Vanilla Spice Oatmeal

When I looked at this recipe this morning, I found myself thinking, "Hey, wait a minute! This is what I eat for breakfast almost every day, only better."

Ellie Krieger dreamed up a way to make my morning oatmeal even more yummy, with minimally more calories. I make mine a little differently than she does (I make a single serving in the microwave every morning). With the added flavors of vanilla, chopped toasted pecans and brown sugar, this was so fabulous it will be hard for me  to make it any other way from now on.

My blogging friend Mary of Popsicles and Sandy Feet thoughtfully selected this recipe for Craving Ellie in My Belly. The recipe is available here, or on Mary's blog. If you don't know Mary and her adorable kiddos, make sure you pay her a visit. She's hilarious and sweet, the best combination in my book. Thanks, Mary, for picking a recipe that couldn't have been easier!

Daring Bakers - Cake and Yeast Donuts

The October 2010 Daring Bakers challenge was hosted by Lori of Butter Me Up. Lori chose to challenge DBers to make doughnuts. She used several sources for her recipes including Alton Brown, Nancy Silverton, Kate Neumann and Epicurious.

Donuts are one of those dangerous foods that are suppposed to taste better when you make them at home. I really don't need for them to taste better than they already do, but I missed last month's Daring Bakers challenge and I didn't want to miss another one.

My plan was to only make one recipe. My coworkers were almost evenly divided between yeast donut lovers and cake donut lovers. I did a poll and the yeast donut lovers won out, but I decided to make both kinds because, well, I'm insane. I made the dough for the yeast donuts the night before and stuck it in the fridge, planning to roll it out and cut out the donuts the next morning. But a peek in the fridge confirmed the dough was staging a coup and the middle shelf would soon be history. So at 11:00 PM, I rolled out the dough for the yeast donuts, cut them out and froze them on sheet pans. At 5:20 the next morning, after I staggered out to turn on the coffee maker, I pulled the donuts out of the freezer and and put the sheet pans on the counter to defrost. Meanwhile, I made the dough for the cake donuts.

Following Alton Brown's suggestion to use chop sticks when retrieving the fried donuts from the hot oil, I used them to transfer the donuts into the hot oil saving me from getting too many burns. It was hard to know when they were done, so some were very brown and some weren't, but they seemed to benefit from carryover cooking, which I should have taken into consideration.

The donut holes were tough little devils to fry. They didn't want their pale undersides to flip in the oil, and they wriggled every which way to avoid it. It took me twice as long to fry the donut holes as the donuts. Next time I'd skip making donut holes entirely.

When I said "staggered" and "coffee," my regular readers probably registered a silent "Uh oh." I don't do well on not enough sleep combined with before-dawn baking, and this was no exception. After I finished frying the donuts, I found this lurking in the mayhem I used to call my kitchen:

No wonder the cake donuts were hard to roll into a cohesive mass. Eggs would have helped.

I wanted glazed donuts and had settled on Alton Brown's plain and chocolate glazes. I didn't have time to strain the powdered sugar, and my glazes did have a few lumps.

The normal reaction when I take baked goods to work is quite a few emails praising the brownie, tart, etc. People will stop me in the hall and say how much they liked it, ask me where I find the time (when normal people are sleeping or working out), or request the recipe.

This time, silence.

I must admit I was perplexed. I tasted the donuts at home and the yeast donuts were truly amazing.  Light, with an imperceptible hint of flavor from the nutmeg, I finally understood why people were willing to make their kitchen look like this

to make them at home. I expected a lot more reaction from my coworkers. So I stopped by the break room to sample one for myself. What a difference two hours made. It was leaden, dense and not as flavorful as the one I sampled at home. The only thing that saved it was the chocolate glaze.

After this experience, there are a few things I learned:

• Pick one kind of donuts to make. Don't make both. At least not at 5 AM.
• Golden brown means...GOLDEN. BROWN.  Not dark brown, not chocolate brown, not medium brown. I was so worried about raw middles that I completely overcooked them.
• 86 the donut holes. They aren't worth the precious time they consume.
• Serve the donuts immediately. If it means handing them out car to car at all the lights on the way to work, send them out into the world while they're still appealing.
• Have the glaze made before frying your donuts. It holds well, unlike donuts.

Maybe it doesn't sound like it, but I was so excited to make this recipe. I tripped myself up, and I hope I learned a valuable lesson. In trying to please everyone, it's possible to please no one. Next time, I'll make a small batch of these for us to enjoy at home.

Egg-free cake donuts

Daring Bakers - Ice Cream Petit Fours

The August 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Elissa of 17 and Baking. For the first time, The Daring Bakers partnered with Sugar High Fridays for a co-event and Elissa was the gracious hostess of both. Using the theme of beurre noisette, or browned butter, Elissa chose to challenge Daring Bakers to make a pound cake to be used in either a Baked Alaska or in Ice Cream Petit Fours. The sources for Elissa’s challenge were Gourmet magazine and David Lebovitz’s “The Perfect Scoop”.

I was both excited and scared when I saw Elissa's pick. I LOVE browned butter anything, but petit fours sounded so beyond my expertise. But the recipes looked so easy that I decided I'd make the petit fours instead of the baked Alaska (piping is a huge obstacle for me).

The brown butter pound cake Elissa selected from Gourmet (sniff, sniff) was a snap to make and the batter tasted so good I wanted to eat it out of the mixing bowl. I made the pound cake and base for the ice cream before work, split the cake layers, churned the ice cream and spread 2 cups of it in a 9x9 pan and froze it when I got home (early for the first time in well over a month). I had to go out for the evening but when I got home I sandwiched the frozen ice cream layer between the split cake layers, wrapped it and froze it. Everything was going so well that as I laid in bed trying to fall asleep, I decided I'd use transfers to decorate my petit fours. I imagined perfect, square petit fours coated with a thin layer of chocolate with elegant gold marbling on them. My decorating demons would be vanquished forever.

The next morning, I heated the cream, mixed in the chocolate and let it sit while I sliced the frozen cake and ice cream. So far so good. My squares weren't perfect, and I cut them smaller so more people at work could have one. Then I started enrobing them in chocolate and that's where everything fell apart (sometimes literally). The chocolate didn't want to coat all sides of the chocolate. If I got it all coated, the ice cream started oozing through. Some fell over on the tray or, worse, into my pan of glaze. At least they would still look elegant with their gold marbling from the transfers.

Or not. When I peeled off the transfers, I realized the chocolate was too cool to melt the pattern onto the petit fours, so the transfers only dulled the glossy appearance of the chocolate. By this time, I had long abandoned enrobing one petit four at a time and had lined them all up on the sheet pan and poured the glaze over them.

No worries. I didn't get to taste one as I left ours out of the freezer by mistake but my coworkers loved them. What's not to love about brown butter pound cake, rich vanilla ice cream and bittersweet chocolate glaze? For me, the real keeper was the brown butter pound cake. The vanilla ice cream was good, but not as good as my standby vanilla ice cream from Dorie Greenspan's book Baking From My Home to Yours.

Thanks, Elissa, for a fun challenge. When I was 17, I was also baking, but from a mix. I hope your first semester of college is easy and painless!

*******PLEASE NOTE: Lethally Delicious is on hiatus for the month of Ramadan. I will be responding to comments but not keeping up with my Google Reader or visiting bloggers other than those who leave comments. I'll be back around Sept. 10th with a spirit refreshed by this blessed month of fasting and prayer. Peace.


Vanilla Ice Cream

1 cup (250ml) whole milk
A pinch of salt
3/4 cup (165g) sugar
1 vanilla bean, split lengthwise OR 2 teaspoons (10ml) pure vanilla extract
2 cups (500ml) heavy (approx 35% butterfat) cream
5 large egg yolks
1 teaspoon (5ml) pure vanilla extract

1. Heat the milk, salt, and sugar in a medium saucepan until the liquid steams. Scrape out the seeds of the vanilla bean with a paring knife and add to the milk, along with the bean pod. Cover, remove from heat, and let infuse for an hour. (If you do not have a vanilla bean, simply heat the milk, salt, and sugar in a medium saucepan until the liquid steams, then let cool to room temperature.)

2. Set up an ice bath by placing a 2-quart (2 litre) bowl inside a large bowl partially filled with water and ice. Put a strainer on top of the smaller bowl and pour in the cream.

3. In another bowl, lightly beat the egg yolks together. Reheat the milk in the medium saucepan until warmed, and then gradually pour ¼ cup warmed milk into the yolks, constantly whisking to keep the eggs from scrambling. Once the yolks are warmed, scrape the yolk and milk mixture back into the saucepan of warmed milk and cook over low heat. Stir constantly and scrape the bottom with a spatula until the mixture thickens into a custard which thinly coats the back of the spatula.

4. Strain the custard into the heavy cream and stir the mixture until cooled. Add the vanilla extract (1 teaspoon [5ml] if you are using a vanilla bean; 3 teaspoons [15ml] if you are not using a vanilla bean) and refrigerate until thoroughly chilled, preferably overnight.

5. Remove the vanilla bean and freeze in an ice cream maker.

Brown Butter Pound Cake

19 tablespoons (9.5 oz) (275g) unsalted (sweet) butter
2 cups (200g) sifted cake flour (not self-rising; sift before measuring)
1 teaspoon (5g) baking powder
1/2 teaspoon (3g) salt
1/2 cup (110g) packed light brown sugar
1/3 (75g) cup granulated sugar
4 large eggs
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1. Preheat the oven to 325°F/160°C and put a rack in the center. Butter and flour a 9”x9” (23cmx23cm) square pan.

2. Place the butter in a 10” (25cm) skillet over medium heat. Brown the butter until the milk solids are a dark chocolate brown and the butter smells nutty. (Don’t take your eyes off the butter in case it burns.) Pour into a shallow bowl and chill in the freezer until just congealed, 15-30 minutes.

3. Whisk together cake flour, baking powder, and salt.

4. Beat the brown butter, light brown sugar, and granulated sugar in an electric mixer until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Beat in the eggs one at a time, mixing well, and then the vanilla extract.

5. Stir in the flour mixture at low speed until just combined.

6. Scrape the batter into the greased and floured 9”x9” (23cmx23cm) square pan. Smooth the top with a rubber spatula and rap the pan on the counter. Bake until golden brown on top and when a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, about 25 minutes.

7. Cool in the pan 10 minutes. Run a knife along the edge and invert right-side-up onto a cooling rack to cool completely.

Chocolate Glaze

9 ounces (250g) dark chocolate, finely chopped
1 cup (250 ml) heavy (approx 35% butterfat) cream
1 1/2 tablespoons (32g) light corn syrup, Golden syrup, or agave nectar
2 teaspoons (10ml) vanilla extract

Stir the heavy cream and light corn syrup in a small saucepan over medium heat until it comes to a boil. Remove from heat and add the dark chocolate. Let sit 30 seconds, then stir to completely melt the chocolate. Stir in the vanilla and let cool until tepid before glazing the petit fours.


Assembly Instructions

1. Line a 9”x9” (23cmx23cm) pan with plastic wrap, so that no sides of the pan are exposed and so there is some extra plastic wrap hanging off the sides. Spread 1 ¾ to 2 cups (450ml to 500ml) ice cream into the pan. Cover with more plastic wrap and freeze several hours.

2. Once the brown butter pound cake has completely cooled, level the top with a cake leveler or a serrated knife. Then split the cake in half horizontally to form two thin layers.

3. Unwrap the frozen ice cream. Flip out onto one of the layers of cake and top with the second layer of cake. Wrap well in plastic wrap and return to the freezer overnight.

4. Make the chocolate glaze (see above.)

5. While the glaze cools, trim ¾” (2cm) off each side of the ice cream cake to leave a perfectly square 7.5” (19cm) ice cream cake. Cut the cake into twenty five petit fours, each 1.5”x1.5” (4cmx4cm).

6. Glaze the petit fours one at a time: place a petit four on a fork and spoon chocolate glaze over it.

7. Place the petit fours on a parchment-lined baking sheet and return to the freezer for one hour.

Daring Bakers - Swiss Swirl Ice Cream Cake

When you're working 10-12 hours days, six days a week do you:

a) Enlist help from family and friends,

b) Say no to requests for time, desserts, favors, etc.,

c) Make sure you're eating right, sleeping enough and getting plenty of exercise, or

d) Join a new baking group, for which the challenges truly are challenging.

If you said d, you know me too well. Yes, it's official, I have lost my mind.

Daring Bakers caught my attention over a year ago. I kept seeing blog posts with these fantastic desserts that I wouldn't tackle on a good day. It seemed like an exclusive club of accomplished bakers, so I knew right away I wouldn't fit in. But as time went on, I wanted to challenge myself to more involved recipes and learn some new skills. When it was my turn to pick for Chocolate with Francois, I chose macarons and with some trial and error, managed to turn out some decent looking and delicious macarons. Emboldened, I emailed the powers that be and in due time got my reply. I'm in!

The July 2010 Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Sunita of Sunita's World - Life and Food. Sunita challenged everyone to make an ice-cream filled Swiss roll that's then used to make a bombe filled with hot fudge.

Sunita provided her recipes for the cake roll, ice creams and hot fudge but gave us the freedom to use our own recipes and play around with the flavors. We like chocolate and vanilla so I decided to stick with those. I used Dorie Greenspan's vanilla and chocolate ganache ice cream recipes from Baking From My Home to Yours, and I used my own hot fudge recipe, but I used Sunita's recipe for the Swiss cake roll and cream filling.

I made this recipe over two days, making the chocolate ganache ice cream and hot fudge sauce one day, and the other components and assembling the cake the next. I served it the day after it was assembled. As Sunita promised, none of the recipes were difficult, but the bombe did require lots of freezer time in between assembly steps.

This recipe made me so grateful for my standing freezer in the garage, which M. talked me into last year. The forum on the Daring Kitchen site had several comments from bakers who were more challenged by finding space in their freezers than they were by making the dessert.

The fun began when I started on the sponge cake and filling. The sponge couldn't be easier--whip eggs and sugar until they reach the ribbon stage, add the flour and cocoa (presifted), fold in and then add a couple tablespoons of boiling water. Divide evenly between two 9x11 pans (I used quarter-sheet pans, which are 9x13, because that's what I had). Fortunately, I have an extra bowl for my KitchenAid, so I weighed it on the scale empty and then weighed the bowl with the sponge batter. I then weighed the sheet pan, and added 1/2 of the batter by weight. If I eyeball it, my cakes end up very different heights.

My sponges baked for about 14 minutes at 400 degrees, longer than the recipe stated. After removing them from the oven, I lifted them out by their slings and flipped one onto a dish towel sprinkled with sugar. I then rolled the layer into the towel and left it on a rack to cool, then tackled the other layer. So far, so good.

I again employed the extra bowl to weigh the cream mixture for the filling and portioned it out for the two sponges. This is where things didn't exactly work the way I'd planned. As I unrolled the first sponge it stuck badly to the towel, breaking apart in one area. I didn't panic, thinking there's a reason they call these recipes challenges. Then I dumped on half of the cream as I realized, could it be, that my sponge had shrunk?!? There was such a thick layer of cream that as I rolled it, cream came gushing out the seam and through the little area that had broken. I wiped off the extra cream and moved on, using much less for the second roll, which didn't stick or break! Wrapped in plastic, they went off to the fridge as I contemplated the mounting pile of dirty dishes.

The hardest part was over. Now came the slicing, arranging the slices in the bottom of a big glass bowl, freezing, spreading the vanilla ice cream over the slices, freezing, pouring in the hot fudge, freezing, adding the chocolate ganache ice cream, freezing. Then the waiting.

Unless we wanted bombe for a midnight snack, this had to wait another night to be eaten.

We had this for dinner the next evening. As I have been working tons and am sick to boot, ice cream sounded soothing for my stomach. We each had two small slices, and found it delicious. That surprised me because neither of us like whipped cream. Freezing it made the texture completely different and less heavy than normal. The ultimate measure of success was when M. vetoed taking the leftovers to work.

Thanks, Sunita, for such a fun and delicious recipe!

The Swiss rolls (recipe by Sunita of Sunita's World - Life and Food)

Ingredients:
6 medium sized eggs
1 C / 225 grams caster sugar /8 oz + extra for rolling
6 TBS. / 45 grams/ a pinch over 1.5 oz of all purpose (plain) flour + 5 TBS. /40 gram / a pinch under 1.5 oz of natural unsweetened cocoa powder, sifted together
2 TBS. /30 ml / 1 fl oz of boiling water
a little oil for brushing the pans

For the filling:
2 C / 500 mls/ 16 fl oz of whipping cream
1 vanilla pod, cut into small pieces of about 1/2 cm (or 1 tsp vanilla extract)
5 TBS. / 70 grams / 2.5oz of caster sugar

Directions:
1. Pre-heat the oven at 200 deg C /400 deg F approximately. Brush the baking pans (11 inches by 9 inches) with a little oil and line with greaseproof baking paper. If you have just one pan, bake one cake and then let the pan cool completely before using it for the next cake.

2. In a large mixing bowl, add the eggs and sugar and beat till very thick; when the beaters are lifted, it should leave a trail on the surface for at least 10 seconds.

3. Add the flour mixture, in three batches and fold in gently with a spatula. Fold in the water.

4. Divide the mixture among the two baking pans and spread it out evenly, into the corners of the pans.

5. Place a pan in the center of the pre-heated oven and bake for about 10-12 minutes or till the center is springy to the touch.

6. Spread a kitchen towel on the counter and sprinkle a little caster sugar over it.

7. Turn the cake on to the towel and peel away the baking paper. Trim any crisp edges.

8. Starting from one of the shorter sides, start to make a roll with the towel going inside. Cool the wrapped roll on a rack, seam side down.

9. Repeat the same for the next cake as well.

10. Grind together the vanilla pieces and sugar in a food processor till nicely mixed together. If you are using vanilla extract, just grind the sugar on its own and then add the sugar and extract to the cream.

11. In a large bowl, add the cream and vanilla-sugar mixture and beat till very thick.

12. Divide the cream mixture between the completely cooled cakes.

13. Open the rolls and spread the cream mixture, making sure it does not go right to the edges (a border of 1/2 an inch should be fine).

14. Roll the cakes up again, this time without the towel. Wrap in plastic wrap and chill in the fridge till needed, seam side down.

Chocolate Ganache Ice Cream (adapted from Dorie Greenspan)
6 ounces of bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped
1 1/2 cups of heavy cream
1 cup of whole milk
4 large egg yolks
1/2 cup of sugar

Put the chocolate in a 2-quart liquid measuring cup or a large heatproof bowl. Bring 3/4 of the cream to a boil. Pour the cream over the chocolate and let it sit a minute, then, using a rubber spatula, and starting in the center of the mixture, slowly stir the cream into the chocolate in ever-widening concentric circles. When the ganache is smooth, set it aside.

Bring the milk and the remaining 3/4 cream to a boil in a medium heavy bottomed saucepan.

Meanwhile, in a medium bowl, whisk the yolks and sugar together until well blended and just slightly thickened. Still whisking, drizzle in about one third of the hot liquid-this will temper, or warm, the yolks so they won't curdle, Whisking all the while, slowly pour in the remaining liquid. Pour the custard back into the pan and cook over medium heat, stirring without stopping, until the custard thickens slightly and coats the back of a spoon: if you run your finger down the bowl of the spoon, the custard should not run into the track. The custard should reach at least 170 degrees F, but no more than 180 degrees F, on an instant-read thermometer (this took about 8-10 minutes on my stove.) Immediately remove the pan from the heat and slowly and gently stir the custard into the ganache. Refrigerate until cold, then churn in ice cream maker.

Vanilla Ice Cream (adapted from Dorie Greenspan)

2 cups whole milk
2 cups heavy cream
1 moist, plump vanilla bean, split and scraped, or 1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
6 large egg yolks
3/4 cup sugar

Bring milk and cream to a boil in a large heavy-bottomed saucepan. If you are using a vanilla bean, put the seeds and pod into the pan, cover and set aside for 30 minutes, then bring the milk and cream back to a boil before continuing. If you are using vanilla extract, wait until later to add it.

Meanwhile, in a medium bowl, whisk the yolks and sugar together until very well blended and just slightly thickened. Still whisking, drizzle in about one third of the hot liquid-this will temper, or warm the eggs so they won't curdle. Whisking all the while, slowly pour in the remaining liquid. Pour the custard back into the pan and cook over medium heat, stirring without stopping, until the custard thickens slightly and coats the back of a spoon; if you run your finger down the bowl of the spoon, the custard should not run into the track. The custard should reach at least 170°F, but no more than 180°F, on an instant-read thermometer. Immediately remove the pan from the heat and strain the custard into a 2-quart measuring cup or clean heatproof bowl. Discard the vanilla pod or if you are using vanilla extract, stir it in now.

Refrigerate the custard until chilled then churn it in an ice cream maker.

Rich Hot Fudge Sauce
3 oz bittersweet chocolate, chopped
1 1/3 sticks butter, cut into bits
1/2 c unsweetened cocoa powder, sifted
1/2 c sugar
1/2 c packed dark brown sugar
2/3 c heavy cream

In a heavy saucepan melt the chocolate and the butter over moderately low heat, stirring, then stir in the cocoa powder, butter, sugars and the cream (I usually mix the sugars and the cocoa together in a bowl with a fork, bypassing the sifting, and let the sugars melt in before adding the cream). Bring the mixture just to a boil, stirring, and simmer it until it is smooth and the sugar is dissolved (it should be glossy). Pour it into a 2 cup measuring cup or microwave safe decorative pitcher (I use either a small glass milk bottle or porcelain pitcher.) To reheat, microwave for about 15 seconds, swirl it around and repeat until it is quite warm but not hot.

Assembling the cake:

1. Cut the Swiss rolls into 20 equal slices (approximately 2 cms each).

2. Cover the bottom and sides of the bowl in which you are going to set the dessert with cling film/plastic wrap.

3. Arrange two slices at the bottom of the pan, with their seam sides facing each other. Arrange the Swiss roll slices up the bowl, with the seam sides facing away from the bottom, to cover the sides of the bowl. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and freeze till the slices are firm (at least 30 minutes).

4. Soften the vanilla ice cream. Take the bowl out of the freezer, remove the cling film cover and add the ice cream on top of the cake slices. Spread it out to cover the bottom and sides of the bowl. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and freeze till firm (at least 1 hour)

5. Add the fudge sauce over the vanilla ice cream, cover and freeze till firm. (at least an hour)

6. Soften the chocolate ice cream and spread it over the fudge sauce. Cover with plastic wrap and freeze for at least 4-5 hours till completely set.

7. Remove the plastic cover, and place the serving plate on top of the bowl. Turn it upside down and remove the bowl and the plastic lining. If the bowl does not come away easily, wipe the outsides of the bowl with a kitchen towel dampened with hot water. The bowl will come away easily.

8. Keep the cake out of the freezer for at least 10 minutes before slicing, depending on how hot your region is. Slice with a sharp knife, dipped in hot water.

Caramel or Fudge-Drenched Vanilla Cakes

Wendy of Pink Stripes chose this week's Tuesdays with Dorie recipe, rum-drenched vanilla cakes. We don't do alcohol so I had to figure out a way to take out the main flavor component and make this fabulous. The answer to any question, of course, is always chocolate. But I've learned that not everyone likes chocolate (I know, can you believe it?) So I made caramel sauce to go along for those who eschew chocolate.

I've posted my hot fudge and caramel recipes before so I won't go over the preparation for those again (but they're both fabulous, especially the hot fudge). I made these cakes, the hot fudge and caramel before I went to work. And I didn't get up at 3. That's how easy all of the recipes are.

In fact, the preparation was so easy and yummy that I hardly remember any details...and I just made this it week! I bypassed poking holes in the warm cakes and pouring the sauces over them, but I think they would be delicious with the caramel sauce infused into the cake. I'm going to try the recipe like that next time.

If you'd like to see what the other TWD bakers did with this one, you can find links to their posts here. And now for a self indulgent picture of Pearl and Joy:

Pearl (on the left) is 10 months old and Joy is a year old. It doesn't really show in this photo but Joy is dwarfed by Pearl.

TWD - Swedish Visiting Cake

I predict that unprecedented numbers of Tuesdays with Dorie bakers will make this one. Why?

1. It's easy
2. It uses ingredients you already have in your pantry
3. It was selected by Nancy at The Dogs Eat the Crumbs

I know I'm not the only blogger who finds Nancy's recipe insights (her n.o.e.'s notes) as valuable as the recipe itself. Nancy has saved me from making mistakes, given me ideas for flavor combinations and inspired me to make substitutions I wouldn't have dared to make. She encouraged me to join the Slow & Steady Subgroup of the Bread Baker's Apprentice challenge and thereby opened the door to my embracing and exploring yeast breads. She urged me to cook from my copy of Ad Hoc at Home, rather than keeping it on a shelf, by telling me how many recipes she's made and that Keller himself encouraged cooks to take the book into the kitchen and get it dirty.

So if Nancy had chosen a recipe that got every bowl, pan, whisk, spatula, and food processor attachment dirty and took three days to complete, I would have made it. But she chose a simple but flavorful cake that was a snap to prepare and had no leavening, enabling our bakers who observe Passover to make this and serve it at their Seders. That is so like Nancy, to always think about others and find ways to include them.

As I said, this recipe came together easily and fit nicely into my 9" cast iron skillet, which I buttered as though my life depended on it. I used a huge lemon off of my tree, and it fragranced the cake beautifully. This was a huge hit at work, though too small for all the 60+ people in the office to have a piece.

I will definitely make this one again, and although this recipe lends itself to many flavor combinations (like grapefruit, orange, lime, mocha, chai), my next version will substitute the scrapings from a vanilla bean and vanilla sugar. See, Nancy was the one who gave me the idea to make vanilla sugar. It seems fitting, doesn't it?

If you'd like to see what the other TWD bakers thought of this one, you'll find them all here. And if you want to give this easy, delicious cake a spin, Nancy will have the recipe here.

Dulce de Leche

Dulce de leche is one of those things that inspires rapture when mentioned. It's a sweet milky caramel that is typically made by some manner of boiling an unopened or pierced can of sweetened condensed milk for hours. It has to be watched carefully for if the water evaporates, the can can explode and spray sticky caramel all over your kitchen.

I was dubious about boiling cans for hours and the accompanying risk of disaster. I don't have such a great track record with such things so I spent a few minutes with my buddy Google. Sure enough, Alton Brown has a recipe for dulce de leche, and it doesn't involve cans of exploding sugary milk.

Here's the thing: making your own dulce de leche is easy. You only need four ingredients, and you might have all of them without a trip to the store. It does eliminate the excitement that comes with waiting for your can of sweetened condensed milk to explode but I'm willing to forego that to keep my kitchen clean.

Homemade Dulce de Leche - adapted from Alton Brown
Printable recipe

1 quart whole milk
1 1/2 cups (12 ounces) granulated sugar
1 vanilla bean, split and scraped
1/2 teaspoon baking soda

Combine the whole milk, sugar and vanilla bean in a 4 quart saucepan over medium heat. When the sugar melts and the mixture starts to boil, add the baking soda and lower the heat to low until the mixture is barely simmering. Cook for an hour, stirring occasionally (don't try to incorporate the foam that forms on the top of the milk). Remove the vanilla bean and continue to cook, stirring occasionally, until the mixture is a deep caramel color and has reduced to about 1 cup, about 1 1/2 - 2 hours. Pour through a fine mesh strainer into a measuring cup or clean container, cover and refrigerate for up to one month.

TWD - Split Level Pudding

This story has a good ending. Sometimes, you just need to know that up front.

Dorie's Split Level Pudding, chosen by Garrett at The Flavor of Vanilla, is a wonderful idea for flavor combiners. You get a layer of vanilla and you dip into a layer of chocolate.

Mine didn't go so well.

I cut the recipe in half. I took some shortcuts. There were some mishaps. I accidentally left out some steps and an ingredient. And it still turned out OK.

If I had done things right, it might have been a fine pudding. But doing things wrong, it was still pretty good.

The mistakes:

I used chocolate feves, and the cream (which I heated in the microwave) didn't melt them enough (which I didn't discover until we had them for dessert.) So it was a little like having chocolate slivers in the ganache part. No worries.

Still being lazy, I used the microwave to heat the milk and the sugar for the vanilla layer. I checked it often, stirred it from time to time and was way more vigilant than I normally am. Once the mixture started to bubble a little, I grabbed it out of the microwave and stirred it. That's when the boiling sugar at the bottom of the measuring cup turned it into a volcano of boiling milk and sugar. Which ran over my fingers, the counter, on the drawers, into the drawers, and all over the floor. For a moment, I thought "I should take a picture of this for my post," but then the pain started and I thought "IDIOT! You need to get your hand in ice water." Did I plunge my hand in cold water? Not yet. I cleaned up first. Fortunately, it was my left hand and I'm right handed. It was pretty painful and I spent most of the next several hours with my hand in an ice water bath. I still had a dessert to finish, but I won't kid you, I wasn't too focused. The milk and cornstarch went in out of order. I overcooked the pudding. I totally forgot to add the butter. And it was still good.

Thanks, Garrett, for picking a recipe that can be made with one hand in a bucket of ice. Having my hand in a bucket of ice made it hard to write last week's TWD post, but now you understand why I was abnormally brief.

If you'd like the recipe, check out Garrett's post. But follow the instructions, will you? Don't be like me.

TWD - Caramel Swirl and Coconut Macadamia Ice Creams

Lynne of Cafe LynnyLu chose this week's Tuesdays with Dorie recipe, vanilla ice cream. When the recipes were announced, I thought the bookends of the month, the first and last recipes, were a natural together. I planned to make the Tribute to Katharine Hepburn Brownies and serve them with scoops of vanilla ice cream.

Then peer pressure took over.

I started thinking, what will my fellow TWD-ers do with this recipe? It's practically a blank canvas, and Dorie's playing around suggestions encourage us to take off in many directions, including mix ins and swirl ins. I could have done one of those, but I had to do something different so that maybe you would stop here and go "Wow! Look what Leslie did with this! I never thought of making it with sriracha."

OK, maybe not that different. So I decided to make my caramel sauce (recipe to come), which is ridiculously easy, and swirl it in after the ice cream chilled some.

I made this ice cream on the same day I made the brownies. The high that day was 102, we don't have air conditioning, and I appreciated this one didn't require turning the oven on.

Until I decided toasted macadamias and toasted coconut would be perfect compliments to the rich vanilla base. The oven went back on.

The custard base was super simple. The star players were heavy cream and whole milk with a vanilla bean (its vanilla caviar, as Gail Gand would say, stripped out and added to the mixture). Egg yolks added richness and stabilized the mixture; the custard was cooked until it thickened slightly. Once cooled, the custard is churned in an ice cream maker.

As I poured the churned mixture, still soft and bursting with flecks of vanilla, into two separate containers, I put aside the dasher to taste once the ice cream was safely in the freezer.

Oh. My. I wanted to climb in the freezer and be with it, it was that good. Better, yes indeed, than the Bouchon vanilla ice cream I made a few years ago. So good, I didn't want to serve it with the brownies. Or add anything that would take away from its pure vanilla flavor. But I did.

The caramel was swirled in after the ice cream froze for a half hour. I may have been a little heavy handed with the caramel, but I knew the vanilla base could stand up to the aggressive bite of the bitter caramel sauce.

Then I chopped the toasted macadamias and added them and the toasted coconut to the other half of the base. Mix lightly and back in the freezer for both flavors.

Then wait. Waiting is hard.

Sneak a bite...

After tasting the caramel swirl, I knew the coconut macadamia could never live up to it. The caramel was rich and almost bitter from being taken practically to the edge of burning before the cream was added. No namby pamby sweet caramel for me. It lends a complexity that the vanilla plays up without competing with it. This ice cream is some of the best I have ever eaten.

Sneak a bite of the other flavor...

Impossible. The saltiness of the macadamias (which I accidentally left in the oven a bit too long, until they were brown) and the sweet toasted coconut with the rich vanilla backdrop made a flavor as subtle and complex as the caramel was in-your-face.

Not to overstate it, but this recipe blew me away. As written, it's the very best vanilla ice cream you could ever hope to eat or make. But when you let your imagination carry you away, it's transformed from the star to a supporting role. Your flavors can shine because the foundation is solid.

I never thought I could make great ice cream, but Dorie has taught me I can make a lot of great things. All it takes is the right teacher, and letting your mind wander until you find the flavors that speak to you.

If you'd like the recipe, check out Lynne's blog. Or better yet, buy the book. We're cooking from Baking From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan. It's filled with amazing, fun and even some challenging recipes that will increase your baking repertoire.