Saturday, February 28, 2009

Daring Bakers Flourless Chocolate Cake!!



I'm back!!!! It's been awhile since I have done a challenge and this was a great challenge to come back to. It was a Chocolate Valentino cake by Chef Wan and we were supposed to accompany it with a Vanilla Ice Cream recipe from Dharm and a Vanilla Ice Cream recipe from Wendy; however, I instead made a raspberry sauce.

Thanks to our hostess Wendy from WMPESBLOG and Dharm at Dad - Baker and Chef for this delicious recipe. I made them into little bundt cakes and everyone just ate them up.

Enjoy all of the Daring Bakers creative cakes and ice cream!





Chocolate Valentino
Preparation Time: 20 minutes
16 ounces (1 pound) (454 grams) of semisweet chocolate, roughly chopped
½ cup (1 stick) plus 2 tablespoons (146 grams total) of unsalted butter
5 large eggs separated

1. Put chocolate and butter in a heatproof bowl and set over a pan of simmering water (the bottom of the bowl should not touch the water) and melt, stirring often.
2. While your chocolate butter mixture is cooling. Butter your pan and line with a parchment circle then butter the parchment.
3. Separate the egg yolks from the egg whites and put into two medium/large bowls.
4. Whip the egg whites in a medium/large grease free bowl until stiff peaks are formed (do not over-whip or the cake will be dry).
5. With the same beater beat the egg yolks together.
6. Add the egg yolks to the cooled chocolate.
7. Fold in 1/3 of the egg whites into the chocolate mixture and follow with remaining 2/3rds. Fold until no white remains without deflating the batter. {link of folding demonstration}
8. Pour batter into prepared pan, the batter should fill the pan 3/4 of the way full, and bake at 375F/190C
9. Bake for 25 minutes until an instant read thermometer reads 140F/60C.
Note – If you do not have an instant read thermometer, the top of the cake will look similar to a brownie and a cake tester will appear wet.
10. Cool cake on a rack for 10 minutes then unmold.

Dharm's Ice Cream Recipe
Classic Vanilla Ice Cream
Preparation Time: 30 minutes

Recipe comes from the Ice Cream Book by Joanna Farrow and Sara Lewis (tested modifications and notes in parentheses by Dharm)

Ingredients
1 Vanilla Pod (or substitute with vanilla extract)
300ml / ½ pint / 1 ¼ cups Semi Skimmed Milk – in the U.S. this is 2% fat (or use fresh full fat milk that is pasteurised and homogenised {as opposed to canned or powdered}). Dharm used whole milk.
4 large egg yolks
75g / 3oz / 6 tbsp caster sugar {superfine sugar can be achieved in a food processor or use regular granulated sugar}
5ml / 1 tsp corn flour {cornstarch}
300ml / ½ pint / 1 ¼ cups Double Cream (48% butter fat) {in the U.S. heavy cream is 37% fat)
{you can easily increase your cream's fat content by heating 1/4 cup of heavy cream with 3 Tbs of butter until melted - cool to room temperature and add to the heavy cream as soon as whisk marks appear in the cream, in a slow steady stream, with the mixer on low speed. Raise speed and continue whipping the cream) or use heavy cream the difference will be in the creaminess of the ice cream.

1. Using a small knife slit the vanilla pod lengthways. Pour the milk into a heavy based saucepan, add the vanilla pod and bring to the boil. Remove from heat and leave for 15 minutes to allow the flavours to infuse
Lift the vanilla pod up. Holding it over the pan, scrape the black seeds out of the pod with a small knife so that they fall back into the milk. SET the vanilla pod aside and bring the milk back to the boil.
2. Whisk the egg yolks, sugar and corn-flour in a bowl until the mixture is thick and foamy. 3. Gradually pour in the hot milk, whisking constantly. Return the mixture to the pan and cook over a gentle hear, stirring all the time
4. When the custard thickens and is smooth, pour it back into the bowl. Cool it then chill.
5. By Hand: Whip the cream until it has thickened but still falls from a spoon. Fold it into the custard and pour into a plastic tub or similar freeze-proof container. Freeze for 6 hours or until firm enough to scoop, beating it twice (during the freezing process – to get smoother ice cream or else the ice cream will be icy and coarse)
By Using and Ice Cream Maker: Stir the cream into the custard and churn the mixture until thick (follow instructions on your ice cream maker)

Wendy's Ice Cream Recipe
Vanilla Philadelphia Style Recipe
Preparation Time: 5 minutes
2 cups (473 ml) of half and half (1 cup of heavy cream and 1 cup of whole, full fat milk)
1 cup (237 ml) heavy cream
2/3 (128 grams) cup sugar
Dash of salt
1 (12 grams) tablespoon of vanilla

Mix all ingredients together (we do this in a plastic pitcher and mix with an emulsifier hand blender-whisking works too).
Refrigerate for 30 minutes or longer
Mix in your ice cream maker as directed.

Saturday, February 14, 2009

HAPPY VALENTINES DAY!!!!

Happy Valentines Day! I am a lucky girl and get to spend Valentine's Day with my little cousins and goddaughter but the other day I made some Valentines treats for work.

I made Red Velvet Cupcakes except this time I cut the chocolate to 1/4 c. They came out a little dryer then I would have liked BUT the cream cheese frosting came out delicious!!!! I actually had some leftover and trust me it is taking all of my will power to not dive into some pink cream cheese frosting!

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!!!



Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Simply Devine Truffles!

My admin at work made these fantastic truffles so ofcourse I had to get the recipe and add them to my Christmas Cookie box! These were sooooooooo simple and absolutely delicious. I made two batches one regular batch with white chocolate melted and sprinkled on top. With the second batch I couldn't resist adding some peppermint extract, I love anything with peppermint and chocolate and these came out sensational.

When I did the second part and coated them in the chocolate I melted the chocolate in batches and one time I didn't need all the squares and another time I used all. So I recommend just doing them in 4 to 6 squares at a time.







SIMPLY SENSATIONAL TRUFFLES
(Source: http://www.kraftfoods.com/kf/recipes/simply-sensational-truffles-107529.aspx)

INGREDIENTS:

2-1/2 pkg. (20 squares) BAKER'S Semi-Sweet Chocolate, divided
1 pkg. (8 oz.) PHILADELPHIA Cream Cheese, softened
1 tsp. peppermint extract (optional)

DIRECTIONS:

- MELT 8 chocolate squares. Beat cream cheese with mixer until creamy. Blend in melted chocolate. Refrigerate until firm.
- SHAPE into 36 balls. Place on waxed paper-covered baking sheet.
- MELT remaining chocolate. Use fork to dip truffles; return to baking sheet. Decorate, then refrigerate 1 hour.

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Thumbprint Goodness!

One of my favorite blogs is Katie's and when I was looking for recipes for my Christmas Cookie Boxes I knew she would have a great one. And I was right her Raspberry Almond Thumbprint Cookies were delicious! I made one batch with Raspberry Preserves and another with Blueberry Preserves and they were both great, except mine didn't come out as cute as Katie's. Thanks Katie!






RASPBERRY ALMOND THUMBPRINT COOKIES

(Source: Good Things Catered)


INGREDIENTS:

1 1/2 c. butter, softened
1 c. granulated sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
3 1/4 c. all-purpose flour
1 c. almonds, ground coarsely
1 c. raspberry preserves


DIRECTIONS:

-In bowl of stand mixer, combine butter and sugar and beat on high until light and fluffy in color, about 3 minutes.
-Add eggs and beat to combine well.
-Add vanilla and combine.
-Scrape down sides of bowl, slow mixer to low and add flour and almonds.
-Beat to combine (mixture will be coarse), remove bowl from mixer and scrape down sides, making sure all mixture is thoroughly combined.
-Scoop dough out into tsp sized rounds, rolling into balls. Place on cookie sheet at least 1 inch apart.
-Place cookie sheet in fridge for 15 to 20 minutes.
-Preheat oven to 375 degrees and line cookie sheets.
-Make an indentation into top of cookie with finger.
-Using a spoon, place a small amount of jam into indentation of each cookie.
-Place into oven and bake until starting to turn golden brown, about 8-10 minutes.
-Remove from oven and let cool before serving.

Saturday, January 10, 2009

Back with fun chips!

I'M BACK!!!!!!!!!! Between the holidays, family, work, and no computer I am finally back - not sure if anyone missed me but I missed blogging! When I was home I made containers of cookies for some family friends and for our priest and pastor at Church. I got these beautiful boxes at the dollar store, what a nice find! And they were filled with about 6 different types of cookies. Included were the Andes Mint Brownies that are always a huge hit.

I also made two types of cookies using my normal cookie recipe . I made one batch of cookies but split the batter in half and used Mini Chocolate Chips for one half and Cinnamon Chips for the other. The Cinnamom Chips came out great and definetly gave a little holiday twist to normal cookies.





Tuesday, December 23, 2008

Gingerbread and Orange Cream Cheese Heaven!

There have been a lot of birthdays at work recently! My friend does not like sweets which posed a challenge for me so I decided to make a Gingerbread Cake (in the spirit of the holidays) with Orange Cream Cheese Frosting (WOW!!!). I followed the exact time the recipe said to do it for, which I never do I always go a little less the first time, and it came out a little dry in my opinion. However, the birthday girl loved it and even non gingerbread fans really liked it so I call this a succesful recipe!! The recipe calls for a 9 in square pan but I used my rectangular pan and it was great!

I had some left over cream cheese frosting so I added that to this recipe and changed around the recipe a little bit. This is the Original recipe but here is what I did: I used 2 packages of Cream Cheese (plus my other left over cream cheese), roughly 2-3 tablespoons of butter, roughly 2 teaspoons of orange zest (I didn't measure it but zested roughly 1/2 an orange), 6 tablespoons of orange juice, and 2 1/2 C. of confectioners'sugar. This has to be one of the best frostings I have ever made! It was delicious and I don;'t think you can screw it up!




GINGERBREAD CAKE
(Source: allrecipes.com)

INGREDIENTS:

1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 cup butter
1 egg
1 cup molasses
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1 cup hot water


DIRECTIONS:

- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Greased and flour one 9 inch square pan. I used a regular rectangular pan.
- Cream together the sugar and butter or margarine. Add egg, and beat well. Mix in the molasses.
- Sift together the flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger and clove. Add dry ingredients to the creamed mixture; add the hot water, and mix well.
- Pour batter into pan and bake for one hour. Allow to cool in pan and serve.

Sunday, December 21, 2008

Red Velvet Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting!

For my friend's birthday I decided to make my first attempt at Red Velvet Cupcakes. They were good, a little too chocolatey I think, but the Cream Cheese Frosting was amazing! I didn't realize that you needed 1 oz. of red food coloring and the food coloring variety pack is only 1/4 oz; however, after 5 stores I finally found a 1 oz container! I made both minis and regular cupcakes and everone loved them!

Next time I would use a little less butter in the frosting and it has been a busy week so I can't remember if I used a little bit of milk or not but I think I might have used just a touch!





RED VELVET CUCPAKES
(Source: allrecipes.com)

INGREDIENTS:

1/2 cup butter
1 1/2 cups white sugar
2 eggs
1 cup buttermilk
1 fluid ounce red food coloring
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 tablespoon distilled white vinegar
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 teaspoon salt

DIRECTIONS:

- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease two 12 cup muffin pans or line with 20 paper baking cups.
- In a large bowl, beat the butter and sugar with an electric mixer until light and fluffy. Mix in the eggs, buttermilk, red food coloring and vanilla. Stir in the baking soda and vinegar. Combine the flour, cocoa powder and salt; stir into the batter just until blended.
- Spoon the batter into the prepared cups, dividing evenly.
- Bake in the preheated oven until the tops spring back when lightly pressed, 20 to 25 minutes. Cool in the pan set over a wire rack. When cool, arrange the cupcakes on a serving platter and frost with desired frosting.


CREAM CHEESE FROSTING
(Source: on the comments page of the Red Velvet Cupcake recipe)

INGREDIENTS:

1/2c. of unsalted butter (softened)
2- 8oz. packs of cream cheese (softened)
3 1/2 cups of powdered sugar
1 tbsp of vanilla extract.

Directions:

Cream the butter and cream cheese together and then add the powedered sugar and vanilla.