English Scones with Creamy Orange Butter

Posted in Breakfast by

Fresh, creamery butter. Is there anything more comforting?

I say there is.

Points to all of you who can name the movie that quote comes from. (Hint: It’s one of my favorite rom-coms and stars the very pleasant to look at Hugh Jackman.) But to the rest of you, I’ll just go ahead and re-emphasize my point: fresh creamery butter is great, but it’s made even better by what you can have it with, or what you can add to it.

I’ve always wanted to throw or at least take part in an Afternoon Tea get-together. I think it would be fun to gussy up and put out a whole Downton Abbey-style spread. I’m an absolute sucker for a tray or basket of baked goods so while I do like ginger and chamomile tea, for me the best part would definitely be getting to bake and enjoy all of the sweet/savory goodies that would be served alongside it.

There’s nothing like watching Great British Bake-off for getting into the afternoon tea ‘spirit,’ if there even is such a thing. I love baking in general, but every time I watch an episode of Bake Off, I just want to get going on whatever challenge it is that I’ve just seen the bakers take on. Sometimes they’re complex recipes, and sometimes they’re deceptively simple (i.e. so simple, they’re simple to mess up). One of those recipes would definitely have to be the scone and I thought it would be a good post to do today considering the subject– because you just can’t have a proper tea without scones.

If you’ve been following the blog for a while now, you know that this is far from my first hack at making scones, but it is the first time I’d made a proper English one. For a while I wasn’t aware that there was much of a difference between English ones and the ones I’d been used to making. Turns out that they differ in a few ways: first, they’re usually not as sweet as most other scones. They’re more supposed to be the vessel for sweeter condiments like jam or preserves. They’re also made with beaten eggs, which results in a more fluffy crumb than most flaky scones that depend only on butter and baking powder for leavening.

The ingredients may be a bit different, but I still kept the method for making these almost identical to the method I use for making scones and biscuits–it’s just the way I get the best results. I did decide to give my proper English scones my own twist by first, adding a tad bit of vanilla to the dough, and second, adding orange zest and juice. Finally, because I did say that English scones are meant to be vessels for a flavored condiment, I also whipped up an easy condiment to pair with these: fresh creamery orange butter. Doesn’t it look delicious? And it couldn’t be easier to put together: butter, orange zest and orange marmalade. That’s it.

I’ve gotta say y’all, I think I’d actually be brave enough to serve a platter of these scones up to Mary and Paul–I mean, I’d definitely still be scared, but I’m pleased enough with these so that I could do it without having a panic attack. They’re just really good. The orange in both the scones and butter is what makes such a difference. The texture of the scones is light and fluffy while the orange gives them such a fresh, clean flavor. (If lemon or lime is more to your liking, you could definitely swap out for either one with equally great results). I was frustrated at first because these didn’t rise as high as I wanted them to, but by the time I got around to eating one slathered with the butter I didn’t care anymore. Turns out, delicious food makes it hard for me to stay in a rotten mood. Cheers.

Sharing at this week’s Fiesta Friday #212, co-hosted this week by  Diann @ Of Goats and Greens and Antonia @ Zoale.com.

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English Scones with Creamy Orange Butter

Recipe Adapted from Cooking Channel

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Ingredients

For Scones

  • 500 grams all purpose flour
  • 80 grams unsalted butter, frozen
  • 80 grams white sugar
  • 5 teaspoons baking powder
  • Zest of 1 orange
  • 2 medium eggs, beaten
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 2 tablespoons fresh orange juice
  • 1 cup milk, plus more if needed

For Orange Butter

  • 1/2 cup (1 stick) of unsalted butter
  • 2 tablespoons orange marmalade or preserves
  • Zest of 1 orange

Directions

Combine the flour, sugar, baking powder and orange zest together in a large bowl with a fork.

Use the large holes on a box grater to grate the butter directly into the dry ingredients.

In a small bowl combine the eggs and vanilla. Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and pour in the egg mixture. Pour in the milk and orange juice. Gently stir together with a fork until the dough forms a somewhat homogenous mass.

Sprinkle a clean work surface with flour. Line one or two baking sheets with parchment paper. Place a shallow pan of water on the bottom rack of the oven and preheat to 425°F.

Turn out the dough onto the surface. Turn the dough out onto the surface and pat a few times with your hands until it loosely holds together. (Don’t knead it too much or the warmth in your palms will melt the butter and cause the scones to be tough.) Pat and roll the dough into a rectangle. Take the two opposite ends and fold them together like a business letter into thirds. Flip it upside down and pat & roll it into another rectangle, sprinkling the surface with flour if it gets too sticky. Repeat the folding process two to three more times before patting it into one final rectangle.

Using a 2-inch cutter dipped in flour, stamp out rounds and place them on the prepared trays. Try not to twist the cutter; just press down and then lift up and push out the dough. Re-roll any remaining dough and cut out more scones. Place the sheet pan in the freezer for 15 minutes.

Bake the scones for about 15 minutes until well risen and golden brown. Allow to cool for about 5 minutes before serving.

For Orange Butter: Use a handheld mixer or the paddle attachment of a standing mixer to beat together all the ingredients until light and fluffy. Store in the refrigerator.

Teddy Bear Cinnamon Crisps

Posted in Cookies, Snacks by

I’m running a little short on time, so this post (like this recipe) is going to be short, simple and sweet.

I really like Teddy Grahams. They’re small little graham flavored crackers made by Nabisco and they’re really quite scrumptious. When I was growing up, they came in a few different flavors: Chocolate, Chocolatey Chip, Honey and Cinnamon. (From what I understand, there are more now, but I’m not too interested in them.) My favorite were the Cinnamon and the Chocolatey Chip. This is both a good thing and a bad thing. The good thing is that the Chocolatey Chip ones are immensely popular and as such, can be found just about anywhere.

The bad news is that, for whatever reason, the Cinnamon ones are not. At least not in this area. I can’t find them anywhere. I happen to like the Cinnamon ones a tad bit better than I do the Chocolatey Chip, so this is…inconvenient.

But y’know, whatever. It’s a temporary setback and I do like myself a good baking challenge.

If you’ve been following the blog over the past year, then you’ll know that I’ve been experimenting with making my own crackers at home with pretty good results. I love the simple process of it almost as much as I love all the different flavor options there are available. On the way home from the grocery store on yet another recent failed attempt to find Cinnamon Teddy Grahams, I thought that maybe I should just stop looking elsewhere for them and start looking in my own kitchen.

This recipe really couldn’t be easier to put together. There’s a trio of spices of cinnamon, mace and cloves that gives it plenty of warm, toasty flavor. Brown sugar rather than white gives the crackers a richer taste. It all comes together within minutes, but does require a rest in the fridge to give the dough a chance to rest, which you definitely want because cracker dough needs to be rolled out VERY thing in order to ensure that the finished product has the right crispness. They were originally plain on the tops, but I decided to give them another layer of texture by sprinkling cinnamon sugar on them just before baking.

In the first place, they smell like warm, sugary spice & everything nice. I wish I could get the scent captured in a candle or something–it’s much better than the vanilla candles you see in stores that are so cloying and overpowering that they just end up triggering your gag reflex. They bake up a nice golden brown with a pleasant, crispy snap while the spices also give them a flavor that does remind me of the Cinnamon Teddy Grahams.

I said I was in a hurry and I am. You guys remember why? Yep yep yep. Black Panther is now released in theaters in the U.S. and I’m on my way to see it now. I’m so excited I can hardly stand it, but my wait is offically over, so it’s ttfn.

(Linking this up to Fiesta Friday #211, co-hosted this week by Lily @ Little Sweet Baker and Alisa @ Livin’ Well.

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Teddy Bear Cinnamon Crisps

Recipe Adapted from Serious Eats

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Ingredients

For Cookies

  • 3 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
  • 1 teaspoon kosher salt
  • 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
  • 1/4 teaspoon ground mace
  • 1-2 dashes ground cloves
  • 1 cup (2 sticks, 8 ounces) unsalted butter, softened
  • 1/2 cup light or dark brown sugar
  • 3/4 cup granulated sugar
  • 1 egg
  • 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

For Topping

  • 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
  • 1/4 cup white granulated sugar

 

 

Directions

In a small bowl combine the flour with the salt and spices with a fork.

In a large bowl or the bowl of a standing mixer, cream together the butter and both sugars until light and fluffy. Add the egg and the vanilla, using a rubber spatula to scrape down the sides of the bowl to ensure even mixing.

Sift in the flour mixture to the butter mixture (not all at once, in about 3 batches) until just combined.

Shape the dough into a disk, wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least one hour or overnight.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Place a sheet of parchment paper on a sheet pan and lightly spray with cooking spray.

 In a small bowl combine the ingredients for the topping and set aside. Sprinkle a work surface like a wooden cutting board, a pastry mat or wax paper with flour. Cut the dough into quarters. Keep the quarters you’re not using in the fridge while you work. Use a floured rolling pin to roll out each piece of dough very thin (about 1/8th inch). Use a cookie cutter of your choice (I used a teddy bear one) or a pizza wheel, bench scraper or knife to cut dough into shapes. Arrange the cookies on the baking sheet (you will probably need more than one). When you’ve finished, refrigerate the cookies on the sheet pan for about 15 minutes.

Lightly spray the cookies with cooking spray, then sprinkle the cinnamon sugar on top. Bake in the oven until golden brown, about 10-12 minutes. Allow to cool on baking sheet for about 1 minute before removing to wire racks to cool completely.

(Note: no one oven is the same, & different baking sheets bake cookies differently. Keeping this in mind, I will ALWAYS test bake one cookie before baking entire sheets of the whole batch, just to get a good idea of how long they should be in the oven and if I need to adjust the way I’ve cut, rolled them out, etc. I highly recommend that you do the same.)

Red Velvet Marble Bundt Cake

Posted in Desserts by

I am so very, very, very excited. I’m practically bursting at the seams. As I’m writing this post right now, I’m beaming from ear to ear.

Go ahead and ask me what’s put me in such a good mood. Go on. Ask. I will answer your question with a question:

Do y’all know what is coming next week? Do you KNOW?

It’s probably the best thing to happen all year. I know it’s a just single day, but oh what a day it is going to be. It’s not even here yet, but I still know there will be much joy and excitement to spread all around. It’s also a day where a ton of money is going to be spent and made.

Any guesses yet? Yep. You’re absolutely right.

Marvel’s “Black Panther” movie is being released in the United States on February 16th. Let me say that again. Marvel’s “Black Panther” movie is being released in the United States on February 16th.

Y’all. Excited isn’t even the word.  Ever since news dropped that this movie was being made over a year ago, I’ve been so ready to see it. The cast alone is a winner: Forest Whittaker (who is my favorite actor, by the way. I’d watch him perform on an empty stage in a paper bag, riveted), Angela Bassett, Chadwick Boseman, Lupita Nyong’o, Michael B Jordan. I’ve waited patiently (and sometimes not so patiently), keeping up with the updates, watching the trailers repeatedly, ogling over the posters–and now, we’re finally here right before I get to see it.

We pre-bought our tickets, so I will be right there at the theater next Friday afternoon, front and center. I know it’s going to be fantastic. Any of y’all here in the States going to see it on Friday or later that weekend? You as pumped to see it as I am? So far as I’m concerned, it’s the most important thing that’s going to be happening next week.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot. Valentine’s Day is next week too. And since I did go to the trouble to make this cake, I guess we can talk about it for a few minutes.

I’ve made it a habit to bake something Red-velvet flavored for Valentine’s Day on the blog for a few years now and I figured that I may as well keep with the tradition this year. In a way I was kinda excited about making the cake because it would let me test out a new ingredient I’d recently bought and been itching to try out: the LorAnn Red Velvet Bakery Emulsion. LorAnn Oils is a company that has a pretty big collection of baking flavorings and extracts. I’ve heard nothing but good things about them and my first purchase was the Red Velvet emulsion, which is supposed to mimic red velvet flavor.

I was curious as to what specifically a ‘red velvet’ flavor emulsion would taste like. My guess was that it would just be a rich chocolate, but the flavor of it is more complex than that. There’s definitely chocolate in the first taste you get, but in the aftertaste you could almost swear there’s a tang in there that could pass for cream cheese. I have no idea how the LorAnn food scientists who cooked this stuff up managed to do that, but my hat’s off to em. I put the emulsion to good use in this cake by flavoring about a third of the vanilla batter with it, then layering it in the pan. There was no need to use a knife to marble/swirl the batters–the swirl design took care of itself while baking. I then went ahead and topped it with a plain white icing paired with an icing I flavored with more of the red velvet emulsion. Turned out pretty, didn’t it?

Happy weekend/Fiesta Friday#210, (co-hosted by Laurena @ Life Diet Health and Jhuls @ The Not So Creative Cook)/Valentine’s Day y’all. More importantly, just one more week til Black Panther!

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Red Velvet Marble Bundt Cake

Recipe Adapted from MyRecipes.com

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Ingredients

For Cake

  • 1 cup unsalted butter (2 sticks), softened
  • 1/2 cup butter flavored shortening
  • 2 1/2 cups white sugar
  • 6 large eggs
  • 3 cups all purpose flour
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 3/4 cup milk
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 1 tablespoon cocoa powder
  • 1 tablespoon LorAnn Red Velvet Bakery Emulsion (or red food coloring)

For Icing

  • 1 1/2 cups powdered sugar, divided
  • Milk
  • Light corn syrup
  • LorAnn Red Velvet Bakery Emulsion (or red food coloring)

Directions

Preheat oven to 325°F. Grease and flour a 16 cup bundt pan. (You can also grease/flour two loaf pans but it will shorten your baking time).

In the bowl of a standing mixer (or using a handheld mixer) cream the butter and shortening together until light and fluffy. Gradually add in the sugar. Beat in the eggs one at a time.

In a separate medium bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, and salt. In a glass measuring bowl combine the milk with the vanilla extract.

Add the flour mixture and the milk mixture alternatively to the batter, starting and ending with the flour mixture. Scrape down the sides of the bowl with the spatula to ensure even mixing.

Remove 2 1/2 cups of batter to a small bowl. Add the cocoa powder and the red velvet emulsion to the 2 1/2 ups of batter, stirring with a fork until smooth.

Drop two cups of the batter into the pan, using a spatula to spread out. Use a tablespoon measure to dollop 2-3 scoops of the red velvet batter on top. Repeat around entire pan, covering bottom completely. Continue layering batters in pan as directed until all batter is used.  (You don’t need to swirl it with a knife, it will marble on its own as it bakes).

Lift the pan up and allow it to tap down on the counter (this will help prevent air bubbles.) Place the cake pan on a sheet pan, then bake on the middle rack of the oven for 65-70 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean and inner cake temp reaches 195-200°F. Allow to cool inside the pan for about 30 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack and allow to cool completely.

Pour 3/4 cup of powdered sugar into one small bowl, and 3/4 of powdered sugar into another. Drizzle in light corn syrup and milk into one bowl, and corn syrup and the red velvet emulsion in the other, little by little (about 1 tablespoon at a time) until you have two thick icings. Alternate between drizzling the two icings on top of the cake. Allow to sit for about 30-40 minutes to harden before serving.

Soy Ginger Chicken Fajitas

Posted in Main Dishes by

I’ve said before on the blog that I’m not a huge fan of most 30 minute or less recipes and with a few exceptions, I’m standing behind that. No shade to Rachael, but I just prefer to take a little bit more time with preparing my food. The longer that the spices have to cook, the more they can infuse into the ingredients and make them taste better. There are certain dishes–like braises or stews that I actually prefer to eat the next day after I’ve cooked them, just to give the flavors time to develop. I could name a few desserts that work the same way.

For the most part, it’s just better to have at least one hour of cooking time available for your dishes–better for the food and also better for your tastebuds. Now, I did say ‘for the most part’. There are exceptions to every rule.

After all, sometimes after a very long day when you come home hungry and dog tired,  the last thing you probably want to do is get out a bunch of dishes and stand over a stove for a prolonged period of time just to whip up a meal. You just want to sit down and be able to eat. I get it.

A perfectly cooked and steak can (and depending on the size, should) certainly be made in thirty minutes or less. With a tasty enough sauce, most stir fries can be whipped up in 30 minutes. I can make myself a delicious egg in the basket in less than 10. I’m certainly not above browning some ground beef, using a taco seasoning packet and taco sauce to make quick tacos. And if I REALLY don’t feel like cooking, yes. I too will pick up a rotisserie chicken, shred that bad boy and mix it into a homemade salad for dinner.

And then there’s fajitas. Chicken fajitas is another one of the ‘quick meals’ we whip up around here when no one feels like doing much labor intensive cooking, but we also don’t want to order out either. I usually make huge batches of it to last a few days and we can use the meat for various types of meals: tacos, salads, sandwiches, whatever. Today’s recipe is the latest version I made for us. Normally I stick to a Latin cuisine flavor profile, but this time I switched it up a bit. Here the chicken is flavored with soy sauce, mirin, ginger and sesame oil so that they have more of an Asian flair to them.

A few things I particularly love about this: first, it doubles as both a 30 minute meal, BUT the spices have also been given plenty of time to permeate the chicken and give them plenty of flavor thanks to a marinade that they sit in overnight. The night before, mix together the marinade and place the chicken inside. The next day when you’re ready to put dinner together, all you gotta do is cook the chicken over high heat so that it cooks quickly, then give a quick saute to some onions and peppers. That’s it. Plenty of flavor to go around for what’s a pretty low effort meal. I know I don’t have to say it but I will anyway: this was really good stuff. Please do help yourself.

Linking this up to Fiesta Friday #209, co-hosted by Monika @ Everyday Healthy Recipes and Laurena @ Life Diet Health.

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Soy Ginger Chicken Fajitas

Recipe Adapted from Williams Sonoma

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Ingredients

  • 3 lbs boneless, skinless chicken breast
  • 1 cup soy sauce
  • 1 cup mirin
  • 1/4 cup sesame oil
  • 2 tablespoons minced garlic
  • 3 tablespoons minced fresh ginger
  • 1 tablespoon brown sugar
  • 2 red bell peppers, sliced thin
  • 2 green bell peppers, sliced thin
  • 1 large yellow sweet onion
  • A few tablespoons of canola or vegetable oil
  • Tortilla shells, for serving

Directions

Cut the chicken into small strips and place inside a gallon size Ziploc bag.

Combine the soy sauce, mirin, sesame oil, garlic, ginger and brown sugar in a bowl. Pour over the chicken in the Ziploc bag and seal. Place the bag in a bowl and refrigerate overnight.

Pour the oil into a large skillet and bring to a medium-high heat. Take the chicken out of the marinade and sear it in batches in the skillet until golden brown. Keep cooked chicken in a bowl you cover with foil until all of it is cooked.

Once the meat is finished, saute the peppers with the onions in the skillet until softened and slightly charred, about 5-10 minutes.

Spoon the chicken into tortilla shells with the veggies and serve drizzled with sweet chili sauce and/or sriracha.

Melting Moments Cookies

Posted in Cookies by

Melting Moments1

Do any of y’all who follow this blog own a cookie press? How do you like it? If you do, what is the brand and where did you get it?

(As an aside for non-bakers, cookie presses are a device where cookie dough is inserted into a tube and manually pressed through a metal stencil plate. The stencils vary, but mostly cookie presses are used to make crisp butter cookies at Christmas time.) You can find them in places like Marshall’s, Home Goods, Bed Bath & Beyond, Williams Sonoma and (of course) online, and most are pretty inexpensive…which brings me to another point.

Here’s the thing about me and cookie presses….we don’t work together.

You know what? No. Let me rephrase that; I’M not the one with the problem. The presses are. THEY’RE the ones who don’t work. It’s THEM, I swear. You know why? Because I’ve bought two different cookie presses, and ended up discarding them both when neither one produced the goods. They either wouldn’t press out the dough completely in the shape of the design, or wouldn’t press it out at all. And believe me, I fiddled around with both and everything else I could think of to try and get them to work: the dough consistency, different plates, different sheet pans, chilling the sheet pans first. All useless.

I just could not get those presses to work.

So if any of you have a cookie press that you ARE able to use with no problems, do tell me which one you have. I’d also really appreciate any tips or advice in how you specifically get the most out of it. The thought of there being a kitchen gadget out there that I couldn’t get to work irks the daylights out of me. I’ve got to figure it out. So tell me what works for y’all and I might consider buying one more and hoping that the third time will be the charm for me and cookie presses.

In the meanwhile, there’s this post–which happens to be relevant to this conversation as it stemmed from my hit and miss history with the gadget.

Amazon sends me notifications when huge discounts are given for things on my wishlist. For a while I’d had a Wilton decorating tip set saved on my list, as I wanted to step my decorating game up for things like layer cakes and cupcakes. One day Amazon sent me a notification that they were having a flash sale and that for the next hour or so, it would be more than 50% off.

You can guess what happened.

So, Aside from having more decorating tips than this novice baker knows what to do with, I’ve also now got an alternative to the cookie press for churning out pretty cookies. And y’all: aren’t these pretty?

Despite their frilly appearance, these are butter cookies and as such, the ingredients themselves are extremely simple. There isn’t much more to these than butter, sugar, vanilla and cornstarch. The milk is there in order to make the dough loose enough to be piped through the dessert tip, as I found that on it’s own it was a bit too stiff to be piped. I opted for a coil shape as #1, I found it visually appealing when combined with a fluted tip and #2, It was the easiest shape I could manage. (I’m going to work on my cookie piping skills though, promise).

These honestly remind me of the blue tin butter cookies. They’re light, crisp and full of vanilla, buttery flavor. And yes: the confectioner’s sugar and cornstarch does make them practically melt in your mouth. I honestly wouldn’t change a thing about them.

Sharing these cookies at this week’s Fiesta Friday #208.

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Melting Moments Cookies

Recipe Courtesy of The Recipe Encyclopedia: The Complete Illustrated Guide to Cooking

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Ingredients

  • 3/4 cup unsalted butter
  • 1/2 cup powdered/confectioner’s sugar
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract or vanilla bean paste
  • 1 1/4 cups all purpose flour
  • 1/2 cup cornstarch
  • 2-3 tablespoons milk, optional

 

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

In a large bowl or the bowl of a standing mixer, cream together the butter and the sugar until light and fluffy.

In a small bowl combine the flour with the cornstarch with a fork.

Add the vanilla to the butter mixture. Sift in the flour mixture to the butter mixture (not all at once, in about 3 batches) until just combined.

Line a sheet pan with parchment paper and lightly spray with cooking spray.

Spoon the dough into a pastry bag or cookie press and pipe it into desired shapes that are about 1/2-1 inches in diameter. Once finished, refrigerate the sheet pan for about 30 minutes.

Bake in the oven on the middle rack until just golden brown, about 10-12 minutes.

(Note: no one oven is the same, & different baking sheets bake cookies differently. Keeping this in mind, I will ALWAYS test bake one cookie before baking entire sheets of the whole batch, just to get a good idea of how long they should be in the oven and if I need to adjust the way I’ve cut, rolled them out, etc. I highly recommend that you do the same.)

Beef Carbonnade

Posted in Main Dishes by

I’m going to piggyback off my last week’s post where I gave some free advice that I’ve picked up along the way of my own cooking journey. I’ve mentioned before on here that I have a not-so-minor addiction to buying/collecting cookware, bakeware and kitchen appliances. The majority of my Amazon wishlist is composed of the above. The shopping spree of my dreams would legit be at Williams Sonoma, where I could literally buy any and everything that I want. The more cooking/baking techniques and different dishes that I learn, the more gadgets and appliances I want in order to make them or take certain dishes to a certain level.

Just as there’s a lot of cooking advice to be taken in, there are just as many pieces of cookware, bakeware, gadgets or appliances out there. It’s perfectly fine to get a collection going once you’ve hit your stride and feel pretty confident in your abilities. However if you’re just starting out and and are just looking to *begin* stocking your cabinets with pots/pans, my advice to you would be similar to the advice I gave last week.

Less is more– at least in the beginning.

If you go to just about any Bed Bath & Beyond, Macy’s or even Target and Walmart you’re going to be able to find the huge sets of cookware that usually come with a few pots, skillets and spatualas. Those are fine–I’d even say that they’re a worthwhile investment provided it’s from a good company/brand.

The only thing is, the majority of cookware sets aren’t going to have what I personally consider a must-have in the kitchen collection of amateur and expert cooks alike. Any guesses on what it is?

Never mind, I’ll just tell you: it’s a Dutch oven.

One of the best decisions I ever made on my cooking journey was to invest in a good Dutch oven. It was a real game changer. Prior to that I had been using a stock pot. Trust me, there’s a big difference and in my opinion, no comparison between the two. There’s just no beating how many different uses you can get out of a Dutch oven.

You’re going to get more latitude from a Dutch oven which gives more surface area for a more even cook. I learned how to fry chicken while using a Dutch oven (they’re taller and also hold/distribute heat even better than cast iron).Most are pretty big–enough too make big pots of stew, soup and chili. They’re big and also wide enough to fit whole roasts and the vegetables. The Cephalon ones are my favorite; it’s a good non-stick surface that doesn’t wear out and the structure of the pot itself is strong and durable.

A good Dutch oven isn’t the cheapest thing you could buy for your kitchen, but I would still say it’s probably the best thing you could buy whether you’re starting out or not. It’s a *really* good investment. Anything you can make in those chintzy skillets or pots you got in a set, you can (and likely should) be making in a Dutch oven instead. When I was thinking about what I wanted to say for this post, all I could think about was how perfect it turned out BECAUSE of my Dutch oven.

So listen, guys. The advice for the week is: get a Dutch oven.

This recipe is pretty basic, as stick to your ribs food should be. Meat + onions + gravy = Boom. I think the mace and the smoked paprika in the spice rub give the meat a special ‘something’ that really works.  Beef & chicken broth, beer, and apple cider form the base of the gravy. There’s also juuuuust a tad bit of apple cider vinegar that gets added to it–I was nervous about the acidity but it’s actually just right.

Dutch ovens were *made* for meals like this. You want a Dutch oven so that you too can make rich, hearty braises with savory meat that simmers away in rich, hearty broth until it’s fork tender, filling your kitchen with the most glorious of smells. Now theoretically, could you make this in a stockpot if you didn’t have a Dutch oven yet? Eh…yeah. I guess. But the Dutch oven will give you the space and heat distribution that will give you the best results. SO GET ONE.

Sharing this post at Fiesta Friday #207, co-hosted this week by  Lily @ Little Sweet Baker and Judi @ cookingwithauntjuju.com.

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Beef Carbonnade

Recipe Adapted from The Complete America’s Test Kitchen TV Show Cookbook

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Ingredients

  • 3 1/2 pounds top blade steaks, chuck roast, or tri tip steak, trimmed of gristle and fat cut into 1 inch pieces
  • 2 medium sweet yellow onions, halved and cut 1/4 inch thick
  • 1 tablespoon tomato paste
  • 3 medium garlic cloves, minced
  • 3 tablespoons flour
  • 3/4 cup low sodium chicken broth
  • 3/4 cup low sodium beef broth
  • 1 1/2 cups (12 oz bottle) dark beer or stout
  • 1/4 cup apple cider
  • A few dashes of soy sauce
  • 2 bay leaves
  • Seasoned salt & pepper
  • 1 tablespoon onion powder
  • 1 teaspoon ground mace
  • 1 teaspoon smoked paprika
  • 1 teaspoon dried thyme
  • 1/2 tablespoon brown sugar
  • 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar

 

 

Directions

Preheat oven to 300°F.

In a small bowl, combine the seasoned salt and pepper, onion powder, mace, smoked paprika, dried thyme, and brown sugar with a fork.

Place the meat into a large bowl and sprinkle about half of the spice mix over it. Stir, then sprinkle the rest on top and stir until evenly coated.

Heat a few tablespoons of vegetable oil (or butter, or solidified bacon fat) in the bottom of a Dutch oven over high heat. Sear the meat on all sides until browned. (You may have to do this in 2 batches in order to not crowd the pot) Remove the meat to a medium bowl and keep covered with aluminum foil.

Deglaze the pan with the apple cider, allow to simmer until the liquid is mostly dissolved, then add the onions to the pot,  and lower the heat down to medium. Allow the onions to cook until translucent and limpened, around 5-7 minutes. Add the tomato paste and garlic, stir  and allow to cook for about 5-7 more minutes. Add the flour and stir to coat the onions, allow to cook until flour is slightly browned, about 2 more minutes.

Add the broths, beer, cider vinegar, bay leaves, soy sauce. Stir to scrape up the bits from the bottom of the pot.  Bring to a boil, then reduce heat back to medium. Taste and adjust for seasoning. Place the beef back into the pot.

Cover the pot with a lid, or tightly with aluminum foil and place on the bottom rack of the oven. Cook until a fork inserted in the beef meets little resistance; it should be close to pull apart tender, 2 to 2 1/2 hours.

To make gravy: In a small bowl, combine a few tablespoons of flour with about 1/2 cup cool water. Use a whisk to stir until the flour dissolves. Strain several cups of the cooked beef broth into a saucepan, then pour in the flour water. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to medium-low, stirring a few times. Allow to simmer until thickened into a gravy, about 15-20 minutes.

Cemitas Sandwich Buns

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If you were to ask me for a valuable piece of advice when first starting out cooking, I’d try and boil it down to about three rules:

1 . Start with a basic dish with minimal ingredients and steps that won’t intimidate you. When I first started baking, my non-too-intelligent self decided my first dish was going to be my grandmother’s angel biscuits. Big mistake. It didn’t work for a number of reasons but first among them being that making biscuits is both science and an art form. It took me a while to get good at it. Later on after that first failure, I downsized to trying out easier recipes like quick breads and brownies–these are baked goods that are very difficult to mess up.

2.  Read the whole recipe before you start cooking. This one is so important that I’m thinking maybe I should’ve listed it first. I’ve been cooking an`d baking for several years now and this is still a rule that I have to remind myself of when making lengthy recipes like layer cake that have a lot of steps and ingredients. There’s nothing worse than getting started on a dish and getting to the fourth or fifth step and discovering that you’re missing something, or that you needed to spread it out over 2 days rather than try to make it all in one go.

3. Be patient–both with yourself and the food. Nobody starts out cooking like Bobby Flay or baking like Hedy Goldsmith. Even they have days where things go wrong in the kitchen. Give yourself room to mess up and learn from your mistakes. Also, let yourself get more comfortable with allowing the time for letting flavors develop. I’m not a huge fan of most 30 minute or less meals largely because in my opinion, unless you’re a veryveryVERY talented cook, spices simply need more than 30 minutes to infuse into food. It may be easier to put together in 30 minutes, but wouldn’t you rather it taste better?

Cemitas are a Mexican sandwich that come from Puebla. A piece of meat (such as beef, chicken or pork) is pounded thin, dredged in flour and breadcrumbs, then fried in oil in a skillet until golden brown and crispy. The meat is then layered with cheese, avocado, chipotles and tomato. It all gets placed a on a round sandwich bun that gets sprinkled with sesame seeds.

As it turns out, today’s recipe required me to fall back on all three of the basic rules I just gave. There are a minimal amount of ingredients involved with it and so far as bread recipes go, it’s one of the simplest you could make. Rules 2 and 3 come in for two reasons. First, it’s important that you read the entire recipe beforehand because the first rising runs much,much longer than the average time. I’m relieved that I took my own advice and looked ahead to see that the first rise lasts a whopping 4 hours. This seems excessive, but the dough needs enough time to more than double in size; more like, double and a half. Because it did require such a long rising time and we wanted to have these for dinner, I did wake up early to put the dough together and give it time to rise.

After that first rise, the dough is divided into smooth balls of dough and left to rise again for one more hour. They will then get a sprinkling of sesame seeds and go for a quick bake in the oven.

The buns rise with perfect domes and puff up HUGE in the oven, making them the perfect size for a slab of meat and all the fixings you want to pile on top of it. They’re soft and fluffy on the inside, yet sturdy enough to where you can create the sandwich of your dreams without having to worry about the bun being too flimsy to support the stuff inside.  Even if you’re a beginner when it comes to baking bread, I’d still say this was something you could try and expect to have good results–honestly, the hardest part is the wait. And these buns were WELL worth that 😉

Sharing at this week’s Fiesta Friday #206, co-hosted this week by Diann @ Of Goats and Greens and Shinta @ Caramel Tinted Life. 

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Cemitas Sandwich Buns

Recipe Adapted from Serious Eats

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Ingredients

  • 2 1/2-3 cups all purpose flour
  • 8 ounces heavy cream
  • 3 eggs, divided
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons dry active yeast
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
  • 3 tablespoons white sugar, divided
  • 1/4 cup sesame seeds

Directions

In a small saucepan, heat the heavy cream over low heat on the stove until about 120-130°F. Sprinkle the yeast on top of heavy cream, and one tablespoon of the white sugar on top of the yeast. Allow to proof for about 10 minutes, until frothy.

In a small bowl, beat 2 of the eggs together lightly with a fork, set aside.

Combine the flour with the salt and mix together with a fork. Set aside.

Pour the heavy cream-yeast mixture into the bowl of a standing mixer, then pour in the beaten eggs. Mix together with the paddle attachment until just combined. Switch to the dough hook, then add the dry ingredients. Allow to knead for about 5-7 minutes. The dough will and should still be sticky, but if it’s not coming together in at least homogeneous mass, you can add more flour, about 1/3 cup at a time until it is one.

Grease the bottom and sides of the mixing bowl. Place the dough inside, cover with a piece of plastic wrap, then a damp kitchen towel. Allow to rise in a warm place until grown 1  1/2 times larger, about 4 hours (yes, 4 hours, so plan ahead accordingly).

Sprinkle a work surface with flour, then turn dough out onto, it gently deflating air bubbles. Shape into a ball, then divide the ball in half. Divide each half into 3 pieces, giving you a total of six. Shape each piece into a smooth ball.

Lay a sheet of parchment paper onto a sheet pan, then place each bun seam side down onto the paper. Cover with plastic wrap and a damp kitchen towel and allow to rise in a warm place until doubled in size, about 1 hour.

Preheat oven to 450°F. Place a shallow pan of water on the bottom rack of the stove.

In a small bowl beat remaining the egg and 1 tablespoon of water. Brush over the buns and sprinkle with the sesame seeds. Bake until deep golden brown, 12-15 minutes. Remove from oven, allow to cool on pan for about 60 seconds, then remove to a wire rack to cool completely.