Meyer Lemon-Almond Meringue Tartlets and Holiday Roundup

Happy New Year! I hope your holiday season was delightful. I have a few sweet treats from my holidays to share today. For a Christmas dessert, I wanted to make use of my homegrown Meyer lemons but of course couldn’t decide what to make. I mulled it over for days and flipped through several books while considering various cakes, tarts, and frozen desserts. Then, I pulled Baked: New Frontiers in Baking off the shelf, found the little lemon-almond meringue tartlets, and wondered how I’d ever forgotten this recipe from this book. It was just what I wanted to make. They’re cute, individual-sized tartlets with a tangy lemon filling, and the pastry for the tartlet shells was made with an interesting twist. Amaretti cookies were ground and added to the flour in the dough. Amaretto liqueur is also suggested, but I used almond extract instead. Some years are better than others for my lemon trees, but I had plenty of lemons for the curd. I was amazed by the dark yellow color the Meyer lemons gave it, and the flavor was divine. For the fluffy meringue topping, I remembered from recently reading BraveTart: Iconic American Desserts a recipe guaranteed to not weep or collapse over time. I planned to make several tartlets and serve them over the course of a few days. So, I followed the instructions for that magical Marshmallow Meringue which involves heating the egg whites and sugar to 175 degrees F before whipping. Some almond extract was added to the meringue as well. I piled the meringue high on each tartlet and toasted it with a kitchen torch. I can report the meringue performed perfectly and did not weep at all even after leftover tartlets had been refrigerated for three days. The combined result was everything I hoped it would be. 

As usual, I baked possibly as many cookies as Mrs. Claus this year. I returned to a couple of favorite recipes and also tried two new ones. I made my favorite sugar cookie dough for rolled and cut cookies. I decorated them with royal icing and crushed candy canes. I used half of the sugar cookie dough to revisit the Hawaiian Snowballs recipe. This is a favorite cookie of mine with the chopped, dried pineapple and macadamia nuts in the dough. I also made white chocolate-covered Chocolate Peppermint Cookies again. As a big fan of white chocolate and mint, I think these are even better than thin mints. One of the new recipes I tried this year was Chai Snowballs from Martha Stewart Living, and they will definitely be making a repeat appearance. The other new recipe was Cranberry-Oat-Almond Shortbread topped with white chocolate from Sweet: Desserts from London's Ottolenghi. Rather than rolling out the dough and cutting these as suggested in the book, I made two logs of dough and sliced and baked. This recipe was also a keeper. I try to give away as many cookies as possible, but I do have to taste to make sure everything turns out ok, right? After all of that delicious sugar, I’ll be skipping dessert for a bit, but I don’t regret one bite.

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Sour Lemon Scones

I might have a lemon problem. I just finished telling you about a lemon-butter sauce, and now I’m on to lemon scones. Yesterday, I made lemon gelato. I’ve been adding lemon to cold tomato soup, putting preserved lemon in all kinds of salads, and lemongrass keeps appearing in dishes I’m making lately. Guess what flavor my birthday cake was earlier this year? So, I like lemon and so does Kurt, and we both like scones as much as we like lemon. Given that track record, it’s hard to believe I hadn’t tried this recipe sooner. I picked up the Baked book the other day, looking for something interesting for weekend breakfasts, and there I found Sour Lemon Scones. If my lemon problem initially sounded crazy, then it’s about to get worse. You see, there’s an optional ingredient in these scones. Yes, I said optional. As an option, if you so choose, you could add chopped candied lemon peel to the scone dough. My first thought was that I’d call a few local stores, ask if they have candied lemon peel since I never see it when I’m shopping, and if I located it, I’d use it. If not, it was optional. After hearing multiple times that it’s not available because it’s only stocked during the holiday season, that word “optional” started getting blurry. I became convinced that it was absolutely necessary that I try these scones with the candied lemon peel included. I bought some organic lemons, peeled them, and made my own candied lemon peel. This could definitely be a lemon problem.

It’s not entirely my fault for going out of my way to make candied lemon peel. The recipe for making it is right there in the book. To quote the scones ingredient list: “1/2 cup diced candied lemon peel, optional (recipe follows)” I had to make it. I did only make enough for the scones though. I peeled a couple of lemons, and I always use organic when I’m using the peel or zest. The peels were placed in a saucepan with cold water, brought to a boil, and drained. This was repeated two more times to remove some of the bitterness. Then, the drained peels were placed in a saucepan with two cups of water and a cup of sugar, and I left it to simmer for almost an hour and then turned off the heat. The peels were left in the sugar syrup until cool enough to handle, and then they were cut into strips and returned to the syrup. You can store the strips in the syrup in the refrigerator for a few days, or after a few hours, you can removed the strips from the syrup, roll them in sugar, and leave them on a cooling rack to dry. I left them to dry overnight and made the scones the next day. The scone dough was a mix of flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt, powdered ginger, butter, egg, buttermilk, and lemon zest. I used a mix of all-purpose flour and whole wheat pastry flour. After the butter was cut into the dry ingredients and the egg, buttermilk, and lemon zest were added, the chopped candied lemon peel was folded into the dough. Just before baking, the scones were brushed with buttermilk and sprinkled with turbinado sugar. And, when they were baked and cooled, I couldn’t resist drizzling them with a lemon and confectioners’ sugar glaze.

It’s possible that my brain was too busy thinking lemon, lemon, lemon, but I really barely noticed the ginger. I’m wondering if grating a little fresh ginger into the dough would be interesting next time. But mostly, I’m thinking about how deliciously lemony they were, and I’m delighted there are still a few in the freezer for another day.

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Black Forest Chocolate Cookies

So, last year I instituted the concept of birthday cookies which allows me to try different cookie recipes and if the result is delicious, I send the cookies off to family members on their birthdays. I’m mentioning this again because May is the most popular month for birthdays in my family, and I’ve been baking lots of cookies lately. There are two criteria for good birthday cookies. First, as I said, they have to be delicious, and the second requirement is that they be sturdy enough for packing and shipping. There’s an extremely simple cookie from one of my favorite books that I thought was going to be perfect. Then, I tasted it. It’s a pecan butter cookie from The Modern Baker, and after making many recipes from this book this was the first that I didn’t love. The flavor was a little flat, and I think the problem was that there was no salt in the dough. Those cookies ended up in the freezer, and I’ll eventually use them for a cookie crust. I’ll also eventually make the recipe again and add some salt. But since I was disappointed with them, I moved on to the Black Forest Chocolate Cookies shown here, and these are from the book Baked. At first, I was skeptical about the six eggs in the ingredient list and wasn’t sure the texture would be right, but an overnight chilling of the dough transformed it into a scoopable state. You end up with a crunchy, dark chocolate cookie filled with chocolate chips, white chocolate chips, and dried cherries. This one was worthy of being a birthday cookie.

Chopped, dark chocolate was melted with butter in a double-boiler and then set aside to cool. Meanwhile the dry ingredients, flour, baking powder, and salt, were sifted. In a mixer, six eggs, and don’t be scared because six eggs really does work here, were combined with granulated sugar and brown sugar. The cool chocolate mixture was added with some vanilla extract and mixed. The dry ingredients were added and mixed to just combine. Last, the chocolate chips, white chocolate chips, and dried cherries were folded into the dough. The dough will seem much softer than cookie dough should, but it needs to be refrigerated for at least six hours or overnight. After being chilled, it’s just right. As the cookies bake, the tops become crackly, and then you have to wait for what seems like forever for them to cool enough so you can start tasting.

These are decadent, richly-chocolaty cookies with pops of sweetness from the white chocolate and dried cherries. And, they passed the sturdiness test for shipping. The coming months won’t be quite as busy for birthday cookie baking, but I’m always looking for good ideas before the next birthday arrives.

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German Chocolate Cake

This really didn’t need to be so complicated. I asked Kurt what kind of cake he wanted for his birthday, and he didn’t say “you can decide” or “give me some options.” His answer was “German chocolate.” Easy enough, but then I proceeded to pull out every book I have with cakes in it and compare and contrast every recipe I could find for this type of cake. Then, I recalled that Bobby Flay had prepared a delectable-looking German chocolate cake on an episode of Throwdown. I found that recipe online too. So, let me explain my decision-making process for how I ended up with the cake you see here. Classic German chocolate cake frosting is what the cake is all about, but in Bobby Flay’s version, it became a coconut-pecan-cajeta frosting. I had to try that. However, the actual cake in his recipe was a little rich. His cake was also coated with a chocolate ganache and served with coconut whipped cream, and that seemed like too much to me. Then, there was the one in the Baked book. Again, the cake itself was a little rich with lots of butter, it had a more traditional coconut and pecan frosting, but it was also decorated with a ruffle of milk chocolate buttercream around the top. Last, I looked to The Greyston Bakery Cookbook where I found the layers were made from nice, airy chocolate chiffon, and the frosting was straightforward and traditional. Here’s what happened: I baked the chocolate chiffon layers from Greyston Bakery, I attempted Bobby Flay’s cajeta frosting and ended up changing it, and I coated the sides of the cake in the milk chocolate buttercream from Baked.

Making the cake layers was simple, and they turned out lovely. The cake ingredients were whisked together, egg whites were whipped to soft peaks, and the whites were folded into the batter. No problems there. Then, I just knew by looking at Bobby’s cajeta frosting recipe there were going to be issues. I seem to lack the ability to make a mixture of caramel and milk thicken, but I foolishly moved forward anyway. You start by caramelizing sugar and then adding whole milk, coconut milk, goat milk, seeds from a vanilla bean, and some light corn syrup, and then you let that simmer and reduce for about an hour. I shouldn’t have turned away from the stove while milk was coming to a boil, and so that was exactly what I did at exactly the wrong moment. Of course, it did boil over, and I caught it a second too late. I moved the saucepan to another burner and continued. The mixture eventually reduced, but it didn’t seem to be thickening. After more than an hour of simmering, I turned off the heat and added the butter, vanilla extract, and rum and poured the milk mixture into a bowl to cool. It didn’t thicken, but it was delicious. Since I wasn’t willing to waste all those ingredients and because it was in fact quite delicious, I decided to wing it in an attempt to save the frosting. I poured the cooled mixture back into a clean saucepan and added two egg yolks and a another couple of tablespoons of butter. As it came back up to a simmer, it thickened and the frosting was saved. Back into a bowl it went to cool again, and then shredded coconut and chopped pecans were added. The version of the cake in the Baked book with the milk chocolate buttercream on top was calling to me. I made the buttercream. I pulled out a piping bag. I set one cake layer on a platter and piped a circle of buttercream around the perimeter to hold in the other frosting. The now cooled and thickened coconut pecan frosting was added inside the buttercream ring, and the second layer was set on top. Then, I realized that I have no business using a piping bag especially at the end of a long baking day. So I smoothed the chocolate frosting around the sides of the cake, added the remaining coconut pecan frosting on top, and decorated with a trail of finely chopped pecans around the base and top edge of the cake.

I know, I completely over-complicated the process, but I learned something from it. The flavors in the Bobby Flay frosting were so fantastic I’m glad I attempted it. In fact, when Kurt tasted it, he even asked how it was made because it was so good, and he’s never before asked about how anything is actually made. Next time though, I’ll simplify the process by keeping the combination of whole milk, coconut milk, and goat milk, but I’ll make it the more traditional way from the beginning with egg yolks and more butter. The chocolate chiffon layers were a very good choice, and I’ll definitely make those again. And, the milk chocolate buttercream was delicious on the cake and dressed it up a little even though it wasn’t piped into a pretty ruffle. Most importantly, Kurt really liked his birthday cake.

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Brewer’s Blondies

It sounds like these should have beer in them, doesn’t it? Well, the original version from Baked bakery in Brooklyn is made with brewer’s malt blended with chocolate that’s swirled into the dough. In the book Baked, the recipe was adapted for home bakers to use malted milk powder and chocolate malted milk balls instead. These are flavor-packed blondies with chocolate chips and toasted walnuts included as well. It’s suggested that they be served warm with a scoop of ice cream, and that’s a very good idea. I chilled them to make them easier to cut, and I might have tasted a bit while cutting. It was for research purposes, though, to confirm the ideal serving temperature. Yes, room temperature or warm is better for serving than cold in this case. The chocolate and malt aren’t as rich-tasting when cold. These blondies taste like a chocolate chip cookie in bar form, but that would be a chunky, malted, rich, and very special chocolate chip cookie.

For the chocolate malted milk balls, you are instructed to coarsely chop them in a food processor. That results in some biggish pieces, tiny pieces, and some powder. Since only three quarters of a cup is used, I might quarter them by hand next time. It will be tedious, but I think the uniform chunks would be better in the blondies. To start, flour was sifted with baking powder, salt, and malted milk powder. Then, butter was creamed with brown sugar, eggs and vanilla were added, and the flour mixtures was slowly added to form the dough. The chopped malted milk balls, chocolate chips, and chopped walnuts were folded in to finish it. The dough was spread into a parchment-lined baking pan and spread evenly. It baked for 25 minutes, it cooled on a rack, and then I refrigerated it overnight.

I always fall for the flavor of malted milk, but with everything going on with these blondies they’re hard not to like. I took these cookie bars to a birthday party so they weren’t left sitting around the house tempting me. That does mean I’ll have to make them again so I can go ahead and cut them while warm from the oven to enjoy with scoops of ice cream.

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Chocolate Caramel Bars

UPDATE: New photos were added on 12/13/2011, and the recipe now includes a link to a printable version.

Did you have a favorite candy bar when you were a kid? I had a few that I preferred, but the best ever to my mind was a Twix. That’s why I was determined to get these cookie bars right even though it took a couple of tries. This all started when I read the recipe for millionaire’s shortbread in the Baked book, and it sounded straightforward enough. The concept is exactly what you see here which is a layered bar of shortbread, caramel, and chocolate otherwise known as a homemade Twix candy bar. I had a caramel disaster in that the sweetened condensed milk which cooked in a double-boiler (for more than twice the suggested time) never became caramelly or thick enough. Plan B was using store-bought dulce de leche, but that didn’t work either because even chilled it isn’t firm enough. But, then I remembered the chocolate caramel squares recipe I had mentioned from The Golden Book of Baking, and its caramel layer is built in a slightly different way. After comparing the two recipes, I ended up mixing and matching and adding my own touch by keeping the chocolate glaze from Baked and using the caramel from The Golden Book of Baking and sprinkling the chocolate with French sea salt. To clear up all this confusion, I’ll include the final, complete recipe below.

The shortbread cookie base was made first, and the two books differ in that the Baked version is richer with a little more butter and an added egg yolk. For my final version, I went with the more basic shortbread with no egg from Golden Book of Baking. While the shortbread cooled, the caramel was made. In the successful version, butter, sugar, light corn syrup, and sweetened condensed milk were combined in a saucepan over medium heat. It was stirred while the butter melted, then brought to a boil, reduced to a simmer, and stirred while simmering for about 20-25 minutes. The recipe suggests five minutes, but at that point it wasn’t caramel yet. I was not willing to accept failure number two, so I continued cooking until it looked right. From time to time during the 25 or so minutes, I would drop a little caramel onto a white plate to see the color clearly and how it set up at that point. When it looked like the filling in a Twix bar, the caramel was poured over the shortbread and was left to cool. Then, the chocolate glaze was made with melted chocolate, corn syrup, and butter. Once melted together and smooth, that combination was poured over the cooled caramel. Last, I sprinkled sea salt on the chocolate before it set because I’m addicted to doing that with anything involving chocolate and/or caramel.

So, finally, after testing, failing, tinkering, and persevering, I did produce what could be called a homemade Twix bar kind of cookie. The three steps can easily be spaced out over two days, and the steps are simple now that I know what works. I did store the cut bars in an airtight container in the refrigerator to keep them firm, but they are solid enough to remain at room temperature and would travel well. Now that I’m happy with this version of a Twix, I may have to move on to trying Michel Richard’s adaptation of a Kit Kat.

Chocolate Caramel Bars
Adapted from Baked and The Golden Book of Baking

print recipe

Shortbread base:
2 c (300 g) all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup (250 g) butter, softened
1/2 cup (100 g) sugar

Caramel layer:
1 c (250 g ) butter, cut into small pieces
1 c (200 g) sugar
4 tablespoons light corn syrup
2 cans (14 oz/400 g) sweetened condensed milk

Chocolate glaze:
8 oz chocolate of your choice (I used milk chocolate with about 40% cacao), chopped if from bars (I used feves)
1 teaspoon light corn syrup
1/2 c (125 g) butter, cut into small pieces
Fleur de sel for sprinkling

Shortbread base:
-Pre-heat oven to 325 degrees F (170 degrees C) and line a 9-inch by 13-inch baking pan with parchment paper.
-Combine flour, baking powder, and salt in a large bowl. Beat butter and sugar in a mixer on high speed until light and well-combined. Turn mixer speed to low and slowly add the dry ingredients. Place dough in the prepared pan and press into an even layer. Placing plastic wrap over the top and pressing with a flat-bottomed glass helps to spread and flatten the dough. Bake for 15-18 minutes or until golden. Cool pan completely on a rack.

Caramel layer:
-Place butter, sugar, corn syrup, and sweetened condensed milk in a medium saucepan over medium-low heat. Allow butter to melt, and stir to combine. Raise heat to medium-high and bring mixture to a boil, then reduce heat to medium-low again to maintain a simmer while stirring constantly. After ten minutes or so, you may want to switch to a whisk if the butter seems to be separating. For this step, the time could vary a lot depending on the heat of your burner, so watch carefully. The mixture should become a light amber, caramel color, and it should thicken a bit. You can drop a small amount onto a white plate to check the color and consistency while it's cooking. Mine cooked for about 25 minutes. When it reaches the desired color and thickness, pour mixture over shorbread, spread evenly with a heat-proof spatula, and allow to cool completely.

Chocolate glaze:
-In a large, heat-proof bowl, combine chocolate pieces, corn syurp, and butter pieces and place over a saucepan of simmering water. Cook, stirring constantly, until melted and well-combined. Remove from the saucepan and allow the chocolate glaze to cool for 30 seconds. Then, pour the glaze over the cooled caramel and spread evenly with an off-set spatula. Allow the glaze to sit and cool for a few seconds before sprinkling with coarse sea salt.

-Cut into narrow bars and serve with a little nostalgia on the side.

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