Thanksgiving

It was the food event of the year, 2009. Very traditional Thanksgiving meal - I ask family to bring appetizers and dessert, and I generally provide the rest. This year, it was turkey, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, stuffing (both in and out of the bird), the ubiquitous green bean casserole, and dinner rolls. And gravy of course. There always has to be gravy.

The table setting....

Preparing the "bed" for the turkey

Stuffing - Pepperidge Farm bread cubes with onion and celery sauteed in butter. And chicken stock.

The sweet potatoes, with one set aside for the baby's dinner (well, one-quarter of one sweet potato - he may be a hungry baby, but he isn't that hungry). This was eventually topped with a butter/brown sugar/cinnamon/pecan mixture

The turkey, midway through - it got flipped at this point. This poor turkey was put through the wringer - brining, stuffing, roasting upside down....

And the buffet - thanks to my niece for adding a human touch

We can't forget dessert (and a little taste of the appetizers - a cheesy garlic roll) - spectacular pumpkin pie!

PIE!

My grandfather came for lunch, so I had to have an enticing dessert. Coconut cream pie anyone? yes, I think I will.

I made the pastry - yes folks, I made it. But only because I forgot to buy one and couldn't face loading the kid up in his car seat and schlepping back out...here it is prebaked...rustic looking? I use the Barefoot Contessa pastry recipe, with a LOT more water than she uses

Toasted up the coconut while the pie shell baked...


Made the custard filling...1/2 c sugar and 1/4 c cornstarch mixed with 4 egg yolks, 2 c half and half, and vanilla....

Here is the filling in the crust....

Top with whipped cream and voila - coconut cream pie!

Cuppy Cakes!

In order to thank my husband's colleague for all the baby clothes she gave us, I decided to bake something for her and her family. I couldn't just make chocolate chip cookies or something innocuous like that. I tried making a blondie bar recipe, but doubling the recipe seemed to screw it up (way too much butter for the bars to set up in a presentable fashion). So back to the drawing board. Mrs. L convinced me to take a spin through our new favorite inspiration site, Tastespotting to see what there was to see. So many ideas were generated, but given that this family I was baking for includes an elementary school aged kid, the S'mores Cupcakes were the winners.

I deviated a fair bit from the linked recipe mainly due to time constraints and my patience level.

First off, you make a standard graham cracker/butter crust and press it into the bottoms of muffin cups (I had to add in some vanilla wafers because my graham supply was low). After baking off the graham crusts for a few minutes, I added in some chocolate chips and put it back in the oven for about 2 minutes.



Then, using a box chocolate cake mix, I filled the cupcake cups and topped with more graham/wafer crumbs and baked according to package directions.

Here's a foggy shot of the baked cupcakes

Meanwhile, Mr. R helped me make the frosting. Whisk 8 eggs whites, 2 c sugar, and some cream of tartar over a double boiler until the sugar is dissolved. The constant whisking action is in effect in this picture.


Then whip in the stand mixer for 5-7 minutes until fluffy. I added some vanilla and apparently slightly over vanilla'd the mixture.


Then haphazardly frost said cupcakes. Clearly, I do not have the frosting skills of the ladies in Buffalo with Fairy Cakes but it wasn't awful for a Monday night effort. People seem to be enjoying these cupcakes - not being a s'mores person myself, I'm not the ultimate decider on the cupcakeworthiness. Hopefully some recipients of said cupcakes will give me good feedback!

Bagels!

Week 2 of the home bagel bakery. I made a batch last weekend that went pretty well, relying on a recipe linked from Slate. I made a few tweaks this week - some structural tweaking (including changing the sugar/salt mix) - and some palate-aesthetic changes - half plain, half garlic dill.

Here is the kneaded dough ready for its rise

And the trays of formed bagels - still need to work on our technique on this front


Boil for a minute...


And then rest while the others get their turn in the tub


Bake for 30 min and you're good to go.


This batch turned out better than last week's batch - no weird sweet taste on day 2, better consistency. They were a bit smaller and some of that may be attributable to the slightly increased amounts of salt slowing down the yeast. But all in all, still v. good and way cheaper than buying.

Easy Cheese Danish

After thinking about it for a good month or more, I finally got off the fence and made the Barefoot Contessa Easy Cheese Danishes. They were pretty good and certainly easy to make.

First, you cream together cream cheese and sugar...then add in a bit of salt, vanilla, and in my case, a teeny tiny bit of almond extract. The recipe calls for ricotto and lemon. I didn't have ricotta on hand and didn't want to buy a whole tub just for 2 tbsp. And those who know me know my hatred of lemon in places where it doesn't belong - like danishes and cheesecakes.

Then two egg yolks...

Which leave you with a more yellowy filling. Ok, filling done (I said it was easy)


I took two sheets of defrosted puff pastry and rolled them out a bit - mainly enough to get rid of the fold creases. Cut each sheet into four large squares, put a heaping tablespoon blob of filling in the middle, then fold over the corners, sealing with egg wash. Then I brushed the whole top with egg wash.


20 minutes in a 400 degree oven later, voila.


These were quite tasty. Things I might change in the future - add a dusting of powdered sugar to the top or a very simply plain white sweet glaze. I may also add in a tbsp or two of sour cream to bump up the "tangy" factor. But regardless, this was a terrifically easy recipe with tasty results.

Baking day

I had an urge to bake bread this weekend, so I flipped through my Barefoot Contessa at Home cookbook, thinking that I'd seen a recipe in there, and lo and behold, a Honey White Bread recipe came up. It was very exciting.

First, I heated up milk, butter, and honey


Meanwhile, the yeast bloomed in warm water with some sugar


2 egg yolks await their turn in the mixer


Along with the flour and salt - I try to use Gold Medal whenever financial possible (if you've not heard the story why and care, let me know)



All ingredients aboard...



Sigh - this page of my book takes it first baking battle wound


More flour is added and the dough hook is a-whirrin'


I kneaded for a few minutes by hand until I had a smooth, even dough




One hour of rising in a warm spot, we have a larger blob of dough


Then an hour rise in their respective pans


40 minutes later, golden brown and ready for eating!


This was pretty good bread - I didn't get as much lift as I expected - so it was still a fairly dense bread - but it is good for toast and would make excellent croutons I imagine. For a sandwich, unless sliced PAPER thin, it would probably be too dense. I may try this, or a similar recipe again, and rely significantly less on the Kitchenaid's dough hook and more on my own hand kneading, but we'll see. It was fun regardless!

R's mushroom birthday cake

Mr. R decided to try a different cake for his birthday this year ( the standby being German Chocolate from a box). We went for the Chocolate/Peanut Butter creation that I found on Smitten Kitchen a while back.

For whatever reason, I didn't think to take pictures until well into the cake creation process. So for example, here's the basic iced cake - a really moist and delicious chocolate cake with a peanut butter frosting. The recipe calls for 3 layers, but I opted for 2 mainly because I didn't have 3 8 inch pans and didn't want to bake in batches. So I made 2 9 inch layers and let them bake slightly longer. The dog really enjoyed licking the frosting bowl. Pay no attention to the cake's precarious position on the counter.


Once chilled, it was ganache time. Peanut butter, chocolate chips, corn syrup...with some 1/2 and 1/2 mixed in at the end.


Problem was, I didn't add enough cream/corn syrup. So 1) it wasn't shiny and 2) it was too thick. Hence, we have a giant chocolate/peanut butter mushroom cake. I should have captured a more aerial shot to show off its mushroominess.


Regardless of how it looked and the strange texture of the ganache, it was a really good cake. The frosting had really good peanut butter flavor without having a gross overly-buttery taste that happens sometimes with frosting. The cake was VERY moist and delicious. I may or may not have eaten two pieces on the birthday night. Next time I make this, I will definitely take more care with the ganache so it behaves as it is supposed to!

Pumpkin gooey butter cake!

Mmm. Fall. Fall means pumpkin stuff, including pumpkin gooey butter cake. I heart Paula Deen and her excessive use of butter.

Mix one box of yellow cake mix, one melted stick of butter, and one egg and press into the bottom of your baking dish:


Then mix a bar of cream cheese, 15 oz or so of pumpkin, 1 POUND of powdered sugar (I opted for slightly less), 3 eggs, some cinnamon, some nutmeg, and guess what? another stick of melted butter. This is an example of why you should really let your cream cheese soften before mixing - it tastes fine, but has little unsightly lumps of cream cheese. Pour over crust.


Bake the lot at 350 degrees for an hour or so. The recipe says 50 minutes, but I'm sorry, I don't like practically raw cake. I probably, all told, let this one got closer to 75 minutes. And it is still pretty gooey.


Decoratively top with squirty whipped cream. I went a bit overboard, but I don't care, it tasted good.

14 layer bars! Ridiculous!

I was out of work a day last week because I felt quite yucky, but by afternoon, I felt a baking urge coming on. I had little in the house to work with - some oatmeal, some chocolate, some nuts, some butter. I went to the Food Network site and started browsing around...and found a recipe for 14 layer bars - much more grand than the standard 7 layer bar. I was intrigued as to whether it would be good or not, so I plowed ahead and made them.

I split these between two 8-inch baking dishes - one would stay behind with Mr. R and one would go with me to B-lo.

At its base - butter, graham cracker crumbs, vanilla wafer crumbs, chocolate graham cracker crumbs:


Then coconut and oats:

Then the chips - butterscotch, peanut butter, and chocolate:

Nuts! In my case, pecans, walnuts, and sliced almonds:

And finally, blobs of cream cheese and a light coating of sweetened condensed milk:

Bake in the oven until golden and voila - 14 layer bars.


I have to admit, I did not actually try them. I was too full to try them in B-lo, and by the time I got back to Cbus, Mr. R had eaten them all. They were VERY easy to make and may make a reappearance at a football party in the future - throw together baking is the way to go, I think.