Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Loaf

The color of this photo is oddly yellowed and I can't seem to fix it,
so you will have to imagine the rich warmth of the
orange cake studded with deep brown chocolate chips.

I like pumpkin, but I'm a bit picky about it. I don't like pumpkin pie or other overly sweet applications. In fact I tend to only eat pumpkin in savory dishes, such as pumpkin soup or pumpkin risotto--yum! I digress. I happened to have a few cans of pumpkin purée in the back of the cupboard and I decided it was high time I used them--plus I always like making pumpkin recipes for Halloween and I'll be traveling on the day so I figured I'd do it early. I found a recipe for chocolate chip laden pumpkin loaves in the original Baked cookbook and decided that chocolate was bound to improve on the pumpkin. I was right! (I suppose it was their idea first, so they were right...but I take credit for choosing to make the recipe!)

The loaves were delicious! The pumpkin wasn't overwhelming, nor were the spices (I find many pumpkin dishes tend to use far too much cinnamon and nutmeg). The bittersweet chocolate cut the sweetness of the loaves and actually enhanced the pumpkin flavor. The were dense and moist but still tender and the chips added some texture. Definitely my favorite pumpkin dessert recipe!

Blackberry Muffins

These are pretty straight forward. They a a simple recipe from Williams-Sonoma's Muffins cookbook that produces the expected delicious result. They are a moist (but not damp) muffin with a tender crumb. The blackberries I used were tart, but not overly so and balanced the sweetness of the muffin nicely. My only complaint is that the streusel on top was a bit on the light side, I'd add extra next time. Nothing terribly exciting here, but generally I think muffins (especially fruit ones) shouldn't be too exciting; if you make them flashy they cease to be the simple, homey, comfort food I think of them to be. That said, you don't want to be stuck in the doldrums either. Happily, the muffin, which was relatively plain and could have been a bit blah, was spruced up by the sizable pieces of fresh blackberries--in contrast to the usual small dots of blueberries--which certainly kept the muffins from being boring.

 

Lemon Poppy Seed Scones

I love lemon poppy seed muffins and I love scones, so when I found a recipe for lemon poppy seed scones in Alice's cookbook I was very happy. These aren't quite as perfect as I would have hoped--the texture was a little off. They weren't as light and flakey as I like scones to be; in fact they were slightly dense. The flavor was very nice though, with a delicate lemon flavor. They were quick enough to make and certainly went fast!

Sweet Constructions

All the competitors, the guest judges,
and the chefs who helped the team and organized the event
(photo credit to ?)

Quite a while ago the FCI held a pastry showpiece competition. Teams of four had to create a multi-media showpiece and petit four/bonbon, all the proposals were judged and our teams advanced to the finals. For the finals each team created the showpiece and 24 pieces of their petit four. I was on one of the teams!

Our showpiece!

My team, Team Composition, created a cello out of chocolate, held up on a piece of pastillage painted to look like composition paper, perched on a poured sugar base, with pulled sugar roses. Our petit four was a very delicate lemon curd tart with blueberries.

Our petits fours (photo credit?)

Our competition was a team made up of our classmates, a team from a Level 2 class, and a team of just graduated students. All of the teams made beautiful showpieces and delicious petits fours.

We came in second (according to one of the judges, a very close second) to our classmates. If we were going to lose, I'm glad it was to them!

The winning showpiece: congrats Erin, Emma, Rozette, and Dayana!

Anyway, now that you know what happened let me tell you a bit about our showpiece. With help from Chef Michael we designed a 3-D, hollow body cello--I will take credit for the many drafts of to scale sketches and the eventual diagrams and templates.

The sketch we submitted.
As you can see we made some changes to the design,
but the fundamentals remained the same.

The body is made of chocolate sprayed with chocolate spray to give it some texture (impressive work, Sam). The stylized neck and end pin are made of unsweetened chocolate that was rubbed with a bit of oil to give it shine. The strings are made of spaghetti brushed with gold luster dust. It is supported by a beautifully thin pastillage stand and embellished with pastillage music notes (great job, Kedby). The base is made of 3 graduated poured sugar tear drops died with just a tiny drop of green to give it the appearance of glass. The roses are expertly pulled sugar (beautiful, Caitlyn). The petits fours were made by yours truly and were delicious if I do say so myself. In the end the judges thought we should have made a bonbon--we almost did but decided to show off different skills since we figured the showpiece demonstrated our chocolate work well enough. Ah well, you never know what judges will think. Even though we did lose, I'm really proud of our showpiece and petit four. We did great work under significant restraints. And it's a bit of a blessing in disguise because the prize is to make a giant version, which seems like a bit more work than prize. Regardless, I competed in probably my only pastry competition ever (I can't imagine when I'd do another one) and am proud of the result--I think that's a win!

Another picture of our showpiece

Chocolate Cream Cheese Snacking Cookies

These are some of my favorite cookies ever! They are not too sweet, just a tiny bit tangy (from the cream cheese), and quite chocolaty--what could be bad about that? The texture was great too: soft and chewy, but not doughy or under baked. Everyone I gave these to loved them, which was a shame really because I then felt obligated to let them have more, which meant fewer for me. Seriously, these were great as a dessert and, unfortunately, they lived up to their name--given to them by the Baked guys in their newest cookbook, Baked Essentials--and were the perfect snacking cookie.

Pumpkin and Cranberry Cookies

Pumpkin cranberry cookies from Milk and Cookies--isn't that a great name for a bakery (and their cookbook)? Anyway, these cookies were the perfect fall treat. They were simple to make and incredibly delicious. The cranberries added a little tartness and a great texture to the cakey cookie. If you sandwiched these together with cream I think they'd make an excellent whoopie pie; they just have that cakey, soft-yet-dense texture of whoopie pie cookies. In any case, they make a lovely afternoon snack cookie as they are not overly sweet and they are an excellent dunking texture.

Two Chocolate Caramel Candies

During that class I forgot to post about we made two different caramels. The first was a light, chewy-but-soft caramel with slivered almonds mixed in. They remind me a bit of nougatine (though not nearly so brittle). Since it was a chocolate lesson, we dipped the nutty caramel cubes in tempered chocolate, just to coat the bottoms. They were delicious, but a little too sweet for my taste. I prefer a darker and slightly chewer caramel.

Happily, that's exactly what the second caramel was. It was a layer of rich, dark, chewy, sticky, caramely goodness sandwiched between thin layers of bittersweet chocolate. It's a good thing they make us leave some of our candies for events/the restaurant. If I'd kept it all I would have eaten pounds of it! (As it was, I ate quite a bit.)

Branchlii

This photo came out quite badly,
but you get the point.

Branchii are so called because they look like branches. That's an apt descriptions on of the looappearence of these candies, but not at all representative of their taste. They are far too delicious for their name. Basically, they are firm gianduja chocolate ganache piped into rods, allowed to harden, and then rolled in tempered chocolate and cacao nibs. They are akin to an elongated hazenut truffle, yum!

Cherry Cordials

At least they look pretty!

Ages ago, when I was still in culinary school (okay, so maybe not ages ago, but it's been a while) we made a bunch of chocolates in one lesson and I forgot to post them. Oops! Anyway, here is the first of the four candies:

Cherry cordials. Hmm. First let me say these are not easy to make. They require the same patience and skill as any of the chocolate ganache filled bonbons since they have the same outer shell. However the filling is sticky and runny and very difficult to work with. You also have to wait a week or two before you eat them to let the liquid center fully disolve the cloudy fondant. Now is when I would usually say that they are worth the trouble and the wait; well they aren't. I don't like cherry cordials. These are some of the best I've had, but I've only had a few and I haven't really liked any of them. I'm not a huge fan of cherry liqueur, candied cherries (I do love the fresh ones), or very sugary sweets--you can see why I wouldn't like these. Ah well, at least it was one thing I didn't eat, I gained enough weight over the course of the 9 month program without these!

Types of Cake

I thought it was time to impart a little more information that I learned at culinary school. Today, a briefing about different types of cakes.

There are four main types and three other, slightly less main, varieties:

1. Whole egg foam
2. Separated egg
3. Creamed butter
4. Liquid fat
5. High ratio
6. Hybrid
7. Flourless

Whole egg foam cakes use whole egg foams (like a pâte a bombe) as the main fat and form of leavening. The most common whole egg foam cake is a genoise. These tend to be light and a bit on the dry side (good for soaking).

Separated egg foam cakes, like whole egg foam cakes, use egg foam to leaven the cake. However, as the name suggests the egg yokes and whites are separated. Sometimes both the whites and yokes are used, as in biscuit à la cuillère (ladyfingers), while other times just the whites are used (typically as a meringue), as in an angel food cake. These tend to be very light cakes.

Creamed butter cakes, surprisingly, use creamed butter as the main fat and leavening ingredient. A pound cake is a good example of a creamed butter cake. Also many common white cakes are made with creamed butter. They tend to be quite moist and sweet.

Liquid fat cakes use liquid fats such as vegetable oil or sour cream as the main fat in the cake. These are typically very moist and tender. Carrot cake, the Guinness chocolate cake I have made so often, cake and chiffon cakes (like the one I made for my final exam) are made with liquid fat.

High ratio cakes tend to be made with liquid fats and/or creamed butter. They have an exceptionally high ratio of sugar to flour. They are very moist cakes with a tender dense crumb. This is a less common mixing method than the first four, but produces a delicious cake like the high ratio white cake.

A hybrid cake is a cake that use two or more mixing methods. For example the olive oil cakes have a creamed butter base with liquid fat (olive oil) added in. The white cake I used for my wedding cake and devil's food cake are also hybrid cakes.

Flourless cakes are, as the name suggests, cakes made without flour. Flourless chocolate cakes and cheesecakes are the most common examples.

These types are not set in stone, but by knowing the different methods and the types of cakes they produce will help you look at a recipe and decide to make it or not. Also, knowing an egg foam cake is light and dryer than a liquid fat cake also tells you that the former will not last quite as long and will lend itself to different applications than the latter. I hope this sheds some light on cake types and mixing methods. Happy baking!