My Video Channel ! And Some Cafe Volcano Cookies (Video Post)

Cafe Volcano Cookies. Easy Meringue Cookies. Watch the video!

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So finally, my channel on You Tube is up! A new beginning, uncharted waters. Intimidating but so exciting! The channel is going to be basically about baking for beginners, an extension of the series here. An endeavor to reach out to more wanna be bakers and baking enthusiasts.  It  will take me some time to get comfortable with the camera ( I am terribly camera-shy!), but am am sure you will be with me in this journey as well. Go ahead and laugh at the first few videos, I hope I will laugh at them too when I learn to face it better! Please do subscribe to the channel for updates and don't forget to leave your comments for me. To celebrate the new beginning, here are some Cafe Volcano Cookies -  crisp-crunchy, coffee flavored meringue cookies loaded with nuts!

Incredibly easy cookies, hardly any ingredients,  almost no effort - I wasted no time in baking these! Now how difficult is it to stir together egg whites (no whipping!), toasted nuts, sugar and coffee, heat them for a minute and bake them?  I see you nodding your head and mentally checking your freezer for the nuts you could use. Well, you could use walnuts, pecans, almonds or even cashews or a mix of these.

What appears like a little masses of nuts barely held together by the sticky whites, magically puff up in the oven! They turn into 'higgledy, piggledy bumpy shapes' as Dorie Greenspan calls them. Well, who in their right minds will look for glamor when the toasty crunchy nuts, coffee and the crisp-crunchy meringue more than make up for it!

Thank God for coffee, the magical ingredient that adds so much flavor while cutting back on the sweetness of the meringue. I can't imagine appreciating these as much without the coffee, as otherwise the cookies would be cloyingly sweet.

From Dorie Greenspan's Baking From My Home To Yours , from here

CAFE VOLCANO COOKIES

The ingredients below will make a large batch, I quartered the recipe and baked two batches. Would suggest you do the same unless using a large oven. 

 Ingredients:  

Almonds - 1 cup (sliced, slivered or whole), coarsely chopped (read note) 

Walnuts - 1 cup, coarsely chopped 

Egg whites - 2 large / 60 grams

Sugar - 200 grams / 1 cup (preferably caster or granulated sugar ground fine)

Vanilla extract - 1 teaspoon

Instant coffee - 4 1/2 teaspoons

Method :

1. Position the racks to divide the oven into thirds and preheat the oven to 180 C / 350 F.
  Line two baking sheets with parchment or silicone mats.

2. Toast the nuts till fragrant either in the oven or in a skillet on the stove. Be careful to stir them frequently or they will burn. Transfer them to a plate, cool.

3. Take all ingredients including the nuts in a heavy saucepan*, this is very important. Stir well with a spatula to mix.

4. On low heat, keep stirring constantly till the mixture is just warm to the touch. This will take a minute or so. Do not walk away or stop stirring! Remove from the heat.

5. Drop rounded teaspoonfuls of batter on the lined sheets, spacing them an inch apart.

6. Bake for about 15 -16 minutes rotating the pans half-way through the time. (Recipe specifies 20 minutes). The cookies are done when they look puffed , cratered, shiny and dry. Bake less than more, bake a couple of minutes longer if needed. Be careful not to burn the cookies.
7. Remove the cookies from the oven and let them remain on the sheets for 5 minutes before gently peeling them from the liners and transferring them to racks to cool to room temperature.
8. Storing: Kept in a cool, dry place at room temperature (they should never be refrigerated), the cookies will hold up for about 3 days. As with all meringues, humidity will make them go soggy and sticky.

Please note : I used 60 grams (1/2 cup) of cashews for 1/4 recipe and then 60 grams walnuts (1/2 cup) for another 1/4 batch. I made some with walnuts and some with cashew. Surprisingly the cashew ones tasted even better to me. Am going to making these with almonds next time. Hazelnuts shouldn't be bad either!

Eminently enjoyable cookies these are, can imagine it would be great crumbled over vanilla ice cream as well! Please do try these and let me know how you liked them.

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Mocha Walnut Bundt Cake - And A Break...

 

Coffee, walnuts and chocolate - they have a way of worming their way into my baking wish list! The trio in a marbled bundt cake - irresistible! Flip through Dorie Greenspan's Baking - From My Home To Yours and this cake is sure to charm you into baking it! A rich batter of dark chocolate, ground walnuts and coffee swirled through a vanilla walnut batter. A drizzle of chocolate sauce over the slice adds to the charm. A slightly but pleasantly dense cake with a fine crumb . The chocolate and coffee part, if you ask me, was even better! 

I have to admit, I am not always lucky marbling cakes. Turns out Lady luck was on my side this time around, may be I can marble cakes after all! One way of doing this is placing alternate spoonfuls of batter in the pan and then running a skewer through it to give a more marbled effect. First spooning all of the batter of one color into the bundt, then the other batter on top, then swirl will give a ginkgo pattern. Amazing! With marbled cakes, you will hold your breath till you cut the cake and see what pattern has emerged -  its never the same! Amazing!

 Mocha Walnut Bundt Cake , From Dorie Greenspan's 'Baking - From My Home To Yours'.  I have halved the original recipe and baked in my small 6 cup bundt pan.

Watch this video for tips on preparing a bundt pan and unmolding it properly.

https://bit.ly/3ompZ4Q

How to melt chocolate

https://bit.ly/35hZYfu

 

How to grind nuts for baking

https://bit.ly/35hs8av

Ingredients:

• All Purpose Flour - 316 grams / 2 1/4 cups - grams (please refer note) 
• Finely ground walnuts - 1/2 cup 

• Baking powder - 1 teaspoon
• Salt - 1 teaspoon
• Unsalted butter, at room temperature  - 226 grams / 8 oz /1 cup (please read note) plus
  
• Unsalted butter at room temperature - 28 grams /1 oz / 2 tablespoons / , cut into 4 pieces ( to be used for melting the chocolate)
• Bittersweet chocolate, coarsely chopped - 3 ounces / 84 grams
• Hot or cold coffee (can also use plain water)- 1/4 cup
• Finely ground instant coffee or  instant espresso powder - 1 teaspoon ( I have used heaping 2 teaspoons, for full recipe as I used hot water)
  
• Sugar - 350 grams /1 3/4 cups ( I use super fine)
• Eggs, at room temperature - 4 large / 192 grams
• Pure vanilla extract - 2 teaspoons
• Whole milk ( I have used 2%), at room temperature- 1 cup

Procedure : 

GETTING READY: Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C / 350°F. Grease a 9 - to 10-inch (12-cup) Bundt pan with special attention to the nooks and crannies, dust the inside with flour and tap out the excess. 

 

Sift together the flour, ground walnuts, baking powder, and salt twice. Set aside. Break the eggs and put them in a bowl, whisk lightly, weigh, set aside.

Melt the 2 tablespoons of butter, chocolate, instant coffee and hot water in a pan of barely simmering water (watch video above). Remove the bowl from the heat. Set aside. You can also melt using a microwave. 

Have another medium sized, clean and dry bowl ready. You will be mixing the chocolate batter in this. An extra spatula and a thin long skewer to swirl the batter.

Working with a stand mixer, preferably with a paddle attachment or with a hand mixer in a large bowl ( I used my hand mixer, speed 2), beat the remaining 1 cup of butter and the sugar at medium speed for about 3 minutes – you’ll have a thick paste; this won’t be light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs one by one, beating well after each addition. The mixture should look smooth and satiny. Beat in the vanilla extract. Reduce the mixer speed to low and add the dry ingredients and the milk alternately, adding the dry mixture in 3 portions and the milk in 2 (begin and end with the dry ingredients).

Scrape a little less than half of the batter into the bowl with the melted chocolate and, using a rubber spatula, stir to blend thoroughly.

If you want to go for the gingko pattern, scrape all of the white batter into the pan and top with the chocolate ( I have put the chocolate first). If you want a more marbled pattern, alternate spoonfuls of light and dark batter in the pan. When all the batter is in the pan, swirl a table knife sparingly through the batters to marble them.
Bake for 60 to 70 minutes ( I baked the small cake for 50 minutes), or until a thin skewer inserted deep into the center of the cake comes out clean and the vanilla part is a nice golden brown. Transfer the Bundt pan to a rack and let cool for 10 minutes before unmolding ( I use a plastic knife), then cool the cake completely on the rack. I play safe, cool for almost 1/2 to 1 hour.

 

Please note:


Flour - Dorie measures flour using the dip and sweep method, which weighs 140 grams /5 oz per cup.
Walnuts - I have first ground chopped walnuts and then measured. I have then ground it with some of the flour in the smallest jar of my mixer before proceeding.
Butter - To get the butter to room temperature, take it out of the fridge, weigh and cut into cubes and keep it on your counter. The butter should not be too soft or oily - it should be pliable but still cool to the touch, that's when its ready to use says Dorie.

I am going to be taking a short break from blogging - just stealing time for myself! A few of my blogger friends have been kind enough to guest-post for me during this period. So stay tuned for some fabulous treats coming up! Please do visit my space, leave your much awaited comments or drop me a line at suma dot rowjee at gmail dot com for any queries or just to say hello! Would love to hear from you!

Almost Fudge Gateau

Given that I adore chocolate, its really difficult to resist baking this French style chocolate cake which Dorie Greenspan describes as 'moist, dense and definitively chocolate, just the thing for all oven owners (and chocolate lovers)'! I have been devouring the book,  Baking - From My Home To Yours since days and it did not take long for me to zero in on this dessert cake. The recipe is from her Parisian friend, Hélène Samuel, owner of the restaurant Delicabar. When Hélène got an oven for her home, she would for the first few weeks, bake this cake everyday, watch the cake puff up sitting cross-legged in front of the oven, giving up watching television!

The cake is quite a quick and easy one, given you can whip egg whites, fold them in and have a spring form tin on hand. And of course a good deal of chocolate too, 250 grams / 9 ounces to be precise for this cake! Chocolate, butter, sugar and coffee are melted together, the little bit of flour folded in. Finally whipped egg whites go into the chocolate mixture and then baked. The cake puffs up as it bakes, cracks on the top. While you invert it and cool, it sinks quite a lot. I would say, if you have the patience, you must leave it overnight and by then the cake would have meta morphed into a dense, almost creamy, smooth one. Pour some glaze over it, allow it to set, slice and serve with some softly whipped cream. Its texture being very different from most chocolate cakes, its sure to please most chocolate loving, discerning palates.

Ingredients :

Eggs - 5, large, separated ( Yolk - 90 grams, Whites - 150 grams)
Bittersweet chocolate, coarsely chopped - 252 grams / 9 oz ( I used dark compound)
Sugar - 1 cup / 200 grams ( I used super fine)
Unsalted butter, cut into chunks - 5 tablespoons / 70 grams aprox
Coffee or water - 2 tablespoons ( I used 1 tsp instant coffee dissolved in 2 tbsp warm water)
All purpose flour - 1/3 cup - 44 grams aprox
Pure vanilla extract - 1 teaspoon (my addition)

For the optional glaze - Dorie makes a glaze with chocolate, cream and corn syrup. I used ganache.

Procedure : Mise en place. Wash and dry the blades of your hand mixer and the bowl in which you will drop the whites in. If weighing ingredients, making sure your weighing bowl is squeaky clean and free of grease. Separate the eggs and weigh the whites first, next the yolks. Wash, dry the bowl, and weigh the rest. (I always like to have extra eggs on hand while separating, just in case, I do an oops!)

Center a rack and pre-heat the oven to 180 degrees C / 350 F. Grease a 9'' round spring form tin, line it with parchment, grease the parchment, flour the sides of the tin, tap lightly to shake off any excess flour. Place the pan on a baking sheet (or another bigger cake tin) lined with parchment or a silicone mat. I used an 8'' round tin as I do not have a 9'' round tin, used some of the batter to make 4 small cupcakes.

Place the chocolate, butter, sugar and coffee in a heatproof bowl. Place the bowl over a saucepan of simmering water, stir occasionally till the chocolate and butter are melted. If the sugar is still grainy, its fine (mine was). Transfer the chocolate mixture to a large mixing bowl and let it sit for 3 minutes. ( the mixture will cool) Stir in the yolks one by one, using a rubber spatula, add the vanilla. Fold in the flour.  Set aside.

Using the whisk attachment of a stand mixer or a hand mixer on medium high speed, beat the egg whites till they hold firm but glossy peaks. Make sure you do not over whip or let the whites dry out. Using the spatula, stir about a quarter of the whites into the chocolate mixture to lighten it. Gently fold in the rest.  I used my slotted skimmer for this. (The batter was neither thin nor thick) Scrape the batter into the pan and jiggle the pan from side to side a couple of times to even the batter.

The cake will rise at the edges as well as the center too. The top will firm up, it may crack, mine cracked quite a bit. Bake for 35 to 45 minutes or until the cake has risen evenly, the top firms up and doesn't wobble when tapped. A cake tester or thin knife inserted int o the center should come out just slightly streaked with chocolate. I prefer my chocolate cakes slightly under baked to over-baked ones. Mine took about 40 minutes to bake. Transfer the cake to a cooling rack, let it cool for about 10 minutes.

Run a blunt knife ( like a butter knife) around the edges of the cake, and remove the sides of the pan. carefully turn the cake on to another rack. Remove the pan bottom and parchment paper (this will be hot as you handle, be careful) Invert the cake on the rack and cool to room temperature right side up. The cake may cool as it sinks ( mine did)

Place the completely cooled cake on a rack flat side up. Place the rack over a large piece of parchment or another clean plate to catch the delicious drips. Pour the glaze or ganache on the cake, tilt slightly and carefully, (use a thin spatula to just coax the glaze to the sides only if need ) to coat the cake completely. Allow the glaze to set ( I did not wait, was in a hurry to finish the pics before I went to the bus stop to pick up my daughter). Lift the cake carefully to the serving platter using a giant spatula. Decorate, slice into thin slices and serve with softly whipped cream or even ice cream or crème fraîche if you prefer.

The cake when wrapped airtight, will keep for about 3 days at room temperature or for 2 months when frozen. I have not tried refrigerating the cake and will not do so too as it may change the texture. It tasted better as it sat at room temperature.

The cake was rich, chocolaty, smooth and creamy, mousse-like sort of, with whipped cream and the glaze, its definitely dessert!