baking

Leaf shaped black sesame cookies with matcha tea icing

maki — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 19:34:18 +0200

[From the archives. These sesame cookies with matcha icing look and taste quite dramatic. In leaf shapes they are rather spring-like, but try simple rounds or squares for year-round appeal. Originally published in April 2007.]

Flavor wise black sesame seeds aren’t that different, if at all, from white or brown sesame seeds. But there is something about their dramatic black-to-grey color that is quite exciting. At the moment I’m quite enamored with black sesame seeds, and have been using them instead of the regular brown ones in everything from sauces to salads.

These leaf shaped cookies contain toasted and ground black sesame seeds, dark brown muscovado sugar, and whole wheat flour, and are decorated with matcha (powdered tea) royal icing. The sweetness is quite restrained, both in the cookie and in the icing. You are first hit by the tea-flavored, very slightly bitter icing, followed by the nutty darkness of the cookie. It’s an intriguing combination. They are a wonderful accompaniment to tea, black or green, hot or iced. If the ultimate cookie to you means something very sweet and gooey you may not like these. They are quite adult cookies.

I had to shoot the pictures in a hurry, because they were disappearing faster than almost any other cookie I’ve made recently.

Since I don’t have a leaf shaped cookie cutter, I just made a simple paper template and cut the leaves out with a knife. You can cut them out into any shape you’d like of course, though given the coloring leaves seem appropriate. Quite spring-like, in fact.

Black sesame cookies with matcha icing

For the cookies:

50g / 1.75 oz. raw black sesame seeds
120g / 4.25 oz. dark brown or muscovado sugar. In Japan I would use kurozatou （黒砂糖）preferably from Okinawa.
250g / 8.8 oz. whole wheat flour
100g / 3.5 oz. unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/4 tsp. salt
1 large egg
A few drops of pure almond extract

For the icing:

8 Tbs. powdered (icing) sugar
2 Tbs. matcha tea powder
1 Tbs. egg white or egg white substitute

Equipment needed:

kitchen parchment paper or baking paper
cookie cutter or sharp knife and a paper template
mortar and pestle or suribachi for grinding the sesame seeds
rolling pin

Toast the sesame seeds in a small frying pan until they just start to pop. Immediately remove from the pan.

In a mortar and pestle or suribachi, or with an electric grinder, grind up the sesame seeds until they have turned into a fragrant powder.

In a bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until fluffy. Add the ground up sesame and almond extract. Beat in the egg.

Add the flour a little at a time. The dough may not form a ball - it will be a bit on the dry side. Put into a plastic zip bag, and roll flat with a rolling pin. Put in the refrigerator for about 30 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 180°C / 350°F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a silicon sheet.

Take the cookie dough out, and cut open the plastic bag with scissors. Cut out the cookies with cookie cutters or using a paper template and a sharp small knife. Place the cookies on the lined baking sheet.

Bake for 25 minutes. You may need to rotate the baking sheets once if the cookies are baking unevenly.

As the cookies area baking, make the icing. Mix together the icing (powdered) sugar and the matcha powder. Add the egg white, mixing well to a spreadable but not too thin paste.

When the cookies are baked, take them out and cool, preferably on a cooling rack. Let cool completely.

Once the cookies are cooled, spread with the icing. Let dry on the cooling rack until the icing has firmed up.

Store the cookies (if any survive that long) in a cool, dry place.

Notes

Make absolutely sure that the sesame seeds are fresh, and not rancid. Taste and sniff - if it seems even the least bit off to you, it’s Not Good and has to be thrown out. The best way to store raw sesame seeds? Well wrapped, in the freezer.

If you can’t get a hold of whole wheat cake flour, use regular white cake flour or all-purpose flour. Regular whole wheat flour might make the cookies a bit dry.

Use the best quality matcha you can afford - keeping in mind that matcha is not cheap at all.

You can also use white icing - mix powdered sugar with a little lemon juice and egg white to form a paste. Or, leave the cookies unadorned - they look quite interesting that way too.

(Want more matcha? Check out these matcha shortbread cookies by Clotilde on Chocolate and Zucchini.)

Easter Bunny Cupcakes

maki — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 08:08:55 +0200

It seems that quite a few people have been trying out the kasutera/castella recipe recently, and running into problems. Castella is not an easy cake. So, since it's Easter, I thought I'd haul this out of the archives attic. These little Rich Tea Cupcakes are much easier to make, and while they have an entirely different texture they are really quite delicious. I hope you'll give them a try! The cupcakes are delicious unadorned, but the icing is dead easy, and the fondant is not too hard if you can get a hold of the glycerin. Alternatively you could use store bought Easter themed cake decorations. Originally published in March 2005, as part of the late lamented Is My Blog Burning food blog event; edited and updated.

One of the first attempts at baking that I remember tackling on my own was cupcakes iced with pale pastel icing. I had seen a picture of them in one of my mother's magazines, and they looked so elegant to me. The one thing I remember about those cupcakes is that they tasted peculiarly like uncooked egg - I think I hadn't whipped the eggs enough or something. But the whole process of making the icing, tinting it with food coloring that I had begged my mother to buy for me, and swirling it on the tops of those cakes, was quite fascinating.

This isn't quite an attempt to remake those cupcakes. For one thing I now know how not to make cakes that taste overly eggy. But I did want to make something pastel colored and kawaii (cute) -- and, since it's Easter time, pink and blue bunnies and pastel colored mini-eggs seemed like perfect embellishments.

I'm not a big fan of buttercream icing unless it's very chocolatey, but chocolate was out of the question since I wanted that pastel color scheme. So I've avoided this usual cupcake topping; instead I've used a much easier icing, which is just powdered or icing sugar mixed with lemon juice. It's appropriately shiny and translucent and adds a little tang to the whole experience. And it's dead easy to apply - just drizzle a spoonful or two on top of each cupcake. At this point you can just leave it as is, or use any kind of colorful decoration that strikes your fancy: the icing acts like a sort of glue for the embellishments too. I made some bunny heads and eggs with fondant, but this is a bit fiddly. In Nigella Lawson's How To Be A Domestic Goddess has all kinds of ideas for decorations on top of the icing (she uses plain water for the icing though) such as little candies, a cherry, a knot of cream, and so on. Of course standard cake decorations such as sprinkles and other sugar ornaments work too. I was originally planning on using small chocolate eggs, but then I thought of the bunny theme - and the cake decorating sections of the supermarket are sadly lacking in bunny-themed items. Besides, I just love that pale, half-translucent quality of fondant. The soft, melt-in-your-mouth sugariness is a perfect match for the top of this cupcake too.

I'm calling the base cake recipe without the adornments Rich Tea Cupcake, since the original cake recipe is adapted from one for a tea cake. I'm not sure what exactly a "tea cake" is -- I presume it means it's good for serving with tea. (For the matter, I'm unsure about what a "coffee cake" is either, and how it differs from any other cake....) This is rich yet fairly simple to make, apart from the beating the eggs and sugar vigorously over hot water (or bain marie ) part. This step is common in a lot of European cake recipes, and makes for a cake crumb that is quite crumbly and delicious, with not a trace of raw-egginess about it. The cupcake sans icing is delicious just plain or with an apricot or red currant jam glaze on top. It's very mildly spiced with lemon peel, nutmeg and vanilla, and is not overly sweet. Yes, it has 4 egg yolks plus 4 whole eggs in it.

Recipe: Rich Tea Cupcakes

250g / 8 oz unsalted or salted butter (I used unsalted, since salted butter is not common here)
2 tsp finely grated lemon peel
1 tsp real vanilla extract
4 egg yolks from 'large' eggs
4 whole 'large' eggs
1 cup sugar
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour (plain white flour)
2 Tbs cornstarch (cornflour)
1 tsp baking powder
a pinch of salt if you used unsalted butter
1/2 tsp grated nutmeg

Preheat the oven to 150°C / 350°F. Make ready the cupcake cups. Hint: if you stack 3 paper cupcake cups together, they are sturdy enough to hold their shape when you pour in the batter without needing muffin tins or something. Sift together the flour, cornstarch, baking powder, salt and nutmeg.

Put the butter in a bowl and microwave it on low setting for a minute to soften it. You don't want to totally melt it but it should be easy to cream. Add the lemon peel and vanilla.

Heat up a pan of water to simmering point. In another bowl, beat together the egg yolks, eggs and sugar. Put the bowl over the water, and let it come to lukewarm temperature. Beat this mixture over the hot water vigorously (an electric hand mixer helps a lot, or you can think of it as good toning exercise for your arms) until it's about tripled in bulk and is a pale lemon yellow. When you lift your beater, the batter should form a thick ribbon.

Take off the heat and add the sifted together flour mixture slowly, Don't overbeat. Add the butter mixture bit by bit too until it's all incorporated.

Spoon or pipe the batter into the cupcake linings about 2/3rds full. (Hint: this goes a lot faster if you use a plastic bag as a "piping bag". Put the batter into a plastic zip bag, push the batter towards one corner, and holding the bag ready to go over a cupcake liner quickly cut off that corner with scissors - just a small hole does it! You'll fill the cupcakes up in no time.)

Bake in the preheated oven for about 15-25 minutes, depending on the size of the cupcakes, until a skewer inserted in the middle of one comes out clean. Let cool completely before applying the icing.

Recipe: Lemon Icing

This amount will be enough to cover 12-16 medium sized cupcakes, depending on how generous you are with the icing.

250g / 8 oz icing (powdered) sugar
2-3 Tbs lemon juice, strained of all pips and pulp
additional water or lemon juice if necessary

Mix together the sugar and juice until it's quite runny. The amount of juice or water seems to vary on how humid the weather is. It should form a slightly runny paste, and drop slowly but easily off your spoon when it's ready to go. You can color it with food coloring if you like.

Drizzle with a spoon over the tops of the cupcakes.

Recipe: Fondant

Fondant is the stuff that covers those almost unreal-looking, smooth wedding cakes that you see in glossy magazines. It's also used to cover petit fours. It's not that hard to make, though a bit fiddly. The only special ingredient you need is liquid glycerine, which you can get at a pharmacy (drugstore). Be sure you get pure liquid glycerine, which is safe to eat, not something pre-formulated for cosmetic use! You can use this as a cake icing, or to make cake decorations as I have here, or even on their own as little 'fancies' or candies.

500g / 8 oz icing (powdered) sugar
50g / 2oz liquid glycerine
1 Tbs. egg white (approximately the egg white of one 'large' egg)
Food coloring of your choice

Mix together the ingredients until all the liquid is incorporated. Knead for a few minutes until totally smooth. Don't worry if it's a bit sticky, but if it's too dry add a tiny bit more egg white. Let rest in a plastic bag for at least an hour or overnight in the refrigerator (this seems to make it a bit easier to handle).

To make the fondant decorations, take a small bit of the fondant and color with the food coloring. There are different kinds of coloring, but the key is to always add a tiny bit at a time. I prefer to use paste or powdered food coloring, which gives me more control than the liquid kind.

The bunny heads are made by making a small, thick sausage with a fat middle and tapering ends. Fold this over and pinch the middle to make the face. Pinch the ends to make the ears. Smooth out any cracks with your fingers. Prick out the eyes and mouth with a toothpick.

The eggs are rolled balls shaped a bit to resemble eggs.

Prepare these in advance and leave out to dry a bit. Apply to the cupcakes while the lemon icing is still wet.

Leftover fondant can be frozen; just defrost at room temperature - never defrost in the microwave! Knead well after it's defrosted until it's supple. Or, it will keep for a couple of days well wrapped in the refrigerator.

Roulade au Chocolat Saint Valentin: Chocolate Roulade Cake for Valentine's Day

maki — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 15:21:53 +0100

From the archives. The very iffy photo shows that it is from the very early days of Just Hungry! I look back at this with nostalgia, because not only have my photography skills improved somewhat, it reflects a time in my life when I was into a far more complicated kind of cooking than I am now. I no longer bake things like this, but if you want a pretty spectacular chocolate dessert for Valentine's Day, and have the time and patience, I do highly recommend this rich yet feathery light little confection. I've edited it slightly to be more accurate (what the heck did I mean by 'small container of cream' anyhow). Originally published on February 14, 2004.

This is a small but quite spectacular chocolate dessert, that I made this afternoon and now is waiting for us to devour tonight. It is basically a rolled cake, with a featherlight chocolate bisquit (sponge) made without any flour and rolled with almond buttercream; this is then covered with creamy chocolate ganache, and finally dusted with cocoa. It's not that hard to make but it is a bit involved, so if you'd like to try it please follow the steps carefully.

It's a perfect St. Valentine's Day dessert of course when it's formed into a heart shape as I did here, but it can be enjoyed at any time. You can simply make one round cake, or make little bite-sized rolls (rather like the big sushi rolls), and ice each one individually with the ganache.

Now, this recipe does use rather precise weights, unlike most of the recipes I post here. But in this case it really is worth the effort to take out the kitchen scales and measure everything.

Since the recipe is given in steps, here's the whole shopping list:

200g / 7 oz (2 bars) of best-quality Swiss or Belgian dark chocolate, 70% cacao content
180ml / about 3/4 US cups, or 1 container of whole or heavy cream
1 block of unsalted butter
Pure vanilla essence
200g / 7oz of ground almonds
White sugar
5 large eggs, pasteurized or very fresh organic
Cocoa powder (not drinking chocolate powder!)
Powdered sugar (optional)

Incidentally, you can tell that it was originally a recipe from a Japanese source because of the rather precise amounts listed for the ingredients - for some reason, Japanese recipes are very exact. This originally appeared in a 1970s issue of Today's Cooking Magazine, the companion magazine for a long-running cooking show on NHK TV of the same name. I have more than 100 of these magazines, and I treasure them dearly. The older issues belonged to my mother but now I own the lot, from the '70s up to 2009.

Recipe: Roulade au Chocolat Saint Valentin: Chocolate Roulade Cake for Valentine's Day

I've divided this into 4 steps: the bisquit or sponge, the almond buttercream, the ganache, and finally the assembly. [Edit: I had an extra egg in the original ingredients..there is no egg in the almond buttercream. Also, the yolk is just mixed in at the very end to the chocolate ganache.]

Part 1: The bisquit (sponge cake) base

3 large eggs, separated
45 g / 1 1/2 oz. sugar
30 g / 1 oz of dark chocolate

Preheat the oven to 150°C or 300° F. Line a sponge pan (or a metal pan about 30cm x 20cm, or 12 inches x 8 inches or so, with a lip) with a teflon baking paper like Bake-o-Glide or buttered kitchen parchment paper.

Add 30g/ 1 oz (or about rounded 2 Tbs) of sugar to the egg yolks, and beat at high speed until the mixture is a very very pale yellow (sort of the color of undyed cheddar), and it falls in ribbons from the whisk.

In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until foamy. Add the rest of the sugar (15g / 1/2 oz, or about rounded 1 Tbs) and beat until it forms soft peaks. Don't overbeat or your sponge will be rather dry.

Microwave the chocolate for about 45 seconds to 1 minute until softened. Beat it with a spoon to liquify it. Add 1 Tbs of hot water drop by drop (it will seize up, or turn stiff and dull looking, at first, then loosen up) to the chocolate.

Add the chocolate to the egg yolk mix. Mix in half of the egg white into this, then fold in the rest, being careful not to over mix. Pour the mixture into the pan and smooth out the top with a wide spatula or even a piece of clean cardboard.

Bake for 20 minutes. Take out and let cool. Put a damp kitchen cloth over this to prevent it from drying out.

Part 2: Almond buttercream

80g / 2 1/2 oz finely ground almonds
50g / 1 1/2 oz unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
33g / 1 oz sugar
1 tsp. vanilla

Put the ground almonds in a frying pan over medium heat and toast lightly, stirring all the time. As soon as it is toasted just enough so that it has turned a golden brown and smells great, take it out of the pan (or it will continue cooking and may get burned and bitter tasting).

Whip the butter and sugar together until the sugar is totally incorporated into the cream. It shouldn't feel gritty when you are done. (Do this in a small food processor if you have one.) Add the vanilla.

Mix in the toasted almond powder.

Part 3: Chocolate ganache

170g / 6 oz. dark chocolate
160g / 5 1/2 oz heavy cream
100g / 3 1/2 oz unsalted butter
1 egg yolk, very fresh organic or pasteurized

Heat the cream in a low heat in a thick-bottomed pan until hot but not boiling. Add the chocolate, cut up into chunks or shredded, and mix until thoroughly melted.

Pour out the chocolate mixture into a bowl and let cool for a bit until it's just rather warm when you stick your finger in. Add the butter to this, mixing rapidly until it's totally incorporated. Mix in the egg yolk. Let it cool in the refrigerator for about 30 minutes.

Part 4: Assembly

Cut the bisquit (sponge cake) into strips about 2 inches / 5 cm wide. You want them to be pretty even, so it's helpful to use a ruler to make sure the strips are of the same width. Spread the tops with the buttercream.

Carefully peel the cake strips off the parchment paper with a spatula. Don't worry if the strips tear though. Roll the strips one by one around and around until you end up with a roll about 15cm / inches in diameter.

With a knife and your hands, form the roll into a heart, by pressing the back of a knife into the top indentation, and making the end rather pointy. (Of course, you can just leave it as a circle too.) Smoosh the top a bit if necessary to make it more or less even.

Cover the sides of the heart or roll with a thin layer of the chocolate ganache. Cover the top with a thick layer of the ganache, smoothing it out so you keep the heart shape.

Dust the top with cocoa, through a fine sieve or tea strainer.

To make the heart pattern, cut out some hearts in a piece of paper about the same size as your rolled cake. Place the paper on top of the cake, and dust lightly with icing / powdered sugar.

Some other chocolatey things from the archives

For something more manly and assertive, try Guinness Cake with Whisky-Sour Icing. This remains a favorite cake in our house, since it's very easy to make and creates a bit of a sensation.

This mousse au chocolat is also a perennial favorite - very easy and very delicious.

If you are a vegan or on a strict diet, try the chocolate version of this tofu-based pudding.

On the other hand, what could be more indulgent than homemade dark chocolate peanut butter cups?

Galettes Bretonnes, golden butter cookies from Brittany

maki — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 16:42:10 +0100

When it comes to cookies, I like them rather plain and not overly sweet. This traditional cookie from the Bretagne (Brittany) in France is so plain and simple, that the ingredients really shine. It is made of flour, sugar, egg, and the famously delicious salted butter (beurre demi-sel) of the region. Somewhat related to shortbread or sablé cookies but not as rich, for me they are almost the perfect cookie, and very more-ish.

The salted butter is the key to this cookie’s distinctive nutty, buttery sweet-salty flavor. The best salted butter from the Bretagne and other regions along the Atlantic in France are creamy-fresh and rich, with little glistening crystals of salt still visible. If you can get a hold of really good salted butter, you can use traditional recipes and the cookies will turn out the way they should. If not, some adjustments need to be made. So, I would recommend following the variation of the recipe that meets your butter quality.

(You might see something called galettes bretonnes au sarrasin. These refer to a thin crêpe or pancake made out of buckwheat (sarrasin) flour, usually served with a savory filling. I love those too, but these article is about the cookie galettes bretonnes.)

Recipe 1: Galettes Bretonnes

Version 1: Use this version if you can get really good salted butter with a slightly cultured taste.

250g / 8.8 oz / about 2 U.S. cups all purpose or cake flour (cake flour preferred)
1/2 tsp. baking powder
120g / 4 oz / 1/2 cup minus 2 Tbs. sugar
120g / 4 oz / 1/2 cup / 1 stick salted butter, softened
1 ‘large’ egg, plus 1 egg for glazing
1-2 Tbs. milk if needed
Additional flour for your working surface and the rolling pin

Version 2: Use this version if you are using supermarket-level salted butter, but you don’t want to mess with adding salt and so on (see Version 3).

Add to Version 1:

Large pinch of good quality coarse sea salt
1 tsp. vanilla extract

Version 2: Use this version if you don’t have access to good salted butter, and want to replicate the salty/cultured taste as closely as possible.

250g / 8.8 oz / about 2 U.S. cups all purpose or cake flour (cake flour preferred), plus 2 tablespoons of flour
1/2 tsp. baking powder
120g / 4 oz / 1/2 cup minus 2 Tbs. sugar
120g / 4 oz / 1/2 cup / 1 stick unsalted butter the best you can get, softened
1/2 tsp. regular salt
1/2 tsp. coarse salt
1 ‘large’ egg, plus 1 egg for glazing
1-2 Tbs. buttermilk or sour cream (sour cream is richer of course)
Additional flour for your working surface and the rolling pin

Equipment needed:

Rolling pin
Baking sheets
Parchment paper or silicon baking liner
Pastry brush

The method for all 3 versions is the same.

Sift together the flour and baking powder.

Mix together the sugar, salt (if applicable) and butter. Add the flour mixture and rub well into the butter-sugar mixture with your fingers. Add the egg and vanilla if you’re using Version 2, plus just enough milk or buttermilk so that the dough comes together cohesively. Form into a ball, flatten and wrap in plastic.

(If using a food processor or mixer, you can combine the butter, sugar and flour mixture first, then add the liquids. Don’t overmix this dough after you add the liquids or the cookies will be a bit to tough.)

Chill the dough for at least an hour, until firm. This dough is quite soft so this chilling step is very necessary.

Heat the oven to 180°C / 355°F. Line baking sheets with parchment paper or silicon liners.

Flour your work surface and a rolling pin. Roll out the dough to about 3mm / 1/8 inch or so thickness. Cut the dough out into shapes. Put the cut out dough onto the lined baking sheets.

To prevent the cookies from puffing up in the middle, press down with the tines of a fork, or prick with a fork. (Traditionally the cookies are pressed with a pretty pattern.) (Note: I actually forgot to do the pressing bit for the cookies in the photo! Tastewise they don’t change much, so you can omit the pressing part if you don’t mind the slight dome in the middle of each cookie.)

Beat up the extra egg and add a few drops of milk. Brush the surface of the cookies with this eggwash. (You can just use the yolk with a bit of milk, which would give you a deeper golden glaze. You can also add a pinch of salt for an extra bit of saltiness.)

Bake for 10 minutes, then rotate the baking sheets. Bake for another 5-7 minutes, until the cookies are a golden brown on top.

Cool completely on a rack - these are cookies that taste a lot better when cooled and crispy, rather than soft from the oven. Store in an airtight container.

Makes 48 small, 36 medium or 24 large cookies

Cookies on your Christmas tree? A cautionary tale

A few years ago, way before this blog was even a glimmer in my eye, I decided that I was going to decorate our Christmas tree with iced spice cookies. I was inspired by the gorgeous photos of large trees covered with big iced cookies shaped like Christmas ornaments and penguins and such that appeared in - yes, you might have guessed, Martha Stewart Living.

Once I committed to this, I had to see it through. Our tree wasn’t huge, about 6ft / 180cm or something tall, but it took ages to make enough big cookies to adequately cover it, even though we also decorated the tree with several glass ornaments, not to mention the fairly lights. I was baking cookies and icing the beasts for a solid week. I made about 200 cookies in total in the end: about 150 of them ended up on the tree, 20 or so fell and crashed while I was trying to hang them, and the remaining ones ended up as gifts, wrapped in cellophane.

When the tree was finally decorated with all those cookies, it really looked spectacular. (The photos were taken on a pre-digital camera…and the photos are packed away in boxes, awaiting our soon-I-hope move.) Besides looking great, it smelled wonderful too.

My plan for those cookie-ornaments was to serve them with coffee after a Christmas party. I imagined the scene…friends gathered around the tree, picking their favorites…the village church bells ringing in the background…as I lovingly touched one of the hanging cookies.

What greeted my fingers was…soggy sponge. The icing side was ok, but the exposed cookie side was almost wet. Dismayed, I inpected the other cookies. They were all the same - heavy with moisture. I took one off and bit into it. Ugh! It had absorbed Essence of Pine from the live tree. I spat it out.

I don’t remember what I did serve at that party, but it certainly wasn’t Soggy Pine Cookies. Thankfully, the cookies did manage to hang on the tree until we put it all away a week or so later.

So…if you do plan to have cookies or other edibles on your tree, use an artificial tree, wrap your goodies tightly in cellophane or something, or - well, just have some airtightly-packed reserved. (Besides the moisture, there’s also critters to consider…)

This is my last post on Just Hungry until after-Christmas. Happy Holidays to you all!

Apple crumble cake (an everyday favorite)

maki — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 14:29:22 +0100

[From the archives. This very easy cake is especially nice at this time of year, when apples are in season. We don't actually eat this every day, but it's one of my go-to simple sweets to make. Originally published January 11, 2006.]

Sometimes, you just don't want to fuss, but you still want something a little sweet and homemade. At times like that, I sometimes make this simple cake. It combines two of my favorite foods, apple and crumble topping; the cake part is a simple mix-and pour affair; and it can be served warm, or at room temperature. And, the sweetness of it doesn't hit you in the face. The only mildly fiddly part is peeling and cutting up the apples. It's a perfect accompaniment to tea or coffee.

To me, it's a very American kind of cake - the crumble part of course, and the ease of making it, and the apples. The only thing you need to be careful of is to make sure that the cake part is cooked properly. The part underneath the apples cooks a bit slower than the rest of the cake, so once your toothpick comes out clean, bake it a few more minutes to ensure you don't get any doughiness. For my oven that's about 40 minutes total.

This gave me a chance to use a new discovery - organic raw cane sugar from Italy, called Panela Granulata. Here in Switzerland it's always been impossible to find the kind of soft brown sugar with added molasses that you get in the U.S., but the regular Rohzucker (raw sugar) is is a very light brown. This Italian brown sugar is already quite dark without any added molasses, and tastes delicious just out of the bag (not that I'm eating sugar out of a bag, mind you...of course not...)

You can use any kind of apple, but a slightly softer eating apple like Golden Delicious really fits best. Don't use a sour cooking apple for this.

Incidentally, how do you peel your apples? After struggling for years to peel apples with a paring knife and such, trying not to cut off too much of the flesh with the skin, it finally dawned on me recently - just use a vegetable peeler. It was one of those 'doh' moments for sure. No one sticks around to admire those one-long-piece apple peels anyway.

Apple Crumble Cake

A note about the measurements: If you aren't in North America, 1 U.S. cup is 220ml. Remember that all the ingredients here are proportional, and can be scaled proportionately up or down.

4 to 5 medium or small apples - about 4 cups worth of cut up apple, but you can do it with a bit more or less
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 cup whole milk
1 'large' egg, beaten
1/3 cup melted butter, or a combination of melted butter and neutral-tasting oil such as safflour or canola

For the crumble mixture:

3/4 cup of raw cane sugar, muscovado sugar, or regular light brown sugar
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
2 Tbs. butter
1 tsp. cinnamon (optional)

Preheat the oven to 180° C / 350° F.

Grease a standard square cake pan (20cm x 20cm x 5cm, or 8" x 8" x 2") with butter.

Sift the flour and baking powder together, and mix in the granulated sugar. Add the milk, beaten egg and melted butter or butter/oil combo; mix together just until there are no huge lumps. Pour into the pan.

Make the crumble mixture: melt the butter in a pan, add the flour, sugar and cinnamon, and mix well until it become crumble.

Peel, core and cut up the apples, and put on to of the cake batter. Sprinkle the top with the crumble mixture.

Bake for about 40 minutes. Cut into squares. Serve warm plain or with whipped cream. You can nuke this to warm it up quite successfully. Also nice at room temperature, such as in a lunch box.

Wine, cheese and walnut whole wheat bread using the Almost No-Knead method

maki — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 15:18:57 +0200

More than a year ago, a method of making bread that required no kneading at all was published in the New York Times, and swept through the food blogging world like wildfire. Here is that original recipe (login required). I tried it too, and while it did produce a very nice loaf, I found it rather lacking in character. So I adapted the method for making desem bread, a natural-yeast (no yeast added) bread that has a wonderful flavor.

However, desem is a very labor-intensive bread, even if the loaves themselves are made the no-knead way. The desem starter itself has to be nurtured and fed continuously. I haven’t managed to keep one alive for more than a few months at a time - when I get too busy, or go away or something, the desem dies and I have to start over. (I’ve tried freezing it and things and the results have been rather mixed.)

Late last year, Cook’s Illustrated came out with a recipe they called Almost No-Knead Bread. Some people have taken to calling it No-Knead 2.0, but the original is called Almost No-Knead. Here’s a link to the recipe that doesn’t require registration, though if they close that loophole you can register there for 14 days for free. I haven’t seen Almost No-Knead rage through the food blogging world with quite the enthusiasm that the original No-Knead did, but it is an interesting development. There is some minimal kneading involved, but nothing too taxing.

Here are the key differences between the No-Knead and the Almost No-Knead methods:

Beer (lager) and a little vinegar are added to Almost No-Knead, to add some character and flavor. (One of the main criticisms of Original No-Knead was that the bread was a bit bland.)
Almost No-Knead is less hydrated. No-Knead calls for 1 5/8 cups of water per 3 cups of flour, and Almost calls for 1 1/4 cups of liquid in the form of 3/4 cups + 2 tablespoons of water and 1/4 cup + 2 tablespoons of lager. This allows for easier handling of the dough.
Almost No-Knead requires a little kneading and shaping of the loaf before the second rise.
An innovation added by Almost No-Knead is a sort of sling made of kitchen parchment paper, which is put under the loaf with the ends hanging out of the cast iron pot the loaf is baked in. This allows for the load to be taken out of that red hot pot easily.

I find that the No-Knead method produces a slightly better, more crackly crust, probably due to the higher hydration. But the taste of Almost No-Knead is indeed better, more tangy and complex, though not as deeply complex as a true sourdough. Both have that sort of silky, slightly doughy, open and moist texture that is much desired in ‘artisanal’ type breads.

Everyday Almost No-Knead

I’ve tried the original Almost No-Knead as well as the variations (I did buy a 1-year subscription to Cook’s Illustrated by the way, it is worth while) such as Seeded Rye and Pecan and Cranberries. The latter one is really good.

The schedule for making the bread that fits our daily life goes like this: I mix up the bread late in the evening, around 10 or 11. It requires an 18 hour rise, but it’s not too picky in that regard - an hour less or more doesn’t seem to affect things too much. The next day, around 5 or 6 whenever someone gets home if we are out, it’s punched down and kneaded (I like to add the additives at this stage rather than at the start) and given a 2 hour rise, then baked. We have the bread for dinner or for breakfast, or both. If you only have time to bake on weekends, do the bread mixing on Saturday to have fresh baked bread on Sunday, counting back at least 22 hours (1/2 hour for mixing/kneading, 18 for the first rise, 2 for the second rise, and 1 1/2 hours for cooling and such) from when you want to eat the bread.

Taking it even further

After I’d made the lager and vinegar flavored loaves several times, I started to wonder if adding wine would work. I used to love a bread called baguette au vin et rosette, pictured here, a crusty and hearty baguette with bits of rosette sausage and wine actually in the dough. The baker who made it unfortunately sold up and moved on, so I can’t get that bread anymore. After several tries, I think I have hit upon a combination that really works. So after a long preamble, here’s the recipe. Note that the hydration (amount of water) is a bit different from the original Almost No-Knead.

Recipe: Almost No-Knead whole wheat wine bread with walnuts and cheese

2 cups (10 oz / 280g) all-purpose flour
1 cup (5 oz / 140g) whole wheat flour
1/4 to 1/3 tsp. dry yeast
1 1/2 tsp. salt
3/4 cups (177ml) lukewarm water
1/4 cup dry red wine
3/4 cups of roughly chopped walnuts
1/2 cup finely diced aged Gruyère, or other aged hard cheese

In a bowl, mix together the flours, yeast and salt. (Note about the yeast: I really don’t know what rapid-rise yeast is in German, and there’s only one kind of dry yeast sold here commonly, so I add just a tad more of that, and it works fine.) Add the liquids and mix until it forms a shaggy ball. It looks like this - the red wine does make it a light purple in color, but after it’s baked it’s much less noticeable (as you can see in the top photo).

Cover the ball and let it rise in a warm place for about 18 hours. (The most reliably warm place in our house is on top of an old PC tower case, turned on of course.)

After 18 hours or so are up, the dough should be risen and puffy. Knead in the walnuts and cheese, and form a ball again. Make a sort of sling out of parchment paper, but cutting a length of it off and folding it into half or thirds. Set this under the ball, in a pot or skillet, and cover the whole thing with a large bowl turned upside down over it, or plastic film. You may want to consult the step by step illustrations on the Cook’s Illustrated site for this part, or the video.)

Set your timer to 90 minutes, and when it beeps put an enamelled cast-iron pot in the oven and set it to 500°F / 260°C, or a bit less than that if you have a convection oven. (I do, and I set it to 250°C.) Set your timer to 30 minutes.

Take out the red-hot pot carefully, take the dough by the sling, and drop it in the pot. Bake for about 30 minutes, and take off the lid; if it looks too pale for you at this point, bake for an additional 10 minutes or so.

When done, take the bread out using the sling, and let cool on a rack. (My cooling rack is my grill!)

The wine really makes this bread taste interesting. A slice of this plus a salad or soup makes for a very satisfying lunch, and it also makes a great sandwich.

Variations

You can leave out the cheese for a walnut bread, or use pecans instead. Chopped up black olives are nice too, instead of the cheese. Or leave all out for a plain wine bread which goes well with just about anything, but especially - you guessed it - cheese.

One addition that has not worked for me so far is adding ham or sausage, a la the baguette au vin et rosette. Whatever ham or sausage I’ve tried has made the bread turn overly sausage-y. The experimentation on that front continues.

Homemade whole wheat pita bread, no oven needed

maki — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 16:56:47 +0100

Even with more than 900 (and counting) posts and almost 200 recipes posted on Just Hungry, there are still lots of things that I make all the time, but haven’t got around to writing about yet. A lot of those things take more time to write up than cook, almost. This whole wheat pita bread recipe is one of them. You do have to account for the obligatory rising time for the dough, but otherwise it’s dead easy, and your kitchen working time in total is maybe 20 minutes, 30 tops. For fresh baked bread!

The key is that the pitas are not baked in the oven. No need for preheating baking stones or quarry tiles or all that stuff. They are baked, so to speak, in a plain old frying pan. You can make them any size you want as long as it fits in the bottom of the frying pan. I like to make small, palm-sized ones for easy snacking or bringing along for lunch.

This recipe also only requires 3 cups of flour in total. I sometimes get a bit frustrated by bread recipes that call for like 6 cups of flour, since we are a small household watching our collective waistlines and there’s no way we can eat that much bread in a reasonable amount of time. Sure you can freeze the excess, but then you can quickly accumulate massive amounts of frozen bread if you bake often. So anyway, this makes 12 smallish pitas, which are gone quite quickly, especially with a resident Bread Fiend in house.

I referred to many other pita bread recipes, especially this excellent one on About.com, before arriving at this version. The cooking in the frying pan concept came from watching naan bread and Chinese flat breads puff when cooked on griddles. A griddle is not necessary though - and I think most people have at least one frying pan.

The recipe is so simple, and I make it so often, that I’ve committed it to memory.

Whole wheat pita bread without an oven

1 packet (7g) instant dried yeast
250ml warm water (A U.S. cup plus a bit)
pinch of sugar
2 cups whole wheat flour
1 cup white bread flour (or strong flour; in Switzerland use Zopfmehl (farine de tresse)) (Using bread flour ensures there’s sufficient gluten in the dough.)
1 tsp salt
1 tsp olive oil

Equipment needed:

a non-stick frying pan or two
lids to fit the pans
mixing bowl
clean washed pillow case

Mix together the warm water (from the tap is fine), yeast, and pinch of sugar. Leave in a warm place until frothy.

Mix together the flours and salt in a large mixing bowl. Add the liquid gradually, stirring vigorously with a wooden spoon. Add the oil, and as soon as it’s formed a ball start to knead. (If it’s a bit dry, add water drops at a time until it’s kneadable). Knead until smooth and pliable.

Put the dough ball in a plastic bag or in a clean bowl covered with plastic wrap and leave in a warm place until more than doubled in bulk. In the winter, I find the ideal warm place is on top of a Big Ass PC case with gimpy motherboard which gives out excessive heat despite two cooling fans. This is one instance where I consider a PC to be superior for a task than a Mac.

After the dough has risen, punch it down and knead again. Cut into 8 to 12 equal pieces. Round off each piece into a smooth ball, and leave, covered with a damp cloth or plastic, to rest for about 10 minutes, on a floured surface. (This resting time I find is critical for the successful formation of the pocket inside the pita.)

Flatten the balls with your hand or a rolling pin to your desired diameter (for 12 pieces, about 5-6 inches / 12-15 cm is good). Let rest again for a few minutes so that the dough balls ‘relax’. [Edit: this was omitted before. It’s not critical, but if you’re having trouble getting a ‘pocket’ to form inside the pita, give this step a try.]

Heat up one or more non-stick frying pans, over medium-high heat.

Take a flattened ball and put in a hot frying pan. Cover with lid. Leave for about 2-3 minutes, until it puffs up. Flip over and cook for another 2-3 minutes on the other side. Some will puff more than others - don’t worry if the puffing is minimal, you can still use it.

Take out of the pan and immediately put into the pillow case. Close up the pillow case. This allows the pita to cool in a somewhat closed environment, so the surface is sort of pliable rather than crispy and brittle. (You can, of course, use a large kitchen towel instead, but I thought you might have fun pointing out to your friends that there’s a crazy woman who wants you to use a pillow case for baking bread. And it works!)

Repeat for the rest of the dough. Once you get used to it, you can heat up 2, 3 or more frying pans at once and cook several at a time. I find that juggling two pans is my limit though, or the pitas get too black. A little charring is fine - it just adds to the flavor.

Now let’s see if there’s a pocket inside by cutting one open.

There sure is!

(Sometimes there isn’t a pocket - the ones that didn’t puff much may be solid inside - but you can easily make one with a knife, or just by wiggling around two fingers inside the bread.)

These come out a bit puffier than commercial pita bread, but are delicious - better! - nevertheless. Use as you would any pita.

Banana coconut cake

maki — Tue, 10 Apr 2007 14:45:50 +0200

Some recipes come about from long experimentation and several tries to try to perfect them (like those darned bunnies, or my ongoing attempts to make natto at home). Others just seem to happen. We had a bunch of bananas that were rapidly turning very brown and spotty on the kitchen table. I froze some (nothing like frozen bananas as treats), and turned some into a cake.

It’s nothing fancy at all - it’s basically a pound-cake like base (but with a bit less sugar), with added cut-up bananas. The coconut part was added on a whim also. The cake doesn’t rise much, probably because of the bananas, but it’s moist, not too sweet, and very comforting. It’s perfect with a cup of tea.

So far in my life I’ve not had the opportunity to go to Hawaii (unless you count a short layover en route from LA to Tokyo) but I sort of imagine that this cake would not be too out of place there.

Banana coconut cake

Note that there are equal amounts in weight of eggs, butter, and flour. So, first weigh your cracked eggs, and then use the equal amounts of butter and flour. In my case the two large eggs I had came out to just about 120 grams.

2 large eggs (about 120g / 4 oz total weight)
120g / 4 oz unsalted butter
120g / 4 oz cake or all-purpose flour
100g / a bit less than 3 oz raw cane sugar or light brown sugar
1 tsp. baking powder
3 medium ripe bananas, cut up into smallish pieces
1 Tbs. brandy or 1 tsp. vanilla extract
2 Tbs. milk or soy milk
4 Tbs. dessicated coconut
extra butter for the pan

Equipment: 8 inch / 20cm square cake or brownie pan, electric or handheld whisk, kitchen parchment paper

Preheat the oven to 180 °C / 355° F.

Butter the cake or brownie pan and line with parchment paper, OR butter and flour the pan.

If the butter is still hard from the refrigerator, put it in a bowl and nuke it for a minute to soften.

Mix together the flour and baking powder.

Cream together the butter and sugar with the whisk until blended and fluffy. Add the eggs and whisk some more. Add the flavoring (brandy or vanilla) and milk.

Fold in the flour and baking powder, and fold in the bananas. Don’t overmix.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan. Sprinkle the top with the dessicted coconut.

Bake for about 40 minutes or until a skewer or chopstick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Serve warm or at room temperature.

Notes

If the coconut looks too brown, put a piece of foil over the pan until the cake has finished baking through.

Out of love with silicon for baking

maki — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 17:56:27 +0100

Some years ago, when silicon baking wares came out, I jumped on them with glee. No more scraping off baked on crud from the baking sheets! Muffins that popped right up with no greasing of the cups required! Easy washing up!

But these days I’ve definitely fallen out of love with silicon sheets and silicon muffin pans and the like.

About those muffin pans first: while muffins do brown on the outsides, they don’t get as crispy-brown as I’d like. They also seem to rise a bit less than I’d like.

Also, they are totallly useless for popovers and Yorkshire puddings. You can’t really heat them up, so you can’t make them piping hot and pour in hot batter. The alternative method for making popovers ‘pop’ is to start them in a cold oven, but that doesn’t work either. So I end up with flat, boring muffins of a sort, rather than high and airy pockets of trapped air and eggy, moist insides. Yes, I know I could just get separate pans for the popover and Yorkshire puddings, but I don’t have that much storage space in my not-too-large kitchen, and I like to avoid ‘single-use’ type equipment as much as possible.

As for silicon baking sheets, used to line heavy baking sheets, they do okay on the browning front. But what I dislike about them is that, after a few uses they take on an unpleasantly ‘greasy’ feel to them. No amount of washing or soaking in soapy water seems to cure that. I don’t know if I’m over-sensitive to this, but it drives me nuts. So I end up throwing them out over maybe 3 uses. This doesn’t seem too economicalor environmentally friendly to me. (Do those things disintegrate at all in landfills?)

So, I’m back to good old metal baking tins and lining my baking sheets with kitchen parchment paper. My old metal muffin pans tend to stick a bit on the bottoms, so for delicate cupcakes and such I just use paper cupcake liners. (Which means of course I avoid those individual silicon cupcake cups.) Paper, at least, does disintegrate after a while.

How do you feel about those silicon baking products? Do you love them or hate them?

Japanese Curry Bread (Kare-pan)

maki — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 15:01:38 +0100

There’s a whole category of breads in Japan called okazu pan. Okazu are the savory dishes that you eat with your bowl of rice at a typical meal, and okazu pan are little breads with savory fillings.

Since curry flavored anything is a hit in Japan, curry bread or kare- pan is one of the most popular okazu pan varieties. It’s a bun made of slightly sweet dough, filled with a spoonful of curry, breaded and deep fried. I am not sure how curry bread originated, but I am guessing it was inspired by Russian piroshki (piroshiki is also a popular okazu pan, though in the Japanese version it often contains very non-Russian fillings like harusame, thin bean noodles). Curry bread is sold at bakeries and convenience stores throughout Japan.

Making curry bread is a bit tricky since it’s deep-fried. It’s easy to make an oily, soggy lump if you fry it too long or at too low a temperature, but if you don’t fry it long enough the center part where the dough meets the filling may be raw. My solution for this is to fry it until it’s puffed and crisped, then to finish it in the oven. The other trick is to roll out the dough as thinly as you can manage without making it so thin that the curry is going to burst through.

You also have to be careful about the consistency of the curry filling. It’s most convenient to start out with some leftover curry, but it has to be reduced down to a very thick, paste-like consistency, otherwise it will run over the dough and make the dough hard to seal. If the dough is not sealed properly, the bun will burst in the oil, which ends up to be quite a mess (oil seeps in, filling seeps out).

All in all, I am not sure I would bother to make curry bread at all if I lived near a Japanese bakery, but I do on occasion get a craving for this very down to earth snack. Try it if you’re up for a bit of a challenge. This recipe is adapted from one in an out-of-print Japanese bread book.

Japanese curry bread or kareh pan (karee pan)

Makes 8 to 10 buns

The dough:

370g / 13 oz all-purpose white flour (see notes)
1 packet, about 7g, regular dry yeast
2 Tbs. sugar
1 1/2 tsp. salt
2 large eggs, beaten, with 1 Tbs. taken out and reserved for the eggwash (see below)
160cc / about 5.4 fluid oz.or 5/8th cup milk
40g / 1.4 oz (about 2 1/2 Tbs.) butter, at room temperature

The filling:

About 4 cups of leftover curry or readymade foil-pack curry (though if you’re going to all the trouble you might as well start with your own curry)

The coating:

Bread crumbs - dry panko crumbs preferred
The reserved 1 Tbs. egg from the dough (see above)
Milk

To fry:

Oil (I used peanut oil)

Epuipment and supplies:

Parchment paper, cut into 10 pieces about 20cm / 8 in cm square (big enough to hold the buns)
Food processor (useful but not required)
Pastry brush
Deep fat fryer or wok or a deep enough pan for frying
A spatula big enough to put a bun on
Oven

(Hint: click on each small image to get a larger view.)

Make the dough. If you’re using a food processor, put all the dry ingredients into the bowl and whiz to mix. Add the egg (don’t forget to reserve 1 tablespoon for the coating/wash), and while the machine is running, slowly add the milk until the dough forms a ball around the blade. Stop and add the butter in pieces, process for about a minute. Take it out and knead it briefly to form a ball.

If you’re mixing by hand, mix together the dry ingredients with a whisk (or sift). Make a well in the middle of the mixed dry stuff. Add the egg (don’t forget to reserve 1 Tbs. for the coating/wash) and milk into the well, and mix rapidly with your fingertips until you get a rough dough. Continue mixing until you have a ball. Add the butter, cut into small pieces, and knead on a lightly floured surface. The dough will be very sticky at first but resist the temptation to flour your board too much, or the dough will become very stiff. If you keep scraping off the stuck on dough with a scraper and kneading and stretching, eventually the dough will become smooth, coherent and pliable.

Once you have a nice smooth dough ball, put into a clean ball, cover with plastic film and let rise for about 1 to 1/2 hours until doubled in size. Punch down the dough, re-cover and let rise an additional 45 minutes.

While the dough is rising, deal with the curry. Mash down or smoosh/cut up any big bits of carrot, potato, meat etc. Over a low heat, slowly cook down the curry until it’s reduce to 2 cups or so, and thick and paste-like. Let cool, then refrigerate until stiff.

Take out the dough, punch down, knead and divide into 8 to 10 pieces. Roll each piece into a ball, and let rest for about 15 minutes under a piece of plastic or a damp kitchen towel.

Put about 1 tablespoon of milk in the reserved egg, and mix well.

Start forming the buns. With a rolling pin or with your hands, flatten out each piece into a thin round, with the center thicker than the edges. If you’re making 10 buns the circle should be about 18cm / 7 inches in diameter.

Paint the edges of the circle with the egg wash. Don’t make it too wet - the purpose of the eggwash it to act as a glue to form a seal.

Put a tablespoon or so of curry in the center of the circle. Gather up the opposing edges of the circle above the filling.

Pinch the dough all around to seal well, like making a dumpling.

When the edges are all crimped, push the crimped edge down to one side.

Add a bit more milk to the egg wash and put into a bowl or dish big enough to contain a bun. Dip the bun into the egg wash, coating it on all sides, then roll in bread crumbs.

Put each bun on a piece of parchment paper. Leave in a warm place for about 15 minutes - the buns should rise to about 1.5 times their original size.

In the meantime, preheat the oven to 150°C / 300°F. Heat the frying oil to 175°C / 350°F (this is pretty hot, be careful).

If the buns have developed any gaps, pinch them closed.

Pick up a bun with the paper, with a spatula. Slide the bun, paper and all, into the hot oil. Don’t worry the paper won’t burn - just scoop it out with the spatula.

Fry the buns until golden brown - this shouldn’t take more than 5 minutes per bun. If they won’t stay down just hold them down a bit. Do about 2 or 3 at a time at most - don’t overcrowd the pan.

Drain well on a rack or several layers of paper towels, and put the buns on a baking sheet. Bake for about 8-10 minutes.

Serve hot or at room temperature.

Notes

If you’re in Japan use 300g ‘strong flour’ (kyou-ryokuko) and 70g ‘weak flour’ (hakuriki-ko)
You can make curry just for the bread, but making a small amount of curry is a bother, so just plan for a curry meal and reserve some for a later curry bread. (You can freeze the reserved curry as long as you take out the potatoes.)
Panko or Japanese crunchy breadcrumbs are the best to use for this. They absorb a lot less oil than soft breadcrumbs.
You can use other fillings, like cooked-down bolognese sauce, leftover stew, or even a stiff custard sauce. As long as the filling is stable enough that it doesn’t run over the sides when placed in the center of the dough circle, it should work fine.
If deep frying doesn’t appeal to you, just omit the breadcrumb coating, brush with eggwash, and bake in a 180°C / 360°F oven for 20-25 minutes until golden brown. It won’t be the same as the fried version but will still be pretty good.