The other day on the way home from work I was thinking of what to make that night. I wanted something sweet… but still light. And I’ve recently made a lot of chocolate stuff so I decided on Lemon Squares. Oh sure, I’ve made them before but this was a different recipe so I thought I’d give it a try. In all honesty I was thinking of a completely different title for this post… something along the lines of “anatomy of a bad lemon square” because that’s what this really turned out to be.
I searched the internet for something that might rock my world – something that would be the End-all, Do-all, Be-all of lemon squares. I settled on a recipe from CI/ATK since they have such a great reputation. Yeah, well, reputation and a $5 bill will get me a cuppa coffee at Starbucks… that’s about it. And I’d love to share the recipe here but after all the grief that this blogger got, hell, I’ll just refrain from posting any recipe of theirs… regardless of how crappy I felt this one turned out to be even when I followed said recipe to the T.
Everything seemed fine during the prep… and even during the baking… but they just didn’t come together well. After about a day, the lemon filling started separating from the shortbread crust :( I wanted to like these… really… I wanted to. And they weren’t horrible… they weren’t awful… and they didn’t get binned… but they weren’t very good. And I definitely won’t make them again.
If you’re really interested in the recipe, I’m sure you can google search and find it like I did. In the mean time, if you’ve got a really good recipe for killer, End-all, Do-all and Be-all lemon squares, please, please pretty-please-with-sugar-on-top share it with me :) I would be ever so appreciative if you would!!!
Have a delicious day :)
Posted in lemon | 5 Comments »
It’s Tuesday and once again I’m baking up a Dorie Greenspan recipe. This week is another cookie – this time it’s chocolate-y goodness… with a twist!
This week’s TwD host was Rachel of Confessions of a Tangerine Tart and what an interesting cookie she chose. Among the ingredients are malted milk powder and Whoppers Malted Milk Balls.
Several people indicated they had trouble finding the malted milk powder but I found it in the grocery store in the section with hot cocoa and chocolate milk. It comes in both vanilla and chocolate but I bought vanilla figuring the cookie recipe itself had plenty of chocolate from the chocolate chips, cocoa powder and malted milk balls candy. It didn’t seem to me I needed to use chocolate malted milk powder for *more* chocolate flavor.
The cookies were not difficult to make at all… the most time consuming part was cutting the whoppers in half. Sure, I coulda just run them thru the food processor or bashed them with a rolling pin but I wanted my cookies to have some height… some texture… so I cut each little malted milk ball in half hoping it would help. Oh, I should mention that once again instead of all butter I used half butter and half butter-flavor-crisco to equal the amount of butter called for in the recipe. 
Hey, I hate FCS (flat cookie syndrome) so I used my half -n- half method to avoid it and once again it seemed to work beautifully as my cookies weren’t flat :) I think they tasted better the second day but I still wouldn’t say I’m a “fan” of these. The Hubs liked them but didn’t like how the malted milk balls (Whoppers) turned into “toffee” consistency. And I have to agree with that. I don’t care for candy that sticks in my teeth and when the Whoppers are baked in this cookie, they turn all sticky chewy (not to be confused with ooey gooey which I don’t a’tall ;-) My good friend Rich (aka “Mr. Crankypants”) remarked they were “interesting” which, to me, is a very non-committal remark! LOL Overall I don’t think this is a cookie I’d make again… unlike last week’s Chunky Peanut Butter Oatmeal Chocolate Chipsters. I’m still getting requests to make those cookies again… soon!!
But if you’re looking for a chocolate chip cookie that’s just a little bit out of the ordinary but still mainstream, give these a try. And take a moment to check out the other TwD bakers this week and take a look at their Chocolate Whopper Malted Drop cookies. If you’re looking for the recipe check Rachel’s blog Confessions of a Tangerine Tart.
Have a delicious day!
Posted in Chocolate, Dorie Greenspan, Tuesdays with Dorie, cookies, recipes | 15 Comments »
Here’s another raspberry recipe… just cuz :) This really comes together quickly and without a lot of effort. Really. I’ll show you how. And the best part isn’t how it tastes (although it does taste amazing), no, the best part is how it’ll impress your friends!!
The hubs and I “took the afternoon off” and went to see the musical WICKED. Oh my – fantastic. Better than I’d hoped for. We arrived more than an hour ahead of time since, well, this is Los Angeles and heaven’s knows there’ll be a traffic tie up somewhere along your route – especially on a day when you have theater tickets. So we got there reeeeeeeeally early and had plenty of time to walk around down Hollywood Blvd. We came upon a Farmer’s Market of sorts on the corner of Hollywood and Ivar… and although it was about a billion degrees fahrenheit, and I was dressed for anything BUT perusing an outdoor marketplace, we strolled thru. I’m sure at this point of the story you’re asking “yeah Em, sure, nice, but what does this have to do with the raspberry cream cake?”… and the answer is, pretty much nothing :) Nothing except for the fact that the Farmer’s Market had raspberries and THERE’S the tie in :) They had red raspberries… and yellow raspberries… and even orange raspberries. I’d never seen those before! Pretty interesting – to me at least :) But I couldn’t buy any since we were soon to be heading into the theater. But I would’ve liked to :)
For this cake, yes, I used the end of some pints of raspberries I’d recently bought. I really love raspberries… but hate hate hate HATE the seeds. Oh gawd, can I just tell ya. A single one of those raspberry seeds getting in my teeth just irritates me so. Do they make a variety of seedless raspberry? Please tell me if they do. I’ll buy them! Sure, I’ve had seedless raspberry jam or preserves… but I’d love seedless raspberries. I mean, there’s seedless watermelon… there’s seedless grapes… how about seedless raspberries? I’d reeeeeeeeeally like that :)
The cake part itself is the butter cake recipe found in this post here with absolutely no variations. The buttercream icing is the recipe from this post here with the following modifications: increase the vanilla extract to one teaspoon, omit the rose extract altogether and add cocoa powder to taste. I seem to get into all sorts of hot water when I post about making chocolate buttercream from “plain” buttercream because I don’t say exactly how much cocoa powder to add. I do that on purpose and yanno why? It’s because there’s no right or wrong answer. Use as much cocoa powder as ya like to make it the right amount of chocolatey taste in your opinion. It’s not rocket science. In fact, it’s not science at all. Start adding cocoa powder one tablespoon at a time… mix it all in… taste it… and if it’s not chocolatey enough, then add another teaspoon and repeat. It’s just that simple. Repeat until you feel it is chocolately enough :)
The raspberry cream is simple as well. A few choices here… either use your favorite pastry cream recipe… or use vanilla pudding… or use whipped cream. Whatever rocks your world :) And toss in some fresh raspberries. I like to use the hand-mixer in the finished cream to “pulverize” the raspberries into the cream. Guess “pulverize” isn’t the best word… maybe I should say to “infuse” the cream with the raspberries. Yeah, okay, uh huh… but you get the picture :)
There are lots of “professional” ways to create a layer cake but here’s my quick-&-dirty cheater’s way :) Make the cake as directed and cool it completely. Slice both layers in half. Place the bottom layer on a cardboard form (or sheet of waxed paper) and spread 1/3 of your raspberry cream on top of it. Place the next layer on top of the first and spread another 1/3 of the raspberry cream on top. Place the next layer on top of the last layer and spread the remaining raspberry cream. Finally place the last cake layer **cut side down** on top. At this point I chill the assembled cake for about 30 minutes or so. Remove the cake from the fridge and apply a thin layer of buttercream icing all over it. This is your crumb-coat. Return the cake to the fridge for another 30 minutes or so. Remove the cake from the fridge and slather it in a generous amount of buttercream… decoratively or plainly – whatever ya like :)
That’s it. Really. You can do this – it really is just that simple.
Have a delicious day :)
Posted in Chocolate, alton brown, buttercream icing, cake, recipes | 10 Comments »
Sadly, the end of the summer fruit season is approaching. But it’s not done yet!!! These lemon-glazed raspberry scones come together quickly and are sure to be a crowd pleaser.
If you ask me, raspberries have been really expensive this summer. Though that hasn’t stopped me from buying a couple of pints every few weeks or so. With the exception of the seeds, I love everything about red raspberries. I’ve never tried black raspberries… do you think they’re similar enough that I’d like them too? Maybe I’ll have to buy a pint today and see :)
To make these lemon glazed raspberry scones I adapted a Tyler Florence recipe for blueberry scones. I love blueberry scones but didn’t have any fresh blueberries on hand… just a bag of frozen Trader Joe’s Wild Blueberries. I did have fresh raspberries so that’s what I used. Other than that the recipe is the same and can be found here.
In general, I love scones. I mean, I’ve got seriously mad love for them. I think this is my fourth blog posting with a scone recipe. If you’re interested do a category search and see what I mean. I even have a cast iron pan specifically for making scones although it can be used for making cornbread too… and I do :) In this recipe, the tartness of the lemon glaze is nicely balanced by the sweetness of the raspberries. When I made it, I halved everything and still I think there was way waaaaaaaaay too much glaze. Too bad I didn’t have something else already made that I could use it on because the glaze is good and tart… just the way I like it. I didn’t use the quantity of berries the recipe indicated… I just added in a small handful. Feel free to adjust to your liking. I did… and I loved them!
Have a delicious day!
Posted in Tyler Florence, bread, recipes, scones | 7 Comments »
If it’s Tuesday then I’m bakin’ with my girl Dorie Greenspan :) Well… okay… I can’t really say “with” since she and I are not actually together… and I mean, she probably doesn’t even know I exist… but the recipe is hers and it’s from her book Baking From My Home To Yours (which, to be expected of any devotee, I *own*) and each week on Tuesday well… yanno the Tuesdays with Dorie group bakes one of her recipes ;-) So yup… it’s Tuesday and I’m bakin’ with my girl Dorie!!! And this week it’s her Chunky Peanut Butter and Oatmeal Chocolate Chipsters. Wow – that’s a mouthful… AND a terrific cookie!
This week’s TwD host was Stefany of Proceed-With-Caution and she chose this wonderfully delicious cookie recipe that is packed full of goodies!
Notice at the bottom left of that picture there’s a dish filled with something ‘extra’… it’s my SECRET WEAPON. I figured the recipe called for chocolate chips… AND… peanut butter so why not use chopped up Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups :)
But in the end, the cookies just didn’t “look right” without some chocolate chips so I added them after all. And after experiencing totally flat cookies from another of Dorie’s recipes, I was taking no chances and instead of using all butter as the only fat, I used half butter and half butter-flavor-Crisco (vegetable shortening). This is my go-to method for combatting FCS (flat cookie syndrome). You see, butter has a much lower melting point than shortening. When all-butter cookies go into the oven the butter melts before the flour, baking powder, etc have a chance to “set up”… and I get flat cookies. But… shortening has a much higher melting point so the dry ingredients have a chance to work their magic before the fat melts and lends a helping hand. For me, this produces a “taller” cookie. This is my experience, I’m not saying is 100% fool-proof, only saying what works for me. And I think it worked fine for me this time because, well, my cookie is not a flat one… and me no likey flat cookies! LOL :)
If you’re one who is repulsed by the mere though of using vegetable shortening, eh, that’s fine… don’t use it… but please resist the urge to flame me for my own personal choice because really, that’s all it is… my choice. To each their own. No one who’s ever eaten my cookies has recoiled in horror shrieking about the shortening. Really. It’s just an ingredient. It’s not a wonder drug. It won’t provide the winning Lotto numbers ahead of time and it won’t create world peace. But eating an occasional baked good with vegetable shortening ain’t gonna kill ya neither ;-) It’s all about moderation… and doing what feels right **for you**. So I’ll make you a deal… if you’re a shortening hater, do your best to resist the urge to flame me… and I’ll do my best to resist the urge to cut ya with my rapier wit ;-) Deal? Deal :)
Please visit the other TwD bakers and see how their cookies turned out. And if you’re interested in the recipe, please visit Stefany’s blog (or better yet, buy Dorie’s book!!!)
Have a delicious day :)
Posted in Dorie Greenspan, Tuesdays with Dorie, cookies, recipes | 22 Comments »
