Baking

Fudge brownies.

~ wellfedemily ~ 11 Comments

Okay. So I was totally going to take artful photos of these brownies that I made and then share with you some delightful tale of how they came to be. But it didn’t work out. Because these brownies are a visceral experience, and I got carried away.

Ordinarily I don’t care about brownies because the only good brownies are the ones my Dad makes but he hardly ever makes them, so I forget about them most of the time. Last year someone told me to try the vegan brownies at the food co-op across the concourse from my office, and they tasted like the sadness you’d feel if someone told you your baked goods could never have butter in them ever again. I am pretty sure they contained legumes. I am pretty sure they were baked by a raging misanthropist.

There are some things that I cannot be open-minded about. Since then, I haven’t thought much about brownies.

That is, until my parents were going to come over to drop off the baby’s new crib. We were going to have lunch, which I had hoped would make their 90-minute roundtrip with a car full of huge boxes worthwhile. I made butter chicken meatballs, and that New York Times no-knead bread, and the timing of the meal – and this new thing I’m trying where I “clean as I go,” which has reduced the number of times Nick threatens divorce in a day by nearly half – made it so that I didn’t have a lot of time to invest in dessert.

Enter the recipe for these brownies. The recipe comes from The Ghirardelli Chocolate Cookbook, but I noticed a few things wrong with it, so this is an update (I fixed the cooking time, and added frosting which is something all brownies need, no exceptions).

They are a miracle of butter, chocolate, flour, and eggs, in that they almost lack structural integrity. They are chewy. Perfectly moist, even at the edges. They are rich, but the slight sourness of the cream cheese frosting makes them totally snarfable. The recipe makes sixteen; I ate nine all by myself.

You probably have everything you need to make them just sitting in your cupboards or fridge, possibly except for the maple extract, which you can swap for vanilla in a pinch. They do not contain a single legume.

Fudge Brownies

Brownies:

  • 1/2 lb. semisweet chocolate chips
  • 6 tbsp. butter, cut into pieces
  • 3/4 cup brown sugar, lightly packed
  • Pinch salt
  • 2 large eggs
  • 1 tsp. maple extract
  • 1/3 cup all-purpose flour

Frosting:

  • 4 oz. (1/2 package) cream cheese, at room temperature
  • 2 tbsp. butter, at room temperature
  • 1 cup confectioner’s sugar, sifted
  • 1/4 cup cocoa, sifted
  • 1 tsp. maple extract

Preheat oven to 325°F. Lightly grease an 8″x8″ baking pan, then line it with parchment paper, which has also been lightly greased on both sides.

Using a double boiler, a glass bowl over just-simmering water, or a microwave (three rounds of 30 seconds, stirring each time), gently melt chocolate chips and butter, stirring occasionally until smooth.

Beat the sugar, salt, and maple extract into the melted chocolate, then beat the eggs in one at a time. Add the flour and stir until just moistened; batter should pull away from the sides of the bowl.

Pour batter into your prepared pan, and bake 35 to 40 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the centre comes out mostly clean; you want a few moist crumbs to cling to the toothpick, not batter.

Let brownies rest in the pan 10 minutes before removing to a cooling rack. Let cool completely before frosting.

Meanwhile, beat cream cheese, butter, confectioner’s sugar, cocoa, and maple extract together until smooth and spreadable. Frost cooled brownies.

Cut into 16 pieces.

 

Canadian Pudding.

~ wellfedemily ~ 3 Comments

Our 2011 was a busy year, and many of its outcomes were unexpected. Nick was diagnosed with late-onset Type 1 diabetes. I found myself pregnant and then had a baby. We needed a bigger apartment, and a  two-bedroom opened up across the hall. Nick and I agreed on paint colours and the apartment got painted and nobody cried. I didn’t gain weight over Christmas. There were surprises at every turn, and we handled them surprisingly well – I’m impressed with us.

How was your year? I hear grumblings every now and then, and read them in blogs and on Facebook, about how 2011 was a hard year for a lot of people. It was a year of change and no money and tumult and bad weather, and the overwhelming sentiment last night and this morning seemed to be “Good grief, it’s finally over.” (We didn’t all go to Paris. We all deserved to, though.)

Maybe 2012 will be easier. My hope is that it’s a year of creativity and learning to do more with less – I hope this for me, and for all of us, because it doesn’t seem like life is going to get cheaper or easier for anyone anytime soon. I want to write more. I want to spend fewer dollars. I have to do both, but it’s becoming woefully apparent that I am unable to do either without serious focus and discipline. I want to find opportunities to write for money, which would solve both of my problems.

I want to fit into a smaller dress size without eating less cheese. I want to expand my repertoire of home-cured meats. I want the baby’s first word to be guanciale. These are lesser goals, perhaps, but smaller challenges make the bigger ones seem less daunting. Lara at Food. Soil. Thread. has a great take on resolution-making, and is in the process of achieving 101 of her own personal goals – I encourage you to check out what she’s doing and find your own inspiration.

And in the meantime, a goal that’s totally doable: eat more bacon. Let me help you with that.

Canadian Pudding

If this seems weird, I promise you that it is but in the most worthwhile way. It’s sweet and salty and maple and bacon and bourbon all play so nicely together, and when I served it to my friend Tracy she said that the bacon was a pleasant surprise, because she didn’t know what the taste was at first, and she liked it. You can scrap the bacon if your guests aren’t daring, I suppose.

(Serves four to six.)

Cake:

  • 2 strips thick-sliced smoked bacon
  • 1 cup all-purpose flour
  • 1/2 tsp. salt
  • 2 tsp. baking powder
  • 1/2 cup brown sugar, packed
  • 1/2 cup chopped toasted pecans
  • 1/2 cup milk
  • 2 tsp. melted butter
  • 1/4 tsp. ground nutmeg

Sauce:

  • 2 tbsp. melted butter
  • 2 tbsp. bourbon
  • 1 cup maple syrup
  • 1 cup hot water

Preheat your oven to 350°F.

In a pan over medium heat, cook bacon until crisp. Drain on paper towel, and then chop into bits.

In a 1 1/2 quart casserole or baking dish, whisk together flour, salt, baking powder, sugar, pecans, bacon bits, and nutmeg. Stir in milk and butter until dry ingredients are just moistened.

In a separate bowl, mix butter, bourbon, maple syrup, and water. Pour over cake mixture. Do not stir.

Bake for one hour. Let rest 15 minutes before serving.

Serve warm, with vanilla ice cream.

Happy New Year. I hope 2012 is good to you.

Nectarine kuchen.

~ wellfedemily ~ 6 Comments

This week has been my first week off work, and the days are long. Where last week I spent my days in a panic that I wouldn’t get everything done before this kid arrives, now I am beginning to think he’s never coming. The doctor assures me that “we’re close,” but that all I can do now is wait.

Patience is not my virtue, and “any day now” is not enough information to make plans around.

It’s a weird feeling, this lack of a sense of purpose or structure. In the absence of a real to-do list, I don’t do much of anything. I should probably finish addressing the thank-you cards from my shower. I should put the laundry away and do something about the kitchen floor.

I was proud of myself yesterday because I made dinner, a word that if I were being totally honest would be placed in quotation marks. We eat a lot of take-out. During the day, when the light in this place is most oppressive, I wander up and down Granville Street because I am told that walking will help speed things along. At home the cat no longer feigns interest in our conversation, though we do spend long hours napping.

The evenings are much nicer. The light is softer, and people come over. I feel most like myself in the evenings.

My parents called on Saturday to tell us they were going to come over on Sunday to bring baby things and dinner. There are still local peaches and nectarines at the markets, because the season was late this year, so I grabbed the last few big nectarines in the bin and decided to make dessert, which counts toward my total productivity for the week and also means cake for breakfast until the leftovers run out – double win.

The nice thing about this dessert is that you do it in bursts with long stretches of sitting down in between. You make the batter, and then it rises, and then you put the batter in a pan, and it rises again. You make the topping, and it macerates, and then you bake the thing. Not much standing, at least not for too long.

It’s also fun to say – kuchen, or “kooken,” and oh how I wish I spoke German. And while I wasn’t sure of it as an after-dinner treat, this kuchen would certainly be lovely with tea in the middle of the day if you were going to have company some Sunday afternoon. It’s not too sweet, with a coarse, bread-like crumb and slightly yeasty taste that was nice (but not what I was in the mood for post-pasta). You’ll want to serve it warm, ideally the day it’s made, but it does reheat well.

I’ve made minor adaptations to the Gourmet Today recipe, as I didn’t like the lemon in it and wanted a touch more vanilla. And while the Gourmet recipe calls for those cute little Italian prune plums, I am not ready to bid farewell to sweeter, muskier stone fruit just yet. In winter this would be nice with a whisper of cinnamon and topped with poached pears or thin slices of orange.

Nectarine kuchen

(Based on plum kuchen recipe from Gourmet Today, page 733; serves 8.)

Cake:

  • 1 1/2 tsp. active dry yeast
  • 2 tbsp. lukewarm water
  • 2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1/3 cup sugar
  • 1/2 tsp. salt
  • 1/2 cup whole milk, warmed to about 110°F
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
  • 1/2 cup butter, cut into tablespoons (room temperature)

Topping:

  • 1 lb. nectarines, pitted and sliced to between 1/4″ and 1/2″ thick
  • Half of one vanilla bean, scraped
  • 3 tbsp. brown sugar

Butter a 9″x13″ baking pan.

In a small bowl, combine yeast and water and let stand until foamy, about five minutes.

In a large bowl, beat 1 3/4 cups flour, sugar, salt, milk, eggs, vanilla, and yeast mixture at medium-low until smooth. Add butter, a tablespoon at a time, and continue to beat until smooth. Scrape down the sides of the bowl, sprinkle dough with remaining 1/4 cup of flour, and cover with a clean kitchen towel. Leave to rise somewhere warm for 45 to 60 minutes (until doubled in bulk).

Stir batter until flour is thoroughly mixed. Pour batter into prepared pan, cover, and let rise until doubled, another 45 to 60 minutes.

Meanwhile, combine nectarine slices with vanilla bean and brown sugar. Toss to coat, and let stand at room temperature, about one hour.

Preheat oven to 375°F. Drain liquid from nectarines, and arrange nectarine slices over top of dough. They can overlap. Bake until cake is golden and fruit is tender, 35 to 40 minutes. Serve warm with whipped cream.

Peach and raspberry streusel cake

~ wellfedemily ~ 9 Comments

The reality of how little time we have left is starting to hit us now that Month 7 is upon us.

I have not been making much food at home because suddenly there is urgency to experiencing every patio and new restaurant, or to savouring the experience of doing absolutely nothing which mostly involves take-out or huge containers of fresh berries and ice cream and marathon sessions of 30 Rock. The laundry piles up and the bathtub stays grubby. But that seems to be the case regardless of the distraction.

There have been bursts of productivity in spite of us both, and everything seems to be coming up Emily. We were despairing the lack of reasonably priced but not disgusting two-bedroom apartments in the city while the walls in our current apartment began to close in on us when a spacious, many-windowed two-bedroom opened up in our own building, just across the hall. We move in October 1, so for the first time we don’t have to rush to pack, and we even have time to paint the new place to our liking.

At long last, we’re having ourselves a summer, but not a painfully hot one – outside the temperature has seldom exceeded 27 degrees (Celsius). Which has meant long afternoons in the sun, eating cherries and watching the barges in Burrard Inlet or feeding the birds tasty bites of fresh doughnut on the boardwalk at Granville Island, or cool evenings picnicking on Jericho Beach or walking to Cambie Street for the good tacos (and some lecherous staring at the beautiful blue-eyed taco man).

The sun is bright but the breeze is comfortable, and this does not feel like the same city I dream about running away from in the winter after 40 consecutive days of rain.

And, most importantly, still no stretch marks. I am so slick with lotion and cocoa butter that I’d be lethal on a Slip ‘n Slide. You keep your fingers crossed good and tight for me.

All this going and doing and lotion application has kept me out of the kitchen most of the time, and I can’t say that I mind. We eat a lot of 10-minutes-or-less dinners, a lot of berries in cream, and a refreshing number of salads. I like to think that summer’s slacking is an excuse to go out and make the stories we tell all winter, that somewhere in the season’s casual outdoor feasts there is something important, or, at the very least, something to dream on.

Like pink wine and sunshine in Grace’s wine glasses: important.

The aroma of a trout Paul that caught as it cooks with lemon and dill on the barbecue: important.

The chewy texture of oatmeal sourdough made by Grace from a starter with natural yeast: important.

A simple meal shared on a blanket on the beach: important.

People you are fond of in good moods and summer clothes: important.

Eating dessert outside at sunset: important.

Cake and peaches and raspberries and brown sugar topping: important.

You can make this now, and eat it on the beach as the sweet finale to a picnic, or you can use whatever fruit you’ve frozen and make in the winter when you’re cold and missing the smell of the ocean and that flattering summer evening light. I made this with peaches and raspberries, but it’s based on a recipe that calls for blueberries. It would be beautiful with blackberries.

Peach and raspberry streusel cake

(Adapted from the Fannie Farmer Baking Book)

Cake

  • 1/4 cup butter, softened
  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • 1 egg
  • 1 tsp. vanilla extract
  • 1 lemon, zest and juice (this is wonderful with Meyer lemon if you can get one)
  • 1 cup all-purpose flour
  • 1 tsp. baking powder
  • 1/4 tsp. salt
  • 1/3 cup milk
  • 1 cup diced peaches
  • 1 cup raspberries

Topping:

  • 1/2 cup dark brown sugar
  • 1/3 cup whole-wheat flour
  • 1/4 cup butter, cold
  • 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract

Preheat your oven to 350°F. Grease and flour a 1 1/2-quart baking dish.

Beat butter and sugar until thoroughly combined, then add egg, vanilla, lemon zest and juice. Mix.

In a separate bowl, combine flour, baking powder, and salt. Stir.

Add flour mixture to butter mixture with milk, and beat until smooth. Spread evenly in baking dish.

Top batter with fruit.

In another bowl (so many dishes! Fun!), mix sugar and flour. Add butter and vanilla, and squish between your fingers until a dry, crumbly crumb has formed. Sprinkle over fruit.

Bake for 60 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the centre comes out clean. Serve warm.

 

Oh! Pretty!

~ wellfedemily ~ 2 Comments

It’s a very good day when I arrive home to find elegant gift bags stuffed with individually wrapped homemade baked goods.

I suppose that’s stating the obvious. But it’s true, because a gift of baked goods is a gift just for me, because Nick can’t sneak bites when I’m not looking or, as I’ve convinced him to believe, he will lapse into a diabetic coma and die before ever finishing his video game or seeing the Canucks win the Stanley Cup. Marriage has given me a chance to really shine.

The cookies are from my friend Amber (pictured in this post here), who lives in Victoria which is inconvenient as she is all kinds of fun (especially as a shopping buddy) and a highly skilled baker – I would like to see her more. Someone needs to give her a donation to start up a bakery, as you can clearly see (preferably a tall, olive-skinned benefactor with his own plane and a villa in Provence). She has endless patience and apparently a fabulous collection of cookie cutters. And she has excellent timing, as I have been wanting homemade cookies but not wanting to make them myself. When I bit into these I discovered that they’re better than I can make anyway.

Thanks, Amber! The lobster is my favourite, but I am going to eat him last.

Pear galette with rosemary and Chevre.

~ wellfedemily ~ 5 Comments

Nick and the cat are fighting over bedtime (they holler at each other while he completes his nighttime routine), and she needed to have her claws trimmed a week ago and now it’s his problem, and it’s laundry night but the sheets came out damp, and we’re all out of Glee episodes to watch and books to read and original thoughts to think. But the apartment is clean, scrubbed down to its grout even, and we have a week of relaxation planned, of catching up on lost sleep and homemade dinners and digging in the garden. We’re not driving places or spending money. We’ve booked ourselves an entire weekend of going nowhere and doing nothing but slow-cooking beans and brisket for Sunday dinner. I’m looking forward to it.

Every so often it becomes urgent to not do anything for a week or two, to be very boring until the bags disappear from under our eyes for awhile. We generally eat well during these lulls, because we are not always worrying about what to wear before dashing frantically off to some thing. It’s during these breaks that we sometimes get to eat pie for dinner, so even if the lulls sound terribly dull, at least there is pastry. And that is a thing to look forward to in itself.

Pear galette with rosemary

  • 1 cup whole wheat flour
  • 1 1/4 tsp. salt, divided
  • 1/2 tsp. ground black pepper, divided
  • 1/2 cup cold unsalted butter, cubed
  • 5 tbsp. ice water
  • 1 lb. firm-fleshed pears
  • 1/2 cup balsamic vinegar
  • 1/2 cup maple syrup
  • 1/2 cup crumbled Chevre
  • 2 sprigs fresh rosemary
  • 1 egg white, beaten with 1 tsp. water

Make your dough. Combine flour and 1/4 teaspoon of salt, and drop each cube of butter in, squishing them between your fingers. The end result before you add the water should be a crumby mixture with larger chunks, some as large as kidney beans or peas. Stir in water, a bit at a time, to form the dough – you may not need all of the water; the dough should be just moist enough to hold together. Press into a disk and wrap in plastic wrap. Refrigerate until pears are done.

Quarter pears and remove centres, and cut each quarter in half. You can peel them if you want to but I didn’t feel like it, and it didn’t make a difference in the end. Place pear pieces into a saucepan and pour over balsamic vinegar, maple syrup, and enough cold water to just cover the pears. Add the remaining salt, 1/4 teaspoon of black pepper, and the sprig of rosemary. Bring the pot to a simmer over medium-high heat, reduce heat to medium, and simmer for 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 375°F.

Roll pie dough onto a sheet of parchment paper to a thickness of 1/4-inch. Place parchment with pie dough onto a sheet pan.

Place pear slices in the centre of the dough in a circle. Sprinkle Chevre and remaining pepper over top, then fold the edges of the dough over the pears. It will be rough and rustic-looking, but that’s perfectly all right, because who wants to make a perfect pie after working all day? Not me. Place the remaining sprig of rosemary over top, paint the edges of the pie with egg white, and bake for 35 to 40 minutes, until golden.

Serve with gently dressed greens and hot black tea.

Orange upside-down cake.

~ wellfedemily ~ 15 Comments

It was plum season when I wrote about upside-down cakes, and I mentioned then that you would want to try making upside-down cakes with oranges in the wintertime. I love being right – and with oranges baked in caramel, how could you go wrong?

On an unrelated note, the lighting in my apartment continues to be terrible, despite my best efforts, so even with my shiny new camera the photos are turning out yellow. If this is something you can solve for me with a simple explanation (Fuji FinePix JX250, in the hands of an unskilled clicker), I will love you forever AND be your best friend.

Anyway.

When I got home from work I was too tired to do anything about feeding myself, so I slumped onto the couch with a can of room-temperature PBR and watched RapCity while Nick made merely adequate grilled cheese sandwiches for dinner. For an hour or two I was resigned to an evening of staring blankly at the TV with my mouth hanging open.

Then Nick went out to play boardgames with his boyfriends, and I felt repentant for my earlier uselessness but also disinterested in washing dishes or bending over to collect his socks from the floor, so I made a cake.

This is a variation on October’s upside-down cake, as I’ve decided that cornmeal is what I am in the mood for. You could make it with the other cake if you want, but the yellow of this version is nice, and the citrus in the batter brightens it up enough that you’ll almost forget you haven’t seen sunlight in a month. It’s just about healthy, with its corny base and orangey top, and something about it tells me it will be as satisfying reheated for breakfast tomorrow morning as it was fresh from the oven tonight.

Orange upside-down cake

Top:

  • 3 to 4 small navel oranges or blood oranges (or a combination)
  • 1/4 cup unsalted butter
  • 3/4 brown sugar
  • Pinch salt

Cake:

  • Zest of one orange
  • Zest and juice of one lemon
  • 2/3 cup yellow cornmeal
  • 2/3 cup all-purpose flour
  • 1/2 tsp. baking soda
  • 1/2 tsp. salt
  • 2 tbsp. unsalted butter, melted
  • 2 tbsp. honey
  • 1 cup milk
  • 1 egg

Preheat oven to 375°F.

Using a knife, peel your oranges. Cut slightly on the diagonal, running the blade along the flesh of the orange, being careful not to leave any of the bitter white pith behind. Slice oranges horizontally to about 1/4″ thick. Test to be sure they fit into the bottom of a 9″ cast iron pan; they should fit comfortably with only nominal overlapping. Set aside.

In a bowl, combine orange and lemon zests, cornmeal, flour, baking soda, and salt. In a separate bowl, whisk together lemon juice, melted butter, honey, milk, and the egg.

Place the 9″ cast iron pan over medium high heat, melt butter and sugar together until bubbling. Turn the heat off, and carefully add orange slices, placing them evenly across the bottom of the pan.

Whisk wet ingredients into dry ingredients, and pour into pan on top of the butter-sugar-orange mixture.

Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, until top is golden, edges appear crisp, and caramel has bubbled through in places.

Let stand five minutes, then carefully turn out onto a serving plate. Let cool for 15 minutes before serving.

PS – Lisa over at Sweet as Sugar Cookies asked me to share this at her linky party. Since I like parties and adjectives that end in “y,” I said yes. Go check out her line-up of awesome desserts!

Grandpa’s Radio Pudding.

~ wellfedemily ~ 5 Comments

Every so often I find myself going too easily from reflective to sentimental, especially at this time of year when it seems like every beverage is seasonally … uh, “enhanced.” It goes against my nature, which is perhaps why I find sentimentality embarrassing, and even more perhaps why I’ve avoided lengthy ramblings on the holidays and significance and touching heartfelt somethingorothers in general. But I have been thinking a lot about tradition, because it’s December and because I have reached a strange point in my existence, one where “tradition” is less the thing you do each year and more the thing you try to replicate now that key pieces are missing.

One of the lessons of my first married Christmas is that I do not cope well with change. It would be marvellous if every holiday went exactly as I’d like it to, but the annoying thing about traditions is that they tend to involve other people. Now that Nick is one of my people, I have to care about him too, even though he doesn’t do Christmas the way I want him to. One year real soon I am going to have to get over the fact that he never believed in Santa Claus. What do I care if he’s on the naughty list? I’m on the nice list, so I’ll be getting a gift this year. And maybe it’s still possible to stab some magic into his heart.

This year we lost my Grandpa. Grandpa was funny, a veteran of the Korean war, a proud Canadian, and probably the only good dancer in the gene pool. When he was young he looked like James Garner and was just as cool as Jim Rockford, at least to me. Every time I visited, he was just about to head off on some grand adventure, often driving. And making him proud was something I very much wanted to do; I won a scholarship from the Korean Veteran’s Association when I was 18, and he was literally pink with delight. I remember the rum drinks, and thinking about how I would have to walk to collect my award deliberately, without stumbling, because there were a lot of old men there, and cameras. When Grandpa poured the drinks the Coke was just for colour.

I adapted reluctantly to changes over the course of nearly a decade of Christmases, where one grandparent or the other was sick or had passed away; I remember cooking holiday feasts while my parents visited my mom’s dad in the hospital, or cramming shortbread in my mouth as Cuddles and Auntie Lynn and I snorted with laughter at the kitchen table over three decades of holiday gossip, remembering Grampa with humour. When my grandma Cuddles died, we adapted again. But as long as there was Grandpa, my dad’s dad, a piece of my smaller self’s Christmas remained intact.

This is the year when all the things are officially different – no grandparents will be at our dinner table. That doesn’t mean that Christmas will be any less magical (except it won’t be for Nick because he doesn’t believe in flying reindeer either), but it does mean that I am at a temporary loss for describing the traditions I’ve held for my whole life so far. I’ve celebrated a few this year and they have been as joyous as always, and I’ve made quite a few new ones.

Many of these new traditions are due in large part to the fact that there are small children around now, and because none of them are mine I don’t have to be an adult. Some are because of Nick and Nick’s family, where there are many more small children and where I am also not required (or expected?) to act my age.

And there is still Sandi, who I think of as Grandma and who is very much family, who was good to my Grandpa until the last, and who I will still make a trip out Pitt Meadows in the coming week to visit. I believe she’s spending Christmas with her kids this year.

So even though there is lots to look forward to this year, I’d like to also think about Grandpa and the past. And because I do most of my thinking in the kitchen, I’d like to share with you a recipe of his, the origins of which are “the radio.” He heard the recipe on the radio at some point a very long time ago, but as far as anyone’s concerned it’s his. It’s his like Continental Chicken and garlic sausage and cheese on crackers. It’s called, quite simply, “Grandpa’s Radio Pudding.” Make it for yourself if you could use a warm hug or a bit of holiday cheer.

Grandpa’s Radio Pudding

Cake:

  • 1 cup all-purpose flour
  • 1/2 tsp. salt
  • 1 tbsp. cocoa
  • 2 tsp. baking powder
  • 1/2 cup granulated sugar
  • 1/2 cup chopped nuts (or chocolate chips)
  • 1/2 cup milk
  • 2 tsp. melted butter or shortening
  • 1 tsp. vanilla

Sauce:

  • 4 tbsp. cocoa
  • 1/2 cup brown sugar
  • 1 3/4 cups hot water

Preheat your oven to 350°F.

In a 1 1/2 quart casserole or baking dish, whisk together flour, salt, cocoa, baking powder, sugar, and nuts or chocolate chips. Stir in milk, butter or shortening, and vanilla.

In a separate bowl, mix cocoa, brown sugar, and water. Pour over cake mixture. Do not stir.

Bake for one hour.

Serve hot, with ice cream or whipped cream.

Eggnog baked oatmeal.

~ wellfedemily ~ 14 Comments

December offers all kinds of events, and in combination I find that priorities conflict. Mimosa brunches are followed by dinner with the in-laws, nights of rum and eggnog are followed by work the next morning, and sparkling wine-fueled oyster binges are followed by early wake-ups for shopping with Mom. Expectations run high this time of year. In a perfect world, I’d be able to stumble from one event to the next in a twinkling haze of festive spirit and good cheer, but the thing about in-laws and work and Mom is that they have little appreciation for my kind of enthusiasm, and sometimes Nick decides it’s my turn to drive.

Knowing that Grace’s oyster feast was upon us and having bought two bottles of sparkling wine, I planned ahead. To stave off the effects of a party, I like baked oatmeal; it’s a dense, cakey version of oatmeal that will fill you up and sort you out.

Before going out, I put oatmeal, eggnog, eggs, butter, and spices into a bowl, mixed them well, and placed the mixture in a 1.5 quart baking dish that I then put in the fridge. Now, if it seems like I am asking you to bake oatmeal in custard, don’t worry. That’s absolutely what I’m asking you to do, because we’re a long way from swimsuit season, and this is a celebratory dish, the kind of thing you bring out for brunchtime and then digest during a nap that lasts all afternoon. It’s oatmeal, but it’s special. It’s like a big dish of oatmeal cookie, the dessert of breakfast dishes. High in soluble fibre and butterfat.

Use the best eggnog you can get – I use the stuff from Avalon, which I bought more of than I needed because of the beautiful dairy man who causes me to trip over my words. Also, it’s delicious.

Eggnog baked oatmeal

(Serves four.)

  • 2 1/2 cups rolled oats (not instant – I used large flake, the kind that cooks in 10 to 15 minutes on the stove)
  • 1/4 cup brown sugar
  • 1/2 tsp. salt
  • 1/2 tsp. nutmeg
  • 1/4 tsp. allspice
  • 1 cup eggnog
  • 1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted
  • 2 eggs, lightly beaten
  • 1 tbsp. rum or bourbon, whichever you prefer (optional, I guess)
  • 1/2 tsp. vanilla

In a large bowl, combine oats, brown sugar, salt, nutmeg, and allspice. Stir. Add eggnog, butter, eggs, rum or bourbon if using, and vanilla. Stir again, thoroughly. Pour mixture into a greased 1.5 quart baking dish, cover, and refrigerate for eight to 10 hours or overnight.

Heat oven to 350°F. Bake oatmeal for 60 minutes. It should be golden on top, with a little bit of bubbling around the edges. Let rest for five minutes before serving; serve with maple or golden syrup, if desired, or yogurt. If you were to serve it with ice cream it would be amazing but I am not so bold at 9:30 on a Sunday morning.

Persimmon oatmeal cookies.

~ wellfedemily ~ 3 Comments

I have had a headache for three days. THREE DAYS. I think it’s the combination of too much to eat this past weekend and too little sleep, and whenever I can’t sleep my arthritis gets uppity and my mind races and all of a sudden I’m imagining worst-case scenarios like the student loan people beating down the door and shooting my cat because they want Nick and I to pay a combined total of $998 per month in loan payments so we’re always coming up short because that is too many dollars and they would shoot the cat, I just know. So, to counter that, I have been taking melatonin by the handful to get sleep, and Nick says that you really can take too much of that.

So, sleeplessness, oversleep, chemicals, joint pain, and never enough caffeine, and my head hurts. Also, logic has gone right out the window. With it, focus and discipline. Also, I’m a complainosaurus.

But because of all this, and because I had nothing to do tonight, I made cookies, and now I am happy and the universe promises to right itself. Tonight I will get a good sleep. Or I will smother the cat in a valiant attempt at saving her from my bad dreams. Either way, the apartment will smell like cookies!
These are made with persimmons, because we get a lot of those around here when they’re in season. Peel them first with a paring knife, and mince them fine. Their mindblowing sweetness is tempered here, balanced with salt and spice, and they make the cookies chewy and delicious. They’re crisp outside, and soft in the centre – all good stuff here.

Persimmon oatmeal cookies

(Adapted from Fannie Farmer. Makes about three dozen.)

  • 1 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
  • 1 1/2 cups brown sugar
  • 1 tbsp. fancy molasses
  • 1 egg
  • 1 cup finely chopped persimmon
  • 2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 tsp. salt
  • 1 tsp. baking soda
  • 1 tsp. cinnamon
  • 1/2 tsp. powdered ginger
  • 1/2 tsp. ground cloves
  • 1/2 tsp. nutmeg
  • 2 cups uncooked oatmeal (not the instant kind)

Preheat oven to 375°F.

Cream together butter, sugar, and molasses. Add egg, and beat until thoroughly combined. Add persimmon.

In a separate bowl, combine flour, salt, baking soda, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, and nutmeg. Pour gradually into wet ingredients, beating all the while. Add oatmeal slowly, and beat until well mixed.

Drop by tablespoons onto greased cookie sheets.

Bake for 10 to 12 minutes, until slightly puffed and golden. Cool on racks. Eat almost immediately.

The autumnal spiciness of these will make any kitchen smell just wonderful, curing headaches and cookie cravings. I’m taking a plate of these to bed, where I’ve got a cold glass of milk waiting with a book by MFK Fisher, and by tomorrow I expect I’ll be a superhero. You too?