Archive for March, 2009

I seem to be on some sort of Norah Jones kick these days. I may or may not be spending way too much time on Pandora lately.

Some artists have food voices. Our friend Nora is one. Her voice is a peach. A fresh, ripe peach. Right off the tree, in the late afternoon in August.

Or, take Billy Joel. His voice is a chewy pretzel. Salty and savory, and dipped in marinara sauce. Mmm, Billy Joel…

Josh Groban. A rich, dark chocolate silk pie. No walnuts, though, and no whipped cream. Josh Groban isn’t whipped cream. Just straight up pie, and lots of it. Maybe the whole thing, all in one sitting.

Ella Fitzgerald. Easy. She’s a thin slice of light, smooth New York cheesecake, on a white ceramic plate. Maybe with a bit of caramel sauce. Add some toffee bits on top - that’s Louis Armstrong. A match made in heaven.

Jack Johnson. A fresh, cool piña colada smoothie, don’t you think?

That’s what I thought, too. Maybe I should have named these cookies after him. And sent him a box.

These cookies provided a badly-needed springtime pick-me-up. There may be snow on the ground outside, but it’s a tropical party in my kitchen.

Piña Colada Cookies

adapted from The Taste of Home Baking Book

Ingredients:

1 can (8 oz.) crushed pineapple, drained

1/2 cup shortening

1 cup packed brown sugar

1 egg

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 teaspoon coconut extract

2 cups all-purpose flour

1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

3/4 cup flaked coconut

For icing (optional):

1-1/2 cups confectioners’ sugar

3 Tablespoons reserved pineapple juice

Directions:

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Drain pineapple, reserving 3 tablespoons juice. Set pineapple aside; set juice aside. In a mixing bowl, cream shortening and brown sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the egg. Add pineapple, and extracts; mix well. Combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt; add to the creamed mixture and stir until just combined. Stir in the coconut.

Drop by tablespoonfuls 2 inches apart onto a greased baking sheet. Bake for 17-20 minutes or until slightly golden. Immediately remove to wire racks to cool.

If icing is desired, combine confectioners’ sugar with enough of the reserved pineapple juice to achieve spreading consistency. Spread over cooled cookies.

(High altitude: Increase the oven temperature 20 degrees, and decrease baking time by a few minutes. Watch them closely.)

Sunday is my baking day. Not my only baking day, you understand, but my favorite one. By a long shot.

Check it out. I get home from church, kick off my shoes, and don the cute plaid apron. Wha-BAM! The flour starts flying. But, you know… in a peaceful, Sunday sort of way.

Sunday afternoons are just about the loveliest time for me. I can put my little boy down for a nap, turn on some pretty Sunday-ish music, throw something in the oven, sit and read for a while, and enjoy the sunlight streaming through the muslin curtains on my west-facing kitchen window.

Then, before you know it, there’s something warm and delicious - like this sweet carrot pineapple bread - that my husband and I can sit down and share together. And you know what? I think that’s the sweetest thing of all.

When do you like to bake? I wanna hear.

Carrot Pineapple Bread

adapted from The Taste of Home Baking Book

Ingredients:

3 cups all-purpose flour

2 cups sugar

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

3/4 teaspoon salt

3 eggs

2 cups shredded carrots

1 cup vegetable oil

1 can (8 oz) crushed pineapple, drained

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 cup chopped pecans or walnuts (optional)

Directions:

Preheat the oven for 350 degrees F. In a large bowl, combine the flour, sugar, baking soda, cinnamon and salt. In another bowl, beat the eggs; add carrots, oil, pineapple, and vanilla. Stir into dry ingredients just until moistened. The batter will be very thick. Fold in nuts, if desired.

Spoon into two greased 8-in. by 4-in. loaf pans. Bake for 50-70 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean. Cool for 10 minutes on a wire rack. Remove loaves from pans and cool completely on wire racks.

(Note: This bread was great the day-of, but it wasn’t until after I wrapped it up and let it sit over night, that I fell in love with it.)

I think it’s good to be reminded now and then that I’m alive. Not only alive, but vulnerable. Remember that one part about life where none of us are invincible?

Last night I visited a dear elderly friend in the hospital. He’s always been the active, outdoorsy type, and he recently broke his neck in a wacky snowmobile accident. He instantly went from strong to weak, mobile to paralyzed, independent to helpless. Wow. I try to wrap my brain around that, and it just doesn’t work.

I’m currently taking an online course for Medical Transcription. In studying all of the organs, tissues, and systems, and all of the many, many things that can go wrong with all of them, it’s mind-blowingly amazing that all of us aren’t in the hospital, all of the time.

Life is short. So make your battle plan: Carpe diem. Show your love. Give hugs. Call your mom. Plant flowers. Learn to sing. Volunteer. Read books. Hold a baby. Go for long walks. Bake cookies and give them to that new family next door. Turn off the TV, and get up from the computer, and start living life instead of looking at it. I’m not talking about hedonism here, I’m talking about taking advantage of your time and energy and youth to accomplish things now.

Now, speaking of celebrating life, I brought you baked goods. The epitome of bliss, right? These scones are delightful. I’m saving a couple for breakfast tomorrow.

Cranberry Gingerbread Scones

adapted from Joy of Baking

Ingredients:

1-3/4 cups all purpose flour

3/4 cup rolled oats

1/3 cup light brown sugar

1 teaspoon ground ginger

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon ground cloves

1/4 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 cup (1 stick) cold butter, cut into pieces

Zest of 1 lemon (optional)

1/3 cup dried cranberries

1/2 cup buttermilk

2-1/2 tablespoons molasses

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

for egg wash:

1 large egg

1 tablespoon milk

1/4 cup turbinado sugar (optional)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit and place rack in middle of oven. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, oats, sugar, spices, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Cut the butter into small pieces and blend into the flour mixture with a pastry blender until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Stir in the lemon zest and cranberries. In a separate bowl, mix together the buttermilk, molasses and vanilla and then add the buttermilk mixture to the flour mixture. Mix just until the dough comes together. Do not overmix

Transfer to a lightly floured surface and knead the dough gently four or five times and then pat the dough into a circle that is about 7 inches round and about 1-1/2 inches thick. Cut the circle in half, then cut each half into 3 pie-shaped wedges. Place the scones on the baking sheet. Make an egg wash of one well-beaten egg mixed with 1 tablespoon milk, and brush the tops of the scones with this mixture. Sprinkle the tops of the scones with some rolled oats, or turbinado sugar.

Place the baking sheet inside another baking sheet to prevent the bottoms of the scones from over browning. Bake for about 20 minutes or until golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. Transfer to a wire rack to cool.

The longer you stick around here, and the more you read and get to know me, the more you’ll realize that I have a rather abnormal, year-round love affair with the holiday season. Meaning, I go nutty for all that lies between October 1st and January 1st. It doesn’t bother me in the slightest to see Halloween candy in the grocery store in August, or Christmas decorations up in October. That’s the kid in me, getting stars in my eyes just thinking about pumpkin desserts and sweaters and tinsel and colored lights and Nativity scenes and stockings and pretty paper. And yes, even snow.

Year-round, like I said. Once New Year’s Day is over, the annual post-holiday melancholy sets in, and suddenly - shoot, I have to wait almost a whole year before The Holiday Police will give me permission to get excited about the holidays again. And if I show my excitement too early, I can expect acidic glares, or discourses on the atrocity of anything Christmas-related raising its head even a day before Thanksgiving. I know. I’ve heard it all. I’ve heard the lectures. I’ve received the acidic glares. And I think it’s kind of silly. But okay, I can keep my Bing Crosby off and respect your views.

Heh. So much for keeping Christmas throughout the year.

So. Now that I’ve offended half of you (and assuming the other half is still reading this), you can understand why my fancy was captured by these cookies. These are Christmas cookies in my brain. Look at them! They’re pretty. They’re red and white.

And the best part is, they don’t have to be Christmas cookies, for the Scrooges in the world; they can pretend to be July cookies. They don’t scream Christmas, so everyone else can savor them in ignorance, while I secretly delight in my festivity.

Cherry Almond Chews

from The Taste of Home Baking Book

Ingredients:

1 cup shortening

1 cup sugar

1 cup brown sugar

2 eggs

3/4 teaspoon almond extract

2-1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

2-1/2 cups flaked coconut

3/4 cup chopped almonds or pecans (optional)

1 jar maraschino cherries, drained and halved

Directions:

In a large mixing bowl, cream shortening and sugars until light and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in extract. Combine the flour, baking soda and salt; gradually add to the creamed mixture. Stir in coconut and nuts.

Drop by rounded teaspoonfuls 2 inches apart onto lightly greased baking sheets. Place a cherry half in the center of each. Bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 12-13 minutes or until barely browned on the edges. Immediately remove to wire racks to cool. Store in an air-tight container for up to 10 days, or in the freezer for six weeks.

***High altitude adjustment: Adjust oven temperature about 20 degrees higher, and decrease bake time slightly.

I think people underestimate the value of a good cry.

I’m not just talking about crying in general - I’m talking about the hard-core, tear-jerking-movie-induced, that’s-what-I-get-for-investing-myself-emotionally-in-the-characters kind of cry. The kind where you give up trying to keep the tears inside the brim of your eyelids, and you stop trying to invent discreet ways to send your hand up to your face. You could even blow your nose and not be ashamed a bit. That kind of a good cry. And then the credits role, and you feel so much better than when the movie started. It’s so healthy for you.

Tonight I watched Shadowlands with Anthony Hopkins and Debra Winger. Rather, I watched the movie Shadowlands, which stars Anthony Hopkins and Debra Winger. And really, I’m a different person now. If you’re feeling up to an emotionally draining, rewarding, deeply moving, beautiful movie, go get Shadowlands. Grab a box of tissue, a fleece blanket, fuzzy socks, and a cup of hot cocoa. Turn off your phone, turn off all the lights, turn off the pesky movie critic in your head, and press play. And be sure to find a trusted friend, spouse, sister, mom, or cat to enjoy it with.

Now, for an unbelievably tasty, crazy-moist cake that really has absolutely nothing to do with crying.

Space Needle Cake. It’s nothing more or less than a simple, decadent chocolate cake, but where’s the fun in that? I’ll continue to call it Space Needle Cake for as long as I live, because I love the reactions and curiosity I get from people when they hear the name.

Now, why the name Space Needle? Well, for no other reason than that that was the name that it had when I was given the recipe. I got it from my mom several years ago, who got it from an old college roommate, who got it from somebody else, and I’m not sure how far back the chain goes. The story is that this is the chocolate cake recipe that is (or was) served at a restaurant at the Space Needle in Seattle, Washington. Is that true? I have no idea. Does it matter? No. This rich, chocolatey, insanely moist cake brings smiles and groans of pleasure to everyone it comes in contact with, so I’m not terribly concerned with it’s nebulous origin. And Space Needle Cake is still a great name.

Although this recipe makes two 8-inch round layers, I chose to make the recipe twice so I could have a tall, dramatic three-layer cake. And so I could hand over the fourth layer to someone special.

Space Needle Cake

adapted from an unknown source probably relating somehow to the Space Needle

Ingredients:

1 stick of butter, room temperature

2 cups sugar

3 eggs

3/4 cup vegetable oil

1/3 - 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 cup boiling water

1/2 cup buttermilk

2 cups flour

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking soda

For the chocolate ganache:

1/2 cup heavy whipping cream

1-1/2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips

Directions:

In a small mixing bowl, mix together flour, salt, and baking soda, and set aside. In a large mixing bowl, cream together the butter and sugar. Add eggs, oil, cocoa, and vanilla, and beat until smooth. Mix in the boiling water. Mix in the flour mixture and the buttermilk alternately, beginning and ending with the flour mixture. Mix just until smooth. The batter will be very thin.

Pour batter into two prepared 8-inch round pans. Bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 30-35 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Let the cake cool in the pans on a cooling rack for 10-15 minutes, then invert onto the cooling rack. Cool completely before covering with icing or chocolate ganache.

For the ganache, bring the whipping cream to a boil in a medium saucepan. Pour the boiling cream over the chocolate chips in a medium mixing bowl. Let stand for 2-3 minutes, then stir until completely smooth.

When covering the cake with ganache, first cover the edges of the serving platter with several 6-inch squares of wax paper, forming a circle of wax paper pieces. Place the cake on top. Go crazy with ganache. When you’re done, slowly pull each piece of wax paper out from under the cake, to reveal a clean, ganache-free platter.

***(High altitude baking adjustments: Add an extra egg, reduce boiling water by 1-2 Tablespoons, and reduce baking soda by 1/8 teaspoon. Increase oven temperature by 20 degrees and bake until done, about 25-30 minutes.)

I’m still in the process of getting settled in here. You probably noticed the wacky reposting on Google Reader after I imported all my posts from Blogger. And you’ll notice some funny formatting and font issues with several of the posts that I imported from Blogger. I’m not sure why it decided to do that, and what’s worse, I’m not sure how to fix it. I’ve tried a couple of things with no luck. I’ll get that figured out soon, or else I’ll just decide to live with it. Oh, Blogger. Bless your heart.

Yesterday was a Frankenstein recipe day. What is a Frankenstein recipe, you may ask? I will tell you.

I had visions of chocolate pound cake dancing through my head all day yesterday, and I thought surely, surely, it wouldn’t be difficult to dig up dozens of good chocolate pound cake recipes on The Internet, and then pick the one that looks the best. And the result? Well, I only came up with about four, total. That is, from reliable sources. Even my trusty, loyal cookbook that has never let me down, let me down. Somebody needs to do something about this horrific chocolate pound cake deficit. Forget the national, financial one.

So, I took a look at the small handful of recipes I had found, and I read through the reviews and ratings. Most of them had several negative reviews. That could be because 1) silly people didn’t use good baking judgment and ended up with a miserable failure of a cake, and then blamed it on the recipe, or 2) the recipe is finicky and may or may not turn out right, which is risky for me because I live at a high altitude, so cake is finicky for me anyway.

Enter Frankenstein. I put the three most promising recipes side by side, and compared them. Then, using bits from each, I brought a new chocolate pound cake recipe to life. Sans lightning storm. And considering that this was one big science experiment for me, I’m pretty pleased with the end result. You won’t be hit over the head with chocolate; rather, the chocolate joins forces with the rum extract, and beautiful things happen.

Chocolate Rum Pound Cake

adapted from Paula Deen (2007), Joy the Baker, and BHG

Ingredients:

1-1/8 cup (2-1/4 cubes) butter, at room temperature

1-1/2 cup white granulated sugar

7 eggs

1/3 cup whole milk

1-1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1-1/2 teaspoons rum extract

4 squares (4 oz.) semi-sweet or bittersweet baking chocolate, chopped

3 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder

Directions:

Preheat oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit. In a medium mixing bowl, combine the flour, nutmeg, and baking powder.

In a large mixing bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs, one at a time. Mix in the vanilla and rum extracts. Melt the chocolate by placing in a microwave-safe dish, and cook on high until the chocolate is partially melted (less than a minute). Stir slowly until all of the chocolate chunks have melted completely. Add the chocolate to the egg and sugar mixture and mix completely.

Add the dry ingredients and stir together until the flour is completely incorporated, but just barely.

Spoon batter into a prepared 10-cup bundt pan. Bake until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean, about 65 minutes.

Let the cake cool in the pan on a cooling rack for ten minutes, and then invert onto a serving plate. When completely cooled, dust with powdered sugar, or top with chocolate glaze or ganache.

***This recipe is for a regular, not-high altitude, so if you live in a place like that, you should be able to use it as it is. I live at a high altitude, and if you do too, here’s how you can adjust it: Add one extra egg, decrease the milk by 1 Tablespoon, and decrease the baking powder by 1/8 teaspoon. Set the oven temperature 15-20 degrees higher, and bake for a shorter amount of time (around 55-60 minutes). Keep a close eye on it as it bakes, so it won’t get overdone.