Chocolate & Walnut Sourdough Bread

Jeff made a loaf of Chocolate & Walnut Sourdough Bread using a recipe from the Pantry Mama website. 

I didn't remember to take a good photo of the loaf before we cut into it. 

Jeff followed the recipe, but he omitted the instant coffee. We don't like coffee.

The loaf was reasonably good, but a little strange. It just wasn't a flavor combo we're used to. We might make it again, but more likely we'd just make brownies because they would have enough chocolate to satisfy our need for chocolate.

Sourdough Honey Quinoa Bread

We decided to highlight Quinoa as an ingredient during the month. We have tons in our pantry and it would be nice to use some of it up.

The original recipe is available here at the King Arthur Baking Company website.

As for changes, Jeff omitted the dry milk and water and instead used almond milk. 

It was tasty. If we were to make it again, we would make it exactly the same way!

Peach Coffee Cake

Christmas Day I wanted to make coffee cake. Flipping though the King Arthur Flour Whole Grain Baking cookbook I saw a recipe for peach coffee cake that tempted me.

I didn't follow the recipe, but started with it.

I heated some dried cranberries in some orange liqueur  then added a large can of peaches, drained and coarsely diced.

In a bowl I sifted together

• 2 1/2 Cup white whole wheat flour
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp baking soda

In the mixer I creamed together:

• 1 cube butter (1/2 cup)
• 1 cup toasted sugar
• 1 large egg
• 2 tsp vanilla extract

I set at the ready:

• 1 cup whole milk (recipe called for buttermilk)

Added and mixed until combined 1/3 of the dry mix and 1/3 cup of the milk in turns.

Then folded in the Peach mixture just until mixed in.

Poured this into buttered 9x13 casserole dish. 

Topped with mixture of:

• 2 tbs butter
• 1/2 cup toasted sugar
• 1 Tbs sweet spice mixture (in this case cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, grains of paradise, cubebs)
• 1 drop sweet orange essential oil

Bake at 250 for 35 mins, then cool 20 mins on wire rack. 

Ended up with a fragrant, moist cake. 

Halloween Graveyard Cake

What is more thematic for Halloween than a graveyard cake? I started with a recipe Sharon found at Spooky Graveyard Cake and their recipe for chocolate buttercream frosting, though I used 1/2 tsp almond extract, 2 tsp vanilla extract, and two drops of orange essence.  For the actual cake, I used this one bowl chocolate cake recipe.

Strawberry shortcake

A friend gave me a copy of Alton Browns cookbook: Good Eats, The Early Years. I have been working my way through it. And since I had some strawberries on hand that needed to be eaten, what better than to try my hand at strawberry shortcake.

Pi Day Pie

In the summer, when the fruit is at the height of its season we like to buy a crate or two of peaches or apricots and make up a bunch of pie fillings that we stash away in the freezer to be used through the winter months. Pi Day is an excellent excuse to pull one of these buried gems from the cellar, make up a pie crust and have some pie.

Proofing Yeast and Baking No Knead Bread

Progressing through Cooking for Geeks, I got to do an interesting experiment with yeast. To test if your yeast is good put 2 tsp of yeast and 1 tsp of sugar in a half-cup of warm (105 degree) water. Then wait for it to bubble up.

And bubble it did.

Fudge Brownies from Scratch

Sharon encouraged me to try something new. She found a fudge brownie recipe in the King Arthur Cookie Companion Cookbook.

Winter Party Follow-up

Time to wrap up something from a couple months ago. I had all this lead up on this blog about getting ready for the winter party celebrating our house's centennial and then I never found that photos we had taken until just the other day. They were on "the other camera".

Melting Sugar

Another experiment discussed in Cooking for Geeks is using sugar to calibrate you oven and oven thermometers. Sucrose (table sugar) melts at 367 degrees F.

This means if you set an oven-proof dish of sugar in the oven set at 350 it should not melt. But it you turn it up to 375, it should. Looked at the other way around, if you keep creeping up the temperature until the sugar melts and mark that spot, you have 367.

Cinnamon bread tree

Sharon found a recipe for a festive looking cinnamon bread.

As written the recipe makes four trees each of which would serve 8-10.

I found this approach simpler than the more traditional cinnamon roll.

Crispy Phyllo Spinach Tartlets

First attempt at crispy phyllo spinach tartlets turned out to be "a learning experience" that turned out well enough in the end. I have not worked with phyllo much in the past and didn't realize that it required thawing which takes many hours to do right. I tried to accelerate the process in a 200 degree oven, but I think this resulted in drying out the dough and creating a lot of tearing.

The filling was tasty. I am tempted to try some dried cranberries in place of the sun dried tomatoes next time. I didn't have a good tartlet pan so I used some Corelle bowls. This made four large tartlets, which seemed like two servings worth. Next time I would use the small bowls.

The leftovers were ok, but these were much better fresh.

Persimmon Apple Crisp

I adapted a recipe from Chow for apple crisp to make a persimmon apple crisp that went over very well at a little gathering we had yesterday. I wanted to make this both gluten free and tree-nut free, so I went with oat flour rather than wheat flour in the topping.

Cooking veggies in the fireplace

Had a fire in the fireplace and decided to experiment with roasting some veggies in the coals.

Scrubbed two potatoes, an apple, and a carrot and rubbed them with some bacon drippings.

Placed them on a sheet of aluminum foil with a couple sprigs of rosemary.

I tried setting the potato in front of the fire, but it didn't really get hot enough.

So as the fire was dying down to coals, I just set the thing in against the inside wall and piled a bunch of hot coals on top.

I should have waited until it reached 210 degrees, but the coals seemed to be cooling off, and I was ready to eat at 204. This left the potatoes a little crunchy, but still cooked. The carrots were ok. But the Apple was amazing with a noticeable hint of rosemary.

No knead bread

Sharon found a recipe for No Knead Bread that I thought I would try. Here is the first attempt ...

It was very tasty with jam and butter. Has also made good sandwich bread.

Almond Cookies Gluten Free

In the interest of experimenting with Gluten Free baking, for my GF friends, I hunted for an almond cookie recipe. This is the one I came up with for today's experiment from http://www.gluten-free-around-the-world.com:

I thought they turned out pretty nice. A little chewy, a little nutty.

Snickerdoodle smack down

I looked up four recipes for Snickerdoodles. Two called for vanilla, the other two called for cream of tartar, one used whole wheat pastry flour and all butter, the others had butter and shortening. I grew up on the Betty Crocker recipe which was almost identical to the Cooks Illustrated.

Hakuna Frittata

I got hooked on frittate when we got our first CSA and they supplied a recipe for a "Greens Frittata" (which itself was adapted from Antipasti by Joyce Goldstein) that became one of my goto recipes. It reminded me of the "Use it up quiche" from the Tightwad Gazette.  I adapted it in several ways.

Peach Oven German Pancake

During the remodel I was in the market for things I could cook in my micro-convection oven. 

One thing that looked promising was a German Apple Pancake recipe I found in The Best Recipe cookbook. The only problem was that it required cooking the apples for 10 minutes in a skillet and I didn't have ready access to a stove. 

Cobbler

I found a nice recipe for fruit cobbler in the Joy of Cooking. Three cups peeled, diced fruit, 2/3 cup sugar, 1 Tbs flour combined in a sauce pan. Heat until bubbling.

Meanwhile make a biscuit dough:
sift together 1 cup flour, 1 1/2 tsp baking soda, 1/2 tsb salt
Cut in 3 Tbs butter,
Then 3/8 cup milk.
Need 8-10 times on lightly floured surface.

Pour fruit into 8x8 caserole, top with hunks of biscuit dough. Dot with 2 Tbs butter. Sprinkle 1 Tbs sugar all over. Dust with some salsa fina (ginger, cinnamon, grains of paradise, galangal).

Bake at 400º for 1/2 hour.
Serve with a goodly amount of vanilla ice cream.

For the fruit in this case I used two pears, two apples, and seven dried figs.