 sj |
||
|
||
BS: Holiday Baking
|
|
|
Subject: BS: Holiday Baking From: Stilly River Sage Date: 11 Dec 07 - 11:51 AM Yeah, I know. Another food thread. :) Maybe we need an AA-like statement here at the 'Cat: "My name is _________ and I'm a foodie." Diane Rehm has a chocolate expert on her radio show this morning. Clay Gordon Discover Chocolate had me running to the cupboard for a hot cuppa cocoa to listen in solidarity. This week I'm starting my holiday baking, so this thread goes beyond chocolate. Every year the folks in my office bring xmas cards for coworkers, but I offer something affordable but with more substance. I take in baked goods. This year I'm making several varieties of quick (soda) breads (banana, pumpkin, zucchini) and am taking in paper plates and gallon-sized bags. I have a large tray and will slice these loaves so that my coworkers can mix and match the loaves they want to package up and take home. Along with the loaves I'll print out the recipes. This morning I went looking for a few recipes--I know there are lots on the Internet. I was just curious to see what would turn up with a couple of keystrokes. They're probably arranged according to hits; in this case, I clicked on a Yahoo directory. Here's the page I'll explore more this evening: http://www.joyofbaking.com/cookies.html. I'm particularly interested in some of the fruit bars. If anyone is interested, I'll post my bread recipes. I also have a regular group of cookies I bake every year (spritz, peanut butter cookies, snickerdoodles, oatmeal cookies, and krumkaka.) What do you bake for the holidays? This thread title doesn't reflect a particular seasonal name, so the term "holiday" isn't just in late December. SRS |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Holiday Baking From: Sooz Date: 11 Dec 07 - 12:32 PM Can't have too many food threads! I was late baking my Christmas cake this year (did it this last weekend). It should be a bit special as I soaked the fruit in black beer. First batch of mince pies have been eaten, shortbread and cookies yet to come. I'd be interested in your soda bread recipes, SRS. I make bread at least once a week and am always on the lookout for something new. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Holiday Baking From: ClaireBear Date: 11 Dec 07 - 12:33 PM Lately I've been tending towards baking biscotti at Christmas. Some of my favorites are biscotti with dried apricots and pistachios, or vanilla and rosemary, or black pepper and figs. I can relate to these better than I can to classic cookies. Mind you, I am quite a cook, but there was not a sweets/cookie tradition in my family when I was growing up (my mother never ate sweets and did not serve desserts or sweet snacks, on the whole -- and I don't remember her ever making cookies), so I've never quite felt a part of the holiday baking tradition. ...which is a shame, as I now have a seven-year-old son I would love to have the experience I never had. So I try, but I feel so incompetent at it! I can't decorate my way out of a paper bag. Also I work full time and have a long commute, so weekdays are out, and I sing in two church choirs, which doesn't leave heaps and bunches of weekend time either. I did once make a batch of hamantaschen filled with homemade mincemeat (the no-meat kind, btw) for a holiday party. I called them "Eastern Stars." They were quite yummy. I often make "fruitcake" using a buttermilk gingerbread foundation and folding in various dried fruits and nuts -- nothing candied except heaps of ginger, and sometimes orange peel that I've candied myself (which tastes completely different from what you get in the store). This year I thought we might make fudge and nut brittle, along with the biscotti. And the homemade mincemeat (my own recipe), and plum pudding (also my own recipe). Cheers, Claire |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Holiday Baking From: Bee Date: 11 Dec 07 - 12:51 PM Wails piteously... You're all making me hungry! For bad sweet, sweet baked goods! I am not much of a baker (I'm a cook-er), so I depend on several old reliables my mother always made, most of them predicated on an easy brown sugar shortbread base. I make sweetened condensed milk lemon tarts (shortbread tarts), thimble cookies with crushed walnuts or pecans and jam (apricot's my favourite), caramel balls (dangerous, as I just boil a can of sweetened condensed milk for four hours and roll the resulting thick delicious caramel in shredded coconut), plain and iced shortbread cookies, maraschino cherry balls (shortbread with cherry centre) and biscuit based cinnamon rolls when I know someone's coming - I can make, bake and serve those in about twenty-five minutes flat. This year I'm getting my Mom's no-bake fruit ball recipe as well, which contain fine graham crumbs, chopped apricots, cherries, mini-marshmallows and margarine or butter. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Holiday Baking From: Cats at Work Date: 11 Dec 07 - 01:02 PM My name is Cats and I am a foodie! So far the cake is made, the mincemeat is made and alot of it eaten [the recipe starts take half a pint of rum and half a pint of Brandy], sausage rolls made [and 3 dozen already eaten. I have yet to make the raised game pie [forget the jokes about monopoly!!!] but have all the menus planned and lists made. At the end of term I usually bake flapjacks with almonds, apricots, ginger etc and take them in for the end of term meeting. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Holiday Baking From: Emma B Date: 11 Dec 07 - 01:07 PM Needless to say I have miserably failed to remember to cook that wonderful seasonal speciality Black Bun yet again! Why does the season always seem to sneak up when I wasn't looking? I love cooking soda bread it's so quick and easy and is delicious with bacon. I use 1 cup of soda bread flour to 2 cups of wholemeal flour and 1 cup of buttermilk, bicarbonate of soda a little brown sugar and butter. oh and yes....... My name is Emma and I'm a foodie :) |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Holiday Baking From: sian, west wales Date: 11 Dec 07 - 01:22 PM Well, my cakes and puddings were made a few weeks ago (yes! fruit soaked in Guinness!) so I'm on to the cookies now. I've done pfeffernusses (however they're spelt) which are to cookies what vindaloo is to curry. Crikey! Maybe a leeeeeeeedle bit less pfeffer next year? And I've done the shortbread and brownies and chocolate fudge with pistachios and welsh cakes (OK - they're not really Christmas, but they're good). I've got a new cookie cutter that cuts fluted rounds and then, with a spiffy little attachment, cuts out 'tops' with a Christmas shaped hole (I used the christmas tree one), so I'm making spekulaas and sandwiching them with dark chocolate icing tonight. I've also got some orange shortbread to roll out, cut in little stars, then sandwich with orange butter cream. And I want to make chocolate rocky roads, and butterscotch rocky roads, and some caramalized nuts. Tomorrow night (hopefully) I'll have time to make some little almond and chocolate meringues and some thumbprint cookies. Good grief. What am I doing here? I have work to do ... sian |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Holiday Baking From: Wesley S Date: 11 Dec 07 - 01:40 PM My wife makes a pretty good banana bread - but for the holidays I make a big batch of hot sauce and put it in jars to give away to friends and neighbors. When someone moves into the neighborhood I tend to take over chips and hot sauce. Too many other folks bring cookies. Green onions, celantro, jalapanos, garlic, fresh tomatos, salt and lime juice. Easy and tasty. Also low in fat and calories. If you're watching your weight you can always substitute celery for tortilla chips. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Holiday Baking From: Stilly River Sage Date: 11 Dec 07 - 02:51 PM Wesley, that sounds good! I made my own salsa a couple of years when I had a good garden. Mmmmmm! I have been making a shift to fewer sweets lately, more veggies and savory items. (I give away the lion's share of these baked goods.) A friend of mine some years makes a jalapeno jelly that is served on a big dollop of cream cheese. (You can still get plenty of calories even if you skip some of the sugar.) I have a coworker with diabetes, so in lieu of sweets I will take some good crackers and a package of the creamy Havarti we discovered over at Central Market a week or two ago. I'm getting my son into eating more cheese by letting him pick out some to experiment with when we shop. "I'm thinking about the Scandinavian countries" he said as we examined the artistic map renderings above the dairy cold case. Bee, I also like to cook, and have in mind a new dish to try this month. Last year Martha Stewart had a recipe called "short ribs with root vegetables" that looks marvelous. I don't usually think of banana bread as a holiday bread, we make it all year round. I make a few special loaves now because my boss loves it, so I always give him a loaf to take home and eat by himself. :) I experimented with that recipe a few years back; his wife is diabetic, but was going through chemo for breast cancer and nothing tasted good to her except she loved the banana bread. I put as much Splenda in as I could, with only a little sugar, so the consistency would come out okay. SRS |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Holiday Baking From: Mrs.Duck Date: 11 Dec 07 - 02:59 PM I bought all the fruit to make my christmas cake back in October but work seems to have taken over and I haven't made it yet. Its getting a bit late now but I will try to get it done this weekend - still gives me a week or so to feed it :0) |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Holiday Baking From: Jean(eanjay) Date: 11 Dec 07 - 03:23 PM I've made and marzipanned the christmas cake - Mary Berry's Victorianna christmas cake which I do every year and it never fails; it will be iced tomorrow. This year for the first time ever I've pickled shallots and they will be ready for New Year. I am planning to try 2 Nigella Lawson recipes, one for spiced peaches and one for chocolate pistachio fudge. She serves the spiced peaches with ham. I usually cook a piece of ham over the Christmas and Easter holidays but it isn't quite as big as the one she cooked! She used 7 litres of ginger ale to cook it in. I've never tried that before so I'm seriously considering it. I won't need 7 litres though! |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Holiday Baking From: Stilly River Sage Date: 11 Dec 07 - 04:29 PM I brined a turkey this year for Thanksgiving. I'll never go back to my old dry turkey. It's a revelation, how succulent and juicy the bird can be. Alton Brown on Good Eats has done a pork roast (I think that's what it was--bigger than a tenderloin) that he wrapped in a bread dough crust to bake. Didn't eat the crust as I recall. But one of the others (Paula Deen?) used some kind of store biscuit (crescent rolls?) and completely covered a baked ham with them after putting on a mustard glaze. It looked pretty good. It's nice when you can combine your baking with something else! (My daughter got me started watching the Food Network a little. I'm still more of a HGTV kind of gal when it comes to "how to" programming, but I do like the science that comes through with Alton's recipes.) SRS |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Holiday Baking From: Morticia Date: 11 Dec 07 - 04:40 PM Cake and puddin' done, mince pies still to go but the mincemeat was made 2 years ago so I think it's about ready now. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Holiday Baking From: Bonzo3legs Date: 11 Dec 07 - 05:20 PM Holiday cooking???? We always eat out on Christmas Day, we say "merry Christmas", none of this ludicrous USAian "happy holidays" nonsense. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Holiday Baking From: Bee Date: 11 Dec 07 - 05:39 PM Well, yeah, Bonzo, but geeeze, man, "the holidays" includes Solstice, Hanukkah, Christmas, and New Year's, not just one day - you want us bakers and cookers to say every durn word before we add 'banana bread'? And, you say "Merry Christmas" but you encourage some business to make their poor workers sweat it out in a restaurant when some of 'em might actually rather be home with family on Christmas day? Wow, good for you. See? There is no politically correct position, and no traditionally correct position to take. ;-p So Happy Holidays to you! When it's Christmas Day or near to, I'll wish you a Merry Christmas. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Holiday Baking From: Catherine Jayne Date: 12 Dec 07 - 07:06 AM Blimey morti...2 years ago, don't go lighting anything near it!!!!*G* I'll be making a rich chocolate and rum cake for xmas day (requested by Harry's Nana) also an apple cake and some scones...requested by family too. I love baking and there is always some sort of cake in the house. I'm going to have a go at making some bread next week too. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Holiday Baking From: Cats at Work Date: 12 Dec 07 - 10:19 AM I'm with Morti on this one! I usually make enough mincemeat to last for 3 or 4 years and Christmas pudding at least 18 months in advance. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Holiday Baking From: Stilly River Sage Date: 12 Dec 07 - 11:20 AM I don't celebrate christmas with a big "C"; we're more little-c catholic in our celebration of the holidays at the end of the year. ;-D There are other times of the year when baking comes up, hence the more general label. SRS |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Holiday Baking From: Bonzo3legs Date: 12 Dec 07 - 01:54 PM We don't make them work on Christmas Day, anyway it's an Indian restaurant this year and they put their advert through our door! |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Holiday Baking From: Dave'sWife Date: 12 Dec 07 - 01:55 PM My best friend taylor and I used to have marathon cookie baking sessions back in the late 1980s. He'd then send the cookies in tins to far-flung friends and relatives. Bless him, he's kepot this up for close to 20 ears and without fail, a tin of cookies shows up each year about a week before Christmas. He has certain standby cookies that everyone deamnds but each year, he tries a new one. The ones we always beg for include a Carrot cookie drop with orange scented icing, lemon-poppyseed cookies with royal icing, oatmeal-toll house cookies dipped half in chocolate and Mexican Wedding Cakes. My mother makes the most amazing holiday shortbread cookie I've ever had and I cannot duplicate her efforts no matter how hard I try. She rolls hers out fairly thick and then cuts into holiday shapes. She only ices them with piped icing to enhance the shape or add a little decoration. She uses a rich butter icing that hardens up nice on the outside but melts in your mouth when bite into it. The Shortbread does the same. Even if I follow her recipe and method exactly, I cannot get mine as tender or as crisp. I, however, make the all-time best cranberry sauce EVER. Anyone who has ever had some of mine says so. I could post the recipe if anyone is interested. I don't know how manyof you will be making Cranberry Sauce for Christmas - it's really more of a thanksgiving thing. Even so, I put up a quart or more in jars in case I'm serving a pork roast later in the year. My Cranberry sauce goes so well with pork. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Holiday Baking From: Uncle_DaveO Date: 12 Dec 07 - 09:48 PM I've always been proud of my daughter, Monika, but no more so than right now. Not only did she give birth to and is raising three lovely children, and not only besides that does she work as a special assistant to the CFO of the corporation where she works (at a pretty nice salary, I might add), and not only is she going to night school on top of all that get a degree in accounting, which will be helpful in her business career, but . . . . For the holiday season she's making and selling holiday goodies--pumpkin rolls in two varieties and cheesecakes in two varieties--all of the profit of which will be divided between two Indianapolis feed-the-hungry agencies, called Wheeler Mission and Gleaners Food Bank! I have no idea when she expects to sleep. Dave Oesterreich |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Holiday Baking From: Q (Frank Staplin) Date: 12 Dec 07 - 10:52 PM Cranberries are excellent with many things.We always had cranberry sauce on hand, not only for turkey and chicken, but with sweet potatoes. In the last 2-3 years, everybody seems to have gone on a cranberry kick, with them appearing in the stores fresh, dried, sauced and in pies, cakes and cookies. A cranberry-pecan crostata has appeared in our grocery; it is very good and we will have to find a recipe. Dave's Wife, I would like to see your sauce recipe. Ours is less sweet than most people seem to like, but the slight bite from the cranberries is our preference with meats. Sprinkle dried cranberries on curry along with piñons, cocoanut and dried apricot bits to add contrasting but complimentary flavors. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Holiday Baking From: artbrooks Date: 12 Dec 07 - 11:32 PM I get to sample... Jenn's baklava - yum! |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Holiday Baking From: open mike Date: 13 Dec 07 - 03:49 AM the delicacy i am making tonite is Swedish Rosettes.. not baked but fried...i guess we can tolerate them once a year...yum. http://www.recipesource.com/baked-goods/desserts/cookies/03/rec0366.html http://www.cooking.com/products/shprodde.asp?SKU=138872 `click on alternate view to see the finished pastries http://www.pans.com/general/nordicwareswedishrosettetimbaleset.cfm |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Holiday Baking From: Eye Lander Date: 13 Dec 07 - 04:49 AM My name is Jillie and I am a foodie, so is Miskin Man! Bad combination for diets! cake made, not marzied or iced though. mincemeat made, (tasted oops tested! yum yum yum) ready for Andy to make mince pies. off to Bridgend for special butchers sausage meat for sausage rolls (Andy to make) pudding done for my friend. We'll have one from last year. Tiffin tested!!! now ready to make sweeties for friends. finnish cookies - ah recipe on the IOW. back there on Wednesday. Collecting crusts for homemade sage and Onion stuffing. Cor getting excited now! Merry Christmas one and all and a safe journey for those travelling. Jillie |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Holiday Baking From: Catherine Jayne Date: 13 Dec 07 - 06:05 AM I make cranberry scones as I'm not keen on raisens/currants, |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Holiday Baking From: Jean(eanjay) Date: 13 Dec 07 - 06:10 AM I, however, make the all-time best cranberry sauce EVER. Anyone who has ever had some of mine says so. I could post the recipe if anyone is interested. Yes PLEASE. I make cranberry sauce every year and would love to try your recipe. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Holiday Baking From: The Fooles Troupe Date: 13 Dec 07 - 06:19 AM We recently scored a gallon jug of cream. Made butter by hand. Used the buttermilk to make pancakes.... ahhhhhhhh... |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Holiday Baking From: GUEST,Essex Girl Date: 13 Dec 07 - 08:32 AM Cake is made and marzipanned, and been liberally doused in rum and brandy (both before and after cooking). I am trying out lots of new apple recipes as well as I had a huge glut of them this year and my freezer is now bursting with frozen apples and apple puree. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Holiday Baking From: Bee Date: 13 Dec 07 - 09:05 AM Myself and a friend pick our own cranberries every year - gallons of them, and we give quite a few bags away to family and friends. It's the best berry for picking, large, plentiful, no insects biting, and usually a wonderful view of the sea while you crouch back of a dune. Best done at low tide, when there is less water in the boggy spots, where the biggest berries always hide. We say we have to 'get our cranberry eyes on' as we begin picking, because at first you might think there are no berries, then suddenly you see that there are hundreds of them right under your hand. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Holiday Baking From: Dave'sWife Date: 13 Dec 07 - 09:51 AM OK, here's my recipe for never fail Cranberry sauce - it's rather tart but not unplesantly so: Dave'sWife's Never Fail Cranberry Sauce Makes 2 generous quarts Ingredients * 12 ounce can frozen Orange Juice Concentrate (with pulp is possible) *1 cup filtered water *Zest of 2 lemons plus the juice of one of those lemons *4 bags fresh cranberries (I buy Ocean Spray bags, I'll see if I can come back with the precise size of those bags) *2 cups Frozen wild blueberries (the little ones) *2 cups castor sugar (Superfine white sugar) *1 package of fruit pectin - the regular kind (not the freezer jam kind) *Spices - I use liberal amounts of Cinnamon along with a teaspoon of both Allspice and Mace. By liberal amounts I mean a tablespoon or two. *1 6 ounce package of Cranberry Jell-O gelatine dissolved in 1 and 1/4 cups of very hot water Method: Wash the cranberries in a colander, picking out anty stones, stems or rotten berries. Remove under-ripe berries or berries that popped their skins. Set aside. Zest your lemons and juice one of the lemons. Set the juice and zezt aside together in a small custard cup or ingredient dish. In a large non-reactive stock pot, heat the OJ concentrate and water, bringing to a boil. When boiling, add in all the cranberries and the 2 cups of frozen blueberries and bring back to a boil. When boiling add in the Lemon Zest and juice. Reduce heat to a medium and wait for the berried to begin to pop their skins. When this has happened, add in the sugar, the pectin and the spices. Stir well to dissolve the sugar and pectin. Simmer until the berries are soft and all the skins have popped - about 10 minutes or so. Add in the Cranberry Jell-O dissolved in water and turn the heat back up to high. Aloow to come to a boil again and then turn heat down to simmer. Allow the mixutre to simmer as long as it takes to get to the thickness you like. I like mine very very thick so I let mine simmer on a medium to low heat for at least 30 minutes - more if necessary. When berry mixture is to the thickness of your liking, remove from heat, cover and let cool down for 30 minutes. At this point you have a choice. You can leave the sauce as is (chunky) or you can push it through a sieve for smooth sauce. My experience has been that you get a better gelled suace by pushing it through a sieve and removing the skins. I push the mixture through a sieve (or a colander if you have no sieve) with a wooden spoon in batches. Be sure to scrape it against the sieve as hard as you can until all that is left is dry skins of the berries. You want to get every last ounce of sauce! Once the sauce has been processed through the sieve, you can proceed with regular canning methods. I recommend using pint jars for yourself and half pint jars if giving as gifts. Cooks Notes: If you like spicey cranberry sauce, you can add chili flakes and white pepper. This sauce is also good if you add 3 medium thinly sliced vidalia onions to the cranberries and blueberries as they cooking. ******************************** I hope you enjoy this recipe. The secret is the addition of the pectin and Jell-O. That's what helps the sauce set up well. it will not be jellied like the kind you get in a can but it should be substantially thicker than most homemade cranberry sauces. You may always reduce the amounts of water if you like to try and get an even thicker sauce. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Holiday Baking From: Jean(eanjay) Date: 13 Dec 07 - 09:59 AM Many thanks. I've just copied and pasted it into my recipe folder in Word. It's certainly different to what I usually make .................... and I've just bought some chili flakes! |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Holiday Baking From: GUEST,maire-aine Date: 13 Dec 07 - 11:56 AM A few months ago, I made corn relish (the store-bought stuff was thickened, and i didn't like that), so some folks will get some of that. I've been trying to watch my carbs (lost 41 lbs since March) so I won't be baking cookies this year. I've got all the ingredients for a fruited (candiedorangepeel-dates-cherries) cake, so I'll bake that this weekend, in individual bundt-cake pan & muffin tins. Have a yummy holiday, y'all... Maryanne |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Holiday Baking From: Stilly River Sage Date: 14 Dec 07 - 12:39 AM My banana bread recipe from the top of my head follows. I'll pull out the books for the others later. BANANA BREAD Heat oven to 350 degrees 4 or 5 mashed bananas (recipe calls for 3, but I like it really moist and usually use 5 if they're "normal" sized, 4 if they're huge) 2 eggs, lightly beaten 3/4 cup sugar (I use a combination of about 1/2 cup sugar and 1/4 cup Splenda--can use all sugar, but not all Splenda. Splenda by itself doesn't work right with the baking soda, it doesn't rise properly) 1 1/2 cups white flour 1/2 cup whole wheat (or you can use 2 cups white and no wheat) 1 tsp salt 1 tsp baking soda 2 tablespoons melted butter, added at end after egg mixture is combined with flour 1/2 cup chopped walnuts or pecans Mash bananas well, add eggs. Mix in dry ingredients, add butter. Mix in nuts (sometimes I arrange pecans on the top instead of mixing into the batter.) Pour into greased bread pan. Bake for at least an hour. Test it with a toothpick for doneness. I usually have to bake this about 65 minutes with the extra moisture to be sure it is done. Good as muffins also, especially with a nut on top of each. Bake only about 30-35 minutes in the muffin pan. SRS |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Holiday Baking From: The Fooles Troupe Date: 14 Dec 07 - 01:45 AM "My banana bread recipe from the top of my head follows. I'll pull out the books for the others later." You have no idea what I thought you were going to say about WHERE you would pull them out of... |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Holiday Baking From: Cats at Work Date: 14 Dec 07 - 06:02 AM Cranberry sauce just has to have port in it. Try cooking the cranberrys in port for a few minutes until they begin to burst open, take off the heat and leave overnight to infuse. Use them as you usually would. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Holiday Baking From: RangerSteve Date: 14 Dec 07 - 07:58 AM For cranberry sauce, I have a recipe that calls for boiling the water and then brewing some green tea in it, then follow the usual recipe for making cranberry sauce, adding something called Chinese Five Spice (it's sold in most stores), about 1/2 tsp. I've also tried it with Earl Grey tea, and it worked fine. Next I'm going to experiment with fruit teas. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Holiday Baking From: Stilly River Sage Date: 14 Dec 07 - 08:34 AM They're not etched on my brain though I could probably make a good guess. Banana bread is a staple, one of the important food groups around here. :) |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Holiday Baking From: artbrooks Date: 14 Dec 07 - 09:11 AM Since we are off of baking and on to cranberrys, here is Susan Stamberg's (from NPR) recipe for cranberry relish: "Mama Stamberg's Cranberry Relish 2 cups whole raw cranberries, washed 1 small onion 3/4 cup sour cream 1/2 cup sugar 2 tablespoons horseradish from a jar ("red is a bit milder than white") Grind the raw berries and onion together. ("I use an old-fashioned meat grinder," says Stamberg. "I'm sure there's a setting on the food processor that will give you a chunky grind — not a puree.") Add everything else and mix. Put in a plastic container and freeze. Early Thanksgiving morning, move it from freezer to refrigerator compartment to thaw. ("It should still have some little icy slivers left.") The relish will be thick, creamy, and shocking pink. ("OK, Pepto Bismol pink. It has a tangy taste that cuts through and perks up the turkey and gravy. It's also good on next-day turkey sandwiches, and with roast beef.") Makes 1 1/2 pints." This is great stuff if your holiday cooking tends more toward roast beef than turkey. I (personally) don't care for it much with the latter. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Holiday Baking From: Dave'sWife Date: 14 Dec 07 - 04:08 PM I looked online and I believe that a standard bag size for the Ocean Spray cranberries ia 12 ounces. It's not as if you can find other non-standard sizes. Ocean Spray is about all you can get in most grocery stores unless you are lucky enough to live near cranberry bogs. I believe the next time I make it, I will heat the water I use for to dissolve the Jell-O and then steep it with some Celestial Seasonings Blueberry fruit teat to try and deepen the bluebrry flavor. of course, any red fruit tea would also work as would any good black tea. I could also steep the first cup of water used in the same tea. I don't use sherry or alcohol in my cranberry sauce out of habit because several members of my immediate family are recovered alcoholics and YES, you can still taste it even if the alcohol component has cooked off. it's not so much the alcohol content that recovered AA members worry about, it's the taste of it and the potential to make them jones for a drink. My recipe may seem complicated but it's really not. You can make it while you are doing something else such as threading on Mudcat! |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Holiday Baking From: Dave'sWife Date: 15 Dec 07 - 08:00 PM My my - i do seem to kill just about every thread I post in lately. BTW - it's blueberry fruit TEA ( I typed teat - blueberry teats are what cows get when it dips below freezing in the barn) |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Holiday Baking From: Stilly River Sage Date: 15 Dec 07 - 09:35 PM Nope, don't worry. It's a busy weekend at home for a lot of folks. We'll be back on this thread once we're back at our workplaces and have more leisure. . . ;-D |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Holiday Baking From: Dave'sWife Date: 15 Dec 07 - 09:57 PM Well, here's a great holiday pie if you've got access to Lime juice or Limeade: "Ya Puts Da Lime in Da Coconut an Stir 'em Bode Up" Pie Ingredients 1 can Coconut Milk (not the lowfat kind) 1 cup sweetened coconut flakes 4 eggs 1/2 cup frozen limeade, thawed or fresh key Lime Juice 1/2 cup castor sugar 1/4 cup all purpose flour 1/2 teaspoon coconut extract 1/4 teaspoon salt 1 9" deep-dish pie shell, frozen or homemade (can be a vanilla cookie crust or shortcrust shell) method 1 Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Adjust rack to lowest level for baking. 2 Combine coconut milk, coconut flakes, eggs, limeade (or juice), castor sugar, flour, extract, and salt in a blender. Blend until mixed, and pour into pie shell. 3 Bake for 15 minutes. Reduce oven to 350 degrees and bake for 40-45 more minutes or until set. 4.Cool on rack for 1/2 hour and refrigerate until cold before cutting. If desired, serve with sweetened whipped cream, lime curls or fruit of choice and Harry Nilsson on the stereo. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Holiday Baking From: Stilly River Sage Date: 16 Dec 07 - 01:51 PM The kids just came through the house and carted off 2 loaves of zucchini bread and a quart bag of peanut butter cookies. They know where to come get the good stuff before their party! SRS |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Holiday Baking From: open mike Date: 16 Dec 07 - 03:29 PM Art, glad you posted Stamberg's Cranberry recipe, you beat me to it! |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Holiday Baking From: Jean(eanjay) Date: 17 Dec 07 - 04:59 PM Well, I have made Nigella Lawson's chocolate pistachio fudge and it is delicious. You can keep it in the freezer and eat it straight from there without defrosting it. So just the spiced peaches to go! |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Holiday Baking From: PoppaGator Date: 17 Dec 07 - 05:48 PM Without taking the time to read every previous message first, I feel compelled to pass this along: Due to a ridiculous oversupply of government-commodity oatmeal shared by a flood-victim friend, I've been making batch after batch of oatmeal cookies. By Christmas, I should have the process down pat. The most important thing I've discovered: Where the recipe calls for cinnamon (a half-teaspoon per batch, in the recipe I've been using), substitute Pumpkin Pie Spice, which is a blend of cimmamon, nutmeg, and allspice. It imparts a "holidays" flavor just below the level of consciousness. People won't be able to pinpoint just why the cookies taste so good, and so subtly different ~ they'll just enjoy them. I'm sure you could simply use straight cinnamon and nutmeg and allspice, but the quantities might be tricky since I don't think they make measuring spoons smaller than a quarter-teaspoon. Not that I think the proportions are critically important; it's just that it would be difficult to measure out three different spices to make a total of one-half teaspoon. Plus which, whatever the proportions of the three elements might be in a given brand of pumpkin-pie spice, it's probably well-thought-out, and is certainly time-tested as well as (perhaps most importantly) familiar. Also: learn from this mistake I made: My recipe calls for manually "folding in" raisins as the final step, after machine-mixing all the other ingredients. I did so last week when making my first batch of cookies in many years, and the results were quite good, although I balked at the manual labor and was still unsatisfied with the uneven distribution of raisins throughout the dough. Second time around, I substituted "craisins" (dried cranberries) for raisins, which was OK, and mixed 'em in by machine, which was NOT at all OK. Beating the dried fruit into the mixture by machine broke too many craisins open and released too much moisture into the dough, so the cookies didn't "stand up" through the baking process but instead "ran." When I took the cookie sheets out of the oven, each one contained, essentially, one big thin rectangular cookie. I cut 'em apart while still warm and soft, and the individual cookies or "bars" had enough structural integrity after they cooled and became crisp. And, most importantly, they tasted just fine. But normal individual round-ish cookies a little thicker in the center than at the edge wuold have been far preferable. So, no more machine-mixing of the raisins or craisins or choc-chips or nuts or whatever... |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Holiday Baking From: Stilly River Sage Date: 17 Dec 07 - 06:19 PM PoppaGator, Give yourself permission to depart from the recipe after you have the technique and science of it down. Give yourself permission to use more than the amount called for if it suits your tastes. I, for example, can never put in just the amount of vanilla a recipe calls for, I often use at least double. I LOVE vanilla. Cinnamon is also one of those spices. I don't think my recipe calls for any my my oatmeal cookies (and I will be making some later this week). To each his own on some of these matters. SRS |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Holiday Baking From: RangerSteve Date: 17 Dec 07 - 06:57 PM A tip I learned from watching TV cooking shows: When making muffins or cakes with fruit such as raisins or blueberries, mix the fruit in with the dry ingredients before adding the liquids. After the fruit is coated with flour, it won't sink to the bottom of the batter. If you're supposed to add the fruit after the batter is mixed, toss it with just enough flour to coat the fruit, then add to the batter. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Holiday Baking From: PoppaGator Date: 18 Dec 07 - 01:35 PM A coating of nice dry white flour on your pieces of fruit also helps to keep the pieces separate from each other, not clumped together. Something else ~ a semi-related tip ~ that works in a similar manner: When making cocoa (or any recipe using cocoa and sugar), thoroughly stir the cocoa powder and gradulated sugar together before mixing with any liquid, or indeed with anything else at all. This eliminates lumps very efficiently and easily, as the sharp edges of the sugar particles very quickly "cut" right through the powdery cocoa, which otherwise tends to adhere to itself quite stubbornly. SRS: I absolutely respect anyone's right to fiddle with recipes and create their own variations, reflecting their own tastes. I'm returning to baking after a long layoff (decades!), which makes me a little more reluctant to improvise than I once might have been. It IS important that the little changes one introduces not make a significant difference in the batter's consistency (wetness/dryness, looseness/hardness, etc.) Making my most recent batch, night before last, I found that I had only one egg where the recipe called for two. I figured I'd just skip it and wing it, then found the batter too hard without the additional liquid-ish-ness of that one missing egg. I threw in a lttle water (one or tablespoonfuls or so) to make up for it, and the results were fine. Milk might have been an even better idea, a little more egg-like, but since the basic recipe does not call for any milk at all, I stuck with water (which would evaporate awy completely after fulfilling its function of "softening" the mixture during the critical folding-in-of-raisins phase). Spices and intense flavorings like vanilla can be doubled (or even more!) without making a huge difference in the overall mix's consistency because they are used in such very small quantities in comparison to the basic ingredients (e.g., flour). Using a teaspoon of cinnamon instead of a half, or two teaspoons of vanilla instead of one, isn't going to throw off the texture of your mixture enough to make a difference. Since you like cinnamon, why not try throwing in a half-teaspoon or so into your next batch of oatmeal cookies? Or, better yet, try the "pumpkin-pie" blend of cinnamon, nutmeg and allspice. Even though your recipe doesn't call for any such spice, you know that it will be thoroughly compatible with the basic flavors of oatmeal and raisins... |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Holiday Baking From: Dave'sWife Date: 18 Dec 07 - 07:25 PM I'm a big fan of the underused spice Mace. it is most comonnly used in Apple pies in addition to Cinnamon but I find that it is nice if adeed into anything that calls for Nutmeg or Allspice. PoppaGator - my ring of antique measuring spoons has 1/8 of a teaspoon but heck, you might as well just call that a "pinch" and just put a tiny sprinkle in for all the trouble it would be to measure it out. I also like to add Mace to braised cabbage but again, that's the Dave'sWife's "If it calls for Nutmeg, add some mace too" rule. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Holiday Baking From: GUEST,pattyClink Date: 18 Dec 07 - 09:03 PM A good bit of the time and pan-cycling of cookie baking can be cut out nicely if you're doing oatmeal cookies or chocolate chip cookies. Just press the dough in a big oiled cookie sheet with high sides (a jellyroll pan you might call it) and bake. Slice into bars. Love Mace too, sometimes just the barest whiff of it. It always reminds me of cake donuts. Last night made a fabulous mini-crock of Overnight Oatmeal featuring peaches, pecans, vanilla and a pinch of mace. ummmm. And I BELIEVE In the pre-mixed pie spice for various uses, too. Sprinkle a little on a sweet potato, mash it in, maybe with a little o.j. talk about good. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Holiday Baking From: Stilly River Sage Date: 19 Dec 07 - 12:27 AM Mace and Nutmeg are from the same plant and they work in substitution situations. (Mace is milder and comes from the outer layer or membrane around the nutmeg). Some of my holiday recipes call for a lot of oil. My pumpkin bread recipe, for example. Instead of putting in 1 cup of oil, I use 1/2 cup of oil and 1/2 cup of applesauce to give the right consistency and amount of liquid to the recipe. And don't snack foods taste so much better when you can feel virtuous about eating them? :-) SRS |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Holiday Baking From: Dave'sWife Date: 19 Dec 07 - 04:09 AM Mace comes from the membrane around the nutmeg? who know? Certainly not I! I saw a photo once of a nutmeg fruit being opened to expose the nutmeg and it had thiese red vein like things wrapped around the nutmeg sort of like muscles of tendons. Is that part the Mace? Also, is the fruit that surrounds the nutmeg edible? |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Holiday Baking From: Stilly River Sage Date: 19 Dec 07 - 11:23 AM I'm not sure about the other parts of the plant. I just always knew they were related, from growing up in a household where my mother was the mistress of baking substitutions (over making a trip to the grocery store for one item). Nutmeg and mace photo. And here's another. (These are from a Google search but I didn't notice any pages dedicated just to the nutmeg information. I have to run this morning, so I didn't look for very long. Maybe you'll find something here, though.) SRS |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Holiday Baking From: Dave'sWife Date: 20 Dec 07 - 10:41 PM aha - so that red vein-like stuff is the mace. Thanks! The photo I have is from Saveur magazine and it shows thr fruit more clearly. I'll see if they have it posted on their website in the article archives. It looks like a pretty standard stone fruit so I'd guess the fruit itself is edible if not by humans, surely some animal or bird eats them. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Holiday Baking From: Dave'sWife Date: 20 Dec 07 - 10:57 PM I suppose I should have looked at Wikipedia first! They have all the info and yes, the fruit is edible: >>>Nutmeg is the actual seed of the tree, roughly egg-shaped and about 20Ð30 mm long and 15Ð18 mm wide, and weighing between 5 and 10 grams dried, while mace is the dried "lacy" reddish covering or arillus of the seed.<<< and... >>>The pericarp (fruit/pod) is used in Grenada to make a jam called Morne Delice. In Indonesia, the fruit is sliced finely, cooked and crystallised to make a fragrant candy called manisan pala ("nutmeg sweets").<<< Nutmeg article on Wikipedia with pix |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Holiday Baking From: GUEST,pattyClink Date: 21 Dec 07 - 08:53 PM Ahh, the workweek is finally over, and NOW Christmas preparations can begin. Just as this lovely thread is trying to ride off into the sunset. Well don't, stay a little longer! All I am supposed to create this Christmas are a few strudels. They are fairly wonderful and simple. But the Banana Bread does sound like a great idea, the pecans are being very kind to us this year. The 'off the top of my head' remark from Stilly does kind of scare me, but nothing seems to be missing. Well, it'll be an adventure. Here's a quest for you experts: I made a pound cake one year that called for quite a bit of freshly grated nutmeg and was pretty fabulous, but I've lost the recipe. Don't suppose one of your mothers used to make this by any chance? Meanwhile, wishing very much I hadn't read that great well-researched book about how terribly good a low-carb plan is for us. Sigh. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Holiday Baking From: Stilly River Sage Date: 21 Dec 07 - 10:16 PM patty, you uttered my exact thoughts. Now that the weekend is here I can really start getting ready, and I have a lot of baking to do, though I have to first bake a turkey for a dinner party tomorrow (kind of snuck up on me). (The spell check doesn't like "snuck" and instead offered one of the following: snick snack sunk Zanuck suck. Snick?) The off the top of my head recipes like that mean I make them so often I don't have to look them up. I have to visualize the steps as I write it out, though. SRS |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Holiday Baking From: GUEST,pattyClink Date: 22 Dec 07 - 08:58 PM Glad you have mentally 'proofread it'. Now if the darn green bananas will get soft! Happy baking..... |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Holiday Baking From: Bobert Date: 22 Dec 07 - 09:19 PM My Favorite Holiday Recipe Take 1 Bobert, add 1 Iron City beer (well, at least one at a time)... Pssssssssffffttttt!!! Ahhhhhhhhhh.... Good... Happy Holidays... |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Holiday Baking From: Dave'sWife Date: 23 Dec 07 - 12:06 AM Hey folks - I got an email from Ocean Spray cranberries with a recipe for Party meatballs and I adapted it using some of my leftover homemade cranberry sauce. I stuck it all in the crockpot and ity came out delicous. I used 2 one lb packages of frozen turkey meatballs added 3 cups of my Ccran berry sauce plus the contents of one Heinz 12 ounce bottle of Chili Sauce (which seems to be just tomatoe puree, vinegar & horseraddish) I added 4 tablespoons of concorde grape jelly Mixed the sauce all together, added the meatballs and cooked on High for 2 hours my husband sliced the meatballs in half and made meatball sandiwches out of them by putting them on toasted oinion rolls. Yum yum It came out so well I've decided I need to make a few more quarts of homemade cranberry sauce to put up in the freezer or can so as to have on hand for party meatballs year round! |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Holiday Baking From: Stilly River Sage Date: 23 Dec 07 - 02:01 AM For a cranberry recipe to die for, go to MarthaStewart.com and do a quick recipe search for "Cranberry Duff." Be sure it is golden brown so it comes out of the pan. It's rich--don't eat one by yourself, as tempting as it is! |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Holiday Baking From: Dave'sWife Date: 23 Dec 07 - 03:18 AM Ok, that looks good! Here's the link: Martha's New England Cranberry Duff |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Holiday Baking From: Dave'sWife Date: 23 Dec 07 - 03:22 AM I posted this over in the Squirrel thread but I think it belongs here too: Acorn Pie (not really made of acorns but looks like it kinda) Ingredients: 1 9 inch Graham Cracker Pie Crust 3 Eggs lightly beaten 1 cup of light corn syrup or Golden Syrup (I prefer Golden Syrup) 2 Tablespoons of butter, melted 1 Teaspoon of pure vanilla extract 1 cup castor sugar (superfine sugar to US readers) 1 1/2 cup chopped toasted hazelnuts Preheat oven to 350 Degrees F. In a large mixing bowl, combine the beaten eggs, syrup, melted butter, vanilla and sugar. Mix well and then stir in the nuts. Pour contents of bowl into the crust and bake for 45 minutes or until an inserted knife comes out clean. Cool completely before serving. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Holiday Baking From: Cats Date: 23 Dec 07 - 09:17 AM Finished!!! All I have to do now is cook the goose on Christmas Day. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Holiday Baking From: Stilly River Sage Date: 23 Dec 07 - 10:29 AM I brined and roasted a turkey yesterday for a gathering of friends and family. It was great! I feel like christmas has come and gone, now that all of that is done. Tuesday will be a mild anticlimax. The most I'll have to cook there are buttermilk pancakes and bacon for breakfast. :) SRS |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Holiday Baking From: Stilly River Sage Date: 23 Dec 07 - 12:14 PM BTW: if that Cranberry Duff is a little soft in the middle you can kind of pack it back together again on the plate. And even a little underdone, it's like eating cookie dough--it has a charm all it's own soft or completely cooked. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Holiday Baking From: Dave'sWife Date: 23 Dec 07 - 04:09 PM SRS - I read the comments and it seems that depeding upon your oven, you may have to adjust the cooking time a little to make sure it's done. I printed that recipe out as well as one for Cranberry Upside Down Cake which was more of a traditonal upside down cakey cake. The Duff is like a big cookie gooey type thing. When you make the Duff, do you line the pan with well-greased parchment or do you just grease the pan and hope for the best? BTW - my party meatballs were so good thatI have another stock pot of cranberry sauce simmering down to the desired thickness as I type. I want to be able to bring a big crockpot of mini meatballs in that sauce to a party later in the week. My husband suggests adding some more horseraddish since the commercial chili suace wasn't horseraddishy enough for his tastes. I might leave half this batch of cranberry sauce thick and not run it through a sieve. That way the party meatballs will have bits of real cranberries and such. I had my doubts about any recipe that called for opening a bottle of something and a can of something and dumping it in a crockpot but it turned out to be a tasty combination. if you don't have homemade cranberry sauce on hand, I'm sure the jellied kind will work just fine. Just taste the sauces when its all combined and decide if it needs punching up with some horseraddish or hot sauce. My neighbor brought over the most delightful sugar cookies last night. They had that perfect melt-in-your-mouth texture while at the same time being a little bit sandy. That was a nice surprise. Then she asked if she could use my washing machine! LOL. Clever girl - ply me with cookies first! I made another batch of my low-fat Oatmeal Pumpkin mini-loaves to package up as gifts for the neighbors. The last batch was a big hit. I love my new silicone mini loaf pan. It makes 8 mini-loaves instead of six so if I double most recipes, I get 16 perfect loaves and they pop out so easily. I should try try SRS's Banana Bread recipe in my new mini-loaf pan! Last weekened I made Mini-loaf lemon spongecakes with meyer lemon juice and meyer lemon glaze. A co-worker of my husbands has a meyer lemon tree and I just had to zest them up and make the house smell like a lemon grove! Those little cakes didn't last 2 days. Everyone snacked on them. I'd make more but I figured I'd stick to the healthy Oatmeal-Pumpkin loaves this week. I just got a great new cookbook and it has some wonderful Clafouti recipes in it. I'm going to make Cherry Clafouti for Christmas morning My sister-in-law sent us a nice gift of meats from Virginia Traditions including peppered bacon and slices of country Ham. That means Country Ham, braised cabbage with peppered bacon and Red Eye Gravy for Christmas morning breakfast in addition to the Clafouti! Yum! We'll be having two other couples over for Christmas Brunch so it should be nice. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Holiday Baking From: Charley Noble Date: 23 Dec 07 - 04:21 PM Well, it's cheesecake time again, as a dessert to pass at Aunt Peggy's. This time it will be a baked New York Cheesecake with Grand Marnier added to the batter, and blackberries to the top. If the group assembled doesn't like it, we can always bring it home. I think we'll transport the cake in its deep-dish pan, and do the final set-up at her house. Anyone want a slice? Cheerily, Charley Noble |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Holiday Baking From: Dave'sWife Date: 23 Dec 07 - 05:28 PM Oh yes Charley! Have you posted your recipe before? if not, please do. if yes, tell me which thread. A good and reliable NY Cheesecake recipe is always nice to have. I like to see how others make theirs. Do you put a thin layer of sour cream atop yours? I like to make White-Chocolate Raspberry NY Style Cheesecake myself but I've mislaid my old recipe for it. I did just get two boxed sets of White-Chocolate raspberry cupcake mix for a Christmas Gift. I think I'm going to wait until Valentine's day and make the two mixes up as a layer cake |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Holiday Baking From: Stilly River Sage Date: 23 Dec 07 - 10:03 PM Parchment's for sissies. . . the recipe has you coat the pan with 2 tablespoons butter--and you really need to layer it on thick for it to work. But it does. You can test the cake for doneness with a toothpick. It needs to be almost the consistency of a bar when it's finished baking so it holds together when you cut it and handle it. Time for some baking tonight. Spritz, I think. And snickerdoodles. I have bread rising now and about a half of a turkey left from our party last night. When the kids finally get here in another hour or so we'll have a late night feast of hot turkey sandwiches. Mmmmmmm! SRS |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Holiday Baking From: GUEST,pattyClink Date: 23 Dec 07 - 11:01 PM oooh, snickerdoodles! Dave's Wife: I've lost my NY chzcake recipe, I used to love it. It called for a crust made from zwieback. On the cranberry front, I am told a brisket, a can of berry sauce, and a can of tomato paste will cook up amazingly well, haven't tried it yet. But as for holiday baking: 'twas not fated to be a baking year after all. Shopping ate my day. Spouse ate my bananas. We did bake a ham, and made up the strudel dough for tomorrow morning, it has to ripen overnight. That'll be the sole output. Drat. I had hoped to at least get in some simple macaroons with little red candied cherries stuck on top, thought I could handle something that simple. Stopped for the cherries on the way home, found them, yada yada. Only to find two count'em two absolutely empty bottles of almond extract at home. Evidently it volatilized itself over the summer. I give up. We'll take our strudel and our Jamesons and head to the relatives looking for Nog. Happy Christmas eve, bakers! |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Holiday Baking From: Anne Lister Date: 24 Dec 07 - 07:00 PM Just completed big batch of mince pies with my speciality lemon pastry ...use lemon juice and water to bind the dough instead of just water, add lemon zest to dry ingredients and just a little sugar. This year's refinement - also adding a little cinnamon. I'm ridiculously proud of them! They won't last long. And tomorrow's prime desserts will be (a) mince pies, (b) a trifle, with probably too much sherry, if that's possible and (c)Queen Charlotte's Tart, which is like a lemon meringue pie but has oranges in it as well ... and because I'm now having fun with pastry I'm baking it in a chocolate pastry shell. Fingers crossed .... Anne |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Holiday Baking From: Mrs.Duck Date: 25 Dec 07 - 01:45 PM Ducklings were up well befre dawn baking buns this morning decorated with icing and snowmen, santas and puddings. Brought us tea and buns at around 8 am. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Holiday Baking From: open mike Date: 25 Dec 07 - 11:11 PM while waiting for the cobbler to cool, i will copy the recipe here. It is called: Everybody's Grandmother's favorite Cobbler Recipe (i do not know what the metric equivalents are...)the ingredients are: 1 cup flour 1 cup sugar 2 teaspoons baking powder 3/4 cup milk 1 stick/cube butter (1/2 cup) 1 1/2 - 2 cups fruit... berries, fresh or canned peaches, fresh, canned or dried apricot, etc. preheat oven to 350 degrees in a 9" X 13" pan, melt the butter (this is the tricky part...you melt the butter in the pan...do not mix into the batter) In a seperate bowl, stir together flour, sugar, baking powder and milk. Pour ("drizzle") this batter into the pan over the butte--do not mix or stir it. sprinkle the fruit on top. Bake at 350 for 20 T0 40 minutes. The batter will cover up the fruit and there will be a crunchy outside to this yummy treat. the one i baked is ready now....let me know if you make this too! |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Holiday Baking From: Dave'sWife Date: 27 Dec 07 - 05:50 AM PattyClink - that Brisket recipe you mention of a can of cranberry sauce and a can of tomato paste isn't much different from the party meatballs recipe. If I was going to do that, I'd use my homemade sauce of course and would use a couple cans of diced tomatoes in addition to the paste and perhaps throw in a couple teaspooons of dry mustard and a splash of worcstershire - tossing it all into a slow cooker on low for 8 hours. An hour before it's done, I'd toss in some frozen pearl onions. That'd be super good! I wound up running all my cranberry sauce through a sieve this time as we watched a movie on DVD. Since I had the time, I worked the sieve by hand and was rewarded with an extra 3/4 of a quart iof suace for my labours! I used the same recipe that I had posted but was out of Cranberry jello. I substituted Cherry Jello instead and it came out fine. I also had some wonderfully fragrant oranges so I zested them up and tossed the zest into the bubbling cranberry sauce. You know, It's amazing how much more sauce you can get when you work the mash as hard as possible unitl all that's left are stringy dry berry skins and little else. I'd say that when I was done, I had less than one cup of skins from the entire four bags of cranberries plus the 2 cups of blueberries! I put some of the sauce up in mason jars for later in the year and to maybe send to some mudcatter in the US who's SS Pressie went astra y and needs a replacement. My only other big baking this week was to make 3 Deep Dish Crab Quiches with orange and yellow sweet bell peppers, onions, parmesan and cream cheese. We have a party to go to and I thought the Quiches would be an easy thing to bring. This morning when my usband wakes up, I'm going to try out my new Batter Dispenser gadget with Lemon Ricotta Pancakes. I've already zested up and juiced some of those lovely meyer lemons my husband's coworker gave us for Christmas. The house smells heavenly! I've been guilty of zesting up lemons, grapefruits and oranges just to make a room smell good when things get kinda stuffy in the winter! When I do that, if I don't have an immediate use for the zest, I just dry it on wax paper and then store it until needed. So no cookies baked here, but I could be persuaded. I'd really love to make some nice and dark gingerbread in old coffee cans and then sprinkle with large crystal sugar. Those make for great holiday gifts. Nothing like a nice thick round of nearly black gingerbread with some fresh whipped cream. if you want to go totally over the top, you can chops some crystalized ginger and sprinkle it on the whipped cream! Yummmmm. I use the Gramercy Tavern Gingerbread recipe which calls for a pint of Stout (can be found on Epicurious.com) . ANy other gingerbread bakers here? |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Holiday Baking From: Dave'sWife Date: 10 Jan 08 - 11:20 AM I am such a thread killer - I swear! Come on, SRS - you must have good and dark Gingerbread recipe and a method for cooking in a coffeecan?? yes? I haven't done this in ages, but I think the method for getting the sticky wet round gingerbread with the sugar coating is to grease the inside of small coffee cans very well with crisco shortening and then coat the inside well with a large white crystal sugar. Then you pour in the batter, bake and cool. When cool enough to handle but before the cans are cold and contracted, slide the can-shaped loaves out and wrap in parchment before slipping inside a tube bag. Is that about right? I'd like to make some this weekend perhaps. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Holiday Baking From: Stilly River Sage Date: 10 Jan 08 - 12:50 PM You must be talking about a gingerbread cake, not a gingerbread cookie? I've only done the cookies. But my pumpkin bread recipe comes out pretty dark and rich and could almost accomplish the same thing. It's the recipe in an older version of The Joy of Cooking. I don't drink coffee, so I don't have coffee cans around. I suppose you could do a loaf if you really cleaned out the inside of the Hunts spaghetti sauce can? ;-D SRS |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Holiday Baking From: Dave'sWife Date: 10 Jan 08 - 01:22 PM SRS - I see you've been busy purging nasty alien Exe files from your PC. Just wack 'em with that emoty hunts sauce can. I fell guilty posting in here when those fat fighting threads are ongoing. I'm not in any serious need of major weight loss and I don't often eat much of my own baking - just a piece or so. SRS - the practice of baking sweet gingerbread in a can (and traditionally most gingerbread is a sweet quickbread and not a cookie) may have originated in the USA during the Depression - I'm not sure. It's one of those things you either grow up with or you don't. My Great Grandmother told me it wad done long before the Depression (and she should have known! She was already a grandmother in 1929) and it was just a matter of thrift and common sense. You could bake many more breads all at once in empty cans than you could in loaf pans. I suppose it saved on firewood but since in her day, the stove was used both for heat and for cooking, it woulda been going all winter. Sadly, my Grandma, her daughter, passed away last year. My mum promised me all her handwritten recipes including her Gigerbread in a can but I've yet to see it. The way I was raised, Gingerbread shaped like a cookie is called Pfefferneuse. Gingerbread Quick Bread is called Gingerbread. It's not quite a cake it has a much denser and wetter texture. When you take a bite, it sticks to your teeth and roof of your mouth but in a delightful way! Grandma and Great-Grandma's Gingerbread in a can was almost black in color and they'd roll it one more time in crystal sugar before wrapping in wax paper (they didn't have parchment) and then putting it into a clean coffee can to seal with a lid. The best size coffee cans were the 1 pound cans whch aren't available anymore. most Coffee cans only come in 12 or 14 ounce sizes now. I'm gonna call my mother and ask for that recipe. I want it so badly now I can taste it. Grandma used to top it only with freshly whipped cream and maybe some candied ginger |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Holiday Baking From: PoppaGator Date: 10 Jan 08 - 01:24 PM As a confirmed coffee drinker, let me point out that most coffee these days is sold in vacuum-packed foil bags; plastic can-like containers are another latte-day packaging alternative. The good old-fashioned coffee can is getting harder and harder to find. Also: When you do find coffee in a can, as often as not it's smaller than the long-established classic one-pound can. Many companies are now selling 13-ounce packages for the price formerly charged for a full 16-ounce pound ~ in the US, anyway. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Holiday Baking From: ClaireBear Date: 10 Jan 08 - 01:30 PM Dave'sWife, I'll bring tea, you serve the gingerbread and we'll sing duets! Meet you in Solvang? Claire |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Holiday Baking From: Stilly River Sage Date: 10 Jan 08 - 03:43 PM Ooooh! I've stopped for split pea soup when I passed through Solvang! :) World Market sells a big tin of pepperkrakor for about $10. They're very good. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Holiday Baking From: ClaireBear Date: 10 Jan 08 - 05:02 PM To switch holidays for a minute (but stay on the subject of the gingerbread), there's a Finnish Easter bread called something very much like Paasiaisleipa (only with several umlauts) that's traditionally baked in a small milk pail. I wonder if that would work for your gingerbread? And where would you find one? Maybe in Solvang (though that's nominally Danish...). Cheers, Claire |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Holiday Baking From: Stilly River Sage Date: 10 Jan 08 - 05:38 PM Go by the feed store and look at all of the various galvanized tins--everything from cute little cans and buckets to multi-gallon stock tanks. If you can get it seasoned to a point where you don't get metal stuff sloughing off, you might have something. SRS |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Holiday Baking From: Cats at Work Date: 11 Jan 08 - 08:41 AM Tonight I start baking for tomorrows Wassailing. Lots of appley things. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Holiday Baking From: Dave'sWife Date: 11 Jan 08 - 09:10 AM Clairebear - my own darling Secret Santa! Sorry I shuffled off to Buffalo after posting in the Pressie arrived thread. Inky & I did not sleep for two weeks but that day we spelt a looong time. I wound up with a winter cold, took some cold medicine and slept for what seemed like days. It was cold and rainy here so Inky was perfectly happy to stay with me in the nest of blankies he makes at the foot of the bed! I'll talk about my pressies in the pressie thread to prevent thread drift. On the issue of breads - on the site you linked to I saw this quote: >>British bakers scar hot cross buns Ð seasoned with raisins and citrus Ð with Christ's cross to Ôlet the devil fly out<< And it reminded me of how my irish grandmother always told me to cut a cross into my sodabreads to keep the fairies from from tainting them. In a thread elsewhere I once told the story she told me about how Fairies are really fallen angels. I also PMed it to somebody - let me look and see if I can find it to paste here: Ok I found it - this is how she expalined what the Sidhe are to me: >>During the time of the great war in heaven, Lucifer rose in rebellion against God our father. A terrible battle was fought with Lucifer and his legions being defeated. God proclaimed that Lucifer and every angel who sympathised with his cause were to be cast out of heaven. This is known as The Fall. Well, The Fall went on for days and weeks, months even. Thousands upon thousands of angels were cast out. Seeing the great multitudes falling, Michael the Arch Angel begged God to have Mercy and to end The Fall. God was moved by his plea and that instant he ceased casting angels out of heaven. He said "Wherever they are now, let them stay there." The angels that were still falling through the air became the spirits of the air. The angels that were not yet to hell but in the ground became the spirtis of the earth, those in the oceans, lakes and rivers became the spirits of the water. Some angels were caught inside of trees or boulders and they became the spirits of the trees and rocks. There they remain between heaven and hell. They are apart from God and so they resent us and His love for us. They are also apart from Lucifer, who they supported. They seek to meddle in the affairs of men to earn his favor and hopefully gain a place in Hell. This is why you must never walk alone at night or walk without your father or cousins (male). If a Fairy were to catch you alone, they could carry you off or bewitch you. You must also never walk by the water alone without your father or cousins for the same reasons. There are fairies there who would kidnap you and carry you to their land onder the water and you would never see your parents again<< To continue her story - So, the fairies who resent God's love for humans will sometimes reach out and touch breads set out to cool. Their touch will taint the bread but you cannot see that it is tainted with their envy. To eat the bread tainted by a fairy can make you sick with a mysterious illness no doctor can heal. That is why you must cut the symbol of the Cross into the bread. this prevents the fairies from toaching and tainting it. I kid you not - that's what she told me. So all you bread makers out there - cut the cross into all your breads if you have envious fairies in your neighborhood! You wouldn't want to get sick! Of course, this Christian explanation of the fairies is in direct conflict with other Pagan explanations she gave me but it's kinda neat so I offer it up for your amusement. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Holiday Baking From: ClaireBear Date: 11 Jan 08 - 11:21 AM Santee, I confess I was a wee bit afraid I'd offended you somehow. Very sorry that you've been sick, but also relieved... I've been researching steel pails for baking. These were the best I could do, but you'd have to make a lot of gingerbread to fill even the smallest one! I like warm gingerbread with lemon curd. I also enjoy it with (sorry, Dave'sWife who can't have blue-veined cheese) smeared thinly with a blend of Roquefort and cream cheese, which gives the gingerbread a delightful complexity. Also, when I make "fruitcake," I do it by adding heaps of dried (NOT candied!!!) fruits -- figs, prunes, apricots, raisins, and cherries mostly -- plus soft, crystalized stem ginger, my home-candied (or, if I'm in a hurry, fresh grated) orange or lemon peel, and optional pecans to my buttermilk gingerbread recipe. Even fruitcake haters often like it. Mmmm... Cheers, Claire |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Holiday Baking From: Dave'sWife Date: 11 Jan 08 - 11:33 AM Ooh ooh - please pst your Buttermilk Gingerbread recipe or ask Silenus Charm if he has one! I called my mom Yesterday to try and get her mother's recipe only to find that she was in the midst of a 2 day power outage and trying to keep warm using a gasoline generator. She told me that grandma's recipes were in a big box - mostly handwritten cards and clippins and that she'd try and dig it out when the lights came back on. As is usually the case within families, she says she has NO recollection of any such Gingerbread although I clearly recall her eating some when we visted in 1991...errr... or was that 1992? Memory is funny thing, eh? She only remmebers the gingerbread baked in a sqaure pan and Grandma did that too but she preferred to bake it on the coffee cans! |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Holiday Baking From: maeve Date: 11 Jan 08 - 11:44 AM On a related note, I've seen quick breads baked in canning jars, and it seems to me they could be stored in the pantry rather than freezer or refrigerator. Anyone have a link or experience with that? I do sometimes see the old pound coffee cans at our local little recycling center. I'll have to grab 'em when I see 'em again! maeve |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Holiday Baking From: The Fooles Troupe Date: 12 Jan 08 - 09:17 AM "I've been researching steel pails for baking. " Chinese made stainless steel buckets (about 1 gallon size!) are now available here in Oz. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Holiday Baking From: Stilly River Sage Date: 12 Jan 08 - 01:51 PM Go to your local restaurant supply store. Maybe you'll find a suitable steel container that is actually meant to hold silverware or something. Amazing what those places offer. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Holiday Baking From: Dave'sWife Date: 12 Jan 08 - 03:45 PM This morning I was on the phone with my mother and father talking about upcoming Shrove Tuesday and somehow I got on the subject of my irish Grandmother's admonition to me to always cut a cross into your breads. My father was on the line and he laughed remembering the same thing but my mother said we were both nuts that my Grandmother never told us any such thing. Not sure how she'd know since it wasn't HER mother.. but.. I then launched into the story about the Great fall from heaven and the orgin of Fairies and how they are just this side of evil and again, my Dad laughed and agreed with the memory even adding to it. My mother thinks we're liars and that we read it in a book. This is her typcial response whenever I exhibit too much being my Father's daughter. She doesn't remember these stories because nobody ever told them to her and why would they? Grandparents don't need to pass these stories down to grandchildren through their son or daughter-in-law! ahh.. my mother can be grumpy about things and one of them is my dad's family. At any rate, Dad remembers it the same exact way plus a few other things for good measure. It was an amusing conversation. I still haven't gotten my mother's mom's recipe for dark gingerbread baked in a coffee can and I don't think I ever will! |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Holiday Baking From: ClaireBear Date: 16 Jan 08 - 11:01 AM Here is the recipe Dave'sWife requested for buttermilk gingerbread. Dave'sWife, I wish I could say it was ancient and ancestral like those I sent you at Christmas, but actually I found it on the side of a buttermilk carton. Looking on the bright side, it's much better than my grandmother's recipe, for all that hers IS ancient and ancestral. BUTTERMILK GINGERBREAD 2-1/2 c. sifted flour 1 tsp. baking powder 1-1/2 tsp. baking soda 1 tsp. ginger (I use more) 2 tsp cinnamon 1/2 c. butter 3/4 c. light brown sugar (I think I've used dark) 2 eggs 3/4 c. light molasses (again, I've used dark) 1 c. buttermilk Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Butter and flour a 9 x 13 x 2 cake pan. Sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda, ginger, and cinnamon. Cream butter and brown sugar in a large bowl. Beat in eggs, one at a time, mixing well. Blend in molasses. Add dry ingredients in three portions, alternating with buttermilk; beat well after each addition. Pour into prepared pan and bake 35 to 40 minutes. Hope you like it! Claire |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Holiday Baking From: Stilly River Sage Date: 16 Jan 08 - 11:05 AM I have to get past all of this holiday baking. I noticed that my jeans were uncomfortably snug this morning when I pulled them off the rack. Time to switch to reading a soup thread, or one with good salad recipes. :) SRS |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Holiday Baking From: GUEST,CrazyEddie Date: 17 Jan 08 - 05:27 AM Several people have mentioned baking in coffee cans or steel pails. Can I add teracotta flower pots as a suggestion? Available in many sizes feom your local plant nursery. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Holiday Baking From: Q (Frank Staplin) Date: 17 Jan 08 - 10:39 AM I wish I was doing some holiday baking- on the beach in Hawai'i. That aside, this season we received from relatives a wonderful desert made by an Italian woman. It is made something like a cinnamon bun, spirally rolled pastry, the layers with caramelized filling, and chopped nuts- flavor like baklava (sp.). It is much firmer that a bun. Diameter about eight inches. Does anyone recognize it from this poor description? It really good- very rich. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Holiday Baking From: Stilly River Sage Date: 17 Jan 08 - 11:20 AM Poteca. Pronounced Po-tee-za It's actually from north of Italy, maybe Polish? I don't remember now. http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Walnut-Poteca/Detail.aspx It's wonderful, but quite time consuming to make. SRS |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Holiday Baking From: Stilly River Sage Date: 17 Jan 08 - 11:30 AM Also search for it under "potica." There are lots and lots of recipes, and some good photos. The walnuts have to be ground to work, not chopped. And you need a really big surface to prepare this on. The way my mother fixed it, she rolled the thing out probably at least three feet across (round) and then covered it with the walnut mix and slowly made a big log, like you would cut through when making cinnamon rolls. Then that log was wrapped around itself to give the large loaf a cinnamon roll in appearance. One web site says this is Slovenian. That sounds right. SRS |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Holiday Baking From: Q (Frank Staplin) Date: 17 Jan 08 - 11:42 AM Interesting recipe, but not the same. The one I'm looking for is a flattish spiral, not a roll, coiled more like a cinnamon bun but dough an even strip, long enough to make a spiral about 8 inches in diameter. Very firm when finished. Taste probably similar to the poteca roll, however. Almonds and hazelnuts (prob. depends on what is available). |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Holiday Baking From: Stilly River Sage Date: 17 Jan 08 - 12:48 PM The images I find online are loaves that are apparently commercially made. They appear to be more long like a jelly roll. But I know what you meant. Others in the images took the log and shaped it in a kind of bunt or angel food pan, but that isn't it either. Think about what I described-- Roll your dough very flat, put your filling on it, and roll it into a straight log. Then take one corner of it and start to coil the log into a spiral on a cookie sheet; it rises there again then is baked. You get the spiral within the spiral. I found one image (link), it's a big sloppy one, not the neatly arranged and several rings that my mom did. Here's another. Here is one being made though this filling being poured and mom's was dryer, had to be sprinkled and spread (but the outcome could be like my mom's poteca, though apparently these folks cut it and put it in a loaf pan) link. Here's the whole site: http://www.devichnik.ru/9912/recepty_ny.htm Is this any clearer now? People have gotten lazy, or had a different tradition, and it doesn't turn up the old fashioned way very often. I've made it only once or twice, but enough that I can see that the same recipe has simply been modified to a different shape, probably for automation. SRS |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Holiday Baking From: maire-aine Date: 26 Nov 08 - 03:55 PM I discovered that I'd "traced" this thread from last year, so I figured I'd just refresh it. Here's my favorite cooky recipe: Cream together 1 C butter and 1½ C sugar Add 1 egg, beaten until fluffy 1½ T grated orange peel 2 T clear corn syrup 1 T water Mix above. Sift together 3¼ C flour 2 t baking soda 2 t cinnamon 1 t ginger Add dry ingredients to butter-sugar mix. Chill. Roll out & cut into shapes. Bake at 350° for 8-10 minutes. Happy holidays, everyone. Maryanne |
