Baking my way through writer's block...

Hazelnut Pound Cake with a Nutella Ribbon

Writer's block sucks.  I've been back from London for 10 days now, and am still "stuck" on what to write about.  There's no shortage of stories to tell, or topics to discuss - it's simply a matter of the words not coming.  I think I'm just over-thinking the whole thing.  Trying too hard and getting absolutely nowhere.

My whole routine has been slightly off kilter for the last couple of weeks.  Hubby has been gone on a couple of business trips and his absence has been very noticeable.  During the first trip, I was simply enjoying a bunch of "me" time - enjoying the silence in the house and being able to do whatever I wanted whenever I wanted.  If I felt like having a bowl of popcorn for dinner, I could.  Then I was off on my own excursion to the UK, discovering a whole new world full of people who are just as nuts about food as I am.  He arrived home while I was away, and got to enjoy some alone time of his own.  I returned a few days later and had just a few hours to spend with him before it was time for bed and right back to work the next day.  A word of advice: if you ever take and insanely short trip overseas and think you can handle going straight back to work 14 hours after you come home, you're wrong.  Don't do it.  Take a day off to figure out which continent you're on, do some laundry and just enjoy the post-holiday glow (something which wears off alarmingly fast at the office).  By Sunday, hubby was back on a plane and I was home alone again.  However, this time the house just felt... vacant.  All of the things he does around the house are now all on my plate, and the bed feels lop-sided with just me in it.  Sure, a couple of times I've let the dogs sleep on the bed with me, but I only wake to find myself pinned under two 60 pound dogs, clinging for dear life to edge of the mattress despite the fact that the bed is emptier than normal.  {sigh}  I miss my hubby...

Several times I have sat down at the computer to write a post, but it's like wading through wet cement.  Finally, I decided that I needed to get back in the kitchen (popcorn for dinner is only fun for so long).  I hadn't baked much since being home either - like I said, my whole routine is out of whack.  So, I shook it off and flipped through a couple of cookbooks for inspiration.  I settled on Toasted Hazelnut Pound Cake from Regan Daley's In the Sweet Kitchen - the first cookbook I ever sat down and read cover-to-cover, and still one of my favourites.  I put my favourite playlist of French music on the iPod (something else that always seems to help when I need inspiration) and got to work.

I happened to have a bag of hazelnut flour in the pantry, saving me the step of skinning and grinding up all those nuts, which was nice.  I didn't have any hazelnut oil though - something the book said was recommended, but not essential for the recipe.  Oh well - next time.  The batter was pretty straightforward and came together beautifully.  I did switch up the baking pan and the recipe a bit though.  Rather than baking it in a round spring-form pan, I baked it in my springform tube pan and added a generous swirl of Nutella through the middle of the batter.  Gorgeous smells were coming from the oven in no time - I just needed to be patient and wait for it to cool.  When it finally did cool enough for me to slice into, what did I see but a nice "smile" of chocolate-hazelnutty goodness in the middle of my cake.

Smile!

If you like hazelnuts, you will absolutely love this cake.  It's a bit lighter than a traditional pound cake, but toasty and nutty and moist, with a lovely crisp crust.  I will be baking this one again - and probably very soon.  I even picked up a bottle of hazelnut oil for next time - I can't wait to see how it enhances the flavour.

Delectable cake baked and tasted.  Pictures taken.  Post written.  I think I may just have finally broken through the wall.  Whew!

*A word about my new recipe format:  while I've always tried to list both metric and imperial measurements in the recipes I post, I've decided to change the layout to make it a bit easier to read - especially for the metric cooks out there.  It's not that the old-fashioned American cooks out there don't matter, but you are seriously outnumbered here.  C'mon already!  It really is time to get on board with the whole metric system like the rest of the planet.

Hazelnut Pound Cake (with Nutella Ribbon)

next time...

Adapted from In the Sweet Kitchen by Regan Daley

Ingredients:

240g   hazelnut flour (finely ground hazelnuts)  1 1/2 Cups

201g   sugar   1 Cup

226g   unsalted butter, room temperature   1 Cup

100g   light brown sugar   1/2 Cup

4 large eggs, room temperature 

10ml   vanilla   2 tsp

284g   all-purpose flour   2 Cups

13g   baking powder   2 1/2 tsp

3g   salt   1/2 tsp

125ml   heavy whipping cream   1/2 Cup

15ml   hazelnut oil*   1 Tbsp

*optional, but recommended by chef

180g   Nutella   3/4 Cup

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350˚F and place rack in centre position of oven.  Butter a 9-inch tube pan or round springform pan, and set aside.
In a medium bowl, combine all purpose flour, hazelnut flour, baking powder and salt.  Whisk together, or sift ensuring there are no clumps.  Set aside.
In bowl of a standing mixer, fitted with the paddle attachment, cream together butter and both sugars until pale & fluffy.  Add the eggs, one at a time, making sure to mix well after each addition.  Stir in the vanilla.
Add 1/3 of the dry ingredients and mix until just incorporated.  Pour in 1/2 of the cream, and mix on low speed to combine.  Mix in another 1/3 of dry ingredients, followed by the remaining cream, as well as hazelnut oil if you are using it.  Finally, mix in final third of dry ingredients and mix just until no traces of white remain.
In a bowl, gently warm the Nutella in the microwave for about 10-15 seconds, until it is just fluid enough to pour.
Pour approximately 1/2 of the batter into the prepared baking pan and spread evenly.  Pour a ribbon of Nutella over the centre (if using a tube pan, or in two concentric rings if using a round springform pan) of the first layer of batter, making sure to distribute it as evenly as possible.  Pour remaining cake batter on top of Nutella and even out the batter with an off-set spatula.  Make sure that no Nutella is peeking out anywhere - if it is, gently spread some of the batter over it to cover.
Bake for 60 minutes, or until the top springs back lightly when pressed.  Remove from oven and run a paring knife around the edge of the pan to release the cake.  Invert cake onto a wire rack and allow to cool for 20-30 minutes.
Well wrapped, the recipe says this cake keeps well for up to 5 days if refrigerated.  Kept on the counter at the office, it lasts about 2 hours before it's completely gone.

Happy Baking!


22 June 2010

RECIPE UPDATE:  I have since made this cake again, but this time I added the recommended hazelnut oil along with about 50g of flax seeds (see, now it's "healthy"! *wink* *wink*).  Let me just say that a) toasted hazelnut oil smells *amazing*, I could just sit there and sniff at it all day; and b) the added taste of the hazelnut oil is wonderful, it just adds a bit more depth to the toasty nuttiness.  Suddenly I am reminded of a line from one of my favourite movies, Rataouille (quel surprise), where Remy is tasting some food with his brother Emile...
     Remy:     Are you detecting a certain oaky nuttiness?
     Emile:     Oh, I'm detecting nuttiness alright...
Hahahaha - so cute!  I love that movie!

So, while you don't necessarily need the hazelnut oil, it's quite nice to have it in there.

Enjoy!

Chocolate Blinis

For May's Chocolate With Francois challenge, Linda at Diva Weigh selected Chocolate Blinis. Traditionally, blinis are made with yeast and are served with caviar and sour cream, but in this case, they are leavened with whipped egg whites, and are definitely more sweet than savoury. Essentially, these are light, fluffy little pancakes, that are incredibly chocolatey.

The batter came together quite easily; melted chocolate and butter is stirred into an egg and sugar mixture, dry ingredients and ground hazelnuts are folded in, followed by whipped eggs whites. A short rest in the fridge and the blinis are ready to be cooked!

Cooking the blinis proved to be a bit more challenging than expected though. Even with the pan over the lowest flame, they had a tendency to burn, or if they weren't burnt, they were still too raw to flip. That picture up top?  Ya, that's the only blini that turned out presentable... that's why ther's only one on the plate.  After almost a dozen blinis turned out mishapened and burnt, I changed gears and started heating up the waffle baker. The waffle blinis turned out much much better. They were crisp and light and perfectly browned.

Since these were going to be a dessert, I whipped up a bit of cream to serve on top. Then inspiration called and I remembered the new flavour of jam that I had recently spied at the grocery store. Bonne Maman's Mandarin Jam is a lovely marmalade, yet it's not overly bitter like so many marmalades can be. A few tablespoons of this jam whipped into cream, turned out to be a stellar topping for these very chocolatey waffles.

The complete recipe can be found on Linda's blog DivaWeigh.

Happy Baking!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Hazelnut Coffee Cake

I am finally getting back into my food-blogging groove after two weeks of "life" has gotten in the way.  It feels so good to be back, checking in with all my new blog buddies around the globe - an incredible collection of kind, funny, food-focused people like me.  These are the people I am looking forward to meeting in person and getting to know better when I head to London in early June for my very first Food Blogger Connect conference.

This weekend has not been ideal, I will admit.  After pouring my heart and soul into a very emotional post on Friday night (it will be posted on Tuesday if you'd like to read it), I finally crawled into bed at 2 am with puffy, red eyes and curled up beside my poor, sick hubby who is in anguish with a horrible cold.  Saturday was spent running around, taking Riley the goofball mutt to make an appearance at the adopt-a-thon where we met and adopted him last year.  Being a doggy event, Molly came along too.  It wasn't exactly a relaxing afternoon, let's just put it that way.  This morning, I woke to find my darling husband, still congested and achey, had been up before me cleaning up and looking after two sick dogs.  I feel really, really bad about this one, since it was my spoiling them that got them in this state.  You see, beef suet appears to have no smell to you or I, but it certainly smells delicious to dogs - they were absolutely nutty, pacing and whining at the counter where it sat.  I finally gave in and smeared a tablespoon or so into two hollow bones to keep them occupied while I baked and blogged.  This was enough of a change in diet for them, that I'm living in regret ever since.  Add in the fact that it's chilly and grey again this morning, instead of sunny and warm as I had hoped.  There you have it, a less-than-ideal weekend.  Nonetheless, I'm still making the most of it.

What we needed was some comfort food!  I still had some buttermilk in the fridge that needed a purpose, so I set about making a coffee cake.  This one is one of hubby's favourites - and he is definitely deserving of a favourite treat today.  The boy who grew up in a house where desserts were uncommon, loves this coffee cake so much, he has often requested it as his birthday cake.  For him, I normally make it with apples & cinnamon, but this morning I chose to leave those out and make it more hazelnutty instead.  I toasted & chopped up some hazelnuts for the topping, threw in a pinch of cardamom and the special sucre de noisette I picked up on my last visit to Paris and put it in the oven.  As I write this, the nutty, spicy, sweet smell is perfuming the entire house, making for a long and difficult wait until it cools enough to unmold.

So, if on a Sunday morning, you would like to make a sweet treat for someone who is under the weather and deserves edible comfort, this is a great choice.  Now I'm off to set up the backgammon board so we can have a game and enjoy some warm coffee cake.

Happy Sunday everyone!

PS - aside from the obvious "because you serve it with coffee" answer, does anyone know why it is called Coffee Cake?  There's never any coffee in it.

Hazelnut Coffeecake

(adapted from Cook's Illustrated)

1 Tbsp dry breadcrumbs

2 cups (284g) all-purpose flour

1 cup plus 2 Tbsp (231g) granulated sugar

1 tsp salt

10 Tbsp (142g) butter, at room temperature

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

3/4 cup (180ml) buttermilk, at room temperature

1 large egg, at room temperature

1tsp vanilla extract

3/4 cup (85g) hazelnuts, toasted & chopped fine

1/2 cup (100g) dark brown sugar
1 tbsp sucre de noisette (if you have some)

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1/8 tsp ground cardamom

Preheat oven to 350˚F and adjust rack to centre of oven.
Generously butter the bottoms & sides of a 10-inch springform pan.  Sprinkle the bottom of the pan with the breadcrumbs, then shake lightly to coat.  Tap out excess crumbs
In a large bowl, whisk together flour, sugar & salt until blended.  Add the butter and cut in with the whisk until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs.  Remove 1 cup of the flour mixture to a separate, medium-sized bowl and set aside.
To the large bowl of flour mixture, add the buttermilk, egg and vanilla and whisk vigorously until the batter is thick, smooth and fluffy - about 1 1/2 to 2 minutes (unless you've got arms of steel, I recommend using the stand mixer for this part).
Scrape the batter into the prepared pan and smooth the top.
Add the nuts, brown sugar, sucre de noisette and cinnamon to the reserved crumbs of flour, butter and sugar.  Toss with a fork or your hands until well blended.  Sprinkle the crumbs over the batter and press lightly so that they adhere.  Bake the cake until the centre is firm and a toothpick or bamboo skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean - about 50-55 minutes.
Let the cake cool completely (about 2 hours) before serving.  When the cake is completely cool, it can be slid off the pan onto a serving plate.