RIP hand mixer

Sad news sports fans -- the Big Lots Mixer has mixed its last batter. I'll spare you the gruesome details about how it spent its last moments on earth, but there was smoke and a lot of high pitched screaming (from me and the mixer). An eventual autopsy confirmed that the cause of death was a broken gear. It lived a long and fulfilling life and brought enjoyment to all who tasted its work. It will truly be missed.

Down a mixer, I was limited in my dessert making abilities. But I wasn't going to let this stop me from making a summer treat. In fact, I had the perfect backup. A few months ago, in a moment of genius (or Sudafed-induced hoarding) I found these awesome popsicle molds while I was waiting in line to get a prescription filled. I had an awful sinus infection and the only thing I wanted to eat was icecream and icey-juicys. In my delirium, I imagined myself making delicious homemade popsicles in my favorite flavors to ease my soar throat. In actuality, I spent several days on the couch sleeping, waking up to watch the Real Housewives of New Jersey, and whimpering. 

The popsicle molds sat on my shelf all summer, waiting. With recipe in hand, it was time to christen them. It actually turned out to be a very easy, refreshing dessert, and a great way to use delicious late summer flavors - like super sweet melons. 

I started by cubing half of a very ripe honeydew melon and pureeing it in a food processor. I then added some lime juice to help bring out the flavor of the melon. Finally, a little honey, though we didn't need very much additional sweetness because the melon was already like candy. The mixture is then strained through a fine colander to remove any un-pureed pieces. 

You can call it done here and pour the mixture into the mold if you want. I wanted the popsicles to taste a little more like ice cream though, so I mixed some Greek Yogurt and 1/2 and 1/2 into the mixture. The recipe made a little too much popsicle liquid for my molds, so I poured the rest into ice cube trays. You could put little popsicle sticks right into the ice cube trays if you didn't have molds, or maybe even use it to flavor water or perhaps a nice vodka soda if you omit the milk. 

After that, you just need to find room in your freeze and let everything chill out.

There you have it - a blender-less, but still wonderful dessert.

My pie is better than Suzie's

 

After watching a MasterChef lemon meringue pie bake-off one night, I was motivated to make my own delicious citrus treat. For those of you who watch MasterChef, I think we can agree Suzie and her pie were lame. For those of you who say "what the hell is MasterChef", pickings on Hulu are a little slim over the summertime -- so take what you can get. It turned into an epic night of baking and I think the pictures more accurately depict the process than my words can. 

Candied limes: mandolin sliced, sugar water boiled, sugar coated

Pie crust: mix flour, shortening, and water, chill, then roll

Lime custard: zest and juice limes, mix add egg yolks, and heat over double boiler

Blackberry Compote: Reduce wine and sugar by 1/2 over medium heat. Fold in blackberries

Pie assembly: blind bake crust, layer blackberry compote, custard, and meringue

Brown meringue in oven for 5 minutes

Add candied limes -- enjoy

Lime custard:

Ingredients:

1 cup white sugar 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour 3 tablespoons cornstarch 1/4 teaspoon salt 1 1/2 cups water 3/4 cups lime juice

2 limes zested 5 tablespoons butter 4 egg yolks, beaten 1 blind baked pie crust

blackberry compote from bon appetite magazine:

Ingredients:

1 cup fruity wine such as a Cab or Merlot 1/2 cup sugar 1/2 cup water  3 cups blackberries

meringue:

Ingredients:

4 egg whites I cup sugar tablespoons all-purpose flour 3 tablespoons corn syrup pinch of salt

Directions:

	Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). To Make Lime Meringue: In a medium saucepan, whisk together 1 cup sugar, flour, cornstarch, and salt. Stir in water, lime juice and zest. Cook over medium-high heat, stirring frequently, until mixture comes to a boil. Stir in butter. Place egg yolks in a small bowl and gradually whisk in 1/2 cup of hot sugar mixture. Whisk egg yolk mixture back into remaining sugar mixture. Bring to a boil and continue to cook while stirring constantly until thick. Remove from heat. Pour filling into baked pastry shell. To Make Blackberry Compote: Bring red wine, sugar, and water to a simmer in a medium saucepan over high heat; reduce heat to medium and simmer until reduced to 1/2 cup, 20-25 minutes. Let cool. Add 3 cups berries; fold gently to coat. To Make Meringue:  If toasting meringue in oven, preheat oven to 450°. Place egg whites in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a whisk attachment. Beat whites in mixer until soft peaks form. Set aside. Stir sugar, corn syrup, and 1/4 cup water in a medium saucepan over medium-low heat until sugar dissolves. Attach a candy thermometer to side of pan. Increase heat to medium-high and boil without stirring, occasionally swirling pan and brushing down sides of pan with a wet pastry brush, until thermometer registers 238°, 6-8 minutes. Remove pan from heat. Meanwhile, beat whites in mixer until soft peaks form. Beat in salt. Slowly pour hot sugar syrup down side of bowl into whites and beat until meringue is firm and glossy. Continue beating until cool, about 4 minutes. Spoon meringue over lime curd, leaving a 1" plain border, and sculpt decoratively. Tuck 1 cup berries in and around meringue. Bake in preheated oven for 10 minutes, or until meringue is golden brown.

Sweet Cherry Pie

Another shipment of tart cherries in the CSA box means enough to make my dad's all-time favorite dessert, cherry pie. It's another recipe from his mom, and just as delicious as the sugar cookies and strawberry jam. He has fond memories of spending the summer in Michigan and collecting as many cherries as possible to justify my grandma making a cherry pie. She wasn't always the most willing baker though, and I can understand why -- this pie is a lot of work! Somehow my dad was always able to convince her (I'm guessing a lot of whining was involved).

The first time I made this recipe was for Fathers Day. It required a trip out to a local farm where they imported Michigan cherries for a few weekends a year. After a few wrong turns, what should have taken 30 minutes ended up taking over 2 hours. But later, seeing how happy my dad was as the pie baked and wafted its sweet cherry pie smell into the kitchen, the longer than expected journey (and four dollars for cherries) seemed a small price to pay.  I included the recipe below just in case anyone has pie-loving man-children in their lives.

Already knowing the work that was ahead of me (making a pie crust, pitting four cups of cherries, assembling the pie, and sitting in a broiling apartment as the pie bakes) I summoned my strength, downed a diet coke, and got to work.

I knew that I was getting better at this whole baking thing when it only took me one try to roll out the pie crust. Look how perfect that circle of dough is! No tears, no flaking, no need to remix water in, re-chill, and re-roll the crust like usual. I'm a pro these days: commissions and/or congratulations are appreciated.  

 

With a perfect pie crust all ready, I made up the cherry filling by boiling cherries, sugar, corn starch, and some water to cook the cherries a little and thicken up the mixture. What you get it this:

I was feeling kind of lazy that night, so instead of making a lattice top which would require making another pie crust, cutting 20 perfect 1 inch strips, and practicing my basket weaving skills, I decided on a streusel topping to just throw over everything. 

 

After 45 minutes in the oven, the pie was ready. I of course sent a picture to my dad and told him how yummy it was. I can safely say that it not only brought a tear to his eye, but also made a grown man cry, since he was several states away and couldn't have any. Whitesnake really knows what they're taking about. That's the power of cherry pie. 

Even cats love it

 

 

 

Grandma Rose's Cherry Pie 

4 C pitted tart cherries

1 ¼ C sugar

3 ½ Tbls cornstarch

1 Tbls butter

¼ tsp almond extract

-Combine cherries, sugar & cornstarch and let stand for 10 minutes.

-Bring to a boil over medium heat, stirring constantly.

-Let boil for 5 minutes or until juice is translucent.

-Stir in butter and almond extract

Pour into pie crust & top with crust.  Cut slits to let out steam.  Bake at 375 F for 45 – 55

Minutes or until crust is brown.

Jeni's Ice Cream

If you’re not from Ohio, or haven’t made it to my Great State yet, I feel sorry for you. You haven’t seen some of the most culturally significant sites, like President Garfield’s hometown, or experienced the cultural diversity of Grandpa’s Cheesbarn and Gifts. Nor have you made it to the food Mecca that is Jungle Jim’s, spent the day at the Roller Coaster Capital of the World, visited Bruce Springsteen’s signature at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, or seen the world’s largest office building that resembles a wicker basket. You poor fools. But most importantly (unless you’ve shelled out $14 per pint a Dean & Deluca) you’ve never tasted Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams. 

Jeni’s truly is splendid. With flavors like, Brown Butter Almond Brittle, Salty Carmel, Wildberry Lavender, and Rhubarb with Lime & Cardamom, why would you get some boring vanilla cone ever again?

Thankfully, it’s just the time of year to make one of my all-time favorite Jeni’s flavors: Goat Cheese with Red Cherries. Robbie and I signed up again this year for a local CSA box (small pitch here, for those of you that want to try it for a summer, there’s nothing better than getting fresh, organic vegetables, fruits, and eggs delivered to your doorstep every week and I would highly, highly recommend it). In the first fruit shipment this summer was a huge pint of tart cherries, perfect for Jeni’s Goat Cheese Ice Cream.  

 

Pitting them took over 30 minutes since you have to punch out each cherry pit using a device that looks like it came from Saw II. Surprisingly, I had one of these in my drawer from last summer. Among the kitchen supplies I was lacking – an ice cream maker. You know… nothing major – but more on that later. 

After pitting the cherries I roasted them in the oven for about 20 minutes at 450 degrees. The recipe actually doesn’t call for a specific amount but I ended up using about 1 ¼ cups for a quart of ice cream. I prepared the goat cheese mixture and simmered the sugars and cream together. When it boiled, it was time to add the corn starch and keep everything at a rolling boil (to thicken) before mixing it into the goat cheese. 

Then, it was time to make it into ice cream. What I really, really, really wanted was this (I mean how cool would to kick this things around Central Park a little and then have ice cream?!?!). But instead I had a giant mixing bowl filled with ice. I set the bowl containing the ice cream mixture on top of it and then mixed and mixed and mixed with the Big Lots Mixer. It was a labor of love. After about 15 minutes, and a couple of stops to drain out the water and add more ice, things started to thicken up and changed from the soup like mixture to a thick, cake batter consistency. 

Once it firmed up a little, I added the cherries layer by layer and then set the ice cream to freeze all the way. After 4 hours in the freezer it was time to enjoy my first bite, which tasted like the smug satisfaction of not having to shell out mad dollars to D&D for their overpriced ice cream – which is to say, it tasted splendid. 

Fancytastic

It was Naqyia’s birthday this week, so I needed to outdo myself with cakes. Naqiya has gotten several birthday cakes through the years, so I had to think of some way to really wow her. After seeing a post on the I am Baker site, I knew exactly how to decorate it, but that’s only the cake wrapping paper. I needed the most delicious cake combination possible to help her start year 26 with a bang.

After making Naqiya and Abbas chocolate cakes, and cherry cakes, and coconut cakes, and white cakes with sprinkles, I decided on something truly elaborate – a cardamom vanilla cake, filled with raspberry compote, and topped with a lemon buttercream.

 

Oh? did I mention was July 6^th and at least 100 degrees in my kitchen? I should have considered an ice cream cake. It’s ok – it’ll just be 5 easy steps… ANYTHING FOR NAQIYA!!!

Step 1: I had some cardamom pods around, but the recipe calls for ground cardamom. So how did I go from a little green pod to a spice you can put in a cake – well a spice grinder would do the trick, but seeing as I only have a blender acquired from one of grandma’s trips to Atlantic City (grandma lugged that blender though the casino all day just for me to be able to make protein smoothies and the occasional blended margarita), I did this by hand. After shelling all of the cardamom pods I pounded the seeds into submission with the bottom of a glass- - just like my caveman baking ancestors of yore.

High tech baking 101

2 ¼ sticks of butter, a pint of heavy cream, and 4 eggs, some flour, sugar and spice, and I ended up with a delicious—and very healthy—cake batter. If you’re going to make the cake, I would suggest adding a little more vanilla and cardamom for a more flavorful batter. I ended up doubling the amount of both.  

Step 2: With the cakes out of the oven, it was time to set them up on my sophisticated cooling racks (aka on my dresser with the window open and a box fan pointed on them). I was careful not to funnel cake smell out window, into the path of any passing pigeons or motivated hobos. The proverbial pie on a windowsill is no excuse to a hungry birthday girl.

Step 3: Meanwhile, to make the raspberry filling, I simmered the raspberries with sugar and water. A lot of recipes will suggest using jam or jelly as a filling, but I like making it myself because you can control the sweetness. That way the filling actually adds something to the cake and it’s not just a mound of sugar with some icing.

I even bought some fancy baking tools. 

 
Step 4: Once the raspberry filling and cakes cooled off, I started the assembly process. I used the Magnolia Bakery buttercream recipe again and added the juice of a lemon instead of milk this time around. Learning from my George Washington cupcake mistakes, I made sure to add all 8 cups of powered sugar this time. 

Step 5: Then it was onto decorating. My earlier attempts didn’t come out the greatest, but that’s ok because you can just scrape the icing off and start over.

After a few practice rounds, and a lot of blood sweat and tears (all 3 literal), I ended up with something fit for a 26-year-old, reality-tv-loving, graduate-school-attending, bangle-wearing queen.

Happy Birthday Naqiya – I’ll start planning next year’s birthday cake soon!

Washington... Washington

Maybe it’s because I’ve been watching a lot of Netflix, particularly “The Revolution” as narrated by Kelsey Grammar, but I am certain there is no bigger badass than George Washington. People were like – “Oh hey George, could you do us a solid and win the war against the British? No biggie, but uh… we don’t yet have a military with real training, or guns and food, but … you can handle that, right?”  And Washington was like, “Sure, guys. No prob. Shouldn’t take too long to defeat the greatest military power of the age. Maybe afterward I can run whatever government you hippies dream up? I got you.”

You think Chuck Norris or John Wayne or the Dos Equis guys are BA? Not compared to George Washington. He was, and still is, the original badass. So hell yes I’m going to outline his profile in chocolate and immortalize him on top of a cupcake.

I started by laying down a piece of wax paper on top on some silhouettes of GW. After heating some chocolate chips in a double boiler and pouring it into a little baggie (re: Valentines Day Panty Cookie post) I was ready to pipe out an outline of Washington’s noggin. After the outline hardened, I filled it in with chocolate and set everything inside the refrigerator to harden up. 

Then it was onto to the cupcakes. I recently purchased the Magnolia Bakery cookbook so I was excited to turn my little kitchen into an award winning Bakery. I chose classic Magnolia chocolate cupcake with a vanilla buttercream. The cupcakes went together fairly easily, and with a standard sized oven, I was able to actually bake at a normal rate. After 40 minutes, the cupcakes were successfully baked.

Moving on to the vanilla buttercream, I whipped the butter and sugar together for several minutes to make sure that enough air was incorporated to make the frosting nice a fluffy. After the cupcakes cooled, I started icing. But something wasn’t right – the cupcakes looked really sad. 

At first I thought it was too warm (my kitchen was at least 85 degrees) and the icing was melting. After looking at the icing it seemed like maybe it just need another cup or two of powder sugar to hold everything together. So I scraped off the icing and added another 1½ cup of confectioners sugar to make everything more solid.

In a tiny kitchen, cupcake overflow happens

Icing take 2 and cupcakes look good, but seriously, but would GW want to adorn a plain black and white cupcake? I think not. So I mix a little gel food color with some sugar to create some red and blue topping for George to grace. Looks like freedom now.

With a little patriotic arranging we have ourselves a Cupcake Old Glory. Happy Birthday America and thanks for all your badass ways Mr. Washington. 

Numbers are Hard

oatmeal, caramel, oatmeal -- what could be better?

I am obsessed with a new blog called I am Baker. This woman has an awesome assortment of delicious baked goods which are all decorated beautifully; she’s my amateur baking idol. One treat in particular caught my eye: an oatmeal brownie bar stuffed with caramel, inspired by Martha Stewart. I got hungry looking at it and decided that I was willing to run on the treadmill for an extra 45 minutes to have one of these bad boys. Without wasting any time, I head to the store at 9:30 PM to collect the ingredients and returned with a pint of heavy cream and 6 Milky Way bars.

Let me interject here with the theme of this post – things that are difficult. There are a few things I’m not the greatest at (typing, air traffic control, balancing my checkbook) but I was pretty sure I mastered numbers in kindergarten after I got my “counting to 100 certificate”. Apparently, this is a skill I need to work on because the recipe only called for 2 Milky Way bars and somehow I brought home 6. Did I accidentally multiply by 3? divide by 2 and add 5? Take the square root to the second power and multiply by the second composite number in the sequence? Hard to say, but let’s hope Milky Ways bars have a long shelf life, because I have way too many. 

Fail

Also among things that are hard – reading directions. Another fun fact that I discovered upon returning home with 4 too many Milky Way bars was that I also needed 47 squares of caramel. Really? By now it’s 10:00 and I’m not going to venture back out to the Food Emporium to correct my inability to count or follow directions. I’ll just make it work with some homemade caramel.

Making homemade caramel is actually pretty easy, all that it requires is some heavy cream, butter, brown sugar and corn syrup. The only tip is you want to make sure to use large pot, because the mixture triples when it starts boiling. Combine all of the ingredients over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until it reaches a boil. From there, you just let everything hang out until it reaches 230 degrees F. 

Needless to say, I don’t have a candy thermometer (I don’t even have a people thermometer to tell if I have a fever, so I’ll probably invest in one of those first). A few tips to tell if your caramel has reached it caramel-ness is the color (notice how it changes from a blonde, to a dirty blonde, to a nice golden brown color). 

 

Also, once you think the caramel is ready to go, take a fork and drizzle a little into a cup of cold water. If it can form a soft ball, you’re in business.

So with that mixture ready, it’s time to add the 2 chosen Milky Way bars. This is where you also want to add some cream so the ingredients combine together. Once that’s done, let the mixture cool down for 5 or 10 minutes. 

 

Meanwhile, make the top and bottom layers. The I am Baker recipe suggests mixing in some brownie mix, but I was in a classic mood, so I stayed true to the Midwestern oat-bar and left it unadulterated. After pressing ½ of the mixture into a greased dish, I poured the caramel/Milky Way concoction on top and save the remaining crumble to cover everything. 

Then you pop it in the over for 30 long minutes and end up with something that looks like this:

Not exactly Maratha Stewart quality, but it tastes damn good. I think next time I will just make the caramel from scratch and scatter a cup of chocolate chips on top because the Milky Way bars didn’t really add a chocolaty taste to it. Any way you want to make it (as a brownie, or with any combination of chocolate and caramel) this is a very easy, delicious recipe. And if you’re lucky enough to have basic math problems like me, you might end up with a couple extra Milky Way bars. 

Strawbrizzle Jam

So I’m still no further in thinking about what I want to do with the blog, but that’s not going to stop me from documenting my baking escapades, especially when one of my most favorite ingredients is in season – strawberries. Upon seeing $5 flats of strawberries on a recent trip to TJ’s, I just couldn’t deny my hoarding tendencies—so I bought a bunch. I mean, the apocalypse was just days away… what if I couldn’t get strawberries after 5/21? 

It seemed like a good idea at the time, but once I got them home, I had to figure out how to consume about 6 pints of strawberries in a matter of a week. I put them in my breakfast, ate them for dessert, and after about day 3, couldn’t force-feed myself any more. Then, I remember the delicious homemade jam my grandma use to make in the spring time. When I was 8 I could easily go through and entire jar of strawberry jam in about 2 days. The ingredients are what make is so good: strawberries and sugar -- It’s pretty much dessert in a jar.

I was sure this strawberry jam recipe was some locked down Hannah family secret because of how delicious it was. I called home and had my parents look through every recipe card in my grandmother’s old cookbook to find it. When it finally turned up, I was a little depressed when I learned that grandma got this one from the back of a gelatin box. Whatever, grandma obviously knows not to mess with the classics. 

  

So, recipe in hand, I was ready to start on my homemade jam/canning adventure in the wee kitchen. But, I would also have to have something to put the jam on, so I figured I would make a nice, buttery, brioche bread to serve as the vessel for the jam… can’t be that hard right? Right?

I started by making the bread. The list of ingredients is pretty short – some flour, 3 sticks of butter, yeast, a little water – it’s combining them all together that is the work. Just about every recipe I read suggested using a bread maker, or at least a standing mixer. Oh yeah – like I have room for that in my 8 x 8ft kitchen. Knowing the Big Lots hand mixer would probably kick the dust if I forced it to blend bread together, I decided to do it all by hand. You have to mix each little chunk of butter in by itself by punching and turning the dough. It took a good amount of time, but I worked my aggression out. 

Phew – all done, now just gotta cover this up with some saran wrap and let it rise.

Jump forward 60 minutes…. This looks exactly the same. What the hell?

After checking a few baking sites, it seems like the yeast wasn’t “activated”, so I tried it one more time and made sure the yeast had little bubbles in it before I remixed everything.  Ok, so take 2, going to try this again. 

After the bread (finally ) rose, I cut it into 3 pieces, rolled each of them into a log, and then braided it together to form a braid. It got brushed with some egg whites and sugar and then into the oven. GODSPEED!

 

Now onto the main event – strawberry jam. Compared to the bread, this is quite easy. Strawberries + sugar + heat + 20 minutes of boiling = Jam. If you want some more specifics the “secret family recipe” is below. It advises using Sure-Jell which is pectin and just about impossible to find in NYC (with so many people awaiting the apocalypse, you’d think…). I read a couple of canning blogs (nerd!) and to find that lemon juice is a good substitute since the acidity works with the sugar to make the jam more jelly-like and made that substitution below. 

All that’s left is pouring the strawberry lava into jars. Make sure the jars are sterilized or you end up with botulism in your food without any exceptions** (this may not be 100% true). I just heated up a pot of boiling water and dropped the lids and cans in there for 5 min or so to make sure. Then pour the jam in, leaving about ½ inch at the top and seal. Drop the cans back into a few inches of water for another 5 or 10 min to make sure the can is going to seal. As the jars cool, they’ll pull the little security popper thing down because of a vacuum or friction or gravity… I don’t know… something with science. 

Bread is ready, Jam is ready; time to eat!

Strawberry Jam: 

Ingredients

• 2 pounds fresh strawberries, hulled
• 5 cups white sugar
• 3 tablespoons lemon juice
• 1 pinch salt

Directions

1. In a stockpot, combine the strawberries, sugar, vinegar and salt. Bring to a rolling boil, and cook stirring frequently for 15 to 20 minutes, or until the temperature of the mixture has reached 220 degrees F (105 degrees C).
2. Transfer the mixture to hot sterile jars, leaving 1/2 inch headspace, and seal. Process jars for 10 minutes in a water bath. Refrigerate jam once the seal is broken.