TWD: Baking Chez Moi - Granola Energy Bars

Today's recipe for Baking Chez Moi is Granola Energy Bars.  I was especially interested to try this recipe, as I have long searched out recipes for CRUNCHY homemade granola bars.  I recently found one recipe that I like, but am always up to try another.  This recipe uses a different ingredient - brown rice syrup, for binding.  This is the trouble with most homemade granola bars - they  just are not crunchy.  Dorie claims that brown rice syrup will do the trick and guess what?  She is right!  (As if we are surprised!!)  Though my regular grocery store did not carry brown rice syrup (What??  Devastated, truly devastated), I was able to find some at a more "natural" supermarket.

The thing is, I can't decide whether I like these granola bars.  I mean, I must like them, because I eat them up.  However while I eat them, I have a constant thought of "hmmm, do I really like these" going through my mind.  It may be that I am just not used to the taste of brown rice syrup.  Or maybe they need a bit more oomph or something, though I am not really sure what the oomph would be.  I used raisins and cherries in my bars, so there is good flavor there.  The cherries and raisins were both large though, so if I cut them in half there would be more bites with dried fruit.   Maybe I should have toasted the oats and almonds longer?? 

When you take these out of the oven, they are nice and shiny looking and you are supposed to press down on them with a spatula to help them stay tightly together.  I forgot this step, so I did have some crumbles when I cut the bars. 

Overall, I give this recipe a hesitant thumbs-up.  It is definitely worth another try, and besides, what else am I going to do with my jar of brown rice syrup???

If you are curious about this recipe, check out Baking Chez Moi, pages 328-329.  And be sure to visit the TWD blog and click on "LYL: Granola Energy Bars" to find links to other blogs in our group!

TWD: Baking with Julia - Sunny-side-up Peach Pastries

Our Tuesday's with Dorie group decided that October would be puff pastry month.  Theoretically, the weather has gotten cooler (in many parts of the world, but not here, phooey!) so making puff pastry would not be as difficult.  Making puff pastry is a time consuming project but I find it rather nice.  It's kind of like a meditation.... Roll roll roll, fold into thirds, turn, do it again...  According to the book, when you are done with the 6 turns you make with puff pastry, there are 994 layers of dough and 993 layers of butter!  I'll have to take their word for it.  I will not be testing that theory! 

Pounded butter on dough

I have made puff pastry before and found this dough to be quite easy to work.  It was simple to make and rolled out very smoothly.  I did learn that while puff pastry recipes call for very cold butter, you should  NOT use frozen butter.  I had only 2 sticks of butter in the refrigerator when I started this recipe, and you need a pound, so I pulled 2 out of the freezer.  Well, frozen butter doesn't pound as well as cold butter does.  It just doesn't give!  In case you are wondering, when you first start working with the butter, you literally pound it with your rolling pin to get it softened a bit and into the right size to start.  It's quite nice, the pounding.  It just feels good, trust me!

A nice present.. Dough wrapped butter!

You wrap the butter in the dough and then roll it out into a long rectangle.  Fold it into thirds like a business letter, turn it, and roll it out again.  If you live somewhere that isn't actually cool, this can take a while because if the butter gets too warm, you need to cover the dough with plastic and put it in the refrigerator for at least 30-60 minutes to cool down again.  Then start again!  When you make puff pastry, you do 6 "turns" which includes rolling the the rectangle, folding the dough, and then turning the dough a different direction.  I refrigerated my dough after every 2 turns.  

Here is a hint for making puff pastry:  You need a cool room and a cool rolling surface.  I can't change the weather here that brought humidity into my house, but I could help out the rolling surface.  I do not have a marble board for rolling pastry (though obviously I NEED one!) so I improvise.  I set a metal baking sheet that just has a tiny rim on the ends upside down on top of a reusable ice mat.  The baking sheet becomes my rolling surface and it stays nice and cold with the ice mat underneath!   Here is mine:

I purchased mine at The Container Store but you can probably buy them on Amazon or other places.  

These pastries are supposed to look like sunny-side-up eggs.  There are supposed to be apricots on top, but since I could not find any, I used peaches instead.  Each pastry contains 1/2 of a peach, cut into two quarters for the "eggs".  While they aren't exactly what the recipe requested, they turned out pretty tasty just the same!

Me being me, I didn't sit down to actually WATCH the Baking with Julia episode that contains the puff pastry and Sunny-side-up Pastries until my own pastries were in the oven.  Yes, it is a bit late by then to change anything, but that is just how it goes sometimes!

My thoughts on this recipe:

1. The book says to roll out the puff pastry to 1/8 to 1/4 inch and then cut into 4-inch circles.  The video says to roll out the puff pastry to 1/2 inch and then cut into 4-inch circles.  I think 1/2 inch would have been better.  By the time I had rolled my 4-inch circle into an 8-inch long oval, it was pretty darned thin in the middle.  Had I started out with a thicker circle, I'd have a thicker  oval.  And who would complain about a little more puff pastry??
2. I prefer a different pastry cream recipe I think.  I didn't find this one to be as delicious as I thought it should be.  I wanted to want to lick the bowl, you know?  This was good, but it was not lick-the-bowl good.  It could be because I used vanilla extract instead of vanilla bean (out of sheer laziness and time conservation).  Maybe the vanilla bean would have made the difference?  But you could use any pastry cream recipe here.
3. Speaking of pastry cream, I dalloped mine onto my pastry and then spread it around a bit to have a place for the peaches.  Wrong!  The better plan is to dallop it on and leave it in a mound.  Set the peaches/apricots up against the mound of cream. They help hold the cream in the pastry so it doesn't leak out.  Mine did leak a bit.  Lesson learned!

Overall, we  enjoyed these pastries!  They are certainly a delicious way to start the day, if you have them with breakfast as intended.  Mine were for dessert (I cannot imagine making these in the morning, but my mornings are a bit hectic with two kiddos) and they made a nice dessert as well!

Making these pastries gave me some nice scraps of puff pastry that will be used in the next Tuesdays with Dorie challenge.  However I also have another 1 1/4 pounds of puff pastry (this recipe used 1/2 of a puff pastry recipe, if  that makes sense) so what should I create with that???  Any suggestions?

The recipe for the puff pastry can be found on pages 46-49 of Baking with Julia, or you can find it here.  The recipe for the sunny-side-up apricot pastries can be found on pages 192-194 of Baking with Julia, or you can find it here. Remember, you don't have to make your own puff pastry to make this recipe!  You could grab a box at the grocery store and have an awesome pastry in no time!

Check out our other bakers thought by going to the TWD blog and clicking on the different baker's links!

Cream Scones

It was a Saturday morning, and we were out of buttermilk.  In my home, this is a real travesty!  That means no pancakes or waffles for breakfast!  Yes, I know I can make a buttermilk substitution with milk and vinegar/lemon juice, it just isn't the same when it comes to pancakes.  Breakfast was quickly becoming a gigantic dilemma when I recalled that I had once clipped a recipe for scones made with heavy cream.  And by golly, I had cream in the refrigerator!  Breakfast was saved!  Phew.

I whipped up a batch of cream scones and made some poached eggs to go with them (my first time ever, what a delight!!!) and the day got off to a good start!  These cream scones are totally divine, I have to admit.  They are delicate and flaky and not too sweet but just sweet enough, mmmmm.  They are marvelous.  Now I am not sure which my favorite scone recipe might be, this one, or my traditional buttermilk scone recipe!  I might just have to do a taste test....

Cream Scones
adapted from Cooks Illustrated
makes 8 scones

Ingredients:
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 TB baking powder
3 TB sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
5 TB cold unsalted butter, cut into 1/4 inch cubes
1/2 cup currents or other chopped dried fruit (I used tart cherries!)
1 cup heavy cream

Directions:
Move your oven rack to the center, and preheat the oven to 425F.

Whisk together the flour, baking powder, sugar and salt in a large bowl.  You could also do this in a food processor with a steel blade, if you want.  Cut in the butter with a pastry blender or two knives, working until the mixture looks like coarse meal, with all butter lumps no larger than pea-sized.  Stir in the dried fruit.  If using the food processor, distribute the butter over the flour mixture pulse 10-12 times.   Add the dried fruit and pulse one time.  Transfer the dough to a large bowl if it was in the food processor.

Stir in the heavy cream with a rubber spatula or fork, until the mixture begins to look like dough.  This takes about 30 seconds.   Don't stir too much!  It just needs to barely come together.

Transfer the dough and all of the floury-bits from the bowl onto the counter or a piece of parchment and knead JUST until the dough comes together a bit more, 5-10 seconds.  If there are still some pieces left out, no big deal, it will all come together in the next step.

Press the dough into an 8-inch cake pan (this is what helps those extra random pieces get into your dough) and then turn it out again onto a piece of lightly floured parchment or other surface.  Cut into 8 wedges with a sharp knife or a bench scraper.  You could also just pat the dough into a circle approximately 8 inches in diameter and the cut out the wedges.  Place the wedges onto an ungreased baking sheet and bake for 12-15 minutes, until the tops are golden.  Cool on a rack for at least 10 minutes.  Serve while warm. 
Printable Recipe

Thank goodness we were out of buttermilk!  It gave me the impetus to try these scones, which are downright amazing.  I HIGHLY recommend that you whip up a bunch, right about now! 

Finally! Crunchy Granola Bars!

 

This was supposed to be a week that I do a Tuesday's with Dorie post, but I just couldn't make it happen this time.  We've been on vacation and to be honest, the recipe for the group didn't excite me enough to make it happen way in advance so I could post about it on time.  I am interested to see what other bakers thought of the recipe - maybe they'll encourage me to give it a shot!  Who knows?

Instead, I bring you crunchy granola bars.  I have been searching for a crunchy granola bar recipe for approximately forever.  I have tried recipe after recipe, and ended up with either chewy bars or very crumbly bars, not the crunchy bar that I wanted.  Enter, Nigella's Breakfast Bars.  I will admit, I was VERY skeptical about the recipe.  Would it REALLY make crunchy bars?  The reviews all seemed to agree that it would.  However one of the ingredients really threw me - sweetened condensed milk!  When I think of sweetened condensed milk, I think of super sweet, cloyingly sweet, instantaneous cavity-producing sweet.  I was extremely skeptical that the granola bars would actually taste good and not make my teeth hurt, but I decided to give it a try anyway.  And boy am I glad I did! 

I am not sure how it works, but the sweetened condensed milk does NOT make these granola bars horribly sweet.  In fact they are just the right amount of sweet, actually.  It is magical!  And the bars are very easy to make and completely adaptable to your own personal tastes.  I will give you Nigella's recipe and the ingredients that I chose, to give you a jumping off point!

Crunchy Granola Bars

adapted from Nigella Lawson

makes approx. 16 bars

Ingredients

1 14oz. can sweetened condensed milk

2 1/2 cups rolled oats (not instant)

1 cup shredded coconut

1 cup dried cranberries (I used cherries)

1 cup mixed seeds (My pantry was low, I only used sunflower)

1 cup natural unsalted peanuts (I used blanched slivered almonds)

Optional supply:  disposable rubber gloves

Directions

Preheat the oven to 250F.  Spray a 9x13inch baking dish with cooking spray, or, better yet, line the pan with parchment.

Pour the sweetened condensed milk into a microwavable dish and warm it a bit.  It doesn't need to be very hot, just warmed up a bit.  You could also do this on the stove.

Mix the remaining ingredients together in a large bowl.  Fold in the warmed sweetened condensed milk with a rubber spatula or wooden spoon.

Spread the mixture into the prepared pan.  Put on your disposable rubber gloves and press down on the mixture, pushing it out into the corners and making the surface even.  You can also do this with your spatula or wooden spoon.  I would not suggest using your bare hands.  Even if they are dampened, the condensed milk makes this one sticky mixture and you may end up with more on your hands than in the pan!

Bake in the preheated oven for 1 hour.  I used a metal 9x13 pan and should have baked for a little less time, so start checking the time at 45 minutes.  You want the bars to be nice and golden on top.  Remove from the oven and let it cool in the pan on a rack.  After 15 minutes, cut into bars, then allow to cool completely.  If you used parchment, you can easily lift the bars out of the pan and onto the rack with the excess parchment on the edges.  Easy cleanup and no sticking! Store in an airtight container.

Printable Recipe

Just don't think about the sweetened condensed milk.  These granola bars are so easy, and so versatile, I foresee having some version of them in my house in regular rotation.  What a great breakfast or mid-day snack!  What a find.  My search is over!

More Waffles

I recently decided to try out a new waffle recipe.  Why not spice things up a bit and see what else is out there?  Now, normally, I make this recipe.  But then I fell upon a recipe entitled "Waffle of Insane Greatness".  How could I NOT give this one a try???

Ok, seriously, this really is one amazing waffle.  Mr. Clever Mom's words were, "this is the BEST waffle I have EVER had".  Why?  I asked.  It was all about the texture. It is very light and crisp, not as heavy as other waffles tend to be.  Plus even after they were cooked and sitting on a plate ready to be eaten, they didn't get soggy right away as other waffles tend to do.  Winner, winner, chicken dinner.  Or something like that.

The only sad thing about this recipe is that the batter has to sit for 30 minutes before you start cooking.  That is a long 30 minutes when you are anticipating waffles of insane greatness!  But we can all find ways to occupy our time in the  morning for 30 minutes, can't we? 

Waffle of Insane Greatness
adapted from Foodnetwork

Ingredients:
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup corn starch
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup buttermilk
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 egg
1 1/2 teaspoons sugar
3/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions:
Combine the flour, corn starch, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a medium bowl and mix well.  Add the remaining ingredients and mix well.  Let the batter sit for 30 minutes.

Preheat a waffle iron.  You should not need to butter the waffle iron, the oil in the batter should be enough to release the cooked waffles.  HOWEVER, when I made these, Mr. Clever Mom was being helpful and went ahead and buttered the waffle iron.  Obviously we did not have a sticking problem.  But I can't vouch for what happens with no butter.  I'll try that next time!

Cook the waffles per your waffle iron's instructions.
Printable Recipe

Next time, I will double this recipe.  We could have eaten more.  If I could 1 1/2 it, I would do that instead, but doubling it will simple make us enough for breakfast and some left over for another morning! 

Check out this Waffle of Insane Greatness. With a  name like that, how can you go wrong?

TWD: Baking with Julia - Potato Lefse

 

This post was supposed to happen last week.  However I just didn't get around to making the recipe until this past weekend, so I decided I'd post my Tuesday's with Dorie week as soon as I got to it, and not stress out about the whole thing.  No need for extra stress!

 

Anyway, the recipe was Potato Lefse.  Have any clue what that is?  Don't worry, I didn't either.  Essentially, a potato lefse is what you get when mashed potatoes and crepes get together and have a baby.  You get a potato crepe.  Now, I am not a huge fan of crepes.  That is not a good thing in my house as my daughter loves them and my husband enjoys making them for her.  I just find them to be a bit too sweet in the morning (of course all of the fillings is what makes it sweet) and there is something about the texture that I don't like.  It all comes down to the fact than when I was a little girl I happened to get ill one day that I happened to make crepes for breakfast.   Take that in whatever direction you care, and you'll understand, I am certain. 

 

I have to admit, I find potato lefse to be highly superior to crepes, but they take MUCH more time.  As in you have to make the mashed potato mixture and then let it sit overnight in the refrigerator.  That's a lot of pre-planning.  They are also way, way, WAY messier, as instead of pouring batter (as in crepes) you are rolling dough (like a pie crust).  You could get all fancy here and buy some SPECIFIC lefse tools for this, but I did not.  Instead of having an official lefse canvas round, grooved rolling pin, and lefse stick, I used a silpat, rolling pin, and spatula.  I think it all worked out fine.

 

I did, however, take this as a great reason to purchase a potato ricer.  I mean, the book even says that it is an "old fashioned, inexpensive, effective utensil".  Obviously  I needed one.  I am certain I could have made these by making sure I mashed the heck out of the potatoes so there were no lumps, but I agree with the book, a ricer is a tool that I won't regret.  Plus it was super inexpensive. And since I was already late in making the potato lefse for the TWD post, why not just order a ricer and get on with it??  Yee-ha, Amazon Prime!  I mean, is there anything you can't find on Amazon these days?  I love shopping without leaving my house.  That is the perfect shopping experience. 

 

But I digress.  Here is the lowdown on making potato lefse:

First  you boil some diced potatoes until they are soft but not mushy, then set them out to dry a bit.  I am not sure why this picture looks like cheddar cheese, but trust me, it is actually diced potato.

Next rice those potatoes into a bowl. See my new ricer?  Very pretty, isn't she?  It totally reminds me of those things I used to use with play-doh to squish out "spaghetti" or "hair".  You could probably actually use that play-doh gadget, but it sure would take a while since it is so small! 

Mix in some melted butter, heavy cream, sugar and salt, get it all smooth and stick it in the refrigerator so it dries out overnight.

In the morning, mix in some flour and get ready to make a giant mess.  Well, at least it was at my house.  This needs TONS of flour on the rolling board and pin or else it sticks, thus I had flour everywhere.  Ah, well.  Roll a small portion out into a super thin sort of circle shape (mine were totally NOT circles, more like abstract blobs), roll it onto the rolling pin, and then place on a hot griddle.  I used my pancake griddle, which stretches over two burners, so I was able to cook two lefse at once.  Cook it like a pancake and then off it goes, onto a terry cloth towel.

Serve these warm, brushed with butter and sprinkled with cinnamon sugar.  Mmmm.  According to the recipe, you could also put a hotdog inside and brush then with butter and mustard.  Then they are called potato lumpa.  I did the cinnamon sugar kind and it was very nice.  It has more oomph than a regular crepe, and a way better texture.  They are kind of like fresh flour tortillas...mmmm.  The next time you have some mashed potato leftovers, keep this recipe in mind.  They take a bit of work but they are quite nice!  Oh, and in case you have a tiny person at your house, the clever baby enjoyed these as well!

You can find the recipe on pages 165-166 of Baking with Julia, or here.  Check out what my fellow TWD bakers thought by visiting the TWD blog.  

TWD: Baking with Julia - Buttermilk Scones

Buttermilk Scones!  What a fantastic way to start a day, by eating a delicious scone.  And delicious is definitely the word to describe these scones.  This recipe is a real winner, which I will foresee making many return visits to my kitchen.  Yum.  This was our recipe for Tuesday's with Dorie this week and it is a total success!

This recipe has you make scones two ways.  The first is the triangular one you see above.  The second is a rolled scone, filled with some sort of jam, fruit or nuts.  The recipe makes enough dough for two batches of scones, so I made a batch of each style, triangular and rolled.  Why not?

Here is the rolled one:

I rolled mine with homemade apple butter on the inside.  Mmm.

Strawberry Nutella Pop-tarts/Pastries

Mmm, Strawberry Nutella Pop-tarts!  Yes, this was actually a Valentine's Day treat a couple of weeks ago, so I am very behind in posting.  I apologize.  I had a crashed computer and sick baby to deal with in the mean time and very little free time!  But I do think you can give your family a little extra loving at breakfast pretty much any time, don't you?  Plus, this recipe is a great starter to get your mind going with other options...  While I agree that strawberry and Nutella are a beautiful combination, you could really put just about anything in these little pastry pockets and have bliss.  And they would certainly be better (and better for you) than the pop-tarts you get in the store!  Anyway, I found this idea when browsing Pinterest one day (woah, can that take me in crazy creative ventures) and decided to do it for the clever girl's breakfast.  It is totally simple - you can do it, too!

Vanilla Cornmeal Pancakes with Berry Syrup

I haven't yet introduced gluten to the clever baby.  I am pretty slow in introducing new, potentially allergenic foods to my kids.  I just have this paranoia about food allergies and figure holding off until way after babies theoretically can handle any particular food can't hurt.  So I wait.  And that can make feeding them a bit more challenging for me, so I just have to get creative.  This past weekend I made Vanilla Cornmeal Pancakes with Berry Syrup for breakfast.  It was a hit!

The pancake recipe is from Mark Bittman, though it also includes pine nuts, which I did not include (no nuts have been introduced yet either!).  These pancakes are a lot like fried polenta, so if you like polenta, these will be right up your alley!  As you can see from the photo above, mine were a bit thick (like a regular pancake), which made the insides very soft.  This was fine, but if you want a bit of a crisper interior, you could add more milk to the batter, thinning it out a little more.

Besides just being a nice change from my regular butttermilk pancakes, these are a gluten-free option!!

Carrot Spice Muffins - aka Morning Glory Muffins

I received a juicer for Christmas!  I mean to tell you, having a juicer makes me so excited, I can hardly stand it.  I have been making up all sorts of concoctions and basking in my healthy mornings.  Seriously, I have been doing the happy dance all over the kitchen!!  Thank you, thank you, Mr. Clever Mom!  I LOVE it!  A by-product of having a juicer is lots of pulp.  The other morning I made just plain carrot juice (which was my impetus for wanting a juicer so badly - I have been buying carrot juice constantly!!) so I had a bunch of carrot pulp left over.  Surely, there is something I can do with this pulp, I thought.  So, I made carrot muffins!!  And they turned out DELICIOUS!

Now, if you don't have a juicer thus no carrot pulp in your house, do not fret.  This recipe actually calls for shredded carrot.  I merely substituted the carrot pulp and hoped for the best, and it worked!  The recipe is from Dorie Greenspan's Baking - From My Home to Yours, which I HIGHLY recommend if you enjoy baking at all, or are interested in learning more about baking.  Every recipe I have tried in this book is a winner!

Pumpkin Pecan Pancakes

Ahhh, fall-ish weather has been gracing us here in Houston, which always inspires me to make all sorts of fall-ish recipes.  Being that I love all things pumpkin, I thought pumpkin pancakes were in order!  By the way, did you know you can now get organic canned pumpkin at Costco?  Bring it on!

Anyway, I did some googling and found a delicious recipe at My Baking Addiction.  Perfect! Now, she calls for lowfat buttermilk, which is WAY easier to find than high-test buttermilk.  However in my pancake experience, the high test stuff is superior and gives you puffier yummier pancakes.  So I used the high-test stuff here, and subbed skim milk for the whole milk that she suggested.  Surely that evens things out, right? 

Pumpkin Pecan Pancakes
adapted from My Baking Addiction

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups lowfat buttermilk (I used high test!)
1/2 cup whole mlk (I used skim)
1 1/3 cups pumpkin puree
1 lare egg
2 TB vegetable oil
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
 2 teaspoons baking powder
 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
2 1/2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup finely chopped toasted pecans

Instructions:
Whisk the buttermilk, milk, pumpkin, egg, oil and vanilla together in a medium bowl.

In a large bowl, combine the flour, brown sugar, baking powder, baking sod, pumpkin pie spice and salt.  Stir dry ingredients into the pumpkin mixture until just combined.  Fold in the toasted pecans. 

Heat a griddle over medium heat.  Lightly butter the griddle and then wipe with a paper towel to remove any excess.  Pour or scoop the pancake batter onto the griddle, using approximately 1/3 cup for each pancake.  When the surface of the pancakes have some bubbles, carefully flip the pancakes and resume cooking on the other side until lightly browned.  Transfer cooked pancakes to a cooling rack place on a baking sheet in the oven to stay warm.  Continue with the remaining batter.   Top with additional pecans (if desired) and some good maple syrup.
Printable Recipe

What a perfect start to a fall morning!

Sausage-Kale Strata

We recently had a garage sale.  Lord, help us.  Garage sales are really something else.  I had thought (back when I must have been totally crazy) that we would have a garage sale before we moved into our new house.  However the timing of that was plain ridiculous, since I had a newborn baby at that time.  I certainly wasn't going to be having a sale with a newborn while we are trying to get ready to move.  That was crazy talk.  So we actually made a large donation of stuff before we moved, knowing we would have even more stuff afterwards.

It so happens that our new next door neighbor was building the same time we were, and moved in around the same time as well.  They mentioned that they were going to have a garage sale and wondered if we had anything we'd like them to put in the sale, so I decided to bite the bullet and go for it.  And it worked out well.  I had two boxes marked "garage sale" that we ended up moving to the new house, and had done lots of purging when we moved in, so we had plenty to sell.  And it was a success, though I must admit I don't plan to ever have another one.  They are a lot of work!  This is a long long way to introduce Sausage-Kale Strata, I admit.  I knew that on the morning of the garage sale I would not have the time (or energy) to make my typical Saturday morning breakfast.  I like a good breakfast on Saturday mornings - no cold cereal for me!  Thus a breakfast strata is the thing!  And then I found this amazing strata from the Pioneer Woman and thought I really needed to try it. 

Lordy.  I may never make another strata.  This is one DELICIOUS strata.  In fact, my neighbor (with whom we shared in the garage sale madness) said "this should be illegal".  And she might be right.  It is THAT good.  If you don't care for one of the ingredients, you could just use something else, however you really do just have to try this thing.  I halved the recipe from the Pioneer Woman site, and afterwards wished I hadn't.  I mean, it is probably good - I didn't really NEED seconds, but with something that delicious, you just want some seconds anyway!  And I have no idea how this thing would re-heat - though it would be worth trying.  Throwing leftovers away would be a sin. 

Here is the recipe.  Save it somewhere RIGHT NOW, put the ingredients on your grocery list, and plan on making this baby.  You will thank me.  I promise.

Sausage-Kale Strata
adapted from the Pioneer Woman
serves 12 - can easily be halved

Ingredients:
12 whole eggs
2-1/2 cups half and half (I used milk)
salt and pepper, to taste
4 TB fresh oregano, minced (or parsley, basil, etc.)
1 loaf crusty French or Italian bread, cut into cubes
2 pounds breakfast sausage
1 bunch (large) regular kale, torn into pieces
olive oil, for frying
16 ounces (weight) white mushrooms, halved
2-1/2 cups grated Monterey jack cheese


Instructions:
Preheat oven to 425F.

Mix together the eggs, half and half (or milk), salt and pepper, and minced oregano.  Set aside.

Place mushrooms in a rimmed baking sheet, drizzle with olive oil, and roast in the oven for 15-20 minutes, until they are golden brown.  Set these aside.

Heat the olive oil in a frying pan over medium-high heat  Throw in the kale and cook for 2 minutes, until slightly wilted.  Remove from the heat and set aside. Put the the sausage in the frying pan and cut it into crumbles with a wooden spoon as it cooks.  When browned, remove the sausage from the skillet and place in a bowl or plate lined with some paper towels to get rid of any excess oil. 

Layer half of each of the bread, sausage, kale, mushrooms and cheese in a large buttered lasagna pan.  For half of the recipe, I used and 8x8-inch square glass dish.  Repeat the layers, ending with the cheese.  Slowly pour the egg mixture over the top.  Press the mixture down with your hands, and cover with plastic wrap.  Set the pan in the refrigerator overnight.  It helps if you have something to press down over the plastic wrap in the refrigerator, so all of the bread is evenly soaked.  I used a second 8x8-inch dish and placed some water bottles inside for weight.  

In the morning, preheat the oven to 350F.  Take the strata out of the refrigerator and let sit at room temperature for 20-30 minutes.  Remove the plastic wrap and cover the strata with aluminum foil.  Bake for 30-40 minutes, remove the foil and continue to bake until the top is golden and slightly crisp.

Serve, and get ready to reap the praises of your friends and family!

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You tell me.  Should this strata be illegal?  Should you have a license to make such amazing yumminess?  Maybe so! 

TWD: Baking with Julia - Danish Braid

This week's recipe for Tuesday's with Dorie is Danish Braid.  I have been spending a lot of time learning about different braids lately.  I have watched all sorts of tutorials online on the French Braid, the Dutch Braid, a Rope Braid, a Waterfall Braid.... Braids, braids, braids!  Of course, those are braids for HAIR, not pastry, but braids nonetheless.  I am still on a quest for a great hairdo for when the clever girl is a flower girl in an upcoming wedding, thus I have been doing all sorts of research.  Have you ever noticed how you can watch a tutorial/video about something online and think, "oh, okay, that's not so hard" and then when you actually sit down to DO said thing it is an entirely different story?  Yeah.  That's what has been happening here.  I keep thinking, "wait, how did they do that again?" and then I have to find the tutorial again and try to memorize it all over again.  Ugh.  Thankfully, this pastry was much easier than the hairdos I have been attempting!

The big thing with this recipe is that it is actually several recipes.  Each individual recipe is quite simple, you just have to make them all first before you can do anything that resembles this Danish Braid.  You start with the Danish Pastry.  It is quite straightforward and wonderful in that you can make it several days in advance and then work with it whenever you get the time!  The recipe actually says to cut the butter into the flour using a food processor but I did it with my trusty pastry cutter instead.  The point is to keep the butter chunks pretty big so I figured a pastry cutter would be fine.  It allowed me to wash the food processor maybe one less time.

Then, decision time... what do you want in your pastry?  You need a creamy filling and a fruity filling.  There are several ideas provided, of which I chose the almond filling and apricot filling.  You could totally do whatever here and not use the recipes at all, however I love almond anything and almonds + apricots = goodness in my book so I went with those two recipes.  Plus it meant that I didn't have to think about anything more - I could just follow a recipe and move on.  Sometimes, the less thinking I have to do, the better...  Ever have days like that? 

Both of these recipes are made in the food processor, hence, I washed that thing a lot!  And both turned out quite tasty as well.  My only potential change would be sugar.  I found them both to be too sweet for me, though I tend to like things less sweet than others, I find.  In my humble opinion, in both fillings the sweetness overpowered the actual flavor of the filling.  You tasted SWEET before you tasted almond and apricot.  So I would reduce the sugar next time.

Now that everything is made, you can create the braid!  Roll out the dough and put the fruity filling in the middle third, all the way down the center.  Spread the creamy filling over the top of the fruity one, all the way down.  Now you can prep for the braid!  Like any braid, you need sections to braid together.  So you cut diagonal slits down the remaining two sides of dough and then start crossing one over the other.  Left, right, left, right, all the way down the dough.  Give it an egg wash and sprinkle it with pearl sugar (or big white sprinkles, in my case) and set it aside to rise a bit.

The recipe is enough for two braids, so while one rose, I did the second.  If I had been thinking (again, not something I seem to do much of these days....  Did I mention I made this pastry the morning after a dinner party in which we all enjoyed some delicious wine and I stayed up way too late?  Yeah.  That is my excuse, this time anyway...) yes, had I been thinking, I would have rolled out the dough on top of these squishy ice sheets that I have.  Boy, that was a terrible explanation.  Okay, you know how you can sometimes get a wine bag (here we go with wine again!) that has little squares in it that are filled with some sort of gel and you can throw that bad boy in the freezer so when you put the wine in the bag it will stay cool?  Well, you can buy those things in just a sheet, and they are great for putting under a metal edgeless cookie sheet and then rolling out dough on top.  It keeps the dough cooler.  Get it?  Some day I'll actually DO it and take a photo for you. 

Anyway, once they rose for about 30 minutes, into the oven they went.  The recipe stated they should be in for 15-20 minutes, but mine were done in about 12.  Any longer and they would have moved from "golden" to "browned" for sure!

Then you put a glaze over the top, which I wish I did not do.  The glaze is supposed to be coffee and powdered sugar, but I used cream and powdered sugar.  Regardless, (A) the braid does NOT need any more sweet, and (B) when you drizzle the glaze over the top, you lose the beauty of the braid.  So, next time, no glaze for me.  It is totally up to you but in my opinion, it is completely unnecessary and sort of ruins the overall look of the braid.  In fact, if you have the Baking with Julia book, the picture they use in the book is of an UN-glazed braid! Ah-ha.  Again, had I been really thinking at the time.... Drat.

However, after all of that, it was quite good.  It really was not hard to do and it would be fun to try different fillings - maybe a berry one, or a fig one, maybe cream cheese instead of almond.  It will be interesting to see what my fellow Doristas have done with their braids - what sorts of fun fillings they created!

You can find the recipe for the Danish Braid in Baking with Julia, page 205.  The pastry recipe is on pages 50-51, and the fillings are on pages 202-204.  Or, I found the recipes for the dough and the various fillings here.   Check out what other TWD bloggers have created by following the links here. 

Enjoy a fancy looking Danish for breakfast one day!  It is worth the work!

Pumpkin Waffles

I know it is summer Pumpkin Waffles seem more "fall-like" in nature, but really, can't we eat pumpkin all year round?  I had a hankering for pumpkin waffles one morning so summer or not, we had them!

And YUM.  They are a perfect deviation from the "regular" waffle.  The pumpkin flavor is very light, and is enhanced by pumpkin-pie-like spices.  Who doesn't want pumpkin pie for breakfast?  Sounds good to me!

Pumpkin Waffles
adapted from smitten kitchen

Ingredients:
2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1/3 cup packed light brown sugar
2 1/4 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
4 large eggs, separated
2 cups buttermilk, shaken well
1 cup solid-pack canned pumpkin
3/4 stick (6 TB) unsalted butter, melted
cooking spray or vegetable oil for waffle iron

Instructions:
Preheat oven to 200F and preheat waffle iron.

Sift dry ingredients together (flour through cloves).  Whisk egg yolks, buttermilk, pumpkin and butter together in a large bowl until smooth.  Whisk in dry ingredients until just combined.

With an electric mixer (hand or stand) whisk the egg whites until they hold soft peaks.  Gently fold them into the waffle batter until just combined.

Spray or oil waffle iron and spoon batter (amount varies depending on waffle iron manufacturer) into waffle iron.  Cook according to manufacturer instructions.

Serve right away or transfer to a cooling rack sitting in a rimmed baking sheet and place in the preheated oven.  This will help them to stay warm and crisp while you make more!

Serve with warm maple syrup.
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What a great way to start the day.  Sure, it isn't fall weather yet, but I just can't wait until then to have some pumpkin waffles!

Orange Sweet Rolls

I tend to make sweet rolls once a year, for Christmas morning, but they are not the orange kind.  In fact, I have never had an orange sweet roll before but they sounded so enticing that I had to give it a try!

These are supposed to be similar to the Pillsbury version, but I can't say whether they are or not, as I have never had them!  What I can say is that the dough was nice and soft and light and the orange flavor was nice and strong.  I would probably increase the cinnamon sugar mixture in the inside, and maybe add some nutmeg in there as well next time.  I do not normally put an icing on my sweet rolls but this one was nice.  Not so much icing that it overwhelmed me (icings on cinnamon rolls tend to do that to me) but a nice addition to the roll.  One interesting thing about these rolls is that not only is the orange flavor in the icing, it is baked into the dough as well!  An orange double whammy! 

I prepared the rolls in the evening and baked them the following morning.  I just personally can't see doing all the work for sweet rolls in the morning!  That is too much for me! 

Orange Sweet Rolls
adapted from Sally's Baking Addiction

Ingredients:
Dough
1 package active dry yeast (2 1/4 teaspoons)
1/2 cup warm water
fresh orange zest from 1 medium orange
1/2 cup fresh orange juice
1/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 large egg
2 TB unsalted butter, at room temperature
3 - 3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

Filling
2 TB sugar
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 TB unsalted butter, at room temperature
(I would increase the sugar/cinnamon amounts here)

Icing
1 cup powdered sugar
1 TB orange juice
fresh orange zest from 1 medium orange
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Instructions:
Dissolve the yeast in the water and allow to bloom for about 1 minute.  The yeast will get a bit creamy looking.  The water should be about 105F-115F, a bit warmer than body temperature but not too hot.  Stir the water/yeast mixture, then add the orange juice and zest, sugar, salt, egg, butter and 1 1/2 cups of the flour.  Beat everything together with an electric mixer (stand or handheld) on low.  Scrape down the sides of the bowl as needed.  Using a wooden spoon, stir in enough of the remaining flour to make the dough easy to handle, about 1 1/2 to 2 more cups.  The dough should be soft, not sticky, and should spring back when you poke it with your finger.

Transfer the dough to a floured surface and knead with your hands for 5-6 minutes.  Form the dough into a ball and place it into a lightly greased bowl.  Flip the dough over so all sides are lightly greased from the bowl.  Cover the dough and let it sit in a warm place until it is doubled in size, about 1 1/2 hours.

Line the bottom of a 9x13 inch baking dish with parchment paper.  Turn the risen dough out onto a floured surface and roll to a 15x9 inch rectangle.  Make sure the dough is evenly thick and as squared at the corners as you can.

For the filling, mix the sugar and cinnamon in a small bowl.  Spread the dough with the softened butter and sprinkle generously with the cinnamon-sugar.  Roll the dough tightly along the long edge and pinch the long edge closed along the roll.  This is a good time to smooth the roll and even the edges a bit.  After you do this, cut the dough into 15 even rolls using a very sharp knife or thread/un-flavored un-waxed dental floss (details on how to do this here).  Arrange the rolls cut side up in the prepared pan.  Cover the rolls and let them rise in a warm place for 30 - 60 minutes.  If you choose to bake the rolls in the morning, stop here.  Put the rolls in the refrigerator overnight.  In the morning, take the rolls out of the refrigerator and allow them to come to room temperature.  You can sit them on the counter and wait, OR gently float the pan in a roasting pan filled with hot water, OR put the pan in the oven set at "proof" or 200F.

Preheat the oven to 375F.  Cover the rolls with aluminum foil and bake for 25-30 minutes, until the tops are golden.  Transfer the pan to a rack and allow to cool for about 15 minutes.

While the rolls cool,mix all icing ingredients together.  When ready, drizzle the icing over the rolls and serve!
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I found the buns to have a very strong orange flavor.  If you prefer a lighter flavor than this, use less zest in the dough and icing!

Enjoy!

TWD: Baking with Julia - Blueberry Muffins

This week for Tuesday's with Dorie, we had an option of two recipes to make:  Blueberry Muffins or Sweet Berry Fougasse.  The Sweet Berry Fougasse appears to be a berry and streusel topping on the top of foccacia bread.  I made the focaccia bread in February, so I decided to make the muffins since that would be baking a recipe I haven't yet tried from this book.  I'll have to read some of the other TWD bloggers thoughts about the Sweet Berry Fougasse.  If it was a total hit, I may have to give it a try!

But let's forget about that other recipe for now and just think about Blueberry Muffins.  I have made a variety of different blueberry muffins, though I don't really have a favorite recipe.  While I liked this recipe, it didn't totally blow me away.  I think it maybe needed a bit more flavor.  Maybe some lemon zest would be good, or even just some vanilla or almond extract would give it that extra punch I need.  However, texturally, this blueberry muffin is perfect.  It is very light and airy and sort of melts in your mouth!  And there are lots of blueberries inside, which is crucial! 

Blueberry Muffins
adapted from Baking with Julia

Ingredients:
1 3/4 cups cake flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon cream of tartar
1 teaspoon salt
1 pint fresh blueberries
3/4 cup milk
1/4 cup sour cream
1 stick unsalted butter, at room temperature
2/3 cup sugar
1 large egg, at room temperature
1 large egg yolk, at room temperature

Instructions:
Put a rack in the center of your oven and preheat to 400F.  Butter or spray 18 muffin cups or line with paper liners. 

Sift the cake flour, baking soda, cream of tartar and salt together 2 times and leave the dry ingredients in the sifter, sitting on waxed paper or parchment so it doesn't fall out onto your counter.  Remove one or two tablespoons of the flour mixture and toss with the blueberries.  In a separate small bowl, stir together the milk and sour cream.  Set aside.

In a stand mixer with a paddle attachment or with a hand mixer, beat the butter on medium speed until it is light and pale, about 3 minutes.  Add the sugar and beat again for about 3 more minutes, until the mixture is no longer grainy.  Add the egg and yolk and beat until fluffy, about 2 minutes.

Remove the bowl from the mixer and sift half of the flour mixture into the bowl.  Add half of the milk/sour cream mixture and gently fold the ingredients together with a rubber spatula.  Do not overmix - stop when the ingredients are barely combined.  Add the remaining dry and wet ingredients and fold only until just mixed.  Sprinkle the blueberries over the top of the batter and fold them in gently.

Spoon the batter into the prepared muffin tins, filling each cup about 2/3 full.  Bake for 18-20 minutes, until the flat tops are golden and they spring back when touched.  Remove the muffins from the pans and cool on a rack for 10-15 minutes before serving. 

These muffins will stay great for a day.  If you are not going to serve them within a few hours of baking, put them into a plastic bag.  They will keep for one more day this way and will be nice sliced and toasted.  To keep them longer, wrap them airtight and freeze for up to a month.  Thaw, still wrapped, at room temperature.
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If you are looking for a blueberry muffin recipe, I do suggest giving this one a try.  I will definitely make this one again, as the texture is perfect!

Aebleskiver

Aebleskivers came into my life with my husband.  They are a Christmas tradition in his family, so when we started merging holiday traditions, aebleskivers entered my home.  And boy am I glad they did!  If you have never seen an aebleskiver before, they are sort of a mix between a pancake and a popover.  They are solid like a pancake but they are light and fluffy like a popover.  And yes, they are shaped like little spheres.  They are Danish, and come from Mr. Clever Mom's mother's background.  Oh, and we pronounce them ay-bel-skee-ver.  I have no idea if that is accurate or not, but that is how it's done in my house!

I find aebleskivers to be fun, as they provide you with a complete variety of things you can do with them.  Start with what to put in them - they can be plain or you could drop some fruit or jam in the middle and let the sphere form around the fruit.  You can also serve them with a myriad of topping choices - cinnamon sugar, powdered sugar, jam, syrup, peanut butter, truly anything you devise!

The one thing you must have in order to make aebleskivers is an aebleskiver pan.  A while back, I purchased one at Williams Sonoma, but they are readily available in kitchen specialty shops or probably on Amazon.  That particular pan is light-weight and has a non-stick coating.  We recently acquired another aebleskiver pan, which is cast iron.  Both work really well.  I find that I need a bit more butter in the cast iron one (and it is awfully heavy) but they seem to create equally good aebleskivers.  If you are not ready to increase the number of random pans in your kitchen, you can also use this batter in a waffle iron.  The recipe makes lovely puffy waffles!  I used a traditional waffle iron (not a Belgium waffle iron).

Christmas Sticky Buns

As you might remember from a Tuesday's with Dorie post back in May on Pecan Sticky Buns, my family makes sticky buns every year for Christmas morning.  I am the baker of these buns and have tweaked recipes to my preference over time.   We started with a recipe my mom found, and used this recipe until maybe 3-4 years ago, when I found another recipe that looked like it might be worth trying.  If I am going to try out a new sticky bun recipe, I have to do so NOT on Christmas day, to make sure it is Christmas-sticky-bun worthy!  The new recipe was from Cooks Illustrated, and while there were parts that I liked, there were parts I didn't.  So I have combined the two recipes to make our new "official" Christmas sticky bun recipe. 

This recipe takes a bit of time, although it's nothing compared to many of the bread recipes I have recently tried, with multiple rest periods and rising periods.  This recipe rises twice - once on the counter, once overnight in the refrigerator.  So really, the only important (thus time consuming one that you actually WAIT for) is the one on the counter.  Not so bad for a yeast bread, really.

Gingerbread Pancakes

To spice up our Saturday morning pancake breakfast, I made Gingerbread Pancakes!  Yum.  They are pretty much like eating gingerbread cookies for breakfast, but in pancake form.  Delicious!  I highly recommend!  They are no more time consuming than my regular buttermilk pancakes, and provide a nice holiday feeling.

Pumpkin Waffles with Caramelized Apples and Walnuts

To continue my pumpkin infatuation, here are pumpkin waffles with caramelized apples and walnuts!  Yum.  What a perfect way to start off your weekend!