Butter

When I was in kindergarten our class made butter from scratch.  We took turns churning heavy cream throughout the class period until the cream became thick, and we spread it on graham crackers for snack time.  Now that I've actually made butter from scratch, I realize that the kindergarten concoction was really over-whipped cream, but the memory of eating our own creamy creation has stayed with me and inspired me to try the real deal!  This recipe is a great way to use up that extra whipping cream sitting in your fridge.  Supposedly you can use cream that has begun to turn, but I think that sounds kind of gross and I recommend using delicious fresh cream.  There is something satisfying about crafting basic ingredients by hand.  I like to get carried away and imagine life as a local dairy farmer churning out fresh butter and specialty cheeses to sell to foodies around the world!  Luckily, you don't have to be a dairy farmer to make your own butter (or your own cheese, but that will be a future post).  Read on!

Ingredients

Heavy cream (any amount - I used about a cup)
Ice water (for washing)
1/4 t. salt per cup of heavy cream (if you want salted butter)

Beat That Butter!

Place the heavy cream in a bowl and whip on high speed.  You can use a hand mixer or a stand mixer, but if you have one I recommend using the stand mixer with a splash guard.  I only had a hand mixer, so I enlisted a volunteer to hold a towel around the bowl to prevent the cream from flying all over me and my kitchen.  Keep whipping the cream.  Keeeeep whipping.... The cream will pass soft peaks, firm peaks, curdled stage....keep it up... At between five and ten minutes the cream will "break," i.e. it will separate into a solid and a liquid: butter and buttermilk!  Whip a minute or so past the break, and then take a spatula and press the butter into one large ball.  Squish it against the side of the bowl to remove as much buttermilk as possible, and then carefully pour the buttermilk into a separate container (save for use in pancakes!). 

Now you need to wash the butter to remove the rest of the buttermilk residue.  You can eat the butter without washing it, but it will last much longer if you follow this washing procedure: pour some ice water into the butter, and mix on high speed for a minute.  The water will become cloudy.  Pour the cloudy water down the sink and repeat until the water is relatively clear.  Squish the butter to get as much water out as you can, pour it off, and add the salt.  Mix on low speed to incorporate.  Viola! Fresh salted butter for your butter crock!

Coconut Cream Meringue Cake

Ahhh the taste of success. It's really the cake that tastes so wonderful, but it's always nice to make a slam dunk after a horrible failure. Thank you Fine Cooking! Fine Cooking is officially my new favorite food magazine. Ok, that's a lie, Fine Cooking has been at the top of my list for quite awhile. They won me over with their big glossy pictures, and backed up their photo skills with superb recipes. This is one of those recipes. The picture in the magazine is a little better than mine, but I wanted to give you the "real thing," not some gussied up Styrofoam frosted with shaving cream (I'm on to you Fine Cooking! No way those gorgeous pictures are real. Next thing you know people are going to start claiming that no airbrushes ever touched those photo-captured fashion models).

This cake has the "Wow" factor in every respect: three fat layers, moist from sinful amounts of butter and sour cream, are buoyed on puddles of custard that has been stuffed with fluffy coconut and lightened with clouds of whipped cream. Then the whole shebang is smothered with enough meringue to kill a diabetic. I should know. THEN, the meringue is caramelized with the handy kitchen-torch I'm sure all of you have lying around in your kitchens. If you don't own a kitchen blow torch you should probably get one. Even if you only use it one time, to make this cake, it will be worth it (provided you don't somehow screw up the cake before you get to the torching).

In the interest of full disclosure, let me say that this is not a trivial recipe. In addition to a beautiful, miraculously good cake, I ended up with cramped hands, sore arms, seven-thousand dirty bowls, and a kitchen splattered with egg whites and whipping cream. Not to mention I felt ill after nibbling cake batter and frosting for 3 hours. But don't let me dissuade you! The cake is freakin' delicious.

One more tip: not a good idea to put a roll of paper towels behind the cake while caramelize the meringue. Aiming flame thrower at flammable objects = bad.

Cake:
2 sticks unsalted butter, softened
13.5 oz all-purpose flour (3 c. for those of you without baking scales)
4 t. baking powder
1/2 t. kosher salt
1 c. coconut milk (shake well, room temp)
1 T. vanilla
2 c. sugar
2 large eggs at room temp
6 large egg whites at room temp (don't throw away the yolks! save 3)
2/3 c. sour cream

Coconut Filling:
2 c. heavy cream
3 large egg yolks
3/4 c. sugar
2 T. flour
1 c. sweetened flaked coconut
2 T. unsalted butter
1 T. vanilla
pinch of kosher salt

Meringue:
3 c. sugar
1.5 c. egg whites (about ten large) at room temp

Make Cake:
Preheat the oven to 350. Butter three cake pans and line with parchment. Butter the parchment. In a medium bowl, mix the flour, baking powder, and salt.

In a 1 c. measure, mix the coconut milk and vanilla.

Beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes. Scrape the bowl and add eggs one at a time, beating well after each egg. Add 1/3 of the flour mixture and beat slowly to incorporate. Add half the coconut milk and beat to incorporate. Alternate adding flour and coconut milk, beating after each addition to incorporate, and ending with the flour. Beat in the sour cream.

In a clean bowl, beat egg whites to soft peaks (lift out the beaters and the whites should droop a little off the ends). Dollop some egg whites into the batter and stir to loosen. Fold remaining whites into the batter gently. Divide batter between three pans and bake 25-30 minutes. A toothpick poked into the center should come out clean. Now, the recipe instructs you to position the pans so that two are on the top rack and one is on the lower rack, and no pan is directly over another. This sounds like a bunch of hooey to me, but do it just in case.

Make the Filling:
In a medium bowl, whisk yolks with 1.5 c. of the cream. In a medium saucepan, combine the yolk mixture with the flour and sugar. Cook over medium heat, whisking continually, until smooth. Bring the mixture to a simmer and cooking, whisking, for 8-10 minutes. The mixture should achieve a pudding-like consistency. Remove from heat and stir in the coconut, vanilla, and butter. Allow to cool to room temp. Whip the remaining half cup cream into soft peaks and fold into the cooled pudding.

Make the Meringue:
Set a metal bowl over a pan of simmering water, and whisk the egg whites with the sugar until the sugar melts completely, 3-4 min. Rub the mixture between your fingertips to ensure complete melting. Transfer the mixture to a cool bowl and beat on low speed until the mixture becomes opaque and thickens, 4 min. Raise speed to medium and beat the mixture to barely-soft peaks. Increase speed to high and whip the mixture until thick and glossy. Peaks should stand up and curl slightly when the beater is lifted. This should take another 4 min or so.

To assemble, unmold the cakes and sandwich half the filling between two layers. Add the rest of the filling to the top layer, and place the third layer over it. Don't forget to remove the parchment. Mound the meringue on the cake. You do not need to use all of it! Dollop gobs here and there and spread it to cover the cake completely, then pile a little more in the center for good measure. You'll probably use about a third, but if you really want to you can use all of it. I just prefer to have a few crumbs of cake with my meringue.

To make the fancy little spikes on the cake, dip your fingers into the meringue and lift. Poke the cake all over until it's crazy looking.

Use a kitchen torch to brown the meringue by holding the torch a few inches from its surface and guiding the flame around the cake until it is browned to your liking.

Invite 10 people over to help you eat it because it won't keep very well! Nothing worse than slimy second-day meringue! Ok, another lie. I ate two pieces the second day. But I don't recommend refrigerating leftovers (cardinal cake sin), and since the whole thing is made of eggs I wouldn't advise keeping it too long. Shouldn't be a big problem!

Golden Prosecco Cake with Lemon Curd and Macerated Berries

Wow. Martha Stewart completely failed me this time. Yes, I am most certainly blaming this failure on her recipe, seeing as how I followed it to the letter. I should have known there was something fishy about a recipe that required whipping egg whites mixed with loads of brown sugar to stiff peaks! Ain't gonna happen. My whites remained a puddle of brown froth.

Nonetheless, I forged ahead, convinced that baking the brown slop migh somehow revive it. Nope. Martha's brown sugar angel cake looked edible when I pulled it out of the oven, however, and I began to think nothing was amiss. The lemon curd went off without a hitch, my tangerine-macerated berries glistened in their crystal bowl, and a jar of double cream waited in the fridge for dinner to end.

As the guests finished their wine, I hopped up from the table to unmold the cake. I sawed the edges loose, tipped the cake over, and patted the bottom. A damp chunk of gray cake fell out with a splat. Not good. The cake was a total, utter, disgusting mess. It looked more like a drowned squirrel caracass than angel food cake. I ventured a nibble and grimaced at the slimy, tough texture and old-sock flavor. With a furtive glance over my shoulder I whisked the disaster into the garbage, and hurried to the cupboard to look for a cake mix. Good old trusty cake mix!

Plain yellow cake, while delicious, would not exactly go with a random bowl of berries and lemon curd, so I opted to doctor the cake and make ... whatever I had ingredients to make! A half-consumed bottle of prosecco in the fridge inspired Golden Prosecco Cake With Lemon Curd and Macerated Berries. Fortunately, the cake turned out perfectly.

The butter in the recipe gives the cake a pleasant toothsome crumb, and the prosecco lends a heady fragrance. This cake has a sturdier texture than regular yellow cake, which allows it to absorb the juice from the berries and create a moist mouthful without becoming soggy. It would probably taste great with berries mixed right into the batter! That can be my next experiment. Although, I'm somewhat dissuaded from experiments after the horrible rubbery mess my last one produced.

Prosecco Cake

1 box yellow cake mix
1 pkg instant vanilla pudding
1/2 c. melted butter, cooled
1/4 c. canola oil
4 eggs
3/4 c. prosecco

Lemon Curd

6 egg yolks
1/2 c. lemon juice from 3-4 lemons
1 T. grated lemon zest
1 c. sugar
1/2 c. softened butter

Macerated Berries

1 pkg fresh raspberries
1 pkg fresh blackberries
1/2 a tangerine
3 T. sugar

Whipped Cream

3/4 c. heavy whipping cream
2-3 T. powdered sugar

Make the lemon curd:
In a small saucepan, combine the sugar, lemon juice, and egg yolks over low heat. Stir constantly until the mixture thickens to the consistency of hollandaise sauce (coats the back of the spoon). Do not allow the mixture to boil! This will result in lemon flavored scrambled eggs. Remove from heat and stir in softened butter and lemon zest until the butter melts completely. Chill until cold. If you don't like skin on your puddings, set plastic wrap on the surface of the curd before chilling.

Make the cake:
Preheat the oven to 350. Mix all the cake ingredients together, stirring for five minutes. Pour into a heavily buttered bundt pan and bake for 30-45 minuts, or until golden brown. Make the berry mixture while the cake bakes.

Wash and dry the berries. Stir the berries and sugar together, and squeeze the juice of the tangerine half over the mixture. Stir and refrigerate.

While the cake is still warm, but cool enough to handle, gently cut around the edges of the bundt pan and release the cake onto a serving plate.

Whip the cream into soft peaks, add the powdered sugar, and mix on low until incorporated.

Serve wedges of the warm prosecco cake with a scoop each of lemon curd, whipping cream, and berries. Deny existence of fallen angel cake.

Peanut Butter Chocolate Shortbread

I love peanut butter. I think it is one of the ultimate American comfort foods. Almost every recipe involving peanut butter produces a cheap, easy, scrumptious result. Peanut butter will never betray you! Ok, not true. Excessive consumption will wreak havoc on your thighs... but thoughts of thighs do not belong on a baking blog, so forget I said that! I recently discovered that peanut butter makes an incredible pancake topping in place of butter. Yes, the syrup still works. Think about it, peanut butter on toast with honey tastes amazing, and that's nearly the same (though not half as good) as peanut butter on a pancake with syrup. That was a bit of a sidetrack, but life would be terribly dull if you traveled the straight path every time, right? So without (much) further ado, I give you Peanut Butter Chocolate Shortbread.

Alas! This post will not do the recipe justice due to the lack of a photograph. It would be very sad for this particularly delicious, ridiculously easy recipe to suffer the sad fate of other, photo-less recipes that remain unread, unsplattered, and untasted between the pages of plainer cookbooks. I have to admit, I don't own a single cookbook without pictures (or if I do it has been banished to the back of my bookshelf while the pretty ones sit front and center), and I am rarely inclined to test a recipe that doesn't have an appetizing depiction of the delectable result... but, sometimes a tantalizing description will do the trick!

These bars start with a buttery layer of tender shortbread. A sprinkle of cinnamon adds spicy heat to the shortbread's mild, homey flavor. Peanut-butter filling (candy-sweet and frosting-thick) tops the shortbread layer. Finally, the deep flavor of a dark chocolate glaze balances the bars' buttery sweetness. The crumbly shortbread serves as a perfect foil for the creamy, sticky, peanut-butter chocolate topping. The bars are a little easier to handle if you eat them after they've been chilled, but I think the flavors taste richer at room temp.

They're so easy I made them twice in one week (on short notice)! So give the ugly recipe a chance.

Shortbread:
14 T. melted, cooled, unsalted butter (ok, maybe that was a little demanding)
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 t. salt
2 cups flour
1/2 t. cinnamon

Peanut Butter Filling:
1 cup creamy peanut butter (not natural, i.e. Skippy, not Scudders)
1 stick softened, unsalted butter
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
1 t. vanilla

Chocolate Glaze:
1 heaping cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup heavy cream

1 heaping cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup heavy cream

Heat the oven to 325. Line a 9x13 in. baking pan with foil, letting the foil hang over the edge (longways and shortways) to make a "handle". This will help you get the shortbread out later, and saves you the trouble of washing the pan.

In a medium bowl, combine the melted butter, sugar, cinnamon, and salt. Stir in the flour until a thick dough forms. Press the dough evenly into the bottom of the prepared pan and prick it all over with a fork. Freeze the entire pan for 5 minutes to firm up the dough.

Pull the pan out, pop it in the oven, and bake for 20 minutes. Reduce the oven temp to 300 and bake for about 20 more minutes. The dough should just start to turn a golden brown.

While the shortbread bakes, make the pb filling and chocolate glaze.

Use the same bowl you used for the dough to make the filling (unless you have tons of bowls and a giant dishwasher- then you can do whatever you want). Beat the peanut butter and the softened butter with an electric mixer until smooth and fluffy. Add half the powdered sugar and the vanilla, and beat until thoroughly incorporated. Add the rest of the powdered sugar and beat until incorporated. The peanut butter filling will be very thick. If it seems unspreadable, add some hot water until it reaches a reasonable consistency.

For the glaze, put the chocolate chips and the heavy cream in a microwave safe bowl, and microwave at 30 second intervals until the chips become loose and glossy (gloosy? haha). Wisk the mixture with a fork until completely blended and smooth.

Once the shortbread comes out of the oven, allow it to cool briefly. Spread the pb filling evenly over the shortbread in the pan. Pour the chocolate glaze over the pb filling, and either spread it with a spatula or tilt the pan so that the glaze completely coats the filling.

Place the entire pan into the fridge or freezer until COLD (an hour in the fridge is probably enough). Using the foil overhangs as handles, remove the peanut butter shortbread from the pan. Peel the foil back from the sides, and use a long, sharp knife to cut the peanut butter shortbread into small squares. You probably won't have time to take a picture either.

Outrageous Symphony Bar Brownies

This recipe resulted from the combination/adaptation of two ridiculously extravagant brownie recipes: The Barefoot Contessa's Outrageous Brownies, and Cathy's Symphony Bar Brownies. Paula Dean might even balk at the ingredient list. Keep reading, I guarantee your jaw will drop, but do not let the copious quantities of chocolate, butter, and eggs deter you! Just make the brownies, and then cut them into really really teeny tiny pieces. Then, tell yourself that you will just eat one piece. Bye bye baking guilt!

Ok, maybe we're kidding ourselves. If you're the type to wolf down the entire box of chocolates, maybe you should save yourself the grief, and buy that fat-free mix stuff from Trader Joe's. I hear it's not too bad. I'll wager it's at least edible. If, however, you are ready to face the ultimate test of self-control, bake-on!

Unlike most brownies, these are best eaten completely cool, or even refrigerated. Cooling allows the butter-fats and the Symphony bars to solidify, creating a smooth, fudgy consistency. The texture of the toffee bits transforms from gummy to crisp, so that a slight, yet satisfying crunch accompanies each decadent bite. The coffee and dark chocolate mellow as the brownies cool, such that the flavors stand out and complement one another, doing justice to the name "Symphony" Bars: a dark hint of coffee bass melding with a lyrical chocolate baritone, the liquid-smooth chord of butter, and a staccato toffee-almond crunch.

If you expect to be bested by impatience, have some vanilla ice-cream and black coffee on hand to cut the overwhelming chocolate experience of hot-from-the-pan brownies (so dark and rich that the term "chocolate flavor" doesn't adequately convey what it is like to fork the gooey mass straight to your eager mouth - it will shock your gustatory senses).

I promise that the grimace on your doctor's face when he tells you your cholesterol level will not make you regret trying this recipe. These brownies are to-die-for.

Ingredients:

1 pound unsalted butter, plus extra for greasing the pan
Two 11 or 12 ounce bags of semisweet chocolate chips
6 ounces unsweetened chocolate
6 extra-large eggs
3 tablespoons instant coffee powder
2 tablespoons vanilla extract
2 1/4 cups sugar
1 1/4 cups flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon kosher salt
6 toffee-almond Symphony bars (you can find these at grocery stores in the candy aisle)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease a 13 by 18 by 1 1/2-inch sheet pan with butter.

Melt together the butter, 1 pound chocolate chips, and unsweetened chocolate. Be careful not to burn it- I usually melt everything together in the microwave using 30 or 45 second intervals, stirring between each interval. Cool slightly. Stir together the eggs, instant coffee, vanilla and sugar. Blend the warm chocolate mixture into the egg mixture (make sure the chocolate mixture is not too hot or it will cook the eggs) and cool to room temperature.

Stir together the flour, baking powder and salt. Add to cooled chocolate mixture along with the chocolate chips. Pour half of the batter into the prepared pan and spread it evenly. Lay the Symphony bars over the top of the batter. You may need to break some of the bars into smaller pieces so that they fit the pan. Try to cover the batter completely with the Symphony bars. Pour the rest of the batter over the Symphony bars, and spread it evenly.

Bake for about 30 minutes. Cool completely. Serves about 80 self-control freaks, 40 dessert-lovers, or 20 masochistic gluttons. Discover your dessert profile today!

Multiplying Midnight Macaroons

Ok, what the heck? Why is it that every time I bake I end up with three times as much batter as the recipe claims to produce?? Two cookie sheets my ass. I ended up using two cookie sheets and three 8x13 in. baking pans (Don’t ask me why I have a shortage of cookie sheets and an abundance of baking pans... I also have an excessive five springform pans. Go figure). Of course, it’s always better to have too much than not enough, especially when it comes to food. I’ll never forget my siblings and I hovering around the dining room table as our mother unpacked steaming cartons of Chinese food from one lonely brown paper sack. Once the last carton was on the counter, we’d pounce like a pack of wolves, grappling for the serving spoon in an effort to get a decent portion. Don’t get me wrong, there was never a shortage of food in my house, but Chinese was a treat and we were greedy little monsters!

I, however, do not have five ravenous children waiting for my baked goods with baited breath. Tonight I happened to be alone, and baking on a whim. Needless to say, I have no use for a towering stack of macaroons, and my roommates have instituted a baking ban, claiming I have caused them to gain 10 pounds. Moral of that long-winded story: less is more! Maybe halving the recipe would be a good idea…

I got bored of macarooning midway through the second cookie sheet, but there seemed to be enough batter for an infinite number of cookies. Up at midnight, with a bowl of batter, madly plopping dollop after sticky-fingered dollop onto wax paper, I felt like Mickey Mouse in Fantasia with macaroons replacing multiplying brooms!

Due to the extraneous cookies, there was not enough chocolate filling to go around, so I opted to smooth a layer of rhubarb jam between the rest of the chewy-crisp, chocolaty discs. I actually preferred the bright bite of the jam paired with the macaroons’ mellow sweetness. Macaroons are to cookies what angel food is to cake. A thick, gloppy blanket of chocolate sauce can easily overpower such airy, delicate desserts. The tangy jam might add a harmonious high note to the baritone of the ganache if paired together… just a thin slick of dark chocolate under a sheen of jam, sandwiched between two weightless wafers… Another day!

Makes untold quantities of sandwich cookies:

Macaroons
1 1-pound box powdered sugar
2 cups blanched almonds
6 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
3/4 cup egg whites (about 6 large)

Jar of ganache, or bowl of homemade ganache, or good quality rhubarb or apricot jam

For macaroons: Preheat oven to 400°F. Line 2 large baking sheets with parchment paper. Finely grind nuts in a food processor, add powdered sugar and continue to process another minute. Make sure the nuts and sugar mix evenly. Add cocoa and blend 1 minute more. Using electric mixer, beat egg whites in large bowl until stiff but not dry. Fold nut mixture into whites in 4 additions, making a thick batter.

Dollop batter in walnut-sized mounds on cookie sheets, allowing about half an inch between each dollop.

Bake cookies, 1 sheet at a time, until firm to touch in center and dry and cracked on top, about 11 minutes. If any cookies run together, separate them with a sharp knife while still hot. Allow cookies to cool completely before removing from parchment.

Assembly: Dollop filling onto flat side of macaroon, top with second macaroon, flat side down. Press lightly to adhere. Repeat with remaining macaroons and filling. Chill at least 2 hours and up to 1 day. Serve cold.

Moody Chocolate Chip Banana Bread

To call today a lemon of a day would be an understatement. Today definitely registers more along the lines of a rotten banana day. Rotten bananas, standing alone, are far worse than lemons. If life hands you lemons, you can make lemonade, or marinate shrimp, or brighten up your soup, and some people even like eating lemons plain (try a slice dipped in sugar for a pucker-inducing snack). But how gross are blackened bananas? Their pungent, overripe smell clings to everything. Their unpleasant squishiness renders them completely inedible. I don't even like to handle those old bananas with the shriveled flesh and glistening, stringy innards, let alone eat them. If that doesn't deter you then their grainy, mealy texture, and acrid sweetness certainly will. Rotting bananas definitely serve as a fitting metaphor for the worst day ever. But I have never encountered a cloud without a glint of silver lining, or a sour lemon without a higher calling, and just as surely, those gnat-attracting bananas at the bottom of the fruit bowl can be transformed into something wonderful. And you know what? I'd much rather have a hot, sticky slice of chocolate chip banana bread than a boring old glass of lemonade anyways, so bring on the blackened banana days!

When life hands you squishy, disgusting, blackened bananas, make chocolate chip banana bread!

Ingredients:

1 c. sugar
1/2 c. softened butter
1 1/2 c. blackened (ok, don't go crazy here, they can't actually be rotten) bananas (3-4)
2 eggs
1 1/4 c. flour
1 t. baking soda
1/2 t. salt
3/4 c. semi-sweet chocolate chips
cold cream cheese or cold butter for serving

Preheat the oven to 350. Butter a loaf pan. Cream the butter and sugar until fluffy. Beat the eggs with the mashed bananas and then add the egg mixture to the butter and sugar. Beat well. In a separate bowl stir together the flour, baking soda, salt, and chocolate chips. Fold GENTLY into the wet ingredients until just mixed. Pour into greased loaf pan and bake 45min-1hr. Cool 10 min and serve slathered with cold cream cheese or butter. Feel mood improve immediately.

This post is dedicated to Amon. It really should be a posting of brown-sugar cornmeal biscuits since those were his specialty, but life handed me blackened bananas, not cornmeal. Besides, he was the only one that knew the secret to the perfecting his biscuits, and he has taken the secret to the grave! Maybe one day I will figure out how to replicate those biscuits riddled with pockets of caramelized brown sugar, but until then he will have to be content with my dedication of banana bread. And as someone who lived a mellow, yet rich and full life that I hope to aspire to, I think he'd be quite pleased with this recipe.