Thursday, November 19, 2015

Orange Pisco White Chocolate Bundt #BundtBakers


Pisco, the national drink of Peru, dates back more than 250 years and was created distilling the grapes grown in the area, reducing the need for imported alcohol from Spain. While purists says good Pisco is best savored neat, it is also the main ingredient of the national cocktail of Peru, the Pisco Sour, as well as other mixed drinks, like this hot chocolate recipe from Serious Eats, the inspiration for today’s Bundt.

If you’ve been reading along here for a while you know that I spent some time as a child in Peru. I shared some of my fondest memories in my ceviche post, speaking of closing my eyes while eating ceviche and being transported back to the beaches and the desert were I roamed pretty free.

But almost more effective for bring back evocative memories than taste is smell. When I close my eyes and sniff an open bottle of Pisco, I remember the parties where we children ran around under foot, dancing on our own or in groups, sneaking sips of their drinks when the parents weren’t looking, way too young to be drinking at all. Pisco makes powerful cocktails, with the potential to bring back whole sandy summers of music filled memories for me. Without even a sip.

After finding that hot chocolate recipe online, I couldn’t resist using Pisco in my hot chocolate inspired Bundt cake although I changed it up to use white chocolate. I am not a huge fan of white chocolate but I am pleased to report that persistence has paid off. I have finally created a recipe with white chocolate that I love! Perhaps it’s the Pisco and Cointreau that make the difference.

Ingredients
For the cake batter:
2 1/2 cups or 315g flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/4 cups or 250g sugar
1 orange
6 oz or 170g good quality white chocolate chips. (I use Ghirardelli. See note below.)
2 tablespoons Cointreau
2 tablespoons Pisco
1 cup or 227g butter, softened
3 eggs
1 cup or 240ml buttermilk

For the glaze:
3 oz or 85g good quality white chocolate chips (A generous 1/2 cup - See note below.)
2 tablespoons Cointreau
2 tablespoons Pisco
Pinch salt

For decoration: candied orange peel from this recipe or use store-bought

See what I mean?
Note: Six oz or 170g is just shy of 1 1/4 cup of chips but keep in mind that the Ghirardelli white chocolate chips are almost flat so more fit in a cup than would the typical triangular chips. As with most baking ingredients, using a scale is most accurate.)

Method
Preheat oven to 350°F or 180°C and prepare your 10-cup Bundt pan by greasing and flouring it or spraying it with non-stick baking spray.

Sift together the flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Set aside.

In a large bowl, grate the zest of your orange into the sugar. Mix well. Juice the orange.



In small saucepan, melt 6 ounces white chocolate with 1/4 cup or 60ml orange juice, Cointreau and Pisco over low heat. Stir until smooth, and allow to cool to room temperature while you get on with making the batter.

Slowly, slowly! 


Add in the butter to the sugar. Cream until light and fluffy.

Add the eggs one at a time, beating well with each addition.



Beat in the half the flour mixture, then half the buttermilk. And repeat.



Pour in the cooled, melted white chocolate mixture and beat until just combined.



Spoon the batter into your prepared Bundt pan, making sure to get batter into all the little nooks and crannies. Smooth out the top.



Bake for 50-55 minutes in the preheated oven, until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. Or if you are an instant thermometer using type, until the internal temperature reaches 210°F or 99°C. If the top is darkening too fast, before the cake is cooked through, cover it with foil.

Leave the Bundt in the pan for abut 10 minutes before removing it to a wire rack to cool completely.



To make the glaze
When your cake is completely cooled, put all the glaze ingredients into a small pan and heat over a very low flame until the chocolate is melted. Use a small whisk to get the lumps out, if you have one.

Remove from the heat and drizzle over the cooled Bundt. If the glaze gets too thick to drizzle as it cools, add a few drops of water and warm again, very gently, stirring constantly.

Chop your candied orange peel up into small pieces and dot them around the cake for decoration.



Enjoy!


Many thanks to Tara from Noshing with the Nolands for hosting this very creative Hot Chocolate inspired Bundt Baker theme! What a great bunch of Bundts we have for you this month!


#BundtBakers is a group of Bundt loving bakers who get together once a month to bake Bundts with a common ingredient or theme. Follow our Pinterest board right here. Links are also updated each month on this home page.

We take turns hosting each month and choosing the theme/ingredient.


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Posted by at 6:11:00 AM 0 comments
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Wednesday, November 18, 2015

Candied Orange Peel

Candied peel is beautiful as a garnish on a traditional pound cake, Madeira cake or even chopped and sprinkled on cookies. Dip the peel in some dark chocolate and serve it as an after dinner sweet. 

Ingredients
2 oranges
1 cup or 200g granulated sugar
1 1/3 cups or 310ml water
1/4 cup or 50g caster sugar, for sprinkling on before baking

Note: This recipe is from The Great British Bake Off’s first master class from season 6, as demonstrated by the great Mary Berry. The only change I have made is to switch out the lemon for two oranges. Mary made it to decorate her traditional Madeira cake

Method
Cut the oranges into eight or 16 slices each. Use a very sharp knife to carefully remove the flesh of the oranges and most of the white pith from the peel.

If you’ve cut them into eight, you might want to cut the peel again lengthwise to make narrower strips. (Mary didn’t actually say this but I could tell her strips were smaller than mine.)



Warm the water in a small pot over low heat and then add the sugar. Stir gently until all the sugar has dissolved.

Add the sliced peels and simmer over a low fire until lovely and shiny, about 30 minutes.



Preheat your oven to 100°F or 38°C.

Drain the peel well in a metal sieve or strainer.


The simmering syrup can be cooled and kept refrigerated in a clean jar to be used for glazing cakes or making cocktails.

Spread the peel out on baking sheet lined with baking parchment and sprinkle the pieces with the additional sugar.



Put the baking sheet in your preheated oven for one hour, or until the peels have dried out.

Candied peel should be hard and dry when done, making a satisfying "tink" when dropped on a plate.



And so says Mary Berry.



Enjoy!


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Tuesday, November 17, 2015

Cream Cheese Cinnamon Roll Cookies #CreativeCookieExchange

Cream cheese cookie dough is filled with cinnamon and brown sugar, rolled up, sliced and baked till golden then drizzled with sweet cream cheese glaze.

Is there anything that smells better than a kitchen with something cinnamon baking in the oven? I’m pretty sure there isn’t! I have a quite a few recipes, sweet and savory, that call for cinnamon and it’s not uncommon for me to increase the amounts, especially in a sweet dish.

One of our first overseas posting after marriage was in Balikpapan, Indonesia where fragrant cinnamon sticks were cheap and easy to find. When we moved on to Paris, I made sure to pack loads of spices needed for curries and the like, pretty sure that they wouldn’t be as available. And so began my on-again-off-again quest for spices, especially quills of cinnamon bark, from the markets of southeast Asia to South America, to northern Africa and the Middle East, even in a little out-of-the-way Mom and Pop shop called Flores’ Spice Co. in Houston, Texas. It’s been sort of a personal mission and I am please to say that our current home, Dubai, has a fabulous spice souk too, just near the far bank of the Dubai Creek. Do put it on your list if you ever come to visit.

This month my Creative Cookie Exchange group is baking with cinnamon. These cinnamon roll cookies are great for when you’d like the flavors of a cinnamon roll without waiting for the dough to rise. That said, the rolled, filled dough keeps for several days well wrapped in the refrigerator or for a few weeks in the freezer. Just thaw, slice and bake when you are ready.

Make sure you scroll down to see the other great cinnamon recipes our fearless leader, Laura of The Spiced Life and the rest of the group have for you this month. Special thanks to Renee from Magnolia Days for handling the technical details and creating our link list.

This recipe was adapted from one on A Spicy Perspective.

Ingredients for 2 dozen cookies
For the cookie dough:
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon dry active yeast
3/4 cup or 170g unsalted butter, at room temperature
2 oz or 57g cream cheese, at room temperature
1/2 cup or 100g sugar
2 cups or 250g all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt

For the filling:
1/4 cup or 50g dark brown sugar
1 tablespoon cinnamon
Pinch fine sea salt

For the cream cheese glaze:
1 1/4 oz or 35g cream cheese, at room temperature
1-2 tablespoons whole milk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup or 125g powdered sugar

Method
Hydrate your dry yeast by mixing it with the teaspoon of vanilla extract. Without any warmth, it doesn't really activate but the slight yeasty flavor is still there.

Cream your butter and cream cheese with the sugar and vanilla/yeast until light and fluffy using handheld electric beaters or in the bowl of your stand mixer.

With the mixer on low, add in the salt and then the flour, a little at a time. Scrape down the bowl occasionally and mix until everything is well combined.



Flatten the dough and wrap it in cling film. Refrigerate at least half an hour.



Preheat your oven to 375°F or 190°C and line your baking sheet with baking parchment or a silicone mat.

Mix your brown sugar, cinnamon and the pinch of salt together, making sure to press out any lumps in the brown sugar.


Lightly flour a piece of wax paper and roll the dough into a 7x18 in or 18x46cm rectangle that is approximately 1/4 in or a little more than 1/2cm thick. I marked my lengths on the underside of my waxed paper with a permanent marker for easier measuring. Tidy the edges up a little by pushing inwards with the side of a blunt knife.



Sprinkle on the brown sugar/cinnamon mixture covering the dough completely on three sides but leaving the one long side farthest from you bare about 1 1/2 in or 3cm from the edge.



Starting on the long side closest to you, begin rolling the dough up tightly.



Use the waxed paper to make sure you get it rolling evenly all the way along.

Once you get to the other side, bring the waxed paper up from that edge and fold the naked dough over to form a seal with the dough roll.




Now roll the whole thing up in the waxed paper. Cut off the uneven end of the roll and discard. (Read: Eat raw.) Then cut the roll into 1/2 in or 1cm slices. (I sliced half and saved the other half for later, wrapping it tightly in cling film around the waxed paper and freezing.)

Remove the waxed paper from each slice and put them on your prepared baking sheet. Bake in your preheated oven for 12-15 minutes or until the edges start to brown .



Allow to cool completely before glazing.



To make the glaze
Use a fork to loosen the cream cheese by mixing it with one tablespoon milk and the vanilla extract.

Add in the powdered sugar a little at a time and stir well to combine. Add in a little more milk if you want a thinner glaze.



Once the cookies are completely cool, drizzle on the glaze or spread it on with a knife.



Enjoy!




Check out all the other fragrant cinnamon cookies we have for you today!



The Creative Cookie Exchange gets together once a month to bake cookies with a chosen theme or ingredient. We post on the first Tuesday after the 15th of each month.

You can also use us as a great resource for cookie recipes. Be sure to check out our Pinterest Board as well as our monthly posts, collected for you on The Spiced Life.

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