Archive for February, 2008
Toothpicks are the gold-standard of cake testing. Most, if not all, recipes call for them and even though there are other ways to test for doneness (for instance, lightly pressing the top of a muffin/cake to see if it springs back into place), checking to see if a toothpick inserted into the center of a baked good comes out clean is consistently reliable. But many cookware and kitchen stores stock actual “cake testers” – are these better than old, reliable toothpicks?
The answer really is no. Performance is similar, and it’s unlikely that you’re going to have any real problems from using a metal cake tester, but the reason why the idea of toothpicks as cake testers has been around so long is that it works extremely well. The slightly textured wood of the toothpick makes it easier for the toothpick to “grip” little crumbs, giving you a fairly accurate idea of doneness, while a metal cake tester can be too smooth to do so. Arguments for cake testers say that they’re cleaner because you can wash them. Toothpicks are disposable and are only used once, so that doesn’t hold up. They also say that they’re longer and work with a wider variety of baked goods – which is true, but you can just as easily use a bamboo or other wooden skewer for a deep cake in place of a toothpick.
It comes down to personal preference, but you’re not going to get drastically better outcomes with a cake tester. I’ll stick with toothpicks, myself.
Chocolate chip cookies may be the single most popular type of cookie out there, but I’m pretty sure that it is the chocolate element of the cookie that really sells it. So, if a cookie with some chocolate in it is good, one that has even more chocolate is bound to be better, right? Besides, it gets boring if you stick to one type of cookie all the time.
As much as I love a crisp cookie with some varieties (shortbread, oatmeal, butter cookies, etc), when it comes to all-chocolate cookies, I think that chewy is the way to go – and these cookies perfectly fit the bill. They are rich in chocolate flavor and have a great chew to them. I described them as “brownie cookies” because I think they have a dark and brownie-like flavor, though they don’t share the fudgy texture that brownies usually have. The trick to getting the chew with this recipe is to take the cookies out of the oven when the edges have set (you can poke them with a fingertip and they should feel firm) but the center of the cookie is not set. If you watch them bake, you’ll see the cookies “crack” a little bit as the end of the baking time approaches. Inside these cracks, the cookies will still be soft and this is what gives them the chewy texture when they’re cool.
For something other than straight chocolate, I stirred in a mixture of chocolate chips and peanut butter chips to the batter. There were more chocolate chips than peanut butter chips in my mix, but because the cookie was so chocolaty, the non-chocolate peanut butter flavor came out much better than I anticipated. To enhance it further, I actually recommend using a semi-coarse salt, like kosher salt, in this recipe. I find that the grains don’t always incorporate as well into the batter as finer salts, but in this recipe I find that the occasional, small fleck of salt on the tongue as you eat really sets off the peanut butter in the chips nicely.
+Continue Reading
There are so many shows on cake decorating on the Food Network these days, I can’t even name them all. From cakes that are 6-feet tall to cakes with moveable parts, “impressive” almost doesn’t seem like a strong enough word to describe them. Watching the shows is inspiring, but the skills needed to turn out a cake like that are not taught in most cookbooks, so unless you want to intern at a bakery or spend an untold number of hours working and practicing on your own to figure out the techniques, even the above-average home baker is unlikely to produce anything that approaches these showstoppers. As with all cooking subjects, if there is a gap that needs to be filled a cookbook that does just that will eventually come along and fill it, which is what Cake Art: Simplified Step-by-Step Instructions and Illustrated Techniques for the Home Baker to Create Showstopping Cakes and Cupcakes does.
Cake Arti one of the newest releases from the Culinary Institute of America and covers all the techniques needed for top-notch cake decorating. It starts out buy discussing all the different icing mediums – from modeling chocolate to royal icing to fondant – that are necessary to craft cakes and things like piping gel and tempered chocolate, which are often used to add finishing touches to them. From there, it moves on to guide you through the process of prepping cakes (filling, leveling, etc.) and putting the first layer of icing on them, before moving into more specific guides on piping icing, using stencils on fondant and chocolate, and even how to paint with edible food colorings for a very artistic cake. The book also has a chapter devoted to modeling with marzipan, gumpaste and modeling chocolate, showing you how to create everything from little flowers to little people.
The book also starts off with a recipes for cakes and various icings, so you’ll have several base recipes to use when working with their techniques. It is full of decorating ideas and absolutely bursting with beautiful, full-page (the book is oversized) photography. Some of the ideas are for wedding cakes, others are simply for other fanciful cakes. My favorites are the cupcakes, which are really taken to a new level of cuteness with just a few, relatively simple touches or toppers. If you have a chance to look through the book, be sure to take a peek at the Farm Animal Cupcakes – they’re probably my favorite.
Plain buttermilk pancakes are probably one of my favorite things to have for a lazy weekend breakfast. They’re reliably good on their own – especially when topped with maple syrup – but are also open to a wide variety of variations. Blueberries and chocolate chips are pretty standard add-ins and since they’re so good, it is easy to fall into a rut. I know because I caught myself about to add a bunch of blueberries to this batch of buttermilk pancake dough.
I stopped, almost mid-pour, to get myself out of the rut. I looked around the kitchen for other options. Bananas? Not ripe enough. Apples? They’re best when they’re cooked first. Citrus zest? I wanted something more substantial. My eyes fell on some ripe nectarines and I knew that I found what I was looking for.
I thinnly sliced the nectarines – each into about 12 thin slices, with peels on – and laid three pieces onto each pancake as I poured the batter onto a hot griddle. The pancakes turned out just as I had hoped. The nectarines added a beautiful touch, both taste-wise and presentation wise, and definitely made me glad that I skipped the blueberries this round.
+Continue Reading
Sugar is – and probably always will be – my go-to sweetener for anything I bake. Call me traditional, but sugar plays a big role in the chemistry of baking and for most things (since I, very fortunately, do not have any dietary restrictions that force me to look elsewhere) I am more than happy to use it. But just because I love sugar doesn’t mean that I’m not going to get out there and use other sweeteners. Honey and maple syrup, for instance, are always good in my book and after being on a bit of an agave syrup kick recently, I’m adding it to my list of approved sweeteners.
I opted to bake some muffins, as I generally like how liquid sweeteners retain moisture and keep muffins moist for a few days after baking. Agave syrup did not let me down in this regard. The muffins became more moist overnight (stored in an airtight container) and the flavors in the muffins – including the overall sweetness – increase! This is a great feature to have in a muffin if you want to bake up a batch the night before you serve them to save time.
Overall, the muffins were not earth-shattering, but were simply very good. In terms of consistency and crumb, they were a little bit more like your typical quick bread than a cake. This texture worked out well because the muffins were very good when spread with butter or cream cheese (yes, they were tasty plain, as well). The candied ginger gave them some zing and added a little something extra to the flavor overall.
Because agave syrup has an exceptionally low glycemic index, these muffins are quite healthy and should be a much better choice than your average muffin for someone who is concerned about sugar in their diet. I know that I felt pretty good about eating them, though I will warn you that knowing that they’re relatively low in fat and sugar could tempt you – as it did me – to eat an extra muffin or two for breakfast!
+Continue Reading
