Tag: buttermilk

Happy Accident

Sadie2 Comments

Ok so usually baking is a rewarding venture for me.  I find a recipe, I follow it, make some tweaks here and there, get a yummy result, and get compliments from whoever I share it with.  Lately, though, I’ve had mixed results and mixed feelings.

This story starts out happy.  There was a birthday cake to be made.  In an effort to use up some extra buttermilk, I strayed from the standard family chocolate birthday cake recipe, to a version that trades regular milk for buttermilk.  It’s an Ina Garten recipe, and it turned out great.  So great, in fact, that it’s making my family rethink the traditional family birthday cake recipe.  With these chocolate cake recipes in my arsenal, buying a chocolate cake mix from the store is out of the question these days.

Fabulous cake: check.  Now onto the frosting.  My plan was to make “White Mountain Frosting” or “Seven Minute Frosting.”  Typically a combination of egg whites, sugar and water that yields a light fluffy frosting.  I have tried two different recipes three separate times (following the recipe to letter).  I can not get the frosting to fluff.  It falls flat no matter what I try.

To mitigate my repeated frosting disaster I used the flat frosting (which still tasted quite good) as the frosting between the cake layers, and a “glaze” for the top of the cake.  Then to disguise this monstrosity, I made a quick, easy chocolate frosting to cover the outside of the cake.aftermath

Crisis averted.  The funny thing was that the combination of the two frostings made for a very moist cake.  The flat White Mountain Frosting was almost like having a layer of marshmallow fluff under the chocolate frosting.

I guess some days the frosting fluffs, and some days it doesn’t…

Chocolate Buttermilk Cake

Yields 2, 9 inch rounds, recipe from Ina Garten

Ingredients

  • 1 3/4 cups AP flour
  • 2 cups sugar
  • 3/4 cups cocoa powder, more for pans
  • 2 tsp baking soda
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1 cup buttermilk, shaken
  • 1/2 cup vegetable oil
  • 2 large eggs, at room temperature
  • 1 tsp pure vanilla extract
  • 1 cup freshly brewed coffee

Method

  1. Preheat oven to 350.  Prepare pans by spraying with non-stick spray and coating with cocoa powder.  If you want to be extra cautious, cut out a circle of parchment paper to fit in the bottom of your cake pans.
  2. Sift together flour, sugar, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.
  3. In a separate bowl, combine buttermilk, oil, eggs, and vanilla.
  4. Add the wet to dry gradually and beat with an electric mixer.  Finally add coffee gradually.
  5. Bake at 350 for 35- 40 minutes until a tester comes out clean.  Allow to cool for about 10 minutes before you remove the cake from the pans.almost done

Flat White Mountain Frosting

From a very old Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook

Ingredients

  • 1/2 cup sugar (my mom’s hypothesis is that this recipe is lacking the right about of sugar)
  • 1/4 cup corn syrup
  • 2 Tbs water
  • 2 egg whites
  • 1 tsp vanilla

Method

  1. in a small sauce pan combine the water, sugar, and corn syrup.  Cover and bring to a strong boil.  Take the lid off and bring to 242 degrees (use a candy thermometer).
  2. While the mixture is boiling, whip up the egg whites to stiff peaks.
  3. When the mixture has reached the right temperature, very slowly add it to the egg whites while you continue to beat them.  Add the vanilla and beat for about 7 minutes.  At this point the frosting is supposed to fluff up, but in my case it didn’t.  You win some, you lose some.

Chocolate Frosting

From an old Hershey’s Baking Chocolate wrapper

Ingredients

  • 3 Tbs unsalted butter
  • 3 oz unsweetened baking chocolate
  • 3 cups powdered sugar
  • 1/2 cup milk
  • 1 tsp vanilla
  • dash salt

Method

  1. Using a small saucepan over low heat or a microwave melt the butter.  Add the chocolate in small pieces and melt it with the butter.
  2. Put melted butter and chocolate in a bowl and add sugar, milk, vanilla, and salt.  Beat with an electric mixer until it reaches the desire consistency.  To thicken up the frosting place the bowl in an ice bath while you mix it, or refrigerate for a few minutes before frosting.Ready for FrostingSo. Much. Frosting.

Buttermilk Biscuits

Sadie1 Comment

I don’t know about you, but one of my best inspirations for trying a recipe, is having leftover ingredients to use up.  The other day my fridge seemed to have half a quart of buttermilk and my pantry had some left over cake flour, both from my buttermilk cupcake adventure.  I was in need of a bread option for a dinner and the stars aligned when I found a biscuit recipe to used both the cake flour and buttermilk.

It turned out to be from Guy Fieri at The Food Network.  I thought it was interesting considering I looked at several biscuit recipe options from several sources, a Guy is not the chef I think of when I think of buttermilk biscuits.  Preconceptions aside, I liked the recipe, and above all it reminded me that my life in the kitchen would be much easier if I had a food processor (not that I have anywhere to put it in my tiny kitchen).  That being said, this recipe is best done with a food processor, but you can get away without it.  I did.

Buttermilk Biscuits

Yields 9, from Guy Fieri

Ingredients

  • 1/2 cup unsalted butter, cold, plus 1 Tbs for brushing
  • 1 1/2 cups cake flour
  • 3/4 cups AP flour, plus more for work surface
  • 1 Tbs baking powder
  • 1/2 tsp baking soda
  • 1 1/4 tsp sea salt
  • 2 Tbs shortening cold
  • 1 cup buttermilk

Method

  1. Preheat oven to 500.
  2. If you’re using a food processor add both types of flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt into the machine and buzz for a few seconds to mix.  If you aren’t using a food processor, just combine the dry ingredients.
  3. Add in cold butter and shortening and pulse a few times so the mixture is like small pebbles.  Add buttermilk and pulse a couple more times.  If you don’t have a food processor, try using a pastry cutter to help cut the butter and shortening into the dry ingredients.
  4. Turn the dough out onto a flour surface, knead once or twice (do not over work) and form into a thick disk to cut with a knife or cookie cutters.
  5. Turn the oven down to 450 when you put the biscuits in the oven.  Bake 12-15 minutes until golden brown.

She said a triscuit a BISCUIT

CarrieLeave a comment

Sorry about the title, I had to pay homage to one of the Tom Hanks’ classics, BIG. I promised you the recipe to the apple cheddar biscuits that I made with the meal from Wednesday’s post. Here it is as promised. I’ll give you a tip. If you don’t have buttermilk on hand, use one cup of regular milk with a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar in it. Let it sit for ten minutes before use. You can actually use any type of vinegar or lemon juice to make the milk “sour” to a buttermilk like consistency. I did this for the first time because I did not have buttermilk on hand. In the future, I will continue to do this because I can never make use of the remaining buttermilk not used in the recipe. Let’s get right down to it…

Ingredients

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons cold butter, cut into small bits
1 ¼ cups shredded sharp Cheddar cheese (5 ounces)
1 apple, peeled, cored, and finely chopped
1 cup buttermilk

Directions

1. Mix the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt together with a fork.

2. Cut the butter into the flour mixture until the butter is the size of peas.

3. Mix in cheese, apple, and buttermilk until it is mixed. Do not overmix because it will make the biscuits tough. You want your biscuits to be light and delectable.

4. Scoop the biscuits onto a Silpat or greased parchment paper with an ice cream scoop or spoon. Be sure to make the biscuits the same size in order for the biscuits to bake equally.

5. Bake at 425 for about 15 minutes.

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