Baking With Unicorns - a baking adventure

Of Lemons and Cornmeal

November 17, 2013 by Baking Unicorn Leave a Comment

Thanksgiving is approaching far faster than I would like. Mostly this means that I am supposed to be finishing up those pesky applications for graduate school, however clearly I’m typing this post rather than working on my applications. I’m the worst!
But it’s FALL! I love this weather. I love being able to wear hoodies and scarves while not freezing my bum off as I walk to the subway stop. I also love the crunching of the leaves (and of course the pretty colors that the leaves turn). As I was walking to work today, I saw these roses and was a bit surprised by them being in full bloom in the middle of November, but then again, I know nothing about plants, so maybe this is totally normal?

But back to Thanksgiving. I was musing over possible dessert recipes for this years festivities. Lots of thoughts of caramel, apples, cheese and pumpkin have been floating around my somewhat crowded head. Nothing has been set in stone yet, and probably wont be until I am in the kitchen in central NY. This particular recipe popped into my head because corn is a “festive” ingredient, right? And I love lemon. So why not throw them together into a delicious cake? I’ve made this recipe before, perhaps a year or so ago, and wanted to revisit it. I changed a couple things from how I made it last time, and I think there’s a minor but noticeable improvement.

First, I changed how I made my almond flour. Last time I used my food processor to chop up the almonds into small enough bits to be an acceptable “flour” however I was scared I would turn the almonds into almond butter if I blended too long, so the “flour” was rather coarse. This time, I blended the almonds with the sugar, hoping that the sugar would help keep the almond bits separated and less prone to becoming butter. The result was finer almond bits and no butter! Second, I added more lemon zest, both to the cake and to the syrup. Each part received zest from 1 1/2 lemons, making the whole cake super lemony, but not tart!

If I make this again and have the patience to do so, I think I’ll use a coffee mill to make the almonds, sugar and cornmeal all SUPER fine. I like the somewhat grainy texture of the cake as it turned out this time, but I’m curious to see if making the dry ingredients super fine will make a smoother cake. Also, note that this recipe is GLUTEN FREE!!!!!

Almond Flour Progression

Cornmeal Lemon Cake
modified from a recipe I took a picture of at Equinox… no clue what the book is. SORRY!

Ingredients
Cake:
10 oz raw almonds
8 oz white sugar
6 oz cornmeal
1 cup (2 sticks) butter
3 eggs
zest of 1 1/2 lemons
Juice of 1 lemon
1 teaspoon baking powder

Syrup:
zest of 1 1/2 lemons
juice of 2 lemons
1/2 cup sugar

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line an 8″ round pan with parchment. Set aside.

2. Place almonds and sugar into a food processor. Pulse for ~40 seconds. Take a look and see if more pulsing is needed. Again, the sugar should help prevent the almonds from becoming butter, so don’t worry about that too much. If you want to try to get the almonds to be finer, go ahead and pulse longer. When satisfied, sift the mixture. undoubtedly, some almond bits will not fit through. Put cornmeal and the almond bits that are too large into food processor and blend some more. Sift again. If some almond bits are still too large and you have the patience to do this again, return some of the cornmeal/almond/sugar mix that did sift through to the food processor with the too-large almond bits. Pulse and re-sift.

3. Cream butter and ~1 cup of the cornmeal/almond/sugar mixture together in a large bowl. Add the eggs and beat together. Add the rest of the almond mixture, lemon juice, lemon zest, and baking powder. Combine until completely incorporated. Transfer better to prepared pan and bake for 35-40 minutes (or until toothpick comes out clean).

4. Allow cake to cool in pan for at least 30 minutes then transfer to a wire rack. While cooling on the rack, prepare the syrup. Combine all ingredients in a small saucepan and bring to a light boil over a low heat. Stir constantly with wire whisk for ~7 minutes or until mixture has thickened to a runny syrup consistency. Remove from heat and set aside.

5. Poke holes in the top of the cake! I used a toothpick cuz it was handy, but a fork would work and probably would have been faster than a toothpick. Pour syrup over cake, allowing it to soak into the holes you just poked. I used almost all the syrup, but probably had a couple tablespoons left in the pan. Make sure you get around the edge of the cake as this is the most well done area and soaking it in syrup will soften it up a bit.

6. Serve either immediately or allow to cool completely. Either way, it tastes pretty damn good!!

Chocolate and Peanut Butter BONANZA!!!

November 5, 2013 by Baking Unicorn Leave a Comment

Been a long time since I posted a recipe. I did bake a few weeks ago for my sister’s birthday, but I didn’t really document that recipe. Apparent the baked goodies had an excellent reception, so perhaps I’ll remake them and actually document them.

Enough about the past. Here we are, the start of November. Halloween has left us, daylight savings has come and gone (or is it still here as the clocks are still turned back…?), the NYC marathon has happened, and people are growing out their facial (or body) hair for Movember to raise awareness for men’s health.

Fall is here.

I did not celebrate Halloween, unless you consider giving a 3 hour massage to be a celebration, but I did see some fantastic costumes (one of the members of my lab was a pterodactyl!!) and some less fantastic costumes (I don’t understand the “sexy __(fill in profession)___”). But to me, the bestest part of Halloween is THE CANDY SALES!!! November 1st rolls around and suddenly all the Halloween candy is unacceptable and goes for 1/2 off. But lets be honest. We all know there are enough preservatives in the candy to let them keep for a thousand years. So of course I go on a shopping spree… because I love candy?
I don’t actually.
But apparently I have this total fear that this will be the last chance EVER to buy candy!!! It must be some remnant of a survival/hoarding mode from hunter-gatherer days… or so I tell myself. But to be fair, I do share the candy, and generally use it for baking purposes. And that is how this recipe came around. Thanks to the genius of M&M with Peanut Butter (the best kind ever!)

This recipe is definitely an experiment that I concocted in my head as I was heading to my chiropractor. I knew I had the M&M’s but didn’t know how to make them into something interesting. Cookies seemed too simple. So of course I fall back on cupcakes! Chocolate cupcakes! But why not throw some PB in there for fun? I’ve made chocolate cookies with PB centers before… WHY NOT CUPCAKES?
And that’s exactly what I’ve done here. Chocolate Cupcakes. Peanut Butter Centers. Chocolate frosting. With Peanut Butter M&M’s.
What?
Yup.

So without further adieu, let me Cher this recipe with you (Hi Vani and Mik!)

Chocolate Cupcakes with Peanut Butter Centers!
cupcake recipe adapted from Cuisine At Home (my mom had this one her desk several years ago and I snagged the recipe ).
frosting from FoodNetwork

Ingredients:
The Cake-
3 cups flour
2 cups sugar
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 cups hot water
3/4 cup vegetable oil
2 tablespoons white vinegar
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
PSSST!!! this cake recipe is also vegan!!!!

Peanut Butter Centers-
1/2 cup smooth peanut butter (I used Skippy)
1/2 cup confectioners sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
~1 tablespoon heavy cream

The Frosting-
1 lbs confectioners sugar (a whole box!)
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
7-8 tablespoons heavy cream
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
ALL THE PEANUT BUTTER M&M’S YOU WANT!

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Place cupcake wrappers in cupcake pan. I only have a single 12-cup cupcake pan, but if you have 2 of these, line all 24 cups. I only prepared the 12 and then also prepared an 8″ round pan for the extra. Because of the vinegar/baking soda reaction, I didn’t want to let the batter just sit around while the first batch of cupcakes baked.

2. Make you PB centers first. Combine the PB, confectioners sugar, vanilla extract, and half the heavy cream in a small bowl and start mixing. If you’re having difficulty combining the mixture into a paste, add more heavy cream. This mixture should be pretty thick, about the consistency of fresh Play-Doh. Make small balls with the mixture, about a teaspoon size. Make sure you have enough for however many cupcakes you’re going to make. And maybe keep rolling if you are planning on making the 8″ pan too. Set these aside.

3. Sift flour, sugar, cocoa, baking powder, and salt in a large bowl. In a large measuring cup, mix the oil, vinegar, vanilla, and hot water. Add this mixture to the dry ingredients and whisk together. You’ll notice that it bubble quickly because of the vinegar/baking soda reaction. YAY! 3rd grade science still works in my kitchen. Make sure the batter is fully mixed together (I whisked for ~3 minutes).

4. Divide your batter into the cupcake cups and/or cake pans. Place a single ball of PB center in each of the cupcake cups. If you’re going the cake pan route, then also add some PB center to this if you like. I kinda just threw it on top in random bits. I had a plan of making long “ropes” of the PB mixture and forming a nice lattice on top, but I lost patience….

5. Bake until a toothpick inserted (not through the PB) comes out clean. About 25 minutes for cupcakes and 45 minutes for the cake. Remove from oven, allow to cool for ~8 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to continue cooling.

6. For the frosting, sift confectioners sugar and cocoa together in a large bowl. In a medium bowl, cream butter and vanilla extract. Add about 1/4 of the sugar/cocoa mix to butter and 3 tablespoons heavy cream. Beat thoroughly. Add ~1/2 of the remaining sugar/cocoa mix and 2 more tablespoons cream and beat again. Add remaining sugar/cocoa and 2 more tablespoons for heavy cream. Beat until completely combined. I stopped at 7 tablespoons heavy cream, but if you want a lighter, more pliable frosting, perhaps add a bit more cream.

7. Place an M&M in the center of each cupcake (if you notice, the seem to have formed a hollow center. I assume the PB expanded when in the oven and contracted when it cooled, leaving a little “cave” in the middle of your cupcake. Then Frost away and decorate to your liking. Same with the cake, if you made it!

Among us….

October 31, 2013 by Baking Unicorn Leave a Comment

As one may often suspect, unicorns are among us.
But they’re often in disguise.

The Evolution of Apple Stuff

October 15, 2013 by Baking Unicorn Leave a Comment

I have very strong memories of “Apple Stuff” from childhood. I thought it was delicious!!! (or that’s my memory of it. Perhaps my mom remembers otherwise). If I recall correctly, then Apple Stuff was a recipe that my mom modified from something she found in the newspaper. Quite simply, Apple Stuff is the combination of granny smith apples, raw cashews, and a bit of lemon juice. Throw it all into a food processor to chop it all up, and PRESTO! Apple Stuff!
I made a batch a few weeks ago. Delicious as always and just as I remembered it. As I was munching on my apple stuff, I got to thinking of how this could be incorporated into a baking delight. I started out with thinking of making it into a cheese cake kind of thing, where instead of peanut butter, one uses cashew butter and then adds some caramelized apples on top. This still may happen, but will require a touch more planning and though on my part.
But last Wednesday, we had out weekly lab meeting and there was brie, crackers and grapes. yum! And then it hit me, brie and apples are great together… right? That’s a thing? Maybe? From there, I decided granny smith apples and brie would be excellent together. But a brie cheesecake does not sound delicious to me. That actually sounds terrible and no unicorn in the world would endorse such a thing. So how could I combine brie and apples into a baked good? Course I next went to scone! But I just made a savory scone… Then it hit me, BISCUITS! They’re totally different from scones because they aren’t triangular shaped, right?
So that’s what I have concocted. Brie and Apple Biscuits.
Unfortunately, the brie was super strong, and the apple was not so strong. So they were mostly Brie Biscuits. When I remake these, and I’m sure I will sometime soonish, I’ll probably double my apple and half the brie amount. But what follows below is the recipe that I just used to make this first batch of biscuits!

Brie and Apple Biscuits
modified from J.P.’s Big Daddy Biscuits

Ingredients:
1 medium sized granny smith apple
1/2 lb brie (cold)
2 cups flour + extra for kneading
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons butter (cold)
1/2 cup milk

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Heavily grease cups of a 12 count cupcake pan. May want to also flour the insides.

2. Place brie on a flour dusted cutting board and have extra flour near by to throw onto brie as you cut it. This helps to separate the brie into distinct cubes as you cut it. Cut the brie into small cubes (~1 cubic centimeter). Place brie cubes, fully separated from one another into a bowl and place back into fridge.

3. Place flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and butter (cut into ~6 pieces) into food processor and pulse for 20-30 seconds. This will cut up the butter, yielding a coarse cornmeal texture. Transfer to a large bowl and set aside.

4. Peel granny smith apple, cut into ~8 sections, removing core and seeds. Place this in the food processor and pulse for 20-30 seconds. The consistency of the apple should be like that of a cole slaw. Add apples to the butter/flour mixture. Add in the chilled brie cubes and mix everything together. Slowly add most of the milk. Combine until ball of dough forms. This should be somewhat sticky, but not impossible to handle. If it seems too dry, then add in a little more milk.

5. Turn dough out onto a heavily floured surface and knead for 1-2 minutes. The dough should still be sticky, but not clinging to your fingers and unmanageable. Form dough into a ball and then gently flatten the dough out into a circle that’s 3/4 inch thick. Using a knife, cut the dough into 12 even sections. I did this by first cutting into 4 sections (perpendicular cuts), and then divided each of these 4 quadrants into 3 pieces. Take each wedge and form into a ball. Plop the ball into one of the well greased cupcake cups.

6. Bake for 13-15 minutes. Take out of oven and let cool. I’m not entirely sure how long one should let these cool for. I let them cool for ~5 minutes and then started to take them out of the pan. This was very difficult as the cheese was causing the biscuits to stick to the sides. I’m not sure if this would have been easier if the cheese had cooled. As an alternative, try using cupcake papers next time? Not sure if that would help.

7. Serve warm! Or as my friends Mik and Vani did, serve with pasta topped with eggplant and tomato sauce.

(nom nom… munch)