too much of a good thing

is a really, really good thing. Last week combined two of my favorite things: baking and wedding (and baking for a wedding)! Oh, and birthday: the mid-20s have officially arrived, and I'm a little frightened but resolving to deal with it.

Wedding baking part 1: horseshoe palmiers

Yeah, these did not turn out as planned. I need me some Dufour Pastry to make these the proper, buttery way.

Despite the fact that they look like rapidly unraveling butterflies, Sammy wants in all the same.

Here's part 2: mini chocolate cupcakes with salted caramel frosting. Whereas part 1 was mostly failure, part 2 was mostly success, minus the repeat incident of neglecting to add sugar to the chocolate cake. Twice in four months?! Someone needs to revoke my hypothetical chocolate cupcake baking license. At any rate, batch #2 turned out just fine, and the salted caramel frosting was super yummy salty-sweet goodness.

Mascarpone brownies also emerged from the oven this week, as did berry buttermilk cake and oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. What can I say? When baking for important events, you want to pull out the very best (which occasionally makes your kitchen look like this)

Surprisingly, the most lauded baked good of the week were these...

Mmmmmhmmmm. These coconut bars hit all the right notes: snappy crust, nutty middle, a wonderfully textured topping. A note: the recipe is from America's Test Kitchen, which means that they've already done all the grunt work for you, tweaking the recipe and such. What's written below is practically perfect in every way. Need I say more?

Coconut Pecan Bars
(adapted slightly from The Best of America's Test Kitchen 2010)

Place an oven rack in the middle of your oven and preheat to 350. Line a 9x13 pan with foil and spray with Pam (I used the kind that has flour in it)

crust
2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup packed brown sugar (they call for dark; I used light)
1/2 cup pecans
1/4 teaspoon salt
10 tablespoons butter, cut into cubes and chilled

In a food processor, process the flour, sugar, pecans, and salt until the pecans are coarsely ground, 10-15 seconds. Add the butter and pulse until the mixture looks like coarse meal, 10-15 pulses. Press the mixture firmly into the prepared pan. Bake until golden brown, about 20 minutes. Cool on a wire rack while you make the topping and middle.

topping
1 1/2 cups sweetened shredded or flaked coconut
1 cup cream of coconut (you can find this in the liquor aisle by the stuff used to make pina coladas)

In a smallish bowl, stir together the shredded coconut and cream of coconut.

middle
2 eggs
3/4 cup brown sugar (again they call for dark; I used light)
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup pecans, toasted and chopped

In a medium bowl, whisk together the eggs, sugar, flour, baking powder, vanilla, and salt until smooth. Stir in the pecans, then pour the filling over the cooled crust. Dollop spoonfuls of the coconut topping over the top, and attempt to spread it evenly.

Bake until the topping is golden brown, 35-40 minutes. (Inevitably some of it will look kind of patchy and pale, but that's okay. Aim for some dark golden brown patches; that's good enough.) Cool on the same wire rack for 2 hours. Cut into bars and eat!! (These keep remarkably well for a number of days, either at room temperature or in the refrigerator.)

I was especially surprised because I used to hate coconut but I really love it now. Really really. As I referenced in last week's post...don't be surprised if all of a sudden coconut magically appears in your life to solve lots of your problems. The book calls these "dream bars", and for the record...yes, they are dreamy indeed.

son of a cream puff

First: the new face of cooking shows...you won't be sorry if you watch the entire ten minutes. Trust me on this.



(Note: chocolate chip cookie baking in my kitchen bears more than a slight resemblance to this video. Minus the gratuitous chocolate chip cramming in mouth part in the middle. Just kidding to both points. Although if you see me throwing my eggshells on the floor instead of in the trash can from now on, you know why.) (Favorite line at 2:51..."son of a biscuit", which I am totally going to start saying instead of, well you know. Not that I say that anyway. I hereby pronounce this little girl Sass Queen 2010.)

Where was I? Baking...the past week...oh yes. Our home hosted an "Iron Chef" competition last Thursday, which was messy good fun. 1 kitchen, 8 people, 2 teams, 2 bags of unknown groceries, 7 final dishes comprising 1 gut-busting meal. At the risk of sounding horribly bossy, I strongly suggest that you call up your friends now and set a date (this week?) for your own cooking party, competition optional. (This was way more enjoyable than I thought it would be!)

Random ingredient usage highlights: dried mango slices transformed into a cinnamon/nutmeg chutney? compote? of sorts, starfruit smashed into lemon vinaigrette for salad, stealing greens from the salad for pesto (remember, all's fair in love and pesto).

Of course I made dessert...the day before. (Loads of prior history dictates that dessert never be made in a hurry.) I will not bore you with the sordid details of my spotty record of successful pate a choux baking; just know that the record was spotty. But what to do with a dessert request--ignore it? Deny it? I swallowed my choux pastry fears and hopped to it.

A profiterole, if you've never had one before, is like the child of the cream puff...a beautiful, tiny, smothered in chocolate sauce cream puff child. Oh lordy. They're both made from choux pastry, which are those balls you see up there: dry and crusty on the outside, light and airy on the inside. Basically, a perfect vehicle for whipped cream (cream puff) or ice cream and chocolate sauce (profiterole). Relatively easy and super impressive. (Note: do not try to serve any more than two apiece to a person after an extremely large meal. Mild curse words may be tossed your way.)

Profiteroles
(adapted from Joy of Baking--this recipe is enormously informative and useful. Read the top part through; it'll tell you everything you need to know!)

1/2 cup all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup butter
1/2 cup water
2 eggs, lightly beaten

Preheat oven to 400 and position a rack in the center of the oven. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

In a medium bowl, sift together the flour, sugar, and salt.

In a heavy saucepan over medium heat, melt together the butter and water and bring to a boil. Remove from heat and add the flour mixture all at once. Returning to heat, stir vigorously with a wooden spoon until the mixture forms a smooth ball.

Transfer dough to the bowl of an electric mixer and with the paddle attachment, beat on low for a couple minutes to cool down the dough. (Alternately, beat on low with a hand mixer.) With the mixer still running, slowly stream in the eggs and continue beating until dough turns into a smooth paste. (It will look a little curdled and scary for a bit, but don't worry, just keep going.)

Spoon 12 mounds of dough onto the sheet (I found my medium sized cookie scoop worked great for these purposes). (You could also pipe it onto the sheet, but I would never ask you to do this.)

Bake for 15 minutes, then turn the oven temperature down to 350 and bake for another 30-40 minutes until the exterior of the little puffs are golden and the interior fairly dry. (To check, just slash one open and check.) Turn off the oven and leave the door slightly open for 10-15 minutes to let the puffs dry out, then remove from sheet to a cooling rack for an additional 5-10 minutes.

To serve, you can reheat them in a 350 degree oven for 5 minutes, then split open and fill with little scoops of vanilla ice cream. Drizzle warm chocolate sauce over the tops (or just make a pool of it on the plate) and be generous with it, please.

Okay so exciting: my very first cake decorating class starts tomorrow! You will definitely be reading all about it here, so get amped!!