A taste of Edinburgh

J: Jalapeno-Cornmeal Bread

So I have to admit that I was not really looking forward to making a recipe that starts with the letter 'J'.  All I could find in my collection were things with jam or jalapenos, and I just was not feeling either.  In the end I decided to make this jalapeno-cornmeal bread because most of the entries on Alphabake so far have been for desserts and I thought it was a good idea to place a savoury option into the mix. The recipe once again comes from my Williams-Sonoma Baking Book: Essential Recipes for Today's Home Baker --usually a reliable source with lots of choices. The recipe was originally for muffins but I did not have the proper tin so I made a loaf instead.  I did not alter the oven temperature or the baking time and it still cooked thoroughly.


I think the bread turned out quite nicely but, like all cornbread I have tried in the past, I think it needed some sort of accompaniment whether it was soup or chili or butter (my room-mate recommended mayonnaise).  The jalapeno really gives it a spicy kick but adding a bit of cheese to the batter might give it an even nicer flavour. 

I: Ice Cream Sundae Brownies

I had a very lovely Valentine's Day this year. I got to spend it with my boyfriend whom I've been with since forever. His name is Stomach. We went on our traditional Valentine's double date with our two best friends, Ice-Cream and Brownie.  This year those two had some big news: THEY GOT HITCHED!!!

What actually happened was that I made a lovely 'singles' meal with my roommates.  The menu included a hearty salad and pasta dish with a scrumptious batch of Ice Cream Sundae Brownies ( la pièce de résistance ) for dessert. And please understand that these are not regular brownies with a scoop of ice cream on the side--the ice cream gets included in the batter, creating an even more fudgilicious and decadent texture...AMAZING!!!!!!!!!    

This week I opted to not make the letter 'I' recipe I had previously selected from one of my cookbooks. I did not find it particularly interesting and it was not as fitting for Valentine's Day as these brownies.  Instead I decided to adapt a recipe I found on another food blog called Picky Palate. It is a really easy, time saving recipe because it uses brownie mix from the box which was great since I was planning on making multiple dishes that evening. I made a few changes from the blogger's original recipe:

1) Her recipe requested more oil and an extra egg than the instructions on my box of brownie mix. At first I was not sure if we were using a different type of mix or if she made these changes in order to adapt the recipe to the inclusion of the ice cream. She also did not include any water (because of the ice cream) but I added a little bit otherwise it would have been impossible to mix.

2)   I chopped a block of chocolate into big pieces instead of using chocolate chips. The chocolate doesn't really melt in the brownies so it was nice finding big chunks of it when taking a bite.  

3) I didn't add any chocolate fudge sauce. I didn't have any available and although this might have been a tasty addition, the brownies were so fudgy and barely baked on the inside as is.

4) She used Ben and Jerry's Phish Food ice cream. I used a triple chocolate flavour but I think you can really play around with that if you want to.

5) I topped them with a sprinkle of icing sugar--do it!

These were so amazing paired with raspberries. They are the perfect comfort food for winter and I suggest you don't wait until next Valentine's Day to try them. Enjoy!

A taste of Glasgow

At the moment I am really lucky that I have four-day weekends and that I am somewhere in the world where the distance between destinations is relatively small.  I hope to do a bit of travelling while I am in Europe and I thought I would experiment with a section on this blog that would be a photo diary dedicated to the things I see.  This post has very little to do with food and might be a bit off topic for Alphabake, but there is a lot I want to share, including these photos from my day trip to Glasgow. I hope you enjoy them!     

 

H: Hazelnut Dacquoises

Last weekend I had a lovely time in Manchester where I was visiting my friends Ailsa and Dave. It was so nice catching up and just taking it easy. They were also pet sitting so there were lots of cuddles to go around from Monty the cat and Mia the dog. I didn't get a chance to do any baking that weekend but thankfully I have a recipe and evidential photos for the hazelnut dacquoises I made a few weeks back when I was still in London. 

Once again I paid a visit to the pages of The Williams-Sonoma Baking Book: Essential Recipes for Today's Home Baker for this recipe. It is a really good book with a diverse selection of dishes (that all start with a variety of letters in the alphabet--perfect!) so it will probably be featured on here a few more times.  In this version of the recipe the dacquoises are prepared like cookies but there are recipes around where single tart-shape is formed; I am not sure which version is more traditional.
 
A more detailed description of this version is that it is a sandwich of two meringues with a hazelnut flavoured pastry cream in the centre. The yield is only 8 cookies (16 meringues) and although they were delicious, a lot of effort went into making them. One has to roast and de-skin the hazelnuts, bake the meringues, cook up the pastry cream, and then put everything together. When I copied down the recipe before I left home, I forgot to record the recipe for pastry cream that's at the back of the book.  Luckily I was able to find a recipe on the Williams-Sonoma website but I am not sure if it produces the same amount as the recipe in the book.  I am only mentioning this because there was A LOT of filling leftover. One is supposed to add extra ingredients to the pastry cream. It didn't seem like it was lacking in flavour but maybe it would have been better if the 'pastry cream' to 'extras' ratio was a bit higher on the 'extras' side.  So if you were to make these you could either halve the pastry cream recipe or keep it as is and just use what is leftover as topping for..say..pancakes? (mmmmmm...) Also, the recipe says to keep the dacquoises refrigerated but another option is freezing them. They are generally quite chewy but using the freezer gives them a bit of an extra crunch which is nice too.

I made these around New Year's Eve which I think was a very fitting occasion. They are decadent yet delicate and would be perfect for a holiday party. I am just a bit ashamed that I have taken so long to create a post for them. I promise that from now on I am going to try to tighten the gap in between the baking and posting processes just in case anyone in the nearby vicinity wants to try any of the leftovers. :-)

G: Goat Cheese, Leek, and Walnut Tart

My travels abroad have so far consisted of one week in London where I was staying with my friend Sarah, and the rest of the time in Edinburgh where I have started studying. Thankfully I was able to find an apartment a few days after I arrived here and, even better, it has a kitchen that is sufficiently equipped for my cooking and baking needs. There is an oven, a gas stovetop, adequate counter space, and some other convenient odds and ends.  When I was still in London I was not sure what kitchen conditions to anticipate in Edinburgh.  I thought it would be wise to get a couple of recipes under my belt before I left the comforts of Sarah’s flat so a big thanks to her and her mum for letting me do so.

 This tart (from Maxine Clark’s Tarts: Sweet and Savoury) was so flavourful and delicious and went perfectly with a nice green salad. It was very garlicky but I have a feeling I put an extra clove in (my bad) so it was good that everyone present tried a slice. There were some slight changes I had to make to the original recipe due to the absence of ingredients or tools but they had no major effect on the final result:

1) Extra virgin olive oil was used to replace the walnut oil but I am curious as to how the flavours would compare

 2) I was able to find a log of goat cheese but it had no rind. The exterior was very soft and this made it difficult to slice the cheese in symmetrical circles as the original recipe suggested. I ended up crumbling the cheese which would only be a problem if you are serving the tart to guests who are extremely picky when it comes to presentation...if that is the case I recommend rolling out some interesting shapes from any leftover puff pastry (eg. the letter G, dollar signs, a self-portrait..) to distract them from the cheese's dishevelled state J

3) When I prepared the walnut paste, I used a blender instead of a food processor.  The flat- bottomed shape of a food processor bowl and the length of the blade help evenly chop and combine all of the contents. Instead, the blender combined about half of the content into a paste and left the remaining nuts still coarsely chopped. I thought it was nice having some texture in the paste so I just gave it a stir to even it out.  If you would rather have no crunch, try chopping the walnuts as finely as possible before putting them in the blender. If you have neither a processor nor a blender, chop the nuts finely and perhaps use a little less oil.

F: Fondue

Happy New Year everyone!  I hope that you have all been enjoying 2011 so far. Very recently I flew over to the UK where I will be for a little while for school.  I have been having a nice time, catching up with old friends, and I am very excited for the possible adventures to come. I feel that working on this blog will become a bit of an adventure in itself because completing recipes with all the exact ingredients and tools will become a much greater challenge so please bear with me.

So far I have been on a slight hiatus while I have been trying to get settled here. I made the following dishes a little while ago but as a consolation there are two for the price of one! In honour of the various festivities that just passed as well as the winter weather, I wanted to post a comfort food recipe that is great for gatherings amongst close friends: fondue. I always find fondue a lot of fun and the little party that took place in its honour was a great way to use my two fondue pots which often get neglected. One pot is heated by a gas gel and I use it for cheese recipes. My other is a ceramic bowl which is heated by a tea light and I use it for chocolate recipes because it does not get as hot.

Below are two different fondue recipes (one savoury and one sweet) that have been adapted from the book of the same title. The first is an Irish Stout Fondue that was so delicious I have trouble keeping my focus while writing about it. It was made with Guinness beer and Dubliner cheddar cheese, though any sharp cheddar would work. The addition of the grainy mustard gives it a nice bite. I really think that the flavours of the cheddar, stout, and mustard combined would also be really tasty in a macaroni and cheese dish...just saying.

For accompaniments we had apple and baguette cut into cubes.  There were also baby potatoes and slices of onion that had been seasoned with olive oil and salt and pepper and then roasted at 400F/200C for approximately an hour. The sweet fondue was chocolate and was served with pound cake, brownies, bananas, and strawberries.  There are so many other options for appropriate dippers so just take a look at what is leftover in your fridge and be creative!

E: Ebelskivers

I first heard about Ebelskivers a couple of years ago when I was taking one of my usual walks around the aisles of Williams Sonoma. I saw a peculiar pan that consisted of seven small wells. Propped right next to it was a book about Ebelskivers. I opened it up and read that they are small stuffed pancakes that come from Denmark. If you are aware of the mini Dutch pancakes, Poffertjes,these are very similar except that they are slightly bigger and are filled, traditionally with apples. The book contains a variety of both sweet and savoury recipes. Immediately I fell in love with both it and the pan and luckily for me my birthday was just around the corner!
 
Since then I have hosted the occaisional Ebelskiver event. When you make the batter, you separate the yolks from the whites and blend the whites until they are stiff. This meringue mixture is mixed into the batter which results in a very light and puffy pancake. You can really use your imagination for the filling. Options are jam, fruit, chocolate, leftovers, etc. This time around I experimented with the following fillings:

1. Feta, sundried tomatos, spinach, and pesto
2. Pear, blue cheese, and candied walnuts*
3. Smoked salmon, corn kernals, and dill

My only hesitation with Ebelskivers is that they are very time consuming since you can only make seven at a time. I think I have only made them when I have had other people over. Even though I normally prepare the fillings in advance, it can be a bit challenging to carry out a conversation while making these. If you are planning on making them for other people, it probably would not hurt to make them in advance.

Ideally one would use an Ebelskiver pan for this recipe. The pan has small wells that are deep enough to fit a tablespoon of batter followed by a tablespoon or less of your choice of filling, followed by another tablespoon of batter. If you do not have an Ebelskiver pan you could always try using a metal circular cookie cutter to hold the batter in place but I am not sure how well that would work and it would probably be a little more time consuming. If anyone ever feels like experimenting with that method let me know how it turns out!

D: Drizzled Honey Cupcakes

I told one of my `recipe advisors´ that I was planning on making `Drizzled Honey Cupcakes´ from my other Cupcake book, written by Susanna Tee. A friendly debate ensued where she insisted that having the word in the recipe that starts with `D´ be an adjective rather than the actual main ingredient was a cop-out.  Now this may be true but neither of us really felt like date loaf or a near repeat of last week with devil’s food cake or dark chocolate whatever, so drizzled honey cupcakes it was!

So far everyone who has had a chance to try the cupcakes (including my advisor) has been very happy with the result.  The cakes would probably be appropriate all year round.  The nutmeg, cloves, and cinnamon give them that holiday feel while the orange and honey make them lighter. De-lish!

C: Chocolate Mousse Cupcakes

Where to begin...I have always considered cupcakes to be a fairly simple dessert to make.  I had been eying this recipe from Elinor Klivans' Cupcakes! for quite some time and it proved to be the most challenging one I have ever tackled. Don't get me wrong, they were absolutely delicious! The cake itself was rich and fudgy and once it was filled with the mocha-flavoured mousse and topped with a fudgy sauce, the result was decadent beyond belief!  The problem with these cakes was that they took a couple of tries followed by a bit of improvisation. The recipe requests the use of paper cupcake liners. USE THESE!!! For my first attempt, I did not have any liners around and decided to just grease the pan. Because the tops of the cupcakes expand over the edge of the individual cups, you cannot really use a knife to wedge them out. I ended up creating quite a mess. When I used the liners in my second attempt, the cakes came out much more easily.  I just greased the top of the cake pan in order to keep the tops of the cakes from sticking to it.

The other problem I had was with the muffin tops. The recipe calls for you to fill the paper liners quite generously in order to create a large top. Once the cakes cool, you are to cut the tops off, cover them with fudge sauce, place a mound of the mousse on the base, and then create a sandwich. I am not sure if it was the sour cream in the batter that makes them really moist or if it was my wonky, unevenly heated oven, but both times I tried, the tops expanded and then sank.  They ended up being very fragile. When I went to cut them off, only two survived. Once they had been iced and they were ready to go on top of the mousse, the part that was not being supported broke off (see the pictures at the bottom of this post).  What I ended up doing for the rest of them was stack two "topless" cakes on top of one another. If I were to make this recipe again, I would repeat my stacking method and I would avoid creating any top on the cakes by filling the liners up with half of the requested amount of batter.

All in all, if you are up for a bit of a challenge, these cupcakes are a tasty treat!