TWD Mixed Berry Brown Butter Crumb Cake

Sihan of Befuddlement chose Blueberry Crumb Cake as our weekly recipe from Baking: From my home to yours.

Today is Joe and my anniversary, so I thought this would be a lovely way to start the day. The recipe is simple. First you make the crumb topping, then the cake. I decided to make a brown butter crumb topping because I love the combination of berries and brown butter. To make the topping, I simply followed Dorie's directions for the crumble except I browned the butter, poured it onto the dry ingredients and mixed it by hand.



Then I crumpled it up with my hands and laid the crumbs out on a plate which I put in the freezer. For the cake, the one thing I omitted was the lemon zest because Joe hates lemon zest. Usually I'll add lemon zest anyway because I love it so much, but since today is all about our love for each other; I decided to leave it out. I used the fancy berry mix from Trader Joe's instead of just blueberries. It contains blueberries, blackberries and raspberries. I find this brand of frozen berries to be consistantly good. One of my favorite ways to eat the mix is to microwave ½ cup of it in a bowl, then top it with Greek yogurt and a little maple syrup. It's heavenly.




Back to the cakes.



Originally I had grandios ideas of making a two tiered crumb cake as kind of a faux wedding cake. I divided the cake mix into one 4" round and a 6" round. After 55 minutes in the oven, I was glad I had made a 4" cake because it was done way earlier than the 6". I think the 6" cake ended up in the oven for at least an hour and 10 minutes. Joe and I are very impatient people. Especially when we've already had our coffee hours ago, and are staring at a very pretty 4" cake.



With cake aroma swirling around us, I decided to forgo the 2 tiered cake idea and dig into the little guy. We were glad we did because it was lovely warm.

Just another delicious recipe from Dorie Greenspan. I loved the contrast between the berries, the soft cake and the crumble. This is something I will make again.

An Irish Feast

I had Monday's off, so Joe and I decided to celebrate St. Patty's Day a day early this year. After a weekend away in Vermont, we were eager to get cooking at home.

Matt Murphy's is an Irish pub in Brookline, MA. It has great ambiance and is well known for its food. I would be a regular patron of Matt Murphy's if I lived on that "side of the River" (that's Boston speak for South of the Charles River). One food item they are particularly well known for is their Irish soda bread. Last year around this time I was obsessed with another Irish Soda Bread, and I saw a post about how great their bread was. Lo and behold, they posted on their recipe on their website which I jotted down and shoved into my desk. Today to my amazement, I found the tattered copy of the recipe still in my desk!


I also noticed that Matt Murphy's still has a link to the recipe here. It couldn't be simpler to make. You put all your dry ingredients in a bowl and then pour enough buttermilk in to make a sticky wet dough, but not so wet that it's runny.


I halved the recipe since we're cooking and baking for two today. As for oven time, Joe was braising the corned beef in our oven all day at 250, so I tried to bake it in the toaster oven. It worked okay for a while, but then I had to pull it because the top was getting too dark.



I ended up finishing the loaf in the oven at 250. Due to those factors I have no idea how long it took because I left it in at 250 till it smelled "really" good and was hollow sounding when I tapped it's bottom.

Joe bought a nice corned beef at Whole Foods, and braised it at 250 for 6 hours with beef stock, onions, carrots and spices. I'm not usually a corned beef fan, but it made our house smell like a country home (at least what I imagine one would smell like), just lovely. About 30 minutes before the beef was ready, Joe added some potatoes and then a little later some cabbage to the pot.


I am not much of a meat eater, but I loved this meal. Corned beef is the kind of meat I turn my nose to because it's fatty and well… gross, but Joe turned it into something special. He's an amazing cook.

No beer for us Monday evening. We decided to drink a bottle of Sequoia Grove Cab (2005) in our crystal wine glasses from Galway. We received them as a wedding gift, but had only used them once before. Since they were made in Ireland we thought it would be the perfect evening for them. They were nice to drink from, but I was a little freaked out by the lead warning, so I switched to a normal glass after the first.

It was a great night!

For Saint Patty's day we went to The Burren in Somerville, which is one of the best bars outside Boston. In fact, back when I was in my 20s I moved to Somerville just to be closer to it! It is that fun. We went there today for lunch which was a great time. The bar was very busy with every person in good spirits. Joe and I had a couple of Guinness's, fish and chips and a burger. The food there isn't the best ever, but it's great for the price and the ambiance.

Happy Saint Patrick's day!

TWD French Yogurt Cake with Brown Sugar Yogurt Mousse and Quince Marmalade

This recipe has been on my radar for some time. Finally two great reasons to make it; I had friends to bake for at a ski house in Vermont this past weekend and it's this week's TWD recipe. Thanks to Liliana of My Cookbook Addiction for picking such a fun recipe to play with.

I decided to bake the cake in a round rather than loaf pan since I wanted a classier presentation. The cake was so fast to make, I kept rechecking my ingredients because I felt like something was missing. Once I realized it was actually THAT easy; I baked it for 38 minutes.



Once out, I let it cool completely and then I started playing around. At Sofra we make a quince marmalade that is to-die-for. The smell of it is so intoxicating; I could almost be happy just breathing in its aroma. Our marmalade isn't as thick as store bought brands though, so I decided to cook it down some more. I cooked it for about 15 minutes on a pretty steady simmer until the liquid reduced to a thick syrup; stirring it frequently. Quince marmalade has a wonderfully floral fruity taste to it, but none of the bite of a "normal" marmalade. To get a bit of "bite" back into this recipe, I made a yogurt mouse with just a bit of brown sugar. Essentially what I did was I whipped some cream, and then added some labne (very thick yogurt) and a tiny bit of brown sugar. Labne has a great tang to it, so it balanced the sweetness of the cake and the quince marmalade.

Overall, I loved this cake. I especially loved the presentation because it looked très French. I hope everyone liked this cake as much as I did. I will certainly make it again.

 

TWD Caramel Crunch Bars

Whitney of What's left on the table? chose Caramel Crunch Bars as this week's TWD recipe. I made these delicious bars a while back and sandwiched them with ice cream. They were truly decadent. Today, I made a half batch knowing how addictingly good they would be. There's no sense in setting myself up to eat a 9x13 pan of these goodies.

One thing most people don't know about me is that though I am a pastry chef, I can't find a thing at the grocery store. Honestly, I used to know my way around a grocery store till I move to St. Helena. Anyone who's ever been to the Stop and Shop (or is it a Star market?) knows what I'm talking about. The butter is in the beer isle. THE BUTTER IS IN THE BEER ISLE!!!! That makes no sense at all, and one day I spent a good 15 minutes looking for butter! Once I finally got used to grocery stores in Northern California, we moved back to Boston, so here I am lost once again. The only place where I can get in and out quickly is Trader Joe's, and that's only because it's so small. All that being said, I decided that rather than spending an hour looking for Heath Toffee bits at the grocery store, I would be better off making toffee at home. I'm not sure where I got this recipe, but it's pretty good, and really easy. The only change I would make for next time is to cook it a little longer. I cooked the candy to 294F, but I think I should have gone up to at least 300F. After reading some recipes afterwards I discovered some people cook their toffee to as high as 310F. Here's the recipe I used:

½ # Butter

1 cup Sugar

1 Tbsp Corn Syrup

1 tsp Kosher Salt

3 Tbsp water

Method: Put it all in a heavy bottomed pan. Stir frequently and bring mixture to 300 degrees (see above). Pour onto a silpat and let harden.

This toffee recipe will make more than enough toffee for the caramel crunch bars (full size).

The recipe for the bars is super easy. Basic creaming method followed by vanilla extract then dry ingredients and chopped chocolate. I love that this recipe calls for instant espresso powder for two reasons. One is that the bitterness of the espresso powder balances the sweetness of the bar itself. Second I'm happy to be using one of the obscure items in my pantry.

These bars are very good. I think I prefer them sandwiching vanilla ice cream then on their own though. Next time I make them with the intention on serving them as bars, I will use less chocolate on top and I'll sprinkle some sea salt in addition to toffee on top of the bars.

Madeleine Patisserie NYC

Madeleine Patisserie in NYC on 23rd Street is charming. It's one of those cute places that you want to put in a box and keep all to yourself. I was lucky enough to go there and enjoyed a huge crunchy almond croissant with a piping hot cup of coffee. 10:00 AM seems to be a great time to go there because I easily found a cozy seat in the cafe area (it was a weekday). The almond croissant was the twice baked variety which I really like. If you place your order to stay they give you a cute silver tray with your goodies on it.

One important thing to mention about Madeleine is that though they do have an impressive array of Madeleines; the real draw is their huge selection of french macaroons. They can have up to 25 types of macaroons lining their silver trays in an impressive array of colors on any given day. My personal favorites were the caramel fleur de sel and almond. I forgot to take pictures of them before we dove in! Here are the remnants of the lavender-nougat, almond and chocolate.