had to stay in pieces until the last minute. This made working ahead impossible.

I was still putting the finishing touches on the crumb-coated cakes as the rest of the crowd was cleaning up for dinner. As I pushed the last cake into the refrigerator and finished making the white gum paste decorations for the cake, everyone else was headed to the car downstairs. I grabbed my jacket and joined them, just in time to make it back to Mitte for dinner with the extended family and friends.

Day 3: complete. Linsey 2, Oven 1. Things are starting to turn around.

Here's a map of Berlin with markers to show the locations where I either baked or commuted from to get the baking done:

View Where I baked in berlin in a larger map

Friday was the day of the wedding. We spent the morning getting ready and drove to city hall with the soon-to-be-weds for the ceremony. After taking many hundreds of photos of the wedding party, I took a long walk with Ed, Anna's husbard Joerg, and David, a friend of my sister's around Berlin, which was enjoying a spectacularly lovely day with a bright blue sky. We fortified ourselves with glasses of spiced Gluwein offered at the Christmas market. By the time we arrived back at Anna's house, where I was to ice and assemble the cake, we had only three hours until we were expected to deliver the cake to the restaurant where my sister was holding her reception.

Three hours seemed doable. But 2.5, which I actually had...maybe not.

In a frenzy and still without a cake wheel, I set to work icing each layer of the cake, seven in all. Four layers were part of the actual wedding cake, and three layers were for back-up, in case the guests became voraciously hungry and attacked the wedding cake. According to my sister, at Sunday cake and coffee, a tradition during the advent season, guests typically take a slice of each cake offered. She wanted me to make sure that each guest would have the option of trying each flavor of cake I put together. So seven cakes it was.

We put the three extra layers of cake into boxes to bring to the wedding for backup. I labeled them with the flavor and set them aside.

I then began stacking the layers of cake, which I originally intended to do at the wedding venue, then changed my mind when I realized it would be easier to take the finished cake across town in one piece than carry it in too many boxes that weren't quite the right size. The chances of the cake slipping inside a too-big box and having one of its sides smashed were too great. I kept to my plan b and assembled it in Anna's kitchen.

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My sister wanted traditional and austere. Though we discussed possibilities, she decided a white cake with white decor would better suit her Berlin wedding. After the four layers were stacked, I enlisted Ed and my sister's friend Katie to help apply the white decorations.

It was now 5:30. The cake was expected at the wedding venue at 6:30. I had no time to chill the layers down to make them easier to move; the buttercream was still plastic and soft. I couldn't protect it with plastic or a box so I packed up a bit of buttercream, a piping bag, and an offset spatula just in case something went wrong. We called a taxi, told them we were transporting a wedding cake across town, and waited. I kept on my apron as we hustled downstairs carefully, the cake precariously balancing on the Crate and Barrel stand Anna was letting me borrow.

My heart pounded.

Linsey 2, Oven 1, Cake 1. Were we going to get across town in one piece? Was the cake going to make it? Was I going to make it?

Ed held the boxes and opened the door for me. I rested the cake on my knees and in my head kept reciting, "I am a shock absorber, I am a shock absorber," as if it were a mantra. The taxi went over bumps, my heart skipped a beat. The taxi took a turn too quickly, I gasped. My legs were shock absorbers. Oh yes.

I'm not how long our taxi ride took. It was the longest ride I had ever been on. Even Ed was worried, though he didn't express it at the time. It may have put me over the edge. Maybe.

And then we were there. In front of the restaurant. And I had only a few feet to go until it was inside. The cake was there. The bride had yet to see the cake, but it was there.

Here I am trying to get out of the taxi to deliver the cake. Yes, I'm wearing gold lame.

I dropped it off, explained things quickly to the staff and my sister and her husband, and ran back to the hotel to change. In 30 minutes the party would be starting.

That's my sister pointing at the cake.

And the cake was done. Four days of commuting, making do with tiny space, and remaking the banana bread recipe three times were finally over. In a few hours the guest, properly sauced and sated, would dig into the cake without knowing the story behind it. But they didn't need to. Because they would have cake on their plate and they'd judge it good or bad based on what their palates told them, not what I had to say.

While we were eating that night, my sister's niece-in-law and her friend slipped over to the cake and made a significant alteration: they added a tacky blond wedding couple to the top. It made the bride laugh.

They cut into the cake and the guests dove in. The most popular flavor was the chocolate cake and cheesecake layer at the bottom, followed by the orange chiffon cake with white chocolate orange mousse, chocolate orange mousse, and Grand Marnier. The distant third was the banana cake: banana cake layered with vanilla cream, chocolate ganache, and banana caramel.

Chocolate:

Orange:

Banana:

At the end of the night the three extra cakes were left over. A few people took cake home, my sister brought home a layer to serve at a post-wedding brunch the next day.

Will I ever bake a wedding cake outside of my own kitchen again? Probably not. The back-and-forth commute, the lack of control over equipment, the inability to work ahead took a big bite out of me. I was more stressed than I had been in a long time. I was satisfied with the results - it looked good, considering I didn't have a cake wheel, and tasted better - but the days of preparation and frustration took some of the joy out of the wedding celebration for me. It was hard to be in the moment and enjoy the company of my friends and family, knowing that when I was done I'd have to get back to the cake and make it work.

But all the same, I am thrilled I could do this for my sister. Happy marriage, Amanda, and may you and Olaf enjoy your lives together. I'm glad I could provide you a little sweetness that night.

Cuteness 1-2-3: A baby rattle cake for a baby shower

I consider rolled fondant one of the evils of the cake decorating world. Though it easy to work with, it violates one of my food rules: anything on the plate must taste delicious (that means nothing inedible can be used). Because fondant isn't delicious (it tastes like clay, if clay were made from sugar), I try to avoid it. But on Sunday, with the clock ticking down to the baby shower and little confidence in my butter cream decorating ability (my excuse: exhaustion), I turned to rolled fondant, knowing, at the time of service, the decorations could be removed.

I made the cake in honor of my friend Leti, whose simple wedding cake I made in 2006.  Here's the cake:

Though they didn't tell me in advance what the party decorations would look like, the cake blended in, almost to the point of invisibility.

The cake was a little sweeter than  I usually like, thanks to way too many layers of icing (one guest did say it was his fantasy cake, as he prefers icing to cake).

The recipe I used for the cake is my Grandma's Chocolate Cake Recipe (there's also a gluten-free version).

It was a divine, cakey mess.

Cake and Commerce's sugary redesign

After nearly four years looking at the same boring blog layout and banner (Cake and Commerce - one girl's salt is another girl's fleur de sel) I decided to ask my friend Betty Turbo (aka Agnes), a wonderful cake maker and artist residing in Nashville, to design a banner for me in her signature style. Lots of cake. Bright colors. Obscure references to old cookbooks (she blew up an old cookbook photo of petit fours for the background). A good amount of pink.

What do you think? Good? Bad? Indifferent? Too girlie? Not girlie enough? I'd love to hear your thoughts.

And, if you get a moment, help me repay Betty's kindness (she did this as a favor!) and visit Betty's shop on Etsy. You'll be able to buy adorable screen prints, lino cuts, notecards, and digital prints such as the one below, her homage to William Carlos Williams:

"so much depends upon
a red wheelbarrow
glazed with buttercream icing
beside the white chickens"

Gluten-Free Whoopie Pies - a deliciously decadent indulgence

This article in the New York Times got me thinking about Whoopie Pies again. I hadn't given much thought to the Whoopie Pie since a week-long trip to Maine last summer, where the highlight of my day was a drive to a nearby farm where I'd pick up just-picked produce and just-baked Whoopie Pies, those chocolately little cakes filled with oozy buttercream.

So I started to wonder: are there any good Whoopie Pie recipes out there for those of us who don't do the gluten or the potato or the corn? I did a quick perusal of the web and found a few recipes, but none of them made the cut. If it wasn't the ingredients, it was the photograph accompanying the recipe. I wanted to make something that looked and tasted great, not something that looked like a rock and was merely adequate.

Before I started on my own recipe, I decided to take a tour of the wheaten Whoopie Pie world, including the New York Times recipe. I eventually tried a Menonite recipe which worked well, so I decided to base my gluten-free recipe on it. After a few tweaks here and there, I came up with a formula that worked for me. I tried a version using Guar Gum (which is derived from a legume) and it had nice rise and didn't spread too much. The version I made without gum also worked well, was a little more tender, but spead out considerably.

A quick explanation of my flour choices for first timers to Cake & Commerce: in my gluten-free cooking and baking, I do not ever use potato, corn, or sorghum flour. I don't use potato because I don't like the flavor; I don't use corn because it makes me ill; I don't use sorghum because even though it is fairly versatile, wet-cooked sorghum (baking etc) does not eliminate two proteins in sorghum that people cannot easily digest - the results will catch up with you in 8 hours (fermentation makes it easier to digest). I use rice flour sparingly and only in certain applications - in baked goods in large quantities it is usually too grainy. I do not use pre-made baking mixes. Ever.

So I tend to use a lot of LIGHT buckwheat and tapioca in my baking. Sometimes I use certified gluten-free oat flour, but the flavor is pretty strong so its uses are limited. Lately I've been playing with whole ground Teff Flour (the basis for Ethopian Injera fermented bread) and have liked the result. I also like arrowroot as a thickener and garbanzo flour - but only in small quantities. I never use quinoa flour because of its strong aftertaste. This post shows what happened when I used it. without any understanding of its strong flavor.

Cake & Commerce's Whoopie Pies

Makes approximately 12 filled Pies

• 4 oz (1 stick) butter
• 1 Cup Sugar


• 1 Egg + 1 Egg yolk
• 1 C Buttermilk
• 1 t Vanilla extract

• 2 t guar gum (optional - if you don't use it, your pies will spread out more)
• 3/4 t Salt
• 1-1/2 t Baking Powder
• 1/2 t Baking Soda
• 1/4 C + 2 T Tapioca flour
• 1-1/2 C light buckwheat flour
• 1/2 C Cocoa
• 1/2 C Almond flour (as fresh as possible - grind your own if possible)
• 2 T Rice Flour

Procedure:
Preheat oven to 350 F. 

Sift all dry ingredients together.

Mix sugar and butter until fluffy. Add eggs and mix until combined. Alternate additions of dry ingredients and wet ingredients, until everything is in the mixing bowl. Mix briefly, until all ingredients are evenly and thoroughly combined. Make sure dough is fairly firm - it should not be wet or gooey at all.

It should look like this. If it doesn't add a little more flour.

Using an ice cream scoop (I use a smaller size - remember, it spreads!), scoop out balls of dough onto a parchment lined baking sheet. Make sure there is space for the cookie to spread. Here's what it will look like in the oven when the cookies are done baking:

Bake for about 10-15 minutes or until a toothpick comes out dry or the top of the cookie does not retain a mark when touched with your finger. I prefer the pies a little more fudgy and less dry, so if you want a slightly more fudgy cake, pull it out of the oven before the top feels hard.

Allow to cool completely before icing. When ready to ice, use a pastry bag fitted with a star tip or a round tip to create a pretty pattern or just spread a dollop of icing on the cookie with an offset spatula or anything handy you happen to have around your kitchen.

When you are done, if you wrap the whoopie pie in plastic, it will start softening up. In my opinion, Whoopie Pies taste best when they are softer after they've sat in plastic for a day.

Basic Vanilla Filling for Chocolate Whoopie Pies

Yield: enough to ice your Whoopie Pies and your cupcakes, if you have them. So halve the recipe if you don't have an overwhelming need for a surplus of icing.

• 8 oz Butter (2 sticks)
• 6-8 C Confectioners Sugar
• 1/2 C Buttermilk
• 1/2 t salt (dissolve in buttermilk, if possible)
• 1-2 t vanilla extract (depending on how much vanilla flavor you want)

Procedure:

Combine butter and 4 cups of the confectioners sugar and mix until it resembles corn meal. If it combines completely, that's okay. Add the buttermilk with the salt and the vanilla. Mix until completely incorporated. Add 2 more cups of confectioners sugar. Mix again. If the mixture is still wet, add another cup or two of sugar. When it is spreadable but holds its shape, it is done.

For chocolate icing, I use the icing recipe here

Enjoy!

By the way, after I made this batch, I tasted the cake side-by-side with the full-gluten recipe. It wasn't quite the same, but with a healthy dollop of icing, the two were nearly indistinguishable. My mom ate nearly half of one before she realized it was gluten-free and kept eating it even after learning that. I found myself unable to stop eating the cake once I started. It was rather gluttonous of me. Is it any surprise I've gone up a size this winter?

And you can see the results in this video:

Pink Dragon Cake: a birthday cake worthy of a 5 year old

February 15, 2009: Happy 5th Birthday Azusa!

I don't usually make figural or sculptural cakes. Novelty isn't really my thing. The cake type that works best for sculpture is dry and usually not very tasty. It has to be - if it is too moist and amazing, cantilevered engineering is demanded of it, there's a good chance of collapse. Cardboard can be used for structure and support, as can wood dowels, plastic pieces, and sometimes styrofoam. I wanted to avoid all of that and just make a simple cake that wouldn't fall apart between my mom's house in the 'burbs and the party in Cambridge but would taste great. I ended up using the recipe for Grandma's Chocolate Cake, which is a moist and tender cake that can be difficult to work with in this kind of application.

Though I've never made a sculptural cake before, I've seen enough of them being made to know how to do it. Sorta. I'm not a professional and I don't pretend to be a decorator, but I enjoy a project and this was one that meant something to me.

Azusa, the soon-to-be-five year old, requested a chocolate cake with chocolate icing on the outside, vanilla icing on the inside, and marzipan. She gave me the design for the cake - she had drawn it out on a piece of paper and proudly handed it to me two weeks before her party when her parents, old friends of mine, had me over for dinner. I have known Azusa since she was born, and even before - I spent several months living in Azusa's parent's house while her mom was pregnant with her. So of course whatever Azusa wanted I was happy to provide, even the marzipan, which I made the day before I assembled the cake. I made it soft and pliable, so I could lay it over the cake in a thin layer.

Of course the battery in my camera died as I was assembling the cake. I didn't use a pattern or a mold - I baked two 8" round cakes, conventionally cut and iced them (a la a layer cake), and used those two rounds to cut the piece size I needed. I placed the pieces in the shape of the dragon and used icing as glue. With two different knives I sculpted shapes and smoothed jagged lines. I then covered the entire cake in chocolate icing, which I used like a protective coating for the cake. I froze the entire cake and then moved it on to a new cake board. I then covered the cake with a thin skin of marzipan. Eventually I was able to snap a picture when the cake was almost fully assembled. At this point it looked like a cow:

Since I don't have any of my cake equipment here (it is all in storage somewhere in the midwest while I try and get a job), I used various objects to shape and smooth the cake. A knife handle. A spoon. My fingers.

I painted the dragon pink - Azusa loves pink. I also tried to make the dragon look as benevolent as possible, kinda sleepy and dopey.

It took a few steps to get there. First step: make the dragon look a little freaked out. Second step, add those things that makes the dragon look less freaky.

I added a few more details - glitter, eyelids, lips, irises (allspice), buck teeth and whiskers (licorice rope). I forgot an important detail - marzipan cracks (and that, my friends, is why you should exercise caution when using a thin layer of marzipan to cover a cake). I used cocoa to make the pink and red a little darker. I then covered the board with marzipan and coated it with a layer of very (unpleasantly) smelly "tortuga island" sprinkles (they look like aquarium gravel and stink like burnt caramel) from Wilton:

Here's how the cake looked the next day, the day of the party:

Azusa managed to blow out the candles with no help at all:

Azusa asked for the head, so I gave it to her. It was a huge piece that her parents later quartered and shared with other guests at the party.

We fed 10 girls and their parents and had a little left over for dessert that night.

I just finished eating the trimmings today. Mmmmm!

Four Scones and Several Hours: A gluten-free scone experiment that actually worked

Well hello, sexy! How did you get here?

Its not such a long and complicated story, actually, but it is a story. I work (or, until December 31st, I worked) for a company that manufactured gluten-free and allergy-friendly foods. Several employees have celiac disease or gluten itolerance, and I've tested recipes on them. Patricia, the Director of Sales, has celiac and doesn't like sweets, except for scones. Which she craves.

I recently bought a scone at a gluten-free bakery in the 'burbs and was pretty unimpressed with it. It was sandy and grainy - one of the hallmarks of baking with too much rice flour. Patricia also tried them the last time she visited (she lives in Dallas) and didn't think much of them either. So when I asked her if she had a request for a recipe, she answered, plainly, "scones".

So I assembled my ingredients, found a basic scone recipe (thank you Joy of Cooking) and proceeded to mangle it, four times over. I had a number of flours at my disposal, including Sorghum, which I abandoned after remembering that two proteins in it cause everyone quite a bit of gastrointestinal distress.

I'm not the most organized recipe developer. I write down recipes on the back of anything I can find - usually envelopes. The first version is always the most simple - I don't diverge much from the original recipe (though in this case I reduced the eggs, and increased the cream and butter) and use the results to guide my next version.

In this case, the first version had a fairly large percentage of rice flour and a low percentage of everything else. I kept the baking powder at the same level, didn't use any gums and kept the butter low. The dough ended up being a little dry. The result? A too-tender, too-sandy scone with less-than-adequate rise. The next version included less brown rice, some xanthan gum, and the same amount of fat. Better, but not ideal. The third version included no rice flour, xanthan gum, and more fat. It was great. The fourth version had more liquid, less fat, and some amaranth. The flavor was good but it wasn't quite right.

I invited over my friend Drex, who is a gluten aficionado (he bakes bread for fun) to help me test out the finished product. As he went through each one, he gave me feedback around mouthfeel, texture, bite, and flavor. Flavor wasn't quite as important, as I was trying for a master recipe that I could change by adding more flavor - lemon, ginger, orange, maple etc.

He agreed with me that the third version was the best - it had a good texture, kept its integrity when chewed, and tasted good. He did like the nuttiness that the amaranth added in the third version, and I felt that those scones were actually quite tasty, too.

I ended up making some lemon curd (you can find a basic recipe in the Joy of Cooking) to eat with the scones, and I found the whole thing to be quite delicious and - happily - very sconey!

I still need to develop more 'contemporary' scones - these are very much in the mold of classic scones, very tender and delicate and a little dry but full of butter and cream.

Cake and Commerce's Gluten-Free Classic-Style Scones

• 1/2 C Certified Gluten-Free Oat Flour
• 1/4 C Tapioca Flour
• 1 C LIGHT Buckwheat Flour (dark or regular will give you very dark scones)
• 1 T Amaranth Flour (you can leave this out - it won't impact the recipe. Take out 1 T Oat if you use this)
• 1/4 t Xanthan Gum
• 1 T Baking powder
• 1/2 t Salt
• 1 T Sugar (you can add up to 4 T if you want a sweeter scone)
• 6 T (3 oz) Butter, unsalted and COLD
• 2/3 C Heavy Cream
• 1 ea Egg
• 1/2 t vanilla

Procedure:

Preheat oven to 450 F.

Combine all dry ingredients in bowl. Mix thoroughly. Break up butter into small pieces and work into flours until butter is evenly dispersed throughout. It should look like cornmeal. 

Combine wet ingredients. 

Make a well in the middle of the dry ingredients. Add the liquid to the dry ingredients in the well. With your hands, combine the dry and wet ingredients. Your hands will get sticky, make sure you work all the batter on your hands into the dough. Dough will be sticky - you do not want a dry dough.

Collect dough in a ball. Flatten and then roll out to approximately 3/4 inch thick.  At this point I chill the dough for about 10 minutes in the refrigerator, covered. You can refrigerate the dough up to one day or freeze it until you need it. You don't need to, but it does give the dough some time to absorb the liquid.

Remove the dough and using a biscuit cutter or a round cutter or a glass, cut into scones. You could also cut into wedges if you like that. You don't need to worry about gluten forming, so rework all the dough - there should be no leftovers!

Brush a little cream on top of the scone and sprinkle it with granulated sugar. You can also use water or egg wash.

Place in center rack of oven and bake for approximately 15 minutes. It may be done in 13 minutes, so check for color. If the top is golden brown, it is done.

Allow to cool. Serve with clotted cream, jam and lemon curd. If you aren't going to eat them right away, freeze after cooling or place in an airtight container. Makes approximately 15 each 1.5 inch scones OR about 8 regular-sized scones.

Variation: To make lemon scones, include the zest of one lemon in the dough and increase sugar to 3T, and combine the juice of one lemon with 1 C confectioner's sugar to make an icing. Ice scones when cool.

Enjoy!

Desert Island Cookbooks: The Joy of Cooking and a gluten-free Buche de Noel

My apartment is a disaster. After I was unexpectedly laid off from my job last spring, I packed up every last painting, print and photograph, cookbook, cake pan and pastry bag and moved out of my beloved condo into (what I assumed to be) temporary digs in my friend's three-flat (that's Chicagospeak for triple decker apartment or three-story apartment). Temporary has turned into 3 months, and most of my belongings - including my cookbooks - are all still in boxes and stacked in not-so-neat piles in my uninsulated (but enclosed) porch.

The walls bare, the rooms empty of furnishing save for cardboard boxes and plastic totes, the apartment looks more abandoned than occupied by someone once obsessed with arrangement of paintings and furniture and bookcases. And still I make no attempt to make it more lived-in; at any moment I could lose my job and start the whole packing process anew, something I dread. 

So I live from day-to-day, hoping that whatever I do or need is already unpacked and not in a box, buried under other boxes. Half of my blankets are in boxes, cradling fragile art works. My DVDs are neglected and unwatched, lying disorganzied in several totes. And what I have left of cookbooks takes up only 1/4 length of shelf space. If I had internet, this wouldn't be a problem. But my home is internet-free, one of the many austerity measures I took after the April layoff, and the Googling of a fill-in recipe is impossible.

This weekend I decided that I wanted to bake a Buche de Noel, which is one of my favorite high calorie holiday treats. Delicate, nearly flourless cake rolled with espresso buttercream and covered in chocolate buttercream and served soft, at room temperature? Yes please. Only problem? All my pastry books were in book purgatory, in boxes, in the deep freeze. And there was no way I was going to spend anytime in near zero degree temperatures looking through books that may not even have the recipe.

Momentarily stumped, I then remembered the only review copy of a cookbook I had received this fall from a publisher: The Joy Of Cooking, 75th Anniversary edition, first published in 2006.

I was late to The Joy Of Cooking. I didn't even own a copy of it until 1998, when I picked up a copy at a used book fair in Atlanta. I referenced it from time to time, usually when adapting simple homestyle recipes to the Four Seasons bake shop, where I worked at the time. I remember finding a homey donut recipe, filling the donuts with a fresh peach jam, and calling them 'beignets' - it sounded so much cooler on the menu than 'donuts'. 

The Joy Of Cooking didn't change my life or become my constant companion. Actually, the way recipes are written is a bit frustrating to me. I like my recipes short and sweet - I understand process and procedure (thank you, culinary school) and really just want to look at lists of ingredients so I can understand ratios. TJOC is long, wordy, and at times, confusing. There is a lot of cross-referencing of recipes, and more complex preparations require the cook to flip back and forth from recipe to recipe. But the cookbook is reliable and the recipes, though basic, are well-written, well-tested, and, in general, good. Very good, really.

So I grabbed my copy of The Joy of Cooking and searched the index. And there it was, under "Christmas Baking": The Yule Log. I was, afterall, going to be able to accomplish my baking mission.

To put together a Yule Log, a number of recipes must be made, and the final cake cobbled together with each of the elements. There's the biscuit or genoise, the light, eggy, low-added fat cake made with just a cup of flour (or half a cup, in the cocoa version) and, interestingly, in this version, clarified butter; the simple syrup for moistening the cake; the buttercream; and the meringues, for the meringue mushrooms. It is actually a fairly simple process, made slightly more confusing by the flipping back and forth from one recipe to the next. 

I decided to go gluten free, which was an easy adaptation. I left out gums and other binders, as this recipe is meant to be delicate and airy. Since the recipe is low in flour, it was easy to swap out the regular flour for gluten-free flour and still have a successful product. Here's the recipe I ended up using for the cake:

Gluten-Free Genoise

Preheat your oven to 350 F. Line a half sheet pan (a large one) with parchment. Or you can torture yourself by buttering/flouring a sheetpan. 

1/3 C Clarified Butter

if you don't know how to clarify butter, simply melt it. 

        1 stick butter will clarify to just over 1/3 cup

1/4 C Brown Rice Flour

3 T Tapioca Flour

2 T Buckwheat Flour

1/2 C + 1 T Unsweetened Cocoa Powder

Sift all of the above ingredients together at least 3 times

6 Large Eggs

1 C Sugar

1/4 t salt

1 t vanilla extract

Combine eggs and sugar in bowl of mixer. Over a simmering pot of water, whisk eggs and sugar together until mixture feels very hot to the touch, somewhere around 115-120 degrees F (you don't need a thermometer for this, it should just feel hot, almost too hot. Don't overheat or the proteins will start to coagulate, and you don't want that).

Set bowl back in mixer and set on medium-high speed for about 5 minutes, or until mixture has cooled and volume has tripled.

Remove bowl from mixer. With a spatula, carefully fold in the sifted dry ingredients in three additions - do not overmix. 

Slowly fold in the butter, pouring butter in a steady stream (alternately, TJOC recommends that you put 1.5 C of the egg mixture into in a bowl and fold all butter into that, and then add the butter/egg mixture back to the main egg mixture, folding carefully but thoroughly. I leave that to you).

Acting quickly and decisively, and armed with a flexible rubber or plastic spatula, pour the contents of the mixer into the prepared sheet pan. Make sure cake is evenly distributed. Bake for approximately 15 minutes, or until cake starts pulling away from the sides.

Allow to cool.

At this point you can now freeze the cake, set it out on your counter to work with later, or, alternately, allow it to stale, which will make it very hard to work with.

You'll now want to whip up a few batches of buttercream. The easiest version is something Nick Malgieri recommends in his many baking books. The Joy Of Cooking also features two recipes - a "Swiss" buttercream (or Italian meringue) and a "classic" buttercream. In all three versions the eggs are heated - in the case of the "classic" buttercream, a cup of sugar is dissolved and heated to soft ball stage, and then, in a thin stream, added continuously to the whipping egg whites (or whole eggs). Since I generally do not enjoy making 'classic' buttercream, I've taken to making the "Swiss" or "Italian" versions, which entail a process nearly identical to whipping eggs for the genoise, above. 

Super Easy Buttercream That Wouldn't Even Intimidate My Mom

(you'll need to do this twice for the cake)

1 C Sugar

1/2 C Egg whites

1/4 t Salt

Place sugar, whites and salt in the bowl of a stand mixer. Place bowl in saucepan of barely simmering water and whisk until all sugar is dissolved and mixture feels hot to the touch (around 115 degrees F).

Return to the mixer, and on medium-high speed, mix for 5-10 minutes, or until cooled and volume has tripled or quadrupled. Remember, your bowl and whisk should be free of all and any fats to build the highest volume whites.

Once the whites have cooled to room temp, add, one little chunk at a time:

12 oz Butter (that's three sticks)

At first you'll see chunks in the white mixture, and it will deflate gradually. And then it will get lumpy. And mealy. And then, as if a wand were waved over it...it becomes a smooth, buttercreamy spread. At this point you can add flavor - up to a half-cup of espresso, chocolate mixed with butter (to prevent seizing), lemon zest and juice, pureed chestnut, etc. Oh, and add some vanilla, too. Or caramel syrup. Don't overwhip or you'll incorporate too much air, and then you'll get air bubbles while you are spreading it, which matters only sometimes.

For a traditional Buche de Noel, you'll want an espresso buttercream and a chocolate buttercream. I added a single espresso to a 1x batch of buttercream and for the chocolate I melted about 2.5 oz of chocolate with 1 T of butter and added the mixture to a 1x batch of buttercream.

Set these aside on the counter. 

Meanwhile, combine 1 C of sugar with 1/2 C to 2/3 C water (depending on how sweet you like it). Dissolve sugar completely over heat. And cool. You've got simple syrup, and you're going to use this to moisten the cake.

Take about 1/2 C of this mixture, add the liqueur or liquor or flavor of your choosing to it - not too much, but just enough to give it a certain, "ah, that's moist, sweet, and slightly boozy" flavor.

Now, get all your components together. Grab an offset spatula. 

Lay a piece of fresh parchment on your work surface (ie 'table'). Grab a handful of granulated sugar and sprinkle the parchment with it, not too heavy, because this is going to end up in your cake. 

Now take your cake, which I presume is still stuck to the parchment you baked it on, and flip it on to the new parchment covered in sugar. VERY CAREFULLY peel off the parchment- use an offset spatula to help if it seems sticky. Paint the entire surface with your delicious simple syrup/booze/flavor combo (I'm partial to a coffee/chocolate/rum liqueur I made a few years ago). This will make it deliciously moist.

Grab your bowl of espresso/coffee/mocha buttercream and spread it evenly all over the cake. Starting from the SHORT END, roll up the cake - try to roll it as tightly as possible. when completely rolled up, position it so that it is sitting on its 'seam', put it back on the sheet tray (just my advice) and put it in your fridge to set. Reserve a little of the buttercream for decorating the buche.

Once it has set, cut off a small piece from the end. This is the cut bough that always seems to be a required part of the buche (otherwise it is just a jelly roll). Set it aside.

With your chocolate buttercream, ice the log. Once it is iced, take your cut piece, position it toward one of the ends, and ice that too. Using your espresso/mocha buttercream, ice the 'cut' ends of the log. With your chocolate buttercream in a small parchment pastry bag (which you'll make yourself) you can draw concentric circles on the lighter buttercream. You know, so it will look like a log.

Now the fun part: mushroom meringues. These are optional, but the crunchy meringues are a nice contrast with the soft cake. 

Mushroom Meringues

1 C Sugar

1/2 Egg Whites

1/8 t Cream of tartar

1/8 t Salt

Cocoa for dusting

Preheat oven to 225 degrees F. 

Repeat the same process as for buttercream - warm process meringue. Whip until light and fluffy and stiff.

Using a piping bag fitted with a large round tip (at least 1/4" diameter, preferably slightly larger) pipe round button shapes onto a parchment lined sheet pan. On another sheet pan (or on the same one) pipe "kiss" shapes for the stems. Dust buttons with cocoa powder.

Bake for at least 2 hours. Allow to cool.

Combine 4 oz dark chocolate with 1 teaspoon butter. Melt. Dip kiss end of meringue into chocolate, top with button meringue. Allow to harden (it'll harden in the freezer fast!). Once hardened, place in air-tight container until ready to use.

I decided that my buche was too ugly to merit adorable mushroom garnish, so I used some of the smaller meringues I had made to simulate an oyster mushroom growth on a dead log (see below). 

I made two logs for Ivan's 40th birthday - he was expecting over 40 guests and I wanted to make sure there were leftovers for the next day. I improvised a container that would hold the logs in place for the 4 hour drive from Chicago to Bloomington, Indiana, where the party was taking place (glue gun + cake circles + buttercream = workable, slide-proof box):

The cakes were a big hit - nothing like a four hour drive to soften up the buttercream (there's nothing worse than cold buttercream...errrrr). 

The next day, only a small remnant of one of the buches remained:

And no one guessed it was gluten-free.

Gluten-free, egg-free baking: Grandma's Chocolate Cake (and it is vegan, too)

I've finally managed to adapt one of my favorite chocolate cake recipes - the only tricky thing about this is the Salba/Chia seeds I used - you can substitute ground flax meal, but it won't be quite the same. You could also just replace it with eggs, if you like eggs. Which I do, but I was baking this for a friend who isn't doing eggs right now.

Cake and Commerce's Gluten-Free Grandma's Chocolate Cake

1/2 C Cocoa - unsweetened - alkalized or not (slightly better rise with alkalized)

1 C Water

Dry Ingredients

1/2 C Brown Rice Flour

3/4 C Buckwheat Flour

1/4 C Tapioca Flour

1/2 C Teff Flour

2 C Granulated Sugar OR Rapadura (Rapadura makes for a fudgier cake)

1/2 t Baking Powder

1 t Baking Soda

1/2 t Salt

1 t Guar Gum (Optional - your cakes will still rise without it but it does give nice lift)

Egg/Substitute

2 t ground Salba or Chia (for ground flax, increase by 1/2 t)

1/4 Cup Water

-OR-

2 ea Eggs

Wet Ingredients

1 C Buttermilk (substitute dairy-free milk OR water with 2T apple cider vinegar)

3/4 C Vegetable Oil (safflower, sunflower - you can leave this out for a more dense cake)

1 T Vanilla

Procedure

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line cupcake pans, grease and flour cake pans. Makes about 2- 9" cakes or 24 ea cupcakes.

Combine cocoa and water. Bring to a boil, stirring constantly until thick. Remove from heat and allow to cool completely

Place dry ingredients in bowl of mixer fitted with a paddle. Stir all ingredients together.

Combine all wet ingredients. Slowly add wet ingredients to dry ingredients, EXCLUDING cocoa (you'll add eggs or egg substitute here).

Mix for one minute, scraping down after mixing.

Slowly add cooled cocoa to batter with the mixer set to the lowest speed. Scrape down, mix for 1 more minute on medium speed.

Pour batter into prepared pans.

Bake until done - approximately 20 minutes for the cupcake, 20-30 minutes for the 9" cake.

Cool completely.

 

The case does not rise to a high dome, but is rich and moist.

Ice with Grandma's Chocolate Cake icing, here:

http://cakeandcommerce.typepad.com/cake_and_commerce/2008/05/how-to-make-gra.html

The crumb is really nice:

The Daring Bakers November Challenge: Caramel Cake...the gluten-free version

'll admit I've been struggling. Struggling to maintain a gluten-free diet, struggling to figure out how to make baked goods, for which I have an inordinate lusty fondness, taste good. I've got a whole pantry of flours - minus rice flour, which, though neutral in flavor, adds a granularity that I find unpleasant in the mouth - that I've experimented with and have found, even in combination, lacking in verve and abundant in off-flavors. I don't purchase pre-made gluten-free mixes because I don't like the taste or texture of all of the ingredients. So I will continue to experiment until I find a combination that I can live with.

To those new to Cake & Commerce, allow me a brief introduction: I'm a former pastry chef, now working at a company that produces gluten-free and allergy-friendly foods. After a minor surgery nearly 4 years ago, my nutritionist put me on a gluten-free, salicylate-free diet. Nowadays I'm mostly gluten-free but have occasional lapses. I find that a gluten-free diet has improved my quality of life. But I'm sure you're bored by now, so I'll get back to my kitchen challenge and The Daring Bakers.

Right. 

Over the weekend I decided to take on two baking tasks I'd long delayed: converting Grandma's Chocolate Cake to a gluten-free version I could not only live with, but adore; and, for  The Daring Bakers' challenge,  making the ne plus ultra gluten-free version of Shuna Fish Lydon's Caramel Cake with Caramelized Butter Icing (recipe is here: http://blogs.kqed.org/bayareabites/2006/12/24/caramel-cake-the-recipe/ ) .

I'll be brief about the initial results: I used my new favorite ingredient, Salba, in the Grandma's recipe, and while I had a light, fluffy, even-crumbed and delicious-tasting cake, the fact that I forgot to mill the seeds first (dddrrrr) resulted in a less-than-satisfactory result. Round 2 will occur this weekend, I think.

And the Caramel Cake? Well, I learned the hard way that it is a dire mistake to use more than a 25% Quinoa flour in a gluten-free flour mix. I used 50%, and the flavor was, in a word, like the meeting of plastic and burnt leather, whatever that tastes like. Sure, it behaved beautifully. It formed into the most perfectly-shaped cake I've ever baked:

And the crumb was even and perfect. There was no tunneling or other unsightly flaws. The dark stuff on the surface is some of the extra caramel syrup, watered down with rum. I love simple syrup. Moistens a cake right up.

(Note to Shuna Fish Lydon: in response to your note that "What I mean is that getting this cake to bake is about balancing fat with acid and protein JUST RIGHT. Gluten free flours are going to have a hard time getting this cake to work. Not impossible, for nothing is impossible these days with all the chemical (natural and icky) at our fingertips, but very very tricky. One hint for the gluten free baker-- liquid Lecithen [sic] is your friend"

Evidently, Ms. Lydon, you have not worked extensively with alternative flours or alternative  baking. Getting this cake to work was a snap. I actually showed your note - and your recipe - to our in-house food scientist, who is in charge of prototyping all of our company's gluten-free products. And she found nothing at all inherent the recipe - or in the relative pH and protein contents of the ingredients - that would unbalance the recipe once converted to gluten-free. And no, liquid Lecithin does not do much for the recipe - xanthan gum, guar gum, or even ground chia or ground salba do. Emulsification isn't the issue - there's plenty of egg to help with that. Rise is. Perhaps you are thinking of vegans or the egg allergic). 

So yes, the perfect-looking cake was baked. The brown-butter icing was made (didn't exactly love the texture or mouthfeel, but I'm a picky sort) and the decorating commenced. I decided to make a porcupine cake. Not too cute, but sort of attractive in that chrysanthemum-meets-Etsy.com sort of way. Or something.

Here's another view:

How can something so pretty taste so bad? Rhetorical question, don't answer. I already know.

Days after completing this, my failure to make something tasty still fresh in my mind, I was leafing through the December '08 issue of Living Without, the excellent magazine dedicated to the food allergic and sensitive. To my joy - mediated by a little frustration at my poor timing - I found an article that listed out every one of the alternative flours out there - and how they should be used in baking (even they warned against using more than 25% Quinoa in the mix). Armed with this knowledge, I hoofed it out to the expensive fancy store where I shop and purchased some of these more neutral and less offensive-tasting (at least in baked goods) milled grains. I'm very curious to try adding a little grape flour to my gluten-free baking mix, as I've never heard of it before. And chestnut flour sounds very promising as well. Niether of these were available where I shop, so instead I focused on my nemesis, brown rice flour, and my familiar, buckwheat flour. 

And on Sunday, I ended up baking three more batches of Caramel Cake. I was not going to let the recipe own me. I was going to make one that worked AND tasted good...if it killed me.

The first batch was a fairly responsible and faithful adaptation of Shuna Fish Lydon's recipe. Creaming method. Wet-dry-wet. And then I added 1/4 cup of ground salba and Xanthan gum...which resulted in the gummiest, stickiest, worst ever dough. In the oven, the cupcakes blew up to the size of small balloons:

Within minutes, they deflated:

Here's a cross section of the crumb. 

The structure is all wrong - too gummy. The gumminess created a net-like structure that, when full of steam, blew up like a balloon. And deflated like one as the cupcakes cooled. Additionally, the salba (or the Xanthan) caused the dough to be excessively moist, and no amount of baking would have made the cupcake hold its shape. Stupid hydroscopic ingredients!

For the next go-round, I started making changes. I had run out of butter so I used sunflower oil instead. And because I was using sunflower oil, I could no longer cream the fats and sugars. I changed the mixing method entirely from a creaming method to a wet-to-dry method, something I do when I make Grandma's Chocolate Cake. I lowered the gums, increased the acids, and came up with this:

Better, but not perfect.

The next batch I lowered the gums further, increased the acids, and continued with the sunflower oil. The results? Nearly perfect, except for the deep-dark color, which is probably best for a chocolate cake. Because I was impatient, I went the cupcake route:

There still is a less-than-ideal crumb structure, but it still tasted great. Here are a couple pictures of the finished cake and cupcake:

Here's the recipe I developed based on the original idea by Shuna Fish Lydon:

Cake & Commerce's Gluten-Free Caramel Cake

Make in advance Caramel syrup:

1/2 C Brown Sugar

1/4 C Agave Syrup

1   C  Granulated White Sugar

Cook to approximately 320-250 degrees or until just smoking. To that add about 3/4 C hot water - gradually, as it will SPUTTER all over and can be dangerous. Stir and allow to cool to room temp. You'll use this as a flavoring in your cake.

Preheat oven to 350 F and prepare cake pans or cupcake pans.

Dry ingredients - Combine:

3/4 C Brown Rice Flour

3/4 C Buckwheat Flour

1/4 C Garbanzo Bean Flour

1/4 C Tapioca Flour

1    t  Xanthan Gum

1/2 t Baking Powder

1/2 t Baking Soda

1/2 t salt, fine

Place dry ingredients in bowl of mixer with paddle attachment. Make sure dry ingredients are evenly combined.

To the dry ingredients, add all at once, the wet ingredients:

1/3 C Sunflower Oil

1/3 C Caramel Syrup

1/4 C Buttermilk

1    C Milk

1    t vanilla extract

2  ea Eggs

Mix at lowest speed until ingredients are completely combined. Mix for a few more minutes. Pour into prepared pan OR cupcake liners. Bake for about 15 minutes, or baked through. Longer if baking a cake.

Makes approximately 2 ea 9" cakes OR 15-18 cupcakes.

Ice as desired (see Shuna Fish Lydon's icing recipe, or if you prefer chocolate, Grandma's Chocolate Cake Icing.

__________________________________________________

So there was also an optional challenge for the Daring Bakers this month - Golden Vanilla Bean Caramels from Pure Dessert by Alice Medrich. Since I'm a sucker for any kind of caramel (In culinary school, in 1997, I once wrote an homage to burnt caramel) and have yet to make them at home, I gave it a try. It was, with the help of an inexpensive Wilton candy thermometer, ridiculously easy. First, the results:

Stupid me. I brought the caramels to the hard crack stage (hence the sharp-looking but sweet-tasting edges) - a few degrees hotter than I should have.  So instead of being soft and unctuous they were hard and chewy. They reminded me of Nips, the creme-filled suckers my grandmother used to love. One of the peculiar ingredients in the recipe was Golden Syrup, a cane-sugar based syrup (an invert sugar) that both reduces the chances that you are going to cause the crystallization of your candy by your mishandling of the sugar and adds a certain flavor to it. Since I was too lazy to go out and buy some, I made my own using agave syrup and brown sugar. And the caramels were still delicious. And the recipe worked, though I did not analyze brix before making the substitution. I don't own a refractometer.

Since the caramel was hard, I didn't incorporate it into the cake. I ate all of it, almost every last bit, over ten days. And what a ten days it was!

I'm still picking shards of caramel off my dog. Ooops.

I redid the caramels, stopped the cooking at soft crack, and had the most wonderful results:

and with a little wax paper, they dressed up real purty!

_____________________________________________________________________

The Recipe, from Pure Dessert by Alice Medrich, Artisan Press, Copyright 2007, ISBN: 978-1579652111

Golden Vanilla Bean Caramels

- makes eighty-one 1-inch caramels -

Ingredients

1 cup golden syrup 
2 cups sugar 
3/8 teaspoon fine sea salt 
2 cups heavy cream 
1 1/2 teaspoons pure ground vanilla beans, purchased or ground in a coffee or spice grinders, or 1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract 
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into chunks, softened

Equipment

A 9-inch square baking pan 
Candy thermometer

Procedure

1. Line the bottom and sides of the baking pan with aluminum foil and grease the foil. Combine the golden syrup, sugar, and salt in a heavy 3-quart saucepan and cook over medium heat, stirring with a silicone spatula or wooden spoon, until the mixture begins to simmer around the edges. Wash the sugar and syrup from the sides of the pan with a pastry brush dipped in water. Coverer and cook for about 3 minutes. (Meanwhile, rinse the spatula or spoon before using it again later.) Uncover the pan and wash down the sides once more. Attach the candy thermometer to the pan, without letting it touch the bottom of the pan, and cook, uncovered (without stirring) until the mixture reaches 305°F. Meanwhile, combine the cream and ground vanilla beans (not the extract) in a small saucepan and heal until tiny bubbles form around the edges of the pan. Turn off the heat and cover the pan to keep the cream hot.

2. When the sugar mixture reaches 305°F, turn off the heat and stir in the butter chunks. Gradually stir in the hot cream; it will bubble up and steam dramatically, so be careful. Turn the burner back on and adjust it so that the mixture boils energetically but not violently. Stir until any thickened syrup at the bottom of the pan is dissolved and the mixture is smooth. Continue to cook, stirring occasionally, to about 245°F. Then cook, stirring constantly, to 260°f for soft, chewy caramels or 265°F; for firmer chewy caramels.

3. Remove the pan from the heat and stir in the vanilla extract, if using it. Pour the caramel into the lined pan. Let set for 4 to 5 hours, or overnight until firm.

4. Lift the pan liner from the pan and invert the sheet of caramel onto a sheet of parchment paper. Peel off the liner. Cut the caramels with an oiled knife, Wrap each caramel individually in wax paper or cellophane.

Variations

Fleur de Sel Caramels: Extra salt, in the form of fleur de seI or another coarse flaked salt, brings out the flavor of the caramel and offers a little ying to the yang. Add an extra scant 1/4 teaspoon of coarse sea salt to the recipe. Or, to keep the salt crunchy, let the caramel cool and firm. Then sprinkle with two pinches of flaky salt and press it in. Invert, remove the pan liner, sprinkle with more salt. Then cut and wrap the caramels in wax paper or cellophane.

Nutmeg and Vanilla Bean Caramels: Add 1/2 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg to the cream before you heat it.

Cardamom Caramels: Omit the vanilla. Add 1/2 teaspoon slightly crushed cardamom seeds (from about 15 cardamom pods) to the cream before heating it. Strain the cream when you add it to the caramel; discard the seeds.

Caramel Sauce: Stop cooking any caramel recipe or variation when it reaches 225°F or, for a sauce that thickens like hot fudge over ice cream, 228°F. Pour it into a sauceboat to serve or into a heatproof jar for storage. The sauce can be stored in the refrigerator for ages and reheated gently in the microwave or a saucepan just until hot and flowing before use. You can stir in rum or brandy to taste. If the sauce is too thick or stiff to serve over ice cream, it can always be thinned with a little water or cream. Or, if you like a sauce that thickens more over ice cream, simmer it for a few minutes longer.

__________________________________________

One last note: this month's challenge brought to The Daring Bakers by the following: presented as this month's challenge by the folks here: 

Dolores of Culinary Curiosity,  http://culinarycuriosity.blogspot.com/, 

Alex of Blondie and Brownie, : http://blondieandbrownie.blogspot.com/

Jenny of Foray into Food  http://forayintofood.blogspot.com/

Alfajores - the coolest cookie in the Americas, at least that's what I think

Back in graduate school, I did a project with a friend from Argentina. Knowing how much I loved sweets, she shared some alfajores with me. These cookies are, in their most basic form, buttery shortbread filled with dulce de leche, or milk caramel. In the hands of baking experts from around South America, alfajores are small works of art, made with various flours (wheat, corn), nuts (almonds, mostly), flavors (brandy, whiskey, etc), and fillings (dulce de leche with different flavors) and garnished according to taste (chocolate, powdered sugar, coconut). The cookie varies in texture from cakey to crumbly to crisp to flaky. Recipes are as unique as the people who make them, and the country they are from.

I'm not sure what initially gave me the idea, but I decided I wanted to make alfajores. Finding recipes was easy - here's a site that has collected alfajores recipes from all over South America. I played around with the recipes - I knew I didn't want to make a typical shortbread and I also didn't want it to be like a sable. So I altered ratios and tried not to think about the filling. Near my house I was able to find Nestle's La Lechera Dulce de Leche, from Chile, which worked perfectly for filling.

My first attempt was chocolate alfajores, pictured here:

They look better than they taste, trust me.

It was mostly disastrous. Even cookie-loving Evan turned his nose up at more than a couple alfajores. The chocolate wasn't tasty, the texture was too hard. I decided there wasn't enough sugar in the recipe, so when I made the attempt again, I decided to increase the sugar (in the form of confectioner's sugar) and decrease the flour. Since there's corn starch in confectioner's sugar, it would still have decent texture and not spread too thin while baking.

Here's the recipe I used developed that I liked best, but it is far from a perfect recipe and resembles sugar cookies. It could use a little more flour - probably about 1/4 cup. If I were at home (I'm doing this from Evan's kitchen and most of my kitchen things are in storage) I would provide the more accurate weights for the below recipe. But I'm not, so here's the approximate recipe for what I made:

Alfajores-style Sandwich Cookies
Yield: approximately 20 sandwich cookies

1 C flour
1 C confectioners sugar
1 T granulated sugar
1/2 C walnuts (or almonds)
2 ea egg yolks
3 oz butter
2 t vanilla
1 t whiskey or bourbon
1/2 t salt
1/2 t baking powder

1 can dulce de leche OR make your own by simmering 1 can of sweetened condensed milk - unopened - in a pot of water (make sure it is covered the entire time) for 3 hours. It will be ready to use when cool.

Optional garnishes: chocolate, tempered; confectioners sugar; shredded coconut

Procedure:
Preheat oven to 350.
Line cookie sheets with aluminum foil or parchment or use non-stick cookie sheet

In a food processor, combine the sugars, nuts, and salt. Process until walnuts are fine. Add in butter. Process until butter is integrated in the mixture and the mixture begins to look granular. Add in eggs, vanilla, and whiskey and process. Mixture will look like icing. Add in flour and baking powder. A firm dough will form. Allow to sit for a few minutes.

Making the cookies, multiple approaches:
1. Log method: Roll out dough into log on parchment. Roll up and refrigerate until hard. Slice into uniform pieces and bake
2. Cookie cutter method. Allow dough to harden a bit in the fridge, about an hour. Roll out to approximately 1/4" thick. Cut to desired size with round cutters. Dock if desired.
3. Individual cookie method: Roll dough into marble sized-rounds, place on sheet and pat down. Bake immediately.

Bake cookies for about 10 minutes, or until cookie bases start to color, the top looks crinkled and is firm to the touch. The tops will not color.

Allow cookies to cool completely.

When cookie is full, take a plastic bag (or, more properly, your pastry bag) and fill will dulce de leche. Pipe on a good amount - it should be ooey gooey. Top with another cookie. Cover in confectioners sugar, or roll in coconut. If you choose, temper some chocolate and roll cookie in it.

Cookies will keep for a few days. Store in a container with an airtight lid.

Here's the cookie dipped in chocolate:

This is by no means the final version of the recipe. Just a version I liked enough to share - for now.

Sofra - A bakery & cafe in Cambridge, MA from the Oleana crew

At 4:30 pm on a Thursday, just over two weeks since opening day, things were quiet at Sofra Bakery & Cafe in Cambridge, MA. The lunch rush had long passed and the staff in the kitchen, including pastry chef and co-owner Maura Kilpatrick, were busy baking, putting together mise-en-place and cleaning up, and filling the occasional order.

Sofra, owned by Kilpatrick and Chef Ana Sortun, the team behind the beloved Eastern Mediterranean-influenced Oleana, is one part commissary, one part bakery and cafe, one part retail store featuring produce from Sortun's Siena Farms. Sofra offers a large selection of mezze, including a hummus bar with a multitude of dips and spreads;  sandwiches (Turkish gozleme) and flatbreads grilled on the Lebanese saj griddle that occupies a central position in the kitchen (the two domes, above, are saj griddles); and creative baked goods that reflect the marriage of Mediterranean flavors - mostly from Turkey, Lebanon, and Greece with some Egypt thrown in for good measure - with traditional American melting pot pastry.

According to the Oleana website, "[the word] Sofra comes from an ancient Arabic word meaning dining table, picnic, or kilim; it is also a synonym for generosity and hospitality." The definition, on the menu, is a bit more specific: "a picnic on a rug; a low communal table; a small square kilim rug to eat on; a large coffee table; a special table preparation." To that end, the space and seating are comfortable, with Kilim rugs tossed over wooden benches. The tables, though lovely, are a bit low for the seating, a little awkward for a long, leisurely breakfast or lunch.

They were still figuring out how to ring up the retail products when I approached the register with Oleana's signature spice blends and some crackers.

There were a number of other packaged and farm treats at Sofra that looked great but didn't come home with me after this initial visit.

Zataar Stix

Grano - remember wheatberries?

Produce from Siena Farms and hummus and mezze ready to take home

They sell signed copies of Chef Ana Sortun's cookbook

I was, of course, completely entranced by the pastries.

Cookies of all types, each with a twist on tradition

Maureos - 'Oreo' style cookies filled with house-made milk jam created by Maura Kilpatrick

I took some of the baklava home - it was buttery, rich, chocolatey and incredibly decadent.

Brioche covered in Eastern Mediterranean spices

Brioche Donut with Rose Petal Sugar

Musician's tart, made with almonds, orange peels, pistachios and honey

I went back a few days later for breakfast. I ordered the Turkish breakfast - a soft boiled egg, figs, 'spoon fruits' - i.e. strawberry jam, warm breaded & fried feta, greek yogurt, tomatoes, cucumber, and olives. It was gorgeous. 

The egg was particularly lovely - it was rolled in shredded fillo dough (or a similar thin dough) and crisped to a crunchy contrast with the soft egg and softer yolk. 

My mother ordered the fried egg covered in breadcrumbs, sumac, and other spices. It had a touch of tomato on top. My mom loved it, and was very surprised. She usually doesn't like fried eggs.

Though I didn't sample any of the mezze, the cold ones were conveniently stationed by the register, near the pastry. They looked great.

Pickled vegetables

Before I head back to Chicago, I'll need to stop in for lunch. Tomorrow's breakfast is flatbread with zataar and brioche with spices.

Sofra Bakery & Cafe
1 Belmont St
Cambridge, MA 02138
(617) 661-3161

Pasticceria Natalina revisted - dessert porn!

About 8 months ago I finally posted a small entry on one of my favorite Chicago bakeries - Pasticceria Natalina. At the time I didn't have any great pictures of their pastry and felt that the report didn't really do justice to the work their shop is producing.

I went back the other day and Nick and Natalie had some great pastries and cookies in the shop to photograph. Of course, I can't remember the names of any of them, but I think the pictures pretty much speak for themselves.

And in case you are wondering, they do taste as good as they look. Probably better.

Puff pastry filled with cream

Napoleon filled with pastry cream and sponge cake

Mandarin Cake

Tiny lemon tiralli cookies

Puff Pastry topped with sheeps' milk ricotta

Torrone with pistachios and almonds

Chocolate and pistachio

Puff pastry filled with sheeps' milk ricotta

Marzipan cake with candied peel

Cookies!

Not all the cakes are available all the time. You'll just have to take your chances when you go in.

Pasticceria Natalina
5406 N Clark Street
Chicago, IL 60640
(773) 989-0662

Chaos Theory Cakes, Chicago: it may sound like lunch, but it is most definitely dessert

Cupcakes are so ubiquitous these days, it is hard to get excited about them. They're everywhere, in red velvet and chocolate and vanilla and praline and pecan fudge and butter brickle and hot tamale and Coca-Cola and root beer and hot mulled cider and coffee and mocha and latte and on and on and on...if it is sweet, it is a cupcake. But not so at Chaos Theory Cakes, the all-grown-up-and-ready-for-my-closeup brainchild of Michelle Garcia, the baker and pastry chef behind the all-organic Bleeding Heart Bakery, where if it is savory, it most definitely must be dessert.

There's more than a bit of trendiness about a concept - the savory dessert- so oft discussed in restaurant reviews, pastry chef-glorifying periodicals (about a 5 star chef, I recall reading, about 8 years ago, 'pastry chef x uses more salt than sugar in his desserts') and general discussion. But don't dismiss Chaos Theory as another follower. They're definitely doing something different - wholistically, the package is unlike any other shop I've visited in the US. It is an all-organic, fantastical, riotous carnival of colors and flavors and textures and ideas that lead to only one place: the mind of Michelle Garcia. Sure, other chefs in the US and around the world are exploring the same territory, but not with the singular vision and passion of Chaos Theory Cakes.

The entry level dessert for the less adventurous is the cupcake. The day I went I tried the curry, chocolate, and cardamom cupcake, which I adored. One of my favorite flavors of Vosges chocolate is the Naga bar, made with chocolate, coconut and curry. This cupcake was the angel-soft version, and I really enjoyed the uber-fudgy icing.

Though I didn't try it (I'm not an eater of the bacon, at least not yet), the bacon and chocolate cupcake looks equally good. Yes, that's a bacon garnish. I'm told it is even more tasty. Ah.

What I loved about my visit to Chaos Theory is the immediate and unrelenting attack on my senses the moment I pushed open the door on a hot August afternoon. Music. Color. Aroma. Flavor.  After politely asking if I could take photos for the blog (how could I help myself) I started snapping everything in sight. It was just so fun.

A couple of the murals:

Cake and mural:

The seating and the murals:

The marshmallows (and 2-for-1 cupcake experiments):

Tons of candy-colored, festive cakes:

And the darned nicest shopgal I've ever met, doing some cleaning before the rush hits. She was incredibly nice, incredibly helpful, and all around obliging:

The pastries are wild. The shop essentially has five categories of baked sweets: cream puffs, cakes, cupcakes, tarts, and mousse cakes. The mousse cakes seem to have the most unique flavors, like this one:

What is it exactly? Take a gander:

There's also the Avocado Cake:

There's the mango cake with jalapeno:

I didn't try any of these savory cakes, they're a little large for a solo eater and I'm currently on a financial austerity plan. Watching my wallet, as they say. But they were fascinating to me and I've heard tell that they are quite tasty. Alas, no pictures, as they were safely tucked into a refrigerated case that reflected copious light and created unsightly glare. Trust me, they were fanciful and fun. I was pretty much able to only get a decent picture of one - the Oaxaca Cake:

I wasn't able to get a picture of the tarts, but I did bring home one of the Chocolate S'mores tarts, which is made with a rich chocolately ganache, really good meringue, and a crisp graham cracker tart shell. E and I both enjoyed it and I found myself sneaking bites when he wasn't looking.

The prices here are high, reflecting two (major) things: the cost of organic commodities right now (they're high) and the amount of labor going into each dessert (not insignificant). Some will balk at paying $6 for a small tart and $3.75 for a cupcake, but as on occasional treat it is well worth the money.  Good, real ingredients aren't cheap. To frame it differently, if you were in a good restaurant, you'd gladly pay $6 for a large tart, and you'd be getting off easy with a $3.75 cupcake.

Chaos Theory Cakes
2931 N Lincoln Ave
Chicago, IL 60686
(773) 281-2353

Moment of Chocolate, Knipschildt's Cafe Chocopologie, Norwalk, CT

Peach marigold truffles, July 22, 2008.

A ridiculously cute and ethical bakery in Bar Harbor, ME

Hello Morning Glory!

I love the Morning Glory Bakery. It fills me with paroxysms of joy every time I'm in Bar Harbor, which is about once every five years. Everything is made from scratch (a requirement for me to even set foot in an establishment...though I'm sure I've misstepped in the past and I'll misstep again) and most of the ingredients are natural, organic, local, and/or a combination thereof.

They are so proud of their values and relationships with local producers that they let their customers know via chalkboard. I'm sure a lot of people had no idea they could get fresh milled whole wheat locally.

And here's the roster of local farm suppliers.

Morning Glory carries coffee from Rock City Coffee Roasters in Rockland, ME. I've been to their shop in Rockland and I've loved what I've had. I don't think I tried this particular blend, however, which has a name a touch, uh, too grateful for my taste.

And the baked goods? Delicious. Homey. Simple. Classic American. Pies. Bars. Breads. Cupcakes. There were a few pieces of pie left when we visited the bakery. I love pie, but I had already determined at that point that I would make my own later that week.

They also had some splendid-looking cookies and bar cookies:

That day I decided to go off my gluten-free diet and I splurged at the bakery. I had a piece of chocolate bundt cake. I'm pretty sure the nuts and chocolate weren't local but it was moist, chocolately, and delicious.

Can't wait for my next visit.

Whoopie Pie: A Maine Obsession

I confess to near complete ignorance when it comes to Whoopie Pie. As a kid at summer camp in Maine, I was somehow deprived of the joys of the Whoopie Pie and my parents never stopped for Whoopie Pies during our annual trips to southern Maine. I had some awareness of the Whoopie Pie thanks to The Sally Anne Bake Shop, a small bakery in Concord, MA that through the 1980s made rib-sticking, shortening heavy traditional American desserts. I was also obsessed with Devil Dogs, Drake's Cakes delicious elongated Whoopie-like cake, distributed only in the Northeastern United States. I had, from time to time, baked pumpkin Whoopie Pies during the fall, but had no idea that somewhere, in the deepest darkest heart of Northeastern New England, Whoopie Pies, two chocolate cakes sandwiching 'vanilla' flavored filling, were the center of Maine sweets culture.

And then I went to Dover-Foxcroft, Maine and learned that Whoopie Pies are not just a dessert, they're a way of life for many Mainers. Among the guests staying in camp with me was a native Mainer, now living in Chicago, who made it habit to have at least one Whoopie a day while in his home state. Every day a different version of the Whoopie Pie would appear. There were mini Whoopie Pies, flavored Whoopie Pies (peanut butter was particularly toothsome), jumbo Whoopie Pies, home made Whoopie Pies, farmstand-made Whoopie Pies and convenience store Whoopie Pies.

At the convenience store, I found mint, peanut butter, and classic Whoopie Pies. Turns out the Wicked Whoopies, made by the bizarrely named "Isamax Snacks" (sounds like a sportswear company) come in a zillion flavors. It appears that all it takes to call something a Whoopie Pie is a gooey filling sandwiched inside two soft cakes.

One day I decided to read the nutrifacts on one of the commercially produced Whoopie Pies, the Classic Wicked Whoopie. I was shocked to learn that a lone Whoopie Pie racks up nearly 740 calories, and that each 'pie' is actually two servings. Don't believe me? Check out the wrapper:

And look...there's even 5 grams of trans fats per Whoopie Pie. That is due entirely to the shortening content of the Whoopie Pie. While many manufacturers have switched to Trans-free shortening, the folks at Wicked Whoopies (and, I assume, everyone else making the Whoopie Pie in Maine, outside of all-natural bakeries) still favors the hydrogenated vegetable shortening that contain trans fats - and, in my opinion, taste terrible (I'm just not a fan of vegetable shortening, and have been known to spit out baked goods made with them). Trans fats just are bad news - they raise LDL (the 'bad' cholesterol) and lower HDL (the 'good' cholesterol). Trans fats are worse than saturated fats, which only impact LDL.

My consumption wasn't deeply impacted by my new-found knowledge of Whoopie Pie nutrifacts. Since I don't really enjoy the flavor of vegetable shortening, I had been removing the filling from the cakes I had been snacking on, one broken-off piece at a time. But I was curious about the history and origin of the Whoopie Pie, which seems to be as obscure and vague and as full of false claims as the origin of the term "jimmies", a New England term for chocolate sprinkles.

One aspect of the Whoopie Pie history that does not seem to be in question is that they are Amish in origin and somehow made their way to Maine, where they quickly captured popular imagination and stomachs. Apparently, an early non-Amish recipe from the '30s used marshamallow fluff (another New England treat that I did grow up eating with peanut butter) as a filling (something debunked in this article from the New York Times), and, in the hands of Mainers, evolved into its current shortening and egg white filling...basically fluff plus fat. Mmmmm.

Now every Maine bakery seems to lay claim to having the best Whoopie Pie. Some bakeries will make Whoopie Pie wedding cakes. Others will mail them anywhere in the US. My advice? Find a great recipe and make them yourself - and use butter instead of shortening. Invite me over once you've perfected it. I'm craving a good Whoopie Pie.

How to make Grandma's Chocolate Cake

By the time Mich'l and I worked together in the pastry shop at a hotel in Atlanta, I already knew that I was going to leave to cook on the restaurant's hot line. After nearly three years of non-stop pastry, sometimes 18 hours a day, I was ready for a change. And just as I was getting ready to go, Mich'l showed up. Armed to the teeth with legendary experiences (working for and with the stars of the pastry world) and heart-breakingly wonderful recipes (collected over more than a decade as she moved through our hotel's properties around the country), Mich'l was a welcome dose of frenzy -and optimism - in our otherwise dreary shop. Unlike other newcomers to the shop, she wasn't jockeying for a title or ownership of our product. That role belonged to our executive pastry chef who preferred autocratic control and traditionalism over productivity and happiness. Newcomers either fell in with him - and, by default, the rest of us - or grew quickly dissatisfied and found better jobs at other hotels or country clubs. No one left the shop to work in the benefits-free zone of restaurants.  Mich'l was neither cowed by his barking or put off by our established routines and recipes. With a manner that was a cross between doting mother and Betty Boop, with a touch of SoCal rebel thrown in for seasoning, she was able to convince our exec to change up the recipes that were, until that moment, the sacred cows of our shop.

My ice cream recipes? Out the door. Replaced by ones given to her by Sebastian Canonne (who everyone claims as an influence, but most have to pay to work with these days. Not M'chl). Our cake? She had better recipes from L.A.

Mich'l had the credibility the rest of us - mostly rejects from restaurant kitchens and country clubs - lacked. And she seemed to know everyone in the industry.

One of the biggest revelations for me was a recipe she brought to the property from her last job. It is a glorious, sweet-but-not-too-sweet version of a devil's food chocolate cake with wonderful sour notes in the icing that offset the usual heaviness of similar cakes. I'm not sure who originated the recipe, but I've passed it on to everyone I know because it is not only easy but a consistent crowd-pleaser. I've used it as the basis for wedding cakes, I've served it at birthdays. My sister who lives in Berlin bakes it weekly for parties (and it is great for cupcakes, too). Friends, Grandma's Chocolate Cake is your ticket to love, respect, and a fulfilled life full of flowers, birds, and magic. Or maybe it is just a great cake.

I love this cake. The photo above shows how this cake may come out if you get a little sloppy with the execution. Not my best work.

The recipe is as reliable as a cake recipe can be, and the results are always great. Just make sure to mix for as long as the recipe indicates. Yes, a seven-minute mix followed by a four minute mix is odd, but it works. Trust me.

Here is a link to the GLUTEN-FREE and EGG-FREE version of this cake.

The Ingredients, more or less, messy:

Grandma’s Chocolate Cake

Prep Time: Cake: 15 minutes prep/40 minutes bake

                                                Frosting: 2 hours (start to finish)

Ingredients

Cake:

1 cup water

½ cup cocoa ("Dutched" or Alkalized gets a better rise)

1 cup buttermilk (or kefir)

¾ cup vegetable oil

2 each eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 cup flour

2 cup sugar

1 teaspoon salt

1 ½ teaspoon baking soda

Frosting:

½ pound butter (two sticks)

4 ounces unsweetened chocolate

2 ounces bittersweet chocolate

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 pound confectioner’s sugar

8 ounce sour cream

1 pinch of salt

Procedure:

1)     Preheat oven to 350 degrees

2)     Boil water, add cocoa. Stir until smooth and thick, about 1 minute. Allow to cool.

3)     Combine buttermilk, vegetable oil, eggs, and vanilla extract.

4)     Mix together flour, sugar, salt, and baking soda in large bowl.  Add buttermilk mixture and mix together (using a paddle attachment) at medium speed for 7 minutes. Add COOLED cocoa mixture and mix for additional 4 minutes. 

5)     Pour into prepared cake pan and bake in center of the oven for 30-40 minutes. Check doneness with toothpick. Remove from oven and allow to cool completely

Frosting:

1)     Melt butter and chocolates together in a double boiler (or microwave). Keep warm

2)     Alternate adding sour cream and confectioner's sugar into the icing, mixing thoroughly and scraping down after each addition. Icing should be very dark, not light (as in my pictures below).

3)     Add vanilla and salt. Allow to cool completely before using.

For those of you who are more visual, here are a few photos that may (or may not) help you when it is time for you to turn Grandma's Chocolate Cake into your own.

The first step - combine cocoa and water and boil. The cocoa, after it boils, will thicken significantly. Do not boil more than necessary to thicken:

It will look like pudding, but don't be tempted to eat it. Just let it cool.

In your Kitchenaid (or similar stand-up mixer), start the seven minutes of mix. Since it takes a while for the cocoa to cool, there's no need to work simultaneously with the cocoa and the mixer. You can do this by hand if you have a lot of stamina or if lack of equipment drives you to it:

 

After seven minutes, add the cooled cocoa mixture and run the mixer at medium speed for an additional four minutes. Don't forget to scrape down the bowl, as you'll notice I've forgotten to do:

It will look like this after four minutes - OK, I admit, not a helpful photo (except for the color of the batter) but I like the way my mixer looks:

You'll then pour the batter into prepared (either sprayed, parchment lined, or butter-and-floured) pans of your choosing. Lately I've been choosing smaller pans (8") because it tends to bake better. I have also been using the convection setting for a more even bake. If you do go with convection, remember to rotate your pans in the oven or you will get lopsided, inconsistent rise!

While the cakes are baking, make the icing.

Add your melted butter and chocolate to the confectioner's sugar that is already in the bowl of the mixer. Mix on medium speed until there are no lumps.

Add your sour cream - remember to scrape down to avoid lumps:

Mix, but DO NOT OVERMIX! The key is to just combine the sour cream and the chocolate mixture without adding too much air, which will make the icing hard to spread without visible air bubbles:

Do you see the lumps, above? I do. Gah! The icing will get lighter in color, but the lighter it is, the more air has been incorporated. Try to keep the mixer on low speed.

It will look like this:

That's slightly too light. I had to stir it up a bit to get some of the air out. I'm not always great at following my own instructions.

The cakes, when done, should be depanned and allowed to cool. I was out of parchment so I used aluminum foil and threw a little sugar down:

 

Slice them to size - cut off bulging tops etc. so that your cake will sit flat (and note the tunneling - I've never made this recipe and had an even crumb):

And, once assembled, it may look like this --- or not!

Or it may look like this:

Or like this:

Enjoy! 

Cafe Ataco - Processor of green coffee Beans in El Salvador

Cafe Ataco is a pretty typical wet processor of green beans. Privately owned, Ataco processes coffee cherries into dried green coffee beans for many local Fincas, where the coffee is actually grown and picked.

Here are what coffee cherries look like (there are two 'beans' per cherry in this variety of arabica)

We visited at the end of the season, so there was only a small amount of processing going on. Mostly drying. The trucks dropping off their loads of cherries were long gone.

So use your imagination. I'm not going to describe the process (mainly because I can't remember all of the steps and which photo goes with which step and it is done so very well here.) but rather I'm just going to share some photos from our visit. In the next entry down, I include photos of all the equipment - antique, worn, and rather typical, as one of my colleagues explained.

Once the truck carrying in the cherries has been weighed, the cherries are dropped into a bin and flushed with water - water that carries them through the process of pulping (removing the cherry pulp). The bins are made of concrete. Each bin has a number, so the beans from each finca can be kept separate throughout the process. Ataco processes both organic and conventionally farmed beans.

Here the pulped beans are set out to dry for a few weeks. Rain would damage the drying beans, so this is done during the dry season.

The dark spots are from beans that were not fully pulped. These will be sorted and discarded.

Every drying lot has a sign beside it to show where it is from, lot number, quality:

After a little more drying and sorting, the beans end up on a long conveyor belt. Women sort out the 'bad' beans - quakers, broken beans, etc. According to Ataca, different countries (and buyers) have different standards for defects. One Italian company apparently accepts up to 6% defective beans. An American company only accepts 1%. When they sort the beans, they keep this in mind.

The beans are then bagged and put into storage. Buyers will sample from the sacks. And decide whether or not to purchase the lot.

After our tour of the facility, we are served coffee roasted at Ataco. It is brewed in the traditional way:

It is the first truly delicious cup of coffee I have during my visit. Apparently the best beans are exported. Most of the stuff consumed in El Salvador is what the Europeans and Americans don't want.

We then go to see ponies that are kept on the property. One of them bites me. Stay away from the one on the left! Blood pony!

The coconut sorbetto vendor, San Salvador

It was a hot afternoon and Ethan spotted the vendor selling coconut sorbetto, a dairy free coconut treat made with coconut milk. Two scoops, raspberry honey, in a small hand-made red cone. Heaven.

Pineapple-filled cookies in El Salvador

You have to try these! They are incredible...so tender and delicious!

Pasticceria Natalina - real Sicilian pastry in Chicago

I took these photos almost a year ago - but kept waiting to go back to take better pictures. I've been back a few more times, but none of the pictures have been quite right. Anyway....

Nick and Natalie own Pasticceria Natalina, a small bakery they opened up in the Andersenville neighborhood in late 2006 when they were 24 or 25. Natalie is self-taught...she learned everything from her Sicilian aunties and grandmother.

As I write this, she's coming home from an eating trip to Sicily. I really wanted to tag along with her...it would have been incredible.

They make their own cannolis...and fill them with a sheeps milk ricotta from Sicily. When they can't get it, they don't offer cannoli.

For the first year, Nick and Natalie worked non-stop with very little help. Natalie takes a moment to drink an espresso to try and stay awake:

Nick quit his job to join Natalie full time in the kitchen. After opening the shop, they moved out of their condo and into a small studio apartment - since they were spending most of their time at the shop, there was no need to keep a large place.

Nick finishes up some loaf cakes:

The pastries are seasonal. Nick and Natalie try to reflect seasonal availability of fruit and produce in their offerings. Here's some of what they had in their case last spring:

The lemon tiralli are my favorite cookies in Chicago.

Designer Donuts, the new cupcake?

Is it too soon for donuts? (or, is it doughnuts?)

After Krispy Kreme decimated the country with its light, airy donuts that inflamed passions with resulting donut burnout, is it too soon for donuts to stage a comeback?

On the west coast, artisan & "designer" donuts are popping up at Farmer's Markets (Staccato Gelato's donuts in Portland are great) and at shops like Fritelli's in Los Angeles. Is there room in other US cities for similar stands and shops?

Oh yeah!

I love the copy from the Fritelli's web page:

"Alison Winston, owner and founder of Frittelli's, has created a unique line of designer doughnuts for this Beverly Hills hotspot. Frittelli's choreographs textures, shapes, colors, and sizes to provide the "perfect doughnut." "

Ah...a Fritelli donut...like a dance, but edible. I wonder, though: do "designer" donuts have tons of calories and fat? Does it matter?

Yesterday, Betty Turbo and I tried our hands at making "artisan" donuts. I started out the morning by whipping up a few jams for filling - an apple pear and a strawberry apple (I used McIntosh for pectin). I pulled out The Joy of Cooking, which, of my 30 or so sweet goods cookbooks, is the only one to have multiple recipes. I made up about 4 recipes - a yeasted sweet potato that tasted terrible and didn't rise, two baking soda recipes that I modified with ingredient changes (including making one gluten-free), and an Alton Brown yeasted dough recipe that was unnecessarily complex so I simplified it. I figure that if he and I went to culinary school together (we did), I am certainly qualified to adjust one of his recipes that contains way too many steps (it did).

The Joy of Cooking basic dough recipe - made with 4 teaspoons of baking powder - was perhaps the most successful. Replacing vegetable shortening with butter made a huge difference in flavor. I found that organic pastry flour, made with whole grains, made lousy donuts. I did replace some of the granulated sugar in one of the recipes with honey, which still tasted great. I used yogurt in any recipe that called for buttermilk or sour cream - again, it tasted great.

Of course I forgot to take pictures of the process. This morning I pulled out the camera and finally took some pictures - a jelly donut, above, and a plain donut with lemon glaze, below. I'm going to bring these to a party. Before I do so, I'm going to dust them again with confectioner's sugar. Mmmmmm. And come winter, I'll try these again. The humidity took a toll on the sugar, dissolving it quickly.

The totally gluten free cake

My friend Betty Turbo gave me this very thoughtful gift...which she made herself. If you ask nicely, maybe she will make one for you too. Sometimes she has them on her Etsy site.

Buying macaroons at Miette, San Francisco

Who knew that blue jimmies were vegan?

Seen at Voodoo Doughnut in Portland, OR: