Archive for March, 2006
Loaf cakes are not generally considered to be the most elegant cakes, but I love them. I think that having tall, rich-looking slices fall away from the loaf as you cut into it is beautiful. Come to think of it, I actually like all loafy baked goods, from savory yeast breads to sweet quick breads for breakfast. I think that loaf cakes are elegant and versatile.
Appearances aside, they do have other strong points. First, is portion size. It is extremely easy to slice a loaf into the perfect size for any appetitie. You can get 8 slices out of the loaf, or 16 for a group of light eaters. It’s less intimidating than a whole round cake. It is also much easier to transport. If you wrap up a loaf cake with plastic wrap, you can carry it around like a football without worring about the cake cracking and breaking. This is a huge bonus if you want to take the cake to a friend’s for dinner or to a party at the office.
I first saw this recipe on Who Want’s Seconds?, a beautifully photographed blog, and I’ve been meaning to make it for quite some time. I felt that the Mexican Chocolate Cake would do well as a loaf, developing a slightly crisp exterior and slicing into even, rich slices – and I was right. The only problem I had was with the amount of batter. Though a 9 x 5 x 3.5-inch loaf pan has the same capacity as the 9-inch round cake pan, I failed to realise that the “9-inch cake pan” mentioned in the original recipe was a square one and larger than the capacity of my loaf pan. I simply measured out four cupcakes worth of batter into a lined muffin tin and baked those off separately. The loaf, minus the cupcakes, had the perfect amount of batter.
The spicing in this cake was spot-on. The cinnamon flavor was present but not overwhelming in the least and there were subtle hints of coffee and orange that made it seem very exotic. The flavors blended well enough that when you took a bit of the cake you only thought of how tasty it was, not the individual spices. It was very chocolaty and I loved the fact that it is made with cocoa powder instead of melted chocolate. Not only does this help keep the cake from getting dense, but it has a lovely, bittersweet quality from the cocoa. I like it plain, like a pound cake, but feel free to serve it with whipped cream, if desired.
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Fruit is something that we could all eat a little more of. As much as I love fruit, I tend to think of it as a morning or early afternoon snack, not as something substantial. For serious snacking, I generally turn towards savory foods, like pita chips, crackers and hummus. Fruit can be filling though, and it is likely to satisfy both your hunger and your sweet tooth – something that a salty snack won’t quite do.
These fruit kebabs are really fun. I had a great time making them for myself, but they are the sort of thing that a kid would love to have or make. You need a variety of fruits and some wooden skewers. The best fruits are firmer ones, like melons, pineapple, apples and berries. Bananas are great, too, but don’t forget to toss the slices with a little bit of lemon or orange juice to prevent them from browning too quickly. Brown bananas were always a huge turn off to me when I was young, though they do not bother me in the least now. On these skewers, I also have slices of ripe mango.
If you cut your fruit just right, you will have enough exposed surface area to use a small cookie cutter to cut the fruit into shapes. The main goal of cutting up the fruit is to have each piece be no larger than bite-size, but having a little bit of fun with the cookie cutters is worth it (especially with kids), when you have the chance.
The yogurt dip is what makes this more than just fruit on a stick. A dip makes something seem more complete, even more special or satisfying. I used my favorite nonfat Fage Greek yogurt, which is thicker than most regular yogurts and clings to the fruit a bit better. I sweetened the plain, slightly tangy yogurt with vanilla, cinnamon, honey and orange zest. The orange zest is the key ingredient in bringing all the flavors together in the dip. The sweetness of the honey, along with the hint of citrus, enables the dip to pair perfectly with the rest of the fruits, highlighting their natural sweetness.
Feel free to change the amount of each flavor to your tastes, increasing the honey if you want your dip to be sweeter, but be sure to include everything.
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As far as I can tell, “monkey bars” are a name that is sometimes applied to banana bread baked as a bar-type cake rather than in a loaf pan. The real distinction in this case between a “bar” and a “cake” is the thickness, as the banana bars are not as thick as a banana cake would be. Monkey bars are just a really cute name that I – along with hundreds and thousands of others – happen to like, so this recipe is one for them, rather than one for banana bars or something similar.
The base has a higher sugar to flour ratio than a lot of banana breads, which makes it a bit denser and more stable; the texture is bar-appropriate. These can be packed into lunches as a dessert or substitute for a cookie and they can also be toasted for breakfast. You’ll probably note the chocolate chips that are evident in the piece above, which might not make it wholly breakfast-worthy for some. The chocolate chips are actually Milk Chocolate and Caramel Swirl chips made by Nestle. I wanted to use plain chocolate chips, but much to my astonishment, had none at home. These morsels tasted great, though. While too sweet on their own, they really blended well into the batter and gave the whole bar a surprisingly rich taste.
These bars only take a few minutes to whip up. I recommended using a food processor for the wet ingredients because this isn’t the sort of bar that you want to have chunks of banana in. If you do, that makes it a bit more banana bread-like than monkey bar-like, but the choice is, ultimately, your own.
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Buckwheat pancakes are one ot the two types that most frequently appear on restaurant and diner menus, the other being buttermilk. As a kid, I always avoided them because I was suspicious of their darker brown appearance, but not I know better.
Buckwheat flour on its own has a strong and somewhat bitter taste, but it becomes very interesting and complex when used with other things. It is gluten free, so it often appears in gluten free cookery and baking. The bitter taste is fairly easily tempered by mixing the buckwheat flour with other ingredients. All-purpose flour (ap flour) will help rein it in, but one of the most commonly added flavors to buckwheat seems to be molasses, proably since it, too, has a strong flavor.
In any even, these pancakes are neither bitter nor overly sweet. The recipe comes from the Post-Gazette’s recipe section, where they are called Cape Cod Buckwheat Cakes. I did add a bit of brown sugar to round out the final flavor. The pancakes come together very easily and taste delicious. They taste of lightly sweetened whole grains and are very, very light, in no small part because buckwheat flour is gluten free. I added blueberries, but fresh and dried, to the batter once I spooned some onto a hot grill. The blueberries added enough natural sweetness that I really didn’t need a lot of syrup on the pancakes, but I preferred the dried slightly over the fresh.
Keeping with diner tradition, I actually went ahead and made these the size of dinner plates, but the recipe makes quite a few more normally sized cakes, even if they’re not quite so impressive to look at.
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I know that not every food blogger will feel this way, but I like Rachael Ray. I actually met her, albeit at a book signing, about a year ago. She’s just like she is on her shows: happy, cheerful and full of smiles. I belive that she is 37, but she seems younger. In any event, even if you aren’t a fan of her perky nature, she has done a lot for home cooking. For many years, even if people wanted to cook for their families, they couldn’t spare the time or they thought they couldn’t spare the time. Now, people are encouraged by seeing quick and delicious meals on TV and are getting back into the kitchen. I like Rachael for that.
For this Is My Blog Burning event, hosted by Too Many Chefs, the theme was make a meal in 30 minutes. I was tempted to use a Rachael Ray recipe, since I do have more than one of her books (and a signed one, no less), but I decided to go with something a little more unusual. I started browsing Epicurious and came up with their recipe for Banana-Black Bean Empanadas. It involved caramelised banana slices and spiced, mashed black beans stuffed into a golden, crispy empanada – delicious and a little out of the ordinary, with a bit of caribean flair. But the recipe took more time than I was prepared to spend, not to mention that fried puff-pastry anything is something that I would rather save for a special occasion than have as a weeknight supper. I took the filling and wrapped it into homemade corn tortillas. I’ve had a lot of practice rolling tortillas, so the whole thing took me less than 20 minutes. If you use store-bought corn tortillas, you can have dinner on the table in 15.
Did I mention that they taste good, too? I loved the sweetness of the bananas and how they moistened the bean filling. I also loved the crisp, caramel-y edges of the bananas that had been seared into the pan.
I doused the tacos with some chipotle salsa before serving. Delish.
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