Not your typical "bakery" cookie

I had a little bit of both chocolate butter cream (from here) and the dulce de leche butter cream (from here) left over, from last weeks creations.  If you know me, I don't throw much away.  My tomatoes almost gone bad turns into tortilla soup, at the end of the week, my veggie drawer turns into either a stir fry or a big hearty vegetable soup and if I have either (or both) zucchinis and leeks, I make an orzo, a farro salad or some some sort of fritter.

I am a planner.  I make lists, I plan a weeks worth of meals and shop accordingly (actually, Miguel shops accordingly- with a typed up list, broken down by market) and I always cook with the mind set that there needs to be something left over for lunch the next day.  Yeah, Miguel brown bags it!  However, I am guilty of not always following through with my "weekly meal plan" and there are those rare occasions where we call up Mulberry Pizza and order a huge pie.

So, when I had this left over butter cream sitting in the fridge, I couldn't toss it.  I found the perfect cookie to  embrace two very different butter creams.  We brought these to dinner at friends and all enjoyed them as we ate in their Sukkah, under a sky filled with lots and lots of stars.

Orange Rosettes
adapted from here

yield: 2 dozen sandwich cookies

ingredients:
12 Tbls. unsalted butter, room temperature
1/2 cup confectioner's sugar
zest from 2 oranges
1 Tbls. orange juice
1/2 tsp. vanilla
pinch of salt
1 1/4 cups flour
1/4 cup cornstarch

instructions:
• preheat oven to 325*.  line 2 baking sheets with parchment
• in the bowl of an electric mixer, fitted with the paddle attachment, cream the butter, confectioner's sugar and the orange zest until smooth.
• add the orange juice and the vanilla.
• in a small bowl, combine the salt, flour, and cornstarch.  whisk to combine.  slowly add it to the mixer and combine thoroughly.
• place dough in a pastry bag fitted with a star tip.  pipe small, one inch rosettes onto the parchment lined cookie sheets.
• bake for 12-15 minutes or until the edges start to brown.
• allow to cool completely.
• pipe a small amount of butter cream on a rosette and make small rosette cookie sandwiches!

Dulce de Leche Buttercream + a cupcake

The past two weeks have been  very, very busy.  Between Miguel's birthday, beginning of school, the Jewish New Year and catering a party for a bunch of "ladies", I am happy to finally be on the other side!

At the last minute, the hostess of the party(that I was catering) called to say they needed some sort of "cupcake" so they could honor the birthday girl.  My original plan for desserts were the bite sized ricotta cheesecakes (here), apple galettes (here), and lemon tartlettes (recipes to follow).  Four desserts was a little over the top.  I opted to swap out the galettes and replace them with these little chocolate cupcakes.  Everyone was glad I did!

I made a batch of my favorite devil's food chocolate cupcake recipe (here).  Topped them with the most delicious dulce de leche frosting and finished them off with crushed, chocolate covered cocoa nibs.  This was one fantastic creation!

Dulce de Leche Buttercream w/devils food cupcakes
yield:  36 cupcakes 2 oz. cupcakes


ingredients:
1 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
2 Tbls. heavy cream
1 tsp. vanilla
4-5 cups powdered sugar, sifted
pinch of salt
3/4 cups prepared Dulce de leche
1/2 cup crushed chocolate covered cocoa nibs

instructions:
• in the bowl of an electric mixer, cream the butter.
• gradually add the sifted powdered sugar
• add the cream and the vanilla and beat on medium speed until smooth.
• add the Dulce de leche and combine on low speed
• depending upon how you like your frosting, you may want to add more sugar
• scoop frosting into a piping bag fitted with desired tip
• top with crushed cocoa nibs

note: I used 2 oz. souffle cups, filled them 2/3's full and baked them at 350* for 18-22 minutes

Ding Dongs - My Way

Isaac has a new found love, Ding Dongs.  He went to a party a few weeks ago and was introduced to the little round cakester.  He is hooked.  I am a tad embarrassed to admit this, but I grew up on Ding Dongs, Ho-Ho's, and Scooter Pies.  Those were my snack of choice. With that said, I would NEVER think of buying them for my kids.  Although I remember them being quite delicious, I just couldn't bring them into my house.

I need a birthday cake for an upcoming celebration and after searching some books as well as my own personal library, I was not inspired.  I turned to Tastespotting and did a search for "ding dong".  I found a few but the one that caught my eye was Smitten Kitten's blog post dated February 26, 2008.  I went back and fourth as to whether I should do hers or do the recipe I used for Eli's birthday cupcakes.  Because I had just made the cupcakes, I went for something new.  Plus, hers were cake specific and I didn't have a lot of time to test and re-test.

I made her cake in a large sheet pan.  I went back and forth as to whether I should cut out circles, thus what to do with the scraps or to just cut in 2 1/2" squares.  You all know me, I can't waste.  So, I went for the squares.  When the cake was removed from the pan, I loved the thickness.  It was almost the perfect "ding-dong" height.  However, when I cut them up, sliced them in half and filled them, they were uber-thick.  Almost too thick.  Regardless, continued on with the mission.  While the cake was cooling, I made the butter cream.  I love this butter cream.  It is, if I must say, perfect.  I also used the Lacquer Glaze from Rose's Heavenly Cakes.  I love Rose and love this book.


Next time, provided there is a next time, I will make them round.  I will also, try to pipe the butter cream into the center rather than cut them in half.  Don't get me wrong, they were delicious, I was just hoping for them to better replicate the "original" !  I made them too big.  Big, small, whatever, everyone LOVED them...the were a huge hit.  

Chocolate Devils Food Cake
adapted from Smitten Kitchen 

ingredients:
2 oz fine-quality semisweet chocolate
1 1/2 cups hot brewed coffee
3 cups sugar
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cups unsweetened cocoa powder (not dutch processed)
2 tsp. baking soda
3/4 tsp. baking powder
1 1/4 tsp. salt
3 large eggs
3/4 cup vegetable oil
1 1/2 cups well-shaken buttermilk
3/4 tsp. vanilla


directions:
• preheat oven to 300*, grease pans or cookie sheet (I used a large 10" x 15" cake pan ).  line bottom with parchment and grease again
• chop chocolate + combine with hot coffee, let mixture stand, stir after 2 minutes and keep stirring until the mixture is smooth.
• sift sugar, flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder, & salt.  in the bowl of an electric mixer, beat eggs until thickened.  slowly add oil, buttermilk, vanilla, + melted chocolate/coffee mixture.  add sugar/flour mixture and mix until just combined.
• pour batter into prepared pan.  bake until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean (about 50 minutes to 1 hour 10 minutes).
• cool completely to room temperature.  invert cake and peel off parchment.
• at this point, I cut the cake into 2 1/2" x 2 1/2" squares.  then i cut them through the center, creating two equal halves.  cut out a hole in the middle with a melon baller and then piped in some cream filling. put the top back on and then froze them on parchment lined cookie sheets.  

Basic Butter Cream
4 oz. softened butter 
4 cups sifted confection sugar 
1 Tbls. vanilla
3 or more Tbl. milk (depending upon how thick you like it)
•mix to your desired thickness


Chocolate Glaze
Heavenly Cakes by Rose Levy Beranbaum
ingredients:
1/4 cup cold water
2 tsp. powdered gelatin
2/3 cup sugar
1/2 cup water
1 Tbls. plus 1 tsp. corn syrup
3/4 cup plus 2 Tbls. unsweetened cocoa powder
1/3 cup heavy cream


directions:
• in a small bowl, place 1/4 cup cold water and sprinkle the gelatin over the top.  stir to moisten and allow to rest for 5 minutes.  cover tightly with plastic wrap to prevent evaporation.
• in small sauce pot, over medium heat, whisk sugar and 1/4 cup of water.  stir constantly until sugar dissolves.
• remove the pan from the heat and gently whisk in the corn syrup & cocoa until smooth.  the mixture should be glossy.  stir in the heavy cream with a silicone spatula.
• return the pan to medium heat and stirring constantly, bring the mixture to the boiling point (190*).  small bubbles will start to form.
• remove the pan from the heat and strain into a medium bowl.  cool to 122*-140*.  stir in the softened gelatin until dissolved.
• strain into a heatproof glass measuring cup.  cool, stirring gently.  the glaze coats best at 80*.  this glaze is best used right away.  this glaze is yummy.

Eli turns 12

This past Saturday we celebrated Eli's 12th birthday.  His actual birthday is this Wednesday, the 24th.  However, he will not be here.  Yesterday, he left for Yosemite with 40 of his classmates and won't be back until Friday.  He and I were both very sentimental about not being together on his birthday.  He was really struggling with the idea of being away, hence it did not stop him from getting on that bus yesterday! The sad part about all of this for me, is that this will be the first birthday we don't spend together, however it won't be the last.  Boo Hoo!

In the spirit of Salzman celebrations, we decided to celebrate early.  Glad we did.  Eli included about 10 of his friends for Go-Kart riding, dinner and cupcakes.  He enjoyed his evening.  Plus it was a good distraction for him of what was to come the next morning.

I wanted to make a Hostess Cupcake style cupcake, with the cream filling, etc.  I found this recipe (here) on epicurious.com for devils food cupcakes.  OMG.  So amazingly good!  I read the reviews and although they were mixed, I went for it anyway.  These are pure perfection.

I searched many sites as well as many of my cookbooks for a chocolate glaze.   The one I found was perfect and fool proof. I made the Lacquer Glaze (page 306) from Rose's Heavenly Cakes.  I love Rose.  She and I go way back.  Then I made a very simple, basic buttercream (4 oz. softened butter, 4 cups sifted confection sugar, 1 Tbl. vanilla, 3 or more Tbl. milk - mix to your desired thickness) to pipe on the top.  Had I had more time, I would have piped some of this yummy buttercream into the center of each cupcake.  I had enough buttercream, but my morning was so full that I just didn't have the time to create the ultimate Hostess Cupcake.

Even without the buttercream center these were AMAZING.  These are worthy and should be made often!
I cannot get over how delicious these are.  And even after two days (in the fridge) they are still as good today as they were on Saturday.

Happy 12th, Eli.  

I love you to the moon and back!