Sorry I haven't been posting...

Honestly, I'm not actually going to apologize for not posting.  I had a terrible week last week.  I mean really awful.  And the last thing I felt like doing was blogging.  I'm back now.  Unfortunately, this week and next week are going to be insanely busy with school work.  So I won't be baking too much for the next couple weeks.  But I'll hopefully have time to post about what I made for Thanksgiving and, finally, tell you about the bread I made.

Cranberry Pecan Rye Bread, con't

    

Ok, the first chapter of my thesis is officially finished and handed in.  But I'm really exhausted, so you're not going to hear about the bread, but you do get a picture!

Don't worry though, it's Thanksgiving break.  I'll be baking a lot and I'll have at least a little time to post.

Cranberry Pecan Rye Bread

This Sunday I made bread for the first time ever!  On Monday my thesis advisor told me I had to have a draft of the first 25 pages written by this coming Monday.  In other words, I suddenly had no time to write about my bread.  I still don't, but I felt bad that I completely stopped posting without explaining why.  Now that I've told you why, I hope you'll be patient with me.  I should have some time soon to post a least a photo of the bread and I will definitely tell you all about it after I hand in the first draft of the first chapter of my thesis.

Brown Sugar Pound Cake, con't

    

This really was great!  It wasn't muffin-y at all, which, considering it's pound cake, is a good thing!  It was dense and moist and the taste was incredible.  It was sweet, obviously, but it had a really complex flavor because the only sugar was brown sugar.

I sliced one cake into thin slices to bring to my class tomorrow and kept the other.  We've been devouring it with raspberry jam (and I think I'm going to try it with apricot jam for dessert tonight.)  YUM!

Brown Sugar Pound Cake

This is from Martha Stewart's Baking Handbook.  It is not a traditional pound cake, both in that it is made with brown sugar rather than white sugar and in that it is not made with a pound of each of the 4 ingredients.  Traditionally a pound cake (or quatre-quart) is made with a pound each of butter, sugar, eggs and flour, often with baking powder and vanilla extract added.  This was made with much less butter and fewer eggs and some buttermilk for extra fat and liquid.

Interestingly, the batter resembled muffin batter, I'll have to see if the taste and texture are muffin-like as well.  I'll see this later tonight or tomorrow, but the cakes (it makes two pound cakes) are still in the oven and I'm tired so I may wait till tomorrow.  Even if I do have a taste tonight, I will certainly not blog about it until tomorrow...sorry!

Chocolate Coffee Cake, Take 2, con't

    

Here's the photo of the Greek yogurt Chocolate Coffee Cake!  Sorry, it didn't come out great, my camera battery was dying and I didn't want to wait for it to recharge, so I just snapped a few shots.  But let's face it, it's coffee cake, it doesn't need to be a perfect picture.

Chocolate Coffee Cake, Take 2

On Monday I posted a Chocolate Coffee Cake I made ages ago because I was planning on trying out a new coffee cake recipe.  Well, then I got to thinking that I really did want chocolate and I loved the chocolate coffee cake...so I made the chocolate coffee cake again.  But with some major changes.

Ok, maybe 'major' isn't the right word, but they were significant.  I substituted fat free Greek yogurt for the full fat sour cream the recipe calls for.  I did this for 2 reasons.  First, I didn't have sour cream and I didn't feel like going to buy some.  Second, and more importantly, I really wanted to reduce the fat content of the cake and this seemed like the best way to do it.  I don't like fat free sour cream...it just doesn't resemble sour cream in either texture or taste, so I refuse to use it.  I could have used plain fat free yogurt (which I believe is a common substitution for sour cream) but it has such a runny texture and not enough tangyness, in my opinion.  So I used fat free plain Greek yogurt, which has a similar texture to sour cream and it's tangy.  It worked really well, if I do say so myself!  The cake was slightly drier, but not too dry by any means.  Other than that, I really couldn't taste a difference.  (Granted it's been a really long time since I had the normal, sour cream version, so there could have been more of a difference and I just don't know because I don't remember it well enough.)

The other change I made was to leave out the chocolate chips from the topping.  That wasn't because I don't love the chocolate chips, but I figured it'd help with the reducing the fat goal.  I did make 50% extra crumble to replace the chocolate chips and because I love the crumble.

Overall really good! (And all the people I fed this to agree!)  I think I shall have to try this again but substitute egg whites for the whole eggs the recipe calls for.  

P.S. I'll post a photo tomorrow.

Chocolate Coffee Cake

      

This is a recipe from a Williams Sonoma cookbook called Muffins. My mom says that this cookbook, since it is entitled Muffins, should only have muffin recipes.  However, to her dismay, it also has coffee cake and quick bread recipes.  This actually makes perfect sense; they are to muffins as cakes are to cupcakes.  In other words they are like giant muffins.  Quick breads and coffee cakes are not terribly similar, but they are both like different types of muffin recipes.  The quick breads are like the less rich muffins, such as zucchini muffins.  The coffee cakes are along the lines of more desserty, caky muffins.  They are made with similar batters and have similar crumble toppings.

This particular coffee cake is a really nice, moist, flavorful chocolate sour cream cake with a buttery brown sugar and chocolate chip crumble. The crumb is moist and relatively fine.  It has a lovely tanginess from the sour cream and, while clearly sweet, is not overly sweet because the chocolate flavor comes from unsweetened cocoa powder.  Yum!

P.S. I actually made this cake quite a while ago, well before I had this blog.  I'm posting it today because I am planning on making coffee cake tomorrow, so it seemed timely.

Strawberry Coffee Cake Muffins

    

Ages ago I promised I'd make a nectarine version of Martha Stewart's Plum Coffee Cake Muffins.  Well I didn't.  But I did decide to make a strawberry version.  They were good!

I think I like the plum version slightly more, because the plums were more flavorful (though that might be a reflection on the quality of the strawberries more than on the quality of the muffins.)  But I still loved them.  They are moist and tasty and every so slightly crispy on top (from the cinnamon sugar topping).  The fruit doesn't make them soggy and doesn't sink all the way to the bottom, which is excellent.  The trick to the former is to dry off the fruit after you cut it.  The latter is achieved by spooning batter into the muffin cup to fill it about half way, putting the fruit in, then topping it with more batter (rather than folding the fruit into the batter before you scoop it into the muffin cups.)  I do think I filled them a little too high before I put in the fruit, but I didn't mind because I really like the fruit-less parts!  I think I will have to try these again with better strawberries and perhaps some mini chocolate chips!

Quadruple Chocolate Loaf Cake with Vanilla Custard Sauce

I made this last weekend to bring to a, for lack of a better word, dinner party (but is only 4 people a party?).  The cake was from Nigella Lawson's cookbook, Feast.  The custard sauce was from her cookbook entitled How to be a Domestic Goddess.  The cake was excellently moist and chocolaty.  I was going to serve it as a whole cake, but I changed my mind and cut it into cubes.  Because I did that, I really needed to serve it with something.  So, I made the custard sauce, which is just to say creme anglaise.  I just served it with some fresh strawberries.  YUM!

What is great about this is it travels well.  I put the cake cubes in one tupperware and the custard in another.   And brought a pint of strawberries.  Just serve in three separate bowls and let everyone take what they want.

P.S. Sorry, I completely forgot to take a picture!

P.P.S. Don't listen to Nigella about using plastic wrap to line the pan...use parchment instead.  The plastic melted a bit (I know she says it won't, mine did, perhaps the plastic wrap she uses is more heat resistant than mine.)  It was a nightmare to clean off my lovely loaf pan.

Two Berry Chess Pie, con't

    

It looked better in person, but it wasn't terribly photogenic.

As promised, the second installment of Paula's Chess Pie.

Well, it tasted even better cold!  In fact, I'd venture to say that it tastes better than it looks, and I think it looks pretty darn good!

Two Berry Chess Pie

When I saw Paula Deen, she was signing cookbooks.  So I bought a cookbook for her to sign.  This recipe is from it.  I've only ever made one of Paula's recipes (her Dummy Fudge) and it came out well, but, as much as I love Paula, I was a little hesitant.  I shouldn't have been.  It was simple to make and absolutely amazing!!!!

It was quite a straight forward recipe.  I made a graham cracker crust (but I think Paula uses a store bought one), made the very simple custard filling (which doesn't involve cooking, since it gets baked), and baked it.  Then after it was cool (well luke warm, I was impatient) I topped it with berries and a glaze made from melted apricot jam (Paula adds liquor to it, but all I have is Frangelico, which wouldn't have worked well, so I left it out).  It's supposed to be fully cooled before you eat it but I didn't want to wait (nor did my mom or pops).  It was great!  I can't wait to taste it cold.  When I do (probably tomorrow night for dessert, if I can wait that long) I'll let you know how it is.  I'll post a photo then, by the way.

White Chocolate Pistachio Rochers

        

I had left over white chocolate from the white chocolate covered apricots so I made these.  I figured white chocolate would go nicely with pistachios, I was right!  They were really excellent.  The sweetness of the white chocolate paired perfectly with the nutty, exotic pistachios (well, maybe not exotic, but you get the point).  I'd say more, but they were so simple that I feel I should keep this simple.

White Chocolate Covered Apricots

    

These were really very nice.  Overall I'm not a white chocolate fan (I like it, I just don't love it the same way I love dark chocolate) but I thought the sweetness would pair nicely with the tartness of the dried apricots.  I was right!

These were incredibly easy to make.  I melted a small amount of white chocolate (in the microwave, checking every 20 seconds or so).  Then I dipped the apricots in the chocolate taking care to not make the chocolate too thick (but still trying to coat them fully).  I didn't feel like dealing with coating the whole apricot, but instead just coated about 2/3-3/4 of them so I could hold them and dip without getting too messy.  I let them harden on a Silpat, but parchment paper would work just as well.

The white chocolate didn't harden terribly well, so I ended up getting impatient and putting them in the fridge.  It worked!  (And didn't even make them streaky like it can do with untempered dark chocolate.)