Category: Desserts

Chocolate Roll

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Chocolate Roll or Buche de Noel | ImPECKableeats.com

Chocolate Roll or Buche de Noel | ImPECKableeats.com

This is basically a Bûche de Noël. I refrained from calling it that for two reasons. The first is that my grandmother never referred to it as such and instead called it a chocolate roll. Probably because she was technically Jewish but also because my grandfather was somewhat anti-holiday. The second reason is that most Buche de Noel has meringue mushrooms and/or other decorations that make it look like a log – all tasty but a fair amount of extra work when we all know the cake is the real star of the show.

Although three separate components make up this cake, each is fairly quick and the assembly is simple. My grandmother’s multi-purpose Chocolate Pastry (sponge cake) is the base of the cake. Made with melted semi-sweet chocolate and meringue, it melts in your mouth even before the filling and frosting are added. Basic whipped cream flavored with cocoa powder makes up the filling. The roll is perfectly delicious with just the cake and filling but to take it up a notch, I frosted it with another versatile Paula Peck recipe: Mocha Buttercream. I might be addicted to this stuff. It’s so easy to make and the coffee deepens the chocolate flavor, making it bold and rich. The final chocolate roll is moist and chocolaty, the perfect dessert to end Christmas dinner or even just to satisfy a serious chocolate cake craving.

Ingredients:

Cake
1 recipe Chocolate Pastry

Filling
1 cup heavy cream
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 tablespoons cocoa powder, sifted

Frosting
1/2 recipe Speedy Mocha Buttercream

For the filling:

Whip heavy cream in an electric mixer. When cream begins to thicken, gradually add sugar, vanilla, and cocoa powder.

To assemble the chocolate roll:

Place chocolate pastry on a sheet of wax paper large enough to extend at least 1 inch on all sides and dusted with cocoa powder. Spread pastry with filling. Lifting one long side of the wax paper, roll pastry inward. Continue to lift wax paper while pastry rolls up, jelly-roll style. Roll will crack, but cracks will be covered with frosting. Twist wax paper firmly around chocolate roll to help give it shape. Frost cake with mocha buttercream.

Adapted from “The Art of Fine Baking,” by Paula Peck.

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Old Fashioned Gingerbread with Orange Scented Whipped Cream

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Gingerbread with Orange Scented Whipped Cream

Gingerbread with Orange Scented Whipped Cream

Gingerbread goes hand in hand with the holidays. Its spicy warmth is irresistible on those cold winter nights in front of the fireplace or admiring the Christmas tree. We often associate gingerbread with cookies or even houses these days, but it actually takes many different forms – often depending on its European origin. This cake form is now considered particularly old fashioned. The recipe is adapted from “The James Beard Cookbook” and when it was published in 1959, James Beard was already describing it as truly old fashioned – which means it’s pretty darn old. However, classics such as these are timeless and good food never gets old especially if the ingredients and preparation remain simple.

I couldn’t resist adding a twist to the whipped cream, a must-have on top of each steaming hot piece. The cinnamon and cloves get along famously with citrus so a touch of fresh zest along with the juice of an orange, balances the spicy sweet flavors of this understated holiday specialty. My grandmother used whipped cream in many of her desserts. She actually has a page in her baking book devoted to how to make, flavor, and stabilize it. I like to think of this combination of old fashioned gingerbread with orange scented whipped cream as a joint recipe among two accomplished friends (James Beard and my grandmother, Paula Peck).

Ingredients:

Gingerbread
1 cup molasses
1/2 cup unsalted butter
2 1/3 cups all purpose flour
pinch salt
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon ginger
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1 cup sour cream

Orange Scented Whipped Cream
1 cup heavy cream
2 tablespoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon fresh orange juice
1 teaspoon orange zest

For the Gingerbread:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and grease an 8×8 cake pan.

Put molasses and butter in a saucepan and heat until they boil. Sift the flour, salt, ginger, cinnamon, and ground cloves. When the butter and molasses are slightly cooled, add sour cream and then stir in spices and flour. Pour into prepared baking pan and bake 30-40 minutes or until a cake tester or toothpick comes out clean. Serve warm with a large dollop of orange scented whipped cream.

For the Whipped Cream:

Whip heavy cream in an electric mixer. When cream begins to thicken, gradually add sugar, vanilla, and orange juice. Fold in orange zest.

Gingerbread recipe adapted from “The James Beard Cookbook,” by James Beard.

Gingerbread with Orange Scented Whipped Cream

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Apple Cranberry Pie

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Apple Cranberry Pie

Apple Cranberry Pie

It started out as an apple pie – classic and simple. Then I added cranberries, followed by orange zest and spices. Before I could stop myself, a festive deep dish apple cranberry pie had been created. It turns out it’s a great way to use up those extra cranberries from Thanksgiving while creating a dessert fit for the next holiday party. Like a few other recipes I’m working on for the holiday season, this is not from the Paula Peck archives. The cream cheese pie crust recipe is from the cookbook, “John Clancy’s Favorite Recipes” by John Clancy, a chef and friend of my grandmother from the same 1970’s + era. With just his name scribbled across a few of my grandmother’s unpublished recipes, I know little about John Clancy. I’ve heard that his strength was baking more so than cooking, and I assume he met my grandmother through James Beard, with whom he taught cooking classes. In addition to a handful of cookbooks and his work as a teacher, he was also a restaurateur- owning a successful restaurant in Greenwich Village.

Since the original cream cheese pastry recipe is for one 9-inch shell, I doubled it to fit this double crusted pie. For those of you concerned about the additional dairy and fat from the cream cheese, my grandmother’s rich tart pastry would also work well (not that it’s anymore diet friendly though). The pastry crust creates a fragile shell around the filling which is jam packed with tender apples and juicy cranberries that are liberally sweetened to balance the tartness of the fruit. Spiced with cinnamon and just a pinch cloves and nutmeg, this apple cranberry pie will fill your home with the sweet aroma of the holidays.

Ingredients:

Cream Cheese Pastry (double crust)
3 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons sugar
1 1/2 sticks (12 tablespoons) unsalted butter
6 ounces of cream cheese

Filling
3 lbs apples (honey crisp or granny smith work well)
1 1/2 cups fresh cranberries
1 1/4 cups granulated sugar
1 teaspoon orange zest
1/2 a lemon
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
Pinch cloves and nutmeg
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cubed
milk (for brushing)

For the pie crust:

Combine the flour, salt, and sugar with an electric mixer. Add butter and cream cheese and mix on medium speed until the ingredients are well blended. Form dough into a disk and chill 30 minutes.

Cut disk in half and roll out half the dough into a round about 1/8 inch thick (chill remaining half until ready to use). Transfer dough to a 9-inch pie plate. Press the dough against the sides and bottom and trim edges, leaving a 1/2 inch overhang. Chill the pie shell for 30 minutes.

While the pie shell chills, prepare the filling:

Peel and slice apples 1/4 inch thick. Rub apples with half of a lemon to stop them from browning while you slice them. In a large bowl, combine the apples with the cranberries, sugar, orange zest, spices, and flour.

Roll out remaining pastry into a large round about 1/8 inch thick. Transfer filling into chilled pie shell and dot with butter. Roll the pastry onto a rolling pin and unroll over filling. Trim edges and pinch together top pastry with the overhang from the pastry shell. Chill pie for 15 minutes.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Brush the pie with a little milk and sprinkle with sugar. Cut 4-5 steam vents (about 2 inches long). Bake 40 min – 1 hour or until apples are tender when a toothpick or cake tester is inserted into the pie.

Cream Cheese Pastry recipe adapted from “John Clancy’s Favorite Recipes,” by John Clancy.

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Mocha Torte

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Mocha Torte

Mocha Torte

The holidays are good excuse to eat cake. Personally, I will eat cake anytime anywhere, but for those of us that are a bit more health conscious, an actual reason or occasion maybe required to eat cake. Although fancy holiday flavors like ginger, pumpkin, and apple maybe the more obvious choice – sometimes you just want something rich and chocolaty to finish of that holiday meal. This mocha torte fits the bill. With a layer of apricot preserves, it resembles the famous Viennese Sacher Torte that my grandmother worked so hard to perfect later in her career. However, these cake layers are composed of Paula Peck’s famous genoise and then smothered with a velvety mocha buttercream that is so good it’s hard not to eat by spoonful. And unlike the Sacher Torte, which is finished with a chocolate glaze, this torte is garnished with semi-sweet chocolate discs that melt in your mouth.

You may be thinking that this cake sounds like a lot of work. Afterall, making a cake can be somewhat of daunting task. There are, of course, ways to simplify the process. You can always skip the chocolate rounds and you can even skip the apricot preserves (the chocolate/fruit preserves combination tends to lack in popularity with younger generations these days). No need to worry about pastry bags or making a mess with a piping bag, the cake can simply be frosted with a spatula. The mocha buttercream with its hint of coffee that brings out the chocolate flavor in the moist cake, will speak for itself.

Ingredients:

1 recipe (two 9-inch layers) Chocolate Genoise
1/4 cup cognac (optional)
2/3 cup apricot jam or preserves
1 1/2 cups Speedy Mocha Buttercream
16 thin 2-inch chocolate rounds (recipe follows)

Sprinkle cake layers with cognac, if using. Sandwich them together with apricot jam or preserves. Spread sides and top smoothly with buttercream, reserving some for decoration.

Arrange chocolate rounds next to each other flat against side of torte. Save 3 chocolate rounds to cut into quarters (optional). Set quarters flat in the butter cream around the top of the cake. Decorate the torte with remaining buttercream pressed through a medium star tube.

Chocolate Rounds

6 ounces semi-sweet chocolate
1 teaspoon vegetable shortening

Melt chocolate over hot water. Stir in shortening. Spread chocolate thinly on cooky sheet lined with wax paper or parchment paper. Chill in refrigerator or freezer for a few minutes or until chocolate just begins to set.

Cut out rounds using a cookie cutter or the top of a water glass. Place back in refrigerator until chocolate is completely firm. Peel chocolate off paper.

Adapted from “The Art of Find Baking,” by Paula Peck

Mocha Torte Slice

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Crackled Chocolate Drops

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Crackled Chocolate Drops

Chocolate Crackled Drops

A simple chocolate cookie can be the perfect crave-worthy treat. Using ingredients you probably already have on hand, these Crackled Chocolate Drops are quick, easy, and best of all chocolaty. I still get excited about making recipes by my grandmother that contain chocolate. With the number of recipes in “The Art of Fine Baking,” the chocolate ones are surprisingly few and far between. Much of her baking from the early 1960’s was European inspired. Classics like Genoise, French-style Fruit Tarts, Strudel, and Danish Pastry allowed little room for chocolate. Also, chocolate with varying degrees of cocoa butter content were not nearly as accessible at the time as they are now. I like to think that as the popularity of chocolate and its availability grew, my grandmother would have eventually come up with a book full of chocolate recipes to die for. Her Brownie recipe has always been a favorite and in my opinion these crackled chocolate cookies aren’t far behind.

The majority of this recipe is just chocolate and ground almonds. The original recipe called for grated almonds, which most of us don’t have time for. If you prefer a lighter, fluffier cookie and your purse strings are a bit looser, you can use Almond flour. The high egg yolk content then keeps the center of the cookie moist and chocolaty. As the smell of melted chocolate and almonds permeates your kitchen, these crackled drop cookies will barely make it out of the oven before they’re half gone.

Ingredients:

8 oz semisweet chocolate
8 egg yolks
1/2 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup ground almonds or almond flour
7/8 cup sifted flour pinch of salt

Preheat oven at 350 degrees. Grease and flour a baking sheet (or line with parchment paper).

Melt chocolate over over a double boiler. While chocolate is melting, beat egg yolks and sugar together until light and fluffy. Add vanilla. Stir in melted chocolate, grated almonds, and flour mixed with salt.

Drop or pipe small rounds of batter on prepared cookie sheet, leaving 1 inch between cookies. Bake about 25 minutes, or until cookies are crackled and dry.

Yield: about 30

Adapted from “The Art of Fine Baking,” by Paula Peck.

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