Kitchen3N

Recipes and food fun from Apt 3N

Linzer Cookies

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I don’t know why I became obsessed with Linzer cookies this week. I probably saw one or two in my Instagram feed because of the holiday baking season, got lured in by the jewel like centers and fluffy snow-like confectioners sugar topping. So the research ensued, and I learned they are an Austrian/Hungarian cookie, traditionally made with some nut flour (almond or hazelnut) and filled with raspberry jam. I saw a few recipes that looked true to form, but when I saw my beloved Ina Garten had her version, and it was no frills, I thought I’d go that route. Big. Mistake.
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Very minimally flavored and sweetened shortbread dough – OK. That’s fine. It will get sweetness and flavor from the raspberry jam and confectioner’s sugar. No almond flour, or flavorings besides vanilla – all OK to try. But what I couldn’t believe was the bake time. 20-25 minutes?! Of course, in following these instructions, I way over baked my first batch. So I went back to the recipe and watched the video in which she made them…in the video she declares a bake time of 10-15 minutes! How has no one caught such a glaring mistake?! After re-rolling the scraps and baking a second batch (for 10-12 min) the results were much better, but I still had an itch I needed to scratch. I had to try the traditional version – with almond flour and lemon zest.
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But thank you, internet, for your recommendations. The King Arthur Recipe was the way to go. And although it was a little difficult to handle, the final product was worth it. Delicate cookies with a zesty lemon flavor, crumbly almond texture. It was a cookie to match the aesthetic.
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I hope you enjoy these cookies during this holiday season and beyond! Wishing everyone a joyous holiday, whatever you’re celebrating, and a happy happy new year!

Recipe from King Arthur Flour.

Ingredients

  • 3/4 cup unsalted butter
  • 1/2 cup granulated sugar
  • zest of 1 lemon
  • 1 large egg yolk
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • 1 cup all purpose flour
  • 3/4 cup almond flour
  • 1/4 tsp fine sea salt
  • raspberry jam for filling
  • confectioner’s sugar for dusting

Directions

  1. Beat butter and sugar together in the bowl of a stand mixer, or in a large bowl using a handheld electric mixer, until well combined and light and fluffy, about 3 minutes at low to medium speed. Add egg yolk, then vanilla. Stop the mixer, scrape down the sides of the bowl, and beat until just combined. Turn mixer off.
  2. Combine flours and salt in a bowl. Whisk to combined. With the mixer on low, slowly add the flour, stopping to scrape down the bowl occasionally. Stop the mixer when all the dry ingredients have been incorporated. Dump onto a large piece of plastic wrap and flatten into a disk.* Refrigerate for 30 minutes or until well chilled.
  3. Remove dough from fridge, unwrap and place on a large piece of parchment paper. Place another large piece of parchment on top and roll out with a large (I use a French) rolling pin to spread dough to 1/4in thickness. Cut out rounds, about 2in diameter, and use a small heart or diamond cutter to cut out the center of half of them.** Slide the parchment paper and dough onto your baking sheet, and refrigerate the whole thing for 30 minutes.
  4. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Remove sheet pan and use a small spatula or butterknife to remove scraps and center shapes. Set scraps aside to reuse later and leave center shapes on the pan. Bake for 8-10 minutes in preheated oven until edges just start to brown. Remove from oven, allow to cool, then spread flat side of full circle cookies with jam. Place a cookie with a cutout middle on top. Continue with the rest, including the small shape cookies, and dust the tops with confectioners sugar through a sieve.

*If you have a large 16x22in sheet pan like I do, do this in one batch. If you have anything smaller, like a quarter or half sheet pan, separate into two pieces, refrigerate and roll out separately.
**If you don’t have small shaped cutters, use a small paring knife to cut out a simple shape, like a diamond.

Cherry Almond Cake

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I know, I know. I’m actually posting a non-chocolate recipe. There are few things that I enjoy as much as I enjoy chocolate. Vacations. Lobster truffle mac and cheese (just discovered at cute Sunnyside spot Côté Soleil while out to dinner with the talented and endearing Moni Begum of Moni’s Kitchen). Moroccan almond cookies made by La Rose Kitchen. Actually, any almond dessert is fabulous. Rainbow cookies. Marzipan (yup, straight up). Stollen (German holiday sweet bread with marzipan filling).

So cherry almond cake was a no-brainer. Last week I had made a cherry frangipane (fancy word for almond filling) tart. Recipe from NYTimes. It was SO good, but since there’s already a perfectly good recipe out there, I wanted to share a less-fussy version of the dessert for those who may not have the time or desire to make pâte sucrée, chill it, roll it out, fit it, trim it, blind bake it, then fill and bake once more.

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The answer is this single layer cherry almond cake. A standard beginning of creamed butter and sugar with the addition of 2 tbsp of almond paste that has been sitting in my cupboard FOREVER. Thickened with an egg, flavored with almond extract. Finally beefed up with a cup of flour, leavener and salt. I greased and lined a 9 in cake pan with parchment. Then I poured in the batter, smoothed out to the edges, dotted the cherries throughout for an even distribution, topped with slivered almonds and sugar, then baked for about 45 minutes.
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I used defrosted, drained frozen pitted cherries for this. Fresh cherries would have been out of this world, but I wasn’t about to try to pit 14oz of cherries! Fresh or frozen, it’s a delicious cake, but I would decrease the sweetness next time around. I adapted it from a Cooking Light recipe (I increased the fat content so could use a lower sugar content). Feel free to try it either way!

Ingredients

  • 6 tbsp unsalted butter
  • 2 tbsp almond paste
  • 2/3 cup granulated sugar (would decrease to 1/2 cup next time)
  • 1/4 tsp almond extract (might increase this to 1/2 tsp next time)
  • 1 egg
  • 1 cup flour
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • 1/8 tsp salt
  • 1/8 tsp cloves
  • 1/3 cup milk
  • 2 tbsp slivered almonds
  • 2 tbsp granulated sugar
  • 14 oz pitted cherries
  • powdered sugar for sprinkling

Directions

  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Spray the bottom and sides of a 9in cake pan with cooking spray, Cut out a 9in round piece of parchment and line the bottom of the pan with it. Spray with more cooking spray.
  2. In a medium bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder and clove. Add salt and stir to combine.
  3. In the bowl of a stand mixer or in a medium bowl using an electric hand mixer, cream butter, sugar and almond paste until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes at medium low speed. Stop to scrape down the sides of the bowl. Add egg and almond extract, continue beating until the egg is incorporated, then scraped down the sides of the bowl again. Add half o the flour mixture, then the milk, then the remaining flour. Mix until incorporated, then pour into the prepared cake pan. Dot the top with cherries, almonds and an even sprinkling of the remaining granulated sugar.
  4. Bake in preheated oven for 45-50 minutes until top is golden brown.
  5. After cooling, sprinkle with powdered sugar to serve.

Rainbow Cookie Cake

IMG_5430I just came back from the most amazing trip to Bora Bora…

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Not really. We’ve been hangin’ back here in NYC. Celebrating my daughter’s fifth birthday. Anxiously waiting for the first snow fall so our kids’ Frozen dream can become a reality.   IMG_5323

Adulthood. Family. Saving up for a down payment on a house. Elderly parents to think about. Student loans to pay off. Retirement. Kids’ college tuition.

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Alhamdulillah, though, right? These are good things to worry about. Every time that voice in my head wants to whine or complain that we’re not getting out as much, or  we haven’t met xyz goals yet, I always have to remind myself of what we DO have. It’s hard to compare intangible things such as peace and health to the tangible objects of house, boarding passes, the numbers of zeros in the bank account. But we have to. Because you can always look at people who have more and long for what they have. That road never leads to satisfaction. Like the folks who live in Russian mafia-ville in Queens (Jewel Ave). Every week there is a new mansion, more opulent than the one next door. More marble. More security cameras. You wonder what is check mate in that game?IMG_5428The cake is my go to yellow cake recipe ever since discovering it on The Food Blog to End All Food Blogs: Smitten Kitchen. Instead of an actual rainbow cookie cake recipe that incorporated almond paste in the batter, this is a light, fluffy, buttery yellow cake flavored with vanilla and almond. The rainbow cookie part comes in the filling, with almond between one of the layers and apricot jam in the other. It’s Beethoven’s fifth symphony of flavors. The tartness of the jam. The nuttiness of the almond. The chocolatey-ness of the frosting. All with the backdrop of the most glorious yellow cake.

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Cake recipe adapted from Smitten Kitchen. Frosting recipe adapted from Hershey’s.

Ingredients

For the cake

  • 2 cups plus 1 tbsp cake flour
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • 3/4 tsp baking soda
  • 1/2 tsp kosher salt
  • 1 stick (4 oz.) unsalted butter, softened
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
  • 1/2 tsp almond extract
  • 2 large eggs, at room temperature
  • 1 cup buttermilk, shaken at room temperature
  • 2 drops green gel food coloring, plus more if necessary
  • 2 drops yellow gel food coloring (optional)
  • 2 drops red gel food coloring, plus more if necessary

For the filling and frosting

  • 1/2 cup almond filling
  • 1/2 cup apricot jam
  • 1 stick (4 oz. butter)
  • 2/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
  • 3 cups powdered sugar
  • 1/3 cup milk
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • chocolate sprinkles for decorating (optional)

Directions

  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Spray the bottoms and sides of 3 (8 inch round) cake pans with non-stick spray and line the bottoms with parchment paper. Spray the parchment paper with non-stick spray. Sift cake flour, baking powder and baking soda together in a large bowl. Add salt and whisk to combine. Set aside
  2. In the bowl of a stand mixer, or in a large bowl using a handheld mixer, cream butter on medium speed until aerated (about 1-2 minutes). Add sugar and beat until light and fluffy (2-3 minutes more). Add eggs, one at a time, then vanilla. Stop the mixer, scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl and beat until everything is well combined. With the mixer on low, add 1/3 of the flour mixture. When that’s incorporated, add 1/2 cup buttermilk. Add another 1/3 of flour mixture. When that’s incorporated, add the last 1/2 cup buttermilk, then the last 1/3 of the flour mixture. Mix until combined, scraping down the bowl.
  3. Divide the batter between three bowls as evenly as you can (I used a kitchen scale to ensure even distribution). Leave one of them untinted, or tint with 2 drops yellow food color. Tint one of them green (drop 2 drops food color and mix with a spoon or spatula; the color will appear minty). Tint the final one red (the color will appear more salmon like than true red). Take care to use separate tools for each bowl so the colors don’t mix. Gently pour the batter into the three previously prepared cake pans, red in one, green in one and yellow in one. Smooth out the top and tap on the counter 2-3 times each to get rid of air bubbles.* Bake in preheated oven for 20 to 22 minutes. The edges should start to pull away from the sides of the pan and the top should spring back when touched.
  4. Let cool.
  5. When ready to assemble, carefully invert the green layer on a cake board lined with saran wrap. Peel off the parchment paper and place second cake board on top. Invert again so the domed side is up. Using a serrated knife, carefully level the top of the green cake layer. Spread almond filling evenly, to the edges.
  6. Next, invert the yellow cake layer as before onto a saran lined cake board. Remove parchment from bottom and carefully place over the green layer. Try to line it up as closely as possible. Using a serrated knife, carefully trim the dome to level the cake. Spread apricot jam evenly, to the edges.
  7. Repeat with pink layer.
  8. Make chocolate frosting: melt butter in a medium saucepan over medium heat. When melted, turn off heat and add cocoa powder. Whisk until combined. Add 1 cup of powdered sugar and 1/3 of the milk. Whisk together. Repeat with 1 more cup of powdered sugar, half of the remaining milk. Whisk. Add last cup of powdered sugar, rest of the milk, and vanilla extract. Whisk until everything is well combined.
  9. Working quickly, place cake on cake turner. Pour about a cup of the frosting on top of the cake. Smooth with an offset spatula, pushing down the sides a bit. Apply one teaspoon of frosting at a time on the sides, starting from the top and working your way down.
  10. Once the sides are fully covered in frosting, apply handfuls of sprinkles to the sides, placing a plate below the turntable to catch excess sprinkles.

*Note: if you use baking strips, the cake doesn’t dome as much and bakes evenly. I cheaped out and just cut a kitchen towel into strips, drenched them in water, and pinned them around the circumference of the cake pans. Worked like a dream. The cake layers in the pictures did not have to be leveled.

Chocolate Almond Torte & Giveaway!

IMG_1467There is nothing more pleasing to me than a decadent chocolate dessert (a sublime mousse, a rich flourless chocolate cake, piping hot fudge on ice cream). After that comes almond cookies, anything from tricolor cookies to macarons to straight up marzipan. So, of course, when I found this recipe, I definitely heard a KA-CHING somewhere and my eyes reflected cupcake silhouettes or something.IMG_1449 A few departures from the original Epicurious recipe: as in all of my baking, I use raw sugar. And instead of slivered almonds like the original recipe, I just use almond meal, using a scant 1 1/2 cups instead of a full 1 1/2 cups to account for settling and density of ground almonds vs. slivered.IMG_1451I’m not sure why the recipe called for a 1/2 tsp of lemon zest. I didn’t find it added anything to the flavor (it was way overpowered by the almond extract). My guess is because Capri (which is off the Amalfi coast) is brimming with lemons, some the size of pineapples, so they probably just add it to everything.   IMG_1455This recipe was also perfect for feeding my almond meal obsession. I just love adding it to everything in lieu of some amount of flour. It adds such a nice texture to otherwise plain jane pancakes or sugar cookies. As you can see, there was some spillage. I won’t point fingers, but if I did they might point down. IMG_1458I am terrible at clearing counter space. And yes, that is Pam in the background that I used for greasing my springform pan instead of the butter the recipe so clearly stated to use. I haven’t noticed a difference…have you? IMG_1461The torte’s not so sexy close-up. Folding the whipped egg whites in three batches. So proud of myself for not deflating (it)! IMG_1462This is just seconds after it had a close encounter with a toddler with a truck in hand. It barely squeezed through.   IMG_1470We whipped out the extra fancy serving dishes and silverware for this torte. Actually my husband and his brother were so eager to dive into it, I had to get up before I could finish my meal and scramble to get the camera before this precious first slice entered into the oblivion. IMG_1473Don’t be sad when your torte deflates. It’s an egg thing. You probably won’t even notice since you’ve taken a bite of chocolate heaven are doubly smacked in the face with almond flavor (both meal and extract), like Billy Crystal’s consigliere in Analyze This. Think, chocolate macaron meets rainbow cookie meets brownie. Really, really good with a dollop of homemade sweetened cream (as opposed to the powdered sugar the original recipe suggests).

On another note…GIVEAWAY TIME! Enter here for a chance to win a $50 gift card to my favorite cookware/bakeware/serveware/specialty food store Sur La Table! Thanks to all my readers for keeping me going!

Recipe from Epicurious.

Ingredients

  • 1 1/2 cups blanched slivered almonds (or scant 1 1/2 cups almond meal)
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 8 ounces bittersweet (not unsweetened) or semisweet chocolate, chopped
  • 5 large eggs, separated
  • 1/2 teaspoon almond extract
  • 1/2 teaspoon grated lemon peel (optional)
  • 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted, cooled (I did not cool mine)
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt

Directions

Preheat oven to 350°F. Butter 10-inch-diameter springform pan with 2 3/4-inch-high sides. Combine almonds and 1/3 cup sugar in processor. Blend until almonds are very finely ground. Transfer almond mixture to medium bowl; do not clean processor. Add chocolate and 1/3 cup sugar to processor. Blend until chocolate is finely ground but not beginning to clump, about 45 seconds; stir into almond mixture. Using electric mixer, beat egg yolks and remaining 1/3 cup sugar in large bowl until mixture falls in heavy ribbon when beaters are lifted, about 5 minutes. Beat in almond extract and lemon peel. Fold in chocolate-almond mixture, then butter.

Using clean dry beaters, beat egg whites and salt in another large bowl until stiff but not dry. Fold whites into chocolate batter in three additions. Transfer batter to prepared pan.

Bake cake until tester inserted into center comes out with moist crumbs attached, about 40 minutes. Cool cake completely in pan on rack. (Can be made 1 day ahead. Cover; store at room temperature.) Cut around pan sides to loosen; release sides. Serve with sweetened whipped cream.