Raspberry Buttermilk Cake

Posted on June 1, 2011 by sparecake

Here’s a quick tasty snack cake you could get in the oven while someone else does the dinner dishes. It’s got a thin crisp top from the sugar sprinkled on top and can be made with pretty much any berry you’ve got in the fridge. I recommend getting dried buttermilk if you can find it (Amazon definitely has it, if your supermarket doesn’t), as it’ll keep forever and you won’t have bottles rotting in your fridge.

Start off by whisking together the dry goods, then setting them aside. Cream the butter and sugar, then beat in the vanilla and lemon zest. Add the egg, and beat well.

Mix in the flour mixture in three batches, alternating with buttermilk, beginning and ending with flour. Mix until just combined, and then spoon into a greased and floured cake pan.

Smooth the top and scatter raspberries evenly over the top. Sprinkle the remaining sugar over the cake.

Fruit means it's healthy!

Bake until golden and a toothpick inserted into center comes out clean, 20 to 25 minutes.

I took mine out at 20, and, despite it passing the toothpick test, it probably should have cooked another few minutes. So, feel free to trust your eyes over a dumb stick...

Cool in pan 10 minutes, then turn out onto a rack and cool 10 to 15 minutes more. Invert onto a plate and get eating!

Berries with the opening up left little holes, berries holes down did not.

Raspberry Buttermilk Cake

From Smitten Kitchen

  • 1 cup (130 grams) all-purpose flour
  • 1/2 teaspoon (2 grams) baking powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon (2 grams) baking soda
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 1/2 stick (56 grams) unsalted butter, softened
  • 2/3 cup (146 grams) plus 1 1/2 tablespoons (22 grams) sugar, divided
  • 1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
  • 1/2 teaspoon finely grated lemon zest (optional)
  • 1 large (57 grams) egg
  • 1/2 cup (118 ml) well-shaken buttermilk
  • 1 cup (5 ounces or 140 grams) fresh raspberries

Preheat oven to 400°F with rack in middle. Butter and flour a 9-inch round cake pan.

Whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt and set aside. In a larger bowl, beat butter and 2/3 cup sugar with an electric mixer at medium-high speed until pale and fluffy, then beat in vanilla and zest, if using. Add egg and beat well.

At low speed, mix in flour mixture in three batches, alternating with buttermilk, beginning and ending with flour, and mixing until just combined.Spoon batter into cake pan, smoothing top. Scatter  raspberries evenly over top and sprinkle with remaining 1 1/2 tablespoons sugar.

Bake until cake is golden and a toothpick inserted into center comes out clean, 20 to 25 minutes. Cool in pan 10 minutes, then turn out onto a rack and cool to warm, 10 to 15 minutes more. Invert onto a plate.

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White Chocolate Muffins

Posted on May 27, 2011 by sparecake

I a) just got a kitchen scale, and b) wanted to bring some sort of baked good to my last day volunteering at a pretty cool local nonprofit. I had a recipe bookmarked that required a scale and said it made 3 mini loaves. I figured 3 mini loaves must make at least one real loaf, a reasonable amount to share. As it turns out, 3 mini loaves is actually less, about the right amount for 7 muffins and 1 mini muffin. Now we know? This recipe was written mostly in weights, so it was hard for me to picture amounts beforehand. After I weighed things out I tried measuring them in cups/spoonfuls for those of you without a kitchen scale.

Of course, two of the ingredients didn’t measure quite evenly. Also, the recipe calls for caster sugar. That’s basically just a superfine sugar. I’ve never actually noticed it in stores, but you can make it by just throwing the right amount of sugar in the blender and chopping it up for a few seconds. If you’re going that route, be sure to do the blending before anything else, because you need to let it settle for several minutes after. The blended sugar floats in the air in the blender and will go straight for your lungs if it hasn’t settled.

A slightly heaping (well that's just not a measurement) 1/3 c of white chocolate and sliiiightly less than 1/4 c yogurt.

At this point, this recipe is sounding like a massive pain, but it was actually really easy, and would have been quick too if i wasn’t measuring each ingredient twice.

Preheat your oven to 355 F and melt the white chocolate.

Cream the butter, salt, and sugar, and then beat in the egg and vanilla. It looks a lot like gross scrambled eggs at this point, but don’t despair.

Mix together the yogurt and white chocolate in a small bowl. Fold the flour into the egg mixture by thirds, alternating with halves of the yogurt mixture so you finish with flour, mixing after each addition.

Spoon the batter into 3 greased mini loaf pans/7ish cupcakes and bake.

Pleasingly poofed!

Despite not making much batter, I’d definitely recommend this recipe (perhaps doubled?). The white chocolate taste isn’t strong, but they’re quite tasty and a bit tart from the yogurt. Went over well when I brought them in today!

White Chocolate Muffins

adapted from Happy Flour

  • 65g or 4 1/2 tablespoons unsalted butter
  • 35g or 2 tablespoons + 1 teaspoon caster sugar
  • 1/4tsp salt
  • 1 egg
  • 95g or 3/4 c self-raising flour (sifted)
  • 45g or slightly more than 1/3 c white chocolate (melted)
  • 50g or slightly less than 1/4 c plain yoghurt
  • 1/4teaspoon vanilla paste or 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

(Ingredient weights will be more accurate.)

If necessary, blend sugar to create castor sugar. Preheat oven to 180C/355F.

Cream butter, salt and sugar until light and fluffy. Slowly beat in egg and vanilla until well combined.

Mix white chocolate and yogurt together. Fold in flour and yoghurt mixture alternately until well combined.

Spoon batter into a greased mini loaf pan. Bake for 20-25mins for loaves or 15 mins for muffins. Remove cake from pan and cool it on a wire rack.

Posted in Dessert | Tagged , | 2 Comments

Cinnamon Sugar Pull-Apart Bread

Posted on May 25, 2011 by sparecake

Here’s a shocking turn of events: a bread product I think is delicious! This cinnamon sugar pull-apart bread would be great to have at a brunch, as everyone can just wander by and pull off a few slices between grabbing other things. Even better for brunching, you can start the dough the night before.

You start off by basically combining the dry things in one bowl, the wet things in another, putting them together and then stirring in eggs.

Add more flour, and then let the dough rise for an hour.

This is probably a weird thing to say, but this is a nice feeling dough. Not too sticky, not too dry, just a good consistency to work with. Knead in a bit more flour, and then roll the dough out to a roughly 12X20″ rectangle.

Brush it with brown butter and then cover with cinnamon sugar. I already had a thing of cinnamon sugar with tiny bits of chocolate in it leftover from another recipe, so I just bumped that up a bit to fill out the amount required.

Cut the sugared dough into 6 in each direction, or in 6, and then layer your strips and cut the piles in 6 then.

When you're mixing your cinnamon sugar it may seem like a ton, but in the finished product it's definitely not too much.

Stack ’em up!

And then cram them into a greased and floured bread pan.

Tight squeeze...

Let it rise again.

And then bake!

Bam!

It pulls apart!

The original recipe said definitely try to eat it that day, but it’ll keep, tightly wrapped, up to 2 days. I actually thought the texture was a bit nicer the second day, so if you don’t have enough friends over/stomach space to kill it the first day, don’t worry about it!

Cinnamon Sugar Pull-Apart Bread

Adapted from Joy the Baker

For the Dough:

  • 2 3/4 cups plus 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
  • 1/4 cup granulated sugar
  • 2 1/4 teaspoons (1 envelope) active dry yeast
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 2 ounces unsalted butter
  • 1/3 cup whole milk
  • 1/4 cup water
  • 2 large eggs, at room temperature
  • 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

For the Filling:

  • 1 cup granulated sugar
  • 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
  • 1/2 teaspoon fresh ground nutmeg
  • 2 ounces unsalted butter, melted until browned

In a large mixing bowl whisk together 2 cups flour, sugar, yeast, and salt.  Set aside.

Whisk the eggs a bit in a small bowl and set aside.

In a small saucepan, melt together milk and butter until the butter has just melted.  Remove from the heat and add water and vanilla extract.  Let mixture stand for a minute or two, or until the mixture registers 115 to 125 degrees F.

Pour the milk mixture into the dry ingredients and mix with a spatula.  Add the eggs and stir the mixture until the eggs are incorporated into the batter. Add the remaining 3/4 cup of flour and stir with the spatula for about 2 minutes.  The mixture will be sticky.

Place the dough is a large greased bowl and cover with plastic wrap.  Place in a warm space and allow to rest until doubled in size, about 1 hour.  *The dough can be risen until doubled in size, then refrigerated overnight for use in the morning.  If you’re using this method, just let the dough rest on the counter for 30 minutes before following the roll-out directions below.

While the dough rises, whisk together the sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg for the filling.  Set aside.  Melt 2 ounces of butter until browned.  Set aside.  Grease and flour a 9x5x3-inch  loaf pan.  Set that aside too.

Deflate the risen dough and knead about 2 tablespoons of flour into the dough.  Cover with a clean kitchen towel and let rest for 5 minutes.  On a lightly floured work surface, use a rolling pin to roll the dough out.  The dough should be about 12-inches tall and about 20-inches long.   Use a pastry brush to spread melted butter across all of the dough. (I don’t have one right now, but was able to spread it fine with a rubber spatula.)  Sprinkle with all of the sugar and cinnamon mixture.

Slice the dough vertically, into six equal-sized strips.  Stack the strips on top of one another and slice the stack into six equal slices once again.  You’ll have six stacks of six squares.  Layer the dough squares in the loaf pan like a flip-book.  Cover and rise in a warm place for 30 to 45 minutes or until almost doubled in size.

Place a rack in the center of the oven and preheat to 350 degrees F.  Place loaf in the oven and bake for 30 to 35 minutes, until the top is very golden brown.  The top may be lightly browned, but the center may still be raw.  A nice, dark, golden brown will ensure that the center is cooked as well.

Remove from the oven and allow to rest for 20 to 30 minutes.   Run a butter knife around the edges of the pan to loosen the bread and invert onto  a clean board.  Place a cake stand or cake plate on top of the  upside down loaf, and carefully invert so it’s right side up.

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Sugar Shuttles

Posted on May 23, 2011 by sparecake

Seeking inspiration/guidance on what the heck a shuttle is shaped like.

My friend Anna recently gave me The Gourmet Cookie Book: The Single Best Recipe from Each Year 1941-2009. So far I’ve only made one recipe from it, and I’ve made it twice. Not because it was SO GOOD, although they did disappear immediately both times, but because it was really clear the first time that there was room for improvement. The second time they still weren’t perfect, but at this point I’m not sure how to fix it, and they really are tasty, so I’ll leave it to all 3 of you out there reading this to snack on and see if you can improve.

There is an awful good chance you have all of these things already.

The dough ingredients are pretty much thrown in a bowl and kneaded, and then refrigerated for 2 hours. When I followed the recipe exactly, the dough was super dry.

You put this in the fridge for 2 hours, so I was willing to believe it would stick together better after. It was semi-successful?

You then shape it into…blobs, basically. Theoretically they’re shaped like shuttles, but shuttles in the sense of weaving shuttles, not space shuttles. Those shuttles are dipped into egg white and then rolled in sugar.

Even the book basically has blobs.

*Shudder*

There's a lot of excess egg white around here, which I definitely tasted after.

The finished product, which was dry and eggy, yet still sweet and rapidly eaten.

In the second batch, a few days later, I added a bit of water to the dough (there wasn’t any in the original recipe), and it held together much better.

No longer just a powder.

I also added water to the egg white and beat it quite a bit to make sure it wouldn’t be stringy, so that you’d get a lot less, just enough to hold on the sugar and no more.

Way better!

It may not look it there, but there was actually a ton less egg on the outside, and finally the sort of crisp sugar crust the picture in the book seemed to have. The water in the dough also made it a nicer texture, and the softer dough ended up tasting more buttery (a plus).

You can sorta see that there's a little sugary crust. Yes please!

At this point, I think the taste is dead on, but they are fairly ugly cookies. The picture in the book makes it look like there’s a flaky, almost fried looking, crust. I’m not sure how to achieve that with this recipe, but might try again some time in the future.

Navettes Sucreés (Sugar Shuttles)

Adapted from The Gourmet Cookie Book

  • 1 c sifted all purpose flour
  • 1/4 c granulated sugar
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 1/4 c soft butter
  • 2 eggs, separated
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla
  • 3 1/2 tablespoons water, divided
  • additional sugar for rolling

Sift the flour, sugar, and salt into a bowl. Add the butter, egg yolks, vanilla and water, and knead until the dough is well blended. Chill in the refrigerator for 2 hours.

Preheat oven to 350 F. Divide dough into walnut sized portions and roll with the palm of the hand on a lightly floured board to give it the shape of a small sewing machine shuttle. (Approx. 2 1/2 inches long and 1/2 inch thick.) Mix the spare egg whites with 2 tablespoons of water and beat until it’s no longer stringy. Dip each cookie in the egg mixture and roll in sugar. Bake on a lightly buttered baking sheet for about 8 minutes, or until lightly browned. (Mine never got all that browned, even after several extra minutes. I eventually just took them out because they felt cooked to the touch.)

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Super Bread

Posted on May 22, 2011 by sparecake

Editing to add a 7 year later picture, as time/experience making bread has made me less likely to way over-flour things, so my doughs are less likely to be dry and wrinkley like in this post.

Now my problem is just standing in the way of the lighting…

Super Bread is a good protein rich sandwich/toast/snack bread from the King Arthur Flour cookbook.

❤

The various waiting times may be off-putting to those of you who don’t bake much, but it’s worth it, and really pretty easy to schedule around. I used slices of this bread for Eggs In A Basket 2 months ago before a half marathon, and didn’t need anything else during the race.

The recipe as it’s printed in the book has lots of variations, but this is how I make mine:

The night before, mix milk, brown sugar, honey, and yeast.

A not entirely attractive slurry.

Stir in dry milk powder, rolled oats, and flour. This is your sponge.

Let that sit overnight, and when you come back in the morning you’ll be able to see why it’s called a sponge. (tons of holes!)

You can still see the rolled oats in there, which entitles you to feel super healthy.

Punch down the sponge and stir in 2 eggs and some salt. Add the rest of the flour and knead everything together. Work it for 3-4 minutes, and then let it rest while you rinse out your bowl and grease it. Knead again for several more minutes until the dough is smooth and springy.

Shape it into a ball, and put it in your greased bowl.

Cover this and let it rest somewhere warm without drafts. I recommend in the oven, with the heat off but the light on. The slight head of the bulb actually does make a difference, without being overkill.

Definitely grown!

Punch it down again and knead out any stray air bubbles. Form into two loaves and place in two lightly greased bread pans. At this point it’s totally ok if you’re thinking that those doughballs are pathetically small for those pans.

At this point I should have smoothed out some of the giant crevices. Not positive why I didn’t, but oh well.

Let them rise another hour.

A much more reasonable size.

And it’s finally time to bake!

You should be able to turn them out on to a cooling rack pretty immediately. Let them cool completely before slicing.

Set for sandwiching!

This bread’s another thing that bounces back well from freezing. I tend to slice both loaves once they’re cooled, throw one in the cabinet for sandwiches that week, and one in the freezer for sandwiches and toast later. Grand!

Super Bread

Adapted from the King Arthur Flour Cookbook.

  • 1 1/2 c milk
  • 2 T brown sugar
  • 2 T honey
  • 1 packet active dry yeast
  • 3/4 c non-fat dry milk
  • 1 1/2 c rolled oats
  • 2 eggs
  • 5 c all purpose flour, divided (the recipe calls for 2 whole wheat, 3 all purpose, but I always accidentally buy some other junk when I mean to get the whole wheat)
  • 1 T salt

To make the sponge:

Whisk the brown sugar, honey, and yeast into the milk. Stir in the dry milk, rolled oats, and 2 c of the flour (the whole wheat, if you’re trying that). Cover with plastic wrap and let sit in a cool spot 2-12 hours.

To make the dough:

Stir down the sponge, add the salt and beat in the eggs. Stir in 2 1/2 c flour, and sprinkle the remaining 1/2 c on your counter/kneading board. Keep stirring until the dough begins to hold together, and then turn out on your floured board. Knead 3 or 4 minutes until the dough begins to feel as if it belongs together, and then let it rest while you clean and grease the bowl it came out of. Continue kneading the relaxed dough until smooth and springy, another 3 or 4 minutes. Form the dough into a ball and put it in the greased bowl, turning so it’s greased on all sides. Cover it and put it somewhere warm and draft-free. Let it rise until doubled (roughly an hour).

Punch the dough down, turn it out onto your floured board and knead out any stray air bubbles. Cut it in half and form two loaves. Place them in two lightly greased bread pans, and let rise until doubled (again, about an hour). During the last 15 minutes of the rising, preheat the oven to 350 F. At this point, if you were using the oven as a place for the bread to rise, take it out! Once risen, place the loaves in the preheated oven and bake 35 or 40 minutes, until it sounds hollow when tapped and is a nice golden brown.

There are lots of other possible variations to this bread, and pretty much everything else in the KAF cookbook. I actually really like the company – they have a store and bakery at their factory in Vermont that a friend and I visited last year. We got a bunch of fun baking junk, cookies, and some delicious eclairs for my mom.

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Cheeseburger Mac and Cheese

Posted on May 20, 2011 by sparecake

Time to veer sharply away from the strawberry posts, and even away from desserts entirely. Today’s recipe is Cheeseburger Mac and Cheese.

The recipe I followed claimed you are supposed to use a 2 quart dish. I don’t know if she has a SUPER deep 2 quart dish or what, but when I was eyeballing the cooked macaroni and meat, it looked like way too much to fit in one 2 quart dish, so I added an 8X8″ dish as well, and it seemed like a good amount, but meant there was more surface area so we were short on the tomatoes that cover it. You live, you learn! I might go for a 5 quart dish next time, or try to find a super deep 2 quart one?

This one cooks in several parts. Before anything else, get some water on the stove so you can eventually cook your pasta. I, unthinkingly, put a huge pot of water on the tiniest stove burner, so that took foreeeever.

Once the water’s on the stove, start browning the sirloin, breaking it apart as it cooks. Once the meat is browned, remove it from the heat, drain off as much grease as you can/want to, and then add the salt, pepper, ketchup and mustard.

Man I love ketchup!

Stir it all in…

Kyle's got lightning fast stirring action!

And put it in a bowl off to the side.

Hopefully at this point your water is boiling and you can get the pasta going.

Put the skillet you used for the meat back on the stove and melt your butter in it. Whisk in the flour, and then slowly pour the condensed milk in. Bring to a simmer and cook 2 minutes, scraping the bottom of the pan frequently.

There're a lot of little scraped up bits floating around in there, which strikes me as much better than a bunch of gross burnt bits stuck onto the pan.

The recipe then says to remove from the heat and stir in salt and cheese. I missed part of that, and stirred in the cheese still on the stove. It…still came out gooey and nice, so I’d say it’s not the hugest deal?

The cheese goes in.

And becomes a lovely sauce.

Stir in the pasta.

Spread the macaroni into your dish(es), and top with the meat. Spread the rest of the cheese on top, and then the tomatoes. Sprinkle the top with bread crumbs, and a light mist of cooking spray.

Does that look like it would all fit in the left dish?

Bake for 20 minutes, and then broil for 2.

Delicious!

Cheeseburger Mac & Cheese

Slightly adapted from Noble Pig

  • 1 pound elbow macaroni
  • 1 pound ground sirloin
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt, divided
  • 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
  • 1/4 cup ketchup
  • 2 Tablespoons yellow mustard
  • 1 Tablespoon butter
  • 1 Tablespoon all-purpose flour
  • 1 can (12 ounces) evaporated milk
  • 3 cups shredded cheddar cheese, divided
  • 2 medium-size tomatoes, thinly sliced (I would bump that up to 3 or four)
  • 2-3 tablespoons seasoned bread crumbs

Heat oven to 350 degrees F.  Coat a 2 (+) quart oval baking dish with nonstick cooking spray.  Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to boiling and cook pasta according to package directions.  Drain.

While pasta cooks, heat a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat.  Add sirloin, breaking apart with a wooden spoon.  Cook 6 minutes until no longer pink.  Remove from the heat, drain meat, and stir in 1/4 teaspoon of the salt and the ketchup and mustard.  Transfer to a bowl.

Return skillet to medium heat and add butter.  Once melted, whisk in flour, then add milk in a thin stream.  Bring to a simmer and cook 2 minutes.  Remove from heat and whisk in remaining 1/4 teaspoon salt and 2 cups of the cheese.  Stir in pasta.

Pour into prepared dish(es).  Top with meat mixture, remaining cheese, sliced tomatoes and bread crumbs. Spritz with nonstick cooking spray.

Bake for 20 minutes and increase heat to broil for 2 more minutes at the end.

Another great Mac and Cheese recipe from Noble Pig is her Cheesy Shell-Stuffed Shells.

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Strawberry Swirl Pound Cake Cupcakes

Posted on May 19, 2011 by sparecake

Another strawberry-y recipe, as strawberries were on sale when I made the chantilly, and I had leftovers to use up. The original recipe here was for a loaf, but since I’m mostly cooking for myself, I like to make muffins and freeze them so that they don’t get gross before I eat them. Pound cakes heat back up nicely, so it works out well.

This recipe starts off similarly, with strawberries in a food processor.

This time there's some sugar in there too.

Whisk together your dry goods, and then cream your butter and sugar.

Well this is stimulating.

Add eggs and vanilla to the sugar mixture, and beat to combine.

Beating after each addition, alternate adding thirds of the flour mixture and halves of the yogurt until you’ve added them all the to sugar mixture (1/3 flour, 1/2 yogurt, 1/3 flour, 1/2 yogurt, 1/3 flour, and you’re out of both of them).

Looks awful similar, but bigger.

Now, if you want to do a loaf, pour half of the batter into your loaf pan and drizzle half the puree over it. Repeat with the other half of each, and then swirl with a knife or skewer. For my muffins, I filled the muffin tins 2/3 of the way, and then nudged a hole in the batter, poured in some puree, and swirled it around. I think if I were to do it again, I would just swirl the puree into the batter in the bowl and then spoon it into the muffin pan. Then you’ve just got to bake!

Pre-puree

These muffins were delicious, as my friend Kyle would agree. The only problem I had is that sometimes when I have hot strawberry things, if I think the strawberry stuff looks like tomato sauce instead, all I taste is tomato. Gross in plenty of situations. So my first muffin was kind of wrecked, but by the afternoon when I grabbed a mini muffin, they were back to delicious.

Strawberry Swirl Pound Cake

recipe adapted from What’s Cookin, Chicago?

  • 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature, plus more for pan
  • 6 ounces strawberries (1-1/3 cups)
  • 1-1/4 cups plus 2 tablespoons sugar
  • 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1/2 teaspoon coarse salt
  • 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
  • 2 large eggs. lightly beaten
  • 1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
  • 1/2 cup sour cream, room temperature (I used yogurt since it’s what I had/I like it better, and it was fine)

Preheat oven to 350°. Lightly butter a 5-by-9 inch loaf pan and line with parchment, leaving a 2-inch overhang on all sides; butter parchment. Alternatively, put papers in tins for either 12 muffins and 12 mini muffins, or 16-18 muffins.

In a food processor, puree strawberries with 2 tablespoons sugar. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, salt, and baking powder.

In a large bowl, using an electric mixer, beat together butter and 1-1/14 cups sugar until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes. Add eggs and vanilla and beat to combine, scraping down bowl as needed. With mixer on low, add flour mixture in 3 additions, alternating with sour cream/yogurt, beginning and ending with flour mixture.

If making a loaf, transfer half the batter to pan and dot with 1/2 cup strawberry puree. Repeat with remaining batter and puree. With a skewer or thin-bladed knife, swirl batter and puree together. If making muffins, swirl the puree in to the batter and then spoon into tins, filling them 2/3 full. Bake until golden brown and a toothpick inserted in center of cake comes out clean, about 1-1/4 hours for a loaf or 16 minutes for muffins.

For a loaf, let cool in pan on a wire rack, 30 minutes. Lift cake out of pan and place on a serving plate; let cool completely before slicing. For muffins, tilt the muffins at an angle with a fork soon after removing them from the oven to allow them to cool without getting soggy bottoms. Transfer to a cooling rack when you can reasonably handle them.

Store cooled cake, wrapped tightly in plastic, at room temperature, up to 3 days or freeze in individual portions and reheat when you’re hungry!

Cake can be topped with a drizzle of more strawberry puree and/or a dollop of lightly sweetened whipped cream.

Posted in Dessert | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Strawberry Chantilly

Posted on May 17, 2011 by sparecake

Ok then! Hello new blog! For some reason I’m starting with one of the least chocolatey desserts I’m ever likely to make: Strawberry Chantilly. The full recipe’s at the bottom, I’m not going to make you guess amounts based on photos…

Ingredients

the lineup

Start off with the crust! Cut the butter into the flour and brown sugar until crumbly.  Stir in the pecans (barf) if you’re using them. Press that into the bottom of a 9X13″ pan or the bottom and halfway up the sides of a springform. I didn’t actually have enough to get very far up the sides of my springform – maybe if you use the nuts you will! Bake that and let it cool before you put in the filling (which, in terms of attention span, probably means throw it in the fridge while you make the filling).

crust

ready for filling

I've only got a wee food processor so this took two goes

Pretty much puree the strawberries in a food processor.

mmm

Combine that with the egg whites, sugar, and lemon juice.

Mix for 10 minutes. This is the hardest part if, like me, you’ve only got a hand mixer, and the mixer is louder than the podcast you’re trying to listen to. Add in a few drops of red food coloring if you want towards the end of this. I didn’t think it made a very impressive difference.

What you’ve got now is super similar to Noble Pig’s Strawberry Mousse. Yum! Also, the lighting in my kitchen is super awful, so welcome to a blog full of pictures of my thumb as I hold things in the middle of the room under the light.

Whip up some cream, and mix it in…

Not only have I got poor lighting, leading to all the thumb pictures, but my camera's white balance just won't play nice. Woo!

Dump that in your crust…

And freeze for 6 hours – overnight. (Ok, actually the waiting is the hardest part.)

Then just slice and serve!

You could probably gussy it up with some more whipped cream or strawberries, but I was eating this home alone in the middle of the night so…fancypantsery shall have to wait.

Strawberry Chantilly

marginally adapted from Lick The Bowl Good

For the Crust:

  • 1 cup all purpose flour
  • ¼ cup brown sugar
  • ½ cup cold unsalted butter
  • ½ cup chopped pecans (optional)

For the Filling:

  • 2 egg whites (room temp if you can at all remember to set them out beforehand)
  • 1 cup granulated sugar
  • 2 cups fresh strawberries
  • 1 cup heavy whipping cream
  • 1 teaspoon lemon juice
  • 2 drops red food coloring, optional

For the crust: Cut the cold butter into the flour and sugar until crumbly, then stir in the chopped pecans, if using. Press mixture into the bottom of a 9×13-inch baking dish and bake at 300 for 20 minutes or press mixture into the bottom and halfway up the sides of a springform pan and bake at 325 for 25 minutes. Set the pan on a rack to cool completely before filling.

For the Filling: Pulse the strawberries in a food processor til mostly pureed. Place the pureed strawberries, egg whites, sugar and lemon juice in a bowl and beat on high for ten minutes. Add food coloring, if using, and mix for a few more seconds till the color is fully incorporated.

In a different bowl, beat the heavy whipping cream until you get stiff peaks. Gently fold, by hand, the whipped cream into the strawberry meringue mixture.

Pour the filling into the baked and cooled crust and cover well. Freeze for at least 6 hours, preferably overnight.

Slice and serve frozen chantilly with additional strawberries, if desired.

And that’s it for the first post. I’m open to suggestions as far as foods you’d like to see, ways I could organize posts that would be easier to read (but within my limited grasp of internetting), or anything else you have thoughts on. Suggestions that I don’t use words like ‘barf’ in a food blog will, sadly, be ignored, as that has somehow surpassed both wicked and hella to become the most inappropriately common word in my vocabulary.

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