Recipe Notes: Summer Peach Cake

20 September 2018

Recipe from Cook's Baking Book, America's Test Kitchen, 2013, p. 252.

There aren't many things better than a tree-ripened peach, one where the juice runs down you chin when you bite into it. This juiciness, however, is a challenge when you bake peaches in a cake. As the cake bakes the juices are released from the fruit into the batter making for a sodden, gummy cake. America's Test Kitchen took on this challenge and developed a recipe for a summer peach cake. Did they succeed in getting lots of peach flavor into the cake while maintaining a good texture?

I bought peaches at the supermarket rather than using local tree-ripened peaches. I assumed the recipe was developed using peaches that are more widely available at the market. The recipe includes peach schnapps to provide additional peach flavor; I used an orange liqueur rather than investing in peach schnapps for just this one use. Peaches were cut into ½-inch wedges and tossed with the liqueur, lemon juice, and a little sugar. The wedges were cut into thirds and roasted to remove some of their juice. They were then coated with panko bread crumbs. The batter was made by whisking together brown sugar, granulated sugar, and eggs. Melted butter was whisked into this mixture followed by sour cream, vanilla, and almond extract. Finally, a flour mixture (flour, baking powder, and salt) was whisked in until just combined. Half of the batter was added to a greased springform pan. The roasted peaches were layered on top of the batter. The remaining batter was poured over the peach layer. The top was decorated with more peach wedges plus a topping made with sugar mixed with almond extract. This was baked at 350°. The estimated time in the recipe is 50-60 minutes but I didn't take it out until after 70 minutes; even then a tooth pick was not coming out completely clean. Total time from start to removing the cake from the oven was about 2½ hours.

I served the cake at a meeting and received many compliments, people did enjoy the cake. I enjoyed it too, but being the baker I was a little more critical. I thought the cake was too moist, even a little gummy, despite the steps taken to minimize moisture from the peaches. Perhaps I didn't have realistic expectations for how the cake would turn out, and I was a little disappointed because of my fondness for peaches. 

Recipe Notes: Chocolate Chunk Oatmeal Cookies with Pecans and Dried Cherries

17 September 2018

Recipe from The Perfect Cookie, America's Test Kitchen, 2017, p. 33

What additions can you make to an oatmeal cookie? Chocolate chips, for sure. Raisins are common. How about nuts? We've probably all had oatmeal cookies with one or even two of these addends, but never all three. That's what this recipe is all about, loading up a basic oatmeal cookie with lots of flavorful ingredients. Will it be too little, too much, or just right?

The recipe specified pecans, dried sour cherries, and chopped bittersweet chocolate for the additions. I used walnuts, because I had them on hand and they were mentioned in the recipe as an alternate to pecans. I used dried cherries because that's what I found at the supermarket. The bag didn't say sour, it just said cherries and they weren't very sour; the recipe suggests dried cranberries and these would be worth trying. I used chopped bittersweet chocolate, as specified. The procedure for making the dough was standard: the dry ingredients (flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt) were whisked together in a bowl. The nuts, dried fruit, and chocolate were roughly chopped and mixed with rolled oats. Softened butter and brown sugar were beaten together in a stand mixer. An egg and vanilla extract were beaten into the sugar mixture. The dry ingredients were stirred in followed by the oat mixture. Using a #24 disher (smaller than what the recipe suggested, #16 or #20 would probably have been better) resulted in 19 cookies which were baked for 18 minutes for the first batch and 16 minutes for the second. Total time to make these cookies was 100 minutes.

I enjoyed these cookies. The mixture of the earthy nuts and oats with the bittersweet chocolate and sour-ish cherries was great. I didn't think there were too many extras added to the cookies, the ratio of cookie to additions was fine. However, the cookies were more crispy than chewy. This was my fault for over-baking them and making them a little too small, faults easily corrected, They taste good and are enjoyable, and with a little more attention to the details of baking should be just right.

Recipe Notes: Tacos Dorados

25 June 2018

Recipe from Cook's Illustrated, July 2018

Tacos dorados is a regular dinner item at our house. It means crispy tacos, i.e. tacos served using a crispy corn taco shell. It is usually a pretty simple affair. The taco shells are store bought. These are brought to the table with an array of taco fillings: ground beef (sometimes seasoned, sometimes not), shredded lettuce and cheese, avocado, tomatoes, roasted corn, sliced olives, sour cream, taco sauce, salsa, etc. Each person then builds a taco to suit their taste. In this Cook's Illustrated recipe the meat is seasoned and the taco shells are fried at home. I wanted to try some of what was in the recipe but not make it too complicated, after all we are cooking for just the two of us. Thus, I prepared tacos in our normal fashion but I prepared the ground beef filling using the recipe from the magazine.

Ground beef (90% lean, 13 oz) was mixed with water and baking soda; this raised its pH and prevented it from getting tough and rubbery when cooked. In a skillet with hot oil, one finely chopped onion was cooked to soften the onion. The seasonings were added to bloom their flavors: chili powder, paprika, cumin, and garlic powder. After a minute or so the ground beef was added and cooked until no pink remained. Soy sauce was added (in place of the tomato paste in the recipe) and the mixture transferred to a bowl where shredded cheese was stirred in. Including these steps it took about 50 minutes to prepare dinner. The meat mixture was sufficient for three meals.

The resulting tacos were okay. By itself the meat mixture was too spicy for our tastes, but served with the other fixin's it was acceptable. But is it worth the extra effort to prepare this spicy meat mixture? Especially when the taco is seasoned with prepared salsa or bottled taco sauce? My answer is no and we will stick with our simpler, quicker method of preparing tacos. Nonetheless it was worth doing once and who knows, perhaps some of what we learned will be adopted to become part of our standard preparation.

Recipe Notes: Chocolate Chewies

25 June 2018

Recipe from The Perfect Cookie, America's Test Kitchen, 2017, p. 63

When I saw this recipe in The Perfect Cookie it reminded me of Chocolate Chubbies, an excellent cookie that's something between a cookie and a brownie. While I have been rather methodical in working my way through the cookbook, I skipped ahead to try this recipe, inspired by the goodness of Chocolate Chubbies and hopes for an even better version.

There were several striking elements in the list of ingredients. There was a lot of sugar (2¼ cups confectioners' sugar), a lot of pecans (2 cups), very little flour (2 tablespoons), and very little fat (no butter and no egg yolks).  Creating the batter was straightforward. Dry ingredients (confectioners' sugar, cocoa, flour, salt) were mixed in a stand mixer. The wet ingredients were added one at a time: egg whites and vanilla. Finally, the pecans, which had been toasted and chopped, were added along with 1 ounce of grated bittersweet chocolate. These were baked, 15-18 minutes. I used a #60 disher which generated 33 cookies. Total time was 80 minutes.

My feelings about these cookies changed over time as I worked my way through the batch. (As with almost all cookies that I make, I freeze most of them, taking about a week's worth from the freezer once a week.) My first impression is they should have been called pecan cookies. Their flavor and texture were dominated by the nuts. Indeed, the batter was very thin and it was the pecans that held it together. The cookies were chewy, too, as advertised, but the chocolate flavor took a back seat to the pecans. The more I ate them, though, the more I grew to like them, to enjoy them for what they were rather than what I was expecting. Then towards the end of the batch my impression of them soured somewhat as I concluded they were too nutty for my taste. These were not much like chocolate chubbies where chocolate is the star, that is probably why I like them so much.