Caramelized pear ice cream

My parents brought me some asian pears and I had been itching to try caramelized pear ice cream. It didn't turn out quite as caramel-y as I would have liked and I have ideas for next time but this is what I did this time around:

2 ripe pears chopped fine
1/4 water
1 1/4 cup sugar
3 cups heavy cream warmed
1 Tbs pure vanilla extract

Place water and sugar in a heavy skillet over medium low heat. Let sugar dissolve then added the pear choppings. Let the sugar and pears cook for a few minutes then raise the heat to caramelize the sugar. When it's bubbling and a dark amber color, pour in the heated heavy cream. Keep stirring the mixture until all the caramel dissolves into the cream. Remove from heat and add the vanilla extract. Chill mixture well and freeze in ice cream maker.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Banana Cake

My roommate M loves chocolate and peanut butter. She can eat a jar of PB in a week. She is constantly buying jars of PB to make PB cookies but the PB never quite makes it past her mouth to cookie form. So I thought she would like a cake that combined two of her favs. Plus I just discovered how awesome chocolate and bananas are together. I've been missing out all these years! I found this cake on my heroine Tartlette's site.

Mint Chocochocolate Chip Cookies

I was struck with an urge to bake last night at 10 pm so I got out "The Joy of Vegan Baking" and after a house pow-wow, embarked to the kitchen to make some mint chocolate chip chocolate cookies. We love mint and chocolate in this house and these turned out very well for my first foray with Ener-G. The cookies are light but very chocolatey with a refreshing mint lingering on the tongue.

National Bike to Work Month

May is National Bike to Work Month. I'm going to do my best to bike to work for a whole month!

Matcha Green Tea Vegan Cupcakes

I made these a while ago for my roommate's birthday cocktail party. They were good, moist and soft with a touch of bitter from the matcha.

Matcha Green Tea (adapted from Vegan Lunch Box)

1 TB apple cider vinegar
1 green tea bag steeped in 1 ½ cups plain soymilk overnight
2 cups flour
2 T matcha powder
2 tsp. baking powder
½ tsp. baking soda
½ tsp. kosher salt
1 1/8 cups sugar
½ cup oil
1 ¼ tsp. vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 350º. Line with paper cupcake liners.

In a bowl, mix vinegar and soy milk. Stir well and set aside (the mixture will curdle).

In a large mixing bowl, stir together the flour, matcha, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. In another mixing bowl whisk together the soymilk mixture, canola oil, vanilla, and coconut extract. Add the wet to the dry ingredients and beat until smooth using a hand-held mixer, stopping once to scrape down the sides of the bowl.

Fill each muffin cup with ¼ cup of batter. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes, until a cake tester inserted in the middle of a cupcake comes out clean.

Let cool in the pans for 5 minutes, then remove cupcakes from the pan and place on a wire rack. Let the cupcakes cool completely before frosting.


Matcha Frosting

1/4 cup Earth Balance
3 cups powdered sugar
1/4 cup plus 1 Tablespoon soy creamer or soymilk
1 T matcha powder
1 t vanilla extract

Cream the shortening for a few minutes until soft. this is easiest using a stand mixer but can be done with a handheld mixer (or a fork) as long as the shortening is at room temperature. Add 1 cup of the powdered sugar and a few splashes of the soycreamer. Mix to incorporate and continue to alternate until all the powdered sugar is used up and the frosting is at the desired consistency. Add Matcha powder and vanilla.

Whole Wheat Bread

A while ago I baked a whole wheat bread from Peter Reinhart's "The Bread Baker's Apprentice." I had been getting loaves that were too moist so I baked this one for the maximum time and it came out a little dry. I later figured out that using high gluten flour (which wasn't called for in this recipe) seems give softer moist loaves so maybe that was the cause of wet bread before. The whole wheat made a delicious sandwich loaf. His recipes are super long so I'll just recommend that you borrow or buy the book.

Orange Cream Roll

Today was my advisor's birthday. What better reason to bake a cake? I had been eyeing this lovely lemon roll over at Tartlette's so I finally got over my reluctance to use lots of eggs for a dessert (a lingering effect from starving chinese family during cultural revolution syndrome) and hopped to it. Except I subbed orange for lemon and agar agar for the gelatin. The cream turned out great. The cake was another story. After I carefully measured and whipped and folded, and finally slide the batter gently into the oven, I started cleaning up dishes and found that I had totally forgotten to put the butter in! I took the cake out after 10 minutes and inverted it to find something akin to a 2 by 4. I tried to roll it but the stiffness made the roll rectangular rather than a nice spiral. It was a dilemma for me (Oh!). Bake another cake or just make do with this one? Well, I thought, it only takes 10 minutes to throw together and 10 minutes to bake and I could deal with using more eggs. But this time I used a roll cake recipe from Paula Deen. It turned out beautifully and my advisor (and the rest of the group) was pretty happy.

Orange Roll Cake (adapted from Paula Deen's Jelly Roll recipe)

4 eggs, separated
3/4 cup sugar
zest of 1 orange
1 tablespoon vanilla
3/4 cup cake flour, sifted
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt

Garnish:
Confectioners' sugar, for dusting, sifted
1 cup orange cream

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Line a jelly roll pan (cookie sheet with sides) with parchment or wax paper.

In a small bowl beat egg whites until soft peaks form and set aside. In another bowl, beat the egg yolks until light and lemony and fluffy. Gradually add the sugar, zest and vanilla, and mix well. Sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt. Add the sifted flour mixture to the egg yolk mixture. Stir in half of the egg whites into the yolk mixture then fold in the rest. Pour the batter into jelly roll pan and smooth out. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes or until the cake is golden and springs back with pushed lightly with a finger.

Meanwhile, prepare a kitchen towel by dusting it with some powdered sugar. Loosen edges of cake, invert cake onto the towel (Wow! I should really read directions better. That is so much easier than inverting the powdered sugar towel over the cake, which is what I did and ended up with a gentle cloud of powdered sugar descending over the front of my shirt). Gently peel wax paper off cake. Trim 1/4-inch of hard crust off each long side of the jelly roll cake. Begin with the narrow side and roll the cake and towel up together. Cool cake on rack, seam side down, for 10 to 15 minutes.

Once cake has cooled, gently unroll and spread cake with orange cream and re-roll. Sprinkle with confectioners' sugar or cover with whipped cream.

Orange Cream (from Pierre Herme by way of Tartlette)

1 cup sugar
zest of 2 oranges
4 eggs
1 cup freshly squeezed orange juice
1 Tb agar flakes, softened in 3 Tbs hot water
1 stick butter, cut into 1 inch pieces, softened

Make a water bath by putting a saucepan of water over heat to simmer and placing a metal bowl over, without the bottom touching the water. Rub the sugar and zest with your fingers and add to the metal bowl. Whisk in the eggs and juice.
Cook the mixture over the water bath, whisking constantly until the cream reaches 180 degrees (btw - this is hard to do with my meat thermometer). Put it into a blender with the agar mix until a taste test shows no sign of agar lumps. Let the cream cool to 140. Blend in the butter until smooth. Pour into a container, cover and refrigerate until ready to use.