I'm a Finalist!

I can't believe it. I entered a green tomato recipe contest on one of my favorite sites: Apartment Therapy Kitchen. I'm a finalist. Wow! Check out my entry here.

Edited to add: Here's the link to the voting: http://kitchen.apartmenttherapy.com/food/green-tomato-2007/green-tomato-contest-vote-now-036016

Make These Cupcakes

I'm not a chocolate pusher, I'm not really a chocolate lover (I mean, yeah, I eat it but I'd rather have a good lemon cake or something). But when I finished mixing all the ingredients together I knew something was different about this recipe. The batter was thick, almost like pudding.

When I scooped them into the pans they held their shape like little scoops of ice cream. This is no ordinary chocolate cake. I sometimes find chocolate cake too rich, too heavy, too fudge like. If that sounds good to you maybe this isn't your thing, but give it a try. These are more souffle like, without feeling empty and airy, more like collapsed soufflees.

They are topped with a simple chocolate frosting, but powdered sugar or anything you normally put on a chocolate cake would be just fine.

The recommended substitutions and changes included below are in the original recipe. I used dark brown sugar instead of white, and 4 squares of chocolate. Oh, and please tell me you have cake flour in the house. If you don't, run and buy some. Go on now.

Chocolate Cake (Basic Recipe)
Adapted from the Boston Cooking School Cook-Book, 1948. The recipe calls for 3 squares chocolate, but it doesn't specify what kind. I used bittersweet but there may be enough sugar to get away with using unsweetened.

1/2 cup butter
1 1/4 cups sugar
2 eggs, separated
1 cup milk
2 cups cake flour
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp baking powder
3 squares chocolate, melted, or 1/3 cup cocoa
1 tsp vanilla

If desired, increase sugar to 2 cups. Use brown sugar if preferred. Chocolate may be increased to 4 squares. Use coffee or water in place of milk.

Heat oven to 325. Beat egg whites until stiff and set aside. Cream butter, add sugar and chocolate gradually. Beat in egg yolks. Mix and sift dry ingredients together, and add alternately with liquid to butter mixture. Fold in beaten egg whites. Bake in shallow pan or two 9-inch pans about 30 minutes.

Chocolate Frosting
2 squares chocolate
1 Tbs butter
1/2 cup milk
1/2 tsp vanilla
Confectioner's sugar

Combine chocolate, butter, and milk in top of double boiler and cook until chocolate is melted. Stir well; let stand until lukewarm. Mix in vanilla. Beat in sugar until mixture is right consistency to spread.

Surest Sign of Fall

Last fall when we got green tomatoes from our CSA I wasn't sure how to use them. So, of course, I made fried green tomatoes and they were fine, good even, but I didn't quite get the hype. This year I decided to become more adventurous and when green tomatoes were on our pick-up list yesterday afternoon I started thinking about all the compotes and salsas and preserves and other green tomato recipes I've been browsing getting ready for this day.

Is it any surprise that I turned to the Boston Cooking-School Cook Book for a recipe? I know, I know, you are wondering if I have any other cook books and I assure you I do, I just find this one has everything I need. Avocado mousse? Page 144. Honeycomb pudding? Page 553. English monkey? Page 127. And need I remind you that there is a whole chapter on Gingerbread and Doughnuts?

If you follow this little story to the end, you will get a peak at a non-classic cooking idea since the stuff you see on this site is only a small portion of my cooking. So we'll start with a classic recipe, but we'll end with one of my improvs.

Curried Green Tomatoes
Adapted from the Boston Cooking School Cook Book.

2 Tbs butter
2 Tbs minced onion
1 tsp curry powder
2 cups green tomatoes, chopped
Salt and pepper


Melt butter, add onion and cook slowly until yellow. Add curry powder and tomatoes and cook until heated thoroughly. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Now here is where the recipe ends and it would be fine served over rice or scooped up with naan. But because I had a whole tray full of peppers roasting in the oven and because I was trying to be a little creative for a contest I wanted to enter this recipe in, I decided to use the curried tomatoes as the start of a soup.

To the tomatoes I added:
5 cups or so of roasted peppers, mostly red but a couple small green, yellow and orange ones
2 cloves of roasted garlic, smashed
1 can of garbanzo beans
Cayenne pepper
Cumin
Coriander

I let this simmer a bit over medium-low heat, then added:

1 cup light coconut milk
more seasoning to taste

Using an immersion blender, I blended the soup until it was smooth but still had nice big pieces of pepper, tomatoes, and whole beans. And I got this...

Slimming Bread

How does one make slimming bread? By following the recipe from the Slenderella cook book of course! What makes this bread different? Hmmm, the ingredients look like just about any whole wheat bread recipe. You mix it and knead it and let it rise. Looks pretty normal to me.

Oh. Here it is at the end of the recipe. "Each loaf makes 27 slices 1/3 inch thick--30 calories each." Bread sliced 1/3 inch thick? Riiiiiight.

Whole-Wheat Bread or Rolls
Adapted from the Slenderalla Cookbook, 1957.

1 package yeast
1 tsp sugar
1 1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup lukewarm water
1 cup skim milk
1 Tbs butter or margarine
2 cups sifted whole wheat flour
1 cup sifted flour

Combine the yeast, sugar, salt, and water. Stir until yeast dissolves. Scald the milk; add the butter and let cool. Add the yeast mixture and the flour. Beat until smooth. Knead on a lightly floured surface until smooth and elastic. Place in a greased bowl, then turn dough over. Cover and let rise in a warm place until double in bulk. Punch down.

You can chill part of the dough up to 1 week. This will make 2 loaves or 24 rolls.

For rolls: Break dough into small pieces and put in muffin pans. Cover and let double in bulk. Bake at 400 about 20 minutes.

For bread: Divide the dough into 2, shape and place in 2 loaf plans. Bake at 375 for 45 minutes. Remove from pans at once and let cool on a cake rack.

A few tips from the Classic Cook...

If you are like me and do not have a stand mixer (yet) I highly recommend you buy a dough whisk. I use this one from King Arthur Flour and I really can't believe I used to mix bread dough with a wooden spoon.

The dough will feel quite sticky when you first start kneading it (see first picture). It may need a little extra flour but try to keep kneading and not add extra flour unless it absolutely needs it. Eventually, the dough will become smooth and elastic (see second picture). I've read that it's really difficult to over knead the bread if you do it by hand so don't be afraid to keep going.

Finally, an easy way to shape rolls is to roll the dough into little balls and put three in each muffin cup.

Boo!

Consider this your early Halloween present. These cupcakes are a white cake called Snow Cake and they are topped with orange icing (orange flavor, not just color). The Snow Cake recipe is very light and airy thanks to whipped egg whites, and would do really well layered with raspberry preserves and fluffy white icing, or maybe a milk chocolate frosting.

The icing is very simple and has a more subtle orange flavor than I wanted, but is still very good. Now look away Mom, because I am going to let you in on a little secret about this icing...it has egg white in it. Ack! If you are willing to risk salmonella you will find it sets up quite nicely.

I had big plans for this little cupcake. It was supposed to be topped with candied orange dipped in chocolate for a grown up Halloween look. We have dozens of mandarin oranges on our counter but there they will sit as school work interfered with my plans. Priorities, people. So these cupcakes just got a little sprinkle of black sugar and I called it a day.

Snow Cake
Adapted from the Boston Cooking-School Cook Book, 1948.

3 egg whites
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup milk
1 1/2 cups flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp vanilla

Heat oven to 350. Beat egg whites until stiff. Add 1/2 the sugar and set aside. Cream butter and add remaining sugar gradually, beating constantly. Mix and sift dry ingredients and add alternately with milk. Add vanilla. Fold in egg whites. For cupcakes, bake about 30 minutes.

Orange Frosting
Grated rind 1 orange
1/2 tsp lemon juice
1 Tbs orange juice
1 egg white
confectioner's sugar

Add rind to fruit juice and let stand 15 minutes. Strain. Add gradually to egg yolk while beating it. Stir in sugar until right consistency to spread. Beat until very smooth.