Joanne Chang's Baking Tip No. 7: Toast your nuts

Toasting nuts too little or not at all is a fairly common and easy-to-fix baking mistake. When I go out to a restaurant or bakery and try a new pastry or dessert, I can taste whether the nuts are properly toasted. When they are, I know someone who is paying attention is in the kitchen making pastries that I want to eat. Untoasted nuts are labeled "raw" and that is exactly how they taste. Taking the time to toast nuts to a proper light golden brown color brings out their natural oils and heightens their nutty flavor. It is easy to do, too: Spread the nuts on a rimmed baking sheet and place in a preheated 350-degree-F oven for 8 to 10 minutes, or until they are fragrant and have taken on a golden brown color. To make sure they are ready, bite into a nut. For almonds and hazelnuts (which tend to require longer toasting), the interior should be medium brown. For walnuts and pecans (which toast more quickly), the interior should be light brown. In general, the firmer the nut, the longer it should be toasted to bring out its full flavor.

So I prepared the dough for some tasty milk chocolate hazelnut cookies tonight. But in preparing my ingredients I skipped over a step that Chang stresses in the beginning of the book, toasting your nuts. I'm sure the cookies will still be good, but I'm disappointed in myself. I'm not off to a great start with these recipes. With the scones I accidentally put in less flour than was called for and left them in the oven a bit long so they were dry. I didn't bake the cookies tonight though. I left the dough to sit in the refrigerator overnight, so I'll let Phoebe and Genna be the judges of how they taste tomorrow. 

In other news, the electric hand mixer and cake decorating kit that I ordered before Christmas should arrive on my doorstep tomorrow. I'm so excited! Decorate all the cakes! The first recipes I have planned for this are some cupcakes that I intend to bring to a New Years Eve party on Saturday. Flour has a yummy sounding chocolate cupcake with icing recipe which I'll be using. There's also a recipe for a red velvet layer cake which I'll alter to make cupcakes. I tweeted Chang asking how I should change it and responded saying to decrease the temperature of the oven by 25 degrees and halving the time. The cupcakes won't be done in half the time, but I should start poking them with toothpicks around then to test. If I have the time and the courage I might try my hand at making my own icing to complement the red velvet cupcakes. 

#1: Oatmeal Raisin Scones

Sorry it took me so long to finally do this. I eventually managed to drag myself to the grocery store and buy everything I needed, plus some stuff for other recipes. So here’s my first attempt at baking from Flour with the first recipe in the book: oatmeal maple scones. Normally I bake sweeter treats meant for dessert, but since the book starts with breakfast pastries I thought I’d start there and make something yummy for my family to eat in the morning.

The recipe called for:

• 1 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
• 1 1/4 cups old fashioned rolled oats
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1/2 cup pecan halves toasted and chopped
• 1/2 cup golden raisins
• 1/2 cup cold unsalted butter, cut into 8 to 10 pieces
• 1/3 cup cold heavy cream
• 1/2 cup maple syrup
• 1 cold egg

And for the glaze:

• 1 cup confectioners sugar
• 2 tablespoons maple syrup
• 1 to 2 tablespoons water

I started out by combining the dry ingredients and stirring thoroughly. Then adding the chunks of butter and stirring those until they mostly combined with some grape sized chunks still visible.

After all the dry ingredients were well combined, I then whisked together the heavy cream, maple syrup, and egg in a separate bowl.

Finally I poured the wet mixture into the dry mixture and mixed thoroughly for about a minute until the dough came together, although it was still wet.

Next scoop the dough onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. I made my scoops about 1/3 of a cup and spaced them 2 inches apart. You should be able to make 8 to 10 scones.

Bake in the middle rack at 350 degrees for about 30-40 minutes until the tops are golden brown. When out of the oven, allow them to cool for about 30 minutes on a wire rack. While they cool make the glaze by whisking together the confectioners sugar, maple syrup, and water then brush the glaze onto the scones generously.

Here’s a look at my finished product. They’re not perfect. The bottoms were a bit burnt so the scones were dry, but they taste good. I especially love the flavor from the golden raisins. The pecans could have been chopped finer though since I didn’t chop them much more since the bag I bought already came chopped.

Later this week I’ll be baking milk chocolate hazelnut cookies.

The Start of a New Project

Let me introduce myself. My names Lisa. I'm in my third year of undergraduate studies at Carnegie Mellon University majoring in applied mathematics. I grew up just outside of Boston in Newton, MA. I've always been a food fanatic and in recent years I picked up baking as a hobby. Living in such a culturally diverse city allowed me to try all kinds of foods, and especially desserts. From cannolis to churros to mochi ice cream. I've gotten the chance to try it all, things that I wouldn't normally get to eat in my traditional Chinese household. I was never allowed to bake much at home, because my parents kept a fairly healthy lifestyle and diet which sugary snacks did not fit into. At school my baking is rather conservative, kept to brownies, cookies, and cakes, etc. Things that didn't require too many ingredients that would put a dent in my wallet. So I’m hoping this project will help me branch out a bit. Now let me tell you how this project came to be.

The other night I went to the Unhappy Hipsters book signing with my friend, Cassie. It was held at a small studio store in the Fort Point district of Boston called Twelve Chairs. The place mostly sold furniture and decorative pieces for the high income hipster community. They also had several other signed books on display. I guess it's a common occurrence for this place to hold book signings. A specific book caught my eye: Flour by Joanne Chang, a baking recipes cook book. I picked it up because I liked the cover design and I have an affinity for cook books. I skimmed through some of the recipes and came to the conclusion that it was a very well designed cook book, so I decided to buy it. The woman at the cash register looked at the book and asked me if I'd ever been to any of the author's bakeries in Boston. I told her that I hadn't and that I just really enjoy baking. She told me that I had to check out Flour bakery (apparently there are three locations around the city) and asked if I was from the area. I told her that I did indeed live in the area for now, but that I'm studying math at Carnegie Mellon. She suddenly had a look of surprise on her face and told me that this was so perfect for me because as it turns out, the author of the cook book, Chang, also studied math before she started baking and to top things off she's also Chinese. Crazy right? So I bought the book and came home and immediately googled her. Basically this woman has my ideal future. She received her PhD in applied mathematics from Harvard University and she worked for a couple years in management before she decided to work at a bakery in Newton assisting their head baker. Newton! I'm from Newton! She then moved to New York for a couple years and when she returned to Boston she opened up her own bakery, Flour, and a Chinese fusion restaurant with her husband called Meyers + Chang.

So basically I'm totally crazy about this woman now. And my plan is to bake through her entire book, Julie & Julia style, while blogging about it. I'm definitely going to visit her bakery and restaurant in the South End this weekend and I'll make sure to write a post on that. Reading about her has just been such an inspiration to me. Chinese applied mathematician baker from Boston. It's just too perfect for words.