Baby Shower Cookies

    I attended a baby shower this past weekend and it was the perfect excuse to test out my new "baby shower" themed cookie cutters. I thought it would be a nice bonus to add onto the gift. Since my friend is having a boy, I thought the colors blue, green, and yellow would be fitting...I know, kinda stereotypical. Who am I kidding? It's very stereotypical! Apparently there is a general rule of thumb in society that contends men should not wear the color pink. There's nothing wrong with pink on guys, heck my hubs and boys wear it well enough. It takes a real man to wear pink right? Guys who wear it confidently are those who are totally in touch and confident with their manhood and therefore do not care what other people think. That's the way it should be but I digress....back to cookies.

    So yes, the recipe I used is from LilaLoa, her vanilla variation recipe. The only thing I did differently is that I added a teaspoon of Buttery Sweet Dough Emulsion instead of vanilla extract. This cool baking emulsion is from Loranne Oils. You can order it from several places online. I read about it in a few blogs and lately it seems like everyone is using it so I decided to try it for myself. I must admit, I was a little iffy at first just because it was quite the deviation from real vanilla extract which is pretty much a quintessential ingredient in baking but I am happy with the results. Definitely kicks the flavor of plain sugar cookies up a notch....maybe a few notches. I also added a tsp of lemon extract just because I always put it in my sugar cookies no matter what recipe I use. It just brightens everything up.
     As I mentioned before, I'm not the best artist. I was debating whether or not to actually decorate these cookies by "drawing" with the icing to make the cookies look like what they're actually supposed to be but totally chickened out at the last minute. So the brush embroidery technique-my default-was what I used. Totally cute results! After 2 days of searching for the perfect size gift box and failing, I ended up buying a cute basket, brown tissue paper and some pretty green satin ribbon and viola! A gift worthy basket of baby theme cookies!
     I also decided to try out a red velvet cookie recipe. Though the end product looked GJW, I didn't think they tasted too great. I'm sure I did something wrong somewhere along the way. My friends loved them but me, not so much. Did brush embroidery on them too and they turned out beautiful. Pictures are below.

 

Vacation in a Cupcake?

     One of my favorite places to go on vacation is Mexico. Cabos, Riviera, Cancun, what have you. My last vacation I took there with my hubs, I must have consumed a year's worth of pina coladas within the 5 days we were there. I swear the stuff was coming out of my pores! I love love LOVE coconut and pineapple together. There is just something about that flavor combination that makes me smile and get all excited inside. I'm smiling right now writing this post just thinking about it! 

     SO, of course it makes perfect sense to turn it into a cupcake. 2 key ingredients for this baby: coconut puree (I made my own) & fresh pineapple filling. We all know fresh is best but I really didn't feel like cracking open a whole coconut and preparing it. I did however, buy fresh cut pineapple and used it for the puree so I guess it evens out...sort of.

     The cake part of this cupcake us purely coconut flavor and isn't very sweet at all. So is the frosting. The pineapple filling is sweet and tangy. You do have to pipe a lot of filling into these cupcakes to balance everything out. My reason for making the cupcake this way is because I think pineapple tends lose flavor whenever it is baked into things. I can tell it's pineapple but it almost always seems to be muted unless it's artificially flavored. I just wanted a creamy, coconutty cake and frosting and a sweet and sour punch tothe filling to counterbalance. This is what I came up with.

Pina Colada Cupcake

Ingredients:
-2 cups flour
-1 tsp salt

-1 tsp baking soda

-1 1/4 tsp baking powder
-3 egg whites (save 2 yolks for the filling)

-2/3 cup sugar

-1 scant cup of coconut puree (directions to make this below)
-1 tsp coconut extract
-1 tsp vanilla
-1/2 cup veg. oil
-3 tbsp butter at room temp

-1 cup buttermilk

*Gonna need about 2 bags of coconut flakes for garnish and puree.

* Preheat oven to 350, prep cupcake pan with liners
1.Sift flour, baking soda, baking powder & salt in a bowl and set aside.
2. Beat egg whites until firm but soft peaks and set aside.
3. In a stand mixer, cream the oil, butter, & sugar until well combined (about 2 min). Add extracts and coconut puree. Mix for another 2 min.
4.  Add buttermilk and flour mixture alternating beginning and ending with the dry mixture.
5. Fold in half of the egg whites w/ a spatula, then fold in the rest of the egg whites.
6. Fill batter about 2/3 way in liners & bake about 18 min. Check after 15 min with a tester and if it comes out clean, take the cupcakes out.
7. Cool cupcakes completely before filling and icing.


Make sure to cool completely before filling and icing!



Coconut Puree

Ingredients:

-1 13oz can of pure coconut milk
-2 cups of sweetened coconut flakes or shredded

1. Shake the coconut milk can well before opening.
2. Combine milk and flakes in a blender and blend until you get a thick puree.
( you will have just enough to make this recipe twice with the amount of puree this yields. Just store any extra in an air tight container and keep in fridge up to 2 weeks. Mixture will harden a little when cold. Just keep out for a couple hours before use and mix well.)

Pretty thick puree, add a couple tbsp of coconut milk if it's too thick. It shouldn't be pasty.

Pineapple Filling

Ingredients:

-1/2 cup sugar
-3 tbsp flour
-2 egg yolks
-1 to 1 1/2 cup of fresh pineapple cut in 1 inch chunks with 1/2 cup of pineapple juice. (OR you can just
   use 1 8oz can crushed pineapple w/ juice)
-2 tbsp fresh lemon juice (about 1 large lemon)
-2 tbsp butter
-1 tbsp vanilla extract
-1/4 tsp salt

1. Combine all ingredients except butter in a saucepan and heat on med-high, stirring as you go. Once mixture begins to warm up, stir in butter.
2. Continue to cook over medium heat, stirring often until thick. (About 7-10 min.)



Filling should drip down from spoon in blobs and not a steady stream.

 Coconut Buttercream

Ingredients:
-4 egg whites
-1 tsp cream of tartar
-1 1/4 cup sugar
-1/4 cup of water
-1 tsp coconut extract
-1/4 cup coconut puree
-3 sticks of room temp butter

Directions:
1. Boil sugar and water in a saucepan fitted with a candy thermometer. Have a heatproof measurer nearby. 2. In a stand mixer fitted with a whisk attachment, combine egg whites and cream of tartar. Once the syrup reaches 248 degrees F, immediately transfer to heatproof bowl to keep from getting hotter.
3. With the mixer on low speed, slowly pour a couple tablespoons of the syrup aiming for side of the bowl. Mix on med-high for a few seconds.
4. Repeat until all syrup is incorporated. Then raise the speed to high and beat for about 7 to 10 min until the temp cools to 70-75 degrees F.

After cooling to 73 degrees. Very and firm and stiff peaks.

5. Once cooled to between 70 -75 degrees, with mixer on medium speed, add 2 tbsp of butter at a time making sure to wait until each addition is incorporated.



Mixture might deflate and soften. If it looks curdled, don't worry, just raise speed to high and continue to add butter little at a time. It's important to mix well after each addition of butter.

 6. Add extract to coconut puree and add to buttercream. Mix for another 2 minutes or so scraping down the sides of bowl w/ a spatula.



The final product should hold it's shape but soft and easily spreadable/pipeable.



To fill cakes, I take the smaller end of a melon baller and scoop out the center. Careful not to dig all the way down.

Pipe in filling. I'm using a no. 7 tip here.

Pipe icing(doesn't have to be pretty) and press coconut flakes over and on the sides all around. You can shape the icing with your hands as you do this.

I garnished with a dried/candied pineapple wedge. Simple and sweet.



YUM! GJW!

*NOTE: The next time I make these, I will put a twist on it and try rum extract in the frosting. Or perhaps a pinapple rum reduction/glaze to drizzle over the top??? I'll let you know how that turns out. 



Chunky Monkey

     Since the beginning of the year, I've had ideas in my head for cupcake recipes and flavors. Nothing too out of the ordinary in terms of ingredients but flavor combos that I love. My ideas were inspired by different things such as a cooking show on TV, a random picture, really yummy looking fruit at a fruit stand, cravings, etc. I came up with a Cupcake Test List that so far has about 10 different kinds of cupcake flavor combos that I am going to try out. I've written down the kind of cake and flavor of buttercream / frosting that I will pair with it, including how I will garnish and yes, even the color of cupcake liner that I want to use. I even have little sketches next to the names of the cupcakes of how I imagine them to turn out. So far I've tested 2 of the 10 and only one of them to completion. By this I mean I tested the recipe 3 times and the last two times the cupcake came out exactly the way I wanted it to...GJW. I've decided to do this for all my cupcake creations so I can be confident about sharing the recipes online.

     So my Chunky Monkey Cupcake (Banana cake w/ Nutella buttercream frosting) is the first one that has passed and met the GJW standard. I always liked the combo but I was actually inspired to bake a cupcake after watching my kid stuff his face with sliced bananas w/ nutella spread on top. It's a favorite snack of his. The cake in this cupcake has good banana flavor with actual chunks of banana all throughout. The nutella buttercream is to die for...or perfect for rolling around naked in. Here is the recipe.

Chunky Monkey Cupcake (Banana Nutella Cupcake)

Ingredients: (Makes about 18 cupcakes)

1 1/2 cup all purpose flour ( i use unbleached for just about all my baking)
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp plus 1 pinch of sea salt

2 extra ripe bananas

1/2 cup sour cream
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp banana extract (optional)
1/2 scant cup of sugar
1/3 cup butter at room temp
1/4 cup of veg oil
2 eggs at room temp
1 ripe banana diced into 1/4 chunks
*Optional: finely chopped toasted hazelnuts about 1/2 cup for more texture in cake

*Optional for garnish: Banana chips

Directions:

1. preheat 350 degrees F, line cupcake pans
2. whisk flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt (and chopped nuts if adding) in sep. bowl.
3. in a mixer: cream butter and sugar until fluffly, add oil until combined. Add egg one at a time beating for a few seconds after each one.
4. In separate bowl: mash the ripe bananas, add sour cream, vanilla and banana extracts and mix well.
5. With mixer on low, add the flour mixture and the banana mixture to the butter mixture alternating, beginning and ending w/ the flour. raise to med speed and mix until just combined.
6. Add diced bananas and fold w/ a spatula.
7. Fill liners 2/3 way full and bake checking w/ a tester after aout 20 min.
8. Cool completely before frosting. Garnish w/ brown and or yellow sprinkles and top w/ a banana chip.

Nutella Buttercream Frosting

Ingredients:

4 egg whites
1 tsp cream of tartar
1 1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup + 1 tbsp water
1/4 cup nutella, slightly warmer than room temp.
3 sticks of butter at room temp
1/2 tsp vanilla

Directions:

1. In a small saucepan fitted w/ candy thermometer bring water and sugar to boiling. Stir to dissolve sugar, have a heatproof bowl nearby.
2. Fit mixer w/ a whisk attatchment and put in egg whites and cream of tartar and whisk until combined.
3. As soon as syrup reaches 245 degrees, carefully pour into heatproof bowl
4. Slowly pour a couple tablespoons of syrup into egg whites away from the whisk. Mix for a few seconds. Add a little more and whisk for a few seconds until incorporated. Do this little by little until all of the syrup is added. Once all the syrup is poured in, raise speed to high and mix until mixture cools down to room temp, about 75 degrees (aobut 5 to 10 min).

5. Once cooled to room temp, add tablespoon chunks of butter one at a time with mixer on medium speed beating after each addition. If the mixture looks curdled, no worries, raise mixer speed to high and continue to add butter. Once all the butter is added, the frosting should be smooth. Add vanilla and nutella and mix unitl combined.

6. Pipe or slather onto cooled cupcakes or dip finger into frosting with a swiping motion and lick.

Enjoy!

My Dabblings in the Cookie World

     It all started one day a few months ago. I was flipping through a cake magazine when I came across a picture of beautifully decorated wedding cake. It's main decoration were these beautiful lacey flower designs that were so delicate. It was sooooooo pretty! I searched and discovered that the name of the technique is brush embroidery (will write a post on this soon). With high hopes I searched for a demonstration video on YouTube. Lo and behold, there it was...a video posting by SweetAmbs (by Amber Spiegel). I was floored! Her brush embroidery cookies are AMAZING!!! Totally GJW. I was so inspired after looking through her blog for the next 2 hours, I made up a grocery list of the ingredients I would need to make these cookies that night and started baking the next day. The result, not so great. I did get the OoOo's and ahhhs but I wasn't fully satisfied with the overall quality of the cookie. I read that she flavors her cookies with orange and cardamom and lucky for me, I had an OK recipe for orange cardamom cookies from way back when in my recipe stash. I used that recipe and though the cookies tasted good, they did not hold clean edges and the final product looked messy and totally amateur. My royal icing flooding was mediocre at best and my embroidery technique was well, let's just say I had a LONG ways to go before my cookies could even resemble Ms. Spiegel's. But with practice and a few test runs for a good sugar cookie recipe, I was able to create GJW cookies (though these wouldn't be very pleasant to roll around naked in but you get the point).  Even the embroidery flowers have a distinctive look that I've come to like a tad bit better...just a little tiny tiny bit. That's the beauty of baking though...every baked creation has a different nuance to it that is distinctive to its creator.
    My go-to sugar cookie recipe is one that I found on a cookie blog called Lilaloa.blogspot.com. The author is amazingly talented and has a great chocolate sugar cookie recipe and a vanilla variation which is the one I use now for all my cookies. Works beautifully flavored with orange zest and cardamom. The only thing I adjust is the amount of sugar and flour, and of course the flavorings I add when making the orange cardamom version-which is what I posted below.

Orange Vanilla Cardamom Sugar Cookies (My variation from Lilaloa.blogspot.com)

Ingredients:
4 cups flour
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup butter at room temp.
1 1/4 cup sugar
1 tsp salt
3/4 tsp baking powder
zest of 3 large oranges
1 vanilla bean (If you're fresh out of vanilla beans, just add an extra tsp of extract)
2 tsp ground cardamom

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
2. Cream butter and sugar. In separate bowl, whisk eggs, zest and vanilla seeds from 1 vanilla bean (split top layer of bean down middle-vertically-with a knife, open it up and scrape all the way down with back of knife to get seeds out).  Once the butter mixture is fluffy, add egg mixture and combine well.
3. Sift flour, salt, baking powder and cardamom. Add to wet ingredients 1 cups at a time beating for a few seconds after each addition.
5. Roll out 1/4inch thick on lightly dusted board. Dough should be used right away.
4. Bake for 7 min. Cookies should not be shiny in the middle. As soon as it looses its shininess, they are done. It takes about 7 min in my oven. The edges should not be brown, cookies should be all uniform in a nice pale color.
**NOTE: If you are going to chill dough, use only 3 1/2 cups of flour! Use more flour as needed as you roll and cut out cookie dough. I re-roll the dough about more times and the cookies turn out fine. Makes a lot of cookies but depends on how thick or thin you roll them. I get about 30 cookies with this recipe rolling it 1/4inch thick.


Royal Icing recipe will come soon...if you can't wait, there is a good recipe on Lilaloa (link above).

These are my very first attempt at brush embroidery using
the old orange cardamom recipe. Sub-par.

                                       

With practice, much better quality!

                                                   
     

    GJW!

     I hope to further explore the world of cooking making/decorating in the future but for now I am thoroughly enjoying making (& eating) these. BTW, these orange vanilla cardamom cookies go great w/ Earl Grey tea and are totally GJW without icing.  Make, eat, be merry!

Hello World.

    Hi Everyone. My name is Joyce and this is officially the very first posting on my very own blog about my baking/cooking adventures. Why must I add another baking/food blog to the abundant plethora of baking/food blogs already out there? The answer is simple: I love baking and it gives me great joy. I feel it is my responsiblilty to share this great joy with as many people as I can, or at least with those who care. When I come across a recipe that yields a final product delicious and fabulous enough to roll around naked in, I cannot contain myself and I feel the strongest urge to share. I figure blogging will satisfy that urge for me. In fact, that is my promise to my readers/followers. All the recipes and food items that I share on my blog will be just that (at least to my standards), delicious and good enough to roll around naked in. FYI, this standard will be referred to as GJW - Gateau Joie Worthy in future postings. GJW food: good enough to roll around naked in.
     As far as sharing recipes go, I have an "open book" policy for my blog. I will post recipes and step by step procedures with reviews on what works and doesn't. I will hopefully have pictures as well. And of course, I am open to all your comments and inputs. I only ask that you be gentle and criticize in a loving way, after all, the whole purpose for this blog is to share the love and joy.
     So what's up the name you ask? Gateau Joie is French and literally translates into "Cake/cookie happy". I'm sure there are other variations and meanings but that is the translation I had in mind when I decided to name my blog this and it is the name that will be associated with my baking creations. Although the majority of postings will be on baking and desserts, this blog is certainly not limited to only sweets.
     So without further ado, here is my very first recipe posting. I should mention however that this is NOT my own recipe (haha). It is from a book that I absolutely adore called Miette by Meg Ray & Leslie Jonath. (Miette is a charming pastry shop in San Francisco that I have yet to visit.) I fell in love with the book when I first thumbed through it last year at a random bookstore. I've fallen in love with every single recipe I've tried out from it since I got one in my possession a few months ago. So far this is my favorite recipe in it: The double chocolate cake with boiled icing. I tried it out both in cake form as well as cupcakes. The recipe is the same for both and the only thing needing adjusting is the bake time, a little less with the cupcakes and of course, the pan you use. There are a couple extra steps for this cake than for the average joe cake but that is what sets this cake apart from any other chocolate cake. It is the most moistest, richest, and chocolatey-est cake I've ever tasted and it doesn't even contain a lick of butter!

Double Chocolate Cake (From Miette, pg. 55)

Ingredients For cake:

1 1/2 cups of all purpose flour
1 1/4 cups unsweetened cocoa powder
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking power
3/4 tsp kosher salt
2 oz 70% cacao chocolate, coarse chop
1 cup boiling water
1 cup buttermilk
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
2 lrg eggs at room temp.
1/2 cup veg. oil
2 1/4 cup sugar (although I cut the sugar to 1 3/4 cup)

1. Liberally butter two 6in cake rounds and dust w/ sifted cocoa powder. Tap out excess.
2. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
3. Sift flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and powder, and salt into a bowl and set aside.
4. Put chocolate in a heatproof bowl and add boiling water to it, whisk until melted. let cool for 15 min.
5. in seperate bowl, combine buttermilk and vanilla. set aside.
6. in a stand mixer with whisk attachment, whisk the eggs in high until foamy about 2 min. reduce the spped to low and slowly pour in oil. whisk until combined about 30 sec. raise speed and whisk on med until fully incorporated 2 min.
7. reduce sppeed to low and slowly pour chocolate mixture into egg mixture. slowly pour in buttermilk mixture. Add sugar and which until batter is smooth and liquid, 2min.
8. Stop mixer and remove bowl. add sifted dry ingredients and mix just unitl incorporated w/a rubber spatula by hand lifting and folding from bottom center. scrape down sides and mix by hand briefly. Batter will appear lumpy but stop mixing.
9. pour batter through a medium mesh sieve to remove large lumps. Press out as much batter as possible. divide batter in pans and bake until tester comes out clean. About 45-50min.
10. Transfer to wire racks and let cool in pan about 20 min. Carefully loosen sides of cake and remove from pans. Let cool 20 min longer. Refrigerate cakes tightly wrapped in plastic to ensure complete cooling before decorating or icing. ***Very important step here. the cake is extremely moist and will crumble otherwise!*** Stores wrapped in plastic in freezer up to 2 months.

Boiled Icing (Miette, pg. 192)

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups sugar
1/4 tsp cream of tartar
1/4 cup water
3 lrg egg whites
1 tsp vanilla

1. combine sugar cream of tartar, and water in a small saucepan and fit w/ candy thermometer. stir to dissolve sugar and heat over med-low. have a heatproof bowl sitting nearby.
2. put egg whites and vanilla in stand mixer with whisk attachment. Once syrup reaches 240 degrees F, immediately pour into heatproof bowl to stop cooking. With mixer on medium speed, slowly pour syrup into egg mixture aiming for side of bowl. once it's all added, mix on medium high until icing is thick and holds a firm peak. continue to whisk until icing is just slightly warm and very thick, about 10 min TOTAL, do not over mix or it will become too thick to pipe or ice!

     The icing is similar to the old 7 minute frosting. It is very light and fluffy, yet holds its ground with the cake. Kinda reminds me of marshmallow creme. Goes beautifully with the chocolate cake! Make this, eat it, and be happy!