Crème brûlée

No crème brûlée recipe in the splenda book or anything close enough I might adapt.  A little online research reveals that I can use this recipe with all the sugar substituted with Splenda, although here I use the half sugar half Splenda approach.  Like the cheesecake, sugar is not a primary ingredient here so it is probably acceptable to use all Splenda.  A little more online research reveals a substitute for the burnt sugar topping characteristic of crème brûlée involving melting erythritol with molasses and pouring this liquid over the custard.  This sounds like a very interesting alternative, but for now I'm going to stick with only experimenting with Splenda as a sugar substitute.  So I'll finish these custards with a pure sugar topping. 

I don't have ramikins so I made these in an oven dish.

Crème brûlée

4 portions

4 yolks

30 g sugar

4g Splenda

1 pt heavy cream, hot

1/2 t vanilla extract

1/4 t salt

Makeup: Mix yolks and sugars.  Gradually stir in hot cream.  Add vanilla and salt.  Strain the mixture and pour into ramekins.  Bake in a water bath at 325 degrees F about 25 minutes or until the custard is just set.  To finish, dab any moisture from the top of the custard.  Sprinkle with an even layer of brown sugar and caramelize the sugar under the broiler.

I  finished the crème brûlée on the broil setting of our toaster oven, which I had much success with in my last apartment, but I was having difficulty getting even heat on the top of the custard.  Also, in the batch I made the custard didn't set up!  I might not have baked it enough (?)  or it may have been a formulation problem, but this is not a very difficult recipe so I'm not sure what my problem was. 

Cream Cheesecake

Awful baking day today marked by huge mistakes in my try at New York style cheesecake.  Problems dividing the recipe; and I thought I was decent at math.  I almost used 4 times the amount of egg and egg yolk.  Luckily, I noticed that the amount of eggs was more than the amount of cream cheese (there should be more cream cheese than eggs in the recipe).  Second mistake I did not catch and I ended up using 4 times the amount of salt in the batter.  I knew it right after I did it, but by then it's too late.  I hadn't added eggs and liquids yet, so I considered saving the ingredients I had left, but for some reason I plowed on ahead and completed the recipe.  I may have wanted to finish for the sake of completeness.  Perhaps completing a subpar product is better than producing nothing for the purposes of this blog...  but certainly not for eating since this product will be inedible.  So maybe it is just a waste of ingredients.  ...oh and I also forgot the vanilla extract completely because I changed the order of addition among the ingredients and never went back for the vanilla.

Despite these disappointments, I'm going to record the recipe I was using anyway, just in case I want to try it again another day.  The recipe is adapted from Gisslen's substituting half Splenda for half sugar.  There is a recipe (actually a whole chapter) on cheesecake in the Splenda book, but since sugar makes up a low percentage of the recipe (most is cream cheese and eggs), I thought I would go back to trying adapting the Gisslen recipe.

Cream Cheesecake
makes one 8-inch cake

750 g softened cream cheese
130 g sugar
20 g Splenda
15 g cornstarch
3 g lemon zest, grated (about 1 t)
5 g vanilla extract (1 t)
8 g salt (1.5 t)
150 g eggs
50 g egg yolks
75 g heavy cream
40 g milk
10 g lemon juice

90 g graham cracker crust
     50 g graham cracker crumbs
     13 g sugar
     2 g Splenda
     25 g butter, melted

Make up: Line bottom of an 8-inch round pan with parchment paper and graham cracker crust.  Grease the sides of the pan.  Blend cream cheese until lump free.  Add half the sugar and blend until smooth.  Add remaining sugars, cornstarch, lemon grate, vanilla, and salt and blend until smooth.  Add eggs and egg yolks slowly, blending thoroughly after each addition.  Graduatlly add cream, milk, and lemon juice.  Each step of mixing should be done thoroughly, but without whipping air into the batter.  Fill pan up to 1/2 inch below the rim and bake in a water bath at 325 for about 1 hour or until custard sets.  Cool cake and refrigerate overnight to chill.  Top with canned fruit, or fresh fruit and an apricot glaze.

When I made this I used a muffin tin to get cheesecake cupcakes.  I was scared to try them!  I could smell the salt baking in the oven.  After they were cooled, I did taste them and they were disgustingly brackish.  However, I didn't notice anything off with the sweetness, so maybe this was partly a success.  These should be topped with fruit topping, maybe a cherry pie filling.  The graham crust tasted yummy and the texture of the cake was good except for some lemon seeds. Note: lemon juice should be strained before adding.

Éclairs

So I didn't take the time to finish the éclairs with chocolate fondant or even fill them properly with a pastry bag.  I halved them with a serrated knife and filled them with a spoon.  The empty éclair shells from class were underbaked, so the final product would have been subpar at best. 

I was happy with the pastry cream when I tasted it by itself, but now contrasting with what we made in class, the Splenda version is thinner in flavour.  The consistency is the same as in the Gisslen version, but I think the lack of butter and milk doesn't provide the richer taste.  I'd like to fix this recipe, but I'm not sure what the first step would be.  With a lot of the cookies, it seemed I needed to adjust to fats (butter, shortening, cream, etc.) along with the sugar.  I'm not sure if a direct Splenda-for-sugar swap would work here.  Perhaps I'll try a few variations this weekend...after I try crème brûlée. :)

Here's a picture of one of the unfinished éclairs cut in half so you can see the filling.

Vanilla Pastry Cream

We made pastry cream, or crème pâtissière, today.  I adapted the lemon crème recipe in the Splenda book to make a vanilla pastry cream similar to what we created in class by replacing the lemon flavor with vanilla extract and making up the liquid from the lemon juice with water.  I scratched the make up from the Splenda book and used the procedure outlined for Gisslen's pastry cream.  It's interesting that Gisslen's pastry cream recipe uses milk and butter, whereas the Splenda recipe uses only water and no butter.


I plan to use the Splenda pastry cream to fill some eclair (and cream puff) shells that we made in class.  The pâte à choux (batter for eclairs and cream puffs) has no sugar in the recipe (moreover, there is no sugar content in eclairs, unless you use the optional milk). So there's no need to make a low sugar version. Eclair shells are already sugar free!

Here's the recipe for vanilla pastry cream:
yields about 1 cup

2 T cornstarch
1/4 c (7.5 g) Splenda
1/4 c (52.5 g) sugar
5 large egg yolks (85 g)
1 c (227 g) water
1 T vanilla extract

Make up: Sift together sugars and cornstarch.  Beat the egg yolks with a whip and add the sugar mixture.  Beat until smooth.  Temper the egg mixture by slowly beating in the hot water in a thin stream.  Return the mixture to the heat and bring to a boil, stirring constantly.  The mixture should be thick.  Continue stirring until slightly cooled.  Then add the vanilla.  Transfer to a clean shallow pan (for quick cooling) and cover with plastic wrap directly in contact with the surface of the cream to prevent a crust from forming.  Cool and chill as quickly as possible.

Raspberry Muffins

Finally!  Success with Splenda!  Now with my new strategy I'm hoping for lots more success in the future.  I'm adapting recipes from the book, The Splenda World of Sweetness.  I had seen it in Barnes and Noble and borrowed it from the local library.  We made blueberry muffins in class this week, and I decided to work from the Splenda blueberry muffin recipe in this book.  I did make a few adjustments to the recipe and I've copied my adapted recipe at the bottom of this post. 

I made raspberry muffins.  I'm sure blueberry would have been just as successful, but I'm not a huge blueberry fan.  However, I love raspberries.  I used frozen raspberries, cake flour instead of all purpose, and twice the amount of eggs because after the final batter was mixed, I thought it was way too stiff.  I could hardly mix in the frozen raspberries.  Also, I coated the berries with a dusting of bread flour before adding them to the batter, although I'm not sure this step was necessary.  A flour coating on frozen blueberries is a good idea so the batter does not turn purple; but with raspberries, I'm not sure it made a difference.

Here's how the final product turned out.

And they tasted just delicious!  No strange Splenda fake sweetener taste.   Great texture too.  Maybe the added honey did it.  If I make these again I will top the muffins with coarse sugar before baking.  However, they are also quite scrumptous plain.  Holding back on the course sugar would also keep the total sugar content lower.  The only ingredient that contributes sugar would be the honey.  I also might try spraying the inside of the liners with non-stick cooking spray.  Here's a shot of the perfectly baked interior.

I took the opportunity to weigh ingredients, since I am working on my weight-volume converstions.  Here are volumes and their equivalents using conversions from my textbook.  The last weight is the measured weight of each ingredient which was scaled by volume.  The cake flour and eggs are almost exact.  However, the 1/4 c Splenda I measured out only weighted 7 grams, whereas the textbook says 1/4 c Splenda should weight 15 g.  I will have to further investigate this discrepancy.

1/2 c flour = 69 g  -- 68 g
1/4 c Splenda=15 g -- 7 g
1 large egg = 50 g -- 52g

Splenda Raspberry Muffins
yields 12 muffins
2 c cake flour
2 t baking powder
3/4 t salt
1/2 c soft butter
1 c Splenda, granulated
1/4 c honey
2 large eggs, at room temperature
1 t vanilla extract
1/2 c 1% low-fat milk
1 c frozen raspberries

Makeup:  The creaming method is used here.  Cream butter.  Then beat in Splenda and honey.  Slowly beat in eggs one at a time.  Add vanilla.  Sift flour, baking powder, and salt.  Stir by hand flour mixture and milk in two parts, alternating between dry and liquid additions.  Stir in raspberries.  Spoon batter into paper lined muffin cups.  Bake 33 minutes or until toothpick inserted into center of muffin comes out clean.  Cool in pan for 5 minutes.  Remove from tins and cool on wire rack. 

Note: By the following day, these muffins were much drier than the ones we made in class.  I might try wrapping tightly in plastic wrap, or try substituting oil for the butter since oil will help keep moisture in the muffin.

Biscotti

I haven't picked up the Splenda book from the library yet.  The library was closed today for MLK Jr. Day, but I will pick up the book tomorrow.  I found a Splenda Biscotti recipe online.  These Biscotti are sugar free and I just can't shake the inferiority of these cookies and their fake sugar taste.  And I'm especially critical here because the Biscotti is my favorite product we have made in class so far (Classic Brownies coming in as a close second.) I may need to next explore using sugar blends (using half sugar and half splenda).  The appearance and texture was acceptable, though.

I also stopped in Whole Foods yesterday and discovered they have just about any ingredient I'll need.  There were about 4 different kinds of pastry flour and I think two of them were organic.  I also spotted three different nationalities of vanilla beans available.  Incredible!  I can't wait until I need some exotic ingredient.  Whole foods is sure to have it.

Here's the Biscotti recipe from splenda.tastebook.com.  I omitted the raisins that were originally called for.

Splenda Biscotti

1 cup slivered almonds

1½ cups Splenda

3 large eggs

2 tablespoons milk

½ teaspoon almond extract

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

¾ teaspoon baking soda

⅛ teaspoon salt

1 large egg, lightly beaten

Make up:  Beat Splenda, 3 eggs, and milk at medium speed of an electric mixer for 3 minutes or until mixture is smooth and pale yellow in color. Beat in extract. Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt; add to Splenda mixture and beat on low speed until a stiff dough forms. Stir in almonds. Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface, and knead lightly 4 or 5 times. Divide dough in half; shape each portion into an 8-inch log. Place logs on prepared cookie sheet and flatten to ¾-inch thickness; brush with beaten egg.  Bake for 20 minutes or until puffed and golden brown; reduce oven temperature to 325 degrees F. Remove from baking sheet to a wire rack; cool 10 minutes. Cut each log diagonally into ½-inch thick slices with a serrated knife, using a gentle sawing motion. Place slices on cookie sheets. Bake 10 minutes; turn cookies over, and bake 10 additional minutes. Remove to wire racks to cool.

Below is a picture of the amazing Gisslen Biscotti.  These are technically unfinished, since they did not get a second toasting.  However, I like them this way because they aren't rock hard and you can eat them without dipping them in wine or coffee.  These cookies are so delicous, I wish I could send the taste through the blog page.

Spritz cookies

I realized I am not smart enough to adapt the Gisslen recipes with sugar substitutes.  Splenda spritz cookies were another fail.  The cookies had no flavor, and the end product was undercooked in the middle.  I did successfully color the cookies pink; however, it only showed more clearly where the butter was not blended in completely due to the butter's cold starting temperature.  As the cookies were baking, I saw the butter melt immediately out of the cookie along with some of the sugar.  The cookies cracked on the surface (you can see in the picture below). 

I've requested a Splenda baking book from the library.  From now on I will start from a Splenda recipe and try to achieve a product most similar to the Gisslen original.

Here are the spritz cookies from Gisslen.  We did not use food coloring, but topped with colored sugar.

Almond Macaroons and Chocolate Ganache

Today in class we topped the brownies with chocolate ganache and white chocolate stripes (napoleon style).  These were the most amazing brownies I have ever tasted.    I never actually made the ganache, as the chef instructor prepared one batch for the whole class, but the recipe is in Gisslen.

My Splenda brownies from yesterday turned out to be a fail.  They are not sweet enough at all.  Perhaps I need more Splenda in the recipe.  The texture is okay, but they are also a little dry and less chewy.

Almond macaroons were difficult to replicate at home.  These came out terrible!  They tasted floury, not crisp and sweet like meringue.  I used way too much flour and not enough Splenda.  Next time I'll try using 240 g almond flour instead of bread flour.  I would also try to use more Splenda (30 g of Splenda).   They were more bready than crisp, but I am glad they kept their shape, as deflated meringues were a common issue in Splenda meringue recipes I've been reading online.

Almond Macaroons
480 g bread flour (try reducing to 240 g almond flour)
150 g egg whites (about 4.5 eggs)
75 g sugar
15 g Splenda

Here's what almond macaroons from Gisslen look like.  Yum!

Icebox Cookies and Classic Brownies

Today in class we made chocolate brownies and dough for icebox cookies.  I came home today and replicated the recipe for each using Splenda. 

I found some whole wheat pastry flour in Shaws which I substituted for pastry flour.  I think I should have substituted all purpose flour instead because the resulting icebox cookie dough is very grainy, instead of smooth.  Also, the smell of the dough is wheat-y, and I'm not sure I like the combination with vanilla and chocolate.  I'm nervous to see how the cookies come out tomorrow.

Ice box cookies
8 oz butter or half butter half shortening
16 g Splenda (equal volume to 4 oz granulated sugar)
4 oz confectioner's sugar (10x)
0.125 oz (3/4 t) salt
2 oz eggs
vanilla to taste
12 oz pastry flour
2 oz melted unsweetened chocolate

For vanilla cookies:
Combine butter, sugars, salt, eggs, and vanilla.   Fold in pastry flour.
For chocolate cookies:
Combine butter, sugars, salt, eggs, and vanilla.   Blend in melted chocolate.  Fold in pastry flour.
Wrap doughs in plastic wrap and chill well. 

After chilling and assembling, here's what the final cookies look like.

For the brownies, I replaced all of the sugar with Splenda.  The batter looked much thicker than compared to the original we made in class today.

Classic Brownies
(yields about 12 large brownies)
8 oz unsweetened chocolate
12 oz butter
12 oz eggs
95 g Splenda (equal volume to 1 lb 8 oz sugar)
0.12 oz salt
0.5 oz vanilla
8 oz bread flour
8 oz chopped walnuts or pecans

Melt chocolate and butter and cool to room temperature.  Mix eggs, sugar, salt, and vanilla.  Add chocolate mixture to egg mixture.  Fold in flour.  Fold in nuts.  Bake at 325 for 20 mins in greased and floured or parchment-lined sheet pan.  Brownies are done when toothpick comes out clean.

These tasted gross.  I ate one and it was terrible.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

Today we made chocolate chip cookies; we also started brownies for tomorrow.  In class we are grouped in pairs.  My partner is Allison and I'm really lucky she is my partner because she has previous culinary training, so she can help me along.  I was very happy with how our cookies came out.  They spread nicely and were a perfect brown color. 

I came home to implement my Splenda substitutions.  Apparently, there is no pure brown Splenda like white Splenda.  The white Splenda can be substituted in recipes using 1:1 substitution ratio.  The packaged brown Splenda is called Splenda brown sugar blend.  It is recommended to use a 1:2 substitution ratio of Splenda brown sugar blend to regular brown sugar.  This complication has encouraged me to look into using liquid sucralose or molasses and Splenda as substitutes when recipes call for brown sugar. 

For today, I substituted 1/3 of the white sugar for white Splenda.  I substituted all of the brown sugar with half the volume using Splenda brown sugar blend.  As I would expect using much less sugar in the recipe, the cookies did not spread as much and were not browned as much as the original (full sugar) recipe.  The cookies had a dry crumbly texture.  Because of less spread, the cookies were thicker.  The original cookies were more crisp.  Next time, I will try to add molasses and not use any brown sugar blend.  I might add baking soda as well.

The recipe I used appears below.  Units are in grams because in practice, I am only making quarter recipes, so using grams makes weighing ingredients on the digital scale much easier.  Sugar and Splenda equivalents are listed at the end of this post.

Chocolate Chip Cookies
(yields about 16 4" cookies)

150 g half butter and half shortening
40 g sugar
12 g Splenda (equal volume to 80 g white sugar)
40 g Splenda brown sugar blend (equal volume to 60 g brown sugar)
4 g salt
90 g eggs
5 g (1 t) vanilla extract
300 g all purpose flour
4 g (3/4 t) baking soda
420 g Ghirardelli 60% cocao bittersweet chocolate baking chips

Cream butter, shortening, sugars, and salt.  Add egg and vanilla.  Blend until combined.  Add flour and soda.  Blend partially.  Add chocolate chips and mix all ingredients until just blended.  Scoop with ice cream scoop onto parchment lined baking sheets and bake 10 mins at 375 or until cookie edges are browned.

The recipe for Chocolate Chip Cookies in Professional Baking by Gisslen turned out delicious, except the cookies were quite crisp.  Although, I may have overdone them a bit. Below is a picture of the cookies from the original recipe.  Notice the good spread. 

Splenda-sugar conversions:
2 c sugar, granulated = 420 g (14.1 oz)
2 c Splenda = 120 g (4.0 oz)

Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies

We are making chocolate chip cookies in class tomorrow.  So instead of tweaking the recipe after trying the original, I am tweaking a recipe for chocolate chip oatmeal cookies that I have made previously.  I was very happy with the results as the cookies had similar texture, flavor, and sweetness as the original (at least that I remember!).

I went shopping after class today.  I was so excited to make chocolate chip cookies after our in-class demo.  I was basically jumping off my stool in class.  So once I got finished at school, I rushed home so I could go shopping for cookie ingredients.  I was looking for brown sugar Splenda, but Shop & Stop was out (they only had the brown sugar blend and it didn't even look like they carried the brown Splenda), so I figured I'd try to substitute with white Splenda and molasses.  There was no pastry flour either; next time I'll have to try Shaws.  I picked up some coarse Kosher salt and a digital kitchen scale (at Bed Bath & Beyond).

The first sheet I left in the oven a little too long, so the bottoms of the cookies were too dark.  But the second half-tray was baked perfectly.  The cookies turned out well, but I still prefer the classic chocolate chip cookie from our in-class demo today.  With all the chocolate chips, my cookie was certainly not lacking in sweetness, but adding oatmeal really changes the texture.  Next time I try this oatmeal cookie, I will tweak with less oatmeal and more flour to (hopefully) increase chewiness.

The recipe presented below is in volume measures.  Besides, that made it easier to convert the sugar amounts to Splenda.

Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies
(yield: about 32 2" cookies)

1/2 c butter at 60 degrees
1 c all purpose flour
1/2 t baking soda
1/4 c sugar
3/4 c Splenda
1/4 c molasses
1 1/4 c quick oats
6 oz Ghiradelli 60% cocao bittersweet chocolate baking chips
1/4 t coarse Kosher salt
1 egg
1/2 t baking powder
1 t vanilla

Mix butter and sugar until well blended.  Add eggs, vanilla, and molasses.  Mix with flour, oats, salt, baking powder, and soda.  Add chocolate chips and mix until just blended.  Drop 1" dough rounds on cookie sheet.  Bake for 10 mins at 375 degrees or until edges and bottoms start to turn dark brown.