Lemon Bellinis for the Solstice

This year three friends and I celebrated renewal and new beginnings with a lemon themed meal. Introducing a smart young lady to two smart ladies further into their adventures over three courses and conversation.

We had so much fun I forgot to take a single photo, nary a one of any dish. And it all tasted so good, is so simple to prepare I'm going to share the recipes with you anyway...I have complete faith these will turn out perfect for you.

It is hard to go wrong when kicking off any gathering with Bubbly. By using alcohol free champagne and omitting the Limoncello kids can join in the toasts. I hope you enjoy these between now and Epiphany.

Lemon Bellinis

1 bottle of Sparkling Wine - I prefer Gruet or Fre if going alcohol free
1 pint lemon sorbet (see below for a recipe)
Limoncello - I love Paula's of Austin

Place a melon ball scoop of sorbet (1/2" sphere) into the bottom of each flute
Cover with Limoncello
Complete by filling the glass with Champagne


Lemon Sorbet

8 oz water
8 oz lemon juice
5 oz agave syrup
1 tsp Penzey's lemon peel powder

Blend all the ingredients together. Pour into ice cream maker for a cycle. Transfer to storage container and place in freezer until use. Much easier than battling the lines at the grocery store!

Adapted from See Girl Cook: http://seegirlcook.com/2011/03/lemon-sorbet/

Man Catcher Brownies

There is a long tradition of handy single men doing projects in exchange for food. In my case, specifically of barn roof’s being repaired, paddock fences mended, and hay moved for fresh baked brownies and lemonade. Since my teens the one bowl brownie recipe on the Baker’s© Chocolate was the go-to recipe for an excellent cake-y brownie.

Three Bowls to create Brownie Bliss

Then in 2007 I read a Boulder Daily Valentine’s article on Leigh Lambert and her quest for the perfect brownie, entitled Man Catcher Brownies. Given brownies caught guys for barn repairs and home maintenance tasks, the title had me giggling. Reading the recipe reminded me of my chocolate chip cookie recipe with equal parts sugar and brown sugar, a hefty slug of vanilla, the dash of salt. Then the mixing directions made mental connections…techniques elevate the results, so even so-so ingredients make a better brownie:

Mixing the cocoa into the melted fat releases more of the cocoa polyphenols maximizing the flavor.

Brown sugar enhances the caramel & bourbon notes…substituting vanilla infused bourbon for the vanilla extract is pretty tasty too; as is having a finger of bourbon with a warm brownie!

The large grains of kosher sea salt prevent too-sweet with piquancy in each bite.

Unless you’re buying generic store brand cocoa, higher-grade cocoa isn’t necessarily more expensive cocoa, and makes a tremendous difference. The higher grade will contain more cocoa butter fat, have a deeper color, and more phenols (chocolaty smell.) To a chocolate fiend the bigger, rounder, richer taste experience will be readily apparent. I keep a stock of Mama Ganache (Natural and Dutched), Penzey’s (High Fat), Savory (Midnight), Guittard (Rouge) or Scharffen Berger cocoa’s in my freezer.

Once you bite into these, dirtying three bowls will never seem like too much effort. Hand mixing them is still as simple as the old one-bowl recipe.

moist and dense with a crackle top

Ingredients
8 oz / 227 grams coconut oil or palm shortening
5.86 oz / 167 grams dutched cocoa powder
5 eggs
4 tsp vanilla
9.42 oz / 267 grams light brown sugar
9.42 oz / 267 grams sugar
5.88 oz / 187 grams of Gluten-Free All-Purpose flour
2/3 tsp kosher sea salt



Directions
Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Line a 9x9 pan with parchment paper.
In a small bowl whisk together the flour and salt until no lumps remain.

In a medium bowl heat the coconut oil until just melted. Immediately whisk in cocoa powder until smooth. Let cool. Don’t give into the visual temptation to lick the whisk…straight fat & cocoa will be an unpleasant junior high Home Economics flashback.


In the largest bowl, while the cocoa mixture cools, whisk eggs together and add in sugars. Then whisk in the vanilla. Stir in cooled cocoa mixture. Now the whisk is perfect to swipe a dab from…sticky with sweet, intense chocolaty goodness.

Fold flour and sea salt into wet mixture until just mixed…hand mixing these is the easiest route to not to over-mixing and ending up with rubbery, tough brownies. The dough is thick. It won’t spread while baking, so push it into the pan corners and level all over with the mixing spatula.

Bake 40-45 minutes or until a crust forms and toothpick comes out mostly clean. Completely clean will be an over baked brick.

Cool in pan for 10 minutes. Then it is safe to lift the parchment out of the pan and divvy up warm brownie bliss.

Brandy Poached Pears

I’ve been craving brandy poached pears ever since Grace Burrowes latest heroine reminisced about eating brandy poached pears in childhood. Pears poached in red wine, orange juice and spices are robust; a winter staple, especially served with elk steak with more of the reduced sauce over vanilla ice cream for dessert. Brandy poached are entirely different…delicate and heady, a memory of late summer.



Soft Focus



This week the small, locally owned grocer’s had red Anjou pears on sale…a lovely bin of fat, fragrant pears. Add in a windy, snowy, cold autumn day and these are the results.

 

The only problem…I used the last of my brandy! Will have to run out tomorrow for another bottle so I can have a small snifter with my bowl of poached pears…or open a bottle of Fre non-alocholic bubbly and eat the pears swimming in bubbles…or in reality, Both!

Ingredients
2 big, fat, ripe pears
6oz / 180ml brandy
6 oz / 180ml water

3-4 tbsp honey

1 tsp vanilla
2” length of cinnamon stick (break a longer stick on the counter edge)
4 whole cloves
Nutmeg, freshly grated, 3-4 swipes aka not very much (optional)


Directions
Put the water, brandy, honey, vanilla, cinnamon stick, and cloves into a 1-1 ½ quart sauce pan on low-to-medium heat. I use my smallest burner, 5,000 btu.
While the sauce begins to heat, peel pears, core, quartering each half.
Place in sauce pan so all the slices are in the fluid. They don’t have to be completely covered.


Snifter o'Bliss



Cover pan with lid, or a saucer (darn it, sometimes those wee sauce pans don’t come with lids) and poach for 15 minutes. Halfway through, gently shift the pears so the uncovered part are moved down into the fluid.

 

At 15 minutes, check for tenderness. Pears go from just-right to pear sauce in a blink…I like mine tender yet still solid. Remove the pears with a slotted spoon to serving dish. Turn the heat up to high and reduce the liquids to syrup. Down to about ¼ the volume. Add the bit of fresh nutmeg.

Pour over pears and serve immediately. If storing, cool the syrup in the pan. Once cool, spoon over pears in storage container and place in the fridge. Otherwise the hot syrup will cook the pears a bit more.

Torta de Regina de Notte

Alone a chunk of bittersweet chocolate is redolent with night blooming floral scents, of garden paths still warm from the sun's kiss, expressing passions that unfurl only during night's dark embrace. For me citrus fruits grant the ability to taste sunshine. Bursting and bright, it is no wonder humans have long heralded oranges as symbols for the sun's rebirth. The perfect globes contrasting the scant arch of a Northern hemipshere's winter day, especially an overcast, grey day like today.

In this torte the contrasting & complimentary are wedded together by earthy hazelnuts, resulting a sensory experience exceeding the sum of its parts. It tastes better than the recipe reads, better than the gorgeous photo by Helen Dujardin, which is no small feat as her photos are always lush...Queen of the Night fits this torte.

Since citrus isn't in season yet I cheated with a premium organic store-bought marmalade. I always use bittersweet chocolate, not semisweet, use either. The simplicity of baking by weight, not volume means you can grind your own hazelnuts or buy flour/meal at the store. Ditto the chocolate - ground chocolate (not cocoa!) also makes this recipe faster to assemble. Otherwise use the standard grate side of the box grater, it will result in a fine grate chocolated, not chunks or the melted mess the fine side will make (ask me how I know that...) Prepping each ingredient before starting to mix the cake helps maintain the egg-based structure.

 

Each winter one new-to-me cookbook becomes 'the' cookbook of the season. Winter 2012 will be Marmalades Savory & Sweet. In a few months when citrus peaks I'll make a batch and repeat this recipe. May even cheat again so I can dally with this Queen again. Waiting for good citrus to have this cake was not an option. Despite cheating on the citrus marmalade, the cherry marmalade cannot be ignored, especially as twelve ounces of fat Bing cherries in my freezer are chorusing in siren song. By next week there will be a post extolling another pleasure awaiting between the covers of Ellen's delightful book.

Here's how I made the Queen of the Night: it took only one ingredient change to make this safe for me to eat, and I think the coconut oil enhanced the main ingredient floral notes.

Cake Ingredients
7.06 ounces / 200 grams ground hazelnuts, plus half an ounce more to dust the pan
9.52 ounces / 270 grams granulated sugar
8 large eggs, separated
Finely grated zest of 2 oranges
4 ounces orange juice (the juice of 2 oranges)
1 tbsp hazelnut liqueur or vanilla extract
7 ounces / 225 grams semisweet chocolate - ground or finely shaved
pinch of salt

Glaze Ingredients
8 ounces marmalade
1 tablespoon hazelnut liqueur
1-2 tablespoons orange juice

Lightly grease a 9" springform pan with coconut oil. I like to parchment the bottom of the pan then oil the paper & sides. Dust with extra ground nuts.

Combine the egg yolks and sugar, mixing until ribbons form...about 5 minutes with a stand mixer. Add in the orange zest, ground hazelnuts, chocolate, orange juice, hazelnut liqueur and the pinch of salt. Blend until fully incorporated and set aside.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees - 325 if you have a convection oven.

Whip the egg whites until stiff peaks form. Fold 1/4 to 1/3 of the egg whites into the rest of the ingredients. Gently, this is where the cake's crumb and texture comes from. Repeat until all the egg whites are folded in. Pour into the prepared springform and set in the oven.

The book says to bake the cake for 55 minutes, mine was done in 40 minutes. Keep toothpicks handy and pay attention to the baking scents. Once a pick comes out mostly dry, pull the cake and set to cool for 10-15 minutes. Run the back of a knife edge around the outer rim, pop the spring form off and make the glaze.

While the cake baked I cleaned up and made the glaze. If you like the rind in marmalade, just combine the marmalade, liqueur and orange juice, warm in a small pan until runny. I'm not a fan of the rind, so I strained the glaze, let it cool to room temp and then brushed the top and sides, using a silicone brush.

The first sliver was slightly warm when I devoured it. The second  cooler slice was just as good...and the house smells delicious. Whipped topping & chocolate shavings complete the presentation. Coffee or champagne or prosecco are the ideal accompaniment to this rich, yet not too-sweet cake. The book says 8 servings from the 9" round, at my table it is 16 servings/decadent slivers.

If the cake isn't going to be consumed within a day, wrap servings of the completely cooled cake in plastic wrap, and freeze it.

Tricky Treats

A Tricky Treat…

My Halloween surprise came as the culmination of an odd combination. Usually I spend Samhain (Sa-wane) evening quietly honoring the people and companion critters in my life who have died. Given the visions of Dutch process cocoa clamoring in my waking and sleeping mind, for days leading up to all Hollow’s, apparently this year my offering would be brownies; dense, dark to the brink of black, moist brownies.

Receiving an email with the latest issue “Living Without” magazine recipe for gluten free brownies and a pending visit from a dieting girlfriend instigated these cocoa visions. We usually talk until 2am over a baked good and tea or wine. The recipe yields a mild, cake-textured brownie that is more similar to a German chocolate cake than my definition of brownie. Nice, and good enough to share but not a brownie.

Said girlfriend took that batch home. Another took a second batch, the product of melding my decades-old standard brownie recipe and the ‘Living Without” concept. So mine are inspired by “Living Without” they are a completely different recipe with double the cocoa, vanilla, brown sugar, and no flour at all.

Making the third batch my Treat.

Being Halloween there must be a Trick to go with the Treat.

Black beans replace most of the fat, all of the flour and reduce the sugar by half. Yielding brownies that are low-fat, anti-oxidant rich, high in fiber, dare I say even, healthy? And still a true, rich, moist, decadent brownie.

The key to these brownies is the black beans need to be hot when pureeing them with the cocoa, so does the small amount of olive oil. The heat releases the cocoa flavonoids allowing it to blend better with the other ingredients prior to baking. The steam wafting up from the food processor will make it all clear…

Also because of the beans this recipe is most easily measured in volume. Two cups of cooked beans actually weighs 10.125 oz, which is a 15oz can of beans drained, plus a third of another can.

Black Bean Brownies

2 cups hot, cooked black (turtle) beans, drained

5 tbsp olive oil, warm as well

1 cup Penzey’s Dutch cocoa, or other high-grade Dutch cocoa

4 tsp vanilla

1 cup light brown sugar

1 tsp kosher sea salt

1 tsp xanthan gum

1 tsp baking powder

3 eggs

¼ cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees and line a 6x8 baking pan with parchment. Don’t have a 6x8 pan? Double the recipe and bake in a 9x13.

Place the beans, cocoa, oil, and vanilla in food processor. Blend to a paste.

Add in sugar, salt, baking powder, and xanthan gum. Pulse until blended. Scrape down the bowl, especially the bottom edge – cocoa will try to cling there and not incorporate.

Pulse in eggs until barely blended, the dough with be very glossy and stiff. Spatula into pan. Sprinkle with semi-sweet chips.

Bake for 25 minutes.

Cool for ten minutes, devour at will.

Snowballs aka "Raspberry Zingers"

After reading an article about the thirty-seven ingredients that make up a Twinkie I was reminded of how positive food allergies can be. By the time gluten, dairy and corn are ruled out of the ingredient list most packaged products don't make the 'safe-edible' list. Pardon the photo, I"ll update it soon. This recipe is a sure-fire packaged cake rescue. Again, don't tell anyone what these don't have, and all they'll taste is the "YUM!"

What really inspired making Snowballs earlier this summer was remembering being about four or five years old. Every Tuesday Dad would get paid by the Rocky Mountain News and we'd get two treats: eating out at Furr's cafeteria in Arvada and going to the Hostess day-old store on Carr Street. The sugary scent lingered in the parking lot, welcoming us into the store. The end caps full of brightly colored packages at my pint-sized eye-level. The store small enough I could linger by myself to ponder which treat to chose over all the others. Fruit pies? Hostess cakes? Lemon Zingers or chocolate? Would Snoopy be on the package this time? Or perhaps the exotic pink zingers coated in tiny pieces of coconut? I often wished for a package that held one of each Zinger flavor, it would solve so many pint-sized dilemmas.

My lemon and chocolate cravings have evolved, but the lure of a lightly red cake covered with fine shred coconut is still alive and well. The cakes themselves are easy to make, like any other muffin or tea cake. Dipping them in the seeded raspberry jam and rolling them through the coconut is messy, but after dipping all the cakes licking the jam off your fingers brings back the joy of being Five!

Preservative, additive and chemical free these get to focus on the soft, creamy flavor of coconut accented by that wee berry nowhere indigenous to the tropics. Using coconut milk and coconut flour creates a cake that manages to be dense and light at the same time.

I hope they become as fond a memory for my coconut crazies (that'd be you Jenna and Jolly!) as Zingers are for me.

Make a batch, pack them in your lunch or your kids and see how lunch hour goes. I bet you'll have to brush up on your trading skills...

Snowballs

¾ c coconut oil
1 ½ c organic sugar
1 c light Coconut milk (I use canned coconut milk to avoid the vegetable gum stabilizers)
1 tbsp Baking Powder (gluten & corn free, I like Hain)
½ tsp Sea Salt
1 tbsp Vanilla
4 Egg Whites
1 Egg
1 ½ c Gluten Free Flour Mix (I like Pamela’s)
½ c Coconut Flour
½ c Potato Starch

Makes about 18 muffins/cakes.

Place coconut oil, sugar, baking powder, sea salt, and vanilla in stand mixer. Beat on medium to medium-high until fluffy, about 5-8 minutes. Occasionally scraping down the bowl.

Sift together coconut flour, gluten free flour mix and potato starch. Set aside.

Scrape down mixer bowl. Add egg whites one at a time, beat on medium high for a minute. Scrap down the bowl and repeat with each egg white. Don’t rush this part, you’re building the cake structure. I use a kitchen timer.

Add in ¼ of the flour and starch mixture, blend on medium-low, alternating with the coconut milk. Scrap down between flour additions. This is a dense, fairly stiff dough.

Spoon into greased tins. Bake in preheated oven to 325 (350 if it isn’t convection), for 24-30 minutes. Turn the pan half way thru baking.

While cakes are baking make the raspberry glaze.

Raspberry Glaze
¾ cup organic raspberry preserves (Trader Joe's reduced sugar organic is my favorite)
2 tbsp water
1 tsp lemon juice
1 tsp Chambord liqueur

Deseed the preserves by pushing thru a mesh strainer with the back of a spoon into a glass measuring cup. Place cup in sauce pan of hot water to warm. Stir in water and lemon juice to get glaze consistency. Just before dipping cakes stir in Chambord.

Check the cakes with a toothpick for doneness. Should come out just barely clean.

Cool in pan for 15 minutes, then pop cakes out to cool on a wire rack over a shallow pan.

Place 1 ½ cups of unsweetened fine shred coconut in another bowl.

Once cakes are cool, quickly dip them into the raspberry glaze, then roll in the coconut. Place on wire rack to set up.

Enjoy!

Blondies

In the 80s and 90s a favorite gathering spot was the Gemini. An alternative restaurant known for a spiced house tea and daring food options like a curried chicken salad with strawberries. That is, daring for a suburb west of Denver. The house iced tea was easy to drink by the glassful, tucked into a big booth, chatting with girlfriends or doing tarot readings for each other. Wired on caffeine from gallons of house tea, we'd split a Blondie brownie. Each serving decadent, warm, and surely full of butter, chocolate chips, nuts, plus the sweet surprise of chopped dates.

The restaurant is long gone, but the craving for a Blondie happens fairly often. Blondies are a brownie's paler sibling; a bar cookie grown up to be a chocolate chip cookie's bigger, sturdier brother. This winter it was time to recreate this favored treat. Redolent with warm brown sugar, vanilla, and gooey bittersweet chocolate chips these bar cookies are an aroma therapy category all their own. Mixing up in the time it takes the oven to preheat, it is pure bliss to sit in the kitchen with a cup of tea, basking in the scent of them baking. If I'm really lucky the scent lingers in the house, rich and smooth.

One pan makes nine servings that are half-size from what the huge slabs Gemini used to serve. Lately, I've taken to quartering each serving so the pan yields 36 Blondies. What I don't eat or give away the day I bake them get frozen. Popped from freezer to the microwave for 30 seconds they instantly resurrect to gooey decadence.

No stand mixer? No problem! As long as the sugar and palm shortening are thoroughly mixed the rest of the recipe calls for minimal mixing.

Blondies

3 oz or ½ cup shortening
4 oz or ½ c + 2 tbsp light brown sugar
4 oz or ½ c + 2 tsp cane sugar
2 eggs
1 tbsp vanilla
4 oz or 1 cup gluten free flour mix (I use Pamela's)
1 ½ tsp baking powder (corn & gluten free I use Hain)
½ tsp sea salt
2 oz or ½ cup crushed walnuts
2 oz or ½ cup chopped dates
2 ½ oz or ½ cup bitter sweet chocolate chips

Preheat convection oven to 325 (350 if not convection)
Line 9x9 baking pan with parchment paper.

Mix shortening, sugars, and vanilla in stand mixer on medium, occasionally scraping down the bowl, until well creamed, verging on fluffy.
Scrape down the bowl.
Add in eggs, beating on medium-high for 2 minutes. Scraping down the bowl.

In separate bowl whisk together flour mix, baking powder, and sea salt until well incorporated.

Add gluten free flour mix to the bowl, mix on low until just blended.

Detach paddle to hand stir in nuts, dates and chocolate chips until just blended.
Spatula into parchment lined pan, pushing stiff dough into corners.
Garnish with additional nuts, chocolate chips and dates.
Bake for 30 minutes, rotating half way through baking time. May take longer to bake at higher altitudes.

Cool for about 5-10 minutes then devour at will.