Culinary Concoctions by Peabody

Apparently I am living life, well my food blogging life, through rose colored glasses. Or so I was told by one of my now ex-readers(they let me know they were un-bookmarking me). I pissed them off by deleting their negative comment. Why bother commenting if you can’t say something nice? If you don’t like it, move on. Sadly they have not moved on as I have learned they have gone around to other sites to bash me. Lovely. I think this world is filled with enough people bashing people that a little niceness in the world is a good thing. I have actually had a rash of negative comments in my moderated comment section in the last couple weeks. Sad really.
I find the food blogging community to be a positive one usually. If it had not been for people like Ivonne(Cream Puffs in Venice), Lis(La Mia Cucina) and Tanna(My Kitchen in Half Cups) leaving me nice little comments I probably would have stopped blogging by now. And they didn’t just encourage me, I see them spreading their food blogging love where ever they can….and I try to also as much I can(the food blogging world has expanded so much).
So, I am sorry that it will bother some people that I will be living my food blogging life through rose colored glasses, but food blogging is my happy time. I will keep them on as I head over to look at great food porn from Bea(La Tartine Gourmande), Jen(Use Real Butter) or Meeta(What’s for Lunch, Honey?) and many, many others. I will leave keep them on as I head over to Kristen’s(Kristen’s Home Cooking) and Veronica’s(Veronica’s Test Kitchen) to look at what I would love to make for dinner instead of the sloppy Joe I will no doubt make for my husband(per his request). And I will keep them I visit fellow pastry lovers Helen(Tartelette), Anita(Dessert First) and Lynn(Cookie Baker Lynn).
No worries, I will get my dose of reality when I turn on the news or get emails from friends in Iraq and Afghanistan. Which is why I’m being a bad person by only accepting nice comments.
And now enough rambling and on to the food….

Sure it is a humble looking pound cake. Nothing that says wow factor by any means and yet this little pound cake caused a phenomenon that had never happened. I have cooked/baked for my hubby now for well over four years now and for the first time my hubby came in and said, “what are you cooking? That smells wonderful!” Now, he compliments me after he has tasted the food, but never has he commented about it beforehand. “Banana Chocolate Chip Pound Cake,” was my reply. And with that he walked out of the room.
I must say it did smell particularly wonderful, permeating the whole house. Perhaps it was because my bananas were about as ripe as you can get before crossing over into rotten. Perhaps it was the addition of Mascarpone cheese, which is what drew me to the recipe. Who knows. I do know what we got was an amazingly moist, fragrant pound cake that my husband and I  have had several pieces of…and will probably  have several pieces more. I did nothing else to the pound cake. No glaze, no sugar, no drizzle of chocolate. All of these things you could surely do, but I liked it all by itself…and so did my husband.

Banana Pound Cake

2 ¼ cups all-purpose flour
1 TBSP baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
¼ tsp salt
½ cup sour cream
½ cup mascarpone cheese
6 ounce unsalted butter, at room temperature
½ tsp ground cinnamon
1 cup sugar
2 large eggs
2 fully ripe bananas, pureed
¾ cup mini chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350F. Grease and flour a 9-x-5-3-inch loaf pan.
Sift flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt into a medium bowl and set aside. Combine the sour cream and mascarpone cheese in a small bowl and set aside.
Using a standing mixer fitted with a paddle attachment beat the butter with the cinnamon on high speed until soft and creamy, about 1 minute. Slowly add the sugar, 1 TBSP at a time, beating continuously on high speed. It should take 5 to 10 minutes to add the sugar. The mixture should be light, fluffy and creamy white in color. Stop the mixer and scrape down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula.
Add the eggs, one at a time. Be sure each egg is completely incorporated and scrape down the sides of the bowl before adding the next.
Add one third of the flour mixture to the batter and beat until it is just incorporated. Add one third of the mascarpone cheese mixture and mix until just incorporated. Add the flour and mascarpone mixture in two more additions, mixing until addition is incorporated before adding the next. Fold in the bananas and chocolate chips.
Pour the batter into prepared pan. Bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes. Cool in the pan on a rack for 5-10 minutes, then remove from pan and set on rack to cool. Serve warm or at room temperature. Will keep for one week in fridge or 3 weeks in freezer.

Source: Adapted from The Secrets of Baking by Sherry Yard

When we were asked by Sandra of Un Tocco di Zenzero and Zorra of Kochtopf to pick our favorite recipe of 2007 I knew exactly the recipe to pick.
The Snickerdoodle Muffins which eventually became to be known in the food blogging community as the Refund Muffin(which you can also see here, here and here). Who knew a muffin would cause controversy?:)
I still love these muffins for how moist they are with a hint of tang and the sweetness of the crunchy outside. It’s still the muffin I make the most. It’s still the recipe I get the most emails about how people tried it and loved it…well minus that one person.
So there you have it. What I feel was my best recipe of the year. If you are a regular reader, would you agree with my pick?

I’m sure there was some point in your life when you got THAT gift. Not the gift that made you swoon, the one that made you scratch your head. And if you were still young, the one that made you live in fear because you know your mom was going to make you wear it out at least once while that relative was visiting. Now I have had a few of these, but we shall focus on my grandmother’s gift to me one year. Glow in the dark earmuffs.
Excellent.
I am 16 years old and I live in Phoenix Arizona where earmuffs are used all the time. And if I wasn’t going to look like an idiot enough, they glow in the dark that way if anyone missed me looking like a moron in broad daylight, they still got the chance to make fun of me at night.
Some years though you get gifts that make you say YAY.  This year I got a pre-Christmas gift from my Mother-In-Law to use in my holiday baking.
10 pounds of gorgeous Georgia pecans. That’s right, 10 pounds.
Pecans being my favorite of the baking nuts I quickly pulled out recipes that I had but never make because I don’t want to go out and buy all those nuts(so stinking expensive sometimes). So when I got them the first thing I wanted to make was Honey-Pecan Squares. Rich buttery base, similar to a shortbread. And a candylike topping studded with pecans. With 4 sticks of butter they are far from diet. So if you are one of the millions of people who will be giving up food that tastes good for the first 2 ½ months of the year you better make these quick or wait until March when you fall of the diet bandwagon.

Honey-Pecan Squares

For the Base:

8 ounces unsalted butter(2 sticks), at room temperature
½ cup granulated sugar
1 egg
¼ tsp salt
3 cups all-purpose flour

1.Cream together the butter and sugar, about 3 minutes. Add egg and beat for 1 minutes. Scrape down the sides. And beat an additional 30 seconds. Add the salt and flour and mix at medium-low speed until combined and dough holds together.
2.Grease two 8-x-8-inch pans. Divide dough evenly among both pans. Press dough into the pan, making sure there are no cracks(the filling will leak through otherwise). Chill in the freezer for 20 minutes.
3.Preheat oven to 350f.
4.After 20 minutes, remove pan from freezer and blind bake it for 15 minutes.  Set aside and prepare filling.

For the Filling:

8 ounces unsalted butter(2 sticks)
½ cup honey(I used clover)
¼ cup granulated sugar
1 cup firmly packed brown sugar
¼ cup heavy cream
5 cups pecans, chopped or whole

1. In a saucepan, melt the butter.
2. Add the honey, granulated sugar and brown sugar. Bring this to a boil. Boil for 2 minutes.
3. Remove pan from heat and stir in cream and then fold in pecans.
4.Divide filling among both pans, simply pouring the filling onto the pastry base.
5.Bake for approximately 25 minutes(still at 350F)
6.Cool bars completely and then cut into squares. How many squares you get depends on how large you cut them. Keep in mind they are rich.

A few years back now I got a gift. A beautiful box from a local Chocolatier all wrapped in festive wear. I went home secretly hoping they were caramels, only to open them up and find a chocolate Nativity scene…baby Jesus and all. I thought to myself, �What the @#$%? Who on Earth would eat a chocolate baby Jesus?� But apparently they are the biggest seller there around Christmas time.

And thus leads me to a phenomenon that I don’t quite understand….making food look like something real. I’m in favor of it when the food looks like food, ie a pumpkin cake made into the shape of a pumpkin…makes sense. But when we start making it in to animals, cars, people is where you start to lose me(exception being I love all food shaped like Mickey Mouse…some sort of childhood thing I guess).

Which brings me to the Yule Log. Now I will admit that I don’t really know the story behind it and I am to busy/lazy to look that up right now. But however it was invented, I’m sure large quantities of beer were consumed. Because really, how many times have you been walking into the forest and seen a log and thought, Damn I wish I could eat that wooden log. Or better yet…you wish you could eat that wooden log covered in fungus! So why the appeal of taking a cake and making it look like a wooden log caught on is beyond me…but then again I won’t eat a chocolate baby Jesus.

So when our founding Mothers, Ivonne(Cream Puffs in Venice) and Lis(La Mia Cucina) picked a Yule Log, I could do nothing but laugh. I should have known it would have been picked, it’s Christmas time, and they can often be a challenge..in this case a Daring Baker Challenge. Getting pass the fact that logs are for putting your butt on when you go camping and sit around a fire, the cake that was selected is actually very tasty.

For most people the biggest challenge is rolling the log. Mine did crack at the end…that is what frosting is for. I chose to add orange zest to my cake, but we could have added whatever flavor we wanted. The buttercream gave many a person a reason to swear. I have made this type of buttercream many a time so I did not have issue with it. I did add both chocolate and Grand Marnier to my buttercream. It was good. Good. Good. Good. I ate like 5 TBSP of it for lunch instead of something real. I chose to make mini meringue fungus…I mean mushrooms. They take the same amount of time to bake but way less time to dry out. I had hoped to find a small chainsaw to hack into my cake at dinner, you know for effect, but sadly no, I was left with just a cake knife. So much for realism.

Be sure to check the Daring Baker Blogroll so you can see what the other 300 and something DBer’s came up with! And please this year, if someone gives you a chocolate Nativity scene, try not to eat the baby Jesus…it is his birthday after all.

Yule Log

(from Perfect Cakes by Nick Malgieri and The Williams-Sonoma Collection: Dessert)

Recipe Quantity: Serves 12

Cake should be stored in a cool, dry place. Leftovers should be refrigerated

Recipes:

Plain Genoise:

3 large eggs

3 large egg yolks

pinch of salt

3/4 cup of sugar

1/2 cup cake flour - spoon flour into dry-measure cup and level off (also known as cake & pastry flour)

1/4 cup cornstarch

zest of 1 orange

one (1) 10 x 15 inch jelly-roll pan that has been buttered and lined with parchment paper and then buttered again

1.Set a rack in the middle of the oven and preheat to 400 degrees F.

2.Half-fill a medium saucepan with water and bring it to a boil over high heat. Lower the heat so the water is simmering.

3.Whisk the eggs, egg yolks, salt and sugar together in the bowl of a heavy-duty mixer. Place over the pan of simmering water and whisk gently until the mixture is just lukewarm, about 100 degrees if you have a thermometer (or test with your finger - it should be warm to the touch).

4.Attach the bowl to the mixer and, with the whisk attachment, whip on medium-high speed until the egg mixture is cooled (touch the outside of the bowl to tell) and tripled in volume. The egg foam will be thick and will form a slowly dissolving ribbon falling back onto the bowl of whipped eggs when the whisk is lifted. Fold in orange zest.

5.While the eggs are whipping, stir together the flour and cornstarch.

6.Sift one-third of the flour mixture over the beaten eggs. Use a rubber spatula to fold in the flour mixture, making sure to scrape all the way to the bottom of the bowl on every pass through the batter to prevent the flour mixture from accumulating there and making lumps. Repeat with another third of the flour mixture and finally with the remainder.

7.Scrape the batter into the prepared pan and smooth the top.

8.Bake the genoise for about 10 to 12 minutes. Make sure the cake doesn�t overbake and become too dry or it will not roll properly.

9.While the cake is baking, begin making the buttercream.

10.Once the cake is done (a tester will come out clean and if you press the cake lightly it will spring back), remove it from the oven and let it cool on a rack.

Chocolate Orange Coffee Buttercream:

4 large egg whites

1 cup sugar

24 tablespoons (3 sticks or 1-1/2 cups) unsalted butter, softened

1 tablespoons instant espresso powder

2 tablespoons Grand Marnier

1/4 cup cocoa powder

1/3 cup melted chocolate, cooled

1.Whisk the egg whites and sugar together in the bowl of an electric mixer. Set the bowl over simmering water and whisk gently until the sugar is dissolved and the egg whites are hot.

2.Attach the bowl to the mixer and whip with the whisk on medium speed until cooled. Switch to the paddle and beat in the softened butter and continue beating until the buttercream is smooth. Dissolve the instant coffee in the liquor and beat into the buttercream. Add cocoa powder and chocolate, beat until fully incorporated.

Meringue Mushrooms:

3 large egg whites, at room temperature

1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar

1/2 cup (3-1/2 ounces/105 g.) granulated sugar

1/3 cup (1-1/3 ounces/40 g.) icing sugar

Unsweetened cocoa powder for dusting

1.Preheat the oven to 225 degrees F. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment. Have ready a pastry bag fitted with a small (no. 6) plain tip. In a bowl, using a mixer on medium-low speed, beat together the egg whites and cream of tartar until very foamy. Slowly add the granulated sugar while beating. Increase the speed to high and beat until soft peaks form when the beaters are lifted. Continue until the whites hold stiff, shiny peaks. Sift the icing sugar over the whites and, using a rubber spatula, fold in until well blended.

2.Scoop the mixture into the bag. On one baking sheet, pipe 48 stems, each � inch (12 mm.) wide at the base and tapering off to a point at the top, 3/4 inch (2 cm.) tall, and spaced about 1/2 inch (12 mm.) apart. On the other sheet, pipe 48 mounds for the tops, each about 1-1/4 inches (3 cm.) wide and 3/4 inch (2 cm.) high, also spaced 1/2 inch (12 mm.) apart. With a damp fingertip, gently smooth any pointy tips. Dust with cocoa. Reserve the remaining meringue.

3.Bake until dry and firm enough to lift off the paper, 50-55 minutes. Set the pans on the counter and turn the mounds flat side up. With the tip of a knife, carefully make a small hole in the flat side of each mound. Pipe small dabs of the remaining meringue into the holes and insert the stems tip first. Return to the oven until completely dry, about 15 minutes longer. Let cool completely on the sheets.