Macarons – October’s Daring Baker’s Challenge October 27, 2009

The 2009 October Daring Bakers’ challenge was brought to us by Ami S. She chose macarons from Claudia Fleming’s The Last Course: The Desserts of Gramercy Tavern as the challenge recipe.

Most macaroons I’ve known contain coconut, but these aren’t your typical Italian  macaroon.  They are  French-style Macarons.  Instead of coconut, the ‘cookie’ part of this macaron contains almond flour, sugar and egg whites.  They come out as a more chewy cookie with a nice outer layer of crispness.  I used the same frosting recipe that I made for September’s Daring Baker’s Challenge here,  to fill these little things up.  The result, delicious!  I thought they were best after they sat in the fridge for a few hours, but eaten at room temperature, that way the buttercream had time to set.  Otherwise, when you bit into them right after being filled, the buttercream seemed to ooze right out. 

I’ll be honest with you and tell you that it took me two tries to make this cookie.  The first time I didn’t get the ‘feet’, that you should see in the picture, on the bottom of my cookie.  The reason was because I measured the ingredients by weight instead of measuring cups, last time I do that.  So I was pretty excited to see my ‘feet’ on this second batch of cookies.

Macarons

Ingredients:

Confectioners’ (Icing) sugar: 2 ¼ cups (225 g, 8 oz.)
Almond flour: 2 cups (190 g, 6.7 oz.)
Granulated sugar: 2 tablespoons (25 g , .88 oz.)
Egg whites: 5 (Have at room temperature)

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 200°F (93°C). Combine the confectioners’ sugar and almond flour in a medium bowl. If grinding your own nuts, combine nuts and a cup of confectioners’ sugar in the bowl of a food processor and grind until nuts are very fine and powdery.
2. Beat the egg whites in the clean dry bowl of a stand mixer until they hold soft peaks. Slowly add the granulated sugar and beat until the mixture holds stiff peaks.
3. Sift a third of the almond flour mixture into the meringue and fold gently to combine. If you are planning on adding zest or other flavorings to the batter, now is the time. Sift in the remaining almond flour in two batches. Be gentle! Don’t overfold, but fully incorporate your ingredients.
4. Spoon the mixture into a pastry bag fitted with a plain half-inch tip (Ateco #806). You can also use a Ziploc bag with a corner cut off. It’s easiest to fill your bag if you stand it up in a tall glass and fold the top down before spooning in the batter.
5. Pipe one-inch-sized (2.5 cm) mounds of batter onto baking sheets lined with nonstick liners (or parchment paper).
6. Bake the macaroon for 5 minutes. Remove the pan from the oven and raise the temperature to 375°F (190°C). Once the oven is up to temperature, put the pans back in the oven and bake for an additional 7 to 8 minutes, or lightly colored.
7. Cool on a rack before filling.

Yield: 10 dozen. Ami’s note: My yield was much smaller than this. I produced about two dozen filled macaroons.

Crockpot Garlic Smashed Red Potatoes October 26, 2009

Have you ever made mashed potatoes in your crockpot?  I haven’t…up until now, and I think I’m going to do it again and again.  I found this recipe at A Recipe a Day by Nancy.  Super quick, super easy.  I started my Sunday morning chopping up the potatoes and garlic and tossing them into the crockpot.  After church, I started mashing and adding the remaining ingredients and kept them hot in the crockpot until dinner time.  The family loved these.  My husband mentioned that he felt like he was eating at an up-scale restaurant when he ate them, along with one of his favorites, blackened bone-in pork chop.  Hey, it was his birthday, he deserved a good dinner!

I doubled the below recipe and the potatoes fed 8 adults plus about 4-5 more servings of leftovers.

Crockpot Garlic Smashed Red Potatoes

3 lbs red potatoes

4 garlic cloves, minced

2 Tbsp olive oil

1 tsp salt

1/2 cup water

1/2 cup cream cheese with chives and onions (from 8 oz tub)

1/4-1/2 cup milk – I used full amount, don’t want those potatoes too dry, although you don’t want them runny either…

Halve or quarter potatoes as necessary to make similar size pieces.  Place in a 4 to 6 quart crockpot.  Ad garlic, oil, salt and water; mix well to coat all potato pieces.  Cover and cook on high for 3-1/2 to 4-1/2 hours or until potato pieces are tender.

With a fork or potato masher, mash potatoes and garlic.  Stir in cream cheese until well blended.  Stir in enough milk for soft serving consistency.

Serve immediately, or cover and hold in slow cooker on low for up to 2 hours.

Save any leftovers and reheat in the microwave the next day, adding milk if needed.

Serves 4-6

Recipe from Nancy at A Recipe a Day

***I’m very hesitant to put up a picture of these potatoes ONLY because I took them when they were cold, they look kind of dryish in the picture, and that’s why you add more milk when you reheat the leftovers!***

Birthday Cake with Chocolate Frosting October 22, 2009

Someone in the family had a birthday, and it wasn’t me…so of course I had to make a birthday cake.  My Snickers Cheesecake was actually requested but due to time and ingredient constraints, that wasn’t possible.  I decided to try Smitten Kitchen’s  Best Yellow Layer Cake.  I liked the cake a lot.  The frosting…was ok.  It was probably the type of chocolate I used, I think I would have used more semi-sweet chocolate than bittersweet next time, if I decide to make it again.  Or it could have been the other ingredients.  If you don’t like a real sweet frosting, this may be the recipe your looking for!

Best Yellow Layer Cake

4 cups plus 2 Tbsp cake flour (or all purpose)

2 tsp baking powder

1 1/2 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

2 sticks (1 cup) unsalted butter, softened

2 cups sugar

2 tsp pure vanilla extract

4 large eggs, at room temp.

2 cups buttermilk, well-shaken

Preheat oven to 350°F. Butter two 9-inch round cake pans (one 10-inch  class=”hiddenSpellError” pre=”10-inch “>springform) and line with circles of parchment paper, then butter parchment. (Alternately, you can use a cooking spray, either with just butter or butter and flour to speed this process up.)

Sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a medium bowl. In a large mixing bowl, beat butter and sugar in a large bowl with an electric mixer at medium speed until pale and fluffy, then beat in vanilla. Add eggs 1 at a time, beating well and scraping down the bowl after each addition. At low speed, beat in buttermilk until just combined (mixture will look curdled). Add flour mixture in three batches, mixing until each addition is just Incorporated.

Spread batter evenly in cake pan, then rap pan on counter several times to eliminate air bubbles.  Bake until golden and a wooden pick inserted in center of cake comes out clean, 35 to 40 minutes (45-55 min. in 10 inch springform). Cool in pan on a rack 10 minutes, then run a knife around edge of pan. Invert onto rack and discard parchment, then cool completely, about 1 hour.

Chocolate Sour Cream Frosting

 Makes 5 cups of frosting, enough to frost and fill a two layer 9-inch cake

15 oz semisweet or bittersweet chocolate, chopped (I used 9 oz bittersweet and 6 oz semisweet)

1 1/4 tsp instant espresso (opt, but brings out chocolate flavor)

2 1/4 cups sour cream, at room temp

1/4 to 1/2 cup light corn syrup

3/4 tsp vanilla extract

Combine the chocolate and espresso powder, if using, in the top of a double-boiler or in a heatproof bowl over simmering water. Stir until the chocolate is melted. (Alternately, you can melt the chocolate in a microwave for 30 seconds, stirring well, and then heating in 15 second increments, stirring between each, until the chocolate is melted.) Remove from heat and let chocolate cool until tepid.

Whisk together the sour cream, 1/4 cup of the corn syrup and vanilla extract until combined. Add the tepid chocolate slowly and stir quickly until the mixture is uniform. Taste for sweetness, and if needed, add additional corn syrup in one tablespoon increments until desired level of sweetness is achieved.

Let cool in the refrigerator until the frosting is a spreadable consistency. This should not take more than 30 minutes. Should the frosting become too thick or stiff, just leave it out until it softens again

Recipe from Smitten Kitchen

Crockpot Italian Beef October 18, 2009

As promised, here is another crockpot recipe.  Another easy meal that you put together in the morning or night before, start it up in the morning and sit down to dinner that night without spending a ton of time in the kitchen.  The recipe came from the Bethel C.R.C.’s Mops cookbook (my mom’s church). 

Italian Beef in Crock Pot

1 envelope dry onion soup mix

1 tsp oregano

1 tsp red pepper flakes (or less if you don’t like a nice amount of spice to your foods)

1 tsp basil

1 tsp dried parsley

1 clove garlic, minced

3/4 cup water

3 lb english roast

Combine soup mix, oregano, red pepper, basil, parsley, garlic and water in the crockpot.  Place roast on top of mixture.  Cover and cook on all day, according to your crockpot options.  Shred the last hour or when you get home and let simmer in juice.  Serve on Italian rolls.

Pizza Casserole October 8, 2009

It’s that time of year again, to start getting out those casserole and crockpot recipes!  I really wished I took more advantage of my crockpot.   I’ve used it twice in the last two weeks (which is a lot for me) and it has been wonderful coming home to my kitchen that smells like someone has been cooking in it all day AND dinner practically already on the table after a long day at work.  You want to know what I made?  Well, the first was White Chicken Chili the second…you’ll have to come back to find out soon!

Back to my pizza casserole.  I kind of threw some stuff together for this one.  I looked at a few of my church cookbooks that had similar recipes but didn’t follow one to the T.  It was good, I liked it.  I think my husband’s (soon to be daddy!) taste buds got confused with the pepperoni taste, but he ate it :)

Pizza Casserole

Serves 5-6

8 oz Whole Wheat Wide Egg Noodles

1-2 jars Spaghetti Sauce

1 lb ground beef

Pepperoni, chopped up

Mozzerella Cheese

Onion, diced – Optional

Brown ground beef and onion; drain fat and add chopped pepperoni. 

Cook pasta according to directions on your box, drain. 

Mix the spaghetti sauce with the cooked ground beef mixture and add the pasta, mixing thoroughly.  Dump into a 8×8 or larger dish and spread desired amount of cheese over the top. 

Cook at 350 for 30-40 minutes or until cooked through.