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Chocolate Orange Cake Bread

24 Oct

The logistics of how it happened are almost irrelevant. Maybe there were no logistics. Maybe it was just pure luck, or happenstance, or, on the other side of the coin, the other guys’ back luck coming into play at the worst possible time. Like I said, it doesn’t matter, really. What matters is that the San Francisco Giants are in the World Series, and now, because who knows how they managed to come back from a seemingly insurmountable deficit many, many times over, I can’t stop making black and orange foods because What If. What if the black and orange foods were the missing piece of the puzzle? Do you see what I am getting at here? I can’t stop now.

And so I continue. Today’s installment in the veritable cornucopia of evidence that I’ve compiled for the case against my sanity is a dense, intensely chocolaty little number that is flecked with orange zest and plumped up with orange juice. It’s a meet-up of those friendly flavors, chocolate and orange, and, once again, an entry into that familiar category of bread-or-cake. Not that it matters what you call it, of course. I mean, aside from delicious.

You can, of course, make this bread as depraved as you want. Depending on how rich and aggressive you like your chocolate treats, there is nothing stopping you from adding a handful of chopped bittersweet chocolate to the batter. If you are truly batty for the combination of chocolate and orange, you could also hunt down the ubiquitous holiday chocolate orange, chop it up, and throw in some bits for an even stronger kick of chocolate plus orange. However, I think this bread/cake is just perfect as it stands, with a deep chocolate flavor that is merely highlighted by the brightness of zesty orange. As for whether or not it can supply the same good fortune as black and orange foods of past? Well, we’ll find out in just a few short hours.

Last Year: Creamy Tomatillo and Avocado Salsa (seriously–I have dreams about this salsa, it’s so good)

Chocolate Orange Cake Bread Recipe

1 ½ cups unbleached all-purpose flour

1 cup lightly packed dark brown sugar

¾ cup Dutch process cocoa

1 tablespoon espresso powder

½ teaspoon baking powder

¼ teaspoon baking soda

¾ teaspoon salt

¼ cup vegetable oil

1 cup buttermilk

¼ cup freshly squeezed orange juice

2 large eggs

2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

2 teaspoons finely grated orange zest

Glaze:

1/3 cup powdered sugar

2 tablespoons freshly squeezed orange juice

1 teaspoon finely grated orange zest

Preheat oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit. Grease and flour a 9” by 5” loaf pan.

In a large bowl, whisk together flour, brown sugar, cocoa, espresso powder, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Whisk in the vegetable oil until ingredients are uniformly coated by the oil. The mixture will look quite pebbly, but that is all right.

In a large measuring cup or a medium bowl, whisk together the buttermilk, orange juice, eggs, vanilla, and orange zest. Slowly pour the buttermilk mixture into the flour mixture, whisking slowly until the mixture is just combined.

Pour the batter into the prepared loaf pan. Bake in center of oven for 65 to 75 minutes, until a cake tester inserted into the center of the loaf comes out with just a few moist crumbs attached. Place pan on a wire rack to cool for 15 to 20 minutes, then run a small knife around the perimeter of the cake to help release it from the pan. Turn pan over and gently invert cake out onto a wire rack, then turn cake upright and leave on wire rack to cool completely.

When cake has cooled, prepare glaze by combining ingredients in a small bowl and whisking until smooth. Pour or brush glaze over the top of the cooled cake.

Makes 1 9″ by 5″ loaf. Serves 8 to 10.

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Sky-High Apple Pie

11 Oct

Curious as to just how many apples I might be able to jam into a single pie, a few days ago I started yanking apples off of our tree in the name of kitchen experimentation.

When I had filled a colander with apples, I stopped picking and came inside to weigh my bounty. It turned out that I had picked almost exactly six pounds of apples. Six pounds of apples? I could totally fit that into a pie.

Until now, I have never really bothered to write down a recipe for apple pie. Apple pie is one of those pies that, being a pie baker, I always just sort of whipped together when I felt the urge. This time around, having taken the time to actually make notes about what I was doing, it turns out that I do, actually, have an apple pie technique.

Precooking the apples is part of that technique, as it keeps the apples from losing their shape and volume while they cook in the oven (a sad fate that results in a rather large empty space forming between your pie’s filling and your pie’s dough). A quick simmer allows the apples to slump just enough to eliminate the possibility of pulling a nearly hollow crust of shell from the oven later on. This may seem like a rather fussy and step to have to add in, but it really does produce the best pie possible.

As an added benefit, when simmered on the stove with a sprinkling of dark brown sugar, a kiss of cinnamon, a squeeze of lemon juice, and a pinch of sea salt, the apples produce pool of apple juice that then gets reduced on the stove and drizzled over the filling before you bake the pie. This step is nothing short of a secret weapon. This whole pie contains only ½ a cup of sugar, but by rendering the apples and caramelizing their juice, you’re creating a richness of flavor that belies even a hint of missing sweetness.

Last Year: Apple Cheese Quiche (my son made up this recipe!), and a peek into the Sarah Daft Home Cookbook

Sky-High Apple Pie Recipe

Flaky Tart and Pie Dough

From Tartine

1 teaspoon salt

2/3 cup (5 ½ ounces) very cold ice water

3 cups plus 2 tablespoons (1 pound) unbleached all-purpose flour

1 cup plus 5 tablespoons (10 ½ ounces) very cold unsalted butter

In a small bowl, add the salt to the water and stir to dissolve. Place in the freezer to keep super cold until ready to use.

Place the flour in the bowl of a food processor, or in a large bowl. Cut the butter into 1-inch pieces, then scatter over the flour. If using a food processor, pulse the mixture briefly until it forms into large crumbs and some of the pieces of butter remain pea-sized. If making the dough by hand, cut the butter into the dough using a pastry cutter. You will want the dough to have the same crumb-like look with some large pea-sized chunks of butter throughout.

Drizzle the salt and water mixture over the dough and, if using a food processor, pulse until the dough comes together into a ball but is not completely smooth. You should still see visible butter chunks. If mixing the dough by hand, drizzle the salt and water mixture over the dough while tossing with a fork. The dough should come together in a shaggy mass. Gently mix the dough together until it comes together in a ball but is not completely smooth. As with the food processor dough, you should still see visible butter chunks.

Divide the dough into 2 equal balls on a lightly floured surface. Shape each ball into a disk about 1 inch thick. Wrap each disk in plastic wrap and refrigerate at least 2 hours, preferably overnight.

When you are ready to make your pie, on a floured surface, roll out one disk of chilled pie dough into a circle about 1 inch larger than a 9-inch pie dish. Gently transfer the dough to the pie dish, easing it into the bottom and sides, and pressing gently into place.  Using a sharp knife, trim the dough so it hangs over the pie dish by ½ inch, or, using your fingers, tuck the scraggly edges of the dough under itself and lightly press to adhere. Place the formed dough in the freezer for 30 minutes to 1 hour (this ensures the flakiest dough possible).

To prepare the other disk of dough to form the lattice pie top, on a lightly floured surface, roll the other disk of dough into a roughly 13 by 10-inch rectangle. Cut the rectangle lengthwise into 8 strips that are 13 inches long. Place strips of dough on a baking sheet and refrigerate while you prepare the pie filling.

Apple Pie Filling

6 pounds tart or tart-sweet apples

juice of 1 lemon

½ cup firmly-packed dark brown sugar

½ teaspoon cinnamon

pinch of salt

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1 egg white, lightly beaten

Peel, core, and slice apples into ¼-inch slices. In a large Dutch oven or similarly heavy-bottomed pot, combine sliced apples, lemon juice, dark brown sugar, cinnamon, and salt. Stir to combine, then cook apples at a low simmer over medium-low heat. Cook for about 15 minutes, stirring frequently, until apples are barely fork-tender and have released quite a bit of their juices. Using a slotted spoon, remove apples from Dutch oven, leaving the juice in the pot. Set aside the apples to cool.

With the heat still set at medium-low, bring the rendered apple juice to a simmer. Stirring frequently, allow the juice to simmer until it has thickened quite a bit and reduced to about 1/3 of a cup of liquid. Stir in vanilla extract. Pour into a small bowl and set aside to cool a bit.

Preheat oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit. Adjust an oven rack to the lowest position, and place a foil-lined baking sheet on the rack.

Place the slightly-cooled apples in the dough-lined pie pan. Mound the apples up in the middle, as there are a lot of apples to fit into this pie. Drizzle the apples with the slightly-cooled caramelized apple juice. Weave the long strips of refrigerated pie dough over the top in a lattice pattern. (There is a good tutorial on how to do this here but keep in mind that you will, obviously, be using fewer strips of dough.) Trim the edges of the lattice even with the lower crust, then fold under the edges and crimp into place using your fingers.  Brush the top crust of the pie with the beaten egg white.

Place the pie on the heated baking sheet and bake until the crust is golden, about 25 to 30 minutes. Reduce the oven temperature to 375 degrees, rotate the baking sheet, and continue to bake the pie until the juices are bubbling and the crust is a deep golden brown, about 30 to 35 minutes longer.

Remove the pie from the oven and allow to cool on a wire rack for at least two hours. The pie will set up much better and slice much more neatly if it is not served piping hot.

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Apple and Toasted Oat Cookies with Penuche Frosting

26 Sep

A few years ago, we were lucky enough to be gifted a beautiful Akane apple tree. Akanes are a fantastic type of apple—sharp, only lightly sweet, and boasting a fantastic crunch. Last year we ended up giving a great deal of our tree’s apple harvest to our son’s school, but this year we will be in charge of eating these crisp little fellows on our own. I have no complaints about this. Akane apples are great when plucked from the tree and eaten straight away, but they are also superb for baking. Their less-sweet flavor lends itself well to being folded into baked goods, and their firm flesh is a champ at holding its shape and resisting the urge to melt into mush when exposed to hot temperatures.

Which makes me wonder: When did the pumpkin become the official food of autumn? It seems as though the mere mention of autumn will unleash the squash recipes with full force. Summer is barely over, and yet it is impossible to walk down the street from my house without seeing coffeehouse after coffeehouse after bakery practically screaming the virtues of pumpkin. Pumpkin bread is mighty fine, I admit, but what about the other fruits of the season? Have we forgotten about the apples and pears?

Truthfully, I think I do actually understand the tendency to learn towards pumpkins when autumn makes its first appearance. Due to the fact that one is able to make year-round purchases of apples and pears at the grocery store, the pumpkin harvest is a more notable signifier of the arrival of a new season. Pumpkins signal something, whereas apples, well, apples just mean apples.

Not that they have to. Those apples you’re getting at the market in June are nothing compared to the apples that first start showing up in September and October. June apples have been sitting in storage for months, ever since the previous year’s harvest ended, but September apples have only just barely been freed from their trees. Like warm June strawberries plucked fresh from a backyard patch, fresh September apples are a revelation in apple-eating.

However, if you’re like me and you did not manage to treat your apple tree in time to ward off spring’s deluge of codling moths (note: I treat my apple tree with an organic insecticide called Spinosad, which is unfailingly effective if you treat the tree before the moths arrive to lay their eggs, which I, unfortunately, was not able to do), sometimes you have to do a bit of slicing and dicing in order to enjoy your homegrown apples. A cookie like this, with bursts of apple and the heartiness of oats and whole wheat flour, is the perfect welcome mat for autumn’s new fruit. Drizzled with a slip of caramel-tinged penuche frosting, it tastes like the arrival of autumn, all wrapped up in a tidy cookie package.

Last Year: Balsamic-Glazed Chicken and Zucchini with Grilled Limes

Apple and Toasted Oat Cookies with Penuche Frosting Recipe

1 cup rolled oats (not quick cooking)

1 cup lightly packed dark brown sugar

1 stick (8 tablespoons) unsalted butter, at room temperature

¼ cup milk

juice and finely grated zest of 1 lemon

1 large egg

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1 ½ cups unbleached all-purpose flour

1 cup whole wheat pastry flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

¼ teaspoon ground ginger

pinch of nutmeg

¼ teaspoon sea salt

1 ½ cups finely chopped, peeled apple

Penuche Frosting

3 tablespoons unsalted butter

1/3 cup lightly packed dark brown sugar

¼ cup milk

pinch of sea salt

1 ½ cups powdered (confectioners’) sugar

Preheat oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit.

Spread oats in a single layer on a large baking sheet, then toast in the oven until the oats are golden brown, about 8 to 10 minutes. Remove oats from baking sheet and set aside to cool.

In a large bowl, combine brown sugar and butter and beat until light and fluffy, about 3 to 4 minutes on high speed. Add milk, lemon juice, lemon zest, egg, and vanilla, and beat until combined. Add toasted oats, all-purpose flour, whole wheat pastry flour, baking soda, spices, and salt, then mix well on low speed. Stir in chopped apple.

Drop dough by rounded tablespoon-fuls, spaced about 2 inches apart, onto a parchment-lined baking sheet. Bake cookies in center of oven until lightly golden, about 10 to 13 minutes. To ensure even baking, only bake 1 sheet of cookies at a time. Remove to a wire rack to cool.

While cookies are cooling, make penuche frosting by combining butter and dark brown sugar in a medium saucepan. Over medium heat, stir to combine the two, allowing mixture to come to a light boil. Boil for 1 minute, stirring constantly, until mixture has thickened slightly. Remove from heat and set aside to cool slightly.

After mixture has cooled for about 10 minutes, add milk and beat until smooth, then add powdered sugar and beat until mixture is smooth and combined.

Using a large spoon, drizzle cooled cookies with penuche frosting.

Makes about 3 dozen cookies, depending on how generously the tablespoon-fuls of dough were portioned out.

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