Two Baking Wins, a Pass, and a Fail

E veryone has that aunt. You know the one: She remembers every birthday, holiday, feast day, christening day, and anniversary; sends cards that arrive exactly on time; and fills boxes with goodies that she found for you “just because.” My aunt, we’ll call her Auntie J, is such a person. The joke goes in our home that she’s known for sending “Auntie J is coming” gifts, bringing “Auntie J has arrived” gifts, presenting you with the gift for the occasion she’s come to see you on, bestowing an “Auntie J is leaving” gift, and finishing it by sending a thank-you card once she’s home.

With all this in mind, and aware that Auntie J was celebrating an important birthday this year, we decided to surprise her with gifts, cards, and special desserts during our family’s annual Fourth of July weekend celebration. Naturally, I volunteered my services on the dessert front, and set to work finding out her favorite treats. Cheesecake and warm chocolate chip cookies topped the list, so off to the store I went.

A gluten-free coffee cake was also requested, and I’d already planned to make a regular one (see my recent food column for that recipe), so I had to make doubly sure all the right ingredients were either in my pantry or on my shopping list. Two of the recipes, the regular coffee cake and the cookies, were new to me. Yes, yes, I’ve made loads of chocolate chip cookies before — fear not. But King Arthur Baking has a tempting-looking recipe I’d been itching to try for months now, and it involves some rather odd techniques. More on that later, however.

My crowning achievement needed to be the cheesecake. America’s Test Kitchen’s La Viña–Style Cheesecake was a crowd-pleaser when I made it for Thanksgiving two years ago, so I decided to try it again. It doesn’t have a crust, which meant it would be edible for our gluten-free contingent . . . or it would’ve been, if I’d remembered to sub in gluten-free flour for the binding agent. This revelation didn’t dawn on me until much too late, however, and I baked on blissfully.

Actually, it wasn’t terribly blissful for a while. I’d started assembling the cheesecake at 7:30 a.m. on the Fourth, and I was scheduled to leave for my uncle’s lake house (where the weekend’s festivities would take place) at 2 p.m. The early start time wasn’t bothering me — no, it was my food processor. Instead of just going whole-hog and buying the 14-cup Cuisinart version a few months ago, I told myself that cooking for one person didn’t admit of such an extravagant purchase. Unfortunately for me, this simple cheesecake is a breeze to assemble . . . if you have that 14-cup machine. So there I stood, at 7:40 a.m., as my tiny processor screamed (yes, screamed; it is shockingly loud) through seven eggs, two cups of sugar, a cup of heavy cream, and 36 ounces of cream cheese over the course of about five batches.

After gathering everything into a too-small bowl (unlike Alexandra DeSanctis Marr, I am not blessed with the talent of knowing what size container my food will fit in and always choose wrong), I realized the batter was still lumpy. Refusing to repeat my cheesecake disaster from, oh, maybe eight years ago, I began ladling everything back into the tireless food processor for another whirl. That did the trick, and soon the cheesecake was baking merrily away.

Next up: my utter failure of a gluten-free coffee cake. In my defense, I was baking four different items almost simultaneously, but that is really a lame excuse. This was only my second bake of the day, and I still haven’t figured out what I got wrong. Early in June, I’d made this exact same coffee cake, and it had been gorgeous. Deep golden-brown crust, a tender interior — you never would’ve known it was gluten free. This recent cake, however? Pale, unrisen, and rubbery. I was disappointed, to say the least, and though some of my family ate parts of it, I’m fairly certain most of it went in the trash once I’d left the party. Did I forget a leavening agent? The sugar? The sour cream? Did I wait too long to put it in the oven? I guess we’ll never know. The bigger question is: Did I learn my lesson about the dangers of multi-tasking? No, I didn’t, and you’ll probably catch me doing it again very soon.

The second coffee cake turned out better, but I went against my better judgment and actually put the entire heaping bowl of crumb topping on the cake before it baked. It turned out to be overkill and fell off in annoying chunks as you tried to eat the cake. I also discovered that, as much as I enjoyed the cake’s ginger flavor, the addition of cardamom gave it an unpleasant (to me) stale taste. Thank goodness for the lemon-curd layer — it seemed to save the cake, and most of it was devoured without complaint.

The cookies, thank goodness, went flawlessly, especially since I wasn’t baking them until Saturday. See, this particular recipe calls for the dough to rest overnight in the fridge — which seems a bit much, but it really does deepen the flavors and make for a richer cookie. This recipe most interested me for two reasons: its use of browned butter and its use of the tangzhong method. Browning your butter for chocolate chip cookies gives them more flavor, and the tangzhong (a cooked mixture of flour and milk, more often seen in Asian baking, I believe) makes the cookies chewier in a delicious way. No catastrophes here, and after wrapping the dough up for its stay in the fridge, I went to check on my cheesecake.

Contrary to typical cheesecakes, you want this one to have a very dark crust on top before removing it from the oven, and its center will still be wonderfully wobbly. Rich and dark was mine indeed, and I set it out to cool while packing up the car.

Auntie J was happily surprised by our little party, which we’d managed to keep secret for two days, and it was such a joy celebrating her with everyone gathered there.

Also, having a piece of cheesecake in one hand and a warm cookie in the other certainly made the day all the sweeter.