Back with Butter, Back to Life

Butter! Yes, I brought french butter back with me only because that it a perfectly normal thing to do.  Fact. 

I read multiple blogs and articles prior and during my trip to Paris to ensure that no food gem would go unexplored. But between the jet lag, waking up at 12 noon and actually wanting to take it easy, not every destination could be visited. And you know what? That's just fine. Paris will still be there and I will still want to come back. 

While we did see the sights, my mom and I found it so much more satisfying to just explore on our own. Here were a few of the highlights that made this trip so memorable.

- Street side crepes

- A tomato and mozzarella salad (in 100 degree weather)

- A dessert from the absolute cutest french restaurant in the Latin quarter, Les Fetes Galantes. Homemade puff pastry w/ vanilla ice cream and chocolate sauce shaped like mushrooms. If you ever go to Paris, go here. This meal blew my mind.

- Our street.

- Wedding cake baking (early stages). Also, meeting the coolest french family ever.

- French cheese (from a beautiful meal, provided by the sweetest french mother from the coolest french family). I want to eat an entire wheels of this.

Simple pleasures would sum up the whole visit. Never a dull moment. 

Now back to normal life... and some really good butter.

I'm still here! Well, sort of...

I'm somewhere. Paris, to be exact and loving it! But it's not all fun and indulgence.

There's work to be done, you see.

I swear...

I SWEAR. 

eh, well yes, mostly fun and indulgence. But there is a wedding cake to be baked, frosted, transported, oogled, and eaten by yours truly. More of that soon!

Alright. Two things:

- Pay no attention to the uglyness happening on top of this bread. Yes, those holes are test pokes. And no, I have not gotten friendly enough with my oven to know its behavioral patterns. But, I'll get there.

- Despite the fact that a streusel topping should be the easiest thing to make, my streusel skills have yet to improve. Don't judge me.

Blueberries!!!

I've had blueberries on the mind for a while and had to act. I give you blueberryliscious coffee cake as the result. Sweet bursts of warm berries? Check. Spongy and soft sweet bread? Oh yah. Crumbly, sugary, cinnamony streusel goodness? Well... yeah that's go with that.

Blueberry Coffee Cake

adapted from justapinch.com

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour (I used 1 cup white whole-wheat, 1/2 cup all-purpose)

2 1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

3/4 cup granulated sugar

1/3 cup butter, melted

1 egg

1/2 milk or buttermilk

1 tsp vanilla

1 1/2 cups blueberries (fresh or frozen)

For the cake:

Grease and flour a loaf pan. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.

In a bowl, mix flour, baking powder, and salt. In a large bowl, combine sugar, slightly cooled butter, egg, milk, vanilla and mix well. Sift flour mixture into wet ingredients and fold until well combined. Fold in blueberries and then transfer to pan.

For the streusel:

1/4 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup granulated sugar

1/4 cup flour

1tsp ground cinnamon

3 tbsp butter

Mix first four ingredients in a small bowl, then incorporate butter using your hands until you have pea-sized crumbles. Sprinkle it on top of the batter in the pan, then bake for 40-45 min. Allow to cool for 20 15 minutes.

I Dub Thee Oven

We got a new stove last week. After 9 months and 5 maintenance requests, our manager (aka manager of procrastination) finally fixed our oven handle. By replacing to whole oven... Don't get me wrong I'm as pleased as can be. It's clean, all four burners work, and its not 50 years old. Give or take. Oh yeah, and there's an oven handle! Woohoo! Well done Mrs. Manager, you've managed to fix one of the 8 things wrong with this apartment. Now we must wait another 2 months for you to address the other problems.

In the mean time, lets make some granola!

I'd like to think that my granola making skills have improved a lot since my first batch. Not that it's hard. Oh no, it's real simple. But I'm always testing out the ratio of wet ingredients and possible flavor possibilities. This has become my delicious default.

Maple syrup, nuts, brown sugar, and a little bit of cinnamon.

 Then adding whatever dried fruits I've got on hand. My roommates always ask me to make it, because it makes our apartment smell like pure happiness. That and to mask the smell coming from the trash.

I consider this the ultimate nibble food. But add and/or eat it just as you would any other granola.

Maple Pecan Granola
1/4 cup oil (use whatever you have, I used olive and still turned out great)

1/2 cup applesauce

2/3  cup maple syrup

1/4 cup brown sugar

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

3 1/2 cups old-fashioned rolled oats

1 cup pecans (or walnuts)

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Lightly grease a baking sheet with oil.

In a large bowl, combine first five ingredients and mix well. Add oats and pecans, then mix well. Let sit for about 5 minutes, then transfer to the baking sheet. Bake granola for about 40-45 minutes, stirring avery 15 minutes, until granola is golden. Remove and allow to cool completely on baking sheet.

Enjoy! And store in a sealed jar or container.

French Toast (Pour Une)

True or False:

I can speak french. -False (although I wish were true). 

I love french toast. -True

You would think that after 3 years of french in high school, I would have some fluency in the language. Yeah, that's what I thought too. But for some reason, each year the school would change the teacher and each thought it better to start at the beginning. So by the time I was in french 3 we were still reading out of the french 1 book. Sad, I know.

 But I won't let my terrible luck or inability to learn a language interfere with my willingness to make something delicious on a Saturday morning. Egg, milk, cinnamon, and vanilla. We're prepping the pool for some very lucky last pieces of sourdough bread, folks.

 Let them soak. You have to wait a bit...

 And like magic their done! But not really, fry them a pan first. Just a suggestion.

 Saturday bliss, man.

No french speaking required.

French Toast (for one)

1/2 cup milk

1 egg

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1/4-1/2 tsp cinnamon

2 slices sourdough bread (or any stale bread of your choosing)

2 tbsp butter

In a shallow bowl, combine first four ingredients and mix well with a fork. Lay both slices (if possible) in the bowl and soak for 1-2 minutes each side. In the meantime, melt the butter in a non-stick skillet. Once it begins to bubble, add the moist bread slices and cook each side for about 1-2 1/2 minutes or until a brown crust forms (you want it to be long enough to cook the center, but short enough not to dry it out).

Serve with berries and syrup (of course). Feel free to top with powdered sugar and if you have the patience, take a pretty picture! Then, by all means eat it.

Edible Chocolate Pillows of Peanut Buttery Goodness

There's cocoa. There's peanut butter. And one's inside the other.

A little kinky, no?

Oh well... It's all love in the end.

These little suckers, were a wee-bit tedious to make I'll admit. But then again I wanted them to be peerrrfect. I had been eyeing over the recipe for a few months (I'm busy, okay), waiting and planning for the right time to make them, and finally I decided superbowl sunday would be a great time to test them out on my fellow hungry college peers.

Needless to say, they were a hit. What was priceless was their reaction to finding peanut butter fluff in the middle. Crunchy peanut butter no less. "Well done...well done," was one of my more entertaining reviews. And let's face it, between eating these and watching the superbowl, there was more enthusiasm for the cookies. Well, that and the puppybowl.

After a day's worth of snacking, these pillowy treats are the cherry on top right before your food coma. How appropriate. Just don't sleep on them.

Peanut Butter Pillow Cookies
Get the recipe here!

Note: My only adaptation was replacing half the oil with butter, which is why mine turned out flatter. Also I used 1/3 cup less sugar in the filling. Still turned out delicious!

Pizza #1

Homemade Pizza that is. I am happy to report that this attempt did not fall under the failed list and was achieved with a good amount of confidence. I like to think I've come quite a ways since my first baking days. A year or two ago my thoughts going over a pizza or bread recipe would have been like this:

- What the heck is yeast?

- Knead for how many minutes?! How do I even knead? 

- Eh, I don't really want to use that much flour. (Although, I'm still this frugal)

- No dough hook... no hope.

But I can tell you now that what might seem like a hard and troublesome process is actually no trouble at all. 

Bloom your yeast for 5-10 minutes. Your water should be warm(warm to the touch, you don't need a thermometer). Not Scary at all.

Once your dough pulls away from the sides, turn it out onto a floured surface.

With your hands(thats right, you don't need stand mixer), knead that sucker for about 5 to 8 minutes until it forms a smooth, uniform ball.

Let the double in size in a warm place. The oven is my place of choice, along side a bowl of steaming water to help the rising process. Just DO NOT TURN ON THE OVEN.

Once risen, punch it in the face. 

 

Flatten out the portion of dough and spread it out to the desired size and thickness. I was able to spread mine out to the size a standard baking sheet by pressing out the edges with my fingers.

Top it with whatever you want. This one has sausage, pepperoncini, artichoke hearts, onions, red bell pepper, tomato sauce, mozzarella cheese and parmesan.

Basil would have been my garnish of choice, but the cilantro on hand end up mixing up the flavors and tasting great. I sprinkled the bottom and edges of the dough with cornmeal. My crust turned out thin and crispy with just 12 minutes in a HOT oven and it's pizza time my friends.  

Pizza Dough

from Cooking Channel

1 3/4 cups warm water (105-110 degrees, or warm to the touch)

1 envelope(2 1/4 tsp) active dry yeast

2 tsp sugar

3 tbsp olive oil, plus more for greasing

3 1/2 - 4 cups white whole wheat flour (use bread flour if you have it, otherwise all-purpose will work)

2 tsp salt

In a small bowl or measuring cup, combine warm water, yeast, and sugar and let bloom for at least 5 minutes. Mix in oil.

In a larger bowl, combine flour and salt. Gradually pour in water mixture, stirring with a spoon or wooden ladle. Once the dough comes together and pulls away from the sides, turn it out onto a floured surface and knead up to 8 minutes or until it forms a smooth ball. 

Place the dough in a large greased bowl and cover with plastic wrap and set in a warm, draft-free place for 2 hours. Once doubled in size, give it a punch and divide the dough in half or quarters. You can wrap the remaining dough with plastic wrap and put it in the fridge or freezer. 

For Pizza:

Preheat oven to 500 degrees F.

Flatten out a portioned piece of dough(I used half) and place it on a greased baking sheet. Spread it out to your desired shape and size then top it with whatever you want!

Bake for 10-15 minutes, depending on the size, until the edges are golden brown. Allow to cool slightly before eating.

Macarons. Totally Last Year (But Still Delicious)

Well I think I can safely say that the french macaron trend will stay on for bit longer. I like them.

I jumped on this bandwagon (as Joy would Say). Unlike cupcakes, which I haven't even made yet. Not that I have been planning on making them anytime soon. Im not sure why, but I have never caught on to the cupcake frenzy. Perhaps it's that fact that the sight of a full-out cake makes me drool as opposed to a bunch of mini cakes or maybe it's the annoyingly, copious amount of cupcake shows on TV(although... I'll still watch them if there is nothing else on). But enough of that! Let me tell you how I got my macaron on.

So apparently I am too lazy to take my hand held mixer out of the drawer, but not too lazy to beat egg whites by hand. I don't understand it, but it works for me. Beat them egg whites until they are frothy McFrotherson.

Add some sugar, and continue beating till you get a glossy and ribbony consistency.

At this stage you can choose to add or omit food coloring. I had some burgundy on hand and added little bits at a time. (Wanted to past the stage of it looking like Pepto Bismol)

Now this might be where it screwed things up a bit. See those chunky bits? My almond flour, was still like ground almonds than actual flour consistency. The heaviness of the almonds might of deflated my egg whites a bit which might of been why some of the cookies sunk when I took them out. So go ahead buy some almond flour from any grocery. But you can also try to make some yourself by putting a cup of whole raw almonds in a food processor and pulsing until you have small crumb. 

Pipe 'em! No piping bag? Use a sandwich bag and cut a tiny bit off one end. Voila! 

What is interesting about the process, is that you need to let the piped batter sit for about 15-20 minutes to form a skin before baking.

No, they were not as uniform or clean cut as the ones you see in a bakery. But not bad for a first try I think.

 Oh yeah, and I attempted to make homemade almond joys. But I'll share once they've been perfected.

Look at my pretties! Be warned this recipe makes A LOT. But then again, you're going to want to eat A LOT. I was in the kitchen from 10am to 6pm making food (and nibbling on chocolate chips and ganache). But I cannot think of a better way to end the year than to bake my heart out and make a delicious meal for my family when they come home from work.

The possibilities are endless with these. Any color, flavor, and filling will work. I filled mine with ganache and grape jelly. Then I ate them. A lot of them.

Then said goodbye to 2011

Macarons
from Food Network

Click here to get the recipe!