Dessert First

Apricot, Orange, and Almond Mini Cakes

Remember the chocolate salon I mentioned attending a couple of months ago? Not only was it a great place to meet chocolatiers both celebrated and up-and-coming, but also of course to meet fellow chocoholics.

One person I was extremely excited to meet was esteemed pastry chef and cookbook author Carole Bloom. The "Carole Bloom section" on my bookshelf has grown steadily over the years: The International Dictionary of Desserts, Pastries, and Confections is indispensable for deciphering the complexities of pastry terminology, while The Essential Baker is a fantastic resource for ingredient-specific baking inspirations.

Carole was a speaker at the salon; when she learned I was also speaking, she very sweetly contacted me and suggested we meet up beforehand. How exciting to get the opportunity to meet someone whose work I'd admired!

In person, Carole is warm and personable, generous with sharing stories and tips. It's easy to tell that she's experienced in baking and in explaining it to the curious beginner. I'd love to take a class from her sometime, or just watch her in action!

Carole mentioned her new book which was about to come out, Bite-Size Desserts: Creating Mini Sweet Treats, from Cupcakes and Cobblers to Custards and Cookies, and very kindly offered to send me a review copy. A few weeks after the salon, I found a shiny new copy of her book in my mailbox - thanks so much, Carole!

Bite-Size Desserts is an adorably named, very attractively produced book with some seriously scrumptious recipes. Any reader who goes through my site will quickly realize I have a predilection of miniature desserts; individual portions can be fun to put together, easier to photograph, and of course people love them! In her cookbook Carole has created mini versions of all the classics, from cakes to cobblers to custards, and shows how to plate and present them beautifully. From tiny cupcakes with rose-like swirls of chocolate frosting to espresso cups of mousse, it's a spread of dollhouse-sized delights. As a side note, all the measurements are in both volume and weight -  LOVE!

I finally got the chance to try out one of the recipes in the book last week: Apricot-Orange Loaf Cakes. Made with brown sugar and vanilla, studded with Grand Marnier-soaked apricots, these little lovelies fall somewhere between pound cake and coffee cake - moist, fluffy, and rich. The recipe also calls for adding in chopped walnuts, but I decided for a lighter touch and sprinkled the top of the cakes with sliced almonds and some sugar. The gave the baked cakes a crackly, crunchy top that went very well with the velvety texture of the cake beneath. The combination of flavors is subtly sophisticated - while apricots make it summery, I could see substituting different ingredients for the changing seasons and the cake would retain its satisfying appeal.

The recipe calls for baking them in mini 4" x 2 1/4 " loaf pans. However, I thought this would be an excellent opportunity to use some paper bakers I picked up in Japan last winter. Talk about tiny, Japan has been associating small with "kawaii" (cute) for ages and somehow, everything there does seem twice as adorable with their petite proportions.

These wax-lined bakers seem to be a common item in Japanese houseware stores - I wish them sold more of these items here, as they are perfect for gift-giving - you simply give your cake to the lucky recipient in the same pan it was baked in. They also come in a multitide of designs and colors, making a pretty presentation a snap. I really liked the scalloped edges on these papers. I found similar bake-and-serve papers on King Arthur Flour, for those not making a trip to Asia in the near future.

Back to the topic of tiny, these bakers were a scant - did my little loaf cakes ever look precious when they came out of the oven, but practically speaking, they really are single-serving size. No sharing here -and you probably won't want to, given how delicious the cake is! I baked some of the batter in the recommended pan size and it does a produce a more slice-friendly loaf - see last photo. It keeps very well and the flavors seem to deepen over time.

I'm now eager to try out some of the other recipes in Carole's book - it's fanned the flames of my miniature mania for sure! Thanks for writing such a lovely book, Carole!

Apricot, Orange, and Almond Loaf Cakes

adapted from Carole Bloom's Bite-Size Desserts

makes 12 4"x 2 1/4" loaves

2/3 cup (4 ounces) dried apricots, finely chopped

2 tablespoons Grand Marnier

2 cups (9 ounces) flour

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

6 ounces (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature

3/4 cup (5 ounces) sugar plus extra for sprinkling

3/4 cup (4 1/2 ounces) light brown sugar

2 extra-large eggs, room temperature (I used large and it turned out fine)

1 extra-large egg yolk, room temperature (same as above)

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/4 teaspoon orange extract

zest of 1 orange

1/2 cup buttermilk

1/3 cup sliced almonds

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Spray twelve mini loaf pans with cooking spray and place on a baking sheet.

Combine apricots and Grand Marnier in a small bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and let marinate for 15 minutes.

Sift flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt together in a bowl and set aside.

Beat butter in a stand mixer until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Add the sugars and beat until well combined.

Combine eggs, egg yolk, extracts, and orange peel in a small bowl. Add to mixture and beat until well combined.

Add the flour mixture and buttermilk in three alternating additions, starting and ending with the flour mixture. Mix just until combined.

Add in the apricots and mix until combined.

Divide mixture among prepared pans, filling about 3/4 full. Sprinkle almonds and sugar over the tops.

Bake for 30-35 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Let cool on wire racks before serving.

In Which A Busy Week Is Capped With An Unexpected Surprise

First, thank you to all of you for your very sweet birthday wishes - I'm consistently amazed and touched by the well-wishes I receive from fellow pastry lovers from around the world. Thank you for making my birthday that much more special!

It actually did rain on my birthday, but it seems like the birthday fairies decided to make up for it by sending a stretch of luxuriously balmy weather afterwards, capping off with a positively scorching weekend. Mmm, I can almost feel summer around the corner!

Sadly, I've been quite busy this last week, so haven't had much time to enjoy the weather except to keep drinking water to try and stay hydrated. I also haven't had the chance to properly document my latest kitchen brainstorm, so here, finally, are a few pictures.

Since it's full-on strawberry season (overflowing their baskets at the farmers' markets, beckoning from roadside stands in the suburbs), I am constantly being tempted into buying way too strawberries and then trying to figure out what to do with them. I remembered this cake I had seen in a Hong Kong bakery, layers of delicate sponge cake sandwiching fluffy strawberry cream and frosted with whipped cream, and decided to have a go at recreating it.

The result ended up resembling a cross between an opera cake and the layered fruit-and-whipped cream cakes found in many a Chinese bakery. The cake, an almond genoise, is the same as the one used in a traditional opera cake. Spread thinly with pureed strawberries, and then a layer of strawberry buttercream, the light cake provides the perfect base for intense strawberry flavor. The topping is made from whipped cream and just a little confectioners' sugar, since I didn't want a heavy frosting to weigh down the cake.

I think this cake really captures a lot of strawberry flavor, without being too rich or heavy - just right for summer. I'm still tweaking the recipe, so I'll try to get posted here sometime tomorrow.

And, as a capper to the week, I discovered that the fantabulous Jen of Use real butter, one of my favorite blogs, was in town! After some furious planning, we arranged a blogger meetup with me, Jen, and Lisa of I Must Have a Lot of Time on My Hands, another amazingly talented cook/baker/blogger that I adore!

Lisa was kind enough to play hostess, so Jen and I got to visit Lisa's place, meet her beyond adorable doggie Lucca (honestly, go to her page and once you lay eyes on Lucca you will be smitten), and sample Lisa's excellent coffee cake and macarons. This girl can seriously bake! Thanks so much Lisa, and I'm hoping to return the favor soon!

Jen is just as funny and real as she is on her blog - I feel super lucky that I found her blog, and got to become friends with such a great person! Hope you had a great flight back home, sweetie!

Lisa has already put up an account of the meetup on her blog, so go read if you want to see what three foodies were up to one Saturday morning! It was definitely the panacea to cure a long week of work, and now I'm ready to bake up some more sweets again!

Birthday and Cake

One always hopes for nice weather on one's birthday - that's natural, don't you think? I imagine for those born in the months of winter, perhaps a picturesque fall of snow might be more appropriate, but since my birthday is in May, I always thought that sunny skies on my birthday wasn't too unreasonable a wish.

However, I'm not sure since my birthday falls right at the beginning of May, that sunshine always seem to be a 50/50 proposition. Perhaps it's all those April showers still carrying over - I recall a equal number of beautifully blue-skied birthdays as well as overcast, drizzly ones.

Mother Nature has decided to make it suspenseful for me this year by sending a spate of rainy, windy weather through the weekend. By the time most of you read this, I'm sure it will be Monday morning and I'll be peeking outside the window to see whether I'll be wearing birthday galoshes or not.

Regardless of weather, I've already been treated to a very nice pre-birthday dinner - I might review this place in a later post because I enjoyed it so much, and I got to enjoy the company of dear friends, which is always the most precious of birthday presents to me.

And, I have to admit that gloomy weather has made it easier to stay indoors and work on kitchen projects - my own little birthday cake to myself has been an experiment I've been working on since my last trip to Hong Kong. It's not quite perfect but it's in a pretty tasty stage right now - a little more tweaking and hopefully I'll reach what I'm envisioning in my dreams.

This cake is inspired by one of my favorite teas, jasmine, infusing a base of milk and whipped cream. It's meant to be airy, delicate, floral, and sweet - just like spring. For taste and texture contrast I made a layer of chocolate cake - almost genoise like in texture, and spread with a layer of melted chocolate and feuilletine.

For those of you who haven't used feuilletine, it's made of thin cookie-like sheets of butter, sugar, and flour, crushed into tiny flakes that resemble corn flakes. Feuilletine adds an intriguing, delightful crunchiness to desserts - it's usually mixed with ganache or sprinkled as a layer in cakes, to provide a surprising contrast. It's especially effective in mousse cakes like this jasmine cake, because the cream is so smooth and creamy, that the crunch of the feuilletine provides a fabulous extra dimension to an otherwise homegenously-textured dessert.

You can find feuilletine online, or you can also substitute Rice Krispies - that was what Pierre Herme used in his home recipe for his famous Plaisir Sucre in his Chocolate Desserts by Pierre Herme book, and it works beautifully.

The chocolate cake is rich, earthy, and grounds the ethereally-light jasmine cream without overpowering it. The feuilletine adds a nice crisp touch. The first few times I made the jasmine cream, the flavor came out too light, so be sure to taste the infused milk before you use it - if it seems too subtle, let it steep a little longer. When I can taste the jasmine against the chocolate, it's tastebud-tingling happiness.

Well, whether it's sunny, rainy, or cloudy, I'm looking forward to another sweet year. Thanks to all of you for keeping me company on this journey - you're the best!

Jasmine Chocolate Cake

makes (6) 2 1/2 cakes

Chocolate Cake

1/4 cup cocoa powder

6 tablespoons all-purpose flour

1/8 teaspoon baking powder

1/8 teaspoon salt

2 ounces unsalted butter, room temperature

1/2 cup sugar

2 large eggs

3 tablespoons buttermilk

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line an 8x8 baking pan with parchment paper.

Sift cocoa powder, flour, baking powder, and salt together in a medium bowl.

In a stand mixer with paddle attachment, cream butter and sugar together until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes.

Add in eggs, one at a time, mixing to combine thoroughly.

Add in vanilla and mix to combine.

Combine buttermilk and vanilla together in a small cup.

Add in flour mixture and buttermilk to batter in 5 alternating additions, beginning and ending with the flour. Mix after each addition just to combine. The batter should be very liquidy.

Pour batter into prepared pan and spread out evenly.

Bake in oven for 15 to 20 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Let cool on wire rack.

Feuilletine Layer

4 ounces bittersweet chocolate, coarsely chopped

3 tablespoons unsalted butter

1 cup feuilletine or Rice Krispies

Combine chocolate and butter in a metal bowl and place over a pot of simmering water to melt. Let chocolate butter and melt together, stirring to combine.

Remove bowl from heat and stir in feuilletine until combined.

Spread the mixture in a thin layer over the top of the cooled chocolate cake layer. Let set for about 30 minutes.

Place six 2 1/2 diameter cake rings on a baking sheet. Line the rings with acetate strips on the inside for easier removal of the cakes.

Cut out circles from the chocolate cake layer and place into the cake rings, fitting them snugly into the bottom. (Prepare the rings with the cake layers before you make the jasmine cream).

Jasmine Cream

3/4 cup milk

2 tablespoons sugar

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/4 cup jasmine tea

1 tablespoon powdered gelatin

1 1/2 cup whipping cream

Combine milk and sugar in a medium saucepan and bring to a boil over medium heat.

Remove from heat and add in vanilla and jasmine tea. Cover saucepan and let steep for 15 to 20 minutes.

Combine gelatin with 2 1/2 tablespoons of water in another small bowl.

Strain out jasmine tea from milk. Bring milk back to a boil.

Add in gelatin and stir until it is fully melted and combined.

Remove from stove and let mixture cool to room temperature (do not let it completely cool and start setting up).

In a stand mixer with whisk attachment, whip cream until it holds soft peaks.

Add in jasmine milk mixture a little at a time, folding it into the whipped cream carefully until it becomes a liquidy mixture.

Divide the jasmine cream among the prepared cake rings, filling them to the top. Smooth out the tops and chill cakes in refrigerator overnight to let the cream set. Remove cakes from rings before serving.

Out of Africa - Lychee Honey Financiers

Hello and happy April! So much has happened since the last post, I always feel now that I have a million news items to get through before I can get on with the main topic of the post!

First off, a big hug to Jen of the ridiculously gorgeous Use real butter for featuring my kitchen on her Kitchen Tour. Jen is a real sweetheart and I can't imagine all the work she put into processing all the photos we sent her and writing up her interviews with each of us. I'm truly flattered that she chose me as one of the kitchens to feature. For all of you curious readers out there, now you can see where all my baking occurs! Yes, it is a tiny place, and sometimes I literally have no flat surfaces left for anything! But I have my fingers crossed that there may be a bigger kitchen in my near future - so perhaps you will see an updated tour sometime! (P.S. Are you all jealous of Peabody's kitchen as well?)

Second, the cupcake class I taught last week went wonderfully - a class of enthusiastic and intelligent students, and counters of creatively decorated cupcakes at the end of each day. I was very surprised and gratified to find that some of the students had visited my blog ( a little nervous, too, hoping I could live up to whatever expectations my blog may have fostered in them). I discovered one of my students, Patricia, has her own baking blog, and blogged about my class! Since I was way too occupied during the class to take any photos, I'm indebted to her for providing a (very generous) summary! Do check out her blog! As to whether I'll be teaching again, I'm considering it - and I'll keep you all posted!

With the class and my candy book happily behind me (I'll give more details about the book in the next post), I could finally, fully turn attention back to my personal pile of baking inspirations - and have I got a lot!

One ingredient in my pantry I've been aching is use is courtesy of a dear friend who recently went to Africa as part of her job - I'll admit to dreamily living vicariously through her lyrical online accounts of visiting local villages, spying gorillas in the bush, and immersing herself in the rhythms of this far-off country. When she returned to the states, she very thoughtfully brought back some goodies for me, so that I could have a little bit of Africa for myself!

Along with a beautifully handmade wooden spoon (you can glimpse it in above photo), I also got a jar of lychee honey, described by my friend as "smoky-flavored". The honey is a luminous, pale gold - the color, I imagine, of afternoon sun falling over the African veldt. Just a spoonful of this elixir carries the distinctive sweet tang of lychees, and it does, indeed, have a exotically smoky taste. 

I knew what I wanted to use this honey in - the financiers I'd demonstrated for my cupcake class. Although most of my recipes were traditional creamed-butter-and-sugar cupcakes, I wanted to include the financier as an example of another single-serving treat. We even decorated some of the financiers with frosting, for a real American spin on a French classic.

Every time I make financiers, I always wonder why I don't make them more often. They are a snap to make, completely addictive straight out of the oven, and I love filling my kitchen with the scent of browned butter. The batter keeps like a dream in the refrigerator for about half a week, making a perfect make-ahead treat; in fact, some recipes suggest an overnight chill of the batter to improve its texture. 

The following recipe is adapted from my Field Guide to Cookies - yes, I love financiers so much I had to include them in the book! Classic financiers have a delectable, nutty taste from the browned butter and a very thin, crisp outer crust that contrasts with the tender, fluffy interior - as I mentioned, divine when fresh and still-warm. The addition of honey gives it a moister, denser crumb, so I decreased the butter a bit and left them in the oven for an extra minute or so. I also didn't brown the butter as much as I usually do - the darker the browned butter, the more intense the flavor - as I wanted to make sure the honey flavor would come through. Incidentally, I've got a video on Chow demonstrating how to brown butter! It's a fabulous technique to have in your pastry arsenal.

Although the traditional form of financiers is rectangular and ingot-like, I'm partial to the little round gems produced by the mini muffin tin, since they look even more snackable. Another wonderful quality of financiers: after cooling and sitting overnight, they will typically lose their light, airy texture, but pop them in the oven for a couple minutes and they will bounce right back. Who says financiers can't make a tasty breakfast, especially spread with jam or a little honey? I know what I'm eating for the next couple of days! 

So, I'm hoping for more regular updates now that I'm firmly ensconced in the kitchen again. Also, I know I've been dreadfully delinquent in responding to e-mails  - please, if you've sent me a message and I haven't responded, please try again and I promise I'll be paying more attention to my inbox!

I hope you all are enjoying sunshine, flowers, and spring!

Honey Financiers

about 20 financiers

4 tablespoons (2 ounces) unsalted butter

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 cup blanched almonds, finely ground

1/3 cup all-purpose flour

1/8 teaspoon salt

3 large egg whites

1/3 cup honey

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Spray a mini muffin tin or financier tins with cooking spray.

Cut butter into pieces and place in a skillet or saucepan. Melt over medium heat on stove, swirling occasionally, until it starts to turn brown and smells nutty. Do not let the butter get too dark or it will burn. Strain butter into a clean bowl.

Whisk sugar, ground almonds, flour, and salt together in a medium bowl. 

Add egg whites and whisk to combine. 

Add butter and whisk to combine. It should be a thick, smooth batter.

Add honey and whisk to combine.

At this point you can cover the batter and store it in the refrigerator for up to 3 days.

Divide the batter among the prepared tins, filling almost to the top.

Bake for 12 to 14 minutes, rotating tins halfway through. The financiers should be golden brown and just firm to the touch.

Let cool on wire rack for a few minutes before unmolding.

The Construction of a Cupcake (Class)

Let's rewind a bit to last fall, when I was still afloat on the excitement of the Field Guide to Cookies having just been released, and honest-to-goodness actually existing in physical form, like a dream materialized. At the same time the reality was also sinking in that I had agreed to do a second book, on the intimidatingly far-ranging topic of candy, and I was going to have to really buckle down and start stocking up on bags of sugar and chocolate molds.

In the midst of this sugary maelstrom I received a call from Tante Marie's Cooking School, my alma mater. Would I be interested in teaching a class on cupcakes for the school? It would be a 3-day workshop in March, almost five months away. At that moment, five months away was like envisioning the first flowers of spring budding upon bare branches in the middle of a frozen winter: in other words, an eternity and a world away. I'd never formally taught a cooking or baking class before, but the class seemed so far off that it dampened any incipient nervousness. Surely, I thought, I'd have plenty of time to pull a class together. It would be fun - I saw it as another facet of sharing my love for pastry, just like I do on this blog.

Fast forward about three and half months, flitting by on candy-colored wings. When I looked up to take a breath from the manuscript, it was nearly February, and - yikes! March seemed a whole lot closer than before. Now dreams of cupcakes intertwined with the familiar candy phantasmagoria at night. What did I want to teach? How should I organize the class? How would I fill up the three days? What if I was a boring teacher?

Fortunately, I already had a lot of notes and recipes from all the testing I've done for this blog - joy! One of the reasons I began blogging was to keep track of my various dessert ideas and inspirations over the years. Now this blog was proving the perfect resource, not just for recipes but for remembering all the mistakes and questions that popped up as I experimented in the kitchen, from whether all-purpose or cake flour would work best, or what happened when I used silicone cupcake liners instead of paper ones, or, most importantly, what was the most delicious frosting I could come up with?

Constructing a class on cupcakes proved to be a most worthwhile and illuminating exercise for me; I firmly believe that teaching helps you understand the material much better, and exploring the intricacies of something as simple as a cupcake actually yields a mini-encapsulation of many basic baking tenets. To wit:

- Techniques for creating butter cakes, including the importance of ingredient temperatures, how to cream butter and sugar, the necessity of sifting, how to avoid overmixing batters, and how to know when cakes are baked properly.

- Tips on creating flavor variations, including how to make infusions, how to combine flavors, and how to consider seasonality

- Methods for making filled cupcakes, and recipes for various fillings, including caramel, curd, and ganache.

- Recipes for different frostings, including buttercream (both confectioners' sugar and Swiss meringue), ganache, cream cheese, meringue, and whipped cream

- Techniques for decorating, including piping with a pastry bag, glazing, using rolled fondant, and bruleeing meringue

I'm really excited to be incorporating all of these baking pointers into my class. It's my hope that the class will serve as a primer and a springboard to encourage bakers to experiment with confidence in their own kitchens!

Of course, one of the most highly anticipated parts of any cooking class is the recipes, right? Suffice to say that for a while candy testing was mingling with cupcake in my poor overworked kitchen! Much tweaking and obsessing later, I've arrived at the following offerings for my class.

Tahitian Vanilla Bean Cupcakes with Vanilla Bean Buttercream (first photo)

Deep Dark Chocolate Cupcakes with Bittersweet Chocolate Ganache (second photo)

Summertime Strawberry Cupcakes with Strawberry Cream Cheese Frosting

Chocolate Cupcakes with Fleur de Sel Caramel Filling and Candied Pecans (first photo)

Meyer Lemon Cupcakes with Lemon Curd Filling and Roasted Meringue Topping (second photo)

Almond Cupcakes with Raspberry Filling and Chocolate Buttercream (third photo)

Coffee Cupcakes with Espresso Buttercream (third photo)

Lavender Cupcakes with Honey Whipped Cream Frosting

I'm so looking forward to meeting the class and diving into the world of cupcakes! The class will be next week from March 23rd-25th. I don't know if there will be other ones scheduled afterwards, but if you are interested please do e-mail Tante Marie's and let them know what classes you are interested in seeing!

If you're interested in some other cupcakes I've played around with on this blog, check out:

Vanilla Saffron Cupcakes with Rosewater Buttercream

Vanilla Bean Fig Cupcakes with Orange Blossom Honey Frosting

Chocolate Cupcakes with Hazelnut Mousseline and Coffee Buttercream

Goji Berry Cupcakes with Chocolate Ganache and Himalyan Pink Salt

Olallieberry White Tea Cupcakes

Also, this Saturday I'll be speaking about Field Guide to Cookies at the San Francisco International Chocolate Salon, a gathering of chocolate connoisseurs and aficionados. It promises to be a slice of chocolate heaven - I hope to have some yummy photos to share of the event!

Sugar High Friday: La Vie en Rose

When the lovely Fanny of Foodbeam announced Cupcakes as the theme for Sugar High Friday, I did a little jump for joy. San Francisco feels like cupcake central sometimes - there's at least five cupcake-dedicated stores in the city, and dozens more bakeries that carry these bites of bliss in their lineup. Two more cupcake stores have also opened in the last couple weeks; dare I say that San Francisco denizens' adoration of the cupcake is still on the rise?

Even though I enjoy challenging myself with expanding my pastry repertoire, there's something just uninhibitedly appealing about cupcakes. They are simple to make, yet the variations are endless. In foodie-paradise San Francisco, you can be certain the the cupcakes go beyond vanilla and chocolate, to flavors from salted caramel to coconut buttermilk to lemon curd. With all these high end cupcakes around, it was with no small trepidation that I agreed to teach a cupcake class at my pastry school next March. Stay tuned for details!

In preparation for the class, I've been tweaking my favorite vanilla cupcake recipe, and wanted to do something exotic and different with it - vanilla can seem so simply down home, but it's also the perfect canvas for wild experimentation. A few hours later and I emerged from the kitchen with Vanilla Saffron Cupcakes with Rose Petal Frosting and Pistachios.

The inspiration was a jar of rose petal sugar I had picked up at the market; as finely ground as fairy dust, and intoxicatingly redolent of roses. The price for the sugar makes it rather dear, and probably not the most economical ingredient for tossing into batter. However, sprinkled on top of a cake, or cookie, will lend your baked goods its floral, delicate quality. I imagine you could also make your own rose petal by placing a few (unsprayed) rose petals in a jar of sugar for a few weeks.

My vanilla cupcake falls on the ethereally light, just-shy-of-angel-food-cake side: its uses egg whites to lighten the texture, and also allows the vanilla flavor to come through. Combined with saffron's spicy earthiness to balance out the pure sweetness of the vanilla makes for a intriguingly different cupcake. Saffron, of course, is also what gives the cupcakes their sunny yellow hue. When I was steeping the saffron in the milk, I watched the tendrils of yellow color unfurling from the saffron strands, permeating their way into the steaming whiteness of the milk. I felt like an apothecary concocting some ancient elixir with rare ingredients - already this recipe was taking me away to strange and unfamiliar climes!

I topped off the cupcakes with a rosewater buttercream - it seemed only appropriate to fashion some roses with the frosting. Unfortunately, the only petal tip I had on hand was a small one; if I could do it again, I might have made mini-cupcakes so that the roses would cover more of the surface and look even more like a blooming garden. Nevertheless, I thought it turned out fairly nicely, especially once I sprinkled the flowers with tinted rose petal sugar and bits of pistachio. 

When I take a bite, I'm transported to a hot, dusty, bazaar, filled with the scent of oranges and dates, the sounds of odd-plumaged birds and sleepy camels, and water flowing from blue-tiled fountains. The sun is setting over the desert, and in few hours the sky will be endless blue velvet, punctuated with hard, white stars.

Not bad for a cupcake, wouldn't you say?

Thanks again to Fanny for a great Sugar High Friday. And as a last announcement, I'm the next baker to take up the SHF torch! Be sure to come back here in October for my Sugar High Friday theme!

Vanilla Saffron Cupcakes

Makes 12 cupcakes

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour

1 1/4 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup whole milk

1/2 teaspoon saffron threads

1/2 cup unsalted butter, room temperature

1 cup sugar

1 egg plus 2 egg whites

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line a cupcake pan with cupcake papers.

Sift flour, baking powder, and salt into a bowl and set aside.

Combine milk and saffron in a small saucepan and bring to a simmer on stove over medium heat. Remove from heat and let cool while you do the next steps.

Combine sugar  and butter in a stand mixer. Cream on medium speed for several minutes until light and fluffy.

Add in the egg and combine thoroughly. Add in the egg whites, one at a time, and mix until combined.

Add the flour mixture and milk mixture to the mixer in alternating additions, starting and ending with the flour. Combine thoroughly between each addition. After you add the last of the flour mixture, add the vanilla extract and mix just to combine.

Divide batter among cupcake cups. Bake in oven for 15 to 18 minutes, until a skewer inserted into the center comes out clean and the tops spring back to the touch.

Let cupcakes cool on wire rack before frosting.

Rosewater Buttercream

adapted from Dorie Greenspan's Baking From My Home to Yours

7 oz sugar

4 large egg whites

12 oz unsalted butter, room temperature, cut into 1-in pieces

1 tablespoon rosewater

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Combine the sugar and egg whites in a medium heatproof bowl and place over a pan of simmering water.

Whisk the sugar mixture constantly over heat until the sugar is dissolved and the mixture looks smooth and shiny, about 3 minutes.

Remove mixture from heat and pour into a stand mixer bowl. Whisk on medium speed for about 5 minutes until the mixture has cooled.

Switch to the paddle attachment and with the speed on low, add the butter a few pieces at a time, beating until smooth.

When all the butter has been added, beat the buttercream on medium-high speed for about 6-10 minutes until it is very thick and smooth.

Add in the rosewater and beat until combined. Add in the vanilla.

The buttercream is ready to be used. Place a piece of plastic wrap against the surface until you are ready to use it to prevent it from drying out.

Figs for Fall: Vanilla Bean Fig Cupcakes with Orange Blossom Honey Frosting

No, I know it's not fall yet, but it's hard to believe it's already the end of August and the waning of the year is just around the corner. Labor Day holiday, especially, snuck up on me this time: I'm definitely not ready to celebrate summer's last hurrah just yet.

Fortunately for us San Francisco residents, Mother Nature balances out the wintry cold summers she bestows on us with a shimmering, balmy Indian summer that usually happens sometime in September and can often last into November. Never let it be said we don't have seasons out here on the West Coast - they're just a little different than seasons elsewhere!

Along with a few more golden weeks to ease the pain of passing summer, we've also got figs - figs at their most lovely and voluptuous peak.

I'll admit I wasn't a natural-born fig lover. Like many children, I was drawn to the straightforward, simple fruits: the sturdy, crisp crunch of an apple, the crayon-red color of strawberries, the comforting roundness of an orange. Those firm-fleshed, cleanly sweet fruits, pears and cherries and peaches, were reassuring in their distinctive shapes and feels. I had a fear of squishy: soft meant unripe, or overripe, or yucky and sticky. Persimmons, longans, figs - they all fell outside my fruit "comfort zone" and were thus resolutely ignored.

Well, thank goodness for growing up and learning to give things a second chance. I'm happy to say that I managed to outgrew childish prejudices and view foods both old and new with a an unjaded eye and open mouth. Most foods, at least...I'm still working on durian...

Figs are very interesting to me. They aren't an easy fruit to love, and what I mean by that is they're not simple. You don't just pop figs in your mouth like grapes. When I eat a fig, I look at it resting in the fruit bowl, cupped in the palm of my hand, suspended from my fingers in midair. I study its asymmetrical, pendulous shape, its slightly wrinkled, aubergine or verdant skin, its velvety, sinuous contours. It is fragrant, its ripe, intense scent filling the air. I put it to my lips, and bite through the just-barely resisting skin. The flesh beneath is dusky, rosy red; pulpy, soft as a whispered secret. There are little seeds scattered like stardust in the gleaming fruit, and as I bite through I hear little pops, feel the bursts of crunchiness in my mouth. The fig is sweet, yes, rich and honeyed, intensely fruity. Eating a fig is, and should be, a luxurious experience, as it demands the full attention of all your senses.

Like summer and all good things, figs should be enjoyed at their peak before they disappear: they are best eaten within a couple days of purchase as they should already be very ripe when you buy them. While eating them out of hand is an undeniable pleasure, baking with them has proven a happy challenge as well.

I'd been tweaking my basic vanilla cupcake recipe for a while, and the perfect opportunity presented itself: Vanilla Bean Cupcakes with Fresh Fig Filling and Orange Blossom Honey Frosting.

Figs make lovely jams, which are a perfect way to preserve their flavor for the rest of the year. This fig filling follows the same idea, cooking figs with sugar into a lovely thick puree, perfect for filling a cupcake or spreading on toast (Since it's not a true jam it obviously won't keep as long). I used brown sugar to enhance the deep, layered flavor of the figs, and because I often find that in many fig fillings the figs are overpowered by too much added white sugar. I used a mixture of Black Mission and Kadota figs in this filling, but any figs would work well - just adjust the sugar to your taste.

The vanilla cupcake is my latest iteration: light, fluffy, with a crisp sugary top. I used egg whites in the batter to let the vanilla flavor shine through, and also because it gives the cupcakes a lighter texture. They make a wonderful base for any number of frostings, and the well-behaved crumb lets you cut through it or cut out the top easily, as you can see.

Finally, I wanted the frosting to have honey in it, to harmonize with the figs. I settled on an orange blossom honey, mixed into a basic cream cheese frosting. I didn't want a buttercream because I was afraid it would be too overpoweringly sweet for the figs - although the cream cheese frosting meant I couldn't pipe it as decoratively as buttercream I think it was a good compromise. The tartness of the cream cheese helps cut through the sweet honey and combines well with the vanilla and fig to make a sweet little late-summer dessert.

I hope wherever you are, dear readers, that you enjoy a beautiful last weekend of August, and that you find time to eat a fig or two - like summer, they'll be gone before you know it.

Vanilla Bean Cupcakes

Makes about 12 cupcakes

1 1/2 cups flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/4 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 cup butter, room temperature
1 cup sugar
1 egg plus 2 egg whites
1/2 cup whole milk
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla bean paste

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line a muffin tin with cupcake liners.

Sift flour, salt, and baking powder into a bowl and set aside.

Beat butter and sugar in a stand mixer on medium speed until very light and fluffy, about 3 to 4 minutes.

Add in the egg and beat to combine. Add in the egg whites, one at a time, and beat to combine.

Combine milk and vanilla bean paste together in a cup.

Add the flour mixture and milk mixture to the batter in alternating additions, starting and ending with the flour. Once the last bit of flour has been added. beat just to combine - do not overbeat.

Divide batter among the muffin tins. Bake in the oven for about 15 to 20 minutes, until the tops are lightly golden and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Let cool on wire rack.

 
Fresh Fig and Brown Sugar Filling

Makes about 3/4 cup

1 cup (about 8) fresh figs, washed and cut into small pieces

1/4 cup water

1/4 cup brown sugar

2 teaspoons lemon juice

Combine all the ingredients in a medium saucepan and cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, for 15-20 minutes, until the mixture thickens. The figs should turn soft and mushy; mash them with a spoon. Remove from heat and let cool. If you don't like the little pieces of fig skin left, you can process the mixture quickly in a food processor, but I find it doesn't bother me; the chunks give the filling more texture and thickness.

Orange Blossom Honey Cream Cheese Frosting

makes about 1 cup

8 ounces cream cheese

2 ounces (1/2 stick) butter, room temperature

3/4 to 1 cup confectioners' sugar, sifted

1/4 cup orange blossom honey

Beat the cream cheese and butter in a stand mixer just until combined - do not overbeat.

Add in the sugar and honey and beat until combined. If it seems a little runny, add more confectioners' sugar but be sure to taste so you don't make the frosting too sweet.

Hazelnuts and Praline, Some of My Favorite Things

When asked to name my very favorite things in pastry, I often feel like a mother being asked which of her children she likes best. How to choose between chocolate and strawberries, puff pastry and pâte sucrée? How to weigh the merits of a lemon tart versus a crème brûlée versus a buttery shortbread cookie? Of course, you also have Pierre Hermé's Ispahan, smiling smugly in the corner, realizing mommy will never admit it he's her favorite but knowing she has a special soft spot just for him.

While I don't think I'd ever be able to name just one favorite dessert, there are some ingredients and flavors that never fail to get my tastebuds tingling in anticipation- I've mentioned some of them above. Hazelnuts would also have to on the list  - ever since my first hazelnut-filled chocolate, I've been a fan most ardent and devout of this little nut. Praline has got to be on the shortlist as well - the combination of caramelized sugar and toasted nuts combines into a confection far more fabulous than the sum of its parts.

So when I saw this month's Daring Bakers challenge, a Filbert Gateau with Praline Buttercream, I was hooked! Chosen by the lovely Chris of Mele Cotte, this indulgent little number had me juggling and rearranging that ever-evolving list of favorites.

This cake reminds me of a cross between an opera cake and a sachertorte - a most heavenly amalgamation. The layers of genoise and buttercream are quite similar to the almond joconde and espresso buttercream in a traditional opera cake, but the apricot glaze and whipped cream remind me of the Viennese sachertorte, which layers chocolate cake and apricot jam, and served mit schlag - with a generous dollop of sweetened whipped cream.

With such impressive pastry relatives, how could this cake fail to dazzle the tongue? The genoise was Although I found whipped cream a little soft and plushy to work with as a layer in a cake, it does add a lovely lightness to counterbalance the richness of the buttercream. I also really liked the inclusion of the praline; I adore contrasting textures in dessert, especially wafer thin layers of feuilletine or sprinklings of streusel. I actually left the praline paste with a few bits in it, and mixed into the buttercream it added wonderful little bursts of flavor. The soft chocolate glaze was the crowning touch, both literally and tastewise: it tied all the elements together, a luxurious bow on top of an already beautiful cake.

I made several mini-cakes, using my ever-dependable cake rings. This cake is probably not the best choice to render in miniature; the softness and creaminess of the fillings makes it difficult to keep the layers straight, and since they don't set like mousse-type fillings with gelatin, they're also trickier to unmold. But I managed to get a few fairly attractive ones out of the bunch. And, lookers or not, they were certainly tasty! Thanks, Chris, for a great Daring Bakers Challenge!

Oh, and let me take the chance to thank all of you who wrote in to my book post - one of the best things about writing this cookbook has doubtless been all the support you've all given me! Thanks so much for all your well-wishes - I really hope you'll all enjoy the book when it comes out!

Also, I've set up a Dessert First page on Facebook - please join it and be a fan! I'll post updates on the page about my book and all my other dessert-related activities!

And, just because I'm really diving into all this Web 2.0 business, I'm also on Twitter - if you care to listen to my random thoughts and musings, feel free to follow!

Filbert Gateau with Praline Buttercream
From Great Cakes by Carol Walter

1 Filbert Genoise
1 recipe sugar syrup, flavored with dark rum
1 recipe Praline Buttercream
½ cup heavy cream, whipped to soft peaks
1 recipe Apricot Glaze
1 recipe Ganache Glaze, prepared just before using
3 tablespoons filberts, toasted and coarsely chopped

Filbert Genoise

Because of the amount of nuts in the recipe, this preparation is different from a classic genoise.

1 ½ cups hazelnuts, toasted/skinned
2/3 cup cake flour, unsifted
2 Tbsp. cornstarch
7 large egg yolks
1 cup sugar, divided ¼ & ¾ cups
1 tsp. vanilla extract
½ tsp. grated lemon rind
5 lg. egg whites
¼ cup warm, clarified butter (100 – 110 degrees)

Position rack in the lower 3rd of the oven and preheat to 350 degrees.  Grease and flour a 10” X 2” inch round cake pan.

Using a food processor, process nuts, cake flour, and cornstarch for about 30 seconds.  Then, pulse the mixture about 10 times to get a fine, powdery mixture.  You’ll know the nuts are ready when they begin to gather together around the sides of the bowl. While you want to make sure there aren’t any large pieces, don’t over-process.  Set aside.

Put the yolks in the bowl of an electric mixer, with the whisk attachment, and beat until thick and light in color, about 3-4 minutes on med-high speed. Slowly, add ¾ cup of sugar.  It is best to do so by adding a tablespoon at a time, taking about 3 minutes for this step.  When finished, the mixture should be ribbony.  Blend in the vanilla and grated lemon rind.  Remove and set aside.

Place egg whites in a large, clean bowl of the electric mixer with the whisk attachment and beat on medium speed, until soft peaks. Increase to med-high speed and slowly add the remaining ¼ cup of sugar, over 15-20 seconds or so.  Continue to beat for another ½ minute. 
Add the yolk mixture to the whites and whisk for 1 minute.

Pour the warm butter in a liquid measure cup (or a spouted container). * It must be a deep bottom bowl and work must be fast.*  Put the nut meal in a mesh strainer (or use your hand – working quickly) and sprinkle it in about 2 tablespoons at a time – folding it carefully for about 40 folds.   Be sure to exclude any large chunks/pieces of nuts. Again, work quickly and carefully as to not deflate the mixture. When all but about 2 Tbsp. of nut meal remain, quickly and steadily pour the warm butter over the batter.  Then, with the remaining nut meal, fold the batter to incorporate, about 13 or so folds.

With a rubber spatula, transfer the batter into the prepared pan, smoothing the surface with the spatula or back of a spoon.  **If collected butter remains at the bottom of the bowl, do not add it to the batter!  It will impede the cake rising while baking.

Tap the pan on the counter to remove air bubbles and bake in the preheated oven for 30-35 minutes. You’ll know the cake is done when it is springy to the touch and it separates itself from the side of the pan.  Remove from oven and allow to stand for 5 minutes.  Invert onto a cake rack sprayed with nonstick coating, removing the pan.  Cool the cake completely.

*If not using the cake right away, wrap thoroughly in plastic wrap, then in a plastic bag, then in the refrigerator for up to 3 days. If freezing, wrap in foil, then the bag and use within 2-3 months.

Sugar Syrup
Makes 1 cup, good for one 10-inch cake – split into 3 layers

1 cup water
¼ cup sugar
2 Tbsp. dark rum or orange flavored liqueur

In a small, yet heavy saucepan, bring the water and sugar to a boil and simmer for 5 minutes. Remove from heat, add the liqueur. Cool slightly before using on the cake.  *Can be made in advance.

Praline Buttercream
1 recipe Swiss Buttercream
1/3 cup praline paste
1 ½ - 2 Tbsp. Jamaican rum (optional)

Blend ½ cup buttercream into the paste, then add to the remaining buttercream.  Whip briefly on med-low speed to combine.  Blend in rum.

Swiss Buttercream
4 lg. egg whites
¾ cup sugar
1 ½ cups (3 sticks) unsalted butter, slightly firm
1 ½ -2 Tbsp. Grand Marnier or liqueur of your choice
1 tsp. vanilla

Place the egg whites in a lg/ bowl of a elevtric mixer and beat with the whisk attachment until the whites are foamy and they begin to thicken (just before the soft peak stage). Set the bowl over a saucepan filled with about 2 inches of simmering water, making sure the bowl is not touching the water. Then, whisk in the sugar by adding 1-2 tablespoon of sugar at a time over a minutes time. Continue beating 2-3 minutes or until the whites are warm (about 120 degrees) and the sugar is dissolved.  The mixture should look thick and like whipped marshmallows.
Remove from pan and with either the paddle or whisk attachment, beat the egg whites and sugar on med-high until its a thick, cool meringue – about 5-7 minutes. *Do not overbeat*. Set aside.

Place the butter in a separate clean mixing bowl and, using the paddle attachment, cream the butter at medium speed for 40-60 seconds, or until smooth and creamy. *Do not overbeat or the butter will become toooooo soft.*

On med-low speed, blend the meringue into the butter, about 1-2 Tbsp. at a time, over 1 minute.  Add the liqueur and vanilla and mix for 30-45 seconds longer, until thick and creamy.

Refrigerate 10-15 minutes before using.

Wait! My  buttercream won’t come together! Reheat the buttercream briefly over simmering water for about 5 seconds, stirring with a wooden spoon. Be careful and do not overbeat. The mixture will look broken with some liquid at the bottom of the bowl. Return the bowl to the mixer and whip on medium speed just until the cream comes back together.

Wait! My buttercream is too soft! Chill the buttercream in the refrigerator for about 10 minutes and rewhip. If that doesn’t work, cream an additional 2-4 Tbsp. of butter in a small bowl– making sure the butter is not as soft as the original amount, so make sure is cool and smooth. On low speed, quickly add the creamed  butter to the buttercream, 1 Tbsp. at a time.

Refrigerate in an airtight container for up to 5 days, or can be frozen for up to 6 months. If freezing, store in 2 16-oz. plastic containers and thaw in the refrigerator overnight or at room temperature for several hours.

Praline Paste
1 cup (4 ½ oz.) Hazelnuts, toasted/skinless
2/3 cup Sugar
Line a jelly roll pan with parchment and lightly butter.

Put the sugar in a heavy 10-inch skillet.  Heat on low flame for about 10-20 min until the sugar melts around the edges. Do not stir the sugar. Swirl the pan if necessary to prevent the melted sugar from burning. Brush the sides of the pan with water to remove sugar crystals.  If the sugar in the center does not melt, stir briefly. When the sugar is completely melted and caramel in color, remove from heat. Stir in the nuts with a wooden spoon and separate the clusters. Return to low heat and stir to coat the nuts on all sides.  Cook until the mixture starts to bubble.  **Remember – extremely hot mixture.** Then onto the parchment lined sheet and spread as evenly as possible. As it cools, it will harden into brittle. Break the candied nuts into pieces and place them in the food processor.  Pulse into a medium-fine crunch or process until the brittle turns into a powder. To make paste, process for several minutes. Store in an airtight container and store in a cook dry place.  Do not refrigerate.

Apricot Glaze
Good for one 10-inch cake

2/3 cup thick apricot preserves
1 Tbsp. water

In a small, yet heavy saucepan, bring the water and preserves to a slow boil and simmer for 2-3 minutes. If the mixture begins to stick to the bottom of the saucepan, add water as needed.

Remove from heat and, using a strainer, press the mixture through the mesh and discard any remnants. With a pastry brush, apply the glaze onto the cake while the cake is still warm.  If the glaze is too thick, thin to a preferred consistency with drops of water.

Ganache Glaze
Makes about 1 cup, enough to cover the top and sides of a 9 or 10 inch layer or tube cake

**Ganache can take on many forms.  While warm – great fudge sauce.  While cool or lukewarm – semisweet glaze. Slightly chilled – can be whipped into a filling/frosting. Cold & solid – the base of candied chocolate truffles.

6 oz. (good) semisweet or bittersweet chocolate, like Lindt
6 oz. (¾ cup heavy cream
1 tbsp. light corn syrup
1 Tbsp. Grand Marnier, Cointreay, or dark Jamaican rum (optional)
¾ tsp. vanilla
½ - 1 tsp. hot water, if needed

Blend vanilla and liqueur/rum together and set aside.

Break the chocolate into 1-inch pieces and place in the basket of a food processor and pulse until finely chopped.  Transfer into a medium sized bowl and set aside.

Heat the cream and corn syrup in a saucepan, on low, until it reached a gentle boil.  Once to the gently boil, immediately and carefully pour over the chocolate.  Leave it alone for one minute, then slowly stir and mix the chocolate and cream together until the chocolate is melted and incorporated into the cream. Carefully blend in vanilla mixture. If the surface seems oily, add ½ - 1 tsp hot water. The glaze will thicken, but should still be pourable. If it doesn’t thicken, refrigerate for about 5 minutes, but make sure it doesn’t get too cold!

Assembling Cake

Cut a cardboard disk slightly smaller than the cake.  Divide the cake into 3 layers and place the first layer top-side down on the disk. Using a pastry brush, moisten the layer with 3-4 Tbsp. of warm sugar syrup. Measure out 1 cup of praline buttercream and set aside.

Spread the bottom layer with a ¼-inch thickness of the remaining buttercream.  Cover with ½ of the whipped cream, leaving ¼-inch border around the edge of the cake.  Place the middle layer over the first, brush with sugar syrup, spreading with buttercream. Cover with the remaining whipped cream.

Moisten the cut side of the third layer with additional sugar syrup and place cut side down on the cake.  Gently, press the sides of the cake to align the layers. Refrigerate to chill for at least 30 minutes.

Lift the cake by sliding your palm under the cardboard. Holding a serrated or very sharp night with an 8-ich blade held parallel to the sides of the cake, trim the sides so that they are perfectly straight. Cut a slight bevel at the top to help the glaze drip over the edge. Brush the top and sides of the cake with warm apricot glaze, sealing the cut areas completely.  Chill while you prepare the ganache.

Place a rack over a large shallow pan to catch the ganache drippings.  Remove the gateau from the refrigerator and put it the rack. With a metal spatula in hand, and holding the saucepan about 10 inches above the cake, pour the ganache onto the cake’s center.  Move the spatula over the top of the ganache about 4 times to get a smooth and mirror-like appearance.  The ganache should cover the top and run down the sides of the cake. When the ganache has been poured and is coating the cake, lift one side of the rack and bang it once on the counter to help spread the ganache evenly and break any air bubbles. (Work fast before setting starts.) Patch any bare spots on the sides with a smaller spatula, but do not touch the top after the “bang”.  Let the cake stand at least 15 minutes to set after glazing.

To garnish the cake, fit a 12 – 14-inch pastry bag with a #114 large leaf tip. Fill the bag with the reserved praline cream.  Stating ½ inch from the outer edge of the cake, position the pastry tube at a 90 degree angle with the top almost touching the top of the cake. Apply pressure to the pastry bag, moving it slightly toward the center of the cake.  As the buttercream flows on the cake, reverse the movement backward toward the edge of the cake and finish by pulling the bag again to the center. Stop applying pressure and press the bag downward, then quickly pull the tip up to break the flow of frosting.  Repeat, making 12 leaves evenly spaced around the surface of the cake.

Make a second row of leaves on the top of the first row, moving the pastry bag about ¾ inch closer to the center.  The leaves should overlap.  Make a 3rd row, moving closer and closer to the center. Add a 4th row if you have the room. But, leave a 2-inch space in the center for a chopped filbert garnish. Refrigerate uncovered for 3-4 hours to allow the cake to set. Remove the cake from the refrigerator at least 3 hours before serving.

Olallieberry Season

The end of June has somehow magically vanished into the beginning of July, both in real life and on this blog. That must have been a doozy of a July 4th celebration for me...actually, it was a classic "San Francisco 4th of July", meaning the waterfront was so densely covered in fog that we couldn't see any fireworks! We did hear them, however, a dim and ghostly percussion sounding throughout the night.

However, the holiday weekend was not a total loss, and I'm happy to finally share the story - along with a double dose of recipes as a reward for your patient waiting. In an effort to escape the fog, we drove down the coast just south of Half Moon Bay to shimmeringly sunny blue skies spread over verdant fields of ripe berries, all waiting to be picked!

If you haven't gone berry-picking, or fruit-picking in general, there's no sweeter way to get back in touch with your inner child. Remember those glorious days when your were young and summer seemed to last forever, and every day you would ride out with your friends on your bikes to discover new adventures were awaiting you? Maybe you would go down to the creek and see what mysterious fauna you'd find there. Maybe you'd go play ball until it got too hot and then you'd rest in the shade, listening for the tinkling approach of the ice cream truck. And maybe as you were riding down some hot, dusty lane, you'd pass by some bushes budding with small, dark berries, and you'd pluck some off and eat them, still warm and fragrant from the sun, and feel tart-sweet fireworks erupt in your mouth.

This was what the u-pick fields at Swanton Berry Farms were like - rows upon rows of berries nodding gently in the sunshine, the friendly folk at the entrance handing you some cardboard boxes, upon which you were free to pick to your heart's content - or until you'd realized you'd picked enough berries to last you a week.

The farms offer several different fruits to pick, including strawberries, kiwis, and olallieberries, which is what we went for. Now, I'm sure that many of you are wondering, "What's an olallieberry? Did she make that up?" Trust me, I got that question from many of my friends as well. I only learned about olallieberries a few years ago, so to learn that I could pick them myself was a thrilling discovery!

Olallieberries are a cross between loganberries and youngberries, also berries that sound like they've been dreamed up in a farmer's fervid imagination. Loganberries are a cross of blackberries and raspberries, while youngberries are a cross of blackberries and dewberries. So really, this gives the olallieberry a remarkably impressive pedigree - they're kind of the ultimate berry! In reality, they are truly wonderful; surprisingly large (some almost half the length of my thumb), plump, wine-dark, and delicious. They taste similar to blackberries, although perhaps not quite as tart - some of the very ripe ones I ate right off the vine were like nectar.

Olallieberries are mostly found on the west coast and enjoy a very brief season, mostly from June to July, so it was lovely to take advantage of them while they were in full flower. There were quite a few families at the farm as well - berry picking followed by a picnic seems an ideal plan for a lazy weekend.

Wagons and carriers to hold your precious cargo.

Rows of olallieberry vines.

Olallieberries look quite similar to blackberries.

 

Berry picking can be a delightfully messy business - the juice that squirts out of overripe olallieberries is a shockingly vibrant fuschia- purple.

So, what to do with your bounty of berries? One of the great things about going to u-pick farms, naturally, is that the fruit costs a lot less than if you buy it at the store. If you want to make jams, jellies, pies, anything that requires large amounts of fruit, there's no small amount of satisfaction to be found in going home with a box full of berries that cost you about as much as a couple of small containers' worth from the grocery would- and you can boast that you harvested them yourself!

One of my companions is a dedicated jam-maker and presented me with a beautiful jar of deep-purple jam the next week. I went the other direction and reciprocated with a trio of berry desserts: that huckleberry and fig tart that I fell in love with last year worked wonderfully with the olallieberries, an olallieberry and shorbread napoleon, and some olallieberry and white tea cupcakes.

If you don't have olallieberries where you are, be assured that you can substitute any similar berry, like blackberries, blueberries, raspberries, huckleberries, with outstanding results. After all, these desserts are meant to showcase the berries of the season!

The olallieberry and orange shortbread napoleons are taken from Claudia Fleming's The Last Course - her recipe, which featured blackberries, orange shortbread, and crème fraîche, always sounded tempting to me. Since this post seems to be DIY-themed, I'll note that the wavy shape of the shortbread wafers came from me. I couldn't find a cookie cutter with the shape I had in mind, so I just made a template out of card stock (I'm normally not a very crafty person, so I'm ridiculously pleased with this!). Although I did a triple-layer napoleon, the shortbread is quite buttery and rich, so I think two layers would probably be sufficient to allow one to enjoy both the berries and the cookie. The floral, orange-scented whipped cream also adds to the summer-garden tea-party feel of this dessert. A beautiful way to show off your fresh berries.

 

I also took the chance to work these olallieberries into my cupcake testing; I've been trying to work out the perfect vanilla cupcake recipe. This is the latest iteration: a cupcake made with white tea-infused milk and laced with juicy berries. White tea has a light, subtle flavor; I had to infuse the milk for quite a while to get the flavor to come out. You can use a stronger tea if you like, or just use vanilla; either way, it's a light, fluffy cupcake that could find its way onto the breakfast table as well. They would do well with a topping of frosting as well.
  

Olallieberry season will be over soon, but I'll be looking forward to returning next year and picking more perfect berries off the vine.

Olallieberry Orange Shortbread Napoleons

adapted from Claudia Fleming's The Last Course

makes about 12 cookies, or 6 servings

Shortbread

1 cup unsalted butter, room temperature

3/4 cup confectioners' sugar

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 1/2 teaspoons orange zest

2 cups flour

1 teaspoon salt

Filling

1 pint berries

1 tablespoon sugar

3/4 cup whipped cream

2 teaspoons orange-blossom honey or regular honey

1 teaspoon orange flower water

To make the shortbread: beat the butter and confectioners' sugar together in a stand mixer on medium until light and fluffy.

Add the vanilla and orange zest and beat to combine.

Add in the flour and salt and beat until a smooth dough form. It may be very soft.

Form dough into a disk, wrap tightly in plastic and refrigerate for at least 3 hours, or overnight.

When you are ready to make the shortbread, preheat the oven to 300 degrees F. Line a few baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone baking mats.

Roll the dough out between two sheets of wax paper or two silicone baking mats to about 1/4" thick. If the dough is too hard, let it sit for a few minutes to soften up but don't let it get too soft or it will start melting on you. You can always return the dough to the refrigerator to let it firm up.

Use desired cookie cutter to cut out shapes (about 3" across is best) from the dough. Place on prepared baking sheets.

Bake for about 25 to 30 minutes, rotating halfway through. Let cool on wire rack before assembling napoleons.

Combine about a quarter of the berries with the sugar in a bowl and let macerate for 10 minutes. Puree the mixture in a blender and strain out the seeds and other pulp. Mix the puree with remaining berries.

To assemble the napoleons, whip the cream together with the honey and orange flower water in a mixer until it holds soft peaks.

Place a shortbread cookie on a plate and top with some whipped cream. Spoon some of the berry mixture on top and top with another shortbread cookie. Serve immediately.

Olallieberry White Tea Cupcakes

makes 12 cupcakes

1/2 cup milk

1 tablespoon white tea leaves or other tea

1 1/2 cups flour

1 1/4 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup butter, room temperature

1 cup sugar

1 egg + 1 egg white

1 pint berries

Bring the milk just to a boil and pour over the tea leaves. Let steep for about an hour or more, depending on the intensity of flavor you want.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line a muffin tin with cupcake liners.

Sift the flour, baking powder, and salt together into a bowl and set aside.

Beat the butter and sugar together in a mixer on medium until light and fluffy.

Add in the egg and beat until combined. Add in the egg white and beat until combined.

Add in the flour mixture and milk in five alternating additions, starting and ending with the flour mixture. Let each addition combine fully on low speed before adding the next one. After the final addition, let the flour just combine before stopping.

Divide the batter among the muffin cups. Press a few berries into each cupcake.

Bake for about 20-25 minutes, rotating halfway through, until the cupcakes are lightly golden.

Chocolate Malt Memories

 

Because I didn't have enough fun making an opera cake for Daring Bakers, I went for another layered, multi-component cake last week. Sometimes I like to go for simple, breezy creations and other times I just feel like challenging my skills. Making layer cakes is always an exercise that keeps me on my pastry toes. Also, it was my sister's birthday, and she is an unabashed lover of all things chocolate. I'd had my eye on this elegant little number from Pichet Ong's The Sweet Spot for quite a while, and now seemed like the ideal time to break it out.

As Ong describes his creation, it's a death by chocolate cake filtered through a distinctly Asian sensibility. Unlike most Western odes to decadence, which usually involve adjectives like fudgy, gooey, or sticky, and accoutrements like nuts, whipped cream and a cherry on top, this dessert hews to a lighter, more ethereal course. But I'm happy to say the perfect balance of flavors and textures makes it no less dreamily satisfying.

Besides a tendency towards airier, more restrained composition, I've also noticed that many Asian desserts have an affinity for pairing chocolate with malt or coffee. Ong goes for the triple play by combining a chocolate genoise with a malted chocolate mousse and a Vietnamese coffee buttercream. I made all three components, but when it came to assembling them I found I preferred the way the cakes looked without the buttercream. The original recipe called for making one big square cake, which is naturally easier to frost than several small round cakes. The smoky-sweet buttercream, made with Vietnamese coffee and condensed milk, was definitely spoon-licking good though, and I'll probably find a way to use it again, whether in this dessert or another.

My aim was to make those elegant individually-sized cakes you see in those French patisseries, and to make them you need those little metal cake rings. Using them is a bit like making a cake with a blindfold, since you can't see whether your layers are even. It was even trickier with this dessert since it was designed to make a single cake, and I didn't know whether the amounts of cake and mousse were proportioned to making multiple miniature cakes. A little eyeballing, a little guestimating, and I came out with some fairly well-stacked little guys. If it's any reassurance, though, even if the cakes don't come out perfectly even (and I had a few) they're still just as delicious!

The cake is basically a cocoa-flavored genoise and bakes up like a dream: light, springy, and moist. The malted chocolate mousse is airy, creamy, and silky, like all the best mousses should be. I never knew that malted milk was so popular around the world until I went to Hong Kong when I was ten and saw ads on tv touting Horlicks as the perfect breakfast food. In the United States, Carnation and Ovaltine are the most popular brands, but elsewhere there several other choices, the most well known ones being Horlicks and Milo. The same brands can be formulated differently for different markets, so be sure to compare and find which one you like best. Many brands, like Ovaltine and Milo, have cocoa in them so they have a sweeter, more chocolatey flavor. Horlicks has the most straightforward, unsweetened malt flavor. Ong recommends Horlicks in his recipe; combined with bittersweet chocolate it makes for a lovely mousse with notes of caramel and cocoa. I'm not sure if I use quite enough gelatin in making the mousse: it was wonderfully smooth and creamy but was not as firm as I would have liked. I think I might recommend against adding more gelatin and just noting that these cakes will soften up quite quickly once you remove them from the refrigerator. 

Dusted with a little cocoa on top, this cake reminds of Maltesers, another malted delight I was introduced to in Hong Kong. I consumed these malted milk balls by the bagful whenever I went there. There is a brand of malted milk balls in the US called Whoppers but to me there is absolutely no contest: Maltesers are far and away the superior candy. When a dessert makes me think of malted milk balls, I know it's going to stay on my list of favorites. It might take a bit of time in the kitchen, the results are surely worth it: an ideal chocolate indulgence for springtime.

Malted Chocolate Mousse Cakes

adapted from Pichet Ong's The Sweet Spot

Makes about 8 2 1/2" round cakes

Chocolate Cake

1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons (45 g) cocoa powder

3 tablespoons flour

2 tablespoons cornstarch

5 large eggs, separated

2/3 cup (125 g) sugar

4 large egg yolks

1 teaspoon salt

1/4 up (50 g) vegetable or canola oil

3 tablespoons buttermilk

Malted Chocolate Mousse

3/4 cup (168 g) whole milk

1/2 cup (98 g) sugar

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 cup (37 g) malted milk powder

6 large egg yolks

1 1/4 teaspoons powdered gelatin, dissolved in 1 tablespoon cold water

5 ounces (150 g) bittersweet chocolate, roughly chopped

1 cup (226 g) whipping cream

To make the cake: Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Spray an 11 x 17 baking pan with cooking spray, line with parchment paper, and spray again. If you can find a pan with a rim at least 1" high, that's probably best - some jelly roll pans might a little too shallow.

Sift the cocoa, flour, and cornstarch into a bowl and set aside.

In stand mixer with the whisk attachment, whisk the egg whites at medium-high speed until soft peaks star to form. Add 1/3 cup of the sugar in a slow, steady stream. Continue whisking medium-soft peaks have formed. Do not overwhip the whites. Scrape the whites into a bowl, and clean the mixer bowl and whisk.

Place all 9 egg yolks in the clean mixer bowl and whisk on medium until they are combined. Add the salt and remaining sugar in a slow, steady stream. Continue whisking until the mixture is pale yellow and very thick.

Whisk about half of the egg whites into the egg yolk mixture by hand to lighten it up. Fold in the dry ingredients carefully until almost fully incorporated. Fold in the rest of the egg whites carefully.

Whisk the oil and buttermilk together in a bowl. Fold into the batter until fully incorporated.

Spread the batter into the pan and even out the surface with an offset spatula. Bake for 10 minutes, rotating halfway through. The surface should be just dry and springy to the touch. Let cake cool on rack.

To make the mousse, combine the milk, sugar, and salt in a small saucepan. Heat on stove over medium heat until the sugar dissolves and bubbles are starting to form around the edges. Whisk in the malted milk powder and cook until fully dissolved. Remove mixture from heat.

Whisk the egg yolks together in a large bowl. Pour in about half of the malted milk mixture in a steady stream, whisking constantly to prevent the egg yolks from cooking. Pour the egg mixture back into the saucepan and return to the stove. Cook for another 2 minutes, stirring constantly.

Remove saucepan from heat and add the gelatin. Stir until the gelatin is fully dissolved. Add in the chocolate and stir until fully melted and incorporated. Let mixture sit and cool to room temperature, about 1 hour.

Whip the cream to soft peaks. Fold gently into the chocolate mixture. The mixture may look very liquidy now but it will firm up as it cools and the gelatin sets.

When the mousse seems thick enough to spread, you can assemble the cakes. Place 8 cake rings on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper or a Silpat. Use a 2 1/2" round cookie cutter to cut out circles from the cake. You want to have 3 circles of cake for each cake ring. Place a circle of cake into the bottom of a cake ring. Spoon some mousse in. Top with another circle of cake, some more mousse, and the final circle of cake. If you have room you can spoon some mousse on top, but depending on how soft your mousse is it might make it trickier for the cake to hold its shape.

Chill cakes in the refrigerator overnight.

Unmold cakes shortly before serving them. Dust a little cocoa powder on top if desired.

Tagged with: chocolate malted mousse cake + pichet ong

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