Souffle

A Souffle is a lightly baked cake made with egg yolk and beaten egg whites combined with other ingredients and served as a savory or sweet dish.


Every souffle is made with two basic components:

• A French custard base/flavored cream sauce or puree
• Egg whites beaten to a soft peak meringue

The base provides the flavor and the whites provides the "lift". Foods commonly used for the base in a souffle include cheese, jam, fruit, and berries. Chocolate, banana and lemon are used for desserts, often with a large amount of sugar

Chocolate Souffle:

• 1/3 cup sugar plus additional for sprinkling
• 5 oz bittersweet chocolate (not unsweetened), chopped
• 3 large egg yolks at room temperature

• 6 large egg whites
• Accompaniment: lightly sweetened whipped cream

Preheat oven to 375°F. Generously butter soufflé dish and sprinkle with sugar, knocking out excess.

Melt chocolate in a metal bowl set over a saucepan of barely simmering water, stirring occasionally until smooth. Remove bowl from heat and stir in yolks (mixture will stiffen).

Beat whites with a pinch of salt in a large bowl with an electric mixer at medium speed until they just hold soft peaks. Add 1/3 cup sugar, a little at a time, continuing to beat at medium speed, then beat at high speed until whites just hold stiff peaks. Stir about 1 cup whites into chocolate mixture to lighten, then add mixture to remaining whites, folding gently but thoroughly.

Spoon into soufflé dish and run the end of your thumb around inside edge of soufflé dish (this will help soufflé rise evenly). Bake in middle of oven until puffed and crusted on top but still jiggly in center, 24 to 26 minutes. Serve immediately.

(http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Chocolate-Souffle-106173#ixzz2HccHK7qa)

I found a site that talks about what could have gone wrong if your souffle did not rise.
(http://www.tasteofhome.com/Cooking-Tips/Desserts/Problem-Solving-Pointers-for-Souffles)

Souffle did Not Rise

• Egg whites were over beaten. Beat just until they reach a stiff peak.

Ingredients weren't gently folded together.

• The batter wasn't gently spooned into the dish. The oven wasn't preheated properly.

Souffle Overflowed the Dish

• Next time, make a foil collar for the dish or use a larger dish.

Souffle Fell

• A souffle will begin to fall shortly after it is removed from the oven. Plan the serving time well and have the guests waiting for the souffle.

Happy baking!
-Ashley



Fruit tarts

One thing I am very excited to make is a tart. They are not just a delicious dessert but a work of art.

Lets start with a basic tart crust: 

2 2/3 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp salt
1 tbsp sugar
1 cup butter, chilled and cut into 12-15 chunks
1/4 to 1/2 cup ice water

In the bowl of a food processor, pulse to combine flour, salt and sugar. Add in chunks of butter and pulse carefully until the mixture resembles very coarse sand.
Pour in ice water in a slow stream and continue to pulse (slightly longer pulses here) until the dough comes together into a large, rough ball. It should not be too wet or sticky, but if it is too crumbly to hold together, add an additional tbsp or two of ice water.
Divide dough into two discs and wrap each tightly in plastic. Chill at least 2 hours in the refrigerator, or store (even more tightly wrapped) in the freezer for 1-2 months. Refrigerated dough should be fine to work with for about a week.
Preheat oven to 350F.
Roll out half of the dough (one disc, from recipe above) into a circle large enough to fit a 9-10-inch tart pan.
Press dough into pan without stretching it and pinch any excess off along the top edge. Prick the bottom of the dough with a fork several times, line with aluminum foil and fill with pie weights.
Bake for 25 minutes, remove foil and pie weights, and bake for an additional 10 minutes, until golden brown.
Cool completely before filling

You can fill them with pastry cream or whip cream, and you can fill them with pretty much any fruit you like.



Check out http://www.bonappetit.com/ideas/tart-recipes/search for some really great tart recipes!

Happy Baking!
-Ashley

The wonderful world of scones

In my culinary class we spent a full week on baking and one of the items we were required to bake were scones. I made lemon cranberry and fell in love with scones.

A basic recipe for 20 scones:


2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for work surface

1/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon sugar

1 tablespoon baking powder

3/4 teaspoon coarse salt

1/2 cup (1 stick) cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces

3/4 cup buttermilk

1 large egg yolk

Preheat oven to 400. In a food processor, pulse together flour, cup sugar, baking powder, and salt. Add butter and pulse until pea-size pieces form. In a small bowl, whisk together buttermilk and egg yolk. Slowly pour buttermilk mixture through feed tube into processor, pulsing until dough just comes together.

Transfer dough to a lightly floured work surface and sprinkle raspberries on top. Gather and pat dough into a 1-inch-thick square and cut or pull apart into 2-inch pieces. Place pieces, about 2 inches apart, on two parchment-lined rimmed baking sheets and sprinkle tops with 1 tablespoon sugar.

Bake until golden brown, 15 to 18 minutes, rotating sheets halfway through. Let scones cool slightly on sheets on wire racks. Serve warm or at room temperature.

From here you can add pretty much any ingredient you want to flavor it.

Some examples:

Lemon cranberry

Orange cranberry

Orange poppyseed

Raspberry

Blueberry

Cherry

Cheddar and chive

Ginger with cardamom

Currant

Happy baking!
-Ashley

White chocolate. Easier?

I've never thought about making white chocolate until this very second. My first thought? Is it easier than making dark or milk chocolate?

Recipe:

1/4 cup (2 ounces) cocoa butter
1 tsp vanilla paste or powder
1/3 cup confectioners sugar
1/4 tsp soy milk powder
Pinch of salt

Melt the cocoa butter in a pot over low heat. Once melted add all the other ingredients and stir until completely dissolved. Pour into a mould of some sort and putting it into the freezer. Once its hard, its done!


*Trying to find other recipes besides this one was very hard. I came across one other one that was dairy free and low carb, but that was about it.

It seems to be a lot easier than milk or dark chocolate, but really, it's not chocolate.

I couldn't find a video on making white chocolate, apparently they don't exist. So instead lets learn how to make white chocolate ganache.

How much do you want this right now? 

Happy baking!

-Ashley  



Making chocolate at home

Yesterday I posted about making chocolate, but a lot of the equipment the factories use to make chocolate we cannot get our hands on. So I researched how to make it at home.

I came across two basic methods; one that is more advanced using cocoa beans and one that is, for the most part easier using cocoa powder.

Today I'm going to show you both ways, not with making it myself unfortunately, but with two videos I viewed and found helpful.

I plan on trying to make it at some point, but first I need to order the beans or nibs online, I think getting nibs would make it a little easier.

The more advanced way to make it at home is actually using the beans.

They start by roasting the beans and then removing the shells and setting aside the nibs (you can also crack them with a rolling pin then place then in a bowl and use a hair dryer to remove the husks, this is much faster. I do not recommend doing this inside your home. It will be messy).

You then grind the nibs into a liquor, then add the rest of your ingredients then mix or "conch" the chocolate and cool.

*This video isn't the greatest, but he does a good job at explaining the process.

The easier way is to just use cocoa powder with the other ingredients.

*Note: don't use Copha to make it, use cocoa butter for a better chocolate, but you can also use butter.

Both of these videos helped me to better understand the process, and I hope it helps you!

Happy cchocolate making!

-Ashley

Chocolate!

Something I have recently been obsessed with is the process of making chocolate from scratch, and I want to discuss with you the diffident ways and how its done as I learn about it myself.

I have never made chocolate before, but while searching for different kinds of peppermint bark I thought to my self how awesome it would be to make your own chocolate for your peppermint bark. Can you imagine just how good that would be?

So, here we go.


Step 1: Roasting

The first step in making chocolate is roasting the beans, this is critical for flavor development. There are two main approaches to roasting; roasting the beans for a short amount of time at high heat, which produces a strong chocolate flavor but eliminates any subtle floral notes and risks the development of charred flavors from over-roasting, or you can roast them for a long amount of time on low heat which allows the delicate flavors to come through but also sacrifices the "big" chocolate flavor.


Step 2: Winnowing

After the beans are roasted they go through a winnowing process which removes the outer husk or shells, leaving behind the roasted beans that are now called nibs.











Step 3: Milling


The nibs are then ground into a thick liquid called chocolate liquor, which is essentially cocoa solids suspended in cocoa butter.












Step 4: Pressing


The processing now goes in a couple of different directions. Some batches of chocolate liquor are pressed to extract the cocoa butter, which leaves a solid mass behind that is pulverized into cocoa powder. The remaining cocoa butter is reserved to help in chocolate making. Other batches of chocolate liquor are used directly to make chocolate.











Step 5: The beginnings of chocolate


To make dark chocolate, chocolate liquor, sugar and other minor ingredients such as vanilla are mixed together and kneaded until blended.

To make milk chocolate, milk and sugar are mixed together and the blended with chocolate liquor. This sweet combination is stirred until the flavors are thoroughly combined.







Step 6: Refining


After being mixed, both dark and milk chocolates go through the same process. The mixture travels through a series of heavy rollers, which press the ingredients until the mixture is refined to a dry flake. Additional cocoa butter and a small amount of emulsifying agent are added to the flake and then the mixed to a smooth paste ready for "conching"












Step 7: Conching


Conching further develops flavor by putting the chocolate through a kneading process. The conches have heavy rollers that plow back and forth through the chocolate mass anywhere from a few hours up to seven days.









Step 8: Tempering


 The mixture is them tempered, or passed through a heating, cooling and reheating process. Tempering allows you to solidify chocolate in a way that keeps it glossy, causes it to break with a distinctive snap and allows it to melt in your mouth.









Step 9: Moulding



The mixture is then poured into moulds and cooled.

















Once its cooled...dig in!!










Happy baking!
-Ashley

Peppermint Bark

Is peppermint bark a holiday favorite or do you like it any time of season? It happens to be one of my favorite treats and I make it whenever I have a craving.

It's a very simple recipe to make and doesn't take long to make, which is great for a quick chocolate fix.

I went and got my white chocolate and after I got home I realized the left over chocolate I had was semi-sweet. I'm going roll with it and see how it tastes... I've seen it made mostly with dark chocolate but I recently saw a recipe using semi-sweet and others that just use white chocolate.

I found many recipes that are all different and call for different amounts of the chocolate, today I'm not going to worry about amounts so I can use up my left overs.

Some recipes call for peppermint oil, this is completely optional; others will call for heavy cream which will make the chocolate a bit creamier, again optional.



Lets get started.

Here is the recipe I have used in the past;
http://savorysweetlife.com/2009/11/easy-peppermint-bark-recipe/

Ingredients: 

1 bag of chocolate chips (any kind you like)

1 bag of white chocolate chips

24 mini candy canes, crushed (you can use bigger candy canes or in the off season use the peppermint candies)

Melt your chocolate and spread it evenly in a pan lined with parchment paper. Place it in the freezer for about 20 minutes to harden.

Melt the white chocolate and spread over the dark (in this case semi-sweet) chocolate. Spread as fast as you can, the white will start to melt the dark, and that you don't want. Sprinkle the crushed candy canes over the top and place in the freezer for another 20 minutes to fully harden.

This is the finished product before broken up. 

Voilá! 

Happy Baking!

-Ashley

Whole Wheat Apple Muffins

While thinking about what I wanted to make for todays blog I tried to think of what I already had in my fridge. I remembered I had some left over apples, so here we are. Let the baking begin.

This recipe yields 12, I got 16 large muffins. 

While waiting for my butter to get to room temperature, I got all my mis en place, peeled and chopped my apples and set them aside.

In a bowl I put together all my dry ingredients except the sugar. 

Cream the butter and sugar, then add the egg, then buttermilk. Once mixed add the dry ingredients, and fold in the apples.

Put them into cupcake papers (I used silicone) and top with brown sugar. 

Bake them at 450 for 10 minutes then turn the oven down to 400 and bake for another 5-10 minutes. Mine only took 5. 

1 cup whole wheat flour

1 cup all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon cinnamon

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1/2 brown sugar (reserve 1/4 of the sugar to top the muffins)

1 large egg, lightly beaten

1 cup buttermilk

2 large apples, peeled and chopped

Pre heat the oven to 450 degrees. 

Mix together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and cinnamon and set aside. In a separate bowl cream the butter and sugar, add a 1/4 cup of the brown sugar and reserve the rest for the topping. Beat until fluffy, then add the egg and mix well. Mix in the buttermilk gently, if you over mix the buttermilk will cause the mixture to curdle. Stir in the dry ingredients, then fold in apple chunks.

Put the mixture into the tins and bake for 10 minutes, then turn the heat down to 400 degrees and continue to bake for 5-10 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Let them cool completely. 

*When making this recipe I used to really large apples and I had apple in every bite, if you want less use two smaller apples or one large apple.

Recipe from: http://smittenkitchen.com/blog/2008/04/whole-wheat-apple-muffins/

Happy baking!

-Ashley