Category Archives: baking

baking, recipes

Dessert in my favorite shade of blue

On Saturday we stopped by Rockford’s grandmother’s house to pick some blueberries. His grandfather, Pop, had the greenest of green thumbs, and the blueberry bushes he planted when they moved into their “new” house some 12 years ago have been magnificently productive. Pete puts at least as many blueberries in his mouth as he does in his bucket; Poppy, not surprisingly, doesn’t eat a single berry from her harvest.

“I don’t like eating them,” she says. “I just like the festivity of picking them.”

Rockford and the kids picked probably 2 quarts of blueberries, and last night we turned some of them into a Blueberry Upside-Down Cake.

Blueberry Upside-Down Cake

adapted from “The Best Recipe“

Topping
4 tablespoons butter, plus more for cake pan
3/4 cup light brown sugar
2 1/2 cups blueberries

Cake
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
3 tablespoons cornmeal
1/2 teaspoon salt
8 tablespoons (1 stick) butter, softened
1 cup granulated sugar
4 large eggs, separated
1/8 teaspoon cream of tartar
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2/3 cup milk

For the topping: Butter bottom and sides of 9×3-inch round cake pan. Melt 4 tablespoons butter in medium saucepan over medium heat; add brown sugar and cook, stirring occasionally, until mixture is foamy and pale, 3 to 4 minutes. Pour mixture into prepared cake pan; swirl pan to distribute evenly. Distribute blueberries evenly over topping; set aside.

For the cake: Heat oven to 350 degrees. Whisk flour, baking powder, cornmeal and salt together in medium bowl; set aside. Cream butter and sugar in large bowl. Gradually add 1 cup sugar; continue beating until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Beat in yolks and vanilla. Reduce heat to low and add dry mixture and milk, alternating in three or four batches, until batter is just smooth.

Beat egg whites in a large bowl at low speed until frothy. Increase speed to medium-high and beat to soft peaks. Add cream of tartar and continue to beat to stiff peaks. Fold a quarter of the beaten egg whites into the batter with a large rubber spatula. Fold in remaining whites until no white streaks remain. Gently pour batter into pan and spread over blueberries. Bake until top is golden and toothpick inserted into cake center comes out clean, 65 to 70 minutes.

Rest cake on rack for 2 minutes. Slide a paring knife around the edge of the cake to loosen it from the pan. Place a serving platter over the pan and hold tightly, then invert the cake onto the platter. Carefully remove the cake pan.

A note about the order of things

I only have a stand mixer, and I only have one bowl for it. This means I have to be a little creative about the batter and the egg whites. I get everything I need for the batter lined up, then I beat the egg whites, put them in another bowl and wipe the bowl down so I can use it to mix up the rest of the batter.

I am considering getting a second bowl for the stand mixer.

Pop gave us a few sticks (or sproutlings or cuttings or whatever you call them) from his blueberry bushes after we bought the house, and I so want them to thrive. I do not have the greenest of green thumbs, though, not by a long shot. So for now we will continue enjoying the bounty of Mom & Pop’s blueberry bushes, and I will keep coddling the sproutlings for as long as they need to be coddled.

baking

In which my baking offends the Queen of England

8 Comments

“Happy Jubilee, Your Majesty! I’m so honored you could come by for lunch. How was your sandwich?”

“It was divine, thank you. Peanut butter has always been a favorite of mine.”

“I’m so glad! My daughter loves it. Could I interest you in a slice of Battenberg cake? I made it just for you.”

“How thoughtful! The royal chefs invented it to celebrate Philip’s grandmother’s marriage, you know. He’ll be pleased to know the Americans are enjoying it these days. Oh dear. And what is this?”

“It’s Battenberg cake! I couldn’t find marzipan, though, so I made a marshmallow fondant.”

“Marshmallow, you say? How … clever of you.”

“How is it?”

“Did Harry put you up to this?”

“Pardon?”

“This is an atrocity.”

“Well I suppose it does look like I wrapped it generously in Quilted Northern, but …”

“That does not begin to describe the horror. Your squares are rectangles, the cake looks nothing like a cohesive unit, and it is as heavy as the Imperial State Crown and only half as edible.”

“I’m sorry it isn’t up to your standards, ma’am, but I gave it a good try.”

” ‘Your majesty’ will do quite nicely. You may ring for my car now.”

And that’s how The Daring Bakers ruined my luncheon with the queen. In my head. The queen was actually rather busy this month with the Diamond Jubilee, which I’m certain is the reason she hasn’t responded to my lunch invitation.

This month’s Daring Bakers challenge was the Battenberg Cake, which as HRH informed me was invented to celebrate the marriage of Princess Victoria of Hesse and by Rhine to Prince Louis of Battenberg. It’s a small cake that’s supposed to be pink-and-white checkered to reflect the Battenburg markings. I didn’t have much luck at it.

The Daring Bakers require me to tell you this:

“Mandy of What The Fruitcake?! came to our rescue last minute to present us with the Battenberg Cake challenge! She highlighted Mary Berry’s techniques and recipes to allow us to create this unique little cake with ease.”

All of which is true except the “with ease” part. Although I guess it was pretty easy. It just wasn’t terribly successful. I’m unlikely to try it again, but here’s a Battenberg cake recipe, should you wish to try your hand at it. It’s a very pretty little cake when made correctly!

baking, recipes

Thin Mints

Last night, a dream came true. I made Thin Mints. The recipe is adapted from one at 101 Cookbooks. Her recipe is “all-natural.” I don’t keep organic powdered sugar on hand (or organic much of anything else, for that matter), so my cookies weren’t all-natural. They were, nonetheless, quite good. So good, in fact, that one of my co-workers dubbed me The Queen. Of cookies, I guess.

The cookies are scary-easy to make. The most difficult part was coating the wafers, and that was more mind-numbing than difficult. They have to be coated one at a time, and it just takes a while. Because the recipe makes something like 48 cookies.

Here’s the non-all-natural Thin Mints recipe.

Homemade, Unnatural Thin Mints
8 ounces butter, room temperature
1 cup powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup cocoa powder
pinch salt
1 1/2 cups whole-wheat pastry flour
1 pound semi-sweet chocolate chips, chopped
1/2 teaspoon peppermint extract

Preheat your oven to 350. Racks in the middle zone.

Make the cookie dough: In a mixer cream the butter until it is light and fluffy. Add the powdered sugar and cream some more, scraping the sides of the bowl a couple times if necessary. Stir in the vanilla extract and then the salt and cocoa powder. Mix until the cocoa powder is integrated and the batter is smooth and creamy, sort of like a thick frosting. Add the whole wheat pastry flour and mix just until the batter is no longer dusty looking, it might still be a bit crumbly, and that’s o.k. You don’t want to over mix and end up with tough cookies.

Turn the dough out onto a counter, gather it into a ball, and kneed it just once or twice to bring it together into once nice, smooth mass. Place the ball of dough into a large plastic bag and flatten it into a disk roughly 3/4-inch thick. Place the dough in the freezer for 20 minutes to chill.

Rollout and bake: Remove the dough from the freezer and roll it out really thin, remember how thin Thin Mints are? That’s how thin you need your dough, about 1/8-inch. You can either roll it out between two sheets of plastic, or dust your counter and rolling pin with a bit of flour and do it that way. Stamp out cookies using a 1 1/2-inch cutter (this time I used one with a fluted edge, I’ve done hearts and other shapes in the past). Place cookies on a parchment-lined baking sheet and bake for 10 minutes. Remove the cookies from the oven and allow them to cool completely on a baking rack if you’ve got one.

Make the peppermint coating:
While the cookies are in the oven you can get the coating ready. I use a makeshift double boiler to melt chocolate (a metal pan over a saucepan of gently simmering water), but I know many people who swear by melting chocolate in the microwave. Slowly melt the chocolate, stirring occasionally until it is glossy and smooth. Stir in the peppermint extract. If you think the chocolate needs a bit more peppermint kick, add more extract a drop or two at a time – but don’t go overboard.

Finishing the cookies: You are going to coat the cookies one at a time and then gently set them on a parchment-lined baking sheet to set. Drop one cookie into the chocolate and (using a fork) carefully make sure it gets fully coated. Lift the cookie out of the chocolate with the fork and bang the fork on the side of the pan to drain any extra chocolate off the cookie. You are after a thin, even coating of chocolate. Place on the aforementioned prepared baking sheet, and repeat for the rest of the cookies. Place the cookies in the refrigerator or freezer to set.

Make 3 or 4 dozen cookies.

Recipe from 101 Cookbooks, mostly.

Weight Watchers beware: These little babies are 2 Points each.