Rainbow Krispie Treats

This is a post that is WAY overdue. I made these on a freezing snowy day when I didn't want to go all the way to the grocery store, but I also had a giant rice krispie treat craving. I went to the bodega on the corner to see what kind of fixings they had, and this is the result:

Now, I know what you're thinking. You're thinking "holy smokes, that must be insanely sweet". And I'm here to tell you, YOU DON'T EVEN KNOW THE HALF OF IT.

So, clearly what we have here are not regular krispies but Fruity Pebbles. That's one thing. BUT, they also did not have plain marshmallows, they had these (not my picture):

Yes, these are strawberry and vanilla marshmallows, just to add that extra little something. I'm normally a Jet-Puffed marshmallow loyalist (Jet-Puffed marshmallow creme being a core ingredient of the family Christmas fudge recipe). And, I had a moment of fear that I would end up like Liz Lemon, who became addicted to off-brand cheez puffs called "Sabor de Soledad" from her corner store. 

Fortunately, no such thing happened, the only result was some very festive looking treats.

 

I followed the normal recipe- the bag of marshmallows, a few tablespoons of butter all melted together, and then 6 cups of cereal. I have two tricks for smushing this stuff into the pan. 1. get your hands wet, and use your hands. 2. get waxed paper as a barrier and push down on top of it until everything is flat. The waxed paper is much better (and more sanitary), provided you actually have waxed paper. Parchment doesn't really work.

These were insanely sweet. There was not one single natural ingredient in the entire thing. And they totally hit the spot on a snow day staying home from work.

The Crowning Achievement- Kransekake

Ok, since it's actually a national holiday associated with New Years, I'm going to count this as squeezing in the last post of 2011 since it was pretty much one of the crowning baking achievements of the year.

What we have here is a Norwegian Kransekake, a special ring cake made with almond flour. Now, we have been trying for YEARS to get this thing right. This has involved interrogating many older Scandinavian relatives to try to deduce their secrets, as well as lot of swearing and cursing at collapsed falling apart leaning-towers-of-kransekake. Everyone has their secret- blanch the almonds, don't blanch the almonds, dry the almonds, use a nut grinder, use a coffee grinder, buy almond flour, use a food processor, and on and on. We've been getting closer, but it's still kind of like the Russian roulette of holiday treats.

But, this year, I decided just to google it, and low and behold, I found a recipe that seemed really different from everything we had done before.
http://scandinavianfood.about.com/od/cakerecipes/r/basickransekake.htm

Now, my first note is the hilarity of the idea that this takes 1 hour and fifteen minutes of total cooking time. HA! This is definitely a much longer project than that, at least to a novice kransekake-er like myself.

This is my edited version:


Ingredients For Cake:
.5 lb raw almonds (from Trader Joe's)
.5 lb blanched almond slivers (also from Trader Joe's)
1 lb. confectioner's/powdered sugar
3 egg whites
2 tsp. almond extract
2 Tbsp. mixture corn starch and regular flour (you're supposed to use potato starch flour but I couldn't find it)

Ingredients For Frosting:
3-4 cups confectioner's sugar
1 tsp. almond extract
1 tsp. lemon juice (or as needed)

The first thing to do is grind your almonds- do NOT use a food processor, use a coffee grinder (I ground up some oatmeal in mine first to get rid of residual coffee). This took me about 15 minutes, there is no way around doing small batches. Mix together all the almonds along with the powdered sugar, and then put it through the grinder again (which also takes a while!). Put it in a saucepan and stir in the almond extract and the egg whites, it should be very firm. Then "use a wooden spoon to knead the dough over the heat until it pulls away from the sides of the pan and shapes itself into a smooth, shiny mass (this step is exactly like making homemade play dough; the resulting almond paste is also the consistency of play dough)." Then refrigerate overnight.

The next morning, have a giant cup of coffee and then proceed.

Preheat the oven to 400, and then butter your special kransekake pans (I have no idea where my Mom got these) and dust with the flour mixture.

Now the fun starts- take chunks of dough and roll them into 1/2inch wide snakes (long snakes!) and fit them into the ring molds. I recommend doing a couple of single test rings first to see how wide they should be- if they are too skinny, the middle won't be chewy but if they're too fat, they'll spill over and they'll all get stuck together.

Bake about 15 minutes, they should be very light brown. Watch carefully though, this depends a lot on how fat they are, and you don't want to overcook them.

Once they cool a bit and you remove them from the pans, set aside some time to leap around the kitchen in joy, then proceed onwards. Now, it's time to focus because you have to stack all the rings up. We'd never actually had this many rings turn out so it was harder than we thought, plus we had some extra dough so there were duplicates in there (that's when it's good to have an engineer in the family, so we called in my brother).

Once you've figured out the order, time to glue! Make the frosting mixture (mine was a very unscientific process of combining powdered sugar and lemon juice until it seems like a good consistency. Then scoop it into a plastic baggy and cut a TINY hole in the corner (TINY! TINY! must be tiny!). Glue the first ring to the plate with frosting, and then create a zigzag pattern all around the ring, and place the next one on top. This is why you want to know the order before doing this, if you have to stack and unstack with frosting on it it'll be a colossal mess.

Then, just keep going!

Once you're done, it's traditional to decorate with little flags (we used Swedish, Finnish and Norwegian just to represent the whole family), or use whatever you want! enjoy!

Brace yourself.... homemade soft pretzels ahead...

After years of searching I may finally, FINALLY, have found something that rivals the excitement of making homemade pita bread (did you try that yet? no? then go do it! seriously! now! I'll wait.)


What could this amazing item be? Well, the title gave it away already but just pander to my whims.... drumroll please.... HOME MADE SOFT PRETZELS! (I wish I had taken time for a prettier picture but I could hardly stand to wait another minute before devouring one).

 I learned about this process over at Pink Parsley and got some extra tips from Annie's Eats. It wasn't simple, but it also wasn't as hard as it might seem- it was definitely fun, and I think kids would love shaping the pretzels (I know I did!).


First, you need to make the dough. 
--1.5 cups very warm water 
--1 Tbs sugar
--2 tsp salt
--2¼ tsp instant yeast (= 1 little packet)
--4½ cups all purpose flour
--4 Tbs unsalted butter, melted (could likely substitute olive oil, but butter would taste better)
--Olive oil


At this point, you should also put aside some things you'll need later:
--2/3c baking soda
--more melted butter (olive oil if you really prefer)
-salt/cinnamon sugar/garlic/herbs - whatever you want to top them with.


Put the water in a large bowl, and add the yeast and sugar. Leave a few minutes just to make sure that it starts to foam (so you know the yeast is active). Stir until dissolved. Then add the salt, melted butter, and flour. Mix until well combined, and stir/knead for about 5 more minutes until the dough holds together as a unit and stays away from the side of the bowl (add more flour if it's too wet). Put the dough in a clean bowl lightly coated in oil, flip a few times so it is coated, and then cover with a towel and let rise. (I usually turn on my oven for a couple minutes so it's a little warm, turn it off, and set the bowl in there). It'll have to rise 50-60 minutes, or until doubled.

Flip the dough out on to a clean surface. Then, divide it up into equal pieces- I cut mine into 12.

Take each piece and roll it into a snake- mine were about 12-14 inches long. Twist into a traditional shape, as below, or you can make pretty much anything else you can think of. I made about half of them like this, and then the rest I chopped up in to 1.5 inch pieces to make pretzel bites (which ended up like pretzel balls after baking).

Now, here comes the exciting part. After you have formed them all, you have to boil them, which is how they get their pretzel-like exterior instead of just being like bread.

Bring about 10c of water (or, just a big pan) and 2/3 cup baking soda to a boil. 

One by one, gently place each pretzel into the water for about 30 seconds. (the soundtrack to the above picture is something like "faster! faster! take the picture take the picture! it's falling!". When I made the pretzel nuggets, I cooked them all at the same time.

Halfway through the boiling, flip the pretzel over- the outside will visibly change texture.

Gently take it out, and place on a cookie sheet lined with oil brushed parchment paper. I lightly brushed mine with butter (or the butter-like) product of your choice) and I think it was well worth it. These aren't something you're going to be making every day, might as well make them maximally delicious when you do! Put some coarse salt on top.

I also made (in the pretzel-bites) garlic and cinnamon sugar flavored versions. The garlic I made by brushing them with butter heavily laced with chopped garlic. The cinnamon sugar had some issues, I think if I did them again, I'd roll them in cinnamon sugar immediately upon coming out of the oven.

Cook them for about 12-15 minutes, until really nice and golden in an oven preheated to 450 degrees.

When they come out, be prepared to enjoy the deliciousness immediately, because seriously, they will never be more delicious than at that moment! If you want to reheat them later, I highly recommend putting them in a very hot oven for a few minutes, although some people say you can also microwave them as well. 

This was definitely a process, but it was fun, and man, they were amazing!

Scones: Not for the Faint of Heart

Here is another recipe that got buried in the depths of my iPhoto. THIS one dates way back to when I decided that the most appropriate food for watching the Royal Wedding was clearly English Scones (I'll note, I watched the wedding on DVR the next night, not having the stamina to stay up until 3am on the actual day) . I found a recipe on the internet (over at Delicious Days), and promptly realized I didn't have half the ingredients. Not one to let that stand in the way, I persevered.

Unfortunately, perseverance does not always pay off. At the Royal Wedding, Kate Middleton looked fresh, sophisticated, and absolutely beautiful.

At the time I watched the Royal Wedding, my scones looked and tasted like deformed, flat, burnt, rock hard cow patties (with a lovely decorative sliced almond topping).

I decided that kind of turn of events was best coped with by drinking a large glass of wine and settling in for hours of dress ogling, which I'm still pretty sure was the right decision. But I woke up in the morning bound to set things right. And oh, I did. This was batch number two. So good!

First I'll give you the good recipe, then let you know where I went astray.

What you need:

200g WHITE all-purpose flour, plus more for when you deal with the dough
1.5 tsp baking powder
2.5 tbsp white sugar
.5 tsp  salt
60g cold butter (yes, butter)
140-150g milk (I used almond milk)
some kind of fruit- raisins, cranberries, (I used dried cherries).

You'll notice that these measurements are in grams, which isn't normal for me, but that's how the recipe I found was, and part of going astray was not just sticking with it. So, I used my trusty food scale and did things right.

What to do with it:
Preheat your oven to 425, and line a cookie sheet with parchment paper. I used my food processor for this, but if you go back to the original site, there are directions for doing it by hand.

Put in the flour, the baking powder, the sugar and the salt and pulse briefly until well mixed. Make sure your butter is really cold, and cut it in to small pieces. Pulse that in with the dry ingredients until it forms a crumbly mixture with no large chunks of butter. Toss in whatever fruit you decide to use, pulse some more until it's chopped up and mixed. Distribute the chopped dried fruits and pulse once or twice, then add the milk of your choice and pulse again. Do this just until the dough comes together and the flour is incorporated- don't over mix. It can be a little wet, but you can always add a little more flour.

Dump out the dough onto  a well floured board. Sprinkle with more flour and knead it with your hands a bit, just enough for it to come together into a real dough. Now, smush/lightly roll the entire thing out so it is about 1.5 inches thick. You need something round to cut them- I just used a juice glass, but probably a cookie cutter is what's called for. Put each piece on the tray. Bake 13-15 minutes until golden brown.

Mine were delicious with butter and jam, but do with them whatever you like! They kept well in a ziplock baggie for about a week.

NOW... where did this all go so sadly wrong. My mistakes were:
1. wax paper can NOT (not not not!) be swapped out for parchment paper. Don't even try it. If I wasn't desperate for scones and already in my pajamas, I wouldn't have done it either.
2. apparently in this recipe, wheat flour is not a good thing. it just made it too dense- the difference in how well they rose in the wheat and white versions was remarkable. If you have some major baking mojo and know other ways to adapt this recipe around the wheat flour (I did add a bit more milk), it might work.
3. apparently, also in this recipe, Earth Balance (my butter substitute of choice) is vastly inferior to good old butter. (Julia Child would be proud)
4. I didn't trust the dough, and added too much flour. Then, I decided not do bother with using a cookie cutter or anything, and just cut them into triangles, which involved a little sawing, which apparently interferes with even rising.

What is the take home message? Basically, when baking, you have less leeway. Also, when something like Royal Wedding treats are on the line, just follow the recipe! Best of luck to you, may you learn from my mistakes!

The Famous Donut Muffins

I feel like I have been reading left and right on the internet about these donut muffins. I love donuts as much as the next girl, but they're not exactly something you can have on a regular basis. So, I figured I'd give this whole donut muffin thing a shot- I used a recipe from over at For The Love of Cooking, which you should totally check out if you don't read it already.

The Stuff:
- 3/4 c white sugar
- 1 large egg
- 1 1/2 cup of flour
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1/4 tsp freshly ground nutmeg
- 1/4 cup of vegetable oil
- 3/4 cup of milk (I used almond milk, it didn't matter much)
- 1 1/2 tsp vanilla

sugar topping:
- 3 tbsp sugar
- 1 tsp cinnamon

Preheat oven to 350. Basically, just mix everything together (I am not organized about that, but you can do wet and dry ingredients separately if you're really vigilant). Grease the muffin pan with cooking spray- don't use muffin cups because it'll ruin the whole ultimate donut-like effect. If you want them to be really round, just make about 9 muffins, or you can be more frugal and make 12. Bake them 15-18 minutes.

Now, for the topping. I made some rolled in cinnamon sugar mixture. Just wait a few minutes after cooking, then roll them around in the bowl. I also decided I wanted some glazed because to me, that is what actually makes a donut. I found this Alton Brown glaze, and it was really good. Now, the recipe he has is huge, I only had half my muffins to do anyways, so used a tablespoon of milk and half a cup of powdered sugar (and there was still extra). I put them on a cooling rack with paper towels underneath, and slowly spooned the glaze over. You can see both types in the picture.

Normally with something like this, I would do things like replace the eggs with egg whites, and reduce the oil, and other similar things. But, I figured the whole idea here was that the texture would be similar to a cakey donut, and I didn't want to mess that up. So, I left it as it was. Honestly, it actually did taste pretty donut like, I don't think you'd fool anyone, but the glazed ones in particular could definitely work for a craving... give it a try!

Beyond Decadent Coconut Cupcakes

I recently went on a hunt for a coconut cake recipe- Feeesh (aka my co-gardener across the city) had a birthday coming up and coconut cake is his favorite birthday cake. When I looked for "ultimate coconut cake" what came up over and over again was this recipe from the Peninsula Grill in Charleston.

Now, upon initial inspection, I was both horrified and intrigued by the recipe. Why horrified? It is 6 layers, with 2 kinds of frosting, and the entire recipe calls for two and a half POUNDS of butter. Why intrigued? This cake has been all over- it is on Martha Stewart's page, it was the subject of a Bobby Flay throwdown, it is listed on tourist websites, and apparently is the type of legendary dessert that people have mailed to them when they move away and that everyone wants at their wedding. Intrigue won over horror... and man oh man, was that the right way to go.

Since I was serving this at a BBQ outside, I decided to modify the recipe and make a slightly scaled down version, and turn it into cupcakes. I'm going to post my modified proportions based on what I actually used (which varied between 1/2, 2/3, and all of the original recipe for the various components- the cupcakes were way off on proportions compared to the layer cake). Behold:

Filling 

Make the night before and chill. This is a half recipe, which might even be too much- I made 2/3 and ended up with so much extra I had to make an entire loaf pan of extra cake to use it up, and still froze a bunch).

-2.5c heavy cream

-1.5c sugar

-1/2lb butter (2 cubes)*

-.25c cornstarch

-.5 tsp vanilla

.5 tbsp water

-4.5c shredded sweetened coconut

Put butter, sugar, and cream in a pan and slowly heat until all is melted. Mix cornstarch, vanilla, and water and add to liquid. Boil the mixture about a minute, so it can thicken. Remove from heat. Take all the coconut and chop it in the food processor so that it is in very small pieces (you don't want this to be stringy). Stir this into the mixture. Chill over night, then the next morning when you need it, beat until creamy (4-5 min).

*note on butter. every single website I saw said that you really really have to use Plugra or other European style butter. I was going to skip this, until I found out that the Smart and Final near me had a fairly good price on it- I think other places it can get up to $7-8 a pound! aack! but, these were decadent, so maybe it was worth it. If nothing else, given that I'm usually misting things in the minimum possible about of olive oil, it was kind of fun to work with giant slabs of butter.

Cake:

(this is 2/3 of the recipe)

2/3lb butter (I don't know how many cubes of regular butter this is- it is easier to measure this amount when you're hacking pieces off of pound sized slabs)

2c sugar

4 eggs

3c flour

1 tbsp baking powder

1/4 plus a bit tsp salt

1c heavy cream

1 tbsp vanilla

1 tsp coconut extract

Preheat oven to 325. Cream butter and sugar, then add eggs one at a time. In one bowl, combine dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, salt) and the other the wet ingredients (cream, vanilla, coconut). Alternate adding and beating in wet and dry ingredients, starting and ending with dry. Now, this is very dense, almost like a pound cake (no surprise, look at the stuff in it). This makes about 27-28 cupcakes, bake them for 22 minutes, or until they feel firm. I made these the night before, as well.

Frosting:

(this is a full batch- the cupcakes needed relatively more than the cake does just due to geometry)

-.5lb butter

-8oz cream cheese

-1tsp vanilla etract

-5c powdered sugar

-1 vanilla bean, scraped out (I had this in my stash of leftover beans from the great vanilla project). It made the cream cheese frosting out of this world!

Mix butter and cream cheese until smooth. Mix in vanilla extract and vanilla bean seeds. Add the sugar in about 3 batches until mixed in (dump it all in at once and you will end up looking like a snowman as the mixer throws it in the air).

Extras:

-Simple syrup- boil together 1/2c water and 1/2c sugar. let cool completely

-Coconut topping- you'll need a few cups of coconut- you can toast it ahead of time or not, but I did half and half and the toasted ones were much more popular.

Putting it all together:

I decided to use a cupcake filling technique I learned when making home made hostess cupcakes. Basically take the (COMPLETELY cooled) cupcakes, and individually cut a pretty deep cone shaped hole in the top of each cupcake. Drizzle a little bit of simple syrup around the sides of each hole- just a small small bit to give some moisture. Fill the hole with the filling (which you will have just taken out of the fridge and beaten), cut off the tip of the cone, and put it on like a little hat.

This looks crazy, but in the end it works really well, its kind of strange. You will find there is a limit on the number of tips of cones you can eat, but at least it provides a way to taste the cake ;-).

Then, frost with the cream cheese frosting- this is part of why you need more frosting, you definitely want to cover any sign of the little hat.

Then, roll the tops of the cupcakes in the (toasted or untoasted) coconut. Chill them for a few hours- everything needs a little time to compress and fit together.

Serve and enjoy! These were absolutely delicious. A lot of people compared them to the types of gourmet cupcakes that are all over the place these days, and they really tasted like something decadent. I think some of that might be due to the fancy butter, but it could also be the cream, the sugar, everything else. I would really resist the urge to make these lower fat, and if you're worried, just enjoy and limit your portion sizes. These are perfect for a special occasion- they would be great at a wedding or bridal shower or baby shower (or birthday!); I can only imagine how delicious the full sized cake must be!

BONUS ROUND!

And... its not over... As I said, I had a ridiculously huge amount of filling left. I had just filled it with expensive butter and a whole lot of coconut, so I didn't want to waste it. I ended up making 1/3 of the original recipe as a new batch of batter, baked in a loaf pan. Per the original recipe I cut into 3 layers, added filling between. It is just adorable! It also is incredibly heavy. But, it now resides in my freezer, to be pulled out for a special occasion in the future!

Strawberry Chocolate Cake... Buckle Your Seatbelts.

I have a favorite bakery. It is an amazing place, chock full of mind-blowing desserts that I crave. When getting ready for my Mom's birthday, a 2 hour drive away, I immediately thought of my very favorite of their cakes. Unfortunately, buying the entire cake, rather than by the slice as I usually do, turned out to be a bit out of my budget. In addition, I wasn't sure how it would fare on a ride down the highway on a warm spring weekend. So, I decided to recreate it. I'm going to describe the normal recipe first, with an addendum on my clever transportation strategy.

(First just take a moment and bask in the glory)

Ingredients:
cake:
1 box dark chocolate cake mix
3 eggs (as called for in cake mix)
1 cube butter (replaces cake mix oil, .5 cup)
milk in same amount as water called for in cake mix

whipped filling:
1pt whipping cream (do NOT sub with redi-whip or similar. it will melt and you'll regret it)
.5 tsp vanilla
2-3 tablespoons powdered sugar
1 lb FRESH strawberries stemmed and diced

ganache (chocolate topping and filling):
2 cups heavy cream
16 oz semisweet chocolate (not chips)

Bake cake mix in 2 layers, according to the ingredients. Replace the oil with melted butter and the water with milk- this is a great tip to make the cake taste less mix-like. (If you're motivated, make your own cake, I didn't have time). Cool until COMPLETELY cool. Once cooled, slice each layer in half, resulting in 4 relatively even layers.

While the cake is baking, take care of the filling:  1. Beat the whipping cream, vanilla, and sugar. The whipping cream needs to be really really really stiff. It has to stand up to the rest of the cake!! Chill until needed. Now work on the ganache (which was far easier than I expected). Basically, heat the cream until just barely boiling, then turn off heat. Stir in chocolate pieces and gently whisk until melted and incorporated. Thats it! (can you believe it?) Now chill- the longer you chill, the stiffer it'll be. you want it spreadable but not too runny.

Now for the assembly. Place the first layer on your serving platter of choice (the astute chef will place strips of waxed paper around the bottom edge so the plate does not become covered in frosting). Cover with a thin layer of ganache. Top with 1/3 of the whipping cream, and 1/3 of the strawberry pieces. Repeat for additional layers, saving about half the total ganache for the top and sides. Once layers are assembled, use a plastic scraper to spread ganache over the top and sides.

Place the whole shebang into the fridge for at least 3 hours, and preferentially more (over night is ideal). Then, just slice and serve!

Something about the fresh strawberries really complements the moist cake and the deep chocolate ganache. It is absolutely amazing and there is no way that this won't get widespread compliments. Its summer, strawberries are abundant... try it!

ADDENDUM: Ok, so as a side note, this was a traveling cake. I made the layers at home and transported them in their cake pans. I also chopped the strawberries and made the whipped cream. I transported berries and cream in a small cooler. When I got to my destination, I made ganache, chilled it, and  assembled the cake, putting it in the fridge to eat the next day! Easy and impressive, whats more to ask.

Beer Bread

Oh man oh man oh man!

I'm always trying to figure out some miraculous fast way to make bread at home. I have tried things like this whole artisan bread in 5 minutes a day kick people were on, I've tried other fast and easy tricks. And, let me tell you, I have made a lot of bad bread (see Exhibit A. it was not delicious. it looked like a giant cow pattie. it did not look like the picture on the internet. neither did any of the rest of the ones I made).


Exhibit A.

BUT. This, this might be the answer. And, of course, the answer involved beer.

This is suuuuuuuuuper easy:
1 bottle beer (I used Sierra Nevada IPA because thats what I had)
3c flour
.5tsp salt
1tsp baking powder
1/3c sugar

Stir it up. Put it in a loaf pan. Let it sit for like half an hour to an hour if you have time. Put it in the oven at 350, and bake for about 1 hour. If you want, 3/4 of the way through you can spread butter on the top of it.

Check this out! Its not deformed!


And check THIS out... (DRUMROLL, PLEASE...)

Yummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

(ps. if you have self-rising flour, use that. just skip the salt and baking powder)

Pumpkin White Chocolate Chip Cookies

OK, I made some cookies. They're not going to win any beauty contests but they have two big things in their favor. They are : 1. almost ridiculously easy and 2. very tasty.


Here's what you need (really, this is all):
1 box spice cake mix
1 can pumpkin
1 bag white chocolate chips
a little cinnamon sugar

Preheat oven to 350. Dump the pumpkin and cake mix in a bowl and mix. Add white chocolate chips until the cookie:chip ratio looks like how you would want it. (feel free to taste! no eggs = no salmonella from raw dough!).

Spoon the batter out on a cookie sheet, and then take the bottom of a glass, run it under the faucet, and then dip it in a bowl of cinnamon sugar. Use it to flatten the cookies out a bit.

Bake about 10 minutes, or until they look done.

I took these to a party, and they were a hit!

(ps. did you know there is a canned pumpkin shortage? Apparently there was a combo of a lot of rain and a small harvest, and some places are out of pumpkin (OUT OF PUMPKIN. the horror, the horror). Anyhow, if you see some, snap it up).

Pie... and a triumphant return...

Ok, so I think we can all agree that my wildly optimistic "I'm going to post a picture EVERY DAY" plan was a colossal failure... in fact, it was such a failure, that I felt like I had to wait until a day when I had something REALLY REALLY good to make up for it.

Fortunately, yesterday was such a day.

Our Thanksgiving involves a lot of stuff... there is the sweet potato casserole with candied pecans on top, delicious stuffing with nuts and sausage and apricots, creamed spinach, creamed onions, 3 kinds of cranberry salad (with the pros and cons of different permutations of cranberry being hotly contested by different branches of the family), of course the turkey... and then there is pie. I got to make 2 this year... everyone wanted pumpkin, but we also decided on lemon meringue, just to shake things up- turned out, it was a hit! Its light and refreshing and just the thing after stuffing yourself with 10 different forms of potatoes.

Here they are, in all their glory:
The pumpkin pie, though, I was pretty excited about. I adapted the recipe a couple of years ago, and have been making it since- its a little non-traditional, which you can see because its the pie in the foreground...

Pumpkin-Ginger Crumble Pie
1 9inch pie

Filling
2/3-3/4c sugar (depending on how sweet you like it)
1c sour cream
3 eggs
1.5t vanilla
1 t cinnamon
1/2 t cloves
1/2 t nutmeg
1 t ginger
1 can pumpkin (not pie mix, normal plain pumpkin)

Topping
2-3T butter
about 1/2 packaged crushed Anna's Ginger Thins or other ginger snap type cookie
1/8c oatmeal
1/8-1/4c nuts
a glug of maple syrup

Mix together all filling ingredients, bake in preheated 375 degree oven for an hour. after 30 min add crumble topping. its done when a metal knife comes out clean.

The filling is nice and light, but the crumble topping really gives it a kick!

Mmmm... summer in a crust!

Oh my, oh my, do we ever have some catching up to do!

I've been busy, and some of it is even documented with photos, but I have been either too busy or too lazy (or too lazy as a result of being too busy) to post anything. So, welcome to the backlog!

First up- in my perusing of the food blogs, I ran across this discussion of crostatas at the Amateur Gourmet, which are basically something like an open faced fruit pie. The open-facedness basically serves to maximize how awesome it looks, plus, gives you a little leeway in the shaping of it because its supposed to be free-form. I immediately knew that my summer was not going to end without me making one. Luckily, I went on vacation to a place with ridiculous amounts of fantastic fruit, a kitchen, and a lot of free time.

I based my recipe on this one as well as the one in the original post. Basically, you make (or you could acquire) a pie crust which you roll out to about 11-12 inches across. Then, you pick your favorite fruit- mine was fresh peaches with fresh blueberries- I let them sit for a bit in some sugar, a sprinkling of flour (to thicken the juice) and lemon zest and juice (because I always like my fruit with lemon juice). Then you kind of pile the fruit in the middle, fold up the edges, and pop in the (preheated) oven!

Let me tell you, this think definitely got a lot of compliments- it somehow managed to look both rustic and yet fancy. (Plus, it was delicious.)

See for yourself...

Foccacia!

I've previously posted on my ongoing efforts to make various kinds of flatbreads. Part of the reason for my obsession is that it kind of blows my mind that when it gets down to it, a lot of these are just made of different permutations of flour and water. Do it one way, get paste! Do it another way, get bread! Its crazy! At any rate, this project has been met with various successes and failures, including

Cumin-sesame flatbread, verdict: ok.
Poppy seed roti, verdict: totally not worth the effort
Pita, verdict: the best, most entertaining, awesome thing I've ever made
and now...
Foccacia. (verdict: good!)

1 tsp sugar
1 (.25 ounce) package active dry yeast
1/3 cup warm water

2 cups flour
2 tbsp olive oil
1/4 tsp salt

First, proof the yeast (I think the rumor is you probably don't need to do this for the little packets of yeast these days, but hey, its fun). Basically, put sugar, yeast, and warm water in a bowl. Let it sit there until its a little frothy (10 min or so), then you know the yeast is good.

Mix in the flour to the yeast mixture really well. Keep putting in water, a tablespoon at a time, until its like a dough and makes a ball that is moist but not sticky or wet.

Take it out of the bowl and make it into a ball, clean the bowl, and put a little oil in it. Put the ball in the bowl and cover with a towel. Put it in a warm place (if you're me, preheat the oven and let it sit on top) and let it sit for about 30 min.

Knead for a minute to deflate, and then put it on a lightly greased cookie sheet. Press it out, so it becomes pretty big and flat- mine took up almost the whole cookie sheet. Then brush with oil, sprinkle the top with salt and whatever herbs you feel like (basil, rosemary).

Bake it in a preheated HOT (475 degrees) oven for 10-20 minutes depending on how thick you made it and how crunchy you want it.

See how awesome it looks?


And here it is in context...

The best idea ever: Margarita Cupcakes

Ok, so, I've been told that I need to get back on the ball with the cooking on a budget series. And I will, very very soon. But, this is something so big, I can't wait. Now, I hail from a band of rambunctious, margarita making Norwegians. We have a family recipe, we have different factions in the family with different twists on it, basically- margaritas are in my blood. But whats next best to margaritas? Cupcakes. Now, obviously, it is possible to just eat some cupcakes and drink some margaritas, and frankly, that sounds pretty good. BUT- here is the newsflash. Someone, who as far as I'm concerned is an absolute genius and should be next in line for a MacArthur Grant or at the very least the Nobel Prize in cooking (which they should totally have) decided to bring these two wonderful things together.

As I understand the history of the margarita cupcake, it was developed as part of Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World, now, I actually have started to get into vegan baking, and you can find the vegan version of this recipe all over the internet. The thing is, sometimes, its Thursday night after work and a girl just wants to use cake mix. So, there is a cake mix version too, and this one is duplicated all over the internet as well, but this is the one I settled on. Here's what I did...

First, you make a bit of margarita. They suggest these proportions:
--9 oz Margarita mix
--3 oz tequila
--3/4 oz orange liqueour (Gran Marnier, Triple Sec)
I used Trader Joes margarita mix with is more natural and, to me, more delicious that the other stuff which is basically sour mix. I also upped the Triple Sec to a little over an ounce and decreased a little mix. This is designed to make a little side margarita for you to enjoy while you cook!

Combine:
Box of white cake mix
3 egg whites
2 Tbsp vegetable oil
1.25 cups of the margarita you just made (drink the rest!)
1 Tbsp lime zest (around here, this is just known as "a whole lotta lime zest" because I didn't measure

Mix with a mixer- even though I always just use a fork and count it as cardio for my arm, I used a mixer for this, and I suspect its necessary because of needing to get the eggwhites a little fluffy. Now, this batter was WEIRD. You can kind of see it here, it was kind of fluffy and bordering on foamy, but don't worry, thats fine!
Spoon it out into cupcake papers in a muffin pan. Bake at 350 for about 25 minutes. Let cool. In the meantime, make yourself some frosting!
- a box of powdered sugar
- a cube of butter (yes, butter)
- 1/8 tsp salt, unless you use salted butter
-2 Tablespoons lime juice
-lime zest
beat that all up with the mixer until it looks like frosting.

once they're cool, frost! I decorated with green sprinkles.

YUM.

Wheaty Veggie Pizza

This happened a few weeks ago but I'm just now posting it... for some reason the other day I got a bee in my bonnet about making pizza dough. I had a second bee in my bonnet about trying to make something somewhat healthy, so started looking around for whole wheat dough recipes. Obviously, the internet has everything, so I found one in short order. It was also purported to be both easy and fast, which is hard to argue with.

Here is my version

2 c. whole wheat flour
1 little packet active dry yeast
3/4 tsp. salt
1 c. warm water
1 tbsp. olive oil
1 tsp. honey

Preheat oven to 425. Mix flour, yeast, and salt in a pretty big bowl (I also included a little dry oregano, basil, and garlic powder). Then mix in the liquids (water, oil and honey). Cover the bowl with a damp cloth, and set it somewhere warm for about 10 minutes to rise.

After it has risen, punch it down and press into a greased pan- not having a pizza pan, I used a rimmed cookie sheet which worked just fine. One nice thing about this was that there was no rolling, it was totally possible to spread it out just by pushing with your hands.

Now, top with whatever you want. I used sauce, a layer of spinach, onions, peppers, cheese (I really like the Trader Joes Quattro Formaggio), and some leftover tomato sliced on top. This thing weighed a ton. Bake it at 425 degrees until crust is golden brown and cheese is melted- while the direction said 15-20 min, mine took at least 1.5x that if not twice as long.


This was pretty good. The only issue, to me, was that the crust lacked a certain chewiness that I like in a good pizza crust. It was definitely easy, and definitely fast. Basically, it wasn't the ultimate pizza but it did do the trick.

Infinite varieties of muffins...

I'm just going to throw this out there. I love muffins. It seems entirely reasonable that muffins could be their own food group. They're pretty much perfect. In addition to being delicious, muffins supplied a Trader Joes patron with this, one of the worst pick up lines I have ever heard (this happened to a friend, innocently shopping):

Friend: *perusing the bread area*
Random Dude: *loitering in bread area* "Hey... thats a nice sweater"
Friend: *looks down at total normal, slightly old sweater* "ummm... thanks"
Random Dude: "Hey... do you like muffins?"
Friend: "ummm... kind of I guess"
Random Dude: "what about STUD muffins??"
Friend: *walks away. only to pass by again later and see him trying it on someone else!*

thats out of nowhere, and its not even my story. but, I love that guy.


At any rate... I have recently acquired a very excellent basic muffin recipe (from the same source as my Mexican Wedding cookies. It is (as the title promised) infinitely adaptable... below you can see blueberry lemon. Yesterday we made cinnamon chocolate chip (yum). The only limit is your imagination!


Muffins:

1 egg
3/4 cup milk
1/4 cup oil
2 cups flour
1/2 cup sugar
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1 cup blueberries/cranberries/choc chips/chopped apple/nuts etc
optional: lemon zest, orange zest, cinnamon, cardamom, vanilla, etc

Pre-heat oven to 400 degrees. Grease cups of muffin pan.

In a large bowl, beat egg and then stir in the milk and oil. If you want to add vanilla (like for chocolate chip muffins) do it in here.

In a medium bowl, stir together flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. Add this mixture to the large bowl, stirring just until blended (doesn't need to be entirely smooth). Fold in fillings. Divide between 12 muffin pan spaces.

Bake at 400 degrees for 18 to 20 minutes until golden brown on top and pulling away from edge. Remove from muffin tin immediately. Enjoy!!

Forsaken by Commercialized Christmas

Out of all of the hype, and Christmas products, and aisle upon aisle of red and green stuff in every single store, I only want one thing. One tiny request.

What? you ask.
Some freakin' mint chocolate M&Ms!

They are truly awesome. You can only get them at Christmas. I have been to 3 stores at least, all of which claimed to have them amongst their piles of other m&ms (red and green; all green; peanut; almond; dark chocolate). Those are all fine. BUT THAT IS NOT WHAT I WANT! I feel forsaken by the holiday marketing gurus, its really very sad.

Feeling forsaken, I decided instead to feed my new ridiculous obsession with Celestial Seasonings CandyCane Lane Christmas tea. This is not normal peppermint tea. It has vanilla, and all kinds of other things, possibly including crack. I found this at one place. I bought it there twice (seriously its a problem, I'm drinking multiple cups a day). I went back today (looking for the M&Ms and for lights for my little tree), and they were out. There wasn't even a hole on the shelf so that I could pretend like they might get more. Seriously people, I'm trying to buy something from you, here!

Feeling even more forsaken, I decided to manufacture my own holiday cheer (while drinking one of my rationed final CandyCane Lane teabags). This took the form of... taaaaa, daaaaahhh... Mexican Wedding cookies (courtesy of my good friend Valerie's very nice Mom, Nancy. So, it is a Mom-approved recipe which seems appropriate this time of year). Yum!

1 cup butter
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
2 1/4 cups flour
1/4 tsp. salt
3/4 cup finely chopped nuts (I used pecans)

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Mix butter, sugar, and vanilla. Work in flour, salt, and nuts until dough holds together. Shape into 1-inch balls. Place on ungreased cookie sheet. Bake for 10-12 minutes (be careful, they go from sort-of-done to over-cooked very quickly). Roll in powdered sugar (this is fun, because they are hot and the sugar kind of melts onto them). Let cool slightly, and roll in powdered sugar again. Makes 4 dozen or so.

The Lost Art of Funfetti

Well, I'm the laziest blogger ever (EVER). So, to get going again, I thought I'd start off with cupcakes. Because lets face it, I love cupcakes.

Todays cupcakes are in honor of a friends birthday, and what says birthday more than funfetti cake? I truly believe that the funfetti family is a tragically overlooked culinary delight. Moist, delicious vanilla cake... adorable sprinkles... mmmmm.... there is some kind of funfetti frosting in a tub, but, I decided they could stand up better to some cream cheese frosting (because lets face it, I love cream cheese frosting) that might be a little less sweet. (I was inspired into the cream cheese frosting when I briefly considered red velvet cake, but, the thought of scraping red food coloring off every surface in my kitchen was too overwhelming). However, it turns out, my funfetti dreams were true... all true.

They might just be the best cupcakes ever.