Past the Maybes, maybe...

So I've been down the last couple weeks. A mix of lonely Toronto and ridiculous rain for a week straight. (I honest to gad didn't know Edmonton was the sunniest city in Canada). But this past week has been sunny and wonderful! So, to celebrate, I made some apple crumble (and I may have had it for lunch).

Apple Crumble

5 - 6 large apples, peeled, cored and sliced (I used whatever ones where deemed "not quite right" by the BF. They were fine. He's apple picky.)

Filling:
1 cup sugar
2 TBSP flour
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp salt

1/4 cup apple cider or lemon juice

Crumble:
1 cup flour
1 cup rolled oats
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 butter, melted
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp salt

  1. Preheat oven to 350'F.
  2. Wash, core, peel and slice apples. To core and peel apples, chop washed apples into quarters. With a paring knife, slice out the apple quarter's core with a scooping motion. The apple piece should look like a crescent now. With the paring knife, slip the blade underneath the apple skin at one end of the crescent and, in one stroke if you can, slide the blade to the other end of the crescent, as close to the skin as possible. Practice, practice, practice! Now slice the apples into 1/2cm pieces longwise. You can make the slices as big or as little as you want, depending on what you like. They will cook pretty much the same. Place your apples into a large casserole dish. Spread apples evenly so that the apples come about halfway up the sides of the dish.
  3. Pour the apple cider (or lemon juice) over the apples. 
  4. Add the filling ingredients together in a bowl. Mix well. Pour the filling mixture over the apples. Mix the apples so they are well coated in the filling mixture. Spread the apples out evenly again. 
  5. In a bowl, add the crumble ingredients. Mix well together so that there are no large chunks. Sprinkle the crumble over the apples in an even layer. 
  6. Bake for 45 minutes until crumble is golden brown and the filling juices are bubbling. You can tell if the apples are done if you can easily insert a fork into the centre of the crumble. Remove from oven and let cool a bit. Serve still a bit warm! A la mode, if you have it!

Cheers!

-Andrea

The Half-Assed Hobbyist

Apricots and Oven Testing

During the trip to the market last week I also bought a basket of apricots. The trouble with buying a basket of one thing is, with only two people around, typically whatever it is starts to go bad before it's gone. This was the unfortunate case with my lovely apricots. They were juicy and firm and delicious, but they were ripe and ready and we couldn't eat them fast enough. 

Step in stage right, fresh fruit cakes. I'm not quite sure the history of upside-down cakes but whoever masterminded them hopefully realized how incredibly convenient they are. Got too much fruit but don't want to make a pie crust or crumble? Well then, make a lazy coffee cake. 

Also, more convenience, this afforded a perfect opportunity to test my new oven! Double win!

I got this recipe from my Grandmother's 1932 General Foods cookbook. It may be almost a century old but it still makes a cake that tastes amazing!

Apricot Upside-down Cake

12 small apricots, blanched, skinned and sliced

4 TBSP butter, melted
1/2 cup brown sugar
(1/2 tsp ground cinnamon, optional)

1 1/4 cup flour (cake flour, if you have it!)
1 1/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
4 TBSP butter
3/4 cups granulated sugar
1 egg, well beaten
1/2 milk
1 tsp vanilla

8X8X2 inch baking pan (Or a 9 inch circlular pan.)

  1. To blanch apricots: ash apricots. Set a pot of water to boil. Also, set out a bowl of ice water. After the water is boiling, immerse apricots in the boiling water for no more than 30 seconds. Using a slotted spoon, scoop them out and place them immediately into the ice water bowl. Let them cool completely.
    To skin apricots: After the fruit is cooled, using your hands, peel off the skins of the apricots. They should come off easily. (Note: if the apricot isn't ripe, the skin will not loosen.) 
    To slice apricots: With a sharp knife, make a slit around the centre of the apricot, all the way around. Remove the pit. Slice up the rest of the apricot flesh. 
  2. In a microwave safe bowl, melt butter. Add brown sugar. Mix thoroughly. Pour sugar mixture into the bottom of your baking pan. Arrange the sliced apricots on top of the sugar mixture in the baking pan. Set aside.
  3. Preheat your oven to 350'F.
  4. In a bowl, combine flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside. 
  5. In an electric mixer, cream butter. Add sugar and beat until butter is light and fluffy. (It will literally change colour. From butter yellow to a light white yellow.)
  6. Add pre-beaten egg. Stir. 
  7. Now combine flour and milk in with the sugar/egg mixture, alternating milk and flour mixtures. Mix each part until smooth before adding the next part. 
  8. Stir in vanilla. 
  9. Pour cake batter on top of apricots in the baking pan. Smooth the top so all the apricots are covered. I found it easier to carefully scoop batter rather than spreading it around. 
  10. Bake for ~50 minutes or until a fork inserted into centre of cake comes out clean. 
  11. After it's done baking, let cool for an hour before you flip it out onto a serving platter. Serve warm or let cool completely and top with icing sugar. 

I definitely was too impatient to wait for it to cool enough and as a result most of the syrup leak to the bottom of the cake, making it stick to the serving plate it was on. Oh well. Still tasted amazing! I even froze some of it so we'll see if it keeps well. I was hoping to save it for a while... but a have a cake hankering just writing this post. Haha. Also my oven has passed it's test with flying colours. It seems to bake evenly and keep it's temperature very well. Thank you kitchen gods!

Cheers!

-Andrea

The Half-Assed Hobbyist

Jelly Flower Power


It was last year in mid December that my friend Lesley showed me a video about making edible flowers in gelatine. A) I was super blown away because I'd never seen anything like it before, and B) obviously we had to try it. We were both too busy during December to endeavour to make them however, and so the idea receded into the ether of 'should do's and 'one day's.

Skip forward to last week. Lesley is sifting though her archived email (brave soul) and stumbles upon the original email thread with video link attached. The game is on. I have almost all the ingredients in my pantry too, so a date is set. Jelly Flower Power!

Anyways! I got the recipe off this blog, belonging to the lady who did the wonderful video tutorial. I've modified it to use cups instead of mL and I've written out some instructions too. (Complete with pictures!)

Jelly Flowers

Gelatine Base

Cups or bowls, preferably clear

1 cup cold water
4 packets (4 TBSP) gelatine 

4 cups water 
1 1/3 cups granulated sugar
1/4 tsp clear flavouring**

  1. Add gelatine to cold water. Stir so all lumps dissolve. Wait 15 mins for gelatine to set. 
  2. In a saucepan, heat water, sugar, and flavouring until sugar dissolves completely. (This happens right before the water boils.) Remove from heat. 
  3. Stir in set jelly to hot sugar liquid. Stir so all jelly lumps dissolve. 
  4. Using a cup with a lip (for easy pouring), fill bowls with hot liquid. Remember to leave 1/2 cm room at the top of each bowl as you'll be filling more jelly in later.  
  5. Refrigerate jelly for 2 - 4 hours, until jelly is set.

** I used almond extract but the original recipe used acetic acid. Mmm Citrus.

Petal Concoction 

1/2 cup cold water
2 packets (2 TBSP) gelatine

1 can (300ml) sweetened condensed milk
Whipping Cream (at least 1 cup)
Food colouring

  1. Add gelatine to cold water. Stir so all lumps dissolve. Wait 15 mins for gelatine to set. 
  2. In a 2 cup liquid measuring cup, pour in sweetened condensed milk. Add whipping cream up to the 2 cup line.
  3. In a saucepan, heat milk mixture until combined. (Liquid will become uniform in colour and thickness when it's done.) Do Not Boil Milk Mixture. Remove from heat.
  4. Stir in set jelly to hot milk mixture. Stir so all jelly lumps dissolve. 
  5. Portion out petal concoction into separate bowls. One for each colour. (Don't forget white!) Add food colouring and stir until desired colour acheived.

Now for the process! I've outlined how I made mine and all the tools I used. I am hoping to get a needle syringe like the lady in the video though. It'll make it easier and less messy..... Hopefully.

Materials needed:

Spoons
Knives
Forks
Scissors
Plastic syringes
Paper towel

Basically how this works is you make a slit in the jelly with a tool and then you squirt coloured jelly into the slit, making petals for your 3D jelly flower. Brilliant and easy, right?

So first, you need some petal making tools. You can use regular metal dinnerware or you can use plastic utensils (which you can cut into shapes as well). If using plastic though make sure you get super cheap stuff. It's way easier to cut if the plastic the utensils are made of is flexible. I cut a pointy tip out of one of my spoons and I used a fork for the blue flower. Kinda looks like a chrysanthemum. And a knife for the big pink one. Kinda like a spiky water lily.

I got the plastic syringes from the pharmacy. You can buy fancier ones or ask the pharmacist for the cheap ones. They're typically used for give cough medicine to kids, etc. but for this, they are used for squirting the colour jelly into the slits for the petals.

From here on out I don't really have too many good pictures of actually making the flowers. The video tutorial does it best.

Start your petals in the centre of your jelly base. Since these are the centre petals, the angle is pretty straight in. Make your first circle of petals by inserting your tool, pulling the base jelly back a bit to allow the coloured jelly though. After the centre circle is done it's on to the second row of petals. (You can also wipe off any excess coloured jelly with a damp paper towel at this point so you can see what you're doing.) Angle your tool out from the centre so the petals seem to be folding out, like a real flower. Then continue like this, around the circle, slitting and squirting in coloured jelly. If you have a clear cup you'll be able to see where your petals are by holding it up. Adjust if you need too! Continue adding layers of petals to your flower, adjusting the petal angle as you go. 

After your satisfied with your flower, cover all the petal slits with a layer of the same coloured jelly. Let that set (about 5 - 10 mins). You can then fill in the rest of the base with another colour. For example, I chose green so it's like the flower is sitting in leaves. Refrigerate your flower creations until the coloured jelly is set (about 20 - 30 mins). 

Now if you're doing multiple flowers you'll notice that while you've been food artisting your coloured jelly is starting to gel. Soon it will be to glorpy to suck up into your syringe. You can put it in a microwave to make it liquid again but microwave for no more than 20 seconds. You don't want to over heat the jelly or else it won't gel anymore. I ended up heating my coloured jelly back up about 3 times and it still gelled. 

Other tips I can give are choose thin utensils to make your slits. Thick spoons make it hard to keep the petals close together because the spoons rips the clear base rather than making a slit. I liked using a thin knife best.

IMG_4896.jpg

The next hard part is getting the jelly flowers out. I used a flat unserrated icing spreader to unstick the jelly from the sides of the container. I ran is along the edges like one does when trying to unstick a cake. Then I stuck the tip of the spreader up the side, all the way to the top and pressed down until the jelly unstuck. I also chopped off the tops  the jelly orbs with a very sharp knife (so you could see the flower inside). They're turned out great for a half-assed attempt! (Lesley and I are going to experiment on how to make them stick less though.)

But yah, I want to thank Lesley for being my partner in crime! May many more adventures be had! <3

And just maybe we'll be queens of the next dessert fad. Hmmmm!

Cheers!

-Andrea

The Half-Assed Hobbyist

Before Jelly Circumcision&nbsp;

Before Jelly Circumcision 

After

After

Olympics for Dessert People

Everyone's got the olympic fever! 

My friend Jess was having an olympic party to watch the opening ceremonies last week-ish so I thought I'd spend that day playing with fondant. 

IMG_3847.jpg

My previous experience with fondant (kinda NSFW) was rather pleasing. My friend Mandy decided that combining our baking skills would yield the best dirty birthday cake ever. I think she was right on. (Soon we will start an adult novelty cake business. Hah.)

So for this next, non-dirty, attempt to fondant-arize a cake, I was going to make a more simple marble cake with caramel and toasted hazelnut centre. (Ok, maybe not simple. Just not penis shaped.)

Marble Cake

For this cake I used a recipe out of The Joy of Cooking. I over baked it a little so it was a bit chewier than I would have liked, but still ok. (Or rather everyone at the party politely ate it anyway.) 

2 1/4 cups cake flour
2 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup milk
1 tsp vanilla
1 1/4 cups sugar
1/2 cup butter
4 large egg whites
1/4 tsp cream of tartar

1 1/2 oz melted chocolate, cooled
1 tsp cinnamon
pinch of ground cloves
1/8 tsp baking soda

  1. Preheat oven to 350. Grease and flour 2 X 9-inch round pans. 
  2. Combine the flour, baking powder and salt in a bowl. Set aside.
  3. Combine the milk and vanilla. Set aside. 
  4. In an electric mixer, beat sugar and butter together until light and fluffy. (About 5 mins.)
  5. Stir into sugar/butter mixture the dry ingredients, in three parts, alternating with milk mixture, in two parts, until smooth.
  6. Separate batter into two separate bowls. Add melted chocolate, cinnamon, cloves and baking soda to one batch of batter. Stir until combined. Set both bowls aside. 
  7. In a clean bowl, using electric mixer on high, whisk egg whites and cream of tartar together until stiff peaks form. 
  8. Fold half of whipped eggs into each batter bowl. 
  9. Spoon batter into prepared pans, alternating between white and chocolate. 
  10. Bake for around 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. (Careful not to over bake!!)
  11. Let cool in pans for 10 minutes. Remove from pans and cool completely. 

Caramel Filling

I used a simple homemade caramel. Not to fancy. I topped the filling with toasted hazelnuts though.

1 cup butter
2 cups packed brown sugar
1/4 cup cream
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

  1. In a saucepan, over medium heat, melt the butter.
  2. Once melted, stir in the brown sugar and cream. Heat until all sugar is dissolved and caramel thickens, about 10 minutes.
  3. Remove from heat and stir in vanilla.
  4. Let cool completely before using. (About 2 hours in the fridge.)

Fondant

I used a super simple marshmallow fondant. Being the second time I've made this it went a loooot faster. For the Olympic rings, I separated out 5 X 3 ounce pieces of the finished fondant. I use concentrated colour from Wilton (it's meant for icing colour so yay!). Basically, put the colour in the centre of the ball of fondant and knead it until the colour is solid. If you don't have gloves you can try using plastic wrap mittens to keep the colour off your fingers. Key being TRY.

8 ounces miniature marshmallows (4 cups not packed, or half of a 16-ounce bag)
2 tbsp water
1 pound icing sugar (4 cups), plus extra for kneading and rolling it out

  1. Place the marshmallows and water in a large microwave-safe bowl. Microwave on high for 1 minute, until the marshmallows are puffy and expanded.
  2. Stir marshmallows with a rubber spatula until they are melted and smooth. (If some unmelted marshmallow pieces remain, return to the microwave for 30-45 seconds, until the marshmallow mixture is entirely smooth and free of lumps.)
  3. Add the icing sugar and begin to stir with the spatula. Stir until the sugar begins to incorporate and it becomes impossible to stir anymore.
  4. Sprinkle icing sugar on a clean and dry counter. Scrape out the marshmallow goo onto prepared counter. It will be sticky and lumpy, with lots of sugar that has not been incorporated yet. Begin to knead the fondant mixture like dough, working the sugar into the marshmallow goo with your hands.
  5. Continue to knead the fondant until it smoothes out and loses its stickiness. Add more sugar if necessary, but stop adding sugar once it is smooth. (Too much sugar will make it stiff and difficult to work with.) Once the fondant is a smooth ball, it is ready to be used.
  6. To roll out the fondant, cover a clean and dry counter in icing sugar. Using a rolling pin, start rolling the ball of fondant out by making cross like strokes with your rolling pin. Flip the flattened fondant ball over and repeat. Eventually you will get the point where you don't have to flip it anymore. Roll it to about 1 or a half centimetres. Pick it up gently and centre it over your cake. Lay it down and then cut off the excess using a sharp knife. 
IMG_4153.jpg

Once the caramel filling was cooled, and the cake too, I placed the bottom cake layer on a plater, spread the caramel filling on top, sprinkled on the toasted hazelnuts, and placed the second cake layer on top. Then it was rolling out the white fondant and laying it over the cake. Lastly, I cut out the rings using a variety of cup rims as cookie cutters. Et Voila! Edible Olympic rings.

Watching the Winter Olympics is very inspiring. But, really, the best part is listening to the snow boarding commentary while eating cake. So Clutch Man. So Clutch.

Cheers!

-Andrea

The Half-Assed Hobbyist

Macarons: The 5 Pound Story

For the last couple years macarons have taken the dessert world and sat on it. Like a rather fat child sits on it's littler sibling so it can't move. (True story.)

I had some of these amazing sugar-filled 'cookies' at The Duchess bakery in December and have been wondering ever since how hard they really are to make (especially since they charge a $1.25 each). So I went online and found a couple recipes. The first one I decided to try was this, from yumsugar.com. It had very thorough instructions and included reasons why you beat down the batter and tap the baking sheets after you pipe out the macaron shells. So I went and bought some almond flour and a jar of maraschino cherries and set to work. 

fig. 1 (aka Fail)

fig. 1 (aka Fail)

Whenever I make meringues I use pasteurized egg whites out of the carton (I don't necessarily trust my ability to cook meringue properly...) which takes away the annoying 'cracking and separating an egg' issue. No shells to worry about! Yay! First step was to whip the eggs into a meringue, then to add the sugar till the meringue was stiff (which totally went swimmingly - and by that I mean I added all the sugar at once). Now, in keeping to my desire to wing it, potentially messing up my baking (Re: first time I made drop meringue cookies in fig. 1), I promptly changed the recipe from its original by adding maraschino cherry syrup. 

All was not lost though. The batter was still pipeable so I attempted to pipe odd circular shapes onto my parchment paper covered bakeware. Obviously I had ignored all the preparation notes telling me to draw out 1 inch circles on the underside of my parchment paper. Because really, how hard could it be? (Famous last words.)

I ended up with a lot of very oblong macaron shells. But! They still were identifiable as macaron shells. Team Andrea Wings Baking: 1; Team Reality: 0. I made a quick ganache with chopped up maraschino bits, spooned and topped all the macarons, and called it a relative success! 

Blazoned with courage from not failing as hard as usual, I decided to make my friend Julia some lemon macarons for her birthday. I started with the filling first because I read the instructions this time! It needed to chill for 2 hours before I could use it. Go go gadget reading skills!

Lemon Macarons

(as seen on the Fine Cooking website)

7 3/8 oz (1 3/4 cups plus 2 TBS) confectioners’ sugar
4 3/8 oz (1 1/4 cups plus 2 TBS) almond flour
4 large egg whites, at room temperature
1/4 cup granulated sugar

  1. Prepare bakeware by lining 3 pans with parchment paper. On the underside of each piece of parchment paper draw 1 inch circles about 1 1/2 inches apart.
  2. Measure out and sift together confectioners' sugar and almond flour.
  3. Whip egg on med-high setting with an electric mixer until foamy. 
  4. Continue whipping eggs, adding 1 TBS of granulated sugar gradually till meringue is glossy and stiff peaks form. (If you can lift out a spoon and a straight peak comes out and doesn't fall, it's done.)
  5. Add half of shifted sugar mixture to meringue. Fold in ingredients till almost combined. Add remainder of sugar mixture. Continue to fold until combined. (The meringue will deflate a little, that's ok!)
  6. Using a piping bag with a 1/2 inch round tip (I used a litre food storage bag with a corner snipped off), fill half of batter into bag and pipe 1 inch circles holding the piping bag perpendicular to the baking sheet. 
  7. Once done, pick up the baking sheet and tap it down on the counter sharply. This will burst any air bubbles in the batter and give the shell its macaron bubbly base.
  8. Let the meringues sit in the open air for 20 - 30 minutes. This drys the outer shell. 
  9. Bake at 250F for 13 - 15 minutes. After the first 2 minutes, open the oven door to release any moisture. Also, rotate the baking sheet halfway through cooking time. 
  10. Take parchment off tray and let the shells cool completely. Fill, cover and refrigerate for at least 3 hours before serving. 

Lemon Curd

(as seen on the Fine Cooking website)

3 large eggs
1 large egg yolk
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup fresh lemon juice
1 1/2 oz (3 TBS) unsalted butter
1/4 tsp pure vanilla extract
1/8 tsp salt

  1. In a heatproof bowl, combine eggs and egg yolk. Whisk together. Continue whisking while adding sugar gradually. Whisk until combined. Set aside.
  2. In a saucepan, heat lemon juice and butter over med-high heat until just about to boil. Remove from heat.
  3. Whisk hot lemon mixture into egg mixture gradually (one ladle scoop at a time) until all combined. (This is called tempering the eggs.)
  4. Return lemon/egg mixture to the saucepan. 
  5. Over medium heat, cook lemon/egg mixture until it starts to thicken. Stir constantly with a wooden spoon. When you can coat the back of the wooden spoon with the curd and draw a line through it without the trail running, the curd is done. Remove from heat.
  6. Strain the hot liquid to remove any overcooked egg bits. 
  7. Add vanilla and salt to strained curd. Stir to combine. 
  8. Refrigerate, covered, for 2 hours, before using. (Place plastic wrap directly on top of the liquid so no skin forms.)

It worked out very well the second time around. The shells came out perfect despite my defunct oven (it has constant menopause; sometimes it's too hot, sometimes it's too cold). Even the lemon curd, which ended up being runnier than I think was intended, absorbed into the meringue shells making them super soft and lovely. 

Needless to say, after sampling my work, multiple times, I seem to have gained a lot of sugar weight.... Blast. Team Reality is the winner.

For Now. 

-Andrea

The Half-Assed Hobbyist