Category Archives: desserts

January 8, 2012

Two Quince, a Recipe Swap

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I had a whole post written about what I’ve been up to in the past month and offering excuses for why I haven’t been blogging. That post is filed away for next time and this month’s Recipe Swap is taking precedent!

For more than a year, Christianna at Burwell General Store has been sharing vintage recipes with a growing number of talented bloggers. I joined the group a few months ago and look forward to every swap as a new opportunity to really let my creativity loose on a recipe. We all have to come up with something closely or very loosely based on the original recipe. The results are always quite different!

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This was the first recipe I didn’t fall in love with at first sight. Zabaglione is not the kind of dessert I would ever order in a restaurant or make myself at home. I guess I have simpler taste in sweets and don’t normally go for boozy food.

It was clear that this swap would take some thought. Unfortunately, I had A LOT going on, as you will read in a future post. My brain just wasn’t on blogging. I bought marsala wine. I bought eggs. Hey, maybe I’d just make zabaglione! I did lots of research. Everyone loves food research.Then, this evening, I made quince preserves.

Quince preserves? Yes. The odd and new-to-me fruit that I picked up in a little market on Mission was calling my name, begging me to simmer it with wine and sugar. I read that quince are like a cross between a pear and an apple but cannot be eaten raw. Many poached quince recipes popped up in my google searches and one of my cookbooks has a recipe for quince preserves.

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Fruit put my mind at ease. The marsala addition was my adventuresome throw-back to the zabaglione recipe. One a busy winter night, just back from some weekend traveling, I made two jars of preserves. Could we consider that a reference to the “…for two” part of the original swap recipe?

While I did not do a very good job with this dish from a preserving perspective and I don’t necessarily recommend that you can the mixture this recipe makes, I do recommend that you cook some quince in marsala wine. This recipe would make an excellent compote for ice cream, cake, or even granola+yogurt. It didn’t quite make enough liquid to fill my jars and I didn’t chop the quince finely enough to make spreadable preserves but the result is ridiculously good. I don’t even like wine and the flavors of the marsala and the fruit are so happy together that I have to pat myself on the back for this one.

Really, these are the people with the awesome food.

 

 

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Marsala Quince Compote

2 ripe quince, peeled, cored and finely chopped
1/2 cup dry marsala wine
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup granulated sugar

Combine wine, water, and sugar in a medium saucepan over moderate heat. Stir to dissolve sugar.
Bring liquids to a boil.
Add chopped quince and return mixture to a boil.
Cook on high for 15-20 minutes, or until fruit is soft and partly transparent and the liquid does not immediately flow back together when you drag a spoon across the bottom of the pan.
Pour compote into glass storage or serving dish (heat up the dish in a warm oven first).
Allow the mixture to cool and then cover and refrigerate or use immediately.

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December 4, 2011

Toll Houses

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This month’s Recipe Swap recipe made me smile. It also appealed to my nerdyness with a little geographical and historical context lesson. Christianna at Burwell General Store decided to start the swaps second year with a new cookbook. A group of brave bloggers received this vintage recipe from a very unique cookbook:

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        I didn’t do a ton of baking as a kid but I do remember making Toll House chocolate chip cookies with my mom. I know they were Toll House because I remember reading the recipe off of the yellow bag. Though it didn’t happen often, for me cookie baking meant valuable lessons in how to use the stand mixer. It was big, heavy, more than a little scary with all those moving parts, and absolutely essential for perfect cookies.

Until very recently, I didn’t have a mixer of my own. My grandmother’s KitchenAid coming to live with me just happened to correspond with this cookie recipe swap. Creaming butter and sugar has never been so satisfying!
Oh but wait, I didn’t use butter in my Toll House cookies. There are two explanations for this:

  1. I wanted to use a “healthier” fat and just experiment with a different version of the traditional cookie.
  2. I forgot to buy butter.

I’d say the real reason is some combination of the above…but mostly number 2. Butter was on the grocery list. I meant to use it, really I did. I’m just not a big butter user so it didn’t make it into my basket. No problem. I had coconut oil! Since it’s solid at room temperature and has such a lovely flavor, I sometimes substitute coconut oil for butter in my baking. While it’s not the same as something made with butter, I think the flavor and texture of these cookies is outstanding.

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        Now comes the part where I explain the houses. You see, my husband is such a sweet guy, he randomly buys me cookie cutters (this just started recently). Last month he added a house-shaped cutter to my small collection. That, of course, made me smile because we were about to buy our first house! We moved in a week or so ago so I’m feeling very homey and grounded nowadays. The house cookie cutter came out as my play on Toll House cookies and to share a little of my new home love with everyone.

I changed a few other things besides the shape and fat in my cookies. I used white chocolate chips in place of regular, vanilla bean instead of vanilla extract, and whole wheat pastry flour instead of all-purpose. This recipe is small – a nice size for a cookie recipe (unless it’s Christmas and you’re trying to feed lots of people). I baked all the dough in a pyrex dish lined with parchment and then cut the houses out of the giant sheet cookie. This worked pretty well but only made 5 houses + trimmings. The house cookies are big. I’d share one with 1 or 2 other people. The trimmings are perfect for snacking on while you’re snapping your cookie pictures or for crumbling over ice cream…yum!

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Toll House Houses
Adapted from The Second Ford Treasury of Favorite Recipes from Famous Eating Places

1/2 cup coconut oil
6 tablespoons brown sugar
6 tablespoons granulated sugar
1 egg, beaten
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon hot water
1 1/8 cup flour, sifted (I used whole wheat pastry)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup nuts, chopped (I used walnuts and pecans)
1/2 cup white chocolate morsels
1 teaspoon vanilla (I used the seeds scraped from 1 vanilla bean)
Cranberries would have been a good addition. Add some if you want! They’ll be pretty!

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
In the bowl of a stand mixer, cream together coconut oil and sugar.
Add egg and vanilla bean scrapings.
Dissolve baking soda in hot water and then add to batter.
Sift flour and salt together and add to mixer a little at a time until completely incorporated.
Stir in nuts and chocolate morsels.
Line a baking dish (mine is 11×7 in. but a bigger one would be better) with parchment paper.
Spread cookie dough over paper to cover the bottom of the dish. The dough will be relatively soft so this is actually pretty easy.
Bake at 375 for 15-20 minutes or until golden brown.
Remove from oven and let cool. You can lift the “cookie” out of the dish and onto a wire rack using the parchment paper.
Once the cookie is cooled, cut out house shapes in as efficient a pattern as possible.
Start looking for a giant milk moat for your houses!

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October 6, 2011

Sourdough Anything Coffee Cake

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That may look like the bubbly surface of a strange planet but it’s not. Wouldn’t it be nice if there was a planet entirely composed of coffee cake? It would have a caky core rich with sourdough, a bubbly fruit layer, and a sweet, mottled crust of buttery crumbs. I’d live on that planet.

Sorry for the random space reference. I guess I’ve been spending too much time in the science museum. It sure is nice to be back in museums, though! I’ve managed to snag and internship in one and a volunteer position in another. I’ll take all the unpaid experience I can get if it puts me in a situation to learn and network in my chosen field.

One of my chosen field’s, that is…baking/blogging being the other one.

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Okay, I’m dying to talk about this coffee cake. Could it look and more scrumptious? Maybe I’m just flabbergasted by it because I rarely make coffeecake and am unused to the beautiful, indulgent-looking breakfast/brunch/dessert (yes, you have my permission to eat this for all those meals). I say indulgent looking because this coffee cake isn’t going to make you feel like you just ate half a dozen doughnuts. There’s butter and sugar in there, for sure, but in much more modest amounts that you would think. Hey, there’s fruit too, any kind of fruit you want!

The secret: sourdough starter! I’ve been experimenting with using my started in a few things other than crusty bread loaves and have been very pleased with the results so far. It seems to be a good replacement copious amounts of fat in recipes. This is the first blog-worthy product and it is more than worthy. This coffee cake stops time when you cut a slice, sit down with a fork and a cup of coffee, and push everything else aside. You can also just eat hunks of cake straight from the pan with your fingers. i’ve tried it both ways.

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One reason I delved into the land of coffee cakes, where I do not often venture, is that Peet’s was kind enough to send me two bags of new medium roast ground coffees and a mug through the FoodBuzz Tastemakers program. I am in love with the first bag I opened, Cafe Solano, and have been enjoying it every morning with my cereal. Being the only coffee drinker in the house, I have a lot of brewing and sipping to do! Rest assured, fellow Peet’s fans, there will be more coffee-oriented posts to come!

You can get your hands on some excellent Peet’s medium roast coffee with this coupon http://www.peetscoffee.com/medium-roast-offer/

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Really, the zippy Cafe Solano roast with “floral notes and a subtle fruit essence”, as Peet’s experts describe it, is perfect alongside this fruit-studded coffeecake, whichever kind of fruit you use. I was very happy to find that this medium roast coffee has intense flavor without being overpowering or bitter. There are places for dark and light roast coffee in the world but sometimes the middle is best.

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Sourdough Coffee Cake
Adapted from The Galley Wench on Food.com

1 1/4 cups whole wheat pastry flour
1/2 cup sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/3 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup butter, softened
1 cup sourdough starter
1 beaten egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
about 2 to 2 1/2 cups fruit of choice, chopped/sliced, preferabley fresh or frozen (I used chopped frozen rhubarb)

Topping:
1/2 cup flour (more whole wheat pastry or anything else you feel like using)
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
1/4 cup butter, softened

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
In a medium bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. Stir till well blended.
Cut in 1/4 cup butter until mixture resembles course meal.
Separately, mix together sourdough started, beaten egg, and vanilla.
Add went ingredients to dry, stirring until completely incorporated.
Pour batter into a lightly oiled baking dish (I used an 11×7 dish).
Evenly distribute fruit on top of batter.
Mix topping in a small bowl, blending flour, cinnamon, and sugar, then cutting in butter.
Sprinkled topping over fruit.

Bake at 350 degrees for 45-50 minutes, or until the edges of the cake are brown and the top is evenly cooked.

Bake a coffee cake, brew some coffee, and settle down with your goodies and a juicy book. Enjoy fall!

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July 28, 2011

Peanut Butter Cookies (From the File)

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I don’t think I’ve ever made peanut butter cookies before. How said is that? Sure, I’ve made cookies and various other treats with peanut butter in them but I’ve never made a straight-up peanut butter cookie. That’s right, I’ve never had the pleasure of smooshing fork marks into the top of thick, rich, peanutty dough balls. Truthfully, I’ve always been a little put off my recipes calling for peanut butter and butter in PB cookies. Why do they need both?

It’s only fair to give this standard recipe a try before declaring it ridiculous. it just so happens that my grandmother’s recipe file (let’s just call it The File) contains such a peanut butter cookie recipe. It’s on a leaf of notepaper that fell out of The File’s torn bottom back at my dad’s house. Peanut butter cookies are at the top of the page and below is a recipe for Icebox Cookies, followed by Coconut Haystacks on the back. There are little notes in the margins next to each recipe, one noting that the PB cookies are a nice, small recipe. The icebox cookies are also described as a small recipe and a note says “better double it”. I love these little voices from past kitchens. I don’t know whose they are, since the handwriting doesn’t really look like my grandmother’s. I’m guessing that my great-grandmother (G.B.) wrote these lines. She was the queen in the sweets department. I can picture her planning a day of cookie baking for some special occasion.

Here they are, plain-old peanut butter cookies. They’re far from a secret family recipe but as my first peanut butter cookies, I’m quite proud of them. I’m also proud of myself for hustling them out of the house as soon as I baked them. I took these cookies (along with some lovely chocolate chip cherry cookies I made yesterday) to Lee’s work this morning. Giving away baked goods is always more satisfying than eating all of them yourself. I assure you, though, I tested these cookies and they are good!

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Peanut Butter Cookies
From The File

1/2 cup room-temperature butter
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup peanut butter
1 1/2 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 egg, beaten

Combine the flour and baking soda in a medium bowl.
In the bowl of a stand mixer (or by hand if you’re buff like me), cream together the butter and sugar. Add the peanut butter and blend thoroughly.
Add the beaten egg and vanilla extract
Add the flour mixture, one cup at a time, to the wet ingredients. Mix until you have a smooth dough.
Cover dough with plastic wrap and refrigerate for as long as you can wait to make your cookies (not part of the original recipe).

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (a “medium oven”, as the recipe says).
Spoon dough onto parchment, Silpat, or oil-coated cookie sheets (I ended up with 22 cookies).
Smoosh the tops of the balls with the bottom of a fork in perpendicular directions.
Bake for 12 minutes or until cookies smell yummy and you can’t wait to eat one!

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