Tag Archives: baking

Ganache

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cupcakes with ganache frosting

When you find yourself with leftover chocolate and heavy cream there is only one thing to do:  make ganache.  I threw together cupcakes today as a vehicle for the ganache.  To make a long story short, you’ll need two parts semisweet chocolate to one part cream.  Boil the cream and pour it over the chocolate (in small pieces) in a bowl.  Let it sit for a moment and then whisk or stir until smooth.  You can use this to glaze cakes, frost cupcakes, make truffle balls, or simply eat as-is.  Yes, eat as-is.  Man, there is nothing like cold, leftover ganache that you have to pry out of the container.  The longer you let ganache sit the firmer it will be.  Our cupcakes were not pretty because Matthew was loading them up with the stuff at various levels of firmness, so we lost that glossy effect we had after the first layer.

One recipe of Nigella’s bites

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I like Nigella Lawson’s cookbooks.

I got a used copy of Nigella Bites (2002) the other day and prepared two recipes thus far:  chocolate fudge cake (page 47) and liptauer (page 161).  I am always on the lookout for a good chocolate cake recipe, but I can honestly say that this isn’t one.  The cake itself came out dry and bland and is not worth the ingredients or multiple bowls you’ll need.  I have numerous “toss everything in one bowl and let her rip”- type recipes that turn out a much better product.  The frosting was also just so-so.  That said, my mother loved the cake because it was not overly sweet and she liked the heavy, buttery frosting.

The liptauer, however, was great.  (Liptauer is what Californians would incorrectly call a schmear for bagels, even though schmear means “a little,” as in, “a bagel with a schmear,” which, when ordered in New York City, would get you a bagel with a little plain cream cheese.) . I had an Austrian chef-instructor in cooking school who talked fondly about liptauer.  It’s a cheese spread that you make by processing everything together in one fell swoop and then pressing the resulting mass into a mold.  You eat this stuff on bagels or good, hearty bread – the kind that can stand up to the caraway seeds, which provide a pronounced flavor to the mix.  The only thing I suggest is to drain the cottage cheese she calls for – since I assume you’ll be using the runny cottage cheese that is prevalent in the US.  My guess is that people in Europe use quark, which is something like cottage cheese but not easy to get here and considerably more expensive.  If you can find dry curd cottage cheese, that’ll solve your problem altogether.  Please do not use fat free cheese or you won’t get a good mouth feel – and that goes for the cream and cottage cheeses.  Use real block cream cheese, sil vous plait.  I have no photos of the items, so I substituted Berry, just to add a little color to the entry.

Berry the akitachow looking mellow in 2008

Spritz cookie woes

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recipe that came with villaware coolie press that has problems

Recipe that came with Villaware Power Cookie Press - read carefully!

I don’t know about spritz cookies.  I bought a cheap cookie press that had the Hershey’s Kiss logo and it sucked right from the start; I threw it in the trash after tangling with it for an hour.  I next bought a rechargeable model – the Villaware Power Cookie Press.  This looked a little sturdier and had larger, metal, cookie plates.  We thought we’d start with the basic spritz recipe that came with the thing, but this did not work out well.  Check out the recipe.  Do these people edit their manuals?  We wound up making a pretty soft dough but the press still had to work hard to extrude it – making a huge amount of noise in the process.  Furthermore, the cookies did not adhere well to the ungreased baking sheet and would sometimes come off in pieces.  The outcome was an assortment of ugly cookies with a few nice ones, as well as some thumbprint cookies my mom made when she was ready to give the press the old heave-ho.  I have been told this takes practice, but I don’t know if I have it in me to go through this kind of aggravation.  Please email me if you have any advice.

Gizmos and cookies

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Chocolate-dipped shortbread

Chocolate-dipped shortbread

Shortbread was on the ‘to do’ list today, as well as a 7up cake for the parental unit to take to a bowling lunch tomorrow.  

7up bundt cake with holiday decorations

7up cake with a holiday motif

Shortbread is the best butter cookie in the world and easy to make.  My mom and I always cut out little logs and dip one end in chocolate.  This year I picked up a little electric gizmo that you put chocolate in to melt and it keeps it warm so you can work with it over time.  Since there is no need to temper your chocolate for this kind of use, a mess-free melting system is perfect.  It has a warming base and two little nonstick inserts for whatever you are melting.  I found this at Tuesday Morning in Berkeley and gladly paid the ten bucks for it.  It came with all kinds of plastic tools and molds, and a little rack for coating.  If you scrounge around Tuesday Morning and look for plain brown boxes with white labels that say “Cook’s Essentials,” you have a good shot at finding a real treasure now and again. 

Once you have your shortbread done and it has cooled completely, dip ends into ~70% couverture chocolate that has been melted and then place on silicone mats.  You can then carefully peel the mat away from the cookies once the chocolate has set.  Be sure to use good chocolate; the cookies have very few ingredients, so you will really taste the chocolate.  This would be the time to spring for Valrhona. 

If you want a good shortbread recipe, just email me.  You’ll need only butter, sugar, flour, vanilla and maybe a little salt.  There are a million good recipes on the web, as well.

With all the baking going on, we wound up having pizza sandwiches for dinner.  I always freeze leftover pizza and then reheat it and make sandwiches with two slices.  Just toss some turkey breast, tomatoes and whatever on the top of slice number one and cover with slice number two.  Kids love this and it is a great way to use leftovers. 

 Check out the photo of Berry in his new sweater.  Berry has sebaceous adenitis, so he lost quite a bit of hair, necessitating artificial means of keeping warm.  He’s angered by the sweater, but what else can we do?

Berry the akita in a sweater

Zucchini bread

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Loaf of zucchini bread

I’ve been famous for my zucchini bread since 1977.  When I lived in Northeastern Pennsylvania, I collected local recipes.  Many of them, like this one, are popular in the recipe belt that runs from mid-PA through upstate NY.  This quick bread is moist and delicious, containing both shredded zucchini and crushed pineapple – but you won’t taste either in the finished product.  This is an idiot-proof recipe that makes a great gift.  Why be a fool who pays through the nose for something that is easy to make at home?  Try to find the little, baby, zucchini, so all you have to do it peel and won’t have to worry about scraping out seeds.  I implore you to bake this.  Then email me and tell me how much you love it!  If you are a young person who wants to make something to bring to a meal this holiday season, this is your chance to impress.