An old-fashioned Christmas: Family Baking Time

We had to make 7+ dozen cookies for the cookie exchange the other day. Here's how we did it: multi-generational family baking time. This worked out well because my mom needed to use my mixer for her yummy red velvet cookies and I needed to use her baby-wrangling skills while I made my pfefferneusse. Stenni helped us both, and, with Christmas carols playing in the background, we got to share some pre-Christmas quality time.

Does this mean my baking is done? Not a chance! But this was super fun!

And the cookie exchange recipe will be...

Pfeffernuesse! They are small, spicy German Christmas cookies, and they are scrumptious.
I looked on Pinterest, allrecipes, and a million other sites that I usually go to for inspiration, and I found a ton of good ideas, but unfortunately no great ones, and none that seemed easy enough to bake 7 or 8 dozen of with a toddler hanging off my leg. But then I looked in one of my favorite cookbooks (after I looked in about 10 others first), Blue Ribbon Recipes: 693 Award-Winners from America's State and County Fairs, and I found the perfect recipe for Pfeffernuesse. And then I changed it just a little anyway. In my defense, I really couldn't find ground cloves, and didn't know how to grind the whole cloves I had without a spice or coffee grinder. I also didn't have cardamom or white pepper, so the spices are all slightly adjusted, but the cookies turned out fantastic. Not necessarily authentic, but tasty. Word of warning: store these in an airtight container once they are cooled, as they tend to get hard quickly. My handy dandy 1960 Betty Crocker picture cookbook says that you can store a wedge of apple in with them to keep them fresh and mellow the spice out a little, but in my house they didn't last that long.

3 1/2 cups unbleached flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ground ginger, plus a pinch
1/2 tsp nutmeg
3/4 tsp black pepper
1 cup room temperature butter
1 cup white sugar
1/4 cup molasses
1 egg
confectionery sugar for sprinkling

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and grease cold baking sheets.
Whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and spices.
In a large bowl of electric mixer cream butter and white sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in molasses and egg, scraping sides of mixer bowl constantly. Add flour mixture 1/3 at a time, and beat on low speed until a thick dough forms.
Wrap dough in plastic wrap and chill in refrigerator (NOT FREEZER) for half an hour.
Roll dough into 1-inch balls (or smaller, depending on how big you'd like your cookies; they don't really spread almost at all), and place on prepared baking sheets.
Bake 11-14 minutes. Cool on wire racks and sprinkle with confectionery sugar while still warm.

Serve. Eat. Good with German beer.

3 words: pumpkin. mousse. cheesecake.

 

Thanksgiving was awesome, and not just because we got to see a ton of family. In the morning, hubs and I ran a 5K, and my brother-in-law came along for good measure (but totally smoked our time by like 13 minutes. ouch). he and his wife came back to my in-laws, where we picked up stenni and headed home to cook. for dinner, my folks, my sister and my in-laws came by, then later on my grandparents and hubs' cousin and his wife came by for a bit. it was a nice, steady crowd of people all day, and even though i completely forgot about the cranberry sauce and neglected to put out the napkins until we were halfway through our meal, it was really, really perfect.
but like most things in life, the best part was dessert. ok, maybe dessert was the second best part. the best part was hubs carving a turkey in his lederhosen apron with his beer stein oven mitts. for serious. don't  believe me? see for yourself:



At any rate, what I want to talk about right now is dessert. I wanted to add an extra dessert to the menu just in case we had extra people show up, and I'm pretty glad I did. But it had to be something ridiculously easy, because I had enough on my plate that day (so punny, right?). I wanted something pumpkin. But I also thought people might riot if there was no cheesecake of any type on the table. (My family is a riotous bunch.) Hubs said, "so why don't you make a pumpkin cheesecake?" and I almost made out with him on the spot because of his brilliance. after looking through a million cookbooks and websites, I found this one at skinnytaste and altered it very slightly to fit my needs and use what I already had in the kitchen so I didn't have to go out food shopping 100 more times. And it was awesome. oh, did i mention i had dieters coming over and that a slice is only 6 weight watchers points plus points? because it is, and that rocks. here you go, friends:

Pumpkin Mousse Cheesecake

• 1 8-oz tub reduced-fat whipped cream cheese or neufchatal
• 1/2 cup canned pumpkin puree (a little more is just fine if you want more pumpkin flavor, but don't go crazy because it'll make it heavier and more pie-like than fluffy)
• 1 tsp really good vanilla (or, if you really want, skip the vanilla and add about 1 Tbsp. of dark rum. it ups the spice factor but probably the WW points as well. but since I don't count points, I also don't care and I really like rum)
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp pumpkin pie spice (or a mix of cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice and cloves, if you're too cheap to shell out $6 for like an ounce of pumpkin pie spice, like I am)
• 1/4 cup brown sugar, unpacked
  
• 8 oz-tub of fat free whipped topping, thawed
  
• 9-inch reduced fat Graham Cracker Crust

In a large bowl using an electric mixer, whip together cream cheese, pumpkin, vanilla, cinnamon, pumpkin pie spice, and brown sugar for a 4-5 minutes, until super fluffy. Add whipped topping and whip until smooth. Spoon mixture into pie crust and chill for a few hours until firm.

Original Recipe: Pumpkin Spice No-Bake Cheesecake @ Gina's Skinny Recipes

What was your favorite recipe this Thanksgiving? Didja try anything new? Tell me tell me tell me!

today, i'll be attempting to...

make a blueberry cake, make these
cupcakes (but inside they'll look tie-dyed...i hope!!), and i'll also be prepping burgers and maybe even decorating by the pool at my folks' house for stenni's 2nd birthday party! i can't believe that i have a two year old. it's astounding to me. also, we might get that subaru that we wanted today. who knows?

I finally got my blue ribbon!

This, my friends, is what excellence looks like. No, but seriously. This babka is totally excellent. So excellent, in fact, that it took first place for yeast breads at the NJ state fair. Mind you that this is my first blue ribbon in the baking competition. The black pepper pound cake, which I think should have taken the top prize, came in #2 for pound cakes (a surprisingly competitive category). Also a collage I made a while back was a blue ribbon winner. Hubs did very well in the open agriculture show too, with several "excellent"/blue ribbon winners. I'm super proud of him and also of myself! I think this is maybe the 4th year I've entered the baking competitions and the first year I've come out on top. I think they just like complicated recipes, and this one's really pretty complicated. Like as in once or twice a year and that's it complicated (much like the pierogi, which are only for Easter. what is it with these Ukranian recipes?).
But in the spirit of sharing, here's my "Blue Ribbon Chocolate Babka" recipe...cuz yeah, that's what I'm calling it now.

Streusel Topping Ingredients:

1 2/3 Cups Confectioners’ Sugar

1 1/3 Cups All-Purpose Flour

14 T. butter at room temperature

Add all ingredients to food processer and pulse until crumbs form.

Egg wash:

1 Tablespoon Heavy Cream

1 whole egg at room temperature

Mix with fork or whisk.

Chocolate Filling Ingredients:

24-30 oz. miniature semi-sweet chocolate chips (depending on preference) or finely chopped chocolate

1 Cup sugar

2 ½ T. ground cinnamon

1 ½ sticks butter at room temperature, cut into small pieces

Place the chocolate, cup of sugar and the cinnamon in a large bowl, and stir to combine. Cut in 1 ½ sticks of butter until well combined. Set the filling aside.

Babka dough Ingredients:

1 ½ Cups Whole Milk, scalded and cooled slightly

2 T. active dry yeast

¾ Cup Sugar Plus A Pinch

2 Whole Large Eggs at Room Temperature

2 Large Egg Yolks at Room Temperature

6 Cups All-Purpose Flour, Plus Additional Flour For Your Work Surface

1 teaspoon Salt

2 Sticks of Butter at room temperature, cut into small pieces

Babka Instructions:

1. Heat milk in small saucepan on stove just until bubbles form around edges of pan. Remove from heat and let cool.

2. Pour warm milk into a small bowl. Sprinkle yeast and a pinch of sugar over the milk; let it stand until foamy and aromatic, about 5 minutes.

3. In a bowl, whisk together 3/4 cup sugar, 2 eggs and the egg yolks. Add the egg mixture to the yeast mixture, and whisk to combine.

4. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, combine the flour and salt. Add the egg mixture and beat on low speed until all of the flour is incorporated, about 30 seconds.

5. Change to the dough hook. Add 2 sticks of butter (cut into small pieces) and beat until the flour mixture and butter are completely incorporated, and a smooth, soft dough that’s slightly sticky when squeezed is formed, about 10 minutes.

6. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface, and knead a few turns until smooth. Butter a large bowl. Place dough in bowl, and turn to coat. Cover loosely with a tea towel, and set aside in a warm place for an hour, or until bread has approximately doubled in bulk.

 7. Generously butter three loaf pans. At this time, you can make the egg wash and set it aside, and make the streusel topping and chocolate filling if you haven’t already done so.

8. Punch back the dough and transfer it to a clean surface. Let it rest for 5 minutes. Cut the dough into 3 equal pieces. Keep 2 pieces covered with your tea towel while rolling out the third piece. On a generously floured surface, roll the dough out into approximately a 16-inch square (or slightly rectangular).

9. Brush the outer edges of the square with egg wash. Crumble 1/3 of the chocolate filling evenly over the dough, leaving a ½ -inch border.

10. Roll the dough up tightly like a jelly roll, starting at the top. Once dough is a long cylinder, twist 5 or 6 turns from each end. Place into prepared loaf pan in a horseshoe shape to that the dough cover the entire bottom of the pan. Brush the top of the roll with egg wash.

11. Repeat this process with the remaining 2 pieces of dough and the remaining filling.

12. Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Crumble 1/3 of the streusel topping over each loaf.

13. Loosely cover each pan with a tea towel and let stand in a warm place for 20 minutes.

14. Bake the loaves in the preheated oven until golden, about 55 minutes.

15. Decrease the oven temperature to 325 degrees rotate the pans in the oven at this time. Continue to bake at lower temperature until the babkas are a deep golden brown, about 15 to 20 minute. Remove them from the oven and transfer them to wire racks until completely cool, then remove the babkas from the pans and serve.

Cinco de Mayo...

Cinco de Mayo is one of only two holidays that my husband willingly celebrates. The other is Opening Day (of baseball season; we had a cool party this year with bar food and obvs baseball-watching). The rest I need to practically force him to participate in, with the possible exception of Christmas, but just the decorating part (he likes lights).

However, this year we've got a ton of stuff going on. Like my cousin's first Holy Communion that we were supposed to be going to. But my husband had to take a day of work on the farm so he wasn't going to be able to make it. Then yesterday, out of nowhere, Stenni came down with a 102 degree fever (while we were out shopping for said cousin's present! So guess who is getting a $20 in a card?). The poor little creature is miserable and all she wants to do is cuddle, which is alright by me. So we are staying home to cuddle. And maybe do some holiday prep.

But Cinco de Mayo has a special place in my heart too. It was the first time I ever had heartburn. Seriously. When I was pregnant with Stenni, about 5 months along, we went out to eat at a local Mexican restaurant for Cinco de Mayo. Having never gotten past 5 months of pregnancy before, I had NO IDEA that you weren't supposed to eat spicy foods the further along you were. I had literally no clue what was going on when, one spicy enchilada and a ton of pico de gallo later, I was sure that I was having a heart attack. After I got home, calmed down and consulted the interwebs, I realized that I was not going to die, took some antacids, drank some milk and went to bed. Ah, the memories.

But in pre-pregnancy days, we used to have some massive and amazing Cinco de Mayo parties complete with pinatas and sombreros and margaritas and Mexican beers and always mojitos even though they are Cuban. But these days I can't touch a mojito (or a margarita, or even Mexican beer for that matter), so I'm going to settle for some carne asada tacos and a tres leches cake. Baking generally keeps my little one occupied no matter how she feels, so I'm hoping between cuddles we can do it up before hubs comes home, and possibly even throw a poncho on the wall or something for good measure and a little ambiance. I'll be making The Pioneer Woman's Tres Leches Cake, but substituting some lite coconut milk for the evaporated milk (makes it a little more tropical-tasting I think) and maybe throwing in a splash of coconut rum for good measure. And I'm skipping the cherries cuz I don't have them and I also don't want to stain my hands red for a week. If you've never tried Tres Leches Cake, DO IT NOW. I promise you won't regret it, as long as you have a sweet tooth. Otherwise I really can't say. At the Bravo near us (a big Hispanic supermarket), they have a quatro leches cake. Can you handle 4 milks? Because I would be on my way to pick one up right now if not for the sicky baby.

Happy Cinco de Mayo, everybody!

when good bananas go bad

i buy a ton of bananas. they are always super cheap at BJ's and stenni loves them, plus usually i pack them in the hubby's lunch. but sometimes we can't use them up before they start to turn brown. once they have even a speckle of brown, the hubs won't touch them (even though that's when they're the yummiest, according to the chiquita banana song), and i can only feed the baby so many bananas at a time. so, what to do with all of the extras? well when stenni was teething hard, i used to freeze them and then give them to her (with a watchful eye on her at all times, obvs) and that seemed to help numb her up a bit. also it was super messy, which i know other people hate but i think is awesome for babies. but she's not teething hard right now, so what to do with the 7 or so overripe bananas in my fruit basket? i took 2 and made peanut butter and banana oatmeal, which is even more awesome than it sounds. we eat oatmeal a lot here because it is one of the few foods stenni will consistently eat (the other being apples, peas, and fish sticks. she otherwise doesn't like meat very much but will eat shrimp or salmon sometimes, and other fruits and veggies she sometimes loves, sometimes hates. she's a toddler. this is life.), so we make a ton of variations on the basic oats and water formula. but oatmeal with a bunch of peanut butter and some mashed bananas is one we'll definitely come back to. bonus? toddlers love to mash bananas. i'd give you a recipe, but i don't have one cuz i made it up and didn't measure. but i can say that you should use real oatmeal for this, not the super quick oats, cuz then it won't really be substantial enough and might end up kinda slimy-ish, and that's never really too great. but since i had some bananas left after that, plus i had a super-clingy baby this morning who wouldn't let me put her down for any reason whatsoever, we decided to make my super-awesome, reasonably easy, actually healthy and pretty low-fat banana muffins too. my copy of this recipe is on probably the filthiest, most vanilla and applesauce splattered piece of paper of all time, meaning it is super well-loved and i make it a ton. it was adapted from a recipe on allrecipes.com to make it even healthier, and in my opinion, tastier too. i am sharing this in hopes that you decide to make these yourself, especially if you have a slightly separation-anxiety addled toddler in tow. toddlers, despite the goldfish-like attention span, are very good at stirring, mashing, and turning on the stand mixer, and seem to especially like lining muffin tins with paper liners. plus if this doesn't seem to be helping you can just give the kid a chocolate lollipop like i did and finish baking them yourself while you have a millisecond to walk around without a kid on your hip.
so here you go:

v's super-awesome, reasonably easy, actually healthy and pretty low-fat banana muffins

• 2 eggs or 1/2 cup egg replacer (pasteurized, so you can lick the spoon)
  
• 1/2 sugar of any type (i like to use the organic cane sugar, but these are good with white or brown too)
  
• 3 mashed overripe bananas
  
• 1/4 cup applesauce
• 1/3 cup nonfat milk
• 2 teaspoons vegetable oil
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• 1 3/4 cups whole wheat flour (you can use 1 cup unbleached white flour and 3/4 cup whole wheat flour if you want)
  
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• up to 1 teaspoon cinnamon, if you want
  

directions:

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Use paper liners for muffin tins and/or mini-muffin tins.
   
2. In a large bowl, beat eggs and sugar in a large bowl until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes. Gently stir in bananas, applesauce, milk, oil and vanilla.
3. In a separate bowl, use wire whisk to mix together flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Stir flour mixture into banana mixture, mixing just until blended. Pour batter into prepared tins .
4. Bake in preheated pan until golden and a toothpick inserted into center of a muffin comes out clean, about 15-20 minutes. Cool completely (or don't. they're super yummy warm. but don't burn yourself and don't feed them to your kids until they cool down).

so what do you use too-ripe bananas for? cuz i've still got a couple, and i want to use these bad boys up. waste not, want not.

make yourself useful and...

bake me something.
starting today, i'm going to try to post a tutorial, recipe, etc. every monday, as part of "make yourself useful mondays." because you should be useful every day, but at least once a week is fine by me too. i can only be so useful for so long. but when it comes to baking, i'm somewhat useful on at least a semi-regular basis.
so a friend of mine LOVES this recipe and went nuts when i brought it to her house for a playdate a few months back (and who wouldn't? it's amazing.trust me). while the kids were playing and throwing food and making assorted baby noises, we almost housed the whole thing. yeah, it's that good. and easy? you betcha. i wouldn't make something too difficult with a bunch of toddlers running around. plus, it's semi-healthy with the oats and apples and whatnot, super-portable, and really good for cold nights (i like it in the fall when i can buy huge bushels of apples and make it in bulk, but any time you can get apples, it'll be spot on. i like it with mutsus/crispins, but use whatever you've got laying around). should you make it tonight? of course you should. plus if you live in the northeast like me, the oven helps heat your house. that's just a little added incentive.

apple crisp:

6 or so apples, cored and sliced. peel them if you like. i don't.
1/2 cup melted butter
1 cup flour (use unbleached white or wheat if you've got it)
1 cup sugar
1 cup quick oats
2 T. cinnamon, divided, or 2 T. apple pie spice
1/4 c butter, cut into little piece

1. Preheat your oven to 350.
2. Put apples on the bottom of a 9 x 13 baking dish (or if you want to get fancy, a big pie plate). In a separate bowl, mix melted butter, flour, sugar, oats, and 2 T cinnamon, and form a crumb mixture. Sprinkle over the apples. Dot with the 1/4 c. butter pieces and sprinkle with remaining cinnamon or apple pie spice.
3. Bake 50 minutes or until crumb is lightly browned and apples are tender (or until your house smells so good you can't stand it. just let it cool before you stuff your face).

also, this is my 37th post. my last blog only made it to 37 posts, so i'm pretty psyched that i'm kind of taking this one a little more seriously. well, as seriously as i take most things, which is not very, but still it's something of an improvement.

now how was your new year's eve?

did you resolve to do anything in particular? because i probably should resolve to be less of a terrible person. i got a little out of hand. it happens from time to time. i should probably come with a warning, like "do not add red wine. and champagne. or whiskey. beer's probably ok though. but just beer."
what i really want to tell you about is how awesome i am at baking. i made the most delicious rum cake. for some reason i decided that new year's eve this year ABSOLUTELY necessitated a rum cake, and i found a super easy recipe. and then i baked it. and then i soaked it in more rum syrup. i would show you a picture, but before i could take one, i took the cake to my folks' house where we demolished it along with a ton of chinese food. there are two more pieces left, and i'm going to use them to make rum cake ice cream. yeah, you heard me. i found a really awesome recipe here for party cake ice cream WITHOUT AN ICE CREAM MAKER! which seems revolutionary, and totally awesome, since i don't have an ice cream maker (though my husband swears we do...i think it's just wishful thinking). plus when you add rum to anything it just gets exponentially better. i may eventually share the recipe. i'm not sure yet. it may make it into competition rotation, in which case you will never know.
in other baking news, my baby sis came over today and we experimented with one of the coolest Christmas presents i've received in years...the book "artisan bread in five minutes a day." heard of it? it's all over the food blogs and also it's apparently big amongst homesteaders and the folks preparing to survive the apocalypse (how do i know? how do you think? i've got a plan, baby.) anyway, the dough was super simple and the bread came out crusty and delicious-looking, though small. however, the size thing is my fault i suppose. the book says to use a piece of dough approximately the size of a grapefruit for their basic boule, but since grapefruit is one of the most heinous things in my whole food world, i'm afraid i may have underestimated the size because i ended up with a tiny baby loaf. i'm not sure how delicious it is yet, i'm waiting to have it with potato soup with dinner when the hubs gets home. but it is gorgeous. like, would buy it for $5 at whole foods despite it's tiny size kind of gorgeous. tomorrow i'm going to try to make a baguette, and i'm super psyched about it. the way i figure it, if the results are anywhere near as good as the mediocre bread from my supermarket, i'm gonna save myself money in the long run since my house is comprised solely of carb-ohalics who could eat bread all day every day. i've got enough dough for like two real-people loaves or three tiny baby loaves left in the fridge (i halved their basic recipe), and i'll let you know how they turn out. either way i'm pretty sure that this book is going to be a lazy baker's life saver.
anyways i'm off to make some fridge-clearing potato soup because it's like, brittle cold here and nothing, NOTHING, is better for the cold than potato soup. except maybe more rum.