Alpha Bakers: Frozen Pecan Tart

I am not a tart fan. I think they are really pretty and I like making pretty things because I get to take picture of it (note what motivates me to bake!) but I don't enjoy eating it because they are usually way too sweet. So my motivation to bake this tart are for our bake-a-long (I get to cross one more recipe off the list) and because it looks pretty in the book. I ventured out wanting to make this as perfect as can be. .... and just from that sentence you should already guess that something bad will happen.

My first step on making this was to take a photo of the India Tree Muscovado sugar. In the past, whenever Rose required muscovado sugar I substituted with dark brown sugar. This time, I was buying something from amazon last month and needed 1 more thing to get past the $35 bill that would get me free shipping, so I thought I treat myself and splurged the $9.68 for 1 lb of sugar. Anyway, my husband was next to me washing dishes when he noticed that his wife was taking a photo of a bag of sugar. He looked at me quizzically - wondering what on earth I was doing. So I started explaining to him that this is a special sugar that Rose likes and it comes from Mauritius. He made a comment that it is the farthest place you can get your sugar and we are polluting a lot to get a measly 1 lb over here and then $7 in the price is probably the price of transport which makes it the cheapest sugar in quality. I told him that this is the first time I use this sugar and it was because of curiosity (I didn't tell him it was also partly because of the $35 shipping since that purchase was to buy one of his Christmas presents). I do not intend to use this sugar every time. I also mentioned that our favorite apple is the Fuji apple which comes from New Zealand and that is equally far. So we started then our conversation turned into how sad it is that our food comes from far away and how much we pollute by doing so. And there must be a way to get good eating apples locally but we have not been able to find them. Even in the summer in farmer's market most of the fruits are from California. Funny how conversation started from taking a single photo!

This is a pretty easy recipe. It is not quick and easy because there are multiple steps including some waiting time for the dough to be refrigerated or frozen. But it really should be quick and easy because you can split the steps over a couple of days.

Alpha Bakers: English Dried Fruit Cake

I thought I wouldn't have much to say about this cake. It is one of the recipes in the book I am not excited about. When I saw the title of the recipe, I remembered the Fruitcake Wreath I baked and didn't like from Rose's Heavenly Cakes. But to my surprise (eating my second slice while typing this post), I really like this fruitcake. The crumb has a good texture - even with the mistake I did of forgetting to drain the dried fruits. I like all the fillings in it, the pecans add a nice crunch to the texture and variation to the softness that the dried fruits give. And unlike my experience with the Fruitcake Wreath, this cake has enough rum!!!

I like how simple this recipe is. I did not have much time coordination on Saturday, when I bake this. We decided to try out a new restaurant in the nearby mall, never considering the fact that it is December, less than 3 weeks before Christmas. The mall is a quick 7 mile drive from home and it took us 45 minutes to get there and find parking. By the time we got home it was 2:30 in the afternoon and we were tired from just going to eat. So it is a good thing this cake requires very little preparation time. If it had been a 5 page recipe, there would be lots of cussing in the kitchen.

ABC: No-Knead Cherry Pecan Bread

I can't believe it's been a month since the Boston Cream Pie and is now time to bake again for ABC. I do love this monthly schedule though. And Hanaa, I love the mix between dessert/sweets and breads.

I was really looking forward to this bread! I love love love No Knead Bread. have been making the basic version of the No Knead Bread for several weeks now. This one from King Arthur is a bit different in that it uses a combination of AP flour, rye flour, and WW flour. I wonder why it uses AP instead of bread flour (which is what the original No Knead recipe uses).

HCB Free Choice: Double-Chocolate-Whammy Groom's Cake

I wish I could say this is my last cake to blog from Rose's Heavenly Cakes. But as I was looking through my Heavenly Cake List this morning, I realized I haven't blogged about the yellow butter cupcakes. I think I still have a picture of it somewhere so the short post will come later this week.

By now you guys would realize that the reason I said you can bake the wedding cakes in any shape is because I wanted to do the same thing too. As you guys know by now I have a love for anything mini and since this cake is from the Wedding Cake section, I bake them in my Wilton heart-shaped silicone pan.

HCB: German Chocolate Cake

I had mixed feelings about this cake. On one hand, I love the chocolate cake base. I've made it last year for the chocolate ice cream cake and it was delicious. On the other hand, the combination of condensed milk, pecans, and coconut does not sound appetizing. I have nothing against the individual ingredients but together I'm not sure about them.

With all my hesitations, I was pretty glad that the cake is easy to put together. The chocolate cake starts off like most of Rose's oil based chocolate cake, mix cocoa powder with boiling water until smooth. Let cool to room temperature.

HCB: Barcelona Brownie Bars

I was so looking forward to making this, hence why this is the 1st item in this HCB continuation bake through. I recently saw a couple of post in Rose's forum about how good and chocolate-y this is. Needless to say, I was intrigued. We all need a chocolate fix every now and then (if not all the time) and this one sounds like it fits the bill.

The cake is so easy to make. It takes just as long to make this cake as weighing all the little cavity of the silicone mold with 45 grams of batter.

First you toast some pecans in the oven for 7 minutes. While that is cooling, melt some chocolate with a LOT of butter. If you're making the full recipe, it's 9 tablespoon! Once it's all melted, whisk in the eggs and vanilla. I love that Rose gave the instruction on mixing by hand, which is what I ended up doing. It's nice not to dirty up 1 more thing!

HCB: Cradle Cake

The cradle cake that my friends Monica and Hanaa have been waiting for is here. I've flipped through Rose's Heavenly Cakes so many times and always pass by this cake without a moment's pause. I think it's the name. It just does not sound interesting. But now of course that I've made it, it made perfect sense.

This cake has a layer of dacquoise outside along the bottom and the sides of the cake, and the cake batter is in the middle. So the dacquoise is essentially hugging the cake, hence Cradle cake as the name. At least, that's how I interpret why Rose named this Cradle cake.

I've read the recipes a couple of times last week and thought that the cake sounded easy to put together. On Friday afternoon, I got an email from Monica where she said that her cake had sunk. Picture attached and I was horrified. Not at the picture (though Monica, as sweet as she is had written a warning in the email that the picture would be shocking). I was horrified thinking that if she had failed then I would too. I emailed her and said that maybe I should skip this cake and make something else. She wrote back saying, "oh no, you don't get to skip. You have to make this one." Okay okay.. I said.. It's nice to be able to count on good friends to keep me in line!

The cake is pretty easy to put together. Toast the pecans in the oven for 7 minutes. After it cooled, process it in the food processor with unsweetened chocolate and sugar. I speed-read the recipe and missed the part where Rose said to save some sugar for the meringue. So by the time I made the meringue, I added a tablespoon of sugar. I think I should have added more but I don't want to risk making this overly sweet. Once the meringue is stiff peak, fold it into the pecan chocolate mixture.

Rose said that it is best to use silicone pan. As I do not own a silicone loaf pan and I want to make half a recipe anyway, I get to use my somewhat new Wilton mini hearts silicone pan. Yay!

Putting the dacquoise on the bottom and the sides of the silicone pan is kinda fun (yes yes.. I know.. this sooo proof that I am a geek if I think things like this is fun). Anyway... the dacquoise mixture keep sliding off the sides of the pan and I thought it must have been because I put too much baking spray. Then this morning I read Monica's post where she said that her dacquoise stayed put because she waited until the egg whites reached stiff peaks before adding the sugar.

The cake batter is a typical butter cake. I can say this now, having made 27 cakes from the Butter & Oil cakes section *grin*. Miix all the dry ingredients together. Add the butter and a bit of buttermilk. Whisk the egg yolk, buttermilk, and vanilla until combined. Then add it to the cake batter in 2 additions.

Once the cake is baked, make the chocolate glaze. I realized that making chocolate glaze for 1/2 recipe is tricky. I got the heavy cream too hot, and when adding it to the chocolate, the chocolate started looking shiny and oily and unattractive. No I'm not kidding, chocolate separating is really unattractive to see. I added some cold heavy cream until it started looking better. In the end, I think I made a ganache :).

The ganache/chocolate sauce was fluid enough that I could make the drizzle with a spoon.

Tasting impressions:

It is pretty good. I like the crunchy-ness of the dacquoise. It is a bit too sweet though and I wonder if I can reduce the sugar a bit without compromising the structure. The cake part is uneventful, though it does go together nicely with the dacquoise. I am mostly happy with how the cake turned out. Yeah, I know I am a sucker for pretty little cakes. But it's just so cute. It makes me happy just looking at it :).

Holiday Baking

This is Pecan Pie from Rose's Pie & Pastry Bible. I don't make pies as often as I'd like. But I just purchased Lyle's Golden Syrup and wanted to try it asap. Somehow the 1st thing that came to mind is Pecan Pie.

It is pretty easy to make, first make the crust. Once cooled, place all the pecans in the crust, and proceed to make the filling. The filling is really easy. Combine all of it in a pot under low heat and stir until it's thick. This step is the hardest, because I find it completely boring to stand there and stir constantly. I think next time I should bring a novel or something and read while waiting. Rose said this takes 7-10 minutes but it took me 20 minutes (and it felt like an hour).

This pie comes with a bittersweet glaze, which is basically melted chocolate with cream added - like ganache before it's thickened. I need to learn how to make parchment cone, it broke midway so then I just ended up applying it with a spatula.

Oh well, that's what the whipped cream is for, to make it prettier and cover all the imperfection :). Since we are planning to eat the pie over several days, I made stabilized whipped cream and added bourbon.

Tasting impressions:
Really really good. I was afraid of it being too sweet with the golden syrup and the sugar, but I think because it used brown sugar it taste less sweet. The whipped cream is really yummy and added a nice flavor to the pie.

I also made some cookies yesterday. The sugar cookies are from Susan Purdy's Pie in the Sky. It is my go-to sugar cookies recipes and it's very good! I also tried to make gingerbread cookies from RHC, but I used regular molasses (instead of light) and even though I reduced the quantity, they taste too strong. I still decorated some of them, for practice.

So for my HCB readers, these are why I am slacking off and did not make the Vanilla Bean financiers. I was going to make it yesterday but ran out of time.

So there you go. Holiday Baking at Knitty Baker's house. More to come...

HCB: Sybil's Pecan Cupcakes

I was going to skip this week's selection, as I don't have a 6x3 spring foam pan. Near the end of the week, I counted how many cakes I've made from HCB. I've made 15 cakes and I've missed 11 cakes. Determined not to miss anymore (well not this weekend at least :)), I decided to make Sybil's Pecan Torte as cupcakes ^_^.

This cake is pretty quick and easy. And it's even easier as I made 1/3 of the recipe. The hardest part is dividing the ingredients, and making sure I divided everything and not miss anything. Toast pecans, grind with some sugar and Starbuck's instant coffee, whip the egg yolks for 5 minutes, fold in the pecan mixture, whip the egg whites, fold these into the rest of the batter. Then onto the silicone cupcake pan it goes.

1/3 of the recipe makes perfectly 6 cupcakes. I fill them up to where the foil liner ends, and they came out tall, a little higher than the rim of the pan. Then they sunk a little in the middle, just as Rose said it would.

I left them cooling on the rack while I make the stabilized whipped cream. Making this was a breeze too. I divided the recipe into 1/4 - the math was easier this way. I also toast extra pecans and then coat them with caramelized sugar for decoration.

Tasting impressions: this is really yummy. It's moist and tender. The coffee flavor is not very strong, which is interesting as last week's Le Succes used the same amount of coffee and it taste much stronger. I suppose it's because in this recipe the coffee is in the batter and is baked in the oven, whereas in Le Succes the coffee is in the ganache. I love the toasted pecan taste on top, hm... should have put more on each cupcakes instead of one only :)).

A Baking Weekend - Part 2

I've borrowed The Bread Bible from the library, so I want to make something from it. Everything in the book looks so good! I can't decide on what to make (this is a recurring problem) so I made 2 breads. The first one is the Olive Bread.

The second one is the Raisin Pecan Bread.

Both breads are wonderful and are not hard to make. The only thing is that they have a lot of resting time in between the process, so you have to plan your day. I wish I could share a slice with you all.