Daring Bakers Challenge: Cannoli

Except this month we're the Daring Fryers! I missed the challenge deadline by a day, but better late than never, right? Who sets a deadline for the day after Thanksgiving anyway? I was still recovering from cooking, eating, and baking two of these!

So this was my rush job. I rarely deep-fry, but you might not believe me if you saw the applesauce doughnuts I made earlier this month. Making the cannoli was easy except for the rolling -- the dough has a knack for springing back so the square never seemed to get bigger. But the shells came out crispy and delicious, and I flavored the ricotta filling with vanilla bean and some maple syrup, for that touch of autumn.  A lot of people aren't familiar with cannoli, which used to stun me. I grew up in an Italian neighborhood where they were readily available, but when I moved to other states people would ask, "Is that like ravioli?" If you're one of these people, don't get put off by the strange concept of filling deep-fried pastry with cheese. It whips up light and is so good when sweetened.

The November 2009 Daring Bakers Challenge was chosen and hosted by Lisa Michele of Parsley, Sage, Desserts and Line Drives. She chose the Italian Pastry, Cannolo (Cannoli is plural), using the cookbooks Lidia’s Italian-American Kitchen by Lidia Matticchio Bastianich and The Sopranos Family Cookbook by Allen Rucker; recipes by Michelle Scicolone, as ingredient/direction guides. She added her own modifications/changes, so the recipe is not 100% verbatim from either book.

Applesauce Doughnuts

I've been bad.  I buy doughnuts maybe once a year, and have never made them at home.  I wasn't interested.  Why add more deep-fried fatty goodness to my diet?  But then King Arthur Flour sent me a trial issue of The Baking Sheet.  I shrugged at all the recipes until I got to the back cover, and the photo of the Applesauce Doughnuts was irresistible.  They looked real easy to make, and I love the fun look of the doughnut hole as opposed to the doughnut with the hole in it.  The insides are moist with a slight apple flavor and the outsides crisp.  Go ahead and make it . . . I'll feel less guilty if I have company!

Candied Sweet Potato Cupcakes

These cupcakes are just too cute.  They have a mild sweet potato flavor and are topped with toasted marshmallows.  They're a nice change of pace from frosting and faster to make.  If you're too busy during the holidays to make sweet potato pie, consider this quick treat.  Recipe after the jump.

The potatoes were a cinch to prepare.  I tossed them in my toaster oven for an hour the night before, and refrigerated them.

I don't recommend using the food processor to puree them, since you need a liquid to help the process along.  I ended up scraping them into a bowl, using a potato masher, and then back into the food processor for good measure, since I already dirtied the work bowl and blade.

Whipping up a creamy batter.

It looks curdly after adding the sweet potatoes, but it'll work itself out.

You can see flecks of sweet potato in the cups.  I used a cupcake pan instead of the muffin pan the recipe calls for, and ended up with 29 instead of 24 cupcakes.  The baking time and temperature remain the same.

Toasted marshmallow how-to: Group mounds of marshmallows, about 7 or 8 of them to a mound, on a silicone mat.

Stick them for a minute or two under the broiler, and watch carefully!  The marshmallows will swell and start to meld together.  Remove them when you get the desired coloring, and place atop cupcakes immediately. Recipe after the jump.

Rose's Banana Refrigerator Cake

A quickie post on Rose Levy Beranbaum's Banana Refrigerator Cake, since I'm playing catch-up.  This one is a lot like banana bread, but less dense and with a tender crumb, and topped with Rose's Dreamy Creamy White Chocolate Frosting (silly name).  I normally dislike white chocolate, but the thin layer was a nice and not-too-sweet accompaniment.

Rose writes that the cake stays soft even in the refrigerator because oil is used instead of butter, hence the name.  The cake is simple enough to make, although you may not have the white chocolate and turbinado sugar on hand, but it's nice for an occasional Sunday.  Think of it as a fancier banana bread.  If you want the recipe, shoot me a message or leave a comment!

Cooking Malaysian with Mom

So I finally made it back to New York for a long weekend with the family, and did I eat well!  I had Dominican steak and plantains with my sis and her roommate in Washington Heights, brunch out with sis and mom, and a stroll around Chelsea Market.  I also had dinner at Locanda Verde with Bao, who's written some food pieces for the New York Times City Room blog and suggested a three-course dessert at Chikalicious.  I said, "Twist my arm, why don't you?"  I tried steak tartare for the first time and liked it, along with our fritto misto, pumpkin agnolotti, and halibut saltimbocca.  And it was fun to see the dessert chefs prepare my darjeeling gelee with pear sorbet; warm chocolate tart with pink peppercorn ice cream; and coconut marshmallow, spice cake petit four, and lavender chocolate truffle.

Watching bread bakers at Chelsea Market

Brunch starters

But I did some cooking as well, with my mom.  She showed me how to make some Curry Shrimp and a Shrimp and Roast Pork Mei Fun.  Some mei fun versions are soy sauce-based, and others, like this one, use a curry sauce.  I love to eat both.  Like lots of old-school Chinese cooks, she doesn't measure or time things, write down recipes, or make them the same way every time.  So I estimated measurements and took notes, helping out when asked and snapping photos.  She wasn't used to the last part, but seemed amused by it.  So I've decoded my garbled notes and estimates, and hopefully when I make the dishes on my own I'll have gotten them all right!

White Velvet Cupcakes & Buttercream

I was craving childhood cupcakes.  My mom used to make the yellow cake from the box and top it with frosting from the can, and little could make me happier as a kid.  This is like the grownup version.  The flavors are essentially the same, but with that baked-from-scratch goodness and slight sophistication.  After all, I dressed them up with sugar pearls.  This White Velvet Cupcake is moist and has such a tender crumb, and the Chocolate Buttercream is better than anything ever sold in a can.

The recipes come from Rose Levy Beranbaum's new book, Rose's Heavenly Cakes.  This is not a book of the quick and easy, not for whipping up on a random Sunday afternoon.  This book is for making grand cakes, wedding cakes, cakes to impress the pants off someone.  They're beautiful, of course, and no doubt delicious, but many looked so time-consuming.  This cupcake was great because it didn't require too much effort or time, and a photo editor at work told me it was "the best cupcake I've ever had."

I watched a video of Rose's where she pointed out that your average frosting usually has a slight grainy texture.  This is because the sugar or confectioners sugar is uncooked, and all those granules are just beaten in.  This buttercream, on the other hand, dissolves the sugar over heat and makes use of some corn syrup, resulting in the smoothest buttercream imaginable.

Apple Pie, 2.0

I can't help it -- it's an old favorite, especially in the fall!  I'm kind of recycling a post, but I really do use my tried and true recipes over and over again.  And with the weather getting chilly, it's been perfect lately for turning on that oven and making something comforting.  Plus, it fills your home with the most wonderful aromas of apple, cinnamon, and nutmeg.

This time, I added some apple cutouts for a decorative touch. Bake them on a sheet pan for 10 minutes while the pie is baking. When the pie has cooled a bit, affix your cutouts using some corn syrup.

This recipe is from Rose Levy Beranbaum's Pie and Pastry Bible.  Her cream cheese pie dough has become my favorite for its flakiness, slight tang, and ease in rolling out.  She explains in the book that cream cheese has a high water content that's great for the pastry.  My other reasons for liking this pie (the baking reasons, not the obvious eating ones) include baking the pie on a baking stone on the floor of the oven to avoid that awful soggy bottom crust, and cooking the juices of the apples to concentrate the flavor.  True, I spent a good few hours making this, but the extra steps are rewarding in the end.  Keep in mind when planning that you can't eat it for a few hours, or the juices will run out everywhere before they've had a chance to set.  I won't repost the recipe, since you can find it here.