DB: Graham Crackers

The January 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Lauren of Celiac Teen. Lauren chose Gluten-Free Graham Wafers and Nanaimo Bars as the challenge for the month. The sources she based her recipe on are 101 Cookbooks and www.nanaimo.ca.

I really wanted to make this as a gluten free version but I ran out of time and had to stick with the ingredients I had at home. I enjoyed the flavor although freezing every batch before baking was quite...well, annoying.

I don't even know how graham crackers are supposed to taste but I liked the ones I made.

I know for sure that graham crackers are a main component in smore's and so I served mine with toasted marshmallow creme and nutella. YUM.

Graham Crackers:

2 ½ cups flour (I used an equal mixture of whole wheat and regular)
1 cup (200 g) Dark Brown Sugar, Lightly packed
1 teaspoon Baking soda
3/4 teaspoon Kosher Salt
100 g Unsalted Butter (Cut into 1-inch cubes and frozen)
1/3 cup (80 mL) Honey, Mild-flavoured such as clover
5 tablespoons (75 mL) Whole Milk
2 tablespoons Pure Vanilla Extract

1. In the bowl of a food processor fitted with a steel blade, combine the flours, brown sugar, baking soda, and salt. Pulse on low to incorporate. Add the butter and pulse on and off, until the mixture is the consistency of a coarse meal. If making by hand, combine aforementioned dry ingredients with a whisk, then cut in butter until you have a coarse meal. No chunks of butter should be visible.

2. In a small bowl or liquid measuring cup, whisk together the honey, milk and vanilla. Add to the flour mixture until the dough barely comes together. It will be very soft and sticky.

3. Turn the dough onto a surface well-floured with and pat the dough into a rectangle about 1 inch thick. Wrap in plastic and chill until firm, about 2 hours, or overnight.

4. Divide the dough in half and return one half to the refrigerator. Sift an even layer of flour onto the work surface and roll the dough into a long rectangle, about 1/8 inch thick. The dough will be quite sticky, so flour as necessary. Cut into 4 by 4 inch squares. Gather the scraps together and set aside. Place wafers on one or two parchment-lined baking sheets. Chill until firm, about 30 to 45 minutes. Repeat with the second batch of dough.

5. Adjust the rack to the upper and lower positions and preheat oven to 180C.

6. Gather the scraps together into a ball, chill until firm, and reroll. Dust the surface with more flour and roll out the dough to get a couple more wafers.

7. Prick the wafers with toothpick or fork, not all the way through, in two or more rows.

8. Bake for 25 minutes, until browned and slightly firm to the touch, rotating sheets halfway through to ensure even baking. Might take less, and the starting location of each sheet may determine its required time. The ones that started on the bottom browned faster.

I want Caramel Cake with Caramel Sauce!

Could this be my first time baking with a little person? Yes.

I'll make the story short and just say the kid is pretty genius when it comes to baking, I asked him what he would like to bake and he said: "Karamel Kuchen mit Karamel soße!!!" - Which is German for Caramel Cake with Caramel Sauce! And lucky me had a whole bowl of caramel sauce left over from the Snickers Cupcakes.

While I enjoyed baking, I think his favorite part was licking the spatula clean. Can't blame him.

Home made caramel sauce

There it is. The creation of a master. Thank you Myles for this great cake, would've never made it without you!

Caramel cake:

150 g unsalted butter at room temperature

200 gr granulated sugar

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

80 ml Caramel sauce

2 each eggs, at room temperature

splash vanilla extract

300 g all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

200 g milk, at room temperature

and:

1 amount of Caramel sauce

Preheat oven to 180 C. Butter 5 mini-cake pans or one regular loaf pan.

In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, cream butter until smooth. Add sugar and salt & beat until light and fluffy.

Slowly pour room temperature caramel syrup into bowl. Scrape down bowl and increase speed. Add eggs/vanilla extract a little at a time, mixing well after each addition. Scrape down bowl again, beat mixture until light and uniform.

Sift flour and baking powder.

Turn mixer to lowest speed, and add one third of the dry ingredients. When incorporated, add half of the milk, a little at a time. Add another third of the dry ingredients, then the other half of the milk and finish with the dry ingredients. {This is called the dry, wet, dry, wet, dry method in cake making. It is often employed when there is a high proportion of liquid in the batter.}

Take off mixer and by hand, use a spatula to do a few last folds, making sure batter is uniform. Turn batter into prepared cake pans.

Place cake pan on cookie sheet or 1/2 sheet pan. Set first timer for 30 minutes, rotate pan and set timer for another 10 minutes. Your own oven will set the pace. Bake until sides pull away from the pan and skewer inserted in middle comes out clean.

Original from: Cake- The Daring Kitchen, Sauce- Simplyrecipes

Snickers Cupcakes

Terrible terrible lighting! But as we all know, lighting does not affect the flavor (thank god!)

This great recipe I drooled over a while back and for new years (I know - I'm late) this was the perfect thing to make! The recipe is from one of my personal favorites The Red Deer.

Cakes filled with caramel sauce and peanuts. I made my own from this recipe, I doubled it. Why? I can't really answer that but I found some good use for it- coming soon.

Aaaahh..... Caramel swiss meringue buttercream.

Cute little soldiers ready to be studded with goodness

Sprinkled with chopped peanuts and chopped snickers, and to top it all off- drizzled with milk chocolate (see first picture)

For full instructions, more pictures and source go - Here.

Cookie Dough Ice Cream

I got the KitchenAid ice cream attachment for Christmas and this is my first creation with it!

Well, more David Lebovitz's creation. I combined his vanilla ice cream recipe with the raw cookie dough mix in from his book- Delicious!

Freshly churned vanilla ice cream

Cookie Dough Ice Cream:

vanilla ice cream:

1 cup (250 ml) whole milk

¾ cup (150 gr) sugar

2 cups (500 ml) heavy cream

pinch of salt

1 vanilla bean, split in half

6 large egg whites

¾ tsp vanilla extract

cookie dough:

70 gr salted butter, melted

⅓ cup (70 gr) packed light brown sugar

¼ cup (35 gr) flour

½ tsp vanilla extract

¾ cup (120 gr) chocolate chips

Cookie dough-

In a bowl stir together butter and sugar until smooth. Stir in the flour, then the vanilla and chocolate chips.

Form the dough into a disk, wrap it in plastic wrap and refrigerate until firm. Once chilled, unwrap the disk and chop into bite-sized pieces, then store the pieces in the freezer until ready to mix in.

Ice cream-

Warm the milk, sugar, 1 cup (250 ml) of the cream, and salt in a medium saucepan. Scrape the seeds from the vanilla bean into the warm milk and add the bean as well. Cover, remove from heat, and let steep at room temperature for 30 minutes.

Pour the remaining 1 cup (250 ml) cream into a large bowl and set a mesh strainer on top. In a seperate medium bowl, whisk together the egg yolks. Slowly pour the warm mixture into the egg yolks, whisking constantly, then scrape the warmed egg yolks back into the saucepan.

Stir the mixture constantly over medium heat with a heatproof spatula, scraping the bottom as you stir, until the mixture thickens and coats the spatula. Pour the custard through the strainer and stir it into the cream. Put the vanill bean into the custard, add the vanilla extract, and stir until cool over an ice bath.

Chill the mixture thoroughly in the refrigerator. When ready to churn, remove the vanilla bean, rinsing and reserving it for another use, and then freeze the mixture in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer's instructions.

Mix cookie dough pieces by hand into the ice cream and freeze.

Italian Almond Cake

I made this for a coffee and tea gathering, It's an Italian currant cake - just that I didn't have any currants so I added chopped almonds instead. The pictures where taken by a dear friend of mine that visited me her in Germany. She uses a Nikon D80, and although the lighting was totally crappy the pictures turned out decent.

So after I could experiment with a dslr camera and took hundreds of pictures I fell in love and the decision was made: I am now the proud owner of my very own Nikon D90 !!!

Italian Almond Cake:

225 gr butter, diced

225 sugar

4 eggs

90 ml rum

1 tsp vanilla extract

200 gr almonds, chopped

225 gr flour, sifted

1 tsp baking powder

35 gr flaked almonds

Preheat oven to 180C and butter a 22cm loaf tin.

Beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy add the eggs one at a time. Mix in the rum and vanilla. Slowly fold in the sifted flour and baking powder. Add chopped almonds. Pour mixture into tin and sprinkle with slivered/flaked almonds.

Bake the cake for 60-65 minutes.

Leave it to cool in tin for several minutes, then take out and let cool completely, dust with icing sugar and serve.

Original from: Gorgeous Cakes

Super PINK Birthday Breakfast !!!

It's my moms birthday! And this year's theme was PINK !

I think everybody knows at least one person that is all about pink, in my case it's my mom.

Now, I'm not into pink at all so shopping for this breakfast was quite a challenge - I usually screen out anything pink. But I must say shopping by color is super fun!

Pink was all over and the list is endless:

Pink champagne

Pink napkins

Pink confetti

Pink frosting

Pink candles

Pink gummi

Pink marshmallows

Pink meringues

Pink flowers

Pink gift wrapping

Pink cups

PINK PINK PINK !!

I made my fav pancake recipe and cupcakes too. My mom loves raspberries although I believe she likes them 'cause they're pink....a ha!

I found a unique recipe on the Cupcake Bakeshop - Basil cream filled cupcakes with raspberry mousse frosting. At first I planned making them with mint but apparently it is impossible to get here in Germany so I went for basil. The basil flavor is very pleasant and not like you would expect it to be. The only thing I changed was placing an additional berry into the cupcake as to just on top.

I'll leave you with some very PINK images to finish:

Cappuccino Fudge Cheesecake

Hope everybody got super awesome presents like I did!

Somehow they ALL were baking related...am I that obvious?

Aaaanyway this is what I made for Christmas eve. It is the fudgiest cake I've ever eaten, coffee flavor, rum, lots of chocolate and a cheesecake layer. The best advice I can give anyone who plans to make this is: make it ahead. I made it the day of serving simply because I had no other choice and it was super stressful and by the end of it my piping skills gave up on me.

But it was all worth it, this cake is amazing and serves way more than 12. It's temping to cut a regular or even large sized piece but after the first bite you'll realize you where wrong. So wrong.

Cappuccino Fudge Cheesecake:

Crust:

255 gr box chocolate wafer cookies (I used caramel lotus cookies)

170 gr bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, coarsely chopped

1/2 cup (packed) dark brown sugar

1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg (omitted this)

100 gr melted unsalted butter

Ganache:

1 ½ (240 ml) cups whipping cream

550 gr bittersweet (not unsweetened) or semisweet chocolate, chopped

1/4 cup Kahlúa or other coffee-flavored liqueur

Filling:

900 gr cream cheese, room temperature

1 1/3 cup sugar

2 tablespoons all purpose flour

2 tablespoons dark rum

2 ½ tablespoons instant espresso powder or coffee crystals

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

2 teaspoons mild-flavored (light) molasses

4 large eggs

Topping:

1 1/2 cups sour cream

1/3 cup sugar

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

For crust-

Finely grind cookies, chopped chocolate, brown sugar, and nutmeg in processor. Add butter and process until crumbs begin to stick together, scraping down bowl occasionally, about 1 minute. Transfer crumbs to 26 cm springform pan with 7 cm high sides. Wrap plastic wrap around fingers and press crumb mixture firmly up sides to within 1/2 inch of top edge, then over bottom of pan.

For ganache-

Bring whipping cream to simmer in large saucepan. Remove from heat; add chocolate and Kahlúa. Whisk until chocolate is melted and ganache is smooth. Pour 2 cups ganache over bottom of crust. Freeze until ganache layer is firm, about 30 minutes. Reserve remaining ganache; cover and let stand at room temperature to use later for creating lattice pattern.

For filling-

Position rack in middle of oven and preheat to 180°c. Using electric mixer, beat cream cheese and sugar in large bowl until blended. Beat in flour. Stir rum, espresso powder, ground coffee, vanilla, and molasses in small bowl until instant coffee dissolves; beat into cream cheese mixture. Beat in eggs 1 at a time, occasionally scraping down sides of bowl.

Pour filling over cold ganache in crust. Place cheesecake on rimmed baking sheet. Bake until top is brown, puffed and cracked at edges, and center 2 inches moves only slightly when pan is gently shaken, about 1 hour 5 minutes. Transfer cheesecake to rack. Cool 15 minutes while preparing topping (top of cheesecake will fall slightly). Maintain oven temperature.

For topping-

Whisk sour cream, sugar, and vanilla in medium bowl to blend. Pour topping over hot cheesecake, spreading to cover filling completely. Bake until topping is set, about 10 minutes. Transfer cheesecake to rack. Refrigerate hot cheesecake on rack until cool, about 3 hours.

Run small sharp knife between crust and pan sides to loosen cake; release pan sides. Transfer cheesecake to platter. Spoon reserved ganache into pastry bag fitted with small star tip. Pipe 6 diagonal lines atop cheesecake, spacing 1 inch apart. Repeat in opposite direction, making lattice. Pipe rosettes of ganache around top edge of cake. Garnish with coffee beans, if desired. Chill until lattice is firm, at least 6 hours. (Can be made 4 days ahead. Wrap loosely in foil, forming dome over lattice; keep chilled.)

Original from: smittenskitchen via epicurious