Baked Sunday Mornings: Devil's Food Cupcakes with Angel Frosting

This week's assignment for Baked Sunday Mornings is Devil's Food Cake with Angel Frosting.  The recipe is written to produce a two-layer, 8-inch round cake, but it also contains a note that it produces a great cupcakes.  Since I was suffering from a bit of layer cake exhaustion (having already brought one into the office earlier this week to celebrate a birthday), I decided to go the cupcake route.  

As far as recipes from Baked Explorations go, this one has a relatively low degree of difficulty.  To make the cake, you cream together butter, sugar, and dark brown sugar, add in three eggs and vanilla, and then alternately incorporate sifted dry ingredients (flour, baking soda, salt), with the remaining liquid ingredients (hot coffee poured over bittersweet chocolate and cocoa powder, with milk whisked in).  I was able to make 19 standard-sized cupcakes from one batch of batter, and they finished baking in 24 minutes at 350 degrees. 

This frosting is unlike any I've ever made before -- first of all, it's fat free!  It's very reminiscent of marshmallow, made by beating egg whites to soft peaks, adding sugar, and then slowly incorporating a mixture of sugar, corn syrup, and water that has been heated to 235 degrees. (I would not advise trying this without a candy thermometer -- there is no visible change in the heated sugar mixture to indicate that it has reached the proper temperature, and the recipe specifically warns you not to let the mixture exceed 235 degrees.)  You whip the frosting for about 7 minutes until it's shiny and thick, and stir in vanilla at the end. 

The recipe makes an enormous quantity of frosting.  Usually when I convert a cake recipe to cupcakes, the amount of frosting that will fill and cover a 8- or 9-inch two-layer cake will also frost around 18 cupcakes.  I made a double batch of cupcakes (over three dozen), and a single batch of frosting was sufficient to cover them all.  I didn't put much frosting on each cupcake (mostly because I baked my cupcakes in deep tulip liners and was trying to keep the frosting from touching the liners), but after the tasting the finished cupcakes, I thought that the ratio of cupcake to frosting was about right.

The frosting is dense and creamy, bright white, sweet, and tasted a lot like the marshmallow filling that I use in a recipe for chocolate cupcakes with cream filling.  Eating these cupcakes gave me the sensation of eating a cream-filled cupcake, except with the cream on top.  At first, I thought the cupcakes looked a little boring with just pure white frosting, so I tried adding some chocolate shavings -- but there is also something very elegant about the stark contrast between the dark cupcake and the light frosting, so I think these look good even bare.

The cake is moist and tender, with a very deep chocolate-y flavor, certainly worthy of the devil's food moniker.  Although the recipe states that the frosting tastes best within four hours of being made, I frosted my cupcakes the night before serving them, and they still tasted great the following morning.  However, the frosting had definitely deteriorated by the end of the second day -- it still looked shiny and beautiful, but did not maintain its lovely creamy texture.   So if you try this recipe, make sure you have enough willing and able tasters around to ensure that there will be no leftovers!

Recipe: "Devil's Food Cake with Angel Frosting" from Baked Explorations: Classic American Desserts Reinvented, by Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito, recipe available here at BAKED Sunday Mornings.

Rising to Expectations?: Huckleberry's Whole-Wheat Apple Butter Cake

It's no secret that I am a huge fan of the Los Angeles Times Culinary S.O.S. column, a regular food section feature that shares restaurant recipes that have been requested by readers.  In the baked goods category, the column has a very strong track record.  So I was psyched when I saw a Daily Dish blog post at the beginning of the month by Noelle Carter -- author of the Culinary S.O.S. column -- stating that the paper would soon be running a recipe for an apple butter cake that was one of the best cakes Carter had ever had... in her life. 

Thankfully, she didn't keep me waiting too long, as the recipe ran in last week's column.  The recipe comes from Huckleberry Cafe in Santa Monica, also the source of a zucchini tea cake recipe that was featured in Culinary S.O.S. last year.  The "Whole-Wheat Apple Butter Cake" doesn't sound like anything terribly special.  But if you read through this recipe, it has several remarkable features.  The cake contains four types of flours -- all-purpose flour, whole-wheat flour, cornmeal, and almond meal.  Before you start thinking that the whole-wheat flour and pound and a half of apples make this some sort of health food, keep in mind that the cake also contains a full pound (!) of butter, more than a pound of sugar (!), and eight (!) eggs. 

To make this cake, you cook diced apples in butter with some sugar and salt just until softened, and set them aside to cool.  Meanwhile, you cream the pound of butter, beat in the sugar, add in the eggs and vanilla, gradually incorporate the sifted dry ingredients (the four flours, plus salt and baking powder), and finally fold in the cooled apples.  

I made this cake earlier in the week, and about 15 minutes after I put the cake into the oven (the cake takes 90 minutes to bake), I realized a grievous error; I had forgotten to add the salt and baking powder.  Given that it was too late to do anything about it, I finished baking the cake, and much to my surprise, it did rise a good bit.  The finished cake actually looked fine, had an okay texture, and was edible -- but it tasted bland.  

I made the cake again the following day, making sure not to leave out any of the ingredients.  The cake rose right to the top of the pan -- noticeably higher than my previous attempt.  The finished cake is heavy and enormous -- ten inches in diameter, and a full three inches high -- which helps explain why it calls for such massive amounts of sugar, butter, eggs, and vanilla (two tablespoons!).  Do not try making this in a smaller pan or a 10-inch pan that isn't at least three inches high -- you will be sorry!

The texture of this cake is dense but very moist, and the large pieces of cooked apple were soft. You are supposed to sprinkle the top of the cake with three tablespoons of sugar before baking.  I used coarse sugar for this purpose, and the top of the cake turned out marvelously crunchy and delicious -- a perfect pairing with the rest of the cake, which was not particularly sweet.  It's hard for me to describe the flavor of this cake.  It wasn't predominantly butter, almond, vanilla, or apple -- I suppose it was a mélange of its many different components.  Tom opined that he didn't like the apples, and he thought that the ratio of cake to crunchy topping was too high (i.e. he would have preferred a shorter cake). 

To be honest, I wasn't in love with this cake.  It's good, but I certainly wouldn't put it in the category of one of the best cakes I've ever tasted.  I'm a little bummed this cake didn't quite meet my high expectations, but I'm glad I gave it a try!

Recipe: "Whole-Wheat Apple Butter Cake" from Huckleberry Cafe, printed in the February 10, 2011 Los Angeles Times.

Baked Sunday Mornings: Red Velvet Whoopie Pies

Let me start out this post with a reminder that I'm an Asian girl who was born and raised in Nebraska.  I went to college in California and law school in the Northeast; I had never even heard of red velvet cake until I moved to Washington, D.C., ten years ago.  Nowadays I do make red velvet cakes and cupcakes pretty regularly, using Cake Man Raven's cake recipe, and a cream cheese frosting recipe from epicurious.com.  Nonetheless, since I am not from the South, I don't think I can claim true red velvet cake expertise.  Thus, while I was surprised by some of the information accompanying the red velvet whoopie pie recipe in Baked Explorations, I'm willing to accept it at face value. 

For starters, the introductory text states that true red velvet must include: 1) cocoa powder, 2) buttermilk, and 3) shortening.  If you had asked me, I would have agreed with the first two, but said that vinegar was the third; I have looked at a lot of red velvet recipes and never seen one that didn't include vinegar.  After all, I had always bought into the common explanation (mere urban legend?) that a chemical reaction between the buttermilk, vinegar, and non-alkalized cocoa is what originally gave the cake its reddish hue (now usually accomplished through food coloring).  The whoopie pie recipe does not include any vinegar.

Second, the recipe suggests a chopped walnut garnish, notes that Southern red velvet cake "is always finished with walnuts," and admonishes that to substitute with pecans or any other type of nut "would be just immoral."  I have always seen red velvet garnished with pecans, if it includes nuts at all.  (I  found the discussion of what makes a real red velvet cake slightly ironic, because a lot of folks might argue that a whoopie pie that doesn't include chocolate cake couldn't possibly be considered a real whoopie pie at all.  I'm sure somewhere in New England or Amish country, there is someone who thinks that the idea of a red velvet whoopie pie is positively immoral.)

In any case, I made this recipe as it was written: creaming together butter and shortening in the mixer; adding granulated and dark brown sugar and beating until fluffy; adding an egg, vanilla, and red food coloring (I used liquid coloring, although the recipe calls for gel); and finally incorporating the dry ingredients (flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda, and salt) alternately with a mixture of buttermilk and canola oil.  You chill the resulting batter for 15 minutes before scooping it out and baking.

I made two sizes of whoopie pies, small ones using a #50 scoop (these turned out to be 2 1/4" in diameter after baking), and some more average size ones using a #30 scoop (these baked up to be 2 3/4" in diameter).  The pictures accompanying this post are of the larger size pies.  The filling is made from powdered sugar, cream cheese, vanilla, and salt, and it has a creamy, thick texture.  It's delicious.

The cakes were moist, and both the cake and filling were very tasty.  I also appreciated that the tops of the cake were firm and dry, meaning that the pies were easy to handle and assemble.  However, both Tom and I thought that these whoopie pies were not as good as my usual red velvet cake.  The whoopie pie texture was slightly crumbly and more dense than my usual cake.  I assume that's because if you're going to make whoopie pies, the cake component has to be firm enough to hold its shape. 

Nevertheless, I would be happy to make these again.  Other folks really enjoyed them, and they are quite cute.  I skipped the walnut garnish this time, but I think it might be a nice addition for the future.  Or who knows, I might go the blasphemous route and try pecans!

Recipe: "Red Velvet Whoopie Pies" from Baked Explorations: Classic American Desserts Reinvented, by Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito, recipe available here at BAKED Sunday Mornings.

Previous Posts:

• "Whoopie!," September 1, 2008.
• "Baby Shower Baked Goods," October 8, 2008.
• "A Bit of Holiday Sparkle: The Gingerbread Whoopie Pie," December 1, 2009.
  

Time to Quit Faking It: Espresso Macarons with Milk Chocolate Filling

Almonds are my favorite nut, hands down, and I'm not sure if I've ever met an almond dessert I didn't like.  So it's no wonder that I love, love, love macarons.  In the past, I've made a few feeble attempts to bake them myself, but I was basically just faking it and have never come close to making anything resembling an authentic macaron.  Last year, Tom bought me a copy of I Love Macarons by Hisako Ogita, and I knew that the time had come for me to get serious and try to make the real thing.  I seem to recall that Tom gave me the book in the middle of the summer, and so I told myself I should wait until the weather became less humid before trying any recipes from the book.  So now that it's the middle of winter and the air is dry as a bone, I finally ran out of excuses and had to face the challenge of making macarons.

I Love Macarons is somewhat awkwardly translated from Japanese, and it's a slim little (9-inches by 7-inches) paperback volume of only 80 pages (David Leibovitz provides a nice review of the book here).  The book contains two base recipes for macaron batter ("basic," and a batter using Italian meringue), with ideas for endless variations of flavors and colors.  I tried the basic recipe.  You start out by grinding almond meal and powdered sugar together in the food processor, along with any dry flavor components (I added 2 teaspoons of instant espresso powder), and then sift the resulting mixture twice.  In another bowl, you beat egg whites until they are stiff, gradually add in sugar, and then vanilla.  Then you fold the dry ingredients into the egg white mixture.  

Hisako gives detailed instructions on "macaronnage," or the process for mixing the dry ingredients into the egg whites.  According to the book, after adding the dry ingredients, you should use a spatula to press the mixture along the side of the bowl, and then scoop from underneath the batter to flip it upside down (there are lots of pictures in the book to explain each step of all of the recipes).  Hisako explains this must be done approximately 15 times (more than 10 times and no more than 20), in order to achieve the correct consistency and optimal results. 

After you finish the macaronnage, you use a pastry bag to pipe out circles of batter on a parchment-lined baking sheet (I took the book's suggestion of tracing out circles on the parchment to use as a guide, which was helpful), rap the sheet hard on the counter to get out air bubbles, and let the batter dry for about 15 minutes.  After drying, you put the sheet of macarons in the oven (Hisako advises doubling up baking sheets to prevent the macarons from getting overbaked, puffing up too much, or cracking in the oven) and bake for 15-18 minutes.

Using this recipe, I was able to make something that actually looked somewhat like a real macaron.  Importantly, my macarons had a pied ("foot" in French), or the crust of small frills at the bottom -- which is a requirement for the real thing.  The tops of my macarons were smooth and glossy.

I decided to skip the filling recipes from the book (the book includes recipes for buttercream, custard, ganache, and other fillings) and I filled my macarons with the frosting recipe from Bobby Flay's Chocolate Hazelnut Brownies with Milk Chocolate Frosting (it's essentially just a milk chocolate ganache, with a little cocoa powder and Frangelico added in).  The ganache was the perfect firm consistency and a lovely flavor complement to the espresso macaron.  The macarons were crisp on top and ultra chewy inside.  With the richness added from the ganache filling, these were a satisfying and decadent little treat.

My macarons weren't perfect by any measure.  I'm pretty sure they were not supposed to be quite as flat as they were.  Also, the batter was a little runny and spread after I piped it out (which I think was part of the reason they turned out so flat).  Although I had traced out circles that were 1 3/4" in diameter to use as a guide for piping, the batter spread enough that the finished macarons were about 2 1/4" inches across.  In a related problem, many of my macarons did not turn out perfectly round. 

However, I think they were a completely decent (and definitely tasty!) effort, and I am encouraged to keep working on my macaron-making technique in the future! 

Recipes:

• "Basic Macaron Batter" from I Love Macarons by Hisako Ogita.
• Filling made from the frosting recipe from Bobby Flay's Chocolate Hazelnut Brownies with Milk Chocolate Frosting.

Previous Posts:

• "Baking Up a French Beauty," November 18, 2008.
• "A Tough Cookie To Crack," March 5, 2009.
• "Joe's Birthday Macaroons," May 15, 2009.
  

Whip Up a Cake In a Jiffy: Whipped Cream Cake

Last night I was looking for a recipe to use up an open carton of heavy cream, and I happened to come across a Rose Levy Beranbaum recipe for "Whipped Cream Cake" in Rose's Heavenly Cakes.  This recipe had instant appeal because: it only calls for a few ingredients (flour, baking powder, salt, heavy cream, eggs, vanilla, and sugar); the batter can be mixed together in a few minutes; and cake bakes relatively quickly (25-35 minutes).  The only thing that requires some advance planning is that your eggs are supposed to be at room temperature.  I took a shortcut by taking out my eggs from the fridge and putting them in a bowl of very warm water; by the time my oven was preheated, my eggs were at the proper temperature. 

Beranbaum points out that while this cake might appear healthy at first glance (due to the absence of any butter or oil), the heavy cream provides plenty of fat.  To make the batter, all you have to do is whip the cream with the sugar until it holds stiff peaks, mix in the eggs and vanilla, and then fold in the sifted dry ingredients.  My cake took 35 minutes to finish baking and released cleanly from the pan.

I think that a sprinkle of powdered sugar really enhances the appearance of this cake.  The interior is lightly colored, with a fine, tender crumb.  This cake has a flavor that is pretty similar to traditional pound cake, but the texture is much lighter.  

I thought the cake was tasty, and it was surprisingly light.  The fact that it's so easy to make is a bonus -- you can literally whip up this cake in no time!

Recipe: "Whipped Cream Cake," from Rose's Heavenly Cakes by Rose Levy Beranbaum, recipe available here at Real Baking with Rose, or here on Amazon.com.

Breaking Up Is Fun To Do: Salted Butter Break-Ups

I was recently inspired by Nina of Daily Salt (a fellow participant in BAKED Sunday Mornings) to try Dorie Greenspan's recipe for "salted butter break-ups" from Around My French Table.  This recipe seemed so basic that it was easy to overlook while flipping through the cookbook; it makes one giant cookie that you break up into pieces for serving. 

To make the cookie dough, you combine flour, sugar, and coarse salt in a food processor, and then drop in pieces of cold butter and pulse until combined.  You then add cold water while the food processor is running until the dough almost forms a ball.  You need to wrap up the dough and stick it in the fridge for at least an hour, or up to three days.  When you're ready to bake, you take the dough out of the fridge, roll it out, brush it with egg yolk, and then use a fork (or I used a cake decorating comb) to make a crisscross pattern on the top.  You bake the enormous cookie until it's golden, let it cool, and then break it up into smaller pieces.  

The finished cookies were very buttery with a definite salt accent, crisp on the outside, and tender and pale on the inside.  My favorite bites were the extra flavorful and firm well-done edges.  The cross hatch pattern on top is quite beautiful after baking.  Although Dorie Greenspan recommends making these with sel gris -- which is comprised of very large crystals -- I used some less coarse fleur de sel instead.  I made this cookie twice and discovered that it's very important to make sure that the dough is rolled out evenly.  If the outside edge is tapered, it will brown too quickly and burn.  As a corollary, if the middle is is thicker than the edge, the center will not finish baking by the time the edges are done.   

The fact that you make only one big cookie poses a special hazard.  With regular cookies, you can always decide that you're going to eat just one.  But when you're just breaking pieces off of a large cookie, it's all too easy to go back to break off just one more little piece.  And another.  And another.

This cookie is a great reminder that something simple and rustic can still be very special!

Recipe: "Salted Butter Break-Ups" from Around My French Table by Dorie Greenspan, recipe available here at Lottie + Doof.

What's With All the Hype?: Cocoa Brownies with Browned Butter and Walnuts

At some point within the last few years, I noticed that the subscription copies of Bon Appétit that Tom and I were receiving in the mail started looking different than the copies of the magazine I would see at the newsstand; the mailed copies were devoid of any text on the front cover except for the magazine name.  I definitely preferred the cleaner look of the uncluttered covers, although I understand that a bare photo is not a good strategy for getting people interested in your magazine at the checkout stand at the grocery store.  Unfortunately, after some period of time, our subscription copies started including all of the cover text again.  

The February 2011 issue of Bon Appétit that recently arrived in the mail instantly grabbed my attention with a cover photo of a stack of four brownies.  But the text accompanying the photo took me completely by surprise: "BEST-EVER BROWNIES... WARNING: YOU WILL EAT THE ENTIRE TRAY."  Bon Appétit does not usually have a tendency towards hyperbole, and I don't recall ever seeing a statement like that on the magazine's cover.  

When I flipped to the page referenced for the brownie recipe and saw that the brownie contained browned butter, I was definitely intrigued.  Plus, the recipe was part of a feature on cocoa powder desserts by Alice Medrich, so I knew the recipe had to be good.  The magazine describes the brownies as "fudgy in the middle and chewy on the outside with a shiny, crackly top," and a "rich, nutty flavor" from the browned butter.  

You can put together these brownies pretty quickly.  You make browned butter, dump in cocoa powder, sugar, salt, water and vanilla, cool the mixture slightly, and then add in eggs and flour.  A unexpected penultimate step was to beat the batter vigorously for 60 strokes after incorporating the flour.  Normally, when you make brownies, overworking the batter will ruin the texture.  But I beat the batter as instructed before adding in the walnuts and the pouring the batter into the pan.  The batter was super glossy and very thick.

The brownies came out of the oven with a level, shiny, slightly wrinkly top.  They were gorgeous.  I cooled the brownies and chilled them overnight before slicing them.  In the magazine article, Alice Medrich specifically admonishes against using dutch cocoa in any of the recipes (as dutch cocoa has a milder chocolate flavor than natural cocoa), but I don't always keep natural cocoa on hand.  Instead, I used my regular baking cocoa, which is a mixture of dutch cocoa and black cocoa that I get from King Arthur Flour.  I like using double-dutch dark cocoa because it lends a rich color to baked goods; the brownies were almost black. 

I loved these brownies.  They have a deep and satisfying, rich chocolate flavor.  To be honest, I couldn't taste the browned butter as a distinct component -- but then again, I am always afraid of making burned butter instead of browned butter, and so I may not have browned the butter as much as I could have.  Still, I was completely sold by the brownies' extraordinary texture and luscious mouthfeel.  They are the perfect combination of chewy and fudgy without being overly heavy.  I thought the nuts added a wonderful touch of texture.  I might not have eaten the entire pan, but I have to admit, I found myself craving a brownie long after they were all gone. 

Recipe: "Cocoa Brownies with Browned Butter and Walnuts," by Alice Medrich, from epicurious.com.