In reverence to the fact that today is Friday, I’d like to talk about liquor. Liquor, as you and I both know, is great. Fantastic. Superb. But there’s a way to make it better. Continue reading
Food
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On a bitterly cold day there are few things that are better than lighting a wood fire (not those horrible gas logs), making a fabulous beef stew and sitting down with a fish bowl of Cabernet Sauvignon.
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This was part of an article in (I think) Southern Living from about 15 years ago. Submitted by Phyllis Vanhoy of Salisbury, NC. I’ve put my personal notes and tips in italics. It’s a freaking amazing cake!
2 C all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking soda
½ tsp salt
2 tsp ground cinnamon
3 large eggs
2 C sugar
¾ C vegetable oil
¾ C buttermilk
2 tsp vanilla
2 C grated carrot
1 (8-oz.) can crushed pineapple, drained
1 (3 ½) oz. can flaked coconut (I buy a bag and weigh it out)
1 C chopped walnuts or pecans (I use pecans)
Buttermilk Glaze
Cream Cheese Frosting
Line three 9-inch round cakepans with wax paper; lightly grease and flour wax paper. Set pans aside. You can use parchment paper as well and in fact you may find that it sticks less.
Stir together first four ingredients. Set aside.
Beat eggs and next four ingredients at medium speed with an electric mixer until smooth.
Add flour mixture, beating at slow speed until blended. Fold in carrots, and next three ingredients. Pour batter into prepared cake pans.
Bake at 350 F for 25 – 30 minutes or until a wooden pick comes out clean.
Drizzle Buttermilk Glaze evenly over the layers; let cool in pans on wire racks 45 minutes.
Do not, DO NOT turn them out of the pans before you’re ready to assemble each layer of the cake. The cake is really moist and will come apart if you take it out of the pans before you’re ready to frost each layer.
Remove from pans, and cool completely on wire racks. Spread Cream Cheese Frosting between the layers and on top and sides of cake.
Yield: One 3-layer cake
Buttermilk Glaze
- 1 C sugar
- ½ c buttermilk
- 1 ½ tsp baking soda
- ½ C butter or margarine
- 1 Tbsp light corn syrup
- 1 tsp vanilla
Bring first 5 ingredients to a boil in a large dutch oven over medium-high heat. Boil, stirring often, 4 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in vanilla. Yield: 1 ½ cups
First of all, this foams quite a bit so don’t be alarmed, and be sure to use a pan big enough. A dutch oven is great, but any deep, heavy-bottomed pan should be fine. Also, I generally cook mine until it’s a lovely deep caramel color, which may take you longer than 4 minutes. Do stir frequently or it will burn.
Cream Cheese Frosting
- 3/4 C butter or margarine
- 1 8-oz. pkg cream cheese, softene
- d1 3-oz pkg cream cheese, softened
- 3 C sifted powdered sugar
- 1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
Beat butter and cream cheese at medium speed with an electric mixture until creamy. Add powdered sugar and vanilla; beat until smooth.
Yield: 4 Cups
A few additional notes from my years of making this cake:
I double the recipe for the frosting. It doubles just fine and who doesn’t like a little extra when everything is said and done? I don’t double the glaze.
I like to top the frosted cake with sliced almonds that I’ve toasted in the oven just a tad too long. Alternatively, I top with toasted coconut.
I have made this as a sheet cake as well, just keep an eye on it in the oven. If you do that, you won’t need to double the frosting, but you lose the layered effect, which is ridiculously delish. This past Thanksgiving, I made a double sheet cake since we were expecting 30 people. I had to double the glaze, and I quadrupled the frosting, but I could have gotten away with tripling it.
Also, regarding the layers—I usually insert 3 wooden skewers into the cake once the layers are assembled, before frosting the outside of the cake. It helps keep it from ending up looking like the leaning tower of Pisa.
I hope you guys enjoy this as much as my family/friends and I do!
ETA: One thing I forgot to mention is that you can make the glaze and use it to top any number of other cakes or breads. It’s especially delicious on bread pudding!
Guy Bourdin is the photographer that all modern fashion photographers should be judged off of. A protégé and close friend of Man Ray his work is part surrealism, part pin-up, part fashion. His eye for color, framing, and negative space makes his photography absolutely extraordinary.
Somewhat NSFW images below the cut. Continue reading
Hey all you bakers and baker-wannabes!! Quick reminder for you to brave the grocery store today and get 2 pounds of flour (!), eggs, milk, sugar, and butter (I get the Kerrygold UNsalted – it’s freaking delicious). Then find a big mixing bowl and your rolling pin, and a couple of cookie sheets. Oh, and make sure you have saran wrap. That’s it! Oh wait, if you want filled, get some jams or whatever. Don’t get the cheap crap, get something a bit pricey that has sugar and not HFCS.
Croissant is not that difficult, but it is time-consuming and a little bit moody depending on the weather. Those of us in Cali are going to have a time of it I tell you, what with all the rain.
So tune in tomorrow at around noon-ish pacific time. I’ll be sortof liveblogging the prep with cell phone pics of the mess. You can post your questions in the comments and I’ll do my best to help you through. The full recipe is down the main page if you lost it.
Come bake with Stabby! Your xmas dinner will thank you.
Attention! I will start my batch of these bad boys on Tuesday, December 21, mid-morning PST avec live-blog.
Please note that the amounts may vary slightly on the baking day-of due to humidity, but have all this on hand. Also, I’ll be live-blogging this with pics so you can see when I modify, why, and where.
DOUGH
1.5lb milk / 680g lait
1 tsp dry yeast / Cuillère à café levure boulangere
2 lbs flour / 900g farine
5 oz sugar / 150g sucre
salt / sel
—
20oz butter / 600g beurre – I use the Irish butter, Kerry Gold I think it is.
—
If you are making pain au chocolate:
bittersweet chocolate / couverture/nutella
I’m also using 1c of BiL’s home made pumpkin pie filling
—
EGG WASH
1 egg, 2 yolks / 1 oeuf, 2 jaunes
water, eau
First Step:
combine warm milk with yeast – set aside
mix flour with salt and sugar
add milk and stir with a wooden spoon enough to combine, do not overwork
wrap dough in plastic and refrigerate for 8 hours
Second Step
Cut butter into 8 pieces, pound thin, refrigerate
Roll half of the dough into a rectangle on a floured counter.
Incorporate half of the butter with one single turn and two double turns
wrap in plastic, refrigerate overnight, repeat with the second half of dough and butter
Third Step
Roll half of each package to form a rectangle 3mm thick. Cut triangles for croissants and rectangles for pain au chocolat.
Form the croissants, brush with eggwash, let proof until risen, bake at 375F for 12 to 15 minutes.
A bientot!
Attention! Attention! This is to inform all readers of a new, Just In Time For The Holidays, cooking and baking column. Stabby will bake/broil/fry/steam/boil it first so that you don’t have to be frightened to try it.
The inaugural column will be a doozy: the cranky and intimidating croissant. I made these in May, 2010, and live-blogged it in Crosstalk. And man, those things turned out awesome! My sister has requested them for holiday eating, so I will oblige her and make a public spectacle of myself at the same time.
We will make plain, chocolate, pumpkin pie filled, and possibly blackberry (sister babbled something about blackberries today, but I’m not going to be responsible for procuring them; if she wants ’em she can get ’em). I’ll probably make them the week of the 20th. Keep in mind that they take about 36 hours total (including mixing, rising, kneading, baking), so if you want to make some for your holiday dinner, plan accordingly so that you can Bake Along with Stabby. Also, I’ll post the recipe ahead of time so you know what to shop for.
After croissant will be Butternut Squash with Gorganzola and pecans for Christmas dinner. Homoviper suggested this one. If you have a recipe request, send it my way and we’ll get it done; the family will be more than happy to be our guinea pigs.
Christmas is the most wonderful and incredibly fucking stressful time of the year. To ease the stress a little, I’ve put together this recipe guide to help all of you with ideas on what to bring to your various holiday fetes.
You’re bringing breakfast:
These cranberry muffins are a holiday tradition in the epuff family. I like using mini-muffin trays for them. They do require some forethought as you have to soak the cranberries overnight but otherwise are very simple to make. If you want to be super prepared, you can bake the muffins and then freeze them. Recipe below:
Cranberry Muffins
1 Cup raw cranberries, chopped
¾ Cup sugar, divided
2 Cups flour
¾ tsp baking soda
¼ tsp salt
1 egg, beaten
¾ Cup buttermilk
¼ Cup shortening, melted
In a small glass bowl, let cranberries stand overnight in ½ C. sugar. In large bowl, sift together remaining ¼ C. sugar, flour, soda and salt. Stir in egg, buttermilk and shortening all at once until moistened (Do not stir for too long). Stir in cranberries. Fill greased muffin pans 2/3 full. Bake in preheated 400 degree oven 20 minutes. Makes 18 full sized muffins.
You’re bringing a side:
I always try to be unique with sides since it’s so easy to fall into a trap with boring sides. I also try to add some color to holiday meals. Below, you’ll find my recipe for a yellow rice pilaf with carrots, celery, green onion, Craisins, and pecans:
1/2 C. diced green onion
1/2 C diced celery
1/2 C. diced carrot (matchsticks are good)
salt
pepper
curry
garlic powder
(about 1/2 tsp each)
1 C. rice
Chicken or vegetable broth or water
Saute onion, celery, and carrot in small amount of olive oil for 5 minutes or so. Add seasonings and cook for a few more minutes. Add rice and saute for 2 minutes, stirring to coat rice kernels. Add broth and/or water to 1/4 inch above rice (I use part chicken broth and 1 part water). Cover and cook until rice is tender (about 20 minutes). Add more liquid if necessary.
Stir in:
1/2 C. diced green onion
1/2 C. craisins
1/2 C. broken pecan halves
If you want to bring vegetables but steer away from casseroles, one of my favorite things to do is sauté broccoli, red pepper, red onion, and carrots in a little bit of olive oil with lemon juice, thyme, salt, and pepper.
You’re bringing the dressing/stuffing:
May I recommend a bread stuffing made from scratch?
1 qt. bread crumbs (about ½ loaf white bread)
1 qt. cornbread (make up 1 box Jiffy muffin mix)
1 Qt. biscuits (about 8 biscuits – I use the small dinner rolls that come in a tube)
1 C. chopped onion (w/about ¼ C. chopped green onion)
1 C. chopped celery
½ C. chopped parsley
1 ½ tsp. sage
¼ tsp. pepper
2-4 C. chicken broth
½ C. melted butter
2 eggs, slightly beaten
In a large bowl, tear ½ loaf white bread, cooked corn muffins/cornbread, and 8 biscuits into small pieces.
Saute onion, celery in butter. Combine all except butter, eggs, broth. Add butter & eggs, then enough broth to make extra moist. Bake at 350 for about 45 mins.
You’re bringing a main:
Buy a Butterball turkey or Honeybaked ham. Seriously, this shit is a pain in the ass. Don’t even bother. Unless you’re a vegetarian, in which case, I have an excellent spinach lasagna recipe you can ask me about in the comments.
You’re bringing dessert:
My all time favorite holiday dessert is a home baked apple pie. This recipe is from my childhood best friend’s mom, who was a pastry chef so totally knows her shit better than me:
Pie crust for top and bottom
5-6 medium apples, peeled and sliced VERY thin (I use Pink Ladies or Galas)
Juice of ½ lemon
2 tsp vanilla
1/3 Cup flour
1/8 tsp nutmeg
½ tsp cloves
1 TBSP cinnamon
¾ Cup sugar
2 TBSP butter
Mix together apples, lemon juice and vanilla. Mix dry ingredients and add to apple mix. Pour into prepared pie crust in pan. Dot top with 2 TBSP butter, sliced. Cover with top crust, crimping sides together. Pierce top crust several times. Brush top crust with melted butter and sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar.
Bake at 425 for 15 minutes, then reduce heat to 350 and bake another 45 minutes to 1 hour. Serve with Blue Bell Homemade Vanilla Ice Cream (this is my Texas bias coming through).
I hope this recipe guide helps some of you get through cooking block!
In between fits of stuffing my face with heifer nonsense like sour cream & onion chips, pizza, Ben & Jerry’s ice cream (which I insisted that my boyfriend buy recently even though I had coffee-flavored Hagen Das by whining, “But I want treats inside of my treats!”), and anything that is composed entirely of carbs (and fortified with omega-3 fatty acids so it’s, like, healthy!), I like to eat Lean Cuisine. Seriously. I fucking love this stuff.
If my body wouldn’t revolt, I would have a diet that consists entirely of this lemon pepper fish, grain cereals, and red wine. Actually, that sounds like it would make for a decent diet. I’ll go to the supermarket and buy like 15 of these (and some cheap-ass wine) and live like this until all of my final papers are done.
Sounds healthy and adult-like. What could go wrong?
marshmallows.
What is it about marshmallows that immediately take me to some whimsical non-Disney fairytale state of mind a la Willy Wonka? Does this happen to anyone else? Through the years the candy has, for the most part, remained unchanged and is standard fare for feel good occassions such as campfires, hot chocolate, baskets of candy on various holidays. Perhaps it’s the social settings associated with them and the sheer simplicity of the candy itself.
Yesterday while making a sweet potato casserole topped with mini marshmallows I began to wonder about how the marshmallow came to be a beloved confection.
According to Wikipedia it is probable the marshmallow was born in Egypt where the mallow plant was used in a honey sweetened confection to soothe sore throats. At a later point in time the French further developed confection into something more closely resembling the marshmallow of modern times.
The most shocking revelation about marshmallows is that, on average, Americans eat about a pound of them per year. A whole pound?! That’s a lot of marshmallow to consume considering how light and fluffy each full size mass produced marshmallow is. I’m quite fond of the confection yet I don’t regularly or often eat them. Wikipedia notes a citation is need for the one pound average and I tend to agree.
For anyone feeling crafty, here are links on how to make the marshmallow bra above or the sweet potato casserole that got me thinking.
Bra: http://bitsandpieces1.blogspot.com/2006/01/how-to-make-marshmallow-bra.html
Recipe: http://www.cookinglight.com/entertaining/holidays-occasions/holiday-cookbook-reader-favorites-00400000030271/