Greek Orange Cake

Every so often, I flip through one of my recipe books - in this case, the Complete Book of Greek Cooking, above  - and come across something that I am astounded I haven't already tried. This was one of those times. I was asked to bring a dessert to a Hanukkah party and I knew this would fit the bill as being simple to make, yet full of flavor and decadent enough (2 sticks of butter! 2 cups of sugar! 5 eggs!) to qualify as a great holiday dessert. I absolutely LOVE desserts and cakes with orange flavoring, especially around Christmastime, and this cake is full of orange flavor. After the cake is baked, you pour an orange-y sugar syrup all over the top and it gets completely soaked into the cake. So this is a very rich, dense, moist, and DELICIOUS buttery orange cake. So good. And lucky for my there were leftovers and I ate the remainder of the cake for breakfast for the rest of the week. I will be craving this, and definitely will make it again.


   

Deb's granola bars

Again, no photo. I made these granola bars (which I have made in the past, and which are endlessly adaptable to what you have in your pantry). These were addictive. In my notes I used:

1 cup kasha
1/2 cup choc chips
1/2 cup currants
1/2 cup crushed pretzels

For a really satisfying balance of salty and sweet. Winner.

Martha's Apple Oatmeal Muffins

I love a fruit-based muffin, especially using orchard apples that I picked myself. I used Martha's recipe here, but added 1/4 cup of currants and one tablespoon of vanilla syrup (yes syrup, not extract) for added flavor. Alas, no photo.

Gooseberry pecan crumble

In my notes it looks like I made this breakfast crumble using CSA gooseberries, apples, and pecans instead of apricots and almonds. I have a memory of it being delicious (this is definitely a motivator for me to update this as I cook things, instead of months afterward). Lesson learned!

Bad photo:

3rd birthday Puppy Cake

Alice is an animal lover in general, and a dog lover specifically. She turned 3 in June and requested a Puppy Party so of course I had to make her a puppy cake to serve to her and her little friends. I used this birthday cake recipe and this easy frosting recipe and decorated it to look like a puppy. The kids loved it. Classic vanilla-y birthday cake flavors :) 


                                

Cannoli pound cake

So, I am months behind on updating my recipes here. I made this absolutely perfect Cannoli Pound Cake back in the summer which includes some of my favorite ingredients for a dessert: pistachios, chocolate chips, citrus zest, and ricotta cheese. Will need to make this one again.

Two pancake recipes

I am not really into pancakes. But I recently came across two excellent recipes that have started to sway my opinion.


1: Julia Turshen's Sour Cream pancakes from her Small Victories cookbook, which I like because it has no added sugar, but are the fluffiest and most satisfying pancakes I think I've ever eaten.

3/4 cup flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
2 eggs
1 cup soour cream
Unsalted butter for cooking

Combine all ingredients. Melt butter in pan. Pour batter in 1/4 cup increments into pan (my pan holds 3 pancakes at a time).

I prefer to serve these with fruit topping instead of maple syrup (though of course the syrup is great too). For the fruit I simmer either strawberries or blueberries on the stove with lemon juice and fresh ginger -- the ginger is a wonderful addition to the fruit sauce, if you have it -- and spoon over the warm pancakes.



2: Perfect Buttermilk Pancakes from the New York Times. I ended up making these because I needed to use up a pint of buttermilk I bought. I also used buckwheat flour instead of all-purpose because I wanted to use my stash up (unexpected healthy element here). We had run out of syrup but I sprinkled some chocolate chips in the batter as the pancakes cooked and they were a nice sweet compliment to the nutty buckwheat flour.

I followed the NYT recipe almost exactly. Except I used a mix of  1 1/2 cups buckwheat flour, 1/2 cup all-purpose flour; and then I used 2 cups of buttermilk instead of  the called for 2 1/2 cups. Results: excellent. Chocolate chips were a nice addition because I had no syrup and no appropriate fruit to make a sauce with!

Nutty Cherry Rhubarb Crisp

I am not a recipe developer at all. But I have been baking and cooking long enough to understand a little bit about what makes recipes work. So I am proud of myself about how well this recipe came out, that I cobbled together from a couple of recipes to make it my own. I had a bunch of cherries that I needed to use up, as well as rhubarb from the CSA. I started searching for rhubarb cherry recipes but didn't come across quite the right thing. This nutty crisp is what I came up with. It is the perfect mix, to me, of fruity/sweet/nutty, and it tastes really good warm or straight from the fridge.

For fruit:

2 1/2 cups cherries, pitted and halved
2 1/2 cups rhubarb, sliced
1 cup brown sugar
2 tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon cornstarch
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon


For crispy lid:

1 cup spelt flour (another thing I had from CSA; could easily swap any flour you have)
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup shredded coconut
1 cup chopped pecans
1 stick butter, diced.


Preheat oven to 350.

Mix fruit filling items together; set aside.

For topping: combine items in bowl of electric mixer. With mixer on low, add diced butter until entire mixture is moist and crumbly.

Pour fruit into 9x13 pan; sprinkle topping over the fruit. Bake for 1 hour until fruit is bubbling and topping is golden brown.

satisfying afternoon snack

Fluffy marshmallows

Several years ago, I found this Smitten Kitchen recipe for marshmallows and I knew I had to try it. I had recently gotten a Kitchen Aid mixer and this was the perfect project to test it out with.  I successfully made a batch in my own tiny NYC kitchen - if I remember correctly, without a candy thermometer - which I am still amazed about. Anyway. I've only made these a few times because they are SO MESSY to make; I remembered that fact only after I made them a few weeks ago. But honestly? it was worth it. They are so delicious; so much springier and fluffier than store bought marshmallows and very adaptable, flavor-wise. This time, I used a few drops of green food coloring and peppermint extract in place of vanilla to make them minty. I like cutting them into larger-than-normal squares, creating a two-bite marshmallow.

Lemon Poppy Shortbreads

Years ago (specifically, 2012) we were subscribing to the NY Times and I loved to read Mark Bittman's food column. He has a lot of great practical advice for easy but impressive meals and desserts. I clipped this article knowing that it would come in handy in my baking repertoire someday. This past weekend we had a guest and I realized we had nothing for dessert and this shortbread recipe was quick and simple, and the resulting cookie was good. (I like my shortbread salty and this was not as salty as I like, so I will have to remember to add extra salt next time.) But the lemon flavor was nice and bright.

I've also made the espresso-chocolate variation before. I think I'll try one of the savory versions next!

 

Dorie Greenspan's Double Buckwheat, Double Chocolate Cookies

TBA

Mint Chip ice cream

 I made these the same day as the Ugly but Good meringue cookies, since the cookies called for four egg whites and this ice cream calls for four egg yolks. I happened to have the other ingredients on hand so it worked out well. Normally, I don't make custard-based ice creams but this one came out nicely.

Brutti ma Buoni (Ugly but Good) Cookies

Deb explains the magic of these cookies better than I can: https://smittenkitchen.com/2016/01/ugly-but-good-cookies/ They really were ugly but good. Chocolate hazelbut meringue clouds.

Confetti Cookies

Made these: https://smittenkitchen.com/2016/05/confetti-cookies/

Should have taken a picture; they were absolutely perfect and delicious.

Maple/Apple/Banana Buckwheat Muffins

Got a bag of buckwheat flour from our CSA so I was searching for new-to-me recipes to use with it. This recipe is adapted from one of Martha Stewart's (with the boring name of "sugar-free muffins").
They came out really good! The maple flavor really shines through. The bananas helped to add sweetness. The eggs and apples made them moist and was a nice counterpoint to the pleasantly grainy buckwheat flour.

1/2 cup buckwheat flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 salt
4 eggs
2 mashed bananas
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
1/2 cup maple syrup
1 apple, peeled, cored and diced
1/2 cup wheat germ

Heat oven to 350. Brush muffin tin with melted coconut oil. Whisk together dry ingredients in one bowl; combine wet ingredients in separate bowl. Mix the dry ingredients into the wet and then fold in apples and walnuts.

Pour batter into cups (it will be really liquid-y). Bake for 25 minutes until toothpick comes out clean.

Simple chocolate cake

The other night I had to use up some leftover buttermilk from Christmas, so was looking up recipes to use as much buttermilk as possible. This chocolate cake recipe from Ina Garten only uses up a cup of buttermilk, but ultimately I chose it because there is NO BUTTER in the cake (and after the buttery overload at Christmas I thought this would be a good option). Granted: there are two sticks of butter for the frosting of this cake, but I didn't frost it :)

Between the buttermilk, the oil, and the amount of coffee used in this recipe, it creates a super-airy and moist cake. It's like eating chocalate-y, coffee-scented clouds. Nice and light and good for non-indulgent snacking. I cooked mine in a 9 x 13 pan instead of two round cake pans and cut it into squares.

Christmas baking: a failure and a success

Probably almost 10 years ago, I got the Barefoot Contessa's "Parties!" book as a gift, and immediately earmarked her chocolate orange bundt cake to try. For whatever reason, I never made it. As I was flipping through my cookbooks for something fancy to make on Christmas, I came across it again. Every holiday season, I like to use certain ingredients - on Thanksgiving I always make something with fresh cranberries, and on Christmas, I love to have something with oranges. This cake would be perfect for my preference for oranges on Christmas.

As I mixed the batter, I was pleased how perfectly it was coming together. It smelled fantastic. I just knew it was going to be a homerun. I popped it in the oven, set the timer, and left to go on an errand, instructing Eric to take it out when the timer buzzed. He did, and I came home about 10 minutes later. I tested the cake with toothpicks and they came out clean. I tapped the top of the cake and it seemed cooked. I am always nervous unmolding a bundt cake and this day was no exception. It seemed kind of stuck in the pan, so I put it in the oven a bit longer. Took it out. Tried unmolding; same problem. Put it back in the oven for 10 more minutes. Again, same problem. Now I was getting really nervous.

When I finally got it unmolded it was completely cooked on the top and bottom edges and completely raw inside. I actually stuck in back in the oven as a last-ditch attempt to rescue it; but it didn't work. I had to throw the entire thing away. What a waste! (Google "barefoot contessa chocolate orange bundt" for the recipe.)

Anyway, I had used up almost all my butter, flour, and chocolate but I still wanted to make something for Christmas. Ina's bundt cake called for an orange glaze and a chocolate ganache - each of which I had already made - so I wanted to incorporate those somehow. I turned to Dorie Greenspan's "Baking Chez Moi" for help. Eureka - I found something. Her Double Chocolate Marble Cake. I altered it a little bit to accommodate the glaze and the ganache and I am pleased to say it came out wonderfully. A dense (but not dry) cake with a good mix of chocolate and interesting spices (I used cardamom as she suggested, plus the orange glaze, and topped with the chocolate-espresso ganache). Holiday was saved :)  THIS link is a good adaptation; I used vanilla extract and skipped the white chocolate portion - even Dorie says you can leave it out - and it was a hit. I will definitely make this again, leaving out the glaze and the ganache to make it more of an "everyday" cake instead of something decadent for the holidays.

Chocolate chip spelt cookies

We got a bag of spelt flour in the CSA this week, and this receipe was printed on the bag. I added one ripe mashed banana because I needed to use it up. The cookies were a perfect mix of salty and sweet, and the spelt and the banana was a nice healthy addition to offset the relatively large amount of butter. 

3 cups unbleached spelt flour   

1 teaspoon baking soda                   

3/4 cup packed brown sugar

1 teaspoon salt                                    

1 teaspoon organic vanilla extract   

1 cup butter softened                         

2 large free range eggs

3/4 cup organic sugar                        

2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips  

1 ripe mashed banana

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
2. Combine spelt flour with baking soda and salt in a small bowl.
3. Beat together butter, organic sugar, brown sugar and vanilla extract in a large bowl until creamy.
4. Add eggs one at a time. Beat well after adding each one.
5. Add flour mixture gradually. Stir in chocolate chips.
6. Refrigerate dough for one half hour to firm dough.
7. Form dough into one inch balls on ungreased cookie sheets.
8. Bake for 9 to 11 minutes until golden brown.
9. Cool on cookie sheets for two minutes. Remove to wire racks to cool completely.