Black Forest Bouche de Noel

I wanted to make a traditional Buche de Noel last year, inspired by this incredible cake by Sprinkle Bakes, and I used her recipe for the Swiss roll. I never got to it last year, but I made my first yule log this year with black forest flavors. I think it turned out wonderfully, with a perfect tight spiral and fantastic meringue mushrooms. I want to improve upon the cherry flavor, which I think would have been amplified had I used kirsch. I opted not to use kirsch because of children wanting to eat the cake.

It was impressive enough that my son has now requested this as his birthday cake for next year ... we'll see. He said the same thing about the pumpkin churro cake I made, so I'm on a roll.

There's lots of steps, but the meringues can be made and stored for several days, which helps a lot.

Black Forest Bouche de Noel
Swiss Roll
4 eggs
3/4 cup (150 grams) sugar
1 Tbsp. oil
2 Tbsp. buttermilk
1 tsp. vanilla
3/4 cup (90 grams) flour
1/4 cup (25 grams) cocoa powder
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 cup (30 grams) powdered sugar
Whipped Cream
2 Tbsp. granulated sugar
1 tsp. cornstarch
1 cup cold heavy cream
1 tsp. vanilla
Chocolate Buttercream Frosting
1 cup salted butter
3 1/2 cups powdered sugar
1/2 cup cocoa powder
3-5 Tbsp. heavy cream
2 tsp. vanilla
Meringue Mushrooms
2 egg whites, room temperature
1/4 tsp. cream of tartar
75 grams sugar
Cocoa powder for sprinkling

To Make the Cake
Preheat oven to 350°F. Butter a 15 x 10-inch jelly roll pan, and line with parchment paper.

Place eggs in a large bowl, and beat 5 minutes. With mixer running slowly, add sugar and oil, followed by buttermilk and vanilla.

In a separate bowl, sift together flour, cocoa, baking powder and salt. Slowly add the liquid ingredients. Mix until well combined. Pour batter into prepared pan, and smooth it evenly with a rubber spatula. Bake 12 to 15 minutes. Cake is done when it springs back when pressed with fingers.

Sprinkle a tea towel with powdered sugar, and rub sugar into the towel with your hands. Immediately turn cake onto the sugar-covered towel. Peel off the parchment paper, and roll cake into the tea towel, beginning at the narrow end. Place rolled cake on a wire rack, seam-side down, and cool completely before filling it.

To Make the Whipped Cream
To prepare the whipped cream, place the sugar and cornstarch in a small pan. While stirring constantly, pour in 1/4 cup cream. Place pan over medium heat, and bring it to a boil while stirring constantly. Remove from heat, stir in vanilla and cool completely. Meanwhile, place remaining cream in mixer bowl, and refrigerate.

Once the cornstarch and cream mixture has cooled, whisk the pure heavy cream on medium until tracks begin to show in the cream. With mixer still on, slowly add the cornstarch mixture, and continue whisking until stiff peaks form. Refrigerate until ready to assemble cake.

To Make the Cherries and Syrup
Drain the cherries, reserving the syrup. Simmer the syrup over medium heat until it is reduced to 1/3 cup. Remove from heat, and stir in kirsch and lemon juice.

Cut cherries in half, and set aside on paper towels to soak up some of the extra moisture.

To Make the Frosting
Beat the butter on high speed 3 to 5 minutes to incorporate plenty of air. Gradually add powdered sugar and cocoa ,and beat until smooth. Continue beating, while adding vanilla and then heavy cream until desired consistency is reached.

To Make the Meringue Mushrooms
Preheat oven to 225°F. Whisk the egg whites with the cream of tartar until soft peaks form. Then whisk in the sugar one tablespoon at a time until meringue is stiff and glossy. Transfer to a large piping bag with a large nozzle. Pipe 8 mounds 5 centimeters wide. Dip your finger in cold water, and gently smooth any peaks as these are the mushroom caps. Then pipe cones about 2 centimeters high for the stems. Sprinkle with cocoa powder to create a mushroom effect.

Bake 70 minutes, and then turn off the oven without opening the door. Cool completely in the oven, even overnight.

To assemble mushrooms, melt a small amount of chocolate in the microwave. Use that chocolate to adhere the stems to the caps. (I like to place mine in the refrigerator to set quickly.) You may need to shave off part of the stems to get them to fit well.

To Assemble Cake
Gently unroll cake. Use a pastry brush to spread the cherry syrup evenly across the cake, allowing it to absorb into the cake. Gently spread the whipped cream evenly on top of the cake, leaving about 1 inch on the far end of the cake roll, where it will be be last rolled (so all the filling doesn't ooze out). Sprinkle evenly with cherries. Carefully roll cake tightly, and place seam side down. Frost, and use a knife to create texture the long way to replicate a log. Decorate with mushrooms, and sprinkle with powdered sugar if desired. Keep refrigerated until one hour before serving. Slice carefully with a sharp knife, cleaning the knife between cuts for beautiful spiral slices. Serves approximately 16.

Skillet Lasagna

A recent issue of Eating Well had several simple recipes to re purpose meatballs into quick meals. I tried the skillet lasagna, which was ready in 30 minutes and pretty tasty. Here's the recipe with a few tweaks.

Skillet Lasagna
5-6 no-boil lasagna noodles
1 jar of pasta sauce
12 oz. frozen meatballs
8 oz. ricotta
6 oz. shredded Parmesan and/or mozzarella
Garlic salt, Italian seasoning and minced onion to taste
1/2 cup water

In a large skillet (not a cast-iron one), spread a layer of marinara sauce. Top with a layer of lasagna noodles, breaking if needed to mostly fit. Top with a layer of sauce, meatballs cut in half and dot with ricotta. Sprinkle with additional seasonings (garlic salt, Italian seasoning and minced onion). Layer remaining lasagna noodles, and top with sauce, meatballs cut in half and ricotta. Sprinkle with additional seasonings if desired, and then top with shredded Parmesan and/or mozzarella. Add half cup water to the pan, cover with a lid and simmer on low until noodles are soft, about 20-25 minutes. 

Double Chocolate Mint Chip Cookies

These cookies are delicious. I've long appreciated the chocolate and mint combination, but in the past decade peanut butter and chocolate has always won with my taste buds. But my son is in love with mint and chocolate, so these cookies from SprinkleBakes caught my eye. I added them to my Christmas cookie list and made a double batch.

Then I proceeded to justify not adding them to all my cookie trays because I didn't want everything else on the platter to be overwhelmed by mint flavor. If I'm being honest, I was looking for reasons to keep these cookies stashed in my garage (which is the Wisconsin winter standard storage spot to keep things fresh). I made them a week ago, and today my son is finally getting his first whole cookie.

These are amazing when they're warm and gooey, just like any good chocolate chip cookie. But they hold up very well, and I'll continue to validate that likely every day until they're gone. They still are chewy in the middle, almost with a brownie-like texture.

I will absolutely make these again.

Double Chocolate Mint Chip Cookies
2 sticks unsalted butter, room temperature
1 cup sugar
1 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
2 1/2 cups flour
3/4 cup dark cocoa powder
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
2 1/2 cups mint and chocolate baking chips, divided

Beat butter and sugar on medium high until smooth. Add eggs one at a time, beating well, and then add the vanilla.

Combine the dry ingredients together in a separate bowl. Gradually add the dry ingredients into the butter mixture, mixing only until well combined. Stir in 2 cups of chocolate and mint chips.

Chill the dough for at least 30 minutes to make it less sticky. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 350°F, and line baking sheets with silipats or parchment paper.

Shape the dough into 2-inch balls, and place them 2 inches apart on the baking sheets. Bake 5 minutes, and remove from the oven. Press a few chips into the top of each cookie. (This just makes them pretty. You could skip this step and mix all the chips into the cookies if you wanted.) Bake 5 to 6 minutes more. Remove from the oven, and let cool on the sheets at least 5 minutes before carefully transferring to wire racks to cool completely.

Note: I couldn't find a mix of mint and chocolate baking chips, so I bought separate bags, which worked perfectly for the double batch. Makes 4 dozen cookies.

Pumpkin Churro Cake

I made this delicious pumpkin cake for Thanksgiving. I did it because I finally had the realization the only reason I eat pumpkin pie really is for the cool whip, so I wanted a dessert I could embrace. It got rave reviews. My 8-year-old son described it as my most delicious cake and stated he wanted this cake for his birthday next year. (We'll see if that holds true in 9 months, but still ...)

And then apparently I closed the tab with this recipe on my phone before I blogged it. Fortunately, I remembered I found it on one of the blogs I frequent, so a few quick Google searches retrieved the recipe before it was lost as one of thousands of pumpkin cake recipes online. Thanks to Confessions of a Cookbook Queen for making my Thanksgiving dinner better.

Pumpkin Churro Cake
3 cups canned pumpkin
2 cups sugar
1 1/2 cups vegetable oil
4 eggs
2 cups flour
2 tsp. cinnamon
2 tsp. baking powder
2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
Churro Coating
1/2 cup salted butter, melted
1 cup sugar
1 Tbsp. cinnamon
Frosting
2 sticks butter, room temperature
8 oz. cream cheese, room temperature
3 Tbsp. milk
2 tsp. vanilla
6 cups powdered sugar

Preheat oven to 350°F. Butter, and flour three 8- or 9-inch cake pans, line with parchment paper, and set aside.

Using a mixer, combine pumpkin, sugar, oil and eggs. In a separate bowl, combine the remaining dry ingredients. Slowly add the dry ingredients to the pumpkin mixture, scraping the sides of the bowl as needed. Divide the batter evenly among the three pans, and bake 45 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool in pans 10 minutes, and then remove from pans to cool completely on wire racks. Once cakes are cool, wrap each cake in plastic wrap and refrigerate for several hours or overnight. This will help the cakes become firm enough for the next step.

Once cakes are chilled and firm, combine cinnamon and sugar together on a large plate. Brush each cake with melted butter, and then dip in cinnamon sugar, coating the sides, tops and bottoms. Place cakes on individual plates while you work on others.

To make frosting, beat together butter and cream cheese until fluffy. Add in powdered sugar on low speed until incorporated, and then add milk and vanilla. Gradually increase speed to medium high, and beat until desired consistency.

To assemble cake, place one cake on a plate or platter. Add a layer of frosting, ideally with a piping bag as the cinnamon-sugar coating makes the frosting slide on the cake. Top frosting with a second cake, and repeat the frosting layer. Top with the third cake, and use remaining frosting to decorate the top of the cake. Top with additional cinnamon sugar if desired.

Quick Asian Noodles

I swear I had a recipe for a quick dinner with ramen noodles on my blog, but I couldn't find it. Kind of like how how I can't find gochujang at the grocery store now when I swear I found it before ...

So when I searched out this recipe from Recipe Tin Eats I had to make sure I captured this recipe on my blog. This is a perfect weeknight dinner because it takes less than 30 minutes start to finish. It's flavorful and my entire family liked it. Heck, my youngest even ate a few tiny pieces of broccoli snuck in with his.

Quick Asian Noodles
2 packets ramen (discard seasoning)
1 tsp. olive oil
2 tsp. sesame oil
2 garlic cloves
1/2 onion
7 oz. ground beef (we substituted some thinly sliced beef)
3/4 cup chicken stock
1/2 cup water (can use all water if needed)
Sauce
1 Tbsp. soy sauce
1 Tbsp. oyster sauce
2 tsp. Hoisin sauce
1 Tbsp. mirin

Combine sauce ingredients, and set aside. (I only had soy sauce and mirin, so I added some szechaun sauce as well. It's pretty forgiving. Gochujang would be a great substitute if I could find it again at the grocery store.)

Heat oils in medium skillet over high heat. Add garlic and onion, and cook 2 minutes or until starting to soften. Add beef, and cook until it is light brown. Then add sauce. Cook 2 to 3 minutes until the beef is well caramelized.

Push the beef aside to make room for the noodles. Add the broth and water, and place the noodles in the water. Cook 1 to 2 minutes, and then flip. Cook another 1 to 2 minutes until softened.

Toss all the ingredients together to mix. Serves 4.

Note: We like to serve this in a bowl with steamed broccoli mixed in, topped with sesame seeds.