Picking at the Monkey Bread

I took a long hiatus, partly due to a broken camera, due to my vacation, and quite frankly, due to the summer and a distaste for heat!

Last week, I got a new camera and I saw a picture of monkey bread on Serious Eats. I've never even heard of monkey bread before, but I have a soft spot for anything containing a lot of brown sugar and covered in glaze! I absolutely had to try it, but between the fact that I don't regularly stock whole milk in the fridge and I wasn't sure if I could put aside enough time, I kept putting it off.

Today, I bought a small bottle of milk from the corner deli with the full intention to start right after getting back. However, I decided that I needed to rest my feet a while, but while I was watching TV, I found myself snoozing. Two hours later, I got up, started the dough and went to the gym (to lessen the guilt, for sure). It was actually nice to work in the steps between other daily activities. =)

monkeybread
Originally uploaded by lemonadestand

Monkey Bread
Cook's Illustrated via Picky Cook

Dough:
2 tbsp softened butter
2 tbsp melted butter
1 c warm milk
1/3 warm water
1/4 c granulated sugar
2 1/4 tsp instant yeast
2 tsp table salt

Coating:
1 c light brown sugar
2 tsp ground cinnamon
8 tbsp unsalted butter (1 stick)

Glaze:
1 c confectioner's sugar
2 tbsp milk

1) Heat oven to 200 degrees. When the over reaches the right temperature, turn it off. Butter the inside of a bundt pan with the 2 tbsp of softened butter. (I don't have one, so I just used a deep circular pan.)
2) In a large measuring cup, mix together milk, water, melted butter, sugar, and yeast. Set aside.
3) Mix flour and salt in a standing mixer fixed with the dough hook set on the lowest setting. Slowly add milk mixture. After dough comes together, increase the speed to medium and mix until the dough is shiny and smooth (6-7 minutes). *can add up to 2 tbsp flour if to sticky*
4) Turn dough onto lightly flowered counter and knead briefly to form smooth, round ball. Coat large bowl with nonstick cooking spray and place the dough ball in the bowl. Spray some nonstick spray over the dough. Cover in plastic wrap and place in prewarmed oven until the dough doubles in size, approximately 50 minutes.
5) While the dough is rising, mix the brown sugar (light brown!) and cinnamon together in a bowl. In a second bowl, heat up butter.
6) When dough has risen, gently remove the dough and pat into a 8"x8" square. Using a knife, cut the dough into 64 pieces (1 inch squares).
7) Roll each square into a ball. With one ball at a time, dip into melted butter, allowing excess butter to drip off. Roll in brown sugar mixture, then layer the balls in the buttered bundt pan.
8) Cover the budt pan tightly with plastic wrap and place in the turned-off oven until the dough balls have risen again (50-70 minutes).
9) Remove pan from oven and heat oven to 350 degrees. Unwrap the pan and bake until the top is deep brown and the caramel has begun to bubble around th eedges ~30-35 minutes. Cool in pan for 5 minutes before turning out onto a platter (if left in too long, the pieces may fall apart when the pan is turned).
10) Whisk confectioner's sugar and milk in a small bowl until the lumps have disappeared. Drizzle glaze over the warm monkey bread. Serve warm.

Note: The first few bites oddly reminded me of Apple Jacks...Sweet cinnamon!

xoxo,
lemonie

Brown Sugar Craving...

sandwich cookies
Originally uploaded by lemonadestand

For some reason or another, I've been craving brown sugar. I was looking for brown sugar recipes online when I started thinking about browned butter. Browned butter is butter that is ever so slightly burnt and it makes a huge difference in taste. My first introduction to browned butter came via the Treats Truck and Kim's browned buttercream sandwich cookies. They're delicious...and it was a real treat to find a recipe with a picture of very similar looking cookies on the Land O'Lakes website.

This recipe is super easy. Except that I consistently fail at having the patience to make things pretty. The dough is supposed to be rolled into a log, chilled, and then sliced, but I barely rolled it into a log and I sloppily wrapped wax paper around it before tossing it in the freezer for 45 minutes. It was really lopsided when I took it out! I tried to redeem myself after slicing to make them more circular, but then the cookies weren't very neat anymore. Sigh! I guess this was a shortcut that really failed.

But the cookies were good. Very similar to what's offered at the Treats Truck. I made the frosting before the cookies, so they had dried out a bit before I sandwiched them and they cracked when I squished the two cookies together. Still tasted good. I really liked the browned butter cream. The cookie was pretty good, too, and just hard enough to properly press into sandwiches, but still soft enough to not be crunchy when bitten into.

Browned Butter Sandwich Cookies. Adapted from Land O'Lakes

1 c soft butter (2 sticks)
2/3 c firmly packed brown sugar
2 egg yolks
1/2 tsp vanilla
2 1/2 c ap flour
1/4 tsp salt

1) Beat butter and brown sugar at medium speed until creamy.
2) Add egg yolks and vanilla, beating until well mixed.
3) Reduce speed to low, add flour and salt. Beat until mixture becomes a dough.
4) Divide dough in half. Shape each half into a log about 1 1/2" in diameter. Wrap in plastic and chill for 3 hours or overnight.
5) Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Using a sharp knife, cut each log into 1/8" slices. Place 2" apart on ungreased cookie sheets and bake until edges are lightly browned ~9 minutes.


Cream Filling

1/4 c butter
2 c powdered sugar
1 tsp vanilla
2 tbsp heavy cream

1) Melt butter in a saucepan over medium heat, stirring occasionally until butter starts to brown. Immediately remove from heat and cool for 5 minutes.
2) Add powdered sugar, vanilla, and 1 tbsp heavy cream. Add more cream as necessary for desired spreading consistency.

Note: So I learned that flour is added last and at the lowest speed to help prevent too much gluten from building up. I wonder what the texture of a cookie with too much gluten is like. Perhaps breadlike?

Alex's Lemonade Stand at the Brooklyn Flea

On Saturday, Lemon-Slice and I went to the Brooklyn Flea to fundraise for Alex's Lemonade Stand. We certainly had lemonade, but we decided to come out armed with baked goodies to get more people to come over. We raised a few hundred!

I'd like to thank Eric Demby of the Brooklyn Flea for all of his help and support. The Brooklyn Flea was an excellent venue with a friendly crowd and high foot traffic. We gave out many cards with some information about Alex so they could go onto the website and learn more about her cause. I hope we raised some awareness.

Here's the cute banner Alex's Lemonade Stand provided us with.

I used my macaron skills and made Vanilla, Mosaic, and Salted Caramel.

Chocolate Chip cookies, Mini Pecan Pies, Thumbprint Cookies, Palmiers, Mini Apple Pies, Tiny Cheesecakes, and Butterscotch Pecan.

Blueberry Pies in front of the display on facts about Childhood Cancer.

Lemon-Slice wearing a cute yellow dress to match the mood.

There's also some snickerdoodles and florentine shortbreads.

Samples out front brought the crowds!

This Friday, lemon-slice will be having a bake sale at her lower school in the hopes to raise some more funds before we send in our check to Alex's Lemonade Stand.

xoxo,
lemonie

2 Days of Macarons at Pierre Herme

I haven't updated in a month. Awful, I know, but it's at least been a busy month. I went to Paris at the end of April and spent 2 days studying macarons at Atelier Pierre Herme. It was incredibly informative and a great excuse to take a few days off of work to go to Paris. While I was there, all I did was eat pastries and desserts. Yumyum.



Here's my meringue whipping away.


When it's done whipping, it looks like this. It shouldn't be below 50 degrees C or else it won't be warm enough to melt the confectioner's sugar.


My piping skills leave much to be desired. Look at that baby in the top left corner.


Here are some rising in the oven.


My partner is filling his with avocado and banana ganache with a chocolate square.


My favorite ones were the cinnamon pistachio with morello cherries.


Here is chestnut and matcha green tea.


My team set up this mandarin compote. I think we all were confused when it set in under 5 minutes.


Since my piping skills are apparently no good, my partner piped the mandarin mousseline onto my macarons.


I packed some to take back to New York.


Here's the batter for the chocolate and nuts cake.


The finished cake!


Brittany Shortbread hanging out in the oven.


Out of the oven!


We didn't have enough to fill up the container. Shame because I really liked these.


Florentine Shortbread. Awesomely delicious with a hint of orange.


About to get chopped.


In a cute container.


Hazelnut crunchies!


Packaged and ready to go.


Fruitcake.


The fruitcake was dipped in a syrup 4-5 times and then topped with...it looks like gummy bears. I'm not sure what it was exactly. I think their translation was off.


Our final presentation. We then had a taste testing and we tried all of the macarons out.

It was a great experience. I only wish the instructor translated more things into English for me because my comprehension of French is next to none. Even so, I learned a lot by watching and I filled up an entire notebook with notes and instructions. Since coming back, I've tried making a few of the macarons and the florentine shortbread. I haven't been as successful, but I swear it has something to do with my oven and baking trays rather than a flaw in what I've learned. Plus, I made the florentine shortbreads in a broken oven! Still came out good, but it took forever.

Happy Easter and Peanut Butter Cupcakes!

Happy Easter! It's been such a relaxing weekend. I've been sitting around and catching up on leisure activities.

Last week, I was down by my old neighborhood to watch Tulpan at the Film Forum. I got there early and had some time to kill, so I finally stopped by Sweet Revenge on Carmine & Bedford. Confused by all the booze and sweets, I ordered the namesake Sweet Revenge - a peanut butter cake, ganache filling with peanut butter buttercream. The base was unremarkable (completely did not know it was peanut butter until I looked it up online), the ganache seemed misplaced, but they seemed to compliment the frosting perfectly. I had been toying with the idea of a peanut butter frosting cupcake for NYC's first Cupcake Camp. I've been avoiding experimenting with peanut butter because of a relative's severe allergy, but as I spooned the rich frosting (with a wooden spoon!) into my greedy mouth while waiting for Tulpan to start, I concluded that I'll finally carry through.

I was more interested in coming up with a rich frosting that was both sweet and didn't leave me with the feeling that peanut butter was sticking to the roof of my mouth (can you tell I'm not a peanut butter addict?). I haven't figured out a good base yet...except for the conclusion that i being chocolate is imperative and each cupcake should have a peanut butter cup hidden in the center. I did come up with the right frosting.

Peanut Butter Frosting

Frosts 12-15 cupcakes

1/2 c butter (1 stick)

1/2 c peanut butter

2 1/4 c powdered sugar

2 tsp vanilla

4 tbsp milk (Use as needed)

1) Blend butter and peanut butter in a mixer. Add powdered sugar and mix until lumps have disappeared (will appear grainy). Blend in vanilla. Add milk as needed. Don't exceed 4 tbsp milk or else frosting will be too liquid.

This is really only for those with an intense sweet tooth. If you don't have a good chocolate cake recipe, try this black magic cake recipe from allrecipes. It's very rich and moist. The coffee taste is barely noticeable and I'm still intrigued that it doesn't use butter...

xoxo,

lemonie

Palets Aux Raisins

When this recipe showed up in my workbook at ICE, I was reluctant to try this one out because...well...the raisin in the name and the thought of currants in my cookie made me uneasy. However, they turned out much better than I thought! They're no chocolate chip cookies, but still pretty good and super easy to make.

Palets Aux Raisins

4 1/2 oz butter

3 1/2 oz sugar

2 eggs

1 1/2 tbsp dark rum

5 1/2 oz ap flour

3 1/2 oz currants

1) Cream the butter with th esugar until soft and light. Beat in eggs one at a time. Beat in rum, then flour and currants.

2) Pipe on parchment lined sheet pans with 1/2" plain tube. Bake at 350 degrees for about 15 minutes.

xoxo,

lemonie

Eleni's Cookies

I don't know what exactly took me so long to get to Chelsea Market. I'm sort of disappointed in myself! It's weird...I had known about it, but I neer really thought about it being a place to go to until it was recommended by someone at my gym. So, I planned it into my weekend schedule and I went yesterday.

My goodness! The bakeries are so cute. I also like the transparency to it. I really like looking at kitchens so it was lovely getting to see the dough kneading going on at Amy's Bakery. I didn't buy any bread from there, although I feel like I should have, but I did go into a lot of the other stores to try them out.

Now I'm not going to buy almond flour from anywhere but Buon Italia. I've never seen the flour so fine before...and it's way cheaper than the stuff I pick up at Whole Foods. Fat Witch's brownies were completely disappointing. You would think that if brownies were their specialty, they would be better. Afterwards, they inspired me to make this blondie recipe I've been working on for dinner and they were well received, so it wasn't all bad. I ate my first rugelach yesterday and the judges are still out on that one. Taste good, texture...ehh. But the real treasure of yesterday was finding this cow cookie at Eleni's. Most decorated cookies don't taste very good b/c they need to be firm. This isn't an exceptional cookie, but despite being dry and hard, it's got good flavor. It actually reminds me of something, but I haven't been able to figure out. Right now, my best guess is Nilla Wafers. So, it has more flavor than the typical cardboard tasting cookies...and well...it's a cow. How can I resist the cow? I also wanted to get this googly-eyed dinosaur, but I knew if I ate one cookie, I wouldn't eat the other so I wasn't about to throw away $4 just to own the googly-eyed dinosaur. That's for next time.