Perfection

December 13, 2016 / Robinne Weiss / Leave a comment

After decades of work, I finally did it.

I made a perfect pie crust.

A flaky melt-in-your-mouth crust that made this excellent ricotta and vegetable pie seem like just a prelude to the crust. Not a hint of toughness, not a moment over-baked or under-baked. Even the bottom, that tends toward sogginess, was perfect.

That’s it, now—I’ve accomplished that and can tick it off my list. I never need to make another. I’ve done it right, and that’s that. My last pie crust.

Well, okay, I like pie…a lot. I probably will make another crust. And another. And another.

And, if I’m being honest, this perfect crust came about in part because I was being a bit lazy.

My pie crust recipe (designed to create an American pie crust with NZ ingredients), is supposed to be made with 125 grams each of butter and Olivani. But today there was a 150 gram chunk of butter in the fridge. I didn’t feel like cutting off a 25 gram sliver, so I just used it, and reduced the Olivani to 100 grams.

The other part of the perfection of this crust was a 45-minute chill in the fridge after rolling it out and putting it in the pan. That chill was necessary, simply because I was cooking alone today, and it took 45 minutes to pick, prepare and cook the vegetables after I finished the crust.

I really wasn’t aiming for perfection (my usual crust is actually pretty good, so I tend not to mess with the recipe much), I just stumbled upon it by accident.

I have, however, made a note on my recipe to increase the butter to 150 grams and chill for 45 minutes…

Bread Day in the New Oven

November 27, 2016 / Robinne Weiss / 6 Comments

While there are still a few details to finish on the oven, we had our first bread day in it today. I say “we”, but really it was my husband who did all the work.

It started yesterday when he started bulking up the sourdough starter.

This morning around 7, he lit the fire and made the dough—20 kilos of flour in this batch!

Three fires lit and burned down, and both dough and oven were ready. He started baking just after lunch.

I swanned in several hours later and whipped up lemon cupcakes and walnut chocolate chip biscotti to go in after the last of his loaves came out.

Almost 12 hours after the fire was lit, we pulled out the last of the day’s baked goods. The final tally was 27 loaves of bread, 20 sandwich rolls, 24 cupcakes, a batch of cookies, and a hefty ‘brick’ of bac-un.

So the oven works, and looks good, too!

For those who missed it a couple years ago when I posted it, you can visit our kitchen for a bread day in this time lapse video.

Ice Cream Sandwich Cookies

November 23, 2016November 23, 2016 / Robinne Weiss / 1 Comment

I know that for those of you in the Northern Hemisphere, an ice cream sandwich might not be enticing at this time of year, but you’ll want to save this recipe for later. Better yet, turn up the thermostat and make them now, regardless of the weather.

When I first made speculaas, I thought the texture was perfect for an ice cream sandwich cookie. It’s been quite a while, but I finally got around to modifying the recipe to turn it into the perfect ice cream sandwich cookie.

2 ½ cups flour
½ cup baking cocoa
4 tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
1 cup butter, softened
1 ½ cups sugar
1 tsp vanilla
3 Tbs milk

Sift together the flour, cocoa, baking powder and salt. In another bowl, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Mix in the vanilla and milk. Gradually add the flour mixture until it is all incorporated, and the dough comes together.

Turn the dough out onto a well-floured surface and roll to about 3 mm (1/8 inch) thickness. Cut with a knife into ice cream sandwich sized rectangles (about 5 x 12 cm (2 x 5 inches)), and prick with a fork for the classic look. Place on a lightly greased baking sheet. Bake 12-15 minutes at 190°C (375°F).

Allow to cool, then sandwich ice cream between two cookies, wrap in waxed paper, and allow to sit in the freezer for at least an hour. I cut the ice cream into the right size slabs with a butter knife.

Excellent Chocolate Cake Recipe

November 12, 2016 / Robinne Weiss / 1 Comment

If you made my pumpkin cupcake recipe last week, you’ll have leftover cream cheese frosting. Here’s another amazing cake to use that leftover icing on. This comes straight from the 1997 edition of Joy of Cooking. It is an odd recipe, and making it takes more bowls than any other cake I’ve ever made. But it’s worth the extra washing up—rich and chocolaty!

In bowl #1, combine:
1 cup sugar
½ cup unsweetened cocoa
½ cup buttermilk or yogurt

In bowl #2, combine:
2 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
½ tsp salt

In bowl #3, combine:

½ cup buttermilk or yogurt
1 tsp vanilla

In bowl #4 (a large one), cream:
8 Tbsp (125 g) unsalted butter, softened

Gradually add and beat on high speed until light in colour and texture:
1 cup sugar

Beat in 1 at a time:
2 eggs

Beat in the cocoa mixture. Add the flour mixture in 3 parts, alternating with the buttermilk mixture. Spoon into greased and floured pans (makes 2 9×2-in layers), or paper lined muffin tins (makes about 18).

Bake at 180°C (350°F) for 30-25 min for cake, 25 min for cupcakes.

Pumpkin Cupcakes

November 6, 2016 / Robinne Weiss / 4 Comments

It’s been a cupcake sort of week here. I would hesitate to post yet another cupcake blog, but these are so seasonal for many of you, that I will anyway.

While you in the Northern Hemisphere are enjoying the autumn pumpkin harvest fresh, I’m trying to clear out the last of the frozen pumpkin puree from the freezer to make way for the peas that will soon be pouring in.

What better way to use pumpkin than in cake?

This recipe is adapted from a pumpkin cake recipe in King Arthur Flour’s Whole Grain Baking.

1 ½ cups whole wheat flour
1 cup barley flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
½ tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ginger
½ tsp nutmeg
¼ tsp allspice
1 cup brown sugar
½ cup butter, softened
½ cup vegetable oil
4 eggs
2 cups cooked, pureed pumpkin

Mix the flours, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and spices in a medium bowl. In a large bowl, beat the butter, oil, and sugar until it’s the consistency of mayonnaise. Beat in the eggs, one at a time. Stir in the pumpkin, then the dry ingredients.

Spoon into paper-lined cupcake tins. Bake at 180°C (350°F) for 20 minutes.

Cool completely, then frost with cream cheese frosting and decorate with crystallised ginger.

If you want to bake this as a cake, be sure to line your pans with parchment—the barley flour makes for a very fragile cake—and bake for 30-35 minutes.

Frosting:

1 package (250g/8 oz) cream cheese, softened
85 g (6 Tbsp, 3 oz) butter, softened
1 tsp vanilla
2 cups icing sugar

Beat the cheese, butter, and vanilla until light and fluffy. Gradually add the sugar. If the icing is too stiff, add milk by the teaspoon until it reaches the right spreading consistency (I generally don’t need to add any milk).

On-the-Fly Spinach Tart

November 4, 2016 / Robinne Weiss / Leave a comment

My plan was an easy dinner tonight. I’d been saving a few artichokes—letting them get big, so we could have steamed whole artichokes. I figured I’d make a salad with some leftover cous cous in the fridge, and maybe fry up some tofu crusted with herbs and parmesan cheese. Quick and easy.

Then I went to the garden and saw the spinach. Beautiful, glossy leaves, loving the bit of rain we’ve had recently. There was so much of it, I couldn’t resist.

So instead of a quick, easy meal, I made a spinach tart to go with those artichokes.

Dinner was a little late, but it was well worth it. There wasn’t a crumb left when we were through.

Trying to work quickly, I didn’t bother looking for a recipe. Here’s what I did.

I made a standard pie crust—enough for a single-crust pie. I rolled it out and lined my tart pan, then put it in the fridge to chill while I prepared the filling.

For the filling, I used:

Fresh spinach (maybe 1kg (2 lbs), coarsely chopped)

Fresh chives (a good handful, chopped)

Fresh dill weed (4 Tbsp, chopped)

1 cup grated goat cheddar

4 large eggs

salt and pepper to taste

I cooked the spinach and chives with a few tablespoons of olive oil until the spinach was well cooked, and most of the water had boiled off. I removed it to a bowl to cool. When it was cool enough to handle, I squeezed more water out of the spinach, and drained it off. (You want the spinach pretty dry, to keep the crust from getting soggy.)

I mixed in the dill, cheese, eggs, and salt and pepper, then poured the mix into the prepared crust. I baked it at 190°C (375°F) for about 40 minutes. I let it cool ten minutes before serving.

Instant Peanut Butter Cupcakes

November 3, 2016 / Robinne Weiss / Leave a comment

I have always used the Mennonite Community Cookbook peanut butter cupcake recipe in the past. It makes a good, peanutty cupcake.

I had my mind on peanut butter cupcakes yesterday, but I had pulled out several cookbooks, to see if anything else caught my eye. I ran across this recipe in the 1997 edition of Joy of Cooking, and had to try it. It was perfect for my needs—I was only starting my baking at 9 pm, and needed something quick to make. But surely, this couldn’t work—no separate mixing of wet and dry ingredients, no beating air into the butter, just throw it all together…

Combine in a food processor:

1 ¼ cups all-purpose flour
¾ cup brown sugar
1 ½ tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
¾ cup milk
1/3 cup peanut butter
1 egg
1 Tbsp unsalted butter, softened
1 Tbsp vegetable oil
1 tsp vanilla
¾ cup chocolate chips

Pulse for a few seconds to mix. Scrape the sides of the bowl. Pulse until smooth. Fill cupcake tins two-thirds full (I poured the batter directly from the food processor bowl) and bake at 350°F for 25 to 30 minutes.

I was dubious, but the result was fantastic—pretty cupcakes that taste great! Of course, cleaning the food processor takes a lot longer than cleaning a mixing bowl and beaters, but the speed at which I got the cupcakes into the oven was worth the extra cleaning.

Umami Stacks

October 28, 2016October 30, 2016 / Robinne Weiss / Leave a comment

My husband came home from work early yesterday, which gave us a rare mid-week chance to cook dinner together.

“What I want,” he said, “is some sort of pastry. Little rounds topped with feta cheese and…I don’t know what. What’s out in the garden?”

“Pak choi, asparagus, artichokes…” I began. “Artichokes would be good.”

“Yeah, but a lot of work.”

“Not if you use last year’s canned ones—there are still some left.”

Before we knew it, we had concocted these incredible little pastries. We called them umami stacks for their dose of umami-rich ingredients. They were as beautiful as they were delicious. With mid-week meals like this, it’s no wonder we never bother to go out to eat.

We measured nothing, but here’s an approximation of a recipe…

Make your favourite pie crust—enough for a double-crust pie. Roll thin and cut into 8-10 cm (3-4 inch) rounds. Arrange the rounds on ungreased baking sheets and chill until you’re ready to use (my recipe made 24 rounds).

Toast a few tablespoons of sesame seeds in a dry skillet until browning. Grind them in a mortar and pestle with some coarse salt and black peppercorns. Set aside.

Slice a generous handful of portobello mushrooms, and sauté with a little garlic. Set aside.

Steam 10 asparagus spears. Remove 8-10 cm tips and set aside. Chop the remaining stems.

Mix in a large bowl, mashing slightly:

feta cheese (about 125 g)
canned artichokes (1 pint jar)
spinach (several good handfuls, cooked well)
fresh dill weed (a handful, chopped)
1 egg
the chopped asparagus

Spread a dollop of the feta mixture on each pastry round. Top with a few slices of mushroom and an asparagus tip. Sprinkle with the sesame seed mixture.

Bake at 190°C (375°F) until the pastry is lightly browned—15-20 minutes.

*We had six pastry rounds left over. I spread them with softened butter, sugar, and cinnamon, rolled them up, and baked them with the umami stacks. Mmmmm!

Vacation Day?

October 3, 2016 / Robinne Weiss / Leave a comment

The list of things I have accomplished today is plenty long enough—I prepared two garden beds, attended a virtual writers’ meeting, paid the monthly bills, entered six months worth of information into my cashbook, made a huge batch of cookies, cleaned and organised my office, took the lawnmower to the mechanic for repairs, finished and sent off a guest blog post…

But I’m sitting here at 4pm feeling guilty that I’ve lazed around today—practically took a day off and did nothing!

It only feels that way, I think, because I got up before 4am to take a cheese out of the press and make it to my meeting on time (it was scheduled at a reasonable hour…in the UK—4am my time). I’d finished preparing the garden beds before 9am, and had dropped off the lawn mower before my second cup of coffee before 10am.

I did a little of this, a little of that—no long hard slog on any one task. Only the cashbook was a drag of a chore (as you might guess since I had ignored it for six months)—the fact I did it at all makes me think I clearly didn’t do enough today, otherwise I would have been able to put it off again.

It would be nice if every day went like today—if I ticked off a whole raft of things from my list and ended the day feeling like I’d been on vacation. Of course, if it meant being up before 4am every day, I’m not certain I could manage. Pretty soon I’d feel like my vacation involved a long plane ride and serious jet lag.

A New Oven

September 28, 2016 / Robinne Weiss / Leave a comment

Partly deconstructed old oven.

The old bread oven was almost ten years old. Theoretically, it might have lasted longer, but earthquakes and aging bricks took their toll. A crack split it top to bottom, and we regularly had to pick gravel out of our bread.

So the kids spent last weekend dismantling the old oven to make way for a new one. This one will be quake-proofed with a reinforced concrete base, and include such luxuries as an ash pit, a chimney, and a roof.

Ready to pour the new foundation.

The bread oven is my husband’s project—he’s the family builder and the bread baker. But all of us will lend our muscles to the effort. We’ll mix concrete, haul bricks, and provide whatever brute labour is necessary.

And all of us will enjoy the breads, cakes, cookies, and dinners that come out of it.

Mmmm…I can taste them already!