Home made "butterfinger-type" candy bars!

omg. I heard that approximately 8 times when I shared these treats today. And I agree, if I do
say so myself. These are SO GOOD. Don't know what exactly inspired me to try this, other than that the croissants went so well and I know in my heart of hearts that the process of tempering chocolate is one I have to master. So, what better excuse? The process of cooking the sugar and corn syrup is pretty easy, though I did turn away from the sugar for a minute and cooked it way past the recommended 310 degrees - it was probably at 330 or 340 - starting to really color up as caramel. But the peanut butter stirred in saved it. The funniest thing about this recipe is it says it makes 96 pieces - ha ha ha! Not even close. Maybe 3 dozen.

Then there's the issue with tempering the chocolate. I DON'T KNOW what I do wrong, because it's either too hot or too cool but anyway it blooms on me - I'll keep at it. The chocolate coating is a mixture of dark and milk chocolate (sssshhhhh- I think that might be the secret ingredient!) Anyway, it's about perfect - not too sweet, not too bitter.

Here's one that came out very nicely though! And the macro function on the camera is working too!

Recipe to come later tonight.

Here is the recipe – I actually cooked the sugar syrup to something slightly higher than the recommended temp – not sure how hot because when I saw that the temp was way up I yelped and pulled it off the stove quickly, then tried to get the candy thermometer out of the syrup, then dropped part of the thermometer into the syrup, then had to restrain myself from fishing it out with my fingers (350 degrees – it takes the skin off!). So, I did not get a 100% accurate reading on how hot it actually got.

Do make sure not to undercook the syrup – it needs to be at least 310 – and you can safely go to 320 or 330 just to make sure it is firm enough. The link below is a pretty good reference.

Also, in the second paragraph of the recipe there is some nonsense about washing down the sides of the pan with a pastry brush. I see this in every recipe that involves cooking sugar and I personally ignore it – it’s never been an issue and the whole process seems like too much work to me.

http://candy.about.com/od/candybasics/a/candytemp.htm

Candy Bars
(Yields about 96 miniature candy bars)
1/3 cup light corn syrup
1/3 cup water
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup peanut butter
Spray Vegetable Oil (Pam, etc.) for keeping the knife lubricated in scoring
1 Pound of Tempered Semi-Sweet Chocolate for dipping

Greasing a 12-by-17-inch jelly roll pan (with 1-inch sides) with safflower, vegetable or canola oil. Place the pan into a slightly warm oven to warm the pan while making the candy. (Don’t allow the pan to become hot, only barely warm to give you more time to spread and score the candy later.)
In a heavy 2-quart saucepan, combine the corn syrup and water, stirring well to combine. Place over medium-low heat and add the sugar. Cook the mixture, stirring constantly, until it is clear and then stirring often until it reaches a full boil. Clip on your calibrated candy thermometer, raise the heat to medium-high and continue to cook – without stirring – until the mixture reaches 310 degrees (F). During this cooking period, should sugar crystals form above the boiling line, carefully wipe away using a damp pastry brush, but be careful not to touch the boiling mixture. Rinse the pastry brush well – and make certain to blot-dry the brush well – between each swipe.
Remove your pan from the warming oven and place on your work surface.
Remove the candy from heat and add the peanut butter, stirring to blend completely using a clean wooden spoon. Working quickly, pour the mixture onto your well-greased jelly roll pan, and spread as evenly as possible. Score the mass with an oiled, heavy chef’s knife into 1-inch by 2-inch pieces, cutting at least half way through the candy. (The more quickly you do this, the easier and deeper your scoring will be.) It is helpful to spray the knife with cooking oil occasionally to aide the knife in scoring.
Allow the scored mixture to cool at room temperature. When cool and hard, break them into pieces.
Place the cut candies into the refrigerator while you temper your dipping chocolate and allow to chill for 15 to 30 minutes. Remove the candies from the fridge and dip each piece into the chocolate, then place on parchment paper to allow the chocolate to harden completely (About 3 hours).
Store on waxed-paper sheets in an airtight container for up to two weeks (again - ha ha ha - mine lasted exactly 18 hours, including overnight!)

Chocolate Croissants!

I have this love/hate thing with Chocolate Croissants - I want to love them, because they have two of my favorite things in them - chocolate and croissants.
But I end up not liking them, mainly because they're not sweet enough I think.

So, with a fresh supply of Dr. Oetker yeast - thanks mom! -

I decided to try croissants again at home, hoping for better results all around. Even though I feel like I have puff pastry down cold, and croissant dough is nothing more than puff pastry with yeast, I've struggled with croissants - not rising, butter leaking out onto the baking pan, etc. So, I took another run at them. I used the recipe from Rose Levy Beranbaum's Pastry Bible, combined with a little bit of Julia Child, and the results were very good. I think the two hours in the fridge makes a huge difference in how easy it is to work. I ended up making about 2 pounds of dough and worked it 1/3 at a time, with the rest staying cold - it was perfect.

These are the unbaked chocolate and plain croissants. The dough went together well - better than my photos! I think I forgot to turn on the digital macro function until all the raw dough was baket, but anyway, you can see that they shaped up nicely. The yeast was past its pull date but it worked nonetheless, though a bit more slowly I think. Anyway, I used semisweet chocolate in the chocolate version, and it turned out to be just right - bittersweet is just too dry and, well, bitter, for breakfast. I did not increase the amount of sugar in the dough (only 2 T.) but I might double that to 1/4 cup next time.

Here is a finished pan of assorted treates - the scraps went to Scout! The unbaked dough is supposed to freeze well, and with the fat content I'm sure it does, but I didn't freeze any this time. The recipe made about 19 or 20 pieces that were fairly small by current standards, but I think just about right.

Strawberry Shortcake

Lots of stuff contributing to the creation of this dessert. First, there was the white cake that kept staring at me from the kitchen counter - I had baked two 10"x10" square cakes, one white, using only the egg whites, and one yellow, using only the yolks. This was just for field testing for Shasha's wedding cake (more to come on that). Plan A is to make a genoise, but I thought I would give some of the traditional cakes a trial run too - the genoise have been giving me problems lately and not wanting to rise. Both the yellow and the white were very nice, though the white one did not rise like I expected - but I do think it did what it was supposed to do. And I think the yellow one rose more than it should have - it came up over the top of the 2" pan. So, anyway, there they were on the counter, wrapped up tight. I kept thinking of and rejecting chocolate type fillings. Finally, after reading three different recent entries about strawberries - from http://ayankeeinasouthernkitchen.com/, http://www.davidlebovitz.com/, and http://tartelette.blogspot.com/ - I caved and bought some strawberries - no doubt not the same quality as either Paris or South Carolina this time of year, but still, they turned out to be pretty darn good.

Then I made a creme patissiere, or pastry cream, for the filling. I doused the cake layers in a marsala syrup, filled them with pastry cream (lightened with whipped cream) and some sliced berries, and frosted with a whipped cream cream cheese frosting.

And then I had some leftover frosting, so I added little frosting runs down the sides for fun! Really fabulous. Again, no pictures of the inside - I am working on this!!! It only used half of the cake too, so there are many more options to play with.

The pastry cream is very light. It is made with milk as opposed to half and half or heavy cream and it doesn't really lose anything this way.

Pastry Cream – Crème Patisserie

2 cups milk

3 T cornstarch
½ cup sugar
3 eggs

1 T unsalted butter
Vanilla or rum or almond extract

1 cup whipping cream, whipped to soft peaks and lightly sweetened with powdered sugar

Whisk cornstarch and sugar and eggs in a 1 quart sauce pan. Scald milk (in microwave is fine) then stir gradually into the egg mixture. Turn heat on medium and cook, stirring, until it gets very thick. Take off the heat, beat in the butter and flavoring. Transfer to a bowl, cover with waxed paper pressed right on the top of the custard, then let cool at room temp 15-20 minutes and then refrigerate. After it is cool and firm, whip the 1 cup of cream and then whisk the cream into the custard to lighten it.

Use as a filling for a white cake with berries, or fill a prebaked tart shell and cover with fresh berries.

Chocolate and Caramel

Oh! This stuff has such potential. Chocolate caramel mousse. With an artistic sort of a flair- you know, a jaunty little tilt to the whole thing. I have to thank Tartlette for the idea and recipe and the link to the pastry chef. There was a lot of "oh la la-ing" going on in connection with this post, and it wasn't necessarily limited to food. But, sadly, the execution turned out to be a little less than what you might have hoped for - but maybe consistent with Tartlette's experience with other recipes of his. In any event, the caramel mousse was a little gummy - too much gelatin I think! But the chocolate mousse was yummy - light and airy, though I wouldn't hesitate to go back to my usual Joy of Cooking chocolate mousse instead, since I can make that one with my eyes closed.

Anyway, the caramel was lots of fun to make - here it is ready to go into the champage flutes. And here is is again resting on its side to get the proper angle.



And another shot of the lovely finished product.

Bread of the Angels

Pane degli Angeli

I’ve been looking for my favorite yeast lately – Dr. Oetker, a German brand that makes really superior bread and pastry. Nicer texture, more controlled rise, better gluten, and wonderful aroma. And, you usually only need to use half a packet, even for heavier doughs like whole grain or brioche. And I’ve been craving brioche lately, though for reasons explained below, that hasn’t happened yet.

Anyway, my usual sources for the yeast have dried up because they say they don’t sell through it fast enough. People are so funny – I haven’t found that yeast goes bad or that it falls flat even past the “sell by” date, but the whole obsession with “sell by” dates is a rant for another day. I finally found it in DeLaurenti’s, of course, though I don’t usually think of buying baking supplies there unless it’s fruitcake season. But that’s another digression. Anyway, right next to the Dr. Oetker yeast was this box of what looked very much like Italian yeast – oh, I was so excited – visions of pizza crusts danced in my head. And the name was just perfect “PANEANGELI” – bread of the angels!! Wow, with a name like that it’s got to be good! And the packaging was so pretty! And “Lievito” DOES mean yeast, it’s just that it apparently also has a more generic meaning – which turns out in this case to mean a premeasured mixture of baking soda and baking powder for cakes and cookies! And all of a sudden I have a box of 10 packets!

Now, in retrospect, there WERE some warning signs that should have alerted me, but the box was all in Italian and I kind of skimmed the words as I grabbed it, so I must have seen only what I wanted to see. I get it home and start to look more closely at it, and here are words like “dolce”, meaning “sweet” – still ok for croissants, right? And “vaniglinato” meaning “vanilla flavored” – well, still ok for brioche. . . . . And “istantanea” which of course means instant, which I took to mean “quick rising”. Well, in the end it I’m sitting there with these packets, a little annoyed at myself, but figuring I’ll find a way to use them. I love the Italians! Each packet has a recipe on the back! All different. And numbered so you can track them! And the web site for this product has a “recipe of the week’!

So I have to bake my way through them, of course. So far we’ve got Ciambelle, which are little rings, Crostata di Marmellata, or jam tart, and Torta al Limone, or lemon cake. It’s great, because they all taste really Italian – who knew there was a secret ingredient like this!

Jam Tarts

Pastry crust filled with a tender almond cake and a dollop of apricot jam, or blackberry redcurrant jelly.

I had a naming contest for these at work. My personal favorite is “Jammy Cakey Tarty Thingies”, but it may be reduced to a simple “Jammy Cakes”. I took some tartlet shells and filled them with a bit of Almond Cake batter – a dense and moist almond pound cake – then I plopped in some jam (apricot in some, blackberry red currant jelly in others) and then put more batter on the top.



Funny how all my baked goods look the same – kind of round and golden. Anyway, the crispness of the pastry crust played off of the tender cake in a subtle but very nice way, and the jam was fabulous – next time I would probably add more jam, but I was trying to avoid the potential for them all to turn volcanic in the oven, so I used a bit less than I really wanted to.

Scout, my adoring fan!

Birthdays

Lori's Birthday Cake - This was a special request for "something apple". So, that left me with plenty of discretion, except that pie of course isn't for birthdays, and the size had to be big enough to feed at least 16 people, because unlike the rest of us greedy and cake-hungry souls who don't want to share, Lori always invites everyone on the entire floor!

This was my first run with this particular square cake pan - for some reason I am loving everything square these days - picture frames, rugs, and now cakes. This pan is fabulous - it's Wilton, either 10"x10" or 11"x11" square - really a perfect size for brownies or cakes. The apple cake is a carrot-cake-like concoction - lots of oil and eggs and sugar, a dash of cinnamon and some diced Pink Lady apples - nuts optional. It's very dense and moist. I made two full cakes and used them as layers - sandwiched and frosted with nearly 2 pounds (!) of cream cheese frosting! So the entire structure was somewhere in the neighborhood of 11 pounds! omg. OK, maybe 9 pounds. But still. And we did get close to 20 servings. Anyway, it was quite the cake.

Apple cake

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup white sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar, firmly packed
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/4 cups vegetable oil
3 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
4 cups apples, peeled and chopped

(optional - 1 cup walnuts or pecans)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
In a large bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients (flour, sugars, cinnamon, salt and baking soda) until thoroughly combined.
Whisk together the wet ingredients (eggs, oil and vanilla) and stir into the dry ingredients. Stir to just combine. Fold in the apples and nuts if using.
Spread the batter into a greased and floured pan. Bake 50 to 55 minutes, until a skewer inserted in the center comes out clean.

Cream Cheese Frosting

Make sure the cream cheese and butter are at room temperature!

Mix 2 packages (8 ounces each) cream cheese, 1 stick unsalted butter, 1 teaspoon vanilla and confectioner's sugar to taste with an electric mixer. Beat until really light and fluffy. Spread over top (and sides if you want) of cooled cake.

Ravioli ala Bunker

Far and away the best ravioli I've ever made - and I didn't even have to make them! A collaborative effort (read - Lisa bossing others around in the kitchen) with Gary and Tarri and Matt. These used a tomato pasta, just for the fun red color, but you could use plain or spinach as well.


Tomato Pasta
3 cups flour - all-purpose, unbleached
3 eggs
3 oz. (1/2 small can) tomato paste

To make the pasta, combine the ingredients in the work bowl of a food processor and process until well combined - it will be moist and mealy and hold together well - add a few drops of water if it seems dry - better too moist because you can always work extra flour in, but if it's too dry it's never going to be right. Roll it into sheets using a manual pasta maker (Atlas), and then fill with the herbed ricotta and walnut filling below, using a ravioli maker - actually just the plaque that lets you fill and form them by hand. So, even though they call it a ravioli MAKER, it doesn't really make them for you . . . . I have never used any of the other kinds though, and this is way better than shaping and cutting them individually. . . .

Herbed Ricotta Filling with Walnuts

1 -12 oz container of ricotta - firm/drained
a handful (3/4 c.) of fresh mixed herbs - we used flat leaf parsley, lemon thyme, chervil and basil
a handful of walnuts
1/4 cup finely grated parmesan
pinch of salt

Combine all ingredients in the bowl of a food processor and pulse until the herbs are finely minced and the walnuts are no longer chunky. Fill ravioli. These need to boil for about 2-4 minutes. Serve with cream sauce and additional parmesan cheese - sprinkle with chopped parsley if you want.

Was finally able to post additional pictures - here is the ricotta we used, and the basket of fresh herbs! Absolutely use lemon thyme, it was fantastic!

Girls Baking

We had a play-hooky-and-bake day on the 13th! So fun - started with a trip to PFI for chocolate, olives, cheese, almond paste, and other essentials, then to Bargreen's just for looking around (excellent source for pizza pans and peels, among other things), then for coffee, I think, then to the grocery store for eggs and a heart-shaped cookie cutter, then back home. So, no baking actually underway until nearly 1:00 PM. But when we got going, it went fast.

First, Nocciola Cheesecake to take into work - no particular reason. OMG - divine!

Then, truffle brownies, later to be cut into heart shapes, and the crumbs ingeniously rolled into cocoa dusted truffles!

Then, pine nut tartlettes - small technical glitches involving honey overflowing into the oven - that's what the foil on the bottom is for!

Then, at the last minute, heart shaped cookies with jam-filled windows! I know, I know, a bit heavy on the photos and light on text and recipes, but that's how it is sometimes!