Alice Medrich |

Win Two Great Cookbooks -Share Your Holiday Cookie Recipe

I believe December should be declared as the “Month of Cookies.” I think you can guess why? As far as I remember, years back from the day of my arrival to this wonderful country to date, people like to bake a variety of cookies for Christmas rather than cakes or other desserts.

I assume one of the reasons is that it is easier to create a variety of cookies as compared to cakes, pies and other sweets. During this holiday people like to have more than just a single cake, because this is also “a visiting season”. We all expect visits from families and friends, bringing presents for the kids and just finding the opportunity to reconnect. The tradition in my family (which goes from generation to generation) is to treat my guests by setting up a dessert table next to a great cup of cappuccino, tea, or champagne – or all three. Do you have a similar tradition? If not, could you share with me yours?

Another reason is kids. Both, Christmas and Chanukah can be declared the holiday of kids; they can’t wait for the day and the minute when they can tear the wrapping paper from the boxes under the tree (or next to Menorah) and expose the content. Once they are satisfied with the gifts, the next thing they want to enjoy is a homemade cookie with a glass of milk.

So, that is why I’d like to invite you to share your favorite cookie recipe and photograph, and then browse to see what others sent in. You may be inspired by baking something you have never baked or not familiar with, or you may find a lost recipe

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How Alice Medrich’s Tiger Cake Changes When Baked in Different Bakewares

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Tiger Cake By Alice Medrich with a little twist by Georgette

Plese Note: There was an error in the recipe. The eggs were left out. It is corrected now. Sorry about the mishap.

This last weekend I needed to have a fast dessert for a birthday party, so based on my experience (meaning something that I baked multiple times) I selected the Tiger Cake from Alice Medrich’s cookbook, titled: “Bittersweet.” Although this cake is not known to be the prototype for a “speedy gonzales” preparation, I thought my extensive experience in working with this recipe will overcome all other issues. BTW, it is actually a chocolate marble cake that uses extra virgin olive oil instead of butter, which makes my health-conscious relatives less guilty eating it; after all olive oil is good for you.

The recipe also calls for a pinch of white pepper to add a touch of heat to the cake and to accentuate the flavor of the olive oil. I added chilli pepper and sweet Hungarian paprika instead, because I did not feel any “heat” last time, when I baked it with the white pepper. Actually, it is more trendy to use these spices with chocolate than black or white pepper.

Suddenly it occurred to me that I could also use this cake (which actually belongs to the pound cake families) to show the effects of using different bake wares. Medrich recommends the use of either a 10 to 12-cup size Bundt pan or two 6-cup size loaf pans. We discussed in earlier posts the effects of the size of the pan on baking time.

I only have 8-cup loaf pans ( 9 X 5 X 3), which is what I used in baking these two loafs. By using larger pans than Medrich recommends, I needed to consider that the cake will bake faster because I changed the “depth” of the batter (the batter has more space to spread, so it is less deep in these larger pans.) However, I also used one standard and one double-insulated aluminum pan (because that is what I wanted to show); so now I created another factor to be considered for baking time. In fact, my theory of selecting a “quick-baking” cake just went out of the window. Oh well, didn’t I say that I like to learn always something new? And wait until I will tell you what else happened with this poor, beautiful, delicious cake; you will see how experience flew out of the window, as well.

Loaf pans, both 8-cup capacity, L is standard, R is double insulated

Please check the top photo with the two loafs, side-by-side. Doesn’t it seem as if one was baked in a much larger pan as compared to the other? Naturally, the higher cake is softer (less dense) and more moist, despite the fact that both pans are the same size. The cake in the insulated pan was ready in 70 minutes, which is what Medrich suggested. So what happened to the change in the depth of the batter? [Read more...]

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