Bread Rising Baskets

Ever since reading the Bread Bible and Breads from the LaBrea Bakery, I wanted bread rising baskets. These baskets are not necessary in making artisan bread. I have had wonderful breads that were risen the more traditional way. For some reason---I just had to have them. Unfortunately, their cost was prohibitive---I think they were in the $30 range---each. So I made due with what I had.

The idea behind them is simple: on the dough's final rise, you place it in a well floured basket and cover it with a cloth. The baskets are made from willow branches that have their bark removed. The loose construction allows air to circulate and give the dough a better rise.

Once the dough reaches the top, you then dust it with cornmeal and carefully invert the dough onto a pizza peel. You then bake your bread on a pizza stone until done. I have used simple recipes from the bread machine, to very complex ones that take 3 days to "build".

Last summer I gave in and purchased my bread rising baskets at SurLaTable in Carmel, California. We were on a quick vacation and I splurged. I am so very glad I finally did.

One thing is for certain, no matter what the recipe, the bread rising basket makes a very beautiful loaf of bread.

Pizzelles

Please welcome Violet...my guest blogger for the day. Violet is going to show you how to make some Pizzelles...a very easy cookie to make. Thanks Violet for sitting in for me---W

I'm not the best cook in world, my family often calls me Miss Measure because I hardly ever make something without mis-measuring at least one of the ingredients. The only exception to the rule is with cookies. I can generally make a batch of cookies, even difficult ones, without messing them up too badly.

I love all kinds of cookies, but one of my favorites is Pizzelles, because they are very simple to make and they look really impressive. Pizzelles are Italian butter cookies, cooked in a waffle iron. The dough is similar to a quick bread dough in that it is sticky like a batter doesn't form a ball like a normal cookie dough.

Pizzelle irons work on the same premise as a waffle iron, they are easy to use and readily available at most cooking stores. They're are pretty much plug and play. Once the iron heats up a light will turn on, load the iron with a rounded tablespoon of dough in each compartment shut the iron and wait for the Pizzelles to cook. The light will turn on again when the Pizzelles are done. Be careful when you use it, because some irons run hot and will burn the Pizzelles if you leave them in for the full cooking time. If you find that your Pizzelles are black when the light turns on, then take them out early.

In order to get a complete circle you need to over fill the molds a little so the dough reaches to the edges. The Pizzelles will have extra dough on the edges, but there's a way to fix that.

As you can see to remove the Pizzelles from the iron I use a fancy Italian tool called a butter knife. I'm sure there is some special way to do it, but I've found that butter knives work best because they are small and don't tear the cookies.

If you want to clean up the edges so that the Pizzelles are a perfect circle, while the cookies are still warm, carefully cut the extra edges off with kitchen shears.

And in case you wondered the extra edges make a super delicious snack!

Pizzelles-- simple to make, look impressive, super delicious!

White Mountain Frosting---The Recipe

White Mountain Frosting is really just an Italian Meringue. The technique is fairly straight forward, beat egg whites until stiff with cream of tartar. Adding a hot sugar syrup to the mixture, which cooks the whites, resulting in a lovely stable marshmallow cream frosting. Here you go Lisa and Mariam...the recipe!

If you per chance have left over frosting...you can pipe (or drop by the spoonful) onto a baking sheet lined with parchment or a silpat, bake at 225 degrees for 2 hours, then let cool in the oven for another 3 hours--Presto Magico...Meringue Cookies!

White Mountain Frosting (adapted from Cooking Light)

4 large egg whites

1/4 tsp cream of tartar

Dash of salt

1 cup sugar

1/4 cup water

1 tsp vanilla extract
(other extracts such as lemon or coconut can also be used, decrease vanilla to 1/2 tsp and use 1/2 tsp of your desire extract)

Place egg whites, cream of tartar and salt in the bowl of a stand mixer or other large mixing bowl--taking care NOT to use plastic. Beat with a mixer until stiff peaks form. Combine sugar and water in a saucepan, bring to a boil. Cook, without stirring, until a candy thermometer registers 250 degrees. Pour hot syrup in a thin stream over egg whites, beating at high speed. Stir in extract.

White Mountain Icing...

Makes me smile.

Leftover Frosting...Throw it Out???

After making the Elmo cake --- I found I had too much colored icing left over. This was just a bit of what was left, I also had 2 piping bags full in the fridge. What do do???

It dawned on me sometime in during the afternoon on Sunday...ladybugs were red and black, how about making a quick batch of ladybug cupcakes? Violet iced them for me this time as my wrist was acting up. They were delivered to my dear friend G this afternoon---much to her 3 boy's delight.

In these tough economic times...it is just a waste to throw out good icing.

Elmo Cake

Elmo isn't exactly a cupcake...if he was he wouldn't feed 30 people!

A friend of mine asked me to make a cake for his son's 2nd birthday. What he and his wife wanted was an Elmo face cake. This is the first character cake I have ever attempted, I was nervous that the outcome would be something that E and K wouldn't be happy with. Wilton makes a pan for this, but in usual Hey Cupcake fashion, we decided to make our own pan and place Elmo on top of a sheet cake.

The cast of characters was simple and rather basic, I used cake mixes with the instructions found on the Betty Crocker website for a wedding or tiered cake. You use a bit less water, egg whites instead of whole eggs and a small amount of oil. I added lemon zest to change up the flavor just a bit. It will get rid of the commercial cake mix taste very well.

As with a normal cake mix, it is basically "dump" and go. All ingredients in the recipe for the cake go in the bowl of my stand mixer. I love my mixer--I actually have 2, but that is a story for another time. The cake was mixed on high for 2 minutes. I was careful to scrape down the sides of the bowl a few times as well.

Elmo needed to have eyes and a nose that were separate from the rest of his face. I improvised and used my ebelskiver pan for the eyes and a 1/4 cup measure for his nose. Both "pans" were sprayed with cooking spray and floured.

I poured the batter in each well of the pan and then the measuring cup nose as well.

I was a bit over zealous with the cake batter and had to remove about half from each well. The last thing I wanted was a bunch of "eyes" that were stuck together.

This is the cake pan that M formed out of an aluminum 8 inch cake pan, that we bought for a whopping 29 cents at a craft store. Much more cost effective than a 20 dollar Wilton pan that we would most likely never use again. It was also sprayed and floured before the batter was poured in.

Once the eyes and nose were done, I removed them from the pan to cool on a rack.

Now that the cakes were done, it was time to concentrate on the icing. I made a basic butter cream icing and then dyed it the appropriate Elmo colors. First softened butter goes in the stand mixer bowl.

Then I added cream cheese and vanilla, beat it until it was well incorporated. Sometimes I add the vanilla at this stage, sometimes I wait until later...just depends on my mood.

Next, I added the powdered sugar, this time I slowly beat it into the butter mixture, amazingly ---there was no powdered sugar all over the cupboard.

I thinned the frosting just a bit with Half & Half, to make it easier to spread.

One side note, if you are using red food coloring, make sure to get the "no taste" red. For some reason the other red tastes horrible---I'm not sure I want to know what they put in it!

For everything that needs food coloring, we use Wilton Gel Colors. The gel coloring is easy to use, and the colors are more vibrant. It will take much more liquid coloring to get the desired hue, I think it is probably cheaper in the long run. One small jar costs $1.54 at Walmart.

I stirred orange and black in to separate bowls to make the colors for Elmo's eyes and nose.

Looks kinda cool like a spider web.

I then "crumb coated" the eyes and nose. Crumb coating is the first layer of frosting in a decorated cake. The main purpose of this is, once a cake is crumb coated with icing---any stray crumbs you may have are locked into the cold frosting.

This is the sheet cake before the crumb coating.

This is the crumb coating being applied...not really rocket science.

This is Elmo's crumb coating, he was more of a salmon color at first, once it sat for a bit the red coloring became much deeper and a truer red. I also added just a touch of black at the suggestion of a dear friend who has had some experience with red paint.

Once Elmo's eyes and nose were crumb coated, I froze them. Once they had hardened I smoothed the icing to give them more of a fondant look. Then I piped the black pupils on the eyes. I made several eyes as back up in case of a disaster. We ate them later on.

We piped "fur" instead of the stars in the Wilton instructions. It was much more Elmo-ish.

A thick layer of white butter cream went on the sheet cake.

Once all the pieces were complete, I placed Elmo on top of the frosted sheet cake and attempted to write Happy Birthday on top...it took 2 tries.

I was not exactly thrilled with the writing, but it worked out okay in the end.

Adding the 2nd helped quite a bit.

Elmo complete and in his cake box, ready for the party!