Test Session

I'm doing a bit of catching up here because last week was busy.

Last Monday, the skating club held a test session, so I got to do my hospitality thing and prepared food for the judges who came in to assess the skaters' skills. The menu included cheese and crackers, cheddar-bacon-chive scones (a double batch, with plenty left for the board members of the skating club to enjoy after the event), black-bean soup with smoked turkey, and a fruit salad (strawberries, kiwi, and mango with mint dressing). Of course, there also were desserts.

First, I had a few pieces of Mississippi mud cake to serve. Also, I made the Classic Banana Bundt Cake from Dorie Greenspan's Baking: From My Home to Yours; I glazed the cake with some ganache I had in the fridge. Then, although I'd been thinking about making something else, I ended up having a batch of leftover brownies, so I dressed them up with a glaze of bourbon caramel, a drizzle of ganache, and a toasted pecan. Voila! Turtle Brownies.

How does one end up with a batch of leftover brownies? At 10:15 p.m. last Saturday, Claire informed me that she needed something for the next morning for her final Sunday-school class ever because they were having an end-of-year party. After the initial shock wore off, I made a quick batch of brownies. The next morning, I sliced and wrapped them. I went to swim and run, then got home around 10:15 a.m., when the party would have been starting. Imagine my surprise when my family returned home at 10:20. They discovered that the party had been canceled because the Sunday-school teacher decided not to have a party after all, then didn't bother to call or email to inform anyone in the class about this decision. (I hope this came up in confession!) Anyway, in this instance, that's how I ended up with a batch of leftover brownies. In the end, I guess it worked out because it did save me a little trouble on Sunday night, and the judges all liked the impromptu Turtle Brownies.

Double-Apple Bundt Cake

This Double-Apple Bundt Cake comes from Dorie Greenspan's Baking: From My Home to Yours. The batter calls for both a grated apple and some apple butter (hence the double-apple reference). While the cake turned out pretty well, my one second thought about it is that I could have baked it in a slightly smaller tube pan. The final cake seemed a little height-challenged.

Muffins, Part 2

For the past couple of weeks, Claire has been doing some skating on Saturday mornings. For weekend-skating mornings, she and her friends have a little tradition called the Sunshine Morning Breakfast Club. That means that she (meaning me) makes something to bring along to share with her friends.

This week, "we" again made two varieties (although they were made tonight rather than tomorrow morning in a mad frenzy, like last week). For tomorrow's breakfast club, it's a batch of Chocolate Chip Muffins, sprinkled with cinnamon sugar, from Lauren Chattman's Mom's Big Book of Baking; and Double Chocolate Chunk Muffins, from Dorie Greenspan's Baking: From My Home to Yours.

In a gesture of unfathomable selflessness, Claire took one of the Chocolate Chip Muffins for a test drive tonight and very much enjoyed it, commenting on how much she liked the combination of the cinnamon-sugar and chocolate flavors. I hope that the rest of the skating crew enjoys them tomorrow morning, too.

Banana Pound Cake

The other day, I needed to make something for a parent-leadership alumni group meeting. Since I had some overripe bananas -- it doesn't take much for bananas to grow overripe in the hot, humid conditions we've been dealing with lately -- I decided it was time for a banana cake. A quick pass through Dorie Greenspan's Baking: From My Home to Yours provided a great candidate: this banana pound cake. Although I knew the cake was good, I couldn't help but tweak it. I added about a cup of mini chocolate chips, then some toasted coconut and pecans (left over from a recent Junior's cake). I reserved some of the coconut and pecans, figuring I'd use it as a garnish sprinkled on some chocolate glaze.

Espresso Cinnamon Coffee Cake

I really wanted to try this cake from Dorie Greenspan's Baking: From My Home to Yours because I loved the idea of the combination of espresso and cinnamon. Although the cake turned out fine, I definitely erred when putting the batter in the pan. The cake is supposed to have a layer of sugary-chocolatey-espresso goodness waving through the center. However, I cluelessly dumped all the batter in the pan, then sprinkled the filling on top of the batter.

On the plus side, I didn't feel obliged to make the suggested icing for this cake.

Reach the Beach

For the past four years, I've had the privilege to run Reach the Beach, a 200-mile relay race in New Hampshire, with 11 of my good running buddies. On Friday at 1:30 p.m., Becky will commence this year's event near the Flume Gorge in the White Mountains, and at some point on Saturday afternoon, Ken will scurry across the finish line in Hampton Beach. A good time will be had by all; new jokes will join the pantheon of one-liners; and as usual, everyone will go home with a goody bag of baked treats.

Since my ice-cream-making pal and teammate Ryan also likes to bake, we got together on a torrid September afternoon to prepare some treats for the Fellowship of the Bubblewrap's fifth Reach the Beach adventure. When Ryan and I are baking, each of us tends to prepare his own things. It's mostly just fun having company in the kitchen while baking is occurring.



On Saturday, I got things going with a batch of Chewy Orange Granola Bars from Chewy Cookies by Eileen E. Talanian. Last year, we made granola bars, and they were a huge hit. I have to admit that I tweaked this recipe from the get-go. First, I doubled the recipe and made it in a 9x13 pan instead of the 9x9 that was called for. Then I substituted dried cranberries for raisins. Also, I subbed a mix of whole toasted cashews and almonds for sliced almonds. Finally, since I had no orange to zest, I subbed a teaspoon of orange oil for orange flavor. Although they looked good in the pan, there were clearly problems when I attempted to slice them (photo above). I'm not sure what happened, but there was far more liquid than the granola could absorb. (Perhaps it was the unrelentingly muggy weather; perhaps it was the super-moist Bear Naked granola.) What to do? How about mix in about 2 cups of oats and rebake them? That seems to have done the trick (photo below).

Next up, Ryan made a batch of Chocolate Peanut Butter Surprise Bars from Tish Boyle's Good Cookie, which has become an often-used volume on Cookie Day (the Saturday in December when we spend upward of 10 hours making holiday treats). These bars have traveled to previous RTBs and, not surprisingly, have been a big hit. Seriously: Is it possible to go wrong with chocolate and peanut butter?

I then segued into Chewy, Chunky Blondies from Dorie Greenspan's Baking: From My Home to Yours. I'm always leery of leavening in blondies and brownies, and this recipe was a good reason why. The blondies baked with a big puffed-up top crust that rose far above the batter, leaving the bottom and top thin and fragile, with a big air gap in between. These blondies were a bit of a disappointment.


Ryan, meanwhile, prepared Banana-Oatmeal-Chocolate Chip Cookies from The Good Cookie. Only he was leaving out a key ingredient: "Martha can't eat chocolate, so I'm making them without the chips." Of course, his point was well taken, but still. No chocolate in the cookies with "chip" in the name? As you can see (photo), I made a chipped cookie for my own personal enjoyment.

Next up: Chipster-Topped Brownies from the Dorie Greenspan book. These two-layer bars (brownie bottom, blondie top) turned out better than the blondies, although the chocolate-chip layer was thinner than I'd hoped. I've made other versions of these cookies (Abby Johnson Dodge, Kathleen King), and they were more balanced between the blondie and brownie layers. The Dorie Greenspan edition is far more brownie than blondie. That's not at all a bad thing, just a different thing.

Finally, Ryan made a double batch of snickerdoodles, using a recipe from The Good Cookie. We've made these cookies before (filed under the recipe Cinnamon Sugar Crinkles), and as ever, I jumped in to help out on these. It's a marvelous version of a classic cookie.


Now everything is in the freezer, awaiting packing Thursday morning and devouring over the weekend. (That's the Chipster-Topped Brownies in the photo.)

Boston

For me, getting ready for a road race means it's time to bake. Last Saturday, April 14, I ran the Brooklyn Half-Marathon (my favorite of the New York Road Runners Club's borough half-marathon series). Then, despite any shred of common sense, I ran the Boston Marathon two days later.

A frantically overjammed workweek and a sadly overjammed gear bag precluded me from bringing goodies to my pals in Brooklyn. However, I spent Saturday afternoon and evening preparing some stuff for my pals in Boston.

In this sort of situation, baking for friends requires me to keep a mental tally of food likes and dislikes, allergies, and so forth. Because I knew I'd be seeing my friend Victor, I put something chocolate-hazelnut in my planning. I ended up making Chocolate Hazelnut Pound Cake with Shiny Chocolate Glaze from Nick Malgieri's Chocolate. The cake is lovely. It's lightened with whipped egg whites, which is an interesting technique. I guess I never think of pound cakes as being too leavened. I also had dragged out Chocolate after the previous Wednesday's New York Times food-section cover story on brownies; that story featured Nick's Supernatural Brownies, which also made my Boston menu and, conveniently enough, are also in Chocolate.

Because I'd spent some time perusing Dorie Greenspan's Baking: From My Home to Yours, I ended up making her Chocolate Oatmeal Almost-Candy Bars. These bars have a crust with the usual crust suspects (butter, flour, brown sugar) and some unexpected surprises (oats, chopped salted peanuts). A portion of the crust is reserved to be used as a streusel-like topping that goes over a gooey chocolate filling that contains salted peanuts and raisins. In her serving suggestion for these bars, Dorie recommends consuming them cold or even frozen. I thought they were great at plain old room temperature.

Finally, I made The Cake: Version 2.1, with pears and crystallized ginger. That flavor combination, which should have been obvious to me, was suggested by my friend Ken. I suppose that since he was due to get some of The Cake in Boston, he might have been a little self-motivated. In a word, The Cake Version 2.1 is a triumph. The pears and ginger are lovely together, although I think I ended up using pears that had gotten just a touch too ripe. The ginger is a nice addition and works well with the pears, the chocolate, and the other spices in the cake. Good suggestion, Ken. I'm also overjoyed that my friend Alison, from whom The Cake recipe came, was able to enjoy Version 2.1. (I'm already looking forward to cherry season for a new variation on The Cake.)