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christmas cookie depot: pistachio cranberry icebox cookies

Hello. Still there? It's hard to believe it's been three weeks since I have been here, and suddenly the shortest day, and longest night, of the year. Making cookies is something I have always done for Christmas and it marks the time of year for me. Cookies were the first things I ever baked myself, and I have had a holiday baking ritual ever since.

Heavenly Cake Bakers ~ Pure Pumpkin Cheesecake

 

Thanks to Charles for all the photos in this post!

A fever pitch has been reached with the holiday baking, folks. I am not sure if 5 pies (pumpkin x2, apple, apple cranberry crumb, and pecan) and a cheesecake in the span of a week is a record for me, but it feels record-breaking. I had three thanksgiving meals this week with different parts of my real and adopted family, and though my pants are a bit tighter, my heart is lighter. As Russ Parsons said on Good Food, "thanksgiving is our [america's] only ceremonial meal so we have a lot riding on it," but even more than the food, I enjoy the company and the focus on being grateful.

I was grateful the Pure Pumpkin Cheesecake recipe (click on link for recipe) showed up this week on the Heavenly Bakers schedule because my sister adores cheesecake, and I rarely get to bake for her with the pesky 400 miles between us. So I was to bake this cheesecake outside my own kitchen, already a challenge! 

good pie crust: the filling and baking

I wrote up a list of my hard-earned lessons with pie crust (aka Part 1: The Dough, Before Filling) and there are several great links on that post so check it out. (Also, I tried this simplified version of Rose's Flaky and Tender Pie Crust recently. You should too.)

I should emphasize first that there are many, many paths to perfect pie pastry. You can mix by hand or in the food processor (my favorite). For the fat, you can use butter, cream cheese, lard, shortening or some combination thereof. You can roll on a pastry cloth, on a floured board/counter, between sheets of plastic wrap, or silpat mats. You can use a marble rolling pin, or a tapered wooden french rolling pin.

What I am aiming for is not to sell you on a particular tool or technique so much as to share the basics so you can find what works for you.

So once you have rolled out the dough, and have chilled it in the pie plate, what is next? Our major challenge is getting the filling properly cooked without overbrowning the outer crust, and the ultimate paydirt, a crisp (or at least not soggy) bottom crust. This is especially challenging for fruit pies, because fruit is basically water held together by fiber.

Preheat the oven at LEAST 20 minutes before baking, and use a baking/pizza stone (if you have one). Ovens take a long time to come to temperature and they don't hold a consistent temperature, they cycle on and off to maintain an average of the temperature you commanded it.   Also, to take the mystery and suspense out of your baking life, get a cheap oven thermometer and keep it in your oven whenever you bake. Most ovens runs a bit hot or cool (my oven at home is a true overachiever, it runs 50 degrees hot) so if you use your oven thermometer to guage what temperature is really happening in there, you can adjust your dial/setting accordingly.

More to come - typepad ate the rest.

distracted by pie

 
I lied. I said I would make you a lemon luxury cake, and I was supposed to bring you a pinch of Catalan salt, too. Pie is distracting.

Some tips on homemade pie coming tomorrow. First one: make the dough for your pie crust the day before you want to bake the pie. You should chill the dough a minimum of 45 minutes before rolling, but I find it easiest to make the dough one day (with a food processor) then roll the dough, make the filling and bake the pie the next day.

pine cones, pomegranates, and wedding cake

I have been waiting to make a cake with this dark chocolate lacquer glaze since I first read about it on 
  Rose Levy Beranbaum's blog in early 2007, when she made a dark chocolate wedding cake for the celebrated chef Daniel Patterson (of Coi restaurant in San Francisco, a place I hope to go someday) with recipes she had been developing for Rose's Heavenly Cakes. Leave it to Rose to come up with a stunningly elegant and delicious glaze that needs no embellishment at all.

For friends getting married in the redwoods near Santa Cruz, I made two different flavors of cake both covered with the dark chocolate ganache undercoat and shiny dark chocolate lacquer glaze from the book.  The top and bottom tiers were my favorite dark chocolate cake recipe, (though I cannot wait to try Rose's new oil chocolate cake base that magically rises to the top in the last 10 minutes of baking).

The middle tiers were a moist yellow cake filled with the golden neoclassic buttercream mixed with raspberry puree and homemade satsuma plum jam.

Heavenly Cake Bakers ~ Pumpkin Cake

The smell of this cake will knock you over. Pumpkin puree, roasted walnuts, cinnamon, walnut oil and freshly grated nutmeg conspire in the oven to create the kind of aroma that you want in your house when prospective buyers show up. What is more surprising is the longevity of the scent - after being wrapped overnight, lifting off the plastic wrap seemed to my nose just like opening the oven to the fresh-baked spicy cake. I could have stayed this close to it all day:

Heavenly Cake Bakers ~ Almond Shamah Chiffon Cake

Oh my fellow Heavenly Cake Bakers! I was so darn excited about Rose's book coming out, and have been wearing such rosy glasses, that I couldn't even conceive of not participating. Oh sure, I thought I might have to miss the first few because of someone in my family having major surgery (and my kitchen undergoing a minor remodel) in October, but I could still bake a cake a week right? Of course I could. It would be easy!

*sigh*

Almond Shamah Chiffon Cake

My report on the Almond Shamah Chiffon Cake is forthcoming, but a little late. In the meantime, you can check out all the other Heavenly Cake Bakers via Heavenly Cake Place.

vacation baking: an excuse to make cinnamon rolls

(Photo courtesy of Rue) This is only moments before the first one was snatched away.

I have wanted to make these cinnamon rolls for so long. I think the March 2008 issue of Bon Appetit was the first one I found in my mailbox. I am still not sure who gifted the subscription to me, but thanks to Mr./Ms. Anonymous, I got the inspiration to revisit yeast (which I had avoided for a long time) and make these gorgeous cinnamon rolls. I am all up in chemical leavening's face, but really feared yeasted doughs - laminated doughs, brioche, and breads, and I told you all I would be fearless!

Why wait so long for something as simple as cinnamon rolls? Well, they are made from a plain white bread dough that needs to rise for 2 hours before punching down and rolling out. Then the dough rectangle is spread with cinnamon sugar and butter, rolled up, cut into pieces, and the rolls rise in the baking dishes for 45 minutes....before baking another 20. A breakfast item that requires 3 hours lead time? Do I need to tell you this is not happening on a weekday? Plus, after you have gone through all that trouble, you should probably eat them fresh out of the oven in all their splendor, so the best solution is a house full of people...unless you want a serious mal au ventre.

Thanks to a weekend renting a riverfront house in celebration of friends tying the knot, I finally had the excuse to share them with a gaggle of friends. When I snuck out of bed and started working on them at 6:48am, I was hoping they would be worth it.

Were they worth lugging the KitchenAid mixer on vacation? 

Worth the wait? 

Oh yes.  Light, steamy and soft on the inside, cognac brown and slightly crunchy on the outside. Good without the cream cheese icing, decadent with it. They didn't last very long. But do not take my word for it. Make them yourself. Like the other 103+ reviewers on epicurious, you will be glad you did. 

Flo Braker's Dark Chocolate Cake Recipe - Update

[UPDATE 9/21/09: I got permission from the wonderful Flo Braker to post the correct and complete version of the Dark Chocolate Cake Recipe from Baking for All Occasions. 

You will find the recipe at the bottom of the original post from March 27, 2009.