RHC: Cranberry Crown Cheesecake

I may be suffering from Heavenly Cake withdrawal--it's been two weeks since I baked from RHC. Last week's post was on a cake baked the first week in December, and this week's seasonal cheesecake seemed like a good contribution for my office holiday party potluck those two weeks ago. There was lots of other cooking and baking going on, just no Heavenly Cakes. I'm ready for those Chocolate Bull's-Eye Cakes! First, though, I'd better write up the cheesecake.

The first decision was whether to make the ladyfingers, or just use store-bought ones, or go with the no-crust option. After some pondering I decided to make them, partly because that way I could make a one-piece base for the cake and partly to reinforce my ladyfinger skills, newly gained when making the Lemon Canadian Crown.


The ladyfingers again came off smoothly, baked a couple of days before I needed to assemble the cheesecake. They did get sticky when stored in plastic wrap, and as I messed up a little and had to reposition the ring of ladyfingers around my springform pan because I forgot to grease it, I lost the pretty appearance of pristine ladyfingers. However, it didn't seem to matter--three people remarked that they thought the resulting cheesecake looked store-bought. Or maybe a few damaged patches are just to be expected, store-bought or no. :)




The cheesecake itself was extremely simple to mix up. One mixing bowl, beating first cream cheese and sugar, then adding eggs, then lemon juice, vanilla, and salt, then the large amount of sour cream. That's it--the batter is ready. When it came to pouring the batter into the prepared pan, I had too much cheesecake for my height of ladyfingers. I could have left them untrimmed and perhaps been able to fit all the batter in, though the rounded bottom might have left some gaps. However, I made a mini-cheesecake with leftover ladyfingers in a large custard cup, which let the family get a couple of bites each for tasting since the full-sized version went to the office party.


I baked it in a springform pan slid into a silicon pan (purchased cheap at a discount store), so no worries about water leaks into the springform. I was a little worried that the cheesecake might not be done, as you bake it for a specified time then leave it in the oven for another hour before opening the oven and removing the cake. At that point I did check the temperature, and the cheesecake was still at the lower end of the 'it's done' range so I felt safe taking it to the office party. The last step was to make the cranberry topping--cranberries and sugar with some cornstarch for thickening, cooked long enough to get the cranberries to pop. The results were festively red, and a nicely balanced level of sweetness.

I presliced the cheesecake before taking it to the office party, but didn't try to extract a piece for a "slice of cake" shot. I thought perhaps there would be a few pieces left afterwards (the office potluck tends to be well-supplied with sweets), but when I went to help with the cleanup, there was only a pile of crumbs in the center of the platter. I didn't get any detailed comments, but "good cheesecake" got repeated a lot. From my tasting of the mini-version, I agree. With a lot of sour cream to the cream cheese amount, this is a light-textured cheesecake with a nice hint of lemon flavor, nicely set off by the cranberry topping. Good cheesecake!

RHC: Tiramisù

Tiramisù is another "catch-up-with-Marie" recipe--she baked it in July 2009 before the bake-along started in October 2009. I'd never tackled tiramisù before--I've had it in restaurants several times, but it was never a huge personal favorite and I never was drawn to making it myself. Maybe that was because each time it seemed different: a mushed up trifle sort of thing, an almost firm, close to cheesecake thing, strongly coffee, barely coffee, this is a recipe that can come out a number of ways.

I took advantage of my frozen half-recipe of homemade ladyfingers left over from the Lemon Canadian Crown, and decided to make a half recipe of tiramisù. The most complicated and time consuming part (and it was not very) was making a light custard flavored with marsala which involved beating egg yolks, sugar, and the marsala over simmering water and not ending up with scrambled marsala-flavored eggs. Maybe there was a little cooked egg yolk on the rim of the pan, but mostly I had a light fluffy egg mixture when the temperature hit the target of 165 degrees. Once the custard cooled down it was added to beaten marscapone, and then all folded in with whipped cream. I do have to stick in this shot of the pans I assembled as my "equipment mise en place" before getting started--this recipe does need a lot of dishes for all the components, and that's not counting what it took to make the ladyfingers. (Which I could have bought, after all.)


The luscious dairy layer is layered with the ladyfingers, which are dipped quickly in espresso syrup. Coffee-flavored ladyfingers on the bottom, then a layer of the marscapone mixture, then more ladyfingers, and the rest of the marscapone. Sprinkle on cocoa or grate on some bittersweet chocolate (that's what I did, or more like, what I had younger niece do), and then let the whole thing sit in the fridge for the flavors to meld.

The tiramisù was the second dessert option at one of sister-in-law's Hanukkah parties, and it was a big hit. Nancy W. (who considers herself something of a tiramisù connoisseur due to frequent tasting of restaurant versions) really liked this one, especially the noticeable coffee flavors and the good balance of ladyfingers to marscapone. Older niece really liked it, Sam W. and Claire W. did as well, and sister-in-law demanded that I get rid of any leftovers before she got home on Monday so as to not have the temptation around. The dissenter was younger niece, who thought the ladyfingers were too soggy with the espresso syrup. She likes the coffee flavor, but disliked the texture. That's certainly one of the tricky parts of putting this dessert together, as a couple of seconds too long and you can have ladyfinger mush in your pan of syrup. Even if things don't go too far as you soak, there's still a measure of personal preference in how the tiraamisù components are put together, so perhaps you can't expect to please everyone with a single version.

RHC: Financier-Style Vanilla Bean Pound Cakes

Cake-of-the-week is back in the baby cakes chapter of Rose's Heavenly Cakes, with a mini pound cake baked in financier molds. I confess I don't remember the Mini Vanilla Bean Pound Cakes we baked back in July or the classic financiers from September well enough to "compare and contrast" with my taste buds--it's nice to have the blog entries to help.


This is not a true pound cake, as it uses egg whites only. While I miss the richness the egg yolks bring, I did get to pull a baggie of whites from the freezer--things have been heavy on the yolk side lately, I guess. I used my new vanilla bean paste for the first time, substituting for both the actual bean and the vanilla extract. (I didn't miss the task of trying to slice a somewhat shriveled vanilla bean in half, then scraping at the itty bitty seeds.) The batter mixes up very quickly, and as the recipe warned it did indeed look a little curdled when done. I did
measured out the ounce of batter into each financier mold squeezing from a zip-top plastic bag, trying to reduce my usual amount of slop over the top of the pan....but alas, it didn't help much. I ended up with 12 cakelets instead of the 10 promised by the recipe, nicely filling one financier mold.

My cakelets baked unevenly as this pan seems to do--one side of each cakelet rises higher than the other, sometimes enough to curl over slightly. Perhaps I need to rotate the pan halfway through to see if this might be due to uneven oven heating. The cakelets only browned slightly by the time they were done.


Tasting results were somewhat mixed, but this cakelet didn't wow anyone. My brother and I found it unremarkable, and I'll add that I prefer a tighter crumb on pound cake, (as almost always) would like it a little moister. Maybe the egg-white-only batter gave the larger crumb to this recipe. Older niece, noting that vanilla isn't among her favorite flavors but she does prefer vanilla bean to plain vanilla, found that this didn't say "vanilla bean" to her. Younger niece concurred. Older niece also found it a little dry and needing the accompanying glass of milk she got, and felt raspberries and whipped cream would greatly improved it. (I think everyone in the family agrees that raspberries and whipped cream enhance almost anything. Oh, and fudge sauce....) Nephew gave the most comments, saying it was moist and flavorful, but a little 'hard'--perhaps the cakelet, two days after baking, didn't hold well. Overall, this one was not a big hit. Based on my blog entries, I think the classic financier is the keeper of these three similar cakelets.

RHC: Chocolate Velvet Fudge Cake and Black Chocolate Party Cake

It's Hanukkah this weekend, and my sister-in-law enjoys having a party or two during the holiday. This year it was 2 parties, one Saturday and one Sunday, and I took the opportunity to do a direct comparison of two unfrosted chocolate butter cakes that are presented back-to-back in Rose's Heavenly Cakes. The Chocolate Velvet Fudge Cake is the official cake-of-the-week, and the Black Chocolate Party Cake is one Marie baked before the bake-along got started. These cakes are similar is a lot of ways: both chocolate (duh!), both on the quick and easy list, both butter cakes, both use whole eggs, and both made with cocoa. The Chocolate Velvet Fudge Cake can be considered the base "chocolate butter cake", and the Black Chocolate Party Cake adds the variations: ground walnuts added to the batter, sour cream instead of water, turbinado sugar instead of superfine, and AP flour instead of cake. The last fillip for the Black Chocolate Party Cake is to brush it with a cocoa syrup while it is still hot.

I made the Black Chocolate Party Cake first. My only problems were related to using a new-to-me tube pan, a carousel pan that I think I bought because it was bundled with another one on eBay. The pan design is problematic for most baking, probably, because it produces a fairly thin edge of cake at the outer rim, guaranteed to over-bake--mine was noticeably too dark, though I didn't get any burnt taste. Then there were the issues produced by the cake-flipping called for in this recipe--the cake is turned out hot onto a plastic-wrap-lined plate so you can coat it with the cocoa syrup and not fling syrup dribbles all over your presentation plate. (Nonetheless I managed to fling syrup dribbles over myself and my counter. Maybe I should have covered more things with plastic wrap...) Once the cake is cool, the concept is that you turn the cake over onto a working plate, peel off the plastic wrap, then turn it again right-side-up onto the presentation cake plate. Alas, the carousel cake has a fairly narrow crown and a broad base. Flipping it onto the narrow crown, even for a minute or so, gave me a somewhat shorter, more compressed cake than I started with. I should have turned it back into the cake pan for support, and taken the risk of having some of the cocoa-coated cake stick to the pan.

After that, the Chocolate Velvet Fudge Cake was a snap. Like several other Heavenly Cake Bakers whose blogs I've already read, I used the dramatic Heritage Bundt pan. I had intended to make the large marzipan candle (candle, Hanukkah, you get it) for an accent, but alas ran out of time before the party started. OK, I used that time productively, as I made Monica's Asparagus Tart with Prosciutto as an appetizer--it got rave reviews, too, though I rather rushed next door with it after the guests had already arrived. I do think a fat marzipan candle would look great in the center of the Heritage Bundt cake pattern.

Both chocolate cakes were well received. The folks next door, who got to taste both, preferred the cake with walnuts, as it was a little moister. Or perhaps it was the coffee cream (borrowed from the recipe for Sybil's Pecan Torte) that added just the extra it needed. I served the velvet Fudge Cake without accompaniment, see above re: running out of time. As is my nearly constant refrain, both cakes were just a touch drier than we prefer, so my brother's comment about needing Coffee Cream to go with cake #2 was not just a plea for more whipped cream.

The remainder of the two cakes went in to the office today, giving my usual cake-of-the-week testers a chance to compare and contrast. There really weren't any negative comments on the pair, and when I asked people to pick between the two I got one vote for the Velvet Fudge, two for the Party Cake, and one who refused to choose. (That was about all the Party Cake that was left, as it was served at the larger Hanukkah party. Everyone else just got Velvet Fudge Cake.) I'd vote for the Chocolate Party Cake, myself--I think it's a little moister, and the cocoa syrup maybe puts the chocolate taste more front and center. The syrup did not, on my cake at least, give glistening coating like the picture in the book. I suspect some food stylist brushed the cold cake with extra syrup for dramatic effect. <g>

RHC: Ladyfingers and Lemon Canadian Crown

I was traveling over Thanksgiving, which made my cake-of-the-week for the Heavenly Cake Bakers switch from a centerpiece dessert for the big meal to a half-size version stuck in at the tail end of the weekend. That's a pity, because this is a lovely party (or holiday) dessert. Even better, it can be completely made ahead of time and frozen for up to 3 weeks. I'm making notes for some future occasion--this cake will be made again. Another advantage is that the cake can be made in stages, and I used that to squeeze it in after returning from my Thanksgiving trip. (The Folks Next Door and I went to older brother's house in North Carolina. We carried up the cranberry-orange relish and the squash-cheese casserole and I helped with some cooking and made the turkey chowder while there, but it was nice to not be a principal cook for the big meal for a change.)


Before I left, I tackled the ladyfingers. These can probably be bought somewhere in Atlanta, though I've never noticed them in the stores. (I suspect that's because I've never looked.) I found them surprisingly easy to make. I did start by watching Rose's video on YouTube as a warm-up for piping ladyfingers, and that was very helpful in figuring out the cookbook instructions on drawing guidelines for the piping. My finished ladyfingers were a little undersized as I didn't have a pastry tube quite as large as the 3/4" specified (and I didn't squeeze my pastry bag as much as Rose did in the video), but that is all to the good as I planned to use them for two half-sized cakes: this week's Lemon Canadian Crown, and Tiramisù. I didn't even have as much trouble as I expected with the piping, and by the time my ladyfingers were baked, they looked, well, not like store-bought, but pretty darn good. Once baked and cooled, I wrapped the ladyfingers and my 6" disk (for the cake base) up in heavy-duty plastic wrap and popped them all into the freezer.


I constructed the half-size Lemon Canadian Crown in a 6" springform pan, which is a little less than half the capacity of the 9" pan called for. The smaller diameter made it somewhat hard to fit in even my smaller ladyfingers, but with a little pressing against the side of the pan the ladyfingers eventually formed a lining. Next was to wedge in the trimmed ladyfinger disk for the base, and that helped hold the sides up once in place. The lined pan then got stuck in the freezer while I made the filling.

The filling is a lemon curd made with whipping cream instead of butter. My curd took much longer than specified to thicken--about 40 minutes, not 15. The temperature stayed low even when the curd started to thicken, and I finally went with the consistency test even though temp was only 170. Strained into a large glass bowl, the curd cooled quickly, and then I folded in softly whipped cream. This mixture went into the ladyfinger shell and back into the freezer. Not all the filling would fit in the prepared pan, so I grabbed 3" soufflé molds, cut more ladyfingers in half to make an outer ring to line the sides, and filled them with the leftover lemon. In the little soufflés there was much more ladyfinger to the amount of lemon, and I ended up with 4 mini desserts.

The last step once the lemon is completely frozen is to make a meringue, spread it to cover the frozen filling, then run the cake briefly under the broiler to brown the meringue. Once that was done it was back to freezer to let the frozen parts recover from the heat blast.

Tasting results: My brother thought the ratio of ladyfingers to filling was skewed too far toward ladyfingers, but we both thought that was a problem of the half-size version, and a 9" cake would be fine. Older niece devoured one of the soufflé dish versions and departed for her homework without comment. Younger niece ate the meringue first because she didn't like it much, then finished the rest with appreciative notes. Nephew thought the ladyfingers were too dry (it was his first encounter with plain ladyfingers, not buried in tiramisù) and left the base uneaten. Personally this is right down my alley, nicely lemony, not too sweet--a lovely dessert.

RHC: Chocolate Génoise with Whipped Peanut Butter Ganache

This should be an easy cake, at least now that I'm fairly comfortable with génoise. However, things just didn't go my way with this week's cake-of-the-week. The génoise was not too bad, the main flaw being that as usual, my batter didn't have the full expected volume. I think I've got a two-fold problem. First is that I need to continue to work on my folding technique so I don't lose the lovely volume from the beaten eggs. Second is speed--I think I'm folding too long (see #1), then also being too compulsive about scraping all the batter into the pan and otherwise dallying while getting the cake into the oven. I need to work on that TV chef style where utensils and pans with lots of the ingredients covering them are tossed willy-nilly into the sink, while the chef moves on in the recipe.

All that aside, I did get the chocolate génoise baked, and prepared the syrup with Chambord. (Unlike several Heavenly Cake Bakers, I had a dusty bottle in my liquor cabinet from some long-ago baking endeavor so didn't have to break the bank to get a new bottle.) Then it was on to the peanut butter whipped ganache. This should also have been simple--ganache has no terrors for me, and this recipe is just ganache with some peanut butter added, then whipped. Well, it was the whipping part that did for me. I carefully checked the temperature, but nonetheless when I started to whisk the mixture it seemed impossible to get soft peaks. I continued whisking and ended up with a grainy ganache. Rose says such a ganache can be rescued by re-melting it then beating it again, and indeed when I remelted it and got it to the right temperature it looked just like it had when I started. Unfortunately, it also once again never produced anything like soft peaks and quickly turned grainy. I gave up and frosted my syruped génoise with it anyway. It did have a nice light texture, so all that was affected (as far as I could tell) was the appearance.

Tasting results: not many opinions from the home front this week. Personally I thought it was good, with a nice light texture and well-balanced flavors. Peanut butter can be very "in your face", but this one is nicely balanced with the chocolate. However, it's still a génoise, and I strongly prefer butter cakes, especially the dense pound-cake styles. As far as the folks next door--sister-in-law and older niece dislike peanut butter and declined to taste (SIL did try a nibble, and found the PB to be at a very objectionable level). Younger niece tasted and declined any more. Nephew, a PB fan, presumably ate the piece I sent over to him but I didn't get a report. My brother didn't ask for any (and I forgot to offer it)--actually, I'm not sure how he feels about PB.

Office opinions: a big hit. My supervisor called it the best cake-of-the-week he'd had. (He does have a limited sample size, as his office isn't on my regular Cake Distribution Route. <g>) P, who hadn't had a cake-of-the-week before, loved it (he started out asking if it was a mix, and the concept of frosting not from a can seemed rather foreign to him), as did B and V. C, like me, prefers the butter cakes and gave it an "OK". Still, I think we'll call it a success.

Clay's Multi-Grain Sourdough Sandwich Bread from KAF

Despite the high reaching almost 70 today, my brain has moved to "winter" mode and my cooking urges reflect it. I'm making soups, comfort food casseroles, and baking bread--more than the weekly challah, that is.

Today's bread is from a recent King Arthur Flour blog post (or just see the recipe), which also inspired me to go revive my rather evil looking sourdough starter. After feeding it yesterday I left it out overnight, and today it was very bubbly and ready to go. Don't know if it was the freshly revved up starter or other substitutions I made, but this bread didn't much resemble the description in the KAF writeup.

First let me document the substitutions: I used more whole wheat flour than called for (3 oz. instead of 2), reducing the AP flour. I don't have the "KA Whole-Grain Bread Improver" but added some vital wheat gluten instead--I see on further research that the bread improver is a mix of vital wheat gluten and soy flour, mostly. And I don't have the KA Harvest Grains Blend, so I mixed some poppy, flax, and sunflower seeds into a little Bob's Red Mill 5-Grain Cereal blend, which is an oat/wheat based hot cereal. Seemed close enough.

What was different? Well, I needed a good bit less AP flour than the minimum in the recipe, and then added more water during the knead as the dough didn't look nearly as wet as the blog pictures. OK, it's winter, and we're dealing with a sourdough starter with variable water amounts, so I give that a pass. But then it says "Cover the dough, and allow it to rise for 1 1/2 to 2 hours; it'll become puffy, though it may not double in bulk." Mine was tripled in a little over an hour when I first checked on it. On the second rise I let it get about 1-1/2" above the pan (and again it was much faster than the recipe), and it was over-risen and sank some on baking. Last thing was the texture, but here we're definitely in the subjective realm. They said "chewy texture of an artisan loaf", I'd say it's got a little more structure than a sandwich bread. Or maybe I just don't eat anything but artisan breads these days, if you don't count the whole-wheat challah.

Despite all that, it's a nice loaf of bread. Very light on the "multi-grain" bit, so I'd probably up the whole-wheat flour even more if I make it again, especially as it's clear the loaf has plenty of spring to handle it. The character could be varied quite a lot by using different seeds and grains for the Harvest Grains Blend.