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| A bucolic backyard babka |
For week 25, it was time to work on some chocolatey bakes that I'd had my eye on, but hadn't yet mustered up the courage to attack. Feeling inspired by the latest season of the GBBS as well as the April King Arthur Bakealong challenge, I kicked things off with a chocolate babka. How can you go wrong with a buttery yeasted loaf with rivulets of chocolate running through? The instructions for the Bakealong included making the babka in a loaf pan as well as creating a gorgeous free-form knot. I went with one loaf pan bake and one smaller knotted loaf to see which format I preferred. The loaf pan option included pistachios and dried cherries inside along with a streusel topping, but I left that off of the knotted loaf. To be honest, I think this yeasted cake (or sweet bread?) doesn't really need the streusel and will probably leave that off next time. I did my due diligence in building up the gluten structure for maximum rise, and was really pleased with the crumb and texture of the loaves. It was a good thing that we were able to have an impromptu cookout which meant that the bounty of babka could be offloaded with some unsuspecting friends. I also brought one of the loaves to work in order to appease the masses - imagine my chagrin when, after all of that, the babka didn't even get completely finished!
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| Babka dough rising |
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| Two shaped loaves ready for the oven |
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| Traditional babka loaf with streusel |
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| Open knot babka loaf, probably my preferred look |
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| Nom nom nom! |
The other planned chocolate bake was the salted chocolate caramel tarts from Claudia Fleming's excellent cookbook, "The Last Course." I have had this cookbook since 2002 or and this was one of the recipes that I earmarked so which means that I've been wanting to make this recipe for approximately 15 years? Rather than make a giant tart which would then ooze it's caramel filling, I finally sprang for a mini-muffin pan in order to make the miniature tart. If you like Rolos, this is the dessert for you, hands down. I had a bit of trouble (still) with the caramel filling and getting it up to the correct temperature for maximum stiffness without burning, but I think a proper thermometer (looking at you, Thermopen) should do the trick. The chocolate dough was also a little stiff, but nothing that a little egg couldn't fix. Otherwise, the tartlets were a flavor success! Topped with a bit of black sea salt which made it very elegant. The only aspect that I would alter is making in a mini-cheesecake or true mini-tart pan. I did not care for the sloping slides of the mini-muffin tin for this particular treat. One of my ultimate frisbee friends was so enamored with the idea of this tart that she made a detour after work to pick up a package for snacking. I heard no complaints....
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| Tartlets filled and ready to be topped. |
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| Tartlets ganached and ready for finishing! |
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| The finished product, ready to go. |
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| Peach-cornmeal upside down cake |
In addition to these two creations, the weekend also involved a potluck/birthday party to head to. Of course I made some cake! Luckily, there was one last bag of Palisade peaches in the freezer just waiting for such an occasion. So I threw together one of my go-to peach recipes - the peach and cornmeal upside down cake from Martha Stewart. A little garden fresh lavender, too. This was not a good week for sugar work and I burnt the first batch of caramel topping; thankfully, it was before I threw the peaches in so I just pitched the goo and started again. My guess is that this was due to user error: just distracted and over-confident with a familiar recipe. But I recovered from the blunder, and the cake turned out just as lovely as can be. There is always that minute of trepidation when one turns out an upside-down cake (Will it stick? Is the fruit pattern wrecked? Is the color too pale? Is the color too dark? Eeek!), but no problems here. Phew. It seemed to be a hit at the potluck, too, which is always a nice feeling.
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