Rose's Cinnamon and Sugar Popovers

I suppose that popovers are not technically cake, but these--from The Bread Bible--seem like they could qualify as a cake, with their coating of butter, cinnammon, and sugar. Besides, even though they're not from Heavenly Cakes, and they occupy this No Man's Land between cake and bread, I chose them for Free Choice Week because I like to talk about how wonderful these popovers are: easy, delicious, and virtually foolproof. (Jim says he will make them sometime himself, just to test how foolproof they are).

The batter is a snap to mix, with the added advantage that you can make it ahead of time, which is very nice if you're serving them in the morning, as I was, or you can make it immediately before baking. One of Rose's secrets to never-fail popovers is using Wondra flour, for its ease of incorporation in the batter.

I doubled the recipe because when I last served these, they popped off the plate quicker than you can say Jack Robinson.

As an aside, people who have been following my not-so-daring exploits may remember that Jim and I host coffee hours every Saturday morning in January. Jim gets up early and makes the trek in (usually) bitter cold weather to buy doughnuts. I get up early and bake something. Last year, these popovers were the runaway hit. I was under orders to repeat them this year.

Another secret is to heat the buttered popover pans for a few minutes before pouring in the batter.

Since I'd mixed the batter the night before, my Saturday morning job was easy. Heat and pour.

Third secret: quickly pierce the popover midway through baking to release some of the steam, thus insuring that the inside of the popover will not be eggy and goopy.

If you don't like the cinnamon-and-sugar idea, you'll have a lovely plain popover straight out of the oven; it's ready for butter, or--even better--butter and jam.

But I've discovered that the very best thing to do is to brush them with melted butter.

And then roll them in cinnamon and sugar.

When people start wondering in, sometime between 9:30 and 10:00, they grab a mug, pour themselves a cup of coffee, and then take a doughnut and/or whatever I've baked that morning. This week the popover platter was emptied early on--even though I'd made twice as many as last year--while there were still leftover doughnuts at the end of the morning.

Keep this recipe in mind when you've baked your way through RHC, and you're going through pangs of withdrawal at not having a new cake to try out every week. Then you too can ponder this burning question: are cinnamon-sugar popovers more like cake or more like bread?

Last Cake, Next Cake

I wasn't the only one who was feeling a little snooty about plain white cake and milk chocolate frosting, only to be wowed by the actuality.

Perhaps Sarah said it best: "Whoa, Nellie! This cake is a dark horse if I’ve ever met one. And it has nothing to do with dark chocolate. The white velvet cake itself is lovely, but the ganache–oh baby! Never will I look down upon milk chocolate again." Sarah also has an amusing minute-by-minute accounting of her day--or how the easiest cake in the world "ate her day."

Faithy didn't feel like making a whole cake, so she made cupcakes, which she declared to be "totally yummylicious! I love the "whiteness" of the cake. So pretty! Cake texture is soo soft with such delicate crumbs. I love it."   In other words, she loved it.

Mendy, with the big family and/or generous heart, doubled the recipe, as he sometimes does, and ate it up within two days. (I'm sure he didn't eat it all by himself.) If you haven't read Mendy's post yet, do read it especially for his beautifully appropriate quotations from Song of Songs.

Kristina loved it, but that fact didn't come as a surprise to her because she's made it many times before, including as a weddingcake. She made them as "velvety soft cupcakes."

Shandy thought the cake was "nice and fluffy" and the frosting "delicious," but didn't think it had the "to die for" quality that she's found in some of the other cakes.

And, of course, some people were more smitten with the ganache than with the cake.
Jennifer confessed her love of milk chocolate to the world: "The ganache is made from milk chocolate, and I love milk chocolate. So creamy! I like to let a square of milk chocolate melt on my tongue; it melts so nicely and is so delicious! Dark chocolate, although better for you and more aligned with foodies everywhere, just doesn't satisfy me. I guess I will always be lower class ;)" The plebeian Evil Cake Lady made a luscious-looking cake.

Some people were at least as impressed with how easy the cake was to put together as with how good it was.

For example, Raymond thought it was so simple to make that it would convert even the laziest of bakers: "This cake is proof positive that a top quality scratch cake is even easier than a mix (not that any of us would ever use a mix), but for those of you out there that still do, try this once and you won’t ever use a mix again."

Katya called this cake "simple but snappy"--"Not the most exciting cake but solidly good, a basic, a birthday cake...or, as Jill said, 'A good cake to mas into ice cream.' It's a reminder of how far I've come since the days when I could bake mean bread but had no clue how to turn out a perfect white cake." (Katya made the cake even snappier by using a chocolate-caramel-cranberry ganache).

Lola also liked how easy it was (she made it in cupcake form), as well as "delicious," and said it "will be on [her] list when [she] needs a lovely white cake."

Andrea echoed this theme: she found the cake to be "incredibly simple." As well as praising the cake for being "wonderful" and the ganache for its "creaminess," Andrea was pleased with her pretty new glass covered cake stand--a Christmas gift from someone who got the hint after hearing her complain about her "ugly plastic cake container."

After I saw the other cakes, I was glad that I'd remembered to do some decorations. As I thought,some of the other cake bakers really tarted their cakes up--although many left theirs "plain," which turns out to be very attractive.

Maria's was most like mine--tiny white sprinkles on top of a ganache that she loved for its "slow, lava-like swoopiness."

Nancy B. calls her pretty piped-on lovelies a "token amount of decoration." I call it professional-looking myself.

Monica's cake took my breath away. And any baker who can make me stop breathing is a FEATURED BAKER. I remember the day when Monica did not consider herself a cake decorator. Now that she's started taking classes, though, she's really blossomed. Not only is her ganache perfectly beautiful, with artful spiky studs on the side, but she also used "leftover fondant" (see what I mean? Who has leftover fondant?) to make gorgeous ice-blue flowers. Always the sentimentalist, I gave Monica extra credit for making this cake for her BFF and writing a heartfelt tribute to her.

Speaking of extra credit, Jenn gets some. Jenn had baked this cake and blogged about it way back in November. Not wanting to be idle, however, she used this week to bake the Fruitcake Wreath (in cupcake form).

Don't be idle next week! It's yet another Free Choice week, and whether you make the Fruitcake Wreath, the Whoopie Pies, or the Pinecone Cake is up to you--but I'm sure you'll want to cross another cake off your list.
Coming up after that--the Genoise Tres Cafe: a "coffee cake" made with real coffee (and Kahlua, if you've a mind to). If you've already made the White Gold Passion Genoise, the cake will be a repeat for you, but the final outcome is not going to resemble the White Gold Passion. This cake specifies 53% cacao chocolate--I'm going to be spending this weekend looking for that. I may also look around for some chocolate-covered coffee beans, one suggested decoration.

White Velvet Cake with Milk Chocolate Ganache

I really wasn't looking forward to making this cake. It seemed so, well, plain. No syrup, no special filling, no ladyfingers. Just a plain vanilla cake. Literally. And milk chocolate? We chocolate snobs look down our noses at milk chocolate. Why not just eat a Hershey bar? But, as usual, I'm forced to admit that my scorn is misplaced. It's a cake so light and tender that you think it will disappear on your tongue, and the ganache--not too sweet at all--bursts with rich chocolate flavor. And it's kid-friendly. Since there's no alcohol in it, I was able to give a big slab to our neighbors with their two little boys who love chocolate, thus saving me from my unfortunate greed.

The cake itself was so easy to make there were barely any pictures to take. It's practically a dump everything in the bowl and mix cake. I say "practically" because you really dump everything except the egg whites, some of the milk, and the vanilla in the bowl and mix it up. Then you add the egg white mixture. Easy as falling off a log, and considerably less painful.

For the ganache, I finally got to use the bar of Valrhona milk chocolate that's been waiting patiently in my chocolate bin (needless to say, I did not have a chocolate bin before starting this project). This huge chocolate bar wasn't enough chocolate, so I had to supplement with some other milk chocolate that Woody and I purchased in bulk long ago.

The chocolate melted nicely in the microwave. If this were Thanksgiving and I were giving a list of things I was thankful for, one of them would be that I can now melt chocolate in the microwave instead of having to drag out the double boiler. I wonder if my daughters even know what a double boiler is.

Cream poured into chocolate? Also a thing to be thankful for.

Ummm. Butter mixed into chocolate into which cream has been poured? I don't know whether this is a good idea or insane arterial-clogging overkill.

While I am mixing various fat-filled ingredients into fat-filled chocolate, the cake has baked. In contrast, the cake is a model of healthful eating, ready to earn the seal of approval from even those who gasp at the idea of eating Fettuccine Alfredo ("You might as well eat a whole stick of butter!"). The cake has only egg whites and milk. Oh, and yes, there is that whole stick of butter, but still--divided by 10? It's nothing.

The instruction, "divide the cake in half" no longer sends me into a tailspin. Now all I have to do is adjust the feet of my cake slicer so that the wire cuts more or less through the middle of the cake. Much easier than blindly running a cake knife through the cake or trying to figure out the dental floss trick.

The ganache, bless its heart, turns out to be just the right consistency for spreading, and the frosting actually proceeds fairly uneventfully. But which I mean 1) the cake didn't split into a million crumbs and 2) the kitchen remained a curse-free zone.

I actually thought the cake looked quite nice plain. But then I remembered who I was baking with. All my super-baker colleagues would no doubt bring out their pastry tips and their designer tricks and I'd be the only one with a plain cake. I remembered I had some little snowflake decorations left over from the last time I made decorated sugar cookies, and I thought they'd look cute. Hoping that sugar snowflakes never go stale, I sprinkled them on the top.

Now that I've made this cake, I really want someone to ask me to make them a plain white cake. And I'll say, "Oh, I know just the thing."

TASTING PANEL

Karen: "This ganache is heavenly. Milk chocolate is my favorite. The cake is light as a cloud."

Jim: "The cake is good, but not delicious. I like the ganache, but I like dark chocolate better. It's good for what it is."

Mary:  "Delicious cake.  You didn't make the little white sprinkles, did you?  That would be beyond the call of duty."

Last Cake, Next Cake

I got a little nervous after recommending this cake so highly, in case it turned out that everyone else hated it. But I didn't have to worry--almost all the bakers who tried these little beauties were as crazy about them as I was.
One of Nancy's tasters (who can be pretty picky) declared it "amazing!"

Mendy, who recommends listening to Glenn Gould playing Bach while making the cakes, describes them as "pretty fab." (Which could also describe Glenn Gould playing Bach).

Jenn's reaction? "Oh man oh man. This is so good. The sponge cake is so moist and boozy it's so good. The cream filling is so yummy and fit so well with it." AND you must look at the lovely butterflies than Jenn (somehow) piped as cake decorations. AND--for the second week in a row--Jenn made a second catch-up cake: this time the She Loves Me Cake. AND she decorated those with piping that said, "Happy Birthday, Jenn" because, as you might guess, it's her birthday.

A few people had minor quibbles:
Kristina, who ended up doing a double post with this week's cake as well as last week's cheesecake, thought that the texture was "almost gummy" but that it "sure tasted good." Kristina's blog also has a nice thank-you to Rose, written in response to Rose's blog post about the mistakes she made when she started baking.

Katya thought they were a "bit too sweet" for her taste but "intense." She used a Kahlua-based syrup and a strawberry-rhubarb glaze, but, other than that, she stayed with the recipe.

Cake pan envy was mentioned more than once:
Monica, for example, posted an "ENVY ALERT" before mentioning the Mary Ann pan. But her brand new KitchenAid might cause other readers to feel their own equipment envy.

Joan decided she just HAD to have the pans, and went out looking for them. She found a super-deluxe version, with a basketweave pattern, which turned out looking great (despite Joan's concerns that she'd "manhandled" the genoise batter). The raspberry adornments look great too.

Jennifer too invested in the Mary Ann pans: her "investment" consisted of the eight dollars she paid at a big sale at Sur La Table this summer. She said she was willing to fork over eight dollars for a "single-use pan." After eating these cakes, though, she decided it wasn't likely to be used only once after all.

Raymond definitely felt no pan envy. In fact, he almost passed on this dessert because it was "another of the dreaded mini cakes which everyone knows I loathe intensely." However, he persevered, making two of them in 6-inch springform pans, hollowing out the center, and he fell in love: "This is total bliss. And, I have to say, make this in the six inch pan and you have the perfect Valentines dessert for two."

Hanaa found a big Msry Ann pan at a garage sale--one of those things you pick up because you never know, it might come in handy someday. After sitting on a shelf for a few years, it did come in handy. Hanaa, who can never resist the orange/chocolate combination, slipped a layer of orange pastry cream under the chocolate cream, for a double-creamy version. Much appreciated by her tasting panel, who called the cake "light", "European-style", and a "good flavor combo, the chocolate and the orange."

I also want to mention Nicola. Although she didn't bake this week's cake, she posted last week with a summary of some of the cakes she'd baked but hadn't had time to post about. She also announced that she was pregnant--with twins. Her delicate condition gives her a permanent excuse to be late, or not to have time to post. But, as several people pointed out, she might as well bake now, while she's not a complete stranger to sleep. Congratulations, Nicola!

Lois is this week's FEATURED BAKER. How can she not be? She didn't just double, but tripled the recipe! She took them to her office for a birthday treat--I'm sure the birthday person never envisioned something like these cakes when she made a vague request for "something chocolate." Even with the triple recipe, Lois blithely described the cakes as being "quick and easy." How far we've all come!

Next week is a true Quick & Easy recipe--the White Velvet Cake with Milk Chocolate Ganache. This is one of the few recipes that doesn't have a photo, so you're on your own for decorating ideas. In the spirit of quick and easy, however, the less decorating, the better. You will have no problems with this cake, with the possible exception of cutting it in half. Some people (me, for example) look at this instruction with trepidation; now that I've got my cake slicer, however, things are easier. You also need a big hunk of milk chocolate, something we haven't used much for our baking recipes. Rose has specific suggestions for kinds of milk chocolate to use.

After that, it's yet another Free Choice week. Yes, I know we just had one. But, as I keep reminding you, we're counting down to the last cake. If you didn't make these Bull's-Eye Cakes, I can't think of a better candidate for your Catch-Up week.

Hope you all had a lovely New Year's holiday, and that your resolutions remain unbroken.

Chocolate Bull's-Eye Cakes

These cakes may be small in size, but they're anything but small in flavor. Especially the chocolate filling--smooth and suave, it's a very grown-up pudding that makes you want to lick the bowl just like you did when you were a kid.
I liked these so much that I made them twice. I said I'd provide the dessert for a meeting at a friend's house. That meeting had to be rescheduled because of a blizzard (which are becoming all too familiar this year), and I made it again for the rescheduled date.

Like many of the other sponge cakes in the book, this one started with beurre noisette (now as familiar as blizzards but much more likable). This picture is just beurre before it gets to the noisette stage.

This recipe made me very glad I'd sprung for the Mary Ann pans. I bought them months ago and used them for Coffee Chiffonlets. Who knew they'd be so versatile?

We could probably all make sponge cakes in our sleep by now--except that it would be a little hard to fall asleep with the KitchenAid whirring at high speed for five minutes. Sometimes I think I should be wearing protective ear plugs at this stage. I'd rather be running my KitchenAid than a leaf blower. I hate leaf blowers.

Oddly, I didn't have any vanilla Cognac in my now well-stocked liquor cabinet. The first time I made the cakes, I just used a little extra vanilla in the syrup; the second time, I added vanilla and apricot brandy. For the delicious apricot glaze, I added just a teaspoon of apricot brandy to the strained apricot preserves.
Oh, by the way, remember the Chambord that we bought for a cake a while back? A friend of mine told me to mix it with Champagne for a festive cocktail, and that's exactly what I did on New Year's Eve. Very pretty and it tasted good too. Thanks, Suzanne!

The glaze not only added an unexpected touch of fruitiness to the cake; it also made it shiny and attractive. If you like fruit with your chocolate, you'll like this. You might still like it even if you don't because it's not at all overwhelming.

But my very favorite part of this cake is the non-cake cream filling. I was glad no one was in the kitchen with me when I made it the second time. I usually taste whatever is in the bowl, and I mean "taste"--a dainty, ladylike tip of a teaspoon full. I ate my usual taste, and then I licked the bowl clean. One of othe best chocolate experiences ever.  The chocolate glaze, which I drizzled (dribbled is more like it) on with a plastic bag was good too, but not as delicious as the filling.

The highest compliment I can pay these Bull's-Eye cakes is this: it is the only cake so far that I've made twice. And I'm already hankering for a third time.

TASTING PANEL

Susan: "Out of this world. The chocolate was so creamy. Not only delicious to eat but beautiful to look at."
Becky: "I feel like I'm eating something that I got at a fancy French patisserie."
Jim: "Love the combination of flavors. The cake is really nice and moist."
Rosemary: "It's delicious, and the cake is so moist. The chocolate filling is wonderful."

Last Cake, Next Cake

It was a struggle. Many of us--faced with blizzards, a demanding family, and stressful holidays--had to drag ourselves in the kitchen to bake one more thing in order to finish this week's cake. But those of us who did (including those who started the project at midnight) were glad we'd forced ourselves to open the oven door one more time.
Some of the draggers also were forced to substitute ingredients with what they had on hand.
Katya, for example, snowed in in her New York home, substituted ricotta and buttermilk for cream cheese and sour cream. She said it tasted good, although the wetter mixture seemed to cause some "bottom ladyfingers [to] float up, giving it an odd 'pond filled with floating logs' appearance." Hope your street has been plowed by now, Katya. I feel your pain.
Gartblue nearly didn't have time to bake, given the "rushy week" it was. And then she ran out of aluminum foil, had only the wrong size springform pan, and had blueberries but not cranberries. Did she have a snit? Well, yes, she did, but she still persevered.
It will probably surprise no one to hear that Jennifer was the above-named midnight baker--this isn't the first time that's happened. She also made some substitutions: a mixture of reduced-fat sour cream and full-fat yogurt. Again, the subs worked out well, converting at least one cheesecake naysayer to a fan.
Not everyone had to fly by the seat of their pants. Andrea was organized enough to make her own ladyfingers (after getting the right-sized piping tip--amazing what a difference that makes!). She also rolled out pie dough for two homemade pies: a pecan tart and a lattice-topped cherry pie. Nice work!
Raymond breezed through this cheesecake, even though he was also committed to "so many cookies and cakes and desserts for friends and parties" and San Diego was having "weird" weather (not blizzards). His reward? A "terrific" cheesecake, and high praise from one of the guests--a professional chef--at the party where the cheesecake was guest of honor.
Mendy's cheesecakes could have been guests of honor at about ten different parties--I don't know what size pan he used but he ended up with a multitude of cheesecakes, all looking very good. (Although there was one that "someone decided to poke their finger into ... a couple times.") That one looked, well, like someone had decided to poke their finger into it.

And then there were a few people who just couldn't get enough of baking--even in one of the busiest kitchen weeks of the year. Lois's extra baking time was a little inadvertent, since she ended up making two batches of ladyfingers. Apparently if you neglect to add flour to the ladyfingers, they end up being a little flat. You know how far you've come as a baker when you decide that it's easier to make another batch of ladyfingers from scratch than to run out to a nearby store to buy them.
Jenn chose this week to play more catch-up. Along with the cheesecake, she also made the financier-style vanilla bean poundcakes from a few weeks ago. She made five of those, which she and her husband "wolfed down" in minutes. (Can't imagine how "wolf" came to mean greedy eating).

This week's FEATURED BAKER is Nancy B.--in part to honor her as the only person who has made every single cake on the Heavenly Bakers list, and in part to show off her cheesecake, which was met with choruses of "good cheesecake" at the office potluck to which she brought it. Nancy made homemade ladyfingers to "reinforce her ladyfinger skills." She worried about a few imperfect spots, but was told that her ladyfingers looked so good they must be storebought. She thought she would have some left, so she could get a picture of an individual piece, but when she went to pick up her platter, all that was left was a "pile of crumbs." And I'll bet the pile wasn't very big.

And honorable mention goes to Joan, who didn't do the cheesecake, but instead did a reprise of the fabulous Saint-Honore trifle.

I think people are really going to like next week's Chocolate Bull's-Eye Cake. Don't be scared by all the components. Each one is easy, and the cake can be put together in a snap. It's going to be easier if you have the MaryAnn pan, because then you won't have to cut a circle out of the cake to put the chocolate in.
If you want your cake to be a little boozy, you have a couple of options. You can flavor the syrup with a vanilla cognac (or other liqueur) and you can also add a bit of apricot brandy to the strained apricot jam. Water, plus a little extra vanilla, works just fine as well.
This will be our first cake of 2011!
The following week, we go again to the Quick & Easy list, which is quickly diminishing. We'll make a layer cake: the classic White Velvet Cake topped with milk chocolate ganache. If anyone's birthday is coming up, it looks like it would be a fine birthday cake.

Happy New Year to all of you dear Heavenly Bakers!

Cranberry Crown Cheesecake

Once you have your ladyfingers for a cheesecake lined with ladyfingers, the rest is pretty much a walk in the park. As you may have guessed, I am unwarrantedly proud of my ladyfingers. I haven't yet stopped strangers on the street to tell them of my accomplishment, but I've come pretty close to it. So you may see a number of pictures of cheesecake that may look more like pictures of ladyfingers.

What a clever idea it is to make the ladyfingers so they spread together and make a solid line of cake. If you have such an unbroken line, you can shave off the bottom of the ladyfingers and tuck them in the pan so they form an unbroken circle. They don't fall over, nor do they lean precariously. They are so well-mannered you'd think they'd been attending a school for cake etiquette.

Granted, they don't fit so neatly in the bottom, but they can be cut and gently stuffed in holes so they make a pretty fair base for the cheesecake. No one complained that there was a hole in the bottom of the cheesecake.

In fact, no one did any complaining at all. I really do think that Rose's cheesecakes are the best on earth. At least they're the best I've sampled so far in my many years on earth, and I've tasted a fair number. This one is no exception--a basic cheesecake made only with cream cheese, sour cream, eggs, sugar, fresh lemon juice, and vanilla--it's rich, light, and flavorful.

With three cups of sour cream (compared to two cups in the coconut cheesecake and two cups of sweet cream in the pumpkin cheesecake), you may think it's going to be too light and not cheesy enough. But it's just right.

It goes in a hot water bath. A 9-inch springform pan set in a 10-inch silicone cake pan set in a large, heavy skillet works perfectly for me. You do have to pay attention when you're pouring the hot water in the pan.

45 minutes later, you turn off the oven. An hour after that, you open the door and remove the cheesecake. Even after all that time in the oven, you will notice what is NOT on the top of the cheesecake: not a gap, a crack, a canyon, or a chasm. I've made cheesecakes in the past that tasted good but were nearly split in two by such imperfections. Of course, you can tell yourself that it doesn't matter because it will be covered by some topping, but in your heart, you know it's wrong.

No apologies are necessary when you serve this cheesecake. And there's just the right amount of cranberry topping that's just the right tart-sweet blend. (I made a cranberry cheesecake a few years ago that I was really looking forward to, but the cranberry topping turned out to be an overly sweet, cornstarchy mess.)

I took this to an office potluck for the project I've been volunteering for, and it was the star. Jim was convinced he'd never get a piece of this cake, but, fortunately, I was able to bring home a few pieces for him. I think otherwise he was going to take his camera and go to the basement and pout.

TASTING PANEL:

Julie: "This was really good. I don't even like cheesecakes-they're so heavy--and I just took a piece to be polite. But then I had to take another piece because I liked it."
Bridget: "You know, she made the ladyfingers. She makes everything."
Rachel: "I really liked it. I thought it was cherry topping because it wasn't too tart. Now that I know it's cranberry, I'll have to take another piece."
Erika: "It's delicious!"
Jim: "It really tastes good. The cranberry sauce is not too sweet or too tart, and the cheesecake was light but still rich. It's also quite pretty."