Don't Bother Me: Shoofly Pie

On this festive St Patty's Day, I find the time and inclination to catch up a bit on the ol' baking blog. Don't think that I haven't been baking in the blog-silence. I have. Quite a bit. Pies have been the theme of late as well, especially with the recent awesomeness of Pi(e) Day (3.14). So while K-Patz determines her mascot face-off bracket (I ask you: who would win? A Ute or a Wildcat? A Jayhawk or a Bison? Difficult to call...) and Bean reads up on some juicy gossip blogs, and corned beef and soda bread transform from bloody meat and goo to deliciousness, I will fill you in on the one pie that I have made that I really didn't enjoy eating.

A long time ago, in a land far away (on the Upper East Side), I came across a little framed gem:


As I had all the items in the cupboards -- including that molasses I bought for gingerbread men cookies I never got around to making over the holidays -- it seemed fitting to make it. If you're going to hang a recipe up as art, you'd best have made the recipe...


Shoofly Pie - from Miss Rose, procured from Housing Works Thrift Shop
2/3 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup molasses
3/4 cup corn syrup
1 cup water
1 cup flour
1 egg
1 Tbsp butter
1 tsp baking soda
1 nine-inch pie shell (uncooked)

After you mix together the syrup, molasses, water, soda, and egg put half in a separate bowl. Now mix the brown sugar, butter, and flour with half your batter and pour it into your pie shell. Carefully pour the other half of your batter on the top. Heat up your stove to 400 and cook for 25 min. Chill and serve.


Sometimes I have issues making pie crust. When I say sometimes I mean all the time. It's like each time I roll out the crust, it's the first time. Constantly a virgin pie crust maker. It's my curse. This was one of the worst, which caused my pie to come out like this:


Stupid crust. All the sugary goodness leaked and freaking RUINED MY PIE.

And on top of that, I don't really like molasses. It was really sweet, really molasses-y, and kind of spongy. Super strange texture. Didn't really like it, but you know, I ate it all anyway.

Moral of this story is: you don't have to like the pie to hang the recipe on the wall.

Duh-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh BATCAKE!

Last weekend, something very important happened. Something that only happens once a year. Something that must be celebrated, shared with friends, and requires a drinking game be made in honor of it. That something is...

The Oscars.

In honor of one of our favorite nominated films, K-Patz decided to create a cake fit for the caped crusader. Namely, a Batmobile cake. A sculpted, frosted, speedy Batmobile. Busting through a cake wall and fighting off cake balls.

Yes, that's right. Cake Balls. But we're going to save those for another time.

The Batmobile cake required baking a 13x9 inch and 8x8 inch devil's food cake. From there, K-Patz (who's very artistically inclined) sculplted the 13x9 to resemble the front of the 'Mobile. She then stuck on the 8x8 with some frosting, sculplted it to look like the cab portion of the vehicle, and stuck on some spare pieces for the fins. The entire thing was frosted with tinted vanilla frosting with some chocolate melted in it, and a Batman symbol was drawn on the windshield. From there, Batman and cake balls entered the scenario. And enough description, here's the masterpiece:



Yeah, that's right. That's what WE were eating on Sunday night whilst celebrating Slumdog Millionaire's big win. What were YOU eating?


Jealousy is rough. I know.

I Want Candy: Salted Caramels

*So this isn't exactly baking, but it did require some cooking on the stove top. And since this is my blog, I can break my own rules if I want to. Darnit.


On our aforementioned Cheap Date Pub Crawl, I made some hasty yet well-advised plans with a friend (Ms. Steers) to make some candy -- salted caramels, to be precise. I'm not much of a candy maker, there was a brief stint for Christmas where my mom and I made peppermint patties and peanut butter cups for the family. But when Ms. Steers mentioned salted caramels that are easy to make and delicious, I couldn't resist.

So, on a Monday afternoon when no one was working, Mr. and Ms. Steers graced the Pulaski Castle with their presence. And they came bearing sea salt and a candy thermometer.

Ms. Steers basically did all the work, I observed and learned; there was a little stirring going on as well. So here we go, perhaps one of the classiest things made yet in our kitchen:

Salted Caramels

Ingredients

• 1 cup heavy cream
• 5 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into pieces
• 2 teaspoons sea salt, plus extra for sprinkling on top. Sea salt is found in specialty food stores under the name "fleur de sel." You can also experiment with artisanal salts if you like.
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 1/4 cup light corn syrup
• 1/4 cup water

Equipment

• 8" square baking pan
• Parchment paper
• Candy thermometer (or a deep-fat thermometer)
• Wax paper for wrapping or paper candy cups

Yield: About 40 caramels.

Directions

1. Line the bottom and sides of the pan with parchment paper and lightly oil the paper.
2. Bring the cream, butter and sea salt to a boil in a small saucepan; remove from heat and set aside.
3. Boil the sugar, corn syrup, and water in a heavy saucepan, stirring until sugar is dissolved. Bring to a boil, without stirring but gently swirling pan; then cook without stirring until the mixture reaches 248°F, the firm-ball stage.
4. Carefully stir in the cream mixture—the mixture will bubble up. Simmer, stirring frequently, about 15 minutes. The temperature should not go higher than 250°F.
5. CANDYMAKER TIP: To get the caramel consistency you want, test by dropping a spoonful of caramel into a bowl of cold water. It will form a ball, which you can test with your fingers. Stop cooking when the ball is the consistency that you want.
6. Pour the mixture into the baking pan and cool 2 hours.
7. OPTIONAL: You can enrobe your caramels in tempered melted chocolate; sprinkle the top with some grains of sea salt (pretty salts make a difference); or press in some culinary lavender buds.
8. Cut into 1-inch pieces, then wrap each piece in a 4-inch square of wax paper, folding ends or twisting to close like taffy.
9. ALTERNATIVE: Pour the caramel into individual candy cups.

Now, this recipe is definitely fancy. It calls for "enrobe"-ing and a candy thermometer. But all in, it wasn't that difficult to pull off. And the results were, of course, very tasty. How can you go wrong with heavy cream, butter, sugar, and sea salt?

Thank god Ms. Steer took home half of the recipe, because the whole recipe would have gone, well, like delicious salted carmels should go -- FAST.

Thanks, Ms. Steer. And Mr. Steer, you've got quite a catch there...

Oldies But Goodies: Chocolate Cake

Although I am not a religious person, after a discussion with my roomies last night, I decided that maybe I should take Lent more seriously. Or, at least the next 30 days until I take off for New Zealand (!!!). So, in an effort to do without something that is very important to me, I will spend the next month without:

CHOCOLATE.
(yikes)

In celebration of my new-found willpower, this post is about quite possibly the best chocolate cake I've ever made. It's from my favorite new cook book, the Watkin's Cook Book from my Great Grandma, circa 1925. Following the less than awesome outcome of my Cocoa Cream Cake, I was a little worried about baking yet another chocolate cake from the cook book. But my need to use up the one egg yolk from the previous recipe, and the simplicity of the recipe, convinced me to just do it.

So I did. Here is my Chocolate Cake:


Chocolate Cake (from Watkins Cook Book, 1925)

• 1/2 cup Watkins Cocoa
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1/2 cup sweet milk
• yolk of 1 egg

Boil well together and let cool:

• 1 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup butter
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup sour milk* into which 1 teaspoon soda has been dissolved.

1. Mix both parts together and add 2 cups flour.
2. Bake in moderate oven* in layers.
3. Ice with chocolate icing and nuts.

Chocolate Butter Frosting (from Betty Crocker's Cookbook, 1969)

• 1/2 cup margarine or butter, softened
• 2 ounces unsweetened melted chocolate (cool)
• 2 cups powdered sugar
• 1-1/2 tsp vanilla
• About 2 Tbsp milk

1. Mix margarine and chocolate.
2. Stir in powdered sugar.
3. Beat in vanilla and milk until frosting is of spreading consistency. Fills and frosts two 8- or 9-inch layers or frosts a 13x9-inch cake.

So, the recipe seemed simple when I first read it. Then I realized: sweet milk? Sour milk? Moderate oven? Huh? After some googling, and a call to my mom, everything was made clear.

**Sweet milk is whole milk (which, might I add, I didn't use -- I used fat free, since that's all I had in the house). Sour milk is sweet milk with a tablespoon of lemon juice added to it (1 Tbsp per cup of milk). And a moderate oven is about 350 degrees. I actually really liked that I had to do a little sleuthing to understand the recipe...

So the cake was freaking awesome. The only weird thing is that there were some little chewy bits in between the layers, which I think came from boiling the butter, sugar, eggs and sour milk together. Not sure if I let it cool long enough, or if I should have boiled it for longer. Next time I might try boiling it for longer. But the cake and the frosting were delicious. All that was missing was some sort of decoration on top -- that's my next step...

Unfortunately, I don't get to make this again until April. Such is the life of a lapsed Catholic that still retains some semblance of Catholic guilt.

Happy (?) Lent!

I Bake Dinner: Mac'n'Cheese with Spinach Balls

My friend E-rock came over for dinner last week, for some home-baked goodness and some Apples to Apples. What started out as a calm, classy dinner turned into a rambunctious game of Apples to Apples which had our downstairs neighbor/landlord (who happens to bake as well, just in a different sense) complaining about the noise. Apparently, four people in one room, discussing the merits of Hellen Keller and golf-ball sized hail was a little too crazy for him.

However, blasting bad euro-tech music at 9am on a Sunday morning is completely acceptable. Apparently.

Back to dinner. E-rock is a vegetarian, which I also used to be back in my youthful days. Beef jerky was my downfall...delicious, delicious beef jerky. I wanted to bust out something delicious but meatless, so I resorted to that old standby: pasta. Many, many people have an intense love of Mac'n'Cheese. I appreciate it, it has always served me well coming home late at night after an evening out on the town (especially with hot dogs in it), but I have no love affair with it. That's not to say I don't want a killer M'n'C recipe that I can bust out and astound dinner guests with.

I didn't quite find said recipe. But I found one that was pretty damn good, and it tasted delicious with K-Patz's spinach balls recipe.

And so, may I present: Mac'n'Cheese, Spinach Balls, and E-Rock's delicious Beet Salad


Chuck's Favorite Mac and Cheese (submitted by MSRO, found on Allrecipes.com)

• 1 (8 ounce) package elbow macaroni
• 1 (8 ounce) package shredded sharp Cheddar cheese
• 1 (12 ounce) container small curd cottage cheese
• 1 (8 ounce) container sour cream
• 1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1 cup dry bread crumbs (I used a hot dog bun!)
  
• 1/4 cup butter, melted

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil, add pasta, and cook until done; drain.
2. In 9x13 inch baking dish, stir together macaroni, shredded Cheddar cheese, cottage cheese, sour cream, Parmesan cheese, salt and pepper. In a small bowl, mix together bread crumbs and melted butter. Sprinkle topping over macaroni mixture.
3. Bake 30 to 35 minutes, or until top is golden.

Spinach Balls (submitted by Jen Vinyard, found on Allrecipes.com on suggestion of K-Patz)

• 1 (10 ounce) package frozen chopped spinach, thawed and drained
• 2 cups finely crushed herb-seasoned dry bread stuffing mix
• 1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
• 2 teaspoons garlic powder
• 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 1 teaspoon Italian seasoning
• 1/2 cup melted butter
• 3 eggs, beaten

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
2. In a large bowl combine spinach, stuffing mix, Parmesan cheese, garlic powder, black pepper, Italian seasoning, melted butter and eggs. Shape into walnut-sized balls and place on a baking sheet.
3. Bake in preheated oven for 20 minutes, or until heated through and browned.

E-Rock's Delicious Beet Salad (as best as I can remember it)

• 2 beets, grated
• 1 head of cabbage, sliced
• 2-3 mandarin oranges, sectioned
• juice of 1 lime
• cumin powder
• Basalmic Vinaigrette dressing

I mean, come on. Look at that photo up there. Is that not a pretty dinner? Pretty AND delicious. The Mac'n'Cheese could have been a lot cheesier, next time I'm going to seek out a recipe that creates more of a sauce to pour over the noodles. The more artery-clogging deliciousness, the better! I also had this left over with cut up hot dogs in it, with ketchup (my personal fave with M'n'C) drizzled over the top. THAT was fantastic.

The spinach balls were fantastic, I think I may have overcooked them just a bit but they tasted great. Not sure how they would be with a saucier dish, but I think I might have to try that someday. Thanks K-Patz!

E-Rock's salad was glorious. And this is coming from someone that really doesn't care for beets. God bless cumin powder for being so fantastic.

And we followed this all up with some Chocolate Cake from my favorite recipe book, the Watkin's Cook Book. And we followed all THAT up with 2 hours of Apples to Apples, where we learned the importance of trump cards -- and awesome nights with good friends.


awwwwwww........

Team Breakfast* Champion: Pancake Sandwich

Following our Valentine's Day Cheap Date Pub Crawl (in which aforementioned Snoopy valentine's and Hershey's Kisses were handed out freely), the roomies and I spent that Sunday chillin' at Pulaski Castle.

Pulaski Castle is what we lovingly call our home in Queenspoint.

For those of you not familiar with Queenspoint, the Pulaski Bridge connects Greenpoint with Queens/Long Island City. It offers lovely views of the City, and the Greenpoint Sewage Treatment Plant. It's also across the street from our apartment building.

So, we woke up around noon and decided that, rather than fight the amorous crowds at the various brunch establishments throughout the 'hood, we would make ourselves a breakfast feast: eggs, bacon, and pancakes.

Of course, these are the magic ingredients to the best possible breakfast food ever:

THE PANCAKE SANDWICH!!!

I forgot to add it into the photo, but on top of this, you pour a boatload of syrup. And it's amazing. Granted, many of my teammates disagree with me, but I have it on good authority (my own) that this sh*t is delicious. This is basically all I ever want out of breakfast. Actually -- scratch that -- add some hashbrowns on the side and then it's perfect. Beautiful. Just like heaven.



*Now, a quick note to explain this "Team Breakfast" phenomenon. A long time ago, in a city to the North (Vancouver BC), my then boyfriend and I were invited to join a mysterious group, called "Team Breakfast". We were guest competitors, but were welcomed warmly by all our teammates. We ate well, we bonded, we cleaned our plates, and everyone came away a winner. Because everyone just got to eat breakfast with good -- and new -- friends. I quickly poached this idea and started up a chapter in Seattle, and am now working on developing the New York branch. Soon, soon I will update the Team Breakfast blog (teambreakfast.wordpress.com), where we hope to post restaurant reviews, photos, team cheers, and anything else dedicated to the wide world of competitive brunching. If you have or would like to start a chapter in a different city, let me know! We can start an exchange program. Or at least look at each other's photos.

Oldies But Goodies: Cocoa Cream Cake

My recent trip back to Seattle found me, late one night, sleeping on a futon in my family's office/library/guest room, browsing their collection of cookbooks and ocean books (my dad's an oceanographer). Amidst the Pillsbury BakeOff cookbooks, I spotted a small brown cookbook that looked pretty darn old. Here is what I found:


My great-grandmother's Watkins cook book, published in 1925. The J.R. Watkins Company, it turns out, were purveyors of baking products, as well as medicine and household supplies. This little book is chock full of super simple recipes, some (English Monkey) which sound better than others (Jellied Veal Loaf). My mission is to make as many of the sweet things in here as possible.

My first project, once again attempted because I had all the ingredients in the house, was the "Cocoa Cream Cake". Here's a photo of the recipe, complete with an adorable illustration:





And here's what it looked like when I baked it:



Yeah, not quite the same. The "frosting" wasn't quite frosting, it was more like...fluffy glaze. That never glazed. This was probably because I beat the egg white by hand [note to self: when next employed, purchase hand mixer]. But it peaked! I beat it until it peaked! And still -- it was runny and kind of gross. Bean was nice enough to say that the frosting/glaze/spittle was a good pair because it didn't overpower the flavor of the cake, like a thicker frosting would have done. I appreciate that. It was true: the cake was really fluffy, which I'd like to attribute to my half-assed "sifting" from bag o' flour to cup to bowl to mixture (basically I tried to get as much air in there as possible since I also do not own a sifter). It wasn't overpoweringly chocolate, a very light and fluffy and not super sweet cake. What I'd imagine in my poorly-informed image of what cakes were like in the "olden days".

But yes, this sorry cake was my offering to my lovely roommates for Valentine's Day/Anti-Valentine's Day/Singles Awareness Day/February 14th. Following this, we proceeded to go out and bar hop and give Snoopy valentines and Hershey's kisses to bartenders and bouncers. Which was an excellent way to spend the evening, I highly recommend it.

All in all, a good day. Despite the failed frosting.