I’ve been putting off posting, and hence I decided to post about two of my recent baking experiments at once to make up for it

Part I : Cinnamon Roll Muffins

Recently I made these cinnamon roll muffins from Joy the Baker. They’re made with yeast, but only take about an hour total as opposed to regular cinnamon rolls, which usually require several hours for the dough to rise, rest, bake, etc.

The recipe, which was originally for a loaf version, isn’t clear about when to rest them as muffins instead of a loaf–I ended up resting them in the pan. That turned out fine and they rose ok, but I was concerned when I took them out of the oven because the cinnamon topping had melted off the top and spread out in between the muffins in the pan. However, it ended up being pretty easy to scoop it up and get it back on top of the muffins, so crisis avoided

As for the taste, the muffin part was pretty bland and had the muffin-like texture you’d expect (not like a cinnamon roll, despite the yeast in the batter–which is to be expected because the dough wasn’t kneaded to develop the gluten), but the topping was so sweet that I wouldn’t have wanted a sweeter muffin. Overall, they were good and perhaps could substitute for cinnamon rolls if you had a real craving, but I’d rather use my calories on real cinnamon rolls!

Part II: Tarte Tatin

When I was at home in Atlanta, I decided I wanted to make a fruit dessert, so I chose the apple tarte tatin from smitten kitchen. I love tarte tatin, and will usually order it in a restaurant that has it on the menu, but I’ve never tried to make it. I guess I was always intimidated by the amount of caramelization you have to do to the apples…plus the fact that you need a pan that can go from stovetop to oven But, emboldened by my recent completion of the Daring Bakers caramel challenge, I picked up my mom’s stainless steel pan and decided to go for it.

Overall, it went way better than I expected. In fact, it was almost perfect — apart from the fact that the apples got a little too caramelized (some might say burnt) in the middle. The problem was that the pan I used was about 15 inches across, and just didn’t heat evenly enough to caramelize everything at the same time. So rather than having perfectly caramelized apples in the middle and undercaramelized ones on the outside, I ended up cooking the ones in the middle a bit too much. Still, the flavor was amazing. The crust was super easy to make and really flaky and delicious, and the tarte even came out of the pan with minimal apple displacement (only a couple in the middle stuck)! In all, I was really proud of it, and I guess everyone else liked it because it was gone by the end of the meal

This month’s Daring Bakers Challenge was to make caramel cake, with the optional addition of homemade caramels. I decided to do both — I made the caramels in my apartment here in Berkeley, then brought them home to Atlanta for Thanksgiving. There, I made the caramel cake and frosting. I’m posting a day late because  I didn’t have my camera USB cord with me in Atlanta, and I was traveling back to California all day yesterday. I know you’ve been on the edge of your seat!

Sea salt caramels

Recipe from Alice Medrich’s Pure Dessert.

First stage of making caramels–getting sugar and golden syrup to 305F. I bought my first candy thermometer for this recipe, so now I need to make more use of it

After adding the cream and butter. Look at the sides of the pan and you can see how high it bubbled up at first! The key here is definitely using a very large pot. The recipe said to cook this mixture to 260F, but I only let mine get to about 248F because others had trouble with the caramels getting very hard (i.e. becoming toffee). Mine turned out nice and soft, and I was definitely assured I did the right thing when Barefoot Contessa cooked her caramels to 248F on the episode I watched today!

Caramel poured into pan to set.

After cooling in the fridge overnight, topping with gray sea salt, and cutting into pieces.

Greg helped me wrap all the caramels in squares of unbleached waxed parchment paper.

Finally done wrapping! This recipe probably made about 80 caramels.

Caramel cake with caramelized butter frosting

Recipe from Shuna Fish Lydon, http://blogs.kqed.org/bayareabites/2006 … he-recipe/.

Making the caramel syrup. I used a big pot because when you add the water to stop the caramelization process, it spatters a lot. I actually poured the water through a hole in some aluminum foil to avoid getting hot sugar on myself.

I was worried I had made the caramel a bit dark, even though David Lebovitz says it should be the color of an old penny. It tasted kind of bitter, but in the end,  the cake and frosting both ended up just tasting really caramelly.

Cake before frosting. My mom only had a 10-inch cake pan (not the 9-inch one called for in the recipe), so I didn’t try to make multiple layers.

After frosting and decorating with some caramels.

Yum! I had this for breakfast the next day too

This month’s challenge was hosted by Shuna Fish Lydon (http://eggbeater.typepad.com), along with Dolores (http://culinarycuriosity.blogspot.com/), Alex (Brownie of the Blondie and Brownie duo: http://blondieandbrownie.blogspot.com/), Jenny of Foray into Food (http://forayintofood.blogspot.com/), and with Gluten-free assistance by Natalie of Gluten-a-Go-Go (http://glutenagogo.blogspot.com/).

Check out their blogs for more info about the recipes!

This month’s Daring Bakers challenge was another savory one — homemade pizza, using the dough recipe from The Bread Baker’s Apprentice by Peter Reinhart.  This was slightly different from the recipe I normally use, since it calls for leaving the dough in the refrigerator overnight. While that did help split up the work and made for a stronger yeasty flavor (which honestly I wasn’t a huge fan of), I felt like the dough didn’t really rise as much as it should have — though that could also have been my old yeast I split the original recipe, which was supposed to produce 6 9-12” pizzas, in half. Though I was hoping to make two pizzas with it (another part of the challenge) I ended up only being able to make one ~13-14″ pizza with a normal crust.

As part of the challenge, we also had to attempt tossing the dough in the air. I had never tried it before but was excited to go for it.  Here’s my best toss (thanks to my fiancé Greg for the great photo!):

[Yes, that's Anthony Bourdain on my t-shirt]

I was able to toss it a few times, but I ended up doing the final shaping on a cookie sheet. The sauce was homemade too, using this great recipe from Smitten Kitchen:

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Moderately Easy Tomato Sauce

4 roma tomatoes
1 to 2 tablespoons olive oil
2 cloves of garlic, minced
Pinch of red pepper flakes
Splash of white wine
1/2 teaspoon sugar
3/4 teaspoon salt

Bring medium pot of water to a boil. Poach the tomatoes for one minute only, and then drain them. As soon as they are cooled off enough that you can touch them, peel them. The peels should come right off. If they don’t, make a slit in the skins. This always does the trick.

Drain and dry the pot. Put it back on the burner over medium heat. Pour in olive oil and let it heat completely before adding the garlic and stirring it for a minute with a wooden spoon. Add the red pepper flakes and stir it for anther minute. You do not want the garlic to brown. Put the peeled tomatoes in the pot, along with the wine, sugar and salt. Break the tomatoes up with your spoon.

Let the sauce simmer for about 30 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the tomatoes break down. Carefully taste without burning your tongue and adjust seasonings, if necessary.

Makes enough for one small/medium pizza.

(Note: I substituted red wine for the white wine with no problems. SK also has a recipe for a sauce that calls for canned tomatoes, but I haven’t tried it yet).

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I topped the pizza with my old favorites: sun-dried tomatoes, feta cheese, onions, and fresh basil.

I think next time I would add the basil at the end of baking to keep it greener.

Although I have a pizza peel and a baking stone, I always get nervous about moving the pizza from one surface to another after topping the unbaked dough. Because I want to leave the stone in the oven, I just assemble and bake the pizza on a cookie sheet for about 5 minutes, then slide it directly onto the baking stone for the last few minutes of baking to help crisp the crust.

For the pizza dough recipe, check out the blog of this month’s host, Rosa.

And stay tuned — for dessert after the pizza, I made pumpkin crème brûlée

I’ll take a moment from playing with my new iPhone to post about a favorite recipe   As I think I’ve mentioned before, I’m allergic to some tree nuts, including pine nuts. Since I can’t eat regular pesto, but love basil, I recently started making almond pesto. I can’t tell you how the taste compares to regular pesto, but I love it.

The base recipe is from Giada’s Family Dinners–I’ve just changed the pine nuts to almonds.

Almond Pesto

• 1 garlic clove, peeled
• 2 cups fresh basil leaves
• 1/4 cup almonds (I prefer roasted & lightly salted)
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste (less if your almonds are salted already)
• 1/2 cup to 3/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
• 1/2 cup grated Parmesan

Into the bowl of a food processor, add the garlic, basil leaves, almonds, salt, and pepper. Pulse until finely chopped. With the blender still running, slowly pour 1/2 cup of olive oil. Check for a thick, yet smooth consistency, adding more oil if necessary. Transfer to a bowl and stir in 1/2 cup Parmesan. (Alternative: add piece of Parmesan to food processor and let it shred it for you. It might leave a few chunks though, as you can see in some of my pictures).

Cook spaghetti according to package directions. Drain, then add pesto.

Stir to mix until pasta is evenly coated.

Enjoy!

This months Daring Bakers challenge was pretty straightforward–make lavash crackers and a vegan dip to accompany them. I made mine a few weeks ago and it went pretty well.  The dough is yeasted and didn’t rise as much as I thought it should have, but I had plenty to roll out. It’s the same kind of dough that you’d use to make pita–the key for crackers is just to roll it very thin and bake it till it’s crispy. I got mine pretty thin with my new rolling pin (first time using it!), but it ended up being a little more pita-like in the middle. I actually liked the gradient of textures though, all the way from soft to very crispy.

I topped my crackers with cumin seeds and coarse sea salt. I should have rolled the cumin seeds into the dough, because most of them fell off when I broke up the crackers.

I served these with the Barefoot Contessa hummus.  They didn’t last long!

Here’s a link to the full recipe (both gluten-free and regular versions) on Shellyfish’s blog: http://shellyfish.wordpress.com/

Just wanted to do a quick post about another recipe from Smitten Kitchen — big crumb coffee cake.

That recipe uses rhubarb, but I had a bunch of peaches so I used those (2 very large peaches, peeled and sliced) instead, and it worked well. If you like coffee cake with a high struesel-to-cake ratio, try this recipe!

And, of course, it’s great with coffee

This month’s Daring Bakers challenge was definitely easier and less time consuming than the cake from last month, and I do love eclairs (even though I don’t remember the last time I had one). My only real concern about making them was that the eclairs are really meant to be served immediately. Since I usually bring my baked goods to lab to show them off/get rid of them so I don’t eat them all, it would mean I’d need to make them the day before and keep them in the fridge overnight (and risk them getting soggy). Since I live on the edge, I decided to go for it anyway

[I actually just happened to have that Eiffel tower from a trip to France in college]

The recipe starts with a pâte à choux, which is a cooked dough used for eclairs, beignets, and profiteroles, and which I’ve never made before. It involves mixing milk and butter on the stove, then adding flour and mixing a lot more as the dough comes together. Then, you take it off the heat and mix in the eggs. The dough is still warm when you pipe it out onto a cookie sheet.

The steam in the dough helps it to rise, so the shells get puffed up and hollow on the inside.  Half of mine puffed up nicely (the front tray in the picture below), but the other half fell when I was rotating the cookie sheets halfway through. I think it was because they started off on top and didn’t cook enough before I moved them.

The next step was to make the pastry cream, which I’ve also never done before. We had the option of making chocolate pastry cream and glaze, or just picking one or the other chocolate element. I decided to do the traditional eclair with vanilla bean cream and chocolate glaze. The pastry cream was also cooked on the stove — basically, you mix some egg yolks, sugar, and cornstarch, then drizzle hot cream into the eggs and keep mixing. It was fun because it comes together really quickly, suddenly changing from a thin and loose to thick and creamy.

Finally came the chocolate glaze. The recipe was pretty complicated, since first you had to make a “chocolate syrup”, and then use some of that for the glaze. I went ahead and used it, but was unhappy with the final product — it was too thin to give a good coat on the eclairs, though it did taste good.

Assembly:

Ready to take to lab (they were gone in a few hours):

I don’t think they suffered from being in the fridge overnight, though the chocolate got some condensation on it.

Check out the full recipe on the blog of this month’s challenge host, MeetaK.

I’m excited for next month — I’m kind of hoping for a savory challenge, but Greg’s hoping for doughnuts

Roasted vegetable lasagna

I got a small eggplant, zucchini, and patty pan squash in my produce box this week, so I decided to try my hand at vegetable lasagna. I combined several recipes to do this, mainly because none had the exact ingredients I wanted to use. I’m really happy with it — I was worried that the eggplant would be soggy (many people recommend salting the eggplant to get rid of some of its moisture before cooking it), but it actually held up really well. Instead of being soggy and oily, it was still a bit firm and had a really nice flavor. The other vegetables, especially the squash, were great too (not to mention the cheese!) I’m excited to have the leftovers for dinner tomorrow

I’m trying out using Key Ingredient to write up my recipes, so I’d love to hear if people like this format. I especially like that it lets you print recipes easily, which is a feature that most amateur food blogs don’t have. They actually featured my calzone recipe recently on the site’s blog, “The Back Burner” — check it out here.

View and print Meredith’s recipe for Roasted vegetable lasagna on Key Ingredient.

I had some trepidation about doing this month’s DB challenge. Not only did it have EIGHT sub-headings, but it also contained hazelnuts as a key ingredient, to which I’m allergic. But since I skipped the last two challenges, I knew I needed to do it, and I had the perfect occasion — my friend and former roommate Emily’s birthday party. Plus, isn’t the whole point of DB to be daring?

I decided to replace the hazelnuts with almonds, to which I’m not allergic — they’re actually related to peaches. I also did the different parts over the course of several days so as to make the assembly (and the cleanup) easier. Here’s the full original recipe if you want to follow along (it’s too long to post in my main entry).

Phases 1 and 2: Cake and simple syrup

The cake is a “genoise” (which I’ve never made before), meaning it has no chemical leavening, just whipped egg whites to give it a lift. I used almond flour instead of the ground nuts called for by the recipe. I think I did a pretty good job with the folding of the egg whites–the cake didn’t really rise, but it didn’t fall either. It ended up being about 1.5 inches high and quite sturdy, so it came out of the springform pan without incident. After it cooled, I wrapped it in plastic wrap and put it in the refrigerator to await phase 2. I also made the sugar syrup ahead of time (I added kirsch and a little rum to it) and stored it in the fridge.

Phase 3: “Praline” buttercream

I had also never made buttercream frosting before — only read horror stories about it. But thankfully, Deb did get it to work eventually, and I partially followed her updated recipe when I was making this frosting. Maybe it was beginner’s luck, but my frosting came together almost immediately. I then took another little shortcut (the almond flour being the first) and used store-bought almond paste rather than making my own praline. It just made the whole process a little less overwhelming. This wasn’t the best decision, however, because while it did give the buttercream a nice flavor, the small chunks made for a piping nightmare (but more on that later). I made the buttercream the day before the party, so I put it in the fridge overnight because I wanted to assemble the cake the next day. It got kinda hard in the fridge, meaning I had to re-whip it a bit before I could spread it on the cake.

Phases 4 and 5: Cake layering and apricot glaze

The remainder of the process took place on the day of the party. I was a bit concerned about cutting the cake into three layers, but since the cake seemed pretty sturdy, I decided to go for it. I used toothpicks to mark off each layers as I was cutting. I first tried using floss, which I had read works well for cutting evenly, but either my floss was too flimsy or the cake was too hard — either way, it didn’t work. So I just used a knife, and it actually was fine. I made three layers and even managed to keep them all in once piece as I spread on the sugar syrup and the buttercream between layers. This is also the last place where I took a shortcut — I didn’t buy enough heavy cream to make the whipped cream that’s supposed to go between the layers (plus it just seemed a bit excessive), so I left it out. I definitely think that was a good decision.
The apricot glaze was pretty straightforward. I think its main purpose is to provide a smooth base for the ganache

Phase 6: Ganache

This was the messiest part of the whole process. The recipe makes way more ganache than is needed, which means I wasted some really good Scharffen Berger semisweet chocolate that ran off as I was pouring. Oh well.

(This is after I cleaned up the mess. Thanks to Andronico’s for the free cardboard cake round and cardboard box!)

Phase 7: Decoration

This was pretty much my first piping experience. It went okay, in that at least you could read the words. However, because of the combination of almond paste chunks and the melting frosting (it was kind of hot that day), there are a few mistakes. Or, as I like to think of it, artistic dots And hey, all the frosting that I managed to get all over my arms — great moisturizer!

(btw, the reason I didn’t write “Emily” is because I ran out of frosting)

Phase 8: Yum!

I was really happy with the taste of the cake (as was everyone else at the party, or so they said). Despite its sturdiness, the cake itself ended up moist from the simple syrup. And the buttercream and ganache were delicious. It was quite almondy, but not overpoweringly so. I definitely didn’t miss the whipped cream, either.

While I wouldn’t necessarily make such a complicated cake anytime soon, I’m really happy I had a chance to try all these new techniques. I just wish I had made two cakes so I could have had more than one piece

It’s been a while since my last post — I got frustrated by my crappy camera (the batteries pop out whenever I touch it), and I usually don’t like to post entries without pretty pictures of food However, I have finally gotten around to buying a new one, which should hopefully come in time for me to complete this month’s Daring Baker’s challenge. I skipped the last two months (the Opera Cake and Danish Braid), in part because they were pretty work-intensive and I’ve been out of town a lot, and in part because of the camera situation.

Anyway, here are some of the final photos of my food that I took with the old camera:

Roasted root vegetables (before roasting); southern biscuits; strawberry rhubarb pie; strawberry rhubarb loaf (using this recipe as a basis)

Clearly I haven’t been cooking much, but I’ve still been eating well! At the request of my mother, I’ve decided to sit down and write about some of the excellent/famous restaurants I’ve been to in the last month or two. These include: The French Laundry (Yountville, CA), Silks (San Francisco), and several NYC eateries I visited during my trip there a few weeks ago, including Telepan, Benoit, The River Cafe, The Gramercy Park Tavern, Gordon Ramsay, Veritas, The Gotham Bar & Grill, CraftBar, and the Carnegie Deli. I’ll make this relatively short and sweet, rather than a detailed account of the entire menu.

Here we go (in no particular order):

1. French Laundry ~ overall, definitely the best meal I’ve ever had. We went there for lunch — we arrived at 11am, and left around 3:30pm. Here’s the short version of the menu I got (they give you a copy to take home):

Cornet with salmon tartare — famous amuse-bouche, for good reason

Eggshell filled with truffled egg custard — this was one of my favs, very decadent

Cauliflower “Panna Cotta” with Caviar — gotta love that caviar

Salad of White Asparagus and Brooks Cherries — a lot of the produce is from their garden across the street

Citrus-cured Pacific Kahala — like ceviche, very nice

Sweet Butter-poached Maine Lobster Tail — probably the best lobster I’ve ever had

All Day-braised Kurobuta Pork Belly — This was my favorite course – amazing!

Elysian Fields Farm Lamb Ribeye — This was good, but I have to say the other option, the $100 supplement Kobe beef, was better (I got to try some — it may have been even better than the pork belly)

“Gabietou” (I forget what this was — I may have actually had a substitute because I’m allergic to nuts)

Diane St. Claire Buttermilk Sherbet – refreshing palate cleanser

“Coffee and donuts” – lives up to the hype!

Coffee “Cremeux” — pretty good, but the coffee and donuts were better

“Mignardises” (bon-bons) – I was so full by this point, but I still had some!

p.s. the 1970 Bordeaux Greg’s brother brought didn’t hurt either

2. Silks ~ This restaurant is in the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in SF. We did the tasting menu, and it was great — some asian influences, but not overwhelming. A memorable course after the dessert was called “chocolate and beer.” It was a very sweet hot chocolate served with a shot of dark beer. You alternate sipping each, and they balance each other really nicely. I’d definitely come back here.

3. Telepan (NYC) ~ We did brunch here, and it was great, especially the house-smoked trout. However, they did forget to bring the syrup for my “fallen pancakes souffle”, so I probably could have enjoyed it more…

4. Benoit (NYC) ~ Alain Ducasse’s French bistro has a great atmosphere, but the food was only ok. I had some pretty good lobster ravioli (not really bistro fare…but was I going to order the cassoulet in June when the temp outside was in the 90s?). However, Greg’s salmon was had a distinct fishy smell. My dining companions said the charcuterie plate was great–I’m not a huge fan. Oh, but the tarte tatin was GREAT!

5. The River Cafe (Brooklyn) ~ We did Sunday brunch here. It has a great view of the river/bridge/city, and the food was delicious. I recommend the lobster omelette, as well as the smoked salmon.

6. The Gramercy Park Tavern (NYC) ~ Did the lunch tasting menu — really nice, though it probably would have been even better for dinner. The pork belly here wasn’t quite as good as French Laundry…(sigh, I’m so jaded )

7. Gordon Ramsay (NYC) ~ One of my favorite restaurants we went to in NYC. The tasting menu was great all the way through, from the seafood cassoulet to the amazing filet/short rib entree, to the chocolate cremeux with salted caramel ice cream. The tarte tatin here is also out of this world (I got to try some) — possibly better than Benoit. Apparently all that yelling really does work!

8. Veritas (NYC) ~ Ties with GR as one of my favorite restaurants. Of course the wine was awesome (how could it not be with a list like that?), but so was the braised short rib and the warm chocolate souffle. I highly recommend it.

9. Gotham Bar and Grill ~ We did lunch here toward the end of the trip, and while the food was great (Tom Collichio used to be a chef here I think…I also think he’s still the co-owner), the experience was a bit marred by a) our fatigue from eating nice meals all week, and b) the waiter who insisted the fly in Greg’s wine was “just sediment” (though he eventually gave us a new bottle). My pasta with braised pork (? I think..I forget the meat) was a particular standout…despite the fact that I forgot the meat

10. CraftBar ~ This is the somewhat more casual version of Tom Collichio’s Craft. Though the wine we had (which was recommended by the waiter) was quite bad, the food was delicious. Despite my eating fatigue, I finished off my pork leg/fava bean/morel dish with no problem!

11. The Carnegie Deli ~ I just included this so I could show Greg with his giant pastrami/corned beef sandwich, “The Woody Allen” (sorry it’s grainy–I used my cell phone camera):

Phew, that’s all for now. Perhaps soon I’ll blog about my upcoming visits to Rivoli and Slanted Door, my ill-fated attempt to cook rabbit last weekend, and/or the July Daring Bakers challenge…