It's raining outside...but not in my kitchen!

I did manage to get a spot of baking done on the weekend, and managed to get some great snaps of the feature ingredient of the featured recipe. One of my favourite website I visit daily (actually, make that multiple visit a day!) is the Apartment Therapy - The Kitchn offshoot site. The Apartment Therapy website is a great place for inspiration, aspiring designers, and people who love to look at beautiful spaces.

Anyway - last week, "the recipe" that captured attention was for Lemon Sticky Buns. Say it with me now, "Lemon Sticky Buns"...mmm... I can't help but put my Southern twang on it. I wasn't the only one who fell victim of lust-at-first-sight - they gratuitously included the "money shot" on three different subsequent posts. So I had to give it a shot!

It's a yeast-based dough that requires a little bit of work. What does that mean? There's a good chunk of waiting around time and you're going to use your hands. The waiting around time, no problem - the elbow grease? My specialty. I really do enjoy kneading by hand - yes, it is very easy to stick it into the mixer to do all the work, but it's so satisfying to work the dough by hand. The methodic turning and pushing can be very grounding...it's just nice to work with your hands after a week on a keyboard. As per the recipe title, it involves a lot of lemons. Gosh, probably 5 or 6? A combination of lots of zest and maybe the juice of 2 or 3.

Here are a few more zest shots for you. I couldn't resist. Look at the pores on the zest - I can't imagine my life without macro now.

(left: Mmmmm....lemon zest. right: A little shameless product placement. Epicurean boards, are you reading? I loooove yoooooou.

So after the dough has risen and is patted out, you have to apply a paste, the lemon filling. I took the recipe too literally and added the juice of half a lemon. A very, very juicy lemon. I really should have held back a little. The filling wound up being rather watery. If you make this recipe, go easy on the juice and hold off when the filling is thick but spreadable - like really, really warm and runny jam. Mine was like really, really, really warm and watery jam. As a result, my buns weren't so lemon-y. Still good though!

I've included a few before and after shots of the rising process. It's really amazing to see how these buns puff up - ah, the magic of yeast!

(upper left: Ready for the second rise - evenly spaced out. upper right: After an hour of rising time, covered with a towel. Be mindful of spacing! lower left & right: Post-baking - check out those flecks of zest!)

So would I make them again. Mmmm...probably not. I'm glad I made them - but I'm not sure I'm a big fan of cinnamon-roll type pastries. It's a little too dense for my liking. Then again, I take full responsibility if I made them too heavy. I will, however, always stop in my tracks for a Solly's chocolate babka bun (it's a tight, thin-layered 'chocolate' cinnamon bun. Microwave it for 20 seconds and it's perfection.) - oooh...maybe I'll have to give that a try.

Until then!

Mmmm...Matcha!

One of the things I love about photographing ice cream is that in the right light, you can capture every last ripple, every ice crystal, and every fleck of mix-in. Yum. I had decent light - a little too much shadow for my liking, but hey - not everyone can have a studio in their house!

Featured today: Green Tea and Red Bean Ice Cream!

The last time I made green tea ice cream, I bought waaaaaaay too much matcha powder (finely milled tea) and now have a large canister of it in my pantry. I discovered, unfortunately, that the matcha powder is much too strong for my taste. Even half a teaspoon dissipated in almost two cups of water gave me a headache! I like the toasted rice kind of tea anyway :) So now the canister gets taken out...never. But a colleague invited some others from the workplace for hot pot and I thought I would bring some homemade ice cream! I also had some red bean paste leftover from the dim sum experimentation so I decided to whip up some ice cream as well.

I think I've posted a recipe for the base that I use for ice cream. Same thing here - whisk in enough matcha powder to taste! Here's the thing about matcha powder, and green tea in general. It needs a lot of whisking. A LOT. That's why they have those fancy bamboo whisks! I get it now! No matter how hard I tried, there were always flecks of powder floating around. Multiple passes through a sieve didn't do the trick either, but when the ice cream churns the flecks just...fade. It's magical.

The red bean was good - however because there were already beans in the paste (and I added it in before straining the custard base) it was a little on the grainy side. I think next time if I attempt this recipe, I'll probably boil up azuki beans and puree to make a syrup to integrate into the base instead of the paste. I think the paste added too much sugar to the ice cream which contributed to it being not as creamy.


Both went over well with the guests! It was difficult trying to explain to some guests how ice cream is made, while trying to scoop, yet keeping an ear and eye on the Wii Mario Adventureland game happening in the background (I had to forfeit my controller for a round or two - my coins!!). But it's really not that difficult! If you have the opportunity to get an ice cream maker (and if you like ice cream) I would highly encourage you to give the process a try! I have seen old-school hand crank machines at thrift shops for less than $10. Don't be afraid of the hand-crank - it's the same principle as a modern chill 'n churn, except you have to turn the crank for about 20 minutes. Make it a party and split up the work!

Compost Brownies

I've heard a lot of people discussing the effects that Daylight Savings Time has had on their schedule - mostly negative. Actually, ALL negative. Myself? I wasted too many minutes watching 27 Dresses and wound up sleeping in. I had a full day on Sunday, went to bed at a decent time and woke up and felt as though nothing had changed.

One lovely thing about the hour-ahead business is that we are blessed with a little more light! Light! Sweet, sweet daylight! As I walked to my regular bus stop after work, I was bathed in the glow of early-evening light. And it felt too early. I almost felt guilty about leaving work - it was still light out! Should I have stayed another 20 or 30 minutes or so! But like I wrote, "almost" felt guilty. In a couple of months, I'll be leaving work in the blazing sunshine, anyway. My bus arrived relatively quickly and I was home before I knew it - at an earlier time than I had ever expected to be home. One awesome upside to this was that I got to retake the photos for this post. I was thoroughly disappointed with the quality of snaps I took last night and I relished have a little bit of wonderful daylight to show off my latest creations.

It really does make a difference!

(let there be light!)

Back to the brownies. Same recipe as the blondies in an earlier post but with an added twist. Another Momofuku spinoff is the "Compost Cookie" - a baked good that includes everything including the kitchen sink! Traditional cookie mixins are a must, as well as your favourite salty nibbles (pretzels, goldfish, whatever!)...rumor also has it that coffee grounds are an ingredient as well! I omitted the coffee and the salty bits but included whatever I could find in my pantry - coconut, dried cherries, white chocolate chips, and almonds. Ahh...I should have added some cereal if I had any left. Good cereal that is. I don't think my taste testers would enjoy eating a cookie with half a Weetabix protruding from it1

The MMFK recipe includes a nice balance of salty and sweet. I think there is a real movement in the baking community to push people to not be so afraid of salt. Yes, in moderation - but salt has a role in enhancing savory AND sweet foods. Ummm, sea salt caramels? Yes please! (the best all time I've ever had - from Jenn Stone's now defunct JS Bon Bons. I miss them.) So next time - don't be stingy and go for a three-finger grab of that NaCl!

Smells like the morning after.

I attempted to make 'beer' cookies this weekend.

Let me tell you a little backstory on this one. As a kid, my family and I would go on these organized charter bus tours...that were...umm...ethnically-friendly. That's all I'm going to say on what kind of tour group it was. But I went on a lot of these trips and all over North America too! East coast, West Coast, BC, wherever - if it was a tourist spot, I can guarantee that there was a bus tour going there. Anyway, we went on a tour that included a stop at a Molson brewery (in Vancouver? Can't be sure.) The adults sampled beer, the kids sampled ginger ale and snacked on beer cookies.

Some of the best cookies ever. Crumbly, buttery, and yeah - they tasted like beer.

I decided that this would be THE weekend to test out a replication of these cookies!

Fail.

The T&J came over for some Oscar watching and they both commented, "it tastes like scones." Well! That's not exactly the reaction I was looking for, but I had to agree. But they smelled like beer while chilling and baking - yet the beer taste was practically non-existent. I added way too much liquid as well, which resulted in me adding more flour - which probably resulted in the scone-like taste. So I'm not sure if I have to try a stronger beer, or boil it down to make some kind of syrup, but it is ON! I WILL make beer cookies! And when I do - you'll be the first to know!

Not all was lost - I was thinking of failure and added dried cherries and white chocolate chips to half the batter, so at least I have something sweet to nibble on this week.

I believe!

Okay, a little melodramatic I know, but what a great day! The Olympics are over! Hahahaha!

It was capped off by an unbelievable, nail-biting, euphoric win by Team Canada over Team USA. I watched the action at home, right where I wanted to be!

Without further ado...


This week's featured recipe, as illustrated above was a Whipped Cream Cake, recipe care of The Modern Baker. Want to give it a try? Check it out here. Although the original recipe is for a layer cake, I decided to dust off my angel food cake pan (or tube pan, if you will) and give it a try in that form. It worked - but at double the cooking time! It is a really moist cake, as it is pretty much half whipped cream. So I guess it kind of turns into a pudding-cake type of baked good. But boy did it smell good. I was tempted to cut a slice while it was still warm - it was very moist with the crunchiest top (high white sugar content) but I held off until after decorating.

After making the cake, I doused it with a mixture of Frangelico and Triple Sec and sealed it in with a coating of dark chocolate and almonds.

(left: Cake in progress. right: Cake swathed in chocolate.)

After a brief chilling I coated the cake with a white chocolate ganache (previously used on coworker birthday cake) and then coated the sides with toasted almond slivers. Mmmm. Good eats.

(left: Cross-section of cake. right: An avalanche of almonds! I'd like to be trapped under that!)

I have to say the recipe worked out pretty well, it yielded a delicious, moist, and dense cake and the white chocolate ganache was thick and set very well. I'm not sure if I posted the recipe source for it, but here it is! Very good instructions and nearly fail-proof. The first time I tried it, I halved the recipe - but this time I made a 2/3 portion. I would stick to a portion as close to the original as possible, halving it created slightly mixed results (a little bit too wet), but this time I did add more white chocolate to add stiffness to the final product. Either way - like the recipe says, it turns out like butter (like buddah) and goes on nice and smooth. Do not succumb to the fear of white chocolate! She is a fickle beast, but when it's good....it's goooooood.

Blueberries 'n Cream

Like a bolt of lightening, it struck me. Inspiration! The latest "It" chef of the moment has to be David Chang of the Momofuku restaurant group. Chang has definitely become the hottest commodity in the New York food community, and with the publication of his cookbook - the hottest commodity in the foodie community internationally. He has been making the requisite appearances on mainstream television shows such as No Reservations and the Martha Stewart show, both discussing the evolution and theory behind his cuisine and demonstrating the true complexities of his vision.

Amateur gourmets like myself have been dissecting the Momofuku cookbook and posting their failures and successes online. One particular site is Momofuku for 2, a foodie's adventures of attempting every recipe in the cookbook. It is through reading her progress and others' that you realize the passion for food runs deep - it is the commitment of sourcing obscure ingredients and sitting and watching your egg poach for 10 hours (or something like that, it's a slooooow poached/boiled egg).

Anyway - the recipe was for Blueberries and Cream cookies from the Momofuku Milk Bar, (which can be found on the Martha site) was the subject of a recent post and caught my immediate attention while on the bus ride home. I love the idea of duplicating tastes and to mimic blueberries and cream, in a cookie no less, was for me - enlightening. This recipe was unlike your typical butter-sugar-eggs-flour-mixin combination, well...sort of I guess (all cookies have to contain some permutation of that sequence of ingredients), but it involved a more complicated step of creating a 'milk crumb' to duplicate that milky/creamy taste. Did I mention that the milk crumb also has white chocolate? Hubba hubba!

The results:

(left: Batter up! right: Milk 'n cookie? )

I think this is another case of "it tastes better than it looks!" When I heaved the tray out of the oven, I was less than impressed. "Why, they look like bland little cookies!" I exclaimed. But the outer crunch gives way to a surprisingly rich and dense interior without being too much work for the teeth. The sweetness of the milk crumb comes out well and contrasts well to the sour tang of the fruit. Dried blueberries are expensive, yo! So I bulked up to the 3/4 cup line with dried cherries, which was a nice addition. It added a bit more depth to the cookie as well as a nice residual chewiness. The true test will be tomorrow when the cookies have had a night to sit - are they going to retain that nice crunch or go right to soggy-ville? Or over-crunchy-land?

I will definitely make these cookies again, but with a different twist. I am thinking chocolate and nuts! Dark chocolate and toasted slivered almonds...mmmmm....

An Oldie, but a Goodie

Continuing on my Kitchen Resolutions path, I decided to attempt a recipe I haven't tried before. On one hand - inspiration can come very easy, whether it's a new recipe in the latest Martha or Bon Appetit or discovering frozen blueberries in my freezer. But sometimes, it can be like pulling teeth. This occasion was somewhere in the middle - I didn't have a new recipe I wanted to attempt and I had a craving for something familiar. Like chocolate chip cookies. Or classic raisin oatmeal ones.

Last year, I took a trip with T and another friend down to Portland to check out the local food scene and shop. At Powell's ( :0...... <--- that's me with drool dripping down, haha! Powell's is an amaaaazing bookstore.) I picked up some classic and not-so-classic cookbooks that I've had my eye on. A modern-take-on-classic Chinese, a Rick Bayless (new Mexican, or should I say - nuevo Mexican?), and a Maida Heatter classic.

(I just painted my nails...I'm just showin' off the manicure a bit :P)

The recipe of choice was the Belgian Almond Cookie - a thin, crisp cookie studded with almonds. The end result I envisioned were the kind of cookies that are a medium nutty brown, with the cross-sections of almonds interspersed. Usually crisp but very delicate - almost like a thick tuile. Ya know what I'm talking about? I'm not sure if the cookie really was ever meant to be like that - for starters, I should have ground the almonds more! The recipe did as for a finely ground almond meal, but mine was visibly chunkier. But I kind of liked that - at least you knew where your cookie came from. These are kind of like fancy "slice 'n bake" cookies - but you have to make and form the dough before freezing, slicing, and then baking. One advantage is that very little dough yields quite a few cookies! (They are thin, after all!) The disadvantage? I have about 3/4 of the original log still in my freezer.

I guess that's not such a bad thing.

(A stack of cookies. I was having trouble shooting in my kitchen - the lights are NOT forgiving, and it was night so....I had to make do with partially shading the shot with my hand. Not recommended. Must get some vellum to soften the light.)