vanilla bean

August 30, 2017

Chocolate Soufflé with Vanilla Bean Whipped Cream.

I love living in the city. I’ve probably mentioned this in the past, but I’m gonna reiterate it. It’s odd how I became a city girl, because I was actually a small-town kid at heart for the majority of my formative years. You see, I grew up in a small, central Illinois town: one of those towns where all you really had in terms of buildings were churches and bars. The towns were separated by corn fields and soybean fields, and everyone pretty much knew everyone else’s business.

The catalyst for me was when I spent a summer in Philly for an internship during my undergrad days. It was total culture shock for me: a small-town, naïve Midwestern girl, suddenly thrown into a row house, living in West Philly and dealing with internship life at a huge company, plus crazy East Coast traffic? It was pure insanity, and very uncomfortable at times. But it ultimately changed me for the better, and that, my friends, is why I now consider myself a city gal.

I’ve come to appreciate the city living because I adore the culture and history. I love the old brick buildings, the microbreweries, the eclectic, hipster-y mix of it all. I love that I can find Thai food, vegan comfort food, and Afghan food all on one street. The chaos and randomness of the people and places is fascinating to me.

{A few notes on these babies: They will deflate a bit, and the larger sizes will crack. It’s okay. I imagine you could use a water bath to prevent the cracking, but we didn’t. I know it’s not as pretty, but it still tastes awesome, and I like to think the cracks give it character. So don’t fret if you end up with a slightly deflated or cracked souffle!}

But every now and then, there comes a time in which even the most seasoned, accidental city girl needs a break from all the bricks and culture. For times in which I just need a change of scenery, I’ll often take a solo road trip back to Illinois to visit friends and family.

This past weekend, I visited Belle, who is one of my best friends and mentors, an instructor I had during my undergrad days. Of course I always like to plan a baking project when I have my city breaks, so I asked Belle what she’d like for us to bake together.

“Chocolate soufflé,” she said. I’d heard of soufflés before, but I’d never made one. They sound intimidating, but I did my research and figured out that they’re more simple than they seem. So, Belle and I spent Sunday afternoon conquering the chocolate soufflé. It was a fun learning experience for both of us, and of course ending up with a rich, chocolatey dessert certainly doesn’t hurt.

You’ll see in the photos throughout this post that we served our soufflé with homemade whipped cream and fresh raspberries. I liked how the whipped cream – while rich in its own way – helped to cut some of the sweetness of the chocolate soufflé. Plus, fresh raspberries just pair so well with chocolate, so that was pretty much a given.

{Note: I didn’t really change up The Kitchn’s instructions, listed below. I think they do a good job of spelling it all out for you. Mostly, I just wanted to share this experience and add a few of my notes mixed in. Enjoy!}

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Chocolate Soufflé with Vanilla Bean Whipped Cream.

Yield: Six individual soufflés in ramekins, or one large 1.5qt-sized dish.

For the soufflé:

Ingredients:
– 2 TBSP. unsalted butter, plus extra to grease the soufflé dishes
– 8 oz. bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped [I used Ghirardelli 60% cacao, and I think it worked well]
– 3 large eggs yolks
– 1/2 cup granulated sugar, divided, plus extra to coat the soufflé dishes
– 6 large egg whites
– 1 tsp. vanilla extract
– 1/4 tsp. coarse salt

Instructions:

First, heat the oven to 375°F. You want your oven to be fully heated up and ready when it’s time to put the soufflé in.
Prepare the soufflé dishes: Rub the insides of the ramekins or soufflé dish with butter. Coat with sugar by sprinkling a tablespoon of sugar in the bottom of each ramekin (or a scoop of sugar in the larger soufflé dish), and then tilting and tapping the dish to work the sugar into the corners and up the sides of the dish.
Melt the chocolate: Combine the chocolate and 2 tablespoons of butter in a heatproof bowl. Set the bowl over a small saucepan of barely simmering water; make sure the bottom of the bowl doesn’t touch the surface of the water. (Alternatively, use a double-boiler.) Melt the chocolate, stirring occasionally, until completely smooth.
Cool the chocolate slightly: Remove the chocolate from heat and stir in the vanilla and salt. Let the chocolate cool until still very loose, but just slightly warm to the touch [you don’t want scrambled eggs, so make sure it’s cooled before you add the yolks].
Whisk together the yolks and 1/4 cup of sugar: Transfer the yolks to a mixing bowl. Measure out 1/4 cup of sugar and sprinkle over the yolks. Whisking by hand or in a stand mixer with a whisk attachment, whisk the yolks and sugar together. They will start off bright yellow and will gradually lighten. The eggs and sugar are ready when light yellow in color, and the mixture forms ribbons that hold for a few seconds on the surface.
Combine the chocolate and the yolks: Pour the yolks over the chocolate. Use a spatula to gently fold the chocolate and the yolks together until completely combined.
Beat the egg whites until frothy: Clean your mixing bowl thoroughly and make sure it is dry and free of any grease. Add the egg whites. Beat at gradually increasing speed until the whites are quite frothy and opaque.
Add the sugar to the whites and beat until stiff peaks form: With the mixer running at medium speed, gradually add the remaining 1/4 cup of sugar to the egg whites. Once all the sugar has been added, increase the speed to high and beat the whites until they form stiff peaks.
Lighten the chocolate base: Scoop about 1/4 of the beaten egg whites into the bowl with the chocolate base. Stir them in until no visible egg whites remain. This lightens the base and makes it easier to add the rest of the egg whites without deflating them too much.
Gently fold the egg whites into the base in two batches: Scoop half of the rest of the egg whites on top of the chocolate base. Using your spatula, cut through the center of the mixture, scoop the spatula underneath, then gently lift and flip the mixture over onto itself; this is called folding the egg whites into the base (it helps prevent deflating them too much). Give the bowl a quarter turn and repeat the folding motion. Once this batch is nearly incorporated, add the remaining whites. Continue until you see no more visible egg whites in the base.
Divide the soufflé batter between the prepared ramekins.
Bake until the soufflés are puffed and the tops look dry: Bake small soufflés for 18 to 20 minutes, or one large soufflé for 35 to 40 minutes [it took about 32 minutes for ours to finish baking].
Serve immediately; it is best eaten right away.

For the whipped cream:
Ingredients:
– 1 cup chilled heavy whipping cream
– 3 TBSP. powdered sugar, or to taste
– 1 tsp. vanilla bean paste

Instructions: Add all ingredients to the bowl of a stand mixer, fitted with the whisk attachment, and mix until medium peaks form. Store in the fridge until ready to use [homemade whipped cream is also best eaten the day it’s made].

+ Recipe resources: The chocolate soufflé recipe is from The Kitchn, and the whipped cream recipe is adapted from KitchenAid.

July 10, 2015

Rainbow Cupcakes.

This is not the post for you if you hate and/or are weirded out by artificial coloring and/or sprinkles.

This is most definitely the post for you if you: a) love colorful things, and b) you aren’t afraid of ingesting the occasional fake food coloring/chemicals/whatever evil stuff they’re warning us about now.*

*[Obviously, moderation is key. You won’t see me gulping down buckets of food coloring… That’s just nasty. *Cleveland voice* But I don’t think that some artificial colors in my system on occasion is gonna hurt my body any more than life already does. It’ll be aight. Also, #YOLO.]

That’s right. Today I’m talking about rainbow cupcakes! Just look at how pretty they are!

I made these beauties for Pride week in St. Louis. It just so happened that Pride weekend occurred right after the Supreme Court ruling for same-sex marriage was passed. That was a cause for celebration in my book, and no celebration is complete without some kind of sweets. I might be biased, but I think that these rainbow cupcakes were perfect for the celebration.

We’ve got a long way to go in regard to civil issues in this country. I don’t want to get into my personal beliefs too much on here, and I’m not here to shove my “agenda” (for the record, the only “agenda” I have is to bake a lot of tasty sweets and try to be a happy, decent human being!) down anyone’s throat. But the Supreme Court ruling was a big step toward improvement and more open-mindedness and understanding. And I’m thrilled that we’re starting to make some more progress as humans. I hope that we can continue to move forward to work on the myriad of issues involving equality (with sexual orientation, race, gender, etc.). In the meantime, I’ll continue with my attempt to make the world a better place with pretty, homemade baked goods.

For these rainbow cupcakes, I decided to try a new-to-me recipe for vanilla cupcakes. The recipe comes from another fellow STL redhead, Stef. She’s tirelessly tested the “ultimate vanilla cupcake” recipe along with many other bakers. After reading about all of their cupcake testing, I was confident that these cupcakes would turn out great as far as the taste and texture were concerned. Turns out that my confidence was justified, because these cupcakes ended up being 100% amazing!

rainbowinside — {Gorgeous cupcake interior!}

The cupcakes hold up well; the cake is sturdy, but still soft and moist. The vanilla flavor is perfect. I don’t know if my taste buds are just whack, but I swear that I can taste the egg in some vanilla cake recipes [which is a huge turn-off to me]. These aren’t like that at all; they just taste like pure, unadulterated vanilla cake.

To give them that gorgeous, tie-dye/rainbow effect, I got my ideas from this post on Dessert Now, Dinner Later’s blog. Then I topped them with a simple vanilla buttercream, and obviously I had to add lots of rainbow sprinkles, plus some hearts. Yay for pretty rainbow cupcakes, marriage equality, and making progress on some of our issues.

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Vanilla Rainbow Cupcakes.
Yield: About sixteen cupcakes.

Ingredients:

For the cupcakes:
– 1 cup granulated sugar
– 1 vanilla bean, split in half lengthwise, and seeds scraped out
– 1 3/4 cups cake flour, not self-rising [I used this cake flour substitute from Joy the Baker.]
– 1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
– 1/2 tsp. baking soda
– 1/2 tsp. salt
– 1/4 cup (half stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature
– 2 large eggs, at room temperature
– 1/3 cup full-fat sour cream
– 1/4 cup canola oil or vegetable oil
– 1 TBSP. pure (not imitation) vanilla extract
– 2/3 cup whole milk [I used 2%.]
– High-quality gel food coloring [I used the Spectrum brand, but the Americolor brand is great too. Wilton is also fine. I wouldn’t use liquid food coloring for this project.], in red, orange (or make your own orange, which is what I did), yellow, green, blue, and purple.

For the frosting: (Note: You may double this recipe, depending on how piled-high you like your frosting.)
– 1 1/2 cup powdered sugar [Add more until it reaches your preferred consistency.]
– 1/2 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
– 2 tsp. vanilla bean paste [Add more to taste.]
– 1 TBSP. milk

Instructions:
1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F. Line two 12-cup muffin tins with sixteen liners and set aside.
2. In a small bowl, combine the sugar and seeds from the vanilla bean. Using the back of a spoon, apply pressure to break up any clumps of seeds to infuse the vanilla flavor into the sugar. Set aside.
3. In a medium-sized bowl, or bowl of a stand mixer, whisk together the cake flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Add the vanilla bean sugar and mix until combined.
4. Add the butter and mix on medium-low speed for three minutes. You’ll end up with a fine, crumb-like texture.
5. In a small, separate mixing bowl, whisk together the eggs, sour cream, oil, and vanilla extract until the mixture is smooth.
6. Add the egg mixture to the flour mixture, and beat on medium speed until they’re just combined.
7. Slowly add the milk, and mix on low speed. Mix until just combined. The batter will be very liquid-y; this is okay.
8. To create the rainbow effect, evenly divide the batter into six small bowls. Add the desired amount of food coloring to each bowl and gently mix to get your six colors. Be careful to not overdo it with the food coloring; too much and it can make the final product taste bitter.
9. Carefully spoon each color in layers into the cupcake liners, filling until they’re about halfway full. [Alternatively, you can put each batter color into a small Ziplock bag, snip the corner of the bags, and pipe the colors in… That will make the layers more even, but I was too lazy to do that.]
10. Bake the cupcakes for 14 minutes, then test to see if they’re done. They are done when a toothpick comes out clean. The cupcakes won’t be super dark (although they won’t brown much anyway with the colors). Bake a bit longer for a minute to two minute increments until they’re done. Cool on a wire cooling rack.
11. To make the frosting: beat the butter for a few minutes until it’s light and fluffy. Carefully add the powdered sugar and vanilla bean paste (or extract), and beat until light and fluffy. Add milk to thin out the frosting to the desired consistency. Pipe or spread the frosting on the cupcakes as desired, and top with lots of colorful sprinkles! Enjoy.

Recipe Sources:
– Vanilla cupcake recipe from The Cupcake Project.
– Vanilla bean buttercream frosting recipe from The Cupcake Project.
– Rainbow cupcake tutorial from Dessert Now, Dinner Later.

March 22, 2015

Small Batch Vanilla Bean Cupcakes.

Have I mentioned how much I freaking love small batch recipes? Especially these days. As I have mentioned before on the ol’ blog, most of the time, my coworkers and friends reap the benefits of my baking shenanigans. However, there are times in which one of the following scenarios occur: a) I’m not in the mood to share; b) I just have a sweet tooth and need a quick but homemade fix [I’m pretentious like that, I guess]; c) I want sweets but do not need to eat ten cookies; d) I have no desire to frost more than four cupcakes; or e) all of the above.

Small batch recipes come in handy for all of the aforementioned situations. Now, I’m no recipe expert, so I generally don’t like to screw around with baked good recipes very often. Once I have made something a few times, I’ll make my own alterations, of course. And, I usually have no issue with cutting recipes in half. However, I am not quite brave enough to scale recipes way down. But that’s where the Dessert for Two blog comes to save the day. Christina – the blog’s author – has experimented with recipes enough to scale them down to make just enough tasty baked goods for herself and her man. Then she shares them with the world. I’m telling you, she’s a genius. Every recipe of Christina’s that I’ve ever tried has always impressed me, and I’m kind of hard to please when it comes to baked goods.

singlecupcake — [Do you see those little flecks of vanilla bean?! Love it.]

I have ~~stalked~~ followed Christina’s blog for quite awhile now, but I just recently purchased her new cookbook. These vanilla cupcakes are the first treat I decided to make from the book. As expected, they turned out awesome! Also, her cookbook is just lovely. It never really occurred to me until recently that no other such book really exists for small batch baking. And I think that it’s a really awesome concept, especially for bakeaholics such as myself. Sometimes it’s just really nice to bake only a few treats, and then enjoy them by myself [or I share with Brian when I really feel like it… hehe].

The cake is really tasty; it’s simple, which I love, and it’s just plain good. I whipped them up on my lunch break while I was working from home last week, and I just love how quick they are to make. These cupcakes get a bit more browned on the tops than I was expecting, but they are really good. I added vanilla bean paste to mine in lieu of the extract, just because I love those little vanilla bean flecks. I have a feeling that these cupcakes would do well with a few little adaptations, such as making small batch chai cupcakes, or perhaps small batch snickerdoodle cupcakes! Let’s just say that I’ve got some inspiration up my sleeve. 😉

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Small Batch Vanilla Bean Cupcakes.
Yield: Four regular-sized cupcakes.

Ingredients:
– 4 TBS. unsalted butter, at room temperature
– 1/4 cup granulated sugar
– 1 large egg white
– 1/2 tsp. vanilla bean paste [You can use vanilla extract in lieu of the paste, but I love using vanilla bean paste whenever I can! Note: The quantities of both are interchangeable.]
– 2 TBS. sour cream [I use whole fat sour cream. I’m just not about that non-fat stuff.]
– 6 TBS. all-purpose flour
– 1/2 tsp. baking soda
– Pinch of salt

Instructions:
1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F. Line a standard muffin tin with four cupcake liners [Note: Use the cups on the outside of the pan}, and set aside.
2. Using an electric hand mixer [Note: You can use a stand mixer; I did, because I’m lazy, but that’s kind of overkill for such a small amount of batter], cream together the butter and sugar until it’s light and fluffy.
3. Add the egg white, vanilla bean paste, and sour cream to the butter/sugar, and beat until combined.
4. Add the flour, baking soda, and salt into the wet ingredients, and mix until combined. Divide the batter among the four prepared cupcake liners. Bake the cupcakes for about 15-18 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean [or with a few moist crumbs]. Cool the cupcakes on a wire rack, then once they’re totally cooled, frost as desired. Enjoy!

Recipe Source(s):
– Vanilla cupcake recipe barely adapted from Dessert for Two: Small Batch Cookies, Brownies, Pies, and Cakes, by Christina Lane. She’s also the author of the lovely blog, Dessert for Two. I would highly recommend buying this cookbook, though. It’s totally worth it!
– Vanilla bean frosting recipe was basically just made up by me, but here’s an actual recipe that’s similar to what I did for the frosting.