Butter attempt 2

I made a second round of butter today in preparation for Easter dinner. The first time I tried it I felt like my cream was still a little too cold. This time I took the cream out of the fridge about 5 hours before I made the butter. It really made a difference! It gives the cream time to "ripen" a little and increases the acidity. The end product is creamier and has a fuller flavor. I also poured off the initial buttermilk and beat the butter for a little longer in the KitchenAid to get some more of the liquid out. I cut down the time it takes to press it.  I can't wait to make spicy butter for corn. It's going to be so good....

Cadbury Cupcakes

Easter is upon us which means some good treats. I saw these today and nearly fainted. It's a Cadbury Creme Egg baked inside a cupcake. Just imagine this warm out of the oven while the center is still gooey.

You can get the details and more Easter-centric treats over at Craft.

Homemade butter

I read a post over on Design Sponge about homemade butter and got inspired. This is another thing that I knew could be made, but never occurred to me to do. I'm sorry, but I'm not spending an hour shaking a jar or standing over a butter churn. I'll walk to the store and buy it there, thank you very much. But Ashley at Design Sponge made hers in a food processor. That sounds way easier and doable, but my food processor is teeny tiny. I read in the comments and learned that you can use the Kitchen Aid and that's what sold me.

I started with a pint of heavy whipping cream and beat it on low with the paddle attachment of my mixer. You could probably just start on high, but that's going to get messy quick. On started on low and turned it up as it started to thicken. For a long time it was just cream sloshing around in the bowl and I kept thinking it wouldn't work. After about 10 minutes, it got to a thick, whipped cream stage. I turned it up a notch and walked away to fold laundry. Two minutes later I heard the buttermilk splashing over the sides of the bowl. Very quickly it went from the whipped cream stage to separated butter and buttermilk. I poured the buttermilk off and froze it. I'll probably make biscuits or red velvet with it.  Then you press the remaining liquid out of the butter and you're done. In about 20 minutes you've got beautiful delicious butter. And you're really only doing something for 5 of those minutes. It's a whole lot easier than I expected.

I had the fresh butter on a bagel that night and have been using it for a little over a week. I've sauteed with it and used it in mac and cheese and it's all great. I've noticed a few differences. On toast it tastes more "buttery" than store butter, but when you cook with it the flavor blends better. It also melts faster than store butter. Plus think of all the things you can make with it; herbed butters, honey butter, spicy butters. I think I'm going to make sage butter to rub on the Thanksgiving turkey, a long way off I know, and spicy butter with chili powder for corn on the cob this summer.

I'll admit that I might be a convert. I'm not going to rush out and buy butter molds just yet, but I think I'm going to try out homemade over store-bought for a while. It's about half the cost of buying equal measures of butter and buttermilk. One pint of cream yields a cup of butter and a cup of buttermilk. This round I just got the crappy ACME store brand cream as a test. I plan on getting good organic cream for the next batch. I'll let you know if it's different.

Chocolate Pudding, Peanut Butter and Marshmallow cookies (!!!)

Did you read that title? When I saw this recipe on Taste and Tell I knew I had to make them. First off, a cookie batter that contains chocolate pudding?? That's combining two of my favorite things. Then you add peanut butter chips and marshmallows? Ok, great. I'm sold.

It's a quick, easy cookie with ingredients you can find in any grocery store. I agree with Debbie, the author of Taste and Tell, that they aren't the prettiest cookies, but man are they delicious. The marshmallow gets a little crazy and melty. I found if you rolled them in a ball, so most of the marshmallow was on the inside, it's pretty ok. Or just let them be ugly and like it. And let's be honest: the batter itself is damn good. Yes, I will scrape the bowl clean, thank you.

I will definitely make these again, and I will probably experiment with this cookie dough base, adding other things. Debbie suggested graham cracker pieces instead of peanut butter chips to make a s'more cookie. I think I might try oats, chocolate chips and walnuts. Check back to find out.

Nutella Meringues

I've been baking, but not blogging, and I'm getting caught up today. I saw this recipe online, at Cream Puffs In Venice, and thought it looked amazing. Nutella+meringue? Yes, please. Plus they're pretty simple and only take 3 egg whites. It made more cookies than I expected.  Basically, you melt Nutella in a double boiler, make a meringue, fold in the cooled Nutella and bake.

My family makes "mint meringues" every year Christmas which is just meringue cookies with green food coloring and mint chocolate chips. Maybe it's just nostalgia, but I like them better. I suspect my meringue was too stiff when I stirred in the Nutella, which was a bit too hot still. So mine came out flat, too crunchy (in my opinion) but sticky where the Nutella was. She also bakes hers differently than my grandmother taught me.

The author of the recipe instructs you to bake these on parchment-lined baking sheets. My grandmother always baked meringues on brown-paper-grocery-bag-lined baking sheets. I used a silicone baking mat. All of them do essentially the same thing, which is give you a flexible, less adherent surface. You would never get whole cookies off the sheet otherwise. If you enjoy baking, do yourself the favor and buy a silicone baking mat. They're wonderful and nothing in the world sticks to them.

Maybe I'd make these again, if someone wanted them, but probably not for myself.  Truthfully, I'm not sure I like Nutella as much as I think I do. I feel like I love it but then I'm underwhelmed when I eat it. I say, try these for yourself and let me know what you think.

Vegetarian pockets

I'm going to level with you guys. I love puff pastry. I shouldn't, but I do. It's all Martha Stewart's fault. She has all these recipes for tarts made with frozen puff pastry and she got me hooked. I made a few tarts and they were delicious. I moved on to jelly filled turnovers. Also good. Then I thought about making a version of a hand-pie with puffy pastry. I started with breakfast pockets with eggs, crumbled sausage and cheese. Love 'em. I made this dinner option one weekend, loved it and thought I'd share it with you.

Ingredients:
-frozen puff pastry sheets
-tofu crumble
-baby portabellas, chopped
-medium onion, chopped
-frozen peas
-fontina cheese
-one egg

Fontina is a tangy, buttery cheese that's pretty soft. Stick in the freezer while you prepare and it will be easier to shred later. Take the puff pastry out of the box and let it thaw on the counter. Preheat your oven to 400 degrees. Start by chopping your mushrooms and onions. Melt 1 1/2 tablespoons butter (or olive oil, if you prefer) in a pan and add mushrooms and onion. Saute until softened. Stir in tofu crumbles until heated through. I find the tofu crumble to be very salty so I don't add any additional salt. Take the cheese out of the freezer, shred about 2/3 of it. Remove your pan from the heat and stir into the cheese. Let the mixture come to room temperature and stir in as many peas as you'd like. Season to taste. Sometimes I add a little cayenne pepper. Make an egg wash with one beaten egg and a splash of warm water. Take the puff pastry out of the wrapper and unfold it. Press the seams so that they don't split and cut into four equal squares. Using a pastry brush, brush the edges of one square so that they'll stick. Fold the long sides together and press the bottom shut like so...

Now you can fill it with your tofu mixture and seal the other three edges. Brush the outside with egg wash so it will be nice and golden when it comes out of the oven. I bake mine on a baking sheet lined with a silicone baking mat, which I recommend, but you'd probably be ok with a non-stick cookie sheet. Continue until you've filled all your pastry squares. You can get 8 out of the two sheets of puff pastry included in one box. I always have leftover mixture that's awesome stirred into pasta. But you could make a second batch of pockets if you'd like.

Bake for 15-20 minutes until golden brown and puffy. You can turn them over half way through if you'd like. They end up crispier that way, but I don't always remember to do it.  Let them cool for a few minutes on the baking sheet before you plate them. Personally I like mine with a little ketchup on the side.

Have fun and experiment! You can put anything you want inside a pocket. I've made these with prepared pie dough, and they're good, but I definitely prefer puff pastry to traditional pastry for these.