Designer Chocolate Baby Grands

To me, baking these designer chocolate baby grands feels like running a marathon... Having three major components, these beautiful cupcakes with glossy chocolaty finishes require so much time and "stamina" to bake and assemble. With all the housework, husband, child and baking, I was totally exhausted at the end of the day and had chocolate all over my hands and body...

Being a persevering baker, I wasn't put off at all by this super-lengthy recipe and love all sorts of baking challenges. Having said that, the ironical part of me tells me that I will need extra courage and support to bake these cakes. And, so I have recruited my two baking buddies, Joyce from Kitchen Flavours and Lena, from Frozen wings to bake-along these challenging cupcakes with me. Evil me! LOL!

In actual fact, these designer chocolate baby grands are quite technical to bake. There are three different components in this bake, the cake itself, the chocolate ganache and the shiny glaze. When every component was assembled together, the cupcakes do look very grand with nice and glossy chocolaty finishes. Here are my rating for these cupcakes:

Looks wise - Grand! 10 out of 10!

Taste wise - Very moist and chocolaty! 10 out of 10!

These cupcakes are so delicious because their sponge-like cake base absorbed warm chocolate ganache very well, giving them a very moist and chocolaty texture. Instead of making milk chocolate ganache as described in Rose's recipe, I have made a dark chocolate ganache using dark chocolate with 70% cocoa, resulting my cupcakes having lots of chocolaty flavours and just the right amount of sweetness for us. Ultimately, the finishing layer of glossy chocolate glaze gives these cupcakes a nice final touch... Being a chocoholic, I would strongly recommend eating these cupcakes for a wonderful chocolate experience. It feels like eating chocolate-infused chocolate cakes with lots of semi-solid chocolate sauce. Yum!

With the same recipe, I have given myself a double challenge by making these cupcakes even smaller. My son was very impressed with the extra-baby grands knowing that these are made specially for his little mouth to nibble... LOL!

My designer chocolate baby grands

My designer chocolate EXTRA-baby grands - My son was excited seeing these!

Making the cake batter

Filling up my foil cupcakes liners

Happy to see that my cupcakes are ready!

Getting ready for the next step

Applying the dark chocolate ganache onto the cupcakes

Making the lacquer glaze

Enjoying the cupcakes... Just one mouth and the extra-baby grand is gone!

Can you see the intermediate layer deeply infused with dark chocolate ganache? Having this extra-baby chocolate grand all in one mouth is as heavenly as you can imagine...

Here's the recipe from the book, Rose's Heavenly Cakes by Rose Levy Beranbaum.

(with my modification and notes in blue)

The Cupcakes

Makes 14 cupcakes

Batter:

33 g unsweetened (alkalized) cocoa powder

1/4 cup boiling water

1/4 cup canola or safflower oil, at room temperature 
(I used canola oil)

2 large eggs, separated, plus 1 additional white, at room temperature

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

37 g cake flour

37 g bleached all-purpose flour

150 g superfine sugar

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda (replaced by baking powder)

1/8 tsp salt

Equipment:

14 foil cupcake liners, white inner liners still attached, coated with baking spray with flour, set in muffin pans

Preheat the oven 20 min or more before baking, set an oven rack in the lower third of the oven and preheat the oven to 350°F/175°C.

Mix the cocoa and liquid ingredients. In the bowl of a stand mixer, by hand, whisk the cocoa and boiling water until smooth. Cover with plastic wrap to prevent evaporation and cool to room temperature, about 30 min. To speed cooling, place the mixture in the refrigerator. Bring it to room temperature before proceeding.

Add the oil and yolks to the chocolate mixture. Attach the whisk beater. Starting on low speed, gradually raise the speed to medium and beat for about 1 minute, or until smooth and shiny, and resembling a butter-cream. Scrape down the sides of the bowl. Beat in the vanilla for a few seconds.

Mix the dry ingredients. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flours, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.

Make the batter. Add half the flour mixture to the chocolate mixture. Beat on low speed until the dry ingredients are moistened. Scrape down the sides of the bowl. Add the remain­ing flour mixture. Raise the speed to medium-high and beat for I minute. Scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl. The mixture will be very thick.

Starting on low speed, add the egg whites. Gradually raise the speed to medium-high and beat for 2 mins. The batter will now be like a thick soup. Using a silicone spat­ula, scrape it into a 2-cup or larger cup with a spout. Pour the batter into the prepared cupcake liners. They will be just under half full, 3/4 inch from the tops.

Bake the cupcakes. Bake for 15 to 20 min, or until a wire cake tester inserted in the centers comes out clean and the cupcakes spring back when pressed lightly in the centers. While the cupcakes are baking, make the ganache syrup. When the cupcakes are baked, set the pans on a wire rack.

Milk (or Dark) Chocolate Ganache Syrup

Makes: about 2/3 cup

85g (3 ounces) milk chocolate, 40% to 41% cacao (or 2 ounces lower percentage milk chocolate and 1 ounce dark chocolate, 60% to 62% cacao), chopped
(I used 80g chocolate with 70% cocoa)

1/4 cup plus 2 tbsp heavy cream

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Make the milk chocolate ganache syrup. In a food processor, process the chocolate until very fine. In a 1-cup or larger microwavable cup with a spout (or in a small saucepan over me­dium heat, stirring often), scald the cream (heat it to the boiling point; small bubbles will appear around the periphery). With the motor of the food processor running, pour the cream through the feed tube in a steady stream. Process for a few seconds until smooth. (Alternatively, grate the chocolate, place it in a small bowl, and stir in the scalded cream until the mixture is uniform in color.) - I chose to use the alternative method.

Transfer the chocolate syrup to a microwavable bowl and stir in the vanilla.

Apply the syrup. Remove the cupcakes still in the muffin pan to a wire rack. While they are still hot, poke about 12 deep holes in each cupcake with a wooden skewer. Brush the cupcakes with syrup. It penetrates most readily when at least 110°F/43°C almost hot to the touch (Mine was 52°C when I applied my syrup). If necessary, reheat as it cools by giving it a few seconds on high power in the microwave. Allow them to sit for a few minutes, and then apply more syrup to fill the little holes left by the skewer. Continue applying the syrup until all of it has been used. There should be a thin coating covering the top of each cupcake. Allow the syrup to set until, when touched with a fingertip, it leaves no mark, about 1 hr.

Lacquer Glaze

makes: 1 1/3 cups

1/4 cup cold water

2 tsp powdered gelatin
(replaced by 1 1/2 gelatin leaves, about 6g, pre-soaked in water first just before use and lightly squeezed to remove excess water)

133 g sugar (reduced to 100g)

1/3 cup water

28 g golden syrup or corn syrup (I used golden syrup)

66g unsweetened (alkalized) cocoa powder

1/3 cup heavy cream

Make the lacquer glaze. Have ready a fine-mesh strainer suspended over a medium metal bowl. In a small bowl, place the 1/4 cup of cold water and sprinkle the gelatin over the top. Stir to moisten and soften the gelatin and allow it to sit for a minimum of 5 min. Cover tightly with plastic wrap to prevent evaporation and set aside. (I skipped this step because I have used gelatin leaves)

In a small heavy saucepan over medium heat, whisk together the sugar and 1/3 cup of water. Stir constantly with the whisk until the sugar dissolves.

Remove the pan from the heat and, with the whisk, gently stir in the golden syrup and then the cocoa until smooth, making sure to reach into the corners of the pan. The mixture will be glossy. Using a silicone spatula, stir in the heavy cream.

Return the pan to medium heat and, stirring constantly, bring the mixture to the boil­ing point (190°F/88°C). Bubbles will just start to form around the edges.

Remove the pan from the heat and strain the mixture into the medium bowl. Cool slightly, for about 10 minutes. An instant-read thermometer should register 122 to 140°F or 50 to 60°C. With the silicone spatula, stir in the softened gelatin until dissolved completely and no longer streaky.

Strain the glaze into a 2-cup heatproof glass measure or bowl. (Metal will impart an undesirable flavor if the glaze is stored in it.) Cool for a few minutes, stirring very gently so as not to incorporate any air (I didn't strain the glaze again). For these cupcakes, the glaze coats best when just made (80°F/26°C). If the glaze is made ahead and reheated. it will be thicker and should be used at 82 to 85°F or 28 to 29°C.

Lift the cupcakes from the pans and carefully remove them from the foil liners, leaving the white inner liners still attached to the cupcakes. Set the foil liners aside.

Glaze the cupcakes. Place the cupcakes on a wire rack set on a 17 1/4 by 12 1/4 by 1-inch half-sheet pan or a large piece of aluminum foil to catch the excess glaze.

Use a regular tablespoon (not a measuring spoon) to coat the tops of the cupcakes with the lacquer glaze. Smooth it into place with the rounded back of the spoon in a circular motion. Some of the glaze will cascade over the sides and can be reheated and re-poured. Use the aluminum foil as a funnel to pour the excess glaze back into the glass measure. Should they appear, any tiny bubbles can be pierced with a sharp needle. Allow the glaze to set for about 1 hr, or until just barely tacky when touched lightly with a fingertip. Set the cupcakes back in the foil liners. They are at their most shiny within 6 hrs of pouring the glaze. To revive the shine, brush lightly with a soft brush or wave a hair dryer set on low heat briefly over the cupcakes. If desired, encircle them with cupcake wrappers.

Note: Using this recipe, I have baked 7 standard size cupcakes and 11 smaller ones and baked them at 160°C fan forced for 20 min (standard size ones) and 15 min (smaller ones).

Happy Baking

Here are our baking friends that have joined us for this bake-along. Please visit their blogs for more of their designer chocolate baby grands baking.

Please submit your details if you wish to link your post with this bake-along. This linking tool is open from 27 Nov to 3 Dec 2012.

For our next bake-along, we are baking chocolate éclair which is to be posted on 11 Dec 2012. Please bake-along with us! All you need to do is to bake your favourite chocolate éclair and blog hop with us on this day or within the next 7 days.
 
To blog hop with us, simply copy and paste this linky HTML code into your blog post where you want the blog hop list to appear. Make sure you are in HTML view/mode when you paste in the code. get the InLinkz code  

Before using this linky tool, please make sure that: (1) Your post must be a current post. (2) Please mention Bake-Along in your post and link back to any of our hosts' Bake-Along post, (Joyce, Lena or Zoe). (3) Appreciate if you can display the Bake-Along badge in your post when linking up with us. Cheers!

Apple-Walnut Mosaic Cake

When I first read this recipe from the book, "Coffee Cakes" by Lou Seibert Pappas, I asked myself these questions...

Mosaic? This must be a pretty cake...
Is there too much apples in this cake?
Can the small amount of batter strong enough to hold all the mosaic ingredients?

I'm baking this Apple-Walnut Mosaic Cake for The Home Bakers and this is the twelfth bake for this event. THB is an baking event organised by my friend, Joyce from Kitchen Flavours. With a group of gorgeous ladies, we are baking all recipes from the book, "Coffee Cakes" by Lou Seibert Pappas until every recipe has been baked from this book.

Prior this bake, Mich from Piece of Cake and I had a brief conversation about baking this cake when we met in Singapore. Mich warned me the crumbling nature of this cake and advised me to bake mine in smaller versions for easy handling. I should listen to Mich baking my cake in muffin tins. Instead, I'm curious and wish to seek for a nice mosaic design in every slices of my cake. And so, here I am compromising the situation by taking a risk to bake my cake in a 10 cm x 20 cm loaf pan.

Based on the recipe, this cake is baked with a little amount of stiff batter and I can smell that the top of my cake was beginning to "cook" fast in the first 15 min of baking. And, so I covered the cake loosely with aluminum foil and bake it for 30 min to cook the apples thoroughly without burning the surface of the cake. The foil was then removed and the cake was baked for another 20 min to achieve a rich brown colour. 

I felt relieve seeing that my cake came off my loaf pan to be perfectly well-intact. I must admit that slicing this fragile cake can be pretty tacky and have managed to slice them into five thick slices. Generally, I am happy with its look, taste and texture. Taste-wise, I can't really tell if there is any difference with or without the use of walnut oil baking this cake and all I can tell is that the oil does create a light and smooth batter. 

Overall, I reckon this cake doesn't seem like a typical cake. It is NOT soft, fluffy, buttery or smooth at all. Having so much apples and cranberries in its single bite, this apple-pie-like cake is quite an unique, wholesome and delightful one to enjoy. 

I'm happy to see this lovely mosaic design in my cake.

Ingredients that create the lovely mosaic design in this cake

Making the cake... with my retro whisk :D

Baking the cake

Crumbling texture! Lucky that my cake survived and relieved to see a nice mosaic design :)

Being the rule of this event, only the host of the chosen bake can post the recipe in her blog post. Please visit Mich from Piece of Cake for the detailed recipe of this bake.

And, here are the notes and modifications that I made for my bake.

My ingredients list (which is half amount of the original recipe)

70g whole walnuts (not chopped), lightly roasted for 8 min at 160°C fan forced
75g whole wheat flour
75g all purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 large egg
90g light brown sugar
1/3 cup walnut oil
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
3 small Granny Smith apples, peeled, cored and diced (about 3 cups)
3/4 cup dried cranberries

Using this amount of ingredients of the above recipe, I've baked the cake using 10cm x 20cm loaf pan at 160°C fan forced for a total of 1 hr 5 min.

The total baking time consists of :

• 15 min first to bake the outer layer of the cake
• Cover the cake loosely with aluminum foil (with holes) and bake for 30 min - this step is to cook the apples without burning the surface of the cake.
• Remove the foil and bake again for another 20 min to achieve a rich brown colour - The juice released from the cooked apples will moisten the cake batter and the sugar released will help to caramelize the cake batter into a nice and rich brown colour.

Modifications that I have made from the original:

• I have used walnut instead of pecan.
• I have also used all walnut oil instead of canola oil or half walnut oil with half canola oil.
• I have replaced the baking soda with baking powder.
• I have omitted ground allspice and the use of icing sugar for dusting. 
• I have reduced the brown sugar amount from 3/4 cup to 1/2 cup for half of the amount.

Happy Baking

Big Bird’s Good-for-you-good-for-me Oatmeal Muffins

Are these Big Bird's or Angry Bird's muffins?

We are sorry if we have confused you. Although these muffins were made with angry birds cupcake liners, they are truly Big Bird’s good-for-you-good-for-me oatmeal muffins made with Big Bird's recipe from the book, "B" is for Baking by Sesame Street, Susan McQuillan.

We are the mummy-and-son tag team again baking these muffins and we are extremely proud and happy to serve these moist and delicious oatmeal muffins to our very "fussy" big boss daddy... LOL!

With extra crunchy oats toppings, these muffins are very yummy... In fact, these muffins disappeared very much faster than our previous Abby Cadabby's disappearing strawberry muffins. Beware! With all these angry-birds-look-alike muffins disappearing, we might be mistaken and get bombarded with lots of angry birds soon...

Angry bird's muffins?

Mixing the wet ingredients

My boy's favourite... angry birds!

Mixing the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients

Ready to bake...

These freshly baked muffins smells really good!

Watching my boy enjoying his bakes can be my enjoyment too :D

Here's the recipe from the book, "B" is for Baking by Sesame Street, Susan McQuillan
(with my sight modification in blue)

1 cup old-fashioned rolled oats
1/2 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
1 cup low-fat yogurt, or buttermilk (I used buttermilk)
1 large egg
1/2 cup olive oil (I used rice bran oil)
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup whole-wheat flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda (replaced by baking powder)
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup dried cherries, golden raisins, or dried cranberries, finely chopped (optional)
(increased to 3/4 cup of dried cranberries, not finely chopped)

Mum's extra toppings:

25g butter, soften

30g brown sugar

30g all-purpose flour

1/4 tsp of vanilla paste
20g oats

Mum: Combine all topping ingredients except together to form a dough. Allow it to rest in fridge for at least an hour.

-----

Boy: In a large bowl, with a rubber spatula, stir together the oats, brown sugar, yogurt, egg, and oil. Be careful not to overmix. Let stand 15 mins while the oven is preheating.

Boy: Preheat the oven to 400°F.

Boy: Line 12 muffin cups with paper or foil liners.

Boy: In another large bowl, whisk together the all-purpose flour, whole-wheat flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt until well-mixed. Add to oat mixture, stirring with the spatula until just combined. Gently fold in dried fruits. 

Mum: Divide batter evenly among prepared muffin tins (about 1/3 cup batter per muffin). Pinch and divide pieces of topping dough on top of the muffin batter and sprinkle the extra oats on top. 

Mum: Bake muffins 15 mins or until golden on top and a toothpick inserted in the center of a muffin comes out clean. Transfer to rack to cool for a minute or two. Turn the muffins out to cool further.

Happy Baking and Eating and... beware of the angry birds!

Just 10 more days to go and we will be cooking or baking a lot like Martha Stewart!

For December 2012, Baby Sumo from Eat your heart out and Riceball from Riceball Eats and I, Zoe from Bake for Happy Kids will be cooking and baking lots of Martha Stewart recipes for the event, Cook like a Star. Join us! Simply cook or bake any recipe from Martha Stewart website or her cookbooks and blog hop with us for the whole month of December 2012.

Perfect Chocolate Chips Cookies

These "Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookies" are truly as perfect as Cook's Illustrated claims.

To re-invent this classic, Cook's Illustrated lists down all the details and possible improvements that they can make to achieve this perfect chocolate chip cookie recipe using a super-easy melt-and-mix method. These "perfect" cookies have a great balance in both sweetness and texture; they are moist and chewy on their inside and crispy at the edges. Although these cookies can be as perfect as they can be, I reckon that the texture and taste can vary too depending on the ingredients used in this recipe.

I have baked these cookies more than once and whenever these cookies are freshly baked from the oven, they are all gone very quickly. Even after the cookies are gone, the smell would stay in my kitchen and all I can hear is "mmm...mummy...These cookies are delicious..."

For this post, I'm baking two batches of cookies. The first batch is the nice and simple NUT FREE ones for my son's little friends at crèche. The second batch is the gourmet ones with dark muscovado sugar, walnuts, vanilla beans and chocolate chunks for my family. Knowing that my son loves baking for his friends, I had involved him with stirring, baking and decorating these cookies and he was extremely happy and helpful doing that.

My gourmet-style "perfect" chocolate chip cookies

Making the cookie dough

Baking the cookies

Baking nut-free cookies for my son's friends

Things that we used to decorate the smiley cookies

Ta-da! My boy was very happy baking these cookies.

One of my gourmet-style cookies. Are you drooling seeing this?

Here's the recipe from Cook's Illustrated (Published May 1, 2009)
(with my modification in blue)

Most recipes from Cook's Illustrated has to be subscribed via their website but this one is free and can be accessed via the Cook's Illustrated apps.

Makes 16 cookies.

1 3/4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour  
1/2 tsp baking soda (replaced by baking powder)
14 tbsp unsalted butter
1/2 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cups packed dark brown sugar or light brown sugar
(made 2 batches one with light brown sugar and another with dark muscovado sugar)
1 tsp table salt
2 tsp vanilla extract
(made 2 batches one without vanilla extract and another with vanilla beans scraped from 1 vanilla pod)
1 large egg
1 large egg yolk
1 1/4 cups semisweet chocolate chips or chunks (see note)
3/4 cup chopped pecans or walnuts, toasted (optional)
(made 2 batches one without nuts and another with walnuts)

The batch made with light brown sugar, vanilla extract and without nuts are for my son's friends at crèche as the all food cooked or baked for crèche has to be strictly NUT-FREE. The other batch with dark muscovado sugar, vanilla beans and walnuts are made with EXTRA LOVE (from me) for my family's consumption.

Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 375°F . Line 2 large (18 x 12-inch) baking sheets with parchment paper. Whisk flour and baking soda together in medium bowl; set aside.

Heat 10 tbsp butter in 10-inch skillet over medium-high heat until melted, about 2 mins. Continue cooking, swirling pan constantly until butter is dark golden brown and has nutty aroma, 1 to 3 mins. Remove skillet from heat and, using heatproof spatula, transfer browned butter to large heatproof bowl. Stir remaining 4 tbsp butter into hot butter until completely melted.
 
Add both sugars, salt, and vanilla to bowl with butter and whisk until fully incorporated. Add egg and yolk and whisk until mixture is smooth with no sugar lumps remaining, about 30 sec. Let mixture stand 3 mins, then whisk for 30 sec. Repeat process of resting and whisking 2 more times until mixture is thick, smooth, and shiny. Using rubber spatula or wooden spoon, stir in flour mixture until just combined, about 1 min. Stir in chocolate chips and nuts (if using), giving dough final stir to ensure no flour pockets remain. (After this step, I rested my dough in the fridge for about 1-2 hrs)

Divide dough into 16 portions, each about 3 tbsp. Arrange 2 inches apart on prepared baking sheets, 8 dough balls per sheet.

Bake cookies 1 tray at a time until cookies are golden brown and still puffy, and edges have begun to set but centers are still soft, 10 to 14 min, rotating baking sheet halfway through baking. Transfer baking sheet to wire rack; cool cookies completely before serving.

Note: Using the full amount of recipe, I've baked 22 nut-free medium sized cookies and 30 gourmet-style cookies in total at 180°C fan forced for 10-12 min. Half of the recipe was baked as the nut-free crèche batch and the other half was for our consumption. 

Before serving, my son and I gave each of the crèche cookies a smiley face.

Happy Baking

To all Martha Stewart fans: In 2 more weeks, we will be cooking or baking a lot like Martha Stewart!

For December 2012, Baby Sumo from Eat your heart out and Riceball from Riceball Eats and I, Zoe from Bake for Happy Kids will be cooking and baking lots of Martha Stewart recipes for the event, Cook like a Star. Join us! Simply cook or bake any recipe from Martha Stewart website or her cookbooks and blog hop with us for the whole month of December 2012.

A Linzertorte and Linzer Cookies

Before this bake, I've been thinking of baking Linzertorte for ages... Good that one of my baking buddies, Joyce from Kitchen Flavours has suggested this theme for our bake-along and here I am happily baking my first Linzertorte with Joyce and Lena from Frozen wings.

Besides baking this delicious torte, I'm curious to know... What is Linzertorte? According to Wikipedia, It is an Austrian torte with a lattice design on top of the pastry is named after the city of Linz, Austria. Linzertorte is known as a holiday classic in the Austrian, Hungarian, Swiss, German, and Tirolean traditions, often eaten at Christmas. It is transformed and made into smaller tarts or cookies in the North American bakeries.

No wonder, I do noticed the slight similarities between both typical Linzertorte and Linzer cookies recipes. Since there isn't much difference between a Linzertorte and Linzer cookies, I have decided to both for this bake-along. Me being a crazy baking woman again... LOL!

I'm a big fan of Belinda Jeffery and this Linzertorte recipe is from her book, The Country Cookbook by Belinda Jeffery. This book is written in the form of a diary and formatted according to the beautiful seasons of Australia. I love how Belinda uses lots of fresh seasonal produces in all her food and bakes and how she enjoys the beauty of baking and cooking in Australia. I like Belinda Jeffery but think that her website has very limited number of recipes to cook. For this reason, I'm quite reluctant to have her being the upcoming theme of my blog hop event, Cook like a Star. However, if you like Belinda Jeffery, please feel free to let me know so that we can have a mini-cook-along together.

Now, back to baking... This torte is actually quite easy to shape and bake. There is no rolling involved in this bake because the torte base is simply pressed onto the tin. The lattice top is simply piped out of a thick plastic bag. The recipe is really versatile... without eggs, you can even bake this torte into the form of cookies. For an extra challenge, I was even making my own homemade jam... Me being a crazy baking woman again and again... LOL!  

Now being extremely satisfied with both my Linzertorte and Linzer cookies, my family and I are too pampered with these yummy choices... Eating these make me feel like Christmas is coming.

Making the strawberry jam

The tart batter

Assembling the tart

Yum!

Making the Linzer cookies

The assembled Linzer cookies

Now, I'm too spoiled with choices...

Here are the recipes (with my modification in blue)

Please note that I didn't dust my torte and cookies with any powdered sugar. I reckon they are actually very good as it is. So, no extra sugar required...

Jam Linzertorte adapted from The Country Cookbook by Belinda Jeffery

Put the pecans into the bowl of a food processor and pulse them a few times so they're coarsely chopped. Add the flour, salt, cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg, and keep on processing until the nuts are very finely chopped. Tip the mixture into a bowl and set it aside. (I skipped this processing step because I used almond meal instead of whole nuts and all I did was to combine the flour, salt, cinnamon and almond meal together). 

Put the butter and caster sugar into the processor and whiz them for a minute or until light and creamy-looking (Using an electric mixer, I beat the butter and sugar until light and creamy). Give the bowl a good scrape, then add the lemon zest and whiz it in briefly. With the motor running, add one egg at a time, making sure the first one is well absorbed before adding the second. (While beating the batter, I added egg into my mixture. I noticed that my mixture curd a little and this is because the recipe uses butter which is cold at cool room temperature.) Add the vanilla extract and whiz (or beat) briefly to mix it in. Scrape around the sides of the bowl to make sure everything is well mixed together. Tip the pecan mixture into the food processor and whiz (mix at low speed) for 10 secs or so until thoroughly combined.

Scrape two-thirds of the dough into one bowl, and the remainder into another. Cover them both with plastic film, then put the larger portion in the fridge and chill it for 1-11/2 hrs until it has firmed up. Store the smaller portion in a cool spot, but not the fridge so that the dough is soft enough to be piped on the tart.

Remove the chilled dough from the fridge, then press it as evenly as you can all over the base of a 24-25 cm loose-based tart tin or springform cake tin. (I skipped the chilling step and pressed the dough onto a tart tin with a baking paper on top.) The dough is quite soft, so you will find if you sit your hand in the middle of the tin and turn the tin slowly you can easily even it out. Push gently around the edges of the dough to form a very slight rim up the side of the tin - no more than 5-6 mm high. After all this handling, the dough will be quite soft again so it's a good idea to chill it for 30 min or so to firm it up. While chilling, mix together the raspberry and Davidson plum jams. (I chilled my tart only when it was completely assembled.)

When the dough base has firmed up, spoon the jam onto it and spread it out evenly, without going quite to the edge of the tin. Now, scoop the smaller portion of dough into a large piping bag fitted with a 6 mm plain tube or a large, strong snap-lock bag. Just force the dough towards one corner and twist the rest of the bag so the mixture forms a little pouch. Carefully snip the corner off the bag.

Make a lattice top by piping five or six parallel strips of dough evenly across the jam-coated base, then pipe another five or six strips of dough across these to form a lattice. If necessary, press the edges of the strips gently to the dough rim to seal. Use the remaining dough in the bag to pipe a border around the rim, over the sealed edges, then chill the linzertorte for 30 mins or so. (I chilled my assembled tart in the fridge for 1 hr before baking.)

Preheat your oven to 160°C. Slide the torte into the oven and bake it for 1 1/4 hrs or until the lattice top is golden and the jam is slightly bubbly. When it's ready, transfer it to a rack and leave it to cool in the tin.

When the linzertorte is barely warm, carefully loosen around the edges of the tin with a fine palette knife (if necessary), then remove the sides of the tin and leave the torte on the base to cool completely. Once it is completely cool, use a large spatula to help slide it off the base onto a serving plate. Dust the edges with a little icing sugar and serve it with cream (it's rich, so you only need smallish slices). Leftovers keep well for up to 5 days at room temperature and 10 days or more in the fridge.

Note: Using half of the recipe, I have baked my tart in 19 cm loose bottom tart tin at 150 °C fan forced for 45 min.

Linzer Cookies adapted from the book, Chewy Gooey Crispy Crunchy Melt-in-Your-Mouth Cookies by Alice Medrich

Combine the flour, nuts, granulated sugar, salt, cinnamon, and cloves in a food processor. Pulse until the nuts are finely ground. (I skipped this processing step because I used almond meal instead of whole nuts and all I did was to combine the flour, sugar, salt, cinnamon and almond meal together).  Add the butter (cut into several pieces if firm). Pulse until the mixture looks damp and crumbly. Add the almond extract and the lemon and orange zests or extracts and pulse until the mixture begins to clump up around the blade. Remove the dough, press it into a ball, and knead it a few times to be sure all of the dry ingredients are blended into the dough.

Form the dough into 2 flat patties. Wrap and refrigerate the dough for at least 2 hrs and preferably overnight or up to 3 days. The dough may be frozen for up to 3 months.

Preheat the oven to 325°F (or 160°C fan forced). Position racks in the upper and lower thirds of the oven.

To Roll and Cut Cookies: Remove 1 patty from the refrigerator and let it sit at room temperature until supple enough to roll but still quite firm. It will continue to soften as you work. Roll the dough to a thickness of 1/8 inch between sheets of wax paper or between heavy plastic sheets cut from a plastic bag. Turn the dough over once or twice while you are rolling it out to check for deep wrinkles; if necessary, peel off and smooth the paper or plastic over the dough before continuing to roll it. When the dough is thin enough, peel off the top sheet of paper or plastic and keep it in front of you. Invert the dough onto that sheet and peel off the second sheet. Cut as many large shapes as possible. Dip the edges of the cookie cutters in flour as necessary to prevent sticking. Cut a smaller shape from the center of half of the large shapes. Use the point of a paring knife to lift and remove scraps as you transfer the cookies to the lined or un-greased pans. Place large cookies at least 1 1/2 inches apart on the cookie sheets. Repeat with the second piece of dough. Gently press all of the dough scraps together (don't overwork them with too much kneading) and re-roll.

Bake for 13 to 15 min for larger 3 inches size cookies or 8 to 10 min for miniature 1 1/4 inches ones, or until the cookies are just beginning to color at the edges. Rotate the pans from top to bottom and from front to back halfway through the baking time to ensure even baking. 

Let the cookies firm up on the pan for 1 to 2 min. Transfer the cookies to racks. Cool the cookies completely before stacking or storing. May be kept in an airtight container for a month or more.

To assemble, shortly before serving, spread each solid cookie with a thin layer of preserves. Sift powdered sugar over the cookies with cutouts. Place a sugared cutout cookie on top of each preserve-covered cookie. Leftover cookies can be stored in an airtight container, but the moisture from the preserves will soften them.

Note: Using 1/5 of this recipe, I've baked six 5cm round and eight little flower linzer cookie sandwiches and baked them all at 160°C fan forced for about 10 to 12 min.

Homemade Strawberry Jam (made in a small quantity), mostly adapted from the book, The Cake Stall by The Australian Women's Weekly

200g strawberries, washed and hulled
140g caster sugar
30ml lemon juice

Gently heat berries in a saucepan, covered for 2-3 min to extract juice from berries. Transfer berries with slotted spoon to another bowl.

Add sugar and lemon juice to strawberry juice in pan. Stir over low heat until sugar dissolves.
Return the berries to pan, simmer uncovered for 20 min or until jam gels when tested.

Jam test: Put a spoonful of jam onto a freezer-chilled saucer. Push the jam with finger, if it wrinkles the jam is set.

Happy Baking

Here are our baking friends that have joined us for this bake-along. Please visit their blogs for more of their Linzer tart baking.

Please submit your details if you wish to link your post with this bake-along. This linking tool is open from 12 Nov to 18 Nov 2012.

For our next bake-along, we are baking Designer Chocolate Baby Grands (Recipe: Rose's Heavenly Cakes, Pg 303 or here) which is to be posted on 27 Nov 2012. Please bake-along with us! All you need to do is to bake this recipe and blog hop with us on this day or within the next 7 days.
 
To blog hop with us, simply copy and paste this linky HTML code into your blog post where you want the blog hop list to appear. Make sure you are in HTML view/mode when you paste in the code. get the InLinkz code  

Before using this linky tool, please make sure that: (1) Your post must be a current post. (2) Please mention Bake-Along in your post and link back to any of our hosts' Bake-Along post, (Joyce, Lena or Zoe). (3) Appreciate if you can display the Bake-Along badge in your post when linking up with us. Cheers!

To all Martha Stewart fans: Only 2 to 3 weeks to go... and we are going to cook like Martha Stewart for December 2012!Baby Sumo from Eat your heart out and Riceball from Riceball Eats and I, Zoe from Bake for Happy Kids will be cooking and baking lots of Martha Stewart recipes for Cook like a Star for December 2012. Join us! Simply cook or bake any recipe from Martha Stewart website or her cookbooks and blog hop with us for the whole month of December 2012.

Abby Cadabby's Disappearing Strawberry Muffins

I can't believe that Christmas is arriving in 6-7 weeks and soon the year, 2012 is going to be over...

For the past few months, my son has been showing a lot of interest in my baking. He was excited when he first saw this recipe from the book, "B" is for Baking by Sesame Street, Susan McQuillan and I can tell that he really want to bake these muffins with me. Since I need "assistance" for my Christmas baking, I thought I might as well start training him... LOL!

The recipes in this book, "B" is for Baking are designed in the way to encourage kids to bake and eat healthy foods with lots of wholegrain, fresh fruits and vegetables. Each recipe indicates steps that will allow kids' participation so that they will be proud of their own bakes and eat them all.

These muffins are not sweet at all and the recipe can be versatile too by replacing the strawberries with peaches, nectarines or other berries in season. My three year old boy and I were like a tag-team baking these muffins. We really enjoy baking together and will bake more as a mummy-and-son team in the near future.

Based on the muffin's name, I would think that these healthy muffins will be disappearing fast in our house but they didn't. As these muffins are low fat and really not sweet at all, my husband and I didn't feel like eating much of them. In fact, my son was the one who ate most of the muffins eventually as he didn't want to waste his efforts of baking these muffins. I guess the book is totally right in this kiddy concept and mindset of baking... LOL!

Strawberry muffins baked by our mummy-and-son team

My baking apprentice :D

Making the muffin batter

Baking the muffins

Mummy's job to test the muffins

We are proud of our strawberry muffins...

... and happy to watch them disappearing! They all went into a little boy's tummy.

Here's the recipe from the book, "B" is for Baking by Sesame Street, Susan McQuillan
(with my sight modification in blue)

Makes 12 muffins

1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup whole-wheat flour
1/3 cup sugar
1/4 cup cornmeal
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup low-fat plain yogurt (replaced by buttermilk)
1/3 cup olive oil
1 large egg
2 cups strawberries, hulled and chopped
 
 
Preheat the oven to 400°F (or 180°C fan forced).

 
Line 12 muffin cups with paper or foil liners.
 
In a medium bowl, whisk together the all-purpose flour, whole-wheat flour, sugar, cornmeal, baking powder, baking soda, and salt; set aside.
 
In a large bowl, use a rubber spatula to stir together the yogurt (buttermilk) and oil, then stir in the egg until well-blended. Stir in the flour mixture just until mixed. (We forgot to add buttermilk before this step and so we added the buttermilk after stirring in the flour mixture.)  Fold in the strawberries.

Fill the muffin cups two-thirds of the way full.

Bake for 20 to 25 min or until a toothpick inserted in the center of one muffin comes out clean. Transfer to rack to cool for a minute or two. Turn the muffins out to cool further.

Happy Baking