Simple Fruit Dip

Simple Fruit Dip

My mom got this recipe from someone ages ago and makes it every Easter to go with a plate heaped with strawberries, pineapple, and cantaloupe.  It actually helps make the overly firm store-bought strawberries edible.  Growing up in California, there were fresh strawberries from local strawberry fields every spring. I never liked strawberries, though, because these California strawberry fields, at least the ones we went to, produced huge, hard, sour strawberries.  I always wondered why so many people were in love with this tasteless fruit.  Then I moved to Oregon for two years in my mid-twenties, and met strawberries, really, for the first time.  My friends liked to do their own canning and introduced me to U-Pick fruit.  We'd go to local farms and pick our own strawberries, raspberries and peaches.  When I bit into my first just-picked strawberry, I almost heard the "Aaaaahhh!" choir of angels singing.  This strawberry had FLAVOR.  It was sweet, with just a hint of tartness.  It had the texture of cantaloupe.  Whaaaaat?  So THIS is what all the fuss was about.  The two years I lived in Oregon I picked and canned strawberries, and I ate probably more than I should have out in the fields as we picked.  Finally, I too fell in love with strawberries.
My husband and I did move back to Southern California, where I managed to figure out which local strawberry fields had actual edible strawberries that didn't  require the fruit dip.  They weren't quite as amazing as what I'd had in Oregon, but they were close enough.
Now I live in Iowa and I still need to figure out where to get fabulous strawberries.  Sam's Club often has good ones, but I haven't figured out anything about local farms.  Perhaps that's what I need to set my sights on this year.  In the meantime, I'll make this yummy fruit dip to help me enjoy what I can find in the way of strawberries.

Fruit Dip

Ingredients:

• 1 7 oz. jar marshmallow creme
• 1 8 oz. package Philadelphia Cream Cheese

Instructions:
Place ingredients in a medium mixing bowl.  With a hand mixer, or in a standing mixer, mix on low speed to blend ingredients.  Then mix on high for another minute or so, or until it is smooth and creamy.  With a rubber/silicone spatula, scoop into a cute serving dish. (I used a pretty little rice bowl.)
Cover and refrigerate until ready to serve.
Serve with clean, washed fruit.

Sky Valley Heirloom Navel Oranges

No recipe here, just the BEST oranges I've ever eaten.  Today at Trader Joe's these Sky Valley Heirloom Navel Oranges were one of the free samples.  I don't often purchase what I've sampled, but this orange was perfect: super juicy, sweet, not tart, and the texture was unlike any orange I think I've had.  You know how with some oranges, you can feel the individual little pulp packets of juice and sometimes they're dry and thick?  You couldn't even really detect that here.  It was almost the texture of a perfectly ripe cantaloupe, really.  Mmmm...my mouth is watering just thinking about it.  The kicker is that these oranges were only $3.99/4 pound bag.  If you live anywhere near a Trader Joe's, and you like oranges, you need to go get some of these before their season is over.

Kouign-Amann

Kouign-Amann, small ones

Kouign-Amann, interior

Crunchy, chewy, and caramelized sugary exterior.  Buttery, soft, and tender interior.  The flavor is that of a very sugary croissant.  Just the scent in my house is fattening.  These are goooooood.

Yesterday, I watched a DVR recording of one of my very favorite Food Network shows, The Best Thing I Ever Ate.  The Neelys selected this Kouign-Amann (pronounced queen ahmahn) that looked like a sugary, buttery, round croissant kind of thing.  "I've made croissants," I thought to myself.  "These look easy.  I just need some of those ring mould thingies."  Well, those ring mould thingies are expensive, so I started checking out some more google images of Kouign-Amann.  There are some that look like they're baked in those rings; some seem to have been baked in muffin tins; some are almost flat; and many are large and baked in a 10-inch spring form pan.  So I decided that I had some leeway, and  decided to bake them as if I were putting them into a ring mould, folding them up into the middle, but not putting them in the mould.  I tried using a toothpick to secure the four corners folded into the middle, and it sort of worked, for some of them.

Next time, I think I'll probably just make these small because the small ones seemed to hold their shapes better than the large.  Plus, one large one just seems so, so...well, large.  I can see, though, why the Neelys love these so much.  Very decadent.  Very satisfying.

Kouign-Amann 

     --adapted from marthastewart.com

Ingredients:

• 1 3/4 cups room temperature water
• 1 1/2 teaspoons sea salt
• 1 pound (4 sticks) plus 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, chilled
• 5 cups King Arthur Unbleached All Purpose Flour
• 1 package (2 1/4 teaspoons) instant yeast
• 3 cups white sugar, plus more for dusting

Instructions:

1. In a liquid measuring cup, measure water and then add sea salt.  Let stand until sea salt has dissolved completely.  Meanwhile, melt 2 tablespoons butter in a small bowl in a microwave oven, or over low heat in a small pan.

2. In the bowl of a standing mixer fitted with a dough hook, mix the flour and the instant yeast.  With the mixer on low speed, mix in the melted butter.  Add the water/salt mixture, and continue to mix until combined into a ball of dough, about 3 minutes.  Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and allow dough to rise about one hour, or until doubled.

3. After it has doubled, punch the dough down, wrap in plastic, and place on a baking sheet (not a large plate--a baking sheet).  Chill in the refrigerator for 2 hours.

4.  While the dough chills, unwrap the four sticks of butter and place side by side in a gallon size zip-top bag.  Leave bag unzipped and start pounding the butter with a heavy rolling pin.  Pound and roll until you have a squarish shaped slab of butter that is a little over 1/4 inch thick.  Return to the refrigerator to chill for about 30 minutes.

5.  Remove chilled dough from the refrigerator and unwrap onto a floured surface.  Roll dough out to an 18-inch square.  Cut the butter square out of the bag and place in the middle of the dough square so that each side of the butter square faces a corner of the dough square.  Fold the corners of the dough over the butter to enclose.  The original recipe says to pinch dough seams to seal, but I had so much overlap, that was unnecessary.

6.  Roll dough into a 24 x 8 inch rectangle, making sure to flour the rolling pin and rolling surface as needed to prevent sticking.  Brush excess flour with a pastry brush and then fold rectangle into thirds.  Wrap the dough in plastic and place back on the baking sheet.  Chill for 20 minutes.  This completes the first turn.

7.  Roll dough out again to a 24 x 8 inch rectangle and fold into thirds (second turn).  Wrap and return dough to refrigerator again for 10-20 minutes.  Dust the rolling surface with sugar, and then pour about 1 cup of sugar over the dough and roll out again to a 24 x 8 inch rectangle and fold into thirds (third turn).  Wrap and return dough to refrigerator again for 10-20 minutes.  Repeat last rolling out/turn with another 1 1/2 cups sugar (fourth turn).  Wrap dough and leave in the refrigerator overnight.

8. In the morning, preheat oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit and line 2 or 3 large baking sheets with parchment paper.  On a lightly sugared surface, roll the dough into a 1/2-inch thick rectangle (about 16 x 25 inches).  Cut into 15 squares (or 30, if you want small ones).  Fold up corners of one square toward the center and press to seal corners in the middle, or use a toothpick to keep it (sort of) in place.  Place on parchment lined baking sheets about 2 inches apart.  Repeat with remaining squares.

9. Lightly cover pans with plastic wrap and allow to rise in a warm place until puffed, 30-40 minutes.  Bake at 425 degrees until golden brown, 35-40 minutes (15-18 minutes for small ones).  If you used toothpicks, remove immediately.  Move from pans onto wire racks to cool completely.

Makes 15 large pastries and I don't know how many small ones (sorry)

Toothpicks helped keep the small ones intact. 

Large ones just opened up, but were still super delicious.

Cookies for the Kindergarteners

Mr. Santizo's Chocolate Chip Cookies

Mr. Santizo's Chocolate Chip Cookies
Hero Factory Guy courtesy of Ezra

One of the best parts of my job as a teacher of English as a Second Language is working with one kindergarten class during Writing.  (Kindergarteners really can write, by the way.)  In the nonfiction unit in our writing curriculum, there is a trade book titled, Mr. Santizo's Tasty Treats.  The book describes a baker who lives in Chicago and bakes cakes, breads, and cookies in a bakery.  At the end of the book is a recipe for Mr. Santizo's chocolate chip cookies.  I made the cookies last year and was not too impressed with the results.  The recipe called for a pound of butter, four eggs and four cups of flour, but only 2 cups of sugar, half a teaspoon of vanilla, 1/4 teaspoon of salt (no baking soda).
So this year, I upped the sugar, salt, and vanilla to what I thought were reasonable measurements.  The cookies tasted waaaaaay better this time around, but the texture and appearance are still off, as far as I'm concerned.  I've decided that the baking soda adds a deeper brown color.  The texture when you eat these cookies is pleasant enough.  Chewy.  But the feel of them on my fingers was almost plasticky.  Yeah.  Strange.  Anyway, if you like rubbery chocolate chip cookies, this might be the recipe for you.  I'm posting it because I made it, and because the kindergarteners loved them.  I got lots of thank you hugs today, and that alone is worth posting about.  I love my job, maybe even more than Mr. Santizo the baker loves his.

Mr. Santizo’s Chocolate Chip Cookies

    --adapted from Mr. Santizo's Tasty Treats

Ingredients:

• 2 cups butter, softened
• 2 cups brown sugar
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 4 eggs
• 2 teaspoons vanilla
• 4 cups flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 4 cups chocolate chips

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 350°F.

Cream butter and sugar.  Mix in eggs.  Add vanilla & mix well.

Slowly add flour that’s been mixed with salt into the butter, sugar, egg, vanilla mixture.

Add chocolate chips. 

Make 1-inch size balls and place on ungreased cookie sheet.

Bake at 350°F for 8-10 minutes.

Makes about 150 cookies.

Bite-Size Chocolate Cream Pie

Bite Size Chocolate Cream Pie

Bite-Size Chocolate Cream Pie with Toasted Coconut

About a month ago, I made some bite-size banana cream pie bites, and they were so cute, and so good, that I realized I had to try this bite-size thing with other types of cream pie.  Chocolate was next on the list (and bite-size coconut cream pie followed that).  I've just adapted the chocolate cream pie recipe I adapted from Once Upon a Chef.  I really like the Oreo crust of the original, and I'm sure you could make this little pie with naked (unfrosted) Oreo wafers, but I wanted to see what would happen with the traditional pie crust (and I didn't want a bag of Oreos hanging around my house).
I tried a few different things with this batch.  I thought toasted coconut would be pretty and tasty on these, and I was right.  The sprinkles are Guittard Bittersweet Chocolate Sprinkles that I got from kingarthurflour.com.  I like them for these bite-size pies because they are just teeny tiny things.  The ones I've seen in the grocery store are about five times as fat as these little guys.
I ended up with more filling than crusts, so next time I think I might put more chocolate filling on each little pie.  Let me just say in closing, the bite-size pie thing seems to be working.  They are fabulous.  And adorable.

Bite-Size Chocolate Cream Pie

Ingredients:

• 2 1/2 tablespoons sugar
• 2 tablespoons cornstarch
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 2 large egg yolks
• 1 1/2 cups whole milk
• 14 Dove Dark Chocolate Promises, unwrapped & chopped (or 4 oz. other kind of chopped dark chocolate)
• 1 tablespoon unsalted butter, softened
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 batch of pie crust (see recipe below)

For Topping

•  stabilized whipped cream (see recipe below) or 1 cup heavy cream whipped and sweetened slightly
• 1 Dove Dark Chocolate Promise, refrigerated; or chocolate sprinkles; or toasted coconut

Instructions:

In a heavy medium saucepan, whisk together sugar, cornstarch, and salt.

In a separate bowl or large measuring cup, whisk milk and egg yolks until combined.  Pour milk mixture into pan while whisking.  Whisk until smooth.

Place pan on burner set to medium heat and cook, whisking constantly (yes, constantly), making sure to scrape bottom and edges of the pan, until mixture starts to thicken, about 7-9 minutes.

Remove from heat and immediately whisk in chocolate, butter, and vanilla.  Transfer hot filling to a bowl.  Cover with plastic wrap so that the wrap rests in contact with the filling so a skin does not form.  Refrigerate filling until cool, 1-2 hours.

I love this star tip

Once filling and crusts are cool, spoon filling into a pastry bag fitted with a star tip or a quart or gallon size zip top bag.  If you're using the zip top bag, once it's got the filling in it, cut about a half-inch or a little less off one corner. Also place whipped cream into pastry or zip top bags, preferably fitted with a star tip, but that's not absolutely necessary.

Squeeze about 1 to 1 1/2 teaspoons of filling onto each little crust.  Then top with about a teaspoon of whipped cream.  Top it all off with sprinkles, grated chocolate, or toasted coconut.  Keep refrigerated until ready to serve.

Makes 60-70 bite-size pies

Wavy-edged crusts

Pie Crust

Ingredients:

(Note: you can also use store-bought refrigerated pie crust, like from Pillsbury)

• 1 ¼ cups King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
• ½ teaspoons salt
• 4 tablespoons butter
• 3 tablespoons Crisco
• 3 1/2 to 4 tablespoons ice cold water
• flour for dusting

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 400°F.

In a medium bowl, mix flour and salt. Cut 4 T butter into flour until it looks like coarse meal, and then cut in Crisco until well blended. Add ice cold water and stir with fork. Then use your hands to gently work the dough into a ball.  Flour a rectangular sheet of wax paper, place dough ball in the middle, flour the ball, and cover with another rectangular sheet of wax paper. Roll dough out to a thickness of about 1/8”.  With a sharp knife or pizza cutter, cut dough roughly into 1.5”x 1.5” squares.  You can also be creative and use cookie cutters to make cute shapes.

Place dough pieces on a parchment-lined cookie sheet.  Prick each piece a few times with a fork.  Bake at 400°F for 11-13 minutes, or until browned on the edges.   Remove from oven. Cool completely before using for bite-size pies.

Stabilized Whipped Cream Frosting
--adapted from cdkitchen


Ingredients:

• 1/2 tsp unflavored gelatin powder
• 2 tbsp cold water
• 1 cup whipping cream
• pinch salt
• 2 tbsp confectioner's sugar

Instructions:
1. Sprinkle gelatin over cold water in small bowl to soften. 

2. Scald 2 tablespoon of the cream; pour over gelatin, stirring till dissolved.
3. Refrigerate until consistency of unbeaten egg white. (This takes about 10-15 minutes.) Then, with a whisk, beat until smooth. 
4. In a stand mixer with a whip attachment, or with a hand beater, whip remaining cream and sugar just until soft peaks form; whip in the smoothed gelatin mixture, stopping to scrape the bowl twice. You will probably only need to whip it another 10-20 seconds before it's done.

Easy Peasy Banana Cream Pie

Easy Banana Cream Pie

I teach English as a Second Language to elementary aged kids in Iowa.  I LOVE my job.  There's one student I work with, a 5th grade girl from El Salvador, that I get to work with 1:1.  During one of our discussions, I discovered that she had NEVER eaten pie.  EVER.  That bothered me.  Her birthday is today, so I took it upon myself to make her a simple and tasty banana cream pie.  It seemed like a good intro to pie, an American staple.  I told her to invite some friends to eat their lunch in my room and we had some birthday pie.  They all loved it, and I think my student will be eating more pie in the future.

This might be one of the easiest recipes I have on this blog, so enjoy the simplicity.  It doesn't happen all that often with me.

I also came up with a transport and storage method that  kept the pie safe in the over-crowded teachers' lounge refrigerator: umbrella toothpicks.  I have a ton of them from my son's birthday party from a few years ago (he's a big fan of Oriental Trading Company).  See pics at the end of this post.


Easy Banana Cream Pie

Ingredients:

• 1 frozen pie crust, pre-baked according to package instructions, and cooled completely
• 1  5.1 oz. pkg. Jell-O instant vanilla pudding
• 2 1/2 cups milk
• 2 large bananas, cut into 1/4 inch slices
• 1 batch stabilized whipped cream, or 1 cup heavy cream whipped with 1/4 cup powdered sugar, or small tup of Cool Whip (only if you're not into whipping cream, though)

Instructions:
Prepare vanilla pudding according to package instructions.  Cover pudding and allow to set up 5-10 minutes in the refrigerator.  Now is a good time to cup up the bananas.

Once set, scoop and spread about 1/2 cup of the pudding into the bottom of the baked and cooled crust.  Layer banana slices snugly, but not really overlapping on top of the pudding.  Layer on another 1/2-3/4 cup of pudding.  Then layer remaining bananas.  Spread remaining pudding over bananas.

If you're using stabilized whipped cream or Cool Whip, you can spread or pipe it on now and refrigerate the pie until ready to slice and serve.  If you will be using unstabilized whipped cream, wait until just before serving to top with the whipped cream.

Makes 8 reasonable or 5 unreasonable servings.

Umbrella tooth picks keep the whipped cream beautiful. 

See?

Chocolate Times Three Cupcakes

Chocolate Times Three Cupcakes

I thought I'd make some simple chocolate cupcakes with cocoa whipped cream for some friends who were coming over for dinner tonight, but in my enthusiasm for efficiency, I started making them while I was cooking dinner last night.  Well, when I tried one of the baby cupcakes after they'd cooled, I thought, "Hmm...these have a weird, dry texture, and they're kind of on the salty side."  Then I remembered the sugar.  Too bad I didn't remember it WHILE I was mixing the batter.  Fortunately, this recipe uses Ghirardelli Sweet Ground Chocolate, so there's already some sugar in there, but these were definitely not quite right.  So, I decided to add some sweetness and richness by dipping the tops in a dark chocolate ganache before frosting them with the cocoa whipped cream.  In the end, I thought they tasted FINE.  Next time, I'll make sure I add the sugar, but I will definitely be able to finish off the ones that remain in my fridge.  I even think my husband will be able to choke some down.

Chocolate Times Three Cupcakes

      ---cake recipe adapted from Ghirardelli.com

Ingredients

• 1 cup Ghirardelli Sweet Ground Chocolate and Cocoa (or use 1/2 cup ground cocoa powder and increase the total amount of sugar below to 1 1/4 cups)
• 1 1/2 cups sifted cake flour
• 1 1/2 tablespoons King Arthur Flour Cake Enhancer (optional)
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2/3 cup butter, softened (that's 10 2/3 tablespoons)
• 1 cup buttermilk
• 2 large eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• dark chocolate ganache (recipe below)
• Cocoa Whipped Cream (recipe below)
• chocolate sprinkles (optional--I used ones from King Arthur Flour)

Cake Instructions

Preheat oven to 350ºF.  

Line a 24-cup muffin pan with cupcake liners.

Into a mixer bowl fitted with a whisk attachment (or in a large mixing bowl if you're using a hand mixer), sift flour with ground chocolate, cake enhancer, sugar, baking soda, cream of tartar, and salt. 

Add butter and 3/4 cup buttermilk. Beat on low speed to combine ingredients. Scrape sides of bowl and then beat on low-medium speed for 2 minutes. 

Add 1/4 cup buttermilk, eggs, and 1 teaspoon vanilla. Beat additional 2 minutes.  

Scoop/pour batter into a gallon-sized zip-top bag and cut about 1/2-inch off one corner.  Pipe batter into cups, 3/4 full.  Bake at 350ºF for 15-18 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, or with only a couple of cling-ons. 

Cool in pan 5-10 minutes and then carefully remove cupcakes to finish cooling on a wire rack.

Poke 12-20 holes in each cupcake with a toothpick.

With a spoon, spoon on about 1 teaspoon or so of ganache onto each cupcake, or dip each top into the ganache and then turn upright back onto rack.

Refrigerate cupcakes until ganache is firm.

Pipe cocoa whipped cream onto each cupcake and top with sprinkles, if desired.  Keep refrigerated until ready to serve.

Makes 24 cupcakes.

Dark Chocolate Ganache

• 1/2 cup heavy cream
• 1 tablespoon unsalted butter
• 1/2 pound cup semisweet chocolate (I prefer Dove chocolate) finely chopped

In a heavy saucepan, bring cream to a boil.  Remove from heat.  Stir in butter until it melts.  Stir in chocolate until all is melted.  

Cocoa Whipped Cream:

• 1/2 cup powdered cocoa
• 1/2cup sugar
• 1/4 cup hot tap water
• 2 cups cold heavy whipping cream

In mixer bowl with a wire whisk attachment, mix cocoa, sugar & hot water, mixing to form a paste.  Allow to cool before adding cream.  Add cream and start mixing on low to incorporate cream into cocoa paste.  Stop the mixer and scrape the bowl.  Mix on high until stiff peaks form.

Grandma Kelly's "Sees Fudge"

Grandma Kelly's See's Fudge

This, to me, is what fudge should be.  Deep chocolate flavor, smooth, sweet, with a few walnuts for contrasting texture and bitterness.  My Grandma Kelly knew how to make fudge, and thankfully, she passed the recipe along.  I don't think I've made this fudge since the 1990's though, and I'm not sure why. Perhaps Nanaimo Bars have taken their place in my repertoire.  It needs to make a comeback, and I think this Easter is the perfect time.  Easter happens to be the season that I associate most closely with fudge, not Christmas, because my mom would always include a Sees fudge egg in our Easter baskets.  Good times.
The fudge pictured above was made with Dove Dark Chocolate instead of chocolate chips.  And it is delicious.  Now I just have to figure out how to get rid of it without eating most of it myself.

Sees-Style Fudge

by Grandma Marian Kelly

Ingredients:

• 1 package chocolate chips (or 12 oz., roughly a bag and a third of Dove Dark Chocolate Promises chopped)
• 1 stick butter, cut into about 8 chunks
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 cups sugar
• 1 square unsweetened chocolate
• 2/3 cup evaporated milk
• 16 large marshmallows
• 1 cup chopped walnuts

Instructions:

Take an 8"x8" square pan and either butter it or line it with foil.

Place chocolate chips (Dove chunks), butter, and vanilla in a large heat-proof bowl.

In a large heavy saucepan over medium heat, bring sugar, unsweetened chocolate, evaporated milk, and marshmallows to a boil & boil for 6 minutes, stirring constantly. (Be careful here.  Mine kept bubbling up like lava, splattering itself here an there on my stovetop.)

Pour cooked mixture over the chocolate chips, butter, and vanilla.  Stir until ingredients are melted together & have a dull appearance.

Add nuts & pour into prepared pan.  Smooth out the top with a silicone spatula.

Allow to cool and firm up before cutting.

Makes about 49 cubes