Raspberry Muffins

recipe from Joy the Baker

Dinner: Cheese & Tomato Tartines

Made a nifty new dinner tonight -- cheddar, butter, french bread, and tomatoes, layered together and broiled. Took all of ten minutes to prepare and was super tasty. Wish I'd taken a pic, but unfortunately I had to eat and run to work with no time to spare.

long loaf french bread
3-4 nice-smelling tomatoes
block of good cheddar
butter

Cut bread into short rectangular pieces (we got three sections out of ours). Cut each of these in half horizontally. (Optional: Lightly toast the bread sections -- just enough to make the bread a little crisp on top.)

Butter each section. Layer on top sliced tomatoes. Cover with shredded cheddar cheese. (Optional: Broil each tartine for a few minutes until cheese melted.)

Future tartine dinner idea: goat cheese and thin slices of cucumber.

SHF #38 Baking With Candy

As soon as I mentioned to my husband that this month's Sugar High Friday was all about Baking With Candy, he immediately wanted to combine Werther's Originals with shortbread. I was definitely skeptical at first -- I thought the candy would be too hard in the middle of soft shortbread. But in the end, I was completely wrong and he was completely right. The little hard candies (which we crushed up) melted into the shortbread and had a chewy, easily crunched texture after baking.

About 1/2 one small bag of Werther's Originals
2 sticks softened unsalted butter (1 cup)
3/4 cup sifted confectioners sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 cups sifted flour
1/2 tsp salt

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Combine butter, vanilla, sugar, flour, and salt in a mixing bowl with a wooden spoon. Stir until combined but not too creamy. Put all the Werther's in a plastic bag and crush with something heavy (we used a meat tenderizer).

Divide dough into two equal parts. Press one of the two halves into an eight-inch square baking pan. Sprinkle about half the crushed candies over the dough, making an even layer. Press the other half of the dough on top of the candy. (We did this slowly so as not to disturb the candy layer -- basically, we just took small pieces of the dough and pressed them down on the candy layer little by little. Then we smoothed them together.) Sprinkle the other half of the crushed candies over the top, again making an even layer.

Bake until firm and golden, about 30 minutes. After baking, let the shortbread cool for about 20 minutes. Then run a knife around the edge of the pan and remove the cookies from the pan. Cut into little squares once the block is completely cool.

Adding Ganache
Although the cookies are good by themselves, they're super good coated with chocolate ganache.

4 oz semi-sweet chocolate
2/3 cup heavy cream

Coarsely chop chocolate. Heat cream in a small saucepan until simmering. Pour over chocolate in a bowl. Let stand for 5 minutes. Stir for a few minutes until smooth. Let the ganache cool until it's slightly thick. (We let ours sit for about 20 minutes, stirring it a couple of times while we waited.)

Once you've got your ganache you can do lots of things with it. We tried three things: 1) we dipped the cookies, so that one end was covered; 2) we drizzled the cookies with thin diagonal lines; and 3) we poured ganache over the top so that the cookie was mostly covered.

solstice cookies & marshmallows

SHF #31 Shades of White

This month's Sugar High Friday is The Many Shades of White -- so I created a dessert that is quintessentially white: marshmallows. I decided to make this fluffy, pillow-like candy in two flavors, raspberry and champagne. Because I made them from scratch they were all natural and at least the raspberry ones were artificial flavoring and coloring free.

Basic Marshmallow Recipe

Ingredients:
2 Packets of Unflavored Gelatin (Very important: must be unflavored)
1/2 cup water
1 & 1/2 tsp flavoring oil or extract (In this case LorAnn Champagne flavor or McCormick Raspberry extract)
1 & 1/2 cups sugar
1/2 cup corn syrup
pinch of salt

1. Put 1/4 cup of water, gelatin, and one flavoring oil into standing mixer. Allow to sit for a few minutes so that the gelatin can "bloom."

2. In a large saucepan put the remaining water, corn syrup, sugar, and salt. Clip a candy thermometer to the side of the pan. Bring to a boil without stirring. When the mix reaches the soft ball stage (234 - 240 degrees) remove from heat.

3. Pour sugar mixture into standing mixer. Bring mixer up to high. Allow this to mix for about 8 minutes.

4. Pour the now white mixture into an oiled deep pan. Allow to set for about 8 hours.

5. Cut into squares (or other shapes) with an oiled knife. Dip all sides of the marshmallows into corn starch to make them less sticky.

Some notes:

* I've used this recipe with lots of different flavorings, including mint, and orange. I find that flavoring oils seem to work the best. I've seen posted online recipes that call for using crushed candies in place of some of the sugar -- this would probably be a great thing to try.

* The type of pan you use to set the marshmallows will determine how big they are. A deep pan will mean thick marshmallows. A very wide pan could mean very thin ones.

* If you have a standing mixer and candy thermometer, this is one of the easiest recipes in the world. If you don't have those things it can be kind of tricky. I have made them without both pieces of equipment, it just means being really careful at the stove and then standing around for a long time with a hand-mixer. It can definitely be done.

Pi Day Pie

For this year's Pi Day I created two (count 'em two) beautiful pies. Keep in mind, I've never made a pie before in my life, let alone made two different ones.

The first pie is cherry, made with frozen cherries. That's the one with the lattice over top. The second pie is mixed berry, with blueberries, raspberries, and strawberries. This second pie I covered with cut-outs of leaves. In both pies I increased the amount of almond extract to be equal to the vanilla. Not entirely sure why I decided to do that -- I think it has to do with the smell of it.

SHF #28 Food to Seduce

I absolutely couldn’t help myself — when I saw the theme for this month’s Sugar High Friday (food to seduce) I immediately had two great ideas: a Raspberry-Clementine Trifle and Raspberry-Prosecco Gelatin. The first recipe comes from my darling sister-in-law Tessa, who made trifles for our family’s winter solstice dinner. We called them “Get Laid” trifles — because they are so good and so tasty. The second is a recipe I love because it involves my favorite type of wine: prosecco. They’re an adult take on traditional jello and because the fruit is frozen while the gelatin is only cold, it creates a pleasing set of different temperatures in your mouth.

Clementine-Raspberry Trifle

Raspberry-Prosecco Gelatin

Clementine-Raspberry Trifle
Makes 6

The day before:

2 Pt. Raspberries
1/4 C. Sugar
2 tsp. Lemon juice
1″ Fresh Ginger, peeled and thinly sliced

Combine and toss, let sit two hours then refrigerate overnight. Discard ginger and reserve juice.

The day of:
3 Clementines, segmented and peeled
2 sprigs Mint, torn or chopped
2 tsp Honey
½ Vanilla bean, split and scraped [couldn’t find the beans, so I used Vanilla extract, which worked fine]

Combine all ingredients in small bowl and set aside

1/2 C. Water
1/2 C. Sugar
1/4 C. Clementine juice

Combine in small saucepan, bring to boil. Cool. Add optional splash of raspberry syrup

1 1/2 C. Heavy cream
2 Tbl. Sugar

Whip together to soft peaks.

1/2 C. Gingerbread cookies, crushed [or Shortbread cookies - I couldn’t find the gingerbread]
6 Lady-fingers or Italian coffee cookies

Garnish:
6 Gingerbread cookies
Sprigs of mint

To assemble, in six parfait/wine glasses:

Soak one half of lady finger in syrup for a few moments, place in glass
Top with spoonful of raspberries
Top with spoonful of clementines
Spoon in some whipped cream
Top with some crushed cookie
Repeat each layer and garnish with mint and a cookie.

Raspberry-Prosecco Gelatin
1 (6-ounce) package raspberry-flavored gelatin
1 cup boiling water
2 cups Prosecco or other sparkling wine, chilled
1 1/2 cups frozen raspberries, not thawed

Whisk the gelatin and boiling water in a medium bowl until the gelatin is dissolved, about 2 minutes. Refrigerate until lukewarm, about 25 minutes. Stir in the Prosecco. Cover and refrigerate until the gelatin thickens but does not set, stirring occasionally, about 1 hour. Stir in the raspberries (bubbles will form in the gelatin mixture). Divide the gelatin among 6 Champagne flutes or individual dessert bowls. Cover and refrigerate until the gelatin is set, at least 2 hours and up to 2 days.

Almost Samosas and Couscous

Dinner tonight: fake samosas and couscous. By fake samosas I mean pie crust pockets filled with curry-cumin-cayenne flavored potatos, peas, carrots, onions and garlic. Next door to the samosa imposter is a box couscous flavored with mushrooms and herbs.

Almost-Samaso Recipe

Ingredients:
Pillsbury Just-Unroll Pie Crust (or store brand)
1 Large Yukon Potato
Mix of Frozen Peas and Carrots
Half an Onion
Teaspoon Minced Garlic
Teaspoon of Veg. Oil
Cayenne Pepper
Cumin
Curry Powder

Cut potato into small chunks, put in a pot with water to cover, and boil for about 20 minutes. Saute chopped onion and garlic in the oil. Add spices and mix. When the onion is cooked, remove from heat and add peas-and-carrots mix to the pan. When potato is done, add potato chunks to everything else. Possibly add more spices if the mix looks a little lonely. Take the pie crust, roll it out a little thinner than to begin with, and cut out six rounds. Take the scraps, squish them together, roll it out, and then cut another two or so rounds. Fill each round with a small amount of the mixture. Fold the dough over to create half-circle shapes. Use a fork to squish the edges together. Arrange on a baking sheet and bake at 425 degrees for twenty minutes. Yum.

hard candy

For this experiment I used LorAnn flavorings for the first time. Because the bottle said that the product was “super concentrated” I used a lot less than my recipe called for — big mistake. Each candy tasted mostly like corn syrup and only a little like strawberry flavoring. Next time I’ll probably add a whole bottle to one batch of candy.

The actual candy making process wasn’t that difficult.

1 & 3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup corn syrup
1/2 cup water
flavor oil
liquid food coloring

Stir all the ingredients together in a medium pot. Cook over medium heat until temp reaches 300 degrees (or hard crack stage). Immediately remove from heat at 300, allow bubbles to subside, then add flavoring and food coloring. Probably about 1 & 1/2 teaspoons of flavoring (or a whole bottle of LorAnn flavoring) will work. Drop in food coloring until you reach a color that you like.

I used a plastic oriental soup spoon to stir and ladle the candy into the mold. I’ve seen recipes that recommend using a small funnel to make sure all the candy ends up in the mold. Although I had some strings and globs on my mold (since I don’t have a funnel), they weren’t a big issue.

A word about the molds: For this batch I used silicone ice cube molds that I bought at Target (I’ve seen them many other places as well). These babies worked like a dream. I poured the candy in (without oiling the mold), let the candy set, and then twisted the mold to pop the candy out. No mess, perfect candy.

Cleanup: Let me warn you right now: cleaning up hard candy can be difficult. I put my pot (with some candy still in the bottom) in the sink, added some water, and *poof* — pot full of rock hard candy. It turns out that soaking a pot in hot water for about half an hour disolves and loosens the candy enough for it to come out of the pot.