Tortilla de patata or Spanish tortilla

It's been a while since I've written a blog post and I suppose that's a good thing since it means I was studying hard for finals.  But, now that they're over, I wanted to post the recipe for something which is (finally) a non baked good and Spanish.  I did, after all, study in Spain for six months and take a cooking class while there.   In fact, I got the recipe for Spanish tortilla from the cooking school we went to as a group in Madrid.  The only problem is, it's only a good recipe in terms of portions. The real reason I know the whole procedure for making them is the maid who came to my host mom's apartment every couple of weeks.  My host mom insisted they were the best so one day I decided to watch how she did it.

Since then, much to my surprise, I've found cause for making tortilla española fairly often. Like a large and very thick omlette made with potatoes and eggs, the Spaniards often cut it into small slices or squares and eat it for tapas.   It is also very common for it to be made at home and simply eaten as part of the meal.   My first opportunity to make it came when my housemate, Charlie, and I prepared Spanish food.  Our meal was Spanish from start to finish and consisted of paella (vegetarian and meat), tortilla española, and arroz con leche.  Then, since I am also a Student Advisor for the Madrid Study Abroad program, my fellow SA and I purchased tortilla española or tortilla de patata (that's what they call it in Spain) for our cultural orientation.  However, for our final event of the quarter before the Madrid group goes abroad for the the winter, Nick and I decided to try our hand at making the tortilla. The results were quite good and it's not as difficult to make as you might think. The hardest part is flipping the tortilla (a fact Nick discovered when he dropped one on the floor) so I would recommend using a small, very non-stick pan to flip.  Otherwise, you'll end up with tortilla on your floor or stuck to your pan.

Tortilla de patata or Tortilla española (Recipe translated and lightly adapted from Cocina Cayena)

Yield: about 2-3, 9-inch tortillas

Ingredients
2.5 pounds of potatoes (brown russet potatoes work fine for this)

8 eggs

1 onion

3 cups of extra virgin olive oil

salt to taste

pepper (optional)

Directions

1) Peel and wash the potatoes. Using the widest opening of a box grater, grate the potatoes into thin slices. Set aside. Next, slice the onion into thin strips.

2) Combine the potatoes, onion, and salt in a large pan and add olive oil almost to cover. (I know, it looks like a heart stopping amount of olive oil, but trust me, it's necessary. And besides, no one ever said this was a healthy recipe, though I bet you didn't know it was this bad for you!) Stirring often, allow the potatoes and onions to simmer in the olive oil for about 30 minutes or until potatoes are tender.  Stir occasionally to make sure the potatoes and onions don't stick to the pan

3) Once cooked, dump the potatoes, onions, and obscene amounts of olive oil, into a paper-towel lined colander to drain.

4) In a large bowl (large enough to combine the eggs and the potato mixture) whisk 8 eggs with some pepper to taste. Though the Spanish would never use pepper since they can't handle even the remotest bit of spice, I like to add a bit.

5) Add the drained potatoes a bit at a time to the eggs, careful not to cook the eggs as the potato mixture will still be hot. Mix well.

6) In an 8 or 9 inch non-stick skillet (really make sure it's non-stick!!), heat a tablespoon of olive oil over medium heat. Swirl skillet to coat.

7) With a ladle, add about 1/3 of the egg and potato mixture to the pan. Stirring very slightly in the middle (be sure not to break through the bottom layer) continue until the egg is cooked about halfway through along the edges.

8) Using a large plate, cover the pan and carefully but quickly flip the tortilla onto the plate. Then very carefully slip it back into the pan, uncooked side down.  Return to flame.

9) Continue cooking over low to medium heat until it is cooked through.

10) Once it's done, slip it onto a large plate. Make the other 1 or 2 (depending on the size of your pan) and cut into squares or slices to serve.  

Chocolate Stout Cake

Things have been super busy this quarter and as you can see by the frequency of my posts, it's been a while since I've had the chance to bake.  But, there was a need with it being one of my best friend's birthdays.  I missed his birthday last year as a result of being abroad, so I decided I need to make up for it this year in the form of a cake.  Since the birthday I'd missed was his 21st, I thought I'd make this cake to show Kyle that I hadn't forgotten that I still owed him a drink. The resolution: make a chocolate stout cake.

In addition to being pretty delicious and quite moist (I am always afraid of overbaking cakes) it was pretty simple to make. It also looked pretty nice, that is until I decided to add some lettering to the cake. I tried to practice beforehand, but my lettering still needs some work (there's a reason the lettered version isn't up here). I guess I'll just have to keep making birthday cakes in order to improve!

Chocolate Stout Cake (Lightly adapted from the Smitten Kitchen)

Ingredients:
1 cup stout beer (such as Guinness)
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder (preferably Dutch-process)*
2 cups all purpose flour (I used half whole wheat flour and half all purpose since it was all we had)
2 cups sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
3/4 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs
2/3 cup sour cream (I used 1/3 cup plain yogurt and 1/3 cup crème fraiche because it was also all we had)

*Recipes always say this and I always ignore it because I don't have the money to buy Dutch-process and my co-op has a perfectly acceptable billion pound bag of cocoa. But one day, I'll buy it. If you do use Dutch-process cocoa, let me know how it works out.

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350°F. Butter or spray a bundt pan well; make sure you get in all of the nooks and crannies. (Some people even go so far as to brush the inside of their bundt pans with melted butter–you cannot be too careful!). Bring 1 cup stout and 1 cup butter to simmer in a medium size saucepan over medium heat. Add cocoa powder and whisk until mixture is smooth. Cool slightly.
Whisk flour, sugar, baking soda, and 3/4 teaspoon salt in a large bowl. Using electric mixer, (I almost never use one and it still comes out well) beat eggs and sour cream in another large bowl to blend. Add slightly cooled stout-chocolate mixture to egg mixture and beat just to combine. Add flour mixture and beat briefly on slow speed. Using rubber spatula, fold batter until completely combined (Do not overmix!). Pour batter into prepared pan. Bake cake until tester inserted into center comes out clean, about 35 minutes. Transfer cake to rack; cool completely in the pan (be sure it's really completely cool or you might get chunks of cake stuck to your pan!), then turn cake out onto rack for drizzling ganache.

Ganache:
Ingredients:
6 ounces good semisweet chocolate chips
6 tablespoons heavy cream
3/4 teaspoon instant coffee granules (We didn't have any instant coffee, so I skipped this and just made regular ganache.)

Directions:
For the ganache, melt the chocolate, heavy cream, and coffee in the top of a double boiler over simmering water until smooth and warm, stirring occasionally. Drizzle over the top of cooled cake.

Cake Balls!

After making tons of cupcakes, I, not surprisingly, had some leftover frosting. In the kitchen, scraping out the bowl of the enormous mixer in my house, I was torn with what to do with my frosting. Meanwhile, next to me was Scott, one of my housemates and another of the dessert makers for our Special Dinner mentioned in my Coconut Cupcakes post. He was, rapidly, assembling his delicious berry trifle and said offhandedly that he had a lot of cake and didn't know what to do with it. He'd already cut the cake into small squares so simply frosting it was out, and then suddenly an it occurred to me, it was obvious. Extra cake, extra frosting, make cake balls! All I needed was the chocolate for the coating. We were all out of chocolate chips in my house so I hunted around and managed to find some extra bars of Hershey's Dark Chocolate. Perfect. Though the texture was a little bit odd because of the kind of cake I used, I wasn't sure how they would turn out. Much to my surprise, however, the reviews were awesome because according to my roommate, Joanna, “of course they'll be good, they're cake and frosting dipped in chocolate!” Good point.

A note about the recipe, I discovered it last summer when I was on a huge baking spree and decided to make some cake balls with leftover red velvet cake that didn't turn out so well (I over baked it) but in the end, the cake balls were delicious. So my conclusion, cake balls are a perfect and delicious way to correct or recycle a botched cake. Or just fun to make.

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Cake Balls (adapted from Bakerella)

Ingredients
One 13 X 9 cake
16 oz of cream cheese frosting (see the frosting recipe from Coconut Cupcakes)
2 cups of chocolate, separated (milk, white, or dark chocolate)
Parchment paper

Directions
1. Cool cake completely and crumble into a large bowl.
2. Add 16 oz of cream cheese frosting and mix with the cake. (Even though it's messy, it's easier to mix it with your hands)
3. Roll mixture into 1 inch balls (as though you're making meatballs) and place on cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. (It should make 45-50 balls)
4. Chill for several hours. (You can speed this up by putting in the freezer.)
5. Using a double boiler, melt enough chocolate to dip half of the balls in chocolate, about a cup. Then, melt more chocolate for the rest of the chocolate balls. (I like to melt it in two batches because the chocolate firms up pretty quickly and it's difficult to work with)
6. Roll balls in chocolate and lay on cookie tray with parchment paper until firm. (Use a spoon to dip and roll in chocolate)

Coconut Cupcakes

Living a in a co-op has meant some pretty good meals so far this year including: bison steaks, filet mignon, smoked salmon, the list goes on. For college kids, we may eat too well. But the most amazing meal came from our special dinner. It's a dinner that on campus houses have once a quarter. Most houses have a chef and he or she will cook up amazing food like steak, lobster, tuna steaks, duck etc. It's really quite absurd. But since we're a co-op and cook everything ourselves. I wasn't exactly sure what to expect. But people really outdid themselves. Our dinner consisted of but was not limited to smoked salmon, ribs, fig and mushroom galette, risotto, two kinds of fresh bread, potato salad, hummus, tomato, mozzarella and basil, steak, prosciutto wrapped melon, tacos de lengua and al pastor, fresh bread topped with cheese and caramelized onions, salad with homemade crutons, and I'm sure I'm forgetting something else. I, of course, volunteered to make dessert. Wanting to make something fun, somewhat gourmet, and not too complicated I finally decided on making Ina Garten's (aka The Barefoot Contessa) Coconut Cupcakes. My godmother made them for the first time a few years ago and they've been in a hit in our family ever since. So I figured, why not? And in fact, they turned out pretty well. I was concerned about doubling the recipe, whether I had enough time to make them in the two hours I had before dinner (I'm now even more in awe of the people who are able to make 1000 cupcakes and put them on a stand on Cupcake Wars in just 2 hours, I think) and whether or not I would produce enough cupcakes since we were supposed to scale for 80 people instead of 40 as we do for a regular meal. But, shockingly, I ended up with 70 cupcakes which was more than plenty for the number of people at dinner who still had room for dessert after dinner and chose my cupcakes over the delicious berry-rum trifle and strawberry shortcake. They were also fun to make and I got to use a pastry bag to pipe the frosting out onto the cupcakes which made them look (I hope) pretty classy.

Coconut Cupcakes (by The Barefoot Contessa)

Ingredients:
3/4 pound (3 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
2 cups sugar
5 extra-large eggs at room temperature
1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1 1/2 teaspoons pure almond extract
3 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1 cup buttermilk
14 ounces sweetened, shredded coconut

Directions:
1) Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F.
2) In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream the butter and sugar on high speed until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes. With the mixer on low speed, add the eggs, 1 at a time, scraping down the bowl after each addition. Add the vanilla and almond extracts and mix well.
3) In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. In 3 parts, alternately add the dry ingredients and the buttermilk to the batter, beginning and ending with the dry. Mix until just combined. Fold in 7 ounces of coconut. (A bit less could be used)
4) Line a muffin pan with paper liners. Fill each liner to the top with batter. (I would suggest filling just 2/3 of the way full, you get more cupcakes and if you fill them to the top they'll overflow) Bake for 25 to 35 minutes, until the tops are brown and a toothpick comes out clean. Allow to cool in the pan for 15 minutes. Remove to a baking rack and cool completely.

Frosting
Ingredients
1 pound cream cheese at room temperature
3/4 pound (3 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon pure almond extract
1 1/2 pounds confectioners' sugar, sifted

Directions
In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, on low speed, cream together the cream cheese, butter, and vanilla and almond extracts. Add the confectioners' sugar and mix until smooth.
On a rimmed baking sheet, evenly spread the remaining coconut and toast, in the oven, until lightly golden.  Frost the cupcakes and sprinkle with the toasted coconut.

Lemon Butter Cookies

 

A few weeks ago we had our first progressive in our new on-campus house. Our staff pleaded for people to make food, and not just drinks, so my roommate, Joanna, and I happily obliged. Not having ordered any ingredients for our cookies we decided to just make something that we had the ingredients for in the house. Coincidentally, someone had bought cake flour from the store on just that day so we decided to use it, against the advice of one of the best cooks in the house. It turned out just fine and in fact, making the orange (original) version of these one day this summer, I used regular flour and it produced equally good results. So don't worry, if you have some cake flour to spare, by all means use it, if not they'll still come out beautifully. In any case, our wonderful new house, which is actually a co-op, was filled with all the ingredients we needed, including the lemons we used which were provided by our own lemon trees! We also decided to put a little twist on these cookies and were going to turn them into thumbprint cookies but discovering the softness of the dough (these cookies spread a lot) we decided to just simply frost them with some of the delicious jams we have in the house. A thin layer of raspberry or blackberry jam made for delectable little cookies which our housemates raved about. I also think you could make these in so many ways with all different types of citrus and even have lemon cookies with lime frosting, etc. The possibilities are endless!

Lemon Butter Cookies (adapted from The New York Times)
Yield: About 4 dozen cookies (or maybe 5 dozen if you make them as small as we did)

Ingredients
1 3/4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1 2/3 cups cake flour or more all-purpose flour (cake flour gives a finer texture)
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 1/4 cups granulated sugar
1 cup (2 sticks) cold unsalted butter
2 packed teaspoons freshly grated lemon zest
1 large egg plus 2 large egg yolks, at room temperature

Directions
1. Position two oven racks in top and bottom third of oven. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line two cookie sheets with parchment paper.
2. In a bowl, whisk flours, baking soda and salt together. In a mixer, cream together the sugar, butter and orange zest at medium speed until light and smooth, about 3 minutes. Scrape down the sides of bowl frequently. Add egg and mix. Add one egg yolk and mix. Add remaining egg yolk and mix. Stir in dry ingredients just until combined.
3. Scoop tablespoons of dough onto parchment, leaving more than 1 inch between cookies. Press each one down lightly with 2 fingers to flatten to a thickness of 1/2 inch. Leave any ridges and valleys on top of cookie intact, but smooth the edges.
4. Bake about 15 minutes, rotating cookie sheets halfway through. Cookies should be pale but baked all the way through. Cool on sheets 5 minutes, then transfer to a rack and cool before storing in airtight containers up to 1 week.

Icing
Ingredients
1 lemon
1 1/2 cups confectioners’ sugar
2 to 4 tablespoons whole milk
2 drops almond or vanilla extract
Pinch fine salt.

Directions
1.Bring a small pot of water to a boil. Peel orange, being careful to remove only outer lemon zest, and cut into thin strips. Blanch in boiling water 1 minute; drain.
2.Sift confectioners’ sugar into a bowl. Whisk in 2 tablespoons milk. Whisk in more milk if needed to make mixture thin enough to spread.
3. Add extract, salt and zest, and whisk to combine.
4.Place cookies on a rack and drizzle icing over each one (make sure there is some lemon zest in each spoonful). Icing will settle into cookie crevices; let harden.
Note: Instead of icing, cookies can be sprinkled with coarse crystal sugar before baking.
Or you can do what we did and spread them with a thin layer of raspberry or blackberry jam.

Chocolate Shortbread Sandwich Cookies with Vanilla Frosting

My friend, Micah, concluded the other day that if I ever have a significant other and fight with him, our fights will go something like this "No, insert name, you're not frosting those cookies right". I didn't dispute his claim then and I certainly can't dispute his claim now because that's exactly what happened to Micah when I was making these cookies. Poor Micah, he was just trying to help. But I, as always, wanted my cookies made exactly according the the recipe, down to the round cookies which are shown in the picture. The idea of making round cookies with few kitchen supplies brought up yet another kitchen gadget I need to invest in. Cookie cutters. Oh well, I got by anyway using the round top of my newly purchased vanilla bean paste and a knife to cut circles around it. To my shock and pleasure the cookies came out pretty well, nice and round. And I filled them with frosting just the way I wanted them. And I must say, it looks a little better to have piped the frosting into the middle of these cookies than to have spread it. Plus it was more fun. For me at least. Sorry Micah.

A note on the frosting, though it calls for just a small amount of butter and if the butter is not completely melted, this will not turn into frosting. Just chunks of butter and confectioners sugar. Normally, I would have added a bit of milk to it to make it work but having no milk in the house I had to add some extra melted butter.  (I know I know, more butter, not good) But, after that, it turned out just fine.  Also, aside from using the top of the vanilla paste I recently bought, is used it to make this frosting amazingly delicious and vanilla-y.  It also lent flecks of vanilla to the frosting which are hard to make out in the picture but looked really nice, and gives the impression that you used a real vanilla bean.  I highly recommend it.

I also want to add that the perks of working for a winery just never end, I found this recipe on the website of another winery which I wouldn't have know about otherwise. On their website they have all kinds of delicious looking gourmet recipes with beautiful pictures and selections for wine pairings, though you should really try to pair your creations with our Kingston Family Vineyards wines! (Shameless plug)

Chocolate Shortbread Sandwich Cookies with Vanilla Frosting (adapted from Robert Sinskey)

Ingredients:
1 stick unsalted butter, room temperature
1/2 cup powdered sugar, sifted
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/3 cup Dutch processed or natural cocoa powder, sifted (I think we may have just used Hershey's)
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

Directions:
1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
2. In a stand mixer, fitted with a paddle attachment, or just using a regular hand mixer, ream the butter until fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add the powdered sugar and beat until fluffy again. Add the vanilla extract to the mixture and then the cocoa powder. Beat until combined.
3. Scrape down the sides of the bowl. Add the flour and salt and mix gently until incorporated. The dough will be very soft and slightly sticky. Knead the dough two or three times on a lightly floured board to incorporate all the ingredients. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and chill for 40 minutes or until no longer soft. 
4. Remove the dough from the refrigerator.  Place the dough on a floured surface and roll 1/8 thick.  (Though this may seem extremely thin, it's important because the cookies will puff up and if you make them too thick you'll end up with super fat sandwich cookies instead of the thin, delicate ones pictured here)  Using a round cookie cutter, punch out shapes.  Transfer to a parchment lined sheet pan.
5. Bake for 12 to 15 minutes . Remove the cookies from the baking sheet and cool on a rack.
6. Make sure the shortbread is thoroughly cool before filling. To fill, put the vanilla cream filling into a pastry bag with a number 6 plain tip or a plastic bag with the tip of a corner cut off so that the opening is 1/2-inch wide.
6. Line up 16 cookies so that the side that was baked against the pan is facing up. Starting with one cookie, pipe a thick ring about 1/8 of an inch from the edge of the cookie. Fill in the center of the ring with a dot of filling and place another cookie on top of the filling. Press lightly until the filling oozes almost to the edge of the cookie. Repeat with the remaining cookies.

Vanilla Cream Filling
Ingredients:
4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract (I used some vanilla paste)
1/8 teaspoon kosher salt
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons powdered sugar

Directions:
1. Place all the ingredients in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment.
2. Start on slow speed to combine the ingredients, and then increase the speed to high and beat until the filling is very white and fluffy, 3 to 4 minutes.
3. Place the filling in a piping bag or plastic zip lock bag with the corner cut off to pipe into cookies. The leftover filling may be chilled and reused again. Wrap very tightly and store in the refrigerator. To reuse, bring to room temperature and then whip until fluffy again.

Chinese Scallion Pancakes (Finally, something not a dessert!)

The other day, Dan sent me a message and a link for making these flaky fried pancake things that we had tried.  He bought them and they were delicious so I was excited to make them myself.  Rolling them out reminded me of making tortillas with my grandmother and I was so proud that after a few tries I was able to make these great pancakes into perfect round circles.  A far cry from the Africa shaped tortillas we used to make with her.  Too bad they weren't her tortillas though. Or maybe not, because they were good but perhaps not nearly as bad for you as her tortillas.  That is until you fry these things.  Not in too much oil but enough to make these completely unhealthy for you.   Oh well.   In any case, the sauce for these is really what made them.  The girl who wrote this recipe sort of offhandedly wrote down some ratios of what to what would make a good sauce, and boy were her estimations right on.  So when making these, definitely don't forget the sauce or you'll be missing something.

Chinese Scallion Pancakes (adapted from Sel et Sucre)
Yield: 6 pancakes

Ingredients
2 cups flour
1/4 cup warm water + more as needed
the green parts of 1 bunch scallions, finely chopped
vegetable oil
kosher salt

Directions
1. In a large bowl, mix 2 cups flour with 1/4 cup warm water, and stir until water is absorbed. Continue adding more warm water one teaspoon at a time, mixing thoroughly, until dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl. The dough should be firm and barely sticky to the touch.
2. Knead the dough about twenty strokes, then cover with a damp towel for 15 minutes.
3. Divide the dough until 5 or 6 equal pieces and roll each piece into a ball.
4. Place a ball of dough on a well-floured work surface and roll out into a thin circle, approximately 1/16th inch thick. (this part was a bit tough for my weak arms!)
5. Brush a thin coating of vegetable oil over the pancake. Sprinkle kosher salt (be sure not to forget the salt! I did and some weren't as tasty) and about 1 – 2 Tbsp of the green parts of 1 bunch scallions, finely chopped evenly over the pancake.
6. Roll the pancake up from one end like a rug, then curl the roll around in a spiral and pinch the end to the roll so it stays wrapped.*
7. With the palm of your hand, press the roll from the top to flatten it. Roll the pancake out to 1/8th inch thickness (some scallions may break through the pancake, but that’s okay).
8. Repeat this process for the remaining pancakes. If you are not planning on cooking the pancakes right away, stack them between wax or parchment paper and store in a gallon bag in the freezer until ready to cook. The frozen pancakes do not need to be defrosted before being cooked.
9. To cook the pancakes, coat a pan with vegetable oil and heat over medium heat. Cook each pancake in the oil, frying each side until golden brown, adding more oil as needed. Serve warm with a dipping sauce.*

*This is difficult to explain without pictures, so I would go here to see the step photos of the assembly.

Dipping Sauce
Ingredients
2 tablespoons Soy Sauce
1 tablespoon Rice Vinegar
1 tablespoon brown sugar (trust me, it tastes good)
A dash of sesame oil
Leftover scallions

Directions
1) Combine all ingredients in a small bowl and whisk with a fork.
2) Serve with the warm Chinese Scallion Pancakes.