Bake for the week, Episode 1: Naan

The weekends are a great time to bake or prepare things for the week ahead. This week, we plan on having Chicken Tikka Masala for dinner, so I decided to make some naan to go with it. For those of you who don't know, naan is a yummy Indian flatbread that's usually made by sticking the dough to the inside wall of a tandoori oven. Since I don't have one of those in my kitchen, I use a heavily buttered skillet to fry up my naan.

This recipe makes quite a lot of naan, so I separate out the dough into balls and freeze them for later. When we want to have Indian again, we can pull out how much we want to make, defrost the balls, roll them out and fry them up.

I'll add pictures of the finished naan tomorrow night after we fry it up!

Ingredients

1 pkg   active dry yeast

1 c       warm water (110°)
¼ c       white sugar
3 T       milk
1          egg, beaten
2 t        salt
4 ½ c    (24.75 oz)bread flour
2 t        minced garlic (optional)
¼ c       butter, melted

Directions

1. In a large bowl, dissolve yeast in warm water. Let stand about 10 minutes until frothy. Stir in sugar, milk, egg, salt, and enough flour to make a soft dough. Knead for 6 to 8 minutes on a lightly floured surface, or until smooth. Place dough in a well oiled bowl, cover with a damp cloth, and set aside in a warm place to rise. Let it rise 1 hour, until the dough has doubled in volume.
2. Punch down dough, knead in garlic. Keeping dough covered, divide dough into 16 equal pieces, roll into balls, and place on a tray.

**If you are making this a night or two ahead, stop here, wrap the balls in plastic wrap and place in the fridge. 30 minutes before dinner, take them out and continue with step 3.

3. Cover with plastic wrap, and allow to rise in a warm place until doubled in size, about 30 minutes.

** If you’re going to freeze the naan, stop here and place the whole tray in the freezer until the balls are frozen through. Put frozen dough in a ziplock bag. Allow dough to sit at room temperature for 30 minutes before continuing with step 4.

4. During the second rising, preheat grill or cast iron skillet to high heat.
5. At grill side, roll one ball of dough out into a thin circle. Lightly oil grill or melt butter in pan. Place dough on grill, and cook for about 30 seconds on one side. Brush uncooked side with butter and cook until puffy and brown, about 1-2 minutes. Flip back to side one and cook until browned. Continue with the next piece until all the naan is done.

Sneak Peek at Oscar's Third Birthday Cake

Oscar's third birthday was this weekend. I can't believe he's growing up so fast! I do have plenty of pictures and a great story to write about the cake but it's late on a Sunday evening and I'm exhausted from making said cake and entertaining six sugared up preschoolers. But in order to fulfill my goal of one post a week, I need to get something up here.


Here is the result of the most frustrating baking experience I've had in quite a long time:

He turned out pretty cute after all the hassle... 

Skillet Corn Bread

This Saturday arrived cold and clear and beautiful. The forecasters have been screaming “SNOWMAGEDDON!!!” all week, so we figured if we were going to get snowed in, it was the perfect day for chili.  After breakfast, we threw together our favorite crock-pot chili recipe and set it to cook for the rest of the day.

What goes better with chili than cornbread? Not a lot. I’ve never made it from scratch before, so what better time to try than when I’ve got a blog post to write? None.  My dad just got me an awesome cast iron skillet for Christmas and I’ve yet to break it out, so I figured Skillet Corn Bread was in order.

I must be used to “Northern” corn bread, because the bread I turned out of the pan was less cakey and more savory than I’m used to in cornbread. Apparently those are characteristics of “Southern” corn bread. It was still tasty, though. Next time I’ll try and remember to save some bacon drippings or use butter – the vegetable oil did not impart any flavor to the bread at all. I will also use better cornmeal. The cornmeal really stars in this recipe and my bargain-brand, out of date meal was not very good at it’s role. The texture was really nice, though – soft and moist, but with a hearty grainy-ness.

The snow didn’t arrive until today, but it was still a great night for chili!

Skillet Cornbread

Ingredients

4 t           bacon drippings or vegetable oil

1 c           fresh yellow cornmeal, preferably stone ground

2 t           granulated sugar

½ t          table salt

1 t           baking powder

¼ t          baking soda

1/3 c        water (rapidly boiling)

¾ c          buttermilk

1 lg          egg , beaten lightly

Instructions

1. Adjust oven rack to lower middle position and heat oven to 450 degrees.  Set cast-iron skillet with bacon fat (or vegetable oil) in heating oven.

2. Measure 1/3 cup cornmeal into medium bowl.  Mix remaining cornmeal, sugar, salt, baking powder, and baking soda in small bowl; set aside.

3. Pour boiling water all at once into the 1/3 cup cornmeal; stir to make a stiff mush. Whisk in buttermilk gradually, breaking up lumps until smooth, then whisk in egg.

4. When oven is preheated and skillet very hot, stir dry ingredients into mush mixture until just moistened. Carefully remove skillet from oven. Pour hot bacon fat (or vegetable oil) from the skillet into the batter and stir to incorporate, then quickly pour batter into heated skillet. Bake until golden brown, about 20 minutes. Remove from oven and turn cornbread onto wire rack; cool for 5 minutes, then serve immediately.

Source: America’s Test Kitchen Family Cookbook

Mini Carrot Cupcakes

Happy New Year!  I’ve made it my goal to post one blog entry a week.  This means I’ll be doing a lot of baking.  My husband loves that idea.  Welcome to the first post of (hopefully 52) posts for 2012

I try bake goodies for everyone’s birthdays at work.  My boss’ birthday was last Tuesday and she requested carrot cupcakes.  I’d made carrot cake before, and I thought carrot cupcakes would be very rich with that recipe, so I decided to make them mini cupcakes instead.  I like this recipe because you can make the batter in the food processor after grating the carrots and not have to clean two appliances. 

The only mini liners I could dig up were Easter ones that were too small for my pan, so I ditched the liners and sprayed the heck out of the pan.  I found that if I sprayed too much, the cupcakes couldn’t get a grip on the edge of the pan when rising and looked funny after baking.  I think next time I will also process the carrots a little with the regular processor blade so the carrot bits are smaller in the batter.

These are pretty tasty on their own, but are even better topped with a dollop of my favorite fluffy cream cheese icing, recipe included below.

Food Processor Mini Carrot Cupcakes

Ingredients

12½ oz  unbleached all-purpose flour (2½ cups)

1¼ tsp   baking powder

1 tsp      baking soda

1¼ tsp   ground cinnamon

½ tsp     ground nutmeg

¹/₈ tsp   ground cloves

½ tsp     table salt

1 lb         medium carrots (6 to 7 carrots), peeled

10½ oz  granulated sugar (1½ cups)

3 ½ oz    packed light brown sugar (½ cup)

4              large eggs

1½ c       vegetable oil , safflower oil, or canola oil

Instructions

1.       Adjust oven rack to middle position; heat oven to 350 degrees. Spray a mini cupcake pan with nonstick cooking spray or line with paper cups.

2.       Whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and salt in large bowl; set aside.

3.       In food processor fitted with large shredding disk, shred carrots (you should get about 3 cups); transfer carrots to bowl and set aside. Wipe out food processor and stick the metal blade in.  Process both sugars and the eggs until frothy and thoroughly combined, about 20 seconds. With machine running, add oil through feed tube in steady stream.  Process until mixture is light in color and well emulsified, about 20 seconds longer.  Scrape mixture into medium bowl.  Stir in carrots and dry ingredients until incorporated and no streaks of flour remain.  Portion about Two tablespoons of batter into each cup and bake until toothpick or skewer inserted into center of cake comes out clean, about 7-8 minutes, rotating pan halfway through baking time. Cool cups in pans for 5 minutes, then turn out onto a cooling rack and let cool completely before frosting.

Source: CooksIllustrated.com

Fluffy Cream Cheese Frosting

Ingredients

12 T        unsalted butter, softened

12 oz      confectioner’s sugar (3 cups)

12 oz      cream cheese, cut into 6 pieces, softened

1 tsp      vanilla extract

Dash      salt

Instructions

1.       With an electric mixer, beat butter and sugar on medium-high speed until fluffy, about 2 minutes.  Add cream cheese, one piece at a time, and beat until incorporated, about 30 seconds.  Beat in vanilla and salt.  Refrigerate until ready to use.

Source: CooksCountry.com

Poker Chip Cookies - Part 2

To see the dough recipe for these cookies, click here.

To Make the Poker Chip Cookies

*For each color poker chip, I used 2/3 a recipe white dough and 1 recipe colored dough. Keep  the dough that is not in immediate use in the refrigerator.

1.       Roll about 3 oz of colored dough into a log approximately 6” long and 1” in diameter

2.       Roll about 3 oz white dough into a sheet about 6” by about 3” and wrap it lengthwise around the colored dough.

3.       Roll another 3 oz of colored dough into a sheet about 6” by about 3.25” and wrap it lengthwise around the log.

4.       Put the log into the refrigerator and repeat steps 1-3.  Place the resulting log in the fridge as well.

5.       Roll out the remainder of the colored and white dough into 6” by about 9” rectangles, as shown. 

6.       Cut each rectangle into 24 strips as shown.

 

7.       Make a new rectangle by alternating 6 colored and 6 white strips and wrap the resulting rectangle around one of the refrigerated logs. Repeat with other log.

8.       Carefully roll and stretch the resulting log to adhere all layers and until it is the desired diameter.  If desired, cut into manageable lengths, and wrap in plastic wrap.

9.       Place dough rolls in freezer, using a slit paper towel roll to keep the shape if desired, for at least one hour.

10.   To Bake the cookies:  Adjust oven racks to the upper-middle and lower-middle positions and heat the oven to 350⁰.  Line 2 rimmed baking sheets with parchment paper.  Using a chef’s knife, slice dough into ¼-inch thick rounds, rotating the dough so that it won’t become misshapen.  Place cookies 1 inch apart on baking sheets.

11.   Bake until cookies are slightly browned around the edges, about 15 minutes, rotating the baking sheets front to back and top to bottom halfway through baking.  Cool cookies on the baking sheet about 5 minutes; using a thin metal spatula, transfer cookies to a wire rack and cool to room temperature.

12.   Stack ‘em up and place your bets!  The original recipe says cooled cookies can be stored between sheets of parchment paper in an airtight container for up to 1 week, but I’ve got some extras that are still good three weeks later.

Poker Chip Cookies - Part 1

Every year, our neighborhood has a poker tournament to raise money for our summer block party.  About three years ago, I had the idea to make some cookies that looked like poker chips for the event.  I did a little brainstorming and designing, found a sugar cookie recipe online that looked like it would work and baked up three different colors of poker chips.  They looked like this:

So they were cute, but spread too much so they didn’t actually look like poker chips and worst of all they tasted terrible.  I learned two lessons: 1, never bake a ton of cookies with a recipe you’ve never actually baked up and 2, I needed some better food colors – part of why the cookies tasted off was the large quantity of food coloring in the dough.

This year, I found a better recipe – one I made at Christmas – and decided to try again.  I picked this recipe for its minimal ingredients, its versatility, and the fact that the spread of the dough during baking is almost undetectable.  I also decided to do a different flavor with each color chip this time.  Below are the recipes for the flavors I made, but you can try different varieties.  I made two recipes of the white dough and one recipe of each colored dough.

French Butter Cookies – Plain Dough (for the white dough) *

Ingredients

1              large egg

10 T        (1 ¼ sticks) unsalted butter, softened

 1/3 c      plus 1 T granulated sugar (2 ¾ oz)
¼ t          salt
1 t           vanilla extract
1 ½ c      unbleached all-purpose flour (7 ½ oz)

Instructions

1.       Place egg in small saucepan, cover with 1 inch water, and bring to a boil over high heat.  Turn heat to low, cover, and let sit 10 minutes.  Meanwhile, fill a small bowl with ice water.  Using a slotted spoon, transfer egg to ice water and let stand 5 minutes.  Crack the egg and peel off the shell.  Separate the yolk from the white; discard (or eat) white.  Press yolk through a fine mesh strainer into small bowl.

 

2.       In bowl of stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat butter, sugar, salt, and cooked egg yolk on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 4 minutes, scraping down sides of bowl and beater as needed.  Turn the mixer down to low, add vanilla, and mix until incorporated.  Stop mixer, add flour, and mix on low speed until just combined, about 30 seconds.  Using a rubber spatula, press dough into a cohesive mass.

 

French Butter Cookies – Vanilla Dough (for the blue dough)  Same as plain, but increase vanilla to 1 T and add blue gel food coloring with the vanilla.

French Butter Cookies – Mint Dough (for the green dough)  Same as plain, but add 1 T peppermint extract and green gel food coloring with the vanilla.

French Butter Cookies – Chocolate Hazelnut Dough (for the black dough)

Ingredients
1              large egg
10 T        (1 ¼ sticks) unsalted butter, softened
1/3 c      plus 1 T granulated sugar (2 ¾ oz)
¼ t          salt
1 t           vanilla extract
2 t           hazelnut extract
2-3          drops black gel food color (optional)
1 1/3 c   unbleached all-purpose flour (6 2/3 oz)
¼ c          Dutch-processed cocoa (1 oz)
1/3 c      finely ground toasted hazelnuts

Instructions

1.       Place egg in small saucepan, cover with 1 inch water, and bring to a boil over high heat.  Turn heat to low, cover, and let sit 10 minutes.  Meanwhile, fill a small bowl with ice water.  Using a slotted spoon, transfer egg to ice water and let stand 5 minutes.  Crack the egg and peel off the shell.  Separate the yolk from the white; discard (or eat) white.  Press yolk through a fine mesh strainer into small bowl.

2.       Whisk flour, cocoa, and hazelnuts together in a small bowl and set aside.  In the bowl of stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat butter, sugar, salt, and cooked egg yolk on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 4 minutes, scraping down sides of bowl and beater as needed.  Turn the mixer down to low, add vanilla and food coloring, and mix until incorporated.  Stop mixer, add flour mixture, and mix on low speed until just combined, about 30 seconds.  Using a rubber spatula, press dough into a cohesive mass.

For Assembly Instructions, Click Here

*Original Recipe Source: Cook’s Illustrated November 2008

Homemade Croutons

Last week, we tried out a yummy skillet mac & cheese recipe from America's Test Kitchen.  Everyone's favorite part of the recipe was the homemade croutons that were sprinkled on top of the dish.  I'm of the opinion that most everything tastes better with garlic, so I altered the recipe a tiny bit and came up with some of the best croutons ever.  Here's how:

Ingredients:
3          slices sandwich bread
2-3 T    unsalted butter

garlic powder

            salt & pepper

Directions:

1.      Remove crusts from bread and cut into ½-inch cubes.

2.      Melt butter in a large skillet over medium –high heat.

3.      Toss bread cubes in butter and season with garlic powder, salt, and pepper to taste.

      4.      Toast until lovely brown and fragrant.
      5.      Devour.