pretty swirls

So I made this for a family dinner the other day and it was a big hit! I actually made it with xylitol so that Gramps Muratori, who is diabetic, could eat it too. The original recipe calls for regular sugar though, it's just a great recipe that goes both ways. It's a wonderful light, creamy classic that looks pretty to boot!

Crust
3 Tbsp butter, melted
1 cup graham cracker crumbs

Chessecake
1 1/2 lb cream cheese
1 c granulated sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 Tbsp all-purpose flour
3 eggs
1 yolk   
1/3 c cream
4 oz chocolate, melted

1. Preheat oven to 300F. Mix graham cracker crumbs and melted butter. Press into 8" spring form pan. Apply downward pressure with the bottom of a glass until firm crust forms. Line bottom of spring form pan with aluminum foil about an inch high (this is just to ensure that water from water bath doesn't make it's way into the pan).
2. On medium-high speed, cream cream cheese and sugar until light & fluffy. Add vanilla to cream cheese mixture.
3. Sift in flour. Mix just until combined.
4. Add eggs & yolks, mix until smooth. Add cream, mix to combine.
5. Pour about half of batter into a separate bowl. Mix in melted chocolate.
6. Pour half of plain batter over crust. Then pour 3/4 of chocolate batter. Swirl with butter knife. Top with remaining plain batter, then drizzle remaining chocolate batter. Run a butter knife across drizzle (perpendicular to) to create that almost-heart-shape pattern.
7. Bake cheesecake on a cookie sheet filled about a half inch full of water at 300F until cheesecake just barely jiggles (8" spring form pan 45-60 mins).
8. Cool completely, refrigerate for at least 2 hours before serving.

It's a yummy yummy in my tummy for sure!

let's get down to business

 Just in: my business cards! Designed by the almighty Aileen Cheng. cool beans, huh?

Forget St. Patrick, I'm celebrating two others today

No disrespect to St. Patrick, my man is part Irish. 

Today, however I'm celebrating Saint Honoratus of Amiens (quite a mouthful, aka. Honoré, sometimes Honorius, Honortus) and San Antonia Abate. Saint Honoratus of Amiens is the patron saint of bakers, confectioners, pastry chefs, flour merchants, among others. San Antonio Abate is patron saint of bread bakers specifically. 

And what wonderful people they are, bread bakers. I don't think its possible, no, I don't think there could exist a person out there that doesn't absolutely LOVE the smell of fresh baked bread! 

And on top of those two, I'm also giving a "yay!" to the French (again) 

I made baguettes. 

I love baguettes. 

mm mmm baguettes. 

Baguette with Poolish 

Yield 2 loaves 

Poolish 

1/2 c Water, warm

1/2 tsp Active dry yeast 

1 1/4 c Bread flour 

Mix all together in a bowl with spatula for 1 minute. Cover, set aside for 60 to 90 minutes or until its risen slightly. 

Baguette dough 

pinch Active dry yeast 

1 2/3 c Bread flour 

1 1/8 tsp Salt 

~3/4 c Water (room temp)

1. Mix a little water with yeast, set aside. 

2. Rough mix (mix until no more dry pieces of flour) remaining water and flour until just mixed (this is the autolyse). Add only enough water to slightly dampen the flour. It should be a very dry and almost crumbly mixture. Cover and let sit 20 minutes. 

3. When autolyse is ready (dough is much softer after 20 minutes) mix autolyse, poolish (Pour yeast water that was set aside into bowl, around the poolish, to help release it from the bowl) , and salt on low for 1 minute, then medium for 5 minutes until doughs are well incorporated. 

4. Proof in a bowl for about 1 hour or until doubled in size. 

5. Split dough in half and preshape into small footballs. Let benchproof for 20 minutes, covered. 

6. Shape pieces into baguettes, transfer for baguette pans (long, skinny channels with curved bottoms. see picture below) or cookie sheet, brush with water and let rise in proofer (75-80°F) for about 1 hour. If you don't have access to a proofer (a warming drawer below your oven works great), let rise in a warm, draft free space. 

7. Right before baking, brush with water and score each baguette (slice diagonally down baguette about 4-5 times, not deep, just below the surface). 8. Bake at 425°F for 20-25 minutes with steam (either splash water into your oven right before you close the door (not recommended if your coils are at the bottom) or place a pan of hot water the rack below your bread. 

Baguette pan:

gotta love the french for giving us croissants.

CROISSANTS
2 1/4 cup bread flour
1 tsp salt
2 Tbsp cup sugar
1 tsp instant dry yeast
3.5 Tbsp butter, soft
1/2 cup water
1 sticks butter

1. Pour water with sugar and yeast in bowl, mix until combined.
2. Add flour, soft butter (3.5 Tbsp) and salt, mix on low speed for about 5 minutes until the dough becomes soft. Meanwhile, beat 1 stick butter with a rolling pin to soften and make sure there are no lumps. Shape into a small rectangle about 4 x 6", wrap in plastic and chill in refrigerator.
3. Make a ball and let dough rise at room temperature, covered with plastic wrap for about 45-60 minutes until doubled.
4. Flatten dough out into a rectangle slightly smaller than a sheet of paper (A4-8 x 11), place in freezer for about 30-45 mins until firm (NOT frozen, just chilled to the same consistency as cold butter block).
5. Roll out slightly the chilled dough to even out sides and thickness. If butter block is too hard, beat with rolling pin until same consistency as dough. Butter block should fit on one half of the dough, to one side.
6. Pinch up the three sides where butter is on edge of dough. Fold over the other half of the dough (making a book with the dough, with the butter inside). Seal the edges of the dough.
**Now this is where things get a little tricky. Diagrams below**
7. Roll out a long thin rectangle to about 3/4" thick. Do a **single turn (tri-fold). Let rest in fridge for about an hour.

8. Roll out again, making a **double turn this time (book fold). Let rest overnight.

9. The next day, roll out a long thin rectangle again (keep one dough in the fridge while working with the other to prevent rising before shaped). Cut into triangles, pizza shaped (You should be able to get 8-9 triangles with one strip). *For chocolate croissants: don't cut to complete tip so pizza shape is more trapezoidal.

10. Fold over the "crust" part of the pizza triangle. While rolling the "crust" with your left palm, pull gently on the tip of the pizza with your right hand to stretch dough. Then roll crust to tip to form croissant shape. Turn in ends of croissant if you want for that horned look. *For chocolate croissants: Fold a stick of baking chocolate into the "crust"
11. Place on sheet pan with the pizza tip down (so croissant doesn't unfurl while rising). Brush with egg wash and proof for about 2 hours or until tripled in size.
12. Brush again with egg wash and bake at 350F for about 15 mins.

The croissants sound a lot more difficult than they are. Once you get used to making them they're actually quite simple.
Important things to note:
- Letting the dough rest and chill is extremely important.
- Always chill to keep consistency of dough and butter the same otherwise butter will crack when rolled and dough will tear.
- Avoid overproofing at any point or croissants will have a slight sour taste and will cook unevenly.

Extra cream cheese frosting? Use it up!

So a friend of mine used the red velvet recipe I posted last time but made cupcakes instead of a cake and had extra frosting left over. I suggest making something carrot, zucchini or pumpkin to use up the extra cream cheese frosting. 

Here's a wonderful pumpkin cupcake recipe that is so light and fluffy it offsets the dense and tart cream cheese frosting so nicely!

PUMPKIN CUPCAKES
Yield: 18 cupcakes
2 c all purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp all spice
1 c brown sugar
1 c granulated sugar
1 c unsalted butter, melted and cooled
4 eggs
15 oz pumpkin puree

1. Preheat oven to 350F. Grease muffin tins. Sift together flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and all spice in a bowl. Set aside.

2. In another bowl mix butter, sugars and eggs until combined. Add dry ingredients to butter mixture and mix just until incorporated. Fold in pumpkin puree.

3. Distribute batter into muffin tins, filling each about 2/3 full. Bake 15-20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Cool on rack.

4. Once completely cool, pipe on cream cheese frosting with a large round tip or spread with a small metal spatula.

Now I had made mini-cupcakes and piped dollops of cream cheese frosting on each one. To pipe the dollops, use a large round tip and, holding the piping bag and tip straight up, squeeze gently until the desired amount is on the cupcake, stop squeezing and pull up. The closer the tip is the cupcake, the flatter the dollop will be. And remember, practice makes perfect.

red.cake.yum

So I made a red velvet cake the other day for a birthday and naturally got a lot of questions about it. Yes, it is a recent fad, stemming from the red velvet cupcakes that are oh-so-popular nowadays but it actually had quite some history.

The cake has been around since before the 1920s. While it's exact origins are hard to track down, it was made popular as a signature dessert of the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City. 
This moist and deliciously rich red cake has a flavor somewhere in between chocolate and vanilla. Ingredients vary but usually have buttermilk, butter or shortening, flour, cocoa powder, red food coloring, and vinegar. 
Briefly during WWII boiled beets were used to enhance the color of the cake but this was only for a short period of time. The red color (other than when enhanced with beets or food coloring) is actually a reaction of the vinegar and buttermilk revealing red anthocyanin in the cocoa. Nowadays though with the widely spread "Dutch Processed" cocoa that is more alkaline, the red color is not as pronounced, hence the addition of food coloring
A common misconception, one that I subscribed to until I looked it up, is that the red velvet cake traditionally is made with cream cheese frosting. The typical frosting actually used to be a butter roux, or cooked flour frosting. However nowadays its usually seen with cream cheese (the tartness of the frosting offsets the richness of the cake so well!) or buttercream.

RED VELVET CAKE

Yield: One 8" cake

1 1/2 c vegetable oil

1 c buttermilk

2 eggs, at room temp

2 Tbsp red food coloring

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 tsp vinegar, white distilled

1 1/2 c granulated sugar

1/4 c cocoa powder

3 1/8 c all purpose flour

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

1. Preheat the oven to 350F. Butter and flour (or your preferred method of greasing pans) three 8" round cake pans.

2. In a mixer on low combine oil, buttermilk, eggs, vanilla, food coloring, and vinegar.

3. In a separate bowl sift together sugar, flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt.

4. Add drys to wet in two parts mixing on low. Increase speed to medium and mix until batter is smooth and shiny.

5. Distribute batter evenly between pans. Bake 25-30 minutes or until toothpick inserted comes out clean. Let cool completely.

CREAM CHEESE FROSTING

1 lb cream cheese, cubed at room temp

1 c unsalted butter, cubed at room temp

1 tsp vanilla extract

5 c powdered sugar, sifted

1. Mix butter until smooth, add cream cheese. Make sure there are no lumps in the butter-cream cheese mixture!

2. Add powdered sugar one cup at a time until all incorporated. Then add vanilla extract.
Assembly:
1. Once the cakes are completely cool, trim excess (cutting off the rounded tops of cakes makes it's much easier to make a flat cake) and brush off crumbs.
2. Spread a thin layer of frosting between each layer of cake (I recommend keeping this thin so that the frosting doesn't overpower the red velvet flavor).
3. Finish off the top and sides of cake and decorate as you see fit. Can pipe shells, dots, stars or use red velvet crumbs.

Oh my.

Too cute not to post!