0 Some News

First, some bad news. I hurt my back over the weekend so I have to take it easy. I must limit how much time I spend on the computer, which will be difficult since I sit in front of a computer all day at work. Since I can't take time off from work, taking it easy really means cutting back on my internet surfing and blogging. I wish that taking it easy meant laying on a beach while sipping a fruity drink from a coconut shell.

But the good news is that I am extending the deadline for "Sugar High Friday 33: Tropical Paradise" submissions to Monday July 30th and I will post the round-up on Friday August 3rd.

Here are the details if you'd like to participate in this round of Sugar High Friday.

Whether you live in a tropical locale, are relaxed and tan from a recent tropical vacation, or just daydreaming of one, create something sweet and write about why it says "tropical" to you. Please post your Tropical Paradise creation on your blog by Monday July 30th.

And then email your submission to me at alpineberryshf [AT] yahoo {D0T} com

Please include the following information:
1. Your name and location
2. The name of your blog
3. The permalink to your post
4. 100x100 pixel image of your creation (photo is optional)

I want to thank everyone who has submitted an entry so far and I apologize that the round-up will be delayed.

0 White Chocolate Tropical Chunk Cookies

When I told people what I put in these cookies they were a bit skeptical about whether or not it would taste good. In my opinion, these are filled with all kinds of good stuff that go really well together: white chocolate, macadamia nuts, coconut and dried fruit. But everyone at the office loved them despite their initial apprehesion. I think the secret is using the best white chocolate you can find.


And just a reminder that the deadline to email me your Sugar High Friday Tropical Paradise submissions is Tuesday, July 24th Monday July 30th. Hope you can join in!

White Chocolate Tropical Chunk Cookies
(from Regan Daley's "In the Sweet Kitchen")



1 3/4 cup all purpose flour
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/3 cup unsalted butter, softened at room temp
1 cup packed light brown sugar
1 large egg
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup sweetened shredded coconut
6 ounces fine quality white chocolate, chopped about the size of chocolate chips
3/4 cup unsalted macadamia nuts, coarsely chopped
1/2 cup dried apricots, chopped about the size of chocolate chips
1/3 cup dried mango, chopped about the size of chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350F. Line cookie sheet pans with parchment paper or silicone baking mats.

Sift together flour, baking powder, and salt. Cream butter and brown sugar until smooth. Beat in egg and vanilla. Add flour mixture to the creamed mixture until flour is just incorporated. Mix in coconut, white chocolate, macadamia nuts and dried fruit.

Form 1.25-inch diameter balls of dough, place them 2 inches apart on your cookie sheets, and slightly flatten the balls of dough with the bottom of a glass. Bake at 350F for 18-20 minutes or until the edges of the cookies are just golden brown.

0 Cherry Frangipane Galette

My husband and I are trying to get our fill of summer cherries before they're all gone (that is until next summer). There's nothing quite like fresh sweet cherries and we've been eating them after dinner every night. But I thought I'd shake things up a bit and bake with some of them instead. I used a combination of bing and rainier cherries in my galette. I've never baked with fresh cherries before much less needed to pit so many en masse. So I dug out my never used high volume cherry pitter that I bought on clearance many years ago. The pitter was a fun gadget and it pretty worked well too, but there was cherry juice splattered all over the front of my apron and the kitchen countertop too. I guess that can't be avoided when the cherries are so plump and juicy.

If you use store bought puff pastry like I did (or have a stash of homemade like I'm sure some of you do), it comes together pretty quickly. The cherries went really well with the almond filling (which is also really easy to mix up if you use store bought almond meal). Overall, the galette was not too sweet and made for a very nice dessert with coffee. And the cherries are my "red" for the 18th installment of the "Weekend Cookbook Challenge: Red and White" being hosted by Sara at I Like to Cook. I'm so happy that I can participate in my very first WCC!



Cherry Frangipane Galette
(adapted from Martha Stewart's Baking Handbook)

2/3 cup almond meal (ground almonds)
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/4 tsp salt
3 tbsp unsalted butter, melted and cooled
1 large egg
1 - 18 ounce package of store bought puff pastry (has 2 sheets)
2 pounds fresh sweet cherries (weigh then remove stems and pits)

Egg wash:
1 large egg yolk
1 tbsp heavy cream or milk

To sprinkle over the top:
1 tbsp granulated sugar

Preheat oven to 425F. Combine almond meal, sugar, and salt in a large bowl. Mix in the butter then the egg until mixture is smooth.

On a sheet of parchment paper, roll out each sheet of puff pastry to about 1/8-inch thick keeping a squareish shape. In a small bowl, whisk egg yolk and heavy cream and brush over the surface. Fold up the edges to create a 1-inch edge (you can just fold it or crimp it). Prick dough all over with a fork (but don't prick the edges). Transfer parchment and pastry to a large baking sheet. Freeze until firm, about 15 minutes.

Spread half the almond filling in an even layer on each piece of chilled pastry. Arrange the cherries in a single layer over the almond filling. Freeze for another 15 minutes.

Bake the galettes for 15 minutes at 425F. Sprinkle the 1 tbsp granulated sugar over the galettes and continue to bake until the edges are golden brown, about 5-10 minutes. Transfer the galettes (with the parchment) to cool on a rack. Serve warm or at room temperature.

0 Sugar High Friday 33

I'm proud to host the 33rd edition of Sugar High Friday "Tropical Paradise". Domestic Goddess Jennifer, the originator of Sugar High Friday, kicked off the food blogosphere's travelling sweet tooth extravaganza in October 2004. Since her inaugural white chocolate theme to her dessert cravings last month, we've seen all sorts of sugary goodness made from puff pastry to coffee to soy to flowers.

The rules are simple: Make it sweet and make it tropical. So whether you live in a tropical locale, are relaxed and tan from a recent tropical vacation, or just daydreaming of one, create something sweet and write about why it says "tropical" to you.

Please post your SHF #33 Tropical Paradise creation on your blog anytime between now and Monday July 23thJuly 30th. I will post the SHF round-up on Friday, July 27thAugust 3rd.

Email your submission to me at

Please include the following information:
1. Your name and location
2. The name of your blog
3. The permalink to your SHF #33 post
4. 100x100 pixel image of your creation (photo is optional)

The deadline for emailing your submission to me is Tuesday, July 24th Monday July 30th.

No blog? No problem. Just email me your name and location, the name of your tropical creation and, if you have one, a 100x100 image. I'll be happy to include your submission in my round-up.

EDITED to include the extended dealine of Monday July 30th.

0 Hummingbird Cupcakes

I have no idea why this cake is called a hummingbird cake. I did a quick search on the web and came up with no definitive answer. Some say that this cake is so good that you will hum while eating it. Others say that birds are drawn to sweet nectar and the sweetness of pineapple is reminiscent of nectar. I found a lot of references to the cake being of Southern US origins but no one knows for certain. The ingredients were as varied as the theories on the name. But most recipes seem to have pineapple and banana, but I also saw some recipes which included coconut, mango and nuts (mainly pecans).

I got this recipe from Emily Luchetti's Four-Star Desserts cookbook and she got it from an Australian chef who used to serve this cake in her Perth cafe. I opted for a basic cream cheese frosting to top my cupcakes. But no matter the origin or ingredients, this is a wonderful tropical inspired cupcake. And it's made even prettier when topped with a dried pineapple "hibiscus flower". I wish I could take credit for the pineapple flower idea, but I learned about it from "the Martha". Maybe my crepe cake would've been better with flowers?



Hummingbird Cupcakes
Adapted from Emily Luchetti's Four-Star Desserts
(makes 24 cupcakes)

3 cups all purpose flour
2 1/4 cups granulated sugar
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground allspice
3/4 pound (3 sticks) unsalted butter, melted and cooled
3 large eggs, lightly beaten
2 tsp vanilla extract
2 cups diced banana (no larger than 1/4-inch dice)
1 1/4 cups diced fresh pineapple (1/4-inch dice)

Preheat oven to 350F. Line 24 (3.5-4 fl oz capacity) muffin wells with paper cupcake liners.

Sift flour, sugar, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and allspice into a large mixing bowl. Stir in melted butter, eggs and vanilla until just combined. Gently fold in pineapple and banana.

Fill the muffin wells about 2/3 to 3/4 full. Bake until golden brown and a cake tester comes out clean, about 23 to 27 minutes. Allow cupcakes to cool in muffin pan for about 5 minutes and then gently remove them from pan and let them cool completely on a wire rack before frosting.

Cream Cheese Frosting
(enough to frost 24 cupcakes)

One 8-ounce brick of cream cheese, softened at room temp.
4 ounces (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened at room temp.
1 tsp lemon juice
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
2 1/4 cups powdered sugar, sifted

With an electric mixer or with a wooden spoon, beat cream cheese, butter, lemon juice and vanilla until light and creamy. Beat in the powdered sugar until well combined. Frosting can be stored in the refrigerator for 2 days. Bring to room temperature before frosting your cupcakes.

Dried Pineapple Flowers
From Martha Stewart
(makes 2 dozen "flowers")

2 large or 4 small pineapples

Preheat oven to 225 degrees. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone sheets.

Peel pineapple and remove the "eyes" with a melon baller. Leave the center core. Using a sharp knife, cut pineapple crosswise into very thin slices. (You can use a mandoline to slice your pineapples if they are small.)

Transfer pineapple slices to baking sheets. Bake until tops look dried, about 30 minutes.

Flip slices and bake until completely dried, 25 to 30 minutes more.

Pinch the center of each dried pineapple slice to shape into a cone (it's easier to pinch you've left the core). Let cool in a clean egg carton (or something similar) to form flowers. Refrigerate in an airtight container up to 3 days.

Notes:
~ Because of the cream cheese frosting, I store the frosted cupcakes in refrigerator. I would let them sit at room temperature for about 20 minutes before serving.
~ In addition to cinnamon, I used a bit of allspice in my cupcakes. I think pineapple goes really well with allspice. Feel free to leave it out.
~ My pineapple slices were a bit on the thick side since my pineapple was too ripe. Thinner slices would be better.

0 Bagels or Fossils?

Like I mentioned in a previous post, I am a yeast virgin. So when hosts Quellia and Freya announced that bagels would be this month's Daring Bakers' challenge, I was pretty excited to finally bake with yeast. Early Sunday morning seemed like an ideal time to make my bagels. (I don't know why but I seem to associate bread baking with Sunday morning.) I really loved the smell of the yeast proofing. Although incorporating the flour into the yeast-water mixture with a wooden spoon was a sticky situation, the kneading by hand was very therapeutic. I hardly needed any flour to keep the dough from sticking to my marble kitchen counter. I did have to knead for some time to bring the doughy mess to a nice smooth ball, but it was very relaxing and the yeasty smell in the air was somewhat comforting.

The ambient temperature of my kitchen was only 67F but considering how much yeast the recipe required I expected my dough to rise really quickly. And it did seem like I was off to great start since the dough started to rise quite noticeable at first. But then after 2 hours my dough had only grown to about 1.5 times the original volume. But I was anxious to finish up my bagels and get on with the rest of my day so I went ahead and punched down the dough and divided the dough into 16 chunks like the recipe instructed. (Although, I think the dough could've been divided into 24 regular sized bagels as opposed to 16 giant bagels.)

Initially I formed my bagels using the "snake" method but I didn't like the way they looked. I had trouble rolling them evenly so some parts were thicker than other parts and the area where I pinched the ends together just didn't look good to me. So I switched over to the "hole-centric" method which I found was easier for me and made my bagels more even all around. I let them rise for about 10 minutes on the countertop before boiling. I didn't really notice any change in the size of my formed bagels during this rest. (And in hindsight I made my holes way too big, but I thought the dough would rise a bit more and "fill in" but unfortunately it didn't. Instead I'm left with ugly bagel rings instead of cute chubby bagels*.)



Now these were some really big bagels. I mean, they are huge. I used a large stock pot that's 12 inches in diameter but I was still only able to boil 2 bagels at a time. Towards the end I did boil 3 at a time but they crowded each other in the pot and squished each other a bit. So as I'm boiling batch after batch, I'm thinking that these are the biggest ugliest bagels I have ever seen and that the next (and final) step of baking in the oven won't change that fact. I must say that I was quite disheartened. But this was my very first tryst with yeast, kneading and forming dough. Even so, I had hoped for the best outcome.



So after I pulled my first batch of bagels from the oven I thought they looked more like fossils than bagels. I tasted one and thought they weren't too bad. But I did think my bagels were a bit flavorless. Topping my bagels with poppy seeds, sea salt or sesame seeds before baking wouldn't have improved the flavor by much. They were slightly chewy but not tough, a tad crispy on the outside and without any doughiness on the inside. These were definitely not those fluffy things you get at Noah's Bagels. I have no idea if these truly are real Jewish bagels, but I will definitely try making bagels again (maybe with this or a different recipe). And I'll definitely try baking other things with yeast. Hopefully I'll have better luck next time.



If you'd like to try your hand at the "Real Honest Jewish Purist Bagels", you can find the recipe (and a list of links to the other Daring Bakers' bagels) at All Things Edible and Writing at the Kitchen Table.

* When I write my monthly DB challenge post I try not to read the challenge posts by the other Daring Bakers until after I publish mine. But given the talent pool, I'm positive that everyone else's bagels will be cute chubby ones.

0 Cake Walk

My mother used to walk me and my brothers to school every morning and then walk us home in the afternoon. The one mile walk down to our elementary school in North Beach seemed to go quickly. But walking home seemed to take forever even though it was pretty much the same distance with slight variations in the route we took. But no matter which route we chose to walk, it was always uphill on the way home. (Okay, so maybe forever is an exaggeration. But in my defense I was a child and everything was overly dramatic and took forever.)

Sometimes, when we took the route through Chinatown on the way home, we would get free samples at the fortune cookie factory or we would stop at a bakery on Stockton Street and mother would let us pick one treat from the bakery case for ourselves. Sometimes it was a coconut bun, a cocktail bun (no, not as in alcoholic, but so named since the bun looked the tail of a chicken) or my personal favorite, the paper wrapped cake. I know the name is rather boring but it is the literal translation from Chinese. As far as I know, it goes by no other name.

The paper wrapped cake is a plain, springy mini cake baked in a tapered cylindrical mold about 1.5 inches in diameter at the base and widens slightly at the top to about 2 inches. I would say the pan is similar to a popover pan. A square of waxed paper lines the mold before the batter is poured. The baked mini cake is about 3-4 inches tall, pale yellow but golden brown on top. I would gradually peel away the waxed paper to reveal more and more cake of the eggy, spongy yellow cake until it was all gone. Sometimes in kid like fashion I would even lick crumbs off the paper before balling it up and handing it to my mom for future disposal. (My mother was the kind keeper of all our refuse until we got to the next trash bin. She also held the empty "juice boxes" of Vitasoy guava drink or chocolate soy milk.) It wasn't the healthiest after school snack but I always have fond memories of the walk home and the occasional Chinatown snack.

[ This has nothing to do with cake, but it makes me a little sad to think about how walking to school, as opposed to being driven to school, seems to be such a rarity these days. I'm not sure if it is for reasons of safety or of distance, but the "neighborhood school" in San Francisco appears to be a distant memory. ]

I recently made my first chiffon cake. It was then that I realized the paper wrapped cake was like a chiffon cake. I guess I shouldn't be surprised since a lot of those Chinatown bakery sweets are not butter based (since butter is expensive), but probably oil, shortening (gasp) or even lard (double gasp) based. I just always classified that style of cake as "Chinatown style". But now that I know chiffon cakes are a close match, I can make them anytime AND I know exactly what's in the cake.

Meyer Lemon Chiffon Cake

1 1/2 cups cake flour
3/4 cup granulated or superfine sugar
1 1/3 tsp baking powder
1/3 tsp salt
1/3 cup canola oil
1/3 cup egg yolks (3 to 4 yolks), lightly beaten
1/3 cup fresh meyer lemon juice
2 tbsp grated lemon zest
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup egg whites (about 8 large)
1 tsp cream of tartar

Preheat the oven to 325°. Line 24 standard (4 fl oz capacity) muffin cups with paper liners.

Sift the cake flour, sugar, baking powder and salt into a large mixing bowl. Stir in the oil, egg yolks, lemon juice, zest and vanilla until mixture is smooth, but be careful not to over mix. Set aside while you beat the egg white.

Beat the egg whites until frothy. Add the cream of tartar and continue beating until soft peaks form. Gently fold the beaten whites into the lemon batter. Fill the cupcake wells approximately 3/4 full.

Bake approximately 20-25 minutes, until the cupcakes bounce back when lightly pressed with your fingertip. Let cool for 10 minutes in muffin pan then remove the cupcakes from the muffin pan and cool on a wire rack.

Note: I made my chiffon cakes in 3x5 inch loaf pans this time, but I don't remember how long I baked them. So I included directions for baking them in a muffin pan.