A Christmas Collage

Ahh, Christmas. How quickly you pass us by!

It’s been another long but wonderful day here in the Buttermilk home, so I hope you’ll forgive me for a lack of writing. For the record books, I present to you a Christmas collage…

Continued from yesterday: the finished cinnamon roll, drenched in maple icing.

Warm-ooey-gooey-doughy-buttery-sweet…

…and cinnamony, of course. Along with a cuppa joe and the KenKen (too hard) and Xword (even harder), the perfect way to start Christmas day!

P.S. Please note our holiday sweaters. So festive of us, no?

Then it was time for stockings.

Bootch first!

Spotted: catnip mousy. I weel keel heem!

Oohh mousy…you smell niiice…*rub* *rub*

I looooove youuuu mousyyyy *rub* *rub* *rub*

Lottery tickets in the stockings. Classic! (I was the only one who won…$10!!!)

LOOT.

A tie!

A salad spinner!

A…deodorant pack? “Are you guys trying to tell me something?”

(Yes.)

A pair of earrings! …except you can’t really see them. Whoops.

Then it was time for food. Lots and lots of food. To snack on while the women were slaving away in the kitchen:

Fresh rolls, grapes, peppers/celery/carrots + spinach dip.

While B-Mom cooked up the chicken, dressing, green beanies and cheeeeez, I got to work on shrooms, potatoes, and ze pie.

In fact, let’s start with the pie, shall we?

I whipped up some cream + sugar + vanilla and added a few more bananer slices, you know, for presentation points.

Have I been watching too much Iron Chef? Maybe.

So sue me.

Almost too pretty to eat.

Almost.

More like pudding-pie. I was afraid of this because lots of the reviews for the recipe I used complained that their custard didn’t set up, but I hoped that subbing corn starch in for flour would avoid that problem. Turns out it didn’t. Perhaps I should have cooked it longer? It tasted delicious all the same, so we ate it anyway (obviously).

On to a real success: the mushrooms!

First I sauteed a shallot in some butter, then added the shroomies + turbinado sugar + salt + pep, and eventually some balsamic.

From kitchen to table: mushrooms in the white oval dish at far right, dotted with goat cheese. Next: roasted potatoes & roasted garlic chive sour cream, gravy, cheeeeez dish, rolls, and of course, cornbread dressing.

Plate with the additions of chicken and beans. Fuzzy pic, good food.

Now I am in a coma watching Chopped with B-Mom. Still feeling sicky, wamp wamp. Good thing she’s here to coddle me (lucky her, right?!).

Off to bed soon…how sad. I leave you with this:

I spy. Shneaky shneaky. Night and Merry Christmas!!

‘Twas the Night Before Christmas…

Okay well officially it’s the morning of Christmas now, but I want to give you a sneak peek into our kitchen on the Eve. I’ve been feeling a little under the weather (sniffles, congested, blah blah), so we spent the grand majority of our day yesterday sitting on the couch watching every Bravo TV show we know and love: Top Chef, Housewives of BevHills, Millionaire Matchmaker. It got a smidge awkward during the Matchmaker episode when the creepo guy kept saying sexually explicit things to his date…and my Dad and brother were in the room. “Are you a sexter? A dominatrix? Are you vocal in the bedroom?” WHAT?!? I would be outta there in .06 seconds. Gross.

Anywho we had some yummy takeout (albeit unconventional) fare yesterday: Chinese for lunch, Tex-Mex for dinner. Highlights were steamed dumplings, shrimp eggrolls, and mooshi pork. Ohh yes. And for dinner? More shrimp! Tacos de camarones, rice and beans. Really hit the spot. Then it was time to get off my tuckus and start working in the kitchen!

Our menu today will consist of a spinach salad, roast chicken, green beans, potatoes (mashed or new?!), sauteed mushrooms, yeast rolls and, of course, dessert. We’ve got Buttermilk Mom’s chocolate cake and some pies from Whole Foods (punkin for Bro, cherry for Dad…and me), but we wanted something else that would be ohh I don’t know…unexpected? How about a cream pie? How about: Banana Cream Pie?!

Yup.

We went there. Sure did.

Here are the pics to prove it:

I started with a pre-made pie crust. Call me lazy, whatever. It’s delicious and saved me the cleanup of about 3 more bowls.

Let it thaw, prick it with a fork so the dough can expand in the oven without cracking, and pop it in for about 12-15 min at 375.

Meanwhile…

Let’s get the custard going. For banana cream pie, you basically want to make a really yummy (yet not overly sweet or rich–I still want to be able to taste the banana) vanilla pudding. What we have here is granulated sugah, vanilla extract, salt, corn starch, milk, buttah, and 3 egg yolks. The bananas come into play later in the game, but they offset the butter nicely, don’t you think?

Step 1: Combine 1/2 cup sugar, 1/4 tsp salt and 3 tbsp corn starch in a pan over medium heat.

Step 2: Slowly add 2 cups of milk (any % is fine–I used 1% and it worked beautifully), stirring constantly. Continue cooking the mixture until simmering (little bubbles appear around the rim) and cook for 2 more minutes.

Step 3: Remove the pan from heat and test your mixture’s consistency–it should be starting to thicken by now. You can tell by checking what it looks like against your spoon.

If you drag your finger across the back of your spoon, the line should stay fairly in tact. If the custard is still too runny, the line will fill up. Here, the custard is definitely thickening, but it’s not completely done yet. Those egg yolks you see at right will fix that.

Step 4: Ladle small amounts of the hot liquid into your 3 egg yolks (already beaten), stirring or whisking the yolks constantly so as to avoid scrambling the eggs. This is called ‘tempering’, and is a concept I did not understand at all until I watched Ina do it once. (What would we do without her?) Essentially it just means when you have two liquids that are at different temperatures, you want to slowly bring the cooler one up to a higher temperature so that they mix more smoothly. This is particularly important with eggs, because if you just throw cool/room temp eggs into a piping hot liquid without tempering them first, they’re likely to scramble, aka you’ll have little pieces of solid eggyness in your liquid. And nobody wants that.

I’m pretty sure even I got a few morsels of cooked egg in my custard this time. What? I never said I was perfect!

Don’t worry, don’t worry, I strained the pudding later on. Presto chango, problem gone.

Step 4: Pour the tempered eggs back into the pot of warm liquid, place back on medium heat, stir constantly until simmering again. Cook 2 more minutes after you see the bubbles.

Now it’s getting reallllly thick and gooey.

Step 5: Take off the heat (for good this time) and add 1 tbsp butter and 1 1/4 tsp vanilla to the mixture. Stir, stir, stir until very smooth.

“Mom! Take a pic!”

Finally, pudding. Right around this time the pie crust was done, so I pulled it out to let it cool while I finished up the filling.

Step 6: Pour the pudding through a strainer.

Um, yuck. Who put eggy pieces in my pudding?!

Muuuch better.

Step 7: Thinly slice bananas into bottom of pie crust.

Step 8: Pour half of pudding over bananas and spread evenly.

Step 9: Repeat–add another layer of thinly sliced bananas, and pour rest of pudding over top.

Step 10: Cover with plastic wrap (and press against custard so as to prevent a skin from forming) and chill in the refrigerator until ready to eat.

I’ll be adding some fresh whipped cream (1/2 cup whipping cream, 2 tbsp sugar, 1 tsp vanilla) just before we sit down to eat. Maybe a few more banana slices, maybe some toasted coconut, maybe some chocolate, or caramel, or chocolate and caramel sauce…

The possibilities are endless!

(You can also find the recipe here.)

Finally, the other meal items we felt we could prepare beforehand were the dressing (ie. make the cornbread), some spinach dip (even better after sitting in the fridge overnight), and the rolls. I used the same recipe from Mel’s Kitchen Cafe that I used at Tgiving, you know, the Lion House dinner rolls. They were fantastic then and I’ve been dreaming of them ever since.

This time, I had a few new ideas in mind. I wanted to make cinnamon rolls for Christmas breakfast, but Pioneer Woman’s dough is a little, um, involved? Buttermilk Mom and I wondered whether the dinner roll recipe could be adapted to the sweet cinnamon goodness that are PW’s breakfast rolls. Turns out, they can!

One other change: we ran out of AP flour 75% of the way through rolling out the dough, so I added a bit of whole wheat. That’s why you’ll see some flecks of brown throughout the dough. Health food!

You can refer to my earlier post to see exactly how to roll out the dough, slice it and create the rolls. It’s super easy and kinda fun to make these cute spirals of yeasty goodness. Eh, eh??

The brilliance of this idea (thank you, Buttermilk Maja) is that you get TWO rolls out of ONE dough. Two for one! Who doesn’t love a deal like that?!

Regular rolls (sliced to be smaller than last time’s gargantuan loaves)…

…and cinnamon rolls!

2 rolls, 1 dough. 2 ROLLS, 1 DOUGH. Merry Christmas, people.

Off to heat these babies up and drench them in frosting. Then, PRESENTS!!!!!!

Merry, merry Christmas and Happy Holidays everyone! I’ll be back to report on the meal soon-ish.

French Bread and Intuitive Cooking

The other day I read an article about “intuitive cooking” in Food & Wine magazine. The article was about a guy who’d read and cooked through Alice Waters’s and Thomas Keller’s cookbooks, dedicated and determined to execute every step denoted by these culinary masters word for word. Eventually this guy had the chance to meet Keller, to cook with him, and to discuss the ways of becoming a ‘real chef’. Keller talks about his learning experience, heralding the liberation he felt from a lack of direction in the kitchen. He posits that in detaching yourself from the exactitude of recipes, you open yourself up to discovering your own cooking style, going with your gut–otherwise known as cooking intuitively.

It’s not that this one article completely revolutionized the way I think about cooking. That would be too dramatic. What it did do, however, was affirm for me an idea I’d been following all along: good food doesn’t have to come directly from a recipe, but can come from–and even taste better as a result of–spontaneous/improvised/intuitive cooking. In other words, going with the flow and letting the food come from you and your instincts can be just as effective as following a recipe you’ve printed out. I think this is an especially important concept for at-home cooks to grasp: recipes are not the end-all-be-all. Cook how you want! Cook to your tastes! The worst that can happen is you end up eating something borderline-edible, and next time you’ll know better. It’s a learning process, and it’s supposed to be fun…right?

I love this attitude. I love it because on those days when I really don’t know what I want to make, or when I have a limited/random assortment of ingredients, I want to be able to improvise–and to do so without fear. Tonight, for example, I wanted to caramelize onions for the first time. What did my instincts tell me to do? Google “how to caramelize onions”, obviously. 1.3476 seconds later, I’d found a wikihow article on this very topic, replete with 9 steps of exactly how to achieve the perfect caramelized onion.

All seemed right in the world. I began chopping my onions and threw them in my hot pan with oil. But I wanted some butter in there, too. The wikihow didn’t mention butter…what to do? My heart (and tastebuds) said, add the butter, but my recipe-bound mind did not.

Ah, screw it, I thought. What’s a little butter gonna hurt? NOTHING. In fact, I don’t think butter has ever hurt anything or anyone–I think butter has only ever made the world a little bit better, one gorgeous pat at a time. From that moment on I decided to put the laptop away and go with my gut. Look at me go! Cookin’ intuitively.

I continued sauteeing the onions until they turned golden brown, and eventually a shade of deep mahogany.

I’m so poetic.

Anyyyway…the onions were sticking to the pan at this point, but I didn’t want to use wine to deglaze them. Not a big fan of wine in my food. I tried water–didn’t help. So what? What would add a bit of acid to cut through the buttery onions, but not so much sharpness as to negate their creamy sweetness?

 

Balsamic vinegar! Brilliant. Worked. Like. A charm.

But that’s not where the story ends. Oh, no. For my birthday dinner in November, we all went out to one of my favorite restaurants where they offer a daily twist on traditional bread and butter. This basically means that they make some kind of creative compound butter: aka butter with something mixed into it. That night they were serving BBQ-Caramelized-Onion-Butter…I know. Amazing. Tonight, I wanted to recreate that ball of deliciousness.

I took a tong-full of those beautiful caramelized onions, put them into a ramekin, and added a dollop of BBQ sauce. Then I stirred in about 2 tbsp of butter until it was thoroughly combined and threw it into the freezer to let it harden up again. My 2nd intuitive move. And it worked out swimmingly–the buttah was delicious!

Sweet, soft caramelized onions + smooth and tangy BBQ sauce + creamy, creamy butter = deeeevine.

Another (and perhaps the most significant) example where intuitive cooking comes in handy is in making homemade bread. At least for me, bread-baking instructions are some of the hardest recipes to follow: instant vs. active dry yeast? bread flour vs. AP? how hot should the water be exactly? should the dough be shaggy, smooth, or somewhere in between? and how do I know?!?

Ugh, it’s just a headache waiting to happen. Whenever I begin to stress about the state of my dough, I tell myself to take a breath and do what I can. People have been baking bread for centuries, using all different sorts of flours and yeasts and rise times and baking temperatures…whatever will be, will be.

Tonight I set out to made a loaf of french bread. And make a loaf of french bread I did! I found the recipe here and once I read through it two or three times, I stepped away from the computer and took what I remembered and applied it to the most important part of any recipe: what I saw in front of me. I added more flour to the dough as I felt necessary, and even though it wasn’t perfectly smooth all the way around, I stopped kneading when I felt it was solid but not too dense, subtly rippled and a nice hefty size.

I really have grown to love making homemade bread. It’s fun, it’s easy, and nothing tastes better than fresh bread hot out of the oven. Nothing.

Might’ve pulled this one out a wee bit early–it was pretty doughy as you can see. Luckily we like doughy bread in this family. Heck yes we do.

Served alongside this bootiful plate: brown rice pilaf, sauteed chicken breasts, caramelized onions (woop!), steamed broccoli on a bed of baby spinach. Mmmhmmmm.

Close-up shot: I loved the colors on this plate. A forkful of bright green spinach with chicken, rice, and luscious brown onions? Perfectamundo. (Chick + pilaf are thanks to Buttermilk Mom, of course!)

Now watching Top Chef: All-Stars. The judges are being so nuts this season–first Jen, now Dale?! I’m nervous to even watch. Night everyone!

Chocolate Chip Cookies…with a twist!

Good evening! Today was filled with last-minute Christmas shopping and future-job-searching (graduation is fast approaching…eesh) and when the day was over, I only wanted one thing: cookies.

In between the Xmas shopping and the career search I managed a quick trip to Central Market, a massive grocery store with everything you could ever, ever want and more. While perusing the aisles I kept kicking myself for not brining my camera…there was a full WALL of Justin’s nut butters. Snagged a fresh jar of Maple Almond, so pumped!

Another great find was this coconut oil. A lot of my fave bloggers have begun using this rich oil as an alternative to canola/olive oils or butter/shortening in their recipes, and they’d all raved about the delicate texture it lent to pastries in particular. I found this recipe for coconut oil based chocolate chip cookies and went to town!

This recipe has a lot of ingredients, yes, but the batter comes together suuuper quickly. I have to say I’m missing my beautiful KitchenAid stand mixer while at home, but we’ve got a handy dandy pair of Cuisinart hand beaters which did the trick just fine!

Step 1: Cream the oil + sugars

Step 2: Add the eggs and vanilla and beat until smooth

Step 3: Add the dry ingredients (the flours, salt, baking soda and powder, and whatever add-ins your heart desires)

The dough will be thick and a little crumbly (thanks to the coconut oil), which makes for a lighter, more delicate cookie

I thought the addition of sweetened coconut would pair well with the subtle coconuttiness (new word) of the coco oil in the batter

A note on size: these are 1/4 cup cookies–I love a big, fat cookie and I’ve found (through much experimenting, trust me) that 1/4 cup is the best size. As far as I can tell, LadyJayPee at Eating, Etc. (where I found the original recipe) made her cookies small and thin, producing a crispier texture. If you’re a fan of crispy cooks, I’d say use the tablespoon measure for your dough balls, and if you’re a fan of the softer, fluffier, doughier variety, go for the 1/4 cup!

Mmmmm…doughy.

I let these bake for about 14 minutes at 375 degrees. I pull them out when they look a little underdone, because (a) they harden up as they cool, and (b) they actually continue cooking on the hot baking sheet, so I do this to avoid over-baking. There’s nothing I hate more than an over-baked cookie! I look for signs of light browning around the edges of the cookies as the cue to take ‘em out!

Beauties!

The toasted coconut + chocolate chips + chopped pecans + buttery dough = absolute heaven. Seriously one of the best cookies I have ever eaten.

Going in my go-to pile.

Here’s my recipe:

Coconut Oil Chocolate Chip Cookies

Yield: 16 fat cookies, 24 small cookies, Prep time: 20 mins, Bake time: 14 mins

1 scant cup cold-pressed extra-virgin coconut oil

3/4 cup turbinado sugar (or regular brown sugar)

1/2 cup granulated sugar

2 large eggs

2 tsp vanilla extract

1 1/2 cup AP (all-purpose) flour

1 1/2 cup WW (whole wheat) flour (pastry would work well, too)

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp sea salt (I used coarse and it was too strong–I recommend using 1/2-3/4 tsp)

Add-ins of your choice: I threw in as much sweetened coconut, chopped semisweet chips, and chopped pecans as I wanted (just eyeball it–there are no rules when it comes to cookies)

Preheat oven to 375º

1. Cream oil and sugars with either stand or hand mixer

2. Beat in eggs and vanilla until well combined

3. Slowly add flour, baking soda + powder, salt and add-ins until just combined

4. With a 1/4 cup measuring cup, scoop dough onto a parchment-lined baking sheet and bake for about 14 minutes, or until slightly golden around edges

Enjoy!

Twenty Minute Chocolate Cake, and Other Updates

Oh my goodness. I cannot believe I let a WHOLE WEEK pass without a single post! Bad blogger. Bad blogger indeed.

I am finally at home sweet home back in Texas and couldn’t be more thrilled. After my exams were over, the Boy and I headed into NYC for a day of exploring, wonderful food, and the Nutcracker ballet! The whole weekend was magical, which you’ll just have to trust as I only took one picture the entire trip:

Oh well. During our daytime wanderings we went to the Union Square Greenmarket, where they not only had loads of winter produce but an entire village of fun crafts and prepared foods like crepes and Belgian waffles. Who knew?! If (and when…) I live in the city, the market at Union Square will in all likelihood be my very favorite spot in the city.

We also went to Eataly, Mario Batali’s new brainchild in the Flatiron district. It’s 50,000 square feet of Italian goods: fresh pasta, bread, cheese, meat, and every kind of olive oil you could ever ask for. There are wine bars, coffee bars, and gelato bars, in addition to several restaurants sprinkled throughout the megastore. If you’re in the city anytime soon, you absolutely MUST go!

And of course, the requisite trip to Williams-Sonoma. God I love that store, especially at Christmastime. The Peppermint Bark, the Hot Cocoa tins, and all of the gorgeous cookware just gets me in the mood for gift-giving and holiday-baking. In fact, one of the projects I have in store for you today is derived directly from one of my fave Williams-Sonoma offerings…but more on that in a minute.

First, the gift-giving part: the Boy and I exchanged gifts early since we’re spending the holidays apart, and I must say he did a fabo job. We put a price limit on Xmas since both of our birthdays come during this part of the year (October for him, November for me) and our anniversary is on December 8th. Aka this last quarter of the year is a little rough on the wallet. So we decided to set a limit and force ourselves to get a little more creative, which I love to do anyway. He, being the smart guy he is, went to what might be my 2nd favorite store to peruse for hours (and secretly his as well), Crate and Barrel. The loot:

1. Three big, beautiful wine glasses (for reds, our preference):

2. A nice bottle of Pinot, to go with the glasses (obvi)

3. A springform pan!!!! (for all those layer cakes and cheesecakes I’ve been dying to try):

4. A lovely new coffee mug (because I didn’t have one of my own yet):

5. A chocolate-peanut butter frog, just because.

Jackpot right?! A foodie’s dream, and so thoughtful. What did I get for him, you ask? I went with a “coffee” theme, because the Boy loooves his coffee. After much research, I opted for a new Krups 12-cup coffee maker along with a hand-painted Christmas mug (we both got mugs for each other, a little nauseating I must admit) and some homemade coasters. In all I think I was a little luckier in my Xmas booty…so excited for that cake pan!!

Alright, alright, enough with the Christmas talk–get to the food. This morning I have a few things for you, first being my breakfast, per usual. We were out of bananas here at home (sacrilege, you’re telling me) so I had to go with a berry theme: regular oats with a mix of raspberries, cherries, and strawberries on top.

I added a splash of vanilla almond milk and eventually a few scoops of Oikos nonfat plain yogurt to break up the sweetness of the berries + oats.

So festive with the red, no?

All in all, a great first bfast back.

Next I have for you the famous 20 Minute Chocolate Cake, a la Buttermilk Mom:

How cute is that.

Now how cute is this?!

I think I made this in 4th grade. I know, I’m adorable.

Moving on…

So I came home to a beautifully iced chocolate cake (pre-massacre seen below) and some yummy taco meat for DIY taco salads. Awesomeness all around. I know you guys love Texmex, blah blah, but the cake is really where it’s at. A photo montage:

This cake is heaven-sent. I request it every time I come home. I demand that she send it to me at school, which ain’t easy when it’s traveling thousands of miles. But she does it. Because it is that good.

The cake itself is light and fluffy with a mild, sweet chocolate flavor. I think the airiness is thanks to the inclusion of buttermilk, which reacts with the baking soda to give more rise to the cake. Now, be warned: this is by no means a dense chocolate cake of the flourless or lava-filled genres. No, this is a brilliantly velvety chocolate cake topped with the most delicious chocolate frosting you will ever eat. Ever. And I have eaten more than my fair share of chocolate cakes in this world. I love chocolate cake more than anyone I know. Dare I say, I probably love it more than you.

S*&! just got real.

Okay so you get it: this cake is good. The cake-frosting pairing is absolutely genius, because as I said, the cake itself is not overpowering in its chocolaty flavor, which not only allows the icing to shine in all its rich chocolate glory, but makes for a perfectly balanced bite every time.

Make this cake. It only takes twenty minutes, I swear. It’s even in the recipe title!

Mom’s 20 Minute Chocolate Cake

Yield: 15×10″ sheet pan, Prep time: 20 mins, Bake time: 20 mins

For the cake:

1 stick butter (or margarine, doesn’t matter–we use butter now)

1/4 cup cocoa

1 cup water

2 cups sugar

2 cups flour

1/2 cup buttermilk

2 eggs

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp vanilla

Preheat oven to 400 degrees, grease and flour 15×10″ pan. Mix butter or margarine, cocoa and water in saucepan and bring to a boil. Remove from heat. Sift flour and sugar in a large bowl, add chocolate mixture and beat at medium speed until blended. Continue beating, adding buttermilk, eggs, soda, salt, cinnamon and vanilla. Pour into pan and bake 20 minutes.

For the icing:

1 stick unsalted butter/margarine, melted

1 box powdered sugar

1/4 cup cocoa

6 tbsp milk

1 tsp vanilla

Beat melted butter with dry ingredients in a large bowl until creamy. (Seriously–does it get simpler than that?!)

The money shot.

And finally, I spent my entire flight home yesterday thinking about foodie Christmas gifts. What I love about the holidays is that there’s an excuse to bake and concoct an absurd amount of food, because you can just give it all away! I am so excited to experiment with new techniques and recipes, from hot chocolate mix + homemade marshmallows to candied nuts/homemade crackers/made-from-scratch jam (perfect for wine & cheese, don’t you think?!). First on my list?

Homemade toffee.

I am a die-hard fan of Williams-Sonoma’s Handcrafted English Toffee. I cannot get enough of that salty-sweet hard candy encased in a layer of chocolate and finely chopped almonds. We didn’t have almonds around last night, so I swapped ‘em out for pecans, but we sure did have butter and sugar, which is basically (and I mean really) all you need.

You can find the recipe here.

In total, I think this recipe took about 20 minutes of active work as well, just like the cake. Seriously, that’s not even a full episode of The Office!

IMPORTANT: You do NOT need a candy thermometer to make toffee! We didn’t have one, so we just followed the instructions (and the words of a wise reviewer), which said to boil the sugar + water + butter for 12 minutes exactly (by this time it should be turning a light caramel color), then to pour it onto a greased-and-foiled baking sheet (already strewn with chopped pecans, or your nut of choice) and spread it as evenly as possible.

Then, while the candy is still hot, you sprinkle chocolate (I used semi-sweet chips) and the rest of your chopped nuts over it so that they stick and sink in a bit. We let ours cool for a few hours at room temperature (while we went to see Black Swan…Sweet mercy it is SO good and SO intense, I can’t even talk about it) and then I fridged it overnight. My chocolate chips didn’t melt all the way through so they retained their shape, which I’m not sure I like, but they were soft to the touch when we got back so I thought chilling them overnight would help.

And by golly, it did!

This is also a fun project to attempt with a partner. This time I had one of my very best lifelong friends with me, Matt, who was a very helpful butter-softener and boiling-caramel-stirrer. Couldn’t have done it without him.

You could also make both the cake and the toffee in less than one episode of Real Housewives of Beverly Hills…

…not that I watch that or anything.

The toffee tastes even better than it looks (and I think it looks purdy darn good, don’t you?). So easy, fun, and festive!

Whew, long post. We had a lot to catch up on…sorry about that. Now off to do some serious Christmas shopping (right now there’s only ONE PRESENT under the tree!!), see ya!

Lemon Loaf with Lemon Cream Cheese Icing

Let me tell you something: I don’t love lemon. I am not a lemon lover. When given the decision between lemon square and brownie, I’m going with the brownie. But, this loaf. Oh boy this loaf. This lemon loaf is good.

I wanted a pound cake. I wanted it to be light in lemon flavor and texture, with the creaminess of butter and a gentle punch of citrus. This is it, folks. This recipe is not too lemony. The icing is nice and sweet with just a hint of tartness.

The cake is dense and moist, lending itself well to toppings like yogurt and berries, fresh whipped cream, ice cream, jam, honey, more butter…

It’s great with tea. It’s great with milk. It’s great with whatever the heck you want to eat it with. So let’s get to it, shall we?

Lemon Loaf (adapted from Food.com)

Yield: 1 loaf pan, Prep time: 15 minutes, Bake time: 55-60 minutes

For the loaf:

• 1/2 cup butter
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 eggs (I used 4 egg whites)
• 1/2 cup milk (I used skim)
• 1 1/2 cups AP flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• zest of 1 lemon
• juice of 1 lemon (optional–if you want a more pronounced lemony taste)

For the icing:

• leftover cream cheese frosting
• zest of 1 lemon
• milk
• powdered sugar as needed

1. In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar.
2. Add eggs, one at a time, beating until creamy.
3. Blend in milk and juice of 1 lemon, if desired.
4. In another bowl, mix together flour, baking powder, salt and lemon zest.
5. Pour into batter.
6. Stir to moisten.
7. Scrape into greased 9 x 5 inch loaf pan.
8. Bake in 350f degree oven for 55 to 60 minutes.
9. Remove to rack and let cool.
10. While cooling, zest lemon into frosting.
11. Add milk to loosen, stir till smooth.
12. If your icing is too soupy at this point, add powdered sugar until you’ve reached your desired consistency. I kept mine pretty liquidy, as I wanted it to be almost transparent over the loaf.

Red Velvet Cupcakes

Greetings from…the Boy! Here we have them, the famed, the delicious, the oh-so-red Red Velvet Cupcakes:

Now as you all know, Buttermilk Baker is a pretty finicky eater.  A lover of spices, seasonings, and ketchup in salads (weird), she has to have things just right in order to be happy.  Therefore the pressure was on when she demanded politely asked me to whip up a red velvet cake in honor of her birthday.  I am many things (oooohh…mysterious!), but I am no baker.  Thankfully, Buttermilk Baker helped me create these little goodies and they were verry well received (if I do say so myself) at a dinner we held to celebrate her twenty-two years of making this earth a better place.

First off, I have literally no idea why red velvet cake has to be red. You can add food coloring to pretty much anything and it seems to be completely random that this generic cocoa and butter cake has such a desire to be reddish.  I think I’m onto something, though, and that is that red is a very versatile color!  Red symbolizes a lot of things…love, passion, hate, and anger being just a few.  Red cupcakes are thus extremely adaptable to any sort of situation in which you might find yourself.  You can give them to someone with the intent of saying “I love you, care about you, blahblahblah,” and could just as easily hand them over to your mortal enemy, trying to convey a “try these…if you dare…and if you like subtle notes of rat poison in your dessert” sort of message.

Also, most of the pictures we found online prove that the cake oftentimes isn’t even that red, anyways.  It’s sort-of-red velvet cake.  I don’t get it.  Go big or go home.  I went big, but more on that later.

The process of making these little red bundles of holiday cheer is actually remarkably easy. (Especially thanks to that recently acquired KitchenAid mixer…) You mix together butter, eggs, flour, sugar, way too much food coloring, and maybe some other things to make a batter (if I’m getting too specific with the instructions here, let me know).  You then pour the batter into lined muffin tins and bake for about 15 minutes at 350 degrees, I think.  While they’re baking, you can make the frosting using more butter, cream cheese, confectioner’s sugar, and vanilla extract.  When the cupcakes are done and cooled, you top them with this frosting.  The red velvet + cream cheese frosting go well together, hence our generous inclusion of both recipes in this post.  A truly novel approach to food blogging, I know.

A note about the cupcakes: they are RED. The recipe we used called for 3 tablespoons of food coloring, but we only had a small bottle of red food coloring and knowing it would be less than 3 tablespoons, we just threw the whole thing right in the mix. Told you I went big. What we were unaware of, however, was that our gel was about 999999999999% more powerful than typical watery food coloring.  Sorry, I am not.  If Buttermilk Baker asks for red velvet cupcakes, she will get red velvet cupcakes.  And like them.  Dammit.

Happy Kwanzaa everyone.

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Isn’t he cute? What a sweet, sweet boy. At least when he’s putting something on the internet. On my blog, specifically. The one he knows my grandma reads (Hi, Granpat!).

Ah, I’ll take what I can get.

So what am I doing here? Well I’m here to show you the step-by-step photos of our RVC-making experience, of course! As wonderful a job B-Boy did with explaining the ins and outs of cupcake making, I figured I might want to fill in, um, the gaps.

Creaming the butter + sugar.

The bowl of food coloring paste that has been forever dyed red.

As have our fingers.

Look at that batter!

Bravo, B-Boy–you have a knack for filling cupcake tins, I have to say. I wonder what the money’s like in batter pouring these days…

Ingreds for delicious cream cheese frosting.

Whip, whip, whip!

Badda bing badda boom–done!

Just in time for the cupcakes.

I filled a gallon-size Ziploc with the frosting and snipped off the corner for a DIY piping bag.

How pretty do these look?

They tasted even better.

Thank you, Buttermilk Boy, for being such a good sport and for making this birthday oh-so special. You’re my favorite.

Red Velvet Cupcakes (from Brown Eyed Baker)

Yield: 12 cupcakes, Prep time: 30 minutes (if you’re working, um, a little slowly), Bake time: 15 minutes

For the Cupcakes:
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature
¾ cup granulated sugar
1 egg
2½ tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
3 tablespoons red food coloring
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
½ cup buttermilk (we made our own with 1 tbsp vinegar + enough milk to make 1/2 cup)
1 cup + 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon baking soda
1½ teaspoons distilled white vinegar

For the Cream Cheese Frosting:
4 ounces butter, at room temperature
4 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature
2½ cups powdered sugar (we ran out and probably used only 2 cups, still tasted deelish)
1 tablespoon vanilla extract

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line a standard muffin/cupcake pan with liners.

2. On medium-high speed, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Turn the mixer to high and add the egg. Scrape down the bowl and beat until well incorporated.

3. In a separate small bowl, mix together the cocoa powder, vanilla extract and red food coloring to make a thick paste. Add to the batter and mix on medium speed until completely combined. You may need to stop the mixer to scrape the bottom of the bowl, making sure that all the batter gets color.

4. Reduce the mixer speed to low and slowly add half of the buttermilk. Add half of the flour and mix until combined. Scrape the bowl and repeat the process with the remaining milk and flour. Beat on high until smooth.

5. Again, reduce the mixer speed to low and add the salt, baking soda and vinegar. Turn to high and beat for another couple of minutes until completely combined and smooth.

6. Divide the batter evenly between the cupcake liners and bake for about 20 minutes, or until a thin knife or skewer inserted into the center of the largest cupcake comes out clean.

7. Cool for 10 minutes and then remove cupcakes from the pan and place them on a cooling rack to cool completely before frosting.

8. Using the whisk attachment, whip the butter and cream cheese on high speed for about 5 minutes, scraping the bowl down as necessary. Reduce the speed to low and slowly add the powdered sugar until all is incorporated. Add the vanilla and mix to combine. Increase the speed to medium high and whip for a few minutes until the frosting is light and fluffy, scraping the bowl as necessary.

Pumpkin Knots

Alas, I found yet another baking project to procrastinate with. It involves yeast. And pumpkin. And…garlic? Well, only if you want–these are good just on their own, or slathered with butter and a little honey. Yup, just went there.

So I got the idea for pumpkin garlic knots from Handle the Heat and (never home) maker and Oh She Glows, all beautiful blogs full of delicious and original recipes. I’d bookmarked these recipes a while back and was just waiting for the perfect moment to pull them out. Finally, the day came. Not only did I have leftover pumpkin puree, but I was given a lovely home-grown garlic bulb by Buttermilk Boy’s mother and wanted to put it to good use before it went bad. Hellooooo pumpkin garlic knots!

I love a good garlicky knot, and the addition of pumpkin sounded like a fabulous way to introduce some subtle sweetness to the dough without being overpowering. Turns out my inkling was right–these babies turned out great!

So great, in fact, that I took about 25 pictures of them when they came out of the oven.

Whoops.

Here we go!

Yeast + warm water.

Honey + olive oil + pumpkin puree.

Whisked together…

And poured into the well of dry ingredients.

Coming together…

Thank god for dough hooks.

Before the rise…

Risen! Time for knot-forming.

A little roll, a little twist, and…

Voila! Knotty perfection.

And by perfection, I mean lots and lots of imperfection.

Baked at 400 for about 15 minutes and BAM! Donezo.

Cue the photoshoot:

Okay, okay I’ll spare you. Plus, these are still naked. Here’s a pic from later that night:

COVERED in garlic goodness.

I basically just nuked some smart balance light, minced garlic and dried oregano + salt and pep. Tossed a few in a bowl and let the garlic butter seep into all the nooks and crannies.

Served alongside some marinara pasta over baby spinach and sauteed chicken breast. Mmmm mm!

Oh, and some vino. These are stressful times! And it’s frigid outside. Girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do.

Pumpkin Garlic Knots (adapted from (never home)maker)

Yield: 2 batches

• 1 cup warm water
• 1 envelope active dry yeast
• 2 tablespoon agave nectar (or honey)
• 1/2 cup canned pumpkin
• 2 tablespoons plus 1/3 cup olive oil
• 1-1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
• 3-1/2 cups white whole wheat flour (I used King Arthur)

• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• salt & freshly ground pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon dried oregano leaves (or parsley, whatever floats your boat)

1. For the dough: Pour the warm water into a medium bowl and whisk in the yeast. Let sit until frothy, about 10 minutes. Whisk in the agave nectar, 2 tablespoons olive oil, and pumpkin puree.

2. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour and salt. Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients then pour in your wet ingredients.

3. Using a rubber spatula, pull all the ingredients together. When you can no longer mix, use your hands to start kneading the dough. Knead the dough until it comes together in a smooth and elastic ball, adding flour as necessary to prevent sticking.

4. Lightly oil another large bowl and put your dough ball inside it — flipping over once to coat both sides lightly with oil. Cover with a damp towel or plastic wrap and let rise for about 2 hours; or until nearly doubled in size.

5. Preheat oven to 425 degrees F, put in a pizza stone (you may use a pan, too, but it works best with a stone), and divide the dough into two equal pieces. If you’re planning to use the other half the next day, just put it in a large zip-lock bag and store in the fridge. You may also freeze the dough for up to three weeks.

6. To create the knots: tear off sections of dough (2 tablespoons at a time) and roll them into a long snake shape. Tie that snake in a knot. Set aside and continue with the rest of the dough.

7. Once you’ve made all your knots, put them on your stone (or on your pan) and let bake until golden brown on the tops, about 10-15 minutes depending on size of knots.

8. If you want to make them garlic knots, mix together the 1/3 cup olive oil with minced garlic, salt, pepper, and oregano while knots are baking. When the knots are done, toss in the olive oil mixture to coat.

Peanut Butter Cookie Oats

Hey guys.

Finals are upon us.

What does that mean for BwB, you ask?

It means a lot of oats, that’s what.

But, fear not loyal BwB reader! I have some interesting twists up my sleeve. You see, we made some pretty special peanut butter cookies the other day. They had Butterfingers in them. And Reese’s. And this morning, I decided to sprinkle some of those cookies on top of my oatmeal.

It’s allowed during finals time. Didn’t you know?

Observe.

Marvel at my genius.

Yup, that’s a big ole chunk of peanut buttery goodness right there. The chewiness of the PB cookie + the creaminess of the oats = breakfast heaven.

Another surprise?

Justin’s MAPLE ALMOND BUTTER!!!!

I’ve been dying to try this flavor, but they never have it at our convenience store. When I saw it last night, I jumped on it immediately.

The verdict? As amazing as I’d hoped! It’s definitely more textured than regular PB, but I kinda like that. With a hint of maple flavor, and that sea salt to round it out, this almond butter is poifect on a piping hot bowl of oats.

Plus, look at that ingredient list. So simple! So delicious!

I kneaded and squeezed as much goodness out of that packet as I could. Followed up with some sea salt and banana slices, per usual.

Like so.

Oh yes.

You can even see little flecks of cinnamon throughout the oats. Victory eez mine.

And how’s about one more bowl, you know, for the effort?

An oldie, but a goodie: straight up oats with cinnamon, sea salt, a splash of vanilla and a banana (1/2 sliced in, 1/2 on top) and a whopping spoonful of PB.

Also note the increasing prevalence of coffee in these photos. That will not be changing anytime soon.

Also note the chia seeds floating around in there. I really think I can tell a difference…?!

ALSO: heads up for red velvet cupcake post. Hopefully tomorrow. Here’s a teaser for those of you waiting on the edge of your seats: (ahem, all of you…)

Teehee. Look at my pointer finger. So. Red.

SO YUMMY. Look out for zee recipe!!

And a Few with Chocolate Chips

How I love quiet Sunday mornings.