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Everyone loves croissants, right? Well---a certain friend of my eldest LOVES croissants I think just a bit more than the average person. When he came to the kitchen to tell me he and my son were hungry I gestured to the countertop. His eyes widen and he said, "Croissants? You made croissants!!!!????" That look of happy surprise made all the rolling and folding and turning worthwhile.
And a croissant (plus one or two more) for every child leaves...
plenty for the adults of both sets of children!
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Pepperidge Farms better look out...
Meet Mint Milanos--Michelle style. Two butter cookies lightly flavored with mint are sandwiched together by semi-sweet chocolate and rolled in green sparkling sugar. Maia did a good job rolling the edges in the sugar. Recipe can be shared on request.
The cookies along with some chocolate eclairs....
...provided a nice dessert for our dinner company on Friday night. As it turned out, we had an extra three children come to dinner and it made me very glad that I had doubled up on desserts! There was plenty to share a bit with my next door neighbor, plenty to go around at dessert, plenty to send home with our two adult dinner guests and just enough left for us to have for a treat later this weekend.
My next door neighbor--who I share baked things with often--asked me when I'm planning on opening my bakery. If only! Maybe one day I'll find some start up cash under a rock...... Meanwhile, I've been keeping an eye out of help wanted signs at bakeries so I could get some experience in a professional/commercial setting but so far I'm not having any luck. I couldn't work beyond 2 pm, but I have no problem beginning early in the morning around 4 am. You would think that at this time of year bakeries would be looking for an extra set of hands--even a set of dish washing hands! But no, apparently not in Pittsburgh. I'm at the point where I'd happily put in hours for free just so I could get that experience and satisfy this horrible need to bake that I can't seem to satisfy.
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Pizza topped with fresh garlic, oregano, sea salt and pecorino romano. Gala Apples. Sharp Cheddar.
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Bake it and they will come.
Not many houses can boast going through 2 dozen cupcakes in 2 days but here in a yellow brick house in Pittsburgh we can. With a little help. The marble cupcakes the other day proved a good dessert for us and dinner guests. These blue-and-white guys were a treat for some after dinner guests we had last night.
This yellow cupcake is topped by Italian Meringue Buttercream pulled into spikes and sprinkled with light blue sparkling sugar. The colors remind me of Christmas---I've always liked whites, silvers and blues for Christmas best of all.
I never knew how Italian Buttercream was made. You have two different concoctions going at once; egg whites being beat until stiff and glossy and a sugar syrup boiling on the stove. It's crucial to watch the sugar syrup and remove it from the heat when it reaches 248 degrees. Then the sugar syrup is poured over the meringue in a near impossible manuever to avoid getting the hot syrup on the beater or the bowl. Lovely little hard balls of candy will form on the sides of the bowl that aren't redeemable if you miss the meringue. You continue beating until the mixture is cool and then the butter is beaten in until smooth and creamy. This frosting is satiny smooth and glossy and just begged me to pull it into little spikes when I put it on top of the cupcakes.
A single cupcake remains. I wonder who will claim it.
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A cool crisp day in the fall just calls out for hearty one pot meals. Soups. Stews. Beans.
Beans? Yup, you got it. Beans. More specifically cannellini beans. I'm going to share my recipe with you and this time I only have myself to site for it! <---I love being able to say that. This recipe makes enough to feed 2 adults and 2 children. Double if desired.
Please be kind. Do NOT substitute the meat for schmeat. Or the extra virgin olive oil for that weird oil Crisco or Wesson makes. Thank you.
Tuscan Beans with Sausage and Sage--
3 cups cooked cannellini beans or 2 cans of cannellini beans
1 cup, approximately of reserved cooking water or strange bean juice from can
3 links (about 1/2 lb) of sweet Italian sausage with casings removed
4 cloves of garlic, minced
1 medium onion, chopped
1 small carrot, chopped OR 4 of those pre-cut baby carrot stick things, chopped
1 tablespoon FRESH Italian parsley
1 tablespoon chopped FRESH sage
1 cup of chopped, drained tomatoes
extra virgin olive oil
salt and pepper
Assemble ingredients. In a large pot, heat enough olive oil to lightly coat the bottom of the pan. Brown sausage over medium heat until cooked through. Use a spatula to break into small pieces as the sausage is cooking. Add garlic, onion, carrot and parsley and cook until tender.
Pour beans, sage, tomatoes and reserved water/bean juice into sausage mixture. Turn heat to low. Salt and pepper to taste. Simmer for approximately 30 minutes or until hardly any liquid is left and a delicious aroma is filling your kitchen.
Serve hot with warm Tuscan Bread*.
*Tuscan Bread contains no salt and this is at once detectable. Dip it into herbed olive oil OR top the bread with a spoonful of beans, take a bite, repeat.
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There are so many wonderful food blogs out there that I can easily spend way too much time browsing through. But sometimes, I happen upon a recipe that I HAVE to try right away. Like these Donut Muffins that come by way of Bread & Honey who got them from Orangette. Of course, the nature of these things is that we all change things up...just a bit.
Here we have 3 cups of flour, 2 eggs, 3/4 cups + 2 tablespoons of sugar, 3/4 cup softened butter, 3/4 cup + 2 tablespoons of milk that has 1 tablespoon of vinegar added to it, 1/2 teaspoon each of salt, baking powder, baking soda and cinnamon. I don't like nutmeg much. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, salt, baking powder, baking soda and cinnamon. Preheat the oven to 350.
Combine the butter and sugar until light and fluffy and then beat in eggs until just combined.
Alternate the flour mixture with the milk mixture.
Don't mind that tab of batter on the mixer. I accidentally bumped it with the spatula when I was done scraping down the sides of the bowl.
Grease a 12-cup muffin pan and fill each cup. My muffin pan gets a lot of use; no amount of brillo and elbow grease can keep it pretty. Not saying you are wondering, but if you are the Strawberry Shortcake band-aids are covering a burn I got last night while putting fougasse on my baking stone. Anyhow, bake the muffins for 20-25 minutes depending on the temperment of your oven. Go wake any children you may have. Or husbands/wives/significant others. Or go make yourself some coffee or tea.
Melt an additional 4 tablespoons of butter and brush across the tops and sides of the muffin. Be liberal--butter is yum!
Put any just woken up 7 year olds to work rolling the buttered muffins in powdered sugar.
And here they are again. Serve warm for ultimate enjoyment.
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Recently, I've taken to trying the cake recipes in cupcake books in search of that ever elusive perfect cake recipe. Try as I might, I cannot find one that suits me--and I haven't even started looking for chocolate cake. Or white cake. I do have the most wonderful banana cake recipe but that is for another time....
This particular recipe, Fudge Marble Cupcakes, is from "Cupcakes!" by Elinor Klivans. It is easy to follow but the marbling technique is unique. Instead of making half the batter yellow and the other half chocolate and then swirling them together in the cupcake wrapper, this book instructs you to reserve 3/4 cup of yellow batter and to put a half cup of glaze on top of the yellow batter and do not stir. As you fill the cupcake wrappers you scoop directly out of the bowl making sure you are scooping a bit of yellow and chocolate and filling the wrappers in the tin. There is no need to marble the batter; you only need to put a small spoonful of the reserved yellow batter on top and bake.
The technique saves an insignificant amount of time but those who don't like to dirty multiple spoons would find it desirable. The chocolate glaze recipe tastes like the icing you find on top of donuts from Krispy Kreme or Dunkin Donuts. I have plenty of it left over and the book says it will keep in the fridge for up to two weeks. I plan on using it to grace the top of chocolate eclairs sometime later this week.
As for the cake itself? It was moist and tasted alright. My family and friends offered no complaints but I wasn't satisfied. The search will continue.
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I've not been a very good blogger this past week. I promise I will be better. Tomorrow. Until then:
Btw, should I make scones tomorrow??
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You know you aren't as dedicated to Steeler football as a Pittsburgh native should be when you are more concerned about how cold and miserable you are than any of the plays on the field.
Naughty Pittsburgher that I am, I was hoping they would lose (and they did!) because then people hightail it out of the stadium all in a huff rather than taking their sweet old time because they are too busy shouting and cheering.
Blackberry needs to work on their camera feature on their phones. It doesn't zoom well.
The zoom feature makes us look like we sit farther away than we do (we are in section 220.) From our seats I can see all the player numbers but they can't be made out at all in the picture. =(
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I just realized I haven't posted really this week which is quite out of character for me! But, there's been a lot going on around here. Things like: an ongoing-stay-on-the-couch-with-heating-pad backache, parent teacher conferences, having Indian food for lunch four days in a row but don't tell anyone, my friend Katie's baby being born!, hunting for the perfect pair of boots and going to see Mama Mia the musical, not the movie.
As always, the baking must go on despite all of these mostly wonderful things. I am reaching a point in my skill level where I am developing an instinctual feeling for the bread. It's not all the way there yet, but that's what I'm telling myself! It gives me confidence. The confidence to start trying out a few larger tweaks here and there without having fear struck into my heart. (Also, poring over various bread books from the library in attempts to decide which ones are necessary helps too.) It seemed as good as time as any to take my sandwich bread recipe and convert it to a Honey Wheat version.
While having breakfast for dinner today it occurred to me how I could solve my bread tumor problem.* Bread tumor, you ask? This is when I bake the bread recipe I've tweaked until it suited me perfectly for making pbjs for school lunches, it liked to develop a big bread bulge (aka the bread tumor) on one side. It still tasted fine but it was very unsightly.
A few days of no bread baking must have cleared my head sufficiently because suddenly the answer to my dilemma jumped into my head. Maia waving the lame while I stirred the pot of steel cut oats simmering on my stove top earlier and announcing that she knew what it was for helped too. Kind of like how remnant thoughts from one's day can linger in the mind and spill out into the night's dreams.
Score the bread, duh.
*I really do think about bread at odd moments. Is that weird?
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