A Little Bit of What I Do Every Day

These are a lot of the things I do at work every day. We have multiple banquets every day, and tea on Saturdays. Brunch is also a large event that happens every Sunday.

This is a typical set up for a banquet. Chocolate decadence cake with chantilly cream, blackberry and chocolate garnish. Raspberry glazed cheesecake with assorted berries.

My Take on the Twix

This is my version of the classic Twix candy bar. I added roasted almonds and sea salt to the top. The bar consists of a thick layer of shortbread, white & milk chocolate caramel, and a slick layer of dark chocolate. Before the chocolate sets, I liberally sprinkled on the chopped almonds & sea salt. Next time I would make the caramel with only white chocolate. I didn't have enough this time so I compensated with milk chocolate chips.

The resulting treat is a grown-up candy bar with delicious, deep flavors. I cut the bars into small triangles because they are very rich.

ingredients:

Shortbread:
12 ounces Butter, room temperature
6 ounces Sugar
14 ounces Ap Flour
½ tsp Salt
Caramel:
1 cup Sugar
⅔ cup Heavy Cream
9 ounces White Chocolate, chopped
¼ tsp Salt
1 tsp Vanilla
Toppings:
4 ounces Dark Chocolate
1 cup Toasted Chopped Almonds
1 tsp Fleur De Sel

directions:
Shortbread:
1) Preheat oven to 350℉
2) Cream butter and sugar. Add flour and salt.
3) Press into a greased 9 x 13 pan. Bake for 25-30 minutes, or until golden brown.

Caramel:
1) Cook sugar using the wet sand method. Keep cream warm while cooking the sugar. Add the cream once you have reached the caramel stage.
2) Pour over the white chocolate, salt, and vanilla.

Assembly:
1) Pour the warm caramel over the cooled shortbread. Put this in the fridge until the caramel is completely cool and solidified.
2) Melt the dark chocolate over a double-boiler and spread over the caramel. Immediately sprinkle on the almonds and fleur de sel. Let set, then cut.

Sugar & Spiced Nuts

I adapted this recipe from Joy the Baker's blog. The original called for fennel seeds but I am not a big fan. Instead, I opted to use fresh rosemary. The nuts are very simple to make and can be adapted to your liking! I loved the finished look of the nuts, glossy with caramel and studded with rosemary and hot pepper flakes. These are definitely going into my holiday packages this year!

Sugar & Spice Nuts

1/3 cup sugar

1 Tablespoon rosemary chopped very fine

1 1/2 teaspoons salt (I used sea salt)

1 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes

a pinch cayenne

1 cup raw almonds

1 cup raw cashews

2 Tablespoons water

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. Line a baking sheet with foil and spray the foil with nonstick cooking spray.

Mix sugar, rosemary, salt, cayenne and pepper flakes in a medium sized bowl. Add the nuts and water and stir until coated. Pour onto the foil lined baking sheet and spread out evenly.

Bake the almonds for 5 minutes. Remove from the oven and stir almonds around. Return to the oven and bake for another 17 minutes, checking and stirring the almonds 2 to 3 more times. Nuts will turn beautifully dark brown. Remove from the oven and separate with a fork. Cool and remove from the pan to a serving bowl or an airtight container for storage.

Peach Almond Coffee Cake

This cake is sweet, crunchy and tart! Great for using up leftover buttermilk. Very easy to cut into pieces. For the almond flour, I toasted almonds and then ground them in the food processor.

adapted from Not Derby Pie

2 ripe peaches (cling and freestone are both fine)
3/4 cup sugar
6 tablespoons softened unsalted butter
1 large egg
1/2 cup buttermilk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon almond extract
1 cup all-purpose flour
3/4 cup almond flour (or finely ground toasted almonds)
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp cinnamon

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Butter and flour a 9-inch cake pan.

Cut the peaches in slices.

Cream together the butter and remaining sugar with a wooden spoon or spatula. Add the egg, buttermilk, vanilla and almond extracts, and stir to combine.

Combine the flours, baking powder, baking soda, salt, nutmeg, and cinnamon. Add the flour mixture to the wet ingredients and mix until smooth (some lumps may remain). Pour batter into the prepared pan, and smooth top.

Lightly press the peaches into the top of the cake in a circular pattern. Sprinkle finely ground almonds on top.

Bake cake for 10 minutes, then reduce the oven heat to 325 degrees and bake for an additional 45 to 55 minutes, or until a toothpick in the center comes out clean.

Apple Galette

Intro to Basic Pastry: Production Station, Day 2

Apples sauteed in Cinnamon Sugar on top of Pastry Cream enclosed in Pasta Frolla

Chocolate Mousse Cake

Intro to Basic Pastry: Cake Station, Day 3

Chocolate Cake base with a 3 inch layer of Chocolate Mousse. Frosted with Chocolate Whipped Cream.

Pumpkin Cake

Intro to Basic Pastry: Cake Station, Day 3

Pumpkin Chiffon Cake filled with Cinnamon Cream Cheese. Frosted with Vanilla Italian Buttercream. Marzipan Pumpkins.

Orange Raspberry Cake

Intro to Basic Pastry: Cake Station, Day 2

Orange Chiffon Cake filled with Orange Italian Buttercream and Raspberry Jam.

Also made mini Boston Cream Pies, no pictures though.

Mocha Cake

Intro to Basic Pastry: Cake Station, Day 1

Chocolate cake filled with coffee Italian buttercream, frosted with chocolate Italian buttercream. Chocolate ganache and shavings as garnish.

Hamentaschen

Intro to Basic Pastry: Cookie Station, Day 2

Edit: Baked by Erik on 1/7.

Raspberry Mirrors

Intro to Basic Pastry: Cookie Station, Day 2

Edit: These were baked on 1/5 by my blockmate, Erik.

Sandwich Rye Bread

Recently I have become obsessed with all things yeast. Whole wheat bread, cinnamon buns (coming soon) and, of course, this Rye Bread. People warned me that it would be sticky and hard to work with, but my dad really loves him some rye toast in the mornings so I pushed all the possibilities of failure to the side and searched for a dairy-less recipe (because my family keeps kosher, the bread can't contain dairy if I want to eat a roast beef sandwich on it!).

I've made this bread three times in the same number of weeks- that's how good it is. And I thought I didn't like rye bread...until I tried this one. It has a fine grain, mild flavor and goes perfectly with turkey pastrami and mustard. You can find the recipe here. I used the King Arthur Rye Flour Blend instead of the pumpernickel called for because well, that's what we bought and it's the reason behind the more mild rye flavor (which I like better anyways). The greatest part about the whole recipe is the pickle juice used in place of some of the water- it really adds a whole other deli-dimension to the bread. Plus, although King Arthur claims this bread isn't a high riser, just check out that finished loaf. It's the epitome of a perfect sandwich slice.

Coconut Cupcakes

When I took classes at The Cambridge School of Culinary Arts they gave us a recipe packet for each day of Baking Basics. During the Cake class, I was assigned Coconut Cupcakes.



The recipe is an adaptation of Ina Garten's. The original can be found here. It claims that it makes 18-20 cupcakes but I made an even 24.

If you're looking for a moist, buttery, flavorful coconut experience, this is it. I've also made a 2 layer 9-inch cake using this recipe and the recipient claimed it was the best coconut cake she's ever had- and she's from the South!


Some chopped almonds to cover the top in addition to the coconut would make a delicous Almond Joy-style treat.

Gingerbread Men

Finally, House of Munch is back up and running. Sorry about the prolonged absence- balancing school and life has been a bit overwhelming. It's not as if I haven't been baking; I've just been selfish and haven't shared it with you!

The recipe is from The King Arthur Flour Baker's Companion: The All-Purpose Baking Cookbook, a book I highly suggest for anyone who likes to bake. The recipes are not overly complicated and there are diagrams in select recipes to help show you how to achieve the final product.

In total, I baked over 180 gingerbread men for the holidays. My mom and I decorated for 4 hours. It started out as gifts for my friends, which turned into a list of 25 people, which spilled over to my aunts and uncles, grandparents and cousins. Luckily, the weather was in my favor because Boston got at least 16 inches of snow over the weekend- allowing me to become a hermit without getting weird looks from my sisters.




So worth it.

TWD: Chocolate- Chocolate Cake

On Tuesdays, as well as TWD, I have Wilton Cake Decorating, for which I need to bring a cake for. That's why instead of cupcakes here, you see a cake. I added 1 tsp of espresso powder to the recipe to amp up the chocolate flavor.
Sorry for being late- I've been baking non-stop for a bakesale on Friday that supports my ceramics teacher.

TWD: Pumpkin Muffins

I'm back. After three long weeks of barely any baking and absolutely no time to participate in Tuesdays with Dorie, I finally cracked down and made these muffins. It was well worth it. This was a recipe I had wanted to make on my first flip-through of the book, and thanks to Kelly from Sounding My Barbaric Gulp! I finally had all the motivation I needed to make them.
The sunflower seeds on top added an interesting crunch and flavor to the muffins. The muffins themselves didn't come out as orange as I expected, but that's not such a big deal. When I started getting out all the ingredients I found out that we have no nuts in the house except for hazelnuts, and those sounded wrong in these muffins. I left out the nuts and only added golden raisins. I used the large Oxo cookie scoop to fill the muffin cups because I read on the Q&A that you could fill these all the way and not have a problem with overflow. I also took most of the TWDer's advice on the baking time, taking out the muffins at 18 minutes instead of Dorie's recommended 25.
I don't know if this tops my mom's recipe for pumpkin muffins, but I will most likely make these again.

Cranberry-Orange Scones

I made these scones for my family's open sukkah today. Sukkot is the Jewish holiday that celebrates the fall harvest, and our temple selects families to welcome new and old members of the community into their sukkah. We have done this for the past couple of years, but I was in charge of the baking this time.
The recipe is from Simply Scones by Leslie Weiner and Barbara Albright and were the first scones I have ever made. They turned out really well, usually scones are too dry but these were the perfect balance of crumble and slight moistness. They're aesthetically pleasing too with their bright red flecks of cranberry and pale yellow crumb.

Wilton Class: Fondant & Gumpaste

TWD: absent

I'm so sorry I didn't make either the Creme Brulee or the Brownie Cake. School has gotten really busy with college applications and whatnot...those biscotti are mine next week!

Make sure to check out everyone else on TWD's blogroll for some delicious looking treats.

Wilton Class Two: Finale