A pink lunch – Pickled Egg salad

23 Wednesday Apr 2014

Posted by Julia Monroe in food, recipe, Uncategorized

Tags

Easter, food, pickled beets, pickled eggs, recipe, salad

Today’s lunch salad features Easter leftovers, especially the pickled eggs.

Salad Ingredients: romaine lettuce, spinach, yellow and orange bell peppers, edamame, sliced pickled eggs and pickled beets. The dressing is a tahini based Goddess Dressing from Trader Joe’s. In the glass: Pink Lemonade.

Here’s another way I enjoy pickled eggs after Easter…

Two pickled eggs with beets, a sweet pickle and matzoh.

I like using pickled eggs to add color to the Easter dinner table. Here they are with the salad course.

Pickled eggs add color to the salad dish.

This year we had a separate salad so the pickled eggs were served simply with a garnish of parsley.

The original recipe in the old cookbook is for Pickled Beets. When I was young, my mom added hard boiled eggs to the beet solution a couple days before Easter so they would be ready to serve on Easter.

Here is the original recipe from the Relishes and Garnishes section of The New Goodhousekeeping Cookbook, published in the 60’s.

Pickled Beets (Pickled Eggs)

1/2 teaspoon dry mustard
1 Tbsp sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 clove garlic
6 Tbsp vinegar
1/4 cup water
2 cups drained cooked or canned beets, sliced

Combine mustard, sugar, salt, cloves, and garlic.
Slowly stir in vinegar and water. When smooth, pour over beets. [..layered with 6 to 10 peeled, hardboiled eggs at this point.]
Refrigerate until well chilled. Remove garlic. [I never remove the garlic. I slice or mince it and leave it in.]
Makes six servings

The eggs are best after four days in the solution. Once some eggs have been removed, you can add another batch of hard boiled eggs but the pickling won’t be as intense because the vinegar loses some of its tang.

BFN Day – To the Third Neighbor I gave Sourdough Grain Bread

07 Tuesday Jan 2014

Posted by Julia Monroe in baking, Baking for Neighbors, BFN, community, food, recipe

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

Baking for Neighbors, BFN, bread, bread machine, bread machine recipe, food, recipe, sourdough, Sourdough Grain Bread, sourdough starter

I was determined to get in a third Baking For Neighbors day, despite the cold, the rain, the busy holiday and especially my pain.
So I set my will and did it before anything could stop me.
I took Sourdough Grain Bread, a beautiful crackly-topped loaf, hot from my oven to the third neighbor.

Sourdough Grain Bread

The process is simple but time consuming. It takes 1 hour 50 minutes to make the dough in the bread machine, another 45 to raise and another 50 minutes to bake, plus other minutes for prep. So to make this bread, I have to start the loaf 4 hours before giving or serving. It’s an amazing bread and well worth the effort.

I made up this recipe. It took trial and error to get the texture just right. The crust is awesome, crisp and crackly. The interior is the perfect combination of hearty and soft and makes great slices for sandwiches or french toast. It keeps very well too and is good even two days after baking, although the crust will be more chewy than crisp at that point.

There are two specialty items needed to make the bread – a good sourdough starter and a baking cloche. These are explained further down this post.

The recipe:
SOURDOUGH GRAIN BREAD
1 cup water
1/4 cup good aged sourdough starter
2 tsp yeast
1/2 Tablespoon honey
2 1/2 cup bread flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup oatmeal
1 1/4 tsp salt
2 Tablespoons olive oil

The process:
Place all ingredients in the order listed in a bread machine.
I use a sourdough starter from King Arthur Flour. I can’t remember when we got it, perhaps 4 years ago? 5? It stays in a stoneware crock in the refrigerator door all the time. It’s an excellent starter. I’ve forgotten to feed it for over 10 months but it stays great, even with neglect.

Sourdough starter

Use the standard dough setting to make dough. We use a Zojirushi Bread Machine that takes 1 hour 50 minutes to make the dough on a standard setting. We’ve had this machine for over six years and use it three or four times a week. Best bread machine we’ve ever had!

When the machine beeps at the end of the cycle, the dough is ready. It fills the bread machine pan.

The dough is smooth on top but rough on the bottom when it is turned out of the pan.

I fold it over a couple times on a floured surface.

Cornmeal is sprinkled in the bottom of the cloche and then the smooth, floured ball of dough is placed in the center of the cloche. There are a variety of cloches available for bread baking. I picked this one for the size and good reviews. You’re not supposed to soak it before using or it may crack in the oven. It is to be used dry. After baking the bread, all I have to do is wipe out any remaining dry corn meal with a paper towel and the cloche is ready for another loaf.

The cloche lid is placed on top.

The cloche is placed in a cold oven and the oven door shut.
I turn on the oven light to provide a small amount of warmth in the oven and set the timer for 45 minutes for the dough to raise.

And then… without opening the cloche or removing it from the oven, I turn the oven to 400 degrees.
That is right, the cloche goes from raising the dough in the oven, straight to baking in the oven and the cloche is never moved! As the dough is baked, it makes steam inside the cloche, emulating a professional steam-injected oven. That’s what makes the crust so amazing!

I watch the oven temp and as soon as it reaches 400 degrees, set the timer to bake the bread for 40 minutes.
When the timer goes off at 40 minutes, the cloche lid is removed from the oven and the bread continues to bake for 10 more minutes to crisp the crust.
Here is a finished loaf.

My favorite way to enjoy the bread is hot, with butter and honey and cinnamon powder straight from the spice jar.

I’ve made mistakes with this dough, forgetting it was in the bread machine, raising it too long, forgetting to set the timer when the oven reached temperature, and still the bread turns out. Here is a loaf where I did everything wrong. I love the cragginess of the crust.

Here is the loaf torn open, steam arising.

I don’t have a photo of the loaf I took to Neighbor 3. My back hurt so bad that night that I didn’t want to carry a camera. As soon as the loaf came out of the oven, I wrapped it in paper towels and then foil and walked down the street. Neighbor 3 came to the door in a wheel chair and I handed him the still-hot loaf. He held the warm bundle as he thanked me. I was so very glad I went to the effort to take the loaf to my third neighbor. May he and his household be blessed!

The first BFN Day… To the First Neighbor, I took Butterflake Herb Rolls

04 Monday Nov 2013

Posted by Julia Monroe in baking, Baking for Neighbors, BFN, community, food, Inspirational, recipe, Uncategorized

≈ 10 Comments

Tags

baking, Baking for Neighbors, BFN, bread, community, food, neighborhood, neighbors, recipe

And also to the Second Neighbor!

It started several weeks ago. I don’t like admitting this, especially to myself, but my recovery seems sooooo s. l. o. w.! sigh. (I actually sighed after typing that sentence.) I broke my back on July 16th, 2012 and got scoliosis surgery in October. It’s been over a year. So come on, what’s with this tedious recovery? Alas, my research proves that I’m normal and doing well. But it still takes me days to recover from a simple outing because riding in a vehicle is just not friendly to my concrete spine. Not yet.

On the plus side, my stamina is better than it’s been in years. I’m tackling long overdue tasks, such as sorting through bins of old papers and organizing shelves. I’m rearranging rooms and overseeing remodeling. And I’m back in the kitchen cooking and baking. But I want to do more. I want to be involved in Community.

Since I can’t get out easy, I’ve decided to serve my own neighborhood. I call the service …

BFN – Baking for Neighbors.

Instead of bye for now, my BFN is Baking for Neighbors. I think there are 71 houses in my neighborhood. I barely know four of them so just one or two at a time, I’m going to bake something for all my neighbors. Baking for Neighbors will give me an excuse to bake, encouragement to walk outside (which is still slow and painful), and I’ll get to meet new people. It’s a win-win situation!

Several days ago I declared my first BFN Day. I took Butterflake Herb Rolls. This recipe has been in my family for decades. It was from an old Pillsbury Bake-Off cookbook my mom had. I wrote up the recipe on a blank card, which is now all stained from use.

Butterflake Herb Loaf recipe

Herb Butter Recipe

I rarely make these rolls so I’m not sure why I started with them. It just seemed like the right recipe and I was at peace. And they are delicious! With each recipe I pick, I’m going to pray that it will be ok with the neighbor and perhaps even be just what they need.

Butterflake Herb Rolls

Most yeasts no longer needs proofed but I did it anyway. 4 1/2 tsp (two packets) of yeast are softened in 1/4 cup warm water.

Dry yeast is sprinkled on warm water.

In a large mixing bowl, place 1/3 cup shortening, 1/4 cup sugar, 1 tbsp salt and 1 cup hot scalded milk. Cool to lukewarm.

Blend in 2 eggs and the softened yeast. I also mix in two cups of the flour at this point and beat till the batter is smooth. Gradually add 2 1/2 to 3 more cups of flour.

The first two cups of flour are beaten in, making a nice smooth batter.

On a floured surface…. And here I pause. I wonder if all bakers enjoy sprinkling a surface with flour. There’s just something magical about scattering that soft powder over the counter and then spreading and smoothing it out with your bare hands. I love the dusty flour on my hands.

Knead the dough on a floured surface till smooth and satiny. This was the first time in over two years that I kneaded dough so I ran out of steam fast. I wasn’t able to get it to “smooth and satiny” but it still turned out.

I put the dough in a greased bowl and place it in the cold oven. Then I turn on the oven light. The light from the lightbulb is enough heat for the dough to rise. While the dough is raising, I make the herb butter. I usually leave out the onion and just used fresh or dried garlic. Sometimes I add a little more of everything if I want a stronger herb roll.

We were out of Cayenne Pepper so I scraped the last little bit of Chipotle Pepper from the jar. There was about 1/8 tsp. We were out of fresh garlic too so I ground up dried garlic with a mortar and pestle.

I used to use a saucer and cut around the rolled-out dough with a sharp knife to make nice tidy circles. But it’s a lot faster to just use a bench knife to divide the dough up into little pieces. I cut the dough in half, then half again, etc until the lumps of dough are about the size of a small egg, about 32 rolls.

Each piece of dough is rolled out flat. It doesn’t matter if the piece is perfectly round or not. Herb butter is spread on half the dough piece and then it is folded in half.

Herb butter is again spread on the top each folded roll and then they are slightly overlapped on a parchment covered baking sheet.

The loaf is left to raise. Again, I put them back in the oven and let it stay warm with just the oven light on.

After they raised about double in size, the loaves are taken out of the warm oven and the oven is preheated to 350F. Then they are baked for 20 to 25 minutes.

For giving, I placed a hot loaf, fresh from the oven, on a paper napkin on a sturdy paper plate and wrapped it in foil. And then I carried it next door. :)

I asked the first neighbor if I could take a picture of her holding the plate and she didn’t mind. The reason the foil is left on is because the rolls are keeping warm. But most important of all, it’s NOT about the rolls, it’s about the neighbor. The hands in this photo are more important than what’s on the plate. I want to keep it that way.

Blessings to you, Neighbor 1!
And here is the second neighbor. Blessing to you too, Neighbor 2!

I don’t know if they’ll ever see this blog. But I was so happy to finally be able to do something for my neighbors.

I shall be posting all my BFN days. 2 down, 69 to go.

Torn Bread Crisps for fondue or dip

13 Sunday Oct 2013

Posted by Julia Monroe in baking, food, recipe

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

bread, fondue, food, leftover bread, recipe, roll recipe, torn bread crisps

These are addicting! We scarf the entire batch so fast. They’re good even plain.
Start with leftover rolls. We used homemade rolls. (Recipe follows if you’re interested.)
Tear rolls into ragged bite size pieces and scatter on a baking sheet.

Bake at 350 for 10 minutes, stirring once. Stir pieces again and lower oven temperature to 300 and bake 5 more minutes.
The Torn Bread Crisps will be deliciously toasted and irresistibly crispy, delightful plain or dipped. (Say that one fast, ha!)

Torn Bread Crisps after baking. The quantity shown here is two baking sheets worth.

Torn Bread Crisps after baking. The quantity shown here is part of two baking sheets worth.

Tonight we didn’t fuss for supper. We made a quick cheddar cheese sauce and steamed some broccoli. Then we ate with our fingers, dipping the broccoli and bread crisps in the cheese sauce. Supper was yummy, light and fun.

This is our Everyday Rolls recipe. We make them a couple times a week, using the bread machine on Dough Setting. I’ve made them a couple times by hand and they turn out great but the bread machine makes the job super easy.

In bread machine, place:
1 c. water
1 egg
3 1/4 cup bread flour
3 Tbsp sugar
1 tsp salt
1/4 c. unsalted butter
2 tsp yeast

Use the dough setting to prepare the dough. When ready, remove dough from the machine.
On a floured surface, divide dough in about 24 pieces. We don’t usually make tidy round rolls, we just drop the chunks of dough on a baking sheet covered with parchment paper and place them in the cold oven and turn on the oven light. The little bit of heat from the oven light bulb is enough to raise the rolls.
Let the rolls rise 45 minutes and remove from the oven.
Heat the oven to 375 degrees.
Bake rolls 15 minutes. Serve warm or cold.
The rolls may be eaten immediately or cooled and stored in airtight plastic bags overnight.
Perfect for making Torn Bread Crisps. Each roll can be torn into six or seven bite size pieces, allowing two or three rolls per person, depending on what other foods you have for the meal.
And yes, you can use them as croutons. We don’t season these because they’re more versatile, such as using to dip in peanut butter and jam. They’re also wonderful dropped in a bowl of soup.

Crust-Lover’s Apple Pie

02 Monday Sep 2013

Posted by Julia Monroe in baking, food, recipe

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

apple pie, baking, dessert, food, king arthur flour, pie crust, recipe, williams sonomas

Sometimes a gal just needs more crust.

Crust-Lover’s Apple Pie

I very loosely follow the recipe in this 2003 cookbook. Here is a similar recipe Williams Sonomas’ Apple Pie, but I use more apples, more brown sugar and less or no white sugar, triple the cinnamon, a little ginger and nutmeg. I don’t measure the filling ingredients. For the past 35 years, I’ve always used an assortment of apples in pies for better flavor, usually a couple Granny Smith for tartness, a couple Macintosh for extra apple-i-ness, and Rome or Gala for structure.

I discovered King Arthur Flour’s thickener – Pie Filling Enhancer, so now my pies aren’t soup-in-a-crust. The Emile Henry ruffled pie dishes are gorgeous and make any pie look extra delicious. The dishes also bake a better crispy crust than normal glass dishes.

But the crust… oh the crust! The recipe is probably in some cookbook somewhere because there are only so many ways to make a pie crust with few ingredients. It started out as a Good Housekeeping recipe and slowly morphed into a WS recipe with a couple tweaks.

Pie Crust

Whisk together:
2 2/3 cups all purpose flour (I always use King Arthur flour – it has the best flavor and is always consistent)
About 1/4 tsp salt
About 1 tsp sugar
Using a pastry blender, cut in:
2/3 shortening (NOT butter flavor stuff, just the regular white shortening)
1/3 cup unsalted butter
Cut in the shortening and butter at the same time till dough is craggy. If you cut the fats in too little, there will be too much flour when you stir in the water, making a glutenous, stretchy tough mess. If you cut the fats in too much, the fats will coat all the flour, basically greasing it, so you can’t add the water. At that point, your pastry will fall apart when you bake it. So the right amount of cutting-in has some small baby pea-size pieces of butter at the most but mostly looks like a lumpy powder.
Stir in with a fork:
About 6 tablespoons cold water. Sometimes you’ll need more if your house is extra dry, which drys out the flour too. But usually 6 or 7 tablespoons is enough. As you stir with the fork, the dough will almost lump together in one big mass. Press it together the rest of the way. There will still be little bits of yellow butter. That’s good because those bits mean a flaky pastry! Never knead the dough or it will get tough.
At this point, you can chill the dough to use later. I’m usually in a hurry and just roll the dough out between two pieces of floured plastic wrap for pie crust as usual.

Today my back was hurting wicked fierce and I had completely run out of decorative-edging patience. I didn’t do my usual pretty scalloped edging. I didn’t neatly trim the excess pastry from around the pie. I didn’t make cute cutouts for the top. With zero finesse I flopped the excess pastry on top of the vanilla-sugar-sprinkled pie and had one of the boys heft them into the oven.

This suits me fine. I’ve been known to make a pie crust, roll it out flat on a cookie sheet, sprinkle with cinnamon sugar and bake. Eaten as is. So this pie, with it’s splendid mass of buttery pastry, meets my crust lovin’ appetite today. And the scrumptious apple filling is a bonus!

Cheers!

Just look at all that yummy pastry! Truly a crust-lover’s pie.

Homemade Goldfish Crackers by the slice

02 Friday Aug 2013

Posted by Julia Monroe in baking, food, grandkids, recipe, tutorial

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

after school snack, baking, cheddar crackers, crackers, food, Goldfish crackers, homemade crackers, king arthur flour, recipe, snack, tutorial

The boys say the flavor is closer to Cheez-Its than Goldfish, but either way they are delicious!
I used King Arthur Flour’s recipe for Cheese Pennies from their Baker’s Companion cookbook.
This is our version to make the Goldfish.
2 cups finely grated sharp cheddar cheese
8 tbsp unsalted butter
1 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp dry mustard
a generous 1/8 tsp Ground Red Chipotle

In a bowl, combine all ingredients to make a dough that sticks together. Add one teaspoon of water at a time if necessary, just enough to make the dough squeeze together. Squish the dough together and it should be a nice consistency, like playdough. Which is great because the next part is playing with the dough!

Divide the dough into a couple pieces. We made two small 1/2″ logs for “bubbles” and three 1 1/4″ logs to make the fish. To make the gold fish, work with one log at a time.
1 Pinch the length of the top for the mouth end of the fish.

Pinch along the roll to form the front of the fish.

3 For the tail, carefully slit about 1/4″ into the round side of the log.

4. Pinch the two sides of the slit you made in the log to form the two tail fins.

5 As you pinch the fins out, also press at the base of the fin to form the fish body shape.

6 Once the basic tail shape has been formed, press the tail between two wood spoon handles to straighten out the fish body.

8 I also pressed each side of the tail against the spoon if the tail seemed too misshapen.

9 The finished goldfish roll.

10 Repeat for the other two rolls of dough to make goldfish rolls.

11 Place the rolls on wax paper on a tray and place in freezer for no more than 20 minutes. If the dough is too cold, it might crack as you slice it. If it gets frozen, just let it thaw for a couple minutes before slicing.

12 To make the bubbles, cut the round roll into 3/16″ slices and place on a parchment-lined baking sheet. The crackers don’t raise so they can be placed fairly close together.

13 Bake the round “bubbles” at 375 for about 9 minutes. They won’t burn quickly so just watch them and pull them out when they are lightly brown on the bottoms. Turn out on paper towels to cool.

14 Using a sharp, non-serrated knife, slice the goldfish rolls about 1/4″ thick and place on a parchment-lined baking sheet.

16 Aren’t these cool?

20 The dough doesn’t raise much so the goldfish can be placed fairly close together.
Bake at 400 for 14 minutes. Cool on paper towels.

21 The Goldfish Crackers are all ready for her.

Goldfish in a bowl.

22 She walks home from school with her mom and little brother.

23 And then we have tea (Apple Juice or Water) and Goldfish and Shortbread.

25 We ate them by the handful. None got away.

Today’s lunch

20 Saturday Jul 2013

Posted by Julia Monroe in food, photography, recipe, Uncategorized

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Andrew Scrivani, CreativeLive, food, food photographer, food photography, hot cross bun, lunch, photography

CreativeLive has terrific classes, especially the class this weekend – Andrew Scrivani’s class on food photography. CreativeLive airs classes free to view live, which is amazingly generous. And then if you love the class and want to view later, the classes can be purchased for a reasonable fee.

Andrew Scrivani is a wonderful food photographer and I’m really enjoying his class! He has such a fantastic breezy way of teaching and the knowledge he shares is clear, interesting (of course! ♥food) and FUN. He had a Facebook contest today, Photograph your Lunch, and he will select three photographs for critique tomorrow. There are so many wonderful entries I’m sure mine will be lost in the shuffle. I thoroughly enjoyed setting up this shot of my lunch and applying some of Andrew’s excellent photography tips.

Grilled Chicken, fresh thyme and a bit of Ginger Spread on a homemade Hot Cross Bun. Dessert was a pear and two figs.

It was rich to my soul to be able to reach up and pluck a ripe fig from the tree in our backyard. The chicken with ginger spread and thyme was delicious, especially with the lightly sweet current and mace bun.

Pizza Salad

23 Sunday Jun 2013

Posted by Julia Monroe in food, recipe

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

food, leftover pizza, pizza, recipe, salad, veggies

I made Pizza Salad for my lunch today with leftover spinach mushroom pizza, leftover veggie tray items and fresh Thai and Lime Basils.

Pizza Salad Ingredients: leftover Spinach Mushroom Pizza, grape tomatoes, celery sticks, carrots, spinach, Thai basil and Lime basil leaves.

The pizza slice was toasted till bubbly and then set aside to cool a little while chopping the grape tomatoes with the basil.

The basil was chopped a bit first and then the tomatoes were sliced right on top of the basil.

Celery is often very strong tasting but this was mild so I used a little more than usual. I didn’t want to bother with a grater so just chopped the carrots.

The pizza slice had cooled enough that the cheese was no longer dripping.

Warm piece of homemade Spinach Mushroom Onion pizza, cut into 3/4″ squares.

The vegetables and basil were tossed with the spinach and placed in the bowl. Then I added the still-warm pizza. Last was a drizzle of good olive oil and Balsamic Vinegar over the top.

Pizza Salad

It was delicious! Pizza is definitely an up-scale crouton.

We made up a new recipe – PB & Jam Joconde Cake – Part 4

30 Saturday Mar 2013

Posted by Julia Monroe in baking, food, recipe, tutorial

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

cake, dessert, food, joconde, mousse, PB & J, Peanut Butter, recipe, sponge cake

PB & J Joconde – Almond Sponge Cake wrapped around a layer of Chocolate Almond Sponge cake under a thick layer of Peanut Butter Cream Cheese Mousse and topped with Cherry Topping.

After the pan was lined with the joconde strip and cake, we made a batch of Peanut Butter Mousse. I’ve made vanilla and chocolate mousses many times so I just adapted a vanilla mousse with the addition of peanut butter and cream cheese.

Peanut Butter Mousse
1 pkg + 1 tsp gelatin softened in 3 Tbsp water.
6 Tbsp boiling water
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar
3 cups heavy whipping cream
1 tsp vanilla extract
8 oz cream cheese
2/3 cup peanut butter

Stir the boiling water into the softened gelatin. Stir till dissolved. Set aside.
Beat sugar, whipping cream and vanilla until softly mounding.
Beat the cream cheese with the peanut butter until smooth.
Beat a little whipping cream into the cream cheese peanut butter mixture. Beat in the rest of the whipping cream until almost stiff.
Gradually add the gelatin mixture to the whipped cream mixture. Do NOT overbeat or the mixture will turn grainy.
Spread the Peanut Butter Mousse in the prepared pan.

I made mousse but I didn't measure all the ingredients. It wasn't peanut buttery enough so next time I will add more peanut butter.

When I made the mousse for this, I didn’t measure the peanut butter but it was about 1/3 cup. It wasn’t peanut-buttery enough so I made a second batch with 2/3 cup peanut butter (as in the recipe in this post) and that was much better.

I didn’t have any fresh fruit to make a jam topping so I used cherry pie filling. A fresh Crushed Blueberry Sauce would have been divine!

The finished cake was placed in the refrigerator for several hours. Six hours would have been better and made the cake slice better.

The cake is taken out of the springform pan.

I used a candy mold to make the chocolate shapes from Ghiradelli Bittersweet Chocolate.

There were rave reviews over our first Joconde cake. PB & Jam, dressed up to the max!

I’m looking forward to making a Lemon Almond Sponge with Pineapple Cream Cheese Mousse and Pineapple Mandarin Topping. Also a Raspberry rendition. And perhaps three crisp hazelnut dacquoise layers with coffee cream filling. The joconde was good just plain so we’ll be using the mat to develop some bar cookie recipes as well. All in all, we are very satisified with our first joconde cake.

We made up a new recipe – PB & Jam Joconde – Part 2

28 Thursday Mar 2013

Posted by Julia Monroe in baking, food, recipe, tutorial

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

cake, dessert, food, joconde, mousse, PB & J

— Continued from Part 1 —

Continuing our PB & Jam Joconde, we had a large baking mat, the size of the entire oven rack, filled with chocolate batter that needed chilled. If we were an actual bakery, we would waltz our carefully prepped mat into the walk-in freezer and park it between the charlottes and wedding cake layers. But we’re not a bakery, we’re just a little family kitchen with a family size fridge with shelves that barely hold a fat turkey. So we had to get creative.

We figured that the object of freezing the batter was to make it firm enough to quickly spread a second layer of batter on without disturbing the design underneath. Freezing was out so we went for a good chill.

We placed a towel on the counter and covered it with ice cubes. Then we placed two half-sheet pans over the ice. This made a very cold surface on which to place the batter-filled mat.

But the oven rack under the mat created too big a gap between our cold source and the baking mat.

We didn’t want to remove the oven rack lest it disturb the surface of the chocolate batter so we placed a wet towel on top of the cookie sheets to transfer more cold up through the rack.

The wet cold towel worked and the mat and batter became cold. It wasn’t frozen but it was cold enough to stabilize the chocolate batter before topping it with the second layer.

A second batch of batter was made but without the addition of cocoa. (Note here how large the baking mat is. It is almost the size of our oven rack. The fit in the oven will be tight.)

To spread the top layer of almond batter without disturbing the chocolate batter, it was critical to push the batter over the chocolate layer without spreading back and forth, which would have stirred up the chocolate batter. This step was similar to the technique used in crumb-coating a cake.

Finally the mat was filled and ready for the oven.

The mat still on the oven rack was slid into the oven. The batter was stiff and cold so it didn’t run out of the pan.

A very tight fit indeed!

And then came the baking and our THIRD MAJOR Obstacle. If I recall, we figured 10 minutes at 450 should do it. But by the time we hit 7 minutes, smoke started pouring out of the oven. “The mat must be burning!” I yelled. “Maybe it’s melting!” he responded. “I told you the cake might burn.” he insisted. We threw open the oven in a panic and discovered ….

— To be continued in Part 3 —

All Sparkled Up

~ Like dew hanging from the tip of a leaf, a single bead or word adds sparkle where there was none. BE the bright!

Category Archives: recipe

A pink lunch – Pickled Egg salad

BFN Day – To the Third Neighbor I gave Sourdough Grain Bread

The first BFN Day… To the First Neighbor, I took Butterflake Herb Rolls

Torn Bread Crisps for fondue or dip

Crust-Lover’s Apple Pie

Homemade Goldfish Crackers by the slice

Today’s lunch

Pizza Salad

We made up a new recipe – PB & Jam Joconde Cake – Part 4

We made up a new recipe – PB & Jam Joconde – Part 2

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