Pumpkin muffins

I have made them 4 times in two weeks and have had requests for them from people. We really like these rich pumpkin muffins and so here's the recipe to share with you.

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 cup wheat flour
2 cups white sugar

2 teaspoons baking soda

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoons ground cloves

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

2 teaspoons ground nutmeg

1 teaspoon ground allspice

1 teaspoon salt

2/3 cup vegetable oil

3 eggs
2 cups pumpkin

Preheat oven to 350 F.Prepare muffin cups.

	In a large bowl, stir together flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice and salt. In a separate bowl, beat together pumpkin puree, oil and eggs. Stir pumpkin mixture into flour mixture until smooth. Scoop batter into prepared muffin cups.
	Bake in preheated oven for 20 to 25 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean. Yields 18-20 muffins.

Dinner in a pumpkin

An amusing way to cook a tasty casserole, this turned out to be a very tasty dinner. We really enjoyed it - you can mix in the cooked pumpkin pieces or just enjoy the aromatics. I think it would be a great Halloween dinner tradition.

1 lb ground beef
1/2 lb hot sausage, cut into small pieces
2 Tbsp pumpkin pie spice
2 Tbsp brown sugar
28 oz beef stock
1.5 cups rice
2 cans cream of mushroom soup
frozen vegetables
1 sugar pumpkin

Brown the beef and sausage in a skillet, then add 1 Tbsp pumpkin pie spice and all the brown sugar. Add beef stock and rice and cover and cook until rice is tender. Then mix in cream of mushroom soups and any vegetables you might like to add. Heat oven to 400 F.

While rice is cooking, cut top off a pumpkin, going more straight across than what you would for a jack-o'lantern. Scoop out the innards. Put the casserole mixture in the pumpkin and put lid back on. Place pumpkin on a tray or in a casserole dish. Put in oven for 1.5- 2 hours until pumpkin is easily pierced with a fork.

Scoop out filling and pumpkin flesh to each person as desired to serve.

French Macarons

The 2009 October Daring Bakers’ challenge was brought to us by Ami S. She chose macarons from Claudia Fleming’s The Last Course: The Desserts of Gramercy Tavern as the challenge recipe.

Unless you’ve been frozen in permafrost for the past five years, you’ve likely noticed that cupcake bakeries have popped up all over like iced mushrooms. Knock one down, and three take its place. Much has been made about not only the cupcake’s popularity, but also its incipient demise as the sweet du jour. Since we seem to be a culture intent on the next sensation, pundits, food enthusiasts and bloggers have all wondered what this sensation might be. More than a few have suggested that French-style macaroons (called macarons in France) might supplant the cupcake. This may or may not come to pass, but the basic premise of the French macaroon is pretty tasty.

In the United States, the term “macaroon” generally refers to a cookie made primarily of coconut. But European macaroons are based on either ground almonds or almond paste, combined with sugar and egg whites. The texture can run from chewy, crunchy or a combination of the two. Frequently, two macaroons are sandwiched together with ganache, buttercream or jam, which can cause the cookies to become more chewy. The flavor possibilities and combinations are nigh endless, allowing infinitely customizable permutations.

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Why did I procrastinate this challenge until 10pm yesterday? Lack of planning or a very busy month, or perhaps a combination of both. I was excited about making these and hoped to spend the month figuring out how to make them best in my house. But I have attempted them, and here they are:

In case you don't already know from the picture, I did not succeed at making beautiful perfect French macarons. They did rise some, but not much. They did not obtain a lovely foot. Part of it could be my oven which is 60 years old and super special. But I'm sure if I put in the time I might be able to figure out how to make them work appropriately in my oven.

I need to work on folding in the flour even more gently. I also think I needed a longer time at the lower temperature to set the shape. Plus I tried to do multiple sheets at a time which didn't work and burnt the bottom of one set, and caused others to spread while waiting so I really think this is a recipe you need to make more than once to figure out.

Taste wise, they are yummy. Making my own almond flour was fun! I have plenty of almonds on hand anyway and I aged some egg whites that were left from another recipe. Honestly I just wish I had made them multiple times before the due date.

I also ended up making a toffee ganache filling because that's what I had on hand and it was super sweet with it, too much for my taste. A good dark chocolate ganache would be preferable.

I'm not great at choosing options and making variations like a lot of the daring bakers so choosing a filling is more about what I have on hand than anything. I encourage you to try macarons. (And yes, that is how it is spelt for the French version. :D ) They are a lovely little sandwich cookie and I will be trying them again in the future.

My sad little cookies waiting for fillings.

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French Macarons

Ingredients

Confectioners’ (Icing) sugar: 2 ¼ cups (225 g, 8 oz.)

Almond flour: 2 cups (190 g, 6.7 oz.)

Granulated sugar: 2 tablespoons (25 g , .88 oz.)

Egg whites: 5 (Have at room temperature)

Directions:
1. Preheat the oven to 200°F (93°C). Combine the confectioners’ sugar and almond flour in a medium bowl. If grinding your own nuts, combine nuts and a cup of confectioners’ sugar in the bowl of a food processor and grind until nuts are very fine and powdery.

2. Beat the egg whites in the clean dry bowl of a stand mixer until they hold soft peaks. Slowly add the granulated sugar and beat until the mixture holds stiff peaks.

3. Sift a third of the almond flour mixture into the meringue and fold gently to combine. If you are planning on adding zest or other flavorings to the batter, now is the time. Sift in the remaining almond flour in two batches. Be gentle! Don’t overfold, but fully incorporate your ingredients.

4. Spoon the mixture into a pastry bag fitted with a plain half-inch tip (Ateco #806). You can also use a Ziploc bag with a corner cut off. It’s easiest to fill your bag if you stand it up in a tall glass and fold the top down before spooning in the batter.

5. Pipe one-inch-sized (2.5 cm) mounds of batter onto baking sheets lined with nonstick liners (or parchment paper).

6. Bake the macaroon for 5 minutes. Remove the pan from the oven and raise the temperature to 375°F (190°C). Once the oven is up to temperature, put the pans back in the oven and bake for an additional 7 to 8 minutes, or lightly colored.

7. Cool on a rack before filling.

Spicy Braised Peanut Chicken

Another tasty recipe from this friend. I loved how easy this was to get into the slow-cooker and how I had everything on hand. It is North African in style, and is delicious with the chicken thighs and couscous, but you could easily substitute chicken breasts and rice if that's what you have on hand.

It is really tasty comfort food. It is also cheap if you get a good price on chicken thighs! I got a package of 10 thighs for $3.50, add the tomatoes ($0.60) & rotel ($0.80 for 2 cans) being on sale and its about $5 for this dinner.

Spicy Braised Peanut Chicken
1 Tablespoon olive or vegetable oil
8 chicken thighs, skins removed
1 large onion, chopped
2 cans (14.5 oz each) diced tomatoes with green chilies, undrained (RoTel)
1 can (14.5 oz) crushed or diced tomatoes, undrained
2 Tablespoons honey
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cumin
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/3 cup creamy peanut butter
2 cups hot cooked couscous

Heat oil in 12 inch non-stick skillet over medium high heat. Cook chicken in oil about 4 minutes, turning once, until brown.

Mix onion, diced and crushed tomatoes, honey, cumin and cinnamon in 4-5qt slow cooker.Place chicken in slow cooker. Spoon tomato mixture over chicken.

Cover and cook on low heat setting 7 to 8 hours or until juice of chicken is no longer pink when centers of thickest pieces are cut.

Stir in peanut butter until melted and well blended. Serve chicken and sauce over couscous.

Serves 4

Thai Chicken

This recipe from Taste of Home was recommended by a friend when I was looking for recipes that have peanut butter in them. It is quick and easy to make and includes all things I keep on hand.

Yes, I keep red bell pepper on hand - in the freezer in julienned strips in fact. When bell peppers are cheap I buy a bunch and freeze them. You can blanch them for a few seconds first but I don't bother.

No picture, sorry, but I wanted to remember this recipe for future dinners.

Pumpkin Waffles

I have been given a bunch of eating pumpkins and now am searching out tasty pumpkin recipes. Today we had pumpkin waffles for breakfast and they were delicious. I recommend you go try them!

Ultimate Pumpkin Waffles

Vols Au Vent

The September 2009 Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Steph of A Whisk and a Spoon. She chose the French treat, Vols-au-Vent based on the Puff Pastry recipe by Michel Richard from the cookbook Baking With Julia by Dorie Greenspan.

Puff pastry is in the ‘laminated dough” family, along with Danish dough and croissant dough. A laminated dough consists of a large block of butter (called the “beurrage”) that is enclosed in dough (called the “détrempe”). This dough/butter packet is called a “paton,” and is rolled and folded repeatedly (a process known as “turning”) to create the crisp, flaky, parallel layers you see when baked. Unlike Danish or croissant however, puff pastry dough contains no yeast in the détrempe, and relies solely aeration to achieve its high rise. The turning process creates hundreds of layers of butter and dough, with air trapped between each one. In the hot oven, water in the dough and the melting butter creates steam, which expands in the trapped air pockets, forcing the pastry to rise.

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I procrastinated this challenge this month. I could list reasons but they aren't great. However, It wasn't a huge challenge to me as I've made croissants in the past and making puff pastry dough is pretty similar. Roll dough, add butter packet. Lots of rolling in "turns" and putting it back in the fridge when its not cold enough. Eventually you have it incorporated in such a way that you get lots of tasty flaky layers.

It's a time consuming process and on top of that I had to choose a filling. I was never inspired by anything new to try and finally just used vanilla pudding and kiwis. They made a lovely light dessert. Honestly, making puff pastry is not something that gets me excited or that I ever really plan to do again. I guess its good to know I can though right?

As far as mistakes, I skipped the egg wash and that was not smart b/c the layers need something to help them stay together. I also improvised on my hole cutters and so some had too big of holes and some had too little. Luckily after you add filling, it doesn't really matter. They taste good either way. If you would like to make them, be sure to visit another Daring Baker's page for the recipe. Either way, check out all those daring bakers. Some of them are super creative!

Artisan Bread in 5 minutes a day

I finally got a copy of this awesome book from the library and it was worth the wait! While many of the ideas are explained on the blog, the book is a good read and full of interesting info. I made our first loaf yesterday and it was amazing. It actually did have the custard crumb interior with the perfect crust. It was delicious and I only got one piece! So we're having more today. The recipe really is super simple. It is about the technique. If you haven't read this book yet or tried this method, you really need to check it out. It will change how you view baking bread at home. I am excited for the sequel on healthier breads as well.

Link to master recipe for basic bread dough in this method.

Spanish Lentils & Rice

I love this simple dish. It's super tasty, super simple, frugal and a great variation from typical casseroles that are heavy and meaty. The lentils & rice make a good complete protein so you can just add a salad and its a quick, easy, healthy, complete meal. Approximate cost: $2.50 for entire casserole.

Spanish Lentils & Rice
from 2003 Southern Living
Makes 4-6 servings
approx 20 min. prep, 30 min cook, 20 min bake

3 1/2 cups water
1 cup uncooked long grain white rice
1 cup dried lentils
1 tsp salt
1 onion, diced
1 bell pepper, diced
1/2 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp chili powder
1/4 tsp garlic powder
1 (10 oz) can ROTEL Mexican festival diced tomatoes
1 cup sharp cheddar cheese, shredded

Bring first 4 ingredients to a boil in medium saucepan, reduce heat, cover and simmer for 20-25 minutes until lentils are tender.

Saute onion and bell pepper in large lightly greased skillet over med-high heat until tender. Add cumin, chili powder, garlic powder and cook, stirring constantly for 2 minutes.

Stir onion mixture and tomatoes with rice mixture, and spoon into lightly greased 13x9 baking dish.

Bake at 350 for 15 minutes, top evenly with cheddar cheese, bake 5 more minutes.

Dobas Torta

The August 2009 Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Angela of A Spoonful
of Sugar and Lorraine of Not Quite Nigella. They chose the spectacular Dobos
Torte based on a recipe from Rick Rodgers' cookbook Kaffeehaus: Exquisite
Desserts from the Classic Caffés of Vienna, Budapest, and Prague.

So, what is the Dobos Torta (or Torte)?

The Dobos Torta is a five-layer sponge cake, filled with a rich chocolate buttercream and topped with thin wedges of caramel. (You may come across recipes which have anywhere between six and 12 layers of cake; there are numerous family variations!) It was invented in 1885 by József C. Dobos, a Hungarian baker, and it rapidly became famous throughout Europe for both its extraordinary taste and its keeping properties. The recipe was a secret until Dobos retired in 1906 and gave the recipe to the Budapest Confectioners' and Gingerbread Makers' Chamber of Industry, providing that every member of the chamber can use it freely.

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The last time I attempted a multi-layer cake, I had issues with stacking the layers and getting a nice cake shape. Guess what I had issues with this time? The same thing, only worse since there were more layers!

Additionally, making the layers for this cake was quite difficult for me. It involves lots of parchment paper, drawing circles, pouring/spreading batter, multiple timers and shelf rotations...and not really knowing how dark to let a layer get before it was done. I think I should have cooked most of my layers longer because they were extremely sticky still when cool and stuck to everything. (I also realized afterward that I had forgotten the vanilla to flavor them, but luckily they still had a good flavor.)

There was no way I was going to be able to trim the 9" rounds into perfect 8" rounds, just keeping them whole was challenging my skills. Plus I used a large plate to flip some of the layers off the parchment paper and one layer stuck firmly to the plate. Since there was no way to remove it, it became the bottom layer. I toyed with the idea of trimming the rounds, but my layers were too delicate and sticky. It just wasn't going to happen without shredding them - which meant I would destroy the circles I had so carefully kept whole coming out of the oven!

Making the buttercream went a lot better, but I should have chilled it longer before assembling the cake. It was still a bit runny and slid all over the place. My cake frosting skills are not the best anyway, so this became quite the challenge.

The caramel came out extremely lemony and hard to eat for us. No one liked the flavor, and it seemed incongruous with the rich chocolate buttercream flavor. At least in making the caramel layer I succeeded pretty well. Though I suspect maybe my caramel had caramelized too much perhaps and the fact that I used store bought lemon juice may have affected the flavor as well. Extra pieces of caramel were twisted to try and make decorations but they proved too soft and chewy to hold much shape.

With no hazelnuts or almonds on hand to decorate I used the extra buttercream to make some rosettes to dress it up a bit, but I think nuts would have been lovely. My dinner party guests loved the cake, the rich buttercream and light cake layers are very delicious together, even if not aesthetically stunning.Would I make it again? Maybe. The buttercream I would use again, perhaps a different recipe for the cake layers. No caramel layer though.

Thanks to the hosts for a great Daring Baker challenge! It stretched my skills and introduced me to new things. It was great fun to say I was making a Hungarian dessert! For the recipe, visit the hosts' blogs, linked at the beginning of this post. Make sure to visit other Daring Baker blogs to see some awesome cakes made by all the amazing Daring Bakers out there.