Happy Independence Day!

It's the Fourth of July!

Here are some festive dessert ideas for your party:

"Hidden Flag" cake (I got this tutorial from CakeCentral.com)

Decorated Sugar Cookies

Red Velvet cake with hand-painted fondant flag

Blueberry Pie with Star Crust

"I cannot tell a lie" Cherry Pie

"As American As" Traditional apple pie

Cherry Berry Pie

When summer fruit is at its peak, a Cherry Berry pie is a delicious way to use it up. If you can, use fruit from your local farmer's market (or even your own garden), since it will taste better the fresher it is. I used dark sweet cherries, strawberries and raspberries for this recipe to get a deep red color. You can use any combination of cherries and berries you have on hand, but do not use more than 1 cup raspberries. They turn to mush when cooked, and contain small seeds, so you will end up with a mushy, seedy filling. 1 cup or less is good just for flavor.

Note: If you are looking for a traditional tart cherry pie, see the cherry pie recipe on my recipe page instead of this one.

Cherry Berry Pie:

This recipe makes one DEEP dish pie. If you have a shallow pie plate, you can lessen the measurements for the filling, or cook the leftover filling briefly on the stovetop then store in the fridge to use as a jam.

Crust:

Prepare and chill one recipe Flaky Pie Crust

Filling:

3 Cups dark, sweet cherries (I used Bing cherries)

2 Cups ripe strawberries

1 cup ripe raspberries

3/4 Cup Sugar (you can add more or less to taste, depending on how sweet your fruit is)

1/4 Cup Instant Tapioca beads (available near the pudding in your grocery store)

1/2 teaspoon almond extract, optional

Wash the fruit and drain well. Pit the cherries and slice in half. Cut the strawberries into halves (or quarters for very large berries). Leave the raspberries whole. Mix the cherries and strawberries together in a large bowl with the sugar, tapioca and almond extract. Let this mixture sit and macerate for at least 20 minutes. Fold in the raspberries last.

Line the pie plate with the bottom crust. Sprinkle a little flour in the bottom and then add fruit mixture. Cover with the top crust and crimp edges. Cut slits into the top crust to vent (I attempted a decorative polka-dot design here, but it didn't look as pretty as I thought it would.) Brush crust with milk and sprinkle sugar on top. Bake in a preheated 400 degree oven for 40 minutes, or until golden brown on top and the filling is bubbling. Check the pie halfway through baking to see if the edges are getting too brown - if so, cover edges with foil.

Cooked Milk Buttercream

Once again, I have to ask myself why-oh-why did a classic old-fashioned recipe go out of style? This retro kind of frosting is SO good, tasting like a cross between homemade vanilla pudding and whipped cream. I don't know why nobody makes it anymore. There are many different recipes for this, but the one I tried recently was from the book United Cakes of America by Warren Brown. This book is a treasure trove of old-fashioned recipes. I do take exception to certain things in the book (like the strangely flat and un-authentic looking Whoopie Pies, for example) but overall the book's concept of capturing regional favorites is great, even if it doesn't quite live up to its FULL potential. Okay, this isn't a book review, so on to the recipe:

 Warren Brown's "Old-Fashioned Milk Buttercream"

1 Cup Milk
1/4 Cup All-purpose Flour
1 Cup Unsalted Butter (if you only have salted butter, omit the salt in the recipe)
1 Cup Superfine granulated sugar (put regular granulated sugar through a food-processor)
Pinch of Salt
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Put 4 Tablespoons of the milk and all of the flour into a small saucepan. Using a wire whisk, whisk them together vigorously to mix well and make a slurry.  Press out any lumps with a rubber spatula if necessary. Turn the heat on under the pan and add the rest of the milk. Whisking continuously, bring the mixture to a simmer for about 30 seconds (it is thick, but you will see it bubble up. Let it bubble while stirring constantly, for a good thirty seconds to cook off the starchiness of the flour). Take the pan off of the heat. To avoid getting a "pudding skin" on the surface, press plastic wrap directly onto the surface of the milk (which will be thick like a custard at this point). Cool the mixture to room temperature.

Meanwhile, with an electric mixer, beat the butter, sugar, salt and vanilla on medium speed for about 5 minutes (don't shorten the beating time - you need the butter to be fluffy and the sugar to be less grainy. The sugar will dissolve even further when you mix the thickened milk in.)

When the milk mixture has cooled, spoon it into the butter/sugar and beat for another five minutes, or until you have a spreadable consistency.

This will frost a regular 9" two-layer cake, or 24 cupcakes.

Note: This buttercream is a great choice for standard layer cakes or swirls on cupcakes. It is not for piping intricate decorations. It will stand up just fine at room temperature, but on a hot day you should refrigerate your cake/cupcakes until about 30 minutes before serving. (The butter solidifies in the fridge making the frosting hard, so take them out 30-60 minutes prior to serving, depending on how hot the day is).

Black & White Cake

Super-dark chocolate cake looks stunning with bright white icing. This cake is so moist that is doesn't slice very neatly (as you can see), but boy is it delicious! The dark chocolate color really looks black when you put it next to white icing. This comes from using Hershey's Special Dark cocoa powder and strong coffee. This recipe is inspired by the classic Hershey's chocolate cake recipe, but I have made several adjustments until I have something that I like even better than the original:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Prep two 9" or 10" round cake pans with parchment paper.

1 3/4 Cups All-purpose Flour

2 cups Sugar

3/4 Cup Hershey's Special Dark Cocoa Powder

1 1/2 teaspoons Baking Powder

1 1/2 teaspoons Baking Soda

1 teaspoon salt

2 eggs

3/4 Cup Milk

1/2 Cup Vegetable Oil

1 Tablespoon Vanilla

1 Cup hot strong coffee

In a large mixer bowl, sift together the flour, sugar, cocoa, salt, baking powder and baking soda. Set aside. (To make it easier, you can just mix this in your KitchenAid mixer on low until well-combined).

In a smaller bowl, beat eggs lightly. Add the milk, oil, vanilla and stir well.

Add the egg/milk mixture into the dry ingredients and beat on medium for about 90 seconds.

Add the coffee in last, stirring by hand just until it is thoroughly mixed. This batter is very liquidy, so don't be alarmed when it looks thin. 

Bake approximately 30-35 minutes (until the center springs back to the touch or a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean).

Cool and frost with Seven Minute Icing

When slicing, wipe the knife clean in between cuts. You may even want to run the knife under hot water before cutting to make it even cleaner. But let's face it - when you have a really moist dark cake with white icing, you're going to get crumbs all in it. Oh well. Enjoy! :)

Does the type of pan you use really matter?

Check out these two chocolate chip cookies. They were baked on the same day, with the same dough and the same oven temp. The ONLY thing that was different was the cookie sheet I used.

I had been wondering why my chocolate chip cookies always seemed to spread too much and come out really flat. Sometimes they were fine, but often they were too flat and crispy.  What was I doing wrong? I've been baking cookies for a long time, why could I not get something as basic as chocolate chip to come out consistently good??? When a friend's cookies came out puffier and she had used the same recipe as me, I was baffled.

Then suddenly it dawned on me that I have seven different cookie sheets and I had never really thought about how each one performs a little differently. After I thought about it, I realized that certain cookie sheets tended to make flatter, browner (and crisper) cookies, while other cookie sheets let them stay puffier and softer. How could I not have thought of it sooner?!

You can experiment with different pans to see what works best for you, but here are some recommendations to start with. (This goes for both cookie sheets and cake pans): 1) Use good quality aluminum pans and cookie sheets that DO NOT have a dark non-stick coating. Darker pans tend to overbrown. I prefer not to use any pans with a non-stick coating, even a lighter non-stick coating. (You can always line the pans with parchment if non-stick sprays don't work for you.)  Good quality pans will usually be aluminum and feel very sturdy but not overly heavy. If they feel really lightweight, they will probably warp. If they feel super-heavy, you probably paid too much for some new-fangled bells and whistles that won't help you bake better in the long run. As far as brands go, it is hard to recommend one brand because most companies make regular and non-stick bakeware, as well as making a variety of lines (for everything from the amateur home cook to the pro).  One thing I do not recommend is those silly air-bake things that have a double layer of metal with air between. Don't even waste money on those.

Avoiding dark coated pans is a recommendation that goes for all bakeware as far as I'm concerned. I know that stores like Williams-Sonoma sell pricey bakeware that is supposedly non-stick. But honestly, you'll have to spray or line the pan with parchment anyway, because nothing is truly non-stick. And here's a side-note: half of what you find in those kind of stores is just an array of expensive gadgets with a lot of bells and whistles for wanna-be chefs, not genuinely useful equipment. The bakeware sections in these stores are chock-full of dark non-stick cake pans, which really are not the best for baking. You'd be better off to buy your bakeware from a kitchen supply store or a cake decorating store where they sell the kind of pans that pros use.

For more about cake pans, see my post about Levelling cake layers

Tip: If you must use a pan (for any kind of baking) that has a dark non-stick coating, try lowering your oven temp by 25 degrees. This usually solves the problem, but you still have to watch things very carefully with these pans.

Happy Baking!

When Good Recipes Go Bad

I was all prepared to blog about homemade cinnamon rolls, using a recipe from one of my all-time favorite cookbooks, The Breakfast Book by Marion Cunningham. I had high expectations, but something went wrong: The rolls were not as puffy as they should have been, and they turned out dry and over-browned (not quite burnt, but very close). Since every recipe I have made from this book has been incredible, I can only imagine that it was something I did (or didn't do). When good recipes go bad, you can learn a lot from investigating what went wrong. Learning from your mistakes can make you a better baker, but only IF you can solve the mystery of what happened.

It started out fine - I made the dough the night before and let it rise slowly in the refrigerator overnight. The next morning, I rolled the dough out, brushed it with butter and sprinkled it with cinnamon sugar. So far, so good.

Then, I rolled the dough into a long log:

Then, I cut the dough into several sections:

Next, I put the pinwheel pieces into muffin tins. I covered them and allowed them to rise a second time (for about an hour):

Here is where things went wrong.

1) Looking back, I should have chosen a different pan. This muffin tin has a dark, non-stick coating. I usually shun these pans altogether since they cause things to brown too quickly. I never use them for cakes, but I wasn't thinking about how it would affect cinnamon rolls. Hey, it was early and I hadn't had my coffee yet, so I had a serious lapse in baking judgement.

2) If you must use a dark non-stick pan for ANY type of baking, lower your oven temp by 25 degrees. If all you have is one of these pans, don't worry, just lower your oven temp and watch them carefully. I forgot to set the oven for 325 instead of 350 - this small adjustment could have saved my poor rolls.

3) I would actually try not using a muffin pan at all next time. Although the recipe calls for baking them in individual muffin tins, I think I would prefer baking the rolls close together in a cake pan, so that they all bake together and stay soft on the outer edges.

4) Don't rush it - These rolls were not as puffy as they should have been because I rushed the second rising time. After an hour they didn't seem to have fully risen, but I baked them anyway because at this point it was late morning and everyone was starving. You just can't rush anything with yeast, it won't be light and soft.

5) I should have listened to my nose. I could smell the wonderful smell of "doneness" but told myself it was way too early for them to be done. The recipe said 20-25 minutes, and I had set my timer to check them at 19. But they started to smell done at 15, because I cooked them in a dark pan without lowering the temperature, they were done much more quickly. By the time I checked on them at 19 minutes, they were overbrowned and dry.

My family still ate them, and I learned a good lesson, so it wasn't a complete disaster. But it is SO disappointing to start a recipe the night before and baby it along, only to have it fail. The upside is that I used the leftover scraps to form a braided cinnamon bread, which turned out great!

Grandma Minnie's Carrot Cake

My mother found this recipe in my Great-Grandmother's box, typed on a 3x5 card with a couple of hand-written notes added later. It is dated 1967. This carrot cake is quite good, maybe the best I've ever had. That says a lot since I'm not a huge carrot cake fan! There are no nuts or raisins in this cake, although you can always throw some in if you like them.


3 Cups peeled and finely Grated Carrots (Grandma Minnie ground them with a hand-crank food grinder; I grate them mine with a microplane, you can use a food processor if you wish). Grate them and set aside to be added last.

2 1/3 Cups All-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 Tablespoon baking soda
2 tsp cinnamon
4 whole eggs, beaten well
1 Tablespoon Vanilla
2 Cups White Sugar
1 1/2 Cups Vegetable Oil

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and grease (or line with parchment) three 6" or two 9" pans (or three 8" pans will work fine, the layers will just be a little thinner).

Mix the dry ingredients together in a large bowl and set aside. In a separate bowl, mix together the eggs, vanilla, sugar and oil and stir well. Add the dry ingredients to the wet and stir until thoroughly blended. Stir in the carrots last and mix well.

Spoon the batter into the pans and bake for approximately 25 minutes.

I do not use the icing recipe that comes with this, I use a standard Cream Cheese Frosting or American Buttercream (or even seven-minute icing sometimes). But  the original recipe for the icing is so retro that I feel I just have to post it here! It is as follows:
8 oz. package of cream cheese, softened
1 Cube Butter or margarine (I assume she meant 1 stick)
1 Box (1 lb) Powdered sugar
1 Cup Coconut
1 Cup chopped nuts

Mix thoroughly and spread onto and between layers.

Easy French Bread

This tasty basic French Bread is surprisingly easy to make. Like any bread, "easy" does not mean FAST - you still have to let it rise twice. BUT you could be doing a million other things while it rises, so you really aren't spending much time on it. This is a really excellent white yeast bread, and you can choose to make the outside nice and crusty like a traditional French Bread or, by skipping one small step, leave the outside softer and less crusty. This recipe makes one good-sized loaf. You can double the recipe if you want two loaves.

3 - 3 1/2 Cups All-purpose flour (start with 3 C and only add more if needed)
2 teaspoons instant yeast
2 teaspoons salt
1 1/4 Cups water (You can also use beer if you'd like)
1 Tablespoon melted butter

Add the yeast and the salt to the flour and stir well. Slowly add in the water and melted butter, and stir well. (You can also do this step in a KitchenAid mixer with the dough hook attachment). Add more flour a little at a time as needed to make the dough workable - it should be very moist, but not so sticky that it won't come off your hands when you work with it). Turn the dough out onto a floured board and knead for a few minutes until smooth and soft.

Place the dough in a greased bowl and cover loosely with plastic wrap. Put it in a warm place free from drafts, and let rise until doubled in size, about 1 hour. I like to put it in my oven (unheated but with the light on and the door closed).

When it has doubled in size, punch down the dough.  With a rolling pin, roll the dough into a rectangle (about 12" wide by 15" long). Starting on one of the long sides, tightly roll the dough into a long loaf. Pinch the ends a little to taper them. Place the loaf on a greased cookie sheet and cover loosely. Let rise again for another hour or until doubled in bulk.

During the last 25 minutes of rising time, preheat your oven to 450.

When the loaf has doubled, take a sharp knife and make four diagonal slits on top of it (gently - don't press down hard and deflate the loaf). Bake at 450 for 15 minutes. Take the loaf out and brush it with egg white mixed with a little water. Put it back in the oven and bake another 5-8 minutes. (If you do not want the traditional crusty outside, you can skip this step and just leave it in the oven until done.) If it is browning too much and doesn't seem completely done yet, you can tent aluminum foil over the top. 

Enjoy!

Chocolate Beer Bread

This bread is only slightly sweet, and strangely reminiscent of a Pumpernickel. The cocoa flavor is married with stout beer to give it a deep richness. This "appetizer" bread would be great paired with honey butter or walnut cream cheese. Or you could have it as a breakfast bread, toasted and spread with Nutella.

If you prefer to have it sweeter like a dessert bread, increase the sugar to 3/4 Cup and Sprinkle coarse sugar on top before baking. You could even add chocolate chips to really sweeten it up.

3 Cups Self-Rising Flour (you can buy it, or see instructions below to make your own)
1/2 Cup Sugar
1/3 Cup Cocoa Powder
12 oz. Stout Beer (I like Young's Chocolate Stout for this)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a loaf pan with parchment paper, or grease it.

Mix together dry ingredients and then add in beer slowly, mixing by hand with a wooden spoon for 60-70 strokes. The batter will be thick. Spoon it into the loaf pan and smooth the batter to even it out. Bake at 350 for 45-50 minutes, until a cake tester or toothpick inserted in it comes out clean. Don't rush it - this bread takes a while to be done in the center! You may need to cover the top with foil at some point to prevent over-browning on top.

To make Self-Rising Flour:

4 Cups Flour (you can use 1/2 white and 1/2 wheat if you prefer)
2 teaspoons Salt
2 Tablespoons Baking Powder

Mix well and store in an airtight container until needed.

Savory Beer Bread

This bread has a crusty outside and a dense, moist interior. The beer flavor is subtle but noticeable, and the spices can be varied to your own taste. If you want a hint of sourdough flavor, add 1/2 cup of sourdough starter and increase the flour by 1/2 Cup.

1 1/2 teaspoons instant yeast
4 Cups All-purpose flour (or 3 C white flour + 1 C wheat) plus a little more for kneading
2 teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons dried herbs (like Italian Blend, Herbs de Provence, or make your own blend with any of the following: Sage, Rosemary, Thyme, Oregano, Tarragon, Basil, Dill, Marjoram, Lavender, etc.)
1 12-oz bottle of Beer (I use a medium-bodied Amber Ale)
Optional: Melted Butter and Parmesan Cheese to top the bread before baking.

Mix the flour with the yeast, stir well. Add the salt and herbs, stir well again. Add in the beer gradually, until the mixture is well-moistened. The dough should be moist but not too sticky. If you need to add a little more flour in order to work with it, add the flour gradually one tablespoon at a time until the dough can be worked.

Put the dough on a floured board and knead it for a few minutes until smooth, soft and no longer sticky to the touch. Put the ball of dough in a greased bowl and cover loosely with plastic wrap or a clean kitchen towel. Let it rise in a warm area of your kitchen for  60-90 minutes, until it has doubled in size.

When the dough has doubled in size, punch it down and form into a loaf (I like to do it free-form on a baking sheet, but you can put it into two small loaf pans if you prefer). Cover and let rise again for 30-40 minutes.

Brush the top with melted butter and Parmesan cheese (optional) then bake approximately 35 minutes. The dough is done when you can knock on it and it sounds hollow. You can also gently press in the center and it will no longer feel soft in the center.   

Beer Brownies

Yes, that's right, I said BEER brownies. Not being a huge brownie person, I wanted to give the traditional brownie a little twist. Dark beer ("Stout") and chocolate are a marriage made in heaven! Anything you bake with beer is going to be better the next day after the flavors have mellowed, so I recommend making these the night before you plan to serve them. These brownies are more cakey than chewy, but they are so moist and full of chocolate flavor. I don't like a lot of chunky stuff in my brownies (nuts, chocolate chips, etc.) but if you do, by all means add some in.

1 Cup Flour
1 1/4 Cup Sugar
1 teaspoon Salt
1/2 teaspoon Baking Powder
1/3 Cup Cocoa Powder
2 oz Chopped Dark Chocolate
1/2 Cup Young's Chocolate Stout (If you can't find this beer, substitute any Stout)
1/2 Cup (1 Stick) Butter
2 Eggs
1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Mix flour, sugar, salt and baking powder together in a large bowl and set aside.

In a small saucepan, heat the stout and butter just to a simmer. Take it off the heat and add in the cocoa powder and chocolate pieces. Stir until they melt. Allow this mixture to cool a bit.

In a mixing bowl, lightly beat the eggs and vanilla. Add in the chocolate mixture slowly (If you have not cooled it enough, you can temper the eggs by adding just a spoonful of the chocolate mixture at a time and stirring well before you add in the rest.) Blend in the flour mixture. Stir it all together just enough to make sure it is well mixed - do not overbeat. I just mix this recipe by hand, an electric mixer really isn't necessary.

Spread the batter into a greased/parchment lined 8x8" square baking pan. Bake at 325 degrees for
35-45 minutes.

Let them cool a bit before cutting into squares.

Potato Yeast Rolls

Any homemade rolls are good, but the addition of mashed potato makes these rolls nice and moist, and just a little bit denser than your average dinner roll. I found this recipe in Bernard Clayton's New Complete Book of Breads (1987 edition). I have made a couple of minor modifications here, since I use instant yeast instead of active dry yeast.

Have ingredients at room temperature:

1 Egg
1/4 Cup Sugar
1/2 Cup Mashed Potatoes (I just cook a potato in the microwave, peel the skin, and mash it up with a small amount of milk. In the book, Mr. Clayton says you can use instant potatoes if necessary)
3/4 Cup Milk
1/3 Cup (5 Tbsp) Butter, softened
1/2 tsp salt
3 to 3 1/2 Cups All purpose flour (I start with 3 and add more as needed)
2 tsp instant yeast
3 Tablespoons melted butter

Add the instant yeast into the flour and give it a good stir. In a separate bowl, blend the egg and sugar (I like to use my KitchenAid mixer for this - I start with the paddle attachment and then switch to the dough hook for the kneading). Add in the potato, milk, softened butter, and salt. Mix well. (If using a KitchenAid mixer, here is where you switch to the dough hook) Add 2 Cups of the flour and work it in. Gradually add the remaining flour 1/2 cup at a time. I use 3 cups, but you may need that extra 1/2 cup if it is looking too moist. The ball of dough should cling to the hook and "clean the sides" of your mixing bowl. It should not be too sticky to the touch, if it is add a little more flour. Knead with the dough hook for about 3 minutes, then by hand for another 3-4 minutes.

Place the ball of dough in a large greased bowl and cover loosely with plastic wrap. Put it in a warm place free from drafts and let it double in volume, about 60-80 minutes. I put mine in an unheated oven with the light on for the first rising.

After it has doubled, punch it down, divide in half, and roll each half into a long log. Cut each log into small pieces and roll each piece into a ball in the palm of your hand. You should get about 20 rolls - don't make them too big. Place the balls into greased cake pans close together but not too squished - remember they are going to expand on the second rising. If they are too squished together I find that they do not fully cook in between the balls. Just barely touching is good. Brush them with the melted butter and cover with a clean kitchen towel. Keep at room temperature and let them rise for another 30-40 minutes.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees a good 20 minutes before you bake.

When they have risen, bake until golden brown - about 12-15 minutes.

Best when served still warm from the oven. :)

Hot Cross Buns

These sweet, slightly spicy rolls are traditionally served at Easter time, and this is a really good recipe for them! The Cinnamon and Nutmeg mix with Lemon Zest and Currants to give these buns a festive, old-fashioned holiday taste.


2 2/3 Cups All-purpose flour (have more on hand incase you need it)
2 teaspoons instant yeast
1 Cup Milk
1/4 Cup Sugar
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
3/4 teaspoon salt
2 Tablespoons finely grated lemon zest
1/4 cup currants
2 Tablespoons Butter
1 Egg

Mix the instant yeast into the flour and stir well.

Warm the milk in a small saucepan or in the microwave until it is very warm but not HOT. Put the milk, sugar, butter, salt, spices and lemon zest into a mixer bowl and mix well. Add the egg and mix on low until blended (this is why you do not want the milk HOT - it will curdle the egg). Add half of the flour a little at a time. Take the dough out of the mixing bowl and knead in the rest of the flour (additional flour may be needed at this point if it is too sticky. Use only enough to handle the dough easily without sticking). When the dough feels smooth,  place it in a greased bowl and cover loosely with plastic wrap. Let it rise in a warm place (I put mine in the unheated oven with the light on) until doubled in size, about one hour.

In the last 20 minutes of rise time, preheat your oven to 425 degrees. 

After the dough has risen, shape it into small balls and place them on a greased cookie sheet. (Don't make them too big - you should get 16-18 balls.) Cover with a clean kitchen towel and let rise again until doubled, about 40 minutes.  After rising, brush with milk or butter to help them brown. Bake until golden, about 13-16 minutes.

When they have cooled, decorate them with a cross made from milk glaze: 1/2 Cup Confectioner's Sugar + 2 teaspoons milk.

So Many Cookies From Just One Dough!

I love recipes that can be made into many different things. Old-fashioned sugar cookie dough is probably the most versatile cookie recipe I know of. You can tweak it into an endless variety of shapes and flavors.

There are basically two kinds of sugar cookies - Old-fashioned sugar cookies and rolled sugar cookies. Most modern rolled "sugar cookies" are actually a butter cookie, not the kind of sugar cookies our grandmothers made. But if I am decorating a bunch of cookies (and especially if I am shipping them), I prefer a more modern butter cookie recipe - it is sturdier, and I like the butter taste.

Old-fashioned sugar cookies, on the other hand, are a softer, less sweet cookie. This dough, which lacks an assertive butter flavor, is more versatile than a butter cookie. You can still roll it and cut it into shapes, but you can also use it as the base for any number of other cookies. Here is my personal recipe, which was my great-grandmother's: Old-fashioned sugar cookies

Here are some of the different things I do with old-fashioned sugar cookie dough:

Rainbow Sugar Cookies:

Roll dough into balls and roll in sprinkles. Bake as usual.

OR, cut into circles, brush with water and sprinkle with colored sugars:

Almond Tea Cookies:

roll and cut into circles. Bake and then top with an almond milk glaze (1 Cup confectioner's sugar, 1 Tbsp milk, 1/4 tsp almond extract) and sprinkle crushed

almonds on top:

Jam Cutouts

Roll dough and cut into circles. Cut a smaller "window" circle in half of the cookies. Bake and then sandwich two cookies together with seedless raspberry or apricot jam inside:

Decorated Rolled Cutouts:

 

Roll dough out and cut into shapes. Bake as directed and decorate with royal icing or glace icing.

Soft Tea Cookies:

Bake as a drop cookie and dust with powdered sugar. Note: I also like to add 1/2 tsp almond or anise extract to the dough for a nice flavor if I am making tea cookies.

Cookies for Charity

My friend and I baked nearly forty dozen cookies recently for a charity event in our town. WHEW! That was a lot of work! We learned a lot along the way, including which variety of cookies were most popular. Some things we learned were:

1) Post a sign about whether or not your cookies contain nuts. Ours did, so we wanted everyone to know that.

2) Make it easy for each person to grab a cookie and napkin without touching other cookies.

3) Stick to the basics. Sugar Cookies, Chocolate Chip and, to a lesser extent, Peanut Butter were the big hits. Very few people went for unusual flavors like Coconut Pecan and Almond Tea Cookies.

Sourdough Bread

Sourdough Bread is one of those foods that is called a "slow food." REALLY slow, in fact. First you need to make a starter, then tend it for about two weeks before it is ready to use (although it will get better the older it is). See instructions below on making your own starter. Finally, when you are ready to actually make the bread, it can take the better part of a day to make it (3-4 hours with the rising times). Many recipes even call for you to make a "sponge" the night before you intend to bake the bread. So there is a lot of planning ahead.

If I haven't scared you away yet, you will find that Sourdough Bread really is worth all the trouble! There is something exhilarating about taking on the challenge and coming out at the end with a loaf of real sourdough bread that you made yourself. Below you will find an easy recipe for Sourdough bread that does not have to be prepped the night before you bake it. This recipe is a great one to start with, then you can move up to more complex recipes after you have the basics down.

A great resource for Sourdough is Heartland Renaissance's Definitive Guide to Sourdough. Another great resource for Sourdough (and bread in general) is The King Arthur Flour Baking Book. I recommend buying it or checking it out at your local library.

My favorite basic sourdough recipe comes from the King Arthur Flour website, and you can find it here: King Arthur Rustic Sourdough Bread

Here is my own recipe for a slightly healthier version of the basic Rustic Sourdough Bread:

1 Cup Starter
1 Tablespoon Honey
1 1/2 Cups lukewarm water
3 1/2 Cups White Flour
1 1/2 Cups Wheat Flour
2 tsp Instant Yeast
1 Tablespoon salt

Mix the flour, yeast, and salt together. Stir in the starter, water, and honey, and mix well. Knead with your hands until the dough becomes smooth. Put it in a lightly greased large bowl and cover loosely. Allow to rise for about  1 1/2 hours or until doubled. Cut the dough into two parts and shape into loaves or place into proofing baskets or bowls:

Cover and let rise about another hour or until nice and puffy.

Preheat oven to 425 degrees for a good half hour before you put the loaves in the oven. Put a pan of water in the bottom of the oven to make it a little steamy in there (Sourdough seems to like a little moistness while baking). Brush the loaves with butter or lightly beaten egg. You can sprinkle the loaves with a touch of kosher salt or sea salt if desired. Bake for about 25-30 minutes until done. To check for doneness you can insert a cake tester in the center, or just tap the bread lightly like a drum - it should sound dense but "hollow" and it will not feel squishy.

Baked without any butter or egg wash, so it has a more rustic appearance.

(The photo at the top of the page has an egg wash so the bread looks kind of shiny)

 

 

 

This one was baked in a cast iron skillet for extra crustiness.

 

To make your own Starter:
Note that the more complex your starter ingredients are, the better your bread will eventually be. BUT for those of you like me who just want a basic recipe to get started in learning how to make sourdough, here is a very simple starter recipe:

In a large glass or ceramic bowl, mix 2 cups flour with 2 tsp instant yeast. Allow to sit for 10 minutes before mixing in 2 Cups warm (not hot) water. Allow this mixture to ferment, covered loosely, on your countertop at room temperature for 48 hours. Then begin the process of feeding the starter daily for seven days before using it to bake: Each day, pour off half of your starter and replace with 1 cup flour and 1 cup water. Let sit at room temp, loosely covered, until the next day's feeding. If you'd like to give away what you pour off (say, to a friend who likes to bake), that is much better than just pouring it down the drain. After a minimum of seven days of doing this, the starter should be sufficiently sour. It will get better the longer you keep it. If you do not plan to use it right away, you can either keep feeding it daily at room temperature, or store it in the fridge and feed it once a week. Before baking with it, feed it the day before and let it come to room temp again. You can increase the volume of your starter by not pouring off half of it when you feed it. Do this gradually until you reach the amount you need.

Pina Colada Cake

Preheat Oven to 325 degrees.

Cake:
2 1/3 Cups All-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 Tablespoon Baking Soda
1 Cup drained crushed pineapple (about 1 1/2 large cans - Drain it really well through a sieve)
1 1/2 Cups sugar
4 Eggs
1 1/4 Cup Vegetable Oil
2 Tablespoons Dark Rum -OR- 1 1/2 teaspoons artificial Rum extract (this has no alcohol)

Mix dry ingredients together in a bowl, stirring well to combine. In the mixing bowl of your electric mixer, beat eggs lightly. Add sugar, oil, and Rum and mix on low speed to combine. Add dry ingredients, then add pineapple last, stirring it in by hand.

Pour batter into two greased 9" pans or three 6" pans (I use parchment paper). Bake at 325. I usually start to check for doneness after 35 minutes, but sometimes this cake takes 40-50 minutes. You want to bake it at the lower temperature and watch it carefully because, similar to banana bread, this cake has a high sugar content with the crushed fruit in it, so it will brown more quickly than other cakes.

Frosting:
1 lb. Confectioner's sugar
1/4 cup softened butter
2 Tbsp coconut milk* (see note below)
1/2 tsp coconut extract (this is optional for a stronger coconut flavor)

Beat with an electric mixer on medium until fluffy. Add more coconut milk to thin it if necessary.

*Note about canned coconut milk: it generally has quite a bit of solidified milk on top when you open it. Use the solids for the 2 Tbsp in the recipe and then find the liquid in the can to use as your thinner. If you open the can and there is a lot of liquid, adjust the recipe accordingly, adding a little at a time.

Let the cake cool completely before filling and frosting it. After frosting it, gently press flaked coconut onto the sides and top of the cake.

Easter Basket Cake w/stripes inside

This cake is a festive and fun way to celebrate Easter:

1) Make a round layer cake three layers tall (6", 8", or 9" size)

2) Make a standard American Buttercream frosting.

3) Do a Basket Weave pattern in two colors all around the cake.

4) Finish off the top with a rope twist

5) Color some coconut green

6) Place the coconut and various Easter candies inside the top

If you want it to look interesting on the inside as well, you can dye your cake batter three different colors when you separate it into pans. Bake the layers as you normally would. Cut each layer in half horizontally so that you have 6 layers total. Stack them with frosting or just a thin layer of Jam in between (I used a thin layer of lemon curd - you can't really see it) 

And then on the inside...

HAPPY EASTER!

Old-Fashioned Rolled Sugar Cookies

 

 

These cookies are what my great-grandmother used to make and the recipe has been passed down in my mother's family ever since. It is less sweet than modern recipes for sugar cookies. Today's sugar cookies are really what we used to call a "butter cookie," using butter instead of shortening. As much as I enjoy modern buttery sugar cookies, sometimes I choose to make these ones instead, just because they make me nostalgic for my childhood. You may raise your eyebrows at some of the ingredients, which were common place decades ago but are rarely seen in sugar cookies nowadays (soured milk?)

This recipe makes A LOT of cookies, and it is very forgiving of adding flour during the rolling stage.

2 Cups Sugar
1 Cup Shortening
2 tsp vanilla extract
2 Eggs
1 Cup Soured Milk (put 1 Tablespoon vinegar in a cup measure and then add milk to make one cup. Stir well and let sit five minutes)
2 tsp Baking Soda
5 1/2 Cups Flour (you can add 1/4 Cup more if you find the dough too sticky)
2 tsp Baking Powder
1/2 tsp Nutmeg
1/2 tsp Salt

Cream together the shortening, sugar, and vanilla, beating until creamy. Add eggs one at a time and mix well. Add the baking soda into the soured milk and stir until frothy. Then add the milk/baking soda mixture to the creamed sugar mixture and beat until combined. In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, nutmeg and salt and stir well. Add the flour mixture to the wet ingredients gradually, adding about 1/3 of the mixture each time and beating until combined. When the dough is well-mixed, wrap in plastic wrap and chill 2 hours to overnight (or just stick it in the freezer for an hour).

Roll about 1/8 to 1/4 inch thick and cut out the cookies. Bake at 350 until edges are starting to turn brown, about 6-8 minutes (depending on thickness of cookies). Important note: Since these cookies are made with Crisco not butter, they do not brown as quickly and will still be very pale when they are done. I like them crunchy, so I let the edges get brown, but you may not want them that crunchy. After baking one batch, you can adjust the baking time and thickness of cookies according to your own taste.

 

 

Double Lemon Cake with Fluffy Boiled Icing

This cake is perfect for lemon-lovers: a light, subtle lemon cake paired with a very tart lemon filling. The light and fluffy boiled icing (a.k.a. Seven-Minute Icing) adds just the right amount of sweetness without weighing down the cake's flavors. If you want to kick it up for even more lemon flavor, I have added some options below the recipe.

3 cups Cake Flour

2 1/2 teaspoons Baking Powder

1 teaspoon salt

2/3 Cup unsalted butter, softened

1 3/4 Cups Sugar

2 whole Eggs + 1 yolk

1 1/2 teaspoons Pure Lemon Extract

1 Tablespoon Lemon zest

1 1/4 Cups Milk

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and line with parchment paper: three 6" or 8" pans (or you can use two 9" pans for a two-layer cake). If using 6" pans, your layers will be thick and you will have a little batter leftover. I usually make a few cupcakes for my kids when this happens.

Cake:

In a large bowl mix together the flour, baking powder, and salt until thoroughly blended. Set aside.

In an electric mixer bowl, combine the butter and sugar. Beat on medium speed until light and fluffy, about three minutes. Add eggs and yolk one at a time, beating for a few seconds after each addition. Add the extract and zest. Now add the flour and milk in alternating batches, starting and ending with the flour. Mix well after each addition. Scrape the bowl down and then beat on med-low for about one minute until fluffy (Do not overbeat).

Bake for 30-40 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. (Baking time will depend on the size of your pans).

Filling:

This filling is the same as the filling for my Lemon Meringue Pie recipe, only a smaller portion. If you prefer, you can use a good-quality jar of pre-made Lemon Curd, found in the jam section of most stores.

3/4 Cups Sugar

2 Tbsp Cornstarch

1 Tbsp Flour

dash of salt

3/4 Cup Hot Water

1 Slightly beaten egg yolk

1 Tablesppon Butter

2 teaspoons Lemon zest

2 Tablespoons Lemon juice

Mix Sugar, Flour, Cornstarch, and water in a medium saucepan over medium heat.

Cook until boiling, then reduce heat and cook two minutes, stirring constantly, until thickened. Remove from heat. Mix a small amount (about 1 tsp) of the hot mixture into the egg yolks and stir. Add a little more and stir again (this is to temper the egg yolks so they don't cook and curdle). Then add the yolk mixture back into the pan and cook two more minutes, again stirring constantly, until even thicker. Remove from heat. Stir in butter and lemon zest, then slowly pour in the juice. Cool to room temp before using the filling.

Fluffy Boiled Icing:

Prepare one recipe Seven-Minute Icing

Options for increasing the lemon flavor: Bump up the lemon extract to 2 teaspoons (don't do more than that, though). You can also brush a simple syrup made from 1/4 Cup lemon juice and 1-2 Tablespoons confectioner's sugar over the cake layers before filling and stacking them.

Maple Cream Pie

Maple and cream pie don't often go together, but after developing this recipe, I don't know why - they were made for each other! Using real maple syrup assures that you will not have an artificially strong maple flavor. This pie is fluffy, creamy, and lighter than average. Unlike most cream pies, the whipped cream is folded into the filling instead of sitting on top. If you want a more traditional cream pie, simply top the pie with the whipped cream instead of folding it in.

Crust:
One Recipe Flaky Pie Crust (you will use only one crust - you can freeze the other one for later use).

Roll the crust out and fill the pie pan with the bottom crust, patting it in firmly and crimping the edges. Prick the crust in a few places with a fork, then line the crust with parchment (or foil) and weigh it with dried rice, dried beans, or pie weights.  Prebake the crust at 425 degrees for about 10-15 minutes. Lift the parchment out, removing the rice, beans or weights and saving them for later use. Put the pie back into the oven for five more minutes to brown, then let the crust cool completely before filling it.

Filling:
1 2/3 Cups Whole Milk
1/3 Cup Pure Maple Syrup (Grade B if possible)
2 Tbsp Maple Sugar (use brown sugar if you don't have maple sugar)
1/2 Cup All-purpose flour
dash of salt
3 egg yolks
1/2 tsp vanilla
1 Tbsp butter

Whipped Cream:
3/4 Cup Heavy Cream
1 Tbsp real maple syrup

On the top of a double boiler, (or in a heat-proof bowl over a saucepan) combine the Milk, Syrup, Sugar, Flour and salt. Stir the mixture in the bowl while the water boils beneath it, cooking for about 10-12 minutes until the mixture thickens. *Thickening time depends on how cold your milk is to start with. It can take anywhere from 9-14 minutes to get it nice and thick like a pudding. In the first 5-7 minutes it doesn't thicken much at all, but when it starts it goes fast. So watch the filling carefully and when it starts to thicken, stir it constantly. Once it has thickened, remove it from the heat.

In a separate small bowl, beat the egg yolks lightly. Add just a tiny amount of the hot filling mixture into the egg yolks and stir it in. (This is to temper the eggs so they do not cook and curdle.) Add a little more of the hot mixture, stirring again. When you have added about three spoonfuls, you can transfer the egg mixture into the bigger bowl of filling. Put it back on the double boiler and cook another two minutes over medium heat until thickened again. Take off the heat and add in the butter and vanilla. Stir well and let the mixture cool. (I like to put some plastic wrap directly on top of the filling so it won't get a pudding skin on the surface, but leave a bit uncovered at the sides for steam to escape, or condensation will build up and make it runny.

Stir it often until it gets to room temp, then refrigerate.

In a separate bowl, whip the cream and syrup together with a wire whisk until it creates stiff peaks. (it helps to have the cream, bowl and whisk all chilled for this process). When the filling is chilled, gently fold in the whipped cream until they are well-mixed. Pour into the pie shell and refrigerate until ready to serve.

Cut with a sharp hot knife and drizzle a bit of real maple syrup on top before serving.

Naughty Whoopie Pies

I didn't grow up eating Whoopie Pies like many of my New England neighbors did. I grew up in California and never heard of a whoopie pie until I moved to the East Coast. But had I known how easy they are to make, I would have started baking them years ago!

The origin of the Whoopie Pie is hotly contested. New Englanders believe it was invented in Maine (a handful of accounts even suggest Boston). Pennsylvania residents believe it was invented by Amish women in the Pennsylvania Dutch Country. The controversy cannot be resolved because written records of Whoopie Pie Recipes do not go back as far as the treat itself has been around. Either way, they were invented sometime around the mid-1920s according to most accounts.

Whoopie Pie is not a pie at all. It is two pieces of cake (originally chocolate) baked on a flat tray like a cookie, then sandwiched together with filling inside. That filling is either a marshmallowy filling or a heavier frosting like buttercream, depending on what region you get your whoopie from. I personally like to use a Seven Minute Icing and I think this was probably the original filling. I'm no food historian, but my own pet theory is that these treats were originally just a way to use up leftover cake batter and leftover frosting. And since boiled icings like the classic Seven-Minute Icing were very popular in the 1920s, that could easily have been what they used. It has a marshmallowy taste, which could be where the whole marshmallow filling idea came from.

But whatever the origins, they are really good and so easy to make! You DO NOT need a special Whoopie Pie Pan to make these. They are supposed to be made on a cookie sheet.

Cake:
2 cups Flour
2/3 Cup Cocoa Powder (I like SACO brand, which is a blend of natural and dutch process)
1 1/4 teaspoons Baking Soda
1 teaspoon Salt
1 Cup Buttermilk (shake well before measuring it out)
1 1/2 teaspoons Vanilla extract
1/2 Cup Butter, softened
1 Cup packed Brown Sugar
1 Egg

For Filling:
Seven-Minute Icing

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray 2-3 cookie sheets with non-stick spray.

Mix together the Flour, Cocoa powder, Baking Soda, and Salt until well-combined. In a separate Bowl, mix together the buttermilk with the vanilla.

Put the butter and sugar in a mixing bowl and beat for a few minutes at medium speed until light and fluffy. Add the egg and beat again until the egg is mixed in. Then, on low speed, add the flour mixture alternating with the buttermilk, adding them in batches (start and end with the flour). Scrape down the bowl and then mix again on low until everything is well-blended.

Use a standard-sized Ice Cream scoop to scoop out the batter onto your greased cookie sheets, a couple of inches apart. (Use a mini-scoop or a standard teaspoon to do mini whoopie pies). Bake for 10-13 minutes (less for minis) until tops are rounded and firm to the touch, springing back when you touch them with your finger. I like to switch the cookie sheets in the oven halfway through baking time, so they bake evenly.

Cool on a wire rack before filling with the Seven-Minute Icing (above) or a buttercream if you prefer.