Change of Address

My blog has changed addresses.  Please visit at http://www.fromscratchkitchen.blogspot.com/.

Brown Butter

This is a pretty regular looking cake.  And in a lot of ways it is.  But I have two words for you: Brown Butter.

If you haven't yet experienced the wonder of brown butter I suggest you step away from your computer screen and go immediately to your stove.  Put a stick or two of butter over medium heat and watch it melt.  Keep it there until the milk solids have separated and turned golden.  Strain.  And enjoy the resulting rich nuttiness.

I made said brown butter, let it harden a little, and used it instead of regular butter for this icing.  With the help of some confectioner's sugar, vanilla, and sea salt this icing is absolutely to die for.

The cake, on the other hand, was disappointing.  The recipe is from the Women's Day Encyclopedia of Cookery.  This is a great collection that my aunt put together for me.  It is an alphabetical listing of recipes by genre.  This recipe, in the cake section, is accompanied by many other different types of cakes recipes.  I swear I used this recipe and it was delicious.  But lately it hasn't been turning out right.  I have a theory that it doesn't have enough fat. I'm going to adapt the recipe, and will report back.

The real moral of the story is to use your own chocolate cake recipe, that you know and love.  Top it with icing made from your brown butter.  You will not regret it.

The Brilliance of Coconut

I recently revisited the coconut cake I first wrote about this past July.  I loved the cake.  It is light, tender, and has a lot of coconut flavor.  The fat in the cake is coconut milk.  No butter, no oil, just coconut milk.

This icing on the previous cake was too sweet for me, and too close to marshmallow.  I wanted to try making the icing with coconut oil, some cream cheese, and powdered sugar to really bring home the coconut flavor.  We didn't have any coconut oil though, so I stuck with a more traditional cream cheese icing, adding plenty of shredded coconut.

I liked this cake and icing better than the one the Saveur recipe suggests.  It is less sweet, slightly more subtle, and the coconut shines more.  I was really wishing I had coconut flakes instead of shreds, aesthetically the flakes are airier and smoother.

But if you love coconut this is a definite winner.  It's even won-over some disbelievers in the tastiness of coconut.

Mincemeat Pie

In preparation for spring we're cleaning our cupboards and freezer of all our winter stockpiles.  Mostly this means our homemade turkey broth from Thanksgiving's turkey and pumpkin from Halloween, all piled up in our freezer.  There was one, more exciting item to get off the shelves, dad's mincemeat leftover from Christmas.

Last night we made an orange cinnamon pastry to encase the mince meat.  I had never thought of flavoring a pie crust.  I recently saw it while perusing some recipes, and thought orange and cinnamon would complement the mincemeat. The combination was exceptional.

This is not a crust that can be left uneaten. 

Loving the Sablés...Still

My newest sablé flavor of choice is vanilla.  

I used my favorite sablé recipe as a starting off point (still Amanda Hesser's lemon sables).  I cut out the lemon, and instead added vanilla bean and Nielsen-Massey vanilla extract.  The leftover vanilla pod I stuck in about a cup of sugar.  The resulting vanilla sugar coated the outside of the sablés for an extra punch of vanilla.  

They have the same delightful sandy texture of the lemon, and the sweet intrigue of pure vanilla.  All around an excellent cookie. 

Lucious Lemon

Spring is coming, and I have been craving lighter desserts.   This cake is a variation on the popular muffin flavor: lemon poppy seed.

Moist and light, this cake contains no yolks, only whites, which contribute both to its light texture and color.  The lemon flavor comes from zest in the batter.  The real secret here is the lemon simple syrup, made from the juice of the zested lemon, sugar, and a little bit of water.  I brushed this syrup on the cake as the layers were cooling.  It added quite the flavor punch.

The icing is an almond cream cheese icing.  Pretty much a regular cream cheese icing with almond extract, a perfect complement to the lemon in the cake.  I then pressed poppy seeds onto the side of the cake, and piped frosting along the outer edge.

The lemon and almond combination is a real crowd pleaser.  Perfect for those like me, with spring fever.

Cranberry Update: Ice Cream

I tried making cranberry ice cream as promised.  First I strained yogurt to thicken it up a little.  Mixed it with the cranberry sauce in the spinning ice cream machine with two teaspoons agave nector.  The result is the beautiful pink ice cream.  The walnuts in the sauce gave it a crunchy textural contrast, the agave just enough sweetness to perk up the tartness of the cranberries and the yogurt. 

This will be a beautiful accompaniment to holiday dishes next winter.

A Sweet Sixtieth

A dear family friend turned sixty this past weekend.  It is such an exciting occasion, we wanted to do something very special.  She also graciously gave us her cake decorating supplies, and some extras for Christmas.  I've been teaching myself, and wanted to share my progress with her.

So, we made her a cake.  The cake is vanilla bean, and the icing darjeeling tea (her favorite).  I made the icing like you would a red velvet icing, starting by cooking flour and milk together until thickened.  Except first I steeped darjeeling in warmed milk, then followed the steps to a typical red velvet icing.  It was full of darjeeling flavor with the typical creamy lightness of red velvet.

We sandwiched the icing between four layers of cake, spread it on the top and sides, then covered it all with white fondant and a green fondant bow at the bottom.  The cake is topped with sugar paste roses and leaves.  This was my first time using sugar paste to decorate a cake, we've been practicing since the beginning of January.  The first couple of attempts were disaster, but after watching a couple of YouTube videos we really started to get it down.  These roses are definitely the best yet, we're very proud.  I've included this second picture so the detail is clear.

I was so pleased with the aesthetic of this cake, it is this type of artistry in cakes that I find so fun and inspiring.