Though I’m aware that you wouldn’t know it by this site, The Sister ™ and I were quite prolific bakers during the holiday season. Below is a good sampling of our goodies.

If you look in the middle of the bowl and to the right you’ll see my dark chocolate and white chcolate truffles. As I mentioned earlier, I had a small problem with the chocolate’s cocoa percentage, but once I had the correct chocolate the truffles were quite simple (I swear).

1 part chocolate
1 part heavy whipping cream

Mix in double boiler until smooth. Refrigerate until cool and firm. Form into truffles. Cool again until firm. Roll truffles in cocoa powder, sliced almonds, or go all out and cover in ganache.

Simple, right? They are. I’m sure many other chocolatiers would think this wrong as many recipes call for different fats (shortening or butter), but this one is simple and gets rave reviews. I will note that if you use this recipe for white chocolate truffles, you may want to use 1.5 parts chocolate to 1 part heavy cream because of the different consistency of white chocolate. The white chocolate truffles I coated in shaved white chocolate.

One throughout the years buys chocolate, sometimes indiscriminately, other times with dark chocolate precision. Nearly always the chocolate chip cookies or brownies or ganache or truffles turn out very close to layperson’s perfection. One begins to think that this chocolate thing isn’t that hard.

Then the chocolate reminds the baker that she is but merely a chocolate novice.

Yes, I was indeed happily concocting truffle ganache when the chocolate and fat completely separated into a grainy, oily mess. This had never happened before. I was at a loss. That is until I noticed the cocoa percentage on my chocolate — 85%. Somehow at the store, I had grabbed some bars of 85% and some 70%. I made another batch with my 70% cocoa percentage bars and continued on; however, I have not yet found the chemical reasons for this problem.

While I immediately knew that a 85% cocoa percentage was too high, I continue to search for a scientific explanation for the mishap. In the meantime, I’m sticking to the safe 70% range.

Although I love to bake and often rove the internet for recipes and baking tips, I must admit to being farely well displaced from the world of food blogs. However, I recently stumbled upon Slashfood. It’s updated frequently throughout the day making it an everyday read. And as the name suggests, its commenting system aims to be similar to that of the Slashdot karma system. Top commenters have earned up to 7 stars on the site.

The site boasts a large number of contributors which allows it to cover a wide range of topics. However, I wasn’t sold until I stumbled upon their scathing reviews of Sandra Lee including a complete rating of the foods prepared in her semi-homemade Christmas special. Until I saw this, I wasn’t sure if anyone but The Sister ™ and I had such disdain for her baking. Take for example her Christmas yule log which consists of a store-bought jelly roll and frozen whipped topping. Is that not the crappiest recipe ever?

Okay, so I’ve digressed quite off topic, but based solely on the merit of their pointed insights on the Food Network (is it being “dumbed down,” for lack of a better phrase), I must give them a four out of five rating.

I really don’t know the name of them, but they are fantastic and simple. Two Ritz crackers with a layer of peanut butter in between and covered with chocolate. It makes for a super combination of salty and sweet. I used milk chocolate Ghirardelli chips melted in a double boiler to cover the Ritz sandwiches.

I know it’s been quiet around here. But, really, it’s the calm before the holiday baking storm. On my short list are cinnamon rolls and candy including truffles. Truffles are a surprisingly easy candy to make relative to the oohs and aahs they generate. However, the one part I don’t find easy is the forming of the truffles. Today, I finally thought to myself, they (meaning, the makers of bakeware and candy tools) must make truffle molds. My favorite local kitchen store didn’t have any. The internet, of course, did. So for those wondering about truffle molds, here are a few I turned up.

• Candy Plus molds
• Large Swirl Chocolate Truffle Mold
• Wilton Truffle Mold

Now, hopefully, Hobby Lobby has the Wilton one so I can use it this weekend!

I’m happy to report that the Spiced Pumpkin Cheesecake recipe noted earlier is in fact excellent (or “outstanding” depending on to whom you are speaking). What follows are a few action shots.

Read the rest of this entry »

When someone asks me for seasoning assistance, my first question is always “did you salt it?” Salt is without a doubt the most important seasoning in cooking and baking. Unsalted savory dishes can be salvaged by a sprinkle at the table, but an unsalted baked good cannot be saved. If you’ve ever had a cookie that was fine, but not fabulous, it was probably the salt. If no yummy ingredients were neglected, yet it’s a little flat, did you remember the salt?

Why salt a sweet thing, you ask? Salt serves to enhance other flavors, not contribute a salty flavor. If it tastes salty you’ve added too much. Every baking recipe should have at least a small amount of salt in the dry ingredients, if it doesn’t, you should add a little. The issue of salting leads me to butter. Most baking recipes call for unsalted butter, not because salt is bad, but because it is better for you control the amount of salt in the recipe with your measuring spoon or thumb and index finger, than through mass quantities of butter (not that mass quantities of butter is bad). If you have to use salted butter in baking, adjust the salt accordingly.

In summary, use salt and unsalted butter - it makes your baked goods better.

The Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays are an excellent excuse for making overly dramatic desserts that one would probably never make any other time of the year. As I was in my favorite local kitchen store today, all of the specialty chocolates, toffees and baking ingredients started to get me excited about holiday baking. On my shortlist for Thanksgiving is the aforementioned Spiced Pumpkin Cheesecake with Caramel Bourbon Sauce. The Sister ™ alerted me to this one, and, I have to say, I appreciate her keen eye.

Although the Caramel Bourbon sauce part certainly piqued my interest, I’m more intrigued by the pecan-based crust of the cheesecake (see the previous cheesecake crust discussion).

I’ll be baking it this week, and I aim to return after the holiday with a full tasting play-by-play.

The part of the cheesecake most often left on the plate is the crust. Don’t let this happen to your cheesecake. In that vein, one word that should NOT be in your cheesecake vocabulary is “shortbread.” Shortbread crusts, frankly, are awful. They’re not very sweet, they’re hard — they suck, basically.

My advice is to stick to graham cracker or chocolate cookie crusts only (for non-chocolate and chocolate-based cheesecakes, respectively). As a short cut, I always buy the boxes of crumbs which have suitable recipes on the back. However, make one alteration to the traditional graham cracker crust recipe, don’t, under any circumstances, use the melted butter suggestion. Using melted butter causes the crust to harden more during baking. Instead use only room temperature butter (you can, in a pinch, get away with softening it on the microwave’s defrost setting).

Of course, the absolute most important factor in a good cheesecake crust is the cheesecake pan. A high quality pan will ensure that the crust is not overbaked.

Have any of your own tips? Let me know in the comments.

As a regular feature on I (heart) baking, I’ll be bringing you lovely nuggets of inspiration from The Best Cookbook Ever ™, also known as The Best Recipe Cookbook. Have I mentioned I love it?*

So what’s great about this particular cookbook? Every recipe I’ve tried in it from cheesecake brownies to peanut butter cookies have had rave reviews from my coworkers. Additionally, each recipe or recipe section includes a great rundown of basic information about the recipe and the test kitchen’s process of creating the best recipe (e.g. our first test wasn’t peanut buttery enough so we tried adding chopped peanuts in the next run).

Maybe now I should give you time to go get your own copy so you can play along.

* I should really be paid for this endorsement shouldn’t I? If only.