Category: Baking

Baking

Cheesy Craisin Puffs…Holiday Leftover Idea

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I came up with this recipe   a few years ago for a Ocean Spray Competition. Nothing came of it, but I feel they are quite good and an excellent way to use leftovers if you have lingering holiday guests, open houses, or what have you. You can make  these for any event using cooked turkey breast or leftovers. I like that the prep can be done in advance.  The puffs are essentially Gougeres, that can be baked ahead and stored in airtight containers for 1 day or frozen until use.The Chicken or Turkey Salad can also be made ahead until assembly.

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Cheesy Craisins Chicken or Turkey  Puffs

makes 40 appetizers

Puff Ingredients
1 cup milk
8 tbsp butter ( 1 stick)
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp sugar
1 cup all purpose flour
4 large eggs
1/2 cup Craisins chopped fine or dried cranberries
1/2 cup Swiss or Gruyere Cheese grated
1 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp poultry seasoning
Pinch of Cayenne Pepper
* a large Piping bag or Ziploc bag
Craisins Chicken Salad
3 1/2 cups cooked chopped chicken breast or turkey breast
1/2 cup Craisins chopped fine
1/4 cup finely chopped  peeled apple
1/2 cup Mayonnaise
1 tsp Dijon mustard or extra strong mustard
1/2 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp turmeric
salt to taste
Puff Preparation:
In a heavy bottomed saucepan, add milk,butter, sugar, and salt, and bring to a boil over medium heat.Stir while  the mixture is coming to a boil.Turn down heat or remove . Add the flour and mix until combined with a wooden spoon. Turn up heat to medium and mix the dough until it forms a ball and none is sticking to the sides of the pan. This will take a few minutes.
In a large bowl with a electric mixer or a stand mixer with paddle attachment, add the dough. Carefully add the eggs, one at a time until all is incorporated . Add the cheese , Craisins, and spices. Mix well.
Fill either a large Piping Bag or a Ziploc bag with the dough mixture. Cut the tip opening to no more than 1/2 inch in diameter( this will allow the dough to be piped, without the Craisins bits blocking the opening).
Preheat oven to 350 F.
On a parchment or Silpat lined baking sheet , pipe small bite size rounds of dough. Smooth any pointed tips with an oiled/buttered spoon.
Bake for 30 minutes or until golden brown.
Remove from oven and let cool on rack. When cool enough to handle, take a small serrated knife and slit the puffs to prevent sogginess. Store in an airtight container, freeze, or set aside until ready to fill.
Craisins Chicken Salad Preparation:
In a large bowl  combine  chicken, Craisins, apple, mayonnaise, mustard, and spices. Mix well. Allow to set for at least 1 hour in the refrigerator.
Assembly
Take a slit puff and fill with a generous mound of Craisins Chicken Salad.Assemble on a platter and serve at room temperature.

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Marzipan Eyeballs…Great Hallow Tweet Halloween Blog Hop

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It’s that time of year again . Time for the Great Hallow Tweet. Now many of my faithful readers know that I like  to craft both the beautiful and macabre from edible sources. So naturally with Halloween coming up , why not some edible eyeballs amongst the pumpkins. I don’t have kids, but I think they will love this easy project. Serve them up on a bed of almonds for a homemade candy . You can make your own marzipan or buy it.  I find with most brands I like to add a bit of mine own flavor. Rather than knead color in , the colors are painted on. This a great gluten free, child friendly, no cook recipe project.

Be sure to visit my other ghoulish partners in the Great Hallow Tweet on my sidebar for other fantastic ideas and recipes.

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Marzipan  Eye Balls

Things you will need:

  • Food Grade Color gels from Wilton or other sugar craft supply source (White, Blue, Black, and Red)
  • Good quality Marzipan. A little goes a long way.
  • 3-4 small brushes used only for cake decorating.
  •  A few tablespoons Clear Vanilla Extract or Vodka/Rum to dilute food color gel
  • Piping tip to make indentation.
  • Toothpicks  to remove color and drag paint veins in eyes.

*Normally I steam finish my marzipan’s to set the color,however as this is a child friendly recipe, you can skip this step.

How To:

  1.  Roll marzipan’s into round balls.
  2.  Take a piping tip and indent the shape of an Iris. This will help keep your colors in place and add depth.
  3.  Dilute your white food color gel with clear alcohol (vodka or clear extract)
  4.  Paint eyeball white with the exception of Iris.
  5.  Paint Iris color of choice.
  6. Paint Pupil Black.
  7. Taking a thin brush or toothpick dragged in red gel, paint on veins on the whites.
  8.   Lift with offset spatula and let set and dry.

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Suggested Serving Ideas:

  • Boxed up for your  party guests
  • Cupcake or Cake toppers
  • On a tray of almonds

 

Chorizo Rolls Made from Fresh Homemade Chorizo

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I like to grind my own meat and make my own bread, I confess. Nowadays with ever increasing food safety issues and economy, its a sure bet to make your own ground meat. So having purchased a 9 lb pork belly and having some packs of LEMS Cured Sausage Seasonings,I did.After removing the skin and ribs from my whole pork belly , I put it through the grinder, and added their Chorizo mix, and let sit in the fridge overnight to meld the flavors. The end result was approx 7lb or so of ground sausage. Half went into the freezer for later use ( see economy!) , an the other made tray of our favorite stuffed vegetables and stuffed rolls.

Certain Someone and I love these, and with the seasons turning, there is bounty of wonderful vegetables to stuff . These stuffed vegetables make great leftovers and save me from cooking for a few days.

What I really wanted to do was make some soft rolls stuffed with the sausage and cheese. Sandy , the creator of BYOB, gave me a recipe for a soft roll,a while ago when I was working on some bread ideas for Chef at the caterer. I wanted a soft , time effective roll . Loving her recipe , I decided to add sausage and cheese to it. I can imagine so many uses. I actually made about 22 rolls with this recipe as I was stuffing them. They are pretty quick and easy and can be made in an hours time. Serve them up for entertaining while watching football games, to go for lunch, outings, etc. If you are not up to making your own sausage use store purchased fresh chorizo or other sausage.

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Chorizo Rolls

  • 1 /2 lb Chorizo cooked and drained
  • 3 balls of fresh Mozzarella cut into cubes
  • Dried Thyme for dusting

The Dough from Sandy

  • 2 cups warm milk, about 115 degrees F
  • 4 tablespoons butter or margarine, melted
  • 1/4 cup warm water, about 115 degrees F
  • 2 – 4 tablespoons white sugar, to taste
  • 2 packages instant yeast (about 1 tablespoon plus 1/2 teaspoon)
  • 2 teaspoons salt
  • 6 cups all-purpose flour, more as needed
  1. Combine milk, butter, water, sugar, yeast and salt in a large mixing bowl. Stir in flour until a soft dough forms. Knead until smooth; add flour if necessary until no longer sticky.
  2. Roll into rope and divide into 25 pieces; form into balls.
  3. Flatten each ball with hands and stuff with 1 tsp of cooked drained choirzo and 1 piece of cheese.
  4. Seal ends with finger tips and gently shape roll.
  5. Place on parchment with sealed side down.
  6. Place on parchment-lined baking sheets and press down to flatten slightly. Let rise about 20 minutes.
    Preheat oven to 375 F.
  7. Brush rolls with egg yolk and dust with Thyme, if desired. Bake for 15 minutes.
  8. Cool on rack.

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I submit these rolls to BYOB.

Cooking For Isaiah…Gluten Free and Dairy Free… A Book Review

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Let me preface this post by saying I’m not Gluten Free nor do I have any plans, God willing , of turning to a Gluten Free diet. As of late the whole food allergy issue is just exploding. Now all of sudden people are claiming to be allergic to Gluten, or this and that and it creates many challenges as a host or cook to make sure everyone is taken care of. Look in any aisles of the supermarket and the Gluten Free Category is taking off .

… In fact, the number of kids with food allergies went up 18 percent from 1997 to 2007, according the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And about 3 million children younger than 18 had a food or digestive allergy in 2007, the CDC said…

I admit I’m a bit of a cynic with all these professed limitations food wise people claim to have. The reason being I have seen a few people in my world just latch on the fad and diet craze, believing Gluten Free will make them thinner. However I do acknowledge , there are many with serious allergies out there. And for them I applaud Cooking For Isaiah by Silvana Nardone for the love of her child Isaiah , who was stricken with both gluten and dairy allergies. Silvana is a former bakery owner and founding editor of Every Day With Rachel Ray. She defiantly  has the food chops and credentials, but love is her motivating factor in writing Cooking For Isaiah. 135 recipes of gluten and dairy free recipes  from breakfast to desserts, and all that falls in between. As with any great book her basic sections includes her Silvana’s All Purpose Flour Blend , Silvana’s Pancake Mix, and charts for substitutions to cook and bake gluten and dairy free.

As baking is my primary interest I went ahead and made Silvana’s All Purpose Flour Blend. If you look on a grocery aisle a small box of Gluten Free Flour ranges in the neighborhood of $5. Making Silvana’s blend gave me probably 6x that amount. Way more economical , as going Gluten Free isn’t cheap or easy. Silvana is very pro certain brands likes Bobs Red Mill or  Shiloh Farms as she believes they influence taste. I had most of her brands but went with a bulk off brand of Rice Flour purchased in an Ethnic Market (Swad Brand for Indian Foods).

I’m not one to follow a cookbook exactly but use it for inspiration. So having made the flour blends, I attempted to make the Cherry Turnover recipe with Cinnamon Glaze. The whole texture and feel of Gluten Free dough takes some getting used to, and while she warned to not be afraid of crumbling dough, and to make water your friend, my turnovers didn’t turn over. So I plopped the dough and my cherry blend into a mini loaf pan made a cobbler with that pie crust. I also made a mini pie with the other half of ingredients.

I found the dough was crisp and flaky. The taste took some getting used to, but that can be attributed to the rice flour brand I used.As I’m not dairy free, I want to use butter next time for this Gluten Free Pie Crust rather than vegetable shortening.

Having plenty of Silvana’s All Purpose Flour Blend left I decided to make her Pizza Crusts. All of her Pizza Recipes are Dairy Free. I need cheese on my pizza, and just worked on her crusts from the book. The Gluten Free Pizza crusts are assembled and pre baked. One can freeze them or make up the pizzas right there. No real rising time is needed with the yeast which perplexed me. Again, another oddly textured dough .You need to forget about your preconceived notions of traditional baking when baking Gluten Free. My crust didn’t puff in my new super hot oven. Maybe I rolled it to thin. What I got was  a tasty crisp flat bread with the right sugar/salt content, that I added cheese , Mortadella , and basil to. Was it tasty? Yes , it was, . Was it what I think of as pizza dough, not quite. But it was pretty good for what I expected from Gluten Free. From the two recipes I tried, I prefer the savory applications as the topping of the pizza absorb the different tastes of Gluten Free flour blends. The texture still takes some getting used to.

Cooking For Isaiah is  great introduction to the world of Gluten Free. Besides baking, Silvana has many  main dishes, soups, rice, salads, vegetables and sides to chose from. I’m amazed at her creativity with the limitations set. You will find recipes the whole family can enjoy, In my case I will use this book to be conscientious host, cook, friend, and caterer to those that  have gluten and dairy restrictions. Cooking for Isaiah has a wealth of ideas.

Visit Silvana’s  Blog Dish Towel Diaries