Better Not Overlook Butternut for Dessert!

For the last post, I showed an experiment in stuffing pasta, with the experience gained that with the making of a savory pasta filling, one should moderate the addition of sugar, especially to a winter squash that already has quite a bit of natural sugar in it.

This post, a part two to butternut puree if you will, is a demonstration of how to take something gone wrong and making something that really takes advantage of the idiosyncrasies of your prepared ingredient. As butternut squash is pretty darn close in texture and flavor to a pumpkin, and overly sweetened one would make for a fantastic pie I surmised.

Inn at the Crossroads Tribute Post - Lemon Curd

Late last year an acquaintance of mine recommended that I check out the cooking blog Inn at the Crossroads, given its admirable combination of the nerdy, fantastical and culinary; to be specific, Inn at the Crossroads is a blog dedicated to the dishes featured in George R.R. Martin’s epic series A Song of Ice and Fire, and when possible, comparing modern and medieval versions of those dishes. Having such a cohesive theme to such an awesome subject appeals to me greatly, and it’s something I aspire to be able to do with greater frequency in upcoming months.

That said, this blog definitely deserves a hearty plug from my own humble blog, and what better way to do that than to shamelessly use one of their recipes as inspiration for one of my postings? I’m sure you can list several, but don’t answer, that was a rhetorical question.

As for the recipe of the day, I opted to use their lemon curd recipe. Rich, buttery, slightly tart and wonderfully sweet, this amazing spread is fantastic on biscuits, scones, vanilla ice cream, sugar cookies or as a filling for any number of baked goods, including lemon meringue pies. Come to think of it, that might be a good way to use the extra egg whites that are are a byproduct of this recipe. In the near term, I think I shall use some of it on pancakes this coming weekend. Or maybe waffles.

The ingredients are simple, the technique straightforward.

For the recipe in quicker form I’ll direct you back towards Inn at the Crossroads.

Sugar, butter, lemon and the yolks of five eggs are what is required.

First thing is to deal with the butter, a stick of it. Preferably well refrigerated as this will make it easier to cut up.

The aim is to make several pats of butter, which is then chilled while assembling everything else.

Then fill up a saucepan partway with water and bring to a simmer. The saucepan needs to be able to support a mixing bowl on top of it without the mixing bowl contacting the water, so keep that in mind.

 

Next, zest four lemons. Having a zester really makes this job easier. A grater can work as well, and in a pinch, a paring knife will do too, but will require a good technique to avoid taking too much of the pith with it.

With the lovely pile of lemon zest before  your eyes, it’s almost a shame to…

Slice it into tiny little pieces. Almost. The rewards are worth it though, so don’t feel too bad.

Now let’s get cracking.. on some eggs. I like to have two bowls so I can crack the whites into one and separate the yolks into another. Easier for quality control that way.

Yolks done, we return to the neglected zested lemons.

Juice the lemons by whatever means you have available. Normally I don’t use a juicer, but with four lemons rather than just one I feel rather justified in utilizing the handy tool.

Even the leftovers are pretty in this recipe.

A third of a cup of liquid is needed. In my case, I didn’t need to add any cold water to the lemon juice, but if you do need it, go for it.

Now to get to the meat of the assembly now that preps over. Into a  mixing bowl (not a plastic one)  add the egg yolks.

Then add a cup of sugar and whisk until smooth, about a minute.

A nice bright yellow is what we’re going for.

Then add the juice and lemon zest and whisk thoroughly.

Then place the mixing bowl on top of the saucepan of simmering water and whisk until it gets thick enough about 8 minutes.

The mixture is properly thickened when  you can coat the back of a spoon with it and draw a line through it. Remove the mixing bowl from the saucepan, and don’t forget to turn off your stove.

And now the pats of butter.

Whisk them into the mixture, one by one, making use of the residual heat to melt them.

It helps if you aren’t taking pictures, or have someone to take them for you.

When you’re done incorporating the butter, take a breath of relief.

Put your zest into a clean bowl and cover with plastic wrap and chill.

While you impatiently wait for it to chill, now’s a good time to clean the mixing bowl with your fingers. Imagine the rest.

When you’re good and ready, think of whatever sinful ideals you have to use the lemon curd. I think a sugar cookie and a dab of vanilla ice cream would be quite lovely.

Lovely indeed. The smooth creaminess of the pleasantly tart curd marries sinfully with the vanilla ice cream, and makes the plain sugar cookie anything but.

Thanks for reading and remember again to check out Inn at the Crossroads if you really want to get your fill of fantasy inspired cooking.

Japanese Christmas Cake! Week Zero of 52 Weeks of Cooking!

First of all, hi to reddit and those taking part in the 52 weeks of cooking challenge. This is indeed my first entry for week zero, with this “week’s” theme being holiday food. After perusing the very helpful wiki link on Christmas dishes around the world posted by rach11, I settled on Japan, because Japan is awesome, and the Japanese Christmas Cake seemed very appealing. On that note, I send my holiday wishes to r/japanesefood and r/asianeats!

As an admittedly big time anime fan, I find great humor in the trope of the Christmas cake as a metaphor for women in their mid twenties fearing becoming one. No matter how delicious a Christmas cake is, no one wants it after the 25th. If you still don’t get it, the saying means that women won’t be able to marry if they haven’t married by the time they are 25. It is an utterly ludicrous and highly old fashioned sentiment, but still pretty funny in anime format. Ok, on to the Japanese Christmas Cake!

Another Autumn Treat: Pumpkin Ice Cream!

Earlier in the month, some friends invited me over for a bit of a celebration, and banana pudding was highly demanded by many of my friends. And yeah, that could have been enough. But not for me. I needed to bring something else to really make an impact. That and I just love cooking.

I still had plenty of pumpkin puree left over from my experiments with pumpkin pie, and having had the good fortune to find actual heavy whipping cream at my local grocery (unlike the other local grocery which is lame and does not have it) I decided an excellent use of the pumpkin would be pumpkin ice cream, to keep with the season. Spoiler alert, it was very well received.

Please note you will need an ice cream makerfor this recipe. Also note this is hardly an instant satisfaction recipe, there’s a lot of chilling time involved. And you probably need to freeze your ice cream maker container if it is one of those models.

On to ingredients! Clockwise from upper left: Bourbon, nutmeg, cinnamon, ground ginger, heavy cream, brown sugar, vanilla extract, egg yolks, pumpkin puree (or canned). Specific measurements and recipes at the end of the post!

An Autumn Harvest Dessert–Persimmon Tarts with a Baking Stone.

After the adventures of pumpkin pie comparison, I still had one pie dough chilling in the refrigerator, waiting for some exciting use. Not wanting to let it wait overlong, I turned to inspiration in the fruit basket on my counter, and selected the Fuyu persimmons picked from my friend’s backyard.

Some quick research was required before I jumped into this project, and seeing that the top result for a persimmon tart on Google was from the very talented Hong and Kim from the blog The Ravenous Couple, I needed to look no further!

The main difference in the recipe is that while they used convenient puff pastry, I was using homemade pie dough (see previous post here) made very conveniently with the KitchenAid Mixer and the insights of Michael Ruhlman’s Ratio.  I also used a handy baking stone because it was readily available. I’m pretty sure its use really helped the dish.

Can’t Be Crusted: First Attempt at Homemade Pie Dough.

You may remember the post on pumpkin pies. One of those posts required a prepared pie crust, so I made my own with the readily available ingredients of flour, butter, sugar, and water. I wanted to take on the question of whether things really were “easy as pie.”  If you have a KitchenAid Mixer, it definitely makes things easier!

I once again turned to Michael Ruhlman’s Ratio for the methodology to pie dough. It’s pretty simple really, as easy as 3-2-1. Three parts flour, two parts fat, and one part ice water.

Before we get started, this will result in two nine inch crusts, so adjust as necessary. The math’s pretty simple.

Two sticks of butter is 8 ounces, making the rest of the calculation easy; you will need to use 12 oz. of flour and about 4 ounces of ice water to complete things (Note: since butter has some water in it already, you want to be very careful with the addition of it at that step). A pinch of salt and some sugar evens out this pie dough for use with desserts.

But you don’t just need a ratio, you need some technique as well. The butter is better if it is cold. I cut up the butter into three lengths, then those into three, and then finally into little cubes before placing them together loosely and into the freezer while I prepared everything else.

To twelve oz. of flour, two tablespoons of sugar are sifted in.

Now the hard part. Mixing everything in together gently yet thoroughly, starting with the flour and chilled butter. A very gentle stirring through with the Kitchenaid paddle attachment is how I went about it.

Once it started to come together, I gently added two ounces of the water, before adding a little bit more as necessary. This is about as far as you want to mix things in, and the appearance seemed about right to my eyes. I may have overworked it already. At any rate, proceed carefully.

Gently work it together into two balls. I did this by making one ball and cutting it in half.

Flatten into disks, wrap well and place in refrigerator until ready to use.

When you’re ready, roll it out into a 9 inch crust, if that’s what you’re using it for!

Let me know what you think, did I totally botch it, or does it look ok?

The next post will showcase another use of pie dough. Botched or not, a careful treatment of the dough and the use of a baking stone will result in a fantastic treat in the form of a fruit tart!

Real Estate Lady Pumpkin Pie: Part 2 of the Pumpkin Pie Matchup!

Here’s the second part of Pumpkin Pie Matchup, where the second contender to compete against the Alton Brown pumpkin pie appears! Both go in… to your stomachs!

I guess matchup isn’t really fair the right descriptor here. It’s not like I combed through thousands of recipes to decide which two I’d compare. But “ill informed comparison of pumpkin pies” doesn’t quite have the right ring to it, so there you go. Now the confessions are done, on to the main event.

But, why “Real Estate Lady” pumpkin pie? This recipe turned up on the doorstep quite literally, attached to a sugar pumpkin by one of our friendly neighborhood real estate agents informing us of what the values of our homes were. Such a bold marketing plan with foresight surely belonged to a person whose tongue was able to discern the best pumpkin pie recipe within my zip code!  Upon doing some further research on the web, it turns out that the recipe is really just a modified Libby’s Famous Pumpkin Pie recipe, substituting Libby’s canned pumpkin with freshly pureed pumpkin (handily supplied by the friendly local real estate agent, in case you forgot.)

Whatever the reason, the arbitrariness with which this recipe came to me warrants it a spot in this two part challenge.

First off, preheat oven to 425 degrees.

Not having pumpkin pie spice on hand, I fashioned my own according to this recipe. 

 

The Alton Brown Pumpkin Pie: Part 1 of the Pumpkin Pie Matchup!

This is both a follow up to the Alton Brown recipe series and quite related to autumnal eats; the pumpkin pie, thanksgiving essential (up to debate). And this is the first of two posts comparing with another recipe to boot! More on that later.

Hopefully you’ll be using homemade pumpkin puree, but if not, I’m sure the canned stuff will work. Whatever the case, assembling the crust comes first.

For the AB Pumpkin Pie, the application takes a cue from graham cracker crusts but replaces the cookies with more assertive and distinctive gingersnap. Add some ground ginger, brown sugar and some melted butter and you’ll be set! More detailed instructions at the end.

First preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit while assembling the ingredients.

 

Pleading the Fifth (Day of Seven Days of Alton Brown): The Proof (of Deliciousness) is in the Pudding!

Hello again, let’s keep this ship afloat! This is the fifth day in a row of my very disciplined blogging of the Alton Brown series to commemorate my meeting of the very awesome, science in cooking guru Alton Brown.

As you recall from yesterday’s post, vanilla wafers are awesome, and they’d be making a feature in the next post, and I shall deliver. They might have been a little too awesome, since the first step of this application involved making an entirely new batch of wafers, since my mother was a little too giddy about the ones I didn’t tell her I was reserving for this awesome dessert: Banana pudding.

The extra effort to make them? Completely worth it.



According to AB, there’s two schools of thought on banana pudding, refrigerated and baked (even though this can be refrigerated later.) The refrigerated variety hails from more northern climes with a whipped topping, the baked variety a solidly southern dish with a meringue on top.

Black bean, gluten free brownies.

Skepticism. This is the word that best describes what I thought when my awesome cousin Jamie told me about this recipe from 101cookbooks. I mean, brownies, with black beans? Well, it took me a few years but I decided to finally get around to it. Helpful since I was going to a few events after making these where there would be some folks with gluten allergies.

They were ranked rather well actually, in case you were wondering.

The ingredients are straightforward: chocolate, butter, black beans, vanilla, instant coffee, honey, walnuts, sea salt and eggs.

The chocolate is unsweetened. Pure and more towards the bitter end of things. If I try this recipe again I may look into some other chocolate to see how the results compare.

Unsalted butter is added.

And mixed and melted thanks to the wonderful technology of microwaves.

Nuts, chopped.

Black beans and a share of the nuts are tossed into a food processor.

Along with some vanilla..

And a bit of the chocolate mix.

And turned into a pulse. I have to admit things started to smell quite good at this stage, a nice chocolatey and nutty smell. The taste wasn’t quite there with the lack of sugar to cut the bitterness of unsweetened chocolate however.

Hark, unsuspecting pristine melted butter chocolate liquid.

Is pillaged by a rampaging band of chopped nuts.

And instant coffee. The humanity!

This mixture is stirred together to make a smooth liquid and set aside.

Four eggs.

Beat it!

And add the honey or agave nectar. I had honey on hand.

And beat them together.

Next put the chocolate liquid into a bowl.

And start working in the puree. Yes, I am aware it looks quite lovely. It gets better.

Then the egg/honey or agave mixture is added in. But save a little bit of it!

Once well mixed, pour into a baking pan lined with greased parchment paper.

The remaining egg mixture is drizzled on top for looks.

Sort of? Is this art deco? Americana? I know nothing about art.

Bake and voila. Black bean brownies.

And here’s a piece all by it’s solitary lonesome.

It is quite fudgy and very soft.

With a rich chocolate flavor. If you’re expecting that resistance that a well baked brownie will give you, you might very well be disappointed, but taken on it’s own merits, the black bean brownie is definitely worth a look.

For the recipe, please check it out on Heidi’s lovely blog, 101cookbooks.