Baked Goods

Rough Puff Pastry

written by Ali

I’ve been an avid watcher of The Great British Baking Show for the past two seasons. It’s been this avid watching that finally gave me the courage to try my hand at puff pastry. I decided to start off with trying rough puff pastry, largely because I really like saying rough puff pastry. I also like the allure of the quick and easy. I’ve wanted to make various things with puff pastry, but every time I buy it at the grocery store, it gets tossed in the freezer, things happen, and next thing I know, it’s a year later and I have puff pastry with a serious case of freezer burn. I figured if I made my own, I’d use it right away and could also make it in a batch the size I needed.

Of course, the day I decided I needed it (based on the size of the summer squash I was eyeing to make into a savory tart), it was 85 degrees in the PNW. I’ve been lamenting the lack of a summer the last few weeks, and now I think I’m going to be lamenting the return of summer with a vengeance the next few weeks. I did discover that you can make rough puff pastry when it’s very hot – you just have to be diligent about letting it rest in the freezer to keep the butter from melting between turns. I also gave it a full ninety minute rest in the refrigerator after I was done turning it, and it was just fine.

I realize I need to be better about taking photos between steps. At the very least, I will try to provide an in-depth set of instructions below. That said, here’s what the rough puff looks like when it’s been mixed and after it’s gone through the turning process.

Rough Puff Pastry
Makes a small batch – I was able to get four 4 inch by 4 inch squares out of this. It could easily be doubled.

1 cup flour
½ teaspoon salt
10 tablespoons cold butter
1/3 cup cold water

Mix the flour and salt in a medium sized bowl. Grate the butter into the flour/salt mixture. Stir until the butter is well coated with the flour. Make a small well in the middle and add the water. Mix until all the flour/butter/salt mixture is incorporated into the water. Gently knead the mixture until you have a shaggy dough – don’t over knead or over mix.

Turn the dough out onto a floured surface. Roll out a rectangle about 8 inches by 4 inches. Fold the dough letter style – the top third comes down and the bottom third comes up. Turn ¼ turn. This is the first turn. Roll out again into a rectangle about 8 inches by 4 inches. Fold the dough again – top third comes down, bottom third comes up. This is the second turn. Do this process (roll, fold) at least two more times. Work fairly quickly – the butter shouldn’t start to melt all over your surface. If it starts to get too soft, throw the dough into the freezer between turns and let it firm up a bit.

Once you’ve turned and rolled at least four times, wrap the dough in plastic wrap and put it in the refrigerator for at least an hour to rest.

If you are looking for ways to make use of your rough puff pastry, check out this summer squash and goat cheese tart, as well as this Beet Tartes Tatin with Pesto Gorgonzola Sauce.

August 16, 2016 0 comment

Baked Goods Breakfast

Nectarine Coffee Cake Muffins

written by Ali

These Nectarine Coffee Cake Muffins feel a little like I’m starting to grasp at the very last of summer. We’ve had such a very mild summer here in the PNW – yesterday, when I made these muffins, my cat temperature barometer, our thirteen-year-old calico, was on the couch, thoroughly covered with my shawl. In fact, all of the kitties this weekend were saying that winter is coming – there was a lot of cat piling together on the couch with tails wrapped over noses. Even the dog spent some time on the couch with me first thing in the morning, snuggled up under a blanket.

If winter is right around the corner, I’m highly motivated to take advantage of the bounty of the summer season and do a lot of cooking with the likes of peaches and nectarines. Nectarines are one of my favorite fruits – I like the fact they have smooth skins (I’m not a huge fan of peach fuzzies). Nectarines also bring back happy memories of doing u-pick in my last town in the PNW: the farm where I would do the majority of my u-pick had the most luscious nectarines and while I often went to pick canning quantities, the nectarines were the fruit that were least likely to make it into a jar.

These muffins are fairly quick and easy to make. The nectarine slice on the top gives them a hint of cobbler taste, with plenty of coffee cake crunch from the crumb topping. These are ideal for enjoying a morning’s sunshine on the patio with a cup of coffee.

Nectarine Coffee Cake Muffins
Makes 12

Coffee Cake Muffins Crumb Topping
¼ cup butter, melted
¾ cup flour
½ cup packed brown sugar
½ teaspoon vanilla
½ teaspoon cinnamon

Coffee Cake Muffins
¾ cup butter
½ cup sugar
2 eggs
¾ cup sour cream
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 ½ cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
1 large nectarine, sliced into twelve thin pieces

Coffee Cake Muffins Crumb Topping

Add all ingredients in a small bowl and mix thoroughly. The flour should be completed blended. Set aside.

Coffee Cake Muffins

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees

Cream the butter and the sugar until it is fluffy. Add the eggs and mix. Add the sour cream and vanilla and mix again.

Sift together the flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Add the dry ingredient mixture to the wet, about ¼ cup at a time until all is incorporated.

Line 12 muffin cups with muffin cup liners. Spoon about a quarter cup of the muffin mixture into each cup. Spoon the coffee cake muffin crumb mixture over the top of each muffin and place a nectarine slice on top of each.

Bake for 30 minutes or until a knife inserted in the middle of the coffee cake muffins comes out clean.

I’m delighted to share this recipe as an Afternoon Tea Time Treats. Please check out the hosts of Tea Time Treats: Jo’s Kitchen, Travels for Taste, and Lavender and Lovage. These are three of my absolute favorite blogs – so do go look.

August 9, 2016 0 comment

Baked Goods Breakfast

Buttermilk Blueberry Muffins

written by Ali

These buttermilk blueberry muffins are just the way to start a summer’s morning (especially if they are served with good strong coffee!). You may have noticed that I really get excited about produce – in the summertime, I’m sure as each fruit comes into season it is my absolute favorite…until the next one is in season. Right now, I’m enjoying blueberries, particularly as it seems that different varieties are grown in the southern part of Washington that produce throughout the summer (as opposed to the varieties in Southern Oregon that seemed to produce only through early July). I recently bought a pound of blueberries at the farmer’s market with the intention of freezing some to make muffins at some later date. They tasted so good though, I was left with about a cup and decided rather than delaying gratification, I might as well just make blueberry muffins now.

Inspiration for these muffins comes from this brown sugar buttermilk muffin recipe.

Buttermilk Blueberry Muffins
Makes 12 muffins

½ cup butter, softened
¾ cup brown sugar
1 egg
1 cup buttermilk
1 teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon salt
2 cups flour
1 cup fresh or frozen blueberries

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

In a large bowl, cream the butter, brown sugar, and egg. Add the buttermilk and mix well. Add the baking soda and salt. Add the flour and mix until all the flour is incorporated. Gently fold in the blueberries.

Grease or line muffin pans with cupcake liners. Fill each muffin cup in the pan about 2/3 of the way. (A quarter cup measuring cup works well to do this).

Bake for 15-17 minutes or until a knife inserted in a muffin comes out clean. Store in an air-tight container.

July 27, 2016 0 comment

Baked Goods Farmer's Market Freezer Meals Lunch Recipes Vegetarian

Baked Samosas

written by Ali

This week is another week of travel. I’m realizing how challenging it is to travel frequently for work and still be able to carve out time both to cook and eat a good lunch. I have a very late night drive back from my destination on Wednesday night, so decided I needed to have something on hand in the freezer for lunch at work on Thursday. I also had a half bag of baby potatoes that needed to be used, so between the two, opted to make baked samosas.

I spent about an hour on these on Sunday. I realized when I was half way into the process that it was going to take a bit more time that I had originally anticipated, so I queued up some music on Pandora, poured a glass of white wine (it was late afternoon), and rolled and stretched my dough, filling each one with this heavenly spiced potato, onion, and pea mixture. I had a bit more potato and pea mixture, so we used it in simple tortilla wraps for a snack. I think I may experiment at some later date with this mixture on a pizza – if I do, I’ll be sure to put it on the blog.

Baked Samosas
Makes 15

Dough
3 cups flour
4 tablespoons olive oil
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons apple cider vinegar
1 cup cold water

Combine all ingredients and gently mix. If you need to add more water, do so a tablespoon at a time. The dough should be tacky, but you should be able to handle it with just a dusting of flour on your hands. Knead gently in the bowl until the dough is soft and sticks together. Refrigerate while you make the filling.

Filling
8 – 10 small potatoes
1 onion, diced
1 cup peas (fresh or frozen)
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon grated or finely diced ginger
2 teaspoons garam masala
1 teaspoon coriander
1 teaspoon smoked paprika
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon turmeric
1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper

Place the potatoes in a saucepan and fill with water just so the potatoes are covered. Bring to a boil and then reduce to a simmer, cooking until the potatoes are fork tender (about 45 minutes). Drain the potatoes, return to the saucepan and gently mash. Meanwhile, in a small frying pan, heat the olive oil and add the diced onions and the ginger. Cook until the onions are lightly browned. Add the onions, ginger, peas, and spices to the potatoes and mix thoroughly.

Assembling the Samosas
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Remove the dough from the refrigerator and split into thirds. Take the first third and roll it out on a floured working surface. The dough will be stretchy, so you may need to let it rest between rolling. Roll to about 1/4 inch thickness. Using a glass or round cookie cutter, cut the dough into circles. (I used an English Muffin ring that was 3 3/4 inches in diameter). Place a small scoop (about a tablespoon) of filling in the middle of the circle and fold over. Use your fingers or a fork to crimp the edges. Place each samosa on the baking sheet. You can snug them in together as they will not stick together while baking. Repeat until all the dough is used.

Bake for 20 minutes or until the samosas are lightly browned. Serve with chutney or on their own.

July 19, 2016 0 comment

Baked Goods Breakfast Farmer's Market

Roasted Strawberry and Rhubarb Coffee Cake

written by Ali

I love coffee cake. It’s a guilty pleasure – a little slice of foodie heaven next to a cup of coffee first thing in the morning. I am so decidedly not a morning person. It takes a strong Americano in the morning and at least a half hour or so of reading email updates and listserv posts before I’m able to really and truly be functional. All of this can be made so much better if the coffee is accompanied by breakfast food. Two weeks ago, I decided I was tired of the temptation to wander down to the nearby coffee shop and buy something (a bagel, a croissant, and so on), and the strawberries and rhubarb were looking so good at the farmer’s market, and I’m a recipe creator now, after all – a food blog writer, I should be able to design my own coffee cake.

Please take note that that was two weeks ago and this recipe is just showing up now. That’s because I learned a little secret about being a recipe writer: sometimes, you are bound to have an epic fail. The first coffee cake I made that incorporated strawberries and rhubarb developed a buttery life of its own in the oven. It gurgled, it oozed and eventually, after much whining on my part, it ended up in the trash, as it was totally and completely inedible. There was much too much moisture in the fruit. I’d tried to treat the butter in the crumb like you would in a pie dough (not melted, just made into butter pellets that then melted with great drama in the oven).

That’s the great thing about being a home cook. If at first you don’t succeed, go back to the drawing board and try again. This week, I managed to make this picture perfect beauty. I started by doing some research about the coffee cake crumb – that delectable, sugary, buttery, crunchy topping. No matter what anyone tells you, be sure to melt your butter first and use an adequate amount of flour in the crumb. This will actually create a crumb, rather than a butter lake in your oven. Second, I decided it was time to get on the roasted fruit train and decided to roast my strawberries and rhubarb to reduce the moisture content a little. Yes – I can now see why roasted strawberries are a thing. They are soft and melty and lovely. The rhubarb also takes on a buttery softness and, as I didn’t use much sugar, stays a little tart. My advice is to either make more of the roasted strawberries and rhubarb than my recipe here calls for or save just a few tablespoons from what you make here and use it in the roasted strawberry rhubarb martini that will be showing up on the blog tomorrow.

Until then, happy mornings.

Roasted Strawberry Rhubarb Coffee Cake
Serves 8-10

Roasted Strawberries and Rhubarb
6 strawberries, hulled and cut in half
1 stalk rhubarb, sliced into ½ inch pieces
2 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla

Coffee Cake Crumb
¼ cup butter, melted
¾ cup flour
½ cup packed brown sugar
½ teaspoon vanilla
½ teaspoon cinnamon

Coffee Cake
¾ cup butter
½ cup sugar
2 eggs
¾ cup sour cream
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 ½ cups flour
½ teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt

Roasted Strawberries and Rhubarb
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and place the cut strawberries and rhubarb in a single layer. Sprinkle with sugar and vanilla. Roast for 30 minutes, scoop the fruit into a bowl and then set aside to cool. Once cool, mash gently.

Coffee Cake Crumb

Add all ingredients in a small bowl and mix thoroughly. The flour should be completed blended. Set aside.

Coffee Cake

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees

Cream the butter and the sugar until it is fluffy. Add the eggs and mix. Add the sour cream and vanilla and mix again.

Sift together the flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Add the dry ingredient mixture to the wet, about ¼ cup at a time until all is incorporated.

Butter a 9 inch cake pan. Spoon the coffee cake mixture into the pan. Spoon the roasted strawberry and rhubarb mix over the top. Spoon the coffee cake crumb mixture over the fruit.

Bake for 40 minutes or until a knife inserted in the middle of the coffee cake comes out clean.

I’m happy to have linked this recipe with Lavender and Lovage and The Hedge Combers for June’s Tea Time Treats challenge.

June 2, 2016 2 comments

Baked Goods Breads Quick and Easy

Quick and Easy Focaccia

written by Ali

In some ways, this is a TBT post. Many, many years ago, I found a book on making focaccia at some bookstore or another. It’s a small volume, but what was significant for me was learning how to a multi-stage bread: one that requires a starter or sponge that ferments and that then is incorporated into the dough. The focaccia made from the recipes in that book were a revelation for me – they were a thick risen slab adorned with garlic, herbs, olive oil and salt. I made focaccia religiously every Christmas, as it was one of my uncle’s favorite foods. I rarely, if ever, found time to make it any other time of year.

Some time ago, when I was doing some Pinterest browsing for bread, I came across a no-rise focaccia recipe. As much as I would like to take the time to make a full sponge, full rise focaccia, I find that I just don’t have the time. No-rise bread comes to the rescue on those nights when focaccia makes sense as a side and I haven’t done any sort of planning ahead to make the real deal.

This is also a great side for a lunch salad. It’s easy to make the night before, and in the recipe below, easily makes two cake pans worth of bread. For the first dozen times I made this recipe, I used fresh rosemary, chopped finely, for the topping. Since we moved, I don’t have a rosemary plant yet, so have used red pepper flakes and Italian seasonings and salt instead.

Quick and Easy Focaccia
Serves 8

2 cups warm water
2 teaspoons active yeast
2 teaspoons salt
4 cups flour
Chopped rosemary and salt or dried Italian Seasonings and red pepper flakes to top
Olive oil to drizzle

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees.

Sprinkle the yeast over the warm water. Add the flour and salt and mix well. Split the dough into two sections and spread them into two well-oiled eight-inch cake pans. Drizzle with olive oil and top with seasonings. Bake for 20 minutes or until golden brown.

April 14, 2016 0 comment

Baked Goods Dessert Holiday Recipes

Wine-y Dark Chocolate Brownies

written by Ali

I suspect if I have a life’s motto, it’s when life is in chaos, eat chocolate and drink wine. This recipe is the best of both worlds, as it incorporates lots of chocolate and a good, robust wine. The addition of dried Bing cherries gives the brownies a bit of chew and compliments the dark chocolate chips.

Wine-y Dark Chocolate Brownies
Makes 40 brownies

¾ cup butter
¾ cup sugar
½ cup cocoa powder
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon baking soda
1 ½ cup flour
½ cup milk
½ cup red wine
1 cup dark chocolate chips
½ cup dried cherries

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

Combine the butter, sugar, and cocoa powder in a medium saucepan over low heat and stir until the butter is melted and the sugar and cocoa powder are combined. Take the mixture off the heat and let cool for about five minutes.

Add the eggs and vanilla to the melted butter/sugar/cocoa mix and stir to thoroughly incorporate the eggs. Add the milk and red wine and stir. Combine the baking powder, baking soda, and flour in a small bowl. Add the dry ingredients slowly to the chocolate mix, stirring after each small addition. The batter will be a bit lumpy. Add the dark chocolate chips and dried cherries and stir until these are incorporated.

Spread the brownie mixture in a well-buttered 11×7 baking dish. Bake for 35 minutes or until a knife inserted in the middle of the brownies comes out clean.

February 17, 2016 0 comment

Baked Goods Holiday Recipes Lunch Recipes

Croissants

written by Ali

Do you ever pause for a moment and really think about food? Often, as I’m eating something, like an artichoke or a hazelnut or mushrooms, I pause and consider how our ancestors first thought to eat this particular food or thought to prepare it in a particular way – or really, even thought to prepare food at all. I think about this when I’m baking bread and when I’m making pasta – about how this combination of simple things – flour, yeast, eggs maybe or just flour and eggs (in the case of pasta) – came to be.

I also think about the memories we attach to food. I can’t think of much else in life, except music, perhaps, that so firmly attaches to a memory as food does. Some foods have a stronger memory association than others, and for me, one of the strongest is croissants. My first association with croissants was chocolate croissants and almond croissants that my mom would buy at a little chain in Colorado called Petite Boulangerie on Green Mountain. It seems to me that the bakery was next to a bookstore, so for me, those two things – pastry and books – are inexorably linked. As an adult, I encountered chocolate croissants in a meaningful way again in New Mexico. A daughter of one of my co-workers sold chocolate croissants, which she’d learned to make in France, at the local farmers market in Tularosa. I would buy six or eight at a time and we would freeze them and then heat them up again on lazy Sunday mornings. Croissants are also closely tied to my honeymoon – my only trip to Paris thus far. We stayed at a small B&B and the proprietress would make us croissants and eggs in the morning, along with some miserable coffee she’d microwave. It was ok – we had fresh croissants, a bit of jam, and some cheese.

For a long time, we had a baker here in my part of the PNW who made chocolate croissants and sold them at our farmers market. Two years ago or so, he left to go start a bakery somewhere in Mexico, and I decided it was time to stop relying on others for croissants – it was time to make my own. And maybe because I have these strong associations with my memories, I was afraid to make these – they seemed so complicated, like a mystical ritual that took a full moon to fully realize or something. One holiday season, I found a recipe online that looked easy enough and dove in. The results were good – flaky, but a bit on the small size. What I discovered in this process was that there was nothing mystical about the croissant – it was basically dough with a hefty amount of butter. The magic comes about in the layering of dough and butter, but even this is not as complex as it looks. I’ve since found that a little devil-may-care attitude seems to work well to get the croissants nice and fluffy.

If you’ve never had a fresh croissant right out of the oven, I strongly encourage you to try these. One note of warning: this is a two-day recipe that takes a fair amount of time on the first day (though most of that time is inactive time waiting for the dough to rest).

What follows below is a step-by-step guide with pictures.

Start by breaking two eggs into a two-cup measure. Fill the measure with warm water and then give the eggs a good stir until they are incorporated with the water. In a medium size bowl, pour the egg and water mixture and then add 2 ¼ teaspoons active yeast. Add to this mixture 3 tablespoons sugar. Combine. Gradually add 5 cups of flour, stirring as you go. Turn the dough out onto a well-floured surface. Knead for four or five minutes – until the dough is supple and soft, but not overworked. Put the dough back into the bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and refrigerate for 30 minutes.

While the dough rests, put 4 sticks of butter (a total of 1 lb.) into a one-gallon size freezer or storage bag. The next step is an extraordinary stress reliever: place the bag with the butter on the counter and start whacking it (hard) with a rolling pin.

The goal here is to flatten the butter out into a rectangle that’s about ¼ to ½ inch thick. Once the butter is flattened out and in a rough rectangle, refrigerate until the dough is ready to go.

When the dough is ready to come out, turn it onto a well-floured surface and roll it into a rectangle about 16 x 18. Place the butter rectangle into the middle and fold each corner of the dough toward the middle, over the butter.

From here, flour the surface again and roll out the dough to a 16 x 18 inch rectangle. Once this is complete, fold the dough into thirds (like you might fold a letter). Turn the dough one-quarter turn and roll it out again to a 16 x 18 inch rectangle. This completes two turns (you’ll turn it four times total). Refrigerate for another 30 minutes.

When the dough comes out, roll it out again to a 16 x 18 inch rectangle and then fold by thirds and refrigerate again for 30 minutes. This is the third turn.

Do this one more time – roll the dough into a 16 x 18 inch rectangle and fold into thirds. This time, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight.

The next day, put the dough on a well-floured surface and divide it into two sections. You’ll be able to see the multiple layers of the dough.

Put one section back in the refrigerator and roll the other on a well-floured surface into a 16 x 18 inch rectangle. Divide the dough into 12 more or less evenly divided sections. Place your filling in the middle of each section and fold the dough. Repeat with the second section of dough.

I used two fillings this time around. The first half of the dough was filled with prosciutto and Swiss cheese. The second half of the dough was filled with dark chocolate chips.

At this point, you can do two things: first, you can put the croissants in the oven on a parchment covered baking sheet and bake them for about 20 minutes at 375 degrees. Keep an eye on them – when they are evenly browned on the top and bottom, they are finished.

Second, you can put the croissants on a parchment covered baking sheet and freeze them (once they are frozen, transfer them to a freezer bag). The beauty of uncooked and frozen croissants is that you can pull as many as you need out of the freezer the night before you plan to bake them, put them in the refrigerator and then bake them the next day and they will still puff up just as beautifully as if you had made them fresh.

Croissants (recipe adapted from King Arthur flour)
Makes 24 croissants

2 eggs and enough warm water to fill a two-cup measuring cup over the eggs
3 tablespoons sugar
2 ¼ teaspoons active yeast
1 lb unsalted or salted butter

Prosciutto Croissant Filling
8 or so slices of prosciutto
6 slices of Swiss cheese

Chocolate Croissant Filling
1 package dark chocolate chips

While the dough rests, put 4 sticks of butter (a total of 1 lb.) into a one-gallon size freezer or storage bag. Flatten into a rectangle and refrigerate.

Turn the dough onto a well-floured surface and roll it into a rectangle about 16 x 18. Place the butter rectangle into the middle and fold each corner of the dough toward the middle, over the butter.

When the dough comes out, roll it out again to a 16 x 18 inch rectangle and then fold by thirds and refrigerate again for 30 minutes. This is the third turn.

Do this one more time – roll the dough into a 16 x 18 inch rectangle and fold into thirds. This time, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight.

The next day, put the dough on a well-floured surface and divide it into two sections. Put one section back in the refrigerator and roll the other on a well-floured surface into a 16 x 18 inch rectangle. Divide the dough into 12 more or less evenly divided sections. Place your filling in the middle of each section and fold the dough. Repeat with the second section of dough.

Bake at 375 degrees for twenty minutes. Alternatively, you can freeze the croissants. When you are ready to bake them, take them out of the freezer the night before and then bake the next day at 375 degrees for twenty minutes.

January 25, 2016 0 comment

Newer Posts

Older Posts