Buttermilk Scones

I volunteered to provide breakfast for the teachers at Abbie's school on conference day in February.  I made two scones- bacon and cheddar, and cherry-corn.  I also made one of Ina's breakfast recipes, orange yogurt with fruit.  Add a little Peet's coffee, and you have some happy teachers!

This recipe is from pastry school so all the ingredients are listed in grams.  This makes 2 8-inch rounds, 16 scones.  

For the bacon and cheddar scones, I cooked the bacon in the oven, then chopped it up letting it cool.  I have grated cheddar cheese for this recipe, and also diced it, which I like better.  I also add a little pepper, and some fresh rosemary.

If you want to make cherry-corn scones, chop the cherries a bit, add 50 g. cornmeal to the dry ingredients.

Buttermilk Scones

892.5 g. a/p flour

22 g. baking powder

6.5 g. baking soda

62.5 g. sugar

12.5 g. salt

280 g. unsalted butter, cold, cut into pieces (about 2 sticks)

125 g. eggs

612.5 g. buttermilk

2 cups of inclusions ( 1 cup of bacon and 1 cup of cheddar cheese, or 1 1/2 -2 cups dried cherries)

egg wash (I use the leftover egg and a little milk)

Combine dry ingredients into a big bowl.

Combine wet ingredients into a pitcher, or large measuring cup.

Add butter to the dry ingredients, mixing with your hands.  Break up the butter into the flour until it is in pea-sized or slightly larger chunks.  Add inclusions.

Pour in the liquid, and continue to mix with hands or a large spatula, until combined.

Spray or grease and flour 2 8-inch cake pans.  Press equal amounts of dough into each pan.  Unmold the dough onto a floured cutting board, and cut the dough into 8 pie-slices.  Arrange the slices on a parchment lined baking sheet and brush with egg wash.  Sprinkle sugar on sweet scones, and cheese on savory.   Bake at 400 degrees convection (or 425 regular oven), 15 minutes.

You can also freeze them and bake from the freezer 400 degrees for 25 minutes.

My little buffet-

Pastry School- Pate Choux, Gougeres, Choquettes

This is the last of the pastry school posts.  The photo above shows the proper consistency of Pate a Choux (cabbage).
How to hold a pastry bag.
My piping skills.  Lovely, eh?

This was so cool, and yet it terrified me.  The instructor is showing us how to sprinkle sugar onto the pate a choux to make Chouquettes.  She dumped a bunch of the sugar on the sheet pan closest to her, then lifted the tray perpendicular to the table, letting the pearl sugar fall over the dough.
I was afraid they would all slide off the sheet.
Gougeres- baked pate a choux.  You can fill with savory or sweet fillings using a piping bag, or make profiteroles with these- add ice cream and chocolate sauce.
These are the baked Chouquettes, with the pearl sugar.
My take for the day- chouquettes, brownies, financiers and madeleines.

Linzer Kranzel

This is another recipe from Uta, who gave me the recipe for the Rosquillos de Vino- Wine Ring Cookies.  She's been translating recipes from her German cookbook for me.  These are really good- vanilla flavor is nice, and I like the nuts and sugar on the outside.  But the strange thing about these cookies is the first ingredient- 4 HARD BOILED EGG YOLKS.  You push them through a sieve.  Here is photo of egg yolks pushed through a sieve.  
One ingredient that may be a little hard to find is vanilla sugar.  This product is made from dextrose, (sugar) and vanilla flavor.  I found it at Andronico's, a local grocery store, but I think you can find it at Cost Plus, and certainly on-line.  

I made my cookies a little on the thick side- so my sandwiches are a mouthful.  I had homemade cherry and strawberry jam in my fridge- no currant jelly- so I did half cherry, half strawberry.  I put about a 1/4 cup of each in a small saucepan over low heat, and cooked it down to a syrup.  Then I pressed it through a small sieve to take out the solid chunks of fruit.

Linzer Kranzel

4 hard boiled eggs, yolks only
120 g powder sugar 4.2 oz
200 g butter 7 oz
2 packages vanilla sugar
1 dash of salt
300 g flour sifted 10.6 oz
----------------
120 g almonds coarsely chopped 4.2 oz
100 g sugar 3.5 oz
2 raw egg yolks
½ cup currant jelly or currant jam

Hard boil eggs and put egg yolks through fine sieve. Stir in 80 g (2.8 oz) powder sugar and butter till creamy. Add vanilla sugar, salt and flour and kneed into dough. Wrap in plastic wrap and let rest for 2 hours in refrigerator.
Preheat oven to 200 C. – 390 F
Meanwhile mix sugar and chopped almonds. Beat raw egg yolks.
Roll out dough to 4mm and cut our rings or round cookies. Brush on one side with egg mixture, press into almond and sugar mixture and bake top up for ca. 10 to 15 minutes. Carefully remove cookies and let cool. Brush underside with warmed and stirred currant jelly or jam and put two rings together. Dust with remaining powder sugar.

Pastry School- Pie Dough

This was my favorite project at pastry school.  I've made a lot of pies, and although I understand the basic principles of making a flaky pie crust, I am not able to do it with consistent results.  We used the big 20 quart mixers to make a batch of 9 pie shells- 3 for each group member.  The photo above shows the dry ingredients and butter.  Notice the huge piece of butter in the pan.
The butter is being worked into the flour.  There are now smaller pieces of butter.
Turning out the dough, now with added ice water, onto the table top.
Our group's pie dough.  Notice the huge smears of butter.  The sad face on the little one is to show that it is smaller than the others.
Apples waiting to go in the pies.  I peeled, cored and sliced 2 1/2 flats of apples for the pies.  We did one communal filling recipe.  I was constantly impressed with the large volumes of ingredients during my week there.
 My crusts ready for filling.

We did a lattice crust for the apple pie.  Not traditional, but I was happy to be able to try this.
My pecan pie ready to go into the oven.  
My baked apple pie.  I was a little disappointed with the apple pie.  The apples weren't cooked enough, and the filling had cornstarch, instead of flour as a thickener.  The crust came out great, though.
Pecan pie ready to go home.  These were really good!

Pastry School- Madelines and Financiers

Madelines are these nice little cookie/cakes that are usually in the shape of a shell.  My girls love them.  I see them at Starbucks and in the grocery store in little packages.  They cost a fortune, and really aren't that good.  If you have one that's made fresh, however, they are much better.  I think the shelf life for a Madeline is maybe 24 hours.  The photo above shows one of my groupmates piping dough into a Madeline mold.
Using a knife to release some of the air bubbles.
 Madelines out of the oven.
This is a photo of our instructor piping Financier batter into molds.  Financiers are little gold cakes, like Madelines, but they are made with brown butter.  They are traditionally piped into molds to make them look like gold bars.  I liked the Financiers better than the Madelines.  The girls did not.
Madeline and Financier molds.  The instructor shows how to hold a piping bag so that the bag is wrapped around your hand, and the tail end doesn't drop into your work.
My piped Financiers- in the first row.
Finished Financiers with almonds, (there's almond meal in the recipe), and blackberries.

Pastry School- Banana Bread

So on some level I feel like, "Banana bread?  Chocolate chip cookies?  Is this what I paid for?" Yes, it is.  You have to imagine the scale of this kitchen.  It was huge.  If you forgot to pick up a spatula before you started mixing, you had to walk way across the room to pick one up, before you could finish the task at hand.  So when we began making these "simple" formulas, it was never considered easy.  We had huge amounts of ingredients, new equipment to master, we were working in groups- enough said there- and were trying to perform all these mixing methods properly.  It was challenging, and as the week went on, the time crunch became more and more of an obstacle.  

So this is Day 2, and we made Banana Bread, Coffee Cake, and Scones, I think.  The photo above shows the mashed banana mixed with buttermilk.
Group 1's Banana Bread, ready for the oven.
WOW!
So here are all the groups' breads cooling on the racks.  I have to say, I tasted it in class, but put my loaf in the freezer once I got home.  Every day we brought home more food.  I had to freeze some of it, or it would just go to waste.

Pastry School- Cookies

How was pastry school?  It was GREAT!  I can't wait to go back again.  It was a VERY hard week on the family, but Husband handled everything like a pro.  I learned a lot about the science of baking- how ingredients function in a recipe, methods of mixing, how to fix mistakes.  I was really kind of sad to not go back on Monday morning.

Day 1 was mostly lecture.  We went over the ingredients and their functions, as well as mixing processes.  We made Oatmeal Raisin and Chocolate Chip cookies that first day.  Here are photos of our hunks of dough.
The cookies we made.
The photo below shows a great way to store cookie dough in the freezer.  You form the dough into a log, label it, then slice and bake what you need.

I just made a batch of chocolate chip  today.  I scooped out the dough in portions onto a piece of parchment, and froze the portions.  I'll put them in a ziplock bag- should do that soon!- and take out as many as I need, and bake them off.  In this class, we talked a lot about how fast things go stale, how long you can safely keep batter or finished products in the fridge, and how long in the freezer.  A chocolate chip cookie a couple hours out of the oven is WAY better than one that's 3 days old.  So I like the idea of having a stash of dough in the freezer for cookie emergencies- a common occurrence around here.

Coffee Cake Muffins

I make very few things from my Better Homes and Gardens New Cookbook. I use the cornbread recipe, and occasionally I'll look for something else. I use it for good, basic recipes. Not too many ingredients, simple to find, easy to execute. I use the Weights and Measures in the front cover all the time. Tomorrow is Abbie's turn to bring snack for school. When asked what she wanted to bring she replied, "Broccoli, carrots, and Coffee Cake Muffins". I feel a little guilty when I send Coffee Cake Muffins. Like most muffins, they aren't really anything far from cake, or a cupcake without frosting. Coffee Cake Muffins make up for the fact that they don't have frosting with little crumbly brown sugar topping. It's like giving each of Abbie's classmates a teaspoon of sugar, then sending them into the classroom. But, that's what she wanted. So this afternoon, I pulled out my Better Homes and Gardens New Cookbook, and turned to the Coffee Cake Muffins page. They are really very good. I make little mini-muffins, so I don't feel too badly about them. Let's put it this way- I never get any leftovers back at the end of the day.
A few notes-
I only make half the crumbly topping. You really don't need the whole recipe. Below is the recipe as it is written.
I never add the nuts. My kids don't like them in baked goods, and the school has a "no nut" policy.
I never have buttermilk at home. Here's what you do- Add 1 1/2 teaspoons of white vinegar to a measuring cup. Fill the measuring cup with whole milk to the 1/2 cup line. You'll have buttermilk for this recipe.
Please don't use margarine. Ever.

Coffee Cake Muffins
3 Tbsp. all-purpose flour
3 Tbsp. brown sugar
1/4 tsp. ground cinnamon
2 Tbsp. unsalted butter or margarine
3 Tbsp. walnuts or pecans, chopped
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 1/4 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp. ginger
1/4 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
1/4 cup unsalted butter or margarine
1 egg, beaten
1/2 cup buttermilk
Preheat oven to 400 F.
Grease twelve 2 1/2-inch muffin cups (or 30 mini-muffin cups) or line with paper bake cups; set aside.
For topping, in a small bowl, stir together the 3 tablespoons flour, brown sugar, and the 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon.
Cut in the 2 tablespoons butter until mixture resembles coarse crumbs; stir in nuts; set topping aside.
In a medium bowl, stir together the 1 1/2 cups flour, granulated sugar, baking powder, the 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon, ginger, baking soda, and salt; cut in the 1/4 cup butter until mixture resembles coarse crumbs.
In another bowl, combine egg and buttermilk; Add egg mixture all at once to flour mixture; stir just until moistened (batter should be lumpy).
Spoon half of the batter into the prepared muffin cups, filling each one-third full.
Top with half of the topping, the remaining batter, and the remaining topping.
Bake for 15 to 18 minutes or until golden and a wooden toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.
Cool in muffin cups on a wire rack for 5 minutes.
Remove from muffin cups.

Another favorite from the archives...Birthday Cake

I made this cake for my sister-in-law's birthday a year ago. It is one of my favorite projects, and one I'd like to try again. The cake is frosted with a strawberry buttercream, then I made a white chocolate ribbon for the sides. I filled the top with fresh strawberries. Because it was a birthday cake, I needed to have some writing. So I piped the "Happy Birthday" in white chocolate onto parchment and let it harden in the fridge.

The Strangest Cookie Recipe Ever-Rosquillos de Vino - Wine Ring Cookies

I found this to be the strangest cookie recipe I've ever tried. It was given to me by my ex-boyfriend's mother, (we're talking high school here). She made them for a Spanish theme dinner. The cookies are good, although they don't taste as strong as you would expect considering they have 2 tablespoons of anise extract in them. The addition of the wine is interesting. It burns off in the oven- leaving the cookies light and crumbly. I was tempted to use powdered sugar or a larger grained sanding sugar to coat them, but regular sugar works best. The yield is supposed to be 2-3 dozen. But if you make your rope 1/3" thick as suggested, you're going to end up with more.


1 cup white wine
1 cup sugar
1 cup vegetable oil
1 cup vegetable shortening
3 tsp baking powder
2 tbsp anise extract
6 cups flour
granulated sugar for topping

This recipe yields 2-3 dozen small rings.

Pre-heat oven to 325 degrees.

Using a hand mixer, combine sugar, vegetable oil, vegetable shortening and baking powder together in a large mixing bowl. Add white wine and anise extract and mix well. Add flour a cup at a time. Mixture will seem dry or crumbly. You may want to use your hand to mix together the dough as you add the last 2 cups of flour.

Take out a small amount of dough and roll into a rope about 1/3” thick on an un-floured cutting board. Cut into pieces about 4 inches long and join the two ends to form a doughnut shape or ring.

Carefully place on an ungreased cookie sheet and bake 15-18 minutes or until they become a golden color. Be careful not to burn the bottoms!

Let cool about 10 minutes, so the cookies do not fall apart as you lift them off with a spatula. While still warm, place in sugar to coat the tops.

My Favorite Cake

I made this cake for Abbie's 4th Birthday Party. The theme was "bees". I'm very proud of this creation, although, of course, I learned quite a bit from this experience.

Tomato Sauce

This recipe comes from "On Top of Spaghetti", by Johanne Killeen and George Germon, with a few of my own changes. I remember Ina mentioning their restaurant, Al Forno, in Providence, RI, once on her show. Husband made this sauce when he was making dinner one night. It was a hit with the both us and the kids. Although it's not hard to make, you can easily freeze this sauce and have it for later. I haven't tried making great batches of it, but I'd like to try. It's fantastic over any pasta. And I like how the kids are eating the vegetables hidden in the sauce.

Tomato Sauce

1/4 cup olive oil
3/4 cup finely chopped onion (about 1/2 a large onion)
2 sprigs flat-leafed parsley, leaves only. finely chopped
1/2 cup peeled and finely chopped carrot (1 carrot)
1/2 cup finely chopped celery (2 stalks)
1 large garlic clove, peeled and finely chopped
1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes (I only put in 1/8 tsp. because I don't want it too spicy for the 4 year old.)
1 teaspoon sea salt
1/2 cup dry white wine (I've used red also when I didn't have white)
3 1/2 cups chopped canned tomato pulp and juice (1 28 ounce can)

Heat the olive oil in a heavy-bottomed saucepan with the onions, parsley, carrots, celery, garlic, red pepper flakes and 1/2 tsp salt. Saute' over medium heat until the vegetables are very soft without allowing them to brown, 20-25 minutes.

Add the wine, raise the heat, and allow the wine to all but evaporate, stirring often. Add the tomatoes and 1 cup of water. Cover, bring to a boil, then lower heat to maintain a gentle simmer. Cook for 30 minutes.


Puree' the sauce with an immersion blender. You may use the sauce right away, or cool to room temperature, cover, and refrigerate for up to 3 days or freeze.

Dried Pears

I got a food dehydrator for Christmas. This opens up a whole dried food world to me. I've been experimenting with canning, and trying to preserve local produce when it's in season. My mother in law has several fruit trees on her property, and has made dried pears for my daughters. They taste like candy, and the kids eat them up.
I bought 4 pounds of pears today at Berkeley Bowl. They were .79 cents a pound- not great, but certainly good for January. I prepped them by peeling, coring, and pulling out the woody stem. I use a melon-baller to core the pears, works really well. I sliced them length-wise into 3/8 in slices, then tossed them with the juice from 1 lemon. Then I laid them on the racks of my machine. Here they are all ready to go.

I set them at a temp. of 135 degrees, then ran the machine for 5 1/2 hours. After about 2 hours, we decided to set up the machine in the laundry room, because it's kind of loud. Here they are all done.

I let them cool a little, then put them into little ziplock bags, then into the freezer. This will help them keep longer. It wasn't until they were done that I thought I should consult my preserved food bible, "Putting Food By", by Greene, Hertzberg, and Vaughn. They advised changing the temperature during the drying process. I'll have to try that next time. I went by the manufacturer's instruction this time. The recommended drying time was "6-16 hours". I think I can do a little better than that.

Christmas 2008

Merry Christmas! Here are the decorated sugar cookies from this year.



My mother in law's Beef Wellington.



The Buche de Noel. This one was much better than last time. I made the traditional chocolate cake with the hazelnut mousse from Ian's birthday cake. It was great.