Christmas Re-cap

I'll admit, I'm a little burned out from all the baking I did for Christmas—mostly cookies.

I didn't fulfill my ambitious Christmas baking plans. I am happy with what I got done.

The above cake is a Chocolate Sour Cream Bundt cake from a Cooks Illustrated recipe. The pan is Nordic Ware Gingerbread House Bundt Pan, and I'm super impressed with the quality and the detail. My son and I decorated the cake later, but I didn't get a picture :-(

This is my favorite of the Christmas cakes I made. It's the Paula Deen recipe for Red Velvet Cake and my American Buttercream. I do not recommend making the cake as written, but it's close enough that I plan to work on the recipe. For the decorations I used palettes (thank you Shannon Weber for letting me know the name of the circle sprinkles), star sprinkles, and silver glittery coarse sugar. I feel quite emphatically that Christmas decorations should be unrestrained rather than tasteful.

My favorite of the cookies I made was the Compost Cookies from Momofuku Milk Bar. A good online adaptation of the recipe is a Amateur Gourmet, though I recommend the much more specific original. My mix-ins were potato chips, mini-pretzels, chocolate chips, white chocolate chips, toffee bits (yum!), and oatmeal. My husband suggested I rename them Candy Bar Cookies, because they taste like a candy bar. I'll do a full blog post on them someday. :-)

My Dad's birthday is December 25th, and for his cake I made the Chocolate Sour Cream Cake that won my Chocolate Cake Taste Test and a brand-new original Fudge Frosting that I will post soon. It was so good that I'm making the cake and frosting again for my birthday later this month.

How did your Christmas go? Did you try to do too much as well?

Posted with Blogsy

Cornflake Chocolate Chip Marshmallow Cookies

Not many pictures, as time was tight. These are from the Momofuku Milk Bar cookbook. I did not adapt these enough that I feel comfortable posting a recipe.

They are very, very good—slightly salty, and crunchy and gooey at the same time. I normally don't even like marshmallows, but the minis are perfect here. Christina Tosi lists a version with Fruity Pebbles instead of Corn Flakes and without chocolate chips. I didn't grow up eating "sugar cereal," and that still sounds amazing.

Yes, I have a crush on Milk Bar, but it's not blind. I have tested three cookie recipes in the past two weeks, several from Milk Bar, and I have thrown away three batches of cookie dough. It was painful. They were not nice enough to give, and I had to ask myself my standard "do I want this [food I am looking at] in the garbage or on my butt?" Crude, but it works.

The winners completely redeem the book though.

This was my second take on the recipe, and I felt confident enough to double it.

Really strange-looking cookie dough

This was not a good idea, as it didn't come close to fitting in my 5 quart KitchenAid.

I also made the cookies a lot smaller, using a flat scoop from a #40 or tablespoon disher. This is equivalent to a cookie scooped by a dinner-tablespoon. I baked them for only 8 minutes at 375 degrees.

Why did I throw away the first batch? Warning, dorkinesss ahead!

First, I used the Christmas variation that mixed in crushed candy canes, and did not like it. I didn't think I would, but I thought it was worth trying.

Second, I used the wrong flour. My miserly tendances led me to use bleached all-purpose flour. Christina Tosi calls for King Arthur unbleached bread flour, and I was unwise to ignore this.

As I read in BakeWise, cookies are controlled by their very low moisture level. The moisture level is, in turn, influenced by the protein level of the flour. King Arthur Flour has very high protein levels in their flours in general. For example, the protein level in their AP flour is 11.7%, higher than almost every other brand (Cook's Illustrated and TheArtisan.net). KAF bread flour is 12.7% protein.

Cookies from my first batch resembled terrible fried eggs, bulging in the middle with a huge spread and very thin, tough margin. I didn't have any bread flour (sigh—I usually have six types of flour on hand), so I used the very strong (high in protein) King Arthur AP flour instead of the softer bleached flour. The new cookies were still pretty flat, but good enough to share.

Bleached all-purpose flour is almost always softer (lower in protein) than unbleached all-purpose flour. According to Bakewise, this is only because of convention and not because of the bleaching.

Posted with Blogsy

Christmas Baking Plans

It's December 1st and our Christmas Tree is up. I started to get really excited about Christmas baking, and I thought I'd share my thoughts.

I am still struggling with cutout cookies, so I'm going to stick with drop cookies and icebox cookies. These are cookies I'm considering: Christmas Cookies from Milk Bar (cornflake, chocolate, marshmallow, and candy cane bits); something with potato chips, just for the novelty; a peanut butter cookie—either traditional or Peanut Blossom (with Hershey's Kisses); Almond Spritz; Snickerdoodles; and Chocolate Toffee Butter Cookies. Six cookies is pretty ambitious, but I won't be disappointed if I don't do all of them. I will also use my freezer to my advantage with the cookie dough.

I'm planning to use boxes of these cookies as Christmas presents.

My Mom bought me the stand-up house pan, and I'm going to make a Gingerbread Cake House for my 7-year old to decorate. Maybe we can eat it on Christmas Eve.

Christmas Morning Cinnamon rolls were our tradition for a number of years, but I might try Milk Bar Cinnamon Bun Pie this year. If I do, I'll freeze it well in advance.

Finally, I am going to make a cake for my Father's Birthday, which is December 25th. We always try to make a big deal out of it, given the difficult timing.

What are your holiday plans?

 

Posted with Blogsy

Best Pumpkin Muffins Ever

I think that everyone who is a home baker or cook should have one recipe that is HER recipe. Not necessarily original, but rock solid and very, very tasty. This is MY recipe under those criteria.

I've been making these muffins for ten years, and they are definitely the most universally loved of anything I bake. You would not be far off to say that this recipe is the basis of my reputation and confidence as a baker. Even people who don't necessarily like pumpkin love them too.

I made these when I lived in Colorado Springs, so I've included high-altitude adjustments in the recipe at the end.

Once I realized (last year) that these are my go-to recipe, I celebrated by getting a really nice pumpkin muffin pan from Nordic Ware. Nordic Ware is definitely the way to go for a shaped pan if you plan to use it a lot. And though I am not wealthy, I really try to use the best tools I can.

This batch of muffins is for the Elders of my church, one of whom is being transferred tomorrow. These young men are far from home, and we really appreciate the work they do. Et voilà!

This is a very simple and quick recipe. You don't need a mixer, and in fact you can do almost the whole thing with a whisk. I've adapted the recipe from The Best Quick Recipe by America's Test Kitchen (ATK). In case you're wondering about the prevalence of ATK in this blog, it's because I basically taught myself to cook from their cookbooks, though I like to think I've flown the nest.

I started by weighing 8 3/4 ounces of all-purpose flour and adding 1 tablespoon baking powder, 1/2 teaspoon salt, 1 teaspoon cinnamon, and 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger. I usually add 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves, but I am out. I then whisked the dry ingredients.

In a separate, smaller bowl I weighed 7 ounces, or 1 cup, of dark brown sugar. I weigh brown sugar to avoid the fuss of packing it in the measuring cup.

I added one egg and whisked these together. Even though my brown sugar is fresh today, I've made this recipe with sugar dried to the point that some lumps would not mix out. Amazingly, these little crunchy nuggets of brown sugar soften in the oven and are very nice in the finished muffin, so don't worry if this happens to you.

I then whisked in 1 1/2 cups of pumpkin pie filling or approximately one half of one can. It is very important that you use canned pumpkin pie filling and not canned pumpkin, as they are very different.

As I am often ill-prepared and unorganized, I at this point melted one stick of butter for the next step. I melt butter in the microwave in a glass measuring cup. I used unsalted butter because that's what I have, but it really doesn't make a difference in this recipe.

I whisked in the butter, which is not completely effortless because of the oil-water thing, but shouldn't be too much of a problem.

I next used a silicone spatula to scrape the wet ingredients into the dry, then gently used the whisk to fold them together. Yes, you can fold in ingredients with a whisk and it's very efficient. As with all quick breads, you need to be careful not to over-mix.

I banged the batter out of my whisk and sprayed the muffin pan with oil and flour spray. I couldn't use papers with a shaped pan, but I wouldn't anyway. I feel strongly that muffins are nicer baked in a sprayed tin instead of papers.

I used to bake muffins quite often, so I actually have a 2 ounce or 1/4 cup disher (like an ice cream scoop) I bought specifically for that purpose. I got it at a local restaurant-supply store, and it comes in handy for lots of things. So I portioned the batter into the muffin cups.

This is a very thick batter, due to the fiber in the pumpkin, and it will mostly fill the muffin cup and stay in approximately the same shape after baking. I want my shaped muffins to have a flat bottom, so I used a spatula to push the batter into the edges of the pan. You do not have to do this in a standard muffin pan, and it doesn't change the baking time.

I baked the muffins in a 375 degree oven for 18 to 22 muffins. I test muffins and flat cakes for doneness by touching the top-center; if it springs back a little bit, it's done, and if it smooches (be gentle) it needs more time.

You should cool the muffins 10 minutes in the pan, then on a rack. It was late, and I was impatient, so I didn't wait. Consequently, a couple muffins broke. This is fortuitous and not completely accidental, as my kids and I will eat the broken ones. Did I mention that these are really good?

Pumpkin Muffins (High-Altitude Adjustments in Parentheses)

Makes 12

8 3/4 oz or 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour

1 tbsp baking powder (2 tsp in high altitude)

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1/2 tsp ground ginger

1/4 tsp ground cloves

1/2 tsp salt

1 egg

1 cup packed or 7 oz dark brown sugar (2 tbsp less or 6 1/4 oz total in high altitude)

1 1/2 cups canned pumpkin pie filling

8 tbsp or 1 stick melted butter, melted but not bubbling



Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Spray muffin tin with flour and oil spray.

Whisk together flour, baking powder, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, and salt. In a smaller bowl, whisk the egg and sugar. Mix in the pumpkin, then the butter.

Scrape the wet ingredients into the dry. Gently fold with whisk or silicon spatula. Do not over-mix.

Scoop the batter into the muffin tin. Bake 18 to 22 minutes, or until the muffin resists slightly when touched. Let cool in pan 10 minutes, then turn out on cooling rack. Cool until no longer steaming and eat warm.

Posted with Blogsy