I’m a little late, but this is for One-Shot Characters week on @criticalbakes!
Now, I don’t really have a favorite one-shot character as such, but I was making these anyway and they struck me as suitable for Undeadwood’s Miriam Landisman: Scodelline!
Scodelline (also called Tazzine) are almond custards, a traditional Italian-Jewish Passover dessert, usually flavored with orange blossom extract or rosewater, sometimes with vanilla -- although I went a little sideways and used orange zest and fresh ginger on this occasion. I’ve long been inclined to headcanon Miriam as Jewish based on her name alone, and like her, these custard cups have a certain understated elegance.
Recipe and additional images below the cut.
Ingredients:
6 egg yolks, room temperature
a little over ¾ cup sugar
½ cup ground almonds (I use almond flour)
1 tbsp orange blossom or rosewater, OR fresh lemon zest OR vanilla
(for my variation, substitute a three-inch-by-one-inch strip of freshly cut orange zest, and a half-inch slice of fresh raw ginger, peeled)
¾ cup water
grated cinnamon to decorate, if desired
Directions:
Place the sugar in a small pot, barely covered by water (more or less the same amount of water and sugar).
Cook over low heat, stirring continuously, until it starts simmering and turns into a dense syrup. Do not allow it to brown and turn into caramel: as soon as it melts and thickens into a thick syrup, go on to the next step.
Add the ground almonds and the flower water or lemon zest (or orange zest and ginger), stir a couple more times and remove from the heat.
In a separate bowl, whisk the yolks until frothy. It will be easier with an electric whisk or mixer.
Slowly pour the whipped egg yolks into the syrup, stirring, until the mixture is smooth. Cook the mixture on very low heat in a double boiler (you can use a pyrex bowl on top of a pot filled with hot water), stirring continuously until it begins to thicken (about 20 minutes) and the surface turns shiny, almost glaze-like.
Once the custard is cooked allow it to cool down, stirring occasionally. (If using orange zest and ginger, at this point carefully remove the large pieces from the custard and discard.) Once it’s lukewarm pour it into individual serving cups, and dust the top with some grated cinnamon if desired. Serve accompanied by fresh fruit and/or wafer cookies.
@criticalbakes Week 3 - Caduceus Clay London Fog Tea Cakes
For Caduceus, what could be better then (dead people) tea cakes? How about London fog tea cakes and a big mug of earl grey? Tea cakes are my favorite cookie but I decided to play with them a little bit by adding tea directly to the dough. I’m pretty happy with how they turned out! These little guys fall somewhere between a cookie and a cake in texture and have a lovely balance of honey, vanilla, and earl grey flavor. Since it is our favorite gardener’s week I thought I would feature Simon the Sage plant who I am currently nursing back to health.
Ingredients
- 1 C softened unsalted butter (2 sticks)
- 1 1/4 C granulated sugar
-1/4 C honey
-2 eggs, brought to room temp.
-2 1/2 tsp. vanilla paste or extract
-3 C All Purpose flour
- 1/2 tsp. baking powder
-1 tea bags worth of earl grey tea*
-1/2 tsp. salt
Process
1) Beat together the butter, sugar, and honey using a stand mixer or a beater on medium high speed until butter is light and fluffy. This typically takes between 3 and 5 minutes.
2. In a separate bowl, whisk together salt, baking soda and salt. This can be done while the butter is beating.
3. With the stand mixer or beater on medium speed, add the eggs one at a time until combined. Add the vanilla and the earl grey. Mix until homogeneous.
4. Turn the mixer to low and add the flour to the wet mix in 3 batches. A stiff, but still fairly sticky dough should result.
5. Cover the dough and chill in the fridge for at least one hour, and up to 24**
6. When the dough is chilled, preheat the oven to 325F/165C. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper or a silicone baking sheet.
7. Measure out 21g portions of dough (about a tablespoon) and shape into balls, then flatten into a disk with the heel of your palm on the cookie sheet. They should be about a 1in. disk.
8. Bake for 9-13 minutes or until you can just see golden brown around the edges of the tea cake, but the top is still pale.
9. Cool and then serve with a cup of tea.
* You want to make sure that the tea that you use is really fine. It should look like the flecks that you see in vanilla ice cream. I used cheap bagged earl grey in this recipe, because it tends to be that fine already. If your tea is to large grind it up with a tsp of the sugar and a spoon in a bowl. Or chuck it in a coffe grinder :)
** Tea cake dough freezes really well if you don’t want to bake them right away. Just shape the dough into pucks and put on a sheet tray to freeze. once they are solid, into a baggie they go! then whenever you want tea cakes, cook a few up as directed above.
Late for Jester week... it’s still Techni-cal-ly monday, at least?
Black Moss and Blueberry Lemon cupcakes, complete with some ‘dust of deliciousness’!
‘Black Moss’/Chocolate cupcakes:
2/3 cup coffee, 1 1/2 cup flour, 3/4 cup cocoa powder, 1/2 tsp. baking soda, 1/2 tsp. baking powder, 1/2 tsp. salt, 2 eggs, 2/3 cup milk, 1/3 cup oil, 1 1/4 tsp. vanilla, 1 tsp. cinnamon, 1 1/2 cup sugar
Makes about 20. Preheat oven to 350°. Sift together flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder, and salt.
In a separate large bowl add eggs, milk, oil, cinnamon, and vanilla; whisk until just combined. Incorporate sugar and coffee. Add flour mixture and mix until fully incorporated (no dry parts) and mixture looks glossy, about 2 minutes (mixture will be runny.)
Line two cupcake pans with enough liners for 20 cupcakes. Fill each two-thirds of the way with batter.
Bake, rotating pans after 15 minutes, until a cake tester comes out clean, about 20 minutes. Cool before decorating.
Whip together butter and sugar until creamy. Mix in egg, milk, lemon extract and zest.
Sift in flour and baking powder, mix gently until just combined, then beat until smooth (batter is a little thick, but there should be no ‘chunks’).
Spoon into prepared pan and bake for 20-22 minutes (until tester comes out clean). Cool before decorating.
Cream Cheese Frosting:
8 ounces softened cream cheese, 1/2 cup softened unsalted butter, 3 cups powdered sugar, 1 tsp. vanilla (or flavor of choice), 1/8 tsp. salt
Beat together cream cheese and butter until creamy.
Add 3 cups powdered sugar, vanilla, and salt; mix until just combined, then beat until smooth. Add powdered sugar as needed for desired thickness.
I used the same frosting recipe for both, just flavored and colored differently. I just added some blueberries and sugar sprinkles to the lemon cupcakes, and crumbled a chocolate cupcake to make ‘moss’. Also, lemon because Jester is a ray of sunshine and the MX is all about making lemonade or... whatever. I had more lemons than blueberries, lol.
I’ve been thinking about making these ever since they were brought up on the show; Jester is a fucking delight and miss Laura Bailey is the queen of d&d.
Glad I actually read the prompt correctly this week, hopefully I’ll be more on time next week! Happy baking!
I am, by nature, a baker at heart. I love sweet things and I have a massive sweet tooth. So do not be surprised if everything I make for @criticalbakes is sweet in nature.
For Fjord, I decided to make a cupcake.
I’m not sure why thinking of Fjord made me think of coffee, but it did. Perhaps it’s his “team dad” energy, or maybe it’s just Travis that makes me think of coffee? Regardless, in celebration of Fjord Stone, Captain Tusktooth himself, I’ve made for you coffee-flavored cupcakes with a green frosting and a sea-salt caramel filling.
Recipe below the cut:
(this recipe makes six cupcakes, because I live in a house of three and we do not need 20 cupcakes. Adapted and modified from this recipe here.)
1/2 cup all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 large egg
1/4 cup granulated sugar
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
2 sticks of butter, softened
1/4 cup coffee or instant espresso powder in water
1 cup powdered sugar
1-3 tablespoons of milk or heavy cream, depending
Caramel sauce
Sea salt
Hot fudge sauce (optional)
THE NIGHT BEFORE:
Make a cup of coffee. Drink all of it except for 1/4 cup. If you find you do not want coffee at 10 o’clock at night, heat 1/4 cup water up and put a little less than a teaspoon of espresso powder in it.
While you are up, pull out 2 sticks of butter to soften.
Additionally, pull out chicken to thaw so you can make curry tomorrow.
THE DAY OF:
Take four tablespoons of softened butter and 1/4 cup of sugar. Beat that together with an electric mixer (or your hand, you muscle-person you). When butter and sugar are completely combined (you don’t see any sugar, just a butter sugar mix), add 1 egg and 1 tablespoon vanilla. Beat until combined.
In another bowl, combine flour, baking powder, and salt. That’s what the recipe says, anyway. I didn’t do that because I don’t like dirtying dishes. Instead, I just dumped the baking powder and the salt into the egg sugar butter mixture.
Slowly incorporate the cold coffee and the flour, alternating between the two while the mixer is running.
When all is finished mixing, divide semi-evenly into 6 cupcake holes in a tin. In order to get the sixth cupcake, you must scrape every last bit of batter out of the bowl, the spoon, the paddle attachment, and your soul, but six cupcakes will be formed.
Bake at 350 for 12-15 minutes. Allow to cool completely. While they are cooling, wash your mixing bowl because you only own one.
As the cupcakes are cooling, realize you’ve made curry at lot recently, so decide to make honey sesame chicken instead, and start making a marinade for that, too.
Once the cupcakes are not scalding hot anymore, use a piping tip and a chopstick to create a hole in the center of the cupcake, like so:
Fill the hole with store bought caramel sauce. Sprinkle the top with a little bit of sea salt.
Realize you are doing all of this just for internet points, a very real and valuable commodity that most people want. Decide to try a frosting recipe you’ve never made before but sounds neat. Realize your folly ten minutes later, when instead of frosting you’ve made sweet green butter.
Cry about it.
Realize you are never going to get an A in internet points with that attitude. Scrap the frosting you have, and pull out another stick of butter to soften in the microwave for thirty seconds. Blend 1.5 sticks of softened butter with 1 cup of powdered sugar. Add milk if the mixture is too thick.
Realize it doesn’t look anything like Fjord. Panic about it. Add green food coloring. Add a lot of green food coloring. Keep adding green food coloring. Add a dot of yellow and a dot of blue because maybe that will help.
Add frosting to piping bag with a piping tip in the bag already. Search the house for scissors so you can actually pipe cupcakes.
Realize you’ve overfrosted some cupcakes when you get to the last one and have barely enough frosting left for this one.
Clean your counter and strategically move everything so you can take a cool photo of your pretty cupcake. Decide it needs a drizzle. Open up a jar of hot fudge sauce from the fridge and add a drizzle. Take several photos.
Attempt to cut the cupcake in half so you can take a cool photo of the caramel center oozing out. Realize that didn’t work as your cupcake flops upside down when you cut it in half instead, stuck as it is on the cupcake wrapper.
Offer half a cupcake to a nearby twelve year old. When the twelve year old declines the cupcake, eat the entire thing by yourself as lunch.
Here’s my submission for the Jester week of @criticalbakes : cinnamon rolls! I don’t have a photo with it, but don’t worry they’re was plenty of icing on top as well (I broke quarantine to get yeast for these and it was definitely worth it)
For week one of @criticalbakes and also for Passover, we've got some strange balls in a dark and stormy soup (aka Matzo ball soup). I'm sure Fjord would approve of putting these balls in your body.
