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6-Strand Braided Challah Loaf

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This is, sadly, the final installment of my challah dough series. I wasn’t going to do a plain challah loaf – I was going to continue in the vein of sticky buns with unique fillings – but then I found a video demonstrating a six-strand challah braid that I got all excited about and had to try. The dough was easy to work with, and I was really pleased at how the braid turned out.

When it came to eating it, I was reminded that along with being a great base for sticky buns and such, this dough makes a really really good loaf of bread – soft yet firm with a nice fine crumb and great favour. It also makes amazing toast, and if it had lasted long enough, probably would have made wonderful french toast too.

While this loaf may look or sound complicated, it’s really not – a six-strand braid is simply two steps repeated over and over again. For the sake of this tutorial, I made it into four steps, because first you do the two steps on the right, then repeat them on the left. But however you look at it, if you can do a regular three-strand braid, this should be no problem. And no matter how your braid turns out, you’ll have a loaf of delicious challah bread in the end, which is the important part!

6-Strand Braided Challah Loaf

To make this braid, you will need one 1 1/2 lb portion of chilled challah dough.

Place the chilled dough on a lightly floured surface and divide it into 6 equal pieces.

With your palms, shape and roll each piece into a tapered log about 10 inches long. Try to use a minimal amount of flour when doing this – just enough to stop it from sticking.

Line your 6 tapered logs up vertically side by side and pinch them together at the end facing away from you. Keep hold of this pinched end with one hand.

Now start braiding:

Step 1: Take the strand that is second from the right and move it all the way over to the far left, like so:

Step 2: Take the strand that is on the far right and move it to the middle, like so:

Step 3: This is the mirror image of Step 1, done on the left side. Take the strand that is second from the left and move it to the far right:

Step 4: Again, this is a mirror image of Step 2 but on the left. Take the strand that is on the far left and move it to the middle:

Now you are back at Step 1. Repeat Steps 1 through 4 several times. You will start to see a pattern emerging:

Don’t pull on the strands or stretch them too much when you are braiding – you want to keep the braid loose so that the dough has room to expand when it bakes. If the braid is too tight, it will “explode” in the oven.

When you get to the end, pinch the ends together. You should have a tapered, slightly foot ball-shaped loaf.

You can gently “bump” the tapered ends with your palms to shorten up the loaf and give it a higher cross section.

The bottom of the braid will look like this. Cool, hey?

Place the braid on a piece of parchment paper, cover it lightly with plastic, and let it rest for about an hour and a half.

Preheat the oven to 350˚F. Brush the challah with egg wash (1 egg beaten with 1 tbsp water) and, if desired, sprinkle it with poppy seeds or sesame seeds.

Bake for 25-35 minutes, until shiny and dark golden brown.

Cool completely before slicing.

Fennel & Chili Spiced Ribs

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I was reading Heidi Swanson’s beautiful blog 101 Cookbooks a while back, and she mentioned that her newest cookbook was a contestant in The Piglet at Food 52. I had never heard of either of these, so I clicked over to find out more. Turns out that Food 52 is a fairly awesome online foodie community, and The Piglet is a cookbook tournament hosted by the site. The tournament pits 16 cookbooks against each other in a bracket, and well-known foodie types (and a few non-foodie types) review them to decide who makes it to the next round. Heidi’s cookbook, Super Natural Every Day, was up against a cookbook called Cooking in the Moment, and Nigella Lawson was the judge. She wrote a wonderfully informative review of both cookbooks and spoke so highly of these spareribs with crushed fennel and red chilis from Cooking in the Moment that I immediately Googled the recipe.

I did a bit of tweaking, but this is pretty much the simplest recipe I’ve ever seen for ribs and also one of the tastiest. I usually like ribs slathered in some kind of sauce, but I’ve made this dry-rub version about four times now, and it’s quickly becoming my favorite way to make ribs. Fennel can be a fairly strong flavour, but the roasting it gets in the oven mellows it out and melds it really well with the heat of the chilis. My one piece of advice would be to be sure to use a dedicated coffee grinder just for spices, as I’m pretty sure mine will never not smell like fennel from now on! (Good thing I’m not a coffee drinker!)

Fennel & Chili Spiced Ribs

Adapted from Cooking in the Moment by Andrea Reusing

Preheat the oven to 450˚F while you prepare the ribs.

Spice Rub

In a coffee or spice grinder, pulverise:

2 tbsp whole fennel seeds

1 tbsp dried chili flakes (use more or less to adjust the heat to your preference)

(A word of caution: hold your breath when taking the lid off the grinder, unless you want to inhale fennel-chili dust and then sneeze for 10 minutes straight!)

Mix the pulverised spices with:

1/2 tsp cracked black pepper

scant 1/2 tsp coarse sea salt

Set aside.

Ribs

2 lbs pork spareribs (I used slightly less than this)

Turn the ribs over, bone-side up, and peel off the thin membrane. Rub the ribs on both sides with 1 tbsp vegetable oil, then cover both sides with the spice rub.

Place the ribs on a rack over a roasting pan and roast at 450˚F for 15 minutes, then reduce the heat to 375˚F and roast for another hour or so, until the meat comes away from the bones easily.

Cut into individual ribs by cutting between the bones.

Lemon Rosemary Sticky Bun Twists

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Lemon and rosemary might not be a flavour combination you’re familiar with in a sweet context, but man oh man, does it ever work! I stumbled across a recipe for Meyer Lemon Rosemary Sticky Buns and bookmarked it immediately because it sounded so intriguing, and I planned to make them using one portion of challah dough. Then I saw Sawsan’s beautiful cinnamon twists and decided to use her technique instead of just making plain old spirals.

The result is these very tasty, very pretty Lemon Rosemary Sticky Bun Twists.

I used Meyer lemons for these, and it’s the first time I’ve ever gotten my hands on them. I’ve been hearing about Meyer lemons for quite a while, but had never seen them in any grocery stores – until a week ago, when they started popping up everywhere! A Meyer lemon is a cross between a lemon and a mandarin orange, and has a sweeter, tart taste and thinner skin than a regular lemon. Quite honestly, I’m still not sure what all the fuss is about. They are tasty, but they don’t quite have the tang that a regular lemon does, and I think a good, ripe, organic lemon would give you just as much (maybe better?) lemon flavour. If you love Meyer lemons, go ahead and use them here, but don’t worry if you can’t find them – regular lemons will be just fine!

These smelled AMAZING coming out of the oven, and once I’d smothered them in a lemon-cream cheese glaze, they were pretty irresistible. The first sweet bite revealed subtle lemon and floral rosemary, the combination of which somehow reminded me of rosewater. Really unique, and really delicious. I found the flavour to be even better the next day (if they last that long, that is!).

Lemon Rosemary Sticky Bun Twists

Filling and glaze adapted from Eats Well With Others; twist technique from Chef in Disguise. This recipe uses one approximately 1 1/2 -pound portion of challah dough. Makes 8 twists.

When handling the dough, DO NOT knead it. While a certain amount of man-handling is necessary to roll and twist the dough, try to be as gentle as possible and use only a minimal amount of extra flour to keep it from sticking. If you feel you’ve over-worked the dough, let it have a longer rest before baking.

On a lightly floured surface, place:

approximately 1 1/2 lbs of chilled challah dough

Divide the dough into three roughly equal pieces, and gently shape/roll each piece into a 10-inch circle, using just enough flour to stop it from sticking. If the dough resists rolling, let it rest for a few minutes, then come back to it. Set the rounds aside while you make the filling.

Filling

In a bowl, combine:

1 cup white granulated sugar

1/4 tsp nutmeg

zest of 2 lemons

1 tbsp minced fresh rosemary

Mix together with your fingers until it resembles damp sand, then stir in:

2 tbsp lemon juice

Have ready:

3 tbsp unsalted butter, softened

Assembly

Place one round of dough on your lightly floured work surface. Spread it with about 1 tbsp softened butter, then with half of the lemon-rosemary-sugar filling.

Top it with a second round and spread it with 1 tbsp butter and the other half of the filling. Place the final round on top and spread it with the last 1 tbsp butter. With a large, sharp knife, cut the round into 8 wedges. Flour the knife blade if needed, and make single downward cuts to keep things as neat as possible. With the tip of the knife, cut a ~1-inch slit in the middle of each triangular piece.

Pull on the sides of the triangle to widen the hole, then tuck the point of the triangle into the hole. Gently pull it through to form the twist.

Arrange the 8 pieces in a circle with their sides touching on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Pinch together the two points at the base of each triangle.

Cover the twists lightly with plastic wrap and let rest for about 1 hour at room temperature (or refrigerate for several hours or overnight). It’s OK if some of the sugar-lemon mixture seeps out while the twists are resting.

Preheat the oven to 375˚F and bake the twists for 20-30 minutes, until nicely browned and baked through in the middle.

While the twists are baking, prepare the glaze.

Glaze

In a small bowl, cream until light and fluffy:

2 oz cream cheese

With a whisk, beat in:

1 tbsp lemon juice

Mix until smooth.

Add:

1/2 cup confectioner’s sugar

The glaze should be about the consistency of honey. Drizzle the glaze over the warm twists.

These are fantastic warm from the oven, and if you happen to have any leftover, the lemon-rosemary flavour is even better the next day.

Turkey Pie with Parmesan & Black Pepper Biscuits

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I know it’s about three months late to be posting a recipe for using up Christmas turkey, but I’ve had some turkey leftovers languishing in my freezer just begging to be made into a pie. Who am I to refuse such a request? This pie will not only make your house smell fantastic, but its comfort food mix of turkey, roasted root vegetables, and biscuits will make a dreary mid-winter day seem less so!

I chose to top this pie with biscuits because they are easy and good for soaking up gravy, but it would be equally tasty with your favorite pie crust in place of the biscuits (make it a single or double crust – your choice). If you go the pie crust route, I recommend working some parmesan and black pepper into it – it’s a great combination.

Turkey Pie with Parmesan & Black Pepper Biscuits

Biscuits

In a medium bowl, stir together:

1 1/2 cups flour

3 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp freshly ground black pepper

large pinch of salt

With a pastry cutter, cut it:

5 tbsp cold unsalted butter

Blend until the butter is in pea-sized chunks. Add:

1/2 cup finely grated parmesan cheese

Toss the parmesan into the butter-flour mixture, then make a well in the center and add:

3/4 cup cold milk

With a fork, stir in the milk with as few strokes as possible, using a folding motion to blend in the flour from the bottom of the bowl. It should just come together in a shaggy, sticky dough.

Turn the dough out onto a floured surface and knead it gently 2 – 3 times to gather it all together. Pat it out into a rectangular shape and fold it in thirds like a letter.

Pat it down again into a rectangle and repeat. After the second fold, shape the dough into a circle and pat it out into a 7-inch round. Cut it into 8 wedges with a sharp knife, using a straight downward cutting motion (this will help the cut edge rise up and be flaky).

Transfer the wedges to a lightly floured plate, cover them with plastic, and refrigerate while you make the filling.

Turkey & Roasted Vegetable Filling

Preheat the oven to 425˚F. Chop the following into 1/2 inch chunks:

2 medium carrots (about 1 cup)

2 medium parsnips (about 1 cup)

4 – 5 button mushrooms (about 1 cup)

1 large or 2 small leeks, white part only (about 1 1/2 cups – wash them very well!)

Spread the vegetables in a single layer on a baking sheet and toss with:

a few tablespoons of olive oil

generous salt and pepper

Roast the vegetables for 20 – 25 minutes, stirring halfway through, until softened and starting to brown.

Meanwhile, prepare the gravy. In a large pan over medium heat, melt:

2 tbsp unsalted butter

When it foams, add:

2 heaping tbsp all purpose flour

Whisk and cook for a few minutes, until it starts to smell nutty.

While whisking constantly, slowly pour in:

2 cups chicken or turkey stock

It will seem very thin and watery but will thicken up when it reaches a boil. Raise the heat to medium-high to bring it to a boil and thicken, then reduce back down to medium-low.

Season to taste with:

a few dashes of Worchestershire sauce

~ 1 tbsp soy sauce (less if using salted stock)

~ 1 – 2 tsp Marmite

1/4 tsp garlic powder

1/2 tsp dried sage

1/2 tsp dried thyme

salt and pepper

Worchestershire, soy sauce, and Marmite are my fail-safe ingredients for awesome gravy. They add great umami taste as well as saltiness, and they give the gravy a beautiful rich, dark colour. Marmite weirds some people out, but it is killer in gravy.

Remove the gravy from the heat. To make it a bit creamy (totally optional), stir in:

2 tbsp sour cream or cream cheese

Mix into the gravy:

the roasted vegetables (straight from the oven, preferably)

3 – 4 cups of chopped cooked turkey

Pour the whole thing into a 9-inch pie plate.

Top it with the chilled biscuits and brush them with an egg wash (1 egg mixed with 1 tbsp water).

Bake the pie at 425˚F for 20-25 minutes, until the gravy is bubbling and the biscuits are golden brown and puffed. Let it cool for just a few minutes before serving.

Caramel Pecan Sticky Buns

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Here they are… the caramel pecan sticky buns that started my obsession with making bread the Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day way. They are so good that I am sure they will also start your obsession.

This is one way to use up a portion of this challah dough. Roll it out, spread it with cinnamon-sugar-butter and sprinkle it with pecans, sit it on a bed of brown sugar-butter-pecan goodness, let it rest, let it bake, and then you will be in caramel pecan sticky bun heaven.

I’m telling you, these are GOOD, and although they require some waiting time, they don’t require a lot of physical effort. They don’t even have to be particularly pretty or neat looking to still taste out-of-this-world amazing. There is a TON of butter and sugar in this recipe, so if you’re looking for something diet-friendly, you might want to pass on this one… but I wouldn’t recommend it ;).

The pecans are calling your name. Make these sticky buns. You know you want to…

Caramel Pecan Sticky Buns

From Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day. Makes 8 buns. This recipe uses one 1 1/2-ish lb portion of challah dough.

Caramel-Pecan Topping

In a medium bowl, cream together:

6 tbsp unsalted butter, soft

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/2 tsp salt

Spread the mixture evenly over the bottom of a 9″ round cake pan. Sprinkle it with:

1/2 cup roughly chopped pecans (you can leave them whole if you prefer)

Set aside.

Filling

In a small bowl, cream together:

4 tbsp unsalted butter, soft

1/4 cup brown sugar

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1/4 tsp nutmeg

pinch of freshly ground black pepper

Set aside.

In a 375˚F oven, toast:

1/2 cup chopped pecans

Toasting the pecans keeps them from getting soggy inside the rolls. They should take about 20-25 minutes – watch them carefully and stir several times. Set aside to cool.

Assembly

Place a 1 1/2-ish lb portion of chilled challah dough on a lightly floured surface. Using your hands and a rolling pin, roll and stretch it into an 18″ x 9″ rectangle. Keep the dough lightly floured to prevent it from sticking, but try not to over-flour it.

Spread the rectangle of dough evenly with the filling, then sprinkle it with the toasted pecans. From one of the long edges, roll up the dough securely to enclose the filling.

With a sharp serrated knife, cut the roll into 8 pieces. Arrange them over the caramel-pecan topping mixture in the baking pan. Cover lightly with plastic wrap and set aside to rest for about 1 hour.

After an hour, the buns should have expanded quite a bit. With a few minutes left in the rest period, preheat the oven to 350˚F. Remove the plastic wrap, place the pan on a cookie sheet to protect against bubbling-over caramel (I didn’t do this and my oven was a mess of melted butter and molten caramel!), and bake at 350˚F for about 40 minutes, until golden brown and cooked all the way to the center of the pan.

Place the pan on a cooling rack for about 5 minutes, until the bubbling caramel subsides. While still hot, run a knife around the edge of the pan to release the buns and invert them onto a plate (if you wait for them to cool they will stick to the pan). Scrape out any caramel and pecans left behind.

Devour!

Daring Bakers: Quickbread

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The Daring Bakers’ February 2012 host was – Lis! Lisa stepped in last minute and challenged us to create a quick bread we could call our own. She supplied us with a base recipe and shared some recipes she loves from various websites and encouraged us to build upon them and create new flavor profiles.

A quickbread is a sweet or savory bread/cake that is made with baking powder or baking soda (and sometimes eggs) rather than yeast, thereby making it “quick” to make, start to finish. Scones, muffins, popovers, Irish soda bread, and loaves like banana bread and tea cakes all fall into this category.

A beautiful, golden brown, airy popover

…

Read More »

Challah Dough

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I’ve been making bread using stored dough à la Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day for a few months now, and I figured it was time to branch out from the basic, rustic boule dough and into something fancier. This is the “master” challah dough, which can be made into not only the traditional braided loaf, but also used as the base for things like sticky buns, coffee cakes, doughnuts, and anything else that you might want to use an enriched dough for. “Enriched” meaning that in addition to flour, water, yeast, and salt, this dough includes eggs, butter, and honey to make it even more delicious and decadent.

This is the dough that convinced me to buy the ABin5 book – I used it to make caramel pecan sticky buns (which I will be sharing in a few days!), and it was so delicious that I had to have the book.

As I mentioned in my previous ABin5 post (which I recommend reading if you are going to make this dough!), Canadian all purpose flour has a higher protein content than the flour that was used to develop the book’s recipes, so I have adjusted the amount of water accordingly (the original amount of water is 1 3/4 cups). Because this dough contains eggs it has a refrigerated storage life of 5 days, after which it can be frozen in appropriately-sized portions for up to 4 weeks (defrost overnight in the fridge before using). When I made this dough, I had three recipes in mind to use it with, so I divided it up into thirds of slightly less than 1 1/2 lbs each.

Challah Dough

Adapted from Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day. Check out their website for wonderful recipes, tips, and bread-baking support. Makes just over 4 lbs of dough.

In a large, 4 – 6 quart bowl or container with a lid, whisk together:

4 large eggs

1/2 cup honey

1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted and cooled

1 1/2 tbsp instant yeast (any kind of granulated yeast will work)

1 tbsp coarse salt

Whisk in:

2 cups + 1 1/2 tbsp warm water

Add:

7 cups all purpose flour, measured with the “scoop and sweep” method:

With a sturdy wooden spoon, mix in the flour until the dough is evenly moistened. You may need to get in there with your hands to incorporate the last of the flour (resist the urge to knead the dough). It should be quite sticky.

Cover the dough with a non-airtight lid – you want to prevent it from drying out but still allow it to breathe (my lidded container was in the fridge with other dough in it, so I used loose plastic wrap).

Let it rise in a warm place for about 2 hours, during which time it should grow in size quite a bit and develop all kinds of beautiful bubbles.

Place it in the fridge for several hours or overnight, until the top flattens out and sinks a bit. The dough needs to be chilled before handling.

When you are ready to bake, dust the surface of the dough lightly with flour. Grab the floured dough and pull out the desired amount (use scissors to cut off the chunk of dough).

Dust the dough portion lightly with flour and shape it into a ball by gently pulling the top of the dough and tucking it underneath, handling it as little as possible while doing so (this should take about 5 seconds). I divided the dough into thirds (just under 1 1/2 lbs each) – one to bake with immediately and the other two to freeze for later.

At this point, I’m going to leave you hanging… watch this space for three ways to use this amazing challah dough!

UPDATE: Recipes that use this dough:

Caramel Pecan Sticky Buns

Lemon Rosemary Sticky Bun Twists

6-Strand Braided Challah Loaf

Filipino Chicken Adobo

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Chicken adobo is a Filipino dish that I’ve had my eye on for quite a while. I worked with a girl who would bring chicken adobo leftovers for lunch and then rave about how it was her favorite thing ever, so naturally my interest was piqued. I did a few internet searches and discovered that adobo just means vinegary sauce (hence “chipotles in adobo” is essentially smoked jalapenos in vinegar), and that there are as many versions of chicken adobo as there are people making it (which is to say, a lot!). The main ingredients in Filipino adobo are soy sauce, vinegar, garlic, black pepper corns, bay leaves, and sometimes coconut milk, and the meat can be either chicken or pork or both.

I found an awesome-sounding chicken adobo recipe and sort of had it in mind to make one of these days, when the other day I was browsing through the latest issue of Cook’s Illustrated and lo-and-behold, there was a chicken adobo recipe! Cook’s Illustrated does some pretty serious recipe testing so I was quite sure this one would be good – and it is. Tangy and salty but not too much of either, it also has coconut milk in the sauce – which doesn’t make it taste coconutty, but rather cuts the sourness of the sauce and gives it some nice body. One of the drawbacks to most of the recipes I looked at was that they required a long marinating time, whereas this one can be done in an hour, including marinating, and manages to taste dang good. And it only requires basic pantry items. Make this for dinner – you will thank yourself!

Filipino Chicken Adobo

Adapted from the March/April 2012 issue of Cook’s Illustrated. Serves 2 and can easily be doubled.

In a ziplock bag or bowl, combine:

4 skin-on, bone-in chicken thighs and/or drumsticks

3 scant tbsp soy sauce

Marinate in the fridge for 30 minutes to 1 hour.

Remove the chicken from the soy sauce, let the excess drip off, and place the chicken, skin side down, in a cold 8″ skillet (non-stick is recommended!). Reserve the soy sauce in a bowl.

Place the skillet over medium-high heat and cook until the chicken skin is browned and the fat under the skin has rendered out, 5 to 7 minutes.

Meanwhile, mix the reserved soy sauce with:

1/2 a can of coconut milk

6 tbsp apple cider vinegar

4 cloves of garlic, roughly chopped

1 tsp freshly ground black pepper (or 1/2 tsp ground and 1/2 tsp whole pepper corns)

2-3 bay leaves

When the chicken has browned, remove it to a plate and pour the fat out of the pan. Return the chicken to the pan, skin side down, and pour in the soy-coconut-vinegar mixture.

Bring it to a boil, then lower the heat to medium-low and simmer, uncovered, for about 20 minutes.

Turn the chicken over and simmer for another 15 minutes, or until the chicken reaches 175˚F on a thermometer.

Put the chicken on a plate and cover it lightly with foil. Skim any fat out of the sauce left in the pan and remove the bay leaves. Return the sauce to medium-high heat and simmer to thicken if needed – or you can add a few tablespoons of water if it is too thick already (in my case!).

Pour the sauce over the chicken and serve with steamed rice.

(10 points if you can figure out what colour shirt I was wearing when I took the first photo in this post!)

Rebar Chocolate Cake

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I’ve been looking for an excuse to make the Rebar chocolate cake ever since Kate at Venison for Dinner posted about it a week or so ago. Valentine’s Day seems like a pretty dang good excuse, no?

Rebar is a local restaurant that specializes in highly delicious, mostly vegetarian cuisine, and in addition to food like this amazingly decadent chocolate layer cake, they are also known for their wheatgrass shots and other crunchy-granola-hippie specialties. Several years ago they came out with a cookbook and it is a favorite of mine. I’ve had this recipe bookmarked for a while and have heard rave reviews from anyone who’s made it, but I never got around to it – until now. And I am kicking myself for not having made it sooner, because I have three words for you: BEST. CAKE. EVER.

Like all of the good chocolate cake recipes I’ve ever made, this one contains cocoa powder, buttermilk, and coffee (which doesn’t flavour the cake, but instead makes it more chocolately). The only change I made to the recipe was to add some actual chocolate to the batter, because in my opinion, you should always add more chocolate. The chocolate cream cheese filling contains both dark and milk chocolate (I used the last of a giant milk chocolate Toblerone from Christmas so it has tiny bits of nougat and almond in it), and the whole thing is topped off with a dark chocolate ganache. Given all the chocolate, butter, and cream cheese, this is not an inexpensive dessert, but it’s so worth it, and it was actually quite easy to make. Next time I might jazz it up with some raspberry purée or something added between the layers, but it is pretty perfect as is.

Happy Valentine’s Day! Make this cake for someone you love – I guarantee they will love you back!

Rebar Chocolate Cake

This recipe is supposed to make one 3-layer, 8-inch cake, but because only Nate and I are around to eat it, I baked half the batter into two 6-inch layers (which still ended up making a cake that could easily feed 8 people!) and the rest into tiny cupcakes to take to work (I ended up with 20). I baked it at a lower temperature (325˚F instead of 350˚F) and wrapped the pans in wet strips of towel to get perfectly baked, even layers. From Rebar Modern Food Cookbook.

The Cake

Preheat the oven to 325˚F. Prepare three 8-inch round cake pans by lining the bottoms with parchment paper, greasing them, and dusting them with cocoa powder. Set aside.

In a small bowl or measuring cup, combine:

2 oz dark chocolate, chopped

3/4 cup hot, strong coffee

Stir to melt the chocolate and set aside to cool.

In a mixer bowl, combine:

1 1/2 cups light brown sugar (or 1 cup dark brown sugar + 1/2 cup white sugar)

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour

1/2 cup Dutch process cocoa powder

1 1/2 tsp baking soda

3/4 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

With the whisk attachment, mix the dry ingredients on low speed to combine so there are no lumps. Add:

2 eggs

3/4 cup buttermilk (or 3/4 tbsp white vinegar + enough milk to make 3/4 cup)

1/3 cup vegetable oil

1 tsp vanilla

the cooled coffee/chocolate mixture

Mix on medium low for a few minutes, scraping down the sides as necessary. The batter should be thick but pourable. Divide the batter between the prepared pans and wrap the outside of each pan with a strip of wet towel. Bake at 325˚F for 35-45 minutes (this was the time range for a 6-inch cake, but should be similar for an 8-inch cake), until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. Let cool in the pan for 5 minutes, then run a knife around the edge and invert onto a cooling rack. Peel off the parchment paper and let the cake layers cool completely. Chill them in the fridge to make them easier to handle when assembling the cake.

The Filling

Over a double boiler, melt:

5 oz dark chocolate, chopped

5 oz milk chocolate, chopped

Set aside to cool for about 10 minutes.

In a mixer bowl with the whisk attachment, cream together:

1/2 lb unsalted butter, softened

1/4 lb cream cheese, softened

Add the cooled chocolate and 1 tsp vanilla. Beat until fluffy, scraping the bowl as necessary.

To assemble, place one layer of the cake on a cooling rack, which will help keep things neat when you pour the ganache over top. Fill the cake layers with 2/3 of the chocolate cream cheese filling, and spread the remaining 1/3 over the top and sides of the cake (it doesn’t have to be perfect as it will be covered in chocolate ganache!). Chill the cake in the fridge while you make the ganache.

The Ganache

In a saucepan, heat until just below scalding:

1/2 cup whipping cream

1 tbsp unsalted butter

When it is hot, pour it over:

5 oz dark chocolate, chopped

Let it sit for a few minutes, then stir until smooth. Let it cool slightly, then pour it over the chilled, frosted cake. With a long spatula, spread it smoothly over the top and sides. Chill again until the ganache is firm, then carefully lift the cake off the cooling rack onto a serving platter. For decoration, I piped hearts out of melted chocolate onto waxed paper, chilled them until they set, then transferred them to the cake using a thin spatula so my fingers didn’t melt them. Chill the cake again before serving.

A recipe that will make you love lentils

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When I was growing up, “lentil” was practically a bad word in our house. I think my Mum over-did it with lentils when my parents were young hippies living on a shoestring (lentils are cheap and filling!), and as a result, my Dad basically refused to eat them. So, my experience thus far with lentils has been pretty limited and tinged with a prejudice of “yecch”.

But I guess my hippie mother rubbed off on me, because I still wanted to like lentils. When I was writing my resolution post, I came across this lentil curry recipe (aka dal), and now I can honestly say it is one of the best things I have made – and eaten – in a while! Incredibly flavourful, a little bit spicy, and really simple to make: boil lentils, make a masala (a flavour base of sautéed spices, onion, and tomatoes in ghee), stir in some spinach, and voila. Delicious! This will make you see lentils in a very positive light ;).

Lentil Curry

From Vij’s Elegant & Inspired Indian Cuisine. Serves 4-6.

Lentils

Orange lentils (masur dal) hold their shape when cooked, while moong dal (yellow lentils) dissolve more during cooking. You can use either or both – the consistency of the final dish will just a be a little different. I couldn’t find yellow lentils, so I used brown, which were a good substitute.

In a bowl, combine:

1/2 cup split orange lentils (aka masur dal)

1/2 cup split yellow lentils (aka moong dal) (or substitute brown lentils)

Rift through the lentils to remove any debris or tiny stones, then rinse several times in cold water. Pour them into a large pot with a tight fitting lid. Add:

5 1/2 – 7 1/2 cups water (7 1/2 cups will give you soup)

2 tsp salt

1 tsp turmeric

Stir, then bring the lentils to a boil, uncovered, over medium-high heat. The lentils will be foamy-looking. Stir, then reduce the heat to medium-low and partially cover the pot with the lid, leaving a 1 inch space (this will stop the lentils from foaming over as they boil). When the foaming has subsided (5 – 8 minutes later), cover the pot fully and let simmer for about 30 minutes, until the lentils are tender.

Meanwhile, make the ghee and masala.

Ghee

Ghee, aka clarified butter, is butter with all the milk solids removed so that it can be heated to a higher temperature. You can use vegetable oil instead of ghee (and skip this step altogether), but ghee adds delicious flavour.

In a small pot over medium heat, melt:

6 tbsp of unsalted butter

When it has melted, reduce the heat slightly and let it boil gently for a few minutes. A white foam of milk solids will form on top. With a spoon, carefully scoop out the foamy milk solids (be careful to leave the yellow butterfat behind). Continue boiling gently, scooping out the foam every few minutes. After about 10 minutes, the ghee will start to form bubbles on top rather than white foam. Scoop out the bubbles. At this point, the ghee should smell slightly nutty and be turning from yellow to light golden brown. You will know it is ready when there is no more foam or bubbles and it stops boiling – this means that all the milk solids (which were causing the boiling and foaming) are gone and all that remains is pure, delicious butterfat. Pour the ghee into a bowl and set aside. You should have about 1/4 cup of ghee.

Masala

In a shallow frying pan over medium-high, heat 1/4 cup ghee for about 45 seconds. Add:

1 tbsp whole cumin seeds

Sizzle for 15 seconds, then reduce the heat to medium and add:

3/4 cup finely chopped onion (about 1/2 a medium onion)

Sauté until brown, 8 – 10 minutes. Add:

3/4 cup finely chopped tomato (about 1 1/2 roma tomatoes)

1 tbsp grated ginger

1/4 – 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper

Sauté, stirring, for about 5 minutes or until the ghee glistens on top of the masala.

Add the masala to the cooked lentils and stir well. While the lentils are still very hot, stir in:

3-4 handfuls of chopped spinach leaves (I also threw in a handful of kale leaves)

Just before serving, stir in:

1/2 cup chopped cilantro

Serve over steamed basmati rice with a dollop of yogurt.

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All content © Korena Vezerian and Korena in the Kitchen, 2011 – 2021. Please contact me before duplicating any content, including pictures. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Korena Vezerian and Korena in the Kitchen with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.