Misadventure 6 - Red Velvet Cookies

Hera here again, another solo misadventure as I'm going to be baking for my work's cookie exchange. This is another first trial for the recipe.  Today's recipe is brought to you by Taste of Home website. 

From www.tasteofhome.com/recipes/red-velvet-cookies

Here we go...

Some revisions: I will be using a mixture of chocolate chips (1 ½ cups of milk chocolate chips and ½ cups of dark chocolate chips) and reducing the sugar to ½ cup because there will be frosting on these.  I will also be using butter instead of shortening.  I don't have buttermilk and the store ran out, so I will be using a substitute.  For 1 cup of buttermilk = 1 cup of milk + 1 ¾ tsp cream of tartar, mix well and you just leave it out for about five minutes.

Pretty standard beginning, creaming the butter and adding the yolks.

Then we can add the food colouring (the healthy alternative is adding grounded cooked beets or beet juice, surprisingly, you do not taste the beet at all).

When mixing (after adding the flour mixture and buttermilk), it became super thick like a soft dough.  Super hard to mix with a hand mixer so I had to resort to mixing by hand.  I suspect it may not have mixed well.

Here comes the egg whites.

After I added the stiff peaked egg whites, it was very difficult to fold because it was basically mixing a dough with something super foamy.  The dough was super dense and it was hard to just "fold" lightly to get it all incorporated.  I had to break the golden rule of "folding lightly with egg whites" just to get it all together.  I ended up mixing very vigorously to get it all blended.  At times, the dough and egg whites were separated.

It took a while (about a good 5 minutes at least), but it's finally mixed.  I'm worried that it may get tough from the over-mixing.

Now we just need to wait 12 - 14 minutes while it's cooking in the oven.

It's not exactly the red that I see in the picture, but it's a shade of red at least?  Let's see how it tastes?

The chocolate chips definitely helps, but it tastes like raw flour.  I was looking at the comments while it was baking and a lot of comments also agreed that this recipe called for too much flour.  I will most likely cut at least 1 cup of flour next time I make these.  My friend also tasted this, and she thinks the frosting will help drown out the flour-iness.

I ran out of frosting so I had to do the zig-zag patterns.  The recipe also called for crumbling 8 cookies to sprinkle as decoration, but I'm short on cookies.  The cookies were bigger than anticipated, so I got 72 cookies (6 dozen) instead.  Even after adding the frosting, it didn't really look very festive, so I decided to add in some candy cane sprinkles.

These sprinkles were really big and they're a little hard and not much sweetness at all.

Final Thoughts: These were at least edible, but they're definitely not very high on my list taste-wise.  The chocolate and frosting did help with the flour-iness and the cookie was still soft on the inside.  I was worried about the over-mixing because the dough before adding the egg whites was do dense, dry and thick.  Luckily it was not the case.  This recipe can definitely use some improvement, but it's a good try for something with a red velvet theme.

RECIPE FROM TASTE OF HOME (www.tasteofhome.com)

RED VELVET COOKIES

Yield: 7 ½  dozen

Ingredients:

1 cup shortening

1 cup sugar

¾ packed brown sugar

3 eggs (separated)

2 tsp red food colouring

4 cups all-purpose flour

3 Tbsp baking cocoa

3 tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

1 cup buttermilk (I used 1 cup milk + 1 ¾ tsp cream of tartar as substitute)

2 cups (12 oz) semisweet chocolate chips

Frosting:

1 ½  cups butter, softened

3 ¾ cups confectioners' sugar

¹_/8  tsp salt

3 to 4 Tbsp 2% milk

1) In a large bowl, cream the shortening and sugars until light and fluffy.  Beat in egg yolks and food colouring.

2) Combine the flour, cocoa, baking powder and salt. Add to the creamed mixture alternately with buttermilk, beating well after each addition.

3) In another bowl with clean beaters, beat egg whites until stiff peaks form, fold into batter.  Fold in chocolate chips.

4) Drop by tablespoonfuls 2 in apart onto greased baking sheets.  Bake at 350°F for 12 - 14 minutes until set.  Remove to wire racks to cool completely.

5) In a large bowl, beat the butter, confectioners' sugar and salt until blended.  Add enough milk to achieve desired consistency.  Crumble eight cookies and set aside.

6) Frost remaining cookies; sprinkle with cookie crumbs.  Store in an airtight container or freeze for up to  month.

Misadventure 4 - Chocolate Soufflé

Today's recipe is brought to you by Lindt chocolate.  Suppose to look like this from their website:

We'll see how this will go...BeaPea?

So far the ramekins have not been buttered even though they are supposed to. 

And it has been an interesting time coordinating the egg cracking. It's apparently Saki's favourite part but Megaspoot has already offered to take over. Apparently someone needs to cut the chocolate. Megaspoot is not allowed as he might end up taking fingers off. 

There are black specks in the ramekins, Hera hasn't used them in a while. It's ok, it will be disguised by the chocolate. Hera keeps wandering around whispering "it smells so good". I think Saki is a bit scared. She is starting to talk to the eggs. You know it's a good time when someone says "it's not that I don't trust you...". Can you feel the trust? Uh...apparently the butter and sugar is supposed to be rolled into a long rope? I'm pretty sure I heard that incorrectly. 

Nope, did not... the recipe calls for the butter and flour to be put 'in a bowl and knead together. Roll into a rope and cut into small pieces.' I guess I did hear part of that incorrectly. Hera gets to use her brand spanking new measuring cups. But she says she's already used them already. I feel cheated. Oops, first mistake, all the egg white went into a bowl, but one was supposed to be kept out. Guesstimations abound! There is a lot of multitasking going on, everyone is off doing their own part. I wonder if that means we're getting better. Or cocky. Go Icarus go! Wait, what? To make things just a tiny bit more difficult, the bluetooth on my tablet won't work. Hera just opened the oven. There is a wok in there. You know you're in an Asian kitchen when... It's always good when suggestions come out after, like, "hey why don't we just make a roux instead of kneading the flour and butter together?" According to Saki, she is making art. Or rather, 'art'? Saki needs more surface area. For her art. 'Art'. There is contention about the thickness of the soufflé batter...thing. At least there is no contention about whether or not flour will thicken it more. Yes. Yes, it will. So it turns out 4 science majors and an English major with a teaching degree are not able to follow directions. The batter looks burnt. 

It's hard to tell because it's chocolate, but it's definitely chunky. We are switching tools from whisk to spatula. "When in doubt, just eat this, " says Saki. The English major is wise beyond her degree. Yay, after a restart we finally have the bluetooth keyboard connected. Unfortunately the batter is not going as well. Evidently the batter is supposed to be 'poured' into a bowl. The operative word is 'pour' as it is currently quite solid. The math is being checked and what to do is being batted around. The decision seems to be to go ahead and see what happens.  

Saki is now whipping the egg white with the sugar thrown in. Hera originally asked if people wanted to do that by hand or by hand mixer. Lucky for Saki, she is doing it with a hand mixer. The internet is good when doing conversions... or whenever. 

Hera has taken over the egg white whipping. She looks much more comfortable. 

She just tried to tip the bowl of egg whites over Saki's head. She would not let her. She put it over her own head instead. 

The egg whites are about to go in! ...and there they go. 

That was relatively uneventful. The egg yolks went in. It was supposed to be one at a time. Instead of just throwing them in one at a time, Megaspoot decided to scramble the egg yolks and then estimate the yolk amount per time. Weird. Hera's spatula size is inadequate for Megaspoot's large hands apparently. The 'batter' is still exceptionally thick. All the yolks have gone in. The batter is a bit gooey-er. "Have hope and faith," says Hera. She is channeling the recent tv show that she watched but forgotten the name. The batter is starting to look more like batter.

Hera's kettle plays minuet in G major. Megaspoot's just scratched his face with chocolate fingers. He asked if there's any chocolate on his face. Saki feels this is a miscalculation on his part to trust us to tell him the truth. She may be correct. Saki is hurting by trying to help. 

Hurrah! The ramekins are being tapped. Die air, diiiie! Or just be tapped out of the soufflé. Saki is attempting to do 2 at the same time. 

Adding boiling water to tray to commence souffle baking!

The soufflés are now in the oven. There is naught to do until they rise now. The waiting game begins...and the games come out. *time passes*... 

The moment has arrived. The oven gloves are going on and the cameras are going out. 

 Saki is taking a picture of Megaspoot taking a picture of Saki taking a picture of... anyway.

Megaspoot just told Hera to "give it a jiggle." How is he still alive? Moving on... Apparently the stove was still on. How long has it been? We appear to be making Hera dismantle her kitchen. At least she's organized! 

Yay, the soufflés appear to be a success. All that's needed now is taste test...

Final Thoughts: it is puffy like a soufflé, but it is lacking the creaminess. Kind of like a fluffy muffin. Very fluffy muffin.

RECIPE FROM Lindt.com:

LINDT CHOCOLATE SOUFFLÉ

Yield: Eight 4 oz (120 mL) ramekins, or one 7-inch (16 cm) large soufflé form, for 8 servings

Ingredients:

¼ cup (55 g) butter

¹_/3 cup +2 (55 g) tablespoons flour

½ cup (125 mL) milk

40 g Lindt Excellence 70% Cacao Dark Chocolate, chopped

¹_/3 cup (40 g) cocoa powder

5 egg whites

4 egg yolks

¹_/3 cup (65 g) sugar

Melted butter and sugar to prepare soufflé forms

1) Preheat oven to 200°C (392°F)

2) Prepare forms/form by coating the inside with melted butter and sprinkling with sugar. Tap out any excess sugar.

3) Put the butter and flour in a bowl and knead together. Roll into a rope and cut into small pieces.

4) Put the milk, chopped chocolate, and cocoa powder in a saucepan and bring to a boil over medium heat, stirring continuously.

5) Add the flour/butter pieces and stir until smooth and thickened.

6) Removed the saucepan from heat and stir in one egg white.

7) Pour the mixture into a bowl and cool until lukewarm

8) Add the egg yolks one at a time, stirring.

9) Whip the remaining egg whites, gradually adding the sugar until they form stiff peaks.

10) Carefully fold the whipped egg whites into the chocolate mixture.

11) Spoon the soufflé mixture into the prepared forms.

12) Place the forms in a large baking pan. Fill the baking pan into very hot water up for the middle of the forms, and place in lower third of the oven.

13) Reduce the oven temperature to 190°C (374°F).

14) Bake 25-30 minutes to small forms or 35-40 minutes for large form.

15) Never open the oven door when making a soufflé! (The recipe is so bossy)

16) Prepare serving plates and powdered sugar while the soufflés are baking.

17) When finished, remove from the oven, set the soufflé in its form on dessert plate, sprinkle with powdered sugar and serve. A soufflé will hold its shape for a few minutes.