Cherry Popcorn Coffee Cake

Posted on September 19, 2011 by sparecake

This is the first of a few recipes I want to make in the next few weeks from Orville Redenbacher’s Popcorn Cookbook. The book manages to work popcorn into everything, and it’s pretty fun.

Oh, as I was typing up the ingredient list below I just now noticing that the recipe said to use half a can of cherry pie filling. Whoops. That explains why mine overflowed. Still, I think that the whole can was right, proportion-wise, so I’d just say bump up the pie plate size!

Ingredients:

Streusel:

  • 1/4 cup sugar
  • 3 tablespoons butter or margarine, softened
  • 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
  • 3 cups popped Orville Redenbacher’s Gourmet Original Popping Corn (slightly less than half a bag of microwave popcorn)
  • 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
  • 1/4 chopped nuts (just kidding, that’s gross, I swapped in white chocolate chips)

Cake:

  • 2 cups Bisquick
  • 2/3 cup milk
  • 1/4 cup sugar
  • 2 tablespoons canola oil
  • 1 egg
  • 1 21 oz can cherry (or other fruit you like) pie filling

Icing:

  • 1 cup powdered sugar
  • 1 tablespoon milk (it said water…I vote milk.)
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla

Start by creaming the butter and sugar, then beating in the cinnamon. Add the popcorn, lightly crushing it as you transfer it from the measuring cup to the bowl. I just grabbed it by the handful and squeezed, until there were no whole pieces left. Make sure not to get any unpopped kernels, as those are a bummer to bite. Add the flour and white chocolate chips, and stir by hand until well combined.

Whisk together all the cake ingredients except for the pie filling.

Pour the cake batter into a greased 9.5″ or 10″ pie dish (or a 9″ pie dish if that’s all you’ve got, but put it on a foil-lined baking sheet to catch any overflow in the oven). Sprinkle half the streusel over the batter.

Spread the pie filling evenly over the first streusel layer, and top with the remaining streusel.

Bake at 350 for 40-45 minutes, or until a wooden pick in the center comes out clean. I probably had mine in the oven closer to 50 minutes, since it was thicker, and it didn’t burn at all. It did overflow, though, as I mentioned.

Let your cake cool for 15 minutes (I mostly spent those 15 minutes eating the overflow…), and make the icing by just stirring together the icing ingredients. It’s a pretty thick icing, but that just means it stays mostly where you put it. Drizzle it over the cake, and enjoy.

I thought the streusel was really good, and this is very easy to throw together in the morning. Thanks, Orville!

Good Morning Cheery Cherry Coffee Cake

Adapted from Orville Redenbacher’s Popcorn Cookbook.

Streusel:

  • 1/4 cup sugar
  • 3 tablespoons butter or margarine, softened
  • 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
  • 3 cups popped Orville Redenbacher’s Gourmet Original Popping Corn
  • 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
  • 1/4 white chocolate chips

Cake:

  • 2 cups Bisquick
  • 2/3 cup milk
  • 1/4 cup sugar
  • 2 tablespoons canola oil
  • 1 egg
  • 1 21 oz can cherry pie filling

Icing:

  • 1 cup powdered sugar
  • 1 tablespoon milk (it said water…I vote milk.)
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and grease a 9 1/2 or 10 inch pie dish.

Cream together the sugar and butter, then mix in cinnamon. Add remaining streusel ingredients, lightly crushing popcorn and avoiding unpopped kernels. Blend until crumbly, then set aside.

Whisk together all the cake ingredients except for the pie filling. Pour into the prepared pie dish.

Cover cake with half the streusel. Spread the pie filling evenly over the first streusel layer, then cover with remaining streusel.

Bake 40-50 minutes, or until a toothpick in the center comes out clean. Cool 15 minutes.

While the cake cools, whisk together the icing ingredients in a small bowl. Drizzle over the coffee cake.

Posted in Breakfast | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments

The Chunkiest Shepherd

Posted on September 17, 2011 by sparecake

The spelling of the word shepherd doesn’t make sense at all. Should it not have two ‘e’s, if it’s sheep-herd? Or else ditch the h, since my 3rd grade reading skills tell me to pronounce it as sheferd? I can’t approve.

Spelling aside, the recipe I’ve got to share today is, I guess, basically just a plumped up shepherd’s pie. Kyle rated it a 9/10 for taste, but an 11/10 when you consider how easy it was – and that’s after I made him peel and mash the potatoes. So… pretty good. Plus, it’s a brilliant excuse to eat a lot of ketchup.

God I love ketchup.

Ingredients:

  • 4 pounds potatoes
  • 1/2 cup butter
  • 1/2 cup heavy cream
  • salt and pepper to taste
  • 3 cloves garlic
  • 1 cup bread crumbs
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons mustard
  • 3 tablespoons ketchup
  • 1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
  • 1 egg
  • 1 onion soup mix packet (the ones I found were Lipton, and came two to a small box)
  • 1 15.25 ounce can of sweet corn, drained
  • 2 cups shredded cheddar
  • 3 pounds ground beef
  • extra ketchup for serving

You should probably use the least fatty beef you see in that quantity, as there’s no chance to drain it after cooking.

Start a large pot of water boiling on the stove and get your roommate to peel the potatoes. Chop them into large chunks – we had sad little potatoes from Giant, so into quarters was enough.

Boil the potatoes until they’re soft enough that you can stick a fork in them with basically no resistance. Drain, and then in the same pot add the butter, cream, garlic, salt and pepper, and mash thoroughly, tasting to decide if you need more salt or pepper. (Remember, it’s easier to add more than to take some out!)

Honestly…if you used instant mashed potatoes, I wouldn’t judge, but I already had a bag of potatoes and using instant on a food blog seems kind of…not the point?  The texture from ‘real’ mashed potatoes is probably better.

Set the potatoes aside for a minute preheat the oven to 400 degrees. If you didn’t feel like buying bread crumbs earlier, it should be ok – I just toasted and then briefly food processed some homemade bread and it made some grand bread crumbs! Whatever bread you’ve got around should do the same. However you come by them, put the bread crumbs in a large bowl and add the onion soup mix, ketchup, Worcestershire, egg, and mustard.

Add the beef and mix to combine well. You might as well use your hands, as they’re going to get dirty in a minute anyway.

Beef ball!

Take half the meat mixture and spread it in a 9X13″ dish.

Sprinkle the drained corn evenly over the beef.

Top with the remaining half of the beef, and then cover with the cheese.

Pat the mashed potatoes on top. It’s sort of a satisfying feeling, patting a potato-pile!

It’s not a bad idea to put your dish on a foil-lined baking sheet, just in case anything oozes over the side while cooking – this is a FULL dish!

Bake for 45 minutes. If the potatoes aren’t browned to your liking at that point, broil it briefly. On our oven, the broiler is a separate death-trap drawer underneath the main oven. I super hate putting anything in there. Hopefully in your oven, the broiler is just the top elements in the oven!

Serve with lots of ketchup, and expect leftovers if it’s just two of you because your other roommate left for a week without mentioning it to you… Luckily, the leftovers are just as good later!

Beef Trifle???

Chunky Shepherd’s Pie

  • 4 pounds potatoes
  • 1/2 cup butter
  • 1/2 cup heavy cream
  • salt and pepper to taste
  • 3 cloves garlic
  • 1 cup bread crumbs
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons mustard
  • 3 tablespoons ketchup
  • 1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
  • 1 egg
  • 1 onion soup mix packet
  • 1 15.25 ounce can of sweet corn, drained
  • 2 cups shredded cheddar
  • 3 pounds lean ground beef
  • extra ketchup for serving

Bring large pot of water to boil. Peel and roughly chop potatoes. Boil until soft – when they can be easily stabbed with a fork. Drain, return to pot, and mash with cream, butter, garlic, salt, and pepper.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Combine bread crumbs, ketchup, mustard, Worcestershire, onion soup packet, and egg in large bowl. Add beef, mixing well.

Press half of meat mixture into a 9X13″ dish. Spread corn evenly over the beef layer, then cover with the second half of beef. Spread cheese evenly, then coat with potatoes.

Bake 45 minutes, and broil at end to brown potatoes if needed. Serve with ketchup.

Posted in Dinner | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Chocolate Rugelach

Posted on September 15, 2011 by sparecake

A month or two ago at Costco, Alex pointed out a case of rugelach and mentioned that, even though he didn’t know what they were called, he was a fan. I promised to make them eventually, and this weekend’s DCFixed cookout seemed like as good a time as any.

Ingredients:

Dough:

  • 7 ounces (14 tablespoons) butter
  • 8 ounces cream cheese
  • 1/4 cup sugar
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 2 cups all-purpose flour

Filling:

  • 1 tablespoon cocoa
  • 1 tablespoon cinnamon
  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • 1/2 cup grated bittersweet chocolate
  • butter, melted

Topping:

  • 1 egg
  • 1/4 cup sugar

Beat the cream cheese and butter together in a large bowl.

Add the sugar and vanilla and mix until smooth. Add the flour and mix until just combined.

Chill in the fridge for at least an hour, up to over night. Before removing the dough from the fridge, prepare the filling. If you can find bars or chunks of bittersweet chocolate, you can grate them on a cheese grater. Otherwise, freeze bittersweet chocolate chips for at least an hour, then place in a food processor and chop to small bits. Unfortunately, I learned rather too late that I’ve apparently killed our mini food processor, so I had to rub handfuls of chocolate chips against a cheese grater, which was…not ideal.

Combine the cocoa, cinnamon, and sugar with the chocolate and set aside.

Remove the dough from the fridge and divide into four balls. It was not at all the texture I was expecting, much butterier than most doughs, but it baked into a nice dough.

Put three of the balls back in the fridge and pat the fourth into a rough disk. Roll the disk into a 1/8″ thick circle on a floured surface. Make sure the bottom of the disk is well floured so you’ll be able to lift it easily from your counter a few steps on. Melt butter (start with 2 tablespoons, melt more if you need it) and brush it over the surface of the dough.

Sprinkle a quarter of the filling over the disk. Cut the disk into wedges. The outside edge should be 1 to 1 1/2 inches wide.

Starting at the wide edge, roll the dough towards the point. Place each, point-down, on parchment lined baking sheets.

The last few were rolled up in a haze of filling, and got a bit dirty looking.

Repeat with the remaining three dough-balls.

Beat the egg briefly with a fork. Brush the egg over each pastry, then sprinkle with sugar. I somehow forgot this step until I was rotating the pans during baking, but I did it then and it came out fine.

Bake for 20-25 minutes or until golden.

After a bit of confusion (“Want a rugelach?” “Isn’t arugula a vegetable??”), these were quite popular.

I will probably try these again with various fillings (although what can top chocolate?), since I really enjoyed them.

Chocolate Rugelach

From About.com.

Dough:

  • 7 ounces (14 tablespoons) butter
  • 8 ounces cream cheese
  • 1/4 cup sugar
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 2 cups all-purpose flour

Filling:

  • 1 tablespoon cocoa
  • 1 tablespoon cinnamon
  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • 1/2 cup grated bittersweet chocolate
  • butter, melted

Topping:

  • 1 egg
  • 1/4 cup sugar

In a large bowl, blend the butter and cream cheese. Add sugar and vanilla and mix until smooth. Add flour and mix until just combined. Refrigerate for at least an hour.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper. Lightly flour a work surface.

Chop or grate the bittersweet chocolate and stir together with the remaining filling ingredients. Set aside.

Divide the dough into four balls and return three to the fridge. Pat the fourth ball into a rough disk, then roll to a 1/8″ thick circle on the floured surface.

Melt butter and brush over the circle. Sprinkle with one quarter of the filling, then cut into wedges 1″-1.5″ wide at the base. Roll each wedge from the wide end to the point. Place on parchment-lined sheets, point-down.

Repeat with remaining three dough balls.

Whisk egg and brush over rugelach. Sprinkle sugar on top. Bake 20-25 minutes, until golden brown.

Posted in Dessert | Tagged , , | 4 Comments

Wordless Wednesday: Nifty Things Edition

Posted on September 14, 2011 by sparecake

Posted in Pictures | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

Chocolate Chunk Cookies

Posted on September 12, 2011 by sparecake

The Small Press Expo was this weekend outside DC. Lots of web comic artists that I like were there, several of whom I talk to on twitter some times. Several weeks ago via the twits I asked Dave Shabet, the artist who writes/draws Dead Winter, what kind of cookies he thought comic artists like, and he suggested thick chewy chocolate chunk cookies. These cookies didn’t turn out as thick as I’d hoped, but were otherwise grand and well received by everyone I threw a bag of cookies at.

Jon's friend Brad got the Dead Winter book, and asked for a robot in it.

Ingredients:

  • 340 grams unsalted butter (12 ounces) =3 sticks
  • 200 grams granulated sugar (7 ounces) = 1 cup
  • 400 grams brown sugar (14 ounces) = 2 very, very tightly packed cups light brown sugar
  • 21 ounces flour (4 2/3 cup)
  • 1 tablespoon baking soda
  • 1 tablespoon coarse type kosher salt or 1/2 tablespoon Morton’s Kosher salt (Apparently it’s not that hugely grained, for a kosher salt? The more times you see Kosher in a row, the less it looks like a word. Kosher Kosher Kosher )
  • 2 large eggs
  • 2 large egg yolks
  • 21 ounces good quality chocolate chopped into chunks

Whole Foods (oh god I felt like a yuppie locking my bike up outside Whole Foods) had this Icelandic chocolate that was delicious, and also the cheapest chocolate they had. Works for me!

I liked Iceland already after last summer's trip, but now...ready to move!

Melt the butter (nuking it for a minute should do), then let it cool slightly while you measure out the next few things. Beat the sugars into the butter.

400 grams of brown sugar is a nice little mountain.

Add the eggs, beating after each addition.

Let me pause a moment to tell you that as I sit here writing this, I am watching a movie with my roommates where Jason Statham is both on fire and punching a man. WHAT. This is the worst thing.

Ok, onwards.

Whisk together the flour, baking soda, and salt in a medium bowl, then beat into the batter.

Fold in the chocolate chunks with a spoon or spatula.

If you’ve got time, chill the dough for several hours, or preferably overnight, to help prevent the cookies from spreading as they bake. Bummer now, but it’ll be worth it tomorrow.

When you’re ready to bake, heat the oven to 325 degrees. Scoop the dough into some pretty large balls, and space them widely.

Bigger than a golf ball, smaller than a...baseball? I don't know, I don't do sports.

Bake the cookies for 14 minutes or until golden brown.

This was the first batch. I had left the chocolate chunks too huge to spread with the dough, but broke it up more in later batches.

I think they may have stayed puffier if I had baked then another minute or two? They were towards the underdone side, but in a tasty way.

This made a goodly pile of cookies, and, as I said, was delicious. Packed them up in baggies and handed them to all the artists at SPX whose comics I read. Good deal!

SPX itself was fun. The guy in charge of volunteers was cool, the cash register only had 3 buttons I had to know how to use, and there were tons of artists I’d never heard of to check out. Although, that’s not entirely great, because then you’d see something with an interesting name, flip through it and realize you don’t actually care, then put it back and try not to make eye contact because, oh god, you’re judging someone’s art/baby/job. Might as well just go kick puppies, in terms of feeling good about yourself. Oh well… I also ran into friends!

The only people I took a picture of at the thing were the people I already see all the time. Reasonable.

And, since I had about 4 inches of clear wall space left to fill up, I got 2 prints and a poster, plus a Noncanon book which I got drawn on.

I am incapable of answering "What do you want?" with anything other than PONY.

Not a bad way to kill a Saturday!

Chocolate Chunk Cookies

Adapted from Top Chef, via Cookie Madness.

  • 340 grams unsalted butter (12 ounces) =3 sticks
  • 200 grams granulated sugar (7 ounces) = 1 cup
  • 400 grams brown sugar (14 ounces) = 2 very, very tightly packed cups light brown sugar
  • 21 ounces flour (4 2/3 cup)
  • 1 tablespoon baking soda
  • 1 tablespoon coarse type Kosher salt 1/2 tablespoon Morton’s kosher
  • 2 large eggs
  • 2 large egg yolks
  • 21 ounces good quality chocolate chopped into chunks

Melt butter, cool slightly. Mix sugars into the melted butter. Add the eggs, beating after each addition.

Whisk together flour, baking soda, and salt, then blend into the sugar mixture. Fold in the chocolate.

Chill the dough, then preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Bake for 14 minutes or until golden brown.

Posted in Dessert | Tagged , , , , | 6 Comments

Orange Crush Sherbet

Posted on September 9, 2011 by sparecake

I’ve got a couple exciting baked goods coming up in the next week or so (and a heap of Icelandic chocolate I’m looking forward to trying), but until the events I’m baking for happen, here’s a really quick Orange Crush Sherbet recipe to tide you all over.

Ingredients:

  • 1 14 ounce can sweetened condensed milk
  • 1 8 ounce can crushed pineapple (undrained)
  • 3 12 oz cans or half of a 2 liter of Orange Crush soda

What one liter of Crush looks like.

Combine all the ingredients in a bowl and stir to combine. I’m honestly not even positive this step is necessary, since everything will be well churned in the ice cream maker, but it can’t hurt to make sure the condensed milk doesn’t sink to the bottom or anything.

A nice creamsicle color!

Pour the mixture into your ice cream maker and freeze according the the ice cream maker’s instructions.

Super simple, takes about 2 minutes of hands-on time, and comes out tasting like creamsicles, but with a hint of the pineapple. It never gets hard, like ice cream when it’s very frozen, so don’t think your ice cream maker’s gone lame or anything, it’s just a soft sherbet. Tastes good, though!

If there are any hot days left this year in your part of the world that aren’t totally drowned under this never-ending rain, this would be the perfect thing to relax with.

Orange Crush Sherbet

From Ezra Pound Cake.

  • 1 14 ounce can sweetened condensed milk
  • 1 8 ounce can crushed pineapple
  • 3 12 oz cans or half of a 2 liter of Orange Crush soda

Combine ingredients in a large bowl and stir to mix. Pour into an ice cream maker and freeze according to the machine’s instructions.

Posted in Dessert | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Homemade Fluffernutters

Posted on September 7, 2011 by sparecake

Over the last year or two I’ve gotten increasingly into homemade things. Bread, granola bars, yogurt, tomato sauce… they’ve all become things worth the time to make myself. This time, though, things got a bit silly and I decided to make homemade fluffernutters. If you’re not familiar, that’s a peanut butter and fluff sandwich. They’re so delicious that there was a battle several years ago about whether or not to ban them in schools in Massachusetts!

SAVE THE CHILDREN!!!

So, we need to make peanut butter, fluff, and bread. Not too bad.

Definitely reasonable proportions!

For the bread, I just made a fresh batch of the Super Bread I made when I was just starting this blog out. It really is a great sandwich bread, and it’s got lots of protein so you feel full for a decently long time.

Particularly nice looking loaves this week, I thought.

Next up, the peanut butter is super easy.

Ingredients:

  • 16 oz roasted & salted peanuts
  • 3 teaspoons honey
  • 1 tablespoon peanut oil

Put the peanuts in a food processor and process for a minute. I (still) only have a tiny food processor, so I did it in two batches.

At this point the chunks will be small, but still definitely there.

Add the honey and oil (or half of them, if you’re doing it in batches), and process another minute and a half to two minutes, until smooth. (Or until your poor tiny food processor starts smoking and you figure that that’s smooth enough.)

…And that’s it. You’ve made peanut butter. You can taste it and add salt or more honey if you like, but I was happy with this as-is. Sort of strange, I normally HATE the “natural” peanut butters, I don’t even think they taste like peanuts. I don’t know what they do to those ones, but I like this much better!

Onwards to the fluff! This is one recipe where I kind of wished I had a KitchenAid, but… oh well, you get by.

Ingredients:

  • 6 tablespoons water
  • 1 1/4 cups light corn syrup
  • 3/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon sugar
  • 4 large egg whites (room temp egg whites beat up much, much, much better than cold ones – remember that always)
  • Pinch salt
  • Pinch cream of tartar
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Combine the water, corn syrup, and 3/4 cup sugar in a sauce pan. The original recipe said “small” saucepan, but I found that the mixture bubbled pretty wildly on its way up to temp, so don’t go TOO tiny.

Heat on high heat to 246 degrees, keeping an eye on it with a candy thermometer. I don’t know what the deal is with my stove, but I could not get this hot enough until I fashioned a little tinfoil lid to keep some of the heat in. The sugar melted and the mixture went clear at some point, and I thought that must be progress, but it was still 30 degrees too cool at that point.

Super pro?

While the sugar mixture is heating, whip the egg whites, salt, and cream of tartar until creamy and foamy, about two minutes. If you do have a stand mixer, use the whisk attachment.

With the mixer still on, sprinkle in the remaining tablespoon of sugar and continue beating until the whites hold very soft peaks, about two minutes.

Once the sugar mixture has reached the right temperature, drizzle it in to the eggs with the mixer on slow speed. Be really careful – this stuff gets stringy and behaves in weird ways, and will burn like crazy. I’m pretty sure my mom still has scars from making candy apples when I was a kid, and this will mess you up just as bad if you get it on yourself.

Once you’ve poured all the sugar mixture in, turn the mixer up to high and whisk until thick, fluffy, and nearly completely cooled, about 7 minutes.

It lumps in odd ways. I'm glad this mixer is from a power tool company, as I feel like a wimpy model would have had a rough time with this.

Bring the mixer back to low and mix in the vanilla.

This felt much messier than it now looks.

Now take a big spoon and eat TONS of this. If you’re feeling too healthy, maybe just scoop it up with some grapes? I’ve been known to eat enough fluff and grapes that I make myself ill.

The cleanup is actually not that bad as long as your sink gets super hot water.

Once your parts are all made, all that’s left is to put it together!

And, voila, you’ve successfully killed half a day making a sandwich. A very good sandwich.

Assuming you’re a heathen, the last step is to retreat upstairs and scarf with all haste.

Perfect!

To prevent the peanut butter from separating, you should store it in the fridge. (If you want to put it in the cabinet, you’ll probably have to stir the oil back in when you want some.) I haven’t seen advice on storing the fluff, but I put it in the fridge because I felt weird about putting egg things in the cabinet, and that hasn’t done anything bad to the texture yet.

I’m not sure that I now need to make fluff every time I want to eat some, but it does open up some interesting possibilities as far as replacing the vanilla with other flavorings. Strawberry fluff? Already exists in some stores. Orange fluff? Mint fluff? I’d try them…

Once again, submitted to yeastspotting.

Creamy Peanut Butter

  • 16 oz roasted & salted peanuts
  • 3 teaspoons honey
  • 1 tablespoon peanut oil

Grind peanuts in food processor for one minute. Add honey and oil and process another minute and a half to two minutes, until smooth.

Fluff

From Food Network, via Culinary Concoctions by Peabody.

  • 6 tablespoons water
  • 1 1/4 cups light corn syrup
  • 3/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon sugar
  • 4 large egg whites
  • Pinch salt
  • Pinch cream of tartar
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Combine the water, corn syrup, and 3/4 cup sugar in a sauce pan. Heat on high heat to 246 degrees, monitoring with a candy thermometer.

While the sugar mixture is heating, whip the egg whites, salt, and cream of tartar until creamy and foamy, about two minutes. With the mixer still on, sprinkle in the remaining tablespoon of sugar and continue beating until the whites hold very soft peaks, about two minutes.

Once the sugar mixture has reached 246 degrees, drizzle it into the eggs with the mixer on slow speed. Turn the mixer up to high and whisk until thick, fluffy, and nearly completely cooled, about 7 minutes. Bring the mixer back to low and mix in the vanilla.

Fluffernutter Sandwich

  • 2 slices of bread
  • fluff
  • peanut butter

Spread peanut butter on one slice of bread, and fluff on the other. Put them together, then put them in your mouth.

Posted in Bread, Lunch, Snack | Tagged , , , | 6 Comments

The Most Whitebread Samosas Ever

Posted on September 5, 2011 by sparecake

Happy Labor Day, let’s Americanize some food!…

When I first saw this recipe, I was excited because I thought these samosas looked good. I told my Indian friend I was going to make samosas, and she immediately asked to see the recipe to tell me if it was “authentic.” Obviously, they are not. I never thought they were, but honestly…that’s ok. If you’re here for authentic Indian food, this is very much the wrong blog, as I don’t tend to like it. If you just want some tasty filling in a flaky dough, you’re in luck!

Ingredients:

Crust:

  • 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1 cup unsalted butter, chilled
  • 1/4 to 1/2 cup ice water

Filling:

  • 2 cups cooked potatoes, drained and cubed
  • 2 tablespoons butter
  • 1 cup diced onion
  • 2 cloves garlic, minced
  • 1 teaspoon curry powder
  • 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon cumin, to taste
  • 1 cup frozen peas, thawed
  • 1/2 teaspoon Sriracha hot sauce, to taste (optional)
  • salt, pepper to taste
  • egg wash for brushing pastries – one egg mixed with one teaspoon water

To make the dough, combine the flour and salt in a large bowl. Cut in half of the butter with a pastry blender until the mixture resembles granola. Do this quickly so the butter stays cold. I didn’t think mine looked quite as clumpy as ‘granola’ implies, but it came out ok in the end.

Dice the remaining butter and add it, working it in until the size of dried cranberries. (What a weird size description!) Flatten the butter chunks a bit with your fingers in the flour, so they are like thin leaves of butter, coated in flour.

Sprinkle half the ice water over the flour and combine, adding enough of the remaining water to make it all stick together as a rough blob. Knead briefly (just 30 seconds will do), and then divide in half. You want to still be able to see bits of butter in the dough, so don’t worry about kneading too thoroughly.

Press each half into a disc, wrap in saran wrap, and chill in the refrigerator for at least half an hour, or up to overnight. If you’re going to make them after half an hour of chilling, take out the peas to thaw now.

While the dough chills, you can make the filling!

Melt the butter in over medium heat on the stove. Add the onions, then the garlic, cooking until the onions turn translucent.

Getting there.Add the curry powder and cumin and saute for saute for another minute.

Add the potatoes and stir them to coat in the spices. Break up the potatoes over the heat, cooking for a few more minutes. It’s up to you if you want to mash entirely smooth or leave a small chunks.

Taste, and add salt, pepper, and Sriracha to taste. I added just a pinch of pepper, probably a third of a teaspoon of salt, and a teaspoon of Sriracha. Remove from the heat and stir in the peas without crushing them.

Leave the filling to the side to cool slightly, preheat the oven to 400, and start rolling out the dough.

Roll out the dough, one disk at a time, to 1/8″ thick. Cut circles of dough with a 3″ cutter.

Mix together the egg wash and brush over each circle. Place two tablespoons of filling onto each and fold the dough into half moons. Personally…this seemed like way too much filling for me, I ended up just using two per samosa, one as top and one as bottom. Crimp the edges with a fork, and brush the tops with egg wash.

Place them on a parchment lined baking sheet. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes, or until deep golden brown.

You can serve them with yogurt or sour cream for dipping, I thought they were good as-is.

PEAS

I had a small tupperware of filling left. If you do too, it’s pretty good for a quick lunch later heated up in a tortilla.

Samosas

From King Arthur.

Crust:

  • 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1 cup unsalted butter, chilled
  • 1/4 to 1/2 cup ice water

Filling:

  • 2 cups cooked potatoes, drained and cubed
  • 2 tablespoons butter
  • 1 cup diced onion
  • 2 cloves garlic, minced
  • 1 teaspoon curry powder
  • 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon cumin, to taste
  • 1 cup frozen peas, thawed
  • 1/2 teaspoon Sriracha hot sauce, to taste (optional)
  • salt, pepper to taste
  • egg wash for brushing pastries – one egg mixed with one teaspoon water

Combine the flour and salt in a large bowl. Cut in one stick of butter with a pastry blender until the mixture resembles granola, working quickly to keep the butter cool.

Dice the remaining butter and work into flour until it is the size of dried cranberries. Flatten the butter pieces slightly with your fingers as you go along, creating leaves of butter coated in flour.

Sprinkle about half of the ice water over the flour mixture and work gently, adding more water as needed until the dough forms a rough mass. Knead briefly and divide dough in half. Press into two disks and wrap each in saran wrap. Chill in the fridge two hours or up to overnight.

While the dough chills, prepare the filling. Melt the butter on the stove over medium heat. Add the onions and garlic, cooking for two to three minutes until they turn translucent. Add the curry powder and cumin and cook an additional minute. Add the potatoes and turn to coat well in the spices. Mash the potatoes, leaving some chunks if desired.

Taste the filling for seasoning, adding salt, pepper, and Sriracha as desired. Remove from the heat and stir in the peas without crushing them. Set the filling aside to cool as you roll out the dough.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees and line two baking sheets with parchment.

Working with one dough-disc at a time, roll the chilled dough to 1/8″ thick. Cut out circles with a 3″ cutter. Brush each with egg wash.

Place two tablespoons of filling on each circle and fold each to a half moon. Crimp the open edge with a fork and brush the tops with more egg wash.

Bake for 15 to 20 minutes or until deep golden brown.

Posted in Dinner | Tagged | Leave a comment

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.

Posted in Dinner | Tagged , | Leave a comment