4 posts tagged “dessert”

The first time I made candied pecans was while visiting a friend of mine, and they were so amazing I had to make more once I was back in my own kitchen! I started this recipe for Sweet Coated Pecans from Allrecipes but made just a couple of modifications.

Here's the final product, which I will call Spiced Candied Pecans:

Spiced Candied Pecans

1 egg white
1 tsp. ground cinnamon (Next time, I think I'll double it to 2 tsp., though!)
1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
3/4 tsp. salt
1 Tbsp. vanilla extract
12 oz. pecan halves

Instructions

Beat egg white until foamy, then stir in cinnamon, sugars, salt and vanilla extract until well-mixed:
 

Cinnamon/sugar/vanilla coating

Stir in pecans until they are thoroughly coated with deliciousness.

Coating the pecans

Spread the coated nuts on a greased baking sheet, foil or parchment paper and put them in a preheated 250 deg. F oven.

Candied Pecans before baking

Bake them for an hour, but for every 15 minutes, stir the nuts. Here are mine after the first 15 minutes:

Candied Pecans after 15 minutes

After 30:

Candied Pecans after 30 minutes

After 45:

Candied Pecans after 45 minutes

When they're done, pop them out of the oven and let them cool off before popping them into your mouth!

Cinnamon and sugar crumbs

Hunting for potential sugar-coated pecan bits amongst the crumbs in the pan was like panning for gold. Luckily, this prospector found one:

Prospecting for gold (candied pecan bits)

However, the bounty of the day had already been collected:

Spiced Candied Pecans

Next time, I'm going to try doubling the cinnamon and adding cayenne. Yum!

"To prevent leakage and for best results, we strongly recommend using a tube pan made of one piece of metal (rather than a two-piece angel food cake pan, which has a removable bottom)."

Well, I didn't have a one-piece tube pan. So I lined my two-piece angel food cake pan with parchment paper instead:

Prepared pan for Lemon-Blueberry Sour Cream Coffeecake

Next, I prepared the streusels for the top and inside of the cake:

Pecan streusel

Then I prepared part of the batter, which contained copious amounts of butter and sour cream:

Flour, butter and sour cream for batter

And the other part of the batter, which contained 4 eggs and more sour cream:

Egg and sour cream mixture for batter

...then mixed them together:

Batter for Lemon-Blueberry Sour Cream Coffeecake

Now, the fun part... layering!

Lemon-Blueberry Sour Cream Coffeecake from Baking Illustrated

After I was done, I put it in the oven. The tricky transition from cake-out-of-the-oven to pretty presentation is (gasp) double inversion. Here we are with inversion #1:

Inverted Lemon-Blueberry Sour Cream Coffeecake

So far, so good. Time to invert it again... beautiful!

Re-inverted Lemon-Blueberry Sour Cream Coffeecake from Baking Illustrated

Time to dig in!

Slice of Lemon-Blueberry Sour Cream Coffeecake from Baking Illustrated

The Recipe:

Lemon-Blueberry Sour Cream Coffeecake (Serves 16)
Source: Baking Illustrated, pg. 340

Ingredients:

Streusel:

• 3/4 cup (3 3/4 ounces) unbleached all-purpose flour
  
• 3/4 cup (5 1/4 ounces) granulated sugar
  
• 1/2 cup packed (3 1/2 ounces) dark brown sugar
  
• 2 tablespoons ground cinnamon
• 2 tablespoons cold unsalted butter
• 1 cup pecans, chopped

Cake:

• 12 tablespoons unsalted butter (1 1/2 sticks), softened but still cool, cut into 1-inch cubes
• 4 large eggs
• 1 1/2 cups sour cream
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• 2 1/4 cups (11 1/2 ounces) unbleached all-purpose flour
  
• 1 1/4 cups (8 3/4 ounces) granulated sugar
  
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon lemon zest
• 1 cup frozen blueberries
  

Directions

1. For the streusel: Place the flour, granulated sugar, 1/4 cup dark brown sugar, and the cinnamon in a food processor and process to combine. Transfer 1 1/4 cups of flour/sugar mixture to small bowl and stir in remaining 1/4 cup brown sugar; set aside (this will be the streusel for the inside of the cake). Add the butter and pecans to the remaining dry ingredients in the food processor bowl. Process the mixture until the nuts and butter have been broken down into small pebbly pieces. Set aside. (The streusel with the butter and nuts will be for the top o the cake).

2. For the cake: Adjust oven rack to lowest position and heat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a tube pan (10-inch diameter, 10-cup capacity). Combine eggs, 1 cup of the sour cream, and vanilla in a medium bowl.

3. In the bowl of a standing mixer, combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt at low speed, about 30 seconds. Add the butter and remaining 1/2 cup of sour cream and mix at low speed until the dry ingredients are moistened. Increase to medium speed and beat 30 seconds. Scrape down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula. Decrease the mixer speed to medium-low and slowly incorporate the egg mixture in 3 additions, beating for 20 seconds after each and scraping the sides of bowl as necessary. Increase speed to medium-high and beat for 1 minute (the batter should increase in volume and become aerated and pale in color).

4. Toss 1 cup frozen blueberries with 1 teaspoon grated lemon zest in small bowl. Add 2 cups of the batter to the prepared pan. With an offset metal spatula or rubber spatula, smooth the surface of the batter. Sprinkle with 1/2 cup of blueberries and 3/4 cup streusel filling (without butter or nuts). Drop 2 cups of the batter over the streusel and blueberries, spread evenly, and then add the remaining blueberries and streusel filling. top with remaining batter and then the streusel topping (with the butter and nuts).

5. Bake until the cake feels firm to the touch and a toothpick or thin skewer inserted into center comes out clean (although there may be bits of sugar from the streusel clinging to the tester), 50 to 60 minutes. Cool cake in pan on for 30 minutes. Place a rimmed baking sheet over the top of the cake and invert the cake onto the pan (the cake should now be upside down, with the streusel on the bottom). Remove the tube pan, place a wire rack on the cake, and reinvert so the streusel is facing up. Cool for 2 hours and serve or cool completely and wrap the cake in aluminum foil.
   

- I used a two-piece angel food cake pan but lined the bottom with parchment paper to prevent leakage. Cake turned out fine.
- I made the inside streusel without a food processor by simply whisking the ingredients together. Similarly, I made the butter and nut streusel by finely chopping pecans and butter before whisking them in with the flour, sugar and cinnamon.
- I had to bake my cake for an hour and a half--not 50-60 minutes--before it was done.
- There's a chance I didn't grease the pan enough, because the bottom two layers of batter, blueberries and streusel look rather squished in the final slice pictured above...
- There weren't enough blueberries in this cake for my liking. For a similar and equally--if not more--delicious recipe, try Dorie Greenspan's Blueberry Crumb Cake.
- The cake tastes WAY better on the second day, in accordance with BI's assessment: "We were pleased to find that if stored well, this cake actually improves with age."

At my friend Emily's recommendation, I purchased Baking Illustrated recently and am in love with the book.

Baking Illustrated

Cook's Illustrated Magazine Editors

We made four batches of pastry cream, using 3 or 4 tablespoons of cornstarch or flour in each one. Four tablespoons of either starch made gummy, chewy, gluey messes of the pastry creams. Three tablespoons was the correct amount; any less would have resulted in soup. In equal amounts, cornstarch and flour were extremely close in flavor and texture, but cornstarch inched out in front with a slightly lighter, more ethereal texture and a cleaner and purer flavor; flour gave the pastry cream a trace of graininess and gumminess.

Yesterday, I made a Fresh Fruit Tart with Pastry Cream (pg. 225), which turned out fantastic although hard to serve (the pastry cream would be EXCELLENT for something like a cream puff, however) because the cream didn't hold its shape and I ended up with strawberry and kiwi slices drowning in blobs of pudding atop a barely visible golden brown crust. In short, it tasted better than it looked. But boy did it look awesome before I broke into it!

Fresh Fruit Tart with Pastry Cream from Baking Illustrated

 
One more note: it was necessary to blind bake the crust for this tart, which is the process of baking the crust before a pie or tart is filled and involves lining the dough with some sort of weight while in the oven to prevent the sides from sliding to the bottom before it has had time to become crisp. The book recommended using pie weights in a bag or pennies on top of aluminum foil, but I had neither and used aluminum foil filled with a few cups of rice instead. FYI, this works just fine!