Devil’s food cake - Scientifically Sweet

I always look for recipes online to try something new. 

I don’t have any particular chefs that I follow, and I always randomly find something yummy to cook.

One day I found this website, called “Scientifically Sweet by Christina Marsigliese,” which caught my attention.  After the website loaded, first thing that caught my eyes were chemical structures drawn behind the title.

I am a chemist; I deal with chemical structures every day.  I got curious who the owner (or the chef) of this website is.

The chef, Christina, is a food scientist, and she includes scientific background in food as well as delicious recipes.

The other day, Matto’s best friend, JoJo, posted news about Christina’s first book, Scientifically Sweets, on her Facebook page.

Why did she post the news of Christina’s book?

Because Christina is a JoJo’s sister-in-law!

I was really surprised when I found out that the owner of the website, that I randomly found, was related to our friend.

Seriously, how small of a world is this?

Her cooking book can be purchased at either Amazon or her eStore.

Last week, Matto got me the Scientifically Sweet, and it was delivered to us today.

I just started reading the book.

This book is very unique.

What kind of chef talks about background of cookies using 2 pages?

What kind of chef talks about background of brownies using 4 pages?

What kind of chef talks about acid-base reaction or Maillard reaction of food in their recipe books?

This book contains lots of yummy baking recipes with pictures.

She also talks a lot of the food science behind the ingredients throughout the book, which is very interesting and fascinating.

To honor her book, I decided to use one of her recipes as a dessert for a dinner with our friends. The recipe is called Devil’s food cake.

I should have used her original recipe, but sorry, I made a few modifications.

I cut 1/3 of sugar in sponge cake, and used the cream that was used in filling as icing as well, instead of ganache.

I’m sure it would have been delicious if I followed the original recipe, but my husband is on diet right now and I have to cut as many calories from wherever possible (no baking isn’t an option by the way).

Overall, it was still delicious!

Over time, it gets harder to cut when the cake sits at room temperature due to a large amount of whipping cream content, so keep it refrigerated when it is not in use.

Devil's Food Cake

For the cake:

1 ¾ cups all-purpose flour

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

½ tsp salt

2/3 cup Dutch-processed cocoa powder

¾ cup boiling water

½ cup full fat sour cream

2/3 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature

1 cups granulated sugar

1 tsp pure vanilla extract

3 large eggs

For the filling and icing:

6 tbsp cocoa powder

6 tbsp sugar

3 cup 35% whipping cream

1 pint fresh raspberries, rinsed and dried

Details of this recipe can be found at this site.

Palline di Limone

My colleague brought a bag of lemons from his parents’ backyard and shared some with us.

I don’t use lemons often in my food. When I have lemons in my refrigerator, I don’t know what to do with it.

Therefore, I looked for a dessert recipe using lemons, and I found this Palline di Limone (http://www.abbeycatchat.com/2011/04/palline-di-limone.htmlMy) recipe, a traditional Italian cookie.

If you don’t like a dessert that is too sweet, you will probably like it.  Next time, I would add 1 – 1 ¼ C of sugar instead of ¾ C. I prefer cookies to be sweeter.

Surprisingly, after 2-3 days, the cookies got sweeter and they didn’t get soggy like regular cookies do.

The amount of ingredients below would probably make 30-40 cookies which is good because these cookies still taste good after a few days, too.

Ingredients:

4 cups flour

1¼ tbsp baking powder

½ tsp salt

1 stick unsalted butter, softened

¾ cup sugar

3 eggs, at room temperature

1½ tbsp lemon extract

1½ tsp almond extract

3 tsp lemon zest, grated

1/3 cup milk

For Icing:

1½ cups powdered sugar

4 tbsp fresh lemon juice

1.              Preheat oven to 350 degrees

2.              In a small bowl combine flour, baking powder, and salt and set aside

3.              Beat butter and sugar until fluffy

4.              Beat in eggs one at a time, and then add lemon extract, almond extract, and lemon zest

5.              Stir in half of flour mixture and then add milk.  Add remaining flour mixture and stir until blended

6.              Make a 1 inch ball and place them about 2 inches apart (I used a dessert decorator)

7.              Bake for 15-18 minutes until puffed but not brown. Allow to cool fully on wire rack

8.              Combine confectioners sugar and lemon juice.  Stir in water drop by drop until desired consistency

Pineapple Upside Down Cake

I didn’t know why pineapple upside down cake was called “upside down cake” until I actually made the cake. Whenever I ate the cake, the pineapple was always on the top just like other fruitcakes. I always wondered, “Why is it called upside down cake?”

One day Matto requested that I make a pineapple upside down cake, so I found this recipe below.

http://sitdownandeat.typepad.com/sit_down_and_eat/2008/06/classic-pineapp.html

Now it all makes sense why it is called upside down cake!

Overall this cake was moist and tasty, but I made one modification by mistake.

Usually, when I bake a round cake, I use a detachable baking pan instead of a regular cake pan because it is easier to get the cake out of the pan. This time I baked the pineapple upside down cake in the detachable baking pan as usual.

I first made the pineapple layer with a stick of butter and brown sugar and placed the mixture in the pan. While I was making the second layer, I realized that butter was leaking from the bottom of the pan!

There was a tiny gap between the two parts of the baking pan, and the liquid butter was leaking from there.

It was too late to transfer to a regular pan, so I decided to keep baking. While baking, the butter from the first layer kept leaking. Overall, I probably lost a half stick of butter. Well, I guess the cake was healthier than the original recipe since the cake contains 1 ¼ C of butter instead of 1 ¾ C.

Ingredients:

For Topping

1 can of pineapple slices in their own juice, drained but reserve the juice for the batter

1 stick of butter

1 cup of brown sugar

For Batter

1&1/2 cups of all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons of baking powder

1/2 teaspoon of salt

3/4 stick of butter

1 cup of white sugar

2 eggs

1 teaspoon of vanilla extract

1 tablespoon of rum (optional, I didn't use it)

1/2 cup of reserved pineapple juice

Recipe:

1. Preheat an oven to 350 degree

2. Melt a stick of butter in a sauce pan

3. Next add brown sugar and simmer for about a minute or two until it is bubbly and syrupy, stirring often

4. Then pour into the greased cake pan 

5. Stick one slice of pineapple in the middle, and then circle it with the rest of the slices.  Set aside while you make batter

6. Mix four, baking powder and salt in small bowl on the side. 

7. Beat butter in mixer until smooth, add sugar and beat until fluffy - 2-3 minutes on high

8. Add eggs one at a time, mixing well after each.  Add vanilla and rum, mix to combine

9. Add half of the dry mixture, then mix until just combined

10. Add pineapple juice and mix again until blended

11. Add remaining flour mixture and mix, again until just combined

12. Pour batter over pineapple mixture and spread lightly over pineapple

13. Bake 45 minutes

14. Remove from over and run a knife around edge.  Let sit for 10 minutes and then flip onto platter

Hello Kitty Cake

I made a Hello Kitty birthday cake for my colleague who is obsessed with Hello Kitty.

I found the following website in which you can download a Hello Kitty cake template for a 13 x 9 inch baking pan.

http://www.dltk-kids.com/crafts/cartoons/hellokitty/cake.htm

Originally, I wanted to make a Hello Kitty shaped cake, but I failed to make the sponge cake.  It broke when I tried to remove it from the pan.

In the end, I hid the broken sponge cake with icing and drew a Hello Kitty instead.

It is still very cute ;)

I used a cake mix box, so I am not going to talk about the recipe today.

I also used heavy cream as icing.

In the U.S., many people like to use butter cream or cream cheese icing.  Those icings are thick and easy to decorate with,  however, the cakes tend to be rich and fatty.

If you substitute the icing with heavy cream (or whipping cream), it tastes lighter and moist J

I like cake with heavy cream icing much better!!!

Buche de Noel

As I promised, our first Christmas cake is here :)

I chose a Buche de Noel (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bûche_de_Noël) as our first family Christmas cake.  The cake was inspired by one of my friends who made a similar cake last year. Buche de Noel is a famous Christmas cake in Japan.

When I decide to bake a particular item, I normally start looking for a recipe from CookPad (cookpad.com), the most famous Japanese cooking recipe website.

Japanese desserts typically have less sugar and are not as sweet as American desserts. Most importantly, they have fewer calories than American desserts :)

The Buche de Noel recipe starts with making a sponge cake.

I used this recipe from CookPad (http://cookpad.com/recipe/214995)

Ingredient

6 Large eggs

90 g Sugar

60 g All purpose flour

Whipped cream (I used heavy cream)

Strawberries

Recipe

1. Preheat the oven to 356 degree F (180 degree C)
2. Separate egg yolks and whites into two different bowls
3. Add half of sugar into yolk bowl and mix them until the mixture turns light yellow color.
4. Add flour and mix them until the mixture get smooth
5. Next, whisk egg whites and make meringue.  When egg whites get stiff then add the rest of the sugar and mix well.
6. Add the 1/3 of egg whites into the egg yolk mixture and mix with a spatula
7. Add rest of egg whites into the mixture and mix more.
8. Cover a 30” x 42” baking sheet with parchment paper
9. Put the mixture into the oven and bake for 10-12 minutes.  Cook it until the surface turns golden blown.
10. Remove the sponge cake from the oven and let it cool
11. When the sponge cake is cooled, spread a thin layer of whipped cream on baked side. The side with cooking sheet on will go outside.  Make sure not to put whipped cream at 1 last inch
12. And then place sliced fruits on the whipped cream

13. Start rolling the cake from the cream side (In the picture, I started rolling the cake from the bottom side)

14. Cut the rolled cake into desired size and put icing (I used whipped cream dyed with food colors to make it look like a log)
15. Sprinkle cocoa powder to cover the cake
16. Next prepare strawberry Santas (http://cookpad.com/recipe/305701) I draw eyes with a black gel pen, but you can also use a chocolate chips, black sesame seeds, or puppy seeds.
17. Decorate the Buche de Noel with the strawberry Santas

The most difficult part of making this cake was that I couldn’t put cocoa powder on sides of the cake evenly.

If you look at my cake carefully, there is a lot of powder on the top of the cake but not as much on the sides.

It might have been easier if I used chocolate icing instead………

Overall, I loved how it turned out and Matto loved it, too :)

It is tasty!!!

Wish you all a Merry Christmas and eat a LOT ;) 

A dessert that Matto doesn't eat (a rare event!!!)

Matto and I went to an Asian Market in Kenner on Sunday.
The purpose to go there was just to buy soy sauce, but I have never bought just one thing whenever I go there ;-)
So................. I bought a bunch of goodies :D

I was looking around the store and I found a bag of Azuki beans (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azuki_bean)!
In Japan, we eat a lot of Azuki bean desserts.

I suddenly started craving Zenzai----------------------------------------------!
Zenzai is a sweet soup made with Azuki beans (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_bean_soup) served with a couple of Mochi (rice cakes).  Zenzai, also known as Oshiruko, is one of the traditional winter desserts that many Japanese people like :)

The main disadvantage as a Japanese person living in the U.S. is that I can't easily get some of the delicious food that I am used to eating in Japan :'(


Luckly, I love cooking and totally don't mind trying to make things that I love to eat :)
If I can't buy it? I''ll just make it!!!!

The Azuki beans that I found at the store were only $1.50.  So I said, "Why not?"
I also bought Mochiko (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rice_flour) to make my own Mochi.  I could have bought a bag of Mochi, but I was too cheap ($1.70 Mochiko vs $5.50 a bag of 10 Mochi......mmmmm, Mochiko won!).

So....last night I started to cook my first batch of Zenzai!


Oshiruko (Zenzai)
http://cookpad.com/recipe/486313

Ingredients

Azuki beans 200 g
Sugar 135 g
Salt 1/8 tea spoon
Water

Mochiko 1/3 cup
Water

Recipe

1. First, put Azuki beans in a medium size sauce pan and add 4 cups of water
2. Bring the water to a boil and then drain the Azuki beans (water turns light brown)
3. Next, put the Azuki beans back into the pan and repeat steps 1&2 for two more times
4. Then put the Azuki beans back into the pan again and add water until covering the beans
5. Boil the beans and water at low heat and keep adding water when the water boils off

6. Next, boil the beans until they get soft (about 2-2.5 hours)
7. Add sugar to the beans and cook until the sugar dissolves (Don't stir!)
8. After that add salt and cook for an additional 3-5 minutes
9. Remove from the heat and place the soup in a fridge overnight
(Next day)
10. Take the soup from the fridge and reheat over low heat
11. While heating the soup, prepare Mochi from the Mochiko. To do this, in a separate bowl, add Mochiko powder to a small amount of water
12. Keep adding small amounts of water until the Mochiko mixture gets to the hardness of an earlobe (Matto found this part really weird, but the point is to bring the mixture to a consistency of the squishiness of your earlobes.)
13. Next in a separate pan, bring water to a boil. Drop a table spoon of the Mochiko mixture into the boiling water and scoop it out when it floats.

13. Finally, serve the soup and Mochi in a small bowl



To be honest.............I should have bought a bag of Mochi instead of Mochiko :(
It was good.......definitely the soup was delicious!
But the Mochi made from Mochiko was.......not so good :(

Sometime, being cheap isn't a good idea.......



Mmmmmmm, I miss home (well, I miss Mochi obviously!)