Mocha Shortbread Attempt One

I was not really pleased with how these turned out. There were mixed feeling from my guinea pigs. No one disliked them, per se, but there was a pretty large range of whether people tasted the coffee flavor or no. I have some serious ideas on how to adjust the recipe. I will update with that when I give it a trial run.

So here they are as I made them:

Mocha Shortbread Attempt One

1 cup butter, softened
2/3 cup confectioners sugar
2 cups flour
1 Tbsp unsweeted cocoa powder
1 tsp espresso powder

1- Preheat oven to 325.
2- Cream together the butter and sugar until light and creamy. Sift together the flour, cocoa and espresso powder. Mix into the butter mixture in batches until a soft dough forms.
3- Turn the dough out onto a floured surface and knead lightly until smooth.
4- Pack the dough into a cookie press fitted with the desired plate. Press the cookies out onto a lightly buttered cookie sheet about 1" apart.
5- Bake 10-15 minutes until the edges are firm and cookies are very slightly browned.

King Cake

For years I have wanted to make a King Cake for Mardi Gras, but I always seemed to remember the plan when it was too late to go through the whole process of letting it rise and whatnot. This year I managed to plan enough ahead to make one. Now, I decided to go slightly nontraditional with the recipe, but still included a small plastic baby (of course warning everyone not to choke). According to the new tradition, the person who gets the baby has to host the next Mardi Gras party or provide the next year's King Cake.

King Cake

1 plastic baby trinket
Green, purple and yellow colored sugars

For the bread:

1 envelope active dry yeast
2 Tbsp warm water
1 tsp salt
2 Tbsp sugar
1/4 cup milk
1 tsp orange rind (I used dried, but you could use fresh if you wanted.)
1 tsp lemon peel (Again, I used dried.)
2 cups flour
1 tsp cinnamon
2 eggs, beaten
1 1/4 sticks cold unsalted butter, cut into very small pieces

1- Dissolve the yeast in the warm water in a small bowl and set aside until frothy.
2- Combine the salt, sugar, milk, orange rind and lemon peel in a mixing bowl (if you plan to use a dough hook, you can put this in the bowl for your mixer). Mix in the yeast mixture.
3- Sift together the cinnamon and flour.
4- With mixer on low speed, add the eggs to the liquid ingredient mixture. Then gradually add the flour mixture until incorporated. Knead for ten minutes or until a smooth, elastic dough is formed. Add the butter pieces in small amounts, but quickly so they do not melt.
5- Turn the dough into an oiled bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Let rise for 1 hour.
6- When the dough has doubled in bulk, punch down and put in the fridge overnight.
7- Preheat the oven to 350.
8- Roll dough out to a 6x18 rectangle. Spread the filling out in the middle over the whole length leaving a 1" margin around the edges. Place the baby in the filling. Fold the length of the dough over the filling and roll up tightly with the seam side down. Put one end inside the other to seal the dough in a wreath shape. Place the cake on a baking sheet, cover with plastic wrap and let rise for 45 minutes or until doubled in bulk.
9- Bake for 30 minutes or until golden brown.
10- When the cake cools, spread the glaze over evenly and decorate with colored sugars.

For the filling:

1 cup pecan halves, broken up slightly and roasted (I think I would use pecan pieces next time.)
2/3 cup brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground allspice
1 pinch of salt
2 Tbsp molasses
2 Tbsp light corn syrup

1- Combine all of the ingredients together.

For the glaze:

1 cup confectioner's sugar
1 Tbsp bourbon
milk

1- Combine the sugar and bourbon.
2- Add enough milk to make the glaze fluid enough to spread thinly.

Almond Cherry Coffeecake

I had some dried cherries leftover from the Cherry Cream Cheese Braid that I wanted to use up and get out of my cupboard. So I turned to the internet and found a dried cherry cake recipe that I changed up to make my own. I took it to work and everyone liked it, but the almond rather overpowered the cherry. I have listed the recipe as I made it with my suggestions for the next time around.

Almond Cherry Coffeecake

1/2 cup chopped dried cherries (I would increase this to a cup.)
1/2 cup hot water
1/2 tsp. almond extract (I would eliminate this.)
1/2 tsp. Kirsch (I would up this to 1 tsp. You could use cherry extract if you don't want to spend the money on Kirsch.)
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt
1 cup white sugar
6 oz. light black cherry yogurt (I would use 8 oz. of black cherry.)
2 oz. light vanilla yogurt
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 egg
1 egg white
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup slivered almonds
1/8 cup flour
2 Tbsp. butter, melted

1- Combine cherries, hot water, almond extract and Kirsch in a bowl. Let stand for 20 minutes. Drain cherries and pat dry. Set aside.
2- In a large bowl, combine 1 1/2 cups flour, salt, baking powder and white sugar. Add yogurt, eggs and oil. Stir well. Fold in cherries. Pour batter into a greased and floured 9" round cake pan.
3- Combine brown sugar, almonds, 1/8 cup flour in a small bowl. Stir in melted butter until well mixed. Sprinkle over the top of the cake. (You will have a lot of topping. If you felt like doing the ratio math to lessen it a bit, you probably could.)
4- Bake at 350 degrees for 35 minutes. Serve warm or room temperature.

Welsh Rarebit

No picture on this one because it is rather unattractive. I don't think there is anything you could do to this recipe to make it pretty. However, when I made it for New Year's Eve and New Year's Day, everyone liked the taste. Once you get past the ugly nature and silly name, you have what Petras described as a fancy, open grilled cheese.

Welsh Rarebit

2 Tbsp butter
2 Tbsp flour
1 Tbsp mustard powder (or to taste)
1/2 tsp cayenne (or to taste)
3/4 cup strong dark beer (I used Guinness.)
2 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce (or to taste)
1 lb. Cheddar, Double Gloucester or other English cheese, grated (I used a mixture of aged white cheddar and Dubliner.)
4 to 8 pieces lightly toasted bread (I put thin slices of Italian bread in the broiler so I could toast lots at a time.)

1- Put butter in a saucepan over medium head and, as it melts, stir in flour. Continue to cok, stirring occasionally, until golden brown and very fragrant, 3 to 5 minutes. Stir in mustard and cayenne, then whisk in beer and Worcestershire sauce.
2- When mixture is uniform, turn heat to low and stir in cheese, again stirring until smooth. Remove from heat and pour into a broad container to set (you can refrigerate for up to a day at this point).
3- Spread mixture thickly on toast and put under broiler until bubbly and edges of toast are crisp. Serve immediately.

Creole Bread Pudding With Irish Whiskey Sauce

I got this recipe from a magazine that Mr. Watkins showed me at work. He said I should give it a try someday since I'm such a baker. Well, that sounded like a challenge to me. So I made it for the First Annual Turducken Day Dinner. It is eggier than most bread puddings I've had, but I think that makes for a nice change. It's dense but good. I had some and just picked around the raisins. A good reason to use dark ones instead of golden ones. One of the group at dinner said it was almost like french toast in a dessert form. I would absolutely make this again.

Creole Bread Pudding with Irish Whiskey Sauce

For the bread pudding

3/4 lb. French bread in 1/2" slices (I used a long, thin Italian bread because I couldn't find French bread. I think it worked out just fine.)
1 cup dark raisins
18 large eggs (Yes, for serious.)
4 1/2 cups heavy cream (Yes, for serious.)
2 cups sugar
1 Tbsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/4 cup unsalted butter

1- Arrange the bread in overlapping rows in a 9x13 dish (the deeper the better). Sprinkle with raisins.
2- Beat eggs, cream, 1 1/2 cups sugar, 2 tsp cinnamon and nutmeg in a medium bowl.
3- Pour half over the bread and press down. (I put a piece of foil down then put another 9x13 pan on top and weighed it down with heavy stuff.) Let it sit for 15 minutes.
4- Pour the remaining egg mixture on the bread. (The recipe calls for pressing it down again, but when I tried that it ended up spilling some of the egg mixture out so I skipped it. If you have a deep pan you may be okay.) Let it sit (pressed or no) for 15 minutes.
5- Combine 1/2 cup sugar and 1 tsp cinnamon. Sprinkle over the bread. Dot with butter.
6- Bake at 250 for 1 1/2 - 2 hours until just set in the center. (I baked it until when I pushed down in the center no more egg mixture came to the top.)

For the sauce

1 cup heavy cream
1 cup whole milk
1/2 cup sugar
7 large egg yolks
1/4 cup Irish whiskey (I used Jameson's.)

1- In a medium saucepan, bring cream and milk to a boil. While waiting for the mixture to boil, whisk together sugar and egg yolks together in a medium bowl.
2- Whisk in hot milk/cream mixture. (Be careful to temper the eggs a bit before just pouring in the hot milk or else you'll scramble the eggs instead of getting a sauce.)
3- In a double boiler, cook the milk/egg mixture over just simmering water stirring constantly until it thickens slightly, about 12 minutes or so. (It doesn't get ribbon thick. You'll notice the slight thickening by added resistance on the spoon while you stir.)
4- Pour through a fine sieve. (My mixture didn't have any lumps so I skipped this step... perhaps because I tempered the eggs.)
5- Stir in whiskey.

Serve the bread pudding at any temperature you like. I wouldn't go with seriously chilled. Room temperature worked for us. The whiskey sauce should be kept cold and served on the side.

Individual Teriyaki Meatloaves

There's no picture for this one as the meat I used was frozen and so didn't caramelize and look pretty enough for a photo. But it still tasted good so that's all that really matters, right? Anyway, this is a good make ahead complete dinner that can be frozen and kept for a later date, which means less grabbing of Fairmount Pizza on my way home. So that's a good thing as well.

Individual Teriyaki Meatloaves

1/4 cup unseasoned bread crumbs (the Italian seasoning ones would taste a bit strange with the teriyaki)
1/4 cup teriyaki glaze/marinade
1/4 tsp garlic-pepper blend
1 lb of ground beef (or beef/buffalo/turkey/other meat mix of your choice)
2 cups baby carrots
1 15oz can baby corn, drained
8 small red potatoes, quartered (These were not in the original recipe, but I like them added.)

Preheat oven to 400. Make four 18"x12" foil sheets and spray with Pam (or if you are using the Reynolds Release foil you can omit this step).

In a medium bowl, beat the egg until mixed. Add bread crumbs, 2 Tbsp teriyaki glaze and garlic-pepper blend. (I also added salt as I love it, and the teriyaki glaze I have isn't too salty.) Mix until well blended. Add the meat and mix well. Form the mixture into four individual loaves (about 4"x2" and about 1" thick).

Place 1/2 cup carrots, 1/4 cup baby corn, 2 red potatoes and one meatloaf onto a sheet of foil. Drizzle with additional 2 Tbsp of teriyaki glaze. Seal the edges by bringing the ends together and folding the seam over a few times making a rectangular packet. Repeat with other foil and loaves.

Bake for 25-35 minutes on a cookie sheet or pan. The recipe suggests turning the packet over halfway. I did this and it made a bit of a mess as some of the glaze comes out. When I tried it a second time, I did not flip it and it came out just fine.

Individual Creme Brulee

Recipe to be added later.