The Ut Oh Blog

First let me apologize for the gap between posts. I work full-time in a bakery and it is holiday season so there are nights when I don't want to do but anything but sleep. Tonight wasn't one of those nights. I was asked to make something special for a family member to bring in to work. I decided to search pinterest for something simple. 

I came upon a Caramel Chocolate Shortbread recipe that looked yummy and simple. 

 Shortbread 

2 cups all-purpose flour

2 tsp. baking powder

¼ tsp. salt

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature

½ cup sugar

Caramel :

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, cut into pieces

1 cup sugar

4 tbsp. light corn syrup

2 (14 oz.) cans sweetened condensed milk

Shortbread is a pretty standard thing. It tastes absolutely delicious. It's flour, butter sugar etc, you can't go wrong. I started out by measuring out my ingredients for the shortbread after preheating my oven to 350*F.

I creamed my sugar and butter until they were nice and fluffy. 

Then I added my dry ingredients until it made a slightly firm dough. It isn't sticky or soft so if you have that issue, add a little more flour. 

The next obstacle was finding a pan. I mainly have circular cake pans in my house so finding a square/rectangle was difficult. Finally I located one and lined it with parchment paper. Because there is so much butter in the shortbread crust, you shouldn't have to spray it.  

Some people roll their crust out, I just press it into the pan. Your hands may get a little greasy but who cares. 

It doesn't have to be perfect. Just try to make it as equal thickness as you can get it. Also remember that it will rise a little because of the baking powder. I didn't take this into account and my bottom crust was a little too thick. Delicious, but thick. I put my pan of short dough into the oven and set my timer for 10 minutes. My oven doesn't cook super evenly so I like to rotate my pans mid-way through the baking process.

I mistakenly started cooking my caramel at this point. In the recipe they say to throw everything into the pot. I did just this but probably shouldn't have. Had I been thinking a little more clearly, I would have put the butter in by itself until it melted and then added the remainder of the ingredients. 

This happened. As I was stirring my pot of condensed milk, butter, corn syrup, and sugar... I realized something. I happened to glance at my recipe and see that it called for 2 cans of condensed milk, not 1. Shoot. I didn't have anymore. I decided to see how it worked out despite the lack of extra condensed milk. 

This was a long process. The caramel mixture is initially very pale. It has to cook to the amber-ish color of caramel. This took awhile. I happen to have a candy thermometer so for awhile I had that stuck in there too. 

I had to continue stirring this mixture because it could very easily burn. This process took a longer time than I anticipated. Originally I thought it would take 5-10 minutes. It took me around 15-20 minutes for the mixture to turn the correct color (amber-ish) and to reach the proper temperature of  about 240*F. This gives you a pleasantly firm but not teeth-breaking caramel. 

For those of you who don't know much about cooking sugar, it is very helpful to have a candy thermometer on hand. If you don't, a glass of ice water can be your best friend. In culinary school we tested our sugar mixtures by dripping some in a quart container of ice water. This quickly cools the sugar and lets you know what stage it is at. For this particular recipe, you want the sugar mixture to be at soft ball stage. You want to still be able to bite into the caramel without cracking your teeth. Hard ball stage occurs closer to 250*F. Again, you can use the ice water method to check if you don't have a handy dandy candy thermometer. 

So after what felt like an eternity, my sugar mixture turned into caramel but not before sustaining a teeny but mighty sugar burn. 

For those of you who have never been burned by sugar, it hurts. A lot. It is sort of like touching hot glue. It continues to burn you until it cools which takes a while. Most people frantically try to get the sugar off by pulling it off or sticking affected areas in their mouth. BAD idea. The sugar is molten hot (or at least it feels it) and will continue to burn you (and your mouth). The best idea is to get a towel to wipe it off quickly or put the affected area under some cold running water. I didn't do that. Now I have a little blister. Whomp. 

I also got too vigorous with my stirring and spilled sugar everywhere. It stunk and smoked and made an unfortunate mess. 

Anywho, back to the caramel. 

This is the proper color. I apologize for the blurriness. 

When the caramel mixture is finished, immediately pour it over the shortbread before it begins to set up. 

Let it cool for awhile, preferably in the fridge. If it is exceptionally  hot, let it sit out at room temperature for 15 minutes. You never want to put something super hot into your fridge. If you do, you could endanger some of the perishables inside. The super hot temperature could cause the inside of the fridge's temperature to rise involuntarily. You don't want sour milk or melted butter right? 

I ignored the recipe for the chocolate glaze, even though it looked lovely. I had run out of butter and patience at that point so instead I made a simple ganache. I used the 2:1 ratio of chocolate to cream. In this case I used 1/2 cup of cream to a full cup of semis-sweet chocolate chips. I set the cream on the stove until it boiled and then poured it over the chocolate chips and whisked them until they were a silky smooth texture. 

I then poured it over the slightly cooled caramel and shortbread and stuck it back into the fridge. 

After about 2ish hours, I took the creation out of the fridge and began to slice it into small squares. This dessert is very rich so sometimes you don't need anything more than bite sized.

I would recommend this recipe for people who enjoy shortbread desserts and also have a lot of patience. I would probably just make a sugar caramel but this one also came out quite lovely. The missing can of condensed milk did not cause much of a problem. I would reduce the butter a little though. 

Tip of the Day: When cooking sugar in a pot, be aware that it will probably be a huge sticky mess. To off set some of your clean up, put hot water in that pot and boil it for awhile. This will dissolve some of the sugar. 

This makes for a very good holiday gift or a pleasant accent to any holiday cookie tray! 

Until next time, Happy Holidays! Indulge yourself in all the sweet things of life. :)

P.C.D 

Day 1 - Chocolate Peanut Butter Cake

For this particular entry, I am cheating a little bit. I didn't get the recipes on here from pinterest, only the inspiration for it. My best friend's boyfriend had a birthday recently and she asked me to make his cake! I said yes (of course). Her only guideline was that it was to be chocolate & peanut butter. The rest was up to me.

My favorite chocolate cake recipe is one that I saw on Ina Garten's show, Barefoot Contessa.


Beatty's Chocolate Cake Recipe
Ingredients
Butter, for greasing the pans
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for pans
2 cups sugar
3/4 cups good cocoa powder
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 cup buttermilk, shaken
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 extra-large eggs, at room temperature
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 cup freshly brewed hot coffee

The peanut butter filling was something I made up as I went. 

Peanut Butter Filling

1 stick of butter, softened (NOT melted)

1 8oz package of cream cheese, softened

4 cups powdered sugar

1 1/2 cups peanut butter (smooth or chunky, you decide)

Milk, added as needed to adjust consistency. 

I also use a very basic but delicious chocolate butter cream recipe.

Simple Chocolate Buttercream

1 lb butter, salted

2 lb powdered sugar

1 tsp vanilla

3/4 cup cocoa powder, add more to taste

Chocolate Ganache
1 cup heavy cream
2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips

So it all started with the most important part, the cake. Preheat your oven to 350*F.  The flour, sugar (which technically isn't considered a dry ingredient). baking soda, baking powder, cocoa and salt all get measured into the mixing bowl. 

Next you need to prepare the wet ingredients. I very rarely keep buttermilk on hand. I don't use it enough to buy it regularly. Instead I curdled some whole milk. I use a tablespoon(1/2 oz) of lemon juice for every cup (8 oz). 

Instead of dirtying a thousand different things, I throw it all into one measuring cup, minus the coffee. This is including the eggs.  

You gradually add the wet to the dry. Be sure to constantly be scraping the sides. In the end the batter will be very liquidy and having big clumps of batter will cause your cake to bake unevenly. 

At this point your batter will be relatively thick. It is now time to add the hot coffee. I tend to do this a little at a time and I rarely use the full cup. I generally only use 1/2 to 3/4 of it. Like I said, it WILL be liquidy. 

As per request by my best friend, I added a cup of peanut butter chips. If you are able, try to find minis. They tend to sink straight to the bottom of the pan when they are the normal sized ones. You can also toss them in a little bit of flour to stop this from happening. 

Preparing your pans can be a bit of a pain in the butt. I get absolutely livid when my cakes stick to the pan so I often cut out a circle of parchment paper and then also grease my pan. If you don't have parchment paper, you can spray the pan liberally with non-stick spray or coat it in oil and dust with flour or cocoa powder. Again, I like to use parchment paper and cooking spray because they come out better. 

Finally it is time to bake! This recipe works best for 2  8" circle pans. The layers will be nice and thick. You can also stretch it into 2 9" circles or 2 dozen cupcakes. I baked a 10" circle. Fill the pans 1/2 - 3/4 of the way full.  DON'T overfill your pans. This will result in burning the outside of the cake before the inside bakes. Place the cake pans in the oven for about 25-30 minutes or until the toothpick comes out clean. 

 I had left over batter so I made MINIS!

So while the 1st layer of cake (and minis) were baking, I set to work on making my filling. I started out with 1 8oz package of softened cream cheese and a stick of softened butter. I used salted but unsalted would not make too much of a difference. The peanut butter usually has a lot of salt in it. When the cream cheese and the butter are thoroughly mixed, add the peanut butter. Bring your mixer up to a medium speed until everything is combined. Turn your mixer down to a low speed (stir if available) and gradually add the powdered sugar. The filling will be thick and your mixer might have to work a bit harder. Add milk a tablespoon at a time until it is your desired thickness. 

The chocolate buttercream is fairly simple to do. First, in your mixer you beat the slightly softened butter until it is smooth. Add a teaspoon of vanilla and then start incorporating the powdered sugar and cocoa powder. Be sure to do this slowly. You don't want powdered sugar all over the place. 

When the cakes are baked, turn them out onto another pan and set them someplace to cool. You can then begin unwrapping all of the peanut butter cups. Try not to snack on too many of them. I used almost an entire bag of mini peanut butter cups. 

Set aside half of the peanut butter cups for decorating. The other half can be cut into halves or quarters. When your cakes are cool, you can begin the filling process. I like to make a very firm dam on my cakes so that the filling doesn't seep through the sides. Afterward I piled in the peanut butter filling. 

It is very important to crumb coat your cake. This cake tends to be a bit crumby/crumbly sometimes so be sure to put a nice thick crumb coat on it. I put my cakes in the fridge to firm up for a few minutes while I prepared the ganache. 

Unfortunately I forgot to take pictures of this process. I started out by measuring out a cup of heaving cream and putting it into a saucepan to boil. I then measured out 2 cups of semisweet chocolate chips and set them in a mixing bowl. When my cream boiled, I poured it over the bowl of chocolate chips and let it sit for a few minutes. Next I took a whisk and stirred my ganache until it was dark, glossy and smooth. Be sure to whisk out all of the lumps. I set it aside to cool for a few minutes before carefully pouring it over the cake. 

I start in the center of the cake and use an offset spatula to encourage the ganache to the edges. I like the look of it dripping down the side. When the ganache set up a little bit (around 10 minutes), I piped a really quick border around the bottom and added some peanut butter cups (whole, not cut up). 

I added some more whole peanut butter cups on top and piped some leftover peanut butter filling on them. Then I used the leftover, slightly cooled ganache to pipe the lettering. Finally I added the cut up pb cups around the top of the cake for decoration. In the end it came out quite lovely and according to the party guests, the cake was delicious. Everyone should be coming out of their peanut butter & chocolate coma soon. 

Questions? Comments? Use the box below! Please submit recipes if you would like me to try them out for you!

Until next time, remember to indugle in the sweet things in life! 

PCD