Sour Cream Citrus Pound Cake with Lemon Glaze

Now I apologize profusely right away by saying I do NOT have a photograph of this poundcake. You will have to use your imagination to envision one of the best quick breads, desserts, and poundcakes you will have ever had the privilege of tasting. I cannot rave enough about this recipe.  Trust me, if you make anything next- make this dessert.

I had the privilege of getting a hold of this dessert when I took a Baking Class at the Cambridge Culinary School in Cambridge, Massachusetts.  This school is great because it offers a TON of recreational courses that usually professional students enrolled in culinary school to take.  The Introduction to Baking course was a 4-week course that I took over a year ago.  Let's just say I did not stop there. I have since taken more courses and if I could would enroll as a full-time student.  I love being in a real commercial-style kitchen and getting to learn hands-on with professional chef instructors.  The first time I took this course I walked out beaming pastry in hand.

Part of the 4-week course involved a Cake class.  I had taken a cake decorating class, so I was familiar with some of the basic concepts, but still enjoyed learning some different techniques from the instructors.  The class is designed like your typical science class- lecture than lab. Once you learn the basic techniques, you get to choose and make a cake from the list of recipes they give you.  I had chosen a carrot cake with cream cheese icing.  The people next to me chose to make this sour cream poundcake.  They let me try a piece at the end and one bite made me wish I had chosen that recipe!  Let's just say it didn't take a week for me to make it at home.

It also make great mini-loaves and I gave these away at Christmas presents to co-workers this year.  It's a delicous cheap Christmas present that everyone was  happy to get. 

Sour Cream Citrus Pound Cake with Lemon Glaze
From Cambridge School of Culinary Arts

1 cup unsalted butter
2 1/4  cups sugar
4 eggs
2 1/2 cups flour
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1 cup sour cream
1 tsp. vanilla
Grated zest of 1 orange, 1 lemon, 1 lime

1. Sift dry ingredients together in a bowl and set aside.
2.  In another bowl, combine grated orange, lemon, and lime zests, vanilla extract and sour cream.
3. In a mixing bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.   Add the eggs one at a time, scraping down the mixing bowl well after each addition and mix until blended.  Add dry and wet ingredients alternately to butter-sugar-egg mixture until uniformly incorporated- do not overmix.
4. Grease and flour one bundt cake pan (or 2 large loaf pans- or 6-7 mini loaf pans).  Pour batter into pan. Bake in a preheated 350 degrees oven for approximately 50 minutes (be sure to lower the baking time if you are making things smaller).  The cake is done when a toothpick or skewer inserted in the center comes out clean.  Allow to cool before glazing.

Lemon Glaze

1 1/4 cups confectioner's sugar
1/4 cup lemon juice
1/2 tsp. vanilla
1 tsp. lemon zest

Mix all ingredients until smooth.  Pour over top of cake and serve.  For a thicker glaze use less lemon juice.

Operation: Baking Gals

As part of starting this blog, I wanted to get more involved in things.  So when I saw that one of my favorite blogs, Beantown Baker, was asking for volunteers to send care packages full of delicious baked goodies to her friend Nate who is stationed in Afghanistan I immediately knew this was something I wanted to do.  I loved the idea and immediately joined her team, Team Beantown Baker, on the Operation Baking Gals Site.

So this post is all about what I sent to her friend Nate. I spent A LOT of time trying to decide what to send to her friend Nate. I knew right away I wanted to send these Rasberry Streusel Bars I saw in a Cook's Illustrated magazine recently.  I have been wanting to make these bars for awhile now, and I thought this would be the perfect opportunity.  I also thought that they would ship very well. 

I admit after making them and tasting them it was extremely hard to package them up and ship them off! I trimmed the edges of the bars before cutting them, and none of the crispy edges went to waste.  I will admit I did steal one bar (chef's right to taste test) and had a hard time stopping there. I will definitely be making them again.

 I knew I also wanted to make another delicious treat to ship off.  I finally settled on a recipe from Curtis Stone, Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies.  I had all the ingredients except the chocolate chips (I know what you're thinking..out of chocolate chips?) I had cinnamon, milk chocolate, some white chocolate, but no semi-sweet! I had used them up recently making a chocolate ganache recipe, so with only one ingredient missing I figured this would be easy enough and would make a great cookie to ship with the raspberry streusel bars.


These cookies were very peanut buttery.  Not for the faint of peanut butter hearts. I did like how well they baked up.  I just hope that the soldiers enjoyed them.  Of course I guess I'll never know.

After reading through Jen (from Beantown Baker's) previous blogs on Operation Baking Gals I decided I would follow her advice and freeze the goodies for at least 48 hours to ensure freshness when the package arrived. I packaged each goodie in its own plastic container.  But the two containers still left some room for something else.  I really wanted to balance the sweet tooth with something salty.  Not wanting to bake for the third time that day (and do another round of dishes!-my least favorite) I remembered back to when my cousin David was deployed.  All he asked for was- PICKLES! The Mt. Olive pickle company makes these great little portable containers of pickles in plastic containers perfect for shipping overseas! Two packages of these little gherkins fit perfectly in the large flat rate box from the post office.  My Operation Baking Gals package was complete.  I hope Nate and his friends enjoy my baked treats.



 Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip cookies (from Curtis Stone)

Makes about 20 cookies (as usual, I only got 13- I always end up making mine too big- oh well)

Ingredients

1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup natural chunky peanut butter (about 9 ounces / 280 grams)
1/2 cup (packed) light brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated / caster sugar
1/2 cup (1 stick / 125 grams) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 ½ tablespoons honey
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
5 ounces / 155 grams semisweet chocolate, coarsely chopped (I used chocolate chips to save a little money!)

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F / 180°C.
2. Line 3 heavy large baking sheets with parchment paper.
3. Mix the flour, baking soda, and salt in a medium bowl.
4. Using an electric mixer, beat the peanut butter, brown sugar, granulated sugar, butter, honey, egg, and vanilla in a large bowl until well blended.
5. Stir the dry ingredients into the peanut butter mixture in 2 additions.
6. Stir in the chopped chocolate
7. Scoop about 3 tablespoonfuls of dough for each cookie onto the prepared baking sheets, spacing them 2 1/2 inches apart.
8. Bake for about 12 minutes, or until the cookies puff and begin to brown on top but are still very soft to the touch.
9. Cool the cookies on the baking sheets for 5 minutes.
10. Using a metal spatula, transfer the cookies to a rack and eat warm or cool completely.

Raspberry Streusel Bars (A Cook's Illustrated Recipe)
Note from Cook's Illustrated: This recipe can be done in a food processor or stand mixer. (I made mine in a food processor.)  Frozen raspberries can be substituted for fresh (I had some fresh leftover in my fridges so I used those). If you use frozen be sure to defrost those first befor adding them to your raspberry jam.  If your raspberries are a little tart, add only 1 or 2 teaspoons of lemon juice to the filling. The bars are best eaten the day they are baked but can be kept in an airtight container for up to 3 days (the crust will soften slightly with storage).

Ingredients:
21/2 cups (121/2 ounces) unbleached all-purpose flour
2/3 cup (about 4 3/4 ounces) granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon table salt
16 Tablespoons  (2 sticks) plus 2 Tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch pieces and softened to cool room temperature
1/4 cup packed (1 3/4 ounces) light or dark brown sugar (I used dark brown sugar because that is what I had on hand)
1/2 cup (1 1/2 ounces) old-fashioned rolled oats
1/2 cup (2 ounces) pecans, chopped fine
3/4 cup (8 1/2 ounces) raspberry perserves
3/4 cup (3 1/2 ounces) fresh raspberries
1 Tablespoon juice from 1 lemon

Directions:
1. Adjust to oven rack to middle position, heat oven to 375 degrees.  Cut 18-inch length foil and fold lengthwise to 8-inch width.  Fit foil into length of 13 by 9-inch baking dish, pushing into corners and up sides of pan allow excess to overhang pan edges.  Cut 14-inch length foil and fit into width of baking pan in same manner, perpendicular to first sheet.  Spray foil-lined pan with cooking spray.
2.  In bowl of stand mixer fitter with paddle attachment, mix flour granulated sugar, and salt at low speed until combined, about 5 seconds.  With machine on low, add 16 Tablespoons butter 1 piece at a time, then continue mixing on low until mixture resembles damp sand, 1 to 1 1/2 minutes.  (If using, food processor, process flour, granulated sugar, and salt until combined, about 5 seconds.  Scatter 16 tablespoon butter pieces over flour mixture and pulse until mixture resembles damp sand, about twenty 1-second pulses.
3. Measure 1 1/4 cups flour mixture medium bowl and set aside; distribute remaining flour mixture evenly in bottom of prepared baking pan.   Following illustration 1 above, use hands or flat-bottomed measuring cup to firmly press mixture into even layer to form bottom crust.  Bake until edges begin to brown, 14 to 18 minutes
4.  While crust is baking, add brown sugar oats, and pecans to reserved flour mixture; toss to combine.  Work in remaining 2 tablespoons butter by rubbing mixture between fingers until butter is fully incorporated.  Pinch mixture with fingers to create hazelnut-size clumps; set streusel aside.
5. Combine preserves, raspberries and lemon juice in small bowl; mash with fork until combined but some berry pieces remain.
6. Following illustrations 2 and 3, spread filling evenly over hot crust; sprinkle streusel topping evenly over filling (do not press streusel into filling). Return pan to oven and bake until topping is deep golden brown and filling is bubbling, 22 to 25 minutes.  Cool to room temperature on wire rack, 1 to 2 minutes; remove from baking pan by lifting foil extensions. Using chef's knife cut into squares and serve.















Red Wine Sangria with Agave Nectar

When trying to decide what to bring to a beach party a couple days ago, Sangria immediately came to the forefront of my brain. What is it about this beverage that A) never gets old B) screams SUMMER and is C) something that everyone likes.  If Sangria is on the menu at a resturant I always get it. I've only ever made it once, so I figured I'd give it a try again.

The Best Red Wine Sangria recipe seems to pop up everywhere when I started looking online. One that seeemed to repeat again and again was Cook's Illustrated's recipe.  I love and wholeheartedly trust Cook's Illustrated and stopped looking when I came upon their recipe.   The recipe was simple, but I decided to change it just a little.  One, I wanted to make a little healthier by cutting out the sugar and try making it with agave nectar.  I've been wanting to try agave nectar for awhile so I figured this would why not.  I also wanted to add more fruit then what the recipe called for. the recipe calls for citrus only (a trio of orange, limes, and lemons). Taking a trip to the grocery store I found strawberries and watermelon on sale so I decided on those.  I also grabbed a Granny Smith apple. I figured the tart colorful fruit would make a nice addition. Also most recipes called for brandy, so I figured what the heck. Let's throw a little of that in, too. Ok, so maybe I deviated quite a bit from the original recipe, but it all ended up tasting delicious. 

What I love about Sangria is that it can turn an very inexpensive bottle of wine (as cheap as $6 for one of large 750 mL bottles) into something extraordinary.  Reading what Cook's Illustrated had to say, they agreed that people who tried their recipe (who gets to do this for them and how do I get this job?) actually preferred the cheap over the expensive wine. Woo hoo!

The recipe calls for letting it sit overnight in the refrigerator for a proper marriage of fruit and wine. I personally had only 4 hours.  Oh well- I plunged on anyway.  Making it was extremely easy (why don't I do this more often?). I poured the wine in a large container and then added the citrus.  I cut up each orange, lime, and lemon in half.  I squeezed the juice from half of each into the wine, and cut up the other half into wedges and added those to the wine.  I decided the half that I squeezed into the wine, I would just add as well and remove later. I added the rest of the fruit, triple sec, and brandy to the mix.  Then it came for the agave nectar. On the bottle it reads 1.4 times as sweeter.  Recipes I looked at online called for 2/3 cup, which seemed excessive to me.  I started with 3 Tbs. and worked my way up from there.  I eventually settled on 6 Tbs. and then (yes I admit it) added a little sugar. 2-3 Tbs. to be exact. 

The last thing it called for was some sort of carbonated or sparkling beverage.  Ginger ale, club soda, sparkling water. I opted for a cheap flavored bottle of seltzer water.  Cranberry-lime to be exact.  I really think your choice here is your preference.  Sangria just want some bubbles.

In the end, the 4 hour marriage of my sangria still resulted in a happy one.  So go make some sangria and get summer started.

Sangria Recipe with Agave Nectar
(Adapted from Cook's Illustrated)

1 750- mL bottle of red wine (the cheaper the better)

1/4 cup triple sec

1/2 cup brandy

1 orange (1/2 juiced, 1/2 cut into wedges)

1 lime (1/2 juiced, 1/2 cut into wedges)

1 lemon (1/2 juiced, 1/2 cut into wedges)

1 cup strawberries,  cut into quarters

1 cup watermelon, cubed

1 Granny Smith Apple,  sliced

6 Tbs. Agave Nectar (adjust to your liking- I started with 3 Tbs)

2-3 Tbs. of Granulated Sugar (optional- again taste as you go with this)

2 cups of sparkling water, giner ale,  or club soda (I used a Cranberry Lime seltezer water)

1. Combine all but the sparkling water into large pitcher and refrigerate.  Add the sparkling water just before serving with ice. Stir, enjoy. Relax.