Accidental Apple Cake and the Holiday Season

I haven't been blogging much lately. Obviously. Food and I have a funny relationship right now. At times, I know exactly what I want and will stop at nothing to create or obtain it. This apple cake falls into that first scenario. Other times, nothing sounds good and I try to piece together a relatively healthy meal. And still, at other times, what sounds good when I start preparing has no appeal once it is ready to eat, so I have a couple of bites and call it a day.

Combine the strange food relationship with (seemingly) never-ending fatigue and there is not much blog material, sorry to say.

There are reasons for this food madness. I am pregnant: we are expecting our first child in May. 

(That sentence deserves a million ! after it - we are so very excited - but one by itself did not fit, maybe because this is not an AIM conversation or, in this age, a teenage text message.)

This time last year, I was excitedly preparing for the holidays. This year, not so much, at least not yet. Presents are almost all purchased, plans are made, and so on, but I'm having a hard time fully embracing the season. Is it the exhaustion? Maybe. The overwhelming desire to empty my house of almost everything we don't use on a daily basis? Something like that. It might be the stresses of the past month, with travel (the husband to a conference and the both of us to a wedding - congrats guys!) and holidays to host and massive career-affecting exams to pass (American Institute of Certified Planners, and I passed!). But we got through all of that, we are starting to relax and let the holiday season wash over us. The autumn-themed dishes that came out for breakfast the day after Thanksgiving certainly helped.

One of the first things that has sounded good and remained good throughout its life over the past few months has been this apple cake. The cake started as simmered apples and cinnamon to enjoy over ice cream after the Thanksgiving meal and perfect turkey, and finished the next morning as a moist, spiced apple cake with crumb/streusel topping. Because it was an accident, or at least an experiment, there are no photographs of the process.

Apples

Johnagold apple, peeled and cut into 1/2-inch to 1-inch cubes

Pink Lady apple, peeled and cut into 1/2-inch to 1-inch cubes

2 tablespoons unsalted butter

1/3 cup packed brown sugar

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/2 cup water

Heat all ingredients except for water over medium-low heat until heated through, stirring occasionally. Some of the apples will start to break down. Reduce heat and cover, let cook, stirring occasionally, for 15 minutes. Add water as needed if the mixture gets too thick or dry. Remove from heat. Can chill overnight.

Cake

3/4 cup unsalted butter, room temperature

1 cup sugar

3 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

3 cups flour (all-purpose)

1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

1 cup plus 2 tablespoons sour cream*

Preheat oven to 350. Grease a 9-inch springform pan or similar (the batter came within 1/2 inch of the top of my 3-inch tall springform pan, for reference). Cream butter and sugar. Add eggs, one at a time, and beat each until incorporated. Add vanilla, beat until incorporated. Remove from mixer. Add one cup flour and baking soda, stir until incorporated. Add 1/2 cup and 1 tablespoon sour cream, stir until incorporated. Add another one cup flour and baking powder, stir until incorporated. Add second 1/2 cup and 1 tablespoon sour cream, stir until incorporated. Add third one cup flour and nutmeg, stir until incorporated. Fold in apples mixture. Pour into your prepared pan.

Topping

4 tablespoons flour

3 tablespoons oats

5 tablespoons brown sugar

3 tablespoons unsalted butter, chilled, cut into chunks

Combine all dry ingredients (no butter) in a bowl or small food processor. The food processor will grind the oats a bit, or if you prefer them whole then skip the processor. Add the butter and rub into clumps with your fingers, or process in pulses until combined and crumbly. Sprinkle topping over batter in pan. Bake for 55 minutes or longer, until cake is set and a toothpick comes out clean (might not be completely clean if it pierces an apple). Immediately remove the springform shell and let the cake cool. Serve warm or cool with whipped cream for dessert or coffee for breakfast.

*If you have 8 ounces of sour cream and no more, you can use yogurt or something similar in its place.

Tuesday Treats - Caramel Chocolate Cheesecake

Yum.  Adapted from Epicurious and smitten kitchen.


1 crumb-crust recipe , made with chocolate teddy grahams
1 cup sugar
3/4 cup heavy cream
8 ounces fine-quality bittersweet chocolate (not unsweetened), chopped (I used 60% bittersweet by Scharffen Berger)
3 (8-oz) packages cream cheese, softened
4 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla


1. Make your crumb crust.  Take 10 oz of teddy grahams (one box) and turn them into crumbs.  I used the food processor.  Melt 9 tablespoons of unsalted butter.  Mix together the crumbs, the butter, 1/2 cup sugar, and 1/8 teaspoon salt.  Press the mixture into the bottom and up the sides of a springform pan (mine is about 9 inches).  If you want less crust on the sides, don't use all of the recipe.
2. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
3. Heat the sugar in a dry saucepan over medium-low heat, until it melts and turns light golden, stirring occasionally to frequently.  This step will take awhile, but yes, the sugar does actually melt.  I went ahead and whipped the cream cheese while I was waiting.

4. Let the sugar achieve a darker golden color, swirling the pan occasionally.  This step takes much less time, thankfully.  I was getting impatient.

5. Remove the pan from the burner and add the cream.  The mixture will bubble and steam.
6. Return the pot to the same lowish heat as before, and stir.  Eventually the caramel will stop being a clumpy lump on your spoon/spatula/whatever and blend in with the caramel.

7. Once it is all melty and smooth, remove it from heat and stir in your chocolate.
8. If you haven't done so already, whip your cream cheese until it is fluffy.  I used the regular attachment (not the whisk) of my KitchenAid.

9. Slowly add the chocolate-caramel mixture.  Scrape the sides and continue to beat.

10. Add eggs, one at a time, scraping bowl before each new addition.
11. Add vanilla, blend.
12. Pour the cheesecake mixture into the crust.  Place the pan on a cookie sheet to catch the leaks.  All that leaked out of mine was lots of what appeared to be butter.
13. Cook the cheesecake for about 55 minutes.  Remove it from the oven when the center is still wobbly but the edges and most of the top surrounding the center is set.
14. If your crust did not go to the top of the pan, run a butter knife around the edges down to the crust to loosen the cake. Let the cake cool completely. At this point, it's time to remove the sides of the pan, and loosely cover it and chill it for as long as you can stand it (the recipe I used calls for at least 6 hours, but we tried ours after about 3, and it was soft, but tasty.  After we taste it again tonight I'll let you know about the extra chilling time).


I prefer my cheesecake coldish, but you can also remove it from the refrigerator and let it come to room temperature before serving.  I served it with fresh whipped cream (1 cup whipping cream, 1 capfull vanilla, and 2 tablespoons sugar, whipped together until it looks like whipped cream and not like liquid).

Amazing Caramel Chocolate Truffles

Caramel-Dark Chocolate Truffles with Fleur de Sel (courtesy of Bon Appetit)

3 notes before I get to the description.

1 We halved this recipe, and used the little bit of extra chocolate in the second part to dip strawberries. It was perfect for that.

We did not follow the instructions exactly as written in the recipe. We followed the ingredients, but the process is where we changed. More on that below.

3. Fleur de sel is available in bulk at Central Market (gourmet grocery store in Austin, of the HEB chain). It might be available at similar groceries in places that are not fortunate enough to have Central Market.

We used Ghirardelli bittersweet chocolate, available in the baking aisle. The husband chopped it up into small pieces, then it went on the stove. The recipe called for a metal bowl on top of a pot of water, but we used one of the pyrex ones instead, and stirred almost constantly to keep the chocolate melting at an even temperature and to keep it smooth. That got set aside once it was melted and we started on the caramel. There is a very delicate point when boiling sugar and water where it goes from being completely clear to having a gorgeous amber hue to it, and this one was no exception. (The husband wanted me to interject with a comment on the recipe. It says to “brush down” the sides of the pan while all of this sugar water boiling is happening. It is tricky to brush down the sides of the pan. We found that keeping a small bowl of water nearby, and dipping the brush in the water before and after brushing down the sides, kept the brush from getting too sticky. We also tended to brush around more than down. It must have worked ok, because the recipe came out great.) Back to my beautiful amber gooey pot. The hardest part of this recipe was this step, the addition of the whipping cream to the caramel. It said to stir until smooth, but we did not know exactly when that point was. The caramel was clumping at the bottom of the pot, and the cream did not seem to want to combine with it, but it eventually did. Keeping it over the warm burner (it was turned off) helped. The addition of the salt and the caramel to the chocolate was no problem, and the whole thing went into the fridge for 3 hours, which ended up being more like 4 hours by the time we got it back out.

When the filling comes out of the fridge, it will be HARD. The husband was afraid he had broken our melon baller trying to make little balls. The ice cream scoop worked well, and his hands got very messy rolling the filling, but he did say that the heat from his hands helped soften the filling enough to roll it, and enabled the cocoa powder to stick easily.

The next part of the recipe is where we substantially changed our procedure. Because it was Sunday already, and we wanted these little guys for dessert Sunday night, we did not chill the rolled balls over night. I doubt we chilled them for more than an hour before coating them, and they were still amazing. The salt provides a nice relief from the sweet caramel, and the bittersweet chocolate tops off the deep richness.

Valentine's Day (or tenderloin, truffles, and taters)

Details to come tonight on our lovely Valentine's Day meal (here's a peak!):
Deb's Caesar salad (courtesy of the mother-in-law)
Beef tenderloin (adapted from Bon Appetit)
Steamed asparagus
Caramelized Shallot Mashed Potatoes (Bon Appetit)
Caramel-Dark Chocolate Truffles (Bon Appetit, with modifications)