Orange Knots

Posted on September 2, 2011 by sparecake

These were originally called Orange Bow Knots. While I was shaping them, however, I sort of forgot the bow part, and just went with the knot, so they’re sort of lumpy knot balls. Despite not being cute, they’re really nice! You can really taste the orange juice in the dough, which hasn’t been the case with some fruit baked goods I’ve tried. They’re really light, and have a tasty glaze. I support it! I might make them again soon with soy milk for my vegan friend that is currently sharing his hemp milk ice cream with me. (Honestly, it’s not nearly as gross as it sounds! Real ice cream is better, but this is fudgey and …as good as vegan things are ever going to be?!)

Ingredients:

Dough:

  • 1 package active dry yeast
  • 1/4 cup warm water (105 degrees to 115 degrees)
  • 1 cup warm milk (110 to 115 degrees F)
  • 1/2 cup shortening
  • 1/3 cup sugar
  • 1/4 cup orange juice
  • 2 tablespoons grated orange peel
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 2 eggs
  • 5 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

Icing:

  • 1 cup confectioners’ sugar
  • 2 tablespoons orange juice
  • 1 teaspoon grated orange peel

Combine the water and yeast in a large bowl. Dissolve the best you can, but it’s not very much water for dissolving that much yeast. Add the milk, shortening, sugar, orange juice and zest, salt, eggs, and three cups of flour. Stir until smooth.

Stir in enough remaining flour to form a soft dough. I added a cup and a half.

Turn onto a lightly floured surface, and knead until smooth and elastic, 6-8 minutes. While kneading I added another half cup of flour, bringing it up to 5 cups total.

Place in a greased bowl, turning once to grease the top. Cover and let rise in a warm place until doubled, about 75 minutes. Punch the dough down, and turn onto a lightly floured surface. Divide the dough in half, and then divide each half into 12 balls.

Roll each ball into a 10″ rope, then tie into a knot. Tuck the ends under, then place on greased baking sheets 2″ apart.

Cover and let rise until doubled, about 45 minutes. Bake 12-15 minutes or until golden brown.

Stir together the icing ingredients, and drizzle over the knots.

The shortening gives these a really nice texture.

I had forgotten how good oranges are until now. Apparently I like them quite a bit!

I’ll be submitting this to YeastSpotting, which, as always, you should check out if you want some bread inspiration.

Orange Bow Knots

From Allrecipes.

Dough:

  • 1 (.25 ounce) package active dry yeast
  • 1/4 cup warm water (105 degrees to 115 degrees)
  • 1 cup warm milk (110 to 115 degrees F)
  • 1/2 cup shortening
  • 1/3 cup sugar
  • 1/4 cup orange juice
  • 2 tablespoons grated orange peel
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 2 eggs
  • 5 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

Icing:

  • 1 cup confectioners’ sugar
  • 2 tablespoons orange juice
  • 1 teaspoon grated orange peel

In a large bowl, dissolve yeast in warm water. Add the milk, shortening, sugar, orange juice and peel, salt, eggs, and three cups flour. Mix until smooth. Add enough of the remaining flour to form a soft dough.

Turn onto a lightly floured surface and knead until smooth and elastic, 6-8 minutes. Place in a greased bowl and rotate to grease all sides. Cover, and let rise until doubled, approximately 75 minutes.

Punch dough down and divide into two. Divide each half into 12 balls. Roll each ball into a 10″ rope and tie into a knot. Tuck the ends underneath. Place on greased baking sheets 2″ apart, cover, and let rise until doubled, about 45 minutes.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Bake 12 to 15 minutes, until golden brown. Remove to a wire rack to cool.

Stir together icing ingredients and drizzle over rolls.

Posted in Bread, Breakfast, Brunch | Tagged , | 7 Comments

Impossible to Wreck Chicken

Posted on August 31, 2011 by sparecake

My friend James and I made this Cooking Light recipe recently and did basically every thing wrong possible, but it still came out great. We used canned pineapple and corn instead of fresh, used some garlic pepper grinder thing because we didn’t have garlic powder, and dried basil. Even with all that, we couldn’t wreck it.

Ingredients:

  • cooking spray
  • 1 teaspoon garlic powder
  • 1 teaspoon ground cumin
  • 3/4 teaspoon salt, divided
  • 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
  • 1 1/4 pounds boneless chicken thighs (Cooking Light thinks that that’s 8 thighs, but it’s about 4 if you’re using non-organic, store brand, saline-pumped ones)
  • 2 cups cubed fresh pineapple (1 large can of crushed pineapple, drained)
  • 1/2 cup fresh corn kernels (canned worked)
  • 1/3 cup finely chopped red bell pepper
  • 1/4 cup thinly sliced fresh basil (or a random guesstimate of dried)
  • 3 tablespoons finely chopped red onion
  • 1 tablespoon cider vinegar
  • 1 teaspoon sugar

James grinding the garlic pepper stuff

Heat a grill pan over medium-high heat; lightly coat with cooking spray.

Combine garlic powder, cumin, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and pepper in a small bowl and sprinkle over the chicken. Add chicken to pan and cook ten minutes on each side, or until done.

After about 5 minutes we thought it looked like it was done on the first side, but the recipe was right, we ended up flipping it back over later.

Meanwhile, combine the rest of the ingredients in a medium bowl.

Serve relish over chicken. This recipe made the right amount of the spice mix for the chicken, but probably twice as much of the pineapple relish as you need. Gotta get rid of it somehow…

Yum!

Grilled Chicken Thighs with Pineapple, Corn, and Bell Pepper Relish

From Cooking Light.

  • cooking spray
  • 1 teaspoon garlic powder
  • 1 teaspoon ground cumin
  • 3/4 teaspoon salt, divided
  • 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
  • 1 1/4 pounds boneless chicken thighs
  • 2 cups cubed fresh pineapple
  • 1/2 cup fresh corn kernels
  • 1/3 cup finely chopped red bell pepper
  • 1/4 cup thinly sliced fresh basil
  • 3 tablespoons finely chopped red onion
  • 1 tablespoon cider vinegar
  • 1 teaspoon sugar

Heat a grill pan over medium-high heat; lightly coat with cooking spray. Combine garlic powder, cumin, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and pepper in a small bowl; sprinkle over chicken. Add chicken to pan; cook 10 minutes on each side or until done.

Meanwhile, combine remaining 1/4 teaspoon salt and remaining ingredients in a medium bowl. Serve relish over chicken.

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Lemon-Flavored Chocolate Muffins

Posted on August 29, 2011 by sparecake

For whatever reason, I was recently searching for breakfast items in a book called 1001 Chocolate Treats. Like y’do. I saw these lemon-flavored chocolate muffins and was curious, because I couldn’t remember if lemon and chocolate go particularly well together. (This happened before that tragic lemon and chocolate tart.) I would say these muffins are nice for variety if you’re somehow sick of normal chocolate chip muffins. The lemon is definitely noticeable (you can taste it if you warm a muffin and breathe near it), but doesn’t make them sour or gross. It works. I liked that, if you heated them up and then breathed in near them, you could taste lemon.

I had to make one substitution with this recipe because it calls for a cup of chocolate yogurt or sour cream, and I couldn’t find chocolate yogurt, or chocolate extract, at either of the two supermarkets near my house. Instead, I put a teaspoon of cocoa powder and a tablespoon of sugar in a 1 cup measuring cup, and then filled it the rest of the way with plain, unsweetened yogurt. I didn’t bother mixing and tasting that to see how good it was as chocolate yogurt, but it was fine in the muffins. You could actually probably bump up the cocoa and sugar a bit if you want a chocolate muffin with chocolate chips, as I don’t actually taste the cocoa much at all in the final muffin. Or, y’know, just find chocolate yogurt in the first place? Anyway…

Ingredients:

  • 2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 3/4 cup semisweet chocolate chips
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • grated zest of one lemon
  • 1/2 cup butter or margarine, at room temperature
  • 1 1/4 cup chocolate yogurt or sour cream
  • 1/4 cup fresh lemon juice

Combine flour, chocolate chips, baking soda, and lemon zest.

I love chocolate for breakfast!

In a large bowl, using an electric mixer on medium, cream the butter and sugar. Beat in the eggs and yogurt. Beat in the lemon juice. Gradually blend in the dry ingredients, blending until just moistened.

The recipe said to just grease a muffin tin… I wish I had lined it, as some of my muffins stuck and came apart a bit when I pried them out. So, spoon into a lined muffin tin.

Bake 30-35 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center of a muffin comes out clean. Cool in the pan for 10 minutes, then remove to a rack to cool completely.

I ate one out of the oven, cooled the rest on a rack and froze them in a ziplock. 40 seconds in the microwave, and they’ve been breakfast for days since!

Lemon-Flavored Chocolate Muffins

From 1001 Chocolate Treats.

  • 2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 3/4 cup semisweet chocolate chips
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • grated zest of one lemon
  • 1/2 cup butter or margarine, at room temperature
  • 1 1/4 cup chocolate yogurt or sour cream
  • 1/4 cup fresh lemon juice

Preheat oven to 375 degrees and line a muffin pan with muffin papers.

Combine flour, chocolate chips, baking soda, and lemon zest.

In a large bowl, using an electric mixer on medium, cream the butter and sugar. Beat in the eggs and yogurt. Beat in the lemon juice. Gradually blend in the dry ingredients, blending until just moistened. Spoon into the lined muffin cups.

Bake 30-35 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center of a muffin comes out clean. Cool in the pan 10 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack to cool completely.

Posted in Breakfast, Brunch | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Maple-Brined Pork

Posted on August 27, 2011 by sparecake

Dinner! Delicious, delicious dinner! I’ve never cooked pork before (bacon so doesn’t count, that’s practically another animal!), but I’m glad I tried this recipe, as it was really good and quite easy. The only hard part was finding a friend with a grill and getting our schedules aligned.

Ingredients:

  • 3 cups water
  • 1/2 cup fat-free, lower-sodium chicken broth
  • 1 tablespoon black peppercorns
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons whole allspice (I didn’t even know that was a thing until this recipe – I thought allspice was a combination of a few spices)
  • 4 garlic cloves, crushed
  • 1 bay leaf, crushed
  • 2 tablespoons plus 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt, divided
  • 2 1/2 tablespoons maple syrup, divided
  • 4 4-ounce boneless pork chops (I didn’t find boneless ones, so total mine were about a pound and a half, which was fine)
  • 1/2 teaspoon black pepper, divided
  • cooking spray
  • 2 tablespoons butter, melted
  • 2 ripe plums, halved and pitted
  • 2 ripe peaches, halved and pitted
  • 2 green onions, sliced (optional, I didn’t bother)

Place the water, broth, peppercorns, allspice, garlic, bay leaf, 2 tablespoons of salt and two tablespoons of syrup in a pot. Bring to a boil; boil until salt dissolves. Cool, and then put in a large ziplock with the pork. Chill in the refrigerator for 8 hours and then drain.

Porksac.

Preheat the grill to medium-high heat.

Sprinkle the pork with 1/4 teaspoon salt and 1/4 teaspoon pepper. Realistically, you don’t have to try too hard with the measuring, just sprinkle some on each side of the pork. Grill the pork on a rack coated with cooking spray for 3 minutes on each side, or until done. I suggest you don’t spray cooking spray on the grill rack while it’s over fire, or you’ll have a fireball. Our fire sort of died a bit, because the vents in the bottom of the grill were closed and we didn’t notice until the coals were half suffocated. Oops…

Because of that, I can’t really say if the suggested time is accurate, but ours, over the semi-dead took long enough that we ended up finishing off the fruit and one piece of pork under the broiler.

While the pork is cooking, combine 1 1/2 teaspoons syrup and the butter, and brush it onto the fruit. Sprinkle with the remaining 1/4 teaspoons of salt and pepper – again, don’t stress too much about precision.

Grill the fruit, cut sides down, for 3 minutes. Cut each peach and plum half in half again, and serve with the pork. Top with onions, if desired.

Didn't cut the fruit into quarters. OH NO.

I’m quite pleased with this. For whatever reason, the peaches absorb the flavor better than the plums, or maybe they just start out less strongly flavored so you notice the maple butter more? Either way, the fruit is good, the pork is good, and it’s a pretty low effort dinner. Try it out while the fruit’s still in season!

Maple-Brined Pork

From Cooking Light.

  • 3 cups water
  • 1/2 cup fat-free, lower-sodium chicken broth
  • 1 tablespoon black peppercorns
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons whole allspice
  • 4 garlic cloves, crushed
  • 1 bay leaf, crushed
  • 2 tablespoons plus 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt, divided
  • 2 1/2 tablespoons maple syrup, divided
  • 4 4-ounce boneless pork chops
  • 1/2 teaspoon black pepper, divided
  • cooking spray
  • 2 tablespoons butter, melted
  • 2 ripe plums, halved and pitted
  • 2 ripe peaches, halved and pitted
  • 2 green onions, sliced (optional)

Place first 6 ingredients, 2 tablespoons salt, and 2 tablespoons syrup in a pot. Bring to a boil; dissolve salt.

Cool, seal pork in brine in a ziplock bag. Chill 8 hours and then drain.

Preheat grill to medium-high heat, coat rack in cooking spray.

Sprinkle pork with 1/4 teaspoon salt and 1/4 teaspoon ground pepper. Grill pork for 3 minutes on each side, or until done.

Combine 1 1/2 teaspoons syrup and butter, brush onto fruit. Sprinkle with remaining 1/4 teaspoons salt and pepper. Grill fruit, cut sides down, for 3 minutes. Cut each peach and plum half in half again, serve with pork. Top with onions, if desired.

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Disaster Tart

Posted on August 25, 2011 by sparecake

This month the theme for Aspiring Bakers is pies and tarts, and I wanted to make at least one thing to submit (arg, posted 2 pies RIGHT before August started!).  Of course, I finally had time to make a tart, and pretty much everything went wrong. That said, what I managed to scrape together was delicious, and I’m sure if the recipe went right and your final product had the intended proportions, it’d be even better!

The main problem I had was that I didn’t measure my tart pan first, and it was an inch to big. That, combined with the fact that I left the nuts out of the crust so there was less crust material all around, meant that the crust was too small and let the inside leak ALL OVER. Oops…

Another, lesser issue, was that the recipe called for golden superfine sugar. After a bit of googling, it seems like the best you could do in America without some sort of specialist store is to put light brown sugar in the blender and try to chop the grains of sugar smaller. Because brown sugar clumps, you’ll have to shake the blender container several times during the blending. In the end, it’s not perfect, but I didn’t notice textural problems.

Ingredients:

Crust:

  • 3 1/2 ounces / 100 grams / 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
  • 1 ounce / 25 grams / 1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa
  • 2 3/4 ounces / 75 grams chilled, salted butter
  • 1 ounce / 25 grams / 1/4 cup ground almonds
  • 1 3/4 ounces  50 grams / 1/4 cup golden superfine sugar
  • 1 egg, beaten

Filling:

  • 4 eggs
  • 1 egg yolk
  • 7 ounces / 200 grams / 1 cup golden superfine sugar
  • 5 fluid ounces / 150 milliliter / 2/3 cup heavy cream
  • grated rind and juice of 2 lemons

Sift the flour and unsweetened cocoa into a food processor. Add the butter, almonds, sugar, and egg and process until the mixture forms a ball. I only have one of those little food processors, so I did it in two batches.

Chocolate poos?

Gather the dough together and press into a flattened ball.

Place in the center of an 8 1/2 inch loose-bottom tart pan and press evenly over the bottom of the pan with your fingers, then work the pie dough up the sides with your thumbs. Without the almonds, this was a sticky dough, and because the tart pan was an inch bigger than it was supposed to be, I didn’t have enough reach up the sides.

Cover the tart, and chill in the refrigerator for 30 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Prick the dough lightly with a fork, then cover with parchment paper and fill with pie weights. (If you don’t have pie weights, use dry, uncooked beans.) Bake for 12-15 minutes, until the dough no longer looks raw. Remove the weights and paper and bake a further 10 minutes. Let cool. Reduce oven to 300.

Oh dear, already shrunk smaller than the sides. Not good!

To make the filling, whisk the whole eggs, egg yolk, and sugar together until smooth. Add the cream and whisk again, then stir in the lemon rind and juice.

Pour the filling into the shell.

Oooooh god. Blame it on the earthquake??

Bake 50 minutes or until just set. It only took 28 minutes for me, because I’d lost so dang much lemon stuff.

Haggard.

Remove the tart ring and let cool.

As I said, even this mangled tart is delicious. If you do try it, and do it properly, I’m sure it’ll be even better!

It almost looks ok, here!

Lemon and Chocolate Tart

From Perfect Chocolate.

Crust:

  • 3 1/2 ounces / 100 grams / 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
  • 1 ounce / 25 grams / 1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa
  • 2 3/4 ounces / 75 grams chilled, salted butter
  • 1 ounce / 25 grams / 1/4 cup ground almonds
  • 1 3/4 ounces  50 grams / 1/4 cup golden superfine sugar
  • 1 egg, beaten

Filling:

  • 4 eggs
  • 1 egg yolk
  • 7 ounces / 200 grams / 1 cup golden superfine sugar
  • 5 fluid ounces / 150 milliliter / 2/3 cup heavy cream
  • grated rind and juice of 2 lemons

Sift the flour and unsweetened cocoa into a food processor. Add the butter, almonds, sugar, and egg and process until the mixture forms a ball. Gather the dough together and press into a flattened ball in the center of an 8 1/2″ loose-bottom tart pan. Work the pie dough over the bottom and up the sides of the pan. Cover and let chill for 30 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

Prick the dough base lightly with a fork, then line with parchment paper and fill with pie weights. Bake for 12-15 minutes, or until the dough no longer looks raw. Remove the weights and paper, return to the oven and bake for 10 minutes. Let cool. Reduce the oven temperature to 300 degrees.

To make the filling, whisk the whole eggs, egg yolk, and sugar together until smooth. Add the cream and whisk again, then stir in the lemon rind and juice. Pour the filling into the pastry shell and bake for 50 minutes, or until just set. When the tart is cooked, remove the tart ring and let cool.

Posted in Dessert | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Swiss Chocolate Squares

Posted on August 23, 2011 by sparecake

Several years ago a friend gave me this kind of ridiculous cookbook that’s all recipes off the back of packages. The book’s 30 years old now, so some of the products the recipes are from don’t even exist anymore, and a fair number of the recipes are just weird. Because they’re all from the backs of packages, though, they tend to be short, and reasonably hard to mess up. Still, though, pate out of liver baby food? Barf. I guess because of how weird some of the other sections are, I never really checked out the dessert section of the book until recently, when I was surprised at how many things in there I really want to try!

The first dessert recipe I checked out was the Swiss Chocolate Squares. These are basically a thin layer of cake (Alex says brownie, I disagree – it’s not dense enough to be a brownie) with a good fudgey frosting on top. The frosting is really what sells it, it’s super delicious. Kyle and his sister think that these were better on the second day, once the frosting had really had time to soak/smoosh into the top of the cake, and I don’t disagree – the texture of the cake still hasn’t started to go off, several days later. This recipe was originally from a Parkay package, so it’s got margarine in it – didn’t even know Parkay still existed until I just looked it up.

Oh, almost forgot – the best part about this was that I was able to make it using one pot, one spatula, a jelly roll, and no other pans, bowls, whisks or mixers!

Ingredients:

For the cake:

  • 1 cup water
  • 1/2 cup margarine
  • 1 1/2 1-ounce squares unsweetened chocolate
  • 2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 2 cups sugar
  • 2 eggs
  • 1/2 cup dairy sour cream (is there another kind?? I just used yogurt, since I had it…)
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt

For the frosting:

  • 1/2 cup margarine
  • 6 tablespoons milk
  • 1 1/2 1-ounce squares unsweetened chocolate
  • 4 1/2 cups sifted confectioners’ sugar
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla
  • 1/2 cup chopped nuts (I left this off. bleh.)

To make the cake: Combine water, margarine, and chocolate in saucepan; bring to boil. (I was originally concerned, since you generally heat chocolate over low heat, but I did this on medium and nothing burned.) Remove from heat.

Stir in flour and sugar.

Add the eggs, sour cream, baking soda, and salt and mix well.

Pour into a greased and floured 15 1/2 X 10 1/2″ jelly roll pan. I didn’t actually measure my pan, but it was the one of my two jelly roll pans that I trust not to collapse under weight… It was a close fit, but all the batter stayed in even as it rose in the oven.

Bake at 375 degrees 20-25 minutes. 20 did it for me.

While your cake is in the oven, scrape out anything left in your pot and…er, right, don’t lick the spatula, because you’re still cooking things you’re presumably sharing… You can get it reasonably clean enough, and the ingredients are similar enough, that I didn’t bother washing before starting the frosting.

Put the margarine, milk, and chocolate for the frosting in the pan. Once the cake’s out of the oven bring the mixture to a boil – for once you don’t want to wait for the cake to cool before starting on the frosting. Remove the boiling mixture from the heat and add the sugar, stirring until smooth. Stir in the vanilla.

Pour onto and smooth over the cake. If you want nuts, sprinkle them on now. Cool the cake and then cut into squares. You’ll probably want to do this over something (wax paper, newspaper, whatever), because it’s probably going to end up pouring over the edges.

After some counter cleaning...

Cool, and then cut into squares.

As I sort of mentioned, this keeps well, and is delicious!

Swiss Chocolate Squares

From the Favorite Brand Name Recipe Cookbook.

Cake:

  • 1 cup water
  • 1/2 cup margarine
  • 1 1/2 1-ounce squares unsweetened chocolate
  • 2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 2 cups sugar
  • 2 eggs
  • 1/2 cup dairy sour cream
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt

Frosting:

  • 1/2 cup margarine
  • 6 tablespoons milk
  • 1 1/2 1-ounce squares unsweetened chocolate
  • 4 1/2 cups sifted confectioners’ sugar
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla
  • 1/2 cup chopped nuts

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Grease and flour a jelly roll pan.

Combine water, margarine, and chocolate in saucepan; bring to boil Remove from heat. Stir in flour and sugar. Add eggs, sour cream, baking soda, and salt; mix well. Pour into jelly roll pan and bake 20 – 25 minutes.

Combine margarine, milk, and chocolate in saucepan; bring to boil. Remove from heat. Add sugar; beat until smooth. Stir in vanilla. Frost cake while warm; sprinkle with nuts. Cool; cut into squares.

Posted in Dessert | Tagged , , , | 5 Comments

Lasagna Cupcakes

Posted on August 21, 2011 by sparecake

Last February a friend sent me an article about lasagna cupcakes. That idea’s been bouncing around in my head since then, but this week I finally made them. I used this as a reason to make tomato sauce for the first time, and it was really delicious. Simple, but very nice.

Ingredients:

  • 2 pounds ripe tomatoes or 1 28 ounce can of peeled tomatoes
  • 5 tablespoons unsalted butter
  • 1 medium onion
  • dash of salt
  • 24 lasagna noodles
  • 3 chorizo sausages
  • roughly 2 ounces manchego cheese
  • 1/2 cup frozen peas

An easy way to peel the tomatoes, if you’re using fresh, is to put them in the freezer for several hours, until they’re hard. Thaw the frozen tomatoes in warm water and the skin will peel off pretty easily. If it’s not coming off, and your tomatoes had been frozen firm, then you may just need to let them thaw another few minutes.

I went to the farmers' market for this one.

Once the tomatoes are peeled, but before you start the real cooking parts, put 12 toothpicks in a glass of water to soak, and the peas in a dish on the counter to thaw.

Roughly chop the tomatoes (canned or fresh) into large chunks. Cut the onion in half and peel it. Place the tomatoes (and any juice that you can catch from the chopping), onion, butter, and salt in a saucepan and bring to a slow simmer.

The yellow tomato ends up the one that colors the whole sauce, somehow.

Continue to cook for approximately 45 minutes, or until it’s reached the thickness you like. Taste to see if it needs any more salt, and add if necessary.

The finished sauce - this'd make a fine spaghetti dinner sauce on it's own!

In the meantime, cook the lasagna noodles according to the package directions. While you wait, also cook the chorizo on the stove over medium high heat and cut each into 4 pieces (12 pieces total). Grate the manchego. For some reason I decided to use a vegetable peeler. It didn’t go well for the peeler. Don’t worry, you’ve got 45+ minutes to do all this, and it doesn’t matter if the chorizo gets cool again once it’s cooked.

Daaaaang!

When the sauce is the consistency you want, remove it from the heat. Fish out the onion halves and chop one of them into medium sized bits. Grease a cupcake pan. Lay lasagna noodles in an X over one of the cupcake spaces, press it into the depression, and fill with a chorizo piece and a bit of onion, a few peas, and some manchego.

Spoon in enough of the tomato sauce to cover everything, and then fold the noodle that was on top in you X over to cover the filling, cutting off excess with kitchen shears. Fold the outer noodle on top, again cutting off excess. Hold shut with one of your pre-soaked toothpicks.

Fairly tidy.

Repeat 11 more times.

I...had a counting problem...

Spoon additional sauce over the top of the cupcakes. I finished off my sauce doing this. Bake for twenty minutes, and then sprinkle on the rest of your cheese before baking 5 more minutes.

Remove from the pan and enjoy!

Full of delicious!

I liked these a lot. They look fun, don’t make a mess to eat, and are delicious. Two would be a pretty good dinner, three if you’re really hungry. I think they’d be a fun food to have at a party. And, of course, you can fill them with anything else you like – just veggies, meatballs, whatever else strikes your fancy!

Chorizo and Manchego Lasagna Cupcakes

Using Marcella Hazan’s tomato sauce.

  • 2 pounds ripe tomatoes or 1 28 ounce can of peeled tomatoes
  • 5 tablespoons unsalted butter
  • 1 medium onion
  • dash of salt
  • 24 lasagna noodles
  • 3 chorizo sausages
  • 2 ounces manchego cheese
  • 1/2 cup frozen peas

If using fresh tomatoes, freeze for several hours until hard, then defrost and slip the skin off in warm water.

Put 12 toothpicks in a glass of water to soak, and peas in a dish to defrost.

Roughly chop the tomatoes and put in a saucepan. Cut the onion in half and peel. Add to the pot, along with butter and salt. Bring to a low simmer and cook for 45 minutes, or until desired thickness. Taste, and add additional salt if necessary.

While tomatoes cook, grate cheese, cook chorizo on medium high heat on the stove, and boil lasagna noodles according to package directions. Slice the 3 chorizo sausages into 4 pieces each.

When the sauce is finished, remove the onion halves and roughly chop one of the halves. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Grease cupcake tin, and lay two lasagna noodles in an X in one of the depressions. Fill with one piece of chorizo, several peas, a few bits of onion, and some cheese. Spoon in enough tomato sauce to cover the filling. Fold the ends of the inner noodle over to close, cutting off excess with kitchen shears. Fold the outer noodle over, again cutting off excess, and hold closed with a toothpick. Spoon remaining tomato sauce over the closed noodles.

Repeat 11 more times to fill pan. Bake at 350 for 20 minutes. After 20 minutes, sprinkle remaining cheese over the cupcakes and bake a further 5 minutes.

Eat!

Posted in Dinner, Party! | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Guest Post: Red Velvet Cookies

Posted on August 19, 2011 by sparecake

Yesterday I published my 50th post on this blog. To give you guys a break from my constant rambling, my friend Catie was nice enough to write a guest post. While she generally focuses on fabulous cupcakes, this cookie recipe was apparently so good it had to be shared! They do look mighty fine! From Catie:

Red Velvet Cookies (that AREN’T Just Mini-Cakes)

Wedding season is upon us.

This summer, I have found myself particularly inundated with weddings and all the related events – bridal showers, engagement parties, “Jack and Jills,” bachelorettes, cake tastings, wine tastings, you name it…

My college roommate, Beth, is getting married this October. As she knows I am one of the foremost authorities on all things cake (and I really, really like it) she has invited me to act as her cake advisor for the wedding. Hooray!

After a grueling (read: totally awesome) afternoon of trying different combinations of cake and buttercream, we decided on fall-friendly flavors for her wedding cake – a combination of layers of deep red velvet and a delicious, dense carrot cake all with cream cheese icing.

Cake tasting: It’s a tough job, but someone had to do it.

For Beth’s shower, I was in charge of making some desserts.  We had already secured a beautiful cake from a “cake art” friend of the groom’s grandmother, so I had my sights set on cookies.  So, I searched for recipes that I thought would be most appropriate – carrot cake or red velvet cookies! Unfortunately, that was easier thought-up than done…

With a packed calendar and an under-construction kitchen, I had to scratch carrot cake cookies off of my list. Grating carrots and soaking raisins seemed more than I could take on. However, I saw various red velvet cookie recipes that looked easy enough to do.  Only problem: most of them looked more like mini-cakes or whoopie pies – not what I was going for.

I finally found this recipe, which inspired me to give it a shot.  The cookies were pretty easy to make, and the results were not only beautiful, but they were also chewy and delicious – actual red velvet COOKIES.  I made a couple of small modifications, like subbing-in white chocolate chips for regular ones (better color and flavor contrast) and using a bit more food-dye than recommended, but I think my cookies came out great. And, I got a few request for the recipe, too!

Here’s what I did…

Chewy Red Velvet Cookies

Adapted from How Sweet It Is.

Makes about 18-20 cookies.

Ingredients:

  • 1/2 cup butter
  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • 1/2 cup brown sugar
  • 1 egg
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla
  • 1 1/2 (generous) cups all purpose flour
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 1/3 cup cocoa powder
  • 2 or so teaspoons red food coloring
  • 8oz white chocolate chips (if you’re me, Ghirardelli is the ONLY way to go)
  1. Preheat oven to 350
  2. Using a stand mixer, cream butter and sugars together until they’re light and fluffy – about 2-3minutes.
  3. Add the egg and vanilla, stir together until smooth.
  4. Beat in the red food coloring – I used 2-3 teaspoons, but you can use more or less depending on the color you’re going for and the type of dye you’re using.
  5. Stir in cocoa powder, flour, baking soda and salt until batter is combined. Consistency will be a bit sticky and “loose.”
  6. Fold in white chocolate chips.
  7. Form dough into balls about 1-1.5in wide. I dampen my hands just slightly and roll the balls smooth for a prettier finished product.
  8. Place balls a couple of inches apart on ungreased cookie sheet. Be sure to give them room to grow. (Oh, and sing to them. Preferably George Michael songs. It helps. )
  9. Bake for 11-13 minutes, but keep an eye on them. If they get burny on the bottom, it ruins the chewiness and the awesome red velvet look.

As the original author suggests, these cookies might also be good as cookie sandwiches with some cream cheese icing in between – hey, why not?

Here are some glamour shots of the cookies at the shower.  Enjoy!

Posted in Dessert, Party! | Tagged , | 1 Comment

White Velvet Butter Cake

Posted on August 18, 2011 by sparecake

I finally (ok only my second real try, first with a proper sized rolling pin) make a cake without fondant so wrinkled it looks like a broomstick skirt, and what happens? The camera decides to go all wonky on me, and I didn’t notice until later, when I was upstairs eating a slice of cake. Daaangit! Sooo there are a bunch of horribly colored photos coming up, as I try to salvage the pictures that I can. Le sigh.

I still have ~3 1/2 of these left…

A few weeks ago I ordered cereal marshmallows. The guy that sells them has tons of videos of himself adding the marshmallows to cereals and describing how much better the cereal is now. I sort of love the videos. (And the man?) Lauren had ordered some when she lived here, but I didn’t cook with them then – just ate them by the handful. She ate them on cereal, which I assume made breakfast that much better! This time I wanted to put them in a light fluffy cake but, not having a proper angel food cake pan, turned to The Cake Bible and picked the one that looked next fluffiest.

As it turned out, the marshmallows sort of disappeared, texture-wise, into the cake. I wasn’t horribly upset as it’s still a really delicious cake, and I have a ton more marshmallows to experiment with. This cake is good enough, and easy enough to make, I probably will make it most of the time in the future when in the past I would have just cheated with boxed cake mix.

Ingredients:

  • 1/2 cup (roughly 4 1/2 large) egg whites
  • 1 cup milk
  • 2 1/4 teaspoons vanilla
  • 3 cups sifted cake flour
  • 1 1/2 cups sugar
  • 1 tablespoon + 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 3/4 teaspoon salt
  • 12 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
  • 1 cup cereal marshmallows (optional)

Again, because of the camera debacle, very few pictures. Sorry!

Grease two 9″ cake pans, line the with parchment, grease again, and flour. If you have cake strips, put them in water to soak. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

In a medium bowl, lightly combine the egg whites, 1/4 cup milk, and vanilla.

In a large mixing bowl, combine the dry ingredients (except marshmallows) and mix on low speed for 30 seconds to blend. (I just stirred thoroughly, as I didn’t want dried goods EVERYWHERE.) Add the butter and remaining 3/4 cup milk. Mix on low speed until the dry ingredients are moistened and then increase to medium (high on a hand mixer) and beat for a minute and a half. Scrape down the sides. Add the egg mixture in 3 batches, beating for 20 seconds after each addition. Scrape down the sides again. If you’re adding the cereal marshmallows, gently fold them in now with as little stirring as possible to avoid the colors running.

Scrape the batter into the cake pans and smooth the surface. Put on your cake strips if you’ve got ’em. Bake 25-35 minutes. I rotated my cakes at 15 (my oven’s pretty uneven), and then set the timer for another 15. I thought they looked like they might need another minute or two, but a toothpick in the center came out clean, so I took them out, and they weren’t underdone at all. Let the cakes cool in the pan ten minutes, then run a knife or spatula around the edge to loosen the cakes. Turn them out, top-side-up, on a greased wire rack to cool completely before frosting.

The Cake Bible recommends a dusting of powdered sugar, any buttercream except chocolate, or fondant. I made a vanilla buttercream and then coated with fondant, as I want practice with fondant, but I think this cake would be great with either a raspberry or lemon buttercream in the future. Something sort of light and fresh…

Finally used my cake decorating stand! Way better than spinning the cutting board your cake is on…

This is the best that Elements can do to make these pictures visible...

Excuse the scribbles on top, I was trying to see what different piping tips do. Make a mess, seems to be the general conclusion.

For the buttercream, beat 4 cups powdered sugar, 2 sticks softened unsalted butter, 6 tablespoons milk, and 4 teaspoons vanilla together until smooth.

I used the same marshmallow fondant recipe as before, but made half as much. It came together a lot easier for me this time, and then the fact that I have a much longer rolling pin meant I was able to transfer the fondant to the cake without folding it. Improvements!

White Velvet Butter Cake

Adapted from The Cake Bible by Rose Levy Beranbaum.

  • 1/2 cup (roughly 4 1/2 large) egg whites
  • 1 cup milk
  • 2 1/4 teaspoons vanilla
  • 3 cups sifted cake flour
  • 1 1/2 cups sugar
  • 1 tablespoon + 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 3/4 teaspoon salt
  • 12 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
  • 1 cup cereal marshmallows (optional)

Grease 2 9″ cake pans, line with parchment, then regrease and flour. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

In a medium bowl, lightly combine the egg whites, 1/4 cup milk, and vanilla.

In a large mixing bowl, combine the dry ingredients (except marshmallows) and mix on low speed for 30 seconds to blend. Add the butter and remaining 3/4 cup milk. Mix on low speed until the dry ingredients are moistened and then increase to medium (high on a hand mixer) and beat for a minute and a half. Scrape down the sides. Add the egg mixture in 3 batches, beating for 20 seconds after each addition. Scrape down the sides again. If you’re adding the cereal marshmallows, gently fold them in now with as little stirring as possible to avoid the colors running.

Bake for 25-35 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool ten minutes in the pans, loosen the edges of the cake with a knife or spatula, then turn out onto a greased wire rack to cool completely.

Posted in Dessert | Tagged , | 4 Comments

Wordless Wednesday (Failing Art Class Edition)

Posted on August 17, 2011 by sparecake

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