EclecticCook.com » Desserts and Sweet Things

Crispy Blueberry Oatmeal Cookies

Karen — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 06:36:07 +0000

It’s Christmas cookie season! Everyone is so excited!! I’m trying to blend in and pretend that I’ve been baking cookies for Christmas all my life!!!

But that’s not exactly true. Actually that’s about as far from true as Russia is far from Alaska. I remember just two kinds of cookies around the Christmas holidays; a buttery almond cookie and a spice cookie. These cookies didn’t come out of Mom’s oven, either. They came from the Greek market, or from random Greek friends dropping by for a visit. It’s sad, I know, I feel sorry for me too. As wonderful a cook as my mother was, she was not a baker. I think this lack of baking talent must be genetic, because it has only been through sheer force of will, perseverance and the ability to overcome absolute failure that I have managed to produce baked goods from my oven that are suitable for human consumption.

There is one advantage to my lack of Christmas baking tradition; I can bake any kind of cookie I want, call it a Christmas cookie, and nobody is going to argue with me about it. At least not where I can hear them. So this year I made oatmeal cookies, and you know what? I’m going to make ‘em again. For Christmas. Because I can.

First off you need to get yourself some of these little pretties. I saw these dried blueberries at the supermarket about two months ago and I got so excited that I bought a package. Then I left them on the counter for a few weeks while I tried to decide what to do with them, moving them around every time I had to clean the counter. When that got old, I relocated them to the refrigerator because it seemed like the right thing to do. Last week, epiphany struck in the form of a recipe for crispy oatmeal cookies that came across my computer screen.

The cookies are light, crisp and simply flavored with a little vanilla, which is the perfect canvas to showcase the slightly tart and sweet dried blueberries.

If you don’t have a cookie scoop, you really need to get yourself one. They come in all sizes and are the perfect tool for making cookies and meatballs, and for filling empanadas, wontons and potstickers. The one I used here scoops one tablespoon.

The cookies crisp up nicely once cooled, and if you can manage not to eat them all, they will keep for at least a week in an airtight container.

Crispy Blueberry Oatmeal Cookies
makes about two dozen cookies
Adapted from an Adaption of The Art and Soul of Baking by Cindy Mushet.

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup dark brown sugar, packed
1/4 cup plus 1 tbsp granulated sugar
1 egg
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
3/4 cup old-fashioned rolled oats
1/2 cup dried blueberries

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line baking sheets with parchment paper or a silpat. With a mixer, cream together the butter and the two sugars until smooth, about 2 minutes. Add the egg and vanilla and mix well. In a second bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Add this mixture to the butter and sugar and mix until just incorporated. Do not over mix. Stir in the oats and blueberries until just until combined. Using a tablespoon scoop or a spoon, place dough in mounds on the prepared baking sheets, about 2 inches apart. Bake one sheet at a time for 15 to 16 minutes, or until the cookies are golden brown. Transfer to a wire rack and cool completely.

Printable Recipe

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©EclecticCook.com, 2009. | Permalink toCrispy Blueberry Oatmeal Cookies | 13 comments |

Nanaimo Bars: The Real Deal

Karen — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 03:17:06 +0000

There are two three many things I miss about Canada; My friends, Tim Horton’s coffee, Montréal Smoked Meat Sandwiches, and the ubiquitous presence of Nanaimo bars at every donut shop and coffee house in the country. Every once in a wonderful while, a friend will send me a tin of Tim Horton’s coffee. My husband even had a tin shipped in for my birthday one year when I was feeling particularly homesick. But I had not had the gustatory pleasure of biting in to a lusciously sweet, decadently rich Nanaimo bar in over 5 years. FIVE YEARS. This was not an acceptable situation, and it needed to be addressed ASAP.

I consulted my bestest internet friend, Google, who gave me a whole whack of Nanaimo Bar recipe ideas (about 80,600 in 0.22 seconds). I settled on this one. This recipe comes to us via Joyce Hardcastle and the City of Nanaimo, British Columbia’s website. It is the 1986 Ultimate Nanaimo Bar recipe contest winner. So it has to be the really, really, REALLY official best recipe, right?

One of the few changes I made to the recipe was to reverse a step and add the hot cocoa and butter mixture to the beaten egg for the bottom layer. When I added the egg to the hot mixture, it cooked and curdled on me. Twice. I may have been a bit peeved. If you can make it happen, by all means go for it!

I’m sorry, I tried. Despite my best efforts in Lightroom, but there was just no way to make this picture of the bottom layer look more appetizing. It is what it is, folks. Just keep repeating to yourself “Chocolate, almonds and coconut, oh my”. It worked for me, almost.

The recipe calls for “Vanilla Custard Powder”, for which I substituted vanilla pudding. I did this because I have no idea what “Vanilla Custard Powder” is, nor do I have any idea where I might find it. A quick search of the baking sections of my two favorite grocery stores produced zip. Rather than bang my head on my cutting board in frustration, I just moseyed on over to the pudding section and grabbed me a box of vanilla pudding. I suggest you do the same. It’ll work just fine, I promise.

As for the origins of this tasty treat, according to legend and the City of Nanaimo, British Columbia’s website, “about 35 years ago, a Nanaimo housewife entered her recipe for chocolate squares in a magazine contest. In a burst of civic pride, she chose to dub the entry not “Daphne’s Delights” or “Mary’s Munchies”, but “Nanaimo Bars”. The entry won a prize, thereby promoting the town as much as her cooking.”

If this brief explanation doesn’t satisfy your curiosity, you can take a gander at the exhaustive (and I really do mean ex-HAUS-tive) dissertation on the origins and history of the Nanaimo bar at practicallyedible.com.

As for me, I’m not nearly as concerned with where they come from as I am about where they end up, which is on my plate.

Before you settle in with a cup of tea to read that Nanaimo bar novel over at practicallyedible.com, I would suggest that you take a peak at a lovely little corner of the internet called Mangos, Chili and Z, which just happens to belong to an even lovelier lady by the name of Lea Ann.

She recently did me the honor of asking me to be her first interviewee (interviewie? Interviewe?) for a new segment she will be doing called “Just Grilled”. I don’t know why she picked me. I don’t think she’s had any recent head trauma… But hey, you can always just breeze through the interview real fast and scroll on to the great recipes and wonderful writing that is her blog!

Nanimo Bars
Adapted from Joyce Hardcastle

Bottom Layer
½ cup unsalted butter at room temperature
¼ cup sugar
5 tbsp cocoa powder
1 egg, beaten
1 ¼ cups graham cracker crumbs
½ cup finely chopped almonds
1 cup coconut
Combine the butter, sugar and cocoa powder in a double boiler and heat until melted. Slowly drizzle the hot mixture into the beaten egg, whisking constantly until thickened. Stir in the graham cracker crumbs, almonds, and coconut. Press the mixture firmly into an ungreased 8″ x 8″ baking pan.

Middle Layer
½ cup unsalted butter at room temperature
3 tbsp whipping cream
2 tbsp vanilla pudding powder
2 cups icing sugar
Cream together the butter, cream, vanilla pudding powder and icing sugar until light. Spread over bottom layer.

Top Layer
4 oz semi-sweet chocolate
2 tbsp unsalted butter
Melt the chocolate and butter in a double boiler over low heat. Once cool but still liquid, pour over middle layer and chill in refrigerator until set, about an hour.
Cut into squares using a knife dipped in hot water. For easier (and neater!) pieces, dip the pan very briefly in hot water and then turn out onto a plate. Flip over using a second plate and cut into squares.

Printable Recipe

Oh and PS: This is my entry for ‘A Sweet Celebration‘ hosted by ‘Fun & Food Cafe‘.

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©EclecticCook.com, 2009. | Permalink toNanaimo Bars: The Real Deal | 102 comments |

Green Tomato Muffins and the Birth of a Blog Post

Karen — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 04:29:51 +0000

Sometimes I get a great idea, or find an inspiring recipe and it’s tested, cooked, photographed and posted in just a few days. Other times….

Not so much.

Follow along as I travel from this recipe’s conception, through the labor, and finally to the birth of a bouncing baby food blog post. May you LOL at the bumps along the way.

Sept. 5th: Saw a small basket of green tomatoes at the farmers market. Bought 3 tomatoes. Got home and wondered what the heck to do with them. Found a recipe for green tomato cake and thought about cupcakes. Found this recipe for browned butter frosting.

Sept. 6th – 9th: Life, Labor Day, and laundry happened. Green tomatoes sit on counter next to bananas. Not a smart move.

Sept. 10th: Shopped for ingredients after work. I hate shopping after work. Apparently, so does everyone else at the grocery store.

Sept. 11th: Piles of laundry to fold after work. I am loudly reminded the family needs clean underwear. Lost the natural light so made the executive decision to bake cupcakes tomorrow. I can do that, since I’m the executive chef. It’s my kitchen and I can be executive chef if I want to be.

Sept. 12th: Discovered 2 green tomatoes have turned orangey, thanks to the over-ripe bananas I parked them next to for a week. Farmers market closed, made emergency call to mother-in-law. She only had green cherry tomatoes. Shoot. Decided to make recipe anyway, leaving out the really, really orange bits. Took lots of pictures. Decided cupcakes are really chunky and look more like muffins, so I nix the browned butter frosting. Made a note to figure out what to do with extra-large bag of powdered sugar I don’t need anymore. First batch of muffins turn out ok, I think they could be better. Raised temperature and cooking time on second batch. Much better.

Original recipe muffins: Batch 1

Original recipe muffins: batch 2

Sept. 13th-18th: Crazy week at work (re-occurring theme). At home there is Girl Scouts, fundraisers, and puberty (No, not me; my daughters). Thought about and ate muffins all week. Discovered I’m not 100% satisfied with recipe. Decided I need a really great apple muffin recipe where I can replace the apples with green tomatoes. Found a recipe on Smitten Kitchen, and the original recipe on the King Arthur Flour website.

Sept. 19: Bought more green tomatoes at the farmers market. Put green tomatoes in the refrigerator this time. Also found some great sweet potatoes and discovered there was a bumper crop of tomatoes this fall. I buy a bunch. Will figure out what to do with them before they get fuzzy. I know I will.

Sept. 20th: Green tomatoes are still in refrigerator. Was persuaded to go for a drive with the family instead of baking. I’m such a slacker.

Sept. 21st-23rd: Yet another crazy week at work. Too pooped to bake when I got home. Still must cook and feed the family dinner or they whine and make lots of noise.

Sept .24: Shopped for ingredients after work. Have I mentioned that I hate shopping after work?

Sept. 25: Brother-in-Law’s birthday. No, I did NOT forget it was his birthday, nor did I forget we were going out to dinner on Friday for his birthday. I simply forgot that it was Friday. Got home after dark. Green tomatoes are still in the refrigerator. Too afraid to check on them. Go to bed hoping they are still green.

Sept. 26: Cleaned and vacuumed the house. Am shocked, as always, at how much fur 3 cats and a dog lose in just a few days. Visited dentist with youngest daughter then spent the afternoon reading #blogherfood09 tweets. Wished I had been able to afford, and get the time off work, to go. No, I’m not jealous and I don’t hate everyone who went. Not anymore.

Sept. 27: Finally got off my lazy butt and baked the freakin’ muffins. Also made Nanaimo bars (future post) and Pork and Apple Stew (yet another future post). Must have found my motivational muse. Or had way too much coffee.

Sept. 28th-30th: Brought laptop to work and did some photo editing over lunch in the staff exercise room because it’s quiet and nobody uses it. Indulged in a quick giggle at the thought of edited muffin pictures in the exercise room. It’s the little things in life.

Oct 1st: Got home from work, which, not surprisingly, was crazy . Decided I really needed to post this since I’m working all weekend and next week is going to be crazy too (need to get a thesaurus and find me some crazy synonyms).

→Coming up:

Oct. 2nd: Go to work. Come home from work. Try to find time (or steal a chunk of sleep time) to post muffins to the usual suspect food porn sites. Remember to write up PDF of printable recipe and post it, not forget like I did with the last recipe.

Sometime Next Week: Sleep.

Green Tomato Muffins
Adapted from King Arthur Flour
Makes 12 Muffins

Green tomatoes add a surprising and subtle tart bite to these fall flavored muffuns.

1 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
¼ tsp kosher salt
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp nutmeg
½ cup unsalted butter, softened
½ cup sugar
¼ cup packed brown sugar, packed plus more for sprinkling
1 large egg, lightly beaten
1 cup buttermilk
1 ½ cups green tomatoes, seeded and chopped

Preheat oven to 450°F. Grease and flour muffin tin or line with paper cups. In a medium bowl, mix the flours, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg. In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugars. Add the egg and mix well to combine. Gently stir in the buttermilk.* Stir in the flour mixture fold in the tomatoes.

Fill the muffin cups with the batter. Generously sprinkle the muffins with brown sugar. Bake for 10 minutes and then lower the oven temperature to 400°F. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes more. Muffins should be golden brown and a cake tester or toothpick inserted in the center of a muffin will come out clean. Cool for 10 minutes, then remove from tin and cool completely on a wire cooling rack.

*The original recipe warns about mixing gently or the buttermilk will curdle the mixture. I don’t know if my gently stirred mixture “curdled”, per say, but I suspect the straight-from-the-fridge cold buttermilk just wouldn’t mix in very well with the butter. I just shrugged and went with it anyway, and the muffins were just fine.

(Printable Recipe)

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©EclecticCook.com, 2009. | Permalink toGreen Tomato Muffins and the Birth of a Blog Post | 20 comments |

Key Lime Pie

Karen — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 02:47:12 +0000

“When life gives you key limes, make pie!” Totally random thought that popped into my head as I came upon a bin full of key limes on sale at the grocery store the other day. The fact that I’ve never made key lime pie before didn’t make me hesitate at all, because I definitely have some serious experience at eating it, and that has to be worth something, right? The tart and sweet custardy goodness, cradled in a toasted, buttery graham cracker crust, and slathered in fresh whipped cream… simply droolworthy. Because I have less baking experience than my neighbor’s 10 year old daughter, I turned to Martha Stewart, queen of baking made easy for the masses, for a recipe that I would have to work hard to mess up.

I didn’t. Mess it up I mean.

I may have promised to bring a piece to work for a coworker who loves the stuff as much as I do, but it has magically disappeared from my refrigerator. Next time I’ll make two so I have extra. Maybe three, just in case.

Key limes are miniscule little things that deliver barely enough juice to wet your fingers.

So you’d better set aside some squeezing time in your schedule, maybe take in an episode of Anthony Bourdain’s, No Reservations while you lovingly labor to squeeze out enough juice from a whole heap of key limes to get the ½ cup you will need for this recipe.

Use a microplane zester to get really finely grated zest.

You can grind up you own graham crackers in a food processor, but I just went ahead and bought a box of the pre-ground stuff. It worked just fine and dandy.

Key Lime Pie
Adapted from marthastewart.com

1 ½ cups graham cracker crumbs
6 tbsp unsalted butter, melted and cooled
5 tbsp sugar
1 14 oz can sweetened condensed milk
4 large egg yolks
½ cup freshly squeezed (bottled will work if you can’t find fresh) key lime juice
1 tablespoon finely grated key lime zest
Whipped cream (recipe follows)

Preheat oven to 375°F. Mix together the graham cracker crumbs, butter, and 3 tbsp sugar until completely combined. Press the crumbs into the bottom and sides of a 9 inch pie plate. Bake 10 minutes, or until lightly browned. Cool completely before using.
Preheat oven to 325°F. Whisk together the condensed milk, egg yolks, key lime juice, and zest. Pour into the crust and bake for about 15 minutes, or until the filling is set but still quivers when the pan is nudged. Cool completely before serving. Serve sliced with a dollop of whipped cream on top, or spread whipped cream over the pie before slicing and serving.

Whipped Cream

1 ½ cups heavy cream
2 tbsp sugar
½ tsp vanilla extract

Beat the cream, sugar and vanilla in a stand mixer or with a hand mixer until soft peaks form. Refrigerate until ready to use.

(Printable Recipe)

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Red White and Blueberry Shortcakes

Karen — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 02:22:12 +0000

I ♥ the 4th of July. I’ve only lived in the U.S. for about 4 years now, so the holiday is still all shiny and new for me. First of all, it’s summer. Second, people cook a ton of really good food and everybody wants to feed it to you wherever you go. And third, it’s legal to set off exploding objects that make fire in the sky and loud noises… in your own yard! What’s not to love?

Every 4th I try to blend in with the natives and make a dessert that’s red, white and blue. I know, I know, it’s totally kitchy but I just can’t help myself! This year a recipe for strawberry shortcakes on Smitten Kitchen caught my eye. So in the spirit of the holiday, I had to make it bigger, badder and red, white and bluer. No, this is not just because I wanted an excuse to have ice cream and strawberries. Honest.

Ice Cream and fresh berries. I could live on that. Well, maybe with some bread and cheese….oh and a good bottle of wine.

You can whip up the cream in advance and keep it in the refrigerator. Or you can head to the frozen whipped cream section of your grocery store and pick up a tub. I won’t tell.

I shaped the shortcakes in to triangles, but you can also use a cookie cutter or eyeball six equal portions and form them into biscuit shapes.

I used light brown sugar on the shorcakes and also in the strawberries for a different flavor. You can use regular granulated sugar if you like. This smells REALLY good in the oven, by the way.

Red, White and Blueberry Shortcakes
Adapted from Smitten Kitchen
Serves 6

1 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
31/2 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp baking powder
2 hard-boiled egg yolks
1/8 tsp salt
6 tbsp unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
2/3 cup heavy cream plus 1 tbsp to brush the tops of the shortcakes
1 tbsp light brown sugar

3 cups strawberries, washed and quartered
1 cup blueberries, washed
2 tbsp sugar
2 tbsp light brown sugar

1 ½ cups heavy cream
2 tbsp sugar
½ tsp vanilla extract

About 1 ½ cups french vanilla ice cream

The Berries

Mix the strawberries with the sugar and light brown sugar in bowl. Cover and refrigerate for half an hour. Stir mixture and refrigerate for another half hour, or until the strawberries have softened and released their juices. Wash the blueberries and set them aside.

The Whipped Cream

Beat the cream, sugar and vanilla in a stand mixer or with a hand mixer until soft peaks form. Refrigerate until ready to use.

The Shortcakes

Preheat the oven to 350. In a food processor, pulse the flour, sugar, baking powder, egg yolks, and salt until combined. Add the butter and pulse until the mixture resembles a coarse meal with some larger bits of butter. Add the cream and pulse until the dough just starts to form large clumps. Don’t over mix the dough.

On a floured work surface, form the dough into a ball shape and then flatten out into a rough disc with your hands. Using a knife or a pizza cutter, divide the dough into six equal sized triangles. Place triangles onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Brush the shortcakes with the reserved tablespoon of cream, and then sprinkle lightly with the brown sugar. If the dough has gotten too warm at this point, you can chill the shortcakes in the refrigerator for about 20 minutes.

Bake in the preheated oven for about 20 minutes or until lightly golden brown. Transfer to a rack and let the shortcakes cool completely (at least 20 minutes). While the shortcakes are cooling, take the ice cream out of the freezer and let it sit at room temperature to soften up a bit.

Assembly

Using a serrated knife, slice the triangles in half horizontally. Spoon some of the liquid the strawberries released over the bottom piece. Carefully spread a large scoop of ice cream over the bottom piece of shortcake. Top with strawberries, blueberries and a generous dollop of whipped cream. Place the other half of the shortcake on top.

Serve immediately (or hide in the basement and eat them all yourself).

(Printable Recipe)

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Let Them Eat Cake!

Karen — Fri, 22 May 2009 04:38:18 +0000

And so it begins….

My eldest daughter, fruit of my loins, joy of my heart, is obsessed with the Twilight book series. I should probably clarify that by saying she is obsessed with the male lead character, which means that my baby girl is now officially a “tween” and my life will never be the same (or sane) again. She recently celebrated her eleventh birthday, and I decided to bake her a cake. So I looked to the internet for my inspiration and I found it here, at sweetaustin.com . To those of you unfamiliar with the twilight series, my cake probably looks a little odd. Freakish even. The creepy reddish tinge to the photo doesn’t help either (New camera growing pains). But if you have read the books, you’ll get it. Or at least I hope you get it….

Morgan got it, and I got a few weeks worth of ”you’re the best mom ever” karma.

Time-saving tips:

Freeze your cake layers. Bake the layers in advance, wrap them up well in plastic wrap, and freeze. I did mine a week ahead and they were still moist and yummy. The frozen cakes layers are also waaaay easier to frost.
Make/buy a good buttercream frosting in advance. It lasts foreverish, so why rush at the last minute?
Frost the day before with a crumb coat. The crumb coat is the thin, sloppy, crumb filled first coat of frosting. Do this the day before, and refrigerate the cake (uncovered is fine) overnight. The next day the crumb coat will be crusted over (in a good way) and the cake will be a breeze to frost and decorate.
Do NOT store the uncovered cake in a fridge with peeled onions, fish, stinky gym socks, etc. Unless you want it to taste like peeled onions, fish, stinky gym socks, etc. Buttercream is a great refrigerator deodorizer; it absorbs bad odors and doesn’t let go.

Kid rating on the finished product: 4 thumbs up!

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