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Beaches, Brahms and Brownies

25 Apr

What a busy April it has been! First we were off in the Bahamas with family for what was a wonderful, relaxing and awesomely fun vacation. There is nothing so calming to me as being by the ocean. Not to mention the glee I get from enjoying good seafood, freshly rolled cigars, and time to just be with the people I love the most.

Once I was back in town it was straight into a very tight rehearsal schedule. Choral Arts Society of Washington just performed our last concert at the Kennedy Center for the year, and it was Maestro Scribner’s final show as our director. “Ein Deutches Requiem” rang through the air just beautifully, and I felt truly privileged to be a part of such a fantastic choir. We got some pretty excellent reviews to boot:

http://www.examiner.com/review/scribner-s-final-performance-at-the-kennedy-center-filled-with-great-admiration

http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/concert-review-norman-scribner-leads-choral-arts-society-in-swan-song-performance-of-brahmss-requiem/2012/04/23/gIQAgkNvcT_print.html

Our final concert of the season will be in June at the National Cathedral and is a tribute to the maestro for his 47 incredible years as Choral Arts’ director.

Joe and I get married two weeks after that concert, wow. Summer is going to be wonderful!

Still riding the adrenaline rush from Sunday, I finally had both the time and energy to do some baking last night. At the same time, since we’ve been getting home so late that I had very few interesting ingredients hanging around the house. A handful of this, a pinch of that, a few squares of chocolate…etc. But any decent cook knows that you just work with what you have.

And I had brownie ingredients.

I’m not into tooth-achingly sweet things when it comes to chocolate. I like decadent and rich, not too much flour, and little or no leavening agent. Brownies are not, in my opinion, mini-cakes and are best when creamy and a little bit dense.

Dark Chocolate Brownies with Toasted Coconut and Pecans

  • 3.5 oz. dark chocolate. I used 72% for this batch.
  • 4 oz. unsalted butter
  • ½-2/3 cup of sugar
  • ½ cup flour
  • 2 eggs
  • Handful of pecans
  • Handful of shredded coconut. Sweetened or unsweetened is fine.
  • 1 tsp. coconut extract
  • 1 tsp. vanilla extraxt
  • Pinch of salt

Preheat an oven to 350 degrees F, and line an 8×8 in. square pan with foil. Grease the foil lightly.

In a dry pan, toast the coconut and pecans over medium heat until fragrant and lightly brown. I did them in separate batches since the coconut browns much quicker.

Melt together the butter and chocolate, stirring occasionally. When the chocolate is almost completely melted, remove from the heat and mix until smooth.

Add ½ cup of sugar and give the mixture a taste. If you want it a little bit sweeter, use up to 2/3 cup, but I wouldn’t go any higher than that.

Add the eggs one at a time, mixing thoroughly between each addition. Then add the salt and extracts.

Mix the flour into the wet ingredients and beat by hand until it is incorporated.

Pour the batter into the 8×8 in. pan and top with the shredded coconut and pecans. Bake 20-25 minutes or until the center has just set.

The only patience involved in this recipe comes at this stage. Let the brownies cool in the pan for 15-20 minutes and then remove (the foil makes this so easy) and rest on a wire rack until completely cool…or at least close to it.

I’ve cut this batch into as many as 24 small brownies, but you can choose your own destiny there. They’re hard to share, but when I saw how happy they made folks I gave them to, it more than made up for the fact that I only got to try a bite of one that broke when I cut them.

And I hope delicious chocolate makes up for my long absence from the blogosphere. There should be a bread recipe coming up soon once I finish getting the photos ready to go, so be on the lookout for that.

Ciao for now,

Neen

Joe’s Confetti Cake with Vanilla Buttercream

21 Mar

Who here liked Funfetti cake as a kid? Okay, now who here still likes Funfetti cake as an adult? No shame in admitting it. There’s nothing quite like rainbow cake to bring some unanticipated cheer into our lives. And while that box of color speckled white cake is pretty tasty, the truth is that you can make it yourself with very little angst.

This is what Joe requested for his birthday, and here’s how I put it all together.

White Confetti Cake with Vanilla Buttercream

White Cake

  • 3 cups all purpose flour
  • 2 teaspoons baking powder
  • 3/4 teaspoon kosher salt
  • 6 oz. unsalted butter, softened
  • 2 3/4 cups granulated sugar
  • 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract½ tsp. almond extract
  • 1 1/4 cups whole milk
  • 6 egg whites at room temperature
  • 1/3 cup of multi-colored sprinkles

Quick Buttercream Frosting

  •  6 cups confectioners sugar, sifted
  • 16 oz. butter, softened
  • ½ tsp. salt
  • 2 tbsp. vanilla extract
  • ¼ cup milk

Grease and flour two 9 in. cake pans and preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Sift the flour, baking powder and salt together and set aside.

In the bowl of a stand mixer, cream together the butter and  1 ¼ cups of sugar and beat until light and fluffy. This will take several minutes on medium speed. Mix in the vanilla and almond extracts and then add the dry ingredients in three additions, alternating with the milk until everything is combined. Transfer to a large mixing bowl.

Clean and dry the stand-mixer bowl thoroughly and then add the egg whites and a pinch of salt to it. Whip on high speed until the egg whites are frothy and then very slowly add the remaining 1 ¼ cups of sugar. Whip until the meringue is thick, glossy, and holds almost stiff peaks.

Fold one third of the egg whites into the batter to lighten it, and then gently fold in the rest. Add the colored sprinkles and fold them into the batter.

Divide the batter evenly among the two pans and then gently tap the pans on the counter to release any air bubbles in the batter.

Bake the cakes for 30-40 minutes or until the tops are lightly golden and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Allow the cakes to cool in the pans for 15 minutes and then turn them out onto a cooling rack. Let them cool completely before frosting. It is best to wrap the cooled cake layers in plastic wrap and refrigerate them overnight prior to frosting.

To make the buttercream, beat the butter on medium speed until very smooth and creamy. Add the powdered sugar and mix on low speed until the sugar and butter are combined, then add the vanilla extract, salt, and milk and beat on medium speed until thick. It will take about 3-4 minutes.

Frost and decorate the cake as desired! You will probably not use all of the icing, but it’s better to have extra for decorating. No one wants to run out in the middle of frosting a cake (which I did while testing variations of this recipe).

So freaking good. You can also use a Swiss Meringue Buttercream on this cake, which is a slightly more involved recipe. The upside is that it uses much less sugar and a little less butter without sacrificing consistency or taste.

  • 4 large egg whites
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 13 oz. butter, softened and cut into 1 inch pieces
  • 1 tbsp. vanilla extract
  • Pinch of salt

Place a large bowl over a pot of simmering water and add the egg whites and sugar to it. Whisk them together until the sugar is completely dissolved, meaning it does not feel grainy in the slightest. Transfer this to a stand mixer and whip until the meringue is white and doubles in volume. Add the vanilla and pinch of salt.

With the mixer running, slowly add the butter, one or two pieces at a time, making sure the additions are thoroughly combined before adding more. Do not panic if the mixture starts to look like it is separating—trust me, it will come together. Once all of the butter has been added, whip the buttercream on medium-high speed until thick and creamy. It may take 5 minutes or maybe a little more, but it will come together. Scout’s honor.

Both the quick buttercream and meringue buttercream will hold up at room temperature for an extended period of time, although the latter is more susceptible to condensation. So if you have a particularly humid refrigerator I would recommend using the first recipe.


Happy birthday super-fiancé! I hope all of your wishes come true.

Ciao for now,

Neen

Blueberry Not-Quite-A-Pound Cake

13 Mar

Blueberries are not in season. Despite this undeniable fact, I couldn’t resist them when the grocery store had them for buy-one-get-one-free last week. I begin longing for berries long before the first ones roll around in June, so bear with me here. Obviously what we’re getting in the mid-Atlantic US right now aren’t the sweetest or plumpest berries, but the tartness does make them great for baking applications. That combined with a citrusy glaze make this humble loaf cake something special. Its texture and flavor closely resemble that of a pound cake, but the ratio of ingredients isn’t quite there, so let’s just call it something else.

Blueberry Not-Quite-A-Pound Cake

Cake:

  • 4 oz. butter, softened
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 2 eggs
  • 1/4 cup milk mixed with ¼ cup sour cream
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 1 cup fresh or frozen blueberries

Glaze:

  • 1 orange, for zest and juice
  • ½ -3/4 cup powdered sugar

Grease and flour a 9×5 in. loaf pan and preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

In a large mixing bowl, cream the butter and sugar. Add the eggs, one at a time, followed by the milk/sour cream and the vanilla extract.


Put the flour, baking powder and salt in a sifter. Gradually sift the dry ingredients into the wet and mix just until combined.

Gently fold in the blueberries. The batter will be quite thick.

Spread the batter evenly into the loaf pan and bake for 55-60 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. Once removed from the oven, let it cool in the pan for 15 minutes before turning out onto a rack to cool completely.

To make the glaze, squeeze the orange (I used a seedless navel orange) into a bowl until you have about 3 tablespoons of juice. Then grate 1-2 tsp. of orange zest and add it to the juice. Mix in powdered sugar until a consistency is reached that will allow the glaze to ribbon when poured. Drizzle this over the cake while it is still warm. I’d wait about 40 minutes to cut into the cake so that it is sturdy enough to slice evenly without smashing.

It’s really good. How good? I’ve made two in the last week at super-fiance’s request and he refuses to share it with his coworkers (sorry EAB, I tried!).

Ciao for now,

Neen

How to not be grumpy on Valentine’s Day

14 Feb

I’ll say it: I like Valentine’s Day.

It’s an easy holiday to loathe. Super-saturated with frilly pink hearts, unreasonable expectations, gender imbalance, and overpriced candy (the horror!), I can understand why it might lead to feelings of grumpiness. But like many things in life, it’s about changing perspective. Eight years ago, my now-fiancé was the first person to ever take me out on what some consider the world’s most frustrating holiday. I didn’t really date much before I met Joe, and so my view of Valentine’s Day developed outside of the narrow frame that greeting card companies would prefer you to acknowledge.

As with Christmas, I feel like you have to strip away the over-commercialization and remember that holidays are just extra reminders to acknowledge and thank the people in your life who make it brighter. Whether it be co-workers that help the workday go a little faster, friends and family that bring you joy, or that special someone who makes you feel like the coolest person in the world, just say “thank you.” Remind someone that he or she makes a difference. Heck, go to CVS and buy some Batman valentines if you want to be silly. It’ll make someone smile.

And isn’t that really one of the best things in life, making people smile?

This time last year, I wrote about being grateful for the people who have impacted my life in a positive way over the last decade. How they made it possible to heal, grow, and accept that while life is never perfect, it is always hopeful. As Mary Oliver writes in my favorite poem, “Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination…”

So if you’re feeling down today and you really need a boost, just say “thank you” and share a smile with someone.

Oh, and make banana bread! (Come on, it wouldn’t be Neen’s Notes without a good recipe). Here’s what I made for some of the great people in my life today. When life hands you overripe bananas and ricotta leftover from making lasagna—but not enough to make another lasagna—make banana bread.

Truly Lovable Banana Bread

Ingredients

  • 2 cups flour
  • 1/2 tsp. salt
  • 3/4 tsp. baking soda
  • 1/4 tsp freshly ground nutmeg
  • 1 tsp. cinnamon
  • 1/2 cup brown sugar
  • 1/2 cup white sugar
  • 4 tbsp. butter
  • 3 bananas, mashed
  • 1/3 cup part-skim ricotta cheese
  • 1 tsp. vanilla extract
  • 1/4 tsp. almond extract
  • 2 eggs

Method

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Combine the flour, salt, baking soda, and spices in a medium sized bowl and set aside.

In the bowl of a stand mixer, beat the butter and sugars together until smooth and then add the eggs one at a time, beating well between each addition. Add the ricotta, bananas, and extracts and mix just until combined.

Add the flour mixture and beat on low speed or by hand just until a batter forms and there are no remaining dry spots.

Spoon the batter into a greased 9×5 or 8×4 1/2 loaf pans and bake for 1 hour, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Enjoy, my friends, and a happy Valentine’s Day to you all.

Ciao for now,

Neen

Strawberry-Lemon Macarons

22 Jan

Oh hi, I didn’t see you there…Happy New Year!

I was a busy holiday season. Lots of candy, cookies, and granola were made and many smiles were shared with family and friends.

Neen’s Notes is finally back after a whirlwind few months, and I’ve brought you something truly delightful and delicate: The Macaron! And what an awesome little cookie it is. Finely ground almonds and powdered sugar mixed into well-beaten egg whites to form an incredibly delicious meringue. When baked correctly, they come out with crisp outsides and chewy middles. The best part is figuring out what to sandwich between them. Yum.

There are many methods for making macarons floating around. I found this to be the one that worked best given the time frame I had and the equipment and relatively small space of my kitchen at home.

Shall we get our French cookie-baking on? I think we shall…

Strawberry-Lemon Macarons

Ingredients for the cookies:

  • 5 oz. sliced almonds (blanched will give you a more polished look)
  • 8 oz. powdered sugar
  • 5 oz. egg whites
  • 2.5 oz. granulated sugar
  • 1 tsp. vanilla extract
  • Pinch of salt
  • Zest of one lemon
  • Red food coloring (optional)

Ingredients for the strawberry-lemon filling:

  • 4 oz. butter, softened
  • 3 cups powdered sugar
  • 4-5 strawberries
  • 1-2 tbsp. cream
  • Zest of one lemon
  • Pinch of salt

First, get your workspace ready. Fit a piping bag with a plain ½ inch tip (or just cut the corner off of a plastic bag) and line 4 baking sheets with parchment paper.

In the bowl of a food processor, grind the almonds until fine and then grind with the powdered sugar and lemon zest until a sandy texture is reached.

Mix the food coloring into the granulated sugar and set aside (the color doesn’t need to be perfectly distributed). I went very easy on the food coloring, so my cookies looked almost salmon-colored when piped, but gel food colorings brighten as they set so I always err on the light side. You’ll see that the finished product is very pink.

Put the egg whites and salt in the bowl of a stand mixer and whip them on medium speed until foamy. Increase the speed and slowly add the granulated sugar. Beat until stiff peaks form.

Add the almond mixture and vanilla extract to the meringue and start folding and mixing it in. I do this by hand because it is much easier to feel when it smooths out. You don’t want to overbeat it, but you want a nice texture that ribbons when you lift the spatula out of the bowl.

Transfer the batter to the piping bag and pipe small 1.5 in. circles about 1 inch apart on the baking sheets. Tap the baking sheets on the counter to get rid of any air bubbles in the batter. Leave the baking sheets of cookies at room temperature for about a half hour or until the tops appear somewhat dry.

Preheat the oven to 300 degrees F. Bake the cookies for 16-20 minutes, or until they are puffed up, feel dry, and peel away from the parchment paper easily. Rotate the pans once in the middle of cooking. Cool on a wire rack.

While the cookies are cooling, prepare the strawberry-lemon filling.

In the bowl of a food processor, puree the strawberries and then add the butter and 2 cups of powdered sugar and process until well combined. Add a pinch of salt, the cream, and powdered sugar until a creamy texture is reached. Again, cut the corner off of a plastic bag and transfer the icing to it.

Pipe small circles onto the flat side of one meringue and sandwich another cookie on top, pressing lightly to spread the filling to the edge. Be gentle, as you’ll see from my final photos, the cookies are delicate and crack easily.

I brushed these ones with a little bit of luster dust to make them shiny.


Store the cookies covered in the refrigerator for up to a week. These were sent off to Joe’s office as a Friday treat for him and his colleagues.

Looking forward to sharing all sorts of recipes with you in the new year. Let’s make 2012 the most delicious one yet!

Ciao for now,

Neen

Coconut Cake for Lynn

16 Nov

Over the summer, I discovered my future mother-in-law’s love for coconut cake. Her only complaint was that half the time you order it somewhere, it turns out to be a plain white cake covered with tooth-achingly sweet seven-minute frosting and bland shredded coconut. The coconut flavor just isn’t there. Right then, I knew exactly what I’d make for her birthday this year.

Many coconut cake devotees insist that the only way to achieve real coconut taste is to use a fresh one, but I couldn’t find one anywhere in Northern Virginia. I’d even charged the power drill, but it wasn’t to be. After some research I discovered other ways of injecting some true coconut flavor into the cake, and I have to say that I think it turned out even better because of how the ingredients created a soft, tender cake and rich icing with just the right amount of sweetness. It was a big hit among the family and I think honestly, one of the best cakes I’ve ever made.

Coconut Layer Cake for Lynn

For the cake:

  • 2 1/4 cups cake flour, sifted
  • 2 1/4 teaspoons baking powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1 2/3 cups sugar
  • 1/3 cup butter, softened
  • 2 large eggs
  • 1 (14-ounce) can light coconut milk
  • 1/2 tablespoon vanilla extract
  • 1/2 tablespoon coconut extract

Frosting and decoration:

  • 16 oz.cream cheese
  • 4 oz.butter, softened
  • 2 cups powdered sugar
  • 1/2 cup cream of coconut
  • 2 cups shredded coconut, half sweetened, half unsweetened, toasted until golden in a 350 degree F oven for 3-5 minutes.

Preheat oven to 350°.

Coat 2 (9-inch) round cake pans with butter and dust with flour.

Whisk together 2 1/4 cups sifted flour, baking powder, and salt, and set aside.

Place sugar and butter in a large bowl; cream at medium speed until well blended (about 5 minutes). Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating well after each addition. Add flour mixture and coconut milk alternately to the wet ingredients, beginning and ending with flour mixture. Stir in extracts.

Pour batter into prepared pans. Sharply tap the pans once on countertop to remove air bubbles. Bake at 350° for 30 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool in pans 10 minutes on wire racks, and then remove from pans. Cool completely on wire rack.

Wrap cooled cakes tightly in plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight.

Prepare the icing by beating the cream cheese and softened butter together on medium speed until fluffy and smooth. Then, switch to a whisk and slowly add the powdered sugar and cream of coconut and whisk until smooth. Cover the bowl of icing and refrigerate until use.

To assemble the cake, unwrap one layer and cover it with a layer of frosting. Add the next layer and frost the entire cake lightly and return it to the refrigerator. Once the icing has set up slightly, apply a final, smooth coat of icing and finish with the toasted, shredded coconut.

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