Butter, Butter, Butternut Squash

Busy weekend, filled with butter! First baked some shortbread, half a pound of butter, so delicious. Then roasted apples, no butter, but that smell of apples and cinnamon filling the house.....mmmmm. Used those apples to make turnovers from the puff pastry made last week. Puff pastry: layers and layers of flour and butter. Turnovers came out beautiful if a little misshapen, just need more practice. Simple but delicious and nutritious Squash Soup for dinner
 




Apples peeled & quartered



Apples Roasted with Cinnamon



Puff Pastry



Rolled out




Ready to fill




Ready to Bake




Wish you could smell the Apple Cinnamon Goodness?



 Butternut Squash Soup

2 pounds Butternut Squash
1 Tablespoon Olive Oil
1 Shallot, diced
5 Cups stock or water
Salt & Pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Cut squash in half lengthwise and remove seeds. Place squash cut side down on a baking sheet. Bake in oven till starting to brown and softened, about 40 - 60 minutes.

Heat medium size soup pot oven medium heat. Add oil and dice shallot. Saute shallot until it starts to brown on edges. Scoop flesh from squash (leave the skin) and add to shallot. Mash squash to remove lumps. Add liquid (water works fine. Stock, vegetable or chicken, makes a richer soup). Season with salt & pepper. Puree soup to make smooth. Cook for 15-30 minutes until flavors come together and soup reduces to velvety texture

Butter for Shortbread

Shortbread ready to bake

Finished Shortbread

Butternut Squash Soup

Hey, where have I been?

Wow! can't believe it has been 2 weeks since I last posted. I guess I was so relieved to be done with making all that chocolate and I have been posting to my facebook page; Little Sister Bakery, where it is much easier to download photos. Anyways in the past 2 weeks I have made:


Whole Wheat Sandwich Bread




Mini Cupcakes




Spinach & Mushroom Empanadas



Puff Pastry



SuperMoon; I did not make this it just happened




Peanut Butter with Milk Chocolate Chips




Monster Cookies Packed for trip to Missouri



Jennyfer's Chocolate Chocolate Chunk Cookies



Marble Bundt Cake

 No I did not eat all of this, I tried as much as possible to share with friend and family, but I need more people to sample. So if you are interested leave a comment here or on my facebook page; Little Sister Bakery. To give credit the Peanut Butter (one of the best cookies I have ever made), and Monster cookies and the Marble Bundt Cake recipe came from the Baked Cookbook by Matt Lewis & Renato Poliafito. Both their books are amazing and I want to make & eat everything in them. Jennyfer and I have decided that we want to focus on cookies, so we are testing different recipes, to find the absolute best. She made the Chocolate Chocolate Chunk cookie dough (ooooooh sooooo chocolatey) and we then traded. I gave her some Monster dough and she gave me some Chocolate Chocolate Chunk dough. The puff pastry recipe is from the Sarabeth's Bakery Cookbook. The puff pastry is sitting in the freezer, I should pull it out and make something with it this weekend, maybe some turnovers. Speaking of turnovers the spinach mushroom turnovers pictured are my own recipe and quite yummy. Here is another recipe that I have adapted and made vegan. The original recipe came from my sister Alyson's Mother-in-Law and tastes amazingly like that stuff that comes from a can but better, much better.

Vegan Sloppy Joes
feeds 4-6 people

1 cup dry brown lentils, washed and sorted
2 tablespoons olive oil
small onion, diced
carrot peeled and diced
1 rib celery, diced
4 cups water

2 tablespoons olive oil
small onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, diced
2 tablespoons flour
2 tablespoons evaporated cane juice (or brown sugar)
1 tablespoon Vegan Worestershire Sauce
1 teaspoon salt or to taste
1 teaspoon chili powder or to taste
1/4 cup organic Ketchup
8 oz organic tomato sauce

Cook Lentils; Heat medium sauce pan, add oil saute onion in oil till tender and translucent. Add carrot and celery cook till softened. Add lentils and water, bring to a boil, cook until lentils are tender. Drain excess water, set aside.

Heat a large skillet over medium high heat, add oil saute onion till starts to brown on edges, add garlic when you can smell the garlic, add the cooked lentils, sprinkle the flour over the pan, mix together and allow to brown slightly, essentially making a roux. Then add remaining ingredients one at a time, stirring to incorporate fully before adding next item. Once everything is in, allow to simmer for 15 to 20 minutes, till flavors come together. Serve on toasted rolls or hamburger buns.

Chocolate Work

This past week I have been working on chocolate. Ecole Chocolat, Assignment 5: Develop Your Signature Chocolates was due today. Feels like I spent three days spent continuously stirring melted chocolate, it took all my will power not to just drink the whole bowl. Here are the recipes I developed:
　

 Milk Chocolate Malt enrobed in White Chocolate

Mint Creme Fondant enrobed in Dark Chocolate

Dark Chocolate Caramel enrobed in Dark Chocolate







 

Cashew Brittle with Cashew Gianduja

This was a great experience and gave me a new appreciation for the craft of making chocolates. Also made me realize that chocolatier may not be the career path for me. The amount of time involved and that once I started the process, it required my complete involvement, no stopping to do anything else at all. On the 1st day I made the caramel and brittle gianduja centers. Gianduja is made by combining nut butter or paste with melted chocolate, think Nutella. The 2nd day I made the molded chocolates, this was 5 hours of non-stop work. I started by tempering the chocolate to coat the molds. To temper dark chocolate (temperatures for Milk & White Chocolate are lower)you melt it and heat it to 120 degrees, then remove it from heat add in 25% more chocolate and stir until the temperature drops to 85 degrees. According to Chocolates & Confections at Home with the C.I.A. this should take either 10 - 15 minutes or 15 - 20 minutes, my experience it took more than 30 minutes. My arm was tired. Once it reaches 85 degrees, you check the temper by coating a spoon & letting it dry for 8 minutes. If properly tempered (this means it stays solid a room temperature and snaps when you break it) you heat it back up to 89 degrees and then it can be used any way you desire. Once it had the molds coated one in dark chocolate and one in white chocolate, I made the fondant flavoring it with peppermint, then spooned it into the mold prepared with dark chocolate. Next was the chocolate malt truffle filling in white chocolate. The amazing part was my creations dropped from their molds undamaged and beautiful with a minimal amount of banging. Day 3 I made the ganache truffle filling and tempered more chocolate to enrobe the cashew & caramel fillings. This is when I learned that the heat from the single light bulb above my work area was enough to significantly slow down the tempering process, even though it was on the cool side of 68 degrees in my kitchen. Chocolate making is also very messy, and since it requires undivided attention the dishes pile up.

The photo on the left shows the dishes piled in the sink!

Frustration with photo placement continues, photos are not in the order I placed them. Not sure what I am doing wrong. If anyone knows how to get the photos to go where I want them, please let me know.

Next up the Great Chocolate Chip Cookie Experiment! in search of the best recipe for the quintessential American Cookie.

Toasted Almond & Cinnamon Milk Chocolate Truffle coated with Crushed Toasted Almonds & Cocoa Powder
(?not sure how this ended up down here?, should be 1st chocolate you see)

Cake Disaster, Gluten Free Cookies, Pineapple Pie, Oh My!

 What a week so far. Monday I attempted to bake the Chocolate Hazelnut (Almond) Cake with Chocolate Filling and Hazelnut (Almond) Buttercream. Did not get much further than the Chocolate Sponge Cake. As you can see, it did not come out too pretty. SO, I decided to move on. You might remember my mentioning that the Devil's Food Cake was the prettiest cake I have ever made, well maybe that was a fluke. Moving on, I have decided that my strength is in baking Cookies. A friend has asked me to make desserts for her birthday party in April, including a few gluten free items.

Yesterday I conducted a test, I took my favorite Chocolate Chip cookie recipe and substituted Bob's Red Mill Gluten Free All Purpose Baking Flour one to one for standard All Purpose Flour, also I added one half teaspoon Xanthan Gum as recommended on the Bob's package. The cookies came out awesome, flavor is same, the texture is the only change, when using wheat flour they were chewy, with the gluten free flour they are crisp.

Chocolate Chip Cookies
(America's Test Kitchen Family Baking Book)
10 2/3 ounces Flour (2 cups plus 2 tbs) * if using gluten free add 1/2 tsp Xanthan Gum*
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 cup unsalted butter, melted & cooled
1 cup packed dark brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 large egg plus 1 large egg yolk
2 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 cups Semi Sweet Choclate Chips

Pre-heat oven to 325 degrees. Whisk together flour, baking soda, salt & xanthan gum if using in medium bowl. In a large bowl cream together butter and sugars. Once smooth beat in egg, yolk & vanilla until combined. Slowly add in dry ingredients once combined stir in chocolate chips. Scoop out 2 tablespoons of dough, roll into ball and place on parchment lined cookie sheet, space cookies about 2 inches apart. Bake 15-20 minutes, rotate sheet halfway through. Cool cookies on baking sheet for 10 minutes, then transfer to wire rack to finish cooling.

 Today is my friend Dee's birthday and since she has been lamenting the absence of  Pineapple Pie at her family's Thanksgiving celebration, I decided to make one for her birthday. I had never heard of Pineapple Pie, so I looked up the recipe at http://allrecipes.com/ and found a recipe that made sense and had positive comments. The pie came out beautiful and filled my house with this delicious buttery aroma this morning.

Pineapple Pie III (from Allrecipes.com)

1 recipe Pastry for 9 inch double crust pie
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3 tbs cornstarch
20 ounce can crushed pineapple with juice
1 tbs lemon juice
2 tbs milk
1 tbs granulated sugar

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. In medium saucepan combine 3/4 cup       sugar, cornstarch, pineapple with juice and lemon juice. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly until thickened, boil for 1 additional minute. Cool slightly and pour into pastry-lined pie pan. Cover with top crust and seal. Cut a few steam vents in crust, then brush with milk and sprinkle with tablespoon of sugar. Bake in preheated oven for 35 minutes. Serve chilled or at room temperature.


Tomorrow I need to work on chocolate for my course that I am taking, I will post pictures and recipes as I complete them.