quarantine baking
6 Apr 2020 12:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cimoreneActually it's just work-from-home baking, but that doesn't sound as catchy.
Simple wheat bread rolls: not dinner rolls, which include milk and require multiple rounds of kneading, just wheat bread scored into little squares because Wax sees no reason to roll it into pull-apart balls when you can just flatten it out and score it in a grid. She's not concerned with Instagram, so these are workmanlike tasty breadrolls. Could use some more recipe experimentation. Would appreciate some more aesthetic appeal. 8/10.
Best Chocolate Cake
1 approx. 8" round 3-layered cake
Ingredients:
A. Cake
1. 2 cups (4.8 deciliters) flour
2. 2 cups (4.8 deciliters) [granulated] sugar
3. 3/4 cup (1.8 deciliters) dark cocoa powder
4. 2 tsp baking soda
5. 1 tsp salt
6. 2 large eggs
7. 1 cup (240 ml) buttermilk [substitute ordinary non-skim milk]
8. 1 cup (240 ml) vegetable oil
9. 1½ tsp vanilla extract
10. 1 cup (240 ml) boiling water
B. Frosting
1. 1 1/4 cups butter (280 grams), room temp
2. 1 1/4 cups (237 g) shortening [substitute more butter, also room temp]
3. 9 cups (1035 g) powdered sugar [feel free to reduce, but keep an eye on quantity]
4. 2 tsp vanilla extract
5. 1 cup (94 g, 240 ml) dark cocoa powder
6. 1/4 cup (60 ml) water or milk
DIRECTIONS:
1. Line three 8" round cake pans (or two small square pans or a big sheet pan, which was what we did this time) with parchment cut to fit the bottom and grease the sides; preheat oven to 300 F, 148 C.
2. Blend all dry ingredients together in a large bowl, then add eggs, milk, and oil, and mix well.
3. Add the vanilla into the boiling water, then add to the mixture and mix well.
4. Divide batter evenly between pans and bake 30-33 min, or until a toothpick comes out with a few crumbs.
5. Allow cakes to cool for about 10 minutes in the pan, then remove to cooling racks to cool completely.
6. Make frosting while cakes cool. Beat butter and shortening until smooth.
7. Add 4 cups of the powdered sugar gradually, stirring until fully incorporated.
8. Add the vanilla and half the water/milk and stir in completely.
9. Stir in the remaining sugar, then add the cocoa powder and mix until smooth.
10. Add the remaining liquid gradually, stirring constantly, until the frosting is the right consistency.
11. Once the cakes are completely cool, use a long serrated knife to trim the tops flat if making a round layer cake. If you want to cut a sheet cake in half and stack them like Wax, do that. She says she turned them sideways so the fat center part was on opposite sides so she didn't have to cut it off the top. I left the room, unwilling to witness this experimental unorthodoxy. It tasted fine though.
12. Frost the bottom half, put the top on it, then frost the top and sides.
This is an extremely moist and spongy chocolate cake. It's very chocolatey and quite sweet, but not inedibly so. 9/10. Will definitely continue using this as the standard chocolate cake recipe.
We ate all of that and couldn't decide between muffins and cookies yesterday so we made both.
Lemon Tea Cookies (from Better Homes & Gardens cookbook)
Ingredients
1½ tsp white vinegar
½ cup (120 ml) milk
½ cup (113 g) butter, room temperature
0.75 cup (180 ml) granulated sugar
1 egg
1 tsp lemon zest
1.75 cups (420 ml) sifted all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
For the lemon glaze: 1/4 c (60 ml) lemon juice + 0.75 cup (180 ml) granulated sugar
Preheat oven to 350 F, 177 C.
Stir the vinegar into the milk. Cream butter and sugar until fluffy, then beat in eggs and lemon peel. Sift dry ingredients; add to the creamed mixture alternating with the milk; beat after each addition. Drop by teaspoonsful about 2" apart on ungreased cookie sheet and bake for 12-14 minutes, until edges begin to brown. Remove at once and brush with lemon glaze. Makes 48.
are a perennial favorite in my family which my mother made often and have always been a hit at potlucks and parties, but I've never made them for Wax before. They were an instant hit here as well. 11/10, will make again as soon as possible.
We also decided to try a recipe I saved from the internet that looked good, Coffee Cupcakes with Coffee Buttercream via Cookie Dough and Oven Mitt, but we didn't realize we were out of powdered sugar in time. We skipped the ganache out of laziness and mutual dislike of ganache, but then we had to find another frosting for these coffee cupcakes and we ended up making a stovetop mocha glaze. This was way too sweet and also we accidentally made about 40 times as much glaze as we needed. The cupcakes themselves were already quite sweet though, sweeter than we like, and the result is... well,waxjism, who is the opposite of picky, says "You can only eat one at a time". I'm gonna be not eating any more of them because after eating two at once in my eagerness to try them out I realized it felt like my mouth was being attacked with extreme prejudice. Possibly a bittersweet chocolate frosting would have worked better, or a bittersweet coffee frosting. 1/10, maybe not the recipe's fault.
Next on the agenda is actually flatbread for Passover. We haven't decided which kind to make yet - matzah or Finnish rieska or I've seen an Indian recipe floating around, but we will probably do that before any more desserts, since Passover is Wednesday.
But in terms of desserts, the next on the agenda is Chocolate Chip Date Cake, my favorite cake and also my dad's favorite cake, which my mom says she got from a Pillsbury recipe contest sometime decades ago; but again one I've never made for Wax, because I didn't want to bother cooking with dates. MIL had a big box of fresh (half-dried) dates at the cottage though, so we can use them up. (I've calculated that I'll reduce the water in the recipe by about 66 mL to compensate for the higher moisture content of the dates.) And after that, to make up for the bad coffee muffins, we've already saved the remaining juice and lemon peel from making cookies and will make
Lemon Tea Muffins
(Recipe reportedly came to mom via great-grandma and who knows where she got it)
Ingredients
1 cup (240 ml) sifted all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
½ cup (113 g) butter at room temp
½ cup (120 ml) sugar
2 eggs, separated
three tablespoons (45 ml) lemon juice
1 tsp lemon zest
For topping:
2 tablespooons sugar
½ tsp ground cinnamon
Preheat oven to 375 F/190 C.
Sift together flour, baking powder, and salt. Cream the butter and the ½ cup sugar until light and fluffy. Beat the egg yolks until thick and lemon colored, then blend well into the creamed mixture. Add flour mixture alternately with lemon juice. Do not overmix. Beat egg whites until stiff peaks form. Carefully fold the whites and lemon zest into the batter.
Fill greased or lined muffin forms 2/3 full. Combine the 2 tablespoons sugar and cinnamon and sprinkle about one half teaspoon over the top of each muffin. Bake for 15-20 minutes.
Once the flat bread is gone, my intention is to make my favorite bread that my mom makes; we call it rosemary bread, but it's James Beard's recipe for Pizza Caccia Nanza with my mother's tweaks. She skips the second rise, and uses sprigs of fresh rosemary inserted in the top of the loaf into tiny pricks made with the point of a sharp knife. No dried rosemary. Wax can't handle the smell of fresh garlic though, so I'll probably use some dried garlic in the topping instead.
Simple wheat bread rolls: not dinner rolls, which include milk and require multiple rounds of kneading, just wheat bread scored into little squares because Wax sees no reason to roll it into pull-apart balls when you can just flatten it out and score it in a grid. She's not concerned with Instagram, so these are workmanlike tasty breadrolls. Could use some more recipe experimentation. Would appreciate some more aesthetic appeal. 8/10.
Best Chocolate Cake
1 approx. 8" round 3-layered cake
Ingredients:
A. Cake
1. 2 cups (4.8 deciliters) flour
2. 2 cups (4.8 deciliters) [granulated] sugar
3. 3/4 cup (1.8 deciliters) dark cocoa powder
4. 2 tsp baking soda
5. 1 tsp salt
6. 2 large eggs
7. 1 cup (240 ml) buttermilk [substitute ordinary non-skim milk]
8. 1 cup (240 ml) vegetable oil
9. 1½ tsp vanilla extract
10. 1 cup (240 ml) boiling water
B. Frosting
1. 1 1/4 cups butter (280 grams), room temp
2. 1 1/4 cups (237 g) shortening [substitute more butter, also room temp]
3. 9 cups (1035 g) powdered sugar [feel free to reduce, but keep an eye on quantity]
4. 2 tsp vanilla extract
5. 1 cup (94 g, 240 ml) dark cocoa powder
6. 1/4 cup (60 ml) water or milk
DIRECTIONS:
1. Line three 8" round cake pans (or two small square pans or a big sheet pan, which was what we did this time) with parchment cut to fit the bottom and grease the sides; preheat oven to 300 F, 148 C.
2. Blend all dry ingredients together in a large bowl, then add eggs, milk, and oil, and mix well.
3. Add the vanilla into the boiling water, then add to the mixture and mix well.
4. Divide batter evenly between pans and bake 30-33 min, or until a toothpick comes out with a few crumbs.
5. Allow cakes to cool for about 10 minutes in the pan, then remove to cooling racks to cool completely.
6. Make frosting while cakes cool. Beat butter and shortening until smooth.
7. Add 4 cups of the powdered sugar gradually, stirring until fully incorporated.
8. Add the vanilla and half the water/milk and stir in completely.
9. Stir in the remaining sugar, then add the cocoa powder and mix until smooth.
10. Add the remaining liquid gradually, stirring constantly, until the frosting is the right consistency.
11. Once the cakes are completely cool, use a long serrated knife to trim the tops flat if making a round layer cake. If you want to cut a sheet cake in half and stack them like Wax, do that. She says she turned them sideways so the fat center part was on opposite sides so she didn't have to cut it off the top. I left the room, unwilling to witness this experimental unorthodoxy. It tasted fine though.
12. Frost the bottom half, put the top on it, then frost the top and sides.
This is an extremely moist and spongy chocolate cake. It's very chocolatey and quite sweet, but not inedibly so. 9/10. Will definitely continue using this as the standard chocolate cake recipe.
We ate all of that and couldn't decide between muffins and cookies yesterday so we made both.
Lemon Tea Cookies (from Better Homes & Gardens cookbook)
Ingredients
1½ tsp white vinegar
½ cup (120 ml) milk
½ cup (113 g) butter, room temperature
0.75 cup (180 ml) granulated sugar
1 egg
1 tsp lemon zest
1.75 cups (420 ml) sifted all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
For the lemon glaze: 1/4 c (60 ml) lemon juice + 0.75 cup (180 ml) granulated sugar
Preheat oven to 350 F, 177 C.
Stir the vinegar into the milk. Cream butter and sugar until fluffy, then beat in eggs and lemon peel. Sift dry ingredients; add to the creamed mixture alternating with the milk; beat after each addition. Drop by teaspoonsful about 2" apart on ungreased cookie sheet and bake for 12-14 minutes, until edges begin to brown. Remove at once and brush with lemon glaze. Makes 48.
are a perennial favorite in my family which my mother made often and have always been a hit at potlucks and parties, but I've never made them for Wax before. They were an instant hit here as well. 11/10, will make again as soon as possible.
We also decided to try a recipe I saved from the internet that looked good, Coffee Cupcakes with Coffee Buttercream via Cookie Dough and Oven Mitt, but we didn't realize we were out of powdered sugar in time. We skipped the ganache out of laziness and mutual dislike of ganache, but then we had to find another frosting for these coffee cupcakes and we ended up making a stovetop mocha glaze. This was way too sweet and also we accidentally made about 40 times as much glaze as we needed. The cupcakes themselves were already quite sweet though, sweeter than we like, and the result is... well,
waxjism, who is the opposite of picky, says "You can only eat one at a time". I'm gonna be not eating any more of them because after eating two at once in my eagerness to try them out I realized it felt like my mouth was being attacked with extreme prejudice. Possibly a bittersweet chocolate frosting would have worked better, or a bittersweet coffee frosting. 1/10, maybe not the recipe's fault.Next on the agenda is actually flatbread for Passover. We haven't decided which kind to make yet - matzah or Finnish rieska or I've seen an Indian recipe floating around, but we will probably do that before any more desserts, since Passover is Wednesday.
But in terms of desserts, the next on the agenda is Chocolate Chip Date Cake, my favorite cake and also my dad's favorite cake, which my mom says she got from a Pillsbury recipe contest sometime decades ago; but again one I've never made for Wax, because I didn't want to bother cooking with dates. MIL had a big box of fresh (half-dried) dates at the cottage though, so we can use them up. (I've calculated that I'll reduce the water in the recipe by about 66 mL to compensate for the higher moisture content of the dates.) And after that, to make up for the bad coffee muffins, we've already saved the remaining juice and lemon peel from making cookies and will make
Lemon Tea Muffins
(Recipe reportedly came to mom via great-grandma and who knows where she got it)
Ingredients
1 cup (240 ml) sifted all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
½ cup (113 g) butter at room temp
½ cup (120 ml) sugar
2 eggs, separated
three tablespoons (45 ml) lemon juice
1 tsp lemon zest
For topping:
2 tablespooons sugar
½ tsp ground cinnamon
Preheat oven to 375 F/190 C.
Sift together flour, baking powder, and salt. Cream the butter and the ½ cup sugar until light and fluffy. Beat the egg yolks until thick and lemon colored, then blend well into the creamed mixture. Add flour mixture alternately with lemon juice. Do not overmix. Beat egg whites until stiff peaks form. Carefully fold the whites and lemon zest into the batter.
Fill greased or lined muffin forms 2/3 full. Combine the 2 tablespoons sugar and cinnamon and sprinkle about one half teaspoon over the top of each muffin. Bake for 15-20 minutes.
Once the flat bread is gone, my intention is to make my favorite bread that my mom makes; we call it rosemary bread, but it's James Beard's recipe for Pizza Caccia Nanza with my mother's tweaks. She skips the second rise, and uses sprigs of fresh rosemary inserted in the top of the loaf into tiny pricks made with the point of a sharp knife. No dried rosemary. Wax can't handle the smell of fresh garlic though, so I'll probably use some dried garlic in the topping instead.
