This is a recipe from The New England Table by Laura Brody (2005). Bar cookies are appealing because they bake all at once. I need to bake more cookies as the first set was eaten with early December family visit. I want to make another cookie tray. I had these ingredients so thought I would give it a try for cookies for the Christmas Eve feast.
1 cup butter
1 1/3 cups brown sugar
3/4 cup light corn syrup
1 tablespoon vanilla
5 1/3 cups oats
1 cup dry roasted peanuts, roughly chopped
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Butter the sides and bottom of a 13 x 9 inch pan. Butter it well.
Cream the butter until creamy. Add brown sugar until light and fluffy. On medium speed add the corn syrup and vanilla. Then stir in the oats and peanuts. Press this into the pan and bake for 15-17 until surface is dry and edges have just begun to turn brown. Well, the surface was not dry. So I added 5 more minutes to the baking time. And then turned the heat off but left it in the oven for ten more minutes. The edges were brown but at least now the interior was set.
For the glaze:
1 3/4 cups chocolate chips
1 cup smooth peanut butter
Melt this and stir until smooth. I made about half of this amount with dark chocolate and chunky peanut butter. Spread this on the bars when they are somewhat cool. Cut when cool.
Thoughts: as I was making these I thought to myself that this is a super sweet baked oatmeal or an oatmeal-peanut butter fudge. They are very sweet and will stick to your teeth. Be sure to cut them into small squares. The recipe says 54. Hubby thinks they could be cut even smaller.
Baking with Jacques! I was looking for a “light” dessert and thought a cake roll with jam filling might fit the bill. I was at first thinking of citrus flavors but the Essential cookbook had this chocolate roll which sounded simple enough to make. Well, melting chocolate, separating eggs, whipping egg whites in separate bowl might be a tad fussy but so would being able to roll the cake without breaking. I read the instructions several times to become confident this would not be problematic. Here is my adaptation.
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup water
6 eggs, separated
4-6 ounces dark chocolate, melted
2 tablespoons very strong coffee
I melted what chocolate I had on hand. I separated the eggs into two mixer bowls. I poured a quarter cup of prepared coffee and added a teaspoon of espresso powder. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Prepare a cookie sheet pan with buttered parchment paper.
Put water and sugar in small saucepan, bring to boil and cook for 2 minutes making a light syrup. Slowly pour this over the egg yolks while mixing vigorously for 5 minutes. This should be fluffy, smooth and pale yellow in color. Add the melted chocolate and mix well.
Whip egg whites into firm peaks. Add one-third of this into the chocolate mixture mixing vigorously. I used a hand whisk to do this in order to mix in the chocolate that had gathered at the bottom of the bowl under the egg yolks. Carefully fold in the remaining egg whites just until blended.
Smooth the batter into the prepared pan. Bake for 12 minutes until set. Let cool to room temperature and then cover with plastic wrap. When completely cool this will be filled and rolled.
Traditionally this is filled with whipped cream. I used a jar of Sour Cherry Preserves. It took the entire 8 ounce jar. After removing the plastic wrap, spread the filling on the cake. Then beginning with the longer side roll gently removing the parchment paper as you go along. Use large spatulas to move the cake to a serving platter. I cut it in half to do that.
I am happy to pronounce that this came out nicely. I sprinkle powdered sugar on the top.
Serves 8 and I cut it into serving size pieces and we enjoyed this for 4 nights. It is very rich. Adding a dollop of whipped cream or vanilla ice cream would work well here.
How does one make a birthday cake for a sugar-free, dairy-free, and gluten-free dietary need? Luckily for me the particular family member is a grown adult who is open to experimentation in recipes and not a small child who doesn’t understand why they cannot have cake.
Looking into gluten-free flours it seems important to get the 1:1 product that contains Xanthem Gum. I looked at the Xanthem Gum and it was not inexpensive and why would I need that much anyway? Oh, and the gluten-free flour must also not contain any almond flour. I found a small bag and purchased it with the intent of experimenting on my standard cake recipes.
Sugar-free is a challenge. Approved sweeteners are honey, dates, and maybe, coconut sugar. I found a small bag of coconut sugar as well.
Dairy-free is simpler as there are so many dairy-free “not milk” products out there. I like oat milk which is better for the planet than almond milk. Soy has a mixed reputation but would more closely match the protein in cow’s milk. Plant-based butters are available but if you read ingredients carefully you can find margarine that is completely lactose-free. An olive oil cake won’t need butter at all.
I have a Betty Crocker snack cake recipe from the back of an ancient flour bag which I have used for almost 40 years. This recipe is actually vegan. I have chosen the first cake experiment for this recipe as it will only need two substitutions: flour and sugar.
1/2 teaspoon vanilla (why is vanilla used in chocolate cakes?)
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Lightly spray 8-inch square baking pan with cooking spray or oil. I do this even though the original recipe does not direct one to grease the pan.
Whisk all dry ingredients together and then stir in the wet ones. Mix thoroughly and pour into prepared pan. Bake for 35 minutes until done.
Thoughts: coconut sugar is brown in color with a vague caramel aroma. It also does not hold moisture as well as brown sugar (according to the internet). I was concerned the cake may be dry, but it was not. It may have been done just earlier than 35 minutes though. It did have a hint of a caramel/”burnt-but-not-really” flavor. Coconut flavor was not detected. And the texture was good and cake-like, spongy. Perhaps some espresso powder to enhance the cocoa would not go amiss.
I was visiting with my daughter and several times throughout the day “brownies” were mentioned. The issue with brownies is the dietary restrictions needed to maintain the well-being of all who are present. More power and kudos to all parents, spouses, etc. who research and experiment and provide nutritious and enjoyable foods for family members who cannot “just eat whatever”. So Daughter and I were faced with attempting to find dessert which would be sugar-free, dairy-free, nut-free, and gluten-free! And I found a brownie recipe in one of the books she got from her local library. I just can’t remember the name or author.
After reading the ingredient list we find that Daughter has all the ingredients, so we proceed. The alternate ingredients are dates for sugar, coconut oil for butter, and coconut flour for all-purpose. We omitted the walnuts. This is made in a blender.
We first processed the dates in the blender, added the eggs, oil, and vanilla, and lastly the dry ingredients. It was a thick batter and took some time to spread in the 9-inch square pan. We baked it and voila, brownies. Well they did not look at all like the picture in the recipe book.
They also did not have the texture of “ordinary” brownies. They were neither chewy nor cake-y. They had a distinct coconut flavor which Son-in-Law liked. The mouthfeel was more of a coconut-textured, nougat-y type such as a Mounds candy bar insides. But it was a little bit of chocolate for the day!
This is really cake. This one is from a recipe clipping in Mom’s recipe notebook and looks like it came from a magazine. There is no reference on the clipping. Did Mom make this? I’m not sure. I know she used to make a poppy seed cake with pudding filling and chocolate glaze, so maybe she did.
I read and re-read this recipe before proceeding. As I was making the cake I realized this is a hot milk sponge cake. I proceed hoping for the best and reasonably confident that the past two hot milk sponge cakes I baked were successful but not this recipe. Re-reading helped me see that this called for two 8 inch round cake pans. I recently bought nice 9-in pans. The amounts of the ingredients also seemed scant for two pans, so I doubled the recipe and am very glad I did. The recipe is almost exactly like the one from my previous blog entitled Hot Milk Sponge Cake so I will not reprint it.
I made the filling and the chocolate glaze from the recipe clipping. Making a pudding or cream-custard can by a little tricky and, I admit, mine had a bit of scrambled egg to it, but not much so you noticed.
1/3 cup sugar
2 Tablespoons flour
1 Tablespoon cornstarch
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups milk
2 eggs (okay so the original called for 1 egg and 1 egg yolk but why?)
1 teaspoon vanilla
Stir dry ingredients together in medium saucepan and slowly add the milk and cook over moderate heat until boiling, stir and cook 2-3 minutes longer. Meanwhile have your eggs slightly beaten in a bowl or measuring cup. Pour some of the hot milk mixture into the eggs and then pour it all into the saucepan and cook and stir until returns to boiling. Add vanilla and let cool.
When cool and set beat until smooth and layer over one cake layer. Top with the other.
Make the glaze by heating one ounce unsweetened chocolate with 1 Tablespoon butter until melted and add one cup powdered sugar and 1/2 teaspoon vanilla. I did this in a microwave safe measuring cup and not on the stove. Blend in 1-2 Tablespoons boiling water until drizzling consistency. Pour over top of cake.
“This elegant company dessert combines three American favorites–cake, cream-custard, and chocolate.”
I wanted to bake a cake. I wanted to try something new. I looked at my Soulard Market cookbook and found the 12th street hot milk cake and decided to try it. The first time I made this I halved the recipe. I remember my sister mentioned she uses this recipe. I then called her up and asked if it really called for so little butter. She then reminded me that this is a sponge cake and that she actually uses our mother’s Hot Milk Sponge cake recipe. The key to success, she said, was to aerate the eggs long enough.
I then went to my mother’s recipe notebook and found the Hot Milk Sponge recipe. The ingredients are almost the same as Soulard’s, except the typo in Soulard of “1 teaspoon flour” which most likely is the salt, except it calls for a “dash of salt” later in the ingredient list and it did not say when to add the vanilla. A bit confusing but when I made the half recipe it came out beautifully. We ate that one before taking a picture.
I made the full recipe in a greased 9×13-inch cake pan as directed in the Soulard book. Mom’s recipe calls for an ungreased 9-10 inch tube pan. There is also a difference in directions in putting together the batter. I used the Soulard because I knew that one worked. I have not had much luck with sponge cakes before but this one is going to be a repeat!
4 eggs
2 cups sugar
2 cups flour (or sifted cake flour)
1 Tablespoon butter per Soulard (2 Tablespoons per Mom’s)
1 teaspoon vanilla (or 2)
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup milk
2 teaspoons baking powder
Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Mix butter and milk in saucepan or pyrex (for microwave) and heat until butter melts. This takes 1-2 minutes in the microwave. In the mixer bowl put the eggs and beat 5-8 minutes and then slowly add the sugar. This will look fluffy when ready. Now fold in the dry ingredients except the baking powder. I mixed this in on low speed for 30 seconds. Stir in the hot milk mixture. This is where to add the vanilla. Now fold in the baking powder and allow to stand for 10 minutes “to allow the baking powder to expand”.
Pour batter in a greased 9×13 inch pan and bake for 25-30 minutes. Cool on wire rack. Frost with icing of your choice. My choice of frosting is a super easy chocolate one from a King Arthur Flour sales flyer. Melt one stick of butter in a saucepan. Stir in ¼ cup cocoa and 6 tablespoons buttermilk or plain yogurt. Bring to a boil and boil for one minute. Remove from heat and stir in 4 cups confectioner’s sugar. This makes a wonderful fudge like frosting.
Variations: one can use coconut oil in place of the butter. This will give the cake a slight coconut flavor, a very mild one. It using coconut oil in place of the butter in the frosting this will be a stronger coconut flavor. I like the combination of chocolate and coconut. It is one of my favorite combinations.
What kind of pie to make for Pi day? This I asked Hubby. I had recently made an apple pie which we proceeded to eat 75% of in one sitting. Mincemeat is not seasonal. Pumpkin is a standard. Finally we settled on a Chocolate Cream Pie. No meringue. I went through at least half a dozen cookbooks to find a Cream Pie and not a Meringue Pie. So it was back to basic Betty, Betty Crocker’s Cookbook, page 302 in my edition.
Most of the recipes for pudding pies that I found use egg yolks. This allows the whites to be used for the meringue. I had to make a decision as to how to use whole eggs or have 4 egg whites sitting about the fridge for who knows how long? The next decision was to use cocoa or chocolate. I have these 85% chocolate discs and wondered if these would serve. I also had an 82% Belgian Dark Chocolate bar available. The third decision was about pie crust. Should I make homemade or use the “emergency pie crusts” in the refrigerated box. I had already made the decision to use canned whipped cream. It is easy enough to make it from scratch but then I would have a half-used carton of whipping cream sitting around in my fridge for, you guessed it, who knows how long? But as I write this I am envisioning cream puffs with crème patisserie. Darn! I did not think of that when I was at the store.
The pie crust is pre-baked for this pie. I used one of the emergency crusts. I have a pound of dried navy beans that I use for pie weights. Just let them cool and keep them for next time. Betty says to pre-bake the shell, well-pricked, in the oven at 475 degrees F for 8-10 minutes. I had never used that high of a temperature but gave it a go. Other than it taking longer than 10 minutes it worked well. It took my crust longer because I had also weighted down a tin pie pan with the beans for additional weight. This did not let the crust brown for the first 8 minutes.
So the first step in the recipe is to bake your pie crust for a 9-inch pie.
1 cup sugar; Betty wanted me to increase this from 2/3 cup to 1 1/2 cups if making the chocolate version of the cream pie. I only increased it a bit. This probably matters depending on what type of chocolate is used. The chocolate I used had some sugar in it.
1/3 cup cornstarch
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 cups milk; I bought 2% milk and now have half a half-gallon sitting in my fridge for who knows how long? We usually drink/use/cook with nondairy “fake milk”.
3 whole eggs; I decided this would work just as well as 4 egg yolks
1 Tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon vanilla
2 ounces chocolate; I used the chocolate discs.
Sweetened whipped cream
First, melt the chocolate with the vanilla. Slightly beat the eggs in separate bowl, medium sized, so that half the hot milk mix can be poured in this. Mix the sugar, cornstarch, and salt in a good sized sauce pan. Pour in the milk slowly and bring this to a boil, stirring constantly. This will take at least ten minutes of standing by the stove. Betty intended for the chocolate mixture to be added with the milk but I forgot to read that part of the instructions. Let this boil for 1 minute, still stirring. Now pour half the hot milk mixture into the eggs, stirring those so as not to have scrambled-egg pudding. it was at this point I read about when to put in the chocolate so I put it in the sauce pan. I thought I might have chocolate-spotted pudding but it did blend all-together when put all back into the sauce pan. Now boil for one more minute. Remove from heat.
Pour into the waiting pie crust. Cover top of pudding with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least two hours. Betty says not more than 48 hours, not sure why. Top with whipped cream for serving. Be sure to remove the plastic wrap!
This was very delicious and rich tasting. I added more whipped cream on each slice.
Well, I saw this recipe from The Telegraph for a chocolate cake with a kick of ginger. Sounded good to me so I thought I’d give it a try. First let me check for ingredients. No muscovado sugar but I do have brown sugar. No double cream but I do have evaporated milk. No golden syrup but I do have light corn syrup. No chopped dark chocolate but I do have dark chocolate chips. No dairy milk but I have nut milk. I’m good to go!
Spoiler alert: This essay is about process and not the recipe. I will show you the end product and review the taste. For fans of the GBBO this did not come out as a signature bake, a show stopper, nor would it have passed the technical. I would have to leave the tent!
First of all I pulled together the ingredients for the cake. This cake used oil and not butter and had more sugar than flour which I thought was interestingly different. So I am standing in my kitchen with Google on one hand, a cookbook open to a chart of conversions from Metric to Imperial and vice versa, a calculator, and pen and paper. I have to convert grams to cups and portion of cups, weight to volume. This takes quite a bit of finagling since Siri says one thing and the chart says one thing and the calculator says another thing. Finally I decide on a formula and measure out the cake ingredients. Luckily my liquid measuring cups have ml markings. The batter comes together and is very thin, and there is not a lot of it either. This is to be baked in 20cm round pans which to my measurement were the 9-inch pans. I fit parchment paper, pour in the batter, and bake.
(I have just now double checked the 20 cm measurement and find that it is 8 inches. There is a reason for the “measure twice, cut once” truism.)
The cakes were very thin. Clearly the result of the above mentioned measurement error. But they were raised so I put them on racks to cool. They smell and look good.
While the cakes were baking I had put aside and prepped the ingredients for the ginger caramel as well as the chocolate frosting. But for the frosting I figured the cocoa would make it chocolate enough and did not put in chopped chocolate chips. Boiled (was to only melt) the frosting ingredients and set aside to cool and thicken. Which it did not do. I put the frosting in the fridge. Still liquid. I melted some chocolate chips to try to thicken it which did not really work. So I have fudge sauce for the frosting. Great.
Meanwhile I am looking at the very thin cakes and decide I’ll bake another set of cakes from a tried-and-true recipe, Best-Ever Chocolate Cake (https://mykitchenmythoughts.com/2016/02/18/best-ever-chocolate-cake/) that my mom always made. I whip this up. This cake uses a cup of butter and has more flour than sugar. I bake this in two layers in the 8-inch cake pans. Why? I was not thinking properly? I wanted a cake with good height? There was much more batter than the other cake and the 8-inch pans took longer to bake than I expected and I was afraid the edges that were trying to overflow the pans would burn. They didn’t and finally the cakes were done. I now have these cooling on the racks and turn my attention to the caramel.
I do not make caramel. I cannot recall ever making caramel. The instructions did use the word “stir”. This turned into a sauce that did not thicken to drizzle state when cooled. I wondered about that when I was pouring in the ginger cream (ginger infused evaporated milk) and remember almost all GBBO bakers commenting on NOT stirring the caramel while bubbling. Live and learn.
Now I have four cake layers, fudge sauce, and caramel sauce. I put the two thin cakes together by drowning them with the fudge sauce and a few spoon of caramel. I now add the first layer of Best-Ever. This is tall enough and would be too tall with the fourth layer. So I now have to use the rest of the fudge sauce for the top of the third layer. I’m drowning the cake and the sauce is overflowing the cake plate. I busily scoop around the cake and try to spread some sauce on the sides. Then I pour the caramel over the top of it all. It dawns on me that I forgot to add the tiny bit of sea salt to the caramel so I sprinkle that on top. Cake is complete. It looks a mess. And after all that, we don’t even have a slice until the next day. I put it in the fridge overnight.
To review:
I used the wrong sized pans for both cake batches.
I stirred the caramel.
The chopped chocolate was essential for the texture and thickness of the frosting.
The fudge sauce (supposed to be frosting) was absorbed by the thin bottom cakes so they became very dense. It did not saturate the Best-Ever cake layer all the way through so there was a bit of cake texture there.
The ginger only came through from the sauce on the top of the cake.
The chocolate was too intense and although very rich did not result in the best tasting chocolate flavor.
It would be helpful to have a kitchen scale.
We’ll be eating chocolate cake all week!
Does this ever happen to you? You try something new and are disappointed. It is not certain that it is the recipe or how you carried it out? That does not mean I will stop trying. There are those home bakers who have tried-and-true cakes, pie, cookies that they consistently bake. The only one I have is Best-Ever Chocolate Cake. But I like to try new recipes and they sometimes do not turn out a well as I had hoped. I have a trove of cookbooks, I follow cooking blogs, and the internet has almost everything else. The adventure continues.
It’s been awhile since I’ve written. Writing is an interesting phenomenon for me. I used to write my memoirs of my mundane ordinary life. I did this on computer and then in some handwritten journals. I then wrote the blog. At present I am exchanging emails with my best friend from high school in the middle of this pandemic. She’s in the Midwest; I’m in the Northeast. The point is that these writing episodes do not seem to overlap. I’m writing either one or the other. And lately I decided to handwrite letters to my son who is in the Northwest. But here I am back on the blog.
It’s not that I have not been baking or cooking. Well, actually, I have been doing less as Hubby has picked up cooking and dinner making. He continues to make me breakfast as I go off to work, either at the Agency or to the Dining Room. Either commute is not a hardship as the Agency is just up the street and across the road. Most of my baking is for something sweet. I have made a few batches of brownies. The problem with that is we tend to eat the whole pan in one sitting, or in two days, whichever comes first!
So I wanted to make something chocolate but not brownies…again! For some reason I had a couple of cake mixes in the baking pantry. Why do I have these? Because I thought I would have to bake my own birthday cake which is traditionally German Chocolate. I have made German Chocolate cake from scratch but have no problem making it from a mix. I’m telling Hubby that I found coconut so have all the ingredients and plan to bake the cake. He has to tell me then that he has bought me the cake as a surprise and now I went and ruined his surprise!
In my search for something to bake I remembered a cookie bar made from cake mix and sweetened condensed milk. It takes me some time to find the recipe notebook with this scrap of cake mix box. These are called Macaroon Cookie Bars. They are sort of a brownie as well.
1 package chocolate cake mix: I used a German Chocolate mix. The original recipe was from a Devil’s Food Cake Mix
½ cup butter, softened
1 egg
14-oz. can sweetened condensed milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 egg
1 ¼ cups flaked coconut; divide this to use the ¼ cup separately
1 cup chopped nuts; I used pecans
Mix the first 3 ingredients and press into a greased 13-inch x 9-inch baking dish. Mix the remaining ingredients except for ¼ cup of the coconut. Spread that mixture on top of the cake mix batter. Sprinkle the ¼ cup reserved coconut on top. Bake for 350 degree F for 30-35 minutes until golden brown. The edges will be the darkest. Cool completely and cut into squares.
My son and daughter-in-law visited so I baked a cake. I was flipping through magazines and so I baked a cake. I was looking through my news-feed and had to bake a cake. I sense a pattern here. I’m thinking I might be baking a cake in the near future as well.
I finally got around to making this cake. I was looking for the magazine that had created a recipe for veggie sauce with the mouth feel of ground meat. I had attached a note to the front of the magazine with the names and page numbers of recipes I wanted to try and this one was there. This turned out well, having a grown-up taste, not too sweet and quite moist. It is possible that I under-baked it by 5 minutes but that did not affect our enjoyment of the cake. The problem with this cake is that it was so easy to slice off a sliver each time one walked by it.
1 ¾ cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
¾ teaspoon salt
3 large eggs
1 ¼ cups sugar, plus 2 tablespoons for topping
¼ teaspoon lemon zest (I used orange zest; the second time I used lime zest. Stick to lemon or orange)
¾ cup olive oil
¾ cup milk (I used unsweetened vanilla almond milk.)
Oven to 350 degrees F. Grease 9 inch spring-form pan. Whisk flour, baking soda, and salt together. In a separate bowl whip eggs on medium speed (stand mixer with whisk attachment) until foamy about one minute. Add sugar and zest increasing speed to high and beating for about 3 minutes. Reduce speed back to medium and slowly pour in oil, mix only one minute. Add ½ the flour mixture about one minute. Add milk and mix for 30 seconds. Add the rest of the flour mixture and mix for one minute. Of course, you are scraping down the sides of the bowl during the addition of the flour and milk. Pour the batter into prepared pan and sprinkle on the remaining sugar. Bake 45-50 minutes. Let cool in pan for 15 minutes before removing. Supposedly let this cool completely before slicing. Hah!
And here’s another cake: Guinness Chocolate Cake in honor of St. Patrick’s Day but really because it was a Friday and I got home from work. For this one I made a Bailey’s Buttercream and not a cream cheese frosting.
Weight loss is out the window. With all this Coronavirus Pandemic, hunkering down, figuring out how to work from home, how worried should I be, binge-watching Netflix for escapism, I eat what I want. I apparently bake and eat cakes too! See above. We re-watched the whole Lord of the Rings Special Edition DVD set. There’s a situation that puts this in perspective. I would have liked to put one of those images and quotes here but am not sure how or if things are copyrighted.
It’s all about priorities and enjoying life. I like to learn about food. I like to do new things with vegetables to eat more of them. I like to bake and cook. I am reasonably healthy and not too overweight. I do not want to add more anxiety in this day and time with regard to the food I eat.
Maybe I’ll get back on the weight loss train sometime later this year. One day at a time.
mykitchenmythoughts 