Justin & Meredith Winokur's Kitchen Cooking Notebook
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Sticky Lemon Buns -- back to top
Meredith made Sticky Lemon Rolls from The Kitchn (LOCAL). She followed the recipe except with the notes below.
For some reason, the filling super separated but seemed to be fine when it melted. Also she was extra careful to get to the 190°F (~40 min)
They came out a little dry. Possibly due to the issues getting the filling to come together and then not being able to get as much of the filling to stay in the buns. Next time, I'll try the King Arthur suggestion of 25° higher temp for 5-8 minutes less. And hope that the filling doesn't separate weirdly.
Meredith made Buttermilk Pie (LOCAL). She used our crust but otherwise, the only change to the recipe was a tsp of vanilla.
Future Note: support the crust with a pan underneath. This bent a bit after blind-baking the crust.
Raspberry Crème Puffs -- back to top
Meredith made raspberry crème puffs for work as a gender-reveal (see the photos below). She used the Pâte à Choux and Pastry Cream. For the cream, she added some raspberry puree (strained) and then some additional food coloring to really bring out the color.
They were really good!
Also worth noting, she made them smaller than the pimento cheese puffs
Matcha Pound Cake -- back to top
Meredith was craving all things green tea so she made Matcha Pound Cake (LOCAL)
She made a few adjustments for altitude including:
Despite the changes saying to do it for less time, it still seemed to need a good bit more than the recipe called for. Next time, I think we will just use some extra liquid but not make the other changes.
Anyway, it came out pretty good. The edges were a bit dry (potentially because of the extra time and heat...oh well). But the middle had a nice texture and was moist. The frosting was also really good. You could certainly taste the almond in it.
Matcha Fruit Tarts -- back to top
Meredith made Matcha Fruit Tarts.
She followed the Patisserie Book (LOCAL) but was really unhappy with it. It has you work the butter in cold and it didn't form a cohesive ball. She added two tbsp of cold water to help make it form. She will use a different recipe next time (Probably the Kitchn).
She did use The Kitchn's suggestion to roll it out between wax paper so you didn't need more flour.
She also overbaked it a bit.
The filling was The Kitcn's Pastry Cream with the addition of 1 Tbsp of Matcha to the dry ingredients (before mixing in the egg). She also added some green food coloring since the matcha we have is an odd color. She pipped it in and topped it with berries.
Meredith made a Bakewell Tart using Mary Berry's Recipe (LOCAL) but with Pâte Sablée from The Kitchn ( LOCAL). The biggest change to the recipe was to use Heidi's Raspberry Lavender Jam from a local place. Also, she used red food coloring which really worked just fine!
She's still experimenting with the crust but may try Mary's next time.
We really liked it overall and it was pretty well received!
Marimekko Limoncello Cake Roll -- back to top
This is the flagship item for Easter 2019, hence it gets its own page.
Variation of the one from Sprinkle Bakes (LOCAL) cake. Using Cadbury mini eggs in place of the Sconza almonds, and plain almonds or almond meal/flour in the filling.
Meredith also did an inlay using the inlay paste from this recipe (LOCAL). However, on her first attempt to make it, the butter turned super lumpy. The recipe doesn't call for using room-temperature eggs, but according to this reddit post
Cold liquid, like raw egg, will hit the butter and make it solidify, which could explain the "lumpy" part.
In tracing the design with the inlay paste, we decided to first grease the parchment since the main recipe does. However, it made the paste not stick at all. We wiped it with paper towel and it worked well. Meredith did most of the tracing. First you outline it and then fill it in. I took over for a few of the purple ones. You can tell since I went around more in circles than Meredith did. We froze it for a while since we had to stop to put the baby to bed.
We had to do some quick thinking since if we just flipped as they said, the design would be on the inside. (Could you imagine how pissed we’d be if we didn’t think that through?!?!). So we turned over a baking sheet and lined it with parchment. We then flipped the cake onto that, the put the towel on top, and carefully flipped it back. We rolled it out, let it cool, then wrapped it up and left it out overnight.
In the mean time, a tiny bit was stuck to the second parchment. We scraped it off and it tasted wonderful!
Meredith used the included icing recipe with some changes to make it a limoncello icing. She used this recipe to gage limoncello. She added 2 Tbsp limoncello and zest of one (large) lemon. She used regular almonds in the icing (instead of the limoncello ones). But we didn't have enough so she used a little less than 2/3 cups and added 2 Tbsp of almond flour.
The icing was really good. The chunks from the almonds gave it a great texture and it was super flavorful. You could really taste the lemon but it wasn't overpowering.
This was not easy. First, cracking the eggs and getting the shells were hard. Then sterilizing them was a mess since they can (and did!1) roll on the cooling rack. Not sure what that accomplished. Next time I would either just put them right on tray (unless it gets too hot?) or build an aluminum foil barrier.
Anyway, we also did a few coatings of the eggs since they were super thin. Meredith followed the instructions on how much oil but it seemed like too much. Less coconut oil next time2.
They were hard to remove from the shells but we were eventually able to do it. However, they didn't really add much to the look of the cake and were certainly not work the effort.
Rolling the cake out worked well. It didn't want to fully unfurl but Meredith was able to carefully move frosting into the fold. And the rolling it back was pretty smooth except Meredith initially started to roll too tight. Once she realized that, it was smooth sailing. There was some clean up but overall, very simple and looked great.
We were really happy with how the cake turned out. It looked great! Exactly as Meredith had wanted. It was a bit dry which we thing was from sitting overnight (even though it was well wrapped). We will try to avoid that next time. The overall cake was absolutely a success though!
I am not even sure how this happened but an egg rolled off the tray, through a gap (why is that even there?) in the rack and got stuck! I had to let it cool before pulling it out. You can see it here[full size] ↩
I would be pretty surprised if there is a next time... ↩
Buttermilk Fruit Tart -- back to top
I’m still working on figuring out my preferred tart crust. This time, I used Mary Berry’s crust recipe from Bakewell Tart. The texture was much better than when I used the Kitchn’s recipe. I think cold butter is the way to go for the crust. Next time I may try a Pâte Sucre crust.
The filling was inspired by having leftover buttermilk. I looked for a buttermilk pastry cream and found this The Irreverent Kitchen (LOCAL). I followed this recipe adding the zest of one lemon stirred in at the end. However, I really did not like this method of making the pastry cream. And it didn’t set! I prefer what I’ve done before where you temper the eggs. It tasted good though!
I also used the blueberry topping recipe from the same link, only subbed white rum for the brandy based on what we had on hand. And I ended up using 6 tbsp powdered sugar. I don’t know if my blueberries weren’t as sweet or what, but with the crust not being very sweet and the tangy lemony buttermilk filling, I was going for more sweetness in the blueberries. Then I also topped it with kiwi roses which were surprisingly easy to make. Made them on a cutting board and carefully transferred with the fish flipping spatula.
As mentioned, the pastry cream did not set, and it was pretty soupy once you cut into it. It initially looked great and tasted pretty good. I would consider doing it again, but there are so many other tart combinations to try so it may never happen. Lots of room for improvement though. And as pretty as the kiwi roses were, I thought the blueberry went better. Kiwis are a bit sour, too and like I said it needed the sweeter topping to contrast the tangy filling.
Birthday Layer Cake -- back to top
Meredith made (or is still making) Birthday Layer Cake by Momofuku Milk Bar. Since the edges of the sheet pan were more puffy, she carefully layered it to be level as you can see in the side-view picture. She also took it out of the ring and didn't use acetate but it seemed to work well!
This is a work in progress so it will be updated later.
Hummingbird Cake -- back to top
Meredith made the Hummingbird Cake from Southern Living (LOCAL). However, that recipe's frosting calls for an insane amount of powdered sugar so instead she used the recipe from Add a Pinch ( LOCAL)
This cake was amazing! I think it was even better at the party
Made a double batch of batter for these on Saturday using the Patisserie (pink book) recipe like last time, only this time I subbed Kraken rum for the brandy. I was trying to use up the last of a bottle. Cooked according to the Eat Little Bird recipe again on Wednesday for the first batch, and Friday for the second. The first batch I baked starting at 460F and the tops turned out burnt. The second batch I started at 430F, and put the wire rack underneath while baking. The tops came out nicely bronzed, but some of the bottoms were a little too brown. I may have overfilled them slightly.
Note: The double batch of batter made about 25 mini canneles using my silicone molds.
For Caroline's Party, Meredith (and later with help from her sister) made a Croquembouche. She used the choux and pastry cream recipe as she had in the past. She actually made the puffs Monday before the party and froze them. Then she made 2 batches of pastry cream on Saturday so it would be chilled and ready for filling.
Meredith filled the puffs the morning of the party while Brooke was making the caramel. Brooke did the assembly on the day of the party. There are a bunch of recipes out there for the carmel part (TODO: Add them?) but none are very specific. In fact, they do not have temperatures at all! So it was a bit of a guessing game. It did work, though was a bit hard.
Lemon Syrup Cake -- back to top
Meredith made a lemon syrup cake from Sprinkle Bakes (LOCAL) for Caroline's Party. She used the cake from there but the frosting recipe from Easter without the nuts or any limoncello/lemon zest. This was going to be Caroline’s smash cake, so she kept it booze free.
She also made a smaller cake as a smash cake for Caroline.
She used store-bought lemon curd which worked well. There were some issues assembling the cake but in the end it came together really well.
Oatmeal Cookies -- back to top
Meredith made oatmeal cookies from Bravetart. She just used the whole wheat flour option instead of oat flour. Subbed rolled oats for the steel cuts (so all rolled oats). So they were really just single oatmeal cookies.
Also raisins for craisins.
Mint Chocolate Chip Cake -- back to top
Meredith made a Mint Chocolate Chip cake from Cakes by Courtney (LOCAL). She followed the cake recipe and even the main butter cream one but subbed Crème de Menthe for the mint extract (which, by the way, the amount of mint extract in the original sounds crazy). That gave it a nice flavor and a nice color. She also added two drops of teal gel food coloring. She also added 2 tsp (ish) of espresso powder.
Her only note for next time is that the recipe has you set aside too much buttercream for in between layers and leaves you without enough to do a good job coating the cake. So next time, either set aside less and/or make extra butter cream.
It was very good! The cake was super moist and the mint flavor was subtle but tasty. It was also very pretty though took a lot of work to place all of the chocolate chips
Baklava Sticky Buns -- back to top
From Meredith:
I has this idea to make baklava inspired sticky buns. I decided to use Joy the Baker’s king cake recipe for the dough part. I meant to sub clove for the nutmeg, but forgot. I pretty much followed her instructions right up until you twist the two dough ropes together. At that point, I had 2 ropes spread with the filling, and I sliced them with a bench scraper into 1.5-2 in swirls.
Put each of those in a 9x13 in pan with very little space between them. Let them proof for about 45 min with plastic wrap over the pan.
Next into the oven. When there was about 15-20 min left on the timer, I started cooking the syrup. I put it on fairly low on the stove, and kept an eye on it because it seemed to want to boil over. Cooked until it thickened then took it off the heat and stirred in 1tsp of orange blossom water. We happened to have some in the fridge and I thought it would go nicely. Otherwise, I probably would have used vanilla in its place. Once the buns were done (check for temp: 190°F), I took them out of the oven and poured the syrup over. Then sprinkled some roughly chopped walnuts over the top. Done!
Transcribed Notes: from the image above
Followed JTB king cake recipe for the dough
Toasted ~4 cups of walnuts.
Adapted Joy's filling:
Made Sticky Honey Topping:
Heat until everything is dissolved and reduced. ~15 min.
Baked @ 370°F for 35 min
2020-07-21 update: Bake to 190°
Lemon Poppy seed Cake -- back to top
Meredith followed the recipe from Cakes by Courtney (LOCAL) and did an hombre color scheme. She also used raspberry jam (preserves?) instead of fresh ones.
Besides being very pretty, it was also very good!
Almond King Cake -- back to top
Meredith made an Almond Mardi Gras King Cake using the Joy The Baker recipe used a few times before. She really picked from a few different recipes. The frosting from King Arthur Flour (LOCAL) replacing the vanilla with almond extract. Inspiration for almond paste from Serious Eats1. The only part of that recipe was the filling using
beaten together in the mixer until smooth.
One batch of filling filled one rope of dough, so she ended up making a second batch but had to use marzipan since that’s what we had. Turns out the almond paste mixture spread better than the marzipan one.
It rose slowly but did eventually rise. And she followed her own advice from the sticky buns to use a thermometer. Still, the very, very inside was a bit undercooked but really not very much.
It was very popular. In fact, the entire thing went!
No local copy since it really was just the filling and there wasn't much to it. ↩
Peanut Butter and Jelly Cake -- back to top
The theme for this week's "Gluttonfest" was "Soups, Salads, and Sandwiches" so Meredith made a PB&J Cake. She used the recipe from Cakes by Courtney (LOCAL -- including a PDF of the site and the video).
Her notes (so far):
So far my only note is that yesterday it creaming the PB and butter together seemed like it would have worked better if I did the butter first and then added the PB. So I did that today for the frosting. Worked well. Less critical for the cake than the frosting.
Also I think she went a little heavy in the jelly between layers because it’s a bit wobbly.
The end result was pretty dry and, despite using a lot of jelly, the jelly flavor was kind of lost in the cake. We will not likely use this cake recipe again though the peanut butter frosting was very well received.
Chocolate Chunk Tahini Blondies -- back to top
Meredith made Tahini Blondies from Washington Post (LOCAL). The only real changes were vanilla extract instead of paste, and she just used semi sweet chocolate chips since we that was what we had.
Brown Butter Miso Walnut Dark Chocolate Blondies -- back to top
Meredith continued her baking kick this week and made Brown Butter Miso Walnut Dark Chocolate Blondies from The Brick Kitchen (LOCAL).
They weren't bad but they "weren't awesome" either. Also more work than they are worth
Cornflake Marshmallow Cookies -- back to top
Meredith again made cornflake marshmallow cookies from Shutterbean. She used butterscotch chips since she couldn't find peanut butter.
They were delicious as usual. They get a nice carmel flavor from the sugar and butter melting.
She also discovered that this recipe is quite different from the original Milk Bar one. She may try that one next time.
Meredith made Anzac Biscuits for the plane trip this week. They hold together well and do not crumb much making them ideal for travel
Meredith made lemon bars from Martha Stewart (LOCAL)
Added zest of 1 lemon to crust and zest of another lemon to filling. Nothing is too lemony for a Huffsmith! My pan may be a little bit bigger, so I struggled to spread the crust to cover. Since I felt like I’d handled it kind of a bit, I stuck it in the freezer for 15 min before baking. It still needed to bake for the 20 min to get to a light golden color.
Next time, I would do 1.5 times the recipe for the crust. You really need enough to be able to press up the sides a ways. I was happy with the amount of filling though.
They tasted really good but were really sticky. They were hard to remove from the pan and then they stuck to the knife. Using some pam on the knife helped.
Hummingbird Easter Bunny Cake -- back to top
Meredith made a Hummingbird Cake for Easter. Like last time, she used the frosting from Add a Pinch. Each cake layer weighed around 1lb 15 oz (pan included), and then it made 6 cupcakes, too.
She used the idea from Easter Bunny Cake [Jenny Steffens] (just the design). You make a single layer of cake and cut it in half, then glue together with frosting into a half moon shape. Then you cut a small bit out of the top and use it to make a tail. Cover with shredded coconut. She made an extra bunny to give to our neighbor friends.
She wanted to note that this frosting recipe is super soft and not good for piping or trying to do any sort of intricate decoration. Not bad for covering in shredded coconut, though.
The cake came out really good like last time! This is my favorite cake!
Malted Chocolate Chip-Pecan Cookies -- back to top
Recipe from Serious Eats (LOCAL). Used golden syrup instead of barley malt syrup, since I had that from making Anzac biscuits. Also, did a mix of 1/2 walnut, 1/2 pecan for the nuts. For the chocolate, I used up some dark chocolate chunks, then added semi-sweet chocolate chips (regular and mini size) to make up the rest. I chopped all the chocolate focusing on the chunks because they were pretty nice sized chunks.
The cookies were certainly good. Not the “revelation” we hoped for but very good!
Southern Banana Pudding -- back to top
Meredith made Southern Banana Pudding
Baked it in two containers with just two layers each, instead of three. It was probably a wash as far as banana usage.
We haven't tried it yet but I wonder if it will have less banana flavor since there is only two layers of them. Will update when we try them but the pudding is great even without bananas so I'm not worried.
Hawaiian Rolls and Pulled Pork -- back to top
Meredith made Hawaiian Rolls for leftover, defrosted, pulled pork. The rolls were very good, especially with the pork.
For the pork, I crisped it up in a pan. It was nowhere near as greasy as last time I crisped it but it still gave it a nice texture in the pan. I also added the BBQ sauce (Sweet Baby Rays) and cooked that onto it in the pan.
Meredith also made coleslaw and we added a note in the right amount of sugar.
Pumpkin 🎃 Cake 🎂 with Brown-Butter Frosting -- back to top
Meredith made a Pumpkin Cake with Brown Butter Frosting. The cake was the same pumpkin cake we used in 2017.
The brown butter buttercream came from Two Sisters Crafting (LOCAL). Meredith's notes:
The topping was done with some homemade stencils she did using the Cricut
It was really good and we really liked the brown butter frosting. The cake when eaten alone was also very good though it didn't stand up very well to the frosting. Meredith may use this frosting for something like a chocolate cake that can stand up better.
Pear and Pistachio Ricotta Cake -- back to top
Meredith made a Pear and Pistachio Ricotta Cake based on the Apple Pine Nut Ricotta Cake from Cook Republic (LOCAL). Her changes:
We liked it a lot. Very moist and not too sweet. More cardamom next time. You could barely taste it in there!
Chocolate Cake with Coffee Frosting -- back to top
Meredith made a chocolate cake with coffee frosting for "Gluttonfest" and in particular a friend's birthday.
For the cake, she used her standard Cakes by Courtney recipe. For the frosting she used Coffee Butter Cream Frosting from Imperial Sugar (LOCAL)
For the frosting, she added some extra butter and sugar since it was so loose. But some time in the fridge solidified it enough. And it just barely made enough. though could have been because it was so loose at first.
The cake was very good and well received
Meredith made Mary Berry's Bakewell Tart. Unlike last time, this time she used the Pâte Sablée from Mary Berry as well. It may have been the recipe or the heat in the kithchen or something else, but she couldn't get the Pâte Sablée off the counter and ended up forming it in the pan. And Meredith also didn't trim the pan down.
So it wasn't as pretty as last time, but it was still very good and well received. Lots of almond flavor balanced by the sweet (maybe a tad too sweet?) icing. Meredith also had some trouble with the icing hardening but I thought the lines looked good
Meredith made tiramisu for Friday Night Potluck. She used her normal recipe which she finally let me copy it. The recipe is from Cibo 360 for tiramisu and zabaione (LOCAL translated, and PDFs)
Unfortunately, she didn't let me copy it sooner and it likely changed. She followed, or even went a little light, the amount of marsala but it was too much. The older version of the recipe had you do about half an egg-shell's worth per egg. She would go back to that too.
Also, as noted on that recipe, she uses butter biscuits (or Petit-Beurre) instead of lady-fingers. This is because when she was in Italy for study abroad, she asked a local friend for the best tiramisu. Instead of pointing her to it, she gave Meredith an ingredient list, included butter biscuits but not lady fingers, and made her some. It was really good so now that is Meredith's major change now too.
It was well received and we liked it. Just less marsala next time.
Meredith made Liege Waffles as part of another project. She decided to try the recipe from Spoon Fork Bacon (LOCAL)
Changes to liege waffles: 3/4 cup AP flour, 1/2 cup whole wheat. Granulated sugar instead of brown (didn’t want to open a new bag for such a tiny amount). Also, it took about 4 min per waffle. I did them 1 at a time instead of trying to fit 1/3 cup of batter into each quarter.
I wasn’t thrilled working with the batter. It was super sticky, and extremely easily deflated. The end result wasn’t as chewy as I’d like in a liege waffle. I thought I could have kneaded it a bit longer with the mixer, but the recipe may also need a little work.
Liege Waffle French Toast Casserole -- back to top
This was for the Friday Potlucks. Meredith made Liege Waffle French Toast Casserole (where "French Toast Casserole" basically means bread pudding but sounds fancier).
The waffles were a mix from yesterday and from New Years (which were frozen).
She used this Food52 recipe for inspiration but really, just used it for the basis. Her notes:
It was certainly good but not as decadent or amazing as we expected. I think if we were going to go through the effort to make waffles just for this, I would just have the waffles instead.
Root Beer Float Cake -- back to top
Meredith made a Root Beer Float Cake from Cakes by Courtney (LOCAL) for this week's potluck theme "Fourth of July".
It was pretty good and unmistakably root beer!
Meredith made Zucchini Bread [Alexandra Cooks] again replacing some (~2/3rds this time) of the oil with apple sauce (like 2020-07-26). It was still very good! This recipe is a winner! This was in addition to Armadillo Eggs for the holiday themed Gluttonfest
Caroline also helped.
Basil Strawberry Shortcake -- back to top
Meredith made strawberry shortcake.
She made Easy Cream Biscuits [The Food Lab], but added the 3 tbsp of sugar to make them “scones”. Also, stuck closer to the amount of salt it calls for since I was going for sweet instead of savory.
Macerating the strawberries in a basil simple syrup. I’ll also use the basil simple syrup in place of powdered sugar in the whipped cream. Ended up not being sweet enough so ground basil leaves into sugar and added to the whipped cream. It kind of clumped so next time, will start with that.
Mango Sticky Rice -- back to top
Meredith made Mango and Sweet Coconut Sticky Rice [Simple Thai] for gluttonfest
Also used this guide (LOCAL). Did not use the instant pot because already soaked.
For the coconut topping, she used cake flour instead of rice flour in the cream since all we had was glutinous rice flour (Mochiko) and we didn’t know what that would do
The final result was pretty good! We used the instant pot to serve (but not cook). The flavor was really good and it went over well! The coconut cream topping needed to be used sparingly as it wasn't sweet at all but as long as you did that, the mix of salty and sweet worked well!
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