The Boastful Baker | because every cook praises her own broth

March 2, 2013
by Melissa
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Selfless baking (and a banana cake recipe)

Banana Bread Bundt Cake with Chocolate Peanut Butter Glaze

I like to share the things I bake with others (by and large, “others” refers to my husband), but I must admit that when I choose what to bake, I almost always choose things that I like. It’s kind of dictatorial. A good example of this is my frequent use of coconut, even though I know a LOT of people vehemently do not like coconut.

Adding the Chocolate Peanut Butter Glaze

On the other side of this, there are lots of foods I don’t like and I pretty much never make them. And since my husband is the primary person I share my kitchen creations with, he doesn’t get to eat some things he loves very often. In the non-baked goods department, I deprive him of items like scallops, brie and avocados, just to name a few. In the baked goods department, he doesn’t get to enjoy things made with bananas because I hate bananas and will not eat anything containing them.

But a few weeks ago I made this Banana Bread Bundt Cake for my husband even though I knew I wouldn’t eat a single bite of it.

His good fortune is due to the review copy of Breakfast for Dinner I recently received. This new cookbook by Lindsay Landis and Taylor Hackbarth (of the blog Love and Olive Oil) focuses on the joy of eating breakfast-type foods at dinner time. Some of the recipes are very clearly foods that you normally eat for breakfast adapted for dinner. Other recipes are a little more of a stretch as they use just one or two ingredients that are typically found at the breakfast table. This Banana Bread Bundt Cake recipes falls under that category. Bananas are a breakfast staple for many people (including my husband) but you’re not likely to see someone eating this cake at breakfast since it’s full of chocolate chips and covered in a rich chocolate peanut butter glaze.

Photo Courtesy of Quirk Books

When I received the cookbook, my husband flipped through it at the table one night and zoned in on a few recipes that he’d like me to make. His first choice of the bunch was this cake. Fortunately for him, he found this recipe at a time when I was trying to eat less dessert myself and was willing to actually make something I wouldn’t eat. Opportunistic of him, huh?

The recipe for the cake is well written and easy to follow, very approachable for someone who may not bake a lot. The cookbook itself is full of gorgeous photos and loads of recipes that I can’t wait to try. It’s a good mix of sweet and savory dishes. Many of these rely on breakfast favorites like bacon and eggs, but others riff on the breakfast theme a bit more subtly with their use of foods like espresso, biscuits, grits or maple syrup. This is without question a cookbook I’ll use again, possibly starting with the Chocolate Brownie Waffles pictured below (which I will selfishly make for my personal enjoyment).

Photo Courtesy of Quirk Books

If you hate bananas and would like to bake a Banana Bread Bundt Cake to selflessly share with someone dear to you, the recipe is below. Or if you love bananas and want it all for yourself, enjoy it! My husband liked the cake a lot, in part because he got it all to himself. I should note that I did try the Chocolate Peanut Butter Glaze (because I am not opposed to anything containing chocolate and peanut butter) and it was amazing! I’m trying to think of another dessert that would go well with it. Or maybe I’ll just make a small batch of it to eat over ice cream.

Banana Bread Bundt Cake with Chocolate Peanut Butter Glaze

Chocolate Peanut Butter Glazed Banana Bread Bundt Cake

Recipe from Breakfast for Dinner by Lindsay Landis and Taylor Hackbarth, recipe posted with permission from Quirk Books

Ingredients

Cake:

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
2 large eggs, room temperature
3 very ripe banana, mashed (about 1 1/4 cups mashed)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup whole milk
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

Glaze:

3 ounces (1/2 cup) semisweet chocolate chips
1/3 cup heavy cream
2 tablespoons creamy peanut butter

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Generously butter a standard (12-cup) Bundt pan, making sure to get in all the nooks and crannies. Dust with flour, tapping out any excess.
In a bowl, sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.
In a large mixing bowl or the bowl of a stand mixer, beat sugar and butter on medium speed until fluffy, 1 to 2 minutes. Add eggs, 1 at a time, mixing well after each addition. Scrape down the sides of the bowl, then mix in mashed banana and vanilla. Add dry ingredients in three additions, alternating with two additions of milk, mixing until incorporated. Fold in chocolate chips.
Pour batter into prepared pan. Bake for 40 to 50 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the deepest part of the pan comes out clean. Place pan on a wire rack to cool. When pan is cool enough to handle, invert pan over wire rack; cake should come out cleanly.
To prepare glaze, warm chocolate and cream in a small saucepan over low heat until melted. Add peanut butter and stir until smooth. Let cool until glaze has thickened slightly (it should be pourable but not runny), then pour over cake. Refrigerate glazed cake in an airtight container for up to 3 days until ready to serve.

October 3, 2012
by Melissa
4 Comments

Enchanted by apples (and by Charlottesville).

It’s been nearly a year since we decided to move to Charlottesville and I can safely say that I’m very pleased with our decision. Every single thing that I thought I would love about this town is true. With each week that passes I become a little more enchanted by the area in and around Charlottesville. The town has a lot of character, there are great restaurants everywhere, the nearby mountains are gorgeous and I love our new home. The traffic is nearly the only thing I don’t like about this place!

The arrival of fall has made me even happier about our move. September brought cooler temperatures and less humidity than Williamsburg (our old town) usually had. The weather in the last month, with the exception of occasional rain, has been downright glorious.

And the arrival of fall also signaled the arrival of apple season in Charlottesville. I’ve already made two trips to a very nearby orchard with a lovely view of the city and the mountains. I don’t know that I’d ever been to an apple orchard before, but I’m kind of in love with them right now. This one, Carter Mountain Orchard, is only about a 15 minute drive from our home in downtown Charlottesville and the view from the orchard is out of this world. Picking apples on a nice autumn day is definitely happy making, especially when you treat yourself to an apple cider doughnut or two while you’re there!

My second trip to the orchard took place on a beautiful weekday, so I brought along the camera to snap some pictures.

Because this is a food blog, you’re probably wondering what I did with the apples I picked at the orchard. I made a couple of apple walnut spice cakes, an apple pie and 19 pints of canned applesauce. I’m heading back to the orchard again this weekend as I’ve agreed to make a couple of apple pies for other people next week.

Getting close to the apples!

Looking up at the apples and the sky

In the orchard

Jonagold apple on the tree

Apples

Apple tree with a view

So many apples

Ladder to the sky?

A trip to an apple orchard isn’t complete without an apple cider doughnut!

The Apple Barn

Bad apples.

More of the Apple Barn

View from Carter Mountain, with bonus bird!

Charlottesville, as viewed from Carter Mountain

September 4, 2012
by Melissa
9 Comments

Macaron mania!

My husband and I came back from our trip to Paris in April with an obsession for macarons. Prior to our trip, I had tried macarons from a few different places here in the U.S. and I’d even made my own mediocre batch of them at home – but I wasn’t totally gaga over them until we ate more than our fair share of them in France. Since we can’t live in Paris and probably can’t travel there as often as we’d like, I’m on a quest to make homemade macarons that taste good enough to substitute for the real French ones.

Since we returned from Paris, I’ve made five different batches of macarons with varying degrees of success – but I think I’m getting the hang of it now as the most recent batches have been the prettiest and most delicious.

One of the best flavors we tried in Paris was salted caramel, consisting of lightly caramel flavored almond meringue shells and a rich, salty caramel filling. Even though our absolute favorite flavor in France was triple vanilla from Pierre Hermé, I decided to try the salted caramel at home first. I knew I could make a decent salted caramel but I wasn’t so sure I could make something so intensely vanilla flavored as the ones we ate in France.

When it was time to make my first batch of them, I quickly came across a French macaron recipe in Chewy Gooey Crispy Crunchy by Alice Medrich. The recipe looked and sounded good and didn’t require me to measure ingredients on a scale (yes, I bake a lot and no, I don’t ever use a scale). That recipe ended up being perfect and I’ve used it every time that I’ve made macarons since.

Finding the perfect salted caramel filling recipe took a little more time. And even when I found the recipe, it took several batches of trial and error for me to finally get it right. It didn’t help that I needed to convert the measurements and I think the original recipe used way more butter than necessary. In the end, I reduced the butter in the recipe by a third and ended up with a much better finished product. The recipe at the bottom of this post reflects that reduction.

While I won’t go so far as to say that making macarons is easy, I haven’t found it to be quite as challenging as I had heard it was. The recipe is rather particular about some things, but if you follow those directions, you should end up with a decent batch of macarons. They may not look perfect, but they’ll still taste good.

The macarons pictured here are chocolate with salted caramel filling. If you don’t like chocolate, you can easily make a batch of plain macarons with salted caramel filling instead. I’ve made both and they’re both fantastic! The recipe posted below is for plain macarons and I’ve included the variation for chocolate at the bottom of the recipe.

French Macarons

Recipe from Chewy Gooey Crispy Crunchy - Melt-In-Your-Mouth Cookies by Alice Medrich

Makes 30-36 sandwich cookies, each about 1 3/4-inches in diameter.

Note: The directions for assembling the French macarons are listed here in full just in case you want to make a flavor other than chocolate salted caramel. For the salted caramel macarons I made, please see the filling recipe and “Assembling the Macarons” directions at the bottom of this post.

Ingredients

2 cups (8 oz.) powdered sugar
1 1/3 cups (4.5 oz.) finely ground blanched almond meal
3 to 4 large egg whites, at room temperature
1/4 teaspoon almond extract
3 to 6 drops of food coloring to match your flavor (optional)
3/4 cup filling, such as salted caramel, lemon curd, chocolate ganache, buttercream, chestnut spread, Nutella, peanut butter, or jam

Directions

Combine the powdered sugar and almond meal in a bowl and mix together thoroughly with a whisk or fork. Pass through a medium-coarse sieve to lighten and aerate the mixture (which makes it easier to fold).
In a glass measure, add enough egg whites to reach halfway between the 1/3 cup and 1/2 cup mark; or use a scale to weigh out 3.75 oz. of egg whites. Transfer these to a large bowl, and save the rest for another purpose or discard. With an electric mixer, beat the egg whites at medium speed until they form soft peaks when the beaters are lifted; add the almond extract and the coloring, if using. Beat at high speed until the mixture forms stiff but not dry peaks when the beaters are lifted. Pour all of the almond flour mixture over the egg whites. With a large rubber spatula, fold the almond mixture into the egg whites just until it is fully incorporated. The egg whites will deflate somewhat, but the batter will be thick and moist and almost pourable.
Drop heaping teaspoons of batter 1 inch apart on parchment-lined cookie sheets. Or transfer the batter to a large pastry bag fitted with a 1/2-inch plain tip and pipe out disks in the following manner: Hold the bag vertical with the tip about 3/8 inch from the pan liner. Squeeze the bag without moving it until a disk of batter 1 1/2 inches in diameter is formed. Stop squeezing a second or two before moving the bag to pipe the next disk. Repeat, piping disks 1 inch apart. Let the macarons rest for 20 to 30 minutes, or until the surface of the disks is ever so slightly dry-this slightly dry crust will help form characteristic little “platforms” at the base of each macaron as they bake.
Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 400°F. Position racks in the upper and lower thirds of the oven.
Slide two sheets of macarons into the oven and immediately turn the temperature down to 300°F. Bake for 12 to 15 minutes, until the macarons are barely starting to turn golden (they will be golden on the bottom, though you will have to destroy one macaron to find out). Rotate the pans from top to bottom and from front to back halfway through the baking time to ensure even baking. Set the pans or just the liners on racks to cool.
When the cookies are cool, lift a corner of the parchment pan liner. Holding a cookie with the other hand, carefully peel the liner away from the cookie (don’t try to pull the cookie off the liner or you will lose the bottom of the cookie). Repeat with the remaining cookies.
Spread 1/2 to 1 tsp. filling on the flat side of a cookie and top with a cookie of matching size. Put the cookies on a tray and cover them with plastic wrap. Put the trays in the refrigerator to let the cookies mellow at least overnight and for up to 2 days before serving. Bring to room temperature for serving.

Variation – Chocolate Macarons: Mix 3 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder (natural or Dutch-process) with the powdered sugar and almond meal.

Salted Caramel Filling

Recipe slightly adapted from Polka Dot Made

Makes enough filling for at least 2 batches of cookies.

Ingredients

1 cup heavy cream
1.5 cups granulated sugar
2 teaspoons fleur de sel (or other coarse sea salt), plus more for sprinkling as you assemble the macarons
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted buter

Directions

Chop butter into small cubes.
Pour cream into a small saucepan, add fleur de sel and bring to boil. Remove from heat as soon as it starts to boil.
Place sugar in a medium saucepan. Cook sugar over medium-high heat, stirring occasionally to ensure that it caramelizes evenly.
When the sugar reaches a dark brown color remove from the heat and slowly pour in the hot cream while continuing to mix with a spatula or whisk. The caramel will spit and bubble as you mix the cream into it, so please use caution while pouring.
Let the caramel cool to around 115°F. Whisk the butter into the caramel a few pieces at a time until thoroughly incorporated.
Pour the caramel into a shallow container and allow to cool in the fridge.

Assembling the Macarons

Pair macaron shells according to size.
Take the caramel out of the fridge, place in a medium bowl and whisk vigorously. This whisking will thicken the caramel to a buttercream consistency perfect for piping. Be careful not to whisk it too much or it will start to separate. For this reason, resist the urge to use an electric mixer instead of a whisk (trust me, I did this).
Fill one half of your paired macaron shells filling them generously but keeping a space of approximately 3mm from the edge of the shell. Sprinkle with a few grains of fleur de sel.
Pick up the macaron filled with caramel in one hand and the empty matching sized macaron in the other and close the macaron by gently twisting the two shells together from left to right. Let the filling spread all the way to the edge of the shells.
Store the finished macarons in a covered container in the refrigerator for at least 24 hours. Prior to serving, let the macarons return to room temperature.

September 2, 2012
by Melissa
0 comments

Lemony Cream Puffs

I haven’t made a lot of progress lately towards completing all of the items on the Year of Fearless Cooking list that I posted in January. But today I made a Boston cream pie and successfully (I think, we haven’t eaten it yet) crossed an item off of the list. While making the Boston cream pie, I remembered that I never wrote about the cream puffs I made many, many months ago.

If you’re able and willing to use a pastry bag and tips, you should most definitely learn to make cream puffs – a combination of pâte à choux, a light pastry dough, and some type of cream filling. They’re frequently filled with pastry cream, but I chose to fill mine with a lemon curd and whipped cream filling.

Cream puffs have been a favorite dessert of mine for years. In high school, whenever I would eat at a sandwich shop in the town next to mine, I would buy a few to eat. And before I baked at home so frequently, I would often buy a big tub of frozen ones at Costco. Needless to say, these homemade ones were much better and I doubt I’ll ever buy them again.

As I do with every new type of food I get it into my head to make, I did a little bit of cookbook and Internet searching for the perfect recipe. In this case, I ended up with two perfect recipes. At some point in my search, I decided I want a whipped cream based filling so that helped narrow the field a little bit.

In the end, I used a pâte à choux recipe from Steamy Kitchen and a lemon cream filling recipe from Bon Appetit (just make the lemon cream filling and skip the pastry recipe in favor of the Steamy Kitchen one). For once, I didn’t alter either of the recipes – in part because I’ve never made choux pastry before and in part because the recipes looked good as is. Both the pastry puffs and the filling turned out perfect and I’ll definitely make these again the next time I get a craving for these sweet little bites. Or I’ll use the Steamy Kitchen recipe again to make gougères as they’re also on the Year of Fearless Cooking list.

Pâte à choux – Source: Steamy Kitchen

Lemon cream filling – Source: Bon Appetit

September 1, 2012
by Melissa
9 Comments

I’ve got a can-do spirit.

Canned Foods of 2012

I’ve been busy this summer. Busy canning nearly every weekend and sometimes on weekday nights. I thought my canning might decline a little because of our move to Charlottesville and our slightly smaller kitchen with less storage space. I was mistaken, the canning didn’t decline at all. It helps that I’ve moved to an area full of hard to resist farms, orchards and markets.

This blog post is being written for a handful of reasons including: recording the quantities of particular items that I made for future years, posting sources for all of the recipes I used this year and for boasting about my canning craziness.

Thus far in 2012, I’ve squirreled away 220 jars of fruit and vegetable goodness (not including countless jars of refrigerator pickles that I ate ages ago) in various locations around our house. I’m not done canning for the year, but my pace should start to slow down a little. I say that despite plans to use the rest of the frozen strawberries in my freezer for sauce and jam and plans to make cranberry sauce and apple butter in a month or two.

My husband and I will keep and use some of the things I’ve made, but most of what I’ve made will be given away as hostess or Christmas gifts to friends and family and some of it will more than likely be swapped with Internet friends for handmade goods.

Fire Roasted Tomato Salsa – 10 Half Pints

Fire Roasted Tomato Salsa – Source: Simply Recipes

I made this salsa for the first time last summer and it was very well received by everyone who received a jar of it. I even wrote a blog post about it this summer!

Spicy Fire Roasted Tomato Salsa – 17 Half Pints

Spicy Fire Roasted Tomato Salsa – Source: Simply Recipes

I didn’t actually mean to make spicy tomato salsa. I accidentally bought a bunch of spicy peppers instead of sweet or mild ones.

Chipotle Fire Roasted Tomato Salsa – 11 Half Pints

Chipotle Fire Roasted Tomato Salsa – Source: Simply Recipes

Same recipe as the last two salsas, but I subbed in a few dried chipotle peppers for the regular peppers. Just to try something a little different. I also made this salsa smooth rather than chunky.

Sweet and Spicy Tomato Jam – 7 Half Pints

Sweet and Spicy Tomato Jam – Source: White On Rice Couple

I actually made the Tomato and Thyme jam first and when I had an abundance of tomatoes a couple of weeks ago, I decided to try this version too. I haven’t tried it myself yet but gave a jar to a new friend in town and she said that she’s obsessed with it…so that’s a good sign!

Smoked Tomato Thyme Jam – 11 Half Pints

Smoked Tomato Thyme Tomato Jam – Source: White On Rice Couple

I’ve known about tomato jam for a couple of years but I couldn’t really understand the appeal of it until this year when some friends were visiting and told me about a smoked tomato jam that they had recently tried. Their description of the jam finally made me want to try tomato jam and I ended up making my first batch of it the very next day. I followed the White On Rice Couple recipe to the letter – but before I threw the tomatoes into the pot to cook down, I smoked them using my charcoal grill and some mesquite chips. This stuff is sooooo good, especially with a slice of smoked cheddar on a piece of crusty bread. I really need to try a grilled cheese sandwich with it. And even though I have only 11 precious jars of it, one of those jars is earmarked to give to the friends who suggested it to me!

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle Tomato Sauce – 7 Pints

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle Family Secret Tomato Sauce – Source: Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver

I first tried this sauce a couple of summers ago as a result of a canning swap. It was fantastic, but I promptly forgot about it until this summer when I was lucky enough to get 50 pounds of free tomatoes from one of my in-laws. With that many tomatoes and a newly acquired food mill, I knew I wanted to make some sauce. Fortunately I remembered this one!

Smoky Tomato Sauce – 6 Pints

Smoky Tomato Sauce – Source: Food in Jars by Marisa McClellan

I can’t wait to turn this into tomato soup this winter. I used the tomato sauce recipe found in the Food in Jars cookbook. Because I wanted to smoke the tomatoes I used in this recipe (after my success smoking them for the tomato jam), I sent a tweet to Marisa, the book’s author, to make sure that this would be safe. Fortunately she thought it was!

Dilly Beans – 5 Pints

Dilly Beans – Source: Food in Jars by Marisa McClellan

I make one small batch of these every summer, mostly just for myself. The recipe is from my favorite canning website, Food in Jars. And I’ve also written about them before.

Refrigerator Garlic Dill Pickles – 12+ Pints

Refrigerator Garlic Dill Pickles – Source: Food in Jars by Marisa McClellan

Another recipe that I’ve made every summer for the last three years. I like my pickles crunchy, so I don’t process these and just refrigerate them. They get eaten so quickly that I can’t even keep track of how many jars I make each year.

Sweet and Sour Red Onions – 10 Quarter Pints

Sweet and Sour Red Onions – Source: Food in Jars by Marisa McClellan

I haven’t tried these yet, but when I came across this recipe in the Food in Jars cookbook, I was intrigued.

Sweet Pickle Relish – 12 Half Pints

Sweet Pickle Relish – Source: Canning and Preserving by Ashley English

I make this every summer and haven’t bought relish at the store in three years. Finely dicing all of the vegetables for this takes forever and ever, but it’s worth it every time I make a batch of tartar sauce with this relish. Plus some of my family members really like it and would be rather sad if I stopped making it.

Lemon Vanilla Strawberry Jam – 10 Half Pints

Lemon Vanilla Strawberry Jam – Source: adapted from Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving

This one is another accident, I meant to make strawberry vanilla jam and accidentally added tablespoons of lemon juice instead of teaspoons. Oops. Luckily it still tastes good.

Vanilla Strawberry Jam – 17 Half Pints

Vanilla Strawberry Jam – Source: adapted from Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving

I made this two years ago, but skipped it last year. And I regretted it. My original source for this jam was Food in Jars, but this year I just made the strawberry jam in the Ball cookbook and added vanilla beans and extract to the mix. The addition of vanilla gives this jam a much richer taste than plain strawberry jam.

Strawberry Balsamic Black Pepper Jam – 7 Half Pints

Strawberry Balsamic Black Pepper Jam – Source: Canadian Living

As part of a swap last year, I was asked if I could make a batch of this jam. I happily obliged as it was one I was curious about anyway. It’s now my favorite strawberry jam, one that I eat straight out of the jar with a spoon.

Amaretto Cherry Jam – 12 Half Pints

Amaretto Cherry Jam – Source: Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving

Cherries are my favorite fruit and even though it’s a royal pain to pit enough cherries to make a batch of jam, I’ve done it the last two summers. This is pretty much cherry pie in jam form. And since cherry pie is my favorite pie, this jam is a winner.

No Pectin Cherry Peach Jam – 5 Half Pints

No Pectin Cherry Peach Jam – Source: Jam According to Daniel

I took a jam canning class here in Charlottesville last month and the owner of Jam According to Daniel, a local jam company, taught the class and shared his master jam recipe and techniques with us. I took the class in an attempt to meet people, not because I needed to learn how to make jam. Ironically I didn’t make any new friends, but I did learn a new way to make jam. I also have a new addiction: Daniel’s fig jam. After taking the class, I tried his method with this cherry peach jam – and love the result. Now to get someone to give me some free figs…

No Pectin Peach Jam – 5 Half Pints

No Pectin Peach Jam – Source: Jam According to Daniel

This is the second jam I made with the Jam According to Daniel method, which uses no pectin and FAR less sugar than most jam recipes. The yield from the peaches isn’t as high as a regular jam recipe, but the tasty jam is worth the extra fruit.

Peach Jam – 20 Half Pints

Peach Jam – Source: Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving

My husband’s favorite jam is peach jam and every summer he is very concerned about the quantity of peach jam that I produce. I think I’ve made enough this year. He likes plain peach jam the best, but I’ve actually warmed him up to the Bourbon Vanilla Peach jam below as well.

Bourbon Vanilla Peach Jam – 18.5 Half Pints

Bourbon Vanilla Peach Jam – Source: Beantown Baker

This is my favorite of the peach jams I’ve made. A healthy dose of bourbon (Jack Daniels in my house) is added to this jam right before it’s poured into the jars and I think it adds a great layer of flavor to the finished jam.

Not pictured: Strawberry Jam – 27 Half Pints – Source: Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving

More to come as I complete more canning!