Creme Brulee Cake

I really like creme brulee - that crunch browned sugar on top of a thick custard. It's yummy. A couple of days ago at work, Jenny brought a creme brulee cake she had made. I asked her for the recipe. It came from the same Chef in Training blog where the lemon cake came from that I made for Adria's birthday last year.  Maybe I should start looking at that blog more often. I googled several other recipes to see how they differed. It looks like it's just a "Texas sheet cake" with a vanilla custard on top. It turned out well, so I'm posting the recipe I made. Once again, I made changes to make is easier and to get rid of the shortening. Yes, I have shortening in the pantry, but I try to avoid using it. It's gross.

VANILLA TEXAS SHEET CAKE
2 cups flour
2 cups sugar
1 cup butter
1 cup water
½ cup buttermilk
½ teaspoon baking soda
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla bean paste

Spray a 15x10x1 inch sheet pat with cooking spray. Mix the flour and sugar in a large bowl. Then in a sauce pan melt the butter and water and bring to a boil. Boil for 1 minute stirring constantly. (This is to get rid of some of the water.) Pour the butter into the flour and mix well. Stir in buttermilk. Add baking soda and mix (I think next time I will sift this in with the dry ingredients.) Add eggs 1 at a time and mix after each. Stir in the vanilla bean paste. Pour into the greased sheet pan and bake at 400 degrees F for 20 minutes. Cool completely - so it only feels slightly warm to the touch before adding the topping. Mix the topping while it cools.

CREME BRULEE TOPPING
1 large box (approx 6 oz) vanilla instant pudding
2 ¼ cups heavy cream
¼ cup whole milk
2 teaspoons vanilla bean paste

Combine all the ingredients and mix until smooth and thickened. Place in the fridge while cake cools completely. When cake is cool, spread the topping evenly over the cake and put the cake in the fridge for at least 1 hour to make sure it is chilled all the way through.

SUGAR CRUST
½ cup plus 2 Tbsp sugar

Put sugar into a food processor and pulse to make very fine sugar (OR just use 1/2 cup very fine sugar if you can find it at the store - I couldn't) Sprinkle the sugar evenly over the cake and Place under a preheated broiler until sugar bubbles and turns golden brown. Watch closely and rotate pan frequently. The middle of mine was done before the edges, so I had to hold the edges under the broiler. (This is when I REALLY REALLY want a kitchen blowtorch! It's on my birthday wish list!) Chill the cake for at least 2 hours- I chilled mine overnight- Serve cold.

The family liked it. So even though it's noon on a Saturday and I should be doing chores, we all had cake for lunch and I thought I better write it down before I forgot about it.

Swedish Rice Pudding - New and improved version?

Several weeks ago (Maybe months - my days all blur together) I wanted to make rice pudding, with some leftover rice and for whatever reason, I decided not use my mom's recipe. I think the problem was that I didn't have the 3 cups of rice her recipe needs and I wanted something with  less rice anyway. So I searched for a recipe and found one on Genius Kitchen. Genius Kitchen is one of our new favorite recipe websites. We have found several good recipes there. At Christmas time we made a gingerbread recipe we found there. I made this one with a few modifications. I'm hoping to remember what they were as I type it out. Adria told me it was MUCH better than the other rice pudding recipe I usually make. I think I'd have to agree with her. I like cinnamon- but the change to nutmeg and cardamom was really nice in this version.  I think I will go make this again and see what I ended up using (Yes I have left over rice. Again...)

4 eggs
3⁄4 cup sugar
1⁄2 teaspoon nutmeg
1⁄2 teaspoon cardamom
1 cup cooked rice (do not use minute rice)
1 (12 fluid ounce) can evaporated Milk
1⁄2 cup low-fat milk

In a 2 quart bowl or dish, beat 4 eggs lightly, add 1 cup sugar and beat a little. Stir in nutmeg and cardamom.Add cooked rice and evaporated milk and low-fat milk. Stir. (You can sprinkle cinnamon on top - but I skipped it) Bake in a 325 degree oven for 1 1/2 hours or until the pudding's top moves a little in the center if you push it gently.

I made it. I think it is a little too much cardamom - so next time just use 1/4 teaspoon!

Carrot Cookies with Orange Frosting

Easter is coming! I wanted to make some kind of cookies to send to Myles in an Easter package. I remember one of the girls at work made carrot cookies several years ago. Her name is Olivia - we had 2 employees named Olivia, so we called her "Big O" because the other Olivia was a short Asian girl so she was "Little O." Since then, both of them have left Smiths. Well, Little O still works on some Sundays, but I never work Sundays, so I never see her.

Anyway, I googled a recipe for them, but they don't seem very popular. I finally found one with delicious looking pictures, and made it. As I was making it, I decided to look for Big O's recipe. I knew she gave me a copy of it. So I found it, and compared the 2 side by side. I decided to make them both. and a good thing too. The one's on the internet turned out gross! I found the recipe at Thirtyhandmadedays.com . She talks about how her mom always made these when she was a kid and how she got the recipe after her mom came and babysat while she was out of town. I told Ryan about it and he said maybe it was all nostalgia- you can't beat the taste of nostalgia. I think she just made some mistakes when copying the recipe. The biggest problem is that her cookies turned out really BITTER - That means too much baking soda. Also they are FLAT - Also too much baking soda- they puff up too fast and then fall. Do not make those!! Make this recipe instead! Olivia's recipe had baking powder and an extra egg. Here is her recipe:

Carrot Cookies from Olivia Wilkinson
1 c shortening (part soft butter)
3/4 c sugar
2 eggs
1 c mashed cooked carrots
2 c flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 c shredded coconut

heat oven to 400 degrees. Cream shortening, sugar, eggs and carrots. Blend in baking powder, salt and flour. Stir in coconut. Drop by teaspoonfuls about 2 inches apart on a lightly greased baking sheet. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes or until no imprint remains when touched lightly. Immediately remove from baking sheet. Cool. Frost with orange buttercream.

I followed the recipe exactly - except used all shortening and left out the salt. I think next time I might use some butter instead of shortening and cut back on the baking powder. I don't think it needed quite that much. Also I might add some vanilla- the other recipe had vanilla and that seems like it would be good. In fact, I found a recipe at Genius Kitchen that is more like Olivia's recipe and has vanilla in it. The recipes I've tried from Genius Kitchen have been good, so it's probably a safe bet. I didn't used Olivia's recipe for Orange buttercream but here it is:

Orange Buttercream
3 Tbsp soft butter
2 Tbsp grated orange peel
1 and 1/2 cup powdered sugar
1 Tbsp orange juice

Blend butter and sugar. Stir in peel and juice. Beat until smooth.

For my frosting I used all the peel and juice from 1 orange. I added about 2 to 3 Tbsp butter and LOTS of powdered sugar. Mine made more of a glaze. The other recipe's frosting was more glaze like. Then you frosted the cookies while they were still warm. Here are some pics:

Cookies from the internet recipe. 
Three of them are stacked in the back-
They are SO FLAT!

Big O's cookies - Nice and puffy!

Frosted cookies from the internet recipe

Big O's cookies frosted - look so much better than the others!

Chocoflan??!!

Myles emailed us this past Tuesday and said he had chocoflan. What??  Myles said is was one of the best desserts he ever had. So Ryan and I did a quick google search and found recipes for Chocoflan. Looks like chocolate cake with flan on top. Myles said that his had flan on the bottom. I said they made it wrong. He said no, it was authentic!
Then on Wednesday, I got a call from Ryan at work. The conversations goes like this:
He says, "I sent you a picture. Can you look at it?"
Me, "A Picture? It's busy, maybe I can look later. What is it a picture of?"
Ryan, "Just something I made. You have to look at it."

Finally several hours later, I got a chance to pull up my email and this is what I found:

I made chocolate cake flan. I used dulce de leche instead of caramel sauce. Now it has to chill for several hours, then we can eat it. 🍮

He found a recipe and made it! I was so impressed! So of course I had to post it. The flan he made is excellent! The chocolate cake could use some work - but that could be because of the cake mix he used - just some old (and I mean really old) cake mix he found in the basement. It did turn out super moist and was great with Dulce De leche poured over it. Next time I think we will use a better cake recipe or at least a fresher cake mix. Also we decided next time use milk instead of water, and butter instead of oil. 

He found a recipe on allrecipes and made a few changes:

1/2 cup dulce de leche
1 box devils food cake mix
1 cup water
1/2 cup vegetable oil
3 large eggs
Flan:
4 ounces Greek cream cheese, softened
4 large eggs, at room temperature
1 (14 ounce) can sweetened condensed milk
1 (12 ounce) can evaporated milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Heat oven to 350 degrees F. Coat 12-cup fluted tube pan with no-stick cooking spray. Place piece of rolled up foil over tube of pan to prevent cake from dropping down inside. Pour dulce de leche topping into prepared pan.
Prepare cake mix according to package directions using the water, oil and eggs. Pour evenly over dulce de leche.
Combine cream cheese, eggs, sweetened condensed milk, evaporated milk and vanilla in blender. Pour slowly over cake batter. NOTE: While baking, the cake rises and the milk mixture goes to the bottom.
Coat piece of foil with no-stick cooking spray. Cover pan, coated side down, tightly with foil. Place pan in large roasting pan. Pour hot water into roasting pan to a depth of 2 inches.
Bake 1 and 1/2 hours or until toothpick in center still has a few moist crumbs. Remove cake and roasting pan from oven. Leave cake in the water filled roasting pan for 10 minutes. Then remove it to a cooking rack. Cool 15 minutes. Remove foil and invert onto serving plate. Cool 1 hour at room temperature. Chill 4 hours or overnight.

Ryan has turned into a great cook! Sometime I will have to post the recipe he made me for Valentines day: Low Carb Parmesan Crusted Chicken with Creamy Bacon Sauce and grilled asparagus.

Princess Torte

Happy Birthday Ryan!! I asked him what kind of cake he wanted and he said a princess cake. Several months ago we watched an episode of The Great British Baking Show where they made Princess cake. While growing up, Ryan frequently had marzipan cake from his Aunt Eva's Norwegian bakery. The bakery went out of business years and years ago and Ryan has been missing marzipan cake ever since. Shortly after we watched that episode of the Great British Baking show, I found a Craftsy class on sale called  "Classic European Tortes" one of which is the Princess torte. So when Ryan said that's what he wanted, I decided it was time finally watch the class I bought and make something. (I have a bad habit of finding great deals on stuff from Craftsy and buying them with the intent of getting around to them someday.) If you want to buy the class or find a recipe of your own to try- or track down Mary Berry's recipe from the Great British Baking show here are some of the things I learned along the way.

This cake is not cheap! First of all it's time consuming. I started it Friday afternoon and finally finished it yesterday (Saturday) afternoon. It isn't hard to make, it just takes a lot of time. And as Dad always said, "time is money." You have to make a sugar cookie crust and vanilla chiffon cake - both of which must them be cooled before they are used. Then you have to make vanilla pastry cream and Chantilly cream. Again, not difficult, just more time. Lastly, you have to make marzipan or buy it. I ended up buying marzipan- because I found it at the store. But if you make your own you have to have almond paste. Almond paste and marzipan and a little spendy. Then, the pastry cream needed a vanilla bean. Luckily, I had one. But I didn't have the vanilla bean paste needed for the Chantilly cream. That was $23 for a small jar! While watching the class, he did mention you could use vanilla extract or vanilla paste in place of the vanilla bean and vice versa, but that wasn't written in the recipe, so when buying stuff I figured I needed it all. Then I had to buy some new cake making accessories - okay, I didn't have too, I just wanted to. I got a cake turn table and some cake rounds. I really wanted a cake leveler and a larger offset spatula too, but they will have to wait until next time!

Vanilla bean paste is amazing! This is the first time I have ever used it. It is almost like a syrup with the tiny vanilla seeds suspended in it. Then whatever you put it in has flecks of vanilla seed. Which, as the chef teaching the class pointed out, makes your baking look more professional and expensive. It smells great too.

This recipe made two cakes but you need 3 layers for the princess cake. I don't know why this confused me so much. You are supposed to use ONE cake cut into THREE layers. The other entire cake is extra!! I didn't figure that out until after I had cut both cakes into two layers and used 3 of them in my cake. So my cake was 50% taller than it should have been - not a tragedy I guess, but that made the ratio of cake to filling a little too high. I also learned I need to get a cake level or practice cutting cakes. I don't think I could have cut my cakes into thirds even if I wanted to.

Beat the egg whites more than you think. I think part of the problem I had with my cakes was not beating the egg whites enough. He kept making a big deal about not over beating them, so I didn't. But then someone in the comments said their cake didn't rise and not beating the eggs enough will cause that. Also I added the sugar incorrectly. I put too much of it in the cake batter and not enough in the egg whites before I beat them. That was my own fault for not reading the instructions carefully before I started dumping in ingredients.

By the time I got to the Chantilly cream I did remember to beat that enough. The instructor is really worried about not over-beating. But my problem is definitely under-beating. Also in the recipe he says to use a 5g leaf gelatin. We do not have leaf gelatin in this country. Okay, maybe we do, but it's not a any grocery store near buy. I wonder if Gygi's or some other bakery shop would have it. Also leaf gelatin and powdered gelatin are not equivalent! From what little I learned, I think powdered gelatin may be stronger than leaf gelatin. So I knew I shouldn't just use 5 grams of powdered gelatin. Or maybe it is the same but leaf gelatin isn't measured in grams - it's measured in leaves. And I have no idea what size that is! Anyway, from looking at the recipe for Chantilly cream it looked like it is just stabilized whipped cream, which I have made before. So I looked at recipes for that to see how much gelatin they used in relation to how much heavy cream needs whipping. I ended up using 6 teaspoons of water and 1 and 1/2 teaspoons of powdered gelatin. (That's teaspoons NOT tablespoons. Yes, we did it wrong the first time because Adria was reading the recipe to me and apparently doesn't realize the difference is critical!) Sprinkle the powdered gelatin over the water and let it sit for 5 to 10 minutes until it turns into a gel. Then put it in the microwave for about 10 seconds until it turns into a liquid. Then slowly add it to the nearly done whipped cream. I did add a little of the sugar to the gelatin- less than the recipe said and but most of the sugar directly into the cream as well as the vanilla paste.

The last learning experience was the marzipan. I used premade, but I bough the stuff to make my own too. I probably should have used both. The marzipan I had was 198 grams. The recipe said I needed 209 grams of almond paste. So I figured that was close enough. It's only now that I am realizing that the recipe also called for 138 g of powdered sugar and 32g of egg white - so total weight would have been closer to 350 g. So I had about half of what I needed. SAD! Ryan loves marzipan. By the time I had rolled mine out big enough to cover the cake (which remember was taller than it should have been) the marzipan layer was VERY thin. When watching the video, he had a TON of left over marzipan. I barely had enough. So I think I would increase that amount- even more than the 350 grams correct amount. I didn't do a great job getting my marizpan on the cake either. I had some ripples around the edges, partly because the cake was too tall and partly because it was my first time working with marzipan.

Marzipan is yummy! But I must admit the first time I ever had a marzipan cake when Ryan and I were dating, I wasn't thrilled about it. Did you know your taste buds regenerate every 7 years. That's some of that useless trivia Ryan knows and told me. So that explains why now I like marzipan and I didn't like it 20 plus years ago. Adria and Genna weren't too excited about it. Adria said my cake needed some lemon extract so that the cake tasted like something. (She gets lemon cake for her birthday.) Neither one of them liked the marzipan much. But Ryan thought it was great! He said they reminded him of the cakes his mom would buy for his birthday from his aunt's Norwegian bakery. So I guess my first attempt was a success, even if I the cake was too tall and the marzipan wasn't smooth. Too bad my pics aren't any better.

Lemon Cornmeal Poppyseed Bread

I'm home with a sick child this evening. No family visits for us, so I had some extra time. I got an email from Betty Crocker about crock-pot desserts. Of course I had to look at it. I really need to unsubscribe from all of these food emails. It's really not helping my waistline. So with my extra time I thought it'd be fun to try one. The one that caught my eye was this slow-cooker lemon poppy seed bread. But I got looking at it and decided it took 2 hours. While I had extra time, I didn't have THAT much extra time. Ryan suggested just cooking it in the oven. So I decided to give it a try. The next question that came up - is this really bread or is it more of a cake. After a quick google search, I still can't answer what the difference is between cake and bread from looking at a recipe. I went ahead and made it and after it was done, Ryan asked which it was. I replied, "I don't know but I had 3 pieces already." He said that means it's cake! Also I had to do some guessing on the baking temperature and time. I cooked it like it was cornbread, but I think that may have been wrong. I cooked it at 400 degrees, but the edges started to brown too much before the center was cooked. So next time that may need some adjusting. Maybe I should cook it like its a cake next time.Either way it is really good - as evidenced by the fact that 3 of us ate over half of it already. But then I really like lemon flavor. Here it is with adjustments I made

2 cups flour
1/2 cup yellow cornmeal
2 tablespoons poppy seed
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup butter, melted
3 eggs
3/4 cup milk
1 lemon

Zest the lemon. Mix the butter, eggs, sugar and milk. Add the lemon zest and all of the juice from the lemon. (I didn't measure it.) Add the baking powder, salt and poppy seeds. Mix in the cornmeal and flour. Pour into a greased 7x11 inch pan. I baked it at 400 degrees for 35 minutes. I think that might be a little hot. Next time I might try a little lower temp for a longer time.  The top of mine had cracked and got very brown - but it tastes good!

Overnight Orange and Vanilla Bean Sticky Buns

I made these rolls a couple of months ago, but never got around to posting them. At least I remembered the pictures. Hopefully I can remember if I made any changes. I do know one thing I would like to change next time. The sauce is super runny! When I tried to turn the pan over onto the serving dish- it made a huge mess all over the floor. (It still tasted delicious!) So I think I might need to cook the sauce longer next time. Whenever that might be. Ryan has decided that I need to stop making carb heavy food - particularly desserts. *Sigh* But it's probably for the best. We both feel better and look better when we aren't eating so much junk food. Darn it, but it's SOOOO GOOOD! FYI, I found the original recipe at Betty Crocker. 

3/4 cup butter

1 1/2 cups packed brown sugar

1/3 cup honey

1/3 cup whipping cream

grated orange peel from 1 orange

orange juice from 1 orange (original recipe had 7 Tbsp liquid- I might decrease this next time)

1 vanilla bean, split, seeds scraped out and reserved, bean discarded

1 cup pecan halves, toasted (I added more I think - who doesn't like pecans??)**

2 loaves (1 lb each) frozen white bread dough, thawed

1/4 cup packed brown sugar

1/4 cup granulated sugar

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon salt

In a saucepan, melt butter over medium heat. Add 1 1/2 cups brown sugar, and cook until combined.  Next time I think this needs to be longer - maybe until it starts to boil? Remove from heat. Stir in honey, whipping cream, orange peel, orange juice and seeds from vanilla bean. Cool 30 minutes. Pour mixture in ungreased 13x9x2-inch pan. Scatter pecan halves over top.

Roll out one loaf of dough into rectangle shape about 14 inches by 6 inches. In small bowl, mix 1/4 cup each of brown sugar and granulated sugar, the cinnamon and salt. Spread half of mixture over dough. Roll dough tightly, and pinch seams closed. Using dental floss, cut into 1 1/2-inch pieces. Place rolls in pan. Repeat with second loaf remaining sugar mixture. Cover pan of rolls with plastic wrap; refrigerate overnight.

Remove from refrigerator and let sit 30 minutes. Heat oven to 350°F. Bake 45 minutes or until golden brown. Cool in pan 20 minutes. Cover pan with platter, and carefully flip over. - I think they may need to be cooked a little longer too. The original recipe said 35-45 min, but I think mine could have gone a little longer. 

** To toast pecans, but them in a large skillet on medium high heat. Stir them frequently and watch carefully until they start to turn golden brown and smell nutty. Be careful not to burn them - it happens fast!