The Interference Recipe thread

[arw]

I don't have the skillz, time, or patience to make this... so you must have posted this just to torture me

but seriously that sounds amazing wow.

ah the life of a Pastry Chef...all in a days work.

But really, the cake minus the ganache stuff, is completely easy to make. It takes longer to boil the guinness and butter than anything else. The ganache is still easy but really not necessary. I just needed to kick it up a bit for work. Trust me, this cake is worth the effort.

 

[arw]

One last recipe.

I make this ahead of time when I can throw a few extra potatoes in to bake when I have the oven going. This soup is even better when made and reheated the next day.

Baked Potato Soup

2 tbsp. butter
1/4 of a large onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
4 baking potatoes (about 2-1/2 lbs.)*
2/3 cup all-purpose flour (about 3 oz.)
6 cups milk (use 2 percent reduced fat if you prefer)**
1 cup (4 oz.) shredded extra-sharp cheddar cheese, divided (use reduced fat if you prefer)
1 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. freshly ground black pepper
1 cup reduced-fat sour cream
3/4 cup chopped green onions, divided
6 bacon slices, cooked and crumbled
Cracked black pepper (optional)

1. Preheat oven to 400°F.
2. Pierce potatoes with a fork; bake at 400° for 1 hour or until tender. Cool. Peel potatoes; coarsely mash.

3. In a large pot or Dutch oven, melt the butter over medium heat. Add the onions and garlic and sauté until soft, about 8 minutes.

4. Lightly spoon flour into dry measuring cups; level with a knife. Place flour into the vegetables; gradually add milk, stirring with a whisk until blended. Cook over medium heat until thick and bubbly (about 8 minutes).

5. Add mashed potatoes, 3/4 cup cheese, salt, and 1/2 tsp. pepper, stirring until cheese melts. Remove from heat.

6. Stir in sour cream and 1/2 cup onions. Cook over low heat 10 minutes or until thoroughly heated (do not boil).

7. Ladle 1-1/2 cups soup into each of 8 bowls. Sprinkle each serving with 1 1/2 tsp. cheese, 1-1/2 teaspoons onions, and about 1 tbsp. bacon. Garnish with cracked pepper, if desired.

Serves 8.

I think I got the recipe from Cooking Light. I've made changes when I didn't have all the proper ingredients, you can substitute chicken broth for some of the milk or more potatoes for thickness instead of sour cream ( I usually use powdered for taste) It's also good with some fresh corn thrown in.

This sounds really good! I've been looking for something different to make the roommates so I'll see if they would be interested in something like this.

 

[bonocomet]

ah the life of a Pastry Chef...all in a days work.

But really, the cake minus the ganache stuff, is completely easy to make. It takes longer to boil the guinness and butter than anything else. The ganache is still easy but really not necessary. I just needed to kick it up a bit for work. Trust me, this cake is worth the effort.

welll ... I'll bet I could convince my hubby to make it for me... I need to try this. Thank you!

 

[Angela Harlem]

You can do anything with white chocolate that you can with dark but using it is a little trickier because white chocolate technically isn't chocolate as it contains no cacao, which is the essential ingredient to dark and milk chocolate. It's made up of cocoa butter, milk, and sugar. Due to the cocoa butter, it can be called "chocolate." So when making ganache, you need to add more pieces of white choc to it to stiffen it up. Otherwise you'll just make white chocolate soup!

I don't have it on me but I can get this for you if interested....I have a recipe at work for a flourless chocolate cake. It's basically a mix of butter, chocolate, sugar, eggs, and liquor for flavor. Any liquor can be added, or not at all. We have this on hand at all times at the resort I work at just in case there's someone who can't have gluten and doesn't want just a fruit bowl for dessert It's a very dense cake so you can't eat a lot of it at once. But it definitely does the trick for a sweet fix for anyone!

You could be my new hero. I'm a whore for milk chocolate, and love white chocolate when it's a white choc. cheesecake or mud cake. Man, I need to do some baking!

If you could pass on this other recipe, I'd be very grateful! I've heard of a similar cake before, but never saw a recipe for it. It sounds great! If you can ever happen upon a more useful subsitute than xantham for GF cooking, you know you'll be worshipped the world over by coeliacs and those with gluten intolerances. A company here has created a product which does closely mimick the properties of wheaten flour, but it's really hard to come by.

 

[anitram]

Arw, your stuff looks beautiful! Two questions - do you have any good recipes for desserts that are easy to make but are eggless? I have a friend who has an egg allergy and we're always trying to figure out how to make cookies, etc for him.

I'm in a baking mood, people, keep 'em coming!

(I forgot my 2nd question!)

 

[arw]

Arw, your stuff looks beautiful! Two questions - do you have any good recipes for desserts that are easy to make but are eggless? I have a friend who has an egg allergy and we're always trying to figure out how to make cookies, etc for him.

I'm in a baking mood, people, keep 'em coming!

I have some sweet dough recipes that could easily be used to make a sugar cookie. I'm off for the next few days so I'll have to wait to get my recipes when I go back to work.

 

[anitram]

Cool, thanks, no hurry!

 

[MsPurrl]

All this talk of cake reminded me of a recipe someone sent me the link for not too long ago - cake in a mug that you microwave for 3 minutes! What could be better? The problem is, you're sitting around, you think to yourself "gee, I'd like some cake!" and this way you can have it in like 5 minutes. Good for instant gratification, not so good for the waistline.

Anyway, here's the recipe. If you click on the link, the site has pictures you can follow. A child could make this, it's so easy.

Make Cake in a Mug - Wired How-To Wiki

Chocolate Cake in a Mug

You'll need:

A microwave oven
A large microwavable mug
A tablespoon for measuring
Cooking spray

4 Tablespoons flour
9 Tablespoons hot chocolate mix
1 Egg
3 Tablespoons water
3 Tablespoons oil
1 pinch of salt

Spray a little cooking spray into the mug.

Measure out the flour and hot chocolate mix into the mug. Stir.

Crack the egg into the mug. Stir a bit after adding the egg so the cup doesn't overflow.

Add water and oil.

Stir until thoroughly moistened. Make sure to scrape the bottom of the mug with your spoon to avoid any leftover pockets of dry ingredients.

Put the mug in the microwave on high and set the timer for 3 minutes.

Makes enough for one enormous serving.

Buying hot chocolate mix in bulk saves having to rip open the little packages.


As it's cooking, it will rise waaay out of the mug, but it goes back down once it's done. When it's finished, turn the mug over and put the cake on a plate and cut it lengthwise to cool for a few minutes. You can have it warm, or let it cool completely. You can also add chocolate chips to the mixture before putting it into the microwave. The recipe says that it's one big serving, but it's so dense that I'm not sure who could eat it all in one go. And also, I buy sugar free hot chocolate mix, and it turns out totally fine with that.

I've made this with 3 tablespoons of applesauce instead of the 3 tablespoons of oil--and it's great!

 

[Galeongirl]

Chocolate Guinness Cake

2 cups Guinness
2 cups (4 sticks) butter, cut into 1 inch cubes
1 1/2 cups unsweetened cocoa powder

4 cups all purpose flour
4 cups sugar
1 T baking soda
1 t 1/2 salt
4 large eggs
1 1/3 cups sour cream

Preheat oven to 350*. Butter or spray three 8 inch pans or muffin pans. If using cake pans, line with parchment paper. Also butter or spray paper.

Bring stout and butter to a boil in a saucepan over medium heat and then whisk in cocoa powder. Stir until smooth. Cool slightly.

In a seperate bowl, mix flour, sugar, baking soda, and salt in a large bowl and set aside. Beat eggs and sour cream in a large bowl. Add stout mixture to eggs mixture. Beat to combine. Slowly add flour mixture and fold to blend. Divide batter evenly among pans. Bake about 35 to 45 minutes and then cool completely before removing from pans. Reduce the baking time to 20 minutes if using muffin pans. Use a cake tester to check to see if it's done. If it comes out clean then it's ok to take it out of the oven. This cake is very moist so it's hard to tell if it's done just by looking at it.


This cake is super easy to make an unbelievably delicious! I've had many people who don't like guinness eat this cake and can't get enough of it.

I made it at work this past weekend for the weekly Sunday brunch. I dipped the mini's in chocolate ganahce and then added a Bailey's Irish Creme white chocolate ganache

To make white chocolate ganache simply heat 1 cup of heavy cream to a boil. Then turn the heat off and add at least 2 1/2 cups of white chocolate chips, stir until melted. Add Bailey's to taste. White chocolate does not set up as thick as dark chocolate so more chips can be added to make a thicker ganache. Let this set up for a while before using on the cake. You can use it as a filling in the middle of the cakes. To make chocolate ganache for dipping, use 1 part cream to 2 parts chocolate and then dip when melted. The above amounts are not exact to this recipe but as a general rule of thumb, dark chocolate is 1 part cream/2 parts chocolate while white chocolate is 1 part cream to 3 parts chocolate.

I made 40 of the mini's and a larger display cake for brunch. Yum!

oh wow.

Can you please tell me what measurement cups are?

 

[mad1]

OMG the Guinness cake looks amazin! I already want to lick the picture!

sounds good to try too, as I hear Guinness would be good for me as its fattening, must try over the hols! thanks.

 

[arw]

oh wow.

Can you please tell me what measurement cups are?

do you measure everything out using the metric system? So you'd need this in grams?

 

[Galeongirl]

do you measure everything out using the metric system? So you'd need this in grams?

Well if you had it that'd be great. If I had anything like ounce or so I could convert it, but I have no clue what cups are.

 

[arw]

Well if you had it that'd be great. If I had anything like ounce or so I could convert it, but I have no clue what cups are.

here's a website that will do ounces or grams. Liquids always convert evenly so 1 cup of liquid is 8 oz.....a pint of Guinness is 2 cups. But dry ingredients do not convert to an exact amount like liquids.

Cup to Gram Conversions - Allrecipes

 

[Galeongirl]

here's a website that will do ounces or grams. Liquids always convert evenly so 1 cup of liquid is 8 oz.....a pint of Guinness is 2 cups. But dry ingredients do not convert to an exact amount like liquids.

Cup to Gram Conversions - Allrecipes

Thank you
That works for the flour, sugar and butter, but what about the cocoa powder?

 

[arw]

Thank you
That works for the flour, sugar and butter, but what about the cocoa powder?

use the confectioners/powdered sugar option

 

[VintagePunk]

Well if you had it that'd be great. If I had anything like ounce or so I could convert it, but I have no clue what cups are.

If you don't want to do it by weight, here are very close approximations of cups and spoons to millilitres.

1 cup = 250 ml
1/2 cup = 125 ml
1/3 cup = 80 ml
1/4 cup = 60 ml
1 tsp = 5 ml
1 tbsp = 15 ml

You can pretty much figure out anything else you need from this.

I've made this with 3 tablespoons of applesauce instead of the 3 tablespoons of oil--and it's great!

Awesome, thanks! I'll try that. Anything to save calories and make it healthier.

 

[indra]

I've always liked to bake and this is a cookie I've made for over 30 years. One day (when my parents were away *) I decided to make cookies from a recipe I found in the newspaper. It was called Mocha Nut Butterballs. However, I didn't have any cocoa, I didn't have any nuts (in more ways than one ), and I was damned if I was going to put coffee in cookies. So I ended up with a very simple buttery little cookie. Easy to make and quite tasty.

Butterballs (they are actually just flat little cookies)

1 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 3/4 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon salt

Cream butter, sugar and vanilla, then mix in flour and salt.

Lightly shape heaping teaspoonfuls into balls and place on ungreased cookie sheet.

Bake 10-12 minutes at 325F. The bottoms should be just barely beginning to brown. Remove to cooling rack.


* this cooking-while-the-parents-are-away episode turned out much better than the time I made bread. I always liked to sample what I was making (ie, I liked to eat raw cookie dough etc.) and did the same with the raw bread dough. That was when I found out just what a perfect environment the human stomach is for raw yeast doughs. I'd only eaten a small chunk of bread dough (because to be honest, it wasn't all that tasty raw), but in the middle of the night I vomited up massive quantities of VERY yeasty smelling glop. I remember hearing my mum (who got the lovely task of cleaning it up ) ask "what in the world did she eat?"

I never did that again.

 

[bonocomet]

I've always liked to bake and this is a cookie I've made for over 30 years. One day (when my parents were away *) I decided to make cookies from a recipe I found in the newspaper. It was called Mocha Nut Butterballs. However, I didn't have any cocoa, I didn't have any nuts (in more ways than one ), and I was damned if I was going to put coffee in cookies. So I ended up with a very simple buttery little cookie. Easy to make and quite tasty.

Butterballs (they are actually just flat little cookies)

1 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 3/4 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon salt

Cream butter, sugar and vanilla, then mix in flour and salt.

Lightly shape heaping teaspoonfuls into balls and place on ungreased cookie sheet.

Bake 10-12 minutes at 325F. The bottoms should be just barely beginning to brown. Remove to cooling rack.

These sound great! You wouldn't happen to still have the original recipe with the cocoa, nuts, and coffee though would you?

 

[indra]

These sound great! You wouldn't happen to still have the original recipe with the cocoa, nuts, and coffee though would you?

You know I never actually made the original recipe. And of course now that I'd like to try it the original recipe is long gone.



Anyone want a recipe for Baklava? I used to make this every Christmas and it always got rave reviews. It is quite time consuming though (you have to brush every single piece of phyllo dough with melted butter), but if someone thinks they may use it I'll post it.

 

[bonocomet]

You know I never actually made the original recipe. And of course now that I'd like to try it the original recipe is long gone.

That's ok... we could probably experiment a bit and get something good.... or maybe a pro (arw ?) could suggest the amounts that might work?



By the way... anyone else having trouble with the quote function today? All day today whenever I quote I have to go back and edit because it doesn't work the first time... seems it leaves off the [ / part at the end.

 

[arw]

That's ok... we could probably experiment a bit and get something good.... or maybe a pro (arw ?) could suggest the amounts that might work?

I'd use a 1/4 cup of cocoa powder, probably 2-3 teaspoons of coffee but maybe more like 2. As for nuts, I guess it depends on just how nutty you'd want it. Probably about a cup. Looks like a small recipe so I wouldn't go overboard with them unless you like things nutty It was probably pecans in this recipe but any nut would do.

Here's a tip for using nuts in baked goods.....lightly coat them in veg oil and then toss them in a little bit of salt. Put them on a baking sheet and toast them in the oven for about 10 minutes. You'll be amazed at how much extra flavor you'll get. Most recipes will call for salt so don't go too crazy on the salt with the nuts.

 

[bonocomet]

I'd use a 1/4 cup of cocoa powder, probably 2-3 teaspoons of coffee but maybe more like 2. As for nuts, I guess it depends on just how nutty you'd want it. Probably about a cup. Looks like a small recipe so I wouldn't go overboard with them unless you like things nutty It was probably pecans in this recipe but any nut would do.

Here's a tip for using nuts in baked goods.....lightly coat them in veg oil and then toss them in a little bit of salt. Put them on a baking sheet and toast them in the oven for about 10 minutes. You'll be amazed at how much extra flavor you'll get. Most recipes will call for salt so don't go too crazy on the salt with the nuts.

THANK YOU!!!

 

[arw]

This is my absolute favorite lemon bar recipe. I got it out of a book by Magnolia bakery in NY. I've never been to the bakery but the friend that gave me the book swears by this place everytime he goes to NY to visit.

Crust:
2 cups (4 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
4 cups all purpose flour
1 cup confectioners' sugar
1/2 t salt
2 t grated lemon zest

Topping:
2 cups sugar
6 large eggs, room temp
1 cup lemon juice
6 cups grated lemon zest

preheat oven to 350* F and grease a 12 x 18 baking sheet

For the crust: combine all of the crust ingredients in a large bowl and use the mixer on low speed. Form the dough into a ball then spread evenly onto the pan. Cover the crust with wax paper and press down to make an even crust. (a bottle of pan release spray such as Pam works great for this. Just roll it up on down the pan until your crust is even). Bake for about 20 min until golden brown then let cool a bit.

Meanwhile beat the eggs, sugar, juice and zest until combined. Pour onto the crust. Bake for about 20 minutes. Once this is completely cool you can dust it with confectioners' sugar and cut.

I've made this recipe using oranges and limes as well. I think lime is probably the most requested flavor by my family when I say I'm going to make a citrus bar. I've never mixed flavors but I've been meaning to do so to see what sort of flavor I come up with.

 

[beegee]

Char, I'm making your mac and cheese right now.

It's the perfect night for it

 

[redkat]

This is my absolute favorite lemon bar recipe.

I will be trying this one

 

[ladywithspinninghead]

This is my absolute favorite lemon bar recipe. I got it out of a book by Magnolia bakery in NY. I've never been to the bakery but the friend that gave me the book swears by this place everytime he goes to NY to visit.

I might have to try that - we're having a Christmas potluck next week and I've been tasked with making desserts; my boss' fave is Lemon Meringue pie so if this is lemon-y hopefully he'll appreciate the effort!

 

[beegee]

My family LOVED your recipe, Char!

But I think I just gained five pounds

 

[BAW]

My family LOVED your recipe, Char!

But I think I just gained five pounds

I'm glad they liked it! I've been totally nervous since you said you were making it!!

I hear you about the 5 pounds too, lol. That's pretty much why I only make it during the holidays.

 

[LarryMullen's POPAngel]

ah the life of a Pastry Chef...all in a days work.

But really, the cake minus the ganache stuff, is completely easy to make. It takes longer to boil the guinness and butter than anything else. The ganache is still easy but really not necessary. I just needed to kick it up a bit for work. Trust me, this cake is worth the effort.

I have the same recipe (I think) for the Guinness cake, but I make cupcakes with it, and do a glaze - they look like little mini pints of Guinness when I made them.

I'm glad they liked it! I've been totally nervous since you said you were making it!!

I hear you about the 5 pounds too, lol. That's pretty much why I only make it during the holidays.

I seriously have all of the ingredients for this and am debating making it this weekend. Damn you, Char!

 

[bonocomet]

I have the same recipe (I think) for the Guinness cake, but I make cupcakes with it, and do a glaze - they look like little mini pints of Guinness when I made them.

What a cute idea!!