TWD: Brown Butter and Vanilla Bean Weekend Cake - and a lot of catching up

I don't post, I don't post, I don't post... bad me :-(
I try to catch up...

Let's start whit the most recent one, the Brown Butter and Vanilla Bean Weekend Cake. The probably longest name of a cake I made up to now :-)

I used a special sugar I have from a friend, a "seasoned sugar". What I did not think about was, that the spice-mix included also rosemary and mint, what was not too bad for the cake but for sure dominated the vanilla... and made the cake green. Funnily, I did not even think about that as a possibility until I mixed the sugar into the butter. Big surprise, haha!
The recipe can be found in Dorie Greenspans book Baking Chez Moi, p. 6. For the results of the whole group, head over to TWD! (this is true also for the ther recipes mentioned here except the Amnesty Cookies and the Eiffel-Towers!)

As the cake was not quite like the recipe wanted it to be anyways, I decided to top the cake with a creamcheese frosting (from Dorie Greenspans "Big Bill's Carrot Cake" from Baking, from my home to yours). To avoid the cake to loose its flufiness, I split the cake and added some Black Butter, a speciality from Jersey/Channel Islands - a spread made from apple cider, licquorice and spices. That worked very well with the spices from the sugar!

I like this cake very much because it is very easy made and very very moist. Next time I'll try the classic version :-)

What I made some way back are the Granola Energy Bars (Baking Chez Moi, p. 328). I had to use maple syrup and gold syrup so they went dark brown, but the taste was good and I think only the looks differ from the recipe.

Then I made back in December the annual Amnesty Cookies, As usual, they turned out great in taste, as usual, they turned out ugly in looks. But why change a winning team ;-) The recipe can be found at David Lebovitz' page.

And I made "Rugelachs that won over France" (recipe on p. 301 in Baking chez Moi). For the Rugelachs I have to say, that they turned out really really ugly. I don't know why exactly. Rugelachs are a bit finickey to make, but  I made them several times, with different recepies from the other TWD-books, and they turned out better. But in the end Rugelachs are always great, whatever they look like. This is one of the treats I am happy to got to know trough TWD because in Vienna I never saw Rugelachs before.

As I go on writing I see that I actually made a lot the last weeks... I really forgot about it! How good to catch up!

One of my colleagues leaves us and heads over to Paris to start a great job there. She is goint to spend t least two years there with her partner and their adopted child. I am a bit jealous but most of all very happy for them!
For their farewell-party I made plain Sugar Cookies with a bit of lemon taste and used Eiffel-Tower cookie cutters. I glazed some of them and sprinkled them in red, blue, whit, the colours of the french flag. Unfortunately; I have no picture of the sprinkled ones.

Uh, and then there was the Vanilla Hazelnut Cheesecake as a rewind. (Baking with Julia, p.) Very good. Maybe not my all-time favourite cheesecake recipe, as I prefer more cheesecakes with mostly creamcheese and not so much cottage cheese. Unfortunately I used a too big form so it went very flat.  But it was very good - how can a cheesecake not be very good?

Done! Yay!

TWD: Poppy-Seed Torte

Yay, two weeks of baking in a row! How could I forget how much I like baking?

Poppy-Seed Torte is for sure one of my favourite tortes. Generally I really, really like anything with poppy seed. Icecream, Strudel, pastries, whatever. Nevertheless I never made a Poppy-Seed Torte before.

This recipe was a bit strange for me as I don't really get it why you use cake crumbs for some recipes. Is it because they are lighter than flour and therefore don't spoil the egg-snow so much?

The recipe itself is easy. Cream the butter, add sugar and eggs, fold in beaten egg-whites and the poppy-seed/sugar mix - done.
Baking time was a bit longer than the recipe said and I had to cover the torte with aluminium-foil because after about 30mins the cake was not done but started to brown at the edges.

I think it is interesting to make the torte (I would rather call it a cake) with apricots because in Austria, where I live and where sweets with poppy-seed are very, very common, we would usually rather combine it with plumbs. Or better: with "Powidl" (kind of a plumb-jam used for filling sweet dumplings) or "Zwetschkenröster" - something made of plumbs (or, in Viennese terms: "Zwetschken") that is between jam and compote. But, a famous old Viennese proverb says "Zwetschenkenröster is no compote!", so never try to call it "plumb-compote" when you happen to be in Vienna :-)

But back to the topic: Apricots were a nice different touch. Usually, my desserts taste good but I am not patient enough to also make them good looking. This time, I had some more time and patiences and really WANTED to make it good-looking because I like poopy-seed cake so much. So I glazed it and sprinkled some green sugar on it. I don't know about you, but I am pretty happy with i!

And - the most important: The cake was away more or less the moment I opened the box in the office kitchen. My colleagues loved it. Really. Me too. I rarely had such a moisty, light, fluffy poppy-seed cake. Maybe that's what makes it a torte rather than a cake :-)

So, if you get the chance: Buy the book by Dorie Greenspan, have a look at pp. 258-260 - and bake it! And for sure - have a look at how the other bakers in the group liked it.

TWD: Mocha Brownie Cake

This is one of a great cake! It's not really what I would call a brownie - but it is an excellent chocolate cake. With a fabulous decadent chocolate ganache/glaze.

It is plain and simple in one way (because it is nothing more than a chocolate cake with chocolate cream), and sublime and oppulent in another (because it has three cake layers and the ganache/glaze is very rich). However you want to see it - the Mocha Brownie Cake is awesome!

Baking time was just like the recipe says. The cake and the cream are simple in the making. The only tricky point may be when you cut the cake in layers. Using a cake leveler helps a lot in this respect :-)




 


I made one normal cake but had more batter than needed (my mold is smaller then the recipe calls for) - therefore I also made a small heart-shaped cake with only one ganache-layer and some minis (baked in mini guglhupf molds) with a jam layer in the middle.
Not exactly what the recipe calles for, but great :-) With the jam it comes very close to Sacher Torte in its taste, a Viennese classic.

I can only recommend doing this one! It is far more simple than I thought it would be and the ganache/glaze really works fine! For the recipe, have a look on pp. 282/283 in the book by Dorie Greenspan. And step by the TWD group to see what the other bakers created this week!

TWD: Vanilla Chiffon Roll

I like chiffon rolls, I like vanilla - I like these Vanilla Chiffon Rolls.
Usually, I guess I would do them with a jam-layer instead of a chocolate-nut-mousse, but why not try something else?

I had so much dough, my cake turned out too high. So I cut the cake in two layers and made two rolls. Like that, I had enough mousse for my taste but less than in the picture in the book.

Baking time was much longer but maybe I used a too small baking pan and the longer baking time was due to the height of the cake. Anyhow, I had no troubles handling the cake.

It is a bit time-consuming, but you can prepare the mousse and cake in advance.

I can imagine to use the cake dough for other variations as well. The mousse might not be my favourite, but I am no chocolate fan in general, so I don't blame the mousse. :-)

For the recipe have a look at Dorie Greenspans book on pp. 277-279 - and to see how beautiful this recipe can turn out when more experienced and better bakers do it, have a look at the TWD-group-page!

TWD: Savarin

Oh my, I'm definitely loosing track with the group. I'm a bad team-member. In the last weeks I either was on holiday, forgot to bake, forgot to take pics, forgot to blog (or to publish the text...) - or forgot to leave my link. But here we are - hooray!

The Savarin is relatively simple and done quickly. Just two short rising periods. Nevertheless I don't become good friends with this cake. I had to read and re-read and read again how it is assembled. Can it be you more or less just put the "filling" beside the cake? - Yes, it can.

Making the batter is also a bit unconventional for me, as you do not cream butter and sugar at first, but put in the butter last.

I had no ring-mold so I made some improvisation and used a usual spring form and put a small soufflée-form in the middle. That worked pretty well. But the dough did rise quite abit during baking and so I ended up with a too high cake. I split it in the middle, but that neither didn't look right. So I brought the two halves together again, spreading some orange jam inbetween the 'layers' to make them stick together. I am pretty convinced that my cake does not look like a Savarin at all.

The taste is ok, but not special and it was ok to try it, but next time I would prefer to do the Babas, which sound much more interesting! But what do I know. And I am sure the other bakers found wonderful ways to dress this cake up a bit more and turn it into something special!

For the recipe have a look at Dorie Greenspan's book at pp 415-416.

TWD: Rhubarb Upside Down Babycakes

To make it short: It's not that I didn't bake in the last weeks. I just either had no time to post or forgot to take pictures. But here we are with 12 very small babycakes and an individual sized cake without the caramel. Both versions turned out great as the cake is very very moisty (I like!) and rhubarb is always a winner when it is in season.

I am just at the airpor, waiting for my flight to NYC, so writing is a bit of a horror, so I leave you with some pics.

TWD: Boca Negra

Beware of this "cake"! Once you taste it, you will never be able to stop from taking another piece, unless everything is eaten. I'm really not sure if the name "cake" is even allowed for this delight, as it is more or less nothing else than chocolate, butter and sugar. Chocolate-in-cake-shape is maybe a more appropriate term. (but I doubt this name will make it's way ;o])

The Boca Negra is a wonderful chocolate creation. I used about 400g mixed chocolate (200g 75% chocolate, 100g 80% chocolate, 70g Dolfin coffee-chocolate (great chocolate!!) and 30g couverture - just what  had at hand). I found it very exhausting to stir in the butter, as the chocolate-alcohol mix is only slightly warm and cooles fast. After the second piece I was tires, and eight more waited to be included. I put the pot on my induction stove on the lowest level and that helped a little. Still, it takes long time until all the butter dissappears in the chocolate.



Baking time was a bit longer, but my cake-form is also slightly bigger than the recipe asks for, so I used a bit more of everything and the longer baking time did not come as a surprise.

Because I had leftovers, I decorated the Boca Negra with white chocolate flakes. In my view, the cake needs some decoration because the top itself  is not very pretty.

The result is a moist chocolate-"cake". I let it wait in the refrigerator until the next day and similar to chocolate-heavy brownies the texture changes slightly to more fudgy. Great!

The white-chocolate-cream was very good, but I had to beat it after it was could so it gets the consistence as in the picture in the book. Next time, I would use less chocolate because the cream is very, very sweet, alsmost too sweet for my taste, and the cake is sweet enougb for itself.

After all, this was an easy but time-consuming recipe, worth any effort, highly appraised from everybody at the office, a winner, a riskless cake for any occassion, birthday, new years eve, whatsoever. Go to grab the recipe at Cathys blog 'A Frederick Food Garden', who is our host this week, or buy the book by Dorie Greenspan and have a look at pp. 253/254.

TWD: Gingerbread Baby Cakes

I am moving - so this is my last post from my old kitchen.  I am used to cooking with gas what is not possible in the new house. No idea if I will ever get used to the induction cooker. I love the gas stove :o[
I'm going to miss it, as my whole apartment. However, the new one is wonderful. And I am going to get used to my new kitchen, too.
And: The new baking oven comes with pyrolysis (self)cleaning - so much looking forward!

Anyhow, the real topic today are Gingerbread Baby Cakes. I had to make some changes and adaption for this:

First, I have no baby-cake mold. And the flour-leftover I had was not enough for a whole recipe. So I made about 60% and filled the batter in pretty paper molds, more like for baby-pound cakes, but that was what I had (still) at hand. Calculating baking time was very difficult due to the different form and amount of batter in each mold. In the end it took about 45mins.

Than I had to sub the molasse as it is very uncommon in Austria. I used 3/4 maple syrup and 1/4 corn syrup, just what I had at hand. Hope it comes near what it should be.

I switched to ordinary sugar so I didn't have to open a new bag of brown sugar four days befor I move. I guess brown sugar is better, but the ordinary sugar did no harm.

I topped the cakes with "schudde buikjes" - a bread topping I recently buyed in Amsterdam. They come with speculos taste at this time of the year. Perfect match!

These cakes are very easy to make. The coffee taste is a bit more dominant than I am used to, maybe because there is no chocolate in it and most receipes I know use the coffee to support chocolate taste. The second unusual experience is that it is a bit spicy due to the black pepper and fresh ginger.

It is a bit uncommon, but really good and very seasonal.

For the recipe, have a look at Dorie Greenspan's book on pp. 247/248or head over to our host's blog Karen: Karen’s Kitchen Stories.

TWD: Nectarine Upside-Down Chiffon Cake

To make it short: The Nectarine Upside-Down Chiffon Cake is great. Not quick in the making and it involves some different stages, many pots and dishes and time to make some dressing up when you could also go an easier way. But the result is convincing and worth the time and effort.

The cake would have been even better if I would not have miscalculated the butter amount. In Austria, we do not messure in sticks, cups and spoons, but grams. And I know, know, know by heart after almost three years of baking with the group: a stick of butter is 120g. However, in my mind it turned out to be 240g, so I doubled the butter for the caramel. The effect: After baking and cooling the cake was so soft and greasy-moisty that it almost fell apart. I decided to go an unusal way, something that usually never works - but having no eggs left I was desperate: I baked the cake a second time. And now, it got firm!

Due to double baking, the caramel got even more intense in taste and the streusel in the middle did spread all over the batter, so it looked more like a nut cake and did not keep the almost white colour I found in my google research for examples pictures.

Never mind. The cake did taste excellent. With this huge amount of butter it turned out very soft and moisty, but also very butter-loaded so that you can eat only small pieces at a time. But nobody said you should only take one piece a day. :o]

So, thanks to the TWD-group for choosing this recipe. It was fun baking a slightly more difficile cake than in the recent weeks. If you want to find out more about the recipe (or what the cake looks like, if you are using the right amount of butter ;o]) head over the the blogs of Marlise of The Double Trouble Kitchen and Susan of The Little French Bakery, or buy the book "Baking with Julia" by Dorie Greenspan.

TWD: A Fig Cake for Fall

It's now almost two years that I started baking with "Tuesdays with Dorie". I am one of the lucky last that had the opportunity to join. The story how I found the group is a strange one - at least all my friends and colleagues, who usually are the benefitors of my bakings - do think so. Baking is a somehow strange hobby for my friends. Cooking - sure. But baking?!?

In summer 2009 I had the chance to work in Paris for some month. I was there from may to August, and believe me - there are worse things in this world then spending summer in Paris! (Actually, I like autumn in paris more, but summer is great as well! And after all - it's Paris, so how could anybody complain...)
I was looking for a yoga-studio with english speaking instructors and found a blog entry from somebody obviously American who had some other hints and tipps for foreigners in Paris as well. As I made my way through the blog I found out it's a cook's blog, actually, a dessert cook's blog who moved to Paris some years ago and started writing about cooking. Therefore, his blog was full of tipps about bakeries and restaurants and cafés in Paris - just what I urgently needed!
(If you are a bit into Dorie's world, than you will have guessed from the start that I am writing about David Lebovitz). Funnily his book (The Sweet Life in Paris: Delicious Adventures in the World's Most Glorious - and Perplexing - City) came out just that summer and I catched a book reading and signing. I loved him! He is such a great entertainer, but I guess thats something typical American.

The same year I came back to Paris for some more work in autumn for a few weeks. And there was a panel discussion in the American Library with David L. and two other authors - of whom Dorie Greenspan was one of. I had read about her in David's blog and somewhere, don't ask me how and why, saw that there is a group baking it's way through one of her books. Strange idea, I thought, never heard of somehting like that. (Now I know that there are other groups, similar to this, too, but believe me - no one of all my friends has ever heard of something like that before!)

When I saw Dorie at this discussion she was that nice, interesting and fascinating that I had to ask her for a signature in one of her books and then I took all my guts and said: "Well, you know that there is a group baking all recipes from your book" -  "Yes!" she said, and smiled, "I know, they are so great. I love this group!" I asked her if she thinks that everybody in this group is an experienced baker and if it would be difficult for a newbie like me (I had never ever baked anything in my whole life before). "No, for sure not! There are very very experienced bakers, almost professionals, and there are also hobby-bakers and starters like you. If you want to hear my opinion: Everybody should bake, because it can make you happy - it makes me happy. And the group is very, very supportive to everybody. The founder - she is such a great person. Ask her for joining! She is the nicest person you can think of."
And so I did - and here I am. When I joined the group I didn't think I will have the opportunity to pick a recipe due to the many bakers - the more I was excited that it actually did work out!

I wanted to choose a recipe that fits with the season. The Fig Cake for Fall has autumn already in the name, and: I love cornmeal and I love figs! I am sorry, because I read in the P&Qs that figs are not avaliable everywhere right now. I was only thinking about Vienna/Austria, where I live - and was not so foresighted to think about that fact, that most of the group is living in the US. And I have no overview when which fruits have season over there. So - I am really sorry and hope you all found a way to substitute for the figs!

And here we go (because I am European and a non-english-native I will also give European measures. If anybody should read this, having the same problems but capable of German - I can only recommend this page)

A Fig Cake for Fall

(taken from Dorie Greenspan's "Baking - From my Home to Yours, pp 198-199)

 

GROWN IN climates that bring to mind the word "sultry", figs conjure sun and heat and sensuality. But the fig has an autumnal side too, reminding us of warm months while it heralds shorter days and cooler nights. This cake plays to the fruit's affinity for fall and chill-wheather foods like cornmeal, honey and ruby port. The buttery cake is a moist, appealing round, sweetened with honey and distinguished by the addition of yellow cornmeal. The cornmeal and honey provide a somewhat Italienate base for the fruit, which is lightly poached in port and honey before it is pressed into the batter. And there's a bonus - once the figs are poached, the remaining syrup is boiled for a few minutes and becomes a lovely sauce. Sauced, the cake jumps from an everyday treat to a company dessert.

MAKES 8-10 SERVINGS

SERVING: Offer wedges of the cake topped with the port sauce (which can be warmed, if you'd like). Whipped cream or icecream alongside would be even lovlier.

STORING: Wrapped well, the cake will keep at room temperature for 2 days.

3/4 cup ruby port [about 0,2 l]
1 cup honey [300g]
2 thin slices lemon
16-20 fresh figs, stemmed and halved
1 1/2 cups yellow cornmeal [225g]
2 teaspoons baking powder [the best is to just use a usual teaspoon herefore]
1/4 teaspoon salt [here, again: just take about the quarter of a usual teaspoon]
1/4 cup sugar [55g]
grated zest of 1/2 lemon
1 1/2 sticks (12 tablespoons) unsalted butter, cut into 6 pieces, at room temperature [180g]
3 large eggs, preferably at room temperature
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract [5ml]

FOR THE FIGS AND SAUCE: Stir the port and 1/2 cup of the honey together in a small saucepan. Toss in the lemon slices and bring to a boil over medium heat. Lower the heat, add the figs, cover the pan and cook for 4 to 6 minutes, or until the figs are soft but not falling apart.
Using a slotted spoon, transfer the figs to a bowl. Raise the heat just a little and cook the poaching liquid for another 10 to 15 minutes, or until slightly thickened; the syrup should coat a metal spoon. Remove the pan from the heat and set the sauce aside.

GETTING READY TO BAKE: Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 350 degrees F [175°C]. Butter a 9-inch springform pan. Line the bottom with parchment paper, butter the paper and dust the inside of the pan with flour, tapping out the excess. Put the pan on a baking sheet lined with parchment or a silicone mat.


TO MAKE THE CAKE: Whisk together the flour, cornmeal, baking powder and salt. 


 

Put the sugar and grated zest in the bowl of a stand mixer or another large bowl, and rub them together with your fingertips until the sugar is moist, grainy and aromatic. Toss in the butter. 



With the paddle or whisk attachment or with a hand mixer, beat the butter and sugar together on medium speed until creamy, about 3 minutes.

Add the eggs one by one, beating for 1 minute after each addition. Pour in the remaining 1/2 cup honey, add the vanilla extract and beat for another 2 minutes. The mixture may look curdled and not so pretty - keep mixing, it will get better soon. Reduce the mixer speed to low and add the dry ingredients, mixing only until they are incorporated; you'll have a fairly thick batter.

Scrape the batter into the prepared pan and jiggle the pan from side to side a few times to even the batter, then scatter the poached figs over the top.
 



Bake for 55 to 60 minutes, or until the cake is puffed and golden brown and a knife inserted into the center comes out clean. Cool the cake to slightly warm or to room temperature before serving it with the sauce.

-----------------------------

I still have only a hand-mixer and for the first month I baked without cup- and spoon-measures (they are not usual in Europe - I had to import them when I visited some friends in the States). I learn at least one new english word every week when I try to figure out what the recipe is all about. And I learned: Dorie is always right! If she tells you to butter foil - do it. If she asks for lining the bottom of a spring pan with parchment - don't doubt. Dorie knows best. Period. 




Thanks everybody who tried out the recipe despite the fig-problem and I hope you enjoyed it! And thanks to anybody who made the effort to respond my questions, leave a comment or even read my 2 cents in the last two years! I really appreciate and value that!

I might be not the most enthusiastic commentator on your blogs, but that does not mean I don't read it and would not be blown away every week from anew by the results all of you create!

[And I HAVE to say (despite nobody who reads this will understand): 'Ich hab das Schönste auf der Welt gesehen: Paris im Herbst' ]

TWD: Apple-Nut Muffin Cake

October!

Here in Vienna we actually get a full compensation for the terrible summer. Maybe you guys in the US can't belive it, but in Europe we had the probably most awful summer in decades - rain, rain, rain and cold weather. But now it is indian summer, and the "summer" dominates". You can sit outside in the evening and get sunburnt when you stay out around noon. It's not too hot, but just perfect. Wonderful!

Therefore, this week's TWD-recipe, The Apple-Nut Muffin Cake, did correspond perfectly with the calender - but not so much with the weather. Katrina of Baking and Boys has opted for this wonderful autumn-recipe.

This is a good, in my perception almost classic, apple-cake recipe. Nothing too extraordinary, nothing too difficult. Apples, nuts, raisins, that's it. Add some oats and you get an interesting tiny crunchy texture. Go to Katrin's page to find out about the recipe, or have a look into Dorie's book on p. 37.

I have no square pan, so I made it in my loaf form (and additionally one muffin, to have a "test-piece") and it did work out fine. Funnily, when the cake was already in the oven I figured out I completely forgot to add the butter. But to my surprise - I didn't miss it at all! Does this work with all cakes? Or was I just extremely lucky? 

TWD: Flip Over Plum Cake

Wonderful first autumn-recipe! And exactly as Dorie introduces it: quick, quick, quick and it can't get any easier!

If you find 10 mins to bring the batter together you're in!
Baking time was a bit longer than indicated. Still, the cake was very pudding-like. Maybe next time I would even increase the baking time - but if you are ready to eat the cake with a dessert-fork, then everything will be fine. I had to decrease the butter: When I poured in the batter I saw that there was definitely too much "butter-soup" in the pan. But the rest was easy, simple, just-stick-to-the-recipe-and-nothing-can-go-wrong!

I adore these easy cakes! It tastes great and the syrup has just the right flavour-combo of spices. And I can imagine this cake with other fruits, too. (Maybe cherries? Blueberries? Apricots?) and also with some sugar to decorate it or even streusel. Not that the cake needs some dressing up...

Have fun with this recipe for Flip Over Plum Cake chosen by Becky of Project Domestication for this week's TWD. Go to her page to find the recipe or have a look in Dorie's book on p. 40.