BB's "Yum-ptious" Apple Pie

The theme for last week's baking challenge was 'Kids', so I asked BB what she would like to make with me. Of course, the girl who used to sing a song about pie wanted to make apple pie. So, we did!

I peeled and cut the apples. She pretty much did the rest.

We didn't get to make it until today, because of all the work finishing up the smoker last week, plus all the chaos of my birthday party on Saturday, plus other parties BB and KB went to this weekend, PLUS the fact that BB's playing softball. She called yesterday upset that we hadn't made the pie yet, so that's what we did right after school today.

She did TRY to peel the apples, but didn't like the peeler.

She added the sugar and flour...

Stirred it all together...

Filled and pinched the crust...

And mixed and brushed on the egg wash all by herself.

The filling itself was made of about 5 large granny smith apples (7 or 8 cups, peeled and chopped) tossed in lemon juice, about a cup of sugars (I used about 1/3 brown and 2/3 white), a small bit of flour, plus some cinnamon, nutmeg, and ginger that I just eyeballed, but was a little heavy handed with.

I cut the smiley face vents, she made the nose.

I haven't had a full slice yet, just tasted a bit of the filling, but it is, indeed, yum-ptious. Even more importantly, she had a blast making it!

After cooking. So cute!

A Revelation - Banana Rum Cake

Over the weekend, I had so much free time and space in the kitchen that I went on an absolute cooking binge. A while back, I had made some white chocolate banana ganache with the intent of using it for truffles, but I made it a bit too thin. So, I set it aside to use for a cake glaze.

So, so very good.

A couple of years ago the entire family went to the Cayman Islands on a cruise, and of course we brought back a number of rum cakes and many different flavors of Tortugas rum. Banana isn't a flavor of rum that we drink very often unless we're making a couple of particular drinks, so there was plenty of it. So, late on a Friday evening, in the midst of my cooking spree, I went to town on making a rum-laden bundt cake.

Just after turning out and splashing a little rum on the top.

After I baked the cake, which used some banana pudding mix, a cake mix, and some pecans, I splashed it with a bit of rum and left a cup of rum in the middle, then covered the cake overnight. The next day, I made a glaze with sugar, rum, and butter and doused the entire thing with that. After letting that glaze soak in for a day, I topped it off with the white chocolate banana ganache.

Since we really do try not to keep a ridiculous amount of sweets at the house (though we usually fail), I sent the cake to the lodge with my dad last night, since they eat potluck-style. There were only ten men and a couple other desserts, but only three slices of this stuff made it back. I finally got to have a piece before bed, and WOW.... just wow. It's got just enough rum in it for you to feel the warmth in the back of your mouth when you swallow, but not enough to really taste the rum. You definitely taste the banana flavor, and the chopped pecans add a really nice crunch. There's obviously alcohol still in there (and you can smell it), so you might not want to offer it to a teetotaler. That's okay, though - more for us!

BB was my photography assistant today, and she frequently threatened to devour what little cake was left.

Banana Rum Cake
For the cake:

• 1 package butter recipe cake mix
• 1 package banana cream pudding mix
• 3 whole eggs + 2 egg yolks
• 1/2 c milk
• 1/2 c oil
• 1/2 c + 1 shot banana rum 
• 1 c chopped pecans

Mix together all ingredients except pecans until the batter is well-integrated. Stir in pecans and pour into greased bundt cake pan. Bake at 325 for one hour, or until toothpick inserted comes out clean. Cool in pan for 10 minutes, then flip out onto rack to complete cooling for another hour. Splash shot of rum on the cake, especially around the interior ring. Cover and allow to set overnight before glazing.

For the glaze:

• 4 tbsp butter
• 1 c sugar
• 1/2 c banana rum
• 1/2 c water

Melt butter in saucepan over low heat, then stir in sugar and rum. Once well-integrated, increase heat slightly and add just enough water for sugar to dissolve into syrup. Remove from heat and allow to cool slightly, then spoon and brush over cake while still warm, taking care to cover the entire exterior of the cake. Allow glaze to soak in overnight for best results. Top with white chocolate banana ganache if desired.

White Chocolate Banana Ganache

• 1/3 cup heavy cream or half and half
• 12 oz bag white chocolate morsels
• 2 tbsp banana extract
• 1/4 tsp coconut extract

Heat cream and extracts in a double boiler until hot. Gradually add white chocolate, stirring until chocolate is completely melted and integrated. For thicker ganache suitable for truffles, decrease cream or increase chocolate until it reaches the desired consistency.  Allow to cool to room temperature, then use immediately or cover and store in refrigerator.

Total prep/cook time: 3 days, but only about 90 minutes of work.

Happiness rating: 10/10 - this thing disappeared fast!

52 weeks of baking, Week 8: The Easter Basket Cupcake

As usual with decorating challenges, this was really a challenge. That said, after seeing the kit-kat basket cake posted, I decided that I needed to make an easter basket cake. We already had jellybeans on hand, and I thought I'd grab something to use as basket weave. Twizzlers taste nasty in my opinion, but when I found the filled twizzlers at the store the other day, I decided to give them a shot. In the end, it turned out very cute, but when you consider the fact that I spent 45 minutes on icing, decorating, etc., that's a lot of time for a single cupcake. I likely won't do it again.

As much LOTR as I've been watching lately, this really is 'one cupcake to rule them all'.

Since it's just me for the weekend and I had no desire to decorate an insane number of cupcakes right now, I ended up using this recipe - which made seven small cupcakes, of which I crumb coated three (after peeling off the paper) and used just one. Incidentally, I haven't tasted the cupcakes yet, but they seemed a little dense to be white cupcakes, and I probably won't use that recipe again. I'd pulled out my copy of Ratio earlier before googling, and I'll likely just make a white sponge in the future if I need a small batch.

Cupcakes and supplies. It really was a quick and dirty job, despite the time involved.

To decorate, I made a half batch of the icing I used in this post and crumb coated, with a generous amount on top. I split the filled Twizzlers down the middle, and let the filling aid in gluing the basket weave portion onto the cupcake. I carved out a little hole on either side of the cupcake and filled it with icing, and used that to glue in the red Twizzler handle. Jelly Belly jellybeans topped the whole thing off.

Mid-decoration. Bifurcating filled Twizzlers isn't as simple as it sounds. Those things are gummy.

Total prep/cook time: 2 hours
Happiness rating: Meh. Too pretty to eat.

Bacon Roses!

Pretty!

KB's wanted to make bacon roses with me ever since I came across the instructable last year. For Valentine's day, I decided to oblige her, and to complete the Valentine's day themed cooking and bacon challenges. There really isn't much need for a long and detailed explanation of what was done, since there's already an excellent guide out there, so I'll let the pictures do the talking.

Who needs a drill and real pans? Disposable works well. So does a phillips-head screwdriver.

13 strips of bacon to a pack... 12 cups. Challenge accepted.

Baking complete. A little cooling, and then they're ready to stem.

KB is in her tweenie years, which means she is physically incapable of expressing excitement. Ah well.

Overall, a fun project, and one I'll likely do again. I mean, it's BACON, and it isn't overcooked and crunchy and gross. Soft, perfect, pretty bacon is the way to go.

Total prep/cook time: 1 hour, including all the time it took to prep the silk flower stems.
Happiness rating: 12/10. Om nom nom.

52 weeks of baking, Week 5: Apple danish loaves

I think I've outdone myself, breakfast wise. I've made coffee cakes, doughnuts, and various other breakfast goodies in the past, but when we realized that we had dried apples that needed to be used, I got to work.

If I can't get the whipped cream 'fuzz' off my lens, I might be shopping for a new camera.

These weren't just any apples, either - they were the last batch from the apple tree in the back yard, before it mysteriously died last year. These apples needed love and respect, and I think I've honored that. On Monday evening, I gave them a good rinse and began simmering them with a bit of sugar, nutmeg, cinnamon, allspice, and ginger. Once they cooled, I put them in the basement fridge until I could get the pastry dough made, which I did on Wednesday night. I'd been wanting to make some -real- pastry, and so I decided to go with danish dough. I used 1/5 of the recipe for danish dough from page 235 of Baking & Pastry: Mastering the Art and Craft. It tasted quite salty before I let it rise and rest overnight, and I was a bit worried - enough so that I even added in a little extra sugar. But, recipes can be deceiving, so I went with it.

I can't believe that this was the first time I'd rocked my KitchenAid's dough hook.

Yesterday afternoon, we took it out of the fridge, and BB beat out the butter for the roll-in while I rolled it into a rectangle. We rolled in the butter, and of course, she had to help.

We're going to have a talk about the need for ponytails while baking, because her hair's almost that long.

After giving it a four-fold, resting half an hour, splitting it, giving it a 3-fold, then another 3-fold half an hour after THAT, then even more resting, it was finally time to get to filling. Following the technique from the same book, on page 630, for what they call a 'Braided Coffee Cake' (not that I consider this to be a coffee cake in the slightest, since coffee cake is dense and has a crumbly topping), I cut some angled strips onto either side of the dough, keeping a big long patch in the middle, then filled it with apples and started to 'braid' it up by alternating sides as I folded the strips over the top.

It was kind of a pain to tack the ends together, but thankfully there wasn't a ton of leakage.

Once it was all finished, I had two huge loaves of apple danish, about 18 inches long each. They went into the proofing drawer of the oven for an hour and a half, and wow did they rise! I actually had to separate them onto two different baking sheets after the rise time, because while I expected SOME rising, my yeast was a little old and I didn't expect it to be that active.

It went from this....

to this! I guess that yeast was still pretty active after all.

Finally, it got a second egg wash, and went into the oven for around 35 minutes at 350. What came out really did amaze us, and we found ourselves picking at one of the loaves after dinner last night (the one that left us stuffed, and for which we had bananas foster as dessert - these are THAT tempting).

Tons of apple-filled deliciousness.

This stuff is absolutely divine. Even though the saltiness did decrease tremendously, I would definitely use a little less the next time around (and I've decreased it in the recipe below). The flakiness and texture of the dough is amazing, and the spiced apples are soft, but still have a tiny bit of bite to them. All in all, the perfect way to use the last apples from our dearly departed tree.

Danish Pastry Dough
creates about 2 lbs dough

• 362 g bread flour (12.8 ozs)
• 42 g sugar (1.45 ozs)
• 5.6 g instant yeast (0.6 ozs)
• 3 g salt (0.1 ozs)
• 34 g softened butter (1.2 ozs, about 1.5 tbsp)
• 74 g eggs (2.6 ozs, or one extra large egg)
• 168 mL milk (5.6 ozs, or 2/3 cup plus 1 tbsp)
• For the roll-in: 272 g chilled butter (9.6 ozs, or 2 sticks + 2.5 tbsp)

Mix together the dry and wet ingredients with a dough hook until well integrated. Transfer to a floured surface and let rise at 75 degrees or in a proofing drawer for two hours or until doubled in size. Punch down, roll out into a large rectangle, fold, and wrap tightly with plastic wrap. Store in refrigerator at least 8 hours, or overnight, to let gluten relax completely.

After overnight rest, pound out roll-in butter until pliable. If butter becomes warm, return to refrigeration and chill slightly. Roll the dough into a large rectangle, and spread the butter over half of the rectangle. Fold the dough over, press out any air bubbles, and pinch the ends together, then roll out and do a four-fold (fold each end into the middle, then fold at the middle like a book). Return to the refrigerator for 30 minutes, then roll out again, and do a three-fold (as if folding a letter for an envelope). Chill in the refrigerator another 30 minutes, do a second three-fold, then refrigerate 30 more minutes.

Roll out the chilled dough and shape and fill as desired on parchment paper. Once shaped/filled/etc, coat with egg wash and place in a proofing drawer or warm place and let rise for 90 minutes at 85 degrees. After rising, add another coat of egg wash, and bake at 350 for 30-40 minutes, or until golden brown.

Total cook/prep time: 16 hours - 30 minutes to mix, 2 hour rise, 30 minutes shape/roll/wrap, 8 hours rest, 3 hours roll-in and fold, 90 minute rise, 30 minute bake. It's less time than it sounds!
Family happiness rating: 10/10. This stuff isn't going to last long.

52 weeks of baking, Week 4: Flower cupcakes, plus banana and blueberry fillings!

BB is having a tea party tomorrow. She's been excited about it for weeks, and has gone to a great deal of trouble to make up invitations for her friend who lives a few doors down from here. A couple of weeks ago, I found a flower-shaped cupcake pan at Hobby Lobby, which I'd intended to use for this tea party. Unfortunately, I didn't manage to hide it before BB showed up at the house, so the surprise was ruined, and she's been asking me about the flower cupcakes every single day since.

The pan itself is a neat thing - you put cupcake liners into it, fill the liners all the way up, and bake for five minutes. After the five minutes is up, you add another big spoonful or so of batter in, and make sure it gets into the corners of the mold. Once they're done, you let them cool for a minute, and out come super-cute flower-ish cupcakes!

Why didn't they have fun shapes for cupcakes when I was a kid?!

Of course, I couldn't -just- do cupcakes, since this is frosting/filling week. BB's favorite fruit is banana, and her friend's favorite fruit is blueberry, so I decided to make filling for their cupcakes (the adults get plain ones, because they're fuddy-duddies). It really wasn't difficult at all - fruit, a little liquid, a little sugar, and some xanthan gum to thicken them up to be the right consistency for filling.

Xanthan gum: a true victory of food science

For the cake itself, I used this recipe, which turned out to be delightful. A petal from one of the cupcakes was a bit cracked, and my sister grabbed it. I managed to get a few bites, and was very impressed - this recipe is a keeper! For the icing, I took my mom's advice and used a mixture of cream cheese and shortening, plus over a pound of powdered sugar and some almond and butter flavoring. The result was a good consistency, and the almond and butter flavorings definitely helped balance out the flavor. It tastes like buttercream, but with a little something more.

Now, as a disclaimer, I have to say that this is my first time actually decorating a cake. Icing a cake, in my experience, has involved slathering cream cheese or caramel-coconut-pecan icing all over a couple of layers and hoping that they aren't too lopsided once I'm done. Sometimes I might sprinkle nuts across the top, but that's about it. The only time I've ever used a piping bag has been to fill doughnuts. So, around 7:30 PM I decided that the cupcakes were cool enough, and was ready to settle down and practice my icing techniques.

Except that isn't what happened. What did happen was my mother and I coming to the realization that her decorating kit, tips, couplers, colors, and all, had mysteriously vanished, most likely to my sister's house. So, I found myself on a last-minute run to Wal-mart, where I managed to pick up the tips, colors, and bags that I needed. Finally, around 9:00 PM, I was finally able to get started on my very first cupcake. It turned out well, I think, and so I kept on going. There are still a few more plain ones to ice in the morning, but I managed to get enough finished for the tea party even if I oversleep. Not too shabby, I say.

The pink flower is plain, the yellow has banana filling, and the purple has blueberry. I'm sure you guessed that already.

Banana Cupcake and Doughnut Filling

• 1 very ripe banana
• 1 splash (about 2 tbsp) half and half
• 3/8 tsp xanthan gum
• 1/2 tsp banana extract
• 1 tsp sugar

Using small food processor, puree bananas, add half and half. Add small amounts of xanthan gum at a time (about 1/8 tsp), pulsing until the filling obtains desired thickness. If filling becomes too thick after setting, stir or whisk in additional half and half.

Blueberry Cupcake and Doughnut Filling

• 1 c frozen blueberries, rinsed
• 1/2 c water
• 1/2 c sugar
• 1/2 tsp xanthan gum

Simmer blueberries over low heat until soft. Stir in sugar and continue to simmer another 15 minutes. Puree mixture and process through a food mill, allowing to cool to room temperature. If filling becomes too thick after setting, stir or whisk in additional water.

Decorator's Icing

• 1 8oz brick cream cheese, room temperature
• 1 lb, 3 ozs powdered sugar
• 1 cup white shortening
• 1 1/2 tsp clear butter flavoring
• 1 tsp almond extract

Cream all ingredients together in mixer, adding powdered sugar until at the desired consistency. Separate into individual bowls and add coloring, then pipe onto cakes as desired.

Total prep/cook time: 3ish hours, including decorating

Family happiness rating: 9/10. Mom thought the banana filling tasted too ripe, but BB was over the moon about it, and that's what matters.

See the full album here.

52 weeks of baking, Week 3: White chocolate covered fruit biscotti and white chocolate banana cocoa

I've been wanting to make biscotti for some time, and this week's challenge seemed like a great excuse. I looked at a few different biscotti recipes, and took the difference of them all and decided to make my own, based of what fruits I had available and what I thought would go well with the white chocolate.

I only had just shy of an ounce of dried cranberries on hand, but I also had a secret weapon - freeze dried strawberries and bananas! BB loves the freeze dried apples that come in a big pack from Costco, but it also comes with mixed strawberries and bananas. She doesn't like strawberries for some unfathomable reason, so I decided to put them into action by adding in 2 bags (about an ounce), plus a couple of ounces of sliced almonds. I added them all in to the mix, and the flavors turned out amazing.

One thing I should note is that I doubted my intuition against the baking times on other recipes, and ended up very disappointed in what turned out, because the first bake didn't turn out as firm as I'd expected. I chalked that up to my inexperience with biscotti and ended up spending a lot more oven time on the second bake - lesson learned!

Once it was all, done, I dipped them in white chocolate, since that's the theme of the week, after all. I'd also come across a few recipes for white chocolate cocoa, and over the holidays my banana pudding white chocolate truffles had been a huge hit. So, I melted a few more white chocolate chips with what was left from the biscotti dipping, and tempered in some half and half and milk in the microwave (lazy, I know, but I didn't really want to get any more pots dirty tonight). I added in what was probably a teaspoon of banana extract, then warmed it a bit more - but not too much - and sprinkled some nilla wafer crumbs on the top.

I could have this every. single. night.

Let me tell you, this was a divine way to end a busy day of cooking and being with family. The cocoa was like a liquid dessert, and the crunchiness and fruity flavors from the biscotti I dunked in the cocoa really topped it all off.

I can go to sleep a happy girl now.

Fruit and Almond Biscotti

• 1/2 stick butter
• 3/4 c sugar
• 1/4 tsp almond extract
• 1 egg
• 1 1/4 c AP flour
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 oz dried cranberries
• 1 oz freeze-dried strawberries and bananas (I used 2 individual packs from the Costco multipack of freeze dried fruit)
• 2 oz sliced almonds
• 1 egg white, beaten

Preheat oven to 350.

Cream sugar, butter, and extract in a mixer. Add egg, then flour, baking powder, and salt, then fruit and nuts. Add a few teaspoons of water if necessary to cause the dough to form up.

Shape dough into a log and place on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. Brush with egg white and bake 40-50 minutes, or until center is set, and allow to cool completely.

When cool, slice into wide slices. Place on the cookie sheet again, with the slices on their sides, and bake 10 minutes at 350. Flip and bake another 10 minutes. Continue baking 5-10 minutes per side until the cookies are dry and browned. Allow to cool completely.

Eat as is, or dip in melted white chocolate.

Total prep/cook time: 2 hours, 10 minutes: 15 mins prep/mix, 45 mins first bake, 30 mins rest, 40 mins second bake
Family happiness rating: unknown (they haven't tried it), but this is a 9.5/10 on my personal scale!

See the full album here.

52 weeks of baking, Week 2: Mini deep dish pizzas

Just as with the first week of the 52 week cooking challenge, the first week of the 52 week baking challenge was a little 'meh'. The theme was brownies - simple enough, but I made butterscotch brownies, which is one of my dad's favorites that I used to make way back in high school. The recipe came from page 271 of the Betty Crocker cookbook, published in 1978, and although they were insanely delicious, I was pretty busy that day and trying to pack up my kitchen when I made them, resulting in me taking the self-rising flour shortcut plus being about two minutes late to get them out of the oven, so they rose... and fell.

Not only do I suck at photography, but I suck at making butterscotch brownies that don't fall, too!

The second week's theme was miniature, which isn't necessarily difficult to come up with in terms of baking, but it was definitely an issue for me to come up with something creative. I mean, mini-cupcakes are kind of boring. On Thursday, it finally came to me - pizza is baked, too! So, I decided to make mini deep dish pizzas, with the intent of testing out a pizza dough recipe for future use in my dad's pizza oven/smoker/firepit.

By the time 11:30 rolled around and I was ready to start lunch, my mom was also busy in the kitchen, so the idea of a new dough recipe went out the window. However, I always keep Jiffy pizza dough mix on hand - it's very inexpensive, it works very well for deep dish pizzas and breadsticks, and it's super quick. So, I mixed up a couple of batches of dough and pressed them into muffin tins. I pre-baked them for a few minutes, which is important, because this mix rises in the oven, not during a proofing cycle. After 3-4 minutes at 425, I took it out and pressed it back into the muffin tins, then added layers of sauce, pepperoni, and slices of the mozzarella-stuffed meatballs that BB and I made last week. 

More evidence that I'm terrible at the photography thing.

More shredded mozzarella went on top, and it all went back in the oven for about 10 minutes. It came out looking divine, and tasting delicious. Even the Chloe-pup thought so, when I dropped one on the floor and she got to nom away. The biggest complaint came from my dad, who prefers his crust a bit more brown, but I prefer it a little lighter and more bready, so that's not too big of a deal.

Caution: Food in photo is much more tasty than it may appear.

Total prep/cook time: 25 minutes per batch of 8

Family happiness rating: 9/10. Could be a little less saucy and messy, but otherwise these might become a go-to after school snack.