On the prowl, pt. 2

So I was in Washington and New York some weeks ago (already too long, I start missing it!!), and altruistically supported the american recovery by byuing lots and lots of stuff, and not only clothing (as one maybe would expect), or technical items (as would be reasonable), but also various things I need/can use/ don't need but would love to have for my little baking addiction.

Since I bake along with Tuesdays with Dorie, I did not only learn enourmously much about baking and a huge amount of vocabulary, but I also read quite often about some things that do not exist in Europe, or are very unusual over here, and therefore hard to get. So I got curious. And besides my long "where to go and what to see"-list I had another, merely theoretical list in my mind with things to have a look at and see what they actually are (or, where I knew what it should be, have a look at what it costs and decide whether it makes sense to risk taking them back to Europe and having them confiscated at the customs). The list basically consisted of wheat germ, chocolate chips of various kinds, Trader Joe's (boy, I read so much about this store, I was so excited to find out about it!!), variuos baking forms/molds, vegetable shortening, corn syrup, fancy sorts of peanbut butter.

Wheat germ - I should have used it for the Honey-Wheat Cookies some weeks ago. I exchanged it for small spelt. Ok, now I know that that's not actually something similar... anyways, they did taste good, and it brought an even more healthy "I am like breakfast cereals"-touch :o]
Chocolate chips - yes, found them, saw them, bought some. I went home with a pack from Trader Joe's (Lucky me, a Trader Joe's was just nearby my friends' appartment) and a peanutbutter chip pack, where I forgot where I picked it up. I saw a lot more, colourful big chips in a wonderful store in NY specialized in baking, but that was at a point where I already had the first two packs, and I wasn't sure if I would ever use frog-green or crimson red chocolate chips. Today, I regret especially not having buyed the red ones because I guess they are perfect for Red Velvet Cupcakes. Mais - tant pis.
Trader Joe's - yes, been there. Ok, it's a nice shop. But I wanted to bake "European" bread for my friends and really had a tough time finding the flour. In the end a salesperson showed me, encircled by a huge number of premade baking-mix-packs a lonely, single pack of flour. And by "single" I don't speak about "one kind of" flour, no, only one pack. I was really dissappointed. I expected a "bio-grocery-store" to have a big variety of flours, normal and wholemeal, spelt, rye, whatever. And I don't expect to find baking-mixes. Usually, bio goes with "healthy", but that did not really seem to be the primary focus in this shop. Never mind, I got the flour I wanted at another, more pricey wholefood shop (and in the end I couldn't use it anyways because I underestimated the degree of dirtiness a mostly-student-appertment-oven can reach...)

The baking forms - yeah, I found a lot of them, but in the end I went home with something completely else that I intended. I was originally  looking for either 1. a mini-cheesecake mold with removable bottoms, or 2. a brownie pan, possibly this fancy thing with the snake-like-inlay. (pictures show what I was looking for)
I saw them, but hesitated in the end, waking from one shop to another to see if I find anything else that would top these, because I did not want to buy more than one baking item. In the end I went home with a 6-mini-cake mold where the molds are made of silicone but they are integrated in a hard plate, so they are not so wobbly. This is a really good thing, but when I came home, I saw a very similar mold in Vienna, and did really regret I didn't get the Brownie pan, as that's really something typical and definitely not to get over here...

For the rest I can make it short: vegetable shortening - found it, not necessary (nor possibly!) to bring it home, but I now know what it is; corn syrup- somebody informed me what corn syrup is and I must say, I better stick with keeping it out of my kitchen; peanut butter - I found out that Peanutbutter&Co. does not have stores on it's own, so I decided to leave the peanutbutter out. We have creamy and crunchy peanutbutter over here, and even if it is not very customary, you can find it at most supermarkets, and I don't really see the need for other variations. I guess I wouldn't have used it anyhow. And while I adore peanutbutter (actually, I am in love with almost anything made of penuts), I can't imagine mixing it with jelly. Ick! (I guess this disqualifies me from ever getting american in my whole life. Not that I intended to...)

So I added to the chocolates and sweets I brought home some other baking related items. Uh, and I almost forgot, I found some wonderful, pretty spoon measures, and some practical, more or less ugly cup measures and despite I got a cup-measure for birthday, I just had to take them! And I found a cookie cutter that is shaped like a dragon-fly, and one of my friends loves dragon flies, so I had to take it, too. And I found Stevia, of which I had heard a lot, but it is almost impossible to buy it in Austria (in other European countries it is better), because the sugar lobby works against the accreditation. And I had to buy tons of cinnamon chewing gum (don't ask me why they don't sell it in Europe...) and the Lemon-Honey-Halls, which are the best, best, best relief for a slight throat ache (also not available, at least in Austria). And I had to buy some spice at Dean&Deluca because the packing is just too pretty to not take. I have no idea what annatto is. The dictionary tells me that it translates to "Annato" - very helpful... So I have also no idea what to do with it. But I love experiments, and this spice was the only one, I absolutely had not a single idea about what it could be... Someday I will find out.

But now I am finished. That's all. :o]

TWD rewind: Sweet Potato Biscuits

Week 2 of the Lenten project completed, three more to go. (I skipped the first week after Mardi Gras because I was on holiday, and renouncing sweets, alcohol and meat in my holdidays is just not on the menu). Two more weeks without the actual TWD-recipe rotation...

The Sweet Potato Biscuits were originally due on October 20 and chosen by Erin of Prudence Pennywise. The recipe (and a wonderful picture-guidance) may be found on her page, or in the book.

I had an enormous sweet potato in my "bio-basket" that is delivered directly to the doorsill of  my appartment every week. So, what would have been more obvious than trying out this recipe, that has been on the schedule just a few days before I started with TWD? Therefore, I used freshly made purree instead of the canned sweet potatos. The introduction-paragraph for the recipe advises to use 3/4 to 1 cup of fresh purree, and I used the higher limit, which is, I think, just perfect. I left out the sugar, and I don't think it would have been necessary.
For the rest, I followed the recipe as it was written (including the nutmeg- but not the cinnamon-option, and, as always, using spelt flour).

They turned out really, really good. This is the second week I bake before I have breakfast, so I can already enjoy a test-piece with my Sunday-breakfast/brunch. Well, or two test-pieces. Or...
I could get used to this procedure :o]
Additonally, these come together so quick, that even me, I don't spend too much time on it.

I have no biscuit cutter (actually, I do not even know what a biscuit cutter is. Possibly it is not much different to a cookie cutter?), so I used silicone molds, 6 for making brioches (but I use them also for muffins) and 6 round ones that are shaped like flowers on the edge and on the bottom. While they were baking (I often need a bit less baking-time then stated in the recipe; here, my baking-time was more like 10-12 mins.), I had just enough time to prepare the rest of my Sunday-breakfast.

Just wonder-ful, really! I don't think that you should use any spread for them, they are just perfect for themselves. They get a pretty slightly orange colour, and they are very airy. It happened that I didn't mash the potatos completely, so a few very small pieces made it into the biscuits, but I found that to be a very marvellous touch.

Liked to make it, liked to eat it - liked it!

(in the right picture you can see the "flower-print" of half of the biscuits, and also a little sweet-potato-piece peeking on the outside)

TWD rewind: Cheddar-Apple Scones

Prologue
This is my first "Sorry, it's Lenten season, I can't bake without tasting so I am not following the right TWD-recipe-rotation"-entry. I found at least five recipes in Dorie's book where omitting the sugar probably won't make a big difference: Corn &Pepper Muffins, Basic Biscuits, Cheddar-Apple Scones , Sweet Potato Biscuits and the Parmesan Sablés. They all have only 2-3 tabelspoons sugar. Some other scones (especially the Toasted Almond Scones and the Cream Scones) also call for very limited teaspoons of sugar, so it should be possible to leave it out. But the latter two sound almost a bit like a sweet treat and I can better imagine pairing them with nut-spread, chocolate chips or honey than with savory spreads. Lucky me, I love, no, I adore scones and biscuits, no matter if more on the sweet or the savory side.
I only need four recipes for the weeks to come until Easter. I recognized that not all of them have already been in the recipe rotation, and I am afraid it only counts when I "catch-up" with somehting all the other eager and gifted bakers made in the almost two years before I joined.

So I started with the Cheddar-Apple Scones. It was originally due for July 1st 2008 and chosen by Karina of The Floured Apron. The recipe can be found on her blog or on page 32 of Dorie Greenspan's "Baking: From my home to yours".

When I woke up on Sunday morning I decided to get up and bake them for breakfast. Can a Sunday morning breakfast start better than with fresh, warm scones?

In the end, I dawdled away with whatever stuff, and didn't get started before almost lunch time. (Lunch-time on week-days. I believe there is a different time-zone applying for weekdays and week-ends. So it was still like Brunch-time on a weekend. And can a Sunday Brunch start better than with fresh, warm scones? :o])

I followed the recipe as written except that I used a bit more corn-meal and left out some all-purpose (spelt) flour instead, because I started to like corn-meal. Not that I had ever used it (or heard of it...) before I started with TWD, what is not really long ago, but since I really started to appreciate it for the texture it brings about, and I even have the feeling it slightly influences the colour. I switched only 1/4 cup.

I am a big cheese-in-any-ways lover and cheddar is an all-time favourite. I had some grated cheddar left from, uh, no idea. Just had it.

The scones turned out won-der-ful. I made several batches. For the first batch I used tablespoons to spoon them on the baking sheet. I often need less baking-time than indicated in the recipes, no idea why. I got them out the oven just in the very last minute before they turned dark-brown/black. I saved them, but it was nearly too late. And I found out why the recipe asks for grated or very finely chopped dry apples, for what I was too lazy. I only made medium sized chunks, and the pieces on the surface turned very dark. No, that's not true - they actually turned black.(But it didn't harm the overall picture too much.)

For the second batch I used a silicone mold for six minis with flower-shaped bottoms. The second batch I pulled out the oven too early. Hm, alright, I thought, I even have enough batter for a third batch. For this last rack I used a teaspoon to bring them on the baking sheet, because I thought they could be served as tea-biscuits at the office, and therefore it would be better if the scones were mini-scones.

And, what can I say, the third better turned out just fine.

But the best of all was to eat a first test-piece of the very first batch while the second was in the oven. To brake them up, and see them steam. Per-fect.








(I don't have to speak about the taste, do I? Won-der-ful!! Maybe, I thought, some nuts would not have been too bad. But you know what? They are just perfect without. Combining a lot of tastes can be fun, but it's not always necessary to include everything and all that could possibly also go with it. Sometimes more pureness is just adequate.)


Even more lucky me, I used all the wonderful cup- and spoon-measures I brought home from NYC, so I did not waste this huge amount of time I used to for converting measures into grams. Yeah! Baking is even more fun like that!!

On the prowl (pt. 1)

While I found sort of a compromise for the next month of TWD, I recently found out that I do not only miss baking, but also blogging about my food-related experiences. Actually, during my holidays in Washington and NYC I was very busy following a long, long list of things to do, to see and to buy. And a large extent of this list consisted of food-related stuff. Stores, shops, restaurants, bakeries (a whole lot of bakeries...).

I was able to tick off a lot of them. And for the rest - well, as plan A (meeting a young, aspiring, good-looking, charming, clever, smart heir who ignores the female dominance in this town and the plenty of young, perfectly looking girls and happily gets me a ticket to NY every other week) did fail, I need some other excuse to come back soon anyways. ;o]

My luggage was also full with stuff I brought back to support my new baking-addiction. Here a little view behind the curtain of my haul of desired, not-to-get-in Europe objects, all imported completely illegally :o]

Can you spot all the goodies?

First of all I got myself some sweet treats. Look at this incredibly beautifully wrapped chocolate bars! You can really win me over with nicely wrapped chocolate.








At my frist stop, in In Washington DC, I found just by chance a wonderful little chocolate store, Biagio Fine Chocolates.

It is downstairs, in the basement, and I almost ran by. Additionally, it has an italian name, and I am one of the few people who are not deeply in love with italian food culture. It's not that I absolutely don't like it. I am just always asking myself why I should go to an italian restaurant, as long as there are asians, and why I should go to Italy, as long as there is France. And why I should learn, speak or read italian, as long as there is spanish. Nevertheless, no idea why, but I walked down the few steps and entered a wonderful shop.



They have a lot of fancy chocolate tastes, but also a big variety of origins. And they have a wide range of domestic chocolates, and I believe it is not always necessary to buy things that had to travel thousand of miles only to be eaten by me. (And, to be correct, in this case only to be taken with me some more miles back to Europe... I don't see a lot of sense therein.) They also feature local chocolate-createurs and sell amazing truffles, individual chocolates and caramels.

I bought the two small bars from Vosges Chocolate, as I didn't know they are located in NYC anyways. (Actually, they were on my long list, but I didn't realize the coincidence of names until I saw the signboard when I went to visit their shop in NY.) I decided on the Bacon bars because I heard so much of it and I am a curious person. A lot of savory tastes match perfectly with chocolate and I guess some years ago nobody would have thought so. At least I cannnot remember having heard of the now almost dull and boring combination of chilli/pepper and chocolate until some years ago. (In fact, I don't got a lot for this combination, but I adore the chocolate-salt-combo!) Still, more often than not I think one should not overexaggerate it with the combination of crazy flavours. Many of them sound more exciting than they taste. In Austria we have a (here) very famous chocolate producer I principally like a lot, but they are most famous for producing a wide range of very very fanzy sorts like pink coconut+fish gum, peanut+ketchup or Lemon+polenta. That's all exciting and interesting, somehow, but usually I like the not extremely sensational better. Even though, I often buy special tastes I haven't seen before, but I prefer to reluctantly combine tastes in my phantasy and not to just buy everthing that sounds sensational. But bacon and chocolate might work out well, especially milk chocolate, I imagine, even usually I would prefer the dark sort. But for once, here I think the lighter variant could be better. Let's see. (I will come back to this after Easter!)

As I liked the shop so much and the sales people where extremely nice, supporting, obviously really interested in their products and not pushing at all (I can't understand who really thinks, pushing customers could force them to buy something. Don't salespeople recognize that they actually sell more, when they don't urge the clientel?), I took another bar, because it was just too pretty - the Theo chocolate, which has not only a wonderful drawing on the cover, but is made of dark vegan chocolate with fig, fennel and almond. I am very curious to see how the vegan chocolate turns out! I once tried to bake with lactose-free chocolate, which is, I guess, probably the same as vegan chocolate, and the taste was ok, but don't try to heat it!! Well, I won't heat this bar anyways...

And I took the two mini bars from Newtree, the "Refresh" (dark chocolate with mint) and the "Crave" (milk chocolate with apricot) (Yes, I know. Newtree is indeed belgian, and I have one of their Alpha-bars, the one with thym and flaxseed, at home, waiting for a decent occasion to be opened. But you can't get this series in Europe. And I took the very very little ones. By the way, I like their wrapping design a lot, too. I often go for a clear, not too overloaded design).

In NYC, I went to Dean&Deluca and for an instant I thought "why not just buy everything in here?" But then reality came back to my mind, so besides several coffees (on several days, for sure) and several pieces from their bakery (Almost all wonderful, I love D&D. Only the Angel Food Muffin was a huge, major dissapointment. I never had angel food before, and heard it so far only in the combination with chocolate. But the customer behind me, who was a bit in a hurry, told me that it is just something with a very special texture, so I tried it. I hope, they gave me an old piece from the day before, because otherwise I would be almost shocked how anyone can eat this rubber-like stuff!!), on the sweet side I opted for a chocolate bar from Mast Brothers Chocolate, which is a not too big enterprise based in Brooklyn. The Murray's Cheese HP says about them: "The only bean-to-bar producer in New York City, the Masts have converted a 100-year old factory in the "village" of Williamsburg into a veritable Willy Wonka land for handmade chocolate bars." Sounds good, huh? Here you can see how lovely and wonderful their other bars look like. I am pretty moping that I didn't find out earlier that they have a shop in Williamsburg. Well, as I said, I need some excuse to come back, anyways... My beautiful bar is with (very) dark chocolate (81%) and almonds, sea salt and olive oil. Well, let's see after the end of Lenten season!

I am still a bit sorry that I didn't also get one of the Moo Kids Chocolate Bars (the nice wrap - you remember :o]), but I just couldn't afford to buy all the different chocolates I would have liked to. And the Mast Brothers products are, as wonderful as they look like, pricey, pricey, pricey.
(Still from D&D I got a mini bar of their own chocolate, merely for just having anything by D&D.)

At my very last day I went to Vosges Chocolate and when my surprise, that I actually already had something from Vosges, volatilised, I decided on the box of excotic caramels : Aboriginal anise myrtle+dark chocolate; Mexican guajillo chillies+licorice root+dark chocolate+organic pumpkin seeds; Hawaiian red sea salt+milk chocolate+li hing powder; Brazil nuts+South American cocoa nibs+dark chocolate. (Half of the ingredients I don't know. Ok, that's an exaggeration. But what is guajillo or li hing powder? So much for "I stick with the trivial tastes"). And I took two truffles on the hand. Actually, I have to say that they were a bit of a dissapointment. Maybe it was not the right day, maybe I was not in the right mood. Maybe it was because, about one hour before, I had the best, best, best cupcake ever.

But I realize that this blog entry is already far too long, so I will stop here and write about my restaurant- and bakery-visits next time!

TWD March Preview

After a month full of cookies and chocolate, TWD is looking forward to a month full of cookies and ... coconut to come.

There are plenty of things I have no idea about, and ultimately that's what I like most about TWD!
Nevertheless I have to put TWD on a hold. It is Lenten Season, and although I have no religious or spiritual resason to do so, I won't eat any sweets until Easter Sunday (and no meat as well, and I won't drink alcohol). This is an important thing for me. I do so for the third year in a row. And I can't imagine to bake and not taste or lick the batter and dough rests out the bowls. So I see no way to follow TWD without breaking my Lenten promise or betraying myself by pretending "this little itsy bit of batter won't harm."
Sure, it won't.
But I will try to resist some things the weeks to come, try to abstain some not-necessities, and baking would not make it easier. I don't want to cheat on me, so, see you in April, TWD!

But after my trip to D.C. and NYC I found myself some days ago home in my kitchen, very sad, looking at my oven, feeling sorry for myself because I didn't bake for three weeks, and won't do so for the next loooong five weeks, and already miss it now.
(Yes, they had an oven in NYC, and yes, I tried to bake, especially because the friend I visited asked me to bake some "european" bread. But I underestimated the degree of dirtiness of the shared-mostlystudents-appartement oven and, to make it short, we ended up heading to thesmoke detector, trying to shut it down before the fireworkers are alarmed and arrive with two big cars and water hoses and the whole block getting evacuated and provoking a big mes. Me managed it.)

Finally I found a compromise: There are not many savory recipes in Dorie's book (well, in fact, there is not a single one that does not include sugar, but a few that can be easily adapted). I will do some of them instead. Thereby I am still baking, and at least still following Dorie's recipes.


Nevertheless I will try to catch up with at least two of the wonderful picks for this month at the beginning of April on Easter weekend. I guess I already decided on

• the Dulce de Leche Duos, chosen by Jodie of Beansy Loves Cake (Marvel her incredible cakes! They are awesom!)
• and the Coconut Tea Cake chosen by Carmen of Carmen Cooks (Go there to see her admirable pictures of what she is creating in the kitchen!)

because both can be stored a while, because they can easily be transported to the office, because I would like to try to do the Dulce de Leche myself, and because I love coconuts.
I am very, very tempted to catch up with the Toasted-Coconut Custard Tart, picked by Beryl of Cinemon Girl (toasted coconuts!! custard!!) as well and the Soft Chocolate and Raspberry Tart, possibly made with blackberries, picked by Rachelle of Mommy? I’m Hungry!. Combining berries and chocolate is always a winner, and when we are very, very lucky there might be already some regionally grown berries, as the spring is already dawning this weekend in Vienna... maybe not blackberries, but let's see what nature has in it's pocket for us.

TWD: Honey-Wheat Cookies

(This is again a blog I pre-wrote - still on the road. Today I have to go home, buhu...)

Michelle of Flourchild decided on Honey-Wheat Cookies for this week's TWD (find the recipe in the book on page 81, or on her page).

To make it short - I had no idea where to get wheat germ or what exactly this should even be. I decided to use spelt instead. So I have no idea what the cookies should actually be like. I just can say that mine turned out fabulous!

(rolled Honey-Wheat/Spelt cookies and flattened balls)




I halved the recipe and everything went so perfectly - this was really my most untroubled TWD-recipe ever! I made the batter the day before and chilled it over night. No measuring problems, no dark brown (a.k.a. black and burned) bottom (I started to use two baking sheets, that seems to help). I even got exactly the amount of cookies the recipe stated (18 cookies for half the batter). Wonderful! This is, I guess, what it should always be like when your baking abilities are better than mine!

Maybe I would be a little more reluctant with the lemon zest next time, but that's really only a very, very small fly in the ointment...

TWD: My Best Cocolate Chip Cookies

(This is a post out of the can - sorry but I am away, right now I am enjoying NYC - woha!)

Cookies and chocolate and sweets than can easily be transported to the office are definitely the topic of the month at TWD. Great!
I didn't make cookies in a while, so I was excited to go for these, Dorie's "Best Chocolate Chip Cookies". Chocolate cookies are definitely one of my favourites. To spoil it: The name of the cookies is no exaggeration. The recipe is really great!

I used a mix of different chocolates. As I halved th recipe, in sum I needed 168 g, and  I used about 40g of 86% chocolate, 50g of 50%, 30g of 75% and 50g of Mitzi Blue Nutmix. (an Austrain chocolate I can only highly recommend. It is from an enterprise that started with bars of excellent chocolate, filled with very exotic fillings like Celeriac, Truffle and Port Wine, or Lemon Polenta; but they also have traditional tastes, drink chocolates and lots more. Everything is biological, and most chocolate is Fair Trade. Their latest product are round, very flat chocolates called Mitzi Blue. One sort is with 27% cocoa and a very finely chopped nut mix, so I thought they would perfectly match for these cookies.)

I opted for the cocoa-batter, because I like my cookies dark.

Unfortunately I made some measuring failures. Again. And this time I can't blaim the lack of cup-measures, but only my clumsiness and improvidence.
What happened? I made half the recipe, because 45 cookies sounds like a whole lot of cookies, and I made the wheat-honey cookies for next week, too. So 45 chocolate cookies where way too much.

Everything went fine first. Until I did remember that I wanted to include the cocoa. So, what now. The batter was already finished.
In my thoughtlessness I just included the whole amount of cocoa the recipe called for. Good idea, isn't it?

Yeah. But now I had too many dry ingredients (abaout 50g or 1/2 cup too much flour). I wasn't sure if the cookies would work out like that. So I decided to change my mind and just make the whole recipe, and not only the half amount.

Yes. Good idea. But how to beat butter fluffy, when there is already a ready-made batter in the bowl?
Well, don't ask how I did it. I made a big mess in the kitchen, I absolutely scamped araound and made a big botch, but in the end I had a (very humid) cookie batter ready to bake.
But when the first rack was in the oven I discovered that I doubled everything - despite the chocolate...
So I made chocolate chip cookies with not as much chocolate chips as there should have been. Or, to name it differently, I just strayed off the intented topic and missed the point.

(Chocolate chip cookies with not as much chocolate chips as there should be, waiting on the cooling rack to cool) 


I have no idea how and why, but in the end the cookies turned nevertheless out very, very good! I am absolutely in love with these chocolate cookies and have to redo them, and redo, and do again, and try another playing around option (and include enough chocolate chips next time :o]).

 

(not picture-perfect looking, but perfectly tasting chocolate cookies)

Thanks to Kait of Kait’s Plate who has chosen them! You can find the recipe on her page or in the book (p.68).

TWD: Rick Katz's Brownies for Julia

The first Brownies I ever ate, that must have been back in about 2003. Not too long ago, hu? That's mostly because Brownies were more or less unknown before Starbucks invaded mainland Europe. Since, I am a big brownie fan. I love them moisty and with lots and lots of chocolate (what is a somewhat redundant, because Brownie and lots and lots of chocolate are basically the same...)

Except for the Brownie cake I made for my birthday recently, I never made Brownies myself (as I never made chocolate bars, creamy cakes, tartes etc. before I joined TWD, so it is not really something extraordinaire that homemade Brownies are new to me).

Because I take everything I bake to work (no husband, no kids, no dog), I always appreciate recipes that can be transported easily, as the one Tanya of Chocolatechic picked for this week. This month, I am especially lucky in this regard! You may find the recipe at her page or in the book.

One of my colleagues is gluten- and lactose-intolerant and I don't do the extra work often, but sometimes I try to bake things she can also enjoy (with less success, I have to admit). This week was one of these weeks. I chose to make a second Brownie recipe, and opted for the "Tribute to Katherine Hepburn" Brownies. I just love Katherine Hepburn. I do.

But let's first speak about the duty, before the pleasure.

Rick Katz Brownies for Julia turned out to be a bit of work, at least compared to what I expect of Brownies (what is a batter mixed together in 5 min. without any difficulties). It was not that tricky, but nevertheless you need at least three different pans/bowls, and some more time as you have to whip part of the egg-sugar-mix.

For the chocolate I again mixed different sorts. The recipe calls for 4 ounces (112 g) unsweetened chocolate. Originally, I intended to half the recipe, so I had only about 2,5 ounces (70g) at hand. In sum, I needed 6 ounces (168g) of chocolate so I decided to just take more of the other chocolate. I had 2,5 (70g) of excellent Dolfin chocolate (70% with little cocoa bean pieces - great!) and replenished for the rest with ordinary 70% chocolate.

( If you have never seen Dolfin chocolate, enjoy these pictures! The tablets are packed in enveloppes, and when you open it, it looks like a pack of tobacco...)

For the rest I did as the recipe said. As always, I used spelt flour and cane sugar.

It worked out quite good for me. I sprinkled a small band with shredded almonds, and another one with non-pareilles, just to test it.

The part with the pearls did not turn out to be a great idea. Nothing bad happened, but they lost their colour and it is just not necessary. But the almonds look pretty fine.



Like with many others, the inner parts stayed very, very humid (or "gooey" - a new word I learned. Generally, TWD is a language crash course for me. Gooey, fudgy, cake-like is what I learned this week :o]). As I said in the beginning, I am a big fan of humid Brownies. But it was not really possible to cut them, and I guess that's too much humidity.

I decided to frost them and had the great idea to make a white-chocolate-iceing also for the Hepburn-Brownies, so I had to use the lactose free butter and the no-lactose-no-gluten chocolate.
Not such a good idea. I don't know what went wrong, but I made it again afterwards with ordinary butter and chocolate, and the second time it worked out, so I guess for this one time it was not my fault. Maybe lactose is necessary for the iceing. Anyways. My lactose-and-gluten-free attempt turned out as an ugly butter-soup with ropy chocolate algae. Really ugly. I spare you with the pics. But the second iceing, with ordinary dark chocolate, was fine, and I used it for a part of the Katz-Brownies. Now I have a band sprinkled with shredded almonds, a strip glazed with dark chococlate iceing (some pieces having non-pareilles under the iceing what gives them a crunchy cover that I enjoy!), and some pieces pure and simple.
Finally, I put the Rick Katz Brownies in the fridge (because I read that could improve the almost-liquid-problem. And it did).

Brownies can't be wrong for me, so I definitely appreciated them. Thanks to Tanya for choosing them!




Oh, and here the result for the Hepburn-Brownies: They were a flop. Big problems. Again, it could be that the no-glute-no-lactose topic eventually plays a role in here. I hope so, because otherwise it would be all my fault...

The batter was easy. I just added a bit less coffee powder, no cinnamon and almonds for the nuts.
The test piece (see left) turned out as a  brick. Really. A round, black, brittle-not-in-a-good-way brick.

The "real" piece looked the same, but I found out that the inner parts are ok. I just had to cut off the edges (well, if you call 2 cm still an "edge"). They are more cake-like than anything else. I finally did pass them over to my colleague, but they are really not my best piece of work.

I got a cup measure for birthday!! Yeah!!!

It's not one of these fancy multiple-spoon-matryoshka-eske tools, but an ordinary measuring cup. But it's all I need, and it even measures liquid ounces! Maybe, when I will be in Washington/NY the coming weeks I will look for a spoon-measure for table- and tea-spoons, but this is not implicitly necessary.

I am so much looking forward to next week-end when I will bake with my all new cup measure for the first time! Things will become so easy!! (but when somethings going wrong, now I will have one excuse less...)

TWD: Milk Chocolate Mini Bundt Cakes

Milk Chocolate. Well. Ok. If it really has to be...
Milk chocolate is not really my favourite chocolate. But I was ready to give it a try.

The mini chocolate bundts look like an Austrian dessert (I already mentioned it and the debate about the name, that leaves a bad taste, here), and one many people do not like a lot. (Don't ask me why. Mini-chocolate cakes with a bit of hazelnuts in the dough, covered by a dark-chocolate glazé, served warm with whipped cream - personally I don't see anything wrong in here. Nevertheless, I can't remember having ever eaten it ...) 
But still - I am always ready to try something out!

What made me a little bit more interested in the mini-bundts was the "Playing around" section. Normally, I don't got for it becasuse I am such a newby in baking, I can be happy when I manage the recipes just as they are, without any fancy playing around. But first, there was an option to use buttermilk, and I had some leftovers from the Cocoa-nana-bread. And secondly, there was this little sentence, stating that we could use other nuts and/or dried fruits for the nut-swirl. Dried fruits.
 And suddenly I had a vision. I love figs. And I think that figs and chocolate do match perfectly. And - I even think that figs and milk chocolate matches even better.
Converted to grams I had to use 169g chopped nuts. I used chopped cashews, maybe my favourite nuts, and three dried figs (chopped very finely). I left out just as much nuts that the whole volume stayed the same. Sorry, but re-calculating into cups just overstrains my mathematical abilities.
(left: chopped cashews with figs and cocoa for the swirl)

As many other TWD-bakers I don't have mini-bundt pans, so I used my silicone form for 6 brioche, which I also often use for muffins.
It turned out, that I had batter for 12 mini-cakes! Maybe original mini-bundt pans are just bigger than my brioche baking dish.
I tried to leave out a hole in the middle by rolling some parchment paper and putting it in the middle of the form. I know that the sense of the hole in the bundt-pan is to let the air circulate, and that a rolled piece of parchment paper doesn't serve this purpose. It was more to try if I can get out the form of a bundt cake.

Well, yes, it works. But not very well, and I guess it is not necessary. The mini-"bundts" are alright, even without a hole in the middle.

When I was preparing and baking this, I already had the feeling that milk-chocolate, figs and nuts could turn out to become an all-time favourite. (So much for my hesitations at the beginning about milk chocolate... it is always worthwhile to give things a try!!)

And what can I say? It definitely did. This was more than perfect. The figs are not too dominant, but there is a slight note. The cocoa-nut-fig swirl is just wonderful. The milk-chocolate works pretty fine in this mix. The mini-cakes are just the size to be less than a whole slice of cake, but more than a "beside the coffee-cup" sweet. Per-fect.

Can I take a bath in this?