Thursday, December 15, 2011

Holiday Baking - Round 1

This year we decided that for Christmas we're only doing gift shopping for our family, and that for everyone else whom we normally get gifts (friends, co-workers, group members, etc) that we would give them baked goods.

My first round in the kitchen was Sunday, baking treats for co-workers (both mine and my husband's) and my writer's group. I picked 5 recipes to work with, all of them from The Joy of Vegan Baking. The first thing I did was write down the ingredients I needed for each recipe in an excel table, listing by gram (for solids) or ML (for liquids), and create a formula to multiply the number of recipe batches I was making of each (3 of one, 1 recipe worth of another, and 2 batches of the rest). I made my shopping list from there, then hit the grocery store.

I read through the recipes, and came up with a baking order, and planed to do some of the baking on Sunday, and some on Monday, as both holiday parties I was attending were on Tuesday. I ended up making everything in a massive baking session that lasted through 4 movies which I put on in the background [ Ever After, Ella Enchanted, High School Musical and Mulan if anyone is interested- all movies I had seen before, so great choices for background noise, but little attention required].

I started off with some prep work. I toasted the pecans I needed for the recipes, as well as zesting an orange and lemon, and juicing the orange. With these ingredients prepped, and all the remaining ingredients for all the recipes brought out to the counter where I could access them quickly, I set to work.

I made a triple batch of Pumpkin Spice Bread first, each batch making 4 mini-loafs. In retrospect, I should have either made three separate batches, or made a double batch followed by a single batch. It was a bear to mix the ingredients (ended up splitting them between my largest mixing bowl, and the bowl from my stand mixer), and 3 batches made 12 mini-loafs, which I put in the oven all at once. This probably slowed the heating, as the two cookie sheets the loafs were on took up the entire space on the shelf. Ah, hindsight. The loafs are for immediate co-workers, my massage therapist, and two neighbors.

While the mini-loafs were cooking, I cleaned up, and started making the batter for a loaf of the Cranberry Nut Bread. I made this recipe 2 times over the Thanksgiving season, so I felt pretty confident with it. The mini loafs came out of the oven, and the single large loaf went in. This bread is my contribution to the holiday snacks at our writer's group workshop/holiday party.

While the bread was in the oven, I started making a double batch of Caramelized Pecans AKA Pralines. I almost mis-measured the butter for this recipe, forgetting to double it like I had the rest of the ingredients. Actually, I worried about this a lot when baking, since I was making double or triple sized batches of most things. Note to future self: either make the batches separately, or copy the recipe with the doubled measurements to work from. I managed to scoop the pralines out onto the buttered wax paper just before the bread had to come out of the oven, so my timing was pretty good in this case. The only problem was the mix was sticking to the pot, but when I was scooping it out, it was too runny. Instead of discrete praline pieces, I have two sheets of pralines that I need to navigated. These were originally intended to go to extended co-workers, though they may end up being a holiday party food, if I can't make pretty / even pieces.

Next up were Chocolate Mint Chocolate Chip cookies, double batch. Another old favorite of mine from the cookbook, so again, I wasn't too worried about the execution of the recipe. I used the ½ TBSP measuring spoon to make even sizes, and kept the cookies small. The cooking time on these was low (10-11 minutes), and I ended up falling behind and the first tray was out of the oven before the second tray was ready to go in. Same for the third and forth trays. These cookies came out well, and pretty even in size. Any note I would have would be to get a better spoon (easier to get the dough out of), or find another way to get uniform size that is quicker (perhaps roll and chill the dough to enable slicing?). These cookies are for everyone - immediate and extended co-workers, writer's group members, neighbors and my MT.

Last up was a double batch of Mexican Wedding Cookies. I ended up having to grind the pecans for this recipe, as I forgot to prepare these in advance. I used my food processor rather than the manual nut grinder, though, so this step went pretty quickly. My stand mixer was finally called to use in making the dough for these cookies, and I used the same measuring spoon to scoop out balls of dough for the tray. Baking time on these was 30 minutes, so I managed to complete the second tray worth by the time the first batch finished baking, but only just. Again, a different spoon may be the answer, here. Once the second batch went in the oven, I rolled the first batch (still warm) in powdered sugar, and finished clean up while the  second batch cooked. These cookies are also for everyone on our list.

After the marathon day of baking, the only thing I have left to do tonight is to separate the cookies (and possibly Pralines) into some of the decorative holiday bags and boxes, and maybe put bows on the mini-loafs, which are in holiday tins that came with their own lids. Then a small break, evaluating recipes, and next week I start again, making treats for our friends.

New tools/ ingredients: Pumpkin Puree; my own candy thermometer (yay)
Recipes used: Cranberry Nut Bread - pg 61; Pumpkin Spice Bread - pg 65; Chocolate Chip Mint Cookies - pg 112 ; Mexican Wedding Cookies - pg 14 ; Caramelized Pecans (Pralines) - pg 197 ; all from The Joy of Vegan Baking
Co-bakers:  solo mission
Date: Dec. 12, 2011

Thursday, October 27, 2011

Daring Baker October 2011: Povitica

The Daring Baker’s October 2011 challenge was Povitica, hosted by Jenni of The Gingered Whisk. Povitica is a traditional Eastern European Dessert Bread that is as lovely to look at as it is to eat!

I adapted the recipe that Jenni provided, opting to work with the quarter batch (single loaf) recipe due to time constraints. I measured out all the dry ingredients the night before, mixing the ones I could (for instance the sugar, flour and yeast), and set the aside. The goal was to come home, make the dough as quickly as I could, and let it have the full hour and half to rise before Allyson came over.

Since the filling we were working with was walnut based, I opted to go with flax seeds/ water to replace the egg in the dough and filling.  I also reduced the amount of salt in the recipe as the Earth Balance non-dairy butter I use is salted, and the recipe calls for unsalted.

While the yeast activated, I scalded the soy milk. I'm not certain that this was a necessary step with non-dairy milk, but since I don't have a lot of experience with bread, I figured it couldn't hurt.

Top, clockwise: melted butter, salt / sugar mix,
yeast/ flour/ sugar/ water - active, flax seed/water mix.
I mixed the rest of the ingredients for the dough into the milk, adding the flour by increments until the dough was cohesive enough to pull from the bowl. I ended up adding a lot more of the flour as I kneeded the dough, but eventually got it to the point it was a soft ball.


Dough ingredients and first batch of flour.
More flour made it thicker, like a soup.
Getting better - the dough is pulling away from the bowl.
Final result - smooth dough ball, kneeded and soft.

I placed the dough in an oiled bowl, with plastic wrap and then a towel over it, and put the whole thing in my oven and waited for Allyson to come over. My timing was off, however, and once she came over, we ended up waiting another half hour, then starting the filling before the dough was done rising.



Mixed with milk and butter.
Dry ingredients for filling.


The filling, a mix of walnuts, sugar, cinnamon, cocoa, soy milk, butter, flax seed / water mixture (to replace the egg), and vanilla. The end product reminded me a bit of granola, though it smelled like a very yummy oatmeal breakfast.




Using the PVC pipe we purchased to roll out the phyllo dough for the challenge a few months back, we rolled out the dough. Once it was large enough, we pulled it over our hands to make it thin. This went faster / was easier because there were two of us. Also, the Povitica dough had less elasticity than the croissant dough, and kept it's stretched-out shape more easily.


Stretching the dough. More stretching. Four hands are better than two.



We covered the dough with melted butter, then spooned on the filling, and rolled the dough over it. The result was reminiscent of a very lumpy burrito. We looped the dough into a greased bread pan, tucking the sides in, buttered the top (I don't like coffee, and so omitted it from the recipe) and set it in the oven to bake.


Filling spread on the dough.
Rolled, and coiled in the pan.

The house smelled divine after half an hour, and when an hour was up (15 minutes at 350F, and 45 minutes at 300F), the bread looked pretty good too.


Finished Povitica.
We decided to share our bounty with friends on Friday, and since we only have one loaf, I haven't taste-tested it yet. I'll report back as to how it came out, but I'm excited by this recipe, and see great potential for it for breakfast bread.

New tools/ ingredients:  none
Recipes used:  from Daring Baker Challenge
Co-bakers:  Allyson
Date: Oct 25 and 26, 2011

Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Daring Baker September 2011: Croissants

The Daring Bakers go retro this month! Thanks to one of our very talented non-blogging members, Sarah, the Daring Bakers were challenged to make Croissants using a recipe from the Queen of French Cooking, none other than Julia Child!

This is our second go at making Croissants, the first was in June 1 using the recipe in The Vegan Boulangerie (which I am embarrassed to realize I never posted about.) One of our issues with the results of that experiment was that the pastry ended up being very dense, and not fluffy at all. Allyson, Lila and I discussed trying the recipe again, using the yeasted pastry dough in the same cookbook - then this challenge came up. The recipe provided us was a yeast based pastry, and with a few substitutions (Earth Balance for butter, soy milk for milk and the egg-wash), we were on our way.

Our biggest challenge this month was scheduling - the recipe calls for many periods of different length to let the dough rise. We ended up deciding that I would start the dough on Friday night, and take it to the first "or overnight" resting period, and that we'd pick back up on Saturday morning.

Making the dough was relatively simple, and the biggest concern was getting my counter top clean enough to knead and roll the dough on, as I do not have a cutting board large enough. Once the dough was made, and briefly kneaded, I left it to rise. One variable in the dough is that though the recipe called for a 3 hour rise (or tripled in size), I was out of the house, and did not return to complete the next step for 5 hours. Other than that, we followed the recipe pretty much exactly.

Letting the yeast mixture proof.

Salt and sugar into tepid soy milk.

Yeast mixture and milk mixture added to  the flour.

I floured my counter top as a workspace.

Pastry dough.


Kneaded dough before rising...... and five hours later.

One thing we noticed on our first croissant making attempt was that we continually had stop rolling and folding the dough to put it in the fridge to chill. Our task was aided this time by a hollow rolling pin my mom found for me - filled with ice and water, our rolling pin was chilled and help keep the dough cold as we worked with it.

Nifty hollow rolling pin - fill with ice and water to keep dough cool.

We ran into a few snags, where the dough tore, or stuck to the pin or the counter, and once or twice the butter that was folded in broke through, but we had better luck with the overall consistency of this dough.

One thing we learned following this recipe, that was unclear from our first attempt, was the rotation of the dough between folding and rolling steps. Not worrying about getting the length needed from the dough by rolling it the same direction each time helped a lot. We still had a problem with elasticity of the dough on the last step, and when we cut our rectangles into squares, then triangles, we found our squares contracted, and were never quite square. This resulted in oddly shaped triangles that we subsequently rolled to make the croissants.

The recipe calls for a lot of folding of the dough.

Fattened stick of butter laid out on the dough.

Rolling the dough and butter mix.

An hour to rise in shape, and then 13 minutes to bake, and my house smelled delicious.

Croissants!Allowed to rise for 1 hour before baking.

The croissants were flaky and fluffy, though a few still had a dense center, it was no where near as bad as our first attempt with the pastry. My husband, faithful taste-tester noted that they were a little bitter/ salt. I realized the original recipe called for ½ cup unsalted butter, and I used Earth Balance which, a quick check confirmed, is salted. If I were to make this recipe again, I would certainly reduce the amount of salt added to the dough.

The finished product.

I was excited to see the challenge this month, and happy that our results came out so much better than our first attempt at this recipe. Overall, I had a good time, and look forward to making other pastries in the future.

New tools/ ingredients:  Hollow Rolling Pin
Recipes used:  from Daring Baker Challenge
Co-bakers:  Allyson
Date: Sept 24 and 25, 2011

Saturday, August 27, 2011

Daring Baker August 2011: Chocolate and Candy

The August 2011 Daring Bakers’ Challenge was hosted by Lisa of Parsley, Sage, Desserts and Line Drive and Mandy of What the Fruitcake?!. These two sugar mavens challenged us to make sinfully delicious candies! This was a special challenge for the Daring Bakers because the good folks at http://www.chocoley.com offered an amazing prize for the winner of the most creative and delicious candy!

The challenge this month required us to make two candies - one of the following chocolate candies:
  1. A truffle, dipped or not dipped in chocolate OR
  2. A cut (square) dipped chocolate/bonbon OR
  3. A filled chocolate/bonbon using a chocolate mold

and a second candy (chocolate or not) of our choice.

We were also provided information on how to temper chocolate, so that any dipped candy came out with a nice shiny finish. Unfortunately we did not have the right thermometer (I learned that a candy thermometer and a chocolate thermometer are two different things) to determine the temperature during the tempering process, so we opted for non-dipped truffles.

Rolled Truffles

We used Lindt dark chocolate, (and two semi-sweet bakers chocolate squares added to get to the right weight), and Silk creamer to make the truffles. Lila and I shaved the chocolate using Allyson's Mandoline slicer, while Allyson heated the creamer. The chocolate melted pretty quickly in the hot liquid, and we stirred it until we got a consistent color.

The makings of the ganache. The Mandoline was handy
to shred the chocolate into smaller pieces.

Chocolate flakes into the near boiling creamer.
The chocolate and creamer - turning colors
- when it was a consistent color, it was done.
The recipe we were working with (provided with the DB challenge) said to let the chocolate sit until it was room temperature, or refrigerate it if we were dipping it in chocolate. Because we did not have gloves to keep our body heat from the chocolate, we decide to refrigerate it. We spread the chocolate out over a plate and left half in the pan, to provide more surface area for it to cool.
Spreading the chocolate ganache
on a plate to let it cool faster.
It was pretty easy to determine when the chocolate ganache was at the right consistency to roll, though we learned quickly that the body heat does play a role. Allyson's hands were too warm to roll the chocolate, so we set her to preparing the toppings to roll the finished truffles. Lila had the coolest hands, and the easiest time rolling the little balls of chocolate.

Naked truffles - and one with coconut.

We prepared a variety of toppings - toasted almonds, toasted cashews, dry flaked coconut, cocoa powder and matcha (green tea) powder. We found the toppings stuck more easily if we warmed the truffle in our hands first, making the chocolate sticky.

Toppings for the truffles.Cocoa powder,
ground toasted cashews, dried coconut flakes,
and ground toasted almonds.
We added Matcha, as well.
Finished Truffles - various toppings.
These candies were surprisingly easy, and the dark chocolate gave them a distinctive flavor. I realized after the fact that we should have probably used mini-muffin pan liners to place the individual chocolates in, to keep them from rolling into each other. Also, I look forward to working with a vegan milk - chocolate (even if we have to make an approximation ourselves) - the dark chocolate is a little bitter to me, and I'd love to get a milder flavor by working with the chocolate to see what we can do. (Though a quick Internet search tells me that Terra Nostra makes Ricemilk choco bars - I'll have to experiment with these...)

Turkish Delight

Water, sugar and lemon juice make
the first mixture for Turkish Delight.
The mix simmers until it reaches 240
on the candy thermometer,
or "Soft Ball"
The mix comes out clear.
For our second candy, we opted to make Turkish Delight, using a recipe we found at vegan-food.net. In preparation to make this candy, I had to call around town to find rosewater. Our local kitchen specialty store was out, and our two local supermarkets didn't carry it. Luckily I found it at Mother Earth market, though when I got there I was honestly surprised to find that it was shelved in the beauty products aisle. The clerk assured me it was food safe, and I was amused that the packaging suggested uses for it as a perfume, added to hair rinse, and a few other beauty uses, "or a gourmet flavoring."

Allyson provided the candy thermometer we used. The recipe is looks deceptively simple. I say this because the amount of stirring required by the recipe is tortuous. I would definitely recommend either working with someone who can switch out the stirring duties, or finding a way to automate the stirring
(I am pondering if there is anyway I can get my stand mixer close enough to the stove to let it do the "heavy lifting" on this recipe.

Once we tasted the end results, we discovered that we didn't do enough stirring - or that the heat we used to simmer was too low, or a combination thereof. We ended up with slightly lumpy Turkish delight, but the rosewater flavor was very refreshing, despite the odd consistency.

We let the delight sit overnight in the refrigerator, and used an oiled knife to slice it. This made the candy easy to cut - the entire thing was sticky. And while the recipe didn't call for food coloring, we added two drops of red food coloring gel to get a nice (well, flesh colored) pink.

The last step was to coat the candy in confectioners sugar - but the delight was too sticky, I think, because after a day the sugar had dissolved in the goo of the candy. We have taken to shaking each individual piece in a bag of confectioners sugar before we eat it. I would love to work with this recipe again to try different flavors, to try drying out the candy before coating it to prevent the confectioners sugar from dissolving, and to try to get those darn lumps out.




Cream of tartar, cornstarch and water
is the second half
of the mix. It starts liquidy.
When we first added the sugar water mix
we thought it wasn't going to blend well.
The second mixture simmered and stirred,
is done when it is the consistency of glue.
An hour of simmering later, it all came together.A few drops of red food coloring added in at the same time
as the rosewater to get a nice pink.



Into a pan with greased wax paper to cool overnight.Turkish delight out of the pan and onto
a cutting board with powdered sugar on it.


Slicing the Turkish Delight. A sticky mess.Individual pieces into a mix of powdered sugar and cornstarch.


Finished Turkish Delight.

Overall, this was a fun challenge, and has whetted our appetite to try making our own candy.

New tools/ ingredients: rosewater, candy thermometer, mandoline slicer, soy creamer
Recipes used: Truffles from Daring Baker Challenge, modified; Turkish Delight Recipe 2 from vegan-food.net
Co-bakers: Allyson, Lila
Date: August 23 and 24, 2011

Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Daring Baker July 2011: Fresh Fraisier

Jana of Cherry Tea Cakes was our July Daring Bakers' host and she challenges us to make Fresh Frasiers inspired by recipes written by Elizabeth M. Prueitt and Chad Robertson in the beautiful cookbook Tartine.

I handled this challenge solo, due to time constraints (read putting off actually baking this month). The host was kind to provide links to a vegan pastry cream recipe (which I used) and a vegan sponge cake recipe - this was also a gluten-free recipe, however, and I did not have nearly enough variety in flour on-hand that this recipe called for, so I instead went with a simpler recipe that called for self-rising flour, which I did have on hand.



Batter into the pans
Two sponge cakes

Rather than making one cake and cutting it in half, I made two cakes in 8" cake pans. While those cooled, I made the pastry cream. I was surprised at how thick it became. The first few minutes of stirring I thought that it would never hold up, but after about 5 minutes over heat, the mixture began to thicken nicely.



Pastry cream - thickening nicely.

The pastry cream went in the refrigerator, and I set to slicing the fruit I was going to use, and lining a spring-form cake pan with cling wrap. Getting it to go only around the side was trickier than I would have thought, but I managed. This was just one of the moments I wished I had a second (or third) set of hands to help. Also, because there were 5 parts to this month's challenge (the cake, the pastry cream, the simple syrup, the fresh fruit, and the marzipan topping) I'm sure a lot of time could have been saved overall if we could have made some of these at the same time.

I sliced strawberries and washed blue-berries. I had a second lemon that I didn't need for the zest / juice called for in the pastry cream, so I sliced off the rinds, and cut them into half-circle slices.

One cake went in the bottom of the spring form pan, and as I coated it with the syrup I was dismayed to see how much space there was between the cake and the edges of the pan (and the cling wrap). I pressed on, layering fruit against the cling wrap strawberry - blueberries - strawberry - lemon; repeat. Next the came the pasty cream. It was a bit too thick for piping, and the parchment paper piping bag I had made came apart, I ended up spooning the cream in place, then adding the layer of strawberries and blueberries to the middle, and covering them with most of the remainder of the cream.


1st layer is cake - a large gap around the edge :-|


Pressing on with fresh fruit. Yum.
Cream and more fruit for the middle.

The next layer was the other cake, and once it was in place, I could still see the fruit around the edges, sticking out from the sides. I pressed on. Syrup on the cake, then the remainder of the cream. I colored the marzipan pink as the main color in the sides will be strawberries. I rolled it out, and managed to transfer it onto the top using a few tricks I picked up in my cake decorating class working with fondant. Not perfect, but better than I could have managed a few weeks ago.


Another cake, and some cream as adhesive.
Pink Marzipan. Not quite circular, but close.
Marzipan on the top.

I trimmed the edge of the marzipan, and placed my Fraisier in the refrigerator. I have not had a chance yet to share it with my friends, and I am afraid that somehow the vegan pastry cream, or the mis-match of fruit I used, or the space between the cake and the cling wrap will make my dessert fall to pieces, so I don't want to remove the side until we are going to eat it, tomorrow. I'll post pictures of the finished sides (hopefully not as bad as I fear) once we eat them.

I am looking forward to seeing how this tastes as well.