Hi everybody, welcome to my weekly roundup where I highlight a few of the (mostly) brownie recipes I’ve stumbled across during the week. This week the brownies I found look amazing; I can’t wait to test out the recipes… Let’s get to it, shall we?
- Cathy from Noble Pig brings us Katherine Hepburn brownies in her post: Noble Pig: Hollywood Style. She says, “Remember, these hardly have any flour so they are practically diet food.” Sounds like a good enough reason to sample a batch (or two) of these fudgy brownies.
- Cory from Zesty Cook is going blonde with his Butterscotch Blondies – Aside from chocolate, one of my all-time favorite flavors is butterscotch. I have eaten many-a-butterscotch candy (Is it just me or does butterscotch seem kind of old-fashioned? It reminds me of visiting my grandmother. I should go buy some butterscotch… )
- HoneyB from The Life and Loves of Grumpy’s Honeybunch says these brownies will pick you up when you are down: Da Bombe Brownies Peanut Butter Style … these have both chopped up mini peanut butter cups AND Reese’s pieces. Those are two of my guilty pleasures and to put them both into a brownie… mmm. There’s nothing more I can say.
I bought a few Meyer lemons the other day with no purpose in mind except to try them (I know, I’m late to the party. But I’ve been swimming in chocolate ganache lately). So I started searching for a lemon recipe that spoke to me. I went through all of my cookbooks to no avail and then my fairy godmother handed me a recipe (Ok. She isn’t my fairy godmother. But Martha Stewart has been called the fairy godmother of the Meyer lemon, like in this article from NPR. Can you imagine having Martha Stewart as your fairy godmother?… lucky lemon).
This lemon custard cake was simple to make and dreamy to eat. It is light and airy and much too easy to eat (Much too easy to eat). It was a ray of sunshine in the middle of my weary day. It is more custard than cake. The top is almost like souffle. But the bottom is where you find the custard… and what dreams are made of. Lovely lemon-flavored dreams. I’ve got to say, Martha really knows her Meyer lemon (like a good fairy godmother should), and for that I thank her and her website minions for bringing us this recipe for lemon custard cake. I’ve also included the full recipe down below…
By the way, I used a tip from Dorie Greenspan’s Baking: From My Home to Yours
– I put the lemon zest directly into the sugar and rubbed it around to release the oils from the zest. It was kind of fun, like playing in the sand (lovely lemony sand that doesn’t end up in your bathing suit).
This is just before folding the egg whites into the lemon-egg yolk mixture. I just thought it looked pretty so wanted to share it with you.
My mix-and-match ramekins getting ready to go into the oven. There is a towel underneath the ramekins in the baking pan so that they stay put when you pour the boiling water into the pan.
Exactly 1 minute before I took this photo, I was turning the timer off thinking “What am I supposed to do with a pan full of hot water? How do I get it out of the oven without spillage or worse? Martha didn’t say what to do. Why didn’t she say what to do?!” But you know what you do? You take a deep breath, open the oven door, slide the oven rack out and… calmly lift it to the stovetop. I’m embarrassed that I was so worried, but I had visions of sloshing boiling hot water all over myself and the kitchen. I wouldn’t recommend trying to transport the pan full of hot water across the kitchen (see sloshing), but lifting it out to the stovetop… easy peasy.
A light dusting of powdered sugar and víola! Warning: these disappear quickly. I’m home alone and somehow 4 of them are already gone.
Lemon Custard Cakes
adapted from Martha Stewart’s Lemon Custard Cakes
Unsalted butter (room temperature), for buttering the ramekins
3 large eggs, separated
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
2-3 teaspoons grated lemon zest (1 lemon)
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
1 cup milk
1/4 teaspoon salt
Confectioners’ sugar, for dusting
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Set a kettle of water to boil. Butter six 6-ounce custard cups (ramekins). Line a baking dish with a towel and place ramekins in the pan.
2. In a small bowl, massage your lemon zest into the sugar to release the lemon oils.
3. In a large bowl, whisk egg yolks and sugar until light. Whisk in flour. Gradually add lemon juice, then milk.
4. With an electric mixer, beat egg whites and salt until soft peaks form (I beat the egg whites until peaks formed when I lifted the beater but the whites were still glossy and the peaks sort of fell a little… soft peaks…)
5. Add the egg whites to the lemon batter and fold in carefully with a whisk (the batter will be liquidy).
6. Divide the batter into the ramekins (a ladle makes this really easy). Place the baking dish in the oven and fill with boiling water to halfway up the sides of the cups.
7. Bake until the cakes are puffed and lightly brown on top (Martha says the pudding is still visible in the bottom, but if your custard cups are white you’re not gonna see it. Also, with all of that water and stuff going on in the pan, I say if the tops are light brown its time to pull them. That’s what I did anyway). 20 to 25 minutes.
8. Serve slightly warm or at room temperature, dusted with powdered sugar.
Serves 6 (or 1 if you’re anything like me…)
Tagged as:
cake,
custard,
lemon,
Meyer lemon
This is my second month of Iron Cupcake. The ingredient for February is coffee. I was so excited when this ingredient was announced. Ideas started buzzing in my head. I made sketches and jotted lots of notes about flavor combinations: Asian iced coffee, caramel macchiato, vanilla latte, and so on. I challenged myself not to do a chocolate-coffee thing even though I knew it would be tasty.
I set lofty goals for this month: I was going to make at least 2 entries. But procrastination is my BFF… Entries are due the morning of Feb 24. (Yes, I realize that is tomorrow). So last night, I chose a flavor and set to work.
I love to get an iced coffee when I go out for Pho so a cupcake inspired by that Vietnamese iced coffee sounded perfect for this challenge. I had visions (and sketches!) of a 2-tone cupcake to mimic the sweetened condensed milk as it is poured into the strong coffee, and then I was going to fill it with a sweetened condensed milk filling or maybe ice cream. But I didn’t think it all the way through. I should have left out some of the sugar and probably used some instant coffee granules for flavor intensity and color. Instead, I followed a vanilla cupcake recipe and replaced the milk with coffee so what I wound up with was more of a regular “cup o’ joe”. It’s still good, kind of like a coffee ice cream flavor. But it isn’t as sexy as the two-toned number I had in mind.
The icing is a buttercream made with sweetened condensed milk instead of cream or milk. I took some into work today and those people who like coffee liked these cupcakes.
Cuppa Joe Cupcakes
adapted from Mark Bittman’s Vanilla Cake (in How to Cook Everything
)
5 tbsp butter, softened
1 c. flour
5/8 c. sugar
2 eggs
1/2 tsp vanilla
1 1/4 tsp baking powder
1/8 tsp salt
scant 1/2 c. strong brewed coffee (like espresso)
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease muffin tins or use paper liners.
2. Beat butter. Add sugar and beat 3-4 minutes or until it is light in color and fluffy.
3. Add eggs one at a time. Mix well. Add vanilla.
4. Combine flour, baking powder, and salt in a medium bowl.
5. Add flour to the egg mix alternately with the coffee. Stir until smooth.
6. Bake for about 15 minutes. Allow to cool completely before frosting.
Sweetened condensed milk buttercream
adapted from Mark Bittman’s Buttercream (in How to Cook Everything)
8 tbsp (1 stick) butter
4 c. confectioner’s sugar
8-10 tbsp sweetened condensed milk (or more as needed)
2 tsp vanilla
pinch of salt
1. Cream the butter.
2. Gradually work in the sugar, alternating with the sweetened condensed milk. Beat well after each addition.
3. Stir in vanilla and salt. If it is too thick to spread, add a little more of the milk.
———————————————–
Iron Cupcake details:
Voting will begin no later than Sunday, March 1 at 8 p.m. CST, at No One Puts Cupcake in a Corner. Voting closes Friday, March 6 at 12 noon CST.
The February prize pack includes prizes from DIANAEVANS, Lots of Sprinkles, and Cakespy with an added bonus for February from Sweet Cuppin Cakes Bakery and Cupcakery Supply .
Additional prizes are supplied by these corporate providers: Head Chefs by Fiesta Products, Hello Cupcake by Karen Tack and Alan Richardson, Jessie Steele Aprons, the Cupcake Courier, Taste of Home books, and UpwithCupcakes.com.
Iron Cupcake:Earth is sponsored in part by 1-800-Flowers, http://www.1800flowers.com .
Tagged as:
coffee,
cupcakes,
iron cupcake
The other day I was catching up on what other foodies had been up to lately and saw this post from Maggie at Dog Hill Kitchen: Beer Bread Experiments and some Bean Salad. Beer bread. Hmm. At first it just sounded interesting but I’d never had it before and the recipe looked super-easy so I could not shake the curiosity. Beer bread? How does it taste? What’s the texture? And then last night it won and I baked up my very first loaf of beer bread.
I used the recipe Maggie linked to from Zesty Cook, and a can of Murphy’s Irish Stout. I only had 1 1/4 cup of whole wheat flour on hand, so I used a little more white flour to make up the missing 1/4 cup (so used 1 1/4 cup wheat and 1 3/4 cup white instead of 1 1/2 of each called for in the recipe).
The bread smell was intoxicating. Nutty, buttery, bready. And the flavor matches the smell. It has a complex flavor and is really crumbly… and especially wonderful slathered in butter. I like Maggie’s idea of experimenting with different beers so I will be trying this recipe again sometime soon with an ale or lager. It is the easiest bread I’ve ever made; even easier than the No Knead Bread though the results are a different style. But if you love fresh bread half as much as I do, I recommend trying Zesty Cook’s beer bread.
Tagged as:
beer bread,
dog hill kitchen,
murphy's irish stout,
quick bread,
st patrick's day,
zesty cook
Last night I decided to start baking around 11:45pm. I had been reading Baking: From My Home to Yours which was one of my birthday presents last week. Do you read cookbooks? I don’t read them cover-to-cover (usually) but I do enjoy meandering my way through a good cookbook (One of my favorite reads: The Splendid Table’s How to Eat Supper
– it is well written and has some really wonderful recipes).
So… at quarter to midnight I decided to start baking Cocoa-nana bread from page 46. I did not, however, read the entire recipe before I started. If I had, I might have waited until today because the bread needed about 75 minutes to bake so I did not get to bed until almost 2am. But when I had a nice thick slice for breakfast this morning, it was completely worth it.
I had my slice with a little Greek-style yogurt and a cup of coffee (Isn’t that a cute mug? I found it at Target yesterday and tried to resist… ). But the real treat came this afternoon when I had a slice with raspberry jam. This bread is definitely chocolatey but not too sweet, and you get just a hint of the bananas. And with raspberry jam… perfection.
(Note: I didn’t have enough unsweetened cocoa so I substituted a good hot cocoa mix and reduced the sugar, being after midnight and all I didn’t feel like running out for more cocoa…)
Cocoa-Nana Bread
Adapted from Dorie Greenspan, Baking from My Home to Yours
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder (I used about 1/3 cup unsweetened + 2/3 cup sweetened cocoa)
1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1 stick unsalted butter, at room temperature
3/4 cup sugar (I reduced this to about 1/4 cup)
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
2 large eggs
2 ripe bananas, mashed
1/2 cup good chocolate chips (I used Ghiradelli bittersweet chips)
1. Place an oven rack in the center position and preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 9×5 inch loaf pan and place on an insulated baking sheet. This will keep the bottom of the loaf from overcooking.
2. Sift the flour, cocoa, salt, and baking soda together in a large bowl.
3. Using a stand mixer with a paddle attachment, beat the butter at medium speed until softened (about 1 minute). Add in the sugars and beat for another 2 minutes. Add the eggs, one at a time, and beat after each addition. The batter may look curdled, but that’s ok.
4. Reduce the mixer speed to low and mix in the bananas.
5. Now add the dry ingredients in 3 additions and barely mix until they are just mixed in. While on low speed, add in the buttermilk and mix until incorporated.
6. Stir in the chopped chocolate. Scrape the batter into the prepared pan.
7. Bake for 30 minutes, then cover the bread loosely with foil tented over it.
(This is where, had I read it completely before starting, I would have chosen to bake this today instead of late last night…but by the time I read this far, I was committed…)
8. Now… bake for an additional 40-45 minutes, or until a thin knife inserted comes out clean. Transfer the pan to a wire rack and allow to cool for 20 minutes. Run a knife around the edges to remove from the pan, and allow to cool to room temperature.
Enjoy this bread, but my recommendation is to start it a little earlier than midnight :)
Tagged as:
baking from my home to yours,
bananas,
breakfast,
chocolate,
dorie greenspan,
quick bread
