This month’s challenge for the Daring Bakers baking club was Dorie Greenspan’s Perfect Party Cake. The recipe is from Baking: From My Home to Yours, a book that has been in heavy rotation on the food blog circuit lately for its classic recipes and straightforward techniques. Since this month was my mother’s birthday, I made the cake for this occasion, and thankfully our host Morven gave us a lot of room for personalization - we has pretty much free rein apart from the basic cake recipe and buttercream or whipped cream frosting options.

Although I’ll be first to admit that my layer cake skills could use some work, I took my time with this one and I think it turned out reasonably well. I prefer dense chocolate monstrosities or fruit desserts for my own birthday or special occasions, so could really use some slicing, piping, and decorating practice - and I’ve recently been scoping for a local cake class to help remedy this. For this cake, though, I liked the simplicity of whipped cream, and for some visual interest added a little polka-dot pattern with inverted chocolate chips.

As for the interior, Mom had some very clear ideas about what she wanted in her cake. :) She was hoping for something that would combine all her favorite flavors in one: mini chocolate chips, raspberry, banana, and whipped cream. This part was nearly as much of a challenge as the Daring Bakers recipe itself(!), but I managed to hit all the elements and it ended up being quite good. I do think the mini chips may have weighed the batter down a bit and prevented it from rising as much as it could have (my layers were barely taller than an inch), but the cake was still fluffy and delicate-tasting.

My final changes to Dorie’s basic recipe were as follows: I skipped the lemon flavorings and added 1/4 cup mini chocolate chips to the cake batter. Instead of the buttercream, I used 1 pint of cream whipped with 2 tablespoons sugar for filling and finishing. I also left out the coconut. The layers were filled with alternating raspberry curd and banana pastry cream.

Overall, everyone was very pleased with the cake. I would probably make a thicker raspberry filling next time, and also maybe reduce the baking time to 25 minutes - the cake edges were getting a bit too dark at 30 minutes. This sort of cake is a great addition to my repertoire, though, and I’ll very likely make it again since it’s so easy to vary the filling and flavorings to suit nearly anyone’s wishes. Check out the other Perfect Party Cakes by visiting the Daring Bakers Blogroll, which keeps track of our ever-expanding numbers. Many thanks to Morven of Food Art and Random Thoughts, who hosted this month’s challenge!

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Baking, Daring Bakers | 29 Comments »

I had a lovely visit this past Easter weekend with my adopted Portuguese family, who were kind enough to give me some nice gifts, edible and otherwise. I thought I’d share them here since Portugal really ought to get more attention on the global food scene, if only for the delicious sweets the Portuguese produce.

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Eating Elsewhere, General | 5 Comments »

This post is a bit overdue, but thanks to the aforementioned router problems, I’ve not had a chance to blog much lately. As of now, however, I’m sitting in the beautiful Princeton Public Library, which thankfully has free wireless throughout. Although I could spend a whole post waxing over this library’s many charms (clean, lots of windows, outdoor seating, a huge children’s/YA collection on its own floor, a fireplace…), it seems I’ve been tagged for the 5 Facts meme again, this time by Venus at L’Atelier Vi. I really like her blog and photography, so what the heck…maybe these ones will be a little more interesting than the others (but don’t worry, this will be the last meme for a while!).

5 More Facts About Me

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General | 3 Comments »

They’re neither Irish, nor alcoholic, but hey, they’re green!

My St. Paddy’s Day this year was taken up by the Fair Folk assuming possession of my wireless router, hence the delay of this post. I also wasn’t feeling much for proper Irish fare this weekend, as I think my limit of wintry stews has been fully exploited, and the thought of eating any more potatoes before next Fall sends shivers down my spine. Yes, a shameful Irish-ish lass I am who shuns the humble potato.

I have, however, been wanting to try cooking with matcha (green tea powder) for ages. This weekend seemed as good a time as any to go for the green stuff. I decided on a simple coconut pudding to which was added a few teaspoons of matcha powder. This gave the pudding a lovely pale green hue and an intriguing, slightly grassy flavor from the matcha. At first it was a tiny bit odd, but pretty quickly became hard to stop eating it! I’ve seen other recipes that result in striking deep-green colored cakes or puddings, but for me I can’t imagine using the quantity of powder required to make them so dark, since it took only a modest amount here for the flavor to be nicely present but not overpowering.

This pudding is somewhat lighter in fat and calories than a typical coconut pudding that uses coconut milk or coconut cream, but the taste is hardly compromised. I love the slightly chewy bits of coconut, and couldn’t help but top the wee servings with a bit of diced mango, which added some contrasting color and tartness. Actually, I would put them in larger containers next time; the shot glasses made a charming presentation, but we ended up needing at least 2 per person. At any rate, these coconutty puddings were certainly as addictive as any rainbow-chasing…I think even Paddy would approve!

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Other Sweets | 7 Comments »

I have a fondness for baked goods with lots of texture going on: nuts, dried fruit, seeds, chips, grains, you name it. Sometimes I can be a purist, like with brownies (I prefer ‘em plain, no nuts, frosting, or other do-dads), but usually I like the rest of my palate to have as much fun as my tastebuds. And how much fun is that? Well, I guess it’s pretty fun.

These cookies fit the bill pretty well, and I’ve made them several times when I want something sweet but not too guilty to nibble on. Adapted from a recipe on Baking Bites, inspired by Anzac biscuits, they’re more of a biscuit-like tea cookie than a gooey indulgence. This suits me just fine, although I might end up eating more than I normally would (and no, I don’t know why there are 8 cookies in the first picture and 5 in the second). These also keep rather well and will remain chewy for days, thanks to the honey and dried fruit. Peach and ginger are a classic duo, but if you have trouble finding the dried peaches, apricots are delightful.

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Baking | 10 Comments »

I just love kofta, that marvelous Middle Eastern meatball that can be flavored and cooked in so many different ways (and is variously spelled köfte, kufte, كفته, among others). I definitely prefer the flavor of lamb over any other filling, but given that I often cook vegetarian at home, I’m intrigued by meatless interpretations of it. Two recipes in particular have been swimming around in my to-make queue for ages now, and this past month I finally managed to try both of them.

The first recipe is from Moroccan cookbook author Kitty Morse’s volume North Africa: The Vegetarian Table. The main ingredient in these is finely chopped breadcrumbs, which are flavored similarly to an Arab meat kofta, with parsley, cilantro, and cumin seed. They’re first fried in oil, then baked in an aromatic cinnamon and parsley-scented tomato sauce. My expectations were high for these to be fantastic. But, alas, we all know what happens when expectations run too high! While I didn’t exactly dislike them, I don’t think I’ll make them again, at least not without some major changes. The flavors were on the right mark, but the end impression was of an oily ball of slightly bouncy, spongelike bread in sauce. Nicely flavored bread, mind you, but not worth all the work of chopping herbs and the various steps involved. I’m not including the recipe here for that reason. They were also very difficult to fashion as the dough was very wet (too many eggs, I’d wager). Here’s what they looked like:

The second recipe was as different from the Moroccan version as can be. These Turkish koftas, found on Yogurt Land, were a bit simpler to make and formed from a mixture of soft red lentils and bulgur wheat. They’re not fried and are meant to be served at room temperature, accompanied by a tangy, sumac-laced onion salad. I enjoyed these and will make them again, both for the healthy properties of the lentils and cracked wheat and also because I’d like to experiment with adding different herbs, such as dill or cilantro. In Turkey I think they’re served as finger food, but I made a tasty lunchtime sandwich with a few koftas, a squeeze of lemon, and some onion salad stuffed into a warm piece of lavash bread.

Although I’m not quite prepared to give up my lamb koftas, making these was a neat learning experience and has opened my mind to some new possibilities in vegetarian cooking. Perhaps I can try modifying Kitty Morse’s recipe by substituting bulgur or some other more texturally interesting ingredient (tempeh?) for the breadcrumbs. I also know there are also some fantastic Indian vegetarian koftas that I need to try making, too. Meanwhile, these Red Lentil Koftas are a tasty and adaptable keeper (they seemed to get even better the next day, too). I think they’d be equally good as a finger food appetizer, stuffed into bread as a sandwich, or as a light dinner in warm weather. Don’t skip the onion salad, by the way…the mild flavor of the koftas really benefits from this pungent accompaniment.

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Just a Bite, Main Dishes | 6 Comments »