We're a Big Blog Now!

That’s right, we’re turning 4 today! It doesn’t really feel like it’s been that long, until I stop to think about all that has happened in that time.  Seeley nearly liquefied her brain with never ending crazy math, but survived, and even graduated! (See we are all grown up!) I moved from Utah, to Massachusetts, to Virginia, and eventually back to Utah again.  (Always in May, mind you.  What’s with me moving in May?) And on top of all of that, in the four years since Authors Kitchen was born, we’ve posted somewhere in the neighborhood of 300 recipes! That’s a lot of cooking and food porn!

The inspiration for this recipe comes from a place in Virginia called The Icing. They make the most amazing cupcakes, and my very favorite flavor was grapefruit. I know, grapefruit cupcakes sound more weird than wonderful, but trust me, they are fantastic. Since I can no longer just run down to The Icing and pick some up, it was time for me to figure out how to make my own.

Here’s what you’ll need: 

• 1 ⅓ cups flour
• ½ teaspoon baking powder
• ½ teaspoon baking soda
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• ¾ cup sugar
• ½ cup whole milk
• 6 Tablespoons butter
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 2 eggs
• 2-3 grapefruits depending on size
• Grapefruit buttercream (recipe below) 

Everything for this recipe should be at room temperature, including the fruit. First up, pour ¾ cup sugar into some kind of a container with a lid.  I like to use a 1 pint mason jar for this purpose. (Add that to the long list of uses for those.) Set that aside and zest your grapefruit.  I like to use organic citrus when I know I’ll be eating the zest.

Give it a good wash, and make sure you just take off the very outside layer.

Now, because grapefruits vary so much in size, I was diligent and actually took measurements as I worked. You want 2 Tablespoons of zest. And when I say Tablespoon, it should look something like this. Don’t pack it down or it will just all stick together. 

Add that to your sugar, put on the lid, and give it a good shake. (remember the lime sugar?)  Not only does this mix the sugar and zest together, but it also makes the zest release some of its oil, which is where all the flavor is, so don’t wimp out. Shake, shake, shake. 

Now on to the juicing. Grapefruits are too big for my press juicer, so I like to use one like this for them. You need 1 ½ cups of juice. That took 2 medium sized grapefruits for me, but if yours are very small, you might need 3.

When you’ve got the juice, pour it through a mesh strainer to remove any pulp.

Then, in a small saucepan over medium high heat, bring it to a boil.

You want to cook the juice down from 1 ½ cups to ¼ cup. The reason for this is to concentrate the grapefruit flavor while reducing the amount of water that will be added to the recipe. This process will probably take about 15 minutes, and you’ll need to stir almost constantly. I like to use a silicone spatula for that. They do a good job of scraping the bottom and moving stuff around without making a lot of noise. As you near the ¼ cup mark, it will start to become somewhat syrupy in consistency. You’ll know you’re close when the bubbles start to stack up on each other like this:

Pour the grapefruit concentrate into a glass measuring cup.

See, it really did cook all the way down to ¼ cup.

While that’s cooling, go ahead and drop paper liners into your muffin pan and turn your oven to 350°. Then, in your mixing bowl, whisk together all of your dry ingredients, including the grapefruit sugar.

To that, add the milk, butter, vanilla, and 3 Tablespoons of the grapefruit concentrate (the remainder is for the frosting).

Mix on low speed until everything comes together, then scrape everything down really well. Increase the speed to medium and allow it to mix for 2 minutes, after which, the batter should be fluffy and beautiful. 

Give it another scrape and add the eggs. 

Mix until they are fully incorporated, then one more scrape, and a quick final mix. Gorgeous!

Scoop the batter into your prepared cups, filling them just over half full. The scoop I use is about 3 Tablespoons. 

When you place the pans in the oven, increase the temperature to 425°.  After 5 minutes (set a timer) turn it back down to 350°, and continue baking for an additional 15 – 18 minutes. That’s a total bake time of 20 – 23 minutes. When they’re ready, they’ll be beautifully domed, and a toothpick inserted into the center will come out clean. After just a couple minutes, transfer them to a rack and allow them to cool.  Aren’t they lovely?

Otto found some sun under the dining room table and decided to have a nice nap while I was baking. I already had the camera in my hand, so I couldn’t just pass up the opportunity to capture the aww. As you can tell by all the white in his face, he’s no spring chicken anymore, so I try my best not to take these precious moments for granted. 

Now for the buttercream… Here’s what you’ll need: 

• ½ cup butter, softened (1 stick)
• 2 cups powdered sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 Tablespoon grapefruit concentrate
• 1 – 3 Tablespoons cream (or the highest fat dairy you have on hand) 

Put the butter in a mixing bowl.

Give it a whirl until it’s nice and soft and fluffy.

Sift in 1 cup of the sugar.

Starting on low speed, stir until it all comes together, then scrape it down and give it a good mix on medium high speed for 45 seconds or so. Add the grapefruit concentrate and vanilla and mix until they are thoroughly incorporated.

If you used pink grapefruit, it’ll give the frosting just a hint of color.

Sift in the remaining cup of powdered sugar and go through the stirring, scraping, mixing process again.  Add the cream, 1 Tablespoon at a time, until you reach buttercream perfection. 

Then just spread or pipe it onto your waiting cupcakes.

So, how do they compare to the ones from The Icing? I’m going to say, equally fabulous, but different.  They use a regular vanilla buttercream which makes for a fairly subtle flavor, whereas my grapefruit version has a fabulous citrusy of tang to it. The cake itself is probably almost a dead ringer. Just look at that texture. The crumb on this recipe couldn’t have been better.

What’s your favorite flavor of cupcake?

Chocolate Biscotti

I don’t usually like really crunchy cookies. Why did I make biscotti then?

Well, I’ve also been looking for cookie recipes that start with something other than “cream the butter and sugar then beat in the eggs and vanilla”.

Plus, apparently the rock hard biscotti that we typically find at coffee shops (that I find too hard to bother with) are a lot harder than they should be. One of the managers at work is an old world Italian dude and he said that these cookies, which are crunchy but still bite-able, are what biscotti are supposed to be. When you dip them in coffee they don’t fall apart, but you can also bite them without first having to soften them in espresso, or amaretto. Or espresso with amaretto in it.

What you need

**I made a double batch and used twice the amount of everything so the pics look a little different**

• ½ cup pine nuts or slivered almonds or hazlenuts or maybe pistachios?
• 1 ½  cups flour  (you can substitute up to 1 cup of flour with almond flour)
• ¾ cups sugar
• 1 tsp baking powder
• ¼  teaspoon salt
• ¼  cup cocoa
• 2 tbsp cold butter, cut into little pieces (don’t bother with butter if you use almond flour)

• 2 large eggs, lightly beaten
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon Amaretto
• 1 teaspoon Amaretto
• ¾ cups chocolate chips

What you gotta do

I like toasty nuts. So, first thing I’m going to do is put the pine nuts in a dry pan over medium low.

While those get toasty, start measuring the dry stuff into a big bowl. Don’t forget to shake the pan from time to time so that the nuts get toasty on all sides.

Flour. Shake the pan. Sugar. Shake the pan. Baking powder and salt. Shake the pan.

Sift the cocoa into the bowl to make sure all the little cocoa lumps get busted up.

Shake the pan. Once the pine nuts are nice and golden toasty, set them aside to cool.

Mix all the dry stuff together and then cut in the butter. Biscotti are traditionally made with ground almonds in there along with the flour, and no fat (butter, sweet, creamery butter), but since I’m not using the almonds, I need fat (butter, sweet, creamery butter).

Cutting in the butter can be done with a pastry cutter, or forks, or knives. It’s the same thing you do when you’re making biscuits.

In another bowl crack the eggs and add the Amaretto and the vanilla. And the Amaretto.

Beat the eggs and Amaretto and vanilla and Amaretto together.

Okay, so you know how when you make muffins, you toss the blueberries in a bit of flour to make sure they stick to the muffin batter? Along those lines… dump the chocolate chips and the cooled pine nuts into the egg mixture, and then pour it into the dry stuff.

Wait. Preheat the oven now to 350.

Since what we’re doing here is making a pastry type dough, we don’t want to mix it too much, since that makes gluten form and toughens the cookies. No one likes tough cookies. Mix just until things are starting to hold together and then dump it onto the counter in a big mess that’s half wet and sticky and half dry and crumbly. This is the same thing we did with the Welsh Cakes and you trusted me then, right? Right? Amaretto.

Gently press the dry stuff into the sticky parts, and fold them over. Keep folding and pressing (while avoiding the urge to “knead” the dough) until it all comes together.

Sorry about the perspective on those pics, but my hands were kinda messy.

**I made a double recipe and cut my dough into 6. If you're just making a single, cut into 3.**

Once the dough has come together, cut it into 6 wedges.

Roll each wedge into a log about 8 or 9 inches long and press it into an oval that’s about 2 inches wide.

If your dough is still really sticky (Amaretto), use cocoa, not flour on the counter.

My dough was really sticky and I ended up with a lot of cocoa on the logs, so I brushed them with a bit of Amaretto. You could also brush them with beaten egg if you want a glossy look on the top.

Bake the logs for 25 minutes, then set them on a rack to cool. My tiny one-room-sized air conditioner is in the bedroom. So I had the fan help them along with the whole cooling thing.

Slice the logs into ½ to 1 inch thick slices on the diagonal. You should get a dozen or so from each log. And yes, you could stop here and just call these things cookies, but you couldn't call them "biscotti". Biscotti get their name from being twice baked (bi = two, cotte = cooked, that is your Latin lesson for the day).

Now, you could evenly spread them out nicely so that air circulates around them, but fuck air space. I just got 6 dozen cookies on one baking sheet.

I saw one site that suggested standing the slices up on edge but whoever wrote that obviously did not use Amaretto. Or bake them that way because seriously, wtf? Stand ½ inch thick slices of cookie on edge? Try it. Tell me if it works. Pics or it didn’t happen.

Amaretto.

Oh, and you know all of those little crumbly bits left on the cutting board?

Whatever you do, don’t put them in a bowl, pour Amaretto over top and eat them like cereal. No pics. Didn’t happen.