Alpha Bakers - Luxury Chocolate Buttercrunch Toffee

The name says it all. What we have here is some pretty good toffee covered (on both sides!) with chocolate and dipped (on both sides!) in nuts. Madness. Delicious.

The only change I made to the recipe was running out of corn syrup, so I substituted about 2/3 molasses, which worked out because I didn't have the specified brown sugar anyway, so a little molasses was needed. It had no effect on the texture and little on the taste. This was universally loved, although I found it a little sweet and would use a darker chocolate next time. According to my co-worker, the teen shelvers just stood around saying 'mmmmmm,' and one told me that 'chocolate is [her] best friend and [her] boyfriend.' My boyfriend, who as you know generally avoids sweets, but has a weakness for salty toffee and Heath bars, got the two pieces above, and was happy, saying that it 'sticks in your teeth like something very not good for you, in a good way.' I ran out of almonds so covered the bars in half almonds, half walnuts.

Alpha Bakers -- Blueberry Sour Cream Crumb Coffeecake

Keep your towering buttercream fortresses. I'll take a crumb cake loaded with fruit and buttery streusel any day. This is coffeecake in the best style, perfect for all-day eating. A soft sour cream butter cake, threaded through with a sugary nutty streusel, then topped with blueberries and crumbs. This is all that's needed to gain entry to the clubbiest Kaffeeklastch.

My colleagues...well let's just say they agreed. I was glad I'd had a square for breakfast, because by the time my coffee break arrived, it was no more. I followed the recipe fairly faithfully, only substituting almonds for walnuts in the streusel.

Alpha Bakers -- (Chocolate) Almond Babka

There's nothing more satisfying than bread in a bundt. Unless it's a babka. And I dispute whether this is a babka. It's a great filled brioche, but Rose's babka recipe is not exactly my idea of the real thing. I'm loyal to the richer and sweeter charms of the Zabars-style stuff, a stickier, more tightly rolled and almost underbaked masterpiece that might not charm Paul Hollywood but tastes like the Jewish best to me.

Name disputes aside, this is a simple enriched dough rolled around a filling (I made it at Thanksgiving with a chocolate almond, and last week with an almond-only (sorry George Costanza)), and baked in a bundt pan.

The dough is an easy process of starter ferment, rise, chill, and fill. In a warm kitchen on a March sick day, it came together with no trouble, and the almond filling, which contains almond paste, was delicious. My co-workers did not question the name, they just ate it. Fast.

My party guests the weekend after Thanksgiving didn't eat quite as voraciously, partly because there was a lot of other food, and so I tried making bread pudding out of the leftovers. I don't recommend that plan, as the soft bread was too weak to stand up to the custard mixture and didn't provide a satisfying finish. Now I want to make a babka.

Alpha Bakers -- Ganache City

I like living with messy people. In fact, I like messy people in general.

That's not to say I'm in love with clothes strewn all over the floor, or dirty dishes under the bed, although those things don't bother me as much as they do some people. What I like is people who are unafraid of the odd impulses, weird tics, and dark holes that live inside them. People who embrace their bizarre habits without too much normalizing commentary and are able to allow their lives to have untucked corners.
Every time a kid starts a question with...'Is this weird...?' my heart breaks a little. Who cares? The only thing that's interesting about anyone is the weird things that they do. There's barely a point to life if all your interesting edges are rubbed off. Sometimes I find that theater people are better at just not caring about small social observances, but sometimes they just find other ones to conform to. We are all so afraid of each other sometimes. It's...weird.

Which is to say, I like to hang out with two and three year olds, who are unabashedly strange. And I have a few strange habits of my own, like obsessive baking. Lately my schedule has been a little thrown off, due to all sorts of business and the arrival of a new person in my life, a person who doesn't even care about sweets. How in the name of all that is holy did I get matched up with a person who can ignore freshly baked cupcakes? At least I know he likes me for me?

Luckily, everyone else in my life is still cupcake-mad, and so after plying my workplace with last week's Praline Tart (made, in my case, with almonds), I whipped up this week's Coconut Cupcakes with Milk Chocolate Ganache for one of my sacred weekly institutions, Nacho Friday. These cupcakes are based on one of Rose's coconut cakes, already a huge favorite in my circles, and the only changes I made were to make them gluten free (using Thomas Keller's Cup4Cup flour) for my friend who has celiac disease and, due to my general messiness and failure to retrieve the muffin pan I left at a friend's house three months ago, to minimize them. As I was having dinner with toddlers, mini-cupcakes seemed like a good way to go, although the decision was not without its own fraught moments, as you'll see.

The cupcakes, with a milk chocolate ganache, that Rose-typically was not just made with milk chocolate but with a mix of white and bittersweet, were delicious and a huge hit. Anais, one of the two and a half year olds in question, ate one excitedly and then asked for another. One cupcake for each of us, she was told, whereupon she dissolved into tears and said, 'But I like two cupcakes....'

Everyone has a fold in their smooth surface. Some of us re-use bathwater or teabags with our spouses. Some of us hang out with our exes even though it hurts. Some of us embrace the things that make us broken. Some of us chant weird lines from children's books and love Maurice Sendak and eat odd things at odd times or do whatever it is we need to stay alive. Some of us like two cupcakes.

After Anais went to bed, several of us had a few more cupcakes. Because we're grown-ass women who can do as we please. 

Alpha Bakers - Lemon Almond Cheesecake

One of my favorite Rose cakes, the lemon almond bundt, reimagined in cheesecake form. A multi-step affair, but in the end, a simple one.

First, though, let's discuss something that concerns me. Why do so many cheesecakes have cake on the bottom? To me, the only truly acceptable cheesecake base is a crumb layer, graham cracker or, in a pinch, Oreo. Cake as the base of a cheesecake just seems like overkill, a waste of two good things in a combination that heightens neither. UPDATE: via the great RLB herself in the comments--"The reason for the cake layer is to absorb any of the leaking syrup as I don't like to add thickener to the filling though when I make cheesecakes without a base I sometimes either add a bit of cornstarch or replace each whole egg with 2 yolks."

 

Despite my doubts, I went ahead and made a nice spongy almond-filled base layer for this cake, and promptly forgot to put it in to the pan before the tangy lemony cream-cheesy sour cream filling (spiked with toasted almonds). It was an accident, truly. The cake bases, which could have been saved for future projects (ha), made very nice snacking over the next few days.

 

The only adornment this little devil got was a wash of lemon curd over the top--a quick curd that tasted like 'butter jelly,' according to Catherine, the model above. She was very happy with the cheesecake and with the strange peculiarity of my house, in which 'spare cake' is a thing. She particularly appreciated the almonds in the batter.

 

I took the rest of the cake to work, where one colleague deemed it 'lemoncious' and another told me that it should be in a bakery, but shut up quickly when I pointed out that then he'd have to pay for it.

 

Not my favorite cheesecake ever, but it's not like any cheesecake is a BAD cheesecake. Especially not when it doesn't have some stupid cake layer on the bottom.

Alpha Bakers -- Chocolate Chip Cookies

Baking through a book means you make it all, even the things you might have skipped because they looked odd, or overlooked because they seemed ordinary. Among the many compelling varieties of chocolate chip cookies I might have made, Rose's weren't necessarily topping my list, but I happily made them (rested overnight, with almonds) and my co-workers happily ate them. There's a nice thing about making a recipe from childhood but precisely weighing everything out. These were pretty great, actually.

Alpha Bakers -- Spritz Butter Cookies

Buttery, simple, soft, and pretty. Rose's Spritz Butter Cookie recipe, with just the right touch of almond and softening cornstarch, is always reliably excellent. I've always wanted to mess with the flavoring on these a bit, so if I make them again this season I'll do that, but for now their basic reliability, style, and deliciousness will do. I didn't have any Jelly Tots, which one Alpha Baker used instead of glace cherries, so I used some fairly fancy and expensive Luxardo cherries, and they were...very good.

Finally, these long-keeping cookies rewarded me with one more amusement, filed in the 'toddlers have no skills at all' category, as I watched my friend's two year old son attempt to eat one face on, aiming his teeth directly at the center of the cookie rather than going in from the edge. These are the jokes, people.

Alpha Bakers - Cookie Strudel

Thanks to my new obsession, The Great British Baking Show, I've really been wanting to step up my game. Home baking is home baking, and I usually am just fine with letting my work look sloppy and skipping the chocolate shapes, but the level of inventiveness and simple excellence the contestants display is working on me. So of course, when I went to make some simple cookie strudel, it stayed true to my true nature and tasted great but looked a mess. 

True strudel is a paperlike multi-layered dough, preferably eaten at the Hungarian Pastry Shop opposite the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine, but this here cookie strudel is something closer in nature to rugelach. The dough is delicate, though, and very buttery, so it does get a convincing flake on. It's a simple mixture -- flour and salt with butter and sour cream (in this case bulgarian full-fat yogurt, with some water drained out). 

The dough is chilled, rolled out, and rolled up with jam (Wild Plum Jelly, in point of fact), nuts (pistachio and flaked almond), and currants. We were then instructed to make some small slits for steam to escape.

Pretty sure I made mine too large. 

All the same, the general premise was very successful and the final cookie strudel was significantly delicious. I definitely had at least three large pieces.

Alpha Bakers -- Whole Wheat Walnut Loaf

Bread is so wonderful. My birthday breakfast this year was a large loaf of Zaro's raisin challah, eaten with coffee one day and dipped in milk the next (yes, it was a birthday weekend, nobody celebrates just one day). This week with the Alpha Bakers was 100% Whole Wheat Walnut bread, a cheese-friendly loaf that wasn't very pretty on the outside, but was lovely and simple inside. 

The bread begins with a small preferment, which rises under a blanket of the rest of the flour. The flour I used was Farmer Ground, from an organic cooperative from upstate NY that is sold for a very reasonable price at farmer's markets and my food coop. They have a whole wheat line, but all I could pick up yesterday was their all purpose, an 11% protein flour milled from 'Warthog' winter wheat. Warthog. This made my loaf a little lighter, and I'd like to try with the whole wheat, but the all-purpose is still much sturdier than your average store brand. Whole wheat flour is sometimes a little harder to bake bread with, so Rose's recipe includes a dash of vital wheat gluten, which increases gluten development and elasticity, contributing to a higher rise. 

My kitchen was very, very hot last night (I was making this in the middle of a heat wave) and I accidentally threw in a little too much yeast (must measure, weighing is too inaccurate at those small amounts), so my bread rose wildly and was a little more loose than I would have preferred. I did the first turn in the bowl instead of stretching it out on a counter, but I am pretty good at bowl turns after years of using the Tartine method, so I am confident in my choices. The looseness of the dough meant that the final loaf was a little sloppier looking and not as domed as I could have wished, but the interior was perfect. I'll be serving it for breakfast with jam and Comte, and then taking it to work. 

As for the pie I said it was too hot to make, I didn't make it. Blueberry pie is great but I have extreme difficulty holding on to blueberries long enough to get to that place. I've been skipping around a lot with the Alpha Baking lately but expect to be back on track for the rest of the summer (until I move, more on that later, cross your fingers...). The week before last I made some cookies but haven't blogged them yet because I went to the beach instead. In fact I took them to the beach. Behold the Kourambiethes in their fancy packaging. Buttery and nutty and buttery, we ate them on the beach and threw the crumbs everywhere. Everyone approved, and my friend's two and a half year old, who claimed to be too shy to interact with us, pronounced them 'nummy.' So.

 

Alpha Bakers -- Double Chocolate Oriolos

Lovely chocolate wafers. Like many of the best buttery cookies, these 'Oriolos' are made in the food processor, so although the small size of that appliance limits the size of the batch. I mixed this half batch up with almonds and cacao nibs replacing toasted walnuts (I had imprudently used all my toasted walnuts in some zucchini bread just hours earlier), and let the dough mellow in the refrigerator for 48 hours. I chose to roll them out on a very humid 81 degree day, so the final cookies squashed a bit flatter than I'd intended--next time I'll make sure they have more heft. The results were pleasing, though, if fragile.

Also, I did make, though don't plan on posting about, the BlueRhu pie from a few weeks ago. It was excellent, but more and more I think doing anything with rhubarb beyond roasting it (even pie!) is a waste.

Alpha Bakers - Almond Coffee Crisps

Happy Chanukah. One little Tomie DePaola board book behind the library reference desk, one hundred confused middle schoolers: "Ms. Katya, I thought it was 'HAN-u-kah', not 'CHA-nu-kah." Many lessons in proper Hebrew pronunciation handed out for free. Although one sullen child informed me that 'no one cares about candles' (let's see how happy she is when her next birthday cake is dark), I have reliable intelligence that frying things and lighting little lights is still more or less popular (although I'm definitely not eating cold leftover latkes while writing this post).

Not to say that there isn't still confusion in some quarters. No, seriously, I love this guy. He's so earnest.

The most recent batch of Rose cookies are actually throwbacks, made on a lazy Sunday afternoon over a month ago, one of the first recipes that I actually made from the book after it came in the mail. Like most Rose cookies, they're a paragon of share-able, slightly surprising, cookie-plate appropriate bits.

Some of the Alpha Bakers had issues with this recipe, but it was uneventful for me, at least in memory. A quick food processor dough with almonds and butter, a brief refrigeration, and a quick bake. Success in this case was largely a matter of not getting in the way of the cookie. And it was a good return on a fairly low investment--the last minute brush with espresso upped the game, and I will definitely be making these again. And if that baby from the last post looked a little excited that cookies were being made, blame this batch. She really, really...really liked them.

Alpha Bakers - The Ischler

A trusted authority once assured me that Christmas Eve is for Cookies. If we extend the Christmas Eve framework to encompass the month of December (and as everyone knows, we do), then yesterday was a true expression of the dream (everything is awesome).

EVERYTHING IS AWESOME!!!! (sorry, finally watched the LEGO Movie last night and even though it's a giant commercial, it is pretty good, and that song is insidious in the highest degree)

 

But why is this Jew making Christmas cookies? Well, I'm sure you caught the part about cookies.
And also, why not? And also, some really great people came over to make them with me. The cookie team assembled at 10:30 AM, and by 4:30 PM we were...almost done. If you're tired of me being so frantically cheery, here's where you get your kicks, because we definitely hit cookie burn-out before stuffing all the cute little bags, and if I had to cover myself in relentless holiday cheer on the regular I would be Not Happy. I do love most of the trapping of Christmas, but like any oversold quantity, it's easy to get overloaded, especially the day after the dreaded SantaCon*.

Still, with all that, cookies are wonderful and so is spending time with wonderful people and listening to music I haven't heard in ten years, and so we baked all day. What did we make, oh lucky landlords and co-workers of the world? Biscotti, gingerbread, bergamot caramels, and the glamorous sandwich cookie known in Rose-land as The Ischler. I like a cookie with a title--it has a bit more weight than just 'oatmeal raisin' or 'brandy snap.' You know right off the bat that this cookie is an institution with the full weight of the treasury behind it.

It's also a very classic Rose Levy Beranbaum cookie, with the flavors of Eastern Europe hard by (the original inspiration is Hungarian, I believe). A buttery almond cookie, sandwiched with a layer of thick ganache and a layer of apricot levkar (I used some thick preserves). I had made these before as part of the Beta Testing for this book, and they were a pleasure and a joy both times. The dough is a little sticky but not to the point of absurdity, and the flavor combination is up my street as well (would you ever guess that I too am an Ashkenazi wonder, Rose?). Also, they just look so pretty and stick so well.

Sometimes I'm the lone ranger of baking, putting in long hours with just the oven and the television, but yesterday I was joined by some of the best people in the world. Above is A's first encounter with the stand mixer, and she loved it, especially when she got to give the call on how fast it should spin. In the space of a few weeks she's gone from someone who can say a few words when prompted to someone who can carry on whole conversations with content, and it changes everything. That and the fact that she has one of the all-time best personalities in the history of all-time best people makes her a very welcome guest.


























I like these big people a lot too. So much. I can't give out the recipe for The Ischler (shhh, it's here), but here's the recipe for the biscotti, courtesy of Nicola, A, and Eileen, one of the best bakers I know. It's possible I've posted these before, but they bear repeating. They are a treasure, people. Make them now.

Tuesdays with Dorie: Brown Sugar Bundt Cake

Cupcakes are all very nice, but this is really the sort of cake that we like best in my house--moist, bundty, and filled with fruit and nuts (and cacao nibs). I used frozen red currants, almonds, walnuts, and a handful of my new cacao nibs, which are going to go into everything until they're gone, I have 2lbs.

I read an article in The New Yorker yesterday about Pixar, and what a fun work environment it is there, how obsessive it all is, and how much they all love their jobs. I expected some kind of bitter pill at the end, but clearly the journalist had given in and happily drunk the Kool-Aid. It reminded me a bit of watching the hours of special features on the extended Lord of the Rings DVDs. Before you ask, I've actually done this more than once, and not just because I'm a giant geek, which I am, but because it just gives me such a thrill to see hundreds of people going on and on about how much they love their work. In a certain mood, similar to the one I'm in now, it's been known to make me weep. I'm holding my breath on the job scene right now, and it's taking a lot out of me, but it's useful to remember how much joy some people get out of working, and remember that I must find a way to get that joy. For now, I just admire my elegant bundts.

Normal as Blueberry Pie

If there's a better thing than the classic American musical, I may have yet to see it, and I've seen Macchu Picchu, Lake Victoria, Gaudi's Sagrada Familia, and one or two other things. But for a combination of sheer verve, skill, abandon, and riotous desire to make everyone happy, RIGHT NOW, the American musical comedy is it. It has its dark lows too, its broken dreams and bitter underbelly--nothing reaches heights without hitting real bottoms. 


I've spent the better part of my life involved in what may or may not be 'avant-garde' theater. I see any number of quite serious plays, strange in formula and unusual in topic. It's my not-so-well-concealed scrubbed-clean secret that if there's Rogers and Hammerstein playing next door, I'm pushing my way through the caged rabbits or badmitton birdies, the on-set camera wires and the stray architectural models to get there. Give me 'Wonderful Guy,' and I'm good for days. 

I can't dance for anything, and despite a quite decent singing voice I was rarely cast advantageously in school productions (to be honest, I have a long record of specializing in the characters who shout and don't get songs...the boss from Pajama Game all the way through to the mother in Crazy for You). Perhaps my greatest feat was wobbling around on roller skates through the first act of Funny Girl. At least that's the one immortalized in the hallway of my old high school, flapper rig and all. And it was awesome. If anyone offered me part in any musical anywhere, right now, libraries and bakeries could shove it (for a while, anyway). 


As things are, I find other ways to channel my madness, and to glam it up with passion and power (oddly, I've never watched Glee). Mostly, I keep on cooking, for that other kind of pure pleasure that lights up faces when you hand them the chocolate chip cookie. For the rush of hard work as it smells good out of the oven. For the burn of chile heat. And because I'm still kind of Dorie Greenspan's willing slave. 

This week, I did a little Tuesdays with Dorie in the form of some Almond Scones with Dried Cherries, which were perfect in taste, and perhaps just a little loose in texture...I've gotten addicted to stiff scones (that sounds awkward). 

I also did a little French Fridays with Dorie, to the tune of Short Ribs in Red Wine and (no) Port. Yes, despite recent excursions to Lisbon I have no port in the house, and wasn't about to pour out my Ginjinha into the mix. The grocery store was down to one tiny one pound package of short ribs, so I cut the recipe down to approximately one ninth, and made some substitutions. Somehow I got a few wrinkled bulbs of celariac into the vegetable aromatic mixture, but forgot the actual celery that I'd bought for the purpose. The finished dish, in my house, was small and unceremonious, but Matt was a fan. He also suggested that the meat would be great shredded and put into a pita with some yogurt sauce, but as we had so little meat to begin with, we didn't get the chance to go all Greek on its ass. It also made the whole kitchen smell great when it was cooking--the best thing about a braise is the anticipation. And the bones.

I was also very happy with the method, which eschewed a stovetop browning of the meat--always a messy affair, with a few minutes under the broiler before and after the braise. I'm going to see if I can adapt this one to other recipes. 


It was a triumph! A belly laugh! A wild ride! A balaboosta! Applause! 
Excuse me, I have to go watch some more youtube videos of my favorite songs now.

French Fridays with Dorie: December Round-Up

Since it's January, it does seem like a good time to clear the decks on the December cooking from Around My French Table (did everyone remember that I was in that cooking group--I did). Back in November I decided that I wasn't going to let cooking clubs take over my blog quite as aggressively as they have my life, and thus I would only do monthly roundups of my French Fridays with Dorie cooking. Somehow that seems to have translated into losing most of the pictures, so this round-up will be mostly text-based, an overview for the curious.


There were five recipes for the month, of which I made four. The butter-glazed carrots will have to wait, but not too long, if I know the carrot fiend with whom I live.

Sweet and Spicy Cocktail Nuts, page 18 -- Made 'em last night.

Photo by Matt Korahais

An egg white, a little sugar, some spice (more and bolder next time), some salt, and as some people in the blogosphere say, causing me to giggle hysterically every time--"Walla!" You know how Bush mentioned the internets and now they're called that? Yeah, unfortunately it's like that. Voila!

I covered the bowl, ate one, and then went back and uncovered it for another. This may go badly. Also, note the lovely bowl, courtesy of Stacey.

My Go-to Beef Daube, pages 244 and 245 -- I bought beef for you, Dorie, and I never buy beef. I made stew for you, Dorie, and I love making stew. My version was a bit quick and dirty, but it was eaten. Stew rarely goes astray. I found it a little acidic for my palate, which is odd given that I eat unripe fruit and suck lemons. But there you have it.


Leek and Potato Soup, pages 66 and 67 -- My Christmas weekend dinner, breakfast, lunch, snack... Somehow, Matt never got any, nor any chance to photograph. I had it all. I made the basic recipe, garnished it with parmesan croutons (from SCRATCHbread's country parma loaves). Then I added more potatoes, because it was like a delicious warm milk. I think perhaps a potato weight would have been helpful. But then I've been whining about the fact that this book doesn't have weights in general, so chalk me up for a whiner and move on. The soup was great.

Photo by Matt Korahais.

Speculoos, pages 406 and 407 - Not my favorites, only in that they were like yet unlike the fiercely spiced, barely sweet gingerbread that I crave. No fault of the cookies themselves, which I had great fun shaping in many shapes. I have a great many cookie cutters and they don't get put through their paces enough.

Photo by Matt Korahais.

Looking forward to another month with this book, which is more than the sum of its parts, making these recipes.

Tuesdays with Dorie: Peach Upside-Downer

Too much coffee today, by far. Powering up and down the avenue in cowboy boots, shouting happy greetings construction workers and a totally unexpected flock of fat chickens in a Bed-Stuy front yard. Feeling so civic-minded I went and voted.

The oven debacle caused a little backup in the TWD action, but now I'm overcharged and moving forward. Skipped last week's peanut butter criss-crosses, having made them many times before and found them some of the best peanut butter cookies ever. I made the week before's shortbread on time, but had to freeze it until I could bake it. Those buttery little bars, minus the espresso and plus hazelnut syrup, looked a bit like this:

This week's recipe was an upside-down cake, peach or cranberry. It being September in New York, not November in MA, I went for the peaches.

The cake was very similar in structure to this one that I knocked out for the Heavenly Cake Bakers group. The main difference seems to be that for Rose's version, the sugar was caramelized before lining the pan, instead of just heated with butter. I liked both versions of this classic, but found that this most recent effort got a little soggy after one day. I used almonds in place of walnuts and didn't glaze it. I did, however, lay out an almost fanatically precise mise-en-place, which is not my usual way of working. I was inspired by Dorie's tutelage in the New York Times, and I wanted to take a perfect picture of it all.

Off to power on through the rest of the day. How strange it is to be easing back into having a schedule again.

Heavenly Cake Bakers: Gold Ingots (Financiers)

It's clear that I'm missing something with financiers. I've now made several variations and I just find myself underwhelmed. This isn't a chocolate problem--I love vanilla and almond and brown butter. Maybe this all goes deeper, deep into the heart of my relatively broke lifestyle and fear of suit culture. In the end, I'm just no financier.

On the upside, they're quite cute, and Matt likes them. He found them 'particularly helpful' as breakfast this morning as he moved the car.

This post, and the several following, will feature some catching up, as I get up a new head of steam after a Labor Day weekend vacation and two weeks of no stove or oven. For the fall, I hope to spend some time re-thinking what I am trying to do with this blog, and hopefully introducing more photos, some narrative arcs, and some guest posting. I may also be participating in Project Food Blog, a contest put on by Foodbuzz. More on this shortly.

I've been spending a lot of time thinking about how food and cooking relate to my private and professional life, and how I would like them to. I'm thinking of taking on another internship to broaden my bread skills, and musing on various business ventures, and also just thinking about how to improve our eating habits at home. All in all, it's going to be busy, and hopefully there will be plenty to read and think about, and some exciting recipes and techniques to try.