chocolate CHUNK cookies...like the devil in a little ball....
Monday, 22 September 2008
Sunday, 21 September 2008
0 Campton Place Coffee Cake
Campton Place Hotel is a boutique luxury hotel in San Francisco. My senior prom date was quite the foodie and he took me to the restaurant in the hotel for dinner before the prom. This was 20 years ago so I'm not sure if foodie was even a word back then. Looking back, my prom date was pretty sophisticated for an eighteen year old. Campton Place was on his list of must try restaurants. It was my first "fancy" restaurant experience but I hardly remember much about it. I remember being surprised that there were only 3 or 4 entrees on the menu to choose from (and I ended up having the lamb entree). I'm guessing teenagers in poufy prom dresses and tuxedoes dining among adults in power suits must've been quite a sight in that small elegant dining room, but the staff was gracious. They made sure that our limousine was out front waiting for us when we were done with dinner. I guess I would've expected service like that from a place like that if I was an adult, but as a teenager, service like that was a wonderful, magical thing.
What does my senior prom dinner have to do with coffee cake? Well, early in Sherry Yard's pastry career she spent four years as a pastry chef at Campton Place and this wonderful coffee cake was part of their breakfast menu. The sour cream makes the cake rich and keeps it moist. And the fruit layered among the cake has the perfect hint of spice and sweetness. The recipe called for fresh or frozen peaches but I decided to use cherries instead. The cherry season is so short that sadly most of the year is spent without any fresh cherries. Luckily frozen cherries are available year round in the supermarket. Of course frozen ones aren’t as good as fresh ones but, during the off season, they will do in a pinch.BTW, my senior prom theme was "Always and Forever" (a song by Heatwave) and the prom colors were silver and periwinkle. I know, cheesy. Care to share your senior prom theme?
Campton Place Coffee Cake
(adapted from Sherry Yard's "Dessert By The Yard")
Makes 1 bundt cake
Cake:
3 cups all purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
6 ounces (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened at room temp
1 1/4 cups granulated sugar
3 large eggs, at room temp
2 cups sour cream
Filling:
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup light brown sugar, packed
1 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder (either natural or Dutch-processed)
1 tsp ground cinnamon
10 to 12 ounces pitted cherries (fresh or frozen)
Preheat oven to 350F. Butter and flour or spray a 9- to 10- inch Bundt pan.
Sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Set aside dry ingredients.
In the bowl of stand mixer, cream the butter and sugar on medium speed until light and fluffy about 5 minutes. Add eggs one at a time and scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed.
On low speed, in 3 additions of each, mix in the dry ingredients and sour cream, alternating the dry and wet ingredients until ingredients are just blended. Be careful not to over mix batter.
Make the filling by mixing the sugars, cocoa powder and cinnamon in a medium bowl.
Scoop in 1 ½ cups cake batter into your prepared Bundt pan and spread evenly to cover the bottom. Sprinkle one-third of the filling and scatter one-third of the cherries over the filling. Scoop in 2 cups cake batter and spread evenly. Sprinkle one-third of the filling and scatter one-third of the cherries over the filling. Scoop in 2 cups of cake batter and spread evenly. Sprinkle the rest of the filling and cherries. Add the rest of the cake batter and spread evenly over the cherries.
Bake for 50-60 minutes at 350F until a cake test inserted in the middle comes out clean. Allow cake to cool in pan for 30 minutes, then invert onto a cooling rack, remove pan and let cool completely before serving.
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Wednesday, 17 September 2008
Tuesday, 16 September 2008
0 Just Peachy
Mid-autumn Festival, also known as the Moon Festival, falls on the 15th day of the 8th lunar month of the Chinese calendar. This year it fell on September 14th. My mom likes to celebrate the Mid-autumn festival by cooking an elaborate 9 course meal for the family. She varies the menu from year to year, but we always end the meal with moon cakes.
Moon cakes are made with a pastry crust and filled with a sweet paste. There are many different varieties of moon cakes. Some are filled with traditional ingredients like lotus seed, red bean, or date pastes. Some are filled not so traditionally with chocolate, coffee or even ice cream. My favorite moon cake is filled with white lotus seed paste and salted egg yolks. The crust of the moon cake can be embossed with Chinese characters, flowers or animals. Moon cakes are normally 3 inches wide and 1 inch thick, but more and more bakeries are making miniatures. Since they are fairly rich, we usually cut each regular sized moon cake into 8 portions.
Even though we have the moon cakes, I always make some kind of dessert for our Mid-autumn festival dinner. This year I made peach turnovers. I guess they are more like tiny pies since I used pie dough for the crust.
The pie crust I used is adapted from two recipes: one from Shirley Corriher's "Cookwise" and another from Rose Levy Beranbaum's "The Pie and Pastry Bible". Part of the all purpose flour in a traditional pie crust recipe is replaced with instant flour. The most well known brand of instant flour is Wondra. What is instant flour? Instant flour is wheat flour mixed with a small amount of malted barley flour. The wheat flour is moistened with water or steam, heated and then dehydrated which basically "cooks" the flour so that it will dissolve quickly. Malted barley flour helps to break down starches in dough and because it has less gluten, the resulting dough will be more relaxed and gives a softer, moister crumb.
The water and vinegar in the traditional pie crust recipe is replaced with sour cream. Sour cream contains butterfat, milk solids and acidity. The extra butterfat makes the dough more tender and lends a buttery flavor to the finished crust. The milk solids add flavor and contributes to a smoother texture. The acidity inhibits some of the gluten formation and makes the dough less elastic. Less elasticity means easier rolling and less shrinkage.
I used a minimal amount of sugar in both the crust and the peach filling, but feel free to adjust the amount of the sugar to your taste. I know that letting the fruit macerate, draining the fruit over a colander to collect the juices and reducing the liquid is a bit fussy, but I wanted try out Rose Levy Beranbaum's method for decreasing the amount of thickener needed for the fruit filling. Since I was making miniature turnovers, I think the method really helped. The filling wasn't too thick or gummy from the cornstarch and the juices weren't so runny that the crust got soggy from the fruit juices.
I didn't really get to enjoy most of the summer fruits this year since I wasn't feeling well enough to eat them. But now that I'm feeling a bit better, I'm lucky that the farmers' market still has some late summer peaches available. I used white peaches for my turnovers, but I think I prefer the yellow ones since they are a bit more assertive than white ones especially when baked. Nevertheless, my peach turnovers were totally delicious.
Mini Peach Turnovers
(makes 22-24 miniature turnovers)
(adapted from Rose Levy Beranbaum's "The Pie and Pastry Bible")
Sour cream pie crust (see recipe below)
Filling:
1 pound peaches, peeled, pitted and cut into approximately 3/8-inch dice
2-3 tbsp granulated sugar (depends on the sweetness of the peaches)
1 tsp freshly squeezed lemon juice
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
Pinch of salt
1 tbsp unsalted butter
1 tbsp cornstarch
1 tsp lemon zest
Optional glaze:
1 egg, lightly beaten with 1 tbsp water
1-2 tsp granulated sugar
To make the filling:
In a bowl, mix diced peaches, sugar, lemon juice, cinnamon, and salt. Let mixture sit for 30 minutes and up to 1 hour. Transfer fruit to a colander suspended over a bowl to capture the liquid.
In a nonstick pan, reduce the liquid, with the 1 tablespoon butter, to about 2 tablespoons. Let liquid cool for about 10 minutes.
Toss the peaches with the cornstarch and lemon zest. Add the cooled reduced liquid to the peaches and toss gently.
To assemble the turnovers:
Roll out your chilled dough to about 1/8-inch thick. Using a 4-inch round cutter, cut out 4-inch circles. (You can reuse the dough scraps once. Lay the scraps, side by side slightly overlapping and roll them between plastic wrap. Refrigerate dough for at least 15 minutes before cutting out more circles from the rolled scraps.) You should get about 22-24 circles.
Spoon about 1 to 1 1/2 tablespoons of the peach filling, leaving a 1/2-inch border. Brush the edges lightly with cold water (to help the dough stick) and fold dough in half. Using your fingers, press the border to seal it and then press the border using the tines of a fork. Refrigerate filled turnovers for 30-60 minutes.
Preheat oven to 400F. If desired, brush the chilled turnovers with egg glaze and sprinkle lightly with sugar. Use a sharp knife to cut 3 steam vents into the top of each turnover. Bake at 400F for 12-15 minutes or until the pastry is lightly golden and the filling is bubbling. Let turnovers cool for 15 minutes before serving.
Oh so flaky
Sour Cream Pie Crust
(makes enough pastry for 24 miniature turnovers OR one 9-inch double crust pie)
8 ounces (2 sticks / 1 cup) unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 cup instant flour (you can use 1/2 cup all purpose flour if you can’t find instant flour)
2 tsp granulated sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup sour cream, cold
1 tbsp freshly squeezed lemon juice
1-2 tbsp ice cold water (optional)
Freeze the butter pieces for about 15 minutes.
Place the flours, sugar and salt in the bowl of a food processor fitted with the blade. Process for a few seconds to combine. Add the butter and pulse until the frozen butter is the size of cornmeal or very tiny peas.
Add the sour cream and lemon juice and pulse 6-7 times. Pinch a small amount of the mixture to see if it holds together. If not, add 1 tbsp water and pulse 3 times. Try pinching again to see if it holds together. If not, add another 1 tbsp water and pulse 3 times.
Turn dough out and wrap with plastic wrap and flatten into a disc. Refrigerate for at least 1 hour and up to 2 days.
(Alternatively, you can make the dough by hand. Place the flours, sugar and salt in the bowl. Add frozen butter pieces to flour mixture and toss gently to coat butter. Cut in butter with a pastry cutter or two butter knives or with your fingertips until butter is the size of cornmeal or very tiny peas. Fold in the sour cream and lemon juice. Pinch a small amount of the mixture to see if it holds together. If not, add 1 or 2 tbsp water. Turn dough out and wrap with plastic wrap and flatten into a disc. Refrigerate for at least 1 hour and up to 2 days.)
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