baking Archives - hello kelinda

November 11, 2023

Caramel Apple Cake

This cake began with me flipping through my well-loved copy of Tartine’s first cookbook and finding myself suddenly intrigued by their recipe for caramel apples. Up until then, I had never had a caramel apple. I had never wanted a caramel apple. I had never understood why anyone would want an apple dunked in sweet, sticky goo. But for whatever reason, because my brain is the way it is, I suddenly very much wanted a caramel apple. And not just any caramel apple, but Tartine’s caramel apples.

So… why not make an entire cake to go with it? Let’s break it down:

Cake: Lightly spiced cake studded with fresh apple chunks
Filling: Italian buttercream whipped with tangy sour cream and honey
Outer: Italian buttercream
Topping: Tart and buttery apple cider caramel

All together, you get a cake that just bursts with proper apple goodness.

AmyK

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July 8, 2016

Sweet Honey Skillet Cornbread

The downstairs apartment is apparently undergoing renovation, so as I write this, my floors and walls are shuddering from all the banging, thumping, and mysterious mechanical sounds that make me think maybe a Transformer is trying to build boat with its fists in good ol’ #203. Good grief.

Anyway, that has nothing to do with cornbread. I don’t even have a clever segue planned. Speaking of boats… No. Nothing of the sort.

But cornbread! You’d think having grown up in Texas that I’d wax poetic about how Southern cornbread is unbeatable and that these Northerners just don’t get it right, and et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. But you’d be wrong. I grew up eating a lot of the stuff when I lived in Houston, and I loved it then as much as I love it now. But up until recently, the best cornbread I have ever had was from a barbecue joint in Seattle. I mean, the actual barbecue was… not exciting. But the cornbread! Holy shit!

And now that experience has been dethroned by the little slices of cornbread heaven I had in… Vancouver, Canada. I know. But I had another Texan with me and we both agreed that this was the best cornbread, A+ cornbread, 5 stars, 10 thumbs up. So obviously, this is now a true fact: delicious cornbread can be found anywhere. Even in your own home!
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AmyK

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May 25, 2016

Blueberry Cookies

I was scrolling through my Facebook feed and saw this Smitten Kitchen post:

It was for the Leite’s Consummate Chocolate Chip Cookies recipe, but I initially mistook the chocolate chips for blueberries. When I found out they were not blueberries, I was disappointed. While I’m sure Deb’s chocolate chip cookies are wonderful, my brain latched onto the idea of a blueberry-studded cookie. I mean, why not? Why not put blueberries into a cookie?

So I did.

AmyK

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March 6, 2016

I’m Aliiiiiiive! And Some Focaccia, I Guess

I’ve had a cold all week, and have made and eaten so much chicken noodle soup that I’m pretty sure all of my blood has now been replaced with broth. Oy. After all of this, if one of my coworkers so much coughs within a 15 radius of me, they are definitely getting Lysol-ed in the face.

But finally, finally, I am on the mend. And the only thing I wanted after days of soup, soup, and more soup was a good piece of bread. I talked about the comfort of sandwich bread before, but this time I wanted something a little more interesting. Something to wake my mouth up from its chicken broth slumber. Something like focaccia!

I love focaccia. It’s fluffy and crusty, fairly simple to make (if a bit time-consuming with all the proofing and whatnot), and you can top it with all manner of delicious things. It also makes a decent “sandwich” bread if you slice it in half, but the fact that it’s soaked in olive oil will make eating that sandwich a messy experience. But I am shameless, so that never stops me, muahahahahahahaahahaha!!!!

AmyK

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February 25, 2016

Pao de Queijo (aka Brazilian Cheese Bread)

“Why do I have so much Parmesan cheese.”

I’m a serial Forgetter of What I Already Have, and Buyer of Things I Already Own when it comes to food items. I once ended up with multiple bottles of coriander seeds because I always forgot I already had it in my pantry, and then there was also the “Three Jars of Peanut Butter” incident. And now I found myself with six hunks of Parmesan cheese.

I love cheese, but six pieces of Parmesan is still a bit… excessive. I knew I had to cull my collection, especially before any of them tragically sprouted fuzzy mold. And after a quick rummage through my pantry rack yielded a bag of tapioca flour, I knew a nice batch of pao de queijo was in order.

Oops.

Pao de queijo is a snack-sized Brazilian cheese bread, which I first had at my (Brazilian) high-school boyfriend’s home. His mom bought them frozen and would pop a few into the oven several times a day so that there was always a supply of them on the kitchen island for snacking. Now fast forward several (okay, many) years later, and I found myself making them in a cooking class, and learning that these are insanely easy to whip up. And also a great way to use up surplus cheese, should you ever find yourself in the luxury of that situation.

These are bite-sized and chewy (thanks to the use of tapioca flour), and though it does use a good two cups of cheese, is actually pretty mild on the cheese taste — though that may depend on what kind of cheese you use. I’ve had the most success using hard cheeses like Parmesan, and I think Parm is the usual cheese of choice for these unless you can get your mitts on more traditionally Brazilian cheeses, though I also like to mix in a bit of Pecorino as well because I just like Pecorino, okay?

Everything comes together in a blender, making assembly and cleanup a breeze. More time for eating, I’d say.

AmyK

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January 31, 2016

Turkish Coffee Brownies

Roses are red
Violets are blue
And chocolate is brown.

Poetry: I am bad at it.

Buuuuut Valentine’s Day is coming up! Or as I like to call it, Discount Candy Eve. And because Chris Evans still hasn’t shown up at my door bearing many treats in his big, strong arms (very rude, Chris, why do you hurt me), I guess I’ll be doting upon the next best Valentine’s Day date: myself. And if there’s one thing I know I like, it is chocolate.

Awww shucks, I shouldn’t have.

AmyK

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November 29, 2015

Chess Pie, Which Isn’t the Same Thing As Simply Playing Chess On a Pie, So Don’t Try That

Hello, friends! I trust all of you spent your long Thanksgiving weekend eating excessive amounts of food (as is one’s patriotic duty on the last Thursday of November). I made five dishes — three of which were potato-based — and spent it at home alone marathon watching The Great British Baking Show. And yes, I planned it that way, and yes, it was relaxing and glorious and no one was around to say anything about the fact that I chose to drink my wine out of a tumbler with a bendy straw.

But now, it’s time to get cracking because the holiday season insanity has begun! If you’ve got many a potluck to attend, consider making pie as your contribution. You can make it ahead of time, transporting them isn’t as precarious as transporting a crock pot full of scalding hot brisket, and there are as many varieties of delicious pies to choose from as the day is long.

Confession: I am not very good at making pies. Or rather, I am not very good at making pie crusts. But I am a firm believer of homemade pie crusts no matter how rubbish they may end up looking (and trust me, I’ve made some pretty rubbish-looking ones) because they will always, always taste better than the premade, store-bought kind. Trust me. You can do this.

This is a chess pie. I don’t know why it’s called that and am far too lazy to Google it myself, so you’ll have to do that investigation on your own. But I do know that it’s something I’ve had a few times when I lived in Texas, where non-fruit pies are commonplace year-round. The filling is a sweet golden custard, with just a little bit of crunch on the top. All of this is cradled inside a thin buttery crust. Yum.

AmyK

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October 28, 2015

SpOoOoOoky Pandan Chiffon Cake

Okay, that title is only there because it’s almost Halloween. This isn’t that spooky, but what you see here is a green cake, made without dyes or magic spells or any other kind of tomfoolery. That pallor is all natural, baby, thanks to the pandan leaf.

Pandan, also called screwpine, is a common “flavoring agent” (meaning it infuses things, but you don’t really eat the leaf itself — kind of like a bay leaf) in Southeast Asian cuisine, and one of my favorite pandan employments is in pandan chiffon cake. It’s fragrant in the way that excellent Jasmine rice is fragrant, and just a little coconut-y. In fact, cooks often bump up the coconut-ish flavor with additional coconut milk, which I definitely did here.

Cooking with whole pandan can be kind of an ordeal, but it is absolutely worth the effort if you’re always looking for a barely-sweet, light, almost angel food-like cake to have in the mornings with your coffee or tea. If your city has a big Asian grocery store — preferably a Chinese or Vietnamese one because my Japanese supermarket didn’t have this, but the Chinese one did — go there and look around the frozen vegetables section; that’s where I found the frozen pandan leaves I used here. With whole pandan, you can get that beautiful green hue without food coloring! Pandan extract can also work when whole pandan isn’t available, but be warned that it can also be a bit cloying and artificial-tasting. Bummer.

The trick is cut your pandan leaves up into half-inch pieces, then blitz it all in a blender with some water. The recipe I followed (linked below) said to only use a few tablespoons of water, but my blender pitched a fit over that so I ended up using about a cup of water for the entire thing and still got plenty of pandan flavor and green coloring. Read more

AmyK

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September 11, 2015

Chiffon Cake with Peach and Ricotta Filling

When I was in my third year at Boston University, I worked part time at the now-defunct Pie Bakery in Newton. It was there that I learned that the city is wonderfully calm during pre-dawn hours, that some people are very mean before they get their first cup of coffee, and that ricotta and peaches go together like Chris Evans and my bed, heyooooooooo hahaha sorry I’ll show myself out it’s been a long (short?) week.

Allspice grinding because I forgot I had run out of pre-ground allspice.

Peach season is winding down now that summer is coming to an end, and while I usually bake a massive peach pie to give everyone’s favorite stone fruit one last hurrah, this year I decided to do a light chiffon cake filled with creamy ricotta and sweet peaches instead. Gotta shake things up a bit, you know? Read more

AmyK

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June 16, 2015

Orange Sponge Cake with Whipped Ricotta Filling

Another month, another cake! This one is for my friend Nicole — the same one who conquered her fear of cooking clams just a few weeks ago! Her birthday was this past weekend, so of course I had to provide her (and the office) with a celebratory cake. Any time you survive another year, it’s just cause to have a fête, if you ask me.

Nicole has a soft spot for puddings and custards, so I figured for her birthday, I’d try to capture the moist, rich qualities of those things with this: a citrus-y, spongy cake with soft ricotta filling. I used a combination of this recipe from The Life Harvest and this one from Tart to Heart.

Both are a take on the Italian dessert Schiacciata alla Fiorentina, though it seems like traditional recipes include yeast, whereas this one does not. I’ll certainly try the yeasted variety soon enough. Read more

AmyK

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