which is teaching me those things. In the book, twelve different flours are covered with one chapter highlighting each, but typically the recipes involve a mix of multiple grains. There’s always an explanation for why each flour was included and what it brings to the recipe. For instance, with this coffee cake, graham flour, all-purpose flour, and whole grain pastry flour are used. Graham flour is whole wheat flour that has been coarsely ground, and it has a nutty, and for lack of a better word, wheaty taste. You could use whole wheat flour in its place, but if you can find graham flour, the flavor is a little more pronounced. The all-purpose flour was used to lighten the graham flour, and the whole grain pastry flour gave the cake tenderness. I have a bin where I keep my growing collection of flours, and I have a feeling with this book around, the whole collection will get regular use.This cake started with the apples which were cored and chopped, and as usual, I didn’t peel them. The apple chunks were added to a hot skillet with melted butter and cinnamon, and they were cooked until caramelized. I actually didn’t cook the apples down to complete tenderness because I prefer for the pieces to retain a little texture. Next, the dry ingredients for the batter were sifted together, and those included all-purpose flour, graham flour, whole-grain pastry flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, a tablespoon of cinnamon, ground ginger, and salt. In a separate bowl, some melted butter, buttermilk, plain yogurt, applesauce, and an egg were whisked together and then incorporated into the dry ingredients. The batter was placed in a prepped nine inch cake pan, and the caramelized apples were spread on top before it baked for about 45 minutes.
which is the second book from Sara Engram and Katie Luber about making good use of your spice rack. This book is devoted to ice creams, sorbets, and frozen yogurts made with sometimes adventurous flavor combinations. There are options like honey-mint ice cream with thyme and basil, chile-lemongrass ice cream, white chocolate-allspice ice cream, and chocolate ice cream with cumin and fennel. In the sorbet chapter, pink grapefruit-tarragon sorbet and chile-orange-chocolate sorbet both grabbed my attention. There are also suggestions for frozen sandwiches and sundaes like cardamom snickerdoodle ice cream sandwiches and peach waffle sundaes with cinnamon syrup. Last, there’s a chapter for sauces, syrups, and toppings to further gild the lily. Whipped cream with dried lemon zest is one I'll have to try. I flipped through the ice cream pages calling out options, and Kurt’s pick was brown sugar and spiced banana. I thought it was a great choice, and I readied the ice cream maker.All of the ice cream and sorbet recipes in this book are written to make one to one and a half quarts. This one made one and a half. For that amount, only one banana was needed, and I thought there would have been at least two for some reason. The one banana was pureed with some milk, and then that mixture was added to more milk, brown sugar, cinnamon, cardamom, nutmeg, and salt in a saucepan. That was scalded and then used to temper four egg yolks. Eggs and the milk mixture went back into the saucepan and were heated until the custard was thick enough to coat the back of a spoon. I always strain custards just in case there’s any unappetizing cooked egg in there, and then it was chilled in an ice water bath. Once cool, it was refrigerated for a few hours before being churned into rich and nicely flavored ice cream.
A couple of weeks ago, we had some of the coldest weather this part of Texas has experienced in many years. We get a little uneasy around here with near-freezing temperatures, and when it dipped into the 20s (F) we were confused and concerned. So, what was I doing to prepare for this weekend of serious winter weather we were about to have? I was making ice cream. The ice cream was going to be served on warm brownies, but still, it was 20 degrees in Austin and I pulled out the ice cream maker. Maybe I should start by telling you about the brownies because that might make more sense. I wanted to mix up a southwest, chile powder-infused kind of brownie, and I found the perfect recipe in Nuevo Tex-Mex
. The recipe was created by Rebecca Rather, and it includes ancho chile powder with semisweet chocolate, chocolate chips, and pine nuts. I thought big squares of those brownies warm from the oven would be great topped with a generous scoop of cinnamon ice cream. The cinnamon ice cream is from The Perfect Scoop.
The brownie recipe makes a large batch, so I cut the quantities in half and baked it in an eight inch square pan rather than a nine by thirteen inch pan. Still, the halved quantities included a half pound of semisweet chocolate, half a pound of butter, four eggs, and a cup and a half of sugar along with flour, ancho chile powder, chocolate chips, and pine nuts. These were kind of serious brownies. The batter was very easy to stir together without a mixer, and they went into 325 F oven for about 35-40 minutes. The recipe suggests a baking time of 20-25 minutes, but my brownies were nowhere near done at that point. The cinnamon ice cream was started by steeping broken cinnamon sticks in warm milk with sugar and a pinch of salt. Then, a custard was made with egg yolks and the warmed milk, it was strained, and cream was added. The custard was churned after being chilled.
The ancho chile powder in the brownies accented the chocolate in the same way espresso would. There was clearly something more than chocolate happening, but the chile flavor was just a supporting role and not obvious at all. The texture of these brownies was delightfully lighter than I expected and definitely not dense. The crackly top gave way to an almost cakey but near-fudgy interior. They were somehow the best of both worlds, and the pine nuts were a nice addition too. While I don’t think cinnamon ice cream would be a bad choice to set atop any brownie, I was especially happy with it on top of these. I’m also convinced this dessert was a good distraction from our freakishly cold weather at least for a little while. And just for the record, it's 75 degrees (F) today, and that's my favorite kind of January weather. 
Out with the old and in with the new. That’s what made me finally try a different recipe for cinnamon rolls. I had been making the same cinnamon rolls for years. I’ve changed the recipe to include pumpkin puree at times, but other than that, my homemade rolls have always been made the same way. Many moons ago, my cookbook library consisted of one book and that was The New Basics. The New Basics does not have a recipe for cinnamon rolls, and that’s why my collection grew to two books. Note: that book does have a recipe for sticky buns, but I wasn’t smart enough to think of checking for that at the time. I was at a bookstore, flipping through a few different general cooking types of books, and bought the tenth edition of the Better Homes and Gardens New Cookbook because it did have a recipe for cinnamon rolls. It served me well for years until I decided it was time to try the Saveur cream cheese cinnamon rolls that Joy the Baker made. The key ingredient, cream cheese, is in the dough not the frosting.
After trying these twice, I didn’t completely sweep out the old. I realized there were a couple of details from my stand-by method that I couldn’t abandon. The dough ingredients were much like those for my old rolls other than the use of cream cheese, but there was a difference with the butter. For the new rolls, the butter was to be softened to room temperature and then kneaded into the dough with a dough hook on a mixer. It didn’t work itself into the dough very well, and the first time I ended up kneading a bit by hand to be sure the butter was incorporated. The second time, I warmed the butter to almost but not quite melting as I always did in the old version and then didn’t have to knead by hand. Then, after the dough had doubled in size, it was rolled into a ten inch square, and this is where the cream cheese was added. Softened cream cheese was spread on the square of dough, and the dough was folded almost like folding butter into homemade puff pastry which I still haven’t attempted. So, the dough was folded into thirds like a letter and then turned and folded again. Then, it was rolled out into a large rectangle to be topped with fillings. This new recipe suggests brushing the dough with melted butter, but again I reverted to my old ways with the butter. The first time around, the melted butter seemed to run out of the rolls and the bottoms browned too quickly as they baked. So, the second time, I spread very soft but not melted butter on the dough just like old times. A topping mixture of brown sugar, cinnamon, cloves, maple syrup and granulated sugar was spread on the buttered dough, and I included pecans and raisins one time but not the other just to mix it up. Then, the dough was rolled and cut and the rolls were placed in a buttered baking dish. You can either let the rolls rise for two hours and bake them, or you can place them in the refrigerator overnight. If refrigerated, they should come to room temperature before being baked.
Old recipe or new, it’s hard to beat the aroma of homemade cinnamon rolls in the oven. When they were baked and cooled, they were topped with a simple confectioner’s sugar frosting with some maple syrup in it. This is a richer version of a cinnamon roll than my old recipe, and the dough was tender and incredibly good. In the end, I don’t think the old will be thrown out since it almost seems like a light recipe now, but I’m definitely keeping the new.
I’m submitting this to Yeastspotting where you’ll find some seriously well-made bread.
Of course I didn’t send Kurt off to his potluck lunch with just bread sticks. How could I pass up the opportunity to bake something sweet that would be taken away, shared with others, and not left in the house to tempt me? This gave me the opportunity to bake from The Golden Book of Baking which I received as a review copy from Barron’s. This pretty book, with gold, gilded page edges and a gold dust jacket, covers every area of baking with cookies, bars, small cakes, layer cakes, pies, tarts, yeast cakes, and a few savories items as well. It’s full of classics, some twists on favorites, and a few items that were new to me. There’s a photo of each and every recipe, and the recipes have been graded for degree of difficulty. Most are either a one or a two, but there are a few level three recipes. As I read through the book, I marked pages that immediately caught my attention. The chocolate caramel squares look like homemade Twix bars. The Irish cream cake sounds delicious with the coffee frosting. The Portuguese meringue cake, which was new to me, is a rich cake that’s sliced into layers and soaked with caramel syrup, then topped with meringue, and baked until brown. And, there’s a pumpkin pie with a top crust. I’d never before seen a pumpkin pie with a top crust, and I have to try that too. But first, the apple and cream cheese cake could not be denied. I could tell by looking at the photo in the book that this cake would travel well, and I guessed that with the butter and cream cheese in the batter, it would be even better the day after it was baked.
Cream cheese, butter, sugar, and almond extract were mixed until fluffy, and then eggs were added. Flour, baking powder, cinnamon, baking soda, and salt were sifted together and then added to the butter mixture in alternating turns with some milk. Regarding that cinnamon, I had just read an article in Saveur about different types of cinnamon so I looked around at the grocery store to see what my options were. I bought some Vietnamese high oil ground cinnamon, and it was like a wonderful, super-cinnamon compared to what I usually use. I highly recommend it for this kind of cake or any baked item in which cinnamon is the focus. So, the mixed batter went into a thirteen-inch by nine-inch baking pan that I had lined with parchment paper since I wanted to remove the finished cake from the pan. Two granny smith apples were peeled, yes I actually peeled the apples, and they were sliced and then tossed with sugar, flour, and more of that super-cinnamon. The apple slices were layered on top of the cake batter, and then the cake baked for about 50 minutes.
The serving suggestion in the book was to add a dollop of whipped cream to each piece of cake, and that would have been perfectly delicious. However, since a bowl of whipped cream that would have to be refrigerated would have over-complicated the matter, I instead glazed the cake with melted apricot jam. I cut the cake into pieces and sneakily kept a couple of them at home. My guess about the cake getting better the next day was correct. The butter and cream cheese gave it a very tender crumb, and the tart apples and warm cinnamon flavor combined to make this simple cake a delight.
Back in May, I made a spicy slaw from Tyler Florence’s Eat This Book and then realized there were several other things in that book I needed to make. One of those other things was this African-spiced chicken. In the book, the complete dish involves shredding the chicken and wrapping it in flatbread with apricot couscous and the sauce. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but I really just wanted the chicken and the green olive sauce. I was drawn in by the mix of spices rubbed on the chicken and the burnished, oven-roasted, finished bird, and I had to find out how it tasted with that sauce.
The spice mix was made by toasting broken cinnamon sticks, cloves, cumin seeds, coriander seeds, fennel seeds, peppercorns, and sweet paprika in a dry skillet. Once the heat made the spices aromatic, they were placed in a coffee grinder which I use just for spices. Salt was added, and the mixture was ground to a powder. The spice mixture was rubbed onto the chicken, and I always loosen the skin over the breast so as to season under the skin as well. Then, cilantro, one halved lemon, and on halved head of garlic were placed in the cavity. I left the chicken in the refrigerator for a few hours to absorb the flavors, and then it was roasted in a 400 degree F oven for just over an hour. For the sauce, shallots and one red chile were sauteed in olive oil until the shallots were caramelized. That mixture was added to a food processor with one half pound of pitted, green Spanish olives, parsley leaves, sherry vinegar, lemon juice, and olive oil. That was pureed until very smooth.
Not only did those spices smell wonderful as the chicken roasted, they also really permeated the meat. Then, there was the sauce. The sauteed shallots sweetened the brininess of the olives, the parsley gave it herby freshness, and the oil smoothed it out nicely. It complemented the chicken well, and served as a nice dressing with some mixed baby greens. I can also report that the leftover chicken made one of the best chicken salads I’ve had. This was a twist on roasted chicken I'll be repeating often.
I’ve been open about my problem with cookbooks and food magazines regarding how I can’t stop collecting and reading them. Well, I also have an issue with collecting links to recipes I see on all those fabulous food blogs out there. The list of recipes keeps growing. Fortunately, a perfect opportunity for trying some of them presented itself. Bread Baby mentioned an upcoming bake sale and asked if anyone in Austin would like to donate items. She, in fact, had organized a very cool benefit for Space12 and planned a bake sale as part of it. What could be better than getting to try a few different recipes from my list and then having a place to take the baked goods to prevent me from eating them all? I wasted no time in combing through that long list of links and decided on these: cinnamon cappuccino cookies from A Kiss and a Cupcake, molasses cookies from Cooking During Stolen Moments, and banana snickerdoodles from Noble Pig.
I didn’t realize it when I picked those cookies, but they all have something in common. For all three cookies, balls of dough are formed and then are rolled in sugar or a sugar mixture before being placed on a baking sheet. I had the technique down after these recipes. The cinnamon cappuccino cookies have powdered espresso in the dough, and then the dough balls were rolled in cinnamon and sugar to which I added a little more espresso powder. The molasses cookies were rolled in sugar, and the banana snickerdoodles were rolled in cinnamon and sugar. I made one change to the banana snickerdoodle recipe which was to use butter instead of shortening, but I always do that.
These were three very different cookies in the flavor department, and I liked them all for different reasons. I’ll be keeping all three recipes in the permanent file. Kurt’s favorite, hands down, was the cinnamon cappuccino. I thought for sure my favorite was going to be the molasses cookie because I’ve become so taken with molasses in recent years, and it was extremely good. In the end though, I was torn between it and the banana snickerdoodle. The banana snickerdoodle dough was ridiculously good, and I almost had to restrain myself from eating the entire bowl before the cookies could be baked. Since I clearly can’t pick a winner among the three, I suggest you bake them all and let me know which one you like best.
Last Saturday, we were invited to a brunch party, and that had me thinking about cinnamon rolls. I’ve made plain cinnamon rolls and pumpkin cinnamon rolls and tried different glazes on top, but I felt it was time to try something completely new and different. I found this breakfast ring in The Modern Baker, and this was just what I wanted to try. Incidentally, while looking through the book, I kept pausing and thinking yes, I have to make that sometime. I’m now sure that I’ll eventually bake every item in it. The blueberry crumb cake was irresistible, and I ended up baking that too. But, first, the breakfast ring. I thought the shape would be pretty, but I was curious if the taste and texture would be much different from my usual cinnamon rolls.
The dough is a quick brioche which is started with warmed milk, yeast, and flour. That mixture is left to bubble and rise for 20 minutes before it’s added to butter, sugar, salt, eggs, egg yolks, and flour in a food processor. There’s a tiny error in the breakfast ring recipe. You are instructed to follow the quick brioche recipe through step six, but you should actually only follow it through step four. That was no problem though; it’s obvious that you’re done at step four. The mixed dough was then chilled for an hour after which it was rolled into a rectangle on a floured surface. The filling included softened butter, light brown sugar, cinnamon, raisins, and chopped pecans, and that was spread over the rectangle of dough. The dough was rolled up jelly-roll style, transferred to a parchment-lined baking sheet, and then formed into a ring. Of course, I worried over the evenness of the circle. Where the ends meet, it forms a smaller cross-section that the rest of the ring, but a little coaxing and sculpting left it looking good enough.
The ring shape was smoothed and slightly flattened down from the top. Using scissors, cuts were made all around from the outside perimeter to about three-quarters of the way toward the center. Each piece was twisted to one side to expose the filling. You have to lift and pull a little to get the cut and turned pieces to sit nicely next to one another. After the twisting and flipping, the finished ring sat until doubled in size. An egg wash was applied, more chopped pecans were sprinkled on top, and it was baked. Once cool, it was dusted with confectioners’ sugar. Happily, it was sturdy enough to be transferred to a clean tray, but I feared that step and took photos prior to moving it.
I couldn’t wait to find out how it compared to the cinnamon rolls I’ve been making for years. Because of the ring shape, I couldn’t exactly have a little sample before presenting it to our hosts. So, I crossed my fingers and off we went. At the brunch, I heard some positive reactions about it from other guests and hoped they weren’t just being kind. Finally, I cut a piece for myself. The first bite informed me that it was good, second bite: yes, I like the raisins and pecans, third bite: ok, this dough is better than what I’ve been using for rolls, then no more thinking and just eating. The ring makes a nice presentation and is no more difficult than cutting rolls, but individual portions would be just as good. It was a definite keeper of a breakfast bread, and this tender brioche dough will be my new standard.
I’m submitting this to Yeastspotting where you’ll find some seriously well-made bread.
