When I got my very first apartment one of the first things I bought was a little patio set. Two chairs and a table with a very French Bistro look. I had some fantasy of me sitting out there in the morning drinking coffee and eating fresh homemade pastries from my kitchen. And then it hit me. I live in Phoenix. I am overlooking a parking lot. It is too stinking hot to be drinking coffee and the air is too stinking bad to be sitting outside inhaling it in. And the pastries? Don’t even get me started.
My first year of living on my own was pretty much a diet of Strawberry Frosted Pop Tarts and Stove Top Stuffing….and then running to my parents house to eat dinner every night. My crappy oven baked everything uneven(though the apartment complex assured me nothing was wrong with the oven) and so very few things came out of it. My mother was not a fan of me cooking in her kitchen, or anyone for that matter.
I bought myself a toaster oven, not exactly my dream appliance but it at least baked thing evenly. And with that my Pop Tart phase ended and I moved into the muffin phase of my life. I didn’t get too fancy as I was a first year school teacher in the state that ranks 48th in teacher salary…good food was a luxury to say the least. Though I must admit I did steal many an item from my mother’s pantry.
After making the banana pound cake with the mascarpone cheese I decided to remake one of my old standards from my teaching days…the banoffee muffin. If you are unfamiliar with banoffee it is the combo of banana and toffee. If you can’t picture the flavors together, think bananas fosters…minus the ice cream and flames. Like I said it’s nothing fancy, but it will fill you up in the morning and I think it is healthier than a Pop Tart,
Oh and in case you are wondering, I never did eat breakfast on my patio. After a year of being out in the Arizona sun, my patio set had warped something horrible and you could no longer sit on the chairs or place anything in the table. So the only pastries they got to see is if someone dumped some on them in the dumpster. Sigh.

Banoffee Mascarpone Muffins

1/3 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
4 ounce Mascarpone cheese
2 eggs, at room temperature
1 cup whole wheat flour
3/4 cup all purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 cup mashed ripe bananas
1 cup chocolate covered toffee pieces

Preheat oven to 350 F
In a large bowl cream together the butter, mascarpone cheese and sugars. Add the eggs and beat well. Sift together the flours, baking soda, salt, baking powder and add to creamed mixture. Stir until mixed. Stir in bananas and toffee pieces.
Pour into prepared mini muffin pans. Bake for about 15 minutes or until done. Let cool in pan for 5 minutes then remove from pan and transfer to a wire rack to complete cooling.

If you were to scour my site you would have a pretty hard time finding a pie recipe. I’m just not a pie girl. I’m not sure if it is because I didn’t really eat them growing up or what. We were more crisp or betty or grunt people. I much prefer the crumbly top of a crisp to that of pie dough. So I will admit some disappointment in the choice of Lemon Meringue Pie for the Daring Bakers Challenge this time around. Jen(The Canadian Baker) chose this pie, and for good reason, most people actually like Lemon Meringue Pie…I’m just not most people.
I chose to make  mini tarts. Which probably was not the best idea. They would have worked much better if they were just a tad larger than what I made them. Not much room for the filling. Many a Daring Baker complained about running lemon curd. I didn’t have that problem, I think because of the size of my tarts, they were easier to set up. The problem I did have was the meringue. For some bizarre reason mine would not get brown and so I had to bust out the blow torch to make them have color on top.
I halved the recipe and had no problems with that. I took one bite and it tasted like lemon meringue pie. I gave the rest to a friend and she liked them very much. Of course, she is one of the people who likes lemon meringue pie….so that worked out nicely.
To see many other Lemon Meringue Pies, head on over to the Daring Baker Blogroll.

Lemon Meringue Pie

(from “Wanda’s Pie in the Sky” by Wanda Beaver)

Makes one 10-inch (25 cm) pie or about 30 tartelettes

For the Crust:
3/4 cup (180 mL) cold butter; cut into ½-inch (1.2 cm) pieces
2 cups (475 mL) all-purpose flour
1/4 cup (60 mL) granulated sugar
1/4 tsp (1.2 mL) salt
1/3 cup (80 mL) ice water

For the Filling:
2 cups (475 mL) water
1 cup (240 mL) granulated sugar
1/2 cup (120 mL) cornstarch
5 egg yolks, beaten
1/4 cup (60 mL) butter
3/4 cup (180 mL) fresh lemon juice
1 tbsp (15 mL) lemon zest
1 tsp (5 mL) vanilla extract

For the Meringue:
5 egg whites, room temperature
1/2 tsp (2.5 mL) cream of tartar
1/4 tsp (1.2 mL) salt
1/2 tsp (2.5 mL) vanilla extract
3/4 cup (180 mL) granulated sugar

To Make the Crust:
Make sure all ingredients are as cold as possible. Using a food processor or pastry cutter and a large bowl, combine the butter, flour, sugar and salt.Process or cut in until the mixture resembles coarse meal and begins to clump together. Sprinkle with water, let rest 30 seconds and then either process very briefly or cut in with about 15 strokes of the pastry cutter, just until the dough begins to stick together and come away from the sides of the bowl. Turn onto a lightly floured work surface and press together to form a disk. Wrap in plastic and chill for at least 20 minutes.

Allow the dough to warm slightly to room temperature if it is too hard to roll. On a lightly floured board (or countertop) roll the disk to a thickness of 1/8 inch (.3 cm). Cut a circle about 2 inches (5 cm) larger than the pie plate and transfer the pastry into the plate by folding it in half or by rolling it onto the rolling pin. Turn the pastry under, leaving an edge that hangs over the plate about 1/2 inch (1.2 cm). Flute decoratively. Chill for 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 350ºF (180ºC). Line the crust with foil and fill with metal pie weights or dried beans. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes. Carefully remove the foil and continue baking for 10 to 15 minutes, until golden. Cool completely before filling.

To Make the Filling:
Bring the water to a boil in a large, heavy saucepan. Remove from the heat and let rest 5 minutes. Whisk the sugar and cornstarch together. Add the mixture gradually to the hot water, whisking until completely incorporated. Return to the heat and cook over medium heat, whisking constantly until the mixture comes to a boil. The mixture will be very thick. Add about 1 cup (240 mL) of the hot mixture to the beaten egg yolks, whisking until smooth. Whisking vigorously, add the warmed yolks to the pot and continue cooking, stirring constantly, until mixture comes to a boil. Remove from the heat and stir in butter until incorporated. Add the lemon juice, zest and vanilla, stirring until combined. Pour into the prepared crust. Cover with plastic wrap to prevent a skin from forming on the surface, and cool to room temperature.

To Make the Meringue:
Preheat the oven to 375ºF (190ºC). Using an electric mixer beat the egg whites with the cream of tartar, salt and vanilla extract until soft peaks form. Add the sugar gradually, beating until it forms stiff, glossy peaks. Pile onto the cooled pie, bringing the meringue all the way over to the edge of the crust to seal it completely. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes, or until golden. Cool on a rack. Serve within 6 hours to avoid a soggy crust.

The problem when you have a picky eater for a husband is that he doesn’t eat 90% of the things I make. And since I refuse to have a blog solely dedicated to all things peanut butter and chocolate, from time to time he gets annoyed. He gets annoyed that when he comes home and asked me what I baked today I have to usually tell him, “something you wont eat.” In my defense his list of things he wont eat is much larger than his list of things he will eat. So last week when I was in a frenzy of baking all things he doesn’t eat, I got the sad puppy dog eyes and the ever popular, “did you make anything I can eat?”

So in order to appease him I went looking for something with chocolate and peanut butter. I have seen many a time on many a blog the World Peace cookies. They have been done and done again and so I wanted to change them as I felt there was no need to beat a dead horse into the ground. Staring into the pantry was a half a bag of peanut butter chips and so I went with that.

Sadly I enjoyed them way more than he did. He likes soft cookies and well these are really made more for dunking in milk than eating straight out…in my humble opinion. He did gladly eat them but the guilt did pang me and I ended up making him something else too.

I will be making him doughnuts next week so that should put a smile on his face. And speaking of doughnuts, make sure to get your fry on by participating in Helen and I’s Doughnut Day. To get more info go here. Please remember that this has to be a NEW post about a doughnut or something in the doughnut family.

Peanut Butter World Peace Cookies

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1 stick plus 3 tablespoons (11 tablespoons) unsalted butter, at room temperature

2/3 cup (packed) light brown sugar

1/4 cup sugar

1/2 teaspoon fleur de sel or 1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

4 TBSP peanut butter

6 ounces peanut butter chips

1. Sift the flour, cocoa and baking soda together.

2. Working with a stand mixer, preferably fitted with a paddle attachment, or with a hand mixer in a large bowl, beat the butter on medium speed until soft and creamy. Add both sugars, the salt and vanilla extract and beat for 2 minutes more. Add the peanut butter and beat for another minute.

3. Turn off the mixer. Pour in the dry ingredients, drape a kitchen towel over the stand mixer to protect yourself and your kitchen from flying flour and pulse the mixer at low speed about 5 times, a second or two each time. Take a peek — if there is still a lot of flour on the surface of the dough, pulse a couple of times more; if not, remove the towel. Continuing at low speed, mix for about 30 seconds more, just until the flour disappears into the dough — for the best texture, work the dough as little as possible once the flour is added, and don’t be concerned if the dough looks a little crumbly. Toss in the peanut butter chips and mix only to incorporate.

4. Turn the dough out onto a work surface, gather it together and divide it in half. Working with one half at a time, shape the dough into logs that are 1 1/2 inches in diameter. Wrap the logs in plastic wrap and refrigerate them for at least 3 hours. (The dough can be refrigerated for up to 3 days or frozen for up to 2 months. If you’ve frozen the dough, you needn’t defrost it before baking — just slice the logs into cookies and bake the cookies 1 minute longer.)

Getting Ready to Bake:

5. Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. Line two baking sheets with parchment or silicone mats.

6. Using a sharp thin knife, slice the logs into rounds that are 1/2 inch thick. (The rounds are likely to crack as you’re cutting them — don’t be concerned, just squeeze the bits back onto each cookie.) Arrange the rounds on the baking sheets, leaving about 1 inch between them.

7. Bake the cookies one sheet at a time for 12 minutes — they won’t look done, nor will they be firm, but that’s just the way they should be. Transfer the baking sheet to a cooling rack and let the cookies rest until they are only just warm, at which point you can serve them or let them reach room temperature.

Source: Adapted from Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan, Houghton Mifflin Company, November 2006

It’s that time of year in Seattle. The time of year where basically 4 months of seeing little sun has made most people(not me, I love the weather here) a little stir crazy. This is the time of year when my friends are booking their trips to Mexico and start working on their fake tan. I will say one of the things that fascinates me about this area is amount of tanning booths. Pick up a rock and throw it and you will either hit a tanning booth or a coffee shack. I decided that I would make a cake that would add a little sunshine into the Seattle area even if the real stuff wasn’t shinning through.
A few weeks back, one of my favorite bloggers and all round spectacular person, Jen of Use Real Butter made a gorgeous and involved Zebra Torte that she had made(and now recreated) at a pastry skills course she took. Now, I am not one usually to run out and do something from another persons blog…at least not right away. But this was too fun not to make. Being that she just posted about it, I wanted to give it a little twist. Jen’s is much more striking in color contrast and you can see the layers much more because she chose to make the larger size, but mine was pretty all the same and very tasty.
I decided to base my cake on a cake I grew up eating at my mom’s best friend’s house. C, was not a very good cook at all. She knew how to make about 3 things: a cheese ball, an artichoke dip(not like spinach artichoke dip) and angel food cake that was covered in a Cool Whip and pineapple frosting. This cake is my tribute to that. I’m not totally sure but I think the original version is something like store bought angel food cake and then Cool Whip, vanilla instant pudding and pineapple. As odd a combo that it was I always loved it. It was so light. Almost too light as I usually wanted to eat about 4 pieces of it. My version is a vanilla bean chiffon cake with a orange chiffon cake sandwiched in the middle(like the Zebra Torte) with a pineapple custard whipped cream frosting. I use real whipped cream instead of Cool Whip and I use custard powder instead of vanilla pudding. If you are in the states you might have trouble finding custard powder at your local store, however you can buy it on Amazon.com, look for Bird’s Custard Powder. This cake did not disappoint my memory of the light cake and the scent of orange and vanilla bean instead of store bought angel food cake needs no explanation.
So if the weather is getting to you, and you can’t afford to go to Mexico or anywhere else sunny, make this cake and hopefully it will send some sunshine your way.

Orange-Pineapple-Vanilla Bean Zebra Torte

Orange Chiffon Cake

1 cup all-purpose flour
½ cup sugar
2 TBSP cornstarch
1 tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt

3 egg yolks
1/3 cup fresh orange juice
¼ cup vegetable oil
1 tsp vanilla extract
zest of one orange

5 egg whites
¼ tsp cream of tartar
¼ cup sugar

Preheat oven to 325F, coat a 12-x-17” jelly roll pan with nonstick spray, line with parchment and lightly coat again with spray.
Stir together flour, ½ cup sugar, cornstarch, baking powder, and salt together in a large bowl; set aside.
Whisk yolks, orange juice, oil, vanilla, and zest together in a second smaller bowl. Make a well in the dry ingredients, then pout the wet ingredients into the well, whisk until smooth.
Beat whites and cream of tartar together in a bowl with a hand mixer(or stand) on medium speed. When soft peaks form, gradually begin adding ¼ cup sugar; beat until stiff and shiny.
Mix 1/3 of the whites into the yolk mixture to lighten, then add the remaining whites. Gently fold whites into the batter until no streaks remain, then spread batter evenly onto prepared pan. Bake 20-25 minutes, or until cake springs back when lightly touched with a finger.
Cool cake in the pan 5 minutes. Run a knife around the edge of the cake and invert cake onto parchment. Peel off the parchment the cake baked on. Set aside to continue to cool.
Vanilla Bean Chiffon Cake

1 cup all-purpose flour
½ cup sugar
2 TBSP cornstarch
1 tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt

3 egg yolks
1/3 cup milk
¼ cup vegetable oil
pulp of one vanilla bean
1 tsp vanilla extract

5 egg whites
¼ tsp cream of tartar
¼ cup sugar

Preheat oven to 325F, coat two 9-inch pans(or four 4 ½ -inch spring forms)with nonstick spray, line with parchment and lightly coat again with spray.
Stir together flour, ½ cup sugar, cornstarch, baking powder, and salt together in a large bowl; set aside.
Whisk yolks, milk, vanilla bean pulp, oil and vanilla together in a second smaller bowl. Make a well in the dry ingredients, then pout the wet ingredients into the well, whisk until smooth.
Beat whites and cream of tartar together in a bowl with a hand mixer(or stand) on medium speed. When soft peaks form, gradually begin adding ¼ cup sugar; beat until stiff and shiny.
Mix 1/3 of the whites into the yolk mixture to lighten, then add the remaining whites. Gently fold whites into the batter until no streaks remain, then spread batter evenly onto prepared pan. Bake 20-25 minutes, or until cake springs back when lightly touched with a finger.
Cool cake in the pan 5 minutes. Run a knife around the edge of the cake and invert cake onto parchment. Peel off the parchment the cake baked on. Set aside to continue to cool.

Custard Whipped Cream Filling

1 cup heavy whipping cream
1 TBSP custard powder
1/3 cup powder sugar

Beat whipped cream on high speed. When soft peaks form add custard powder and sugar. Continue beating until stiff whipped cream is formed.

Pineapple Custard Whipped Cream Frosting

2 cups heavy whipping cream
2 TBSP custard powder
2/3 cup powder sugar
10 ounces crushed pineapple, drained
zest of one orange

Beat whipped cream on high speed. When soft peaks form add custard powder and sugar. Continue beating until stiff whipped cream is formed. Fold in pineapple and zest.

Here is the tricky part and for a MUCH better explanation including photos head on over to Use Real Butter.
We will start with the orange chiffon cake. Spread the custard whipped cream frosting so that it evenly covers the whole 12 by 17 cake. Since I made mini cakes I cut my cake into ½ inch strips. If you are making a larger cake use 1 ½ inch strips. Then you roll that up like a roulade. Then the real mess begins. Place the end of strip you just finished rolling flush with the next strip and continue to make the roulade bigger. If you are making the mini’s it really only takes about two strips. Yes, the filling will ooze out, that is okay…eat some with your fingers.
Take your vanilla bean chiffon cake and cut it horizontally in half. Place one half on the bottom of the pan you baked it in or even better a 9-inch spring form or the 4 ½ inch if you are using those. Once the bottom is in place, take the orange chiffon roulade circle and place it on top of the vanilla chiffon layer. Then place the remaining vanilla chiffon layer on top. I set them in the fridge for about an hour.
Take them out of the fridge and frost the cake with the Pineapple Custard Whipped Cream Frosting. This is somewhat difficult because of the chunky pineapple but can be done.

Source: Cake recipe adapted from Cuisine at Home magazine, December 2007