Baking a buckle

After watching an episode of Alton Brown a little bit ago, the hubs was inspired to bake something called a 'buckle'.  Up til that point, the only buckle I knew of was found on belts and on a pair of creepers I owned back in the late 80s.

   


The husband said the buckle had been easy to assemble and bake.  I know it was certainly easy to eat.  Inspired, I then decided to make my own buckle, a 'black and blue' one, using a recipe from the super talented Stacy at Wicked Good Kitchen.

My buckle adapted from Wicked Good recipe.

'Black and Blue'

Here is the list of ingredients (with my alterations in blue) for 'wicked good' buckle:

• For the “White” Sugar Cookie Streusel
• ¾ cup (90 to 94 grams) unbleached all-purpose flour
• 6 tablespoons (75 to 80 grams) granulated sugar
• 6 tablespoons (85 grams) salted butter, cut into bits
• For the “Red and Blue” Berry Cake (I used blackberries and blueberries.)
• 1½ cups (195 grams) unbleached all-purpose flour, plus extra for cake pan
• 1½ teaspoons (7 grams) baking powder
• ¾ teaspoon (3.6 grams) kosher salt
• 10 tablespoons (about 141 grams) unsalted butter, softened
• ¾ cup (150 grams) granulated sugar
• 2 teaspoons grated lemon zest, 1 medium lemon (I added lime zest too.)
• 2 teaspoons (10 ml) pure vanilla extract (I didn't have extract in the cupboard, so I used vanilla bourbon.)
• 2 large eggs (mine weighted 100 grams w/o shells), room temperature
• 2½ cups (12.5 ounces/about 388 grams) fresh blueberries, rinsed & dried
• 1½ cups (7.5 ounces/180 grams) fresh raspberries that have been washed, dried and frozen or frozen raspberries (I didn't freeze my berries because this was a somewhat spontaneous bake job.)
• Shortening or favorite cooking oil, for greasing cake pan
• For the Sugar Topping
• 1½ to 2 teaspoons granulated sugar (I didn't top with sugar.)

The hubby's blueberry buckle a la Alton Brown.

Alton's recipe culled from the Food Network website:

For the cake:
Nonstick cooking spray
9 ounces cake flour, approximately 2 cups
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
2 ounces unsalted butter, room temperature
5 1/4 ounces sugar, approximately 3/4 cup
1 large egg
1/2 cup whole milk
15 ounces fresh whole blueberries, approximately 3 cups

For the topping:
3 1/2 ounces sugar, approximately 1/2 cup
1 1/2 ounces cake flour, approximately 1/3 cup
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground nutmeg

**unlike me, the hubs did not deviate from his recipe at all.

Both buckle recipes yielded very tasty results.  Of course, it seems like it's hard to go wrong with such a delightful dessert.  What I enjoyed about Stacy's recipe was the generous crumble topping and addition of zest and vanilla in the cake.  I really adore zest.  And Alton's addition of ginger in the cake and nutmeg in the topping gave his buckle a nice spice.

I told hubby that I'd like to try making a choco-buckle next.  Given how great the buckles have been so far, I have high hopes!

Trip to DE & CH

The hubs and I took a brief trip to Europe the week of the US elections. However, given that the news outlets in Germany are on top of broadcasting about world events, we could not avoid hearing & reading about the Trump win. Donald's mug adorned nearly every magazine & newspaper cover in Germany & German Switzerland. It was off-putting to see him 'round every corner, to say the least.

'How dangerous is the new president?'

Highlights of the trip were jaunts to Basel, Konstanz & Zürich. Here are a few select photos--

Altstadt, Konstanz

Am Bodensee with friends.

Konstanz, as the Bodensee meets the Rhein

Along the Limmat, Zürich, Switzerland

Limmat, Zürich

Stroll along the Rhein, Basel

Gulls along the Rhein, Basel

En route to the Botanic Garden, Basel

Altstadt, Basel

Picked up this lively print while in Basel

Checking out walking sticks at a charity shop in Basel

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Yours truly on the Red Arrow Churchill from Zürich to Schaffhausen

I miss our life in Europe & would hope to return to live there, but, at present, a move does not seem feasible. Would that it were...!

Cranberry-Orange Cake

I am completely besotted with this tea cake recipe from Sarah Mayor.  It is a fantastically moist and balanced cake.  Better yet, it is also fairly versatile.  Ms. Mayor suggests that one substitute other types of berries in lieu of raspberries.  Thanks to my local market being out of product, I did just that and the cake turned out very well.

Whirring away

 The hubs pronounced the raspberry-lemon loaf as one of the best cakes he has ever eaten, so I wanted to bake it again and take it to a party I had been invited to at the end of the week.  It was sure to be a hit.  Unfortunately, on the day I went to the store to purchase cake ingredients there were not only no raspberries, but NO berries at all to be had.  I didn't have time to flit from shop to shop in search of fresh berries, so I decided to substitute dried cranberries for raspberries and add orange zest in addition to the lemon zest that the recipe called for.  Again, I used quark instead of yogurt.  The cranberry-orange-quark cake went over really well with the Swiss folk at the party, so much so that, by the end of the night, the cake had been eaten up and one gal even asked me for the recipe.  I gladly sent her the above link to Ms. Mayor's tea loaf recipe.

The images below show the same cranberry-orange delight except this time I used cream cheese in lieu of quark or yogurt.  I hadn't actually wanted to use cream cheese, but I had forgotten to pick up quark at the store before throwing the ingredients together.  There just happened to be a bit of cream cheese tucked into the back of the fridge, so in it went.  I look forward to seeing how this latest incarnation of the loaf turned out!

Dense batter

1/3 of the batter

First layer of cranberries

Fresh from the oven

Flour-less chocolate cake

The mousse is loose!

Yesterday, for the first time, I baked flour-less chocolate cake, or as some people call it, chocolate mousse cake.  The baking forms used measure about 12 cm or approximately 4.5 inches in diameter.

Ingredients:

300 grams dark chocolate
150 grams unsalted butter
55 grams caster sugar
50 grams granulated sugar
6 eggs separated
1 tsp vanilla paste

My prep. was as follows:

Melt both the chocolate and the butter in a double boiler, then remove from heat.
In a separate boil combine 6 egg yolks, the sugar and the vanilla paste, then add the mixture to the melted chocolate and butter.  Stir until combined.

Beat the egg whites with a pinch of salt until stiff peaks form.  *Gradually fold egg whites into the chocolate mixture, taking care that the mixture remains light and airy.

Pour mixture into buttered spring forms and bake at 160C for 30-40 minutes.

For an airier, slightly more moist mousse-like center, cover the base of the forms with aluminum foil and bake in shallow pans filled half way with water.

Three were baked in a 'water bath' and one was not.  The difference between them was almost  imperceptible.

*I probably should have 'lightened' the base batter by whipping into it a small portion of egg whites before folding in the remainder.  However, I forgot to do so, and the mousse would seem to be no worse for the wear.