Tea (or Coffee) and Scones.

Yes, I might have the odd kitchen disaster and silly recipe mistake, but the truth is, I can usually get down a recipe on the first try even if I know I can subsequently make it better, because I become obsessive about observing every detail.  If I decide to experiment, I do a lot of research.  Will this flavor taste OK with that one? Will this substitution affect any of the other ingredients?  Will this recipe be a total failure if I don't use Grade AA Extra-Large organic eggs from free-range chickens and instead only have regular Grade AA Large eggs from chickens that don't range freely?

I don't have time for this "the chicken or the egg" nonsense.

I think about which egg makes a better cake.

I've only recently gotten to where I feel comfortable trusting my instincts while experimenting.*  So these maple butterscotch scones came out well on the first try. I still have a few thoughts that might come in handy if you want to make them:

1) Because baking powder can lose some of its "oomph" if refrigerated**, I think refrigerating the scones overnight is a step you can leave out.
2) It's easiest to remove the scones from the pan after baking if you use a large knife to fully separate them and then let them cool just a bit on the pan.  They can be sticky and fall apart otherwise.
3) If desired, you can use 2 1/2 cups of the quick-cooking oats and leave out the walnuts.

The first time I made these, I didn't refrigerate the dough overnight, though I did the second time to see if it made them better.  I think I can safely say it's an unnecessary step.  And even though the recipe says to serve them warm, they're just as good at room-temp.  I made the first batch without walnuts, because my other half says he doesn't like the taste.  Upon trying each, I suppose my reaction could have been more sympathetic...

Really.  The taste is practically identical.

10 points from Ravenclaw.

But that is especially good news if you don't like or are allergic to nuts.  

The main thing to remember when toasting the oats and walnuts is that the color of the oats won't change drastically.  You'll smell the walnuts before seeing any change in color, which is when they should be taken out of the oven.

Just as a general rule for pastries: wet ingredients are mixed separately from dry ingredients and then added to the dry ingredients.  (And yes, I do sometimes use a potato masher to cut in butter.  I find it works pretty well to use the edge of it with a chopping motion like a knife, and it won't scratch up the bowl.)

I had some camera difficulties with my photos from here on out*** but once the wet and dry ingredients are mixed, the texture should resemble oatmeal cookie dough, only a bit stickier.

Once baked, they'll be golden brown and actually feel a lot like cookies, although unlike cookies, they will have risen, not quite doubled in size but definitely a noticeable amount.

I let them cool a little, then put them on a sheet of parchment paper to glaze them.

When they're done, I definitely recommend having one with a cup of coffee (or tea, or milk, or whatever your drink preference).  Just to make sure they came out OK.  

DEEMS THIS RECIPE:

Easier than pie.

*I have a hunch that anyone who says nonchalantly, "Oh, I just throw things together," is hiding the fact that they had to learn how to "throw things together."

**For scones and heavier batter and dough, if you need to refrigerate/freeze them, baking powder won't lose much potency.  It's just not a step you need to do.  With lighter batters, like pancake batter, if you're not going to eat them right away, the best idea is to cook/bake and then store.  

***Official Dx: Situational Technical Ineptitude.  I accidentally changed the focus and lighting and only this afternoon found how to revert to the original settings...

A Midweek Recipe Roundup.

I had planned to do a post about scones today but forgot that they need to be refrigerated overnight before baking, so that will have to wait until tomorrow or Friday. In the meantime, I thought I'd share with everyone links to some of my favorite recipes that already have great, detailed instructions and lots of pictures.

Blueberry Muffins
This recipe is quick, easy, and works just as well with 1/3 cup melted butter in place of the vegetable oil, although it is a little easier to spoon into a muffin tin with the vegetable oil.  If you have a larger family and/or want them to last longer, definitely double the recipe.

Chocolate Croissants
These are not that easy or quick, but they are so, so good, and they smell wonderful when they're proofing and baking. The link to the dough recipe is in the ingredients at the bottom. Don't try to substitute regular butter for the European-style in this recipe; the higher fat content/less water content makes the croissants buttery and flaky.  It doesn't specify salted/unsalted, but I use unsalted Plugra, figuring that most pastry dough calls for unsalted butter, and it turns out well.  If the European-style butter is not in the section with the "normal" butter in your grocery store, it's probably with the specialty dairy/cheese near the deli section.

Easy White Bread
If you've never made bread before (or even if you have), this is a great recipe to follow.  The only part that is time-consuming is waiting for it to rise, and even that doesn't take as long as some breads.  It also works well as a base for olive oil/herb bread; just substitute oil for shortening, add the herbs with the flour, and to let the dough rise, put it into a bowl rubbed with olive oil instead of butter.

Waffles
Like the muffins, this is a fairly simple recipe, and you can use just one bowl.  You can add berries or bananas, but make sure they aren't too chunky, because like pouring in too much at once, it can make the batter overflow in the waffle iron (believe me... I know about these things).  If you like extra-fluffy waffles, though, try beating the egg whites separately in another small bowl until they're foamy and folding them in just before folding in any fruit.

Best Ever Banana Cake
The name says it all.  It's not a difficult recipe but does take some time; if you want banana cake, though, the results are most. definitely. worth. it.  The only thing I changed (and it wasn't exactly a change) about this recipe was toasting the walnuts to use as garnish (spread in an even layer on baking sheet and bake at 375 for ~8 minutes or until they brown and give off a fragrant scent, checking often so they don't burn).


... And don't worry; once I find that elusive fried chicken recipe, I'll be sure to share it, too!

DEEMS THESE RECIPES:
Easier than pie, easy as pie, and everything in between.  But all very yummy.

Scrambling to Make a Pie.

Reading through a Bitchin' Kitchen cookbook, one recipe caught my eye right away: Dark Chocolate and Caramelized Banana Pie.  I thought, It has chocolate.  It has bananas.  I must make it.

That was before I realized that the recipe was vegan.  I have nothing against tofu on principle, but I'm not able to make my taste buds overrule my brain's insistence that I am, in fact, eating soybean curd.  It's like how some people can't bring themselves to eat calamari.  So I followed the recipe with two changes: I used unsalted butter in place of the cocoa butter* for the crust and substituted cream cheese for the tofu.  It turned out OK, more like a no-bake cheesecake ("No!  Really?").  The crust was a bit greasy and the bananas a little soggy.  I also decided that the bananas would have worked much better with a more "pie-like" filling.  Determined to make a better version, I looked up French silk pie recipes, and found this one.  I chose it because not only does it have good reviews; unlike most French silk pie recipes, it doesn't contain raw eggs.

Ah, the eggs.  I've made a custard before, so I should have known better.  I really should have.  But the dog wanted inside and my phone battery was alerting me of its untimely death, so I left the eggs and sugar on the stove top (It'll just be a moment!). When I came back, I noticed a very distinctive smell.

It smelled like breakfast.

  

Those white bits are never a good sign.

What I did wrong with both the original pie and then the new pie:
1) Put too much butter in the crust.
2) Didn't put the bananas on paper towels out of the oven, so the melted sugar made the pie soggy.
3) Stopped stirring and walked away from eggs on the stove top, resulting in scrambled eggs.

I did start out with the original crust recipe, still using unsalted butter in place of the cocoa butter.  I doubled the recipe as well, because I used a 9" pie pan instead of a 7" mold.

I used just enough of the melted butter to make the ingredients stick lightly together. Even so, there still seemed to be too much, so I pressed it into the pan using a paper towel.

Like shortbread crusts, this one has a tendency to puff up in the oven.  So once it was slightly cooled, I ran the back of a spoon over it.  

Finished crust.

I also doubled the filling recipe, which gave me enough for about 1 1/2 pies.**  The first thing I did was make the whipped cream and set it aside.  Using cold heavy cream and a chilled bowl and whisk will make your cream whip faster.*** Some people use a bowl inside another bowl containing ice water, but I just put my bowl and whisk in the freezer for a couple minutes and then wipe off any condensation.

Whipping to "stiff peaks" means that you can lift the whisk,
and the cream will form a peak at the top

which won't fall to one side or the other (that would be "soft peaks").

I creamed the butter after that, so that it would be ready to pour the chocolate mixture into it.  Next, I cooked the eggs and sugar on the lowest heat setting on the stove top.  Remember to stir continuously to prevent any accidental omelettes!  I used a candy/deep-fry thermometer to reach 160°F, but as the recipe says, you can also see if it coats the back of a metal spoon to see if it's done.  Then I added the chocolate off the heat and after cooling, and that was all beaten together with the butter.

I didn't realize that the bowl reflected so much light from that angle.

When incorporating ingredients like egg whites or whipped cream, you're aiming for a light, fluffy texture, so you don't want to beat or stir vigorously.  Carefully fold in the whipped cream until no white streaks remain.

The filling should be about the texture of pudding. Then just pour it into the pie crust and chill in the fridge.

On to the caramelized bananas.  If you watch the video that goes along with the recipe, Nadia doesn't bake the bananas; she broils them.  I think this is a more efficient way to caramelize the sugar, so I chopped 2 small bananas (I didn't want to cover the whole pie), dipped each side in the raw sugar, shook off the excess, and placed them under the broiler on a baking sheet for about 3 minutes.  You'll see the sugar start to melt and bubble.  Take the bananas out when the tops are lightly brown.

I put the bananas onto a paper towel to get rid of excess moisture; they'll still be shiny and sticky.  Then I made more whipped cream (I made it with a cup of heavy cream, a tablespoon of granulated sugar, and a teaspoon of vanilla and a tablespoon of rum****, so enough to have about half left over), spread that on the chilled pie, topped with bananas, et voilà:

You can, of course, top the pie with as much whipped cream and as many or as few bananas as you like.  After putting my desired amount on, I had extras.  So I ate them.  And they were good.

DEEMS THIS RECIPE: 
Easy enough... 
for pie, that is.

*I don't live close to a place that sells cocoa butter for baking purposes, otherwise I would have used that.  For some recipes calling for cocoa butter, you can substitute white chocolate and reduce some of the sugar.  You'd have to check the ingredients on the white chocolate first, because cheaper, generic brands might not be made with cocoa butter.

**Chocolate "mousse" shots with leftover pie filling, possibly?

***Basic explanation here.  

****Because why not?  And see (**).

When Buttermilk Biscuits Fall Flat.

Last fall, I made my first attempt at buttermilk biscuits.  Because I had leftover bacon grease (yes, I am the kind of person who will keep a jar labeled "bacon grease" in my refrigerator), I thought I'd substitute some of that for the butter.  I can tell you, they certainly smelled delicious while baking.  The flavor was even pretty good.  But the texture was more like this:

Image from: www.site-2-shop.com

... Not very appetizing.  Although I think I would have been heartily welcomed at Koom Valley reenactments.

What I did wrong:
1) Didn't use cold butter/buttermilk.
2) Used old baking powder.
3) Rolled out the dough (BIG mistake).

Using cold butter and keeping other ingredients cold will create small pockets in the dough, giving you flakier biscuits.  Baking powder has a shelf life of 6 months to a year, and if it isn't active, baked goods won't rise.  Rolling out biscuit dough overstimulates the gluten, giving you tough biscuits.  So my biscuits were dense, flat, and heavy.

Then I found this recipe.  And ever since, biscuits have become an obsession.

First, I usually cut up the butter* and pop it in the freezer for a few minutes.  I also keep 1 1/2 cups of buttermilk in the refrigerator until needed.  Then I pulse the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and butter together about 4 times in a food processor, until most of it is the texture of coarse meal, before pouring it all into a bowl to add the buttermilk.

Don't freak out if there are chunks of butter left after cutting in the butter/processing. This just means flakier biscuits!

The recipe calls for "approximately" 1 cup of buttermilk for a reason.  I usually have to use another ~1/4-1/2 cup to make a nice sticky dough.

Folding the dough over can get messy, but it's definitely worth it for the flaky layers. Just remember that as tempting as it might be to turn to the rolling pin at this stage, don't do it!  I promise that your teeth will thank you.

If you don't have a biscuit cutter, you can flour the rim of a glass and use that.  When cutting out biscuits, use a firm up-and-down motion, and try not to twist.  Twisting can make your biscuits not rise as high.

I like soft sides, so I let the sides of my biscuits touch.  If you like crunchier sides, you can leave space between them.  I also like to brush the tops with melted butter. I've tried brushing with buttermilk but decided regular butter tastes better.  You don't have to brush them with anything, though.

The biscuits should quickly start rising.  This should have been the first sign that I had done something wrong the first time around; I looked in the oven after a couple minutes, and the biscuits looked just as flat as they had been before putting them in the oven.**

Take out the biscuits when they're golden brown on top.  For me, that's after about 15 minutes. Our oven doesn't quite cook evenly, so one side does get more done than the other, but any darker than this would have been overcooked.  It might be difficult to tell in this picture, but the biscuits made from pressing the scraps together (on the far left side) didn't cook as evenly or rise as high. 

I sometimes try harder to make my biscuits more round-- the one on the right in front looks a bit like a beetle, no?--or symmetrical, or the same height, but it really isn't necessary.  You can even cut the dough into squares or triangles if you don't want to waste any dough.  They'll still taste good.  And isn't that what ultimately matters in a biscuit?

*I do prefer butter for this recipe, but you can use shortening or substitute some of the butter for shortening or bacon grease.  Shortening will give a lighter texture but less buttery flavor.  Bacon grease will give a denser texture and a smokier flavor. 
** I've made taller biscuits with this recipe before by pressing out dough to no less than 1" thick, but I've found that works best if you double the original recipe.   The original gives me about 10-12 thinner biscuits (not thin, just thinner) or roughly eight thicker ones.  I made twelve because around here, eight biscuits can disappear awfully quickly...






DEEMS THIS RECIPE:
About as easy as pie dough,
only less time-consuming.