Blueberry crumb cake (Modern Baker)

Happy June! With the start of summer, we are beginning our final section in The Modern Baker Challenge: cakes. I've actually already made a few cakes from this section: the devil's food cake, the individual cheesecakes (yum!), and the milk chocolate mousse cake ~ a comedy of errors and one of my five very favorite recipes from the entire book.

Apparently I have somewhat of an obsession with all things blueberry, as my official recipe for the muffin section was blueberry muffins, my official recipe for pies was blueberry pie (another one of my top five), and when it came time to pick an official recipe for the cake section, I took the blueberry crumb cake.

The cake layer is a normal golden cake, made with butter, sugar, eggs, vanilla, flour, baking powder, egg yolks, and buttermilk. Before baking, you press a ton of blueberries into the top and cover with a crumb topping. Mine baked for an extra ten minutes, and I'm still not certain the very center was baked through; I might give it an extra five next time.

I made a full recipe for my hubby's end-of-the-year school picnic, and it disappeared. The cake was light and fluffy, the blueberries achieved the promised jam-like consistency, and the crumb topping was, well, a crumb topping...delicious!

(In case you're wondering, the rest of my top five are the ham and egg tart, the bittersweet chocolate tart, and the coconut chocolate pecan bars. My most-made recipe, though, are the butterscotch chocolate chip scones, requested almost weekly by my children!)

"We bake cake and nothing's the matter!"

"Milk in the batter! Milk in the batter! We bake cake! And nothing's the matter!"

                                                        from In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak, 1970

In September 2009, I decided I needed an official food blog to keep track of my progress in the BBA Challenge. I'd had a mommy blog for a while, and initially I thought I'd just post my baking adventures there, but after a few posts, I determined that I actually wanted a new space that was dedicated to talking and writing about food. At that point, my little guy was 2 1/2 and the baby was just over a year. My little guy had just started expressing an interest in helping me in the kitchen, and one of his favorite books at the time was one of my favorite books from childhood, In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak.

When Di invited me to participate in her newest seasonal blog event, cooking the books, I immediately knew what I wanted to do. While I do, in fact, read cookbooks like novels, which is what inspired Di for this blogging event, I thought I'd use this opportunity to talk about my blog's name...something I've never written about.

"He kneaded and punched it and pounded and pulled

Till it looked okay."

                                                            from In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak, 1970

Choosing a blog name is such a big decision (at least for me). In many ways, the name becomes your identity online, and even though it's possible to change it, it's likely that the name you choose is the one you'll have forever. Hubby and I debated and brainstormed for days, but I couldn't commit to anything. Finally, as hubby was reading In the Night Kitchen to the little guy one night, he looked over and said, "What about something from here?"

We liked that the book was about bread baking (kneading and punching and pounding and pulling), that it talked about cake making (milk in the batter!), and most importantly, that it reminded us of baking with the little ones. I am known around these parts for always getting lines just a little bit wrong, and while the actual line in the book is, "Stir it! Scrape it! Make it! Bake it!" I always read it, "Stir it! Scrape it! Mix it! Bake it!" Mix it Bake it was born. :)

So what to make? Well, "we bake cake and nothing's the matter!" and this weekend was definitely cake-worthy in our world: after seven years of hard work, my hubby finally graduated with his Master's degree this weekend. (It's not entirely his fault that it took so long; we've had two babies and multiple job switches while he's been enrolled in school, and these life events forced him to take several extended breaks.)

I wanted to make something special, and remembered Kelly's post for chocolate chip cookie dough cake which I'd bookmarked way back in October 2011. What a fabulous idea! And chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream is one of hubby's very favorite desserts. I was planning to make vanilla ice cream to accompany the cake, and then wondered if I could use ice cream to fill and frost the cake? Well, of course I could!

On Friday night, I made a batch of vanilla bean ice cream base from Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams at Home. I also mixed up some (no egg) chocolate chip cookie dough from my Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream and Dessert Book. Then Saturday morning, I made Nick Malgieri's yellow cake from The Modern Baker (a half-recipe made two 6" cakes). After the cake layers were cool, I stuck them in the freezer for a bit to firm them up. Meanwhile, I took the no-bake cookie dough and rolled them into little balls, which I also stuck in the freezer. And then I churned the ice cream.

Just after churning, while it was still the consistency of soft serve, I pulled the cake layers from the freezer and smoothed ice cream on top of both layers. On top of the middle layer, I buried pieces of the no-bake cookie dough. I sprinkled mini chips on the top of the top layer. Then I stuck the cakes back into the freezer to firm up again. (Of course I was doing this on a 90º day!)

Finally I mixed up a batch of our very favorite chocolate chip cookie dough (from the America's Test Kitchen Family Cookbook) and used a teaspoon to make tiny little chocolate chip cookies, which baked for about 10 minutes.

On Sunday morning, I finished assembly: using some softened ice cream to frost the sides and then sticking the mini chocolate chip cookies along the sides for decoration. Voila!

Chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream celebration cake: One of our friends said it was everything you want in a cake: "You know how you're eating cake, and you really wish you had ice cream? And then a cookie just sounds really good?" And one of our other friends' little guy did a happy dance during all of dessert. Oh yeah, this one was a hit!

Viennese punch cookies (Modern Baker)

I don't usually do this...when I was browsing the cookie section of The Modern Baker to pick my "official" blogging recipes, I picked this one just for the picture: a beautiful shiny pink top, with a chocolately brown layer in the middle, and a shortbread-looking cookie on the bottom. These Viennese punch cookies are so pretty!

If I'd read more carefully, I probably wouldn't have chosen them; they are not child-friendly, with a significant amount of rum in both the filling and the icing. And the brown layer is not a chocolate filling.

Nevertheless, while mine didn't look as lovely as the ones in the book, these were fun to make!

The bottom cookie layer is delicious, made with butter, confectioner's sugar, ground almonds, and flour. I struggled a bit with the dough, finding it too sticky to roll out, but it was easy to just use my fingers to press it into the appropriate thickness. After cutting out the cookies (I used a 1 1/2" round cutter and got 10 sandwiches from a half-recipe), the remainder of the dough is also baked. These cookie scraps are ground and used with apricot preserves, a tiny bit of chocolate, orange and lemon zests, and rum to create the filling. Finally an icing is applied: warmed confectioner's sugar, rum, water, and food coloring. (If my frosting looks a little runny, it's because I added a little extra water when I was stirring, forgetting that the sugar would melt when the filling was heated.)

I took these to our friends' house for a barbecue this evening, and the adults enjoyed them. (I made TWD Hungarian shortbread for the kiddos; post coming on May 1.)

Fig bars (Modern Baker)

I was so excited to see that Nick Malgieri's Modern Baker came with a recipe for homemade fig newtons...they've always been a favorite of mine!

It took me forever to get around to making them, though, because I couldn't find the dried Calimyrna figs that NM calls for. Finally, Phyl said that he thought regular mission figs would work, so that's what I went with.

The dough is NM's biscotti regina (I made a 1/2 recipe). The dough is rolled into long ropes, pressed out into rectangles, and then folded around the fig filling. I only had 8 ounces of figs, so I made a 1/3 recipe of the filling with figs, water, apricot preserves, dark rum, cinnamon, and cloves.

My bars baked for a long time without ever getting golden; finally when they had just a hint of color, we pulled them out. I thought the filling was spot-on for fig newtons...delicious! The outside was more like shortbread than a traditional chewy fig newton; I'm not sure if that's because I baked them for so long? Regardless, hubby and I enjoyed these!

Coconut pecan chocolate chunk bars (Modern Baker)

I'm just loving the cookie section from The Modern Baker. The only problem is figuring out which recipe to try next!

Luckily, Kayte saved me this time, posting this amazing picture of NM's coconut pecan chocolate chunk bars. Once hubby caught a glimpse, he was in full support of my stopping everything to make them immediately.

These have a taste reminiscent of seven layer bars, but with a cleaner, better flavor. They start with a buttery dough pressed into the pan and baked lightly. The topping is made with brown sugar, eggs, sugar, vanilla, coconut, pecans, and chocolate (I used a combination of chopped 60% and semi-sweet chocolate chips).

NM says to store them at room temperature, but I saw that Margaret had put hers in the fridge to firm up, so I went that route.

While these were yummy straight from the oven, chilled, they were ah-maz-ing! Definitely a new favorite around here.

Honey peanut wafers (Modern Baker Challenge)

The other night, I posed this question to my husband: "Should I go to bed early or stay up for a bit and bake some cookies?" Can you guess how he responded? Yeah, kind of a no-brainer.......

Still, it was close to bedtime, so I wanted something quick and easy. I paged through my Modern Baker book and found just the thing: honey peanut wafers, a cookie on my to-do list that doesn't require softened butter or a mixer.

In fact, this cookie is incredibly easy. The only ingredient that might not be in your pantry already is honey-roasted peanuts. But if you pick up a canister to have on-hand, you'll be able to decide to bake cookies, preheat the oven, mix them up, bake them all, do the dishes, eat a couple, and still be in bed in an hour. That's what I did!

First, you whisk flour and baking soda in a small bowl. Then in another bowl, you whisk an egg, honey, and melted butter. Fold in the flour and then the chopped honey roasted peanuts (there are a LOT of peanuts in this recipe!). The batter is really wet, but I just used my scoop. I only put about six cookies on the sheet because I was worried about spreading (NM says to space them FOUR inches apart; I've never seen directions to space them out that much before!)...and rightfully so. These spread a ton and grew huge in the oven.

The verdict: Not surprisingly, considered they're called "wafer" cookies and they spread so much, these cookies are really thin. Parts of them have an almost-toffee-like consistency, and then there's a nice crunch from the bits of peanut. They have a very strong peanut-honey flavor (again, not surprising), so if you didn't like either of those flavors, you wouldn't like these. But if, like me, you love both peanuts and honey, these cookies are delicious! They're very sweet (I could see cutting down the honey just a bit), but we all (my hubby, dad, and me) found them quite delicious and addictive. (The kids, who are anti-nut, wouldn't even try them.) I will definitely make these again when I'm looking for a quick salty-crunchy-sweet treat!

Sour cream brownies (Modern Baker)

My bookclub enjoyed the brownies paired with homemade marshmallows.

My fourth Nick Malgieri brownie recipe is another from the cookies & bars section of The Modern Baker. This one is made with technique similar to the others (truffle, Florida, and cocoa nib), but includes the addition of sour cream and walnuts. I knew that most of the people I was baking for (my kiddos and my debaters) wouldn't eat the nut version, so I actually made the recipe walnut-free and then stirred walnuts into the batter in one corner of the pan.

For all of the other brownie recipes, the 30 minute cooking time seemed perfect (even when I only made a half-recipe in an 8x8 pan), but for this one, I wondered if they might have been slightly over-baked. The toothpick test came out mostly clean. Nevertheless, these were a big hit with the kids, hubby, friends, and students. The one brownie I sampled okay; these were definitely my least favorite of his brownies...not that that's saying much, since the rest are so out-of-this-world fantastic!

Three-way gingersnaps (Modern Baker)

Several of my Twitter pals were baking together from The Modern Baker this past weekend. I really wanted to join in and make the three-way gingersnaps, but a debate tournament and a family trip to the science museum ate up my weekend and left me with no time for baking.

But those gingersnaps were calling my name, so last night, I quickly whipped up a half-batch. These are called three-way gingersnaps because they're made with three different forms of ginger: ground ginger, fresh ginger root, and chopped crystallized ginger. (I didn't find fresh ginger root when we were grocery shopping this weekend, so I used bottled minced ginger from the fridge.)

The gingersnaps also have honey instead of the traditional molasses, so they were a little lighter in color.

These were absolutely delicious. In fact, the half-batch (about 3 1/2 trays of cookies) is just about gone. My dad, who loves gingersnaps, said they may have been the best he's ever eaten. I am positive we'll be making these again...maybe even within the week! :)

Caramel crumb bars (Modern Baker)

I guess it says something that I'd already made three cookie/bar recipes from the Modern Baker Challenge by December 2nd, only two days into our first cookie month! There's just something about a good cookie recipe: quick and easy to whip up, fun to share, loved by everyone.

These caramel crumb bars were no exception, although this recipe does have a few more steps than your typical cookie or brownie recipe. Make a dough (softened butter, sugar, salt, vanilla extract, and flour), press it into a pan, and let it chill. Make the filling (butter, corn syrup, dark brown sugar, and sweetened condensed milk), and let it cool.

Then assemble: spread the filling over the dough, sprinkle with the crumb topping (just extra dough with a little bit of extra flour added until it makes a crumble) and bake. Being the confirmed chocoholic that I am, I prefer the brownie recipes, but these were a big hit with the family and my students.

Cocoa nib brownies (Modern Baker Challenge)

When I gave my copy of The Modern Baker to my hubby so he could choose my "official" blogging cookie for the cookie section of the Challenge, he immediately picked cocoa nib brownies. I didn't commit, though, because I had no idea where to get cocoa nibs.

One of the best parts of being a part of this blogging community, besides having other people who love to talk about food as much as me, is getting advice and ideas. Melanie mentioned that she saw cocoa nibs at Whole Foods, and even though we live in different parts of the country, I checked and sure enough, they had them! Lucky hubby. :)

The brownies are made with a similar method to the truffle brownies and Florida brownies from Bake!, both of which are now family favorites. The butter is melted until it sizzles, and then the chocolate is added and allowed to melt. Meanwhile, the brown sugar is mixed with the eggs, and then salt, sugar, and vanilla are added. The chocolate-butter mixture is stirred in with a spatula, and then the flour is folded in. Finally half of the cocoa nibs are added to the batter and the rest of them are sprinkled over the top.

As with the other brownie recipes, NM says to refrigerate them overnight before cutting them. He also warns that it may be hard to pull the foil off the brownies because they're so moist; he's not wrong about that! Of course, when little pieces broke off, we just had to sample them, even though they hadn't been cooled overnight. These are so good! NM says, "Nibs are unsweetened, so they have to be used somewhat sparingly to avoid imparting a bitter...flavor. They're the perfect counterpoint to this fudgy brownie recipe, adding a little texture and a bit of balance to the batter's natural sweetness." I couldn't agree more!

Because they're so rich, I cut them into little 1" squares. I brought some to school to share with some of my debaters who helped to give a grant presentation the other day. Hubby brought some in to share with his coworkers; when he turned around, the container was empty. I had a little container leftover, saved for my photos, and asked hubby for permission to bring them to share with my coworkers....you should've seen the look I got! He was not going to give any more away! :) By the way, these are great alone, but even more excellent with a little scoop of vanilla bean ice cream.

Butterscotch chocolate chip cookies (Modern Baker)

Oh, you have no idea how excited I am to start this section! Cookies are technically supposed to be our last section of the Modern Baker Challenge, but knowing how many cookies people generally bake at this time of year, our brilliant leaders/members decided to flip-flop the final two sections. Looking at the list of possibilities, I positively could not commit to which recipes to pick; they all sound and look so good!

My first choice would probably have been these butterscotch chocolate chip cookies, but they'd already been taken.......But wait! Just because I'm not the official blogger doesn't mean I can't try them, right? Right! :)

I made these to bring to my debate class to thank them for their hard work hosting a middle school debate tournament last week.

I was surprised by the technique. You start by mixing softened butter, brown sugar, vanilla, and eggs in a stand mixer, just until blended. Usually you cream these ingredients for quite a while, but NM warns against over-mixing, so I really just mixed them until they all came together. Then you gently fold in the flour mixture (flour, salt, and baking soda) with a rubber spatula. I was worried that it wouldn't all come together; it just seemed impossible to get all of the flour incorporated. But with patience, it worked and I had smooth cookie dough with no extra flour. Then I folded in a lot of chocolate. NM calls for 6 ounces of chopped bittersweet chocolate and 6 ounces of chopped milk chocolate. I had a 4 ounce bar of bittersweet, so I used that. And then about 6 ounces of semi-sweet chocolate chunks. Even missing 2 ounces of chocolate, I felt like this batter was more chocolate than cookie.

The cookies are placed in teaspoon-sized rounds on the cookie sheets. NM says to cook two trays for 15 minutes, rotating the trays halfway. By 12 minutes, both of my trays were burned. I'm not sure if they were really supposed to be tablespoon-sized? Or if 15 minutes is just way too long? NM's baking times are usually pretty accurate for my oven. I experimented and ended up finding that 10 minutes, baking one tray at a time, seemed about perfect. I was able to get about two trays of good cookies. (I figured high schoolers would eat the burned ones anyway!) So be sure to watch these carefully!!

As for the flavor...they are definitely butterscotchy/toffee-y in flavor and texture and very chocolatey. These are quite different from our normal more traditional chocolate chip cookie recipe, and quite addictive. The containers of cookies (the "good" ones as well as the slightly-overdone ones) lasted all of about 30 seconds in class....and one of my kids asked me to make them again for Monday. :)

Triple chocolate scones (Modern Baker)

Hubby and I both had early morning meetings today, and nothing improves an early morning meeting like a shared breakfast treat!

As I always do when I need a quick and yummy breakfast treat, I turned to Nick Malgieri. Like all of the scone recipes in the Modern Baker, these came together in about 20 minutes using the food processor: chocolate, cocoa, sugar, flour, baking powder, salt, butter, an egg, and some milk. They baked in 15 minutes and the first tray was off to hubby's meeting. 15 minutes later, the kids and I packed up the second batch and headed out the door.

These chocolate scones were a huge hit, described by one coworker as chocolately without being too sweet. Hubby said, "They were a nice chocolate scone and then you got the burst of chocolate chunk which just made you say 'Ohhhh yeah!'"

FYI: The Modern Baker was just reissued in a beautiful paperback edition, available here. Nick Malgieri has been incredibly supportive of our Modern Baker Challenge, even commenting on some of our blog posts! Consider picking up a copy of this awesome book. :)

Chocolate-filled Napoleons (Modern Baker Challenge)

For my dad's birthday dinner on Thursday, I'd made two puff pastry layers. But because my hubby and baby girl don't like raspberries, I decided to turn one of the layers into chocolate-filled Napoleons, another puff pastry recipe for the Modern Baker Challenge.

NM's instructions indicate forming these into rectangles or squares, but my puff pastry layer wasn't big enough for two of my 8x8 pans, so I decided to go with circles and cut out two 6" rounds.

The mousse is made with heavy cream whipped with Grand Marnier, a meringue made with egg whites, sugar, unflavored gelatin, and cold water, and finally some melted bittersweet chocolate (I used 60%).

Assembly is easy: puff pastry, mousse, and puff pastry. A half-recipe completely filled my 6" round cake pan and left a little left over...hubby and I were not sad about that! =)

This was ah-maze-ing! After dessert, the little guy and baby girl wandered around our tailgating table, using their fingers to scrape out everyone's bowls, looking for tidbits of chocolate left on anyone's spoon. Even the birthday boy, who doesn't like chocolate, thought this was a yummy dessert. I, an admitted chocoholic, could've eaten a vat of the stuff. =)

Check out Margaret's beautiful Napoleons!

Modern Baker Puff Pastry and Raspberry Mille-Feuille

Several months ago, one of our Bake! recipes called for puff pastry. Rather than purchasing some, I tackled my fears and made the recipe in Bake! I found this video invaluable; Nick Malgieri makes the puff pastry process look effortless.

And now, here we are in the puff pastry section of The Modern Baker Challenge. I began by following the recipe in The Modern Baker. As in his other recipe, NM focuses on a faster and easier method for making puff pastry, eliminating the 5,000,000 folds and turns and rests in traditional puff pastry. This recipe is slightly different from the one in Bake! You start by combining flour and salt in a food processor. Then you add chunks of butter and pulse just a very few times. Finally you add a bit of water, pulse a few more times, and dump it all out onto your counter. For some reason, I had a more difficult time getting this dough to come together; I think the one in Bake! was slightly easier for me, but this one did finally work.

I rolled and turned the dough, and then folded it. I cut it into four pieces (about 325 g each), stuck three into the freezer, and turned the smallest one into elephant ears...yum!

A few days ago, I moved two batches of dough into the fridge to defrost. And now a new challenge: baked puff pastry layer. When defrosted, I pulled the dough out of the fridge and began to press on the dough until it was soft enough to roll, turning 90 degrees after each press or roll. When I had each piece into a 12 x 15" square, I placed them on jelly roll pans lined with parchment paper and stuck them in the fridge.

When it was time to bake, I removed a pan from the fridge, pierced the dough with a fork, and covered it with another piece of parchment paper and another jelly roll pan. My layers were perfectly done in 25 minutes (15 minutes on the first side, 10 minutes on the second). Check out Phyl's detailed post on how to bake the puff pastry layers.

And now it's time for my official post for the puff pastry section: raspberry mille-feuille. Raspberries are one of my favorite fruits, but because hubby doesn't like them, I rarely bake the raspberry recipes. However, it's my dad's birthday, and he loves raspberries, so I thought this seemed like the perfect birthday dessert for him!

Knowing that hubby and the little girl don't like raspberries, I decided to make a half recipe of the raspberry mille-feuille and a half recipe of the molded chocolate-filled Napoleons (post tomorrow). So I took one of the baked puff pastry layers and, using a parchment paper template of my 6" cake pan, cut out two circles and two semi-circles.

I made a half recipe of the pastry cream, using milk, sugar, cornstarch, egg yolks, unsalted butter, and vanilla. It rested in the fridge overnight.

I whipped heavy cream with sugar and kirsch, and then combined a bit of it with the pastry cream. Even after the overnight rest and the addition of the whipped cream, my pastry cream was really liquidy. I'm sure I did something wrong; the pastry cream for the Parisian fruit tart worked perfectly last year.

Assembly was easy: layer of puff pastry, pastry cream, raspberries, whipped cream, puff pastry, pastry cream, raspberries, whipped cream, puff pastry. And a dusting of confectioners' sugar before serving.

This was a huge hit, with the birthday boy, my little guy, and even my raspberry-hating husband!

Modern Baker: Lemon tartlets (and lemon curd ice cream)

We've just returned to my kitchen home after nearly three weeks away, and my to-bake and to-cook lists have gotten insanely long while I've been away. We always spend two or three weeks with my in-laws in the summer. It is incredibly relaxing: my mother-in-law cooks amazing down-home meals (chicken and noodles with mashed potatoes, anyone?) and generally takes care of us, the kiddos play with their cousins for hours on end. It's such a great start to the summer.

But after about a week or ten days, I really start to miss my kitchen. This is when I start bookmarking recipes like crazy and spend hours making a to-do list and a grocery list for my return.

While we were in the car on our 17-hour drive home, some of my baking buddies decided to make lemon curd ice cream, spearheaded by Phyl. Tracey had posted a recipe on her blog, and she claimed to love it as much as her favorite ice cream, mint chocolate chip (also my favorite). As soon as we returned, it was the first thing I set about making. Happily, one of the few sweet tarts I have left from the Modern Baker Challenge was the lemon-lime tartlets, so I was able to make the lemon curd for those and use it in both.

I made 2/3 of the recipe for the lemon curd, which was enough for one 4" mini-tart, 50 g for the ice cream, and a little bit left over. The curd requires lemons, limes, sugar, unsalted butter, and egg yolks. I couldn't find organic limes; I picked up one regular lime, but had an impossible time zesting it, so my curd was almost all lemon, with about 1-2 tablespoons of lime juice thrown in. The curd was a little time-consuming, but not difficult: put the lemon zests in lemon juice and sugar, simmer, and then allow to rest. After discarding the zest, add the butter to the pan and simmer again. Temper the egg yolks and then stir the whole mixture until thickened. I refrigerated the curd overnight.

Today, I pulled cookie dough crust dough from the freezer and made two mini-tart crusts. NM says to use sweet tart dough, but Andrea thought the cookie dough would be a better pairing and it's what I had in the freezer. On my last post where I talked about my struggles with NM's cookie dough tart crusts, Heather commented that I might need to knead the dough a little longer before rolling. I tried it this time (also using more flour than usual), and I actually had way more success than I've ever had. (Thanks, Heather!) The crusts baked for about 15 minutes, cooled for about 30 minutes, and then I dumped in the lemon curd. The tarts were pretty good.........however:

Last night, I also started making the lemon curd ice cream.  I tempered the egg yolks with heated milk, and then thickened the custard...and then suddenly smelled scrambled eggs and realized that the temperature of the custard had shot from 150 F to 210 F in just a few seconds. I dumped the whole batch into the trash, grumbled a bunch, washed all of my dishes, and started over, this time being very careful to keep the custard at low heat and my eyes on the pan. It worked! I whisked in lemon zest and lemon curd and then refrigerated the whole thing over night.

This morning, I whipped up some whipping cream and folded it into the lemon custard, along with some fresh lemon juice. This step seemed really fussy and I'd debated skipping it, but I'm so glad I didn't. This ice cream was the creamiest, dreamiest textured ice cream I've ever had. And the flavor was so light, lemony, refreshing. Even my little girl, who generally doesn't like fruit flavored things, said, "This is even better than vanilla ice cream!" and proceeded to lick every drop off the paddle of the ice cream maker. Hubby and I were both amazed by how wonderful this ice cream was...if you haven't tried it yet, and you have an ice cream maker, add this one to the list!

Modern Baker Challenge: Chocolate Caramel Pecan Tartlets

These little tartlets were one of my biggest challenges to-date.

I was looking for a quick and easy dessert to bring to a friend's 30th birthday party this afternoon. I wasn't sure whether or not she had a birthday cake already planned, so I wanted to pick something fun that would go with another dessert. Browsing through The Modern Baker, I settled on the chocolate caramel pecan tartlets; they looked tasty and I had all of the ingredients on hand.

My first hiccup with these was that I was counting on using some of the leftover sweet tart dough that I have in my freezer. Upon closer inspection, I discovered that these tarts actually call for the chocolate nut dough. While I was willing to compromise, hubby was pretty convinced they needed the chocolate dough, and since I'd never made it before and we didn't have any plans this morning, I decided to just make a batch. The tart dough was relatively easy: slivered almonds, sugar, flour, cocoa, baking powder, salt, butter, eggs, and water, all combined in the food processor. I used extra-large eggs, so I thought maybe I should omit the water because of the extra moisture. I should've listened to my instincts, since the dough ended up being quite wet.

While the dough was cooling in the fridge, I made up the ganache. I realized that I didn't have quite enough chocolate, so I scaled the recipe down (I made 3/4 of the recipe). NM says to use a large saucepan because the caramel boils up...it did, but I think the pan I used was way too large, so it made it a little awkward to cook. And while I was cooking the sugar and water and simultanously heating the cream, I got distracted with the dishes and ended up scorching the cream and having to start over with that part. Anyway, the ganache wasn't difficult: sugar, water, cream, milk, salt, bittersweet chocolate (I used 60% and 72%), and unsalted butter. I probably should've waited to make the ganache, since it was completely hard by the time the crusts were ready.

Ah, the crusts. I rolled out the wet dough, using quite a bit of flour to prevent sticking and tearing, and used a small round cutter to cut circles. I used my mini-muffin pan, one of NM's suggestions for mini-tarts. It was only after I put the pan into the oven that I realized I'd forgotten to pierce the crusts with a fork. I pulled them from the oven, where they'd already begun to puff up, and quickly pierced them. Too late of course; they were still quite puffy. I used a plastic measuring spoon to push the still warm dough down to make a little cup. I thought I was in the clear, until I tried to remove the little delicate forms from the mini muffin pan. There's a reason tart pans have a removable bottom. I was able to salvage a few of them, and then I used the remaining 1/4 of the dough (still in the fridge) to make two 4" mini tart crusts.

After the crusts were finally ready, I rewarmed the ganache over a pot of gently simmering water on the stove, which went surprisingly well. I filled one 4" tart crust with plain chocolate, and then added the toasted pecans and filled the rest of the tart crusts.

I prefer the bittersweet chocolate tart with sweet tart crust. These were pretty dark; I would've preferred them with some sweetened whipped cream or ice cream. And I don't think I'll make this crust again. And I definitely won't use the mini-muffin pan again (unless someone has a foolproof technique for removing the tarts...?). Still, they were pretty tasty and went quickly at the birthday party, so all's well that ends well, I guess!

Modern Baker Challenge: Sour-cream apple pie

What makes you feel better after a slightly stressful afternoon? Me, I decided to come home and bake a pie with my little girl.

This is my thirteenth recipe from the sweet tarts and pies section of The Modern Baker. Based entirely on what I had in the kitchen (and the fact that the last batch of apples we bought were a little bruised and battered), we decided to make sour-cream apple pie.

Before I purchased my own set of 4 1/2" tart pans (which I love, by the way), I asked my dad if he had any small tart pans. He didn't have what I was looking for, but he did find two 4 1/2" pie plates which he gave me just in case. The little girl and I debuted them this afternoon.

I made 1/3 recipe of the apple filling (apples, unsalted butter, and sugar), the sour cream custard (flour, sugar, eggs, vanilla extract, and sour cream), and the crumb topping (flour, sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, and unsalted butter). It was absolutely perfect for the two mini pie plates.

I used a little packet of sweet tart dough that was in my freezer (1/3 of the full recipe). For the first time, I hadn't defrosted the dough in the fridge ahead of time, so I did an experiment. I pulled it out of the freezer and set it on the counter. By the time I was finished making the two fillings and the crumb topping, the dough was defrosted enough that I could use my rolling pin but it wasn't warm at all. Hurrah!

The mini pies baked for 45 minutes. I was waiting for the crumb topping to get darker, but I think I'd pull them out at 35 or 40 minutes next time; the filling was a tad dry. Still, this was a delicious pie. NM says that it needs no accompaniment; true, it doesn't need one, but it wasn't hurt by a little scoop of vanilla ice cream either! =) Another winner!

Modern Baker Challenge: Lemony cheese tart

The next tart I made for the Modern Baker Challenge was the lemony cheese tart with sour cream glaze.

The filling is made by mixing softened cream cheese, sugar, vanilla extract, lemon zest, eggs, and sour cream. These are placed into a sweet tart crust (actually two mini crusts). Even though they were mini, they baked for the full thirty minutes. While they were baking, I mixed up the sour cream glaze: sour cream, sugar, and vanilla extract. When I pulled the tarts out of the oven, I poured the glaze over the top. Unfortunately, I had filled the tarts so full (I'd used most of a third of the recipe in the two mini tarts) that the glaze ran off the edges and made a bit of a mess. But I got it cleaned up, put the tarts back into the oven for ten more minutes, and then took them out to cool.

Hubby and I enjoyed one of the mini tarts that night, warm from the oven. It was really yummy. It was even better the next night, cold from the fridge; it tasted like a lemony cheese cake.

Bake! Strawberry chantilly cake

Our next recipe from Bake! was chosen by Kayte: strawberry chantilly cake, in honor of her birthday.

NM says to wait until you can find perfectly ripe, local strawberries. I knew I'd have a loooooong wait (we had snow flurries yesterday at our May Day parade, after all). I could've made the Victoria sandwich variation, like Andrea did; it also looks wonderful.

But my baby sister just got accepted into nursing school (yay!!!), and she had a barbecue this weekend. I really wanted a fancy cake to celebrate, so I decided to just use our grocery store strawberries and cross my fingers that they were sweet and flavorful enough.

I copied Kayte, who's been raving about her little 6" pans, and picked up a couple of 6" cake pans. They were so fun! I used a half batch of the yellow cake recipe; I was initially worried because it seemed like so little batter in each of the pans, but I think the pans are just overly deep because the layers ended up being perfect (I actually weighed them to be sure I had the same amount of batter in each pan; I've never done that before, but I will do it from now on...so much easier than eye-balling it!).

The morning of the party, I made the whipped cream. I made 2/3 of the whipped cream recipe, but I had a lot left over. Next time, I'll just make 1/2 batch. Then I layered: one layer of the cake, a coating of whipped cream, slices of strawberries, more whipped cream, the other cake layer. And then whipped cream around the outside. To celebrate my sister's new career, I used the strawberries in an attempt to create the red nursing cross symbol on top...it's the thought that counts, I guess! ;)

The cake was a big hit. We ended up with a bigger crowd than expected, so I had to serve skinny slices...I was able to get 12 slices from the 6" cake. The cake itself was a yummy recipe, and you can't go wrong with strawberries, whipped cream, and cake!

Modern Baker Challenge: Roman almond and pine nut tart

As I said yesterday, I baked two mini-tarts last night with my last two chunks of frozen sweet tart dough: we had the banana walnut tart for dessert last night, and it was okay. We saved the Roman almond and pine nut tart for breakfast this morning because NM says it is better served as a tea pastry than for dessert.

I thought this recipe had a weird ingredient list: almond paste, sugar, eggs, butter, vanilla, lemon zest, flour, and pine nuts. In fact, I wasn't even going to make it until Kayte (the official blogger for this recipe) said that it was her new favorite recipe from the book.

I've never cooked with almond paste before, and wasn't able to find it the last time I had a recipe that called for it. Luckily, I found it the other day, and picked up a tube. It was odd stuff, more solid than paste-y, but I chopped it up and gave it a whir in my stand mixer with some sugar. Then I added in the egg, butter, and the rest of the ingredients, plopped it in the mini-tart pan, and pressed a thin layer of pine nuts into the top. I baked it for about 24 minutes. (I made 1/4 recipe for my mini-tart pan, filled the pan pretty full, and had just a tiny bit of filling left over.)

I snuck a bite before giving it to hubby for his breakfast this morning...and then another...and then another. This tart was such a pleasant surprise: so incredibly yummy! I think it would be a fun addition to a brunch, and I'm definitely putting it on the make-again list!