Poundcake Recipe to Try

Note to self – try this out sometime (but without the gross fake extracts)

http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2010/01/perfect-pound-cake/#recipe-form-41169

Brown Sugar Pound Cake

Now we’re talking. This was moist and buttery and delicious. The cake had a beautiful slightly chewy crust, just like the Sara Lee poundcakes where you can peel off that top layer – though this was WAY  yummier.

The brown sugar flavor was barely noticeable – would love to try this with dark brown sugar and see what happens.

Also, I baked in a silicone bundt and the yummy crust stuck to the bottom. Next time, I want to try buttering the bottom and sprinkling w/ granulated sugar + salt – one commenter claimed this prevents sticking and creates a nice shiny sheen.

I halved the recipe and used 3 eggs, light brown sugar, and a full tsp of vanilla.

Recipe originally found here: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe-Tools/Print/Recipe.aspx?recipeID=25973&origin=detail&servings=16&metric=false

INGREDIENTS:

2 cups light brown sugar 1 cup white sugar 1 1/2 cups butter 5 eggs 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 cup milk 3 cups all-purpose flour 1/2 teaspoon baking powder 1 cup chopped pecans

DIRECTIONS:

1.	Preheat oven to 325 degrees F (165 degrees C). Grease and flour a 10 inch tube pan. Mix together the flour and baking powder; set aside.
2.	In a large bowl, cream together the butter, brown sugar and white sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs one at a time, then stir in the vanilla. Beat in the flour mixture alternately with the milk, mixing just until incorporated. Sir in the chopped pecans. Pour batter into prepared pan.
3.	Bake in the preheated oven for 60 to 75 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. Let cool in pan for 10 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack and cool completely.

Moist Pound Cake

I halved the recipe to make one loaf instead of two. It turned fine – a little heavy, and nothing super exciting about it. But it did the trick for a basic pound cake. Pulled the recipe off of Chowhound:

Perfect Pound Cake

1 cup unsalted butter
1 teaspoon salt
3 cups granulated sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
*5 large eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup whipping cream

(Sift flour 3 times before measuring) – I definitely did not do this. I didn’t sift at all, let alone 3 times! Sheesh. I suppose that may explain the cake being on the heavier side, but I’d rather find a better recipe than waste time w/ all that sifting.

Butter and flour 2 9by5 inch loaf pans.

Whisk salt and baking powder into presifted flour. Set aside.

Cream butter and sugar together in an electric mixer until light, fluffy and almost white, 4 to 5 minutes, stopping mixer once or twice to scrape down sides. Add eggs one at a time slowly, beating well after each addition. Add one third of flour mixture into the mixer set at low speed. Add half the whipping cream. Continue alternating flour and cream, ending with flour. Add vanilla. With rubber spatula scrape down sides and bottom until completely mixed. Pour into loaf pans, up to 2/3 full.

**Start in a cold oven**.
Place pans on middle rack of oven. Turn oven to 325 degrees. Bake for 1 hour and 20 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean. (Note: It only took mine 55 minutes, so check early)

*You can also do a variation. You can add up to 7 eggs. Supposedly the 7 egg version is Elvis’s favorite pound cake.

Marshmallows!

Made a batch of homemade marshmallows following this recipe (more or less) – this was my first time trying  a recipe that involves egg whites, and I LOVED it. The creamier texture made for a much better experience in my book, roasted and un-roasted. 

 

http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Marshmallows-15797

• about 1 cup confectioners’ sugar
• 3 1/2 envelopes (2 tablespoons plus 2 1/2 teaspoons) unflavored gelatin
• 1/2 cup cold water
• 2 cups granulated sugar
• 1/2 cup light corn syrup
• 1/2 cup hot water (about 115°F.)
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 2 large egg whites*
• 1 teaspoon vanilla

preparation:

The instructions as written are kind of a pain in the butt unless you have two bowls for your mixer. I do not. So I did a little poking around and discovered an alternative technique that is a bit easier. Here’s what I did:

Oil bottom and sides of a 13- by 9- by 2-inch rectangular metal baking pan and dust bottom and sides with some confectioners’ sugar.

Combine sugar, corn syrup, hot water, and salt over low heat, stirring with a wooden spoon, until sugar is dissolved. Increase heat to moderate and boil mixture, without stirring, until a candy or digital thermometer registers 240°F. This takes awhile, so move on to the next two steps while the syrup is cooking.

In a separate small saucepan, dissolve gelatin in water over low heat. It will smell bad. Ignore this – it will be undetectable in the final product. (I read one review that said you don’t have to do this, you can just stir the gelatin in the hot syrup before dumping it into the egg whites – but I couldn’t find any other sources that verified that technique, so was too chicken to try it. Maybe next time.) Turn off heat once dissolved and set aside.

In your standing mixer, whip two egg whites til they hold stiff peaks. As soon as your sugar syrup registers 240, pour it into the egg whites in a steady stream while the mixer is going. (If your whites got weepy while waiting for the syrup to cook, give em a quick re-whip and get em good and fluffy again before adding the syrup.) Add the gelatin mixer. Whip away until the mixture is white, thick, voluminous, and tripled or so in volume.

Pour mixture into baking pan and sift 1/4 cup confectioners― sugar evenly over top. I like to use granulated instead b/c I love the contrasting texture. Doing that makes for a very crusty exterior, and an AWESOME brulee-esque coating when roasting these babies. Chill marshmallow, uncovered, until firm, at least 3 hours, and up to 1 day
.
Use  knife dipped generously in very hot water to cut into strips. You can use the same technique to finish cutting into cubes, or use kitchen shears dampened with hot water. I found the latter much easier. Toss to coat in more granulated or powdered sugar, or other coating of choice (sprinkles, crushed nuts, cocoa powder, etc.) Enjoy!

Note: if coating w/ granulated sugar, be very careful when you roast them. That brulee-esque exterior is SERIOUSLY hot when it first comes out of the fire, and can cause some very painful burns. It cools quickly, but make sure you give it enough time to do so before devouring.

 
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Salted Caramel Ice Cream

Holy crap. Easily the best thing that has come out my ice cream maker thus far. Though the cookies and cream w/ the custard base are a very very close second. Anyhow, here’s the link:

http://www.chow.com/recipes/11367-caramel-ice-cream

And the recipe:

INGREDIENTS

• 2 cups heavy cream
• 1 cup half-and-half
• 1 vanilla bean, split lengthwise, scraped, and seeds reserved
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 1/4 cup water
• 6 large egg yolks
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Prepare an ice water bath by filling a bowl halfway with ice and water; set aside. Combine cream, half-and-half, and vanilla seeds in a large bowl and set aside.
2. Combine sugar and water in a large saucepan and stir until mixture resembles wet sand. Place over medium-high heat and bring to a boil. Let boil until mixture turns dark amber in color and smells toasted, about 5 to 7 minutes. Immediately remove from heat and slowly add cream mixture, whisking until evenly incorporated. Return the saucepan to the stove and place over medium-low heat to keep warm.
3. Meanwhile, whisk egg yolks in a large bowl until pale yellow, about 5 minutes. Whisking constantly, slowly pour about 1 cup of the caramel sauce into the eggs. Pour the egg mixture back into the saucepan with the remaining caramel sauce, stir in salt, and cook over low heat, stirring constantly until it is as viscous as melted ice cream and coats the back of a spoon, about 5 minutes. (When you draw your finger across the spoon, it should make a mark through the custard, which should not run back in on itself.)
4. Remove from heat and strain through a fine mesh strainer into a large heatproof bowl. Place the bowl over the ice water bath to chill, about 10 to 15 minutes, stirring occasionally.
5. Once the ice cream base is cold, cover and place in the refrigerator to chill completely, at least 3 hours or overnight. Once it’s chilled, freeze in an ice cream maker according to the manufacturer’s instructions. The ice cream will keep in the freezer for 1 week.

It was phenomenal. Amazing flavor, unreal texture. Velvety and unctuous and smooth and rich and creamy and perfect. Next time I’ll be a little less generous w/ the sea salt. I eyeballed it and probably put in closer to 2 tsp than 1.  A little does go a long way w/ that stuff.

Also, I found the recipe in this thread on Chowhound: “Your Best Ice Cream Recipes.” Lots of great stuff to try here.

http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/696116

Cornbread.

Moist, sweet, simple, delicious. My hunt for the perfect cornbread is over. I made a half batch of this to accompany some freaking amazing chili made with leftovers by my new competitive BBQ friends. And it did it justice. Tonight’s batch was simple and plain – no corn kernels, no rosemary. I’m sure either would make a fantastic addition, but even the simple simon version was PHENOMENAL.

Here’s where I found the original recipe: http://dailydishrecipes.com/moist-sweet-cornbread-recipe/

My tweaks: I altered the dry ratio and did half finely-ground cornmeal, half flour. Sprinkled the top w/ flaky sea salt before putting in oven. Came out perfectly, though I think cutting back on the sugar a tad wouldn’t hurt. But here’s the recipe as I made it:

Ingredients

• 1 c. cornmeal
• 1 c. all-purpose flour
• 2/3 c. sugar
• 1 Tbs. baking powder
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1/3 c. vegetable oil
• 1/6 c. melted butter
• 1 Tbs. honey
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 1 1/4 c. whole milk

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees and grease a 8×8 inch baking dish. In a large mixing bowl, stir the cornmeal, flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt.
2. Pour in the vegetable oil, melted butter, honey, beaten eggs, and milk, and stir just until moistened.
3. Pour the batter into the greased baking dish and bake in 350 degree oven for 45 minutes. Watch the cornbread towards the end, you want it to be turning golden and starting to show some cracks.

Moving On…

One Little Indian is officially a project of the past. Thanks for reading!

You can follow me and my new blogging venture here: www.sipsandsweets.net (Sipping and sampling my way through DC’s coffeeshops, bakeries, and confectioneries – one review at a time.)

Hope to see you there soon!

-Alia

On Pizza Stones

In response to my earlier post on making homemade pizza with The Best Pizza Dough You Didn’t Make, my buddy and I got into an interesting discussion about pizza stones.  While our conversation centered mainly around topic number 4 below, I thought I’d share my entire collection of thoughts re: pizza stones for those who may be interested.

1. Why use one: Crispy, crunchy, gloriously crusty crusts! They do wonders for frozen, leftover, and fresh pizza alike.  They also work well for reheating soggy leftover sandwiches, burgers, french fries, etc.  A lot of people like to use them for baking cookies, biscuits, scones, etc. in order to achieve a lovely crusty bottom. Personally, I don’t like the idea of alternating between sweet and savory uses due to the residue that naturally collects on the stone, but that’s just me!

2. How to use one: To optimize effectiveness, you must do two things: preheat it and keep it naked. A cold stone is totally ineffective, so make sure the stone is already in the oven when you turn it on to preheat. (In fact, I just keep my stone in the oven on the bottom shelf all the time – it’s kind of heavy and cumbersome to keep having to move it around, and it does just fine hanging out in the oven). The second, yet equally crucial, component of effective stone usage is that your food must be placed directly on the surface of the hot stone. Do not place a layer of anything between your food the stone – no foil, no parchment paper, nada. You should lightly oil the stone the first few times you use it to prevent sticking (after the first few uses, the stone absorbs enough oil to where you won’t need to do this anymore). But otherwise, there should be not a blessed thing between your food and your stone. It has something to do with the magic of science and the hot porous stone sucking away excess moisture.

3.  Where to get one: I’ve been using this one (available on Amazon) since 2007 with great results. I bought my first one 4 years ago; it cracked after 3 years of residence in the bottom of my oven, and the identical version that I replaced it with is still going strong: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000297YAS/ref=wms_ohs_product_img_T2

4.  My thoughts on Alton Brown’s substitutes: Once upon a time, back when I was in law school, I watched an episode of Good Eats where Alton Brown recommended using an “unglazed quarry stone tile” as a cheap and easily accessible substitute to a storebought pizza stone. I promptly went to my neighborhood Home Depot to collect such a tile and test this theory out. Except…I couldn’t figure out which tile was the right kind of stone/slate/material. There were SO many types, and not a single one was called an “unglazed quarry stone tile.” Asking the employees yielded no illumination, especially when I made the mistake of telling them what I was using it for. I finally sort of just closed my eyes and picked one, brought it home, scrubbed it down, and tentatively tried to bake a little pizza on it. I honestly can’t tell you whether it turned out okay or not. All I remember is images flashing through my mind of the dirty, dusty piles of tiles at the hardware store where I’d gotten this one from. In the end, I was so freaked out by the idea of cooking with and eating off of something that had come from a dirty hardware storeroom, and that had never been intended (and therefore treated in any way) for use with food, that I just chucked it and called it a day. Since then, I’ve been using the $15-$20 iterations mentioned above with great results. So I say, why take the risk? Spend a few extra bucks and buy a stone that was intended, cleaned, and treated for cooking purposes. Not a chunk of rock (or, as Alton is apparently recommending nowadays, a piece of terra cotta pottery) that’s traveled through lord knows how many layers of dust, dirt, and grime from trucks, storerooms, and showroom floors, and been exposed to heaven only knows what sorts of chemicals and substances. I think peace of mind and a painless tummy are well worth the extra $14, don’t you?

Homemade Chocolate Pudding (aka The Jello-Killer)

Chocolate pudding is one of those things that always sounded like an amazing idea, but whenever I bought it, it never really lived up to its promise. It was always kinda goopy, not super flavorful, never quite as chocolatey or as creamy as it looked like it would be or seemed like it should be. And then, one fine day, I decided to make my own. And my world was forever changed.

Ok, maybe not my ENTIRE world, but definitely my sugar-oriented world! This stuff tastes AMAZING and is SO easy to whip up. It’s such a simple recipe that it really allows the chocolates (that’s right, it calls for more than one kind) to shine – hence its amazing flavor. This even puts the fancy farmers’ market stuff to shame!

Start by combining sugar, cornstarch, salt, and cocoa powder in a medium saucepan.

Next add one cup of milk, and whisk to combine. Once that’s all nice and slurry-like, add the remaining cup of milk and whisk until combined. Put over medium heat and cook, whisking constantly. At first it will feel just feel like you’re whisking milk, and will look like this:

But after a few minutes you’ll be able to feel it start to thicken up. Make sure you scrape the bottom and sides of the pan as you’re whisking, b/c the bits that thicken first tend to collect there. When it’s time to stop whisking, your mixture will look like this:

But wait! You’re not done yet, my friends. Next comes the part that really takes this recipe over the top: adding in the chocolate chunks. Take your pot off the heat and toss in the chocolate, like so…

And then whisk your little heart out until the chocolate has melted completely and all you’re left with is a smooth, creamy, dreamy pot full of delicious:

Allow it to cool for at least 30 min before serving – and that’s if you want it warm and goopy. (Nothing wrong with that!) For a sturdier, thicker pudding experience, chill the stuff for at least 30 minutes before devouring.

Chocolate Pudding (aka The Jello-Killer)

Ingredients:

3/4 cup white sugar
1/3 cup dutch cocoa powder*
3 tablespoons corn starch
1 teaspoon salt
2 cups milk**
1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate – chopped, chunks, or chips***

Instructions:

1. In a medium saucepan, combine sugar, cocoa powder, cornstarch, salt, and only 1 cup of the milk. Whisk until completely combined, then add second cup and whisk until completely combined (again). If you try and add in all the milk at once it will be a lot more difficult to get the dry and wet to combine thoroughly.

2. Once mixture is all whisked up, place pot over medium heat and keep on whisking. Whisk constantly, scraping sides and bottom of pan, until entire mixture has thickened to the consistency of a thin pudding.

3. Remove pot from heat. Add chocolate. Whisk until chocolate has melted completely.

4. To serve warm, cool at room temperature for approx. 30 min before serving. If serving chilled, chill for at least 30 minutes before serving.

*I prefer dutch cocoa powder for this recipe, but encourage you to experiment with regular cocoa powder and see which flavor you prefer.

**You can use milk of any fat-content here, from skim to heavy cream. I find that it turns out plenty tasty when I use skim, but have made it with cream before and it was ridiculously, richly divine.

***I find that semisweet chocolate provides the right balance of chocolatey-ness for this pudding, but you should definitely experiment with various levels and combinations of dark/light chocolate until you find your favorite.

Stop Making Mc-xcuses

Fantastic NYT Op-Ed piece debunking the myth that junk food is somehow cheaper than eating at home. The message here is clear: Americans need to stop making excuses and get in the kitchen. Cooking is cheaper, healthier, and with a little forethought can be just as convenient as driving through McDonald’s. I think this quote from the second page of the article sums things up perfectly:

“Real cultural changes are needed to turn this around. Somehow, no-nonsense cooking and eating— roasting a chicken, making a grilled cheese sandwich, scrambling an egg, tossing a salad — must become popular again, and valued not just by hipsters in Brooklyn or locavores in Berkeley. The smart campaign is not to get McDonald’s to serve better food but to get people to see cooking as a joy rather than a burden, or at least as part of a normal life.” (emphasis added)

Is Junk Food Really Cheaper?

By: Mark Bittman

Published: September 24, 2011

THE “fact” that junk food is cheaper than real food has become a reflexive part of how we explain why so many Americans are overweight, particularly those with lower incomes. I frequently read confident statements like, “when a bag of chips is cheaper than a head of broccoli …” or “it’s more affordable to feed a family of four at McDonald’s than to cook a healthy meal for them at home.”

Daniel Borris for The New York Times

This is just plain wrong. In fact it isn’t cheaper to eat highly processed food: a typical order for a family of four — for example, two Big Macs, a cheeseburger, six chicken McNuggets, two medium and two small fries, and two medium and two small sodas — costs, at the McDonald’s a hundred steps from where I write, about $28. (Judicious ordering of “Happy Meals” can reduce that to about $23 — and you get a few apple slices in addition to the fries!)

In general, despite extensive government subsidies, hyperprocessed food remains more expensive than food cooked at home. You can serve a roasted chicken with vegetables along with a simple salad and milk for about $14, and feed four or even six people. If that’s too much money, substitute a meal of rice and canned beans with bacon, green peppers and onions; it’s easily enough for four people and costs about $9. (Omitting the bacon, using dried beans, which are also lower in sodium, or substituting carrots for the peppers reduces the price further, of course.)

Another argument runs that junk food is cheaper when measured by the calorie, and that this makes fast food essential for the poor because they need cheap calories. But given that half of the people in this country (and a higher percentage of poor people) consume too many calories rather than too few, measuring food’s value by the calorie makes as much sense as measuring a drink’s value by its alcohol content. (Why not drink 95 percent neutral grain spirit, the cheapest way to get drunk?)

Besides, that argument, even if we all needed to gain weight, is not always true. A meal of real food cooked at home can easily contain more calories, most of them of the “healthy” variety. (Olive oil accounts for many of the calories in the roast chicken meal, for example.)In comparing prices of real food and junk food, I used supermarket ingredients, not the pricier organic or local food that many people would consider ideal. But food choices are not black and white; the alternative to fast food is not necessarily organic food, any more than the alternative to soda is Bordeaux.

The alternative to soda is water, and the alternative to junk food is not grass-fed beef and greens from a trendy farmers’ market, but anything other than junk food: rice, grains, pasta, beans, fresh vegetables, canned vegetables, frozen vegetables, meat, fish, poultry, dairy products, bread, peanut butter, a thousand other things cooked at home — in almost every case a far superior alternative.

“Anything that you do that’s not fast food is terrific; cooking once a week is far better than not cooking at all,” says Marion Nestle, professor of food studies at New York University and author of “What to Eat.” “It’s the same argument as exercise: more is better than less and some is a lot better than none.”

Continued at:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/25/opinion/sunday/is-junk-food-really-cheaper.html?pagewanted=1&smid=fb-share