Strawberry Syrup

As a child growing up, I enjoyed reading The Little House On The Prairie books. I was amazed at what they did to survive. A child of the Seventies, all I knew were supermarkets. Sure, my parents and grandparents told me stories about how it was when they were growing up but stories about the someone getting the first car or TV in the neighborhood didn’t compare to the seemingly outlandish concept of having to hunt and grow everything you were going to eat for the next year. My young mind fell in love with the concept of being able to make my own maple syrup. We had maple trees in the front yard, we could do it too, right? Luckily my parents put a quick end to that concept before the maple trees in our yard and the red maple trees in the other yards were harmed. But I still had the dream.
When I grew up, I’m going to have lots of land with lots of maple trees and I’m going to make my syrup! Alas, that dream has yet to come to fruition. I live in an exurb of Chicago, surrounded by strip malls and townhomes. Yeah, there is a maple tree in one of the common areas but I think if I stuck a tap in it and hung a bucket, it would probably end up bent over like Charlie Brown’s Christmas tree. Come to think of it, there’s probably something in the bylaws of homeowners association against it too.
However, despite the lack of maple trees and an angry homeowners association, I can still make my own syrup. The farmer’s market season started here about two weeks ago and there is a great selection of fruit. Containers of cherries and blueberries were at most of the stands and this week strawberries started making an appearance. Besides being just plain good to eat, they work well in jellies and jams, but they also make very good syrups.

Strawberry Syrup
Yields about 3 cups

1 1/2 cups chopped strawberries
1 Tbls. lemon juice
1/4 cup sugar
1 1/2 cups light corn syrup
1/4 cup cornstarch
2 Tbls. cold water

In a 2-quart saucepan combine the strawberries, lemon juice, sugar, and corn syrup and bring to a simmer over medium heat. As this mixture heats up, mix the water and the cornstarch and stir until the cornstarch dissolves. Once the syrup simmers, add the cornstarch slurry. Continuously stir until the syrup starts simmering again and goes from cloudy to clear. If the berries are not broken down enough, use an immersion blender or run through a fine-mesh strainer before serving. Serve warm.

- Other berries like blackberries and raspberries work as well. Strain for seeds before serving.
- Rhubarb adds a nice touch as well. Use 3/4 cup rhubarb and 3/4 cup strawberries. Start the syrup using the rhubarb first and then add the strawberries once the rhubarb is tender.


All pictures are from the morgueFile archive.

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Also appearing at Sugar Savvy and featured on the Well Fed Network.

Pistachio and Strawberry Stuffed French Toast

My favorite meal of the day has to be breakfast. More times than not I'm having something for lunch or dinner that most people would consider breakfast. 'Breakfast served all day' is my 'cellar door'. Eggs, bacon, pancakes, waffles, omelets, what-have-you are the meals I cook most during the week. A real treat though, is French toast.

For Father's Day I was able to make this breakfast for my parents. I had made it a couple of weeks earlier and my girlfriend and I loved it. I believe the key is thick bread and a good, long soak in a custard-like mixture of eggs and cream. I see these recipes calling for 4 or 5 eggs and equal amounts of milk, just enough to cover several slices of sandwich bread. Make those recipes and you're missing out on how truly wonderful French toast is meant to be!

Pistachio and Strawberry Stuffed French Toast

Makes about 5-6 servings

1 loaf bread, sliced in 1" slices - I have used challah (slightly staled) and 'Italian peasant', both worked well
12 eggs
1 1/2 cups heavy cream
1 Tbls. vanilla
1 1/2 cups strawberries
sprinkles of cinnamon
sprinkles of nutmeg
1 1/4 cups pistachios

Beat the eggs and then add the heavy cream and vanilla and mix well. Slice the bread into 1 inch slices. If the egg mixture isn't in a dish big enough to soak several slices of bread, move it to a dish that can. Soak the bread in the egg mixture for 5 to 10 minutes, flipping the bread halfway through. Dice the strawberries while the bread is soaking. Place a layer of bread slices in a 9" by 13" greased pan. Use a spoon to press down on the bread and form a little indentation and then spoon the strawberries onto the bread. Place another layer of soaked bread on top, forming 'sandwiches'. Press down slightly on the tops slices to compress the 'sandwiches', just enough so there is no gap between the slices. Sprinkle lightly with nutmeg and then cinnamon. Crush the pistachios and place on the prepared french toast 'sandwiches' liberally. Bake in a preheated oven at 350° F for 40 to 45 minutes.

Serve with real maple syrup and butter.

Variations -

Use your favorite jams or other fruit for the filling.

This can be made into a savory dish by leaving out the cinnamon and nutmeg and using something like caramelized onions or spinach.

Try using cinnamon rolls instead of bread.

All pictures are from the morgueFile archive.

So I've been busy...

The end of the quarter is always a busy time for me at work. Our bonuses are based on what we did in a quarter so there is a lot of people working late trying to get credit for as much as possible. Including me.

We had Lorrie's mom here for awhile and my parents stopped down too. I haven't had a ton of time to bake but I tried a couple recipes. No pictures, they were test batches. The first was the Ice Box Crunch recipe of my grandmother's. I made two types: fig and cherry. OK, I have to admit, other than fig Newtons, I don't think I've had figs before. Actually, I don't think I've even seen figs before. I was walking through a local Polish market and they had figs so I picked some up to try. Not bad. I understand the grit in Fig Newtons now: seeds. The cherries were some organic sweet cherries from Target. The fillings were basically the fruit with some sugar, heated to create a bit of syrup. I did use an immersion blender on the figs but I left the cherries like they were. I like how it turned out, I need to do this again. The second recipe is from my great-grandmother. It was an excellent rhubarb cake. The recipe was basically a list of ingredients, that's it. I do plan on doing this again and will go into more detail about the recipe in that post.

You may notice some changes here. First, I've added the Foodie Blog Roll. It's been a boon to this site, bringing in all kinds of people. Second, I've been kinda keeping this a 'dessert' blog but I think I'm going to include more under the 'Et Cetera' part of the blog and include the other food related things I do. Possibly, in the near future, there may be a site redesign too. Not sure about that yet.

Lastly, I glad Top Chef is back on. Shear Genius just wasn't doing it for me.

May 2007 Just Baking Update

My "Look, I post somewhere else" round-up of posts I did as editor at Just Baking in May 2007.

May 2 - Video Learning: How to Make a Wedding Cake - Shannon Pridgen, owner of Heavenly Crumbs Bakery in Brooklyn, NY, and Shelly Everett, owner of The Gourmet Angel Catering, show how to make a lemon wedding cake with buttercream frosting, start to finish.

May 3 - King Arthur Flour Online Baking Classes - King Arthur Flour offers many baking classes.

May 10 - Home Baking Association - A non-profit organization promoting home baking.

May 15 - Video Learning: Puff Pastry - Let's learn how to make puff pastry!

May 16 - Emmer and Einkorn - Ancient wheats.

May 25 - Video Learning: Baking a Pie - I love my videos.

OK, come to Just Baking. We have some incredible writers and it's shaping up to be our best month yet!


*Update* - As Just Baking no longer exists, I have removed the actual links but left the post names as a source for ideas

I want candy (for other reasons)

I have to admit, I feel a little out of place at Sugar Savvy. I mean, I like candy. Yeah, my Halloween candy lasted until Easter and my Easter candy lasted until Halloween, but really, I like candy. It seems to me to be review, review, Hey - I made brittle, review, review. And by no means am I trying to demean what they are doing. I know they enjoy eating and writing about sweets as much as I do, they’re probably even better at the writing part of it too. But in my little world, I just have a different view of candy. When I see a piece of candy, my first thought isn’t so much about taste, but can I use this in something. To me, more often than not, I think of candy as a part of a larger piece.

Take these marshmallow ice cream cones for example.


When I saw these I wasn’t thinking about a slightly stale marshmallow taste with a sugar crust reminiscent of Peeps. I was trying to figure the best way to work them into a home-baked gift, which turned into this:


One of my favorite things to use is chocolate.  I've used molded chocolate (and it’s cheaper and easier-to-use cousin candy melts) for a number of projects. It’s so simple to do. Cars, bats, skulls, and hearts are just some of the things I've made to adorn or accompany my baked goods. First, you need a mold. I was lucky starting out, there was a baking and candy making supply store near me with large selection of chocolate molds. Sadly, well for me anyway, it closed recently. Hobby stores and party supply stores also have molds; however they tend to have a small selection of just the basics. With a little planning though, you can find anything you need online. The next step is to melt the chocolate. Then pour into the mold. Scrap off the excess, refrigerate until hard, and unmold. You now have your own crafted candies.




Marshmallow cone picture from the Marshmallow Cone Company Website

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Also appearing at Sugar Savvy and featured on the Well Fed Network.

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Follow-Up
I received this email a couple days ago:

I just happened to come across your blog today when I was doing a search for “marshmallow cones.”

Not that it’s here or there, but under your May 31st entry, you show a picture of our marshmallow cones and then your cupcakes have a tiny marshmallow cone on them.

The first picture is from our website (I took and edited it myself), the latter one is a foreign-made “marshmallow” cone.

There’s a big difference between our product and theirs – ours is 4” long, theirs is 1.5 or 2” long. Ours has a marshmallow topping, theirs is more like a sugar-crusted jelly bean.

FWIW, given your penchant for cooking/baking/decorating you might be interested in knowing that some people use our cones in building gingerbread houses. One woman sent me pictures where they had used the cones as front door pillars.

Anyway, I saw your blog and just thought I’d write.

Take care,
Dan

Dan Runk
President
Marshmallow Cone Company
www.marshmallowcone.com
"Celebrating 71 Years (1936-2007)"

I have to admit I wasn't entirely sure the cones I used were his brand. Lorrie purchased them from a candy store chain and I tried to find the source the best I could since there was no box. I tried to match up the look and style of the cones to pictures on the 'Net and I thought I had. Obviously, this is not the case and I apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.

Mystery Solved!

A while back, I asked for help identifying these two cookie cutters. I had picked them up in a rummage sale and had no idea what they could be. The best guess Lorrie and I could come up with was a cob of corn and a bat.



Well, now the mystery is solved. I was up in Green Bay over Mother's Day and stopped by my aunt's to pick up her cookie cutters and cookbooks. She was downsizing to a new apartment. I started going through them when I had a 'Holy, um, cow' moment once I saw this:



A full set of the mystery cookie cutters still in the package! So it turns out the corn cob-looking one is a basket and the bat one is a chick with it's wings spread. And hey, there is a rabbit in the set too.

April 2007 Just Baking Round-Up

My "Look, I post somewhere else" round-up of posts I did as editor at Just Baking in April 2007.

Apr. 11 - Yellow Cake - A Baking Basic - My Easter bunny cupcakes make an appearance.

Apr. 13 - Blackberry Oat Muffins And A Lesson - I share my post about oats and how they aren't gluten free.

Apr. 23 - Have you ever baked a birthday cake? (Or wanted to?) - We're looking for writers.

Apr. 24 - Teff - Another unusual ingredient of the week.

Apr. 25 - Video Learning: Baking Bread - I really like being able to put a video up.

Apr. 30 - Congratulations - We're very proud of Hannah Kaminsky, a writer at Just Baking and her own site, Bittersweet, for her upcoming cookbook.

*Update* - As Just Baking no longer exists, I have removed the actual links but left the post names as a source for ideas

Happy Administrative Assistant's Day!

Lorrie wanted to do something for the admin assistant in her area at work, which meant I was baking something. Her job was to find a decoration for the top. She was hoping to find some of the Peeps chicks somewhere but what she came home with was even better. She found these marshmallow ice cream cone candies with pink, yellow, and white "ice cream" colors. I think they turned out pretty good.

The cupcake used the same yellow cake recipe I used for the Easter Bunny cupcakes. I've made this enough now that I'm comfortable with the recipe and what I need to do for them to turn out good. The frosting came from a can which I then colored yellow and pink. I had gotten marshmallow fluff too in case we had different candies but didn't use it. I think the white nonpareils just gave it a nice touch.

There were well-received and tasted really good. Lorrie has already mentioned she wants to do these again.

Trouble Free Cake Mix

I was in TJ Maxx the other day looking for some cupcake decorations and I saw this pan:


It caught my eye because I've almost purchased pans that allow you to make the cookies-on-a-stick and this was something along those lines. This was unique because of the shape and it showed other cookies beyond sugar cookies. The picture above is the back of the box. It shows three recipes: crispy rice treats, a protein bar, and trouble free cake mix. Nevermind the whole concept of a protein bar on a stick (you know, for those fussy, hard to please, scrawny children), I'm looking for a good trouble free cake mix recipe. So I go for a closer look and see this:



"1 Box cake mix - any flavor"  Well, there ya go. I wish I would have seen this pan sooner, I could have saved all that money on cookbooks...



Sorry about the photos. They were taken on my camera phone while the store's staff was giving me a variety of looks from puzzlement to annoyance.

Cherry Spelt Muffins

The final item in our Easter baskets were these cherry spelt muffins. My whole "trying to make something healthy" mania was in full swing here. I had purchased the spelt flour a little while ago to try it so somehow I thought giving an experimental muffin as a gift was a good idea. The cherry idea came from Sam Adams Cherry Wheat beer. Yep, I made a muffin based on a beer. In fact, it was a beer that sorely disappointed me so I made a muffin based on a beer I didn't like. Yep, that should have told me how this would go.

The first batch I made went like this: Only used half of a cup of cherries and soaked them in the Kirschwasser alone. Didn't like that flavor overall so I added the tart cherry juice. I wanted to use honey for this recipe but instead of measuring out 1/2 cup I measured 1 cup and didn't notice until I had mixed it with the eggs so I had to start over at that point and oops, out of honey so I'm using brown sugar instead. Mix it up and bake it. Cool them off and have a bite...of the half of the muffin not permanently attached to the muffin paper. And you really only tasted the spelt. *sigh* I couldn't use these as a gift.

So while I was waiting for the cupcakes to cool, I tried again. This time I doubled the amount of cherries and added a little vanilla and also used some of the cherry juice in the batter. The batter itself was really light. It was good to not use the paper lining the second time because having the crust around the muffin gave it more structure and gave it a little tooth versus the airy center.

But again taste was an issue. If you had a muffin with a number of cherries in it then it was just as I imagined, cherry complimenting the spelt flavors. If you didn't get enough cherries, it was a decent dinner roll.

I liked them but I think there are better ways to implent this. First, it was a light, wet batter which I think would work well for pancakes, especially the stuffed varieties. Baking these without the papers reminded me of the stuffed pancakes using a pan like this.Instead of adding the cherries, use jam in the center. But if I was to stick to muffins, I would probably go more to the savory ingredients. When I worked at the Deli, we had a bacon and cheese muffin that I think would work well using spelt.

Cherry Spelt Muffins

Makes about 12 muffins

2 1/4 cups spelt flour
1 Tbls. baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup wheat bran
1/4 cup (packed) light brown sugar
3 large eggs
1 1/4 cup buttermilk
2 tsp. vanilla
1 cup dried cherries
2 Tbls. Kirschwasser
2 Tbls. tart cherry juice

Preheat the oven to 425° F.

Soak the cherries in the Kirschwasser and tart cherry juice for up to an hour before using. Do not get rid of the liquid when you are done soaking the cherries.

Combine the eggs, vanilla, and buttermilk in a bowl, mix well, and set aside.

In a large bowl, combine the dry ingredients (all the remaining ingredients except the cherries) and whisk to combine. Now add in the cherries and give a quick stir to cover with the flour mixture. Finally, add the wet ingredients to the flour mixture and stir until everything is just mixed. Don't over mix.

Spoon the mixture into greased muffin cups. Fill each to the top and mound slightly in the center if possible.

Bake for 16-20 minutes. About halfway through, rotate the pan 180°. The muffins are done when a cake tester comes out clean and they spring back when pressed lightly. Remove from the oven, let cool in the pan for about 5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool.

Healthier Blackberry Oat Muffins

The second baked good in the Easter basket was a version of my blackberry oat muffins. My mother had commented on how they sounded good the first time I made them so I included them this time, but with a little twist. This recipe I tried reducing the oil and sugar a little bit. I like the original batch I did but I wanted to see if I couldn't reduce some of the ingredients I thought might have used a little too much of. Well, that and I wanted to switch this to use buttermilk instead of whole milk.

I thought these muffins were pretty good. Seemed very similar to the first batch. My parents loved them and we got compliments from Lorrie's cousin.

I did try this batch again later and they didn't turn out. Basically they were overmixed and then overbaked so be careful of both (besides being bad for muffins in general overmixing made this recipe purple from the blackberries, which then meant it really didn't brown until it was way past done). I knew better but went ahead and did it anyway.



Blackberry Oat Muffins
differences from the original recipe are highlighted

Makes about 12 muffins

3 1/2 cups (11 3/8 oz) oat flour
1 cup (3 1/2 oz) instant oats
1 Tbls. baking powder
1 1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. salt
2/3 cup (4 3/4 oz) sugar
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 cup buttermilk
2 large eggs
1 cup roughly chopped blackberries

Preheat the oven to 425° F.

Combine the eggs, oil, and milk in a bowl, mix well, and set aside.

In a large bowl, combine the dry ingredients (all the remaining ingredients except the blackberries) and whisk to combine. Now add in the blackberries and give a quick stir to cover with the flour mixture. Finally, add the wet ingredients to the flour mixture and stir until everything is just mixed. Don't over mix.

Spoon the mixture into greased or paper-lined muffin cups. Fill each to the top and mound slightly in the center if possible.

Bake for 16-20 minutes. About halfway through, rotate the pan 180°. The muffins are done when a cake tester comes out clean and they spring back when pressed lightly. Remove from the oven, let cool in the pan for about 5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool.

Easter Bunny Cupcakes

If you came to my site on Easter (or scrolled down a bit I guess), you were greeted by a picture of the finished army of these cupcakes. This was the first part of the Easter baskets Lorrie and I created. Originally, I hadn't planned on doing these. As Easter approached I assumed I'd be doing cut-outs again in rabbit and egg shapes. I changed my plans when I decided to try to do some things with less sugar but I still wanted a couple things in the basket that still were pure, unadulterated sugared-up treats.

I used a yellow cake recipe for the cupcake base. Lorrie and my uncle can't have chocolate so that's always in the back of my mind and something I plan for. I've used this recipe before for cupcakes and I know it tastes good. Going forward though I think I will look for something else. This recipe tastes good and is easy enough to make but still it is much more dense than I would prefer. I think I can do better.

I spent a lot of time trying to think of how to decorate these. I had the idea to do an Easter basket theme right away but it was trying to figure out the execution of it that took a while. My first thought was the Peeps chicks, but when I saw the packages and the actual size of each chick, I knew there wouldn't be room for anything else. It had to be the bunnies. I liked the malted milk robin eggs over any of the jelly bean options at the store and they stayed in the theme well as the decorated eggs in the basket. The grass was something I didn't expect to find or use. I used green-dyed coconut last year for the grass and wasn't going to give it a second thought this year until I found this new candy grass right next to the Peeps at Target. Made from potato starch and corn starch, the grass really didn't have much flavor but worked as an alternative to the coconut. Plus, I hate coconut so I was really going to try anything else. I think I spent the longest time brainstorming on how to stick all this on the cupcakes. I didn't want strong flavored frostings and some just don't hold well. In the end, I used marshmallow creme as the frosting. This worked really well. A little dab on the bottom of the Peeps bunny held it in place, for the most part. The marshmallow creme as frosting actually worked very well and was rather easy to put on and spread. Much easier than some of the frostings/glazes I've used in the past. Some did dribble down the sides and it did melt slightly in the sun but really, frosting makes a mess too.


Yellow Cake
from page 352 of the The King Arthur Flour Baker's Companion: The All-Purpose Baking Cookbook

Makes 12 cupcakes

12 Tbls. (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter
1 3/4 cups (12 1/4 oz) sugar
3/4 tsp. salt
2 1/2 tsp. baking powder
2 tsp. vanilla extract
4 large eggs plus 2 yolks
2 3/4 cups (11 1/2 oz) unbleached, all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cups milk, buttermilk, or yogurt (I used buttermilk)

Preheat the oven to 350° F.

In a large bowl, cream together the sugar, butter, salt, baking powder, and vanilla until the batter is fluffy. This should take at least five minutes. Also, make sure your butter and eggs are at room temperature. This is a requirement for making a butter cake.

Add the eggs and yolks one at a time. Beat thoroughly before adding the next. Then slowly fold in a third of the flour, then half of the milk, then another third of the flour, the remaining milk, and then the last of the flour. Only stir until mixed. Overmixing will reduce the volume of air trapped in the butter and sugar.

Pour into your greased or paper-lined cake pans or cupcake pans. Cooking times vary by shape but the cupcakes took about twenty-five to thirty minutes and rotate the pan 180° about twelve minutes in. Cool in the pan for about five minutes for cupcakes and ten minutes for a cake and place on a wire rack to cool completely.

Easter Baskets

Lorrie likes to bring little baskets of gifts when we visit family and of course, I enjoy baking something for it. Easter is definitely one of those times. Last year's baskets were collections of sugar cookie cut-outs in Easter themed shapes. Rabbits with green-dyed coconut for grass, Easter bunnies with licorice whiskers and candy eyes, robin eggs, etc. (I took pictures but only one turned out.) But my dad is diabetic and a dozen sugar cookie makes me feel like a bit of an enabler.

So this year, I tried some different things in the baskets. A couple of 'Easter basket' cupcakes, a version of the Blackberry Oat muffins, and something new, a Cherry Spelt muffin. A couple of sweet things but a little more healthy and a lot less sugary. Other things in the basket to round it out were a small stuffed animal and a Peeps candy container filled with sugar-free jelly beans.

Happy Easter

from the Peeps bunny army!

March 2007 Just Baking Round-Up

My "Look, I post somewhere else" round-up of posts I did as editor at Just Baking in March.

Mar. 2 - A Good Breakfast - Repackaged version of my Northwoods Bran Muffin post for a new audience.

Mar. 6 - Quinoa - Brief overview of Quinoa and its uses.

Mar. 14 - Something Different - Date bars. Hmmm, sounds familiar.

Mar. 15 - Help for the Beginning Baker (and Cook) - It's just amazing on what you can get free at Cook's Illustrated Online.

Mar. 28 - In The News - The latest buzz - pizza can be healthy.

Mar. 29 - Baking is Learning - I express my surprise at how well this recipe worked.

Mar. 30 - A Phenomenon Reexamined - The news about how to make healthier pizza made me think of another news event.

I had a very busy month.


*Update* - As Just Baking no longer exists, I have removed the actual links but left the post names as a source for ideas

Peanut Brittle

I've been waiting for a chance to try this recipe from Kate Zuckerman's book The Sweet Life: Desserts from Chanterelle, and a "Food Day" at work tomorrow is the perfect excuse. I like this book a lot; it's well written and contains a ton of information and tips. She shares the pastry chef perspective and that adds so much to a recipe that a novice like myself can understand more than just ingredients and cooking times but also methodology, presentation, and repeatability.

This recipe is a perfect example. Just about every peanut brittle recipe I've seen is basically boiling the sugar, adding the nuts, cooling in a pan, and then breaking into pieces. No frills. The steps Kate lays out allow for variation at certain places while still maintaining your ability to recreate a well-finished piece. Cooling the caramel and grinding it allows you to change nuts within the same batch. Want to do some almond and some peanut? No problem. Another benefit of grinding? It gives you more control over what the final product will look like so you can make circles or tubes instead of broken glass-like pieces. That's just a great way to impress your friends.

Following this recipe made me feel more like a "chef" than a cook, if I may be so bold so obviously I can't recommend this book enough.


Thin and Delicate Peanut Brittle
from page 204 of the The Sweet Life: Desserts from Chanterelleby Kate Zuckerman

1 cup sugar
1/3 cup water
1/8 tsp. cream of tartar
1/2 cup ground peanuts
1/4 tsp. finely ground sea salt

Preheat the oven to 350° F and prepare a 11"x17" baking pan with parchment, nonstick baking pad, or aluminum foil.

In a small, heavy-bottomed pan combine the water, sugar, and cream of tartar and heat over high heat. When the mixture begins a rolling boil, reduce the heat to about medium-high. Once the color changes to a golden brown caramel color, remove from the heat and pour into the prepared pan to cool.

Once the caramel has cooled, break it up into small pieces. Use a food processor or coffee grinder to grind the caramel into a fine table sugarlike consistency. Combine this with the ground peanuts.

Prepare your baking pan again. Pour this mixture into the prepared pan and spread very thin (1/8 inch thick). Bake the candy for about 4-6 minutes, until it melts and bubbles. Remove from the oven and evenly sprinkle the salt over the candy. Let cool and break into pieces to serve.

This will keep for up to 2 weeks in a sealed container in a cool, dry place. Humidity will rob this brittle of its crunch.

Irish Dairy Bread

I believe this is the first time I've recognized St. Patrick's Day by baking something instead of drinking something. Previous celebrations took place in various drinking establishments, the best being a little country bar just north of Milwaukee actually owned by an Irishman and not some dork wearing a plastic green hat and calling himself "O'Lucas" all night. But hanging out at Finbar's wasn't about getting drunk. You were there with friends, having a great time, enjoying the atmosphere of real Irish music and food.

Now one of the things you may get during an Irish meal is a couple of pieces of soda bread. This bread is dense but tasty and requires few ingredients and just a little bit of time to make. The leavening is performed by the reaction between buttermilk and baking soda so there's no yeast and no waiting for the dough to rise. I have to admit I was impressed how much this bread rose too. Many muffins use the same buttermilk-baking soda reaction but they don't double in height like this bread did (near the end off baking it came dangerously close to the rack above it).


Irish Dairy Bread
from page 122 of the The King Arthur Flour Baker's Companion: The All-Purpose Baking Cookbook

Makes one 9-inch loaf

4 cups (17 oz) unbleached all-purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon unsalted butter at room temperature
1 1/2 cups buttermilk

Preheat the oven to 375° F and prepare a baking sheet or cast-iron pot by lightly flouring it.

In a large bowl combine the flour, baking soda, and salt and whisk together thoroughly. Add the butter and distribute the butter evenly through the flour mixture. Create a hole in the center of the flour and pour the buttermilk into it. Stir to combine the ingredients.

Take the dough out of the bowl and knead on a lightly floured surface. Once the dough comes together, form a ball and then press down until it is about 1.5 to 2 inches thick. Cut an "X" into the top and place in the pan. If you are using a cast-iron pot with a lid, put the lid on. Bake in the oven for 35 minutes (for baking sheet) to 40 minutes (for cast-iron pot). Once done, cool on a wire rack. Do not cut until completely cooled.

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I've submitted this to Zorra of 1x umrühren bitte and her St. Pat's Day: Green or Irish round-up. I found this blog when I first started reading food blogs, it always has great pictures of bread which I imagine probably taste pretty good too. She also has many of these events, with my favorite, the culinary Advent calender (2005 and 2006).

Blackberry Oat Muffins

A couple of weeks ago, the question was posed to Lorrie on what she would do if she couldn't have wheat and would have to lead a gluten-free lifestyle. She loves bread and pasta and she thought it definitely would be very tough. I don't think she was aware of all the resources available online with recommendations and recipes for gluten-free food. So my next trip to the store, I picked up some gluten-free flours. Oat flour was among them. Now I was thinking that since oats aren't wheat, that means gluten-free. I went ahead and made these muffins, thinking I was making something without gluten. Later, after talking to Lorrie about bringing some in for a coworker with Celiac Disease, I double-checked the recipe and the ingredients to be sure. I was using Bob's Red Mill oat flour and when I examined the package, I couldn't find the gluten-free blurb. I thought this was odd and went to the website and found they did not consider it to be gluten-free. Apparently Bob's has a whole facility devoted to gluten-free products and oats are not processed there so their oats are processed in the same facility as wheat, thus contaminating them. I learned something new.

These muffins came out great. Slightly dense and moist, the flavor was wonderful. The blackberry and oat flavors complimented each other well. I had mentioned to Lorrie that she can take them to work and she told me no, we would be keeping these to ourselves. We did and I don't feel bad about that at all.


Blackberry Oat Muffins

Makes about 12-14 muffins

3 1/2 cups oat flour
1 cup instant oats
1 Tbls. baking powder
1 1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. salt
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 cup whole milk
2 large eggs
1 cup roughly chopped blackberries

Preheat the oven to 425° F.

Combine the eggs, oil, and milk in a bowl, mix well, and set aside.

In a large bowl, combine the dry ingredients (all the remaining ingredients except the blackberries) and whisk to combine. Now add in the blackberries and give a quick stir to cover with the flour mixture. Finally, add the wet ingredients to the flour mixture and stir until everything is just mixed. Don't over mix.

Spoon the mixture into greased or paper-lined muffin cups. Fill each to the top and mound slightly in the center if possible.

Bake for 16-20 minutes. About halfway through, rotate the pan 180°. The muffins are done when a cake tester comes out clean and they spring back when pressed lightly. Remove from the oven, let cool in the pan for about 5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool.

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These muffins were submitted to Sweetnick's for her ARF/5-A-Day Tuesday feature. This is also now a post at Just Baking as well.

Biscuits in a box

A while back an activist blogger made some disparaging remarks about a fellow blogger's site. Specifically about the site's subject, Rachel Ray. You don't have to love Rachel (or Sandra or Paula or Emeril etc.), but making comments like that blogger did in a public forum was uncalled for. She had her own blog; she should do it there. Well, the same thing bothered Mimi at French Kitchen in America, who declared March 15th "Biscuit Baking Mix Day" and this is my entry.

I thought I would do some variations of biscuits, nothing too complex. I always liked the sweet biscuits - cinnamon, raisins, lots of frosting so that was my direction. Now, one had to be apple, my favorite fruit. The other one, peach, was inspired by a post I read the other day.

The apple was a Granny Smith, the Bisquick mix was the regular one, and I tried a new Amish, non-homogenized, organic milk. The apple cinnamon is the one with the darker glaze, the "Peaches and Cream" biscuit has the lighter glaze, and the biscuit in the background is the regular biscuit just prior to it being smothered in sausage gravy.

Both biscuits turned out well. The biscuits themselves were a little flour-y and needed the glaze to get each fruit's full flavor.

Apple Cinnamon Biscuits

For Biscuits
3 cups Bisquick Mix
1 cup diced apples
2/3 cup milk
1 1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1 Tbls. sugar

For glaze
1 cup powdered sugar
1/4 tsp. cinnamon
apple cider

Preheat the oven to 450° F and prepare 2 baking sheets if you are doing small biscuits. Combine all biscuit ingredients in a medium bowl and turn out onto board "floured" with Biquick mix. Knead 10 times. Roll out the dough to about a half inch thickness and cut with a biscuit cutter. I used the smallest from my set (1 1/2 inch I believe) for a more bite-size biscuits.

Bake for 10 minutes. About halfway through, rotate the pans 180° and switch the pans on the racks. The biscuits are done when they are a golden brown. Remove from the oven, let cool in the pan for a minute or two, then transfer to a wire rack to cool.

Mix the powdered sugar and cinnamon and then add the apple cider until the glaze reaches the consistency you would like. Dribble the glaze over the biscuits.


"Peaches and Cream" Biscuits

For Biscuits
3 cups Bisquick Mix
1 cup diced fresh peaches
2/3 cup plain yogurt
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
2 Tbls. sugar

For glaze
1 cup powdered sugar
peach juice

Preheat the oven to 450° F and prepare 2 baking sheets if you are doing small biscuits. Combine all biscuit ingredients in a medium bowl and turn out onto board "floured" with Biquick mix. Knead 10 times. Roll out the dough to about a half inch thickness and cut with a biscuit cutter. I used the smallest from my set (1 1/2 inch I believe) for a more bite-size biscuits.

Bake for 10 minutes. About halfway through, rotate the pans 180° and switch the pans on the racks. The biscuits are done when they are a golden brown. Remove from the oven, let cool in the pan for a minute or two, then transfer to a wire rack to cool.

In a small bowl put the powdered sugar and then add the peach juice until the glaze reaches the consistency you would like. Dribble the glaze over the biscuits.

Who eats all the stuff you make?

I get asked this question occasionally from friends who've seen the site. Sometimes it's me and Lorrie. More often than not though, it's Lorrie's coworkers. They get many of the bars, cookies, muffins, and candies I make. Some of the things were made specifically to celebrate some achievement at work for Lorrie, like the orange cookies in the picture. Others were just recipes I wanted to try or an item I needed to make for another site, like the heart cake.
Don't get me wrong, Lorrie and I get our share but neither of us want 2 dozen cookies sitting around just begging to be eaten!

But there is an additional benefit for me. Feedback. How things taste, how they look, etc., I hear what they liked and what they didn't. I can't do better without it.

Thank you. It really is appreciated.