Exciting times in the family, had a reunion this weekend in Columbus, Ohio to celebrate my brother’s becoming a doctor. I got to walk with faculty and hood him on stage, guh, such an honor. It’s a long road, but there is a large, delicious dinner at the end with all your beloveds. A foreshadowing.
Been awhile since I posted a bread—guess I was reminded that family, and the memory of all the good times we have, is my daily bread.
Msemmen Flatbread
Adapted from Artisan Bread in Five Minutes
YIELD: Makes one or two twelve inch flatbreads
¼ pound of Whole Wheat Bread Dough (see recipe here)
1 teaspoon salt
3 TB olive oil, divided
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon sweet paprika
1 teaspoon turmeric
Make dough. Form dough into a ball and coat with 2 tablespoons oil in a bowl. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and let dough stand at warm room temperature 1 hour.
Stir together cumin, paprika, turmeric, and remaining 1/4 cup oil in a small bowl.
Form flatbreads:
Divide dough in two and always keep remaining pieces covered with plastic wrap, flatten 1 piece of dough into a disk. Roll out disk as thinly as possible (into a 9-inch round) on a lightly floured surface with a 6-inch wooden dowel or a rolling pin. Spread 1 teaspoon spiced oil on dough with your fingertips, then roll up tightly into a long cylinder and coil into a tight spiral. Transfer to a large sheet of parchment paper, then loosely cover with plastic wrap.
Finish and cook flatbreads:
Tape another sheet of parchment to a work surface and on it roll out 1 spiral of dough into a round approximately 6 inches in diameter. Heat a dry large cast-iron skillet or griddle over medium heat until hot, then cook msemmen, turning once, until puffed and browned in spots, 3 to 4 minutes total. Transfer to a plate and cover with a kitchen towel.
Happy Mother’s Day to the mother of doctors Ellis. We love you, Mom. Thanks for all the care packages to get us through.
We have a winner! Thanks again to Equal Exchange for sponsoring the chocolate giveaway hosted here on Bake This Day. We champion creativity on this blog, we like to do things a little differently— Izzy let us know she was mad the contest wasn’t open to dog entrants, so we let her choose the winner. All the names went on paper slips, got tossed in the air, and whichever paper she ate off the floor first won the case of dark chocolate.
Congratulations to Andrea from Portland, Oregon! Let us know what you think of the 88% Cacao special dark chocolate!
Here is a simple recipe that tastes great with this chocolate.
Gluten-free Chocolate Orange Scones
Adapted from Duda recipe
1 cup gluten-free all purpose flour
1 cup almond flour
1/4 cup sugar, plus 2 teaspoons sugar, divided
Zest of 2 clementines
2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
5 tablespoon chilled butter, grated
1 large egg
1 ½ TB vanilla
½ tsp orange zest
½ cup dark chocolate, chopped
Preheat over to 350 degrees. Line baking sheet with parchment paper. In a large bowl, whisk together gluten-free flour, 1/4 cup sugar, zest, baking powder, soda and salt.
Using a pastry cutter or two knives, cut in butter until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Stir in eggs, zest and vanilla until dough comes together. Stir in chocolate.
Turn dough onto prepared baking sheet and pat into 8-inch circle. Score into 8 wedges with a large knife.
Bake 18-22 minutes, until edges are golden and scones are just barely firm. Sprinkle with remaining 2 teaspoons sugar. Cool 20 minutes. Cut along score marks.
I have been a little MIA trying to balance work with Jazz Fest and hosting my brother on his graduation gift trip to New Orleans for the music festival. Almost every stage plays Purple Rain.
All hail the king of SOUL, now in the sky in his little red corvette.
Nothing gets you through Wednesday like a dark chocolate cupcake. Make these for your office breakroom and then lavish in the karma sure to return. As for me, these cupcakes are in homage to the Year of Chocolate, and specifically, to Equal Exchange Chocolates, who graciously sponsored this post!
Equal Exchange is a fair-trade, small farmer, certified organic bastion of goodness from which chocolate bars and baking chocolate and chocolate chips issue like the chocolate waterfall in Willy Wonka, I imagine. Equal Exchange sponsors small-scale farmers in Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Peru, Paraguay and Madagascar. They have a new product, the Extreme Dark 88% Cacao chocolate bar, which is heavenly to taste, the perfect capstone to smooth the edges off a rough day, to tickle your arteries and neurons with antioxidants. This dark bar has a grapefruity citrus zing, melts into the most fabulous pudding and frosting on the cupcakes featured in this post.
And here’s the kicker in my little chocolate julep—You can enter to WIN a case of twelve of these Equal Exchange 88% dark chocolate bars! Ah! Right now!
Comment below on how you would like to enjoy your case of chocolate when you win!
There will be one lucky winner, announced here on April 20!!! Tell all your friends, and good luck!
Dark-Chocolate Pudding Filled Cupcakes
Adapted from a Martha Stewart recipe
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons coarse salt
1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, room temperature
1 1/3 cups sugar
3 large eggs, room temperature
1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
3/4 cup whole milk
5 ounces bittersweet chocolate chips melted and cooled
Pudding (see recipe below, because you can make this too!)
Frosting (same, see below)
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line 18-24 standard muffin cups with paper or foil liners. In a large bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt. In a separate bowl, beat butter with sugar on medium speed until light and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in vanilla. Reduce speed to low and add flour mixture in 2 batches, alternating with milk. Beat in melted chocolate. I melted half of this package of bittersweet chocolate chips from Equal Exchange. I almost free-hand ate the remaining half of the package. Me and chocolate chips have a long and shameful history.
Divide batter evenly among muffin cups, filling each about two-thirds full. Bake until a tester inserted in centers comes out clean, 18 to 20 minutes. Let cool in pan on a wire rack 5 minutes, then remove cupcakes and let cool completely on rack. (Cupcakes can be made ahead up to this point and stored in an airtight container at room temperature up to 2 days.)
Transfer pudding to a pastry bag fitted with a 1/4-inch plain round tip. Insert tip in top of a cupcake and squeeze until cupcake begins to mound.
Repeat with remaining cupcakes. Refrigerate until cold, about 30 minutes and up to 1 day. Top with frosting, duh. Refrigerate at least 15 minutes before serving.
3 ounces 81% Equal Exchange dark chocolate, coarsely chopped (2/3 cup, or, one bar)
In a medium saucepan, whisk together sugar, cornstarch, cocoa, and salt. Whisk in milk and egg yolk. Bring to a boil over medium-high, whisking constantly; cook 2 minutes. Remove from heat; whisk in vanilla and chopped chocolate until melted. Pour mixture into a bowl and cover with plastic wrap, pressing wrap directly onto surface to prevent skin from forming. Refrigerate until cold, at least 30 minutes and up to overnight. You will need to transfer the pudding to your frosting bag/injector. I liken this to joint injections, steroid shots of chocolate for your cupcakes.
Chocolate Frosting
6 ounces cream cheese, softened
1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, softened
2 1/2 cups confectioners’ sugar
1/4 cup cocoa powder, Equal Exchange
Salt
9 ounces bittersweet chocolate, melted and slightly cooled
3/4 cups creme fraiche or sour cream
Beat cream cheese and butter with a mixer on medium speed until pale and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Sift together sugar, cocoa powder, and 1/4 teaspoon salt; gradually beat into cream cheese mixture. With machine running, pour in melted chocolate in a slow, steady stream. Beat in creme fraiche until well combined. If frosting doesn’t seem firm enough, refrigerate for 10 minutes. Beat before using.
Good luck in the contest! And wear your helmet for bike to work week! Because, let’s be real, if you are going to support small farms by buying their cacao, you may as well save the environment on your way to the store!
‘Cause I’ve got a golden weekend! I’ve got a golden chance to make my way. And with a golden weekend it’s a golden day….
A Saturday morning at home has the verve of toddlerhood possibility. Of course, such freedom and possibility must start with a homemade pancake. An homage to Festus and Pancake Pie. Followed by a snooze to Miles Davis in the sun. Izzy is more than happy to demo her technique.
Here’s the best pancake recipe I know, adapted from David Eyre’s 1966 New York Times recipes recently featured in Penzey’s Earth Day edition catalogue.
Saturday Pancake Pie
2 eggs (yard eggs are the best, will make the pancake a golden yellow, for a golden weekend)
½ cup flour
½ cup milk
1/8 tsp nutmeg
½ stick of butter
2 TB powdered sugar
1 tb lemon juice
Preheat oven to 425. Whip up the eggs in a bowl, add flour, milk, and nutmeg. Melt half a stick (or less if you feel that guilty about this) of butter in the skillet, and let it get hot but not burnt. If you skim off the milk solids, thus clarifying it, you can achieve a hotter temperature without the bern, ahem, I mean burn. Pour the batter into the skillet and then immediately transfer to the hot oven. It will puff up and get toasty brown on the ends.
After about 15 minutes, pull the skillet out and sprinkle with some powdered sugar, and return to the oven for another 1-2 minutes. Sprinkle with lemon juice and serve. Rinse, repeat.
Izzy may have been doing an impression of a pancake, or a possum. She is the deepest, fastest sleeper in the South. Izzy could do mattress commercials for hardwood floors.
Check back tomorrow, or Monday AM, to enter the first-ever Bake This Day chocolate giveaway!!!
Tofu’s unnatural geometry is much less off-putting when coated in chili powder from Santa Fe. Still, when my imagination returns me to the child version of myself, when I look at this dish, I see a foam pit into which I might jump. Thankfully, this foam pit is delicious. The pistachios, essential. Jump in to vegetarianism for a night.
Pasta with Spicy Tofu and Pistachios
Adapted from Food and Wine
1 pound firm tofu—drained, patted dry and cut into 3/4-inch dice
6 garlic cloves, minced
1 1/2 teaspoons ground Calabrian chiles or cayenne
1/4 teaspoon finely chopped thyme
Kosher salt
1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil
3/4 cup finely chopped onion
3/4 cup dry white wine
One 28-ounce can tomato puree
2 tablespoons finely chopped basil
1/4 cup canola oil
1 pound strozzapreti pasta
Chopped pistachios, grated pecorino and dried oregano, for serving
In a medium bowl, toss the tofu with half of the garlic, the chiles, thyme and 2 teaspoons of salt. Cover and refrigerate the tofu for at least 30 minutes or overnight.
Meanwhile, in a large saucepan, heat the olive oil until shimmering. Add the onion, the remaining garlic and a generous pinch of salt and cook over moderately high heat, stirring occasionally, until softened, about 7 minutes. Add the wine and simmer until evaporated, about 5 minutes. Add the tomato puree and basil and bring to a boil. Cover partially and simmer over moderately low heat until thickened slightly, 20 to 25 minutes; keep the sauce warm.
In a large skillet, heat the canola oil until shimmering. Add the tofu and cook over moderate heat until browned on the bottom, about 2 minutes. Flip the tofu and cook, stirring occasionally, until lightly browned all over, about 3 minutes longer; keep warm.
In a pot of salted boiling water, cook the strozzapreti until al dente. Add the pasta to the sauce and cook over moderate heat, stirring, until coated, about 2 minutes. Fold in the tofu and season with salt. Transfer to a platter and garnish with chopped pistachios, grated pecorino and dried oregano. Serve right away.
Happy Anniversary, cute parents of mine. Happy 40th! Be on the lookout for some much overdue chocolate posts to come. I have a free weekend coming in 7 days 🙂
Easter brunch has its staples. KP and I are accustomed to heading out to North Carolina to celebrate the culmination of Holy Week with our dear friends the Warrens, but this year, we are on the Left Coast to bid my parents a happy fortieth anniversary. Palm Sunday in New Orleans was a first for us, Stations of the Cross Second Line through the Marigny neighborhood. People wandered out of their houses with steaming coffee and bleary eyes to a brass band playing “Soon and very soon, we are going to see the King,” and a bunch of parishioners passing out palm branches.
To honor a Warren tradition (waffle up!) while we are pulling a Judas this year, I give you a variation on waffles that is hearty enough to merit a place next to the fattened lamb.
Loaded Potato Waffles
Adapted from Food and Wine
2 pounds baking potatoes—peeled, coarsley shredded and squeezed dry
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 cup shredded extra-sharp yellow cheddar cheese, plus more for topping
3 tablespoons melted unsalted butter, plus more for brushing
1/2 cup crumbled cooked bacon, plus more for topping
1/3 cup chopped chives, plus more for topping
Sour cream, for topping
Instructions
Heat an 8-inch waffle iron and preheat the oven to 200°. In a large bowl, mix the potatoes with the eggs, flour, salt, baking powder, 3/4 cup of cheese and 3 tablespoons of butter. Fold in the 1/2 cup of bacon and the 1/3 cup of chives.
Brush the waffle iron with melted butter and spread one-fourth of the potato mixture onto it. Close and cook on high until the waffle is golden and crisp, 5 to 7 minutes.
Transfer to a rack in the oven to keep warm. Repeat with the remaining potato mixture. Serve the waffles topped with sour cream, crumbled bacon, cheddar and chopped chives.
Great way to put some of your real Easter-laid eggs to work for brunch guests. We miss you this year, Warrens! We’ll waffle up soon and very soon.
Of course I want to be healthy. We all do. But when you look at an earnest summer squash in the produce section, who thinks pancakes? Well, now you will. I give you, the perfect summer dinner. Guilt free.
Crispy Summer Squash Pancakes
Adapted from Food and Wine
2 medium yellow squash, grated on the medium holes of a box grater and squeezed dry
2 scallions, thinly sliced
1 jalapeño, thinly sliced
1 large egg, beaten
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
6 tablespoons olive oil
Lemon wedges and sour cream, for serving
In a medium bowl, combine the squash with the scallions, jalapeño, egg, flour and baking powder and season with salt and pepper. Mix gently just to combine.
In a large nonstick skillet, heat 2 tablespoons of the oil. Spoon 3 heaping 1/3-cup mounds of the batter into the skillet and press lightly to flatten them.
Cook over moderate heat until golden, about 3 minutes. Flip the pancakes, add 1 tablespoon of the oil and cook until golden and crisp, 2 minutes longer. Drain on paper towels. Repeat with the remaining oil and batter. Serve the pancakes hot with lemon wedges and sour cream. KP mixed sour cream with hot sauce. Divine.
Glorious Springtime Weekend. Planting seeds by day, House of Cards by night. There is a new chicken at the Hammer ranch, Juicy. She’s a beauty.
And a new flower post fashioned from a PVC pipe, hole punched and spray-painted and stacked with petunias and other bloomers. Pretty sure this is un-waterable…. didn’t think about that in the envisioning stage. Soon there will be a mailbox attached to the top in which I will place Various Letters to the World. I am hoping that the postman won’t confuse it with my actual mailbox, because I want my neighbors to check it as they walk their dogs or push their strollers or head out for dinner at our local pubs and diners—it will be like a Midcity fortune cookie with wisdom, jokes, sweet nothings and quotations. Or a repository for trash. Stay tuned.
In other news, have been adjusting to a new hospital service, and I realize that I am behind on my chocolate commitment for the year. Made this fabulous cake last night which KP called “The chocolate sugar butter cake”—it actually isn’t as sweet as I thought it would be for the amount of sugar involved. It is enormous and sort of chocolate cupcake bottom-like in texture and taste.
#8 Mocha Bundt Cake
Adapted from Martha Stewart’s magazine
1 tablespoon Dutch-process cocoa powder
1 tablespoon instant espresso powder
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
CAKE
3 sticks plus 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temperature
1/2 cup plus 1 tablespoon Dutch-process cocoa powder
3 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons coarse salt
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 cup very strong coffee
1 tablespoon instant espresso powder
1 cup sour cream
2 1/2 cups granulated sugar
4 large eggs, room temperature
1 cup (5 ounces) very finely chopped bittersweet chocolate (61 percent cacao)
Confectioners’ sugar, for dusting
Lightly whipped cream, for serving
Candied Lemon Zest, for serving (optional)
Filling: Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Stir together cocoa, espresso powder, and granulated sugar.
Cake: In a small bowl, mash together 2 tablespoons butter and 1 tablespoon cocoa; generously brush a 12-cup nonstick Bundt pan with mixture.
In another bowl, whisk together flour, salt, baking soda, and baking powder. In another bowl, whisk brewed espresso into remaining 1/2 cup cocoa and espresso powder until smooth; whisk in sour cream.
With a mixer on medium-high speed, beat remaining 3 sticks butter with granulated sugar until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Reduce speed to low and add flour mixture in three batches, alternating with cocoa mixture in two batches. Beat to combine, scraping down bowl as needed. Beat in chopped chocolate.
Transfer one-third of batter to prepared pan. Sprinkle with half of filling, avoiding edges. Repeat, then finish with remaining one-third of batter, smoothing top with an offset spatula. Bake until a tester inserted in center comes out clean, about 1 hour. Let cool in pan on a wire rack 15 minutes, then turn cake out onto rack; let cool completely, at least 2 hours.
Dust with confectioners’ sugar. Serve, with a dollop of whipped cream and some candied lemon zest.
By the way, congrats to all the Academy Award winners. I was SURE the Revenant would clean up, but congrats to Spotlight.
“When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him.”
-Jonathan Swift, from “Thoughts on Various Subjects, Moral and Diverting”
Happy 7th Birthday, Izzy, bulldog of mine. You and Ignatius Jacques Reilly, the fat buffoon protagonist of Jonathan Kennedy Toole’s Confederacy of Dunces, share more than just fatness and a habit of gorging on any available foods while appearing aloof and entitled to gluttony. You too are a genius in your own right. It was a matter of perfect theology and geometry that you came into our lives, where you remain wedged tightly somewhere between my shins and the kitchen countertop or in the precious small space between KP and myself in the bedroom or, elsewise, just under my left armpit when I should dare to eat a bowl of ice cream in perfect solitude.
You break my heart with your pitifulness, and then you wag me into cheer again with a few tongue lashings to the face and a few jowly drool smears on important papers or fresh dry-cleaned slacks. You will ever and always be our first dog, and as you lay languished about the house in layers of your own flesh like a pooling statue, we memorialize you prehumously with a nostalgia most can only muster for the beloved dead.
Hope you enjoyed the juicy wine cake, Izz-natius.
This recipe makes six wine cakes. Or, if you are a bulldog, six bites.
Juicy Wine Cakes
Adapted from A Confederacy of Dunces Cookbook
2 cups whole wheat pastry flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
1 cup sugar
4 large eggs
Dash of ground cloves
1 tsp vanilla
½ cup Cajun spiced rum
Heavy whipping cream and cherries (optional)
Preheat oven to 325 and grease 5-6 ramekins or 4-inch baking molds with butter. In a large bowl, sift together the flour, salt and baking powder. In another mixer bowl, combine softened butter with sugar and beat until fluffy. Scrape it all down and add each of the eggs, one at a time, and then cloves and vanilla. At a slower speed, add the dry mixture and the rum alternating a little wet and dry until all mixed. Pour into molds until 2/3 full (key, otherwise you’ll get the mounded wonders that you see I created.) Bake for 40 minutes until a little browned and springy. Let cool in molds for five minutes and then remove and cool the rest of the way on a rack.
You can make a wine sauce by bowling down another cup of rum and cup of sugar, cover the cakes with it and then wrap with saran and refrigerate to serve the next day….or you could just dig in. Or serve one to your sweet bully on her birthday with a little meat-flavored dog treat garnish.
This recipe comes from a fabulous cookbook I received for Christmas. I also highly recommend the book Confederacy of Dunces, a Pulitzer Prize winner comedic classic that calls New Orleans, then and now, like it is.
The inception of the Year of Chocolate was the gift of the Theo Chocolate cookbook which inspires this week’s chocolate special: caffeinated dark chocolate cookies. Just the thing to keep my eyes open on the ICU night watch this week. Thank you for this cookbook, Marilyn! And the baking chocolate!
#7 Gooey Double Chocolate Mocha Cookies
Adapted from Theo Chocolates recipe book
14 oz. Theo 70% dark chocolate
1 stick butter
4 eggs, room temperature
1 ½ C sugar
2 tsp. vanilla extract
½ C all-purpose flour
½ tsp. salt
½ tsp. baking powder
2T finely ground coffee/espresso beans
6 oz. Theo 70% dark chocolate, chopped
Melt the 14oz. of chocolate and butter together in microwave or in a heat-proof bowl set over a pot of simmering water. Beat eggs and sugar together until thick and pale, either with a mixer or by hand, about 8 minutes. Mix vanilla into egg mixture. Fold in cooled chocolate mixture. Sift flour, salt, and baking powder together, add the ground coffee, and fold this into the chocolate mixture along with the chopped chocolate. Right away, drop rounded tablespoons of batter onto a parchment-lined baking sheet and bake 350F about 8 minutes. The dough is extremely wet.
Do not overbake! The cookies will be slightly puffed and very fragile at this point. Remove from over and allow to cool.
