Honey Almond Biscotti

I knew biscotti was fairly easy to make and just hadn't attempted it yet.  I'm fairly turned off by the packaged biscotti that you get at the cafes.  It always seems to be rock hard and dry, but I know it's meant to dip in coffee as well (thus the convenient dipping shape).

I made some recently and decided to try to make it a nicer texture/consistency than the cafe variety. I chose a honey almond recipe and decided to dip and drizzle it in white chocolate as opposed to milk or dark chocolate.

Then, I had some with my coffee...

They turned out nice and chewy. Maybe it was how long I baked them or maybe it's just the recipe with the addition of the honey. But, I loved them.

The original recipe called for whole almonds which seemed like a bit much, so I used some toasted sliced almonds.

Shaped them, as indicated, on the Silpats.

Baked them and sliced them (and then baked the slices again).

Then dunked them in and drizzled them with melted white chocolate and let them dry.  This is quite the delectable treat to get away with for breakfast.

Recipe for Honey Almond Biscotti

Adapted from a recipe in Bon Appetit

Ingredients:

2 1/2 C. All purpose flour

1 1/2 C. plus 1 T. sugar

2 t. baking powder

3/4 t. salt

5 large eggs

1 T. honey

1 1/2 t. vanilla extract

1 C. toasted sliced almonds

Directions:

Preheat oven to 375°F. Whisk flour, 1 1/2 cups sugar, baking powder and salt in large bowl to blend. Make well in center of dry ingredients. Add 4 eggs, honey, and vanilla to well. Stir egg mixture until blended; gradually mix in dry ingredients. Mix in almonds.

Drop dough onto prepared sheet by tablespoonfuls, forming two 12-inch-long by 2-inch-wide logs. Space logs 3 inches apart (or place on separate sheets). Using moistened fingertips, shape logs neatly. Beat remaining egg in small bowl. Brush logs generously with egg; sprinkle with 1 tablespoon sugar. Bake logs until golden and firm to touch, about 15 minutes. Cool logs on baking sheet 10 minutes. Reduce oven temperature to 325°F.

Transfer warm logs to work surface. Cut on slight diagonal into 1/2-inch-thick slices. Arrange slices, cut side down, on 2 clean baking sheets. Bake until pale golden, about 8 minutes. Cool completely. Store airtight up to 1 week.

For chocolate dipping, melt down chocolate disks or chips, dip the biscotti in and place on wax paper to dry.

Christening Cupcakes

A friend of mine asked me to make some cupcakes for her daughter's christening this weekend.  I was very honored, of course, and took the challenge on.  I really don't do a lot of baking for order and mainly just bake for fun, family gatherings or to try something new.  So, I have to admit I was a bit nervous to make sure I created something that was special enough and tasted amazing too.  We talked through flavors and decorations and while she thought chocolate would be good, she left it to me to come up with colors and decorations for her. 

I was thinking of doing some fondant or marzipan cut outs in white on a colored buttercream, but I had difficulty finding small fondant cutters in the shape that I was looking for - crosses and doves.  However, at my baking supply store, they do have candy making supplies and I found these great chocolate molds. While it was a little tedious, it was quite easy to do and I love how they turned out.  I melted down my white chocolate pieces in a glass measuring cup in the microwave, poured it into the molds, tapped them to get the bubbles out and let them set for around 10 minutes in the freezer.  Just like the lady at the store said, they popped right out after I took the trays out of the freezer. I made chocolates!

I tried a different chocolate cupcake recipe for these.  I used the Devil's Food Cupcake recipe from my Martha Stewart's Cupcakes book.  I LOVE this recipe compared to others I've tried.  The cake is much more dense and moist and has a nice rich flavor (yes, I had to sample one!).  I made a simple vanilla buttercream frosting with the white chocolate decorations. 

I was so happy I remembered to get a few cupcake bakery boxes to transport them in.  Plus, it makes them seem professional when they're packaged nicely. 

I really like the color of these.  They remind me of the Wedgewood jasperware pottery that I have a small collection of. I hope she likes them!

Fun with Fondant

This is my first time even working with fondant and since I'm crazy, I also decided I needed to make the fondant from scratch as well. I had been talking to my friend in pastry school about all the blogs writing about different types of flavored fondants - mostly marshmallow and white chocolate. I researched recipes for white chocolate fondant and it's basically making a melted white chocolate add-in for plain rolled fondant. Instead of just buying rolled fondant, I thought I'd try to do it all from scratch and make that too. Yes, it took longer, but it wasn't necessarily difficult.

Fondant is basically a whole lot of powdered sugar that is pulled together and made pliable with gelatin, water, corn syrup and glycerin. Doesn't sound that tasty, right? That's why I wanted to try to make the white chocolate fondant. All the recipes I looked through indicated this as being very difficult to make and it wasn't easy, but I read through lots of tips and it didn't turn out too bad for my first try. I found a Food Network page with some great tips on working with fondant that I'll definitely refer to in the future.

For the rolled fondant, I used a recipe in my James Peterson "Baking" book as all the recipes I've tried from his book turn out great and it had a really handy step-by-step photo guide.

I first added the water to the gelatin and allowed it to "bloom." Then, it was dissolved over simmering water before adding in the corn syrup and glycerin. This mixture was kneaded into the 7+ cups of powdered sugar. It seemed VERY sticky at first, but I kneaded it in with even more powdered sugar and got it to come together nicely. This was wrapped in plastic, a damp towel and more plastic to let it rest.

Now for the white chocolate....

I used a recipe that I found on Martha Stewart Weddings. It called for using cocoa butter, which I didn't have on hand, so I used a little shortening to mix in with the white chocolate instead and it worked out just fine.

White chocolate was melted down with a little shortening and then stirred in with light corn syrup. That was poured into plastic wrap to stand a room temperature overnight. I kneaded the white chocolate mixture and then kneaded it in with the plain rolled fondant using some corn starch as it was sticky. It came together so nicely though and I ended up with a smooth and silken round of delicious white chocolate fondant.

It rested all day and I was able to roll it out very easy (again with a dusting of corn starch).

Now I got the cake ready. I made a small vanilla cake with two layers. To go with the white chocolate fondant, I made a white chocolate buttercream (see below for recipe) for in between the layers and the fondant to adhere to on the outside of the cake. It was a little tricky to roll out and I had to redo it a few times as part of it was a little thin when I tried to drape it on the cake. I used more corn starch to smooth the fondant on the cake over the buttercream and trimmed the bottom edge.

While I had accomplished covering the cake with fondant, I did want to decorate it in some way. This cake is for my birthday, so I went with a few fun colors and split the leftover fondant to knead in some pink and green gel food coloring. I realized that I just have "electric" Americolor, so it turned out more bright that I had wanted, so I'll have to get some more muted colors to keep in stock as well. I just went simple and got my circle cutters out and went with dots for the cake. It was pretty easy to roll out and cut and I continued to use lots of corn starch to keep it from sticking to the counter. Throughout the decorating process, I was getting quite hungry and I sustained myself by sampling the white chocolate fondant.

I made a simple royal icing to use as the "glue" for the fondant circles to stick to the cake and stick on top of each other. It wasn't perfect, but I cut a ribbon of fondant as the bottom just didn't look finished enough.

I was so happy with the way my cake turned out and the experience of working with fondant. It is time consuming, but won't deter me from doing it again. In fact, I have some extra plain rolled fondant leftover and some extra pink and green white chocolate fondant. So, I'll have to come up with some ideas of how to use that soon.

I even had pink and green candles to put in my cake and Audrey helped me blow out the candles.

"Happy Birthday to me!" I know it's not normal to make your own birthday cake, but those who know me know that I'm a bit of a control freak and in this case I was able to create the flavor and look of my cake (even if I was made fun of for doing it). Plus, I was able to conquer making fondant.

Recipe for White Chocolate Buttercream

6 oz. white chocolate, chopped

1/4 cup whipping cream

1 cup unsalted butter, cut in pieces (cold)

1 cup powdered sugar

Microwave the white chocolate with the whipping cream in a bowl on high for about 1 1/2 minutes, stirring half way through, until almost completely melted. Stir until completely melted. Cool to room temperature.

Beat butter and sugar gradually into cooled white chocolate mixture on high speed until light and fluffy.

Berry Good Layer Cake

My husband's birthday was last weekend and I wanted to make him a special cake. I haven't tackled a layer cake for quite some time, so I questioned him about what flavors he wanted and researched recipes. He wanted a white cake with fresh strawberries in the filling and a whipped cream topping. I had fun looking through my cookbooks, iPhone apps and online for different recipes and came up with a light vanilla cake recipe, white chocolate buttercream and fresh strawberries for the filling and a whipped cream frosting. I referenced four different recipes to make the cake and had all my recipes and ingredients prepped and ready to go.

I started with preparing my springform pans. I used two 9" non-stick pans, but still buttered them using a pastry brush, put a circle of parchment on the bottom, buttered the parchment and then covered the inside with flour. There was no way my cake was going to stick!

The cake batter was made with cake flour and used only egg whites, which were whipped and folded into the batter to make it airy and light.

I filled my buttered and floured springform pans and they were ready to bake. I put them on cookie sheets just in case the batter seeped out (which I was happy it did not), but it still made them easy to take in and out when I was checking them. I was careful to turn them and switch racks part way through and made sure my cake tester came out clean. They were nice golden brown and I let them cool a bit before I took them out of the pans and peeled off the parchment. I also trimmed the tops off each of the cakes to make them flatter. I think I could have trimmed them a little more to make the layers even more flat and clean.

Now it was time to make the filling. I had used several egg whites for the cake and I was happy I didn't have to waste the egg yolks and used them for the white chocolate buttercream filling. I slowly cooked the egg yolks and sugar, then added in the white chocolate and cream to melt down. This mixture cooled and then I added the butter to make the buttercream. I would have liked this to be a bit more thick, but it was thick enough and tasted great.

I spread a layer of homemade strawberry preserves, a layer of the white chocolate buttercream, a layer of fresh strawberry slices, another layer of buttercream and then put another layer of strawberry preserves on the second layer that went on top of the top layer of buttercream. This is where it got a little messy.

Maybe I should have chilled it prior to adding the top layer, but I didn't think of this first and it was oozing a bit when I added the second layer. I was generous in how much filling I included, but in the end we agreed that there could have been even more. I think a lot of it soaked into the cake as well. I smoothed off the edges as much as I could and chilled the cake at this point before attempting to frost it.

For the frosting, I was concerned about using just simple whipped cream as it has so much moisture and I didn't want it to seep into the cake and be a watery mess. So I looked into making swiss meringue, but ended up finding a recipe for stabilizing whipped cream so it wouldn't do what I was worried about. This involved using unflavored gelatin that was dissolved and added into the whipped heavy cream along with some sugar and vanilla. The stabilized whipped cream was easy to make and amazingly easy to work with. I finished it off with a warm wet spatula to make a smooth glossy top. I did save some aside to pipe on top of the cake later, but that didn't work out as the gelatin did something during this time and wasn't as nice and glossy when I attempted to do this. So, I tried to smooth it out again as well as I could, but that's why it ended up looking a little messy, I mean homemade.

Since the piping on top didn't work out and I was a bit short on time before we wanted to put birthday candles in and sing, I simply smoothed it out as well as I could and added a few fresh berries to the top. Given a little more time, I would have put some shaved white chocolate on the top or sides and slice the fresh berries.

The cake was so nice and moist and had a great taste. I'd like to try using more filling next time and work with different fillings to mix up the flavors. I'd also like to work more with the decorating and get out the pastry bag to add a little more flair. However, most importantly, Sean said it certainly satisfied his request for his perfect birthday cake!