Redecorating

Pardon my dust while I try to spiff up this joint.

P.S. If I used to link to your blog and I don't now it's only because Blogger lost some of my links. I have them saved on my other computer which I won't get to until Monday. It's nothing personal!

A different cupcake method

Cupcakes
The Home Baker Copyright 2006

Scant 1 cup water
6 tbsp butter
Generous ¾ cup superfine sugar
1 tbsp corn syrup
3 tbsp milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp baking soda
2 tbsp unsweetened cocoa
Scant 1 5/8 cups all-purpose flour

Frosting:
1 ¾ oz semisweet chocolate, broken into pieces
4 tbsp water
3 ½ tbsp butter
1 ¾ oz white chocolate, broken into pieces
3 cups confectioners’ sugar

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line 2 muffin pans with 20 muffin paper cases.

Put the water, butter, superfine sugar and syrup in a pan over low heat and heat, stirring, until the sugar has dissolved. Increase the heat and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat and cook gently for 5 minutes. Remove from the heat and let cool. Put the milk and vanilla extract in a bowl. Add the baking soda and stir to dissolve. Sift the cocoa and flour into a separate bowl and add the syrup mixture. Stir in the milk mixture and beat until smooth.

Carefully spoon the batter into the paper cases to come within two-thirds of the tops. Bake in the preheated oven for 20 minutes or until well risen and firm to the touch. Transfer to a cooling rack and let cool.

To make the frosting, melt the semisweet chocolate in a small heatproof bowl with half the water and half the butter set over a pan of barely simmering water. Stir until smooth and let stand over the water. Repeat with the white chocolate and remaining water and butter.

Stir half the confectioners’ sugar into each bowl and beat until smooth and fudgy. Divide the frosting between the cakes, filling to the tops of the paper cases. Let cool and set before serving.

(I only made chocolate frosting.)
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I was intrigued by this recipe. No eggs? I've seen eggless cupcakes before but this was different. It starts with making a syrup? I was too curious not to try it.

My first impression was that the cake wasn't sweet enough and the frosting was too sweet. The next day, however, I thought they had a nice balance. This is a good recipe to make ahead of time. This is also a good recipe to make if you don't want an overly sweet cupcake - just use a different frosting.

The texture was interesting - not dry, not classically moist. There was something about this cupcake that reminded me of a commercial snack cake. Not a Tastycake but maybe something from Drake's or Hostess. I plan on making these again and adding a cream filling and frosting.

My only beef is that they didn't look anything like the picture in the cookbook. In the picture they had flat tops and smooth frosting but I'm sure I could fix the difference by putting less batter in each cup and thinning the frosting out a bit more.

I know, the measurements are sort of funky in this recipe - 'scant', 'generous' - those terms bug me in a baking recipe. 1 5/8 of a cup???? I believe the cookbook was originally published using the metric system hence the weirdness.

Question of the Day: Do you like any commercial snack cake items? I will admit that as much as I like to bake from scratch there are some commercial snack cake items that I still love. Tastycake pies (especially the coconut cream). Tastycake Honeybuns (with the glaze not the frosting). There are probably others that I would still like but I don't really have room in my diet for anything more than the occasional Tastycake. My son can't eat a lot of that stuff (peanut allergy, shared lines, yada yada) so I'm limited to things they sell at the store near work. Anyone remember Zingers? Like a Twinkie with rasberry on the outside and dipped in coconut? I haven't seen those in a long time but I would grab them if I saw them.

I almost didn't get a picture of this

Venison in Sauce
Fix-It and Forget-It Big Cookbook Copyright 2008

3-4 pound venison roast I used chops
½ cup vinegar
2 garlic cloves, minced
2 Tbsp. salt
Cold water
Oil
Large onion, sliced
Half a green pepper, sliced
2 ribs celery
1-2 garlic cloves, minced
1 ½-2 teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon pepper
½ teaspoon dried oregano
¼ cup ketchup
1 cup tomato juice I used 6 oz

1. Combine vinegar, garlic cloves and 2 Tbsp. salt. Pour over venison. Add water until meat is covered. Marinate 6-8 hours.
2. Cut meat into pieces. Brown in oil in skillet. Place in slow cooker.
3. Mix remaining ingredients together; then pour into cooker. Stir in meat.
4. Cover. Cook on Low 8-10 hours.
5. Using two forks, pull them meat apart and then stir it through the sauce.
6. Serve on sandwich rolls, or over rice or pasta.
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I was so out of blogging mode that when I made this recipe I was halfway through my plate before I realized that I didn't get a picture. I took a picture of the leftovers. I was surprised there were any leftovers. This may have been the best venison recipe I've made. I really liked the celery flavor in this. It wasn't just good for a venison recipe, it was just plain good. You could use beef or pork in this recipe too of course.

I wasn't all that thrilled with my first Fix-It and Forget-It Cookbook so I wasn't sure why I bought this version but I'm so glad I did. I think I'm 3-for-3 with this cookbook so far (Harvest Kielbasa, Machaca Beef and now this.) I think a bit more thought went into this book.

Question of the Day: Do you eat venison? I know I'm not the only one. I'm curious just how many of my readers have a hunter in the family or buy venison (my husband's best friend's in-laws own a venison farm and sell the meat locally but it's expensive.)

Basic and delicious

Classic Crumb Cake
Good Housekeeping Baking Copyright 1999

Crumb Topping:
2 cups all-purpose flour
½ cup granulated sugar
½ cup packed light brown sugar
1 ½ teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 cup butter or margarine, softened I used butter

Cake:
2 ¼ cups all-purpose flour
2 ¼ teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
1 ¼ cups granulated sugar
½ cup butter or margarine, softened I used butter
3 large eggs
¾ cup milk
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1. Prepare Crumb Topping: In medium bowl, mix flour, granulated and brown sugars, and cinnamon until well blended. With fingertips, work in butter until mixture resembles coarse crumbs.
2. Prepare Cake: Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease 2 9-inch round cake pans; dust with flour. I used 9-inch square pans so my cakes were not as high as they should have been. In medium bowl, stir together flour, baking powder and salt.
3. In large bowl, with mixer at low speed, beat granulated sugar and butter until blended, scraping bowl often with rubber spatula. Increase speed to medium, beat about 2 minutes, until well mixed, scraping bowl occasionally. Reduce speed to low; add eggs, 1 at a time, beating well after each addition.
4. In cup, combine milk and vanilla. With mixer at low speed, add flour mixture alternately with milk mixture, beginning and ending with flour mixture, scraping bowl occasionally, until batter is smooth.
5. Pour batter into prepared pans. With hand, press crumb topping into large chunks; sprinkle evenly over batter. Bake 40 to 45 minutes, until toothpick inserted into centers of cakes comes out clean. Cool cakes in pan on wire racks 15 minutes. With small metal spatula, loosen cakes from side of pans. Invert each cake onto plate; remove pan. Immediately invert cakes onto wire racks to cook completely, with crumb topping up. I just cooled them in the pans, then cut them into squares and easily removed them from the pan.

Makes 2 coffee cakes, 10 servings each. Per serving: 330 cal, 4 g pro, 45 g carbs, 16g fat, .5g fiber, 70mg chol, 270mg sodium
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Crumb cake, when done well, is one of my favorite foods. It's just the basics - butter, flour, sugars, vanilla, eggs, milk, cinnamon and bit of leavening - but boy does it taste like something special. This wasn't my dream crumb cake but only due to the amount of crumb, which believe me was plenty, but my dream crumb cake would have more. The crumb on my dream crumb cake would be excessive. This wasn't excessive, it was just enough, probably more than enough for most people. The flavor was great and the cake had a nice moist texture.

One of my strongest food memories, one of my favorite things I've ever eaten, was the crumb cake that I bought at the Superfresh grocery store when I lived in Philly. It was from their bakery section and I didn't see it very often (thank God - I'd have left Philly big as a house). There was more crumb than cake and it was soooooooooooooo good. I miss that crumb cake more than any cheese steak.

OMG! I just looked at the Superfresh site and they have a store in my general area. I had no idea they had a store anywhere in this area of the state. It's a bit out of the way but if I thought they might have this crumb cake there I would be there in a heartbeat. However, it's been over a decade and store bakeries change their offerings. Many things that used to be baked in-house are now shipped in. I think this is one of those things that will only live on in my memory. If you live near a Superfresh, please let me know if you ever see crumb cake in their bakery section. I want a detailed description of it LOL!

This is one of those foods that I've wanted to make for a long time yet avoided for some reason I can't quite pinpoint. It might be because crumb cake can be a dangerous food for me.

Question of the Day: Is there a food from your past that you miss? Tell me about it.

Back but not with a bang

Zesty Italian Chicken
Busy Woman's Cookbook Copyright 2000

6 chicken fillets
1 (8-ounce) bottle zesty Italian dressing
1 teaspoon garlic powder

Place chicken in baking dish. Pour dressing over chicken and sprinkle with garlic powder. Marinate 1 hour or overnight. Bake at 350 degrees for 35 minutes.
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Chicken marinated in Italian dressing is always good but I think I'll stick to grilling marinated chicken from now on. I think it tastes better grilled, even on the Griddler, and it definitely looks better grilled. This chicken wasn't very attractive after being baked. It would have been a lot faster to grill it too. Oh well, I'll remember next time. Maybe. My brain is Swiss cheese.

After being away for so long I should have come back with something fancy or complicated. However although the party may be over and life can return to normal now, I have lots of catching up to do, everywhere, not just on this blog. So this week you'll have to settle for the few random recipes that have been sitting on deck.

Realistically speaking, I don't expect to be able to devote the attention to this blog that I'd like to until the baby gets a little bit older. He's at that stage now where he gets into everything and needs almost constant attention. He's learning new stuff everyday and I'd rather not miss any of by having my head in a cookbook so I'm just going to do the best I can here right now. I doubt I'll be making anything complicated for quite a while.

Question of the Day: So how are you doing?