Tag: Desserts

Earl Grey Madeleines

November 13, 2013February 5, 2017

Elsa has discovered my secret.

My dear friend Elsa and I were hanging out quite a bit when she finally got back from her worldly travels this summer, as she was job hunting, so had her days free, just like I do. She came over one afternoon, and we decided to bake something. I started looking for recipes, and suggested rosemary shortbread, thyme/sea salt/chocolate chunk cookies, or these earl grey madeleines from Baking a Moment. She looked at me and said “Are we only allowed to make things that involve weird flavor combinations?”

She’s right. I like trying new flavor combinations. Why have chocolate chip cookies when you can add thyme? Or plain shortbread when you can add rosemary? Why not spice it up a bit? Plus, combinations like this are becoming rather mainstream. I think I’ve got her on the weird flavor combo train at this point, but she still teases me all the time. Anyway, on that afternoon, I convinced her to make earl grey madeleines with me. And dang, were they good.

For the record, Elsa made me zucchini, jalapeno, lime cookies for my birthday.

Earl Grey Madeleines

Ingredients

6 Tbl unsalted butter
3 bags earl grey tea
2 tsp light brown sugar
2 tsp honey
2 eggs
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp kosher salt

Instructions

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

In a small pot on the stove, melt the butter. While the butter is melting, cut open the tea bags, and then stir the loose tea into the melted butter. Allow to steep over low heat for about 5 minutes, then remove from the heat and allow it to steep for another 5 minutes. Strain the tea butter. I used a mesh sieve that I overlayed with the tea bags (which I had cut to make sheets). If you have cheesecloth, you can use that.

Stir the brown sugar and honey into the tea butter. They may stay kind of separated, and you can slightly reheat to try to combine them better. Ours wouldn’t really combine no matter how much we reheated them, and everything worked out just fine. So don’t stress about it.

Here’s another weird step. In a (preferably metal) mixing bowl, combine the eggs and granulated sugar. Fill another bowl with very hot water, and put the bowl of eggs/sugar into the bowl of hot water. Mix this with your fingers (I know, I know) until the eggs feel slightly warm and the sugar has dissolved and is no longer grainy. When you’ve reached that point, you can remove the bowl from the water and whip the eggs/sugar on high until it has tripled in volume.

In another bowl (I know, it’s a bowl heavy recipe), sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt. Gently fold the egg mixture in in two additions. Pour a little bit of this batter into the tea butter, stir it up, and then pour the tea butter into the batter. Again, gently fold until thoroughly combined.

Spoon the batter into a buttered and floured madeleine pan. You only need to fill up the molds about 2/3 of the way. Bake for 8-10 minutes, or until they’re golden-brown around the edges. Remove the madeleines from the pan immediately and allow them to cool on a wire rack. Enjoy with a glass of milk, a nice coffee, or tea!

Jonah’s Birthday: Mint Chocolate Chip Cake

February 17, 2013February 4, 2017

Jonah’s birthday was a little over a month ago, but I am just now getting around to posting about his birthday cake. It has been a little busy around here! We are finishing up the recording of Jonah’s first solo full length album – I was in the studio Friday afternoon, Saturday afternoon, and am going back today. Let me tell you guys, it sounds amazing. I’ll tell you all more about it when we get closer to the release. But big cool things happening, I promise.

Anyway, for Jonah’s birthday, my roommate Carmelle and I made him a mint chocolate chip cake, a recipe I’ve been eyeing for quite some time. And let me say, of our birthday treats, this one has been my favorite. This chocolate cake recipe was definitely one of the more perfect ones I’ve made. It was perfectly chocolatey, light, and moist. In the future, I will use this cake as a base for many exciting things, I can tell. The frosting was wonderfully minty, but not overpowering. Overall, the flavors were really nice, and it’s definitely a good occasion cake because it’s unique.

Mint Chocolate Chip Cake

Ingredients

Cake

9 Tbl unsweetened cocoa powder
1 1/2 cups cake flour (If you don’t have cake flour and don’t want to buy a whole bag for 1 1/2 cups, use plain flour and replace 3 tbsp with cornstarch)
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp baking powder
1 stick unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 large eggs
1/2 cup coffee
1/2 cup milk

Frosting

2 1/2 sticks unsalted butter
~4 cups powdered sugar
2-3 tsp peppermint extract (plus some for taste)
Milk, if necessary
150g dark chocolate, very finely chopped
green food coloring

Instructions

Cake

Butter and line with parchment paper two 9-inch cake pans and preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a medium bowl, sift together the cocoa, flour, salt, baking soda, and baking powder. In an electric mixer, beat the butter and sugar fora few minutes until it’s smooth. Add the eggs, mixing after each addition until fully combined.

In a cup, mix the milk and coffee together and set aside. Add half of the dry ingredients and the coffee/milk mixture to the butter mixture, and stir. Add the second half of the dry ingredients and mix until smooth. Split the batter into the prepared cake pans, and bake for about 25 minutes, or until you’ve had a successful toothpick test. Remove from the oven and allow the cakes to cool for about 5 minutes in their pans, then remove them onto a wire cooling rack and allow them to cool completely before icing them.

Frosting

Now it’s time for the icing. I will give full disclosure: Carmelle and Mac made the icing, iced the cake, and decorated while I was out… doing something… I can’t quite remember at the time. I advise rinsing out the bowl of your electric mixer and using that again. Cut the butter into smaller pieces and put them in the mixing bowl. Beat until it’s fluffy. Now add the powdered sugar one cup at a time (or 1/2 cup at a time once you’re getting closer to the right consistency), beating between each addition until combined. If it gets too stiff, you can add a little bit of milk (think 1 Tbl at a time) to get it back to the right consistency. Add the peppermint extract and enough green food coloring to get it to that pretty mint green color. Slowly add the chocolate pieces until it looks the way you’d like and, more importantly, there’s a good amount of chocolate.

Put the first cake on whatever you’re going to use to serve: a cake stand, a plate, etc. Using about 1/4 of the icing, frost the top of the first layer. Place second cake one top of the first, and cover the whole dang thing with the rest of the icing. Carmelle pointed out that one of the beauties of this cake was that if little crumbs came off the cake and got in the icing, it didn’t really matter, because there were already little brown bits of chocolate in it. Mac used the extra chopped chocolate to make a lovely little design op top. Serve with candles and a glass of milk!

Lemon Tart with Rosemary Crust

December 12, 2012February 4, 2017

When planning this year’s Thanksgiving menu – which, believe me, took over a month – my father and I went back and forth quite a bit on what recipes to include. We wanted to go with some less traditional recipes. For instance, instead of a regular stuffing, we stuffed onions; there were no sweet potatoes or mashed potatoes at our dinner, instead we had twice cooked stuffed delicata squash (I’m working on getting you that recipe…); our brussel sprouts were glazed with balsamic, tossed with pancetta, and sprinkled with breadcrumbs. It was heavenly. Dessert, for some odd reason, turned out a little lackluster. You know how you wait all year for those pies? Those perfectly creamy pumpkin pies, those apple pies so full of apples you don’t know if they’ll all fit in the pie dish, and the pecan pie with the perfect ratio of nut to candy-like filling? Yeah… we didn’t really get those this year. Probably because we went with the whole “let’s try new recipes!” idea. And hey, I’m glad we did. What’s the fun in cooking if you’re using the same recipes over and over, right?

In addition to the traditional pumpkin/apple/pecan pies, we also decided to add a lighter dessert to the menu. You know Pinterest, right? Well I had found this recipe for a lemon tart with rosemary crust, and without really reading the whole thing, recommended it as a light, fruity dessert. Only upon arriving in Seattle and reviewing all of the recipes did I realize that the crust was a spelt crust. Now, I don’t hate gluten-free things, but I am a little…doubtful, one might say, of their deliciousness when compared with regular gluten-filled things. So I was wary. But I made it anyway. And what I loved about this tart is that the crusty is really rosemary-y, unlike all those recipes where you add a little bit of whatever herb and can barely taste it. I also loved how tart the filling was. My family loves sour anything, so the filling (not as much the crust, but whatever) was a big hit. If I were to make it again, I would probably 1.5 times the filling and just add some fresh rosemary to my own pie dough for the crust.

Lemon Tart with Rosemary Crust

Ingredients

Rosemary Spelt Crust

1 1/3 cup spelt flour
3 Tbl sugar
1 Tbl fresh rosemary, chopped
pinch of salt
1/3 cup cold butter, cubed
1-2 Tbl ice water

Lemon Filling

1 cup plain Greek yogurt (I wouldn’t recommend non-fat, as you’ll lose some of the richness, but if that’s what you’re into, go for it.)
1/2 cup sugar
2 eggs
1/2 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice
1 teaspoon lemon zest

Instructions

Rosemary Spelt Crust

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Butter a 9-inch tart pan and set aside.

In a food processor, pulse the flour, sugar, rosemary, and salt a few times. Add the butter and pulse until crumbs start to form. Add the ice water, 1 Tbl at a time, pulsing in between. When the dough holds together when pinched between your fingers, it is done. Don’t add any more water than is absolutely necessary. It will seem crumbly, but trust me, it’s fine.

Dump the dough into the prepared tart pan. Press the dough into the pan, starting in the center and working your way outwards and up the sides (evenly!). Pierce the crust with a fork a few times and bake for 15 minutes. Allow to cool at least 5 minutes before you pour in the filling.

Lemon Filling

While the crust is baking, you can prep the filling. In a mixing bowl, whisk together the yogurt and sugar. Add the eggs one at a time, then the lemon juice and zest. Whisk until the mixture is smooth and well combined. Pour the filling into the (at least slightly cooled) crust and bake for 25-30 minutes or until the center is set and jiggles only slightly when shaken. It is weird to me that shaking things and their jiggling is in a recipe, but hey, that’s how it goes sometimes.

Allow the tart to cool completely, and then stick it in the fridge to chill for at least 1 hour before serving. If you’re feeling fancy, serve it with fresh whipped cream.

Rhubarb Curd Shortbread

July 5, 2012February 4, 2017

Ok you guys. It has been too long. Again. But I promise I have good reasons: 3 jobs, a show (The Sound of Music!), and sunlight. I’ve been nannying part time, working at the office part time, and doing social media an hour a day, then going to many many hours of rehearsal in a suburb or Portland. So no time for cooking OR blogging. But here I am, backstage at the show, and I decided, I HAVE to do this.

You’ll have to excuse the iPhone photos for the next couple of posts (or Instagram, whichever I had the energy to use). Along with leaving my 8×8 pan at the cabin in the woods (which it turns out I needed for this recipe), I also left my camera charger… so my camera was sitting, dead and useless, for quite a while. So I know the pictures aren’t as good of quality as usual, but just bear with me until I get my camera up and running again!

I found this recipe on Food52 while looking for shortbread recipes to eat with a fruit compote. I love rhubarb, and am always looking for different and unique recipes, so I thought this would be a fun one to try. Warning: it is labor intensive and dish heavy. Read through this recipe all the way before you start. Please. You’ve been warned. Here’s what you’ll need:

Rhubarb Curd Shortbread

Ingredients

Rhubarb Curd

3/4 lb rhubarb (about 6 stalks)
4 Tbl water
1/4 cup sugar
4 egg yolks
1/3 cup plus 1/8 cup sugar
1 tsp lemon zest
2 tsp lemon juice
3 Tbl butter, cut into chunks

Shortbread Crust

12 Tbl butter, cut into chunks
1/4 cup powdered sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 cups flour
1/4 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
1 pinch ground clove

Instructions

Rhubarb Curd

First, cut the rhubarb into one inch pieces. Heat the rhubarb, 1/4 cup of sugar, and water in a saucepan over medium heat. Cook it until the rhubarb is falling apart and there are no whole pieces left (you can help it along by mashing with your mixing tool, a wooden spoon works great). It you have an immersion blender or a regular blender, puree the mixture. If you don’t have either of those, push the mixture through a strainer. I advise one of the blender methods.

If you have a double boiler, put a couple inches of water in the pot of it and set it over medium heat. If you don’t have a double boiler, find two pots that are about the same diameter, so that one can be set atop the other without going into whatever is in the bottom pot. Put egg yolks, butter, remaining sugar, lemon zest, and lemon juice in the top pot and set over the simmering bottom pot, and whisk to combine. When the sugar dissolves, add the rhubarb puree by the spoonful (to temper the eggs). When all the rhubarb is added, put the pot over the boil again. Stir for about 5 minutes, until the mixture is warm and slightly thickened, then remove from heat. Press the mixture through a strainer – this is an important step! It’ll give the curd a smooth texture.

Shortbread Crust

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees while you make the shortbread: blend all the ingredients for the shortbread in a stand mixer or food processor. Now, the recipe says to wrap the dough in plastic and refrigerate it, but I didn’t and it was just fine. The recipe also says to roll it into an 8X8 square and put it into an 8X8 pan… but I just dumped the dough into a pie dish and pushed it outwards until it was spread out. Bake the shortbread for 30 minutes until golden brown. Set to cool on a rack.

Use a spatula to spread the curd evenly over the shortbread. Put it in the oven for another 10 minutes, remove, and allow to cool on a rack. Then refrigerate for another 20 minutes. It’ll be nice and firm enough to slice cleanly. Enjoy! (If you want to wait another couple minutes, you can dust with powdered sugar… I couldn’t wait.)