Pumpkin pie squares

I’ve been experimenting with baking squares as of late.

I decided to start experimenting with squares when I wanted to make a pecan pie, but didn’t really want to deal with making a pie crust.

Pie crust: just because I can, doesn’t mean I want to.

So I made pecan pie squares. I used the pecan pie recipe from The PPK and this shortbread recipe. I pressed the shortbread dough into the bottom of a large rectangular glass baking pan, poured the pecan filling on top, and baked. I followed the pie recipe’s baking temperature and time.

Total win.

Pictures didn’t happen, but I intend to make pecan pie squares again. And perhaps I will take some pictures.

I also made a batch of squares with walnuts instead of pecans.

Back to pumpkin.

I thought it would be fun to try pumpkin pie squares.

I was right.

Pumpkin pie squares were fun to make. And delicious.

Instead of the pumpkin pie recipe that I usually use – modified from a recipe in my old batter splatter cookbook – I decided to try a pumpkin pie recipe from The PPK. The PPK recipe seemed roughly equivalent in volumes and spice use and so on, so I figured it would be good. It also used up a whole can of pumpkin puree without any leftovers, so that was a bonus.

I modified the shortbread recipe slightly due to not having a lot of margarine on hand. I used half margarine and half shortening. The shortbread turned out extra-crispy compared to previous bakes of the same recipe. So, I’ll probably consider using half shortening again – at least for shortbread that I’m using as a base for squares of some sort.

I lined the baking tray with parchment – like I did for this recipe, pressed the shortbread dough in, and spread the pumpkin pie batter on top.

I baked according to the temperature on the pie recipe and checked on the pie for that slightly jiggly, slightly set, just right, pumpkin pie doneness.

The pie took slightly less time to bake and to cool as the pumpkin was spread thinner than it would be in a pie.

Here are some looks at the final product:

Whipped coconut topping was a delicious addition, but not an addition necessary for enjoyment.

Squares are a fun alternative to pie for using pie-style fillings.

More square experimentation may very well happen.

For pumpkin baking content from previous The Baking posts, check out:

–Pumpkin pie decorated to look like an owl

–Pumpkin pie and pecans

–Pumpkin cheesecake with Oreo crust

Bon appetit.

This stuff is bananas

It’s been longer while since posting than I thought it had been.

I’ve been baking still, of course.

And that’s that.

Back to the baking.

I saw a package of very ripe bananas in the reduced produce section at a supermarket the other day.

I bought the bananas.

Ripe bananas are ideal for banana bread.

I usually store ripe bananas in the freezer until I’m ready to use them.

But there wasn’t any room in the freezer.

No problem: I had an idea.

Banana salted vanilla caramel rolls.

Here they are before getting the caramel topping:

And again:

And after getting the caramel topping:

And again:

Again, that’s banana salted vanilla caramel rolls.

The main ingredient of note is banana.

The bread dough itself had a banana in it. The filling had a banana in it. And I made a salted banana-vanilla caramel – with two bananas in it – as a topping.

For the dough, I used this basic recipe for bread machine sweet dough. That’s right, I used a bread machine dough cycle to make the dough. I added the aforementioned banana and a small amount of instant coffee. I also added about a cup or so of extra flour – I eyeballed it – to account for the extra liquid from the banana. I also used a few tablespoons of aquafaba instead of the cornstarch-water-baking powder combination in the linked post.

I’ll have to consider a post about aquafaba at some point…fascinating stuff.

Anyway.

The filling was a mashed up banana, about half a cup of brown sugar, a packet of vanilla sugar, and some salt.

The caramel, which I added after baking and cooling, was kind of a random idea based on previous experience making a caramel-like filling for pecan pie.

For the caramel, I mashed two bananas into a smooth paste in a cooking pot, then added some sugar, salt, and vanilla sugar. I put the heat on low and cooked and stirred and cooked and stirred some more until the caramel was the right consistency. The right consistency was a when-you-know-it-you-know-it decision.

I let both the rolls themselves and the caramel cool overnight.

This is what the caramel looked like just before being spread on the rolls:

I just realized that there is batter splatter on my The Baking board in the photo. Said splatter has since been cleaned.

The banana caramel was the most experimental part of this recipe and also the part I’m most pleased with. Definitely a win.

Anyway, here’s the finished product one more time:

This recipe was the product of some imagination and a total of four bananas and it was absolutely delicious.

Absolutely bananas.

And for more banana bread content, check out some previous bakes:

Banana bread cake cones.

Experiments in banana bread.

Chocolate-chocolate chip bananana muffins.

Banana-blueberry muffins.

Bon appetit.

Colourful cookies

Colourful cookies are colourful.

Or, at least these particular cookies are rather colourful:

Or colorful, if colourful isn’t your chosen spelling.

Anyway.

These cookies were made with a delicious coffee-vanilla base dough.

The dough was, as per quite usual, a take on my basic cookie formula.

I added regular chocolate chips and candy-coated chocolate chips.

I like the pop of colour – and crunch – from the candy-coated chips.

It’s easy to do something just a LITTLE bit different to make cookies even more fun.

 

 

 

 

No need to knead

A bread post.

Bread posts don’t happen very often. But bread itself DOES happen from time to time.

Most often, my bread method involves the dough cycle on a bread machine followed by some time in the oven.

Like here. And here. And here. And here. And here. And so on and so forth.

I first read of no-knead bread while exploring the internets; my mind was somewhat blown.

Without kneading, you can bake a loaf of bread that looks like this:

The bread was soft and airy inside and crisp and golden on the outside.

Just right.

The catch?

There are two.

One: the bread takes time. And two: you’ll need a Dutch oven or other large, oven-safe dish with a heavy, oven-safe lid.

The time thing is of much importance. You have to leave the dough to do its thing in the bowl for 12 to 18 hours. Yes. Twelve to 18 hours.

Before starting the dough, pull out the crystal ball – or just look at your clock or calendar – and figure out whether you’ll be able to deal with baking the bread 12 to 18 hours in the future. Will you be home? Will you even want bread at that point? And so on.

To make a loaf of no-knead bread of your very own, you’ll need:

-the aforementioned Dutch oven or other appropriate dish. I used a four-quart round Dutch oven. The dough probably wouldn’t fit in a smaller Dutch oven.

-a large bowl with an air-tight lid OR a large bowl and  plastic wrap of some sort

-3 1/2 cups all-purpose flower – I used unbleached

-1 3/4 tsp salt

-1 1/2 cups water, room temperature-ish

-1/2 teaspoon yeast – I used bread machine yeast. Bread machine yeast was what I had around. It worked. You could probably use regular yeast.

You will also need extra flour for handling and shaping the dough and a small amount of flour or cornmeal to line the bottom of the Dutch oven before putting the dough in it to bake.

To make the dough for the bread, stir the flour, water, salt, and yeast together in a bowl until they are well-mixed and the resulting dough is somewhat sticky.

That’s it. No more stirring. No-kneading.

Cover the bowl tightly – the goal is zero air getting in or out – and leave it. Leave it alone. At room temperature. For 12 to 18 hours.

After those possibly agonizing 12 to 18 hours, the dough should look rather bubbly with lots of tiny little bubbles.

Before uncovering and handling the dough, start by preheating the oven to 450 degrees with the Dutch oven in the oven. The Dutch oven needs to warm up to the oven temperature.

When the oven is preheated and ready to go, use floured hands and a floured work surface, shape the dough into a ball.

You don’t have to knead the dough: you just have to gather it up and shape it into a ball.

This is no-knead bread.

Remove the Dutch oven from the oven – protect your hands and surfaces from heat and all that – and sprinkle the inside bottom with flour or cornmeal.

Put the dough ball in the Dutch oven, put the lid on the Dutch oven, and put the Dutch oven back into the oven. You can score the top of the dough ball with a knife before baking it if you want to go for that look.

Bake, with the lid on, for 30 minutes.

After 30 minutes, remove the lid from the Dutch oven and bake for another 15 minutes, until the top of the loaf looks crispy and golden-brown.

Remove the pan from the oven, let cool, and BREAD.

Some writings on no-knead bread that I have seen advise letting the dough rise again after shaping it. I didn’t do that. The ball of dough was already rather large and the Dutch oven I was using isn’t so large. That’s my take. I’m far from a bread expert. But this bread turned out. And I’ve made several loaves since, using the same procedure.

Further internets reading indicates that this method would also work with sourdough. This is of interest.

Anyway,  to review, from an ever-so-slightly different angle than the first picture, this is a loaf of no-knead bread:

The bread was delicious.

No kneading.

Just stirring.

And waiting.

And shaping.

And baking.

 

 

 

[I] Heart cheesecake

Cheesecake.

It happened again:

This time, it was a heart-shape vanilla base cheesecake with chocolate swirl.

I used the recipe from this post.

I used graham crumbs – which you can find at most grocery or bulk food stores – for the crust.

The heart shape was thanks to a lovely, heart-shape, springform pan that I somewhat recently acquired.

Check out the cake as it was cooling in the pan:

And again:

And one more angle on the cake, post-pan:

So pretty.

So tasty.

Additional The Baking cheesecake content here.

 

Four times the cake

There were five birthdays, all around the same time.

A cake was in order.

Two limitations.

One: I only have two cake pans and didn’t want to make three batches of cake to make five layers.

Two: A five layer cake – with five standard-ish layers of half a batch of cake batter each – would have been too tall fit in my cake carrier.

A four-layer cake it was.

Here’s what the final product looked like, covered in chocolate icing:

Icing recipe and icing tips here and here.

Instead of just the usual chocolate cake – which seems to go over well with most people – I decided to alternate layers of chocolate cake with layers of vanilla cake.

The vanilla layers also had a pop of colour as a fun surprise.

For vanilla cake, follow all of the pan prep, pre-heating, and order-of-ingredients instructions on the cake post linked here and above. And, for ingredients:

-2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

-1 cup sugar

-1/2 cup oil, I used canola oil

-1 1/2 cups water – you can use another liquid, like coffee, but be careful about flavour and viscosity and, you know, common sense and obvious stuff

-1 teaspoon salt

-2 tablespoons cornstarch or arrowroot powder

-3 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

I used purple food pigment gel to dye the vanilla layers purple.

A note about water: Gradually add additional water or another liquid to the batter before baking if it is too thick. I find that the ideal cake consistency is somewhat like that of a thick syrup. Think chocolate. Or maple. For this cake, I started with 1 1/2 cups water and added a little additional water, about 1/4 – 1/2 of a cup – after the ingredients had been mixed and blended.

Mix all ingredients together in a large bowl and blend with a mixer, hand or electric, for about two minutes. Remember to stop and scrape the sides of the bowl.

Pour into greased and floured cake pans and bake at 350 degrees for about 30 to 35 minutes – or until a toothpick stuck into the centre of the cake comes out clean.

Remember that, once baked, cake needs to fully cool before being removed from cake pans. If, like I do, you have a limited number of cake pans, you need to let each batch of cake you bake cool fully before removing it from the pans and baking a new batch.

Here’s the fully-cooled and ready-to-ice cake, sitting on my cake carrier base to make sure it wasn’t too tall to fit:

And a close-up of the texture of both the vanilla and chocolate layers:

These pieces came from the trimmings I made on the top of some of the layers to flatten them and make them fit more closely together.

And another close-up of the final product:

This cake did get a bit of additional icing decoration – but that happened on-location, not in my kitchen – and a picture didn’t happen.

The cake was thoroughly nom’d.

Cheers.

 

Matcha

I still think about these cookies with matcha and vanilla.

Because, well, look at them:

The cookies were crisp on the outside, soft on the inside, and full of flavour.

The matcha and the vanilla flavours worked together harmoniously.

And the matcha gave the cookies a green-ish colour that I thought was cool.

Matcha?

Matcha is finely-ground green tea. It’s sold in loose powder form. Further explanation here.

I bought the matcha I used at a bulk food store. I pretty much bought it on a cookie experiment whim.

To the basic cookie formula, I added about a tablespoon of vanilla sugar, a tablespoon of liquid vanilla extract, and two tablespoons or so of matcha powder.

I wanted strong flavour. You can adjust to your taste.

I baked some of the matcha and vanilla cookie dough in a silicone heart-shape muffin pan.

To make cookies in the muffin pan, I pressed about half an inch of dough into each [muffin receptacle?] part of the pan. And I checked on the cookies a few times while they were baking.

I baked some of the dough in a glass baking pan to make cookie bars.

A note about cookie bars is to remember to slice the cookie bars – I usually use a butter knife – shortly after removing them from the oven, while they’re still warm and not completely set.

So, matcha worked in these cookies. Experiment successful.

That said, I’m curious to try the matcha along with a stronger flavour such as chocolate. Maybe in a cake. Or in the icing on a chocolate cake. Interesting.

SOON?

Bon appetit.

 

 

Rose water

Check out these cookies:

These cookies were beautiful. And pecan-ey. And delicious. And not too far off from my usual basic cookie formula.

The difference with these cookies: ROSE WATER.

Yes. Rose water.

Like this:

Rose water was the not-so-secret ingredient in these vanilla-pecan-rose water cookies.

I added about a teaspoon and a half of rose water to the cookie dough at the liquid ingredients stage.

The dough had a vanilla flavour base. I used about a tablespoon each of vanilla sugar and a liquid vanilla extract.

I used about a cup of chopped pecans.

I slightly under-baked these cookies so that they had a crisp outside and a softer inside.

The exact baking time to achieve your own definition of under-baked, or baked, depends on your oven. And you. Watch or check on the cookies.

If you’re not familiar with rose water, a certain internet encyclopedia-ish site has more here.

It could be argued that rose water may be an acquired taste. Or, perhaps an unusual flavour in most of North America that many people may not have heard of or tried.

I like rose water.

Other people who actually tried these cookies liked the rose water flavour.

Other people who I merely TOLD about having made rose water cookies seemed massively unimpressed and nope’d out of the idea of even trying the cookies.

Meh. Free shrugs.

Actually, the acquired taste mention reminds me somewhat of the lavender cookies I made.

Rose water can be found at many grocery stores and speciality shops. Or online. I bought mine at a neighbourhood discount grocery store.

I intend to further experiment with rose water as a baking ingredient.

I think it could work particularly well as an ingredient in cake icing or a tart filling.

Anyway.

Rose water cookies: it happened.

Lemons make lemon bars and lemon plants

I decided one day that I wanted to make lemon bars.

Meyer lemon bars, specifically.

I had been reading some random content online about Meyer lemons. According to what I read, Meyer lemons supposedly were THE lemon to use for wonderful lemon flavour. I decided to make lemon bars. And to use Meyer lemons

Meyer lemons were relatively easy to acquire. But I did have to look a little farther afield than the nearest of nearby grocery or produce stores.

Before getting to the recipe and how-to, this is what a slice of the finished lemon bars looked like:

I used this recipe, with a few modifications.

To get started, preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

For the crust/bottom:

-1/2 cup margarine. I used Earth Balance

-1/2 cup sugar

-2 teaspoons lemon zest/rind. The recipe called for one teaspoon lemon zest. But I used two. Because. You can grate your lemon zest with a lemon zester tool. Or with the fine grind part of a cheese grater. I used the fine grind part of my grater.

-1 cup flour. I used all-purpose unbleached flour.

Mix the margarine, sugar, and lemon zest together until smooth. The recipe I used suggested using a stand mixer with paddle attachment. I used my old-school egg beater. Add the flour and mix until blended. Press the mixture into a parchment-lined square pan – 8×8 or so – and bake for about 20 minutes until golden. The basic idea is to make a cookie to pour the lemon filling on top of.  Remove the pan from the oven and set aside to cool.

For the filling/top, the recipe I used suggested using a food processor. I used an immersion blender and a large glass measuring cup with a spout. A blender would work too.

To make the filling, you’ll need:

-1 12-ounce/~340g package extra-firm tofu. You’re likely going to have to do a bit of tofu math and tofu estimation for this recipe. A lot of tofu that I see in stores comes in 350-ish-gram packages. Or larger. Or smaller. I happened to have slightly-larger-than 350g package of firm tofu, so I did a bit of dividing and cutting. And eyeballing.

-approximately 1/2 cup of fresh Meyer lemon juice. The source recipe estimated about 5-6 lemons to get to half a cup of fresh juice. I got half a cup from about 3 lemons with a small lemon squeezer.

-1 teaspoon lemon zest. Again, I used two. Because. Adjust to your taste.

-1 cup sugar

-1/4 cup icing sugar

-2 tablespoons cornstarch

-1 teaspoon vanilla extract. I used a little bit more, probably half a teaspoon or so.

Blend together all liquid ingredients until smooth and creamy. Remember to pause to scrape the sides of whatever equipment you’re using to blend.

Add the flour, icing sugar, and cornstarch and blend again until combined.

Pour the filling mixture into the pan with the cooled crust and bake for 25 to 30 minutes until the filling is set.

Remove from the oven and let cool at room temperature for about half an hour or so.

Here’s the tray cooling:

Transfer to the tray to the fridge to cool completely.  I left the tray in the fridge overnight. The bars might take less time to completely cool. I would suggest not attempting to cut or eat the bars before they’re completely cooled. Because mess.

When it’s eat-those-lemon-bars-o’clock, slice and serve.

The recipe I used suggested sprinkling the bars with icing sugar or decorating with candied lemon before serving. I didn’t do that.

And [another] lemon bar close-up:

The lemon bars were FANTASTIC.

They were much-enjoyed by others as well.

I even made a second batch.

The second batch was also fantastic.

My verdict on Meyer lemons as some kind of super lemon: meh.

The Meyer lemons were fine. Perfectly adequate and full of the lemon flavour one would expect from lemons. The flavour was especially good in the lemon bars because, well, LEMON BARS.

Of course, it’s possible that the Meyer lemons I picked up were some rare bag of meh Meyer lemons. Or, lemons are lemons in many cases. Though that’s just my opinion. A lemon expert I am not.

A note on lemon juice. You could use any fresh-squeezed lemon juice in this recipe. It doesn’t have to be Meyer lemons. You could also use bottled lemon juice.

Now that I’m writing this, I’m wondering whether orange or lime bars could be a thing. Hmm.

As a bonus experiment, I decided to try to germinate the seeds from the Meyer lemons I used for the lemon bars. I used the moist paper towel and locking plastic bag procedure widely look-up-able on the internets. I now have some very small Meyer lemon plants growing in pots. I don’t expect actual lemons anytime soon. Or ever. But the plants are cool anyway.

Bon appetit.

 

Marshmallows, chocolate, cookies

This is a round-up sorts.

A round-up of cookies.

The very first post on The Baking was a post about cookies.

Cookies are fun to make. And it’s easy to experiment with ingredients.

Generally, cookie success can likely be yours if you consider the chemistry of the cookie ingredients that you’re using and if you keep an eye on the cookies while they’re in the oven.

The basic cookie formula I use can be found here.

Now, on to some cookies.

These cookies are chocolate chip-pecan cookies, with MARSHMALLOW baked inside:

That’s right, MARSHMALLOW. Here’s an ever-so-slightly closer look:

I was somewhat inspired, of course, by my own previous experiments with cookies inside cookies.

The marshmallow-containing fantastic-ness pictured above was, frankly, a random idea I came up with ahead of a party. I went and bought the marshmallows specifically for this project.

The reviews were positive.

The prep was easy: basic cookie formula, plus chocolate chips, plus pecans, rolled and shaped around individual marshmallows.

Having made marshmallow cookies a few times since, I would advise lining your baking tray with foil, baking paper, or silicone baking mat. The marshmallows can – and do – bubble out of the cookies. And sugar is sticky.

Next up, cookies with chocolate chips and cocoa nibs:

The cocoa nibs were a curiosity purchase at a bulk store. I’d never baked with cocoa nibs before. I wanted to try them out.

Again, basic cookie formula plus other ingredients.

I tried something new. And it worked. The cocoa nibs were a nice, crunchy, contrast to the chocolate chips.

I made the cookies thin and crispy on the outside – because that’s the way I like them.

A slightly closer look at the cocoa nib and chocolate chip cookies:

The next several photos are from a cookie baking session I had ahead of a holiday.

Three different batches of cookie dough – all, of course, based on my basic cookie formula – were involved.

First up, vanilla-chocolate chip cookies with sea salt:

For these cookies, I made a vanilla and chocolate chip dough and rolled balls of dough in a plate of sea salt before baking.

I liked the cookies. Fellow salted cookie fans liked the cookies. Cookie win.

Underneath the salted chocolate chip cookies, on my fabulous triple-decker cooling rack, is a batch of chocolate chip and pretzel cookies:

Basic cookie formula, plus chocolate chips, plus pretzels.

I’m a fan of sweet and salt and crunch together. I liked these cookies. So did others.

A small step back for a wider shot of cookie admiration:

And, in somewhat of a giveaway of when these cookies happened, chocolate chip cookies with pretzels and crushed candy cane:

The pretzel-candy-chocolate chip cookies are slightly darker than the cookies cooling beside them thanks to about a teaspoon of dark cocoa powder that I added to the dough.

I bought the candy canes whole and crushed them in a bag.  But I have seen pre-crushed candy cane in stores. Candy canes could be replaced with many other candies if you want to experiment. Though I would suggest thinking about the texture and consistency of the candy that you want to use. A lot of candies would probably melt and make a mess at oven temperatures.

Here are all three types of cookies together, cooling:

Cookie experiments: good times.