The Lovin' Oven Bakery

Lessons in Royal Icing . . . by Crystal Thieringer, guest blogger

2012-02-14T13:24:00.000-05:00

Lessons in Royal Icing

I'm not sure when I decided that I needed to learn how to decorate cookies. It may have been when I made gingerbread moose for my husband at Christmas and thought they should have eyes. Perhaps it was when I made the sugar cookie snowflakes that my mother-in-law enjoys. It may even have been because my friend Kay introduced me to www.foodgawkers.com because she thought I had nothing else to do with my time. Based on the number of hours I have spent gawking there, perhaps I didn't!

In any case, I bought a simple heart cookie cutter and yesterday I made Sour Cream Sugar Cookies using a recipe I have in a Better Homes and Gardens magazine from 2004. The only change I made to the recipe was to substitute Greek-style yogurt for the sour cream. When it came to the Royal Icing, I followed a tutorial that I found while blog surfing; I used it because it had a lot of how-to pictures and some good advice.

The cookies turned out great! The decorating was a bit more of a challenge even though the icing was a lovely texture.

Here are the things that I learned:

Royal Icing is used for cookie decorating because it (eventually) dries into a nice hard shell. Another name for Royal Icing is Cement That Won't Come Off Your KitchenAid.
The process is simple. Pipe the border with a fairly stiff icing. Thin the icing and use it to "flood" the cookie. The border will stop the icing from overflowing, and the thin icing will go into all the nice scalloped edges you decided to pipe. Of course, this is all a myth. Flood icing can take a lot of coaxing to go into the corners. Adding more icing will render the border completely useless, but will adhere the cookie to the countertop with no problem.
There is barely enough red paste food colouring in a container to make a true 'red' icing. This is why pink is a Valentine's Day colour.
Getting Royal Icing out of your hair isn't as easy as you might think.
Taking pictures of your cookies is a great idea, especially if someone that you truly love invites you to add them to her blog. Of course, you might wish to wait until they are dry first. The zoom mechanism on your camera will cease to work if you get Royal Icing on it. Don't ask me how I know.

Here is the thing that matters:

My husband, who will be surprised by the cookies, will love them in spite of their failings. Well, he might not be crazy about pink, but the rest will delight him. He loves me in exactly the same way. All is right with the world.

Crystal

Note from Angie: Thank you, Crystal, for this wonderful adventure . . . and lesson. The Lovin' Oven would love to hear from more of you!

The Croquembouche

2012-02-06T21:58:00.000-05:00

Begin with filled cream puffs (make puffs the day before; fill the hour before assembling croquembouche.)

Melt and boil sugar until it turns the color of caramel, remove from heat. Using tongs, dip cream puffs into caramel, then position inside oiled angel food cake pan or any pan with a sloped side. When you've filled the pan, invert onto a serving plate.

With the foundation firmly in place, continue building cream puff layers, sliding them toward the center to make a cone shape.

Built as tall as you like. Now decorate--I chose to drape my cone with spun sugar, but you could dust with powdered sugar or drizzle with chocolate.

Close-up of my spun sugar. Next time, I'll formulate a plan. I like things a little neater.

Ready for eating. How to serve? Hand your guests a cake knife and just let them go at it. :-)

The croquembouche . . . being devoured. Yes, it is hollow in the middle.

Croquembouche (pronounced croak-em-boosh. I think.)

Well, it's done. I put the croquembouche together and served it to my book club. To rave reviews.

You always learn things when you attempt something, of course. Next time I'll not have any squat cream puffs (though not many of those went into the croquembouche--I made about three times too many, so ended up delivering them to my neighbor across the street. God bless them for eating all my experiments!)

Why did some of them come out squat? Because one batch of my pate e choux (pronounced pat-a-shoo) had too many eggs in it. Plus, I didn't let it cool enough before adding the eggs. Like I said, we live and learn.

I filled the cream puffs with a chocolate filling and a kirsch-flavored vanilla pastry cream. I used that long Wilton nozzle and a pastry bag.

I took a cue from Julia Child and started my croquembouche in an angel food cake pan, well oiled with a tasteless salad oil. Once I had built the base structure to the top of the pan, I simply turned it onto the serving plate and kept building from there. I did run out of sugar and have to melt a new batch (caramel--boiled sugar--serves as the "glue" to hold the puffs together, so you need quite a bit of it. But you can use any left over as spun sugar decoration.)

I went a little crazy covering the finished croquembouche with spun sugar. Next time I'll make a plan for all that sparkly golden goodness.

But it was fun, simple, and not too difficult.

So here are my pictures--and it served over a dozen, with plenty for the ladies to take home, too.

Very easy to make, especially if you spread the work over a few days. Make the puffs one day and freeze. Make the filling another day and refrigerate. Finally, a couple of hours before serving, fill the puffs and assemble the croquembouche. You're done!

~~Angie

what I am making for book club tonight!

2012-02-06T09:29:00.000-05:00

My book club read THE WEDNESDAY WARS this month, and the book features cream puffs in a starring role. So what better to make than this delectable confection?

I'll report back later . . . I've already baked the puffs and prepared two fillings, but have yet to put it together or to spin the sugar. We'll see how that goes today!

~~Angie

Baking with Children

2012-02-03T13:23:00.000-05:00

The other day I bought a young baker's set . . . and even though my granddaughter is only nine months old, I'm already dreaming of the time when I can tie an apron around her, stand her on a stool, and watch her mix batter and lick the spoon.

Do you bake with your kids? Have they discovered the joy of turning out some lovely, delicious, preservative-free something?

King Arthur Flour is featuring a blog about baking with kids, so I thought I'd pass it on. Enjoy!

Note: my book club read THE WEDNESDAY WARS, a story that features . . . cream puffs. So I've been baking them every night, because on book club night I intend to build a croque em bouche. :-) Photos to come!

~~Angie

The Nordic Ware Egg Waffle Pan--wow!

2012-01-25T20:51:00.000-05:00

Photo: Williams Sonoma

The minute I saw this in the Williams-Sonoma catalog, I knew I had to try it. I like waffles, but find that they're usually heavy, and this "egg waffle" didn't look heavy at all. So I ordered it, it arrived today, and I whipped up the recipe that comes with the pan. It contains SIX whipped egg whites, so it IS light--though not necessarily light in calories (I figure that each large waffle is about 300 calories, so it's not terrible, either. Depends on what you put on it afterward.)

So--the pan is only available at Williams-Sonoma right now (unfortunately), and no, it's not inexpensive. One day it will probably be more available and more inexpensive, but I've noticed that W-S often holds exclusives on items for a while before releasing them to other vendors.

I've heard that egg waffles are huge in Hong Kong--sort of like carnival fare for urban dwellers. They roll up easily, and, if tossed with powdered sugar, would be a wonderful walk-and-eat snack.

Photo: Williams Sonoma

The pan comes in two parts and you make the waffles on the stove. The two parts link together through a tab on the top of one pan, so making waffles is simply a matter of pouring the mix onto one pan, inserting the other into the opening, closing the pans, flipping the pans, and then flipping them back so you've allowed each side to be on the stove heat for about two-three minutes. Then you simply open the pan, unhook them, and flip the finished waffle onto a cooling rack.

The recipe says it makes five waffles, but I got seven out of the recipe. Maybe my egg whites beat higher than the test kitchen's did. (After making all those macarons, I ought to be an expert at whipping egg whites.)

My verdict? Pricy gadget, but truly wonderful waffles. I was so delighted I almost went out on the street and called all the neighborhood kids in for a snack. :-) In any case, my hubby has a plate of them waiting for him tonight.

Photo: my pan

Happy baking!

My plate of waffles--waiting for hubby.

Angie

I made a Dutch baby! (This is not an alien brain).

2012-01-21T17:01:00.000-05:00

The Dutch baby comes out of the oven all puffy. :-)

So then you dust it with powdered sugar.

And then you pour on warmed maple syrup with bits of fried bacon in it. Um . . . delicious!

I had never even heard of a Dutch baby until I stumbled across this recipe in William-Sonoma's catalog. Because it uses everyday pantry staples, I had to give it a try--plus, I've been looking for recipes for which I could use my cast iron skillet. This one was perfect!

So I whipped it up and found it delicious! Very light and fluffy--honestly, I think I could have eaten the entire skillet, but I had to share some with my hubby.

BTW, ignore the bit in the recipe about "charging" the cream to whip it. (They were obviously trying to sell a whipped cream whipper). Just use your handy hand-held mixer and beat the stuff until it's soft peaks. You'll be fine. It's just whipped cream, after all.

So the next time you're looking for a quick and easy breakfast or supper, have a go at a Dutch baby! I think you'll like it and it sure beats pancakes!

~~Angie

No time to bake . . . wah!

2012-01-11T11:27:00.000-05:00

Alas, the holidays are over and I am back at work. And I usually work until way past dark, so I'm not sure I'll have much time for baking . . . but that's okay. It makes the time I DO find all the more special.

What are you baking? How do you find time for it? Do you find yourself baking only for special occasions, or you do just find yourself drawn to the kitchen? I'd love to hear some of your baking stores to inspire me as I try to get another book out of my head and into the computer.

I do have one small consolation -- I'm having my protagonist work in a bakery, so I can live vicariously through her, at least! LOL!

~~Angie

Pecan Cheesecake recipe

2012-01-09T16:08:00.000-05:00

Since Pamela asked for my pecan cheesecake recipe, here it is! (And I'm trying not to be jealous of her bountiful crop of pecans!)

1. Make your favorite crust in a springform pan. Last weekend I used leftover crunches from my sugar baskets, and those proved unworthy of the cheesecake--too tough and too sticky. I'd go with graham cracker crumbs or some other kind of English cracker/biscuit mixed with six tablespoons of butter and 1/4 cup granulated sugar. After spreading the mixture in your springform pan, either bake at 350 for 10 minutes OR put it in the fridge to solidify.

2. Cheesecake ingredients:
1 1/2 pound of softened cream cheese
1 cup dark brown sugar
2 tablespoons all-purp flour
3 large eggs at room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon pralines and cream flavoring, if you have it
1/3 cup chopped pecans
about 3/4 cup pecan halves for decorating the top
about 1/4 cup maple syrup

3. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Beat together the cream cheese, sugar, and flour until smooth. Add eggs one at a time, beating thoroughly after each. Then add the vanilla, the praline flavoring, and finally the 1/3 cup chopped pecans.

4. Pour the mixture into the crust and bake for about 50 minutes, or until edges puff up and brown slightly. Do not open oven door during baking. After 50 minutes, turn oven off and use a wooden spoon to keep the oven door ajar until the cake has completely cooled.

5. Remove the cake and "paint" the top with a coating of maple syrup (use a pastry brush). Then set pecan halves on the cake in a pretty design of your own choosing. If you like, paint another coat of syrup over the pecans to help them shine. Finally, if desired, drizzle melted chocolate over the top of your creation.

I actually had a bit of a baking accident after I reached this point in my cheesecake. I had some left over cream Chantilly (whipped cream) from an earlier project, so I pulled it out of the freezer and put it in my pastry bag. I worked the bag between my hands to defrost it, thinking that I would pipe a few whipped cream "puffs" around the edge of the pie.

Trouble was, the stuff wasn't thawing fast enough, particularly the cream that had lodged in the tip of my pastry bag. I ran warm water over the bag, hoping to loosen it, and then I piped a beautiful rosette in the center of my cheesecake. I gave the bag one more squeeze, then gasped as the bag pretty much vomited over my entire cheesecake . . . at least that's what it sounded like. Melted, runny whipped cream everywhere!

Well, what can you do but keep calm and carry on? I smoothed the whipped cream out as best I could and put the pie in the fridge so at least it would have a firm whipped cream surface. And when I served it to my friends, I told my little story and they laughed.

You gotta love friends who love you no matter how your cheesecake turns out. :-)

Happy Baking!

Angie

P.S. I have officially opened a little online bakery. I'm starting with items I know I can mail safely, so if you're ever in the mood for some treats, visit me at etsy.com.

Pecan Cheesecake with drizzled chocolate . . . yum.

2012-01-07T21:23:00.000-05:00

Cheesecake with pecans BEFORE special topping.

We have some dear friends from our Lynchburg days coming to visit tomorrow. I wrote my friend and said that I was "into" baking now, and was there some dessert they absolutely loved? She wrote back and mentioned cheese cake and pecans and chocolate and key lime pie . . .

I wasn't sure how to incorporate the key lime into the mix, but I knew how to make a chocolate/pecan cheesecake! So I got up this morning and set straight to work--made a typical cheesecake, tossed some chopped pecans into the mix, and then arranged pecans on the top and coated them with maple syrup. And then, just for fun, I drizzled some circles of chocolate on top of that. Looks heavenly, doesn't it? (I do hope I get to bake in eternity! I'm sure all of those desserts will be non-caloric!)

Cheesecake AFTER painting with maple syrup and drizzling chocolate.

Anyway, can't wait to set this cake on the table tomorrow. Who care what the entree is when you have such a divine cheesecake for afterward? (Actually, I'm going to serve a frozen lasagna. Quick and easy; it can bake while we're at church.) ;-)

Happy baking!

~~Angie

Financiers--oh, my!

2012-01-03T19:09:00.001-05:00

The Fiancier pan

Before I jump into the baking project for the day, let me tell you about the project that failed. We had friends over for dinner on New Year's Eve, and I wanted to make Julia Child's Gateau in a Cage. (Say it with a French accent and it's more fun). :-)

Anyway, here's the gist: you take a small cake layer, then you build a "cage: of spun sugar around it by buttering the bottom of the cake pan, plus a bowl that fits on top of the cake pan. Once the sugar hardens, you pop off the golden "domes" and set the cake in the base, decorate it, then cover it with the golden dome.

Pouring the batter into the pan.

I had fun following all the directions until it came time to remove the spun sugar from the cake pan and bowl. Here in Florida, we enjoy about 90 percent humidity nearly all the time . . . and I forgot about that. It was a warm day, and I had a window open, so it was humid in my house. So humid, in fact, that my sugar never hardened. I managed to pry it off the bowl and pan, but it had no shape. The bottom part simply sagged on the cake plate, and the top part simply disintegrated when I tried to remove it.

So no cage for this gateau. But I cut the cake in two, filled it with cream Chantilly, strawberries, raspberry jam, and kirsch syrup, then smothered the top in more whipped cream, strawberries, jam, and kirsch. The cake was delicious, cage or no cage.

Ready for the oven.

Tonight I wanted to make something simple, so I dug out the silicone financier (fin-NAHN-see-ay) pan that I bought some time ago. I opened ROSE'S HEAVENLY CAKES and found a recipe inside, then set to work.

The recipe uses browned butter, and fortunately, I'd seen Julia make it. You brown butter (carefully--because one moment it's brown, the next moment it's burnt), then pour the brown butter into the mix without any of the black bits that are left. The recipe called for egg whites and ground almonds, and I had plenty of both because I've been making so many macarons.

Out of the oven.

I poured the dough into the special financier pan, baked for about 18 minutes, and out came these adorable little cakes (188 calories each). They were delicious! Very light--I could see them served as a dessert powdered with sugar and maybe topped with some strawberries. But they are a fine snack cake just as they are.

ROSE'S HEAVENLY CAKES has several financier recipes, as does David Lebowitz's READY FOR DESSERT. I can't wait to make another batch.

Happy baking to you! What are you baking these days?

~~Angie

The finished snack cakes. Delicious!

Happy Baking in the New Year!

2012-01-01T09:38:00.000-05:00

Happy New Year! I've been intending to post something, but we had folks over for New Year's Eve, so I got busy with a grand baking project (that failed) and so I had a minute. Even now, I have to hurry and get this out so I can get to church!

Anyway--

About macarons: there is an "expert" on macarons, French chef Pierre Herme. He has a fancy book out that details his methods, but it has only recently been made available in English (and all the measurements are in the metric system. Not so bad if you have a digital scale that can measure in grams, but it's a pain to have to transpose all the Centigrade temperatures into Farenheit.) Anyway--I ordered this book from a third-party Amazon dealer, and it arrived all WET. By the time I carefully pulled the wet pages apart, quite a few of the recipes were unreadable, so I knew I was going to send the book back. But before I did, I wanted to try Herme's method to see if the book was worth buying again.

What a beautiful lemon macaron.

Well--his method is very different. He wants us to begin with 220 grams of egg whites, which is about six eggs' worth (when most recipes call for three or four). He then instructs the baker to divide those egg whites, half of which will be whipped into a meringue as usual, but the other half will be tossed onto the pile of almond flour and powdered sugar. RAW. What? When I first read that, I was convinced I had misunderstood him. I came *this close* to whipping all the whites like I usually do, then finally decided to trust the book. But just barely.

My neighbors really like this one--"light and refreshing"

Herme uses the Italian method for making meringue, which means you have to melt sugar to the liquid state and then pour it into the mixing bowl as the meringue is whipping. This resulted in a shiny yet sort of flat meringue . . . I was dubious. But I followed the directions and continued, folding the italian meringue into the almond flour, powdered sugar, and RAW egg whites, then piping that mixture onto the baking sheets. I let the sheets sit for 30 minutes as instructed, then popped the first sheet into the oven.

All I can say is WOW. Those macarons puffed up with the most beautiful feet I have ever seen--huge! In fact, I was afraid I'd done something wrong because the caps looked as though they were going to slide right off, but they didn't. They resulted in absolutely gorgeous macarons.

A couple of things I did change: Herme doesn't believe in flavoring the shells; he wants all the flavor to be in the filling. But I like flavored shells, so I added yellow food coloring and lemon emulsion to my almond flour mixture. End result: deliciousness. I also sprinkled half of the yellow shells with sanding sugar before baking, so the "tops" sparkled. :-)

And if my calculations are correct, Herme wanted me to bake them in a 350 degree oven, which experience has taught me results in browned macarons. I didn't want my yellow shells to be brown, so I baked them at 315 for a little longer--about 14 minutes. They were still a wee bit browned, but not too much.

So--yes, this method works very well, though it is more involved, makes a bigger batch, and feels very strange at first. But I'll definitely be trying it again.

But I'm still not sure I'll buy that book again. It's pricey, hard to find, and I still have to convert all those centigrades to Fahrenheit . . . maybe I'll just tweak the recipes I already have.

Oh--what was the baking project that royally flopped? Tee hee. That's a story for another day!

~~Angie

2011-12-28T17:30:00.000-05:00

This was a cute video of funny guys making macarons. (I only wish they'd pronounce macaron correctly--it's like macaroni without the "i" at the end.)

Anyway, notice that they didn't use AGED egg whites. I do think it's important to use eggs at room temperature, but I've set egg whites on the counter at bedtime and used them the next afternoon with perfect success. I'm pretty sure I've set them on the counter for a few hours and had perfect success, so I'm beginning to think this idea of aged egg whites is not such a big deal. (Just to be fair, last week I made macarons from egg whites that had been separated for four days, but saw no difference in egg whites that had set out for a few hours.)

I have been incorporating the best things from several different recipes. I like to whisk one tablespoon of dried egg white with the granulated sugar in a bowl, then pour in the egg whites, then put under a stand mixer for eleven minutes. Add any food coloring and/or flavor at this point if you intend for this batch to be all one color/flavor.

When the egg whites are stiff, then I add the stiff mixture to the almond flour and powdered sugar--carefully folding it in until it begins to "run" off the spatula. Then I quit immediately and put the mixture into a piping bag. Pipe onto baking trays, sprinkle with any nutty bits, glitter, or other adornment, then thump the trays to help the macarons settle and burst any air bubbles. Then bake at 315 degrees (any higher and they browned, ruining my pretty colors) for about 14 minutes. (But this will depend, of course, on how big your macarons are.) Then pull off onto cooling racks and slip the next tray into the oven.

I made a tiramasu batch the other day that was wonderful. Now I just need to find a place to serve them. :-)

Happy baking!

Angie

Baking thru the Holidays . . .

2011-12-25T17:04:00.000-05:00

To make PB&J, first bake PB cupcakes, then carve out a little hole.

Pipe a little jam into the hole.

Plug the jam-filled hole back up.

And top with a chocolate buttercream rosette!

Mint chocolate cupcakes. :-) Yum!

The book that started the latest baking binge . . .

I've spent the last couple of days baking! (Surprise!) My friend Terri Blackstock sent me a book called "500 Cupcakes" for my birthday, so of course I've been busy making cupcakes! I made delicious chocolate mint cupcakes the first day, peanut-butter-and-jelly cupcakes last night, and banana chocolate this morning! Plus, I think I made my best batch of macarons ever--Tiramasu! :-)

I really love the 500 cupcakes cookbook because not only are their great (from scratch, of course) recipes, but the author gives you practical variations of each recipe, in case you want to try something different or if you don't happen to have a certain exotic ingredient on hand.

Last night the peanut butter cupcakes were supposed to stand alone, but I got the idea to scoop out a plug at the top of the cupcake, fill it with about a teaspoon of raspberry preserves, plug it back up, and then frost with chocolate buttercream. It's almost like a gigantic Reese's cup! I took some across the street to my neighbors, then today I sent the hubby out with little gift boxes to several other family friends. I figured it was after lunch so they were bound to be ready for some homemade Christmas cupcakes. :-)

So all is well here in the Hunt kitchen. I did some re-organizing over the holiday--marked some dishes and things for the Daughter, some to sell on eBay, and some to use more often. Picked up a few kitchen gadgets and exotic ingredients at a Sur La Table store in Miami--fun! Spent way too much time trying to track down kirsch--apparently it's a cherry brandy that you cook with. My grocery didn't have it, and neither did the nearby liquor store, so I had to order it online. It had better make my desserts heavenly!

I spent most of today baking while watching "The Greatest Story Ever Told." Love that old film. And last night I saw a new British movie called "Nativity!" Simple and sweet and quite different.

And it's back to work soon, so I'm trying to get a lot of my baking out of my system. Though I don't think that will every be completely possible, hmmm? Plus, there are those extra pounds I packed on over the holiday. Time to start counting the calories and putting in time on the treadmill . . .

Hope your holiday was heavenly!

Best,

Angie

Holiday Open House!

2011-12-18T09:53:00.000-05:00

Since when does Santa wear glasses? With the Grand Baby.

Yesterday the hubby and I threw open our doors and invited in a lot of friends--a steady stream of them, and we had a ball. So nice to spend a little time with folks we see throughout the year but don't always have time to visit. So I spread out the fruits of more than three days of baking, people came, and they ate--but not nearly enough. :-) I'm boxing up the leftovers and taking many of them to my daughter, as we're leaving to go see the Grand Baby this afternoon.

But I wanted to share one baking experience with you. I hope you realize that in writing this blog, I'm not attempting to be an expert on anything--far from it. But if my experiments, successes, and failures can spur your enjoyment of baking, so much the better.

The unfortunate cake. Ugh.

Because it occurs to me that we bake because we love. And nothing pleases us better than to see the recipients of our endeavors take a bit, close their eyes, and sigh happily. I tell you, that just lights the burners of my heart. ;-)

Anyway--I sent aside most of Friday afternoon to bake a three layer sweet 'n salty cake. I'd made one before, for my book club, and it came off without a hitch. In fact, it was absolutely delicious, attractive, and not too hard to make, so I thought I'd replicate the effort for the open house.

LOL! All went well until I began to assemble the cooled cake layers. Layer one went on the platter without mishap, but layer two cracked right down the middle. Uh oh. I tried to "glue" it together with the caramel that goes on top of each layer, but when layer three cracked as well, I knew I was in trouble. I glued and stuck it in the fridge, hoping the glue would harden, but when I pulled it out the the fridge, I found that the broken layer had spilled into the platter.

Into a pretty Christmas bowl, sprinkled with chips.

Oh, dear. The more I tried to glue and frost with caramel and the chocolate ganache frosting, the bigger my mess became. My cake finally looked like the photo, and of course, I couldn't serve that. (Thought for a moment about cutting it in half and serving HALF a cake, but not even my halves looked good). So finally I scooped up layers of the cake, tossed them into a big bowl (too bad I don't have a trifle bowl), sprinkled the chocolate with chocolate chips, covered with whipped cream, then piped big chocolate rosettes atop the entire thing. The cling wrap sort of squashed the rosettes, but no one minded after the first spoonful.

Toward the end of the party, my across the street neighbor mentioned that the "sweet and salty trifle" was her favorite thing, so I promptly handed her the bowl and told her to enjoy the rest of it. :-0

Add a topping of cool whip.

And so . . . part of the art of baking, me thinks, is being creative enough to come up with an alternative when everything goes wrong.

Happy baking at your house!

And voila! A sweet and salty trifle.

~~Angie

Holiday Baking . . . whew!

2011-12-16T09:34:00.000-05:00

The hubby and I are having some friends over on Saturday, so I have been baking and baking and baking--something besides macarons! (Though I'm still baking those, too! And I tried a new technique--piping on a squiggle of different-colored batter . . . but my squiggles aren't exactly artistic.)

This year my grand ambition was to bake a Yule Log, and so I pulled out a couple of recipes last night and gave it a go. The first recipe fell flat . . . the sponge cake bubbled up out of the pan and ended up being a bit leathery and thin. It's still edible, though, and after rolling it up and chopping off the end, I ate the end pieces and found that it tastes a bit like flour less cake . . . not exactly terrible.

But the second recipe, which called the separate beating of egg whites and egg yolks, worked like a charm. The cake was fluffy, spongy, and didn't spread out at all. Furthermore, it rolled beautifully and came with a buttercream frosting recipe that was generous enough to coat both logs.

So, remembering what I learned from watching Julia Child on The French Chef, I made meringue mushrooms, coated the log, then sprinkled the log with cocoa (for color on the mushrooms) and powdered sugar (to give the effect of a light snow).

And so--ta da! I know how to make a Yule Log. :-) My baking repertoire is growing steadily larger. How about yours?

Happy holiday baking!

~~Angie

Macaron Magic

2011-12-14T09:05:00.000-05:00

I bought this book, MACARON MAGIC, and was truly excited about trying the author's method for making macarons--always in search of the perfect method. :-) So I made these exactly according to her recipe, and they were absolutely the worst macarons I've ever made. No feet at all. No shiny surface. And they cracked easily.

They're edible, of course (they even taste good), but they are more like meringues, and not at all what a macaron should be. Of course the fault could be entirely mine--I either over stirred or under stirred the macaron mixture, but in all the other methods I've used, this has never been a problem.

This book does have some DARLING and unique ideas for decorating macarons--and it was worth getting the book just to see this technique. I haven't tried the filling recipes yet, but they look delicious as well, though some are a little exotic for my tastes.

I will give this master recipe one more try . . . maybe I didn't stir it long enough. Watching the video is helpful, because I can see that my "ribbons" weren't nearly as fluid as hers.

Ah, macarons. The quest for the perfect method is more complicated than it appears. But it is so worth it! Everyone loves these little cookies.

~~Angie

'Tis the Season

2011-12-12T12:46:00.001-05:00

Please overlook the messy kitchen. :-)

I don't know about you, but these days I find myself humming Christmas songs and doing almost anything but sitting at my desk and working. Christmas has filled the air--and the house--and I love living in the season.

.

Last night our neighborhood had its annual progressive dinner, and hubby and I were the "dessert house." I know you've probably been wondering what in the world I was going to do with all those macaroons, and I'm happy to say that I've found mouths for almost all of them. I made dessert plates for my family, I made the same plates for the volunteers who work in my husband's ministry, and I gave gift bags of macarons to the ladies in my book club. Last night I made a small tray of them as part of the dessert at the progressive dinner, but because most people looked at this with a raised brow ("what are those, funky little hamburgers?"), I made gift bags for my neighbors to take home. And on each little bag I attached a little note printed on cardstock--a lovely snippet of a Madeline L'Engle poem immortalized in song by Carolyn Arends. (Unfortunately, I couldn't get Carolyn's voice on the card, but I hope the poem sufficed.)

Click to enlarge.

Aren't they adorable? So much fun!

My neighborhood is filled with all kinds of people, and hubby and I have simply made it a practice to love each of them where they are. So our home is open to all, and I was happy to give them little bags of macarons, joking that my new goal was to one day be able to make them all the same size. :-)

On Saturday--backtracking a day--two of my young friends (Christal and I study the Bible together) came to the house for baking. I thought it'd be fun for them, and I was eager to share some of the recipes I'd gathered from my cookie class. We had a great time, but we baked all afternoon. I can't speak for them, but I was pretty well worn out by the time they carried their portion of the haul out the door. Lots of delicious treats--I don't think I'll have to make another cookie during this entire Christmas season!

But we are planning an open house for next Saturday . . . and my ambition is to create a Buche de Noel, or a Yule log. I watched Julia Child do it on The French Chef (those old videos are available to watch via Amazon.com), and she made it look so easy I think I might be able to pull it off. I've never made a sponge cake in a jelly roll pan, though, and since she started with the rolled cake, I'm pretty much on my own.

How about you? Have you ever made a Yule log? Any tricks I should know? And what is the one thing you're eager to bake this holiday season?

~~Angie

P.S. A whoop and a holler of thanks to SANDY in Navasota, TX who sent me PECANS just when I'd run out after my baking session with the girls. My favorite nut! Thank you, thank you, thank you! :-)
(And pecans are my favorite nut. Sandy is no more nutty than I am.) :-)

Oh.My.Macarons. Visit Kevin and Amanda today.

2011-12-08T09:06:00.000-05:00

If you think I'm nuts for going so crazy over macarons, consider this:

I served them at my neighborhood Christmas party and everyone loved them.

A friend of ours who often comes for dinner ate some and said they were the best thing I've ever made.

The middle school volunteers who got them last night loved them.

My neighbors across the street love them.

So I'm going to keep on making them.

And just to prove I'm not the only one bitten by the macaroon bug, you have to visit Kevin and Amanda's website--and a big thank you to Tamera Alexander for passing it on to me! Ooo la la!

Happy baking! (I actually have to make sugar cookies today for my son--he's a purist. No ornamentation, no frosting, no fillings--just simple sugar cookie.) :-)

~~Angie

More Macarons and a few tips

2011-11-30T08:57:00.003-05:00

I'm still baking macarons--at least a couple of batches a day. Trying new things with each batch.

And while it's not easy to work on macarons AND hold a phone video camera, I attempted to grab a few seconds during the process to illustrate a couple of techniques. Enjoy!

A macaron gift mug I put together for a friend.

Purple macarons sprinkled with pulverized white chocolate chips. Pretty!

The "bottoms" for the white chocolate chip macarons, fresh out of the oven.

~~Angie

Still Not Bored with Macarons

2011-11-27T16:53:00.001-05:00

Top: a row of chocolate-loaded "bottoms" waiting for their "tops.
Bottom: The finished macarons.

This is why I love macarons--because they are never the same twice! I've had several brilliant (to me, anyway) insights over the last few days.

1. Don't bake them on a silicone sheet. Those tend to buckle and result in lop-sided macarons.
2. When you remove them from the parchment paper and they're still warm, press in the center of the bottom of the cookie, creating a little "well" for the filling to nestle in. :-)
3. Chocolate-based fillings won't spoil if you leave them out. This makes it possible to MAIL MACARONS TO FRIENDS! :-) Yea!
4. Gel and powder food colors work best, as the liquid ones can water things down. But I've been using liquid flavorings, and they're not too watery.

Before baking. Aren't they pretty?

5. You can make two-toned macarons by putting two piping bags (one color per bag) into a large bag with a tip. See today's photos to see what I mean. (Divide batter in half; use 2 colors).
6. I don't like licorice, but anise tastes slightly like licorice (but better), and was really great in today's offering. :-)

These photos are of anise-flavored, black and white, chocolate filled macarons. :-)

Fresh out of the oven. See those pretty feet?

Three trays ready to be baked. They should sit for at least 30 minutes.

A new method!

2011-11-26T17:00:00.000-05:00

Yesterday my friend and I made a batch of macarons each, then after she left, I decided to try another batch using another method. I had been using the two-temperature method (put shells in oven at 200, then after 15 minutes, increase temp to 350), but I thought I'd try the one temp method (leave shells out on the counter for at least 20 minutes, then bake about 12 minutes at 320).

Ooo la la! The second method made such better cookies! The feet were more pronounced, and the batter was more pliable, meaning that I didn't have as many "points" as I had before. So I am hereby going with the new method, demonstrated in this video and fully explained in the book MAD ABOUT MACARONS.

My husband has decided to give his lay leaders plates of macarons for Christmas, so guess who'll be busy baking? :-) Actually, I'm grateful to have someone to give my macarons to. I've filled two five gallon buckets, a tupperware container, and a plastic shoe box with my little creations, and they keep getting prettier and--hopefully--better tasting.

Oh! And I've also been experimenting with flours. Almond flour is the standard, but I've made two batches with pecan flour (yummy!) and today I made a batch using coconut flour. I was supposed to use UNsweetened coconut, but since I couldn't find any, I used sweetened. To compensate for the extra sweetness, I filled the macaron shells with popcorn buttercream--delicious and not too sweet. :-) That recipe is in the book LES PETITES MACARONS.

I hope you are having fun in your home and in your kitchen! Please chime in and tell us what you're baking, or share photos on the Lovin' Oven Facebook page!

PS--I also bought several flavor oils made by LorAnn--blueberry, pralines and cream, walnut, vanilla, etc., and they really do a great job of adding flavor to a macaron. For instance, yesterday I used blueberry flavoring and colored the macarons blue--what fun! Then I did banana. :-) Those oils are wonderful, and a little dab works just great!

Always,

Angie

Macaron Tower? Who's up for it?

2011-11-25T11:07:00.002-05:00

The Day After

2011-11-25T08:56:00.000-05:00

LOL! Time to relax and bake for fun. A friend of mine is coming over later today for Bible study and baking (what a great combination), and I think I'm going to teach her how to make macarons. I'll post pictures later if it all pans out.

And would you believe it--yesterday I loaded my husband's car with the pumpkin/chocolate chip cake, four plates of macarons, a homemade loaf of bread, and a basketful of cornbread blueberry muffins. We drove two hours, I set everything out on the food tables, and then it hit me--I'd gone off and left my cheesecake-pumpkin-pecan pie in the fridge! Oh, no!

Well, it wasn't like the dessert table needed another pie--there were lots of beautiful desserts on display. But how were my hubby and I ever going to eat all that leftover food?

So when we got home, I froze half of the pumpkin cake, and I think we may have company for dinner this Tuesday. If so, I'll bring the pie out then.

I only hope the crust isn't completely soggy by then. Don't some things get better with age?

Angie

Over the River and Through the Woods

2011-11-24T08:59:00.000-05:00

Happy Thanksgiving!

I set out my buckets of frozen macarons and pretty plates--with paper doilies.

The hubby and I are traveling over to our family reunion this morning, where I'll see my mom and my sisters (and the aunts, uncles, and cousins), so I thought I'd do up some little Christmas gifts of macaroons. I piled one tray with them to set out on the reunion dessert table, then made individual gift plates for my mom and sisters.

They look wonderful, and they taste fantastic (I know, because I ate several of them for breakfast.) I'm grateful that macarons freeze beautifully, because I made some of these weeks ago and they defrost quickly and are still crunchy on the outside, chewy on the inside, and just wonderful.

Arranging a sampling of colors on each plate--and the tray in the b'ground

My mind is buzzing--last night I cleaned out my closet and found lots of adorable little gift bags and gift boxes--I'm always collecting things that are too cute to throw away. So this year I'll fill them with macarons and use them for gift giving. How cool is that? I love it when bits of a plan come together. :-)

Oh! I just remembered that I have beautiful red ribbons that say "baked with love from Angie's kitchen." Need to wrap those around the plates!

Wherever you are, wherever you travel, I pray that you will be safe and content and grateful for all that God has blessed us with.

I will cover with cling wrap and tie with my login' oven ribbons--ta da!

Happy Thanksgiving. And if you're lucky enough to be in the kitchen, happy baking!

~~Angie

This is the method I use. :-)

2011-11-22T21:47:00.002-05:00

I'm officially addicted . . .

2011-11-22T21:15:00.000-05:00

I'm addicted to making macarons, that is. I've made a batch almost every night, except for the one day when I made two different fillings.

My pecan macaron shells, upside down and waiting for filling.

Why are they so much fun to bake? First, because they're a bit of a challenge. Not the easiest thing in the world, but not the hardest, either. It's a skill you can definitely learn.

Second, they taste wonderful. Truly. Crunchy, chewy, sweet, but not too sweet--and nutty. And I love nuts.

Third, they make great gifts and they freeze beautifully (if you use a nice buttercream or ganache frosting). So I've been storing them up for holiday gift trays to give.

Fourth, you can flavor them any way you want--sweet or savory, fruity or nutty or spicy. So every night you create something that tastes different!

Fifth, you can color them, and a collection of them looks like a pretty jewel box.

The Oatmeal raisin buttercream I chose for the filling.

Sixth, you don't have to use almond flour (which can be hard to find--I ordered mine online). Tonight I ground 1 1/2 cups of pecans in my food processor and made a batch out of pecan flour, and they were to die for. Did I mention that pecans are my favorite kind of nut?

Seventh, the filling can be anything from jam/jelly to frosting to whatever you want to use. So the flavor combinations are limitless.

My first complete pecan macaron! I promptly ate it. :-)

You can type "macaroni" into the YouTube search engine and find all kinds of instructional videos on how to make macarons, and there are all sorts of recipes online. You really should give it a try when you have a couple of hours to experiment in the kitchen!

P.S. Tomorrow I'm baking for my family Thanksgiving reunion. Tamara Alexander and I are continuing our bake-off, so I can't wait to see what she has planned!

~~Angie

A little army of pecan macarons, ready for the freezer, intended for gift-giving.

My First Macarons . . . and I hope they won't be my last. :-)

2011-11-15T06:30:00.000-05:00

Who knew making French cookies could be so much fun? Marie Antoinette loved macaroons, and so do a lot of Americans, as the little cookie sandwiches are rapidly gaining in popularity. Haven't you heard? Cupcakes are now passé, replaced by whoopee pies and/or macarons.

The little cookies are famous for being light, gluten-free, and delicious. They consist of two shells that have "feet" and a thin, delicate crust covering a chewy inside. They are a little labor-intensive, but I think they're worth the work . . . plus, they're fun to make.

My finished macarons. Aren't they cute?

The chief ingredients: almond flour, sugar, egg whites

First step: mix sugar and almond flour in a food processor; sift onto waxed paper. You want a SMOOTH shell.

Next, you make a meringue by your chosen method. Then you fold the flour mixture into the meringue; add any food color.

Next, fill a pastry bag and pipe small circles onto a silicon sheet or parchment paper. I used a template beneath my silicone sheet. :-)

I tried to get them all the same size . . .

After piping, you do the macaroni slam. You slam the trays to the counter several times so the little air bubbles (see them?) come to the surface. Then you bake--see recipe for times.

After baking, pull silicone sheets onto baking rack to cool. I made a mistake here--I should have pulled one off to see if it came off easily. If it didn't, it needed more baking time.

See the little "feet"--the rough edge--around the bottom of each shell? Yea! They're supposed to look like that!

Uh oh. The brownish ones (we're looking at the bottoms) were done. The "torn" ones weren't. Needed a few more minutes in the oven, but at least they're not goopy.

I decided to fill these with a vanilla buttercream. Chief ingredients? Butter, egg whites, and the seeds from a vanilla bean. Cut in half lengthwise and scrape out all the teeny, tiny seeds.

Pipe your favorite filling onto one shell, then sandwich together. Ta da!

I was using the book LES PETITS MACARONS, by Kathryn Gordon and Anne E. McBride, but you can also find a section on macarons in MIETTE, another lovely new cookbook. Different books prescribe different methods, but I like Gordon's and McBride's method as it seems a little more time-efficient.

A macaron consists of four main ingredients: almond flour, powdered sugar, regular sugar, and egg whites. And the egg whites need to be "aged"--in other words, separate four of them three or four days before baking, keep them covered in the fridge, and set them out a couple of hours before you start the mixing so they can come to room temperature. It's all about the meringue, and meringue, as you may know, can be tricky.

There is a basic macaron (what I made today), but macarons can be made in all sorts of flavors and colors, so they are truly beautiful little desserts. And then there are the fillings--sweet or savory, in dozens of varieties.

I bought some macarons on eBay so I could know what I was aiming for, and though my first batch didn't come out picture-perfect (well, some of them did), they don't look half bad, either.

In any case, I know I'll be making these again. I've just spotted a "popcorn pastry cream" filling that's made from real popped popcorn, and I can't wait to try it!

Spread some lovin' with your oven!

Angie

Macarons!

2011-11-14T08:56:00.000-05:00

All right, baking friends, I am finally ready to jump in and take the challenge of making French macarons! No, not macaroons, but mah-kah-rons, said with a French accent, of course.

The best thing about these is that they are DELICIOUS! I ordered some off eBay just so I'd know what I'm trying to achieve. The second-best thing about these delicacies is that they are naturally gluten-free!

So in honor of my pal Terri Blackstock and others who need gluten-free foods in their diet, Tammy Alexander and I have decided to make our next bake-off round a gluten-free event! So pray for me as I attempt these wonderful goodies! My hubby and I are planning an open house next month, so I plan to bake lots of jewel-colored macaroons . . . if I don't eat them all first!

(40 Calories each, if you're interested.) :-)

~~Angie

Back to THE ART AND SOUL OF BAKING: PIZZA!

2011-11-09T13:45:00.000-05:00

My, my--how did the Grand Baby get in here?

I haven't forgotten that I'm supposed to be baking my way through Sur la Table's book, THE ART AND SOUL OF BAKING. It's just taken me some time to get around to the next dish because it's pizza!

This was really a simple recipe to make--the dough took an hour to rise, but it was no trouble to mix it up in the stand mixer and let it sit. I let it rise in an oiled bread bucket, and it grew from one inch to four inches, so it was a lively loaf. :-)

I divided the dough and froze half for another day. My friend Christal came over to help me bake, and half the dough was more than enough for two.

The pizza recipe.

We had a good time trying to spin the dough around to get it nice and thin--we're not spinners, but we managed to get it spread out in the peel. Then we spread it with pizza sauce (from a jar), turkey pepperoni, pineapple, and some shredded cheeses. Then we slid it into the oven (takes practice to master the art of sliding a pizza from a peel onto a baking stone), and let it bake for about 16 minutes, or until it was nice and brown.

Kneading is done with a mixer.

Semolina on a baking stone. Don't spread it too early.

Note: one thing I'd do differently. You have to spread semolina flour on the baking stone so the pizza won't stick to it, and the book suggested that we preheat the oven to 500 an HOUR before baking. So I did both--trouble was, the semolina on the preheated baking stone burned, filling my house with the aroma of burning . . . something. I was able to put on a pot hit and brush the brunt semolina off the hot stone, but still . . . next time, I'll sprinkle the stone with semolina right before we slide the pizza on.

Verdict? Delicious and easy. Definitely worth a repeat. :-)

The pizza, she's a-baking.

Christal displays our finished product. :-)

~~Angie

Book Club and Lace Doilies and the Baking Challenge, round III

2011-11-08T07:00:00.002-05:00

My book club met last night, so I spent most of Monday afternoon making something special for them. Usually I match the dessert to the book, but we had read UNBROKEN by Lauren Hillenbrand. It was an excellent book about an American POW, but I didn't want to serve the ladies rice balls and rat. So I thought I'd try something I learned about at my pastry class.

Begin by creaming the butter and brown sugar.

Lace doilies are made from a dough that's mostly brown sugar, butter, and a wee bit of bread flour. Using a small ice cream scoop, you put a small lump (size of a ping pong ball) on a baking sheet. The lump will "melt" and spread out, then turn golden brown. Now comes the hard part--before the doily cools and sets, but after a minute so it's not still goopy, you have to lift it off the baking sheet with cake lifters and mold it around a bowl or cup. As the mixture cools, the shape will set, resulting in lovely little bowls . . . they remind me of waffle cone bowls, but they're more fragile.

Note: as I worked with the hot doilies, my fingers were burning but I could hear my chef/teacher saying, "Get used to working with hot things!" I wanted to reply that I make my living with my fingertips, but I doubt that argument would have meant anything to him, as he uses his hands for a living, too. :-)

Spread FAR apart on baking sheet--they spread!

Gather your molds. :-)

My first couple of trays were disasters. First, I waited too long, and the doily had already stiffened into a flat shape. Then I didn't wait long enough to remove it from the pan, so the doily tore and became goopy when I tried to smush it together. And I think I took my early trays out of the oven too soon--I took them out when they were golden, not golden brown. Browner is better, I think.

Anyway, finally I began to get the hang of it. First tried to mold around small bowls, but those resulted in wide containers and I didn't want to fill them with too much stuff. So then I used a coffee mug with a slender base--that worked better. In pastry class we used ordinary Styrofoam cups, and those had a lovely shape.

Right out of the oven.

My sorry early efforts molded around a bowl.

If a doily is too cool, it won't mold. It'll break.

What a busy countertop!

The rejects aren't wasted--they're broken up, frozen, and saved for
something like crunchy ice cream topping . . .

The doilies destined to be bowls.

A little chocolate in the bottom (I should have spread it better.)

After working fast and furiously on the lace doilies (and about half of them ended up in the junk pile), I pulled a copper pot and copper bowl down from my pot rack (I still love it!) and melted a couple ounces of chocolate in the bowl held over boiling water. When the chocolate was melted, I spooned about a tablespoon full in to the bottom of each "bowl"--in order to "seal" it and provide an extra bit of yumminess. Chocolate always helps a dish.

Then I pulled a mousse mix from my pantry. (Yes, you read right--if I spend hours on part of a dessert, I have no qualms about using a mix for another part. :-) ) I mixed up two types of mousse, then piped them into my doily bowls. Finally, I made whipped cream from heavy cream and a little powdered sugar, then piped a final flourish on the top of the mousse.

Strawberry mousse, whipped cream, and some crunchies!

You can top these little treats with anything--fresh fruit would be nice--but I've been out of town and I didn't have any fruit. So I crushed up my "reject" doilies and sprinkled the whipped cream with little bits of crunchy doily. It looks pretty and tastes delicious!

I can't print the recipe, as I promised not to publish it, but you might try searching for it and see if you can find something similar. I think I may just get better at this as time goes on . . . Next time, maybe I'll fill them with chocolate mousse and toss a cherry on top. Or nuts. Or more chocolate. :-)

Happy Baking!

P.S. Tammy Alexander and I keep challenging each other to a bake-off, and she has a luscious recipe for a carmel cake on her blog. I just might have to make that, too . . .

The Pot Rack

2011-11-03T09:36:00.000-04:00

Yesterday I had to bake--some precious members of my family were without their favorite treats, which meant I simply had to whip up a batch of doggie biscuits. :-)

While the biscuits were cooling in the oven (it takes hours to get them good and crunchy), I tackled a project that had more to do with hardware than with flours.

I may have mentioned that I've been in the process of switching out my regular pots and pans with copper pots and pans--my daughter has begun to cook, and what better thing to do than to give her my perfectly good pots and pans? Plus, I'd noticed that some manufacturers of copper pots have been dumping their surplus in TJ Maxx and Marshalls and Homegoods, so in a couple of weeks I managed to get a decent set of decent copper cookware--not the terribly expensive stuff, mind you, but perfectly serviceable. :-) And copper cooks like a dream.

Anyway--once I collected and began to POLISH those copper pots (definitely high maintenance items), I thought it might be nice to display them. This led me on a quest to find a perfect (and perfectly reasonable) pot rack--nothing fancy, just something that would match my kitchen and hang several pots. Found a good one (I hoped) on Amazon.com, and it was only thirty bucks. Can't beat that.

So I ordered it, and it finally arrived yesterday. All by myself (cue the strains of that old Eric Carmen song), I took a thin nail and started hammering holes in my ceiling, trying to find a stud. And I had a stud finder, but the thing kept lying to me. BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP, lights flashing, telling me there was a stud, so I'd hammer in the nail, then try to push it all the way in with the head of my hammer. The nail went through every single time.

So after about fifteen tiny holes and no studs, I resorted to the old fashioned method--simply beating on the ceiling and listening for the spots that DIDN'T sound hollow. Finally found two about sixteen inches apart, the width I needed, so I went for the heavy equipment--my drill.

Stood on the counter top with the drill in hand and sawdust raining down all over my counter, my cake keeper, and my cookbooks. But then I screwed in two hooks that I'd spray painted black to match the existing light fixtures, and I was in business.

So I hung up some heavy pots and some not-so-heavy bowls and some light-as-air baskets, and I have to say I'm happy with the look. No, the angle doesn't match the countertop, but I think I like it slightly askew. Matches everything else in my life. :-)

So there you have it--my latest baking project. My pot rack.

~~Angie

I answered Tammy's challenge with a Tuxedo Cake! Yum!

2011-11-01T22:13:00.000-04:00

It's a good thing I gave most of this cake away!

Tamara Alexander challenged me to a bake off! First she posted a recipe for her creamy praline pie (oh, my!), and I answered with the Tuxedo Cake because I had company coming for dinner. (And I also sent cake home with my guest, and gave half the cake to the family across the street. This is a BIG cake, folks, and it's Texas-sized. You can use either three nine inch pans or two 10-inch pans. I opted for the ten inch because I don't have three nine-inchers. :-/

I found the recipe in THE PASTRY QUEEN cookbook (Rebecca Rather), and it was wonderful. The cake was moist (probably because it contains butter AND oil), and the whipped cream frosting was a cinch to prepare with a stand mixer. And the chocolate glaze--perfect! Really easy directions; and the only time-consuming part was letting the cake sit in the fridge for an hour here, an hour there to firm up the frosting.

Mixing the flour, sugar, and cocoa. (The good stuff).

So here are a few pictures, and I highly recommend the book THE PASTRY QUEEN. It's amazing (like most things from Texas!)

Happy Baking! And so . . . do you think I won the bake-off? LOL. Tammy, the gauntlet has been thrown down. What are you bakin'? :-)

Hugs!

Heating the oil, water, and butter.

Cooling the two 10-inch cakes. They're BIG!

After frosting with whipped cream and powdered sugar.

After drizzling with chocolate glaze. Drippy deliciousness. :-)

Angie

How to Frost a Miette hot milk cake

2011-10-25T10:02:00.002-04:00

The cupcakes

Well--I've never made buttercream frosting the European way--which is to melt sugar and whip it into meringue--but it wasn't nearly as hard as I thought it might be. It takes a while, because the hot melted sugar tends to freak out the egg whites, but with a stand mixer it DOES eventually whip up stiff and slick and shiny.

Only problems I encountered were: the cakes were underdone in the center--both of them. And I forgot to spread on the lemon syrup I had so painstakingly made. Sigh. Wonder if I can drizzle it on the slices of cake after I cut them?

I had doubled the cake recipe, but only made the frosting as called for, and I still had frosting left over to store in the freezer. And when handed cakes with an underdone center, you cut it out and create mini-bundt cakes. :-)

As you can see from the book photos, these cakes are filled with lemon curd between the layers, along with the frosting--yum. Then I simply piped on some tiny flowers, sprinkled with sparkling sugar, and I consider myself done.

Now, off to make paella for dinner tonight. Talk about throwing everything into a pan! My recipe calls for chicken, clams, lobster, sausage, and saffon--and I had no luck finding saffron at the grocery yesterday. Guess we'll have to do without. :-)

This cake is only missing the center on the bottom layer. (See why I don't do this professionally?)

Ta da! Mini-bundt cake. :-)

~~Angie

The Hot Milk Cake from MIETTE

2011-10-24T19:20:00.003-04:00

With company coming for dinner tomorrow, I decided to make a new cake tonight. I opened my Miette cookbook--a beautiful book with lots of errors, but a corrected edition is coming out soon--and trusted that this cake would be error free. And it almost was.

Six inch cake pans are small.

The hot milk and butter must remain thoroughly mixed.

The eggs, sugar, and vanilla are melted and mixed in a double boiler.

The moment I touched this in the oven, I had a feeling it was under done. But the tester came out clean--should have trusted my gut instinct.

This is what it should look like. One out of two isn't bad. :-)

The first thing you have to know about Miette cakes is that they are small--they bake in two six inch pans, and each cake only requires one pan (you're supposed to freeze the other one for later).

I sifted together the required flour, baking powder, and salt, then mixed the whole milk and butter on the stove. This mix must cool to 80-85 degrees before it can be added to the batter, so I quickly realized I had to take it out of the copper pot, as copper retains heat very well. :-)

The eggs, sugar, and vanilla must be heated in a double boiler to 110 degrees for the sugar to melt--again, a thermometer is indispensable for this recipe. Then it is whipped on high with a stand mixer, and goes from a yellow mix to a white, fluffy mix. Then you stir in the dry ingredients, and finally you pour in the cooled hot milk.

I doubled the recipe, thinking I'd like to make some cupcakes, and they turned out very well. But when I went to remove the golden cakes from the oven, the first cake jiggled--and I should have left it alone. I did take it out and stab it with a tester, which came out clean, but a toothpick didn't' fare so well. I returned it to the oven, but apparently the damage was done.

Tomorrow we'll see how I do at decorating the cake that didn't collapse in the middle. :-) BTW, the cupcakes are lovely--golden and crunchy on top, not-too-sweet interior. With a little frosting, they'd be perfect. :-)

More tomorrow!

~~Angie

BTW--A manufacturer has dumped a load of copper pots and pans at Marshalls, Home Good, and TJ Maxx. I've always wanted a set and have been stocking up at bargain prices--I love them, though they are a bit on the fragile side. Easy to scratch, easy to tarnish, and they don't go into the dishwasher. But boy, do they cook. :-)

It's Fudgalicious up here!

2011-10-17T21:53:00.000-04:00

Bill Myers tries his hand with the paddle.

So I'm up here teaching at the Blue Ridge Novelists' Retreat, a small workshop that's very intimate. While Jeff Gerke did thin-skinned critiques tonight, some of us went to Black Mountain and discovered Kilwin's Chocolates and Ice Cream shop. (Lynette Eason had a hankering for ice cream).

The owner, Tom, was making fudge, and was very generous with his time as five of us gathered around to watch and pepper him with questions--after all, who knew when we'd need to know how to make fudge for a book? So we learned about the importance of temperature, the marble slab, the metal paddle, the copper cooking pot, etc. And then Tom generously supplied us with samples of pumpkin fudge (oh, my!) and Turtle fudge--chocolate and carmel and nuts--oh, my!

We really had a nice time--I think I could happily live in a chocolate shop. The aroma alone would make me happy. :-)

So here are some pictures of our evening out. And if you're ever in Black Mountain, now you know where to go: Kilwin's Chocolates and Ice Cream. You'll be glad you stopped in.

I'm sure Tom gets a good workout handling all that fudge! It's heavy with good stuff!

~~Angie

How to Bake a Sour Cream Streusel Cake

2011-10-06T07:00:00.016-04:00

I can never spell "streusel" correctly. Thank heaven for spell check.

Wednesday morning I was running around like the proverbial headless chicken. I slept late because I'm still feeling the effects of a cold I picked up in Michigan (those chilly breezes gave me the sneezes!), and because I'm selling some stuff on ebay and had to put some packages together.

Furthermore, hubby and I are leaving for another trip tomorrow, so I need to shift into packing gear soon. But other things to do first--some shopping (copper cookware on sale at TUESDAY MORNING!), some accounting, some vacuuming, and some work.

Mix into light and fluffy batter

Anyway--one of my dear book club ladies brought me fresh eggs from her girls--Rhode Island Reds--and I simply had to use them before I left town. So I found a recipe in THE ART AND SOUL OF BAKING that called for four eggs: Sour Cream Streusel Cake. Trouble was, my sour cream was a month out of date and there wasn't enough of it, so I had to go to the grocery.

Sprinkle top with streusel mix

Anyway, the recipe is pretty straightforward, so I won't go through all the steps here. I will mention, however, that since I've gotten serious about baking, I've begun to weigh my ingredients instead of measuring them--greater accuracy, you see. And I've also learned that two cups of sugar is NOT sixteen ounces, but fourteen. Solid weights differ from liquid weights, and a cup of flour or sugar is only seven ounces. (I don't make up these rules, I just accept them. One day I will have a conference with the Master of the Universe and ask why a batter can hit the ball and not get a hit, but until then I'll just dip my head in a sagacious nod. )

So you cream the sugar and butter, and then add the raw eggs by tablespoonful. Why? Because if you dump them all in at once, the batter will lose that lovely light consistency and "break" into a gelatinous mess. You can get it to whip up again, but "breaking" is considered a bad thing. If someone can explain this to me, I'm willing to listen.

Anyway, I mixed in the eggs and vanilla, then alternated mixing the flour and sour cream. Then you spread half the batter in a tube pan, sprinkle with streusel, and then top with the remaining batter and more streusel. The concoction is baking now, so I'll let you know how it comes out.

In the mean time, I have to finish a proposal (don't worry, fearless agent, it's coming) and put together a blog piece on the end of baseball season. Sniff. Sort of sad to say farewell to the boys of summer. But there's always next year.

OH--why am I baking a coffee cake when I'm heading out of town? Because I'm heading to see the Grand Baby, and I thought it'd be nice to take a cake for my daughter. :-) Nanas should never arrive empty handed. :-)

And ta da! The cake is done. I turned it upside down, thinking the underside was more attractive that the streusel-bumpy top, but you can do whatever you like. And maybe I'll dust with powdered sugar before serving. But it's all ready to go visiting, and in a bakery box, no less!

Happy baking!

~~Angie

Baseball cupcakes

2011-10-04T07:00:00.001-04:00

Bake and frost cupcakes with flesh-toned frosting (okay--mine ARE a little pale!)

My book club met Monday night, and we had read THE ART OF FIELDING, a book about (among other things), baseball.

PLUS, our St. Pete Rays were in the playoffs, so we're all pretty excited about baseball around here. To honor the occasion and the theme, I found two pictures of baseball cupcakes that looked do-able.

The first features a doughnut hole dipped in white chocolate and mounted on a grassy cupcake. The second turns a cupcake into a player's face, then adds a cap made from dipped chocolate and a chocolate-coated marshmallow cookie.

I pulled them together, but did have to make a couple of changes, none of which suited the cupcakes very well. The instructions called for the hats to be attached to the cupcake with a pretzel stick, and I didn't have any. I "glued" the hats onto the cupcake with frosting, but had to do it at an angle which obscured most of the player's "face."

Add cereal O's, jellybeans, whatever you have for facial features

The doughnut holes for the other design should have been dipped in white candy coating (again, didn't have any and neither did my grocery store), so I used white chocolate (which doesn't harden very well.) Furthermore, the only doughnut holes in the grocery store were coated in sugar, and the sugar had a tendency to resist being coated with white chocolate.

So--though my baseballs weren't as smooth and solid as I would have liked, I thought they'd do in a pinch. For a pinch hit, maybe. (Groan.)

The doughnut holes on piped "grass" frosting

So--I filled my cupcake tree with cupcakes, and away we went. You'll probably have much better luck.

Go, Rays!

From a distance, they look like baseballs, right?

~~Angie

How to Spoil Your Doggies

2011-10-03T11:48:00.001-04:00

Roll out the dough, using flour when sticky

I'd been traveling for a week, so when I came home I wanted to bake. Upon discovering that our doggie cookie jar was empty, that settled the question of what to bake. Dog treats, of course!

I've been using a recipe from FLOUR, but saw this one at King Arthur and decided to give it a try. It has peanut butter, and what dog doesn't like peanut butter?

So I mixed up the ingredients, rolled out the dough (on my new kitchen baking center--wood makes the best dough surface!) , and used my dog biscuit cookie cutter to cut a LOT of treats. I doubled the recipe because I have double the dogs. :-)

These don't puff, so you can place them side by side

I baked them for the allotted time, then kept them in the oven a while to really make sure they were crisp. The other recipe I use keeps the cookies in the oven for six to eight HOURS, so I know how important it is for the cookies to be thoroughly baked and crisp.

Result? One happy dog!

The result? Two paws up. The doggie love the cookies. They're so funny. In the morning, when I'm pulling my vitamins from the cabinet near the doggie cookie jar, Babe sits right next to the cabinet and keeps cutting her gaze from me to the cookie jar. Who says dogs can't talk? Her message is clear enough.

Caution: as the recipe says, these are relatively high-calorie treats, so one per day should be the limit for your pup.

Enjoy!

~~Angie

How I learned to make Custard . . .

2011-10-01T10:46:00.000-04:00

I'm home! I'm in the middle of clearing my desk and paying bills, but I plan on baking DOG BISCUITS later this afternoon. So I'll report on that later.

But until then, here's a post from my personal history. I've always been frightened by the idea of . . . custard!

My baking fixation has led to many hours of watching any TV show with cupcakes in it, and this practice has led to a fixation and fascination with Buddy Valastro andCake Boss. (Wouldn't you love to have an Italian family that works together and eats together all the time?) Anyway--I ordered Buddy's delightful book and after cleaning the house on Saturday, I took off to the grocery store to stock up on cake flour, eggs, butter (lots!), and confectioner's sugar.

But before I started one of Buddy's cakes (the book has recipes!), I wanted to try an ice cream recipe that I found on epicurious.com. I have an ice cream maker that I hardly ever use, so I thought I could make some ice cream and freeze it for a day when I'm NOT on a diet. Then, while the ice cream churned away, I'd start Buddy's carrot cake because that's my favorite kind of cake in all the world.

Well . . . the ice cream recipe called for only a few things: whipping cream, whole milk, sugar, eight, count 'em, EIGHT egg yolks, and a teeny bit of Frangelico. Oh--and an entire vanilla bean, sliced lengthwise.

Vanilla scrambled eggs, anyone?

Had to go to two stores before I found a vanilla bean, and I almost didn't buy them--TWO beans in a jar cost $9.99. Ten bucks! Five bucks a bean! (Since them, I've found them much cheaper online.)

But because I was in a gourmet mood and feeling pretty invincible because I've been watching so many hours of Buddy and Company, I bought the beans.

Came home and put on one of my new aprons (I'm still making them!), then poured the cream, milk, sugar, and bean into a saucepan and began to heat and stir. I have to admit, it was pretty cool to see little black flecks appear in the mix--the bits of the vanilla bean you often see in really good vanilla ice cream. Then I whipped the eight egg yolks together. I was supposed to next pour the egg whites into the milk and vanilla mixture, while not letting it boil.

I have a gas stove, so I thought if I kept stirring and kept an eye on the flame, I could keep it from boiling. So I'm stirring and stirring and suddenly, a bubble--Eeek! I quickly lower the flame, but suddenly--I mean really, all of a sudden, I find myself staring little bits of scrambled egg with vanilla flakes all through it.

Sigh. I had a sinking feeling, but I persevered. I strained the mix, following the direction, and ended up with a small bowlful of watery whey, and a big bowlful of very sweet, very spotted scrambled eggs. (I tasted them. If I hadn't been on a diet, I might have eaten them all.)

I realized all hope was lost and set the eggs aside for my dogs.

On to Buddy's cake.

He gives good directions, but I see right away that an OPTIONAL ingredient is a vanilla custard cream. I consider doing without it--especially when I see that the steps to making the custard creme are almost EXACTLY like making the ice cream-with-the-five-dollar-bean I just ruined, but I'm determined to make this like Buddy would.

So I stir in the milk and the cream and the sugar and vanilla extract (Buddy saves me a bundle of cash by not asking for the vanilla bean), and I whip the egg yolks--five of 'em--in a separate bowl, then I have to pour the eggs into the milk mixture. This time I'm so paranoid about getting the mix so hot that it scrambles the eggs that I turn the flame WAY down low, practically off.

Buddy says to beat the mix on the stove for a minute, so I do. The mix is supposed to be thick and creamy, and mine is like yellow soup. Not working. I try to convince myself that my soup looks like cream, but then I have to get real and admit that it's not. So I turn up the heat, pray, and beat for another minute, and YES! The froth disappears, the mixture thickens, and it's CREAM! I quickly turn off the flame and beat in the butter.

THANK YOU, BUDDY, FOR TEACHING ME HOW TO MAKE CUSTARD!

The rest of the recipe was fairly standard: I added carrots, sugar, cake flour, spices, the custard, walnuts, raisins, etc., and after baking I placed two cakes into the freezer--I'll defrost and frost them when I need a dessert for my book club or something.

So now I won't faint if I have to make a custard. Now, if he can only teach me how to melt chocolate without burning it . . .

I'm going away for a while . . .

2011-09-24T07:00:00.001-04:00

. . . because I'll be teaching at a writer's conference, so I doubt I'll be doing any baking. But before I go, I have to tell you about this recently-released cookbook. In fact, I wrote an Amazon review about it:

I've been on a baking binge lately, and I've gathered all the best cookbooks: FLOUR, SARABETH'S BAKERY, THE ART AND SOUL OF BAKING, MIETTE . . . and I thought I was done until I saw this. I hesitated--even at a reduced price, the book is expensive, and I didn't want to spend money on recipes I already had. But after looking through this book, I'm convinced my money was well-spent. Lisa Yockelson presents a new approach and delightfully different ways to bake: bread in a bundt, cheesecake in teacups, whatever works. Can't wait to bake my way through this book, too.

Amazon has activated the "look inside this book" feature, so you can browse for a while online. The author has included great sections on baking craft and baking terms and equipment, so it's another great teach-while-you-create book. And it's heavy! About as heavy and thick as the awesome THE ART AND SOUL OF BAKING.

SO . . . until I see you again, have a great week. And happy baking!

~~Angie, who needs to bake up a plot before she gets home!

Baking Gadget of the Week

2011-09-23T07:00:00.001-04:00

The Lame.

Used for slashing the top of a bread loaf (before baking) so the dough has room to expand.

Could also use a scalpel or the tip of a very sharp knife.

Do you use a lame? Do you know how to pronounce it? (I don't.)

What's the prettiest pattern you've ever seen slashed into a loaf of bread?

And I must confess: I got a beautiful new pie plate this week and was dying to try it--so I skipped ahead to the pie section of THE ART AND SOUL OF BAKING and made a butterscotch pie. Yum!

~~Angie

The Rustic Olive Thyme Bread

2011-09-22T07:00:00.015-04:00

The finished loaf.

As I mentioned in a previous post, I was tempted to skip this recipe--or engage in some creative substitutions--but I discovered that my neighbor's family loves olives and my hubby does, too. So despite the fact that the sight and smell of olives makes my nose hairs curl, I went down to the grocery and picked up a jar.

And continued to make the Rustic Olive Thyme Bread.

But let me back up. Many breads actually begin the day before--in fact, the most flavorful breads begin hours before and begin to ferment, bubble, and percolate long before you roll them out. Sometimes you inherit a "mother" or "starter" or "sponge" from your great aunt Lizzy, sometimes you can grow you own from the bacteria on grapes (but you'd better be prepared to feed it every four hours around the clock. Demanding little babies, they are).

But if you have access to that great invention called "packaged yeast" (I use active dry yeast), you can start your own starter the night before in one of two forms: a biga or a poolish (and boy, my auto-correct is going crazy). A biga, when put together, will look like a soft dough, while a poolish will look more like batter--IOW, it's thinner. You usually let these sit out for a few hours or cover and put them in the refrigerator. A poolish will keep longer than a biga, but check your recipe for directions.

The first rise in the bucket. It more than doubled.

Now--yeast needs to activate in water between 105 and 115 degrees, no hotter, no cooler. This will seem only slightly warmer than your body temperature, but I prefer to actually nail it with a thermometer. When I began my first poolish last night, the temp was 115-116, and when the yeast didn't look like it was doing anything after ten minutes, I poured it out and started again. (Better to loose a little than to loose a lot later because you have dead yeast.) On my second attempt, I made sure the water was more like 108 degrees, and the yeast did fine, though it still didn't look like much in that watery mix.

Next day, let the poolish sit out on the counter to adjust to room temperature while you gather all the ingredients for your bread. (I actually had to run out for those olives). When I came back, I tossed all the ingredients PLUS the poolish into the bowl of my stand mixer.

My mixer story: Sixteen years ago I bought a Kitchenaid stand mixer. Loved it. Used it. And the other day I was using it to make a HUGE batch of bread dough, and the poor thing struggled. And I smelled something burning. So I turned it off, let it cool, and finished my kneading by hand.

Bannetons. (Look on eBay).

Later that night, I tried to take the machine apart to see if I saw any burnt wires, etc. Saw nothing, so I called the Kitchenaid help line. The gal there said to take the phone into the kitchen and turn on the machine so she could hear the motor. I attempted this, but when I turned it on . . . nothing. Dead as a doornail.

Bummer. I had already decided to order another mixer and give the old one to my daughter, but I couldn't give her a dead machine. So I looked around online and found a nice refurbished model on Overstock.com. Ordered that one and set my old one out with the trash.

And then, while I was nosing around e-Bay, I found these little thingamajigs--and I recognized them because I'd pulled them out of my machine when I took it apart. Seems they have to be put back in a VERY particular way, using tiny little markers. So I pulled mine out, put them in properly, and the machine worked.

Place dough in basket, coat with oil.

What to do? I went from having no mixers to having three. I could send my daughter's mixer back and revert to plan A, but I didn't want to give her an old mixer when I'd already ordered a new one. So I decided to keep the old workhorse. Who knows? Some day I may have a bake off in my kitchen, or I might be letting my granddaughter make something in one corner while I make something in another. In any case, such a reliable machine deserves to be treated with a little respect. I'm so glad I pulled it back out of the trash heap, and I thank the Lord that our trash man hadn't come yet.

Anyway--once you've put together the dough and the olives, you let it rise for two hours. You can see pictures of the beginning and ending of that process.

After the dough has risen, you shape it into two loaves and place in a banneton--a basket for proofing bread. You place it in seam-side-up, because you want those lovely ridges in your finished bread. After it has risen again, you carefully turn the basket over onto a baking sheet.

I think I "deflated" my round loaf because I flipped it over with too much gusto. I flipped the oval basket more gently, and that dough did fine.

And so--ta da! Olive bread. I promptly walked one loaf to my neighbor, and will have to get my hubby to eat the other. Give me pecans and fruit any day. :-)

Would you like olive bread? Did you try this recipe?

~~Angie

The World's Best Cinnamon Rolls

2011-09-21T07:00:00.003-04:00

This is for Suzanne, who said she wanted to make luscious cinnamon rolls. I stumbled across a recipe the other day, made the rolls, and ohmigoodness. They are to die for, and best of all, I didn't have to deal with all that sticky syrupy mess that so often accompanies cinnamon rolls.

You can find the recipe here, at King Arthur Flours. King Arthur flours are just about the best you can get in this country, and you can find the unbleached all-purpose in your grocery store.

I made this recipe and opted for the ordinary thing every time--vanilla instead of the butter flavoring, the homemade cinnamon spread instead of the fancy pre- made mixture, plus I skipped the grape seed whatever the recipe called for. Plus, I was so excited to roll those things up that I didn't bother with making them look like little mountains--I simply rolled it all into a huge log, cut it into 12 pieces, and then dropped each piece into a muffin tin.

And boy, were they delicious! I took some across the street and my neighbors loved them, too. Really easy and absolutely delicious. (And I should have taken pictures!)

And the only "pastry work" is simply rolling out the dough and then smearing it with the cinnamon/sugar mix that you mix up yourself. And nuts! I adore pecans. (What southerner doesn't?)

So here's a delicious something to start your day--or weekend--off right.

BTW, the next recipe in The Art and Soul of Baking is an olive bread . . . and I despise olives. I'm going to see if I can find a reasonable substitution (cherries?), but if I can't, I might skip that one. Ewww. Can't think of anything that sounds worse, except maybe lima bean bread. :-P

Have a great day!

~~Angie

First Recipe in The Art and Soul of Baking

2011-09-20T07:00:00.001-04:00

Ta da! One beautiful finished loaf.

Old Fashioned White Loaf. Sounds simple, doesn't it?

And it was. Honestly.

I pretty much followed the directions as written, except that I chose to sprinkle the top of my loaf with some "artisan bread topping" I found at King Arthur flour. (And they have GREAT free recipes!) It adds a touch of unexpected flavor.

The first rise took a full hour, and I used one of those handy six quart buckets (purchased at Amazon after I bought Artisan Breads in Five Minutes a Day. More on that book later.)

After an hour, the dough had doubled in size.

Ready for the oven.

So I shaped it (very simple!) and put it in my bread dish. It had risen beautifully even before the 45 minutes was up, so I applied the test explained in THE ART AND SOUL OF BAKING (hereafter known as TASB). To wit: I pushed my thumb into the side of the expanded loaf. If it filled back in rapidly, the rise wasn't done. If it didn't fill in at all, the bread was almost over proofed. If it filled back in slowly, the bread was perfect.

My thumb indentation barely filled in at all, so I knew I had to get that puppy in the oven. So I brushed on the egg wash, sprinkled it with the seeds and whatnot in the artisan bread topping, and settled in to watch the end of SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION as the bread baked.

Took it out after about 45 minutes, and it looked beautiful. BUT--I've taken out beautiful loaves before, only to have them collapse a few minutes later because they weren't done. So I used another tip I learned from TASB, and that was to stab it with an instant read thermometer. If the bread is 200 degrees or better in the center, it's done.

So I did, and it was. Done.

I let it cool overnight, then this morning I wrapped it in plastic, put it in a large storage bag, sucked the air out with a straw, and put it in the freezer. We'll either eat it later or I'll give it to someone with a pretty bow tied around it. :-)

Babe oversees my projects.

Shaped and in the pan.

So--that first recipe is easy. And if you want to try it, go to the Amazon link, click on "look inside this book" and search for "old fashioned white loaf." You should be able to get a good look at the instructions--and maybe enough of a look to try the recipe before you buy the book.

And a note to Pamela, whose baked goods taste good but don't always LOOK good--I've been in that boat, too, and I've realized that sometimes it takes practice to make the thing look good. The "failure" can come from some little thing like not having eggs at room temperature, not having butter at room temp, or one of those other little details that the typical recipe doesn't tell you. :-/ But it's practice that makes perfect, so give it another go! :-)

~~Angie

P.S. Sorry that my pictures seem to come out in reverse order. I'll have to work on that.

P.S.S. I've found a way you can post photos (videos, even) of YOUR creations! There's now a Lovin' Oven Bakery page on Facebook, and you can upload your media there. Be sure to tell us what you made and if you were happy with it. :-)

How could you miss the Sweet and Salty Cake?

2011-09-19T07:31:00.001-04:00

So last week I took a risk and baked a three-layer cake I actually wasn't sure I'd like. I mean, the top of the chocolate cake is sprinkled with SALT. Yep, you read that right.

But Oprah loves this cake (she's not my usual standard for value judgments), and the guys at the BAKED bakery said it was their best-seller. So I bought their cookbook, BAKED, and found it delightfully different from most of the usual recipe books.

And then I baked their cake. All three layers, one carmel topping, and one chocolate ganache topping later, I had created a beautiful cake that didn't crack and didn't lean. Best of all, it tasted . . . amazing. So good there wasn't a crumb left.

And to be fair, there's not that much salt. (There's a lot of BUTTER.) Some of the salt goes into the caramel topping that gets painted on between layers, and some of it is sprinkled on the top (I sprinkled it lightly, but I used rough sea salt, which tends to clump, so occasionally I did get a crunchy mouthful.)

But it was still delicious.

So--if you want to try this great cake, you can get the cookbook BAKED (I'm dying to try the Root Beer Bundt next), or you can simply go here. Be forewarned--the online recipe differs slightly from the one in the book, so I can't swear to its accuracy. You might want to read the comments and watch your cake carefully in the oven.

Yes, I know I said I'd be cooking through THE ART AND SOUL OF BAKING, but on days when I don't have TIME to bake, I'll fill in with something else I've tried . . . for better or for worse. ;-)

~~Angie

Welcome to the Lovin' Oven!

2011-09-18T15:46:00.000-04:00

So . . . I don't know why I think the world needs yet another blog, but here goes. THE LOVIN OVEN is meant to be a chronicle of my baking ventures--most of which will arise as I bake my way through THE ART AND SOUL OF BAKING by Sur la table and Cindy Mushet.

No, no, I'm not going to cook my way through a Julia Child book--that's cooking, and I'm into baking. Huge difference.

After a few great pages of baking basics, the authors begin with the staff of life: BREAD. Everybody ready?

I began baking some months ago with cupcakes--I thought it'd be fun to bake theme cupcakes for my monthly book club. Then that transferred to pies and cakes, then to bread, then I took a bread class and a pastry class. and all the while I've been getting cookbooks and making things--some turned out great, some we'd rather not talk about.

And last night, as I looked at a loaf of chocolate bread that didn't quite smell or look as luscious as I wanted it to, I decided that I needed a more disciplined approach. It's the only way I'll be able to tell if it's ME that's at fault, or if it's just not a good recipe.

So--as I have time, I'm going to be baking my way through THE ART AND SOUL OF BAKING. Why this book instead of AMY'S BREAD, or FLOUR, or Sarabeth's, or any of the other wonderful cookbooks out there?

Because THE ART AND SOUL OF BAKING is as close to a baking textbook as I've seen. It lists all the common ingredients, tools, and terms, and patiently explains what they mean and why they're important in the baking business.

Since I've invested a lot of time (and money, now--I go through a LOT of flour) in baking, I decided to set my next book in a bakery--The Lovin' Oven Bakery, to be precise. So don't be surprised if some of my characters decide to pop in.

One note: because I want to be respectful of copyright, I won't be posting word-for-word recipes, though I will share the source on this blog. (Or, if I find it online, I'll post a link). Along with lots of photos--I do hope you'll join me in this baking adventure! It'll be fun, I promise!

I'd love to see photos of your victories and your oopsies. :-) I'll share mine!

So: if you want to join us, you'll need a copy of THE ART AND SOUL OF BAKING. (Buy it used--much cheaper). By the way, Sur la Table is a very reasonable site for bakeware, etc. :-) Even if you don't want to "bake along" with us, I hope you'll check in a couple of times a week to see what we're up to. I know it's going to take me several months to get this book up, going, and gone, so we'll be here a while.

Sort of what a brioche should look like.

What my brioche looked like.

And now, for comic relief, I'll leave you with some pictures of my brioche--which are supposed to look like a muffin with a little ball on top. LOL! I learn best by trial and error.

So--what is the thing (or two things) that you've always wanted to bake but never thought you could? Pastry swans? Eclairs? Multi-story cakes? Do tell!

~~Angie