Heavenly Cake - Free Choice Cake(s)

ב''ה

I decided to make two cakes one from before the start of the Heavenly Cake Bakers, the "Banana Refrigerator Cake with Dreamy Creamy White Chocolate Frosting", and one that I missed in the beginning, "Barcelona Brownie Bars. " I also missed the Hungarian Jansci Torta but I figured I would save that for Passover.

Cake one - The Banana Cake:

Mis en place:

The white chocolate frosting is just not the right to make in the blender. A 

blender needs a least a little a little liquid to get things moving. I added an extra tsp of almond extract out of frustration. It got things moving but the taste, while still edible, was not ideal. Next time I am just going to use the hand mixer!

Sifting. Grrr.

The cake itself was absolutely delicious!

Cake two - Barcelona Brownie Bars:

Mis en place:

Notice that someone tried to sneak some chocolate...

Toasty pecans...

I ran out of baker's Pam and I'll have to prepare my pans the old fashioned way until after Passover.

My "double boiler" :)

Er.. "sift" the flour in...

 :P

(That's my Bronx Cheer in case you didn't know...)

All ready to go in to the toaster.

Got out my, uh, "piping" tube...

:P 

(It's just us here right...)

The "plugs" sank a little. In the background you can see my lemon poppy seed cake. (More on that next week.) 

Aside from the fact that I do not think I have ever had dairy brownies before, these are hands down the best brownies that I have ever had!

:P (Now I'm just likin' my lips.)

Joe Pastry - Sourdough Pancakes

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Just looking for new ways to use up my starter before Passover hits. After the baking soda bubbles wore off the texture of the pancakes suffered. They were all delicious though! (I am still trying to decide whether or not to tell my kids they were sourdough, since they liked them so much. Will it turn them on to sourdough or just turn them off of my pancakes?)

The "Ez Man" is still too little for pancakes... (just ignore the pink bouncy, he has older sisters ;)

RD - Chocolate Nutmeg Cookies

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My wife keeps threatening to throw away the Reader's digest cookie book since none of them have come out very good (these included.) I say, come on, there are 1,001 cookies in here, they can't all be bad! It sort of like saying that the pie you baked for the picnic could not have been too bad since the ants came and walked off with it... At least I'll learn about many different types of cookies (if not how to make them taste good.) Any one have a good recommendation for an outstanding cookie recipe book (other than Rose's...)?

Challah with millet

ב''ה

I am going to have to get rid of all my different flours before Passover. Some of the millet spilled and I figured I would throw it into the weekly challah. I usually would let the millet soak for a whole day before using but it was thursday night already and the hour was getting late... I had to just give it a short soak.

I have been experimenting with autolyse. Lately I have been giving my challah at least an hour autolyse before retarding the dough in the fridge overnight. I use a rather wet challah dough, even though it is not the usual thing to do with challah (since you want a nice tight crumb.) This time I was so tired I could not even bring myself to knead the dough and just stuck it in the fridge in it's unmixed state. The next morning, before going to work I kneaded it and stuck it back in the fridge until I came home (3pm.)

With a combination of half soaked millet and un-mixed retardation I was truly prepared for a crunchy, tasteless challah.

What a surprise when I bit into it and it was nutty and sweet and not really crunchy, just a nice texture. A real treat. I wonder if it was the abnormal autolyse. This thursday maybe amaranth! :)

The Challah recipe I used:
5 cups flour
2 cups of more of water
1/2 cup millet
2 eggs
1/3 cup sugar
tsp salt
tsp yeast

Goldman's in Baltimore - My Chocolate Gold standard

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Everyone's got to have their chocolate Gold standard. For Rose L. Beranbaum it may be her Double Chocolate cake. For me, it's Goldman's Kosher Bakery's Danish's in Baltimore MD.

I wish I knew how they got their chocolate to taste like that! 

Note the heavenly light...

We took a trip to Baltimore for my nephew's bris.

Boy did the snow hit here hard!

Some of Goldman's other goodies (none of it as good as the danishes:)

Hamentashen (Purim treats:)

Cookies and such. I recommend the ice box cookies.

Kichel and friends. Where is that creamed and pickled herring...?

The kids, of course, stood there in awe, for a moment, in front of the danishes, then opted for the strawberry shortcake. :)

And to think that some consider the best kosher bakeries in New York. Take it from me in Brooklyn, this place is tops!

Heavenly Cake - Double Chocolate Cake (2 attempts)

ב''ה

Mis en place:

Chocolate and butter.

I should have realized something was wrong when the batter was as thick as a buttercream...

Keep the ganache warm while the cake bakes.

Carefully check the raspberries to make sure they are kosher (no bugs...)

Looks OK...

I used a tooth-pick. I think I made the holes too small as the ganache did not really seep in. I told my wife that I think I saw Rose use something bigger in one her videos. My wife jokingly said, "...are you kidding! I think Rose uses a coffee cup to make her ganache holes!"

I put some chambord in the ganache for extra raspberry flavor. Yum!

After glazing the raspberries I am ready for divine inspiration I take a bite...

The verdict is... ach! Dry!!

Gross!

What happened?

I soon found out:

http://www.realbakingwithrose.com/2006/11/blogger_aaron_solves_dry_choco.html

Apparently, this is a common problem. I wish Rose had given a warning of how unforgiving the chocolate cake batter could be...

There simply was not enough liquid to dry ratio in the batter. To be fair I did not sift the flour and chocolate. It seems the wet and dry proportions of the chocolate cake must be exact for the proper  texture.

I had to make it again.

So...

My father was having a house warming party the next day. A 1/2 hour or so before I whipped up one of these cakes up and put in 3/4 cup of boiling water into the chocolate instead of the 1/2 cup. The batter was nice and runny. (I also had to make it parve (i.e. margarine) since it was a meat meal...)

The cake cake came out a little lopsided with out the proper height. But... it was moist, fudge-y (, warm) and yummy! The extra liquid must have weighed it down. Next time I will either weigh my ingredients properly (not likely until I can afford (and have room for) a nice scale, sorry Rose!) or attempt to use 2/3 cup boiling water instead of 3/4 and see the difference...

Rose's cake even though it was made funny looking by my efforts totally blew this bakery cake out of the water! Only one or two pieces were attempted from this cake (and not finished.)

 

Rose's Cake after it was attacked by the populous...

Just goes to show you that a really good unadorned (and lopsided) cake can out-do a fancy looking cake any day. :) Thank you Rose!

My father's new place, by the way, has three ovens! Meat, Dairy and Parve! Yowza! I'll think I may be coming over more often... ;)

I also made Chocolate chip cookies (using Joe Pastry's tutorial.) The Muscavodo sugar I added really made these great!

My little brother Georgie snuck an extra cookie from the tin on our way out...

Heavenly Cake - "True" Orange Genoise (Two versions)

ב''ה

Have care. The first part of this post is a little dated as I was really excited and made this early. :)

~~

This is take 1 as I am definitely going to make this again with the real seville oranges!! This version was so good I may try this one again too.

I used this mixture of twice: 2 juice oranges, 1 meyer lemon and 2 blood oranges; both for the syrup and for the orange curd.

I went to Fairway

 in Red Hook, NY to look for the Seville oranges. It was too early but they do have such lovely produce!

From Fairway's parking lot you can see Lady Liberty. Perhaps you can make out her shape right in the middle of this picture.

See how lovely and yellow the meyer lemons are in comparison to the regular? The are supposed to be a bit sweeter.

I added a little of this Italian volcano to the mixture. My body craves this stuff. However, at over 6 bucks a pop and only in season a short while I go into serious withdrawal rather quickly...

I did this over 3 days. the first day, the syrup and curd. The second day, the ganache and the third day the cake.

The finished syrup.

I boiled down the mixture for the substitute curd as Rose recommends (even though it is for juice oranges.)

My only mistake was thickening the curd too much. I had to stretch it out with my hands like play-dough to  cover the middle of the cake. I have now made curd a few time and have discovered that you can make great ice cream with lemon or orange curd.

Our food processer is the only appliance in our kitchen that is strictly parve (not meat or dairy.) I pulsed the (parve) chocolate and then transferred it to a small dairy bowl to pour in the hot cream. This worked quite nicely and with just a little mixing the chocolate melted right away. The 70% Scharffenberger's I used was very intense and competed with the orange flavor. Next time I will use 60% as Rose recomends. I now use this method to make hot-chocolate. You do not even need to pulse it fine you just break it into a couple pieces, put it into a sealed coffee cup with hot water or milk and give it a good shake for a minute or too. Intense!

Voila. While this may have taken three days to make it took less then 24 hours to consume. Wow! What a winner! :)

~~~
Ok. After all of the above came out so good I could not resist making it again when I finally found seville oranges.

Real Seville oranges. Version 2:

The seville orange curd. The first version I cooked the curd to long and it was too thick. This time it came out better. Is it just me or does the middle-white part of the seville orange, when eaten straight, tast just like butter? No wonder Rose like these! :)

I do not have a dairy mixer so I simply mixed the genoise in the double boiler pot using the hand mixer. I did not get the full two inch genoise though. I think I folded in the flour too vigorously though, as I noticed the batter deflate somewhat from it.

The genoise seems a perfect cake for the toaster as the top gets cut off anyways so you can keep the top closer to to the heating element the whole time without having to move the cake up or down in the middle or cover it. While the top got darkened, the bottom was perfect.

Voila! It really was wonderfull and orange-y. Truly lovely and intense. Thank you Rose! The first, blood orange, version was very good though and had a unique flavor. I think I will experiment with versions of this in the future. Maybe a grapefruit or clementine version...