Blueberry Crumb Cake

For the Streusel Topping
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup packed light-brown sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup (1 stick) cold unsalted butter
For the Cake
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened, plus more for pan
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour (spooned and leveled), plus more for pan
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon allspice
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1 large egg
2/3 cup low-fat buttermilk, well shaken
1 1/2 cups blueberries
Confectioners' sugar, for dusting

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Make streusel topping: In a medium bowl, stir together flour, brown sugar, and salt. Cut in the butter using your hands or a pastry blender until large, moist crumbs form. Chill.
Butter and flour a 9-inch square baking pan. In a medium bowl, whisk together 1 1/2 cups flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and allspice. In a large bowl, beat the butter and granulated sugar with an electric mixer until fluffy. Add egg; beat well. Add flour mixture
and buttermilk alternately until just combined. (Batter will be very stiff.) In a large bowl, toss the blueberries with remaining teaspoon flour. Fold blueberries into the batter; spoon into prepared pan.
Sprinkle cake with streusel topping. Bake until golden brown and a tester comes out clean, 45 to 50 minutes. Let cool completely. Dust with confectioners' sugar before cutting into squares.

Source: Martha Stewart

Lemon Buttermilk Pound Cake

3 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp salt
1 1/2 cups sugar
1/2 cup butter, room temperature
3 large eggs
2 Tbs lemon zest
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/4 cups buttermilk
1/2 cup vegetable oil

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour a 10" tube pan.
In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt. In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugar until light. Beat in lemon zest, then beat in the eggs one at a time until well-combined. In measuring cup or small bowl, combine vanilla, buttermilk and vegetable oil. Working in two or three additions, alternately add the flour mixture with the buttermilk mixture, ending with the final addition of dry ingredients. Stir only until no straks of flour remain. Pour into prepared pan.
Bake for 50 to 55 minutes, until toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.
Cool on a wire rack before topping with lemon glaze (recipe below)

Serves 16

Lemon Glaze
2 Tbs butter, melted
2 Tbs lemon juice
1 Tbs lemon zest
1 1/2 cups confectioners' sugar
Combine all ingredients in a small bowl and whisk until smooth. Drizzle over cooled cake.

Croutons

We've had several dinner events at work recently, and with one meal came a loaf of country white bread that no one touched, save my single slice with butter for breakfast. So I took it home and made - wait for it, croutons.

There isn't a real recipe here, although I read Jennifer Reese's recipe from Make the Bread, Buy the Butter (p.137), and used that as a starting point. 

Heat oven to 275 degrees. In a fairly large saucepan, heat olive oil over low heat and add minced garlic. Keep on low to let garlic flavor the oil. Slice bread into equal sized pieces (they cook more evenly that way). Add herbs - I used Herbs de Provence (rosemary, fennel,
savory, thyme, basil, tarragon, dill, oregano, lavender, chervil, and marjoram), lemon zest, and black pepper to the olive oil and again left it on low in to flavor the oil. When everything started to smell nice, increase the heat to medium and add the bread cubes and turn to coat, adding more oil as needed. You're going to try to get them crisp, and then finish drying them out, for lack of a better term, in the oven.

Once crispy on the outside, put them on a baking sheet and place in the over for 35 or so minutes.

Notes: One time I added the juice of a lemon to the olive oil - excellent! A dash or three of Worcestershire Sauce is a good thing too. You can also dry the croutons by putting them in an oven where you were baking at a higher temperature, but turn the oven off and leave in for about an hour. I also leave them out over night to make sure they are really dry before storing them. I did not add any salt, but think I may put more black pepper next time. 

"Artisan" - what does it mean?

I thought this was a great explanation of the demise of the words artisan and artisanal and their vast overuse in food discussions. From the larger discussion here.

Kevin West of Saving the Season:

""Artisanal" is the Paris Hilton of food words – it went from obscurity to ubiquity in no time, and now I'd like to see that trajectory reversed. The first time I remember hearing it used frequently was in 2001, around the opening of Terrance Brennan's New York cheese-centric restaurant, Artisanal. Back then I liked the word because of its etymological roots in skilled craft – akin to "art" but with that special connotation of the practical arts, such as carpentry, iron-working, and making food.

In recent years "artisanal" has become a synonym for small, smaller, smallest – the Portlandia battle cry – and has grown shabby with overuse. Now that Domino's has unveiled Artisan Pizzas, the word is officially threadbare. Anyone who cares about food or language should put "artisanal" in cold storage for a century, in hopes that it may be restored and repaired by generations to come."

Sangria

I've been looking for a good recipe for a red sangria over the summer. I have a favorite California Mexican restaurant that serves a great sangria that is described as a Merlot with citrus, peach, and mango juices - it's heavenly, but I was hoping for something a little simpler. So after experimenting this summer, this is what I've come up with and it's pretty good. 

1 750 ml bottle of red wine 
2 oranges
2 lemons
1 lime
1 c sugar
1 c water

Put sugar and water in a saucepan and heat until boiling, stirring to dissolve sugar. Remove from heat and let cool. 

Slice one lemon and one orange into segments. Juice the other orange and other lemon in addition to the lime. Add these juices to red wine in pitcher. Add the lemon and orange segments. When cooled, add the simple syrup. Mix and chill.
Serve over ice. 

Things I've learned:
Red wine should be something fruity, I usually use a beaujolais villages and find it works well. 
Experiment with other fruits, such as peaches when in season.

Lemon Verbena simple syrup

Flavor the simple syrup. I used some of my lemon verbena to flavor and it was a nice floral lemon flavor. 
Lots of recipes call for Triple Sec or other liquors, but to me, they can overpower the drink. 

Kitchens then and now

I was thinking recently about the things that I have in my kitchen which would have never been in my family kitchen growing up. The computer I’m working on, for example – but it would be very strange for me if I didn’t have one in the kitchen. I've gotten quite used to it being here when I need it. It’s quite useful and not just for writing posts for this blog-thing. I have a DSLR camera with an additional macro lense right next to my 12 cup food processor. My stand mixer has it’s own area on the counter with the sugar containers and flour containers nearby.

orange, lemon, lemon-rosemary, celery

I am ridiculously obsessed with salt and have kosher (of course), sea salt, Maldon salt, bourbon smoked sea salt, Himalayan pink salt, malt salt (this is outstanding on potatoes), Portuguese traditional salt, plus the four salt blends I made (lemon, orange, lemon-rosemary, celery) with the flaky Maldon. Pepper is a lesser fascination, but my list includes: India Tellicherry, Sarawak white, reunion pink, and India green.

I probably shouldn't get into the spices that I have that my mother would never have even heard of, much less tried. Maybe I will do that one day. 

One thing I totally take for granted, but am glad everyday I have is a dishwasher. When my mom built her house, the kitchen was small and there was no room to add one. She always did dishes by hand. I don't mind doing that, but I like having  the dishwasher all the same. It makes life so much simpler to set it to go off at midnight and have clean dishes in the morning. 

My digital kitchen scale is always at the ready as is my electric knife sharpener. I have learned a lot using the scale when canning and, particularly, when baking. It does make a difference to go by weight and I prefer that now that I'm used to it and it's easily done with my scale. 

It's an interesting thing that in the kitchen of my childhood with few bells and whistles, my mother made wonderful food. That's a true talent that you don't get from gadgets.

Wacky Cake

In cooking from 1945, it's hard for me to imagine going through rationing. My mom talked about it from time to time, but not much. Let's see, she would have been about eleven in 1945, so I'm certain it would have made an impact and her and the vast majority of her stories were about food rationing. 
So this week, at America's Test Kitchen, it's cook the 1940s. I suppose this is called Wacky Cake because it makes no real sense, unless you get the science. The combination of vinegar and baking soda at the last possible second is what gives the cake lift. With no eggs and/or butter, this is also vegan - first vegan thing I have made and it's from a recipe that from World War II - ironic, isn't it. 

So I made the cake one evening and planned a nice picture the next day, with good natural light and what do I find in the morning? What I should have expected. The Boy had gotten home from work late that night (or early the next day) and had helped himself. 

That said, this is a tasty cake. Chocolately, but not too much so. Since I'm not a huge fan of chocolate, that's a good thing. Wonder if there are other version as this makes a very quick cake to put together and could certainly do for a sweet tooth. 

Easy Parmesan "Risotto"

Easy Parmesan "Risotto"
Yield: 4 to 6 servings


1 1/2 cups Arborio rice
5 cups simmering chicken stock, preferably homemade, divided
1 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
1/2 cup dry white wine
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, diced
2 teaspoons kosher salt
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 cup frozen peas


Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
Place the rice and 4 cups of the chicken stock in a Dutch oven, such as Le Creuset. Cover and bake for 45 minutes, until most of the liquid is absorbed and the rice is al dente. Remove from the oven, add the remaining cup of chicken stock, the Parmesan, wine, butter, salt, and pepper, and stir vigorously for 2 to 3 minutes, until the rice is thick and creamy. Add the peas and stir until heated through. Serve hot.


Thank you Ina Garten. This was not a recipe that lent itself to photography. Used only 4
cups stock and used Valencia rice - a short grain rice that I also use when making sushi. It worked as well Arborio rice and was much much less expensive.

Use real Parmesan - it makes a difference. 
Was very creamy and super easy to make - will work on some variations of this. I'm thinking asparagus should be involved. 
Reheats well too. That's a plus. 

Sriracha Hard Candy

The following is a recipe that I first found on sprinklebakes.com (link below) for sriracha lollipops. Wanting to try this, but not sure I wanted an entire lollipop of the flavor, I opted for something smaller - hard candies. I haven't made hard candy in about forever, so I had to get back into again and realized how much I really enjoy it. Might have some ideas for other flavors working in my head now - this could be good - or this could be bad - we shall see.

Sriracha Lollipops
Yield: 12-17 Lollipops


Special equipment:
Candy thermometer
Lollipop Sticks
Lollipop molds


Candy:
2 cups sugar
2/3 cup corn syrup
2/3 cup water
2 tablespoons Sriracha sauce, divided
1/4- 1/2 tsp. orange gel food coloring


Lightly grease candy mold with cooking spray.
Stir together the sugar, corn syrup, and water in a small saucepan and insert a candy thermometer into the mixture. Bring the mixture to a boil over medium high heat. Continue to heat without stirring until the bubbling mixture reaches 244°F. Drop one
level tbsp. Sriracha sauce into the bubbling mixture– do not stir!

first addition of sriracha sauce

When the mixture reaches the hard crack stage (302-310°F). Remove pan from heat.
Stir in the remaining 1 tbsp. Sriracha sauce and food coloring. Be extra careful because the mixture will bubble and sputter with these additions.
When the mixture has stopped bubbling, pour it into molds and let harden. Wrap the cooled lollipops in cellophane or wax paper and store in an airtight container.


Bench Notes: 
Use a small saucepan or the mixture won't reach the bulb of the candy thermometer and you will end up with burnt sugar on the bottom of a saucepan - not fun and definitely not good eats.

getting a dusting of superfine sugar

Sort of one note - like something is missing, but I'm not sure what yet.
Did not use orange food color - or any food color for that matter - think they look fine. 
Rolled in superfine sugar before wrapping

Weekend Cooking

I do most of my cooking and all of my experimenting on the weekend. So that means that today - Tuesday - I start planning for what I want to make this coming weekend. When will it appear on this site - who knows? I think it depends on how excited I get by the process or by the results.
Any early contender for this weekend is Buttermilk-Lemon Chess Pie. I've not made chess pie before, but this combines two of my favorite things - buttermilk and lemon. And get this - there's buttermilk in both the crust and filling. Yes, this has potential.
There may also be biscuits in our future.
Yum.