Serious Eats: Recipes - Baking With Dorie

Korova Cookie Remix

2009-12-22T15:26:00Z

Basically World Peace Cookies, but with more mayhem.

Ingredients

serves about 36 cookies

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/2 stick unsalted butter, at room temperature
2/3 cup packed light brown sugar
1/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon fleur de sel
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
7 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped into varying sizes between small chunks and fine dust
3 ounces pecans, chopped
1 vanilla bean

Procedures

Sift the flour, cocoa and baking soda together.
Working with a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, or with a hand mixer in a large bowl, cream the butter on medium speed. Add both sugars, salt and vanilla extract and beat for 2 minutes more.
Turn off the mixer. Pour in the flour, pulse the mixer at low speed about 5 times, a second or two each time. At low speed, mix for about 30 seconds more, only until the flour disappears into the dough—for the best texture, work the dough as little as possible once the flour is added, and don't be concerned if the dough looks a little crumbly. Toss in the chocolate and pecan pieces and mix only to incorporate.
Turn the dough out onto a work surface, gather it together and divide it in half. Working with one half at a time, shape the dough into logs that are 1 1/2 inches in diameter. Wrap the logs in plastic wrap and refrigerate them for at least 3 hours. (The dough can be refrigerated for up to 3 days or frozen for up to 2 months. If you've frozen the dough, you needn't defrost it before baking—just slice the logs into cookies and bake the cookies 1 minute longer.)
Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 325°F (160°C). Line two baking sheets with parchment or silicone mats.

Sunday Brunch: Dorie Greenspan's Puffy, Browned Pancake

2009-03-15T13:25:41Z

When I made last week's silver dollar pancakes I never got to sit down with Will and Vicky to enjoy them fully. I was always bouncing up from the table to pour or turn the pancakes.

What's the answer to this age-old problem? Make one big pan-sized puffy browned pancake served in a skillet, like the one I've adapted here from former Serious Eats contributor Dorie Greenspan's great Sweet Times: Simple Desserts for Every Occasion.

Word to the pancake wise: This baby deflates as fast as a pricked balloon, so serve it immediately to your already seated guests. This pancake waits for no one.

Ingredients

1/2 stick (1/4 cup) unsalted butter
1/2 cup milk, preferably at room temperature
1/2 cup flour
1/4 cup sugar
2 eggs, preferably at room temperature
1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg

Procedures

Heat oven to 425°F. Melt the butter in a 10-inch oven-proof skillet over medium heat, tilting the pan to coat the sides. Meanwhile, whisk together the milk, flour, sugar, eggs and nutmeg in a bowl until smooth.

Baking With Dorie: TV Snacks, French-Style

2008-04-24T18:00:00Z

Illustration by Florine Asch

It's not just potato-chip makers that understand that if you offer us something salty we won't be able to eat just one—French pastry chefs know that trick too. And Arnaud Larher, whose pastry shop is in Montmartre, is a master of the add-salt-and-we'll-munch-away school. He's the chef who created the TV Snacks, irresistibly munchable, salty little butter cookies molded into lumpy, bumpy balls.

When I asked Larher how he came up with the idea to make a salty cookie, he said it came to him very naturally, since he grew up in Brittany, where butter is always salted. "I'm just continuing the tradition," he said.

I bet you could start your own tradition with these.

About the author: Dorie Greenspan is the author of several books on dessert, most recently Baking: From My Home to Yours. Dorie can also be found at DorieGreenspan.com and on the Bon Appétit website, where she is a special correspondent.

Ingredients

serves about 50 cookies

3/4 cup (3 1/2 ounces) blanched almonds
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 to 3/4 teaspoon salt, according to taste (attention: 3/4 teaspoon salt make a really salty cookie)
1 cup all-purpose flour
7 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cut into 7 pieces

Procedures

Position the racks to divide the oven into thirds and preheat the oven to 350°F. Line two baking sheets with parchment or silicone baking mats and set them aside.
Put the almonds, sugar and salt in the work bowl of a food processor fitted with the metal blade and pulse, scraping down the sides of the bowl now and then, until the nuts are finely ground, about 2 minutes. Turn the nut sugar onto a piece of wax paper and keep it close at hand.
Put the flour in the processor and, with the motor running, drop in the pieces of cold butter. As soon as all the pieces are in, switch to pulse mode and pulse just until the mixture looks sandy. Add the nut-sugar mixture and pulse in 3- to 4-second spurts until the dough forms small curds and clumps. Scrape the dough onto a piece of wax paper. (The dough can be made ahead, wrapped airtight and frozen for up to 1 month.)
To shape the cookies, pull off small pieces of dough about the size of cherries and squeeze them in your hand to form irregularly shaped chunks. Place the pieces on the lined baking sheets, leaving about 1/2 inch of space between them.
Bake for 9 to 11 minutes, rotating the sheets top to bottom and front to back after 5 minutes, or until the cookies are set but not really browned. The cookies will be soft. Let the cookies rest on the baking sheet for 3 minutes, then, using a wide metal spatula, carefully transfer them to racks to cool to room temperature.
Keeping: The cookies can be kept in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 5 days or frozen for up to 1 month.

Baking With Dorie: Creamy Cream Cheese Cheesecake For Passover--Or Not

2008-04-10T17:15:00Z

Photograph by Alan Richardson

Here's my go-to cheesecake recipe, a classic that can be varied in almost limitless ways. (I've got 11 variations in my book, Baking: From My Home to Yours, and the only reason I stopped there was that it would have taken way too many pages to keep going.) It's an almost traditional New York Cheesecake—it's missing the lemon, which, of course, you could add—and it's tall and lush and, no surprise, creamy. I usually make it with a graham cracker or chocolate cookie crust, but if you'd like to make this for a Passover meal, you can easily omit the crust or use macaroon crumbs.

You'll see that I use either sour cream or heavy cream in the cake. The sour cream will give you a tangier cheesecake, more New York, I think, while the heavy cream is milder. As long as you keep the measurement at 1 1/3 cups, you can use whatever combo of the two you'd like. You can also add fruits or nuts, swirls of chocolate (melt some chocolate and mix it in with some of the cake batter) or flavor the cake with an extract or oil. Whatever you do, serve something light beforehand—the cake is rich and, even though everyone knows it, people still reach for seconds.

Ingredients

serves 16 servings

For the crust (omit the crust for Passover or see above):
1 3/4 cups graham cracker crumbs
3 tablespoons sugar
Pinch of salt
1/2 stick (4 tablespoons) unsalted butter, melted
For the cheesecake:
2 pounds (four 8-ounce boxes) cream cheese, at room temperature
1 1/3 cups sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
4 large eggs, at room temperature
1 1/3 cups sour cream or heavy cream, or a combination of the two

Procedures

To make the crust:
Butter a 9-inch springform pan—choose one that has sides that are 2 3/4 inches high (if the sides are lower, you will have cheesecake batter leftover)—and wrap the bottom of the pan in a double layer of aluminum foil; put the pan on a baking sheet.
Stir the crumbs, sugar and salt together in a medium bowl. Pour over the melted butter and stir until all of the dry ingredients are uniformly moist. (I do this with my fingers.) Turn the ingredients into the buttered springform pan and use your fingers to pat an even layer of crumbs along the bottom of the pan and about halfway up the sides. Don't worry if the sides are not perfectly even or if the crumbs reach above or below the midway mark on the sides—this doesn't have to be a precision job. Put the pan in the freezer while you preheat the oven.
Center a rack in the oven, preheat the oven to 350°F and place the springform on a baking sheet. Bake for 10 minutes. Set the crust aside to cool on a rack while you make the cheesecake.
Reduce the oven temperature to 325°F.
To make the cheesecake:
Put a kettle of water on to boil.
Working in a stand mixer, preferably fitted with a paddle attachment, or with a hand mixer in a large bowl, beat the cream cheese at medium speed until it is soft and lives up to the creamy part of its name, about 4 minutes. With the mixer running, add the sugar and salt and continue to beat another 4 minutes or so, until the cream cheese is light. Beat in the vanilla. Add the eggs one by one, beating for a full minute after each addition—you want a well-aerated batter. Reduce the mixer speed to low and stir in the sour cream and/or heavy cream.
Put the foil-wrapped springform pan in the roaster pan.
Give the batter a few stirs with a rubber spatula, just to make sure that nothing has been left unmixed at the bottom of the bowl, and scrape the batter into the springform pan. The batter will reach the brim of the pan. (If you have a pan with lower sides and have leftover batter, you can bake the batter in a buttered ramekin or small soufflé mold.) Put the roasting pan in the oven and pour enough boiling water into the roaster to come halfway up the sides of the springform pan.
Bake the cheesecake for 1 hour and 30 minutes, at which point the top will be browned (and perhaps cracked) and may have risen just a little above the rim of the pan. Turn off the oven's heat and prop the oven door open with a wooden spoon. Allow the cheesecake to luxuriate in its water bath for another hour.
After 1 hour, carefully pull the setup out of the oven, lift the springform pan out of the roaster—be careful, there may be some hot water in the aluminum foil—remove the foil. Let the cheesecake come to room temperature on a cooling rack.
When the cake is cool, cover the top lightly and chill the cake for at least 4 hours, although overnight would be better.

Baking with Dorie: Lemon-Lemon Lemon Cream

2008-04-03T15:00:00Z

While I have been known to exaggerate now and then, I've never gone overboard in my praise for this lemon cream (think curd); I just call it extraordinary and rest assured that I haven't gone overboard.

The recipe comes from Pierre Hermé, my pastry hero, and I think it's fascinating. It has all of the ingredients you find in a traditional lemon curd, but the way you make it changes the cream's texture—Pierre's lemon cream is tangier, lemonier and, I think, lighter on the tongue, than traditional lemon curd. The secret is in the way the butter is added. In a curd, all the ingredients, including the butter, go into a pot and you cook, cook, cook and stir, stir and stir and then, when the mixture cools, it's curd. With Pierre Herme's lemon cream, you cook and stir everything—except the butter—then, when the ingredients have thickened, you put them into a food processor or blender, let them cool a bit, then whir in the butter and keep whirring. Essentially, you make an emulsion. And, because the butter doesn't melt and re-firm, as it does with curd, the lemon cream is silky, luxurious and yes, extraordinary.

Ingredients

serves 8 servings

1 cup sugar
Finely grated zest of 3 lemons
4 large eggs
3/4 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice (from 4 to 5 lemons)
2 sticks plus 5 tablespoons (21 tablespoons; 10 1/2 ounces) unsalted butter, at room temperature and cut into tablespoon-sized pieces
1 fully-baked 9-inch tart shell

Procedures

Getting ready: Have a thermometer, preferably an instant-read, a strainer and a blender (first choice) or food processor at the ready. Bring a few inches of water to a simmer in a saucepan.
Put the sugar and zest in a large metal bowl that can be fitted into the pan of simmering water. Off heat, work the sugar and zest together between your fingers until the sugar is moist, grainy and very aromatic. Whisk in the eggs followed by the lemon juice.
Fit the bowl into the pan (make certain the water doesn’t touch the bottom of the bowl) and cook, stirring with the whisk as soon as the mixture feels tepid to the touch. You want to cook the cream until it reaches 180°F. As you whisk the cream over heat—and you must whisk constantly to keep the eggs from scrambling—you’ll see that the cream will start out light and foamy, then the bubbles will get bigger, and then, as the cream is getting closer to 180°F, it will start to thicken and the whisk will leave tracks. Heads up at this point—the tracks mean the cream is almost ready. Don’t stop whisking and don’t stop checking the temperature. And have patience—depending on how much heat you’re giving the cream, getting to temp can take as long as 10 minutes.
As soon as you reach 180°F, pull the cream from the heat and strain it into the container of a blender (or food processor); discard the zest. Let the cream rest at room temperature, stirring occasionally, until it cools to 140°F, about 10 minutes.
Turn the blender to high and, with the machine going, add about 5 pieces of butter at a time. Scrape down the sides of the container as needed while you’re incorporating the butter. Once the butter is in, keep the machine going—to get the perfect light, airy texture of lemon-cream dreams, you must continue to beat the cream for another 3 minutes. If your machine protests and gets a bit too hot, work in 1-minute intervals, giving the machine a little rest between beats.
Pour the cream into a container, press a piece of plastic wrap against the surface to create an airtight seal and chill the cream for at least 4 hours or overnight. When you are ready to construct the tart, just whisk the cream to loosen it and spoon it into the tart shell.
Serving: The tart should be served cold, because it is a particular pleasure to have the cold cream melt in your mouth.
Storing: While you can make the lemon cream ahead (it will keep in the frige for 4 days and in the freezer for up to 2 months), once the tart is constructed, it’s best to eat it the day it is made.

Baking with Dorie: Little Bread Puddings

2008-03-20T17:30:00Z

©iStockphoto.com/shatteredlens

I must be in a mini-mood—I just looked over my posts from the past couple of weeks and saw that everything was baby-sized. And here's another "small enough to hold in the palm of your hand" recipe. This one is for little bread puddings made in 6-ounce custard cups or ramekins. (Although, now that I think about it, I bet you could make these in muffin cups or, better yet, silicone muffin cups.)

I like to make these with prunes and to flavor the brown-sugar custard with allspice, but they're just as good with dried apricots and ginger (see Playing Around). Whatever dried fruit you use, make sure that it's soft and plump before it goes into your mixture. If your fruit is hard, you can either soak it in some very hot water or steam it for a minute or so, a process called "plumping." In either case, make sure to pat the fruit dry before mixing it into the recipe.

Maybe when the weather is more spring-like, I'll start feeling more expansive and break out the BIG recipes. For now, I hope you enjoy these little babies.

Playing Around: Apricot-Ginger Little Bread Puddings: Replace the allspice with eight slices of peeled, fresh ginger, each the size of a quarter, and substitute an equal amount of plump dried apricots for the pitted prunes.

Ingredients

serves 8 servings

1 1/2 cups whole milk
1 cup heavy cream
3/4 cup (packed) light brown sugar
1 1/2 tablespoons whole allspice berries
8 thin slices firm-textured white bread, crusts removed
3/4 cup plump pitted prunes, finely diced or coarsely chopped
3 large eggs
2 egg yolks
3/4 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2 tablespoons granulated sugar

Procedures

Pour the milk, cream and brown sugar into a medium-sized saucepan. Tap the allspice berries with the back of a heavy knife to bruise them slightly and add the berries to the pot. Bring the mixture to the boil, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Remove from heat, cover and steep for 10 minutes.
Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 375°F. Butter eight 6-ounce custard cups or ramekins.
Cut the bread into 1/2-inch dice and put the pieces in a mixing bowl. Add the prunes, tossing to combine. Divide the bread and prune mixture evenly among the ramekins.
Put the eggs, yolks and vanilla in a measuring cup with a spout or in a mixing bowl; whisk to blend. Strain the steeped milk into the eggs, whisking all the while. (Discard the allspice berries.)
Pour about 1/3 cup of custard into each ramekin. Push the bread down into the custard with a spoon. Add more custard slowly until the cups are filled. Let stand for 10 minutes, so the bread can absorb the custard.
Sprinkle the granulated sugar over the tops of the puddings. Place the ramekins in a large roasting pan. Fill the pan with enough warm water to come halfway up the sides of the ramekins. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, or until a knife inserted near the center a pudding comes out clean and the tops are puffed and golden (puffed is important here). Remove the puddings to a rack to cool.
Serving: These can be served warm, after cooling for about 20 minutes, at room temperature or chilled; each has its admirers.
Storing: Covered, the puddings will keep overnight in the fridge.

Baking With Dorie: Corniest Corn Muffins

2008-03-13T17:30:00Z

Photograph by Alan Richardson

I’m still in Paris (yay!) and while I saw brilliant yellow forsythia when I was at the Sunday market, and while there are a few cherry blossoms out in the gardens that get full sun, it’s been cold and rainy all week—we even had snow for two seconds and a couple of hail showers—which means I’m still making hearty soups and substantial stews, one of which, a daube of red wine and beef cheeks, is simmering in the oven now. Between the chill outside and the breeze that comes through my ancient window frames, I don’t think my friends will find it unwelcome.

The daube will be familiar to my Parisian pals, but its accompaniment won’t—I’m going to serve the stew with a basketful of corn muffins. Of course, I’ll have to use frozen corn, but I can find really good cornmeal here, so it will be fine. And I might add a few herbs and a little bacon to the mix (the bacon here is fabulous), just to make it more savory and because there’s bacon in the daube. The way I see it, adding bacon to the muffins is like pulling an outfit together by wearing a scarf that picks up the color of your shoes. And besides, what isn’t better with bacon?

Ingredients

serves 12 muffins

1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup cornmeal
6 tablespoons sugar
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
Pinch of freshly grated nutmeg (optional)
1 cup buttermilk
3 tablespoons (1 1/2 ounces) unsalted butter, melted and cooled
3 tablespoons corn oil
1 large egg
1 large egg yolk
1 cup corn kernels (add up to 1/3 cup more if you’d like), fresh, frozen or canned (in which case they should be drained and patted dry)

Procedures

Getting ready: Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 400°F. Butter or spray the 12 muffin molds in a regular-size muffin tin, or fit the molds with paper muffin cups.
Working in a large bowl, whisk together the flour, cornmeal, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt and nutmeg. In a large glass measuring cup with a spout or in another bowl, whisk together the buttermilk, melted butter, oil, egg and yolk. Pour the liquid ingredients over the dry ingredients and, with the whisk or a rubber spatula, gently but quickly stir to blend. Don’t worry about being thorough – the batter will be lumpy and that’s just the way it should be. Stir in the corn kernels. Divide the batter evenly among the muffin molds.
Slide the pan into the oven and bake 15 to 18 minutes, or until the tops are golden and a knife inserted into the center of the muffins comes out clean. Pull the pan from the oven and carefully lift each muffin out of its mold and onto a rack to cool.
Serving: The muffins are great warm or at room temperature and particularly great split, toasted and slathered with butter or jam or both (if they’re not in breadbasket at dinner, that is).
Storing: Like all muffins, these are best eaten the day they are made. If you want to keep them, it’s best to wrap them airtight and pop them into the freezer, where they’ll keep for about a month; re-warm in a 300°F oven, if you’d like, or split them and toast them—do that and they’ll be that much more delicious with butter.

Banana Cake Big and Small

2008-03-06T18:15:00Z

By the time you read this, I'll be in Paris, where I hope I will have not have discovered that I left half of what I needed in New York. If so, it won't be the first time. For as much as I travel, I'm not a good packer—I'm always stuffing one last thing into a bag—and I'm not terribly organized. I pack at the last minute, which is how I end up taking more of what I don't need and sometimes forgetting that one vital something.

Knowing this about me, my husband wondered why, when nothing was packed and I was still writing to meet a deadline, I decided to make a banana cake. You'd have thought after all these years he'd be able to guess, since the reason is both simple and obvious: I had two over-ripe bananas languishing on the counter! And besides, nothing makes me calmer or happier than baking and a calm, happy me might actually pack better.

Two bananas was just half of what I needed to make my friend Ellen Einstein's terrific banana Bundt cake, so I made just half the recipe and spooned the batter into a dozen muffin cups. (I also threw in some chopped chocolate, just because.)

Yes, yes, of course I considered myself virtuous for having salvaged the bananas so deliciously, but all feelings of virtuousness vanished when I realized how many of those little cakes I'd munched—it's so much easier and, in many ways, so much more fun, to eat baby cakes that you just keep eating them, and eating them. I had thought I'd make them and freeze them, so that my husband and son would have an extra treat while I'm gone, but...

About Ellen: Ellen Einstein and her husband, Dan, are the owners of Sweet 16th, a bakery/cafe in Nashville. They're both very talented bakers and the cafe is a wonderful place—it's as warm and friendly as they are. If you're anywhere near the bakery, stop in and give them a hello from me.

Playing Around: To make this as a Bundt cake, double the ingredients, use a generously buttered 9- to 10-inch (12-cup) Bundt pan, and bake the cake for 65 to 75 minutes, checking it at the 30-minute mark and covering it loosely with a foil tent if it's browning too quickly. Let the cake cool on a rack for 10 minutes before unmolding.

Classic Banana Cake, The Small Version

Adapted from a recipe by Ellen Einstein in Baking From My Home to Yours

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 stick (4 ounces) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 large egg, at room temperature
2 very ripe bananas, mashed (about 3/4 cup)
1/2 cup sour cream or plain yogurt
3 ounces chopped chocolate, optional

Procedures

Getting ready: Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 350°F. Generously butter 12 regular-size muffin cups.
Whisk the flour, baking soda and salt together.
Working with a stand mixer, preferably fitted with a paddle attachment, or with a hand mixer in a large bowl, beat the butter until creamy. Add the sugar and beat at medium speed until pale and fluffy. Beat in the vanilla, then the egg, beating for about 1 minute. Reduce the mixer speed to low and mix in the bananas. Finally, mix in half the dry ingredients (don't be disturbed if the batter curdles), all the sour cream and then the rest of the flour mixture. Stir in the chopped chocolate by hand. Divide the batter evenly among the muffin cups.
Bake the little cakes for about 28 to 32 minutes, or until a knife inserted into the center of the cakes comes out clean. (The cakes will rise above the muffin cups, dome and then spread out and flatten beyond the cups—that's fine.) Transfer the muffin tin to a rack, cool for 3 minutes, then gently turn the little cakes out of the tin. Cool to room temperature on a rack.
Storing: Wrapped airtight, the little cakes will keep at room temperature for 2 or 3 days or in the freezer for up to 2 months.

Gingerbread Baby Cakes: Because Winter Isn't Over

2008-02-28T17:30:00Z

I don't know where you are, but I'm in Connecticut looking out at a bunch of snow. Sure, I've seen a robin or two, but it's not feeling rhubarbish around these parts yet, which is why these baby cakes, which Johanne Killeen, she of Al Forno in Providence, Rhode Island, made when she came to bake with Julia Child, look so good to me.

I know they look like moist little chocolate cakes, but they're really moist little hot and spicy cakes, sweet little things pumped up with ginger and black pepper and fortified with cocoa and espresso powder.

Johanne, a fabulous baker and a mistress of all that is small, likes to make this recipe in pans that are 4 inches across and 1 inch deep. If you don't have mini pans, you can try making the cake in muffin pans or use one 10 inch pan, in which case it will have to bake for 50 to 60 minutes.

The cakes are great with whipped cream and candied lemon zest and just as good with ice cream—particularly coffee ice cream. A couple of bites could give us northerners the patience we'll need to wait for spring.

Johanne Killeen's Gingerbread Baby Cakes

Adapted from Baking with Julia

Ingredients

2 cups all-purpose flour (Johanne uses unbleached flour)
1/4 cup instant espresso powder
3 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tablespoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
2 sticks (8 ounces) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup (packed) dark brown sugar
4 large eggs, at room temperature
2 1/2 tablespoons peeled and finely chopped fresh ginger
2 cups unsulphured molasses
Melted butter, for greasing the pans
Sweetened whipped cream, for serving
Candied lemon peel (optional)

Procedures

Positon a rack in the center of the oven and preheat the oven to 350°F. Brush the insides of 8 mini- or baby cake pans, each 4 inches across and 1 inch deep, with a light coating of melted butter, dust with flour and tap out the excess. (Or use a 10-inch round cake pan.)
In a small bowl, whisk the flour, espresso powder, cocoa, ground ginger, baking powder, salt and black pepper together just to mix; reserve.
Put the butter and brown sugar in the bowl of a mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, or use a hand-held mixer, and beat on medium-high speed until the mixture is smooth and creamy, scraping down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula as needed. The butter and sugar must be beaten until they are very light and fluffy, so don't rush it—the process can take 6 to 8 minutes with a hand-held mixer, 3 to 4 minutes with a heavy-duty mixer. Reduce the speed to medium and add the eggs one at a time, beating on high speed for 30 seconds to 1 minute after each addition. The mixture may look curdled, but that's OK—it will smooth out as you continue to mix the batter. Beat in the fresh ginger and add the molasses, mixing on medium speed for 1 to 2 minutes, until completely smooth.
With a rubber spatula, fold in the dry ingredients, mixing only until they are incorporated.
Divide the batter among the prepared pans and rotate the pans a couple of times to level. Bake the cakes for 20 to 25 minutes, or until the cakes are springy to the touch and the tops crack. (The 10-inch cake will take 50 to 60 minutes to bake.) Take care not to overbake the cakes; they should remain moist.
Transfer the cakes to a rack and cool for 10 minutes, then run a thin knife around the edges of the pan to loosen and unmold the cakes. Turn the cakes over so they cool right side up.
Serve the cakes warm or at room temperature with a generous dollop of lightly whipped cream and a shower of chopped candied lemon peel, if desired.
Storing: These moist cakes will keep covered at room temperature for 3 days or, wrapped airtight, can be frozen for up to 2 months. Thaw, still wrapped, at room temperature.
Photograph by Gentl & Hyers

Creamy Lemon and Raspberry Tart

2008-02-21T18:45:00Z

Photograph from mewtate on Flickr

While those of us in the northern part of the world are sitting around waiting for spring to come, it's nice to know that lemons are within easy reach. Not only do they perk up any salad, bring out the best in seafood and look cheery on the counter, they're a blessing when you've had your fill with apples and pears. (I love both apples and pears, but it's nice to give them a little time off in the winter, don't you think?)

I've got a bunch of lemon desserts that I turn to this time of year, but one of my favorites is a lemon tart I learned to make when I was working with Daniel Boulud on Cafe Boulud Cookbook It's an elegant tart with a filling made with whole lemons—zest, juice and pulp—so that it's tart, tart, tart, as in really puckery.

Daniel lines the pre-baked sweet tart shell with raspberries before he pours in the lemon mix. I know, raspberries aren't really in season now, at least not where I am, but they're available and, if, unlike me, you were a good saver and tucked some of summer's berries in the freezer, you can have a fully seasonal tart, something both delicious and culinarily correct.

A word on the tart shell. It needs to be partially baked, which means you should bake the crust, covered with foil, for about 25 minutes in a 375°F oven. If you'd like, you can bake it for a few minutes without the foil before you cool it, fill it with the lemon mixture and then finish baking the dessert. You can use my sweet tart dough for this recipe.

Creamy Lemon and Raspberry Tart

Adapted from The Cafe Boulud Cookbook

Ingredients

For the Crust
1 partially baked 9 1/2-inch tart shell (in a fluted tart pan), recipe here
For the Filling
2 medium lemons
2 large eggs
2 large egg yolks
1/2 cup sugar
3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons heavy cream
2 cups raspberries

Procedures

Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 300°F.
Finely grate the zest of both lemons; set aside. With a small knife, cut off the top and bottom of each lemon and then carefully cut away the cottony white pith and a tiny bit of flesh from each lemon—the juicy sections of lemon should now be completely exposed. Lay the lemons on their sides and cut each lemon crosswise into 1/2-inch-thick slices; remove the seeds.
Place the lemon slices, eggs, yolks and sugar in the container of a blender and puree until smooth. Strain the mixture into a bowl and whisk in the reserved zest and the cream. Give the bowl a good rap against the kitchen counter to debubble it—if there are bubbles in the cream now, there will be bubbles in your tart later. (It's not tragic, but neither is it attractive.)
Scatter the berries over the bottom of the crust and pour over the filling. Bake for 35 to 40 minutes, or until the filling is set in the center. Transfer the tart to a rack and cool to room temperature.
To serve: Cut the tart into 8 wedges and serve as is with some lightly sweetened whipped cream, raspberry coulis or even a spoonful of berry marmalade.

Baking with Dorie: Gourmandise

2008-02-14T18:00:00Z

It's not easy to translate gourmandise from the French. Strictly speaking, I guess it would be a delicacy or a treat, but the word, when applied to food, can also mean greedy. It's a great word—I mean, how many of us haven't been greedy for the treats we love—and it's a great name for this dessert from Pierre Herme.

This gorgeous dessert has three parts; from the bottom up they are: rich coconut-tapioca; spears of fresh pineapple mixed with lime zest and sweet orange marmalade; and thin, thin slices of oven-dried pineapple.

When I wrote the description of this dessert for the first book that I did with Pierre (Desserts by Pierre Herme), I said that it "... falls into that rarely explored realm between refreshing and comforting. The coconut—its consistency like that of a bisque, its floating pearls just right for popping against the roof of your mouth—is mild, milky, soupy and soothing, while the pineapple, glistening with bittersweet marmalade and spiked with lime zest, is all sparkle and zip." More than a decade later, it still seems right to me. More important, the dessert is still exciting.

Each part of the dessert can be made ahead and, really, each part could be served separately, but that wouldn't be very gourmandise-ish, would it?

Ingredients

serves 6 servings

The dried pineapple (optional, recipe below)
The tapioca (recipe below)
The fresh pineapple (recipe below)
Red currants or pomegranate seeds, optional
1/4 pineapple
Confectioner's sugar
1 cup whole milk
2 tablespoons sugar
Strip of orange zest
3 tablespoons small-pearl tapioca (not granulated or instant)
1/3 cup heavy cream, boiled (it can be at room temperature)
1 cup unsweetened coconut milk, at room temperature
3/4 pineapple (the remainder of the pineapple from above), peeled
2 tablespoons sweet orange marmalade
Zest from 1 1/2 limes, removed with a zester (do not grate the zest)

Procedures

Peel the pineapple and cut 6 slices crosswise, core and all (save the rest of the pineapple, you'll be using it); ideally, the slices should be less than 1/8 inch thick. (If you have a meat slicer, you'll find it's perfect for getting a very thin slice of fruit.) Cut the core from each slice (this is easily done with a small cookie or biscuit cutter) and place the slices on a triple thickness of paper towels. Cover with three layers of paper towels and allow the pineapple to drain for an hour or two.
Preheat the oven to 200°F. Dust a nonstick baking sheet with a light coating of confectioner's sugar; have another baking sheet at hand.
For Dried Pineapple: Place the pineapple rounds on the baking sheet dusted with the confectioner's sugar, cover with the other baking sheet (it will serve as a weight) and bake for about 1 hour, with the oven door held slightly ajar with a wooden spoon, until the pineapple is dried. Cool on a rack and then store in an airtight container. (The pineapple can be made a few days ahead and kept in a tin at room temperature, safe from humidity. This same technique works for oranges, lemons, apples and pears.)
For the Tapioca: Bring the milk, sugar and orange zest to a boil in a heavy-bottomed 2-quart saucepan. Stirring constantly, add the tapioca in a slow, steady stream. Reduce the heat to its lowest setting and cook the mixture, stirring frequently, for 20 to 25 minutes, or until the tapioca is soft and most of the liquid has been absorbed
Add the boiled cream and coconut milk and, stirring constantly, cook over low heat for 3 minutes. Turn the tapioca out into a bowl, press a piece of plastic wrap against its surface, and cool to room temperature. When it is cool, wrap the tapioca airtight and refrigerate until thoroughly chilled, about 2 hours. (The tapioca can be refrigerated for up to two days.)
For Fresh Pineapple: Quarter the pineapple from top to bottom and cut away the core. Cut each quarter lengthwise into thin spears, then cut these long pieces crosswise into bite-sized spears. Blot the pineapple free of excess moisture with paper towels and put the pieces in a bowl. Add the marmalade and zest and toss until the mixture is well blended. Cover and chill for at least 1 hour or for as long as a day.

Baking with Dorie: Chocolate-Dipped Linzer Hearts

2008-02-07T18:00:00Z

If you haven't already whipped up something wonderful for the sweetheart(s) in your life, here's a recipe for a cookie that makes any day sweeter. It's a linzer cookie—made with flour and ground nuts and spiced with cinnamon and cloves—cut out with a cute little heart-shaped cutter and dipped in melted chocolate. (I love the technique of pre-rolling the dough when it's soft and malleable and I hope you will, too.)

The cookie has the same buttery goodness and soft spices as a linzer tart and, in fact, you could use the dough to make a tart, if you wanted to. You can also make sandwich cookies (a classic linzerish thing to do), sandwiching the cookies with red jam. (Bring 1/2 cup of raspberry jam and 1 teaspoon water to the boil. Let the jam cool slightly before using it.)

If you want to go just a bit further, make a little peek-a-boo hole in one half of the cookies and use these as the tops of the sandwiches, then, because too much is often just barely enough, dip the sandwiches in the melted chocolate.

Whatever you do, I hope you have a happy—and very, very sweet—Valentine's Day. (I'll be posting on V-Day, but you'll have everything baked and beribboned by then, right?)

Linzer Hearts

Adapted from Baking: From My Home to Yours

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups finely ground almonds, hazelnuts or walnuts
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
Scant 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1 large egg
2 teaspoons water
1 stick (8 tablespoons) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup chocolate chips

Procedures

Whisk together the ground nuts, flour, cinnamon, salt and cloves. Using a fork, stir the egg and water together in a small bowl.
Working with a stand mixer, preferably fitted with a paddle attachment, or with a hand mixer in a large bowl, beat the butter and sugar together at medium speed until smooth, about 3 minutes, scraping down the bowl as needed. Add the egg mixture and beat for 1 minute more. Reduce the mixer speed to low and add the dry ingredients, mixing only until they disappear into the dough. Don't work the dough much once the flour is incorporated. If the dough comes together but some dry crumbs remain in the bottom of the bowl, stop the mixer and finish blending the ingredients with a rubber spatula or your hands.
Divide the dough in half. Working with one half at a time, put the dough between two large sheets of wax paper or plastic wrap. Using your hands, flatten the dough into a disk, then grab a rolling pin and roll the dough, turning it over frequently and lifting the paper so it doesn't cut into it, until it is about 1/4 inch thick. Leave the dough in the paper, and repeat with the second piece of dough. Transfer the wrapped dough to a baking sheet or cutting board (to keep it flat) and refrigerate or freeze it until it is very firm, about 2 hours in the refrigerator and about 45 minutes in the freezer.
Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 375°F. Line two baking sheets with parchment or silicone baking mats.
Peel off the top sheet of wax paper from one piece of dough and, using a small heart-shaped cookie cutter, cut out as many cookies as you can. If you want to have a peek-a-boo cutout, use the end of a piping tip to cut a very small circle from the centers of half the cookies. Transfer the hearts to the baking sheets, leaving a little space between the cookies. Set the scraps aside—you'll combine them with the scraps from the second disk and roll, cut and bake more cookies.
Bake the cookies one sheet at a time for 11 to 13 minutes, or until the cookies are lightly golden, dry and just firm to the touch. Transfer the cookies to a rack to cool to room temperature.
Repeat with the second disk of dough. Gather the scraps together, press them into a disk, roll them between sheets of wax paper or plastic wrap and refrigerate until firm, then cut and bake.
To dip the cookies, have a baking sheet lined with wax paper at the ready. When the cookies are cool, melt the chocolate chips in a coffee cup or small bowl. Dip one edge of each cookie into the chocolate, letting the excess chocolate drip back into the cup and running the edge of the cookie against the edge of the cup to clean the dipped side, then place the cookie on the lined baking sheet. When all the cookies are dipped, slide the baking sheet into the refrigerator or freezer to set the chocolate.
Storing: The cookies will keep in a covered tin—use wax paper to separate the layers—for about 3 days. They can be frozen for up to 2 months.

Baking with Dorie: Chocolate-Amaretti Heartbreakers

2008-01-31T17:45:00Z

Use a heart-shaped waffle maker for the best results

I know it’s a little early for Valentine’s Day, but for those of you who plan ahead and test ahead, you might want to give these little heart-shaped waffles a pre-fete run.

The batter for these waffles is almost a chocolate cake batter, which is why, when they’re baked, they taste like no other waffle you’ve ever had. That they’ve got crushed amaretti in them only makes them that much more special. Amaretti, for those of you who need a new addiction, are dry, crunchy, kind-of-meringuey Italian almond cookies that, in their most famous incarnation, are sold wrapped in beautifully printed tissue paper. Even though they’re a splurge, the amaretti I like best are Lazzaroni Amaretti di Saronno—they’re the ones in the red boxes and save-worthy tins. That said—I’ve used supermarket-brand amaretti and my waffles have been fine.

To get the full heart effect, you need a five-of-hearts waffle-maker. Lacking that, don’t give up on the recipe: make it in your regular waffler and, if you want to be truly romantic, cut your waffles ordinaires into hearts.

Once you’ve made the waffles, you’ve got choices about how you want to serve them. You can serve a full five-of-hearts or you can break the hearts apart (so cruel, especially on Valentine’s Day) and serve them separately, dunk them in hot fudge sauce or fill them with ice cream and serve them as sandwiches. You can really have fun with these. You can even turn them into cookies—see Playing Around.

Playing Around: After my waffles book went to print, I made a batch of these heartbreakers, then forgot them on a cooling rack when I packed up and left for the weekend. When I got back, the waffles had dried out and turned into terrific cookies—accidents like this don’t happen often, but when they do, it’s such fun. If you want cookies, of course you can leave these on the counter, but you can also just preheat the oven to 200°F, put the waffles directly on the oven rack and bake them (really, it’s hardly baking, more drying out) for about 1 hour. Transfer them to a cooling rack and, when they crisp, break them into hearts.

Chocolate-Amaretti Heartbreakers

Ingredients

3 large double amaretti (or 6 amaretti from 3 paper-wrapped packets)
2 ounces bittersweet chocolate
5 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
Pinch of salt
3/4 cup sugar
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa
1 1/2 cups whole milk
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon pure almond extract, optional
2 large eggs
Confectioner’s sugar, sweetened whipped cream, ice cream and/or hot fudge sauce, optional (but why would you skip these?)

Procedures

Place the amaretti and bittersweet chocolate in the workbowl of a food processor or blender and process until pulverized; reserve.
Preheat your waffle iron. If you’d like to serve these warm, preheat your oven to 350°F.
Melt the butter; reserve. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, sugar and cocoa. In another bowl, whisk together the milk, the extracts and eggs until well blended. Pour the liquid ingredients over the dry ingredients and stir with the whisk to combine. Fold in the reserved amaretti-chocolate mixture and the melted butter.
Lightly butter or spray the grids of your waffle iron, if needed. Brush or spray the grids again only if subsequent waffles stick.
Spoon out 1/3 cup of batter (or the amount recommended by your waffler’s manufacturer) onto the hot iron, spreading it evenly with a metal spatula or wooden spoon. Close the lid and bake until just set. Bake these slightly less than you do other waffles because chocolate has a tendency to burn easily. There’s no need to worry, but you do want to keep an eye on these. Transfer the finished waffles to a cooling rack while you make the rest of the batch. Right before serving, warm these briefly, about 2 minutes in the oven—or don’t. They’re good at room temperature, too.
Serving: If you’d like to offer a full five-of-hearts waffle, just put one on a large plate, dust with confectioner’s sugar, then scoop some whipped cream or ice cream (or both?) onto the center. Hot fudge sauce is both luscious and luxurious over these. Alternatively, separate the hearts and serve with all the toppings on the side or turn these into crisp cookies (see Playing Around).

Baking with Dorie: A Seriously Chocolaty Cake

2008-01-24T16:30:00Z

Here's an intensely chocolaty cake from Lora Brody, who made this when she came to Cambridge to tape an episode of Baking with Julia. The official name of the cake is Boca Negra, or black mouth, and the name aptly describes what your mouth will look like after one bite. I can't think of another cake that's this chocolaty (okay, maybe the Grandmother's Cake from La Maison du Chocolate) or this easy to make. And I love the boozy white-chocolate cream that Lora makes to go on top of it. (Attention: You should make the cream a day ahead.)

Lora suggested that the cake be served warm or at room temperature, when it's moist and dense, but if you like fudge, then you'll want to pop the cake into the fridge and have it cold. Either way, I know you'll be happy.

A word about whipping up the cake: You can make this cake by hand—a cinch—or in a food processor—even cinchier. It's easy no matter which method you use; actually, it's so easy that if you've never baked before, you can start here and be a star.

Photograph by Gentl & Hyers

Boca Negra

Ingredients

The White Chocolate Cream
12 ounces white chocolate, finely chopped
1 cup heavy cream
1/4 cup bourbon (or more to taste)
The Cake
12 ounces bittersweet chocolate, coarsely chopped
1 1/3 cups sugar
1/2 cup bourbon
2 sticks (8 ounces) unsalted butter, cut into 10 pieces, at room temperature
5 large eggs, at room temperature
1 1/2 tablespoons all-purpose flour

Procedures

Prepare the cream at least one day in advance. Put the white chocolate in the work bowl of a food processor or in a blender container. Heat the heavy cream until small bubbles form around the edge of the pan. Pour the cream over the chocolate and process until completely smooth. Add the bourbon, taste and add up to a tablespoon more if you want. Turn into a container with a tight-fitting lid and chill overnight. (The cream can be kept in the refrigerator for a week or frozen for up to a month; thaw overnight in the refrigerator.)
Position a rack in the center of the oven and preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Lightly butter a 9-inch round cake pan and line the bottom with parchment or wax paper; butter the paper. Put the cake pan in a shallow roasting pan and set aside until needed.
To make by hand: Put the chopped chocolate in a medium bowl and keep close at hand. In a 2-quart saucepan, mix 1 cup of the sugar and the bourbon and cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until the sugar dissolves and the mixture comes to a full boil. Immediately pour the syrup over the chocolate and stir with a rubber spatula until the chocolate is completely melted and the mixture is smooth. Piece by piece, stir the butter into the chocolate mixture. Make certain that each piece of butter is melted before you add another.
Put the eggs and the remaining 1/3 cup sugar in a medium bowl and whisk until the eggs thicken slightly. Beating with the whisk, add the eggs to the chocolate mixture and whisk until well blended. Gently whisk in the flour.
To make in a food processor: Put the chocolate in the work bowl. Bring all of the sugar and bourbon to a full boil and pour the syrup into the work bowl; process until the mixture is completely blended, about 12 seconds. With the machine running, add the butter in pieces, followed by the eggs, one at a time, and then the flour. Process an additional 15 seconds before turning the batter into the prepared pan.
Baking the cake: Pour and scrape the batter into the prepared pan, running your spatula over the top to smooth it. Pour enough hot water into the roasting pan to come about 1 inch up the sides of the cake pan. Bake the cake for exactly 30 minutes, at which point the top will have a thin, dry crust. Remove the cake pan from its water bath, wipe the pan dry and cover the top of the cake with a sheet of plastic wrap. Invert the cake onto a flat plate, peel off the parchment and quickly but gently invert again onto a serving platter; remove the plastic.
Serve the cake warm or at room temperature with the chilled white chocolate cream.
Storing: Once cooled, the cake can be covered and kept at room temperature for 1 day or refrigerated for up to 3 days. Wrapped airtight, the cake can be frozen for up to 2 months. Thaw, still wrapped, overnight in the refrigerator.

Baking with Dorie: Daniel Boulud's Coffee-Cardamom Pots de Crème

2008-01-17T18:00:00Z

I always think of pots de crème, or little pots of crème, as the French answer to our puddings. Really a baked custard, the crème can be created in just about any flavor combo. That uber-chef Daniel Boulud created them to be coffee-cardamom was a nod to the way coffee is often drunk in the Middle East: through a cardamom pod held between one's teeth.

Of course, Daniel being Daniel (and thank goodness he is), he ups the ante a bit: he caramelizes the coffee beans and cardamom pods before he pours in milk and cream and steeps everything for a few minutes. Even though this dessert is made with big flavors—you can hardly call coffee or cardamom wallflower flavors—the caramelizing step makes the flavors even bigger and more intense.

When these are baked in a professional kitchen, the custard cups, set in a roasting pan filled with water, are covered with a sheet of plastic wrap. The wrap doesn't budge or burn because the temperature is low (of course, you've got to have an oven that keeps this low temperature). If the idea of baking with plastic wrap doesn't make you comfortable, cover the set-up with foil.

Photograph taken by Gentl & Hyers

Coffee-Cardamom Pots de Crème

Ingredients

3 ounces (1 cup) coffee beans, preferably an espresso roast
2 tablespoons cardamom pods
3/4 cup sugar
2 cups (approximately) heavy cream
1 cup whole milk
7 large egg yolks

Procedures

Put the coffee beans and cardamom pods in the workbowl of a food processor and pulse on and off several times to roughly chop—not grind—the ingredients. Turn the chopped beans and pods into a medium saucepan and add 1/2 cup of the sugar. Put the pan over medium heat and cook, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon, until the sugar starts to melt. Patience—this will take a few minutes. Once the sugar has melted, continue to cook, still stirring without stop, until the sugar caramelizes—you want the color of the caramel to be deep amber. Now, standing away from the stove so you don’t get splattered, slowly pour in 1 cup of the cream and the milk. Don’t panic—the caramel will immediately seize and harden—it will all smooth out as the liquids warm and the sugar melts again. Bring the mixture to a boil and, when the sugar has melted and everything is smooth again, pull the pan from the heat. Cover the pan (we do this with plastic wrap at the Café to get a good seal) and allow the mixture to infuse 20 minutes.
Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 300°F.
Working in a bowl that’s large enough to hold all the ingredients, whisk the yolks and remaining 1/4 cup sugar together until the mixture is pale and thick. Strain the coffee-cardamom liquid into a measuring cup (discard the beans and pods) and add enough heavy cream to bring the liquid measurement up to 2 cups. Very gradually and very gently—you don’t want to create air bubbles—whisk the liquid into the egg mixture; skim off the top foam, if there is any.
Arrange six 4-ounce espresso or custard cups in a small roasting pan, leaving an even amount of space between the cups, and fill each cup nearly to the top with the custard mixture. (If you liked, line the roasting pan with a double thickness of paper towel or a kitchen towel to steady the cups.) Carefully slide the pan into the oven; then, using a pitcher, fill the roasting pan with enough hot water to come halfway up the sides of the espresso cups. Cover the pan with plastic wrap (don’t worry—it can stand the heat) and poke two holes in two diagonally opposite corners. Bake the custards for about 40 minutes, or until the edges darken ever so slightly and the custards are set but still jiggle a little in the center when you shake them gently.
Remove the pan from the oven and let the custards sit in the water bath for 10 minutes. Peel off the plastic wrap, lift the cups out of the water and cool the custards in the refrigerator. (The pots de creme can be prepared a day ahead and, when cool, covered with plastic wrap and stored in the refrigerator.)
To serve: The pots de creme are at their best at room temperature, so remove them from the refrigerator and keep them on the counter for about 20 minutes before serving.