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Tag: Cooking — Snacks

KAF Farmhouse Buttermilk Cake – Simple Coffee Cake for Weekend Mornings

When baking a lot of biscuits and cakes, you may find yourself in a situation I experience a few times a year – too much milk or buttermilk on hand.

Remedy? More baking!

For my most recent buttermilk surplus, I turned to King Arthur Flour and their Farmhouse Buttermilk Cake recipe. The recipe couldn't be easier, particularly with the slight modifications I made.

Following the reader reviews, I added in 1 tsp. of cinnamon to the batter and ended up omitting the nut topping entirely (I am allergic to nuts) instead of improvising another crumble topping. The result was a flavorful, coffee-cake like dessert that I'll be making in the future for brunch, afternoon tea, and other simple get togethers.

The construction is fairly simple – blend wet ingredients, and then add dry.

Pour into a lightly greased pan and bake. I kept roughly the original recipe baking times, even though I omitted the nut topping.

When I took the cake out of the oven, the lovely cinnamon aroma was too much for my husband to handle and the end result is pictured below 🙂

I look forward to making this cake again!

August 3, 2017
Mango Cake – Not Very Mango but Very Delicious!

Pati Jinich has not only a wonderful PBS cooking show on at-home Mexican cooking, but also a very cute email list which features many of her simple recipes. I often "pin" her recipes for future use on Pinterest, and the latest recipe of hers that I attempted was the mango cake. What could be more summery than a delicious mango cake?

I didn't quite heed the recipe comments that the cake doesn't result in an actual mango flavor, and I am glad I didn't as the cake turned out wonderfully. Yes, the comments were right that the cake didn't really taste like mango, but it was delicious nonetheless with subtle vanilla and almond flavors.

I made a few slight modifications to the original recipe. I reduced the almond extract to 1/2 tsp. to address the recipe comments to not overwhelm the cake with almond flavor. I also reduced the baking time to 28 – 29 minutes, which perhaps could be reduced further.

I otherwise followed the recipe directions as is.

After thawing the mango, I blended the wet ingredients in two batches – starting with the butter and sugar, and then separately blending the mango with buttermilk before combining the two.

Stir in the dry ingredients, and you've got yourself a cake batter ready for the oven!

The final consistency was moist and thick – almost like cornbread per my husband.

July 31, 2017
Closing in on a Great Scallion Pancake Recipe

Several years ago, I conducted my first and last effort to make scallion pancakes at home. While my recipe write-up was pretty enthusiastic, the key flaw I identified – lack of flavor – dissuaded me from attempting this snack again.

Then, several weeks ago, after successfully attempting many of Serious Eats Chinese recipes, I decided to give their scallion pancake recipe a go. The Serious Eats recipe was definitely leaps and bounds better than the original recipe I tried years ago, but I will need to more properly follow the recipe frying oil and salt directions to get the result to restaurant-unhealthy perfection.

The Serious Eats dough starts much as the Ming Tsai recipe I tried years ago does – creating a hot water dough with all-purpose flour and boiling water. After combining the dough into a cohesive ball, leave for 30 minutes to rest.

Then comes the rolling of the dough segments – this recipe creates 4 relatively large pancakes.

Unlike the Ming Tsai recipe, you coat this dough with just pure sesame oil before adding the scallions. A sesame oil v. a sesame / canola mixture definitely adds more flavor to the final result, so it's a great improvement on my original attempt.

Unlike the Ming Tsai recipe, this recipe also calls for rolling two layers of scallions / sesame oil for each pancake, which allows for more flaky layers in the final pancakes, more even distribution of the scallions, and the addition of far more scallions. The Serious Eats recipe calls for 2 cups of thinly sliced scallions v. the Ming Tsai recipe of just 1/2 cup for the same amount of dough.

And when the pancakes are ready, throw into a hot skillet with 1/4 cup hot oil to cook for a few minutes on each side. We definitely skimped on the oil, which reduced the final flavor of the pancakes. As a result, this maxim – do not skimp on the cooking oil!

And time for the final maxim – season well with kosher salt! We initially did not do this, which also resulted in a less flavorful pancake.

So basically, just follow the Serious Eats recipe as is and you'll have a great, flaky and flavorful result!

July 12, 2017
Simple Smashed Cucumbers – Sichuan-Style

In a pinch for a delicious, low-calorie and light snack? Look no further than the very simple Sichuan-Style Smashed Cucumber Salad recipe from our amazing vegan-friendly, Sichuan-focused friends at Serious Eats. In making this recipe, I found an inventive way to really smash the heck out of cucumbers and realize that even if I didn't have a critical ingredient on-hand, it could be a fantastic appetizer or snack.

First, to my "inventive" method for smashing cucumbers – it was actually my husband's great idea. As I was pondering which kitchen tool to use to smash the cucumbers, he recommended using our round cast iron griddle. We covered the cucumber with foil, and started smashing away with the heavy weight griddle. We achieved a smashed cucumber that really couldn't be achieved with anything else in our kitchen, and with a great amount of control to prevent potential injuries (we were really smashing the heck out of that cucumber!).

After smashing the cucumber, you cut it into bite-size pieces, season with salt, and let drain in a colander set over a bowl for 10 minutes.

Then add the drained cucumbers to a mixture of vinegar (I used the rice wine variety, but may use Chinkiang black vinegar next time), sesame oil, and garlic. Or in my case, omit the garlic because I didn't have it on hand (who doesn't have garlic on-hand? an outlier in my kitchen). Enjoy immediately!

July 5, 2017
Black-eyed Pea Tex-Mex Casserole – Easy Multi-Meal Treat
I randomly bought a can of black-eyed peas as Whole Foods last year. Unclear why I decided to buy them, but I often make rash canned or dried bean decisions (my cupboards are always packed full of beans and lentils).

The black-eyed peas sat in the cupboard for several months before I figured out how to use them. The ultimate result was a Black-eyed Pea Tex-Mex Casserole, which randomly, but delightfully, pulled together a number of ingredients in my kitchen.

I adapted the recipe from the Homesick Texan's Black-eyed Pea and Hominy Casserole, making modifications to fit my vegetarianism and the ingredients I had on hand.

The result was fantastic – super versatile to serve as a hearty dip, a taco filling, or even a stand-alone protein-filled meal. It can be adapted to most types of beans or vegetable fillings – the only thing to be mindful of is removing too much excess liquid to make sure the result isn't soupy. I will be making variations of this recipe for years to come!

Black-eyed Pea Tex-Mex Casserole

Ingredients
- One can black-eyed peas, washed and drained
- One 13.4 oz package of kidney, pinto and black beans (or cooked bean mix to your preference), washed and drained
- One can Rotel tomatoes and chiles (heat level to your preference), drained and approx. 1/2 of liquid squeezed from mixture
- 1/2 onion, diced
- 1 serrano, diced
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 tsp. cumin
- 1 tsp. kosher salt
- pinch of cayenne
- 1/2 cup cilantro, finely chopped
- 1/2 tbsp. fresh lime juice
- 1.5 cups shredded cheddar, Monterey jack or blend of both cheeses
- 1.5 tbsp olive oil or vegetable oil
Directions
- Pre-heat oven to 375 degrees
- Heat oil in a medium saucepan on medium heat. When hot, add onion, serrano, and garlic, and saute for 3 – 5 minutes or until the onion is translucent. Ensure the heat isn't too high to brown the garlic (if it is, reduce the heat).
- Add the beans, tomatoes, chiles, dried spices, and cilantro. Stir together and cook together for approx. 5 minutes.
- Transfer the mixture to a small to medium casserole dish, and mix in the lime juice and 1/2 of the cheese. Sprinkle the rest of the cheese on top of the bean mixture.
- Bake uncovered for approx. 25 minutes or until the cheese is melted and bubbly. Serve with chips, in warmed tortillas, with rice or quinoa, or by itself.
July 4, 2017
Cook’s Illustrated Flaky Buttermilk Biscuits – Fantastic, Professional Biscuits at Home

I'm not sure what inspired me to attempt perfectly flaky buttermilk biscuits, but I found myself one weekend morning buying buttermilk with this idea in mind.

I decided to use a Cook's Illustrated recipe, which while laborious, ended up being very easy to follow and produced the precise result I was looking for.

You start in the standard way for making flaky pastry – combined chilled butter and shortening with dry ingredients, and pulsing (by hand in this case) until you have small bits of fat interspersed throughout the dough.

Chill the dough before adding in the buttermilk to bring the dry mixture into a cohesive dough, and then start the rolling process to get distinct biscuit layers.

This repeated folding and rolling process is critical to disperse the butter and shortening across the dough. Dispersal is critical for flaky layers as the fat will expand throughout the dough during the baking process. It's also what makes make layered, flaky biscuits more difficult to prepare than drop biscuits.

When two rounds of rolling and folding are complete, it's time to cut out the biscuits and then brush them with melted butter before baking. This was my favorite part of the process – to see the layers in the dough and get excited for the final result!

Out of the oven, these biscuits were perfect – browned, lots of clear layers, and very flaky. They do need some sort of butter or jam though to be truly flavorful, so I might tweak the flavors in the future. Otherwise, a great recipe.

July 3, 2017
Dorie Greenspan’s World Peace Cookies – A New Kitchen Staple

We first experienced the magic of Dorie Greenspan's World Peace Cookies at a friend's dinner party. These salted chocolate butter cookies certainly lived up to their name – if everyone ate them, we would have a chance at world peace! It was truly love at first bite for me.

I made a homemade version of the cookies a few weeks later, and was pleased with how easy the recipe was. The cookie dough requires chilling before baking, so it can be prepared ahead of time and added to a weeknight dinner, a complicated weekend dinner party, or even a somewhat impromptu potluck.

The preparation of the dough itself is fairly standard for cookies – wet and dry ingredients separately combined, before being added to each other. I didn't have any fine sea salt though, so used coarse sea salt instead.

When I added in the chocolate chunks, I reduced the amount to 4 oz. instead of 5, to fit my personal preference for slightly less chocolate.

After preparing the dough, you create two thin, long logs to then chill for at least 2 hours.

After chilling the dough, it's relatively easy to slice the pieces into uniform 1/2 inch pieces and put into a 325 oven.

I baked the cookies for slightly longer than called for in the recipe – approx. 13 minutes instead of 12.

While you will have an intense desire to eat these cookies right out of the oven, they really should cool down before you bite into them. If you wait just a few minutes, you'll be able to get the full flavors of the salt and bitter chocolate, as well as the crumbly shortbread texture. Enjoy!

July 1, 2017
Rolled Sugar Cookies to Decorate – Decent Starting Place

My niece and nephew have seemed to taken an interest in baking, and as such, I've been thinking about more ways to engage them in the baking process. My latest effort was more elaborate than anything we have done before in that it involved not only rolling out and cutting the dough into shapes, but then also decorating the cookies with icing and sprinkles.

The base recipe I used was Cook's Illustrated Foolproof Holiday Cookie approach. The dough was fairly simple to construct, though it added a "surprise" ingredient of cream cheese. I decided to make and chill the dough at home before engaging the kids to roll and cut out the cookies.

Ok, easy to far. The tricky part definitely involved including the kids, who didn't want to wait the full 10 minutes (and probably needed more like 20) to chill the rolled dough sections before cutting.

As such, the dough was relatively warm and harder to handle, especially while cutting out the last few cookies from each rolled dough section. The cookies also then required 1 – 2 minutes less time in the oven, probably because of how warm the dough was.

The icing was a bit messy, and I probably should have made it a bit thicker to make it easier to get on the cookies and then firm up. That being said, I think this was the kids' favorite part of the activity, particularly picking out which food dye colors they wanted to use.

The cookies were a big hit at the larger family event we took them to, particularly among the kids who seemed to love the softer cookies with very sugary icing. My husband and I were not as big a fan of the result. We think maybe the cream cheese made the cookies too soft, and the icing was probably too sweet for our adult tastebuds, so I'll probably look for another recipe to try in the future.

June 11, 2017
Four & Twenty Blackbirds – Salty Honey Pie

I dusted off the good ol' Four & Twenty Blackbirds pie book recently, and redeclared myself a pie master with the successful completion of a famed Salty Honey pie.

The salty honey pie is perhaps my husband's favorite of the Brooklyn pie shop, and I was amazed that I could make a pretty good version of it during a Saturday.

I featured the pie during a dinner party, and was able to perfectly time the crust creation, freezing, preparation of the custard, baking, and cooling during the preparation of the appetizer and main course parts of the meal. I actually had forgotten how great it is to make pies for dinner parties because of this ability to work on the pieces through a day, while doing other activities in the kitchen.

I started of course with the crust, which I put together, chilled, and then rolled out before freezing in a pie pan.

I then mixed together the custard, and strained it (the longest portion of the preparation) through a fine mesh sieve into the frozen crust. (Note that the book recipe calls for an unbaked crust whereas the recipe linked above calls for a pre-baked shell. Given the 45 minute baking time, I recommended an unbaked crust).

Custard pies are always tricky to figure out when to take out of the oven, and I baked the pie for slightly longer than the minimum baking time called for in the recipe for the sides to seem to truly set.

I then let the pie cool for approx. 4 – 5 hours and served it with regular sea salt instead of flaked (which I didn't have in the kitchen). The result was a creamy, delicious and simple filling – I look forward to making it again!

The only change I may make in the future is to make it a day ahead of time to let the filling chill in the fridge overnight. But it's definitely not necessary, just a thought for personal preference.

May 14, 2017
Kruse & Muer Herbed Bread – or a Reminder to Closely Read Recipes!

I recently attempted a Michigan favorite – the restaurant mini-chain Kruse & Muer's popular herbed bread. This bread was a staple of my high school years and subsequent return trips to Michigan, where a Kruse & Muer location used to be close to my parents' house. Unfortunately, that location closed down a number of years ago, but my love of those long herbed bread loaves has continued.

Thankfully, it seems like a number of people share my love for those crusty exterior loaves and a number of versions of the recipe exist online, based on Chuck Muer's 1993 cookbook. I followed those online recipes, which were largely (if not exactly) the same.

In doing so though, unfortunately I made one critical error – misreading the amount and type of salt needed to coat the bread before baking.

Instead of using kosher salt, I used regular salt AND misread the teaspoon direction to mean tablespoons! As such, I ended up with a super salty, albeit still tasty bread that I will definitely remake (correctly).

I also made two other intended modifications. First, I reduced the recipe by half to get two loaves instead of four. Second, I used white poppy seeds instead of black, because I didn't have any black ones and commentators on the internet said it wouldn't make a difference? I did buy black poppy seeds since that initial attempt though, and will report back if there are any noticeable changes in flavor or texture.

The recipe itself is quite simple to make, and requires just two 30-minute rise sessions, which is pretty easy for a weekend lunch or dinner.

First, you proof the yeast in warm water and then add sugar, oil and salt.

Then knead the dough, ideally by machine or by hand if you are like me and lack a dough hook attachment.

I think I under-kneaded the bread though, leading to a less than ideal rise.

Then shape the dough into logs, then leave for a second rise. You can also then prepare the mixture to roll and season the logs.

Finally, brush the tops with the herb mixture before baking the bread.

This is a great bread to serve on its own as an appetizer or to combine with soup or salad for a filling meal.

May 7, 2017

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