Alpha Bakers: Rugelach

Unlike some of my Alpha Baker friends, I get pretty excited when I see recipes containing raisins. I love raisins. I would happily order, eat, cook anything with raisins in it, sweet or savory. 

Of course now that I've declared my love of raisins, I will tell you that I ended up making 1/2 recipe of these Rugelach without raisins. I wanted to try something different but I could not decide whether to choose the Chocolate Raspberry or Cran-Raspberry so I made a mixture of both. Mine is Cran-Raspberry Chocolate. And as you will see from the step by step photos below, I did not use seedless raspberry jam - the one we have is seeded and I don't bother straining them.

Everyone I shared this with love them and I had fun trying to pronounce Rugelach, which to me sounds very similar to Arugula and at some point when someone asked what it is, I happily answered: "Arugula!"

I've made the rugelach from Rose's Christmas cookie book back in 2012 (you can read the post here). I don't remember any details about that experience, only that it was positive and yummy. As I re-read my post back then, written by Jenn circa 2012, it sounds like I was confused by the explanation to roll the dough into a circle. Well, I can proudly tell you guys that I am not confused about this anymore so I think we can safely say that 4 years of baking since then have paid off? :)

These arugula rugelach are easy to put together and very yummy. I love that I can make the dough ahead as I made it one day then it sat in the fridge for a couple days. The combo filling is really good too, I can taste a bit of everything, though I think the chocolate overpower the cranberries a bit even though I didn't use the full amount of chocolate pearls. I think next time if I use chocolate at all I will only put a couple of pearl in each rugelach.

Alpha Bakers: Babka

I love bread making. I don't know why and can't really explain it. There is just something calming about it. Perhaps it's working with the dough part? Though now with stand mixer there's not much of active hand working on the dough vs. watching the machine working the dough. Lazy 21st century? :). In any case, I was excited to make this bread and was also excited to eat it and share it with some friends. I made 1/2 a recipe, using 6 cup bundt pan and I think I overbaked it by 5 minutes or something like that because it came out a bit more dry than I expect. It's still good though and none of my friends said anything to the contrary. Al in all, a win!

Alpha Bakers: Mini Gateaux Breton

To this day I still remember the Gateaux Breton that I made from Rose's Heavenly Cakes. I baked it on June 20th, 2010 (!!!) as a catch up post since I missed it on the baking schedule. It was funny to see this old photo and I still remembered where I took this in the house. This cake was a good memory - it was the first time I made or eat anything that has Gateaux in the name, and it was also the moment that I learned Gateaux is French for cake.

The version we are making now for the Baking Bible is a mini one. They look so cute in the book and I was very excited to make them. They are also super easy and tasty. And Marie, I made 1/2 recipe of this!

By the way, I know this is a baking post, but I just started a sweater I'm very excited about so that's why it's in the picture :).

Alpha Bakers: Sour Cherry Pie

I am making 1/4 recipe of Cherries and Raspberries Pie instead of Sour Cherry Pie, made from frozen fruits. There are no fresh cherries this time of year. I know there is a variation in the book to use canned sour cherries but I dislike canned stuff and prefer to avoid using it, if possible. Somehow frozen feels better. There are fresh raspberries from California but it has the california price, ha! I have frozen raspberries in the freezer so I thought I add it to the pie to give it a more sour taste.

I wish we are making this pie in the summer instead of now. We have a cherry tree in our backyard that produced sour cherries. But it is only the middle of March now and the cherry tree is still hibernating, so we have to settle with frozen sweet cherries from the grocery store.

I love making these. Kinda funny to say that since I'm not a pie fan. Perhaps, like Marie have said, Rose will make a convert out of me. But I do have a strong bias towards any pretty dessert. Sometimes I feel I don't care much if I like the taste as long as it looks pretty for the pictures. I know this puts me in an odd category but I really don't care.

Doesn't the below picture makes you want to eat it!? :)

Alpha Bakers: Almond Coffee Crisps

There is not much to say about these cookies. That is not to mean that there's nothing to say. They are easy and delicious. I could not stop eating them.

This cookie was the first recipe I baked from the book. I am not baking in order, I know. But I really felt like baking the weekend after my book arrived. And I didn't feel like going to the grocery store so I had to make do with what I have in my pantry.

I was prepared though to bake this recipe, somehow, since I went to Whole Foods the week before and remembered to get Medaglia D'Oro espresso powder. I know Rose liked this brand and had checked the book and see that she indeed has recipes that use it. I vividly remembered when we started baking through Rose's Heavenly Cakes in Sep 2009 (yikes!), I could not find Medaglia D'Oro anywhere! So I used Starbucks' Via Ready Brew French Roast. It was a pretty new product back then and I liked the flavor. It was only after a year into baking Rose's Heavenly Cakes (or maybe a year and a half) that I saw Whole Foods started carrying Medaglia D'Oro. I remembered standing there in the isle thinking "finally!!!" and doing a mental happy dance (I don't really need the folks at Whole Foods thinking I'm crazy).

Alpha Bakers: The Ischler

There is no better smell than the smell of freshly-baked cookies.

This is the third recipe in our baking adventure, The Ischler are not on the quick and easy list. I suspect mainly because there are 3 components to it and the recipe is 4 pages long. But they are really pretty quick and easy, especially considering  you can make some of the components in advance. The lekvar can be made ahead of time and last indefinitely in the fridge. The cookie dough itself can be made 2 days in advance.

These cookies are one of the recipes that I was looking forward to make when I got the book. I have made the Sugar Cookies recipe from Rose's Christmas cookies several times - it is one of my favorites, so naturally I was curious about the Ischler. Add that to the fact that the Ishler's photo is so beautiful. The styling is simple, there is no prop really, just the cookies themselves. The close up shot really did the job - I want to reach into the pages and grab a cookie (or three!).

All the steps for the Ischler are easy enough and I enjoyed putting the dough together in the food processor. And then I got to the roll and cut cookie part. I find this part a bit annoying. The dough is stickier than the sugar cookie. And towards the end of rolling, they have a hard time to stay together and wants to crumble. At some point I thought that these were not worth all the efforts, and I was glad I only made 1/2 a recipe or I would have spent a lot more time rolling and cutting. It took 10 minutes to bake them and I tried a couple as they are still warm. They were so good that I forgot my annoyance from earlier. They are totally worth the efforts. I find them way too sweet with the ganache and lekvar though. I like the cookies itself without any filling so next time (yes there is a next time), I will skip the lekvar and ganache.

ABC: Raspberry-Almond Braided Bread

Hello ABC-er! I'm sorry I've been so absent lately. I actually made the Blueberry Hand Pies last month but never got around to processing the photos and posting! I will add the photos to my next ABC post.

For this bread, the recipe yield 2 breads and they looked huge! So I made 1/2. I was so excited about it. It looked and sounded so good and I figured I could use my stash of homemade lemon curd that I made earlier this year. Except, the lemon curd had turned bad. The top part has turned brown and the consistency is more like lemon butter. Also, the lemon smell is totally gone. So I had to throw it away. Sniff sniff....

I didn't feel like going to the store just to get lemon curd, so I improvised. I cooked a couple of handfuls of frozen raspberries with some sugar. I didn't measure any of them, just sort of eye-balled it.

Rose's Crescent

Hanaa and I had so much fun baking the Panettone together last December so we decided we should bake together more often. We don't want to have anything formal like a baking club but more of "let's bake together when we feel like it." This way works better because it's more flexible and easier.

We both own Rose's Christmas cookies but have not used it much so we decided that's what we will bake from. Hanaa chose Rose's Crescent for this round of bake-a-long.

HCB: Swedish Pear and Almond Cream Cake

I must tell you now that this cake is so good! I had some expectations about this cake, having heard from Monica and Rose that it is good. I am still surprised though, not because I don't believe them, but simply because I did not expect it to be this good!

But first, let's start at the beginning. It started with beautiful free range eggs and butter.

FFWD: Beggar's Linguini

We don't eat a lot of pasta, so when I saw this on the schedule, I thought I'd skipped it. But then  after speaking to my HCB/FFWD blogger gal pal Monica, who said: "pasta, yeah, what's not to love?" - I changed my mind.

Well okay in her defense, that's not her exactly words/sentence, but it's along the same "yeah let's make it!" lines.

In any case, looking at the recipe, I have to admit it looks interesting (I've never made pasta with dried fruits and nuts before.)

And most importantly - easy to whip up!

So I made this for lunch one Sunday afternoon.

I used whole wheat pasta, which is healthier and a bit tastier than regular pasta. Cooking time is a couple minutes longer, so no biggie.

A couple of minutes before the pasta finished cooking, I melt some butter over medium low heat until it started turning brown. Then add in the sliced almonds, dried figs, and golden raisins (I forgot to get pistachio). Once the almonds and dried fruits started getting brown, I added the pasta, salt and pepper. Stir everything up. Once they started smelling fragrant, I called hubby down for lunch and served with some grated parmesan.

Tasting impressions:
Hm.. it's not bad but it's really nothing special. While I do taste the beurre noisette flavor in the pasta, I feel like I'm eating buttery pasta, which is not very pleasant. So in the end we make sure we ate each bite of pasta with some almonds and dried fruits, just so we have other flavors in there. I'm sad to report that this dish - while super easy to prepare - probably will not make another appearance in the kitchen.

HCB Free Choice: Chocolate Pinecone Cake

For the Free Choice this week, I decided on Chocolate Pinecone Cake. I was looking forward to this cake, mostly to the idea to making fondant for the 1st time. It felt so exciting. 

It's been something that's on my "bucket list" to do. Plus this recipe sound yummy and that makes it even better.

So excited I was that I even made all the ingredients pose for a photo shoot, :). 

 Here's the diluted gelatin heated up over simmering water.

Dry ingredients - powdered sugar and cocoa powder - sifted and combined.

You can't really see it but the gelatin mixture, corn syrup, and vanilla are in with the dry ingredients.

I don't have a picture of how it got from the mess above to this nice long fondant log, as my hands were completely sticky and brown from the cocoa. 

Let me just tell you that this fondant is sticky and confusing to work with. Rose said to knead the fondant until it's smooth and satiny. I got to the smooth part but it doesn't feel satiny and it breaks when I try to pull it (trying to imitate rolling it out). Nowhere in the recipe does it say that it's supposed to break and I thought how am I gonna drape it over the cake when it breaks like that.

I was so troubled that I posted a cry for help over at Rose's forum. The awesome Hector and Liza confirmed that this particular fondant does breaks and rips. Having learned that, I breath a sigh of relief and glad that I hadn't thrown it away.

The cake, as it turns out, pose a problem also. This confirms again that sponge cake that are made in a sheet pan is my demise. Some of you guys have said that piping or decorating make you shudder. For me, it's sheet pan sponge cake!!!

It all started so well. Cocoa powder water mixture - check. Whisked eggs and egg yolks with sugar until quadruled, ribbony, and beautiful - check. Fold in cocoa mixture - check. Fold in dry ingredients - check. Finally, fold in the meringue - check. Mixture is still billowy, high inside the mixer bowl, and looking fine. Last step is to pour it onto the baking pan. It looks nice in there. Into the oven it goes for 8 minutes. Set timer. At 8 minutes mark, took a peek through the oven window, looks great. Opened the door to check the middle, yes, it indeed bounce back. Took the pan out, set it on the counter, and witnessed the sponge cake DEFLATING before my eyes!!! It became 1/4 inch in height.

Devastated, sad, frustrated, and annoyed. I considered chucking the whole thing and making something else.

I thought of the fondant, sitting in the fridge, waiting to be tested...

The idea of starting over and doing this whole thing again, sometime in the future, in unfathomable. So I proceeded. Might as well get it over with.

Making the ganache. Much smoother and there's nothing to report except instead of adding cognac to the ganache, I added Grand Marnier instead :).

Since the sponge cake is so short and sad-looking, I ended up quartering the sheet and making 2 mini pinecone instead. I thought since it's such a narrow log it will look very weird and not pinecone-looking if I use the whole thing. 

The chocolate fondant turned out to be nice! Easy to roll and looks good. Happy happy. At least something turns out - I thought to myself.

And there, next to the fondant, is the Wilton fondant rolling pin that I just bought last week.

Draping the fondant over the cake is tricky. It breaks in several places and when it didn't, it threatened to break. And while making the numerous V cuts' on the fondant, it breaks in several places as well. I was becoming very sad and on the verge of depression, until I realized that a heavy dusting of powdered sugar will hide all the imperfection that I am seeing.

Tasting impression:

This cake ain't bad. Okay, maybe that's just my somber mood talking. It is a pretty good cake. The ganache is yummy and the chocolate fondant taste really good as well - I love the smell of it, very chocolate-y. I'm not sure I will make this cake again, though I would probably attempt the sponge cake at some point.

HCB: Golden Lemon Almond Cake

As I do not feel like making the Chocolate Tomato Soup cake for this week's HCB selection, I decided to play catch up and make something else from the book.

The lucky cake of the week is the Golden Lemon Almond Cake.

As a habit of making 1/2 a recipe, I thought of taking Rose's alternative suggestion - making 2/3 of the recipe and baking it in a loaf pan.

Of course as I am so used to halving recipes, I started well by toasting 2/3 of the almonds, and measuring 2/3 of the sugar, but then proceeded to measure 1/2 recipe of the flour and leavening, and then mixing all of them together. Okay, so I am not that adventurous that I want to try to bake the concoction - not to mention that it will be awfully sweet - so I threw away everything and started over. If I am a math whiz I can probably figure out what's missing and backtrack but math is pretty low on my list of skill sets :).

Anyway, so first things first, toast almonds! Then grind with some of the sugar until they say "MERCY!" Mix it with the flour, remaining sugar, leavening, and a lot of lemon zest. I used a little bit more than the recipe requires. In a separate bowl, eggs are whisked with a bit of sour cream, lemon oil, and vanilla. Then added in the remaining sour cream and butter to the flour mixture, mix and mix until they are incorporated. Lastly, added in the egg mixture in two additions. Mix, mix, and mix. Well okay, the KA is the one doing all the mixing, I was just standing there and timing the procedures :).

While the cake is baking, I made the syrup. Combined lemon juice and sugar over medium heat until the sugar dissolved. I am happy this recipe calls for turbinado sugar, it gives me a chance to use up my supply.

The cake looks awfully plain in it's loaf pan shape, so I whipped up some dreamy creamy white chocolate frosting and piped roses and rose buds all over. I made 2/3 of the recipe and still had a lot left, so I piped some cute words and presented the cake to hubby - who said "AWWW" at the writing, before he proceeded to chow down a little piece and gave his thumbs up :).

Tasting impressions:
It is so good. Very lemony and moist. It reminds me of a pound cake - a REALLY good one. The frosting adds a nice chocolate sweetness to it. This will definitely get made again and again!

HCB: Almond Shamah Chiffon

This cake is pretty easy to make. Sure, there are a lot of steps, but it's not that hard. First you have to blanch the almonds, then toast them. Wait until they cool and then grind them (I love my food processor). Mix the ground almonds with the dry ingredients.

Then, whip the yolks for 5 minutes until thick and ribbony (it takes 9 yolks to get the prescribed weight), add to it oil, water, almond extract, and vanilla extract - beat again to mix everything together. Then sprinkle the dry ingredients mixture on top. Since I only have 1 mixer bowl and 1 whip, I have to wash and dry them really well before proceeding to whip the egg whites (I don't like to do this).

Next, whip the egg whites. Pretty standard steps, whip on low until foamy, add cream of tartar, whip until soft peaks, then gradually add sugar until stiff peaks form. I have to say that cream of tartar does help stabilize the egg whites - can't tell you how many times I "broke" whipped egg whites in the past (easy to do in high altitude) and have to start over. Doesn't seem to have this problem now with cream of tartar in the mix!

After the egg whites achieved stiff peak, mix 1/3 of it into the flour/almond/egg yolks mixture until incorporated (this is called "sacrifice" in chef terms). Then fold in the remaining egg whites in 2 addition. I use a big spatula and my arm got tired at the end since it's a heavy batter. Then divide the batter into 2 pans (I actually weigh them to make sure I distribute them evenly). Into the oven it goes.

The cake smells so good coming out of the oven. I let it cool. Then using a serrated knife, trim off the top of the cakes. Apply the syrup (water and sugar boiled, cool to room temperature, and combined with amaretto disarono liquor). Since the cake become really fragile after being syruped, I syrup the bottom layer first, then proceeded to make the raspberry jam whipped cream before I continue with the syruping. I did this because I want to apply the whipped cream between the layers - so I don't have to move the cake after syruping.

For the whipped cream, I bought raspberry preserve and it has seeds on them. So I push the whole thing through a strainer to get rid of the seeds. I was hesitating about this, I though it was gonna be a pain to do, but it's actually not bad (can you tell that I'm in a baking mood, all these steps and I was still a cheerful bird!). I whip the cream in the pre-chilled mixer bowl & whisks - slowly increasing the speed until it's stiff peak, then incorporate the strained raspberry preserve. The result is this creamy heavenly raspberry whipped cream with a hint of pink color.

Continuing on with the recipe, I put a huge dollop of the cream between the layers, syruped the top layer of the cake, then apply the rest of the cream all over the cake. I started off using an offset spatula, this works pretty well for the top of the cake. For the sides, I use the bench scraper. It is sooooo much easier using bench scraper (whoever invented bench scraper should get some sort of award, if that person hasn't already!).

Now full disclosure: I was going to skip this week's cake selection. I'm not sure I like chiffon and this cake sounded too plain. Again, I was wrong. This cake is so moist and so yummy. I think I am changing my opinion on white cakes!

Lesson to be learnt: NEVER doubt Rose, if the recipe is lucky enough to make it to her book, it must be worth it, and this cake is anything but!!!