Comal

Dani, I apologize in advance for this post which is not really sharing a recipe or specific culinary-venture. Instead I am going to waste your time contemplating some food related concepts, with the occasional pseudo-recipe interspersed, and the more frequent revelation of my inability to properly use my alleged brain.


#1: Butterscotch. What's up with that. I recently purchased a bag of butterscotch chips for a butterscotch brownie recipe. In true me form, I opened the bag before I intended to actually bake with the chips. I wanted to use a few in a fake sundae I was making myself with yogurt and chocolate chips. Butterscotch seemed the cherry on top to eliminate all possible health-redemption from the yogurt. Suggestion: don't try this if you don't want to be fat. I found myself returning to the cupboard every few bites to add a few more butterscotches to the mixture. In the end, I thoroughly enjoyed my butterscotch-chips-with-yogurt. I'm sure the regret will set in when I find I am 1 cup short on the butterscotch for the brownies and 10 pounds heavier. Until then, I will be snacking on butterscotch/choc chip trail mix (yes, I just invented this. No, there are no other ingredients).














#2: Beans. Yum. Always. With Dani off in Portland, I found myself longing to hear her attempting to lure me to her house with the promise of beans (this always works when I am hungry). Her mom, a kitchen boss, makes the most delicious beans in the ever-intimidating pressure cooker. I, very obligingly, consume the beans at any and every opportunity. They are delicious with cheese, tortillas, avocados, mushrooms, chicken?, really any sauteed vegetable, or just plain. As luck would have it, Nic had left an unopened can of black beans at my house (cheers). Being that I do not have a pressure cooker or beans skills, canned is my only feasible option for creating something edible involving beans. I set to work improvising. I cooked some garlic and threw in a random pepper that miraculously happened to be in my house. I let these items sizzle for some time (and burn just a little..) before I poured in the beans, and about 3/4 tsp ground cumin. Upon tasting the beans, I decided to add some chipotle flakes and chili flakes. A good decision. As I have no comal, I stove top heated some tortillas and devoured. It could have been worse.














#3: Hummus: A tragedy. Well, if we're being honest, the real tragedy is my absolute idiocy in certain contexts. I realize that I take a chance whenever I diverge from the recipes I follow in baking projects; baking is a science blah blah blah. This is a risk I am willing to take in the interest of saving time and resources and maybe, just maybe, coming out with a win (baseball season metaphor). The point being, most of my foodie failures stem from an adventurous laziness, rather than from pure stupidity. My most recent attempt at hummus does not fall into this category of failures.

I had made Molly Katzen's hummus a few weeks ago, much to my delight, and decided to repeat it. I dumped 1 can chickpeas, 3 tbsp tahini, 2 tbsp lemon juice, a clove of garlic and 1 tsp cumin into my shiny new food processor, secured the top (with far fewer hiccups than my last attempt to use Cuizzee (rhymes with weezy), and pressed "pulse." Nothing. I removed the lid, re-attached it, pressed pulse. Nothing. I removed the bowl, re-attached it, pressed pulse. Nothing. I un-plugged the machine, removed the lid and the bowl, re-attached the bowl and secured the lid, plugged in the base and pressed pulse. Nothing. It was not until the genius Camila took a crack at assembling the machine a week later that I realized (although I did not admit this at the time) that I had been putting the bowl on backwards (it seemed to click into place at the time, leading me to assume that the cuisinart was defective, and not I). Woops. After multiple frustrated attempts, I eventually scraped the contents into the itsy-bitsy and highly temperamental cuinsinart we have. Lil Cuizzee made a valiant effort to chop all these ingredients into a smooth, cohesive dip-spread, but it just couldn't take the pressure. The end result was a very chunky, lemony substance, with the occasional large bite of garlic. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't hummus. Perhaps something got lost in transferal of the ingredients from vessel to vessel. Perhaps Cuizzee hates me (see future post about cuisinart bread attempt 2). Either way, after I write this, I will be throwing the remains of the non-hummus to the worms.

One hundred Camilas

Yesterday was a momentous day: my favorite person named after a Cuban revolutionary came to town. Naturally, I had to bake something to celebrate this occasion. I had re-created Heidi's delicious spice cake earlier this week using canned pumpkin. The recipe had only used 1/2 cup of the pumpkin, leaving me lots left to work with. I considered making the cake once again, as Dani, an avid fan of this cake, had not gotten to sample the most recent trial. Upon further thought and exploration of options, though, I decided to branch out. The extra sugary Magnolia Bakery Cookbook provided the solution in the form of a recipe for "Pumpkin Bars with Cream Cheese Icing." Amazingly enough, I had all the ingredients. I had been saving the cream cheese for a baking project intended to impress someone at work, but this was clearly more important.

I intended to stick with the recipe completely, minus the nuts (ew). I struggled to reach the full amount of pumpkin called for in the recipe, but with lots of scraping and spatul-ing of the can I think I made it happen. Either way, it was impossible to tell in the end. I also decreased the cinnamon by 1 tsp because nothing can ruin a cake like too much cinnamon.

Pumpkin Cake (I don't know what pumpkin bars are. This was a cake) with Cream Cheese Frosting
adapted from recipe by Allysa Torey and Jennifer Appel

Cake part:
* 1 1/2 cups flour
* 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
* 1/2 tsp cinnamon
* 1 tsp baking soda
* 1/4 tsp salt
* 1 1/4 cups canned pumpkin puree
* 1 1/4 cups sugar
* 3/4 cups vegetable oil (I considered using butter instead, but oil was definitely the way to go on this one. Moist!)
* 3 eggs

Frosting part:
* 8 oz cream cheese, room temp
* 3 1/2 tbsp butter, room temp
* 2 ish cups powdered sugar
* 1 tsp vanilla

Cake: Preheat oven to 350˚ F. Grease a 9 x 13 inch baking pan.

Mix the flour, b.p., cinnamon, b.s., and salt in a small bowl or liquid cup measure (efficiency!).













In a large bowl, beat the pumpkin, sugar, oil and eggs until smooth and well combined (I used the hand beaters to ensure the ingredients were sufficiently blended). Pour in the dry ingredients and mix well. Pour the batter into the pan and bake 28-33 minutes.



























While the cake is cooling, make the frosting: Using beaters or a standing mixer, whip the cream cheese and butter together. Add the vanilla and beat again. Add the sugar by the half cup until sweetened to your liking. When the cake has cooled, spread a thick layer of frosting over the top. Kidnap your friends and being them to your house and force them to eat the cake (between eight of us the cake did not survive the night).

Lastly, my apologies for the shitty pictures. As with all extremely tasty things I make, it was impossible to remember to photograph pieces of the cake before they were rapidly demolished. But trust me, it was beautiful.

Control Freaks

Sometimes one just has to bake something vegan. Usually this only happens when you are with a vegan and trying to be sensitive. Actually, this does only happen when you are with a vegan and trying to be sensitive. That said, when Nic showed up unexpectedly at my door I knew there would be some animal product-less baking in our near futures.

We perused a few vegan websites and were not unimpressed with the selection of recipes, but the true answer did not take long to find. Allowing my taste buds' agenda to take over, I embarked on a google search of "vegan peanut butter cookies." The rationale for wanting vegan peanut butter cookies was that the nuttiness of peanut butter overtakes the other flavors in peanut butter cookies. A frequent conundrum with vegan baking is that the flavors are somehow not as stellar as those of butter, eggs and granulated sugar (for some reason many vegan recipes shy away from sugar in exchange for agave or maple syrup. Explain, someone), and are instead just a little weird. On the other hand, it is very difficult to craft a truly foul flavored PB cookie (that said, I hated the things, vegan or not, for most of my childhood... but we are all young and stupid at some point). But I digress.

The second link that came up was for none other than 101cookbooks's vegan PB cookies. Nic agreed that they sounded half decent. She also agreed to let me use almond butter (the container was open and the PB was sealed) and some agave instead of all maple syrup (maple syrup is expensive and I have no other foreseeable use for the agave).

MaNic/Nuts Cookies

adapted from recipe by Heidi Swanson

* 2 cups whole wheat flour
* 1 tsp baking soda
* 3/4 tsp salt
* 1/2 cup almond butter
* 1/2 cup peanut butter (I had chunky because it's better, but creamy will suffice)
* 1/2 cup maple syrup
* 1/2 cup agave
* 1 1/2 tsp vanilla
* 1/3 cup olive oil

Preheat oven to 350˚ F.

Have your fellow control freak mix the flours, b.p. and salt in a bowl. In a larger bowl, combine the nut butters, maple syrup/agave, olive oil and vanilla. Mix them until very well combine and smooth (except for the peanut chunks).

Pour in the flour, salt and baking soda. Mix until just barely combined. Let the dough sit for 5 minutes (or so. We all now how I feel about waiting). Give a few more stirs. The dough is sticky, so it is advisable to use a spoon to scoop dough onto a lightly greased baking sheet. Bake for about 10 minutes. Let cool before removing from the sheet, as they will be soft still and fall apart easily when still hot.

Final commentary: When they first came out of the oven, the cookies were good, but had a slight bitterness (most probably from the almond butter and olive oil) that exacerbated the fact that they were not very sweet. They were not bad, just - different. That said, after sitting for a night the bitterness dissipated and the maple/agave flavor strengthened. They maintained their x-factor, as the olive oil flavor subtly remained, but they were slightly more delicious after resting.

dough boy fresh

Title. Today was a wake and bake kind of day. It was Sunday, rainy and I had the house (mostly) to myself. But in the interest of being moderately productive with the day, I decided to make soda bread instead. I first thought I'd have a second go with cuisinart bread, but was quickly put off by memories of the waiting/rising process, etc. I had also failed to celebrate St. Patrick's Day (unless you count getting drunk and belligerent on Guinness when it was still light out and proceeding to get in a physical fight with one of my good friends as celebrating St. Patrick's Day...), and soda bread seemed like a good tribute to my Irish non-brethren.

I attempted to find a recipe for soda bread I had found successful previously (not the oat one I wrote about in here). I am pretty sure it came from the Bread Bible, but upon comparing the B.B. recipe with one I found in the Big Book of Baking, I decided to try the latter. I made a minor adjustment, adding 2 cups of whole wheat flour (I had done this the first time I made soda bread to my immense delight. Flavor and fiber!), but otherwise was content with the simplicity of the recipe.

American Soda Bread

adapted from recipe from The Big Book and Baking

* 2 cups flour

* 2 cups whole wheat flour

* 1 tsp baking soda

* 1 tsp salt

* 1 3/4 cups buttermilk (I made the genius error of reading 1 1/4 cups at first and was most perplexed when the dough was excessively floury and dry until I finally learned to read)

Preheat oven to 425˚ F. Lightly grease a cookie sheet.

Mix the flours, baking soda and salt in a bowl. Make a well and add the buttermilk (ideally the proper amount). Stir until the dough just comes together. It should not be too wet.

Turn dough onto floured surface and knead a few times. Shape into a 8-inch circle (NOTE: THIS STEP IS CRUCIAL). Place the loaf on the cookie sheet. Make a cross on the top with a knife. Bake for 25-30 minutes, until golden and hollow sounding when tapped. Cool on a wire rack.

Now for the fun part: I was very pleased with my first impression of the bread. It was a gorgeous color and well risen, if slightly lopsided. The first slice I tasted was the perfect temperature, slightly crunchy on the outsides and subtly flavored. I immediately went in for a second piece, only to discover an oval of raw dough in the center of my bread. I cut another piece to see if the dough problem had invaded the whole loaf. It had. Now, for anyone who knows me, raw things are not problematic. I will eat most things from raw mushrooms to, as it happens, bread dough. This was a little troubling, though. I ate the pieces I had cut with some buttery spread while pondering 1) how I could fix this and 2) how it happened. I re-heated the oven to 350˚ and put the bread back in for 3 minutes before deciding that this was not a good idea - the rest of the loaf was borderline dry already and this would most likely ruin the whole thing without fixing the central problem (hehe). I removed it, ate another piece, then grabbed a spoon. It was time to excavate. I scooped out as much of the raw part as possible and shaped it together into a mini loaf. I stuck it in the toaster oven at 350˚ for about 5 minutes, then shoved this small, mostly baked piece back into the cavernous loaf. I am nothing if not creative. And crazy.

As for what happened, Dani proposed that I did not sufficiently flatten the dough (hence above warning at the shaping step). I think I also failed to tightly pinch the dough seams together, which, while this might not have contributed to the un-baked factor, is always important in bread making. Duly noted.

Freaks and Banana Bread

Baking for a group of people is always an interesting activity. The other night, I invited a few friends over for some TV, champagne and baking. I sold the baking component as something of a group activity ("we can all bake something!"), but deep down I knew full well that, aside from dishes like the Boston Cream Pie, baking, for me, is a highly personal and individualized activity (what? I'm an only child). Towards midnight on aforementioned night, my eyes began to droop slightly. We were on our third episode of Freaks and Geeks and our third row of girl scout cookies. I wasn't sure if I was still up for this momentous baking I had promised. When Becky piped up with, "are we still going to bake?," her voice laden with hope, I knew that quitting was not an option. In record time, they reached the conclusion that they wanted banana bread with, obviously, chocolate chips. Despite having only two rather dinky bananas lying around, it was on.

Allrecipes.com provided a most basic recipe to follow (side rant: what's up with everyone trying to put all kinds of s..stuff in banana bread? While less is more is usually-but-not-always the case with baking, it should be a rule with banana bread).

Banana Bread

recipe adapted from allrecipes.com

* 2 cups flour

* 1 tsp baking soda

* 1/4 tsp salt

* 1 stick butter

* 3/4 cup brown sugar

* 2 eggs

* 1 tsp vanilla (final touch I decided to throw in. Vanilla makes everything better)

* 2-3 ripe bananas (recipe called for 2 1/3 cups, but I barely had 1 cup and it turned out just dandy)

* 1 cup chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350˚ F. Grease a loaf pan.

Mash the bananas in a small bowl. In a separate bowl, cream butter and sugar. Add the eggs and stir in completely. Add the bananas and vanilla and mix until well combined. Pour in the flour, baking soda and salt. Mix until just combined (no overmixing). Lastly, fold in the chocolate chips.

Scoop the batter into the loaf pan. Bake for 1 hour. Feed to a frenzy of girls.

Biscuit case

I have created a monster (or two). Ever since my most recent (and most successful) biscuit attempt, Dani has been drooling in anticipation of the next batch. The other night I felt compelled to bake, but had no hunger for baked goods. As a result, I allowed Dani to make the executive decision of what to make. Without an extra thought, she exclaimed, "biscuits!" Sophie, who was also present, quickly seconded this suggestion. It was decided. The only problem was this blog. There is no fun in re-baking something I already know is great, like the biscuits from the Bread Bible because the story and recipe will not be new and exciting. So we turned to my old go-to site, foodnetwork.com. Alton Brown had a decent looking recipe, so we decided to give it a try. We altered it slightly, leaving out the shortening in exchange for extra butter.

Biscuits 2

adapted from recipe by Alton Brown

* 2 cups flour

* 4 tsp baking powder

* 1/4 tsp baking soda

* 3/4 tsp salt

* 4 tbsp butter

* 1 cup buttermilk (upon discovering some heavy cream in the refrigerator, I attempted to replace some of the buttermilk with cream. Disappointment ensued, though, when the cream was slightly solidified and clearly past its prime. Buttermilk had to suffice).

Preheat oven to 450˚ F. Mix the flour, b.p., b.s., and salt in a bowl. Crumble in the butter (pastry cutter or fingertips will work) until mixture resembles crumbs. Pour in the buttermilk and mix until just combined. Place the dough on a floured surface. Sprinkle top with flour and fold the dough over 5-6 times.

Here we again diverged from the recipe. Rather than rolling out the dough and punching out circles with a cookie cutter, we pinched off pieces of dough and dropped them into a (lightly greased) round cake pan. I was a big fan of how this baking vessel worked with the previous round of biscuits, ensuring they bake upwards rather than puffing out too far.

Bake 15-20 minutes (we did 15. Tasting them the next morning, I concluded that a few more minutes would not have hurt). Eat with butter, jam, lemon curd, peanut butter, nothing.

Deez corn nuts

My Portland baking companions Aly and Kathleen recently introduced me to the most delicious cookies I have had in a long time: compost cookies. I had heard of these miraculous treats (notably from baking queen Julie), but never bothered to look into them too much. The ones A and K sent had chocolate chips and what I first thought was corn flakes, but later discovered to be POTATO CHIPS. YES. I ate about 4 of the cookies in one sitting, and finished the rest throughout the day (with some help from Dani).

In the week following this most amazing cookie gift, producing a similarly creative compost-type cookie became an obsession for me and Dani. On one grocery store trip we purchased chocolate chips, potato chips, chocolate pudding, corn nuts, avocados and PBR. We did no research on how one goes about constructing a compost cookie - from the taste/appearance I assumed the recipe closely resembled that of basic chocolate chip cookies, with the addition of some form(s) of salty relief. Having subsequently read a bit about compost cookie theory, I feel that our lack of knowledge was in the spirit of compost cookie making. We bought what looked good (?) and blindly sprinted into the realm of throwing random junk food into dough.

After this bout of mania, our enthusiasm waned slightly. Aside from devouring >3/4 of the bag of corn nuts one evening (a traumatizing occurrence), we more or less forgot about our grand plans. Until beer pong time rolled around (a friend of mine recently started a beer pong league. Don't be jealous). This would be the venue to experiment with cookies. As soon as I got home from work on the night of scheduled beer pong I pulled a stick of butter and an egg from the fridge and...

Tooth Breaker Cookies

* 1 stick butter (I went with normal over unsalted, as I usually do with choc chip cookies)
* 1/2 cup brown sugar
* 1/4 cup white sugar
* 1 egg
* 1 tsp vanilla
* 1 cup + 3 tbsp flour (slightly less flour would probably work, especially if you like your cookies on the thin/chewy side)
* 1 tsp baking soda
* 1 cup (or so) chocolate chips
* 1/2 cup (or so) plain corn nuts

Note: I did not add any extra salt in this recipe. Salt is a crucial component of all chocolate chip-esque cookies, but the high sodium content (like, really high) of corn nuts and salted butter seemed to suffice in this case.

Preheat oven ton 350˚ F.

Cream butter and sugars. Wooden spoon style is always most rewarding. Beat in the egg and then vanilla. Once well combined, add the flour and baking soda (note: the compost cookie recipes I looked at subsequently called for baking powder, some in addition to and some instead of baking soda. If I understood the difference between the two I would comment on this. Since I do not understand the difference, I went with baking soda, which is traditional in chocolate chip cookies). Mix well until dough is formed.

Pour in the chocolate chips and corn nuts. Mix well. Place balls of dough on cookie sheet. Bake for 10-ish minutes (less for softer and chewier, longer for crispier and dryer).

Serve with beer. Or on their own. Note: Dani insisted on killing the element of surprise by telling/warning everyone about the corn nuts they were about to encounter, claiming she wanted to protect people from chipping their teeth. I have never known someone to break a tooth on a corn nut (even a surprise corn nut). I will, however, certainly be using her suggestion of adding more corn nuts and crushing them slightly before adding them when I recreate these cookies. This will happen as soon as I can face a bag of corn nuts again...

Muffin-crushing

Dani has been fantasizing about Toblerone muffins ever since she discovered the recipe about a year ago. We have made many plans to bring this dream into reality, all of which have fallen through. We came very close recently, even purchasing the two necessary bars of Toblerone. This attempt was foiled, though, by a collective failure of self control, which resulted in the consumption of 1.5 of aforementioned bars. While I am not a recipe stickler, even I will delay baking when I am missing 3/4 of the recommended chocolate.

On Wednesday we managed to obtain replacement Toblerone. After consuming a painfully healthy dinner of cauliflower and millet (produced by Wilma. It was actually quite delicious), we set about constructing these nutrition-free muffins.

Toblerone Muffins

adapted from Sweet Endings by Sharon Glass

* 2 1/2 cups flour

* 1 tbsp baking powder

* 2/3 cup sugar

* 1/2 cup ground almonds

* 6 tbsp butter

* 1 egg

* 1 cup buttermilk

* 1/4 cup milk

* 1 1/2-2 bars Toblerone

Preheat oven to 375˚ F.

Chop the chocolate. Note: I had Dani do a very rough chop. This meant the chocolate was not well distributed throughout the muffins. For this reason, the few Toblerone chunks were extra special, but a slightly smaller chop would have meant more chocolate encounters, therefore more delicious muffins.

Have your faithful assistant mix the dry ingredients, including the sugar and almonds. Melt the butter in a medium saucepan. Whisk in the buttermilk/milk (it can all be buttermilk, but it was easier for me to do 1/4 cup milk and I am lazy), then the egg. Make sure to whisk constantly so the egg does not cook.

Fold the wet ingredients into the dry until just combined. Fold in the Toblerone. Either grease a muffin tin, or fill with muffin cups. The recipe said 6 muffins would come from a batch, but we ended up with 12 reasonably sized muffins. Bake for 20 minutes. Let cool before eating.

Final consensus: The muffins were far from inedible - Dani, in fact, polished off two fresh out of the oven. On the other hand, they were not spectacular. I attribute the mediocrity to the actual muffin part (obviously the slightly melty Toblerone was out of this world). The muffin was pale, bland and too milky (maybe if I had used buttermilk instead of a combination of buttermilk and milk this would have helped. Maybe not). In theory, a plain muffin base is ideal to support a flavor such as that of Toblerone. In this case, though, I was underwhelmed. Upon further contemplation, Dani and I concluded that perhaps more egg and less milk, and/or finer chopped chocolate, and/or a chocolate muffin would have produced a more cohesive and delicious overall muffin experience. I would not repeat this exact recipe, but I would certainly experiment with it.

Final final note: While we were baking, Dani brought to my attention her opinion that the pictures in this blog are sub-par. I would like to take a moment to apologize profusely to the world (aka the only important people in the world aka the people reading this) for the not-as-amazing-as-apparently-they-should-be food images that I have been subjecting you to. I hope you can forgive me until the day when I am a famous food-tographer with a real camera and real skills. Sorry.

Processed

White bread. Does it have any redeeming qualities? It has negative health value; it is far less exciting than rye, challah or potato rosemary bread; it it is the worst insult one can bestow on a city. But let's be honest. Aside from these flaws, there is nothing not to like about white bread. It is inoffensive, holds up well in a sandwich (unlike the seed-heavy brown breads my mom likes), and will not clash with anything you want to put on it.

In the interest of keeping with my commitment to use the Bread Bible more, I decided to break in my new food processor last week. According to a very wise source, food processors are ideal for bread making - superior even to kitchenaid-type contraptions. I began flipping through the Bible for recipes to try. I then decided to make challah in honor of Dani's return home. I then decided that I was too Jewish to make challah not on a Friday (it was Sunday). After extensive perusal, I concluded that my best plan of action would be to follow a recipe from the food-processor instruction book. As much as I love improvising with baking, when it comes to bread, messing around is not yet an option for me. For my first food-processor bread endeavor, I concluded that having explicit steps for when and where to use the machine would be for the best. How right I was!

Classic Cuisinart White Bread

* 1 package active dry yeast

* 2 tsp granulated sugar

* 1/3 cup warm water

* 4 cups flour

* 3 tbsp butter

* 1 1/2 tsp salt

* 1 cup cold water

Step 1: Figure out how to assemble and turn on the food processor (no, I did not do this before starting out and yes, this proved to be highly problematic).

Dissolve the yeast and sugar in the warm water in a 2-cup liquid measure. Let mixture sit about 5 minutes until foamy (mine ended up sitting for closer to 20 minutes as I entered a vicious battle with the uncooperative cuisinart soon after mixing the ingredients).

ONLY ONCE YOU ARE SURE THE FOOD PROCESSOR IS PROPERLY ASSEMBLED AND WILL RUN WHEN YOU TURN IT ON SHOULD YOU PROCEED.

Put flour, butter and salt into food processor and process. With the processor running, pour in the liquid, including the cup of cold water. When the dough comes together to form a ball and no longer sticks to the bowl, continue to process for 45 seconds (much better than kneading by hand).

The recipe suggested using a floured plastic bag as a rising vessel for the dough. In an attempt to make the bread slightly more exciting, I greased the rising bowl with olive oil and coated the dough in the oil. I don't think this made much of a difference in the bread flavor, but, if nothing else, it did not hurt the bread. Anyway, let the dough rise in whatever container you choose for 1 to 1 1/2 hours in a warm place (next to the heater works excellently).

Once doubled in size, place the dough on a floured surface. Punch down dough. Divide in half. Roll each piece of dough out into an 8x4 rectangle. Roll the dough up (like a jelly/cinnamon roll). Pinch together well at the seams to seal. Place each dough ball in an 8x4 inch greased bread pan. Cover with plastic wrap. Let dough rise for about 45 mins (until just risen over the top of the pans). Fifteen minutes before baking, preheat oven to 400˚ F.

Bake 30-35 minutes, until loaves are brown and make a hollow sound when tapped. Let cool on cooling rack.

The bread was a success. Excellent with soup, and it made for delicious paninis/grilled cheeses. I take back all bad things I have said before about white bread - it might be boring and cause diabetes, but it tastes like sweet, fluffy comfort.

Creamy

Emma has left me. She has abandoned San Francisco for snowier pastures on the other side of this far too wide country. I was able to break free from the grief stage of grief to which I have been clinging the night before her departure, just long enough to craft a Boston Cream Pie Cake in honor of her new home.

Not being familiar with Boston Cream Pie made this undertaking minorly overwhelming. Fortunately, I had the help of Matt, Renato, and, most importantly, Sophie, without whom I would never have managed get the eggs separated and the cake decorated (she is also responsible for the photos in this post).

All struggles and mishaps aside, this baking adventure was nothing less than blood-pressure raising (in a good way). And well worthwhile for the joy of sharing it with Miss Emmsicle.

Emma is Moving to Boston Cream Pie Cake

adapted from Baked Explorations

cake part:

* 1 3/4 cups flour

* 1 1/2 tsp baking powder

* 3/4 tsp salt

* 6 tbsp unsalted butter

* 3/4 cup milk

* 4 eggs

* 1 1/4 cup sugar

* 1 1/2 tsp vanilla

pastry cream part:

* 7 eggs yolks

* 3/4 cup sugar

* 1/4 tsp salt

* 1/3 cup cornstarch

* 3 cups whole milk

* 3 tbsp butter

* 1 tbsp vanilla

* 2 tbsp rum (they called for light rum, but I only had dark so I used that)

* 6 oz dark chocolate (I used semi-sweet chocolate chips)

glaze part:

* 5 oz dark chocolate (or the rest of the bag of chocolate chips, minus the handful you eat straight)

* 2 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder

* 1/4 cup sugar

* 1/4 cup heavy cream

* 1/4 cup light corn syrup (I will reiterate that expired corn syrup is completely acceptable)

* pinch salt

* 1/2 tsp vanilla

* 1 1/2 tbsp butter

First, read the entire recipe. Also, I recommend not starting on the cream filling until the cake is out of the oven. If you don't have that kind of time, though, just make sure to start on the filling as soon as the cake is in the oven to allow for sufficient cream-making time.

Cake part:

Preheat oven to 325˚ F. Grease two cake pans.

Mix flour, salt, and baking powder together in a bowl.

Put the butter and milk in a small saucepan and heat on low until butter is just melted. Remove from heat and set aside.

In a large bowl, use electric beaters (or a kitchenaid if you are lucky enough to possess one) to beat the eggs, sugar and vanilla. Beat for about 5 minutes until volume triples. Pour 1/3 of the flour mixture over the mixture. Fold into the mixture. Add the remaining flour and fold it all in. Pour in the warm milk/butter and gently fold in until just mixed. Pour the batter into the two cake pans.

Note: At this stage the Baked recipe led me well astray. It said to bake for 20-25 minutes, insisting that the cakes might still wobble slightly when done. I took them out after 25 minutes and made the genius decision to turn one onto a cooling rack. Next thing I knew, the cake top had plunged through the bars on the rack and onto the counter. Yes. The entire center of the cake was still raw. I had suspected as much based on the extreme paleness of the cake and the somewhat excessive wobbling, but I had developed a strong trust of Baked Explorations. Never again. I managed to scoop the cake guts back into the rest of the cake. Sophie convinced me to let the cakes bake for longer, rather than simply leaving part of it raw.

The moral of the story is: bake for at least 25 minutes, but probably more like 35. Cool the cakes on a rack.

Pastry Cream part:

Whisk the egg yolks, half of the sugar (1/4 cup +2 tbsp), salt, and cornstarch in a large bowl. In a med-large saucepan, mix the milk and the rest of the sugar over medium heat. Stir until the mixture boils. Remove from heat. Pour 1/3 of the mixture into the bowl with the eggs, etc, whisking constantly. Pour this mixture back into the saucepan, increase the heat, and bring to a boil, whisking constantly. Boil for 2 minutes. The mixture will thicken. (The recipe instructs pushing the custard through a fine-mesh sieve before proceeding, but for many reasons, which may or may not be obvious, I did not do this.) Stir in butter, vanilla and rum.

Here I again took my English major speed-reading skills one step too far; I failed to read the part where you reserve 1/3 of the pastry cream for a plain custard layer. All this meant, though, was that the final cake was extra chocolatey. Cry about it.

Add the chocolate chips to the warm pastry cream and mix until combined. Let cool for about 15 minutes. Place a layer of plastic wrap on top of the custard and refrigerate (4 hours to overnight was recommended. I did closer to 1/2 hour, but what did you expect).

Glaze part:

Melt the chocolate and cocoa powder in a double boiler.

Combine sugar, cream, corn syrup, salt and 1/4 cup water in a small saucepan. Warm over low heat. When sugar has dissolved, increase heat to medium. Simmer while stirring about 4 minutes. Remove pan from heat. Whisk in the vanilla and butter. Add the melted chocolate mixture and stir until smooth. Set aside.

Assembly part:

Cut the cakes in half using a serrated knife. Place one layer on a plate. Scoop 1/3 (or slightly less in the interest of having some custard left over) of the pastry cream on top of cake. Cover the cream with another layer of cake. Repeat until final cake layer is on top.

Pour the chocolate glaze on top. Let the glaze pour down the sides. Use a spoon or butter knife to ensure that entire cake gets covered in glaze.

This last ditch effort to persuade Emma not to move (cake bribery - it works sometimes) ultimately backfired. Instead of showing her a preview of all the other delicious things I would make her if she stayed, she decided she would rather live in the city that actually knows how to make such a spectacular dessert. Fair enough, I suppose.