MY NEW BAKING TOOL - Flex Edge Beater!

I am so in love with my newest baking tool.  I have been watching for the KitchenAid brand of this new tool for the stand mixer...a flex edge beater that scrapes the bowl while mixing.  What a DIFFERENCE this makes with batters!  I rarely need to scrape anything down in the bowl any more.  It's awesome!

I saw a couple of other styles - different brands - but I really wanted the KitchenAid brand product...and it was well worth waiting for the right tool.  It costs under $30 and it works like a champ.  Beating butter and sugar...never scraped down once and nothing stuck down in the middle of the bowl...I used it to make royal icing after beginning with the whisk...wow, did it really do the job quickly.  Used it for sugar cookie dough - it worked beautifully.  I'm so impressed because I'm used to scraping several times.

Butter and sugar being creamed - worked great!

The one thing to watch out for is that it does throw the ingredients up higher in the bowl...so I don't know what it would be like for a double recipe.  Be careful if you have a very liquidy ingredient...start off slow.  I made a double recipe of royal icing and it did fine...but that is not a large volume deal.  Double cookie dough?  I don't know...but I'll be trying it!

This whips the batter up higher on the bowl sides as you can see

I have wanted one of these for a while...but the reviews for the "other brands" that worked with a KitchenAid stand mixer all said the rubber pieces fell off or the plastic cracked.  This little product is, like all of the KitchenAid beaters, made of coated metal and is dishwasher safe.  I haven't put mine in the dishwasher yet.  All the reviews say that they do though.  I haven't found a bad review yet!  I have an Artisan tilt-head mixer...it works great on this workhorse mixer!

If you don't have one yet, it is a wonderful addition to your kitchen tool arsenal.

My next purchase is going to be the KitchenAid glass bowl.  I like being able to see through the bowl to how well blended my ingredients are.  Can't wait!

Bon Appetit, Y'all!!!

KITCHEN GADGET - Rolling Pin Rings

You've seen me post, multiple times, that I have trouble rolling a smooth dough.  I get hills and valleys, lumps and bumps....wreaks havoc on my sugar cookie cutouts, resulting in icing flowing off the edges and other unsightly blemishes.

A friend suggested getting some flat pieces of wood as "markers" like she used to do when rolling out clay in her art studio.  Another friend said her mom gave her some rolling pin rings.  I asked my hubby to pick up some wood trim pieces at 1/4 inch and 1/2 inch thickness if he could find them and then I ran across some rolling pin rings on Amazon.  They look like big rubber bands and had various depths, so I ordered them.

I was glad that the 3 smallest rings did fit easily on my French dowel rolling pin...but because of the slope on the end of the pin, they don't roll out dough "as measured" on the instructions. 

You can see the slope of a French dowel causes the rings
to attach at different "depths"

The worse part was the ring that was supposed to roll at 3/8" requires you to put the 1/4" ring on first and then put the 3/8" ring on top of it (making a stacked ring) and the actual thickness is 5/8, not 3/8 as advertised.  As soon as I applied pressure, the outer ring popped off anyway...so it's pretty useless for a thicker roll-out.

The two rings together measure 5/8" - the white can't be used independently for 3/8"

You can see that at the thickest point of the rolling pin
the largest ring just hangs loosely

When pressure applied to roll - this is what happened

These were packaged by 3C Systems, Inc. out of Wynnewood, PA.  The Amazon link said they were Regency Wraps Rolling Hills Rolling Pin Rings (whew, what a name).  The colors are different and the packaging was different than displayed on the Amazon web page...hmmm.  They cost $6.39 for the package.  Since I threw the packaging away, I really can't return them.  I'll use the 3 smaller sizes...but the largest is useless.  I make thicker sugar cookies because I decorate them and don't want them to break...this is not going to do the trick!

I do have a silicone rolling pin - but it is quite large and these would never fit on it...even the white one.

Another issue I noted with rolling pin rings...To get a large amount of dough even - you have to keep the rings on the board and off the dough...so your dough round or your dough square could be no wider than 11 to 13 inches, (if using a dowel) depending on the thickness (how far onto the dowel the ring goes to be stable).  Frankly, I doubt these were ever intended to fit on a French rolling pin...it said a "standard" rolling pin...but these days...what is a standard rolling pin's length and circumference?  There are so many choices!!!

Hate it when something doesn't work the way I expect and I've thrown away the packaging.  Live and learn!

Bon Appetit, Y'all!

ANGEL FOOD CAKE - FIRST TIME EVER!

Many things came together to urge me to make my first Angel Food Cake.  Martha Stewart recently did a Martha Bakes show on Angel Food Cake, which made it look "not so hard".  Also, I'm a big fan of Stephanie Jaworski's web site JoyofBaking.com and one of her newest videos is her demonstration of making an Angel Food Cake.  Her videos are very complete and educational in my opinion.  She shows how things should look along the way.  I'm a very visual kind of person...like to see how things are supposed to look when I've never made them...and that means the steps along the way.  Lastly, but certainly, not the least important, the teen and I were talking about cake last night.  He wanted to know what this weird looking pan was that I had purchased.  I got a very inexpensive tube cake pan last week in the hopes of making an Angel Food Cake in my near future.  I explained why it needed a special pan and he said "I like those cakes...they are very light...they are good"...with a winningly hopeful look on his face.  I told him maybe I'd make one when his Dad came home this week-end.  So, here it is Friday and I've got a cake in the oven!

OK - onward with the recipe.  I looked up several different recipes...frankly they were all fairly similar.  I watched Stephanie's video 3 times for technique...and I got busy.  While I was surfing the net and watching the video, I had a dozen egg whites sitting waiting for me.  They need to be at room temperature.  Be careful...I was brave and separated them all together...i.e., I cracked the egg, let the egg white drop out and did the back and forth deal with the shell halves and dumped the yolks in a separate bowl.  I almost messed up on the 10th egg...I broke the yolk on the 3rd exchange and if I hadn't had fast hands I would have ruined all of those egg whites with a single drop of yellow yolk.  Adrenaline racing, I moved fast and dumped the yolk and shells into the sink.  Even then, my 12 egg whites totalled up to a small bit over the 1 1/2 cups required.  Whew.  Eggs have gone up in price so it would have been bad to have screwed them up.  Of course, we would have just had a big frittata if I HAD messed up...as I would have simply re-mixed the yolks into the whites and breakfast would have been good! 

Anyway, moving on...the timer just went off and I pulled the cake.  I'm excited to say it looks beautiful!!!  Now it has to cool, upside down, for 2 hours, so I have plenty of time to get this blog finished.

ANGEL FOOD CAKE
Primarily followed the recipes on
JoyofBaking.com and MarthaStewart.com

Ingredients:

1 1/4 cup sifted cake flour
3/4 cup granulated sugar to combine with flour
3/4 cup granulated sugar to add to soft peak egg whites
1 1/2 cup egg whites (room temperature) - about 12 large eggs
1 teaspoon cream of tartar (helps stabilize this large volume of egg whites)
1/2 teaspoon sea salt - fine grain
1 tablespoon fresh squeezed lemon juice
1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract

Method:

Place top rack in center of oven.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees and get out a two-piece tube pan (aka angel food cake pan) and have it at the ready.  Do not oil it or prep it in any way.  Just make sure it is clean and dry.  Also ensure all of your equipment (whisk, bowls, spatula) are completely oil free and clean and dry

Set out all of your ingredients.

sugar for egg whites, vanilla, lemon, salt, cream of tartar...ready

Sift the cake flour into a bowl.  Sift 3/4 cup of sugar into the sifted cake flour.  Sift the two together, into a separate bowl.  I know it is dirtying up a couple of bowls, but they are easily rinsed and set to drain without having to do a big washing.

Cake Flour and Sugar sifted and re-sifted

Separately, sift the 3/4 cup sugar you will use in the egg whites to make meringue.  No lumps desired!
Sift the cream of tartar (I used a tea strainer and a ramekin).  Get your salt and vanilla out with the appropriate measuring implements.  Squeeze your lemon, remove the seeds if any; again I used a ramekin.

Eggs are ready if you did all that earlier as you should have - so they are at room temperature.

beginning to whisk egg whites

Start by placing the egg whites into the stand mixer bowl with whisk attachment and set it to low-medium for about 3 minutes until egg whites begin to get foamy.  Add the cream of tartar and the salt and the lemon juice.  Raise speed to medium and whip for several minutes until you are at soft peaks.  The egg whites will peak, but flop over at this point.  Begin adding, with the mixer running, the 3/4 cup sugar - one tablespoon at a time.  Allow each tablespoon of sugar to incorporate. 

Volume growing and almost at soft peak stage

I raised the speed after all that was in and I stopped and scraped it down with the whisk attachment.  Continue beating until firm peaks form and sugar can no longer be felt when you rub a bit of the mixture between you thumb and index finger.  Keep mixing until you don't feel graininess.  This can take several minutes.  Then, add your vanilla.  Whisk until incorporated.  Your egg whites should be glossy and hold a very nice peak.

beautiful peak in bowl - nice and glossy

Now that's a perfect peak!

Remove bowl from stand and sift AGAIN, 1/4 of the flour/sugar mixture on top of the meringue.  Carefully fold into meringue (don't beat, be gentle...fold).  Sift the next 1/4 of flour/sugar, fold...the next 1/4, fold...and the final bits...be sure to sift...be sure to gently fold.  Try not to deflate your egg whites although I found I did deflate a bit...but very little.  This is proven out by my very nicely risen cake!

Flour/sugar combo sifted in 1/4 batches to be folded in

Batter complete and ready to put in pan

Gently scoop the batter into the tube pan...it will not leak, if it does, you've done something wrong.
Spread the batter evenly making sure all sides touch and then run a sharp knife twice around the center of the cake batter to ensure no big bubble holes are in the batter.  Re-smooth and place in oven on top rack you have placed in center of oven.  Make sure you pre-heated the oven!

In oven - ready to roll!

 Bake 40-45 minutes (took mine 40 minutes) and a cake tester in the center of the "round" should come out clean.  There will be cracks on the top of your cake.  They all do.

Cracked top - no problem - it is supposed to be this way.
Look how high it rose!

When done, remove from oven and, if your pan has legs on it, place it upside down to cool.  If your pan does not have legs, put the "cone" on top of an upside down flat bottomed glass (balancing act) or, an empty wine bottle works great too.  You must cool the cake upside down or it will sink in on itself.  It won't fall out of the pan...in fact, you basically have to cut it out of the pan.  Cool at least 2 hours.

My pan has the little feet for it to rest on upside down
and allow air flow for cooling and prevention of sinking into itself

Once cake is completely cool, take a very sharp, long, thin knife (or thin metal spatula) and run it along the side of the cake, cutting it away from the side - go around twice to be sure.  Also, do this around the cone portion.  If the stars are aligned and all is well in your world, you should be able to push up on the bottom of the cake pan and it will lift right out. 

Sides cut free - pan removed - no problem

Next, you need to slide a knife between the bottom of the cake and the pan and cut it loose.  Slow, careful, sharp implement will make it easy (we all hope - I used a steak knife for the bottom and kept the tip at the cone). 

From the top - cut around the cone and this is the bottom side up.
Good removal - easier than I thought!

If you are confused, watch Stephanie Jaworski's video...she demonstrates getting it out of the pan very nicely.

You can't use a non-stick pan for this...the meringue needs to "climb" up the side of the pan.  Non-stick means it just sits in the pan and doesn't rise up.

Plate it either upside down or right side up...whatever you like.  I like it upside down because that's what I'm used to.  I put the cake plate upside down on the cone and gently turned it over.  Plop, perfectly centered landing on the cake plate! <she dances a little jig>

The teen asked for some whipped cream with his cake...I'll be macerating some nice strawberries with sugar and a splash of Lemoncello for serving after our Shrimp Alfredo for Saturday night dinner.  Since I'll probably post this Saturday morning, I'll have to add service photos later if I remember to take them!

This was not as hard as I thought it would be.  If the smell is anything to go by (and the taste of the crumbs that I scraped up and sampled)...this is going to be a truly heavenly cake!  Really yummy :-)

Bon Appetit, Y'all!!!

Small Oven - No Oven?

I was watching a House Hunters International show on HGTV earlier this week and they were talking about how many European and tropical Caribbean homes have no ovens.  This was not new news to me...but it really struck me because all of the next 5 days I will be baking cookies and other holiday goodies...and almost every single item requires an oven.  Yikes...how do you do without?  Even if you have an oven...what if it is small, like a toaster oven?  Are there counter top ovens that can bake a good cookie?  I switched over to the Martha Stewart Show, which I had DVR'd earlier...and had to laugh - there was a Breville "Smart Oven" being touted as being able to bake cookies and cakes!  Which, then, led me down the mental path...cookie pans would have to be really small....I guess 9x13 pans wouldn't work...you'd have to miniaturize everything!

I have a friend who lives in Italy and she has mentioned having a small stove from time to time...but I never really thought through the challenges a baker might have without the appliances I am accustomed to having ....it is just expected to have a big oven in the U.S. - even two ovens (I had that in a previous home - it was wonderful!).

This all led me to thinking about recipes for small ovens...and crock pots!  There are tons of recipes out there for crock pots....less for toaster ovens and small ovens.  I think it boils down to adjusting to smaller cookie sheets and being creative in adapting recipes to small space appliances.  I must say, it makes me happy that I live where I do, which enables me to churn out large quantities of Christmas treats.

I have two recipes that I am going to make this year which could be prepared in a small Italian or Dutch kitchen...or on a tropical island with no built in oven (assuming you have a crock pot and a toaster oven!).

My children love Apple Butter.  The December issue of Martha Stewart's Everyday Food has a recipe for crock pot Apple-Pear Butter.  I'm making it today or tomorrow.  The grown kids will each get a jar for their home and I'll have one in my fridge.  Love, love, love it on a fluffy hot buttered biscuit with a side of fried breakfast sausage (which I also like to dip in the Apple Butter).  Yum, can't wait for that one.

This week-end, I will make miniature cream puffs.  I'm thinking, on a small tray - these could quite possibly be done in a toaster oven that has the ability to set a temperature. (Not all do)  After these cool, I'll fill with lemon curd and glaze them.  If I get really industrious, I might make pastry cream, and fill them like eclairs...topped with a yummy chocolate icing.  We'll see how that goes...depends on my piping skills.  It's easy to make the dough (a classic pate a choux)....and pipe little mounds of dough...but I've had trouble with the longer eclair shape before - they were not consistent, no matter what I did!  That was a long time ago, though...surely I've improved?

Here's the basic recipe for a cream puff...and look for the other recipes and photos over the next couple of days.  Just wanted to let my international readers know "I'm thinking of you"... I'd love to know what YOU cook in a tiny oven for the holidays.  The whole idea is very intriguing. 

MINIATURE CREAM PUFFS (Pate a Choux)

Prepare your pans - line shallow baking sheet with parchment paper.
If you want to ensure you have uniform puffs - use a template to draw circles with a pencil on the parchment paper (leave at least 2 inches between circles) and then turn it over - you can see through the paper to pipe the dough!  Me, I'm a free-hand piper...you get what you get!

Preheat oven to 425 degrees F.

Ingredients:
1 cup water
1/2 cup unsalted butter (one stick)
1 tsp sugar
1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
4 large eggs (should equal 1 cup of eggs - if your eggs don't equal one cup of eggs - add an egg white or another egg to get it to the right volume)

Method:
In a saucepan, bring water, butter, and sugar to a boil over high heat.  Immediately remove from heat.
Add flour and stir with a wooden spoon until mixture pulls away from the side of the pan. (takes just a couple of minutes).  Let cool for a couple of minutes to the point you don't curdle the eggs when you add them next (just about 5 minutes) OR you can move everything to the bowl of a stand mixer at this point which hastens the cooling process (me, I don't want another dirty bowl to wash).

Add eggs, one at a time, mixing thoroughly after each addition with the wooden spoon until smooth.  It gets gummy looking.

Transfer batter/dough to a large pastry bag with a 1/2 inch round tip (if you are doing the miniatures) OR you can use a Ziploc bag (I prefer the freezer bags as they are sturdy and less likely to pop on you).  If you use that method, move the dough to one corner and twist down the excess bag so the dough doesn't move backwards when you pipe.  Snip the corner of the bag about 1/4 inch up, and start piping.

Pipe batter into mounds - keeping at least 2 inches apart - if your paper slips around, anchor it by putting a dab of batter in each corner between the bottom of the parchment paper and the cookie sheet.  It will hold it in place.  After all your piping is finished.  Smooth the tips of each batter mound with a lightly wet finger (put a little water in a ramekin and dab your finger to keep it moist while smoothing the tops of the batter mounds).

Bake at 425 for 10 minutes - reduce oven temperature to 350 and bake until puffs are golden brown - another 20 to 30 minutes.  They should feel light and hollow if you lift one off the parchment.

Allow to cool - and I'll get back to you on my fillings and icings later ...or you can Google the tons of options you'll find online!  I'll tell you now, I'm leaning towards lemon curd filling with a simple lemon sugar icing.  However, I have been known to change my mind at the last minute ;-p so stay tuned!

Bon Appetit Y'all!