Sunday Brunch

Posted on 12 February 2012 by christao408

Sunday morning we hosted brunch for a group of friends, all of whom work (or used to work) in the aviation industry. Needless to say, the topic of conversation frequently turned back to shared work experiences. Despite this, we still had time to enjoy a relaxed meal of salad, sandwiches, and dessert.

A ripe, juicy watermelon from a roadside stall in Korat province provided the inspiration for a cool, refreshing summer salad. Trying to scoop melon balls while avoiding seeds was a challenge, though!

Based loosely on a recipe by the New York Times’ Mark Bittman, this salad features just four ingredients: watermelon, cherry tomatoes, feta cheese, and fresh mint. I didn’t dress the salad with a red wine vinaigrette as Mr. Bittman suggests, because when I tasted the combination I found the flavors already beautifully balanced.

To make the main course, I first baked a batch of focaccia bread, the light, airy, rosemary infused Italian style bread. This batch was based on a recipe in the Los Angeles Times by La Brea Bakery owner Nancy Silverton. The problem is, the recipe is missing the last step: how long to cook the bread and at what temperature! Critical information, methinks. Referencing another recipe, 450 F for 15-20 minutes was sufficient.

Despite the absence of time and temperature information, the loaf turned out nicely and when paired with some herb smoked ham from Soulfood Mahanakorn, provolone cheese, and a roasted red bell pepper and onion relish I made, we had some beautiful paninis.

For dessert, I made one of Tawn’s favorites: banoffee pie. This British import features a layer of rich toffee on a cookie crumb crust, covered with freshly sliced bananas, whipped cream, a drizzle of coffee flavored syrup, and chocolate shavings. Instead of making a cheat version of the toffee, I made it the old fashioned way: boiling tins of sweetened condensed milk in a water bath for three hours until the contents caramelize. Care must be taken to keep the tins fully submerged, otherwise they will explode and spray your kitchen with boiling hot caramel.

The end result – my first ever attempt at this dish – had its ups and downs. The crust hadn’t been made with enough butter so it didn’t hold up well, collapsing under the weight of the filling. The toffee, which was insanely tasty, was too much – one can would have been plenty. I didn’t whip the cream quite enough so it didn’t hold its shape and instead spilled through the collapsing crust.

But, despite all that, it was really tasty. I’ll try again one of these days and refine the recipe.

Baking Pecan Tarts

Posted on 20 January 2012 by christao408

Every time I visit the US, I make a trip to Costco and buy several pounds of pecans and walnuts. Nuts (with the exception of cashews, peanuts, and macadamias, all of which are grown locally) are very expensive here in Thailand and I enjoy adding nuts to salads, pestos, and of course desserts. Recently, I perfected a pecan pie recipe that makes wonderful two-bite-sized tarts.

The recipe started out from one contributed by an unknown source on the Food Network’s site. As such, they warned that the recipe had not been tested. Certainly not, as I found out after an initial mishap. Let’s put it this way: adding beaten eggs directly into boiling sugar syrup makes for sweet scrambled eggs – not a proper pecan pie filling!

Instead, I rewrote the directions and, after testing two batches, made some adjustments to the ingredients to reduce the sweetness and richness of the filling while adding some depth of flavor thanks to the use of maple syrup.

Pecan Pie or Tarts
1 stick butter (4 oz or 115 g)
1 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup light corn syrup¹
1/2 cup maple syrup²
2 eggs plus 3 egg whites, beaten well
1 1/2 cups chopped pecans (or 1 cup plus whole pecans to layer the top of the pie)
1 unbaked 9-inch pie shell, or 12 small tart pans lined with pastry dough³
Preheat oven to 350 F (175 C). In a saucepan, melt the butter but don’t let it brown. Mix in the sugar, corn syrup, and maple syrup and cook, stirring constantly, over medium heat until the sugar dissolves.
Temper the eggs by slowly pouring the sugar mixture into them while whisking continuously. Stir in the pecans then pour the mixture into the pie or tart shells. If you want to decorate the top(s) with whole pecans, you can do so.
Bake 1 hour or until firm when shaken. Let cool before serving. If you are making the tarts in a muffin tin, you should carefully remove them to a wire rack after ten minutes of cooling, so they do not stick.
¹ Note that the corn syrup you buy in the store (like Karo brand) is not high-fructose corn syrup.
² I think the Grade B maple syrup, which has a richer flavor, is nice to use. If you have only regular maple syrup, that is fine, too. You can also substitute corn syrup if you do not have maple syrup.
³ Instead of tart pans, you can also use a muffin tin.

Pecan pies and tarts freeze beautifully after they are cooked. They can be warmed up in the oven for about 15 minutes before serving and they’ll be just as nice as if they were freshly-baked.

Baking: Chocolate Raspberry Bundt Cake Soaked in Raspberry Syrup

Posted on 18 September 2011 by christao408

Chocolate Raspberry
Bundt Cake

Soaked in Raspberry Sauce

Recipe Source:‎

Week of Menus

Time: About 2 hours
Taste: 4/5
Fancy Factor: 4/5

One of my favorite cooking-related websites is Week of Menus. Written by Joanne Choi, a mother of young children who tries to provide, as she puts it, good cooking for people with too much on their plate. I’m sure we can all relate to that feeling. Recently, she’s done a series of recipes about bundt cakes and the chocolate raspberry bundt soaked in raspberry syrup caught my eye.

Something nice about bundt cakes is that they have a high degree of fancy with a relative minimum of work. The pans themselves are very grandly designed, some with arches and vaults worthy of a cathedral, others with giant ridges, and still others with rose patterns. With such a beautiful cake, there’s no need to frost or ice them, although a nice glaze moistens the cake and makes the architecture even more beautiful.

The ingredients are pretty simple (you can go to Joanne’s website for the exact recipe): All-purpose flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, unsalted butter, granulated sugar, eggs, vanilla extract, sour cream, a chocolate bar broken into pieces, and raspberries.

First you combine the flour with the salt, baking powder, and baking soda. The recipe does not call for sifting the flour, but the organic Australian flour I buy here in Thailand is a little coarse, so sifting helps combine the ingredients while also lightening the flour. Next step, cream the butter in a mixer until it is light and fluffy, then beat in the sugar.

After the sugar and butter are combined, add the eggs one at a time, beating for about thirty seconds between each addition. Of course, you need scrape down the sides of the bowl every so often along the way (or buy a BeaterBlade, which combines the paddle attachment with silicon edging that scrapes down the bowl as it mixes) so that the ingredients are well-combined.

Then start adding the flour mixture and the sour cream (to which I had to add a little bit of yogurt as I didn’t have quite enough sour cream) in alternating parts.

The final step is to fold in the broken chocolate pieces and about half the raspberries. Now, the recipe calls for fresh raspberries but I found that frozen works just fine. Manually incorporate the chocolate and berries instead of using the mixer, so that you are sure they are evenly distributed.

Put the batter into a bundt cake mold and bake. I didn’t have a bundt cake mold but had been thinking about buying one. This recipe gave me the incentive to make the purchase. While comparing models, I decided to buy my first silicone baking mold. It is less expensive and supposedly easier to use (no need to butter and flour the mold – it just peels right off) than metal baking pans.

Overall, I was impressed by the ease of use, but for some reason the batter shifted in the pan, causing one side of the cake to be larger than the other. Maybe I need to place the pan on a tray before putting it in the oven?

While the cake baked, I made the glaze. This is a combination of the remaining berries, some sugar, and a little bit of orange juice. The berries are pureed and strained so you get a rich raspberry juice. The juice is then combined with the sugar and orange juice and cooked for a few minutes until the sugar dissolves. You can easily imagine how other fruits could be used instead of raspberries to produce tasty alternatives to the raspberry cake.

After the cake was done and had cooled a bit (although not completely), you begin brushing on the glaze. Notice how lopsided the cake is! I also think it is a little overcooked. When I checked the cake initially, the toothpick was coming out dirty, so I gave it a few more minutes. By the time the inside was done, the outside was a little too brown. Perhaps I need to lover the oven temperature a little?

I added the glaze in two layers, allowing about ten minutes for the first layer to absorb. There was a point where the cake seemed adequately glazed and I had used only about two-thirds of the raspberry glaze. In hindsight, I would go ahead and apply a third layer as there is not much risk of the cake being too moist.

The final product, served with some white chocolate and raspberry ice cream from New Zealand Ice Cream. You can se this slice came from the thin side of the cake! Overall, the flavor was nice, although I think the cake was slightly overcooked and just a little dry. I would like to play around with this recipe again, maybe adding more berries to the batter or else maybe a little more sour cream. In any case, thanks to Joanne for this nice recipe!

A Little Pre-Hawai’i Cooking

Posted on 23 March 2011 by christao408

The day I filmed the Almost No-Knead Bread video, I got some extra cooking done. It made sense to have just a little more home cooking before we head off to Kauai for my cousin’s wedding. The meal: Indian spice rub pork chops with raita (a yogurt sauce with cukes and tomatos) and Indian spice roasted potatoes. Dessert was Swedish brownies. And while I was at it, I whipped up a batch of meusli.

While the recipe was originally for chicken, I used pork chops in this Indian spice rub and raita combination from Joanne Choi’s Week of Menus blog. Being a mother with young children and still a foodie, she manages to balance creative, complex flavors with ease of preparation and wholesome ingredients. The only change I would make to the recipe is to add a little bit of brown sugar and a bit of salt. The rub could have used a touch of sweetness.

Tawn and I enjoy meusli for breakfast – although in truth I eat oatmeal most days – and I find it isn’t too difficult to roast a batch of meusli when I already have the oven heated for some other baking. Each batch is just a little different. Based on Alton Brown’s granola recipe from the Food Network, I cut back on the sugar and substitute a little orange juice instead. I sometimes substitute different types of nuts or seeds (flax, pumpkin, or sunflower) for the cashews and almonds in his recipe. And I add a bit of cinnamon or sometimes freshly-ground nutmeg while the meusli is still warm. After it has cooled, I add dried fruits. This one is a combination of cherries, dates, apricots, and raisins. Tasty and pretty healthy, too.

Now, you see why I had to bake some healthy meusli: to offset the caloric karma that came from these wonderfully sticky and chewy brownies. The recipe came my from friend Per’s mother. Since he’s from Sweden, I think I’m going to call these my Swedish brownies. Some brownies are too cake-like. These have an almost mochi-like chewiness (causing me to wonder what would happen if I added just a bit of rice flour to the recipe).

The big challenge was that the recipe was in metrics – and I don’t have any dry ingredient measuring cups marked in deciliters. Thankfully, the internet helped provide conversions and then I made note of the weight of the ingredients so I can measure by weight in the future.

Okay, enough food porn for one entry!

Food in Bangkok: BKK Bagel Bakery

Posted on 20 March 2011 by christao408

First it was the cheesecake; now the bagels have arrived. There seems to be a growing affinity for things New York (or, at least, things perceived to be in the New York style) here in Bangkok. This trend first caught my attention a few months ago with the opening of NYCC – the New York Cheesecake shop at the Crystal Design Center. In the last few weeks we’ve added another source of New York style carbs to the local dining scene: bagels.

While I’m no bagel expert, I do recognize that a really good bagel must be boiled before it is baked. Simply steaming them (as is done in a lot of faux bagel shops) just produces doughy round bread. In fact, last October I made two attempts at making bagels, just to understand the processes better. Thankfully, I don’t need to rely on my own bagels anymore as I can now stop at BKK Bagel Bakery to purchase some freshly boiled and baked bagels.

Tawn and I made our first visit to BKK Bagel Bakery during their soft opening in late February. At this point they had at least a half-dozen types of bagels, several types of cream cheese spreads, and also several sandwich offerings. Sadly, the pastrami recipe has not yet been unveiled. We tried a simple toasted bagel with a cream cheese and olive oil spread, which had a nice, nutty taste.

I tried a roast beef sandwich that was alright but nothing to write home about. Besides using iceberg lettuce, the roast beef was a little dry. All of the flavor came from the generous helping of whole grain mustard. For the price – about 250 baht (roughly US$8) – it was a little pricey.

A week ago, I stopped by a second time to bring home some bagels for breakfast. The bagels themselves are quite nice with a good chewy texture and dense crumb. Again, I don’t claim to be a bagel expert but these certainly remind me of the bagels I’ve bought from bodegas in New York City. I’m eagerly awaiting their attempt at pastrami, though.

Located in the ground floor of Maneeya Center, adjacent to the Chidlom BTS station, BKK Bagel Bakery should have a ready supply of customers: not only is Chidlom in the heart of the high-end expatriate community but the Foreign Correspondents’ Club is located in the Maneeya building, too. I wonder what will be the next New York food to be introduced here?

My Almost No-Knead Bread Recipe

Posted on 20 March 2011 by christao408

My cousin Jane recently asked me to share my recipe for almost no-knead bread, which I’ve adapted from a recipe in Nancy Baggett’s “Kneadlessly Simple” cookbook and techniques from Cooks Illustrated. This weekend I completed a video showing the recipe. For your enjoyment:

Baking Natural Red Velvet Cupcakes

Posted on 7 March 2011 by christao408

The red velvet cake’s entry into popular culture can probably be traced to the 1989 film Steel Magnolias, in which the groom’s cake was a red velvet cake in the shape of an armadillo. There’s something seductive about the color of a red velvet cake, especially a cupcake, at least at first. But at some point, the red seems just a little too red, and it starts to seem a bit unnatural. That’s no surprise considering that a recipe will use up to several tablespoons of red food coloring.

Doing some research, I gathered that red velvet cake was originally not so red and the color came about naturally. Cocao powder, a key ingredient, didn’t used to be “Dutch process” and was less alkaline in years gone by. When combined with the buttermilk and vinegar in the recipe, the chemical reaction caused the batter to take on a muddy red hue. Unable to find cocao powder that isn’t Dutch process here in Thailand, I stumbled upon a recipe for Natural Red Velvet Cake that, supposedly based on a traditional southern recipe, uses cooked beets for the color.

Intrigued, I had to try.

The ingredients: brown and granulated sugars, eggs, flour, cocoa powder, chocolate, buttermilk, butter, vanilla, salt, baking soda, cider vinegar, and roasted beets.

The mystery ingredient. Instead of using canned beets, which the recipe called for, I roasted my own beets and then pureed them with a little bit of olive oil and water.

First step: Melt the chocolate over a pan of simmering water. Chocolate doesn’t figure in most red velvet cake recipes, only cocoa powder, so I was surprised by this addition.

Sift together the flour, cocoa powder, salt, and baking soda. One of these days I’ll have to seek out natural cocoa powder (i.e. not Dutch process) and see how that affects the outcome of the recipe.

Cream together the eggs, butter, and two types of sugars. Most cake recipes are specific about the process – for example, whip the butter and sugars before adding the eggs. No specificity here so I just dumped them all into the bowl and turned the mixer on.

The end result (after combining the dry ingredients and adding the melted chocolate and beets) had a vaguely reddish tinge to it, although that could just be a color correction issue from the light.

Cupcake liners filled and ready to bake. Lesson I’ve learned: don’t fill your cupcake liners so high because cake batter expands as it bakes.

See? I told you that cake batter expands. Now I have these muffin top cupcakes that would have been interesting if the crumb had held together better, but the structure was kind of weak.

The cupcakes pretty much crumbled when unwrapped. I’m very curious why this is. Maybe cake flour didn’t have enough protein and regular flour would have been better? Maybe just a little too much liquid in the beets? Baking is a science and something didn’t work out right here.

To frost the cupcakes, I prepared a butter-cream cheese frosting but perhaps didn’t whip it enough. That, or the opening in the frosting tip was too small. The frosting bag actually burst on me so I had to instead spread the frosting instead of piping it.

The end results looked a bit rag-tag. I really need to take a class to learn how to frost a cupcake properly. As for the taste, the cupcakes were very moist and the beet flavor wasn’t noticeable at all. As for the color, though, there really was nothing red about the red velvet cupcakes. Not in the least bit.

I guess if I want a really red, red velvet cupcake, I may need to reach for the food coloring after all.

Baking with a Banneton

Posted on 28 February 2011 by christao408

On my trip to the US in early December, my friend Mabel gave me a gift she had been holding for some time: a pair of banneton. These wicker baskets are used by the French when proofing bread dough – after it is shaped and is undergoing its final rise before baking. At some point in the past I had mentioned that I’d like to find some banneton and when she saw them, she purchased them for me. Since December I’ve had the opportunity to use them a few time and thought I’d share the results.

The video is here, a nice, succinct two-and-a-half minute piece. If you cannot view, pictures are below. Link to the video is here.

The banneton is traditionally made of wicker, although some modern ones are made of plastic. The purpose of the wicker, though, is that it wicks moisture away from the surface of the dough, making for a better crust.

Proper flouring is essential, otherwise the dough may not want to leave the cozy nest of the banneton once it is finished proofing. After reading a few online baking sites, I decided to go with the suggested mix of all-purpose wheat flour and rice flour. This worked very nicely and I’ve had minimal troubles with sticking. It was also a neat way to use up some leftover rice flour.

After removing the dough from the banneton, you can see the lines left by the wicker. A few slashes to help the loaf expand and then slide it into the hot oven and onto a baking stone.

The end result is very beautiful and, I must say, rustic-looking. Not sure to what extent I can tell if the crust is really any better. I create a steam bath in the oven with a small tray of boiling water, so the environment is going to be about as conducive to a good crust as this home-use oven will allow. Nonetheless, Tawn and I have been enjoying the results, especially when it is time for panini! Thanks for the thoughtful gift, Mabel!

Baking Magnolia’s Vanilla Cupcakes

Posted on 16 January 2011 by christao408

Baking project! Tawn’s aunt had her 70-somethingth birthday celebration today so even though I was not going to attend, I helped prepare two dozen cupcakes. Tawn prepared brownies, too, but since he made those, not I, they aren’t covered in this entry.

The recipe for the cupcakes came from the Magnolia Bakery’s “More from Magnolia” cookbook. The Magnolia Bakery is a well-known spot in New York’s West Village, popularized in the TV show “Sex and the City” as it is just around the corner from Carrie Bradshaw’s fictional apartment.

We visited Magnolia Bakery last March and I have to say that while their cupcakes are tasty, they aren’t anything special. Nonetheless, this was the cookbook we had at hand.

The recipe we used was for their Vanilla Cupcakes. Instead of self-rising flour, I used a substitute of cake flour, baking powder, and just a little salt. The recipe is easy enough to use, made all the easier if you have a stand mixer.

You may notice that I have five eggs in the bowl but the recipe calls for just four. I was on the fence because the eggs look smaller to me than the standard “large” egg. The sizes were also inconsistent. Ultimately, though, I stuck with four eggs and placed the extra one back in the refrigerator.

This project wasn’t really about taking pictures and writing, though. It was about filming and editing a really cool video and, in all modesty, I think this one is one of my best. I hope you enjoy it.

The end products, which were tasty and very pretty in a pastel sort of way. If I had it to do again, I would sift my powdered sugar for the buttercream frosting as it ended up just a wee bit gritty. Other than that, though, no complaints.

Chocolate Raspberry Torte

Posted on 18 November 2010 by christao408

A little bit more about the cake I baked for my 40th birthday. For all the cooking I do, I don’t have a lot of experience with cakes and cake-like desserts. I’m more of a bread man, myself. Nonetheless, I decided to make a cake because it is always a good experience and there was a recipe for a Revamped Chocolate Torte in the November-December issue of Cooks Illustrated that looked worth a try.

I started the recipe on Thursday afternoon with a little prep work, then did the actual baking on Friday afternoon. Overall, I think the cake turned out okay although it is such a rich cake – nearly flourless – that it wouldn’t make my list of favorite cakes. But then, I’m not a big cake person. One challenge is that the recipe uses a food processor, which I don’t own. Instead, I used a stand mixer. Things seemed to work okay, but I don’t know if the slower speed of the mixer affected the texture at all.

I’ll give you a rundown of the recipe and the preparation process:

The first step was to make some almond flour, basically finely-processed almonds. You can buy this in some markets (it is used to make macarons, for example) but the recipe explains how to make it yourself since you use a relatively small quantity. Take 1 cup (4 ounces) of sliced almonds and lightly toast them.

Then process in a food processor for a few pulses until finely ground. You then add 1/4 cup (1 1/4 ounces) of flour and 1/2 teaspoon table salt and process it a few more seconds to combine. Not having a food processor, I used a coffee grinder attachment for my blender and it seemed to work okay.

Note on food processors. I had one in the US and didn’t seem to use it often. But nowadays I keep encountering recipes that call for a food processor, especially in the making of quick and easy pastry dough. I may break down eventually and buy another food processor. Cooks Illustrated recommends the 12-cup Kitchen Aid model.

Next, melt 8 ounces bittersweet chocolate with 12 tablespoons (1 1/2 sticks) of butter in a bowl set over simmering water. After smooth, remove from the heat and cool to room temperature, adding 2 teaspoons of vanilla extract and 1/4 teaspoon of instant espresso powder. Not having that, I had to use instant coffee.

While the eggs are cooling, process 5 large eggs in the food processor until almost doubled in volume. Not having the processor, I whipped them with the mixer. I think this may have made the texture a bit more dense than had I used the food processor. As the eggs are being whipped, slowly add 3/4 cup (5 1/4 ounces) of granulated sugar. What you see here is the almond/flour/salt mixture, the egg/sugar mixture, and the chocolate/butter mixture.

Start by gently folding the egg mixture into the chocolate mixture using the whisk. This does not have to be thoroughly incorporated.

Next, gently whisk in the almond-flour mixture. Divide the batter between two 9-inch cake pans lined with parchment. The pans were not buttered and floured.

After baking about 15 minutes at 325 F. Allow the cakes to cool in the pans and then remove.

Spread a filling made of 1/4 cup raspberry jam and 1/2 cup raspberries (I used frozen as fresh are way too expensive here), mashed together.

Add the second layer of the cake, inverted so the bottom of the cake is facing up, giving you a relatively smooth surface with which to work.

To glaze the cake, melt 5 ounces of bittersweet chocolate with 1/2 cup plus 1 tablespoon heavy cream over a simmering pot of water. Then pour the glaze onto the cake and use a spatula to spread it evenly over the cake.

P1070506

You can then add almonds to the side of the cake. I think I was supposed to use lightly chopped almonds but all I had were the sliced almonds. This is kind of a messy prospect. Also, you can decorate the top of the cake with fresh raspberries, which I didn’t have. The biggest challenge for me was that the glaze didn’t have a smooth, liquid consistency. Maybe it needed to be melted a bit further or have just a little more cream in it so it poured over the sides in a smooth motion? This is where my inexperience with cakes comes in.

Per the recipe, I put the cake in the fridge for a few hours to let the frosting set. I didn’t get it removed early enough, though, and when it was served it was still pretty cool and the ganache was solid. When I arrived at the restaurant I should have asked them to leave the cake out rather than put it in the fridge. Anyhow, it was tasty enough and considering it was for my own party, I think it turned out pretty nice.

I hope you enjoyed this cooking adventure and encourage you to try the cake yourself.

christao408

The adventures of an expat American who moved to Bangkok for his husband.

Tag Archives: baking