Christmas 2012 Baking - December 2012

Okay, let's do this. Time to get the Christmas baking from 2012 off of my "to blog" list. These first two you should recognize from last year. Peppermint bark and Cardamom Crescents. They are delicious and fairly easy to make. Perfect for the busy Christmas season (and it was BUSY this year!).

Next up is this lovely Orange Cardamom Bundt Cake.  We received the most beautiful box of citrus from Greg and JJ this year.  When it arrived at our doorstep, I nearly cried I was so excited.  Our box had a lovely organic assortment, including stem and leaf clementines, satsuma mandarins, rio star grapefruit, and fukumoto navel oranges.  I can't think of a more luxurious gift to get in the middle of a cold and snowy Minnesota December than a box of warm and sunny California citrus.  Along with the fruit, a newsletter with the recipe for this cake was included.  I replaced the canola oil with coconut oil, but otherwise kept everything the same.  We brought this with us to Madison (unglazed) to share with Greg and JJ on our December visit.  It was amazing.

This delectable Scandinavian recipe is from the December 2012 Bon Appetit magazine and I had the perfect opportunity to make it for Anna and Tom's New Year's Eve visit.  Fyrstekake is a Norwegian Cardamom-Almond tart and I can tell you that it is crazy good.  After a brief and chilly cross country ski outing to Theodore Wirth Park, the four of us returned to our house for cassoulet, and fyrstekake by the fire, complete with a New Glarus beer tasting flight.  A perfect way to ring in the New Year, if you ask me.

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And finally, these are the Butterfinger truffles that I never got around to making last year.  I am happy that I made these up this year.  Truffles are great because they offer a decadent and elegant chocolate option on your cookie plate, but they are no-bake, and thus require very little effort.  In other words, they are a good bang for your buck.

Whew, I feel better now that this is blogged.  Thank you for indulging me in this tardiness.  Even though this is way past due, I like to have it chronicled here so I can check back and see what I did "last year" for the holidays.  

Apple Crisp & Homemade Frozen Yogurt - February 28, 2013

These are the last of the apples we picked last fall. Our spring CSA starts next week, so I needed to make room in the refrigerator.

The apple crisp is completely grain and refined sugar free, following this paleo recipe. I made the frozen yogurt from my 24-hour lactose free yogurt and some honey. It is delicious, but super tart and not necessarily the right accompaniment to the crisp. I liked both, but not necessarily together.

Pumpkin Pie Hors d'Oeurvers - November 16, 2012

Nick and I never host Thanksgiving.  We usually spend that holiday with Nick's parents, who, quite frankly, can cook the pants off of Thanksgiving dinner.  The one downside is that we rarely get to prepare any of those fun Thanksgiving foods.  I'm a little embarrassed to admit that I've never cooked a turkey in my life.  Luckily, this year my sister and brother in law hosted a little pre-Thanksgiving happy hour at their new home, aptly coined "Dranksgiving."  Natalie said I could bring some appetizers to share.



I decided to make single serving pumpkin pies (and bacon-wrapped Brussels sprouts, but I didn't snap a photo of those).  After searching around a bit to find the proper method, I ended up making these in muffin tins.  I used my traditional pie crust recipe, listed below, and the pumpkin pie filling recipe from my "Better Homes and Gardens New Baking Book."  Aside from being very tedious, these were just like making a normal sized pumpkin pie.  I did have to keep a close eye on them while baking, because I wasn't sure how long they would take.  As you can see, the middles totally caved in, which may have been due to mis-calculating said baking time.  It was nothing, however, that a little home-made whipped cream couldn't hide.

This was a fun afternoon project, but the real fun came at Dranksgiving, our kick-off to the holiday season.  I hope Nat and Jamie make it an annual event!

Double Crust Pie Pastry

2 Cups all purpose flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/3 Cup unsalted butter (cold)
1/3 Cup lard (cold)
6-7 Tbsp cold water

In the bowl of a food processor, pulse together the salt and flour.  Add butter and lard and pulse until you have pea-sized pieces.  Add one Tbsp of cold water at a time, pulsing after each addition, until the dough is just moistened (it should still be very crumbly).  Turn the dough out on a lightly floured surface and form into two equally sized balls.  Wrap tightly in plastic wrap and chill for 20-30 minutes.  Roll out as needed for your pie recipe.

For more mini-pie inspiration see here, and here

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Bread - Oct 6, 2012

It snowed today in Minneapolis.  SNOW.  You know what I like to do on snowy days?  Bake.  I think I may make some peanut butter cookies later this afternoon.  But for now, let's talk about this pumpkin chocolate chip bread that I love this time of year.  This is my mother-in-law, Nan's, recipe.  I have, of course, made some tweaks to it.  I find it entirely irresistible (as previous posts can attest to). 

Here is how the recipe has evolved:

4 eggs
1 can pumpkin (15 oz)
1 C coconut oil
2/3 C water

Mix these together with an electric mixer

3 1/2 C flour

Mix into above mixture one cup at a time

1/2 t salt
2 t baking soda
1 1/2 t ground cloves
1 1/2 t nutmeg
1 1/2 t cinnamon

Mix into batter

2 C sugar

Mix

1 C chocolate chips
(I use the Pound Plus 72% Dark Chocolate bar from Trader Joe's and pound it into small, roughly chip-sized pieces)

Mix in chocolate and pour batter into two sprayed and lined loaf pans.  Bake at 350 deg F for 45 min.  After initial 45 min, cover pans with foil tent and bake for an additional 40 min, or until toothpick inserted in center pulls out cleanly.




The coconut oil is my addition, and I love the subtle coconut flavor it imparts.  I've also increased the spices a bit to make their contribution richer and deeper.  The chocolate chunk method is extra work, but I love the little surprise the erratically sized "chips" bring to the experience.

Snow, or no, this is a lovely recipe to make on an October afternoon.

Strawberry Shortcake - June 21, 2012

Fighting heat, high humidity, imminent thunderstorms, and voracious mosquitoes at my favorite U-pick farm, I picked our year's strawberry supply earlier this week.  Due to our somewhat odd spring here in Minnesota, the season was early and short.  Most of the berries were small and many were verging on over ripeness.  Despite this, I managed to haul home a solid five or so pounds of berries.  Most of these are hanging out in the freezer already, but I kept a few out so Nick and I could indulge in some seasonal berry desserts.



I made a batch of shortcakes from the recipe in my Foster's Market Cookbook.  They turned out well, with the exception of being a little flat.  It's probably time to get some new baking powder and soda for the pantry.  I've read that for best results, these should be replaced every six months or so.  That seems like such a waste, as I barely use any in that time frame.  Have any of you experimented with keeping them in the freezer?  Does that extend the shelf life at all?  I may need to do a bit of research on that topic.

Anyway, back to the shortcakes.  Filled with freshly whipped cream and topped with just-picked strawberries, this dessert is hard to beat.  We've enjoyed it the last two nights now.  The rest of the berries will likely get made into some jam, with some reserved for use in smoothies throughout the year.

"Crazy" Chocolate-Coconut Layer Cake with Buttercream Frosting - May 13, 2012

To complete Nick's and my celebratory week, I made this layer cake on Sunday afternoon.  I used a recipe for Crazy Cake, which my mom used to make when I was little, and I loved.  I believe it's called "Crazy" because you mix up the ingredients right in the baking pan and then just pop the whole thing in the oven.  Since I didn't follow this methodology, choosing instead to make a layer cake, I'm not sure if the name still applies.  Regardless, I remember it being the best chocolate cake, really dense and moist.

The difference in flavor and texture may be due to the lack of eggs and butter, since crazy cakes use vegetable oil and a combination of baking soda and white vinegar for levening.  I've read that the recipe's origens are from a time when eggs and butter were either hard to get, or rationed (the depression? WWII?).  I can't confirm or deny this, since I was introduced to it as an '80's baking fad. 



Let's get down to it, shall we?  Here's the recipe I followed, replacing the vegetable oil with coconut oil (which is where the 'coconut' in the title comes from).  I mixed up the ingredients in a big bowl, rather than the 9x13 pan that is traditional.  The batter, which remained disturbingly lumpy despite a brief spin in the stand mixer, baked in two 8x1 1/2 circular pans.  Since I didn't know how this would affect the baking time, after the initial 15 minutes I kept checking every 5 minutes or so.  It took at least 40 minutes, which is the high end of the range given in the recipe for the 9x13 pan.  I let the cakes cool in their pans for about 10 minutes and then took them out to cool completely on racks.  Once cooled, I sliced them in half along their cross-section to make four layers.  The cake crumb turned out despite my lumpy batter, and stood up well to my decidedly inexperienced cake disection (this is my first cake with more than two layers).

Buttercream frosting is the way to go if you ask me, although it's probably not what they used during the depression or WWII.  It must be an '80's addition.  This recipe made just enough for three layers plus the top and sides of the cake.

Despite all my modifications this is still just how I remember it.  Best. Cake. Ever.

Book Review: "Make the Bread, Buy the Butter" - April 3, 2012

Hello, my name is Jaime and I am a cookbook addict. I have never been able to resist the lure of a new cookbook, especially one that has such a compelling premise as Jennifer Reese's Make the Bread, Buy the Butter. After unexpectedly losing her job, she started filling her free time with recipe experiments in order to determine what you should and should not cook from scratch. I enjoyed reading about her chronicles, while privately seething in jealousy of her California yard large enough to accomodate a variety of farm animals and the financial security that apparently allowed her to become a full time blogger/homemaker. I fantasize about being able to chuck it all, strap on apron, and step out my backdoor with a bucket full of chicken feed. Then reality hits and I wake up in our DC-area townhouse to the sound of the nearby Metro train and head off on another business trip... with one of my "back-to-the-land" library books for reading on the airplane (above photo taken aboard one such plane...).

Reese's narrative and concept are excellent, but unfortunately I found some of her recipes to be a bit too imprecise. For example, in her directions for making ricotta she says to just bring the milk to "near boiling." I'd previously used Smitten Kitchen's technique, which calls for an exact 190 degrees. I figured Reese probably knew what she was talking about, so I left the thermometer in the drawer. The result was utter disaster. The milk never got nearly hot enough and only a few little curds formed. Rather than throw out one entire gallon of organic whole milk, I pulled the thermometer out and started over. 

Ricotta, made by bring the milk to 190 degrees, then adding acid and letting it sit for 30 minutes before draining.

Whey draining from the ricotta cheese.

I also didn't care for her English muffin recipe. I've experimented with a few different recipes and found that the only ones that come close to the factory-produced ideal of nooks and crannies are the batter-type recipes that you "bake" like a pancake. I've been particularly pleased with Michael Ruhlman's version, which I prefer to the Alton Brown recipe just because I'd rather use real milk than the powdered stuff which I don't trust to be corn-free.

In the end, I'm glad I read the book (borrowed from the library - the only way I can keep my cookbook addiction from breaking the bank) and plan to try some of the other recipes in it eventually (cream cheese, Canadian bacon, to name a couple). But my chicken and goat raising will have to remain just a fantasy.

Buttermilk biscuits and sausage gravy - January 29, 2012

I apologize for being mostly MIA this month. As seems to happen every year, January has been extremely busy at work with travel and learning a new territory and new programs.

So far, the new territory is great. I used to work most of the east coast, from South Carolina through New England and west to include Michigan and Ohio. That meant lots of trips to New York and Philadelphia. Great food cities, but major PITA for travel. Proof: while the airports in that region handle just 12% of the domestic flights, they account for 50% of the delays!

As of January 1, I go only as far north as Maryland and Delaware and continue to work in the Carolinas as well as picking up Tennessee and Kentucky. Also, we had our company meeting in Atlanta this year (this is the same meeting we usually have in Phoenix, where last year I managed to run into fellow Dinner Clubber and old friend Nick!). All that southern travel has given me hankering for good old biscuits and gravy, which I unfortunately have to pass up in restaurants since they are likely leavened with baking powder than contains corn starch. Boo.

But I think I have now mastered an at home, from scratch version of the classic southern breakfast dish that beats most roadside diners and rivals that of true southern cooks!

It actually starts the day before when I make sausage as a topping for pizza (which I'm still trying to master... I'll write about that soon). I have experimented with several different flavors, but my favorite for both pizza and the day-after-breakfast is a slightly spicy fennel sausage.

Sausage
1 pound ground pork
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
2 teaspoons toasted and lightly pounded fennel seeds
1 large (or two small) garlic clove, crushed
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes

Mix gently with your hands. Cook a small portion to see if the seasoning is to your liking and adjust.

Then I use about half the sausage for the pizza and save the other half for breakfast the next day (this also keeps nicely for a week or so in the fridge so you don't necessarily have to do the pork overload of back-to-back meals!).

I've tried a few different recipes for buttermilk biscuits and have combined a few to create what I think is a winner. Tasty, flaky, and easy. What more could you ask for?

The key to making this recipe really easy is the pastry blender.

I finally bought one a couple months ago and I it has changed my life. That is a bit hyperbolic, but not really! I use it for biscuits, pies crust, and flour tortillas. I no longer need to drag out and then clean the bulky food processor, nor do I struggle to use knives or a forks to "cut in" butter.

Buttermilk Biscuits
2 cups (10 ounces) all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder (I use Hain's Featherweight)
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
8 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cut into 1/4 inch cubes
3/4 cup + 2 tablespoons buttermilk

Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Whisk dry ingredients together, then add the butter use a pastry blender to mix. Leave a few large clumps of butter. Stir in the buttermilk with a wooden spoon until the mixture is a soft, slightly sticky ball. Transfer dough to floured surface and form into a rough ball (don't overmix!). Use dough cutter to divide dough into 8-12 equal size pieces. Shape and place on an ungreased cookie sheet. Bake for 10-12 minutes, or until biscuit tops are light brown.

I'm still working on a system for dividing and shaping so that they come out prettier, but the taste and texture is perfect.

While the biscuits are baking, you can start the gravy.

Sausage Gravy
1/2 pound sausage
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
2 cups milk (whole is best, but reduced fat tastes fine too)
Optional: Tabasco for additional heat, salt and pepper to taste.

Brown the sausage over medium heat until not pink. Sprinkle flour over sausage and cook until everything starts to get a nutty brown (about 3-5 minutes). Slowly add milk in three or four additions, stirring between each addition. Reduce heat and cover, allow to cook until thick.

Place two biscuits on a plate and smother with gravy (you may have extra biscuits - they freeze nicely). Enjoy!

Holiday Cookies - December 23, 2011

Happy Festivus, Dinner Clubbers! Let the airing of grievances commence!

In addition to Festivus, today is "prepare-for-holiday-travels" day in the Hartman house, which included assembling cookie tins to bring our family and friends. I've been baking cookies and treats all December and stashing them in the freezer. I've rather enjoyed playing around in the kitchen and am grateful for the excuse to try out new sweet treats!

Almost every recipe this year was a new one, with the exception of the sugar cookie cutouts and the toffee bars I made on the last minute since I realized there was no chocolate represented among the selection. The sugar cookies and frosting are my sister's recipe and I make them every year without any modification. I'm pretty sure she got the recipe from someone else, but in her binder of recipes it doesn't indicate the source so I'm now going to give her credit. I love how the directions are so streamlined and assume this all pretty much common sense!

Lisa's Traditional Sugar Cookies

Ingredients
3/4 cup unsalted butter
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder

Directions
Mix thoroughly, cover and chill for 1 hour. Roll dough 1/8 inch thick, cut into shapes. Bake for 6-8 minutes at 400 degrees.

Lisa's Vanilla Butter Frosting

Ingredients
1/3 cup unsalted butter (soft)
3 cups powdered sugar
1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
2 tablespoons milk

Directions
Blend butter and sugar. Stir in vanilla and milk. Beat until frosting is smooth. Color as desired.

The other cookie recipes came primarily from two sources: the cookie spread in our Washington Post food section a few weeks ago and the cool cookie Advent calendar on Saveur's website. All were good, some outstanding!

Swiss Raspberry-Filled Sandwich Cookies

Coconut Cookies (modified to use coconut oil instead of butter)

Cherry Pistachio Oatmeal Cookies

Spiced Cranberry-Orange Zingers

White Chocolate, Cherry and Almond Cookies

Cardamom Scented Spritz Cookies (recipe from cookie press manual)

Toffee Bars (recipe from old Betty Crocker Cookbook)

A note for making cookies corn-free: Traditional baking powder and powdered sugar contain corn starch to keep everything from clumping, but corn-free varieties do exist. The organic powdered sugar from Whole Foods uses tapioca starch instead (you can also get some at Trader Joe's, but it is a seasonal item for them). The only baking powder without corn starch on the market is Hain's Featherweight. You can also get that at Whole Foods and other health food stores.

Other ingredients that can be problematic for someone who needs to avoid corn include the vanilla, butter, flour, and even the milk. Vanilla extract contains alcohol, which may or may not be made from corn. There is no way of knowing because they aren't required to list that on the label. To be safe, I make my own vanilla extract by seeping whole vanilla beans in potato vodka. Butter is tricky because some contain "natural flavors" which may or may not be derived from corn and sometimes lactic acid which is commonly derived from corn. I actually haven't had any problem with regular butters, but to be safe I use Trader Joe's (regular, not organic) unsalted butter which is the only one I've found that just has one ingredient: Grade A cream.

For the flour I use King Arthur All-Purpose Unbleached White Flour. I'm told bleached flour can be contaminated, but I never buy that anyway. Some people also have problems with the enrichments that they add to flour and to milk, but I seem to be fine with them. If you do want un-enriched flour and milk, look for organic flour and find a source for raw milk directly from a farm (unfortunately, not an option in Virginia as raw milk is illegal here). 

Hope everyone has a very happy holiday, whatever you celebrate, and a happy, healthy, and delicious 2012!

Bagels - December 10, 2011

I've been really into baking lately and have wanted to tackle bagels for a while. It all started when I discovered that my corn allergy precluded pretty much all commercially produced baked goods, but now I'm having so much fun testing out new techniques and recipes (and eating the results) that I'm almost grateful for my adult-onset food allergies. Almost.

I've seen several bagel recipes on the internet and in books, and decided that the recipe from my Baking Illustrated cookbook (actual recipe here on someone's blog) seemed to compile the best of all of them and was relatively easy to follow. I believe, as they do, that a good bagel begins and ends with the flour. I followed their advice and ordered high-gluten flour from King Arthur Flour (where would we be without the internet!). 

At $6 for a 3 pound bag the per-bagel cost is somewhere between $0.40 - $0.50 each, so this is not really a cost-saving exercise. But worth every penny for taste!

You also need to plan ahead. The bagels need to proof in the refrigerator over night, so mix up the dough the night before the morning you want to eat them. Then the baking process is two-steps... a quick dunk in the boiling water...

Here are my bagels waiting for their turn in the hot tub.

Then, 15 minutes in the oven, a few minutes to cool... and in the belly!!

The only change I needed to make for my corn allergy was to substitute semolina flour for the corn meal.

Brats with Sheboygan-style Buns - October 5, 2011

My latest homemade project came about because I found some all-natural corn-free brats at our local Whole Foods last week and also some naturally fermented vinegar-less and preservative-free sauerkraut. Actually, it started with the sauerkraut. When I purged the house of items containing corn derivatives last month, I was so sad to toss the nearly full jar of imported from Germany sauerkraut I'd recently purchased at the Heidelberg Pastry Shoppe in Arlington. I figured the only way I'd be able to eat sauerkraut again was to make my own, so I was thrilled to discover Cortland Valley organic sauerkraut in the grocery store! Extra bonus: It is from the Wisconsin-based GLK Foods, Inc.

The next hurdle between me and a taste of the homeland was the brat bun. I just don't trust any commercial bakeries right now and no one here really makes a proper brat bun anyway. Feeling emboldened by my recent successes at making homemade Tater Tots, I thought I could tackle the brat bun next.

There were no recipes in any of my cookbooks, so I did a little Googling and quickly found The Bratwurst Pages: Wisconsin's Soul Food where they explain the many nuances of brat culture and lore, including the German translation of "bratwurst" as "fry-sausage." That means that a "brat fry" is not only an entirely inaccurate term (although brats can be pan fried, a "brat fry" in Wisconsin is typically an event where brats are cooked outdoors on a charcoal or gas grill), but a redundant phrase meaning "fry fry"! They also helpfully provide a recipe for classic Wisconsin brat sides, including potato salad and semmel rolls.

The rolls were actually quite easy to make and only took a couple hours from start to finish. I didn't have any rye flour for dusting so used some semolina instead. I ended up baking them only for about 20 minutes and thought that might have even been a touch too long, or the 450 degrees was a little too hot in my oven. I'd advise watching them carefully and perhaps err on the side of removing them earlier and then returning to the oven for a finally heating and crisping right before serving.

The end result was quite good! A good bun with a serious bite that could hold up to my liberal dosing of sauerkraut and mustard. Will definitely be making these again (after I've consumed the remaining half dozen currently hanging out in the freezer, that is.)

I need to keep searching for brats though... these were pre-cooked and just didn't have the bite or juiciness of good Wisconsin brats.

Fresh baked bread - August 20, 2011

This summer has been so brutal that I am starting to get anxious for fall and for cooler weather. Thankfully we seem to have exited the 100s and are now only hitting highs in the 90s, but the famous DC humidity remains brutally swampy. I don't fault the politicians one bit for getting the heck out of this place in August! I can't even imagine what it must have been like in the days before air conditioning...

Since we do live in 2011 and have central air, I'm able to pretend it isn't as bad as it is just by staying inside! I'm craving fall cooking season... looking forward to warming up the house with baked bread, roasts, and stews. So much so that I decided not to wait any longer. Richie's reminder that I needed to pick up sandwich bread at the grocery store inspired the inner homemaker in me to see if I could make a passable home made loaf. I used the very first recipe in The Bread Bible for "Mountain white bread." The recipe makes two sandwich loafs or two round loafs. Since I only have one loaf pan, I made one of each!

I thought it turned out deliciously and look forward to toast and sandwiches made from it all week. Richie said it was good too, but not for sandwiches. He'd prefer to stick with Wonder Bread. Oh well! You can't please them all of the time! Just throwing a loaf of Wonder Bread in my cart is a heckuva lot easier than making my own bread (and probably not much more expensive), so that just means I'll save bread baking for special treats for myself.