Gingerbread with Caramel Sauce - and change....

It's fairly obvious that I have been an absentee blogger lately, but I do have my reasons. Or excuses at least... The holiday season was a busy for hubby & I (like it is for 99.9% of the rest of the world), but then throw into the mix the preparations for a month-long trip through Europe and wrapping up parts of one life so that a new one can begin. You see, a little over a year ago, right around the time that I began this little blog of mine, I also reached the breaking point with certain parts of my life. Mainly, it boils down to location, location, location, but also, various parts of my life that this location impacts my life. So, my darling hubby & I have been preparing to make a major change, pack up the dogs and move to Europe! As you can imagine, preparing for a change like that takes up just a teeny bit of time.... anyway, while I still remain committed to this blog o' mine, and you, my loyal readers, I've also started a second blog. Journey for a Better Life will focus on my travels through Europe and our life-changing move, and all of the joys and headaches that will inevitably be a part of the process. Here at Always Leave Room for Dessert, however, the focus will remain my passion for FOOD!

So, what have I been baking lately? Well, in all honesty, the Christmas season had me baking almost non-stop, but they were all treats you have read about before; Coconut Cake, Sticky Toffee Pudding, Nutella Biscotti, and Macarons-a-plenty. But I did return to an old favourite of mine for New Year's Day dinner with the in-laws, and that is my Gingerbread with Caramel Sauce.

This is a lovely cake to serve at the end of a meal - even a big meal. It seems like it would be a heavy dessert, but it's really not, and it is wayyyy better than the overly sweet gingerbread cake desserts you see in some restaurants. This Gingerbread is moist and tender and has a lovely real-ginger flavour. Serve it warm, with a drizzle of rich caramel sauce and a spoonful of whipped cream, and you have yourself a perfect winter dessert. It's like coziness on a plate.

Gingerbread with Caramel Sauce
Serves 10-12
Adapted from Cook's Illustrated

Ingredients
320 g (2 1/4 Cups) all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 tsp kosher salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground cardamom
3/4 tsp freshly grated nutmeg
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1/2 tsp ground allspice
1 tsp cocoa powder
40 g candied ginger, minced
120 g unsalted butter, melted
250 ml (3/4 Cup) molasses (choose one that's not too dark or bitter)
150 g (3/4 Cup) granulated sugar
1 large egg
120ml (1/2 Cup) buttermilk
120ml (1/2 Cup) whole milk


Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 350˚F. Prep a bundt pan with butter and flour, or with a non-stick baking spray.
In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, cardamom, cloves, nutmeg, allspice, and cocoa. Toss in the candied ginger and toss to combine
In the bowl of a stand mixer, fitted with the paddle attachment, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add in the molasses, and mix well until combined, scraping down the bowl as necessary. Beat in egg until incorporated. Gradually add buttermilk and milk until combined.
Add dry ingredients to liquid; beat on medium speed until batter is smooth, about 1 minute, scraping down sides of bowl with rubber spatula as needed. being careful not overmix. Scrape batter into prepare bundt pan, and distribute the batter evenly, using an off-set spatula.
Bake until top springs back when lightly touched, 35-40 minutes.
Transfer pan to wire cooling rack and let cool 5 to 10 minutes. Serve warm, with a drizzle of caramel sauce and a dollop of lightly sweetened whipped cream.

Caramel Sauce

INGREDIENTS
120 ml (1/2 Cup) water
200 g (1 Cup) granulated sugar
120 ml (1/2 Cup) heavy cream
1/4 tsp kosher salt
1/4 tsp vanilla extract
15 g (1 Tbsp) unsalted butter, cold

Directions
Pour the water into a medium heavy-bottomed saucepan; add sugar to center of pot to keep granules from adhering to sides of pot. Bring to boil over high heat, covered. Uncover pot, insert candy thermometer, and continue to boil until syrup is thick and straw-colored, registering 300 degrees on candy thermometer, about 15 minutes. Reduce heat to medium; continue to cook until sugar is amber, and just barely begins to smoke - registers 350˚F on candy thermometer, about 5 minutes longer. Meanwhile, when temperature of syrup reaches 280˚F, bring cream and salt to simmer in small, heavy-bottomed saucepan over high heat. Remove from heat and set aside until the sugar reaches 350˚F.
Remove sugar syrup from heat. Pour about one quarter of hot cream into sugar syrup; let bubbling subside. Add remaining cream; let bubbling subside. Whisk gently until smooth; whisk in butter. Let cool until warm; serve.

Papa Screams for Ice Cream

I love to bring people joy with my food, it's one of my favourite things about cooking and baking.  This why I like bringing desserts when we get together with friends, or baking a cake for someone's birthday.  It's the reason I send treats to work with hubby, or take a pie over to a friends house "just because". While I don't necessarily need an occasion, Father's Day was as good an excuse as any, especially when Papa has a finely tuned sweet-tooth.

Two of Dad's favourite things are ice cream and everything caramel.  That meant deciding on what to make was pretty straightforward; Homemade Dulce de Leche Ice Cream.  For most people having cake and ice cream at a birthday, the ratio is about 2 cake to 1 ice cream.  For Dad it's more like 3 ice cream to 1 cake, and even then, he'll ask why you're being so stingy with the ice cream.  For his birthday one year, I even made him a home-made ice cream cake, something I imagine I'll do again soon, as his birthday is fast approaching.

Making ice cream from scratch is not all that difficult, but it is a lengthy process when you do it properly.  So be warned, when a sudden insatiable craving for ice cream hits, you'd better run to the store because this is not something that can just be whipped up in 20 minutes like a batch of cookies.  Nope - there's a lot of waiting and chilling time involved here.  Even more so because we're making French style ice cream.  Let me explain...

There are two basic types of ice cream (I'm not even going to get into gelatos, sorbets or semi-freddos today - that's another post entirely); Philadelphia style and French custard style ice cream.  Philadelphia ice cream is usually pretty simple and light, as it contains just cream, sugar and flavourings.  There's no cooking required in this kind of ice cream, but you're still going to have to wait for it to freeze up.  French custard style ice cream, on the other hand, needs to be cooked first. because it contains egg yolks, which give this kind of ice cream a rich taste and mouth feel, and it's also why some vanilla ice creams are a creamy yellow colour  instead of a pure, snowy white colour (that would be Philly style).  For French custard-style ice cream, you cook your custard first, then it needs time to cool down and chill in the fridge for a while.  Once it's chilled, then you can put it into your ice cream maker and let those wonderful ice crystals work their magic and incorporate air into the cream - which is what gives ice cream it's trademark texture.  When it comes out of the machine, it will be the consistency of soft-serve ice cream, so it still needs to be transferred into a container and put into the freezer for a few hours before it will become really firm.  I know - it sounds like an awful lot of work for something you can pick up at the corner store, but homemade ice cream tastes sooo much better, and you should be able to pronounce every ingredient it was made with.  Not the case with 90% of the stuff in the grocery store freezer.  Hopefully I haven't scared you out of trying this recipe, because it really is worth the effort, and more importantly, so is Dad.

To go from just regular, plain ol' vanilla ice cream (which I personally happen to love) to dulce de leche ice cream, all you need is a jar of dulce de leche.  OK, so it's not all that common for most people to keep a jar on hand, but in my fridge, there is almost always a jar of home-made caramel sauce on the shelf, right beside the jar of dark chocolate ganache (because home-made or not, all ice cream is better with a little bit of warmed sauce on top).  These days, you can also buy jars of dulce de leche at just about any grocery store, which comes in pretty handy for recipes like these ones.  To get a really caramelly ice cream, I took inspiration from David Lebovitz's recipe for Salted Butter Caramel Ice Cream, and used dulce de leche in place of most of the sugar in the custard base.  Once that was done and the custard was cooked, chilled and finally had a run in the ice cream maker, all that was left do was to add a nice, thick swirl of pure dulce de leche through the finished product before it headed into it's rest in the freezer.  A few hours later, Dad was enjoying his Father's Day present and aside from several "mmmmmmm's", was not talking much.  It's a pretty good feeling to see someone who has done so much for you in your life, enjoying the little treat you made especially for them.  It's the least we can do for our dads, don't you think?

Dulce de Leche Ice Cream
Makes approximately 1 litre of ice cream

Ingredients:

370ml     whole milk     1 1/2 Cups

370ml     whipping or heavy cream     1/12 Cups

15ml     vanilla     1 Tbsp

3g     salt     1/2 tsp

250ml     dulce de leche     2 1/4 Cups

4 egg yolks

30 g     granulated sugar     2 Tbsp

Directions:
Prepare an ice bath by filling a large bowl about 2/3 full with ice and cold water; set aside.  Get a smaller bowl and place a fine sieve over it and set aside. This is what the finished custard will be poured into.
In a medium saucepan, combine the milk, cream, vanilla, salt & 150ml (1 1/4 cups) of the dulce de leche.  Place over medium-low heat and gently stir the mixture periodically to help the caramel fully melt.  Do not allow the mixture to boil - you want it to be just barely simmering at it's hottest.
In a separate bowl, placed on a damp towl or non-skid mat, add the 4 egg yolks and the sugar.  Whisk vigorously until the mixture is pale yellow.  Continue whisking (quickly but not as vigourously) and carefully pour the 1/3 of the hot cream in a slow and steady stream into the egg mixture - this is called "tempering" (The trick to avoiding scrambled eggs here is to to never stop whisking, and to not add the hot cream too quickly).  Pour the tempered egg mixture back into the saucepan with the remaining cream and gently stir over medium-low heat until the custard just begins to thicken.  Again, you don't want the custard to boil, you only want it to thicken. 
Remove from heat and carefully pour the custard through the sieve and into the empty bowl. 
Immediately place the bowl into the ice bath, ensuring that no water gets into the custard. 
Cover the custard with plastic wrap and allow it to cool to room temperature before removing from the ice bath and placing in the fridge to chill for 2-4 hours until cold.
Follow the manufacturer's directions for churning the custard in the ice cream maker.  Once it has finished churning, the mixture should have more than doubled in volume and be soft-serve ice-cream consistency.  Working quickly, scrape the ice cream into a freezer-safe container.  Pour the remaining dulce de leche over the ice cream and swirl it throughout.  Transfer the ice cream to the freezer and allow to chill for several hours.  When the ice cream has fully frozen, all you need are spoons and a couple of bowls...

Happy Father's Day to all the dad's out there.  I hope you were able to enjoy your favourite treat to celebrate.

Happy Baking!

Piece Montée -also known as Croquembouche

Even the name sounds yummy.... cro-kemmmmmmm-booooooooshhhhh.

The May 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Cat of Little Miss Cupcake. Cat challenged everyone to make a piece montée, or croquembouche, based on recipes from Peter Kump’s Baking School in Manhattan and Nick Malgieri. I was super excited when I this month's challenge, for a bunch of reasons...

1. I won't have to make anyone cry with my Daring Bakers' Challenge this month
2. It's French, and I adore all things French
3. I *love* pastry cream filled choux - one of the tastiest things on the planet in my opinion.
4. I am a stickler for real, honest-to-goodness, made-from-scratch pastry cream, and not powdered vanilla pudding.
5. I have made this dessert before (for my sis-in-law's wedding), and have always wanted to try it again, because I wanted to perfect it (word of advice - don't try and make/assemble a never-before-made dessert for 150 people an hour before you're supposed to beat a wedding, dressed-up and not covered in chocolate. Oh - and maybe make sure you have enough little choux to actually finish the piece montée, so you don't have to lop off the top and end up with a croquembouche that looks like this ------>)
6. I love French desserts.  Pretty much all things French, actually, but my absolute favourite are French things you can eat.
7. I've always wanted to do the proper spun caramel technique for it (you can guess why that didn't happen the first time - no time, and it's even less attractive to show up at a wedding with molten sugar burns on your arms)
8. It's stunning AND delicious, and that's a pretty killer combo in my books
9. It's FRENCH... wait, did I already say that?

So, first of all, I'm a little bummed that April's & May's DB challenges weren't switched, because I had a dozen events in April that this would have been perfect for, and I have none of those in May.  While I love girly, pretty French things, most of my co-workers are more...ummm (how do I say this?) ....they're more not into girly, pretty French things.  A big culture shock for me was to go from working in an industry with mostly women and a lot of gay men, to working with very few women and a lot of men who aren't even all that comfortable being around gay men.  So bringing this in for what have now become known in the office as "Baking Mondays", well, it won't get quite the same level of appreciation a dessert like this deserves.  (but boy oh boy, it would have at the flower shop...)

Anyway... I sat down with a good cup of coffee and began reading all about the challenge - no sweat, I can totally do this.  When it came time to actually make it however, I gave it a second read and noticed that "You must use the recipe provided for the the pate a choux batter however".  Sure thing, Cat, not a problem.  Your recipe doesn't look all that different from the recipe I normally... wait a second....NO MILK???????  Oh great, here we go again......

You may recall my recent, still-very-fresh-in-my-mind, battle with brioche and recipes that omit crucial ingredients.  Namely: milk.  Well, as soon as I saw this recipe used only water, I began going over and over the recipe, looking for some hint that this was a typo.  Nope, just water.  Hmm.  Ok (here's where I owe Little Miss Cupcake an apology ), I googled pâte à choux recipes to see if this was in fact an accurate version of the recipe.  Huge sigh of relief when I found several other recipes that were sans le lait.  whew!  Carry on.

I started out by making my pastry cream - exactly the same one I made for my Perfect Chocolate Éclairs. Tried and true and tasty.  Once the pastry cream was chilling in the fridge, I took a deep breath and started on my batch of choux.  Much to my delight, it worked and behaved exactly like the recipe I usually use avec le  lait, so I was worried for no reason.  My piping skills have even improved  considerably, thanks to the techniques Mardi at Eat.Live.Travel.Write. shared from her macarons class at Lenôtre.  (my piping skills really needed still need work - I've graduated to the lever where I can pipe blobs now... not much else).  Into the oven my petit choux blobs went.  When the timer finally went off, I took a deep breath and looked in the oven.  They were beautiful - I would have to say they were even bigger than mine normally are, so maybe milk-less is the way to go.  Filling them up with that lovely pastry cream didn't take very long, which meant I was soon ready to move on to the next step.

The Caramel.  I have made caramel sauce before - many times in fact - and each time seems to be a bit different.  But this isn't caramel sauce - this is just caramelized sugar.  That's all.  No water or added cream or vanilla or butter.  Just sugar.  However, one thing you should know about me is that I am a complete woos when it comes to the idea of burning myself, and playing with molten sugar scares the bejeezus out of me.  But I persevere, in hopes that eventually I will be able to do it and not hold find myself holding my breath the whole time - cuz that only makes you lightheaded and dizzy, which *significantly* increases your chances of getting a 3rd degree sugar burn.  Also, one of my goals for this year is to improve my caramel and sugar caramelizing skills (stay tuned for future posts and you'll get to see how that turns out).  This was as good a time as any to get in some practice time, right?  Besides, if you're going to participate in a baking "challenge" then there should be some aspect of it that challenges you.  (yeesh - that sounds more conceited than intended - let me elaborate)  Yes, so far I've lucked out two months in a row with DB Challenges that I already have experience making, but I also believe that luck is going to run out soon.  

So, given my inexperience working with just plain old melted sugar, I was a little apprehensive.  But, I took a deep breath, put some sugar in a cooper pot and lit the burner.  While keeping a very steady eye on my pot of liquifying sugar, I began roughly "dry-fitting" together the pieces for my first layer of the croquembouche, preparing in advance so I would know where to put the little choux once it was covered with hot caramel.  Pretty soon, the sugar was just beyond the point when it starts to smoke, so I plunged the pot into a bowl of ice water to halt the cooking process, and quickly got to work.  Maybe this was the prefect dessert to help me get over my fear of molten sugar, I was so distracted with all of the fitting together the choux blob puzzle, that I completely forgot to be freaked out.  Before I knew it, I had two full layers done and had zero burns!  WooHoo!  This is cool!  Now I can see why they use this as pastry glue for those amazing pieces they make on tv.  It's awesome!

Another thing I learned was why the croquembouche is traditionally covered in a halo of spun sugar.  Because a frothy veil of golden caramel acts as a really good cover for the mess.  You're not exactly going to use your finger to wipe away any smears or drips of 200˚ sugar, and I certainly had a lot of drips and oozes happening.  So, while I was glueing together my piece montée, I asked hubby to take one of my very large whisks and sacrifice it for the spun sugar cause.  Well, it took a little more tweaking after he trimmed off the rounded top of the whisk - he had to also bend the individual wires back out a bit, as they immediately collapsed on one another once they were cut.  Full of caramelly confidence, I was excited to give my "new" toy a try, and dipped the wire whisk into to the hot caramel, lifted it above the completed tower of choux and proceeded to spray hot sugar onto every surface in my kitchen while almost nothing landed on the croquembouche.  Awesome.  I went back for another attempt, but didn't fare any better the second time.  I abandoned that idea and figured that would be a lesson for another day.  I did, however, play around a bit on some parchment paper and made a caramel Tour Eiffel for a decoration.  Because after all, it's FRENCH!

So here you have it - my Piece Montée, complete with caramel.  Thanks so much to Cat (whom I should hate, simply because she lives in Paris and I don't), I had a blast making this, and you helped me face my fear of molten sugar, and I even survived unscathed!  ZERO burns to show for it!  YAY!

Pâte à Choux (sans le lait)

(Yield: About 28) - I ended up with 40
¾ cup (175 ml.) water
6 Tbsp. (85 g.) unsalted butter
¼ Tsp. salt
1 Tbsp. sugar
1 cup (125 g.) all-purpose flour
4 large eggs

(directions are exactly the same as they are for my "Perfect Chocolate Éclair" post, which is also where you will find my recipe for REAL Pastry Cream)

Caramel aka Molten Sugar Glue

1 Cup (200g) sugar
Put the sugar in a heavy-bottomed saucepan, and place over medium heat.  Keep a watchful eye om the sugar, and as the crystals begin to melt and darken, gently stir (using a silicone spatula only) the sugar to move the dry sugar to the bottom to even the cooking.  As the entire pot of sugar melts and begins to darken, it will begin to smoke.  Once it begins smoking, immediately plunge the bottom of the pot into a bowl of ice water to halt the cooking process.  If, while you are assembling your piece montée, the pot of caramel begins to harden and become difficulty to work with, simply return it over a medium flame on the stove until it melts to the proper consistency again.  Repeat as needed.