Black and Gold: Chocolate Hazelnut Torte

There's no better occasion for a slightly over-the-top dessert than New Year's Eve. A dense chocolate hazelnut torte, coated in dark chocolate ganache, jeweled with candied hazelnuts and topped with a halo of spun sugar is great for a special occasion. The torte is soft and dense since it is flourless, with a slight graininess from the ground hazelnuts. This was a crowd pleaser as the chocolate and hazelnut flavours really come through without being cloyingly sweet. It can also sit out without refrigeration so guests can enjoy it at their leisure while waiting for the countdown.  

The recipe is somewhat work-intensive, but for a special occasion it is well worth the extra time. The actual process is not difficult but there is a good amount of prep work (chopping and melting chocolate, toasting and grinding hazelnuts, caramelizing sugar, etc.) 

This was the first time I made spun sugar. It was fun to (carefully!) fling the hot caramel between two skewers and watch the glossy strands form. The glittery gold threads were the perfect touch for a dessert to ring in the new year.

Recipe after the jump!

Chocolate Petticoat Tails

The amazing thing about shortbread is that really, you only need three ingredients to make a darn delicious cookie: butter, flour, and sugar. A few additions like cocoa and salt are nice additions but not absolutely imperative. This buttery chocolate shortbread was baked in a fluted tart shell to give it a pretty scalloped edge.

Tip: Cutting the wheel into the "petticoat tails" can be a little tricky to do without breaking the narrow points. Allow the shortbread to cool for about 15 minutes before cutting straight down using a chef's knife. The cookie should be cool enough so that it "sets", but not so cool that it becomes crunchy and crumbly.  

Really Short and Sweet: Banana Bread

Banana bread is one of those favourite and easy recipes that I keep going back to time and time again. I think there's something about the scent of bananas that boosts the butteriness of this quick bread and makes it so irresistible. It's completely delicious on its own, but this "deluxe" one is packed with chocolate chunks and walnuts too, just for extra oomph.

(Recipe after the jump)

Mmmmaple: Maple Walnut Cupcakes

As the summer heat dissipates, I think it is only appropriate to whip out some autumnal creations. These Maple Walnut Cupcakes not only give off the perfect fall vibe, but also showcase one of my all-time favourite flavours: maple.

The nutty cupcakes are wonderful, but I'm going to talk about the icing because it really is "the icing on the cake." Its velvety butteriness amplifies the warmth of the maple flavour. I knew I had to try this frosting recipe because, well, it uses real maple syrup, rather than that artificial stuff in a bottle. It is not a speedy one-bowl powdered sugar buttercream; this is real, silky, luscious stuff. You will need to cook the maple syrup to make this version of a French buttercream so it's a little fussy, but the results are well worth it if you are a maple lover.

I made this on an unusually warm day. If you want to stabilize such a butter-rich frosting, beat in a few tablespoons of cool shortening and a tablespoon or two of sifted cornstarch. Add just enough to give it a little structure, but not so much that you lose the silky, fragrant character of the buttercream.

Maple-Walnut Cupcakes

2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour, sifted
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 sticks (1 cup) unsalted butter at room temperature
1 1/2 cups sugar
3 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup milk
1 1/2 cups walnuts chopped medium fine

Preheat oven to 350 F. Line two standard 12-cup muffin pans with paper liners. In a large bowl, sift together flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon and set aside.

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, beat butter and sugar on medium until creamy, about 3 minutes. Add the eggs and vanilla and beat until combined. With the mixer still on medium, add the flour mixture in two parts, alternating with milk (begin and end with flour). Stir in walnuts with a spoon.

Divide batter among the cups (about 1/3 cup each). Bake until toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, about 18-20 minutes. Cool and frost. Cupcakes can be refrigerated for up to 3 days.

Maple Buttercream:

Makes about 2 cups

3 large egg yolks
2 cup pure maple syrup
2 sticks (1 cup) unsalted butter

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the whisk, beat yolks on high speed until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes. In a small saucepan, bring the syrup to a boil over medium high heat, cook until it reads 240F on a candy thermometer, about 15 minutes.
With the mixer running, slowly pour syrup down the side of the bowl in a slow, steady stream, until completely incorporated, about 1 minute. Continue beating until the bowl is just slightly warm to the touch, 4-5 minutes. Add butter, one piece at a time, until frosting is fluffy, about 4 minutes.

Recipe courtesy of Martha Stewart's Baking Handbook
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Cornbread (and Soup Sacrilege)

I love rain. Really, I do. I like listening to raindrops drumming on the roof and cars swishing by. And it's not difficult to be satisfied when you live on the sodden West Coast. However, it's a bit of a rude awakening when you return from the hot, sunny Mediterranean climate and suddenly it feels like mid-February again. Sometimes the only appropriate thing to make on a day like this is a nice bowl of soup.

But I think I'm still in vacation mode because there was no way I was going to trudge out into the downpour to buy vegetables to patiently simmer for an hour or two.

Bless canned soup.

Luckily, though, there are some things that are always hanging around the house, like ingredients for cornbread. This is a very old recipe that my mom has made for years. I don't remember where it came from, but it makes a sweet bread with a pleasantly crumbly texture and crunchy top. And even better, I'm pretty sure the recipe is foolproof. In less than a half hour, I had a nice hot pan of cornbread to go with my soup. Let it rain, let it pour.

Cornbread:
Yields 1 8" square pan (9-16 pieces)

1 cup all purpose flour
1 cup cornmeal
1/4 cup sugar
4 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup milk
1/4 cup oil
1 egg, slightly beaten

Heat oven to 425F. Grease an 8 or 9-inch square baking pan. In a medium bowl, combine flour, cornmeal, sugar, baking powder and salt. Stir in remaining ingredients, beating by hand just until combined. Pour batter into pan and bake for 18-22 minutes or until toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

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Operation Bakery Clone: Paper Wrapped Cake

"Paper wrapped cake" is kind of a boring name for a simple, but decidedly unboring cake. The term is a literal translation of the Chinese name for this treat. I have been looking everywhere for this recipe for years with no luck. I knew it was some sort of chiffon cake, but no recipe I tried bore any resemblance to the real deal. It is mildly sweet and eggily perfumed, baked into tall cupcakes in parchment paper wraps. The sponge is made of very fine, springy bubbles, rather than the larger, "crumbier" ones produced by Western chiffon cake recipes.

I am happy to report that I finally found a recipe that produces a cake with a flavour and texture that comes very close to the original counterparts. It only requires five (main) ingredients, but for that reason, try to use the best quality butter and eggs you can find because you can really taste them in the final product.

The finished products didn't look quite like their commercial cousins because I don't have those tall baking tins. They also do sink down a bit as they cool because there are no artificial stabilizers in them. You could try baking these in ovenproof mugs to get the right height. Either way, they taste heavenly.

Paper Wrapped Cake:

60g flour (self rising, if you've got it)
15g cornstarch
90g sugar
5 eggs, separated and at room temperature
Pinch of cream of tartar
60g butter, melted

1. Preheat oven to 400F. Line baking molds with squares of parchment paper (press down in the middle and crease the wrinkles so the cups stay in the molds. They will pop up a little, but the batter will weight them down later).
2. Sift flour and cornstarch together.
3. In a separate bowl, beat egg yolks with 30g sugar until fluffy and lemony coloured. Beat in melted butter. Sift in flour mixture and beat just until smooth.
4. In another bowl, whip egg whites with a pinch of cream of tartar. When you can see trails from your beaters, beat in the remaining 60g sugar. Whip to firm peaks.
5. Stir in a spatula-full of egg whites into the yolk mixture. Gently fold in the rest of the whites.
6. Pour the batter into prepared molds, about 2/3 full.
7. Bake at 400F for 5 minutes, then lower the oven temperature to 350F and bake for another 15 minutes, or until golden brown.

Makes 15 muffin-sized cakes (less if you use a tall mold)

Recipe adapted from ucanmake.com
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When life hands you lemons...make Lemon Squares

Mmm...lemon squares. Sweet and tart, crunchy and creamy. And, with the exception of possible moments of doubt here and there, they are perfectly simple to make.

I hadn't made lemon squares in a while, and had forgotten that it takes a little faith to believe that the recipe will work itself out. (Isn't that always the case with baking? I hold my breath every time I deposit a pan of bland, oozing batter in the oven and am always amazed when it is replaced with something delicious when it emerges again...) The mixture for the topping is very runny before it is baked, and you get the impression that all that liquid is just going to make the shortbread crust unappealingly soggy. Transferring the lemon mixture from bowl to pan will also reveal a rather gooey sludge of undissolved sugar at the bottom. Don't worry, all will end deliciously. Just put it all in the oven. In 30 minutes, the lemon curd will emerge perfectly set over a crisp brown base. Success! You think you're finished. The worst is over. And then...

...you need to slice them. This is an operation that could end badly (messy edges, crumbling crust, lemon topping spilling over the sides). It will still be delicious, but if you'd like to avoid emotional trauma, here are some tips...

How to slice lemon square bars:

-Cool the bars completely so that the topping will gel and set. Park them in the freezer until they are very cold and firm (about 30 minutes).

-Remove the slab from the pan before cutting. Line the pan with parchment before baking so that it's easier to remove the bars.

-Dust the tops of the bars with powdered sugar before cutting them (so that the sugar doesn't stick to the sides of the cut bars)

-Take a sharp chef's knife and dip it in a pitcher of hot water. Slice the bars in a straight up and down cut (not sawing) with the wet knife. Wipe the knife clean and dip in hot water between cuts.

This recipe uses melted butter in the crust rather than cutting in cold butter. This makes a firmer, crunchier crust that will stay in one piece when sliced.

Lemon Squares:

Crust:
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup confectioner's sugar
1 cup butter, softened and starting to melt
Zest of 1 lemon
1/4 teaspoon salt

Filling:
1 1/2 cups white sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 cup all purpose flour
2/3 cup lemon juice
Zest of 1 lemon
Pinch of salt
4 eggs

1. Preheat oven to 350F. Grease a 9 x 13 inch baking pan and line with parchment paper (allow some to extend over the edges for easy bar removal).

2. In a bowl, whisk together flour, confectioner's sugar, salt, and zest. Stir in melted butter until combined and moist crumbs form. Press into the bottom of prepared pan.

3. Bake crust in oven for 15 minutes, or until edges brown.

4. In a clean bowl, whisk together sugar, baking powder, flour, and salt. In a separate bowl, combine eggs, lemon juice, and zest. Whisk until eggs are beaten, but not very foamy (the topping should be dense, not mousse-y). Stir in sugar mixture and pour over prepared crust.

5. Bake 30 minutes until the filling is set and the edges are lightly brown. Cool completely before unmolding and cutting into bars.

Makes 32 bars.

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Oddball of the Cookie World: Potato Chip Cookies

Sweet and salty is a combination that seems strange, but strangely works. And it isn't like serving a steak with a scoop of ice cream. Some popular permutations of the sweet and salty pairing come in the form of:

Kettle corn

Trail mix

Chocolate-dipped pretzels

Peanut butter and jam sandwiches

Breakfast! (Pancakes with maple syrup, bacon, and sausages)

I guess the magic comes from the contrast. The salt makes the sweet sweeter and the sweet makes the salt saltier. Even chocolate chip cookies rely on a little salt to bring out flavours.

A couple of years ago, I heard about a company called Immaculate Baking Co. One product they make is the potato chip cookie. I was intrigued by this savoury sweet shortbread and have been looking for a box for quite a while. Perhaps potato chip cookies are a bit too adventurous for many consumers, as the company has stopped making them. I still really wanted to see what they tasted like, so I decided to try and make some.

I used a simple shortbread recipe and added some finely crushed salted potato chips. I used a thick cut chip so that the crumbs wouldn't get soggy. It was a surprising success. The cookie tastes buttery with a hint of salt, and not at all like potato. What the chips do create is a pleasantly crunchy, sandy texture. I imagine this is a great way to use up the bits at the bottom of the bag... although I wouldn't use all-dressed or barbeque flavoured chips...

Potato Chip Cookies:

1 cup unsalted butter (softened)

1/2 cup sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

3/4 cup finely crushed potato chips

2 cups all-purpose flour, sifted

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

In a large bowl, cream together the butter, sugar, and vanilla. Add the potato chips and stir well. Add the flour and stir to combine.

Form the mixture into small balls, about 1 tablespoon each, and place on an ungreased baking sheet.

Flatten the cookies on the baking sheet with the bottom of a drinking glass. Bake the cookies until light golden brown, 14 to 16 minutes.

Using a spatula, transfer the cookies to a wire rack to cool. (The cookies will keep in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 3 days.)

Makes 3 1/2 dozen

Adapted from Emeril Lagasse-Quick and Easy

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Operation Bakery Clone: Pineapple Buns

I'm a fan of Chinese bakeries. Not surprisingly, the cakes and breads they make are distinctly different from those found in Western bakeries. The cakes are almost always built on chiffon sponges and iced with whipped cream. The sponge is unlike any other that I have had elsewhere. It is very finely textured, mildly sweet, and perfumed with an aroma that can only be described as "eggy" (in a good way). The buns, with both savory and sweet fillings, are also sweet, extremely soft, and shiny golden brown. Delicious.

For me, part of the intrigue is that authentic recipes are difficult to find (especially in English). I wanted to see if I could make my own versions of some of my favourites at home. It may be impossible to duplicate some of the recipes since I won't use commercial softeners and stabilizers, but who wants to eat that stuff anyways?

After a couple of years of sporadic searching, I finally came across a recipe for pineapple buns that seemed promising. Pineapple buns are plain sweet buns topped with a cracked cookie-like crust. They don't actually have any pineapple in them; they are named for the appearance of the topping. I wasn't aware of that before and had tried a recipe that called for crushed pineapple. Needless to say, it didn't quite work out.

This recipe is a bit more complicated than the usual bread recipe. The dough is very sticky and soft and the kneading instructions called for some stress-relieving throwing "with all your might on the work surface." The dough requires three rises, and the topping is made separately like pie dough. Of course, it would take less than a quarter of the time to go and just buy some, but the work was completely worth it. They baked up just like store bought, but without any sketchy additives. The sticky, almost runny dough yielded a very light bread, and the topping cracked to cobblestone-y perfection in the oven. And I had never had a pineapple bun warm from the oven before. It was bread nirvana.

I would love to share the recipe but I cannot post it. Send an email to beetsandbites@gmail.com and I will send it to you.

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Honey Whole Wheat Bread

I want a sandwich... and as delicious as that bread was, a BLT on brown sugar raisin bread just won't fly. Which is why it's time to make some good whole wheat bread.

The old recipe I used to use called for the dough to be shaped into a round and baked on a baking sheet. The resulting loaf was dense (or I guess you could call it "rustic") and it was awkward to slice and fit into a toaster. So off I went to find a new recipe.

When there seems to be a thousand recipes floating around out there for the same thing, I often turn to allrecipes.com. Plugging in "whole wheat bread" into their search yielded 83 recipes. This 5-star "Simple Whole Wheat Bread" was rated 414 times. I had to try it, of course.

The results are a big improvement over the old doorstop of a loaf I used to make. Brushing the top with melted butter before and after baking creates a pillow-soft crust, rather than the crisp shiny one an egg wash creates. The bread smelled like warm honey and butter when it came out of the oven and had a mildly sweet flavour. Delish. I added some sunflower seeds to it, but I like my bread "seedier" so there's room for improvement next time. I'd probably also let it rise longer for a lighter texture. But for now, please excuse me. My ham and swiss on whole wheat is calling.

Simple Whole Wheat Bread

Yield: 3 loaves

INGREDIENTS

• 3 cups warm water (110 degrees F/45 degrees C)
• 2 (.25 ounce) packages active dry yeast
• 1/3 cup honey
• 5 cups bread flour
• 3 tablespoons butter, melted
• 1/3 cup honey
• 1 tablespoon salt
• 3 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
• 2 tablespoons butter, melted

DIRECTIONS

1. In a large bowl, mix warm water, yeast, and 1/3 cup honey. Add 5 cups white bread flour, and stir to combine. Let set for 30 minutes, or until big and bubbly.
2. Mix in 3 tablespoons melted butter, 1/3 cup honey, and salt. Stir in 2 cups whole wheat flour. Flour a flat surface and knead with whole wheat flour until not real sticky - just pulling away from the counter, but still sticky to touch. This may take an additional 2 to 4 cups of whole wheat flour. Place in a greased bowl, turning once to coat the surface of the dough. Cover with a dishtowel. Let rise in a warm place until doubled.
3. Punch down, and divide into 3 loaves. Place in greased 9 x 5 inch loaf pans, and allow to rise until dough has topped the pans by one inch.
4. Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for 25 to 30 minutes; do not overbake. Lightly brush the tops of loaves with 2 tablespoons melted butter or margarine when done to prevent crust from getting hard. Cool completely.

Recipe from allrecipes.com (Nita Crabb)

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The Breakfast Club: Cinnamon Raisin Bread

I was in a bread baking mood today so I decided to make this loaf of cinnamon-swirled goodness. It's a cross between raisin bread and cinnamon buns. The dough is leaner than a typical sweet dough recipe because it uses less butter and sugar, which I like because it makes eating one or two thick slices of this for breakfast a little more sensible. It's absolutely divine toasted and buttered up, or even better, spread with some cream cheese.

I kneaded the dough by hand since I'm not prepared to fry the motor of the electric mixer. It takes about 15 minutes to work in enough flour to develop the gluten in the dough. You can tell you're done kneading with the "windowpane test": take a small piece of dough and stretch it out. If you can stretch it into a thin, translucent "window" without the dough tearing, you're good to go. 15 minutes of kneading is a lengthy arm workout, but it's totally worth it.

The recipe makes two BIG loaves, but I made cinnamon buns with half of the dough. Those were consumed straight out of the oven. Unfortunately, no physical or photographic evidence remains.

Brown Sugar Raisin Bread:

Ingredients:

1 Tbs. active dry yeast

3 Tbs. granulated sugar

1 1/4 cups warm water (105° to 115°F)

1 cup warm milk (105° to 115°F)

3 Tbs. unsalted butter, melted

1 Tbs. salt

1 egg, lightly beaten

6 to 6 1/4 cups bread flour, plus more
as needed

3/4 cup golden raisins

3/4 cup dark raisins

For the filling:

2/3 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
mixed with 4 1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon

Directions:

In a bowl, sprinkle the yeast and a pinch of the granulated sugar over 1⁄2 cup of the water and stir to dissolve. Let stand until foamy, about 10 minutes.

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the flat beater, combine the remaining 3/4 cup water, the milk, butter, the remaining granulated sugar, salt, egg and 2 cups of the flour. Beat on medium speed until creamy, about 1 minute. Add the yeast mixture and 1⁄2 cup of the flour and beat for 1 minute. Add the raisins, then beat in the remaining flour, 1⁄2 cup at a time, until the dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl.

Switch to the dough hook. Knead on medium-low speed, adding flour 1 Tbs. at a time if the dough sticks, until smooth and elastic, about 4 minutes. Transfer the dough to a greased deep bowl and turn to coat it. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rise at room temperature until doubled in bulk, 1 to 1 1⁄2 hours.

Lightly grease two 9-by-5-inch loaf pans.

Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured board. Divide the dough in half and roll or pat each half into an 8-by-12-inch rectangle. Lightly sprinkle each rectangle with half of the filling, leaving a 1-inch border on all sides. Beginning at a narrow end, tightly roll up each rectangle into a compact log. Pinch the ends and the long seam to seal in the filling. Place each log, seam side down, in a prepared pan. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rise at room temperature until the dough is about 1 inch above the rim of each pan, 1 to 1 1⁄2 hours.

Preheat an oven to 350°F. Bake until the loaves are golden brown and pull away from the sides of the pan, 35 to 40 minutes. Turn the loaves out onto wire racks and let cool completely. Makes two 9-by-5-inch loaves.

Adapted from Williams Sonoma-Bread

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The recipe that started it all... The Best Chocolate Chip Cookies

At the risk of sounding dramatic, this is THE recipe that sparked my interest in cooking, baking, and all things food. I was bored and hungry one summer day many years ago and found this recipe on the back of a bag of chocolate chips. These chocolate chip cookies are simple to make and simply amazing.

I am all for using butter in baking. The flavour cannot be beat. However, I am a fan of chewy chocolate chip cookies. Butter tends to make the dough spread and creates a crispier cookie. This particular cookie recipe uses shortening. It melts more slowly in the oven, allowing the cookie to set a little puffier. While there are probably thousands of recipes for chocolate chip cookies, this one has yet to fail me. To boost flavour, I used half butter and half butter-flavoured shortening today, so the cookies came out a little flatter than usual. I also threw in some Skor toffee bits along with the chocolate chips. Yum.

Original Chipits Cookies

Cream together 1 cup Golden Flavour Crisco Shortening, 1 cup firmly packed brown sugar and 1/2 cup granulated sugar. Beat in 2 eggs and 2 teaspoons vanilla.

Combine 2 cups all-purpose flour, 1 teaspoon baking soda, and 1 teaspoon salt. Gradually blend into creamed mixture.

Stir in 300 g chocolate chips and 1 cup of chopped nuts (optional). Drop small spoonfuls on an ungreased cookie sheet. Bake at 375F for 10 to 12 minutes.

Makes 6 dozen cookies.

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