Baked Sunday Mornings: Double-Chocolate Loaf with Peanut Butter Cream Cheese Spread

This week's selection for BAKED Sunday Mornings seemed like it should be an easy assignment: a chocolate quickbread loaf -- made with both cocoa and chocolate chips -- served with a peanut butter cream cheese spread.  Making the loaf only requires putting dry ingredients (dark brown sugar, cocoa powder, flour, granulated sugar, baking soda, baking powder, and salt) into a mixing bowl, adding wet ingredients (eggs, egg yolk, buttermilk, oil, vanilla) while the mixer is running, and then stirring in dark chocolate chunks.  The resulting batter is beautifully thick and glossy.

The recipe instructs you use a 9-inch by 5-inch loaf pan.  I own many loaf pans in various sizes, but I don't happen to have any that are precisely that size.  The first time I tried this recipe, I used 8.5-inch by 4.5 inch pans.  The resulting loaves were overdone on the outside, and dense and dry on the inside, crumbling apart as they were sliced.  I attributed the problem to the fact that my slightly smaller pans were likely too full (thus requiring more baking time), in combination with the dark non-stick interior of my pans (resulting in the crust becoming overbaked).  In addition, I made the loaves with Callebaut 70.4% chips, and the bread was so chocolatey that it practically hit you over the head with chocolate flavor.  The bread was passable with the peanut butter cream cheese spread, but I was unhappy with the result.  I decided I had to try the recipe again.

The second time I made the bread, I used 60.3% Callebaut chocolate chips, and I baked the bread in a 10-inch by 5-inch loaf pan with a light-colored nonstick interior (a Williams-Sonoma Goldtouch pan).  The results were much better.  While the bread was still very dense, I was at least able to cut through it cleanly to make some nice-looking slices that stayed intact.

Even using 60.3% chips, the chocolate flavor in this loaf was still incredibly intense. While I love chocolate as much as the next person and normally think that more chocolate is better, I found that the dense texture of the bread in conjunction with the heavy-handed one-note chocolate flavor was just too much.  I didn't particularly enjoy the bread eaten alone.  However, smeared with a layer of peanut butter cream cheese, it was a completely different experience.  I found that the peanut butter spread (made from cream cheese, creamy peanut butter, and granulated sugar) completely balanced out the texture and flavor of the chocolate loaf.  The smooth, creamy, slightly tangy spread was just delicious and I kept thinking how it would make an excellent filling for a chocolate sandwich cookie.  It would also be great on a toasted bagel, or heck, just about anything I can think of.

I also made a batch of bread into four mini-loaves.  While these looked adorable, they were also a little overbaked on the outside -- my mini loaf pans also have dark non-stick finish inside.  In the future, I think I would either line my dark-colored pans with parchment to make this recipe, or perhaps turn down the oven 25 degrees.

Even though this recipe is very easy to make, it's not something I imagine I will make often.  But I definitely intend to find some other uses for the peanut butter cream cheese spread!

Recipe: "Double-Chocolate Loaf with Peanut Butter Cream Cheese Spread" from Baked Explorations: Classic American Desserts Reinvented, by Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito, recipe available here at BAKED Sunday Mornings.

Chewy Coconut-Pecan Bliss: Paradise Bars

Back in September, the Los Angeles Times featured a recipe for "Paradise Bars" from San Diego Bakery Bread & Cie in its Culinary S.O.S. column.  While I printed out a copy of the recipe with the idea that I would get to it eventually, I wasn't in any particular rush.  I will admit that I can be a bit superficial when it comes to desserts, and I just didn't think that the picture accompanying the recipe looked all that appealing.  But when I saw recently that the LA Times had included Paradise Bars in its list of the newspaper's top 10 recipes for all of 2010, I concluded that I had better move the recipe to the top of my to-bake list.

Plus, the recipe is fairly easy.  You make a crust from softened butter, brown sugar, and flour, press it into the bottom of a 9-inch by 13-inch pan, and bake it until golden.  Once the crust is cool, you pour on a topping made from brown sugar, vanilla, eggs, flour, baking powder, salt, pecans, and unsweetened coconut, and bake the bars until they're set.  The top of the finished bars is fairly unattractive: a monochromatic dark brown crust dotted with tiny air bubbles.

The bars are a little more interesting looking after they're sliced to reveal the interior of coconut and pecans.  When I took my first bite, I was immediately reminded of a Girl Scouts Samoa cookie.  While these bars differ quite a bit from the Samoa (which is a cookie covered in caramel, toasted coconut, and chocolate drizzle), the chewy texture of the Paradise Bars and the distinctive bite of the dried coconut were similar.  These sweet and caramel-y bars are remarkably chewy on top (although quite crisp along the edges of the pan), with a firm crust on the bottom.  I am delighted to have discovered this unusual and marvelous treat!

Recipe: "Paradise Bars" from Bread & Cie, printed in the September 9, 2010 Los Angeles Times.

Bake and Frost a Cake in an Hour!: Coca-Cola Cake

Last night I was looking for a recipe that wouldn't require a lot of time, and I stumbled across a recipe for "Coca-Cola Cake" from Lisa Yockelson's ChocolateChocolate.  You can make this cake -- from start to frosted finish -- in less than an hour, which is pretty remarkable.  Fortunately, we also happened to have a few cans of Coke left over from our holiday party, and a half-full carton of buttermilk in the fridge (left over from my farm stand buttermilk doughnuts), so I even had all of the recipe ingredients on hand.

To make this cake, you whisk some buttermilk and baking soda together and set it aside.  Then you bring a mixture of Coca-Cola, cocoa powder, and butter to a boil on the stove.  Meanwhile, you put flour, sugar, and salt into a bowl, pour over the hot Coca-Cola mixture, and mix until combined, followed by eggs, vanilla, and the buttermilk-baking soda mixture.  The resulting batter is extremely thin, probably the thinnest cake batter I have ever worked with (to the point where I was seriously questioning whether it could possibly really turn into a cake).  You pour the batter into a 9-inch by 13-inch pan, and bake the cake at 400 degrees for 20 minutes.

While the cake is hot (only 5 minutes out of the oven), you frost it with a mixture of melted butter and chocolate, powdered sugar, vanilla, and Coca-Cola.  The frosting melts and slides around when you put it on the hot cake, but firms up into a smooth, shiny glaze as it cools.

Since you have to frost this cake while it is hot, you have to frost it while it is still in the pan.  My cake was domed in the center, and the frosting tended to slide to the lower outside perimeter of the cake.  Also, after the frosted cake was cool, I pulled it out of the pan (I had lined my pan with parchment), and the cake flexed a bit, causing some cracks in the otherwise smooth surface of the frosting (as you can see in the picture above).  After I sliced the cake, I noticed random air pockets throughout it -- I'm not quite sure what caused those. 

This cake looks like an ordinary chocolate cake, but it definitely doesn't taste like one.  The cake doesn't contain that much chocolate (1/4 cup of cocoa powder in the cake and 2 ounces of chocolate in the frosting), and it's difficult for me to describe the precise flavor.  Not exactly like drinking a Coke, but this cake definitely has a sweet, caramel-y extra something.  It was also extremely moist.  I liked the consistency of the thin layer of frosting, and the frosting flavor was very complementary to the cake; both were very sweet.  I thought this cake was tasty, but nothing spectacular.  However, I received quite a few rave reviews on this cake from others, so I would definitely be happy to make it again.

Recipe: "Coca-Cola Cake" from ChocolateChocolate by Lisa Yockelson, recipe available here (scroll down a few questions, to the recipe request from "Cake lover").

So Cute! So Tasty!: Blueberry Pocket Pies

A few weeks ago, I bought a lattice pocket pie mold from Williams-Sonoma that was on sale (marked down from $10 to $5).  These little clamshell-shaped plastic molds include cutters to form the bottom and top crusts of a miniature pie, and then you are supposed to use the mold to crimp the top and bottom crusts together around a filling of your choosing.  Williams Sonoma has offered pocket pie molds in a variety of shapes (heart, star, apple, pumpkin), but I think that the lattice top is the most versatile.  I hardly ever make pies, but the prospect of being able to make adorable little pies with lattice tops was too much to resist.

The pie mold came in a box with a crust recipe on the back (the recipe is also available on the Williams-Sonoma website here and here), which is made in the food processor from flour, sugar, salt, butter, and ice water.  You chill the dough in the fridge, roll it out, and then use the mold to cut out the fluted top and bottom crusts.  I didn't have any trouble rolling out the dough or cutting the crusts, but I ran into a lot of problems trying to use the mold to crimp the top and bottom crusts together.  First, I found that the dough stuck to the mold.  Also, it was difficult to get the fluted crusts to line up exactly before crimping, and the pies looked like a bit of a mess.  Finally, I figured out that it was easier just to crimp the crusts together by hand (well, I used the tines of a fork), and there was no need to go through the hassle of using the mold for this step.  

I made a blueberry pie filling (cooking blueberries with sugar and lime juice until the berries released their juices; straining out the juice, reducing it and thickening it with cornstarch; then finally reuniting the cooked berries with the thickened juices).  After filling the pies and crimping them shut, I froze them for half an hour, brushed them with egg wash, and sprinkled coarse sugar on top.  Before I put them in the oven, they looked like this:

These pies bake pretty quickly (in a little over 20 minutes), and came out of the oven beautifully golden brown.  While some of the blueberry juice did run out of the lattice top, I still thought that the pies were beautiful. 

I was very pleased with the way these little pies turned out.  The crust was tender and buttery, and it was not soggy at all.  Also, the pies were easy to handle -- I had expected that the lattice tops would make them fragile, but they were sturdy and stackable.  Plus, something about the fact that they were so dang adorable just made them all the more enjoyable.  I hope to make many more varieties of cute fruit pies with these molds in the future!

Recipe: Pocket pie crust recipe from Williams-Sonoma, available here and here.

Baked Sunday Mornings: Farm Stand Buttermilk Doughnuts

When I saw that farm stand buttermilk doughnuts were on the schedule for the Baked Sunday Mornings bake along, my initial reaction was that I would have to sit it out for this assignment; I have an irrational fear of deep frying.  Not of eating fried food, of course -- just making it myself.  Something about the need to use and dispose of so much oil has always discouraged me from frying.  In fact, I have never actually deep fried anything before in my entire life.  But then I realized that this was a good opportunity to expand my cooking horizons, and so I resolved to make fried doughnuts.  

The dough is not difficult to make; you just stir together dry ingredients (flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, salt, nutmeg, and cinnamon), and then mix in wet ingredients (eggs, buttermilk, sour cream, and melted butter).  You pat out the resulting dough, cut it into doughnut shapes, and chill the doughnuts before frying.  I found this dough to be extremely sticky and I had to use a lot of flour to be able to cut it into doughnut shapes that I could actually lift off of my work surface; I also had to spray my doughnut cutter with nonstick spray to get the doughnuts to release.  After they were chilled, they were quite easy to handle and fry.  I used a large Le Creuset dutch oven and a candy thermometer for frying, which worked out just fine -- although I did have to struggle a bit to maintain a consistent frying temperature.

The doughnuts were phenomenal while they were still warm; I have never had the opportunity to break open a doughnut so fresh out of the fryer that I could see wisps of steam escape.  While the doughnuts looked quite dark on the outside, the exterior crust was intensely flavorful and the best part of the doughnut.  The interior was light and tender.  The doughnuts were perfectly delicious plain, and while there is nutmeg and cinnamon in the batter, I would say you don't notice them all that much in the finished product.  I made the chocolate dip, the vanilla glaze, and the cinnamon sugar so that I could try all three toppings.  I used extra bittersweet chocolate for the chocolate dip, and is was thick and rich.   The vanilla glaze was thin and translucent, and I thought that it was overly sweet -- but when paired with toasted unsweetened coconut, it was perfect.  The cinnamon sugar was, unsurprisingly, delicious.  I loved them all.

One of my favorite aspects of this doughnut-making project was the fringe benefit of getting doughnut holes.  While the holes looked a little like lopsided hockey pucks when I pulled them out of the doughnut cutter, they came out of the fryer as perfectly round spheres.  I also liked the fact that the doughnut holes had a high ratio of the delicious outside crust to interior. 

The only downside to these doughnuts is that they do indeed have to be eaten warm; much like the monkey bubble bread from last month, their half life of optimum tastiness is tragically short.  But, it is oh so good while it lasts!

Recipe: "Farm Stand Buttermilk Doughnuts," from Baked Explorations: Classic American Desserts Reinvented by Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito, recipe available here at BAKED Sunday Mornings.

A Birthday Surprise: Bourbon Balls and Hazelnut Brownies

Today at the office, we had a little surprise birthday party for one of my colleagues.  It didn't take me long to decide what I wanted to make for the occasion.  Our birthday boy spent a large part of his childhood in Kentucky and is a fan of bourbon, so bourbon balls were an obvious choice.  Plus, a recipe for bourbon balls made it into the top ten list from the Los Angeles Times' Holiday Cookie Bake-Off last month, so I was fairly confident that they would be pretty yummy.

The bourbon ball recipe is not difficult; no baking is required.  I just ran pecans and graham crackers through the food processor, added powdered sugar, and then stirred in a mixture of melted chocolate, corn syrup, and bourbon.  You chill the mixture briefly before forming it into balls and rolling the balls in granulated sugar.  That's it.   

I got exactly four dozen bourbon balls from the recipe (using a #60 scoop to measure out the dough), so each individual ball only contained 1/12 ounce of bourbon.  Still, the finished product had a surprisingly strong bourbon taste.  Tom took one bite, and without knowing that the recipe was from the LA Times holiday bake off, his immediate reaction was that the flavor reminded him of the holidays.  The texture is a little bit like raw cookie dough -- soft, but the batter holds its shape well.  Rolling the balls in sugar gives each bite a pleasing little crunch.  Since I'm not a fan of bourbon, I didn't really care for these, but the birthday boy and other folks enjoyed them quite a bit, so I'll count them as a success. 

I felt the bourbon balls were a bit of a cop out, though (since they didn't even require the use of the oven!) and so I also wanted to make another dessert for the party.  I had some extra hazelnuts on hand, and so I decided to try a Bobby Flay recipe for Chocolate Hazelnut Brownies with Milk Chocolate Frosting.

The brownie recipe is pretty much just a basic brownie, with the addition of chopped toasted hazelnuts and Frangelico.  I debated whether I should even make the frosting.  Generally speaking, I think that if a brownie is good, then any frosting is just gratuitous; if a brownie actually needs frosting to taste good, then there is something wrong with it.  But I thought what the heck, I'd give the frosting a try.  This frosting recipe is basically a milk chocolate ganache that also includes a small amount of cocoa powder and Frangelico.

When I tasted the finished brownies, all of my skepticism faded away.  These brownies are absolutely delicious.  The brownie itself is moist and moderately fudgy, with lots of crunchy hazelnut in every bite.  The frosting is creamy and completely complementary to the brownie --it doesn't seem like a separate component that was just slapped on, but an integral part of the whole.  A lovely hazelnut treat!  I may have just become a brownie + frosting believer!

Recipes:

• "Bourbon Balls," submitted by Kate Wheeler, printed in the December 16, 2010 Los Angeles Times. 
• "Chocolate Hazelnut Brownies with Milk Chocolate Frosting," by Bobby Flay.

The Easy Way to Emulate a Childhood Classic: Peanut Butter and Jelly Bars

It's funny -- I never ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches as a child, but as an adult, PB&J is one of my favorite snacks.  I am fond of Marcel Desaulniers' chocolate peanut butter and jelly sandwich cookies both for their PB&J flavor as well as their novelty, but they are a huge pain to make.  They require an entire afternoon of mixing, shaping, chilling, cutting, and baking white chocolate bread slices complete with a brown chocolate crust.  When I saw that Baked Explorations included a recipe for peanut butter and jelly bars that looked like a lot less work, I was eager to give them a try.

These bars are comprised of a crust topped with layers of peanut butter, fruit preserves, and an oatmeal crumble.  Having just made the almond joy tart from Baked Explorations a couple of days ago, the crust recipe for these bars was very familiar -- the two crusts are nearly identical, except that the almond joy tart crust includes two tablespoons less flour and includes 1/4 cup of almonds.  Like the tart crust, the crust for these bars is also made in the food processor and chilled before being rolling out and blind baked.  Even though I weighed down my crust with baking weights, there was some shrinkage (probably about 1/4 inch) all the way around the edges of my 9-inch by 13-inch pan.  In addition, the corners of my crust started getting quite dark while the center was still fairly pale.  I didn't want to burn the corners, so I took the crust out of the oven while the center was still uncolored.

After the crust cools, you spread on a peanut butter layer made from butter, peanut butter (I used half smooth and half chunky), powdered sugar, and vanilla. The peanut butter filling was light and fluffy and tasted a lot like the inside of a Nutter Butter cookie.  There was a lot of filling, and I was surprised at how tall the peanut butter layer was when I spread it on the crust.  You are supposed to spread two heaping cups of preserves on top of the peanut butter.  I used two 10-oz. jars of Dickinson's seedless boysenberry preserves, which is about 1 and 3/4 cup, so I was a little short.  The bars are finished off with a crumb topping made from flour, salt, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, dark brown sugar, rolled oats, and butter.  After scattering the crumb topping over the preserves, you pop the bars back in the oven until the topping is browned.

These bars are slightly messy to cut, even after being chilled.  The jelly layer isn't really solid, but the crumble layer is quite firm.  I found that using a sharp serrated knife to gently saw through the crumble topping was the best way to get clean cuts.  As you can see in the picture above, the crust was still quite pale.  However, it was browned on the bottom, and it was fully cooked.  The crust is buttery and crisp, and with the crunchy crumble on top, these bars do somewhat resemble a sandwich of sorts.

I thought that the peanut butter flavor was definitely predominant, but the bars had a distinctly tart-sweet fruity finish from the preserves, and with the texture of the crust and crumble, there is a lot going on in every bite.  The bar is reminiscent of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, in the best possible way.  I thought that they were delicious!

Recipe: "Peanut Butter and Jelly Bars" from Baked Explorations: Classic American Desserts Reinvented, by Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito.

Baked Sunday Mornings: Almond Joy Tart

I know it looks like I haven't been baking much lately (or at least my mother pointed out to me that I haven't posted to my blog in a while), but I had to take a little break after baking all-out for three days straight before our holiday party two weeks ago.  (Overall party baking total: 800 cookies and brownies, six dozen mini goat cheese souffles, and one 9-inch red velvet cake.  People think I'm kidding when I say that I plan for baked goods consumption of 10 items per party guest, but I'm dead serious!)  After some rest and relaxation and a week's vacation on the west coast, I was ready to start baking again. 

And just in time to make the Almond Joy Tart as part of the Baked Sunday Mornings bake along!  I am a huge fan of both coconut and almonds, and I happen to love both Almond Joy and Mounds candy bars.  However, I rarely bake with coconut because in my experience, people are pretty much evenly divided into the coconut-loving and coconut-hating camps -- I have a hard time thinking of a more divisive baking ingredient. 

The tart crust was fairly easy to make.  You mix the crust ingredients together in the food processor, and chill the tart dough before rolling it out.  As the recipe warned, the dough was very sticky and I did have to use a lot of flour to roll it out.  However, there was plenty of dough to go around (my tart pans are 4.75" in diameter and I had a lot of dough leftover after rolling out six crusts), and I was able to get six very nice looking tart crusts (pictured below, before baking).  I used unblanched almonds, so you can see the dark bits of almond skin in the crusts.  You freeze the crusts before blind baking them.

The filling is surprisingly simple, containing only four ingredients.  You make a ganache with white chocolate and cream, and chill it overnight.  The next day, you whip the ganache until it holds soft peaks, and then fold in dried unsweetened coconut and rum (I have never been a fan of rum, so I left it out).  This filling is delicious on its own, and I would happily eat through a bowl of it with a spoon.  You can't really taste the white chocolate -- but the filling is luscious and creamy, and yet light and fluffy, with a wonderful texture from the dried coconut. 

The chocolate layer on top is simply a chocolate ganache made with heavy cream and a mixture of bittersweet and milk chocolates.  I topped my tarts with some toasted slivered almonds.  I had quite a bit of filling and chocolate topping left over.  If I had thought to make a seventh tart crust with the leftover tart dough, I definitely would have had enough filling and topping to make at least one additional tart.

 

I thought this tart was just lovely.  The crust was thin and crisp, although I couldn't really taste the almond flavor from the crust (there are only 1/4 cup of almonds total in the crust recipe, so there is barely any almond in any individual bite of crust).  Also, the chocolate flavor was not very pronounced -- in the future, I might make the chocolate layer with bittersweet chocolate only for a little more chocolate zing.  (Also, if I had used taller tart molds, I would have been able to pile on more chocolate topping -- but my tarts were pretty shallow.)  The bites where I got a piece of crunchy toasted almond garnish were my favorite -- and the most reminiscent of an actual Almond Joy bar.  The tart overall is surprisingly light and not too sweet. 

If I had to find something to criticize, it's that calling this dessert an "Almond Joy Tart" is a misnomer, because it doesn't really evoke the candy bar -- it's all coconut with just the faintest hint of chocolate and almond.  But when I gave it to people who like coconut, they didn't seem to mind -- and if you count yourself as one of the coconut-loving camp, this tart would be an excellent way to get your fix!

Recipe: "Almond Joy Tart" from Baked Explorations: Classic American Desserts Reinvented, by Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito, recipe available here at BAKED Sunday Mornings.