Happy New Year 2011: Stamped Shortbreads with all my wish to you!

I want to make this post a special one, well, I think it's my thank for everyone around me, all the friends and family (and you the Anonymous reader, ^^) that makes me happy through the year.  

December 2010 Daring Bakers Challenge #47: Stollen Wreath

 I had a lot of problems this time -*-, well, all of them came from myself not a recipe. Because I prepared a mix fruit, (I use the one from Martha Stewart's Baking Handbook, I really like it when I make Fruitcakes) for making Fruitcake for my sister, and I use all dried fruit that I had in my house!!!!! So I thought about to make or not to make this challenge.

And as I told you in my last post, I had a lot to do from the start of this month, I just forgot about the post date, it's an alarm for me when I had a chance to sit down and visit Daring Bakers' website, oh! I really forgot to make this.
So, my Stollen Wreath is not perfect, I forgot to put the almond into the dough (well, I read the recipe 3 times, but because I was so hurry I misread it). For the traditional Stollen, it needs a lot of icing sugar on top and I forgot, haha. It's not good at all when you're in hurry, there are a lot of fault. But I hope that I can make it better next time.
Because I had no other dried fruits to use, I use the one that I have, and I had to reduce the amount of the recipe. I made only 1/3 of the original recipe so my Wreath is very small, ^^.
Anyway, the Stollen is very delicious (and I think it will be a lot better if I made it right). The texture is soft and very easy to knead (because I made a small one I kneaded by hand). 
If you want to make these bread, plan to start it the day before you want to serve, because it need to rest in the refrigerate for 1 night before shaping.
The Stollen Wreath can be kept longer if you brush with melt butter and coated with icing sugar (3 times to make a thick coat so you can send it by mail to anyone as a Christmas present).
So, thank you Penny from Sweet Sadie's Baking, I will make a better Stollen Wreath next time.

"The 2010 December Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Penny of Sweet Sadie’s Baking. She chose to challenge Daring Bakers’ to make Stollen. She adapted a friend’s family recipe and combined it with information from friends, techniques from Peter Reinhart’s book.........and Martha Stewart’s demonstration."

  

Stollen Wreath

Makes one large wreath or two traditional shaped Stollen loaves. Serves 10-12 people

Ingredients

¼ cup (60ml) lukewarm water (110º F / 43º C)

2 packages (4 1/2 teaspoons) (22 ml) (14 grams) (1/2 oz) active dry yeast

1 cup (240 ml) milk

10 tablespoons (150 ml) (140 grams) unsalted butter (can use salted butter)

5½ cups (1320 ml) (27 ozs) (770 grams) all-purpose (plain) flour (Measure flour first - then sift- plus extra for dusting)

½ cup (120 ml) (115 gms) sugar

¾ teaspoon (3 ¾ ml) (4 ½ grams) salt (if using salted butter there is no need to alter this salt measurement)

1 teaspoon (5 ml) (6 grams) cinnamon

3 large eggs, lightly beaten

Grated zest of 1 lemon and 1 orange

2 teaspoons (10 ml) (very good) vanilla extract

1 teaspoon (5 ml) lemon extract or orange extract

¾ cup (180 ml) (4 ¾ ozs) (135 grams) mixed peel (link below to make your own)

1 cup (240 ml) (6 ozs) (170 gms) firmly packed raisins

3 tablespoons (45ml) rum

12 red glacé cherries (roughly chopped) for the color and the taste. (optional)

1 cup (240 ml) (3 ½ ozs) (100 grams) flaked almonds

Melted unsalted butter for coating the wreath

Confectioners’ (icing) (powdered) sugar for dusting wreath

Soak the raisins
In a small bowl, soak the raisins in the rum (or in the orange juice from the zested orange) and set aside. See Note under raisins.



This is my adaptation:
Makes 9 inches Wreath
20ml ............................... Water
3g .................................... Instant yeast
80ml ............................... Milk
50g ................................. Butter
260g ............................... All purpose flour
40g ................................. Sugar
2g .................................... Salt
1 ...................................... Egg
½tsp .............................. Orange zest
½tsp .............................. Vanilla extract
½tsp .............................. Lemon extract
100g ............................... Soaked dried fruit mix

To make the dough

 Pour ¼ cup (60 ml) warm water into a small bowl, sprinkle with yeast and let stand 5 minutes. Stir to dissolve yeast completely.
In a small saucepan, combine 1 cup (240 ml) milk and 10 tablespoons (150 ml) butter over medium - low heat until butter is melted. Let stand until lukewarm, about 5 minutes.
Lightly beat eggs in a small bowl and add lemon and vanilla extracts.
In a large mixing bowl (4 qt) (4 liters) (or in the bowl of an electric mixer with paddle attachment), stir together the flour, sugar, salt, cinnamon, orange and lemon zests.
Then stir in (or mix on low speed with the paddle attachment) the yeast/water mixture, eggs and the lukewarm milk/butter mixture. This should take about 2 minutes. It should be a soft, but not sticky ball. When the dough comes together, cover the bowl with either plastic or a tea cloth and let rest for 10 minutes.

Add in the mixed peel, soaked fruit and almonds and mix with your hands or on low speed to incorporate. Here is where you can add the cherries if you would like. Be delicate with the cherries or all your dough will turn red!
Sprinkle flour on the counter, transfer the dough to the counter, and begin kneading (or mixing with the dough hook) to distribute the fruit evenly, adding additional flour if needed. The dough should be soft and satiny, tacky but not sticky. Knead for approximately 8 minutes (6 minutes by machine). The full six minutes of kneading is needed to distribute the dried fruit and other ingredients and to make the dough have a reasonable bread-dough consistency. You can tell when the dough is kneaded enough – a few raisins will start to fall off the dough onto the counter because at the beginning of the kneading process the dough is very sticky and the raisins will be held into the dough but when the dough is done it is tacky which isn't enough to bind the outside raisins onto the dough ball.

 Lightly oil a large bowl and transfer the dough to the bowl, rolling around to coat it with the oil. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap.

Put it in the fridge overnight. The dough becomes very firm in the fridge (since the butter goes firm) but it does rise slowly… the raw dough can be kept in the refrigerator up to a week and then baked on the day you want.

Shaping the Dough and Baking the Wreath

1. Let the dough rest for 2 hours after taking out of the fridge in order to warm slightly.
2. Line a sheet pan with parchment paper.
3. Preheat oven to moderate 350°F/180°C/gas mark 4 with the oven rack on the middle shelf.
4. Punch dough down, roll into a rectangle about 16 x 24 inches (40 x 61 cms) and ¼ inch (6 mm) thick.
Note from dailedelicious: I roll the dough into 14x11 inches, and place 3¼ inches cookie cutter to keep the dough's shape. 
Starting with a long side, roll up tightly, forming a long, thin cylinder.

 Transfer the cylinder roll to the sheet pan. Join the ends together, trying to overlap the layers to make the seam stronger and pinch with your fingers to make it stick, forming a large circle. You can form it around a bowl to keep the shape.

Using kitchen scissors, make cuts along outside of circle, in 2-inch (5 cm) intervals, cutting 2/3 of the way through the dough.

Twist each segment outward, forming a wreath shape. Mist the dough with spray oil and cover loosely with plastic wrap.

Proof for approximately 2 hours at room temperature, or until about 1½ times its original size.

Bake the stollen for 20 minutes, then rotate the pan 180 degrees for even baking and continue to bake for 20 to 30 minutes (my Stollen bake sooner than this about 30 minutes). The bread will bake to a dark mahogany color, should register 190°F/88°C in the center of the loaf, and should sound hollow when thumped on the bottom.

Transfer to a cooling rack 

This is the part that I forgot, ^^"

Brush the top with melted butter while still hot.

Immediately tap a layer of powdered sugar over the top through a sieve or sifter.

Wait for 1 minute, then tap another layer over the first.

The bread should be coated generously with the powdered sugar.

Let cool at least an hour before serving. Coat the stollen in butter and icing sugar three times, since this many coatings helps keeps the stollen fresh - especially if you intend on sending it in the mail as Christmas presents!

When completely cool, store in a plastic bag. Or leave it out uncovered overnight to dry out slightly, German style.

December 2010 Daring Bakers Challenge #47: Stollen Wreath

Cranberry Crème Fraîche Biscuits: Soft, flaky and very delicious biscuits !

 I feel a bit lazy now, last week I had a lot of thing to do, check up at hospital, dentist and a lot of shopping (actually I love this part if I had more time to shop than rushing through all the shops), but we are all the same right? New year is the busiest time of the year.

Anyway even in the busiest time, we still need to eat ^^, and what will be better than a soft and flaky biscuit with a cup of hot tea or coffee.
I think about making this biscuit when I saw that I still got homemade Crème Fraîche in the fridge. So I turn to the book ............................. I choose the recipe that originally use the sour cream and change the sour cream into Crème Fraîche.
And the result, well, I love it!!!!!! The sourness from the Crème Fraîche is not as hash as the sour cream and the Crème Fraîche has more richess, so the biscuit turn out to be rich and soft, with a very light tangy taste. I think that another factor that make my biscuits more delicious is the cranberry, ^^, usually they will leave a little bitterness in the mouth after eating it (I don't know that it's a common feeling or not but me and my brother always feel that way). This time the dried cranberry is sweet, lightly sour and plump, most of all I can't taste the bitterness. When they come together in this biscuit I think it's a heaven sent ^^.
I know that many people still have a problem when making biscuits or scone, but I have to say that it's really easy. All you have to do is not afraid to making it ^^. They will turn out well even you feel that you can't do it, and it's easier when you use the cake flour like in this recipe, the biscuits will has less chance to become tough.
The key is keeping all the ingredients cool (you can do this by refrigerate the flour mixture before mixing the biscuits), the butter will be less likely to melt before going into the oven. After pour the liquid into the flour mixture, mixing it just to make the flour moisten then knead the dough shortly, remember that you just making the ingredients stick together, not making a bread.
Actually you can use any kind of dried fruit that you have on hand but remember to cut the fruit into small pieces, you will find it easier to mix with butter and flour.

Cranberry Crème Fraîche Biscuits

Makes 8

220g ............................... Cake flour
3tsp ................................ Baking powder
30g ................................. Sugar
¼tsp .............................. Salt
30g ................................. Dried cranberry 
100g ............................... Unsalted butter (cold and cut into small pieces)
1 ...................................... Egg
40g ................................. Crème Fraîche
1tsp ................................ Milk
........................................ Milk, and sugar for brushing and sprinkle on top of the biscuits


Preheat the oven to 180°C. 
Line the baking sheet with baking paper or silicone baking mat.
Sift the flour, baking powder and salt together into the bowl.

 Put the dried cranberry into the bowl and stir to combine.
Mix together egg, Crème Fraîche and milk in small bowl.

 Put the cold butter into the flour mixture, using the scraper or your finger mix the flour and butter together, until they look like breadcrumbs. 
Pour the egg and Crème Fraîche mixture into the bowl and stir lightly until the flour moisten. 
Take out of the bowl and knead lightly until smooth. 

Pat the dough into rectangular and cut into 8.

Place the biscuits dough into the baking sheet, brush with milk and sprinkle with sugar. 

Bake for 18 minutes or until golden brown.

Take off the oven and rest on the sheet for 10 minutes until firm up.

Serve warm with a cup of your favorite drink ^^.

Cranberry Crème Fraîche Biscuits: 

Soft, flaky and very delicious biscuits !

Chicken Farm Baker's Project # 29 : Traditional Cake for Father's Day, CHO: Chocolate, Honey and Special Honey Orange cake!

The project of this month is very special, we will bake for our father because the 5th of this month is a father's day. So the host of this month "Beam" told us to bake a "Cake" with this event in mind and the most important thing for this project is we have to use Thai fruit or products.  

At first, I really wanted about using the coconut, but after thinking about the flavor, well I didn't want to make the coconut mousse with coconut milk -*-. Because if I make for my dad, I want to make something more refreshing for this special event. There are a lot of Thai fruits or products, but using them in the cake is not easy, I really have to think about the taste of the fruit when combine with milk or butter. 
As I think a lot of it, my project for this month comes so late, haha, but now after running in my own head, I choose this special fruit, the fruit that my dad love to eat fresh on hand: Special Honey Orange. This orange called Sai nam pueng (nam pueng, น้ำผึ้ง= Honey) in Thai, or Special Honey Orange. This orange has a thin peel and very sweet taste, it comes from Northern part of Thailand. Because this orange is very sweet, I don't have to use any sugar in my jelly at all ^^.
So, after I can choose the main ingredient for my cake, the next thing is what kind of cake that I want to make, and I have a mousse and jelly cake in my mind. Because I want the taste of the orange to be the main character, so the orange will be the jelly (real taste of orange without any addition). The mousse must be something that makes the cake soft and fragrance, the best base for the orange jelly, and when the name of this orange is honey, the honey mousse is a good idea. But the sweetness will be boring if there is nothing to cut it down a bit so for the cake I use the chocolate sponge cake, that will be soaked with the Grand Marnier syrup to make the cake go together with other flavor in the cake.
Anyway I never make the cake with the jelly over the sponge cake before, I almost shocked when I pour the jelly mixture over the cake to make the finish jelly layer, because the sponge soaked all my jelly mixture! I stand back and think about what should I do? At last I came up with the solution, I pour 1tbsp of the jelly mixture over the cake and let the cake firm up (by the jelly) in the fridge, before pour another layer of jelly over it. ^^
Finally I got my cake, nice and beautiful with 3 layers of chocolate cake, honey mousse and orange jelly, most of all my dad taste it and said "Delicious!" I think it's the most beautiful thing that I want to hear after having a lot of headache. I hope that you and your dad (or your children's dad ^^) will love this cake too.
Note: You can use any orange that you have on hand but if it's not very sweet add about 10-30g of sugar when boiling the orange juice. 
Adaptation from: many books in my collection ^^", really can't tell you exactly.

CHO: Chocolate, Honey and Special Honey Orange cake  

Makes 6 (7cm cake)

Chocolate sponge cake

70g .................................. Cake flour

15g .................................. Cocoa powder

3 ...................................... Eggs

90g ................................. Sugar

30g ................................. Unsalted butter (melted)

......................................... a pinch of salt

Simple Syrup

50g .................................. sugar 

50cc ................................. water

Grand Marnier syrup

50g ................................. Simple syrup

1tbsp .............................. Grand marnier

Honey mousse

120ml ............................. Milk

3 ...................................... Egg yolks

20g ................................. Sugar

5g ................................... Gelatin sheet

50g ................................. Honey

140ml ............................ Whipping cream

Orange jelly

400ml ............................ Orange juice (from "Special Honey" orange)

6g ................................... Gelatin sheet

Preheat the oven to 180°C. 

Line 30x30 cm.pan with baking paper.

Using hand mixer, beat the eggs with sugar and salt (add the sugar gradually) until ribbon stage.

Sift the flour and cocoa powder into the bowl and fold to combine.

Pour the melted butter into the bowl, and fold lightly to combine, then pour the batter into the prepared pan.

 Bake for 16 minutes or until the top is spring lightly when touch.

Let the cake cool on the wire rack.

Make the syrup:

Put the water and sugar into small saucepan and bring to boil, until all the sugar dissolved, take off the heat and let the syrup cool.

Make the honey mousse:

 Bloom the gelatin in cold water.

In a small saucepan, bring the milk to a boil. In the meantime, combine the yolks and sugar  together and whisk in a heavy‐bottomed saucepan.

Once the milk has reached a boil, temper the yolks by whisking a couple spoonfuls of the hot milk into the yolk mixture. Continue whisking and slowly pour the rest of the milk into the tempered yolk mixture.

Place the pan over medium heat and whisk vigorously (without stop) until the mixture thicken.

Squeeze the water out of the gelatin, put the gelatin into the hot mixture, stir to combine, then mix in the honey stir to combine.

Wait until it has completely cooled.

Whisk cream just to soft peaks.

 Gently fold 1/3 of the cream into the honey cream base.

Gently fold back the the honey cream base and cream mixture into the cream. The mixture will be quite loose. Put the mixture into piping bag with large plain nozzle.

Cut the cake into 12 small rounds (7cm/rounds).
Mix simple syrup with Grand marnier
Place the cake round into the cake rings, and sprinkle with Grand marnier syrup.
Pipe honey mousse in the cake rings, and cover with another piece of cake round.
Refrigerate until ready to use (or at least 30 minutes).
Make orange jelly:

Bloom the gelatin in cold water.
Boil 100ml of orange juice, take of the heat, squeeze the water out of the gelatin and put the gelatin into the hot orange juice.
When the mixture cool, mix with the rest of the juice.

Sprinkle the syrup over the cake, pour about 1tbsp orange jelly over the cake, then refrigerate for 30 minutes.
Pour the rest of the jelly over the cake and refrigerate until firm (about 12 hours).
Take out of the mold, decorate with chocolate pieces, and serve cool.

Chicken Farm Baker's Project # 29 : 

Traditional Cake for Father's Day,

 CHO: Chocolate, Honey and Special Honey Orange cake!  

Concorde Cake: Chocolate mousse and meringue cake, to fulfill my curiosity!

There are a lot of reasons to making this Concorde cake, 1. You have a lot of egg whites in your fridge, 2. you love to eat chocolate, 3. you love to eat meringue and 4. you really want to try something, ^^.

For me, I have all 4 reasons to making this cake, plus my original reason "I got a new book again". This time is a ......................
But as I say that even you try your best the error can happen, it happened in this book too, and it's in this recipe "Concorde". When I read the recipe I noticed that the sequence of the recipe seen strange, for the chocolate meringue, I never saw any recipe that start with beating the egg white then adding the cocoa and icing sugar -*-.
I know that it's wrong, but I really want to try it, haha, it's me, the girl who always want to know! So I tried to make the meringue by following the step in the book and as anyone can predict, I got a mixture of egg whites with cocoa and sugar that 
looked like a sauce, ^^" don't have to talk about whipping it, it couldn't.
The next thing that I found is the chocolate mousse for this cake is very sweet, my sister say that it's the first time that she found the cake that its meringue was less sweet than the mousse. I felt a bit sad about this book and Katsuhiko Kawata san, I hope that the problem came from the editing process not himself.
After the failure, I have to make something right. So I make this cake again by following the right step, adding the cocoa powder and icing sugar after the meringue become firm, haha, and reduce the sugar in the mousse.  Now, I can show you the Chocolate Concorde cake, the cake that consists of meringue disks and French chocolate mousse. The French chocolate mousse is the mousse that make with butter and eggs, that seen to be an old method of making mousse at home. 
Some people think that this dessert is quite heavy when see the butter in the mousse ingredient list, but I think after they try this recipe, they have to change their mind, it's not too heavy to enjoy. As I say, I love to bake and eat it too, and I make this cake in a smaller size. I really believe that half of this cake will be fine for me to enjoy ^^, the other half is for my sister.   
So, why don't you make this cake and having someone to share with like me, and remember that you can find your happiness in (and from) your kitchen too.

  Concorde

Makes 5 (8cm/cake)

Chocolate meringue
120g .............................. Egg whites
120g .............................. Icing sugar
30g ................................ Cocoa powder
120g .............................. Granulated sugar


Chocolate mousse
125g .............................. Dark chocolate (70%)
75g ................................ Unsalted butter (soft)
2 .................................... Egg yolks

40g ............................... Icing sugar
90g ................................ Egg whites

10g ................................ Granulated sugar


...................................... Icing sugar for sprinkle over the top of the Concordes

Preheat the oven to 120 °C

Line the baking sheets with baking paper or silicone baking mat.

Sift the cocoa powder with the icing sugar, set aside.

 Whip the egg whites until soft peaks formed, gradually add the granulated sugar and whip until stiff peaks formed.
Sift the icing sugar and cocoa into the meringue, fold lightly until fully combined.
Put the batter into the piping bag fitted with 1.2 cm piping nozzle.

Pipe the meringue into 15 disks (7cm in diameter), then pipe the rest of the meringue into long strips.

Bake for 2 hours, or until the meringue dry, turn off the oven and rest the meringue in the oven for 1 hour.
After taking off the meringue out of the oven,  let cool completely before proceed the next step. (Note from dailydelicious: you can bake the meringue and keep it in the airtight container for 2-3 days at room temperature)
When ready to assemble the Concordes, cut the meringue strips into small pieces.


Making the chocolate mousse:

 Melt the chocolate by putting the chocolate in the bowl and place the bowl over warm water (without letting the bottom of the bowl touch the water), stir until melt.

Put the soft butter into the melted chocolate, stir to combine.

 Pour the egg yolks (one at a time) into the chocolate mixture, stir to combine after each addition. Sift the icing sugar into the chocolate mixture, stir to combine.

 Whip the egg whites until soft peaks formed, gradually add the granulated sugar and whip until stiff peaks formed.
Fold the meringue into the chocolate mixture, 1/3 of the meringue at a time, fold lightly until combined.


Assemble: 

 You can use the piping bag or just spread the chocolate mousse over 1 disk of the meringue, place one meringue on and spread the mousse again, then top with another disk of the meringue.

Spread the mousse over the top and side of the concorde, decorate with the meringue strips. Sprinkle the icing sugar over the cake. Refrigerate until ready to serve.

Concorde Cake: 

Chocolate mousse and meringue cake, to fulfill my curiosity!