An Unexpected Favorite

If you had told me last week that the Raspberry Charlotte Russe would be the first dessert gone at our lab holiday party, I would have laughed at you.  It's a very simple dessert, consisting of a raspberry Bavarian cream surrounded by Ladyfingers.  My recipe was adapted from "The Fundamental Techniques of Classic Pastry Arts."  The Charlotte Russe in general is a versatile dessert that can be prepared with various fruit flavored, vanilla, or chocolate Bavarian creams; in fact, my recipe for Bavarian cream simply says "flavor as desired."  I prepared my own fresh Ladyfingers in a continuous strip and in a round disc shape to easily line my cake ring.  You could use pre-made Ladyfingers instead though if you prefer.  Just line a springform pan or a cake ring (on a baking sheet) first with parchment paper and then with the Ladyfingers; I first placed my strips of the biscuits around the edge of my ring and subsequently pressed the round into the base of the mold.  The Bavarian cream was the poured into the prepared pan and either refrigerated for several hours or frozen until you wish to serve it (up to a week!).  To finish the dessert, Chantilly cream was piped in rosettes inside the edge formed by the ladyfingers.  The final presentation detail I added was a pretty holiday ribbon around the dessert.

 

My Favorite Dessert...EVER

My favorite dessert is this perfect little pastry called Napoleon.  It sometimes goes by other names, such as mille-feuille, meaning "thousand leaf."  While the name of the Napoleon is not believed to be related to the famous emperor of the same name, this is definitely the king of pastries to me.  It consists of three layers of puff pastry alternating with two layers of either creme patissiere or the lighter creme legere.  The top puff pastry layer is usually glazed with a white icing, piped with chocolate stripes, and combed (see photos below).  

Last night we had our annual lab holiday party and I prepared the desserts.  I originally planned on 8 different desserts (more posts to follow!), but had a little extra time (!) for once in my life.  So, I decided to make a Napoleon!  Because of the last minute nature of the dessert (not recommended), I used frozen puff pastry.  I assure you though, it would be better with freshly prepared puff pastry.  The recipe I followed is from the book "The Fundamental Techniques of Classic Pastry Arts."  Anyway, I rolled the sheet of puff pastry to a thickness of about 1/8" and placed it on a parchment-lined baking sheet.  After pricking the entire surface of the pastry with a fork, I then covered the puff pastry sheet with another piece of parchment and another baking sheet to hold it down.  Bake it for 15 minutes at 350 °F, remove the top baking sheet and parchment, brush with light corn syrup, and return to the oven for 10 minutes.  The tricky part is that upon removing the pastry from the oven, it's essential that you cut it in to the three equally sized pastry layers immediately.  If it cools, it will break when you try to cut it.  I used a template to get the three pieces of equal size and used a pizza wheel to cut the pastry quickly and evenly.  Worked like a charm.  I let the three sheets of puff pastry cool while I prepared my filling.

I prefer the creme legere in my Napoleons because it has a wonderfully light fluffy texture.  It's not much different from the more common creme patissiere; in fact you make it from creme patissiere by folding in some whipped cream.  To be honest, I wasn't thrilled with the ratios I used for my creme legere.  The next time I do this, I will add more whipped cream and maybe even a touch more sugar.  I will also omit the rum.

Before assembling, I glazed one of my puff pastry sheets with a royal icing, piped chocolate stripes lengthwise along the pastry, and then ran the edge of my thinnest spatula through the stripes in an alternating pattern to get the desired effect.  This is the classic napoleon glaze, but feel free to get creative!  Finally, the cream and pastry was layered to give the final product.  If you make a Napoleon, keep in mind that it doesn't keep well for long periods.  In fact, it should really be eaten within 8 hours of preparation.  Otherwise, the pastry becomes soggy and the pastry begins to compress a bit.  It definitely tastes best fresh. 

Rockin' Drum Set Cake

Not everyone can actually say with seriousness that they have a cool boss. We can. Just last week, our boss turned 40 and we seized the opportunity to celebrate the occasion/embarrass him. I took on the responsibility of baking a cake suitable for the event. Our boss loves chemistry like nothing else, but this seemed too easy and obvious a choice for the cake. Instead I focused on one of his hobbies: drumming.

With the help of Chris, we designed and built a platform (using a sheet of plywood, 1/2" dowels, 1/4" dowels, and small wood discs) to hole several cake drums and fondant cymbals in a configuration including 5 drums (two toms, big tom, snare, and bass) and a "cushioned" stool. For the most part, the small drums for the various platforms were pretty straightforward; what was challenging was the bass drum. Cake typically hates to be turned on its side. It settles, crumbles, falls over, and never looks the way you want it in the end. I took a page from the Hometown Homage cake and constructed the bass drum of rice krispie treats. When covered in buttercream and fondant, it looks just like a cake but has better structural integrity. The other challenge for this cake were the cymbals. For these, I used fondant treated with a little gumtex (to firm it up more and help it dry out) and templated them with teacup saucers. I punched little holes in their centers and suspended them on top of the 1/4" dowels.

Overall, I was very very pleased with the outcome and I think the boss was pretty excited about it too. The only drawback to this design is that there isn't really enough cake to serve a large group. To make up for that, I prepared about 70 cupcakes in three different varieties.

The Most Perfect Cupcake

This is (far and away) the most perfect cupcake I've ever had. It might even be the most perfect thing I've ever baked. Martha would call it "a good thing." It also represents a baking milestone for me.

First off, it's a banana pecan cupcake. By itself, it's just wonderful. The texture really makes the cake. Right out of the oven, I would say they are the perfect breakfast treat. More of a cake though, than a muffin. What takes these to the next level though is the frosting. Caramel buttercream. Fresh, homemade caramel buttercream. With more caramel drizzled on top. The recipes are both from Martha Stewart's Cupcakes cookbook and are much better than other cupcake recipes out there. The whole book is full of awesome ideas and well written recipes. Every cupcake I've ever produced from that book has been a home run, slam dunk, and touchdown all in one. You need this book.

Now, the baking milestone: I finally (FINALLY) figured out real, authentic buttercream. Like the kind with a meringue base and everything. Buttercream is always a bit of a disaster for me. Either my meringue fails to thicken and form stiff peaks, or it breaks when I add the butter. You name it, it's gone wrong for me. Martha's trick was essential to my success. I usually have trouble telling when the sugar has dissolved in my egg whites while gently heating them over a simmering pot of water. Because I'm never able to see through the foamy mess of egg whites, I usually heat them too much or don't get the sugar dissolved enough. But Martha suggests rubbing some of the mixture between your fingers until the "grittiness" of the sugar ceases. Once this happened, I heated them for a brief second longer, and pulled them off the simmering pot of water. After beating the egg white/sugar solution, I got the most beautiful, fluffy, stable (!) meringue I've ever produced. I quite literally danced around the kitchen. But, it wasn't done! I slowly added the butter portionwise with mixing. All looked well, but then, it looked like it was breaking! I was pretty heartbroken, but followed Martha and beat it into submission. After a few minutes on high with the Kitchen Aid, I had the most silky, smooth buttercream in history. And it only got better once I added the homemade caramel! I think I'm far less intimidated by this now than I used to be. I think I'll be making my own buttercreams for all my cakes from now on. All thanks to this most perfect little cupcake.

Alligator!!!

For some reason I know an unnaturally large number of people who share February 7 as their birthday. For instance, my grandmother Kiki would have been 100 this year (and she wouldn't have let us forget it either if she had lived so long). In addition to Kiki, my boss' little son turned 7 this year (lucky 7!). As it turned out, our annual Super Bowl party also fell on that day. So my boss' son wouldn't feel like a bunch of old graduate students stole his birthday, we decided to sing to him at half time. I volunteered to make cupcakes and turned out 36 of the little treats. As I planned my treats, I realized that I just didn't want to serve up generic cupcakes but wanted to produce something a little kid would love. After one of my exhaustive google searches, I saw a picture of this alligator cupcake "cake" in which 24 cupcakes were arranged and decorated to look like a fierce(ish) alligator. Such imagination! Unfortunately, the book had been checked out of my local library and I was forced to figure it out from the pictures online.

I whipped up 24 vanilla cupcakes and then frosted them with the help of my handy pastry bag with green vanilla frosting to look like they were each covered in lizard scales. Next I bought some Keebler chocolate covered grahams and carefully cut them into little isosceles triangles for the ridges on his back. From a box of Runts candy, I fished out all the yellow banana candies to use as claws. Finally, the teeth and eyes were fashioned out of large marshmallows that I either cut to size and shape, or covered in frosting and m&m's. Lastly I arranged them as shown. In all, it took about 2 hours.

To complete the "cake" I made 12 chocolate cupcakes and topped them with vanilla frosting and silver sugar sprinkles. I melted some semisweet chocolate and used my pastry bag to pipe "Happy Birthday Harry" onto a piece of parchment paper. After a few hours in the fridge, it was hard enough to stand up on the chocolate cupcakes as in the picture below. If you do this, just make sure the chocolate is at least 1/4" thick so it doesn't fall apart.

This was my first cake for such a young kid, but it was fun to do something more whimsical than my usual fare.

Toffee and Truffles

I absolutely love giving away treats and there's no more perfect time of year for wrapping up some homemade goodies than the holiday season. Last year Chris and I gave homemade candy canes and peppermint marshmallows. This year I was inspired by my cousin to try my hand at toffee. I've never been a big toffee fan but last year I was blown away by cousin D's homemade confection. Can you think of a better combination than butter and sugar? If not, toffee is for you.

To go with this super easy candy, I prepared an adaptation of the Chocolate Chambord and Macadamia Nut Truffles from the book Bakewise by Shirley Corriher. I received this book last Christmas from my sister and it's one of the best resources I have. It delves into the hows and whys of baking and has a ton of educational information that help you understand why your cake looked awful when you tried to omit one egg. Anyway, I couldn't find Chambord in my local supermarket, so I substituted Kahlua instead. I was tempted to omit the Chambord all together but it very specifically said that if enough "water-type liquid" was not added, the chocolate would seize. The other modification I made was to roll half the truffles in crushed macadamia nuts and the other half in unsweeted cocoa powder. These truffles have something for everyone; the mac nut truffles have a burst of salty followed by the sweet smooth chocolate while the cocoa coated confections have a slightly bitter cocoa taste surrounding the sweet chocolate center.

The finishing touch on this years tasty treats were fantastic treat boxes by Martha Stewart through Michael's craft store. They come with everything from the boxes, to the tissue paper, to the ribbons and labels. I'm just in love with them.

I Declare Holiday Baking Season Open!

It's started! The nonstop month of baking between Thanksgiving and Christmas! I've got recipes lined up for just about every occasion and decided to open the holidays with a favorite recipe of mine. Most people seem to avoid chocolate desserts on Thanksgiving in favor of more standard fall treats; so I decided to go with my favorite Chocolate-Glazed Chocolate Tart from last year's Gourmet magazine (which no longer exists sadly!). The idea is pretty simple - start with a chocolate graham cracker crust, add a chocolate custard of sorts, and top it off with a thin layer of chocolate ganache. In all, it takes less than 2 hours to prepare but tastes like it took a week. It's also a great opportunity to use some of your favorite chocolate; I wholly recommend using a good quality bittersweet chocolate for this since it is the centerpiece of the recipe.

Black and White and Cake All Over

It's been a little while now since I baked like a maniac. Fortunately, one of my labmates again gave me a good excuse to destroy my kitchen. We decided to go with 4 dozen cupcakes and a two-tiered cake to match! I was really conflicted over what kind of cake I wanted to do. For some reason I was just stumped. Then, it came to me. My bedroom curtains were the perfect inspiration! I have an eclectic mix of black and white striped and black and white floral curtains in my bedroom that made for what might be my favorite cake yet. I decided to add to the mix of patterns by stacking a round cake on top of a square one.

On the cupcake side of things, I went with 4 different designs to give everyone a good choice. First off were vanilla cake with vanilla buttercream adorned with pearlized silver sprinkles and gold-dusted white chocolate "J" pieces. Second were (my favorite) red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese icing adorned with silver sprinkles and gold-dusted dark chocolate finials (generously gold-dusted by E.!). Also with cream cheese icing were a set of carrot cake cupcakes (easy as pie to make!). Finally, I went with a unique caramel cupcake with a caramel buttercream (E. and I ate all the extra out of my bowl!) and spun sugar abstract decorations on top. All this baking taught me one thing: I need to make cupcakes more often. The most difficult thing: keeping Chris away from all the cupcakes for any appreciable amount of time.

I was very pleased with how it all turned out and even more surprised we got everything to the park in one piece! I had good help with the transport. Hopefully there will be more cupcakes in the future.

Hometown Homage

Yesterday another one of our labmates graduated and as is becoming the custom, I made the cake. It's been a little while since I made a big cake (and as such I must have forgotten saying I would never make one during the work week again), so I was itching to do something big and extravagant. Our labmate is moving on to a postdoctoral position in New York and this is where I drew my inspiration. What better way to instill excitement about his upcoming NY adventure than an homage to my own hometown in cake? I went with a 2-tiered blue fondant white cake with vanilla buttercream. The bottom tier was rectangular while the top tier was a small round cake offset from the center of the lower tier. Around each cake I depicted silhouettes of the city in black fondant (tip: buy black fondant, don't dye it yourself!). The lower tier had silhouettes of the city skyline while the upper tier had a Brooklyn bridge silhouette wrapping it. Both cakes had the little yellow "Broadway lights" along their lower border (and great thanks to Chris's little sister for rolling all those for me!). On top of the round cake I thought I would mould a "Big Apple" our of rice cereal treat (great trick for keeping it light) and cover it with fondant. To finish it off, a Broadway street sign, a few subway line signs, and a little "I Heart NY" sign surrounded the big apple. For the first time ever, the cake I served actually looked like the picture I drew. Maybe I'm getting a little better at this or maybe I'm becoming more realistic about what I can accomplish in a week's time in cake (likely the latter).

Salted Caramel Ice Cream

It was as if Gourmet magazine knew that my little sister had bought me the Cuisinart automatic ice cream maker for my birthday. In this month's issue (August 2009), they had a whole frozen desserts section that I promptly flagged for weekend cooking fun. First on my list was the salted caramel ice cream. One thing that always lacks for me with store bought caramel ice cream is the homemade caramel aftertaste. I don't think I could put words to it, but if you've ever made caramel at home, you know what I mean. And if you haven't made caramel at home, it's about time you did!

This recipe starts out with a simple dry caramel. Most caramel you make begins with a sugar/water solution and gradually boils off the water. This takes quite a bit longer than just dumping a cup of sugar in your pan and heating it up - as in a dry caramel. I had never done this dry caramel before but I think I've been converted. Just watch the heat so it doesn't cook too quickly. Once you hit that deep amber color, you can start adding the cream. The recipe says this splatters, and it's correct. Add the cream slowly so that you don't hurt yourself or your stove. From there onward, it's a standard ice cream recipe with a cooked custard base combined with the caramel sauce.

The end result of this was beyond my expectations. Hands down this was the creamiest ice cream I've ever had. Even after 2 days in the freezer, it still has a texture that can only be compared to silk. As far as taste goes, it's distinctly homemade, very rich, and very sweet. The added sea salt really enhances the sweetness of the caramel. I'm usually one to dress up my ice cream with toppings or whipped cream, but this one must stand alone. It needs no help at all.

As American as Apple Pie

I don't think it gets more American than apple pie, so that was my choice for a 4th of July treat. Chris and I spent an awesome weekend out in Malibu on the beach with our west coast family and friends. As usual in Malibu, there was no shortage of good food! My contribution was this apple pie, which I adapted from "The Joy of Cooking." I cook the filling, first cooking the apples in butter for several minutes covered before adding sugar, a healthy dose of cinnamon, and a bit of nutmeg. After cooling the filling, I spooned it into my pie crust with the accumulated juices and syrup. For the top of the crust, I used aspic cutters to cut stars out and used the little star pieces to further decorate the top before placing it on top of my pie. After an egg wash, I sprinkled a little bit of coarse sugar on top to lightly caramelize the pie crust upon baking. In all, if you cheat a little (like I did here) and use a pre-made pie crust, you can make this pie in less than 2 hours, before cooling.

Birthday Cake, Anyone?

This Saturday will be my 26th birthday and I'm happy to share it with our great friend, Andy! Some of you may also know that Chris' birthday was just last week. Of course this calls for birthday cake! I put this little guy together over Wednesday and Thursday nights after work. It's a 2 tier, blue and yellow, birthday gift cake with a great big blue fondant bow on top. I added a few little yellow bows on the first tier to jazz it up a bit too.

Cakes Galore!

Lately, I've been making a lot of cakes for graduations and just for fun. Here are the three most recent cakes. All of them use a recipe for white cake from "The Joy of Cooking," which is a cake that is both light and strong enough to hold fondant and other heavy decorations. It really has a great taste and texture. For fillings, I use primarily vanilla or chocolate buttercreams (the Wilton recipes). Because these icings use shortening they seem to hold up longer. They taste great too!

This cake was based on "Oh the Places You'll Go" by Dr. Seuss and was made for my sister's graduation from college. All the letters are made from fondant (painfully cut out with a craft knife!) and the hot air balloon was painted with "paint" made by mixing powdered food colorings with small amounts of clear vanilla extract.

This cake was another graduation cake for a colleague who had just completed his Ph.D. I tried to create (from fondant) elements of his thesis while using the Caltech colors to accent the cake. All the decorations are made from fondant and painted with black food coloring "paint."

I call this my celebration cake. It was made for the same party as the one just above it as a graduation cake for a group of graduates. These decorations had to be prepared several days ahead of time, so I used gum paste instead of fondant. This might be my favorite cake so far.

French Strawberry Tart

I thought it would be best to start things off with a traditional french dessert: the French fruit tart. I put this one together in about 2 hours one evening when Chris' dad came over for dinner (more on the ribs we made that night later!). Anyway, on Thursday nights in South Pasadena there is a phenomenal farmers' market that's really more like a street festival every week than a farmers market. Chris and I always find the most amazing strawberries there and I thought that this traditional tart would be a great way to show them off.

I mixed and matched a few recipes to make this tart. The crust was a shortbread crust taken from "The Art and Soul of Baking." I've been known to read this book in bed as it's so incredibly informative and visually enticing. After baking, the crust was sealed with a thin layer of melted semisweet chocolate to prevent moisture from making it soggy. Next came the creme patisserie. Julia Child says that every good chef should know how to make a good creme patisserie - so I used her recipe from "Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Volume 1." In my opinion, everyone who owns a stove should be required to have this book. (It's another one I read in bed often.) Creme patisserie requires a lot of arm strength to whisk the cream as it thickens, but is very rewarding in the end. The creme patisserie was spread evenly over the tart crust and briefly refrigerated to let it firm up a bit. After a little while, I arranged the sliced strawberries around the top of the creme patisserie and then brushed them with a little bit of heated seedless strawberry jam, so that they just shimmered. If you want, you can use any variety of berries in combination with each other to design an unlimited number of French fruit tarts.

As far as taste is concerned, this is the perfect summer dessert. It's light and refreshing and takes full advantage of the sweetest strawberries around.