BAHM 2!

This Saturday I will be back at the Fireside art collective hangar near Ashby BART in Berkeley for the second Bay Area Homemade market. I'm definitely looking forward to it. Got a whole different set of goodies, well except for one.

It's April and so spring is in the air and I'd thought I'd celebrate appropiately. Here in Norcal there are tons of strawberries at the market, a near constant supplie of lemons and oranges too.  Course I have to keep the chocolate lovers happy too. And I wanted to show a bit more of my traditional side of Engineered Cupcake. Course I went through about 8 menu combinations before deciding on this one:

Lemon Bars
.75 each
Yellow cupcakes with chocolate buttercream
Mini: $1 Fullsize $2

Strawberry cupcakes with white chocolate buttercream
Strawberry chiffon cupcakes with champagne buttercream
Green Tea Chiffon with Lemon buttercream
Mini: 1.25 Fullsize:2.50


Chocolate Walnut muffins (vegan)
Chocolate Orange Cupcakes (Gluten Free)
mini:$1.50 fullsize: $3

... the sad part is that this is still subject to change. I'm really feeling some chocolate chip cookie bars or oatmeal cookie bars with butterscotch drizzle. Yum.

So I guess you'll have to come out to the market to find out!
3192 Adeline Street,
  in Berkeley

Hope to see you there!

yours in icing,

Jasmine
P.S I been kinda giddy this week...it's starting to show ^_^

FE exam: most intimidating exam evar!

<<There it is, a 4lb book, a 200 page "formula sheet", and a scientific calculator. All the materials necessary for preparing for the FE exam.

On Saturday I spent the day in a very large cold room in San Mateo taking. The Fundamentals of Engineering(FE) exam is the test I'm studying for to get my Mechanical Engineer in Training certification.

As so many people have told me, it was the length that really got to me. Well that and waking up at 3am to take 2 buses down to San Mateo.  It requires alot of brainpower though admittedly the practice problems were way harder than most of the test. Some of the questions were just references to formulae and so the whole answer was in the 200pg reference guide. You're not allowed to bring pencils, or take off your wristwatch and put it on the table it has to stay on your wrist or on the floor. You can eat and drink during the exam but they prefer you to drink away from the table whereas if you have something snackable (chips, grapes, small candy, etc.) you can pop that in your mouth and keep it moving. There's a hour lunch break.   The afternoon exam was pretty tricky too but honestly I got to a point where I just wanted to fall asleep. lol.

I entered the building for the test at about 7:15am and left around 6pm. Head, shoulders, back hurting, brain in a constant state of derivation .

Admittedly I'm not a great test taker, well I do okay but I get so nervous. So when I finished my body and soul were done and done.  I'm not quite sure how I made it back to Oakland, only that I did and proceeded to sleep for over 12 hours. I'll find out my results in about 2 months, if I passed hoo-rah. If not I'll get ramped up to take in Sacramento in October with the knowledge of yea, that exam isn't half as hard as it appears to be, but it is difficult and requires strategy.

I truly appreciate everyone for their faith in me and for their patience as much of my life I've neglected preparing for this exam.

So I took the April 2013 EIT exam and what do I have to show for it?
this  pencil. lol

Vegan Strawberry Shortcake (Lenten)

Notice also my new pink glass cake platter ^-^

Yesterday evening I was lounging on my futon after baking. In my new pair of 3" pewter heels, taking bites of tender shortcake, sipping Lenten wine thinking to myself "Life is good".  I was also thinking what a picture this would make, especially with the stacks of engineering books in the background. 
Yes, it's still Lent. I'm Orthodox, go Google it. Normally I'm not the type to talk about religion on my blog but it helps  explain why this omnivore has a soft spot for vegan food.  Being Orthodox Christian, during  Lentwe fast from animal products alcohol (except wine on weekends, lol) and olive oil. This year from March 18th till Easter (May 5th)
The hardest part for me is as always the sweets.  I had been craving good old fashioned strawberry shortcake. I'm not talking angel food cake and CoolWhip, with that obnoxious gel. Tender flaky southern style shortcake, fresh whipped cream and fresh strawberries.
With it being  Great Lent however, buttermilk shortcake is out, so is fresh whipped cream. So I set to fiddle in the kitchen to make Lenten ergo Vegan version and it turned out beautiful.  It was so good that I literally double checked to prove that I in fact did not use a dairy product.


My continental cousin demanded I have some example recipes using the flours from the first "All the pretty flours" post. I mentioned this was a southern style shortcake so can you guess which flour I used? That's right! Self Rising. I was actually out of White Lily so I used GoldMedal instead.

Vegan Strawberry Shortcake

The Shortcake
I used Crisco *ducks* Personally I'd love to use that expensive Spectrum palm shortening but unfortunately it's not in the cards. I've tried using earth balance before and it just was way too soft. This recipe is adapted from Alton Brown's shortcake recipe. 
Ingredients

• 8oz/228g/about 2 cups Self Rising Flour
• 1/4 Coconut Cream
• 1/2 cup unsweetened vanilla almond milk
• 4 tbsp vegetable shortening
• 2 tbsp fine organic cane sugar 
• 4 oz/ about 3/4 fresh strawberries diced

1. Preheat oven to 425F
2. In a large mixing bowl, mix together flour and sugar
3. Using a cold spoon or fingertips, cut in shortening into the flour.  
4. In a separate cup stir together coconut cream and almond milk.
5. Mix milk mixture into flour till almost combined
6. Gently mix in strawberries till just combined
7.  Drop by large spoonfuls onto a baking sheet. Sprinkle with sugar. 
8. Bake for 15 minutes or until brown.
9. Cool and eat with fresh berries and whipped cream (see below)

The Whipped Cream
Some of the more seasoned vegan sweet tooths are familar with whipping coconut cream. Honestly I never could get it as stiff as I like my dairy whipped cream. So I decided to stabilize it. Usually this means adding gelatin but being  being the blasian that I am, I used  kanten powder also known as agar agar powder. A seaweed derived gelatin equivalent. My dad used this to make the best marshmallows I've ever tasted in life. Lavender homemade marshmallows think about that for a second. Yea... I know. AND they're vegan (because 46 is cheap and won't use eggs :P) But that's another post... 

Ingredients

• the remainder of the coconut cream (used Chanoyu brand) that is cold I kept it in my very cold fridge for 2 hours
• 1 tsp kanten powder (also known as agar agar)
• 1 tsbp of very hot water
• vegan powdered sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla bean paste

1. Stir kanten powder into hot water set aside and let cool (I went and made the shortcake)
2. Open can of coconut cream, drain any liquid off, put into a cold metal bowl
3. With a mixer beat cream for 1 minute, add vanilla paste and sugar. beat till combined.
4. Then beat in kanten mixture
5. Fill a pastry bag and chill till ready (at least 2 hours)

Putting it all together

This weekend I stacked shortcake, sliced strawberries, piped on whipped cream, more sliced strawberries, another shortcake, and some ore whipped cream for good measure. Strawberry on the side coz those were awesome.

Today I brought a shortcake and 2 tbsp of whipped cream into work. This time, in a bowl, 1 short cake, 3 sliced strawberries and a spooned dollop of whipped cream. Yum! 

All the pretty flours: Wheat

The flour aisle at Berkeley bowl west

As Engineered Cupcake(EC) gets up and going,  using the right ingredients for the right good consistently is very important.  And in the baked good world the foundation is the flour: whether it be wheat, corn, or nut.  Protein, moisture absorption, coarseness, these are all things that must be accounted for when baking.

In this first in a series about flours, I'll be talking about wheat flours, as it the most common flour I use. The main difference in all these flours: gluten/protein. As Wikipedia puts so well "Gluten, a protein composite, gives elasticity to dough, helping it rise and keep its shape and often gives the final product a chewy texture." Gluten is developed more by kneading and moisture content in a recipe. Sometimes you want a chewy texture, pan pizza for example, and sometimes you want lighter  like chiffon cake, flaky like biscuits. This is why there are so many types of flour in many grocers these days.

1. Cake Flour - No, it's not some marketing term, there really is a reason why sometimes you need cake flour. It's the low protein content. For chiffon cakes and most cake recipes that

   

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   came from a Japanese cookbook I use cake flour.  I keep Swans Down in stock for EC, it has the lowest protein amount at 7%.  SoftasSilk is okay, but my best chiffon cakes are always made with Swans Down.  For some traditional Southern cakes (classic yellow butter, red velvet, some chocolate) I use Pastry because I'm aiming for a slightly denser cake.
   Nota bene: In regards to unbleached cake flour, with respect to chiffon cakes don't bother the protein content is too high at 10% by weight  (and yes I tried it, ended up with an American sponge cake, close but no cigar) I've used it in scones and it was fine.
   Bonus tip - It's great for making gravies! 
2. Self Rising - Used to be, this was only sold in the homeland: Dixie. Many Southern cooks swear by a certain brand self rising for biscuits. That being said it's a softer flour and it has baking soda and baking powder. An

   

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   infrequently used flour in my house I prefer White Lily unbleached for pancakes, shortcakes, biscuits, and scones. White Lily is hard to find out here and Gold Medal makes a decent one. I've yet to see self rising flour in bulk bins but I wouldn't recommend it because of the added baking powder. It's essential that Self Rising flour is kept air tight or the baking powder/soda will become inert. If you don't have self-rising flour you can use 1 C all-purpose flour + 1 ½ teaspoons baking powder + ½ teaspoon salt
   bonus tip: In the South this is sometimes known as biscuit or soft flour. This is confusing to some because in UK English, "soft flour" is cake or pastry. 
3. All Purpose - good ol' plain flour. If you see a recipe that just says "flour" and has baking soda/powder and salt it's likely AP. If you make cake with it let it rest and spoon it into the measuring cup (or weigh it).  I also find that in breading things for frying or baking, AP works best. 
4. Pastry Flour - This is basically my "All purpose" flour, with a decent amount of protein at 8-10%, slightly finer texture they sell it at the bulk bins for a little more than $1/lb. Unbleached pastry flour is the stock for Engineered Cupcake
5. Bread Flour - much higher protein levels so it produces more gluten when you knead it. The high the protein the more chewy the texture, flour targeted for bread machines makes amazing pizza and bread sticks. I don't own a bread maker, yet I find it takes less hand
   
   kneading so I buy  bread  flour when I find  a good deal. King Arthur and Gold Medal make good ones.
   bonus tip:  Y'know when I said most cake recipes from Japan. Well here's the exception, straight from Nagasaki, home of my dearly departed Obaasan, I give you kasutera!  Japanese pound cake. Always use bread or AP flour for kasutera. 
6. Whole Wheat Flour -  I'm very a particular about what recipes I use it for.  Bran muffins, Banana/pumpkin/etc. breads, Apple cake, and bread recipes are where I usually use whole wheat flour. In my humble opinion I prefer to use unbleached flour than whole wheat flour in most cupcakes because it gives a better texture. I have yet to have a recipe that I used 100%

   

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   whole wheat flour, I use ratios from 30-75% whole wheat to "AP/Pastry/Bread" flour depending on the recipe. It's kinda like cornmeal, but that's another post.  King Arthur makes some really great quality whole wheat flour. If you do buy 100% whole wheat flour, I suggest storing it a cool place. If you have a deep freezer you can store it there. I keep mine in the pantry with the good weather here but back in Dixie it stayed in my fridge. Bring to room temperature before beginning a recipe.
   soapbox: I see so many people adding whole wheat flour to be "healthier", it adds a little more fiber but about the same with other nutrients and it's course so substitute accordingly. 

As I was writing this I realized the diversity in wheat flours, didn't even get into stone ground, bleached vs. unbleached, etc. So more to come in a later post. For a much more visual definition of the gluten/flour relationship you need to watch Good Eats, yes it's a need. The other Georgia/California science nerd, Alton Brown, is one of my culinary heroes. Episodes of note:

• Three chips for Sister Marsha
• Pie in every Pocket
• Flat is beautiful
• The Dough also rises