Tag Archives: Recipes

Frosting for the Cause

Although I’ve never had the pleasure of meeting Paula Kelly in person, I think it’s pretty safe to say she should be nominated for sainthood.  Paula’s always there with support for a friend, a blog post and a twitpic.  There’s NEVER a cross word, a snarky remark or mean-spiritedness in any of her tweets or blog posts.  And, her royal icing construction projects would render me cross-eyed before I ever got the first wall up!

So, it’s not surprising that she’s devoted a year of her time and effort to galvanize food bloggers to share their own personal stories, and of course, bake for her special project called Frosting for the Cause, a site dedicated to raising money for the Canadian and American Cancer Societies.  Every day there’s a new post, a new story and a new recipe.  It’s a mammoth task that Paula’s undertaken with a smile on her face and love in her heart.

Scoot on over there now and get the recipe I’ve posted  for Chewy Chocolate Gingerbread Cookies.

Thank you, Paula.  You’re the sweetest cookie I know.

Baking With Abby and Friends

Twitter can be a fun place to hang out and exchange witty banter, snarky remarks, and, of course, much discourse about what we’re cooking and baking.
I believe I was following an exchange between Abby and Jamie when I casually remarked that I would love to bake with them.  One tweet led to another and before anyone knew it, #baketogether was born.

We turned to our undeniably fearless leader Abby to come up with the recipe we’d put our two cents into.  Nothing too laborious, lest it frighten away the newbie bakers.   Of course, Abby wisely selected her Chocolate Truffle Tart, a gorgeous little confection, perfect as is, but willing to welcome all kinds of changes and tweaks with open arms.

Thrilled and excited to begin, my brain then reminded me that there are only two of us in this household, and one of us doesn’t want to eat dessert.  But, since we were to be whiling away Memorial Day weekend at our friend Joey’s beach house, I decided I’d make the tart there.

Other than bringing the 9 inch tart ring and chocolate with me, Joey made sure we had everything we needed, since I provided him with a detailed shopping list.  And, lucky for me, another of Joey’s weekend guests LOVES  to bake.  Great for me, too, since we could gab while making the tart.

Oh..note to self:  never ask anyone what their mix-in of choice might be.  Because if you ask four people, you’ll get six answers ranging from ‘don’t make anything special for me, because you know I won’t eat it’ to ‘ewww, that doesn’t sound good’.  Just make whatever you’re going to make and even the picky ones will eat it.  Like the one in this household who doesn’t eat dessert.  Ahem.

So, what did I do?  Not too much, since I was gun shy with this group.  I added hazelnuts and cinnamon to the crust and replaced the recipe’s rum with Frangelico (I have a heavy hand) to the ganache and the mascarpone topping.  I toyed with the idea of adding a layer of caramel between the crust and the ganache.  I vocalized a desire to make a hazelnut brittle to break into shards for adorning and extra crunch.  Neither came to be, since lounging on the chaise by the pool seemed to have a bigger hold on me than I thought.

Hazelnuts gave the crust a lovely mild nutty, crunch while the cinnamon added an additional savory sweetness, not to mention a delightful perfume in the kitchen while the crust baked.  Even the buff-est guys hanging out in the house  couldn’t resist following the baking crust’s scent into the kitchen to take a peek.

The Frangelico gave the ganache the wonderful gianduja flavor I love so much.  More Frangelico in the topping?  Why not?

The results?  Well, Joey decided his understated cake knife and cake pedestal were the perfect accompaniments to this lovely dessert.

Chocolate Hazelnut Truffle Tart

Makes 1 tart or 12 servings

For the crust:

1. 1 cup or 4.5 oz graham cracker crumbs
2. 1/3 cup coarsely chopped hazelnuts
3. 1 Tbsp dark brown sugar
4. 4.5 Tbsps melted butter

For the filling:

1. 12 oz bittersweet chocolate, chopped
2. 2 oz. (4 Tbsps) unsalted butter, cut into 4 pieces
3. 2 Tbsps Frangelico
4. 1 cup  half and half
5. 1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract
6. Pinch fine sea salt

For the topping:

1. 1 package (8 ounces) mascarpone cheese
2. 3/4 cup heavy cream
3. 1/4 cup sugar
4. 2 Tbsps Frangelico
5. (Optional) Chopped Hazelnuts

To make the crust:
Heat the oven to 375°F and have ready a 9-inch fluted tart pan with removable bottom.

1.  In a small bowl, stir together the cookie crumbs, chopped hazelnuts and brown sugar  until well blended. Drizzle the melted butter over the crumbs and mix and smear the crumbs and butter until well blended and evenly moist. Dump the mixture into the prepared pan and press evenly onto the bottom with a straight-sided, flat-based metal measuring cup to create an even 90º angle straight side.   Bake until fragrant and slightly darker brown, 10 to12 minutes and set on a rack to cool.

To make the filling:

1. In a heatproof medium bowl, melt the chocolate, half and half, and butter  in a microwave or over simmering water. Remove from the heat and add the Frangelico, vanilla and salt. Whisk the mixture until well blended. Set aside, whisking occasionally, until room temperature and slightly thickened, about 1 hour. (For faster cooling, refrigerate the filling until thickened to a pudding consistency, about 30  minutes, whisking and scraping the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula every 5 minutes.)
2. With a rubber spatula, scrape the mixture into the crust and spread evenly. Let cool completely, cover, and refrigerate until the filling is set, about 4 hours and up to 1 day  before proceeding with the recipe.

To make the topping:

The Best SEO-Less Mocha Fudge Brownie Recipe You Will Ever Stumble Upon

Last weekend I didn’t attend either of the two different food blogger conferences in Atlanta and Washington, DC.  Clearly, that was a BIG mistake on my part, since I’ve been working for days on this one little post.  Sure, I skimmed the live tweets during the sessions, glanced over the live blogs for any key tidbits of never-fail blogging how-to secrets that would catapult me into the big leagues in one easy step.   And, while I did read some terrific post-mortem summaries from bloggers I adore, I’m sitting here typing and deleting, typing and deleting.  Typing.  Deleting.

I’m trying for the life of me to figure out how to share one of my favorite brownie recipes with you.  A double decker espresso-infused fudgey brownie sandwiching a silky smooth ganache making it even more outrageous.  It’s not writing the recipe that has me stymied.  It’s the the fact that this crave-worthy treat may never see the internet light of day because of three little dirty words.

Search.  Engine.  Optimization.   It might as well be called the shackles of cyberspace thanks to the new Google recipe search algorithm that’s systematically ranking recipes based on a ranking system fueled by some kind of undemocratic system that gives preferential treatment to recipes you might not ever want from sources you might not know and trust.

Feeling like Charlie Brown, doomed before I even push publish, I’m sure this little recipe won’t reach more than 12 people.  Let’s not kid ourselves…google the words ‘brownie recipe’ and see how many gazillions you get.  This one will be on the last page of ‘search’.  That is, IF there’s a last page of ‘search’.

And, then there’s the photography.  I’ll just leave that one alone.*  I can feel my numbers plummeting and I haven’t even posted the recipe!!!!  For this reason alone, I’m not going to compose a casual lineup of  the usual brownie ingredients that you’ve seen countless times before,   We all know there’s nothing I can do to a photo of butter, chocolate, white and brown sugar, eggs, instant espresso and flour except make you avert your eyes.

In a giant leap of faith, I’m going to post this recipe for the 12 people who might have the tenacity of Diogenes to search and search and search.  I promise if you try it, you’ll see why it’s ranked number 1 in my own overflowing brownie file.

And, I’ll go to a blogger conference and work hard to up my game.

Here’s how I flip the brownies out of the pan.

*Say a prayer for Penny De Los Santos, who’ll be a guest speaker at Big Summer PotLuck 2.

A Royal Dilemma

I’ve been enamoured of royal icing ever since one of the chef/instructors in culinary school taught me “the love of the royal”, as she called it.  Royal icing, at its core, is nothing more than egg white and confectioner sugar.  In its stiff stage, royal icing is the confectionery equivalent of super strength concrete, able to support all kinds of sugar showpieces and gingerbread skyscrapers.  In its flood stage, it’s the paint we cookie makers use for our creations.

For many years, I used liquid pasteurized egg whites in my royal icing.  Even buying in bulk from my purveyor, I still wasted a lot of those whites.  And that’s like throwing money down the sink.  That’s when I began using egg white powder.

Now, egg white powder is just that.  Dehydrated egg whites.  They’re available in supermarkets under the brand name “Deb-El Just Whites”.  Again, I buy mine from my purveyor in large quantities.  They’re great…I hydrate the amount I need, if it’s too much I can store in the ‘fridge for a few days.  No more waste!  And, there’s a substantial shelf-life for the whites, so I don’t worry about them going bad on me.

The thing is, I see that many of my cohorts in cookiedom out there are using meringue powder.  The meringue powder ingredient list begins with cornstarch.  Cornstarch is a thickening agent, I’ll give you that.  Then comes the egg white powder.  Next up is gum arabic, an emulsifier, calcium sulfate (?), citric acid,  cream of tartar, silicon something or other (as a whitening agent) and, last but not least, artificial flavor.

Maybe I’m missing something?  IF the recipe for royal icing is, as I stated earlier, egg whites and confectioner sugar, why bother with the meringue powder?  Cornstarch is already in my confectioner sugar; that’s what makes it confectioner sugar.  Citric acid?  I add fresh lemon juice.  Cream of tartar?  I skip it.  Whitening agent?  I don’t think so….keep beating enough air into royal icing and it’ll whiten on its own.  Artificial flavor?  Not on my watch.  Again, I’ll add lemon juice for a bit of flavor, not to mention that the citric acid in the lemon juice acts as a speed dryer in the royal, too.

I will grant you that the meringue powder is a bit less expensive than egg white powder.  I’ll be happy to be proven wrong, but I think you may end up using more of it than the egg white powder.  Which makes it a non-money saver in my humble opinion.

Here’s what I do:  I measure out 1/3 c. dried egg white powder and add 1 c. of warm water to reconstitute.  Let the water sit for a bit to fully hydrate the powder, then whisk gently to dissolve.  Then, use 3 oz. egg whites for a pound of confectioner sugar.  Add a teaspoon of lemon juice.  That’s it.  Now, I grant you, that the humidity level in your area will determine how much egg white you use.

Try it yourself and let me know if I’ve been helpful or just a royal pain.

POST SCRIPT:  Please use 3 oz. reconstituted whites per one pound of confectioners sugar.  Reconsitute the dry whites according to the manufacturer’s instructions.