Tarts Today, Tarts Tomorrow

Tarts are out of this world.


The first tart is a chocolate caramel barquette (which is French for small ship) with blackberries.


Then we have a lemon curd and cream cheese tartlet with dark chocolate drizzle and mint leaf.


And finally a cheesecake tartlet with blueberries.


Mmmm.... Lifeboat.

Won't Want for Cookies

I'll spare you the poetry that I could write about the dozens of cookies we made on Monday. Seriously, I can't stop listening to Hzards of Love by the Decemberists. I listen to it on my ipod. I listen to it in my car. And I'm listening to it in my head right now with no auditory device.


So I have dozens and dozens of cookies and brownies. Here we have blondies, which are brownies with no chocolate, sugar cookies, butter cookies, brownies, and the ever popular chocolate chip cookies. There were gingersnaps, but they had a molasses incident.


The blondies have toffee in them, and I think they are my favorite.


The sugar cookies are really hard. And they need icing.


The butter cookies melted a little because the oven was too low (how does that happen?) But they are delicious, with some almonds, a pistachio and a dried cherry.


The brownie is also good, but has nuts. Yuck.



The chocolate chip cookie also has nuts, but they're small enough that I don't mind. And the recipe called for shortening instead of butter. When I asked why, it's because you don't want the butter flavor to overpower what you're making. Plus, shortening is cheaper.
So there you go, the cookie round up. There were 4 dozen chocolate chips, 2 dozen brownies, 2 dozen blondies, 2 dozen sugar, and a dozen butter. 11 dozen cookies divided by 4 members of my group. Ok, thats just over 30 cookies for me. It looks like a lot more than that. But come to our house if you're hungry.

Sourdough 911

I bought a sourdough starter from King Arthur Flour in December. It came in a little jar that you have to transfer to a big container and feed every week. Which I did, for two weeks then promptly forgot. The instructions have a section called "Resuscitating a neglected starter."
It says a neglected starter will have a liquid on top and smell. Yup, that's my starter.


In order to save it, you drain the liquid, throw everything but a cup of starter away. Then try feeding it again with flour and water. If it's still alive, it will start to bubble after a few hours. I started this around noon.


So I wait. 5 pm, nothing.


11 pm, nothing.


8 am, nothing.

5 pm, It's alive!



So, either I'm a brilliant sourdough paramedic, or I'm growing a totally different yeast now.

Speculaas and Flan

Speculaas are spicy "biscuits" that you, the layperson, might call Windmill cookies. My group made these in an hour and a half, even though they are supposed to be refrigerated overnight. We ended up with cookies on the soft side, probably because the dough was overworked and gluten formed, or we didn't cook them long enough. I prefer soft cookies, but I know I have to learn the traditional methods before I start experimenting.


On Thursday we made flahn, which is a pastry crust filled with custard. We made one with traditional fruit topping, and another with tropical fruit.


These were taken after my half hour car ride home, but a close up shows how delicious they taste, I mean how beautiful they were. The custard was SO good. I thought I almost curdled it during cooking, but I got it off the stove and into an ice bath just in time. AND the crust turned out perfect. No extra gluten day two.


From now on I'm taking my camera to class with me. I wish I could show you more than just a quarter of the flan. But, there were other students taking pictures, so I won't feel like an idiot when I pull the camera out in the middle of class.

Listen to the teacher

Tonight was my first Intro to Baking Class. DO NOT measure dry stuff with a wet mixing cup, especially when the professor explains this in the beginning of class. The measure is slightly off, making the batter runnier. Embarrassing. Here's what I brought home:


So class runs kind of like Top Chef, without the old heave-ho the end. We had 5 quick bread recipes to bake between a group of 4, so we split them up. We moved as fast as possible, running for ingredients and pans because there wasn't enough room to keep it all at our table. Then we plated the food, and it was critiqued by the Chef. So cool! And yes, I did measure the flour wrong on one of the muffins, and the needed to be cooked longer. So here's how it all looked!



Lemon poppy seed muffins, blueberry muffins with strudel topping, pumpkin cream cheese bread, cheesy biscuits, and sour cream coffee cake. The critique went well. The lemon muffins were mixed a little too much and air tunneled from the bottom to the top. Also, I found out why some cakes have a meringue mixed in the batter (like the cupcakes we made a couple of weeks ago). It's a technique that allows the batter to rise without using chemical leavening like baking powder and soda. The air whipped into the eggs expands when it gets hot, causing the cake to rise. I'm tired and my body hurts. Good night!

Healthy Treats

One of my favorite recipes came from one of Dusty's Grandma's friends in a chain mail recipe exchange.


Apple Dumplings

Sauce
2 c sugar
2 c water
1/4 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 c butter
1,4 tsp. nutmeg

Pastry
2 c flour
1 tsp salt
2 tsp baking powder
3/4 c shortening
1/2 c milk

6 apples, peeled and sliced

Combine ingredients for sauce and cook 5 minuts.
Sift flour, salt, & baking powder. Cut in shortening. Add milk all at once and stir until flour is moistened. Divide dough in half. Roll out to cover bottom of 9 x 13 pan. Add apples and sauce. Roll out remaining dough and cover apples.
Bake for 35 minutes at 375.

So you might notice that the recipe called for 6 apples, and I have at least 12. I'm not usually a "go big or go home" kind of person, but I had twice the required apples for several reasons.

1. Some of the apples were small.
2. I had to use them up before they went bad.
3. Dusty likes to steal them before they make it into the pan. I even tried to take a picture of him when he took a pre-baked bite, but he wouldn't let me.


I am glad I had his help to peel and chop the apples while I made the sauce and the pastry.


But from my last post, you all know that I don't keep shortening in the house. My Cook it Right substitutions book says you can substitute butter 1 for 1, so that's what I do. It's really tasty crust. The first few times I made this, I followed the recipe exactly. But the last two, I tried not to put the crust on the bottom. What's the point? It gets soggy. BUT both times the sauce ends up too watery. I think you need the bottom crust. Or less apples. They might be the water culprit. Let me know if you try it.


See all the water at the bottom of the pan? Shouldn't be there. BUT it wasn't nearly the disaster that my Surprise Cake was.


I tried the silicone pans, put them on a baking sheet. Stupid baking sheet warped when it got hot, and made the cakes lopsided. I heard the stupid thing "pop," why didn't I think of it? Then I was too impatient to let the cake cool, so it was a mess after I iced it. I did the same thing for my sister's FunFetti birthday cake a few years ago. I wish I had a picture of that beautiful thing. Thank god class starts Monday!


And now for the healthy "Surprise" ingredient!

I like my cake batter like I like my whisky: Stiff but not dry

Andrea, Jennifer and Iris came over to have our first cake decorating "class." I want to show you how cute the cupcakes turned out before I tell the tale of the 4 hour cupcake-a-thon.


I bought the Wilton Cake Decorating books, which I'm sure are a great tool if you follow the directions. But the book's recipe for buttercream had no butter in it. Shortening. What kitchen has shortening these days? Or lard? SO we decided to go with the recipe in the Joy of Cooking. And, after much discussion, we decided to make the 4 egg Yellow Cake (because 8 eggs needed for the 8 Yolk Gold Cake was just too much).


I may not have shortening, but I do have cake flour on hand at all times. Weird.
Iris likes Swans Down cake flour over Softasilk. You know, because of the box.


So the recipe instructs you to mix a meringue into the batter. Luckily Andrea knew what a "soft peak" looks like. Beautiful.


Then we used my nifty pancake batter dispenser and filled the cups. I love gadgets.

While the cupcakes were baking, we started on the Better Butter Buttercream. Seriously, why didn't we follow the directions? I'm talking about three women with 6 college degrees between them! We should know better.


The Joy of Cooking Buttercream requires you to make a meringue and a syrup and mix them with 3 sticks of butter. We doubled the recipe, so we used 6 sticks, added to the syrup and meringue 1 tbsp at a time! 48 tbsp of butter...


It had already taken 3 hours to get here. But 70 some cupcakes later, we were ready to roll!



But the icing was melty. It didn't keep the shape of the decorating tip. It was too clumpy to make it out of the leaf decorating tip in one piece. All it was really good for was dots and stars.




Jennifer made some wonderful stars.



And Andrea got good control over the leaf tip, and even got the hang of the shell technique.




I tried the ribbon.



Our first attempt at cake decorating was fun, and luckily I have creative friends that can make anything look cute.



And Iris thought that the cupcakes were delicious, even if the cake was a little dry and the buttercream stuck in the back of her throat.


We're going to try again soon, this time following the rules. I want to have some techniques down before I actually take a class and get graded on this!