Almond Bergamot Bundt Cake

A couple of weeks ago, I set out to make a pound cake. You see, we’ve been getting an awesome egg share this year from Southtown Farms, and my family and I figured we’d be able to go through the full share at a dozen a week. Well, we were doing just fine with it, actually, until one day someone accidentally bought an extra dozen eggs or two to make quiche, and then we just had a million damn eggs. I’d seen some pound cake recipes online that used a whole lot of eggs, so I looked at a few (here’s one I used for reference) and made up the rest based on what ingredients I had around.

We ended up bringing this cake to my aunt & uncle’s house one evening when we had a BBQ. My other uncle was there, too, as was part of my immediate family and my cousin. Since my Heritage Bundt Pan produces a pretty huge cake, I figured I’d only need to bring half of it with me, but I never got around to cutting it and brought the whole thing. As it turned out, nearly 7/8ths of the whole cake was gone – despite the fact that a few members of the family are trying to avoid sugar! Too tempting, I guess. :)

The flavors here came out really nicely. They layered together well with just an undertone of vanilla, a hint of caramel at the edges from using the natural sugar, and then the headiness of almond and bergamot (which you’ll recognize as what makes Earl Grey tea taste as it does). I finished this moist cake with a drizzle of a nice quality melted dark chocolate – I used a bar of Dagoba I’d gotten as a gift.

*Note: If you do not have the required bergamot extract, you can infuse the milk with Earl Grey tea for a similar result.

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups butter
6 eggs
3 cups whole wheat flour (this is what I had on hand – you can use white whole wheat or split between whole wheat and all purpose)
2 cups natural sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon vanilla bean paste
1 teaspoon almond extract
1/2 teaspoon bergamot extract
2/3 cup yogurt (I used one 5.3 oz cup)
1/3 cup milk
1/2-3/4 bar of good dark chocolate, about 1-1.5 oz (optional)
handful of slivered almonds, toasted (optional)

Directions

Grease and flour a 10-cup bundt or tube pan. Do not preheat the oven.

In a medium bowl, mix flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside.

In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, mixing well each time. Add vanilla, almond, and bergamot extracts.

Add flour mixture to the cream mixture, alternately with yogurt. Add milk. Beat until smooth. Pour batter into the prepared tube or Bundt pan. Place pan on a tray to prevent overflow in the oven.

Place cake into cold oven, set the temperature to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) and bake for 60 to 90 minutes, or until toothpick inserted into center of cake comes out clean. (This took me about 60 minutes, but your mileage may vary depending on how long your oven takes to heat up.) Let the cake cool in the pan for 15 minutes before turning it out onto a cooling rack.

In a double boiler or CAREFULLY in the microwave (don’t burn it!), melt the chocolate. Cut the tip off a small plastic sandwich bag. Spoon in the melted chocolate, and drizzle lines back and forth over the cake. Decorate with almond slivers if desired. Let the chocolate set before serving.

Lemon Whoopie Pies Two Ways

I’m part of an online baking community, and this month, the monthly challenge was to take a box mix and transform it. I’ve been watching a lot of Chopped lately, so I was definitely interested in seeing what I could do.

I got the idea to make Whoopie Pies, though not the traditional black and white kind. (Chocolate cake with vanilla icing is actually my least favorite.) I picked up a box of Organic Lemon Cake mix at Whole Foods early in the month, and it sat in the pantry for quite a while.

Today I finally got into gear. I used a recipe I found online to turn the cake mix into whoopie pie mix, but the batter really looked too runny to me. Hoping for some kind of miracle, I spooned some onto the parchment. They came out thin and flat, just as I’d expected. So, I altered the recipe with some baking powder and extra flour, and then they came out perfectly.

I went ahead and assembled my whoopie pies, and I let my partner and my little brother eat some of the failed flat ones. I still had four or five of them left, though, and I had some beautiful, ripe peaches from our farm share. I sliced a peach super thin, went to the garden and got some lemon basil, and made a second beautiful dessert.

If you want to make the Napolean variation, just omit the extra flour and baking powder. Use a cup or a cookie cutter to obtain uniform shapes, then layer the thin pastry with slivers of peaches and whipped cream or custard. Garnish with lemon basil to bring together these amazing flavors.

For the whoopie pies, I chose to make them a bit smaller than they traditionally are. I find the larger ones to be sugar-headache inducing! For the filling, I made one buttercream, then split it and flavored half with raspberry and half with lavender.

Ingredients
For the whoopie pies
1 box of lemon cake mix
3 eggs
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup oil
1/3 cup flour (or til the batter is thickened; for whoopie pies only)
1/2 teaspoon baking powder (for whoopie pies only)

For the filling
1 stick butter
2 1/2 cups confectioners sugar
1/4 teaspoon lavender extract
2 tablespoons seedless raspberry jam

Directions

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Line two cookie sheets with parchment paper.

In a mixer or a large bowl, combine the cake mix, eggs, water, oil, flour, and baking powder. Stir until smooth.

Drop the batter onto the parchment lined cookie sheet. I used about 1 tablespoon for each; you can make them bigger, but they may need an extra couple minutes to cook. Try to make them round!

Bake for 5-8 minutes. Carefully peel back the parchment and let the rounds cool on a rack.

Meanwhile, make the buttercream filling. In a mixer, combine the butter and sugar until a smooth frosting is formed. Add a few drops of water or milk if necessary. If making two flavors, divide the filling in half. In one bowl, add the lavender extract (to taste) and mix well. In another bowl, add the raspberry jam to taste and mix well.

Using a spoon or a piping bag (I used a star tip on the raspberry ones and an angled tip on the lavender ones, just for cuteness), fill in some frosting on the flat side of one of the whoopie pies. Add another one on top for the lid. Continue making the little sandwiches, using one flavor for some and the other for others. If you feel inspired, roll the edges in sprinkles for an extra sweet look.

Keep refrigerated. They also apparently freeze well!

First time canning: Peach Jam

Guys, I am so proud of myself! I MADE JAM!

I haven’t opened it yet, and of course, there’s still the off-chance that I did something horribly wrong and will have botulized someone, but… I’m so happy! I truly feel like this is one more step towards getting out of the vicious consumer cycle.

If you’ve read my blog for a while, you’ll know that I have had lofty dreams of canning for years, but have opted to freeze things like tomato sauce, apple butter, and to make refrigerator pickles rather than to actually process them. I’m actually surprised that I even have an interest in canning. It was never something my mother did, but once, when I was a child (perhaps 9 or 10, with sun-sensitivity from antibiotics for my Lyme disease), my mom and (at the time) two younger brothers went off with another mom from our school – let’s call her Ellie-May – and her couple of children to go strawberry picking, with plans to make jam for the rest of the afternoon.

Well, if you’ve never picked strawberries or raspberries, let me tell you, it is nothing like the idyllic autumn afternoons of picking apples in mid-September.

It is hot.

It is sunny.

It involves hunching over the plants as opposed to strolling along an apple orchard and plucking the fruit from eye level.

And it is sticky.

If you happen to be with Ellie-May and her children, they will throw tantrums and torment you and your siblings. Ellie-May will bring you back to her house to make quarts upon quarts of jam, but the children will not be involved, it will be hot as hell in the house, and she will neglect to offer anyone lunch, so the already bad behavior from the children will quickly diminish.

Somehow, though, I still was interested in learning to can. Perhaps it was the trips to Lancaster that we took, where we could buy jam topped with a little square of pretty fabric from lovely Amish families. Perhaps it’s my recent love of local food, farmers markets, and learning to appreciate a simpler life.

Whatever it is, I have wanted to try this out for years, and for Christmas, Charlie bought me a canning kit. He also got me a really great book, Canning for a New Generation: Bold, Fresh Flavors for the Modern Pantry by Liana Krissoff. When I started perusing this book, I knew it was perfect for me. Liana isn’t super troubled if the jelly doesn’t look perfect, like me. And she uses recipes that are lower in sugar, though they still have enough to make the preserves… well… preserve. She even uses apples and other fruits in the recipes for their high pectin content, meaning that there’s no need to go buy an additional product at the store; you can simply use fruit to set up your jam.

Canning is a bit of work, but not quite as bad as I expected it to be. Here are a few tips for if you’re like me and you fatigue easily.

- Get a partner in crime. This is easy to do when you offer to share the finished product.
- Don’t attempt to can fifty jars in one day. There will be other days, and it’s a much more manageable task if you do one recipe at a time.
- Break your task up into steps, if possible. I found a whole lot of peaches that were seconds at the farmers market, and it took me a couple of hours to cut them all up. So, I did that one night, and I read all the instructions and assembled my materials the next day, but I was too tired to actually can that day. The day after, we canned. If I hadn’t been able to muster up the energy, I planned to use all those cut up peaches in a cobbler or a pie.

Here I am, cutting up peaches the night of the farmers market.

I can’t wait to try another recipe from this book!

Note: I am all about changing up recipes usually, but canning needs to be very precise so that it’s safe to store on a shelf. Make sure you’re familiar with canning before you try anything besides a tested recipe.

Classic Peach Jam from Canning for a New Generation

Makes about 5 half-pint jars

12 oz Granny Smith apples (about 2 large)
4 pounds peaches, peeled, pitted, and diced
2 cups sugar
3 tablespoons strained fresh lemon juice

Prepare for water bath canning: Sterilize the jars and keep them hot in the canning pot, put a small plate in the freezer, and put the flat lids in a heat-proof bowl. (See page 21 of book for details.)

Cut the apples into quarters and core them. Tie the cores and seeds in a cheesecloth bag and set aside.

Put the peaches and sugar in a wide, 6- to 8-quart preserving pan. Bring to a simmer, stirring frequently, and cook until the juices just cover the peaches. Pour into a colander set over a large bowl and stir the peaches gently to drain off the juice. Return the juice to the pan, along with the apples and cheesecloth bag, and bring to a boil over high heat. Boil, stirring occasionally, until the syrup is thick and reduced, about 15 minutes.

Return the peaches and any accumulated juice to the pan, along with the lemon juice, and bring to a simmer. Simmer, stirring frequently, until the peaches are very tender and a small dab of the jam spooned onto the chilled plate and returned to the freezer for a minute becomes somewhat firm (it will not gel), about 15 minutes. Remove from the heat and stir gently for a few seconds to distibute the fruit in the liquid. Remove the bag and the apples. (Reserve the apples for another use; see page 94 of book.)

Ladle the hot jam into the jars, leaving 1/4 inch headspace at the top. Use a damp paper towel to wipe the rims of the jars, then put a flat lid and ring on each jar, adjusting the ring so that it’s just finger-tight. Return the jars to the water in the canning pot, making sure the water covers the jars by at least 1 inch. Bring to a boil, and boil for 5 minutes to process. Remove the jars to a folded towel and do not disturb for 12 hours. After 1 hour, check that the lids have sealed by pressing down on the center of each; if it can be pushed down, it hasn’t sealed, and the jar should be refrigerated immediately. Label the sealed jars and store.

Peach Crisp with Honey & Coconut

The weather has been unusually warm here lately, and the Jersey peaches have been available sweet and absolutely ridiculously delicious for weeks. I went to a farmers market one Tuesday almost a month ago and bought a small bucket of peaches that held perhaps five beautiful peaches. I only got to eat one of those incredible peaches, as my littlest brother, age 12, apparently ate the rest of them in immediate succession. The next week, I went back and bought two or three times as many, and I got to eat one in my morning oatmeal.

Charlie has a bit of an allergy to some hand fruits like apples and peaches, and I felt so bad that he couldn’t enjoy these awesome peaches with me. Since they don’t seem to bother him when they’re cooked, on my last trip to the farmers market, I bought enough to make a crisp or a cobbler with. (I never remember if there’s a difference between the two…)

I have a pretty big amount of honey left over from a wedding cake I did several months ago, and I’ve been thinking for a while about making a crisp/cobbler with honey as the sugar. I assumed it would be fine, but I did a bit of googling, and it seemed like people had been successful with it.

I also decided to go out on a limb and change out the fat that I used. I’ve been trying to be mindful of the food I’m putting in my body lately. (I recently got back from a roadtrip, and nearly every time I go on a roadtrip, I clean up my eating habits when I return because I feel crappy from eating so much crappy food on the road.) I decided to give coconut oil a try in this recipe since I’ve been wanting to experiment with cooking with it, and also because peach and coconut are great together.

The flavors in this were amazing. The peaches were perfect (no sweetener needed in the fruit portion). On the first day, the taste of honey shone through, but the next day, the coconut flavor showed itself a bit more. I would definitely make this again with these variations.

With a crisp, I usually just wing it, so unfortunately, these measurements are sort of approximations, but, in my experience, crisps are pretty darn forgiving, so it all works out. :)

*Note: My peaches were very juicy, and after the first day, things got a bit sloshy, so if yours are very juicy, too, I’d suggest mixing a tiny bit of cornstarch in with the fruit.

Ingredients

5-7 large peaches, pitted and cut into slices or large chunks (I left the skins on)
2 plums (optional, these were just very ripe and needed to be used)
1/3-1/2 cup honey
1/4 cup coconut oil
1 2/3 cup old-fashioned oats
3/4 cup white whole wheat flour
1/2 cup walnuts
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoons ground ginger
1 teaspoon cinnamon
3 tablespoons pepitas (optional)
1/3 cup coconut flakes (optional)

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Spread the fruit in the bottom of a pan (I used a corningware one about 12x12x2).

In a mixer or large bowl, combine the honey and coconut oil. Mix until blended. Add the dry ingredients (oats, flour, salt, ginger, cinnamon) and mix until large crumbs are form. Add a bit more flour or oats if necessary. Stir in the walnuts. Spread evenly over the top of the fruit. Sprinkle the pepitas and coconut on top.

Bake in a preheated 350 degree oven for about 30 minutes or until the crisp is brown and the fruit is bubbling. Enjoy warm!

Fresh Fava Bean Dip (with Garlic Scapes)

Today we found ourselves with both some beautiful fava beans and some garlic scapes in our CSA share. Last year when we got fava beans, we grilled them, which was awesome! Ever since we started getting them, though, I’ve been wanting to turn them into a scrumptious dip. I wanted something easy, simple, and delicious, so I did a quick google search. I found Fresh Fava Bean Dip with Rosemary on the blog What Julia Ate. It was a super simple, guesstimating quantities type of recipe, which was just what I wanted. I scooped up a bit on a cracker to try, and it’s yummy. The fava flavor is very accommodating, so feel free to sub in another herb.

I’m saving it for tomorrow since we’d already begun cooking rice & beans for our meal, but I’m really looking forward to this divine dip.

Martha Stewart’s Red Velvet Cupcakes

I have a cupcake order coming up next month for a baby shower, and they’ve requested red velvet cupcakes, so I am testing out red velvet cupcake recipes in the next few weeks to find the very best one. 

Today I used Martha Stewart’s Red Velvet Cupcake recipe pretty much exactly as it was. This is a great cupcake. The flavor is good, the cupcake is moist, and it pairs beautifully with a basic cream cheese frosting (I used Martha’s Cream Cheese Frosting, though I added an extra splash of vanilla). The cupcake did not turn out very red, so I would definitely bump that up if you want a very red cupcake. Also, despite their great flavor, these did not dome up well, which was disappointing. Lastly, if I made them again, I would try decreasing the oil a tiny bit to see if the wrappers might be a bit less greasy, though I wouldn’t want to lose any of the terrific moistness.

Overall, these cupcakes are great; no one will be disappointed to eat one.  

Do you have a perfect red velvet cupcake recipe? Share it with me and I may feature it on the blog! 

Ingedients (Red Velvet Cupcakes)

2 1/2 cups cake flour (not self- rising), sifted
2 tablespoons unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 1/2 cups vegetable oil
2 large eggs, room temperature
1/2 teaspoon red gel-paste food color
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 cup buttermilk
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
2 teaspoons distilled white vinegar

Directions (Red Velvet Cupcakes)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line standard muffin tins with paper liners. Whisk together cake flour, cocoa, and salt.

With an electric mixer on medium-high speed, whisk together sugar and oil until combined. Add eggs, one at a time, beating until each is incorporated, scraping down sides of bowl as needed. Mix in food color and vanilla.

Reduce speed to low. Add flour mixture in three batches, alternating with two additions of buttermilk, and whisking well after each. Stir together the baking soda and vinegar in a small bowl (it will foam); add mixture to the batter, and mix on medium speed 10 seconds.

Divide batter evenly among lined cups, filling each three-quarters full. Bake, rotating tins halfway through, until a cake tester inserted in centers comes out clean, about 20 minutes. Transfer tins to wire racks to cool completely before removing cupcakes. Cupcakes can be stored overnight at room temperature, or frozen up to 2 months, in airtight containers.
To finish, use a small offset spatula to spread cupcakes with frosting.

Cook’s Note

Gel-paste food color is much more concentrated than the supermarket liquid variety; if you substitute the liquid, you may need to add an entire bottle (1.5 ounces) to achieve the desired shade.

Ingredients (Cream Cheese Frosting)

8 ounces (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
12 ounces cream cheese, room temperature
1 pound (4 cups) confectioners’ sugar, sifted
3/4 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Directions (Cream Cheese Frosting)

Beat butter and cream cheese with a mixer on medium-high speed until fluffy, 2 to 3 minutes. Reduce speed to low. Add sugar, 1 cup at a time, and then vanilla; mix until smooth.

Hello, springtime!

I guess I’ve sort of had an unintentional hiatus here! I’ve still been baking and cooking, but more cooking than baking, and lots of old favorites instead of getting really experimental. There’s always a certain point of the winter (even a non-winter like the one we just had) that I get a bit stagnant, but now, with the arrival of spring, I am rejuvenated! 

If you follow me on Facebook, you know that I tried out one of those “artisan bread in five minutes a day” recipes. It was amazing, and probably one of the most successful bread attempts I’ve ever had. Posting about that is on my to-do list, and I bought a big jar of fresh yeast and I’ll hopefully come up with some great variations. 

I also am happy to report that I planted some vegetables today! I was considering not gardening at all this year because I’m scheduled for shoulder surgery next month. I’m going to be in a sling for quite a while, and I won’t be able to haul around my containers or sacks of soil or do anything really strenuous. But, I planted some small, manageable containers that I’ll be able to water with a watering can instead of a hose that I need to coil. 

I almost exclusively used seeds from the Hudson Valley Seed Library. I planted kale, a couple kinds of lettuce, the same peas & carrots as last year, spinach, green onions, and I started my sugar baby watermelons indoors. My littlest brother also told me that he suspects that the place he’s been growing pumpkins for the last few years is depleted in nutrients because they haven’t done crop rotation (they only grow pumpkins, and this revelation is undoubtedly because I bought him a copy of The Omnivore’s Dilemma for Kids), so we’re talking about planting some stuff over there to replenish the soil. 

I’ll be sure to post some pictures when my seedlings are up! 

Holiday Cookies!

So we had cake, and of course, we had to have cookies, too. Actually, it was a bit of a marathon baking day on the 23rd, but I had help from my sous chef littlest brother who you may remember from my Cupcake Sliders & Cookie Fries post. Of course, Charlie helped out, too!

We made some chewy chocolate chocolate chip cookies based on my stout cookie recipe. We left out the stout, added a tablespoon of water, and divided the batter in half. In one half, we added a bit of coffee extract and regular semi-sweet chocolate chips. In the other half, we left the batter plain chocolatey and broke up a candy cane/peppermint chocolate bar and used that as the chocolate chips. Both cookies were a hit!

As for the other cookies, we wanted to get some rolled sugar cookies happening, but we were running short on time, so we used some from a mix. They actually rolled out better than I expected them to, and then we made up a thicker version of the glaze in Irksome Iced Sugar Cookies. I’m not a world class decorator by any means, but we got a couple of cute ones!

The arthritis in my hands was really bugging me at the end of this. Anyone have any tips or tricks for keeping your hands from hurting with all this piping?

Chocolate Orange Christmas Bundt

Image is of a chocolate bundt cake on top of a red and green quilt. My mom made that quilt, isn’t it lovely?

When my dad and brothers eat out at a restaurant, they always order the “Death by Chocolate” dessert, so when I bake a cake for the family at Christmas, I always try to make something very chocolatey. If I don’t, I’ll get comments like, “This cake is good… but there isn’t enough chocolate.” Last year I made this Deep Dark Chocolate Cake, which was a chocolate layer cake made with black cocoa filled with raspberry jam and topped with both a whipped and poured chocolate ganache.

Chocolate and orange together have always seemed rather Christmassy to me, probably in part due to the seasonal nature of citrus during the winter, and also because my family has sometimes bought those chocolates that are infused with orange that you smack on the table and come away with individual slices of chocolate. This year, I planned a chocolate orange bundt with a poured chocolate ganache on top. (I’m finally ready to face bundt pans again after doing Micah and Casey’s many-bundt wedding cake in September.)

I’ve seen this Cook’s Illustrated chocolate cake recipe talked about all over the internet for ages, and it always seemed like a pain to me. Really? Cocoa and bittersweet chocolate? Boiling water for a cake? But here’s the great thing about using the boiling water – it means that you don’t have to melt down the chocolate in a double boiler, so you don’t have to wash that extra pan, but you still get the lovely richness from the chopped chocolate.

I’ve adapted the recipe to add orange extract and orange zest to add flavor without disrupting the dry/liquid balance of this tried and true recipe. It really came out wonderfully, a cake that wasn’t too sweet and was perfectly complimented by the poured ganache. It looked beautiful on our holiday table and was wonderful with a dollop of fresh whipped cream. If you don’t celebrate Christmas, it would be wonderful for the new year!

Ingredients

3/4 cup Dutch-processed cocoa (2 1/4 ounces)
6 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped
3/4 cup water (boiling)
1 cup sour cream, room temperature
1 3/4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon table salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
12 tablespoons unsalted butter (1 1/2 sticks), room temperature
2 cups light brown sugar (I used a scant two cups rather than packed two cups to cut back on the sugar a bit)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2-3 teaspoons orange extract
zest of 1 orange
5 large eggs, room temperature

1 batch of poured ganache

Directions

Grease and lightly dust a 12-cup Bundt pan with cocoa powder. Adjust oven rack to lower-middle position; heat oven to 350 degrees.

Combine cocoa, chocolate in medium heatproof bowl; pour boiling water over and whisk until smooth. Cool to room temperature, then whisk in sour cream. Whisk flour, salt, and baking soda in second bowl to combine.

In stand mixer fitted with flat beater, beat butter, sugar, vanilla, and orange extract on medium-high speed until pale and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Reduce speed to medium and add eggs one at a time, mixing about 30 seconds after each addition and scraping down bowl with rubber spatula after first 2 additions.

Reduce to medium-low speed; add about one third of flour mixture and half of chocolate/sour cream mixture and mix until just incorporated, about 20 seconds. Scrape bowl and repeat using half of remaining flour mixture and all of remaining chocolate mixture; add remaining flour mixture and beat until just incorporated, about 10 seconds. Scrape bowl and mix on medium-low until batter is thoroughly combined, about 30 seconds. Add orange zest and stir. Pour batter into prepared Bundt pan, being careful not to pour batter on sides of pan.

Bake at 350 degrees F until wooden skewer inserted into center comes out with few crumbs attached, 50 minutes to an hour. Cool in pan 10 minutes, then invert cake onto parchment-lined wire rack.

Prepare the ganache (Recipe is in a separate post here) and pour it over the cake. Let the ganache set (this could take a few hours). Keep refrigerated until a few minutes before serving. Serve with fresh whipped cream.

Chocolate Ganache

Image is of a wisk in a bowl of chocolate ganache.

I make chocolate ganache often enough now that I figured I should dedicate a whole post to it. It will be short (and sweet!) for now, but I may come back to this in a few days to report back after I use up some leftovers on truffles.

This particular post finally got put up due to my Chocolate Orange Christmas Bundt, but you can use it for all sorts of delicious chocolatey fun.

Nearly every ganache recipe I’ve seen is very, very similar, but I’ll link you to Joy of Baking because it’s got some helpful hints and tips on there, like that you should ideally use a chocolate with less than 58% cacao in it for textural reasons.

But look. Joy of Baking does butter in their ganache. I usually don’t. And then there’s all kinds of confusing crap between cups and ounces when we’re talking chocolate. But in my experience, if you take an average sized bag of semi-sweet chocolate chips (they’re usually about 10oz) and put that to a cup of cream, you’ll get a good ganache going. I’ve made it work with a little less. I’ve made it work with a little more. I’ve mixed bittersweet and semi-sweet. And the one time it all went wrong, it still tasted pretty darn good. Experiment a little.

Ingredients

9 ounces bittersweet or semi-sweet chocolate
1 cup heavy cream
1 tablespoon dark rum (optional)

Directions

Chop the chocolate into small pieces and place it in a large stainless steel bowl.

In a large, high sided saucepan, heat cream over medium high heat, stirring frequently, until it starts to boil. Watch it carefully to ensure that it does not boil over. Remove immediately from heat and pour over the chopped chocolate.

Wisk the chocolate and cream together until the chocolate is completely melted and mixture is smooth.

For poured ganache, allow the mixture to cool slightly, then pour over the cake.

For whipped ganache, allow the mixture to cool at room temperature for about two hours, then use a stand mixer to whip the attachment into a fluffy frosting.

Store ganache in refrigerator.

Site Design

Trying out a new page design for the first time in a while… What do you think? Love it? Hate it? Is it more organized, or harder to read? Let me know!

An update and some favorite recipes from the past…

Hey Measuring Spoons Readers!

First off, if you celebrate a winter holiday, I hope it’s happy!

Secondly, I wanted to give a sort of general life update post, which I don’t do that often, but you know, sometimes I do particularly when I’ve been slacking off on the blog quite a bit… and I know that I haven’t been posting delicious holiday cookie or cake recipes. Believe me, I want nothing more than to be hanging out, baking cookies lately, but there’s been some stuff going on in my life that’s been keeping me out of the kitchen.

As you might have guessed (if you’ve been following the blog for a while, or you’ve read the About page), part of the reason I haven’t been around much is my health. I have a fancy new diagnosis (Ehlers Danlos Syndrome, Hypermobility Type), which is just another explanation for why my joints are all wonky and sore all the time. Plus, I’ve had some flare ups of an old injury, my RA, and my fibromyalgia, so I’ve been kind of achey and tired.

Charlie and I are also in the process of moving, which, as I’m sure you know, can be exhausting! We’re at a stopover for now with some family since we’re still making some decisions about where we’re going to live, what we can afford, and what our long-term plans before we commit to a lease. The great thing about this is that I’ve gotten to spend some time cooking meals for my 12 year old brother, who is way more adventurous with food than I was at his age, and he’s tried things like brussels sprouts and tofu and butternut squash lasagna and lentil soup and for the most part, really enjoyed the food I’ve made.

And here’s another cool thing. I’ve been focusing on my writing a bit. I’ve recently finished my first novel and will soon begin the editing process to see if I can turn it into something that anyone else will want to read! I’ve also been writing short pieces, fiction and nonfiction, and I’m happy to report that I just had a short piece published in an actual book, you know, the kind that you can buy on Amazon and everything. How neat is that?

So those are just a few of the things that have kept me a bit busy. I’m hoping to make some delicious things for the family this weekend, and if that happens, I’ll try to get them posted before the New Year so that you can them out.

In the meantime, here are some favorites that are great for the holidays:

Deep Dark Chocolate Cake
Darling Clementines
Cranberry Sauce Almondies
Irksome Iced Sugar Cookies
Carrot Cake with Bourbon Cream Cheese Frosting
Dressmaker’s Double Stout Cookies
Holiday Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls
Spiral Herb Rolls

Again, happy holidays, and I hope to be baking and posting more soon!

Cocoa Cranberry Oatmeal Muffins

Oatmeal in the morning on a cool day is an awesome thing, right? But sometimes you don’t make enough, and other times (especially when you set it up in your slow cooker and then people rush out the door without breakfast anyway) there is tooooo much oatmeal. You don’t want to throw it out, but if you save it, do people really eat the leftovers? They will if you turn them into muffins! Say, Cocoa Cranberry Oatmeal Muffins?

I’m not sure that I got a photo of these muffins, but they were really tasty and they’re pretty healthy – I substituted nonfat yogurt for some of the butter and reduced the sugar, used whole wheat flour, and of course, they’ve got the healthy power of oatmeal in there, too! I was surprised at how light and fluffy these came out. I’ll definitely make them again when we have oatmeal leftovers, and if you don’t have cranberries, throw in raisins or chocolate chips or nuts or anything else you can think of!

The basis of this recipe originates here, which was a great help since I wasn’t quite sure how my oatmeal leftovers were going to factor in.

Ingedients

1 3/4 cups whole wheat flour
1/2 cup cocoa
1 cup brown sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 tablespoon baking soda
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 1/2 teaspoons ground ginger
1/2 cup butter
1/4 cup nonfat greek yogurt
4 medium eggs (or 3 large)
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 cups leftover cooked oatmeal (our leftovers were steel cut oats)
1 cup cranberries, sliced

Directions

In a large bowl, combine flour, cocoa, cinnamon, ginger, brown sugar, baking powder and baking soda.

In another bowl, mix together melted butter, eggs, oatmeal, yogurt, cranberries, and vanilla. Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients and stir just until moistened. The batter will seem thick, but don’t worry. Adding more liquid may make the muffins too crumbly.

Spoon batter into 24 greased muffin cups.

Bake at 350 degrees for 18 minutes, or until the muffin centers are slightly firm.

Slow-Cooker Seitan Pot Roast

I don’t have the best picture of this because of low lighting, but it did come out pretty nice looking! Photo is of a vegetarian roast with a few slices taken out, surrounded by veggies.

I’ve been wanting to make Vegan Planet’s Slow-Cooker Seitan Pot Roast since the moment I heard about it, and that was ages ago. Over a year ago, for certain. It just sounds so delightful – pretty much, the part of Thanksgiving that’s been missing for me the past 15 or 17 odd years, namely, the turkey, but more importantly, the ridiculous sandwiches of turkey and cranberry sauce and whatever else you could cram between two pieces of lovely bread the next day.

Finally, finally, Bo and I took on this project. It really wasn’t hard to put together at all. In fact, the wheat gluten worked in quite magical ways, as one minute it was this powdery dry stuff, and the next, when you poured the liquid in and stirred maybe two or three times, it had become a solid-ish, bouncy sort of object. SCIENCE!

Anyway, I’ll be totally honest here. This seitan roast was not the seitan roast of my dreams. It came out pretty darn rubbery, and I can’t say whether we overmixed it in trying to get it to look sort of like a roast (or at least one contiguous blob) or if we left it in for too long or not long enough. Slow cookers are a little wonky as you’re never quite sure if yours is the same as the person’s who wrote the recipe, and times can vary quite a bit. There’s even a note to that effect in the recipe.

But hey. This blog is subtitled “recipes and experimentations,” right? I’ll give this another chance, and if that still doesn’t work out, I might try it in the alternate/oven method, especially since our veggies that roasted in the oven came out far superior to the ones in the slow cooker. But you know, we had a veg*n Thanksgiving roast, and we had leftover sandwiches (albeit rubbery ones) and that was pretty cool.

Note: Since we were roasting a whole tray of veggies separately, we did not put the full amount of veggies in.

Ingredients

1 yellow onion, peeled and coarsely chopped
1 pound carrots
1 pound small red-skinned potatoes, halved or quartered
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 cup vegetable stock
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1 teaspoon dried thyme
1 teaspoon dried marjoram
2 cups wheat gluten flour
1/2 teaspoon onion powder
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1 1/2 cup water or vegetable stock, or more as needed
3 tablespoons soy sauce
1 tablespoon ketchup or tomato sauce

Directions

Note: You may need to adjust your cooking time according to the quirks of your own crockpot. The one I used for this recipe cooks fast — if I had used one of my other slow cookers, it would have taken nearly twice as long.

Arrange the onion, carrots, and potatoes in the bottom of a lightly oiled slow cooker. Season the vegetables to taste with salt and pepper and add the stock, garlic, and 1/2 teaspoon each of the thyme and marjoram.

In a large bowl, combine the wheat gluten flour, onion powder, garlic powder, the remaining 1/2 teaspoon each of thyme and marjoram, 1/2 teaspoon of salt, and 1/4 teaspoon of black pepper. Add the water or stock, soy sauce, and ketchup. Mix well, adding a little more water if the mixture is too dry, then knead for 2 minutes until smooth. Shape the gluten to fit inside your cooker and place on top of the vegetables. (You can place it on top of a piece of aluminum foil or wrap it in cheesecloth, if desired, to keep its shape). Put the lid on the slow cooker and cook on LOW for 4 to 6 hours (or longer, depending on your slow cooker – we did about six), or until the seitan and vegetables are cooked.

To serve, remove the vegetables and seitan from the slow cooker. Cut the seitan into slices and arrange them on a serving platter. Surround with the vegetables and spoon the cooking liquid over all or transfer the cooking liquid to a saucepan and thicken into a gravy.

Serves 4, more when you’re making Thanksgiving dinner with lots of sides!

Red (Purple!) Sweet Potato Pies

Charlie and I went shopping at the Ramsey Farmers Market the Sunday before Thanksgiving. We were looking for veggies and picking up our eggs from Farmer Matt. We got our eggs and wandered around tasting yummy things, and then we buckled down and bought some veggies and fruit.

The sweet potato bin at one of the veggie stands was getting very empty, but the bin next to it was labeled “Red Sweet Potatoes” and it had some of the largest sweet potatoes I’d ever seen in my life in it. “What’s the difference?” I asked the farmer. He told me that the red ones weren’t really orange on the inside – that they had a deeper color – but that they were good. I decided we’d try them out.

I googled them when we got home, and I kept finding results that looked very purple. I was very delighted when we peeled the sweet potatoes and found that they were bright purple!

Photo is of a large sweet potato with a bit of skin peeled away, revealing the purple flesh.

Photo is of the peeled and cut purple sweet potatoes.

We cooked and mashed them, following the recipe for Mom’s Sweet Potato Pie. We couldn’t wait to see what they’d look like, cute and tiny and purple!

Bo began to decorate the mounds of sweet potato with nuts and marshmallows.

Photo is of one of the mini red sweet potato pies.

Isn’t it amazing?

Photo is of Bo holding a tray of mini sweet potato pies.

And here they are, fresh out of the oven. They were delicious! I’d definitely get these red/purple beauties again. Yay for trying something new!