March 14th is pi day. “The number π is a mathematical constant, the ratio of a circle‘s circumference to its diameter, commonly approximated as 3.14159.” The definition here is from Wikipedia. Two years ago it was a more authentic pi day!
In honor of scientists and mathematicians everywhere I have baked a pie.
What pie did you make? I made my “go-to” Betty Crocker pumpkin pie.
This is similar to the recipes one finds on the backs of cans of pumpkin:
Prepare pastry for 9-inch pie
2 eggs, slightly beaten
2 cups canned pumpkin
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice (or 1 teas cinnamon, 1/2 teas ground ginger, and 1/4 teas ground cloves)
1 2/3 cup evaporated milk
Mix all ingredients and pour into pie shell. Bake 425 F for 15 minutes. Reduce heat to 350 F for 45 minutes. Test for doneness by poking the near middle with a knife. It should come out clean.
Let cool and eat. Top with whipped cream if desired.
We are expecting a blizzard. I’ve already been given a snow day from work. Hubby will work from home so he’ll be no fun at all!
My kitchen is a mess; I wish I had a housekeeper every other week to do the baths, the kitchen, and the floors. Would be nice; not going to happen! Meanwhile it is good that we are not allergic to dust or pet hair. We will do a super cleaning when the grand-kids are coming down.
Dog doesn’t like his standard dog food anymore. He used to like it just fine. We buy his dog food at the pet store. It is for the mature dog. We made the mistake once of buying a specialty human grade dog food. Now he’s trying to hold out for the good stuff!
So after taking our cable box back to the cable store and coming home with a new one (but less monthly cost!) we spent three hours setting this thing up. And we now only have 45 channels but we don’t miss many of the previous 300+ channels we had. So we found a few things to watch and are being careful not to binge watch too much because when all the episodes are gone, they’re gone. Then what will we watch?
But that is not what this essay is about.
There was plenty of time during the rest of the weekend to putter around the kitchen but I did not. It is cold out there, my kitchen, and I do have heat in my house. I heated water for tea, took a beautiful teacup down from the shelf above the sink, and poured in the water. Hubby heard the fine porcelain crack from across the room and then the water came pouring out. Oh no! So learning my lesson, today I have warmed the teacup before making the tea. And a nice cup of hot tea with lemon goes very nicely with ginger cake.
By the time dinner time on Sunday rolled around and Hubby was fixing twice baked potatoes and in charge of cooking the salmon, I needed something to do. I flipped through one of my UK published baking books and found this ginger cake that I had been wanting to bake. It is entitled Preserved Ginger Cake but I did not have a jar of preserved ginger. I have crystallized ginger and since that is for the garnish I figured it would be just fine.
This is baked in an 8 inch round pan, not a 7-inch square pan that the recipe called for. Be sure not to use a 9 inch pan or it will be as flat as a pancake. Prepare the pan with parchment paper and cooking spray. Preheat oven to 325 F.
4 ounces butter
1 1/2 cups self-rising flour; make this by using 1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder per 1 cup flour
1 tablespoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon lemon zest
2 eggs
1 1/2 tablespoons corn syrup
1 1/2 tablespoons milk; I used half-and-half.
Whisk the dry ingredients together in the mixer bowl. Soften the butter for 30 seconds in the microwave. Mix butter with the dry ingredients. Put the eggs, corn syrup, and milk in a separate bowl and whisk together. Mix everything together until smooth. Spread in the prepared pan. Bake 45 minutes. Let cool a little and then turn out onto plate.
For the topping I used 1/4 cup powdered sugar and a tablespoon of lemon juice to make a small amount of glaze. I let the cake cool some but not completely. I poured on the glaze and then snipped a piece of crystallized ginger around the top. Warm ginger cake was a nice treat.
Today is a good baking day. It is at least 20 degrees cooler than yesterday. Saturday was an out of doors kind of day: picked up dog poo, unwrapped the camper trailer, fixed bicycles, got out the lawn chairs and table, and had lunch outside. Truth be told, Hubby did most of the work. I made the lunch and brought it outside. The poor dog; he did not know what to do with himself at first. He does not seem to like laying on the lawn or sitting on the patio. By patio, I mean a section of concrete squares that surround the basement bulkhead, nothing pretty and designed.
Again I am making something from King Arthur Flour. Their catalog comes in the mail trying to sell me all sorts of baking items and has these few recipes in it. For this recipe they want you to use an Irish-style flour and some baking papers. Well, I used whole wheat flour (Bob’s Red Mill) and a jumbo muffin pan and two 8-ounce ramekins. I used raisins because I did not have currants, and I did not toast the walnuts.
2 cups all-purpose flour; I always use unbleached but differing brands.
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon kosher salt; I use kosher salt because I used to watch Alton Brown and i think he always used it.
2 tablespoons honey; remember to spray your spoon with cooking spray first and it will slide right off; I forgot.
2 tablespoons softened unsalted butter
1 cup lukewarm tap water
2 teaspoons instant yeast
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
1//2 cup raisins
The instructions are simple and fabulous: Mix and knead all the ingredients until the dough is smooth and elastic. This took just over two minutes in the Kitchen-Aid stand mixer with the bread hook. Grease the bowl, cover, and let rise until puffy about 60-90 minutes. I let mine rest for about 75 minutes.
This makes eight large rolls so I used the jumbo muffin pan and needed two more spaces so I used two 8 ounce ramekins. I sprayed these with cooking spray.
After the first rise, gently deflate the dough. Ha! Mom always called this “punching down the dough. Divide this into 32 pieces. So divide the dough into eight pieces. I like to use a bench cutter/scraper. Cut each of those pieces into four and roll each piece into a ball and place four in each cup. Cover and let rise until they crest over the rim. (I could not find the height of the special papers that KAF was promoting so I figured 60 minutes was in between the 45-75 minutes in the recipe.
Bake in 350 degree F oven for 25-30 minutes. Mine took 27 minutes. Brush with 1-2 tablespoons melted butter, if desired. I desired. And rolls for dinner.
I think one of these with a cup of yogurt and fruit would be a fabulous on the go breakfast too. They taste sort of like a yeasted Irish soda bread with a touch of whole wheat. Gotta be healthy, right?
This turned out to be a bit of a labor intensive “quick” bread but lovely to eat. But first a few thoughts.
Clearly, this is not a picture of the bread!
We are having a major snow storm so I did not have to go to work this day. It is a wonder to be “non-essential” and yet so much expectations and pressure at work to do more with less as each day goes by.
It will be a good day to try a new recipe or bake something yummy. But I have not been too inspired lately. The political situation has taken over my brain!!
In honor of the Anheuser-Busch Super Bowl commercial celebrating immigrants I got out my Anheuser-Busch Great Food Great Beer cookbook to find something to make. I could cook or bake. There are some great recipes in there! But I did not have one or two essential ingredients for some of the main dishes. What? You say. When did that ever stop you? What can I say? There was a lovely gingerbread cake recipe but it called for 1 1/2 cups of butter and I thought that was a lot of butter when trying to lose some weight.
So, it being winter in New England, I got out my The New England Table cookbook to find something. There’s a lovely lemon pudding cake and a cranberry-pecan quick bread. Guess which one I chose? Although I may bake the other as well. Wait and see!
I had everything for this recipe except the buttermilk. But it is so easy to make your own sour milk. And just because I had no milk doesn’t stop me either. I used diluted half-and-half. I also thought I would make it healthier by substituting half the flour with whole wheat pastry flour. I also toast the pecans in a dry skillet on top of the stove instead of in the oven. And I got to use my mortar and pestle to grind cardamom seeds. And that aroma was heavenly!
2 cups flour; I used 1 cup whole wheat pastry flour and 1 cup unbleached all-purpose
1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon ground cardamom; this was two pods
6 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
2/3 cup buttermilk; I put a teaspoon of lemon juice in the measuring cup (you can also use vinegar), added 1/3 cup half-and-half, and added water to the 2/3 cup mark
finely grated zest and juice of one large navel orange; I zested a fresh orange but used 1/4 cup prepared orange juice; I wanted to eat the orange for my morning snack!
1 extra large egg; mine was just large
2/3 cup sugar
1 cup fresh or frozen cranberries; oops! the recipe calls for these to be coarsely chopped; I put them in whole
3/4 cup toasted pecans, coarsely chopped; I did remember to chop these
The labor intensity of this quick bread comes about for toasting the pecans, grinding the cardamom seeds, and making the buttermilk. Okay, that may not sound like a lot, but I did not read the entire recipe ahead of time and so scrambled to get these things done while putting together the batter.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Spray or butter a loaf pan, standard size of 8 1/2 x 4 inches, and dust with flour. (My standard loaf pans are actually 9 x 5 inches).
Sift or whisk the first 6 dry ingredients together and set aside. Mix the egg with the sugar until it is thick and yellow. Mix the butter, buttermilk, orange zest and juice in a small bowl. (This I forgot to do and had to scramble to put these in together but not as a mixture). Blend this mixture into the egg-sugar mixture. Then add the flour just til combined. Stir in the cranberries and nuts. Spread in prepared pan and bake for 55-60 minutes. My oven took only the 55 minutes. Test bread with toothpick or cake tester.
Cool in pan for 15 minutes, then turn out of pan onto wire rack to cool.
I, of course, did not wait for this to cool completely before trying a slice. When cutting warm bread remember to hold the loaf and gently cut with a serrated bread knife.
This was yummy. Not so good for a reduced calorie count for snacking as it is hard to eat just one slice!
Just because baking is a science, doesn’t mean that substitution and innovation results in disaster. Once you know how to bake you can have the confidence to change things up a bit. That may be ingredients but also technique. Happy baking to all!
Hubby’s favorite cake is pound cake.I wanted to bake something. We ran our Saturday morning errands, spent a bit of money on pet food, took the dog to a play date at the local dog park, and came home. We will not go out this New Year’s Eve. But I will bake a cake.
The latest King Arthur Flour’s sales flyer has a recipe: King Arthur Flour’s Original Pound Cake. (They probably have it on their website as well, but I did not look for it.) Heat oven to 350 F and grease or cooking spray your Bundt pan.
1 cup unsalted butter, softened
1 cup sugar; I use the organic fair trade sugar from Aldi which has a slight caramel color
4 large eggs, at room temperature
Beat butter until very light. I softened my butter by putting it in a bowl and in the microwave for 30 seconds. I know this is a cake-baking “no, no”. But that is what I did. Then gradually add the sugar, then the eggs, one at a time.
2 cups flour; with all respect I changed this up to 1 cup all-purpose and 1 cup whole wheat pastry flour; we had just been talking about adding fiber to our diet. I did notice that the high end pet food we bought features “no grain”
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
Sift or whisk these ingredients in a separate bowl.
1/2 cup milk; I did not want to use almond milk so I used 1/4 cup half-and -half diluted with water to make 1/2 cup.
1 Tablespoon your choice liquor such as brandy, sherry, rum; (optional)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Hubby brought home a bottle of Jim Beam maple bourbon, pure Kentucky whisky! I am not much for the drinking of spirits but this has been an exception! Just a finger of this to sip on while watching some good, some bad, TV…yum! But nights kept awake with heartburn (both of us) made us put this back on the shelf. But it sounded like the perfect “liquor of my choice” for the pound cake.
Whisk these three ingredients together in a small bowl. Alternately add the wet and dry ingredients to the egg/sugar/butter mixture, stirring after each addition. End with the flour. Well I stirred quite a bit with the “stir” setting on the KitchenAid. Pour into the prepared pan smoothing the top. Bake 60-65 minutes. You can tent with foil for the last bit of baking if you think it is browning too fast.
Remove cake from oven and loosen the sides. Wait five minutes and turn out onto rack to cool. The recipe says to wrap in plastic wrap and store for a day or two before serving. I’m not doing that! Why bake a cake if you are not going to eat it?
Now my cake does not look as pretty as the one in the KAF flyer. I decide to add a glaze using maple syrup and the bourbon. This is an adaptation of a glaze for the cake I made in September. Take one tablespoon of butter, 1/8 cup bourbon, and 1/8 cup maple syrup and bring to boil. Keep boiling for 5-8 minutes until reduced to syrup consistency. Brush this over the warm cake.
We did not wait for the cake to cool completely before having a taste. I whipped up some cream with a touch of maple syrup for the topping. Delish!
Happy and blessed new year to all. Thanks for reading my food rantings this past year. I plan to keep them coming: I hope you do too! And may God bless us, everyone.
Cheesecake. I started this blog with my favorite cheesecake recipe. I have now made it without the chocolate marble. And in my shiny new 8-inch round pan with the removable bottom and three inch sides.
Voila!
This got rave reviews from my co-workers. As you can see, I did overcook it a bit as evidenced by the crack in the top. That crack is just too big. I was uncertain on how to test doneness in this new pan. But it was gobbled up just the same with several people wanting the recipe. I baked this on the spur of the moment after a colleague was complaining about how his in-law puts the sour cream layer on top of cheesecake which makes it unpalatable for him. I don’t particularly like the sour cream layer either and I knew this recipe is super simple and tasty. Bake therapy for the holiday stress!
3 8-ounce packages of cream cheese
1 cup granulated sugar
5 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees F. Prepare your pan with cooking spray or butter. I lined the bottom with parchment paper just to be sure it could come off the bottom so I could take it to work without forgetting an essential part of the pan! I had one molasses cookie leftover so I crushed it by rolling it with the rolling pin. I spread this on the sides only to add color. Roll the pan on the edge and the crumbs roll around and stick to the buttered side. This is optional if you don’t have a cookie. This cheesecake does not require a crust.
Cream the cheese with the sugar. Add eggs one at a time beating well after each addition. Add the vanilla and mix well until smooth. Pour into the prepared pan and bake for 50 minutes. It rises up over the edge so I was not sure if it needed more time to bake so I left it to bake for another ten minutes. Don’t do that!
I love Jacques Pepin. I am reading his autobiography as recommended by my sister. The few recipes offered are fabulous. They are rarely fussy and sound delicious. So…on page 132-133 we have this recipe: Maman’s Apple Tart.
With no offense toward Maman or Jacques I made it my way! Heat your oven to 400 degrees F.
1 1/4 cup flour
1 large egg, beaten with a fork in a bowl
3 tablespoons butter, softened
3 tablespoons shortening such as Crisco. Those of you who know me know that I do not ever have shortening in the house. So I use Coconut oil. It’s solid in my pantry at this winter temperature.
pinch of salt
1 tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
2 tablespoons hot milk; all I have is almond milk so that is what I heat in small pyrex bowl to nuke
Make the dough by putting all ingredients but the hot milk in a bowl and stirring all together. Then add the hot milk. Do not overwork the dough; it will be soft. Press the dough into the 9 inch pie tin with floured fingers so the dough covers the bottom and reaches up the sides.
4 large Golden Delicious apples (about 2 pounds); I use three Empire apples because that is what is in my produce drawer
3 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons butter, cut up in bits
While making the dough I add 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon. In afterthought I could have used cinnamon sugar in the topping.
Peel, core, and slice the apples into 1/1/2 inch wedges. Oops! I cut mine into tiny slices about 1/8-1/4 inch thick! My bad! Arrange the wedges on the dough like the spokes of a wheel. Sprinkle with the sugar and top with the butter.
Bake approximately one hour until the crust is golden. Well…my crust is a bit on the brown side! I think I used the 8 inch pan as well. It’s my kitchen; I do it my way!
The crust is crisp. The apples are soft and flavorful. Very nice and easy to make. This is a keeper. Yum!
One weekend morning I got out stuff to bake cookies. There are chocolate chips, dried cherries, oats and much more. What cookies to bake? Without much thought I pick three recipes. Here’s the first.
This is on a half sheet of paper I put in my recipe notebook to try. It is from some person, somewhere, in some HR department, in some company, that submitted it most likely for one of those promotional cookbook fundraisers. But it seems like the cookbook never materialized.
3/4 cup butter
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup molasses
1 egg
Melt the butter. Let cool. Add the sugar, molasses, and egg, beating well.
2 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon cloves
1/2 teaspoon ginger
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
Sift or whisk the dry ingredients together. Add to the wet ingredients in the mixing bowl and mix until combined (I just read a kitchen hint that said not to over-mix cookie dough or the cookies will end up tough).
Chill the batter for 1-2 hours or overnight. Roll into balls. Be sure these are even in size. The size will determine the baking time as well, smaller is shorter. Roll each ball in sugar and place on greased cookie sheet or parchment paper. press flat with a flat bottomed glass. Not too flat. 1/4 inch is suggested. Bake for 8-10 minutes at 375 F.
I baked these for 8 minutes. They are crisp but bendable out of the oven. These will go nicely with hot cocoa or a tall glass of milk. One could even make them into sandwich cookies with a good buttercream…or ice cream!
I thought I might roll this dough up into logs and slice them for baking for ease but that would mean they would not be rolled in the sugar. So after baking one pan of cookies I rolled the remaining dough in a log and put it in the freezer. I could have formed a bunch of dough balls and froze them but I was in the middle of making dinner. I think I will roll the log in colored sugar and slice for baking the next batch.
On this cold New England winter-ish day, I bake bread. I also made a nice supper in the crock pot. Tomorrow I may even bake cookies.
I sat at my kitchen table early this morning and wrote out my Christmas cards. Hubby has put the wreath on the front door and we play Christmas music. I have been looking at my cookbooks, not in them, just at them wondering about doing any Christmas baking. We did purchase Red and Green M&Ms so that is Christmas-y! We take the dog to a dog park. It is not crowded and is in a wooded area. Leo (our new old dog) is great. There was one other dog and Leo put up with the puppy’s antics. We also stopped at the Home Depot to buy a kitchen trash can with a lid because “you know who” thinks “dumpster diving” is productive daytime activity!
Back to bread. I have made this bread before but don’t remember how long ago. It has good stuff in it like cornmeal and oats. It is from the Soulard Market cookbook.
2 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
1 1/4 cups cornmeal
1/2 cup rolled oats
1 teaspoon salt
2 packages active dry yeast; I use 4 1/2 teaspoons instant yeast
1/3 cup butter
2 1/2 cups warm water
2/3 cup molasses
2-3 cups all-purpose flour
1 egg
1 tablespoon water
rolled oats
In the large mixer bowl, I combine the first five ingredients. In a glass quart measuring bowl I put the water, butter, and molasses. I microwave for about 1 1/2 minutes, 30 seconds at a time, until the mixture is about 125 degrees F. Between 120 and 125 was close enough for me. Stir that into the flour mixture. Add enough of the all-purpose flour to make a stiff dough. I then kneaded this with my bread hook for 5 minutes.The dough was not very stiff so I kneaded in about 1/2 cup more white flour. Still none to stiff but I did not want it to be too dry so I pushed the dough around the bowl while I sprayed with cooking spray so it would rise in a greased bowl. Cover this with a tea towel and let rise until double. In just one hour it had reached the top of the mixing bowl.
In reading the recipe it says to punch dough down and shape into round loaves. I don’t remember these as being free form loaves, so I spray my two loaf pans and shape into loaves. Now let these rise for another hour or so.
These have risen above the rims.
These are nicely risen. Make an egg wash with the egg and tablespoon of water. Brush this on top and sprinkle oats on top. Bake in 375 degree F oven for 45 minutes. If making round loaves check after 35 minutes for doneness (is that a word?).
A good and hearty bread.
Questions:
Why does my bread not stay as high and risen as before baking?
Do I use too much yeast?
Did brushing on the egg wash deflate them?
I suppose I could call the baking hotline or I’ll just internet search it. I could even look in some of my bread-baking cookbooks. Meanwhile we enjoyed this bread with supper and then for toast at breakfast.
I had a fabulous baking weekend. Well, on Saturday I roasted a big chicken, with Mediterranean vegetables. Yum! I was so tired after winterizing the trailer which included arguing about how to drain all the plumbing properly and running off to the store to buy more RV/Marine antifreeze to be effective that I did not want to make anything else. Wow! That is a run-on sentence if I ever wrote one! As I write this we are waiting for all the little goblins and ghouls to show up to beg for the $20 worth of candies I bought. Then I will turn off the porch light and relax.
After a tiring first half of the weekend I set to work in the kitchen. First I did a bit of cleaning and then got out the sourdough starter to make rolls. I used a recipe that looked good and as luck would have it I had powdered milk and potato flour. If you don’t have these ingredients there are plenty of other sourdough bread and rolls recipes. I had fed the starter the day before so I figured it would be just fine. I let it set out for the entire morning of the day I made the dough: sourdough dinner rolls from King Arthur Flour. This makes two pans of eight. Here is the one for the future!
I have found the chocolate cake recipe that bests the Best Ever Chocolate Cake. I hang my head in shame as I write these words. I had to look again and again at the ingredient list to note the differences.Best Ever uses 1/2 cup more flour and twice the baking soda. I looked into the explanation of using baking soda in cakes in the book BakeWise by Shirley Corriher. She explains that 1/4 teaspoon of baking soda is sufficient for each cup of flour. The new best chocolate cake recipe rises nicely and even has better body than Best Ever.
So what is this rogue recipe that has come to shake up my baking world? It is basically King Arthur Flour’s version of Texas Sheet Cake baked in a 9 x 13 pan. I found this in their sales catalog/flyer that arrives by the post ever so often: King Arthur Flours Favorite Fudge Cake. And its not just because of the fudge frosting, although that makes it awesome!
I actually followed both of the recipes exactly although I don’t always use KAF products.
I am not advertising for them; I just recently got their flyer and was organizing recipes for my recipe notebooks. And these were two of the ones I had marked to try.
The instructions are simple and fabulous: Mix and knead all the ingredients until the dough is smooth and elastic. This took just over two minutes in the Kitchen-Aid stand mixer with the bread hook. Grease the bowl, cover, and let rise until puffy about 60-90 minutes. I let mine rest for about 75 minutes.
mykitchenmythoughts 