Howdy all. So, tonight is the next edition of Pretty Girls Get Rediculous. While I’m sure there will be a few posts regarding this, we were asked to make up recipe cards for each other. In addition to the recipes for what I’m bringing (I want to wait to post about those until I have pictures), I also made up a card for my very favorite cake recipe. This is my bombshell. It is totally a special occasion cake, as it contains a LOT of fat and sugar (which I still contend is better than the nasty processed kind, but to be eaten in moderation, nonetheless).
It is a Caramel Cake with Caramel Frosting. That’s right, the delicious candy substance we all love, in cake form. I found the recipe in The Moosewood Restaurant New Classics Cookbook, and tweaked it a bit.
For the Cake:
- 2 ½ cups flour
- 2 tsp baking powder
- ¼ tsp salt
- 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter
- 2 cups brown sugar
- 5 eggs
- ¾ cup milk (nonfat okay!)
- 2 tsp vanilla
1. Preheat the oven to 350. Line 2 9-inch round cake pans, or a sheet cake pan, with parchment.
2. I a bowl, sift the 1st 3 ingredients. In another bowl, cream together the butter and sugar. Add the eggs, one at a time, mixing after each. Stir together the milk and vanilla in a measuring cup. Alternate adding the milk mixture and the flour mixture to the creamed mixture create a smooth batter.
3. Divide the batter evenly in the 2 pans, bake for 30 – 35 minutes, cool completely.
For the Icing:
- 2 cups brown sugar
- 3 tbs unsalted butter
- 1 cup half and half (I use the Land O’Lakes non-fat kind, but I can’t tell you how they get it to be that way).
- 1 tsp vanilla
1. In a heavy, preferably non-stick saucepan, combine the sugar, butter and half and half. Bring to a rolling boil, stirring often. Cover and cook at medium-high heat for 3 minutes. Uncover and continue cooking until the caramel begins to thicken, about 4 minutes, being careful not to let it burn. Sometimes this can take a little longer than the recipe says, however. Just keep a close eye on it.
2. Add the vanilla and beat with an electric mixer on high until it gets thick and creamy – this takes a while, 10-15 minutes.
3. While the frosting is still warm, frost and fill the cake. Add some half-and-half if it gets too thick to spread.
I wish I had a picture, but I don’t because I’m at work and I haven’t made this in a while. It’s one of those high-maintenance-but-worth-it recipes, the frosting is particularly finicky. But, this is the one cake I make that I am sure will please all – it’s become famous in my family, and is asked for by many at various family functions.
Anyone else have any “famous” recipes to share? I’d love to see them!
Also, more posts on food I’m actually making for tonight coming later this week!
I like to bake. It’s sort of my thing. But, I also need to eat real food occasionally. And something great is when I can do both. I found a cookbook called “Mollie Katzen’s Vegetable Heaven” on sale recently, so it’s from the same person who wrote The Moosewood Cookbook, which is my favorite cookbook, and probably the most famous vegetarian cookbook of all time. So, I adapted her recipe for “French Picnic Tart,” or, as I like to call it, Dinner Pie.
First make a crust. Katzen uses a 10-inch springform tart pan, but I don’t have one so I used a standard 9 inch pie tin. First, mix together 1 1/2 cups of flour and 1 stick of butter, either with a pastry cutter or food processor/blender until it looks like a course meal. Then, add a little water, like 2 tablespoons, until it just sticks together. Full disclosure: I used a little too much water, so my crust was a teeny bit mushy. So really use the bare minimum. Mix it together some more, make it into a ball, and put it on a floured surface. Roll it out and press it into your pan. Put it into the fridge until you’re ready for it.
Then, make the filling. When you start, pre-heat the oven to 375. Take about a pound of small red potatoes (get real baby ones if you can) and put them in a saucepan, cover them with water, bring them to a boil, then cover them and cook them for about 12 minutes. While that’s happening, heat up a tablespoon or two of oil in a skillet under low heat. Put in a thinly sliced onion and some salt and cook it slowly – 10-15 minutes, stirring occasionally. When they’re done, just take them off the heat.
When the potatoes are done, rinse and drain. When you can touch them, slice them up.
Now you’re ready to start assembling the pie. On the first layer, add about a cup of a mild cheese (I used reduced fat swiss). Sprinkle it with some tasty spices, I put on sage and oregano.
Next, put the onions on top, spreading them out. Then, add the potatoes in an even(ish) layer. Last, add a layer of bell peppers topped with just a little more cheese.
Bake for about 40 minutes. I recommend putting the tin on a cookie sheet to make it more manageable.
This is super rich. It IS French after all. Put it’s tasty. It tastes good hot, warm or cold. Seriously. I recommend serving with a greensalad..
Enjoy some Dinner Pie!
So, I have some very unsurprising things to say as a prelude to this post. One, is that my beloved baking Grammy used to make me and my brother individual mini-pies with our initials on them whenever she made a big grown-up pie, because, as I have mentioned before, my Grammy is my hero. Secondly, as I’ve mentioned before, a few months ago, I made cookies on a first date. And, because truly this is the best romantic gesture I’ve ever made, we just celebrated our first Valentine’s Day together. So, for that, I decided to make individual heart-shaped pies to celebrate. I hear that in England, they have such a thing called hand-pies, but that they contain dry, ground beef inside, instead of delicious, sugary buttery fruit.
First, make the dough. Here’s the thing about dough. It is really difficult to make it so it’s not too dry or not too gooey. I personally prefer things to be a little gooier rather than a little drier, so I put in a little extra liquid. This also makes it just a little easier to manage.
You’ll need 2.5 cups of flour, 1 tsp salt, 2-3 tsp sugar, 2 sticks of (unsalted!) butter, cut up into little pieces, and about 2/3 cup milk (I recommend pouring it over ice).
Mix up the dry ingredients and butter, either using a food processor or pastry cutter, until it looks like a course meal. Add the milk and mix until it seems manageable. Shape into a disk and refrigerate for a while, at least an hour.
Then, make the filling. I’d recommend using firmer fruit, I used pear, but you could go for apple, too as a base, and I added in some blueberries. So, chop up about 2 cups worth of a firmer fruit (I used 3 pears), and then around 3/4 cup of something else… raspberries, strawberries, in my case, blueberries… whatever strikes your fancy/is in your kitchen/is on sale…
Toss the hard fruit in a tbs or so of lemon juice. Heat up about 2 tbs of butter (ps. I love butter), and put in the hard fruit, and gradually add 3-4 tbs of sugar, and cook about 5 minutes. At the end of cooking, add in some nutmeg. And perhaps cinnamon. Feel free to get a little more creative if that’s your thing… Allspice? Cloves? Boundless possibilities. Put this delicious, gooey fruit in a bowl and toss in the berries.
Preheat your oven to 350. Roll out the dough. If flakiness is super important to you, refrigerate the chilled dough for a while after you roll it out.
Cut the dough into desired shape. I did this the ghetto way. I got some card stock, made a heart in a roughly 4 inch shape, and traced it with a knife. I made 6 hearts. (Whatever you do, make an even number of shapes). On one half of these shapes, brush on beaten egg. Then, top that half of the shapes with your filling, try to equally distribute it. Then, carefully place the other dough shapes on top. Seal them together with a fork.
Put them on a parchment-lined baking sheet, and make for 35-40 minutes. If you want to be all fancy, and you can find it, sprinkle them with sanding sugar first.
These pies definitely contributed to a lovely Valentine’s Day, and I hope the first of many…
One day recently, I went into a local bakery/coffee shop to buy a latte. And on the counter, I saw something that nearly made me squeal: Nutella cookies. Why had I never thought of that? Nutella… the European chocolate-hazelnut spread that everyone loves and basically symbolizes decadence… delightfully held in a shortbread-sugar cookie shell. I resisted buying it that day, but vowed to make my own version… soon.
So I did. These are so easy to make, yet so delicious. First, make a simple no-chill sugar cookie dough:
Preheat oven to 350.
You will need 3 cups flour, 1 tsp baking soda, 1 tsp cream of tartar, 1/4 tsp salt (I prefer sea salt), 1 1/2 cups granulated sugar (I prefer cane sugar that’s minimally processed), 2 sticks of chilled unsalted butter, cut into slices, 2 eggs and 1 tsp vanilla.
Sift together the flour, baking soda, cream of tartar and salt in a bowl.
Put the sugar and butter in another bowl and cut with a pastry cutter until it looks like a coarse meal. Beat in the eggs and vanilla with a spoon. Add in the dry ingredients and blend with a spoon, and then get in there with your hands are knead it.
Wash your gooey, sugar cookie battered hands (I wouldn’t judge you if you licked your fingers first), and flour a surface and a rolling pin. Roll out the dough and cut equal amounts of a shape, one with a hole in the middle so it’s just an outline. I used snowflakes because my mom gave me these awesome snowflake cookie-cutters for Christmas, but you can use whatever you want (I suggest hearts for Valentine’s Day…). If you want to make your own shapes, draw it on card-stock, cut it out, and then place it on the dough and trace it with a knife.
Place the shapes onto parchment lined cookie sheets and bake for 12 to 15 minutes, until they just start to brown at the edges.
Allow them to cool, at least so you can handle them without burning yourself. Spread a layer of nutella onto the shape without the hole in the middle. Then sandwich the shape with the cut-out middle on top. If you have it in the house (for some reason I don’t) sift a little confectioner’s sugar on top.
Full disclosure, I bought fake Nutella, it was fair-trade chocolate-hazelnut spread. It tastes exactly the same, and the farmers who grew the cocoa and nuts were treated with some human dignity. I know it’s expensive, but I think it’s important to buy fair trade when it’s available. To learn more, go to http://www.fairtradefederation.org.
Anyway, the cookies were awesome! Totally delicious. Thanks, local bakery, for coming up with such a brilliant idea for me to steal!
Hey Everyone, time for an easy, healthy (well, ish) quick bread recipe. (reminder, quick breads are made without yeast, and hence don’t need to take a lot of time for rising). It seems to come up a lot, but New England traditions influence my baking quite a bit, and even though my home state of Massachusetts broke my heart a little recently (seriously, a Republican in Teddy’s seat? It’s not right), I still made some brown bread, a tradition started by the Pilgrims (who were also nuts). Brown bread is colored as such because it has molasses, also a key ingredient in Boston Baked Beans. In this recipe, adopted from Weight Watcher’s, I add blueberries (another New England specialty), and teach you how to make Poor Man’s Buttermilk, which is great for when you don’t have any available.
First, make the poor man’s buttermilk by adding 2 tsp to 1 tbs of vinegar to 1/2 cup of milk (low or non fat okay), and let it sit for a few minutes. This will slightly curdle the milk so it has that buttermilk tang. You can do this for any baking recipe where buttermilk isn’t the main ingredient (get real buttermilk for buttermilk pancakes or biscuits).
Preheat the oven to 375 and spray a loaf pan. In one bowl, mix together 1 1/4 cups whole wheat flour, 1 tsp baking powder, 1 tsp grated orange or lemon zest, 1/2 tsp baking soda, 1 tsp cinnamon and a pinch of salt. In another, combine the “buttermilk,” an egg, 3 tbs molasses, 2 tbs dark brown sugar, and I would recommend about 1 or 3 tbs honey. Add this and 1/2 to 3/4 cup blueberries to the dry mixture, stir to just combine.
Put it in the loaf pan, bake about 35 minutes.
Because this comes from weight watcher’s, it’s not all that sweet. The blueberries really help that, and add some moisture, which it needs because of the whole wheat flour. It makes a nice breakfast or snack, though it’s not truly a dessert, which brown bread really isn’t. The whole wheat flour makes it a little grainier than more traditional brown breads, but also much healthier. It’s a simple one to whip up quick, and to not cheat too much on your diet. If anyone’s doing WW, 1/12 of the loaf = about 1.5 points. (As I’ve mentioned before, I think, the weight watcher’s program has totally changed my life, I highly recommend it!)
Bread. The staff of life. Probably the most recognizable foodstuff in the Western world… is really, really time-consuming and a little finicky.
I decided to make some healthier, mixed-grain bread. I’m no Atkins diet believer, but I do think it’s best not to eat too much white flour and add in some other healthy grains.
Note: to make this recipe, you need a mixer with a dough hook or paddle attachment.
To make one loaf, first gently mix one packet active dry yeast, 1 teaspoon honey and 1/4 cup warm (not hot) water in a small bowl and set aside. Also, soak about 3 tablespoons of bulgur with 1/4 cup of water in a small bowl and set that aside. When the yeasty stuff looks foamy (roughly 5 minutes) place it into your mixing bowl. Add in 2 tablespoons melted butter, 3/4 cup warm water and about 1 1/2 tablespoons of honey. Then, add in 3/4 cups white flour and one cup whole wheat flour, and mix with your dough hook or paddle attachment on low speed until it’s smooth. Then, add in the bulgur, 1/4 cups rolled oats (just plain old oatmeal), 2 tablespoons of flaxseeds and 2 tablespoons of raw sunflower seeds, as well as another 3/4 cups white flour and 1 cup whole wheat flour. Mix until it forms a rough ball, coming away from the bowl.
Butter a large bowl and set aside. Flour a surface. Knead the dough for about 5 minutes. Shape into a ball, transfer to the buttered bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and put it in a warm place until it doubles in size (about an hour).
Butter a loaf pan. Punch down the dough (this is fun, you can pretend to be a boxer). Shape it into an 8 1/2 inch long (1/2 inch thick) rectangle. Fold over the two sides and make a seam, them put it seam side down into the loaf pan. Brush it with beaten egg whites or melted butter. You can also sprinkle more oats on top, which looks pretty. Put more plastic wrap over the loaf pan, and let it rise for another 45 minutes-hour. In the meantime, preheat to 450. When you’re ready to put the loaf in, drop the oven temp to 400. Bake 20 minutes, rotate the pan, and bake 20-25 more minutes.
Eat this write away, it goes stale fast. It is a LOT of work, but very tasty, especially toasted. I want to try it with some raisins or dried cranberries in it, I think that’d be awesome.
I love macaroons. Actually, I love what I have been informed are Jewish, as opposed to French, macaroons. French macaroons are these sandwich-type cookies:
I could take or leave this kind. They’re okay. The other macaroon cookies are popular at Passover because they can be made without flour, and have a history in the Jewish community, but they are also some of my favorite cookies. They can be made with ground nuts, but most often, with coconut. A lot of people don’t really like coconut, but I love it – it’s sweet, it’s moist, it has natural saturated fat, which is okay in small quantities and a lot better than animal-based saturated fats like butter. Mmm, butter.
Anyway, my coconut macaroon recipe makes them come out nice and moist, though, I should mention, has a little flour and is thus not Kosher for Passover (if anyone is interested, around Passover time I can try to amend these to make them flourless).
First, preheat to 325. Then, beat 2 egg whites and a tiny bit of salt with an electric mixture until soft peaks form. Slowly add in 1/3 cup sugar and beat for 1-2 minutes. Beat in 1 tsp vanilla. Add 6 ounces of shredded, sweetened coconut (I like Baker’s brand, which also originated walking distance from where I grew up), and 3 tablespoons flour. Mix thoroughly with a spoon or the electric mixer on very low speed.
I use my hands for this part (it’s easier), but make about two tablespoons of the mixture into a ball, and space these apart on a parchment lined sheet. Bake 18-20 minutes.
You could stop here. You’d have tasty macaroons. But I don’t like to stop. Once the cookies are cool, I melt up some chocolate, sometimes I add liquor, like Grand Marnier, if I’m so inclined. Then, I dip the cookies in the melted chocolate and let that thoroughly cool. When they’ve got chocolate, I’m pretty sure these are my favorite cookies of all time.
Here’s a special breakfast treat that is bound to impress others by the mere fact that it doesn’t come from a can with a chubby white man on the front. Homemade Cinnamon Buns, which would also make a lovely Christmas morning treat as well
Preheat to 400 degrees. In a small bowl, mix together 1/4 cup brown sugar, 2 tsp cinnamon and 1 tsp nutmeg. Set aside.
In a large bowl, stir together 2 1/2 cups flour, 2 tbs brown sugar, 2 tsp baking powder, and 1/2 tsp salt. Briskly stir in 1 cup cream and 1/2 cup milk (I use skim to reduce fat content). Stir until the dough forms a ball, using your hands usually works better.
Turn it out onto a floured surface, and pat the dough into a roughly 9 by 13 inch rectangle. Brush the surface with about a tbs of milk. Sprinkle on the cinnamon mixture evenly.
Roll up the rectangle from the long side. Cut the log into 9 even pieces, and place the individual biscuits in a square baking dish. Bake for 25 minutes or so.
While they are baking, make a quick icing by mixing together about a 1/4 cup confectioner’s sugar (more if needed) and 1-2 tbs of milk. Spread this on the biscuits as soon as they come out of the oven.
One caveat: EAT THEM WARM. They do not save well! They get dry and hard by the next day. But they are very tasty and not nearly as hard as they look.
So, I promised these, and I know it took me a while, but I’m finally blogging about them. I made some chocolate-mint cupcakes last weekend for a birthday party. To be honest, this isn’t my favorite flavor combo, but it’s popular, and I was able to make sugared mint leaves for the first time, and found the secret to making chocolate cake that doesn’t sink.
First, the mint leaves. These are easy, look pretty, and taste pretty good too. To make sugared anything, and specifically mint leaves, all you need to do is take an egg white, and then whisk it for a little bit. Then, take a pastry brush, and brush the surface of the thing you want to sugar with the egg white. Dip that thing into a small bowl of plain old granulated sugar. Let dry for at least 4-5 hours, or overnight. Looks pretty and sparkly, tastes like minty sugar. Makes a lovely, unique garnish. I’ve read about sugared mint leaves as a garnish for mojitos. Hmmm… mojitos.
Next, the perfect chocolate cake. Chocolate cake, particularly devil’s food, which generally involves cocoa powder, often sinks in the middle. And that sucks, because devil’s food cake is divine, despite the sinister name.
This is a slight adaptation of Shirley Corriher’s Deep, Dark Chocolate Cake. She and others discuss the difference between using Dutch process cocoa and regular cocoa. I’ve used both, and have to say, I’m not sure what the huge fuss is about, they honestly aren’t all that different, Dutch-process is a tad darker. But seriously, use whatever’s available. So, first, spray whatever pan you use (cupcake, round, whatever) liberally, bc chocolate STICKS. If you’re not doing cupcakes, use parchment. For reals, and spray that stuff as well. Also, preheat to 350. Then, in a heavy saucepan, and a big one as well, stir 2 3/4 cups sugar, 3/4 tsp salt, 3/4 cup cocoa powder, and 1 tsp baking soda. Stirring constantly, add a cup of boiling water (I took from the tea kettle), little by little. Stir it up briskly, bring back to a boil (it really bubbles up, hence the need for a big saucepan for mess prevention), shut off the heat, and let stand in the hot pan for at 10 or more minutes.
Pour the mixture into a large bowl. Add 1 cup canola oil (use something high quality, it makes a difference) and 2 tsp vanilla extract (another place to opt for the high quality), and beat on low speed with a mixer. Mix in 1 3/4 cups flour (Corriher uses bleached, I say “gross”). Then, mix in 4 egg yolks (take your lipitor, hahaha), 2 whole eggs and 1/4 cup buttermilk. Pour the (runny – caution – mess potential) batter into your pan(s), and bake for 20 minutes for cupcakes, more for larger cakes, until it passes the knife test.
Seriously, this is the best chocolate cake I’ve ever made. I am obsessed with adding boiling water to the baking soda as well as cocoa. Makes a big, big difference in consistency.
For frosting, I just make a regular buttercream (powdered sugar, butter, milk) with mint extract instead of vanilla. And a little green food coloring for effect. Then, I topped the cupcakes with the sugared mint leaves.
Okay, so I’ll admit that this is something I haven’t baked in a long time. But, at the moment, I am taking a much needed study break and being nostalgic about food, Christmas, etc. Because I love to bake, I bought a Holiday baking magazine (okay, a few special edition holiday food magazines… I may have a magazine addiction issue), but was thrilled to see a picture of my favorite Christmas cookies for childhood. My Grammy made these (and a slew of other cookies) every year, and let us kids help her. They are Candy Cane Cookies, and they look like this:
I had no idea as a kid, but apparently these are fairly popular. Here is my Grandmother’s recipe, exactly as she wrote it:
CANDY CANE COOKIES
1 c. soft shortening (half butter) 1 t. vanilla
1 c. sifted confectioners’ sugar 2 l/2 c. flour
1 egg 1 t. salt
1 l/2 t. almond flavoring ½ t. red food coloring
Topping: equal parts: crushed peppermint candy canes and sugar
Heat oven to 375. Mix well: shortening, sugar, egg, flavoring. Mix flour, salt and stir in. Divide dough in half. Blend red food coloring into one half. Roll 1 t. each color dough onto lightly floured board into a strip about 4 inches long. Place strips side by side; press lightly together and twist like a rope. Put onto ungreased baking sheet, curve top down for top of cane. Bake 9 minutes till lightly browned. Remove while still warm, sprinkle with mixture of ½ crushed peppermint stick candy and l/2 sugar. Makes about 4 dozen.
Success tip: make complete cookies one at a time. If all the dough of one color is twisted first the little rolls become too dry to twist.
Some modern revisions (I made these with Grammy circa 1989, and my mom apparently also made them with her as a child). One, you can buy soft shortening, no need to mix butter with regular shortening these days. I’ve seen people just use sanding sugar instead of crushed peppermint bits (which you can also buy, she used to beat the crap out of candy canes with a rolling pin).
The fun and kid-helper friendly part of these cookies was making the twists. She used to tell us to make “snakes” with the dough, and twist them together. Our versions and her versions looked a bit dissimilar… she was a perfectionist and would make beautifully shaped cookies, but it all tasted the same, and making these is still one of my warmest holiday memories.
What about you guys? What are your best food-related holiday memories? How about favorite cookie recipes?
Upcoming for December: This weekend, making chocolate-mint cupcakes with sugared mint leaves for a b-day party, and a promise of Hannukah Doughnuts (a non-traditional twist on Sufganiyot).
