Culinary Concoctions by Peabody

Several of my friends started doing a little craze that has been going around the Internet for awhile. Perhaps you have heard of it….101 things in 1001 days. The concept of it is to make a list of 101 thing you would like to accomplish in 1001 days. Now they do not all have to be big accomplishments. It could be as simple as finish reading that book you never did, going to a museum you have never gone to, eating something  you have never had or alphabetizing your spice rack. Then of course you have your big things like going to Tahiti, learning to sky dive or getting your masters degree. The options are limitless as you can imagine.
I, I am not a goal setter. Never have been. Too lazy. I mean sure, I have over all goals that I have in the back of my mind but really…no goals. This is why I am not on TV doing infomercials at 2 am telling you how to get ahead in the world. Instead, I bake cakes. And cookies. Bread and what not. If I had goals, I doubt I would have time to do that, as I would be too busy trying to accomplish things instead of simply baking. And really, who wants that?
However, I do have these friends that made these lists and seem to insist on actually fulfilling them. My good friend A is one of them. I already helped her by letting her make a birthday cake for me. You might recall I posted about how no one will ever bake for me and so I always have to bake my own birthday cake. So A stepped up and made me a great birthday cake. Now, I am not goal oriented but I am all for helping out those type “A” people who are. In case you were wondering, I am a type “B-” personality.
One of A’s goals was to eat a kumquat. She asked if I ever made anything with them, and I had but really not that often…too much work for such a small fruit. But alas she turned to me in her tiny citrus fruit time of need. What I found were these Tangerine Kumquat Cookies(I know, again with the tangerine). They come from The Good Cookie by Tish Boyle, which is a wealth of cookie goodness. The only actually kumquat part was a candied one. You do the candying. The rest of the cookie is pretty much a tangerine scented butter cookie. Me not being a fan of the kumquat just simply ate the cookie part only.
A was more than appreciative and seemed to eat quite a few. I’m not sure if she is sold on the world kumquats, but at least it is one more thing off her list. Next up, Tahiti(for real…she is going…be jealous, I am).
As for me, my goal is simple….get to bed before 2 am and actually fall asleep before  3 am tonight. Wish me luck!

Tangerine Kumquat Rounds

Kumquat Slices:
15 kumquats, rinsed and dried
1 cup water
1 cup granulated sugar
2 TBSP light corn syrup

Make the Kumquat Slices:

Line a baking sheet with aluminum foil.
Using a small sharp knife, cut ¼ inch off the ends of each kumquat. Cut the kumquats crosswise into 1/8-inch slices. Remove the sees as you slice the kumquats.
In a small saucepan, combine the water, sugar and the corn syrup. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat, stirring just until the sugar is dissolved. Add the kumquat slices, reduce to a simmer, and simmer until they are translucent and tender, about 20 minutes.
Increase the heat to high and cook the syrup until it registers 220F on a candy thermometer. Immediately remove from the pan the heat. Drain the kumquats, discarding the syrup. Using a spoon, carefully transfer the slices to the lined baking sheet, making sure they do not touch. Let cool while you make the cookies.

Tangerine Cookies

2 cups all-purpose flour
½ tsp baking powder
 ¼ tsp slat
1 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
½ cup confectioners’ sugar
1 tsp finely grated tangerine zest

Make the Dough:
Sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt into a medium bowl. Whisk to blend and set aside.
In the bowl of and electric mixer, using  the paddle attachment, beat the butter and sugar at medium=high speed until smooth. Beat in the zest and vanilla. At low speed, gradually add the flour mixture, mixing until the dough starts to come together in large clumps. Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes, or until firm enough to roll.

Cut Out and Bake the Cookies:
Position rack in the center of the oven and preheat to 350F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.
Place the dough on a lightly floured surface. Using a rolling pin, roll out the dough into a thickness of 1/8 inch. Using a  1 ¾ -inch fluted cookie cutter, cut out as many rounds as possible and arrange them an inch apart on prepared cookie sheet. Gather up scraps and reuse them to make more cookies.
Place candied kumquat slice on top of each cookie and sprinkle with coarse sugar. Bake cookies, one sheet at a time, for 9 to 11 minutes, until they are set and golden brown on the bottom. Transfer the cookies to a wire rack and cool completely.

Adapted from The Good Cookie by Tish Boyle, 2002

My husband teases that I should have a whole other website called “Ask Peabody”, for I get many an email each day asking me a variety of baking and cooking questions.
Some are quick and easy. Like, can I make this cake into a cupcake and how long should I bake them for if I can.
Some are tricky. Like, we ate at the restaurant and had this great Sea Bass with a yellow sauce. What do you think was in the sauce? Ummm, yeah, I’m going to need a little more than that.
I try and help a lot of people figure out “family” recipes that they only know the ingredients to but not the actual measurements. Sometimes I am helpful, sometimes not.
Sometimes people ask me about recipes on my blog. The really hard ones are when they ask me to remember recipes from 2 ½ years ago. My brain simply doesn’t work that well. So I have to go back and desperately try to remember what I did. I mean I have the recipe but they ask me to remember what the texture was and what not. Sometimes I just can’t.
If I think I can help, I try. If I know it wont be possible, I tell them so. Sometimes people don’t take that well. I just want to remind people I do this for free…so if I can’t help, please don’t take it out on me that I can not recreate the meal you had with your husband 16 years ago at a restaurant that no longer exists.
One woman, Michelle, whom I hope this is helping asked me a long while ago if I could help recreate a Bailey’s Irish Cream Caramel that they had bought but no longer had. Through a series of emails, I think/hope I have come somewhat close to what she was looking for. If not, it is still good.
Sorry this took forever Michelle, life has been a blur as of late.
I also made a Chocolate Bailey’s Pound Cake to go with it.
Hope this is what you were looking for.
If you have a question, feel free to “Ask Peabody”, just remember, I can only do so much.

Chocolate Bailey’s Pound Cake

½ cup unsalted butter
1 cup shortening
3 cups sugar
5 eggs
4 heaping tsp cocoa powder
1 tsp baking powder
3 cups sifted cake flour
½ tsp salt
1 cup milk
3 TBSP Bailey’s Irish Cream
1 tsp vanilla

Preheat oven to 325F. Cream the butter, shortening, and sugar well. Beat in the eggs. Sift the dry ingredients together. Beat the flour mixture, 1 part at a time, into the butter mixture, alternating with the milk, until just blended. Add the vanilla and Irish Cream and mix. Pour into a greased 8-inch tube pan lined with waxed paper(I skipped that part). Bake for 1 ½ hour.
Serves 16-20

Adapted from Mrs. Wilkes’ Boardinghouse Cookbook

Bailey’s Caramel Topping

2 cups sugar
½ cup water
1 ½ TBSP light corn syrup
1/2 cup heavy cream plus 1 TBSP
1/8 cup Bailey’s Irish Cream plus 1 TBSP
2 TBSP unsalted butter, at room temperature

To make the topping:
Put the sugar, water and corn syrup in a medium heavy bottomed saucepan, stir just to combine the ingredients and then put the pan over medium-high heat. Heat, without stirring , until the caramel turns deep amber, 5-10 minutes. Combine Bailey’s(1/8 cup) and Cream together. Take the pan off of the heat and, standing back from the saucepan add the cream mixture and butter. When the spatters are less vehement, stir to calm down the caramel and dissolve any lumps. Add in the 1 TBSP of Bailey’s and whisk until incorporated.

Adapted from Baking From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan

Top cake with caramel and some whipped cream(perhaps spiked with Bailey’s).

Well, I almost didn’t get this one done. But fortunately for me Leigh of Lemon Tartlet chose a recipe that takes little time to prepare and only 13 minutes to bake. Good thing or my April Fool’s Joke would have been that I was the fool that didn’t bother to get her baking done.
The thing I love most about Tuesdays with Dorie is that I have a lot more freedom than I usually do with the Daring Bakers(though this last pick was great with variety…did you see all the different things people did!). This recipe called for bittersweet chocolate and well, I really was wanting milk chocolate, which is actually out of character for me. But milk chocolate is what I went with. You were also suppose to sprinkle finely chopped chocolate on top of the cakes. Didn’t do that either. Mine got powdered sugar and raspberry sauce(from Fran’s Chocolates).
I guess I baked mine the correct time because they were indeed gooey in the middle. You really do need to eat these right after you bake them, though I will be finding out tonight if they reheat very well.
Quick, easy and some gooey goodness.
For more gooey cakes go here.

Gooey Chocolate Cake

1/3 cup all-purpose flour
3 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
¼ teaspoon salt
4 ounces coarsely chopped milk chocolate,
1 stick (8 tablespoons) unsalted butter, cut into 8 pieces
2 large eggs, at room temperature
1 large egg yolk, at room temperature
6 tablespoons of sugar
Getting ready: Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. butter (or spray – it’s easier) 6 cups of a regular-size muffin pan, preferably a disposable aluminum foil pan, dust the insides with flour and tap out the excess. Put the muffin pan on a baking sheet.
Sift the flour, cocoa and salt together.
Set a heatproof bowl over a saucepan of gently simmering water, put the coarsely chopped chocolate and the butter in the bowl and stir occasionally over the simmering water just until they are melted – you don’t want them to get so hot that the butter separates.  Remove the bowl from the pan of water.
In a large bowl, whisk the eggs and yolk until homogeneous.  Add the sugar and whisk until well blended, about 2 minutes.  Add the dry ingredients and, still using the whisk, stir (don’t beat) them into the eggs.  Little by little, and using a light hand, stir in the melted chocolate and butter.  Divide the batter evenly among the muffin cups.

Bake the cakes for 13 minutes.  Transfer them, still on the baking sheet, to a rack to cool for 3 minutes. (There is no way to test that these cakes are properly baked, because the inside remains liquid.)
Line a cutting board with a silicone baking mat or parchment or wax paper, and, after the 3-minute rest, unmold the cakes onto the board.  Use a wide metal spatula to lift the cakes onto dessert plates.

The day start off well. The Swiss Family Peabody was out for a family adventure to raft down the Colorado river. As you can see from the picture it was a lovely day with no weather concerns whatsoever. Now don’t think we just got in a raft and went for it. There were guides with actual people who knew what they were doing. Or so I am told…in case you hadn’t noticed I was about 4 years old there. Also please note my mother’s t-shirt(I would hate to miss an opportunity to embarrass her)…it says Foxy Lady. LOL…even back then they were making those ridiculous shirts.
All was well with our trip, I guess, see I only really remember one part of that, and I will get to that in a bit.
Arizona rain and Washington rain are very different. Arizona rain is hard, fast and sometimes only lasts a few minutes. The soil there is not made to hold that amount of water that quickly and they get flash floods. Usually in the Summer, when they get Monsoons. Washington rain is like being under a mister system. It is really more of a drizzle, but goes on all day. I have learned I like Washington rain better.
On the afternoon of our trip, the Monsoon clouds rolled in just as we were passing through a steep canyon. There was no where to dock the raft as the only thing around us where shear cliffs. Not ideal place to be as we would soon learn. The sky opened up and the rain cometh…hard. The flooding began and the little raft was being thrown around. I really only remember two things. One, I was wearing a black garbage bag which did a craptastic job of keeping the water off me as the water seemed to be coming from everywhere. And two, holding on to a granola bar….tightly. I remember thinking that if I could just hold onto that granola bar everything would be alright. I almost lost it a few times, and when the storm was over all that was left of my Honey and Oat’s granola bars was a wet nub. But it was my web nub and I was safe. In my little mind, I had helped keep us safe by holding on to that granola bar. I guess the rest of that situation was too scary for me and I blocked it out as my family has a much more frightening recollection of the days events. I, I just had a granola bar.
When we got to the end where the trailers were, we all dried off and hot chocolate was pumped into our system. I even got me a new, dry granola bar to eat.
When going through Sweet Melissa’s book I saw a recipe from Granola Breakfast Cookies and immediately thought of the trip and my granola bar. I did make a lot of changes to the recipe. The original recipe has you use granola you made as well as molasses. I loaded mine up with sugar and used Vanilla-Almond Granola from my yuppie grocery store. Same concept and an excellent way to start the day.

Vanilla-Almond Granola Cookies

6 TBSP unsalted butter, melted
½ cup blackberry honey
½ cup lightly packed brown sugar
2 large eggs
1 ¾ cup all-purpose flour
½ tsp ground cinnamon
¼ tsp ground nutmeg
1 ¼ tsp baking soda
1 ½ cups Vanilla-Almond Granola

Position a rack in the center of your oven. Preheat the oven to 350F. Line two cookie sheets with parchment paper.
In a large bowl, whisk together the butter, honey, and sugar until smooth. Add the eggs and whisk until incorporated.’
In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg and baking soda.
Add the flour mixture to the honey mixture all at once and stir until  combined. Stir in the granola.
Drop the batter 2 inches apart by rounded tablespoonfuls onto the prepared cookie sheets(12  on each sheet). Bake for 12-13 minutes, or until golden around the edges. Do not over bake. The cookies should be nice and chewy when cool. Remove to a rack to cool on the sheets for 10 minutes before transferring to the rack.

I have also included the original recipe since I strayed quite a bit. I am not giving you the granola recipe…you should go buy the book and get it for yourself. You could use any type of granola you wanted though so don’t feel you have to have homemade.

Granola Breakfast Cookies

6 TBSP unsalted butter, melted
½ cup clover honey
¼ cup molasses
1 large egg
1 ¾ cups whole wheat flour
¼ tsp kosher salt
½ tsp ground cinnamon
1 ¼ tsp baking soda
1 ½ cups Cherry Almond Granola

Position a rack in the center of your oven. Preheat the oven to 350F. Line two cookie sheets with parchment paper or aluminum foil.
In a large bowl, whisk together the butter, honey, and molasses until smooth. Add the egg and whisk until incorporated.
In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, salt, cinnamon, and baking soda.
Add the flour mixture to the honey mixture all at once and stir until  combined. Stir in the granola.
Drop the batter 2 inches apart by rounded tablespoonfuls onto the prepared cookie sheets(12  on each sheet). Bake for 12-13 minutes, or until golden around the edges. Do not over bake. The cookies should be nice and chewy when cool. Remove to a rack to cool on the sheets for 10 minutes before transferring to the rack.
These cookies will keep layered between wax paper in an airtight container at room temperature for 4 days, or frozen for up to 3 weeks.

Adapted from Sweet Melissa Baking Book by Melissa Murphy, Penguin Group 2008