24 Days before Christmas

The year has certainly flown by, at least for me and I cannot believe that it is already December. I have been mixing and playing with batter but of a different sort - concrete! Like baking, the ratio or liquid, water in this case has to be precisely measured (taking into account the humidity in the air) to achieve the right consistency so the concrete would cure correctly. At some point E & I stopped counting at 2000lbs of concrete and we still have 100 or so more lbs to mix and pour but alas we've hit below freezing temperatures so we'll have to wait until next Spring to do that.

So enough of that, I don't think anyone reading this is at all interested in concrete discussion. Well, usually by this time, I would have started my Christmas baking soon after Thanksgiving but it's hard to get into the mood since I broke or rather crushed my thumb on my dominant hand nonetheless about 2 months ago! ironically nothing involving the landscaping E&I was working on. Since you all know sitting still isn't quite my cup of tea. As I mentioned, I have been busy mixing batter just not the edible kind even with my injury.

As I had to go shopping to prep Thanksgiving dinner last week, I passed by the apples and the delicious appley aroma wafted my way and gave me a little inspiration to bake something, so I thought what about an Apple Cake! I remembered many years ago I had made such a delicious thing in a simple manner. These days, with my injury, simple and humble are the key ingredients I seek for. As simple as it is, I cannot for the life of me find where that recipe was so I went to my trusted resource and after reading the ingredients and with slight modifications found this recipe to be easy, unpretentious and fool proof but most importantly delicious! If any of you like to try your hand at first time baking, try this and you won't be disappointed. If I am able to mix it and wield a knife with my left hand, you have absolutely no excuses. Original recipe can be found here.

Brown Butter Apple Cake
adapted from epicurious.com

Ingredients
1 cup Spelt flour or 3/4 cup AP Flour
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
Pinch of salt
1/4 scant teaspoon of Cardamom (optional)
4 large apples (4 different kinds-I used Braeburns & Honeycrisps)
2 large eggs
3/4 cup sugar
3 tablespoons Calvados
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
finely grated zest from 1 lemon
8 tablespoons unsalted butter

Method
Preheat the oven to 350˚F. Butter and line the bottom of an 8" cake pan with parchment paper. I used a 9" spring form pan for easier removal for my sake and not to have the trouble of cutting a piece of parchment and so my cake's height turned out on the shallow side.

Melt the butter in a saucepan over low heat on the stove until it is golden brown. Remove from heat.

Peel and core the apples and cut into 1- to 2-inch chunks while the butter cools.

Whisk together the dry ingredients ( flour, baking powder, cardamom )

In a separate bowl, whisk eggs until foamy. Add sugar and whisk to blend. Whisk in the Calvados and vanilla. Carefully whisk in half the flour mixture until incorporated, add half the cooled melted butter, followed by the rest of the flour mixture and the melted butter. Switch to a spatula and mix gently until you have a smooth but rather thick batter. Fold in the lemon zest and gently fold in the apples until it is coated with the batter. Turn out the mix into the buttered pan and push and poke it to the sides with the spatula and give the pan a slight shake and jiggle to even out the batter and remove air pockets.

Slide the pan into the oven. If using a spring form pan, place it on a baking sheet and bake for about 45 minutes to 1 hour until the top of the cake is golden brown, the sides pull away from the pan and a knife inserted into the center comes out clean. It only took 45 minutes for me likely because of my pan size.


I haven't tried it but I bet it is delicious with served with a simple sabayon spiked with Calvados and scented with Cardamom. If you dare to try here's my Sabayon recipe and let me know what you think.

Simple Sabayon
Makes about 2 cups

Ingredients
4 large egg yolks
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup Calvados ( able to substitute with other alcohol)
1 cup heavy cream
A couple of pinches of cardamom ( optional)

Method
Beat 3/4 cup heavy cream just until stiff peaks form and keep chilled in refrigerator. Prepare a bain marie or water bath on the stove and also a bowl of ice and cold water. Using a large metal bowl whisk together yolks, sugar, calvados and 1/4 cup cream. Set it over a bain marie whisking constantly and vigorously, cooking the sabayon until thick and whisk leaves tracks. Set cooked sabayon over the bowl of cold water and ice and gently whisk to cool the sabayon. Gently fold in the chilled whipped cream with a spatula. Serve or cover and chill. The sabayon can be made a day ahead.

Getting Ready for Christmas

Usually immediately after Thanksgiving, after lots of pie baking, I get the urge to start my annual Christmas baking! I look forward to this time of year especially when the mercury level begins to drop and I can turn on the oven, this to me is a fantastic way to warm up the house. This year being our first Christmas together as a married couple, I've decided to bake Swiss Cookies in honor of E's heritage. He said he remembers the delicious cookies his aunt used to bake when he was a child. Unfortunately, those recipes are no where to be had but what I have is a book that my sister gave me many years ago by Nick Malgieri which has several traditional Swiss Christmas cookies. Ironically, as much as I bake and cook, I don't own many books; save a few and this happens to be my one and only cookie book which I reach for year after year. Thanks sis!

Well to kick start the baking frenzy, I started getting ready by making a half pound of candied orange and lemon peel last week and warned E that I would be smelling of butter for the whole month of December. OK, ok! it's not Swiss but I decided to warm-up first by making a wheat free version of my mom's Chocolate Chip cookies for myself to curb my hands from reaching for the "normal" cookies I'll be baking in the next 2 weeks. I also had some lingering chocolate chips and almonds I wanted to use up before delving into nice fresh nuts and chocolate for Christmas baking.

These cookies a meant to be made small unlike the typical American cookies. To me, they are tiny morsels of crispy delight I always look forward to once a year as a child. Using Spelt instead of flour adds to the lightness and crunchy aspect of the cookie. Try it! I hope you love it as much as I do.

Mom's Chocolate Chip Morsels

Ingredients
250g Butter - room temp
200g Brown Sugar
60g Milk Powder
300g AP Flour or Spelt
100g Corn Flour
100g Almonds - chopped or if for convenience slivered
80g Chocolate - chopped into 1/4" pieces. This is recommended and yields better results in texture than chips. Although contrary to my suggestion, I used chips this time for ease.
1 tsp Vanilla
1 egg
1 tsp baking soda

Preheat the oven to 325˚

Method
Stir together flour, milk powder, corn flour and baking soda and set aside. Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add in egg and vanilla and beat until well blended. Gently fold in the dry mixture and mix until just incorporated. Finally add in chocolate and almonds and mix until evenly distributed. To keep the crispy integrity of the cookie, the less the dough is handled the better it is, this is especially so if using AP flour. Next, time to bake these delicious morsels! Grab a small 1" scoop if you have one and start scooping up the dough and plonk it on a parchment lined baking sheet 2"-3" apart. Alternately using a teaspoon, drop the dough and gently mound the dropped bits together onto the baking sheet. Do not roll it, squish it or compress it too much. Slide it into the hot oven for about 12-15 minutes until it is a beautiful golden brown.

Twisted Sticks

Yesterday morning we awoke to a blustery winter wonderland and mid-morning E took a break from work and well... so did I from job hunting and archiving projects from my desktop to shovel the driveway and pavements around the house. Suckers for punishment we didn't break out the snow blower cos we figured we could use some exercise, at least I did. After an hour or so of sweating, it was time almost lunch time and E was hungry! So I immediately got a pizza dough from a couple of nights ago ( I had to make a double batch from a measuring & experimenting accident with Bob's GF Mix ) and decided to make some cheesy bread sticks ( I was hoping it would mask the over powering beany taste and smell of the flour which I detest! - sorry Bob ) to go with some nice hot roasted root vegetable soup and a small salad. Perfect for a blustery snowy day!

Spelt Dough
This recipe which I have perfected (for now!) makes a really good dough for 1 Pizza or a dozen breadsticks
2 tsp active dry yeast
1/2 cup of warm water
1.5 cups Spelt flour (White or Wholemeal)
1 Tbsp EVOO and extra to coat the bowl
Pinch of sea salt

Breadstick ingredients
About 1/2 C finely shredded cheese - I used Parmesan but you can use whatever cheeses you that isn't too soft and tender
3-4 Cloves Garlic minced
1.5 tsp herbs - I used fresh rosemary
2 tbsp EVOO and extra for brushing dough
Sea Salt
Ground black pepper

Mix dough and allow to rest for 15 mins then gently knead using the pull and fold method as spelt has a very fragile gluten structure. Fold and pinch the edges together and plonk the pinched bottom into a bowl so there is a nice smooth top and allow to rise in a warm draft free area for 1 hr or until almost doubled ( Spelt doesn't rise as much as AP flour).

While the dough is rising prepare and mix the minced garlic,herbs and EVOO. This way the EVOO will be infused deliciously with the garlic and herbs.

After 1 hour, flatten dough and roll into a rectangle. Brush the dough surface with olive oil and sprinkle salt and pepper. In the middle 1/3 of the dough (you will be folding the dough into 3rds) spread the garlic and herb mixture and sprinkle the cheese. Fold over 1 side of the dough and top the surface with the garlic herb mixture and do a final fold and sprinkle with cheese. Using a pastry cutter or bench scraper cut the dough into strips and gently twist and roll into long strips. Rest them in a baking tray for about 30 mins.
Preheat oven at 425˚C. Meanwhile brush the breadsticks with EVOO and sprinkle salt and a generous amount of pepper. Bake in a preheated oven at 425˚C until golden brown about 12 mins.

They are delicious fresh from the oven and fills the house with an amazing aroma and we snacked on the crunchy delights the rest of the afternoon.

Dutch Baby

Hello and Welcome!

I've been thinking of creating a blog for a while now to share some delicious recipes and discoveries with friends and I found the right opportunity when I was stuck in DIA for close to 10 hours coming from NY and waiting for E to arrive from Chicago so we could drive home to start our new lives together.

So I sat and thought about my latest favourite breakfast item The Dutch Baby! which I made for my sister & family visitng a few weeks ago. I came across this puffy delight a few months ago while having brunch at the Original Pancake House in Boulder. When I saw the waiters walking around with this puffy baked and delicious smelling thing I of course had to have some. After scarfing it down I knew it had to be simple to make thus begin my quest for the recipe. I cannot remember where I found the original recipe from but have since modified it and it is very similar to a Yorkshire pudding. All I can say is that my sister's family loves it and it's absolutely delicious and the results is a terrific presentation and even more divine that it doesn't take much effort to make and it does make the house smell gorgeous! I encourage you to try.


Dutch Baby

4 Large Eggs
1/2 C White Spelt Flour or AP Flour
( I've managed to successfully sub a lot of my recipes due to my wheat allergies with Spelt )
Pinch of Salt
1/2 C Milk
3 tbsp butter - can be less - 2 tbsp
1/3 C brown sugar
Sprinkle of Nutmeg and/or cinnamon
2 apples/pears
A cast iron skillet is best but I've been most successful with a pie dish.

Lightly beat eggs and milk and to this add 1 tbsp of the brown sugar.
Stir in flour and salt until smooth
Heat skillet or pie dish and melt butter in 425˚ oven about 5 mins.
Slice apples/pear about 1/4" thick and stir brown sugar in and sprinkle some nutmeg
Heap the sliced pears/apples in the center of the hot skillet/pie dish
Pour batter over sliced apple/pear. Additionally you can sprinkle a tablespoon of brown sugar and spices over.
Immediately bake for 20-25 mins until puffed and golden.