Flourless Chocolate Cake

Flourless Chocolate Cake

Ingredients
Cake

1 cup semisweet or bittersweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup (8 tablespoons) unsalted butter
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 to 2 teaspoons espresso powder, optional
1 teaspoon vanilla extract, optional
3 large eggs
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder, Dutch-process cocoa preferred

Glaze:

1 cup semisweet or bittersweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup heavy cream

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 375°F. Lightly grease an 8" round cake pan; cut a piece of parchment or waxed paper to fit, grease it, and lay it in the bottom of the pan. 

To make the cake: 

Put the chocolate and butter in a microwave-safe bowl, and heat until the butter is melted and the chips are soft. Stir until the chips melt, reheating briefly if necessary. You can also do this over a burner set at very low heat. Transfer the melted chocolate/butter to a mixing bowl. 

Stir in the sugar, salt, espresso powder, and vanilla. Espresso enhances chocolate's flavor much as vanilla does; using 1 teaspoon will simply enhance the flavor, while 2 teaspoons will lend a hint of mocha to the cake. 

Add the eggs, beating briefly until smooth. Add the cocoa powder, and mix just to combine. 

Spoon the batter into the prepared pan.

Bake the cake for 25 minutes; the top will have formed a thin crust, and it should register at least 200°F on an instant-read thermometer inserted into its center.

Remove it from the oven, and cool it in the pan for 5 minutes.

Loosen the edges of the pan with a table knife or nylon spreader, and turn it out onto a serving plate. The top will now be on the bottom; that's fine. Also, the edges will crumble a bit, which is also fine. Allow the cake to cool completely before glazing. 

To make the glaze: 

Combine the chocolate and cream in a microwave-safe bowl, and heat until the cream is very hot, but not simmering. Remove from the microwave, and stir until the chocolate melts and the mixture is completely smooth. 

Spoon the glaze over the cake, spreading it to drip over the sides a bit. Allow the glaze to set for several hours before serving the cake. 

Yield: 8" cake, 8 to 12 servings.

No Knead Bread With Crispy Crust

No Knead Bread With Crispy Crust

Ingredients
3 cups lukewarm water
6 1/2 to 7 1/2 cups King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour*
1 tablespoon salt
1 1/2 tablespoons instant or active dry yeast

*

*TIP The flour/liquid ratio is important in this recipe. If you measure flour by sprinkling it into your measuring cup, then gently sweeping off the excess, use 7 1/2 cups. If you measure flour by dipping your cup into the canister, then sweeping off the excess, use 6 1/2 cups. Most accurate of all, and guaranteed to give you the best results, if you measure flour by weight, use 32 ounces.

Directions:

Combine all of the ingredients in a large mixing bowl, or a large (6-quart), food-safe plastic bucket. For first-timers, "lukewarm" means about 105°F, but don't stress over getting the temperatures exact here. Comfortably warm is fine; "OUCH, that's hot!" is not. Yeast is a living thing; treat it nicely.

Mix and stir everything together to make a very sticky, rough dough. If you have a stand mixer, beat at medium speed with the beater blade for 30 to 60 seconds. If you don't have a mixer, just stir-stir-stir with a big spoon or dough whisk till everything is combined.

Next, you're going to let the dough rise. If you've made the dough in a plastic bucket, you're all set — just let it stay there, covering the bucket with a lid or plastic wrap; a shower cap actually works well here. If you've made the dough in a bowl that's not at least 6-quart capacity, transfer it to a large bowl; it's going to rise a lot. There's no need to grease the bowl, though you can if you like; it makes it a bit easier to get the dough out when it's time to bake bread.

Cover the bowl or bucket, and let the dough rise at room temperature for 2 hours. Then refrigerate it for at least 2 hours, or for up to about 7 days. (If you're pressed for time, skip the room-temperature rise, and stick it right into the fridge). The longer you keep it in the fridge, the tangier it'll get; if you chill it for 7 days, it will taste like sourdough. Over the course of the first day or so, it'll rise, then fall. That's OK; that's what it's supposed to do.

When you're ready to make bread, sprinkle the top of the dough with flour; this will make it easier to grab a hunk. Grease your hands, and pull off about 1/4 to 1/3 of the dough — a 14-ounce to 19-ounce piece, if you have a scale. It'll be about the size of a softball, or a large grapefruit.

Plop the sticky dough onto a floured work surface, and round it into a ball, or a longer log. Don't fuss around trying to make it perfect; just do the best you can.
Place the loaf on a piece of parchment (if you're going to use a baking stone); or onto a lightly greased or parchment-lined baking sheet. Sift a light coating of flour over the top; this will help keep the bread moist as it rests before baking.

Let the loaf warm to room temperature and rise; this should take about 60 minutes (or longer, up to a couple of hours, if your house is cool). It won't appear to rise upwards that much; rather, it'll seem to settle and expand. Preheat your oven (and baking stone, if you're using one) to 450°F while the loaf rests. Place a shallow metal or cast iron pan (not glass, Pyrex, or ceramic) on the lowest oven rack, and have 1 cup of hot water ready to go.

When you're ready to bake, take a sharp knife and slash the bread 2 or 3 times, making a cut about 1/2" deep. The bread may deflate a bit; that's OK, it'll pick right up in the hot oven.

Place the bread in the oven, and carefully pour the 1 cup hot water into the shallow pan on the rack beneath. It'll bubble and steam; close the oven door quickly.

Bake the bread for 25 to 35 minutes, until it's a deep, golden brown.

Remove the bread from the oven, and cool it on a rack. Store leftover bread in a plastic bag at room temperature.

Flaky Tender Pie Crusts: Two Quick Tips

Flaky, Tender Pie Crusts:  Two Quick Tips

Who makes perfectly tender, flaky pie crust, time after time after time?

OK, don’t all raise your hands at once!

Making wonderful pie crust is one of those skills learned, honed, practiced, lost, and rediscovered over a lifetime. If you’re one of the lucky bakers who has the process down pat, congratulations – and bear with the rest of us, who are still on the path to enlightenment.

After over three decades of pie baking, I still occasionally produce a flop: a crust that’s hard as concrete, solid as sheet rock, and not at all worthy of its filling. But there are two things that, when I remember to do them, produce a reliably excellent crust.

OK, are you ready? Here goes.
1) I use this recipe: 

Classic Double Pie Crust.
2 ½ cups King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour or Perfect Pastry Blend**

• 1 1/4 teaspoons salt*
• ¼ cup vegetable shortening
• 10 tablespoons very cold unsalted butter
• 6 to 10 tablespoons ice water**
• *Reduce the salt to 1 teaspoon if you use salted butter.
• **Use the lesser amount of water if you use Perfect Pastry Blend.

topping (optional)

• 1 teaspoon milk
• 1 tablespoon coarse sparkling sugar

And what’s so special about this particular recipe?
•Its combination of two fats – butter and shortening. Shortening gives the crust structure, keeping those pretty crimps in shape and preventing the crust from sagging. And butter adds its signature flavor. Both fats contribute to flakiness.


•Its amount of flour – enough to roll out two generous crusts, crusts that’ll fill your 9” pan without having to be stretched, which is the root of all kinds of evil – did you know stretching is the chief reason crust shrinks as it bakes?


•Its amount of water. Read: not much. Water is the enemy of flakiness; the less water in your crust, the better.

2) Water is added sparingly, using a spray bottle.
Well, don’t you just kinda stir it in?
Yes, but simply adding water to your bowl of flour and fat encourages you to add too much. The dough won’t come together, so what do you do? Add another couple of tablespoons of water.


In my ongoing experience, if you add enough water for the dough to be lovely and silky and pliable – you’ve added too much.


So what’s the solution?

A spray bottle.
Once your flour and fats are combined, and you’ve added enough water that large clumps have started to form – but the dough isn’t holding together yet – dump everything out onto a sheet of parchment or waxed paper.

Spray the crumbly dough with a light mist of water,
paying special attention to any dry/floury spots.

Using the paper, fold the dough over on itself a couple of times to make a rough rectangle. Fold the ends into the center, too, to make a fatter rectangle.

Divide the dough in half.

Shape each rough square into a disk. The dough will still feel dry; little pieces will keep flaking off. Just gather them up and gently squeeze them back into the mass.

Wrap your dough disks in the paper or in plastic wrap, and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.

During this step, the gluten in the flour will relax; the water will redistribute itself; and the fats will harden.

The result?
The relaxed gluten will allow you to roll the crust without it shrinking back and fighting you. The dough that seemed so dry just 30 minutes before will feel much smoother. And the hardened fats will work with the flour to form a flaky crust.

Now, is this not a thing of beauty and a joy forever?

Not only is the crust a pleasure to roll (no tearing or falling apart); and large enough to cover the pan, even with a nice, tall crimp…

…it makes a dynamite pie.

Now, this picture will never appear on the cover of Saveur…

…but look at that texture!

Now THAT’S a tender, flaky pie crust.

Mile High Meringue

Mile Meringue Pie

Lemon Meringue Pie

This pie, is tart, sweet… and rich! 

The extra-creamy meringue is made with Marshmallow Fluff™.

Ingredients:

Crust

Bake your favorite pie crust recipe in a deep-dish pie pan, if you have one; it’ll help support the meringue.

Filling
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
1/4 cup cornstarch
1/2 teaspoon salt
5 large eggs
1 1/4 cups fresh lemon juice
1/4 cup lime juice (optional, for an exceptionally 
    tart and tasty filling)
6 tablespoons butter

Meringue
3 egg whites
pinch of salt
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup Marshmallow Fluff or marshmallow creme

Directions:

Filling: Mix the sugar, cornstarch, and salt together in a saucepan. Add the eggs and whisk well, then whisk in the juice. Heat the mixture over medium heat until it's very hot; it may come to a boil, or it may just "seethe" a bit, like it's trying to boil and not quite making it. Let it boil or seethe for 30 seconds. Stir in the butter, stirring until it melts, then pour the mixture into the baked pie shell. Rub a piece of butter over the surface to prevent a skin from forming. Cover with plastic wrap, and chill for several hours before topping with the meringue.

Meringue: Preheat your oven to 375°F with the oven rack in the lowest position.

Whisk the egg whites until foamy. Add the salt, sugar and vanilla, and beat on medium-high speed until the meringue is thick and shiny. Beat in the marshmallow creme or fluff.

Remove the pie from the refrigerator. Top it with the meringue, using a spatula to form peaks. Bake the pie for 18 to 22 minutes, or until the meringue has browned. Remove it from the oven, cool it, and refrigerate until serving. Yield: 10 servings.