I had a cookie or a cake to bake in my mind but I had to use the pumpkin also. There was enough flour, eggs, some chocolate and butter for a rich cake or a toothsome cookie but what should I do with the pumpkin afterwards? Accepting the fact that I have no magical powers to turn the pumpkin into a brand new car, it should fit in somewhere in this baking process. Here are the keywords: cake, cookie, and pumpkin. After some time spent to look around food magazines and cookbooks suddenly the answer rushed into my mind. Whoopie! Yes, I was happy to find a way to utilize everything but this was not my reaction, it was the answer’s itself: whoopie pie.

Whoopie pie is neither a cake nor a cookie but lies somewhere in between, we may call it a soft cookie. Moreover, I found a recipe of pumpkin whoopie pie and it is from the favorite bakery of Brooklyn dwellers, ”Baked”. As one of my friends living there praised their desserts some years ago before they became that famous so I had a positive expectation about their recipe too.

You may wonder why whoopie pie is called whoopie pie as I do. In order to satisfy our curiosity, the story of whoopee pies originated in Pennsylvania as an amish tradition. In early days around 1920s, Amish women used to bake these soft cookie sandwiches with a creamy frosting in the middle and put them in their husbands’ lunch boxes who worked in agricultural labour. Imagine a farmer making his lunch break after hours of heavy work and finding one of these sweet sandwiches as a dessert in his lunch box. Any guesses on how he yells at this instance? Whoopie! This is where the name of whoopie pie comes from according to food historians.

As for the recipe I adapted from Matt Lewis, co-owner of Baked bakery turned out to be a real treat however I tried a different frosting rather than the one with cream cheese and butter he gave. The one I prepared has no cream cheese in it but it has a different flavor thanks to elderberry syrup I used. You may also use alternate fillings like vanilla flavored buttercream or simply your favorite jam or some melted chocolate whipped with heavy cream. If that first bite from your whoopie pies makes you say ”whoopie!” out loud then you’re done.

Ingredients (for 16 pieces)

For Whoopie Pie Shells

• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 2 tablespoons ground cinnamon
• 1 tablespoon ground ginger
• 1 tablespoon ground cloves
• 2 cups firmly packed dark-brown sugar
• 1 cup vegetable oil
• 3 cups pumpkin puree, chilled
• 2 large eggs
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

For Elderberry Flavored Filling

• 2 egg whites
• 100g (3.5 oz) sugar
• 200g (7 oz) butter at room temperature
• 2 1/2 tablespoons elderberry syrup

Instructions

Yes, it’s time again; a brand new year is about to come and your eyes are looking for a special recipe on this blog at that time of the year. I know that very well and believe me I did my best to catch up. However last week was a complete mess thanks to well known astrologer Susan Miller who visited Istanbul recently. What she said was quite off-putting.

Something very big, a sort of phenomenal event would take place in Turkey on last Tuesday and this would affect lives of all people nationwide. This event might be a natural disaster, a serious bomb attack or a major scandal. My goodness, choose lesser of the three evils. She also warned us that Mercury was coming back (explanation for astrology virgins: this is something bad, very bad) and we should be very careful while taking decisions, better not to take any decisions even.

Thanks to this prophecy I had one of my worst Tuesdays ever, expecting vicious things to come out from everyday life scenes like construction workers on the street corner to drill natural gas pipeline by mistake and cause a huge blast and so on. Of course I could not take the decision for what kind of New Year recipe to work on under these circumstances, could I? Thanks lord, nothing serious happened on that day and I went back to my kitchen after a hard day of work.

Making Almond Flour for the Macaron

As a new year’s tradition I stick to spicy recipes but the things I tried were not better than my dear deer cookies of last year so I decided to go for some change (or should I say challenge?) and developed a new macaron flavor combination to celebrate the new year. I knew that it was not an easy task but when I read my own words from last New Year’s post saying “We all can do anything, no matter how fancy or how difficult it is. It’s all about trying and retrying just like all other things in our lives.” I gave it a go.

It was a bit more difficult than I thought and you would pity on me if you had known how many undercooked or overcooked, under folded or over folded macaron shells I ate to test the recipe. It took me preparing several batches of batter again and again with different amount of ingredients, consuming a great number of eggs a chicken can lay in two weeks’ time and lots of almonds.

When it comes to macarons everyone has his/her own way of doing things. Some achieved success by folding dry ingredients very slowly, some prefer folding rapidly as they would beat the shit out of it at first then slowing down, some recommend lower oven temperatures some others apply high temperature at first then lower it at the halfway of baking, some recommend a convection oven, some using a conventional one. Even, I read about using two different ovens set at different temperatures for each half of the baking time and then I stopped reading any more. Imagine, the question of “how long you should wait for macarons to get dried before baking?” has many answers ranging from “What the hell, I don’t have enough patience to wait even for a minute after piping them!” to “You have to to wait for a day to harden their shells”. As you see it is so easy to go insane.

In short, this would be your own experience with your kitchen tools and oven which would significantly affect the end product. Particularly you need to know the characteristics of your oven very well, if you do not know yet, this will be the chance to deepen your relationship. Good to keep in mind that it takes some trials to realize what works and what does not for the given conditions you are in; even the humidity of your kitchen might change the fate of your little macarons according to some opinion.

Accepting the fact that they are not a simple cake to bake, gather all your courage and be determined to accomplish what you aim: sweet and crispy outer shells without any cracks on the surface and a moist interior to leave a deep almond flavor on your taste buds.

After all your efforts if they do not come out perfect, please don’t get down. Anything with that much almond will taste nice regardless of its shape. Try to look from the bright side; you may not have the picture perfect macarons but will definitely have delicious almond cookies beside your tea. It’s just a matter of finding the courage to challenge yourselves and that’s what all we need to have for the coming year.

I wish you a New Year full of courage and determination to take a step further and realize all the things you wish for no matter how difficult they are.

Ingredients (makes around 24 macarons depending on size)
For macaron shells

• 120 g (3,8 oz) blanched or slivered almonds
• 200 g (7 oz) confectioner’s sugar
• 90 g (3,1 oz) egg whites (aged 1 day at room temperature)
• 30 g caster sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• A pinch of salt
• Cinnamon to sprinkle on top

For filling

• 160 g (5,6 oz) mascarpone cheese
• 2 ½ tablespoons green apple syrup
• 50 ml (1,7 fl. oz) heavy cream

Instructions

Have you ever find yourself in a situation which you have plenty of something but do not know what to do with it? I am not talking about work to be done or your overflowing “to do” list but a more tangible or let me say “edible” stuff. I felt this way some weeks before when my sister came up with a whole big honey comb sent by one of her grateful patients who was a beekeeper. Comb was full of insanely delicious wildflower honey derived from the nectar of many types of flowers with intense flavor. It was the purest honey I have ever tasted up to now and good part is that I had lots of it.

You can distinguish a high quality honey by its consistency and taste. A good quality honey should have less water content making it denser. Most common test is to pour a small amount of honey into a glass of water and observe what happens. If it dissolves easily in water than your honey is most probably diluted but if it settles at the bottom and form a lump it has a higher chance to be pure. A genuine honey has a more distinct taste compared to the ones blended with corn syrup or other artificial sweeteners. As for the color; there are three categories: light, amber and dark. The darker it gets the more mineral content it has; however color is not a direct indicator of quality. Some producers add molasses to make honey look darker but anyone with a fair gustatory sense might easily tell the difference.

Sitting in front of a big chunk of wildflower honey, I started to think about recipes that might be done with it and suddenly the taste of a toothsome dessert revived on my palate, fritters in honey syrup.

This is a traditional recipe from Aegean side of Turkey; however you’ll come across with its variations in Greece and Middle East too. It is a doughnut like dessert called “Lokma” in Turkish which means “bite”. In Greece they call it as Lokmades. Even though the batter looks like simple yeast dough, ending up with the right consistency to form a sphere like shape in the frying pan is quite difficult. I prepared the same batter with different amount of ingredients six times and one thing was common among all, they all failed! I was about to give up and carry on with some other dessert but I couldn’t help giving one last chance. Voilà! Being stubborn like a goat finally rewarded at my seventh attempt; incredibly delicious fritters with crispy outer shells and soft inner parts as they were supposed to be.

If you do not have the right recipe in hand (my version turned out to be a good one after all my research and development efforts) most probably you will end up with a puffy and soft fritters soaked in frying oil but do not worry I won’t let you fail.

First of all, you should be very careful about not overmixing the batter. If you overmix, gluten will develop in the batter and you will end up with bread like fibred texture and a soft outer shell, with almost no crispness. Another important point is to make your syrup ready and to cool it down to room temperature before you start frying.

For the syrup I used honey and sugar combination and also add cardamom seeds, a few cloves and another must have: cinnamon stick, to end up with an enriched flavor. Normally syrup should be plain but I am so happy with the result that I can honestly claim that this is an improved version of a traditional dessert. So get ready to spice up!

Ingredients (makes 8 servings)
For the batter

• 200ml (6.76 fl. oz) warm water
• 280g (9.87 oz) all purpose flour
• 4 tablespoons liquid vegetable oil + 2cups for frying
• 1 egg
• 1 teaspoon instant dry yeast
• 1 teaspoon confectioners’ sugar
• A pinch of salt

For the syrup

• 1 ⅓ cup water
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• ⅓ cup good quality honey
• Zest of one lemon
• 10 cardamom seeds
• 2 cloves
• 2 cinnamon sticks

Instructions

Have you ever participated in a race even if you know that you won’t be the winner? For me, the answer is definitely “Yes!” and I should admit not just for once. Good part is that it provides the opportunity to maximize the fun you will get out of it without pushing yourself too hard. Considering the norms of modern life dictating us to compete with others, to win over, to become invincible with all similar “Impossible is nothing!” like mottos flying all over, sometimes it is relaxing to have “Enjoying is everything” attitude.

Such sort of thoughts was wandering in my mind when we set off for our trip at dawn to join the Anatolian ski marathon a week before. I knew that I was not about to complete almost 40km racetrack but with snow covered hills and magnificent trees spread all over the place, I was was going to have a good time, fur sure. Did I mention the ultrahigh oxygen level? Believe it or not even inhaling this fresh air is worth waking up at 05:00 am.

We had to carry all our equipment: our very tall and narrow cross country skis, boots, poles, garments and no need to say lots of energizing food stuff to recharge our bodies during a cold day in the mountain full of physical activities. If you could see us, you would probably think that we decided to move in to a cave at the mountain top and to live there for the rest of our lives. Particularly food was the leading item we exaggerated a bit too much. I cannot give you a proper list but from little savoury snacks to mini muffins, sponge cake to orange cookies, dried fruits to bananas, we had almost everything as if we were running away from a hurricane and there was no coming back home!

The snow flake shaped sponge cake was the big hit of the day with its soft texture and delightful apple filling inside. It is not difficult to bake but takes some time to decorate the top, if you want it to be a little fancy like I do.

Sponge cake itself is based on a classical English recipe, however, there is no rule for inner filling. I wanted to use cooked apples and cinnamon but you might use other ingredients: raspberries and heavy cream, chocolate ganache and banana, apricot purée or your favourite jam, you name it.

There is no trick in baking this cake, so as long as you follow the below mentioned steps you won’t fail. Few things you should pay attention are:

• make sure all the ingredients are at room temperature, and
• do not over mix while folding the dry ingredients into egg mixture. (This is all about chemistry of baking which I will tell you in another post.)

Now, I know that you wonder what happened at the end, so here comes the results: I can honestly tell you that I managed to ski around 8,5 km. That was far better than last year, taking into account the very steep hill I managed to climb twice on my skis instead of other entrants sliding back towards me. A scary moment!

As a result, I was not able to complete the marathon but still felt like a winner. After all it was the day of taking easy, the day of no rush and no push. I remembered once more that life has lots of good things to offer for ones who can slow down for a while and enjoy the moment by getting rid of their ambitions. So, sometimes losing the game might be pleasant like a piece of cake. Just enjoy!

Ingredients (makes 6 servings)

For sponge cake
Following combination ends up with a batter to fill almost ¾ of a silicon mold which has a total volume of 800ml, you may increase the ingredients by keeping the ratios if you are using a larger mold)

• 120 g (4.2 oz) unsalted butter (cubed)
• 120 g (4.2 oz) sugar
• 120 g (4.2 oz) all purpose flour
• 2 large eggs (lightly beaten)
• 1 1/3 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• A pinch of salt

For Apple Filling

• 2 mid-sized green apples (grated)
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 2 teaspoons lemon juice

For Icing (optional)

• 25 g (0.87 oz) labne cheese
• 10 g (0.35 oz) confectioner’s sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon lemon juice

Instructions

For sponge cake

For Apple Filling

For Icing (optional)

For the whole cake

In the previous post I promised you to share my New Year cookie recipe and just to keep my promise I am writing down this post under difficult conditions. Weather is cold outside in Istanbul and I realized that I forgot my key at home during the morning rush. Now I am sitting at a small cafe’ in the neighborhood where they cannot even make a cup of tea properly. A strange young couple is sitting next to me and continuously making a nonsense conversation ranging from their awful jobs to adverse effects of tooth whitening products, preventing me from concentrating on my post. Anyhow, promise is promise, so I will do my best.

When I started to look for a cookie recipe more than a week before then, I wanted it to be homely but fancy enough to remind the New Year, to have a crispy texture but not too brittle, to leave some flavor on the tongue but not too spicy, and so on. It was a trial and error process to find the right combination of ingredients for a tasty recipe. After too many batches and numerous pieces of cookies, some without enough ginger, some with too much cinnamon, some overcooked, some not enough cooked, I suddenly realized that I was asking way too much from a cookie just because it was for the New Year.

I guess most of us have a tendency to attach a lot importance to New Year related stuff. Like my high expectations from these little cookies, we all look out this brand new year to bring all the goodness we long for. Probably within the group of people who read this post, seventy percent want to leave their jobs for a better opportunity in the coming year or at least to get promoted in the same place, forty percent hope to find their significant other to share their lives, thirty percent expect to find the courage to put an end to their going nowhere relationships, sixty percent aimed to lose ten pounds they gained within the stressful 2009 that made them eat more than usual (shame on 2009!), and the list goes on and on…

Putting the perfect New Year’s cookie aside, I have also a new year’s resolution about this blog. I really want it to share with more and more people in 2010 to touch their life at some point, to make them feel good with my stories and to convince them to try something new in the cozy atmosphere of their kitchens. We all can do anything, no matter how fancy or how difficult it is. It’s all about trying and retrying just like all other things in our lives.

Hoping that all of us get what we are looking for in 2010, below I wrote down the recipe of my new year cookies for those looking for one. If you start with the same amount of ingredients you will end up with too many cookies to share with your beloved ones so that the sweet taste of cookies lingers in their mouths throughout the year.

A happy new year from the Kitchen of Oz!

Ingredients (makes around 80-120 pieces depending on the cookie cutter size and cookie thickness)
For cookie dough

• 1 cup (227 g / 8 oz) butter
• 3/4 cup (160 g/ 5,6 oz)sugar
• 2 large eggs (at room temperature)
• 2 +3/4 cup all purpose flour
• 3/4 cup corn starch
• 4 teaspoons ground ginger
• 1+1/2 teaspoons cinnamon
• 1/8 teaspoon salt

For royal icing (optional, if you do not want to decorate the cookie you may skip this part)

• 1+ 3/8 cup confectioner’s sugar
• 1 egg white
• 1 teaspoon lemon juice
• Food coloring according to your preference

Instructions
For cookie

For royal icing (optional, if you do not want to decorate the cookie you may skip this part)