Category: Baking

Baking

Palmiers

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palmiers (cookies) on a white plate

As baking fiascos go, my first palmiers rank with 1970s baked rum balls and pumpkin pie sans sugar.  What looks easy-peasy as YouTube pastry chefs deftly handle the puff pastry sheets, adroitly fold, evenly cut, and perfectly place each sugared confection which then blooms into a delicate crunch resembling a heart or elephant ears (depending on your perspective) my batch resembled fireplace kindling twigs.  As they came out of the oven, I blamed the results on the gluten-free product but after a more careful review, the problems were operator-error.  Since I bought pastry dough instead of puff pastry sheets, I had cinnamon sugared crusts reminiscent of the pie remnants at my Grandma K.’s. Not to be deterred, I am off to the store for the correct ingredient.

PS – The picture perfect palmiers are courtesy of food photographer Elise Bauer. My mistake definitely did not resemble these dessert treats.

Baking · Reading

A – Apple Pie

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1886 illustration of A Apple with children dancing around an apple pie
apple pie on wooden pie rest sitting on gray granite counter

For many years, during the children’s librarian portion of my career, I collected alphabet books. This A to Z selection of titles included an eclectic mix ranging from Anno’s Alphabet: An Adventure in Imagination by Anno Mitsumasa ©1988 to Antler, Bear, Canoe: A Northwoods Alphabet, written and illustrated by Betsy Bowen ©2002. These picture books, while certainly appropriate learning tools for children, could also be appreciated by the adult reader due to the intricacies found on each page. Interestingly, my collection did not include the popular 19th century edition by Kate Greenway but as the first dessert baked at Solstice Place was an apple pie, I will give a nod to her 1886 original wood engraving A – Apple Pie.

Baking · Gardening

Tasty Rhubarb Scones

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five rhubarb scones on a blue plate

Fresh rhubarb pecan scones arrive hot from the oven in honor of this first day of meteorological summer.  Our lush rhubarb patch with five plants on the south side of the garage sprouted early and produced crisps in April, bread and cakes in May, and dozens of scones baked each month.

Moving from the alley to our raised bed, nearly all the planting is complete thanks to the healthy selections at Sargent’s on 2nd and Annie’s in Madison: beets, cucumbers, nasturtiums, peppers, potatoes, tomatoes, and zucchini, as well as garlic that survived a dry, nearly snowless winter.  We revel in the wonder that is summer in Minnesota, where we experience frigid short winter days only to enjoy, just months later, long fertile growing hours.

Baking

A was an apple pie…

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photo from the University of Minnesota shows two frames on the left red and yellow honeycrisp apples on the right honeycrisp apples on the tree with green leaves

A Minnesota agricultural development and everyone’s favorite apple, Honeycrisp!

For decades, I only enjoyed this tasty fruit as a hand-to-mouth delight. I never thought to move it into the kitchen for baking. That is, until this year, when Honeycrisp kept showing up as I investigated single layer cake recipes good when eaten fresh but also easily frozen for delayed desserts.

So, after an orchard visit on Wednesday that included the purchase of a peck of apples at the Pepin Heights Store and Richard’s request for a pie, I can attest that Honeycrisps bake up nicely. The fruit’s natural sweetness allows the baker to reduce the amount of refined sugar. The slices cook up to that perfect texture – holding their shape without being too firm and soft without being mushy.  Likewise, the French Apple Cake with apples chopped into 1/4-to-3/8-inch cubes delivered a simple rustic confection, especially when flavored with dark rum.

Yumm!

Photo credit: University of Minnesota College of Food, Agricultural and Natural Resources Sciences

Baking

Peach Pie: Summer in every bite

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peach pie with decorative sugar and chicken cookie cutter outline on top crust

I finally added that quintessential summer dessert, the peach pie, to my baking repertoire. Other than disliking the tactile feeling of peach fuzz when eating this fruit whole, I am not sure why I avoided making this delicious blend of fruit, sugar, and cinnamon.  An omission now rectified using Momma’s recipe via Betty Crocker.

I have fond memories of Momma buying fresh Colorado peaches by the crate; each precious, ripe orb wrapped in soft pale-yellow tissue paper. Those delicate papers (in my doll playing days) were transformed from protective practicality to fairy fluttering doll dresses.

Each crate provided a sufficient quantity of ripe fruit that a portion could simply be eaten.  Tasting as if fresh from the tree and bitten into like an apple, we leaned forward slightly to allow plump juices to inevitably dribble down our chins and drip on the concrete. But a large portion filled double crusted pies. Some of the pies were baked in the cool morning hours and then enjoyed in the early evening with vanilla ice cream and others, oven-ready, were frozen. These Momma retrieved on harsh winter days, and they served as memories of summer warmth.  She always saved one for Dad’s February 16 birthday when it became a birthday pie complete with candles.

Bon Appétit!

Baking · Gardening

Lemonless Lemonade

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muffins on a blue plate and a glass of pink lemonade
Sour cream rhubarb muffins & rhubarb-ade

This summer’s crop of rhubarb is full to nearly overwhelming.  Which is why, having already baked my forever favorite – rhubarb pecan scones, as well as two loaves of bread, three crisps, a dozen muffins, and two batches of sauce for the freezer, I recently spent a rainy afternoon checking cookbook indexes for variations on the rhubarb theme.

New to my repertoire is rhubarb lemonade although, for truth in advertising, this lemonade uses no lemons. “Rhubarb-ade” is easy to prepare with the added benefit of being high in vitamin C.

Directions:  Chop three cups of rhubarb, place in a glass bowl, cover with water and let this rest on the kitchen counter overnight; strain and sweeten to taste.  The sweet-tart, pink concoction is a refreshing summer beverage (even if the rhubarb sauce ice cubes proved less than successful as they rested on the bottom of the glass.)

Cheers! Prosit! Sláinte!

Baking

First taste of spring

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two rhubarb scones on a blue plate with one stalk of rhubarb resting along the top edge

While technically a vegetable, rhubarb (tart and firm) enables a baker to make that first garden foray into spring, most often transforming garden goodness into sweet confections. The emerald green, heart shaped leaves emerge after snowmelt with just a few sunny hours during blustery spring days.  The tastiness of deep summer fruits like blueberries and cherries is still just a dream; hidden in the tight buds whose flowers have yet to reveal themselves in riotous color.  Like generations of bakers before me, our rhubarb patch called to my morning creativity and tomorrow we will enjoy a favorite sweet concoction, Rhubarb Pecan Scones.  

With bibliographic appreciation to Kim Ode and her book, Rhubarb Renaissance, published by the Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2012, as part of the northern plate series.

Baking

Sweet Treats

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12 round and heart shaped cookies decorated with pink, red and white frosting on a clear glass plate

Every year, as we start February, a not-so-subtle shift in television advertising occurs.  The increase in ads for diamond studs and men’s fragrances (think Versace’s Roman archer on a pedestal) are aired with the intent to convince the viewer these objects will demonstrate love.

Since our household fits none of the standard marketing demographics, we never succumb – no champagne to tickle the nose or heart-shaped necklaces to store in the dresser drawer.  With a nod to the Victorian card-giving traditions, we may exchange cards although these have been given and then re-given many years over. 

Except, this year will be different.  With a nod to my friend Kim R. for offering cookie decorating classes at the recent church fundraising auction, Richard and I will enjoy an artfully decorated selection of Raspberry Sugar Cookies and Brownie Rolled Cookies.  While I will certainly not be going into the cookie decorating business, I am pleased with my first attempts at decorating these sweet concoctions.

Baking

Plus Pecans

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nine oatmeal cookies on a blue-green plate

Today was a snowy baking day although I wasn’t ready to make Candy Cane Cookies or Cappuccino Flats. Yes, I know Christmas is just two weeks and a few days away and holiday baking should be in full swing but I am still in Advent mode.

From the autumn section of Beth Dooley’s The Northern Heartland Kitchen and using craisins harvested just a mile from Mom’s Lac Courte Oreilles house, I tried Beth’s Oatmeal Chocolate Chip and Dried Cranberry Cookies, with two small modifications:

  1. Mine include coarsely chopped pecans – a nod to my southern heritage. Each year, Aunt Mini Lou would send a bushel basket sized box of just fallen pecans, raked from her Alabama lawn and mailed to our Wisconsin house. (Although one year she sent Vidalia onions much to the amusement of our postal delivery person.)
  2. The recipe calls for the stiff dough to be dropped by tablespoon but I opted to use my teaspoon scoop as Richard and I prefer petite rather than ginormous desserts.

They might not be the most photogenic, but the crunch of oatmeal and pecans, combined with the sweetness of chocolate and the cranberry tartness make a delicious treat.

Bon appétit!

Baking

Blueberry Day

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seven blueberry muffins on a blue plate resting on a wood table

While it is officially National Swiss Day (celebratory greetings to all my Swiss cousins!) I have declared this to be Blueberry Day at our house.  I am feeling a time crunch to put our freshly picked produce to good use before leaving for Boston – but more about upcoming travels in tomorrow’s post.  A Double Good Blueberry Pie is chilling in the refrigerator and Blueberry Lemon Muffins are on the menu as tomorrow’s breakfast treat with a few tucked into the freezer for frigid January mornings.

We estimate one more picking will complete this season’s crop.  Our four bushes have produced 16.25 cups thus far; much better than last summer’s yield of only 9.5 cups but not nearly up to the bountiful summers of 2019 and 2020 with 24 and 25 cups, respectively.

The Double Good Blueberry Pie is super easy and, as promised, doubly good with two cups of fresh berries serving as the fruit base in a baked pie shell then topped with two cups of cooked glazed berries.  We will add a dollop of Crème Fraîche to make it extra festive.  

As I misplaced the paper copy of the Blueberry Sour Cream Muffins (shared by Betty D. last summer) and the web address produced an error message, I spent this morning recipe sleuthing (always a fun task.)  The Preppy Kitchen covered my bases – blueberries, lemon and sour cream – although my muffins exclude the streusel topping, all the better to enjoy the berries.

Bon Appétit!