YAY! for Coconut Ice Cream

Today summer decided to visit, so my plans of Earth-shaped gingerbread cookies for Earth Day died. Instead I made coconut ice cream from a new recipe. It was so good I had to share. She Simmers has a lot of good home-style Thai recipes, and this one is a new favorite. It was really easy and tasted great. Smooth and not too sweet.

2 cans coconut milk (I used lite, but regular would probably give you a more scoop-able ice cream)
2 tsp powdered gelatin
2 T cornstarch
1 cup dry milk
3/4 cup sugar
large pinch salt

Whisk together all ingredients in a pan over medium heat until thickened and smooth. Cool completely before freezing in ice cream maker. Freeze processed ice cream for several hours before serving. It was just the right amount of mix for my Cuisinart ice cream machine, which holds about a quart.

30 Minute Puff Pastry

Puff pastry is much tastier when made with real butter, which is hard to find at a store. Luckily, making your own can be quick and easy. This recipe won't puff as much as a true French puff pastry, but will puff as much as what you can buy in the supermarket.

Ingredients

2 ¼ cups flour (bread flour is great for this, but all-purpose works too)

1 ¼ c unsalted butter (if using salted butter, omit salt) cut into ½” cubes

½ tsp salt

6 T cold water

Butter and flour, ready to go!

 

Method

 

Put flour in mixing bowl, add the cubes of butter. Toss to coat.

Dissolve salt in water. Pour over flour and butter and mix with a spoon or hands until it comes together as a dough. Turn out onto a lightly floured surface and knead 10 times.

 Form the dough into a square, cover with a towel and let rest for a few minutes

  3 Double Turns

For each double turn:

Roll the dough into a long and narrow rectangle about ½” thick

 Make a mark in the center of the long side of the rectangle.
Fold both ends of the dough in to the center.

 Brush excess flour from the top of the dough and fold once more as if you were closing a book

When you begin the second double turn, place the dough 90 degrees from the way the dough lay when you “closed the book” with the first turn.

After you've done this 3 times, roll it out to ½”, wrap in cling film and store in the freezer (up to 6 months) or refrigerator (up to 4 days, after that it will turn gray). Thaw in refrigerator before using as your recipe requires.

Dutch Crunch Bread

Sara and Erica of Baking JDs were our March 2012 Daring Baker hostesses! Sara & Erica challenged us to make Dutch Crunch bread, a delicious sandwich bread with a unique, crunchy topping. Sara and Erica also challenged us to create a one of a kind sandwich with our bread!

We made sandwiches with leftover Easter ham and cheese and had tomato soup

I know this is pretty late, but the last month has felt pretty crazy and I just didn't have the time or energy to bake more bread after the pretzel extravaganza. Today has been rainy and chilly, so soup and sandwiches seemed like a good idea. I made the dutch crunch topping with brown rice flour and spread it on the rolls with a small off-set spatula, one of my favorite kitchen tools (I think I have 6 or 7 of them)

The topping spread on the rolls 

The roll dough was easy and rose plenty in my cool kitchen and the topping was easy too. I see us eating this more often!

and, as always, Hunter wanted some too!

Dutch Crunch Rolls

1 1/2 T yeast
1/3 cup warm water
1 1/2 cup warm milk
2 T sugar
3 T oil
2 tsp salt
5-6 cups flour

Directions:

1. In the bowl of an electric mixer  combine yeast and half the flour. Add wet ingredients and stir to combine.

2. With the dough hook in place add the remaining flour a quarter cup at time until the dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl. Let the mixer run for a few minutes to knead.

3. Place in a lightly greased bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Let rise for 1 hour, or until doubled (or more) in size 

4. . Once the dough has risen, turn it out onto a lightly floured surface and divide it into 12 equal portions. Form into rolls. Place on greased baking sheets

5. Let rise for 15 minutes while you prepare the topping.

6. Coat the top of each roll or loaf with the topping (recipe below). 

7. Once you’ve applied the topping, bake in a preheated 375º oven for 20-30 minutes, until well browned. Let cool completely.

Topping:

2 T active dry yeast
1 cup warm water
2 T sugar
2 T vegetable oil
½ tsp salt
1½ cups rice flour, I used brown rice flour

1. Combine all ingredients in a large bowl and beat hard with a whisk to combine. It should be thick but spreadable. Add more water or rice flour as necessary. Let stand 15 minutes.

2. Coat the top of each loaf or roll with a thick layer of topping. You should err on the side of applying too much topping – a thin layer will not crack properly.

3. Put rolls directly in the oven. The batch that sat out to wait didn't crack as much.

4. When baking, place pans on a rack in the center of the oven and bake your bread as you ordinarily would. The Dutch Cruch topping should crack and turn a nice golden-brown color.

Sunday Conference Breakfast

I always like to make something fun for breakfast on Conference Sunday. I found an interesting idea on Pinterest and decided to try it. Ali at Gimme Some Oven  made German Pancakes in a muffin tin, creating little pancake bowls to fill with fruit and jam. We ate ours with Nutella and jam or bananas. We've also been treating ourselves to Trader Joe's Cocoa Almond Spread, which is just like nutella made with almonds. 

YAY! for Black Bean "Falafel"

The Daring Cooks’ February 2012 challenge was hosted by Audax & Lis and they chose to present Patties for their ease of construction, ingredients and deliciousness! We were given several recipes, and learned the different types of binders and cooking methods to produce our own tasty patties!

I made hamburgers shortly after the challenge was announced, but that's something I've done several times before, so not much of a challenge. I also forgot to take pictures. For my second challenge attempt I thought I would make falafel, but I didn't have any chickpeas, so I came up with something completely different: a black bean "falafel" style patty, with Tex-Mex flavors, served in a pita with sour cream, lettuce, salsa, and cheese. Avocado would have been great, but I didn't have one :(


Recipe
Into my food processor I put 2 handfuls of tortilla chips (I didn't add salt because the chips were salty)
I chopped them small then added:
1/2 small yellow onion
3 cloves of garlic
zest of 2 limes
1/2 serrano chili (use more if you like more heat)
about 1/2 tsp each of black pepper and cumin
I blended again and added one can of black beans, rinsed and drained well. I added them last to maintain some of the chunkiness you find in traditional falafel (which uses soaked raw beans)
1/2 an egg might have been good, but they held together pretty well without it. Any more liquid than 1/2 an egg would have made the mix too soft to handle.

I used a #60 scoop to portion the patties, flattened them slightly, and fried them in about 1/3" of 350F oil until browned on both sides, drained on toweling, and served.  
The patties were good, and super filling. I made about two dozen "falafel", which was more than enough for the four of us, and probably would have easily served 6. 

YAY!! for Biscuits!

Audax Artifex was our January 2012 Daring Bakers’ host. Aud worked tirelessly to master light and fluffy scones (a/k/a biscuits) to help us create delicious and perfect batches in our own kitchens!

They were very flaky and fluffy, and I got to use my new baking rack!

The recipe provided was great, and quite similar to others I have used, with the one difference being the technique for incorporating the butter. I had never grated frozen butter into the flour, but it worked really well, and might be a good technique for other recipes, like pie crust.

They nearly tripled in height after baking!

I also made a batch with cheddar cheese and chives. They were fantastic with ham and green beans. 

Golden brown and flaky deliciousness!

I added the chives and cheese to the flour with the butter, tossing them all gently to mix, then added the milk and smooshed it together in the bowl with my hands. I patted and cut rounds and baked until golden and gooey.

Gooey melted cheese. Yum.

RECIPE

Ingredients:
4 cups AP flour

2 T and 2 tsp baking powder

1 teaspoon (1¼ ml) (1½ gm) salt

1/2 cup frozen butter, grated 

2 cup cold milk or half and half

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to  450°F

2. Sift the dry ingredients into a large bowl. 

3. Dump in the butter, cut a few times with a pastry blender. 

4. Add all of the liquid at once, mix until it almost forms a sticky dough, then fold and press to mix in the rest of the flour.

5. Pat or roll out the dough to about ¾ inch thick, cut into rounds.

6. Place the rounds almost touching on a baking dish 

7. Bake in the preheated very hot oven for about 10 minutes (check at 8 minutes since home ovens at these high temperatures are very unreliable) until the scones are well risen and are lightly coloured on the tops. The scones are ready when the sides are set.


8. Serve while still warm.

YAY! for Christmas!!

For Christmas Eve dinner I made a Yule Log Cake. I make one almost every year. This is the recipe I use:


CAKE

• 3 eggs
• 1 C sugar
• 1/3 C water
• 3/4 C flour
• 1/4 C cocoa powder
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 recipe Fudgy Icing
• 1 recipe Chocolate Mousse
• 
  

DIRECTIONS

Preheat oven to 375°

Line a jelly-roll pan with wax paper, grease paper.

Beat eggs until thick and lemon colored. Beat in sugar, then water and vanilla. Sift together dry ingredients. Gradually beat into egg mixture. Mix until smooth.

Pour into prepared pan. Bake 15 minutes. Let cool 5 minutes then turn out onto tea towel sprinkled liberally with powdered sugar. Slowly roll up cake and towel. Let cool.

When cool, gently unroll cake. Spread Chocolate Mousse on cake and re-roll. 

To decorate, pipe fudgy icing with a rose tip in long and short stripes to resemble bark.

CHOCOLATE MOUSSE

6 oz chocolate, chopped

2 cups whipping cream, divided

3 2 T sugar

DIRECTIONS

Bring 3/4 cup cream to a boil, pour over chocolate, stir until melted. Let cool.

Whip remaining 1 1/4 cups cream and sugar to stiff peaks. Fold into chocolate. 

FUDGY ICING

1/3 cup butter, softened

1/3 cup cocoa powder

2 cups powdered sugar

1 tsp vanilla

1-3 T hot water

Beat butter, cocoa, and sugar. Add vanilla and enough water to make it pipable. 

FUDGY ICING

YAY! for cha siu bao!!

Our Daring Cooks’ December 2011 hostess is Sara from Belly Rumbles! Sara chose awesome Cha Sui Bao as our challenge, where we made the buns, Char Sui, and filling from scratch – delicious!

This was a great challenge as this is a favorite treat!

Cha Siu Recipe:
1 pork fillet/tenderloin (roughly 1-1.5 pounds) (I used two pork chops because everything at the store was much larger than 1 1/2 pounds)
4 large cloves of garlic, crushed
1 teaspoon grated ginger
1 tablespoon peanut oil
3 tablespoons honey
2 tablespoons hoisin sauce
2 tablespoon light soy sauce
1 teaspoon oyster sauce
½ teaspoon ground pepper
pinch of salt
½ teaspoon (2 gm) five spice powder
½ teaspoon sesame oil
½ teaspoon red food coloring (I use a paste color, so I used a LOT less than 1/2 tsp)


Mix everything together an pour most of it on the meat. Let the meat sit in the fridge for 4+ hours. Pre-heat oven to 350F. Heat a heavy pan until it's hot, add meat, cook to form crust of marinade. Put meat in oven and basting frequently, cook for about 20 minutes or until cooked through.


Let cool. Make bun dough:


1 cup milk, scalded and cooled to 100-115F
¼ cup (60 gm/2 oz) sugar
1 tablespoon oil
¼ teaspoon (2 gm) salt
2½ teaspoons (8 gm/1 satchel) of dried yeast
3 cups (420 gm/15 oz) plain flour


Mix together all ingredients. Knead well, let rise until doubled. Punch down and divide into 30-40g pieces. While the dough is rising prepare the filling 
12 oz char sui, finely diced
2 shallots (finely diced)
1 tablespoon soy sauce
2 tablespoons oyster sauce
1 teaspoon sesame oil


Stir together in a frying pan or wok. Add ¼ cup water mixed with 1 tsp corn starch, cook until thickened. Let cool while prepping the dough balls.


Press the balls into rounds, put about 1T of filling on each, pinch shut. Place on parchment squares and let rise 15-30 minutes. 
Steam for about 10 minutes, leave plenty of room, they expand a lot!

I steamed some in the rice cooker and some in a large pot with a vegetable steamer insert.

YAY! for Panna Cotta!!!

The February 2011 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Mallory from A Sofa in the Kitchen. She chose to challenge everyone to make Panna Cotta from a Giada De Laurentiis recipe and Nestle Florentine Cookies. I made mine a raspberry panna cotta with chocolate ganache with heart shaped florentine cookies.




I changed the recipe a bit to make it raspberry flavored:


1/2 cup raspberry puree
1/2 tablespoon unflavored powdered gelatin
1 cup whipping cream (30+% butterfat)
1/2 cup half and half
1/3 cup granulated sugar

Pour the puree into a saucepan and sprinkle gelatin evenly and thinly over the top Let bloom for 5 minutes.
Put the saucepan over medium heat on the stove and heat until the gelatin is melted.
Add the cream, half and half, and sugar and heat until the sugar is dissolved.
Remove from heat and cool before pouring into ramekins.
I used creme brulee dishes, so they set in about an hour and a half.

They were creamy and not too sweet, but the fat content got in the way of our enjoying the dessert, it kind of coated our mouths and stopped us from tasting anything else.


So, I tried again, with yogurt instead of cream to keep the texture and loose the fat, and it was much better. I made a Meyer lemon panna cotta with raspberry sauce and chocolate filigree.



Lemon Panna Cotta

1/2 cup meyer lemon juice
1/2 tbs gelatin
1/3 cup sugar
zest of 3 lemons
1 cup Greek style yogurt
1/2 cup half and half

Sprinkle the gelatin over the lemon juice in a saucepan. Let sit for 5 minutes.

Blend the sugar and lemon zest in a food processor until fragrant, add to gelatin mixture. Heat over medium heat until the sugar is dissolved.

Measure the yogurt into a mixing bowl. Add the half and half slowly, stirring after each addition to avoid making yogurt lumps. Add the warm gelatin mixture and stir to combine.

Pour into serving dishes and chill 1-2 hours, or until set.

Top with raspberry sauce and chocolate filigree if you'd like!

Pumpkin Souffle

I ran my thumb around the top edge of the ramekins, which is supposed to help them rise straight, but they didn't anyway. I'm blaming the oven.

Pumpkin Souffle
1/4 c milk
1 1/2 tsp cornstarch
1/8 tsp grated nutmeg
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
1/8 tsp ground cloves
1/8 tsp ground ginger
1 1/2 tsp sugar
6 T pumpkin
3/4 c egg whites
Pinch of cream of tartar
1/3 c sugar

Preheat oven to 400F
Prep 8 ramekins by spraying with pan spray and coating with sugar.
Mix together the first 7 ingredients in a small saucepan. Heat over med-high heat until thick, stirring constantly. Add pumpkin, remove to medium mixing bowl, let cool.
In a super-clean bowl beat the egg whites with cream of tartar until frothy. While beating, add the sugar gradually. Beat until stiff peaks form.
Fold some of the whites into the pumpkin mixture to lighten, then the rest in two batches.
Spoon into ramekins, scraping off the top. Run your thumb around the edge, if you think your oven won't interfere and make them bake wonky anyway.

These are excellent with caramel sauce on top.

YAY! for doughnuts!!

The October 2010 Daring Bakers challenge was hosted by Lori of Butter Me Up. Lori chose to challenge DBers to make doughnuts. She used several sources for her recipes including Alton Brown, Nancy Silverton, Kate Neumann and Epicurious.

I decided to use Alton Brown's recipe as a pattern and used it to make a recipe for pumpkin spice doughnuts in cinnamon sugar.


Pumpkin Yeast Doughnuts

2 1/2 oz butter
1 cup canned pumpkin
3/4 cup milk
1/2 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 1/2 T instant yeast
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ginger
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp cloves
22 oz AP

Oil for frying

Cinnamon sugar

In a saucepan melt butter. Add pumpkin, milk, and sugar and heat to lukewarm. Pour into bowl of stand mixer fitted with the paddle. Add eggs, mixing well. Add yeast, salt, and spices. Mix well, scraping down the bowl. Add flour in two stages, mixing until no flour is visible, scraping down occasionally. Change to the dough hook and mix at a medium low speed for 3-4 minutes. Remove the bowl, oil the top of the dough, cover with cling film, and refrigerate overnight.

Roll dough out on a well floured surface, cut with doughnut cutter or 2 round cutters, place on floured surface and cover with a towel for 30 minutes.

Heat oil in a deep frying pan or electric frying pan to 350F, place doughnuts in hot oil (don't crowd the pan) and cook for about one minute on each side. Remove to a paper lined sheet pan to drain then shake with cinnamon sugar.