Ginger Rum Balls

Swedish meatballs, anyone?  Oh, wait... these are the rumball cookies.  Fooled you!  What a disappointment.  Read on...

I thought I'd be whipping these together quickly -- it was anything but quick.  Everything needed to be finely chopped, which is very time-consuming, and then all the balls rolled individually.  Could you do it in a food processor?  Probably, but you'd likely get uneven texture with some larger chunks and lots of pulverized dust.  These should have some bite to them, not be like mush, but chunks will make them fragile and not hold together.

That wasn't the only problem with this recipe.  Shockingly, I couldn't find gingersnaps (seriously???), so I had to improvise with graham crackers and extra powdered ginger.  (I could have used Nilla wafers, but I don't like them and they're too sweet.  Then again, I don't like graham crackers either.)  It "worked" in that they came together, but I didn't care for the results at all.  You have to start with a base you like-- all the additives aren't going to fix it if it's not tasty to start with. 

Here's what I used, which yielded 25 approximately 1-inch balls:

2 cups gingersnap crumbs, about 56 cookies 12 graham crackers (1¹/₃ packages)

1 cup walnuts, toasted

1/2 cup dark raisins, finely chopped

1/2 cup sweetened condensed milk

2 tablespoons dark rum

1 tablespoon grated orange peel

1/2 teaspoon 1 tablespoon ground ginger 

1/2 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg

1/4 cup powdered sugar (used, but shouldn't have)

2 tablespoons VERY finely chopped, crystallized ginger

 

Spread 1/2 cup gingersnap crumbs in shallow dish; set aside. In large bowl, combine remaining 1½ cups gingersnap crumbs, walnuts, raisins, milk, rum, orange peel, ground ginger, and nutmeg; stir until thoroughly blended. Shape mixture by level tablespoons into balls. Toss reserved gingersnap crumbs with crystallized ginger; roll balls in mixture to coat thoroughly. Store in tightly covered containers in cool, dry place at least 24 hours and up to two weeks.

 

My recollection of rum balls is that they're almost always far too sweet.  They start with a sweet cookie, then add even more sugary ingredients, resulting in something more like a confection than a cookie.  My aim was to keep the sugar content in check.  So imagine my surprise when I tasted the dough and thought, "It could use more sugar."  Besides, it seemed a little wet.  So I added a little powdered sugar.  However, these firmed and dried quite a bit over the following days and didn't need the added powdered sugar, either for flavor or texture.

Mixing them was a bit of a disaster.  When I tried to roll the balls in the coating, all the crystallized ginger fell off.  The balls were too dry!  I finally threw all the balls back into the bowl, dumped in the coating mixture and blended it all together.  (This would have contributed to the cookies firming up considerably, even though I threw in a hearty splash of rum.)  I would not attempt again trying to keep the crystallized ginger on the outside, but would just mix it in to start with.

In the end, they tasted like a commercial cookie, slightly lemony.  (I have a flavoring called "Princess Cake" that is slightly lemony and reminds me of the flavor of commercial baked goods.  It's probably what the graham crackers had been flavored with.)  And the ginger flavor kept changing:  at first it was just a sensation of heat; after a few days it became somewhat floral, almost soapy; after two weeks it had mellowed and practically disappeared, leaving just a trace of heat behind.  The raisins shined through everything, but not so much the orange or other spices, and the rum disappeared in short order.

Conclusion:  Sorely disappointed.  Not distinctly gingery, only mildly rummy.  Mostly they tasted like store-bought raisin cookies.  And they were ugly!!  (I don't have a photo of the magazine's product, but everything about them is brown.)  But I'm hesitant to toss the recipe because I messed up on the main ingredient.  Then again, there are a lot of other recipes out there.  This one was a fail.

Recipe:  "Ginger-rum Balls" recipe card from women's magazine

Baked Pumpkin Doughnuts

I love this recipe for pumpkin ice cream muffins-- to me they taste like doughnuts.  So I wondered how they would work if baked in a doughnut pan-- would they make decent doughnuts?  Today I finally tried it, and they were ...  underwhelming.  I've always been skeptical of doughnut baking pans because the key part of a doughnut -- what makes it so decadently delicious -- was the crispy fried exterior with that extra bit of fat.  It not only has a different mouth feel, but it has a different flavor as well.  In the absence of that, it's just another baked good.

The doughnuts tasted fine, but they weren't very substantial.  It didn't feel like I was eating a doughnut, but rather a skinny muffin.  So I gave up and overfilled the tins to make something more like a flat muffin.  One of these days, I'll have to try one of the recipes that claims to actually be a doughnut batter.

Decorated Sugar Cookies for Christmas

In search for a recipe to replicate the amazing sugar cookies someone brought to work last Christmas.  With cream cheese and an extra egg yolk, I thought this might come close, but it doesn't.  This recipe follows a list of tips to make the best sugar cookies, some obvious, some a little unusual (like the inclusion of cream of tartar.)  Below is the full recipe, but I cut it in half, which produced 11 med large cookies (snowmen, trees, snowflakes), 6 standard (snowflakes), and 2 small (Christmas stars).  (I could have cut even more if I'd rolled the dough to "normal" cookie thickness instead of the advised 1/4".)  My changes are in italics.

1½ cups (3 sticks) unsalted butter, softened

1½ cups granulated sugar

1½ ounces (3 tablespoons) cream cheese, softened

1 large egg

2 large egg yolks

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

½ teaspoon almond extract

3½ cups all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting

½ teaspoon baking powder

1 1/2 teaspoon salt

2 1 teaspoon cream of tartar

 

In a large bowl, cream together the butter, sugar, and cream cheese with an electric mixer on high speed for about 5 minutes, until fluffy and the sugar is mostly dissolved.  Add the egg, egg yolks, vanilla, and almond extract and mix well.  Sift together the flour, baking powder, salt, and cream of tartar into the bowl and fold to incorporate some of the flour, then beat on low speed, just until incorporated.  Shape the dough into a flat disc and wrap tightly in plastic wrap. Chill in the refrigerator for at least 2 hours, or up to 3-4 days.

Preheat the oven to 350˚F (180˚C).  Let the dough sit at room temperature for a few minutes to soften slightly.  On a lightly floured surface, roll out the cookie dough with a rolling pin to ¼-inch thick and cut out desired shapes. Gather any excess dough into a ball, chill to firm, then re-roll and cut out more cookies.  Place the cookies on a greased baking sheet and chill for at least 20 minutes to ensure they hold their shapes.  Bake for 10-12 minutes, or until the edges just barely start to turn golden brown.  Cool completely on a wire rack before decorating with royal icing or frosting.

These cookies weren't bad, per se, but certainly weren't to my taste. They were extraordinarily sweet, so sweet that the browned edges tasted like those lace cookies that spread and bubble with all their caramelizing sugar. Also, even though I cut the cream of tartar in half, it was still detectable, and wasn't pleasant. (Sort of like baking soda.) That definitely needs to be omitted. There was a slight egginess to them, nice in a custard, but not in a cookie. Lastly, all that sugar gave an unusual crispness to the cookies, almost toffee-like. They are sort of a cross between a cookie and a candy. I had intended to decorate these further with frosting, but there's no way I'm putting frosting on candy. (I can't comprehend the person who said they were floury and tough or someone else who said they weren't very sweet. Did I mess up??? I'm sure I would have hesitated before dumping 1½ cups of sugar into the bowl.)

 

The other disappointment was that they spread substantially, as one might expect from a high-butter-content cookie. These would have to be cut thinly in order to retain their shape at all, certainly not 1/4".

 

Conclusion: This is not a recipe I'll make again. It was overly sweet, overly crisp (for a sugar cookie), can't be decorated, and didn't have a particularly nice flavor. All in all, they tasted very commercial, probably due to the sugar content.  I consider it a fail because it was so far from what I desired.

 

Recipe: The Best Sugar Cookies via Buzzfeed 

Other recipes to try: Betty Crocker; allrecipes; Tastes of Lizzie T

Capuccino biscotti

Weird looking, aren't they?  I can explain...

This recipe is similar to the ones I like to use by Lou Seibert Pappas, so I didn't muck with it much other than where necessity called for improvisation.  For the coffee powder, I used a single-serve packet of Taster's Choice hazelnut-flavored instant coffee, which imparted a surprising amount of the imitation hazelnut flavor to the dough, not necessarily in a bad way.  (Made me wish I had hazelnuts to add to the dough.)  As for chocolate, the only "mini" chocolate format I had was mini M&Ms--- not a good choice, in more ways than one.  I also substituted half white whole wheat flour, also perhaps not a good choice.  In short, these cookies were not a raging success.

To make about 3 dozen cookies, here's what I used:

3 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 1 cup flour
1 cup white whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
Rounded 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 rounded teaspoon instant espresso powder or instant coffee powder3/4 cup granulated white sugar
Rounded 1/2 cup chocolate chips, mini or regular
Cinnamon and sugar for sprinkling (1 tablespoon sugar + 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon), optional

Preheat oven to 300°F (150°C) and place the rack in the center of the oven. Grease and flour a large baking/cookie sheet. In a small bowl, whisk together the eggs and the vanilla extract. In a large mixing bowl, soft together the flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, and coffee powder/granules; add the sugar and whisk to combine well. If using mini chocolate chips, blend into the flour mixture now.  Gradually add in the egg mixture and beat until a dough forms. If using larger chocolate chips, stir them in now. Divide the  dough in half and, with a spoon, dollop each half into a log on the cookie sheet about 10 inches long and 2 inches wide. If you like, dust the surface with cinnamon sugar. Bake for 35 to 40 minutes, or until firm to the touch, 35 minutes for more tender biscotti, 40 minutes for crisper biscotti. Remove from the oven – do not turn the oven off – and allow to cool for a few minutes. Transfer the logs to a wooden cutting board, and with a good, serrated knife, cut each log crosswise on the diagonal into ¾ inch-wide slices. Arrange the slices on the lined baking sheet, cut side up, and bake for 10 minutes. Flip all of the slices over and bake for an additional 10 minutes. Remove from the oven and cool.

Note to self:  never use cheap chocolate.  This was just gross.  I've had M&Ms in cookies before and they tasted fine, but not in these cookies.  Maybe the dough isn't rich enough to support a weak chocolate. 

I like hard biscotti for dipping in coffee, but I think the cooking times were a little long here, as they ended up rock hard.  I also think they could have risen just a little big more---perhaps I should have added a tablespoon or two of water to the dough to compensate for the more-absorbent whole wheat flour.  I wish I had thought to use some coffee flour to enhance the coffee flavor (and add nutrients.)

Conclusion:  These were a FAIL.  They were too sweet, tasted too wheaty, and the poor-quality chocolate was apparent.  They had no coffee flavor, and little cinnamon.  They tasted like a cheap breakfast cereal.  (I wonder how much the hazelnut coffee affected the taste.  I couldn't detect it, but it might have added to the overall commercial undertone.)

Recipe:  Capuccino Biscotti via Isolation Baking by Jamie Schler

Sweet Potato Pecan Pudding Cake

They're lying.  All the people who posted photos of this cake are lying.  You can't dump 2 cups of sweet potato into a regular cake recipe and have it turn out light and fluffy like their photos show.  What you get is what's in that photo above:  a cross between cake and bread pudding.  Kitchen Nostalgia even acknowledged, "The cake was very moist, actually more like pudding than regular cake. I happen to like that, but I know some of my readers would certainly comment on this."  Yet her picture is of a turmeric-colored cake with a little topping.  Not the same recipe.

It's not a bad recipe, necessarily, but it's not "cake" as we're used to having, and as all those people presented.  Especially when they're touting it as "cinnamon roll" cake, further indicating it should be airy.

This turned out fine--- people snarfed it down--- but it certainly didn't come out as desired.  And after comparing the original recipe for plain cinnamon roll cake and this one, I feel confident it wasn't because of my changes.  I had wanted to use half whole wheat flour but didn't have any, so I substituted some coffee flour and some wheat bran, and I changed up the directions a little to be more conventional.  I also halved the recipe, but baked it in a pan that was appropriately sized.

My additions are in strikeout and italics.  Here's what I used:

1 ½ ¼ cups flour 

2 tablespoons coffee flour

2 tablespoons wheat bran

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 teaspoon nutmeg 

1/8 teaspoon salt

1 cup cooked sweet potatoes

1/2 cup sugar

1 egg, beaten

1 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 cup butter, melted

3/4 cup milk

Topping:

1/2 cup butter, softened (see note)

1/2 cup brown sugar

1 tablespoon flour

1½ teaspoons cinnamon 

Glaze

1 cup powdered sugar

2½ tablespoons milk

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

1/2 cup chopped pecans

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Grease a 10x7.5-inch baking pan.  Sift together the flours, bran, baking powder, nutmeg, and salt.  In a medium mixing bowl, beat sweet potatoes with the sugar. Add the egg and vanilla and mix until combined, then add the melted butter and mix until thoroughly blended and smooth. Add the flour mixture in thirds, alternating with the milk and mixing between additions. Pour batter into prepared pan. Mix all the topping ingredients together until well combined.  Drop evenly over the batter and swirl with a knife. Sprinkle with pecans. Bake cake for 30 - 40 minutes.

I checked it at 25 minutes-- still raw.  At 32 minutes, it had started to swell in the middle.  Removed at 38 minutes.  Skewer came out clean and it had puffed fairly evenly and had started to pull away from the sides, but there was a lot of melted butter and syrup running around the pan.  The syrup firmed up and the butter was absorbed as the cake cooled.

Note:  I'd be inclined to halve the amount of butter in the topping.  It seemed excessive, literally being more like a seasoned butter than a topping.

Conclusion:  The taste was good on this, despite everything.  I had been inclined to reduce the sugar, but my batter had a slight bitter taste (probably my additions) so I used the full amount and it was fine.  I skipped the glaze, though.  If I were to make this again, which I doubt, I would be inclined to cut it up into two-bite pieces and serve them in a bowl with whipped cream.

Recipes:  Sweet Potato Cinnamon Roll Cake via Bunny's Warm Oven (with reference to Kitchen Nostalgia's version and their original Cinnamon Roll Breakfast Cake.)

September ABC challenge: speculaas-spiced honey bread

We just moved into a new office building and everyone was going to be unpacking and getting organized first thing Monday morning.  I thought I'd ease the way a little and bring in some fortification.  This spiced bread recipe seemed like the perfect thing, but in muffin form for easy handling.  I had an idea in mind as to how this was going to turn out, and I was excited, but it didn't quite work that way.  Partially, that was because I baked in muffin tins instead of a pan, which caused them to bake faster.  But otherwise, it was the recipe.  True, I didn't follow it exactly, but I don't think my changes should have had any impact on the results.

Here's what I used:

125 g (1¼ cups) fine whole grain, stone ground, dark rye flour
125 g (1¼ cups) all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
pinch 1/4 teaspoon salt
65 g (4½ tablespoons) melted butter
110 g (1/3 cup) honey
110 g (1/2 cup) sugar
2 teaspoons speculaas spices (recipe below) or gingerbread /pumpkin pie spices
1 egg
200 g (7 ounces) buttermilk mix of Greek yogurt/milk

Preheat oven to 375° F. Grease or line an 8×8 inch baking tin. (I used muffin tins.) In a bowl, combine the sugar, honey, speculaas spices and melted butter and give it a quick whisk. Beat in the egg. Combine the flours with the baking soda and salt. Sift in the flour in about three stages, alternating with the buttermilk. Whisk until you have a smooth batter. Pour the batter into the tin and make sure it is evenly distributed. Bake for 25 minutes, then turn down your oven down to 350° and bake for another 10 minutes. Remove the gingerbread from the oven and let it cool in the tin for about 30 minutes. Wrapping it in foil while still warm helps it stay moist.

Speculaas spice mix (two quantities given -- all measurements are in teaspoons)
cinnamon                                  3 ¼       1 5/8
ground cloves                            1             1/2
grated nutmeg                            3/4        3/8
ground white pepper                   1/2         1/4
ground aniseed                          1             1/2
ginger powder                             1/2        1/4
cardamom powder                       1/4        1/8
totals                                        7 ¼       3 5/8
 
I'm not sure why they have you start at a higher temperature.  Baking soda, unlike baking powder, doesn't need heat to react.  And I baked the second tray at 350, since that's where the oven was, and they turned out the same.

I used my fluted muffin tins for this, thinking the cakelettes would be cute and perfect for work.  But the batter rose so much in the oven that the first batch, though I filled them only 3/4 full, came out completely round.  I put only about a heaping tablespoon in each cup in the second tray, and at least they came up only to the top of the cup, but still the tops are so rounded that I can't set them out with the decorative side up.  They look ridiculous.

As with every recipe I've made from this site, my batter was WAY too thick.  I added about 1/3 cup of water to it, just to loosen it up a bit, and it was still too thick.  I had to pat it down with a wet finger or I might have ended up with peaks and valleys from where the batter held its shape.  Consequently, with all the mixing, and perhaps also due to the high percentage of baking soda, I ended up with large holes.  My home economics teacher would not have been pleased.

Not a nice texture. 

Conclusion:  Very disappointing.  Very bland, and you can taste the baking soda.  Not at all what I had expected.  They rose tremendously while baking, so I think the soda could probably be cut in half.  (I wonder if there's an error in the recipe and it was supposed to be baking powder.)  And they definitely need more spice.  Just seems like the proportions are all wrong on this recipe.

Original recipe:  Dutch speculaas gingerbread cake with rye, buttermilk & honey via Weekend Bakery

Thanksgiving Pies II: Pear and Ginger Pie with Streusel Topping

Okay, I don't think pies should weigh more than about 5 pounds.  I can't believe how heavy this thing is!  I had to weight it -- 8 pounds.  It calls for eight (8!!) whole pears!  And then there's crust, and topping...  That's a lot of pie.

This recipe was requested by the hostess of my Thanksgiving dinner -- a big pear fan -- so I wanted to get it right.  Of course, that makes the preparation nerve wracking.

I honestly didn't think I'd get all those pear slices into the shell, but it happened.  What it took was individually, slice by slice, fitting all the pieces together.  The Monterey Fish Packing Company would be proud.  There was a lot of juice left over, and since it seemed to contain a lot of the tapioca that would be holding the pie together, I decided it was a necessary component and dumped it in.

I'd been concerned about using a decorative stoneware pie tin -- I wondered whether I'd have trouble getting the slices out, what with all the edges.  But they came out without a problem.  The pan was a good choice because it's actually a 10" semi-deep-dish pan.  This never would have worked in a regular 9" pan that the recipe called for.  My leaf edges burned at the tips while I was blind baking the shell, so I covered the edges completely during the bake with heavy duty aluminum foil.

Melted "streusel" ...  What now???

During the hour that the pie bakes, I started writing this blog entry.  It was there that I saw "1 cup flour" as the very last ingredient in the list.  Flour?  What flour?  Gah!  I'd forgotten to put the flour into the streusel!  I'd wondered why it was so gooey, but I have an apple pie recipe that uses a butter and brown sugar crusty topping, so I figured it must be something like that.  The fact is I just never noticed the flour in this recipe.  There was only 18 minutes left on the oven timer, but I took the pie out of the oven and quickly threw together 5 tablespoons of butter, 1/4 cup sugar, some salt, and 3/4 cup flour.  It was very dry, and there was a lot, but I dumped it on and shoved the pie back in the oven.  I didn't keep track of how much in excess of an hour I baked the pie -- I just kept checking the color on the streusel.  I even stuck it under the broiler to see if that would help, but it only darkened the very center.  It probably baked an extra 30 minutes or so.  And it's a good thing I had a catchment tray under the pie!

Here's what I used:

For the crust:
1⅓ cups flour
1/3 cup cornstarch
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, cubed and chilled
1/4 cup, plus 1 tbsp. lard, chilled
1 tablespoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup ice-cold water

For the filling and topping:
8 medium Bartlett pears, cored and thinly sliced (about 4-4.5 pounds)
3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1 cup sugar, divided
2 tablespoons minute tapioca
1/2 teaspoon ground mace
1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
1 1"-piece ginger, peeled and grated
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
5 tablespoons butter
1 cup flour

For the crust, pulse flour, cornstarch, sugar, and salt briefly in a food processor to mix, then add the butter and lard, and pulse into pea-size crumbles. Add water; pulse until dough comes together. Form dough into a disk, wrap tightly in waxed paper and seal in a plastic bag; chill 1 hour.

Heat oven to 450°. On a lightly floured surface, roll dough into a 13-14" round. Fit into a 10" pie plate. Trim edges and crimp; chill 30 minutes. Using a fork, prick dough all over. Line dough with parchment paper that's been crumpled to soften and fill with pie weights or dried beans.   Protect any overhanging decorations with foil or edge protectors; bake 15 minutes. Remove paper and weights and gently press closed any open prick marks.  Return to the oven and bake another 5-10 minutes, until it looks dry; allow to cool while you start the filling.

For the filling, toss pear slices in a very large bowl with lemon juice; let sit, uncovered, 30 minutes, then drain, discarding liquid. In a small bowl, stir together ½ cup sugar and the tapioca.  Sprinkle over the pears and mix gently to coat. For the topping, stir remaining ½ cup sugar with the mace, nutmeg, ginger, and salt in a bowl; blend in the butter.  Using your fingers or a fork, mix in flour until small crumbles form; set both filling and topping aside.













Reduce oven to 375°. Tightly arrange pears over dough and sprinkle with topping; bake until the topping is golden and filling is bubbling, about 1 hour.  (Recommend baking pie on another sheet to guard against bubbling over.)  Let pie cool to room temperature before serving.


I think my problems with this pie all started with pears that were too large and slightly over-ripe. The last time I made a pear pie, the pears were under ripe, so I purchased them in advance this time, thinking I was ahead of the game.  They were wonderfully, fragrantly floral about two days before I used them.  Maybe third time's the charm.  Note to self:  for a pie, the pears should be fully ripe -- at the peak of their fragrance -- and firm, but not crunchy.  That should produce less juice, but plenty of flavor.

The original recipe didn't give a total weight of the pears either, and I think what I purchased might have been considered large pears rather than medium.  They weighed 5 pounds total, so I've recommended a slightly lesser amount by weight.   Between have too much pear to start with, and their being excessively juicy from being overripe, all that pear juice made the pie crust soggy.  Curiously, the crust sort of disappeared into the filling, texture and taste being similar, and wasn't that noticeable.  On the up side, I never peel my fruit because, well, it's really not necessary, and I think the peel adds flavor.  In this case, it also added lovely golden and rosy-colored ribbons throughout the interior.

Conclusion:  In the end, after all the errors, the pie was delicious.  I would give it another go, but with caution regarding the amount of pear filling and how the whole thing was put together. I might also go ahead and mix the spices with some butter and dot it on the top so that it drips down throughout the pie during baking, as happened accidentally this time.  (I would still add the proper streusel, but without the spices.)  Regardless, it was not a spicy pie -- the ginger didn't stand out at all, but I'm sure added to the overall flavor.

Recipe:  Pear and Ginger Pie with Streusel Topping via Saveur

November ABC Challenge: Pumpkin Cranberry Pan de Muerto... sort of

Feliz Dia de los Muertos!

I think it was purely coincidental that these spicy, flavorful rolls were assigned during a time when many around the world are enjoying the festive pan de muertos, but I decided to take advantage of the happy coincidence.  Truth be told, I had already made the rolls once, but on realizing the synchronicity, I decided to make them again.

For the first batch, I reduced the recipe by one-quarter, producing 4 rolls, and doubled all the dry spices.  I was making them during the week, so in order to accommodate the rise times I mixed up the dough during my lunch break and let the dough rise in the refrigerator while I went back to the office.  So imagine my dismay when suddenly around 3:30 in the afternoon, for no particular reason, I remembered the butter I'd left sitting on the windowsill to soften!  Crap.  My impression from the directions was that the dough shouldn't be disturbed too much after the first rise -- perhaps that was only to keep from mashing the soft fruit too much.  But it couldn't be helped; I wasn't going to leave out the butter.  Fortunately, I had used homemade dried cranberries, which have no added sugar and therefore dry quite hard, so they didn't mind the manhandling.  Nonetheless, I didn't want to overwork the dough, so I didn't get the butter mixed homogeneously into the dough and the results were rather lumpy.  Let's face it:  they were ugly.

A different sort of "ugly but good".

I didn't like my baking pan options.  I could have used a muffin tin, but I wanted the soft sides created by having them sit together.  (I also wasn't anxious to have to wash a whole muffin tin for four cavities!)  In the end, I simply baked them in the same steel bowl I had mixed and risen them in!

For the pan de muertos, I made a few more minor tweaks to the recipe.  Again, I did a small batch of 4 rolls and doubled the spices.  I didn't feel like fooling with halving an egg, so I used this tiny chicken egg I got from a friend.  How cute is this?

It's much cuter in real life.

This time, I increased the quantity of cranberries, and macerated the fruit in a little rum to try to soften the cranberries, as they had stayed rather compact and chewy the first time.  In the absence of orange zest, I added some orange extract to the dough.  I forgot to add water, but with the additional liquid from the egg, rum, and extract, it didn't need it.  I had intended to use half whole wheat flour but, um, ... I forgot.  (Hey, it was 12:30 at night -- but at least this time I remembered the butter!)

Here's what I used; deviations from the exact 1/4 reduction of the original recipe are in italics:

1 cup + 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1/4 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/16 1/8 teaspoon ground ginger
1/16 1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
1 tablespoon granulated sugar
1/4 teaspoon dark molasses
3/8 teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoon instant yeast
3 tablespoons canned pumpkin or squash
1/2 large egg (or one adorably tiny egg -- um, see note)
3 tablespoons water (if necessary)
1 tablespoon unsalted butter, softened
3 4 tablespoons dried cranberries
1 tablespoon diced crystallized ginger
2 tablespoons dark rum (or orange juice)
1/4 teaspoon orange extract

Mix the cranberries, crystallized ginger, and rum in a small container with a lid and keep in a warm place for several hours until the fruit softens and the rum is absorbed, shaking occasionally.  Mix and knead all of the dough ingredients except the fruit and crystallized ginger (adding water only if  the dough is dry or feels tough) until you've made a soft, fairly smooth dough. Pumpkin varies in water content, so add extra water or flour if needed. Right at the end, knead in the fruit and crystallized ginger. Place the dough in a lightly greased bowl, cover the bowl, and allow the dough to rise for 1 1/2 hours at room temperature or overnight in the refrigerator, until it's almost double in bulk.

Turn the dough out onto a lightly greased surface, gently deflate it, and divide it into 4 pieces. Roll each piece into a ball. Place rolls in the lightly greased cups of a standard muffin pan (which will help them maintain their round shape), or onto a greased or parchment-lined baking sheet. Set aside, covered lightly, to rise for 1 hour, or until the rolls look puffy.

Bake the rolls in a preheated 350°F oven for 25 to 30 minutes (I baked the first batch 23 minutes, and the second 26), until they're lightly browned and the center of one reads 190⁰F on an instant-read thermometer. Remove the pans from the oven and turn the rolls out onto a rack to cool.

Just before baking.

Note:  As I've mentioned before, when doing small-batch baking, it's imperative that you measure exactly.  Small variations can have big effects.  I tend to be careless with measuring, and this time it caused a failure.  The tiny egg I used in the second batch was really quite a bit more than 1/2 an egg -- something I didn't realize until I actually looked at them side-by-side.  The dough was somewhat greasy and lacked cohesiveness.  The rolls didn't rise properly and the design melted.  They tasted great, but they were a poor texture, being too dense and heavy.  The first batch was much better.



Conclusion:  I liked these very much!  They
have a strong pumpkin flavor, and with the doubled spices they can definitely stand on their own.  (In fact, they might actually be a bit too flavorful to be a good dinner roll.)  These aren't truly a "sweet roll", but you could increase the sugar and perhaps add a glaze to make them one.  I liked them better served with cream cheese than with butter.  I've been looking for a rich, dense, mildly sweet dinner roll recipe, and this is perfect.  I'll probably be adding walnuts instead of the cranberries and candied ginger most often in the future, and will also try these as plain whole wheat walnut rolls.  This is a keeper!


Original recipe:  Cranberry Pumpkin Rolls via King Arthur Flour

July ABC Challenge: Strawberry-filled Angel Food Cake FAIL

I really think there's something to that story Like Water for Chocolate, that you transfer a part of yourself into whatever you're making in the kitchen.  This post is a good example of what happens when your heart is off in another room instead of in the kitchen with you.  I couldn't commit myself to making this, mostly because it seemed like more trouble than it was worth.  So when I finally got around to it, I was only going through the motions, somewhat grudgingly.  I wasn't sure I wouldn't rather have been doing something else.  (Mostly, though, it meant another task ahead trying to figure out how to use up the egg yolks.)

To minimize (literally) my concerns, I reduced the recipe to one quarter the size.  Perhaps this was the reason for the poor results. Or perhaps it was because I didn't use cream of tartar.  (While vinegar or lemon juice are suitable substitutes when boiling sugar, I don't think they do a damn thing for egg whites, despite all the advice forums.  But I threw in some vinegar anyway.)  Certainly my pan selection played a part.  I looked at the volume of the whipped whites and chose a larger pan (an 8-inch springform pan with a soda can in the middle) than I had initially anticipated using.  But I didn't count on losing a lot of volume when I added the flour mixture.  And then the cake didn't rise AT ALL.

I think the whites should have been whipped more.  The directions said shaving cream consistency -- that's what I had, at least on top.  But as I folded, I found that the bottom of the bowl was looser than the top.  And then, as the coup de grâce, I forgot to cool it upside-down until I noticed it visibly shrinking in the pan.  So what you have here is an angel food pancake.  Or very fluffy divinity.  (Or a rubber biscuit, heheheh.)

Sad little thing.

I might have used it anyway, filling it like a layer cake, but it was sticky and not cutting nicely.  It just so happened that last night I spotted a mini angel food cake on discount for only $1.19.  Bargain!  I know many cringe at the thought of a commercial angel food cake, but this one had no artificial ingredients! It really wasn't too bad, although sweeter than the one I made.  I decided to employ it as a stand-in. From there, the recipe went off without a hitch.

Here's what I used:

Cake
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup confectioners' sugar (reduced by 2 tablespoons from original)
3 large egg whites
1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar (instead of cream of tartar)
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/4 teaspoon vanilla
1/8 teaspoon salt

Filling
1/2 cup frozen strawberries and raspberries, drained and mashed
1/4 envelope (generous 1/2 teaspoon) unflavored gelatin
1/2 cup heavy cream
2 tablespoons sugar (double the original recipe)
1/8 teaspoon almond extract (instead of vanilla)

I'm not reprinting the directions here because they're long, and I certainly don't suggest anyone follow my lead.  Best to refer to the King Arthur Flour web site.  I'll note, though, that in addition to reducing the recipe, I made a few other changes...

As far as I can tell, the vinegar had no effect -- the whites whipped up normally but weren't particularly stable.  Many complained that the dessert was too sweet, so I reduced the sugar in the cake (the equivalent of 1/2 cup less than the original.)  I was happy with that choice.  There were also comments that there wasn't much strawberry flavor, so I threw in some raspberries to amp up the flavor a bit.  However, my berries were quite tart, so I had to double the sugar of the filling.  It still was only mildly sweet.  Lastly, I decided to use almond instead of vanilla in the filling, since apparently almond is a traditional flavoring in angel food cake, and I thought it would be more interesting.  That was also a good choice.

Imposter.

Conclusion:  Seriously, this was so not worth the effort.  While not bad at all, and actually a nice choice for a summer dessert, there's simply no "wow" factor.  AFC, store-bought or homemade, is just bland.  And as with others,  I thought the filling lacked flavor and "splash".  The whole ensemble reminded me of the frozen pie my aunt used to make from strawberry yogurt and Cool Whip, only that was a LOT faster and easier.  (Might even have been tastier, too.)  The worst part though, is that because it's bland, there's a tendency to eat MORE -- the exact opposite of what you might do with something like Death By Chocolate.  Speaking of chocolate, I had intended to make an easy warm chocolate ganache to drizzle across the slices, but decided I'd had enough time in the kitchen with this cake.  It could have use it.

Recipe:  Strawberry-filled Angel Food Cake via King Arthur Flour