Cakewalk

My New Therapy

2012-01-01T12:37:00.000-08:00

My baking posts have become almost nonexistent. I still bake birthday cakes for faraway friends, but I've discovered quilting and haven't looked back. A lot more expensive than baking, but a much more satisfying creative outlet for me. Maybe my blog needs a name change?

Quilts of 2011

9-1-1 Steak

2011-12-09T21:56:00.000-08:00

Eat.

Crock Pot Granola

2011-12-05T01:24:00.000-08:00

One of my default desserts is Greek yogurt with granola, sometimes with fruit. We're both reading labels more and more lately, and since it's next to impossible to find granola in the grocery store without sugar, I decided to make my own. In the past I've made it the traditional way, on cookie sheets in the oven, but inevitably I always burned it. Then I stumbled upon this blog post about making it in the crock pot, so I tried again. Success!

2 1/2 cups oats
2 1/2 cups seven-grain mix
1/4 c. coconut
1/4 c. dried apricots
1/4 c. chopped almonds
1/4 c. raw sunflower seeds
1/4 c. raw pumpkin seeds
a few scoops of ground flax seeds

Add 1/4 c. melted butter (or nut butter -- I'll try almond butter next) and 1/4 c. honey and stir.

Add to your crockpot and vent with a chopstick (or a wooden spoon or something). Be sure to stir every half hour or so -- definitely if you can smell it, you should stir it.

The original recipe says to cook it for three hours, but I've found even two hours can burn it. This time I cooked it for two hours and left it in the hot crock pot, turned off for another hour, and I still got some burned bits.

Edit: I forgot to mention, the granola won't seem "done" -- it will still be kind of chewy while it's warm. It will crisp up after it cools. The first time I made this I cooked it way too long because it seemed as if it wasn't cooking. Also, if you want it to clump more, you'll need more honey than the 1/4 c. stated in the recipe. Play with it!

Next time I'll cook it for two hours and take it out immediately to cool.

What I like about this recipe is that it's so easy to change. Just take a walk through the bulk aisle and grab what sounds good.

Blissful Bread

2011-10-26T23:52:00.000-07:00

Yeah, yeah, we all know I love bread. I mean, I really love bread. Years ago I started baking it -- sandwich bread, French bread, ciabatta bread...one Christmas I made panettone for all my friends and neighbors. I made it by hand until I developed wrist problems. I got a KitchenAid and kept going. Something about bread...the meditative process of kneading, the way it warms my home with its scent and warmth, it exudes goodness. That sounds ridiculous, but I'm not a poet and I can't think of any other way to put it. It makes me feel good -- to make it, to eat it, to gift it.

Eventually various health reasons halted my excessive consumption of bread, and in turn, my production of it.

On my way home from the Oregon coast on Sunday, I stumbled upon a tiny bakery in the town of Philomath. I was with my friend Anita. We stepped in the door thinking we might find lunch, and we were immediately blasted with hot, humid air. But it was just a bakery. I say "just." The minute we walked out I knew I had to go back with my camera.

I've been thinking about this blog post for three days. I've already written way more than I intended -- I'd hoped to capture my feelings in my photos, but I think I was too distracted.

If you're interested to learn more about this bakery and its baker, check out this six-year-old article from The Eugene Weekly:

Rising at Sunrise; Baker Bill Hotchkiss feeds more than the body.

It's the fourth article down on the page. After reading it myself, it explained a lot about the comfortable energy that saturated that kitchen.

Almond Joy Pound Cake

2011-10-08T12:41:00.000-07:00

I think one of my favorite parts of baking is the creating. Coming up with combinations and executing them successfully. Not that this idea is so original, but you don't see it very often. My dad's birthday is this weekend. He's a fan of coconut, so I came up with this because it's something I can mail. Next time I'll add more coconut glaze, but otherwise it's perfect.

Now all I can think of is translating candy bars to cakes.

Here are the recipes I used.

Cake recipe is here.

Glaze recipe here. (And what looks like a yummy scone recipe.)

Ganache.

Choppin' Broccoli

2011-09-18T19:14:00.000-07:00

I'm so bored of broccoli. I mean, b o r e d. It's available all year round, so it's kind of a staple. A fallback veggie, I guess. Eric started roasting it a few months ago, and that's good. But I found another version of roasted broccoli on Pinterest recently and decided I had to try it. Why? Because it had just five ingredients. If it's not something I'm baking, that's pretty much my basic rule for cooking. (I guess it's a good thing Eric does all the cooking.)

You will need:

broccoli
salt/pepper
olive oil
lemon
Parmesan cheese

Cut up some broccoli. The original recipe calls for making sure the broccoli is DRY before adding the oil. I forgot that step. I'll try it next time if I remember. Toss the broccoli with olive oil (I only had canola, so that's what I used), salt, and pepper. Slice a couple heads of garlic, toss them in too.

Bake for about 25 minutes at 425° . When it comes out of the oven, add the zest of a lemon, lemon juice, and some grated Parmesan cheese. I only had cocktail remnants of a couple of lemons, so I maybe used half a lemon. If that. The original recipe called for 1/3 of a cup of cheese. I didn't use that much because I wanted to keep it as healthy as possible.

Toss. Eat.

This stuff was so good I forgot to take a photo, so this is all you get.

The little brown bits? Delicious, crispy garlic! I cooked just two large heads of broccoli, but I should have made at least four. Eric wasn't thrilled with the whole thing, but I LOVED it, and when he goes to Portland next time, I'm going to make a ton of this for myself.

Birthday Redemption

2011-08-15T01:27:00.000-07:00

Two years ago I was part of The Daring Kitchen, and the August challenge was Dorbos Torte. It had chocolate and caramel, it was fancy, I thought why not make it for my husband's birthday? Well, it wasn't one of my more successful experiments, and he still teases me about what a lousy birthday cake it was.

So this year I decided no more experiments for his birthday, I'd make his favorite, German Chocolate Cake. (Recipe from The Joy of Cooking.)

Oops. Thankfully I put the cupcakes underneath, otherwise I would have had an enormous mess. (Evidently I packed my cupcake pans already. Wishful thinking, I guess.)

That wasn't the first mishap. For some reason both cakes completely stuck to the pans. I should know better than to to skip the parchment paper when I'm baking a cake with so many egg whites.

I was chatting with my friend Leslie from Curried Cupcakes, and she suggested "Make a trifle!" Brilliant idea!

I looked up some recipes online just to see how others had translated German Chocolate Cake into a trifle, and several of the recipes included pudding as one of the layers. That didn't interest me at all, so I decided to mix the pecan-coconut filling with freshly whipped cream, then layer that with the cake and some toasted coconut and pecans.

I'm pretty sure I've redeemed myself in the birthday cake department. Thanks again, Leslie.

Very Veggie

2011-06-28T17:00:00.000-07:00

Eric (my husband/personal chef) has been gone for almost two weeks now, and I've been cooking for myself. Between my aversion to cooking (different than baking!) and my ridiculous work schedule, it's difficult. But I'm managing, mostly by making larger portions and using leftovers for lunch and/or dinner. After the first few days I realized I hadn't had any meat. There are a couple reasons for that. I love my veggies! And I'm not that great at cooking or seasoning meat, so I just avoid it. After a few more days I decided it would be a challenge. No meat for the duration of his time away. Aside from a can of tuna, I've done it, and I'm loving it.

Today for lunch I made an Asian slaw with ginger-peanut dressing. It's got so many of my favorite things -- edamame, ginger, peanuts, cilantro. How could it not be fantastic?

The recipe calls for coleslaw; I used broccoli slaw. I don't dislike cabbage, but green vegetables are better for you than white ones, right? (I have no idea -- it sounds good, right?) I also used almond butter, because that's all I have, unsalted peanuts, and I used seasoned rice vinegar as opposed to unseasoned. I just left out the salt called for in the dressing to make up for it.

It's so good! You could add chicken if you wanted, or shrimp, even tofu. I've got a huuuge bowl left, and I'll be eating out of it for a couple days. I'll be adding this one to the recipe box.

My Love Affair with Graham Crackers Continues

2011-06-27T22:46:00.000-07:00

Homemade graham crackers. Honey yogurt.

Freezer.

Goodness.

Just Add Quinoa

2011-05-31T14:52:00.000-07:00

Still on my quinoa craze. I've been trying to make a big batch of whatever on Sundays so I have leftovers throughout the week. I didn't get around to it this week, so when we had a bunch of leftover vegetable kabobs from last night, I just added quinoa.

I sauteed some garlic in a pan of hot olive oil, then added the leftover veggies to heat them up, a few handfuls of baby spinach, and then a bunch of quinoa I'd cooked in the morning with chicken broth made from last night's grilled chicken carcass. So it's not exactly vegetarian, but it did have its share of veggies -- zucchini, tomato, onion, green pepper, spinach. Easy, peasy.

Itz Cheezy

2011-05-18T00:40:00.000-07:00

I found this on Pinterest a couple nights ago. And I showed Eric. Enough said.

Recipe here. Only he used this:

Adzuki Bean and Yam Hash

2011-05-16T20:17:00.000-07:00

I was talking easy vegetarian meals with my friend Jo on the way home from quilt guild meeting one night. I told her about my zucchini-eggplant dish, and she shared her yam hash recipe. I finally made it today, and I have to say, it's really good. Pretty basic:

Chop up a medium onion, saute in hot oil. My onion was big, so I only used half. I should have used the whole thing. Add thyme and cumin.

Chop two yams, in relatively equal-size pieces. Add to the onions.

Stir a bit, then cover and let the yams cook until tender.

Meanwhile, chop up about four or five stalks of kale...

When the yams are cooked to your satisfaction, add the beans. I didn't have adzuki beans (and don't know that I've ever had them at home) so I used black beans...

Then the kale.

The kale will wilt after a few stirs, and when it's all wilted enough and the beans are hot, add pepper and Herbamare to taste.

Now about this Herbamare.

I had the recipe for a week or more and didn't make it because I didn't have Herbamare. (I don't get out much, remember?) We finally made a trip to the co-op and found it.

It was like $6. Eric was tempted to make a smaller quantity of it, but looking at the list of ingredients, there were enough unusual ingredients that the co-op didn't carry, so we just bought the mix.

Ingredients: Sea Salt, organic celery leaves, organic leek, organic cress (water and garden), organic onion, organic chive, organic parsley, organic lovage, organic garlic, organic basil, organic marjoram, organic rosemary, organic thyme, Kelp (with trace iodine)

Anyway...serve it over quinoa or rice (or the grain of your choice), and you're done. And I've got at least two more days of leftovers I can eat for lunch.

I really like it -- it's filling and healthy and tastes great. I don't really have an opinion on the Herbamare yet. I think I'm going to add it to some popcorn soon to give it the real taste test.

Thanks so much, Jo!

Here is her recipe...

Adzuki Bean & Yam Hash

2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 medium onion, diced
2 medium yams, peeled and diced small
2 tsp dried thyme
1/2 - 1 tsp grd cumin
2 c. cooked adzuki beans
4-5 collard greens, finely chopped
Herbamare and black pepper to taste

Heat olive oil in large skillet over medium heat. Add onions and few dashes of salt. Saute' for a few minutes.

Add yams, thyme, and cumin. Saute' for a few minutes uncovered then cover your pan and cook for about 15-20 min, stirring, occasionally, until yams are tender. Watch carefully so they don't burn. (they will cook quickly if diced into small pieces)

Add adzuki beans and collard greens. Saute' a few minutes more, or until collards are tender. Add Herbamare and pepper to taste.

Serve over brown rice or quinoa.

(I have also used canned black beans if I'm in a hurry, otherwise I cook the dried beans using a pressure cooker which makes it go faster. I also like to put cilantro and avocado on top...really good!)

Cooking for Dummies

2011-05-01T14:33:00.001-07:00

When I find a savory dish that I can easily prepare myself, I tend to eat it over, and over, and over again. I discovered this one when Eric was in Portland for the month of March and I was left to cook for myself. I'd just discovered quinoa and wanted some vegetables to go with it, so I used what I had on hand. I really haven't made any adjustments to it, either, I like it that much. (Plus I'm lazy and pretty clueless when it comes to seasoning.)

Start with a zucchini and some eggplant. I generally like to use more eggplant than this, but this is all I had today.

Chop them up into pieces that will cook quickly.

Put them in a pan with a little hot oil. I used olive oil.

I put everything in at once, but I would recommend putting the zucchini in first, because it takes longer to cook. Stir it around every once in a while, and when the zucchini is tender, add some chopped garlic. I used two medium-sized cloves.

Then add some tomatoes. I had some leftover canned tomatoes, so I added those. I've used fresh tomatoes before, and that's even better. (This pic is horribly blurry, but it's all I got, and I didn't want to leave out this visual step.)

Now cover it up for a few minutes to let the tomatoes cook/heat, and to finish off the vegetables.

While that's stewing I heat up the leftover quinoa. If this isn't already prepared, you need to start this first. It takes a good 20-30 minutes. Instead of water, I use vegetable stock for added flavor.

That's it! I had a little Parmigiano Reggiano cheese, so I added it, but it's not really necessary. I also add a little salt. I'm sure there are other herbs that could be added during the saute/simmer process, but as I said, I'm clueless. Experiment. (And please let me know if you have any suggestions!)

And there are even leftovers for tomorrow.

How easy (and healthy!) is that?

I'm No Michael Ruhlman

2011-05-01T01:37:00.000-07:00

I found this photo yesterday on Pinterest ( "Pinterest is a place to catalog the things you love.") and showed it to Eric.

Lately it's been almost a weekly occurrence for me to mail baked goods to friends across the country...

...so I figured I owed him a dessert that he would actually get to eat. I tracked down the source and discovered it belonged to Michael Ruhlman.

A chocolate chip cookie bowl. How hard could that be?

Problem #1: I don't own multiple graduated-sized bowls like Michael Ruhlman apparently does, so I improvised, which limited me to just two cookie bowls at one time.

According to Mr. Ruhlman's recipe, what looks like Problem #2 is to be expected.

Separate the bowls, then put back into the oven for a few more minutes to cook the bottom of the cookie bowl.

Trim the overflow...

"When the bowls are cool enough to handle, cut off any dough that's over flowed the edge and, very carefully, run a pairing knife along the sides, gently lifting up to delicately free the bottom of the cookie bowl."

Yeah, right. Problem #3:

"Yes, you can eat that one."

I'm actually glad I don't own so many bowls, because the whole process was kind of a pain.

I just made cookies with the rest of the dough.

So the whole cookie bowl thing was a big fat fail, BUT the cookie recipe was great. Very buttery, but not too crisp. Who needs cookie bowls?!

Simply Ganache

2011-04-09T12:34:00.000-07:00

If you've never made this, you owe it to yourself. It sounds fancy and exotic, but seriously, it's the easiest thing you can make to dress up almost anything that deserves a chocolate topping.

8 oz. chocolate

3/4 cup heavy cream, brought just to a boil.

Pour over chocolate.

Let it sit for a minute or so, then stir. At first it seems doubtful that the glob of chocolate in your bowl will transform into velvety chocolate, but trust me.

Keep stirring.

At this point you can add 1 T. of vanilla or the liqueur of your choice.

How luscious is that?

Ganache is my topping of choice for the cakes I mail.

Try it. You know you want to.

Comfort Food

2011-02-26T16:56:00.000-08:00

Wholewheat pita, low-fat cream cheese, cucumber, tomato, avocado, and sprouts. With Trader Joe's Multi-Seed Rice Crackers. Not pictured: Sierra Nevada Golden Bock. Reminds me of Home.

Arcata, CA. The deli I'm thinking of was in this block in the '80s and was called Plaza Gourmet.

Trinidad Bay, CA.

Pancakes

2011-02-26T12:45:00.000-08:00

Still doing my best to eat healthy. I lost 12 pounds in the hospital around New Year's, and I've managed to keep it off. (Which explains my lack of dessert posts.)

So this morning (okay, afternoon) I decided to try another version of flourless pancakes.

Not your traditional fluffy pancakes, but they're pancakes and I like them. This is what I started with:

1 c. oats
1 c. nonfat cottage cheese
1/4 c. kefir
1/2 grated apple
1/2 banana
1 egg
1 tsp. vanilla

It was way too thick for the blender, so I slowly added nonfat milk till I got the consistency I wanted. Topped with a little butter and a drizzle of honey...yummy.

This made enough for two good servings (probably three sensible portions), so I've got leftovers for tomorrow. And if you don't have kefir, try yogurt or milk, or a combination of both.

Breakfast Beyond Smoothies

2011-01-16T11:58:00.001-08:00

I haven't been baking much lately, except for the occasional birthday cake mailer.

But this morning I decided to try my usual smoothie in a more chewable version. My go-to smoothie is yogurt or kefir (when I can get it -- Trader Joe's is very sporadic about carrying it), a frozen banana, ground flax seed, and maybe some peanut butter with a splash of vanilla. But sometimes I want to EAT my meals, and eggs aren't always appealing to me in the mornings. So today I grated half an apple (the first half went into yesterday's oatmeal), mixed that with plain nonfat yogurt, and added a drizzle of honey, a couple tablespoons of ground flax seed, and a little cinnamon. Yum!

Winter Warmth

2010-11-24T17:40:00.000-08:00

Our trip to California was canceled because of bad weather, so it may as well be winter. We're making the best of a quiet holiday at home.

Spiked coffee and beignets at Bayou on Bay...

A walk through the 20º chill of Whatcom Falls Park...

And home for hot apple-ginger toddies, made from Eatsern Washington apples.

Giving The Finger(s)

2010-10-29T13:51:00.000-07:00

Since my last blog post in August, I've become obsessed with quilting.

I don't have time for baking and quilting, and since quilting is much healthier for me than baking, well, quilting has won out.

But for Halloween, I decided to get back in the kitchen. You may remember last year I made popcorn balls for the kids in our cul-de-sac. This year I decided to get creepy and make Witch Finger Cookies.

Before baking...

After, with the addition of "blood."

I made way more than I needed for the four kids in our neighborhood, so I packed some up to send to a long-distance friend who considers Halloween a religious holiday. I figure if they break in transit, they'll still hold their creep factor.

Next time I'll add more green food coloring, because they didn't really hold their color after baking. I would also like to find an alternative to the red gel food coloring, because it doesn't set and will stain anything it touches. (I'm going to hate to put warning notes in my Halloween goody bags.) But otherwise, I love these -- super easy to make, and nicely creepy.

Dessert shouldn't be this easy.

2010-08-28T23:04:00.001-07:00

Took Mollie on a short walk today on the way to the grocery store. Tons of warm, sweet berries in the field, along with my beloved Queen Anne’s Lace. I can’t get enough of this “weed” and think I might just have to frame a collection of them. My favorite from today…

Anyway, we had nothing in which to carry our berries, so we snagged a nice bag in the produce department.

And since I had my camera at the grocery store, I couldn’t resist pulling it out of my purse. Any guesses?

(There were more, but I wanted just enough for one night.)

So what to do with the berries? Despite the many suggestions from my Facebook friends, I went with a gallette from Savour Fare. (Though as usual, necessity required some modification.) From Wiki: Gallette is a general term used in French to designate various types of flat, round or freeform crusty cakes. I didn’t want to make a big production out of this little project, and I didn’t want to have to wait for chilled dough (so no pie), so this seemed perfect.

3 oz. cream cheese, 2 T butter. (I didn’t have 4 oz. cream cheese).

4 oz. flour, 1 oz. sugar.

Mix together, knead briefly, roll directly onto a parchment-lined baking sheet. This dough was WAY to dry to be rolling out, so I added a couple tablespoons of milk.

Pour 2 pints of berries on top of the rolled-out dough.

That was way too many, I thought, so I ended up removing a handful or two.

Fold edges toward the middle, then brush with 1/3 c. cream and ¼ c sugar. Once again, that seemed excessive. If I’d put 1/3 c. of cream (I used whole milk), I think it would have made a soupy mess. I brushed it all over the dough and sprinkled some into the berries. Same with the sugar. I sprinkled approximately 2 T, max, over the entire thing.

Bake at 400 for about 30 minutes.

Very similar to a pie, but sososo much easier. Too bad I don't have any ice cream.

Sweet Summer Cherries

2010-08-25T00:25:00.000-07:00

Yesterday afternoon on our way home from a weekend camping trip in the Wenatchee Forest, we stopped along one of the several fruit stands on our route.

They were at their peak, so I knew I needed to use them or lose them. Cherry cobbler, anyone?

I got the recipe from allrecipies.com, but made a couple changes.

My adapted recipe:

One cup of cherries. The recipe called for sour cherries. I don’t know that I’ve ever had a sour cherry. These cherries are sweet, though I have no idea what variety they are. It’s been a long time since I’ve pitted cherries. It will be a while before my fingers lose that lovely black tint that is now embedded in my cuticles.

Not pictured: white pants. Which are right this minute soaking in a load of bleached whites. Fingers crossed, ‘cause I really like those white pants. (I suppose I need to move my apron project to the top of my unfinished pile.)

While you’re mixing ingredients, preheat the oven to 350 and melt ¼ c. butter in a square baking pan.

In one bowl mix:

½ c. whole wheat flour
½ c. sugar (I used raw), ½ tsp. baking powder
Add ½ c. milk, stir until blended.

In the second bowl:

1 c. pitted cherries
6 T sugar
1 ½ tsp. whole wheat flour

When the butter is melted, pour the flour-milk mixture over the top. Do not stir. Mix the cherries, sugar, and flour, then distribute evenly over the top of the butter and cake batter.

Bake for 25 minutes, or until cake tester comes out clean and cobbler is browned.

How can you go wrong with butter, flour, sugar, and cherries? You can’t, really, but I think next time I’ll use less butter, a touch of vanilla (or almond?), maybe a little more baking powder, or an egg? It seemed a little flat to me, but I’m not sure if it was the whole wheat flour, or the excessive butter. It's almost clafoutis consistency, but without the puffiness the eggs provide.

Still yummy, though. And I’ve got cherries left over for a smoothie tomorrow morning, and maybe scones for the neighbor that doesn’t like chocolate.

Desperately Desiring Doughnuts

2010-08-02T21:34:00.001-07:00

Our neighborhood grocery store has a rack of doughnuts JUST inside the door as you walk in. It’s torture. I know they are probably stale and/or would be a huge disappointment if I caved and brought them home. But that doesn’t stop me from craaaaaving them. So I decided to make them.

But first the story of how the baking bug bit me. It was around 2001, and I somehow came into possession of this book:

I don’t remember many details about the plot, really – the wife of a successful Seattle executive gets dumped and gets a job in a bakery, finds herself, blah, blah, blah. But the way the author described how the character felt when she baked, what baking did for her emotionally, just how she connected with it, all that clicked with me. So I started baking bread. I’ve always enjoyed making desserts of all kinds, but I’d never really experimented with bread. I baked French bread – baguettes and ciabatta mostly. I was doing everything by hand. All of it. Eventually I started having problems with my wrists. Because I caption TV for a living and need my wrists and hands to be at 100%, I finally invested in a KitchenAid mixer. Best. Investment. Ever.

Anyway. An obsession was born. And the pounds slowly creeped up on me. (Hence all the low-glycemic index talk in past blog posts.) I eventually backed off on the bread and lost the weight, but the sight of a big bowl of dough is still a lovely sight to me. I love the smell, I love the texture, I love that first punch of deflation.

Back to doughnuts. I declared to Twitterverse that I was searching for a baked doughnut recipe (I won’t fry anything), and @jackhonky (who has his own fabulously named, entertaining food blog, Eat The Love) forwarded this recipe from @101Cookbooks.

I don’t have big enough cookie cutters, so I improvised and used a Crown Royal glass.

See those pillows of dough?? Just beautiful.

More improvisation.

Doughnut holes!

After a second rise, the holes had disappeared. I can’t say @101CookBooks didn’t warn me.

After nine minutes in a 375° oven, they look more like bagels than doughnuts.

Now the fun part.

So I finally got my doughnuts. (Though only one actually had a hole in it.) Sadly, so sadly, they were overcooked. I was warned about this too. They were good, but honestly, probably not that much better than the ones I could have purchased from the grocery store. But I enjoyed the process, and I know exactly what went into them, something I couldn't say about a store-bought doughnut. I just wish I could have shared them with the neighbors right as they came out of the oven. The majority of my baking is done late at night, and my neighbors are all in bed by the time I usually start baking, so they miss out on the really good stuff. Their kids, however, were thrilled with the box I brought over the next day.

Beets are Beautiful

2010-07-02T00:02:00.000-07:00

My friend Shannon and her mom Lyse work magic in the kitchen. We only get together a couple times a year, but there’s always some kind of potluck involved, and they never fail to disappoint. The last time we saw them was over the Easter holiday. None of us are religious, it’s just a time when my brother's kids have time off school, and we’re given a day off to observe a holiday we recognize with food and good friends. This year was spent on their home turf, the beautiful Northern California coast. We got rained out, but we had a wonderful Sunday Brunch.

This week’s beet salad recipe is Lyse’s. I thought it came from Easter brunch, but I don’t see it on the table anywhere. In any event, this is Lyse’s recipe, just for the record.

I love beets. I don’t remember always loving beets, but in the last year or so, I’ve fallen in looove with beets. They’re so unassuming looking. But cut them open, and they come ALIVE. Their vibrant colors, patterns, earthy smell….they’re just a sensory overload.

First I halved and then roasted them. Originally I was going to boil them, because I’d done that before and I knew it was easy to skin them after they’d been boiled. But I also thought that that roasting them might yield more flavor, so I went with that. Skinning them after roasting wasn’t so easy, so I ended up having to use a vegetable peeler. The sink kind of looked like a vegetable blood bath.

See what I mean about sensory overload?

I tried to be all chef-y and cut the beets into uniform pieces. But I think I’m more of an artistic, variable size kind of girl.

In one of my many recipe-browsing nights I learned of a trick to grate soft cheeses like blue cheese or goat cheese – freeze it and use a microplane. Sounded like a great idea.

But I want chunks of cheese, not sprinkles and hints of cheese. So I nixed that and crumbled it.

Well. It’s not like Lyse’s! I like it, but the mint is turning me off for some reason. I know I’ve had this, and I know I liked it. What am I doing wrong? I don’t not like it, but it’s missing something. In any event, it’s still made of beets and goat cheese. How can you really go wrong with that?

Lyse’s Minted Beet Salad with Vanilla

1/4 c walnut, hazelnut, or canola oil
3 T balsamic vinegar (or blueberry or raspberry)
3 T honey
3/4 tsp. vanilla
salt and pepper to taste
5-8 beets baked, peeled, quartered
about 1/2 c finely minced mint leaves
feta or goat cheese

Whisk together oil, vinegar, honey, salt, and pepper. Add beets and toss well. Add mint leaves and toss again. Sprinkle cheese on top.

Emergency Brownies

2010-06-26T00:43:00.000-07:00

These make great gifts for all ages.

1- 1-qt. canning jar, plus lid (I used a plastic mayonnaise container because I was putting it in the mail.)
1 ½ tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
1 c. flour
3/4 c. unsweetened cocoa powder, sifted
2 c. sugar
2/3 c. semisweet chocolate chips

Put the baking powder and salt in the jar. Carefully spoon the flour into the jar; gently tamp the flour down and wipe the inside of the jar with a dry paper towel to clean off any dust.
Carefully spoon in the cocoa powder, gently tamping it down and wiping down the inside of the jar with a clean, dry paper towel.
Spoon the sugar into the jar, then add the chocolate chips. Don’t worry, they will fit. Tap the jar on the counter several times to allow them to settle, and you’ll get them all in. Trust me.

Don’t forget to include baking instructions!

Preheat oven to 350. Grease and flour a 9x13” baking pan.

Add the following ingredients to the brownie mix:

¾ c. butter, melted and cooled
4 large eggs, well beaten

Mix by hand and spread into the prepared pan. Bake for 25 minutes or until a toothpick comes out with a few moist crumbs attached. Cool completely before cutting (haha). Cut with a plastic utensil for clean, pretty edges.

Sweet and Sort of Savory

2010-06-20T00:40:00.000-07:00

I used my Martha Stewart’s Cookies book as inspiration for my Father’s Day foodie gift. I found Cornmeal Shortbread and Rosemary Butter Cookies . (What’s the difference between a shortbread and a butter cookie, anyway?) I made both, but hands-down, the rosemary cookie was the winner.

I just happen to have a rosemary bush in my pathetic excuse for a garden.

Does anyone have any tips to avoid the flat bottoms of rolled dough logs?

I didn’t have an appropriate container on hand for all of the cookies I wanted to gift and mail, so I used several of these little cellophane bags.

Summary: Wow. I loved the sweet-but-almost-savory flavor of these cookies. The recipe called for one tablespoon of rosemary, but next time I make these I might just double that. The recipe also called for super fine sanding sugar, but I used raw cane sugar, and that worked just fine.

Grade: A+

Martha Stewart's Rosemary Butter Cookies

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1 large egg plus 1 egg white, beaten
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2 1/2 cups sifted all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh rosemary
3/4 teaspoon coarse salt
1/2 cup fine sanding sugar

Directions

Put butter and granulated sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment; mix on medium speed until pale and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Mix in whole egg and vanilla. Reduce speed to low. Add flour, rosemary, and salt, and mix until combined.
Halve dough; shape each half into a log. Place each log on a 12-by-16-inch sheet of parchment. Roll in parchment to 1 1/2 inches in diameter, pressing a ruler along edge of parchment at each turn to narrow log. Transfer to paper-towel tubes to hold shape, and freeze until firm, about 1 hour.
Preheat oven to 375. Brush each log with egg white; roll in sanding sugar. Cut into 1/4-inch-thick rounds. Space 1 inch apart on baking sheets lined with parchment. Bake until edges are golden, 18 to 20 minutes. Let cool on sheets on wire racks. Store in airtight containers at room temperature up to 3 days.

Good Grains

2010-06-13T23:00:00.000-07:00

Looking for make-ahead lunch ideas, someone suggested Ina Gartner’s Wheatberry Salad. It took me a couple days to find the wheatberries, but I found them today and went to work.

Simmer the wheatberries for 45 minutes, or until soft. They were sort of soft by 45 minutes, so I just let them go another 10 minutes, till almost all the water was boiled out.

While that was happening, I chopped the veggies.

Some of the best designs come from Mother Nature.

I didn’t have the time to hand chop everything, so I used my chopper thingy. It’s loud and obnoxious, but it does the job.

The red onions go into the pan with some olive oil.

Back to chopping.

The chopper kind of made a mess of the red peppers. Next time I'll take the time to hand chop.

The scallions I chopped by hand.

When the red onions are translucent, I turn off the heat and add another 4 tablespoons olive oil and 2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar.

By now the wheatberries are done, so I drain them…

…and mix everything together.

Let it all sit for at least 30 minutes, and I’ve got a big bowl of salad to go with this week’s lunches. If we have any leftover chicken, maybe I'll add it to the mix.

It’s chewy, which I like, but the flavors are sort of generic. Salt, pepper, oil (too much for my taste, I'll add less next time), and vinegar. Next time I’m going to ask my husband (who normally does ALL the cooking) to put his spin on it, and I’d like to add more vegetables. Another option that I’m leaning toward is sweet (of course), with dried fruit and cinnamon, maybe a little honey.

Ina Garten’s Wheatberry Salad

• 1 cup hard winter wheatberries
• Kosher salt
• 1 cup finely diced red onion (1 onion)
• 6 tablespoons good olive oil, divided
• 2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
• 3 scallions, minced, white and green parts
• 1/2 red bell pepper, small diced
• 1 carrot, small diced
• 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Place the wheatberries and 3 cups of boiling salted water in a saucepan and cook, uncovered, over low heat for approximately 45 minutes, or until they are soft. Drain.

Saute the red onion in 2 tablespoons of olive oil over medium-low heat until translucent, approximately 5 minutes. Turn off the heat and add the remaining 4 tablespoons (1/4 cup) of olive oil and the balsamic vinegar.

In a large bowl, combine the warm wheatberries, sauteed onions, scallions, red bell pepper, carrot, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and the pepper. Allow the salad to sit for at least 30 minutes for the wheatberries to absorb the sauce. Season to taste and serve at room temperature.

For the Love of Carbs

2010-06-10T11:42:00.000-07:00

I’ll admit it, I’m addicted to carbohydrates. Breakfast is the most difficult. French toast, pancakes, cinnamon rolls, muffins…so many carbolicious possibilities. I finally found a recipe for healthy pancakes without all the carbs, and I’ve been working on it over the past month or so to make it my own. Here goes.

Grind up some rolled oats.

(I have a coffee grinder dedicated to spices, so I use that).

Add some cottage cheese.

Egg and cinnamon.

I used an egg substitute (like Egg Beaters), but I just found this and might try one of these options next time. (But seriously, one egg isn't a bad thing. I had the substitute, so I used it.)

2 T cornstarch = 1 egg
2 T arrowroot flour = 1 egg
2 T potato starch = 1 egg
1 heaping T soy powder + 2 T water = 1 egg
1 T soy milk powder + 1 T cornstarch + 2 T water = 1 egg
1 banana = 1 egg in cakes
1 T milled flax seed and 3 T water = 1 egg

Blend.

The batter was a little thick, so I added applesauce. Milk would work too.

Pancakes!

I topped mine with more applesauce that I’d heated in the microwave.

Carb craving satisfied.

Blinded by Lentils

2010-06-08T23:58:00.000-07:00

In my continuing effort to eat healthy, whole, real foods, I got sucked in by a lentil cookie recipe. This one came from Alton Brown.

I didn’t have enough raisins or cherries, so I used a little of both. And I used brown sugar instead of my usual organic cane sugar.

Kind of an odd color, but I can live with that.

No matter what I do, some flour always manages to escape the mixer. I’ve tried the KitchenAid pouring sheild, but I found it an awkward space hog, so I got rid of it years ago.

The first batch didn’t flatten much.

So for the second and third batches I flattened them with a fork a little.

The verdict: They’re good! The lentils give them a different (not bad) texture, but you can’t actually taste them. The thing is, they might be healthier because of the lentils and whole wheat flour, but they’ve still got two cups of sugar in them and a stick and a half of butter. IF I make these again, I’ll try to sub out some of the butter for applesauce, and find a replacement for some of the sugar. I mean, really, how can you go wrong with that much butter and sugar, no matter how many cups of lentils are in something?

Summer Cocktails

2010-06-05T20:09:00.000-07:00

I'm a huge fan of basil, and last night I was introduced to the use of them in cocktails. I'm not a fan of sweet cocktails, and I love to find those that require three or fewer ingredients. During the winter months I tend to drink whisky (neat or with soda water), but in the summer months I gravitate toward gin and vodka. This fit the bill perfectly.

Feeling inspired, I decided at the grocery store today that strawberries might go well with basil.

I came home and Googled, and sure enough, found several recipes to choose from.

Delish.

Basil Gimlet
From Rye in San Francisco

Ingredients

5 basil leaves
1 medium lime
1/2 ounce Simple Syrup
2 1/2 ounces vodka or gin

Directions

Place five basil leaves in a mixing glass. Squeeze the lime into the glass. Press down on the leaves with a muddler and twist 4 to 5 times.
Fill glass three-quarters of the way with ice cubes. Add the simple syrup and vodka or gin.
Give the glass a good shake and strain into a cocktail glass. Float a piece of the muddled basil on the top as a garnish.

Makes 1 drink.

Note: I didn't have simple syrup, but I didn't miss it either.

Strawberry-Basil Martini
from iFlipforFood

3 fresh strawberries (and one slice of strawberry for garnish)
3 fresh basil leaves
1 ounce gin
1 ounce vodka
1/2 ounce simple syrup
1/2 fresh lime juice

Combine the strawberries, basil leaves and simple syrup in a cocktail shaker and muddle.Next, you'll want to squeeze the lime juice in, add ice and pour in the vodka and gin. Shake the ingredients together and pour into a chilled martini glass garnished with the strawberry.

Note: I didn't have the recipe in front of me and just muddled a sliced lime with the strawberry. That tasted just fine.

Cinnamon Success

2010-05-30T17:30:00.000-07:00

I’ve been making cinnamon rolls for a long time, but never took them very seriously. I love the yeasted variety, but have never been patient enough to go through all the rising steps, especially considering I’m not a morning person and just will NOT get up early enough to make it happen.

Over the past year I’ve been keeping my eye out for recipes that allowed an overnight rising. I tried a few different recipes, but none were worth repeating. Finally last week when I was looking for something else (isn’t that always the case?) I found this one. The instructions are so detailed and the comments so many and so positive, I had to try them.

Basically dump everything in the mixer, knead, roll out, fill, roll up, rise, bake. They can be refrigerated overnight and even frozen before baking. Perfect for this night owl that isn’t keen on getting up hours before breakfast just for a cinnamon roll, no matter how good it might be.

I wasn't that particular about evening up the ends, so I ended up with a couple misshapen rolls. I loooove raw cinnamon rolls, and those are the ones I usually eat. But this time I refrained. (Probably the first time EVER I've done that.)

This week’s house guest isn’t a fan of raisins, and I was out of nuts, so I went with a simple brown sugar and cinnamon filling.

One of the tips in the recipe was to avoid crowding the rolls in the pan. I’ve always packed them pretty tightly. Maybe that was one reason (of many) they didn’t impress? Another step I've never done before is sift the brown sugar with the cinnamon. It takes a while because the sugar is dense, but it's worth the consistency you get in the end.

They went directly into the refrigerator – absolutely no counter top rising.

The next morning…

They didn’t look that much fatter, but they were almost touching. I put them in the oven for 20 minutes and proceeded to make a cream cheese frosting.

I was so excited to pour on the frosting that I forgot to photograph the beauty of them when they first came out of the oven. There were only three of us this weekend, so I should have made a half batch (a full recipe made 16 large rolls). But I didn't.

I’ve got lots of leftovers, and even four that didn’t fit in the pan that I have put in the freezer for another time.

This recipe is definitely going in my recipe box. One alteration I did make was the amount of butter I used on the rolled-out dough. The recipe called for ½ cup – I used ¼ cup, and it was plenty.

As usual, I would like to tweak the fillings to make it a little more my recipe. I’m thinking chai flavors with hazelnuts, for starters. But I’m going to have to wait for the next round of house guests before I’ll allow myself this carbfest again. We’ve got a nice guest room if anyone is interested.

Daring Bakers: Croquembouche

2010-05-30T13:31:00.000-07:00

The May 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Cat of Little Miss Cupcake. Cat challenged everyone to make a piece montée, or croquembouche, based on recipes from Peter Kump’s Baking School in Manhattan and Nick Malgieri.

I was pretty confident going into this challenge, because in the past year I've made both pâte à choux and pastry cream, and ganache is something I can do in my sleep. The caramel is what had me hesitant. The few times I've tried it, I've either burned it or it's just not worked out somehow.

Well, this challenge just kind of fell apart for me. It tasted great -- what's not to like about cream puffs and chocolate? But my pâte à choux was sort of flat, and in an effort not to burn the caramel, I didn't cook it enough, and it was more like chewy corn syrup. But of course the entire thing was consumed within a 24-hour period. That's what I love about dessert -- you can mess it up, but when was the last time you had one that was inedible?

I guess these are called "challenges" for a reason ;-).

Comfort Food

2010-05-22T01:25:00.000-07:00

I ate a lot of pancakes as a kid. For breakfast not only on weekends, but sometimes on school days. And even for dinner. Only we didn't get real butter or maple syrup. Mom used margarine and made her own syrup with sugar, water, and maple flavoring. Did she use Bisquick? I don't remember. I just remember pancakes.

I make them now for guests, rarely for myself. (Though recently I did find a low-glycemic-index version. Maybe I'll make that again soon and document it.)

These days it's all about finding THE recipe, adding it to my recipe box, and sticking to it. I'm tired of experimenting every single time. I want tried and true.

I think I've found it in this recipe, supposedly copied from IHOP. (Never having been to IHOP, I can't say how it compares.)

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

1 egg

1 1/4 cups buttermilk (I used 50/50 yogurt/milk)

1/4 cup granulated sugar

1 heaping teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 cup cooking oil

pinch of salt

I think we all know how to make pancakes, right?

Daring Bakers: British Pudding

2010-04-26T00:58:00.000-07:00

The April 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Esther of The Lilac Kitchen. She challenged everyone to make a traditional British pudding using, if possible, a very traditional British ingredient: suet.

First of all, Happy Anniversary to me. This is my one-year anniversary of belonging to the Daring Bakers. I’ve baked everything from Milanos to marshmallows, and I’ve loved (just about) every minute of it. And I’d guess my neighbors have been pretty pleased as well.

Anyone that knows me knows I love food. I’ll try anything once. Not that I’m comparing British pudding to, say, roasted bone marrow…

…which I tried last week, when my equally food-adventurous husband decided to make it for us. Let me delay the story of my pudding to say a few words about roasted bone marrow.

No matter what it looks like, how uncomfortable it might be to dig gelatinous, fatty marrow out of the bone of a cow, it tastes good; paired with toasted French bread and a salad of sorts made of parsley, capers, shallots, and lemon vinaigrette, it’s salty, complex, and rich. I enjoyed it. There, I said it. I’d eat it again, but I doubt I’d order it at a restaurant, as there are so many other things I haven’t tried and food that I like a lot more than bone marrow. But I’ve tried it, and I’m glad to be able to make that claim.

So I suppose this month’s theme is fat, because my challenge is steamed pudding made with suet. Suet is the hard fat found around the kidneys of a cow or sheep. Before adding it to a recipe, it must be rendered.

Sifting the flour, salt, and baking powder…

Measuring the molasses…

The recipe I chose was a variation on a basic pudding recipe. I chose the ginger version, which instructed me to replace the sugar with molasses. My gut told me I’d regret that, but I was a good girl and I followed the recipe. (Oh, that good girl has GOT to go.)

The suet, after being in the refrigerator overnight, has the consistency of frozen butter.

Adding molasses, suet, bread crumbs, and ginger to the flour mixture.

Mixing in milk and egg.

All those years of collecting cake pans has paid off! (Too bad I don’t have the lid that goes with it.)

Since the pudding is to be steamed and I have no lid for my pudding mold, I cover it with parchment paper and tie it off with string. It reminds me of a piece of hard candy or taffy.

The paper gets trimmed and set onto an upturned bowl in a pan of simmering water.

Two-and-a-half hours later…

…it falls out of its mold, no problems.

It was late and I wasn’t up to making any kind of sauce or topping for it, so I saved it for the next day. Though I did sneak a thin slice off the bottom, because how could I wait 24 hours?!

Sadly, I was disappointed. Remember that gut feeling I had about the molasses for sugar? It just wasn’t sweet enough. And it was overcooked. But it smelled just like the brown bread from a can I remember from my childhood.

Though when in my childhood is unclear. Maybe we used to take it camping?

In the end I decided it wasn’t worth the extra time (and sugar – remember, I’m supposed to be eating foods low on the glycemic index) for a sauce, so I skipped it. Maybe I’ll moisten it up a bit by putting it in the toaster and adding butter. I mean, margarine.

So while this challenge wasn’t really a success in my view, I did learn how to steam cook, and I’ll definitely be trying my own brown bread sometime.

Steamed Suet Pudding

100 grams/4 oz. all-purpose flour

1/4 tsp. salt

1 1/2 tsp. baking powder

100 grams/4 oz. bread crumbs

75 grams/3 oz. Caster sugar

75 grams/3 oz. Shredded suet or suet substitute (i.e., Vegetable Suet, Crisco, Lard)

)1 large egg

6 -8 T cold milk

1. Sift flour, salt and baking powder into bowl.
2. Add breadcrumbs, sugar and suet.
3. Mix to a soft batter with beaten egg and milk
4. Turn into a buttered 1 litre/ 2pint pudding basin and cover securely with buttered greaseproof paper or aluminum foil.
5. Steam steadily for 2.5 to 3 hours
6. Turn out onto warm plate, Serve with sweet sauce to taste such as custard, caramel or a sweetened fruit sauce.

Variants:
Spotted Dick - Add 75g/3oz. currants and 25g/1 oz. of mixed chopped peel with the sugar.
Syrup or Treacle or Marmalade Pudding – put 2 T of golden syrup, treacle, or marmalade at the bottom of the bowl before adding pudding mix.
My Fair Lady Pudding – Add finely grated rind of 1 medium orange or lemon with the sugar.
Ginger Pudding – replace the sugar with 100g/4oz. of treacle, and add 1/2 tsp. ground ginger.

Reality Check

2010-04-18T02:21:00.000-07:00

In an effort to get back to healthy(er) eating, I’ve pulled my Living the G.I. Diet book off the shelf and am reacquainting myself with its principles.

Basically low-fat, high protein, low sugar. Seems kind of obvious, I know, but it works better for me if I have rules to follow. I've mentioned this diet before, I think. I found it about five years ago and managed to lose a good 30 pounds. For the most part I've stuck to the rules about whole grains and low fat, but I've slowly let sugar creep back into my life, and it's time to get a grip.

The book lists red-, yellow-, and green-light foods – “red-light foods which you avoid if you want to lose weight; yellow-light listings are foods that are to be used occasionally; and green-light foods – eat as much as you like.”

Meanwhile, I’m still faithfully reading baking blogs, while King Arthur and The Joy of Cooking, among others, taunt me with the delicious high-fat, sugar-laden recipes they post on Facebook every day. Oh, and my husband found this at Goodwill the other day, so I’ve been studying it as well.

So many recipes to try, but no legitimate reason to try them. It’s been rough!

I found a recipe for Crustless Fruit-Topped Cheesecake in my G.I. book. And lucky me, it was green-lighted. I had everything but low-fat cream cheese, so I picked up some Neufchâtel on the way home from farmers’ market.

One thing I’m having some difficulty with is the use of sugar substitute. It seems to me if the goal is to eat whole, unprocessed foods, why should Sucralose be okay? It shouldn’t. Despite that, I used it this time, in an attempt to keep with my follow-the-recipe-the-first-time rule.

I don’t know why I used the blender, of all things, to puree the cottage cheese.

I added cream cheese, and instead of using flavored yogurt, as called for in the recipe, I mashed some of the huge flat of strawberries I bought at Costco yesterday...

...added a tiny bit of honey...

...and mixed that with nonfat, plain yogurt.

After adding the cream cheese and realizing the blender was NOT the appliance I needed to be using for this task, I added the remaining ingredients – flavored yogurt, cornstarch, “sugar”, egg whites, vanilla, salt – and switched to an immersion blender. Muuuuch better.

The recipe instructed me to use a 9” springform pan, but all I have are 12” pans and various smaller cake pans, so I opted for two small cake pans and fashioned a sort of handle system with parchment paper just in case I couldn’t get them out.

From there they went into a hot water bath and into the oven.

I baked them for 40 minutes, ran a knife along the edge of the pan, then let them sit in the turned-off oven for another 30 minutes before pulling them out to cool.

I have to say, the finished product was pretty damn good. Sure, it's missing a buttery homemade graham cracker crust, but the texture is good, it's sweet enough, and definitely satisfies those nighttime sugar cravings. This is one experiment that won't get shared with the neighbors.

Crustless Fruit-Topped Cheesecake

16 oz. 1% cottage cheese (I used nonfat)

8 oz. light cream cheese, softened

1 c. nonfat, fruit-flavored yogurt with sweetener (I added fresh fruit and a tiny bit of honey to plain, nonfat yogurt)

¾ c. sugar substitute

¼ c. cornstarch

2 egg whites

1 T vanilla extract

Pinch of salt

Fruit Topping

4 c. fresh berries

2 tsp. fresh lemon juice

Sugar substitute to taste (I used just a couple tablespoons of honey)

Preheat the oven to 325.
Puree the cottage cheese in a food processor until very smooth. Add the cream cheese and puree until smooth and combined. Add the yogurt, sugar substitute, cornstarch, egg whites, vanilla, and salt and puree until smooth.
Pour the batter into a greased and parchment-lined 8- or 9-inch springform pan. Wrap the pan with aluminum foil so that the bottom and sides of the pan are covered. Place in a large roasting pan and fill the roasting pan with hot water to come halfway up the side of the springform pan.
Bake until the center is still slightly jiggly when the pan is tapped, about 40 minutes. Turn the oven off and run a small knife around the edge of the pan. Let the cake stand in the cooling oven for about 3 minutes more. Ro a rack and let cool to room temperature. Cover and refrigerate until chilled, about two hours.
Make the fruit topping: In a large bowl, combine the berries, lemon juice, and sugar substitute. Cut the cheesecake into wedges and serve with the fruit topping.

Variations: For a vanilla cheesecake, use plain or vanilla yogurt and add up to 3 tablespoons of vanilla; for espresso cheesecake, use plain yogurt plus 1 tablespoon espresso powder and 1 tablespoon vanilla.

Keep the cheesecake covered and refrigerated for up to three days.

Blackout Baking

2010-04-14T00:40:00.000-07:00

I recently spent about ten days at my childhood home in Northern California. Not technically a vacation because I took my office with me and worked from there, but when you go to the beach almost every day, or at least get to see it while running errands, it sure makes working every day a lot more tolerable.

One of the downsides to living in such a beautiful, remote location with lots of trees and offshore winds is the occasional loss of electricity. It happened while we were there; in the middle of my shift, in fact. I borrowed a neighbor's generator and got a couple more hours of work in before the phone line went out and I had no choice but to give up the rest of my shift.

So the electricity is out, but I have a cake to bake for a get-together the next day. Thankfully Mom has a propane stove, so I'm thinking, "No problem -- I'll just hand-mix my ingredients."

Before I get too far into this project I realize the sun is about to set. We're within earshot of the ocean, very close. So we jump in the car and drive down the road to the nearest accessible cliff to watch...

When we get home, my husband crafts a little lamp shade for one of his LED flashlights so I can keep an eye on the melting chocolate.

What I don't realize yet is what I've planned to bake -- Marcy Goldman's Truffle Cake from The Best of BetterBaking.com -- requires a LOT of mixing. I mean, a LOT. I start out with a hand whisk, but as I'm rummaging around Mom's kitchen looking for utensils, I find a battery-operated hand mixer. Perfect.

Except it's taking for-EV-er for the five eggs to "triple in volume." I mean, for-EV-er.

After a while I decide it's good enough, and enlisting my husband to help, I give him the task of holding the flashlight and slowly pouring hot corn syrup and sugar into the eggs while I continue mixing.

Unfortunately my little hand mixer isn't quite up to the task, and the sugar hardens before I can get it incorporated into the eggs.

So my blackout baking experiment was a failure, and I had a huge mess in a dark kitchen, with only limited amounts of water for washing dishes. I put as much as I could in the dishwasher and saved the rest for the next day, when (hopefully) power would be restored.

Luckily I still had melted chocolate that hadn't been sacrificed to the corn syrup debacle, and the next morning after the electricity had been restored, I tried again. And I'm happy to report, it was a success.

I made three small cakes from one recipe. One I took to the friend who requested the cake in the first place; one I took to the neighbor who loaned me her generator; and the third I took to share with my dad when we went out to dinner our last night in town. And yes, similar to cork fees, there was a "cake fee" of $2.50 each. But I'm guessing something as decadent as this truffle cake would have cost double that.

Next time the electricity goes out I'll stick to something that's easily mixed by hand, like cookies.

Daring Bakers: Orange Tian

2010-04-06T01:43:00.000-07:00

The 2010 March Daring Baker’s challenge was hosted by Jennifer of Chocolate Shavings. She chose Orange Tian as the challenge for this month, a dessert based on a recipe from Alain Ducasse’s Cooking School in Paris.

I wasn’t as excited for this challenge when it was announced, and I kept asking myself why. Am I that enamored with chocolate? I’ve never thought of myself as a chocoholic, and while I don’t dislike oranges (let's be real -- is there any food I really dislike?), I just couldn’t get excited about this challenge. I almost skipped it, but my husband kept encouraging me to try it, so I persevered. Though I did take a couple days to bake and assemble everything.

First I had to look up the definition of “tian.” Basically it’s a layered casserole. In this case it’s a layered dessert consisting of a sweet pastry cookie layer on the bottom, followed by orange marmalade, whipped cream flavored with more marmalade, topped with orange segments that have been soaked in caramel. Sounds relatively easy enough, despite the fact I’d never segmented oranges.

First the marmalade.

Slice the oranges, blanch them three times, add sugar, orange juice, and pectin. The instructions told me to cook it "until the mixture reaches a jam consistency.” Well, I’ve never made jam (maybe I have, but it’s been a long time), so I kept waiting for it to thicken. It didn’t, so I kept adding more and more pectin. Finally it thickened up a little, so I poured it into a bowl and put it in the refrigerator overnight. The next morning I had this…

So I decided to make this…

…and I attempted the marmalade again, this time with success.

The next day I made the pâte sablée. I didn’t have the multiple cookie cutters the recipe called for to make individual tians, so I used a couple small springform pans, and made a couple cookies with the leftover dough.

Segmenting oranges was the next task. I watched a how-to video and thought it looked easy enough, but I think I need a sharper and/or serrated paring knife. After the first couple it got easier, but it was definitely a challenge. Despite that, I did enjoy photographing the oranges.

If I’d thought about it, I would have used all the peels as stove-top potpourri, because there was a LOT of waste.

The caramel was another challenge part of the challenge. I never saw the sugar “bubble and foam,” so the first batch burned. I started the second batch, but the minute I added the orange juice, it hardened. Was it supposed to do that?

Now what? I decided not to add the remaining orange juice, but instead melted what I had and used that. (I don’t know what my logic was there. Why didn’t I keep adding the juice and melt all of it??) It seemed to have worked, however, and I had enough to soak the orange segments and have enough left over to pour over the top of the finished dessert.

Now for the fun part – assembly. I staged this shot for my scavenger hunt item, “under construction.”

First the oranges are arranged in the bottom of the pan.

Then the marmalade-flavored whipped cream…

Then more marmalade on the pâte sablée.

That gets turned upside down onto the whipped cream…

…and the whole thing goes into the freezer.

The recipe instructed me to place the whole thing in the freezer for 10 minutes or so, but my work schedule didn’t allow that, and it was in there a few hours before we had a chance to eat it.

It still tasted delicious, and my husband likened it to a 50/50 bar.

In the end, as always, I’m glad I made it. If nothing else I learned how to segment oranges, and I’m looking forward to adding citrus to my next salad. Plus I made brownie points with the neighbors, who got the extra orange tian.

Not Your Grandma's Grahams

2010-03-29T01:21:00.000-07:00

I’ve been raving about homemade graham crackers since I first made them for January’s Bakers’ Challenge. I’ve made them several times since then and will tell anyone who will listen how much better they are than store-bought, even defending them against someone that insinuated I’m a grandma because I get so excited about them and love to share their awesomeness.

I’ve pretty much got the process down and have added the recipe to my recipe box, so I thought I’d give them their own blog post.

Poking holes in the dough with one of my vintage angel food cake cutters…

This batch went to friends and family that put me up on a recent trip to California, so I dressed them up with chocolate drizzles. A couple of them got a light sprinkle of salt.

You see? Definitely not your grandma's grahams.

Going Green

2010-03-17T15:37:00.000-07:00

I’ve had Irish soda bread on the brain lately, so I decided to use St. Patrick’s Day as an excuse to bake it. After some cursory investigating I realized the version I’m familiar with is an Irish American version, made with raisins and caraway seeds. Well, that’s what I like about it, so I decided to stick with it.

I made three mini loaves for the neighbors, one for my husband, who is house-sitting in a nearby town, and two big muffins to keep for myself.

The recipe I decided on came from King Arthur, but called for a full cup of sugar. Way too much for me, so I cut it in half. The end result...the texture was more like cake -- very tender, not crumbly like a scone, which I thought I would be getting. Don’t get me wrong, they still taste wonderful. I’ll try a different recipe next time, or figure out what it was about this one that made it so tender. I’ll also double the amount of caraway seeds from one tablespoon to two. A friend suggested serving it with a slice of sharp cheddar on the side, so that might be on the menu for this afternoon’s espresso break. I suppose a nice Irish tea would be more appropriate, but I prefer strong, strong coffee.

Vacation Baking

2010-03-06T22:44:00.000-08:00

I'm visiting family and friends in California this week, and will eventually end up in San Francisco for a work-related convention. I really wanted to bring some baked goods with me, but didn't have the time or the space, so I refrained. My first night here, however, my brother and uncle cooked dinner, so I offered to make dessert. My cousin has a Meyer lemon tree in her back yard -- in her back yard! -- and a vegetable drawer in her refrigerator full of them, so I decided on lemon upside down cake from Luscious Lemon Desserts.

This is the first time I'd used a microplane grater. It just moved to the top of my kitchen gadget wish list.

Cooking lemon slices with butter and brown sugar.

My cousin collects vintage dishware. These belonged to her grandmother...

This 1930s platter belonged to my uncle's mother, who used to serve his birthday cake on it.

The cake was good, and I was pleasantly surprised with the caramelized lemons. However, the 50-year-old cast iron pan I used tainted some of it with hints of savory flavors, so I made some lemon curd to mask mask the mystery flavor.

I'm not sure that I'll get another opportunity to bake while I'm away from home, but I'm glad I was able to bake for family I rarely see.

Daring Bakers: Tiramisu

2010-03-01T00:47:00.001-08:00

The February 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Aparna of My Diverse Kitchen and Deeba of Passionate About Baking. They chose Tiramisu as the challenge for the month. Their challenge recipe is based on recipes from The Washington Post, Cordon Bleu at Home and Baking Obsession.

This was a challenge. Not because it was so difficult, necessarily, but because there were so many steps, involving several days of prep, and like anyone with a job and other responsibilities, the challenge was timing. Making Tiramisu is one thing; making the lady fingers, the pastry cream, zabaglione, and marscapone over a period of a few days is quite another. And oh yeah – we had plans to visit friends in Eastern Washington (the site of my very first baking challenge http://julineb.blogspot.com/search/label/cheesecake , in an inadequately equipped kitchen, no less), so the plan was to make as much as possible before leaving and assemble the Tiramisu when I got there.

Wednesday night I made lady fingers. Not many ingredients in lady fingers.

They didn’t take too long, so I also made the pastry cream. I’d made this a few weeks ago to use as filling in a pink champagne cake and used what I had left over to make pâte à choux. But this recipe produced a kind of grayish, not-very-attractive-looking pastry cream. Tasted good, though.

Thursday between work shifts I made zabaglione. It never did resemble “thick custard,” but I ran out of time and had to go back to work, so I called it done.

On Friday we traveled halfway across the state and I set out to make marscapone at about 10p. I neglected to bring a lot of my own kitchen tools (like a double boiler, among other things), and it took for-EV-er.

I couldn’t get it above 90 degrees. I finally resorted to the microwave. I cooked it for a minute on high power, added the lemon, stirred, cooked another one minute. It refused to curdle, so I blasted it two more times before I gave up. I poured it into a cheesecloth-lined pasta strainer, stuck it in the refrigerator, and went to bed. And in the morning woke up marscapone!

One thing this kitchen did have was an espresso machine. Gotta love that.

Dipping the lady fingers into espresso, rum, and sugar.

Back to the marscapone. It was to be mixed with the zabaglione, pastry cream, and whipped cream. Did you catch that? Was. I forgot to add it! I added a little of the leftover espresso-rum and spooned it over the finished dessert, but that made it more of a sauce.

Finally...

(Something else I didn't have with me was some kind of sieve or sifter for the cocoa powder.)

Reviews were good. It tasted great. But it wasn’t pretty, and the layers between the lady fingers had no stability. I dubbed it Tiramisoup. I’d like to try it again, but like books…so many desserts, so little time. We went wine tasting this weekend and I tasted a port wine that I’m dying to incorporate into a cheesecake. Stay tuned.

Savory Sidetrack

2010-02-25T13:10:00.000-08:00

As you've probably guessed, I'm not much of a cook. Baking is my thing, and I leave the cooking to my husband, who is quite good at it. Case in point:

When we lived in Portland, Oregon, my favorite take-out lunch was bánh mì. Our go-to place was Nam's Deli at SE 78th and Powell, where we could get two sandwiches for under $6. For those of you unfamiliar, from Wiki:

Bánh mì is a Vietnamese baguette made with both wheat and rice flour, but more popularly known as a type of sandwich traditionally made with this type of baguette.^[1] The sandwich is made up of thinly sliced pickled carrots and daikon (do chua), cucumbers, cilantro, chili peppers, pâté, mayonnaise, and various meat fillings or tofu. Popular bánh mì fillings include roasted or grilled pork, Vietnamese sausage, chicken, head cheese, and ham.

We've since moved to very Northern Washington State, where until recently there was no bánh mì to be found. So my husband decided he would make it for me. Oh-so-good.

We've also started making the occasional Vietnamese coffee at home -- chicory-flavored French roast with a bit of sweetened condensed milk poured into the bottom of the glass before the coffee starts dripping. Okay, I'll admit part of the appeal for me is the cute individual filter set-up. But this is a perfect afternoon pick-me-up.

Now I need to come up with some other favorite big-city food I can't get up here and see if I can't convince my husband to make that for me too.

Pleasing the Masses

2010-02-24T23:00:00.000-08:00

I set out to make oatmeal cookies recently for an upcoming road trip, but was unsure what I wanted to put IN the cookies. So I took an informal poll among friends -- how do you like your oatmeal cookie? Chewy or crispy? With or without nuts? Any other additions? -- and found people are very particular about their cookies. Of the 15 people that responded, three said absolutely no nuts, three more said raisins do NOT belong in cookies, two preferred them plain, no additions, and seven people were open to just about anything in their oatmeal cookies, from coconut, M&Ms, chocolate chips, even coconut and dried apricots. Chewy won hands down.

Well, my brother, who lives two states away in California, chimed in -- “I prefer oatmeal cookies over any other (hint). Raisins are okay, but I prefer chocolate chips, chewy, and never with nuts.” So I took the hint and went in search for a good chewy oatmeal cookie. And I found it at Smitten Kitchen.

I split the batch in two – half with raisins, half with chocolate chips.

First I soaked the raisins in hot water to plump them up a bit, as I generally do when I bake with raisins. Doesn’t look like it does much, but I think it helps. (I use rum when I'm making rice pudding.)

Success – chewy in the middle, slightly crispy on the edges.

I boxed up a dozen of the oatmeal-chocolate chip in a small USPS priority box and shipped them off to my little brother. And decided my preferences lean toward the more traditional (to me) oatmeal-raisin variety. (But because I can't leave well enough alone, I'd like to try these next time with chunks of dried apple.) How about you?

Birthday Beets

2010-02-23T00:50:00.000-08:00

For years I’ve been baking small chocolate cakes and mailing to them – yes, mailing them – to friends on their birthdays.

I’d been using a doctored cake mix – chocolate with mini chocolate chips with a chocolate ganache glaze. But I’ve kind of sworn off mixes, so I’ve been sending brownies for birthdays while I searched for a suitable scratch version of my birthday cake.

Last week Eggs on Sunday posted a recipe for Chocolate Beet Cake. I knew as soon as I saw it I was going to have to try it. I’ll admit the cute beet stenciled on the cake had a lot to do with my desire to bake this cake, but I also am a sucker for unusual food combinations, so at that point it was a no-brainer.

The recipe instructed me to boil the beets, and I did that. But I wonder now, what kind of results would I have gotten if I’d roasted them? Would I have gotten more sugar out of them? (And why didn't I take photos of the beautiful ruby red beets after they were peeled and piled high in the mixing bowl?!) I’ll try it next time, and I’ll reduce the brown sugar a bit, just as an experiment. "Despite having the highest sugar content of any vegetable, beets are low in calories. At about 35 calories per half cup, beets are rich in vitamins A and C, and also give us folates, calcium, iron, and potassium." [The City Cook] Reducing the brown sugar would actually make this cake healthy. Right?!

The batter is RED --

-- but the baked cakes are not.

I divided the batter into thirds – one for us, one for the neighbors, and one for a generous friend who lives up the street.

As much as I adored the beet stencil, I was working the night I made this and didn't have time to make my own, so I used these stars instead.

The cake is fabulous, I have to say. Very moist, and only a vague hint of something – what is it? – that makes you take notice that this is not your typical chocolate cake.

So the quest is over – I have found my new scratch recipe birthday mailer.

Pâte à What?

2010-02-04T01:00:00.000-08:00

I had leftover pastry cream from my pink-o-licious champagne cake. What to do, what to do? It was suggested I try pâte à choux. So I read up.

I consulted Wiki:

Pâte à choux is a light pastry dough used to make profiteroles, croquembouches, eclairs, French crullers, beignets, St. Honoré cake, Indonesian kue sus, and gougères. It contains only butter, water, flour, and eggs. In lieu of a raising agent it employs high moisture content to create steam during cooking to puff the pastry. Choux pastry is usually baked but for beignets it is fried. In Austrian cuisine it is also boiled to make Marillenknödel, a sweet apricot dumpling; in that case it does not puff, but remains relatively dense.

And King Arthur.

It looked easy enough. How could I NOT try it?

First the requested pastry cream recipe.

Pastry Cream

3 c. whole milk
½ c sugar
¼ tsp. salt
2 tsp. vanilla extract (or 1/3 vanilla bean, split lengthwise)
¼ c. cornstarch
1 T all-purpose flour
4 lrg. Egg yolks
4 T butter
1 c. heavy cream, whipped to soft peaks

In a medium-sized saucepan, stir together 2 ½ c. milk, the sugar, salt, and vanilla bean (if you use extract, add it at the end). Bring to a boil over medium heat.

Meanwhile, whisk the cornstarch, flour, and eg yolks with the remaining ½ c. milk.

Whisk some of the boiling milk mixture with the egg yolks, then pour back into the hot milk mixture and return to the heat. Bring to a boil, stirring constantly, and boil for 30 seconds. Remove from the heat, strain through a fine sieve, and stir in the butter and vanilla extract.

To keep the creamy texture intact, top with a piece of plastic wrap, making sure the plastic covers the entire surface of the cream.

To complete, fold the cooled cream into the whipped cream.

Now for the pâte à choux.

Bring ½ c. butter, 1 c. water, and ¼ tsp. salt to a rolling boil.

Take it off the heat and add 1 ¼ c. flour all at once, stirring vigorously. Return to heat until it forms a ball.

Let it cool to about 140°.

Transfer to a mixing bowl and add four eggs, one at a time. Beat for two minutes after adding the last egg. The mixture is supposed to be “fluffy”, but I didn’t find that to be the case.

Our ‘70s-era superhero glasses are the perfect size to hold pastry bags.

The only real difference I can tell between éclairs and cream puffs are their shape. I don’t know why, I just went with éclairs.

King Arthur told me to bake them for 15 minutes at 450°, then lower the eat to 360° and bake until the sides are set. But they were set and sufficiently browned at 15 minutes, so I took them out.

The King also told me to make slits in the ends of the eclairs (I missed that detail and made cuts down the side), and then return them to the oven for another five minutes to allow the steam to escape. I didn't want them to dry out, so I skipped that step. They seemed fine.

The pastry cream by now is two days old and has almost lost its whip. Its texture is more like thin pudding. But it tastes like full-fat homemade vanilla ice cream before it’s frozen, so that can’t be a bad thing.

They sort of remind me of alligators.

Now melt 1 oz. baking chocolate and 1 T butter in the microwave for about 20 seconds, depending on your microwave. Add 1 T hot water and ½ c. powdered sugar (I sifted it to remove lumps).

Oooh, aaaaah...

I really need a less fattening hobby. I think it’s time to try another quilt.

Cake Required

2010-02-02T00:31:00.001-08:00

A 21^st birthday is a good example. A friend asked me to bake a cake for her daughter’s milestone birthday. She likes Goldschlager (cinnamon schnapps), but I could only come up with carrot cake as a way to incorporate it into a baking assignment. For some reason that just didn’t seem appropriate for a 21^st birthday celebration, so I went with Pink Champagne Cake with pastry cream filling and champagne-buttercream frosting, and decided to gift her a bottle of Goldschlager to enjoy as she pleased.

I had time before Bake Day, so I dug out one of my saved oatmeal canisters and dressed it up a little.

I was playing with beads and leather cord this week, so I made her a funky necklace as well.

As usual with a cake I have weeks to think about, I gathered up all my ingredients and decorating options -- sprinkles, ribbon, tissue, decorative paper. I never know how I’m going to use it until it comes time to assemble it, but looking at it for a while sometimes helps stir my creativity.

Bake Day was a workday, so the night before I did some prep. I’ve been reading food memoirs lately, so the term "mise en place" comes to mind. Dry ingredients were sifted and measured, pans were greased, floured, and parchment papered, butter was brought to room temperature.

The recipe called for liquid food coloring. I use gel coloring, but I’m always unsure how much to use when recipes call for liquid. I found a Red Velvet Cake recipe that called for 2 T of gel coloring. I wanted a delicate pink cake, so I used just 1 tsp. It was really pink!

Adding the champagne, hoping to lighten it up a bit.

Not much.

Still hot pink!

I found the three layers in combination with the silky pastry cream made for an unstable cake, and I needed some wooden skewers. I was out, so I stole a couple from an unused sushi mat.

Gerbera Daisies to class it up a bit…

…and some candles, because 21 is still young enough to be okay with The Birthday Song.

I received a text from the Birthday Girl after she and her friends had cut into it..."Pink-o-licious, tangy champagney goodness, delectable, creamy, decadent -- my friends loved it!"

Happy Birthday, Rachel!

Daring Bakers: Nanaimo Bars

2010-01-27T00:53:00.000-08:00

The January 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Lauren of Celiac Teen. Lauren chose Gluten-Free Graham Wafers and Nanaimo Bars as the challenge for the month. The sources she based her recipe on are 101 Cookbooks and www.nanaimo.ca.

Living close to Nanaimo, British Columbia, but never having tried Nanaimo Bars, I was looking forward to trying these. I’d seen them at the bakery, so I bought a few before attempting the challenge just to get an idea what to expect. They were good, but very sweet. Not really my thing. However, a friend visiting from out of town told me she loved them, so I timed my challenge for her visit.

For those unfamiliar with Nanaimo Bars, they consist of a wafer crumb-based layer with coconut and nuts, topped by a layer of vanilla or custard butter icing, which is then covered in chocolate.

Making graham crackers...

Flour, sugar, baking soda, salt…

The magic ingredients -- honey, milk, and vanilla…

Adding the butter…

Forming crackers…

Crumbling for the first layer…

The middle layer is where I lost interest -- a half cup of butter, heavy cream, vanilla pudding mix (I was unable to find custard powder), and two cups of powdered sugar.

Then a layer of chocolate and butter, which for some reason didn’t prove to be enough for me. Because we’d made brownies the night before, I didn’t have any “extra” chocolate, so I just made do with what I had.

I sent the majority home with my house guest, then stuck the rest in the refrigerator and forgot about them.

Eventually I pulled them out for their photo shoot, but by then they’d seen better days.

So while I wasn't at all impressed with the Nanaimo bars, I did discover the beauty of a homemade graham cracker.

With the leftover crackers from the Nanaimo Bars we made S'mores, and since this challenge I've made the crackers two more times. While I still have some perfecting to do (mainly dealing with dough thickness and length of cooking time), they will definitely be a regular snack in my home, the perfect accompaniment to my afternoon espresso, or as a snack with a late-night bowl of yogurt.

The next batch will be dipped in chocolate and sprinkled with salt.

The Perfect S'more

2010-01-10T13:18:00.001-08:00

One of last year's baking challenges required me to make marshmallows. Ever since then I've been dreaming of homemade s'mores. This month my baking challenge included making graham crackers. S'mores were inevitable. Here is the story of The Perfect S'more.

Making marshmallows...

The story of the graham crackers will come after the 27th.

Assembly...

A few minutes under the broiler...

Nom, nom, nom...

The end.

Skipping Christmas

2010-01-03T10:44:00.000-08:00

We made the decision in November to skip Christmas; we don’t like the commercialism, we had no plans for family visits, we are in no way religious, and I had to work. We didn’t decorate, we didn’t plan a special meal, we didn’t exchange gifts. I work at home, so it became clear that unless we turned on the TV, we could pretty much escape the holiday all together.

I couldn’t refrain from some baking, however. I have an easy fudge recipe that I make only during the holidays. I couldn’t not make something I only make in December.

As a compromise to Christmas, I decided to send out Solstice cards.

From winter’s stillness light returns…

Everything was going as planned. Until the 14^th, when I woke up with abdominal pains, fatigue, and what I thought was some kind of virus. 17 days, two trips to the ER, a CT, a bottle of Percocet, a GI specialist, several missed days of work, and an endoscopy later, this self-proclaimed foodie was diagnosed with Crohn’s Disease -- an autoimmune disease in which the body's immune system attacks the gastrointestinal tract, causing inflammation. (More gory details here, but thankfully so far all I’ve experienced is abdominal pain and fatigue.) There is no cure for Crohn’s. Talk about a big bummer of a Christmas gift. But wait, I wasn’t celebrating. Which was even more a blessing in disguise, really, because time stopped on the 14^th. My pain and fatigue took over, and I wasn’t in any shape to do anything but sleep and watch TV. I couldn't finish baking, and I had to set aside my Solstice cards.

I’m feeling much better now, but I’m still on a somewhat restricted diet and am cautious – make that paranoid – about what I put into my body. I have, however, lost 10 pounds this month, and I can’t say I’m disappointed about that.

New Year’s Day was my first dive back into baking since becoming ill. Birthday brownies for far-away friends.

They’re good brownies. They came from Martha Stewart's Cookies: The Very Best Treats to Bake and to Share, a birthday gift from Eric. They are very dense, reminiscent of truffles, though I prefer a slightly more cakey brownie. I cut them into squares, wrapped them by fours in plastic wrap, and then a freezer bag. I was able to fit a stack of five in each take-out container, which then was packed into a 6x6x6 box for mailing.

My next baking project is a Daring Bakers’ Challenge, one I’m very much looking forward to. Details about that sometime after the 27^th.

Daring Bakers: Cannoli

2009-11-29T23:46:00.000-08:00

The November 2009 Daring Bakers Challenge was chosen and hosted by Lisa Michele of Parsley, Sage, Desserts and Line Drives. She chose the Italian Pastry, Cannolo (Cannoli is plural), using the cookbooks Lidia’s Italian-American Kitchen by Lidia Matticchio Bastianich and The Sopranos Family Cookbook by Allen Rucker; recipes by Michelle Scicolone, as ingredient/direction guides. She added her own modifications/changes, so the recipe is not 100% verbatim from either book.

I was really excited about this challenge. But time got away from me. I had house guests coming for Thanksgiving, and I wanted to make it while they were here. But then they were here, and I got busy with, well, Thanksgiving.

Cookies…

Scones…

Cornbread…

Pies…

Brunch…

And a few other things I neglected to photograph. I eventually gave up the idea, because I wanted to spend time with my guests, not time in my kitchen. Though for the record, I did a lot of the baking mentioned above before they arrived.

I finally tackled this project today. I had the dough ready to go – one thing I did make while guests were here – and I mixed the ricotta filling last night. It was incredibly difficult to roll out. I’m guessing that’s because it was in the refrigerator for four days? I didn’t get them nearly as thin as I should have, but at this point I just wanted to be done with it.

I was unable to find cannoli forms anywhere within a 100-mile radius, so my friend Anita loaned me her two sets after she completed her challenge. (Thanks again, Nita!)

I wanted to photograph the frying process, but I was reluctant to take my attention away from the hot oil, so I refrained.

Because I used red wine in the dough, it was difficult to tell when they were browned, and I think I overcooked a few of them. I only lost about three – either they stuck to the form or I just accidentally broke them. Not bad, considering I made about 18.

They look nice. They taste good enough. I took a few to the neighbors, but still have a stack of them here staring at me, and a bowl of leftover ricotta filling. Any ideas what to do with that??

I doubt I’ll make these again. I really don’t enjoy frying things, and I don’t think their taste warranted all the work. I will admit they are pretty impressive looking, but I'm satisfied with my decision to spend time with close friends instead of pulling my hair out over cannoli.

Ugly Betty

2009-11-05T22:13:00.000-08:00

November is a big month for friends' birthdays. This week I baked for two of them.

In the past, my go-to mailing cake has been a dense chocolate-chocolate chip cake with a chocolate ganache glaze.

But I’m kind of tired of baking that one, so I decided to change it up this time. I found a recipe for Milky Way Swirl Cake in the Chocolate Cake Mix Doctor cookbook. I’ve been doing my best to avoid cake mixes lately; I don’t like the artificial taste, and I prefer to know how to pronounce all the ingredients in the food I bake, so for the most part I use the Cake Mix Doctor books for inspiration and frosting recipes.

I decided on Marcy Goldman’s Moist and Mellow Yellow Cake recipe from my standby, The Best of Better Baking .com.

Let me interrupt the cake story for a minute to announce – I got a new camera! My first DSLR. It arrived in the middle of this baking project.

At last, no more scheduling my baking according to the amount of daylight I have left.

Back to my cake. Basically the Milky Way Swirl Cake is a yellow cake with melted Milky Way bars swirled into the batter.

There are very specific instructions with regard to the swirling process. “Spoon the Milky Way mixture in a ring on top of the batter, making sure not to touch the sides of the pan. With a dinner knife, swirl through the batter to create a marbled effect. Do not scrape the bottom of the pan.”

Yeah, well, you need to tell me why I shouldn’t do something, or I’m going to do what I want. The one on the right is pre-swirl, but you can see most of it is touching the edge.

So I put them in the oven, and go about cleaning the kitchen. Eventually I can smell something burning, and I discover they are spilling over the top onto the cupcakes below them.

This should have been my first sign of things to come.

Not only did they sink at the last minute, but one of them completely stuck to the pan and didn’t make the cut for gift-giving. Oooooh, so THAT’S why you’re not supposed to let the caramel touch the pan. Lesson learned. The one somewhat salvageable cake did have a chunk missing from the top, but I did my best to piece it back together, and hoped I could disguise it with the glaze.

In an attempt to detract from the ugliness of the patched top, I sliced a candy bar and placed it around the top of the cake, but that seemed to make the whole thing even more homely looking. I ended up wrapping it in plastic wrap, tying a ribbon around it, and calling it good. What else could I do?

I took the finished cake photos with the new camera, then later that night accidentally erased the photos. Oops.

I still had one more cake to complete. The problem was that I’d run out of flour (and time), so I had to resort to a cake mix. I was careful not to let the caramel touch the side of the pan this time, but some of it snuck out and I had a few uglies on the outside of the cake. But I managed to get it out of the pan, and it seemed to be okay. I made the glaze, which consisted of more melted Milky Way bars, covered it in sprinkles to attempt to hide the imperfections, then covered the whole thing and let the glaze set overnight.

I don't know what happened, but when I got up the next morning the cake had somehow collapsed in spots. Now it really looked miserable.

Eventually I packaged them up and sent them on their way. What is it they say about first impressions and presentation? I was counting on the element of surprise and the creative packaging to make up for the sad little cakes.

I’ll make this again sometime, and I’ll make it from scratch. But I will follow the instructions, I will bake it in a bundt pan, and I will refrain from attempting to mail it anywhere.

Milky Way Swirl Cake

Make a yellow cake, your choice

Melt 5 oz of Milky Way candy bars with 2 T of water. Cool slightly, then add 1/3 cup of cake batter and 1 T flour.

Spoon the Milky Way mixture in a ring on top of the batter, making sure not to touch the sides of the pan. With a dinner knife, swirl through the batter to create a marbled effect. Do not scrape the bottom of the pan. This is important! If you DO, the caramel will stick to the sides of the pan and you'll never get it out in one piece.

Bake at 350 until the cake springs back when touched and a cake tester comes out clean.

Milky Way Glaze:

Melt 5 oz. Milky Way candy bars, 2 T butter, and 2 tsp. water.

The recipe instructs you to let this cool for 10 minutes before pouring it onto the cake, but I think it would harden too fast. I poured mine on right away. Another instance of Stubborn Logic: “If you don’t tell me why not, then it must not be important”. I’m not sure if that’s why some of the second cake sort of collapsed. Who knows? I say use your best judgment.

Don't Freak Out

2009-11-01T01:12:00.001-07:00

Remember when no one freaked out when you’d get homemade candy and cookies in your trick-or-treat bag? Eric and I are children of the '70s. We both spent our childhoods in small Northern California towns -- his had a couple thousand people; mine, just a couple hundred. We each have memories of homemade popcorn balls, cookies, and candy being passed out in our neighborhoods on Halloween. We didn’t personally know the people that were handing them out, yet we (our parents) trusted that they were safe.

We now live a block outside a city with a population of somewhere around 100,000. While that is huge compared to our childhood towns (which, by the way, haven't grown in population), after living in Portland, Oregon, for 15 years, it feels tiny. There are four kids that live on our street, and we know each of them. They are often beneficiaries of my baking projects, so I decided, why not make something for them for Halloween? I debated for a while on what to make. Cookies with royal icing (specifically spider webs) made the short list. As did popcorn balls. I’ve never made popcorn balls, and by Friday I was getting kind of lazy about the whole project, so popcorn balls it was.

While I was browsing for recipes, I was disappointed to see so many of them telling me to use microwave popcorn. Does no one pop their own popcorn anymore? I used a hot-air popper for years, but eventually discovered I could achieve the same effect by using a paper bag in a microwave, so I ditched the extra appliance and now keep a paper bag in the pantry next to the popcorn canister.

I suppose it’s time to replace the bag...

The recipe I found appealed to me because it described their flavor as "Cracker-Jacky". It called for eight quarts of popcorn. Eight quarts?! That’s a lot of popcorn. I wanted popcorn balls for four kids, not 40.

Ingredients:
1 C. granulated sugar
3/4 C. light corn syrup
1/4 C. molasses
2 tbsp. butter
1/2 tsp. salt
8 quarts (1 gallon) popped popcorn, unpopped kernels removed

I figured two quarts would be plenty, but it didn’t think adjusting the recipe accordingly would give me enough caramel. So I kind of eyeballed it.

The recipe instructs you to add the peanuts to the popcorn after you’ve melted the rest of the ingredients together and poured them in with the popcorn. But either there wasn’t enough caramel mixture, or I didn’t work fast enough (or a little of both), because the peanuts just didn’t stick, and most of them ended up in the bottom of the bowl.

So I tried again. I used the same amount of popcorn, but used about 1/4 c. sugar, 1/3 c. corn syrup, 1/8 c. molasses, the full 2 T of butter, and a pinch of salt. Much, much better.

We added spooky rings, a couple pieces of candy, a tube of bubbles, some glow sticks, and Silly Putty to Halloween bags and called it done.

As for the popcorn balls, they are good, but they’re missing something. Like, flavor. They need a lot more caramel, or some secret ingredient that I’m not privy to. I could probably figure it out, but they don't interest me enough to bother. If I decide to bake for the neighbor kids next year, I’ll most likely go with cookies. Better yet, my favorite, caramel.

Daring Bakers: French Macaroons

2009-10-26T00:47:00.000-07:00

The 2009 October Daring Bakers’ challenge was brought to us by Ami S. She chose macaroons from Claudia Fleming’s The Last Course: The Desserts of Gramercy Tavern as the challenge recipe.

What, macaroons without coconut? Never heard of such a thing. But with a list of ingredients like this --

-- how hard could they be?

I’d never used almond flour. My husband, who does all the cooking in the house and sometimes a little baking, was happy to see it on the grocery list. He’d seen it in recipes for almond cookies and granola bars, but had never splurged. Meanwhile, I had no clue what almond flour goes for ($13/lb!), so I just put it on his list, despite the fact I had three pounds of almonds in the pantry and could have ground my own.

Interesting stuff, almond flour. Heavy and oily, not conducive to my usual method of sifting.

It took a while, but I got 98% of it through the sieve and whisked in the rest.

After our Milanos challenge in August, I decided penciling in circle templates wasn’t worth the effort, so I decided to wing it. Not bad…

The first batch I baked exactly according to the recipe. But I didn’t get the infamous “feet” on my macaroons that I’d read so much about.

The second batch I baked a few minutes longer, and ta-dah -- FEET!

The next part of the challenge was the filling. I decided on a Nutella-chocolate ganache.

1/2 c. heavy cream
3/4 c. dark chocolate
3 T. Nutella

Anything made with Nutella gets a thumbs-up from me, but this needed more Nutella and less chocolate. Maybe even no chocolate at all.

I’d definitely call this challenge a success, and they were unquestionably delicious, but I don’t know if I’d make them again unless by specific request. I’ve discovered more “fussy” or “fancy” cookies aren’t my thing. I’m more of a comfort food girl, and to me comfort food is heartier, not so delicate. Verdict: impressive-looking and tasty, not difficult, but just not my thing.

Bring It On

2009-10-25T00:04:00.000-07:00

I made my first pie crust tonight. Okay, probably not my first, but my first memorable one. The first one that made me excited to do it again.

Eric was mowing for the last time before next spring, and decided to salvage a few apples from our tree for a pie. I offered to make the crust.

I attended a convention for court reporters a few weeks ago, and one of the seminars was “Community Building”, or something similar. The speaker told us of her experiences organizing fund-raising activities for the Hood River, Oregon, Soroptimist Group. Specifically, their annual apple pie contest. As she told us how she got involved and what she does, she gave us detailed instructions on how to produce a beautiful, flaky pie crust.

Our convention organizers put together their own apple pie contest.

I’m not much of a pie person. I like cake. When asked whether I’d be willing to submit an entry, I declined, claiming, “I don’t do pie”.

Armed with tips from a contest winner, I decided it was time to tackle it. Thanksgiving is approaching, after all, and I've been informed that it just isn't Thanksgiving without apple pie. I usually make Marcy Goldman’s Fancy Apple Cake (from Treasury of Jewish Holiday Baking) for Thanksgiving. (It's really more of a pie with a sugar-cookie crust.)

So to please the masses, I gave in. And of course I had to go all-out and attempt a lattice top.

With the leftover pie dough, I made cinnamon-sugar – what are these called?? My mom used to make them all the time, and they remind me of Thanksgivings growing up. Only her pies were usually blackberry.

Oh, wait – did you want the flaky crust tips? Basically:

COLD butter
COLD counter top (where you’ll roll out the dough)
Parchment paper (for sandwiching the dough when you roll it)

I used half shortening, half butter. I cut in the shortening with a pastry cutter –

-- then cut the cold butter into tiny squares and just tossed them into the flour.

So easy. Who knew?

Un Cadeau

2009-10-08T01:03:00.000-07:00

Once again I’m inspired by my Flickr scavenger hunt. Item number 4 of October’s list is “un cadeau” – a gift.

Finally, my late-night Pringles cravings pay off. (I also save cardboard oatmeal canisters for the same purpose.)

Inside the Pringles tube: World Peace Cookies for my dad's birthday, from Eggs On Sunday. And behind the cookies, sort of a gag gift -- a framed photo of his precious chickens.

When we visited my dad last month, he served homemade ice cream flavored with Mexican chocolate. So I decided to substitute the bittersweet chocolate chips for Abuelita Mexican Chocolate, something I’d purchased for my one attempt at dinner in the past six months.

It seems to have a lot more sugar in it than bittersweet chocolate, however, so I reduced the amount of chocolate in the recipe by ¼ cup.

These are beautifully simple cookies. Easy to make, especially considering the rolled dough can be frozen for later use (the holidays are fast approaching!), then thawed in the refrigerator for easy slicing. The recipe instructs you to take them out off the oven at precisely 12 minutes, warning that they will not appear to be done. That is true. I trusted the recipe and followed the baking instructions to the letter, and the cookies were perfectly baked.

I’ll make these again, but I’ll use dark chocolate instead of the Mexican chocolate, or maybe nuts. Not because I don’t like the addition of cinnamon, but I’d like a less sweet cookie, something closer to a bite of dark chocolate to go with my afternoon espresso.

As for un cadeau, I’m not thrilled with my photo and will most likely wait for another opportunity to present itself (ha, ha, get it?!) before I submit it to the pool by the end of the month.

Lemon Love

2009-09-19T01:14:00.000-07:00

I do my best to send my friends baked goods for their birthdays. Sometimes the recipe hunting, ingredient gathering, baking, wrapping, and packaging doesn’t fit into my schedule and I just can’t do it, but most of the time I make it happen. Not always an easy task, because I’m kind of fanatic about mailing (via USPS Priority) in time for the cakes to arrive on my friends’ birthdays. That part is hard, because the USPS doesn’t always cooperate. This week I sent lemon cakes to Denver and to Yakima, Washington.

The recipe comes from Marcy Goldman’s The Best of Better Baking.com, probably in my top five most-used cookbooks. Through Marcy I discovered Boyajian pure citrus oils. Love them.

I also love my kitchen gadgets. The lemon zester in particular, because it makes delicate lemon ribbons.

I use the same two pans for my birthday cakes. I got them at Goodwill for just a couple bucks apiece, and they’ve probably gotten the most use of any of the pans I own. They remind me of enormous pieces of See’s candy, particularly when I bake chocolate cake in them and add chocolate sprinkles. They also fit perfectly in the 6x6x6 boxes I buy by the half dozen at Paper Zone, and they're the perfect size in that I can usually get two cakes from one recipe.

But I’m talking about lemon today…

...and I’m happy to report that my cakes of lemon love arrived in a timely fashion. Happy Birthday to Dustin and Judy. <3

Hunting for Reasons

2009-09-18T01:30:00.000-07:00

Oftentimes my photographic scavenger hunts lead to baking projects. Maybe more accurately, I use the scavenger hunts as an excuse to bake.

Hunt item #5: cassava

cas⋅sa⋅va [kuh-sah-vuh] n. In both senses also called manioc, yuca.

1. A shrubby tropical American plant (Manihot esculenta) widely grown for its large, tuberous, starchy roots.

Hmm. Not that interesting. But wait...

2. The root of this plant, eaten as a staple food in the tropics only after leaching and drying to remove cyanide. Cassava starch is also the source of tapioca.

Bingo.

I remember eating tapioca as a kid, but not so much as an adult. No particular reason, except maybe because my ex used to fish a lot and would cure his own fish roe for bait. It always sort of reminded me of red tapioca.

So I bought a box and considered my options.

Not bad. I bought new place mats a few weeks ago and realized with this project that they’ll come in handy more for photo ops than anything else.

Yesterday I decided to actually make a batch of tapioca. In my effort to eat somewhat healthy, I used egg whites instead whole eggs, skim milk instead of whole milk, and Splenda instead of sugar. (And lots of vanilla.)

It seemed to take longer to thicken than the 20 minutes indicated on the box, but eventually I took it off the burner and set it out to cool. A few hours later after I got off work, I enjoyed a nice bowl of tapioca. With my favorite spoon.

(But see what I mean about its resemblance to roe?)

Hunt item #8: bun in the oven. Stay tuned.

Daring Bakers: Dobos Torte

2009-08-27T01:14:00.000-07:00

The August 2009 Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Angela of A Spoonful of Sugar and Lorraine of Not Quite Nigella. They chose the spectacular Dobos Torte based on a recipe from Rick Rodgers' cookbook Kaffeehaus: Exquisite Desserts from the Classic Caffés of Vienna, Budapest, and Prague.

I’d been doing so well with my baking challenges, I thought a few months ago I’d try the cooks’ challenges. The first month’s challenge was macrobiotic somethingorother. No thanks. I declined. The second month was a Spanish dish with cuttlefish. Huh? I bailed on that one too. So when I saw this multilayered cake that was presented to us for August, I thought, Finally, something I can get excited about!

The finished product looked complicated, but a review of the recipe didn’t scare me, so I figured I could ace it. In fact, I figured I’d make it for my husband’s birthday.

It started out okay. I used cake pans lined with parchment paper to make the six layers of sponge cake. I was nervous about that, because the recipe wanted me to spread the batter onto circles drawn onto parchment paper without pans. After my misshapen Milanos last month, I decided I’d take the chance on pans. They turned out fine.

Then I prepared the chocolate buttercream. I’ve never made a chocolate buttercream with eggs before. Tempering eggs always makes me nervous, despite the fact I have a 100% success rate. I know I’m bound to mess it up one of these days, so I’m always a little uneasy about it. Again, success. And the chocolate tasted SO good. I’ll definitely use this recipe the next time I want to dress up a cake with chocolate buttercream.

The caramel is what got me. The recipe called for water, sugar, and lemon juice. Water (and lemon juice) in caramel? Oookaaay. Comparing notes with a friend who had already completed her challenge, she mentioned she’d burned her caramel. I was kind of paranoid about doing the same, so I ended up not cooking it *enough*, and ended up with a syrup.

One layer of cake had to be sacrificed for another attempt at the caramel. This time I used NO water or lemon, just sugar. And it turned out fine.

Except I got distracted after I poured it, didn’t cut it into wedges right away, and it turned brittle FAST. I heated up a knife under hot water, oiled it, and did my best to cut through it without cracking it too much. Not too bad.

It tasted fine, though probably not something I’d repeat. However, the combination of the hazelnuts and luscious buttercream reminded me a lot of Nutella, which gave me ideas for future baking projects. Unfortunately it wasn’t much of a birthday cake. “It’s a torte, not a cake.” So next year I’ll make his favorite – German Chocolate – and forego any fancy experiments for a birthday celebration.

Camp Cooking

2009-08-25T01:03:00.000-07:00

We used to camp a lot. But then we bought a house. I haven’t yet figured out how these two things are related exactly, but there it is. We started camping again last year, and just returned from this year’s trip, where we met our friends Ryan and Judy. I love it. I love being outside, I love the quiet, I love being away from my computer and my cell phone. I even to a certain degree love the campfire smoke that infects everything – everything – that goes with us. I love the stars at night, eating outside, and reading by the open fire. And when I say “camping”, I’m referring to car camping, just so you know.

This year’s camping trip concentrated a little more on food than in the past; I baked while camping, and my husband Eric, who does all of the cooking in our house, did more food prep at home before we left. Both experiments were (for the most part) successful.

The first morning we had pancakes. Nothing fancy. I considered making a scratch mix, but the recipe I prefer to use at home calls for egg whites, and I didn’t want to mess with that while camping, so I just used a store-bought mix.

Carnitas one night consisted of – well, Trader Joe’s Carnitas, found in the deli section, about $4/1 lb. First a few onions and cilantro were sautéed over the campfire. (He later remembered he’d packed garlic and cumin, but forgot to use it.)

Add a little cabbage seasoned with vinegar, diced green chiles, salsa, add a squeeze of lime, and you’ve got a fine camp meal.

That night I made buttermilk biscuits for the next morning’s biscuits and gravy. Baking this at home I would have made them the same day and served them warm, but I figured this was acceptable. We were supposed to be camping, after all.

I measured out all the dry ingredients at home and transported them in a Ziploc bag. I added a stick of butter, sealed the bag, worked in the butter with my fingers, then added the buttermilk.

I have to stop here to talk about buttermilk for a minute. Why is it not available in pint-sized cartons? Who needs a quart of buttermilk? If I’m faced with a half-full carton of buttermilk in the refrigerator, I’m bound to come up with something to bake. Not necessarily a bad thing, but I don’t appreciate the pressure. Usually I end up cheating and use the milk-vinegar method of creating exactly the amount I need.

So I add the milk into the bag and mix.

And I make a huge mess trying to extract the dough from the bag. I hadn’t thought about that. I ended up cutting the bag and scooping it out with a couple of spoons. Next time I’ll have to use a mixing bowl.

Since I was working with a seasoned Dutch oven (thanks, Judy!), I didn’t bother to add butter to the pan before setting it into the fire.

The next morning Eric heated them up a bit before serving them with the sausage gravy he had prepared before we left.

Sooo good served with eggs.

The big experiment was blackberry cobbler. I’ve discovered a huge sunny patch of berries on my dog walk route, so I collected a few days’ worth of berries before we left, found a random Dutch oven recipe online, and crossed my fingers. Again, I mixed all the dry ingredients before we left. We got to camp and I realized I didn’t have enough sugar to add to the berries, so Judy came up with the brilliant idea of using some of the sweetened condensed milk I’d brought for her coffee.

I melted butter in the bottom of the pan, added milk to the dry mix, then poured that on top of the milk and poured the berries on top of that.

Into the fire it went.

Have you started laughing yet? The fire was WAY too hot. The recipe called for a certain number of briquettes on the bottom, and a certain number for the top. We didn’t have any briquettes, so I just decided to stick it in the fire and keep an eye on it. It became obvious pretty soon that if we were going to be able to eat any of it, we’d be salvaging the middle. About 30 minutes into it the center was still soup, and Ryan asked, “Do we still have s’mores?” Thankfully, yes, we did. I took these the next morning.

A total disaster, but it makes for a fun camp memory. I’ll probably try it again next year, but not without practicing it at home first.

Other homemade camp food highlights included oatmeal chocolate chip cookies and ginger-sesame-honey toasted almonds. (3-lb. bags of raw almonds from Costco are a gold mine!)

Who says you have to eat like crap when you’re camping?!

Sophisticated Sesame

2009-07-27T15:39:00.000-07:00

In addition to this month's Baking Challenge, I ran across a recipe for Toasted Sesame Sugar Cookies, and had to try them. As a kid I hated sesame seeds for some reason, but now I love their nutty flavor. These cookies reminded me a bit of an Asian cookie I've had in the past. Oh, and the trick to toasting sesame seeds -- in a cast iron pan on the stove. This is the only way I'm able to do it, anyway. If I use a low-temp oven, I'm bound to forget about them. Until I smell them, and then it's usually too late.

This recipe is a keeper and will go in my new recipe box. For years I kept recipes -- on scraps of paper, printed from the internet, ripped from magazines -- in a single file folder. I had delusions of grandeur of creating a sort of scrap book for my recipes, with notes and photos. After doing nothing about that for another few years, I broke down and bought a recipe box that holds 4x6 index cards. Now my tried-and-true recipes go in this box. I still have to make titles for the category tabs, but it's a start.

Daring Bakers: Milanos and Mallows

2009-07-27T12:23:00.000-07:00

The July Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Nicole at Sweet Tooth. She chose Chocolate Covered Marshmallow Cookies and Milan Cookies from pastry chef Gale Gand of the Food Network.

This month we were given the option of trying one or both of the recipes. Of course I had to tackle both. I made the Milanos first, even though the “Mallomars” are the ones I really was itching to try. I had a girls’ weekend planned later in the month, so I saved that one for a couple weeks so I could take them with me.

The Milanos recipe seemed simple enough; not many ingredients, an easy ganache filling. But the trick was piping the batter (using a pastry bag) into perfect oval shapes. I wanted them to look as close to the Peppridge Farm version as possible.

I tested a small batch first. Meh.

So I decided to trace circles with a cookie cutter, then fill in the circle (on the opposite side of the parchment paper) with the batter.

Not perfect, but better. At least somewhat uniform.

They assembled pretty easily and tasted good, though I haven’t had the originals in a while, and I don’t remember so much citrus – lemon flavor in the cookie, orange flavor in the chocolate. The one thing that wasn’t the same as the Pepperidge farm version was their texture. The cookies were more cakelike, not so crisp. I don’t know that I’ll make them again, but if I do, I’ll use a very small amount of batter for each cookie to hopefully result in a cookie with more crunch. I ended up giving most of these to the neighbors, and sent a few to a friend for her birthday.

Now for the marshmallow cookies. These were a lot of fun to make and assemble. First, a simple cookie dough.

Sort of a sugar cookie with a tiny bit of cinnamon. Their flavor was very reminiscent of my favorite Jammer scones from Portland’s Grand Central Bakery.

I made the cookies a few days ahead of time and stored them in the freezer. I was curious to try my hand at homemade marshmallows. Easy-peasy, just sort of messy. I’d make them again, only I might spread them into a cookie sheet to cool, then cut them out to the size I need. Homemade s’mores, anyone?

I was nervous about dipping the marshmallow-topped cookies into the chocolate. I really didn’t expect the marshmallow to stick as well as it did. I melted the chocolate in a cone-shaped double boiler, then used ice tongs to pick up the cookies and dunk them face first into the chocolate. Perfect!

We’ve been having some warm weather here, so it seemed to take forever for the chocolate to set. I ended up putting them in the refrigerator, then got some pastry boxes from the grocery store to package them up. I gave some to the neighbors, and took the rest to my girls’ weekend. (We met in Tacoma and spent a lovely Saturday touring the Museum of Glass, drinking cocktails, and enjoyed a fabulous dinner.) We didn’t even eat them all, so I sent the rest home to my friend Ryan, who hosted my first baking challenge.

These will definitely be repeated.

Daring Bakers: Bakewell Tart

2009-06-30T01:03:00.000-07:00

“The June Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Jasmine of Confessions of a Cardamom Addict and Annemarie of Ambrosia and Nectar. They chose a Traditional (UK) Bakewell Tart... er... pudding that was inspired by a rich baking history dating back to the 1800s in England.”

I’ve had a busy and stressful month – a trip to California to help build a deck for my mom, family drama that hasn’t been resolved, a quarterly newsletter to put together, the death of a friend who lived in Canada, so attending her memorial service required phone calls and an emergency trip to Seattle to renew our passports. Last week I felt as if it was all going to fall apart, and I even considered forfeiting this month’s challenge. But I held it together (just barely) and was able to complete the challenge this morning. I looked at my few hours of baking as my reward for surviving the month.

This version of a Bakewell Tart (or pudding, because apparently this recipe has elements of both recipes) is a sweet shortcrust pastry filled with jam and topped with frangipane. In English: a sugar cookie crust with jam and a pastry cream made with ground almonds.

I really wanted the entire tart to be made from scratch, so I attempted to make blackberry jam with berries we picked last summer.

I followed a recipe in the Ball Blue Book Guide to Home Canning, Freezing & Dehydration. It was a disaster. The recipe was unclear about how long it would take to start to thicken. I set it on low after about 15 minutes, and 10 minutes later, it was burned. It didn’t stick to the pan, but it turned brown, tasted burned, and is now in a hard candy stage stuck in the bottom of my pan. I think I’m going to have to heat it up again to get it out.

So I dug around my pantry and found three cans of homemade jams that had been given to us as gifts. I chose my cousin Deb’s plum and apricot jams, as I was making three tarts. (Two for neighbors, one for us. The whole glycemic index thing, you know; we shouldn’t be eating all this sugar by ourselves.)

So I ground the almonds, then started on the crust. (When did I start wearing so many rings??)

The recipe instructed me to grate frozen butter. I’d never done that before. Wow. It works amazingly well, really makes it so much easier to distribute the butter evenly. Who knew? Seriously, why have I never heard of this?!

I patted the dough into a disk and stuck it in the fridge. (I actually did this step the night before assembling the tart.)

The next morning I removed the dough from the fridge to let it warm up a bit, then started on the frangipane: cream the “icing sugar” (had to look that up – it’s another name for powdered/confectioner’s sugar) and butter, add vanilla, and then add eggs, one at a time, plus two tablespoons of flour. As the recipe warned, “The batter may appear to curdle. Don’t panic”. Sure enough.

I then added the almonds…

…and rolled out the dough. As I mentioned, I’d decided to make three tarts – one for each next-door neighbor, one for us. I used these handy paper cake “pans” I stocked up on when Daiso closed. (Oh, how I miss that store, particularly way up here in the boondocks of Northern Washington.)

I added the jam…

…then the frangipane…

…and put them in the oven for about 25 minutes.

The recipe told me the finished tart would “have a golden crust and the frangipane will be tanned, poofy, and a bit spongy-looking”. It was. I took it out. (No overcooking this time!)

It is recommended to serve warm, and because I was giving these to the neighbors, I had to taste test, right? It was also recommended to serve with whipped cream or crème fraiche, and I’d have to agree. However, I didn’t have it, so we did without. (I also didn't have the recommended sliced almonds to add on top.)

You can see my impromptu packaging in the background. I included a note with each tart explaining my baking challenges and the fact that we’re doing our best to limit our sugar, then dropped them off before starting my workday. An hour later 8-year-old Abigail came over with a huge bowl of strawberries, cleaned and sliced. (Thank you, Abigail!)

Definitely a successful challenge. I’ll make this again, and I’ll make it with a raspberry or blackberry jam, if only for the aesthetic appeal of a red or bright-colored jam surrounded by all the golden goodness of pastry and cookie crust.

I survived a hellish month and now have a little dessert to treat myself. It's almost 2:00 a.m., and when I finally get this proofread and posted, it will be mine to savor.

Feeding My Emotions

2009-06-24T02:11:00.000-07:00

Almost three years ago I lost approximately 35 pounds by following the Glycemic Index Diet. Since then I survived a stressful move to a new town that I’m still adjusting to, but I’ve gained at least half of that weight back. Two weeks ago I decided it was time to start again. It was going well. Until I got a call on Sunday that a very good friend of mine unexpectedly died.

My first instinct was to eat something forbidden. I sent my husband Eric to the store for a can of Pringles, and told him if he wanted any, he needed to buy his own. Surprisingly, I was able to make them last two days. (And with the addition of some wrapping paper, I now have a perfect gift container for cookies.)

Tonight I decided I needed dessert. I never, ever bake for us. Ever. Even before getting back on this GI Diet, baking was always reserved for gifts. So when I told Eric I was making dessert, he just assumed it was for someone else.

I pulled out my copy of Living the G.I. Diet and decided to go with Baked Chocolate Mousse.

1 c. skim milk
3 oz. unsweetened chocolate, chopped
½ c. liquid egg
1 c. sugar substitute
2 tsp. vanilla extract

Heat the milk, add the chocolate, then whisk until melted. Combine egg substitute, sugar substitute, and vanilla, whisk, then slowly add the chocolate-milk mixture. Bake in a water bath at 325 degrees for 25 minutes. Makes four servings.

I only had 2 oz. of chocolate. Okay, so it won’t be as chocolatey. I can live with that.

Eric turns his nose up at Splenda, so I’d recently purchased a bottle of Trader Joe’s Organic Agave Sweetener. Technically fructose, but made from cactus, not corn, and it’s lower on the glycemic index than sugar, so I felt somewhat justified.

More info about agave here.

Agave nectar is sweeter than sugar, so I used just under 2/3 c., and because I was using a liquid sweetener instead of a solid sugar, I decreased the milk to about 2/3 cup. I mixed everything together, then put it in ramekins and put those in a water bath and placed them in the oven.

25 minutes passed, and it was still pretty fluid, so I gave it another five minutes. And another five. And another five. I pulled them out and let them cool.

An hour later, and they’d firmed up a lot. (I’m sensing a theme. I think I need to follow baking length instructions a little more carefully.) But they were very good -- very chocolatey and very sweet. I will definitely make this again, but I’ll add even less agave and I’ll bake it maybe 30 minutes.

I’m still an emotional wreck, but baking, as usual, was a good dose of self-therapy, and I satisfied my sweet tooth to boot.

I miss you so much already, Joni.

A Break From Baking

2009-06-20T17:01:00.000-07:00

Years ago I made my dad a perpetual calendar; before I knew what that was, before you could buy them in a stationery store. It was a simple document, created with a word processor. I learned while visiting him last that he still has it -- tattered and folded, falling apart, outdated since the birth of grandchildren and the death of a few marriages.

I've been trying to find a creative use for my photos, and I think I'm on to something.

I'm working on a generic template that will allow me to switch pictures and add personalized birth dates. I took the .pdf file to the local copy shop, and they printed, cut, and bound it for me. I've seen DIY binding kits at the craft store, so next time I might just get them to print it and do the rest myself.

Craft project success! And just in time to start thinking about holiday gifts.

Baby Steps: Black Beans in a Crock Pot

2009-06-20T01:10:00.000-07:00

I tried my hand at cooking the other night (as opposed to baking, an entirely different category in my mind), with mediocre results. We recently traveled to Humboldt Co., CA, a 12-hour drive. On the way home I read a copy of The North Coast Journal pretty much cover-to-cover. Within its pages I found a relatively simple crock pot recipe for Justine Shaw’s Grad Student Black Beans. I like mole sauce, and this sounded similar, so I figured why not.

First off, I found the recipe confusing as hell. It begins with a list of ingredients, but then there are a couple of ingredients listed later in the description of the recipe. The author (of the article, not the recipe) added a few of his own ingredients, but didn’t share how that changed the original recipe, or if it even did. Dark beer and strong coffee sounds good in black beans, right? Probably one of the reasons I paid attention to this recipe in the first place. (So why didn’t I add either one?)

I decided right away to make just half a recipe, figuring the likelihood of a less-than-satisfactory result was pretty high, and I didn’t want to waste a bunch of food.

So I measured out one pound of black beans and began their soak in my small crock pot. We eat dinner late because of my work schedule, so when I got up to let the dog out around 6a the next morning, I turned the crock pot on low.

When I finally got out of bed around 9:30a, I read the recipe again and realized I was supposed to have added everything on the list to the soaking pot of beans. No big loss, it still had another eight hours to stew, so I added them late. I added one dried “hot” chile, seeds removed, and just under two chipotle chiles with a spoonful of adobo sauce, plus everything else on the list, divided by two.

By 4p it was still really fluid, more like soup. And it was SPICY. I like spicy food, but I could tell this was a bit much, and I hadn’t even added chipotle sauce. At 6p it was still like soup, so I turned up the heat and took off the lid, and decided to add another chunk of Abuelita (Mexican hot chocolate base).

Dinner was at 8:30p. By this time it had thickened a LOT.

Too much. But it tasted all right, albeit a bit spicy. The chocolate was a nice variation on basic black beans, at least. It could have used a big spoonful of sour cream on top, but I’m on a diet and that’s not on the list. It was bad enough I splurged on a few tortilla chips. (And the sugar in the chocolate base.)

I’m not sure whether I’ll make this again, but the experiment was worthwhile, and it served its purpose – to relieve my personal chef of his daily job at least once in a while, and get me more familiar with the other side of the cooking spectrum.

Daring Bakers: Strudel

2009-05-29T19:37:00.000-07:00

The May Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Linda of make life sweeter! and Courtney of Coco Cooks. They chose Apple Strudel from the recipe book Kaffeehaus: Exquisite Desserts from the Classic Cafés of Vienna, Budapest and Prague by Rick Rodgers.

My second challenge: pastry. Not my forte, for sure. I’ve tried strudel one other time, for a photographic scavenger hunt. It was a lot of work just for a photo of a strudel, but it helped a little in this challenge. But just barely.

I decided not to make a traditional apple strudel, but cherry with a ricotta filling. I used the pastry dough recipe given to us as part of the challenge, but for the filling I used a Ricotta and Cherry Srudel recipe from Epicurious.

Normally my baking is done at night, sometimes when I get off work at 11:30p. But my skills as a photographer are lacking when it comes to low-light situations, so I waited for a day off work so I could take my time and take advantage of the natural light that pours through my kitchen skylight during the day.

I started by soaking the cherries in a mixture of sugar, lemon juice, and Cointreau.

Next I made the dough.

While it rested under the dome of an overturned glass bowl, I toasted the breadcrumbs. I couldn't contain my eyeroll at the instructions on the top of the can.

I grated some citrus and mixed it with ricotta, sugar, butter, eggs, and vanilla.

[I need this line in here to make the next photo show up. I have no idea why, and I've given up trying to figure it out. I also can't figure out why the right end of the above photo is cut off.]

When I give myself a day to bake, I take advantage of the day. This day I flipped the radio station between CBC and NPR, took breaks to check email, chat with friends online, and take photos. I multitask, to put it mildly. And sometimes I get distracted and things take a little longer than usual, so by this time my cherries were getting nice and boozy…

Time to roll out the dough. As suggested in the challenge recipe, I used my kitchen table, allowing me room to stretch the dough out adequately.

The next step is where I made my first mistake. I didn’t want an entire strudel for just the two of us, so I decided to split the dough into two portions so I could give half of it away. More on that later.

I got the dough beautifully thin, stretched it out on the table, applied a layer of melted butter, then sprinkled it with the toasted bread crumbs (to encourage the layers to crisp while baking). Next came the ricotta mixture and the cherries, which were drained of their sweet alcoholic marinade. (Which would have been perfect poured over a bowl of vanilla ice cream, except I never got around to buying ice cream.)

Back to my error in judgment. I guess because I was using two separate recipes, I made a lot more ricotta filling than I needed. I ended up using too much in the strudels, so I didn’t really have enough dough left on the sides to create more than maybe three layers, maximum, of dough.

But so far they looked okay, so I put them in the oven and crossed my fingers. Then turned my attention to the pile of dishes I’d created for myself.

By the time I was finished cleaning my kitchen (with breaks to check email, surf the web, etc.), the strudels appeared to be done.

I let them cool a bit, then put them on plates and delivered them to their recipients – one went to friends, the other I took to my husband, who was house-sitting in a nearby town.

I was so disappointed when I cut into it. Not only was it lacking multiple layers of flaky pastry, it was undercooked.

It tasted fine. Maybe a little too much citrus for my taste, but it was good, and I ate most of my share over the next few mornings accompanied with a cup of espresso.

Maybe I’ll try tackle strudel again someday, but I’m really more of a cake/cupcake/cookies kind of girl.

Daring Bakers: Cheesecake

2009-04-29T22:32:00.000-07:00

The April 2009 challenge is hosted by Jenny from Jenny Bakes. She has chosen Abbey's Infamous Cheesecake as the challenge.

My first challenge for The Daring Bakers. I debated this for a long time; I asked for friends’ favorite flavors, pored over my cookbooks, searched Flickr for inspiration. I finally decided to make it while I was on vacation, visiting friends that shared my love of dark beer, so I made Chocolate Stout Cheesecake. And I made it not in my own kitchen, where my modest collection of kitchen gadgets and ample counter space reside, but the kitchen of my friend Ryan, an unmarried 30-something who keeps his refrigerator stocked with just yogurt, energy bars, and beer, and doesn’t own measuring spoons or mixing bowls. Baking in such primitive conditions was the challenge; making my first cheesecake, not so much.

I had originally planned to make an oatmeal cookie crust, but when I went shopping for ingredients the day before Bake Day, all I could find were oatmeal-raisin cookies, so I opted for a chocolate wafer cookie crust.

One of the recipes I used as reference called for the beer to be opened and degassed, so I did that while making the crust. I needed only one cup, so Ryan and I shared the rest (for breakfast).

I was worried that adding an extra cup of liquid would mess with proportions, so I added 8 oz. additional cream cheese and one extra egg.

To create the marble effect, I melted 5 oz. dark chocolate…

…then added that to one cup of the vanilla-beer cheesecake batter and poured that over the unbaked cheesecake before marbling it with a knife.

The baking of the cheesecake was the next challenge. I went back and forth over baking methods, and finally ended up using a water bath. I wrapped the springform pan in two layers of foil, set it in a roasting pan, and filled it with boiling water. (One cool gadget Ryan does have is an electric kettle.) Into the oven it went. I set the timer for 45 minutes.

Ryan also has a nice pool table that occupies a prominent spot in his living room, so while we were waiting for it to bake, I took this photo for my Macro Monday Flickr group challenge, “color spot”.

The cheesecake browned pretty quickly, but it seemed to take forever for the edges to firm up, so I kept it in another 10 minutes before turning off the oven to let it set up.

For some reason the chocolate sank to just below the surface before I could marble it, so it wasn’t visible until I cut into it.

I have to say, it was a beautiful thing – aside from the fact it browned a little more than I would have liked, it was silky smooth. I didn’t think the stout taste was prominent enough, but it was described by others as having a caramel flavor. My first cheesecake, a success!

I had leftover batter, so I made a smaller cheesecake in a disposable pan that was recommended in the challenge recipe. Oddly enough, the chocolate didn’t sink, so I got a beautiful marbled top.

I'm very much looking forward to next month's challenge. Ryan's girlfriend was right -- "Cooking in Ryan's kitchen is like cooking at a campout". But it was fun, and I'd do it again. Thank you, Ryan, for putting up with my relentless teasing and occasional eye rolls.