A Very Busy Baking Day

Two weeks ago, I had a very busy baking day. To be exact, I made 4 Chestnut and White Chocolate Cheesecakes, 4 Chocolate and Pecan Cheesecakes, a Linzer Torte, a Sacher Torte, lots of Chocolate Hazelnut Sables, Raspberry Macarons and Chocolate Crumb Bars. Fortunately, the weather was on my side, and I was able to use our front porch as a walk-in refrigerator. As intense as that experience was, I really enjoyed it; in fact, I confess that it left me craving for more.

Here is the last half-slice of my Chocolate and Pecan Cheesecakes. This happens to be one of the first recipes of Our Patisserie (posted more than 3 years ago). Chestnut and White Chocolate Cheesecakes were the more popular of the two, and they have vanished without any leftovers; so also has my yearly stock of homemade chestnut puree. I am very happy for being able to share one of my favorite desserts with a large group of friends, but I am also painfully aware of that void in my freezer where my ziplocked packages of chestnut puree once resided. Since chestnuts are very expensive once again, I don't think that I will attempt to make more chestnut puree at this point. My only hope for replenishing my stocks is to buy reasonably priced chestnut puree from Turkey this summer. Until then, no more chestnutty desserts in Our Patisserie.

The recipe for these cute sables comes from P Herme and D Greenspan's Chocolate Desserts. Until recently, baking a cake would be more appealing to me than baking cookies; but some cookie recipes in that book have changed my mind. I really enjoyed making these sables. Now you'll probably think that I am weird, but any cookie that necessitates the use of a ruler for preparation, is worth a try in my book.

A bonus of the sables was the leftover Sweet Tart Pastry, which I used to make some blackberry tartlets. My son (who has a habit of smelling food to decide if he wants to eat it) gingerly took a first bite after the preliminary sniffing, and liked them so much that he ended up eating my share as well.

What you see here is my adaptation of the Sacher torte. Judging only by some recipes claiming to deliver results very close to the original, I have no idea why Sacher torte is as famous as it is. I hate the idea of a dry cake, so my adaptation was a moister cake sprinkled with apricot syrup and filled with a chunky dried apricot filling. What's with the pistachios? My glaze was not smooth on the sides, so I had to camouflage. This is the second time these beautiful sliced pistachios have come to the rescue to cover up sides, but they contribute in taste, too.

I made this Linzer torte for the Viennese ball my son's class hosted. It was the first time I made a Linzer torte and I could not attend the event, so I have no firsthand idea of how it turned out. I confess that I ate the crumbs when the empty plate was returned, but that is not the same as eating a whole slice. My son reported that it was more popular than my adapted Sacher torte. The crumbs were quite tasty, too. I will have to make it again for us.

After all that baking, I ended up with a couple of leftover egg whites. In my case, just the sight of egg whites is a temptation to make macarons. My last few attempts at making macarons ended miserably, but I still could not resist. I used Kate Zuckerman's recipe with day-old egg whites and added 1 1/2 tbs freeze-dried raspberry powder to the batter to make the raspberry shells. The filling was raspberry sauce infused buttercream. I was generally pleased with the result, but I could not help but notice that the lovely color of the shells faded, in fact became beige-ish during baking. I have yet to find the correct temperature/method to make light-colored macarons.

This last dessert was made a couple of days earlier for a friend's guests. It is a chocolate crumb bar made with condensed milk. It is easy to make and transport, and is a definite crowd-pleaser. I'll add the recipe later today.

Catching Up

Here are some desserts that I made in the past couple of weeks. None of them was made following a recipe, although I was inspired by what I saw on some blogs and cookbooks.

Do you enjoy making cake rolls? I really do. First of all, I find them easier and faster to make than regular cakes. Secondly, there is a good deal of satisfaction that comes by completing the task without major cracks. Not that it really matters in the end product, as there are ways to hide the cracks unless they are really big. Something that is more difficult to hide is when the roll refuses to look like a roll and settles into an oblong or a semi-circle. Because of the practicality and the intrigue factor involved, I find myself turning to rolls whenever I fancy making a cake but do not feel like following a recipe from a cookbook.

The cake you see below was made at the end of December, last year. The decoration idea came from a Martha Stewart yule log. I thought it would be nice to make a Black Forest log, so I used chocolate genoise, cherry flavored syrup, mascarpone cream and cherries. Of course, this is a winning combination as far as taste is concerned. But, in my case, I was not successful with the genoise. On top of it, I used too much syrup to sprinkle on the cake causing it both to crack and lose its shape. The other difficulty was that the chocolate bark easily melted with the warmth of my hand, so I had to take several breaks to chill the chocolate until I finished the task. I learnt how to temper chocolate since then, and I think that tempering is the way to go with this kind of project. It certainly makes chocolate much easier to handle. In spite of the difficulties and misfortunes encountered, the end result looked and tasted good.

This second roll looks a little better. I had some chestnut paste and defrosted white chocolate-cream cheese buttercream sitting in my refrigerator for some time. Neither amounted --quantitywise-- to anything by itself, so I decided to combine them. This made enough filling for a cake roll. Since I like matcha-chestnut pairings, I made a matcha flavored hot milk sponge cake for the occasion. There was no leftover filling to frost the cake, so we simply dusted the top with matcha lightened with confectioners' sugar. Tiny cracks were still visible, but it was light and tasty.

Here is something else that I put together for my daughter's in-class birthday party. When she visited France last year, she brought us violet syrup from Alsace. She fondly remembers those days, so I thought that it would be nice to make her violet cupcakes. I was initially thinking white chocolate as a nice decor for the candied violets, but they were already quite sweet. So I paired them with dark chocolate instead. I used violet syrup to wet the cakes, but the aroma was difficult to detect in the cupcakes. Although I could not achieve what I was after, I liked the way the cupcakes looked. They were delicious, too; if not in a violet-y way.

After finally making Plaisir Sucre, I started fantacizing about working my way through the P Herme books I own, to try everything. I wanted to make his Faubourg Pave next. But reality dictated otherwise: I had chestnut puree in my refrigerator that needed to be put to use immediately. So instead of the Pave, I made a layered cake with hot milk-sponge cake, coffee syrup and chestnut cream. My mind was still with the Pave as I made it, so my creation inevitably looked like it. In the end, I was pleased with both the look and the taste. My finicky daughter even asked me which cookbook it was from.

Plaisir Sucre

I finally got around to making Plaisir Sucre from Pierre Herme and Dorie Greenspan's Chocolate Desserts. So much has already been said about this dessert, but I still want to add my two pence's worth of praises to the collection. This probably was the most fulfilling baking/cooking experience that I had. The well-written book took me step by step along the somewhat lengthy preparation, and when the components of the dessert were ready, it was such great fun to bring them together to build the dessert. Although bad weather and poor lighting conditions normally annoy me when I am taking pictures, even those did not dampen my spirit in this case. Then came the time to serve... When my husband seemed more interested in other things, I simply asked him to try it later, for this is one dessert that deserves full attention and appreciation. Why, it even demands it by its construction. You can not absentmindedly pop a forkfull in your mouth; that first bite requires some thinking and strategic planning. I must confess that the evil chef in me had fun watching my intimidated guests planning how to attack what was on their plates, the next day. But all that fun combined does not even come close to the sweet pleasure of eating it. What a deserving name! It revived that old passion I had for milk chocolate in my younger years. Once again, I thought that pastry can be an art form, and Plaisir Sucre comes very close to being an example of an ultimate artwork as it pleases all the senses at once. One cannot help but feel humble before the genius of Pierre Herme in creating this dessert.

Macarons

I made a lemon curd based berry trifle the other day. The egg whites left over from the lemon curd stayed on the kitchen countertop until next day. When I noticed them next morning, I thought of making macarons. This time, I started with a new recipe (Hazelnut Macarons from The Sweet Life by Kate Zuckerman) and tweaked it a little to make coffee macarons with a coffee-caramel filling. The result was not-overly-sweet, decidedly adult macarons. My youngest daughter posed with them, but did not want to taste them when I mentioned "coffee". Other family members and friends thought that they were very good. This was a succesful macaron experience. I could have enjoyed them and moved on with my life.

But once you start making macarons, it's difficult to stop; so before I knew it, I found myself on a macaron roll. This time, I wanted to make lavender macarons. I defrosted some of the cream cheese-white chocolate buttercream in my freezer, and flavored it with a lavender-infused sugar syrup. It turns out that lavender is a good flavoring for white chocolate. To incorporate lavender flavor into the macaron shells, I mixed some dried lavender in the confectioners' sugar and let it sit for a day. When it was time to process the nuts and sugar, I left the lavender in, too; and then sieved the mixture as best as I could. The result was very fine bits of lavender in the nut mixture. I proceeded with the Kate Zuckerman recipe, but in this case, the eggs were not day old. Since the recipe did not particularly say so, I did not think that this would be a problem. I don't know, maybe it wasn't; it may also have been the tiny amount of food coloring I added on a whim (which did not disperse in the batter as it should, and resulted in marbled macarons). Whatever the culprit was, two hours later, my macarons were not as dry as they should be. By then, it was 2:00am in the morning, so I baked them anyway and got feetless, and in some intances cracked shells. The taste, on the brighter side, was quite lavendery; so I do not consider this an altogether failed experience. No, the rose macaron experiment that came next was the real disaster, so much so that I will only mention it in the passing. But I would like to pose this question to the seasoned macaron bakers among you: What is your technique to flavor the macaron shells? Could it be that it is only the filling carries the flavor? I would really like to know the answer as I now want to get past the obvious coffee, matcha, chocolate etc. flavorings with macarons. I'll appreciate any feedback on this.

Coming back to what worked, here is my adaptation of the Kate Zuckerman recipe:

• 5 oz almond flour
• 8 oz confectioners' sugar
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 4 egg whites, aged at room temperature for a day
  
• 1/6 c sugar
• A pinch of cream of tartar
• 2 tsp instant coffee granules (divided)
  
• 6 oz dulce de leche

Process the almond flour, 1/2 c of the confectioners' sugar and 1 tsp of instant coffee granules to a fine powder, stopping the food processor a few times to scrape and toss the nut mixture. Mix it with the remainder of the confectioners' sugar and salt in a clean bowl.

In a large clean and dry bowl, beat egg whites with cream of tartar on medium speed until foamy. Increase the speed to high and gradually add granulated sugar. Continue to beat to stiff peaks. Gently fold in the dry ingredients into egg whites until completely incorporated.

Pipe the batter onto parchment paper or silpat-lined baking sheets. Tap the baking sheets a few times to remove air bubbles. Let dry at room temperature for 1 or 2 hours until the macaron shells feel dry to touch.

Bake at 350F, one sheet at a time, for about 15 minutes. Let the macaron shells cool a little before you remove them from baking sheets.

For the filling, dissolve 1 tsp instant coffee granules in 1 to 1 1/2 tsp boiling water. Use this to dilute dulce de leche to spreading consistency; you can use more hot water if necessary. Pair matching macaron shells and sandwich them with some coffee-flavored dulce de leche. Press the shells together so that the filling is visible.

Merry Christmas

We wish you fun-filled holidays with your loved ones.

Yule Log

I made this yule log well in advance, so I could share the recipe early enough for people who might want to try it. Two days are already gone by. So, here I am posting a picture as a visual cue to myself to sit down and write the recipe... as soon as possible. Hopefully before the day ends. The recipe is from Francois Payard's Simply Sensational Desserts. The book has 3 of them, and I tried the one with Chestnut-Ginger cream back in 2005. While searching for that link, I noticed that I did not post about 2006's yule log in Our Patisserie, so here is a picture of it with one-year delay. I have a fondness for yule logs, and make an effort to try a different one each year. This was a yellow cake --not a roll-- with vanilla and chocolate buttercream, and the filling had candied chestnuts. The recipe was from Bruce Healey's The Art of the Cake.

Fast forwarding to 2007, this year's had a sleek, modern look for a yule log, and I enjoyed making it. The filling was a cocoa-based pastry cream, and although the recipe did not specify it, I added some grated chocolate at the end to make it a little bit more chocolatey. The quantity should be enough to both fill and crumb-coat the roll; but in my case, there was little left to crumb-coat. On the other hand, I had plenty of glaze; so, I used it both to crumb-coat and to glaze the cake. Oh, I fashioned soft truffles to decorate the cake with the leftover glaze, too. Since I still could not see the bottom of the bowl, I ended up freezing whatever was left of it. The powdered sugar dusted chocolate free forms were meant to be more ruffle or fan-like; once again, I messed up with chocolate decorations, but they still looked OK.

The cake turned out to be quite good; but tastewise, 2005's chestnut-ginger yule log was definitely more interesting. If I were to make this again, I would do it more for the looks, and feel free to experiment with the cake/filling inside. The recipe below is as it appears in the book, so you may want to adjust the amount of glaze. One last note: this made quite a long yule log, so I cut it into two and made 2 smaller logs, one to keep, and one to give away.

• Genoise roll (recipe below)
• Chocolate syrup (recipe below)
• Chocolate Pastry Cream (recipe below)
  
• Chocolate Glaze (recipe below)
  
• White chocolate stars, chocolate fans dusted with confectioners' sugar, chocolate truffles and meringue mushrooms to decorate

Place the cake on your working surface. Brush it liberally with the cocoa syrup. Spread a uniform layer of chocolate pastry cream on it. Roll the cake tightly, starting with the long side, as you keep peeling the parchment as you go. (I peeled the parchment before I rolled the cake.) Rewrap in parchment paper and freeze the roll for an hour. (Mine went to our ice-cold porch instead.)

When you are ready to proceed, you may want to cut a portion of the roll at an angle to fashion a small stump. You may glue the pieces with some pastry cream. (I did not do a stump this time, since I thought that it might complicate the glazing process.) Spread the remaining (if any) of the pastry cream over the roll. You can use some of the chocolate glaze to do this, too. If you do so, let the crumb-coated cake chill before you continue with glazing. Pour the glaze (which should be still warm, and at a thick, pourable consistency) evenly over the roll, coating it completely. Refrigerate and let the glaze set before you decorate the log with fans, mushrooms, truffles and stars.

Genoise Roll

• 5 eggs
• 1 1/4 c sugar
  
• 1 c sifted cake flour
• 2 tbs melted, unsalted butter

Preheat your oven to 400F. Line a 10"x15" jelly-roll pan with parchment paper.

Fill a saucepan with water, and bring to a boil. Put your eggs and sugar in your mixer's bowl, whisk by hand until the mixture comes together. Place the bowl in the saucepan of simmering water, and continue whisking, until the egg mixture is warm to touch. Transfer the bowl to your mixer and beat at medium-high speed until the mixture has doubled and cooled. This will take you about 7 minutes. Now add the sifted cake flour and fold gently with a spatula, until no traces of flour remain. Take a large scoop of the batter and mix it thoroughly with the melted butter. Return this to the cake batter and fold it until well combined. Scrape the batter to the prepared cake pan, smooth the top and bake 5 to 7 minutes. The top did not really brown in my case, but do not let this trick you into thinking that the cake did not bake yet. Test by touching the top; if it springs back, it is done. Do not let it overbake as it will quickly dry. Invert the cake to a rack, and then back to another one so that the right side is up. Let it cool with the parchment paper on.

Chocolate Pastry Cream

• 1/2 c sugar
• 1/4 c cocoa powder
• 1 c milk
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
  
• 3 egg yolks (you can use the whites to make meringue mushrooms)
• 2 tbs cornstarch, sifted
  

Sift 1/4 c of the sugar and cocoa powder together in a saucepan. Slowly add the milk, whisking to maintain a smooth mixture as you do so. Add the vanilla extract and heat to boiling. Remove from the heat and set aside.

Beat the egg yolks, rest of the sugar and cornstarch together until thick and lighter colored. Gradually add about half of the hot chocolate milk, and blend. Return the mixture to the saucepan of chocolate milk, and cook, whisking constantly, until the mixture thickens and shows signs of boiling. Allow it to boil, as you continue whisking, for a minute. If you are lucky, there will not be a need to sieve the pastry cream, and you may just scrape it to a small bowl. Cover with plastic wrap directly touching the surface, and let cool.

Cocoa Syrup

• 1/2 c sugar
• 1/4 c cocoa powder, sifted
• 1/2 c water
  

Combine sugar and cocoa powder in a small saucepan. Gradually whisk in the water until smooth. Bring to a boil, remove from heat and allow to cool. Strain, if necessary, before you use.

Chocolate Glaze

• 11 oz finely chopped bittersweet chocolate
• 1 1/4 c heavy cream

Put the chocolate in a medium bowl. Heat the cream to boiling, and pour on the chocolate. Stir gently, until all the chocolate is melted, and the mixture is smooth. Use after it cools down a little, but is still warm and pourable.

Molten Chocolate Raspberry Cakes

Once again, it is the time of indulgence and there are excuses aplenty for baking. It is so much more enjoyable to bake when there are people around to share the bounty, and the holidays are just such times. Since we do not officially observe Christmas, I don't have to deal with the shopping frenzy either, and this leaves me plenty of time to enjoy the season and bake. Of course, there is always a glitch; and in my case, it is that I do get caught up in a shopping frenzy. Over the years, this season has seen me placing Amazon orders for all the cookbooks I fancied but thought better of, and buying all kinds of kitchen gadgets or baking supplies on a whim. 2007 was no exception; although I tried to restrain myself, I still ended up with several items I didn't exactly need. I am hoping that my holiday extravaganza will at least make for good blogging. The first project I have on mind is a violet cake. Then, I want to make raspberry macarons and a chocolate glazed tart speckled with gold flecks.

Speaking of chocolate, my purchases included some good quality bittersweet chocolate as well, which I aptly put to use for a dessert I have long been planning to make: Molten Chocolate Raspberry Cakes from Alice Medrich's Bittersweet. Like all the other desserts I tried from her books, these did not disappoint. However, let me note the following: I used 70% bittersweet chocolate, and did not heed the adjustment notes at the end of the recipe. The end result was an adult dessert. I do not regret it, and will do it again; but if you want molten chocolate cakes for every age group to enjoy, you may want to use standart bittersweet or semisweet chocolate (50 through 62%) as Ms. Medrich recommends.

• 8 oz bittersweet chocolate, cut into tiny pieces
• 6 tbs unsalted butter
• 1/4 c strained fresh or frozen raspberry puree
• 2 tbs cocoa powder
• 3 tbs plus 2 tsp sugar
  
• 2 eggs, separated plus 1 egg white
• Pinch of cream of tartar

Butter and dust with sugar the insides of 6 (6 oz) souffle cups. Chill a small plate in your freezer. Combine chocolate and butter in a saucepan and melt, stirring frequently, by setting your saucepan on a skillet of simmering water. Transfer about 5 tbs of the melted chocolate mixture into a small bowl, add the raspberry puree and 2 tsp of sugar to it and mix well. Mound the flavored chocolate mixture on the chilled plate, and put it back in the freezer for another 10 minutes or so. When the chocolate is firm enough to shape, form it into 6 truffles and return them to the freezer until ready to use.

Rewarm the remaining chocolate on simmering water until it is warm to touch. Add the cocoa powder and egg yolks, and mix to combine. Transfer the egg whites to your mixer bowl (which should be 100% greaseless), add the cream of tartar and beat at medium speed until soft peaks form. Increase the speed to high, and continue beating as you gradually add the remaining 3 tbs of sugar. Stop when you achieve glossy and stiff peaks. Add about one quarter of your beaten egg whites to the chocolate mixture and fold. Then add the remaining egg whites, and fold until blended. Divide half of the chocolate mixture among the 6 prepared cups. Press a truffle into each cup and cover with the remaining batter. Cover with plastic wrap and let rest for at least 3 hours in the refrigerator.

Prehat the oven to 400F. Remove the plastic wrap and place the cups on a cookie sheet. Bake 12 or 14 minutes (12 did it for me). Cakes will be slightly puffed. Take them out of the oven and let them rest for 3 minutes. Then run a knife around the sides of each cup and invert them onto serving plates.You can garnish them with raspberries, dust them with powdered sugar and/or serve them with raspberry coulis.

Enjoy!