Red Velvet Cake Recipe

CAKE

2 1/2 c flour
1 1/2 c sugar
1 t baking soda
1 t salt
1 t cocoa powder
1 1/2 c vegetable oil
1 c buttermilk, room temperature
2 eggs, room temperature
2 T red food coloring (optional)
1 t white distilled vinegar
1 t vanilla


FROSTING

1 lb cream cheese, soft
4 c confectioner's sugar, sifted
2 sticks butter, soft
1 t vanilla


Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and lightly Crisco/flour 3 (9 x 1 1/2") round cake pans. In a large bowl sift together flour, sugar, baking soda, salt, and cocoa powder. In another bowl whisk together the oil, buttermilk, eggs, food coloring, vinegar and vanilla. Mix dry and wet until just combined and smooth. Divide the batter among the cake pans and place in the oven evenly spaced apart. Bake 30 minutes or until the cake pulls away from the pan and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Remove cakes from oven and run a knife around the edges. Invert onto a cooling rack with paper towel on top.

For frosting, whip all but vanilla until light and fluffy. Add vanilla and mix. Put in refrigerator briefly until a bit stiffer. Start frosting cake layers, both in between and around the whole surface.

Notes:

• Grease the dish way more than you think. This is good because 1) there's no way anything will stick, especially in the corners, and 2) you'll get that lovely buttery crust on the edge pieces!

• If you keep your butter in the fridge and don't want to wait a hundred years for it to come to room temperature, simply but what you need on a dish in the microwave and set for 20-25 seconds (go with less time first). This will make the butter soft but not melt it.
• Since cream cheese is usually cold when you get it, if you don't want to wait for it to come to room temperature simply put in a bowl in the microwave for 25-30 seconds. This will get it nice and mashy and very easy to mix!

Red Velvet Cake

Hey! Sorry I've been gone awhile...for Thanksgiving I made 100 truffles for James and his family, so I was really worn out from baking! Plus we had about half left over, so we'd been eating those over the course of a few weeks, and when they were gone I made baked apples.

In any case, Dec 13 was my birthday and I wanted to make a cake for myself...a real cake! The night before I made a red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting. Some people told me I should have had my boyfriend make it, but I not only enjoy it but also didn't really care that much. So here it is!

Essentially a red velvet cake is a mildy sweet cake made with buttermilk and a small amount of cocoa. It's a white cake that, when red food coloring is added, makes it a red velvet. However, since I neither cared nor had any in the house, I didn't add any red food coloring to my cake. I suppose this makes it a white velvet cake instead.

Again, this is a pretty easy recipe: mix dry, mix wet, combine. Because the wet ingredient mixture has vinegar in it and the dry has baking soda, there will be some bubbling happening when you combine them. Also, when making a cake it really is best to sift all your flours before adding to the mix. It loosens up any chunks that may be happening, which will ensure a more even texture to your cake. But to prevent the texture from becoming concrete and dense, you have to just mix the dry ingredients into the wet, and not create a solid mixture. I mixed until I couldn't see any white on the top, then stopped.

The recipe called for 3 layers, but I only had 1 round pan, so I did it in 2 layers instead. I tried to make them even, but as you will see one is definitely larger than the other. In any case, while this is baking I made the cream cheese frosting. Because the recipe called for 2 sticks of butter, I used butter-flavored margarine instead. I figured the frosting wasn't important enough to use 2 sticks on. I also had to mix this with cream cheese and some sugar by hand (since I don't have a mixer), and this sucked, lemme tell you. In any case you want this pretty thoroughly mixed and light. Below I have mixed and then whipped:

I put this frosting in the fridge to set a bit. One thing I ran into when cooling the cake layers was when I turned them upside down from the pan onto a cooling rack. The weight of the cake (though not very heavy) combined with its softness pressed the cake down on the wire rack...making it stick! When doing this make sure to put a paper towel down on top of the cooling rack to prevent this. When the cakes were done and cooled, I started layering the frosting!

I left this in the fridge overnight to set....but mostly because I didn't want to be tempted to eat it the night before my birthday! Finally yesterday, along with some Riesling and very good pizza, we sliced some up. It was so good! Very fluffy texture and mild flavor. Mmm!

Maple Syrup and Walnut Cookies Recipe

2 1/4 c flour

1 t baking soda

1 t salt

1 c butter, soft

3/4 c sugar

3/4 c brown sugar

1 t vanilla

2 eggs

1 1/2 c walnuts

1 c maple syrup

Preheat oven to 375. In one bowl cream butter, white sugar, and brown sugar. Add vanilla, eggs and maple syrup. In separate bowl mix dry ingredients and add slowly to wet mixture. Form into teaspoon-sized balls on cookie sheet and bake 9-11 minutes.

Notes:

• As always, DON'T overmix! Your batter will be the consistency of concrete and you'll emulsify everything. This will affect the texture of your resulting cookie and make them hard.
• If you keep your butter in the fridge and don't want to wait a hundred years for it to come to room temperature, simply but what you need on a dish in the microwave and set for 20-25 seconds (go with less time first). This will make the butter soft but not melt it.

Maple Syrup and Walnut Cookies

I was a little tired from making so many chocolates and pies and more time-consuming things that I decided I just wanted to make a simple cookie. That's it. However, I thought that I'd stretch myself mentally a bit by making up a cookie! Or the specific recipe. I wanted a maple syrup-based cookie with walnuts in it, so I adapted a chocolate chip cookie recipe to accommodate me! It was pretty easy: mix dry, mix wet, add dry to wet, bake. However, there were a few points that you might need to take note of.

So here are my ingredients: pretty basic. As I said this is a very easy recipe to follow; if you can make chocolate chip cookies you can make these!

The only concern really is creaming. Creaming is when you mix soft butter and sugar together to form a moist mixture. If a recipe calls for creaming you can NOT melt the butter and add to the sugar! This will completely change the texture of your resulting cookie. This is what properly creamed sugar looks like:

As you can see it's flaky and slightly clumpy with bits of butter. This is correct!

Next will simply be some pictures of the process: batter, ready to go in oven, and done.

Mmm! These are chewy, light and mild in flavor. Soooo you could end up eating them all at once before you know it. :) Try not to though! I'll post the recipe in a day or so.

Banana Cream Pie Recipe

CRUST

1/2 c walnuts, finely chopped

3/4 c all-purpose flour

1 t sugar

1/4 t salt

2 T cold diced butter

1 egg, beaten

Mix walnuts, flour, sugar and salt in a bowl. Add egg, then cut in butter. Shape into a dough ball, wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes. Press into greased pie pan and bake at 300 for 30 minutes or until lightly browned.

PUDDING (3 c)

2 c whole milk

1/2 t vanilla

1 c sugar

pinch salt

6 egg yolks

1/4 c cornstarch

1/2 stick cold diced butter

Combine milk, 1/2 c sugar, vanilla and salt in a saucepan. In a separate bowl mix yolks, remaining 1/2 c sugar and cornstarch. Heat the saucepan mixture over medium heat until bubbles begin to form around the edges, whisking constantly. When bubbles appear remove from heat. Ladle/spoon a thin stream of the hot mix into the egg mixture, whisking constantly. Repeat a few times. Add eggs to saucepan. Bring to a boil over medium heat whisking, waiting for large bubbles to surface from bottom and pop on the top. When this happens, pause stirring every few minutes, then add butter. When custardy remove from heat and cool to room temperature. Put in a bowl, cover, and refrigerate 4 hours.

CANDIED NUT TOPPING (1 c)

1/8 c honey

1 t vanilla

1/4 t cinnamon

1/4 t salt

1 c walnuts, chopped

1/2 T butter, melted

Preheat oven to 300. Combine all ingredients in bowl. Spread on greased sheet and bake 20 minutes, stirring/scraping every 5 minutes. When browned, remove and cool.

COMPLETED BANANA CREAM PIE

walnut crust

3 c pudding

4-5 bananas

1 1/2 t lemon juice

1/4-1/2 c sour cream

candied nuts

Slice bananas in half width-wise, then into four long slices length-wise (8 pieces per banana total). Toss in lemon juice and mix with sour cream. Layer in pie crust with pudding. Top with nuts, cover and chill 2 hours.

Notes:

• Grease the dish way more than you think. This is good because 1) there's no way anything will stick, especially in the corners, and 2) you'll get that lovely buttery crust!
• When making tart pastry, if butter is starting to melt put it in the freezer until you need more. You want it to stay as cold as possible.
• When placing tart pastry into pie pan, grab chunks and press until flat. Don't spend too much time on one part, or the heat from your fingers will start to melt the butter! You want to still see chunks of butter, as this will make the crust lovely and flaky.
• Make sure to maintain MEDIUM heat for the pudding. If you go higher you will burn the milk/eggs.If your pudding isn't thickening, you may have forgotten the cornstarch (like me)! If you added everything correctly you could be stirring too much. In a pinch add flour, which is a thickening agent. It won't really affect the taste unless you add a ton.

Key Lime Pie Recipe

CRUST

1 1/4 c graham cracker crumbs

5-6 T butter, melted

2 T sugar

FILLING

14 oz sweetened condensed milk

3 egg yolks

2 t grated lime zest

1/2 c lime juice

Preheat oven to 350. Grease a pie pan. Mix crust ingredients together and press into bottom of pan. Cover and chill. Beat yolks until pale and fluffy, then add condensed milk and mix. Add lime zest and juice. Pour filling into crust and bake 10 min or until filling is set. Cool then chill until ready to serve.

Notes:

• Grease the dish way more than you think. This is good because 1) there's no way anything will stick, especially in the corners, and 2) you'll get that lovely buttery crust!
• When it says "until filling is set," that means that when you shake the pan the filling appears more gelatinous rather than liquid-y.
• Feel free to add more/less lime flavoring as you see fit!

Banana Cream Pie

Time to make something new. Since I was pretty worn out from the espresso truffles I wanted to make something relatively easy, like a pie or cookies or something. I asked James what he wanted, but he didn't have something right offhand, so I kinda let my mind wander. Last week we'd gotten a bunch of bananas, and we still had 3 left, so I thought, "Banana cream pie!" Everyone loves banana cream pie, right? I asked my boy and he said that sounded good, so I started perusing the internet for some tasty recipes. I found one that was pretty highly rated, and had everything made from scratch: crust, pudding, creamy bit and candied topping! I was pretty excited to try it, and with a tag like "he modestly decreed it was the best banana cream pie ever" I just couldn't pass it up!

PS--Sorry, but because this was a pretty involved undertaking I sorta didn't take a lot of pics. Sorry! :(

Because there were 4 different processes (crust, pudding, candied nuts, creamy bananas), I took different pictures of the different ingredient sets for each. First, I made the crust. Usually I make a butter tart crust for my pies, but this one had a special walnut crust I wanted to try:

Pretty simple: mince nuts, mix with dry ingredients, cut in cold cubed butter, add egg. Refrigerate. Nothing new, obviously. I chilled it and then put in a pie dish and baked. Here is the crispy result:

Next I made the pudding. If you're doing this from scratch, you're going to use a lot of egg yolks, which apparently they don't sell at the store (although they do egg whites...what the hell?). So if you're going to do this, you need to figure out what you're going to do with your whites. You can keep 'em or dump 'em, but be aware that you're going to have a lot left over. Here is the preparation for my pudding:

As you can see, I used both heavy cream and skim milk. This is because the recipe called for 2 cups whole milk, which we don't drink...and you can't buy milk in smaller than 1/2 gallon. At least at the store we go to you can't. So I figured I could recreate it by doing half cream, half skim milk. I mean, essentially they're all milk but with different levels of fat in them, with cream obviously having the highest amount. By mixing a high fat and low fat product I got a medium fat one: whole milk!

First you heat everything but the eggs and butter in a saucepan. One thing you need to do to the eggs before you add them to the hot mix is to temper them...aka bring them to the temperature of the hot mixture slowly. To do this you take small spoonfuls of the hot mixture and slowly add them to the eggs, stirring constantly. After about 5 or so your eggs should be fine. Then you can add them to the pudding and bring it to a boil. You're looking for big bubbles that "pop" on the surface, almost violently, at which point you add the butter. NOTE: you can't really leave this alone. You have to stir pretty much constantly until you get that nice custardy texture, and you have to maintain medium heat the whole time or you'll burn either the milk or the eggs. Here's a picture of when the bubbles were popping on the surface:

As I was heating this I was really confused as to why it wasn't thickening. I'd done everything right as far as heating and whisking and tempering was concerned....hm. THEN I went back to the other counter to check to see if I'd forgotten anything. Sitting there was the box of cornstarch, unopened. *sigh* I added it in after the mixture was already boiling, which did instantly create the pudding texture I was looking for, but because it didn't have as much time to dissolve slowly it made the pudding look grainy. This doesn't do anything really except perhaps make your end result pudding have little chunks of chewy cornstarch in them. No worries if you do this! Besides, there's a way to remedy this after it's cooled--you just mix it really hard after it's set. Here's a pic of the pudding after added cornstarch:

See? A little grainy. Ah well.

Crust done, pudding done....or at least setting in the fridge. Now it was time to candy some walnuts! For this I used a pretty simple concoction, minus the whisky (not that I didn't want it, but we didn't have any):

Just coat and bake a bit. Really self-explanatory.

Finally, the last bit: creamy bananas! Since I didn't take a picture I'll simply explain: I just cut the bananas in half short-ways, then sliced long-ways into four pieces or so. This means you end up with 8 thin slices per banana. Simply toss in sour cream, layer in the pie with the pudding and top with your candied walnuts! Delicious!

Espresso Truffles Recipe

1/4 c espresso

1/2 c heavy cream

18 oz semi-sweet (dark) chocolate, divided into 8 and 10

cocoa powder for dusting

Heat the cream and espresso on medium until small bubbles form around the edges. Remove from heat and cover for 30 minutes. Melt 8 oz of chocolate. Return the cream briefly to heat to warm it and then pour through a strainer into a bowl. Add this cream to the chocolate, cover and cool to room temperature. Once cool put this ganache in the refrigerator for 2-3 hours or until firm. Dust hands with cocoa powder and roll teaspoon-sized truffles into balls onto a prepared baking sheet. Put in freezer for 2 hours or until firm enough to dip in melted chocolate. Temper the remaining 10 oz of chocolate or melt with the vegetable oil. Dip the ganache balls into the tempered chocolate using two forks and replace on baking sheet. Put back in fridge for at least 30 minutes.

Notes:

• Be very careful with the cream! You don't want to overheat and burn it.
• The amount of chocolate is just a guideline. Feel free to use more or less in total, have a huge ganache center and barely any outer layer, or have the layers of equal size. It's up to you!
• The better quality the chocolate you use, the better texture your ganache and tempered chocolate will have. A really good chocolate will produce a creamy, smooth, thick ganache and a crisp, hard outer layer.
• Feel free to use different types of chocolate besides dark.
• Feel free to add more/less espresso as you see fit! However, be aware that since espresso is already very strong, you may want less than you think.

Espresso Truffles

More truffles! Last time I made truffles, or rather the first time I made them, it was definitely a learning experience. I'd never really tried anything of this caliber before...I'd only ever really baked cookies and pies, stuff that was relatively easy. Before I made some chocolate orange truffles, and I was requested to make more. Although I'd already wanted to make more (and with a different fruit flavor), it was the end of the week and we were out of food! James suggested espresso truffles, and I thought it sounded great!

I decided to follow the same basic structure as the truffles I'd made previously: a creamy ganache covered with tempered chocolate. With this recipe, there are less ingredients...although you still have to make sure you really follow the directions.

Olive oil? What? Well, as I explain in my orange truffle post (and in the recipe itself!) to temper chocolate you have to follow an arduous process of heating the chocolate to a certain temperature, bringing it back down, bringing it back up, etc. Ugh. An easy way to imitate this process is to put a teaspoon of oil or so in the chocolate.

First thing is to heat and steam the cream. Essentially, I mixed some fresh espresso and some hot cream and then steamed them. Do NOT add the boiling espresso directly to the cream! You want them to be as close in temperature as possible so the milk doesn't burn or curdle. To steam I simply removed from heat and covered for about 30 minutes. The result is this:

As you can see, there's a bit of a skin. Don't worry about this! Just mix it back in when you reheat. Then you just add this to the chocolate you melted for the ganache and refrigerate until it's solid but malleable. Once that happens you can form it into balls (using cocoa powder to coat) and freeze until hard. Here is what the texture of my ganache was right after adding the cream and after refrigerating:

I had artificially tempered (and sweetened) the chocolate for the outer layer, and it was still sitting out in a bowl waiting for the ganache to set. This was 100% baker's chocolate, which meant it was thick and had no sweetness added at all. I've sweetened chocolate before, and it's pretty easy! You simply keep adding sugar and butter to the chocolate, stirring pretty constantly over heat, until it is to your desired taste. If it's sweet enough but too thick, add more butter or some water. When you add sugar, you add mass, and since the sugar doesn't melt immediately but rather stays in crystalline form, how much you add will really affect the texture. PS--you won't ever really melt all the sugar. It takes constant stirring for a long time to get it to melt down, but even if you still see some crystals don't fret. It won't affect anything but the texture.

When transferring your ganache balls to the freezer, simply place them all together in tight rows on the foil and fold around, as shown:

So now you have nice hard ganache centers ready to be dipped in your tempered chocolate! I brought my chocolate down to room temperature first, lest it start to melt the inner core before I could get them back in the fridge. Tip: To avoid your ganache centers from melting while you work on one or two at a time, simply leave them in the freezer! Just take out 2-3 at a time. To dip them, I used two forks. I put the center in the chocolate, flipped it around a bit, and then picked it up with forks to get rid of excess chocolate. Then put on a new baking sheet and put back in the fridge when you're done! Here is the amazingly delicious result!

Spiced Banana Muffins Recipe

1 3/4 c all-purpose flour

3/4 c sugar 1 t baking powder

1/4 t baking soda

1/4 t salt

1 T cinnamon

1/4 t allspice

1/2 t ginger

2 eggs

1/4 c butter, melted

1 t vanilla

1/4 c whipping cream

1 T honey

1 c walnuts, chopped and toasted

3-4 bananas, over-ripe and mashed

To toast the walnuts, bake on cookie sheet/foil at 350 for 8-10 minutes. In one bowl, mix the dry ingredients. In another bowl, mix all the wet ingredients but the walnuts and bananas. Mix in the walnuts. Mash bananas until smooth with small chunks and mix gently in with wet ingredients. Fold dry mix into wet mix. Spoon into greased muffin tin and bake 20-25 minutes, or until edges are browned and toothpick put in center comes out clean.

Notes:

• Grease the tin way more than you think. This is good because 1) there's no way anything will stick, especially in the corners, and 2) you'll get that lovely crispy crust on the edges!
• Cinnamon and ginger are two of those spices where you can use a lot and still have everything taste good. Really experiment with how much you use. Allspice has a very intense and distinctive flavor, so stick with small measurements or not at all.
• Since the butter is to be melted, and you have raw eggs to consider, ALWAYS wait until the butter cools before adding!! If you don't you'll begin to cook the egg, which means you'll have chunks of egg in your batter.
• As always, DON'T overmix! Your batter will be the consistency of concrete and you'll emulsify everything. This will affect the texture of your resulting muffin and make them hard. You need to fold.

Spiced Banana Muffins

I had about 4 bananas left over that no one had eaten, so they were way over-ripe. Don't throw these out if you can--this is a perfect opportunity to make some sort of banana concoction! Bananas are better used in baking if they're over-ripe, so if you have some and you know you will want to make something with them just stick them in the freezer until you're ready!

I'd made a banana bread earlier this summer and wanted to come up with a recipe for muffins. I compiled a couple, made quite a bit of adjustments, and this is my result. Here are all the materials I used:

Looks like a lot of stuff, but a bunch of those are spices. Essentially, a muffin is super easy to make. It's dry ingredients into wet into oven; very simple. However, there are a couple things that you need to remember if you're going to alter a recipe:

1) if you're adding liquid, cut any existing liquid in half or add more flour. In this case, I decided to add some of that whipping cream that I've had left over from two recipes (crepe cake and chocolate cheesecake). To compensate for added liquid I cut the butter amount in half.

2) If you're adding spices, don't worry too much. Just know how intense each one is. For example, cinnamon is one of those things that you can always add more of if you want. However, things like nutmeg and cloves, things with distinct flavors, should be kept in small quantities, i.e. less than a teaspoon.

3) Adding bulk material is easy too, although make sure you still have some batter! This could be fruit or nuts. Add 1/2 cups at a time until you have a good ratio (this is up to you).

First, dry ingredients. Mix them in a bowl as shown:

Voila. Duh. You knew this.

Next is the wet. Since the butter is to be melted, and you have raw eggs to consider, ALWAYS wait until the butter cools before adding!! If you don't you'll begin to cook the egg, which means you'll have chunks of egg in your batter. Gross.

For the wet mixture, put in all but the bananas first. Note: if you want to speed up the thawing of the naners after you take them out of the freezer, put in the microwave for about 2 minutes and mash them up. I did this on a plate with a fork, making sure to leave some chunks:

Then you have to fold these into the mix. You can NOT simply beat them in. This will mash up everything into such a fine consistency that your muffins will have the texture of concrete. Not good. So you need to fold the bananas into your dry mix. The best tool for this is a spatula. This essentially means you rotate the bananas around the spatula from the bottom of the bowl to the top, going in a circle that begins at the top of the batter and continues to the bottom. You do NOT mix around in a circle that is concentric with the circular top of the bowl, i.e. around the sides. If you do this right, you'll have everything mixed, but loosely.

Then pour into a greased muffin tin and bake until a toothpick or small knife comes out clean. However, the edges should also be browned as well as the top. If they're not, though the knife may come out slick the batter may still be mashy inside. Then just put in for more time. Enjoy!

Peanut Butter Cheesecake

CRUST

1 1/4 c crumbs (graham cracker, Oreo, etc)

1/4 c sugar

4 T butter (1/2 stick)

FILLING

1/2 c peanut butter

2/3 c powdered sugar

1/4 c brown sugar

16 oz (2 packages) cream cheese

1 c sugar

2 T lemon juice

2 t vanilla

1/4 c whipping cream

2 eggs

Bake crust at 325 for 8 minutes. In one bowl cut in powdered sugar with peanut butter until balls form. Add brown sugar. In another bowl mix cream cheese filling and beat well, then add peanut butter balls. Bake at 375 for 30-35 min or until top is browned and filling has set. Run sharp knife around edges of pan. Cool and refrigerate overnight.

Notes:

• If not using a springform pan, grease the dish way more than you think. This is good because 1) there's no way anything will stick, especially in the corners, and 2) you'll get that lovely buttery crust on the edge pieces!
• Since cream cheese is usually cold when you get it, if you don't want to wait for it to come to room temperature simply put in a bowl in the microwave for 25-30 seconds. This will get it nice and mashy and very easy to mix!
• When it says "until filling is set," that means that when you shake the pan the filling appears more gelatinous rather than liquid-y.
• If layering with chocolate cheesecake, or any other flavor, make sure to halve the recipe.

Peanut Butter Chocolate Cheesecake

I got requested to make yet another cheesecake....this time two flavors. "Oooh, make peanut butter and chocolate! OOH and you could layer it!" Thus my boyfriend. I am not a slave, I tell you!

Yeahhh, I made it anyway.

Obviously since it was two flavors I had to make 2 distinct and independent cheesecakes. One had to be just as flavorful as the other. Since I had made a cheesecake before (see my pumpkin cheesecake) I was very comfortable doing this. However, there still were some interesting challenges I discovered....and will pass on to you!

Because I was making two different kinds, I used a LOT of ingredients:

The first thing I made was the crust. I made it with crumbled Oreos (also a request from aforementioned boyfriend), although since I used a large springform pan I had some holes, which I filled with crushed graham crackers. Because I was only using the cookie part of the Oreos, I had to remove all the cream fillings. This is the horrifying result:

Probably even more horrifying was the fact that James wanted to eat the cream! Although I will give him credit; he only ate half. ;) After I added the graham crackers and cooked it a bit, this is the resulting crust:

The first flavor I made was the peanut butter kind. Now, one thing that I've found with a lot of new bakers is that they worry about two things: 1) messing up measurements and 2) not understanding the language. This last one is obviously harder, because there are a lot of different types of preparation, some of which matter and some of which don't. Beating vs. mixing? Enh, essentially the same. Creaming vs. melting? NOT the same at all. We've all seen these different types of words: beat, whip, fold, cut in....this last one is the one I'm going to address. If you see a recipe that has you adding something dry to something wet or solid and asking you to "cut it in," don't worry. Cutting in is actually just as it sounds. You (ideally) pour in some of the dry ingredient, take a butter knife, and cut into the dry/solid ingredient with the dry one. Essentially, cutting in creates little balls of material (here, peanut butter and powdered sugar). This is not something you can abstain from doing! You can't simply pour in all the sugar on top of the peanut butter and mash around a bit. What you want is for the peanut butter and sugar to be as equally melded as possible, and since peanut butter is sticky if you just pour in the sugar you'll just coat the outside...meanwhile the inside of the lump is still sticky peanut butter. As I mentioned cutting in also creates small balls of material, which make the ingredient more easily to disperse evenly into your batter/mix.

I don't cut in with a knife simply because I prefer a flat tool with relatively larger surface area; thus I use a large fork. It still works because the tines have space between them, acting as small "knives," and the flatter area means you can pretty much just mash it into the peanut butter. This creates 4 cuts, rather than literally cutting it with a knife, which only creates one cut. This is more efficient because it distributes the powdered sugar more quickly. The picture below is what you're looking for when you're done cutting:

Essentially it wasn't too rough of a recipe; I made peanut butter balls and then mixed them in with a classic cream cheese mash. Helpful hint: since cream cheese is kept cold and thus hard, if you don't want to wait an hour for it to come to room temperature simply put the cheese in a bowl in the microwave for 25-30 seconds. It won't be long enough to melt it, but will make it nice and mashy, and thus easier to mix. Below is the peanut butter mix:

I put that aside and set to work on my chocolate cheesecake. This one was also very easy, although it did include whipping cream. Luckily I had enough left over from my crepe cake that I made weeks ago! The problem I encountered when mixing this up was that I added a little too much milk by accident and the resulting batter was much more liquid-y than the peanut butter kind. I wanted both to have the exact same texture, so here's a helpful tip: add all-purpose flour by the tablespoon to the batter to thicken it! I only ended up using about 3 tablespoons, which I knew would not affect the flavor. Actually, even quite a bit of flour won't affect the flavor as much as the texture. Remember this if your batter is too thin and you don't know what to do! I also used Dutched cocoa powder, which means that it is treated to get rid of its natural acidity. What does that mean? A mellower taste. Regular cocoa powder has a much more intense flavor but higher acidity, so my recommendation (which I'll follow next time) is to mix half and half. Here is the resulting chocolate batter:

Then I layered them on top of the crust. I didn't think of the fact that both were essentially liquid, and that that meant I wouldn't have crisp precise layers. Next time I do this I will cook each layer as I add it for a few minutes to firm it up a bit so it can properly hold the next layer. In any case, here is what it looked like:

Did it turn out good? YES YES YES

Gingerbread Biscotti

1/3 c veggie oil

1 c sugar

3 eggs

1/4 c molasses

2 1/4 c all-purpose flour

1 c whole wheat flour

1 T baking powder

1 1/2 T ginger

3/4 T cinnamon

1/2 T cloves

1/4 t nutmeg

Preheat oven to 375. In one bowl mix wet ingredients. In another bowl mix dry ingredients and add to wet until well combined. Divide dough in half and spread into 2 12x3" on foil or parchment paper (should be about 1/2" high). Bake 25 min until firm. Cool and slice 1/2" thick. Place cut side down on baking sheet and bake 5-7 min until hard.

Notes:

• These cookies are VERY finicky when it comes to baking time. Even one minute can change the consistency. Don't fret if when you first take them out they are not hard....let cool and set a bit, then put back in if they need it. You don't want to end up burning them because you thought they weren't done yet.
• Cinnamon and ginger are two of those spices where you can use a lot and still have everything taste good. Really experiment with how much you use. Nutmeg/cloves have a very intense and distinctive flavor, so stick with small measurements or not at all.
• As always, DON'T overmix! Your batter will be the consistency of concrete and you'll emulsify everything. This will affect the texture of your resulting cookie and make them hard.
• This makes about 1 million cookies, so be aware of this fact. :)

Orange Almond Biscotti Recipe

1/2 c butter, softened

1 1/4 c sugar

3 eggs

1 t almond/vanilla

1 T orange zest

2 c all-purpose flour

2 t baking powder

dash salt

1/2 c chopped nuts

1/2 c cranberries/raisins (or fruit)

2 T milk

Preheat oven to 375. Cream butter and sugar. Add eggs and beat well, then add almond/vanilla and zest. In another bowl mix dry ingredients and add to wet until well combined. Add nuts/fruit. Divide dough in half and spread into 2 12x3" on foil or parchment paper (should be about 1/2" high). Brush with milk and bake 15-20 min until golden and firm. Remove and reduce to 300. Cool and slice 1/2" thick. Place cut side down on baking sheet and bake 10 min until hard.

Notes:

• If you keep your butter in the fridge and don't want to wait a hundred years for it to come to room temperature, simply but what you need on a dish in the microwave and set for 20-25 seconds (go with less time first). This will make the butter soft but not melt it.
• These cookies are VERY finicky when it comes to baking time. Even one minute can change the consistency. Don't fret if when you first take them out they are not hard....let cool and set a bit, then put back in if they need it. You don't want to end up burning them because you thought they weren't done yet.
• Feel free to add more/less orange flavoring as you see fit!
• As always, DON'T overmix! Your batter will be the consistency of concrete and you'll emulsify everything. This will affect the texture of your resulting cookie and make them hard.
• This makes about 1 million cookies, so be aware of this fact. :)

Biscotti

James and I had to go to Rochester so that he could beat the crap out of the tenants living in his house who were 3 weeks late on the rent. We were staying with some cousins of his who I'd met at a wedding the previous weekend. He said he was bringing some beer, and I decided it would be nice if I baked something for them too. James told me they were "super Italian," and I wanted something relatively easy/non-time consuming to make, so I set my sights on a classic treat: biscotti! If you don't know, biscotti are those small hard bread pieces filled (usually) with fruit and nuts that you eat with coffee. There are about 1000 different kinds, and all are usually simply variations of each other. I wanted to make two different kinds for his cousins, so I found some recipes and altered them a bit to make them more interesting. I made a traditional kind with almonds, raisins and orange and a gingerbread-flavored kind.

I'd never attempted biscotti before, and with an hour and a half until we had to leave I had to work efficiently and with care. Also I halved both the recipes, so I was working with weird measurements like 9/8 cup...I had to simply hope for the best!

Here are all the things I needed for my biscotti. Honestly, they seemed pretty easy: they're essentially a cookie with baking powder in them that you bake until hard. The picture below shows the dough for the almond biscotti:

See? Looks like cookie dough. This dough was pretty moist, like a chocolate chip cookie dough. I lay it out on foil in a 1/2" tall rectangle, brushed with milk, and put in the oven. Pictures below show before and after:

As you can see, the bottom got a bit burnt. This was because I put the dough in while the oven was still preheating. Usually, this doesn't affect anything...however, with this type of cookie it appears that just a few minutes can make a huge difference. My advice is if you're putting it in while the oven is preheating, remove 5 minutes from the baking time and check as it's nearing the end of the baking period.

At this point in time, the dough was thoroughly cooked; one could eat it now. It was springy to the touch and the consistency of a freshly baked bread. However, biscotti are supposed to be crispy, so this wasn't done yet. Now I had to cut it into biscotti-sized portions and put them back in the oven. To cut this, DO NOT take a knife and sweep it across the loaf. This will tear the delicate dough and it will simply collect on the knife and make a very messy and imprecise cut. Simply press the knife into the dough hard, wiggle a little back and forth, and then move down the loaf and repeat. See pictures below:

Because these were a gift, I was anal about the burnt bottom. I ended up scraping the worst of it off with a small knife. But overall it doesn't affect the taste much. What I did was cut it length-wise into about 1" widths and then width-wise into thirds (you want the cookies to be about 1 x4 or so). Then you lay them out and re-bake briefly until crispy:

As you can see, burned them again! :( My advice is that if they don't feel hard after the time goes off, don't necessarily put them in for more time. Let them set a bit and then check when cool.

The other kind I made was the gingerbread biscotti. This dough used both all-purpose flour and whole wheat. With whole wheat there might be husks in the flour, so you really need to sift it first...here's how much I got out of only 1/2 a cup or so!

This dough was totally different in texture. It was thick and crumbly, more sticky...I'd compare it more to a thick pizza dough that you'd have to knead. This was because of the whole wheat flour and the molasses put into it.

Because the dough was denser, this did not need to be baked again after cut. Overall, both were really tasty when we had them with coffee after dinner that night!