Millionaire Shortbread

22 Tuesday Dec 2015

Posted by JennB in Recipes, Uncategorized

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I know, I know. It’s been a billion years since I’ve posted anything officially. It’s not that I’m not still cooking, I’m just busy. Suddenly it’s Christmas, and I have three days left to finish all my baking. I adapted a new recipe this year, and it was a mistake. I made the first batch in late November, thinking to get the jump on holiday baking, and I haven’t been able to keep them in the house. I’ve lost track of how many I’ve made now. The current batch is hidden in an All Bran box in the hope that it will survive until Christmas Eve. I give you, ‘Millionaire Shortbread’! Merry Christmas!

Millionaire Shortbread

WHAT

Crust:

1 ½ cups (375 mL) All Purpose Flour (dip, don’t scoop)
½ cup (125 mL) icing sugar
¾ cup (175 mL) butter, softened

Pinch of salt. Because everything sweet tastes weird without a little salt.

Caramel:

1 (14-oz) can sweetened condensed milk
1/2 cup dark brown sugar
6 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 tablespoons golden or dark corn syrup
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Generous pinch salt

Note** No. You didn’t do it wrong. I doubled the recipe for the shots below. You might want to consider doing so also. Trust me.

Top:

A bag of the best chocolate chips you can find. I like Ghirardelli milk chocolate, but whatever blows up your particular kilt is fine.

HOW

Line an 8 X 8 baking pan with foil and spray generously with cooking spray.

If you have a mixer, use the paddle and combine butter, icing sugar, flour and salt until a soft dough forms. If you don’t, roll up your sleeves and get out your pastry cutter, then cut it all together until it looks like coarse crumbs, then knead until it is dough. Press into the bottom of your pan. I use a shot glass to roll it in pan to make sure it’s an even layer. Bake at 350 for 20-25 min until just slightly golden and set it aside to cool completely.

Place all the caramel ingredients into a heavy bottomed medium saucepan and whisk gently over medium heat. Don’t stop. You have 20-30 minutes to kill while the sugar dissolves and the butter melts. Good thing you have WiFi in the kitchen. It will boil gently. If it boils rapidly, turn it down a little or you’re going to have toffee, not caramel. This is boring. Stir continuously until it reaches a deep, golden colour, and you can let a few drops fall into a glass of ice water and be able to form them into a soft ball once cooled. Think, slightly stiffer than peanut butter. Remove from heat and pour over cooled shortbread, using spatula to scrape pan, and smooth evenly. Give it a minute or two to begin to firm up, then sprinkle your chocolate chips evenly over the whole surface.

Now go for a smoke, check Facebook, feed the cat.. whatever it is that you’ve been dying to do while you’ve been stuck standing in front of the stove stirring caramel. You have 3-5 minutes.

When you get back, use a clean spatula to spread the now melted chocolate chips into an even layer over the surface of the caramel. If so inclined, sprinkle a little sea salt on top.

Place in the refrigerator for 2 hours or overnight.

Let them come up to room temperature again before cutting them, or the chocolate on top will shatter when you try to slice them into 24 bars, give or take. It’ll taste the same, but you’ll have ugly, ugly cookies of shame.

They can be stored at room temperature in an airtight tin for a week to ten days, but you won’t need to worry about that. You’ll probably have eaten half of them before they even make it to the tin.

Steel-cut Irish Oatmeal, Pumpkin Pie Edition (Stovetop Method)

06 Tuesday Oct 2015

Posted by JennB in Recipes

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baking, breakfast, cooking

Steel-Cut Irish Oatmeal, Pumpkin Pie Edition (Stove-top method)

You’d never guess from the 17 boxes of cereal in my pantry, but I am not a big cereal fan. My pantry is where cereal goes to die. A lot of us were raised to think of cereal as a healthy start, but in actual truth, it may be one of the most heavily processed foods that you consume in a day. I’ve posted before about my aversion to factory made food. As corporations wield their immense wealth to lobby lawmakers, my distrust of food made by a corporation that considers itself to be more accountable to its shareholders than its customers continues to grow.

But I digress.

Mornings are turning cold, and even though I am naturally awake before 5:00am most days, and like it that way, even I am beginning to struggle with getting up and running in the mornings when bed is warm, and the rest of the world is not. 5:00am is very early to have to face food, but my schedule doesn’t allow me the luxury of time in the mornings. While I have an amazing pit crew who routinely gets up and makes a hot breakfast for my son and me, even on mornings when he doesn’t need to be up until much later, and prefers the convenience of cold cereal himself, I thought I’d give him a break this week, and cook ahead, since our schedules will see little overlap, with me out early in the mornings, and him out well into the evening. What prompted today’s recipe We had planned a trip to Maryland this weekend, but plans were canceled due to the combined threats of hurricane and flooding on the coast, so we consoled ourselves with a day trip to western New York. It may be October on both sides of the border, but holy SMOKES Americans take their pumpkin spice season seriously! I found pumpkin spice mini-wheats, pumpkin spice frozen waffles, pumpkin spice candy corn, pumpkin spice pumpkin seeds, Kit Kats, Oreos, nachos, salsa, coffee creamer, pop-tarts, coffee, cookie butter… the list goes on. I love pumpkin anything, but as much fun as the gimicky prepared stuff is for an occasional treat, I still can’t bring myself to make any of it part of my family’s regular routine. But all the pumpkin stuff got me thinking about what I can do at home, with simple ingredients that have had minimal factory processing, and still get my pumpkin fix. I make all kinds of things at home, but I like to begin with things that are as close as possible to the form in which they were grown/raised/harvested, and take it from there. I have neither the acreage, nor the talent to grow and mill my own oats, and already had pure, plain pumpkin puree leftover in the freezer from another recipe, so that was my starting point.

What

3 cups water
1 cup milk
1 cup steel-cut oats
1/4-1/3 cup pure pumpkin puree
pinch salt
2 tsp pumpkin pie spice (or poudre fort if you like a bit more punch- I blend my own, and that’s what I use. Recipe below)
1 tsp butter
2-4 tablespoons of real maple syrup
1 tsp vanilla

Raisins, nuts, shredded coconut, diced apples, dried cranberries whatever blows up your particular kilt, in whatever proportions do it for you.

How

In medium saucepan, bring milk and water just to a low boil. Milk will scald and smell like feet, so don’t overdo it. Reduce heat to low and add the oats. Cook, uncovered, stirring occasionally for about 20 minutes, until most of the liquid has been absorbed. Stir in all other ingredients, and continue to stir, cooking on the lowest heat you can, until desired thickness has been reached. I like oatmeal thick enough to stand a spoon upright in, but it’s a matter of personal taste. Serve in small bowls or ramekins, topped with cinnamon sugar, chopped pecans, more raisins, or whatever appeals, and enjoy a house that smells fabulous, and the sensation of eating pumpkin pie for breakfast.

Enjoy

This keeps well in a container in the fridge. I make it by the bucketful so we can just scoop and microwave whatever amount is wanted on busy mornings.

Poudre Fort

This is a re-creation of a medieval spice blend that has become one of the first things I make every fall, and then spend the cold months adding it to pretty much everything. It has the same general aroma as pumpkin pie spice, but the addition of pepper gives it an extra kick. It is gorgeous blended with raisins, pumpkins, apples, and pretty much anywhere else that you might use cinnamon. This recipe comes straight out of ‘A Feast of Ice and Fire‘, the superlative Game of Thrones companion cookbook by Chelsea Monroe-Cassel & Sariann Lehrer.

1 teaspoon ground black pepper
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground mace
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon ground cloves
1 teaspoon long pepper or grains of paradise (optional)

Combine all ingredients and store in a small, airtight bottle.

Or if you’re me, quadruple the batch, and keep it in a mason jar.

Glazed Zucchini Fritters

11 Monday Aug 2014

Posted by JennB in Recipes

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baking, cooking, doughnuts, zucchini

In my own head at least, I’m the world’s least sentimental person. Years of frequent moving in my misspent youth taught the hard lesson that anything you get attached to can be lost, used against you, or taken from you. Even if you do manage to hang on to something special, you’re just going to have to keep moving it. The more attachments, the heavier the load.

So when I had to suddenly put my big cat down yesterday, I was rudely shocked to discover how crushed I was by the loss of a cat that I’d become ridiculously attached to. After all, she was over sixteen years old, and we all knew she was sick, and the world certainly isn’t facing any shortage of cats. She’d always had a difficult personality, and was, in fact, adopted because I have a pathological tendency to fall in love with the ugly, damaged, unwanted and unlovable creatures that nobody else wants. Big Cat was an ugly kitten, left to become an ugly young cat after all of her other siblings had been adopted. She had chronic stomach problems even as a kitten, more whiskers on one side of her face than the other, making her look lopsided, was freakishly huge, even as a kitten, and had a hopelessly bad attitude that she never outgrew. It was love at first hiss.

So nobody was more surprised than I was to find that none of this mattered while I was stroking her ears for the last time and watching the lights slowly go out for my cantankerous kitty for the last time, and feeling totally devastated, while the vet tried not to look at me, and my husband stared very hard at a spot on the floor.

Artists paint when emotion moves them. Musicians make music. I find the same comfort in my kitchen, and newly this year, my garden. The active meditation that both afford is peaceful, and making something from nothing appeals to me. Especially if it’s something that can be shared. So for no good reason other than the comfort of doing it, I spent the afternoon turning summer’s constant nuisance crop, zucchini, into something even people who hate zucchini love. I made zucchini fritters.

My grandmother used to make them every summer at the cottage, and the smell of them cooking is one of those childhood sense memories that always makes me happy. I’ve changed the recipe to suit my own tastes over the years, but the foundation was hers.

Zucchini Fritters

Makes 3-5 dozen. You can easily halve the quantities, but WHY? People always have too much zucchini, and you can never have too many doughnuts. Also, zucchini lovers proselytize zucchini haters, hoping to convert them. This is a good recipe for doing that.

WHAT

5 cups all purpose flour (use dipping method)
1/2 cup cornstarch
2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp kosher salt
2 tsp ground nutmeg
2 tsp ground cinnamon
2 cups sugar
2tbsp unsalted butter (let it come to room temperature in the bowl of your mixer, or in a large mixing bowl while you collect the other ingredients)
2/3 cup milk
2 cups grated zucchini (about two small) Don’t let your zucchini grow too big unless you plan to stuff them. Otherwise about 8″ is good for picking. Otherwise they become tough, and can get bitter
2 large eggs
2 large egg yolks
Canola oil for frying (I buy it in 4L jugs)
2 tsp lime zest

Glaze

4 cups icing sugar
1 tsp lemon extract
1 tsp lime zest
3-5 tbsp water
HOW

I’ve assumed a stand mixer, otherwise use an additional large mixing bowl where I reference the bowl of your stand mixer. I no longer have the strength in my hands to manually mix stiff batter, but anyone with two working hands can do perfectly well with a little elbow grease and a wooden spoon.

In a large mixing bowl, combine the flour, the cornstarch, the baking powder, the kosher salt, the nutmeg, lime zest and the cinnamon. Stir to combine.

In the bowl of your stand mixer (or your other large mixing bowl) dump the sugar into the butter, and beat with the paddle attachment until it looks like crumbs. Add the eggs, and mix at medium until it looks like a soft, yellow batter. Add the blast shield, and then spoon in the dry ingredients, the milk and the zucchini. Scrape the sided often, since I find with the paddle if I miss this, I’ll end up with an unmixed layer on the outside of the bowl, and it’s a pain in the hoop to clean and messes up the recipe, since half the dry ingredients remain unmixed, as concrete on the side of the bowl.

Once combined, fill a deep frying pan with your favourite cooking oil and set to medium heat. Don’t use olive oil for frying sweets. 1. They’ll taste like olives. 2. Olive oil burns at a much lower temperature. Use canola, vegetable, safflower or peanut.

Go for a smoke, surf the internet for a bit, flip a load of laundry, or in my case, console the surviving cat, who has been wandering from room to room looking for his missing companion. Give the oil time to get hot.

Addendum: I’ve assumed you’re not a total idiot, and won’t really leave a pan full of hot oil unattended.

Once your oil is hot (you’ll know because a small bit of the batter dropped in will boil and bubble) drop rounded teaspoonfuls of batter in, and cook approx 2-3 min per side. Look for bubbles around the edges, like you would if cooking pancakes, prior to flipping. Each side should be golden. If they’re cooked through, the side facing down after you flip them should begin to split, just like a loaf of zucchini bread will split along the top when done.

Drain on a wire rack, under which you’ve placed waxed paper, paper towel, or both, because you’re not into cleaning your countertops with a putty knife.

For the glaze

Mix the lime zest, icing sugar, lemon extract and enough water to form a thick glaze. Thin enough to qualify as a liquid, thick enough to stick to your spoon. While they’re still warm, dip the fritters, both sides, and return to your wire rack until glaze is set. Lick the bowl while nobody is looking because it’s too good to waste, but irresponsible to eat on toast.

Try not to eat them all before you get to share them with at least one zucchini hater. They really are delicious.

Basic Rolled Sugar Cookies

26 Wednesday Mar 2014

Posted by JennB in Recipes

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baking, cooking, cooking with kids, sugar cookies

Basic Rolled Sugar Cookies

Publishing now in preparation for the weekend. I’m an idiot, so I’ve agreed to make cookies and Pirogies simultaneously with children, and my giant man-child of a best friend.

Send wine.

These are a tried and true recipe that uses granulated sugar instead of confectioner’s sugar. I prefer the texture and find the dough nicer to work with than the powdered sugar variety. I use orange or lemon extract, but almond and maple both work. I’ve also used mint and added crushed peppermints. You can also leave the extract out and add pumpkin pie spice and make spiced sugar cookies. Whatever spins your particular touque.

When baking with kids (or brilliant but highly unfocused and hyperactive adults) I strongly recommend a good night’s sleep followed by liberal amounts of coffee before you even start assembling your ingredients. Add grappa, Bailey’s, Kahluah or Lorazepam to taste. I’m a huge advocate of starting kids in the kitchen as soon as they are able to stand unaided, but when they’re young it’s important to make sure it’s a positive experience. I joke, but If you can’t be naturally zen about the inevitable mess, and the extra work involved in letting little ones ‘help’, use whatever resources work to put you in the right headspace. If not, take them to the park instead. Stop at the bakery or grocery store on the way home and let someone else do the baking. You’ll all be happier. If you’re going to be impatient and bent out of shape over the mess and extra work, all they’ll remember is that cooking is awful and makes people miserable. Since getting sick, I’ve found I really do have to plan for a big cooking day, and allow for rest both before and after. With very young children, I do the baking ahead of time, and just let them help with decorating instead. Allow lots of time. Cooking for me is like any other art. It’s a chance to focus on something creative and just let everything else go. If you can approach it as making art together, cooking with kids can be a great experience. Making things together is a great way to connect. COOKING together gives you an opportunity to do a craft, nurture a life skill and give a science lesson all at the same time.

WHAT

3/4 Cup shortening (margarine works, or part butter part margarine
1 cup granulated sugar
2 eggs
1/2 teaspoon lemon flavouring or vanilla (use the good stuff!)
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt

This recipe doubles and triples easily without adjustment. I often make two doubles at a time.

HOW

Mix shortening, sugar, eggs and whatever flavour extract you chose thoroughly until combined. For me this means dumping them all into the bowl of the stand mixer with the paddle attachment and letting the mixer do the work, but a mixing bowl and hand mixer, or serious determination with a spoon, will work.

In a separate bowl, stir together flour, baking powder and salt. Measure the flour by dipping method, never just scoop with your measuring cup. It compacts the flour, you’ll end up with too much and your dough will be dry. Also, your cookies will be bulletproof.

Mix the dry ingredients into the wet a little at a time until thoroughly combined to form a soft dough. If you have a stand mixer, little people like seem to like adding scoopfuls of flour and watching it mix. Unless you like having your entire kitchen covered in flour, use the blast shield.

Divide dough. For each single batch I roll two separate balls. Wrap in plastic wrap and chill for an hour or so. I also make kids help with cleanup and dishes, and this is when we do it. I DETEST finishing with a messy kitchen, so we clean as we go. There will be more than enough mess at the end anyway.

When you’re ready to start rolling, heat oven to 400 degrees.

Clean and lightly flour your work surface, rolling-pin and cookie cutters. Roll to 1/8″. Really. They don’t need to be thick. This dough puffs up quite a bit. My personal preference is parchment lined, double layer, air-filled aluminum pans, but work with what you have. Parchment will make you happier, but these will work on a plain, ungreased baking sheet.

Bake for 6-8 minutes. They really don’t take long. As soon as they start to smell good, they’re done. They should be just slightly golden on the bottom. Let ’em cool on the pan for a couple of minutes before you try moving them, then remove to a wire rack to cool completely.
To decorate, my personal preference is to use an ice-cube tray, a bulk package of vegan royal icing mix and a whole stash of Wilton’s paste food colouring. The kid that comes in little pots. Mix a big bowl of the icing to a paintable consistency (add a drop or two of whatever extract flavoured your cookies, then pour into the ice trays. You can now use the tray as a palate, and mix colours to your heart’s desire. Use good quality paint brushes (I have a set that I ONLY use for this purpose) and you can paint whatever you like onto your cookies. In about 30 min the icing dries solid, and your cookies are stackable.

Have fun!

Meh.

Weeping Angel Cookies

Minion cookies

MOAR minion cookies

Zombie cookies

Ninja cookies

Braised Brisket and Two-Tone Yeast Bread

19 Monday Aug 2013

Posted by JennB in Recipes

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Tags

baking, cooking

Braised Beef Brisket

Prep- 15 mins. Cook 3-4 hours

At least half the meals I cook in our house need to feed 6-10 people, and I often don’t know for sure how many when I start, so things need to be easily adjustable. I like this recipe because I can add extra vegetables, bread or biscuits easily to stretch when I suddenly wind up with 12 at the table, or leftovers are easily wrapped in puff pastry to make Cornish pasties if it turns out to have just been the three of us.

When you feed a crowd as often as I do, you learn how to make the most out of inexpensive ingredients. While still considered a ‘prime cut’, brisket, which is the breast muscle, is one of the least tender cuts of beef available, and therefore lower in price. There are two types of brisket, the point, which is from the top, generally has a fat cap and is a little better marbled, and the flat, which is…well…flat. Flats are usually the cheapest. They’re often packed more as an afterthought than anything, and readily available from any grocery store that has a butcher in house. The one I used today was a little under $6.00, and had virtually no fat, or marbling to redeem it. These cuts can be a recipe for shoe leather if you’re not careful what you do with them. Prepared this way, the meat is fork tender, and even picky kids (or say, red meat averse cooks) will eat it.

WHAT

A flat beef brisket.
Peppercorns, chopped garlic, sea salt, dried onion, mustard seed- whatever combination floats your goat as a spice rub. Mine’s never the same twice. You can also buy ‘steak spice’ already made.
2-4 tbsp cooking oil (I avoid olive oil for this, since it burns at a lower temp than say, canola)
6-8 medium new potatoes
4-6 medium carrots
A large sweet onion
Beer of your choice (I use whatever guests leave behind, since I don’t drink beer. Today it was a pumpkin stout from some yuppie craft brewery) Beef likes strong beers, like ambers or stouts.
2 tbsp of tomato paste (optional)

EITHER

2 tbsp cornstarch and beef stock concentrate (or powder, or onion soup base, whatever you have- most cooking is pretty flexible, depending on what’s handy.)

2 tbsp Beef Bisto (traditional, not instant)

2 tbsp Flour and Worcester sauce for the traditionalists
HOW

Brush brisket with enough oil to make the spices stick, and season liberally, both sides. Heat another 2-4 of tablespoons of oil in large dutch oven (or your big spaghetti pot, whatever you have on hand. See? Flexible.), on stove top over medium heat.

Sear brisket on all sides, and then reduce temperature to simmer.

Add the beer. A single bottle is plenty. If using it, stir in the tomato paste until blended.

From here you can go two ways, either will work. You can stick with the stove-top if you don’t own a dutch oven, and your pot has plastic handles that will melt, or you can put the lid on your oven safe pot, and put it in the oven at 350. If sticking with the stove top, put the lid on and REALLY, reduce to SIMMER, no more. Meat’s weird. If you boil it, it will get tough. When braising, liquid should only just cover the meat, and it should never actively boil.

No go find something to do for 3 hours or so. Catch up on missed episodes of whatever tiddles your winks, take a nap, play with the kids, build a website…Maybe make the bread pictured above. (recipe to follow)

With about an hour to go, peel and chop onions and carrots into large chunks and add ’em to the pot. New potatoes are best just washed and quartered, not peeled. Chuck them in also. Put the lid back on, return to stove top/oven, and call your mom, or see if anything interesting is happening on Facebook. About an hour. Since I stuck with the stove top today, this was when I put the bread in the oven, so it would all be ready more or less together.

Once carrots and potatoes are fork tender, remove to serving platter. Lift the brisket out, and let it stand on the cutting board for a few minutes while you thicken the beer into a gravy. Turn up the heat under the remaining pan juices. Take a minute to stir while it heats back up so you can deglaze the pan you messed up when searing the meat at the beginning. It will make the gravy taste better, and make the pot easier to wash later. Whether using starch or flour, blend thoroughly with enough cold water to make an emulsion. I always add a little beef stock to cover the taste of the thickener, but do whatever you like. Whisk emulsion into boiling pan juices and let it bubble until it thickens. It should only take a minute or two. if it takes longer, you need more of whatever your thickening agent was.

NEVER ADD FLOUR OR CORNSTARCH DIRECTLY TO A HOT LIQUID.

Unless you really hate the people you’re cooking for and have a backup plan for feeding yourself.

Back to the brisket that’s been resting on the cutting board. LOOK AT IT before you cut it. Meat should always be cut across the grain, never with it, or you’ll end up with meat flavoured chewing gum. For most flat briskets, that means you have to cut it in half with the grain once, to get manageable cross-grain slices. Lay them across your platter of vegetables, and drizzle some of the stout/beer of your choice reduction over the lot.

Now you can serve to the table with only one dish. Another preference of mine when cooking for crowds.
TWO TONE YEAST BREAD

One of my son’s favourites. Showy, but not terribly difficult. I especially like the sweetness of the molasses bread with honey, for breakfast, personally. For rising, I usually just use my oven. I set a small glass or metal bowl full of water in the bottom, and heat to about 225. As soon as it indicates it’s up to temperature, I turn it off, wait about 5 min, and let the bread rise in the warm, humid space.

WHITE BREAD

WHAT

1 pkg (that’s 2 1/4 teaspoons for those of us who use enough of it to justify buying in bulk) active dry yeast
1 1/2 cups warm milk (110-115 degrees. Think comfortable bath temperature)
2 tbsp plus 1 & 1/2 teaspoons sugar
2 tbsp plus 1 & 1/2 teaspoons shortening (this is just a little bigger than a golf ball)
1 & 1/2 teaspoons salt
3 & 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

HOW

In a large bowl, or for me, the bowl of my beloved stand mixer, with the paddle attachment to start, dissolve the yeast in the warm milk. Add the sugar, shortening, salt, and 2 cups of the flour. Beat on medium speed (or by hand, with moderate enthusiasm) for about 3 mins. Stir in enough of the flour to make a soft, sticky dough. If you’re using the stand mixer, just switch to the dough hook and then add the rest of the flour. If doing it the hard way, turn the dough out onto a floured surface, and knead in the rest of the flour by hand. The dough should be smooth and elastic at this point.

Spray the inside of a large glass or metal mixing bowl with cooking spray, and put the dough in the bowl, turning once to coat. Cover with a clean dishtowel and set in a warm place to rise. About one hour, though bread rarely suffers from a LONGER rising time.

WHOLE WHEAT/MOLASSES BREAD

WHAT

HOW

In a large bowl, or for me, the bowl of my beloved stand mixer, with the paddle attachment to start, dissolve the yeast in the warm milk. Add the sugar, shortening, salt, molasses and all-purpose flour. Beat on medium speed (or by hand, with moderate enthusiasm) for about 3 mins. Stir in enough of the flour to make a soft, sticky dough. If you’re using the stand mixer, just switch to the dough hook and then add the rest of the flour and let it do the work. If doing it the hard way, turn the dough out onto a floured surface, and knead in the whole wheat flour by hand. The dough should be smooth and elastic at this point.

Yes, lazy blogger is lazy and TOTALLY copy/pasted most of that.

Spray two loaf pans with cooking spray

Once dough has doubled in size, punch it down by pressing into the center of the bowl and turning the sides inward. Divide each dough in half.

On a lightly floured surface, press half of the white dough into a more or less 9 X 12 rectangle.

Set aside.

Now do the same thing with half of the molasses dough. It might be a little denser/stickier. Don’t worry about it. Lay the rectangle of the molasses dough onto the rectangle of the white dough and go for a smoke or have a cup of coffee or something. They need to stick together. Beginning with the short edge, roll together to form a log, and pinch the seam to seal. Pay attention when you’re doing this, since air bubbles or too much flour between the layers will cause your layers to separate after baking. Makes sandwiches a pain later. Place log seam side down, into prepared loaf pan. Repeat with other half of the dough. Cover and let rise again. Depending on the day, this could be 30 min to an hour or more. Bread’s really an all day kind of project. It should about double in size, and puff nicely over the top of the pan. Bake at 375 degrees approx 40-50 min, or until tops are golden, and loaves sound hollow when tapped with your asbestos mom fingers.

Let cool completely on wire rack, and try not to eat it all. It’s too pretty not to share.

Baked Sour Cream Chocolate Glazed Doughnuts

22 Monday Jul 2013

Posted by JennB in Recipes

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baking, cooking, doughnuts

It’s sour cream chocolate cake, but shaped like a doughnut, which makes it a responsible breakfast food.

For the Doughnuts

WHAT

1 cup flour
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup cocoa powder
1/4 cup mini chocolate chips (optional)
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 egg
6 tablespoons sour cream
1/4 cup milk
1/4 cup vegetable oil

HOW

Preheat oven to 375.
In a medium mixing bowl, (or the bowl of the stand mixer) combine the flour, sugar, cocoa powder, chocolate chips, and baking soda.
In a separate bowl, beat together the vanilla, egg, sour cream, milk, and oil.
Stir the wet ingredients into the dry until just combined.
Pipe into a greased doughnut pan. I LOVE disposable piping bags, but a large Zip-lock with one corner cut off will do the job. To minimize mess, and free up your hands, stand the piping bag up in a pint glass. Now you can use both hands.
Bake for 8 minutes or until the tops spring back when you touch them.
Allow doughnuts to cool a few minutes in the pan, and then cool completely on a wire rack before glazing. This recipe makes 8-9 doughnuts. I usually double it and get three doughnut pans worth. These rise a fair bit, as long as your baking soda hasn’t had more birthdays than you have, so don’t overfill the pans.

For the glaze

WHAT

2 1/2 cups icing sugar

3tbsp milk

3tbsp butter

1tsp vanilla

Mix all ingredients in a saucepan over low heat until butter is melted and mixture is thin and smooth. It should only ever be warm, not hot. Set wire racks over waxed paper on counter. Dip doughnuts, allowing extra to run off and remove to wire rack to set. While glaze is wet, if you like, sprinkle shredded coconut, chopped nuts or sprinkles.

Eat yours before you tell anyone else they’re ready. They go fast.

The original recipe calls for 6 tbsp of whole milk. I don’t have whole milk in the house, and I find straight milk glazes start to get skunky after a day or so. Substituting half butter makes a more durable glaze, that should stand up for a few days under a cake dome. I never store anything iced or glazed in an airtight container, it makes them soggy. Invest in a cake dome, or store in a container with the lid just resting on the top.

Cinnamon Streusel Mulberry Muffins

29 Saturday Jun 2013

Posted by JennB in Uncategorized

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baking, cooking, recipes

I hate mulberries. Not the flavour or texture or anything. I hate the mess. I was already living under a catalpa, a basswood, and a northern black maple, all of which lean over my tiny 16′ X 20 patio. I’d already gotten used to needing a snow shovel for 10 months of the year if I intended to use my patio. When the houseful of post-grad students next door to me let a mulberry tree grow RIGHT on the fenceline between our two tiny little yards, rather than pull it out before it could do any damage, I figured it was no big deal, ’cause the mess certainly couldn’t get any worse.

I figured wrong.

Mulberry trees are crazy messy. And they draw pests. Every night, under my window I listen to raccoons, possums, skunks and heaven knows what else rooting around my yard after mulberries, and every morning, just before dawn, an epic battle between blue jays, robins, and squirrels rages right under my window, tormenting both cats, as every other living thing in my neighbourhood fights over fruit, and then shits all over my patio furniture. The roots are heaving my patio pavers along the fence line, and I sweep, and then SHOVEL buckets full of berries out into the common green space on the other side of my gate (for the landscapers to deal with) at least twice a day. As I write this, there are now two of them (berries, not landscapers) floating in my coffee.

I hate that effing tree.

I also hate the idea of wasting anything that could be made useful. So with the burst of hyper-kinetic energy that arrives within a day or two of a chemo treatment, Boi and I were out early this morning, collecting the nicest of them before shoveling the rest out the gate, since if we leave them standing, we end up with mice, squirrels and far creepier critters constantly visiting our tiny yard in search of food, and I’d already filled the neighbours’ mailbox with them. Being on chemo means having virtually no immune system, so any and all fresh produce, regardless of origin is soaked in a vinegar/water solution for 10 min or so before being rinsed and dried for use. Normally both boys are sort ambivalent about eating fruit, but if I put enough cinnamon streusel topping on it, they’ll eat pretty much anything. So I adapted an old coffee cake recipe and made Cinnamon Streusel Mulberry Muffins.

WHAT

Muffins

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup white sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/3 cup vegetable oil (you can lower the fat/calories by substituting an equal amount of unsweetened apple sauce. It will produce a tougher texture though)
1 egg
1/3 cup milk
1 cup fresh mulberries (Use more if you like. They’re all over the damned place! I will cheerfully mail you some if you don’t have a mulberry tree of your own!)

Topping

1/2 cup white sugar
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup butter, cubed
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

HOW

Oven 400 degrees

Grease 8 large muffin cups. My muffin pan has 12 cups. I always fill the empty ones with water to avoid damaging the non-stick coating by baking empty.

Combine flour, sugar, salt and baking powder in large mixing bowl. Or if you’re me, in the bowl of your stand mixer. Fill measuring cup with 1/3 cup oil. Crack the egg into that, then top with milk until the cup is full. Pour this into the dry ingredients and mix until combined. FOLD in the berries. Don’t use the mixer for those, or you’ll end up breaking them and you’ll have lovely purple muffins with no discernable fruit. Unless you want that. I have kids. They like purple food.

For the topping, combine cinnamon with sugar, flour and cubed butter. The original directions say to just mash it with a fork, which I’m sure will work for most of you, but owing to non-working fingers (the result of a progressive auto-immune condition that causes arthritis, among other things) I have to use a pastry cutter. The result should be a coarse crumb.

Spoon batter TO FILL muffin cups. Top with as much of the cinnamon crumb as you can jam on without it falling off all over the bottom of the oven. (the bits left on the pan when you’re done are your reward for not just eating it all with a spoon)

Bake on center rack 20-25 minutes or until a wooden toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean. Anytime they start to smell good is a good time to look in on them if you’re like me and don’t really ‘time’ anything.

Allow to cool a few minutes in the pan while you pick at any stray bits of topping that may have fallen off your muffins, and now be looking lonely, and in need of eating. Remove to wire rack and let ’em cool most of the way. Serve slightly warm with butter, jam or whatever blows up your particular kilt.

Basic White Cake

26 Sunday May 2013

Posted by JennB in Uncategorized

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

baking, cooking

So my 9 y/o has taken up Minecraft. Apparently cake is a THING in Minecraft. Enough of a thing to have its own song. (<—- Link to the ten-hour loop, so you can experience what it’s like to live with a 9 y/o who never stops singing it. ) Boi has decided he’s interested enough in cake to actually want to make a real one. In spite of the mess, whenever Boi shows interest in learning something useful, I try to accommodate it. I enjoy the time with him, and as a mother, I generally consider my job to be, ultimately, to parent myself out of a job. Cooking is a fundamental life skill. It will save him a ton of money as an adult, give him a lot more control over what he and his family consume than he would have were he depending on prepared or processed foods, and hopefully someday serve as the same social anchor for his home one day that my kitchen is in mine.

We’re sort of big on from scratch cooking in our house, owing to hereditary chemical sensitivities, and general squeamishness with regards to preservatives and unlisted food additives, so when we bake a cake, with few exceptions, we do it from scratch. This is a simple white cake recipe that goes with everything, can be frosted whatever way you like and easily converts to other flavours, just by exchanging the vanilla extract for say, lemon. Or maple. Or rum. If you like spices, add 2 tsp of pumpkin pie spice and make spice cake. It’s that simple.

As I’ve begun to lose some of the use of my hands owing to an autoimmune condition that includes rheumatoid arthritis, my in-laws bought me a Kitchenaid stand mixer for Christmas, since I can no longer mix by hand. If you don’t have the same issues, your hand mixer, or even a whisk and some enthusiasm will serve you just as well.

WHAT

2 cups all purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/8 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup shortening (or butter, or margarine, you can substitute whatever you have)

1 3/4 cups sugar

4 egg whites

1 1/3 cups buttermilk (Note: normal people don’t keep buttermilk in the house. Take a tablespoon of lemon juice and put it in a bowl. Then pour 1 1/3 cups milk over it, stir, and let it stand for about a minute. Voila. Buttermilk.)

HOW

Oven 350 degrees

Grease and flour your cake pan (s) Pick 2 8″ or 9″ rounds, or an 8″ or 9″ square. If you really want easy removal, line the bottom with parchment. The easiest way to do this is to use the bottom of your cake pan to trace the shape onto the parchment, then cut it out and put in the bottom of your pan.

In a medium mixing bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt, then set aside.

In the bowl of your stand mixer, or just a large mixing bowl if your in-laws don’t love you as much as mine love me, cream the 1/2 cup of butter, margarine or shortening. Add the sugar and vanilla, and beat until well combined. Add the egg whites one at a time, beating well after each one. Add the dry ingredients in two steps, alternating with two additions of the buttermilk. (so half the dry, half the buttermilk, repeat) Beat on low speed until just combined. Pour into prepared pan (s) If you want to make coconut cake, this is a good time to add 1/4 cup of unsweetened flaked coconut.

Bake on center rack at 350 degrees 30-35 minutes. 45-50 if using a single pan.

While it’s baking is a good time to teach your kid about cleaning as he goes. Yes. I made him help with the dishes.

Cook times and oven temperatures vary, so pay attention and check on it when it starts to smell good. It’s done when a wooden toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. If you don’t have wooden toothpicks, use your asbestos mom fingers and give it a gentle poke. If it springs back, it’s a good indicator that it’s done. Cool cakes IN PANS on wire racks for 10 min. Remove from pans, and cool completely on racks.

Basic White Frosting

WHAT

1 cup shortening

1 1/2 teaspoons vamilla

1/2 teaspoon lemon, orange, or almond extract (whatever blows up your particular kilt)

4 1/2 cups sifted powdered sugar

3-4 tablespoons of milk

Paste icing colours to satisfy a 9 y/o who wants his cake to look like a minecraft ‘creeper’.

HOW

Beat shortening, vanilla and extract on setting 3 of stand mixer or with electric mixer on medium for about 30 seconds. Add HALF of the powdered sugar and mix well. Add 2 tbsp of milk, gradually beating in enough of the powdered sugar and milk to reach spreading consistency.

Baked Coconut-Lime Doughnuts

24 Friday May 2013

Posted by JennB in Uncategorized

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Tags

baking, cooking

Baked Coconut-Lime Doughnuts with Tart Lime Glaze (adapted from flavorthemoments.com)

So, now that I’m a grown up, it turns out that neither margaritas nor Pina Coladas are considered responsible breakfast options. At least, not on weekdays. Since you’ve read my previous posts, you’ve already taken my excellent advice, (unless you’re the one person on the planet who ignores all of my pithy wisdom) and invested in a doughnut pan or two. Yes, you can make all of my doughnut recipes in a muffin pan, but the doughnut pan produces a much nicer result. They’re also smaller than muffins, which, for those of us who have trouble facing food first thing in the morning, is a good thing. This recipe is the most respectable way I could think of to combine a margarita and a pina colada for breakfast, and still be able to drive the kids to school, and meet the teacher without anyone calling social services because you’re drunk at 8:30 in the morning. The original recipe called for coconut milk, which I find repulsive, and which is VERY high in saturated fat, so I substitute coconut water, which produces a lighter result, and doesn’t have as heavy a flavour. These have a muffin like texture, and the tart, lime glaze is very refreshing. This is easy to double or triple when cooking for a crowd, and pairs well with tequila if you’re one of the ‘breakfast of champions’ crowd.

WHAT

1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened (really, use what you have)

3/4 cup granulated sugar

1 tablespoon fresh lime zest

1 egg

1/3 cup unsweetened finely shredded coconut

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour (use dipping method to measure or you’ll have coconut-lime flavoured bricks)

2 1/4 teaspoons baking powder (If you don’t bake regularly, check to make sure it’s younger than you are)

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup coconut water

1/4 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Glaze:
1 1/2 cup powdered sugar

2 tablespoons fresh lime juice (Concentrate works just as well, but what else are you going to do with the lime you just zested?)

2 tablespoons of coconut water

zest of 1 lime, divided

3/4 cup sweetened shredded coconut

HOW

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Spray the cavities of (2) 6-cavity doughnut pans.

Cream the butter, sugar, and lime zest in a large bowl until light and fluffy. Add the egg and beat just until blended. Stir in the coconut. Or if you’re me, dump it all into the bowl of your stand mixer with the paddle attachment, set it to 3, and go WWILF (What Was I Looking For?) around on the Internets for a few minutes.

Stir the vanilla into the 1/2 cup of coconut water and set that aside. combine the remaining dry ingredients in a medium bowl. Add the flour mixture in 3 stages, alternating with the coconut water, beating after each addition until blended. Fill the doughnut cavities 2/3 full of batter and bake for 18-20 minutes. Really, DON’T OVERFILL THEM! You’ll end up with giant, delicious, lime coconut flavoured, hideous mushroom shaped thingies! Oven temperatures vary, and so do cooking times, depending on a lot of things. My rule is ‘when it starts to smell good, go check on it’. If it starts to smell bad deny everything and destroy the evidence. Cool in the pan for 2-3 minutes, then remove and cool completely.

Prepare the Glaze:
In a small bowl, combine the powdered sugar, lime juice, half of the reserved lime zest, and coconut water until smooth. Place the sweetened shredded coconut and remaining lime zest on a plate and toss to combine. Dip the cooled doughnuts in the glaze, then immediately into the shredded coconut. Stop licking your fingers! Other people have to eat those! Place on a cooling rack over parchment or paper towels at room temperature until set, unless you LIKE cleaning your countertops with a putty knife. Lick the bowl before anyone else comes home to see you. Double check to make sure you don’t still have icing in your eyebrows before the kids get home.

Store doughnuts in a cake dome at room temperature for 2-3 days. Or just eat them all before you end up having to share. Avoid air tight containers, they will make baked goods soggy.

Nation of Three

~ Domestic chaos at its finest.

Tag Archives: baking

Millionaire Shortbread

Steel-cut Irish Oatmeal, Pumpkin Pie Edition (Stovetop Method)

Glazed Zucchini Fritters

Basic Rolled Sugar Cookies

Braised Brisket and Two-Tone Yeast Bread

Baked Sour Cream Chocolate Glazed Doughnuts

Cinnamon Streusel Mulberry Muffins

Basic White Cake

Baked Coconut-Lime Doughnuts

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