The Bread is in the Baking

Moving

2011-10-24T11:14:00.000-07:00

So I'm moving this blog over to tumblr, slowly but surely.
I like the tumblr layout and it'll be easier to not just be my food blog that some of my friends (and my dad! HEY DAD!) read.
How do I know this? Cause I already have 7 followers on tumblr for the blog since I made it yesterday and 4 of them aren't people I know. I've only posted 11 posts (trying to make sure I have photos to go with all my recipes, which means I need to bake more).

At any rate you can find the blog here:
http://thebreadisinthebaking.tumblr.com/

Go follow me.

Vanilla Peach Gallete

2011-09-25T22:24:00.000-07:00

So I'm going to let you in on a secret: I've made pie crust from scratch maybe twice. And I work in a pie cart. WHAT'S WITH THAT?
First off, my main job in the pie cart is helping roll out crust and assemble the pies. I also help with making the savory pie filling sometimes and cutting up fruit and veggies. But my boss always comes into the cart with dough already made, so I still don't know how to make the amazing flaky crust he's got.
I always thought making pies didn't take any skill. What's the big deal? You make some dough, roll it out, cut up some fruit throw it in the crust, pop it in the oven. But I realized that yes, this is all easy except for one thing. The crust.
Bad pie crust is the worst. It either just falls apart or is really chewy. You need something in between and it also needs to have a good flavor all of it's own.

Well, after scouring the internet I found out a way to make some pretty damn good flaky crust.
Instead of using cold water use hard alcohol. Since the alcohol evaporates more than water does your crust becomes flakier, but still holds together.

After looking at some different recipes I mashed a couple together to make the dough and then used my own knowledge on what tastes good together (and what was in my kitchen) for the filling.

Vanilla Peach Gallete

For the pastry dough:

1 1/2 cup flour
3/4 teaspoons salt
1/4 cup sugar
6 ounces cold butter, cut into pieces
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon sugar
2 1/2 tablespoons vodka (I’m going to assume that the more expensive you use the less alcohol-y your crust will taste)

For the fruit filling:

4 peaches, peeled and sliced
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 cup sugar
the juice of 1/4 of a lemon

1 egg (for an egg wash)

Place a rimmed baking sheet onto the center rack of the oven. Preheat oven to 400º.

To make the pastry dough, add the flour, salt, cinnamon and sugar to a deep bowl; whisk to combine. Scatter the butter pieces over flour mixture and use your fingers to cut in the butter (this can alternately be done in a food processor). Sprinkle the vodka over the butter-flour mixture and stir with a fork until the dough forms a ball, pat the ball down into an even disk. Wrap in plastic and let rest in the refrigerator for an hour.
After you've peeled and cut up the peaches, In a bowl toss them with the sugar, cinnamon, vanilla and lemon juice. Place the now cold dough on a lightly floured piece of parchment paper, dust the top of the dough with more flour and place another piece of parchment paper on top. roll the dough out, peeling the parchment paper off the dough and flipping after every couple of rolls until you have a 16-inch circle. Place the dough and the bottom piece of the parchment paper on a cookie sheet.
Carefully place the fruit into the center of the dough leaving the excess juice behind. Fold the dough border up and over to cover the fruit, forming a crust. Bake 40 to 45 minutes, or until pastry is a deep golden and the fruit is bubbling in the center. Let cool for 10 to 15 minutes. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Total Time: About 2 1/2 hours

Chocolate Wine Cake

2011-09-24T19:55:00.000-07:00

I just want to start this out by recognizing the food blog I got this recipe from: Smitten Kitchen. If you've never checked out this blog, go look at it.

Right now.

Okay, now to the cake. This is a really wonderful rich chocolate cake. The wine makes the cake light and fluffy while also giving it a bit more depth. I love it. I made it for one of my close friends for her birthday and I just doubled the recipe so I can make a layer cake for a joint birthday party some other friends of mine are having tonight. It's also the perfect 21st birthday cake, cause it's got alcohol in it, but it's still really luxurious, so it's not one of those cakes that slaps you across the face, screaming "ALCOHOL" at you. Make sense?

Chocolate Wine Cake

Cake
6 tablespoons (85 grams) unsalted butter, at room temperature
3/4 cup (179 grams) firmly packed dark brown sugar
1/4 cup (50 grams) white granulated sugar
1 large egg + 1 large egg yolk, at room temperature
3/4 cup (177 ml) red wine, any kind you like (being a college student, the three buck chuck from Trader Joe's worked just fine)
1 teaspoon (5 ml) vanilla extract
1 cup + 1 tablespoon (133 grams) all-purpose flour
1/2 cup (41 grams) Dutch cocoa powder
1/8 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon table salt
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Preheat the oven to 325°F. Line the bottom of a 9-inch round cake pan with parchment, and either butter and lightly flour the parchment and exposed sides of the pan, or spray the interior with a nonstick spray. In a large bowl, on the medium speed of an electric mixer, cream the butter until smooth. Add the sugars and beat until fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add the egg and yolk and beat well, then the red wine and vanilla. Don’t worry if the batter looks a little uneven. Sift the flour, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon and salt together, right over your wet ingredients. Mix until 3/4 combined, then fold the rest together with a rubber spatula. Spread batter in prepared pan. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, or until a cake tester inserted into the center comes out clean. The top of the cake should be shiny and smooth, like a puddle of chocolate. Cool in pan on a rack for about 10 minutes, then flip out of pan and cool the rest of the way on a cooling rack. This cake keeps well at room temperature or in the fridge. It looks pretty dusted with powdered sugar.

French Yogurt Cake

2011-08-30T12:56:00.000-07:00

When I got back to Portland from visiting Seattle I stopped by Trader Joe’s before heading home to pick up some groceries. Figuring my housemates had eaten most of the eggs we had in our fridge I bought another dozen eggs.
Only to come home and discover that there were still 8 eggs in the fridge. They hadn’t eaten a single egg while I was gone.
So what’s a girl to do?
Go online and find a cake recipe that uses 6 eggs.

I changed a couple of things when I made this cake:

The original recipe calls for orange zest, but I didn't have any oranges in my house when I made this, so no zest! I also used olive oil instead of vegetable oil and nonfat Greek yogurt instead of whole milk Greek yogurt. I spread some strawberry rhubarb freezer jam I'd made earlier in between the layers of the cake. The original recipe calls for a butter cream frosting, but I'm not the hugest frosting fan and I didn't have any powder sugar on hand. The cake may have looked prettier with it, but without frosting it is light and fresh tasting.
All in all the cake still came out wonderfully.

French Yogurt Cake
3 cups all-purpose flour
4 tsp. baking powder
½ tsp. salt
2 cups sugar
1 cup skim milk Greek yogurt
6 large eggs
1 tsp. vanilla extract
½ tsp. almond extract
1 cup olive oil
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease two 8" round cake pans with butter.
Whisk the dry ingredients together.
Mix the sugar, yogurt, eggs, vanilla and almond extracts. Whisk vigorously until well blended. While whisking, add the dry ingredients, then switch to a larger rubber spatula and fold in the oil.
Divide the batter between the two pans. Bake for approximately 30-35 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. (The top will be golden and the cake will come away a bit from the sides of the pan.)
Transfer the cakes to a cooling rack and let them cool completely until ready to assemble. After the cakes have cooled slowly cut them each in half and spread the jam of your choice between each layer. Enjoy!

The picture is a little creepy, I apologize. I'll change it to something less menacing the next time I make the cake.

Chocolate Covered "Sea Foam" or Honey Comb

2011-08-29T21:23:00.000-07:00

You know that stuff that you can get at the candy stores? Let me be more specific, it's covered in chocolate and when you bite into it and it's crunchy and crumbly all at the same time. It's one of my favorites and I stumbled on a recipe for it!
It's also gluten free, so my housemate was able to get in on the treat. Making this is super simple and the last few steps made me feel like I was a five year old on 4th of July.

Chocolate Sea Foam

1/4 cup grams honey
1/2 cup minus 1 tablespoon light corn syrup
2 cups sugar
3 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

Prepare a sheet pan (preferably with sides) with a piece of parchment paper or aluminum foil and brush it with a thin coating of butter or oil.

Combine the honey, corn syrup and sugar in a heavy-bottomed saucepan--one large enough to allow the mixture to quadruple in size (which it will do when you add the baking soda at the end). Moisten the mixture with enough water so that there are no dry patches of sugar; then wash down any stray sugar crystals that might be clinging to the side of the pan.

Set the pan on high heat and cook and cook and cook until a candy thermometer reaches 300 F or, if you don’t have a thermometer, until the mixture turns a light amber color. While the mixture is cooking, do NOT stir it at all. Stirring can cause the sugar to seize (one moment it’s fine, one moment it’s hard and crystallized). Don’t worry about it mixing properly, it will do that on its own when it starts to boil.

When the honeycomb is sufficiently cooked, take the pan off the heat. Dump in all of your baking soda and whisk vigorously until it is well combined; while you whisk, the honeycomb will foam up dramatically. After the soda is whisked in, gently pour the mixture out onto a prepared pan and allow to cool completely, about one hour.

Once cool, break into smaller pieces and dip in chocolate if desired. Store in an airtight container or the honeycomb will suck moisture out of the air, leaving an unprotected initially crisp candy sticky and gooey in a matter of hours.

Total Time: About 2 hours

Coconut Seafood and Broccoli

2011-06-07T10:45:00.000-07:00

I just moved into the house I will be living in for the next year. Whew. I can start baking more often again and I can stop living out of my suitcases! All of my things are now unpacked and put away and the only thing I have left to do in my room is put my posters up!
So far only 2 out of the 3 of us have moved into the new house so we had a pre-house warming house dinner to celebrate! Mooney doesn't eat gluten so we actually made this recipe with gluten free flour and it worked out great!
This recipe was supposed to be for shrimp (thus calling this coconut seafood because any seafood will do) but when we went to Trader Joes they didn't have any uncooked shrimp! I was really disappointed. Mooney suggested we use cod instead so we grabbed some of that.
We got frozen cod, which worked fine, we just thawed it out first by placing seafood in a water bath. If you are using fish, place the fish in a sealed plastic bag in the water bath. You should not use already cooked meat because when you deep fry it, the meat will be overcooked.

The recipe I found for the coconut shrimp was really fatty so I left a lot of ingredients out and it turned out just fine, nice and crunchy! This meal goes really well over rice, which you can start while you're waiting for the seafood to marinate.

Coconut Seafood
1/2 lbs of meat of your choice (cut into 1 inch pieces)
1/2 lbs of broccoli cut into bite size florets
About 2 cups of oil
1 lemon

Seafood marinade
2 tbs cooking wine
1 tbs salt
1/2 tsp pepper

Coating for seafood
About 2 cups of flour
2 cups of medium shredded coconut
2 eggs (well beaten)

Mix together the marinade and place the seafood in the marinade for about 15 minutes. Prepare the coating for the seafood by whisking the eggs in a bowl and shaking out about 1/4 cup of flour and 1/4 cup of shredded coconut onto separate plates. As you coat the seafood add more flour and coconut to the plates, but not putting all the flour and coconut on the plates, less of it is gummed up by the egg when you toss the seafood in it.
After the seafood is done marinating, take 1 or 2 pieces at a time and dip them into the egg and then coat them in the flour and then the coconut. Place the now coated seafood on a plate or baking sheet and repeat until all the seafood has been coated.
Heat up the oil in a deep pan or a deep fryer. While the oil is heating up, place the broccoli in a double boiler to steam, while you are frying the seafood make sure to check the broccoli ever 4-5 minutes to make sure it hasn't been overcooked and cook to taste (I like my broccoli to be just a tiny bit crunchy, which takes about 10 minutes). After the broccoli is cooked place in a large bowl (you'll add the seafood soon)
After the oil has heated up, place about 5-10 pieces of now coated seafood in the pan/deep fryer. Leave the pieces in the oil for about a minute or until golden, flipping the seafood at least once. Use a slotted spoon to take the seafood out of the oil and place on a plate covered in paper towel to soak up the excess oil.

Toss the Broccoli and now fried seafood together and squeeze the lemon over the broccoli and seafood. If you want something more flavorful, you can also use any other sauce you like!

Total Time: About an hour

Spinach Cheese Muffins

2011-06-07T10:44:00.000-07:00

Started getting a little hungry around 10pm, was sick of the almonds I have for munching on and had a craving to make muffins.

When I was younger my twin sister and I went through some different baking phases, one of which was a muffin phase. Our mom has a little cookbook of muffin and scone recipes and we just went through it and made all the muffins that sounded tasty. Then making muffins became too easy and we stopped.

But back to tonight. I have a craving for muffins, specifically spinach cheese muffins.

Problem: All the recipes I found called for ingredients I didn't have on hand
Solution: Try to come up with my own recipe based kind of sort of on a recipe I found. I took out the butter (because there's cheese in the recipe, no more fat needed), chives and instead of using Parmesan (which would have been really great) I used a Mexican mix (that's all they had at the student store). I am currently sitting here hoping that they don't come out like rocks.

They didn't come out like rocks! In fact they're really light and golden brown and just a little crispy on the outside and light and fluffy on the inside.

Spinach Cheese Muffins

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 egg
1-1/2 cups milk
1/2 cup chopped fresh spinach or 1/4 cup frozen chopped spinach, thawed and well drained
3/4 cup Mexican cheese mix

Preheat oven to 400° F
Whip the egg and milk together and then add all the dry ingredients and mix thoroughly. Batter will be thick and very sticky. Grease muffin pan with olive oil and pour batter into each muffin tin. Place in the center of the oven rack and bake for 20 minutes or until a light brown.

Coconut Cake

2011-06-06T23:01:00.000-07:00

So I got off work yesterday and checked my phone to see if I had any missed calls, and I did! From my extended family in town inviting me over for dinner! I called back and said that I would love to come for dinner (and it was a good thing I did, because dinner was delicious). But you can't go over to someone's house last minute for dinner empty handed, so I went on the trusty FoodGawker and found a really quick and easy recipe for coconut cake!
Seriously, this is one of the easiest recipes ever. It takes about 15 minutes to mix all the ingredients together (and I did this all by hand, so imagine doing this with a mixer!) and then you pop it in the oven for 45 minutes and voila! It's also light, airy and not too sweet.
The only thing I changed in this recipe is that it asks for cornstarch (which is a thickener) and I didn't have any, so I added more flour (the recipe asked for 1 tbs of cornstarch so I added 2 tbs of flour) instead and it worked fine.

Coconut Cake
1 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 cup and 2 tbs flour
1 1/4 cup sugar
1 1/4 cup shredded coconut
125 g melted butter
3 eggs
3/4 cup milk
powdered sugar for sprinkling

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit because this is not going to take long!
Mix flour, baking powder and coconut and mix. In a separate bowl, beat eggs and sugar until pale creamy and then add the milk and cooled butter to the mixture and stir together. Mix the dry and wet ingredients together, adding the liquid ingredients slowly. Then Grease an 8 inch angel food cake pan with butter or vegetable oi and then sprinkle it with flour and remove the excess flour.

Pour the dough into pan and level the top. Bake 40-45 minutes, checking the cake with a toothpick or small knife. Cool cake 5 minutes in the form, then turn over onto a wire rack.
Sprinkle it with powdered sugar and serve.

Total Time: About an hour

Lemon Olive Oil Cake

2011-06-02T20:55:00.000-07:00

I came home from work today and I was craving something sweet, but being low on money I could only use supplies I had in my kitchen and the only oil I have in my kitchen right now is olive oil. I'd seen some cake recipes floating around the interwebs with olive oil in them instead of vegetable oil or butter and was interested in giving one of them a whirl.
This one was the only one that fit my parameters exactly and it came out really great (so great, I'm pretty sure I've eaten half of the cake by myself...). This cake is dense and silky with wonderful flavor and the glaze really helps bring out more of the flavor.

Lemon Olive Oil Cake
3/4 cup olive oil (don't feel the need to use really fancy olive oil, I got mine from Trader Joes)
1 large lemon
1 cup all-purpose flour
5 egg yolks
4 egg whites
3/4 cup plus 1 1/2 tablespoons sugar
1 cup powdered sugar

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease an 8 inch springform, or 9 x 5 inch loaf pan with olive oil and line with parchment paper. Grease the parchment paper and then dust with flour.

Grate the lemon zest from the lemon and mix together with the flour in a medium bowl. Juice the lemon.

Quickly beat together the egg yolks and 1/2 cup sugar for about 3 minutes and then slowly beat in the olive oil and 1 1/2 tablespoons of lemon juice. Add the flour mixture and fold in gently with a wooden spoon or spatula.

Using a mixer, beat 4 egg whites high speed with the whisk attachment until foamy. Continue to beat on high, slowly adding 1/4 cup of sugar until soft peaks form. Fold the egg whites into the cake batter until just combined. Pour into the prepared baking pan and sprinkle with the remaining sugar.

Bake until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, about 45 minutes. Cool for 10 minutes in the pan, then remove to a wire rack to cool completely.

Prepare the glaze by whisking together the powdered sugar 1 tablespoon of the fresh lemon juice. Add more lemon juice if necessary to get the desired consistency and pour over the cooled cake.

Lemon Bars

2011-05-10T17:12:00.000-07:00

The semester is over and I'm in Seattle for a week until I can move into the sublet I've got set up till the end of June and then I've got a month of sofa surfing to worry about.
But while I'm here I figured I'd try and make up a bit for the lack of posts in the last couple of months (and in the next month and half to come). So I found this amazingly easy recipe on (you guessed it) foodgawker. I added lemon zest to this recipe, but I'm thinking about adding ground almonds to the crust in the next batch. What do you think?

If you decide to make this for a party I suggest you double or triple the recipe.

Lemon Bars

1 1/8 cups all-purpose flour, divided

1/2 cup powdered sugar (and an extra 2 tablespoons to shake over the bars)

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, melted

pinch of salt

2 eggs

1 cup granulated sugar

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
1 Tbs lemon zest

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Spray a 9x9-inch pan with baking spray or line the pan with parchment paper. In a bowl, mix together 1 cup of the flour, 1/2 cup of the powdered sugar, the melted butter, and the salt with a fork until a crumbly dough forms. Press the dough into the prepared pan so it covers the bottom and goes about 1/2 inch up the sides. Bake the crust about 15 minutes or until it just starts to turn golden.

While the crust is baking, whisk together the remaining 1/8 cup flour, eggs, granulated sugar, baking powder and lemon juice. Pull the crust out of the oven, pour over the lemon mixture, and return the pan to the oven for another 30 minutes, or until the center no longer jiggles when you shake the pan.

Cool the lemon bars in the pan for half an hour, then refrigerate at least two hours before cutting. Cut with a large knife into 9 even squares, like a tic-tac-toe board. Dust the lemon bars with the 2 Tbsp powdered sugar before serving.

Total time: 55 mins (with refrigeration 3 hours)
(Picture taken by Eddie Barksdale)

Portobello Mushroom Fries

2011-02-27T15:11:00.000-08:00

I saw this recipe on foodgawker and I got really really excited. I immediately sent it to a close friend and went out and bought all the ingredients (which isn't a lot). These are really great. I realized that the best fries are about the thickness of your finger, because then you get the lovely crunchiness of fries on the outside and the juicy mushroom taste on the inside. Last night Eddie, Sophie and I made them as a side with spinach, goat cheese lamb burgers. Who says college students can't eat in style?

This recipe is pretty much identical to the one found here, but instead of using vegetable oil, we used olive oil. It's better for you and the flavor is great.

Portobello Mushroom Fries

2 Large Portobello Mushrooms - brush washed, sliced into even strips
Salt
Pepper
Olive Oil
About a cup of Wondra flour

First lay the sliced mushrooms on a parchment covered pan and sprinkle with salt to release moisture. Allow to sit for about 10 minutes. Pour the Wondra into a flat bowl and roll each mushroom slice around in the flour. Then in a deep saucepan (or deep fryer), heat about 3-4 inches of oil. Test the oil by dropping in pieces of the mushroom stem (cause they're still tasty, but not as attractive as fries). If the oil starts to sizzle, you're in business. Carefully drop a few mushroom slices at a time into the hot oil. Fry for a minute or two, just til golden. Remove with tongs or slots spoon and drain on a paper towel, serve immediately.

Total Time: About 15 minutes

Jalapeno Poppers

2011-01-22T18:58:00.000-08:00

It's a beautiful Saturday in Portland OR, and I have finally gotten into the swing of living in a house off campus. Our kitchen is small, but it's mine so I'm not going to complain. I don't have to worry about someone stealing my knives when I leave them in the kitchen. I'm also loving my housemates, so that's good too.
Today, my cooking in crime companion, Eddie, and I decided to throw health to the wind and pull out the deep fryer my mom gave me. This is the first time I've used it since I got it 4 months ago. It just sat in my dorm room ominously staring at me from below my desk.

But we used it and none of us got burnt (too badly, Eddie said he kept feeling it hit his chin).

This recipe is easy and tasty, we used pepper jack cheese instead of the Cheddar found in the original recipe.

Jalapeno Poppers

8 Jalapeno, seeded

3 tbsp cream cheese, softed

3 tbs pepper jack cheese cut into long rectangular sticks the size of each of your Jalapenos

1/2 C milk

1 C crushed panko

1/3 C flour

oil for deep frying

Coring the jalapenos can be a bit of trouble. Using a small knife works really well and don't worry about cutting the sides of the pepper, it doesn't create much of a problem.
Spoon the cream cheese into the jalapeno and then shove a stick of pepper jack into each jalapeno. Dip the stuffed jalapeno first into milk and then into the flour. Wait for several minutes for the flour dry out slightly. Then, dip it into the milk again and now into the crushed panko. You can repeat the milk & panko step twice to get a nice thicker panko crust. Wait for the coat to dry out slightly between the steps. In a medium pan, heat the oil to 365F and deep fry the jalapeno for 2-3 minutes or until golden brown.

Total Time: 20 minutes
(Picture taken by Eddie Barksdale)

Pâte à Choux or French Cheese Puffs

2011-01-02T11:47:00.000-08:00

I had a really low key New Years this year. I got home from a family vacation the same day and I was really tired, so I just had a couple of girlfriends over. I still wanted to make something of course, it being New Years and all. Since I was tired, I wanted to make something simple, yet tasty, so I signed on to the trusty FoodGawker, looked up appetizers and these little tasty treats showed up.
First off, these are really easy to make. Feel free to use whatever your favorite sharp cheese is (I just used a sharp cheddar this time, but I'll probably try a different cheese next time). There's very few ingredients and you can add more or less of the flavors. At first I was a little bit wary of using Cayenne pepper, but it really adds a depth to the flavor of the puffs.
These can be either made as an appetizer or paired with a soup or salad (my mom thinks they would go very well with the Lentil Soup.

I did very little to change this recipe, I used scallions instead of chives and decided on an actual measurement of cayenne pepper, rather than a "large pinch," so it's easier to replicate the recipe.

Pâte à Choux
1 cup (250ml) water
6 tablespoons (80g) unsalted butter
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon of cayenne pepper
1 cup (140g) all-purpose flour
4 large eggs
1/3 cup scallions or chives finely-mince
1 1/2 cups (about 6 ounces, 180g) finely grated sharp cheese like Gruyère or sharp chedder

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
Heat the water, butter, salt, and cayenne in a saucepan until the butter is melted, don’t let it simmer or boil because you will lose too much water. Pour in the flour all at once and stir vigorously until the mixture pulls away from the sides into a smooth ball.
Remove from heat and let rest two minutes.
Transfer the dough to a bowl or a standing mixer and beat in the eggs one at a time. The batter will first appear lumpy, but after a minute or so, it will smooth out and become glossy. Add all the chives and about 75% of the cheese and stir until well-mixed. Scrape the mixture into a pastry bag or plastic bag with the corner cut out (that’s what I use). Pipe the dough into mounds, evenly-spaced apart about the size of a rounded tablespoon (this size is suggested, but you can make them larger or smaller, the bigger you make them, the more air will be trapped inside the pastry). Top each puff with a bit of the remaining cheese.

At this point, you could refrigerate the dough on the sheet for several hours before baking. You could also freeze the dough on the sheet and then transfer the frozen mounds to a ziplock bag to store for up to three months.

About half an hour before you want to serve these. Pop them into a hot oven at 425 degrees F for 10 minutes (12 if you are baking from frozen), then turn the oven down to 375 degrees F and bake for an additional 20 minutes. These are best served warm, but they still taste good at room temperature.

Total Time: About 1 hour

Baked Thanksgiving Croquettes

2010-11-27T20:59:00.000-08:00

I got the idea for this recipe off Foodgawker, but I didn't really follow the recipe. I just scanned it and then did my own thing. Pretty much, you can take all of your left overs and stuff them into these small oval shaped tasty treats.

What is a croquette you might ask? A croquette or croquetas is a small ovular shaped fried or baked dumpling. They are usually made of mashed potatoes, and/or meat and vegetable, and bread crumbs, egg, onion, spices and herbs. These croquettes will be made out of all your left over Thanksgiving goodies!

Baked Thanksgiving Croquettes
Finely diced turkey
Mashed potatoes
Stuffing
Gravy
Sauted finely chopped onions and garlic
Pepper and salt to taste
Fine bread crumbs

Since you never know how much leftovers you're going to have the recipe is based in ratios. You want the amount of turkey to mashed potatoes (1:1) half the amount of stuffing to turkey/mashed potatoes (1/2:1) and enough gravy to hold the ingredients together in an oval shape.
Preheat the oven to 450° F.

Mix all the ingredients (except the bread crumbs) together in a bowl until evenly mixed. Then begin to form the ingredients into egg shapes and toss them in a bowl of bread crumbs. Place the now breaded croquettes on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and bake in the oven for 15 minutes and they're done!

Tastes great with cranberry sauce!

Total Time: About an hour

Apple Spice Bread

2010-11-17T20:54:00.000-08:00

I bought a bunch of apples with the intention to snack on them, which is what I have been doing, but since there's only one of me and I only eat a few every couple of days, I'm not eating them fast enough. I stumbled on this recipe on Food Gawker, which is a WONDERFUL recipe site. I love it. Anyhow, I thought "Perfect!" and then realized I didn't have any cinnamon (I live in the dorms, okay?) but I did have pumpkin spice, so I used that instead and it came out great.

The recipe is a bit messy, but if you're careful it's really not much worse than anything else you'll make. I've cut some of the rising and proofing times down and cut some ingredients I didn't care for or have (orange zest, cinnamon, dark rum) and I chose not to make a glaze (it's sweet and sticky enough as it is), but if you want to see the real recipe it is here.

Apple Spice Bread

Ingredients for the Dough:
1/2 Cup (4oz) Water, lukewarm
1/4 Cup Runny Honey

1 1/2 Tbs Dry Active Yeast
7 Tbs Vegetable Oil
2 Large Eggs
17oz. All-purpose Flour (about 4 cups, but it's best to weigh it)
1 1/2 Tsp Salt
1/2 Tsp Ground Cinnamon
1 1/2 Tsp Vanilla Extract

Ingredients for the Apple Filling:
2 Medium/large Apples, cored and diced in 3/4" chunks
1 Tsp Ground Cinnamon
1/4 Cup Sugar

Mix the warm (not hot) water with the honey and yeast. Then add the rest of the ingredients for the dough. Mix and then knead them, using a mixer with a bread hook, or by hand, until you have a soft, smooth and elastic dough (about 8-10 minutes).

Put the dough in a oiled bowl and let it rise, covered, for 1 1/2 hours or until it's puffy and nearly doubled in size. Lightly grease/butter a 9inch springform pan or cake pan (I suggest you use a springform pan, they work really well).

Toss the apple chunks with the sugar, pumpkin spice.

Gently deflate the dough, transfer it to a lightly greased work surface, and flatte n it into a rough rectangle, about 8 x 10 inches.

Spread half the apple chunks in the center of the dough.

Fold a short edge of the dough over the apple in order to cover it, patting firmly to seal the apples and spread the dough a bit. Spread the remaining apple atop the folded-over dough. Cover the apples with the other side of the dough, again patting firmly (Basically, you've folded the dough like a letter, enclosing the apples inside.). Take a long knife and cut the apple-filled dough into 16 pieces. Cut in half, then each half in halves, etc. (This is the messy part)

Lay the dough chunks into the pan (Crowd them so that they all fit in a single tight layer and just tuck fallen apple pieces in among the dough pieces, or simply spread them on top.).

Cover the bread gently with lightly greased plastic wrap or a damp towel and let it rise for about 1 hour until it has almost doubled in height. Twenty minutes before the end of the rising time, preheat the oven to 325° F. Place the bread in the lower third of the oven. Bake it for 45 minutes, or until the top is at least light golden brown all over and has no white spots.

Remove the bread from the oven, and after 5 minutes loosen the edges and carefully transfer it to a rack.

Total Time: About 3 1/2 hours

Thai Chicken Coconut Soup

2010-09-29T20:13:00.000-07:00

At lunch today one of my friends remarked out how many people at school are sick and how she wanted to make soup for some of them, specifically Thai Chicken Coconut soup. Then looked at me and said "want to make soup?"
I said "yeah!"
So we spent a good 5 plus hours getting ingredients and cooking. Most of the cooking is just sitting back and watching the soup to make sure it's not boiling.
It turned out great and we didn't even use a real recipe! This is college style soup, yo.

Thai Chicken Coconut Soup

1 raw whole chicken
3 stalks of celery broken in half
1 yellow onion diced
4 tbls curry paste
2 cans of coconut milk
4 lemon grass stalks diced
2 hand fulls of mushrooms
1 1/2 limes
Salt and pepper to taste

Gut and wash chicken, stip off as much skin as you can (this will lessen the fat content) and place in a large pot. Fill the pot with water just above the chicken, add onion, celery, lemon grass, mushrooms and let simmer (not boil) on the stove for 2 hours, stir occasionally.
Take the chicken out of the broth and take all the meat off the bones and put the meat back in the broth and throw out the bones. Pour in all the coconut milk and stir. Squeeze the lime juice into the broth and stir. Stir in the curry paste. Add salt and pepper to taste and enjoy!

If you like a less fatty soup, skim off the fat from the top of the soup or you can place the soup in the fridge overnight, the fat will rise to the top and harden and then you can just take it off.

Total Time: About 3 hours

Pita Bread

2010-09-28T14:07:00.000-07:00

I've used this recipe a couple times, it's a bit temperamental and so far I've gotten it close to perfect. This is one of those recipes you need to follow to a T, with the exception as to how much water to add, that always varies. In order to get the pita to puff up you need to flatten the dough with a rolling pin. I got this recipe from The Fresh Loaf. If you have questions about baking bread, this is a great site to look at, although a lot of the recipes can get really technical and complicated.

I'm the president of the Culinary Society on campus and we made the pita and after it came out of the oven we stuffed it with some sauteed mushrooms, spinach, ground lamb and feta cheese. So delicious! I definitely suggest it.

Pita Bread
Makes 8 pitas
3 cups flour
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 Tablespoon sugar or honey
1 packet yeast (or, if from bulk, 2 teaspoons yeast)
1 1/4 to 1 1/2 cups water, roughly at room temperature
2 tablespoons olive oil

Mix the yeast in with the flour, salt, and sugar. Add the olive oil and 1 1/4 cup water and stir together with a wooden spoon. All of the ingredients should form a ball. If some of the flour will not stick to the ball, add more water gradually.
Once all of the ingredients forms a ball knead the dough for approximately 10 minutes. If you are using an electric mixer, mix it at low speed for 10 minutes.

When you are done kneading the dough, place it in a bowl that has been lightly coated with oil. Form a ball out of the dough and place it into the bowl, rolling the ball of dough around in the bowl so that it has a light coat of oil on all sides. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap or a damp kitchen towel and set aside to rise until it has doubled in size, approximately 90 minutes.

NOTE: 90 minutes is the minimum time you need to let the dough rise. However, if you let it rise in the fridge overnight, the pita will have more flavor and will be more like to poof up when you bake them.

When it has doubled in size, punch the dough down to release some of the trapped gases and divide it into 8 pieces. Roll each piece into a ball, cover the balls with a damp kitchen towel, and let them rest for 20 minutes. This step allows the dough to relax so that it'll be easier to shape.

While the dough is resting, preheat the oven to 400 degrees. If you have a baking stone, put it in the oven to preheat as well. If you do not have a baking stone, turn a cookie sheet upside down and place it on the middle rack of the oven while you are preheating the oven. This will be the surface on which you bake your pitas.

After the dough has relaxed for 20 minutes, spread a light coating of flour on a work surface and place one of the balls of dough there. Sprinkle a little bit of flour on top of the dough and use a rolling pin stretch and flatten the dough. You should be able to roll it out to between 1/8 and 1/4 inch thick. If the dough does not stretch sufficiently you can cover it with the damp towel and let it rest 5 to 10 minutes before trying again.

Open the oven and place as many pitas as you can fit on the hot baking surface. They should be baked through and puffy after 3 minutes. If you want your pitas to be crispy and brown you can bake them for an additional 3 to 5 minutes, but it isn't necessary.

Total Time: About 2 1/2 hours

Upside-Down Tomato Basil Bread

2010-09-04T15:41:00.000-07:00

Doesn't the name of this bread just sound mouthwatering?

And oh it is.

I've been meaning to make this bread for the last couple of weeks, but I haven't had time. Now I'm back at school and finally have a day to relax. Got all the ingredients and my friend Eddie and I got down to business. This is a ingredient intensive bread, so get ready to do some shopping!

Overall we stuck with the original recipe, we cut back on the flour by 3/4 of a cup and 1/2 cup of Parmesan and added garlic to the filling and I don't have a cake pan at school so we used my mini loaf pans instead.

The downside of using the small pans is that not all the tomato pieces stayed with the bread, so we left it with the tomatoes on the bottom when we served it. I'll have to invest in my own cake pan and make it the way it's supposed to be done and see if it makes a difference. The upside of doing it this way is that makes portions really easy. I used 5 mini pans which made 10 portions.

Upside-Down Tomato Basil Bread

Dough

2 1/2 teaspoons (or 1 package) active dry yeast
1 cup plus 3 tablespoons warm water
4 tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon olive oil
3 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1/2 cup shredded Parmesan cheese
2 teaspoons sea salt
1 teaspoon coarsely ground black pepper

Filling

4-5 tablespoons fresh basil, finely chopped (basil from store produce pkg, about 1 oz)
1/2 cup shredded Parmesan cheese
1/4 cup olive oil
1 teaspoon sea salt
1 teaspoon coarsely ground black pepper (or three-pepper mix)
fresh-ground red pepper flakes, to your more hot/less hot taste -or- 1/2 teaspoon hot red pepper flakes

Tomato Topping

3 large or 4 small-medium tomatoes

Make Bread Dough:

Stir the yeast into warm water in mixer bowl; let stand about 10 minutes, until yeast looks bubbled and creamy. Fit mixer with dough hook. Stir in olive oil first, combining with yeast, then mix in flour, Parmesan cheese, sea salt, ground black pepper and hot pepper flakes. Kneading about 5 minutes, until dough is combined, soft and elastic.

Place dough in lightly oiled bowl; cover loosely with plastic wrap, then dish towel. Set aside and let rise until doubled, about 2 hours. Dough should feel very smooth, moist and soft.

You can start making the filling and cutting up the tomatoes for the topping while the dough rises. You won't need more than 45 minutes to prep and make the filling.

Make Filling:

In small bowl, place chopped fresh basil, Parmesan cheese, olive oil, sea salt, ground pepper and red pepper flakes. Stir to combine well, and set aside.

Tomato Topping:

Remove cores and chop tomatoes to small, rough pieces. Place in bowl (without accumulated liquid) and set aside.

Assemble Tomato Basil Bread

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F

Lightly oil (with olive oil) bottom and sides of 10″ round cake or springform pan (can also use 9 x 13 metal pan, Pyrex dish, or similar). Drain any excess juices from chopped tomatoes, then spread evenly over bottom of pan. Set aside.

Turn risen bread dough out on lightly floured surface. Gently pull and stretch dough to a rough rectangle, approximately 11″ x 24″. Using spatula, gently spread Filling evenly across dough to cover, reaching edges. Starting at long edge, roll dough up jelly roll style, as for cinnamon rolls. Try to roll evenly and without air gaps. With seam side facing down, make sure filled roll is solid and combined by patting sides and edges.

Using a thin, sharp knife (serrated is best) cut 1″ slices from dough roll. Arrange slices, spiral side down, on top of chopped tomatoes in prepared pan. In a 10″ round pan, you will have little to no room between slices (if using a larger pan, arrange slices barely touching, with small amounts of space between them.) Cover lightly with plastic wrap and allow to rise slightly, about 20 minutes.

Place filled pan on wider sheet pan or foil (important – to catch drips!) Bake on lower rack 40 – 45 minutes, until top rolls are medium brown, feel hollow when tapped, and tomato juices have bubbled and thickened. Remove from oven and cool on rack for 5 minutes.

Total Time: 4 hours

Picture courtesy of Eddie Barksdale

Mini Chocolate Heart Brioche

2010-08-08T12:54:00.000-07:00

While looking for recipes for dessert last night I stumbled upon this lovely recipe. I LOVE brioche. For those of you who don't known, brioche is similar to challah but more like pastry bread.

I found this recipe on the Foodbeam blog, a blog I have been wanting to try out for a while, but their recipes are very fancy so I hadn't gotten a chance. This recipe is not real fancy, just takes a bit of time since you have to let the dough rise overnight. Which makes this recipe perfect for breakfast (although morning prep and bake will take roughly 1-2 hours).

I changed very little of this recipe: I used more flour than the recipe asked for because the dough was still very sticky after 4 cups of flour. I used 5-10 chocolate chips in each brioche instead of chocolate squares.

Chocolate Heart Brioche

makes 24 small brioches

500ml warm milk
42g fresh yeast
4-8 cups flour
200g caster sugar (regular sugar works fine too)
a pinch of salt
2 large eggs
160g melted butter
24 milk or dark chocolate squares (or 1/3- 1/2 cup chocolate chips)

Combine the milk, yeast and a teaspoon of the sugar in a bowl. Stir once or twice and allow rising for 10 minutes.
In a large bowl, mix 4 cups of flour, remaining sugar and salt and pour the yeast mixture on top of it.
Add the eggs and melted butter and mix, first with a round knife and then with your hands – until it forms a ball.
Place the dough on a lightly floured surface and knead for 8-10 minutes. It should be soft and not sticky. (You can knead the dough in the bowl if it is large enough)
Butter a large bowl generously. Place the dough in the buttered bowl and let rise overnight in the fridge.

The next morning, allow the dough to come to room temperature (this is not completely necessary though it will make your brioche a bit lighter.
Preheat the oven to 393°F (200°C).
Knead the dough and cut off pieces of dough to form small 90g balls and insert a chocolate square in the centre of each ball.

Fill two 12-bun muffin tin with the dough balls and let rise for 20 minutes (I put muffin cups in the tin, but it's not necessary if you grease the tins and they come out far prettier if you don't). Brush with a little egg, then bake in the preheated oven for 15 minutes.

If the tops get too brown loosely cover with foil.

Total Time: roughly 14 hours (40 minutes to make dough, set over night and then 1-2 hours to prep and bake in the morning

The beautiful picture was taken by my dad. THANK YOU!

Chocolate Walnut Swirl Cake with chocolate ganache

2010-08-08T12:30:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I was lazing around in my bedroom and my mom peaked her head in.
"We're having company tonight, what should we make? I was thinking ratatouille and then some meat."
"Salmon?"
"We always do salmon..."
"yeah, but salmon is good."
"Okay, so Salmon, ratatouille and polenta?"
"Yum."
"We need a dessert, can you make it? It just needs to be chocolate."
"Sure thing."
So I went online and searched my favorite food blogs and found a chocolate pistachio cake.
Now, I don't like pistachios. I did at one point, but I think I ate too many in one sitting and got sick, so I don't like them anymore. Even if they are kind of fun to crack open. But what my family does really like are walnuts. And walnuts and chocolate go really well together. So I substituted walnuts for the pistachios and the cake came out beautifully!
This cake is not a light cake, if you want it to be lighter I would try substituting some of the regular flour with cake flour (but don't take my word on it, I haven't tried).

Chocolate Walnut Swirl Cake with chocolate ganache

Chocolate part of the cake

1 cup flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/3 cup butter (room temp.)
1 and 1/8 cup sugar
2 eggs
3/4 cup plain yogurt (greek is fine)
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/3 cup chocolate chips (plus a little extra)

Walnut part

1 cup flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/3 cup butter (room temp.)
1 and 1/8 cup sugar
2 eggs
3/4 cup plain yogurt (greek is fine)
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/3 cup chopped walnuts

Ganache:
120 g (3 oz) semisweet dark chocolate
125 ml (1/2 C) whipping cream
(this ganache is a bit bitter, if you want it to be sweeter I'd ad 1 tsp of sugar)

Preheat your oven to 360 F. Grease a 10-inch cake or loaf pan, preferably nonstick with a removable bottom.

Prepare the chocolate batter.
In a food processor, mix together sugar and butter until fluffy. Add in eggs, one at a time, mixing between each. Add in the yogurts and the vanilla extract and mix again. In a medium bowl, combine the flour with the baking powder, baking soda and the cocoa mixture. Add the flour mixture into the food processor and mix again until just combined. Pour the batter into the cake pan, and reserve in the refrigerator.

Rinse the bowl of the food processor, and prepare the walnut batter:
Mix together the sugar, butter. Add in the eggs, one at a time, mixing between each. Add in the yogurts and mix again. In a medium bowl, combine the flour with the baking powder and baking soda, and the chopped walnuts. Add into the food processor and mix again until just combined.

Take the cake pan out of the fridge, and sprinkle the chocolate chips evenly over the surface of the chocolate batter. Gently pour the pistachio batter on top, and smooth out the surface with a spatula. Put into the oven to bake for about an hour or until a cake tester comes out clean. Let rest for five minutes on the counter, then turn out on a rack to cool completely.

Prepare the ganache:

Melt the dark chocolate with the whipping cream in a double boiler (or in a bowl set over a saucepan of simmering water), stirring with a spoon regularly until completely melted and velvety. Let the ganache rest in the fridge until it has thickened a bit, about 30 minutes to an hour, and frost the cake using a small spatula.

Let the cake cool completely before frosting.

Total Time: About 2 hours

The beautiful picture was taken by my dad! Thanks!

Veggies and Tofu Stir Fry

2010-07-12T20:08:00.001-07:00

Stir fry is one of those things that once you figure out what flavors you like it's really easy to make. I made this lovely stir fry while I was in Australia. I'm a huge veggie fan (as my homestay parents can attest to) and this is by far one of my favorite stir fry's. You should use this recipe as a jumping off point, not the end all be all stir fry. Figure out what you like and what you don't and do what you want!

FIRST AND FOREMOST CUT ALL THE VEGGIES UP! This will make cooking a lot less hectic. You won't be all "ohmygod the asparagus isn't cut and the broccoli is burning!" I always forget to do this, or maybe I just think I'm some sort of superstar and I can do everything while other ingredients are cooking, but I can't. And most recipes don't tell you to do this first so I just jump right in.

Veggies and Tofu Stir Fry
1 large head of broccoli (chopped into bite-size florets)
1 bunch of asparagus (chopped into 1/2 inch pieces)
1 bag of spinach
1 block of tofu (cut up into about 18 pieces)
1/4 cup hoison sauce
2 tbs finely cut ginger
3/4 cup cashews (diced)
2 garlic cloves (diced)
2 tbs vegetable oil
1 tbs sesame seed oil

Heat the sesame seed oil in a large wok or frying pan and lightly fry the tofu until all the pieces are brown on all sides. Remove the tofu, making sure to leave as much of the oil as possible, and place them in a bowl covered in a paper towel to soak up the extra grease. Add 1 tbs of the veggie oil, the garlic and the broccoli into the pan and cover it with a lid for a couple minutes stirring every minute or so (this will steam the broccoli). Then add the asparagus and cover again for a minute or two. Pour the hoison sauce over the vegetables and stir till everything is completely covered by the sauce. Add the spinach and cook till all the spinach has wilted. Add in the tofu you set aside and the cashews.

Serve alone or over rice!

This should feed 3-5 people

Total Time: About 45 minutes

Raspberry Frozen Yogurt!

2010-07-07T11:13:00.001-07:00

Okay, so before I made this, I thought that making your own icy treats was really hard. I'd see ice cream recipes and just think "nope, too hard. Can't do that" and move on to the other recipes.
So now I'm just going to tell you from experience:
MAKING ICE CREAM IS REALLY REALLY EASY.

You just need the right machinery to make it, and by machinery I mean you need an ice cream maker.

This recipe for frozen yogurt is really good, I adapted it from a recipe from Tartlette. The original recipe on that site is for Asian Pear Frozen Yogurt, but they aren't in season so I used raspberries instead, from the backyard.
Fancy fancy!

Raspberry Frozen Yogurt

2 Cups of fresh raspberries (or whatever fruit you want to use)
1/4 teaspoon freshly squeezed lemon or lime juice
16 oz. Greek yogurt (use a little less if you don't like it too tart)
1/2 cup sugar (use a little more if you like it sweeter)
generous pinch of fine sea salt

Rinse and strain raspberries and sprinkle lemon/lime juice over them then place in blender and puree until the raspberries have become a smooth jam-like consistency. Mix greek yogurt, sugar, salt and raspberry puree in a large bowl, cover with plastic and place in the fridge for 1 hour.
Churn the mixture in your ice cream maker according to manufacturer's directions (which is about 30 minutes of really really annoying noise).

NOTE: This recipe does take some planning in advance, your ice cream mixing bowl needs to be frozen before you can churn it, which takes about a day to do. My family just leaves the bowl in the freezer all the time, so whenever we feel like making something with it, it's ready to use.

Total Time: About 2 hours

Greens and Lentil Soup

2010-05-10T18:24:00.001-07:00

First soup post! This soup is really good and simple. I'm excited to make it when I go back to college next year. I found this soup on Cookbook 101, one of my favorite recipe sites. The soup is vegetarian and you don't need to add any broth to it. I changed the recipe a little from the site, I used nonfat yogurt and canned diced tomatoes instead of crushed.

Greens and Lentil Soup

2 cups black beluga lentils (or green French lentils), picked over and rinsed (I used French)
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
1 large onion, chopped
1 teaspoon fine-grain sea salt
1 28-ounce can diced tomatoes
2 cups water
3 cups of a chard/kale/etc. rinsed well, finely chopped (I used chard and it was very nice)

Saffron Yogurt
a pinch of saffron (30-40 threads)
1 tablespoon boiling water
two pinches of salt
1/2 cup Non-fat Greek Yogurt
(I did make the saffron yogurt, but I think plain greek yogurt would have worked fine too, since Saffron is pretty pricey)

Bring 6 cups of water to a boil in a large saucepan, add the lentils, and cook for about 20 minutes, or until tender. Drain and set aside.

While the lentils are cooking, make the saffron yogurt by combining the saffron threads and boiling water in a tiny cup. Let the saffron steep for a few minutes. Now stir the saffron along with the liquid into the yogurt. Mix in the salt and set aside.

Meanwhile, heat the oil in a heavy soup pot over medium heat, then add the onion and salt and saute until tender, a couple minutes. Stir in the tomatoes, lentils, and water and continue cooking for a few more minutes, letting the soup come back up to a simmer. Stir in the chopped greens, and wait another minute. Taste and adjust the seasoning if need be. Ladle into bowls, and serve with a dollop of the saffron yogurt.

Total Time: 1 hour

NOTE: would go very well with a crusty bread, like the baguettes or the dark rye

Picture courtest of Eddie Barksdale

Pumpkin Loaf!

2010-05-06T23:28:00.000-07:00

It's the end of my sophomore year at college and I had a can of pumpkin under my bed, not something I really need to bring home, soooo what's a girl to do?
MAKE PUMPKIN BREAD, or a pumpkin loaf as I like to call it since there's no yeast in it and you don't have to let it rise, and those are the defining characteristics for bread to me.
I found this recipe online, it's pretty decent. Very light and soft. I would like a stronger pumpkin taste, but it's nice and sweet. I changed the recipe a little, I substituted some pumpkin pie spices for one of the cinnamon tsp (because I only had about a teaspoon of it left). I was unable to add pecans, because I didn't have any, but I think it would probably make it taste better and add some crunch.

Pumpkin Loaf
3 1/3 cups Flour
3 teaspoons Cinnamon
1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
2 teaspoons Baking soda
1 teaspoon Baking Powder
1 1/2 teaspoons Salt
2 2/3 cups Sugar
2/3 cup Vegetable Oil
4 Eggs
1 can (15 oz) Pumpkin
2/3 cup Water
1/2 cup Pecans chopped (optional)

Preheat oven to 325.
Mix dry ingredients together. Beat sugar and vegetable oil together until blended (mixture will still look dry). Add eggs, 1 at a time, until blended. Add pumpkin and mix thoroughly. Add dry ingredients a little at a time, alternating with water. Mix in pecans Pour batter into 2 9x5x3 or 5- 5 3/2x3 loaf pans. Sprinkle tops of loaves with cinnamon sugar before baking.

Bake at 325 for 55-60 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Let cool for 15 minutes before removing from pans. If you use smaller pans it will take about 50 minutes instead, not a lot less time.

Total Time: About 1 hour and 30 minutes

Canelés!

2010-04-27T11:51:00.000-07:00

These are one of my favorite desserts. I first had one in Portland at Ken's Bakery, which is one of my favorite Bakeries, the other favorite being Bakery Nouveau. One in Portland, one is Seattle.

ANYWAY, back to Canelés. Canelés are a french pastry with a dark caramelized outside and a soft dough center. They have a rich buttery flavor and you can add citrus zest to give them more of a bite, if that's what you like. They come in a many sizes, but you need a specific mold in order to make them. The mold helps make the outside of the Canelé hard and crunch, while leaving the inside creamy.
The mold I use can be found on amazon, I bought a silicon mold that makes 18 tiny canelés, but I'm probably going to buy some larger molds soon. The silicon mold works very nicely because it's very easy to pop the canelés out, but if you get any batter on the outside of the mold it'll stains the mold.
I've tried a couple of variations of this recipe and I only achieved success with the last recipe. I've made the recipe a little simpler and added a little more flour. The batter can also be left in the fridge to use later for about 3 days. You'll just need to stir it back together.

Canelés
2 cups whole milk
18 tablespoons sugar
3 teaspoons vanilla extract or 1 vanilla pod, split
4 tablespoons butter
16 tablespoons flour
2 egg yolks
3 teaspoon dark rum
Butter for the molds(unless you're using silicon molds, than none is needed.

Preheat the oven to 375.

In a medium saucepan heat milk, sugar, vanilla, and butter until butter has completely melted. Let cool completely (and remove vanilla pod if you used it).

When milk is completely cool add the egg yolks and rum, and then gradually add the flour. Mix with a whisk until batter is smooth and no flour lumps.

Butter molds with melted butter and let stand for 2-3 minutes. Spoon batter into molds just below the rim.

Cook for about 1 1/2 hours. If you use smaller molds you will only need to cook them for about an hour.

Total Time: About 2 1/2 hours

Note: My dad pointed out a couple weeks ago that I had used a couple different spellings for "canelés". I changed this entry so the spelling is the same throughout the post, BUT I have found different variations on the spelling including: Canelle, canele, cannele and cannelle. All the different spellings will turn up different recipes.