Back to the Baking

I hope you have had a lovely Christmas. Its crazy that I haven't been baking anything new lately. I have only really been baking old recipes and doing school work but not anymore! When I went shopping on Boxing Day I was able to get this baking book on sale:

I've been wanting to get this book for a long time now but I never felt like spending more money to get it bit since it was Boxing Day sales, it was 30% off and my dad gave me a Chapters gift card for Chanukkah so I got it! 

  I want to go through every recipe in it.  I don't think I can post the recipe because of the copywrite but I will post pictures when they turn out good.

I shall start in Biscuits, Meringues & Slices. The first recipe is Jumbo Chocolate Fudge Cookies. I will start with that. I'm excited to get into the pastries!

  The biggest challenge for me right now is to find time to do anything while I'm trying to finish school. School work is priority at the moment but I'm hoping that I can squeeze in at least one recipe a week for Shabbat or something. We shall see how it goes! I'll post soon!  

My Lack

   I'm really sorry for not posting more regularly. I have been baking and all that but I just never got around to putting on here. It's a bit time consuming. One of these days I'll just do a massive upload of all the recipes I have done so far. I have been trying to perfect the recipe for Dad's Goodie Rings. I have the base perfect but I need to figure out what to do with the chocolate part. I will post it as soon as it is perfected. :)
   I will do massive post soon!

Summer Baking Challenge Week 7: Pizza Pretzels and Spaghetti Sauce

Ah, pizza pretzels. Such a memory from my childhood. When I was really little, my dad would buy a pack of pizza pretzels from Costco as a treat. We loved them so much. This is my first attempt at reliving my childhood memories and it tasted pretty good, though, it didn't taste the same.
I found the recipe from Jean Pierre's Company's Coming Breads cook book and I adjusted it to my taste and health. I prefer whole wheat breads to white.

So here it is:

Pizza Pretzels

Pretzels:
1 Tsp Brown Sugar
1/4 cup Warm Water
1 x 1/4 oz. Active Dry Yeast

1 1/2 cup Warm Water
4 1/2 cups Whole Wheat Flour
1/2 tsp Salt

Topping:
Spaghetti Sauce
Italian Seasoning
Grated Cheese 

Stir sugar into first amount of warm water in small bowl. Sprinkle yeast over top. Let it stand for 10 minutes. Stir to dissolve yeast.

Combine second amount of warm water, flour and salt in a large bowl. Add yeast mixture. Add a bit more flour if needed so dough isn't too sticky. Turn it out onto floured surface. Knead 8 to 10 minutes until smooth and elastic (like elasta girl from The Incredibles). Place in greased bowl, turning once to grease the top. Cover with tea towel. Let stand in the oven with light on and door closed about 45 minutes until doubled in bulk. Punch dough down. Roll into log. Mark off 12 portions. Cut. Roll each portion into 1 1/2-inch thick rope.  Shape each rope into pretzel on greased baking sheets.

Brush on spaghetti sauce onto pretzels. You can choose how saucy and rich you want it. Sprinkle each pretzel with a bit of Italian seasoning or any other spice that catches your fancy. Bake in the oven at 450 degrees F for 8 minutes and then take them out and sprinkle with as much cheese as you so desire. I like lots of cheese, personally. 

Put the pretzels back in the oven for 7-8 more minutes until the cheese it at your desired crispy/stringiness. Let them cool on a rack unless you want to burn your tongue when biting into it. Bon appetite! Oh and shut off your oven and clean up! Unless of course you want a fire in your house. :D

Makes: 12 Pretty Pretzels

If you happen to have no spaghetti sauce, don't worry! Here is a good recipe for one that I found while googling. :D

Spaghetti Sauce

1 (15 ounce) can of Tomato Sauce
1 (6 ounce) can of Tomato Paste
1 Tbsp Ground Oregano
1 1/2 tsp Dried Minced Garlic
1 tsp Ground Paprika

In a medium bowl, Mix together tomato sauce and tomato paste until smooth. Stir in oregano, garlic and paprika.

It's done! That simple! Yay! Just so you know, this recipe makes a lot more than you need so make sure you're having spaghetti or something for your next meal. Enjoy!!

Summer Baking Challenge Week 6: Ice Cream Cake

Ice Cream Cake

So I made my very first ice cream cake with my sister. It turned out rather well I think. It was a bit too sweet for my taste but that's ice cream for you! So here is the recipe! er assembling instructions.

Two small buckets of ice cream (they can be two different flavors if you want to be adventurous)
Chocolate chippits 
Graham crumbs
Cream (any type should work really. I used coffee cream)
Coolwhip

 Thaw out one of the buckets of ice cream so that it's soft serve yumminess and then squish it into a 10-inch springform pan (or anything close to 10 inches) and stuff it back in the freezer. Once it is frozen solid, it is time for the yummy chocolate middle. Melt a bunch of chocolate chips in a little sauce pan with a little pour of cream, 1/4 cup is around the amount I poured of cream with about 1 1/2 cups of chocolate chippits. After it is melted, add enough graham crumbs to the texture that you like. About 1/2-3/4 cup should be about right.
After that is all mixed together, pour it on top of the first layer of ice cream and then stuff it back into the freezer. While it is freezing, you could take out the other bucket of ice cream to thaw out. While you are waiting for both occurrences to take place, relax, take a nap or go browsing on Pinterest. Pinterest tends to make time disappear and you'll be ready for the next step in no time at all!
Ok, so your chocolate middle has frozen and your last tub of ice cream is thawed and ready to go! Squish the thawed out ice cream into your springform pan and stuff back into the freezer. So now you just wait until that is done freezing again and thaw your coolwhip while you are waiting. 

This is the point with mine that it kind of looked sloppy with so I leave this part up to your discretion. What I had done was kind of microwaved the coolwhip because I didn't wait to thaw it. Maybe it was because of sheer impatience or maybe I didn't think of it. either way, I don't remember. So after I microwaved it, I added some icing sugar to sweeten it but it ended up liquefying on me like the crazy sauce that it is. We still used it and used it as a glaze of sorts. That looked nice but then we tried to make pretty fluffy decorations on it and that just made it look sloppy. So don't do what I did. Google ice cream cake topping or something. You might have better luck than I did in that area. :p

Here is my end product:

We made up for the sloppiness by putting on crushed homemade peanut butter cups. All in all, it was very tasty. :) An almost success.

Summer Baking Challenge Week 5: Cadbury Crunchie Chocolate Bars

So this week I was sitting around having a snack. As I unwrapped my Cadbury Crunchie chocolate bar and took a nice scrumptious bite into it and had a light bulb moment. I should try making a Crunchie chocolate bar!

Cadbury Crunchie Chocolate Bars

First things first: I could taste that a Crunchie bar was made out of sponge toffee so I went out searching for a recipe and here is where I found it:

http://www.canadianliving.com/food/sponge_toffee.php

• 2-1/2 cups (625 mL) granulated sugar
• 2/3 cup (150 mL) corn syrup
• 1/3 cup (75 mL) water
• 4 tsp (18 mL) baking soda
• 2 tsp (10 mL) vanilla

Before I started, I set up my pan and cut out tin foil and folded into a sort of dividers so that it would be somewhat in a chocolate bar shape. 

They were the size of the width of the pan so about 9-inches long and about 1-inch wide. I greased them right before the sugar and stuff finished boiling.

In 12-cup (3 L) saucepan, stir together sugar, corn syrup and water over medium heat just until sugar dissolves. 

Bring to boil; cook, without stirring but brushing down side of pan occasionally with pastry brush dipped in cold water, until candy thermometer reaches hard-crack stage of 300°F (149°C), or when 1 tsp (5 mL) hot syrup dropped into cold water forms hard brittle threads, about 10 minutes. 

Remove from heat. Standing back and averting face, whisk in baking soda. (Caramel will bubble and sputter and increase in volume.) Whisk in vanilla.

Pour into greased foil-lined 13- x 9-inch (3.5 L) metal or glass cake pan. Quickly place your greased tin foil dividers like this:

Let cool in pan on rack without disturbing, about 2 hours(I just left them overnight). Break them apart, peel off the tin foil, and cut each one in half so that it looks like this:

Almost done. Now for the chocolate coating.

Melt about 3 cups of milk chocolate(I actually used semi-sweet chocolate chippits but it would definitely taste better with milk chocolate, I'm sure) in a medium sized pot on low heat. Immerse a piece of sponge toffee bar into the chocolate.

Scoop out the bar and tap any excess chocolate off and place on a sheet of baking parchment paper and let it cool. Continue with the rest of the bars until they are all done and cooling.

And there you go: delicious Crunchie chocolate bar!

Enjoy!

Summer Baking Challenge Week 4: Boston Creme Donuts

Boston Cream Doughnuts

I found this recipe via Pinterest from here:

http://simpleandhomemade.blogspot.ca/2011/05/boston-cream-doughnuts.html

Vanilla Pastry Cream Filling
1/3 cup sugar
1 1/2 cups milk
3 tablespoons cornstarch
4 egg yolks, at room temperature
2 tablespoons butter, softened 
2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Yeast Dough
3/4 cup warm whole milk (105° to 115ºF.)
1 package active dry yeast (2 1/4 teaspoons)
1/3 cup sugar
3 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
5 tablespoons butter, at room temperature
4 egg yolks, at room temperature
3/4 teaspoon salt 
1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg

Chocolate Glaze
3 oz semi-sweet chocolate
2 tablespoons water
4 teaspoons corn syrup
1/4 cup + 2 tbsp sugar
1 tablespoon butter, softened

Make Filling: (note: this is the very first thing you should do, the filling needs to chill)
Place sugar and 1 cup milk in a heavy-bottomed medium saucepan. Cook over low heat, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon, until sugar is dissolved. Increase heat until mixture boils.Place cornstarch in medium bowl. Using wire whisk, gradually whisk in remaining milk and whisk until mixture is smooth. Add yolks and whisk until well blended. Slowly pour 1/3 cup hot milk into yolk mixture, whisking constantly. Gradually whisk in remaining hot milk. Return milk-yolk mixture to saucepan and heat to a boil over medium heat. Boil 1 minute, stirring constantly.Remove from heat and whisk in butter and vanilla. (If pastry cream is lumpy, pass it through a sieve or just beat it really hard) Transfer pastry cream to a nonreactive (glass, ceramic, tin..) bowl. Place a piece of plastic wrap directly onto surface of cream to prevent a skin from forming. Refrigerate until cold. 

Make Dough:
Place warm milk, yeast and 1 teaspoon granulated sugar in bowl of electric mixer. Using a wire whisk, stir mixture until yeast granules are evenly dispersed. Let stand for 3 minutes until yeast is dissolved and mixture begins to foam. Add 1 1/2 cups flour to yeast mixture. Using paddle attachment (or with hands) beat on low speed 2 minutes. Remove paddle attachment and cover bowl with plastic wrap. Let stand at room temperature 45 minutes. Sponge will have increased in volume. Thoroughly grease a large bowl with 1 tablespoon room temperature butter. To sponge, add remaining butter and sugar, yolks, salt, cardamom and nutmeg. Mix on low speed until blended. Add 1 1/2 cups remaining flour, 1/2 cup at a time. Beat dough on medium speed 5 minutes. Dough will not form a ball – it will be soft and part of it will wrap itself around paddle. If dough is very sticky, add remaining flour 1 tablespoon at a time, as necessary. Scrape dough into prepared bowl, turning over dough so that top is greased. Cover with plastic wrap. Let dough rise at room temperature about 2 hours, or until it has slightly more than doubled in volume. (Rising time will depend upon room temperature.)

Line a baking sheet with parchment or wax paper and evenly dust with flour. Dust a clean work surface with flour. Turn out risen dough onto surface and gently press down on it to deflate. With your hands, flatten dough into a rectangle about 1/2 or 3/4-inch thick. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let dough rest 5 minutes. Using a floured 2 1/2-inch round biscuit or cookie cutter, cut out about 12 to 14 little circles of dough. With a floured spatula, gently transfer rounds to prepared baking sheet, reshaping them if necessary. Leave at least 1-inch between doughnuts to allow for expansion. Let doughnuts rise for about 20 minutes, or until almost doubled in size.



Fry Doughnuts:
Pour enough oil in a deep-fat fryer or large straight-sided saucepan to come halfway up sides. Oil should be a depth of 2 to 3 inches. Heat oil to 365ºF. Line a baking sheet with paper towels. Dip a spatula in hot oil and use it to transfer doughnuts from baking sheet to oil. Fry doughnuts, 3 or 4 at a time, for 1 to 1 minute 30 seconds or until golden brown. (The midline of the doughnut will be lighter than the rest of it, which is characteristic.) Remove doughnuts from hot oil using a slotted spoon and transfer them to paper towel-lined baking sheet to drain and cool. When cool enough to handle, use a long, plain pastry tip to poke a hole through the midline of each doughnut. Let cool completely before filling.

Make Glaze:
Cook water, corn syrup and sugar in a heavy-bottomed medium saucepan over low heat, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon until sugar is dissolved. Increase heat until mixture boils. Remove from heat and add chocolate. Let stand 2 minutes. Whisk in butter until mixture is smooth.



Assemble Doughnuts:
Remove pastry cream from refrigerator and whisk cream until it is smooth. Fill a pastry bag fitted with a plain 1/4-inch round tip with pastry cream. Pipe pastry cream into hole in middle of each doughnut until pastry cream bulges out and doughnut feels full. Wipe off any excess cream. Place filled doughnuts on rack after they are filled.



Dip top of each filled doughnut into bowl of warm chocolate glaze, letting excess glaze drip back into bowl. Place glazed doughnuts back onto rack to set. Let sit for 30 minutes before serving. The doughnuts are best when prepared and served on the same day, otherwise store at room temperature for a few days in an air tight container. 



They are quite yummy and I want to make them a lot more but they just take so long with all the rising and stuff. :P I will definitely make them for Hanukkah.

The Lack of Week Two for the Baking Challenge

I feel I should give an explanation for the nonexistence of the 2nd week for the summer baking challenge. The reason is simply because it didn't turn out well enough to post the recipe. I kind of burnt it a bit and I deviated too much from the original recipe for it to work. Here is a picture to prove it:

It was yummy though. It was my first attempt at créme brûlée .
One day I will try my hand at it again and when I perfect it, I will post the recipe. :)

Summer Baking Challenge Week 3: Marshmallows!

I was so excited to try these! I found the recipe via Pinterest and here is the link to the website it was found:

 http://www.bellaeats.com/blog/2008/12/22/holiday-gift-boxes.html

Homemade Marshmallows 

4 envelopes of Knox unflavored gelatin

Water

3 cups granulated sugar

1 1/4 cups light corn syrup 

1/2 tsp salt

1 Tbsp vanilla extract

Confectioners sugar for slicing

1. In a large saucepan over medium-high heat, combine 3/4 cup of the water, sugar, and corn syrup.

2. Meanwhile, in bowl of stand mixer, place the other 3/4 cup of water and sprinkle the gelatin on the top, let turn solid(which will only take a minute).

3. Bringing sugar mixture to a boil, place candy thermometer in middle of mixture, making sure not to touch the side or the bottom of the pan and let it continue at a rolling boil until mixture passes 235 degrees Fahrenheit , which should take about 3-5 minutes. (I actually just boiled it and kind of walked away and forgot about so I have no idea how long mine was there for. I rushed back to it with great speed and it looked clear with a brown tinge, kind of like when you make meringue).

4. With mixer on low, carefully pour sugar mixture into mixer bowl, add salt and slowly raise beater to high speed.

5. Beat sugar mixture on high for five minutes and then add vanilla extract. (If you want to add other flavours like mint, cocoa powder for chocolate or you can add food colouring to make colourful ones).

6. Continue beating mixture for an additional 5 minutes.

7. Meanwhile, grease a 9x13 inch pan for large marshmallows or two 10x10 inch pans for small marshmallows.

8. When done beating, pour mixture into pan(s), smooth top and tap to release extra air.

9. Leave on counter overnight to solidify(I actually didn't wait. I took it out after about 5 or 6 hours and it still worked).

10. Generously sprinkle working surface with confectioners sugar, turn out mass of marshmallow, generously sprinkle more sugar, and cut as desired, lightly coating marshmallow shapes with more sugar to avoid sticking.

9x13 pan makes about 96 marshmallows that can supposedly be stored for a week. I will see if it can last longer. :p

They taste just like store bought without any chemical tastes. Yummy!

*UPDATE*

I've just tried making chai tea marshmallows by substituting chai tea for water and added a few dashes of ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and allspice. It tastes soooo yummy! Gah! The possibilities are endless!

Dairy-Free Mocha Banana Icecream

So I found this delicious recipe here:

http://www.oxygenmag.com/Nutrition/Articles/Mocha-Banana-Ice-Cream.aspx

I tweaked it a bit so here is my version.

MOCHA BANANA "ICE CREAM"
Ready in 5 minutes • Makes 2 servings

Ingredients:
2 frozen bananas
1 tsp instant coffee or espresso
1 tsp Cocoa powder

Instructions:
1.    Remove bananas from freezer and let sit on the counter for 5 minutes. 
2.    Peel bananas and break or cut into chunks, then place into a food processor. Pulse about 20 times until bananas are in small pieces, then blend until smooth. If necessary, stop the machine and scrape from the sides. 
3.    Add the coffee and cocoa to the food processor, and blend again to fully incorporate. Serve into two little bowls or one big bowl.

  And this is how it looks when it is done. :)

Summer Baking Challenge: Week 1: Angel Food Cake

So this was the very first time ever making angel food cake from scratch. I tried making it from a cake mix when I was around 10yrs old. I found he recipe here: http://www.marthastewart.com/341215/angel-food-cake?czone=food/cake-center/favorite-cake-recipes&center=0&gallery=274933&slide=341215

I made it with a simple orange glaze.

Angel Food Cake with Orange Glaze

Ingredients

• 1 cup cake flour (spooned and leveled)
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 12 large egg whites, room temperature
• 1 teaspoon cream of tartar
• 1 1/4 cups sugar
• 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Place flour and salt in a sieve set over a bowl; sift into bowl, and set aside. With a mixer, beat egg whites on medium-high until foamy, about 1 minute. Add cream of tartar; beat until soft peaks form. 
   
2. Continue to beat, gradually adding sugar; beat until stiff peaks form, about 2 minutes. Add vanilla; beat to combine.
   
   
3. Gently transfer egg-white mixture to a large, wide bowl. In four batches, using the sieve again, sift flour mixture over egg-white mixture. While turning the bowl, use a rubber spatula to fold in the mixture by cutting down the center and coming up the sides.
   
4. Gently spoon batter into an ungreased angel food cake pan with a removable bottom; smooth top. Cut a knife or small spatula through batter to release air bubbles. Bake until cake is golden and springs back when lightly pressed, 35 to 40 minutes. Invert pan; let cool in pan, 1 hour. Run a knife around the inside of the pan and around the tube to release cake, and unmold. Use knife to release cake from bottom of pan, and remove.

And it should look like this

I probably over cooked it. The timer went off and I kind of forgot about it for a few minutes...  :p

For the glaze, all I did was take about 1 cup of confectioners icing sugar and mixed

It with about three tablespoons of milk. After that I grated the rind of an orange and

 mixed that in. Very yummy I must admit. It was a bit strong though so half the rind 

of an orange would probably work better. 

The end product?

Yumminess!

Summer Baking Challenge

So this summer me and one of my friends are doing a summer baking challenge. The challenge is that we have to try baking once a week something we have never tried baking before. It should be fun since I bake quite a lot. This week is week one so I will be posting my baked goodie later on when I'm done making it. :)