Feeling Blue

No, I'm not sad, I actually had a wonderful weekend. This week's post is all about BLUEberries! Remember last week I mentioned that the summer berries had done a disappearing act in my usual grocery store? Well this week they're back and it took me a while to decide what to make. As I walked by the aisle with the ice cream maker I had an idea, Blueberry Ice cream! I hurried and got all my ingredients together. I used the "Blueberry-Sour Cream Ice Cream" recipe from Dorie Greenspan's "Baking: From my Home to Yours".

I needed a cup of blueberries, but didn't know whether a six ounce package would be enough to fill a cup so I bought two packages thinking a cup would be about 8 oz. It was a little annoying that this particular recipe was using cups to measure the fruit. I would've preferred they use weight since thats how they measure it on the package. Anyway, I ended up with one whole package of extra blueberries and decided to make blueberry muffins as well.

I felt pretty foolish when I read the little ice cream maker's instructions and discovered that this thing had to be left in the freezer for at least 8 hours! Silly me, now I wouldn't be able to churn it till 9pm. I set the bowls in the freezer as instructed and begun preparing the custard for the ice cream. I combined the blueberries, sugar, salt, lime juice and lime zest in a saucepan and cooked over medium heat until the blueberries popped to form a lovely little sauce. I pureed this in the blender for a minute and then thought of all the wonderful things I could do with just this part of the recipe alone. All the other desserts it would be lovely drizzled over. I added the cream and sour cream to the blender and pulsed a couple times to get everything incorporated. When I took a taste, I thought it needed more lime juice and sugar so I added one lime at a time, and one tablespoon of sugar at a time until my tastebuds approved. Then I poured it in a container and left it in the refrigerator to chill until the bowls for the ice cream maker were done their 8 hour freeze.

During the wait I made the muffins. I used the "Blueberry Muffin" recipe from Nick Malgieri's book "BAKE! Essential Techniques for Perfect Baking". What I like about this recipe is that he provides a basic muffin recipe and then suggests several variations. This one recipe can turn into blueberry , lemon poppy seed, apple raisin, jam or whatever else your imagination can think of muffins. IT encourages you to take the basic recipe and put your own spin on it.

I started by whisking the dry ingredients together, then I whisked the wet ingredients together with the lime zest and then combined both wet and dry mixtures. I folded in the blueberries and divided the mixture evenly among the holes in the muffin tins.

I sprinkled the tops with cinnamon sugar and baked them at 375F for 20 mins. Then I set them on the cooling rack. Look at these babies!

I've had blueberry muffins before, my mother used to make them for weekend breakfasts when I was a child. But never with fresh blueberries. The difference is apparent. There is a fresh, fruitier taste to them and I just love how the blueberries popped and infused themselves into the muffin dough. Yummy!!

Several hours later when my ice cream bowls were ready I filled each with half of the liquid I had chilled. Each one churned in my little ice cream maker for a little over 5 minutes.

I covered each bowl in plastic wrap and put them back in the freezer overnight. Then this morning at dawn I ran to the kitchen and pulled out my first frozen creation.

Isn't the colour amazing? It had a light, refreshing, creamy, tangy, taste. Ice cream is not my usual morning breakfast, but any chef (or wannabe baker) knows you gotta taste your product before you serve it!

Finding Comfort in Simplicity

I kind of struggled to find inspiration for last weekend's project. At first I had wanted to do something with summer berries. However, the sporadic supply of them at my grocery store and my reluctance to drive all over town looking for them, led me to chose something else. I saw some beautiful large D'Anjou pears and decided to make a Pear-Oat Crisp from Martha's Baking Handbook.

This dessert requires very little prep time which suit me well this weekend cause I was able to prepare it, stick it in the oven, take a shower and get ready for a movie date with the bf. The first step in preparing the dessert is combining the ingredients in the topping: butter, flour, oats, cinnamon, granulated sugar and brown sugar. Then I peeled cored and sliced my pears and mixed them with cornstarch, lime juice and mixed spice. The recipe calls for ground all spice but I couldn't find any so I used the mixed spice instead. What I loved about the pears is that they were significantly easier to core than apples. I didn't use a corer, I just used a spoon and scooped it out! 

I got my baking dish out and buttered it thoroughly, then I put the pear mixture in and generously scattered the topping over it. I popped it in the oven and cooked it for a full 55 mins. I turned off the oven but left it in there to keep warm while we were at the movies. When we got home, I served a bit of it with some vanilla ice cream. I couldn't find the ice cream scoop so its a little misshapen hehe :)

    

This was just as I expected it to be, warm, comforting, just the right amount of spice. Did I mentioned I doubled the mixed spice? I'm glad I did, it was great. And the pears, they added a fresh taste and were succulent but not mushy. This wasn't the most challenging, high reaching, stunning dessert but some of the simplest things, taste the best!

An American Icon

This week's dessert was a special request from a very good friend. It's also an American icon, Classic Apple Pie. For the recipe I turned to Martha Stewart, it's from her book Martha Stewart's Baking Handbook which I received as a gift from my parents last week. I've been reading this book and the other one they gave me like novels for the past week and they not only have many wonderful recipes but they have clear instructions, many pictures and loads of baking tips and techniques to make you a better baker. This is just the way I like cookbooks to be and I can't wait to put them both to good use. 

Last night I measured the crust ingredients and  set them to cool overnight in the fridge. Cold ingredients make the best crust. Yesterday I went out and bought a food processor, I've wanted one since I started baking but I kept putting it off, not wanting to spend the extra money. Finally I caved and bought a very reasonably priced one at MegaMart. I put it to work this morning on the pie crust. I pulsed the flour and salt together, then added the butter and pulsed a few more times before adding the ice water. I divided the dough in half, wrapped each piece in plastic wrap, formed them into discs and chilled them in the fridge for 2 hours. I could've made the pie crust by hand, but certainly not as quickly or efficiently as the food processor did. I like my new toy :)


After removing the dough discs from the fridge I rolled them both into 12inch discs on sheets of parchment. I fitted the first one to my glass pie plate then I returned both to the refrigerator. While they chilled, I began to prepare the apples. The recipe calls for an assortment of many different cooking apples. Unfortunately I don't have the luxury of having many different varieties of cooking apples available to me in Jamaica's grocery stores. In fact the only cooking apple which is readily available is the Granny Smith. However, I decided to take a pointer from Bake!: Essential Techniques for Perfect Baking and use an equal mixture of Granny Smith and Golden Delicious. While peeling, coring and slicing I said to myself, "Buy an apple corer!" It was a nightmare trying to take the core out with a paring knife. 


When I was finally done I combined my sliced apples with lime juice (couldn't find lemons), sugar, cinnamon, flour and nutmeg. Then I piled it into the pie shell. It took me so long to prepare the apples that the pie dough spent more time in the fridge than it was supposed to, and by the time I took it out it was quite hard. But a few minutes in the hot Jamaican weather and it was just right to work with.

I then brushed the edges with egg wash. I made the egg wash with whole milk instead of cream because I already had the milk and it seemed like a waste of money to buy a carton of cream to use only one tablespoon. I laid the top crust over the filled pie shell and pressed the top and bottom together. I used my handy kitchen shears to trim the sides, then I folded the edges under and used a fork to crimp them. I covered the resulting pie in egg wash and gave it a generous sprinkling of sugar. Again I was forced to make a substitution based on availability, I couldn't find sanding sugar so I used granulated sugar. Then I made three slits in the top of the pie to allow steam to escape during baking. I tucked this bad boy in the freezer for 30 minutes.

 After preheating the oven to 400 degrees, I placed my very first apple pie on a rimmed baking sheet lined with parchment paper and put it in the oven. I baked it for 20 minutes, then reduced the temperature to 350 and baked it for another 50 minutes, rotating its position from lower third to upper third of the oven half way through. 

It smelled amaaaazing in the last 15minutes of baking when the juices were super bubbly. I let it cool for a painful 3 hours. I really had to try hard not to cut it. My friends arrived just in time to cut their special request. 

I did good, not only was it stunning, it was delicious. The crust was flaky and buttery, the apples were tender and the two types of apples worked well together. If I were to make any adjustments, I would reduce the citrus a bit because I found the filling a little too tangy and I'd add more spice. I'm a spice lover, I love me some cinnamon and nutmeg, so I'd dial that up a bit. My first apple pie, well, my first pie all together was a success, and not nearly as complicated as I thought it would be. 

A 50/50 Weekend

As I mentioned in my last post my family came to visit and I decided to make some of their favorites. For Daddy, Pineapple Upside Down Cake and for Mummy and my brother, Mini Black-Bottom Cheesecakes. If I haven't already mentioned it, cheesecake is my absolute favorite dessert so I guess I made it for myself as well. I wanted to show my family what they had been missing when they were abroad, reading about my baking from afar. I wanted them to eat my desserts and swoon, and ooze with pride. I'm not sure it turned out that way. This was not one of my better weeks. I had wanted it to be perfect and although not a complete disaster, it was far from a home run.

I'll start from the least successful of the two, the Mini Black-Bottom Cheesecakes. I chose these because I was having a very hectic weekend and they were less time consuming than a whole cheesecake. Perhaps its not fair for me to criticize the recipe since I didn't follow it to the letter. I made two substitutions. I used sour cream instead of fromage blanc because I couldn't find it in the grocery stores. I substituted guava jelly for raspberry preserves because I already have a jar of it at home in my fridge. I used oreo cookies for the crust, pulsed them in my mini chopper, combined them with butter and pressed them into the cupcake liners sprayed with oil. Then I baked the crust.

This week I discovered the important difference between PAM and Crisco spray oil. When I went to buy it, the PAM was quite a bit more expensive than the Crisco and I didn't see much of a difference, they were both made of canola oil. But after using them both I have now noticed the profound difference between the two. The first difference is that PAM prays a lighter mist, wider mist of smaller droplets than the Crisco spray. The second is that PAM can spray upside down, which comes in handy when you're spraying the inside of a tin. So now that I know the difference, I think I'll be getting PAM next time.

I blended the cream cheese and other ingredients together, filled the cupcake liners and baked them. During baking they seemed to puff up way more than I had expected and cracked at the top, but it was when I removed them and put them in the freezer that I began to realize this was not going to be a success. They all had a dramatic sink in the middle. After being removed from the paper liners the shape was not nearly as neat and presentable as it should've been and neither was the preserves on top. But I still had hopes that even though they weren't the prettiest mini cheesecakes, they'd be tasty. Well, they weren't. They weren't sweet enough and the black bottom crust over powered the rest of the cheesecake. It was far from good cheesecake and trust me, I KNOW my cheesecake. So I was really disappointed with that. But I WILL redeem myself. Cheesecake is one thing I am determined to perfect.

Now for the better of the two, the Pineapple Upside Down Cake. My father only likes 3 desserts: Pineapple Upside Down Cake, Rum & Raisin Ice Cream and what is known in Jamaica as Icebox Cake. I introduce the icebox cake that way because it seems that what the rest of the world calls icebox cake is a totally different thing, making it extremely difficult to find a proper recipe for it and since I don't have an ice cream machine, yet, I was left with Pineapple Upside Down Cake. This is not the first time I've made this dessert, once I made it for Father's Day with a box mix and canned pineapple but this time it was from scratch with fresh pineapple and I hoped it would beat it.

I don't have a 10" cast iron pan so I made the topping by simmering butter and brown sugar in a sauce pan for 4 minutes then poured it in a 9" cake pan and layered the fresh pineapple on top. I had some friends staying over this weekend and one of them was kind enough to peel and slice the pineapple for me, which, I'm sorry to say, I've never done before. 

I sifted the dry ingredients together, mixed the wet ingredients together and gradually mixed the dry mixture into the wet mixture. The batter tasted and smelled amazing. Especially with the addition of the rum. I poured the batter into the cake pan and baked for 45 minutes, then I removed it from the oven and let it stand for 5 minutes before turning it over unto a plate and sprinkling it with a little more rum.

I finished baking this cake pretty late and I had a party to get to so I didn't taste it right away. Because of concerns about ants, I stuck it in the fridge, where I knew they couldn't get it. Now, the fridge is not the friend of cakes. It modifies their texture so you don't get that moist fluffy feel anymore. The next day though we removed it from the fridge and rested it on the stove, another place that the ants don't seem to be able to get to. After the cake warmed up, the texture redeemed itself and the cake was quite good. 

So this week was a half and half week. One good, one not so good. Not sure if I made the stellar impression I'd wanted to, but perhaps I was expecting too much. Besides, they'll be back at Christmas so I'll have another opportunity to wow them. 

Mom and Dad also brought me some baking books which were on my wishlist, Martha Stewart's Baking Handbook and Bake!: Essential Techniques for Perfect Baking which I was ecstatic to receive. I can't wait to put them into good use in the coming weeks. 

"I Can't Believe It's Over"

I'm sure many of you have been wondering where I've been for the last two weekends. I mean, this is supposed to be a weekly thing right? Well, I've been on vacation and I had a really good time. I just got back last night and I'm now having that "I can't believe it's over" feeling. I'm sure you can forgive me for taking a little break to get some rest and relaxation, can't you? I thought so.

Now I'm gearing up for what is going to be a very busy week. My parents and brother are coming for a visit. For those of you who don't already know, they all live abroad, so they've been forced to read about my baking from thousands of miles away, imagining what my treats taste like from the pictures. Now is my chance to bake them something and I am so excited and I'll confess, a little nervous. I'll be baking some of their favorites and since they have different tastes, that means more than one dessert. I haven't picked the specific recipes I'll be making yet, still searching for the perfect ones.

I'll be limiting the amount of tasting I do this week since I'm still quite stuffed from my vacation where I ate ample amounts of food. I ate what I want when I wanted it, did what I want when I wanted to and I was pretty much carefree for 10 days. Isn't that the way vacations should be though? But now the vacation is over, so I'll be making an effort to lose those couple vacation pounds. My family will be on vacation though, so they'll be carefree, and I can pretty much count on my younger brother to devour anything, once it's tasty, since he has a healthy appetite and killer metabolism (I'm quite jealous actually). So look out for my post this weekend, I have a feeling, its going to be delicious.

P.S.  A Note on Photos

After my last post I received many questions about whether the photos I post on my site are actual photos of my desserts. This was most flattering, my tart looked that good huh? You thought I stole that picture from somewhere? Nope! That was my beautiful tart that I made. Gorgeous wasn't it? I couldn't believe it myself, that I was capable of that. But then again sometimes we really don't know what we're capable of until we try.

Those particular photos of the finished Nectarine and Mascarpone Tart were taken by my boyfriend on a bright Saturday morning with his fancy camera which is by far superior to the point and click digital camera I normally use. This also contributed to the beauty of the photos. I'll try and get him to take more pictures for me, and perhaps I'll learn how to use his camera to take the pictures myself, in case he's not home.

But as a general rule, all the photos I've posted on my blog are of the actual desserts I made, taken by me, or in this case and hopefully many others, by my boyfriend. If at any time in the future I take pictures from a source, the source will be given full credit, and I'll let you know its not mine.

It's Springtime!!

It's springtime! Not that it makes any difference in Jamaica, it's pretty much always warm. In my opinion there are three seasons here, rainy season, drought and hurricane season. But I know its spring because supermarkets are starting to carry the imported fruits that aren't always available here. Fresh berries, peaches, plums, nectarines. Forgive me if I take advantage of the availability and better prices and use them liberally in my challenges, I don't get to eat or use them often. This week I made a Nectarine and Mascarpone Tart with Ginersnap Crust from Bon Apetit July 2002.

I wanted to make this tart the moment I saw it on Epicurious.com. I mean, look at it, it's gorgeous. I think tarts are slowly becoming my favorite thing to make. I just think they are elegant, delicate, and stunning and fresh fruit makes them even more beautiful. Of course, the fact that the filling contains mascarpone and cream cheese was also a major factor in my choice. In case you didn't get the memo, I love cream cheese. I can't believe how wonderful it tastes in both sweet and savory preparations. Need a sweet tangy frosting for your carrot cake? Cream cheese. Need something creamy to go with your smoked salmon? Cream cheese. Mascarpone is also an ingredient I've never actually used before but I've learnt a lot about it from watching copious amounts of food tv. When I learnt it was a sweet Italian cream cheese, I knew we'd become great friends.

I came home early on Friday and headed straight to the kitchen. I made the crust first. I don't have a food processor but I do have a mini chopper which I used to grind 25 Jamaican Ginger Biscuits for the crust. I combined this with butter and pressed it into my 9" tart pan. The crust baked for 8 minutes, then I placed it on the cooling rack to cool.

While the tart cooled, I made the filling. For some reason both lemons and limes have totally vanished from the produce section at the supermarket. I had some oranges at home, so I used orange zest instead. I combined the orange zest, mascarpone, cream cheese, sugar, sour cream and vanilla and beat them with my hand mixer until the filling was smooth. Then I added a tablespoon of crystallized ginger. At first I was worried about the crystallized ginger at first, wondering if it would be like biting into a big piece of raw ginger when you're eating a nice piece of meat. Ginger is a wonderful spice and can make things taste amazing. But when you bite into a chunk of it, it's rather unpleasant. I decided to use it anyway, mostly because of the many reviews I saw that said it MADE the tart. So many people couldn't be wrong right? After making the filling I spread it into the cooled crust and refrigerated it overnight.

The next morning, I got the nectarines out to make the topping. I haven't actually eaten nectarines before, I have had peaches which are very similar. In fact I read that the difference between the peach and the nectarine basically boils down to the fact that peaches have fuzz and nectarines don't. I found them very hard to cut in half. They were glued to the stone. I tried my best to pry them open without ruining the fruit. I sliced three of them thinly and arranged them on top of the cooled tart. I brushed the topped tart with warm peach preserves and sprinkled it with two tablespoons chopped crystallized ginger.

So now for the most important part, sure it was beautiful, but how did it taste? The filling was really wonderful. The orange zest worked very well, adding a citrus hint to the sweet, creamy filling with a hint of ginger. The crust was also delicious and complimented the filling beautifully. I have a feeling that I'll be using this filling and this crust many more times varying the toppings and zests. There were mixed reviews about the fruit topping. The nectarines, by no fault of their own weren't ripe enough in my opinion. So they were not very sweet and quite crunchy. I would've preferred if they were ripes and sweeter. I guess thats what you get when you use a fruit you're not used to. Some felt as though the fact that they weren't as sweet was refreshing, and that the crunch added great texture to the creamy filling beneath it.

I'm certainly going to try it again with different fruits and riper nectarines. I know it will be even more delicious than it was this weekend and trust me, it was really tasty. So tasty in fact, that my friends have already devoured it. And as for the verdict on the crystallized ginger, lovely, subtle, spicy, perfect in both the filling and sprinkled on top. I should never have doubted it.

Move Over Cinnabon!

Cinnamon Rolls with Cream Cheese Glaze

When I'm travelling abroad and walking through the airport which has become such a tense environment nowadays with all the security concerns of air travel, there is a welcoming scent which I absolutely LOVE. It's the smell of the Cinnabon mmm. I'm a fan, well, I was until this week's baking project. This week I made Cinnamon Rolls with Cream Cheese Glaze from Bon Appetit 2008.

I've also been trying to sneak more fiber into my diet. So I thought I'd also make some bran muffins that I could have for breakfast in the mornings. I found a recipe from King Arthur Flour where the batter keeps in the fridge for 2 weeks, so you don't have to bake them all at once, which I thought was perfect for this purpose.

Bran Muffins

So I'll tell you about the bran muffins first since, let's face it, they're a lot less exciting than warm, soft, cinnamon rolls with cream cheese glaze mmmmm. Anyway, so I went to the store and picked up the bran twigs, yes that's the cereal that looks like shredded cardboard that I usually pass in the aisle and wonder what person in their right mind would eat that. But I'd be mixing it with a bunch of other wonderful ingredients that I figured would compensate. When made right, bran muffins can be a delicious start to the day.

Batter after refrigeration overnight

I started by soaking a cup of the bran cereal in a cup of boiling water for 45 minutes. In the meantime, I combined the flour, baking soda and salt. Then I added the raisins. The recipe said 1-1 1/2 cups. I'm always a fan of more raisins so I went for the full amount. After the cereal in boiling water had cooling I mixed in the oil and set it aside.  Then I combined the eggs, sugar and 2 cups of plain yogurt which I used as a substitute for the buttermilk. I mixed the flour mixture and the egg mixture together and added an additional two cups of bran cereal. Then finally, I added the mixture of water, oil and bran cereal to the mix. Then I refrigerated the batter overnight. The next morning the batter was very thick and dark in colour. All the cereal was now hydrated and ready to rumble. I used a 1/4 cup measuring cup to fill my 6 muffin tin and baked them for 25 minutes. Then popped em out and set them to cool.

The bran muffins tasted good and had a great consistency but I kept hoping I'd taste another flavour. Like some banana and a bit of mixed spice. However, the great thing about this recipe is, I still have two more batches worth of batter in the fridge , so I can always add those flavours to it and see how it turns out next week. I'm sure with those lil adjustments I'll completely forget I'm eating fiber and just think I'm eating a quick delicious breakfast. 

Now for the Pièce de résistance, the Cinnamon Rolls with Cream Cheese Glaze. I started by combining the dough ingredients and mixing into a sticky dough. I turned it unto a lightly floured glass cutting board and kneading it until it was more or less smooth. Then I put the dough in a large bowl sprayed with cooking spray, covered it in plastic wrap then a kitchen towel and left it to rise for 2 hrs. This recipe involves yeast, which I had never used before and was apprehensive about. I am not sure why, it was super easy and actually very cool to see how it made the dough rise like magic. Just look at the difference:

I had thought working with yeast would be hard but really it only requires you to stop for a while to wait for it to rise. I deflated the dough and rolled it out into a 15 x 11 rectangle which happened to be the dimensions of the cutting board i was rolling the dough on so I just rolled it to fit the board. I spread the butter on it and topped it with a mixture of cinnamon and brown sugar. Then I rolled it as tightly as possible and cut it into 3/4"-1" pieces and placed them in a 9 x 13 glass dish sprayed with cooking spray. It was at this time that I realized this recipe was going to be a real winner, they looked and smelled good already. I let them rise for another 45 mins.

I baked them for 40 minutes after which they were golden. While they baked I made the glaze which consisted of butter, icing sugar, and one of my favorite things, cream cheese :-)

I turned them upside down on a cooling rack and let them cool for 10 minutes, then I turned them right side up again, put them back in the dish and smeared the glaze over them. Then I served myself one.

Oh my goodness! Golden on the outside, soft on the inside, perfectly cinnamony and sweet, warm, comforting, and the glaze was the perfect compliment to it. This was better than Cinnabon, and I made them!!! Wow! I took out my phone and my ipod and sent texts and tweets to my friends. I wanted to spread the love. Soon after I had a group of 5 people in my kitchen eating cinnamon rolls, telling me they were great! I'm so glad they turned out so well, and so glad my friends liked them as much as I did. People were there trying to resist their, not second but third cinnamon roll . I had to remove and hide my boyfriend's share as it was in danger of being eaten. I wouldn't change a thing about this recipe and will be making it many more times. It's a definite winner and deserves its 4 fork rating.