TWD Rewind: Pecan Honey Sticky Buns

Gotcha! I'm sure you thought you'd be looking at another Perfect Party Cake, didn't you? Yeah, well, I'm all cake-ed out. After making a three layer cake for the boyfriend's birthday, looking to next weekend when he'll make a cake for my birthday, and then a week later when my sister and I will make another cake (this one!!!) to celebrate my birthday and her half birthday? The last thing I want to look at is another cake!


So what'd I go and do? Well, make sticky buns, of course! These were chosen way way back by Madame Chow, and I passed on them because I didn't want to make brioche so soon after making it for the brioche raisin snails (by the way, stop reading this. make these. now.). But when I realized that the Perfect Party Cake was going to be a no-go and that its appearance coincided with the brioche for the Bread Baker's Apprentice challenge, it seemed like a coincidence too good to skip over. This way, I could get another recipe done that I hadn't managed to do the first time around, bringing me closer to actually baking through this entire book. Eventually. Booyah, right?

That's not to say I didn't make the cake, I did - the Daring Bakers chose it a bit over a year ago, and I made it then. But that's not the point today for me. The point is these pecan honey sticky buns, and why, oh why, it took me this long to make them. They were damned good. Sticky, nutty, and buttery, just like a sticky bun should be. Fan-tabulous, eh?


Last Week: Raspberry Almond Dacquoise
Next Week: Tribute to Katherine Hepburn Brownies (dear lord, bake these >30 min and freeze before cutting if you know what's best for you!)

June DB Challenge: Bakewell Tart

I'll have all of you Daring Bakers know, I nearly typed "May DB Challenge" for the title of this post. That's sign #1 that this month has just flown by. Signs 2 and 3 were marking all posts in the forum on the challenge as "read" last Monday, which coincided with the day that I went "Oh crap, the Daring Baker challenge!!!" Okay, so that wasn't exactly what I said, but occasionally I filter for virgin ears. I'm considerate like that.



So I had grand plans from the beginning of the month, after Jasmine and Annemarie announced that this month's challenge was a Bakewell Tart. I was going to make my own jam, grind pecans for the frangipane, and make a full-size tart (!!!)? Yeah, they went by the wayside. Instead, I swooped into my local grokery store (yes, I do pronounce "grocery" with a hard "c" occasionally; I also pronounce "scissors" "skees-ors" for fun as well) and picked up almond meal and ready-made jam. Luckily for me, two twists of fate occurred. One was that the store contained more brands of jam than just Smuckers and Real Fruit (which tastes terrible, by the way - sugar is in jam for a reason). Amazingly enough, I found an off-beat brand of jam from, of all places, Denmark. Even cooler, the flavor was Raspberry Rhubarb with cherries and orange. Awesome, no? Second, when I stuck my almond meal in the freezer, I noticed a little baggie of ground pistachios from a previous baking venture. Pistachio-almond frangipane it would be!


That doesn't excuse the fact that I had to make a mini tart though. I apologize greatly, not only to all of you, but also to my poor neglected 9" tart pan with its shiny removable bottom and adorably fluted edges. I am so sorry that I have made so few things in you, because fluted tart crusts have to be some of the most beautiful and elegant things ever. Maybe not as cute and adorable as a crimped pie crust or the risen crusty edge of a brownie, but still wonderful.


The June Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Jasmine of Confessions of a Cardamom Addict and Annemarie of Ambrosia and Nectar. They chose a Traditional (UK) Bakewell Tart... er... pudding that was inspired by a rich baking history dating back to the 1800's in England.

BBB: Asparagus Bread

Have you ever seen those commercials or dramatizations where someone is "cleaning" their house by stuffing everything into the closet? And then they close the door, turn away, and the closet just explodes, scattering its contents everywhere. Well, I think that mental image you currently have is pretty close to what happened when I made this month's Bread Baking Babes selection. After making up the basic dough, kneading it and letting it rest, you're supposed to work in asparagus, rocket (I used spinach), walnuts, and parmesan. Um, yeah, about that....

Part of the problem might have been me - I was pretty lax about measuring the add-ins. But the moisture of them didn't help! My lovely soft and supple dough turned into this tacky slimy mass, with asparagus popping out at the most inopportune times! Then you had jagged walnut pieces tearing through, and wilted spinach just making it a party by adding all of its lovely moisture to the dough. Yeesh! I felt like I was wrestling with it!


Now that I've made it though, I think I probably could have done a couple things differently. Measuring the add-ins would have ensured I didn't try to stuff too much in. The spinach and asparagus should have been squeezed and dried as much as possible to keep from messing with the hydration too much. Oh, and I liked Nancy's idea of just rolling them in like you would a loaf of cinnamon swirl bread. That would have required waiting until the shaping step, but might have reduced the cursing involved in putting the initial dough together. After tasting, I'd also probably only gently steam the asparagus prior to mixing the dough, if I even cooked them at all. They were slightly mushy after 45 min in the oven, and I'd have liked a bit more of a bite to them.

Even with the difficulties, this ended up being a wonderful bread. I loved the swirl of purple from the walnuts, and the flavor from the overnight fermentation was absolutely wonderful. The bread itself is amazingly soft and supple - the perfect sandwich bread, if you take out all the vegetables! I'll give the approximate amounts and method for my version, as it deviated slightly from Lien's original recipe, taking into account the changes I would make. Thank you to Lien and the rest of the Bread Baking Babes for letting me bake with you this month!


Asparagus Bread (adapted from Lien)
makes one small loaf

3 stalks asparagus
1/2 cup baby spinach
1/4 cup coarsely chopped walnuts
2 Tbsp Parmesan
200 g AP flour
3/4 tsp instant yeast
125 g water
10 g olive oil
5 g kosher salt

Measure the flour and yeast into a medium bowl. Mix in 100g of the water, kneading for a few minutes. Add the olive oil and knead another 5-7 minutes. Add the salt and knead for another 5-7 minutes. Let the dough rest for 10 minutes.

While the dough is resting, chop the asparagus into 1/4" pieces. Coarsely chop the spinach and grate the parmesan. When the dough is done resting, press it out into a rectangle and spread the asparagus, spinach, and walnuts over it. Roll the dough like you would for cinnamon swirl bread. Let it sit for a few minutes, then flatten it and fold it over in a letter fold. Let it sit a few minutes and flatten and fold again. If you think it needs it, flatten and fold another time or two.

Let the bread rise for about one hour, then put in the refrigerator for 8-24 hours. Take it out after that time and shape it however you'd like (I went with a boule, but the original calls for a batard or torpedo shape). Place the loaf on a parchment lined cookie sheet and allow it to proof for 1-1.5 hours.

Preheat oven to 450*F.

Place bread (still on the baking sheet) in the oven and allow it to bake for 5-10 minutes at 450* before turning the temperature down to 400*F. Continue to bake for a total of 40-45 minutes. Remove and let cool on a wire rack.

TWD: Raspberry Almond Dacquoise

-ish thing. Because really, I couldn't quite handle this one in its original form. Sorry Andrea, but coconut is stringy and icky, I never keep pineapple around, and Nancy scared me with her experience of making the buttercream. Not to mention that my apartment is currently 85*F and the high in beautiful Wisconsin will be 94 tomorrow. Yeah, the oven is so not getting turned on to broil fruit. Plus, it's in season! Why would I harm perfectly ripe fruit with heat?!? So, being the faithful TWD baker, I didn't bail - I just (heavily) adapted. Thus the final result: fresh raspberries over vanilla yogurt, and crushed almond dacquoise sprinkled over the top.


It's pretty awesome. And easy. And doesn't require the 6 hr chill in the frigidaire in order to be tasty. Not a bad dessert to come back home to after a week's vacation, although I might have brought some back as well... Actually, "not bad" is not the right term for this. It's really incredibly awesome. Light, creamy, and slightly sweet from the yogurt, tart and tangy from the raspberries, and sweet and crunchy from the dacquoise. Lucky for me, I still have yogurt, raspberries are still on sale, and my tiny batch of dacquoise has barely been nibbled into!


Oh, and don't leave quite yet - I'm conducting a (not so scientific) poll. While looking into areas to resettle to, thanks to the incompatibilities of my profession, the boyfriend's profession, and Wisconsin, we came up with a general list of places we'd like. Yes, there is a preponderance of west coast locations. One might say I basically told the boyfriend "Think of places west of here you'd like to go." And I did. Not that I'm biased or anything. So here's the running list:

San Francisco / Mountain View area
Boulder, CO
Denver, CO
Seattle, WA
Portland, OR

And here's what I'd like you to do (pretty please?): tell me your top two choices for places to live (not to visit, to live!), and why. They don't even have to be on the list! Because really, I'm incapable of making a decision more complicated than whether I'm going to have dessert that day. The answer to that question is always yes.


Last Week: Honey Peach Ice Cream
Next Week: Perfect Party Cake (already made for the Daring Bakers!)

Strawberry Rhubarb Crumble

I have quite a few faults. While this is not the area in which to air them, I think one is pertinent here. Let's just say, I'm prone to hyperbole. The number of times I over-exaggerate things? Probably a million times a day.

See? I wasn't kidding!

But there are some things that transcend that tendency. They overwhelm me with their awesomeness. Generally, anything with rhubarb goes into that category. I mean, how can something that sour and stringy end up so meltingly tender, so wonderfully complex and sweet? How?!? Pair it with strawberries, and there's just no contest.


So when I was looking for a dessert to make for a game night with friends (Settlers of Catan, anyone?) and saw rhubarb at the farmer's market, I had to get some and use it. How can you not? Obviously, strawberries weren't ready by then - okay, maybe not so obviously, as I have shamefully kept this from you guys for over a month. Strawberries didn't show up at the farmer's market until last week, where they disappeared quickly thanks to the early birds - don't feel too sorry, I'm one of them!

My first inclination was strawberry rhubarb pie. I love pie. I grew up making pie crusts, churning out apple pie after apple pie during the fall, freezing them to bake during the cold winter months. Also, it's something you can ostensibly eat for breakfast, which is always a good thing in my book. But the fates conspired against me. I began looking for recipes, and instead stumbled across this one by Deb. Oh lordy, there are no words for how excited I was to make this. It was quick (I tossed the strawberries and rhubarb together with everything but the crumble topping right in the pan) and man did it smell amazing baking!


We managed to make it halfway through a game of Settlers before breaking into it too. Do I get a gold star for self control? Anybody? Please? Let's just say, the game stopped for about 5 minutes. No one wanted to do anything else, and it only took 5 minutes to polish off the servings I had dished out. We all looked at our plates and considered a second serving, but since no one said anything, the game kept going. I skipped out on the next game, and began washing dishes. It wasn't until I looked over and saw slightly crestfallen looks that I realized people had been contemplating more crumble. Oops!

And this crumble topping? It is now my absolute favorite. I love the raw sugar in it, as well as the obscene amount of butter - it's rich, slightly crunchy, and oh so good. And that, folks, is not hyperbole.

Seriously, go check out the recipe - here.

TWD: Honey-Peach Ice Cream

And lemon cupcakes. Or lemon cupcakes topped with honey-peach ice cream. Sweet and creamy from the ice cream, light and tangy from the cupcake.

When Tommi picked this ice cream, I was pretty darned happy - I don't make ice cream enough, especially since I actually purchased an ice cream maker. In fact, I think I haven't made more than a half dozen different ice creams since buying it a year ago. And while the vietnamese coffee ice cream probably beats any other (sorry, coffee and me are bffs), this one is pretty darned good.


What makes it so wonderful? Well, there's the amazing smell when you cook down the peaches with the honey. Then there's the ease of making the custard (I totally understand when it's done cooking now). And then, after churning it, there's the first taste - right off the dasher. We'll ignore the oh-so-annoying 6-8 hr chill-down ice cream must have in the freezer, because I had the perfect distraction - cupcakes! I wanted something to complement the sweetness, but not be too overpowering. While I was thinking ice cream sandwiches, Kayte had a brilliant idea - lemon cupcakes!


Now, I'm not a huge lemon fan. Give me chocolate, coffee, maple, nuts - you know, the heavy flavors. Citrus? Eh, not so much. I'll eat fruit day in day out (and do), but don't tend to put it in my desserts unless it's a crumble, crisp, or pie. But I had faith, and found Clara's recipe for lemon-lemon cupcakes. Even better, it only made 10 regular sized cupcakes. Better than that? It was easy to halve, giving me 18 mini cupcakes more adorable than you could believe.

So with that little distraction well in hand, I was able to top off my little cupcakes with a tiny (mini cookie scoop = 1 Tbsp) bit of ice cream. It was absolutely perfect, a nice little three-bite dessert. So we'll call this a successful collaborative effort, thanks to Tommi, Kayte, and Clara.


Honey-Peach Ice Cream
(adapted from Dorie Greenspan's Baking from my home to yours)

1 lb peaches, peeled and chopped into 1/2" cubes
2 Tbsp honey
2/3 cup 2% milk
2/3 cup heavy cream
2 large egg yolks
1/4 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract

Put the peaches and honey in a small saucepan. Cook over medium heat for 10-15 minutes, or until peaches are soft but not falling apart. Transfer mixture to a blender or food processor and carefully blend until smooth. Set aside to let cool.

Heat the milk and heavy cream in a medium saucepan just to a simmer over medium heat. While that's heating, whisk together the egg yolks and sugar until light in color and slightly thickened. When milk and cream are just simmering, take off the heat and slowly drizzle 1/3 of the mixture into the sugar-yolk mix, whisking constantly so you don't cook the eggs. Pour in the rest, whisking all the while. Pour the custard back into the medium saucepan and set it over medium heat. Whisk constantly, scraping the bottom of the pan so nothing cooks onto it, until it coats the back of a spoon and is slightly thicker. Immediately remove from the heat and stir in the peach puree and vanilla. Scrape into a bowl and set in the refrigerator for at least 2-3 hours, or until thoroughly chilled.

Process the custard in an ice cream maker according to the instructions. Pack into a container and freeze for at least 2-3 hours, or overnight.

Lemon Cupcakes
(adapted from Clara)

1/2 cup flour
1/4 tsp baking powder
pinch kosher salt
1/3 cup sugar
2 Tbsp butter
1 egg
3 Tbsp milk
2 Tbsp lemon juice
1/8 tsp lemon extract

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Grease or line a mini muffin pan and place on a cookie sheet.

Sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt. In a measuring cup, combine the milk, lemon juice, and lemon extract. In a separate bowl, cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Beat in the egg until the mixture no longer looks curdled. Add the flour mixture and milk mixture alternately, starting and ending with the dry ingredients. Using a mini cookie scoop or a spoon, fill the mini muffin cavities 1/2 to 2/3 full. Bake for 15 minutes, or until top springs back when lightly pressed. These won't color, and will be fairly flat-topped.

Remove cupcakes from pan and set aside to cool.

Makes 18 mini cupcakes.

Last Week: Parisian Apple Tartlet
Next Week: Coconut-Roasted Pineapple Dacquoise

NFR and DIY: Reused Plastic Containers

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know. I'm sure a lot of you know people who sell Tupperware, or have entire drawers full of Gladware. But you know what folks? I'm not buying it. Not because I'm cheap, but because it seems wasteful. So every time I go to the store and buy cottage cheese, sour cream, yogurt, or anything else in a sturdy plastic container, I wash and save it once I finish the contents off.

I've been doing this the last two years, basically since I got out of college, Tupperware-less. And as a result of various baking projects *cough*DB*cough* I tend to have various remnants stored in my fridge at any one time. Caramel syrup? Yep! Brown sugar cream cheese frosting? Always! Banana cream filling? Of course! The problem with this abundance? All my containers were opaque, so I could never tell what was in them. So ingredients would languish for weeks before I went through every container and figured out what they all were.


Needless to say, I got sick of doing that. It's annoying to have a perfectly good baking ingredient go to waste just because I had forgotten about it. So I decided to make a solution myself - inspired by dry-erase boards. I found some dry erase sheets at Hobby Lobby, basically a light-weight plastic with a dry-erase coating on it. They were sticky-back, but that didn't really bother me. After assembling all my container lids, the dry-erase material, and some good strong super glue, I was ready to go. All I did was cut out little rectangles of the material, peel off the sticky-back, and stick them on each lid with some super glue.

After a little bit of time, voila! A labeling system! Now all I have to do is grab my dry-erase marker, which is always on my fridge with the board I use for my grocery list, jot on the lid what's in the container, and stow it in the fridge. No more wondering what's in a container, because the answer's right on top! It works wonders for the bulk ingredients I get too - wheat germ, vital wheat gluten, quinoa, etc.


So here's a question folks - or maybe a couple. Do you obsessively keep little leftovers from baking projects? How do you store them - are you a Tupperware fanatic (I won't judge!), or a DIY'er like me? My little inquiring mind wants to know!

Oh, and just so all y'all know (the Midwesterner in me just shuddered from writing those words), I'll be in San Francisco today (6/12) through 6/21 and will be essentially incommunicado. While I considered bringing my laptop, the idea of having to drag it out for airport security stopped me. Speaking of, I need to find the right size bag for my liquids. Grrr.

TWD: Parisian Apple Tartlets

Oh, thank goodness. Quick, easy, elegant, and tasty. Those are all pretty good adjectives for a dessert, aren't they? After some relatively big baking projects, it was nice to whip these up on a busy weeknight. I think, after all the stress I've been under at work, that Jessica read my mind. I needed something quick and simple. Needed.


So in the interest of having the post reflect the dessert, this one will be short and sweet. Not elegant, because I'm not really that way. Sorry, I swear like a sailor, use sarcasm and irony way too much, and like jeans, t-shirts, and sweatshirts. I'm pretty sure that's three strikes right there. No weekend wearing of pretty sundress and high heels is going to make up for that, although hopefully it mitigates it a bit. Oh yeah, and not the tasty bit either. 'Cause, um, that'd be a little awkward, doncha think?


Two notes: I used Braeburn apples which were pretty sweet to begin with. Nice and crisp though. Since they were sweet, I forswore the brown sugar and butter on top and just drizzled some honey over them pre-bake. If you go that route, I'd just suggest drizzling enough that the top of the apples doesn't dry out in the oven. I probably could have used a bit more than I did.


Last Week: Cinnamon Madeleines
Next Week: Honey-Peach Ice Cream

BBA: Middle Class Brioche

Some things need few words. Like Peter Reinhart's brioche, middle class to be specific. And because I'm in a list-making mood thanks to my boss needing to know what I'm working on, here are the few words in list form:

cloud
soft
butter
air
delicious
mahogany

Oh yeah, and one more.

Gone.

If you haven't heard about Nicole's challenge to bake through Peter Reinhart's Bread Baker's Apprentice, check out the deets (sorry, slipped out) here. Then marvel at 200 bakers and their collective insanity.

TWD: Cinnamon Madeleines

As many of you well know, I tend to scale our weekly Tuesdays with Dorie recipes down a bit. And then mini-size them. There are multiple reasons for this, including the obvious fact that mini = cute. Oh, and that too-obvious fact of pants needing to fit, but that's not nearly as fun. So we'll ignore the second reason, mkay? But all this scaling and mini-sizing also requires the use of a spreadsheet. Because sorry, while I'm an engineer, I'm not so good at maths in my head. Especially simple maths. Allow me to differentiate, integrate, do Laplace transforms, whatever in my head, just don't let me add, subtract, multiply, or divide. Seriously, most engineers you will meet cannot add and subtract - I'm thinking it has to do with the amount of space we have available in our brains. Basically, too much other crap is stuffed in there, and something had to go. And really, what are calculators for, anyway?

It's just, well, I might have gone a little overboard this last week. Tracey had picked Cinnamon Squares, and I just wasn't digging the idea of an 8x8 pan of cinnamon quick bread topped with a chocolate frosting. Not sure why, and I'm really not sure why the logical result of this was not just cutting the recipe in half or quarters and making muffins. Because seriously, how easy would that be? No, I had to decide to make madeleines out of it. But I wasn't sure if I'd need to tweak the recipe to make decent quality madeleines. So instead of just making it as is and test-baking a couple in my madeleine pan, I hauled out 4 different madeleine recipes and a spreadsheet.

Oh yes, I went there. I compared (using 1 cup of flour as a basis) the cinnamon squares to different madeleine recipes as far as butter quantities, leavening, eggs, and sugar. After some serious number crunching, here's what I ended up with:

See? It appeared that all I needed to do was replace the milk (wasn't in any madeleine recipes) with an extra egg, since every other recipe contained more eggs. Easy peasy!


'Bout that... Well, these didn't turn out so hot. For one, they needed the milk to remain fluffy. The egg just made them, well, eggier. And tougher. So they dried out a bit more quickly than I would have liked, and weren't the most delicate little cookies. That's not to say they weren't tasty - they were! Maybe a bit too sweet, but really wonderful right out of the oven. Shelf life was nil on these puppies though, not a really fortunate side effect.

So here's the takeaway message - I'm sure these would be quite tasty, minus my unorthodox tweaking. As it was, I was perfectly fine omitting the coffee and chocolate and eating them like little teacakes. In the end though, I'd suggest just going with the original recipe. There's a reason why Dorie writes cookbooks and develops recipes and I don't.

Last Week: Chipster-Topped Nutty Brownies
Next Week: Parisian Apple Tartlet