The Fruits Of My (non) Labor...

Now that I am unemployed I have lots of time to try new recipes. This week's theme? Fruit.

Cherry Apricot Galette
I bought a lot of cherries on sale this week. After washing, de-stemming and pitting enough fruit to make this galette + chef's snacks, I found I had enough leftover to dehydrate an entire tray of cherries as well.

My mom used to make this super easy and very tasty dessert during the summer because it's so light and infinitely adaptable to whatever fruits you have on hand, but cherry apricot is particularly tasty.
I made pie crust from scratch for the first time using Alton Brown's recipe but I used all butter. I think my kitchen was too hot and that I should have used an additional alternate fat because the pastry tasted more like a butter cookie than flaky pastry.
(as an alternative, nothing wrong with frozen pastry dough!)

Ingredients:

nota bene: the amount of fruit, nuts, preserves etc all depends on how big your want your galette and how think a layer of fruit you'd like. I don't recommend too thick or much wider than 10" final diameter, or else your crust gets soggy.

Pie crust/pastry dough (fresh or frozen)
Fruit preserves (I used apricot)
Dried fruit is best, but fresh fruit that isn't too watery is alright too (I used cherries)
Chopped nuts (walnuts or pecans, something with a sweet, soft meat)
Milk
White sugar

1. Roll out your dough to make a rough circle, approximately 1/8"-1/4" thick.
2. Spread your preserves of choice on the dough, leaving approximately 1" of crust around the edge.
3. Sprinkle a moderate layer of dried fruits and an accent of chopped nuts into the center. Leave about 2" of crust around the outside.
4. Fold the edge of the crust into the center. You want to show off the fruits in the middle and the edges do not have to be pretty; think "rustic" style...
5. Brush the crust with milk and sprinkle with a few teaspoons of white sugar (brown sugar has too much moisture but will work in a pinch)
6. Bake in a 400 degree oven for approximately 40 minutes, or until your crust is pretty.



Cherry Pie with Coconut Crumb Topping


Did I mention I had a LOT of cherries? I had to get rid of a bunch- fast. Cherry pie was the obvious pick here. I snagged the recipe from epicurious and had so much leftover filling that I made four mini crumbles, one of which is seen here.

After reading reviews I added extra vanilla and a splash of almond extract to the cherry filling. I probably would have done way more oats to the topping because I love oatmeal and maybe would have added sliced or slivered almonds for extra substance. I didn't have quick cooking tapioca, just small tapioca pearls, which I threw in nonetheless.

Now, I haven't tried the actual pie with the crust bottom and crumble top, only a little ramekin which has just filling and some crumble. But based on that: The filling was really well flavored. The lemon juice adds just enough tart to keep it interesting and accent the sweet of the cherries The coconut in the topping was an excellent addition in both texture and flavor. My only complaint? My mouth was very, very sticky afterwards. This definitely required milk or ice cream or whipped topping to go with it. Or maybe if you added cranberries or raspberries to the mix to lighten it up a little... that would probably be delicious.

For asthetic (spelling?) reasons, I would use cornstarch in future. The little dots of uncooked tapioca pearls looked like pomegranate seeds, with much the same texture.


Orange Pecan Ice Box Cookies
(adapted from Sunset's Orange Refrigerator cookie recipe)

I was up late one night with a lack of ingredients, an urge to bake, and an old orange. Alas! What to do? Zest the orange, and find a recipe.
I found a Sunset magazine's "Best-Ever Cookies" issue hiding on my bookshelves from christmas and got the basic idea from the following recipe, then changed a few minor things to my liking.

Ingredients:
1 cup butter (at room temperature)
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1 large egg
2 teaspoons grated orange peel
3 cups flour
1/2 cup minced walnuts (in this case, pecans)
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
(and a splash of vanilla)

1. In a bowl, beat butter, sugar and brown sugar until smooth. Beat in egg, orange peel and vanilla until well blended.
2. Add all dry ingredients and nuts, mix well.
3. Spoon the dough onto a sheet of wax paper or saran wrap and form a 2.5" thick log. Wrap the logs in the paper or plastic wrap and freeze until solid, about 2 hours.
   
4. Slice the logs into 1/8" inch slices and place on greased cookie sheet.
   
5. Bake at 375 for 12 minutes until edges are barely browned.

I actually halved this recipe and made thicker slices. If you like cripy cookies, go for thin. Otherwise they stay a little softer the thicker they are.

I'm usually kind of hesitant on the orange + baking combo, but wow these were delightful. And they made my kitchen smell fantastic while baking. They remind me of tea cookies, thin and crispy, light flavor and not heavy at all. A nice buttery cookie with a more elegant twist.

Dehydrator-dried Cherry Tomatoes

Definitely doesn't sound as romantic as "sun dried", but remember these guys? Well, about 36 hours on the dehydrator turned them into red raisins. I tried one straight up and I think I actually overdid it or cherry tomators are just not good candidates for drying, it wasn't fantastic. It might be an ingredient that can only be used in combination with other flavors, but we'll see how it goes.

Fabulous Orange-Chocolate Cake

Because of recent social activities, I had some leftover items in the fridge that needed to be used: sour cream, melted chocolate, and candied orange syrup. I found a cake recipe on allrecipes that I was able to adapt to use everything up.

It was super easy to put together because of the prepared items used. The directions said to bake the cake for an hour, but when I checked at 50 minutes, the cake was already done! I was afraid I had overcooked it, since it had browned by then, but it was still moist and the orange syrup I added enhanced the texture.

I love the combination of chocolate and orange so I expected to love this cake. I wasn't too impressed when it initially came out. Taste is more important than how something looks but this cake will not win any beauty awards. Perhaps it was its browned appearance, but it didn't look particularly appetizing. When I initially tried it, I just thought it was "okay." I thought maybe I had overdid it with the addition of orange syrup because it tasted like there was too much going on.

When I tried it a day later, I enjoyed it more. I'm not sure if it mellowed (or I did!) but the cake stayed moist (important!) and the chocolate flavor won me over.

The recipe is below with my changes in brackets.

Fabulous Orange Cake
(adapted from allrecipes)

1 (18.25 ounce) package yellow cake mix
1 (3.4 ounce) package instant vanilla pudding mix
2 cups sour cream [I used 1 3/4 cup since that was what I had leftover]
2 eggs
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1/4 cup orange liqueur
1 cup white chocolate chips [I used a combination of chocolate chips and chopped chocolate -- the remnants of my melted chocolate]
confectioner's sugar, for dusting [I used about 1/2 cup of an orange-infused syrup I had made]

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F(175 degrees C). Grease a 9 inch Bundt pan.

In a medium bowl, stir together the cake mix and pudding mix. Add the sour cream, eggs, oil and orange liqueur. Mix until smooth and well blended, then fold in the white chocolate chips. Pour the mixture into the prepared pan.

Bake for 1 hour in the preheated oven, until cake springs back to the touch. Allow cake to cool for 10 minutes in the pan, then turn out onto a wire rack to cool completely. When cake is cool, dust with confectioners' sugar and serve.

[After the cake cooled, I poked holes in it, and drizzled the candied orange syrup over it.]

Lemon Berry Squares

These were supposed to be Lemon Blueberry Squares but I didn't have enough blueberries. So instead I used blueberries, cherries, and blackberry jam. I'll send them your way to try and review. Definitely something I'd make again...

In the pan

The toppings

The finished product!

Recipe

CRUST
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
3/4 cup yellow cornmeal
7 tablespoons confectioners’ sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 stick (1/2 cup) cold unsalted butter, cut into pieces

FILLING
3 large eggs
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 1/2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons finely grated fresh lemon peel
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
2 tablespoons light cream
Salt
2 cups (10 ounces) berries
4 tablespoons berry jam, melted

1. Preheat oven to 375°F. Line a buttered 8-inch square glass pan with
two 18-by-6-inch sheets of foil, overlapping in opposite directions with
overhang on all sides.
2. To prepare the crust, place all ingredients in a food processor and pulse
until mixture resembles coarse meal. Press onto the bottom and 1 inch up
the sides of the pan. Bake on the middle oven rack for 20 minutes, or until
golden brown.
3. To prepare the filling, whisk together eggs, sugar, flour and grated peel.
Whisk in lemon juice, cream and a pinch of salt. Pour immediately into
the hot crust. Bake until just set, about 17 minutes.
4. Toss berries with jam; gently spoon over the top and bake 2 minutes
longer. Let cool in the pan on a rack. Chill,covered,overnight (8 hours). Lift
dessert out of the pan and cut into squares.

Banana Carrot Cookies

This recipe came from Angela off Facebook. I had 2 very ripe bananas so I decided to try her little creation. It’s just 2 ripe bananas, 2 carrots (I just used a bunch of baby carrot that I had), and 2 cups of flour in a food processor. 350 degrees for 12 minutes. They’re ORANGE cookies so a bit fun! Makes me want to make orange chocolate chip cookies! They are healthy, chewy, moist and taste like sweet potato. I’d make them again but I wouldn’t sell them at my bakery.

Pound Cake Showdown!

As you can see from Kameran's post, we were all quite intrigued by the pound cake feature in this month's Martha Stewart Living. It was my turn to make pound cakes and since the article featured at least 8 different variations, I thought I'd try as many variations as I had ingredients for. I made the standard recipe for comparison, which can be found here. The recipe makes 2 standard loaves, so I decided to try four different variations. There was some math involved.

Since I only have one loaf pan, I baked the cakes in a muffin tin. I was worried they would dry out, but I watched the time carefully. It took about 15-20 minutes, depending on which variation. The variations with "stuff" added in (i.e. blueberries, raisins) took longer. The standard recipe made a total of 24 muffins, or 6 of each of the different variations. Perfect for sampling!

Classic Pound Cake



Nothing to say about this. Classic pound cake taste and not dry. I served this with a candied kumquat syrup I had in the fridge. Mmmm.

Blueberry Sour Cream



Very moist from the addition of sour cream. This was probably my favorite, but I also love blueberries. I did not make the lemon cream and didn't think it needed it.

Brown Sugar Walnut

Substitute brown sugar in place of white sugar. Fold in 2 cups toasted walnuts into batter before baking. (for 2 loaf recipe)



I think I baked this slightly too long. I had these in with the cinnamon raisin ones, which needed more time. Still tasty. It would taste even better with the maple syrup peach glaze outlined in the article, but I was lazy and didn't make it.

Cinnamon Raisin

Toss 2 cups raisins with 2 tablespoons flour, then fold into batter. Divide batter in half. In one half, mix 2 tablespoons cinnamon. Alternate adding scoops of each batter, then swirl with knife.



Yum!

Still waiting for the verdict on which one is the winner...

Green Macaroni and Pound Cake

As of late, I have been slacking off on my cooking duties and Jonathan has been making most of the new recipes. I decided I would have something nice ready for dinner when Jonathan came home on Thursday. While stumbling along the internet, I found this recipe. It caught my eye for several reasons...
1. The blog is called "the food in my beard" which is wonderfully weird almost to the point of being gross.
2. Green? As in eco friendly? Or pesto-y? Either way, I'm game!
3. The picture of it looked awesome compared to the peanut butter and crackers I was having for dinner that night.
4. And I had a whole box of basil in my fridge that I was planning on using for pesto anyway.

I decided to change a few things: I had no fresh arugula, oregano or marjoram available to me, so I decided to just add lots of cilantro and a zucchini to the pesto mix instead (the food processor is a wonderful, wonderful thing!) I also added some grated parmesean.


...it made ALOT.

For the cheese bechamel sauce I used monterey jack, provolone and parmesean and only used 3 cups of milk. I didn't know how I was going to fit all the pesto, all the cheese and all the pasta into our little 9x13" pan and I don't think bechamel freezes well.

So! In went both sauces, the pasta, some broccoli and kielbasa to round it all out and it just barely fit in the pan. Topped off with more parmesean and 30 minutes later...

...we had dinner!

I thought it was pretty tasty, though a little heavy as mac and cheese usually is. I loved that it has so many vegetables built in (zucchini, spinach, cilantro, broccoli crowns and stems and onion). I definitely would have added more sausage as it adds the extra protein and flavors. All in all, I would say I enjoyed the recipe very much (and the leftover pesto will make an appearance in pesto bread... (though possibly after the move).


Now onto Dessert!

Thanks to both Jen and Stephanie, this pound cake recipe is ultimately from Martha Stewart magazine. As Jonathan already had two dishes, I took over dessert responsibilities. I originally was going to make the toasted coconut and chocolate chip varieties, except that yours truly was retarded and got all the ingredients except for the coconut (quick! plan b!? what do I have in the fridge?) blueberries! eureka! blueberry almond pound cake!

So, after divying up the batter base into two parts, one half got 1 cup of chocolate chips and a quick mix, the other half got 1/2 teaspoon almond extract and a small clamshell of fresh blueberries. About 10 minutes after putting the loaves in the oven I was inspired by this morning's breakfast almond croissant to throw some slivered almonds on top.



I was pleased! The blueberries stayed fairly uniform throughout the batter and were nice and moist without staining the loaf. I would have added some more extract, maybe 3/4 tsp. or 1 tsp. instead. The almonds on top provided a nice contrasting texture. I think this loaf was my favorite.
Jonathan preferred the chocolate chip loaf, though I think it was missing something, maybe ice cream :). I was sad to find that the chips all mostly sunk to the bottom of the loaf. boo.



All in all, a successful weekend of cooking so far!

Cinnamon Pecan Monkey Bread

This month's King Arthur Flour catalog illustrated a mouth watering Sticky Bun. I knew I had to make it or something like it. I decided to go with the monkey bread approach. I researched a few recipes... Sticky Bun + Monkey Bread = Cinnamon Pecan Monkey Bread... maybe it is better termed Sticky Monkey Bread...

Due to time constraints this weekend, I took the lazy approach. I bought the dough at the store instead of making it from scratch. Turned out delicious and it was simple to make.

4 dinner roll packs cut into quarters (Next time I would use 3 packages. Four will fill the bundt pan but three is probably sufficient.)

1/2 cup corn syrup/maple syrup/honey (I used a mixture of maple syrup and honey.)

3 tbsp melted butter

1 cup packed brown sugar

1 cup diced pecans

1/2 cup sugar

2 tsp cinnamon

Recipe

1. Grease bundt pan

2. Whisk melted butter with corn syrup/maple syrup/honey. Pour mixture into bundt pan.

3. Mix brown sugar and pecans. Sprinkle over pan.

4. Mix sugar and cinnamon in a small bowl.

5. Roll dough into sugar and cinnamon mixture. Place dough lightly into pan.

6. Bake 45 minutes at 350 degrees.

Malted Milk Ball cookies

Because I couldn't get enough of Dorie Greenspan, I chose to make another of her recipes... this time it was Chocolate Malted Whopper Drops. There was a potluck at work and who can resist a childhood favorite like Whoppers?!

I lived on the dangerous side again, not testing the recipe before presenting it, but I wasn't too worried even if they turned out badly. I work with a bunch of fast food-eating, non-foodie guys so they're generally happy with anything I make.

It's a good thing there was no need to impress because I didn't feel that this recipe lived up to my expectations. It's quite possible that there was some operator error involved as I did tweak a few things, but I'm not sure that I would have liked the original version either.

The recipe called for 6 oz of semi-sweet chocolate chips, which was the same amount of Whoppers added to the mix. I didn't want the chocolate to overpower the malt flavor so I used less. What I should have done is increased the amount of Whoppers at the same time. Doh. I also couldn't find malted milk powder so I ended up Ovaltine. Other bloggers did this as well, but I felt it didn't give the dough a good malt flavor. Maybe because it was chocolate-flavored Ovaltine? These cookies had a cakey texture, which am I not overly fond of. The dough tasted like chocolate cake, with bits of caramelized sweetened candy dispersed randomly.

The work crowd liked them well enough, but they couldn't quite figure out the "mystery" ingredient. Someone guessed Honeycomb cereal. Really?! Um yeaaaah... more malt flavor next time!

If I make them again, this is what I'd do differently:

• I'd use more Whoppers and less chocolate... probably close to a ratio of 4:1 (Whoppers : chocolate chips).


• I'd try harder to find Carnation malted milk powder.


• I'd bake them for slightly less. Mine were done around 11 minutes, but maybe next time I'd try 9-10 for a chewier texture.
  

At last, World Peace is mine!

I had been wanting to make these cookies for quite some time, after reading about them on several blogs. Who can forget a name like "World Peace Cookies"? When a friend's birthday came up and he requested "anything chocolate", I knew we had a winner!

I'm always reluctant to give away treats without a "test run" first, but with so many positive reviews, I didn't think it would be a problem. I'm glad I was right. These were a big hit at the party and with the birthday boy. I only wish I had made more...

They have a rich, dark chocolate taste. I found them sandy in texture -- not quite cakey, chewy or even fudgy (I was reminded of pecan sandies). I used 72% dark chocolate from Trader Joe's and normal sea salt because I couldn't find fleur de sel. The dough does have a tendency to crumble a bit when slicing but no fear, it was easy enough to push back together.

You can find the recipe here.