Sophie Gee's Sticky Toffee Pudding

 Sophie Gee's Sticky Toffee Pudding 

Sophie - Madame Superstar! - is Camille's bestie and she joined us for Thanksgiving this year.  The night before she left, Sophie made us her favorite dessert.  We devoured it!  Soooo good.  Her mom got this recipe while living in England years ago.  

Pudding: 

1 C water

3/4 C chopped dates 

2 tsp baking soda

4 T butter

3/4 C sugar

2 eggs

3/4 C flour

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 tsp vanilla 

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.  Butter a 9" square pan.  

In a saucepan, bring the water and chopped dates to a boil, then remove from heat.  Stir in the baking soda and set aside. 

In a stand mixer, cream the butter and sugar, then add the eggs one by one, beating after each one. 

Gently fold in flour and salt, then stir in the dates and vanilla. 

Pour into the prepared pan and bake 30-40 minutes, until cake is done.  The cake will be very dark. 

SAUCE: 

1 C brown sugar

1/2 C heavy cream

4 T butter

1/2 tsp vanilla 

Bring all ingredients to a boil and simmer 3 minutes.   Keep warm. 

Serve the cake over a bed of the warm sauce, and topped with whipped cream.  YUM.  

KAF Sourdough Sandwich Bread

 KAF Sourdough Sandwich Bread 

This is so easy and good, a perfect hybrid of sourdough and yeasted bread.  The only change I've made from the KAF recipe is that I don't use powdered milk.  Instead, I replace some of the water with whole milk. 

1.  Prepare your Levain the night before, cover and let sit on counter overnight, about 12 hours: 

127 grams bread flour 

128 grams water

44 grams ripe sourdough starter 

2.  Mix together the following.   Knead in mixer 3-4 minutes, or until dough has taken shape.  5-6 minutes by hand. 

All of the ripe levain

630 grams bread flour

1/4 C sugar

2 1/2 teaspoons table salt

2 teaspoons instand yeast

4 T butter, room temperature 

300 grams water, warmed in microwave 30 seconds.  

40 grams whole milk. 

3.  Place kneaded dough in lightly greased bowl; cover and let rise until about doubled, 1-2 hours. 

4.  Divide dough, form into logs, place in lightly greased small (8.5x4.5) loaf pans.  Cover and let rise until crowned over the rims (1-2 hours).   Optional:  lightly score with a lame. 

5.  Preheat to 375 degrees. 

6. Bake 30-35 minutes.  Turn loaves out onto racks to cool.  

-YUM- 

I am experimenting with subbing in some whole wheat flour.  100 grams worked great. 

Skillet Cherry Pie

Skillet Cherry Pie 

Every now and then I make this, and it is Poppie's favorite.  

This time I used the new-to-me pie crust recipe from Kenji Lopez-Alt here. 

Two cans Comstock cherry pie filling, with about 1/2 tsp almond extract mixed in. 

Brush the crust with milk or an egg white, and sprinkle with sugar.   Bake at 400 degrees about 40 minutes or until pie crust looks done. 

This Wagner cast iron skillet was Grandma Mary Lou's (and probably Two's before her). 

David's Tempura

David's Tempura - serves 7-8 

This is one of Nani's favorite meals and she remembers when David and Tommy made it for her at the yellow house.  

Measure about 2 1/2 C Japanese rice, cook in rice cooker.  

For the batter (keep everything very cold): 

400 ml cold water


200 ml sparkling water, chilled 

60 g potato starch or corn starch


300 g cake flour


2 eggs, chilled

1.  Combine 60 g potato starch and 300 g cake flour into a small chilled bowl. 

2.  Combine water and sparkling water into medium mixing bowl.  Add eggs and gently whisk to fully combine eggs into the water.  

3.  Gently stir in flour, 1/3 at a time, with chopsticks or Danish dough whisk.  Do not over mix or whisk.  Place the bowl of batter on top of a slightly larger bowl filled with ice water, so that the batter stays ice cold. 

SAUCE: combine and keep warm on the stove until serving. 

3 cups dashi stock

9 tablespoons soy sauce

9 tablespoons mirin

grated Daikon to taste (give each person about 1T on their plates, so they can add it to the sauce).  

Meanwhile, prepare your tempura ingredients by washing, cutting, and drying them with paper towels to remove any excess moisture.
 

Examples:  

18 - 24  oz shrimp

2-4  fillets of firm white fish  (cod, halibut) - aim for chunky pieces

Firm tofu cut into 2x3cm cubes

A sheet pan filled with vege is just about the right amount: 

Sweet potato, cut into thin slices

Carrots, bundled matchsticks

Broccoli florets

Green beans, single

Bell pepper slices 

Shitake mushrooms 

etc etc                 

4.  Preheat vegetable oil in wok, to 180 °C (356 °F).


5.  Cook the same ingredients at the same time (ex. 6 slices of sweet potato) being careful to not let them turn brown.  The tempura batter should remain light in color.  

David likes to cook one batch of each ingredient, so that everyone has a chance to taste everything, and then he takes "requests" on what people want more of. 

Serve with the sauce and Japanese rice.  YUM 

Kenji Lopez-Alt's Pie Crust - mostly butter - so easy and good

 Pie Crust - mostly butter - so easy and good. 

Use your kitchen scale!! 

This is from Kenji Lopez-Alt at Serious Eats and the full article is here, very very detailed with pictures and explanations of "why" this and that.  

This is the third or fourth pie crust I've tried in my lifetime, and it is the easiest and best (!). 

Ingredients

• 2 3/4 cups (12.5 ounces; 350g) all-purpose flour, divided

• 2 tablespoons (25g) sugar

• 1 1/2 teaspoons (5g) Diamond Crystal kosher salt; for table salt, use same weight or half as much by volume

• 2 sticks unsalted butter, cut into 1/4-inch-thick slices

• 4 T Crisco, cut into four pieces
• 6 tablespoons (3 ounces; 85ml) cold water

Combine 2/3 of the flour with sugar and salt in the bowl of a food processor. Pulse twice to incorporate. Spread butter slices evenly over surface. Pulse until no dry flour remains and dough just begins to collect in clumps (25+ pulses, maybe a lot more). Use a rubber spatula to spread the dough evenly around the bowl of the food processor. Sprinkle with remaining flour and pulse (5+ pulses) until dough is just barely broken up. 

Transfer dough to a large mixing bowl.

Sprinkle with the cold water. Use a rubber spatula to fold and press dough until it comes together into a ball. Divide ball in half. Form each half into a 4-inch disk. Wrap tightly in plastic and refrigerate for at least 2 hours before rolling and baking.  (the first time I made this, I didn't have time to refrigerate and it worked great anyway). 

Multigrain Bread

 Multigrain Bread 

- the bread I made a lot in the yellow house.  Healthy.  I started with a recipe from Cooks Illustrated and simplified it a little. 

2 C boiling water

1 C seven grain hot cereal mix 

3 T honey

3 T butter 

2 1/4 C all purpose flour (plus a bit more during kneading) 

1 C white whole wheat flour 

2 T wheat gluten 

2 T wheat germ 

1 envelope ( 2 1/4 teaspoons) yeast 

1 1/2 tsp salt 

1/2 C old fashioned oats 

1.  Add boiling water, honey, and butter to cereal mix in a large bowl.  Stir occasionally as it cools to warm. 

2.  Meanwhile, mix ingredients in stand mixer fitted with dough hook. 

3.  Add cereal mixture to dry ingredients; knead until dough clears the sides but sticks to the bottom.  Add a little more flour if necessary.  Dough should be soft but not too sticky. 

4.  Turn the dough out and knead to form a smooth round ball. 

5.  Put dough in large bowl (oiled or buttered).  Cover loosely with greased plastic wrap.  Let rise in a warm place 30-45 minutes. 

6.  Turn dough out and gently press dough into a rectangular shape.  Roll up tightly into a loaf shape.  Place into a greased 9 x 5 loaf pan.  Loosely cover, and let rise for 30-40 minutes. 

7.  Preheat oven to 350.  Spray top of risen loaf lightly with water.  Bake for 35-45 minutes.  Spread hot crust with butter.  Let cool in pan 15 minutes.  Turn out onto a rack and cool. 

Makes beautiful toast the next day! 

Apple Crisp

Apple Crisp - serves 4-6 

Modified from  The Best Recipe- page 503.    It is really so good.  Until recently I made it by hand but now I do have a food processor. You can easily double it (just cook it a bit longer). 

For the crisp: 

6 T flour 

1/4 C brown sugar 

1/4 C sugar

1/4 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp nutmeg

1/4 tsp salt

5 T butter, chilled, cut into 1/2 inch pieces

3/4 C coarsely chopped pecans

Pulse dry ingredients in food processor, add butter and pulse about 10 times, then add nuts and pulse a few times ("topping should look like slightly clumpy wet sand").  Refrigerate at least 15 minutes. 

Meanwhile,  prepare apples and scrape apple mixture into an 8-inch square pan, or a deep dish pie plate, or cast iron skillet.

4-5 apples (I use Granny Smith) - (cut into quarters and then cut each quarter into thirds) 

1/4 C sugar 

zest and juice of one lemon (more or less) 

Sprinkle topping over the fruit.  Bake at 400 degrees for about 40 minutes or until topping is deeply golden brown, and apples are tender but not mushy.  

Serve warm with GOOD icecream! 

(If you need your oven to make dinner, you can actually make this crisp earlier in the day, set aside at room temp, and reheat in your still warm oven while you eat dinner)