I wasn't going to bother writing this one up because I messed up and forgot an ingredient. But it turned out pretty good nonetheless, so I figured maybe I should post about it after all. I just need to try to remember all the bits next time!

Sourdough Apple Cake

Slightly adapted from Northwest Sourdough

Ingredients

• 170g unsalted butter
• 113g milk
• 113g sour cream (or yogurt)¹
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
• 2 large eggs
• 113g sugar²
• 85g all-purpose flour
• 140g sourdough discard (100% hydration)
• 750-850g apples, peeled, sliced, and cored
• 2 Tbsp. cinnamon sugar

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C (350°F) and grease a casserole dish.
2. Melt the butter over medium low heat and cook, stirring frequently, until just beginning to brown.
3. Remove from heat and stir in milk, sour cream, and vanilla.
4. Beat in eggs.
5. Add sugar, flour, and sourdough discard and mix to form a thin batter.
6. In a separate bowl, toss the apple slices with the cinnamon sugar.
7. Place the apples in the prepared casserole dish and pour the batter over them.
8. Sprinkle a little extra cinnamon sugar over the cake.
9. Bake at 180°C (350°F) for 1 hour.
10. Serve warm with cream or whipped cream.

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¹ This is the ingredient that I forgot. The original calls for sour cream. I was planning to swap it out for yogurt. Insead I forgot about it altogether and used neither. Luckily the recipe depends largely on the fruit and the batter is just there to told it together, so it didn't seem to suffer too much from the lack of cultured dairy. ^Back
2 I found the finished cake slightly too sweet for my tastes, but a) my apples were very sweet and b) I forgot the sour cream/yogurt, which may have had a moderating effect on the sweetness. As such, I haven't reduced the sugar for this recipe, but be aware that it is on the sweet side and you may wish to cut back a bit if you're also using very sweet fruit. ^Back

Here's another long overdue bread write-up. I think I made this one sometime in March or April. It was supposed to be a prelude to making Lady Bear's Bread, but I still haven't quite gotten around to doing that yet.

As with the previous recipe, I've filled in the details as best I can, but I may have missed a few things since it's been such a long time. If I ever make this one again, I'll try to remember to come back and update this post. That said, there are so many bread recipes out there, I often don't get around to making the same one twice.

Big Bear's Bread

Slightly adapted from Northwest Baking

Ingredients

First (Biga-like) Dough

• 225g ripe/active/fed starter (100% hydration)
• 450g hard (strong/high grade/bread) whole wheat flour
• 365g all-purpose flour
• 450mL ice water

Slurry

• 200mL warm water
• 18g coarse sea salt
• 115g hard (strong/high grade/bread) whole wheat flour

Directions

1. Make sure your starter is nicely active and vigorous before mixing the dough.
2. Combine flours for first dough with starter and water.
3. Mix very well, cover, and chill for 3-4 days.
4. On the third or fourth day, combine the slurry ingredients to make... a slurry.
5. Cover and rest for 30-60 minutes.
6. Take the first dough out of the fridge and let it warm up slighlty while the slurry rests.
7. Tear (do not cut) the dough up a little bit and mix in the slurry.
8. Once the dough and the slurry are mixed (but still look a bit ragged), cover and set aside to ferment, covered, at room temperature for ~4 hours. Stretch and fold every hour or so.
9. Divide the dough into two equal portions and round each portion. Cover and rest for ~30 minutes.
10. Shape the loaves and place them into well-floured bannetons. Cover and proof in the fridge overnight.
11. Preheat oven to 250°C (475°F).
12. Grease a pan and sprinkle it with cornmeal.
13. Once oven is preheated, place a pan of boiling water on the bottom rack.
14. Turn out loaves onto prepared pan and slash the tops -- no more than one slash per loaf! -- if desired.
15. Place loaves on top rack of oven and immediately reduce oven temperature to 230°C (450°F).
16. Bake at 230°C (450°F) for ~20 minutes.
17. Reduce oven temperature to 220°C (425°F) and remove water pan from oven.
18. Continue baking for another 10-20 minutes until loaves sound hollow when tapped.
19. Turn off oven and let loaves sit in the hot oven for another 10 minutes.
20. Remove from oven and transfer to wire rack to cool.

This made a very nice bread. I was remiss in doing the write-up though and this is coming months after the actual baking, so some of the details are a little fuzzy. I'll do my best to incorporate any notes and changes I made, but I may need to come back and update this the next time I make it.

Flaxseed Sourdough

Slightly adapted from Northwest Sourdough

Ingredients

Flax Mixture

• 85g flax seeds
• 311mL water

Dough

• 450g hard (strong/high grade/bread) whole wheat flour
• 113g ripe/fed sourdough starter (100% hydration)
• 340g water
• 16g coarse sea salt
• 280g all-purpose flour

Directions

1. Be sure to feed your starter at least once (and preferably two or three times) before starting. It should be nice and active!
2. Toast the flax seeds until the pop/jump.
3. Immediately add the water and set aside to cool.
4. In a large bowl, combine the whole wheat flour, starter, and water and mix well.
5. Cover and set aside to autolyse for 30-60 minutes.
6. Mix in the salt and the flax-water mixture.
7. Work in the all-purpose flour.
8. Cover and ferment at room temperature for 8-12 hours (depending on the temperature of your room). Stretch the dough a few times during fermentation if possible.
9. Divide the dough into two equal portions and round each portion. Cover and rest for 20-30 minutes.
10. Shape each portion into a loaf (use water on hands and bench as necessary) and place each loaf into a floured banneton to proof.
11. Cover and proof in fridge for 10-14 hours (or at room temperature for 2-4 hours, but I prefer a cold proof).
12. Preheat oven to 230°C (450°F).
13. Grease a baking sheet and sprinkle with cornmeal.
14. Once the oven is preheated, place a pan of boiling water on the bottom rack.
15. Turn the loaves out onto the prepared pan and slash the tops as desired.
16. Bake on middle rack of oven at 230°C (450°F) for 15-20 minutes (until the crust starts to develop some good colour.
17. Remove water pan and reduce heat to 200°C (400°F) and bake for another 10-20 minutes. (Loaves should sound hollow when bottom is tapped.)
18. Turn oven off and leave loaves inside for 10 minutes.
19. Remove from oven and transfer to wire racks to cool.

Very good, everyone liked this one. I found frying the meat a bit tedious, but it was very simple to put together otherwise. I ended up using some very thinly sliced beef from the Asian grocery store. I think it's normally meant to be for hotpot/shabu-shabu. I think it was probably a bit too thin for this dish. If I did it again, I'd slice my own. That'd probably make the dredging and frying a bit less annoying too.

Orange Beef

Slightly adapted from The Woks of Life

Ingredients

Beef

• 350g thinly sliced beef (flank steak or top sirloin)
• 1 Tbsp. water
• 2 tsp. cornstarch
• 2 tsp. orange juice
• 2 tsp. oil
• 1 tsp. oyster sauce
• 1/4 tsp. baking soda
• 1/8 tsp. five-spice powder

Sauce

• 1/3 c. warm water
• 1 Tbsp. sugar
• 1 Tbsp. orange marmalade
• 1/3 c. orange juice
• 3 Tbsp. light soy sauce
• 2 tsp. Shaoxing wine
• 1/4 tsp. sesame oil
• 1/8 tsp. white peppercorns, ground

Everything Else

• 1/3 c. oil
• 1/4 c. + 1 Tbsp. cornstarch, divided
• 1/2 tsp. coarse sea salt
• 3-4 c. broccoli florettes
• 2 slices ginger
• 4-7 dried red Thai, arbol, or cayenne chilies
• 5 pieces dried Mandarin orange peel (~4cm each)
• 1 star anise
• 1-2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1-2 green onions, chopped
• 1 Tbsp. water

Directions

Beef

1. Slice the beef and combine it with the water, cornstarch, orange juice, oil, oyster sauce, baking soda, and five-spice powder.
2. Mix well, cover, and chill for 1-2 hours.

Sauce

1. Combine the water, sugar, and marmalade and stir until dissolved.
2. Add the orange juice, soy sauce, wine, sesame oil, and white pepper and mix well. Set aside.

Everything Else

1. Heat oil in wok over medium-high heat.
2. Use 1/4 c. of the cornstarch to dredge the beef.
3. Immediately fry the beef in the hot oil. Cook ~45-60 seconds per side. Set aside.
4. After frying the beef, pour all but 1 Tbsp. of the oil off.
5. Meanwhile, bring 4 c. of water to a boil.
6. Add 1/2 tsp. of salt and 1/2 Tbsp. of oil to the water. (I just used some residual beef frying oil for this.
7. Add the broccoli and boil for 45-60 seconds.
8. Drain the broccoli and set aside.
9. Heat wok (with residual 1 Tbsp. of frying oil) over medium-low heat.
10. Add the ginger, chilies, orange peel, and star anise and cook for ~1 minute.
11. Add the garlic and green onion and cook for another 30-60 seconds.
12. Stir in the sauce.
13. Bring to a simmer over medium heat.
14. Make a slurry out of the water and the remaining 1 Tbsp. of cornstarch.
15. Stir the cornstarch slurry into the sauce and cook until thickened.
16. Add the beef and broccoli and stir to coat with sauce.
17. Serve immediately!

I've done enough bread write-ups at this point that I'm not going to worry about being super detailed here. These recipes are mostly here for me -- I'm not really writing for an audience -- and I already know how to make bread.

Honey-Oat Flax Sourdough

From Sourdough Companion

Ingredients

• 394g all-purpose flour¹
• 58g quick oats
• 22g ground flax seed
• 7g coarse sea salt
• 263mL water
• 88g (100% hydration) ripe/active sourdough starter
• 20g honey

Directions

1. Combine flour, oats, flax, and salt and mix well.
2. Make a well in the centre and pour in the water, starter, and honey.
3. Gradually mix the dry ingredients into the wet, working from the centre outward.
4. Cover and ferment at room temperature for 4-8 hours, stretching every hour or two.
5. Shape into a loaf and place in a floured banneton.
6. Proof in fridge for ~12 hours.
7. Preheat oven to 250°C (475°F).
8. Grease a baking sheet and sprinkle with cornmeal.
9. Turn loaf out onto prepared baking sheet, wet top crust, and slash the top as desired.
10. Place a pan of boiling water on bottom rack of oven.
11. Bake bread at 250°C (475°F) on middle rack for 15 minutes.
12. Reduce temperature to 180°C (350°F) and bake for another 10 minutes or so.
13. When bread sounds done, turn off oven and leave bread inside for 10 minutes.
14. Remove from oven and transfer to wire rack to cool.

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¹ Normally I would've used hard whole wheat flour here, but I was a) running low on flour and b) running low on time. If using whole wheat flour, I would've wanted to have mixed the flour and water the night before and then added the starter and other ingredients the next morning. Seeing as I didn't have time for that and I was a little low on whole wheat flour anyway, I opted to use white flour for this bread. ^Back

I decided to make pancakes with the Kidlet this morning. She had hers with bananas, cinnamon, mixed berries, chocolate, and maple syrup, but I wanted something a bit different for mine. I realized that we still had a bit of mascarpone left in the fridge that needed to be used up. And some cream that was coming up on its expiry date. And lemons in the freezer. So I figured I'd look for some sort of lemon-mascarpone topping that I could make to go on the pancakes.

I found a few different recipes. There was one involving lemon curd that looked really nice, but I didn't want to go to the trouble of making curd for this, so I gave that recipe a miss. In the end, I based my topping loosely on a mascarpone "mousse" recipe that I found floating around the internet. I added a bit more sugar, omitted the salt, added some lemon zest, used less cheese (because I only had a little left), and changed up the mixing order a little, but the basic elements were still there.

Lemon-Mascarpone Whipped Cream

Adapted from Stress Baking

Ingredients

• 1/2 c. heavy (35%) cream
• 2 Tbsp. icing sugar, divided
• 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
• 100-150g mascarpone
• zest and juice of 1 lemon

Directions

1. Whip the cream with 1 Tbsp. of the sugar and the vanilla.
2. In a separate bowl, whisk the cheese with the lemon zest, lemon juice, and the remaining 1 Tbsp. of sugar.
3. Mix ~1/3 of the whipped cream into the mascarpone.
4. Fold in the remaining whipped cream.
5. Serve on pancakes with fresh blueberries or a blueberry compote.

My mom makes fabulous cheesecakes and, over the years, has shared several of her recipes with me. Surprisingly, this is not one of those recipes. I was tempted, but the lure ATK's promise of a "foolproof" cheesecake was too strong. (Plus, there's something very satisfying about getting to check off another recipe in one of my cookbooks.)

I did make a couple very minor changes to the recipe -- mostly to avoid having leftover ingredients -- but I tried to follow the instructions very closely. I don't have much experience with cheesecakes, so I was out of my comfort zone here. It seems to have turned out well though, despite my worries about it being underbaked, overbrowned, or not sweet enough.

I might be tempted to try turning the oven up very slightly next time, but I'm undecided. It did seem cooked in the end, so maybe it's best not to mess with it. I have similar thoughts about the browning step at the end. I felt that even just four minutes at 500°F made it quite dark and wondered if 475°F might not be a more suitable temperature. I may experiment with that next time. I'll see.

Sorry, I forgot to snap any photos and it's all gone now. Another thing to try to remember for next time!

New York Cheesecake

Slightly adapted from The Perfect Cake by America's Test Kitchen

Ingredients

Crust

• 3/4 c. graham cracker crumbs (or 6 whole graham crackers, crushed)
• 1/3 c. brown sugar
• 1/2 c. all-purpose flour
• 6 Tbsp. unsalted butter, melted

Filling

• 1kg (2.2 lbs) cream cheese, softened
• 135g mascarpone (or more cream cheese)
• 1 1/2 c. sugar, divided
• 1/3 c. sour cream
• 2 tsp. lemon juice
• 2 tsp. vanilla extract
• 7 large eggs¹

Directions

Crust

1. Place one over rack in the upper middle position and one at the lower middle height.
2. Preheat oven to 160°C (325°F) and brush the bottom of a 23cm (9") springform pan with melted butter.
3. If you're starting with whole graham crackers and have a food processor, this whole procedure can be done with short pulses in the food processor. If you're starting with whole graham crackers and don't have a food processor then a molcajete or a Ziploc back and a rolling pin are probably your best bet for arriving at the crumb stage.
4. Combine the graham cracker crumbs and sugar, mixing well.
5. Add the flour and mix until evenly combined.
6. Pour in the butter and mix with a fork until all the crumbs look moistened.
7. Dump the crumb mixture into the greased pan and press it down firmly to form an even layer.
8. Use the bottom of a measuring cup to tamp it down and smooth it out a bit more.
9. Bake at 160°C (325°F) on the lower middle rack for 12-13 minutes.
10. Set aside to cool while the filling is prepared.

Filling

1. Reduce oven temperature to 95°C (200°F) and carefully grease the sides of the springform pan with a bit of melted butter.
2. Beat the softened cream cheese and mascarpone (if using) with 3/4 c. of the sugar for ~1 minute.
3. Add the remaining 3/4 c. sugar and beat for another minute.
4. Scrape down the bowl and add the sour cream, lemon juice, and vanilla and beat for 1 more minute.
5. Beat in the eggs one or two at a time.
6. If desired, strain the filling through a fine mesh strainer.²
7. Pour the filling into the prepared springform pan and set aside for 10 minutes to allow air bubbles to rise to the surface.
8. Gently draw the tines of a fork across the surface to pop the air bubbles.³
9. Bake the cheesecake on the lower middle rack at 95°C (200°F) for 3-3.5 hours⁴. If you don't mind poking a thermometer into the top of the cake -- which seems criminal if you went to the effort of straining the filling and popping all the bubbles on the surface -- then you can test for doneness with an instant-read thermometer. Look for an internal temperature of 74°C (165°F).
10. Remove the cake from the oven and preheat the oven to 260°C (500°F).
11. Once the oven is preheated, place the cake on the upper middle rack and bake for another few minutes⁵ until the top is well-browned. Watch it carefully!
12. Remove the cake from the oven and let it cool for 5 minutes.
13. Run a thin knife around the edge of the pan, then continue cooling, in pan on wire rack, for 2-3 hours.
14. Cover with plastic wrap and chill for 6-24 hours⁶ before serving.
15. Serve as-is or with a fruit compote of your choice.

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¹ The original recipe calls for six eggs + 2 yolks. This would definitely make the cake richer, but I didn't want to have to deal with figuring out what to do with two leftover egg whites, so I just put in an extra whole egg in place of the two yolks. This doesn't seem to have hurt the cake any. ^Back
2 I skipped this step. ^Back
3 I did do this step, but it didn't seem to work very well. A lot of the air bubbles seemed very reluctant to pop. I'm sure it's beneficial if you want the smoothest possible top, but I'd be inclined not to bother next time. It's fiddly and the bubbles don't bother me enough for it to be worthwhile. ^Back
4 Mine needed every minute of the full 3.5 hours. To the point where I was worried that it was still a bit underdone at the end of baking. I think it was fine in the end, but it made me a bit nervous. ^Back
5 ATK suggests 4-12 minutes, which is a pretty wide range. Mine was already quite dark after 4 minutes. As noted above, I think I would be tempted to try browning it at 250°C (475°F) next time, just to see how it goes. ^Back
6 Mine definitely didn't get a full six hours in the fridge before cutting, but it seemed none the worse for wear for it. ^Back