Baking is More Creative Than I Thought!

I had been looking forward to moving on to the delicious coffee cakes in Martha's book.  Personally, I enjoy eating these types of cakes much more than those with layers of icing and cream.  Anyways, one of the things I love about cooking is that you can really be creative with ingredients and changes of technique because it is not based on chemisty as baking is. 

Well, I got my chance to show my "creativity" when I went to purchase frozen sour cherries for the Cherry Streusel Coffee Cake.  No frozen cherries.  No bottled cherries. Only disgusting gloopy canned cherry pie filling.  While I was in the frozen fruit section I saw a bag of organic mixed berries that included cherries, so I thought why not?  I know what you are thinking...
really?  Not a big leap from frozen cherries to frozen berries!  But for me, with my FOB this was a big leap forward.   Now don't get me wrong, I won't be throwing things in the mixing bowl without measuring or deciding mashed potatoes would be a fine substitute for bananas in banana bread, but I realize that even with baking, it is okay to "make do".

Here are the pictures from this delicious cake.  My colleagues very much enjoyed it!

As mentioned, we will be making a pilgrimage to the Motherland this weekend, so no new baked goods.  There are a couple of pound cakes left in the chapter and then I move on to cookies!  Got milk?

I Found My Thrill on Blueberry Hill

Just when you thought my blueberry obsession had abated, it's back to the blue!  Jim has been asking for a blueberry cheesecake and I have been stalling because:

1. I am not at the cheesecake section yet and Martha may not take kindly to my skipping ahead.
2. Cheesecakes are quite large and with only three of us it is too big.
3. Cheesecakes are easy for me to eat and therefore the large cheesecake may not be big enough once I get started.... 'shudder'.
4. all of the above. 

Despite that, I thought my food photographer deserved a little something...hey get your mind out of the gutter...so I found this recipe on another food blog for Blueberry Cheesecake Squares.  Because it's not in Martha's book,I don't feel like I am cheating on her,  so my conscience is clear.

I am definitely getting more confident because I didn't stress over the recipe beforehand.  Just whipped it up and voila!  Delicious squares that delight!

The blueberry blitz continues on Friday, when as requested, I make a batch of the blueberry cornmeal muffins to bring to my sister Gail and her family when we go to Montreal for the weekend.  I am very excited to see them and Kayko will be meeting her cousin Buddy for the first time.  That should be interesting....

Look for tomorrow's blog, when I continue my adventures with Martha making a Berry Streusel Coffee Cake and I ask the question why is there no coffee in coffee cake?

What a Weekend!

It seems I had a lot on my mind this weekend and found baking a solitary pursuit that allowed me to concentrate on other things like measuring, kneading and folding, but also gave me time to think.  Never underestimate the power of the smell of baked goods in your home.  It is addictive. Chocolate, sugar, eggs and cream, such simple ingredients that combined with my wayward oven fills the air with comfort.  I am actually beginning to enjoy baking!

First up were these Plum Coffee Cake Muffins that were so easy.  I love opening the oven and seeing those muffin tops all golden and sugary.  They popped right out of the pan and each was perfect. 

Then on Sunday morning, following the success of the muffins, I prepared to make my first scone.  Chin chose the chocolate recipe.  (How can you not love a man who loves chocolate?)

So back to the dough again.  Same issue as before, it seemed a little dry but who am I to know the difference.  I finally bought a ruler so that when Martha says to roll the dough out to a certain size, I can do that with confidence.  I rolled out my dry chocolate dough to the required 11" x 3" and cut them into six pieces.  Martha says they are to be six squares, but I could not figure that one out since the original shape was a rectangle.  So I cut six rectangles.  BIG rectangles.  They did not look like the ones you get at Star$.  The most fun was chilling the scones.  Unlike Martha, I only have one refrigerator, average size.  The scones have to sit on a big-a** baking sheet covered in plastic. I  had to spend 10 minutes rearranging my fridge in order for this baking sheet to balance precariously on the tops of assorted containers and firm vegetables which rest on the bottom shelf!  There were definitely some of my best  Lucy Ricardo moments every time I had to open the fridge. 

While my dough was being cool, I decided to make the Banana Loaf, which would be my last quick bread.  I had bought all the ingredients which included shredded coconut and toasted pecans.  Sounds delicious doesn't it?  Except that Lily would hate it.  The recipe makes two loaves (not confident enough to halve a baking recipe yet) and Lily would not touch any of it if I included nuts and coconut.   So, I decided to omit the offending ingredients and instead added a package of Hershey chocolate chips.  What you don't know is that I have to live up to my sister's banana bread recipe.  "Auntie Ellen makes the best banana bread" exclaims my teenage daughter with the discerning palate (ketchup is a vegetable serving to this kid).  I was determined to steal my daughter's banana bread heart away and what better way to do that than with...you guessed it...chocolate! 

If you recall, my previous loaf pan experience was a disaster so I made sure to buy two spanking new non-stick metal pans.  It worked!  They came out as perfect twin peaks!  By the way, no luck on being the Banana Bread champ.  The title still belongs to Ellen.

Back to the scones:  Martha says that they are very rich, almost too rich for breakfast so I decide to bake them while we are having dinner.  What could be a better dessert?  The smell was almost too much to bear, would I be able to resist? One would think so given how strange they looked - but looks are deceiving!

Martha would cringe until she actually bit into this chocolaty gift from the gods! The larger pieces of the chopped chocolate stay intact in the dough, but ooze just enough so that you have to lick your fingers.  I had to have a taste but stuck to just a taste.  Yeah for me and yeah for my colleagues who had a feast awaiting them this morning.  'Tis better to give than to eat it yourself and take in more calories with one bite than your whole  morning's allotment!

My boss is convinced that I  am trying to make everyone around me at work fat. Which is not a bad idea because then I can look like I am losing more weight! Hmmmmm.





The Good, the Good and the UGLY!

The Good
I finally made those cream cheese and chive biscuits this weekend.  They were much easier than I thought they would be; lots of rolling and folding and chilling (the dough I mean).  They are cut into squares rather than rounds and then they puff up a bit like little pillows.  The outsides were flaky and the insides a lovely soft bread-llike consistency.  I made fresh salmon burgers for dinner and we opened the biscuits up and used them as buns.  They were good.  Here is a picture:

I am now done with  biscuits and have moved on into the realm of muffins.  As you know I made those wild blueberry muffins last week and this week bought the ingredients for Plum Streusel muffins.  They look amazing in the book  and I can't wait to make them.

The Good
So while I was waiting for the biscuit dough to chill out I was rooting around the fridge and saw that I had almost a whole pint of wild blueberries left.  I had also picked up some white chocolate chips and found a recipe for Blueberry and White Chocolate Loaf.  I love loaf cakes(except banana bread - I detest bananas),  and know that they are really really hard to screw up -believe me I have tried!  So I thought I would quickly put that together and bake it before the biscuits had to go into the oven.  As expected it was delicious!  I added a tart lemon syrup I had made by poking holes in the freshly baked cake and pouring it over the top, letting it soak into the cake.  This gave it just the right tang and saved the cake from being too sweet.  This too was good.

The Ugly
When we had gone shopping earlier that day, I found one of these silicone loaf pans that seem to be all the rage these days. Everyone says that your food or baked goods just slide right out of them and they are so easy to clean as well. 

 I was really excited, about to see my loaf drop gracefully from the pan with nary a crumb sticking to bottom.  The timer dinged and I opened the oven door to see this:

UGLY!  Instead of rising up as the cake would do in a rigid loaf pan, it BULGED OUT!  And to add insult to injury (now I know what that phrase means) there were some little bits stuck to the bottom of the pan.  Now, as I said before, it tasted very good.  The cake was really moist and flavourful.  But so  U G  L  Y!!!

This disaster reminds me of one of the traumatic events of my childhood and quite possibly contributed to my F.O.B. (fear of baking). It was my parents anniversary and they were going out to dinner.  After finishing our Swanson's T.V. dinners, my sisters and I decided that we would bake them a cake for the celebration.  Looking through the one or two cookbooks in the house we found a recipe for chocolate cinnamon cake that looked easy enough.  (Who makes chocolate cinnamon cake)?  So we go ahead and mix up the cake and then bake it.  We take it out of the oven and realize that it really needs a good chocolate frosting.  We find a recipe for that and whip it up, oh....we don't have icing sugar (whatever that is), we'll just make it with regular sugar....what could be bad?  Okay, so it's a little grainy, but its chocolately and thick.  Hurry, we have to get it on the cake before Mommy and Daddy get home!  We slather it on top and then start to notice that it is melting into the cake!  What?  You have to let it cool first before you put on the frosting?  We are confident that it is going to taste good anyways so we proudly serve up when our parents get home.  It has to be the most pathetic cake ever.  It is sickly sweet because of the double whammy of sugar, the texture is wet and grainy from the melted frosting and the cinnamon and chocolate are an atrocious combination. 

Now do you see why I rarely baked in the last 40 years?

I'm just wild about Wild Blueberries

Out of all the fruits of the harvest at this time of year, my favourite is wild blueberries.  There is just no comparison to the bland cultivated variety.  These little purple nuggets just burst with flavour and stain everything they come into contact with.  Despite looking like I just voted in an election in Iran,  I can sit and eat a whole pint.   But since I am on this baking journey, I decided to (shhhh...don't tell Martha) skip ahead a page and make blueberry muffins.  This also afforded me the opportunity to use my brand new shining Kitchenaid Stand Mixer!  Sure it takes up half my counter space, but it looks so professional!  I look so professional.  It is so heavy that I can barely move it. (Note to self: get to the weight room stat).

Now, I have made muffins before who hasn't, so I was not at all intimidated and in fact really relaxed and enjoyed myself.  There is something very soothing and calm about baking.  I like how you gently fold in ingredients.  Lightly knead dough and then you let it rest. You don't beat the sugar and butter, you cream them together.  And then finally, you dust the powdered sugar on top.  Practically a zen experience!

After doing some reading on ovens and what to do when you have a wayward one, I adjusted the temperature up by 10 degrees F. and the baking time was perfect.  All of the hints and tips that Martha espouses were spot on and I came out with a batch that not only tasted delicious, but looked like the picture in her book!  Have I reached the pinnacle in muffin making?    You decide:

Note my feeble attempt at food styling.  I think I might have to turn to Martha once again for home decor tips....

Oh, and thanks to Chin who takes these photos and politely says "yes dear" when I badger him about camera angles and lighting!

Oh, and if anyone is reading this blog, don't be shy to write a comment or two. I can take it!

Cornmeal Biscuits- Muy Caliente!

I love cornmeal anything. I seem to recall that corn muffins were a favourite of my mother's.  Warm with a little pat of butter...there's that word again! 

I bought many pounds of butter and am armed and ready for my adventure with cornmeal biscuits.  I decided to make a meal around them but wanted something different than the traditional chili or jambalaya.  Who is the Doyenne of Southern cooking?  Paula Deen y'all.  So I went on her website and found what looked like a delicious recipe for Cioppino Stew.  Okay not typically southern fare unless you are in Italy, but a seafood stew sounded just right.  Making some modifications as I often do (and I wonder why my baking sucks), I began my evening in the kitchen.

Looking at the recipe for the biscuits, I was delighted to find that there is no kneading of dough or cutting of biscuits.  Hey this one should be  easy.  Martha if you are reading this, I think the next edition of your Handbook of Baking should start with this recipe.

Once again, I follow the directions just as Matha wrote them...except that I added some minced pickled jalapeno peppers.  What can I say, old habits die hard and really how bad can some jalapenos screw up the biscuits?

As I mentioned, instead of cutting the biscuits out, you just drop them from a spoon.  I can do that!  I did that.  Somehow I thought that they would magically shape shift into perfectly formed biscuits.  I have spent far too much time pretending to be interested in sci-fi for Chin's sake. I take them out of the oven, 10 weird looking blobs of golden goodness.

You can actually smell the jalapenos and of course the butter. They are a little bit sweet, a little bit salty and just the right amount of heat from the jalapenos. My Cioppino is delicious and the biscuits are the perfect compliment to the stew. We enjoy our dinner that night.

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Looking forward to cream cheese and chive biscuits next! I snuck a peek at thre recipe and they should be quite the challenge.

Buttermilk Biscuits with Cheddar Cheese

Q: What is more decadent than a cream and butter laden Baking Powder Biscuit?
A: A buttermilk, butter laden biscuit with 3 cups of Cheddar Cheese!

As I lock the door and lower the shades in fear of the fat and cholesterol police, I once again face the dreaded DOUGH. Same basic dough...same problems. Only this time I know to use more of the dry and crumbly dough per biscuit. Getting fed up having the biscuits fall apart once I put them on the backing sheet, I decide to hell with the overworking, this thing needs a good working over! So I get in there and make that dough stick together enough to hold its shape.

Same oven, so this time I am not surprised that it takes longer than Martha's. I have to do some research on what to do in this situation. Do you increase the baking time or do you increase the heat? I will let you know when I find out.

The biscuits are now done, redolent with the smell of sharp cheddar. Not bad, although I notice that some of my towers of dough have let themselves go and are spreading around the middle.

These too are a hit with my bf who has two with dinner, so I nibble one one to see for myself. OK, not the best I have tasted (red lobster), but not too shabby. I bravely take two into work the next day for my manager. He seems sincere when he says they are really good and I witness with my own eyes that he does eat the entire thing. I will consider this one a success.

I have now run out of butter and need to buy more in order to create the cornmeal biscuits...

Baking Powder Biscuits with Herbs

As a good student of cooking classes, I prepared my mise en place, took a deep breath and began. I properly measured, just as Martha insists, used the appropriate equipment and felt that nothing could possibly go wrong. Right?

Wrong, My Nemesis is dough. Any kind of dough. I followed the directions exactly as written, I looked at the picture for reference and yet...still....my dough was too dry and crumbly. Being mindful of the warning:"Do not overwork", I tried my best to be gentle and coax the dough into submission. Like my dog and/or my teenage daughter, the dough was having none of that and insisted that I use it "as is". Okay.

I took my 2 1/4" biscuit cutter and cored away. Hey, not too bad. It actually did stay together in their disc shape so I cut out the other eleven and put them on my brand new baking sheet. In they went into my preheated oven and the timer was set for half time in order to turn the around in the oven.

I went back to the counter to clean up and noticed that there was a great deal of dough left over. Enough for another batch. Hmmm, did I double the recipe without realizing it? Shrugging off my doubt I waited for the timer to ring and to get my first glimpse of these delectable little treats. When half time came, I turned them and they still looked kind of raw? No, that's fine, they will be flaky and golden once the full baking time is up.

Once again the timer rings and walk over to the oven eagerly anticipating my first successful biscuit batch. Oh dear, not done, not flaky, not golden....Did I mention that one thing besides a popover pan I did not buy that Martha suggests is an oven thermometer? I now suspect that my oven is developmentally delayed (the term slow is so old school). So I keep them in the oven set my timer to 3 minute intervals and watch and wait.....Soon I lose count of how many more times I Set that thing but finally, FINALLY they are looking (almost) as described.

They smell delicious and I take them out to cool on the wire rack that Martha suggests. I go back to the book to compare them with Martha's and notice that they are about half the height of hers. Ahhh, maybe that is why I had so much dough left.

They are a hit with Chin who slathers margarine on them and scarfs them up. I have 1/2 of one, without the margarine because I know how much butter went into the recipe and am impressed with myself. Maybe this forage into the world of baking won't be so hard....