Orange Sherbet

This is the orange sherbet I made to go with the Tuiles. It was slightly painful to make because I was juicing citrus just after slicing through my finger.

For those of you wondering, sherbet is not the same as sorbet. Sorbet, and the Italian sorbetto, is an ice made from fruit, sugar and other non-dairy ingredients. Sherbet contains 1-5% milk solids, depending on who you ask. Ice cream usually has 10-20% milk solids, just for comparison purposes.

The tuiles didn't come out so good but the sherbet is really good. It only took a couple minutes to prep, no eggs to temper and strain and all that fun stuff. So at least something good came out of my failed tuiles.



Orange Sherbet
based on this recipe from the New York Times

3 oranges, juiced and zested
1 lemon, juiced
ginger ale
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp gelatin
1/2 cup heavy cream

Put the gelatin in a bowl with enough water to mix it in. Heat the gelatin in 15 second shots until it dissolves.
In a measuring cup, add the juices and add enough ginger ale to get it to 1 1/2 cups.
Add the sugar to the gelatin and add some juice.
Heat for a few seconds just to dissolve the sugar.
Add the rest of the juice.
Chill until cold.
Churn the juice mix and cream in an ice cream maker however you normally do that.
Firm up in the freezer.

Daring Bakers: Tuiles

This recipe was a pretty easy month. No 18 components that all need to be baked separately. No really random ingredients that I didn't already have. The recipe is so simple I could probably do it on a weeknight after I got home from work. Piece of cake!

The biggest concern was the bit about something fruity. What's fruity and January? The only things I could think of was citrus and bananas. I had a lot of trouble with this. I spent a couple weeks just trying to think of something fruity that would work with these. Something that wouldn't make the tuiles turn to mush because it's too liquidy but something that's not a cake with random things stuck on top.

Fortunately I saw a recipe for Tangerine Sherbet and decided that would be it. It was warm enough the day I decided to make it, in the 50's, to keep sherbet from being too inappropriate for January. When I looked at the tangerines I had they weren't looking so good. I had had them for a few weeks and was trying to use them up but oh well. I had some oranges so I made orange sherbet instead. More on that in a separate post tomorrow.

I can't say I'm thrilled with how mine came out. It did the same thing as my 'crisp' layer of the yule log came out. Meaning a rubbery disk. I don't know what I am doing wrong and I think I am giving up on these types of things. They just are not working out for me.

I took a couple pics of it with the sherbet but I don't feel like posting them because the tuiles just did not work out and it seems wrong to post pics of it when it failed so badly. This was a sad Daring Bakers challenge. Hopefully next month will work out better.

Edit: Here's a pic



This month's challenge is brought to us by Karen of Baking Soda and Zorra of 1x umruehren bitte aka Kochtopf.
They have chosen Tuiles from The Chocolate Book by Angélique Schmeink and Nougatine and Chocolate Tuiles from Michel Roux.

Finger

This is my poor finger. For the record, it is really hard to take a picture of your own finger. Since I am left handed, I cut my right index finger. So to take a picture of it I had to hold the camera with my left hand, thumb on the bottom to try and stabilize it, and then snap the picture and try to hold it still enough to take the pic. The first couple I tried to get a close up but it came out really blurry. The first one I tried I didn't even get my finger.

So the split down the length of the nail... that is how it grew back when I smashed it in a car door a couple years ago. I thought it would close but it never seemed to. The nail grows in, in 2 sections and the side at the top of the pic grows in under the other side. Don't ask me why. I don't know. That's just what it does. I've been trying to make it grow normal but that hasn't worked so far.

Anyway... back to the knife.... I was slicing up some bread for the recipe I posted earlier when I sliced my finger. That would be the slice toward the tip of the nail in the pic. I sliced through the top nail, the bottom nail and into my finger. I actually responded pretty fast and kept it from bleeding much. This is the next day after I cleaned it up. Doesn't look too bad, considering. Anyway, that's my story and now I am typing without my pointer again.

Bacon Spinach Panzanella Salad

I was getting some maple syrup so I could eat the leftover pancakes I had in the fridge for breakfast tomorrow. There was some bread in the clearance section. You know, the stuff from the day before or something. Perfect for making croutons.

From there I decided to make a spinach salad. Doesn't that sound healthy? By spinach salad I mean a bunch of fresh bacon-y croutons, bacon bits, goat cheese with a little spinach. This is still pretty healthy for me.

It was actually really good. Although maybe not the healthiest salad out there, pretty healthy for me. And good. It would have been better if I hadn't cut through my nail and finger while cutting up the bread but oh well. And of course it was the one I smashed a while ago and the nail never quite grew back right. I'll post pics of that after I am less afraid of blood getting everywhere when I take the bandaid off.

I only used about 1/4 of a lemon but it could have used more so I'd go with a half. I'd also add some dried cranberries and some minced garlic to the bacon/bread while it cooks next time.


Bacon Spinach Panzanella Salad

1 strip maple bacon
several slices of French bread, slightly stale and cubed
a drizzle of olive oil
2 big handfuls baby spinach
about 1 oz goat cheese
1/2 lemon

Slice up the bacon into small pieces. Put it in a cold pan.
Add the bread. Drizzle with olive oil.
Turn the pan on medium low.
Cook covered for about 15 mins, tossing occasionally, until you have nice crisp croutons and bacon bits.
Turn the burner off.
Add the spinach, squeeze the lemon over everything and toss so that it wilts a little.
Put it in a large bowl. Sprinkle with goat cheese chunks.

Potato Chip Cookies

I guess Christmas time is cookie time to the rest of the world. So while I refused to bake anything, everywhere I looked I saw cookie recipes. So I bookmarked lots of recipes for later use. This was one of them. I originally saw pics of them on Tastespotting and, well, they seemed different.

They came out pretty decent. Though I think they are a little prettier if you do the cookie press thing mentioned on Noble Pig. I had done them as slice and bake. They didn't look all that pretty. Didn't spread at all. That's OK. Other than that, they were good. The salt from the chips brings out the flavor without being salty



Potato Chip Cookies

2 sticks butter
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup finely chopped walnuts
1/2 cup crushed potato chips
2 cups flour

Cream the butter and sugar.
Add the vanilla.
Stir in the flour, walnuts and chips, just until combined.
Roll into a log.
Roll the log in granulated sugar.
Chill the dough.
Slice and bake.

Cookies

I had a cookie baking marathon. All the doughs I had made since Thanksgiving got baked. Here are some pics.

Citrus Meltaways:


Chocolate Chip Cookies:


Chocolate Butterfinger Cookies:

I also attempted to make Rugelach. They didn't work out so well. I guess I didn't work enough flour in and they ran out all over the pan. I broke it into chunks when it cooled. They still tasted good though they definitely did not come out the way they were supposed to. This is that recipe, though I would work more flour in next time if I try again. Maybe 2 cups flour, scoop and sweep rather than sifted. Well we'll see. No pics of this because it was a mess.


Rugelach
can't remember where I got it from.

1 pack cream cheese, room temperature
2 sticks butter, room temperature
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 tsp kosher salt
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 cups flour, sifted

apricot preserves, pureed

Filling:
6 tbsp sugar
1/4 cup dark brown sugar
1 cup walnuts, finely chopped
1/2 cup raisins

Coating:
1 egg beaten, with 1 tbsp milk
3 tbsp sugar
1 tsp cinnamon

Cream the butter, cream cheese, sugar, salt and vanilla until light and fluffy.
Mix in the flour just until combined.
Split the dough into 4 equal balls.
Wrap the balls in plastic wrap and flatten into disks.
Refrigerate the disks for at least 1 hour to firm up the dough.
Mix together the filling.
Roll out the dough into a 9" circle.
Brush with a thin coating of apricot puree
Cover with the filling.
Cut into 12 equal wedges, like each hour on a clock.
Roll each one up starting on the outside of the circle.
Place on a greased cookie sheet.
Brush with the egg wash and sprinkle on the coating.
Bake at 350 for 15 mins or until done.

Barefoot Bloggers: Pecan Sticky Buns

Time for the next Barefoot Bloggers recipe. This months choices were very me... first the pancakes and now Stick Buns.

We made these Sunday morning for breakfast when K was here. They were really easy and tasty. It only took a few minutes to prep everything. About as long as it took the oven to warm up. Flipping them out is a little bit scary. Here's a tip when making sticky buns in a muffin pan: lay a piece of parchment over the top. Then put a sheet pan over the top. Then flip. Then slowly lift off the pan and check if it released. This helped to keep the buns from flying out all over the place and took away some of the scariness of inverting a pan.

I think I prefer them with a chewier dough. I made them again using the dough from my cinnamon buns rather than puff pastry. Nothing against puff pastry. These were really flaky and all, which is good in some applications. But in this case I think a breadier dough that soaks up more of the sticky gooeyness works better.




Easy Sticky Buns
from Back to Basics, page 240

Makes 12
We used to make really delicious sticky buns at Barefoot Contessa, but they took two days to make because the yeast dough needed to rise overnight in the refrigerator. I was dying to find a way to make them easier, so I decided to try baking them with Pepperidge Farm puff pastry dough, instead. OMG are they good … and they’re really easy to make! Light, flaky dough filled with brown sugar, toasted pecans, and sweet raisins — my friends go crazy when I make these.

12 tablespoons (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/3 cup light brown sugar, lightly packed
1/2 cup pecans, chopped in very large pieces
1 package (17.3 ounces/2 sheets) frozen puff pastry, defrosted for the filling
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled
2/3 cup light brown sugar, lightly packed
3 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 cup raisins

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Place a 12-cup standard muffin tin on a sheet pan lined with parchment paper.

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, combine the 12 tablespoons butter and 1/3 cup brown sugar. Place 1 rounded tablespoon of the mixture in each of the 12 muffin cups. Distribute the pecans evenly among the 12 muffin cups on top of the butter and sugar mixture.

Lightly flour a wooden board or stone surface. Unfold one sheet of puff pastry with the folds going left to right. Brush the whole sheet with half of the melted butter. Leaving a 1-inch border on the puff pastry, sprinkle each sheet with 1/3 cup of the brown sugar, 1 1/2 teaspoons of the cinnamon, and 1/2 cup of the raisins. Starting with the end nearest you, roll the pastry up snugly like a jelly roll around the filling, finishing the roll with the seam side down.

Trim the ends of the roll about 1/2 inch and discard. Slice the roll in 6 equal pieces, each about 1 1/2 inches wide. Place each piece, spiral side up, in 6 of the muffin cups. Repeat with the second sheet of puff pastry to make 12 sticky buns.

Bake for 30 minutes, until the sticky buns are golden to dark brown on top and firm to the touch. Allow to cool for 5 minutes only, invert the buns onto the parchment paper (ease the filling and pecans out onto the buns with a spoon), and cool completely.