mix, mix…stir, stir

Looking at the recipe, Chocolate Gingerbread didn’t strike me, which is a little puzzling because I love the individual components. It’s a recipe I have  flipped right past for no good reason, but thanks to my Tuesdays with Dorie weekly baking group I am once again challenged to evaluate a baseless presumption, in this case, that chocolate and gingerbread are anything less than a perfect match. Maybe it’s that gingerbread is so darn good it seems pointless to muddle it up with chocolate.  The reality is there is no muddling going on with this gingerbread. It is rich, moist, and not overly sweet and delivers a bold gingerbread flavor that is beautifully complemented by chocolate.

photo by David Peterman

I really love the texture of this cake. It is dense, but not heavy, and really moist. In addition to the chocolate frosting, there are chocolate pieces mixed throughout the cake that add a lovely gooey factor to the texture. The only change I made to the recipe is I added 1/2 teaspoon of salt. I think most desserts are improved by a touch of salt and with all the spices in this cake, I was really surprised it didn’t call for salt, so I tossed in a bit for good measure. The frosting is good, but a nice dollop of whipped cream in its place would be equally good.

I bought a huge piece of gorgeous fresh ginger when shopping for this recipe and after mincing up the 2 tablespoons I needed for the gingerbread; I had plenty left to play with. I made a big batch of Spiced Crystallized Ginger by adding a vanilla bean, cardamom, and cinnamon to the process. It was a successful experiment that will probably become my standard. Click here for the recipe along with my tip on the best way to peel such an oddly shaped item as ginger.

photo by David Peterman

Continuing my ginger binge, I made ginger-flavored seltzer water. (That is actually a piece of crystallized ginger on the glass, not a shrimp.) Get ready for the recipe: place a couple of hunks of fresh ginger in seltzer water and let it infuse for 24 hours in the refrigerator. It’s that easy and it makes a lovely beverage.

Over the summer we bought a Soda Club machine to make our own seltzer and I have been experimenting with all kinds of interesting flavors. The best thing is you don’t need to make your own seltzer to play with the infusions. I will post some of the successful combinations I have come up with separately at some point, but for now give the ginger a try. I like to skewer the ginger so I can remove it easily once the flavor is strong enough.

If you are now craving chocolate gingerbread, you can visit Heather, who selected this week’s recipe, at Sherry Trifle where she has it posted. Even better, pick up a copy of Dorie Greenspans’s Baking: From My Home to Yours and you will have this recipe along with whole book of great things to bake.

Crystallized ginger sounds difficult and time consuming to make, at least that’s what I thought until I actually did a little research on how to make it. It’s easy, and if you are fearful of candy making because of the fussy steps involved with washing down the sides of the pan to avoid sugar crystal formation, this is the project for you; it’s all about creating sugar crystals!

photo by David Peterman

It seems like Asian markets always have the most gorgeous, fresh, young, ginger for sale, so that’s where I shop when I am making this. The most potentially tedious part of the process is peeling the ginger, but I have a great tip for you if you haven’t already discovered the spoon technique. I learned this years ago in an evening cooking class. To me, this tip alone was worth the entire cost of the class and it wasn’t even the point of the class, just a passing comment. Simply scrape the skin of the ginger off with the side of a spoon. A spoon takes off the thin skin easily and without removing a bunch of ginger with it. It also leaves the ginger root nice and smooth. When I use a peeler or a knife, I seem to leave all kinds of angles and cut marks behind. The spoon is fast and really easy to maneuver around the bumps and contours of the root.

photo by David Peterman

I experimented a bit with this batch to see what would happen if I added a vanilla bean, cardamom and cinnamon. Something good happened. The vanilla, cardamom, and cinnamon are subtle but noticeable right up front in the sugar coating, then the bite and heat of the ginger hit followed by a lovely soft lingering vanilla flavor. Home-made crystallized ginger is darker in color than commercial product and the added spices add even a little darker color, but I like the look of the speckles.

photo by David Peterman

In addition to a wonderful stash of crystallized ginger this recipe generates a sugar by-product that is fantastic to baking with. The excess sugar is infused with the ginger and spice flavors and would be wonderful in your next batch of brownies, pancakes, or cookies. It is very clumpy, but a quick spin in a food processor breaks it down to a nice fine texture.

Spiced Crystallized Ginger

1 lb. fresh young ginger root
water
1 vanilla bean
20 whole cardamom pods, cracked open
2″ piece of True Cinnamon stick or Cassia Cinnamon stick
1 lb. granulated sugar, plus 1/2 cup
1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp. ground cardamom

Peel the ginger and slice into 1/4-1/8 inch thick slices. Place the ginger slices in a 3 qt. sauce pan and add enough water to cover. Cut the vanilla bean lengthwise and scrape the seeds from the pod, then add the seeds and pod to the ginger. Add the cardamom pods and cinnamon stick. Bring the ingredients to a boil and cook at a simmer for about 40 minutes until the ginger is tender.

Drain the ginger and remove the pieces of spice. Don’t worry about the little cardamom seeds, but be sure to remove the tough pods. In the empty sauce pan, mix 1/3 cup water with 1 lb. of sugar and bring to a boil. Add the ginger and cook at a boil, stirring frequently, for 20 minutes. Reduce the heat to medium-low and continue to cook and stir until the syrup begins to thicken, another 10-15 minutes.

Meanwhile, mix 1/2 cup sugar, ground cinnamon and cardamom together in a medium bowl and set aside. As the ginger mixture begins to thicken the syrup will look like foamy bubbles when stirred rather than bubbles in liquid. At this point, using tongs or a  fork, lift the ginger pieces out of the pan into the sugar mixture and toss to coat. Once the ginger is well coated spread it out on a sheet pan to cool. Let it sit for a few hours to dry and then transfer to an airtight container. It will keep at room temperature for 6 months.

Collect all the extra sugar and process in a food processor until it is a nice fine consistency. Store in an airtight container to use in your next baking project. This sugar would be great in brownies, pancakes, or cookies.

Surprise! There are kumquats in my cake rather than berries. This week’s Tuesdays with Dorie baking project gives the seasonal advantage to the bakers in the Southern hemisphere, so I decided to work with what is in season in my hemisphere.

photo by David Peterman

I made this cake by the book last summer for my sister’s birthday and it was spectacular. It tasted like a sophisticated, cloud-light, strawberry shortcake.  The berry surprise hides inside a Chambord syrup soaked génoise cake that has been hollowed out and filled with fresh berries nestled in a cream cheese and whipped cream filling. A lid of génoise covers the berry surprise and the whole cake is covered in a blanket of whipped cream. The cake, filling, and whipped cream frosting are sweetened with a light hand to let the sweet ripe flavor of the berries really stand out.

photo by David Peterman

I decided to use buttercream frosting rather than whipped cream this time, thinking the heavier and sweeter nature of buttercream would stand up better to the bold tangy nature of kumquats, plus it pipes better and I really enjoy piping decorations on cakes. To prepare the kumquats I cut them in half and cooked them at a low boil for about 15 minutes in the left-over white wine and long pepper poaching liquid I had saved from poaching pears two weeks ago. Because I wanted to candy the kumquats I added a cup of sugar to the 1 ½ cups of poaching liquid to ensure they would be sweet enough. Short of having left over poaching liquid, you could just use a water sugar syrup and maybe toss in a few spices like cinnamon stick, cloves, mace blades or cardamom pods for good measure. In place of the Chambord syrup used in the berry version, I painted the génoise with the left over syrup the kumquats cooked it.  After filling the cake with kumquats I then blended the remaining fruit with enough of the poaching syrup to make a thin glaze for the top and added honey to sweeten it a bit. I started with a pound of kumquats, but could have easily gotten by with half of that, as I had loads of glaze left over.

photo by David Peterman

 The hollowed out construction of the cake allows for nice big pieces of fruit to be used in the filling. If this were a traditional layer cake the large pieces of fruit would create a structural disaster. Simply slicing off about 1/3 of the top of the cake, then hollowing out the other piece is all it takes. I found a grapefruit knife to be really effective for removing the inner cake. The one potential hiccup is if the center of the cake sinks a bit after baking. My cake sunk a bit this time, but I was able to salvage the situation by still cutting 1/3 of the top off the cake, which gave me a cake ring rather than a solid top. I then cut the middle out of the bottom layer by running a knife around the cake center at a 45 degree angle. This allowed me to remove the middle section as one solid disk that I then matched up with the ring to create a solid top. The remaining cake trimmings can be layered into a ring mold with fillings to create an individual dessert. Lucky for David, I managed to not eat the extra cake trimmings, so he got a special version of this cake made with a chocolate ganache filling.

photo by David Peterman

photo by David Peterman

I did add a little flavor to my cake in the form of ¼ teaspoon lemon zest (that I happily had on hand in the freezer) and ¼ teaspoon of ground juniper. It turns out that ¼ teaspoon wasn’t enough to actually detect the juniper and juniper isn’t what the cake needed. This cake was really delicious, a perfect cake for anyone who loves orange marmalade, but it needed a warm background flavor. I couldn’t quite decide what it needed so I sprinkled different things on bite after bite; finally determining the missing ingredient to be mace. Ironically, when I started making the cake I was going to use mace and even had it measured out, but then got the idea to try juniper. I think there is potential for juniper in a cake, just not in this cake. I would like to thank Mary Ann of  Meet Me in the Kitchen for selecting a cake for us to make this week; I love making cakes! She has posted the recipe on her blog from Dorie Greenspan’s book, Baking: From My Home to Yours.

I will leave you with my standard buttercream recipe which is based on a Swiss meringue. It is light and creamy and not overly sweet.  I save spare egg whites in the freezer and they are perfect for using in buttercream.

Buttercream Frosting

1 cup egg whites (about 6 large)
16 oz. granulated sugar
1lb 4 oz unsalted butter, room temperature
1 ½ teaspoon vanilla
½ teaspoon sea salt

Combine egg whites and sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer and place the bowl over a pan of simmering water. Whisk continuously and heat the mixture to 160 degrees F. Remove the bowl from the heat and set it in a larger bowl of cold tap water to cool it for 1-2 minutes, whisking continuously. The temperature should drop to 100-110 degrees F.

Transfer the bowl to the mixer and whip until the meringue forms stiff peaks and is cool to touch, about 75-80 degrees F.  Cut the butter into tablespoon-size pieces and begin adding them one at a time to the meringue. Let each piece whip in before adding the next. Once all the butter is in, add the vanilla and salt. Continue to whip until the buttercream is thick and fluffy. Often as the meringue transforms into the buttercream it can take on a curdled texture. Keep whipping and it will smooth out. If it remains curdled and broken heat the bowl gently over a pan of simmering water while stirring constantly. Remove it from the heat as it becomes smooth and before the butter melts. Adding cold ingredients to the meringue is the most likely reason for a buttercream to break, so be sure the butter is soft.

Buttercream can be stored at room temperature for a day, or in the refrigerator for a week. It also freezes well and should be defrosted in the refrigerator and then brought to room temperature before using. If a frosted cake has been refrigerated, let it come to room temperature before serving.

Other flavors I enjoy:  ½ teaspoon of vanilla with ½ teaspoon almond extract, or ¾ teaspoon almond extract and ½ teaspoon orange flower water, ½ teaspoon vanilla with ½ teaspoon rose water

Back in August ‘08 I posted a tip on freezing egg yolks, so here is the other half of the story. Freezing egg whites doesn’t require any tricks; they freeze well and when thawed behave like egg whites that haven’t been frozen, even retaining the ability to be whipped into a nice foam. The trick for me was figuring out a good system for freezing egg whites.

photo by David Peterman

Over the years it seems that whenever I generated a lot of spare egg whites during a cooking project I would freeze them. I would even get around to using the frozen whites, but forgetting to label the container with how many whites it contained made using them annoying, as it required digging out a book to look up the measurement of a typical large egg white (2 tablespoons per white and 1 tablespoon per yolk). It was the single egg white that tripped me up. I would think, “I should freeze this,” but usually feeling pressed for time, I wouldn’t want to bother and would toss it justifying that it was just one egg white. Over time, I started feeling like those “it’s just one egg white” moments were adding up and it was bugging me.

What I needed was as system! Something easy to do in the middle of cooking that I would do every time I was faced with a spare egg white. Small Ziploc plastic containers were the answer.

I have a stack of these little bowls with snap-on lids (no spills) and anytime I separate an egg and will not be using the white, I separate the white into this container, snap on the lid and toss it in the freezer. Every time! Only one white is allowed per container. The next day, or the next time I open the freezer and have a moment, I process the frozen white. It takes all of about 30 seconds: run warm water over the outside of the container, pop the frozen white out onto a piece of plastic wrap, wrap, date, toss in a zip-top freezer bag with the other frozen whites.

I now have a nice collection of frozen egg whites at the ready and have taken advantage of them numerous times when making buttercream frosting and various other things. Buttercream is particularly gratifying because I use six whites and don’t end up generating a bowl full of orphaned yolks in the process. The best part is it’s saving the random single white that really builds my stash. Having a system in place makes freezing them an automatic process. I feel good!

A savory baked good is a welcome change this week.  The Tuesdays with Dorie gang is making corn muffins filled with all kinds of surprises like corn kernels, red bell pepper, jalapeno pepper, and cilantro. It’s a fiesta in each muffin!

photo by David Peterman

The two requirements I have for cornbread or corn muffins is that the outside be crispy and the inside moist. More than any other food I have encountered, cornbread carries a high risk for getting stuck in the back of the throat; it can be so dry, course, and downright difficult to swallow. In addition to crispy, yet moist, a nice hint of sweet is even better.  Based on my cornbread preferences alone, you can tell I didn’t grow up in the South. These muffins are crispy, moist, and have just a touch sweet. The pleasing texture surprised me because they were baked in a standard muffin tin rather than a pre-heated cast iron pan, which I have always believed to be a requirement for a nice crispy exterior.  

The mix-ins really make them wonderfully moist and the corn kernels add a pleasing chewy texture element.  David isn’t a fan of such additions to cornbread, so I never add whole corn or peppers when making cornbread, but with muffins it is easy to portion out a few before adding the additional goodies, making us both happy.

photo by David Peterman

Dorie calls for 1 ½ teaspoons of chile powder and I decided to use one of the gorgeous Pasilla Oaxaca chiles I had on hand. They are intensely smoky and fruity with a good kick of heat. In fact, next time  a teaspoon will do just fine rather than the 1 ½ teaspoons I used in this batch. I just removed the seeds and snipped the pepper into small pieces with kitchen shears before grinding it in a spice grinder.

Pasilla Oaxaca chiles, sometimes called “little raisin chile”, are the dried chilaca chile grown around the Oaxaca region of Mexico. They aren’t quite as hot as chipotle chiles, but offer a much stronger smoked flavor.  Pasilla Oaxacas are a great way to add a nice smoky note to vegetarian soups and bean dishes in the place of bacon or ham, by just letting a whole chile infuse in the soup. They are wonderful in any dish that could benefit from a nice smoky hint and a bit of heat. I have even made wonderful Pasilla Oaxaca chocolates by infusing the chile in cream and making a ganache. These are a fantastic chile to add to your pantry stash!

Thank you to Rebecca, of Ezra Pound Cake, for picking this week’s recipe from Dorie’s book, Baking: From My Home to Yours. Rebecca always offers up an entertaining take on her cooking adventures, so check out her blog, you will find the recipe posted there as well.