So I made another strawberry cake because I had strawberries that needed using yet again. This time, I thought I'd go loco and make a strawberry icing to go with it. I searched for the easiest recipe I could find and this one won. I've never beaten egg whites so I was scared about that because I don't have a stand mixer or copper bowls.
My little hand beater beat up the white into soft peaks easy peasy. I threw in the sugar and beated it all in and I totally had icing! I couldn't believe it! It looked real and everything. Then came the strawberry step. You might notice the recipe says to beat in sliced strawberries. Well, the minute I did that, the whole carefully fluffed deck of cards collapsed utterly. It went from a silken, rippling white icing to a lumpy pink foam.
I still poured it on the cake and put it in the fridge overnight, hoping it would harden up into something resembling proper icing. It did not. It came out a lovely spongy strawberry cake topped with cold strawberry foam. It tastes fine but the texture is some Top Chef molecular gastronomy hell.
Next time I try my hand at icing (if there is a next time), I'm going to fold in any additives instead of beating them in.
I made buttermilk rolls yesterday (will bake them today after letting them rise in fridge for the 2nd time), and it was just a freaking nightmare. Somehow, despite having read the recipe in full several times, I forgot to put in the melted butter that would have made them all buttery, and was probably the reason that the dough never smoothed out while kneading and was so dry. Which would be one thing.
Except when I tasted a bit of the dough trimming after shaping the rolls. . .the dominant flavor is salt. It is way, way, way too salty. I measured the salt as required, and it was only 1.5 tsp. I used the 1/4 tsp and counted out the measurements, so it's not like my mind took a complete absence and used the tablespoon or the 1/2 tsp or something.
I'm still going to bake them up tonight, but am expecting inedibility.
That's a shame, wildy. One a half tsp doesn't sound like too much, although for bread and pizza dough I usually use just one tsp. Maybe you just got a salt clump.
Well, I had two pounds of strawberries burning a hole in my fridge, so I made another strawberry cake. This time I made two so I could layer them, plus a strawberry curd for the inside filling and strawberry cream cheese frosting.
I used 3 cups of confectioners sugar in the frosting which is half what the recipe called for, but I just couldn't stand to add any more. I think as a result the frosting was a little soft, but it had enough integrity to adhere to the sides of the cake. It's not a crisp, clean cake -- it looks like a kid made it, tbh -- but it's a real layer strawberry cake, by gum, and it tastes great.
Thank you to the chatters who gave me invaluable tips along the way. I think I am now officially all baked out. This shit is exhausting, srsly.
That's a shame, wildy. One a half tsp doesn't sound like too much, although for bread and pizza dough I usually use just one tsp. Maybe you just got a salt clump.
Actually, when baked, they weren't salty at all. The end result was just ok, although RA ate plenty of them. He said they were fine.
Today I made Peppered-Cheese Bread from Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone and it has turned out quite lovely! It is quite peppery, and has a beautiful crust!
I gave myself the whole afternoon to do nothing but make this, which is probably why it went so smoothly. I didn't leave anything out and didn't get frustrated with the wet, sticky dough. Woohoo! And now we have a pretty round loaf of bread that looks almost as good as bakery bread!
I love key lime pie. My one attempt at it came out too liquid in the center, and I don't know what I did wrong. If yours turns out well, do you mind sharing the recipe?
If I do say so myself, the key lime pie is quite nice and tart! I used the recipe out of my Betty Crocker's cookbook.
I made the pie crust myself, too, which tasted fine. . .but I need to practice more because it was pretty ugly. Pastry dough, not graham cracker.
Crust:
1 cup ap flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/3 cup + 1 tbs fat (I used butter)
2-3 tbs cold water
Mix flour + salt. Cut fat in until crumbs the size of small peas. Add 1 tbs of water at a time until dough almost leaves side of bowl. Shape into flattened ball, chill for 30 min. Roll out appropriately for pie plate and put dough in pan, form edge. Heat oven 475, bake 8-10 minutes and cool.
Filling:
3 eggs
1 can (14 oz) sweetened condensed milk
1 tsp lime zest
1/2 cup lime juice
Heat oven to 350. I used key limes because that's what we have, believe it or not. Beat all the ingredients together until well blended. Pour into pie crust. Bake 30-35 minutes or until center is set. Cool on wire rack for 15 minutes. Cover and refrigerate at least 2 hours, but no more than 3 days.
Topping:
3/4 whipping cream
2 tbs. sugar
Whip until soft peaks form. Spread across the chilled pie.
I wish to make brownies again, only the marbled with cream cheese kind. At first I was just going to use the recipe I first posted in this thread adding some dabs of a cream cheese mixture from another recipe. I've made those brownies several times now and they're consistently good.
Then I made the mistake of checking Cook's Illustrated and now I kind of want to do theirs because it looks extra-special. I'm skeered, though, for two main reasons. One is that I want to double the recipe to use a 9x13 pan, and the other is that I want to use cocoa rather than the unsweetened and bittersweet chocolate it calls for.
Doubling the recipe isn't hugely scary, but converting baker's chocolate to cocoa is chilling. I found a random conversion rate on the tubes, and it requires mixing the cocoa with sugar and butter in various combinations to duplicate melted baking chocolates. Of course the recipe itself also calls for sugar and butter. Also, the recipe calls for 2 oz of unsweetened chocolate plus 4 oz of bittersweet, and the level of calculation necessary to duplicate that combination using cocoa, sugar and butter freaks me out, man. I feel like this could all very easily blow up in my face.
Has anybody used cocoa in place of melted chocolate in a recipe before? Does that site's conversion look reasonable?
FYI, here's the recipe with the cocoa conversions in parentheses. This is the single recipe.
Yeah, I have substituted cocoa for chocolate using that process before, in order to make brownies. 3 tbs of cocoa and a tbs of oil works out fine, to my palate. Or at least I've never noticed a problem with it. (Of course, my major brownie-baking spree was during bar review. Hmm, between brownies, Ben & Jerry's, and tacquitos with sour cream, how ever did I gain all that weight?) That conversion chart seems to match up with my Better Homes and Garden chart, which is what I use.
I would probably double the batter recipe if I added more strawberries, because it really is a short little cake so there isn't much room for strawberry expansion.
I've decided to compromise on the cocoa/chocolate matter. I have purchased bittersweet chocolate as called for in the recipe but since I couldn't find my (and CI's) preferred brand of unsweetened chocolate, I'll use the cocoa conversion for that.