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

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.

Posted in Dinner | Tagged , | Leave a comment

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