20 October, 2009

Missing...

I've been missing in action for a very sad and terrible reason... my poor little old laptop got a wretched virus and we're still working on fixing it. Although the virus is gone there are some other issues my wonderful husband is working to fix. So, at the moment I'm not able to do too much in the way of posts and it's very tough. But, I've been occupying all my time with reading and learning to sew! Very exciting stuff.

Hopefully I'll be back to blogging in the very near future! Fingers crossed my little laptop gets better soon. :o)

04 October, 2009

Nigella's Processor Danish Pastry

I love all my cookbooks, but if asked to pick a handful of favorites Nigella Lawson's "How To Be A Domestic Goddess: Baking And The Art Of Comfort Cooking" would be on the top of the list. It's an absolute must have for the home cook. I got this book before we moved into our apartment a few years ago and it's what really got me started with baking from scratch. I've always loved cooking but I was never a very keen baker, if it didn't come in a box, I didn't bake it. I started baking recipes from this book and building up my confidence and truly fell in love with cooking and baking. And now I never, ever make anything that comes from a box. I feel like once you get the hang of baking and feel confident in the kitchen it's just as easy to make things from scratch and the difference in flavor is tremendous.



On to the danish pastry. It's well documented that I was petrified of any recipe that contained yeast no matter how simple the author claimed the recipe was, I wasn't going near it. Then I bit the bullet and started baking bread and was head over heels. After making puff pastry with the Daring Bakers last month I thought I'd love to dive in to croissants and danish pastry. I'm definitely going to give the River Cottage Bread Handbook's Croissant recipe a go sometime soon, but I've been eyeing Nigella's Danish Pastry and that seemed to win out.

The nice thing about this recipe is it makes enough for twelve pastries and the dough is easily frozen. So, you can make the dough and have half for the weekend and freeze the other half for another special weekend. :o)

As with most recipes, the first time you try it there are always things you would do differently. This go around I decided to use some store bought jam to fill the pastry and they came out quite yummy. Although, I think next time I would make a homemade jam. I found that once the pastries cooked up the jam was almost too sweet for my liking. And being the perfectionist that I am, I am not completely pleased with their appearance. But, this was the first time around and I'll know what works and what doesn't for the future. I'd love to fill these with a pastry cream and some cut up fruit, like peaches or pears. I'd even be so daring as to say Nutella would be out of this world in these.

Another delicious recipe from Nigella.

27 September, 2009

Daring Bakers: Puff Pastry & Vols-au-Vent


The September Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Steph of A Whisk and a Spoon. She chose the French treat, Vols-au-Vent based on the Puff Pastry recipe by Michel Richard from the cookbook Baking With Julia by Dorie Greenspan.

I have to admit, I was completely and utterly terrified of making puff pastry. I'm pretty sure I watched the episode of Baking with Julia in which Michel Richard makes this recipe a dozen times, each time making me more terrified.

Things didn't quite go my way the first time around. Friday afternoon, after putting it off to the point where I was starting to get a little panicky, I finally decided to take a stab at making the pastry. In the video, Michel states that he is using pastry flour, "Perfect, I thought, I've got pastry flour in the fridge!" WRONG! I don't know what happened but the dough was really strange - it was gritty and mushy and not right, I just knew it. And, then there is the incident with the butter. It did not disperse evenly throughout the dough and after two turns, there were lumps of butter all throughout the dough. I refrigerated it anyway and decided to sit and relax and have some tea. I was quite upset that things weren't going my way and very upset with myself for waiting until the last minute. After two cups of Lady Grey I was ready to face the fact that I would have to throw away what I had done so far and start fresh. It was painful to throw away a whole pound of butter. *Sigh*

The second time around, so as not to be so wasteful, I decided to halve the recipe in case things didn't go well again. Fortunately, things went perfectly and I was so pleased.

At first I had absolutely no idea what I was going to fill the vols-au-vent with. To be brutally honest I was pretty unenthusiastic about this challenge and convinced I wasn't going to be able to do it, so I didn't give the filling much thought. But, I settled on roasted apples. It's gotten pretty chilly over the last few days and I thought it would a good fall filling. I make baked apples fairly frequently, I simply slice or dice apples, add some sugar, spices and a bit of melted butter and bake them in the oven for 30-45 minutes until they are tender. My daughter especially loves them and if you buy a fairly sweet apple there isn't much need for a lot of sugar.

I'm truly amazed that I was able to successfully make puff pastry. It was utterly delicious and not as difficult as I had thought. I'll definitely make it again!

I'm so glad I joined Daring Bakers. Although I have only participated in two challenges thus far, I like that I'm forced to go outside my comfort zone. Particularly with this challenge. I am now keen to try the Croissant recipe in the River Cottage Bread Handbook... stay tuned!

26 September, 2009

Alfajores



Alfajores are truly delicious little cookies. They are Spanish in origin and can also be found throughout Central and South America(where I think they are the most popular). Alfajores are little butter cookies sandwiched with either dulce de leche or jam and sprinkled with powdered sugar and sometimes cinnamon. There are all different varieties throughout South America, some with coconut, others covered in chocolate. I make mine as a simple butter cookie, filled with dulce de leche and sprinkled with a combination of powdered sugar and cinnamon. They are just lovely.



We're heading to a friend's house tonight for the Scallop Festival in Bourne and I can't show up empty handed so I thought these would be a great little treat to bring. Not to mention they're a pretty easy cookie to make. Start to finish I think it took me maybe 30 minutes, minus the inactive cooling time.

Alfajores
makes approx 20-25 assembled cookies

1 1/4 cups ap flour
1/2 cup corn flour/corn starch
1/4 ts baking powder
1/8 ts salt
1 (4 oz) stick unsalted butter (softened)
1/4 cup sugar
1 egg
1 ts vanilla extract

dulce de leche
1/4 cup powdered sugar
1/4 ts cinnamon

Preheat oven to 350F. Line two baking sheets with parchment or silicone mats.

Cream butter and sugar until light in color. Add egg and vanilla extract and blend well. In separate bowl combine flour, corn flour, baking powder, salt. Add dry ingredients to butter and egg mixture and mix until a soft dough forms. Roll out dough to 1/8 inch thickness and cut into small rounds (I use a 4 1/2 cm cutter). The cookies do not spread very much in the oven so they can be placed fairly close together on the baking sheets. The scraps can be gathered and rolled a second time. You should get between 40-50 cookie rounds. Bake in the center of the oven for 12-14 minutes, until the edges are just starting to turn golden. Transfer the cookies to a wire rack and allow to cool completely.
Sandwich 1-2 teaspoons of dulce de leche between two cookies and sprinkle with the mix of powdered sugar and cinnamon.

24 September, 2009

River Cottage Handbook: Bread - Soda Bread

There is nothing like a well made Irish Soda Bread. Crispy on the outside with a tender, moist crumb. My most favorite soda bread is one made with cinnamon and raisins or currants. The spice of the cinnamon and the sweetness of the dried fruit... it's heavenly! When I was afraid to make yeast breads I would make soda breads and beer breads all the time. They are simple and pretty much fool proof.



The River Cottage Bread Handbook recipe is great and bakes a beautiful soda bread. I've made it countless times, but surprisingly have never done a post on it. Since it's officially Autumn I thought I'd add a bit of apple cider, cinnamon and honey. My daughter and I had a picnic planned this afternoon so I thought a fresh bread would be perfect. We ate our delicious bread with cold chicken, sharp cheddar and some fruit and it was a lovely picnic lunch. We even shared some with the ducks and I must admit, they loved it too!



Soda bread is perfect with soups and stews and other hearty dinners. It's also wonderful with cashel blue or sharp cheddar and a savory jam or chutney for a yummy snack.



The ingredients in soda bread can be varied to your liking - the liquid component can be buttermilk, plain milk, thined yogurt, water, apple juice/cider, or any combination - whatever tickles your fancy. Any combination of spices or herbs can also be added as well as dried fruits and nuts. The possibilities are endless.

This recipe is for two good sized loaves. I often simply divide it in half and only make one loaf - after all it's so easy and it's at it's best while still warm so I prefer to make it fresh rather than have an extra loaf left over.

Soda Bread
Adapted from River Cottage Handbook: Bread by Daniel Stevens

500g plain white flour (you can substitute whole wheat flour or a combintaion of plain and wheat)
10g salt
4 tsp baking powder
2 tsp cinnamon
200 g honey
150ml buttermilk
150ml apple cider

Preheat the oven to 400F. Combine all dry ingredients in a bowl and mix in the liquid to make a dough. Knead briefly, divide into two and shape into rounds. Pat to flatten until about 5 cm high, flour the loaves all over and place on a baking tray. Cut a cross in the top of each loaf, almost through to the bottom, then stab all over. Bake for 20-25 minutes until the bread sounds hollow when tapped on the bottom. Allow to cool on a wire rack. Best eaten while warm.

22 September, 2009

Tuesdays with Dorie: Cottage Cheese Pufflets

This week's recipe was chosen by Jacque of Daisy Lane Cakes and is Cottage Cheese Pufflets.

I was wondering, when I read that this weeks recipe was for Cottage Cheese Pufflets, what exactly these pufflets would be all about. I'm not a huge fan of cottage cheese and for some reason I was thinking they would be some sort of danish type thing and I wasn't too enthused and actually thought I would pass on this one. Then I whipped out my book and realized they are cookies and would probably be something I would like quite a bit. Dorie describes them as tender, soft, flaky and tangy. Sounded good to me. I'm always up for a good biscuit to have with my afternoon tea.



The recipe makes quite a few, forty-eight, which is a lot and Dorie specifically says that these are best on the day they are baked and lose some of their lightness as they age. We definitely wont be able to eat 48 cookies in one day! ;o) But, one of the nice things about this recipe is that the dough is able to be frozen for up to three months. I made a whole batch and froze 2/3 for another time.

Down to the nitty gritty. These are quite tasty. The dough produces a soft, light and tangy little cookie and the the jam is a really nice touch with the creaminess of the dough. The first go around I made them with strawberry jam and the second I decided to use nutella. Yum and yum! I didn't find them to be too bad on the second day. Like most cookies, they are best when they are super fresh, but they are still quite tasty the following day.

I did run in to a few problems though. I had trouble with the Flaky Apple Tart dough sticking something fierce when I rolled it out between sheets of wax paper, it worked out so much better when it was rolled out with flour. In this recipe, Dorie says you can roll the dough out between two pieces of wax paper - and again, it was a nightmare! It stuck so badly that I had to scoop up the dough, press it back into a square and re-refrigerate it. I can't blame it on a hot kitchen either because I did this last night, around 9 and it was cool and comfortable in my kitchen. I think it's just a bad idea for these really sticky doughs to be rolled out between wax paper or cling. In theory it seems like a great idea, but in practice, not so much. I'll tell you what though, I will not be rolling out pastry dough between two pieces of wax paper ever again, no matter what! Another thing that I have trouble with is when recipes like this where there is a filling and no specification as to how much to put in. I always have trouble with putting far too much filling into filled tarts and cookies and they inevitably overflow. A dab... how much is a dab?! Is a dab a 1/4 of a teaspoon, an 1/8 of a teaspoon, a whole teaspoon?! After a little trial and error though I got my "dab" down and no more overflowing!

Those were my only issues though and are definitely resolved with a little trial and error. These would be something that would be perfect for tea and I truly did like them, surprising as it may have been. I will definitely make them again.

19 September, 2009

Greek Food Festival

We went to the Greek Food Festival today, which is held every year by The Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church of Brockton. HOLY MOLY! It was amazingly delicious. Delicious doesn't even do the food justice. It was a really tough decision as to what to get. As soon as I eyed the gyros I was sold, they looked AMAZING. As we made our way through the line it was clear that any of the food choices would have been delicious. The smells in the tent were enough to knock you over. There was roast leg of lamb, chicken and lamb kebabs, roast chicken, moussaka, pastitsio, gyros, loukaniko, dolmathes, spanakopita and greek salad. Also available to accompany the meat dishes was the traditional rice pilaf.


Gyros



Spanakopita



It was pretty yummy, not much left on my plate!


The pastry area of the tent was what I was most interested in. I stood staring at all the amazing pastries, my mouth watering and truly I wanted to get one of each, but I knew we wouldn't be able to eat it all. So we settled on a generous sampling of kourabiethes, melomakarona, diples, milfe, baklava and loukomathes.


The pastry we bought: diples, melomakarona, kourabiethes, baklava and milfe (clockwise from the top left).


It was awesome to watch the women make the loukomathes, which are fried dough balls submerged in honey while they are still warm and then sprinkled with cinnamon.


Frying the dough.



Into the warm honey they go... wow!


This was my first time at the Greek Festival and on our way home I said to my husband, "Why have you been keeping me from this?!" We've been together for almost 7 years now and not once has he taken me to this heavenly festival. I'm a little put out by this. But no matter, it is now part of our fall traditions, for sure!

After we ate the community was kind enough to allow visitors to tour their church. I can't even begin to justly describe how beautiful it is. I could have spent hours there just admiring all of the beautiful art work and furnishings. I kept saying to my husband that I couldn't get over how breathtakingly beautiful it was. There were gorgeous portraits of saints all around the perimeter. Truly lovely. The one photograph that came out well certainly does not do it justice.



I am a huge lover of food and especially ethnic food and even more especially Mediterranean food. Being part Italian I think it goes with the territory. We all had a wonderful time and it's really nice to be able to share part of my daughter's heritage with her.

15 September, 2009

Tuesdays with Dorie: Flaky Apple Turnovers

This week's recipe was chosen by Julie of Someone's In The Kitchen and is Flaky Apple Turnovers - a fitting choice for September. It's been lovely here in New England. The weather has been most agreeable - cool and sunny and there are some leaves already starting to change. I actually made these a few weeks ago to try them out and they came out beautifully. I quartered the recipe as I didn't think we'd be able to manage eating sixteen turnovers just the three of us. These came out so well the second time around I decided to make a full batch and freeze a bunch. I thought these would be the perfect dessert for when you've got dinner guests, I mean who wouldn't go mad if they walked in and your house smelled of baking apples and spices? Not to mention they truly are wonderfully yummy.




I was slightly apprehensive about these. I'm not too keen on apple pies and tarts. I make a mean apple crisp, but pies and tarts... well, not so much. Although my husband might tell you that I make wonderful apple pies, I might beg to differ. These, though, have made me completely change my tune. The only thing I had a bit of trouble with is the turnover dough. Don't get my wrong, it's incredibly yummy - rich, flaky and truly delish. But, it was a pain to roll out. I'm not the strongest person on the world and I had a lot of trouble rolling the dough out without it melting all over the counter. The first go around I rolled it out between sheets of wax paper and it stuck to the paper something awful. Second go around I rolled it out with 750 tons of flour... slightly better, but a BIG mess. I still prefer an apple crisp, but I can't deny that these are really delicious.



Another crazy good recipe from Dorie... would you expect any less?!

14 September, 2009

The Excitement!


This amazing cookbook arrived in the post today from my very generous Auntie!

Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways...

10 September, 2009

River Cottage Bread: Bagels Revisited

I love my River Cottage Bread Handbook. I cherish it. It'd be one of the things I'd grab if my house was on fire. It's the one cookbook that I feel a somewhat spiritual connection to. It's the book that really taught me about bread and bread baking. If by chance I someday meet Daniel Stevens I will be sure to thank him from the bottom of my heart. I know I've said it before but bread baking is a magical, spiritual experience and I have missed it so.



With the busyness of summer and the heat it's been a while since I've had a bread post and to be honest I haven't been making much bread at all... more like none, actually. I needed to get back in the swing. Our refrigerator is full of different flours that need using up and I really should be making our bread homemade. Life just got a bit too busy.

I was excited to get back in to bread baking and I thought something I'd been craving would do the trick. I dusted off my trusty favorite and thumbed to the bagel recipe and got to work on an improvisation.



Spinach bagels are my favorite bagel. Whenever we go to a bagel shop or bakery that has spinach bagels I kind of have a little freak out session and then I buy two. After all, who knows when I'll be able to get my paws on another spinach bagel.

I figured that the ever trusty River Cottage Bagel recipe would be completely adaptable to adding anything you might like. It was pretty simple to turn plain bagels into spinach ones. I simply cooked down 5 ounces of spinach, rang it out in clean tea towel, passed it through the food processor and simply added it to the dough. Pretty easy, huh? The dough was a bright green, it was so neat looking.



The bagels turned out great! No surprise there though. The perfect recipe to get me back in to the swing! I'm sure there will be more bread posts in the not too distant future. *Smiles*