Brooksters: BAKED Sunday Mornings

So, I'm trying to get back into the swing of things with blogging and I thought this would be a great recipe to do so.  I added the newest BAKED book to my Amazon wishlist as soon as I read about it on BAKED's Facebook page.  I was ordering part of Zach's birthday gift and needed an excuse for the familiar Amazon packaging to arrive at the house, so into my shopping cart went BAKED Elements.  I love it!  It's got the same humor and great stories/explanations behind each recipe and it's organized into their top ten favorite ingredients.  I know the Pumpkin chapter will get a lot of use this fall and the Booze chapter is always a place to look for a delicious treat.  In fact, Zach chose his birthday cake from the Booze chapter.  Cinnamon is a favorite ingredient of mine, and about the only chapter I think we will skip is the Banana chapter (we both despise bananas).  

So when BAKED Sunday Mornings decided to start baking along with this book and Brooksters was the first recipe I was very excited to jump back in with the group and bake-along.  I made one modification to my Brooksters, deciding to make them in a mini loaf pan, since the book cautioned against dark metal pans and both of my cupcake tins are dark metal.  My mini loaf pan is Williams-Sonoma Gold Touch, so I thought that would be a better option.  I was wrong.  The shape was all wrong and by the time the tops of the cookie were fairly dark brown, the insides were still pretty gooey.  I don't mind as much as some people might, since I like things on the gooey-side but it was not ideal.  Oh well, next time we'll give the cupcake pan a try and see how it works out that way.  We did end up almost two dozen balls of cookie dough leftover after making the Brooksters, which we scooped out in 2 Tablespoons balls and froze, so now we can have fresh chocolate chips cookies whenever we want - yum!  

Despite their textural flaws, these tasted amazingly delicious.  The cookie dough was buttery and spot-on, the brownie was decadent and rich.  Combined they are much more than the sum of their parts.  

To get the recipe for Brooksters, and to join along with the group, head on over to BAKED Sunday Mornings!

Chocolate Whoopie Pies with Vanilla Bean Filling: BAKED Sunday Mornings

Along with the new (and fun!) changes to the blog I'm also trying to get back into a few of the groups I've participated in in the past.  BAKED Sunday Mornings is a group that is working on baking it's way through the incredible cookbook, Baked Explorations by Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito.  They are owners of the BAKED Bakery in Brooklyn, and this is their second cookbook dedicated to exploring some of the classic American baked goods.

Whoopie pies certainly fall into this category.  They have two competing origin tales, one from Maine and one from Pennsylvania Dutch country.  Matt and Renato offer up two possible filings for these pies, a basic vanilla and a peanut butter.  I had just made a chocolate peanut butter dessert last weekend so decided on the vanilla.  I made one tiny switch to the recipe though, using the scrapings of one vanilla bean in place of the vanilla extract in the filling.  It lent the nice, black, telltale flecks to the filling and a great vanilla flavor.  I might up it to two vanilla beans next time though and suggest you do the same if you are interested in making the change to the filling.  


I love how easy these are to put together.  Make cookies, make frosting, smoosh together, done.  Way easier than a cupcake, that's for sure, and almost nearly as impressive.  The chocolate cookies had great flavor, the addition of the coffee really highlights the chocolate.  It was the first time I've made a Swiss meringue buttercream.  It was easy and delicious.  But, with a pound of butter it's got to be delicious - right?  At least I can't imagine any recipe that calls for a pound of butter tasting bad.


Head on over to BAKED Sunday Mornings for the recipe and to see what the other bakers thought of the recipe!

Coffee Ice Cream: BAKED Sunday Mornings

Coffee is essential to me in the mornings.  Especially as the new school year approaches my two cups a day will be critical.  I am odd though in that I like my coffee as a vehicle for carrying other flavors.  I am all about the tasty flavored creamers, syrups and such.  I am eagerly anticipating the arrival of pumpkin spice flavors at the coffeeshops this fall.  Coffee is also one of the foods that Zach used to 'hate' but now enjoys (add to that list hot dogs and olives).  I'd like to think I had a little to do with his change of opinion.  If I would have made this ice cream previously he probably would have made a disgusted face and said ew.  Now he will gladly help me eat it!  It is rich and delicious and perfectly coffee-y.  The small addition of Kahlua is perfect.  I made just one change -- reversing the amounts of cream and milk.  I opted for 2% milk instead of whole since it's what we normally drink, so I used 2 cups of cream to offset the loss of fat in the milk switch and did 1 and 3/4 cups of milk.  It still turned out perfectly creamy and with great texture (not icy!).

You can find the recipe here and see how the other bloggers fared here and here.

Orange Olive Oil Bundt Cake: BAKED Sunday Mornings

I feel like I should start referring to these posts as BAKED Sunday Afternoons, since I never seem to get my post together in time.  Ahh well, such is life.  I'm jumping back in this week after missing the last couple challenges.  This was partly due to spending most of those weekends away from home, and partly that the two recipes didn't appeal to me that much.  I'm not a fruit girl, so blackberry or peach pie didn't really make the cut of things-to-shove-into-the-48-hours-I-spent-at-home-in-three-weeks list.  


But, anyway, on to this week's recipe -- Orange Olive Oil Bundt Cake.  Unfortunately I can't even say that much about it yet.  I made it this afternoon to serve as a dessert this evening.  Even though it's in the Baked cookbook under 'Breakfast' I'm serving it after a spanish meal of paella, and I think the olive oil and citrus will pair nicely with the dinner.  I wasn't all that excited about the cake to be honest.  As I said, I'm not a fruit girl, and typically I don't go for citrus based flavors.  So, I expected not to like it, but after tasting the batter I'm pretty intrigued.  The olive oil really came through and the citrus was more of an afternote.  We will see what the finished cake tastes like, but I have high hopes!

Head on over to BAKED Sunday Mornings to see everyone else's cakes and to get the recipe!

Cowboy Cookies: BAKED Sunday Mornings

I was a bad blogger and skipped out on the last BAKED Sunday Mornings recipe.  This time of year is my very busiest at school and I had so much going on I had no time for 'extra' cooking.  But I'm back in the game for this recipe.  These are called Cowboy Cookies, but as the description in the book says, there's no real reason they are associated with cowboys.  They are basically oatmeal chocolate chip cookies (which are some of my favorites -- when you put a whole grain like oatmeal in, then you can try and convince yourself that the cookies are healthy!) with the addition of salty, crunchy bits of pretzels.  Being someone who adds salt to just about everything, even watermelon and buttered toast, I welcomed the pretzels. 

The cookies are delicious!  Chewy and chocolaty and salty, and with that bit of oatmeal you can count them towards your whole grain count for the day.  ;-)  I didn't read the recipe thoroughly beforehand and therefore did not realize the dough should be chilled for 4 hours prior to baking.  I didn't really have time for that on a weeknight, so I let them chill about an hour and a half and went for it.  I knew it meant they would spread a bit, but I was okay with the consequences.  I could taste the bit of coffee in the dough, but not in the final cookie.  They are a great variation on the basic chocolate chip cookie and we'll definitely be making them again.  

Head on over to BAKED Sunday Mornings to see everyone else's cookies and to get the recipe!

New York Crumb Cake: BAKED Sunday Mornings

This cake looks delicious!  That's as much as I can say about the flavor of the finished product at this point since we are taking it with us to an Easter celebration this afternoon.  It smelled wonderful when cooking, I love cinnamon and this filled the house with a great cinnamon smell.  The batter tasted quite good, which holds definite promise for the taste of the finished cake.  I'll update later with thoughts on the taste! 

Go visit BAKED Sunday Mornings to see the links to the other poster's descriptions and photos!

Double-Chocolate Loaf with Peanut Butter Cream Cheese Spread: BAKED Sunday Mornings Rewind

The selected recipe for this week was Carrot-Coconut Scones with Citrus Glaze.  The flavors didn't really interest either Zach or myself and there are a few recipes the group completed before I joined that I knew we would definitely enjoy so I chose to do a rewind post.  From the very first time I opened Baked Explorations I knew it wouldn't be long before I made this double-chocolate bread.  I'm weird because I don't particularly like peanuts, but I do love peanut butter, and especially peanut butter combined with chocolate.  


This bread was delicious, very rich and moist.  I do find that generally I need to add on 10+ minutes to the baking times from the book.  I added on 15 minutes to the high end of the range given for this bread and I think I went 5 minutes too far.  The outside was quite crisp, perhaps a little too dry, but it certainly won't keep us from eating it!  Next time I'd just add on 10 minutes though.  Overall it's quite good and, as the book says, a great excuse to have chocolate for breakfast!  I really enjoyed the peanut butter cream cheese spread, but Zach said he felt it was overwhelmed by the super chocolately-ness of the bread and didn't really add much for him.  He'd rather have it plain.  

If you head over to the old post on BAKED Sunday Mornings you can see how everyone else's loaves turned out and get the recipe.  

Malted Crisp Tart: BAKED Sunday Mornings

This tart had a few 'firsts' for me -- it is the first tart I've ever made, first time I've made a pastry cream, and it's the first time I've worked with malted flavoring in a dessert.  It was not as hard as I expected a tart to be in terms of assembly, and the mated flavor was a nice taste to work with.  I had to go buy a tart pan, but based on the number of tart recipes in this book, I think it will be put to good use!  The recipe called for a 9 inch pan, but my store only had 8 or 11 inches, so I went with 8.  The proportions were still fine I thought.  

The write-up of the recipe mentioned that you would be using a lot of bowls, and they sure were right!  It was an involved recipe with many steps, but none were difficult at all.  The hardest one for me was probably caramelizing the crispy rice cereal since the recipe was not very clear as to the amount of time it would take.  I kept second guessing as I was stirring and stirring and stirring.  But, they did eventually caramelize very well and ended up being one of my favorite parts of the dish.  

Of course, as I ate it and got to each new layer I kept saying that new layer was my favorite!  This tart has a brown sugar crust, a layer of milk chocolate ganache, a crispy layer of the caramelized rice cereal and crushed malt balls.  Then, finally, the last layer was a malted diplomat pastry cream decorated with more caramelized crispies and whole malt balls.  I definitely thought the highlights were the cream and the tart crust.  The diplomat cream was thick and delicious and just malty enough.  It was quite easy as well, a nice surprise having never made a pastry cream before.  The crust was crunchy, salty and nicely dry.  I don't know if the saltiness was my mistake and perhaps I used too much salt, but I liked it.  It played very well off the sweetness of the ganache and cream. 

Zach thought the ganache was the best part -- smooth and delicious, and it held the crunchy bits perfectly.  He really liked the crunchy layer -- the caramelized crispies and the crushed malt balls. 

 

You can check out the tarts of the other group members at BAKED Sunday Mornings!

Salt and Pepper Sandwich Cookies: BAKED Sunday Mornings

These cookies are BAKED's version of oreos.  They have white pepper and fluer de sel hence the name salt and pepper cookies.  The pepper surprised me.  I thought it would be a much more obvious flavor note in the cookies, but it's just a little spice that kicks in towards the end of a bite.  It almost makes you think of nutmeg, since the white pepper is a much more milder in terms of heat/spiciness.  It rounds the cookie out nicely though.  The filing is very comparable to the oreo filing in terms of texture and flavor.  The salt on top is a nice finish to the cookie.  But, I almost always prefer salty snacks to sweet ones, so I tend to enjoy that savory note in sweets. 

Visit BAKED Sunday Mornings to see the complete recipe and everyone else's opinions of the cookie!

Devil's Food Cupcakes with Angel Frosting: BAKED Sunday Mornings

This is my second recipe with BAKED Sunday Mornings and already I'm turning into a delinquent poster! I made these a week ahead of schedule since I knew I would be out of town on the weekend they were scheduled. They were delicious! Zach even took pictures for me, and we ate them up and shared with co-workers all to rave reviews. Then I dropped the ball and didn't get them posted in time. I was super busy in the weeknights before going out of town for the weekend, and I really have no other excuse. I was rushing to complete this....

gorgeous (if I do say so myself ;-) ) baby blanket for a friend's baby shower. So, since the baby shower had a definite deadline and I didn't want to be finishing it off on the plane!, the cupcakes and their deliciousness slipped my mind. Oh well, such is life.

On to the cupcakes -- they were rich and perfectly chocolately. As stated in the book, even though the recipe has a decent amount of coffee in it, they don't taste coffee-y. The frosting, oooooh, the frosting! It was phenomenal! I hadn't ever made an Italian Meringue frosting before and it's probably a good idea I didn't read the directions very carefully before actually attempting the recipe. The idea of pouring boiling hot, 235 degree sugar syrup into egg whites is a bit scary to be honest. "Seriously, that's going to work? Won't it break??" you think; but, since I just jumped into the recipe I didn't really realize what I had to do until it was time to do it and there was no turning back. It tasted like marshmallow and was so nice and fluffy. Fabulous! For the last two cupcakes we ate Zach busted out his creme brulee torch to brown the tops, which lent even more of a toasty marshmallow flavor. I'll definitely be making Italian Meringue frosting in the future now that I know there's nothing to be scared of and only yummy results!  You can find the recipe and everyone else's links on BAKED Sunday Mornings.  

Red Velvet Whoopie Pies: BAKED Sunday Mornings

One of the benefits of living in our little Northern Virginia town is it's outlet mall. It is less than a mile away and since we live in town we can avoid the normal weekend and holiday crowds and go whenever. Tuesday night is the slowest which makes it the best for us locals. It seems I cannot leave the Williams-Sonoma outlet without a cookbook. Certainly there are times I leave there empty handed but they are far fewer than the times I leave with that white paper bag. One our last few visits there I'd been eying Baked Explorations. On the last trip, Zach said he would get it for me - Yay! I spent a night reading/skimming it and decided that I needed to start making some recipes ASAP. Then I found this group -- BAKED Sunday Mornings and it was perfect timing!

So this was my first recipe from the book, and with the group and it was fabulous. I've never really understood the appeal of Red Velvet, but I suppose that probably means I hadn't yet had a really good red velvet recipe. In the book Matt Lews explains that true Red Velvet needs to have these three ingredients: buttermilk, cocoa powder and shortening. I can't say I disagree. The whoopie pies had a great texture, kind of crunchy on the outside, but tender and fluffy on the inside.

It was the first time I've made whoopie pies and I will definitely be making them again. I think they are even easier than cupcakes since the frosting step is so much easier -- put a dollop on and squeeze! They are less messy to eat than cupcakes, since the frosting is all contained between layers of cake-y cookie. They were simple and fun, not to mention delicious. The recipe was timed perfectly for Valentine's Day and we both plan to take a few into work with us on Monday. The recipe can be found here, on the BAKED Sunday Mornings blog.