December ABC challenge: Dirty Chai Earthquake Cookies

The challenge theme this month is spices.  I wasn't necessarily looking for a spice cookie, but I happened upon this recipe, which had rave reviews.  Terrible name, but it seems "dirty chai" is a particular type of drink in which a shot of espresso is poured into a cup of spiced chai.  (Why not just make spiced coffee???)  And the "earthquake" part is from the cracks in the sugar coating.

It's a small recipe, so I made the whole thing, which is supposed to make only 2 dozen cookies.  The only change I made was an adjustment of salt, using salted butter, which I countered by reducing the salt in the ingredient list but ultimately resulted in a higher salt content than the original recipe, and I substituted out malted milk powder.  Here's what I used:

1/2 cup unsalted butter (1 stick)
1 tablespoon finely ground coffee (not instant)
2 cups all-purpose flour, sifted then measured (255 grams)
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom
1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 1/4 teaspoon kosher fine sea salt
1/2 teaspoon finely ground black pepper
2 large eggs
3/4 cup light brown sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract or paste
2 tablespoons malted milk powder, such as Carnation brand malt syrup
1/4 cup granulated sugar, for rolling
1/2 cup confectioners’ sugar, sifted, for rolling

Brown the butter in a small saucepan over low heat, swirling and stirring occasionally, until nutty brown, 5 to 6 minutes.  Pour over the espresso/coffee in a small metal bowl and stir to combine.  Set aside to cool, stirring occasionally.  Sift together the flour, baking powder, ginger, cinnamon, cardamom, cloves, salt, and pepper; set aside.  With an electric mixer, combine eggs, and light brown sugar in a medium bowl and beat on medium speed until well combined and slightly paler, about 3 minutes, scraping bowl as needed.  Add the vanilla and malt syrup to the butter mixture, stirring to combine, then add that to the egg mixture and mix on low speed until combined.  Add the flour mixture, then mix again on low until combined.  Transfer dough to a resealable glass or plastic container and chill thoroughly, at least 2 hours and up to 3 days.

Heat oven to 350 degrees.  Put granulated sugar and confectioners’ sugar into two separate bowls.  Portion dough into heaping tablespoons (about 25 grams each); roll into smooth balls and drop a few at a time into the bowl of granulated sugar, rolling to coat.  Transfer to the bowl with the confectioners’ sugar and roll gently, coating well and place in freezer until firm, about 10 minutes.  Place on a greased baking sheet, flattening slightly (if you want a less domed cookie) and bake until cookies are still quite tender (they will firm up as they cool), 12 to 14 minutes.  Let cool a few minutes on the baking sheets and transfer to wire racks to cool completely.

The dough sat tightly covered in my refrigerator for 3 days before I baked off half of it; that resting time should have really improved the flavor and enhanced the spices, but it didn't seem to.  I did find the cookies dry; they might be less so if I used an air-insulated pan.

My scale wasn't working, so I couldn't measure out 25g of dough.  I was further confused by the instructions to use a "small" cookie scoop or a heaping tablespoon.  I have a SMALL cookie scoop that's about a teaspoon, and another that's about a tablespoon -- obviously I don't call the larger one the "small" one.  I used the tablespoon-sized scoop and heaped the dough in to round it out so it made something resembling a sphere and didn't bother to roll it any better than that-- they came out about 1.25" in diameter (and went straight into the sugar.)  Perhaps they were a little too small, because they were quite firm at 12 minutes.  (I can't believe some people baked them for 15 minutes and more... then complained they were dry.)

Some people had trouble with the crusts not "cracking", and one piece of advice was to coat them heavily with the powdered sugar.  I think that probably just makes the cracking more prominent for appearance, but likely doesn't affect the tendency to crack or not crack.  And the last thing these needed was more sugar.  However, I followed that advice, unfortunately, as it was too much sugar in the first batch.  I used a lighter touch with the next batch and also experimented with other coatings:  coarse sugar, nonpareils, and none.

Obviously, nothing gave the intended effect other than the heavy powdered sugar coating.  The light sugar coating looked sad.  The coarse sugar looked okay -- the nonpareils not so much, and the plain were downright unappetizing.

Conclusion:  I'm not a fan of sugar-coated cookies, but I thought the dough was going to be less sweet with these so it would be okay.  It was not.  My initial impression was that, if I focused, I noticed the spice flavors, but if I didn't it just tasted sugary.  I didn't detect browned butter at all.  After I'd swallowed the last bite, I detected heat, probably from the pepper, and then coffee (perhaps from a stray ground), both mild. No other spice stood out, they all melded together in a pleasant warmth; it just wasn't enough to counter the sugar.  In the end, I decided this tasted a lot like a cinnamon cake doughnut and so tried it dunked in coffee.... Delightful!  But only as originally prepared, with the crisp, sugary crust.  Any other preparation or technique fell short.

Recipe:  Dirty Chai Earthquake Cookies via NYTimes Cooking 

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.)

Coffee-infused Semolina Almond Cake

This is more of a European style cake -- not overly sweet or loaded with a lot of frosting.  It's lighter than typical American cakes, but still very satisfying.  It actually comes across a lot like a coffee cake, to some degree because of the heavy dose of cinnamon.  The original recipe contained no salt, also typical of European desserts; I added some to my personal  taste.

This wasn't hard to make at all, just a little fussy because of the separate components.  And then there was the question of what to bake it in...  I have 4 pans all labelled as 8", and 3 of the 4 are all different sizes.  (How do these things happen?)  I finally opted for the only two pans I had that were the same size, which was 8½", resulting in a cake that was slightly flatter than desired.

Here's what I used:

Cake:
3/4 cup superfine sugar
3/4 cup unsalted butter, softened
1/2 teaspoon fine salt
3 eggs, beaten
1/3 cup strong coffee
1½ cups plus 2 tablespoons semolina
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1¹/₃ cups ground almonds

Syrup:
3/4 cup superfine sugar
3/4 cup water, approximately (see note)
1/3 cup strong coffee

Halva cream:
4 ounces halva, broken in pieces
3 tablespoons strong coffee
1/2 cup superfine sugar
3/4 cup unsalted butter, softened

To decorate:
1/4 cup pistachios, chopped, or other nuts

Preheat oven to 425F. Grease and line two deep, 8-inch round cake pans with waxed paper.  To make cake, in a bowl, cream sugar, butter, and salt until light and fluffy.  Gradually beat in eggs and coffee.  Stir in semolina, baking powder, cinnamon, and ground almonds. Divide between prepared pans and bake in oven 10 (8) minutes. Lower temperature to 350F and bake 10 to 15 minutes, until a skewer inserted into center comes out clean. Let stand in pan 2 minutes, then turn each out onto a wire rack placed over a plate.

Meanwhile, make syrup. Put sugar and water into a saucepan and heat gently until sugar has dissolved. Boil 4 minutes, remove from heat and stir in coffee. Bring back to a boil, pour over hot cakes, then allow to cool.  To make halva cream, in a saucepan heat halva, coffee and sugar gently until smooth; cool.  In a bowl, beat butter until soft, then beat in halva mixture.  Sandwich cakes together with half of halva cream. Spread with remaining cream and decorate with nuts.

Note:  the cookbook left the water out of the ingredient listing, so I had to guesstimate.  If you have a recipe that uses a similar technique of moistening the cake with liquid, try following those quantities.  Otherwise, you want at least 1 cup of liquid to pour over the cakes, possibly up to 1½ cups.  I think I had about one cup, and my cakes could have been a little more moist, but it's hard to know what's going to be too much when you're pouring it on.  You don't want soggy cake!

The batter is quite thick and the cake initially dry, as there's very little liquid in the recipe, but it's salvaged by the coffee syrup that gets poured onto the hot cakes and immediately absorbed by the semolina.  It's a very effective technique, producing a light but moist crumb with a nubbly texture.  Since my cakes were thinner than the recipe called for, I baked them for slightly less time (noted in parentheses above).

If halva isn't available, you could use any nut butter, but it would have to be very thick.  (Buy a natural nut butter, let it separate, and then use the thick paste that settles out.  Adjust the butter quantity accordingly to achieve the correct texture.)  You would also want to increase the sugar, since halva is quite sweet.  In California, you can't buy truly raw nuts -- they have to be pasteurized.  For that reason, the "raw" pistachios available to me don't have that bright green color (or that fresh flavor), but are more a sort of grey-green-brown.  Not very attractive.  So I opted for almond slices to decorate my cake instead.

Conclusion:  This is an excellent cake for a midday coffee break or a light dessert.  It won't be to everyone's taste, as many people are accustomed to the heavy, rich cakes that are typically served for American desserts.  But it has a wonderful combination of flavors and makes an elegant offering.

Recipe:  Halva Gâteau from A Gourmet's Guide to Coffee & Tea by Lesley Mackley

Preserved Green Walnuts

Last summer, I spotted a tree on my way home from work sporting pale green balls on its branches.  I picked one and asked a landscape architect friend; he identified the ball as an immature walnut.  The tree was likely a California black walnut, Juglans californica.  (Incidentally, "Juglans" is derived from "Jupiter's balls", as in, the god's manly parts.)  Many months later, I came across a recipe for preserved walnuts, which called for immature, green walnuts.  Although the recommended variety for this recipe is a black walnut, Juglans nigra, or an English walnut, Juglans regia, all varieties of walnuts are edible.  In fact, Native Americans ate California black walnuts as part of their normal diet.  But they offer a very poor meat yield per nut compared to other varieties, and it's difficult to obtain, so it's no surprise they fell out of favor.  But since the whole fruit is used for this recipe and not just the meat, I figured they would work okay.  It would be fun trying, anyway.

Green walnuts are available beginning in June.  Obviously you want as large of a fruit as possible in order to maximize your efforts, but you have to pick them before the shell starts to form under the fleshy outer part.  If you can push a pin through the nut easily, they're still green enough to use.

Green, immature walnuts, about the size of a small plum.

Green walnuts are bitter, so they need to be soaked and/or boiled to remove the bitter taste.  One recipe called for soaking for 9 days, changing the water frequently.  I opted for boiling them several times in fresh changes of water, since I was making only a small batch.

After boiling.  The peeled nuts start to oxidize quickly,
turning a dark green/black, hence their name.

Eventually the nuts are boiled in a spiced sugar syrup, then stored for several weeks to flavor.

Spiced with cinnamon sticks and cardamom seeds.

There is an art to making syrup, and the instructions are vague, so I had a crystallization problem.  I managed to correct most of it, but still ended up with some heavy sugar crystals in the bottom of the jar.  There were also some hard crunchy parts in the walnuts -- I'm not sure if those were also sugar crystals, or parts of shell that were forming early.  They broke up on chewing, so I ate them anyway!

Conclusion:  This was a fun experiment!  The walnuts are delicious, but taste of the spices rather than any distinct nut flavor.  They shrunk considerably while seasoning -- I'm not sure what happened there.  They're excellent with a salty cotija cheese (as in the top photo), or would also be good mixed into plain yogurt.  The syrup could be used endlessly -- on pancakes, in drinks, drizzled on ice cream...

Recipes:  I mostly followed the directions in this recipe from About Greek Food, but I used a lot of the overall information from this site by "livelonger" on Hub Pages.

April ABC challenge: Mini 100% Whole Wheat Cranberry Cinnamon Swirl Bread

I've been cutting down on my intake of breads and sugars lately, which is sort of tough on a baker.  But I decided the way to get around that is to simply make less when I do bake.  With that in mind, I cut this month's recipe down not in half, but to ONE THIRD!  (I figured a third of a loaf is only a few slices, right?)

Here's what I used:

Starter
1⅓ ounce (38g) cool water
1/3 cup (40g) whole wheat flour
a dribble of wild yeast sourdough starter

Dough
5/6 (2.3g) teaspoon active dry yeast  (roughly measured)
1⅓ ounces (38g) lukewarm milk
1⅓ ounces (38g) orange juice
2⅓ tablespoons melted butter
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon coconut sugar
4 teaspoons dry whole milk
1½ - 2 ounces (50g) Russet potato, peeled, microwaved and mashed (or 4 teaspoons potato flour)
2/3+1/4 cup (110g) white whole wheat flour

Filling
1 egg, beaten, to brush on dough
2 tablespoons coconut sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon flour
1 teaspoon turmeric (for the health benefits -- the flavor is undetectable, but the color isn't)
1½ tablespoon finely chopped fresh cranberries
1½ tablespoon finely chopped walnuts

There were comments in the blog regarding sourdough and the KA response in every case was that this was NOT a sourdough and they had to use commercial yeast.  Interesting response, since KA's usual response to substitutions is, "Try it and let us know how it works!"  Nonetheless, I didn't want to be bothered with whatever tiny amount of yeast I would have needed for the starter.  Besides, I'm not convinced yeast is even needed at this point.  The real task is to hydrate your flour and let it start to autolyze; yeast isn't necessary for that.   (I also had to use regular whole wheat for the starter because I was out of the white.)

After 12 hours, the starter looked like it had puffed up, which actually surprised me.  But when I poked it, it didn't feel aerated, so I'm not sure whether it activated or not.  No matter -- there's plenty of yeast in the rest of the recipe.

Good window pane effect.

The dough mixed up a little dry, so I added about another tablespoon or so of plain water rather than OJ, just because it was easier. I realize there is a danger in small-batch baking to disregard what seem like infinitesimal quantities -- a dash here or a pinch there.  But when your ingredients come in fractions of an ounce, it might make a difference!  I thought about adding some orange zest into the mix, but decided I wanted the flavor of the bread to come through and not be covered with anything else.

That said, since I happened to have some fresh cranberries that I had just started dehydrating, I threw a few of those into the filling, along with a few walnuts for crunch.  Since my bread wasn't going to be very sweet (coconut sugar isn't nearly as sweet as cane sugar), I thought it might benefit from a little extra flavor boost in the filling.

                               

Finished proofing, it's ready for shaping...

Start with a log...

...roll out to 16 x 3.5".
(A 16" tile helps.)

Sprinkle with cinnamon mixture...

... and the cranberries and walnuts, keeping the filling
lighter on the inside part (close end) and heavier on the
outside part, where it has to service more bread mass...

...and roll up tightly.

Hmmm... decisions, decisions.

Aluminum pie pan, final decision.
And ready for the oven.

I followed the rest of the directions as given, reducing the baking time to 35 minutes, when the internal temperature registered 195 F.

Conclusion:  Fantabulous!  Loved it!  Only 11 ounces; very soft, but with a nice chew.  I really loved the tiny bits of tart cranberry here and there -- just a hint.  And it still was plenty sweet for my taste.  A little warm butter was the only dressing I'd recommend.

Original recipe:  100% Whole Wheat Cinnamon Swirl Bread via King Arthur Flour