Schardé's Sweet Teeth: Sidecar Doughnuts & Coffee

Sidecar Doughnuts & Coffee from Schardé Vallone on Vimeo.

            As a broadcast journalism student, I am required to participate in the university's news program. I have the opportunity to not only produce content, but also to anchor, produce, and help out behind the scenes.
            At the beginning of the semester, I decided to create a segment for the program called "Schardé's Sweet Teeth" in which I feature local bakeries and desserts. The title comes from the fact that I have such a sweet tooth, I must have more than one! Get it...?
            Here is the latest package I shot - enjoy! 

Vanilla-Scented Doughnut Holes

2 c. flour

1 tbsp. baking powder

1 tsp. salt

1/3 c. sugar

Grated zest of 1 small lemon

2 eggs

1/4 c. vegetable oil

1/4 c. water

Vegetable oil for frying

3/4 c. vanilla sugar* in a shallow bowl, for coating the doughnuts

1. In a medium-sized bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, and salt. Whisk to combine.
2. In a large bowl, combine the sugar and lemon zest. Rub them together with your fingertips until the sugar becomes moist and fragrant. Whisk in the eggs, vegetable oil, and water.
3. Pour the dry ingredients into the wet and mix them together with a rubber spatula until everything comes together in a smooth mixture.
4. Fill a small pot with about two inches of vegetable oil and heat over medium-high heat. You can tell if the oil is ready by dropping a tiny piece of the dough into the pot—if it immediately begins sizzle, then the oil is hot enough.
5. Using a small ice-cream scoop or two spoons, gently drop rounded portions of dough into the oil. Be sure not to overcrowd the pot. (If you’d like, you can roll the dough into neat spheres between slightly floured palms. Personally, I don’t mind irregularly shaped doughnuts.)
6. Cook the doughnuts until they are golden brown and cooked through, being sure to carefully flip them every so often so they don’t brown too much on one side. It should take about two minutes per side.
7. Take the doughnuts out of the oil and place them on a plate lined with a paper towel to blot off the excess oil. Quickly transfer the doughnuts to the bowl of vanilla sugar. Roll them around to coat, making sure they’re fully covered in sugar. These doughnuts are delicious both fresh from the oil and after they’ve cooled and set for a few hours.

*Vanilla sugar is simply granulated white sugar that has been marinating with a split vanilla bean until it becomes flavored and fragrant. It takes at least a couple of weeks. I keep a small jar of it in my pantry—when I start to run low, I simply top it off with more sugar and give it a good stir. If you’re in a pinch, you can place sugar in a food processor with a bit of the vanilla bean seeds and process until combined. These doughnuts would also be perfectly fine with plain granulated sugar. Conversely, you can stir in about a teaspoon of cinnamon into the sugar before coating the doughnuts.

A Sweet Feature: Naomi Robinson of Bakers Royale

I called Naomi Robinson on a Friday afternoon several weeks ago and caught her in the middle of baking a pumpkin cake—how apropos for a baking blogger.

            Robinson, 38, is the talent behind Bakers Royale. Based in Ladera Ranch, she created the three-year-old baking blog for fun in February 2010. It has since exploded. With 25,774 Facebook likes; 9,568 Twitter followers; 3,298 followers on Instagram and her food-porn photography floating all over Tumblr, Bakers Royale is every food blogger’s dream.

            “It’s stuff people are familiar with,” Robinson said when I asked why she thought her blog has become so popular. “I try to use ingredients that are easily sourced. I don’t use any special equipment that would be hard for the home baker to either source or buy or might be too expensive—I try to avoid those things.”

            Growing up in Fullerton, California, Robinson was raised in a Vietnamese family that did not do too much baking.

            “[Baking is] just something that I picked up later on—I think in my twenties,” said Robinson. “I just like food, and baking was one of those things that, you know, I can resonate to because it’s very methodical and measured.”

            Another thing Robinson just picked up? Photography.

“I’ve always really enjoyed photography. But I never started really getting into it until I started photographing for the blog,” Robinson said.

A self-taught photographer, she told me she went from using a point-and-shoot camera in her first year of blogging to a single-lens reflex (SLR) camera. From there, Robinson began buying various camera lenses and taking on freelance photography jobs. Now, some of her posts include food photography tips. One post features a tutorial on how to create backdrops to display baked goods to their best advantage, while another links to sites where her readers can find props similar to those Robinson uses in her own food photography. Indeed, Bakers Royale is a highly visual blog. Each post consists of several large, intensely vibrant photos sandwiched between a few lines of type.

“Because [blogging is] a visual medium, people aren’t smelling it, they’re not tasting it,” said Robinson. “So the first thing they’re going to do is—if it looks good—it’s, you know, going to sell the food. And I don’t mean it has to be a technically sound photo, it just—you have to make it look appetizing.”

And this she definitely does. Robinson even managed to capture appetizing images of a cake that she purposely smashed. Her coconut mango cake, posted on Bakers Royale in March of this year, had “assembly” issues, so the first picture readers see in this post is of a lightly frosted, eight-layer cake toppled and cracked against a slate-colored background amidst a heap of strewn flowers. Although her post refers to the presentation as “unorthodox” and “messy,” Robinson also calls it “an artistic choice” and writes that it still tastes “pretty fantastic.”

Of all the posts Robinson has created for Bakers Royale (she told me there are over 380) this coconut mango cake is her favorite. She liked each component of the recipe, from the coconut sponge cake to the mango curd, despite the fact that she was unable to get it to look the way she wanted. Robinson’s decision to photograph the cake anyway is, I believe, what makes her blog unique.

The “About” section of Bakers Royale proclaims that baking is about having fun and learning from failure. Although there are definite rules in baking, throwing out such conventions allows you to find creativity.

“Because I don’t have any formal training in baking, that really is my philosophy,” said Robinson. “…Of course there are certain principles you have to know to make a successful recipe, but you learn just as much from failures as successes. So for me it really is all about having fun, and even if you make mistakes—I’ve made mistakes. And then if it doesn’t look pretty, crumble up your cake and turn it into a trifle or something!”

Because Robinson has a family and full-time job, and still manages to update Bakers Royale three to four times a week, I asked her about her blogging process. She explained that she spends Thursday and Friday evenings baking and the weekends staging and shooting the pictures for each post. And for the last year, she has been receiving help from her husband, Matt, on the business end of running the blog. Robinson monetizes her blog, and although she would not disclose exactly how lucrative Bakers Royale is, she did tell me that her husband executes the advertisement networking and business prospecting.

“If you want to have a blog where it’s just, you know, kind of a journal of sorts—a blog journal—you probably don’t really care about…working with brands, having an ad network. I do,” Robinson said. “I monetize the blog and I enjoy it. So there are companies that I—we will go after, or they will come after us to work with them. And he handles all of that. He handles all the business end. And I do all the creative work.”

            But it seems that some work will be coming to stand still, as Robinson shared with me that she is eight weeks pregnant. In her post titled “Some Big News,” which appeared on her blog three days after our interview, Robinson explained that the smell of creamed butter and sugar makes her sick. She jokingly wrote that she fears this may be a sign that the new baby may not like sweets.

            Toward the end of our interview, I asked Robinson what her long-term goals are for Bakers Royale. It took her a few moments to think of an answer, but when she did, it reflected her honest passion for her craft.

            “You know, I like the part where I get to engage with the community,” Robinson said. “So that’s the nice part about it. So really, if I have to—one long-term plan is just for me to continue to engage my readers and grow my readership. Because that’s where my community is going to be.”

            

            Because Robinson told me that both her favorite and least favorite recipes posted to her blog involved coconut, I was inspired to play with the ingredient myself. What emerged was a cross between a chocolate-dipped coconut macaroon and a truffle. Sounds delicious, right? This recipe is simple but it took a bit of trial and error and some major rethinking on my part. There were several mistakes and mishaps, but it was fun being surrounded by so many varieties of ganache!

Coconut and Dark Chocolate Tartlets (Yield: about 6 tartlets)

Ingredients

2-1/2 c. sweetened shredded coconut

2 tbsp. sweetened condensed milk

1 egg white

1/4 tsp. salt

1-1/3 c. dark chocolate chips

1 c. heavy whipping cream

1. Preheat the oven to 325° F.
2. Put the coconut, egg white, sweetened condensed milk, and salt in the bowl of a food processor and pulse until the coconut is finely chopped.
3. Dampen a paper towel with a little bit of vegetable oil and rub it into the wells of six mini non-stick tart pans with removable bottoms. 
4. Place about four tablespoons of the coconut mixture (depending on the size of your pans) into each well and firmly press it into the bottom and up the walls of the tin to form the crust. You’ll want the majority of the mixture on the bottom in order to prevent cracks and holes from forming in the tartlet shells.
5. Put the pans onto a baking sheet and bake for 20-22 minutes, or until the edges of the tartlet shells are a light golden brown. Allow them to cool on the baking sheet for 10 minutes then remove the coconut crusts from the tins. Be very careful—the shells are delicate. You can leave the removable bottom of the pan on the coconut shell if you wish.
6.  Now make the chocolate ganache. Place the chocolate chips into a glass bowl and bring the cream to a boil in a small saucepan over medium-high heat.
7. Immediately pour the boiling cream over the chocolate chips. Allow it to sit for a minute, then gently whisk the chocolate and cream together until all the chocolate has melted and the ganache is smooth. (If the chips don’t completely melt, put the bowl over a pot with an inch or two of simmering water in it, and stir the ganache until everything is smooth.)
8. Spoon the ganache into the coconut shells. Refrigerate until the chocolate has hardened (the cold ganache will act as glue if your tartlet shells have cracked). Or eat them straightaway and enjoy being drenched in dark chocolate. It’s messy, but not unpleasant.

All Hallow's Eve

The witching hour is drawing nigh, and there is so much to do! Halloween cake baking, caramel apple making, jack-o’-lantern carving, and house decorating—it’s all so exciting!

But I have a confession to make. I hate being scared, which means that for the longest time, Halloween terrified me. In fact, it still does…just a bit. I hate horror movies, I don’t like haunted houses, and it takes a team to get me to ride the Haunted Mansion and Tower of Terror at Disneyland (and I’m only an embarrassment when I do).

I do, however, believe that I know the source of my fears. I am superstitious.

I grew up with a mother who told me all about her otherworldly encounters, and as I’ve grown up, I have experienced a few of my own as well. In fact, over the past couple of days, there has been a spectral visitor in my house. But I have been told not to worry—our spirit is friendly. We think it is my aunt, which makes sense because in my Catholic family, Halloween is just the beginning. Fright Night is followed by All Saints Day and All Souls Day. So how can celebrating three days of the dead not bring a spirit into the house?

But I am proud of myself. A few years ago, I took control of my Halloween experience and turned what I feel is a rather frightening night into an evening of gypsy revelry and magic. So, while my neighbors set up faux cemeteries and skeletons in their front yards (which I think is just asking for bad energy to enter your home), I light dozens of candles and hang lanterns at my door. And of course, I bake delicious treats. This year I’m creating a browned butter pumpkin cake with caramel cream cheese frosting.

“Pumpkin is certainly an American food,” said Cal State Fullerton humanities professor Dr. April Bullock. “Recipes for it do show up in early American cookbooks…it would have been served roasted or steamed along with eggs, rather like a custard, probably only slightly sweet.”

In fact, James McWilliams’ A Revolution in Eating cites Amelia Simmons’ American Cookery as the first introduction to “pompkin pie.” Simmons’ book, published in 1796, was the first American cookbook.

Hannah Glasse’s The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy (1805) listed a recipe for pumpkin pie as such:

"Take pumpkin and peel the rind off, then stew it till quite soft, and put thereto one pint of pumpkin, one pint of milk, one glass of Malaga wine, one glass of rose-water, if you like it, seven eggs, half a pound of fresh butter, one small nutmeg, and sugar and salt to your taste." (McWilliams, p. 312)

Although I won’t be pulling from such sources to make my pumpkin cake, I did alter recipes from both Martha Stewart and Ina Garten. And oh my goodness, this frosting! It is like a caramel cloud that melts into sweet sunshine in your mouth. I hope you like it as much as I do.

Browned Butter Pumpkin Cake with Fluffy Caramel Cream Cheese Frosting

Salted Caramel Sauce (Yield: 2 cups – You’ll have extra to use for drizzling apple dipping!)

1-1/2 c. granulated sugar

1/3 c. water

1-1/4 c. heavy whipping cream

1 tsp. vanilla extract

1 tsp. fleur de sel

1. Combine the water and sugar in a large saucepan (emphasis on “large”—some scary/exciting bubbling action will occur later) and cook over low heat until the sugar dissolves (5-10 minutes). Stir the mixture with a heatproof rubber spatula every once in a while.
2. Turn the heat to medium and boil the sugar and water until it turns a warm coppery color, gently swirling the pan every so often. This should take another five to seven minutes. You don’t want the sugar to burn, but the darker the sugar is, the richer the flavor of the caramel.
3. Take the pot off the heat. And here comes the partly-terrifying-but-extremely-awesome part: stand back and gently pour in the cream.  It will immediately bubble and expand…A LOT.
4. Put the pot back on the burner over low heat and let the caramel simmer for a couple minutes, stirring constantly, until the caramel is smooth.
5. Pour the sauce into a glass bowl and stir in the vanilla and fleur de sel. Let your caramel sit at room temperature for at least four hours to cool and thicken. 

Cake

2 c. all-purpose flour

1 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. salt

1 tsp. cinnamon

1 tsp. ground ginger

1 tsp. cardamom

1 c. brown sugar

1 c. granulated sugar

2 sticks butter

4 eggs

1 15-oz. can of pumpkin puree (1 ¾ c. pumpkin puree)

1. Preheat the oven to 350°, then butter and flour two 8” round cake pans.
2. Melt the two sticks of butter in a saucepan over medium heat, swirling the pan every so often. Once melted, continue to let it cook until the butter starts to brown. You will see little sandy granules start to settle at the bottom and the butter will smell nutty and amazingly delicious. Once it is golden, take it off the heat. Pour the butter into a large glass bowl (making sure to get all the browned bits) and set aside to cool.
3. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, ginger, and cardamom.
4. In the butter bowl, mix in the two sugars and the eggs. Then pour in the dry ingredients and whisk until it just blends into the wet ingredients.
5. Fold in the pumpkin puree with a rubber spatula until the batter is uniform. Be careful not to over-mix the batter.
6. Divide the batter evenly between the two cake pans. Swirl the pans and tap them against your counter a couple of times to evenly spread the batter and release any air bubbles.
7. Bake 30-32 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean.
8. Allow the cake to cool completely in the pans and then invert them onto a wire rack. 

Fluffy Caramel Cream Cheese Frosting

1 8-oz. package of cream cheese, at room temperature

1 c. salted caramel sauce

2 c. whipping cream

1. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a whisk attachment, beat together the cream cheese on medium speed until smooth.
2. Turn off the mixer and pour in the caramel sauce. Continue mixing until combined.
3. Pour the whipping cream in the bowl and mix on low speed until incorporated into the mixture. Once combined, turn the mixer on high and continue beating until the icing becomes light and fluffy and it holds a peak.

Assemble the cake and drizzle with more caramel sauce!

Bellies and Baklava

            Two weekends ago, I had the opportunity to belly dance at a carnival. I channeled my inner gypsy and danced to the spellbinding rhythms of a live drumming band. I can now check off one item from my list of life goals.

Despite the unfortunate fact that I was nauseous with nervousness the entire day, my time on stage was like a dream. I could smell the sun on the grass as the wind wound its fingers through my hair. The drummers played a beat that echoed the pulse of my heart. When my hips shimmied, the coins strung around me rang out across the stage and glimmered in the sunshine. And when I threw my head back and raised my arms to the heavens, the sky above me was deliciously blue.

There is something very elemental and eternal about belly dancing. I feel like it gives me a deep connection with myself as well as with the generations of women before me who have danced the same way. The hours of choreographing and rehearsal only served to make that connection even more profound—it was such a labor of love. But as I practiced and imagined the feeling of a hot desert wind across my skin (visualization is very important to me), I began to have a rather intense craving—a craving for BAKLAVA.

I love baklava. It is nutty, sticky, crunchy paradise.

            According to cookbook author and anthropologist Claudia Roden, baklava—the most well known of Middle Eastern desserts—first came to the region some time during the Ottoman Empire. In her cookbook The New Book of Middle Eastern Food, she writes that this ubiquitous treat is served during special occasions and is considered “a token of love to the departed” when devoured during festivities commemorating the dead. (If I am lucky, my baklava will please the little ghosties floating around this Halloween.)

            The first time I tasted baklava was when my neighbors—an elderly Egyptian couple—brought my family a plate. My parents weren’t crazy about it, which left more for me. How serendipitous.

After that, I began to order baklava at every Greek and Persian restaurant I went to. I was, more often than not, disappointed. I couldn’t help it! I was already spoiled. There simply is no substitute for homemade baklava—especially when it comes from a woman who has been baking it for years. In fact, I would not be surprised if she learned how to make baklava from her mother, who learned from her mother. So who knows how old her recipe is? I’ll have to find out some day. But in the meantime, I decided to make baklava myself.

To create this recipe, I consulted a variety of sources, including Giada De Laurentiis, Alton Brown, Michael Symon, and Claudia Roden. Then I tweaked the resulting recipe until it suited my own preferences. I would say this baklava is mostly Greek, with a very slight hint of Iran and Iraq (due to the almonds and cardamom) as well as a touch of Israel (because of the orange and lemon in the syrup).

Thankfully, my parents love this baklava recipe! As I am an only child, I usually cut this recipe in half. It gets demolished within a couple of days, but I do it for our own good. This time, however, I am sharing with more than just two other people and my belly dance-induced craving. I will be gifting this baklava to the sweet, sweet people who have helped me get this baking blog out of the tortuously windy and frenzied corners of my mind and into my own little space of the Internet. So a full pan of baklava, it is!

I only wish I had made this baklava sooner. My pre-performance hours should have been spent eating baklava. It is so delicious that it probably would have made me less nervous.

Baklava (Yield: about 38 pieces)

Ingredients

1/2 c. walnuts

1/2 c. almonds

1/4 c. chopped dried apricots

2 tbsp. light brown sugar

1/4 c. plain dry bread crumbs

1-1/2 tsp. cinnamon

1/4 tsp. ground cloves

1/4 tsp. ground cardamom

1/2 tsp. salt

33 sheets of phyllo dough, thawed*

1/2 c. vegetable oil

Syrup

1-1/4 c. honey

1-1/4 c. water

1-1/4 c. sugar

1 2-inch piece of fresh lemon peel, pith removed*

1 2-inch piece of fresh orange peel, pith removed*

*Note: Thaw the phyllo dough by leaving it in the refrigerator over night. When assembling the baklava, keep the phyllo dough covered with a slightly damp tea towel, as it dries out quickly. It is also very, very delicate and rips easily. In regards to the citrus peels used in the syrup, make sure the pith is entirely removed. The pith is the white spongy part beneath the peel. It is very bitter! You don’t want that in your baklava syrup. After cutting the peel away from the lemon and orange flesh, take a paring knife and run it across the back of the peel, until only the outer skin remains.

1.  Combine the nuts, apricots, sugar, breadcrumbs, spices, and salt in a food processor. Process until you have a relatively fine and uniform meal-like consistency. Be careful that it doesn’t become a paste! Set aside.
2. Preheat the oven to 350° F. Using a pastry brush, brush the bottom of a 9×13” pan with a little bit of vegetable oil.
3. Layer 10 sheets of phyllo dough in the pan, one at a time, brushing each with oil and letting the edges of the phyllo come up the sides of the baking pan.
4. Sprinkle one-fourth (about 1/2 c.) of the nut mixture evenly over the top.
5. Layer four more sheets of phyllo over the nuts—again, brush each individual sheet with oil. Repeat this process until you use the last quarter of the nut mixture.
6. After using the last of the nuts and spices, top the baklava with 11 sheets of phyllo, brushing each with oil. Brush the last sheet with extra oil.
7. Using a sharp knife, cut 1-1/2” wide strips, slicing through all the layers. Then make 1-1/2” diagonal slices. This will give you beautiful diamond-shaped pieces of baklava.
8. Bake for 45 minutes, flipping the pan around halfway through so that it doesn’t get too browned on one side. Meanwhile, make the syrup.
9. Combine the honey, sugar, water, and lemon and orange peels in a saucepan. (*Hint!* When measuring the honey, use the same measuring cup you used to measure the vegetable oil—it will allow the honey to slide right out, without too much stickage.) Set over high heat and bring to a boil, stirring until the sugar dissolves. Let boil for 10 minutes, stirring and watching it closely, as it tends to bubble over. Take off the heat and discard the lemon and orange peels.
10. Once the baklava comes out of the oven, pour the syrup over the top. And, trust me, this is the hardest part—let the baklava soak in the syrup, uncovered, for six hours. I usually can’t wait that long, but if you have more self-restrain than I do, wait those six hours. In fact, baklava is always better the next day.
11. Before serving, go back over the lines you cut into the baklava before baking.