The One Where I Bake a Pumpkin Espresso Bundt Cake, Drench It With Rum, and Foist It Upon My Choir Friends: Baking Secrets Revealed

So I tried out a new bundt cake recipe over Thanksgiving and liked it well enough to do a reprise for our choir's Christmas party over the weekend.  The recipe is from King Arthur Flour and you can find it here.  

Pumpkin Espresso Bundt Cake with Rum Espresso Glaze

This cake is nut free and dairy free, made with whole wheat flour, and it's moist and delicious without being overly sugary.  It's relatively quick and easy to make, and the Bundt cake pan makes for pretty presentation straight out of the oven, no further decorating required.  My friends and family were raving about this cake and indulging in some ridiculously huge "slices"...  (Bernie!  Lars!)  

Fancy Styled Photo of Sliced Pumpkin Espresso Bundt Cake, King Arthur Flour

The interesting thing about this recipe is that, on the King Arthur Flour web site, reviewers either loved it like we did and gave it five stars, or else they were really disappointed and complained that it lacked flavor.  Poking around for some more recipes, I noticed that reviewers tend to have the same love/hate reactions for other espresso flavored baked goods, with the haters complaining about a lack of flavor.  My personal opinion is that the disappointed bakers were using inferior espresso powder and/or inferior brewed coffee in their glaze, perhaps along with old, stale spices that were well past their prime, because my cake was ANYTHING but bland tasting.

Here's the deal: You know how you end up with a better quilt or garment when you start with high quality fabrics and threads?  The same is true with baking; ingredients matter.  I'm no baking guru, and I am not a fan of wildly complicated recipes (except for Thanksgiving!).  I just use the best quality chocolate I can find, real vanilla instead of artificial vanilla extract, fresh Penzeys spices instead of stale grocery store spices that have been dying a painful death in my pantry for over a year...  If you don't believe me, do the sniff test: get a jar of cinnamon from your grocery store's baking aisle and a small jar of Penzey's Vietnamese Cinnamon and take a good whiff of each one.  You will be amazed by the difference.  If your spices don't smell like anything anymore, they won't deliver much flavor in your recipes, either.  Spices don't "go bad," but they do fade away over time.  When you bake with the good, fresh stuff, you really do end up with better tasting desserts.  

I get it that not everyone is as particular as I am about their baking ingredients, and you can still bake really good brownies and chocolate chip cookies using Hershey's chocolate chips and fake vanilla.  I will eat your brownies, enjoy them immensely, and I promise not to judge.  But if you want to try a recipe that is predominantly flavored with espresso, I can assure you that the hunt for the good stuff is worth your while!  I had trouble finding my usual Italian import brands of instant espresso powder this year so I tried a couple of other options.  

Do Not Buy This!

First, I bought some espresso powder from Williams-Sonoma.  They carry all of the best bakeware, pots and pans, so I hoped their specialty ingredients might be of similar quality, even though the label says it's made in the United States.  Alas!  I unscrewed the lid when i got home, took a sniff, and I swear the jar could have been filled with dark brown saw dust.  Blech!  Interestingly, this product does get good reviews from Williams-Sonoma customers, but those reviewers report that they are adding this espresso powder to their chocolate baked goods in order to enhance the chocolate flavor.  No one mentioned using this coffee dust stuff in a recipe that actually calls for instant espresso powder as a primary flavoring ingredient.

Not This Either!

The next instant espresso powder that I was able to find locally was this DeLallo brand that I'd never heard of before, and it was stocked in the baking aisle (first strike) of one of the high end specialty grocers, either Earth Fare or The Fresh Market.  The label says it's from Mexico (second strike) and instead of a picture of a cup of coffee on the label, there is a picture of a slice of cake and "perfect for tiramisu" on the label (third strike -- I should have known better!).  But I had no other option, and it had to be better than the Williams-Sonoma stuff at home, right?  Wrong!  The DeLallo Instant Espresso Baking Powder product is even LESS aromatic than the Williams-Sonoma.  But guess what it says on their web site?  They are promoting this product as "a baker's best-kept secret" that "makes chocolate richer without adding any distinct coffee flavor."  Aha!!  These baking aisle espresso powders are really more like chocolate enhancers than flavoring agents that can stand on their own.

My Son Anders With His Favorite Espresso Recipe: Cinnamon Mocha Chocolate Chip Cookies

The thing is, with both the Pumpkin Espresso Bundt Cake recipe and my Fine Cooking Cinnamon Mocha Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe, success depends on using a high quality instant espresso powder that DOES add a distinct coffee flavor!  If you have ever been disappointed by a recipe calling for instant espresso powder in the past, I urge you to try the recipe again using one of these brands, both of which I finally found on Amazon (score!):

THESE ARE MY SECRET INGREDIENTS!  SHHH!!!

These are Italian instant espresso coffees, and if your grocery store carries either of them, they will stock it in the coffee aisle as it is intended for drinking.  Just as you get the best results when you cook with real wine that is good enough for drinking instead of using "cooking wine" that tastes like vinegar, you get the best espresso flavor for baked goods when you use an instant espresso powder that is meant for drinking.  As I said, both Medaglia D'Oro and Ferrara instant espresso are available online at Amazon (with Prime free shipping even) if you can't find them in your local shops, and although they are both vastly more flavorful than the brands that are marketed to bakers, they are LESS expensive.  That's right, LESS EXPENSIVE.  Whereas the bland 1.8 oz jar of Willilams-Sonoma espresso powder cost me $10.95, I can purchase a pack of three 2 oz jars of Medaglia D'Oro espresso powder on Amazon for just $14 with free shipping.  The DeLallo brand was $4.95 for an almost 2 oz. jar, but I can get three 2 oz jars of the much better Ferrara brand on Amazon for only $12.97 with free shipping.  Sometimes the good stuff actually saves you money.  It might seem absurd to buy baking ingredients online, but if I factor in the wasted gas and wasted time driving from one grocery store to the next, looking for espresso powder...  

So, back to my cake recipe: I baked my cake with fresh, strongly aromatic Penzeys Vietnamese Cinnamon and Pumpkin Pie spice blend.  I used real Vanilla, also from Penzeys.  For the filling, I used Medaglia D'Oro Italian instant espresso mixed with brown sugar and Penzey's Cinnamon, and then, for the glaze... 

How I Make "Strongly Brewed Coffee"

The recipe says to dissolve the granulated sugar in 1/3 cup of "strong brewed coffee" with the option of adding rum (and of course I added rum).  But I didn't glaze my cake with ordinary brewed coffee because I don't own a regular coffee maker.  I have a shiny espresso machine, a commercial coffee grinder, and a cupboard stocked with fresh Lavazza espresso beans.  I heated up my espresso machine, ground my beans, and pulled two shots of espresso like I was going to make a latte.  

Perfect 25 Second Espresso Shots

I dumped the shots into my measuring cup and they were almost exactly 1/3 cup, so I just dissolved my sugar into my freshly-pulled espresso shots, added 1 1/2 tablespoons of Captain Morgan, and then drenched my bundt cake with it.  What better way to ensure a rich espresso flavor than to actually soak the cake IN ESPRESSO, hmmm?

Okay, so that almost felt like cheating.  But if you want to make this recipe and you don't happen to own an espresso machine, you could totally go to your Starbucks or local coffee shop and buy a couple shots of brewed espresso to go for your recipe.  You just might need to heat them up in the microwave if they have cooled off too much to dissolve the sugar.

I've spent WAY more time on this post than what I had intended.  Hopefully someone will find it helpful.  If not, at least I will have a record for myself of where to find my espresso powder next year!  Do you have a favorite holiday baking recipe or a secret ingredient to share?  Let me know in the comments.  :-)

Again, if you'd like to try the King Arthur Flour Pumpkin Espresso Bundt Cake, you can find that recipe here, and if you'd like to try the Fine Cooking Mocha Chocolate Chip Cookies, you can find that recipe here.  Let me know how it turns out.  Happy baking!

Snow Munchkins and Cinnamon Mocha Chip Cookies

Anders with his Snow Dwarf

I got a few more cute pictures from our snow day yesterday.  Here Anders is posing with his diminutive snow man.  He was unable to find any pine cones, prickle balls, or lumps of coal, so I brought out the craft supplies -- hence the seashell nose, triangular button eyes attached with pipe cleaners, and feathers.  I couldn't even produce a decent carrot for the nose.

Lars Being Lars in the Driveway

Here's Lars, wearing the "snowman scarf" (scrap of fleece I brought down from the sewing room) and threatening to put boobies on his brother's snow man.  *SIGH*

Anders and I made those cookies for his class Valentine's Day party, although school ended up getting canceled again today.  We'll just send them in on Monday, I guess.  We tasted a couple, to make sure they are edible.  ;-)

Anders with his Cinnamon Mocha Chocolate Chip Cookies

Well, as you can imagine, the natives are getting restless after almost an entire week off from school, confined to the limited amusements of our house and yard.  It has not helped that the snow storm trapped their daddy in Las Vegas all week, either.  After several canceled flights, we hope he really does make it home this evening, because if I have one more day alone with the Screaming Cheetah Wheelies, Bernie will come home to find me huddled under the bed with a glazed look in my eyes, muttering gibberish and compulsively banging my head on the floor.

Next week, Mommy deserves a pedicure, and a nap!

Onslaught of the Christmas Cookies, 2011: Attack of the Ninjabread Men

Christmas Cookies 2011

The baking frenzy began innocently enough, with a batch of our family's favorite Crackled Molasses Sugar Cookies.  Those cookies vaporized within a day or two, and then we had to bake more crackled molasses along with a batch of Norwegian krumkake for the boys' internationally-themed classroom holiday parties. 

Krumkake filled with Strawberry Ice Cream

For those of you who do not have Norwegian heritage, krumkake are thin, crispy cookies that are made one at a time with a special iron that imprints a lacy design on each cookie.  After baking the cookie for about 20 seconds, you peel the piping hot cookie off the krumkake iron and wrap it immediately around a little wooden cone to shape the cookie.  Thanks to the krumkake baking session, I no longer have fingerprints, so it's a good thing they taste good! 

My mom never filled our krumkake with anything that I can remember, but all of the recipes suggest filling with whipped cream, fresh berries, or ice cream.  We discovered that krumkake make the best tiny ice cream cones, filled with strawberry Breyer's ice cream.  Yummy!

Lars Sucking Ice Cream out of his Krumkake

My krumkake were not as crispy as I would have liked, but my internet research suggests that the mild North Carolina weather was to blame.  I found an ex-Minnesotan/Norwegian baker in Texas online who claims that crispy krumkake perfection requires baking on a cold, dry day (and when they talk about a cold winter day in Minnesota, they mean zero temperatures or below) yet it was a balmy 68 degrees in Charlotte the day I was baking mine.  My cookies came out somewhere in between crisp and al dente, like pasta that isn't quite done yet, but doesn't break your teeth.  Not terrible, but not sublime either.  I'll have to try another batch of krumkake in January or February, when we get a cold snap.  Although I've always thought of krumkake as a Christmas and New Year's cookie, it would be perfect for Valentine's Day with the strawberry ice cream.  Also, nothing says I Love You like burning off your fingerprints on blistering-hot cookies, don't you think?

Christmas Cookie Decorating, Wayzata, MN, 1981

Now, to understand the craziness that followed, you need to understand that my mom made double or even triple batches of rolled sugar cookies for us to decorate every year for Christmas, going back as far as I can remember.  See evidence above.  I'm the one in the red dress whose hair is hanging into the frosting.  Susan always made the most beautiful cookies (she's the one in the foreground at left) and the younger ones, Janice and Donnie, would dump a quantity of frosting and red hots on their cookies in inverse proportion to their ages.  (In fairness, I must say that Janice the Manice's cookie decorating prowess improved with age, but she's 5 in this picture and I am pretty sure she was still a frosting dumper at that time).

When I have attempted to perpetuate this family tradition with my sons in prior years, we've been frustrated by the difficulty of squeezing the thick tubes of frosting from the grocery store.  Looking at the old picture, I see that the store-bought frosting used to come in a different container that was probably easier for little hands to use.  I also have a terrible time whenever I attempt to roll out any kind of dough, whether it's for pie crust or cookies.  The rolling pins and I are not the best of friends.  Finally, after so much effort is put into these shaped and decorated cookies, most of them are pretty ugly and I never really liked the taste.  Not making any cookies to decorate would be sacrilege, because it's a Family Christmas Tradition and I can't have my children growing up frosting deprived!

The Package from King Arthur Flour has Arrived

I was determined to improve the Cookie Decorating Experience this year, so I ordered LOTS of decorating goodies from King Arthur Flour a couple of weeks ago.  I got every color of sprinkling sugar you could imagine, edible glitter stars, chocolate jimmies, Fiori di Sicilia to flavor the cookies instead of the Almond Extract we'd used in the past.  I planned to try my hand at Royal Icing for the first time, because I'd be able to control the consistency and I hoped it would taste better than the stuff from the grocery store since homemade icing wouldn't have the chemical preservatives.  So I bought meringue powder to make the icing (instead of raw egg whites) and a variety of contraptions for piping the frosting onto the cookies, certain that at least ONE of them would be easy enough for the kids to use.  As a last resort, I even got some edible foodcoloring markers for drawing directly on the cookies or on hardened icing (Anders really loved these).

Anders drew a tuxedo on a gingerbread man with FooDoodler markers

Then I spent a bit too much time trolling the internet for decorating inspiration -- you can see my favorite OPC (Other People's Cookies) here on my Pinterest board.  I got a couple of new cookie cutters this year, a large tree with a star on top, and a set of three Ninjabread men.  Lars and Anders were very excited about the Ninjabread men.  It would be impossible to exaggerate their level of Ninjabread men excitement, in fact.  They were downright giddy about the Ninjabread men.  If you have little boys in your kitchen, I strongly recommend the Ninjabread men -- and you can get the cookie cutters right here. 

Lars Cutting Out Ninjabread Cookies

So, how did it all turn out?  My mom had to come to the rescue when it was time to roll out the dough, and her tried-and-true pastry cloth and little knit rolling pin sock won hands-down over my fancy Williams Sonoma silicone rolling pin and silicone pastry mat.  My gingerbread dough needed more flour because it was too sticky, and my sugar cookie dough needed a little milk because it was so dry that it was crumbling apart when I tried to roll it.  Once the doughs were the right consistency they were pretty easy to handle. 

Royal Icing, tinted Yellow with AmeriColor Gel Food Coloring

The Royal Icing was an adventure, but it came out okay.  I had a tough time getting a true red color until I read this baking blogger's instructions and discovered that the frosting will darken gradually as it dries.  I was also grateful that I'd ordered the AmeriColor gel food colors to tint my frosting, so I was able to get a nice, deep black for Santa boots and snowman details, as well as a medium brown for my Christmas tree stumps. 

Frosting Tubes Filled & Ready to Go

Another challenge was getting the icing into the little bottles and tube contraptions once I'd mixed it up.  My solution was to spoon the frosting into plastic Ziplock sandwich bags, squeeze the air out and seal the baggie, then snip off a corner so I could "pipe" the frosting into the various containers.  However, I made the mistake of mixing up and tinting most of the frosting the night before I planned for the kids to decorate, so I could get my "trials and errors" out of the way ahead of time.  Unfortunately, the icing really needs to be used right away.  The frostings from the night before were too runny the next day. 

Anders and Grammy Rolling Out Sugar Cookie Dough

There's a wonderful tutorial on decorating with Royal Icing on the King Arthur Flour blog here, and an even better updated tutorial by the same author that I just found right here (wish I'd seen these pictures of what the icing consistency should be before I made mine).  I decided that the cookie shapes we most enjoy decorating are the simplest ones, like snowflakes, bells, candy canes, and stars.  I liked the reindeer in gingerbread because they only needed a red nose, a black eye, and a white tail and then they were perfect.  Next year I'm going to get a mitten and an ornament cookie cutter, because I enjoyed making patterns on cookies more than fussing with multicolored Santas and angels that seldom come out looking as good as the cookies you envisioned in your mind.  Oh, and I think I'll limit frosting to two or three colors at a time next year, so I can do a thick and thin (for flooding) version of each frosting color.  This year I mixed up red, white, green, blue, yellow, orange, black, and brown, all at once, in an in-between consistency.  The frosting went on too thickly in large areas that we were trying to fill in, but was still too runny to get really sharp detail.

My Best Efforts: Rebecca's Christmas Cookies

Oh, and all those sugars and sprinkles I bought?  We hardly made a dent in them.  My favorite was the white sugar that I sprinkled on the edges of my snowman.  I also flocked a blue snowman scarf with glitter.  And I love how my Ninja Santa came out. 

Grammy and Bernie Decorating Cookies

Well, you'd think that by noon on Christmas Eve, I'd be done baking cookies.  You'd be wrong.  I have a whole batch of crackled molasses sugar cookie dough in the fridge, ready to be shaped into balls and rolled in sugar for baking.  I am also in my bathrobe, and -- horror of horrors! -- I have been so obsessed with cookie baking that I am NOT DONE CHRISTMAS SHOPPING YET!!!  I have to hop in the shower, get dressed, and then go to the mall, yes, the MALL on CHRISTMAS EVE, to get a couple of last-minute gifts for a certain difficult-to-shop-for husband of mine. 

Merry Christmas, everyone!  Wish me luck at the mall!

Are They Done Yet? The First Crackled Molasses Sugar Cookies of the Season!



Rolling the cookies in granulated sugar

The leaves have turned colors and started to fall, the temperatures have been dropping, and we just turned the clocks back last night.  When I did my grocery shopping yesterday, instead of picking up a container of gross pastel bakery cookies slathered with frosting for the lunch boxes, I loaded up my cart with dark brown sugar, molasses, vegetable shortening, and some eggs.  Everything else we needed to make Crackled Molasses Sugar Cookies was already in our pantry.

Lars and Anders had a great day today, finishing up school work, piano, trombone and recorder practice, and choir rehearsal with plenty of time to spare.  They deserved something special, so I wrapped them up in aprons and helped Anders with the chef's hat he got way back in preschool.

These cookies need to be formed into 1 1/2" balls and then rolled in granulated sugar before baking.  I make the balls myself because if they are all different wonky sizes they won't all bake in the same amount of time, but rolling the cookie balls in the sugar is the boys' job. 

They were too cute, camped out in front of the oven the whole time the cookies were baking, squealing "They're crackling! They're crackling!"  This tells me that I do not do nearly enough baking.

Fresh From the Oven

So at least for this week, Lars and Anders will have homemade cookies in their lunch boxes and waiting for them after school. The big challenge will be overcoming the urge to snack on the cookies all day long while they're at school. I mean, there IS iron in the molasses, but these cookies aren't really appropriate as a meal replacement. Or so they tell me.

Eight Days Until Christmas, and the Panic Begins to Creep In...

Behold, the Christmas Lights!  You know, I insisted on the lights for the flower box greenery sprays despite the difficulties in getting the cords up there inconspicuously, but doesn't it look a bit like the flower boxes are on fire now?

If you haven't gotten my Christmas card yet, that's because I haven't mailed any.  I haven't bought them yet, either -- or even picked them out.  I ordered pretty Christmas angel stamps over a month ago, but it looks like those will get stuck on bills instead of Christmas cards this year.  I'm thinking of starting a St. Patrick's Day Card tradition in 2011, but don't hold your breath.

Meanwhile, I have a mountain of Amazon boxes piled behind the cutting table in my sewing room containing unwrapped gifts for my children.  They aren't even secured behind a locked door, I can't remember what I ordered or who anything is for, and I have no idea whether I'm done shopping for the kids yet (if what I bought so far is 70% off one boy's list and only 30% from the other's, I'm going to have to head back out).  So you know what I'll be working on tomorrow.

Tonight, we're baking.  I use that "we" very loosely, because Bernie mixed up the dough, refrigerated it, rolled out all the little cookie balls and swirled them in the granulated sugar.  I flattened each one slightly with the bottom of a drinking glass, chilled the trays of unbaked cookies on the screen porch (next to the He-Man Tree) so they would crackle nicely, adjusted the racks and set the oven to TruConvect, and pulled the cookie sheets out of the oven at just the right degree of doneness.  Really, these are 80% Berniemade and only 20% Rebeccamade cookies.  I must give credit where it is due. 

Yummy!  They are Crackled Molasses Sugar Cookies, by the way, and since molasses is high in iron and I'm slightly anaemic, I'm pretty sure this is a health food for me.  That's my story, and I'm sticking to it!

Happy Christmas, everyone!