Hungarian Shortbread and a little freaking out

Moving to Colorado in less than 3 weeks!

Found out officially yesterday!

Have to find housing...

Have to pack...

Have to move...

Have to do sooo many things!!!!!!!

Get to look for a job in my new career...CAKE DECORATING!!!!!!

This is worth the freaking out.

Here's some Hungarian Shortbread with caramel apple jam and carrot cake jam.

I didn't make the jams, my niece did.

I took these pictures with my phone, I'm sorry.

Here's some other folks Hungarian Shortbread and the recipe.

http://1smallkitchen.blogspot.com/

http://crazyworldofcher.blogspot.com/

Did I seriously just grate my dough?

Thank you and you may freak out with me.

Good night.

TWD - Lemon Loaf Cake

I've never met a pound cake that I didn't love, until I met this one. I tried to love it, I really did. And I know it's not technically a pound cake, but I don't think anyone now and days makes a real pound cake. But these types of cakes are generally referred to as pound cakes. I think it's even referenced in the recipe as having a similar texture as a pound cake.

But it was not meant to be, I just didn't love it. I'm not sure I even liked it. And before you ask, no, I didn't follow the recipe. So some of the love lost could be my fault. I used Meyer lemon zest instead of regular lemons and I used full fat yogurt instead of the heavy cream. (I made these changes because those were the ingredients I had in the house and forgot it was baking Tuesday.) But come on folks those aren't heartbreaking substitutions. IF anything it should have made it more lovable. MORE LOVABLE.

It was a lemon cake for pete's sake, I should have loved it. I'm so sad now.

Plastic wrapped sadness.

But as it sits on my counter wrapped in plastic wrap, I ponder why was I not in love with this? Well take a look at the original recipe posted here and here and then I'll give you my list of reasons.

1. It was dry, I baked it 10 minutes less than the recipe called for and it was still dry.
2. Not enough salt, salt provides contrast and this was lacking the contrast.
3. Not lemony enough, I had added zest from 5 Meyer lemons and still no go. It needed the juice to really give it some lemon flavor. The juice probably would've helped the dryness too.
4. I think my tastes have changed, this might have been something I would have enjoyed in the past, but I think my taste buds (Phil and Gladys) have grown and enjoy more complex flavors. I think they bought the Emeril slogan and like to kick it up a notch.  

Oh well, love at first bite is not on the calendar for this Tuesday. Maybe the next....

TWD - Pizza Rustica and cheese

I'm king of the world! I can fly! I'm too cool for school!

I made cheese :)

Cheese making in action! It's very thrilling watching things drain.

This is how I felt today, I felt like the most awesome person because I made ricotta cheese. Now for those of you pro cheese makers, yes, ricotta is the newbie of cheese making. But I did it! I curdled my milk and made cheese! When you say cheese it makes you smile, when you eat cheese it makes you smile and when you make cheese it makes you smile.

I made cheese :)

I'm pretty exited, even more excited about the cheese than the Pizza Rustica really. Although it was good and a nice recipe to make (it did cost a small fortune though). Containing ricotta, parmesan, mozzarella and prosciutto for the love of money.

I'm not sure how I stumbled upon the idea of making ricotta, it certainly wasn't suggested in the recipe by Julia or Dori. I must have come across it in my blog reading, so for those of you reading this blog go ahead and do it, make some cheese.

Now let me point you to the recipe I used by our man, David Lebovitz:  http://simplyrecipes.com/recipes/homemade_ricotta_cheese/

He keeps it simple and it came out great. I did use a thermometer and checked the temperature of the milk as it was boiling. I had read somewhere that 165 degrees was good enough, but for his recipe it seemed like 180 degrees was the magic number.

I have come across another recipe that I'll try next time, it's for a lemon and basil version. Which sounds spectacular! I also read that buttermilk can be used as the curdling agent, but it does lend a different flavor to the process.

Here's a nice explanation of the different curdling agents and the effects they have: http://www.seriouseats.com/2010/02/how-to-make-fresh-ricotta-fast-easy-homemade-cheese-the-food-lab.html


Now on to the recipe.

It's a nice a pie.

Pizza Rustica, as many of you realize by now is not your "traditional" pizza. Which according to wiki has been around since 997 AD. So where did the recipe get calling this pie a pizza? Well all I could find was that it might be Sicilian and it might need to be made for Easter. And the recipe says in Italy it's served as an appetizer. I will need to travel to Italy to solve this mystery.

I invite you all to join me.

First make this recipe, view-able here and here and then meet me at the airport.

TWD - Irish Sodie Bread

Alright it's actually soda bread, Irish Soda Bread. But since I'm from the south, we sometimes refer to fizzy drinks as sodie....so this is sodie bread. To be perfectly honest, I actually call fizzy drinks pop. Which confuses everyone around here because they more often refer to fizzy drinks as coke.

Waiter: "What would you like to drink?"

Southerner: "You know, I'll take some coke. What do you have?"

Waiter: "We've got Pepsi, Dr. Pepper, Mt. Dew and RC Cola."

Southerner: "I'll take sweet tea instead."


You know, I wonder how this bread would taste with a little sodie in it? Maybe a nice grape Fanta... 3/22/2012 CORRECTION - Do Not, I repeat do not make this with grape Fanta. That would be gross and I do not want to be responsible for grossness.

For this recipe I kept it old school, really old school. I stuck to the Irish roots of this staple and changed nothing. I even considered making my own sour milk*. But then I forgot what day it was and didn't make this until today, Tuesday. The Tuesday that we are supposed to post this bread. I had to use store bought buttermilk powder instead of authentico** soured milk. I did remember in my vast researching of this recipe (I do this with all recipes, I have to know everything about it and then I promptly forget) there was a story of an Irish gal making her daily soda bread and how she was late in making her bread because she forgot to sour the milk and had to send a carrier pigeon to the milk farmer and see if he had any soured milk to spare. The milk farmer kindly replied and told her that he did, but if she'd been a smart lassie she could have just added a little vinegar to her fresh milk and voila buttermilk!

If you have made it this far into the post you will realize that that story might have been a false hood and that I didn't really have anything exceptional to write. The lassie part, not the sodie part. The sodie part is true; very, very true.

Thank you and happy sodie bread!


Our hosts for this week are: http://myculinarymission.blogspot.com/2012/03/twd-irish-soda-bread.html and http://chocolatemoosey.blogspot.com/



* the difference between buttermilk and sour milk:  http://www.ehow.com/facts_5818094_difference-between-buttermilk-sour-milk.html

And I wasn't going to really churn my own butter and make buttermilk. I was just kidding. But if you are interested in making butter and buttermilk, check this out:  http://www.instructables.com/id/How-To-Make-Butter-and-Buttermilk/

**authentico is a word I just made up. Please use it. 3/22/2012 UPDATE - I just found out that I did not make this word up. I am sad now.

My oh Meyer Lemon Tart

My oh my, this tart was nice. With Meyer lemons needing to be used in my ice box, this was an of course! I've done a few lemon tart/pies, but still hadn't really settled on a lemon filling that I would call my "go to".

I'm not sure this one is either, but it certainly fits the bill on this rainy day. Spring is springing around and the clocks are doing there thing, so it's time for us to think bright, shiny thoughts and I think sampling this pie might do it.

I suggest you do it too.

The pie consists of a lemon pudding from Tartine Bakery in San Francisco. I didn't make any alterations at all so I'm just going to link to the original. They have a nice step by step of the processes. (Although sometimes I just want to get to the recipe.)

http://food52.com/blog/2980_tartine_bakerys_lemon_cream

Just a note about this recipe, the directions say to cook the lemon mixture until it reaches 180 degrees, I could never get over 160 degrees, but the pudding was coating my whisk and eggs are safe at 145 degrees. So I was happy with that.

The crust comes from a fig tart over at the Nourished Kitchen. I was looking for something a little different and this seem to work, you'll have to scroll down to the bottom to find the crust recipe. This recipe called for the crust to be cooked for 35 minutes, but at 15, my edges were brown and the bottom was firm.

http://nourishedkitchen.com/fresh-fig-tart-almond-crust/

If you decide to make the fig and yogurt tart, save me a piece.

Thanks.


3/15/2012 UPDATE! I submitted this recipe (with appropriate credits) to instructables.com and it became one of the editors pick's!!!!  http://www.instructables.com/tag/type-id/category-food/

TWD - Rugelach

Sometimes instructions are hard to follow. Like "only one sample per person please" or "dry clean only". I might have a hard time following these and quite frankly they are hard to follow. I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one and if I am then just call me rule breaker!

I'm not really a rule breaker. It makes me uncomfortable breaking any rules. One time my husband called me uptight in regards to my strict rule following, I got so upset that I went in the kitchen and broke all the dishes on the back patio. I just picked up a whole stack of plates and dropped them on the concrete, next I grabbed the bowls and finally the dessert plates. This set of dishes could serve twenty-four. Twenty-four plates, twenty-four bowls, twenty-four cups, twenty-four saucers and twenty-four dessert plates. And that didn't count our everyday dishes.

Well a couple of things came out of that episode: 1) I opened up a bit to being a little flexible about life and 2) I got a new set of dishes ;)

I tried to follow the instructions with this recipe too, I read it, re-read it and then read it again. But I just could not. Some of it was because I didn't want to, the other was because no matter how much I read the instructions I got confused.

I didn't want to make lekvar and didn't even know if I could find it around here (although after googling it, I thought I was stepping out and being clever by using apple butter... apparently apple butter is a type of lekvar). So I thought, "ohhh, instead of lekvar I'll be clever and use apple butter, that'll make it even more amazing with the walnuts and dried fruit" and then while grocery shopping for the ingredients I made another change, "ohhh, I'll be cheap and use these toffee bits that are a 1/4 of the price of these walnuts, that'll make it even more amazing with the apple butter and forget dried fruit!"

That was the bit where I didn't want to follow the instructions. This next is about how I got confused and couldn't follow the instructions.

So how hard is it to spread a required amount of cinnamon/sugar mixture on the rolled out dough? Apparently very hard. Since I had made the change earlier and choose to go with only toffee and no walnuts or dried fruit I didn't need to mix any of the sugar with the fruit and nuts. So when I was trying to figure out how much cinnamon/sugar to spread on I kept coming up with a lot. I mean when I was spreading this over my apple butter, it just kept pouring and pouring. I was like this is got to be too much. Well upon reading the instructions for the 42nd time I realized that some of the mixture was to be used after the rolls had been rolled.

Well after chilling, waiting and baking this is what happened after non instruction following:

I call these sweet, gooey mess-bombs.

They tasted good, the toffee melted down to a very sticky substance. And even though they might not have been the prettiest, my tasters didn't turn away in disgust.

I do have two more roles in the fridge, I will have to be clever and figure out a way to bake them so that they don't explode. Maybe I can find some instructions ;)



If you want to know what they are supposed to look like, check out this week's host http://mybakingheart.com/ and http://www.theurban-hiker.com/

TWD - Chocolate Truffle Tartlets

Some things are better the next day like chili or lasagna and for me, these tarts. I baked them on Sunday and after they cooled, my husband and I took a bite and said "hmmm" (not a good hmmm, just a so-so hmmm). Now, to be fair, I did change the recipe up a bit. I made mini tartlets (even tinier tarts) and instead of the white and dark chocolate chunks and biscotti called for in the recipe, instead I added a little marzipan filling and topped with an almond and some smoked sea salt. Sounded like a winner, eh? Well the next day when I tried one for my morning snack, I was much more pleased. I really enjoyed the filling combination, but I think the crust was just not my favorite. I don't care for chocolate tart crust...I know, I know you are saying it's chocolate for crying out loud. What's wrong with you girl? Well I'm sorry, I don't care for it and you can't make me eat it!

Oh, that reminds me of a story when I was a wee, little lass. My mom would make spaghetti with mushrooms. I hated the mushrooms, hated them....hated them. They were gross tasting, gross texture and just gross. Well, apparently, I complained a little too much one day and was unappreciative of my mom's efforts and my dad very clearly stated, "You aren't leaving this table until you eat every one of those mushrooms. This isn't a restaurant."

Well after eating my gross mushrooms, I realized that they might not be gross and that they might actually be quite tasty. I rather enjoy mushrooms now, in all forms, shapes and colors.

Now one thing has always puzzled me about my dad's statement, it seems that any restaurant I go to doesn't take kindly to substitutions or changes to the menu items. I wonder where this magical restaurant that my dad was referring to is and can I order chocolate tartlets without chocolate tart crust there?

Hmmm...

Like the stand? I got it at Target for $8 on sale...nice!

Well here is a link to the recipe, http://spikebakes.tumblr.com/ AND a video of Julia herself. Here is another, http://www.goodeatsblog.com/ and another http://cookbookhabit.blogspot.com/ and finally here, http://awhiskandaspoon.com/2012/02/21/twd-chocolate-truffle-tartlets/

Take care, bye bye now. Bye, bye.

p.s. Thank you to the those who commented on my last post, it was very comforting.