Monday Musing: Weekend Coffee

I ended up frosting the cake late last night instead of early this morning. It was very well received, almost disappearing before quitting time. A colleague went so far as to put a slice in a styrofoam coffee cup so he could eat it on the way home. I'm not sure it's a good thing when partners tell me I should give up being a lawyer and become a baker.

I have a confession, I made it through law school without drinking coffee. This makes me a virtual leper in the legal community but I had good reason. When I graduated from college I was drinking three or four red bull a day. The summer prior to law school, I slowly weened myself off all forms of caffeine, so that when classes begun I wouldn't be completely resistant to its stimulant effects. I figured that I'd need caffeine to be effective because I'd spend countless hours studying. Well it turns out that law school isn't all that hard and, at least in my experience, didn't require me to study outside of normal business hours on more than a handful of occasions. So I never picked the habit back up. I resumed drinking coffee when forced to get up early to study for the bar (getting up early was a function of when the Bar Bri lectures started and not because I actually needed to get up early in the morning to study, I was mostly done and lying near the pool by 2 or 3pm).

After I took (and passed!) the bar, I gave up coffee again. But I started again when I began my current job. This was initially because our office brews freshly roasted, freshly ground organic coffee, which makes any coffee you've ever had taste bad in comparison. It is truly the best coffee I've ever had. Soon I was drinking coffee every day, which lead to the inevitable caffeine resistance/addiction. Which brings me around to my point.

Recently I've begun grinding and brewing coffee on the weekend. While I use far cheaper coffee, I'm quite neurotic about my grinding and brewing and achieve a similar, though no doubt lesser, result. But there's something different about drinking coffee on the weekend. During the week coffee has become a means to a sleepy end. It is hurriedly sipped while skimming my messages and trying to figure out how to get someone to pay for the next 8 hours of my time. But on the weekend, when savored and consumed at my leisure, it's relaxing. It's almost as if it has a completely opposite effect when the day starts with "S". Why is that?

Peanut Butter Cake with Chocolate Buttercream Frosting

This week's recipe is a special request, in fact it's a birthday request. Instead of muffins I'm making a peanut butter birthday cake. This recipe uses four bowls, not including the chocolate frosting, which I think is a record. It's Ashley Judd's recipe, so I guess she has someone to do the dishes for her. Sorry for the boring pictures, I'm frosting in the morning after they cool completely. Not much else to say, reactions tomorrow.



Ingredients

• 2 sticks butter, softened
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 2 egg yolks, beaten well
• 1/4 cup creamy peanut butter
• 1 1/2 cups sifted cake flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 cup buttermilk
• 1/2 cup water
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 2 egg whites

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Grease 2 8-inch round cake pan.
2. Beat butter in stand mixer with flat beater until fluffy. Beat in sugar. Beat in yolks and then peanut butter until smooth.
3. Mix the flour and baking powder in a bowl. Combine the buttermilk and water in another bowl and stir in the baking soda. Into the yolk mixture, beat in the flour mixture, in fourths, alternating with the buttermilk mixture and ending with the flour mixture.
4. Beat the egg whites until stiff. Fold into the batter with a rubber spatula. Spread the batter in a prepared pan. Bake for 30 to 40 minutes, until a wooden pick inserted into the center comes out clean. Cool the cake in a pan on a wire rack, about 10 minutes. Invert onto the rack; invert onto another rack, so that the cake cools with top side up.
   
5. Once cool, frost with chocolate buttercream frosting, recipe below

Chocolate Buttercream Frosting

1/3 cup butter, softened
1/4 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon salt
4 cups powdered sugar
1/3cup cocoa

Mix cocoa and powdered sugar in medium bowl. Add to butter, milk, vanilla and salt. Beat until smooth.

Tuesday Musing: Success!

The Morning Glory Muffins were described by one of our Attorneys as "the best you've ever done." I wouldn't change a thing about the recipe and agree with the assertion that they taste better on the second day after the flavors have had a chance to develop. I've had four excellent results in a row and am terrified of the bitter charcoal briquettes that I'm sure to make next week.


Moving right along, today's musing was inspired by a friend of mine mentioning that tomorrow is Earth Day, a fact of which I was completely unaware because it was somehow drowned by all the greenwashing going on recently.

I hate grocery store bagging practices. I've used green bags since they were first widely available and socially acceptable. This is most likely due to how grocery store bag boys put one or two items in a plastic bag and then, annoyingly, tie the handles into a knot. First, are they on a commission that's tied to the number of plastic bags they use? At the end of any given pre-green bag month I would have literally hundreds of plastic bags that needed to be recycled. Second, why the hell do they tie them in a knot? It makes them unwieldy to carry and, because I have the patience of a goldfish, once I get home assures that they will be ripped open to get to its contents (which is invariably a single can of tuna or a lone kiwi). Not only do they tie them, they double knot them like a four year old's high tops. Do they do this because they think that I drive so poorly that the bag's contents will spill out when I take a corner at 120mph on two wheels? Do they think someone is pickpocketing from grocery bags and this is a theft deterent?

Which brings me, in a roundabout way, to my love of green bags, which incidentally are on sale tomorrow at Publix for five for four dollars (or, stated less wordy, buy four at regular price, get one free). I am a big fan of green bags. Generally this is because I am a firm believer that if you can't carry it in your hands, you don't need it. I have refined this belief into a system. I carry two green bags, one stuffed inside the other one. If I only need a few things I will fill the first one and have the second in reserve, like a Navy SEAL's backup parachute, ready to be deployed in the event of a sale on chicken breasts or cranberry juice. However, invariably during checkout the bag boy (or more likely bag pensioner) will seperate the two bags and evenly divide my purchases between the two bags. I do not understand this practice. If I can fit everything into one bag, while wandering haphazardly through the store, likely stacking two liter bottles on top of bread and eggs, why can't he fit everything into one bag when he has the luxury of having everything strewn about the bagging area? Is it hardwired into the bagger's mind to put purchases in as many bags as humanly possible? So my point is that you should do your bagger a favor and go out and purchase 15 or 20 green bags while they're on sale tomorrow, that way he can put every single item you purchase in a different bag. He'll be happy and you won't have to recyle a 55 gallon's drum worth of plastic bags every month.

Morning Glory Muffins

I found this recipe while looking for Mourning Muffins. I'm mouring the loss of my fish. Not just any fish, but the red sea sailfin tang that I've had since I was an undergrad. Anyway, I found this recipe and was intrigued by the sheer number of ingredients, including but not limited to, carrots, sweet coconut, pineapple, raisins, walnuts, and apple! The recipe says it gets better on the second day, after the flavors have had a chance to combine; making it a perfect recipe for me. Also, it makes a lot of batter. I had enough for 12 standard muffins and 6 huge muffin tops. I've been slacking on the Monday Musings recently, owing mostly to having pretty terrible Mondays but am hoping to update tomorrow. Stay tuned.



Ingredients

• 1 1/4 cups sugar
• 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup shredded, sweetened coconut
• 3/4 cup raisins (steeped in hot water for 10 minutes then drained)
  
• 1 large apple, peeled and grated
• 8 ounces (1 cup) crushed pineapple, drained
• 2 cups grated carrots
• 1/2 cup coarsely chopped walnuts
• 3 large eggs
• 1 cup vegetable oil
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Directions

1. Position a rack in the lower third of the oven and preheat to 350 degrees F.
2. Sift or whisk together the sugar, flour, cinnamon, baking soda, and salt into a large bowl. Add the coconut, raisins, apple, pineapple, carrots, and nuts, and stir to combine.
3. In a separate bowl, whisk the eggs with the oil and vanilla. Pour into the bowl with the dry ingredients and blend well.
4. Spoon the batter into muffin tins lined with muffin cups, filling each to the brim. Bake for 35 minutes (17 for muffin tops) or until a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean. Cool muffins in the pan for 10 minutes, then turn out onto a rack to finish cooling.

Carrot Cream Cheese Filled Muffins

These muffins toe the line between muffins and cupcakes but because the icing is incorporated before baking, I'm calling them muffins. A friend suggested an Easter themed post and what could be more Easter than carrot cake? Also, I recently got a new camera, a Sony A200 DSLR. I need a macro lens and better lighting but I'm thrilled to be able to manually focus my shots. I also need a new tripod as the mounting bracket on mine is too long to mount the new camera. Reactions will be posted tomorrow.



Ingredients

Muffins

• 1 1/2 c. all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 tsp. baking soda
• 1 tsp.baking powder
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1 tsp. cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp. nutmeg
• 1 c. sugar
• 3 eggs
• 2/3 c. vegetable oil
• 1 1/2 c. shredded carrots
• 1/2 c. chopped walnuts
• 1/2 c. raisins that have been soaked for 10 minutes in hot water.

Filling

• 4 oz. softened cream cheese
• 1 egg yolk
• 1/2 c. sugar
• 1/2 tsp. vanilla

Directions

1. Sift together flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg and sugar.
2. In a separate bowl, beat eggs and vegetable oil until lightened. Stir in carrots, walnuts and raisins.
3. In another bowl cream cream cheese, egg yolk, sugar and vanilla until smooth.
4. Fold dry ingredients into carrot mixture until just mix, do not over-mix. Fill muffin cups 3/4 full with batter then add a teaspoon dollop of cream cheese filling on top of the batter.
5. Bake about 20 minutes at 350 or until a toothpick stuck into the cake part comes out clean. Cool on wire racks.

Chocolate Babka: You Can't Beat a Babka

Tonight's recipe isn't Marble Rye, it's Chocolate Babka. This recipe was suggested last week by a close friend and though it didn't fit for the occasion at the time, I think it will go over well tomorrow. I added a liberal sprinkle of cinnamon to one of the loaves before rolling the dough and think it will be a nice addition (I also won't get comments about Lesser Babkas as I've combined the two into what will hopefully be a delicious pastry). The recipe is a little more involved than my usual fare, and takes quite a bit more time because of multiple risings but it shouldn't be intimidating as you prepare the dough, walk away for an hour, punch it down, roll it out, assemble the loaves, put it in pans, walk away for an hour then bake for 40 minutes. It's a fair bit of effort but it's spread out over a few hours.

I found the dough to be very sticky and wasn't able to roll it out with a silicone rolling pin, instead i had to gently spread it apart with my hands, which I think gave it a more rustic look. I also rolled it out on parchment paper, which it doesn't stick to and makes it far easier to roll off into the loaf pans.



Ingredients

For dough

• 3/4 cup warm milk (105–115°F)
• 1/2 cup plus 2 teaspoons sugar
• 3 teaspoons active dry yeast (from two 1/4-oz packages)
• 3 1/4 cups all-purpose flour plus additional for dusting
• 2 whole large eggs
• 1 large egg yolk
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/4 sticks (10 tablespoons) unsalted butter, cut into pieces and softened

For egg wash

• 1 large egg yolk
• 1 tablespoon heavy cream or whole milk

For chocolate filling

• 5 tablespoons unsalted butter, well softened
• 2 (3 1/2- to 4-oz) bars fine-quality bittersweet chocolate (no more than 60% cacao if marked), finely chopped
• 1/4 cup sugar

Directions

1. Make dough: Stir together warm milk and 2 teaspoons sugar in bowl of mixer. Sprinkle yeast over mixture and let stand until foamy, about 5 minutes. (If yeast doesn't foam, discard and start over with new yeast.)
2. Add 1/2 cup flour to yeast mixture and beat at medium speed with flat beater (or sideswipe if you have one) until combined. Add whole eggs, yolk, vanilla, salt, and remaining 1/2 cup sugar and beat until combined. Reduce speed to low, then mix in remaining 2 3/4 cups flour, about 1/2 cup at a time. Increase speed to medium, then beat in butter, a few pieces at a time, and continue to beat until dough is shiny and forms strands from paddle to bowl, about 4 minutes. (Dough will be very soft and sticky.)
3. Scrape dough into a lightly oiled bowl and cover bowl with plastic wrap. Let dough rise in a draft-free place at warm room temperature until doubled in bulk, 1 1/2 to 2 hours.
4. Assemble babkas with filling:
5. Line each loaf pan with 2 pieces of parchment paper (1 lengthwise and 1 crosswise).
6. Punch down dough with a lightly oiled rubber spatula, then halve dough. Roll out 1 piece of dough on a well-floured surface with a lightly floured rolling pin into an 18- by 10-inch rectangle and arrange with a long side nearest you.
7. Beat together yolk and cream. Spread 2 1/2 tablespoons softened butter on dough, leaving a 1/2-inch border all around. Brush some of egg wash on long border nearest you.
8. Sprinkle half of chocolate evenly over buttered dough, then sprinkle with half of sugar (2 tablespoons). Starting with long side farthest from you, roll dough into a snug log, pinching firmly along egg-washed seam to seal. Bring ends of log together to form a ring, pinching to seal. Twist entire ring twice to form a double figure 8 and fit into one of lined loaf pans.
9. Make another babka with remaining dough, some of egg wash, and remaining butter and chocolate in same manner. Chill remaining egg wash, covered, to use later. Loosely cover pans with buttered plastic wrap (buttered side down) and let babkas rise in a draft-free place at warm room temperature until dough reaches top of pans, 1 to 2 hours. (Alternatively, let dough rise in pans in refrigerator 8 to 12 hours; bring to room temperature, 3 to 4 hours, before baking.)
10. Put oven rack in middle position and preheat oven to 350°F.
11. Brush tops of dough with remaining egg wash. Bake until tops are deep golden brown and bottoms sound hollow when tapped (when loaves are removed from pans), about 40 minutes. Transfer loaves to a rack and cool to room temperature.