Lily's Scones v 2.0

Happy Leap Day everyone!

To me, Leap Day is like a holiday. And although it may not seem like it on account of my lack of festive treats, I’m a HUGE Holidayaholic.

I love celebrating holidays and when I’m older and have my own place, I plan to be that crazy woman that has decorations up for every season and holiday. Yup, that’s definitely going to be me.

So, in honor of Leap Day, I did something that I don’t normally do. I made scones. Well, it’s not really unusual per say, but I used the same recipe from the same source.

A little while ago I posted a recipe for Lily’s scones. I told you that I had adapted the recipe to include whole wheat. I liked them ok enough, but I don’t think I’ll be making them with whole wheat flour anytime soon. However, I did mention that next time I would try them using the initial ingredients called for.

So, on the one day of the school week when I can sleep in until 6:15, I woke up at my usual time (5:15) in order to make these scones. Again, they were really simple to put together, but they took me a little longer since I was moving slowly so as not to wake the sleeping family.

These are much, much daintier than the whole wheat version, and I think I like them a little better. With this recipe there was a slight twang that I didn’t notice before, but I think that’s because of the cream of tartar used. The sugar that I sprinkled on top before baking offsets the twang with a little sweeter, more delicate note.

These were a great little breakfast treat on a seriously unexpected gorgeous day. (Yes, Colorado has been having awful weather. Someone needs to turn off the giant fan that’s positioned over us. We’ve been getting 100 mph winds, and fences are broken, two of our trees are at 45 degree angles. It is not pretty my friends.)

Lily’s Scones v 2.0

from Paris Pastry

makes 6 (2 1/2 in scones)

Ingredients
1 ½ cup + 2 tbsp unbleached all-purpose flour
½ tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
2 ¼ tsp cream of tartar
3 tbsp cold, unsalted butter, cubed
½ cup + 2 tbsp cold milk
1 tbsp milk, for brushing
1 tbsp sugar, for sprinkling

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and set aside.
2. Sift the flours, salt, baking powder, and cream of tartar into a medium-sized bowl. Rub in the chilled butter until it resembles coarse crumbs. All the milk all at once, and mix gently, just until the dough becomes moist. Turn the dough out onto a floured surface and knead the dough a few times until it becomes a ball.
3. Roll or pat the dough so that it becomes one inch thick. Using a 2 ½ inch biscuit cutter, stamp out 4 scones. Re-knead the dough and repeat until you get a total of 6 scones. When stamping out the scones, make sure you do not twist the biscuit cutter, just stamp it straight down. If you twist, the edges will seal and you will not the amazing rise you want.
4. Place scones very close to each other on the baking tray. Brush a little bit of milk on the tops. Sprinkle with sugar Place the scones in the oven for about 8-10 minutes or until the tops are slightly golden. These scones are best eaten right out of the oven. Also they taste great with a bit of butter, jam, and/or honey.

Lily's Scones

Last weekend I took a mini trip to North Carolina. I think I may have mentioned that I have been accepted into a few schools, Appalachian State University being one. And because of the four –day weekend (we also got Tuesday because of a teacher in-service day – gotta love those in-service days) I decided it would be best to utilize my time wisely and visit an out of state college. It was nice, but I’m not ready to commit just yet.

Anywho. I feel like I haven’t baked in forever, so as soon as I got back from my trip, I did a little look through some of the blogs I follow to see what I could quickly whip together. That’s where these scones come into play.

I like scones. They are like biscuits, but somehow more… sophisticated shall I say? I saw these on Paris Pastry (an amazing blog filled with delicate-looking sweets and pastries) and I thought, aww, those are super cute. Yes, that’s how I base my decisions sometimes: their cuteness factor, haha.

These were real simply to whip together. Seriously, it probably took me less than 10 minutes from sifting the flour to kneading the dough, to punching out portions.

My scones aren’t as dainty as Danielle’s, but that’s because I decided to mix it up with some whole wheat flour (I can’t seem to finish off that bag no matter what!). Adding the whole wheat flour made it taste more like a biscuit, but that’s ok because they were pretty good. I polished off three in one sitting. I think next time though, I’m going to stick with the plain all-purpose flour, and maybe add some sugar on top to make it a little sweeter, a little daintier.

Lily’s Scones

Slightly adapted from Paris Pastry
Makes 6 (2 ½ inch) scones

Ingredients
1 cup + 2 tbsp unbleached all-purpose flour
½ cup whole wheat flour
½ tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
2 ¼ tsp cream of tartar
3 tbsp cold, unsalted butter, cubed
½ cup + 2 tbsp cold milk
1 beaten egg (for egg wash)

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and set aside.
2. Sift the flours, salt, baking powder, and cream of tartar into a medium-sized bowl. Rub in the chilled butter until it resembles coarse crumbs. All the milk all at once, and mix gently, just until the dough becomes moist. Turn the dough out onto a floured surface and knead the dough a few times until it becomes a ball.
3. Roll or pat the dough so that it becomes one inch thick. Using a 2 ½ inch biscuit cutter, stamp out 4 scones. Re-knead the dough and repeat until you get a total of 6 scones. When stamping out the scones, make sure you do not twist the biscuit cutter, just stamp it straight down. If you twist, the edges will seal and you will not the amazing rise you want.
4. Place scones very close to each other on the baking tray. Brush a little bit of the beaten egg on the tops. Place the scones in the oven for about 8-10 minutes or until the tops are slightly golden. These scones are best eaten right out of the oven. Also they taste great with a bit of butter, jam, and/or honey.  

Cake Slice Bakers - February 2012: Boston Cream Pie

Boston Cream Pie. It’s not actually a pie; it’s a cake, a really good and creamy looking cake. It’s typically a two layer cake, but instead of frosting, it’s filled with vanilla custard and topped with velvety smooth chocolate ganache that drizzles down the sides.

For the month of February, the Cake Slice Bakers’ popular choice was the Boston Cream Pie. I actually got pretty excited about this cake because I’ve never made one before (or even tried a slice for that matter). So experiencing a new cake sounded like fun, plus all the pictures I’ve seen of a Boston Cream Pie look so delicious.

Like I said before, Boston Cram Pies are traditionally round, but I wanted to make something a little smaller because my mom would be out of town and my sister doesn’t like custardy things, so I didn’t want half a cake to go to waste. (Maybe I should just invest in a smaller cake pan.) So instead of pouring the batter into that standard round tin, I cut the recipe in half and used an 8x4 inch loaf pan. This is probably the only thing that went smoothly, the batter that is.

I actually had a lot of trouble making this cake, and I’m sure I’m partly/mostly at fault. The batter was perfectly smooth and velvety and baked up like a dream. However, after a day, the cake became a tad bit dry, and after the second day, it was just… well dry. One of my fellow bakers had mentioned the dryness so when I went to make the cake, I added an extra egg yolk to see if it would help, I don’t think it did.

I don’t think anyone else had this problem, but my custard didn’t want to set up. At first it looked like it was going to, but after being in the fridge for at least 24 hours, it was still very liquidy. This was my first time making a custard cream, so that might have been the problem, but I thought I followed the directions precisely. Oh well.

The last problem was totally my fault. I thought we had whipping cream for the ganache, so I didn’t think to buy any at the store. It turns out that it was half & half that I had seen. Whoops. Oh well, I thought. I could use half & half, but just not as much. Then I found out that I didn’t have any of my bar chocolate because one particular person in my family didn’t know what it was for and had eaten my chocolate (two bars) as a snack over the period of a monstrous kitchen cleanse. So instead of that, I used Ghirardelli chocolate chips, hoping I would get the same results. When making the ganache, I don’t think I let the milk become hot enough or maybe I wasn’t paying attention, but I didn’t get all of the chocolate melted, so my ganache was really more just like a grainular liquid pool of chocolate. I still poured it over the cake though.

So in the end, I didn’t really have success with this recipe. I may try it again if the other Cake Slice Bakers’ cakes came out batter, but if not, I guess I’ll just have to try a proper Boston Cream Pie some other time.

 

Boston Cream Loaf
Adapted from The Cake Book by Tish Boyle
Makes one 8x4 inch loaf

Hot Milk Sponge Cake
Ingredients
¾ cup unbleached all-purpose flour
½ + ¼ tsp baking powder
1/8 tsp salt
¼ cup milk
2 tbsp unsalted butter, cubed
1 egg, room temperature
1 egg yolk, room temperature
¼ cup + 2 tbsp sugar
½ tsp Vanilla Extract

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Liberally spray the loaf pan with Pam (or something similar); set aside.
2. In a medium bowl, sift the flour, baking powder, and salt three or four times.
3. In a small saucepan over medium heat, combine the milk and butter. Heat just until the butter has completely melted. Take saucepan off heat and set it aside to cool.
4. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, whisk together the egg and egg yolk on high speed for about a minute. Gradually add in the sugar and beat for another 6 minutes or until the mixture has become a very pale yellow and has tripled in size. Add in the vanilla extract.
5. Detach the bowl from the mixer and fold in about a third of the flour mixture with a rubber spatula. Once that third has been incorporated, repeat with the rest of the flour. The mixture will be very stiff and not look like batter at all, don’t worry, it will once the milk is added. Speaking of milk, reheat the milk and butter mixture. Add it all into the bowl and mix. This will give you a work out. It will seem that the batter is drowning in milk, but give it time, it will smooth out eventually.
6. Pour/scrape batter into the prepared loaf pan. Bake for about 15 minutes (I strongly advise against baking any longer). Cool in the cake pan for 10 minutes. Invert the cake, and place right side up on a cooling rack.

Vanilla custard

Ingredients
3 egg yolks, room temperature
¼ cup sugar
2 tbsp corn starch
1 cup milk
1 tbsp butter
1 tsp vanilla extract
¼ cup heavy cream

Directions

1. In a medium bowl, whisk together the egg yolks, sugar, and corn starch until pale and thick. Set aside.
2. In a medium saucepan, bring the milk to a gentle boil. Remove from heat and add a third of it to the egg yolk mixture. Whisk the egg yolk and milk mixture vigorously. This is to temper the eggs. Return mixture to saucepan and whisk continuously over medium-high heat for about a minute. Remove the pan from the heat, scrape the bottom of the pan with a spatula, and whisk until smooth. Whisk in the butter until melted.
3. Immediately strain the custard through a sieve into a medium bowl. Whisk in the vanilla. Cover the surface with plastic wrap, let the mixture cool to room temperature, and then transfer to the fridge until well cooled.
4. Just before assembling the cake, transfer the custard to the bowl of an electric mixer. Add the heavy cream and beat the mixture with the whisk attachment on high until soft peaks form.

Chocolate Ganache

Ingredients

3 oz bittersweet chocolate, chopped

½ cup heavy cream

½ tsp vanilla extract

Directions

1. In a small saucepan, bring the cream to a boil. Remove from heat and add chocolate. Stir continuously until chocolate is fully melted and the mixture is smooth. Stir in the vanilla extract. Pour the glaze into a heat-proof bowl. Cover the surface with plastic wrap and let it cool for about 10 minutes.

Assembly

1. Using a serrated knife, cut the cake horizontally in half. Place the bottom half of the cake on a serving platter, cut side up. Scrape as much filling as you want ontorecommend leaving a half inch border so the filling doesn’t ooze out. Top with the second layer, cut side down.
   
2. Pour warm glaze over the top of the cake, allowing it to drizzle down the sides. Serve immediately or store in the fridge for up to a day. Let the cake come to room temperature before serving.

Valintine's Day Sweet Treats

So today I really wanted to do a post about marshmallows; strawberry marshmallows to be exact. I was actually really excited and got up early to make them so I could take pictures when the lighting was at its best. Sadly, my marshmallows didn’t turn out so nice. I don’t even think I can call them marshmallows. After the bubbling sugar was poured into the gelatin, things were doing great, then tragedy struck and my marshmallow batter cream thing-whatever-turned into a giant wad of pink, chewed-up bubble gum. Seriously, it looked and felt like the world’s most ginormous piece of bubble gum. I have yet to tackle the problem of scrapping and chiseling the mess out of my mixing bowl…I’m scared.

So instead of terrifying you with pictures of giant gum ready to engulf you and your loved ones, I crawled through some old (not really so old) posts to give you some ideas on what to give your sweetie and a sweet treat this Valentine’s Day.

Warning: Heavy use of sugar-coated pet names and ooey-gooey love descriptions. <3

Strawberry Cookies

First up: Strawberry Cookies. These are from last year. I didn’t have time to make them again this year, but I remember them being awesome, and a little salty…but that’s because I ran out of salt and thought a good substitute would be salt from the grinder, bad idea. Don’t use that kind of salt unless you want a giant chunk of saltyness. But do make these. The recipe calls for strawberry milk powder, which gives it a subtly sweet strawberry flavor and its color.

Dark and Dense Brownies

Valentine’s Day is all about chocolate, am I right? These dense and fudgy brownies are perfect for Valentine’s Day. They are easy to whip up, take no time to bake, and come with that perfect papery-thin chocolate crust on top. Pair it with some ice cream and hot fudge sauce and you and your honeybun can share a nice little dessert after a romantic meal.

Chocolate Almond Cake

Not in the mood for brownies after dinner? What about this decadent, nearly flourless, chocolate almond cake. It has that uniquely sweet and aromatic smell of almond and it’s as dense as you can get. Plus it’s topped with the creamiest ganache I have ever had the pleasure of eating. Slice it up and serve with some slivered almonds.

Double Chocolate Chip Cookies

Here’s another cookie recipe for you, but instead of it being flavored with strawberry, these soft treats get their chocolatey flavor three different ways. Bittersweet chocolate and butter are melted together, while unsweetened cocoa powder gets added with the dry ingredients, then semisweet chocolate chips are added to the dark cookie batter at the last minute. These did not last long in my house, and I bet your love muffin will love you even more if you make them these as an afternoon treat.

Whole Wheat Baked Doughnuts

So dessert not your thing? Maybe you’re going out for dinner, and dessert is included, but you still want to show your sugar pie some homemade lovin’ from the oven. How about breakfast in bed? These aren’t chocolate, and they aren’t fried, but I’m sure your sweetheart will appreciate you even more when you present them with these doughnuts first thing in the morning.

Thanks for reading this and I hope you have a wonderful Valentine’s Day. And don’t be discouraged if you don’t have someone to snuggle up to on this pink and frilly day. It just means you get all these chocolatey (and one strawberry) treats to yourself :)

Milk Chocolate Chip Biscotti

I have been in a sort of baking funk.

The problem is not that I haven’t had the motivation to bake something. The problem is choosing what to bake! I find myself drooling over so many pictures on Foodgawker and favoriting anything that looks good. (I think I’m up to five pages full of deliciousness).

Last week I told you about the snow day that I had and how I made fluffernutter fudge for the Super Bowl. But as I was making them, I knew I wanted something to munch on at home, but what? I could make muffins; muffins are very delicious and I haven’t had one is so long! I could try and make granola bars again (I had previously made some that didn’t make it to the blog), but I wasn’t in the mood for experimenting. I could make more doughnuts, but those would be gone by noon, I wanted something that would last a few days.

I hit the random button on foodgawker more times than I care to remember, looking for inspiration. When I didn’t find any there, I went to the bottom of my bookshelf, home to multiple dessert and snack cookbooks and magazines. Then I saw one lonely little book, no thicker than a quarter of an inch. My biscotti book! I had snagged it for around $2 when Boarders was going out of business. Since I bought the book, I had yet to make anything from it, and I thought this would be a nice opportunity to try one of the recipes out. Plus biscotti lasts for several days, so that means multiple days of crunchy-cookie-munching.

So you may wonder why I’m so glad about a crunchy cookie, when I’ve made it clear before that I’m a soft and chewy cookie gal. Well there is an exception to every rule and biscotti is that exception.

I adapted the recipe only slightly by taking out the lemon zest and adding in milk chocolate chips. I never add milk chocolate chips. When choosing between milk chocolate and semisweet, I always reach for the semisweet, and half the time I would reach for bitter sweet. Never will I ever reach for what “chocolate” though. Where was I going with this? Oh yeah, I never use milk chocolate chips, but for some reason, something told me to use them in the recipe, and following my gut, I poured in the chocolate chips.

The biscotti turned out fantastic! I think I may have under-baked it during round one because it sort of fell apart on me as I was cutting it, but that doesn’t matter because after the second bake, these cookies became crisp perfection. The actual cookie part was crumbly and perfect for soaking up milk (or the traditional coffee for you coffee lovers out there). The milk chocolate chips gave way and melted during the two baking periods, creating a smooth texture with a pleasant creamy taste.

Milk Chocolate Chip Biscotti

Slightly adapted from Biscotti
Makes 38-42 cookies

Ingredients
2 ¼ cup unbleached all-purpose flour
1 ½ tsp baking powder
Pinch of nutmeg
¼ tsp salt
5 tbsp unsalted butter, soft
¾ cup sugar
2 eggs, room temperature
1 tsp vanilla extract
¼ tsp almond extract
½ cup milk chocolate chips

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper; set aside. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, nutmeg and salt; set aside.
2. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs one at a time until there are no lumps. Beat in the vanilla and almond extract. Turn the speed down to low and carefully add the flour in a little bit at a time. Mix until the dough becomes soft and has come together somewhat. Beat in the milk chocolate chips.
3. Divide the dough in half (it may be easier to weigh out your dough and then divide it if you want equal amounts). Form each half into a 12 inch long and 1 ½ inch wide log. Place the logs onto the lined baking sheet, spacing them about 2-3 inches apart.
4. Bake for 25 minutes or until light brown. DO NOT TURN OFF THE OVEN! Let the cookie logs cool for 5-10 minutes on a cooling rack before transferring to a cutting board. With a serrated knife, cut the logs diagonally, making each cookie about ½ an inch thick. Lay the slices flat on the baking sheet. Bake for another 5 minutes, turn all the cookies over and bake for another 5 minutes. Let the cookies cool on a rack.

Fluffernutter Fudge Squares

On Friday something happened that never happens: my school got a snow day. My school district is one of the meanest stubborn school districts in Colorado, I think. I think it was just this past December, but there was another huge snowstorm and pretty much all of Colorado schools shut down, except for just a few. My school district was one of them. I mean come on! Half the schools are in Boulder (where it got the most snow) and we still didn’t get a snow day. Something is seriously wrong there. But this time we did get a snow day (probably due to the fact that there would be a mutiny if we didn’t).

So what did I do with my snow day? Well after waking up at 5:15 am (like normal) and being told by my dad that he got a call at 4:30 am saying that school was closed, I couldn’t go back to sleep. So I read for about an hour, worked on some homework/notes, had a mini marathon of Lie To Me (totally addicting show that I wish hadn’t been canceled), and surfed around Foodgawker.

Most people talk about Pinterest being a time-sucker, but to me, it’s Foodgawker. That place is so addicting and the pictures make my mouth water. One of the amazing things I found was a recipe for fluffernutter bars by Bakers Royal.

In case you don’t know what a fluffernutter is: it’s a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, but in place of jelly, marshmallow fluff steps in. It is one seriously awesome sandwich!

This bar (which is a little more like fudge) is just like a fluffernutter, but with a little bit of chocolate added thanks to the Reese’s added to it.

I will admit that I had some difficulty with the recipe. I had adapted the recipe (doubling most of the ingredients and slightly raising the amount of others) so that I would get enough to make a 9x13 amount instead of the 8x8 in the original. However, there seemed t be too much extras and not enough of the binder, which kinda frustrated me, but it all turned out find once I got the hang of folding all the ingredients together.

The end result was a mix of deliciousness. The fudge squares are crunchy from the nutter butters, yet chewy from the mini marshmallows, and creamy and chocolatey from the Reese’s and melted marshmallow and peanut butter chip mixture. It really is a nuttberbutter in a compact one inch square

Fluffernutter Fudge Squares
Adapted from Bakers Royal
Makes enough to fill a 9x13 inch pan

Ingredients
135 g nutter butter cookies, chopped
12 Reece’s peanut butter cups, chopped
6 cups mini marshmallows, divided
4 tbsp unsalted butter, cubed
10 oz peanut butter chips

Directions

1. Line a 9x13 inch pan with tin foil, leaving a small over hang; set aside. Place the chopped nutter butter cookies, Reece’s cups, and 2 1/2 cups of the mini marshmallows into a VERY large bowl; set aside.
2. Place remaining marshmallows into a sauce pan over low heat. Stir until the marshmallows start to melt. As the marshmallows melt, slowly add in the butter, stirring all the while. Once the marshmallows and butter have fully melted, add in the peanut butter chips in four stages, stirring to help incorporate and melt chips. Remove from heat.
3. Pour the peanut butter-marshmallow mixture over the cookies, peanut butter cups, and mini marshmallows. Fold to combine (this will take a little lot bit of elbow grease). Pour mixture into the prepared pan. Spread it out so it’s evenly distributed throughout the pan and refrigerate for 30 minutes to 2 hours or until set.
4. Using the foil overhang, lift the bar out of the pan. Cut the bar into squares.