And thus must end the 2014 recipe project!
It was an interesting year. I think that the project was in part motivated by my friend who has celiac's disease -- a desire to be able to modify recipes for her morphed into a desire to modify and chronicle many of my cooking and baking adventures.
For Christmas I was in the kitchen, but not baking -- I made a traditional meal on Christmas eve for my parents (turkey, mashed potatoes, green beans, cranberry sauce), and a French meal on Christmas day (bourride [a fish stew with aioli], tartiflette [a bacon, potato and cheese casserole -- with a vegetarian version for some of us], asparagus and salad). My daughter did all the baking -- cream puffs on the eve and lemon bars on the day. I did make a version of my mom's coffeecake for the next day, but I felt a serious lack of baking over the holiday season. Travel was part of the reason, and a general busy-ness another.
So for new year's -- a baking mania came upon me. I made my favorite Christmas morning thumbprint cookies (funny that the recipe title from the NYTimes somehow gives me license to eat them for breakfast!), plus my grandmother's Rice Krispie Treats, and then a new cappuccino cheesecake and Mme. Sandberg's Mousse au Chocolat (from 8th grade French class!).
A fitting end to a year of baking and cooking. My conclusions:
Gluten-Free: the best way to treat gluten-free friends and relatives is with actual gluten-free recipes, including Rice Krispie Treats and chocolate mousse. Both of these recipes are from my childhood, and they really take me back. (See below.) It is also possible to serve cheesecake, and though over the year I have made many lemon and chocolate cheesecakes (and have thought about pumpkin cheesecake, the original recipe I made up and used to lure my future husband into my kitchen), it's fun to do something new. ("Really, mom, you're making a brand new recipe to take over to your friends' house for New Year's Eve? Is that wise?") Usually with cheesecake I try to substitute something for the flour that is in the cake itself, and assume my celiac-suffering friend will avoid the crust. Yesterday I bought gluten-free graham crackers -- I hope it wasn't a mistake!
Portion control: While I am committed to my general rule of halving the sugar, I have gotten complaints from various relatives that my cookies and pies aren't sweet enough. (My children assure me that they are wrong.) So another tactic is to come closer to the actual recipe, but just serve everything in tiny portions. This worked with our "test" of the chocolate mousse this afternoon.
With cookies of various kinds, this is harder, especially if you work at home. I've managed to hide cookies from the adults by putting half of every batch into the freezer ... but my teenaged son is perfectly willing to raid the freezer and eat all the cookies before we notice. So I guess half recipes, giving some away, and careful hiding will have to suffice if I want to bake cookies.
[Sometimes] be true to the recipe: Until I found my grandmother's recipe card for the Rice Krispie Cookies, I had completely banned this from my kitchen. But the gluten-free friend, and the memories of my gramma always having cookies available, reminded me that this is a recipe that really keeps. Thanks, of course, to that very modern invented food that has turned Americans fat -- corn syrup. In the beginning of this year, I made these with less sugar and less corn syrup. But then they don't hold together! And as I worked with the recipe, I realized why the chocolate layer (the thing that made my gramma's Rice Krispie Treats better than all others) got thinner and thinner over the years. My grandmother, bless her heart, was economizing -- modifying the recipe to make it more reasonable. An entire bag of chocolate chips plus an entire bag of butterscotch chips means that this recipe is both expensive and very caloric. Even so ... I think that with the portion control rule in place (I cut them in thinner rectangles instead of in squares), I can remain true to the recipe itself, while remembering how my gramma economized and being amused by her balancing the need to provide for the grandkids against the realities of increasing costs at the grocery store.
Experiment. While the fun of dipping into my great-aunt Del's 1960s recipe box, and of reliving recipes from my childhood, cannot be beat, it is also excellent to surf the web and troll the newspapers and/or cooking magazines. Some of my best recipes are from cookbooks -- I have one I keep only for the Carrot Cake recipe. So much of the 2014 recipe project was about expanding my horizons, while also regularly returning to memory lane. It has, I think, been a success.
Rice Krispie Cookie
[butter the bowl -- this is key, and it is written in pencil on the back of my recipe card, which is not at all helpful!]
1 cup sugar
1 cup light Karo syrup
Bring to boil, remove from fire, add 1 cup peanut butter. Stir until dissolved.
Pour this hot mixture over 6 cups of Rice Krispies. Mix well. Spread and put down in a large pan.
("I use my dripping pan roaster," says my gramma; really any cookie sheet will work.)
[Don't worry about reaching the edges of the pan.]
In the meantime, have melting on stove over hot water (or on low flame without a double boiler):
1 pkg. butterscotch chips
1 pkg. chocolate chips
1 T. salad oil [just the words "salad oil" evoke the 1970s!!]
When thoroughly melted, blend well and spread over top of Rice Krispie mixture.
From Em, January 1966
Yes, I had a Great-Aunt Em. And my gramma had a box of this in her house always. They can't last that long here, but I've made them to celebrate the end of 2014, a year when I thought a lot about Aunt Em, Gramma, and many others as well.
[important to cut these within about 30 minutes -- otherwise they get too hard! my note, not Em's or Gramma's]
Mousse au Chocolat (à la Mme. Sandberg, 1978-79)
12 oz. bag chocolate chips, melted on low heat [allow to cool]
2 T. sugar -- dissolve in 4 T. boiling water
Beat 4 egg yolks.
Add sugar and water to yolks.
Beat chocolate and eggs together.
Beat 4 egg whites until stiff.
Fold egg whites into chocolate mixture.
Add 1 cup whipped cream.
Allow to cool.
Serve with whipped cream!!!
Cappuccino Cheesecake
[This recipe has been in my file forever, printed out from the internet, don't remember where. But I've modified it, of course!]
Box of gluten-free graham crackers
5 T. melted unsalted butter
1/4 c. sugar
Mix crackers, butter, and 1/4 cup sugar in Cuisinart and pulse until they form crumbs. Press onto bottom (and/or sides, depending on how much you have) of 9" diameter springform pan. Bake crust at 350 degrees for 10 minutes. Cool. Maintain oven temperature.
1/2 cup whipping cream
4 t. instant espresso powder
1 1/2 t. vanilla extract
Combine in small bowl; stir until powder dissolves; set aside.
4 8 oz packages of cream cheese at room temperature
4 large eggs
2 T. flour (or cornstarch for the gluten free variant!)
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips.
Using an electric mixer or Kitchenaid, beat cream cheese until smooth. Gradually beat in about 1 cup of sugar, then eggs one at a time. Beat in flour or cornstarch. Beat espresso mixture into cream cheese mixture. Stir in chocolate chips. Pour batter over crust.
Place into a water bath if you can (see my other cheesecake recipe for this). Bake until edges are puffed and center is just set, about 1 hour +. (I reduced the oven to 300 degrees about halfway through.) Cool on rack 30 minutes; chill cake uncovered until cold, about 6 hours. Cover, keep chilled at least 1 day and up to 2 days.
Cut around cake to loosen. Release pan sides.
Christmas Morning Thumbprint Cookies
[From the New York Times, at least 12 years ago -- I had been looking for a recipe like this for years. Way better than what you can buy at Trader Joe's!]
1 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
2/3 cup granulated sugar
2 egg yolks
1 t. vanilla (or lemon extract, if your daughter used all the vanilla without replacing it)
2 cups flour
1/2 cup fruit jam of choice -- I prefer raspberry and apricot, though this year made do with blackberry and strawberry, since that's what we had
Heat oven to 350 degrees.
With a wooden spoon, beat the butter and sugar until creamy. Beat in the egg yolks, one at a time, and then the vanilla. Beat in the flour a half cup at a time.
Roll dough with your hands to form a snake, then pinch off about 1" at a time. Roll each into a ball and place on cookie sheet. Press each ball with a thumb to form a deep crater.
Spoon a little jam into each crater.
Bake until edges start to brown -- 16-18 minutes, but be careful [mine took about 14 minutes this year].
It was an interesting year. I think that the project was in part motivated by my friend who has celiac's disease -- a desire to be able to modify recipes for her morphed into a desire to modify and chronicle many of my cooking and baking adventures.
For Christmas I was in the kitchen, but not baking -- I made a traditional meal on Christmas eve for my parents (turkey, mashed potatoes, green beans, cranberry sauce), and a French meal on Christmas day (bourride [a fish stew with aioli], tartiflette [a bacon, potato and cheese casserole -- with a vegetarian version for some of us], asparagus and salad). My daughter did all the baking -- cream puffs on the eve and lemon bars on the day. I did make a version of my mom's coffeecake for the next day, but I felt a serious lack of baking over the holiday season. Travel was part of the reason, and a general busy-ness another.
 |
| New Year's Eve Baking Mania |
A fitting end to a year of baking and cooking. My conclusions:
Gluten-Free: the best way to treat gluten-free friends and relatives is with actual gluten-free recipes, including Rice Krispie Treats and chocolate mousse. Both of these recipes are from my childhood, and they really take me back. (See below.) It is also possible to serve cheesecake, and though over the year I have made many lemon and chocolate cheesecakes (and have thought about pumpkin cheesecake, the original recipe I made up and used to lure my future husband into my kitchen), it's fun to do something new. ("Really, mom, you're making a brand new recipe to take over to your friends' house for New Year's Eve? Is that wise?") Usually with cheesecake I try to substitute something for the flour that is in the cake itself, and assume my celiac-suffering friend will avoid the crust. Yesterday I bought gluten-free graham crackers -- I hope it wasn't a mistake!
 |
| My daughter bought the cutest little ramekins: perfect for the portion control project! |
With cookies of various kinds, this is harder, especially if you work at home. I've managed to hide cookies from the adults by putting half of every batch into the freezer ... but my teenaged son is perfectly willing to raid the freezer and eat all the cookies before we notice. So I guess half recipes, giving some away, and careful hiding will have to suffice if I want to bake cookies.
[Sometimes] be true to the recipe: Until I found my grandmother's recipe card for the Rice Krispie Cookies, I had completely banned this from my kitchen. But the gluten-free friend, and the memories of my gramma always having cookies available, reminded me that this is a recipe that really keeps. Thanks, of course, to that very modern invented food that has turned Americans fat -- corn syrup. In the beginning of this year, I made these with less sugar and less corn syrup. But then they don't hold together! And as I worked with the recipe, I realized why the chocolate layer (the thing that made my gramma's Rice Krispie Treats better than all others) got thinner and thinner over the years. My grandmother, bless her heart, was economizing -- modifying the recipe to make it more reasonable. An entire bag of chocolate chips plus an entire bag of butterscotch chips means that this recipe is both expensive and very caloric. Even so ... I think that with the portion control rule in place (I cut them in thinner rectangles instead of in squares), I can remain true to the recipe itself, while remembering how my gramma economized and being amused by her balancing the need to provide for the grandkids against the realities of increasing costs at the grocery store.
Experiment. While the fun of dipping into my great-aunt Del's 1960s recipe box, and of reliving recipes from my childhood, cannot be beat, it is also excellent to surf the web and troll the newspapers and/or cooking magazines. Some of my best recipes are from cookbooks -- I have one I keep only for the Carrot Cake recipe. So much of the 2014 recipe project was about expanding my horizons, while also regularly returning to memory lane. It has, I think, been a success.
Rice Krispie Cookie
[butter the bowl -- this is key, and it is written in pencil on the back of my recipe card, which is not at all helpful!]
1 cup sugar
1 cup light Karo syrup
Bring to boil, remove from fire, add 1 cup peanut butter. Stir until dissolved.
Pour this hot mixture over 6 cups of Rice Krispies. Mix well. Spread and put down in a large pan.("I use my dripping pan roaster," says my gramma; really any cookie sheet will work.)
[Don't worry about reaching the edges of the pan.]
In the meantime, have melting on stove over hot water (or on low flame without a double boiler):
 |
| butterscotch and chocolate chips! |
1 pkg. chocolate chips
1 T. salad oil [just the words "salad oil" evoke the 1970s!!]
When thoroughly melted, blend well and spread over top of Rice Krispie mixture.
From Em, January 1966
Yes, I had a Great-Aunt Em. And my gramma had a box of this in her house always. They can't last that long here, but I've made them to celebrate the end of 2014, a year when I thought a lot about Aunt Em, Gramma, and many others as well.
[important to cut these within about 30 minutes -- otherwise they get too hard! my note, not Em's or Gramma's]
12 oz. bag chocolate chips, melted on low heat [allow to cool]
2 T. sugar -- dissolve in 4 T. boiling water
Beat 4 egg yolks.
Add sugar and water to yolks.
Beat chocolate and eggs together.
Beat 4 egg whites until stiff.
Fold egg whites into chocolate mixture.
Add 1 cup whipped cream.
Allow to cool.
Serve with whipped cream!!!
Cappuccino Cheesecake
[This recipe has been in my file forever, printed out from the internet, don't remember where. But I've modified it, of course!]
Box of gluten-free graham crackers
5 T. melted unsalted butter
1/4 c. sugar
Mix crackers, butter, and 1/4 cup sugar in Cuisinart and pulse until they form crumbs. Press onto bottom (and/or sides, depending on how much you have) of 9" diameter springform pan. Bake crust at 350 degrees for 10 minutes. Cool. Maintain oven temperature.
1/2 cup whipping cream
4 t. instant espresso powder
1 1/2 t. vanilla extract
Combine in small bowl; stir until powder dissolves; set aside.
4 8 oz packages of cream cheese at room temperature
4 large eggs
2 T. flour (or cornstarch for the gluten free variant!)
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips.
 |
| Cappuccino Cheesecake -- reviews not yet out! |
Place into a water bath if you can (see my other cheesecake recipe for this). Bake until edges are puffed and center is just set, about 1 hour +. (I reduced the oven to 300 degrees about halfway through.) Cool on rack 30 minutes; chill cake uncovered until cold, about 6 hours. Cover, keep chilled at least 1 day and up to 2 days.
Cut around cake to loosen. Release pan sides.
Christmas Morning Thumbprint Cookies
[From the New York Times, at least 12 years ago -- I had been looking for a recipe like this for years. Way better than what you can buy at Trader Joe's!]
1 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
2/3 cup granulated sugar
2 egg yolks
1 t. vanilla (or lemon extract, if your daughter used all the vanilla without replacing it)
2 cups flour
1/2 cup fruit jam of choice -- I prefer raspberry and apricot, though this year made do with blackberry and strawberry, since that's what we had
Heat oven to 350 degrees.
With a wooden spoon, beat the butter and sugar until creamy. Beat in the egg yolks, one at a time, and then the vanilla. Beat in the flour a half cup at a time.
Roll dough with your hands to form a snake, then pinch off about 1" at a time. Roll each into a ball and place on cookie sheet. Press each ball with a thumb to form a deep crater.
Spoon a little jam into each crater.
Bake until edges start to brown -- 16-18 minutes, but be careful [mine took about 14 minutes this year].
No comments:
Post a Comment