Alpha Bakers: My Chocolate Chip Cookies

Finally! Chocolate Chip Cookies from Rose!

I made this recipe in November 2014 (that felt like super long ago). This is again, one of the recipes I test for high altitude baking, for Rose's Heavenly Cookies class at Craftsy. I was really excited to see this cookie on her list since I wanted to make it ever since the book was published - but I was trying to be a good Alpha Baker and not bake ahead. Coincidentally, about a month before The Baking Bible is out, I craved Chocolate Chip Cookies. I couldn't find a recipe for it in any of Rose's other cookbooks so I baked from a recipe I found on the internet. I don't remember which recipe I made. It was not memorable. So not memorable that I didn't even bother to take photos of the cookies.I should probably have taken note of the website so I know not to make it again. But now that I have tried Rose's version, let's just say the search is over. I would not need to try any other Chocolate Chip Cookies recipe. 

This is an easy recipe, Q&E for Rose's standard but it does require an extra step for you to make beurre noisette. Anything made with beurre noisette taste good, in my opinion. I like the explanation in the book that to make this cookie lactose-tolerant, to throw away the milk residue (it's called something different in the book but I don't have it near me to check). I wonder though that whether it makes it completely lactose-free, but then you'd have to take out the chocolate chip cookies since it has milk, so then the cookie become walnut cookie? (do you follow my odd logic?).

Alpha Bakers: Swedish Apricot Walnut Bread

Aye, we are making full recipe this week, matey!

We are making this bread to celebrate Tu B'Shevat. As our fearless leader, Marie Wolf said, "we are nothing if not ecumenical in this group, and so it is not surprising that we mark Jewish Arbor Day." It's a day that is today's time is used to mark ecological awareness, trees are planted in celebration, and marked by eating things that grows on trees.

We got 6 inches of snow last night, so no tree planting this weekend. But we are going to eat this bread.

I love baking bread. It is right up there on my list of favorite things to make alongside cakes and pastries. Bread making is magical. You combine flour, salt, yeast, and water together. Mix it, knead it. Gluten formed. Place in a warm place and somehow it rise and double in size. And then you bake it and after it comes out of the oven it sings!!!

I bake Jim Lahey's No Knead Bread once a month for my husband. It's the same recipe every time and I have been making it for 3-4 years now. My version is slightly tweaked from the original recipe of 400 grams of bread flour. I use 320 grams of bread flour and 80 grams of whole wheat flour. I have all the steps down to a T and never gets bored making it. And every time it came out of the oven it made me so happy. The shape is always different, the cracks in different place. But I can always expect it to fill my kitchen with a wonderful smell and it sings every time.

This bread is pretty easy to make. It does require making biga 3 days before making the dough. But it doesn't take long to do. I made a couple of mistakes on this bread. I added the apricots to the dough with raisins and walnuts. And I rolled the dough the wrong side on the shaping part so my bread was higher and shorter.

I didn't do any altitude adjustment for this bread. Everything is feeling/behaving as described by the recipe. The dough was sticky/tacky. There's no leavening used for bread and I made no adjustment to the yeast or water.

Happy New Year and Walnut Biscotti

Happy New Year everyone!

I hope you all had a good holiday and started off your New Year with a bang.

As for me, I started it lazily. Take this Walnut Biscotti for one. I photographed this... oh, 3 moths ago.Had all the photographs ready to go on a draft post and it's been sitting there waiting for me to write something.

This biscotti recipe is from Mark Bittman's The Food Matters Cookbook. You can find the recipe here. I was a bit skeptical whether it will turn out because it contains no eggs or oil. But it was really good. It is more crunchy and dry than other biscotti that uses eggs/butter/oil but we like the crunchiness. Hubby especially loves it and he likes to dunk his piece in coffee.

Walnut Bread

This bread is my new love. I have been making it for several weeks now. Another winner from Jim Lahey's My Bread book. This is called Walnut Bread but it actually has raisins as well.

Banana Bread

This is my go-to banana bread recipe. I like it so much I have never tried any other banana bread recipes.

I got this recipe from a friend a long time ago. She and I has since lost contact but the recipe remained.

Barefoot Contessa's Outrageous Brownie

I made Barefoot Contessa's Outrageous Brownie yesterday.

My friend Anne told me about this recipe last week. I have never even heard of it. Seeing that it has almost 500 reviews, I felt like I have missed the boat.

Time to catch up.

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: Hungarian Janci Torta

Here is my contribution to the 1st scheduled "bake-a-long" - the Hungarian Janci Torta.
Honestly, I was a bit hesitant of making this cake, never really made gluten-free dessert before. I wasn't sure what the combination of walnuts, chocolate, sugar, eggs, and cream of tartar would make. But I thought it would be an interesting experience and experiment :).
Here are my notes:

• I wanted to make a small portion of this so I split the recipe in half.
• For the pan, I used a 6 by 2 inches Fat Daddio aluminium anodized pan. Since this recipe calls for 3 inches tall pan, I encircled the inside of my pan with parchment paper for added height - per Rose's instructions. I'm glad I did this because the cake really rose high.
• I didn't use any cake strips (ordered Rose's Silicone Cake Strips from amazon but haven't received them yet.)
• I used Valrhona Extra Bitter chocolate.

Issues/concerns: 5 minutes before the specified time for baking, the top middle portion cracked. I'm not sure what's causing this.
Tasting impressions: This cake is very tender and moist. All the components are well balanced, I can taste slight nutty flavor and chocolate-y. The taste is much better than I expect, though I shouldn't be surprise considering Rose has excellent recipes! Bravo Rose! I have a feeling I will be loving this bake-a-long, :))))).