Scones

I have always been an average scone maker, and it has bugged me, as they are such a simple recipe.  I recently came across a brilliant set of instructions for successful scone making in an old book, and then launched on a full-scale research bonanza to see if I could uncover all the do’s and don’ts for successful scones.

Today I threw all my research together into a swift sequence of scone making, and the above scones were the result.  Straight from the oven, they were light with that paper-thin scone crust holding together the warm insides.  Don’t make scones if you are in ponderous or questioning frame of mind, because they require quickness, decisiveness and lightness from every part of your being.

Imagine wings on your feet as you flit from bench to oven, feel your hands to be as light and deft as feathers – that’s the zen part of the knack of scones…they need lightness of technique, so best be light in your whole being.

Here below are my discoveries regarding technique, and the recipe I’ve used follows:

TECHNIQUE

Preparation prior to mixing dough

Before turning on your oven, set the top shelf at the point 1/3 down from the top of the oven then make sure your oven is preheated and has fully reached the 220 oC required before putting your scones in the oven.

Don’t start mixing your milk/cream into the flour until your oven has reached 220 oC and you have the tray covered in baking paper ready for your scones.

Have extra flour ready next to the work surface on which you will press out your dough, and throw out a generous amount over an area about 25cm by 25cm.

Making your scones

Sift the flour (2 cups worth if you use the recipe below), whether you are adding baking powder to plain flour or using ready-made self-raising flour.  Leave it in the pile it falls to in the bowl (ie. don’t tap the bowl, stir it, or otherwise mess with it as you’ll lose the lightness gained by sifting).  If you are doing cheese scones, add the mustard and paprika powders to the flour prior to sifting.  Once the flour is sifted, sprinkle over the salt.

Gently push a crater into the pile of flour then add the milk/cream mixture in one go to the flour.  (You will note that at the end of the ingredients list there is allowance for more milk, but this is only if needed so don’t add this in the first go.)  Immediately fold the liquid through the flour with light strokes, gathering the flour in from the sides of the bowl to the wetter dough in the middle.

Scone dough should come together well in a mass but still have enough moistness that it sticks slightly to the sides of the mixing bowl, and the dough should feel quite soft to touch.  If the dough seems too heavy and dry, add some extra milk, but only 1 tablespoon at a time as the dough can go from OK to wet very quickly.

Lightness of movement and touch is important.  Some instructions suggest mixing with a knife, but I find that too narrow so I’ve settled for a medium-sized spatula which works well.

If you are making cheese scones, once the dough is mixed gently spread it out slightly in the bowl, sprinkle the grated cheese over the surface, then lift one side of the dough over and across the other (as when you fold a pancake) and lightly press the edges together.  Take care to be gentle scraping the dough out onto the floured surface so you don’t break open your cheese parcel.

Only mix until the dough is just incorporated.  It will still look a bit lumpy, there may be some wetter edges, but by the time you’ve scraped it out of the bowl and out onto a heavily floured surface, dusted it liberally in flour, lightly rolled the mass over once or twice, then lightly and gently pressed it out into a rough rectangle, it will be OK.

Do not squash your scone dough flat, it should be at least 3cm thick.

Cut your dough with a sharp knife and clean strokes, as any dragging or twisting will wrench the dough and inhibit rising on that side.  Quickly lift them with a light touch and drop them onto your baking paper-covered tray, allowing almost as much room between each scone as the size of the scones.

Bake undisturbed for 10 minutes then check them, and if needed (10 minutes is ample in my oven) give them up to another 5 minutes.  They should be just turning pale gold on top.

While your scones are baking, melt a little butter in a pan.  When they come out of the oven, lightly brush a little butter on the top and bottom of each scone.  It removes the dustiness of any remaining flour and helps them to stay moist.

That’s the gist of it, so onto the ingredients, and make use of the method outlined above with the ingredients below:

INGREDIENTS

Plain Scones

(I use spelt flour instead of wheat flour, so either will be fine for this recipe.)

2 cups SR flour, OR 2 cups plain flour plus 4 teaspoons (which equals 1 Australian tablespoon) baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

125ml thickened cream

125ml full cream milk

up to 60ml additional milk if dough comes together dry and needs a little more moistness, added in maximum of 1 tablespoon amounts

about 1 tablespoon (1/2 cm slice) butter, melted, for brushing on cooked scones

extra flour for dusting your work surface

Preparation of ingredients

Sift the SR flour into the mixing bowl.  If using plain flour, thoroughly mix it with the baking powder first in a separate bowl, also adding the spices if making cheese scones, then sift into the mixing bowl.

Add your 125 ml of cream to the 125ml of full cream milk and stir until incorporated.  Keep aside a separate small jug with 60ml of additional milk in case it is needed.

From that point, follow the technique outlined above.

Cheese Scones

As above, except you increase the salt to 1/2 teaspoon, include 1/4 teaspoon of mustard powder and 1/4 teaspoon paprika with the flour when sifting, and grate 1/2 cup of mature cheddar cheese to add to the dough when it is mixed and just before lifting out onto floured bench.

That’s it!  If there are any other average scone makers out there, I hope these notes help you to lift your game to new, airy heights.

Christmas is tradtionally a time of leftovers.  We’ve got just about all of the sandwich suitable turkey off it now so now it is time to think of other things to make with the bits and pieces left over.  There are lots of options available but few I’d actually enjoy.  Pie seemed the way to go.  Not only can you use the turkey but there’s nothing stopping you from using up some stuffing or leftover vegetables or even a few dollops of cranberry sauce.  Got a ham? Pop it in too!  Whatever is left or takes your fancy, within reason, then in it goes!  I usually keep things simple.  I might do turkey, stuffing and cranberry but I’d leave out the vegetables.  Ham, turkey and vegetables go well together too.  If you’ve got a lot of mash then why not skip the pastry and use that?  It really does depend entirely upon what you have and what you like.  If you’ve only got turkey to play with then a simple turkey and mushroom pie is great too. 

Makes 1 average pie dish serving 4 people. 

For the pastry:
225g plain flour
pinch of salt
50g butter, chilled and diced
50g Trex (white vegetable fat), chilled and diced
3-4 tbsp chilled water

- Mix together the flour and salt.
- Add the butter and Trex and rub into the flour with your fingertips until it looks like breadcrumbs. 
- Add 3 -4 tbsp cold water by sprinkling it evenly over the surface fo the mixture.  (I used 3 tbsp and a bit.)
- Using a flat bladed knife mix it together until it forms a dough. 
- Gather it together with your hands and lightly knead for a few seconds to bring it together. 
- Form the dough into a ball and wrap it in clingfilm.  Place it in the fridge for 30 minutes. 

For the filling:
1 onion, chopped
Turkey/ham/vegetables/stuffing/etc.
a good splash of olive oil
2 tbsp cornflour
1/2 pint chicken stock

- First saute your onion with a pinch of salt in a little oil in a frying pan.  Add whatever leftovers you’re using and stir gently to combine. 
- In a separate small pan add a good splash of oil, at least enough to cover the base of the pan. 
- Gently heat this until it just starts to shimmer a bit then add the corn flour.  Whisk rapidly to combine. 
- Pour in your chicken stock, still whisking and keep stiring until it is a smooth sauce. 
- Pour this sauce into the other pan and stir well to mix. 

To make pie:

- Lightly flour the worksurface and the rolling pin, not the pastry. 
- Turn out the chilled dough onto the worksurface and roll it out in one direction, turning it as you go until it reaches about 3 mm thick. 
- Place your pie dish upsidedown on top of the pastry and cut a line around the dish about 1 cm out to leave room for shrinkage. 
- Cut a second line around this about 1.5 cm thick.
- Fill the pie dish with the filling.
- Moisten the edge of your dish with a finger dipped in water then press the 1.5 cm thick strip round the outside of the dish trimming the length to fit.   
- Moisten this pastry with water again then lay the rest of the pastry over the top using the rolling pin to help lift it across. 
- I fluted the edges of this pie.  It’s very simple.  You basically place the thumb and index finger of one hand on the ‘inside’ of the pie and with the index finger of the other hand press the edge of the crust inwards between the two fingers of the other hand.  Move round the pie and keep going until the whole edge is fluted. 

- With any spare pastry I like to make decorations for the top of the pie.*  I went for a Christmassy snowman and Christmas trees.  Again just dampen any pastry you’re pressing together to make it stick. 
- Once you’re done brush the top of the pie with beaten egg and cook in an oven preheated to gas mark 7 for 40 minutes until the pastry is a golden brown and the contents heated through.  If it starts to look too brown then cover with foil or butter papers** for the remaining cooking time. 

* And any spare spare pastry I stamp out shapes with cutters, brush with beaten egg and sprinkle with grated parmesan to make cheesy biscuits. 

** I keep the butter papers when I’ve used a block for covering things like this.  It saves on foil and is a great little recycling tip!

Woodson’s Mill was established in 1794 and produced stone ground flour and meal in Nelson County, Virginia.

© 2009 D L Ennis, All rights reserved.

NOTE: Permission for the use of my images is granted for personal websites and blogs but is to include a link back to this site and proper credit given to me, D L Ennis. Link to be used…(Visual Thoughts http://dlennis.wordpress.com/)

NOTE: Commercial use, and the creation of prints, must be purchased! For more information you can contact me here.

I was a little tired of the typical twee cupcake thickly coated with icing everyone scrapes off and throws out. (Dudes, icing sugar is expensive yo.) Instead, I went the other way and made giant cupcakes. The good thing is that this method cuts down on the bother of filling a zillion neverending cupcake cases. I made five in this recipe instead of the usual 15 or so. To make things a little special, I soaked some dried cherries in kirsch and filled the cupcakes with these little surprises.

The recipe itself is the same as the Orange Clove Cake, just that I added two grated apples to the cake mix for a fruitier, slightly denser and moister cake.

Ingredients:

240g plain flour
½tsp bicarbonate of soda
1tsp cream of tartar
½tsp salt
¼tsp ground cloves
170g butter
200g sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
3 eggs
2 egg whites
½cup milk
2 red apples, grated

big handful cherries, at least 30
good splash of kirsch or vodka

Method:

1. The night before, soak the cherries in the kirsch. They should be plump and juicy when ready.
2. Preheat oven to 160°C.
3. Combine the flour, bicarbonate of soda, cream of tartar, salt and ground cloves.
4. Beat butter and sugar till creamy. Add in the eggs one by one, beating in between each addition, followed by the egg whites and vanilla extract. Beat till light and creamy.
5. Fold in the flour mixture and milk alternately till you get a thick batter. Stir in the grated apple.
6. Fill up each giant cupcake case halfway, fill with a generous spoonful of cherries, then top with remaining batter till about ¾ full.
7. Bake for 20 to 30 minutes or till a skewer comes out clean.

Makes 5.

There are a lot of foods that we consume on a daily basis that have no benefit or value to us whatsoever. Most of this stuff we are learning about but some truths are still being kept in the dark from us and advertised as healthy. Try taking out these foods from your diet just for one  week and see how much better you feel when the weeks is done.

1.    Sugar – If you only take to heart one of these suggestions then let it be to get rid of sugar. Just a few teaspoons can have a significant hormonal and dietary impact for many hours, throwing  the body out of balance and into a state of biochemical chaos.

When you eat sugar you are eating empty calories and sugar is actually is an anti-nutrient which means it interferes with the absorption of nutrients, so eating sugar literally drains nutrients from your body. Because it’s an anti-nutrient it also causes calcium to be lost through, forcing the body to remove calcium from the bones in order to keep the blood calcium levels normal.

2.    White Flour – It contains almost no nutrition, is toxic and is an anti-nutrient just like sugar. In the process of creating white flour most of the nutrients are lost. That includes fiber which affects our bowel movements that would normally remove toxins from our body. So Therefore leaving toxins inside of us longer. Just to metabolize the flour many nutrients are stolen for  your body to do so. In its place select whole grains like millet, oats, quinoa, spelt, barley, kamut and brown rice.

3.    Processed Oils – When oils are heated at very high heat the Cis-fatty acid molecules change their shape, turning into a toxic  class of fats called trans fats. The shape of trans-fats does not work properly for structuring cell membranes. These improperly shaped structures build a cell wall with holes in it. The cell membranes become leaky and brittle. Because of the way oils are processed, trans-fats are seen in  pretty much in  all oils sold in grocery stores including  but not limited to, canola, corn, safflower, sunflower, cottonseed, and soybean oils like margarine and vegetable shortenings.  Salad dressings, breakfast cereals (which also have BHT and BHA preservatives), chips, and fried foods all have  these oils. So keep your eyes open and read your packages.

4.    Coffee – It’s another calcium thief. Coffee is acidic and contributes to over acidity in our diet. It changes the pH of our cells and requires calcium to be robbed from tissues to neutralize the acidity. I know most people feel  they can’t make it  through the day without a coffee but If you’re already feeling better from drinking no coffee then you’ll have the extra energy to get through the day without it.

5.    Milk – This one may be a shocker to most. Cow’s milk was meant for calves not people.  Cow’s milk contains proteins and fats that are hard for people to digest. Metabolizing some of the fats in milk uses up essential fatty acids which can cause deficiencies. Yet another reason is that pasteurizing destroys nutrients and creates toxins.  And as far as calcium goes cow’s milk does not supply nearly the amount that we’ve been told it does. The phosphorus in the milk prevents calcium absorption and it’s also low in magnesium which we need in order to utilize calcium. Are you stuffed up a lot? Try eliminating milk from your diet and see if you feel better. A lot of people are allergic to milk and don’t even know it.

Keeping our bodies healthy improves our lifespan, attitude, and outlook on life. Check out http://dietmastersite.com for a cool resource on healthy living and eating. This guy has some neat stuff on his site.

Hi again guys~

Guess what!!!! I have a puppy dog!!!!!!! Silky Terrier named Bella~, 8 weeks old, female… so cute!!!! and energetic! Emily and Gaby hate her tho… and I think Emily is plotting something evil to get rid of her… hmmm….

This is her, Bella, the new member of the family~

Anyway, since tomorrow is Christmas and we are going to goldcoast to have a Christmas gathering party, I am going to bring my cupcakes to the party. So today I’ve been baking, again! and tomorrow morning, decorate them. Getting pretty tired with the routine, and I hate routine. So I think I have to change the tittle into once every week cooking/baking challenge

So today I made mix fruit cupcakes and this is what are they look like

pretty!

Recipe:

• 224g butter
• 226g self-raising flour
• 226g caster sugar
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 4 eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 bag of mix fruit

How to make:

• heat the oven to 180 degree C
• mix butter with sugar
• add vanilla extract
• add flour and baking soda, mix well
• add the eggs, mix
• add the mix fruit, mix well
• put  them into the cupcake tray
• move them into the oven for 20-25 minutes
• cool them off

Happy trying guys~

XoXo,

Aby

Cinnamon Sugar Cookies

These smell divine while they are cooking and after you take them out of the oven, and they taste like Christmas in your mouth

Try making these with your kids, your family or your partner and see how much fun you have decorating them! Then, if you can stop yourself from eating them, package them up nicely and give them away to family and friends. Enjoy!

Ingredients:

3 cups all Purpose Flour

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 cup butter

1/2 cup white sugar

1/2 cup brown sugar

2 eggs

1 tbs ground cinnamon

1 tsp salt

1tsp vanilla essence

Icing:

1/2 cup icing sugar

1-2 tbsp milk

1 tsp vanilla powder

Food colouring

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 175 Degrees Celcius.  Place Flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a bowl and mix lightly together.

2. In another bowl, place the butter and white/brown sugar together. Cream until light and fluffy.

3. Add the eggs in one by one, making sure to stir through after each addition.

4. Add the vanilla essence and mix well.

5. Slowly add the flour mixture until well combined. Using your hands, work the dough into a smooth round ball.

6. Turn onto a floured surface and roll out with a rolling pin, about 1/2- 1 cm thick.

7. Cut out shapes using cookie cutters.

8. Place on a lightly greased cookie tray, leaving a little bit of room between each cookie shape as they will expand a little while cooking in the oven.

9. Cook in a preheated oven for 15 minutes. Take out and allow to cool before decorating with icing.

I have to say I’m cheating a little here with my own rules as I haven’t ever cooked this on my own.  In fact my participation has only ever advanced to weighing ingredients and helping fill cake tins.  Christmas is my mum’s domain.  She’s been doing it for years and she’s on a roll, my interference is not needed!  However, I had to share this cake recipe with you as it really is a last minute cake.  It doesn’t need to mature and if you’re forgotten to buy a cake and you’re totally desperate, well, start now! 

Makes 1×8″ (20cm) cake

125g butter
500g mixed dried fruits
125g dates, stoned and chopped (or apricots or prunes, big fruits are what you’re after.)
175g brown sugar
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
200ml water
1/2 tsp ground mixed spice
1 tsp ground cinnamon

90g glace cherries, chopped
60g chopped mixed nuts
45ml brandy
250g plain flour
pinch of salt
2 eggs, beaten
1 tsp baking powder

- In a large pan melt the butter and then add the dried mixed fruits, dates (or other fruits), sugar, bicarbonate of soda, water, mixed spice and cinnamon. 
- Bring this to the boil and cover.  Simmer for 15 minutes. 
- Leave the pan, covered, overnight. 
- The next day put it in a mixing bowl, or use a machine like a kitchen aid or kenwood chef to do the hard work!
- Add the cherries, nuts and brandy.  Mix a little. 
- Add the flour and salt and mix in. 
- Add the eggs and the baking powder and then mix thoroughly making sire everything is well combined. 
- Line an 8″ cake tin with foil, shiny side down, and 2 layers of greaseproof paper. 
- Brush lightly with oil. 
- Tip in the cake mix and level out the top.  Create a small dip in the middle with the back of a spoon to prevent doming. 
- Place a small ovenproof dish or tin of water in the bottom of an oven heated to gas mark 2. 
- Place the cake in the oven on the middle shelf and cook for 2 1/2 – 3 hours covering the top with foil after 1 hour. 
- Test with a skewer to see if it’s done.
- Cool in the tin then turn out and pour on a little more brandy before either wrapping and storing or covering with marzipan and icing.

I’ve posted this recipe before calling it American Cookies but I’m British so all my cookie recipes are ‘American’ or I call them biscuits.  When people ask me to make these they ask for “the condensed milk ones” and so I have renamed them.  I’ve also discovered since I first made them just how versatile the basic cookie dough can be.  Today I made the final addition to everyone’s christmas hamper:  Individually flavoured cookies. 

My sister has become obsessed with peanut butter and chocolate and so I made her peanut butter and chocolate cookies.  Dad loves ginger and chilli and so that’s what he got.  Mum was harder as she’s a mum and so says she likes whatever I make her but I know she loves marzipan so she got a sort of bakewell cookie… a fakewell if you will.  I also made myself a batch of chocolate and hazelnut cookies for immediate snacking.  There are no photos of that flavour as my family immediately snacked on them!  The joy of this is I made one batch of dough and then simply divided it into 4 and carried on to do all the different flavours I wanted. 

Makes ~36 cookies

255g unsalted butter, softened
225g golden caster sugar
170g condensed milk
350g self raising flour

For the toppings: (no amounts as it depends how many you make of each flavour)
natural coloured glace cherries
marzipan
flaked almonds
stem ginger in syrup, chopped into eighths
ginger and chilli sauce (I used Tesco’s Finest ice cream sauce but it’s totallyoptional.) 
cocoa powder
peanut butter
chocolate chips
chopped hazelnuts

- First line 5 baking sheets with baking paper and heat the oven to gas mark 4.  (If you don’t have 5 then just prep the paper and then reuse trays as they come free.)
- Cream together the butter and the sugar until soft and fluffy. 
- Mix in the condensed milk. 
- Add the flour and mix until it is all combined in a soft dough. 
- Divide the dough into 4 if making 4 flavours. 

For Chocolate and Peanut Cookies:
- Take 1/4 of the dough and put it into a smaller bowl. 
- Add a few spoons of cocoa powder and knead in until it forms a nice even chocolate colour. 
- Pinch off a walnut sized (and I really mean walnut sized, it’s smaller than you’d think!) bit of dough and roll it into a ball. 
- Flatten into a disc between your hands.
- Add a spoon of peanut butter to the centre. 
- Fold and pinch over the edges so that the peanut butter is completely enclosed in the dough. 
- Place on the baking tray leaving at least 1″ between cookies and flatten slightly and tidy up any really wonky ones. 
- Repeat with the rest of that dough. 

For Ginger Chilli Cookies:
- With the next 1/4 pinch off walnut sized bits and make into balls. 
- Flatten into a disc between your hands.
- Place 4 chunks of ginger in the centre of the disc and fold up the edges of the dough to make a sort of bowl around it. 
- Place on the baking tray leaving at least 1″ between cookies and then pour over a little of the syrup from the jar or some of the chilli ginger sauce. 

For the ‘Bakewell’ Cookies:
- With the next 1/4 pinch off walnut sized bits and make into balls. 
- Flatten into a disc between your hands.
- Pinch off a ball of marzipan about the size of a Malteaser and flatten into a disc. 
- Place the disc in the centre of the dough and fold over the very edges. 
- Place a glace cherry in the centre and then flaked almonds aroung that. 
- Place on the baking tray leaving at least 1″ between cookies. 

For the Chocolate and Hazelnut Cookies:
- With the final 1/4 flatten the dough out and sprinkle with chocolate chips and chopped hazelnuts. 
- Knead these in until well distributed throughout the dough. 
- Pinch off walnut sized bits and make into balls. 
- Flatten into a disc between your hands.
- Place on the baking tray leaving at least 1″ between cookies. 

- Bake in the oven for 15-20 minutes.  (I switch over the top and bottom trays after 10 minutes then give them both 5 minutes more.)
- Remove from the oven and allow to cool on the tray for 5-10 minutes. 
- Transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

 NB. These cookies do spread a lot, almost double, so be very careful not to place them too closely together:

I wish that we had a fish market locally but it seems the best place for me to buy fresh fish at a decent price (and I have tried a lot of places) is at Sam’s Club.  This seems ridiculous to me but that is the way it is.  I think it is just part of living inland.  I love fish, scallops, shrimp, clams, and mussels.  One day I hope to live closer to the ocean so that I could have it daily from a true fish monger if I wanted.  I do use quite a bit of frozen seafood and this is ok.  Actually I have made some great things with it but my heart longs for the fresh stuff.  These days getting fresh fish and seafood is one of my favorite parts of the beach vacation experience.  It used to be the ocean I longed for especially as a kid and I would stay in for hours.  Don’t get me wrong I still love the ocean but like eating fresh seafood even more I think, which is really saying something.

So, a few notes about making catfish and frying in general really.  It is important to dry the fish or any other type of meat before you begin the dredging process which is traditionally flour then egg then breadcrumbs or some other sort of crunchy coating.  The flour you dip the fish in first to hold the egg on will not stick to water but will to the fish.  This is key in your cornmeal coating not falling off.  Furthermore, water getting into your oil along with overheating is what can cause grease fires so the less moisture the better.  Although we all want some catfish, I am guessing no one wants a house fire so let’s be safe.

Next, it is important to season your final cornmeal/flour mixture unless you want your fish to taste like flour.  I like something spicy like cayenne which really just gives it some flavor not really heat, some garlic, salt and pepper.  I love the flavor of citrus with fish but sometimes when you put juice on your fish after it has cooked it can get soggy so I add it to the egg and you really can taste that flavor in a subtle way.

I always use cast iron when shallow frying because it distributes the heat more evenly and even stays hot longer meaning that once your oil is hot you may need to turn the heat down a bit.  You want your oil hot enough though so that your fish isnt greasy.  When the oil is hot enough the fish wont absorb as much of the fat but will sort of sear the outside as opposed to steaming the fish in oil.  Greasy fish is not the most appealing thing in the world so be careful and attentive to make sure the oil is hot.

There are a couple of ways to tell when your oil is hot enough. The oil will sort of ripple a little when it is getting hot but you don’t want it to smoke.  It is very important to attend to your oil whenever it is heating or hot.  Do not walk away and I definitely do not let my kids in the kitchen when I am frying.  Also, do not test the oil by splashing water into it.  This is dangerous and messy as the oil will pop and sputter.

1. You can put a small piece of bread in the oil when you think it is hot enough and if it browns in a few seconds you are good.
2. You can put a little sprinkle of flour into the oil and if it disappears within a second or so you are good.  If it sinks to the bottom it needs to be a bit hotter.
3. You can use a thermometer which is the most accurate method.  You want around 360º to 375º.  Once you start getting over that 375º mark you are risking the oil getting too hot.  Not only could it cause a fire but your oil will start to break down pretty fast getting dark and giving the food an unpleasant flavor.  Make sure the thermometer is in the oil not against the bottom of the pan to get an accurate reading.

When flipping food in oil it is best to apply a two utensil method.  I used two spatulas this time but a spatula and a metal fork work just as well.  You place the spatula under the fish and then holding it with the other utensil give it a nice, gentle flip.  If you just willy nilly start turning things over you are likely to splash the hot oil and that doesn’t feel nice.  I have definitely learned this rule from personal experience.

Removing the fish to a paper towel helps to soak away any oil that might be left on the surface of the fish.  I have also learned to salt the food right after it comes out of the fryer.  The salt sticks well to the hot oil and even gives it another dimension of flavor in my opinion.

Well, those are most of the lessons I have learned on frying from my personal experience.  I always cook extra as leftover fish is great in fish tacos, on a sandwich, or just reheated.  I serve this with malt vinegar which I and my family LOVE.

• enough vegetable oil to come about 3/4″ up the side of a cast iron skillet
• 2 lb. of catfish fillets
• 1 1/2 cups of flour, divided
• 1/2 cup of cornmeal
• 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
• 2 tsp garlic salt
• pepper
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 1 TBSP lime juice

Prepare three dredging stations:

1. 1 cup of flour
2. eggs and lime juice, mixed well with a whisk
3. 1/2 flour, cornmeal, cayenne, garlic salt, and pepper, stirred around well with fingertips

Preheat oil in a cast iron skillet over medium high heat watching carefully. Dry fish fillets with a paper towel.  Place each fillet in flour then in egg mixture then in cornmeal mixture.  Place fillets two at a time into preheated oil.  Cook about 4-5 minutes on first side then give them a flip and cook another 2-3 minutes.  Remove to paper towel lined plate and season immediately with salt.

Cornmeal Catfish

Kid Approved: 

I am posting up cookie pictorials from last weekend when DH and I made cookies.  These recipes can be found at www.allrecipes.com.

Felix K.’s Chocolate Chip Cookies (I shortened the name since it was way too long)

Ingredients

• 3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup butter, softened
• 2 cups brown sugar
• 6 tablespoons white sugar
• 2 eggs
• 4 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 (12 ounce) bag chocolate chips

Flour, baking soda, baking powder, & salt

1 cup (2 sticks) softened butter

Add brown and white sugar                                       Cream together

Add eggs and vanilla                                                   Cream together

**Opps, I guess I was too excited and forgot to take a picture of dry ingredients + wet ingredients.  But moving on…**

Mix dry + wet ingredients together & fold in milk chocolate chips

Roll the dough into balls.  DO NOT FLATTEN if you like textured cookies!!!

Cool on cookie sheet for 2 mins, then transfer to cooling rack.  Enjoy with a tall glass of milk!

White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Cookies

Flour, baking soda, & salt

1/2 cup (1 stick) softened butter

Add sugar and cream together                                       Add egg and vanilla and mix

Add dry ingredients                                      Mix together

Add white chocolate chips & Macadamia nuts                                 Fold into dough

Roll into balls (I just used 2 spoons since the batter was so wet)

Baked goodies!

I hope the cookie pictorials were clear and helpful!  Have fun baking cookies!  I know I’ll be baking a lot this weekend.

]]> http://sacchef.wordpress.com/2009/12/23/more-tips-on-how-to-make-perfect-cookies/ Wed, 23 Dec 2009 13:54:20 +0000 sacchef http://sacchef.wordpress.com/2009/12/23/more-tips-on-how-to-make-perfect-cookies/

Use top-quality ingredient and assemble the ingredients before starting:

You can’t expect a first-rate product using second-rate ingredients. Be sure your ingredients are fresh and of the finest quality. If your recipe says the ingredient must be room temperature, be sure it is room temperature before proceeding.

Baking Powder and Baking Soda: Check expiration dates of Baking Powder and baking soda, replacing if necessary. For testing purposes, baking soda should bubble when added to vinegar and baking powder should bubble when added to hot water. Be sure to mix baking powder and/or baking soda into the flour before adding to the wet ingredients; this distributes everything evenly so your cookies won’t end up with large holes.

Eggs: Check your “use-by” date on your egg carton. Check out Sell Date of Eggs (Sell Date of Eggs – Date Codes on Egg Cartons).

Flour: Don’t substitute flour types. If your recipe calls for all-purpose flour, that’s what you need to use. Cake flour and bread flour will not behave the same. Learn about the different types of flour. When a recipe calls for all-purpose flour, it means the bleached variety.

Spoon the flour into your measuring cup and sweep a spatula across the top to level it off. Don’t use the measuring cup as a scoop or it’ll pack the flour and you’ll end up with more flour in the cup than intended.

Nuts: Smell and taste nuts before using. Oils in nuts can turn rancid quickly. Store any leftover nuts in the freezer for longest shelf life.

Butter: Make sure your butter is at room temperature, otherwise it won’t cream properly with the sugar. Set it out at least one hour in advance. It should be pliable enough that your finger can leave a mark in it, without being soft and greasy.

Don’t try to microwave your butter as it will just end up too soft. If you don’t have an hour’s lead time, increase the surface area by cutting the butter into small pieces or shredding it on the large holes of a grater. It will then come up to temperature in approximately 10 minutes.

Shortening: Check vegetable shortening before using. Shortening, especially new trans fat-free brands) can go bad, introducing off-flavors to your cookies that you worked hard making.

Sugar: The type of sugar your use in your cookies can promote spread in baked cookies. To understand this, you need to know that sugar is a tenderizer which interferes with the formation of structure. Sugars with a finer granulation promote more spread (probably because they dissolve sooner and only dissolved sugars tenderize). Powdered sugar (confectioner’s sugar), when it contains cornstarch, prevents spread in cookies despite its finer grind.

2 ½ t (teaspoon) Yeast – Instant
1 t Salt
3 C Flour
1 T Butter
3 T Dried Buttermilk
3 T Maple Syrup / Honey / Molasses (optional?)
1 C Room temperature water

· She used her hand to butter the pan.
· Once shaped, can rise overnight in the refrgerator in the pan, covered with a cloth.
· Takes about 20 minutes to 1 hour to rise in kitchen (I found it took much longer)
· When frozen, place in oven while cold and bake for 25? Minutes at 375F?
· When putting loaf in pan, butter pan with hands and then rub formed dough with butter from hands and then cover with cloth.
· Once formed, freeze in pan.
· Egg glaze: 1 egg missed with ½ C heavy Cream. Top rolls with egg glaze and sprinkle with herbs. If glaze is used, then bread rolls do not need to be covered with cloth. Rise for 20 minutes (much longer) until double.
· Use 1 inch width and 10 inch length dough and tie into knots and freeze on baking sheets and use glaze with poppy seeds (left off). (This worked great!)
· Make bread sticks by twisting and place on pan – glaze and sprinkle with sesame seeds and let rise 20 minutes until double (rise takes longer and I didn’t find benefit of glaze).

Source:

http://www.wonderhowto.com/how-to/video/how-to-make-white-buttermilk-bread-with-a-bread-machine-2257/

I am a Cookie Monster for our department, meaning I make cookies when speakers come (I do also eat a lot of cookies, but that’s coincidental).  The night I made these, I had completely forgotten that there was a colloquium the next day, and so I dreamt something up that I had all the ingredients for: sweet potato cookies.  I got the sweet potatoes from the farmshare, and I always have the makings for cookies.  I even had chocolate chips on hand, so I tried to make the cookies look like jack-o-lanterns, because it was right before Halloween (yes, that’s how far behind I am on posting).  It didn’t really work.  But they tasted good.

I started with the trusty old recipe on the bag of chocolate chips and tried to change it to accomodate the sweet potatoes, which I microwaved and blended.  I used the same amount of butter and sugar as normal, but more brown than white.  I used one egg instead of two, thinking the sweet potato would add moisture.  I added cinnamon and allspice.  Then I figured I would just add flour until I got to the right consistency.  I had bread and cake flour but not AP, so I figured I’d try to use half of each and it would all even out.  Well, normally you use 2 1/4 cups of flour in a batch of cookies, so I thought I’d add the flours a half a cup at a time.  But when I got to a 3/4 cup, it seemed like the right consistency.  I mean, ok, sweet potatoes are starchy, and I only used one egg.  Now I’ve made a lot of cookies in my life, folks.  I know what homemade cookie dough feels like.  But somehow, I was very, very wrong.  This was what I ended up with (don’t use it):

1. 1 cup butter
2. 1 cup mashed sweet potato
3. 1 cup brown sugar
4. 1/2 cup granulated sugar
5. 1 egg
6. 1 tsp vanilla
7. 1/2 teaspoon allspice
8. 1 teaspoon cinnamon
9. 1 tsp baking soda
10. 1/2 tsp salt
11. 1/2 cup bread flour
12. 1/4 cup cake flour
13. chocolate chips

I lovingly scooped them onto a baking sheet and pressed chocolate chips on top as the face of a jack-o-lantern. 

Then I baked them.  Then I checked how they were doing in the middle.  I had a sheet of cookieness.  It was delicious.  But it was not cookies.  So I snacked on cookieness for the next few days, and I added flour like crazy to the next batch.  Which did actually turn into cookies.  I chilled them overnight and baked them in the morning.  They came out sticky and flat, but at least they were separate.  I wish I had written down how much flour I added, but I probably didn’t even measure it.

Part of the way through scraping the cookieness off of the sheet.

The flavors, however, were quite good.  It would not be a waste of time to work on this one.  The sweet potatoes didn’t come through as much as I would have liked, though.  They weren’t really orange so much as orangey brown and people weren’t quite sure what the flavor was.

You’ve heard them singing carols in the office.  You’ve heard them karaoke down the pub. This is the best time of year to decide which of your colleagues merits the last phrase of the offering formula:

maa-kheru; true of voice.

We’ve had kheru, voice, before.  It was in the complex little group of signs which make up the standard phrase for “an invocation offering of bread and beer”:

where “invocation” is literally “that which comes forth by the voice”.  And there’s kheru, right in the middle of the group, like a wooden spoon ready for stirring the pudding (which would make the other signs a chopping board, a bag of flour and a bottle of brandy in seasonal montage straight out of the Lakeland kitchenware catalogue.  Except they’re not.)  But you know it’s an oar, and the other signs are a house, a loaf of bread (naturally) a jug of beer and the invisible owl.

So now we have the oar again, twice in one formula.  They did like sticking their oar in, the ancient Egyptians.  But what’s the first sign,

maa?  A doorstop?  An eraser? Nothing so mundane.  The wedge-shaped sign maa (very easy to draw) represents a platform or pedestal, as here supporting a figure of the god Ptah (from Tutankhamun’s tomb furniture):

(Ok, you could use him as a door wedge, I’ll give you that.  But he would be far from mundane.  There could be a whole interior design industry in this for someone – and that someone will need an office, and that office will need hieroglyphs…. I must stop getting carried away.) 

Back to maa - the pedestal has that distinctive shape because it in turn is a representation of nothing less than the primeval mound; the first bit of land to appear from out of the waters of chaos at the very creation of the world.  The Egyptians were used to seeing mounds of land rise from the water every year, as the floodwaters of the Nile receded after the annual inundation, leaving behind fertile silt which they could cultivate.  (So, we have to assume that Ptah is standing on a little island, with the waters of the primeval ocean lapping almost at his feet, at the bottom of the little slipway on his pedestal.)  The Egyptians assumed that this was how the gods had first created the land on which they lived.  To them, this pristine terra firma meant the world the way the gods had created it, the way the world was meant to be.  Maa meant “true” or “right” or “just” in the sense of  ”the proper order of things”.

Here is an example of the maa kheru group in a  carved relief:

 True of voice:  the “of” is unwritten but understood from the construction.  The maa hieroglyph is easy to draw:  a thin rectangle with one slanting short side.

But if our tomb owner Senusret was “true of voice”, what did that mean?  They didn’t have karaoke in the netherworld, did they?  No.  It was much worse than that.  To get into the Egyptian afterlife, you had to win the divine version of the X Factor.

Anyone who thinks the X Factor is hell on earth will get the idea of the Egyptian afterlife.  If life on earth was Round 1, to go forward to the afterlife or Round 2, you had to impress a panel of judges.  Here’s a scene from the show:

On the left,we have the tomb owner being led onstage by his divine sponsor, the god Anubis.  In the middle, the scene shows an early version of the machine used to record the audience’s verdict.  Back then, in the days before electronic voting buttons, they used a weighing scale.  In the right-hand pan of the scale is a feather, representing truth, order, justice and all those primeval virtues.  In the left is the tomb owner’s heart.

On the right of the scene, in their own special booth, sit the judges:  Osiris, the Simon Cowell of the underworld, sits on his throne, backed by two divas of the day, the goddesses Isis and Nephthys then, and fronted by four lesser judges, his own four sons, who stand on a lotus blossom.

The format of the show is this:  to qualify for the next round of existence, the tomb owner has to declare that he has led a good life on earth.  But just saying so is not enough; he has to prove it.  To test whether or not he is speaking the truth, the gods weigh his heart against the feather.  If his heart is not weighed down by sin and falsehood, it will balance the feather and he will be let through to the next round.  If it is heavier than the feather, it will be thrown to the crocodile-headed she-monster waiting by the weighing scale, (her name is Devourer-of-Hearts, but let’s call her Anne) and the tomb owner will be thrown off the programme – you are the weakest link, goodbye.  That won’t happen, though, because in the finest traditions of audience voting reality TV, Anubis is rigging the result by fixing the scale.  The Ibis-headed god Thoth is standing by like the Lottery adjudicator to verify the outcome.  And sure enough, Anubis is conducting the tomb owner, who has been proven to be speaking the truth, to Simon, sorry, Osiris, who declares him fit to go forward to the final. 

And ever after, our tomb owner is known as “true of voice”, as a sign that he has passed the test and successfully entered the next world.

So there we are:  at the end of the offering formula.  You know it all now:

Hetep di nesu Usir neb Djedu, netjer aa, neb Abju, di ef peret-kheru (em) te henqet, kau apedu, shes menkhet, khet nebet nefret ankhet netjer im, en ka en imakhy Senusret, maa-kheru.

“An offering which the King gives (to) Osiris Lord of Busiris, the great god, Lord of Abydos, that he may give invocation-offerings (consisting of) bread, and beer, meat and fowl, alabaster and clothing, and all good and pure things by which a god lives, to the ka of the Revered One, Senusret, True of Voice.”

How’s that for a Christmas list?

Another awesome weather today, if you know what I mean Yes! It was raining! Again! God, I hope it will keep raining for the whole summer. So Today, like I said yesterday, were making four different types of cakes. Strawberry cupcake, Peach cupcake, Mix Berries cupcake, and Cherry cupcake.

Cherry Cupcake

Strawberry Cupcake

Peach Cupcake

Mix Berries Cupcake

the verdict: when you found that fruit, YUM!!!!

Ingredient:

• 198g butter, softened
• 210g self-raising flour
• 210g caster sugar
• 1 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda 
• 4 eggs
• 200g of the fruit that you wanted to make
• 2 tablespoon of the fruit juice (if you buy the tin fruit)

How to make:

• Heat the oven to 180 degree C
• Mix butter and caster sugar until it fluffy
• Mix flour and baking soda together
• add those two mixes together
• add the fruit and the juice
• add the egg, mix well
• put them into the cupcake tray
• put them in the oven for 20 minutes
• cool them off

The icing decoration…. Tomorrow~

Happy baking guys!

XoXo,

Aby

Why bother making a schedule? Things happen; life happens. You can plan and plan the day but good luck having it work out.

Kashi Honey Almond Flax

I ended up being hungry before lunch–not planned because I never am? I thought this bar, which I’ve enjoyed before, would be nice. After eating it and thinking it was unusually stale and nasty, I realized it expired 2 months ago. Since when do things like this even expire? It was odd, to say the least.

While I was off-schedule anyway, I thought I’d get a head start on my baking. I planned on making this recipe with a bunch of little changes that I wrote up here. As it turned out, we had no flour. Really? I planned and planned for this and went to the store twice to get ingredients and never thought to check for flour? Ugh. After freaking out for about 5 minutes I decided to enlist help.

Red Dodge Neon

I called my 81 year old grandmother for a ride; if you see this card on the road ever, you might want to be a little careful. Actually, she’s not an awful driver, but I was holding on a little tight. She was happy to take me to Hannafords(she needed scratch tickets anyway, don’t ya know ). While I was in her car I noticed two things.

Purple Steering Wheel

She has pizazz apparently. 3 years ago at Christmas, this steering wheel cover caused a heated argument during yankee swap; no one wanted it except the old people so that’s who it went to.

Wendy's Kids Meal Map

I also found kid’s meal stuff in the back seat. My grandmother and her 80 year old sister are the only two people who go on this car. Apparently, they’re not above ordering off the kid’s menu on their way to the casino. Oh, to be old…

King Arthur's White Whole Wheat Flour

I grabbed what I needed, and that was all. After I got home, I realized I was borderline hangry because it was almost 2pm(so not on schedule) and all I’d had for “lunch” was that expired granola bar. After a kitchen failure with 2 eggs and a pan, I made this masterpiece.

2 Egg Omelet With Broccoli

Seriously, this was so good; I think I tapped in to my inner “chef”. As I’ve said before, I’m a baker who loves precise times and measurements. Therefore, “meal” food doesn’t work well with me. I put that mindset aside, put “a lil’ earth balance” in the pan to melt, cooked the bottome of the egg “until it looked ready”, added the cheese and folded. It was so beautifully runny and rich and cheesy, just the way eggs should be. Maybe I do have a lil’ chef in me? In my attempt to get back on schedule, I quickly got working on the recipe.

Browning Earth Balance Butter

That would be 10 tablespoons of earth balance(original recipe calls for real butter) melting until brown and nutty. Amazingly, this wasn’t a Paula Dean recipe, either, but one featured on Healthy Eats. I actually think this might have been my favorite part; something about a large pool of melted, fragrant butter… *drool*. Anyway, while I was doing this I spotted some old friends.

Wild Turkey

There’s a group of 20something wild turkeys that live in our neighborhood. Naturally, I was nervous since I haven’t seen them since Thanksgiving. Turns out, they’re doing just fine in this snow.

The Beaters

There was definitely some licking of the raw dough with this recipe. No, it was not vegan, but I’ll take my chances on the raw eggs. Ever since I’ve seen documentaries on body builders who eat 6 eggs or something crazy to start their day, I’ve been a bit balls-to-the-wall with raw dough. I’m a wild man, right?

Peanut Butter And Chocolate Biscotti

The biscotti came out amazingly(minus the 6 or so that crumbled in to pieces). This recipe was definitely a winner with a little reworking. While I was baking, I got some fun packages.

NuttZo T-Shirt

The people at NuttZo saw I was a nut for their product and sent me a shirt! I’m such a brandaholic; I was actually wearing my zevia t-shirt just today, haha. I think I need to wear on Christmas just to kick off that conversation. And perfect timing because I just wrote a review for NuttZo this morning here.

Nature's Path Granola And Bars

I also got these awesome granola and bars. 2 weeks ago I was their “fan of the week” on facebook and got to pick out 3 products to get 2 boxes of. Naturally, I went for everything peanut butter or cherry. I’ve never tried any of these so I can’t wait to see how they are. Once the biscotti were done, I didn’t want to dive in to them because I wasn’t sure there’s enough for Christmas Eve and Christmas yet. Instead, I made some similar oatmeal.

Oatmeal With Teddy Unsalted Natural Peanut Butter And Chocolate Chips

I picked up this new peanut butter yesterday at Price Chopper while working on a guest post. It’s rated really better than most other brands. And it’s 1-ingredient: peanut. I needed to see what the fuss is about. I admit, for something unsalted this was rather tasty and had a good consistency(not “oily” at all yet still smooth and melty). I don’t know that it deserves the rating it does but it was pretty cheap, too, so I’m not complaining.

Let’s just say “workouts” at this point are definitely a point of contention; I don’t plan on forcing myself to do too much strengthening if it’s not what I want(I’m a cardio lover at heart), but I also don’t want to completely fall off the ladder. I resolved this by playing 2 rounds of wii tennis, 1 wii fitness test, and 2 sets of 25 stair flights. This also gave me time to plan dinner, which I had going before my mom got home.

Sirloin Roast, Roasted Brussels, Noggy Butternut Squash

Let’s just say, I couldn’t have dreamed this up better. It was soooooo good, and everyone enjoyed it I think, which makes me doubly happy. In ordinance with my “new plan” towards meat, I portioned out 3oz of rare meat, and loaded up on the vegetables. The meat was so excellent, and I think limiting that amount was just perfect in also letting me appreciate what I did have. I had in mind to mash butternut squash with 1/4 cup Silk Nog and some stevia to taste and my parents loved it(my mom thought it needed 2 tablespoons of brandy, haha). It was really earthy and delicious.

After all that, I finally got a chance to sit down and finish Days(which I started 3 hours ago). Now that Caitlin has reminded me via twitter that I have instant chocolate pudding in the pantry, I think you can guess what I’ll be “making”.

I found this recipe over on Joy of Baking and knew it was just perfect for what I wanted.  It was very simple to prepare as it’s essentially a muffin mixture and it would keep very well for a week, in fact getting better over the week, so perfect for posting for Christmas presents.  It also looks so very Christmassy! 

I wanted to use rectangular foil ‘takeout’ containers so as to ship and transport it easily and these were smaller than the 9″x5″x3″ tin the recipe called for so I doubled the recipe thinking may be I’d get 3 out of it, nope, got 4!  Yum, one spare!  It’s a really interesting flavour too, you have the sharpness of the cranberries with hints of fruity and nuttiness.  The crust also forms this delicious sugary crunch.  A surefire winner this one.  My test subjects of my mum’s office were begging for the recipe!

Makes 2 8″ x4″x3″ ‘loaf tins’

460g plain flour
700g golden caster sugar
4 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
zest of 1 orange
1 large egg
56g butter, melted and cooled
1 tsp vanilla essence
360ml milk
100g fresh cranberries (Dried if fresh not available)
90g mixed peel (I used whole preserved orange peels chopped up)
60g chopped mixed nuts

- Heat your oven to gas mark 4 and grease your tins. 
- In a large bowl mix together the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and orange zest. 
- In a large jug mix together the butter, vanilla and milk. 
- Mix the two together and stir well to combine.  (Doesn’t matter if there are some lumps in there.)
- Add the fruits and nuts and stir through. 
- Pour into the tins and bake at the top of the oven for 1 hour.  Cover the top with foil if it gets too brown. 
- Test with a skewer to see if it’s done then remove from the oven and cool completely. 
- Wrap in foil to store for up to a week.

(I grew up calling the delicate ones biscuits, and the ones with chocolate and other chips in them, cookies. I still try to stick with the English I love and grew up with, though it has hybridised into the English I hear every day in the country I now call home. So sometimes it is neither here nor there. England and America may be two continents divided by a common language, but India taught me that divisions exist only as long as you let them. With that, I invite you to continue on into my biscuit-cookie meanderings. For the purpose of this post, they mean *exactly* the same thing. The title? I’m sorry but cookie monster rolls off way better than the alternative, biscuit zombie)

Christmas, it seems, is right around the corner. Can’t quite claim it crept up quietly. The subtle-as-a-hippo-in-tights signs have been everywhere since Halloween. In the past weeks, you couldn’t turn a fraction of a degree without having your senses assaulted by holiday commercialism. (Wait, did I say commercialism? I mean holiday spirit. I seem to be (un)intentionally channelling Festivus.) But then I take a deep breath and open my eyes; all you see is glimmers of hope and quiet smiles. Everyone wishes that this year will sound clear, high notes when it ends compared to those began with.

In this season of renewed hope, I thought I’d try something I don’t necessarily do, making holiday season sweets. Do I hear you gasp in shock? Hold on, before you follow it with disappointed heads shaking, allow me to explain. Every year, Diwali shows up about a month or so before the December holiday season. This is one time when I sorely miss being back in India. I go overboard trying to recreate the spirit of the festival, with the lights, and the food. This leads to an unavoidable surfeit of sweets. Setting about making them again seems impossible. But this year I decided to go for it. More importantly, I decided to make holiday cookies. This is significant for another reason. Everyone has their nemesis. Sherlock Holmes (yay! Sherlock Holmes!) had Moriarty. I have cookie-making.

I didn’t take naturally to baking. Early attempts used to often find me ending up on the kitchen floor, whining in unabashed Julie Powell fashion. Baking is precise and proportionate, sort of like engineering. There are certain rules you need to follow and it doesn’t forgive mucking around with its basic ingredients. It is also unyielding. It may be too late to salvage a mistake once the ingredients are mixed, even before the heat of the oven has begun working its magic. Cooking on the other hand, like architecture, you can design as you go along. You can choose to be precise and follow an initial plan or you can start at a point and find your way as you move through. You might end up creating something different from what you visualised initially, but it will still be good.

True to this philosophy, my early days of cooking involved quite a bit of tossing around of ingredients. More often than not, it worked. Baking was a practiced effort and rite of passage in patience and attention. I learned in time that there is a certain calm pleasure in knowing that if you followed directions in the correct fashion, you will get results. Even so, the one thing that steadfastly refuses to come to me, is baking biscuits. There is only so much I could blame ovens and whisks before I accepted the obvious truth; the problem was me. For some reason, flavour and texture became strangers to me when I took on cookie making. After many attempts that came out of the oven resembling so many pieces of rubble, tasting of clay, I hung up the cookie cutters for a while. I would have had no problem giving it up for good. Amey however, was not so thrilled. He loves biscuits. His favourite snack is biscuits, preferably with jam. Finally I gave in to the silent reproach in those brown eyes and geared up to tackle them one more time.

Following the recipe (see below) as precisely as I could, I began by creaming room-temperature sugar and butter together. Right away, drama reared its ugly head. I had one stick of soft butter and a half stick of fairly soft butter. I do not have a stand mixer so I thought of using the stick whisk I own, normally reserved for beating eggs or cream. Everything proceeded to stick to the whisk in large lumps, which then gave a sad little whirr and began revolving around the butter instead of rotating in it, in a jerky teenagers-waltzing sort of way. With much coaxing, it finally started to rotate, only to over-heat and begin melting the butter in earnest. There was a bit of business of high-pitched yelping (me) and shoving into the freezer (the mixing bowl) and holding of breath (the husband waiting for the inevitable explosion from hyperventilating wife). In a few minutes though, the goddess of the refrigerator worked her magic and I was presented with a fair lot of half-creamed butter and sugar. Calming down, I then proceeded to (carefully!) continue to cream the mixture. Next, there was the adding of the egg yolks (with bated breath), but this was thankfully uneventful. Now, there followed the business of adding three and a half cups of flour, half a cup at a time. (See what I mean, seven places to screw up, why? WHY?) More drama. *Flour flying off whisk into eyes. More yelping followed by thump of falling stick mixer, sacrificed in favour of sprint to sink. Rapid splashing of water into said eye. Taking a minute to wipe sopping face and breathe deeply* As I turned back to the bowl, I had to take another few minutes to rack my brains, as aforementioned drama had made me lose count of how many half-cups of flour I’d already added. With a heartfelt prayer, I added more relying on memory. I was rewarded with what looked like fairly decent dough. So far so good.

Then came the flattening out of the dough and the covering in plastic, followed by an hour of cooling off in the chill chest. I whiled away my impatience to be getting on with things by watching Andrew-Lee Potts play the Hatter in Syfy’s Alice for the gazillionth time. Just about the time Alice was running into the Queen of Hearts at the casino (this is not Wonderland as you know it), I pulled out the dough to find that it was now firm. It was, however, thicker than I expected. Attempting to roll it – in a misguided attempt to thin it out – achieved nothing except a spectacularly pulled muscle in my upper arm. (Maybe there is something to this cooking-as-exercise theory).

Displaying remarkable self-possession, I let the dough soften a bit, rolled it thinner, put it back into the fridge & watched more TV. I pulled it out again just as Andrew-Lee Potts was introducing himself as Robinson. This time I was dealing with a workable thickness. I punched out cookies with the cutter shapes I had, racing against the ever-softening dough. I moved one batch into the pre-heated oven and the second into the fridge for safe keeping. Then I turned my attention to the jam portion, which is simply a reduction of store-bought black raspberry preserves. Pulling the tray out of the oven at the end of the allotted time, my worst fears were realised. Despite my herculean (!) effort, these were not the masterpieces I had hoped for. The star resembled starfish. The moons looked like corpulent pac-men. The colour was all over the light brown spectrum. I had hit an all-too-familiar low.

I still had to finish what I had started. There was slathering of spoonfuls of jam to make unwieldy sandwiches out of the lot after they cooled. While a few broke into crumby pieces as I handled them, others held together with the gluey jam. When I was done, they looked like something that could have come out of Monica’s easy-bake oven. Tentatively, I handed a couple over to my husband. He took a bite, and there spread on his face, what could only be described as a smile of unbridled joy. He is still sitting there, hugging his box of jammy biscuits, with the same silly look on his face that I imagine crosses mine when I laugh at Andrew-Lee Potts’ hilariously cool & expressive Hatter. Only in Amey’s case that look will last a while. I’m done watching Alice (for today) but there are a lot of these cookies. He has threatened unspeakable consequences if I mention the word “share” in their regard, and he doesn’t seem to care that he’s eating starfish instead of stars. The little piece he parted with and bestowed on me tasted of butter and sugar, reminiscent of Shrewsbury biscuits from back in India. Unbeatable when served with jam.

Maybe I’ve conquered half of the nemesis. The taste seems to have worked out. Amey insists the texture was great. I think it could be improved upon more into a true shortbread. But to turn out cookies that actually tasted fine? It feels righteous! A tiny little Christmas miracle.

(The recipe I used was from Saveur’s 12 days of Holiday sweets special: Raspberry Sandwich cookies. My very first far-from-complete-disaster cookie. That alone wins it big kudos.)

]]> http://adoseofmee.wordpress.com/2009/12/21/cookies-cookies-cookies/ Mon, 21 Dec 2009 16:03:17 +0000 adoseofmee http://adoseofmee.wordpress.com/2009/12/21/cookies-cookies-cookies/

I am posting up cookie pictorials from last weekend when DH and I made cookies.  These recipes can be found at www.allrecipes.com

Felix K’s Chocolate Chip Cookies

Chia (salvia hispanica) is a plant of the genus Salvia and is native to Mexico. Its history goes back to the Aztecs in pre-Columbian times and its value was so great that it was given as an annual tribute by the people to the rulers. Today it is still widely used throughout Mexico and South America. Its seeds are ground and used in nutritious drinks and as a food source in general.

Chia is an annual herb, that can grow up to 3 feet tall. Its flowers are purple, or white, and grow in cluster-like formations at the end of each stem. The seeds are typically very small (about 1 mm in diameter). The color generally is gray but can also range from brown to black and white. The nutritional value of chia seeds is significant in that it contains about 20% protein, 34% oil, 25% dietary fiber and high levels of antioxidants. The oil contains very high concentrations of omega-3 fatty acids (about 64%). Chia seeds are completely gluten free and have only trace levels of sodium.

Chia seeds can be eaten raw as a dietary fiber and omega-3 supplement. Ground chia seeds are sometimes added to pinole, which is a coarse flour made from toasted maize kernels. A Mexican drink, known as chia fresca, is made by soaking chia seeds in water, or fruit juice. The soaked seeds are gelatinous in texture and are used in gruels, porridges and puddings. Ground chia seeds (or flour) are used in baked goods, including breads, cakes and biscuits. Chia seeds are also used as sprouts in salads (popularized through the now famous chia pets! )

We have discovered a company in Florida (Nuchia Foods) that produces two different chia flour products. One is a 100% chia flour product (this flour product should probably make up no more than 20-30% of your total flour use), the other is called their Original Chia Flour. The Original Chia Flour also contains organic brown rice flour and can be used as a direct substitute for wheat flour.

We have added a video to our collection on the right side of the screen, which gives you more information about this nutritious gluten free flour. We are excited to try a flour alternative that allows a direct substitution for regular flour.  Our order is on its way and we will share our results with you just as soon as we can. Has anyone used this product already? Leave us a post below .

2 cups firmly packed brown sugar

2 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter or margarine, softened

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 cup milk

1 egg

1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

1/2 cup chopped walnuts

1/4 cup unsweetened flaked coconut (optional)

Preheat oven to 350°F. Lightly grease a 13 x 9-inch baking pan; set aside.

In a large mixing bowl, mix together the brown sugar and flour.

Using a pastry cutter or two knives, cut in the butter until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Remove 1 cup of mixture and set aside.

To mixture in large bowl, add baking powder and salt. Using a fork, lightly beat in vanilla, milk and egg.

Continue beating until a smooth batter forms. Pour batter into prepared baking pan.

In a small bowl, combine the chocolate chips and walnuts. Fold in the coconut.

Sprinkle reserved crumb mixture over top of batter in pan. Sprinkle with the chocolate chips and walnuts.

Using a long flat spatula, spread topping evenly over the top of the batter in pan.

Bake bars for 35 minutes, or until a skewer inserted in center comes out clean.

Transfer pan to a wire rack. Cook bars in pan completely before slicing.

Using a serrated knife, cut into 24 bars. Store in airtight container for up to 5 days.

1/4 cup packed brown sugar

1/4 cup shortening

1/4 cup butter, softened

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

1 egg, separated

1 cup all-purpose flour

1/4 teaspoon salt

3/4 cup finely chopped hazelnuts, walnuts or pecans

Jelly (I use raspberry preserves)

Preheat oven to 350°. Mix brown sugar, shortening, butter, vanilla and egg yolk in medium bowl. Stir in flour and salt until dough holds together.

Shape dough into 1 inch balls. Beat egg white slightly. Dip each ball into egg white. Roll in nuts. Place about 1 inch apart on ungreased cookie sheet. Press thumb deeply in center of each. Fill depression with jelly.

Bake about 10 minutes or until light brown. Cool on wire rack.

Makes about 3 dozen cookies

***These are my signature take along cookies to holiday parties.