My family has been eating through our bananas too fast lately! My sister and her boyfriend consume almost all of them when they go surfing. Sadly, that leaves me infrequently with browned bananas. Luckily, this week, I had two laying around and searched the wonderful World Wide Web for a different way to use them instead of my usual fallback, the Stevia-sweetened Banana Bread.
I came across this fantastic-looking banana oatmeal chocolate chip cookie from Chefsavvy. I chose this because the photo looked great and there was only 1/4 cup butter for 2 dozen cookies! Relatively healthy and easy, so I opted to try this. Plus, my co-worker's been subtly (not, haha) trying to get me to bake cookies and bring them into work. Last week, I tried these healthy oil and butter oatmeal chocolate chip cookie recipe from HEB but was underwhelmed. They were too cakey and spread out too far, but that could have been because I didn't have rolled oats so replaced them with ground steel cut oats. Anyhow, this recipe is a show-stopper. I did not have brown sugar at home so I used molasses, and then added some ground steel cut oats because the batter was a little sticky. Everyone at work really liked it.
Banana Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies
makes 20-24 cookies
adapted from Chefsavvy.com
Ingredients
1 medium banana, mashed
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) butter, softened
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup molasses
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/4 cup all purpose flour
1 cup rolled oats
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
Just under 1/2 tsp salt
3/4 cup dark chocolate chips
1/4 cup ground steel-cut oats (not exact, pour some steel-cut oats in a coffee/spice grinder or food processor and process till somewhat fine - not as fine as flour)
Directions
1. Preheat the oven to 350 deg Fahrenheit. Prepare 2 baking sheets with lightly greased parchment paper.
2. In a large bowl, beat the banana, butter, sugar, and molasses till thoroughly mixed. Beat in the egg and vanilla.
3. In a medium bowl, mix the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt.
4. Fold the flour mixture into the wet mixture. Stir in the dark chocolate chips and ground steel-cut oats.
5. Place rounded tablespoon scoops of dough on the parchment paper. Make sure to place about 2" apart. Staggering helps.
Showing posts with label chocolate. Show all posts
Showing posts with label chocolate. Show all posts
Saturday, April 1, 2017
Thursday, September 24, 2015
Banana Oatmeal Bread with Nutella Smile
Hello!
It is officially autumn but it sure is still hot in Southern California. Yesterday it was mid-80 degrees Fahrenheit and the news says that it will be hotter these next few days. It will be nice when the cool fall weather kicks in.
In its fourth year of drought, California has been cutting back on water, making various efforts to reduce water loss and waste, and has successfully reduced water use by more than 30%, which is about 5% above what the government was hoping for. Despite almonds getting a bad rap for water use in California, California still manages to churn out a good deal of produce.
Luckily, just last week, there was some torrential downpour which broke the drought but caused some damaging flooding in various areas. There was some hope that there was going to be rainfall earlier this week, but the clouds ended up just passing by my area with no rainfall.
Although it's been hot lately, I still want to bake and that requires turning on the oven. It's a small price to pay, though, when the reward is something scrumptious! My mom and I have been buying lots of bananas because my sister and her boyfriend take so many when they go surfing. We buy a bushel and then half are gone by the end of the week! This time, we bought too many, and boy-oh-boy was I happy. Because you know what brown bananas mean?
Banana bread!
I had this recipe I used before that merged America's Test Kitchen's banana bread recipe with Giada's recipe. I made it twice but they were too moist and lacked structure. Although adding more bananas increases sweetness and moistness of the final product, too much made it mushy. Therefore, I sought to make a better banana bread. Serious Eats has become one of my top go-to sites for food recipes. I trust their recipes because of the expertise and creativity of its contributors. When I found this Banana Oatmeal Bread recipe on their site and read that a pastry chef, Anna Markow, created it, I knew it must be a good recipe. As a healthy baker, I could tell that although this was a dessert, the ingredients were not so bad for you and I could feel good making and eating a lot of this.
In place of the rolled oats, I used Coach's Oats Steel-Cut Oats that I pulverized in my spice/coffee grinder. Also, I had some Nutella leftover and I wanted to use it up because it has been in my pantry for so long, so I mixed it with a small portion of batter and added that to the middle of the pan. On top, I put sliced bananas and some mini chocolate chips for presentation value. The final result was spectacular. My sister and her boyfriend really enjoyed it. I had to stop myself from eating too many slices myself so that I could share with my family!
Hope you try this recipe as it is a slight change on the classic banana bread recipe with a few improvements that make it nearly irresistible.
Banana Oatmeal Bread with Nutella Smile (adapted from Serious Eats)
makes 1 9" by 5" loaf
Ingredients
1 cup white whole wheat flour (recommend Ultragrain(R))
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1/3 cup granulated (white) sugar
1/3 cup light brown sugar, slightly packed into the cup
1/2 cup rolled oats (or steel cut oats pulverized into almost flour texture)
1-1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/8 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon
2 medium, ripe bananas
2 eggs
1/3 cup of buttermilk (or a little less than 1/3 cup of whole milk with 1-2 Tbs fresh lime or lemon juice, set aside to curdle for 5 minutes)
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 tsp vanilla
2 Tbs Nutella
For topping (optional):
1/2 banana sliced in thin rounds
A few chocolate chips
Directions
1) Sift the white whole wheat flour, the whole wheat flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon into a large bowl. Stir in the white sugar, brown sugar, and rolled oats.
2) In a blender, blend the bananas, eggs, buttermilk, oil, and vanilla until well-mixed, but do not over-blend or you will incorporate too much air.
3) Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and pour in the wet ingredients. Fold/mix together until just combined.
4) Prepare a 9x5" loaf pan by lightly greasing and flouring. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit (if you oven tends to output higher temperature or tends to brown things too quickly, try reducing the temperature to 325-340 degrees Fahrenheit).
5) In a small bow, mix 2 Tbs Nutella with about 1/2 cup of the batter.
6) Pour half of the original batter into the pan, then spread the Nutella batter in the center. Pour the remaining original batter and spread evenly in the pan.
7) Place the banana slices and chocolate chips as desired on top of the bread.
8) Bake in the preheated oven for 28 minutes, then turn the pan 180 degrees and bake for another 25-30 minutes until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Make sure to watch it in the last 10 minutes because mine browned quick a bit and I had to remove it after about 46-48 minutes of baking.
9) Immediately remove from the pan and let cool on a wire rack for about 30-60 minutes before slicing and serving.
Note: Loaf lasts at least 4 days without refrigeration in Southern California summer weather. If you live in a humid, hot area, I suggest refrigerating by the 3rd or 4th day.
It is officially autumn but it sure is still hot in Southern California. Yesterday it was mid-80 degrees Fahrenheit and the news says that it will be hotter these next few days. It will be nice when the cool fall weather kicks in.
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| Southern California Sunset |
In its fourth year of drought, California has been cutting back on water, making various efforts to reduce water loss and waste, and has successfully reduced water use by more than 30%, which is about 5% above what the government was hoping for. Despite almonds getting a bad rap for water use in California, California still manages to churn out a good deal of produce.
Luckily, just last week, there was some torrential downpour which broke the drought but caused some damaging flooding in various areas. There was some hope that there was going to be rainfall earlier this week, but the clouds ended up just passing by my area with no rainfall.
Although it's been hot lately, I still want to bake and that requires turning on the oven. It's a small price to pay, though, when the reward is something scrumptious! My mom and I have been buying lots of bananas because my sister and her boyfriend take so many when they go surfing. We buy a bushel and then half are gone by the end of the week! This time, we bought too many, and boy-oh-boy was I happy. Because you know what brown bananas mean?
Banana bread!
I had this recipe I used before that merged America's Test Kitchen's banana bread recipe with Giada's recipe. I made it twice but they were too moist and lacked structure. Although adding more bananas increases sweetness and moistness of the final product, too much made it mushy. Therefore, I sought to make a better banana bread. Serious Eats has become one of my top go-to sites for food recipes. I trust their recipes because of the expertise and creativity of its contributors. When I found this Banana Oatmeal Bread recipe on their site and read that a pastry chef, Anna Markow, created it, I knew it must be a good recipe. As a healthy baker, I could tell that although this was a dessert, the ingredients were not so bad for you and I could feel good making and eating a lot of this.
In place of the rolled oats, I used Coach's Oats Steel-Cut Oats that I pulverized in my spice/coffee grinder. Also, I had some Nutella leftover and I wanted to use it up because it has been in my pantry for so long, so I mixed it with a small portion of batter and added that to the middle of the pan. On top, I put sliced bananas and some mini chocolate chips for presentation value. The final result was spectacular. My sister and her boyfriend really enjoyed it. I had to stop myself from eating too many slices myself so that I could share with my family!
Hope you try this recipe as it is a slight change on the classic banana bread recipe with a few improvements that make it nearly irresistible.
Banana Oatmeal Bread with Nutella Smile (adapted from Serious Eats)
makes 1 9" by 5" loaf
Ingredients
1 cup white whole wheat flour (recommend Ultragrain(R))
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1/3 cup granulated (white) sugar
1/3 cup light brown sugar, slightly packed into the cup
1/2 cup rolled oats (or steel cut oats pulverized into almost flour texture)
1-1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/8 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon
2 medium, ripe bananas
2 eggs
1/3 cup of buttermilk (or a little less than 1/3 cup of whole milk with 1-2 Tbs fresh lime or lemon juice, set aside to curdle for 5 minutes)
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 tsp vanilla
2 Tbs Nutella
For topping (optional):
1/2 banana sliced in thin rounds
A few chocolate chips
Directions
1) Sift the white whole wheat flour, the whole wheat flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon into a large bowl. Stir in the white sugar, brown sugar, and rolled oats.
2) In a blender, blend the bananas, eggs, buttermilk, oil, and vanilla until well-mixed, but do not over-blend or you will incorporate too much air.
3) Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and pour in the wet ingredients. Fold/mix together until just combined.
4) Prepare a 9x5" loaf pan by lightly greasing and flouring. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit (if you oven tends to output higher temperature or tends to brown things too quickly, try reducing the temperature to 325-340 degrees Fahrenheit).
5) In a small bow, mix 2 Tbs Nutella with about 1/2 cup of the batter.
6) Pour half of the original batter into the pan, then spread the Nutella batter in the center. Pour the remaining original batter and spread evenly in the pan.
7) Place the banana slices and chocolate chips as desired on top of the bread.
8) Bake in the preheated oven for 28 minutes, then turn the pan 180 degrees and bake for another 25-30 minutes until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Make sure to watch it in the last 10 minutes because mine browned quick a bit and I had to remove it after about 46-48 minutes of baking.
9) Immediately remove from the pan and let cool on a wire rack for about 30-60 minutes before slicing and serving.
Note: Loaf lasts at least 4 days without refrigeration in Southern California summer weather. If you live in a humid, hot area, I suggest refrigerating by the 3rd or 4th day.
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| Smile! Happiness can come from food! :D |
Wednesday, October 15, 2014
Coffee Muffins with Mocha Glaze
In making the icing. I had too small an amount of powdered sugar and added too much coffee. It was runny and definitely not suitable for icing. So I melted some bits of a dark chocolate baking bar in the microwave and stirred it in until I achieved a consistency I thought would be good.
Coffee Muffins with Mocha Glaze (makes 10 muffins)
Muffin Ingredients
1.5 cups of flour (I use Ultra-Grain Flour)
1/4 cups of brown sugar
1/4 cup of granulated (white) sugar
1.5 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
less than 1/4 tsp of salt
1 tsp of good quality, finely ground coffee (Cafe du Monde, Starbucks, Illy, etc.)
1/2 cup of brewed coffee, cooled to room temperaure (next time, I'll brew it extra strong)
1/4 cup of milk
1 egg
1/3 cup of vegetable oil
Glaze Ingredients
1/4 cup powdered sugar
1 to 2 Tbs brewed coffee
1/2 oz to 1 oz dark baking chocolate
Extra coffee grounds for decoration (optional)
Directions
- Sift the flour, brown sugar, white sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a large bowl.
- Beat the coffee, milk, egg, and oil in a small bowl or large glass measuring cup.
- Make a well in center of your dry ingredients and pour the wet ingredients into the dry. Stir just until combined. Do not overmix. Set aside.
- Pre-heat oven to 350 deg Fahrenheit.
- Line a muffin tin symmetrically with 10 muffin liners.
- Pour the batter evenly into the muffin liners (if you have enough to fill 12 muffin cups about 2/3 full, go ahead)
- Fill the remaining 2 unlined muffin cups with water about 1/3 full.
- Bake in the pre-heated oven for 18-22 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center of the middle-most muffin comes out clean. Let cool in the pan or 5 minutes, then cool completely on a wire rack.
- While the muffins are cooling, prepare the glaze: In a small cup, beat the powdered sugar and brewed coffee until the powdered sugar has dissolved. Heat the baking chocolate in 15 second intervals, stirring in between, until melted and smooth. Mix into the powdered sugar mix. Continue to melt and add chocolate until you achieve the desired frosting consistency.
- Once the muffins have cooled to room temperature, ice/glaze/frost/decorate. If desired, sprinkle coffee grounds on top of the glaze.
Monday, January 23, 2012
Boston Cream Mini Pies and Mini Donuts
Really quickly:
(I'll have to talk about my New Year soon, nothing big, since I'm back in Berkeley and my family got to go to temple and family Te^t dinner's back home in SoCal)...
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Onto the post
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Resources are a big issue for me. When it comes to baking and cooking, I like to scrape out the last bits and pieces of every thing I use. You can just get a tad bit more with all that wonderful batter clinging to the sides of your mixing bowl. That's why spatulas are so amazing. Another thing about baking is how some recipes call for just egg yolks or just egg whites. That bothers me a lot; like, what am I going to do with the rest of the egg after this recipe!!! I don't want to bake so soon, and especially with just egg yolks. But the situation came about after making two pies over winter break (one sapote and one pumpkin, to be posted about later). I had 4 egg yolks leftover (the pie filling used 1 whole egg and 1 egg white). Contemplating my options, I juggled the idea of making Boston cream pies (2-layer cakes filled with pastry cream and covered in chocolate ganache, which I've always wanted to try and taste) or maybe cream puffs. I ended up deciding to make a double batch of mini donuts, but with a twist.
I would make Boston Cream Mini Pies and Mini Donuts!
My idea was just to overfill the mini donut pan so it would create something like a bundt with a base at the bottom and a cavity in the center. This happened the first time I ever baked VeganYumYum's donuts, because I filled the pan about 2/3 full, causing the donuts to rise up more than they were supposed, and closing over the center. With this idea, I would fill the cavity with pastry cream and cover the whole thing in chocolate ganache.
So I baked the donuts. I guess I didn't fill 'em up high enough, so all the donuts didn't completely get that covered cavity. I made amends partway into baking by layering a small dallop of batter on top of the central support of each donut. This created a rather lopsided rounded thing in center of the base, which I pushed down to try and make flatter to be able to stand. It turned out all right, still able to carry the loud in the center.
Surprisingly, making pastry cream is really easy. All that is required is too simmer the eggs, milk, a bit of sugar, and (vanilla) flavoring over the stove, whisking constantly. Then you cool it to room temperature, covered, and then refrigerate. 4 eggs made quite a lot, enough for me to fill an innumerable number of mini cakes and to make a fruit tart later. I based the recipe for pastry cream off of JoyofBaking, but I used 4 egg yolks, used almond milk (OMG, best milk ever), and vanilla extract and did not put in any liqueur. I folded in a couple spoonfuls of CoolWhip topping to make it lighter, which produced the whiter color and fluffier texture.
Pastry cream is a quick and simple technique anyone can learn, and is a great way to use those leftover eggs. I really recommend every aspiring baker try it at least once.
Okay, back to the mini boston cream pies. So, since the first batch of donuts had uneven bottoms, I decided to use the rest of the batter to make mini cupcakes. I cored the center of each mini cupcake, filled it with pastry cream and slathered a beautiful layer of chocolate ganache. I liked the mini cupcakes better in terms of ease and evenness, but the mini donuts version are really awesome, especially when you can see the pastry cream and cake beneath stripes of ganache.
I also used a bit of the batter to make some regular mini donuts that I topped with the ganache as well.
The recipe for the cake base can be found here. For the chocolate ganache (based from here), I melted about 5 oz of semisweet chocolate chips and stirred in about 1/2 cup heavy whipping cream.
Boston Cream Mini Pies and Mini Donuts
Cake
See here (double the recipe). You can bake in either a mini donut pan or a mini muffin pan. If doing in a mini donut pan, overfill the cups or place some batter over the central protrusion of each cup partway through baking.
Pastry Cream
See here. (You will have leftover pastry cream)
Chocolate Ganache
Microwave 5 oz semisweet chocolate chips (can use some dark chocolate) for about 10 seconds. Stir. Repeat until nicely melted but not overheated. Stir in 1/2 cup room temperature heavy whipping cream. Whisk until smooth. You can let cool a bit more to a consistency you like. Cover and refrigerate leftovers. Microwave briefly to make viscous again. (You will have leftovers! Wonderful for dipping with fresh fruit!)
Assembly
1. Place your mini donuts and cupcakes on a wire rack with a cookie sheet beneath.
2. Core the center out of each mini cupcake (you don't need the tops, so eat them! You know, as a taste test of course! ;-P ).
3. Fill center of each donut (upside down) or mini cupcake with pastry cream just to the top.
4. Put a generous dollop of chocolate ganache on the top of the mini cupcakes and spread with a knife around. For the mini donuts, a striped drizzle is best, accomplished by dipping a knife into the ganache and then slowly weaving across the top of the donut.
5. Let the chocolate ganache set. Serve!
*Note, the chocolate ganache can still stick to things, so when you set these up on plates and serving trays, try to separate them with enough room between pieces and for people to get their fingers in and grab one.
Enjoy!!!
CHUC MUNG NAM MOI!!
HAPPY LUNAR NEW YEAR!!!!(I'll have to talk about my New Year soon, nothing big, since I'm back in Berkeley and my family got to go to temple and family Te^t dinner's back home in SoCal)...
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Onto the post
**
*
Resources are a big issue for me. When it comes to baking and cooking, I like to scrape out the last bits and pieces of every thing I use. You can just get a tad bit more with all that wonderful batter clinging to the sides of your mixing bowl. That's why spatulas are so amazing. Another thing about baking is how some recipes call for just egg yolks or just egg whites. That bothers me a lot; like, what am I going to do with the rest of the egg after this recipe!!! I don't want to bake so soon, and especially with just egg yolks. But the situation came about after making two pies over winter break (one sapote and one pumpkin, to be posted about later). I had 4 egg yolks leftover (the pie filling used 1 whole egg and 1 egg white). Contemplating my options, I juggled the idea of making Boston cream pies (2-layer cakes filled with pastry cream and covered in chocolate ganache, which I've always wanted to try and taste) or maybe cream puffs. I ended up deciding to make a double batch of mini donuts, but with a twist.
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| Heavenly? |
I would make Boston Cream Mini Pies and Mini Donuts!
My idea was just to overfill the mini donut pan so it would create something like a bundt with a base at the bottom and a cavity in the center. This happened the first time I ever baked VeganYumYum's donuts, because I filled the pan about 2/3 full, causing the donuts to rise up more than they were supposed, and closing over the center. With this idea, I would fill the cavity with pastry cream and cover the whole thing in chocolate ganache.
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| Filled with pastry cream, awaiting a topping of chocolate P: |
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| Boston Cream Mini Pies |
Pastry cream is a quick and simple technique anyone can learn, and is a great way to use those leftover eggs. I really recommend every aspiring baker try it at least once.
Okay, back to the mini boston cream pies. So, since the first batch of donuts had uneven bottoms, I decided to use the rest of the batter to make mini cupcakes. I cored the center of each mini cupcake, filled it with pastry cream and slathered a beautiful layer of chocolate ganache. I liked the mini cupcakes better in terms of ease and evenness, but the mini donuts version are really awesome, especially when you can see the pastry cream and cake beneath stripes of ganache.
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| Cross-section. Gorgeous, no? |
I also used a bit of the batter to make some regular mini donuts that I topped with the ganache as well.
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| Three mini donuts for my friend Sam :) |
Boston Cream Mini Pies and Mini Donuts
Cake
See here (double the recipe). You can bake in either a mini donut pan or a mini muffin pan. If doing in a mini donut pan, overfill the cups or place some batter over the central protrusion of each cup partway through baking.
Pastry Cream
See here. (You will have leftover pastry cream)
Chocolate Ganache
Microwave 5 oz semisweet chocolate chips (can use some dark chocolate) for about 10 seconds. Stir. Repeat until nicely melted but not overheated. Stir in 1/2 cup room temperature heavy whipping cream. Whisk until smooth. You can let cool a bit more to a consistency you like. Cover and refrigerate leftovers. Microwave briefly to make viscous again. (You will have leftovers! Wonderful for dipping with fresh fruit!)
Assembly
1. Place your mini donuts and cupcakes on a wire rack with a cookie sheet beneath.
2. Core the center out of each mini cupcake (you don't need the tops, so eat them! You know, as a taste test of course! ;-P ).
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| Coring the mini cupcakes |
4. Put a generous dollop of chocolate ganache on the top of the mini cupcakes and spread with a knife around. For the mini donuts, a striped drizzle is best, accomplished by dipping a knife into the ganache and then slowly weaving across the top of the donut.
5. Let the chocolate ganache set. Serve!
*Note, the chocolate ganache can still stick to things, so when you set these up on plates and serving trays, try to separate them with enough room between pieces and for people to get their fingers in and grab one.
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| Saucer of goodness! |
Saturday, October 15, 2011
Baked Donut Update 2
To continue my Baked Donut Project update from yesterday, I continue with the Dark Chocolate Espresso Bean Donuts and the Pumpkin Donuts.
Based off of the original VeganYumYum vanilla base, I added in dark chocolate coffee beans. I had these dark chocolate espresso beans from Trader Joe's and chopped them in my spice/coffee bean grinder.
I ended up with kind of a dark chocolate dust, dark chocolate bits, and espresso bean bits. This I blended into the batter, with some leftover. After baking, I melted the remaining dark chocolate dust (with espresso bean remnants) and used that as the frosting. Like last time, I frosted with my pastel sprinkles.
As you can tell from the picture, the addition of the dark choco-coffee bean bits made the donuts crumbly. This also could have resulted from me leaving the batter in open air on the countertop as I waited for the first batch of regular donuts to bake. The batter could have dried, losing the moisture it needs to stick together during baking. Next time, gotta cover and refrigerate batter.
What I like to do when I bake my donuts, is leave it in the oven for 6 min, then turn the pan around and bake for another 6-7 minutes, just to ensure even browning, since my oven is tiny! It's like a third the size of my oven bake home. So, I have to make my donuts in two batches - which works because I only have one donut pan, but I could do stuff in my multiple mini cupcake pans.
Next up are the pumpkin donuts, of whose flavor is the quintessential, nearly hackneyed predilection of foodies and bloggers during the fall season. For this one, I did not use VeganYumYum's recipe, but based it off this one: Gluten-Free Pumpkin Spice Donuts. Again, I did not make it vegan, nor gluten-free. I used all-purpose flour, a blend of white and brown sugar, butter, and a blend of pumpkin puree, soymilk, and frozen yogurt.
The results were fantastic. I loved just munching on them without frosting (a general statement for all the donuts I've been making). Frosting for me is purely for decoration purposes; I'd rather eat the cake in all its normal, not overly sweet euphoria.
Yup, so that pretty much sums up my donut project so far. Every time I make some, I give some to my housemates and then to my friends at UC Berkeley. I even called up my old roommates to meet them on campus and extend some yummy baked donut love.
It's always good to share (but of course save some for meself too! ;-P )
In the meantime, I've cooked a few random things and made an impromptu pumpkin pie which I'll post up soon too.
Based off of the original VeganYumYum vanilla base, I added in dark chocolate coffee beans. I had these dark chocolate espresso beans from Trader Joe's and chopped them in my spice/coffee bean grinder.
I ended up with kind of a dark chocolate dust, dark chocolate bits, and espresso bean bits. This I blended into the batter, with some leftover. After baking, I melted the remaining dark chocolate dust (with espresso bean remnants) and used that as the frosting. Like last time, I frosted with my pastel sprinkles.
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| Normal vanilla-nutmeg donuts (top left). Dark ChocoCoffee Bean (bottom right). Basic and Dark ChocoCoffee Bean frosted with sprinkles. |
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| 20 mini donuts for enjoyment ^_^ |
Next up are the pumpkin donuts, of whose flavor is the quintessential, nearly hackneyed predilection of foodies and bloggers during the fall season. For this one, I did not use VeganYumYum's recipe, but based it off this one: Gluten-Free Pumpkin Spice Donuts. Again, I did not make it vegan, nor gluten-free. I used all-purpose flour, a blend of white and brown sugar, butter, and a blend of pumpkin puree, soymilk, and frozen yogurt.
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| Some frosted, some not. |
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| Such good texture...*drool* |
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| Puffed up in the pan, hot and toasty! |
It's always good to share (but of course save some for meself too! ;-P )
In the meantime, I've cooked a few random things and made an impromptu pumpkin pie which I'll post up soon too.
Sunday, January 10, 2010
Winter Fun 2: Ganache Topped White Butter Cake
Nov 22, 2009: R's Birthday
I wanted to make a cake for my roommate's birthday, so chose the white butter cake from JoyofBaking.com and made a dark chocolate ganache topping. It was so beautiful before I drizzled it with white icing! The icing was too liquidy over the also-liquidy ganache, and the two flowed into each other to make a funky mess. I could call this a Messy Zebra cake, but that would just be a sad attempt to cover up a mistake. Nevertheless, the cake came out very good: rich and sweet under the dark chocolate. The hardest thing was whipping up the egg whites. I don't have a beater or hand mixer in my Berkeley home, so I used chopsticks to try and whip it up. Man, my arms were so tired! Baking is a serious form of exercise, I'm telling you!
Cake Ingredients
1 3/4 cup all purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 cup unsalted butter, room temp
3/4 cup white sugar
1/4 cup light brown sugar
2 large eggs, separated
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup milk
1/8 tsp cream of tartar (or fresh lime/lemon juice if you don't have it, like me all the time :P )
Cake Directions
See JoyofBaking.com recipe
Dark Chocolate Ganache
Dove dark chocolate squares, chopped up
Whole fat milk
Ganache Directions
Cake Ingredients
1 3/4 cup all purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 cup unsalted butter, room temp
3/4 cup white sugar
1/4 cup light brown sugar
2 large eggs, separated
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup milk
1/8 tsp cream of tartar (or fresh lime/lemon juice if you don't have it, like me all the time :P )
Cake Directions
See JoyofBaking.com recipe
Dark Chocolate Ganache
Dove dark chocolate squares, chopped up
Whole fat milk
Ganache Directions
Add a small amount of milk to a small saucepan and heat on medium low, stirring constantly. Add dark chocolate and mix in until you have a thick consistency. Pour this over the cooled cake. I don't recommend putting icing on top unless you have a very thick ganache and a very thick icing. If you want icing, just mix powdered sugar and a small amount of milk until you get the desired consistency.
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies
I absolutely love pumpkin. Ralph's, year-round, has these amazing Pumpkin Chocolate Chip cookies. My mom first found these 2 years ago. They are huge and so light. We fell in love with them. I don't know how Ralph's does it, but they are heaven in your mouth. I wanted to try my hand at them last year and found a recipe on allrecipes.com. This year, I made another batch, but did the whole recipe this time, coming out with 55 cookies! I gave bags away to 4 friends and family. Everyone enjoyed it. My family loves how these cookies are so fluffy. My sister said they are like pillows! Baking it for 13 minutes rather than 15 keeps the soft texture.
The recipe can be found here (I didn't use walnuts). I used an ice cream scooper to try and keep all of my cookies a uniform size. I also never have nutmeg, so I threw in some ground ginger and cloves. Nutmeg would be nice to have one day...Oh, and I also changed half whole wheat flour and half brown sugar, just so I could get my favorite nutty, hearty flavor in there. Pumpkin may be associated with the autumn holidays, but this shows that pumpkin is a treat to be enjoyed throughout the year!
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