Mom

February 1929

Remembering Bernice Audrey VanHalsema VandenBerg 8/09/1927-11/15/2024. My caring, smiling, loving mother has left this earth for another place - a heaven that she has been ready to welcome with open arms. Steve and I, my siblings and their spouses and my entire extended family are rejoicing in her life and thankful that the ups and downs she experienced in recent weeks are now behind her.

My baking has taken a back seat over the past couple of months, but I hope to be back in the kitchen and writing of more baking adventures soon.

For those of you in West Michigan/Grand Rapids, I’m putting a pause on offering any baking/pastry classes for the foreseeable future. I wish all of you a joyful and peaceful holiday season.

Rest in peace Mom. Love you.

June 2015

Autumn 2024

Hi everyone! It’s been a number of weeks since my spate of posts in August/early September. While I had hoped I’d have some baking projects to share with you during this my very favorite month of the year, alas, a variety of life events have taken up both Steve’s and my time and attention.

Our October days of late have been pristine, crisp, bright and beautiful with brilliant blue skies and colors that have been late in coming but are now popping out all over. The changing slant of the sun’s rays gives the light an ethereal quality, and the recent full moon only added to the thrill of the natural world we experience.

A bit fuzzy but you get the drift

I’m itching to make a caramel apple tarte to go with the butter pecan or vanilla ice cream that I managed to make with a bit of available kitchen time these past weeks. Now I just have to whip up a fresh batch of pâte brisée and fill it with some of the wonderful Michigan apples we’ve been eating.

Did you know Michigan is in the top three apple producing states in the US? Yes sir!

Here’s just one example of a caramel apple tarte I made for a family supper earlier this year.

Yum!

Anyhoo! I’m plotting out some cookie projects for a couple of upcoming classes. Here’s one I tested back in the summer. It’s a Scandinavian recipe and quite tasty indeed. I’m calling them caramel/almond slices.

I also plan to test out some meringue type recipes using aquafaba (chickpea water) in place of egg whites for a vegan dacquoise/passionfruit/raspberry dessert - hope it turns out.

Meanwhile I hope all of you are enjoying your autumn baking and experimenting with new things. Here’s to sharing more goodies with you in the upcoming weeks.

Take care!

Maple blueberry almond butter teacakes

These craggy, chunky, fruity, crumbly teacakes are delicious! I mentioned them back in a “puttering in the kitchen” update back in August, 2020 when I first gave the recipe a try. I discovered it on the foil lid of a Siggi’s yogurt container and did a couple of different versions then. It calls for almond butter, an ingredient I’d like to use more often. Since I purchased a fresh jar of said butter a few weeks back, I thought it was time to give it another go.

Here’s the recipe and my mise below. Lots going on here but once you have all your ingredients laid out, the prep is very straight forward. Think calm, organized, methodical and you’ll be just fine.

My flour mix is all purpose, almond, spelt and dark rye (or whole wheat pastry) - play around with your own mix. The sweetener is a blend of maple syrup, dark brown sugar and honey in amounts that play down the sweetness. When I first made these, they seemed a bit flat on the taste buds, but once one gets used to the reduced sugar content, the other ingredients offer new found cake enjoyment.

Mise

In a medium bowl blend dry ingredients - flours, baking powder, baking soda and salt.

In a separate larger bowl whisk together milk, almond butter, maple syrup, brown sugar, honey, egg, vanilla and yogurt. Whew!

Dry and wet ready to blend

Fold dry ingredients into wet in three additions.

All blended up

Fill your chosen molds about 3/4 full. As many of you know I’m a sucker for Silikomart silicone molds in various shapes and sizes (set them on a wire grid placed in a half sheet pan - better air circulation for even baking). This time I went with one of my newer shapes - a pleasing rounded rectangle of sorts. Press a few blueberries into the tops and cover with streusel.

My streusel topping is made by blending 50 g / 1/4 cup sugar, 100g / 3/4 cup all purpose flour (or whole wheat pastry) and a large pinch of salt in a medium bowl. Then sand in 70 g / 5 tablespoons cool, diced unsalted butter to coarse crumbs and stir in 30 g toasted sliced almonds. Give the cakes a generous coverage even though it looks messy. And remember - if you’re making streusel, double or triple or quadruple your batch and stash the extra in the freezer for next time. Nothing like planning ahead.

Bake at 400ºF for 20-25 minutes. Look for a tester to come out clean.

All craggy and crunchy

Let cool in the molds about 10 minutes then release the cakes onto a cooling rack. When baking plain cakes in silicone molds, I simply lift up an edge, tilt and let each cake fall out onto a rack, but when streusel/crumble is involved, it can be a little tricky to get them out of the molds. I pick up a corner, tilt it and gradually push each cake up from the bottom as you ease it out. You’ll lose some streusel in the process but just be gentle and go for it. Finish cooling on racks or sneak one while it’s still a bit warm.

The cake is nicely moist and the blueberries and streusel add just the right combo of flavors and textures. These keep for 2-3 days in a covered container at room temp and also freeze well for several weeks.

Have fun with it!

It’s still summer by the calendar, but we’ve already had a few crisp chilly nights in the 40s. I’m looking forward to the official start of autumn - anyone wish to predict the first frost?

Cheery late summer blooms

French Tarte Faves (FTF) No. 2: pots de crème

OK! My first FT FAVE post was on financiers in early June. Next up - pots de crème!

Custards have been one of my favorite things since as far back as I can remember. Back in the 50s and 60s, as more and more foods became available in “convenient” form, Mom glommed onto Jello brand pudding mixes, making the stovetop-cooked versions which were WAY better than the instant variety that came later. Vanilla still warm, topped with chocolate chips so they got all melty; butterscotch with chopped walnuts; chocolate with mini marshmallows. Oh those were the days. I would always snag one of my sibs portions (thanks Joybell for not liking pudding!) for an extra treat.

As I contemplate which FTFs I’d like to post about, I realize that I’ve covered many of them over the years in some way, shape or form. I see it as my chance to review and share a bit more about them as I update recipes and links (which believe me is no small task!).

This particular topic begs to include a discussion of custards in general but that becomes a bit overwhelming. I did write up a mini primer on custards that will give you a sense of the range that ingredient portions can take and how you can adjust them.

The custards I make most commonly are crème anglaise for ice cream bases; crème pâtissière as filling for profiteroles and tartes (or blending with crème d’amandes for frangipane - think galette des rois) and this post’s (and my!) particular fave, pots de crème. Think Jello pudding a thousand times better.

Briefly: the first two custards mentioned above are stove topped cooked versions, the primary difference being that crème pat (as the Brits call it) contains a thickener like flour or cornstarch (or a blend of both) and is brought to a boil to thicken/cook it. Crème anglaise on the other hand contains only egg yolk, dairy and sugar and is cooked to the nappe stage (thick enough to coat the back of a spoon), not boiled ‘cuz the eggs will cook and curdle. My standard ice cream base is a version of crème anglaise - flavor variations are endless as you can see here.

Even on hot summer days, working in the cooler morning hours, one can whip up pots de crème in a low oven and have them ready for a dessert treat that evening. Even better - they keep for several days in the fridge!

My favorite pots de crème are chocolate, maple, butterscotch, cappuccino and lemon (links are to each recipe).

The header image is the maple version (recipe compliments of Sur La Table) which I adorned with maple walnut shortbread, Chantilly and toasted, chopped walnuts. Love it! Truth be told, the garnishing is half the fun. It doesn’t have to be fancy, no sirree. Fresh berries and a favorite crumble will do the trick.

Petite lemon pots

The steps of preparation are essentially the same for all recipes but I’ll talk a bit about a couple of variations that add that certain something to the end result. I don’t want to bore you with too much detail, but I’ll also provide a few process pictures.

Below is prep for the butterscotch version which starts by making an easy “caramel”: melt 56 g / 2 ounces unsalted butter in a medium saucepan then blend in 200 g / 1 cup brown sugar, one cup of heavy cream and a tablespoon of vanilla extract or vanilla bean paste until smooth. That step can be done a bit ahead and the mixture set aside. You’ll blend three more cups of heavy cream and 1/2 teaspoon salt into it and bring it to a simmer on medium heat.

Once I have my dairy/sugar mixture heating up, I separate my eggs as close to the tempering step as possible - that way they don’t sit too long and get shriveled. In this case the yolks are kept separate but note that some recipes have you whisk half of the sugar with the dairy and half with the egg yolks before the tempering step. In that case, whisk the yolk/sugar mixture thoroughly and aggressively until it becomes pale and thicker. If you let yolks and sugar just sit, the sugar can “burn” the yolks and they’ll get all grainy.

Preparing butterscotch pots de crème

When I first made butterscotch pots, I used a mix of 660 ml / 2.75 cups heavy cream and 300 ml / 1.25 cups milk. The end result wasn’t as thick as I like but the flavor was superb. And I saved some of the base, chilled it for a day or two in the fridge then processed into a most delicious ice cream. Yum! NOTE: the recipe link gives you an ALL cream version for pots de crème. If you want to make it into ice cream, use the cream/milk mix.

Butterscotch pots - too loosey goosey for me!

Here’s a lemon version so creamy and tart. The twist here is, rather than replacing a portion of dairy with freshly squeezed lemon juice and adding lemon zest, this one involves reducing a lemon zested simple syrup that is ultimately added to the custard at the end. A nice punch of flavor.

For the syrup you zest a couple of medium to large lemons and rub the zest into 50 g / 1/4 cup sugar; then squeeze yourself 180 ml / 3/4 cup fresh lemon juice and blend it all together.

Mise for lemon simple syrup

Bring to a boil then reduce the heat and continue on a low boil to reduce down to 1/2 cup, stirring periodically.

Coming along nicely

Then you’ll follow along with the base recipe, blending in the reduced simple syrup at the end.

I typically bake my pots at 325º F conventional OR 300ºF convection. Both work although total baking times vary.

Carefully fill the ramekins to about 1/4” below the rim.

Ramekins just filled and ready for the oven

Pour hot water into the baking dish until it reaches half way up the ramekins. No splashing!!

Cover loosely with foil and bake 35-45 minutes. Some pots take longer - I usually check things at about 25 minutes then continue checking until the edges are set and there’s a quarter size jiggly circle in the center. Remember - every oven is different!

Carefully lift the ramekins out of the water bath and place on a wire grid.

Just out of the oven, cooling

Once the custards have cooled to room temperature, chill them in the fridge for several hours. If not serving that day, cover with plastic wrap, keep refrigerated and enjoy over the next several days. So delicious!

I haven’t made the cappuccino version for awhile but looking back over my recipes, I found a note from way back in May of 2010 when I made a batch for a dinner gathering. I wasn’t taking photos of my stuff back then (Steve was my official pastry photographer). I garnished that one with almond nougatine and Chantilly cream. Basically you could add instant espresso powder to any base - hmmmm, should be good in butterscotch or chocolate or maybe even maple.

Chocolate is the flavor I make most often. Check out this post from early pandemic days (6/22/20) where I describe the steps and also create a frozen treat from the same base. Cool!

Enough of all that! I hope I’ve given you an understandable summary and some good recipe variations for you to try. Be creative with your garnishing and have fun with it.

Lemon/chantilly/raspberries with financier on the side

It’s September and baking season is comin’ at ya!

Wild grapes

Citrus olive oil almond flour yogurt cake

Wow! That title is one heck of a mouthful. Here’s another cake quickie with more citrus coming at ya! I’ve shared a couple of other citrus cake beauties with you in recent months - orange and lemon - and this one sort of rounds those out as summer wanes. Soon I’ll be gearing up for autumn with buttery pâte brisée, croissant and puff laminated doughs, nutty/caramel-y tartes and so much more.

While citrus is typically heralded during winter and early spring, the flavors marry so beautifully with summer fruits - lime with strawberry or cherry; lemon with raspberry or blueberry; orange with blackberry come immediately to mind. You’ll find many recipes for things like fruit crisps, jams, fruit sauces or purées that call for a squeeze of lemon juice to brighten flavors. I’m on board.

One lazy warm summer afternoon as I was reviewing recipes from various sources, this one caught my eye. It’s from Aleksandra Crapanzano’s book “Gâteau” which offers a wonderful array of simple classic French cakes. There’s a section specifically focused on yogurt cakes in which she offers some interesting versions and flavor choices. This is one of them. And besides - I had yogurt and some almond flour to use up! It’s a straight forward prep that doesn’t even require a mixer. Nice!

I first wrote about the French approach to a simple yogurt cake here. And you’ll find an orange olive oil cake here - I made this one during the early weeks of the pandemic when I was abuzz with free time and the need to bake.

As is often my wont when making a loaf cake, I use my mom’s longer, narrower Mirro loaf pan which gives a slimmer, less bulky looking end result. I like that. Butter, line with parchment, then butter and raw sugar coat it for that hint of a sugar crunchy edged result.

Here’s the recipe PDF. My mise is below where you can see I decided on a mix of lemon, orange and lime zests which I rubbed into the sugar to release the oils. I’m sure many of you know that trick. Eggs should be at room temp. I use Chobani whole milk plain yogurt and a fruity Italian extra virgin olive oil (EVOO). I’ve been using Mandelin blanched almond flour for several years now - I used to order the 5 lb bag from the company but you can now find it on Amazon. Costco sells 3 pound bags of their Kirkland brand at a decent price too.

All mised up

In a large mixing bowl whisk the eggs, yogurt, sugar/zests, EVOO, vanilla and almond extracts. Blend in almond flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt then sift in the all purpose flour and blend. Remember - the recipe is here just for you!

Flour is the final addition

I thought I’d try a suggested variation of sprinkling sliced almonds on top before baking, but once I had done that I said to myself “Susan - these babies are going to sink - I should have added them after the cake had started to set”. Guess what - I was right. Down they went! Sometimes our brains tell us something for good reason.

Almonds soon to disappear!

The cake bakes at 350ºF about 40-45 minutes until a tester comes out clean. Even though the almonds sunk, the result was a lovely golden brown with a pleasing aroma of citrus.

Next time I’ll wait about half way through the bake before sprinkling almonds on top. Or, even better, forget the added almonds and check out some serving suggestions below.

No almonds to be seen

Let cool about 10-15 minutes. Rather than lifting it out of the pan, I opted to turn it out so the bottom side ended up top. Looks pretty good to me. I think I see a fleck or two of sunken almonds.

Moist, tender and citrus scented, serve a simple slice with an afternoon cup of tea or coffee. For a light dessert, serve with Chantilly, a sprinkle of fresh berries and toasted or candied sliced almonds. Or amp it up a notch and top with a scoop of vanilla ice cream, warm berry sauce and a crunchy crumble. I think you’ll like it.

I see some almonds!!

Autumn is coming! Yay!

Classic plum torte

Hi again! This one will be a quicky. Just wanted you to know about this if you aren’t already familiar with it. Perfect for fresh summer fruit nestled in a buttery cake. The recipe comes from Marian Burros and was published in the NYT every September from 1983 to 1989. Then readers were so bummed when it went AWOL that the Times makes sure the recipe is easily available for everyone. Play around with different fruits - I shared a peach/blueberry version with you back in an autumn update in 2022. You can add spices, sub in different flours - make it your own.

Here I’m using a mix of red and yellow plums from Nyblad, my favorite fruit vendor at the Fulton Farmers Market here in Grand Rapids. Now’s the time!

All mised up

It couldn’t be simpler and the results are delicious. You can choose an 8”, 9” or 10” pan such as a springform or round cake pan. Some folks double the recipe and bake it in a 9”x13” pan. I like to use my 8” springform - the end result is so pleasing to me. The coriander and ginger are my choices. You could add cinnamon if you’re of a mind.

Here goes. Heat oven to 350ºF. Butter the bottom of your pan, place a round of parchment in the bottom then butter/flour bottom and sides of the pan.

Cream 150 g / 3/4 cup sugar with 113 g / 4 ounces softened unsalted butter. Blend in 130 g / 1 cup unbleached all purpose flour (I do half all purpose and 1/2 whole wheat pastry flour), 1 teaspoon baking powder, 1/2 teaspoon coriander, a pinch of ginger, a pinch of salt and 2 large eggs. Beat well.

Transfer batter to the prepared pan, smooth top and place plum sections skin side up on the batter. Sprinkle top with granulated or turbinado sugar, 1/2 teaspoon coriander and a little lemon juice.

Marian’s original recipe calls for 24 halves of pitted purple plums. I eyeballed it, cut mine into narrower slices and had plenty for my needs. I like the mix of red and yellow skins.

Oooooh boy! Going in . . . .

Bake about one hour. Remove from oven, let cool about 10 minutes then release the springform ring. I carefully slide a long offset spatula underneath and slide the cake off the parchmented pan bottom. Cool fully on a wire rack.

Enjoy as is or top with a scoop of vanilla ice cream or Chantilly. The cake freezes well for some weeks - be sure it’s well wrapped. Thaw at room temperature and warm briefly at 300º if desired.

More fun coming up - I’m on a roll!

Here’s a natural beauty I’m seeing along my walking route. Enjoy nature - it’s the best.

Elderberry bush

Baking with rye flour: cookies two ways

Hi! The days continue to fly by! It’s been awhile since I’ve posted but I have a few drafts in the hopper on projects I accomplished during the cooler weeks of late spring/summer. I’ve worked on them helter-skelter without giving myself enough time to finish and publish them.

In the coming weeks I hope to share a citrus yogurt olive oil loaf cake, maple blueberry almond butter cakes, a classic plum torte and the second topic in my recently launched FAVE series - pots de crème. Leaning more toward simple and delicious cakes seems more appropriate for warm summer days, especially when fresh local fruits are teeming at the farmers markets. It’s best to leave the laminated dough and flaky pâte brisée for the cooler months.

Summer plum torte

My days are peppered with regular exercising, admiring late summer flowers along the paths, recipe writing and organization, planning for autumn classes through our local school district’s adult enrichment program, looking into a couple of small home improvement projects, hosting family, celebrating birthdays (including Mom’s 97th!) and anniversaries, along with a grand cousins’ reunion to boot. That’s summer for ya!

Classic summer - black eyed susans!

Enough of all that. Let’s talk rye!

On a late spring trip up to Traverse City to met up with friends Patty and Paul, we enjoyed a variety of food and wine adventures. One was a visit to Farm Club, a calming and beautiful spot in the countryside outside TC. A blend of restaurant, brewery, farm gardens and market, it’s an enjoyable way to spend a couple of hours on a beautiful afternoon no matter the season. We happened to be there over the Memorial Day weekend, enjoying a delicious lunch and taking advantage of a bit of shopping in their eclectic market.

Bags of recently milled rye flour on the shelf caught my eye and so it was that I came home with one of said bags. Although the staff there that day couldn’t give me the particulars as to whether it was dark, medium or light rye, I wanted to see what I might do with it once back in Grand Rapids.

I compared it with the stone ground dark rye from Bob’s Red Mill that I’ve been using for awhile and found it to be a whole grain, coarser grind with bran, germ and endosperm clearly visible.

For some time now I’ve been incorporating rye flour into some of my breads, rolls, tart doughs, puff pastry and cake batters, seeing how it marries with all purpose, whole wheat, spelt and nut flours. So far I enjoy the deeper, nutty taste it imparts. Rye is lower in gluten than wheat flours so the two are often combined to give that just right texture and somewhat earthy flavor that one might be looking for in their baked goods. Plus rye has some nutritional benefits - better control of blood sugar, high dietary fiber, some help with cholesterol reduction and it contains important B-vitamins and certain minerals like magnesium, iron and potassium.

My goal this time around is to share a couple of rye chocolate chunk cookie recipes. The steps are familiar to many since both of these are made very much like a standard chocolate chip cookie.

If you prefer not to scroll through the post (I know I do go on and on sometimes), here’s the link to recipe one using both rye and all purpose flour, chopped chocolate and dried tart cherries; the cookies are toasty blond (header photo) like many chocolate chip cookies. Recipe two uses all rye flour and contains cocoa powder to give the cookies a through and through chocolate look.

First up - this one is based on a recipe from Mokonuts, a cafe/bakery in Paris’ 11th arr. which I learned about from Dorie Greenspan, the prolific cookbook author and Paris guru that I’ve admired for many years. I made these once a while back and have been wanting to revisit them. How about now?!

Mokonuts makes them with dried cranberries but I went with Michigan dried cherries, typically a staple in my baking cupboard. Chocolate chunks and poppy seeds add to the interesting mix. Here’s the recipe with the mise below. A picture says a thousand words.

All mised up

The plan ahead prep includes cubing 140 g / 5 ounces unsalted butter which should be at cool room temp and chopping 113 g / 4 ounces of chocolate. My cherries needed a little pick me up so I soaked them in hot water for a bit then drained them and paper toweled dry. I like my cookies on the small side so I snipped the cherries into smaller bits.

I used a combo of the Bob’s Red Mill dark rye and the Farm Club whole grain rye along with all purpose. Here’s the familiar cookie drill: dry ingredients whisked together in a separate bowl; butter and sugars creamed in the mixer; egg blended in; dry ingredients blended in then add cherries, chocolate and poppy seeds.

For awhile now there’s been a much greater emphasis in the cookie world on refrigerating cookie dough overnight for a more chewy yet crispy end result. That’s the case here. Scoop out your chosen portions and store them in the fridge overnight in a covered container or on a parchment lined sheet pan covered with plastic wrap. You can store them close together then spread them out for baking. I used a 25 g volume scoop for a not too huge end result and my yield was 34 cookies.

The dough should remain cold until ready to bake so get your oven heating to 425ºF and when it’s ready, space your cold dough balls about 2 inches apart and pop ‘em in the oven!

Bake one sheet at a time. If you only have one sheet pan, make sure it’s completely cool and the dough cold before baking the second round. Bake about 10 minutes, remove from the oven and tap the tops lightly with a small spatula. Let them rest a few minutes then transfer to a cooling rack.

Et voilà

Yum! Nicely crisp with a center chew and the chocolate/cherry combo is divine. Yes.

As if you haven’t had enough yet, the second recipe is from Brontë Aurell’s book “Brontë at Home”, this one using cocoa powder blended in with the dry ingredients to yield an obviously chocolate end result.

All mised up

For the prep, coarsely chop 100 g / 2/3 cup chocolate - I used my Guittard 61% discs - OR use either milk or dark chocolate chips. Melt 150 g / 11 tablespoons unsalted butter and set aside to cool. Blend dry ingredients (rye flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, salt) in a separate bowl. I used solely the Farm Club whole grain rye flour for this one. Mise out both brown and granulated sugars in a small bowl. One egg plus one yolk, 2 tablespoons of milk and 1 teaspoon vanilla extract round out the roster. If you prefer, scrape the seeds of one vanilla bean into your dry ingredients. Don’t forget to save that pod!! Let it dry and pop it into a container of granulated sugar.

This dough is wetter than the first and also needs a chill. In this case, wrap it as one in plastic wrap and refrigerate a few hours or overnight. The chilled dough is much easier to scoop out the next day.

I opted for two different sizes, one using my smallest one tablespoon scoop, each weighing in at 15 g. My next size up scoop is slightly less than 2 tablespoons and those weighed in ~ 25 g. I simply wanted to see how each baked up.

Answer - pretty much the same, apart from size. They bake about 8-10 minutes at 375ºF/190ºC. My yield: 18 of the 25 g; 24 of the 15 g. If making all the 25 g size, the yield should be around 33 cookies.

I like these! An interesting whole grain chew with a nutty hint, just the right cocoa-ness and not too sweet. Steve liked ‘em too!

I admit I’d give the cherry chocolate chunk version higher marks but both of these cookies have qualities many will enjoy. While cookies are always best freshly baked, both versions keep in a covered container over 2-3 days. But my go to method is freezing them in ziptop bags and popping a few out when the craving hits. They’re delicious cold!

Enjoy the remaining summer everyone and have fun! Autumn is just around the corner.

Lemon Cake

OK, so I’m on a bit of a cake kick lately. Being a lover of laminated pastry projects, breads, rolls, pizza dough, financiers/teacakes, shortbread cookies, tarts, and ice cream for our home larder (and the occasional order request) throughout the year, I’ve become more and more intrigued by the vast array of cake recipes out there. New cake related books seem to be popping up more and more.

Truth be told, baking full sized straight forward cakes like this one is less work than multiple small cakes, particularly when garnishing is involved, plus they’re great to take to cookouts or family gatherings or share with neighbors. Please NOTE: I’m not talking multi-layer, highly decorated cakes here which I know take a LOT of time and creativity by those who choose to follow that path. Kudos to those artists!

Again inspired by FOOD52’s “Genius Desserts”, this lemon cake is from Maida Heatter and her daughter Toni Evins and is offered up in the cakes section of this wonderful book as one of the “Lazy Cakes”. These are the ones that involve making the batter, spreading it into a prepped pan and baking - no layers, no garnishing or frostings, just cake, brushed with lemon glaze right out of the oven.

Mise en place

The recipe calls for a 9 inch tube pan so I opted for my mom’s angel food cake pan that has been around a looooonng time. I became its keeper when Mom moved to assisted living right before the pandemic.

This cake recipe has been around for many years. Just google “Maida Heatter’s East 62nd Street Lemon Cake” and you’ll find it from many sources. My goal here is to simply share my experience with this one - I’ll outline the ingredients/steps below but you can easily find this recipe online.

One trick that Maida Heatter used in her cakes was in the pan prep - rather than butter/flour, she replaces the flour with fine dry bread crumbs. In my case I went with crushed up plain panko. Using crumbs avoids any flour residue that might be left after baking and also helps the cake release more easily from the pan.

Floured and panko’d

The process is straight forward. Plan a bit ahead - butter (2 sticks) soft, eggs (4) at room temperature and milk (one cup) is OK cool/cold or room temp.

Heat the oven to 350ºF. Prep the pan. You’ll need 3 cups / 350 g SIFTED all purpose flour (weighing vs measuring, sifting or not - now those are separate topics for discussion!) and blend it with 2 teaspoons baking powder and 1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt in a medium bowl.

In the bowl of a stand mixer with the paddle, beat 227 g / 8 ounces / 2 sticks soft, unsalted butter for 2 minutes on medium high until creamy. Add 400 g / 2 cups sugar and beat about 3 minutes until incorporated. Beat in 4 eggs, one at a time, scraping down the bowl after each. It may look curdled. Don’t worry.

Now with the mixer on low, blend in dry ingredients in three additions, alternating with 240 ml / 1 cup whole or low-fat milk in two additions. Beat only to incorporate - don’t overdo it.

Scrape the batter into the prepped pan and smooth the top.

Ready for the oven

I place the pan on a parchment lined sheet pan just in case some batter tries to sneak out during baking.

Place into the heated oven and bake about 65 - 70 minutes. A toothpick in the center should come out pretty clean with perhaps a few crumbs attached.

During the bake, make the lemon glaze by blending 135 g / 2/3 cup sugar with 80 g / 1/3 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice.

Voila! Beautifully golden

Let cool about 5 minutes then place a wire grid cooling rack on top (a bit interesting with the angel food pan!) and flip the cake over onto the rack. Lift off the pan and place the rack/cake on a half sheet pan.

Ready to glaze

Brush the glaze all over the hot cake - it will soak in nicely. Let cool completely.

NIce shine!

It’s best to let the cake sit a few hours to allow the glaze to continue soaking in. The cake stores well in an airtight container at room temperature for several days. Or slice up any leftovers, wrap and freeze for several weeks.

In my case, I planned to take this to a family gathering so I whipped up some Chantilly cream and made a nice raspberry coulis to drizzle on top. Delicious!

Try this one - I think you’ll like it! Until next time. Ciao.

French Tarte Faves (FTF) No. 1: financiers

This is the launch of an idea I came up with recently - a series of posts entitled “French Tarte Faves” that I hope to pop into the mix every now and then! I bake/make a number of things that never end up as the subject of a blog post, and so I’d like to include some of those treats now and again.

Even though I have posted on this one, I’m going to start with one of my tried and true favorites - financiers. I do mention them periodically in some of my seasonal updates and, in fact, make them so often that I can’t even begin to recall all of the versions Steve and I (and others!) have enjoyed. Check out this post from many moons ago. Back in my Pawtucket shop days, pear ginger was a standard. So good.

The beauty of financier batter is its relative ease of preparation, versatility, wonderful texture and all around deliciousness. Here are a few recent variations you might like to try - or create your own.

As is often the case, a project may be spurred on by various components/ingredients I have on hand from other baking adventures or classes I’ve taught. This time some blueberries and blackberries, lemon curd, dark chocolate ganache, ground hazelnuts, dried apricots and the remainder of a bag of almond flour (before I open a new one!). Once baked, they hold well in the freezer to be plucked out for those times when the urge for a little treat strikes.

I baked several versions on a couple of different days. As usual, I use my silicone molds for these babies - no buttering/flouring. I have a number of shapes and sizes, the first day’s session involving ovals and mini-muffins.

First, here’s a link to my base recipe. Made with egg whites, browned butter, confectioner’s (or granulated or brown) sugar, all purpose flour and almond flour, it’s a straight forward task to prep the batter and refrigerate it until ready to bake off. You should give it at least a 4 hour or so chill, but I usually make the batter a day or two ahead. It will keep for several days so you can choose to bake it as desired, scooping out a portion of batter and adding chosen flavors like citrus zest or spices, dried fruits or chopped chocolate to create your own unique versions. It’s also common in the mignardise world to simply top the batter with a berry or two before baking. Crumble isn’t bad either.

Back to the task at hand. I’ve explained before (I think) how to determine the quantity of what I’ll call “chunky” additives for a batter. Weigh out the finished batter. Take 10-15% of that weight to figure your additive(s). E.g. if you have 500 g batter, blend in 50-75 g of chopped chocolate, dried fruit pieces or toasted chopped nuts.

It’s different for flavor additions like citrus zest, spices and extracts - that’s really more of a learning curve based on trial as well as experience. E.g. with my base recipe I might add the zest of one large orange or two medium lemons or three limes - adjust as you like. I tend to amp up citrus so I might even use more.

OK. For this project I added chopped dark chocolate to half the batter and piped it into my favorite mini-muffin silicone molds. Remember - no buttering necessary!

After baking and cooling I spread a swirl of dark chocolate ganache on top and sprinkled ‘em with chocolate cookie crumbs. Yum.

For the next I added lemon zest to the other half of the batter, piped it into ovals, made a shallow well, piped a dollop of lemon curd in and topped with blueberries..

Once baked, I gave them a light lemon juice/confectioners sugar glaze for that extra special something.

The next duo involved subbing ground toasted hazelnuts for half of the almond flour. When ready to bake, I divided the batter in half and to one half added about 2 tablespoons finely diced crystallized ginger and about 50 g diced, dried apricots that I had soaked in some hot water and a splash of rum to soften them up. Pat the apricots dry before adding to the batter.

My square savarin molds give me a blank canvas for garnishing. I had some lightly spiced peach apricot Swiss meringue buttercream in the freezer from a previous macaron project. A nice swirl is all it takes to dress these up a bit. You could even put a dollop of apricot jam in the well before piping on the buttercream.

How about some garnish?

You could even top ‘em off with some oat crumble or toasted candied pistachios for some added texture.

I piped the remaining half into mini muffin molds and pressed some halved blackberries into the top.

While these are delicious as is, I gave them a nice swirl of orange caramel Swiss meringue buttercream. Mmmm . . . . . good!

These petite cakes are simply delightful, no matter how you make them. What a wonderful way to vary your creations by flavors, seasons, favorite fruits or nuts or . . . . . . You get the idea. Now go make your own version of financiers!

One big bearded iris among giant allium. Love that purple!

Gorgeous rhodedendrons at D&D’s in Massachusetts

Flowering astilbe along our front walk

Orange cake

One of my favorite baking books is “Genius Desserts” written by the FOOD52 folks. I’ve mentioned it on and off in recent years and highly recommend it. I had tagged this cake as one to try - it’s billed as “whole orange cake”, the recipe published years ago in Sunset magazine. From a quick internet search I discovered that Sunset was first published in 1898!! Guess what - it’s still being published and the recipe is on their website.

Not long after I had added it to my baking agenda, lo and behold, over the next week or two, it popped up in my life, seemingly by happenstance. First I came across the same recipe in the NYT and then heard about the experience of making it from a woman attending a baking demo I was giving at a nearby assisted living facility. Kismet I say.

I’ll admit that what really drew me to baking this was the swirly Nordic Ware pan that I’ve had my eye on for awhile now. I kept telling myself “Susan - you don’t need another pan”, but I ordered it anyway. In my defense, the well-worn traditional style bundt pan that I used to have so many years ago is long gone and I had no urge to replace it. After all, I tend to prefer petite teacakes - love those financiers! - rather than large slices.

Buuuuttt . . . . Nordic Ware has been producing some very cool designs over the years and this one caught my eye - so classy without being too ornate. Something about those swirls.

10 Cup Heritage Bundt

While there are some whole orange cake recipes out there that require boiling whole oranges, this one calls for 2 oranges (about a pound), ends cut off but otherwise left unpeeled, then chunked up, seeded and pulsed in a food processor to a somewhat coarse purée. You can do that part ahead and hold it in the fridge until ready to make the batter.

I’ll go through the steps and link you to the recipe here. It is readily available on a number of sites and is certainly not unique to me. Who knows the countless number of folks who have made and enjoyed this cake over the years! Oh! You might notice my navel and cara-cara oranges in the photo below - seemed like a good combo.

As you plan your project, the do-aheads are: butter and flour the pan (or use pan spray), purée the oranges (you’ll portion out 355 g / 1 1/2 cups for the batter and compost or dispose of the rest), have 3 large eggs at room temp and 227 g / 2 sticks unsalted butter at soft room temp. When ready to make the batter, mise out 250 g / 1 1/4 cups sugar, 320 g / 2 1/2 cups all purpose flour, 2 teaspoons baking powder, 1/4 teaspoon baking soda and 1/4 teaspoon fine salt.

You’ll be glazing the cake after baking - whisk together 150 g / 1 1/2 cups confectioner’s sugar and 35 g fresh squeezed OJ. You can always do this during the bake.

Here’s how my purée looked - remember I used a combo of navel and cara-cara.

Heat the oven to 325ºF. Cream the butter and sugar for 3-5 minutes until lightened and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, blending each fully before adding the next. Blend in the orange purée. Looked a bit like orange cottage cheese.

Hmmmm . . . . interesting look

Add flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt and blend until incorporated and smooth.

Everything blended!

Scrape the batter into the prepared pan and smooth the top.

Ready to bake

Bake about 55 minutes - you want a golden top, firm to the touch and a tester with just a few crumbs clinging. Let cool in the pan about 10 minutes then turn out onto a grid over a pan and cool completely.

One note here - I made sure to butter and flour all the crevices thoroughly even though the pan is billed as non-stick. This cake released from the pan beautifully. One of the frustrations I used to have with the old bundt-form pan I had years ago (a lighter weight knock off) was getting the cake out of the pan without leaving some pieces here and there. Grrrrr . . . . but not any more!

Hmmm . . . maybe I should do a test without buttering the pan - makes me nervous but gotta try it.

Spoon and brush the glaze over the top, into the crevices. I prefer my glaze on the thinner side - gauge the way you like it by starting with less OJ to confectioner’s sugar for a thicker consistency or add additional OJ or even a bit of water for a thinner glaze. Once glazed I pop it back into the oven for 3 minutes or so to set the glaze.

All glazed up

Delicious, moist and tender with just the right amount of orange flavor and a hint of sweetness - a perfect balance.

Steve and I enjoyed a slice with a small scoop of vanilla ice cream and some strawberries. Yum. A slice with morning coffee was good too, and the remaining slices went into the freezer for future enjoyment. Yes I would make this again.

I’ll be back with you as the weeks go by. Enjoy!

Paris

Paris - the name says it all. Many of us have been put under it’s spell. We often ask ourselves “what is it about this place?” The answer often eludes us, but we know how we feel when we’re there.

When we travel, we like to think of it as BEING in a place. It’s not a vacation but an adventure in learning and experiencing what that place has to offer. How does day to day living compare to what we’re used to at home? Appreciating the social fabric, how the locals spend their time, eat, work, relax, and relate to each other. That’s what Paris has become for us - it draws us back. Sure it has issues as all places do - homelessness, strife, inequality, citizens wanting change - but there’s a feeling that’s indescribable.

If nothing else, it’s a feast for the eyes and the soul. From histoire to les musées to les monuments to les fleurs, les jardins and les marchés to les arts en general; to the food, les bistros et brasseries, les pâtisseries et boulangeries; to exploring and finally to the simple act of being flaneurs - strolling down previously undiscovered streets, stopping at a café for a coffee or a glass of wine and some people watching.

Strolling in Le Jardin des Plantes

Tulips - Le Jardin des Plantes

I’m writing this after our return to Grand Rapids. It’s good to be back home in a familiar space and the regularity of day to day life.

Steve and I had an interesting reaction as we arrived in Paris this time. We knew, of course, that we were only going to be there for three full days, but, after many nights in hotels, eating out all the time (other than our short stay with friends Richard and Pauline), not having much room in our hotel lodgings to feel like we could relax, sit, enjoy - the minute we arrived at the AirBnB we had rented, we felt like we were home.

The first night’s sky

Paris at this time of year brings beautiful fresh fraises which we took advantage of for our breakfasts in the apartment - yogurt, fresh berries, fresh brewed coffee, toast with delicious French beurre et fromage, le jus d’orange. So good.

Seasonal fruit - les fraises sont arrivées!

Believe it or not, we didn’t enter even one pâtisserie or boulangerie this time around. We certainly enjoyed some window viewing (lèche-vitrine) with so many tasty looking goodies on display, but our primary indulgence came on our first afternoon out and about.

We decided to treat ourselves to a favorite spot on Place Des Vosges. Carette is an elegant cafè that has been around a long time, serving brunch/lunch, afternoon tea/coffee, hot chocolate, pastries, cakes and more. Outdoor seating is available under the portico but we opted to sit inside.

I ordered le fraisier, the classic sponge/mousseline/strawberry layered number that’s so popular during spring. It’s one of the recipes I learned/made during the basic pastry course at Le Cordon Bleu oh those many years ago.

Steve, being a sucker for anything made with choux paste, chose a classic èclair au chocolat. Our coffees were accompanied by a tasty shortbread cookie - right up my alley!

The spread

Fraisier

Not feeling at all rushed to do/see things on this short visit, we enjoyed leisurely mornings and spending afternoons with old (and new!) friends.

We happened to be in Paris over the May Day (1 May - Labor Day)) holiday when many are out enjoying a day off, hanging out in street-side cafés et bistros, handing out bouquets of muguet des bois (lily of the valley) or strolling in the cemeteries. Demonstrations and marches are also de riguer with the focus on workers rights.

Back in 2006 during my pastry schooling days, Steve spent a lot of time in Paris’ cemeteries, photographing and blogging about his discoveries. Marie, a native French teacher-of-English living and working in Paris, contacted him through his blog and they became die hard buddies through their mutual interest and fascination of all things cemetery (particularly Parisian ones!). We met up with Marie at Pére Lachaise, enjoying lunch at a nearby café followed by wandering the avenues et chemins past so much sculpture, history, greenery and flowers - spring had sprung!

photo courtesy of Steve Soper

Strolling in Pére Lachaise - photo courtesy of Steve Soper

Photo courtesy of Steve Soper

The following day we had an agenda. First (after some morning relaxation) - a visit to my favorite store carrying a vast array of baking and pastry needs - Mora. I had a few things in mind such as piping tips and silicone molds that would be easy to pack. Mission accomplished!

Ready to shop! Photo courtesy of Steve Soper

We then sidled over to nearby Detou, another foodie shopping destination full of ingredients the likes of chocolates, nuts, flours, dried fruits, pastes, vanilla and SO much more. And all at much better prices than we might find at home. We did succumb to purchasing a bag of toasted Marcona almonds and one of cashews “for the road”. I would have liked an extra small suitcase to fill with almond and pistachio flours, whole raw pistachios and hazelnuts, Valrhona chocolates and on and on. . . . .

We lost track of time and had to hurry over via metro and by foot to meet up with Jill, that new friend I mentioned earlier. For a bit of back story - some time ago I came upon a blog entitled “Paris Breakfasts” written by American watercolorist Carol Gillott. Through her blog I learned about Jill Colonna, author of the blog “Mad About Macarons” (as well as the book of the same name) and the book “Teatime in Paris”. I subscribed to Jill’s monthly newsletter, enjoying her recipes and her take on what’s going on in Paris, both seasonally and in general.

Jill is Scottish, married to a Corsican Frenchman, living in Paris and very connected to the food world in general. We had emailed a bit back and forth and by luck we were able to find a window of time that we might meet in person. We met in the Marais at Mariage Frères for pots of Earl Grey tea and lively conversation. Cool.

At Mariage frères

Our next stop - Les Antiquaires, a bistro just down the street from Musée d’Orsay where we had 6 pm timed tickets to see the currently running Impressionist exhibition. Again by luck, we found a time window to meet up with friend Val from my LCB pastry school days. Val was my classmate during the basic pastry part of the program and was my savior in the translation department. Having lived and worked in Las Vegas for 5 years some time ago, she speaks English like an American. Thanks Val!

Steve and VAl

And so our Paris time came to an end. Flights home went smoothly and we’re working our way back into some sort of daily rhythm. My walks offer such calm. I leave you with some favorites along the walking path.

Lilacs

Viburnum

Beautiful irises

Happy baking! Until next time.

Desserts in Bordeaux and a bit beyond

Warning! Lots of dessert talk coming up. Trust me, I rarely eat dessert at home.

After spending 10 days in Catalonia, off to Bordeaux we went to meet up with our British friends Richard and Pauline. From the pastry standpoint, canelés are the iconic Bordelaise treat and the company Baillardran the most recognized name for these caramelized mini flans.

I make canelés on occasion and am thinking it’s time to do that again, particularly after tasting them in Bordeaux. Here’s a post I wrote on them quite awhile back. On this trip I learned from our French friend Marie (who attended university in Bordeaux) that one can choose canelés on a scale of 1 to 3: 1 being less baked/lighter in color and thus a less caramel-y, crispy exterior and 3 being most baked with a darker caramel crust of sorts. The interiors will be more soft and custardy with 1 and less so with 3. Get it? This was also confirmed by French friend Valerie who prefers the darker caramelized exterior. To each her own.

I had no idea that canelés are used to create more elaborate desserts. But why not, eh? Below are three different versions of ostensibly the same canelé profiterole dessert experienced at three different eateries - quite a contrast I think.

The first was for Steve and Richard at our hotel - an interesting approach with canelés split in half, topped with ice cream and accompanied by Chantilly and chocolate sauce. They enjoyed it. I wondered about calling them profiteroles . . . when in Rome.

First night’s version

The next evening at Le Bistro de Musée Richard and Steve opted for a similar dessert, this one more polished, with a more professional presentation and tasty to boot.

Second night’s version

I however made the mistake (retrospectively) of ordering a similarly described dessert the following evening at Chai Maestro which in my estimation was over the top portion wise. Fortunately Richard was there to finish what I could not.

Third night’s version

My favorite dessert in Bordeaux was at Le Bistro de Musée. I first experienced a Café Gourmand in Belgium during a trip to visit niece Christina and her family in Lille, France in 2016. Curiously enough, we met up with Richard and Pauline on that trip as well, visiting some of the WWI battlefields in Belgium and northern France.

Cafe gourmand at Markt 38 in Poperinge Belgium, 2016

On another visit to Lille in spring of 2018, we dined with Glen and Christina at a lovely restaurant in the city. Christina and I enjoyed delicious strawberry-pistachio tartelettes served with a vin jaune sorbet. Glen went with the café gourmand - a very broad selection of petite treats.

Café gourmand in Lille, spring 2018

The café gourmand I had in Bordeaux was on a smaller scale than many - right up my alley. Crème brulée (one of my faves), panna cotta/raspberry sauce and a moist apple cake. Perfect!

Café gourmand in Bordeaux, 2024

Training from Bordeaux to Agen and then by car to R&P’s home in Mouchan (near Condom in the Gers département de Gascogne), we spent a couple of days enjoying and appreciating their hospitality. Our visit was short but lovely after spending many nights in hotels.

We happened to be there on a Sunday, a day when many French enjoy a proper Sunday lunch out. We went to an auberge/chambre d’hôte out in the beautiful Gascon countryside where we were presented with the formule for the day. Water/wine already at the table, aperitif, amuse bouche, three courses (starter, plat principal and dessert), coffee and digestif all included (all for 31 euros, about $33). The food - absolutely scrumptious with a depth of flavor hard to be beat. It left us well satisfied without feeling stuffed to the gills.

Here’s where I made an interesting decision. Since I typically don’t order dessert (and rarely eat it at home), I spent a little time debating about ordering one at all. I went for the assiette gourmand, described to me by the staff as small (note I said small) portions of each of the five desserts on the menu. I love tasting, what can I say!

The image below shows you what I was faced with. As an aside, I noted that our table received some interesting looks from other diners (and even the staff) when the dessert was delivered as if to say “is she really going to eat all of that?”.

Ice cream and Chantilly cream played a large role in this assortment, as you can see below. From the left going clockwise: crêpe de noisette wrapped around ice cream, topped with chocolate sauce; apple croustade (my portion seemed to be from a corner of the pan without too much apple); profiterole (ahem - more ice cream); gratinée framboise - custard topped with raspberries and a sprinkle of sugar then run under the broiler. In the center - ice cream, rum sauce, Chantilly cream and some crunchy bits.

Whoa! Are you serious?

Yes, I did taste each one, preferring the gratinée and the apple crostade in terms of textures and flavors. Custard, fruit, flaky pastry - you bet. And yes, I did leave a fair amount on the plate (Richard didn’t even finish it off)! I’ll be more thoughtful if faced with the same decision in the future. Live and learn.

Country side near the Auberge (photo courtesy of Steve Soper)

Up next - Paris!

Pastries and more in Catalonia

Girona specialty - custard filled sugar buns

Hi! I’m writing this during our travel adventure to France and Spain. After flying to Paris and staying for a night, we hopped on the high speed train and headed to Catalonia.

For more details on our trip, check out Steve’s blog too!

We have never visited this part of the world, and I must admit I didn’t quite know what to expect. Not only have we found ancient cathedrals, Roman ruins, the gorgeous aquas and deep blues of the Mediterranean, but plenty of friendly folk ready to help and explain new things. Beautiful flora too!

Our first stop - Girona (about 6.5 hours from Paris by high speed train).

As usual, I/we seek out the local pastries to experience their flavor, texture and uniqueness. In the parts of Europe we’ve enjoyed over the years, we always find the classics like croissants, pain au chocolat, tortes, sablés, choux puffs, turnovers and more. Let’s not forget that the bases of pastry are pretty much the same in many parts of the world. The differences exist in how a particular town/region/country decides to create their own versions.

One of the perks of our lodgings - breakfast included!! I’ll tell you European breakfasts are the best! Tables laden with bread, meats, cheeses, eggs, yogurt, fresh fruit, juices, cereals, granola, an array of pastries and readily available coffee choices the likes of latte, cappuccino, espresso and variations thereof.

Just one part of the breakfast at Hotel Ultonia in Girona

We soon learned about the Girona specialty xuixo (shu-sho) - a custard filled laminated pastry that reminded us of one of our favorite treats in Florence years ago - bomboloni. Similar to what some know as a Berliner or Bismarck or the Jewish sufganiyah or sufganiyot, think yeast raised dough, light and airy, quickly fried and sugar coated, filled with custard or jam/jelly.

Xuixo

I fondly recall childhood memories of eating a similar treat from our small west Michigan town’s bakery. Some of our favorites were what we referred to as jelly donuts along with glazed loaves of raisin bread, lemon filled “sticks”, lovely sweet bun type dough in a long rectangle with lemon filling down the center. Although my tastes have changed over the years, leaning away from overly sweet stuff, an occasional reminder of some of these long ago treats isn’t all bad.

We spent time in Girona, Tarragona and Barcelona and found similar treats at our breakfast buffets. After some “healthy” starters such as whole grain bread, egg, cheese, granola and/or yogurt with fruit, I usually treated myself to a trio of petite goodies, varying my choices each time. Of course these had to be accompanied by the requisite cappuccino.

Girona: raisin swirl, apple cake, chocolate croissant

Tarragona’s lodgings had an even more extensive spread than Girona’s, offering a revolving number of choices for our three breakfasts there.

As an aside, we did lots of walking this trip which justified a bit of indulgence here and there.

Tarragona pastry offerings

This particular morning I sampled walnut braided pastry, palmier and coconut tarte.

Coconut tarte, walnut braid, palmier

Another involved a generous slice of apple torte which I found too sweet and opted not to eat the whole thing. A moist slice of marble cake and a simple, plain sweet bun pastry (referred to as ensaïmada) dusted with powder sugar rounded out the trio.

A quick internet search told me that ensaïmada is a light, airy yeasted bun traditionally from Mallorca, Balearic Islands, Spain. It’s made as a typical sweet bun might be with bread flour, water, sugar, egg and yeast but uses pork lard as opposed to butter (which you can substitute if you prefer). It involves a short poolish type preferment, a first bulk rise that can be done in the fridge overnight for flavor enhancement and ease of shaping the following day. Maybe I’ll try it.

Apple torte, marble cake, ensaïmada

So as not to bore you with pastry photos, here are a few images from Tarragona, a beautiful seaside town southwest of Barcelona.

Inside the large indoor market, Mercat Central

Typical hot climate vegetation

Dipping my toes into the mediterranean

From Tarragona we traveled to Barcelona for the end of our Spanish adventure. We enjoyed a number of sites, some tasty (and not so tasty) food and nothing too unique in the pastry world after Girona and Tarragona. We took advantage of a metro pass which got us on busses as well. A modern, well designed, clean and user friendly system. Gotta love it.

View of barcelona’s harbor and the Med

Orange trees abound

Lavender - ahhh the aroma

You’ll think this odd perhaps but one of the most satisfying things in Barcelona was doing laundry! We discovered a small laundromat right around the corner from our hotel, all automated, instructions well signed and easy to operate - didn’t even have to put detergent in - it was dispensed automatically. It held three washers, three dryers, well timed and efficient. Total cost 7 euros, total time about 55 minutes.

Sometimes its the day to day stuff that can lift us up on a dreary, rainy day.

A laundromat from heaven

Coming up - Bordeaux and Paris tidbits.

Challah

This is just one of the many times of year when these lovely shiny loaves appear. Steeped in Jewish tradition, served on the Sabbath and for holidays, this egg bread is also enjoyed by folks from many different backgrounds and parts of the globe. A very similar bread is also popular around Easter, often enriched with butter added to the dough (and maybe dyed Easter eggs tucked on top).

I embarked on this project after receiving a request from a friend for a pair of loaves as part of an egg related scavenger hunt she was planning for a group. Sounds like fun!

I’ve made challah on occasion over the years but have never posted on the topic. While there are tons of recipe variations and reams of information about its history and preparation, I barely skimmed the surface in deciding how to approach this. All purpose or bread flour? How many eggs? Whole or yolks? Honey vs sugar? Three or four (or six!) strand braid?

Particularly when I’m baking for an order, I want to be sure that the end result will be tasty. Of course that means a trial or two. I was inspired to do a test between a King Arthur recipe that I’d made in years past (to excellent reviews) and a recipe from a new book I purchased recently entitled “Breadsong: How Baking Changed Our Lives”. I’ve paged through the book’s recipes and am truly enjoying the story written dually by Brits Kitty Tait and her father Al Tait. It’s their story of Kitty’s journey through some difficult times in her young life with bread baking ultimately becoming her salvation. They now own/run “The Orange Bakery” in Watlington, Oxfordshire UK. Cool story.

test bakes

I won’t focus on recipe details yet, but, suffice it to say, both half loaf trials turned out OK. Kitty’s adds some butter to the dough but the recipes are otherwise quite similar. Both used two eggs for the full recipe unlike the one I ultimately went with.

Perhaps I over baked them a bit since they were a tad dry. With a fine, light crumb, both are excellent spread with a bit of butter/jam, especially toasted. I recommend either for bread pudding or French toast, easy and delicious ways to revive and repurpose.

After a bit more review, I went with an adaptation of the recipe I ultimately turned to - Jeffrey Hamelman’s challah in his book “Bread: A Bakers Book of Techniques and Recipes”. This one uses more egg than many recipes I reviewed along with the usual suspects - flour, vegetable oil, water, honey, salt, yeast.

Let’s get started! I’ll go through the steps, listing ingredients in gram weights but remember you can go to the recipe PDF for equivalent measures and read through it at your leisure.

First have all your ingredients mised out: 600 g all purpose flour, 300 g bread flour, 160 g honey, 2 large eggs plus 5 (or perhaps 6) yolks, 85 g vegetable oil like canola (EVOO is tasty!), 300 g water (tepid/coolish), 17 g instant yeast, 13 g kosher salt.

Place all ingredients in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the dough hook. My 6 quart Kitchenaid bowl works well for this. I may have mentioned this in the past but I have an 8 quart commercial Kitchenaid stand mixer. The beauty of it is that not only is the mixer’s motor more heavy duty than a 6 quart, the attachments are much more work-horse like, solid and heavy. And! - they work with my 6 quart bowl that fits on the 8 quart stand! The six quart is my go to size for most bread, croissant or large batches of shortbread or tart doughs. Love it.

All in!

I give it a stir up with a spatula to gets things moistened.

iinitial blend

Then blend with the dough hook on low speed (stir on a Kitchenaid) for several minutes to incorporate the ingredients.

Now knead on speed 2 for about 6 minutes to develop the gluten. The dough should ball up and pull away from the sides of the bowl.

Give the dough a couple of quick kneads by hand and round it up, then place in a lightly oiled bowl for the first proof.

Let rise in a warm place for 1.5 - 2 hours, gently de-gassing at 1 hour. OPTION: after the first de-gassing, refrigerate the dough for several hours or overnight, de-gassing a couple of more times during the first few hours. The dough is easier to work with/shape when cool, plus you can create your own time table to mesh with your schedule.

For my project I de-gassed at hour one, then refrigerated the dough for an hour and a half (due to my schedule that day!). Then another de-gas and a 45 minute room temperature rise before shaping. Here are the visuals.

nice fridge rise!

dough is feeling good!

Place the risen dough on your work surface - you don’t need much flour at all for the dividing/shaping/braiding. Use a bit if needed, but the dough handles well without being sticky.

For two 3-strand braids, divide the dough in half then each half into three equal pieces. Do a rough, stubby torpedo pre-shape of each piece and let rest 20 minutes covered lightly with plastic. I made two 750 g braids and used the rest of the dough for a mini two strand twist so I could do a taste test.

After the rest, roll each piece into a 14”-ish rope. Set up three pieces for your first braid.

One way to braid is to start in the middle, braid toward one end then flip it and finish braiding from the center to the other end.

first half complete

Tuck the ends under to clean things up

Once both loaves are braided, place them on a parchment lined sheet pan, lightly cover with a cotton towel and cover that with plastic wrap. This protects the dough from drying out but also reduces moisture accumulation between the braids by eliminating direct contact with the plastic wrap on the dough surface.

Let rise for two hours. Toward the end of the rise heat the oven to 375ºF.

These are looking great after the two hours. Thoroughly egg wash the surfaces.

You can see my mini twist on the right, sprinkled with poppy and sesame seeds.

Bake about 30 minutes until golden brown. Cool on grids.

Serve when ready. The challah loaves freeze well - remove from the freezer a couple of hours or so ahead to thaw at room temperature.

Here’s a look at my mini twist. I tried it with a schmear of butter and sandwiched it with a bit of ham and cheese. Good crumb, tender and tasty!

The report from those who received the full sized loaves was a thumb’s up. Good deal!

Just a final bit of nature for you. Happy spring!

cherry blossoms in le jardin des plantes, paris

Kouign-amann: Part 2

OK. Here we are in part 2 of my Kouign-amann review. Part 1 covered shaping two versions of individual pastries. This time it’s the full sized cake version, more traditional in Brittany for slicing and enjoying at breakfast or afternoon tea. Inspired by one of King Arthur Baking Company’s “Bake of the Week” recipes back in January, 2022, I’ve had it in my “I’m-going-to-try-this” pile ever since. My how time flies!

I ended up making two versions of this cake: the first (thanks to Andrew Janjigian and the above mentioned KA Baking Co) utilized a unique approach to the sugar/butter incorporation. I thought it rather messy and the end result not as flaky, lofty or tasty as that made with my usual recipe. If you’d like to give it a try, just click the link on Andrew’s name and you can learn about his approach/recipe. There are always different ways to do things!

my result with andrew janjigian’s version

For the second using my base recipe (enough for two full sized cakes), I used half of the dough for a single cake and the rest went toward cute small spirals that are absolutely delicious!! I simply couldn’t help it. They’re stashed in my freezer as we speak.

my result with my recipe

yummy spirals

Let’s create a full sized kouign-amann! We’re proceeding with the nearly completed dough, already put through three 3-folds rolling with flour. Now it’s ready for the last sugar-rolled 3-fold.

First prep an 8” cake pan by buttering the bottom and sides then lining with a round of parchment large enough to leave an edge above the pan’s rim. This makes it easier to lift out after baking. Then butter and sugar the parchment. You can do this ahead and set it aside.

pan all prepped

Roll the dough out length wise using sugar on the rolling surface as well as on top.

ready for last three fold with sugar

Once you complete the last fold, let the dough rest at room temperature (NOT in the fridge) lightly wrapped in parchment for 20-30 minutes and then proceed with shaping/proofing/baking.

Remember I’ve made a full recipe so I divide the dough in half, using one half for one cake. You can make two cakes if you want, but I took a different route.

Roll a half portion into a rough-ish 8-9” square (still rolling in sugar) and fold the corners into the center.

corners in, ready to flip over

Turn the dough over onto the sugar dusted work surface so the corners/seams are down and roll out again (using sugar) to an approximately 8” squarish round. Don’t be too fussy about the shape - I figured it would spread out and bake into the confines of the pan, so I just went with it.

Lift the dough into the pan and tuck it in as best you can. Cut straight lines diagonally across the surface to create a diamond pattern and sprinkle with sugar.

ready to rise

Cover with lightly oiled plastic wrap or a damp towel and let proof 45-60 minutes. Meanwhile heat the oven to 400ºF (convection).

I used the other half of my dough to create a dozen spirals, rolling the dough out to about 10”x10”, cutting one-ish inch wide strips, rolling ‘em up and tucking into doubled paper baking cups rather than muffin tins. The paper cups give each a boundary so they don’t bake up against each other. My hope was they would bake more uniformly golden this way (I was right!).

just formed, ready to rise

My rise ended up at about 50 minutes. Time to bake!

I gave them 20 minutes, turned the temp down to 375ºF and rotated the trays. The spirals were well baked in another 3-4 minutes so out they came. I gave the cake an additional 10 minutes and then covered it with foil for another 10 minutes to avoid over browning. There were still some paler dough sections in the center that I wanted a bit more done.

If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times: all ovens are different and it’s up to you to check on how things are going in there. You can do it. Let your recipe be your guide but your eyes, nose and touch be part of it too.

Oooh! Swirls and whirls of caramelized goodness. Reminds me of some of the rocks we saw in the southwest’s national parks last autumn.

Lift the cake out of the pan by grasping the paper edges and set it on a wire cooling grid.

Let it cool a bit and then . . . . . the key for me when testing out any baked laminated pastry is the initial slice to check out the layers. Fingers crossed!

While my initial concern at first inspection was for a doughy under-bake, these layers came out with a certain creaminess that compliments the caramelized exterior - flaky, light and oh so delicious.

Of course, Steve and I had to have our requisite taste test, a decadent pairing of a slightly warm slice with homemade vanilla ice cream. Swoon!

The spirals baked nicely too and turned out just the right size for a delightful morning treat. I peeled them out of the papers pretty soon after baking so as to avoid caramel-y sticking.

love these - like a petite seashell!

Always itching to test out the staying power of baked goods, a few days later I pulled a few of the spirals out of the freezer for a morning oven warm up for family guests. Delicious. There were two left which we wrapped in parchment and dared to leave out at room temp until the next morning. Another short warm up and they were still great. Good deal!

I had some of my first Janjigian test slices in the freezer along with some of the K-amann slices made with my recipe so Steve and I did another test a couple of weeks later. After a thaw/warm up of about 15 minutes in a 325º oven, we found the first version (seen on the right below) greasy, tough and not very tasty. The second was flaky with a nice texture and all around better flavor.

Mine on left

On a final note, here’s a bit about cleaning the work surface after the sugar rolling. It gets pretty messy. I prefer butcher block (my fave for all things dough) but other surfaces like Corian, granite, stainless are all much easier to clean. I do have a large polycarbonate type cutting board that I can use too, but I opted for the wood this time.

ready for cleaning

NOTE: This is about the only situation in which I rinse my rolling pin quickly under warm water to get the gooey sugar off. Pat it dry and let it sit out on a counter to dry fully. Otherwise after usual dough rolling in flour I simple rub any dough particles and flour off the pin until the next time.

For the sugary surface I use my bench or bowl scraper to push off all the loose debris into a waste basket. Then rub the surface with pieces of lemon, sprinkle with kosher salt and even a little flour to help soak up the moisture and let sit for awhile.

Rub it around to give the surface a gentle scouring, then scrape all the stuff off with a bowl scraper, wipe with a damp cloth and let air dry. The butcher block likes a mineral-oiling once in awhile too, which I might do every few months.

Lemon TIP: when I’ve zested lemons for whatever purpose, I then juice them, pour the juice into ice cube trays and freeze. The cubes are great when you need a tablespoon or two of juice for a cooking or baking project.

I then chop up the zested lemons into chunks and bag them up for the freezer. Throw a few into the garbage disposal every once in awhile to freshen things up or use a few chunks for the above cleaning process.

I think I’ve said enough folks! Happy spring and happy baking!!

just one bluebird of happiness!

Kouign-amann: Part one

Wowza! I can’t believe it will be 10 years this autumn since I launched this blog. In September of 2014 my very first published post was on Kouign-amann (literally translated as butter cake), that tasty caramelized traditional Breton pastry.

This 2-part post provides a fresh look at making three different versions of these treats. Part one - muffin-like with turned in corners (header photo) and spirals (below). Part 2 - full sized 9” cakes (not really cake at all, just layers of buttery goodness baked in a pan).

spirals all baked up

A bit of back story: during my pastry school days in 2006 I recall my fascination upon seeing Chef Xavier Cotte at Le Cordon Bleu Paris demonstrate the creation of this delicious buttery, caramel-y pastry (and my delight in tasting it!).

A few years later, in early 2011, as Steve and I were celebrating the New Year in Brittany with our British friends Richard and Pauline, we discovered one of Georges Larnicol’s shops where many flavors of petite kouignettes were on display. We picked up a few but were disappointed in their texture and flavor. It seems they were probably sitting in the case longer than they should have been. Even a brief warm up in the oven did little to revive them. Bummer.

When I opened my French Tarte pastry studio in Pawtucket RI in May of 2012, my focus was baking French classics like croissant, croissant aux amandes, pain au chocolat, financiers, tartes, profiteroles, sablês and more. It was a trip back to Paris a year later that brought me to Alain Ducasse’s Paris école de cuisine for a chocolate themed class. Our conversation turned to laminated dough and, when I learned that the class’s chef for the day, Geoffrey Franck, had just taught a Kouign-amann class, I asked for his recipe. Et voilà - he was kind enough to share it with me! I tweaked it just a bit and began baking these babies for my shop. Here’s the recipe I use.

Putting up the shingle

Kouign-amann

I moved out of the Pawtucket teaching and retail space in the spring of 2014 as Steve and I prepared to move back to Michigan. I was eager to stay active in the baking and pastry world and so began the blog. When I launched it in 2014, I had my sights set on working my way through the recipes in Philippe Conticini’s La Pâtisserie des Rêves, but, alas, I soon discovered a number of inconsistencies from recipe to recipe. I moved on to other baking adventures, many of which are chronicled in this very blog.

So here we are in 2024. Writing a new/updated post on the subject has been whirling around in my head for awhile now. I’ll review the steps, look at three ways to shape/bake K-amanns and offer some tips along the way based on things I’ve learned about the process.

Lots of stuff coming up so take your time or just browse as you wish.

I’ll start with individual pastries, either as spirals (kouignettes) or muffin-like with corners turned in. These are popular all over the USA and certainly in France and beyond. The 9” cake version (coming up in part 2) is a more traditional way to enjoy it by the slice when in Brittany. A quick web search confirmed that Georges Larnicol’s kouignettes remain popular, with many locations in Brittany as well as shops in Paris, Nancy and Bordeaux.

Individual kouign-amann, just shaped

As is true of most any recipe topic you review, you’ll find a multitude of variations in ingredient proportions, mixing/kneading times, rising and resting times, numbers and types of folds for laminated dough and on and on. You just gotta do it and make it your own.

Let’s start this thing! Don’t forget the recipe here. There you’ll see standard measures as well as gram weights (my preference).

Place 350 ml tepid water in the bowl of a stand mixer. Add 50 g bread flour, 500 g all purpose flour, 50 g sugar, 20 g soft butter in pieces, 12 g salt, 5 g instant yeast. Give it a stir up with a spatula to get things moistened.

Using the dough hook, mix on stir for a minute then on speed 2 for three minutes (Kitchenaid settings) to achieve a soft dough.

Just after mixing

Cover the bowl and let it rest at room temperature for an hour. The dough should appear more pouf-y. It may look like a subtle change in the photos but rest assured the dough has risen and is softer and more lovely in texture after the hour repose.

Ball the dough up and wrap it in plastic wrap, giving yourself some leeway to allow you to push the dough out into an 8” rough square within the confines of the plastic wrap.

Refrigerate the dough for at least 2 hours or up to overnight. I usually make the dough in the late afternoon then fridge it and plan to finish things off the next morning.

You can prepare the butter block ahead and hold it in the fridge until ready.

For the block: weigh out the butter (in this case 400 g), lay it out on a piece of plastic wrap to form a 5-6” square of butter (cut chunks as needed), wrap it up, leaving some leeway around the edges to provide a 7-8” final size. Let it sit at room temp to soften then tap with a rolling pin and smush it around within the plastic to get rid of seams (you want the butter block pretty uniform).

ready for smushing and shaping

Keeping it in the plastic allows you to manipulate it without getting your hands all buttery. I roll and push it around to work at getting rid of seams.

Push, flatten and then unwrap to regroup.

Rewrap leaving room to roll the butter out to a square about 7-8-ish”. Then roll it out, all the while keeping it in the plastic. Chill until ready to use.

Bottom line - the best way to create a smooth butter block is soften your butter enough so that you can easily form it within your parchment or plastic wrap into a uniform block without seams. Then chill it until you’re ready to proceed with the beurrage and folds.

If you have access to solid pounds of butter (no sticks!), even better. During my stage at Pascal Pinaud’s pâtisserie in the 5th arr. we cut slabs of butter off very large blocks when making large batches of croissants. Then during my Providence/Pawtucket days I used Cabot full pounds, both when pastry chef-ing at Gracie’s and in my French Tarte business. It’s much easier to portion out what you need and have no seams! Yay!!

When ready for the beurrage, take the butter out of the fridge about 20 minutes ahead to allow it to warm enough to make it malleable yet cool. You want it to bend, not crack.

NICE!

There are at least a couple of ways to perform the beurrage (envelop the butter in the dough). Below is an image using felt templates - it’s a good way to show the participants in my classes how it can be done.

Either form the dough into a square with the butter centered at an angle or roll out a rectangle and center the butter on it.

Get it?

Then fold the corners of the square over the butter OR fold the ends of the rectangle over the butter. The end result is essentially the same. A dough/butter package!

Here’s what I did.

Dough and butter components

Roll the dough out to two times the length of the butter block. Keep the butter wrapped and set it in place to be sure you’re happy with the size/position before unwrapping it. Looks good.

Unwrap the butter and set in place.

Fold the bottom up . . . . .

. . . and the top down to cover the butter. Pinch all the seams closed.

Turn the dough over seam-side down with the pinched ends at top and bottom. Press down with your rolling pin along the length to get the elongation under way and “set” the package. Always rolling to and from yourself, roll the dough out to about three times length to width. We all roll with different pressure so I periodically flip the dough lengthwise (top becomes bottom and bottom becomes top) to keep the thickness of the dough as even as possible.

And remember to lift and fluff the dough, re-flouring lightly as needed to prevent sticking. If the dough becomes too warm and soft, wrap it and chill in the freezer for 10 minutes or fridge for 15-20 minutes to firm things up.

As you roll the dough out, pay attention to the edges. The butter won’t always get out to the very edge so it’s recommended that you trim those edges to expose the butter. This makes for more precise laminations. Create scrape buns with the extra dough.

Doughy edge

Here’s the cut edge showing the exposed butter.

Time to start the folds. Here are some choices: three 3-folds (letter folds) with flour then a final 3-fold rolling in sugar (my choice). Or two 3-folds with flour and two 3-folds with sugar. Or one 4-fold (book fold) and one 3-fold with flour and a final 3-fold with sugar. You can play around with it.

Here’s the start of the first 3-fold. Visualize the dough in thirds. Notice my scraps - you’ll see those later in a squiggle bun I made. Just as for the beurrage, bottom up . . . .

. . . . top down.

First three fold complete

After each fold rotate the dough 90 degrees so the spine of the book is on your left. If your kitchen is cool and your dough is behaving you can go right ahead with the second 3-fold. Otherwise chill the dough for 45-60 minutes before proceeding with the next fold.

No matter what fold approach I’ve chosen, I label the package with types of folds I’m planning, then cross off after each fold. That’s particularly helpful if doing several batches of dough - easier to keep track of it all.

After my second 3-fold I wrapped the dough, froze it for an hour or so to retard the fermentation then put it in the fridge overnight with plans to finish the process the next morning. That timing worked for me this time but it can all be done in a day too.

The next morning I completed my third 3-fold with flour then wrapped/chilled the dough while I prepped my pans.

I’m using 3” individual Fat Daddio cake pans for my muffin-like/corners-in version and a standard muffin tin for my spirals. Butter and sugar them. NOTE: I didn’t do the two center muffin wells at first, since I thought I’d get 10 spirals from my dough, but I prepped them after my yield was indeed a dozen.

When ready for your last fold, have 200 g granulated sugar on hand. Sprinkle sugar on your work surface, place the dough down, sprinkle more sugar on top then roll it out lengthwise

Ready for final 3-fold

At each step sprinkle more sugar on. Once again, bottom up and top down.

At this point lightly wrap the dough in parchment and let it rest for 20 minutes or so. The best tip I received on this was from the previously mentioned Chef Franck who cautioned a room temperature rest rather than a refrigerated rest. Sitting in the fridge gets the sugar melting and boy can it get messy!

OK. Now it’s time to roll the dough out for cutting and shaping. I needed a piece of dough about 7” x 10.5 inches to give me six 3.5” squares for my Fat Daddio pans. The rest went to spirals.

I rolled the dough lengthwise, keeping the width at 7-ish”. Using the lower half or so of the dough, I marked out and cut my squares.

Fold the corners of each square into the middle starting with two opposite corners and finishing with the other two. Push the center down firmly with your fingertip. Place each in the prepared pans.

Roll the remaining dough out to about 8” high and 12” wide and cut twelve 1”strips. Roll each one up into a spiral and place them in the prepared muffin tin.

Notice my squiggle bun sitting amidst the pans on the right below. I rolled the scraps in vanilla sugar and rather randomly braided and coiled them.

At the start of the rise.

Cover pans with plastic wrap or a damp kitchen towel and give them a 60 minute rise.

AFter the rise

During the second half of the rise heat your oven to 375ºF.

Bake 20-25 minutes until golden brown and caramelized.

Taking great care not to burn yourself, turn out the baked buns onto a wire grid. Use an offset spatula to loosen the edges. If you wait too long, the caramel hardens and removal from the molds is difficult.

Notice below that some of the spirals aren’t as well baked as the others. I popped them back into the oven for 5-10 minutes to get them nicely browned.

Here’s the finished batch of both versions. Notice the scrap bun tucked in there.

After a short cool down (they’re deelish a bit warm!), Steve and I did a taste test. Yes!

Crisp exterior, caramel just right, light, airy yet buttery interior layers. We’ll take it!

Traditionally in Brittany you’ll see Kouign-amann served as a full 8-9” cake for breakfast or afternoon tea. Stay tuned for Part 2 - the full size version!

Mid-winter update

First and foremost I simply had to share this recent sunset that we viewed right from our living room windows. It’s been awhile since we’ve seen one this stunning here in west Michigan. It was a beauty and pictures don’t even do it justice.

Things are purring along here in GR with recent temps in the 50s and low 60s. Hard to believe it’s still February. Steve and I are going to fitness classes regularly which provide a wonderful boost to one’s physical and emotional well being.

I’m working on a Kouign-amann post which is becoming pretty exhaustive in scope. I’ll probably end up doing it as a two-parter. Watch for it in the next couple of weeks.

Kouign-amann Spirals

Otherwise January was pretty quiet, a time to take care of household stuff, get reorganized for the new year, take each day as it comes. My baking focused on some staples for our larder - scali (my fave bread for awhile now), focaccia and pizza dough.

Nephew Jon visited early in February so it was a simple caramel apple tarte with homemade vanilla ice cream for dessert.

It felt good to make croissants and pain au chocolat again after a several month hiatus in that department. These were requested by friend Kim, the activities director for an assisted living facility down the road.

Of course I made a few extra so Steve and I could have a little treat.

These are cherry almond scrap buns made with trimmings from the croissant dough.

Here’s a preview of the full sized kouign-amann cake I’ll be writing about.

Oh those buttery layers

Stay tuned for Kouign-amann!

Meanwhile, please enjoy a few more images - ahhhh . . . . the beauty of nature!

Cocoa spelt cake

As promised in my recent season greetings post, I’m delving more deeply into this cake that comes from Aleksandra Crapanzano’s book “Gâteau”. Made with spelt and almond flours, Dutch process cocoa, Greek yogurt and brewed espresso along with the usual sugar, butter, egg, baking soda, salt, its intriguing blend of flavors got my attention. Plus, this was the chance to use up some ingredients on hand after all the autumn and holiday baking projects.

Let’s pause a moment. You’re probably wondering “How many chocolate cake recipes does one really need?” (particularly when there are literally TONS of them out there). I already have a number of delicious versions in my repertoire, but it’s also about the discovery and trying something a little bit new, isn’t it.

My first attempt, all puckered up and sunken. Ouch!

My first attempt was NOT a resounding success although it tasted pretty darn good. I even served it for a Christmas dessert with an orange mascarpone custard (which I ultimately thought too heavy for the cake), topped with hazelnut crumble and ganache drizzle. Just a little whipped cream next time perhaps?

Hmmmmm . . . . lets call this one rustic

After that first attempt this project ended up as more of a tutorial on pan sizes and capacities than on the actual recipe! Bear with me - numbers and math coming up - I understand if your eyes glaze over! Just scroll on down to the ingredients image for more on actually making/baking the batter.

For frequent cake bakers (or even not so frequent), the general rule as to how much batter goes into different size pans or molds is typically 2/3 to 3/4 full. To determine your pan’s capacity, place it on a zeroed scale, fill it with water and record the gram weight completely FULL. Then add up the weight of your recipe ingredients, divide that by the full pan weight and you’ll figure out pretty quickly if the batter will work in your chosen pan.

Aleksandra’s recipe calls for a 9 x 5 loaf pan which is typically touted as having a capacity of 1900 g or 8 cups. Over the years I’ve used the slightly smaller 8 1/2 x 4 1/2 pan (holds about 1400 g / 6 cups) or my longer, narrower tea loaf pan (about 5.5 cups) for things like basic recipes for quick breads, pound cakes etc with good results. BUT what I hadn’t done this time was to figure it out FIRST!

In this case the total ingredient weight for the batter comes to about 1310 g (5.5 cups); divided by 1575 g capacity of my tea loaf pan = 0.83 (~7/8!). WAY over the fill-to-2/3-to-3/4 rule for that particular pan.

What I did do the first go around was blithely plunge ahead, make the batter, fill the pan and realize it was WAY too full! So much so that I had to scoop some batter out early in the bake to reduce overflow. I should know better.

The First BAtch

Life is full of lessons, eh?

Anyhoo - always determined, I went through two more rounds of baking this batter, one with a larger loaf pan and one with my favorite muffin size silicone molds.

I got my hands on a pan that was billed as 9 x 5 x 2 1/2” deep but was barely 2 1/4”. I did my water fill/weighing test and found the capacity to be 1600 g, very close to my tea loaf pan - far too small for this batter.

Shallow 9 x 5 pan

Next up - a 9 x 5 x 2.75 USA brand loaf pan which weighed in (water filled) at about 1787 g. Hmmm . . . . this might work after all. That comes to about 0.72 filled, just in between that 2/3 to 3/4 fill guideline.

I went for it! While a 5 quart mixer works, I had learned from the first attempt that the amount of batter was a bit much for mine, so I switched to my 6 quart for further batches. Much easier to work with.

Let’s make this! Here’s the printable recipe PDF for you. You’ll note some ingredient variation options.

As always, read the recipe and do your mise en place with particular attention to ingredients that should be at room temperature (butter and eggs in this case).

A.C.’s recipe calls for Greek yogurt although for my first, not so great batch, I used crème frâiche; then Greek yogurt for the second loaf and full fat buttermilk for the tea cakes. It doesn’t seem to matter which you use - all good!

You can also alter the amount of spelt flour by creating a blend of spelt, medium rye and whole wheat pastry flour. Or replace the almond flour with a different nut flour like hazelnut or pistachio - they go so well with chocolate and coffee flavors.

The process is much like many cakes - cream butter and sugar, add eggs and vanilla, alternate dry and wet ingredients and, in this case, warm espresso is blended in at the very end.

Following are images of the steps.

Creamed butter and sugar

Even when eggs are at room temperature, it’s not unusual for the mixture to have a bit of a curdled look once the eggs are added. You should be able to appreciate that below. Don’t worry - it’s not an issue.

Eggs and Vanilla added

Dry and wet all blended in

Warm espresso goes in last - I will say it made me a bit nervous to add 3/4 cup of warm liquid but, with blending, it turned into a smooth and creamy mixture. Ahhhh. . . .

Final batter

Heat oven to 350ºF. I’m using the 9 x 5 USA pan below. Butter the bottom and sides of the pan (helps the parchment stay in place), line with parchment, lightly butter again and dust with cocoa powder (eliminates the chance of a white flour-y residue on the outside of the finished cake). You could also dust with raw sugar for a lovely hint of exterior crunch :-)).

You might think this buttering/lining thing is over kill, but I’ve had a few frustrating experiences with cakes not releasing from pans, so I tend to err on the side of caution. Having the parchment allows you to grab it and lift the cake out easily when the time comes.

I filled the pan, weighing the batter as I went. The final amount was a bit less than my calculated 1310 g based on ingredient weights, but let’s remember that egg weights will vary a bit and not every little scrap of batter ends up in the pan. Not enough to fuss about.

This should work!

Bake time is recommended as 50 minutes, rotating the pan about half way through. At my half point rotation things were looking OK with a still pretty jiggly center, and it looked like some edge overflow was about to happen. In another 10-15 minutes, this is what I found. Oh NO! Foiled again.

I scraped away the ooze and cleaned the edge up a bit. It took a good 20 minutes longer before I was happy that the cake had set and my tester came out clean. I even popped my digital probe into the oven and found my oven temps were pretty much on track.

Lesson learned (again) - recipe bake times are guidelines, every oven is different and always check sooner than later!!

Here it is! Sunken but not quite as much as the first loaf.

All baked up

It lifted neatly out of the pan and, once cooled, sliced easily to reveal a dense crumb and moist center.

In spite of these trials and tribulations, this cake is absolutely delicious! For my third attempt I went for small cakes, my avowed favorites when it comes to cakes of almost any kind.

Here I’m using an 8 well muffin style Silikomart mold SF028. Full capacity is 85 g / 3 ounces; if filling 2/3 to 3/4 full, you can figure 56 to 64 g per well (average it at 60 g - it’s easier). Take ~1300 g batch weight, divide by 60 g and you should have a yield of about 21 cakes.

Place silicone molds on a wire grid set into a half sheet pan. Pipe batter into wells, about 2/3 full. As opposed to scooping and spooning, piping is a much neater and easier way to dispense similar quantities of batter into the wells.

Here are some of the tea cakes, going in and coming out.

Ready for the oven

These bake around 20-25 minutes. You’re looking for tops to be dry with some cracking and a tester coming out clean.

All baked up

Let them cool in the molds about 10-15 minutes then gently turn out onto a wire rack. I decided to put some up and some down for you - different looks. If you’re going to dip them in ganache, I like the flatter bottom side up for a smoother finish, but either way works if you’re covering with a nice swirl of Swiss meringue buttercream or whipped mascarpone.

REady for dressing up!

For some I went with a spread of ganache on top followed by a swirl of caramel mascarpone cream and shared them with the neighbors for the New Year.

For New Year’s Eve Steve and I enjoyed a comparison bowl, each with a small piece of the second sunken loaf and half of a small ungarnished tea cake topped with vanilla ice cream, caramel drizzle and a favorite crumble. Both delicious but the small cakes edged out the slices with a slightly less dense texture and a lighter crumb.

What have I learned from all this?? I still love baking. Recipes/baking times are guidelines, ovens are not the same and everyone’s experience will be a little different. Even when you pay attention, things may not turn out as you think. Perhaps half the batter in a 8 x 4 pan would be perfect - maybe I’ll try it some day.

If I could be a fly on the wall in Ms. Crapanzano’s kitchen, maybe I’d learn a trick or two. Perhaps a 10” x 5” loaf pan is the solution? Or just bake small.

But the BEST thing is that this cake is delicious no matter how you cut it! Going forward I’ll stick with my individual tea cake versions since I can divide the batter into as many molds as it will give me. The cakes freeze well. They’re great with ice cream or whipped cream, a drizzle of caramel and/or ganache and a crunchy topping like crumble or toasted chopped nuts.

You can’t beat that. Happy baking!

Oh - and winter has finally arrived in west Michigan!

Have a cheery, peaceful and happy holiday season!

Holiday shortbread all boxed up

It’s been a busy time these past few weeks and blogging has taken a back seat. BUT . . . . I’ve tried a couple of new cakes from Aleksandra Crapanzano’s book “Gâteau” which I hope to share with you in the upcoming weeks.

One is a classic French apple rum-scented cake which I’ve made several times now. The first time around was for a demo I did back in October at a nearby assisted living facility during which I made two 6” smaller cakes. The time frame required a shorter bake than for a full 9” cake and it worked out just fine. The residents LOVED it!

six inch french apple cakes

I’ve also made both standard “muffin” sizes (seen below at another assisted living gig) and petite teacake versions topped with whipped caramel mascarpone and oat crumble. Yum!

The other day I made a chocolate, spelt, crème frâiche, coffee enhanced loaf that I will definitely try again. The recipe calls for a 9”x5” loaf pan, but I used my mom’s Mirro pan that’s longer and more narrow than a standard loaf. I’ve done that a number of times with other cake recipes that call for a standard loaf but this time the batter was WAY too much for the pan, spilling over the ends like lava. I ended up scooping some of the batter out early on in the bake and then let it finish. Boy did I have my doubts.

Not a pretty picture - sunken right down the middle like a trough. All puckered up! Just goes to show ya that things don’t always end up as you might hope.

But wouldn’t you know it - it’s delicious! Deep cocoa flavor, moist crumb with just the right level of coffee flavor.

I’ll let you know how the Christmas dessert I hope to serve comes out. Slices and/or chunks of this cake with a vanilla/orange scented ricotta custard, some chocolate ganache and something crunchy to set it off. Maybe a nutty crumble or chopped candied hazelnuts or walnuts. Mmmmmm . . . sounds good!

Cheers and good wishes to all! Catch you later.

My vermont memories window display (No white christmas here!)

Afternoon tea at London House, Chicago

Street level entry hallway

Steve and I were able to squeeze in an overnight to Chicago right before Thanksgiving. Seeing some family, visiting the Art Institute and enjoying the city buzz were on the agenda, as was an afternoon tea at London House.

Located at the confluence of Michigan Avenue and Wacker Drive, the entrance was at street level while the tea event was on the second (“lobby”) floor. While it was a bit clunky finding the space due to an odd elevator system, the setting was lovely and comfortable, the staff attentive and pleasant and the menu intriguing and robust with its offerings of pastries, savories and sweets.

When asked if we were celebrating a particular occasion, I offered up our 40th anniversary. That happened to be back in August, but we see it as a cause for celebration all year long. Wouldn’t you??

The menu

We were served two glasses of bubbly on the house and made our choice of tea - lots of options. I went with a green tea almondine, a pleasant almond scented light tea. Steve opted for a fruity berry hibiscus number - hmmmmm . . . . not typical for him. Truth be told, we’re generally coffee drinkers, but, when in Rome . . . . .

Green tea almondine

Shortly after the tea was served, we received our basket of baked goods - two flavors of scones (triple chocolate and orange cranberry), eggnog cakes and Grinch cookies (green of course).

Steve’s favorite was the chocolate scone - so moist and cocoa-ful (I think I made that word up). The portions were more than generous, so much so that I thought the scones would be better as petite versions, leaving room for the rest to come.

We put the Grinch cookies aside - they were big and not at all enticing to us. Give me a petite shortbread cookie any day.

The savories (6!) and sweets (5!) came out together on an elegant, narrow three tiered stand. We had a lot of work to do!

The menu was creative although perhaps trying a bit too hard. On a positive note the truffle mushroom toast points (especially the fried crispy prosciutto!), the feta/spinach/artichoke spanakopita and the goat cheese/pesto/tomato on Ritz cracker were flavorful, but the textures of the sushi salmon crepe and the vegan “crab” cake (essentially chewy mushrooms) were not particularly enjoyable. Steve did like the duck spring roll with hoisin, but then he’s a sucker for Asian cuisine. You go Steve!

Savories

The sweets were presented in a cute holiday style with donuts hanging from the tier and treats dressed up as Christmas trees and wrapped gifts on the top shelf. There were also candy cane macarons and Rudolph domes with antlers and all.

Sweet treats

Steve and I agreed that the Rudolph dome was the best of the bunch - a smooth caramel mousse with a pear confit center set on a crisp speculoos cookie. The other choices were average at best, particularly the gingerbread donut which was redolent of frying oil and too chewy in texture.

I can’t help but wonder where and by whom the Christmas trees and wrapped gift sweets were created. Seemed like mass production to me. Or perhaps there were elves back in the kitchen doing all that decorating?

Bottom line - if you’re looking for a couple of hours of quiet enjoyment in a light filled and holiday decorated room, you’re on the right track. Just don’t expect the cuisine to send you over the top.

Happy holidays!