baking

vegan chocolate cupcakes and frosting

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One would imagine that the whole point of baking vegan would be in the interest of making something healthier. But no, for me, it’s just to ensure that the plant-based eaters among us can also access my baking. It’s also a challenging experiment for me, not unlike the attempts at gluten-free baking I sometimes undertake. Both work well enough, but I don’t eat any of it to be able to say for sure how successful these attempts are.

However, this time I took the vegan goods to a vegan acquaintance who was willing to give me an honest and detailed appraisal. I’d adapted my standard ANZAC biscuit, which looks deceptively healthy but isn’t, to be vegan, but this was simple. It was simply a matter of swapping regular butter for coconut oil, and this apparently worked beautifully. So much so that the vegan ANZAC biscuits were gone quickly with non-vegans praising them, and the vegan acquaintance only getting to enjoy one.

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Not too different from a regular ANZAC biscuit

As for the chocolate cupcakes, it was reported that the cake itself was not unlike any standard vegan cupcake. Maybe a little dry, maybe not inspiring, but passable. This is mostly what I expected, but I also think that these cupcakes probably need to be eaten very soon after being baked (they can’t sit out for days, particularly uncovered, as was happening where I left them). Here is the vegan cupcake recipe I used, minus the pretzel flourishes…

It was however reported, quite against my expectation, that the frosting was superb. And I guessed – and this was confirmed – that vegan frosting is not always an easy thing to achieve. With taste and consistency being a bit fussy without butter or eggs, I gave it a lot of thought because many commercial vegan margarine substitutes just separate and don’t whip up well. And vegetable oils aren’t successful. You could just do a dark chocolate ganache topping, but that was not what I was after.

Finally I remembered the old days and the good old solutions my grandma favored. Her frosting recipe had nothing to do with veganism or healthy choices but had a lot more to do with what she had on hand and what ingredients she was used to working with. And that’s when I realized, ah yes, you can make frosting from solid vegetable shortening (i.e., something like Crisco). No it is not the healthiest solution, and vegetable shortening isn’t the easiest thing to find in Sweden. But find it I did, after doing a bit of reading online about how people use vegetable shortening to make light, fluffy frosting. It’s also a boon if you’re trying to have perfectly white frosting, which is impossible using butter. In my reading I realized that professional bakers often use Crisco to make frosting not only because it is so white but also because it is so stable and less fussy than butter icing.

As it happens, I was going for a chocolate frosting, so I whipped the vegetable shortening vigorously, added a lot of powdered sugar and a whole lot of vanilla extract and then alternated between unsweetened cocoa powder and hot coffee.

vegan cupcake

Yeah, I hear you… the sprinkle job/decoration leaves much to be desired.

Vegan chocolate frosting with vegetable shortening recipe
2/3 cup all-vegetable shortening (e.g., Crisco)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract (at least 1 teaspoon; I think I used much more)
1/4 teaspoon salt
3 cups powdered sugar (approximate – work with it to get the balance you prefer)
1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
5 to 6 tablespoons milk (or hot coffee – I wanted a deeper, richer chocolate flavor, so I opted for coffee)

Beat shortening for several minutes; add vanilla and salt. Continue to beat on high speed until very fluffy. Add the powdered sugar, and begin to beat on low speed until incorporated. Add cocoa powder alternately with the milk or coffee, until you get everything mixed together well. Give it a taste to see if you need to adjust the ingredients for taste (more cocoa? more vanilla?)

Once you’ve got your flavor right, beat on high speed until smooth and creamy, about 2 minutes (maybe more!). And frost!

skor-daim bar squares

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A Canadian acquaintance requested Skor bar squares to celebrate his birthday when I asked what baked good he might like. Of course, we don’t have Skor bars in Sweden, and the closest approximation is the Daim bar. Also, I have never heard of or made Skor bar squares, so I did an internet search for recipes, hoping that whatever I ended up with would somehow be close to what the acquaintance was hoping for/referring to.

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He said upon having a taste that they were not exactly what he was thinking of but that they were still good. So I put this here hoping maybe someone – anyone? – who reads it might suggest what an actual Skor bar square cookie should be like?

Recipe
Skor (or Daim) bar squares/cookies
1 (11.3 oz) box Ritz crackers
1 (8 oz) bag toffee bits (I used about 225 grams of Daim bars, which I put in the food processor to make bits)
1 (14 oz) can sweetened condensed milk
1 cup milk chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 350ºF. Spray (or butter) an 8×8-inch baking dish with nonstick cooking spray.

Place all of the Ritz crackers in a food processor and process until they are fine crumbs. Pour them into a bowl. Mix one cup of the Daim bits with the Ritz crumbs. Then stir in the can of sweetened condensed milk until well combined.

Press into the prepared baking dish. Bake for 10 minutes, then remove from oven.

Immediately pour the chocolate chips evenly over the top of the bars (I just used broken up milk chocolate bars, as I didn’t have chocolate chips). Allow to sit for a few minutes to melt, then spread evenly over the top. (If they aren’t melting, stick the pan back into the oven for a minute or two – I did this because the pieces of chocolate were a bit thicker than chocolate chips would be – it worked really well.)

Immediately sprinkle the remaining toffee/Daim bits on top. Cool completely before cutting into squares.

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irn-bru shortbread experiment

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I am always game for trying out some different form of shortbread. And what could be more Scottish than Irn-Bru shortbread?

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I found and used a recipe I came across online on the Scotsman website, and guess what? It was a total failure. I read the ingredients for the Irn-Bru filling a few times, and it didn’t seem possible that it could come together as an ‘icing-like’ filling – and voilà, it absolutely did not. I don’t see how this could work as published, so because I didn’t have time to mess about experimenting, I used the shortbread cookies (the recipe below worked beautifully) and made a chocolate filling instead:

Shortbread
125g granulated sugar
250g unsalted butter (I used half salted, half unsalted)
375g flour

Soften butter to room temperature. Mix butter and sugar until well-combined.
Add flour and mix gently with a pastry blender/mixer until dough almost comes together, which will take about five minutes.

Gather dough together and knead lightly on a floured surface. Roll dough to roughly 1/4-inch thickness. Cut into desired shapes. Reroll excess dough up to 3 times. Bake at 265 F (130 C) for about 50 minutes.

You will be making a filling from Irn-Bru and white chocolate and creating nice wee shortbread sandwich cookies. If you follow the recipe, I don’t see how it can work at all. But if you do try it and the following info works for you, enlighten me. All I can think of is that somehow “double cream” differs from “heavy cream”, but I don’t think so.

1 bottle or can of Irn-Bru soda
100g of white chocolate
50g double cream
Pinch of salt

Combine white chocolate and double cream over a double boiler until combined. Let cool and mix in 4 tablespoons of Irn-Bru. Use a piping bag to fill each sandwich. I got what was very much like soup as a result, so no piping bag, no Irn-Bru filling.

Et voilà… in the end, it was not a thoroughly Scottish treat.

we’ve changed to be

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From what or whom did we change to become what we are now?

A letter arrived in which someone exclaimed that she’d taken up near-obsessive baking, and she finally understood my own (now waning) obsession with baking or started to associate baking with some of the feelings I had attached to it – relaxation, a sense of producing something. And when did she turn from a non-baker to someone who dreamed up something sweet to create every night?

For that matter, when did I become someone who welcomed 30C/85F temperatures? There was a time when I would hide from such weather, feeling miserable in the warmth from which I could not escape.

Is it age? Is it experience? Is it the combination of both mixing to give us acceptance of or approval for things we once felt indifferent toward or actively disliked? How do we come to long for things we never wanted?

More curious… how do we change and then change back? Did we never really change or were we having a break? What are the inner workings that drive these sometimes unconscious shifts… and what shifts them back? Is it the need for reflection/rest? Is it the vitality to try something different before feeling the pull of old habits (they do, after all, die hard) and comforts?

aquafaba experimentation: even better than the real thing?

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A long time ago I heard that the water you drain off of chickpeas, also called aquafaba, is a good substitute for egg whites in all kinds of things, including meringue. I never tested it out even though I meant to (and often use chickpeas, and all that fabulous water has gone down the drain). My mom mentioned this tip to me yesterday, and was surprised I already knew about it – and also was eager for me to try it out. I happened to notice that someone visited my blog and landed on the page that includes a recipe for espresso meringue cookies (something I have not made since 2009) and also happened to be making vegetable curry (meaning chickpeas were already being used). Nothing wasted: waste not, want not.

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chickpeas

So… espresso meringue cookies. The vegan kind. I was dubious. I started beating the chickpea run-off with vanilla and waited. Didn’t look promising at first. But then it all started coming together.

When soft peaks formed, I beat in a sugar and espresso powder mixture that ended up yielding a very nice meringue. And in fact the taste was like espresso – not like chickpea.

Finished product…

 

best chocolate cake ever – supposedly

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My go-to chocolate cake recipe has always been a bit more than ‘basic’. When I first published it here in this blog way back in 2009, I referred to it as “basic”, but later, when I started baking on a grander scale, I realized that, no, in fact, it has too many separate steps to be called basic. When you can make one-cup microwave chocolate cake to satisfy those driving choco-cravings or something a few steps simpler, this one is not the easiest you can get. But every chocolate-loving friend with whom I have shared this particular cake will tell you that the extra steps are well worth it.

Many years ago when I started making this cake, one friend told me it was the second-best cake of her life (after her wedding cake). Another friend uses this recipe every time she needs a killer cake that will not fail. The other day for a work dinner, I produced this cake, and one of the dinner party guests exclaimed that it was possibly the best cake she has ever eaten. High praise indeed. Similar accolades flow every time.

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best chocolate cake ever

The only difference this time between my original recipe and what I did now is that I used two different kinds of frosting. I made a standard buttercream (cocoa, powdered sugar, butter and sprinkle of coffee), which I used as a rather thick crumb coat. On top of this, on each layer, I slathered on generous heaps of chocolate Swiss meringue buttercream, which always comes out tasting a bit like chocolate mousse. Again, worth the extra work.

extra step: beat egg whites and fold them into the rest of the cake batter
voilà: uncut cake ready for transport and gobbling up

Tasks and tools

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I have always said that for every task there is a tool, and while I don’t always stand by this (why accumulate more and more specialized tools when you can improvise and accumulate less), sometimes the difference the right tool makes is astounding.

One example that surprised me was when I somehow acquired a little plastic thing that makes holes in the middle of cupcakes to fill them. I thought it seemed like a wasteful wee bit of plastic until I actually used it – the days of ripped-up cupcake tops with holes inelegantly stabbed into being with not-fit-for-purpose paring knives were finally over. And the cupcake “holer” was so much quicker, neater. And for someone who makes filled cupcakes by the hundreds, rather than the dozens, this made a lot of sense.

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On a similar note, for a very long time, I have been using a cheap, flimsy but reliable blender to make my morning breakfast monstrosity (a lot of spinach and a bit of kiwi, yogurt, cinnamon and turmeric). It’s been a loyal and useful tool. I also had a KitchenAid blender, which was much more expensive and supposedly heavy-duty, but it couldn’t handle anything, meaning that I eventually went out and bought another of the cheap blenders when the first one eventually died.

Just before the end of the year, I bought a heavy-duty, rather insane, Ninja blender/food processor thing but put it away until the old, basic blender breathed its last, which happened to be this afternoon, when it spewed a not inconsiderable amount of smoke into the air and smelled of burning plastic. Yes, the time had come to give this trusty blender his well-earned retirement.

Making a smoothie in this Ninja thing is like joining an entirely different world of appliances. Not unlike moving from mixing everything by hand to the magnificent KitchenAid stand mixer (which is, apparently, the only thing KitchenAid can reliably make – my other KitchenAid appliances are weak and fragile).

Once upon a time, I lived in a seaside flat in Iceland and spent my days and nights mixing all my copious baking projects by hand. I know the difference a purpose-made appliance can make. And while this Ninja thing might be overkill, it certainly created something completely different from what I was drinking – using so much less noise.

white chocolate raspberry prosecco truffles

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What do you do when you end up not only with about five pounds of white chocolate (when you only needed about half a pound and also find white chocolate to be little better than eating crayons) but also with bottles of prosecco (when you don’t really drink, and if you did, prosecco would be one of the last things you’d reach for)?

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Too much white chocolate! And I was wrong. It wasn’t only 5 pounds but 5.5! Fuck! Incidentally I still have quite a lot of these and will make another batch of everyone’s favorite white chocolate macadamia cookies soon, even though my baking days are over… but as white chocolate goes, these are amazing. Thanks, Callebaut quality

You make white chocolate raspberry prosecco truffles. I saw a recipe online at the same time I was 1. stuck with these extraneous, and let’s face it, almost inappropriate amounts of ingredients, and 2. happened to be in a candy-making frenzy for handing over some homemade gifts to neighbors and people who stopped by in the post-holiday period.

So how did we get from there (see the oversized bag of white chocolate) to here (see below)? You can click the link above or follow the recipe below.

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White chocolate raspberry prosecco truffles
1 cup raspberries
2 tablespoons sugar
1/2 cup prosecco
red food coloring

2 cups white chocolate (for truffles)
2 cups white chocolate (for dipping/coating)

edible gold glitter

Mix in saucepan on medium, cook 3-4 minutes. Reduce to low. Add ½ cup prosecco. Simmer 2 minutes. Strain to remove seeds. Return to pan, add one drop red food color. Cook 10 minutes ( you should end up with about 1/2 cup of liquid).

Put 2 cups white chocolate chips in a bowl. Pour the cooked raspberry prosecco mixture over the chips. Let this sit 2 minutes, and then whisk until smooth.

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Put in freezer for an hour or two.

Remove from freezer and work quickly make 1 tablespoon-sized balls from the frozen mixture. Place balls on a parchment-lined baking sheet and freeze again, at least an hour.

When nearly ready to finish, melt 2 cups of white chocolate chips in a double boiler or microwave.

Using a toothpick, lift each frozen prosecco ball and dip in white chocolate and place on a wax paper lined baking sheet. Freeze 30 minutes.

Re-melt chocolate and put in piping bag. Remove toothpicks gently – 3 at a time, drizzle white choc over – and top each with edible gold glitter.

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One of them cracked open and this is how it looked inside (somehow I think it could be less grey-lavender colored but my luck with red food coloring is lacking.

I can’t tell you how these taste, though, because I sure as hell wasn’t going to eat blobs of white chocolate and prosecco-tinged raspberry goo!

Brown sugar caramels

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I wondered if using dark brown sugar would change caramel-making. Well, the making is the same. The results were slightly different but positive.

Here’s how to go about it:

Brown sugar caramels
1½ cups heavy cream
¼ cup unsalted butter
Pinch of salt
1 cup dark brown sugar
½ cup granulated sugar
¼ cup light corn syrup or golden syrup
¼ cup water
1½ teaspoons vanilla
Sea salt to top, if desired

Lightly oil or spray an 8×8-inch square pan and line with parchment paper (the baking spray helps keep the parchment in place). Set aside.

Heat the cream, butter and salt in a small saucepan and heat together over medium-low heat until cream steams and butter is melted. (Or do the same in a microwave-safe bowl in the microwave on high in 30-second intervals until cream is hot and steamy and the butter is melted, stirring or swirling gently between microwave intervals.) Set aside.

In a large heavy-bottomed pot add the sugars, syrup and water. Whisk until thick and grainy. Clip your candy thermometer to the side of the pot, making sure the tip is submerged but not touching the bottom of the pot.

Turn the heat to medium. Without stirring, heat to 260 degrees F. Remove from heat, then slowly whisk in the cream mixture. Mixture will boil up so do this carefully.

Return to heat and, again without stirring, heat to 250 degrees. Turn off heat, quickly but gently whisk in the vanilla, and carefully pour into the prepared pan. Do not scrape the bottom of the pot, as this will have burned sugar that you do not want in your caramels.

Top caramels lightly with coarse sea salt, if desired. Allow to cool completely, at least 2-3 hours or, preferably, overnight. Cut into squares or rectangles and wrap each piece in waxed paper.

Caramels

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Caramels are not at all difficult to make. Candy-making in general is an exercise in patience. Most of the time, it’s a matter of mixing up very basic ingredients but then just standing there staring at a pile of sugar go through all kinds of chemical reactions to become something else and then something else again. But to achieve the desired results, the temperature is all the matters. So you have to just stare at the candy thermometer. And stare. And stare … and stare some more.

Here we go… I doubled this recipe.

Caramel
1/2 cup (113 grams) unsalted butter
1/2 cup (120 ml) heavy cream or heavy whipping cream
3 tablespoons water
1/4 cup (60 ml) light corn syrup (I used golden syrup)
1 cup (200 grams) sugar

Chocolate (if you make chocolate-covered caramels)
1 pound high-quality chocolate, milk, dark, or white
2 tablespoons butter
1/2 teaspoon course or flaked sea salt (to sprinkle on the caramel and/or chocolate if you decide to make salted caramels)

Lightly oil a 9 x 5 inch loaf pan then measure and cut a piece of parchment paper that will fit inside the pan and come up the sides. Lightly oil the parchment paper and place into the pan. Set the pan aside.

Cut butter into 8 pieces then combine with heavy cream in a small saucepan (if melting on the stove) or microwave-safe bowl (if melting in the microwave). On stove, heat on medium-low until cream is steaming and butter is melted. In the microwave heat for 1 to 2 minutes until hot and butter has melted. Set aside.

In another small saucepan combine the water and syrup. Then, add the sugar. Gently stir the sugar into the water and corn syrup, just moistening the sugar.

Heat over medium until the sugar has come to a boil. Then, cover with a lid for 1 minute. This adds steam/moisture to the pan, so any sugar that may have stuck to the sides of the pan melts and falls back into the boiling sugar.

Remove lid and attach a candy thermometer to the side of the saucepan. Then, cook sugar for 5 to 10 minutes, until the sugar reaches a temperature of 320 degrees F. At this temperature, the sugar will take on a light amber color.

As soon as the temperature reaches 320 degrees F, remove from heat and carefully pour the butter and cream mixture without scraping the bottom of the pan. The sugar will bubble violently as you add the butter and cream – so do this carefully and slowly to prevent the mixture from bubbling over the sides of the saucepan.

Return to heat (medium) and continue cooking for another 5 to 10 minutes, until the caramel reaches a temperature of 240 degrees F/soft ball stage. This creates a very soft caramel. When I made this I cooked to firm ball stage (245-250F) but it was still quite soft.

The moment the caramel reaches your desired temperature, pour into the prepared loaf pan. Cool 20 to 30 minutes then, if salting, scatter the salt over the caramel. Then, let the caramel cool for at least 3 1/2 hours.

After cooling, unmold the caramel. If the caramel is too soft to work with, place into the refrigerator 30 to 45 minutes to firm up. Use a large sharp knife to cut into desired shape. I made small rectangles. You can then wrap these caramels in wax paper if you are not coating them in chocolate.

For chocolate coating, line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Melt chocolate and butter in microwave or on stovetop until smooth and shiny.

Use two forks to dip each caramel into the melted chocolate then place onto parchment paper. If desired, sprinkle a little salt on top of each caramel and allow chocolate to set.