The Crumby Baker

Friends often ask my husband and I, "How are you not 500 pounds?" Quite honestly, I have one big rule: I don't make more sweets than the two of us can or should consume in a sitting or two. Mostly that means no whole pies or cakes, brownies, etc. unless I have someone else to share them with.

Yes, it means less projects during the year. It also makes sharing food with friends a special treat, as it should be. My momma is of course always quick to point out when the sharing train doesn't make a stop at her house, and she is the inspiration for this particular journey. My aunt used to always bring back candied figs from Guatemala and when our fig tree went into overdrive this year, producing more figs than anyone should jam and can in the heat of New Orleans summer (and keep some semblance of sanity), my mom requested I try my hand at these.

Definitely one of those best idea/worst idea suggestions. While her taste tests concluded I haven't gotten them "quite like she remembers", she keeps encouraging me to continue sending samples her way until I've gotten it right. Ever the crafty one, my momma. ;) They. Are. So. Good. It's truly testing my commitment to the sharing rule because I just keep eating them all. I eventually plan to dip some in chocolate too, if any of them make it that far... In the grand scheme, this recipe is quite simple: cook figs in sugar; dry them out. But the whole process does require quite a bit of time and patience.


Candied Figs
Ingredients
1 pint of ripe fresh figs, washed with stems removed*
2 cups sugar
2/3 cup water

*Use figs that are ripe but whole and intact, without any bruising or skin blemishes.

Instructions
1. In a small saucepan over medium-high heat, line up figs in a single layer and cover with sugar and water. Bring the mixture to a boil, stirring often. The figs should be suspended in the syrup. Let boil for about a minute and remove from heat. Cover and set aside until cooled. Repeat process, leaving them to sit covered overnight. Repeat heat and cool cycle until skins are brown and look semi-translucent. 
2. Using a slotted spoon, remove from syrup and evenly space figs on a dehydrator rack. Reserve syrup for another use. Dehydrate according to your machine's manual, flipping and rotating figs until skins are dry and shriveled but the center still feels soft. Set them in a container continuing to air dry, until the skins are no longer sticky and tacky. The time it takes will largely depend on the size of the fig, with smaller ones will taking only a few hours. (For the larger varieties, I spaced 3-8 hour dehydrator sessions over one to three days.)

Crumby Notes:

• Stored in an air tight container, in a cool dry place, these will keep for quite some time. I've yet to make a batch that survives my picking for more than a week though! Check out information from the National Center for Home Food Preservation on storing dried fruit. 
• My personal preference is to let the skins air dry until you can see some of the dried syrup crusty and white on the outside, but the inside is chewy and soft. Alternately, when they are still tacky and warm straight from the dehydrator, you can roll them around in granulated sugar before setting in a container to finish air drying.
• The leftover syrup is deliciously figgy and I love it drizzled over fresh figs and yogurt for breakfast.
• This process is made easier with a dehydrator if you have one. I treated myself to this Nesco FD-80 Dehydrator when it on sale last year for around $60. My first few projects had mixed results but I was excited to put it to good use because it does take up some valuable real estate in the kitchen cabinets. I like this model's ability expand and add more trays, but the 4 included trays have served me well.
• If you don't have a dehydrator, set the figs, evenly spaced, on a cooling rack set inside a baking sheet. Dry figs in an oven set as low as it will go (mine goes down to 170F). Heat them for a few hours and turning the oven off, leaving the door cracked open over night. Check often for consistency, heating and drying as necessary. Swinging the oven door open every once in a while will help create air circulation. I've also seen people who will leave the oven cracked open with a fan pointed into the oven to circulate air.  The key here is heat and air circulation, so any way you can rig it to work for you will dictate how long the process will take. 

~Happy baking!

Spring in New Orleans is a wonderous time of the year. Ok. Alright. Anytime in New Orleans is pretty exciting...I mean we use any excuse to party, so we do it all year, but spring has it's own specialties that come in this post-Mardi Gras haze: Festival Season. Crawfish season. And another one of my favorites, strawberry season.

I've struggled with pie crust in the past. Now I've found at least one recipe/technique I really like. I've only tested the one batch so far, but I'm really pleased with the flakiness. The two secret ingredients are: vodka and lard.

I used Cook's Illustrated foolproof pie dough, which uses half water and half vodka to ensure a flaky but malleable and forgiving pastry. The vodka provides extra liquid but limits the amount of water in order to shorten the gluten bonds forming, which will give a more tender crust. I adjusted the recipe slightly and instead of shortening, I used lard I picked up from my local butcher, Cleaver & Co. Lard, like vegetable shortening is better for pastry crust because it has a lower water content than butter, which ensures a flakier crust. This recipe uses a butter/lard combo to get the best of both worlds--is it the end all be all best pastry crust recipe ever? Probably not, but it's worth trying. It's tasty and flaky. The biggest downside was despite freezing the crust before baking, neither attempt kept the shape of my pretty pie edge designs. So I'd suggest doing something pretty basic as far as finishing goes.

The pecan pie recipe is adapted from Southern Living. The original recipe didn't fill my 9-inch pie pan, so I made some quantity adjustments. If this makes too much for you, make sure to look over at their recipe. I also substituted Steen's Southern Made for the light corn syrup. This particular Steen's product is part molasses/part corn syrup, so you get some of that molassesy goodness. If you want to mix the two yourself, I'd recommend about an 80:20-ish ratio of corn syrup to molasses (almost a cup of corn syrup and about 2 tablespoons or so of regular molasses (not blackstrap). Also, I made this recipe twice so far. The first one (pictured in this gooey slice on the right/above) was just a bit under cooked and the middle didn't quite set perfectly, but it tasted delicious. The second was just a tad over cooked and set up well but didn't taste as nice, so just keep an eye out on your pie in the last 10 minutes or so and see how its doing. Again, is it the greatest pecan pie recipe of all time? Eh....it was really good but I want to try out some other recipes as well. That said, I'm still keeping this one in the memory bank for now too.

So last year's BBQ cookoff at Finn's I made these really delicious BBQ pork cupcakes. They were mindblowing in that crazy sweet and salty bbq porky kind of way and one of my favorite creations that I kind of pieced together from here and there. Since they won the cookoff last year, I felt like it would be cheating if I brought them again this year. So I set out to think up some other bbq-y desserts when I stumbled upon this lovely post from Big Butz BBQ Sauce on shortbread cookies with bacon and bbq sauce.

They sounded pretty dang cool so I incorporated the idea into my go-to shortbread recipe and I feel like the end result was a pretty cool bacony bbq cookie--salty and sweet and crumbly in your mouth deliciousness.

So I've been up to some pretty fun cake decorating projects in the past few months--all for some pretty cool guys who happen to be friends with an insane girl who loves crazy projects and big messes. It all goes back to the Crawfest Cake and the ridiculous Goonies creation. Once the guys in our group realized I'd be up for just about anything they could throw at me, the project line started...so here's a little update on what I've been working on.

I think Kevin put in his order for his groom's cake before they even had a date set! It seems like ages ago when we first talked about it so I had plenty of time to think about how I was going to pull it all together. I busted out my Nintendo NES and favorite video game of all time--Tetris--to do a bit of research and just have some fun. It was a yellow cake base with chocolate buttercream frosting and 100% cake and I'm always excited I'm able to make it work without using rice krispie treats...I always feel like that's cheating.

All of the labels and writing was hand-painted, which let me tell you took quite a bit of time a patience, but in the end I think they looked really impressive. I used my marshmallow fondant and Wilton's Sugar Sheets Edible Decorating Paper, and for the most part everything went smoothly. One of the early snafus was forgetting to order this Chefsmaster colored spray like I used for the Crawfest silver pot. Of course the shipping time would have taken too long to arrive by the time I remembered to order it, so the helpful folks at Shop Bakers Nook pointed me to this gold glaze instead. It all worked out great thanks to them, but I found I really like Duff Goldman's line much better. The colors really pop, the coverage is excellent, and they even sell it at my neighborhood grocery store now!!

As always, when it comes to projects like this, it's the details that really sell the project. The labels may have took a bit of time, but they looked really great and I spent who knows how long painting the Nintendo logo on the front of the console, but in the end I think that's what made it so awesome. Also, I collect interesting candies whenever I find them and catalog them mentally if I ever have use for them in decorating projects. Haribo licorice wheels came in quite handy for the controller cords because they had the perfect shiny gloss finish that made it look authentic.

A few notes on the Wilton sugar sheets:

• Painting the sheets with gel food coloring diluted with alcohol worked fabulously and I was able to do much of this in the week before the wedding. Being able to do this in advance was critical because it took so much attention to detail that I needed to be able to do it without the pressure of having to do the rest of the baking and building at the same time. 
• Always remember that its easy to paint dark colors over lighter colors but not not so much the other way around. 
• The sheets peel away from the plastic backing fairly easily at room temperature, but if it's hot and humid (hello, New Orleans!) well, its much harder to make them cooperate. Also if you heavily paint them, they can be a bit more fragile and delicate to handle. The easiest quick fix I found was to throw it in the freezer for about 30-60 seconds and it should come off much easier. I also found having an exacto knife near by was very helpful to get the corners started if its being stubborn.

Thanks to Kevin and Blake for being the cool cats they are and letting me make this very awesome Nintendo cake for them...and giving me the honor of making the one of a kind headpiece I whipped up for the bride.  and I couldn't be more excited to have been a part of such a legen---wait for it---dairy night.

Despite my ever expanding waistband, I had one of the best chocolate cupcakes I've had in a while from the Cake Cafe. I also had one of the most disappointing chocolate cupcakes from an un-named cupcake company that recently opened up in Nola. Cake Cafe's is everything you expect in a chocolate cupcake from Grandmaw's house--unassuming and completely delicious with an awesome fudgey icing that just screams homey old school greatness. The later was modernly styled and packaged and pretty to look at but completely and utterly disappointing. Even I couldn't pin point exactly what it was I didn't like about it but it was dry and awkward and made me wonder how this place is in business--and also that I could make a much better cupcake.

This chocolate fudge cake is one of my favorite go-to chocolate cake recipes. It doesn't have the complexity of Ina Garten's Beatty's Chocolate Cake, but it's fudgey, moist and chocolatey with out being too expensive to make. I usually pair it with a swiss chocolate buttercream and they are truly magnificent together. I'd say it's a bit different combo together than Cake Cafe's fudgey frosting, but I like them both equally, which means they're both awesome. :)

It's also a great sturdy cake that I use all the time when I'm doing intricate cake designs and it works great as either a cake or cupcakes. This past weekend, I made it into chocolate cowardly lion cupcakes to bring to the Finn's cook the competition challenge...but unfortunately came in a close second. How can you beat the combination of adorable AND delicious?? ....with pork and bacon apparently. Its all good though because my Saints won and you'll all love this recipe no matter how you decorate it. :)

Okay so maybe I could make these pumpkin cupcakes anytime of the year, but for some reason fall rolls around and the cool weather and falling leaves just makes me want pumpkins and sweet potatoes and turkey...not that we actually have cool weather in New Orleans right now. Yesterday's high was 84. 84!! In mid November! I keep trying to brainwash myself to think fall and it will feel like fall...but the weather gods are just ignoring me.

Anyway...my coworker bought me this pumpkin cupcake pan from Williams-Sonoma as a gift a while back and I instantly fell in love with these cupcakes. I've been waiting all year for fall to come back around to make these again. They have a great soft crumb with a good pumpkin flavor that's not too overpowered with spice. Again, I love the bit of salt in there too, and although the original recipe comes with a frosting, I like them plain. When they're naked I can delude myself into thinking they're appropriate breakfast. 

So the first time I went to Finn McCool's was to catch a world cup game back in '06. The place was hopping and I instantly fell in love with Katie Jean's (then one of the bartenders) infectious energy and the bar's awesome familial camaraderie. It's so much more than just a neighborhood bar with the best owners, coolest bartenders and a pretty awesome collection of patrons: this past weekend that group raised over two grand to help out a patron who had been shot in the head in an attempted carjacking. The list of charitable organizations that have raised money at Finn's is seemingly endless because the owners Pauline and Stephen are just that cool.

Each week for the Saints games, they cook the competition in a pot luck style cookoff and everyone who brings food gets a free drink, gets to the front of the line each week and a chance to win a $20 bar tab for the best dish. I've always liked bringing desserts when I have a chance to make something, because no one else ever brings in sweets and I have such a sweet tooth even after I gorge on all the other deliciousness everyone else makes, I still always want a little sugar too.

Now, this may come as a shock since I have such a sweet tooth, but as much as I love sweets, I'm not usually a fan of sweets that are just too sugary. I think that's why this is one of my favorite cookie recipes of all time. I love the less sweet tea-style cookies (thumbprint and shortbread cookies are my favs too) and cookies with a bit of salt in them (like my new favorite chocolate chunk cookies).

This recipe comes via Cook's Illustrated, and I don't have any suggestions for improvement, because more often than not their test kitchen is right on the money! If you've never had these before, Mexican wedding cookies go by many different names, all with a similar nutty flavor in a cookie that is so soft it just crumbles away in your mouth. This recipe has just a hint of salt, but combined with a powdered sugar coating they have that wonderful salty/sweet flavor that I can't get enough of.

It's a simple recipe and not very finicky, so it doesn't take a baking expert to get these to come out right. I made two batches yesterday to bring to Finn McCool's weekly cook the competition cooking contest during the Saints game and while the second definitely started with a better butter temperature and the texture of the dough was noticeably different, the end result was virtually the same. I'm always whipping up a few batches during the holidays and it wouldn't be Christmas without these and pralines strewn about the kitchen. I hope you enjoy them as much as I do!

Usually when I'm making a cake for someone else, I try not to use recipes I've never tested before because who knows how it will turn out. Then you've got this terrible cake that you would never eat yourself, much less give it to someone else and tell them, "I baked it with love!!" Yikes.

I had no time to test this Italian Cream Cake before I made it for one of my husband's co-workers, but thank goodness it was delicious! He was able to bring a slice home for me to taste and even I was surprised how yummy it was. No wonder they were all still talking about it the next week! I can't wait to make it one week to bring to Finn McCool's for one of the Saints game cookoffs!

I haven't been baking much at all this summer because it's just too dang hot to turn on the oven and the little baking I have been doing is in the weee hours of the night when I can at least turn it on without suffocating in the kitchen, but finding this little gem was totally worth it! I used the organic coconut you get from the bulk foods section and I really liked that this recipe didn't have any coconut on the outside of the cake. The overall  texture was really nice without having too much coconut. My husband hates coconut cakes and even when I had him taste the batter he wasn't too impressed. The final product comes together nicely with the cream cheese frosting and I think this recipe is definitely a keeper!

I had so much fun at the Locavore Market! It was great to meet so many other locavores. Plus, it always warms my heart to see people enjoy something I've made and I sure got plenty of smiles and oohs and ahhhs at the market.

I was actually surprised that my pralines weren't the biggest seller. Top honors went to the pecan macarons, which actually sold out. Another big shocker was everyone's praline preference. I made two different batches: one with butter I made myself from Kleinpeter heavy whipping cream and the other with Kleinpeter salted butter. I was very much opposed to the flavor of the salted ones because they just didn't taste right to me, but my mom convinced me to bring them anyway and let people taste both and decide themselves. Taste testers overwhelmingly liked the salted ones better. Go figure.

Anyway, here is another sweet treat I made for the market that can be locally sourced. It's easy enough to make, but if you don't have any experience making candies the hardest part is making sure you've cooked it long enough. This recipe said about 15 minutes but I found it was closer to 20 before the mixture had boiled down enough to make a nice chewy caramel, otherwise you just get something that would be better as a warm ice cream sundae topping (of which I now have a jar-full of!) rather than stand alone as a candy.

So if you didn't know, June 21 is National Peaches and Cream Day. Yes there is this big list of food related national [insert delicious food] days. For the breakdown, check out this list of American Food Holidays. Coming from New Orleans, where we'll use pretty much any excuse to have a party, festival or just good eats...it sounds like a good enough reason to me to celebrate. 

I did a little google search and looked at a few different recipes and finally found my inspiration in this recipe from What's Cooking America. But what's a celebration in Nola without booze? Not a celebration at all...so I made a few modifications.

I also foolishly thought that it would be nice to make it into individual serving sizes, but in reality it just made me feel guilty picking up the second one, which I inhaled as quickly as the first... I'd say it probably works in the ramekins like I did just as well as the original single baking dish.

I know I probably say this all the time, but it's mostly because I only share the good recipes with you....so here it is, this is totally one of my new favorite recipes. The rum flavor hit the spot! If you've got some fresh juicy peaches laying around, I promise you won't regret diving into this recipe.

So we had a swap meet for all the locavores to barter or sell any specialty items they might have growing in their yards. I was hoping my bananas and grapes would be ripe in time, but it's been so hot and dry in New Orleans they just aren't quite ready.

Then I realized there would be a need for sugary sweets--if I'm having a hard time coming up with goodies for myself, then the not so baking inclined probably aren't having much luck either. I made some pralines, pecan macarons and some caramels too, which I'll hopefully post soon.

Canillas de leche are a Guatemalan candy that I usually only get to enjoy when my aunt comes back from Guatemala with her stash of specialty candies. I'm pretty excited my mom and I thought about them when I was brainstorming things I could make--she's uber excited that I know how to make them now, which actually could be very dangerous. I'd say they're like a Guatemalan fudge.

Anyway, hope you like them, and special shout out to Ms. Gamble for helping me translate the recipe. FYI, only do this when you're up for the workout and have a good two hours of mostly undivided time to spare. I didn't make these for the swap because they just take too long to make, but if you have the time they are well worth the effort.

I really have no business walking into a bookstore--or really any brick and mortar store for that matter. I have a compulsion. If I could just stay away, actually sticking to my monthly budget would be soooo much easier. See when it comes to online shopping, the VAST majority of items I add to my shopping cart never actually get purchased. When it's just a pretty picture, I can usually remind myself that I don't actually need this. When it is actually in my hand in the store and there is the instant gratification of going home with it and using it right away, well then duh! I must have it.

Anyway, I made the mistake of actually venturing out of the kitchen and into multiple stores a couple weekends ago, and I have the credit card bill to go with said mistake. The upside is that I finally treated myself to David Lebovitz's latest cookbook, Ready for Dessert: My Best Recipes. And of course the first thing I tried were the brownies because they just looked so good...and they are! Just the perfect combination of crusty outside and ooey gooey rich chocolatey goodness with the delicious crunch of nuts... I can't wait until June is over so I can treat myself to these bad boys again.

According to Lebovitz, don't skimp on the "stir energetically for 1 full minute" step because this is where the magic happens! Hope you enjoy.

So our anniversary was last week. It makes me think about our very awesome wedding. (For a run down of some of the awesomeness, check out the post on Offbeat bride.) It also gets me reminiscing about our honeymoon in Paris. God knows when we'll have the money to go back, but I'm so glad we at least got to go once in our lives.


At the same time, I've been trying to brainstorm what kinds of goodies I'll be able to make this month since I decided to join Nola Locavore's Eat Local Challenge. Thank god Louisiana grows sugar, because otherwise I think I'd be SOL. I'm having a hard enough time trying to go without wheat flour, baking soda or baking powder--don't even get me started on the no chocolate.

YES, that's right. I'm a foodie baker and I willingly and happily joined the challenge because I figured it would be interesting and educational---pah! Sometimes I jump in feet first and kind of forget about the little details, because I've made it through a week and it has been freaking hard. BUT it has been really educational. The crumby husband on the other hand....again is filing this away as one of the many reasons he thinks I'm insane. If you want more deets on what I'm cooking or what I'm up to in general, check out my personal blog, Magic Stixx.

Anyway, this is hopefully just the first in a month's worth of delicious locavore sweets. With my mind on Paris and locavore foods, I took Martha Stewart's recipe and modified it with pecans for a New Orleans twist. I used a french buttercream filling so I could use the leftover egg yolks, but I had a bit left over...use it as you see fit. Under non-locavore circumstances, I think a chocolate ganache filling would pair nicely with these. 

You'd think it would be easy to find great pralines at every turn when you live in New Orleans, but my own pickyness has hindered this ability time and again. I just hate pralines made with evaporated milk!

I originally got this recipe from The New Orleans School of Cooking, but I've seen it plenty other places too. It's a classic New Orleans style recipe and by far my favorite--I love the texture. Texas style recipes are of the chewier variety and to me they just seem like they should accompany something else, like a topping on a cheesecake or ice cream, rather than standing alone.

Also, if you've never made pralines before, don't get discouraged if they aren't picture perfect the first time around. Even a great praline recipe can yield less than ideal results; it takes practice to perfect your timing and technique. As many times as I've made them, every once in a while I still make a batch that has to be thrown out.

There was a time in my life when I didn't really like chocolate mousse very much. Then we went to Paris for our honeymoon and I realized what I had been missing. Our first night there, we went exploring and after seeing the Eiffel Tower, we stopped at a restaurant nearby to enjoy dinner on the sidewalk. Dusk in the city of lights is picturesque and coupled with delicious food, it's a moment I will always remember. Le crumby husband ordered mousse au chocolat for dessert while I ordered....er...who knows what? I honestly don't remember because whatever I ordered just did not compare to this chocolate mousse.

After we got back home, I kept thinking about that silky chocolatey perfection. I couldn't get it out of my head so here I was thinking I'd have to go on some ridiculous quest in search of said perfection--I would have to try countless recipes because of course in reality nothing would match up with the awesomeness that I've been reminiscing about. As things often pan out differently in reality than they do in my head, the first recipe I tried was all it took. Seriously best chocolate mousse ever, thanks to David Lebovitz's adaptation of the classic Julia Child recipe.

So whenever the crumby husband and I finally got around to discussing cookie preferences, he not only said that my favorites were old lady grandmaw cookies, but was dumbfounded when I told him I didn't really chocolate chip cookies. He said that was just down right blasphemous--how can someone who loves to bake so much hate chocolate chip cookies? I don't know; I just did. Then my lovely coworker and fellow baker brought in his favorite recipe and I fell in love.

So what makes these chocolate chunk cookies so much better than anything else I've ever had? They aren't super sweet and they bake up oh so soft and chewy. I really love the saltiness of these cookies because they have just the right combination of bam! chocolate with some subtle saltiness to give them great depth. Whole wheat flour, nuts and rolled oats give them good texture and I swear you will not believe their "healthy"--alright so with 10 tablespoons of butter, I wouldn't exactly call these healthy, but in comparison to a standard chocolate chip cookie, you're much better off with these.