Chocolate Espresso Cake with Cafe Latte Cream: a Happy Birthday Dad cake

A very happy cake slice.

Yesterday was my dad's birthday so I thought of making him a cake that he would really like. I asked him a few weeks back what flavor he likes to be in his cake; answers were obvious: coffee and liqueur. So I took upon myself to look for a luxurious cake (without breaking my budget) that uses coffee and liqueur; I found a few coffee cake recipes but none inspired me. Of course it was my dad's birthday and I wanted it to be special.

Chocolate Dipped Sencha Cookies: Zen Decadence

Last night I was trying to arrange my baking ingredients when I found a used pack of Japanese green tea leaves. I bought it last month because I wanted to practice making a green tea cake for my boyfriends birthday (hopefully he gets to come home during that time).  In the Japanese store, I asked the storekeeper if they had Matcha, which was more commonly used for confectioneries; unfortunately they had none, so I got the pack of Sencha tea leaves instead.

Japanese green tea in general has a delicate and detailed art of harnessing tea leaves. It's called by different names depending on how it's grown, processed and prepared. Two of them are the ones I mentioned above. Matcha is select leaves grown in a shade, dried flat and finely milled. Sencha is free dried leaves, rolled  and then roasted. For detailed descriptions of Japanese green tea, click here.  

I used the Sencha tea in cupcakes before that used steeped tea in hot water instead of powder. It was pleasantly refreshing but was a bit dense because of the number of eggs that the batter required. It tasted a bit egg-y, but still, it was a well-appreciated treat by everyone; it had just the right sweetness with a hint of bitterness. Hopefully I'll be able to make a lighter cake batter next time, I doubt the recipe I had would bake well as a full sized cake because of its density.

I wanted to give the green tea I had another form, cupcakes seemed to be bit heavy and needed to be consumed immediately. I thought, what if I made cookies? But I was stumped for a minute, I only had Sencha tea leaves. Matcha suits cookies since it's powdered form, cookies often require less liquid. What now? 

Then my usual curious self  took the coffee grinder attachment of our blender, spooned in a couple of tablespoon of tea leaves and set the speed on liquify. And yey! I got grounded tea leaves, though not that fine as the Matcha, but I think it would work fine as a substitute. 

So I got going with a simple shortbread cookie recipe from the Joy of Baking site and added a twist to it. Here's the result:

Half dipped with chocolate to accent the green tea flavor.

CHOCOLATE DIPPED SENCHA COOKIES

INGREDIENTS

Shortbread Cookie (makes about 1 dozen medium-sized cookies):

1 stick salted butter (room temp)

1/4 cup powdered sugar

1 cup flour

1 scant tsp vanilla

1-2 tbsp of grounded Sencha

Chocolate Dip:

100 grams of semi-sweet chocolate

PROCEDURE

*make cookie dough the night before; shortbread cookie dough keeps for a week if frozen.

1. Cream butter. Add in powdered sugar and beat until smooth for about 2 minutes.

2. Beat in vanilla and ground Sencha.

3. Stir in flour until incorporated. Flatten dough into disk shape, double wrap in plastic wrap and paper towels; then store in the freezer overnight.

4. 15 minutes prior to rolling out the dough, take it out of the freezer to thaw in room temp. Preheat oven to 350F. Grease and lightly flour baking sheets.

5. Roll out the dough into 1/4 inch thickness on a lightly floured surface with a rolling pin. Cut desired shape and place on cookie sheets.

6. Bake for about 15-20 minutes. Let cool.

7. Melt chocolate in a small heat-proof bowl over hot water. Dip cookies halfway then place on wax paper lined line baking sheet. Place in the refrigerator for an hour or until the chocolate hardens.

My sister thought it was an interesting flavor and worked well with coffee. She also said that she's going to franchise Starbucks in a soon to open mall here in Davao and feature what I've been baking. She's kidding of course. :)

As I am writing this, the TV is tuned in to CNN's coverage of the recent Japan earthquake and the tsunami threats to countries facing the Pacific Ocean, including the Philippines, specifically my province Davao del Sur. I thought that it was quite a strange coincidence that I was blogging about something Japanese. Hmmm... Freaked out much? On a serious note: Lord, for whatever reason this has happened, may we come to accept it and learn from it. We lift this up to You. Amen.

Profiteroles with Ganache Filling: Chocolate Puffpuffs!

I suddenly had a craving for Cecil's Cream Puffs: pastries filled with cream custard and topped with coffee-sugar syrup. Cecil's is a local fast-food & bakery way before popular fast-food chains franchised in the Davao. Before Goldilocks and Red Ribbon came to the city, Cecil's was the best option for pastries and cakes. Unfortunately, I've come to notice overtime that the quality of their goods became too commercialized. I don't know, it's just not the same as the ones I remember from childhood.

So I got curious, how are cream puffs made?

Cream puffs or Profiteroles (as it's promptly called) are dessert dishes made out of Choux pastries filled with sweet fillings such as whipped/pastry cream, custards and even ice cream. The Choux dough upon baking relies on its high moisture content to produce steam and create air pockets inside the pastry, hence the puff. The pastry itself is a bit bland, having only hint flavors of egg and butter, originally used for savory dishes by the French and English during the 16th century. I guess someone thought it was a good idea to fill these pastry shells with something sweet around the 19th century and the name Profiteroles was then meant only for Choux pastries filled with sweet fillings, and they named the savory filled ones as Gougeres.

The shape of the Choux pastry also influences how it's called: Profiteroles are ball-like, Eclairs are long and thin; or how it's cooked: Crullers are twisted pastry shaped like a ring and deep fried, Beignet are filled with fruits preserves and fried (like filled-donuts). Apparently, you can pipe Choux dough straight into a fryer and you get Churros!

The bottom line: Choux pastry is a recipe that every aspiring home-baker should know.

Another recipe that I find necessary to know is a simple Ganache. It's a French term for the heavenly mixture of heavy-cream and chopped bitter/semi-sweet chocolate. Different ratio between the chocolate and cream determines the consistency of the Ganache to serve its purpose: filling, frosting, glaze or icing.

Since Ganache is also versatile and technically easy to do, I settled to make Profiteroles filled with simple Ganache.

My first profiteroles with ganache oozing out. So cute!

PROFITEROLES - CHOUX PASTRY

INGREDIENTS

1 cup all-purpose flour

1 tsp sugar

1 stick salted butter

1 cup milk

4 large eggs

PROCEDURE

1. Preheat oven to 400F; grease or line baking sheet with parchment paper. 

2. Sift flour and sugar in a bowl. Set aside.

3. In a saucepan, heat milk and butter until butter melts and slightly simmering. Set the heat on very low at this point.

4. Add all the sifted flour-sugar mixture into the saucepan and stirring vigorously with a wooden spoon or heat-resistant spatula until the mixture comes together in a dough-like consistency. Remove from heat and let cool for a few minutes.

5. Slightly beat the eggs in a separate bowl. Then add in egg in 2 parts to the dough, mixing well after each addition. The dough should now be a shiny batter-like consistency.

6.  Pipe with a pastry bag or dollop with a spoon onto the baking sheet. Each plot should be at least 1 inch apart to give each pastry a room to puff.

7. Bake for about 40 minutes in the preheated oven or until amber in color. Note: for gas ovens, place the sheet on the top slot so the bottom of the pastry will not get too dark or burn.

SIMPLE GANACHE

INGREDIENTS 

10 ounces (283grams) semi-sweet chocolate

1 cup all-purpose cream

PROCEDURE

*You can make this ahead of time, chill preferably overnight so you would have a Ganache fit for whipping.

*This recipe is good for 1 1/2 recipes of average sized Profiteroles, but you can use the excess as a faux-fondue dip for mallows and fruits.

1. Chop chocolate into small pieces and place it in a heat-proof bowl. Set aside.

2. Heat cream in a saucepan until bubbling. Immediately remove from heat and pour into the chocolate. Leave for at least 5 minutes.

3. Whisk until mixture is well incorporated.

Putting it together:

1. Make sure that the profiterole pastries are cool enough to handle. Poke a hole on the side of the pastry, just enough for the tip of your pipping bag to fit.

2. Take out a well-chilled batch of Ganache and whip in a bowl until it becomes stiff. Place in a piping bag.

3. Pipe the Ganache into the pastry through the hole. Dust with powdered sugar.

While I was letting the pastries cool, my nephew kept of bothering me to let him taste one. It's not even filled  yet, but he dips the pastry into the Ganache instead. That's another way to eat it, like a round baked Churro. 

The ones I made were hardly 2 inches big, I wasn't sure how well it puffs so I started off with making them small. Practiced my piping skills too; used a open star tip Wilton #21 to create a rosette.

My mom seemed to like it, she only complained that they were too small, good for one bite. I guess besides making Profiteroles, I also made Petit Fours!

I'll be making another batch of Profiteroles tomorrow in sizes good for an appetite like my nephew. Maybe with a different filling and top it with the Ganache instead? Hmm...

Chocolate French Macaron: not! super FAIL

I was curious about French Macarons after reading an article on David Lebovitz's blog. David Lebovitz is an ex-pastry chef and an established cookbook author based in Paris. I don't exactly remember how I came to bookmark his site, must've been because I would be googling the words "best food blogs" often after I got addicted to baking.

French Macarons are small delicate and colorful confectioneries made mostly of egg whites, sugar and ground almond. It has a flat base with ruffled circumference (foot), a smooth dome thin crust which is egg-shell like and its insides soft and almost meringue like in texture. A complete macaron would be a flavored filling sandwiched between two macaron cookies.

Egg whites, sugar, ground almonds? Hah! Such simple ingredients! This one is an easy bake.

Ooops... spoke too soon. 

I had several issues to deal with while baking these:

1. I couldn't find ground almonds. So I relied on the substitution lists and found that whole/sliced almonds processed in a blender/grinder would replace ground almonds. Now, almonds have oil content, when I finished grinding them, they turned out to be a bit damp and formed clumps. Researched and read too late that heating the almond meal in the oven would help them to dry up.
2. The recipe called for Dutch-processed cocoa powder. Stupid me, I was at the grocery and found a bag of the Dutch-processed variety but didn't get it. We have a tin of natural cocoa powder which turned out to be rather different from the Dutch. Has something to do with the unique process of the Dutch which involves alkalizing cocoa to neutralize its pH level. (yes, there is a science to this). Again, substitution: adding baking soda to the natural cocoa powder.
3. I thought I could use wax paper, but it turns out that wax paper can only be used for baking cakes, not for cookies! Stupid me again for not getting the baking sheets in the grocery. I wanted to gamble on wax paper but chickened out because of the scary things people are saying about using wax paper as lining when baking cookies (smoking, flaring, crayola taste, etc). Went for the foil method instead.
4. I think I over-zealously beaten and folded the egg whites. Tsk.

Horrid looking macarons! :(

As you can see from above, the cookies have no feet, cracked domes, overly crunchy and hollowed centers! Thought about throwing them out to hide evidence of a failed experiment, but thought about how many hours I slaved over this. They were edible at least, nutty chocolate taste  (like peanut kisses) melt in your mouth (like meringue candies). So I guess I just made tiny Chocolate Almond Meringue candies?

I wouldn't be trying this again any time soon though, not until I'm able to get ingredients, tools and info right. It's too meticulous to deal with and needing finesse in technique. I'm still a throw-'em-in-there kinda person, which is undesirable when recreating masterpieces like the French Macaron.

If you want to give it a shot, you can find the recipe I tried to follow here.