Gone Fig Crazy!

For those of you who don't know me personally, a couple of years ago my mom planted a fig tree in the back of our house and it has really begun to produce. Right now is the peak of their season and our tree is producing so many figs that we cannot eat them fast enough before they have gotten spoiled. So, I thought it would be a great idea to start using them to bake with :) Here is my first recipe to use (a success!):

Fig Pizza

1-Pillsbury pre-made thin crust pizza dough

1-5 oz. container of Gorgonzola cheese

1-3 oz. package of Prosciutto

6- small FRESH figs

2-Tbsp. balsamic vinegar

1-Tbsp. Extra virgin olive oil

to taste- Salt and pepper

Method

First, pre-heat the oven using the directions on the dough label. Next, open the dough and stretch and mold it into a large round pizza pan that has been sprayed with Pam and lightly dusted with flour. Then, bake the crust for approximately 5 minutes until 1/2 - 3/4 cooked. Pull it out of the oven and spread all of the gorgonzola cheese around the pizza evenly. PLace the pizza back in the oven and slice figs like you would pepperonis (into small circles). Place them in a bowl and soak in 1 tbsp of balsamic vinegar. By this time the cheese should be melted and the crust should be done. Remove pizza from oven and lay out prosciutto pieces to cover the cheese. Then, place fig slices all over the pizza and return the pizza back to the oven to heat the ham and figs (about 1 minute). Lastly, toss about two cups of arugula with salt, pepper, 1 tbsp olive oil and 1 tbsp balsamic vinegar. Once the pizza is fully heated, remove it from the oven and place the tossed greens on top. Then, EAT UP!

My dad was very impressed with this recipe and actually told me it made his mouth happy. Thank you Food and Wine magazine for an issue from last year that featured a slight variation of this recipe.

Beer and Bread UNITE!

A couple months ago I ran across a recipe for beer bread and I have now had 2 successful baking experiences with this recipe. I grew up on beer bread and my mom has used the same recipe for years. Now that I am older and pursuing my baking career, I thought it was time to challenge her bread. This is the recipe I used: (I tweeked one I found online)

Beer Bread

(Yield: 1 loaf)

3 cups flour (1 part cake, 1 part bread, 1 part whole wheat or use only all purpose)

1/3 cup of sugar

1 tbsp baking powder

1 ½ tsp salt

12 oz beer (1 beer)

*¼ cup melted butter (make sure it is completely melted so it can soak into the breads crust and doesn't just float on top)

Method

-Combine dry ingredients and mix well. Add beer and mix until homogenous.

-Pour into parchment lined or sprayed loaf pan and bake.

-Bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit or 175 degrees Celsius for 40 minutes, then pour *melted butter over loaf and bake ten more minutes.

Variations

-Add roasted walnuts

-Use different types of beer

I made this bread with the intention to pair it with Jambalaya, but my family ended up eating steak and grilled veggies that night. It still proved to be a great side and people seemed to be pretty impressed with the obvious beer flavor :)

P.S. My bread puts my mom's to shame, but let's keep that on the DL.

Coconut Charlotte Russe

So I know I wrote that I was going to make a hazelnut Charlotte Russe, but I started to think about the flavor vs. the time of year and decided that making a coconut Charlotte Russe would be more appropriate for summer (plus the added fact of it being a new challenge).

I made the Charlotte Russe using a recipe for a sponge cake and instead of using vanilla extract I used imitation coconut extract. For the cake's filling, I made a coconut creme anglaise by adding toasted coconut to my milk and cream mixture as it heated over the stove. The toasted coconut created such a deep and delicious coconut flavor! It was fantastic! That creme anglaise got mixed with bloomed and melted gelatin and then I quickly folded in soft-whipped heavy cream. Combining gelatin with cold ingredients is always risky so it is important to temper it into the creme anglaise (add some of creme anglaise to melted gelatin, then add that back to creme anglaise). If you get lumps in this mixture, just put it over a double boiler. If you have added the whipped cream already you cannot fix the bavarian and should just restart.

My finished product had two layers of sponge cake soaked in a dark rum simple syrup and two layers of coconut bavarian cream. And like a traditional Charlotte Russe it was surrounded by ladyfingers. Lastly, I topped it with a mixture of half toasted coconut and half un-toasted coconut (toasted sweetened coconut is scrumptious because the coconut sort of caramelizes on its surface... talk about a party in your mouth :P).

A Charlotte Russe can be any combination of flavors. I advise anyone who likes this type of cake to be adventurous and use your favorite flavor combination and see how it turns out.

Fondant: Friend or Foe?

Until recently, I haven't done much with fondant, but I did some researching online and bought some of Wilton's pre-made white rolling fondant. I wanted to use it to decorate the sides of a baby shower cake that I made last week. Coloring the fondant was simple.

I divided the fondant into 6 pieces (for six different colors) and used gel food coloring so that the added color wouldn't make it too sticky to work with and I just kneaded each piece until it matched the color I was aiming for. While searching the internet to teach myself about fondant, I found out several tips:

-NEVER cover a cake with fondant and put it in the fridge because once it goes back to room temperature, condensation develops and can cause unfixable spotting on the fondant's surface. *If the cake covered in fondant has already been placed in the fridge for a while, take it out and place it under a cardboard box while it comes to room temperature to allow the fondant to breath and prevent condensation from developing on it.

-Fondant can be colored, double-wrapped and stored in the fridge far in advance. (this allows colors to ripen)

-Fondant stays somewhat soft and does not become hard like gum paste.

-Adding too much food coloring to achieve something like a dark brown or black causes it to taste bitter.

-Fondant can be adhered to other pieces of fondant just by using water.

-It is easiest to adhere fondant decoration to a cake covered in buttercream once the final coat has set-up. Then, fresh buttercream can be used as glue to bond the sugar molecules in the fondant and buttercream which creates one surface.

-Fondant holds moisture in cakes for 3-5 days.... I think five days is pushing it though...

I just bought some new fondant toys which was a really exciting purchase for me! I got a fondant cutter that is a rolling wheel and it also came with attachments that roll designs into the fondant to make it look like ribbon which is EXACTLY what I needed for this baby shower cake I made. I also bought circular cutters to cut polka dots for the top tier and I bought a fondant roller that has different sized rings on each end to roll the fondant to a desired width. And the best part was... It cost me less than 15 bucks because my mom sent me to the store with a coupon (she's the best :P).

As far as cutting the length and height of each fondant ribbon I made as well as the large brown fondant ribbon I placed around the bottom and top tier, I used floss to measure around the tiers and a ruler to figure the size that the ribbon should be based on the height of the bottom tier once the brown fondant ribbon had been applied. The fondant ribbon got placed on first (seam in back) and then the stripes and polka dots were added. It was so much fun doing the decoration! My sister and niece were in awe of it all. The fondant really allowed the cake to come together and added an air of elegance.

I almost forgot to discuss the flavors of the two tiers and the filling. Obviously the outside of the cake got frosted with vanilla buttercream, but I actually filled the layers of both tiers with a mousseline - a mixture of equal volumes of buttercream and pastry cream. The top tier was four layers of chocolate sponge cake with chocolate chips that were filled with an orange mousseline and the bottom tier was four layers of vanilla sponge cake with sprinkles that were filled with a strawberry mousseline. I have to give out the recipe for the fruit pastry cream because it was the easiest pastry cream I have ever made and it actually tasted rich and fruity (no cornstarch necessary):

Fruit Pastry Cream

5 egg yolks

5 whole eggs

2 sticks of butter, melted (1/2 cup)

1/2 cup sugar

4-6 oz fruit puree (depending on strength of flavor...)

*if you use fruit juice, like orange juice use 4-5 oz

METHOD: put all ingredients in one bowl and whisk together over a double boiler until thickened. BE CAREFUL not to over cook this because the eggs will coagulate... gross.

To top off the cake, I used a edible duck that my mom bought after Easter (don't worry it hadn't been removed from it's box yet so it was still safe to eat :P). Then, cupcakes (chocolate with chocolate chips and filled with the leftover orange pastry cream) were the last addition for two reasons:

1. I needed to feed 30 people and got nervous that the cake was too small.

2. They were the perfect medium to spell "Lil Azevedo" which is going to be the baby's name when she is born.

After making this cake and becoming better acquainted with fondant, I would definitely recommend using it for decoration but due to its terrible flavor, I wouldn't recommend covering whole tiers with it. However, there are recipes out there for homemade fondant. I actually ran across one that used marshmallows as the main ingredient and sounded like it might actually taste decent so I'll have to make an attempt at homemade fondant sometime soon.

My Next Project: I'm making beer bread and a hazelnut Charlotte Russe for a dinner get-together tomorrow night, my family calls them "Pachangas." It should be fun and very delicious!

My First Entry

I'm really excited to kick off this blog and be able to start sharing my baking successes and failures with everyone. From them, I'm hoping that this blog will become a learning tool for both myself and others. It's time to bake!