Oldie, but goodie.

There's a cookbook I turn to time and again when I run out of inspiration on the Internet. It's a cookbook that thousands of cooks (both serious and aspiring) have, or should have, on their kitchen shelf.

Mine has been to the other side of the planet and back, attacked by mold and humidity of the tropics and questionable storage in the North East of the US. But even though the cover and binding is falling apart, and my edition is a rather older one, it still serves its purpose - a solid cook book with recipes even the most timid of chefs can attempt. This, of course, is Craig Claibourne's New York Times Cookbook.



There's a recipe in there that I have been using for years, a simple basic roll recipe that I modified into making Cinnamon Buns.



The recipe is the Basic Rolls recipe from the cookbook where I just make my own filling and roll it out Cinnamon Roll style.

Basic Rolls
Ingredients

2 cups milk
1/4 cup of vegetable shortening or butter
1/4 cup sugar
2 tsp salt
2 packages (or 2 TBSP) yeast
1/4 cup lukewarm water
5-6 cups all-purpose flour
Melted shortening or butter

Filling

1 1/2 cup brown sugar
2 TBSP cinnamon
1/2 tsp allspice
1 tsp vanilla

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 deg F. Grease a 9 x 13 baking dish.

Bring milk to a boil. Then add shortening or butter, sugar and salt and cool to lukewarm.

Soften yeast in lukewarm water in a separate bowl. Once softened, add to cooled milk mixture.

In a large mixing bowl, add half the flour to the milk mixture and beat well. Then add enough of the remaining flour to make a soft dough.

Turn out the dough onto a well-floured board and let rest for 10 minutes. Then knead (adding flour as the dough gets sticky) for about 10 minutes until smooth.

Place dough into greased bowl and let rise until double in bulk (about 30-45 mins).

Make filling: Mix together all filling ingredients until well-combined. Set aside.

Once dough has risen, punch down to remove some of the air and turn out onto a floured board. Knead with a little flour until smooth (about 5 mins). Roll out dough in a rectangular shape (approx 10 in x 13 in). Brush on some melted butter or shortening and sprinkle on filling evenly, until entire surface is covered. Roll the dough tightly as if for a jelly roll and pinch down seam firmly.

Cut 1-inch sections of roll and place cut side up in greased baking dish. Cover and let rise for about 30-45 minutes in a warm place. Once dough has risen, brush with remaining butter or shortening and bake for about 30 mins.


Let cool and serve plain or with a simple vanilla icing. Eaten warm is the best - and a bonus is that your home will smell like heaven for a while.

Enjoy!

Thanksgiving

So, this year for Thanksgiving me and my family decided to forgo tradition and infiltrate a friend's Thanksgiving celebrations. This meant less cooking, less arguing (yes, arguing - you cannot believe the level of discussion that goes on between my brothers regarding the amount of sides and the correct way to prepare a turkey) and a generally stress-free dinner.

We did bring a Turkey and two sides (simple vegetables) and I baked. Because I bake.

This time, I made not only an Apple Pie, but a Pumpkin Pie with Walnut Streusel topping. I've never made a Pumpkin Pie before and surprisingly enough - everyone loved it over the Apple Pie (I liked the latter better).



The recipe I found here on epicurious.com, but I added less sugar because I don't think that something with a streusel topping needs more sugar.

Personally, I thought the pie was too sweet, but the texture was velvety and rich while still being light.

I wish I had another picture to put up, one preferably of a slice, but the pie was devoured without much more than grunting noises from the pleased partakers. A success!

Let's Make Whoopie Tonight - Pumpkin Style

As kinky as the title sounds, making whoopie...pies is pretty straightforward. No kinks to be found.

Since I had leftover pumpkin puree from my Pumpkin Swirl Brownie recipe I figured why not find a simple recipe that really shows off the combination of pumpkin and spice. Enter whoopie pies.

Pumpkin Whoopie Pies

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 tablespoon ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon freshly grated ginger

1/4 teaspoon ground cloves

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup unsalted butter, room temperature

1 cups dark brown sugar

1 large egg, room temperature

1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

8 ounces pumpkin puree

Vanilla Filling

1/4 cup vegetable shortening

1/4 cup unsalted butter, room temperature

1 cup confectioners' sugar

1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

1/2 cup light corn syrup

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and lightly grease two cookie sheets.

Mix all dry ingredients, minus sugar, in a bowl. In another bowl, beat together butter and dark brown sugar until light and fluffy. Add egg and beat well. Add ginger, vanilla and pumpkin puree and beat well. Add flour mixture, and yes, beat well.

Drop heaping tablespoons of the batter on to the greased cookie sheets and flatten out a little.

Bake for 12-14 mins or until the tops of the "cakes" are springy to the touch.

Let cool completely and in the meanwhile, make the filling!

Beat the shortening and butter until soft and creamy. With the mixer on its lowest speed, gradually beat in the confectioners' sugar. Increase the speed to high, and beat until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes. Then, with the mixer on low speed, beat in the vanilla extract and slowly drizzle in the corn syrup. Continue to beat until the filling looks like soft mayonnaise.

Assembly

When cakes are completely cooled, place a heaping tablespoon of the filling on one cake (flat side) and top with another.

And that's how you make whoopie...pie. Pumpkin Style.

Pumpkins Are a Girls Best Friend!

Well, they are when said girl needs a break from writing her god-awful thesis. Tis the season for all things orange-y, so when I was doing my food shopping the other day, I decided to pick up a can of pureed pumpkin. I know I could have bought one fresh, roasted it and made some homemade puree, but pumpkin from a can is easier. And if my favorite cooking blogger smittenkitchen uses it, then why the heck can't I?

That being said, I remember seeing on her blog a lovely marbled pumpkin and chocolate brownie recipe. So, off I went in between writing bibliographies and found the recipe (which was incidentally modified from Martha Stewart's - don't you love baking? It's all about the mods).

I decided to go with my own modifications and ended up with these.



They taste as good as they look.

Pumpkin Swirl Brownies (adapted from smittenkitchen.com adapted from Martha Stewart Living)

Ingredients

8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, plus more for pan
6 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cups sugar (the original recipe calls for the larger amount; I think it could be dialed down a bit)
3 extra large eggs
1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
1 1/4 cups solid-pack pumpkin
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
dash of allspice
dash of mace

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease an 8 x 8" brownie pan.

Melt butter and chocolate over a double boiler. Let cool.

Mix together flour, salt and baking powder in a bowl. Set aside.

In a separate bowl, whisk together eggs and sugar. Add vanilla and beat until light and fluffy. Add the flour mixture and mix well.

Separate the batter into two halves (approx 1.5 cups of batter each). Add chocolate mixture to one half and mix well. To the remaining batter, add vegetable oil, pumpkin puree, and spices and beat well.

Into your greased brownie pan, pour the majority of the chocolate mixture and spread evenly with a spatula. Top that with the pumpkin mixture and spread evenly. Add the last bit of chocolate batter and swirl the mixtures together to create that lovely marbled effect.

Bake for 45-50 mins (I know!) until toothpick comes clean when inserted into the brownies.

Let cool before cutting and serving. And let me tell ya, they taste as good as they look!

Festival of Light

No, it's not Hannukah, it's Diwali the Indian festival of light. The origins of the festival are nested in myth, but the meaning remains the same - the triumph of good over evil, signified by the lighting of small oil lamps called diyas to chase the darkness out of our lives and the baking of many traditional sweets to sweeten the mouths of friends and family.

It's a pretty cool festival all in all.

Being not as traditional as the usual celebrators, I decided to fiddle with a traditional recipe and make it a little more modern. There is a version of a butter cookie that is made throughout India called nankhatai. It is essentially butter, flour, semolina, spices and sugar. Sometimes you add nuts to the dough, like pistachio or almonds.

I decided to forgo the semolina and make a simple butter cookie with some added, err, pizazz.


Orange-Cardamom Butter Cookies with Chocolate Glaze

Ingredients

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature

1/4 cup confectioner's sugar

1 cup all purpose flour

1/8 teaspoon salt

1/4 tsp baking soda

1 tsp orange zest

1/2 tsp cardamom powder

1/2 tsp orange blossom water (optional)

Chocolate Glaze

1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips
2 tablespoons butter
1 tablespoon corn syrup

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 deg Fahrenheit. Grease two cookie sheets.

Using a hand beater or your stand mixer, beat together the butter and confectioner's sugar until light and fluffy. In a separate bowl, mix flour, salt, baking powder and cardamom. Add the dry ingredients slowly to the butter/sugar mixture and beat together on low speed until well incorporated. Add zest and orange blossom water and mix well.

Using a small spoon, scoop out spoonfuls of the dough and form into a flattened ball and place on cookie sheet. (Mine were oblong) Bake for 12 minutes or until lightly golden in color.

Make glaze by melting together the butter, chocolate, and syrup in a double boiler. Alternatively, you can melt the chocolate in the microwave, and then blend in the other ingredients.

Let cookies cool completely before dipping half the cookie in the cooled glaze. Let cookies rest before devouring.


Happy Belated Diwali Everyone!

Sugar Shock, part 2

Not only did I buy a bag of Butterfinger ® mini's, I also was, err, enlightened to buy a bag of peanut M&M's ®. And enlightened I was because it spurred me to use them in yet another baked treat!

This time, I visited the M&M's ® website and decided to fiddle around with their Chocolate Marbled Blondie recipe.



The difference is that I used dark brown sugar instead of light brown, I added a 1/4 tsp of salt and instead of fat-free cream cheese, I used Neufchâtel. And those honkers on top of the blondies? Well, they are peanut M&Ms ®. I like them better than the regular.

Why? Because these are what I had in my pantry and salt always makes a baked good better. It balances out the flavor and enhances it as well. So always remember to add a bit of salt to your baked goodies to make it all that much better!



Enjoy!

Sugar Shock, part 1

There something about the duality of Halloween that is really cool. On the one hand, it's the night before All Soul's Day when the dead walk and "scare" the living. On the other hand, it's a night where children (and adults) can go nuts over candy.

I luckily live on a block where there are tons of wee ones in costume that I can make light up with handfuls of sugary goodness. And I don't skimp on the good stuff - Reese's Peanut Butter ® cups, M&M ® Peanut (and regular because allergies to abound), Butterfingers (r), Hershey's ® Miniatures.

No candy corn, dried fruit or pennies. I had too many encounters with those "treats" when I was a costumed fiend and still remember not being too happy about it.

Anyways, I was thinking that since candy is so cheap and plentiful this time of year, I would score a few bags pre-Halloween and make me some goodies.

I remembered making Butterfingers ® cookies once, and decided to make them again!



Butterfinger ® Cookies

Ingredients
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter or margarine, softened
1 large egg
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup coarsely chopped NESTLE BUTTERFINGER® Candy Bars

Directions
Preheat oven to 375°F. Lightly grease two baking sheets.

Combine flour, baking soda and salt in small bowl. Beat sugar and butter in large mixer bowl until creamy. Beat in egg and vanilla next. Then, gradually beat in flour mixture. Stir in Butterfinger pieces. Drop by slightly rounded tablespoon onto baking sheets.

Bake the cookies for 10 to 12 minutes or until lightly browned. Cool on baking sheets for 2 minutes; remove to wire racks to cool completely.

Makes about 2 1/2 dozen cookies.



The best part about these cookies is that they don't stick to your teeth, unlike the candy that's in them. And they go really well with a nice cold glass of 2% milk. So...healthier?

Happy Halloween!

Bananas!

It's been a while since I've posted, but I blame school. And life. And, for some reason, a hectic social schedule.

But of course, I couldn't go for too long without baking, so when I saw this awesome pile of slowly browning bananas on my kitchen table, I knew I had to do something.


So I found this recipe and decided to use the brownest of my bananas and whip up a batch of muffins for Sunday breakfast. And you know what, I am always amazed when recipes come out quick and tasty after the first try.

Banana Muffins with Cinnamon Streusel Topping

Ingredients
1 1/2 cup of all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
3 very ripe bananas, mashed
3/4 cup sugar
1 egg, lightly beaten
1/3 cup canola oil
1 tsp good vanilla
for the streusel:
3 tsp dark brown sugar
1/4 cup flour
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tbsp butter

Directions
Preheat oven to 375 degrees and grease muffin pan if you are not using muffin liners.

Mix together flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. In another bowl, mix together bananas, sugar, egg, oil and vanilla.

Pour banana mixture into dry ingredients and mix until just moistened. Spoon batter into muffin cups.

In another bowl, mix together brown sugar, flour and cinnamon. Cut in the butter until it resembles a coarse meal. Sprinkle amply on top of the muffin batter.

Bake muffins from 18-20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.



And voila - quick, easy morning muffins. The whole house was smelling like warm bananas and cinnamon - what a great way to start the morning! Well, it was for me. The whole process took about 40 minutes, which is more than enough time to surprise family, friends or a "special friend" with tasty in the morning. I say if you have some bananas that you don't know what to do with, make this!

Low-Fat?

Well, due to a serious health scare in my family, I've decided to include "low-fat" as part of my baking vocabulary.

Now, I know that I might have mentioned before that using substitution to make a cookie, cake or other baked goodie "healthier" ends up making the baked good taste a little less authentic. Who am I kidding, they end up tasting "fake".

An essential ingredient in most baked items is butter. Good, golden, creamy, fattening butter. According to the International Food Information Council,

In baked goods such as cakes, fats help produce a high, fine texture. When "creaming" fats and sugar—the first step in mixing many cake batters—fats trap tiny air bubbles that help the batter to rise. Fats also help keep dough and batter from separating and falling. And fats coat the proteins in flour to make a tender or flaky product.

So when there is little or no fat in a baked good, you end up with a drier product, or worse - a flavorless one.

But the topic of this post is "low-fat" and so I decided to try my hand at a low-fat brownie. What ended up happening was me creating a low-fat, richly satisfying treat that even my sugar-crazed brothers could love. The secret? Low-fat, plain yogurt and a little baking powder.

Yogurt Cocoa Brownies

Ingredients
1 cup of granulated sugar
6 TBSP cocoa powder (any kind will do)
10 TBSP low-fat yogurt
2 large eggs
1/8 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup + 1 TBSP all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 cup dried cranberries (optional)
1/2 cup of dark chocolate chips (optional)

Directions
Preheat oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit. Grease an 8 x 8 in. baking dish (I use non-stick spray).

Mix together sugar, cocoa and yogurt until well blended. Add eggs one at a time until incorporated fully. Add vanilla and salt and mix well. Stir in flour and baking powder until it doesn't show and batter is creamy. Do not over mix.

Fold in dried cranberries and chocolate chips. (optional)

Bake for 28-32 minutes (when a toothpick is inserted, it should come out with a little of the brownie sticking to it).


Cool and cut into squares. Serve warm or room temperature with a nice cold glass of low-fat milk. Enjoy!

Blueberries!

With blueberries being $0.99 a pint at my local green grocer (well more like Chinese Superstore extravaganza - they sell everything there) I figured I'd buy a half-dozen and see what I could make with them.


Blueberries are technically not really blue, but purple. But it doesn't matter, the color is still so wonderfully rich and inviting, it would be a crime not to bake with them.



Of course, with the trusty internet on hand, I scoured Epicurious.com for a quick and easy recipe. And yes, the site delivered in the form of a Blueberry Crumb Cake.

And what I got was a light, fluffy, richly blueberry cake with just the right amount of crunch/texture on top for the crumble.

A perfect way to celebrate the blueberry in my opinion. Well, other than eating them fresh with some vanilla ice-cream.

Yum.