SMS #9 - Bee Stings

I'm back after a 2-week hiatus. Our vacation to Boston was great. As soon as I find some time, I'll post about that (teaser: whale watch excursion and America's Test Kitchen tour).

This week's SMS recipe, Bee Stings, was chosen by Jaime of Good Eats and Sweet Treats. After reading through the recipe late Saturday night, I was about to sit this one out due to the overnight refrigeration step. On Sunday morning, the idea of sitting out yet another SMS week, didn't sound right and so I decided to just skip the overnight refrigeration.


After only 21 minutes in a 350 F degree oven, the brioche buns were golden brown and delicious.


As you might remember from my Lemon Icebox Cake post, I'm not big on egg-y things so I wasn't going to make the pastry cream filling. Instead, I decided to make an eggless Butterscotch Pudding which I've been wanting to try for a while. I figured that the butterscotch flavor would pair well with the honey caramel glaze. Boy, did it ever! You can find the recipe for the pudding on Twitter ("Cookbook" does the coolest thing: all recipes fit within Twitter's 140 characters). Couple changes: omitted the whiskey, and added 1 tsp of molasses to intensify the butterscotch flavor.


Find the recipe for this week's Bee Stings here. Check out what other SMS bakers thought of this week's recipe. If you wish to join the SMS baking club, you'd better hurry. The membership cap is 50 and there are only a couple of open spots left.


Final thoughts/tips:

• Hubby and I liked this pudding-filled brioche a LOT. He gave it an 8.5 out of 10. One of my close friends, an avid baker whose opinion I value very much, also liked them a lot. Needless to say, I highly recommend trying this recipe.
• The dough was a bit fussy. It didn't come together into a ball at all. I ended up using 8 Tbsp of extra flour (= 2 oz), bringing the total amount of flour I used to about 13 3/4 oz. This is why I ended up with 14 Bee Stings instead of 12.
  
• I used the dough cycle on my bread machine to make this brioche dough. This worked great.
• I like to use my microwave as a proofing box. So for the first rise, I placed a cup of water in the microwave and brought it to a boil. Moved the cup of water to one of the corners inside the microwave and placed my dough inside the microwave (in an oiled bowl, covered with plastic wrap). This warm and humid environment does wonders to yeast doughs.
• The honey caramel glaze was "the icing on the cake", hands down. I used orange blossom honey which was great! This glaze recipe could work well for other baked goods too, such as sticky buns.
• Would I make this recipe again? You betcha! I might even try the overnight refrigeration step for comparison purposes.
  

SMS #7 - Guinness Gingerbread (or lack thereof)

Katie of Katiecakes chose Guinness Gingerbread from The Sweet Melissa Baking Book this week. I have to apologize for not participating this week. I don't drink. Briefly considered substituting ginger ale but figured it wouldn't be the same. Also, this week was hectic anyway with Mother's Day and my birthday just a few days apart. I always make my own birthday cake - this is probably weird to most people :o). Will post my "special interpretation" of the Black Forest Cake or Schwarzwalder Kirsch Torte soon (hint: white chocolate, black cherries, and alcohol-free).

Check out the SMS blogroll. The recipe for the Guinness Gingerbread can be found here.

Date Cookie Throwdown

When my boss challenged me to a Date Cookie throwdown, of course I accepted the challenge. His gramma makes the best date cookies. After bugging him for the recipe, I finally got it (gramma lives in a different state and the recipe needed to be translated). When I didn't bake the cookies within a month or two of getting the recipe, the throwdown came :o)


We both brought in the cookies to work today. They were marked cookie #1 and #2 but everyone in my team was able to tell which one was mine and which one was his. Still, I had faith in people choosing the cookie they liked most.

Given that we both used the same recipe (I made some minor tweaks), it wasn't surprising that it was a close race. After counting the 10 votes (you had to like dates in order to be a judge), the results were in: 6 votes for me and 4 votes for the boss-man. I won, I won. Yay!!!

SMS #6 - Lemon Icebox Cake

This week's SMS recipe was chosen by Jennifer of Keep Passing the Open Windows. I love lemon desserts, however, I don't like things that are too "eggy". It's weird. When it was time to bake this week's dessert, Lemon Icebox Cake, I figured there's only one way to know if it's "eggy" or not; I'd have to make it first. Given that I've never had or made an icebox cake before, it was a challenge I was going to face head on :o)


First, my changes to the recipe:

• Crust: instead of a vanilla wafer crust, I decided to make a crust using "kruidnoten" which are small gingersnap-like cookies. I got a few bags of these cookies during my last trip to Europe. I had used them in a crust for a lime meringue pie before and that turned out great.
  
• Size: the recipe is for a 9" cake but I wanted two smaller cakes instead. So I baked two 6" cakes using 6" round springform pans. This way I could keep one and give one to my friend for Mother's Day.
• Strawberry sauce: I skipped this part for no other reason than that today was a crazy busy day (my boss challenged me to a Date Cookie Throwdown on Monday using his gramma's recipe - we'll see how that goes!).
  

This recipe came together very quickly. While the lemon curd mixture was in the double boiler, the egg whites were coming to room temperature and the crust was cooling. Baking the meringue at 425 degrees took only 6 minutes in my oven (probably because the cakes were smaller).


Final thoughts/tips:

• Hubby liked it and liked my "kruidnoten" crust. He gave it a 8 out of 10, citing the lemon flavor was too strong.
• I ate a small slice. Considering I like lemon, I didn't find the lemon flavor too strong. However, I did find the cake too "eggy". It reminded me of lemon meringue pie, frozen. I'm also not a big ice cream fan.
• It was fun to make this cake and if you like lemony desserts, this is definitely worth making.
• Line the inside of the springform pan with parchment paper. This leaves a clean and smooth edge on the cake.
• See what other SMS bakers thought about this dessert.
• A big thanks to Jennifer for choosing this recipe. Lemon icebox cake; another first for me on the SMS baking list :o)
  

SMS #5 -Strawberry Shortcakes

This week's SMS recipe was chosen by Wendy from Pink Stripes. What a great choice!! Thank you, Wendy. Not only had I never eaten shortcakes before, I had never made them before either, so this was a perfect opportunity to do both :o) Check out the recipe here.

I cut the recipe in half. Some SMS bakers commented that the shortcakes were pretty big, so instead of 3 shortcakes, I decided to make 4 (smaller) shortcakes, which ended up being big enough for us. The shortcakes turned out crispy on the outside and tender on the inside. I ended up needing 1 tsp less cream in the dough. The lemon zest in them was definitely a good addition. I decided to add some freshly ground cardamom to the shortcake dough which added spiciness as well as a lemony aroma. Instead of regular sugar, I used raw (turbinado) sugar to sprinkle on top of the shortcakes.


The kitchen smelled so nice while the shortcakes were baking. While the shortcakes were in the oven, I macerated the sliced strawberries and whipped the cream. As soon as the shortcakes were cool enough, I used a fork to split open the shortcakes and was pleasantly surprised at the tender crumb. The assembly was truly a piece of (short) cake :o)


Final thoughts/tips:

• Hubby and I enjoyed these strawberry shortcakes very much. It's such a simple dessert that's packed with great flavor. I would definitely make them again.
• Leftover shortcakes (not assembled) were great the next day, although they were a tiny bit crumbly which was fine.
• I used a large pizza cutter to cut the dough into 4 equal pieces.
  
• Don't forget to check out the other SMS bakers' Strawberry Shortcakes.