Black Sesame and Pear Tea Cake

I poured the sesame seeds into the measuring cup and saw a twig.  Then a broken leaf.  <Sigh>  I was going to have to clean these seeds.  Forty-five minutes later, I had sorted through 1/2 cup of black sesame seeds, removing small pebbles and minute grains of sand, and squashing tiny insects that crawled out of the mound along the way.  I hadn't planned on this.  A simple loaf cake turned into a 3-hour enterprise.

After cleaning the sesame seeds, they had to be washed, dried, and then ground.  I don't have a spice grinder, but I do have a little one-cup processor.  It didn't work very well.  It took about 20 minutes to get the seeds broken down, but I wouldn't have called it a "paste".  So out came the mortar and pestle to finish off the job.  That actually wasn't too painful.  The entire time I kept thinking, "Screw this -- next time I'm using tahini."  But it was all worth it, truly.  Tahini would not have worked.  Well, okay, maybe it would have worked,  but the result would have been an entirely different cake.

First, you can't not notice the COLOR.  The batter was GREY, and the cake was BLACK.

Isn't that attractive?  Someone on the recipe web page complained that people would think this was chocolate and be in for a rude surprise.  No.  Not if they have any faculties for discernment whatsoever.  This cake is grey-black, not brown-black.  It's grainy and rough, not fluffy and shiny.  If you must substitute (and really there is no substitute), buckwheat flour might give at least a similar texture, but never the same flavor.

There is no replicating the taste of black sesame.  It's earthy and musky and dark, like its name.  This cake is instant comfort food, even though I'm pretty sure I've never had anything like it before.  It's like crack; I was addicted with the first bite.

The comments on the recipe web site -- and there were only 10 -- swung wildly from "the cake was dense and moist, like pound cake" to "it was dry and crumbly"; from "the directions were fine" to "there's a mistake -- my cake was done in less than an hour"; from "this was the best thing I've ever eaten" to "it went into the trash."  Wow.  How does that happen?  Well, I think it mostly depends on the pear used.  (There's no accounting for taste -- pity the woman who threw her cake in the trash.)  A ripe pear is fragrant, floral, and juicy.  VERY juicy.  If these people who ended up with "dry and crumbly, or "done in half the time" used a less-than-fully-ripe pear, it explains a lot.  The batter is thick and does not seem overly moist, but those sesame seeds are fibrous, and soak up a lot of liquid I'm guessing.  You need that to soften the fiber and make it palatable, but you also need to make sure the cake dries out enough to serve.

February is not pear season, so while I had a ripe pear, it was not at its peak.  There were no floral overtones; the flavor was one-dimensional. But it was juicy.  Nonetheless, fearing I might over bake the cake, I started testing at 50 minutes -- it still seemed a little too moist.  At an hour and 15, the tester came out clean, so I took the cake out and let it cool.  It didn't fall -- another good sign it had baked long enough.  But when I cut into it, clearly it was still too moist.  It actually seemed sufficiently baked -- there was a nice crumb, dense, but open as one would expect.  But the slice was so fragile I couldn't get it out of the pan in one piece, and it somewhat gummed together in the mouth.  (This didn't stop me from having a few slices.  Like crack, I tell ya.)

There was no way the cake would have come out of the pan, and I couldn't serve it as it was, so I did something that has never worked before:  the next day, I put the cake back into a pre-heated oven and baked it some more.  And guess what... It worked!  I think it worked because the cake truly was fully baked, it just needed more time to steam off the excess moisture.  (I placed foil against the cut edge to keep it from drying out too much.)  So in the end, a winner.

This being an unusual recipe with a wide range of previous results, I didn't want to mess around with it, so I stuck to the original mostly.  The only change was I copied Bon Appétit and sprinkled raw sugar on top, one tablespoon's worth, which covered it nicely.  Two seemed like it would have been too much, so I switched to granulated.  I'm inclined in the future to use neither.   Here's what I used:

1½ cups plus 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 cup almond flour or almond meal
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
2 tablespoons plus ½ cup black sesame seeds
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 1/3 cups plus 2 tablespoons sugar
1 large egg
1 large egg yolk
3/4 cup buttermilk
1 (medium) firm but ripe Bosc pear, peeled, cored, cut into 1/4-inch cubes

Preheat oven to 325°. Butter one 9x5x3-inch loaf pan or six 4x2x2-inch paper or metal loaf pans. Whisk 1½ cups flour, next 4 ingredients, and 2 tablespoons sesame seeds in a medium bowl. Grind remaining 1/2 cup sesame seeds in spice mill to form a thick paste, about 2 minutes.  Using an electric mixer, beat butter and 1 1/3 cups sugar in a large bowl until well combined, 2–3 minutes. Add sesame paste and beat, occasionally scraping down sides of bowl, until blended, 1–2 minutes. Add egg and egg yolk. Beat until pale and fluffy, 3–4 minutes. On low speed, beat in flour mixture in 3 additions, alternating with buttermilk in 2 additions, beginning and ending with dry ingredients. Toss pear with remaining 2 Tbsp. flour in a small bowl; fold into batter.  Spoon batter into prepared pan; smooth top. Sprinkle with remaining 2 Tbsp. sugar.  Bake until a tester comes out clean when inserted into center, about 1 hour 40 minutes for large loaf and 45–55 minutes for small loaves. Let cool in pans on a wire rack.

This isn't the prettiest cake.

The cake is fantastic on its own, but I think the sweetness level is a little high as a snack cake.  One woman served it with a pear crumble (perhaps this one) and frozen honey mousse (both recipes available at Bon Appétit), which I think is absolutely inspired.  Especially the frozen mousse -- the roughness of the cake would benefit from the creamy mousse.  This would also fancy it up and make it more appropriate as a dessert course.

Conclusion:  SOOO good!  Definitely a keeper!  And worth the effort to clean the sesame seeds.  I'll just plan on that task next time.

Recipe:  Black Sesame-Pear Tea Cake by Elizabeth Quijada of Abraço (NYC), via Bon Appétit

Chocolate Banana Muffins with Cayenne

Having just done a chocolate banana muffin in the January challenge, there was no need to do it again so soon, but ripe bananas beckoned, and this recipe sounded interesting.  It calls for browning the butter, and while I love the idea, and it is probably delicious in plain banana bread, that rich, nutty flavor wasn't detectable over the chocolate and chili.  (Update:  a plain browned-butter banana bread was good, but not unique.  You can read that post here.)  For future reference I have omitted that step from the recipe here.  Other changes I made:  cut the original in half and made muffins from it, reduced the sugar by half, added whole wheat flour, used regular cocoa powder (not sure what "dark chocolate" powder is...  Dutch? higher cocoa content? whatever), added a bit of espresso powder, and reduced the total quantity of chocolate chips.  I also changed the preparation technique to reduce cleanup.  Changes from an exact 1/2 recipe are shown in strikeout and italics.

Here's what I used:

1/4 cup salted butter, browned and cooled to room temperature softened
1 egg
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 1/4 cup sugar
1½  over-ripe bananas cut into pieces, plus ½ banana sliced for garnish
7/8 1/2 cup all purpose flour
1/4 cup + 2 tablespoons whole wheat flour
2 tablespoons dark chocolate cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/8 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon espresso powder
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
7/8 3/4 cup chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Butter and lightly flour muffin tins, or use silicone liners.  (No need to prepare the liners.)  In a medium bowl using an electric mixer at high speed, combine the butter, eggs, salt, sugar, and banana pieces until well blended and there are no large lumps.  (The banana will get mashed in the mixing process, so no need to mash before hand.)  Onto a plate or waxed paper, sift together the flours, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, espresso powder, and cayenne.   Sift a second time directly into the mixing bowl.   Using a spatula, fold the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients until there are still streaks of dry mix, then add the chocolate chips and fold in until everything is evenly blended.  Do not over mix.  Spoon into 7 muffin tins or liners, filling them nearly to the top. Top each with a slice of banana, if desired.  (Why not?  You have that extra half just sitting there.)  Bake on the middle rack for 20-25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean.  Allow to cool in the tin for 15 minutes before turning out onto a cooling rack.

In general, I liked the changes I made.  I thought these had far too many chocolate chips even with the reduced quantity, and in fact would leave them out altogether.  If you want this as a dessert, I suppose you could leave them in, but for me it was too much.  The quantity of chili heat was good, but I'm not entirely sure it added to the recipe.  Try as I might, I'm still not entirely on board the chili-in-my-sweets bandwagon.  I very much like the chili-mango candies I've had, and I liked the outcome of my pineapple-chipotle scones.  And I finally found a chili-chocolate bar that I really like.  But generally I think too many people are trying to shoehorn chili into places it doesn't belong, or when they don't have the skill to incorporate it well.  Chili should mingle flawlessly into the other flavors and marry with them, but too often it stands separate, not clashing, but not joining either.  This would be one of those times.

Too many chips.

The fresh banana slice on top prevents these from keeping well, so if you're not going to eat them the same day (or within one day, at the latest), omit it.  Or at the very least, store these in the refrigerator, but the tops will get quite soft from the moisture.

Conclusion:  Very good, but I think they could be better.  Perhaps slightly more intense flavor than the ones made for the January challenge, but hard to compare because of the chili and all the chocolate.

Original recipe:  Dark Chocolate Banana Bread with Cayenne at Baker Bettie

February ABC challenge: Orange, Date & Almond Biscotti

I'm still sort of "baked out" from Christmas, so I haven't done much lately.  But I'm a big biscotti fan, and it's an easy cookie, so I was happy to have these to make.

I found this recipe a little fussy, so while I followed the quantities (other than doubling the salt -- I would use salted butter next time), I did not follow the method.  First,  it seems to be a new trend in baking to "infuse" the butter with the citrus peel.  This seems unnecessary to me; we've been using citrus peel in baking for generations by just creaming it in, and that's worked fine.  I don't see a reason to dirty another pan just to melt them together.  I also rarely use parchment.  Again, the recipes I grew up with rarely called for it, and generally a light greasing of the pan is sufficient.  Using parchment wastes money and paper.  I didn't even attempt to roll a log out of that sticky dough.  I did what I usually do, which is to dollop the dough right onto the greased cookie sheet and then smooth it into shape with wet fingers.  Works like a charm.  And as for the egg wash... why???

I baked the sliced cookies longer than called for, as they still looked a little blond and seemed soft. Besides, I like biscotti good and crunchy.

I halved the recipe, which yielded 15 cookies (small ones on the ends).  Here's what I used and did:

1/8 cup unsalted butter, softened
zest of 1/2 orange (about 1/2 tablespoon), finely grated 
6 tablespoons granulated sugar
1/8 ¼ teaspoon salt
1 large egg, room temperature
½ teaspoon pure vanilla extract
¼ teaspoon pure almond extract
1 cup minus 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/3 cup whole almonds 
¼ cup dried dates, diced
1 large egg, well beaten

Preheat oven to 350°F. Lightly grease a baking sheet down the middle and set aside.

In a medium bowl, cream together the butter, orange zest, sugar, and salt, and then beat in the egg until well combined. (Add eggs one at a time if making the full recipe.)  Beat in the vanilla extract and almond extract. Sift together the flour and baking powder and add to the bowl, along with the almonds.  Stir until nearly incorporated, then add the dates and stir until evenly distributed and all flour is mixed in.  Dollop the dough down the middle of the baking sheet.  With wet fingers, form a log that is about 12 inches long and about 3 inches wide. Bake until golden brown and slightly cracked at the surface, 20-25 minutes.

Transfer baking sheet to a wire rack and let biscotti log cool on pan for about 10 minutes, or until cool enough to handle. Reduce oven temperature to 300°F.

Transfer log to a cutting board and, using a serrated knife, slice it diagonally into ¾-inch-thick slices.  DO NOT SAW BACK AND FORTH.  Here's my nearly fool-proof biscotti-slicing technique:  using a very long, serrated knife, start at the far edge and make one angled cut in a forward motion, cutting through the top part of the far side; draw the knife down and back in one long backward motion to slice through the rest of the log while keeping your thumb on the near edge to support it through the backward slice.  Each cut should take only one forward/backward motion.

Nearly perfect slices.  The breakage on the left happened
 when the knife caught on an almond.

Place cookies, cut-side-down, back on the baking sheet and bake until very lightly golden, dry and crisp, about 7 minutes per side.  Or, for crunchier cookies, stand each cookie up and bake up to 20 minutes longer.  They will get crunchier as they cool.

I baked the logs for 23 minutes, and my oven was a little hot at first (375F.)  I twice-baked the cookies on the first side for 7 minutes as called for, but by then the oven was a little cool (275F.)  They seemed really soft, so that's when I stood them up and baked for the second 7 minutes.  They still seemed soft, so I baked them standing up another 5.  Now they're perfect!

Conclusion:  I'm not loving this recipe.  It's a little sweet, and the almond flavor didn't come through at all.  Neither did the orange much, for that matter.  But they tasted familiar in a somewhat unpleasant way, and then I realized that the dates with the sweet cookie were reminding me of Quaker 100% Natural granola cereal.  Not a favorite of mine.  But dipped in coffee for breakfast, I'm sure I'll be able to force them down.  (Heheheh.)
Update:  After a day, some of the vanilla wore off, and I realized it was the heavy vanilla flavor with the dates that gave them that breakfast cereal taste. Surprisingly, I liked these better then, and I could also taste the orange better as well.  Still not as good as my usual recipe, though.

Original recipe:  Orange, Date & Almond Biscotti via Scientifically Sweet