First Came the Fall...

The colours of the leaves are changing and there is a chill in the air.  The arrival of the Pumpkin Spice latte has been declaimed from every window of every Starbucks on every corner.  It's Autumn!  And though the Fall inspired this cake, unfortunately it wasn't the only kind involved in its making.

I've been watching too much Great British Bake Off (again) and as a direct result decided that I should challenge myself to make something other than my standard butter cakes for a layer cake that I was preparing for some friends' party.  I wanted to try a génoise cake, which is leavened with beaten eggs instead of baking powder and baking soda.  I also had a can of pumpkin lying around, and with the aforementioned arrival of Fall, I wanted to use it.  Happily, Williams-Sonoma had already beaten me to this combination, so I followed their recipes for both génoise cake and pumpkin mousse.  These are condensed in the Recipe Box.

I had to bake this cake twice.  The first time, the layer was pretty pancake-like; far too thin to be split.  The second attempt was far more successful.  The differences amount, I think, to the use of fresh eggs, the temperature at which the eggs are used, the degree to which they are beaten and the size of the tool used to fold the mixture.

Even though génoise is leavened with eggs, and the best eggs for whipping are fresh, I first unwisely elected to use some eggs that were perfectly safe but which had admittedly been in the fridge for awhile.  I also used them cold, straight out of that fridge, which may or may not have contributed to the failure of this layer.  For the génoise, the eggs are beaten whole with the sugar over a double boiler until they reach 140F (60C), or, for those of us without a candy thermometer, until the sugar is entirely dissolved.  They are then beaten on high until 'pale and tripled in volume'.  'Pale' may not be the best measurement, as I don't think the eggs had been whipped up enough to support the cake when I stopped at 'pale' the first time.  A better measurement is to stop when they hold a ribbon, which I later discovered Martha gives as one of her tips for this type of cake.

That is how far I beat the eggs the second time.  These eggs were also fresher and at room temperature when I used them.  Room temperature eggs create more volume, and therefore are likely to produce a better result in a cake in which they are the leavening agent.  The final important difference between the first cake and the second was the size of the folding tool.  The dry ingredients must be carefully folded into the beaten egg and sugar mix, and the wider the spatula the more effective each fold.  None of my spatulas are particularly wide, and with the first cake I could hear the bubbles in the batter popping with every turn of the bowl and twist of the spatula.  To try to minimize this damage, I used a cake scraper the second time.  While this was a bit messier because the scraper lacks a handle, it did work quite well.

The same recipe, same ingredients and same amounts produced twice the cake.  What a difference a little practice makes!  The third or fourth time might really have been the charm, but with enough cake for three layers I quit while I was ahead.

The pumpkin mousse was far less problematic, once I got past the complications of using leaf gelatine instead of powdered.  The recipe calls for 2 1/4 tsp or one sachet of powdered gelatine, which through using Nigella's conversion and some maths (which of course I did not write down) I calculated equals 3 1/3 leaves of Dr Oetker's platinum grade leaf gelatine.  I don't know if that's actually accurate, but that's how much I used and it worked just fine.

First set the gelatine to soak as directed on the packet, and then mix a 1/2 cup of the pumpkin puree with the sugar and salt in a saucepan over medium heat until the sugar dissolves.  Mix in the gelatine and let it cool to room temperature before mixing it into the remaining pumpkin and adding the spices.  I didn't have any rum, so I substituted a 1/2 tblsp molasses mixed with a 1/2 tblsp calvados in the hopes that this would approximate its sweet dark flavour.

Like the dry ingredients of the génoise getting folded into the beaten eggs, the pumpkin mixture gets folded into whipped cream.  Whip the cream to soft peaks in a large bowl, and use a large spatula (or a cake scraper) to fold the pumpkin mixture into it in thirds.

To set up the cake, the layers should be built up inside of the clean springform pan.  I used the first, denser cake layer as the base layer of the cake, and split the second layer to make a three-layer cake; the recipe was intended to be two layers, but why have less cake when you can have more?  For a little added punch and moisture, I drizzled the residue of the rum-substitute onto the middle layer.

The whole thing should then be left in the refrigerator for at least four hours, but as I was using the cake the next day, and wanted it to be very stable on its journey, I froze it.  To finish it off, pipe a whipped cream border before serving.

The pumpkin mousse essentially tasted like a light pumpkin pie - not a bad thing in my book.  It was very good paired with the lightness of the génoise, and added a bit of moisture.  The crowning achievement of the cake, however, or its most resounding endorsement, was one host's claim that there had never been so much success in getting Brits to eat pumpkin.  Still, I doubt they'll be queuing up at Starbucks for a Pumpkin Spice latte any time soon.

Somethin' for Samhain

Samhain (pronounced 'sawin') was a festival celebrated on the 1st of November by the ancient Celts (specifically the Gaels, with the cognate Nos Galan Gaeaf being celebrated by their Brittonic counterparts), which marked the start of winter and the beginning of the new year.  It was believed that on this day the indeterminate boundary between this world and the Otherworld would be especially relaxed, with spirits and áes síde ('people of the síd', like fairies) out and about for a bit more fun than they might normally be on a regular occasion.  It is from this festival that our modern-day Halloween originates, though it has certainly changed in form and meaning over time: nowadays, the outlandish creatures we see wandering the streets at night are more likely to be four feet tall and have walked over from the house next door than out of a fairy mound, and our jack-o'-lanterns are carved from pumpkins rather than the potentially more frightening, severed-head-looking turnips of yore.

Another more recent development in the history of Halloween is the advent of pumpkin pie.  Sure, pumpkin pie wasn't invented for Halloween (and yes, if anything a stronger case could probably be made for its association with Thanksgiving), but nevertheless, with all that pumpkin carving going on to ring in this holiday, how can you not want a nice slice of something pumpkiny?  That being said, imagine if we were still carving turnips... google tells me that turnip pie is a thing, but my skepticism stands.

In truth, I know that quite a lot of people don't care much for pumpkin pie.  While I don't feel the same way, I think that I do understand it.  I think that it may be a texture issue in a number of cases, and for those cases I propose a solution: pumpkin cheesecake.  (For the rest: I'm sorry, all I can tell you is... more for us!).

Pumpkin cheesecake has all of the cinnamon-nutmeg-clove spicy pumpkin goodness of pumpkin pie, with the added benefit of cheese and a smooth (but never slightly slimy - sorry pumpkin pie, but you know what I mean), creamy texture.  It also has the nice contrasting crunch of a crumb base rather than flaky pastry.  That is why, for all these reasons and more, I love pumpkin cheesecake.  The ancient Celts were really missing out.

A tried and tested recipe for pumpkin cheesecake, and the one that I chose to use again this year, comes from Paula Deen.  I like it because it doesn't call for pumpkin pie spice, which I don't have and which can essentially be recreated with cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves anyway, and because it doesn't require two hours of cooling inside the oven.  I also like it because it is delicious.

There is nothing very complicated about the recipe.  I whisked the sugar and spices together separately before combing them with the rest to ensure good distribution, and I didn't beat the cream cheese too much before adding the pumpkin because it was already pretty smooth and I didn't want to over-beat it.  In retrospect, when I poured the batter into the prepared pan there were some bits of cream cheese that were perhaps a bit larger than desired, but all was well post-bake.  In fact, there were no cracks running through the middle of the cheesecake (and only one or two along the edge), which I think can be attributed to careful mixing.

Instead of using graham cracker crumbs for the base, I used crushed ginger snaps.  I liked the sharpness that the cookies added, a compliment to the spices in the cheesecake and a contrast to the mellow pumpkin, although I'm not sure if they made for a base that was crunchier or chewier than the graham crackers would have been.

Whatever way you slice it though, the cheesecake disappeared quickly, and I don't think it was the spirits who took it.

Trial, Error and The Great British Bake Off

So I started watching The Great British Bake Off.  I should never have started watching The Great British Bake Off.  I've become addicted, and now not only do I want to procrastibake even more, but I'm becoming a bit paranoid when I do, questioning: Is it baked all the way through?  What if I over-bake and it comes out dry??  Have I been innovative enough???  WHY AM I DOING THIS?!

Ok, that's an exaggeration.  Obviously I bake so I can eat more cake.  In truth, it isn't even the competition aspect of the show that has been holding my attention so much as it is the tid-bits that get thrown in, both by the judges and by the competitors, that teach some tricks, techniques and occasionally explain the science behind the baking.  My favourite parts, however, are the history of baking segments, which each week feature something relevant to that week's theme.  The first episode of this season told the history of the courting cake, which I'd never heard of, but shall be attempting (not for courtship purposes, it looks yummy and unusual - a shortbread base?  Yes please!).

This is all to say that I blame The Great British Bake Off for my latest baking endeavour, which I really didn't have time for but proceeded to undertake anyway.  The Great British Bake Off, and my own warped desire for pumpkin bread in August.

I picked a well-reviewed recipe for spiced pumpkin bread from epicurious.com, but wanted to experiment with swirling in mascarpone cheese.  I knew that mascarpone could be baked as it is sometimes an ingredient in cheesecake, and I believe it is also sometimes baked in the centre of cupcake (another thing I want to try...), so I was mildly surprised to find very few recipes with mascarpone swirls.  The recipe closest to what I was imagining that I could find was for brownies.  Enter more questioning: If I can't find a suggestion of someone trying this in the vast black hole that is the internet, is there a reason?  What will go wrong??

I decided to try it anyway.

In the end, the bread turned out pretty well, and I've added the recipe to the Recipe Box.  All in all it's pretty simple, but I made two missteps while figuring it out.  The first may be obvious to many bakers, but I'd never learned that you shouldn't grease and flour a pan with oil; butter is the way to go.  I was feeling lazy, I already had the oil out, and I thought 'Yeah why not?'.  The reason why not is because the flour becomes absorbed, at least in places, by the oil and beads up on the bottom of the pan.  I don't really know what would have happened if I'd decided to bake with the pan in that state because I opted not to, but I suspect it wouldn't have been very pretty.

The second misstep was over-beating the mascarpone.  I first beat the sugar into the cheese as per the brownie recipe, until the cheese was smooth and creamy.  Then I added the ground ginger and, as I was beating, saw the cheese begin to granulate.  I immediately realized that of course, like cream cheese, mascarpone can probably be over-beaten.  A quick check online informed me that yes, indeed it can.  So I beat the egg yolk by itself and carefully stirred it into the cheese mixture, which seemed to work (at least it didn't make it worse), but what I should have done in the first place was to beat the egg yolk with the sugar and ginger, and then mix the mascarpone into that.  Lesson learned.

First I prepared the bunt pan (again, with butter), and then made the bread batter.  I combined the dry ingredients first so they would be ready for me after I'd beaten the sugar, oil, eggs and pumpkin.

Then I actually beat the sugar, oil, eggs and pumpkin.  Mmm, pumpkin...

Finally I prepared the mascarpone mixture.  As I said, be careful not to over-beat the cheese; having come out a bit granulated, my swirls survived by could have been better.  It seems, however, if the cheese is over-beaten and curdles it will separate when baked.

I poured a layer of pumpkin batter into the bottom of the pan first, and then put dollops of mascarpone mix on top.  Next, because the cheese was thick, I swirled the mascarpone with a fork rather than a toothpick. Then I repeated these steps two more times, so that the top layer was swirled with mascarpone.  The photo above was taken halfway through the process, and note that the mascarpone doesn't look smooth.

It baked nicely, and actually more quickly than expected.  I baked at 325F (160C) rather than 350F because of the cheese, but even at 350F the recipe said to bake for one hour and ten minutes; I pulled it out at about one hour and five minutes, having resisted the urge to pull it out at one hour.  I think it would have been just about done at an hour.

No ivory swirls of cheese are visible in these slices, although there were some in a couple of others when I sliced the whole thing up.  Primarily the swirls appear as darker, moister streaks in the bread, and I'm not sure if that is because I over-beat the cheese, or if that is how it would always bake.  In any case, the swirls are discernible when eating the bread because you get a nice mild pop of ginger, one that I find to be a good complement to the pumpkin spices.  I think I'll have another slice now...