Category Archives: Dessert

Playing with pumpkin

14 October 2012

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pumpkinbread1

Fall is the season for warm flavors. At this time of year, I find myself using cinnamon, nutmeg, apples and pumpkin more often than any other season.

Pumpkin is one of my favorite ingredients to play with. It can be used in sweet dishes such as pies and muffins or turned into something savory such as pumpkin soup. Since I haven’t had a lot of time to bake lately, I went with another quick bread this week. Pumpkin-chocolate chip bread, to be exact.

The original recipe made two loaves, but I only had enough pumpkin for one. Just as I was about to put it in the oven, I remembered I had a small amount of coconut left that needed to be used, so I threw it on top of the batter in the pan. I liked the texture it gave the top.

If you let this bread cool for the time the recipe recommends, you’ll end up with a moist loaf that is easy to cut through. I’ve found that cutting certain breads right after they come out of the oven can cause them to break apart. Let this one cool. It’s worth the wait.

Ingredients
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
2 eggs
1 cup sugar
1 cup canned pumpkin
3/4 cup canola oil
3/4 cup semisweet or bittersweet chocolate chips
(Optional: 1 tablespoon coconut, brown sugar or oats)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a loaf pan.

Combine flour, cinnamon, salt and baking soda in a large bowl. In another bowl, beat the eggs, sugar, pumpkin and oil. Stir into dry ingredients until just moistened. Fold in chocolate chips.

Pour into loaf pan. Top with coconut, brown sugar or oats. Bake for 60-70 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean. Cool for 10 minutes before removing from pan and placing on wire rack.

A little R&R for the weekend

30 September 2012

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ricepudding

There are few cooking shows I watch and think “I could do that,” but Ina Garten, the Barefoot Contessa, keeps her approach to food simple and elegant. It makes it seem doable for at-home cooks like me.

On a recent episode, she made a rum raisin rice pudding. In her recipe, Garten uses basmati rice and half-and-half, but all I had in my cupboard was arborio that I had purchased with the intention of making white truffle risotto. Arborio is a short-grain Italian rice that is used for creamy rice dishes because of its absorbency. Because it’s a short-grain rice, I only needed four cups of milk instead of the five cups her recipe used. I also opted for vanilla soy milk since I don’t drink regular milk, and it worked well.

The last time I used rum in a recipe the flavor was too strong. I worried about it with this pudding and, after tasting the finished product while it was still warm, felt like I had used too much. However, after refrigerating it overnight, the flavors came together and the rum wasn’t as pronounced. If I make this again and plan to eat it warm, I won’t toss in the rum that doesn’t get soaked up by the raisins because it would overpower the other flavors.

Sometimes it’s nice to have something sweet and simple in the fridge. This rice pudding definitely fits the bill.

Ingredients
3/4 cup raisins
2 tablespoons dark rum
3/4 cup arborio rice
1/2 teaspoon salt
4 cups soy milk, whole milk or half-and-half
1/2 cup sugar
1 large egg, beaten
1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

In a small bowl, combine the raisins and rum. Set aside.

Combine the rice and salt with 1 1/2 cups water in a medium heavy-bottomed stainless steel saucepan. Bring it to a boil, stir once, and simmer, covered, on the lowest heat for 8 to 9 minutes, until most of the water is absorbed. (If your stove is very hot, pull the pan halfway off the burner.)

Stir in 4 cups of soy milk and sugar and bring to a boil. Simmer uncovered for 25 minutes, until the rice is very soft. Stir often, particularly toward the end. Slowly stir in the beaten egg and continue to cook for 1 minute. Off the heat, add the vanilla and the raisins with any remaining rum. Stir well. Pour into a bowl, and place a piece of plastic wrap directly on top of the pudding to prevent a skin from forming. Serve warm or chilled.

Fall baking is a piece of cake

23 September 2012

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ACcoffeecake

As lower temperatures enter the weather forecast, my thoughts have turned to fall baking — apples, pumpkin, soups and comfort foods.

I joined Pinterest a couple months ago and have built up quite the board of recipes I want to try. Last week I saw a pin for this apple coffee cake. I added it to my “Recipes to try” board and actually got around to it. The recipe calls for two layers of apples, one in the middle and one on top. The apples in the middle stayed moist and provided a nice fresh layer to break up what would otherwise just be a piece of moist cake. The apples on top got a bit dry in the baking process so, if you want them to stay moist, you could save some of the batter for a third layer on top of the second layer of apples.

Though it smelled delicious while it was baking, I wasn’t crazy about this coffee cake at first; but it grew on me the next day after reheating a piece for breakfast. The flavors had time to come together. The cake had a nice crumb, the apples had just the right balance of sweetness and tartness and the cinnamon added a welcome dose of spice. It wasn’t overpowering; it was light enough without being devoid of flavor.

I took the coffee cake to work the next day and my coworkers devoured it. I don’t know if anything I’ve bought to work has received such rave reviews. It must have hit the spot for them.

Ingredients
5 Granny Smith apples, peeled and sliced
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1 tablespoon of cinnamon
3 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups granulated sugar
3 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons vanilla
4 eggs
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup orange juice
1/2 cup apple sauce
1/2 cup vegetable oil

Preheat oven at 350 degrees and grease a 9-inch-by-13-inch baking dish. In a medium bowl, toss sliced apples, 1/3 cup of sugar, and cinnamon in a bowl and set aside. If you’re at high altitude, cook the apples, cinnamon and sugar in a pan over medium heat until the apples are soft. I’ve found that fruit doesn’t bake the same and often comes out too crisp in the final product, so cooking them beforehand ensures that they’ll be the consistency you prefer. Remember to use half the amount of baking powder, too.

In a mixing bowl combine flour, 2 cups sugar, baking powder, vanilla, eggs, salt, orange juice, apple sauce and vegetable oil. Mix well. Pour half the batter into baking dish and arrange apple slices on top. Pour and spread the rest of the batter on top of the apples. Bake for 60 minutes or until done. Cut coffee cake into squares and serve warm.

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One last hurrah for summer

16 September 2012

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Fudgesicles have never been something I’ve reached for when picking out a frozen treat at the grocery store. I usually go for Cherry Garcia or Rocky Road. But, when it comes to trying to make new things, I don’t discriminate.

When a friend on Facebook posted something about making fudge pops over the summer, I thought that sounded like a fun thing to try — especially after the success of my coconut-rum ice cream. I was feeling confident. The next time I was at the store, I bought a popsicle mold much like the one my mom had when I was a kid, except all the handles of hers were yellow. I tried the first recipe for fudge pops and it came out of the mold fine, but had a dry, almost chalky, consistency to it, and the flavor wasn’t quite where I wanted it to be.

As I’ve said before, I don’t give up. So I tried another recipe. And another. I tried three different recipes, a combination of the three recipes and a modified version of the one I started with. Apparently the fifth time’s a charm. I later figured out the dryness in the first recipe was caused by the cocoa powder. The second recipe called for sweetened condensed milk and it melted quickly while being taken out of the mold. It was also too sweet for my taste. The third recipe also didn’t come out of the mold very well. I cooked the ingredients to pudding consistency and it was overcooked. In fact, I ended up eating the popsicles out of the mold because they were stuck. The flavor was great, but popsicles have to, well, pop. On my fourth attempt, I tried making a variation by combining the ingredients to achieve the flavor I wanted, as well as those I had the most success with. Once again, they wouldn’t come out of the mold. The final time, I went back to the first recipe because it came out of the mold the best. I got rid of the cocoa powder and made a couple substitutions of my own. While the recipe is similar to a pudding recipe, take the mixture off the burner just before it gets as thick as you would cook pudding. These were my winners. After a page of crossed-out ingredients and notes in my kitchen notebook, I was finally able to put this one down in ink and enjoy the result out of the mold, just as proper fudgesicles should be eaten.

Ingredients
Makes 4 standard-size popsicles
2 heaping tablespoons semisweet chocolate chips or chopped semisweet chocolate
1/3 cup sugar
1 tablespoon arrowroot or corn starch
1 1/4 cups soy milk or whole milk
Pinch of salt
1/2 teaspoon Mexican vanilla extract
3/4 tablespoon unsalted butter

In the bottom of a medium saucepan over very low heat, gently melt the chocolate chips, stirring constantly until smooth. Stir in sugar, cornstarch, cocoa powder, milk and salt and raise heat to medium. Cook mixture, stirring frequently until it thickens, about 5 to 10 minutes. Remove from heat, add vanilla and butter and stir until combined.

Set aside to cool slightly then pour into popsicle molds and freeze overnight. To take them out of the mold, run the mold under hot water for about 10 seconds.

Sweet strawberry-filled success

9 September 2012

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Strawberry oatmeal loaf

When I’m not in the mood to tackle regular bread recipes, I opt for a quick bread. I like quick breads because there’s no rising process and I can usually find a recipe that uses ingredients I have on hand.

One of my favorite quick bread recipes is this Oatmeal-strawberry bread. The bread is sweet and moist and makes a nice treat or breakfast with a cup of coffee; not to mention it smells delicious while it’s baking. It would also make a great snack for kids.

I often have strawberries around and there are few recipes that use strawberries correctly — most breads and muffins that incorporate them end up with large soggy spots where the berries are. For this recipe, take the time to slice the strawberries so they’re thin. If you leave them in chunks, the bread will get too soggy in spots or the strawberries will sink to the bottom of the loaf. I know this from experience. Also make sure to grease the bottom of the pan well, or the bottom of the loaf will break off when the loaf is being taken out of the pan. Check the bread with a toothpick about 10 minutes before it should be done baking. If you’re at high altitude, use 1/2 teaspoon baking powder instead of a full teaspoon or it won’t come out correctly. It may need to bake longer, too.

Ingredients
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup rolled oats
1 cup white sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon 
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup vegetable oil
2 eggs
10 ounces fresh strawberries, sliced
2 tablespoons rolled oats

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease a 7-inch-by-3-inch loaf pan.

Stir together the flour, 3/4 cups rolled oats, sugar, cinnamon, baking powder, and salt in a large mixing bowl.

In another bowl, whisk together the vegetable oil and eggs; stir into flour mixture until just moistened. Fold in strawberries. Pour into the prepared loaf pan, and sprinkle the tops with the remaining 2 tablespoons of rolled oats.

Bake in the preheated oven until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, 50 to 60 minutes. Cool the strawberry bread in the pan for 5 minutes before cooling completely on a wire rack.