Tag Archives: baking

La Boulangerie Arctic

Posted on by
7

Soft, bakery-style French bread, the chewy crust sprinkled with an especially tasty grey sea salt.

After tinkering with a few recipes, I now have my go-to recipe for French bread. The recipe produces two lovely baguettes or one larger loaf. Either way, it’s hard to stop with just one slice of this bread, and it looks as appetizing as it tastes. After having difficulty getting bread to rise in our Arctic home, I now rely on my Zojirushi bread machine to prepare the dough for this recipe. The loaves are then finished off in the oven. From start to finished bread, it takes about two and a half hours. A warm slice slathered with butter is the perfect accompaniment for Jack’s delicious clam chowder.

Homemade French Bread

Ingredients

  • 1 1/4 cup water
  • 2 tsp granulated sugar
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 3 1/2 cups all purpose flour
  • 2 tsp active dry yeast
  • 2 tbsp olive oil

Glaze with

  • 1 egg
  • 1 tbsp water
  • 2 tsp grey sea salt (or other artisan rock salt)

Directions

  1. Place first six ingredients in the bread machine pan in the order recommended by the manufacturer and select dough setting. Add 1 – 2 tsp of water during cycle if dough does not form into a ball.
  2. After dough cycle completes, turn dough onto a lightly floured surface.
  3. Divide in half.
  4. Roll each half into a rectangle, approximately 10 inches by 8 inches.
  5. Roll up each rectangle, jelly-roll style, along the long side to produce long loaves.
  6. Pinch seams to seal.
  7. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
  8. Place loaves, seam side down, on pan.
  9. Cover and let loaves rise in a warm place until doubled, about 20 minutes.
  10. Whisk egg and water. Brush loaves with egg mixture. Make 4 shallow slashes across loaves. Sprinkle loaves with sea salt.
  11. Bake at 375 degrees F for 20 – 25 minutes, or until golden brown.
  12. Cool on wire rack.

Chocolate Drizzled Orange Marmalade Cookies

Posted on by
1

Our trip back to Point Hope, Alaska, went like clockwork – Swiss clockwork at that. The taxi driver arrived at our storage unit (where we’d spent the night in our camper) ten minutes early and was driving a van which easily held our eight coolers loaded with this summer’s catch. Traveling with eight coolers always fills me with a bit of trepidation; you can imagine the “what if” scenarios that run through our heads for this trip. So we plan for the worst and hope for the best.

Up in Point Hope, our big freezer is now stocked for the year while we wait for about a thousand pounds of dry goods we carefully packed and mailed to arrive via the U.S. Postal service.

“Waiting” is not something I enjoy. “Doing” is much more fun. After finding a half of a jar of marmalade in the refrigerator, I decided conducting a cookie experiment would be much more fun than sitting around waiting for groceries to arrive. The results? Orange-flavored cookies. The chocolate added a layer of flavor that complimented the orange tang.

Orange Marmalade Cookies (makes 3 dozen)

Ingredients

  • 2/3 cup unsalted butter, softened
  • 1 cup granulated sugar
  • 1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce (can substitute with 2 eggs)
  • 12 tbsp orange marmalade
  • 3 cups all purpose flour
  • 3 tsp baking powder

Directions

  1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Line cookie sheets with parchment paper.
  2. In a large mixing bowl, cream together butter and sugar.
  3. Add applesauce and marmalade and mix thoroughly.
  4. In a separate bowl, sift together flour and baking powder.
  5. Mix in flour mixture to butter mixture until just blended.
  6. Drop dough by tablespoons onto parchment-covered cookie sheets. Leave at least one inch between cookies.
  7. Bake until cookies spread slightly and are lightly browned (about 10 minutes).
  8. Cool cookies completely on wire rack.
  9. Drizzle with melted chocolate, if desired. (I used semi-sweet chocolate chips.)

Strawberry-Port Gallette with Sliced Almonds

Posted on by
6

Delicious first baking experience in the galley of our boat, Bandon. Strawberries marinated in brown sugar and port wine stuffed into a simple crust filled our little home with delicious smells and satisfied my need to bake.

Our boat is equipped with a gimbaled stove, which pivots and swings to remain level in spite of waves and wind in the harbor. The stove houses a tiny oven, which is perfect for baking for two. I love to bake and have had an itch to make something with the  beautiful strawberries I kept seeing at the store. We hadn’t had strawberries since last summer! After thirty minutes of baking, the first experiment emerged from the oven a success. The only thing that would have improved this dessert was a couple of scoops of  vanilla ice cream. Next time…

Strawberry Port Gallette

Ingredients

  • 1 cup all-purpose flour
  • 2 tbsp granulated sugar
  • 1/4 tsp salt
  • 3 tbsp unsalted butter
  • 2 cups sliced strawberries
  • 1/4 cup brown sugar
  • 2 tbsp port wine

Directions

  1. In a small bowl, stir together strawberries, brown sugar, and port. Set aside.
  2. In a medium bowl, mix flour, granulated sugar, and salt.
  3. Cut in butter to flour mixture. I mixed this by hand, literally, until the butter was well incorporated.
  4. Add a bit of water to form flour mixture into a dough ball (I used about 2 tbsp).
  5. Roll out dough to an 8″ circle. I didn’t have a rolling pin, so I pressed out the dough into 8″ circle onto a well-buttered cookie sheet.
  6. Place berries in a mound on the circle, leaving a 1-2″ border. I reserved some of the sugar-port juice to sauté the sliced almonds.
  7. Fold the 1-2″ border over fruit, leaving the strawberries exposed in the center.
  8. Bake at 375 degrees F until golden, about 30 minutes.
  9. While gallette is baking, sauté almonds in reserved sugar-port juice.
  10. When baking is complete, remove gallette from oven and sprinkle with sautéed almonds.

Scones and Lemon Curd – The Last Egg

Posted on by
6

How to use  up the last of the pear butter, lemon curd, orange marmalade and the lone remaining egg in the fridge? Whip up a batch of scones, set out the spreads, and watch it all disappear!

These scones were amazingly quick and easy and had just the right texture and flavor. When I set out a large glass baking dish filled with them in the school office, they were gone almost before I turned around.

To shape them, I used a circular cookie cutter and then cut those circles in half. For larger scones, you could roll the dough into a circle and cut it into eight wedges.

Scones

Ingredients

  • 3 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1/2 cup granulated sugar
  • 5 tsp baking powder
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 3/4 cup unsalted butter, softened
  • 1 egg, beaten
  • a little less than 1 cup milk
  • cinnamon/sugar mixture to dust the tops (optional)

Directions

  1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Cover baking sheets with parchment paper.
  2. In a large mixing bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. I used a stand mixer.
  3. Mix in butter.
  4. Put egg in a large measuring cup. Fill measuring cup to 1 cup line with milk. Mix well.
  5. Pour some of the egg mixture slowly into flour while mixing on low until mixture forms a dough ball. Set aside extra egg mixture.
  6. Turn the dough out onto lightly floured surface and knead briefly.
  7. Roll dough out to 1/2 inch thickness. Cut into the shape of your choice.
  8. Place scones on parchment-covered baking sheets. Brush with remaining egg mixture. Dust with cinnamon/sugar if desired.
  9. Bake 15 minutes in preheated oven, or until golden brown.

Cloudberry Cake: An Arctic Treat

Posted on by
11

Cloudberry jam is baked right into the top of this moist vanilla cake. Try it with a hot cup of tea and a scoop of vanilla bean ice cream.

 Continuing with the clean-out-the-pantry theme, I had a couple jars of cloudberry freezer jam left from our fall berry picking. These delicious orange berries of the far north are only available for a few short weeks at the end of the Alaska summer. Growing in patches on small mounds across the boggy tundra, Akpik (the Inupiaq word for the berries) are at first a brilliant red before turning orange during their peak ripeness. We picked two gallons and turned them into some of the best jam, sorbet and ice cream we’ve ever eaten. Prized wherever they grow, (they’re protected by law in some European locales) cloudberries have a distinctive sweet flavor with a hint of agreeable tartness. They have become our favorite berry.

Cloudberry Cake

Ingredients

  • 1 cup granulated sugar
  • 5 eggs
  • 1 cup unsweetened applesauce
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • 2 tbsp sour cream
  • 2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 2 tsp baking powder
  • 2 cups cloudberry jam (or other jam)

Directions

  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
  2. Beat sugar and eggs until pale yellow (about 5 minutes). Beat in applesauce. Add vanilla and sour cream. Mix again.
  3. Sift flour and baking powder together. Stir into egg mixture.
  4. Grease a 9-inch springform pan.
  5. Pour batter into springform pan.
  6. Dot the jam on top of the cake batter. Poke some of the jam down into the batter.  Bake 45 minutes or until a toothpick or cake tester comes out clean.

Matcha Green Tea Cookies

Posted on by
13

As our school year comes to a close, I searched our pantry for baking inspiration. It is a dual goal – bake something interesting and use something up that may not weather sitting for three months in a cabinet. Today’s ingredient? Matcha green tea. This is a powdered or finely milled form of shade-grown tea, which is used in Japanese tea ceremonies. It is very flavorful. Increasingly, matcha is finding its way as an ingredient into other food where it adds color and flavor.

This is probably not an everyday pantry item. Jack and I greatly enjoy tea. Before we moved up to Alaska, we purchased lots of tea from a favorite shop in California that was (sadly) closing. We had one opened bag of this delicious powder with exactly three teaspoons left… the perfect amount for a cookie recipe! If you would like to try this recipe, we suggest checking with a tea shop that carries Japanese teas.

Matcha Green Tea Cookies

Ingredients

  • 7 tbsp softened, unsalted butter
  • 6 tbsp confectioner’s sugar
  • 1 egg yolk and 1 egg
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
  • 6 tbsp finely ground almonds
  • 3 tsp matcha powder
  • 2 tbsp granulated or turbinado sugar

Directions

  1. In a medium mixing bowl, cream together butter and confectioner’s sugar. Add eggs and vanilla. Blend thoroughly. Set aside.
  2. In a separate bowl, sift together flour and matcha powder. Add in almonds. Mix thoroughly.
  3. Add flour mixture to butter mixture. Mix until dough comes together into a ball.
  4. Shape dough into a log with about a 2-inch diameter. Wrap in plastic wrap and chill in the refrigerator.
  5. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
  6. Line baking sheets with parchment paper.
  7. Sprinkle granulated or turbinado sugar onto a plate. Roll chilled log in sugar, pressing log into sugar to coat.
  8. Using a sharp knife, cut 1/2 slices. Place slices on baking sheet leaving room between cookies for slight spreading.
  9. Bake for 12 minutes or until cookies are lightly browned on the edges.
  10. Cool on baking sheet for 2 minutes before transferring to a wire cooling rack.

Recipe adapted from http://chocolateandzucchini.com/archives/2009/10/matcha_shortbread_cookies.php

Chocolate Dipped Coconut Macaroons

Posted on by
11

In our world of BPA warnings for canned products and ingredients in processed foods that I can’t pronounce (and have no clue what they are), Jack and I have decided to limit our use of canned products and make as much as we can from scratch. My search for a coconut macaroon recipe resulted in recipe after recipe indicating the need for sweetened condensed milk. I hesitated. First of all, canned milk was bound to cost a fortune in our little Arctic store and second, it would be in a can.

Eventually I found a homemade substitute, which, in addition to being less expensive and more natural, had none of that can aftertaste common to many canned products. With the help of a stick blender whipping 1 cup of powdered milk, 2/3 cup of sugar, 1/3 cup of boiling water, and 3 tablespoons of butter, I soon had 14 ounces of sweetened condensed milk. This homemade version keeps well covered in the refrigerator.

Coconut macaroons were always a top fix for sweet cravings for me. When I was a starving student, I would wait until Passover passed so I could buy cans of Manischewitz macaroons that had been marked down. They were tasty, but I these bite-sized treats would taste better fresh. Baked at home, they are a bit crunchy on the outside and chewy on the inside. If you shape them like a pyramid, they are easy to dip into melted chocolate, for a nice presentation.

Chocolate Dipped Coconut Macaroons

Ingredients

  • 2/3 cup sweetened condensed milk
  • 2 egg whites
  • 1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
  • dash of salt
  • 3 1/2 cups of unsweetened flaked coconut
  • 10 oz. semi-sweet chocolate chips
Directions
  1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.
  2. In a large bowl, stir together the sweetened condensed milk, egg white, vanilla and salt until combined.
  3. Stir in coconut until well blended.
  4. I used a cookie scoop to make uniform mounds on the baking sheets.
  5. Use wet hands to form mounds into pyramids. (Keep a bowl of cold water handy for this process.)
  6. Bake, one sheet at a time, until cookies are lightly browned, 15 – 20 minutes. (Don’t put away pan or throw out paper, yet.)
  7. Cool cookies on baking sheet until set, about 2 minutes. Then move to wire cooling racks.
  8. Melt chocolate chips in a double boiler, or in a heat-proof bowl over a simmering pot of water. Stir until smooth. Remove from heat.
  9. Holding the macaroon by its pyramid top, dip the bottom of the macaroon into the melted chocolate. Place the dipped macaroon back on the parchment-covered baking sheet. Repeat process with all the macaroons.
  10. Refrigerate the macaroons until the chocolate sets, about 15 minutes.

Recipe adapted from http://www.browneyedbaker.com/2009/06/19/chocolate-dipped-coconut-macaroons/.

Flipped Lemon Meringue Cookies

Posted on by
12

Imagine the tart creaminess of lemon meringue infused with orange zest sitting on a crisp, airy cookie ready to be devoured in one scrumptious bite. You’ll flip when you taste these cookies!

You know those beautiful Parisian macarons? Smooth and glossy, perfectly round and filled with creamy flavors? This cookie recipe allowed me to practice with the elements of the macaron – especially the meringue. And I got to play with a Kitchen Aid mixer for the first time.

Jack and I do our best to keep our kitchen to a minimum and have been debating about whether this appliance is worth its weight in counter space. Recently, we borrowed a Kitchen Aid mixer to take for a test drive. Our thoughts? This machine is pretty incredible. It beat the egg whites and confectioners’ sugar into a consistency we doubt we could have achieved by hand or even with a hand-held mixer — and after 20 minutes of steady mixing, no one was tired! The meringue was stiff and glossy and fluffy, just like it’s supposed to be. Even after scooping the meringue into a Ziploc and piping it out, it didn’t loose any volume. I think that was due to the mixer. The meringue baked perfectly, despite my inexperience in piping. We’ll see how often we use this mixer, but we’re sold on it for heavy mixing jobs.

The cookies took time in that leisurely Sunday kind of way. First I made the lemon curd and put it in the refrigerator to chill. After a while, I made the cookie shell. Then, when the shell and the curd were both cooled, I assembled the cookies. I found it easy to eliminate the evidence of my first attempts at piping, which were not pretty, but were tasty!  The technique which I settled on was to pipe the meringue in a spiral, starting in the center, with the last two spirals going vertical. This made a nice little cup for the lemon curd.

Flipped Lemon Meringue Cookies

Ingredients:

For Lemon Curd –

  • 1/2 cup granulated sugar
  • 1 large egg and 1 egg yolk
  • 1/2 cup lemon juice
  • 2 tsp orange zest
  • 3 tbsp melted unsalted butter

For Meringue –

  • 4 egg whites
  • 2 cups confectioners’ sugar

Directions

  1. In a medium pot, mix together curd ingredients, except butter (granulated sugar, egg and egg yolk, lemon juice and orange zest).
  2. Whisk continually over medium heat until mixture thickens and coats a spoon (about 10 minutes). Stir  in melted butter.
  3. Pour into a sealed container and refrigerate until cold.
  4. While the curd is chilling, make the meringue cookies.
  5. Preheat oven to 250 degrees F.
  6. Take the 4 egg whites and beat on medium speed until they develop soft peaks (peaks will bend when you remove beaters)
  7. Beat eggs whites at high speed while adding confectioners’ sugar by the tablespoon, making sure the sugar is mixed in before adding next tablespoon. The final product should have stiff peaks and be somewhat glossy and thick.
  8. Pour into a piping bag with a small tip. (I used a Ziploc bag with the corner cut off).
  9. Pipe a tight spiral from the center out, layering the outside spiral twice so you have about an inch-diameter cookie with a cup to hold the curd.
  10. Bake for 60 minutes on a parchment lined baking sheet. Slight cracking is OK. The cookies should easily come off the parchment paper when finished. Let cool.
  11. Fill meringue cookie with lemon curd.
  12. Store in covered container in refrigerator.

Bread Machine Oatmeal Walnut Wheat Bread

Posted on by
2

This hearty but soft wheat bread has crunchy walnuts and a hint of honey. The aromas while baking are magnificent! Jack says each bread I make is his new favorite. I think he really means it, too.

Oatmeal Walnut Wheat Bread

Ingredients

  • 1 1/4 cups water
  • 1/4 cup nonfat dry milk
  • 1 1/4 tsp salt
  • 2 tbsp olive oil
  • 1 tbsp honey
  • 1 tbsp molasses
  • 1 cup wheat flour
  • 2 cups all purpose flour
  • 1/2 cup quick-cooking oats
  • 1/3 cup chopped walnuts
  • 1 tsp instant yeast

Directions

  1. Place ingredients in bread machine according to manufacturer’s instructions.
  2. Start machine
  3. Wait impatiently for cycle to finish armed with butter and honey and a knife.

Recipe adapted from 300 Best Bread Machine Recipes by Donna Washburn and Heather Butt.

Vanilla-Orange-Chocolate-Nut-Filling Sandwich Cookie

Posted on by
7

Sugary, light vanilla cookies pizzazzed up with orange zest sandwich creamy almond-chocolate filling.

Still have to come up with a better name for these . Maybe you could help. The idea for this creation started with the chocolate-almond spread I made a couple of days ago. I thought it would make a delicious filling in a sandwich cookie, and since the spread is chocolate, I wanted the cookie to be vanilla. I found a basic sugar cookie recipe, omitted the chocolate the recipe called for and added vanilla and orange zest. “Perfect!” I thought. A vanilla cookie with orange zest sandwiching chocolate almond spread. How about the name VOCNFS Cookie to borrow from the texting world? Uh… no. I’m open to suggestions!

Vanilla Orange Sandwich Cookie

Ingredients:

  • 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 tsp baking soda
  • 1/4 tsp baking powder
  • 1/4 tsp salt
  • 1 1/4 cups sugar
  • 1/2 cup plus 2 tbsp (1 1/4 sticks) room-temperature, unsalted butter
  • 1 large egg
  • 1 tsp vanilla
  • almond-chocolate spread

Directions:

  1. Preheat oven to 375°F.
  2. In a medium bowl, mix the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and sugar. Add zest. Mix. Add butter. Mix. Then add egg and vanilla. Continue mixing until dough comes together.
  3. Take rounded teaspoons of batter. Roll into a ball and flatten for uniform cookies. Place approximately two inches apart on a parchment-paper-lined baking sheet. Bake for 9 minutes, until cookies are slightly cracked on the top.
  4. Remove from oven and set baking sheets on a rack to cool.
  5. To assemble the sandwiches: take one cookie and smear chocolate-nut spread evenly on the bottom of the cookie (because the bottom side will be flat. You want the cracked tops of the cookie to be on the outside.) Take a matching cookie and gently press flat side into the chocolate spread. Voila! You have a sandwich cookie. Continue with remainder of cookies.

We took these cookies to our friends’ house. They gave these cookies high marks on the would-you-buy-these-in-a fancy-cookie-shoppe test!