Cake and Commerce

Daring Bakers April Challenge: Cheesecake! Made with Goat Cheese! Yeah!

The April 2009 challenge is hosted by Jenny from Jenny Bakes. She has chosen Abbey's Infamous Cheesecake as the challenge.

Cheesecake doesn't tempt me at all.

It never has.

Maybe it is the texture. Or the idea of a custard made mostly with cream cheese. Biting into a cheesecake, no matter how well-made, is not too far off from biting into a softened wedge of cream cheese that just happens to be sweetened.

For four years, I worked for a company built on cheesecake. I visited the plant that made our cheesecake and tasted the samples that were put out every day for quality control checks. I tasted new upscale versions at our meetings and helped give feedback on what our final commercialized version should taste like. I led brainstorming sessions where we developed new versions of our cheesecake, ones that were turtle or fruity or chocolatey.

And I never developed anything even approaching love. Cheesecake may have built our house, but it certainly wasn't welcome in mine.

The only cheesecake I ever really liked was something I recall eating in Japan in the 80s. Just down the street from my host family's home in the countryside outside of Nagoya was a small tea room called Mary Chantee. A big after-school treat for us was a selection of Mary Chantee's pastry and a cup of instant coffee (it was before the cheap fresh-brewed coffee revolution hit Japan). Their 'nama kurimu' (unbaked cream) cheesecake was my favorite. I couldn't really understand how it was made until years later when I learned about "French Cheesecake", an American favorite (it is what made Sara Lee famous), a cheesecake set with gelatin in the refrigerator instead of set with eggs in the oven. Mary Chantee's "nama kurimu' was a not-too-sweet, light-tasting and snow-white version of that cake (some French cheesecakes have a light yellow tint to better match the perception that cheesecake has eggs). It was irresistable.

In my last pastry job at the Four Seasons, I was frequently responsible for baking dozens and dozens of cheesecakes for large functions. There were several important attributes that the cheesecakes could not have:

NO:

1. lumps
2. cracks
3. color
4. fallen centers
5. evidence of boiling

To achieve an even bake (the lack of which caused the appearance of attributes 2-5), we baked our cheesecakes in deck ovens on top of inverted sheet trays (putting the cakes directly on the deck would have meant overcooking the cakes) at low heat in hot water baths. If we had more time to spare, we could turn down the oven to about 215-220 and skip the water bath but cover the tops with additional sheet pans.

I made a lot of cheesecake. I made a lot of cheesecake crust. And, the moment I left baking and the professional kitchen, I never made another one.

And then I spent a summer on a goat dairy in Northern California. We had an abundance of fresh goat cheese, goat milk, and fresh eggs. We also sold the cheese at a weekly farmers market. So once a week I made goat's milk cheesecake and sold it for $2 a slice. It was delicious. And since everything came from the farm, I felt good about eating it, thought I didn't eat much of it.

That was in 2002. Since then I haven't made cheesecake. Seven years. And I haven't missed it at all.

And then this month the Daring Bakers made cheesecake their challenge. Oh no. Cheesecake. My old frenemy. What to do?

Goat cheese cheesecake, of course.

This time, sadly, I wouldn't be able to use fresh-from-the-farm goat cheese or goat's milk, though I did find some from our local-ish Westfield Farm about 40 miles from my house. And I don't like using UHT milk, so I skipped the available goat's milk in the market.  Instead I used fresh milk and buttermilk.

The results are a tangy, bright cheesecake that is snow white flecked with white vanilla beans. It tastes even better drizzled with local raw honey, which takes the sour edge off the goat cheese.

And of course I just made up a new recipe. I'm really bad about sticking with recipes when they don't conform to my culinary, ah, peculiarities.

Cake and Commerce's Vanilla Bean Goat Cheese Cheesecake

Yield:  7" cheesecake

Crust

• 1 C Graham Cracker Crumbs (want to make your own graham crackers? here's my recipe)
• 1 oz  Coconut Oil
• 1 T Rapadura

Combine all ingredients. Into a prepared pan (see below) place mixture. Press down on crust and push some to the side and up the edge.

Bake in a 350 F oven for 10 minutes and allow to cool.

Cheesecake Filling

• 12 oz goat cheese
• 5 oz Agave Syrup
• 1/2 Vanilla bean, split and scraped
• 3 oz Egg Whites (about 3)
• 1/2 C Buttermilk (can be replaced with goat's milk)
• 1/2 C Milk** (can be replaced with goat's milk)
• 1/2 t Vanilla
• fine zest and juice of one lemon

Preheat oven to 275 F. If using convection, set oven to 235 F.

Line a 6" or 7"" round baking pan (or springform pan) with parchment. Cut a long strip for the sides and a circle for the bottom. If you are using a springform pan, wrap the bottom with plastic wrap then cover with aluminum foil. Prepare and bake crust  and allow to cool. I use a ring or a regular cake pan - I've gotten pretty good at flipping cheesecakes out of pans, but unless you have experience with it or aren't afraid of failure, I wouldn't do it.

Scrape out vanilla from vanilla pod with the blunt end of a knife and scrape into bowl of stand mixer.

In the bowl of a stand mixer, combine vanilla bean, goat cheese and agave syrup and mix with the paddle attachment until smooth. Add in egg whites and mix until combined. With the mixer on low, slowly pour in the buttermilk and milk. Add in lemon juice, lemon zest, and vanilla and mix until combined.

Pour the batter into the pan that you have prepared with a crust. Place pan on sheet pan and place on center rack in oven.  Pour about 4 C of hot water into pan - either just off the boil or instant hot.

Bake until set - 1.5-2 hours. The cake won't be jiggly at all, and that's fine. For slightly less set cake, pull from oven when still a little jiggly like Jello. The fat from the crust may have seeped out a bit - also okay. Allow to cool completely before moving from baking sheet. I like to refrigerate my cheesecake overnight, and when I am ready to depan it, I warm the bottom of the pan with hot water and then depan it to make sure it comes out cleanly. Make sure when you place it in your refrigerator i is in your original pan or a cake circle or another perfectly flat surface or it will break when you move it.

Serve with local raw honey or the topping of your choice.

                **To make the cake a little more sour, replace milk with buttermilk

 

To see more Daring Bakers Challenges, check out the blogroll.

Daring Bakers March Challenge: Lasagne of Emilia-Romagna - the Gluten-Free Version

lasagne, just out of the oven

When I went gluten-free, lasagne was not one of the foods I craved. It isn't that I don't love lasagne - during my brief stint as a vegan (I was young and in love and had yet to discover the pleasures of local eggs, cheese, and proteins) I figured out how to make a version of the dish that even non-vegans could enjoy (though I'm still not convinced that soy bechamel actually tastes good).

My reason for not missing lasagne is quite simple, actually. I didn't grow up eating it. In my parents' home, comfort food was stuffed cabbage, potato pancakes, meat-and-tomato-and-biscuit casseroles - the perfect melding of Jewish diaspora staples and 1970s Family Circle dining. Lasagne was something I ate at other people's homes. I didn't like the ricotta included in most American-Italian recipes (it was too sweet and grainy) and the tomato sauce was usually bland and - tomatoey.

Until I was a teenager, I hated tomato sauce.

I'm baffled by this now. How could anyone dislike the savory and bright flavors of tomato? How could anyone ask for pasta with butter when cauldrons of tomato sauce bubbled in a back kitchen?

I think part of the reason I hated tomato sauce was the trap my mother set when she made hers. It was full of onions. More than any other food, onions were my enemy. Raw or cooked, they represented a threat to my eating enjoyment. The only way onions could be made palatable - something I discovered only as a teenager - was if they were cooked within inches of their oniony lives. Caramelized to the point of mush. If, after cooking, the onion maintained any kind of structure, it was pushed to the side of my plate. The way my mother made tomato sauce, I'd end up with a small pile of onions on my plate at the conclusion of the meal. I had it in my head that tomato sauce was an enemy, concealing nemesis onion from me just enough to trick me into biting into some.

Tomato sauced ceased to be an enemy when I (finally) discovered a recipe that contained exactly zero onions. It was a simple recipe that to this day my sister and I use as our 'house' tomato sauce when fresh tomatoes are unavailable: In 1/2 C olive oil, saute 1 head garlic. When cooked but not browned, add  1 T parsley flakes, 1 t basil, 1 t salt, 1 T sugar, 2 cans of San Marzano tomato puree. 2 cans of water, black pepper or red pepper to taste. Cook until reduced by half. Enjoy.

And just like that, tomato sauce became my friend.

This month's Daring Baker challenge had nothing, in fact, do do with tomato sauce. The challenge's goal was to teach everyone how to make fresh pasta dough - and learn a delicious ragu recipe in the process.

I'm pretty fluent in pasta dough. One of my favorite recipes is one I learned from Chef David Kinch of Manresa back when I worked for him at Sent Sovi. It was my duty to make pasta dough for the restaurant. The restaurant I used was one the chef learned while working at a Michelin-starred Italian restaurant in Germany. It was fragrant and herbal and came out perfectly every time.

But I did not have a gluten-free version I liked. I don't eat corn or use potato starch in my cooking so most of the recipes I researched wouldn't work. The recipe offered in the challenge was corn and potato-based. It wouldn't work for me. So I started experimenting, which I documented here.

I ended up with a recipe that not only made beautiful pasta sheets, but it became a lovely ravioli, and, I imagine, a devious fresh pasta. It needs to be cooked before it is used - I found that when used raw, the pasta became mushy and lacked bite.

The ragu recipe in the challenge also wasn't going to work for me. I don't eat red meat (though I do cook it for clients when they ask). So I adapted the recipe for chicken thighs (not trimmed of fat at all) and omitted the milk and added butter. For smokiness I added smoked paprika. It was possibly one of the best chicken-based sauces I've ever eaten. Mom loved it too.

The bechamel was the worst part of the recipe for me, mostly because I decided to do something REALLY dumb - I used rice flour instead of an all-starch mixture. The benefit of rice flour is that it is VERY stable. The downside is that it takes FOREVER to cook - unless it is fully gelatinized, rice has an unpleasant grainy mouthfeel (why I don't use it in most baked goods...). So do yourself a favor. Use your favorite starch in your bechamel recipe. Don't do what I did unless you have at least 30 minutes to cook it.

I ended up putting the recipe together twice - once with my unsuccessful, uncooked pasta dough and once with my successful pasta dough. The first one tasted great when fresh from the oven, but was a mess when reheated the next day. It looks pretty jolly, though (I baked it in a loaf pan to conserve the sauces for another attempt the next day):

The successful pasta dough worked much better. The dough kept its bite and held up well on the second day. If I could have done anything different, it would have been to not have made the unsuccessful lasagne at all.

Here's how the successful lasagne looked:

From above:

The lasagne, in the terrine.

Cake and Commerce's Gluten-Free, beef and pork-free adaptation of Lasagne of Emilia-Romagna

Serves 6-8 people, depending on appetite

Lasagne Assembly:

• 1 cup fresh grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese
• 1 recipe pasta dough, sheeted and cooked (see below)
  
• 1 recipe Ragout/Ragu (see below)
  
• 1 recipe Bechamel (see below)

Preheat oven to 350 F

Oil or line with parchment (depending on how much you like scrubbing pans) a casserole (glass/metal/ceramic). Spread bechamel all over the bottom. Place several slightly-overlapping COOKED sheets of dough on the bechamel. Spread bechamel, followed by ragout/ragu over the sheets of pasta. Place dollops of bechamel on the ragout, and sprinkle with cheese. Cover with pasta sheets. Repeat spreading of ragout/bechamel/cheese until most of the ingredients are used up. To finish the lasagne, spread remaining sauce and heavily garnish with cheese. Bake at 350 F until bubbly and heated through. Allow to cool at least 10 minutes before serving. Lasagne may be a bit slidy-rustic looking when you serve it immediately. But it will taste delicious.

Will make enough to feed a small army. Or your friends and family.

The Pasta

• 3 oz (NET) spinach or kale, cooked and squeezed dry
• 2 C Brown Rice Flour
• 1/2 C Tapioca Starch
• 1/4 C Garbanzo bean flour
• 3 T Guar Gum
• 1 t salt
• 2 T melted butter  OR olive oil(for added flavor, melt the butter with fresh thyme & black pepper & strain out)
• 3 Whole eggs + 1 egg yolk
• 3 T water, cold

Procedure:

Combine all the dry ingredients  in a food processor. Process until flours look green and sandy about 2 minutes. Add in wet ingredients and process until dough starts coming together.

Place dough in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle. On low speed, mix the dough until it starts to come together. Turn off mixer and finish kneading with hands. Allow dough to sit for an hour in refrigerator. At this point the dough can sit overnight.

When you are ready to roll it out, pull off a small piece and work it with a rolling pin on a well-(tapioca) floured surface. It should roll out quite thin - if you put your hand under it, you can see the outline of your hand if you hold it up to a light source. You can also roll it out in a pasta maker if you prefer.

At this point the pasta can be used in any application you like. Ravioli, pasta, tortellini -  it is a little more fragile than wheat flour pasta, but it will hold up nicely to filling and cooking. If you are making lasangne, cook for about 2 minutes in boiling salted water and remove from the water with a slotted spoon, a fine mesh strainer, or any handy device you may have. If you are going to let it sit, oil it with a little olive oil and place on plastic wrap or parchment, covered, until you are ready to use it.

The Chicken and Mushroom Ragout (no beef, no pork, no milk)

• 1.4-1.5 lbs chicken thighs, ground in food processor
• 2 T butter OR 2 T olive oil
• 1 carrot, peeled
• 1 stalk of celery
• 1 small onion
• 3-4 cloves of garlic (not traditional, but I like it)
• 10 small crimini or "brown bella" mushrooms, sliced thin
• 1/2 t smoked spanish paprika
• 1-2 C White Wine
• 2 C Chicken Stock
• 1 C tomato puree
• 1 sprig of thyme
• 3 T butter

Procedure:

In the bowl of a food processor, chop up carrot, celery, and onion. Once coarse, throw in garlic. Heat 2T butter or olive oil in large heavy-bottomed stock pot. When hot, add carrot, celery, onion, garlic mixture and sprinkle the paprika over it. Allow to cook until translucent and fragrant. 

Separately, saute the mushrooms until cooked and slightly browned. Add a bit of water (a tablespoon or two) to deglaze the pan. Put aside until chicken has been cooked (below).

Pushing vegetables to the side, add in ground chicken and a little more oil or butter and allow to brown - it is okay if the bottom browns a bit, but you should scrape it down with a wooden spoon to prevent actual burning. You don't want burned fond (the name for the wonderful caramelized proteins at the bottom of the pan. Thank you maillard reaction).

Once the chicken has browned, add in the mushrooms add in 1/2 of the wine, stir to release the fond from the bottom of the pan,  and allow mixture to cook down by half. Add in the second half,  cooking down again. Add in chicken stock and tomato and sprig of thyme. Continue to simmer mixture until reduced by about 3/4 - at least an hour. Finish by whisking in 3 T butter. Use right away. Can be refrigerated or frozen, though some separation of fat may occur.

The Bechamel

• 3 T rice flour
• 1 t tapioca flour
• 4 T butter
• 3 cups milk
• pinch of nutmeg, cayenne, black pepper, white pepper, salt
• 1/2-1 Cup fresh grated Parmigiano-Reggiano

The most important thing you must know before starting this recipe is that it is nothing like bechamel made with wheat flour. Rice flour does not gelatinize like wheat flour, it is less fine, doesn't brown as fast, and more slowly absorbs liquids. You'll need more milk and more time to cook this bechamel than you would if you used a straight starch. I chose rice because it is more stable than corn starch (unless it is a cornstarch specifically for industrial applications with little shear), which has a tendency to become wet and runny when subjected to temperature changes (especially freezing).   With rice, little lumps are par for the course unless you use an extremely fine rice flour, or, better yet, a rice starch. I added tapioca just for a little more instant gelatinization and stability. You'll end up letting this bechamel cook for a long time to break down the rice granules.

So if you want to do yourself a favor, substitute your favorite starch in place of the rice flour. It cooks in a fraction of the time.

Procedure:

Melt Butter. Whisk in starch/flour. Whisk continuously for a few minutes. If you've made wheat-based bechamel before, this stage will look nothing like the same stage with wheat. It will not look like sand, as the rice granules don't absorb the liquid very quickly. Add cold milk to the starch/butter mixture, whisking all the while. At this point I switch to a wooden spoon or a heat-resistant rubber spatula. As the sauce simmers, whisk. If you are using rice flour, to get the texture just right, you'll need to simmer it gently for about 30 minutes (!!!!!!!!!), whisking every couple minutes and keeping the heat low enough so that the bottom doesn't burn. If you are using starch, it should be ready in 3-5 minutes.

When it is the viscosity and texture you desire, turn off the heat. If you made the rice and it has lumps, whisk it more. Or use a hand blender for a few minutes. Whisk in cheese and balance out salt & pepper.

 

The March 2009 challenge is hosted by Mary of Beans and Caviar, Melinda of Melbourne Larder and Enza of Io Da Grande. They have chosen Lasagne of Emilia-Romagna from The Splendid Table by Lynne Rossetto Kasper as the challenge.

Daring Bakers February Challenge: Flourless Chocolate Cake

[And now for the requisite Daring Bakers Blurb: The February 2009 challenge is hosted by Wendy of WMPE's blog and Dharm of Dad ~ Baker & Chef. We have chosen a Chocolate Valentino cake by Chef Wan; a Vanilla Ice Cream recipe from Dharm and a Vanilla Ice Cream recipe from Wendy as the challenge ]

There seems to be a recurring theme with me: I hate recipes that other people love. I guess I'm peculiar. Not really a surprise.

I've always known this. I've been weird since I took my first breath. Tell me, do you know children who hate pizza? Me! Or won't chew gum? Again, that was me. Or refused soda in favor of milk? Yep, I'm that girl.

What others swoon over I find dull or unappealing. I've despised Flourless Chocolate Cake ever since "Chocolate Decadence" blazed its way across every menu in America in the early '90s. I don't like the texture. I don't particularly like the flavor (why would I ruin a good chocolate bar by adding eggs and butter to it?). And the calories? Do I really need pack even more fat per square inch into my chocolate than is there in a bar already? It is too dense, too sticky, too intense, and too mouth-coating.

So yeah, I'm a grump when it comes to flourless chocolate cake.

This month's challenge was a bit of a letdown for me. In my time as a pastry chef and passionate sweets eater, I've found only one recipe that induced anything even resembling a swoon: L'Esperance's Flourless Chocolate Cake recipe, which I was given for use on our Mother's Day menu when I was (briefly) the pastry chef at David Kinch's first restaurant, Sent Sovi. It is a slightly more complicated recipe, less chocolately, but definitely delicious. And the texture isn't like weirdly eggy fudge. Here's that recipe:

L’Esperance’s Flourless Chocolate Cake

Prep Time: 60 minutes

 

Ingredients :

 

6 ½ ounces 70% or higher chocolate

6 ½ ounces butter

6 ½ ounces sugar

6 ½ ounces egg whites

6 yolks + 1 egg

Pinch of Salt

 

Procedure:

1. Preheat oven to 350.
2. Grease, line, and sugar 2 ea 9” cake pans
3. Melt chocolate and butter together over double boiler. Cool.
4. Combine 1/3 of the sugar with the egg whites in a mixing bowl. Warm over a double boiler, until sugar is dissolved. Whip until stiff.
5. Combine rest of sugar with egg yolks and beat until ribbon stage. Add 1/3 of egg YOLK mixture to chocolate, incorporate completely.
6. Fold this mixture back into the YOLK mixture.
7.  Fold 1/3 of whipped whites into the yolk/chocolate mixture. When yolk mixture is light, add this back to whipped whites, folding gently.
8. Pour into prepared pans.
9. Bake approximately 30 minutes. A toothpick should come out fairly dry __________________________________________________________

It is a great recipe, but it was not the recipe for the challenge. The recipe for the challenge was a very expensive flourless chocolate cake with completely different ratios - including a POUND of chocolate. Not one to skimp, I purchased and combined a little heavy-duty Valrhona with some ScharffenBerger, nearly a $18 investment (and very painful, considering I'm unemployed and unconnected to the world of cheap retail).

It is an easy recipe. Melt, mix, mix, bake, cool, eat. If you love this sort of thing, it is a good recipe. If you don't, you, like me, will end up giving it away to your friends on Movie Night (thank you Doug and Nell). I'll admit, here and only here, that when served warm, this cake is pretty tasty - and soft. A few seconds in the microwave does the trick.

The one saving grace is that the this month's challenge required that we also make an ice cream recipe of our choosing. So I used this one, which I developed earlier in the month. It is a deep, rich, decadent and sweet chocolate custard that can be made without an ice cream maker. Mom, the diabetic rebel (she still won't live her life as a diabetic, shaving years off her life, I'm sure), give it two thumbs up.



Here's the Daring Bakers Recipe for February:

Chocolate Valentino

Preparation Time:  20 minutes
16 ounces (1 pound) (454 grams) of semisweet chocolate, roughly chopped
½ cup (1 stick) plus 2 tablespoons (146 grams total) of unsalted butter
5 large eggs separated

1. Put chocolate and butter in a heatproof bowl and set over a pan of simmering water (the bottom of the bowl should not touch the water) and melt, stirring often.
2. While your chocolate butter mixture is cooling. Butter your pan and line with a parchment circle then butter the parchment.
3. Separate the egg yolks from the egg whites and put into two medium/large bowls.
4. Whip the egg whites in a medium/large grease free bowl until stiff peaks are formed (do not over-whip or the cake will be dry).
5. With the same beater beat the egg yolks together.
6. Add the egg yolks to the cooled chocolate.
7. Fold in 1/3 of the egg whites into the chocolate mixture and follow with remaining 2/3rds. Fold until no white remains without deflating the batter. {link of folding demonstration}
8. Pour batter into prepared pan, the batter should fill the pan 3/4 of the way full, and bake at 375F/190C
9. Bake for 25 minutes until an instant read thermometer reads 140F/60C.
Note – If you do not have an instant read thermometer, the top of the cake will look similar to a brownie and a cake tester will appear wet.
10. Cool cake on a rack for 10 minutes then unmold.

Daring Bakers: They told me to Tuile. So I procrastinated.

Tuiles: those wretched thin cookie-like garnishes in impossible shapes used to garnish desserts in fine dining restaurants.

I have to be honest.

I hate tuiles. I don't hate eating them. I dislike eating them. But I loathe making them. Very much. Why?

Well, let me explain.

When you train to be a pastry chef in a restaurant, you get the worst jobs in the kitchen. Pitting cases of cherries (hello repetitive stress injury!); making countless batches of tiny cookies, known as 'petit fours' or 'mignardises'; and making, each and every day, the garnishes for the desserts. In the mid-90s, when I was training, the garnish of choice - other than the cliched sprig of mint - was a tuile. Sometime chocolate. Sometimes millet. Sometimes plain. Sometimes curled. Sometimes a leaf. Sometimes something more impressionistic. Sometimes we'd make bowls out of them, and serve ice cream in them. Or make spoons from tuiles. How very whimsical. Very.

Working with tuiles requires the tolerance of heat, the ability to work fast, and the acceptance, nay, love of repetition. Tuiles need to be shaped or formed while they are still warm and malleable, but not so warm they break. There were some menus when I had to make tuiles every day. There were some menus that, thankfully, were tuile-free. Other tuiles were of my own design, and I take full responsibility for sticking them on the menu.

This one, for example, has a curved tuile - dusted with green tea. From 1998.

So this month I nearly cried when I saw it was another old frenemy from my days in the bake shop. I didn't want to play, but I didn't want to use up my 'skip a month' privileges at the Daring Bakers. And since I'd already skipped December (I didn't like the recipe - I'm not a very good team player when a recipe is uninteresting to me), I felt that it was my obligation to participate in January's challenge, which I almost didn't do because I spent most of this month moving from Chicago to Boston (cue tiny tiny violins). Every time I tried to think of a tuile project, my brain would stop working. I had such a strong reaction to the very idea of making tuiles that I shut down completely.

The month passed, and still I made no progress on the project. Finally, on the 25th of January I arrived at my mother's house, where I felt comfortable enough invading her kitchen and taking over.

But I still lacked motivation.

Finally, on a snowy Wednesday, the day before posting, I decided to make one of the recipes in the challenge - something I'd made many times before that I could turn into candy by adding chocolate after I'd shaped my project - almond nougatine.

[Oh, and now for the obligatory sentences that I must include in order to get credit for the challenge: This month's challenge is brought to us by Karen of Baking Soda and Zorra of 1x umruehren bitte aka Kochtopf.They have chosen Tuiles from The Chocolate Book by Angélique Schmeink and Nougatine and Chocolate Tuiles from Michel Roux. ]

Almond Nougatine couldn't be easier. You toast almonds. You caramelize sugar. You combine the two. You spread it out or roll it out thin, and then, while it is warm, shape it into just about anything you'd like.

I made a few requisite twirls and then I made a nougatine heart (just to show how flexible it is). I built a nougatine box - with a heart cut out, just so I could be in keeping with the February Valentine's Day theme.You can use scissors on nougatine, too - while it is still warm (but not hot). I used the scissor technique to trim a small bowl's edges.

When I grew weary of the playing, I combined some crushed nougatine with chocolate for some easy chocolate candies. I'll probably end up garnishing a cake I'm making for a dinner party later this week with some of the leftovers.

Here's the box with the cut-out heart:

And an ice cream bowl with a nougatine curl:

And the heart. Isn't it darned cute?

And piles and piles of chocolate nougatine candy. MMMMMM.

Here's the recipe for those who choose to do this at home (and why not? It is easy! But definitely cut the recipe in half. Unless you run a bakery or you are planning to make candy to give away, this is way too much).

Nougatine:
From Michel Roux: Finest Desserts

5.1/4 cups / 500 grams sliced almonds
(or 4.1/3 cups/500 grams slivered almonds)
3.1/3 cups / 660 grams sugar
4 tbs / 60 grams butter (optional)
2 tbs oil (vegetable, sunflower, peanut)

Makes 2.3/4 lbs/1.2 kgs! (This is the yield of the recipe given in the book, feel free to downsize!)
Preparation time: 25 minutes
Preheat oven: 180C/350F

Spread the almonds on a baking sheet and toast in the oven until lightly browned. Cook the sugar in a heavy based saucepan over low heat, stirring gently and continuously with a spatula, until it melts to a light golden caramel. Add the almonds and stir over low heat for 1 minute, then stir in the butter until completely absorbed. (This is not essential, but will give the nougat an added sheen) Pour the nougatine onto an oiled baking sheet.

Shaping: place a bakingsheet toward the front of the warm oven, leaving the door half open. The warmth will keep the cookies malleable. Work with one piece at a time, of a size appropriate to the shape you want. Roll out each piece on a warm, lightly oiled baking sheet or lightly oiled marbled surface. It is essential to work quickly, since the nougatine rapidly becomes brittle. Heat the nougatine in a microwave oven for a few seconds only to soften it if needed.

Roll the nougatine into the appropriate thickness for your desired shape, but never thicker than 1/8 inch or 3 mm. Quickly cut out your chosen shapes using cookie cutters, or the blade or heel of a chef’s knife. To mold the nougatine, drape it very rapidly over the mold so that it follows the shape and contours. Leave until completely cold before removing from the mold.
Or, cut out and using your fingers or a knife, push into folds or pleats… use as a basket, twirl round a knitting needle..

Nougatine based shapes can be made two or three days in advance, Keep them in a very dry place and do not fill with something like a mousse more than 2 hours prior to serving.

To make the nougatine candy, crush nougatine into about 3 cups - pieces can be all sizes, from dust to chunks. Melt about 10 oz of chocolate, temper, and combine with nougatine. Spread out on parchment, separating pieces as best you can, then allow to cool. Break up pieces if necessary and enjoy!

And...good news...it keeps in dry weather. Just store it in a dry place, warm it and shape when you are ready to use it:

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.

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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!

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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.

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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/

The Daring Bakers: October Pizza Challenge

For four short months when I was interning at one of Boston’s more popular “French country” restaurants in the mid-90s,  I had the assignment, every Sunday night, of preparing family meal for the entire staff, both front of the house (restaurant managers, servers, bussers etc) and back of the house (the cooks). It was the only night of the week that the entire staff could, without charge, eat a meal free of the watchful mean eyes of the restaurant’s owner.

Family was served every night, but Sundays were special because Sundays were, without exception, pizza night. There was no specific recipe or recommendation: the intern (me) was responsible for the recipe and putting the meal together. Every Sunday, just before dinner, I’d rummage through the walk-in cooler, identifying and cherry picking the leftovers.Sometimes this was good news – leftover proteins (steak, sausage, chicken, shellfish) and a slow-moving Saturday night special could mean a substantial, hearty pizza (there was usually a meat-free option available, though few considered themselves vegetarian). Cheese was always a risky venture; sometimes we had cheese, sometimes we did not. Sometimes all I had to work with was cream cheese, something that just didn’t taste good on a pizza, especially when coupled with equally pizza-alien toppings like sardines and curry (yes, I did that once and was justifiably shamed by the staff).

Sometimes my pizza was perfect – I made a huge batch of tomato sauce, froze it, and pulled it out on Saturdays to thaw out just in time for family meal. Sometimes it was only okay, such as when cheese pickings were slim, and once it was terrible (see cream cheese, curry, and sardine pizza, above).

The dough recipe I used, and have since lost, was a paragon of simplicity: flour, water, sea salt, yeast. No sugar, no oil. It was chewy and yeasty and crispy and seasoned just right. The recipe was from American Flatbread’s owner, George Shenk, and included the directive that it needed to be baked in a 700 degree wood-fired clay oven. Since this was not an option for me, I baked our Sunday pizza in a convection oven set to 500. Not quite the same, but good enough for family meal.

For many years after, pizza making parties became a staple of my entertaining, what little there was of it. Pizza was easy and communal and fun; I could make the dough in advance, prepare the toppings, set my oven to 11 and let people get creative with their dinners. When I left Atlanta for the cooler climes of Boston, I celebrated with a huge pizza-making party. And that was the last time I remember making pizza regularly. I now almost never make pizza. In part because of laziness, in part because of the availability of better pizza locally than anything I could make, in part because I now almost never eat pizza due to a possible gluten intolerance.

And then I signed up with The Daring Bakers, a website/social network focused around monthly baking 'challenges' that all members must participate in. There's no winner, but everyone posts on the same day at the same time - on their blogs and on the site. I'm not sure how I stumbled upon it, but taking a weekend of every month to bake a recipe that I ordinarily would not bake seemed like a fun thing to do. While I do my best to be gluten-free, there's something really pleasing about baking using gluten-laden wheat flour. And so when the Daring Bakers pizza challenge was posted (at the beginning of October, in their members-only section) I printed it out immediately and brought it home. I considered trying the gluten-free alternative, but I didn't love the conversions (Daring Bakers - FYI - in the world of gluten-free, the use of oats and oat flour is controversial at best. Many avoid oats, even oats that are certified gluten-free).

The recipe we used for the challenge was the Napoletana Pizza Dough from Peter Reinhardt's The Bread Baker's Apprentice. It is a good, simple, retarder recipe (that's the technical term bakers use for doughs that are meant to spent time under refrigeration to slow the action of the yeast and, often, give a deeper, less 'yeasty' flavor) that is easy to make and very easy to handle.

Because it is a retarder dough (ingredients are mixed cold and not allowed to proof), it is meant to spent a fairly long amount of time in the refrigerator - up to three days in the refrigerator or three months in the freezer. You won't see the magic of CO2 pushing the dough outwards - but trust the dough. It will behave exactly as you want it to once you've pulled it out the day you are planning to use it.

Rather than read all about how I made this dough, step by excruciatingly detailed step, I've taken some pictures I'd like to share with you of the process. I didn't always follow directions - I called on my experience in the bakery (thanks culinary school, The Four Seasons, that Boston restaurant, and everywhere else where I was making bread and yeast-based doughs) but I can assure you that the results were exactly the same.

You'll need to print out a copy of the recipe to follow along. The link above is quick and handy.

Add wet to dry ingredients. I incorporate the (cold) ingredients with a wooden spoon before I turn on the mixer - it is easier than starting with the paddle and switching to the dough hook.

After just a little mixing with the spoon, it looks like this:

Using the dough hook, mix on medium speed. Here's what it looks like after about 2 minutes. Notice how 'lumpy' it looks?

The gluten has only just begun to form. Gluten - wheat protein - creates the structure of bread and wheat-based doughs and batters.

After a few more minutes, it begins to look smoother as the gluten continues to develop:

At this point I decided I wanted to knead the dough by hand, as the dough hook wasn't hitting the dough quite right. Notice the still-forming gluten-strands right below my palm?

I check the gluten development by taking off a pinch and stretching it out between my fingers. The goal is to have a 'window' that is smooth and 'clear'. The gluten is not yet sufficiently developed yet:

A few minutes later I check it again. Sorry for the out-of-focus picture:

This is much improved - the strands are small, thin, and long. I could take it further, but I don't need to for this recipe. Additionally, the addition of the olive oil makes this dough 'short' - the oil keeps the strands from being too long, and contributes to the overall tenderness of the dough (it will not be exceptionally 'crisp' because of the addition of oil, which is fine, though I prefer oil-free doughs). I don't want to over-knead it because I don't really want the yeast to activate - since this is a retarder dough, it needs to stay relatively cool so it can proof -exceptionally slowly- in the refrigerator.

I roll out the dough and cut it into roughly equal pieces. Because my kitchen scale is still packed away in a box, I just eyed it. Ooops.

I formed the dough into rounds by pushing and circling with my hands. It is an extremely fast way to form dough - learned it in culinary school. The results? Six attractively rounded pieces of dough.

The pieces of dough are then oiled and placed on a tray to sit in the refrigerator:

The next day the dough has relaxed

After a 24 hour rest, and exactly 2 hours before making pizzas, the 6 oz piece of dough is flattened out into a disk about 1/3 inch thick and 5-6 inches in diameter.

After resting a few hours, the dough can be further stretched and tossed to make a thin, chewy crust. I asked one of my friends to take tossing pictures for me, but she's not much of a photographer and missed every single one. She did, however, manage to capture a little bit of stretching:

I really should have worn a different sweater. Or, better yet, no sweater.

Because I didn't have a pizza stone or acceptable clean substitute (there were dirty bricks outside, but I wasn't motivated to clean them and stick them in the oven to create a brick oven deck), I dusted an upside-down sheet tray with coarse semolina and used that as my building platform for the pizza. In this picture you can also see how much the dough has been stretched - the small disk above left is the flattened dough, and the dough on the right is the stretched dough:

And then the pizza magic happens. First a simple margherita pizza - sauce, mozzarella, a little basil leaf:

I then made a pesto and tomato pizza. Have I mentioned that I really like sauce? A lot?

Then I stepped it up American-style - mozzarella, feta, olive, basil leaf and chicken sausage pizza:

While I didn't love the dough recipe (I'm definitely going to try it again and take out or reduce the oil) I really enjoyed the 'challenge' and documenting each step of the process. Can't wait for next month's challenge.