[Elise] Sorry for the lack of posts.

So in case anyone was wondering why all the posts lately have been coming from Inez, it's because first I was travelling for two weeks, then I was busy starting my last quarter here in Copenhagen, and then, sadly, this past Sunday I broke my computer.

However I've also finished my afghan and while I was travelling completed a pair of sock-slippers, that I will try to figure out a way to post soon.

[Inez] Hazelnut chocolate cake

After I busted out the nutella cupcakes for my housemates last week, and because I've been so enjoying myself baking, I made a proposition. "How about," I said, "rather than cooking dinner for the house, I just do dessert?" "How often?" they asked me. "Every week" was clearly the only acceptable answer. 

Last week was also my housemate Rebecca's birthday. Happy birthday, Rebecca! Now, I don't like to play favorites, but I do love Rebecca. She claims to not have celebrated her birthday since she was 16, and she said she didn't want a cake! Preposterous! I know Rebecca loves Nutella (I was reminded of this when I made the cupcakes) so I wanted to make something with hazelnut. I'm sorry to say I didn't photograph the processing of the hazelnuts, because it was pretty cool. I bought some uncooked hazelnuts, and on internet advice, toasted them on a cookie sheet at 350F for 10 minutes. The oven smelled heavenly. Then I put them in a towel and rubbed them around a bunch to get the skins to (mostly) come off.

I had seen some recipes for different types of hazelnut cakes that had big ole chunks of hazelnut in the cake, but I didn't like that idea. So I cleaned off my housemate's coffee grinder and ground most of the hazelnuts into a meal. I recommend doing this in short bursts-- if you leave the grinder going for more than about a second at a time, the oils in the hazelnuts cause them to stick to the sides a lot. 

Now, I have to tell you that I used my family's favorite chocolate cake recipe (Chocolate Compost Cake), which I'm not ready to put out on the internet for just anyone to find. So I won't be including a recipe in this post. But that's okay, I can still tell you what I did.

I ended up with about 1 cup of hazelnut meal. I didn't put in quite all of the cocoa the cake recipe called for, because I didn't want the chocolate to overwhelm the hazelnut flavor. The double recipe called for 1 cup of cocoa; I put in 3/4 cup of cocoa and the 1 cup of hazelnut meal.

That's the only modification I made for the chocolate cake; then I just baked it as normal. I wanted the frosting to be simple and not at all overwhelming, so I just went with a simple whipped cream frosting. By which I mean to say, I whipped a pint of whipping cream with some powdered sugar and (very approximately) 1/4 cup Frangelico. Just enough to give the whipped cream a slightly nutty aroma, without being either overwhelmingly hazelnutty or overwhelmingly alcoholic.

As I mentioned, I only ground most of the hazelnuts. I chopped some pretty finely, and these I put between 2 layers of whipped cream on top of the first layer of cake.


Then I plopped (gently) the second cake on top, and frosted the whole thing.

I topped the whole thing off with some more chopped hazelnuts and some whole hazelnuts, which do, it's true, look suspiciously like chick peas. I'm sorry to say I don't have any pictures of a slice because the lighting was poor and the cake just looked black (also on account of it's so damn rich and chocolatey and delicious). The result was a rich moist chocolate cake with a very strong hazelnut flavor. I would say you could get away with using 3/4 cup or even 1/2 cup hazelnut meal, but I certainly don't regret using the full cup!

[Inez] Nutella cupcakes

I've always loved white cupcakes with nutella on top, but it's admittedly a little intense. I've been thinking for a while about lightening it up by folding some whipped cream into the nutella. Cooking dinner for Quaker House with Em Tem was the perfect excuse to finally try it out!

For the white cake I usually either stick with the Joy of Cooking's Lightning Cake or One Egg Cake. In this case I went with the Lightning cake, which I just converted into cupcakes.

Cupcake recipe (make 18 cupcakes):

• Preheat oven to 375 F. Sift flour, salt, and sugar into a large bowl.
  
• 1/2 cup butter, softened
  
• 1 3/4 cups flour
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 3/4 cups sugar (the Joy says one cup but I say you don't need all that)
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup + 2 1/2 tsp milk
• 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp vanilla

1. Preheat oven to 375 F. Sift flour, salt, and sugar into a large bowl.

2. Add milk, eggs, and butter. [For people who don't like using beaters (Becca) I would recommend creaming the butter before adding it with the milk and eggs to the dry ingredients.] Beat on low speed for one minute, scrape bowl. Beat on medium speed for 1 1/2 minutes, scrape bowl. 

3.  Fold in baking powder and vanilla, beat on low speed for 30 seconds.

This is where I took some liberties. I remembered those molten chocolate cakes with the delicious ganache glob, all melty and amazing in the middle, and also blueberry muffins with cream cheese baked into the center. I thought, why not put a little nutella surprise in the cupcakes? So I filled the cupcake papers halfway, added a tiny dab of nutella to each one, and then topped it off with more batter.

4. Bake at 375 F for 15-20 minutes. Let cool completely before frosting.

Now, I want to preface this next bit by saying that this is a frosting recipe that I just invented today and I think it needs more tinkering. If you play around with it, please let me know what you do and how it turns out!

Nutella frosting:

• 1 small jar Nutella
  
• 1 oz unsweetened chocolate (optional)
• 1/2 stick butter, softened
• 1/2 pint whipping cream

I added an ounce of unsweetened chocolate to the nutella because nutella is very sweet, because I had an ounce of unsweetened chocolate left over, and because nutella is very gooey and I wanted to smooth it out a bit. I think I'd like to try adding 2 ounces next time, to cut the sweet even more.

1. Melt the chocolate, add to the nutella. Mix well.

2. Cream butter, add to the nutella mixture. When I did it, I initially added only 1/2 stick of butter but the texture was still unsatisfactory, so I added another 1/2 stick. Ultimately the frosting was too buttery and rich for my liking, so next time I would only add 1/2 stick butter and hope the texture turns out okay after folding in the whipped cream.

That brings me to

3. Whip the cream until stiff peaks form, but not so much that the whipped cream begins to lose its smoothness. Fold a large spoonful of whipped cream into the the nutella mixture to lighten it up a bit, and then fold in the rest.

Frost the cupcakes liberally and enjoy!

[Inez] Baking day, part two.

I've been eyeing these chocolate-raspberry pots de creme that I saw on Tastespotting for a couple weeks now, but I haven't had time to make them. Until Thursday! After the scones, and after practice, I made these delicious little chocolate custards. Photos are courtesy of Ella, because I didn't feel like it. The colors are a little icky because the pictures were taken at night with artificial light. Sorry.


I liked this recipe at sight, because it's a custard except that instead of stirring the pudding over a low heat with a flat-bottomed whisk for about 7 hours, you mix everything together and pop them in the oven! My kind of pudding.

This is a recipe I got offline, but then I had to convert it to regular measurements (it was in grams -- grams of egg yolk? What??).


Ingredients:

• 1 cup milk
• 1 cup heavy cream
• 1 vanilla bean, split and seeded (or if you're like me and have never even seen a vanilla bean, 1 teaspoon vanilla extract will do just fine)
• 2 T + 2 t sugar
• 4 egg yolks
• 6 oz bittersweet chocolate, chopped
• raspberries (fresh or frozen)

Preheat oven to 300 F.

Separate your whites and yolks (anyone have suggestions for what to do with 4 egg whites? Besides get a puppy and feed them to it, that is).


Then CHOP your chocolate. (I forgot to do this, and it made the next step a pain in the butt.)


Bring milk, cream, vanilla, and half of the sugar to a boil. Pour this over the CHOPPED chocolate, and stir until chocolate is melted.


(On the other hand, because I forgot to chop the chocolate it didn't mix very well, which meant that there were little bits of straight up chocolate in the pudding, which I kind of liked.)


Whisk yolks and the other half of the sugar. (I was using unsweetened bakers chocolate, so I added a lot of sugar to the egg yolks...)


Place some raspberries (forget less is more -- more is more!) into ramekins.


Then pour custard over the raspberries. (I have 4 4-oz ramekins, and that wasn't enough. I ended up using the 4 ramekins plus 2 mugs which each had a bit more than 4 oz in them. 4 oz is a good serving size, though.)


Place the ramekins on a baking sheet, and pour water onto the sheet.


Bake until the center is set (about 40 minutes).


Serve warm (or hot, if you're as impatient as me). I recommend watching Aladdin while you eat these. That's what Ella and I did, and it was great.

[Inez] So, I finished my thesis draft!

The rough draft of my thesis was due Wednesday evening, so since I'm a terrible procrastinator and since it's kind of a big deal, I of course spent three days straight with my butt glued to my computer chair, my eyeballs turning into rectangles from staring at the computer screen for so many hours. That sentence was kind of run-on, sorry. Jamie, I swear I tried to cut half of my sentences in half. Just for you.


Anyway, besides spending that time wanting to stretch my poor aching back and move my poor stagnant (yes, think puddles of putrescent muck) muscles, I spent that time really wanting to cook. I guess I should say, wanting to bake. I like cooking and all, but baking I love.


Scones are comfort baked good number one, so obviously I made those first. I stick with the Joy of Cooking recipe because it's never done me wrong. And I know bakeries put all kind of fun things in their scones, but currants are what I grew up with and currants are the best. Small and subtle, they make the scone interesting without being overwhelming or presumptuous. Also the ones on the bottom get all toasty and carmelized -- yum.


So, currant scones from the Joy of Cooking. Oh, and the recipe is really easy, too. Basically you just cut some butter into into some flour and other stuff. (Sue Kittel's time-saving tip: freeze the butter beforehand and then GRATE IT with a grater into your dries. I know, crazy, right? I've tried it, it works.)


Then you mix some eggs and some cream (I used half and half because I was saving the cream for the deliciousness soon to come in my next post).


Make a well in the dry ingredients, quickly mix together (DON'T overstir, your scones will be tough and chewy instead of light and flaky).


The recipe says to pat it out on a floured surface. I always roll it out because I'm lazy and also because I really, really like my rolling pin.


Then you cut them up. I wanted to make little heart-shaped scones because I have a heart-shaped cookie cutter, but I couldn't find it because this girl had used it when she came to use our kitchen for two days to make baked goods for her boyfriend because it wasn't enough that she was going all the way to Duke to visit him, she had to make him three ENORMOUS containers of cookies and stuff and she didn't even leave us ONE as a thank you for using our kitchen.

So anyway, the scones were triangles.

One more note-- the original recipe says to set aside some of the beaten egg to brush the tops of the scones before baking. I've always just used egg white, but I tried it this time with the whole egg. I didn't like it -- not only did it make the scones a kind of sickly yellow color, the yolk made the top kind of tough. Stick with just the egg white.




Recipe (courtesy of Joy of Cooking, 1975 edition, with my slight alteration on the egg thing)
makes about 12 scones (feel free to double the recipe-- I always do)


Preheat oven to 450 F.
Sift together in a large bowl:

• 1 3/4 cups flour
• 2 1/4 t baking powder
• 1 T sugar
• 1/2 t salt

Cut into these ingredients, until the size of small peas:

• 1/4 cup cold butter

Beat in a separate bowl:

• 2 eggs
• 1/3 cup cream

Make a well in the dry ingredients. Pour the liquid into it. Combine with a few swift strokes. Handle the dough as little as possible. Place it on a lightly floured board and pat (or roll) until 3/4 inch thick. Cut as you please.

Crack another egg, separating white and yolk. Give the yolk to your dog, she will be so happy. Brush the tops of the scones with the white. Don't sprinkle with sugar, that ruins the scones.

Bake about 15 minutes.

[Inez] Triple layer chocolate-peanut butter cake w/chocolate cream cheese frosting

Every year at Haverford there's a Senior Auction where seniors auction off things, events, or favors to raise money for Senior Week at the end of the year. Ella and I donated a triple layer chocolate-peanut butter cake with cream cheese frosting. It went for $45!

I have to confess that we made the cakes yesterday and it didn't occur to me till this morning to take pictures. As you can see, we had to get a little creative with the baking pans, because we were going for a tiered effect.

Then, true to form, I completely forgot to photograph the frosting-making process, and only remembered about my camera when I was 2/3 done frosting the cakes. Whoops!

The frosting is a family recipe that I feel a little sacrilegious sharing, but since it was my mom who initially requested that we post recipes, I'll do it. It's really simple:

6 oz. bittersweet bakers chocolate

1 package cream cheese

1 teaspoon vanilla

4 tablespoons confectioners sugar

1 cup whipping cream

Melt the chocolate slowly on a double boiler. Whip the cream cheese, add vanilla and 4 T of the sugar. Whip to combine. When chocolate is partially cooled (not hot to the touch), beat into the cream cheese. Whip the cream with the remaining 2 T of sugar. Fold the whipped cream (patiently!) into the cream cheese mixture. If necessary, refrigerate for 10-15 minutes before frosting the cake. Makes enough frosting for a double layer cake (we made a 1.5 recipe).

Ella felt inspired, so she whipped up some more cream cheese with sugar to add some decoration.

Finished product!

[Elise] Dinner Party

I threw a small dinner party yesterday, mainly as an excuse to make these delicious-looking Raspberry Cheesecake Brownies. Yes, three amazing things rolled into one. So since that was the main point, I'll start there

Raspberry Cheesecake Brownies:

Ingredients:

1 c flour
2 c sugar
7 oz butter
7 oz dark chocolate
8 oz raspberries
14 oz cream cheese
1 tsp vanilla extract
5 eggs

To start, take the butter, cream cheese, and eggs out of the fridge an hour before starting so everything can soften.

Beat the butter and 1 cup of sugar until fluffy, then add three of the eggs, one at a time, blending each in completely before adding the next. Once these are blended melt the chocolate (microwave is easiest, but don't over nuke). Let cool a little bit until warm instead of hot, before adding to the butter/sugar/egg mix. Finally, fold in the flour slowly. This is the brownie batter!

In a separate bowl beat the remaining cup of sugar, the remaining 2 eggs, the cream cheese, the vanilla, and a 5-10 raspberries. until mixed. This is the cheesecake filling!


Assembling the brownies:

First a layer of brownie batter (about 2/3 of the mix).

Then all of the cheesecake mix poured out on top.

Add the remaining brownie batter in globs.

Using a butter knife, marble the cheesecake with the brownie globs.

Finally, press in frozen raspberries.

Bake for 45-60 minutes (depending on the thickness) at 175 C (350 ºF)

Dinner Preparation

Dinner itself was a much more straigforeward affair. I made dish of picadillo with a side of oven fries. The following recipes fed the five of us modestly (no leftovers, but no empty stomachs)

Oven Fries (sorry no process pictures!)

1 1/2 kilos baking potatoes
Rapeseed (Canola) oil
Spices: I used oregano, rosemary, and thyme

Slice the potatoes into wedges (I did six per potato). In a large bowl pour about a half cup of oil, and mix in desired amount of seasonings. Add a few handfuls of wedges at a time, making sure they are thouroughly coated in oil and seasonings. Line up wedges peel side down on a baking tray covered on parchement paper. Bake at 200 C (~390 ºF) for 40-45 minutes.

Pork Picadillo

2 Cups veggies (I used onions)
3 cloves garlic
1 lb groud pork (beef is more common, but I didn't know the word in Danish yet!)
Rapeseed oil (enough to coat pan)
12 oz can stewed tomatoes


I whipped this up while the potatoes were in the oven. I started with chopping 2 small red onions, 2 small yellow onions, and the garlic. I think normally half the veggies would be peppers, but the peppers at the store didn't look very apetizing, and the onions looked delicious!

I coated the bottom of the pan with oil and one hot, I added the veggies, and sauteed for about two minutes. Then I added the pork, and a little more oil, when it started sticking, broke it up with the spatula and cooked until the pork was cooked through. The last step is to add the can of tomatoes, mix in, cover, reduce the heat to medium, and let simmer for 15-20 minutes.

When served it looked like this (and it hit the spot!):

Finally, as dinner rapped up it was time to pull out the labored over desert (served with coffee and tea)

It was absolutely delicious. The chocolate balanced the cheesecake beautifully, and the tartness of the raspberries and the sweetness of the cheesecake layer played very nicely together. If there was anything wrong with it, it would have been that the brownie layer was a bit on the dry side, but the cheesecake was so moist that it really didn't matter.


After dessert, we watched Se7ven, Pulp Fiction, and Casablanca.