Let Me Eat Cake!

I have to make a cake this weekend for my sister-in-law's bachelorette party, so I did a trial run today.  It came out pretty good.  And by pretty good, I mean amazingly delicious.  Considering I didn't use a mix.

But what even goes into a cake?  Because if you had asked me this morning, I would have said, "cake mix, eggs, oil."  But instead, I would now tell you, "butter, sugar, flour, salt, baking powder, eggs, milk, vanilla".  In that order.  All into the kitchenaid.  Proper recipe is here. I baked my cupcakes for about 25-30 minutes, and my cake for about 40, and the tops were crispy-crunchy and the insides were fantastic.  

I would like to try making my own cake mix to have handy (probably using powdered milk), but this recipe was so easy that I'm sure I will turn to it in the future.  I also might give it a try with applesauce instead of half the butter, but 1/2 stick of butter for an entire cake was one of the lowest amounts I could find in the recipes - but if anybody has seen any other ideas, please share!  

Small Batch Cupcakes

One of my favorite baking books is Small Batch Baking.  I love how on nights like last night, when I was craving something sweet, I could whip up a batch of cupcakes and eat half of them without feeling guilty, because half is just three.  These cupcakes were delicious, and the first time I've made cupcakes without using a mix, so I was very pleased they weren't a disaster.

Ingredients

• 1/4 cup buttermilk
• 1 egg yolk, at room temperature
• Vanilla extract
• 2 tbsp butter, at room temperature
• 1/4 cup + 2 tbsp sugar
• 1/2 cup all purpose flour
• 1/8 tsp salt
• 1/8 tsp baking powder

Procedure:

1. Heat oven to 350.  
2. Combine buttermilk, egg yolk, vanilla, stir to mix.  
3. Combine flour, sugar, salt, baking powder.  
4. Add butter to flour, mix with an electric mixer until combined.
5. Add half buttermilk mixture and mix with flour until well blended and changes color slightly.  
6. Add remaining buttermilk mixture.  
7. Pour into muffin tins or silicone baking cups (I got a set from my friend Catherine and they are awesome.)

Icing

Ingredients:

• 1 tbsp butter
• 1 tbsp shortening
• 1 tsp milk
• 1/2 cup confectioners sugar

Procedure:

1. Mix everything together with a hand mixer.  

Flax Seed Bread (in the food processor!)

I bought flax seeds last week.  Because I read in a magazine that they are good for you and will help you lose weight.  Plus my old roommate likes flax and speaks highly of it.  The health benefits seem high, and although I'm currently 25 and don't have to worry about high blood pressure, cholesterol, or prostate cancer (probably never have to worry about that), I firmly believe that I should eat weird tasting food now, so that I don't develop those health problems as I get older, and more importantly, so I'm not adverse to eating healthy foods when I do develop health problems.  So I'm trying to eat more whole grains, and in case you haven't noticed, I've been making, and eating, a lot of white bread lately.  (Another advantage to making whole wheat bread is that it's not quite as delicious.)

I made it in the food processor - a single loaf fit just fine in my 6-cup food processor, and The New Best Recipe cookbook recommended kneading bread in the food processor rather than in Darth Mixer.  It worked pretty well for this recipe - we'll see whether I stick with it.  The food processor is lighter, but harder to clean and more likely to take off one or more of my fingers.

Flax Seed Bread
1 3/4 cups warm water
1 tbsp dry yeast
1 tbsp honey
1 tsp sea salt
2 tsp dry milk powder
2 tbsp oil
4 cups whole wheat flour
1/4 cups flax seeds

Recipe:
1.  Combine yeast and warm water and let yeast dissolve.
2.  Add honey, salt, milk powder, and oil.
3.  Combine 2 cups flour and water mixture in food processor, process (our food processor only has two "on" settings - pulse and go)
4.  Stop food processor, remove lid, add remaining flour and flax seeds.  Mix some more, until you have a dough.
5.  Put dough in a pan.  Let rise until doubled, approximately 1 hour.
6.  Bake at 350 for 45-50 minutes.

This is a pretty good whole grain bread, unlike my last foray into making wheat bread, which did not rise at all and can be at most generous, termed a disaster.  This turned out like well, bread.

Gingersnaps

My husband and I are thieves.  Sometime in our lives, we stole from a roommate a Betty Crocker cookbook.  I'm pretty sure it was him that did the actual thieving when he moved from one apartment to the other, but because he thought it was mine.  Once upon a time, we didn't live together and I kept a few cookbooks at his place.  (And a toothbrush, but the cookbooks moved in first.)  It was actually this relationship dynamic that led to this blog (since I never knew where my recipes were).  Anyway, we stole the cookbook.

I've made a few things from it - lemon bars, and pineapple upside down cake.  Both are really good, really easy, really solid recipes.  I suppose there is a reason this cookbook is on it's 10th edition, but everyone still makes fun of Betty Crocker.  Go figure.

I needed to make gingersnaps for the thanksgiving cheesecake recipe and I turned again to this book.  The dough was delicious, and the cookies are too.  I modified the recipe a bit to get softer gingersnaps.

Ingredients:
1 cup packed brown sugar (I used light)
3/4 cup shortening (I used 1 stick of butter and 1/4 cup oil)
1/4 cup molasses (spray the measuring cup with pam first and the molasses slides right out)
1 large egg
2 1/4 cups all purpose flour
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1/4 tsp salt

Procedure:
Cream brown sugar, shortening, molasses, and egg with electric mixer on medium speed.

Add in everything else.  Mix until it looks like cookie dough.

Chill overnight in refrigerator (you don't have to do this, but I did, so let me know how they turn out).

Lick beater and bowl.  Avoid eating batter with spoon, it's unseemly.

Then put on ungreased cookie sheets 2 inches apart and bake at 375.  (I baked mine at 350 and they came out delightfully soft and gingerbready.)

Even the softer gingersnaps crushed right up in the food processor for gingersnap crusts.

More bread? More bread!

I made bread from scratch today.  Like, made up my own recipe.  I based it off the Simple Dollar bread recipe, but swapped out a few quantities and ingredients.  I was pleased that a bread with milk in it finally didn't taste..off.  I made two loaves of wonderfully chewy sandwich bread.  I cooked them a smidgen too long, but just shy of burning them, so they are still edible.
Ingredients:
2 tbsp yeast
2 tbsp honey (or more. just pour a generous amount in)
2 cups water
several pinches salt
olive oil (around 3ish tablespoons, just pour)
1/2 cup milk (I used skim. Anything that tells you to use whole milk in baking is usually wrong. Skim is fine.)
a lot of flour (I think it will come out to around 6 cups)

Procedure:
Pour water, yeast, honey together.  Wait until bubbly.  Add milk, salt, oil and mix.  Add in flour by the cup until you have an actual dough and it is somewhat handleable (but still very sticky).
Put in an oiled bowl, let rise for an hour. Divide, put in two loaf pans.
Let rise for another hour. Preheat oven to 400.  Cook for 30 minutes.

Thanksgiving Begins

So I received a lovely recipe card box and recipe cards from my sister in law at my bridal shower.  For a little while, I was like, "I have two recipe binders...how could I possibly also use recipe cards?"  Then I started dealing with using several unwieldy cookbooks in the kitchen and decided that I should transfer my thanksgiving recipes to the cards.  

So now, instead of a cookbook or laptop, I just have the cards.  I'm also a sucker for tradition, and I love the idea of having a box of traditional holiday recipes, even if I don't make every one every year.  I also love the idea of handing these down to my kids one day.  This one is for gingersnap crusted pumpkin cheesecake, which I'm taking to my grandmother's tomorrow.  

I found the recipe on Allrecipes and changed it a little bit.  

Crust: 

Ingredients:  

• 1 1/2 cups gingersnap cookie crumbs
• 3 tablespoons brown sugar
• 6 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
• Procedure:
• Mix brown sugar, crumbs, and butter together with a mixer until it reaches paste-like consistency.  
• Press into a springform pan.  This was really hard.  The crumbs did not stick to my nonstick pan, and it was very hard to press evenly or get a nice line.  This is the first time I've made a cheesecake in a springform pan though, so I think next time will go better.  

For the filling:

3 sticks cream cheese (or half a log from costco)

1 cup brown sugar

1 1/2 cups solid-pack pumpkin (in re-reading the recipe, I used 1 1/2 cans which is actually almost 3 cups...oops)

1/2 cup heavy cream 

1/3 cup maple syrup (remember to spray pam on your measuring cup before you measure this - it slides right out)

1 tbsp vanilla (I forgot this)

3/4 tsp ground cinnamon 

1/2 tsp ground allspice 

4 eggs

Oven at 325.

Procedure:

1) Cream brown sugar and cream cheese together with an electric mixer until fluffy.  

2) Add pumpkin.  Add heavy cream and maple syrup.  Add spices.  

3) Beat in eggs, one by one.  

4) Pour into filling and put in oven.  Cook for 90 minutes, let cool for 30, and then refrigerate overnight.  

Results:

1.) My cheesecake leaked.  I'm not totally sure what this is, but the pan that I baked it on came out sopping wet.  

2.) This is a very tall cheesecake, I think the 1.5 extra cups of pumpkin don't help.  Not totally sure what the crust will look like.  According to the reviews, as it cools, it will continue to cook and also possibly cave in.  

This is beginning to feel like a bad idea. 

Blueberry Crumble

There should be a picture here, but uh, we ate it too fast.

I bought fresh blueberries at the farmer's market yesterday and they were pretty darn fantastic.  I'm not a huge blueberry person, but I like them with yogurt.  Last night it occurred to me that we still had vanilla ice cream we hadn't eaten, and I should make a crumble with the blueberries.  It was going to be a crisp, but uh, there were bugs in my oatmeal when I pulled it out.  Ew.

I used this recipe only I made a half-ish batch with about 1.5 cups of blueberries.  I think I used too much butter and not enough flour or something, because it wasn't quite as crumbly as I'd hoped.

If you are cooking a small casserole like this for two, I highly recommend owning a small stoneware dish for cooking them in.  Or two of these.  Either way, if you put it in the toaster oven, the whole thing cooks in about 15 minutes instead of 30.  Serve with vanilla ice cream and remember that, in spite of the bar, summer tastes delicious.

Passover Meringues

It's that time of year.  When all my Jewish friends show up with matzoh sandwiches and complain about not eating carbs.  I invited my friend and now neighbor Boston over for passover dinner tomorrow night - fortunately, she's chill enough to use my regular dishes and not make me sweep out my apartment with a feather - so I made some meringues which are kosher for passover (I think.)  I checked to make sure that cream of tarter was allowed, and read the ingredients list on my chocolate chips package to check for leavening.  I think they're sufficient, but I could be wrong.  They are sufficiently delicious, and I know my sister will eat them if my friend doesn't.
Ingredients:
2 egg whites
dash of salt
dash of cream of tarter
1/2 cup sugar
1/2-1 cup mini chocolate chips


Procedure: (preheat oven to 225)
1.) Place egg whites, salt, and cream of tarter in metal mixing bowl.
2.) Whip egg whites with electric mixer
3.) As egg whites stiffen up, slooooowly pour in sugar.  
4.) Once egg whites are stiff and glossy, add chocolate chips.
5.) Spoon out onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.
6.) Bake for 1 hr on top rack and 1 hr on bottom rack. 

Banana Bread Muffins

We had a few overripe bananas lying around, so they went into banana bread.  I like to use this recipe from The Simple Dollar, but today we were out of butter, so I substituted 1/2 cup applesauce for the butter.  

Our loaf pan was currently in use, so I poured everything into muffin tins.  It made 12 very full muffin tins, and cooked for about 45 minutes.  

I put most of the muffins in ziploc bags in the freezer, so they can just be grabbed and microwaved, and we don't feel the need to eat them all this week before they go bad.  

What goes with Crab?

A friend is having his birthday party on Saturday and is throwing a crabfeast (he's a friend from Maryland...was that not obvious?) So the question is - what goes with crab?
I'm hoping to make and bring soft pretzels (recipe forthcoming) and a cake. (Last year there was a run on cake.)
I can't decide what kind of cake to bring. I'm dying to make a whole cake from scratch. I'm considering this cake, but it does look awfully complicated (and I forgot to buy cornstarch yesterday.) I think a lemon cake would be just summery and light and fluffy enough to go with the crabfeast, but maybe not enough people like lemon cake.
I also considering a carrot cake or spice cake - something with a little more density than a regular cake.
Or a red velvet cake, to be as Maryland as possible.
I'm also trying to avoid having to buy too many only-use-once ingredients for my kitchen here, since it turns out food is expensive.
There is also the option of cupcakes, cheesecake, or cupcake pops, which do look like fun to attempt.

Chocolate Crinkles

To celebrate the end of exams (one paper left) I put together some cookie dough. I'm about to bake it up to test it out (I've been having trouble with cookies coming out flat lately.)
These are Chocolate Crinkles from the Betty Crocker Cooky Book
Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 4 sq. unsweetened chocolate (4oz., melted)
• 2 cups granulated sugar
• 4 eggs
• 2 tsp vanilla
  
• 2 cups Gold Medal Flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 cup confectioners sugar (yeah, I don't think you actually need this much)

Procedure:

1. Mix oil, chocolate, and granulate sugar
2. Blend in one egg at a time until well mixed
3. Add vanilla
4. Add flour
   
5. Add 2 tsp. baking powder, and salt.
6. Chill overnight/for a few hours
7. Roll in powdered sugar and shape into balls
8. Bake at 350
   

Uh. I just realized I didn't add baking powder or salt. I'm going to go deal with that.

Mr. Barefoot's Guest Post #2

This Slate piece on homemade vs storebought crossed my screen last week; many of the items considered turned out not to be worth the time, but the bagels got rave reviews, so I decided it would be a good weekend project (something I've been short of lately, other than wedding planning). The recipe is pretty involved, so I won't reproduce it here - just follow the link and try them yourself.

Baking isn't really my thing, so it probably wasn't a smart move to kick Ellie out of the kitchen for offering too much advice - especially before she'd gotten around to defining a "light coat" of flour on a work surface...(hint: It's not light. If you can see any part of the work surface, you're not done. Bagel dough is sticky, sticky stuff. I may start using it as a construction adhesive.) (hint #2: dough allegedly sticks less to plastic cutting boards than wood. Ideally I would have used the counter - it wound up covered in flour anyway so it's not like I got out of cleaning it - but I didn't feel like dealing with any remnants of the various toxic - er, all-natural - cleaning products it's most likely coated in.

Despite all those challenges, the bagels turned out pretty darn well. They were amazing straight out of the oven, and at least as good as generic store-bought the next morning. I wouldn't expect them to last too well, but I didn't have the chance to test that. I topped a handful with various spices that were within easy reach - minced onion flakes, cinnamon sugar, mixed-up pepper, and cumin seed, but the dough was tasty enough to stand on its own. In the future I would probably experiment with including cheese (chunks, so you get the big pockets in the dough lined with thick melted cheese) or caraway seeds, but always leaving at least half plain. Next time I'll also make a smaller batch, because this is too much bread to eat in a single weekend.

Cornbread Verdict

The cornbread was good - especially with chili, because the chili was moist enough that the cornbread soaked it up like a sponge - I'm still on the quest for the perfect moist cornbread, and have yet to find it. I've tried adding applesauce, extra water, extra eggs, extra milk, rum, none of these are the answer. I think the answer might just lie in like, a full stick of butter. Any tips???

Cornbread

I tried this cornbread. Verdict later.

Ingredients:

• 3.5/4 cups stone ground cornmeal
• .5(3/4) cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 3/4 cups milk (I used milk powder because somebody used up all the milk)
  
• 2 large eggs
• 2 tablespoons melted butter
• 1 to 2 teaspoons vegetable oil for the pan or skillet

Preparation:

Heat oven to 425°. Put a sturdy 8- or 9-inch iron skillet or square baking pan in the oven.

In a medium bowl, combine the cornmeal, flour, salt, and baking powder. Whisk to combine.

In a large glass measuring cup or a bowl, whisk the 1 1/2 cups of milk with the egg and melted butter. Stir into the dry mixture until blended.

Carefully remove the hot pan from the oven and swirl a teaspoon or two of vegetable oil around in it until the bottom is coated. Spread the batter in the pan and bake the cornbread for 22 to 25 minutes, or until lightly browned.

I used my Le Cruset Stoneware Baker. It's such a good size for 2 - person dishes.

Pretzels

I tried making pretzels for the first time in awhile last night. They came out pretty good, except that they used a lot of flour (5 cups!) and not enough anything else. I followed this recipe, and was pretty pleased except that the high flour content made them tricky.
The recipe I will be following next time is the Joy of Cooking Recipe, even though it calls for bread flour, which I don't buy because I usually have two kinds of flour already. You can find substitutions, or maybe you buy bread flour.
Ingredients:
1/2 cup warm water
1 package active dry yeast (if you buy 2lb bags of yeast at costco, about 1 tbsp is enough)
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 1/2 cups bread flour
2 tablespoons butter or margarine, melted
1 tbsp sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup warm water
Procedure:
1. Start by mixing the 1/2 cup water and yeast. Let stand 5 minutes.
2. Add flours, butter, sugar, and salt.
3. Mix by hand or on low speed while slowly pouring in 1/2 cup warm water.
4. Knead for 10 minutes by hand or with dough hook on low speed until smooth and elastic.
5. Transfer the dough to an oiled bowl and turn it once to coat with oil.
6. Let rise for an hour to an hour and a half. Then punch down dough and divide into twelve equally sized balls. Let rest for 10 minutes.
7. Grease 2 baking pans.
8. Roll dough into an 18 inch long rope and shape into a pretzel.
9. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Boil 8 cups of water and 2 tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon baking soda.
10. Reduce heat to maintain a simmer - using a slotted spoon, gently slide several pretzels at a time into the water. Simmer for 30 seconds, then flip them over and continue to simmer until puffed, about 30 seconds longer. Return to baking sheets and sprinkle with coarse salt.
11. Bake until deep golden brown, until 15 minutes.

Pie

Pumpkin pie? Mmmmm. Made out of a real pumpkin. A really tiny pumpkin I bought at the grocery store that was labeled "pie pumpkin". It gave me instructions to microwave chunks of pumpkin and then scrape them out and mash them up.
I added them to some cream cheese, condensed milk, spices, and egg and made miniature pumpkin pies. Yum.
Recipe to come, once I have tried again to puree, probably using the food processor. It tastes pumpkin-y enough, but its not very uniform in color or texture - the pumpkin is a little stringy.
I did get to use my mortar and pestle to grind up the allspice, which was good for getting out pent up law school aggression.

How do you make pumpkin pie? Real pumpkin, canned pumpkin, or grocery store?

Low-Fat Chocolate Chip Cookies
I tried making these as the recipe I found, but they were very dry, so I added an extra egg white. The mini chocolate chips make it easier to distribute the chocolate widely.

• 1/4 cup butter, softened
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 2 egg whites
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/4 cup cocoa powder
• 1/3 cup miniature chocolate chips

Equipment:
Mixer
2 bowls
Measuring cups.
Oven at 350

Procedure:

1. Cream sugars and butter together using mixer.
   
2. Add egg whites and vanilla.
   
3. In a separate bowl, combine flour, cocoa, baking soda, and salt.
   
4. Add dry ingredients 1/3 at a time, mixing thoroughly.
   
5. Place on a greased cookie sheet 2 inches apart.
6. Bake for 8 minutes.
   

Andes Brownies

In honor of my roommate's birthday on March 5th, I'm posting the recipe for Andes Brownies. I made these for her birthday three years ago when they had come out with delicious Andes baking chips. The chips have since disappeared from the grocery store, but regular Andes work just fine.
These are a great St. Patrick's day recipe, because they're green, and they're also good for Christmas. What they are best for though, is making people think you've put more effort into baking than you have.
Andes Brownies
Ingredients:
1 box brownie mix
eggs, as required by mix
oil, as required by mix
water, as required by mix
1 box Andes chocolate mints (if you work at Olive Garden, you could also just steal a lot of those mints) - I would say to use about 20 mints or so.
Equipment:
oven, as required by mix
mixing bowl
mixing utensil
1 gallon freezer locking bag (Ziploc, Glad, etc.)
rolling pin, hammer, or other smashing utensil
Procedure:
1.) Bake brownies as instructed on package. Clean mixing utensil. (And probably everything else, but I'll not dictate.)
2.) While brownies are baking, unwrap Andes and place into freezer bag. Work quickly, because your hands will melt the Andes if you take too long to unwrap them.
3.) Gently use rolling pin or hammer to smash Andes into smaller pieces. (You can use your hands but you may melt the chocolate.) You want each Ande to break up into about four pieces of relatively equal size. Don't get too anal.
4.) When the brownies come out of the oven, immediately pour the Andes bits over the pan, spreading the chunks as evenly as possible. Wait about 2 minutes for them to melt, then using your mixing utensil, carefully spread the melted, minty, Andes goodness around on top of the brownies.
5.) ALLOW TO COOL. This is key. Yes, they look delicious, but if you do not allow them to cool, you will not get the full Andes Brownies Effect. You can refrigerate them uncovered to speed up the process, but do not freeze.

The finished brownies will be soft and gooey, with a hard mint chocolate layer on top.