Cookapelli

Sugarplums

In the realm of trying to keep up on this blog I have run into the no time, but lots to talk about syndrome. So hopefully I can update a few odds and sods. I needed to get my chosen cookies and/or candies ready for press photos for the annual Inn to Inn Cookie tour and so I thought I would give everyone a preview showing of what I am going to do this year. The theme is, The Night before Christmas, and the first thing that came to my mind was sugar plums. So with some research I found out the sugar plums are a relatively old treat that consists of dried fruit, honey, and spices. So with some experimentation and testing driving on friends I have devised a nice recipe. The other cookie or candy (can’t quite define this one) was based on some recipes I found on the Internet and then made into what I really liked, Nutter Butter truffles.

Sugar Plums
Makes 24

1/2 teaspoon whole Cardamom
1/4 teaspoon anise seed
1/4 whole allspice

Using a spice or coffee grinder, grind the spices

Zest of 2 Oranges
8 oz dried fruit (mixture of your favorites)
1/4 shredded coconut
2 Tbs Honey

1 Cup granulated Sugar

Using a food processor, chop the dried fruit until it is a fine paste. Then add the orange zest, spices, coconut, and honey. Mix well, cover and refrigerate for an hour.

With hands lightly coated in butter or spray oil, form small 1 inch balls with the mixture. Once completed then roll the balls in the sugar. Can be kept refrigerated for 2-3 weeks. Flavor improves after about 2-3 days.

Prancer’s Peanut Cookie Truffles

Prancer’s Peanut Cookie Truffles
makes 3 dozen

16 oz package of Nutter Butter cookies
8 oz cream cheese

2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 cup butterscotch chips

In a food processor pulverize the Nutter Butter cookies until they are fine crumbs. Add the cream cheese and blend until a smooth dough or paste forms. Roll the dough into small balls approximately 1 inch in diameter. Place balls in refrigerator for an hour to set.

In a glass bowl, melt the chocolate chips using a microwave or double boiler. Dip each dough ball in the melted chocolate and place on parchment paper to set. The melt the butterscotch chips in the microwave or double boiler. Place the melted butterscotch chips into a pastry bag with a small nozzle tip. Use this to decorate your chocolate covered truffles. Place back in refrigerator to set.

Share on Facebook

Banana Cranberry Bread

Funny what a week with the flu does to my food enjoyment and thus the need to write about food. However, now with the taste-buds returning to full function and my appetite back, I’m ready to think about food again. Today’s post is about what started as my favorite banana bread and through a happy accident become the best banana bread in this solar system. Typically Hilary has to do my shopping for whatever menu I plan and thus if my attention span gets slightly distracted then my shopping list might miss one or two vital ingredients. This happened when I thought I had a few more bananas in the pantry than I actually had. So of course the shopping list didn’t have bananas… and I discovered this around 6 in the morning after I had started making the banana bread. So some nimble early morning head scratching created this, enjoy!

Preheat oven to 350F

1 2/3 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/3 cup melted butter
1 cup sugar
1/3 cup water
2 eggs
2 very ripe bananas, mashed (approximately 1 cup)
1 cup dried cranberries
1 cup orange juice

Put the dried cranberries and orange juice in a microwave safe bowl and heat for 1 minute on high. Let the cranberries sit for 15 minutes before using in the recipe.

Sift together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Mix together the melted butter, sugar and eggs until well combined. Fold in the bananas. Mix in the dry mixture and water. Drain the cranberries and add to the batter, mix well.

Pour the batter into a greased or buttered 9 inch loaf pan and bake for 50 minutes or until a toothpick inserted and removed from the center of the loaf comes out clean.

Share on Facebook

coconut scones with coconut milk glaze

I have to thank my cousin, Dale, for inspiration for these. He sent me a recipe for coconut scones and in my usual fashion at about 6:10 this morning I decided that I didn’t care for the proportions of ingredients and decided to rebuild the recipe into something that has a better scone texture. I think that scones should be light, fluffy, and delicate beasties… not heavy, weapon’s grade, or door stop material. The shredded coconut does add a bit of chewiness to these, but I think you’ll find that to be part of what makes these so good.

Preheat oven to 425F

2 1/4 cups flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2 Tbs sugar
1 cup shredded coconut
1 cup butter
1 cup coconut milk (I really like the Goya brand, the milk is still pretty thick with coconut)
2 eggs
1 tsp coconut extract

glaze

2 Tbs coconut milk
1/4 tsp coconut extract
2 Tbs melted butter
1 to 1 1/2 cups powdered sugar

Sift together the flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar. Mix in the shredded coconut and then using a pastry cutter or 2 knives cut in the butter to the dry mixture until the butter is in pea sized pieces and chill for 15 minutes. Lightly beat the eggs and then add the coconut milk and the coconut extract. Mix with the dry ingredients and lightly knead. Form into wedges and bake until golden brown. I found the timing to be around 15 minutes.

While those are baking, mix the melted butter, coconut milk, extract, and powdered sugar until a smooth glaze is developed. Once the scones come out of the oven, drizzle glaze over them and then proceed to burning your tongue with the quality control sample that you can’t wait to eat. We did use lemon curd this morning with these, but a pineapple curd would be even better (I’ll have to create a recipe for that later).

makes 8-10ish scones

Share on Facebook

Puff Pastry (get it from the store to save time)
1 egg white
2 tsp lemon juice
1 Tbs sugar
lemon curd (I made mine from scratch, but the Robertson’s brand is great)
fresh berries
Sauce:
8 oz mixed berries (frozen work well also)
1 cup sugar
1 tsp lemon juice

This was a nice treat from this last weekend. While I made the puff pastry from scratch, I’m not going to get into that in this blog. The King Arthur Flour book or the Complete Techniques books I list on the bookshelf page have really good instructions on making puff pastry (I’ve used both with great success). For the assembly of the dish, I cut out 3 inch rounds of puff pastry, brushed them with a mixture of lemon juice, egg white, and sugar. Then baked them at 425F for about 12 minutes or until the tops are golden brown. Let the pastries cool on a wire rack, be very careful as they will be quite delicate.

Cook the mixed berries, lemon juice, and sugar over medium heat for about 15 minutes. The goal is to evaporate most of the water in the berries leaving you with a thick sauce. Chill if desired.

Split the puff pastry, put lemon curd on one half with fresh berries and drizzle the mixed berry sauce around the edge. Enjoy!

Share on Facebook

colada crisp fresh from the oven with vanilla yogurt being drizzled over the top

banana, pineapple, and lime ready for the topping

This is a nice treat when you’ve got some fresh pineapple available. You can use canned, but for the price and the flavor difference I prefer fresh. Despite the tropical flavorings, this is great when hot from the oven while looking out our windows at the lovely Maine snow.

Preheat oven to 350F

filling

1 1/2 cups fresh pineapple, cut to medium dice
1 1/2 cups sliced bananas
1 lime
1/4 cup sugar

topping

1/4 cup flour
1/4 cup rolled oats
1/4 brown sugar
1/4 butter

In a bowl toss the sliced bananas, pineapple, sugar. Remove the zest of the lime (I use a microplane) and then juice the lime. Add the zest and juice to the fruit and mix well. Divide the mixture into 6 ramekin cups. For the topping, mix the flour, sugar, and oats. Then using a pastry cutter or 2 knives, but the butter into the topping mix. Sprinkle on top of the ramekins. Bake for 45 minutes. If making this for dessert a nice rum glaze would be perfect. I tend to use (as shown in the photo) vanilla yogurt drizzled across the top.

makes 6 servings

Share on Facebook

fresh from the oven maple oat scones

For anyone that’s had breakfast at the inn, you may have had these scones. I will happily tell you they are the best in the world and I could even be right. These are light, delicate, barely sweet with maple syrup and nutty crunchy with oats. You can substitute the butter with lower fat ingredients, but you will lose some of what makes these scones so special. The recipe also has buttermilk, I use dry baking buttermilk for this as I don’t use enough to buy and keep fresh buttermilk on hand.

Preheat oven to 425F

1 3/4 cups flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup rolled oats (instant are okay, but I prefer uncooked… I think the nutty flavor of the oats is better)
1 Tbs sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 cup butter (chilled, not softened)

1/2 cup buttermilk
2 Tbs maple syrup
2 eggs

for the top of the scones

1 Tbs maple syrup
1 Tbs rolled oats

Sift together the flours, sugar, baking powder, salt, and baking soda. Mix in the oats. Using a pastry cutter or knives, cut the butter into the dry ingredient mixture. Once the butter is cut in and is in pea sized pieces chill the mixture for 15 minutes. Lightly beat the eggs and add the maple syrup and buttermilk, mixing well. Combine with the chilled dry mixture and lightly knead to combine. Too much kneading will cause your scones to be rather chewy. Cut into wedges, brush the tops with maple syrup and sprinkle oats over them and then bake on an ungreased cookie sheet for 12 minutes or until golden brown.

makes about 8-12 scones (depending on the size of scone you prefer)

Share on Facebook

fingerling potato and black forest ham pizza

I’m a big fan of finding different recipes and test driving, especially when we’re not as busy at the inn and I’ve got time to play in the kitchen. This is a find on the LA Times website:  Recipe: Potato pizza – latimes.com

I did change the recipe slightly, as my ADHD cannot actually get to the end of a recipe without wandering outside the lines. I added some thin sliced Black Forest ham to the potato mixture and I used 1/4 cup of asiago cheese. Moving the pizza to the pizza stone can be a bit tricky, you can make the pizza on parchment paper and then place the parchment paper and pizza directly on the stone and it will cook just fine.

Share on Facebook

This is a simple recipe, the key is great blueberries.

muffins fresh from the oven, exceeded the blueberry to muffin ratio again

1/2 cup butter
3/4 cup sugar
2 eggs
1/2 cup milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 cups flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2 cups blueberries
zest of one lemon

A word about blueberries… I’m lucky to be in Maine, where blueberries rule. They are small, sweet, intense berries. We can find them at farm stands in late July through early September or frozen in the grocery store. They freeze very well due to the low water content. Bigger markets may have Wyman’s Berries, most of their wild blueberries come from Maine. I could go into the health benefits, but to be honest, I just like them.

Preheat oven to 375 F

In a mixer cream butter and sugar. Add the eggs and beat lightly. Sift flour, baking powder, and salt. Add flour mixture, milk, and vanilla extract to the mixer and mix to combine. Remember to scrape the sides of the bowl and then add the lemon zest, mix.

Using a spatula, fold the blueberries into the batter.

Divide the batter into a greased/ floured muffin tin and bake for 25 minutes.

makes 12 muffins

Share on Facebook

There are lots of different versions and styles of crepe batter, this is what I use most often.

1 egg
2 Tbs oil
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup milk
1 cup flour
water as need to thin (or beer, ginger ale, soda water… whatever matches your flavor profile)

Lightly beat the egg with oil, then add milk and salt. Mix well and then add flour. I usually wisk all this together, but feel free to dump it into a blender and mix it that way. Thin with water until the batter is thin enough to put into a crepe pan and easily coat the bottom. Let the batter sit for an hour to let the trapped air leave. Heat a crepe pan under medium heat and oil if necessary. I use a 1/4 cup ladle to scoop enough batter to make a 6 to 7 inch crepe. When the edges start to lift, turn and cook for about 15 seconds. Place on wire rack or use in whatever recipe you’re following.

makes approx 10 crepes

a mostly round crepe, not bad at a few minutes before 7am

turning the pan to make a crepe

morning crepe production

Share on Facebook