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Lemon Poppyseed Milkglass Cake

I have been working on a lemon poppyseed cake recipe and am thinking I finally have hit on the proper cake texture and lemon flavor.  Since I am testing this recipe with the goal of using it for a stacked wedding cake, I need something with some decent structure, but I had gotten a specific request for a cake that was lighter and flufflier than pound cake (a classic spot for these flavors) and moister/denser than chiffon cake (my personal favorite).  In my research, I found no recipes for lemon poppyseed cake that hit this middle ground, and many of the lemon cakes (to which I would throw in poppyseeds) turned out too moist and delicate to be used for a stacked cake.

After many test runs (and long-suffering tasters!), I am using the All-Occasion Downy Yellow Cake from Rose Levy Beranbaum's The Cake Bible (an slightly different version for a springform pan is published on Rose's site) and flavoring it with lemon oil, lemon zest and poppyseeds. As I discovered, you cannot just "throw in" some fresh lemon juice to a cake recipe and expect the crumb to be as soft, high or airy. Lemon juice is, of course, acidic, so it changes the chemical reaction and causes the cake to bake too quickly, leaving it cracked at the top and the texture low and dense.

But adding lemon oil, extract and/or zest will add flavor without ruining the structure*. I tested with Boyajian lemon oil by 1/8-teaspoons until I got the intensity I was looking for. Be very conservative with citrus oil or extract - it is far more potent than fresh juice. Also, these oils need to be kept in the fridge. I somehow missed that on the label of my first bottle, which had been sitting on a shelf over a year-- and the bitter cake that resulted was a good lesson.

Nothing is more painful than a baking project ruined by a 1/4 teaspoon of something.

But, nothing is more joyous than it coming out correctly after that!

Baking is histrionic.

Here is a 6" test cake (for the top tier) with a bunch of dots that make it look like a milkglass vase. The dots help disguise the uneven buttercream, which is more skillfully avoided by using a heavy duty turntable.

The raspberries on top hint at the raspberry cloud filling inside the cake: a small amount of butter cream mixed with a genrous portion of raspberry puree (with all the seeds strained!) into which I pressed a single layer of fresh raspberries.

The tart intensity of the raspberry filling was the perfect foil to the velvety, fluffy cake, punctuated by the little crunch of poppyseeds.

Of course, with such a delicate balance, the powdered sugar buttercream was not refined enough, so I will use a type of cooked sugar buttercream using meringue.  Also known as European buttercream,  it has far less sugar than the common American powdered sugar buttercream and won't overpower the cake I worked so hard to create. You can read a lovely explanation of and ode to meringue and its application to buttercream at the Occasional Baker.

 

Raspberry~Filled Chocolate Sour Cream Cupcakes

Last week at happy hour, a coworker of mine noticed me lugging around a birthday cake for my next stop of the evening and lamented that I never made anything for him. Lucky for him, these jabs work on me if I know you. Put on a little puss and I am usually suckered into making something. Especially if the thing I just made (i.e. aforementioned birthday cake) was a disappointment and I feel the need to redeem myself. So I asked him what he wanted and he made a specific request: dark chocolate cupcakes with raspberry filling.

Ooh. Filling.

I had some leftover homemade raspberry coulis(which is even more fun to write than "I had some leftover homemade stock") from making the filling for another cake. And given that the coulis demands so much of a poor girl's time running the berries through a sieve or a food mill to remove the seeds, it's a terrible shame to let any go to waste.

The cake is a devil's food recipe with sour cream I use a lot, with a fudgy pan frosting. I love frostings with cooked sugar (i.e. not powdered sugar) and this one was adapted from an Anne Byrd recipe.

The recipe for the coulis was the raspberry sauce and puree recipe from The Cake Bible. I have used it before with great success as a filling for a dark chocolate cake, a sauce to serve with the cake and to flavor buttercream. Rose Levy Beranbaum's technique of reducing the juice drained off the berries, pureeing the pulp and heightening the flavor with fresh lemon juice results in a very intense raspberry flavor. The filling tastes so fresh and looks so beautiful I would gladly lick it off cardboard, so thank you Rose for making me look good!

I had about a cup of coulis and it was the perfect amount to fill 22 cupcakes. Since I couldn't find a succinct description of how to fill cupcakes after a perfunctory search, and it is a question I am most often asked, the filling is put into cupcake after it has baked with a pastry bag fitted with a pastry tip (a bismark tip is ideal but you can use any large round tip).

You can see a better shot of the filling here. Altough I probably got overzealous with applying pressure wile getting the filling into the cupcake at right, it does give a peek of the bright pink puree inside.

The coworker? He ate four of them.

Lemon Poppyseed Chiffon Cupcakes

Here are the photos of the cupcakes. I think I have come upon my favorite combination to flavor lemon cake - lemon oil, juice and zest. The oil adds a concentrated lemon flavor without the acidity of juice* or the texture of zest. The juice adds a freshness and brightness that cannot be replaced.

They are topped with a lemon buttermilk glaze.

I am still working on the recipe because I feel it could be a touch more moist (maybe an egg yolk, oil, or less baking time?) but I will post it.

Because I wanted to to try crystallizing some edible flowers (according to Rose's method), I got a mixed package of edible flowers with some snapdragons and pansies, and put those on top. I learned that the finer (and more even) layer of egg white you brush onto the petals, the better. Also, instead of using a bulk pastry brush, you have a lot more precision with a tiny paint brush.

Off to test more!

*Thanks to Cathy on Rose's forum for pointing out that "adding acid to a cake can make it set up too quickly in the oven, leaving it low and dense." Don't add lemon juice to a cake recipe willy nilly! To add lemon flavor without affecting the structure of a cake, you can safely add a small amount (1/4 tsp for a batch of cupcakes or 9" layer cake) of lemon oil and up to a tablespoon of freshly grated zest to batter.

Egg Separation Station

Egg Separation Station
Originally uploaded by rachelino

Separating eggs can require a lot of concentration. Really!

Most of the time I am separating eggs to make whipped egg whites or meringue.
Sometimes I am trying so hard to carefully cradle the egg yolk and let all the white slip below to the waiting bowl (without any trace of yolk coming down with it*) that I lose count of how many eggs I have cracked. Which can be bad, especially if you are making a recipe with different amounts of yolks and whites.
Tonight I made a batch of lemon poppyseed chiffon cupcakes. (Pictures of the finished product.) Chiffon cakes use whipped egg whites to lighten the batter but unlike angel food cake a few yolks and oil give the cake a moist, rich texture similar to butter cake. It's the best of both worlds. But what to do when you need 3 yolks and 5 whites?

My solution is the egg separation station.
Take an empty egg container, place it in between your mixing bowl (for the whites) and other container (for the yolks) and use it to count your shells as you separate the eggs. This may sound silly and obvious, but for years I threw the shells into the trash and then lost count, not once thinking to do this. Everything was fine unless I got interrupted! Put one egg shell into the containers per egg slot, and any unused yolks (or whites) into the shells like little bowls.
By doing this, I don't have to rely on my memory (which on a hot day like today is very impressionistic) and can proceed with confidence. I can see the empty shells and any yolks and whites left over.
And if the cake doesn't rise as I expect, or the meringue is a little flat, at least I know I have eliminated one culprit.


*Fat is the enemy of fluffy meringue. To eliminate any trace of fat that may be on your mixing bowl or beater, use the trick Julia Child taught: wipe your bowl with a cloth or paper towel just barely moistened with a little white vinegar.

Strawberries Past Their Prime ~ Don't Toss 'em

When strawberries and rhubarb come into season, I tend to go a little overboard at the farmer's market in celebration of spring. Regardless of my schedule, I buy as much as I please, figuring I will find a use for it. When 3 pints of ripe strawberries are on sale the last hour of the market, perfumed from sitting out on the farmer's table all morning, and you know one basket will evaporate on the (short) walk home, 3 pints seems like nothing.

Well, sometimes reality interferes with my culinary fantasyland and stuff starts going bad.

When strawberries or other berries are longer firm or fresh enough to eat out of hand, rinse and hull them, taking care to trim away brownish bruises or discard any that smell vinegary (or use them to flavor vinegar, but that's another story). Depending on how much needs cutting off, you will be left with over a cup of pieces.

Now you have options.

If they are only slightly past their prime, they are perfect candidates for macerating.

Stick the berries in a bowl and squeeze the juice of half a lemon over them. Add a tablespoon (or less to taste) of sugar or honey and a couple drops of vanilla (~1/8 tsp.) Let sit for 5 minutes. These are great on their own, topped with whipped cream or Greek yogurt.

For a quick (yet impressive to company) dessert, top pound cake or angel food (depending on how heavy you want the dessert to be) with the berries and a generous portion of their juices, which soaks into the cake like a fresher, brighter version of simple syrup.

If they are too far gone for this (such as when the skins have started to wrinkle or shrink a bit), spread the hulled and trimmed berries out on a baking sheet in a single layer and use in the morning for a smoothie. Smoothies are the perfect home for overripe fruit, especially bananas. When frozen, the fruit sweetens, thickens and chills the drink so that you don't need to use as much ice. Relying on ice alone to chill and thicken a smoothie waters everything down and creates a void of flavor which is most often filled with sorbet, sherbet, ice cream or juice. You don't need all that sugar. The fruit should be the star. You can use any frozen berries for this recipe, but tomorrow I will be using my leftover strawberries, and feeling virtuous. :)

Simple Berry Smoothie

• 1~1.5 cups frozen berries
• Half a Banana (preferably frozen) Be sure to peel bananas before freezing.
• 6 ounces vanilla yogurt
• 2 tablespoons wheat germ
• 1 tablespoon honey, warmed (I just heat the jar a bit to loosen the honey)
• 3~4 cubes ice
• milk or juice

Place yogurt then fruit in a blender and blend until the mixture comes together in one mass. Then add wheat germ and honey in a thin stream while blending on the lowest setting. Drop ice cubes in one by one and add milk or juice (I like a splash of OJ) to your desired thickness. Because the water content of fruit can vary quite a bit, you may need as little as a couple tablespoons or as much as a half cup of liquid. Serves one thirsty person.

Clotilde Dusoulier!

I had the great pleasure of seeing Clotilde Dusoulier of Chocolate & Zucchini speak today at an author's event at the Mechanics' Insitute library in downtown San Francisco (or "the city" as locals call it) and skipped back to my desk at work wearing clouds for shoes.

Someone in the audience remarked upon how fantastic her English is and I agree. Sheesh! Her beautiful command of English evidences her passion for language as well as food.

She was promoting her new book, Edible Adventures in Paris, which I would have gotten at the event had the signing desk not been bum-rushed the moment Clotilde sat down! I was in the front row, so I am not sure how I missed that bum-rush. I just bought my copy on Amazon. The book is sort of a foodie's travel guide to Paris. Clotilde made a good point about how much more enjoyable and beneficial travel recommendations (especially restaurants) are when you know the personality of the recommender. I think that is part of why Rick Steves' guidebooks are so popular ~ he has a specific philosophy on travel that he teaches to others. Rather than getting an encyclopedia, you get an edited selection of recommendations from a person with a specific point of view and you can "navigate their set of opinions." Like the difference between a well-edited boutique and the crowded racks of a buy-by-the-pound thirft store.

The book has over 160 specific recommendations that range from hearty plebian places to 3-star "gastronomique" retstarants and she has made a special effort to include only places with fairly reasonable weekday lunch specials to place the book within reach of the average American traveler contending with a weak dollar.

Another amazing plus is that the book has its own mini website where Clotilde will post updates to the recommendations within the book since faces and places can turn over quickly in the culinary scene ~ every listing that closes its doors will be replaced by another one Clotilde feels is equal to it. This update can be printed and slipped into the book for your trip to Paris.

My aunt will be receiving this book as a gift, and if I could afford it, a plane ticket Paris! She has always wanted to go....and this will be her virtual trip before her actual trip (*crossing fingers*).

It was very inspiring to see Clotilde speak about blogging, writing, and food.