Daring Bakers Caramel Cake

This month the Daring Bakers were hosted by Delores of Culinary Curiosity, Alex of The Blondie and the Brownie, Jenny of Foray into Food, and the lovely Natalie of Gluten a Go Go helped with the alternative Daring Baker side of things. We made a Caramel Cake created by Shuna Fish Lydon. Her recipe can be found here.

I wanted to like this cake. I mean brown butter and caramel sounds amazing. I was excited to make this cake and it's been done for weeks. But as reports from other Daring Bakers trickled in about it being mighty sweet, I got worried. Then I started thinking that maybe if I made tiny little bite sized petit fours I could handle the sweetness. Unfortunately no. These were far too sweet for me of the Brain and eventually most of it went trashward bound. The frosting was simple, and the salt made it excellent, but it was super sweet and on top of a sweet cake it was a bit of overkill. I even tried pouring some very dark chocolate over the top to cut how sweet they are a bit. But that only made them seem sweeter in contrast.

I think I would make the cake again. And I probably would make the frosting again, but I wouldn't make them together.

Make sure you check out the rest of the Daring Bakers!

Bond, Butterfly, An Apron and a Meme

OK, so this was a bit of a big weekend for me. I didn't cook a damn thing. And dinner tonight, although fairly tasty wasn't anything terribly exciting and so there's no food being posted today. Instead I'm going to let you know what happened this past weekend and fill you in on my ideas about Thanksgiving. And yeah this one's a little long, so you may want to go get a snack or something.

First this weekend I went and saw Madame Butterfly at the Michigan Opera Theatre with my best friend T. I'd like to say we had a lovely time and really enjoyed ourselves. Butterfly is actually one of my favorite operas and although this is the first time I've seen it live, I have seen it on PBS. Really PBS is a great place to catch an opera. The singing was absolutely beautiful as the Michigan Opera Theatre usually has a good show. The scenery was another story. The entire opera was set in the house that Pinkerton buys for himself and his Geisha bride Butterfly (Cio Cio San). This house is supposed to be up on a high hill that faces the ocean. The problem was there was a walkway set high up on this hill for the actors to get to the house. From our fairly cheap balcony seats, it was difficult to see what action was actually going on on that walkway. Mostly we could only see mid-calf and below of actors on that walkway. Memo to opera scenery group: Test out what the balcony people can see when designing a set. The other problem was that people continued to be sat for the first 15 minutes of the opera. While I understand that unforeseen circumstances happen, I just don't get how people can feel justified crawling over me to get to their seats because they just couldn't get to the opera anywhere near when it actually started. And this happened a LOT on Friday. My friend and I got climbed over and missed a bit. The people in front of us got climbed over and we missed a bit. And two rows in front of them got climbed over too. Then the guy behind us started opening bags of potato chips (we know because he littered the opera house floor with them). My friend T. and I came away really discouraged with how inconsiderate some people are.

OK, so sorry about the rant. Then we went and saw the new James Bond movie and all I can say is Daniel Craig is freakin' HOT. Like sizzling hot. Before I was uninterested in him as James Bond and now I'm regretting not actually having watched Casino Royale. Oh yeah, and if I had watched Casino Royale I might have a better idea about the plot of this one. I really liked the pissed off, butt kicking Latino woman too. And I thought the villain (Mr. Greene) was nice and sniveling. The naked girl drenched in oil was slightly reminiscent of the gold girl in Goldfinger, but overall there really wasn't enough sex. It's a Bond movie for crying out loud. There's supposed to be loads of sexy scenes. Have I mentioned Daniel Craig is dreamy? He's bumped Matthew McConaughey for the top spot in my head.

Also at my mom's this weekend I made a pretty fun apron.

Here's a lovely photo of my mom modeling it. She's trying to look domestic. Even though she doesn't cook, somehow we always get photos of her in the kitchen. You'll have to check Mom's blog for a photo of me. She does wash dishes. Unfortunately, my stepdad (who does the cooking) had to have surgery today. He came out of it just fine, but now he's got to deal with my mom and her ubiquitous stir frying until he's fully recuperated. They do have a plan for Thanksgiving though. They've ordered it from Bob Evans.

And finally, Amanda has tagged me for a Thanksgiving Meme. I'm not sure who has time to do it with all the cooking coming up, so I'm not tagging anyone specifically, but instead I tag people generally. If you'd like to do it, go ahead!

1.) Which do you like better, hosting Thanksgiving at home or going elsewhere?

Um I used to like hosting Thanksgiving in my home, but given the number of people I'd have to invite if I hosted, I'm now preferring to go elsewhere.

2.) Do you buy a fresh or frozen turkey? Organic? Free Range?

I buy whatever is cheapest and not injected with anything. Which most often is frozen. However I just learned last week that most of those frozen turkeys come from somewhere around here so I may find a fresh one next year.

3.) Do you make stuffing or dressing? What kind?

I make this Betty Crocker stuffing. And I love it.

4.) Sweet potato or pumpkin pie?

Neither. I don't like pie. I did make a pumpkin mousse one year. Pumpkin ice cream is good too.

5.) Are leftovers a blessing or a curse?

Blessing. Definitely.

6.) What side dishes are a must in your family?

Salad. I just don't understand big family meals without a salad. I'm just weird that way.

7.) What do you wish you had that might make Thanksgiving easier?

A Viking 6 burner stove. Or a turkey baster.

8.) If/When you go to someone else's house for the holiday, do you bring a dish? If so what is it?

Um. Salad. And wine.

9.) What do you wish one of your guests would bring to your house?

Booze. There's always room for more booze. Or pie. Other people seem to like pie and I'm pretty bad at making it.

10.) What do you wish one of your guests would NOT bring to your house?

Olives. I hate them. They give me the heeby jeebies.

11.) Do you stick with a particular menu from year to year, or do you mix it up?

I go with how I'm feeling. There's no hard and fast rules except that one about having to have salad.

12.) Is Thanksgiving a religious or secular holiday in your home?

I think it's both. We celebrate family (secular) and we definitely thank God for our blessings.

13) Share one Thanksgiving tradition.

I have no Thanksgiving traditions. Unless you count thanking God for my blessings.

14.) Share one Thanksgiving memory.

When I lived in Chicago, I didn't go home for Thanksgiving because I was on a budget that didn't afford trips home. So I would cook Thanksgiving dinner for any of my friends who also couldn't make it home. One year, my friend Scott, my friend Amy, and I had Thanksgiving. There was far too much food to all fit on the table and we pulled up a coffee table and filled that full of food too. We ate and drank wine and laughed ourselves silly for hours. It was the Thanksgiving that taught me that friends can be a family too.

15.) Name 5 things your are thankful for.

-my very sweet and oh so sexy husband who I love very much.

-that my stepdad is going to be just fine.

-that my baby sister Super G. is a math teacher and that she helps me with my homework all the time.

-my very supportive family.

-that I have everything I really need.

Pumpkin Rice Pudding

Inspired by those Tuesdays with Dorrie girls who have inundated the Internet with their chocolate and vanilla rice puddings, I have made some Pumpkin Rice Pudding. It's really good. Comforting and homey. It makes the snow that nailed us again last night seem not too bad. This rice pudding also isn't nutritionally defunct. There's pumpkin and that adds some really good vitamins. It is a vegetable after all. I made it with 1% milk instead of whole milk and there's no butter in it. I'm not sure if there's usually butter in rice pudding, but anytime I don't cook with butter it could be seen as a lighter meal.

And now there's some leftover pumpkin puree in the fridge. Which will always remind me of the time my sister M. came home after work and reached for the pumpkin in the fridge thinking it was leftover sweet potatoes. The next morning she told us that the sweet potatoes we made for dinner were really bland. We laughed pretty hard once we figured out what she was talking about. We had baked sweet potatoes with dinner. So now every time I put pumpkin in a container in the fridge I giggle and think of M.

Pumpkin Rice Pudding

loosely adapted from Pumpkin A Super Food for All 12 Months of the Year

5 cups 1% milk

1/2 cup arborio rice

1/2 cup canned unsweetened pumpkin

1/3 cup sugar

1 cinnamon stick

1/4 tsp salt

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla

Heat the milk, rice, pumpkin, sugar, cinnamon stick, and salt in a large heavy-bottomed saucepan over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until tiny bubbles form around the edge of the pan and steam rises.

Reduce heat to low and gently cook, uncovered, for about an hour and rice is tender and pudding is thick. Stir frequently (with a wooden spoon with a flat bottom if you have one.)

Beat the egg with a fork in a small bowl. Spoon some of the pudding into the egg. Slowly add this egg mixture to the pudding, stirring constantly and keeping the heat low. Cook for 1 to 2 more minutes, or until the pudding thickens some more.

Remove from heat and stir in the vanilla. Cool slightly before chilling completely.

Country Lima Beans

Call me nutty, but all week I've been craving baked beans. I even went on line and starting searching for good baked bean type recipes. This week I was determined to make some kind of baked beans for Legume Wednesday. Then I got sort of sidetracked playing Scramble in Facebook. It's like playing Boggle. Remember Boggle where you have to shake the thing up and you get a grid of letters and you have to write down all the words you can find where the letters are all connected? My sister M. is a whiz at it. I am not. But I find it far more addictive than solitaire (which any given day you can find my mom playing when she's not quilting or sewing or blogging.)

So while working my way through some of the three pound bag of tortilla chips that we got as part of our Costco bounty and we've been nibbling on pretty steady for the last 2 weeks, I decided I didn't want a sweet baked bean recipe. I wanted something warm and comforting and mushy, but not sweet and still really tasty. Et VOILA! I found these lovely Country Lima Beans from the good people at Cooking Light. Whew! I sort of just happened to have big dried Lima beans in my bean cupboard and I didn't actually have to go out and buy any ingredients. Which undoubtedly would have taken away from my Scramble playing time...

Country Lima Beans

from Cooking Light

2 cups dried large Lima beans

1 tsp salt

1 1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper

3 bacon slices, chopped

1 medium onion, chopped

2 medium carrots, finely chopped

3 1/2 cups water

2 Tbsp butter, softened

Sort and wash beans; place in a large Dutch oven. Cover with water to 2 inches above beans; cover and let stand 8 hours or overnight. Drain the beans. Return beans to pan.

Preheat oven to 300 degrees F.

Cook bacon slices in a large nonstick skillet over medium heat until crisp. Remove bacon from pan with a slotted spoon; set bacon aside. Add onion and carrot to drippings in pan; saute 5 minutes or until golden. Add onion mixture, bacon, 3 1/2 cups water, and butter to bean mixture in Dutch oven; stir well. Cover and bake at 300 degrees for 2 1/2 hours or until beans are tender. Stir every half hour adding more water if necessary and adding salt and pepper in final half hour.

Hot Chocolate

Because when I woke up it looked like this outside...

and it hasn't melted.

I'm thinking I might have to declare the rosemary bush a loss, but I have some good ideas from Jennie at Straight From the Farm about how maybe to keep it going all winter. I'm also wondering how I'm going to get my bulbs in the ground. We don't usually get lake effect snow, so getting this much snow this early was a touch of a surprise. The nearest "big" city got 6 inches, but I'm thinking we got maybe 4.

I get to drive the 40 miles to school soon and I haven't wormed up yet. So I made myself this yummy hot cocoa and I should be warm in no time! And the nice thing about this particular recipe besides the hint of cinnamon is that I don't have to choose between enjoying a cup of hot cocoa OR eating. It's fairly low calorie so I can do both. Yay!


Hot Chocolate
adapted from Ellie Krieger
serves 1


1 cup milk
1 cinnamon stick
1 Tbsp Hershey's Special Dark unsweetened cocoa powder
1 Tbsp sugar
1 Tbsp water
15 mini marshmallows


Heat the milk and the cinnamon stick in a small saucepan until just simmering. In a mug, combine the cocoa, sugar and water and stir to make a paste. Remove the cinnamon stick from the milk. Pour the milk into the mug and stir to mix well. Add the vanilla extract and stir. Place as many marshmallows as you like in the hot chocolate and eat the rest.

Ciabatta (poolish version)

Today, I'm mighty thankful that there is an offshoot of the Cleveland Public Library in the county north of me and that I get to check books out of it. See it has a pretty extensive cookbook selection that serves as a happy compromise (most of the time) between me wanting to buy new cookbooks and the Brain wanting me not to buy new cookbooks all the time. Really. I haven't bought a new cookbook in months. Which is good, because really our cozy little house doesn't have room for more cookbooks. So this week I went up to the library and found a book that I've asked for for Christmas. Yes, I get my letter to Santa out WAY early.

The book I checked out is Peter Reinhart's The Bread Baker's Apprentice. So why did I check it out if I want it for Christmas? Well, because I have his Whole Grain Breads and frankly, it intimidates me and I was nervous that this book might be too difficult for me. Although the more bread I make, the less nervous I get. And I am now happy to report, I REALLY want this book for Christmas. Especially because I followed the advice of my absolute favorite alternative baker Speedbump Kitchen (I so love love love her blog and it's a tremendous resource for anyone dealing with an allergy) who told me that I can get instant yeast at GFS. Hooray! I now have instant yeast! (She also told me about Peter Reinhart's Pizza book and I want that too. And a pizza stone. Oh the list really could be endless...)

So the nice thing about The Bread Baker's Apprentice is that it's very good for semi-obsessive compulsive people like myself who happen also to be sort of science geeks and math nerds. The directions are very explicit. Well except for the sticky dough versus tacky dough comments. I really don't understand the difference. But I followed the directions and have eaten some mighty delicious Ciabatta bread. Okay, maybe I've eaten more than necessary. Maybe I should stop eating it so that the Brain can taste it.

And yes, it's a long recipe. And you might want to go check it out at your local library, or buy the book so that you can see the photos and learn in detail about what specifically to do.

Ciabbata Bread

from The Bread Baker's Apprentice

Poolish:

2 1/2 cups unbleached bread flour

1 1/2 cups water at room temperature

1/4 tsp instant yeast

Stir together flour, water, and yeast in a mixing bowl until all of the flour is hydrated. The dough should be soft and sticky and look like very thick pancake batter. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and ferment at room temperature for 3 to 4 hours, or until the sponge becomes bubbly and foamy. Immediately refrigerate it. It will keep for up to 3 days in the refrigerator.

Ciabatta:

3 1/4 cups poolish (all of the recipe previous)

3 cups unbleached bread flour

1 3/4 tsp salt

1 1/2 tsp instant yeast

6 Tbsp water, lukewarm (between 90 and 100 degrees F.)

cornmeal for dusting

1. Remove poolish from refrigerator 1 hour before making the dough to take the chill off.

2. To make the dough, stir together the flour, salt, and yeast in a 4 quart mixing bowl. Add the poolish and the 6 Tbsp of water. Mix in a stand mixer on medium speed with the paddle attachment for 5 to 7 minutes, or as long as it takes to create a smooth, sticky dough. Switch to the dough hook for the final 2 minutes of mixing. The dough should clear the sides of the bowl but stick to the bottom of the bowl. You may need to add additional flour to firm up the dough enough to clear the sides of the bowl, but the dough should still be quite soft and sticky.

3. Sprinkle enough flour on the counter to make a bed about 8 inches square. Using a bowl scraper or spatula dipped in water, transfer the sticky dough to the bed of flour and dust the top liberally with flour patting the dough into a rectangle. Wait 2 minutes for the dough to relax. Coat your hands with flour and lift the dough from each end, stretching it to twice its size. Fold the dough over itself, letter style, to return it to a rectangular shape. Mist the top of the dough with spray oil, again dust with flour, and loosely cover with plastic wrap or a food grade plastic bag.

4. Let rest for 30 minutes. Stretch and fold the dough again the same as step 3; mist with spray oil, dust with flour, and cover. Allow the covered dough to ferment on the counter for 1 1/2 to 2 hours. It should swell but not necessarily double in size.

5. Prepare two baking sheets by lining them with parchment paper, spraying with oil and dusting with cornmeal. Carefully remove the plastic wrap from the dough and proceed to shape the dough. Using a pastry scraper that has been dipped in water, divide the dough into 2 or 3 rectangles, taking care not to degas the dough. Sprinkle the dough generously with more flour and, using the scraper to get under the dough, gently lift each piece from the counter and then roll it on both sides in the loose flour to coat. Lay 2 loaves on one baking sheet and the third on the other baking sheet. Gently fold each piece of dough, from left to right, letter style into and oblong about 6 inches long.

6. Proof for 45 to 60 minutes at room temperature, or until the dough has noticeably swelled.

7. Prepare a hearth oven by placing an empty heavy duty pan on an upper rack and a baking stone or baking tiles on a lower rack. If you don't have a baking stone or tiles, you can bake on a baking sheet. Preheat the oven to 500 degrees F.

8. Generously dust a peel or the back of a sheet pan with cornmeal and very gently transfer the dough pieces to the peel or pan, using the pastry scraper if you need support. Lift the dough from each end and tug the dough out to a length of 9 to 12 inches. If the dough bulges too high in the middle, gently dimple it down with your fingertips to even out the height of the loaf. Slide the 2 doughs (or bake one at a time if you prefer) onto the baking stone (or bake directly on the sheet pan.) Pour 1 cup hot water into the steam pan and close the door. After 30 seconds, open the door, spray the side walls of the oven with water, and close the door. Repeat twice more at 30 second intervals. After the final spray, turn the oven setting to 450 degrees F. and bake for 10 minutes. Rotate the loaves 180 degrees, if necessary, foreven baking and continue baking for 5 to 10 minutes longer, or until done. The bread should register 205 degrees F. in the center and should be golden in color (but the flour streaks will also give it a dusty look). The loaves will feel quite hard and crusty at first but will soften as they cool.

9. Transfer the bread from the oven to a cooling rack and allow to cool for at least 45 minutes before slicing and serving.

Cranberry Merlot Sorbet

By now, you are probably a little bit tired of reading the number of things I'm grateful for. So I won't dwell on telling you why I'm grateful that in order to go to Target, or Meijer's, or Starbucks in the "big" city in the county north of me I have to pass farmland, one herd of sheep, and two herds of cows. I just am. It makes me happy.

What I will elaborate on is that I was reading an article a couple days ago about stress and gratitude. I can't seem to find the article anymore so I may have read it in the line at the grocery or in the doctor's office. But the point is that it is apparently impossible to be both stressed out and grateful at the same time. I thought it was an interesting idea and I'm thinking it's been working in my life. But don't worry, I won't keep posting what I'm grateful about. That could be a bit much. I did manage to find a similar article on the web, it's a little old, but interesting none the less. Check it out here.


Another reason to be grateful is that Trader Joe's sells a pretty cheap, ($3 if you want to travel all the way to Cleveland), but drinkable wine called Charles Shaw (Two Buck Chuck for those in the know). This wine, in the Merlot variety, really sent my cranberry sorbet over the moon! Somehow a Dinner of Giving Thanks doesn't seem right without the cranberry in it somewhere. I admit it. I love the jellied cranberry stuff that comes out in the shape of the can. But I just didn't feel like eating the leftovers of it. Besides I tried the cranberry sorbet out of The Ultimate Ice Cream Book for a Christmas dessert a while back and while it was tasty I wanted to take it up a notch. So I followed Bruce Weinstein's instructions for the Spiced Cranberry Sorbet and then added my good buddy Chuck to give it a zing. Wheeee! Yummy this is good. It's something to be grateful for.

Cranberry Merlot Sorbet
adapted from The Ultimate Ice Cream Book

1/2 pound fresh cranberries (about 2 cups)
1 cup plus 2 Tbsp sugar
1 1/2 cups Merlot
1 cup water
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground cloves
zest of 1 lemon

Place all ingredients in a large heavy saucepan. Stir over medium heat until the sugar is dissolved and the mixture comes to a simmer. Continue to cook for 2 minutes or until the cranberries pop and begin to soften. Remove from the heat and allow the cranberry mixture to cool slightly.

Puree in a blender. If necessary, do this in 2 batches. Pass the puree through a sieve to remove the skins. The puree will be thick and may need to be pushed through using a wooden spoon. Cover and refrigerate overnight.

Stir the chilled mixture and then freeze in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer's instructions.