Lucas loves to bake.  He has a little playhouse in our garden which started life as his pretend treehouse and has now turned into his bakery.  Whenever we’re outdoors playing he disappears in there to “bake”.  Oh, what delights we’ve had!  He made me some gingerbread men the other day, but what he likes pretend baking most of all are cupcakes.  Perhaps because he loves eating cupcakes the most?

So yesterday, when he was clamouring to make a cake, I thought that he wanted to play in the garden.  But no, it turned out that he wanted to bake a cake for Daddy.  Daddy neeeeeeeds cake! To be fair, Daddy probably did need lots of cake after a survival stag weekend in Wales.  (I was very relieved that he survived the zombie apocalypse and the torrential rain.  But completely missed the earthquake.)

And what sort of cake did Daddy need? Chocolate cake, of course!  So, knowing that (a) this would be messy no matter what, and (b) that Lucas gets bored very quickly, I opted for a one-bowl Devil’s Food cake.

I’d love to say that Lucas is some sort of genius toddler who can weigh our his own ingredients and tidy up after himself, but alas… Mummy played commis chef for the morning.  Anyone else find that their toddlers are tyrants in the kitchen?

Mummy! You did that wrong!
No, mummy! Put it there!
Lucas can do it! *grabs sieve*

So, Lucas climbed up on a chair and whisked.  Then he whisked some more and said it was very hard, so we finished that together.  Then he grabbed the sieve and sieved in the dry mixture, stirring it through the sieve which, joyfully, is far less messy than shaking the sieve!   Plus, it makes a funny noise so that was fun.  And then he whisked again and said, “oh! Where did the chocolate come from?” and looked at me so suspiciously that I laughed and laughed.  And then he looked so offended… and I laughed some more.

I wish I had more pictures but between trying not to cover the kitchen in batter, making sure he didn’t fall off the chair—he decided to have a dance on the chair half-way through—and just plain having fun, I only got a couple.

Unsurprisingly, Lucas vanished when it was time to clean up.  He did do a very good job of licking the bowl and spatula clean, which is surely the best part of making a cake!

After lots of wrangling about what sort of filling Daddy’s cake should have, he settled on chocolate buttercream.  (First of all he said that Daddy couldn’t have chocolate, then he wanted to put a lion inside, and then he wanted buttercream.  “What flavour,” I asked.  Tomato.)

One Real Chocolate buttercream later, Lucas was back on his chair, armed with a spatula and lots of enthusiasm.

For Instant Enthusiasm: Just Add Chocolate.

All I did was dollop the buttercream on and let him do the spreading out.  So, it doesn’t quite reach the edges but you do get a lovely thick mass of it in the middle which is lush.  The pretty topping is all Lucas, too.  He wanted sweeties on Daddy’s cake and since that was a much better idea than tomatoes, I was quite happy to open up some of his Easter sweeties (shhh!) and let him go to town!

So, there you have it.  Lucas baked a cake!  (And Mummy cleaned the kitchen.)

Daddy was very pleased with his “I missed you / welcome home / Lucas wanted chocolate cake” cake, so in a fit of bad parenting, we ate big slices of it for lunch.  And then we ate some more for second breakfast today (it’s a Hobbit thing), and there’s still plenty for afternoon tea, too!

One-bowl Devil’s Food Cake

• 250g caster sugar
• 250ml buttermilk (I just poured a 284ml carton in and didn’t bother scraping down the sides)
• 160ml (2/3 cup) sunflower oil
• 2 large eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 225g plain flour
• 50g cocoa powder
• 1 1/4 teaspoons bicarbonate of soda
• 1/2 teaspoon fine salt

Preheat oven to 180C (fan 160C). Grease and line two 8″ sandwich tins.

Put sugar, buttermilk, oil, eggs and vanilla extract into a large bowl.  Whisk together.  Mix dry ingredients together and sieve into the wet mixture.  Whisk together to form a chocolate batter. (”It magic, mummy!”)

Divide between the tins; bake for 25 minutes or until tops are springy acocktail stick inserted into the middle of each cake comes out clean and dry.

Cool in tins on wire rack for 10 minutes, then turn out, remove base & paper and allow to cool completely before filling/decorating.

Real Chocolate Buttercream

• 175g dark chocolate (min 70% cocoa solids)
• 250g unsalted butter, softened
• 275g icing sugar, sifted
• 1T vanilla extract

(I scaled this down to use 100g unsalted butter since we were loading the top of the cake with sweeties.)

Chop chocolate into evenly sized chunks. Melt in the microwave, stirring after every 15 seconds or so, until melted.  Set aside to cool slightly.

In stand mixer, beat the butter until it is fluffy and a bit paler than when you started.  Add the icing sugar and beat together slowly.  (If your icing sugar seems to be flying out of the bowl and all over the kitchen, even though your mixer is on low, put a clean tea towel over the mixer to save on clean-up.)  When incorporated, scrape down sides, add vanilla, beat again, then scrape in all the lovely chocolate that you melted.  Beat this in, scrape down sides, and give it one last beat.  (I like to add a hefty pinch of sea salt when I make this buttercream for purely adult consumption.)

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“Nun, meine Kinder,” Frau Mieders said, beaming on them, “today we make the puddings for Mittagessen. And for the puddings , they are Apfelstrudel.”

The girls beamed back at her upon hearing this. Apfelstrudel was a favourite pudding with everyone at school. *

I grew up on a steady diet of school stories, loving their sheer escapism and wishing that my school was more inclusive and accepting.  By far, my favourite was The Chalet School series by Elinor M. Brent-Dyer—now there’s a mouthful of a name for you!  The Chalet School was a wonderful place, full of titbits of knowledge about languages as the girls had to speak English, French and German on alternate days (with Sunday being a ’speak your own’ day), and there were always thrilling adventures around every corner!

One of the most memorable aspects of the Chalet School books was the food.  Oh, how wonderful the food always sounded!  Even the names of mealtimes were different: Frühstück , Mittagssen, Abenssen.  And there were always such vast quantities of food.  When Miss Ferrars joined the Chalet School her first meal consisted of creamy soup sprinkled with herbs, followed by veal in a picquant sauce and then a huge hollow bun stuffed with jam and cream…and that was just for lunch!  Breakfast by contrast was simple with rolls, honey and fruit, all washed down with milk or milky coffee.  I think the coffee was what sealed the deal for me… I wasn’t allowed to drink coffee as a little ‘un, and it seemed so grown-up!  And the girls always, always had afternoon tea or Kaffee und Kuchen (coffee and cakes) which always sounded luscious!

And so it was that the Chalet School was my first introduction to apple strudel, or apfelstrudel to give it its proper name.  Making my own strudel has always been something that I’ve wanted to do, so imagine my delight when I saw that this month’s Daring Bakers’ challenge was to be strudel! The May Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Linda of make life sweeter! and Courtney of Coco Cooks. They chose Apple Strudel from the recipe book Kaffeehaus: Exquisite Desserts from the Classic Cafés of Vienna, Budapest and Prague by Rick Rodgers.

The first thing to do when making strudel is to make your dough.  Frau Mieders, the plump and jolly Domestic Science mistress in the Chalet School books, always bade her pupils gather all the necessary ingredients before beginning work.  So, in a bid to be a good Chalet girl—something that was always the “ideal” to strive towards in the books—I followed her wisdom.

In Frau Mieders eyes I undoubtedly fell at the first hurdle by using my food processor to make the strudel dough. She says on a number of occasions that “cookery is not for idle girls”!  however, the food processor is a great way to make strudel dough as it encourages long strands of gluten to form in the dough which is exactly what you want for stretching it out to paper-thinness.

Hopefully I redeemed myself by kneading by hand until all traces of stickiness were gone and the dough was incredibly elastic.  I can highly recommend hurling the dough at the unfloured worktop at least a hundred times!  Not only is it fun, it also develops the gluten further and faster than just kneading alone.

With the dough resting, it was time to gather together the filling ingredients and set to work on that.

“Peel, core and slice the apples,” the mistress said.  “Peel thinly, please and also slice thinly.” [...] And then Frau Miediers caused consternation among them by announcing that she was coming round to see how thinly they were all peeling and slicing.

Frau Miediers would be horrified at my idea of peeling apples!  I absolutely loathe doing it, so I try to get it over and done with quickly and end up with very thick peelings.  Still, it was slightly less arduous than usual as I was so excited at the prospect of strudel!

I made a couple of small tweaks to the filling recipe, which I would probably roll back for next time.  I used challah for the breadcrumbs as I’d baked one a few days previously and the rich crumbs browned awfully fast when I fried them.  Plain white bread would definitely be best, I think.  I also tripled the cinnamon called for, which made the filling mixture awfully brown.  Oh, and as I don’t particularly like walnuts, I used flaked almonds which I adore.

The dough had to be uncovered and placed on the floured cloth and first rolled out and then stretched on the backs of their hands until it was almost wafer-thin and transparent and fitted the cloth exactly.  There must be no breaks in it and this made it worse.

I made a double-batch of the strudel pastry as I was pretty sure that I’d either poke a hole through it, or it would stick fast to the sheet, and I’m really glad I did.  It was still a little sticky when I tried to roll it onto the sheet and then when I resorted to just stretching it out, holes kept appearing until it looked like aged lace.  So I tossed it away and started again with the second half.  What really made a difference was brushing the top of the dough with melted butter and also buttering the rolling pin.  It stretched out like a dream and you could definitely read through it!

“And now,” said the mistress when the apples, sugar, raisins and currants had all been placed on the pastry.  “We roll him into a long, thin sausage—this way!”  And she took two corners of the cloth in each hand and deftly rolled it up.  “Now you try it.”

The less said about the shape of some of those sausages, the better!  Some were twice the size and more of Ruey’s.  Some were thick at one end and thin at the other. Primrose Trevoase cleverly rolled her cloth in with the filling and had to undo it, find a fresh cloth for herself and stand to one side, looking rather silly, while Frau Miediers transferred the remarkable result to the new cloth.

This was the part I was dreading.  Even though I had liberally covered the sheet with flour, I could totally see everything going wrong when I rolled up the strudel.  Interestingly enough, did you know that strudel means whirlpool in old German?  The name comes from the rolling or whirling action when you finally get brave enough to just do it.

And would you believe it? Nothing went wrong!  The pastry was so incredibly thin that you could see each slice of apple ghost-like underneath the layers.  Beautiful.

The last touch was to brush them over with melted butter.  After that, each sausage must be carefully bent in the middle and put on well-greased baking sheets before being slipped into the big ovens to bake till they were golden-brown.

I can’t say that I managed to bend the strudel into quite the right shape, but it all fitted on the baking sheet which was a relief.  My only problem came during baking the strudel…

I liberally daubed the strudel with melted butter, so much so that there were a few little puddles on the baking sheet, which then started to smoke in the oven.  I’d say I was about two minutes away from a flaming strudel.  Whoops!  So after whipping the strudel out of the oven and drying it and the parchment, I bunged it back in and hoped for the best.  Which explains why my strudel is a tad over-browned.

Still, once I stopped grousing about it and actually cut a slice, I felt redeemed.  (Well, I got the third slice.  Lucas was sitting at the dining table waiting for the first slice while I was photographing the whole thing, and then Dave came downstairs for his slice, and *sigh*)  The pastry was so incredibly light and its plainness provided the perfect foil for the gorgeously soft spiced apples.  I served the first few plates Chalet School style with “a positive featherbed of whipped cream” and the remainder was eaten with some vanilla ice-cream.

I’m so pleased that I have finally fulfilled a childhood dream and made my own strudel.  It was definitely worth all the work and I’ll be making plenty more strudels in the future.  (I’m thinking that a savoury one with roasted squash and dolcelatte cheese would be awesome in the autumn….

Thanks so much, Linda and Courtney for this wonderful challenge!

Apple strudel
from “Kaffeehaus – Exquisite Desserts from the Classic Cafés of Vienna, Budapest and Prague” by Rick Rodgers

2 tablespoons (30 ml) golden rum
3 tablespoons (45 ml) raisins
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/3 cup plus 1 tablespoon (80 g) sugar
1/2 cup (1 stick / 115 g) unsalted butter, melted, divided
1 1/2 cups (350 ml) fresh bread crumbs
strudel dough (recipe below)
1/2 cup (120 ml, about 60 g) coarsely chopped walnuts
2 pounds (900 g) tart cooking apples, peeled, cored and cut into ¼ inch-thick slices (use apples that hold their shape during baking)

1. Mix the rum and raisins in a bowl. Mix the cinnamon and sugar in another bowl.

2. Heat 3 tablespoons of the butter in a large skillet over medium-high. Add the breadcrumbs and cook whilst stirring until golden and toasted. This will take about 3 minutes. Let it cool completely.

3. Put the rack in the upper third of the oven and preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C). Line a large baking sheet with baking paper (parchment paper). Make the strudel dough as described below. Spread about 3 tablespoons of the remaining melted butter over the dough using your hands (a bristle brush could tear the dough, you could use a special feather pastry brush instead of your hands). Sprinkle the buttered dough with the bread crumbs. Spread the walnuts about 3 inches (8 cm) from the short edge of the dough in a 6-inch-(15cm)-wide strip. Mix the apples with the raisins (including the rum), and the cinnamon sugar. Spread the mixture over the walnuts.

4. Fold the short end of the dough onto the filling. Lift the tablecloth at the short end of the dough so that the strudel rolls onto itself. Transfer the strudel to the prepared baking sheet by lifting it. Curve it into a horseshoe to fit. Tuck the ends under the strudel. Brush the top with the remaining melted butter.

5. Bake the strudel for about 30 minutes or until it is deep golden brown. Cool for at least 30 minutes before slicing. Use a serrated knife and serve either warm or at room temperature. It is best on the day it is baked.

Strudel dough
from “Kaffeehaus – Exquisite Desserts from the Classic Cafés of Vienna, Budapest and Prague” by Rick Rodgers

1 1/3 cups (200 g) unbleached flour
1/8 teaspoon salt
7 tablespoons (105 ml) water, plus more if needed
2 tablespoons (30 ml) vegetable oil, plus additional for coating the dough
1/2 teaspoon cider vinegar

1. Combine the flour and salt in a stand-mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Mix the water, oil and vinegar in a measuring cup. Add the water/oil mixture to the flour with the mixer on low speed. You will get a soft dough. Make sure it is not too dry, add a little more water if necessary.
Take the dough out of the mixer. Change to the dough hook. Put the dough ball back in the mixer. Let the dough knead on medium until you get a soft dough ball with a somewhat rough surface.

2. Take the dough out of the mixer and continue kneading by hand on an unfloured work surface. Knead for about 2 minutes. Pick up the dough and throw it down hard onto your working surface occasionally.
Shape the dough into a ball and transfer it to a plate. Oil the top of the dough ball lightly. Cover the ball tightly with plastic wrap. Allow to stand for 30-90 minutes (longer is better).

3. It would be best if you have a work area that you can walk around on all sides like a 36 inch (90 cm) round table or a work surface of 23 x 38 inches (60 x 100 cm). Cover your working area with table cloth, dust it with flour and rub it into the fabric. Put your dough ball in the middle and roll it out as much as you can.
Pick the dough up by holding it by an edge. This way the weight of the dough and gravity can help stretching it as it hangs. Using the back of your hands to gently stretch and pull the dough. You can use your forearms to support it.

4. The dough will become too large to hold. Put it on your work surface. Leave the thicker edge of the dough to hang over the edge of the table. Place your hands underneath the dough and stretch and pull the dough thinner using the backs of your hands. Stretch and pull the dough until it’s about 2 feet (60 cm) wide and 3 feet (90 cm) long, it will be tissue-thin by this time. Cut away the thick dough around the edges with scissors. The dough is now ready to be filled.

* Quotations from “Ruey Richardson at the Chalet School” by Elinor M. Brent-Dyer, Armada Books  First published by W & R Chambers, 1960.

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New York, New York… are you there? Come in please. Over.

Is this thing on? *tap tap tap*

New York, I repeat. This is Bristol. Come in, please. Over.

Bristol, this is New York.  What is the problem? Over.

New York—what the hell is a bialy supposed to look like, over.

The usual problem with making something that you’ve only ever read about is, what on earth is the damn thing supposed to taste like?  In the case of the bialy, I knew that the crumb was supposed to be chewy like a bagel and I could easily imagine how delicious an onion and poppyseed filling would taste… but I kept reading all sorts of different descriptions of how they should look.  Google image search just confused me even more!  Still, I plunged on regardless.

Bialys have been on my to-bake list for what seems like forever.  They’re not something I’ve ever seen in the UK, and I was a proto-foodie when Dave and I visited New York years ago, so I couldn’t make the effort to track some down as I’d never heard of them!  If you haven’t heard of them, then let me (try to) enlighten you.  The bialy is the cousin of the bagel.  It’s the same dough, but instead of being shaped into a ring, boiled, then baked, the bialy is allowed to rise into a pillowy ball of dough and just before baking a hollow is made in the centre of the dough-ball, and filled with a teaspoon of either fried onions and poppy seeds or a caramelised onion mix.  Sounds good, right?

Believe me, they are every bit as delicious as they sound.  Why did I wait so long to make them??

Even better, bialys are really easy to make.  The dough, while a bit on the sticky side, is really straightforward to make.  If you have a Kitchen Aid (and haven’t lost your dough hook) then this is the perfect dough to make in it.  It is managable by hand—a dough scraper will help loads here—but if you hate sticky dough on your hands and automatically add flour, then toss it in the mixer and keep all that lovely moisture in the dough.

After the second rise, the dough is much easier to handle and it is really easy to create the dramatic crater that cradles the lovely onion and poppy seed filling.  I would really love to know whether the crater should have remained after baking or whether it is okay that it closed back up, trapping the filling.  This actually turned out to be quite handy when it came to toasting leftover bialys the next day.

I will definitely be making these beauties again.  After much dedicated munching, I have determined that I like them best lightly toasted and slathered with some good salted butter.  I think you would, too.

Bialys
Source: adapted from The Bread Bible by Rose Levy Beranbaum, W.W. Norton & Co.

Yield: Six 4 x 1 1/4-inch high bialys (easily doubled if you’re feeling greedy)

• 300g bread flour
• 1/2 teaspoon instant (easybake) yeast
• 1 teaspoon fine salt
• 200g water, at room temperature

• 2 1/4 teaspoons vegetable oil
• 1/2 small onion (45g peeled weight), chopped finely
• 3/4 teaspoon poppy seeds
• 1/4 teaspoon sea salt
• black pepper, to taste

1. Mix the dough. In the bowl, whisk together the flour and the yeast, then whisk in the salt (this keeps the yeast from coming in direct contact with the salt which would kill it). With the dough hook, on low speed (#2 if using a KitchenAid), gradually add the water, mixing for about 1 minute or until the flour mixture is moistened. Raise the speed to medium (#4 KitchenAid) and continue mixing for 7 minutes. The dough should clean the bowl but be soft and elastic. Add a little extra flour or water if necessary. (The dough will weigh about 506 grams).

2.Let the dough rise. Place the dough in a large bowl, lightly greased with cooking spray or oil. Press down the dough and lightly oil the top. Cover the container with a lid or plastic wrap. With a piece of tape, mark the side of the container at approximately where double the height of the dough would be. Allow the dough to rise, for 1 1/2 to 2 hours or until it has doubled.

3. Shape the dough and let it rise. Deflate the dough by firmly pushing it down, and transfer it to a floured worktop. Cut the dough into 6 equal pieces (about 84g each). Work with one piece at a time, keeping the remaining dough covered. Maintaining as much air as possible in the dough, round each piece by pulling the dough together to form a pouch, stretching to make a smooth skin, and pinching it together where the edges meet. Set it on a floured baking sheet or tray, pinched side down. (The rounds will be 2 1/2 inches by 1 1/2 inches high.) Flour the tops and cover with plastic wrap.

Allow the bialys to rise for about 2 hours  or until almost doubled; when pressed lightly in the centre, they should keep the impression. If the dough is underrisen, it will puff up in the centre instead of maintaining the characteristic hollow crater. The trick for underrisen dough is to make a small hole in the centre before adding the filling. Since the dough bakes so quickly, it’s easy to test bake one to see if the dough is ready. If you want to be on the safe side, make the hole anyway.

4. Make the onion-poppy seed filling. In a small saute pan, heat the oil. Add the onion and saute over medium heat, stirring often, for about 5 minutes or until translucent.  Remove from the heat and add the poppy seeds, salt, and pepper to taste. Cool.

5. Preheat the oven. Preheat the oven to 240°C 30 minutes before baking. have an oven shelf at the lowest level and place a baking stone or baking sheet on it, and a sheet pan on the floor of the oven, before preheating.

6. Make the craters for the filling. Holding each piece of dough with both hands, with your thumbs in the middle and almost touching, pinch the center of the dough tightly between your thumbs and first two fingers and stretch the dough to 4 1/2 to 5 inches in diameter, forming a crater in the centre.  Place it on the lined baking sheet and spoon 1 teaspoon of onion-poppy seed filling into the centre.

7. Bake the bialys. Place the baking sheet with the bialys directly on the hot oven stone or hot baking sheet, or, if using parchment, use a peel or a cookie sheet to slide the parchment with the bialys onto the stone or sheet. Toss a handful of ice cubes into the sheet pan on the oven floor, and immediately shut the door. Bake for 6 to 10 minutes or until pale golden and mottled with brown spots.

8. Cool the bialys. Remove the baking sheet or parchment from the oven and, with a pancake turner, transfer the bialys to wire racks to cool until just warm.

Storage: The bialys keep well for one day at room temperature in a paper bag. For longer storage, wrap each in airtight plastic wrap and place freezer bags in the freezer for up to one month. Thaw, still wrapped, at room temperature.

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Ever since Ivonne and Lis announced that they were forming a Daring Cooks’ group, I’ve been eagerly awaiting the first challenge recipe.  And I was not to be disappointed: the doyennes of The Daring Kitchen had chosen ricotta gnocchi from The Zuni Café Cookbook by Judy Rodgers.

Gnocchi are my Achilles heel.  I love them to bits, but whenever I’ve tried making them, it has been somewhat disastrous.  I remember trying to make butternut squash gnocchi when I was pregnant, only for my nice neat gnocchi to completely disintegrate when they went into the simmering water.  I kid you not.  It looked like I’d made soup and all I could do was stand there and cry big fat tears into the pan.

My next fearful foray into gnocchi was making potato gnocchi to go with a beef goulash from a Gary Rhodes recipe.  Everything would have been fine, I’m sure, if I had cooked them immediately after shaping, but I was trying to do everything in advance as it was for a Hogmany dinner. *sigh* They didn’t disintegrate but were rather gluey.  Okay, very gluey.

So, when I set out to make the challenge recipe, I made damn sure that I’d read the recipe at least three times and watched every YouTube video I could find on the subject of ricotta gnocchi.  Oh, yeah… I’d never eaten ricotta gnocchi before, either, so had no idea what the texture should be like.  Still, many years of enthusiastic eating have qualified me to say what is tasty and what is not!

I decided to go the whole hog and make my own ricotta for a couple of reasons.  Firstly, the supermarket ricotta I buy is very, very wet and I didn’t think it would drain enough and secondly, I had everything I needed to make the ricotta and thought it would be fun!  And it was both fun and really, really easy.  I would totally do it again as it’s much cheaper than buying a tub of ricotta, plus it tasted better.

When I (very nervously) came to make my gnocchi it turned out that I had nothing to worry about.  My ricotta was bone dry and it easily whipped up into a thick, but fluffy batter.  The only thing that went wrong—because something always has to go wrong when I do gnocchi, right?—was that my beloved microplane grater somehow snapped in half when I was grating the Parmesan and I grated a little bit of myself in the ensuing panic.  Am I the only person to have ever broken a microplane like that?  I thought those things were indestructible!

I made rough quenelles of the batter and dropped them into a shallow bowl of flour to shape them.  After the first couple, I got brave and just quickly patted little spoonfuls of batter between my floured hands to shape the gnocchi.  This was far less sticky than previous efforts.  Yay!

The recipe calls for making and cooking a test gnocchi which is such an awesome idea!  I wish I’d thought of that years ago and saved myself many a tear.  Interestingly, the little lumps and bumps of each gnocchi smooth out during the cooking process and each gnocchi almost doubles in size which makes this a great recipe for greedy people like me.  I was also quite fascinated to note how each gnocchi rose from the bottom of the pan in the exact order they’d been dropped into the simmering water.  It was like a scene from Fantasia!

As I’d never tasted ricotta gnocchi before, I decided to keep things very simple and just make a thick tomato sauce to go with them.  I wanted to be able to taste the unadulturated flavour of the gnocchi before dipping into a familiar and comforting sauce.

I’m very pleased to say that this first Daring Cooks’ challenge managed to exorcise the ghosts of gnocchi past.  My gnocchi cooked up into pillowy clouds of ricotta goodness and both Dave and I loved them.  Lucas was less keen, but I didn’t care as that meant there was more for me!  Hooray!

Home-Made Ricotta Cheese

Source: Audax Artifax

• 4 cups of skim milk powder (equal 4 litres of milk)
• 1 1/2 cups of water
• 1 cup of cream
• 6 tablespoons of lemon juice

Mix the skim milk powder, cream and water it will form a thick liquid. Heat until it is very hot (not boiling) add the lemon juice. Stir gently once every minuet for three minuets do not let the liquid boil. It should now be a mixture of curds and whey, let it cool about 15 mins or so. Strain using a very fine sieve place the sieve over a bowl and place into the refrigerator overnight uncovered. Since so little water is used the ricotta well be very dry when you want to use it. Push the cheese through a fine sieve when needed this adds lightness to the gnocchi mixture.

Zuni Ricotta Gnocchi
Source: From The Zuni Café Cookbook
Yield: Makes 40 to 48 gnocchi (serves 4 to 6)
Prep time: Step 1 will take 24 hours. Steps 2 through 4 will take approximately 1 hour.

Tips:
1. If you can find it, use fresh ricotta. As Judy Rodgers advises in her recipe,
there is no substitute for fresh ricotta. It may be a bit more expensive, but
it’s worth it.
2. Do not skip the draining step. Even if the fresh ricotta doesn’t look very wet,
it is. Draining the ricotta will help your gnocchi tremendously.
3. When shaping your gnocchi, resist the urge to over handle them. It’s okay if
they look a bit wrinkled or if they’re not perfectly smooth.
4. If you’re not freezing the gnocchi for later, cook them as soon as you can. If
you let them sit around too long they may become a bit sticky.
5. For the variations to the challenge recipe, please see the end of the recipe.

Equipment required:
• Sieve
• Cheesecloth or paper towels
• Large mixing bowl
• Rubber spatula
• Tablespoon
• Baking dish or baking sheet
• Wax or parchment paper
• Small pot
• Large skillet
• Large pan or pot (very wide in diameter and at least 2 inches deep)

For the gnocchi:
1 pound (454 grams/16 ounces) fresh ricotta (2 cups)
2 large cold eggs, lightly beaten
1 tablespoon (½ ounce) unsalted butter
2 or 3 fresh sage leaves, or a few pinches of freshly grated nutmeg, or a few
pinches of chopped lemon zest (all optional)
½ ounce Parmigiano-Reggiano, grated (about ¼ cup very lightly packed)
about ¼ teaspoon salt (a little more if using kosher salt)
all-purpose flour for forming the gnocchi
For the gnocchi sauce:
8 tablespoons (227 grams/1/4 pound/4 ounces) butter, sliced
2 teaspoons water

Step 1 (the day before you make the gnocchi): Preparing the ricotta.
If the ricotta is too wet, your gnocchi will not form properly. In her cookbook, Judy Rodgers recommends checking the ricotta’s wetness. To test the ricotta, take a teaspoon or so and place it on a paper towel. If you notice a very large ring of dampness forming around the ricotta after a minute or so, then the ricotta is too wet. To remove some of the moisture, line a sieve with cheesecloth or paper towels and place the ricotta in the sieve. Cover it and let it drain for at least 8 hours and up to 24 hours in the refrigerator. Alternatively, you can wrap the ricotta carefully in cheesecloth (2 layers) and suspend it in your refrigerator for 8 to 24 hours with a bowl underneath to catch the water that’s released. Either way, it’s recommended that you do this step the day before you plan on making the gnocchi.

Step 2 (the day you plan on eating the gnocchi): Making the gnocchi dough.
To make great gnocchi, the ricotta has to be fairly smooth. Place the drained ricotta in a large bowl and mash it as best as you can with a rubber spatula or a large spoon (it’s best to use a utensil with some flexibility here). As you mash the ricotta, if you noticed that you can still see curds, then press the ricotta through a strainer to smooth it out as much as possible.
Add the lightly beaten eggs to the mashed ricotta.
Melt the tablespoon of butter. As it melts, add in the sage if you’re using it. If not, just melt the butter and add it to the ricotta mixture.
Add in any flavouring that you’re using (i.e., nutmeg, lemon zest, etc.). If you’re not using any particular flavouring, that’s fine.
Add the Parmigiano-Reggiano and the salt.
Beat all the ingredients together very well. You should end up with a soft and fluffy batter with no streaks (everything should be mixed in very well).

Step 3: Forming the gnocchi.
Fill a small pot with water and bring to a boil. When it boils, salt the water generously and keep it at a simmer. You will use this water to test the first gnocchi that you make to ensure that it holds together and that your gnocchi batter isn’t too damp.
In a large, shallow baking dish or on a sheet pan, make a bed of all-purpose flour that’s ½ an inch deep.
With a spatula, scrape the ricotta mixture away from the sides of the bowl and form a large mass in the centre of your bowl.
Using a tablespoon, scoop up about 2 to 3 teaspoons of batter and then holding the spoon at an angle, use your finger tip to gently push the ball of dough from the spoon into the bed of flour.
At this point you can either shake the dish or pan gently to ensure that the flour covers the gnocchi or use your fingers to very gently dust the gnocchi with flour. Gently pick up the gnocchi and cradle it in your hand rolling it to form it in an oval as best as you can, at no point should you squeeze it. What you’re looking for is an oval lump of sorts that’s dusted in flour and plump.
Gently place your gnocchi in the simmering water. It will sink and then bob to the top. From the time that it bobs to the surface, you want to cook the gnocchi until it’s just firm. This could take 3 to 5 minutes.
If your gnocchi begins to fall apart, this means that the ricotta cheese was probably still too wet. You can remedy this by beating a teaspoon of egg white into your gnocchi batter. If your gnocchi batter was fluffy but the sample comes out heavy, add a teaspoon of beaten egg to the batter and beat that in. Test a second gnocchi to ensure success.
Form the rest of your gnocchi. You can put 4 to 6 gnocchi in the bed of flour at a time. But don’t overcrowd your bed of flour or you may damage your gnocchi as you coat them.
Have a sheet pan ready to rest the formed gnocchi on. Line the sheet pan with wax or parchment paper and dust it with flour.
You can cook the gnocchi right away, however, Judy Rodgers recommends storing them in the refrigerator for an hour prior to cooking to allow them to firm up.

Step 4: Cooking the gnocchi.
Have a large skillet ready to go. Place the butter and water for the sauce in the skillet and set aside. In the largest pan or pot that you have (make sure it’s side), bring at least 2 quarts of water to a boil (you can use as much as 3 quarts of water if your pot permits). You need a wide pot or pan so that your gnocchi won’t bump into each other and damage each other.
Once the water is boiling, salt it generously.
Drop the gnocchi into the water one by one. Once they float to the top, cook them for 3 to 5 minutes (as in the case with the test gnocchi).
When the gnocchi float to the top, you can start your sauce while you wait for them to finish cooking.
Place the skillet over medium heat and melt the butter. Swirl it gently a few times as it melts. As soon as it melts and is incorporated with the water, turn off the heat.
Your gnocchi should be cooked by now.
With a slotted spoon, remove the gnocchi from the boiling water and gently drop into the butter sauce. Carefully roll in the sauce until coated. Serve immediately.

Variations: For the gnocchi, you can flavour them however you wish. If you want to experiment by adding something to your gnocchi (i.e., caramelized onion, sundried tomato), feel free to do so. However, be forewarned, ricotta gnocchi are delicate and may not take well to elaborate additions. For the sauce, this is your chance to go nuts. Enjoy yourselves. Surprise us!!!

Freezing the gnocchi: If you don’t want to cook your gnocchi right away or if you don’t want to cook all of them, you can make them and freeze them. Once they are formed and resting on the flour-dusted, lined tray, place them uncovered in the freezer. Leave them for several hours to freeze. Once frozen, place them in a plastic bag. Remove the air and seal the bag. Return to the freezer. To cook frozen gnocchi, remove them from the bag and place individually on a plate or on a tray.
Place in the refrigerator to thaw completely. Cook as directed for fresh gnocchi.

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It’s that time of the month again… Daring Bakers time!

The April 2009 challenge is hosted by Jenny from Jenny Bakes. She has chosen Abbey’s Infamous Cheesecake as the challenge.

As much as I love seeing what all the hundreds of Daring Bakers can do with exactly the same recipe, I have a real soft spot for our more creative challenges… where we can pretty much do what we like.  They have an exciting, last day of term feel to them.

I make cheesecake quite frequently, so I wanted to try and do something different with the decoration.  (I should probably confess that my idea of decorating a cheesecake is piling a few truffles in the centre!)  Jenny mentioned in her challenge announcement that we should “make it unique, make a showstopper of a dessert” so that’s what I tried to do.

Originally I wanted to wrap a vanilla-bean laced cheesecake with some white chocolate plastic and piling the centre high with fresh and chocolate-dipped strawberries.  But… it isn’t strawberry season yet, and the few berries I’ve pinched from Lucas have been a bit watery, so I just couldn’t.

So, it was time for Plan B, for which we need a little background.

I am a real coffee-lover.  So much so that I have to ration myself.  Case in point: the last time I bought a bag of coffee, I disappeared into a week-long high and drank jugfuls upon jugfuls of cold-filtered coffee.  (If you have slightly more self-control than me, then you can find the method over at Smitten Kitchen.)

But all good things must come to an end, and now our coffee machine sits on top of the larder (no space on the worktops) and apart from that week when I buzzed around like a hummingbird on crack, the only coffee in the house has been the Visitors’ Jar of instant coffee.

Deciding to make a cappuccino cheesecake was therefore a risky move, but if it tasted as wonderful as I expected it to, then it would be totally worth it.  Plus, bouncing off the walls was bound to burn off all the calories from the cheesecake!

To make the cheesecake look even more special, I decided to wrap the cheesecake in chocolate plastic.  This… did not go well.  Maybe I didn’t manage to scrape all the liquid glucose into the melted chocolate, or perhaps I cooked the chocolate too much, but the but instead of ending up with a pliable and slightly sticky ball of chocolate, I got chocolate crumbs.  No matter what I did, I just couldn’t rescue matters, so I wound up wrapping the cheesecake in some chocolate sugarpaste that I had lying around.  It didn’t turn out as whisper-thin as I’d hoped, but it still looked and tasted pretty damn good.

Since I was playing dress-up with the cheesecake, I added some little gold buttons and some seam details before completing the cappuccino effect with a dusting of cocoa powder.  Oh, and because I couldn’t resist gilding the lily, I made some fanciful sugarpaste flowers,

In case you couldn’t tell, I was really pleased with the cheesecake and it tasted almost as good as it looked.  The coffee flavour of the actual cheeesecake was great, and the whipped cream really made the frothy, extravagant cappuccino effect work.  I’ve got to say, this isn’t my favourite cheesecake recipe ever.  I know that lots of Daring Bakers loved it, but I just liked it.  I found myself missing the distinct tang of cream cheese; it felt like the double cream smoothed out the texture and the flavour.  More tang, please!  However, this didn’t stop me from hoovering it down with Dave.  Poor Lucas didn’t get a look in at all; probably a good thing, really.  He bounces off the walls enough already, thanks!!

I think a big thank-you is in order for Jenny, for making me be creative and have fun at the same time!

Don’t forget to check out the other amazing Daring Bakers creations via the blogroll.

Cappuccino Cheesecake

Based on Abbey’s Infamous Cheesecake

Crust

• 180 g Digestive biscuits, crushed into crumbs
• 85g unsalted butter, melted
• 24 g caster sugar
• 1 teaspoon cocoa powder
• 1 teaspoon good-quality instant coffee

Filling

• 400g cream cheese, at room temperature
• 75g soft brown sugar
• 50g caster sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 135g double cream
• 1 tablespoon instant coffee

Decoration

• 15og chocolate sugarpaste
• 150g double cream
• cocoa powder
• sugarpaste flowers

1. Preheat oven to 180C. Boil a kettle of water for the water bath.  Wrap a 7″ springform tin in three layers of heavy tinfoil; set it into a deep roasting tin.

2. Mix together the crust ingredients and press into the prepared tin. You can press the crust just into the bottom, or up the sides of the pan too - baker’s choice. Set crust aside.

3. Heat a third of the double cream in the microwave until almost boiling.  Add the instant coffee granules to the hot cream, stir to dissolve.  Add the coffee mixture to the rest of the cream for the filling recipe and allow to cool for a few minutes.

4. Combine cream cheese and sugar in the bowl of a stand-mixer (or in a large bowl if using a hand-mixer) and cream together until smooth. Add eggs, one at a time, fully incorporating each before adding the next. Make sure to scrape down the bowl in between each egg. Add coffee cream, and mix until smooth and creamy.

4. Pour batter onto prepared crust and tap the pan on the counter a few times to bring all air bubbles to the surface. Place pan into a larger pan and pour boiling water into the larger pan until halfway up the side of the cheesecake pan. If cheesecake pan is not airtight, cover bottom securely with foil before adding water.

5. Bake 35 to 45 minutes, until it is almost done - this can be hard to judge, but you’re looking for the cake to hold together, but still have a lot of jiggle to it in the center. You don’t want it to be completely firm at this stage. Close the oven door, turn the heat off, and let rest in the cooling oven for one hour. This lets the cake finish cooking and cool down gently enough so that it won’t crack on the top. After one hour, remove cheesecake from oven and lift carefully out of water bath. Let it finish cooling on the counter, and then cover and put in the fridge to chill. Once fully chilled, it is ready to decorate.

6. On a surface lightly dusted with cornflour, roll out the chocolate sugarpaste into a long, thin strip, about 2cm taller than the height of the cheesecake and about 5cm longer than the circumference.  Remove cheesecake from the springform tin—I usually keep it on the base—and wrap the chocolate sugarpaste round the cheesecake.  Add some detailing at the join if you like.

7. Wthe cream until slightly thickened and spread it over the top of the cheesecake and sieve a very light coating of cocoa powder on top to complete the cappucchino effect.

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Copyright © 2009 A Spoonful of Sugar
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If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator or at www.aspoonfulofsugar.net/wp/, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement. (Digital Fingerprint:
691fd634b26c08c513a1fbaf764040bc) Share with your friends:


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