Chile-Cheese Bread

Sometimes you need to get out there and try out some new recipes…this is what I keep telling myself.  When I think of a jalapeno-cheddar cheese quick bread, my go-to recipe for ages has been Ina’s (of course) jalapeno cheddar cornbread.  Why mess with a good thing?  It’s great recipe that beats the bugger out of any from-scratch or boxed cornbread mix I’ve ever tried.  But when I saw this recipe pop up on Josie’s blog (a fellow Ina fan and BB member by the way) I was completely drawn in.  I immediately put it on the menu for the following week and drooled every time I thought about making it.

This isn’t a cornbread recipe so don’t be disappointed if that’s what you’re looking for but I can assure you won’t be let down by it nonetheless.  It’s fantastic!  The bread is soft, savory and full of spicy cheesy flavor. We both loved it as a side to some cheddar corn chowder and won’t hesitate to serve it alongside other Mexican dishes in the future.  Aside from the greatness of this bread, it’s an absolute cinch to throw together.  Some quick breads don’t make good on the name but this one definitely does and it took 5 minutes for me to prep.  I realize that trying to scramble around the kitchen while making different parts of a meal is sometimes overwhelming so don’t pass this recipe up if you need a quick side for a meal!

Chlie-Cheddar Bread

source: adapted from Mary Chec, Savory Baking, via Pink Parsley

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons granulated sugar
• 1 Tablespoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 4 ounces (1 cup) extra sharp cheddar cheese, shredded
• 1 cup skim milk
• 1/3 cup vegetable oil
• 1 egg
• 1 4-ounce can chopped green chiles
• 2 Tablespoons finely chopped jalapeño chile, veined and seeded
• 1/2 cup finely chopped red bell pepper

1. Preheat the oven to 375, and  grease or spray an 8×3 inch loaf pan.
2. Sift together the flour, salt, pepper, sugar, and baking powder in a medium bowl.  Add the cheese and gently toss and stir until it is evenly distributed throughout the mixture.
3. Whisk the milk, oil, egg, green chiles, jalapeño, and red bell pepper in another bowl.  Make a well in the center of the flour and cheese mixture, and pour the milk mixture in the center.  Briefily blend with a spatula, only until the dry ingredients are just incorporated.
4. Pour the batter into the prepared pan, and place in the oven.  Bake until the top is golden-brown, and springs back when touched in the center, about 45-50 minutes.  Cool on a rack for 10 minutes, then remove the bread from the pan and cool completely.

Vegan Vanilla Bean Cupcakes

As soon as I found out that my new boss eats vegan, I got a knot in the pit of my stomach.  This, of course, was after the first time I brought in baked goods to my new office.  Great.  I realize that when baking for a group, there are always going to be people who won’t or can’t eat what I bake and that I can’t always please everyone.  But I’d like to try.  So when my boss’ birthday was approaching last week, I set out to make her a vegan vanilla cupcake.  It wasn’t an easy task and I must have looked through 15+ recipes (mostly vegan) before I finally settled on the one I wanted to use in the first place: a non-vegan recipe. I knew the challenge of this whole vegan baking thing was going to be the ingredients I used in place of dairy so it didn’t really matter if the recipe was labeled vegan or not.

And through the magic world that is Whole Foods, I found everything I needed: vegan butter, an egg substitute, and soy milk which of course is sold other places as well.  I had a couple of concerns using these new ingredients, some of which I didn’t even know existed before I started reading vegan baking recipes.  How in the world would a powdered egg substitute work? And, can I make buttermilk with soy milk?  And to answer quickly, wonderfully and yes!  All in all, the vegan butter (vegetable oil-based) reduced the oiliness that some butter-based cupcakes turn out like, the egg substitute yielded a fluffy cupcake, and adding 1 1/2 tbsp of white vinegar to 1 1/4 cups of vanilla soy milk makes a great buttermilk.

My coworkers (including the birthday girl of course) couldn’t have been happier with these cupcakes!  The base recipe itself is a fabulous one and one that I look forward to making again.  I completely adore anything vanilla bean and this recipe does not disappoint.  The flavor of these cupcakes improved as they sat and the stash I left home for Kyle was down 3 before I got home from work that day.  When I asked him how he liked them he responded, “Why, what’s in them?” The clear verdict from Kyle and my coworkers was that you could not at all tell that the cupcakes were made with non-traditional baking ingredients.  Success!!

PS – the chocolate buttercream recipe (also vegan) can be found here.

Vegan Vanilla Bean Cupcakes

source: adapted from The Well Decorated Cake via Annie’s Eats and Confections of a Foodie Bride

Printable recipe

• 3 cups cake flour
• 1 tbsp. baking powder
• ½ tsp. salt
• 1 vanilla bean, split lengthwise
• 16 tbsp. vegetable oil-based butter (such as Earth Balance), at room temperature
• 2 cups sugar
• 7 ½ tsp. EnerG Egg Replacer mixed with…
• ½ cup plus 2 tbsp. water
• 1¼ cups vanilla soy milk, at room temperature
• 1 ½ tbsp. white vinegar
• 1 tbsp. vanilla extract

1. Preheat the oven to 350° F.  Line two cupcake pans with paper liners.  Set aside.
2. In a medium mixing bowl, combine the cake flour, baking powder and salt.  Whisk together and set aside.  Add the butter to the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment.  Scrape the vanilla bean seeds into the bowl of the mixer with the butter and discard the pod (or reserve for another use.)  Beat on medium-high speed for 3 minutes, until light and creamy in color.  Scrape down the sides of the bowl and beat for one more minute.
3. Combine the vanilla soy milk with the vinegar (to make soy buttermilk) and set aside. Add the sugar to the butter mixture, ¼ cup at a time, beating 1 minute after each addition.  Mix in the egg substitute mixture until incorporated.  Scrape down the sides of the bowl. Combine the soy buttermilk and the vanilla extract in a liquid measuring cup.  With the mixer on low speed, add the dry ingredients alternately with the wet ingredients, beginning and ending with the dry ingredients and mixing just until incorporated.  Scrape down the sides of the bowl and mix for 15 seconds longer.
4. Divide the batter between the prepared paper liners, filling each about 2/3 of the way full (you will likely have batter left over after filling 24 wells.)  Bake 18-22 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.  Allow to cool in the pans 5-10 minutes, then transfer to a cooling rack to cool completely.  Replace paper liners and bake remaining batter if desired.  Frost cooled cupcakes as desired.

Yield: approximately 30 cupcakes

BB: Shrimp Bisque

Being from coastal Long Island, NY, I love me some seafood soup.  In all forms…chowder, stew, and of course bisque (be still my heart!).  So when this pick came up for Barefoot Bloggers this month, I was really really excited…though a wee bit nervous at the same time because the last time I tried to make a seafood soup at home (Manhattan clam chowder), the pot ended up outside in the snow along with the soup. But I trust Ina.  How could I not after all the amazing things I’ve made since I first printed off one of her recipes from FoodNetwork 6 years ago?  And she claims that this recipe doesn’t involve a whole bunch of steps which is always a good thing in my book.

The bisque turned out just as I hoped it would.  It was awesome and certainly rivals the bisque from any of the better seafood restaurants I’ve been to (including one I ate at recently that claims their bisque is famous).  It was the perfect marriage of shrimp flavor with a “I’m hear just in the background” sherry and cognac blend and I definitely knew I was eating a seafood-based soup without the seafood flavor totally overwhelming the soup.  I realize that bisques can be quite on the heavy side with a whole bunch of heavy cream but this one calls for half-n-half and I ended up using half skim milk/half half-n-half (get that?) in order to lighten it up a bit.  I probably could have used more skim milk and less half-n-half because the recipe calls for a good amount of roux which in and of itself is a wonderful thickener.  I was slightly skeptical about the addition of cayenne pepper but don’t skip it!  It lends just enough heat without overpowering the flavor of bisque and is a really nice flavor complement.

I thought for a few days about what to serve alongside this soup and never really came up with any great ideas.  Crusty bread was probably the best one that I had but I never made it to the store on the day I made the soup.  As it turns out though, this soup is hearty enough to stand on it’s own without any side dish.  The chunks of shrimp lend to the heartiness of it…and the half-n-half doesn’t really hurt too much either.  If you needed it, crusty bread, soft yeast rolls, or a side salad would do fine on the side.  You could even start a nice steak dinner off with this soup but keep it to cup servings so as to not fill up your guests on soup.

Many many thanks to Jennifer of Our Blessed Home for choosing this fantastic recipe!!

Shrimp Bisque

source: Ina Garten, Barefoot Contessa at Home

Printable recipe

• 1 pound large shrimp, peeled and deveined, shells reserved
• 4 cups seafood stock
• 3 tablespoons good olive oil
• 2 cups chopped leeks, white and light green parts (3 leeks)
• 1 tablespoon chopped garlic (3 cloves)
• Pinch cayenne pepper
• 1/4 cup Cognac or brandy
• 1/4 cup dry sherry
• 4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) unsalted butter
• 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 2 cups half-and-half
• 1/3 cup tomato paste
• 2 teaspoons kosher salt
• 1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

1. Place the shrimp shells and seafood stock in a saucepan and simmer for 15 minutes. Strain and reserve the stock. Add enough water to make 3 3/4 cups.
2. Meanwhile, heat the olive oil in a large pot or Dutch oven. Add the leeks and cook them for 10 minutes over medium-low heat, or until the leeks are tender but not browned. Add the garlic and cook 1 more minute. Add the cayenne pepper and shrimp and cook over medium to low heat for 3 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add the Cognac and cook for 1 minute, then the sherry and cook for 3 minutes longer. Transfer the shrimp and leeks to a food processor fitted with a steel blade and process until coarsely pureed.
3. In the same pot, melt the butter. Add the flour and cook over medium-low heat for 1 minute, stirring with a wooden spoon. Add the half-and-half and cook, stirring with a whisk, until thickened, about 3 minutes. Stir in the pureed shrimp, the stock, tomato paste, salt, and pepper and heat gently until hot but not boiling. Season, to taste, and serve hot.

Oatmeal Honey Wheat Bread

Sometimes I want to kick myself for how fearful I get of making certain recipes.  Whole wheat bread has been one of these things.  It took me years to push myself to make sandwich bread and almost another year to push myself to make whole wheat bread. And even though we don’t eat a lot of bread, we only buy wheat bread at the grocery store so I figured it was definitely time to just get over it and make my own.

I’d probably looked through 5 or 6 different recipes before I finally came across the right recipe.  The combination of oatmeal and honey in a wheat bread sounded just perfect to me and though what I feared most about wheat bread was it being dry, I knew this one wouldn’t be.  The reviews on epicurious were outstanding and since the oatmeal takes a nice soak in hot milk before adding it to the flour, it really helps to keep the bread soft.

We absolutely loved this bread!  It was everything I could have possibly hoped for in a wheat bread…dense, soft, a little chewy and spot-on-flavorful.  It’s fabulous fresh for sandwiches and over the top when toasted.  We’re planning to use it tonight night for paninis (chicken with roasted onion jam) and I’m already getting antsy waiting for these sandwiches!  So if you’re of the “I’m just not a fan of whole wheat bread” camp or already have an established recipe that you love, I challenge you to try this recipe. It will change your mind. I promise!

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I’m submitting this post to Yeastspotting, a blog devoted to yeast bread food porn…check it out!

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Oatmeal Wheat Bread

source: slightly adapted from Gourmet (October 2005) via Erin’s Food Files

Printer-Friendly Recipe

• 2 cups skim milk
• 1 cup old-fashioned rolled oats (not quick-cooking) plus additional for topping
• 1/2 cup warm water (105-115°F)
• 2 tablespoons active dry yeast (from 3 packages)
• 1/2 cup mild honey
• 1/2 stick (1/4 cup) unsalted butter, melted and cooled, plus additional for buttering pans
• 3 1/2 cups stone-ground whole-wheat flour
• About 2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
• 1 tablespoon salt
• Vegetable oil for oiling bowl
• 1 large egg, lightly beaten with 1 tablespoon water

1. Heat milk in a 1 1/2- to 2-quart saucepan over low heat until hot but not boiling, then remove pan from heat and stir in oats. Let stand, uncovered, stirring occasionally, until cooled to warm.
2. Stir together water, yeast, and 1 teaspoon honey in a small bowl; let stand until foamy, 5 minutes. (If mixture doesn’t foam, discard and start over with new yeast.) Stir yeast mixture, melted butter, and remaining honey into cooled oatmeal.
3. Stir together whole-wheat flour, 1 1/2 cups unbleached flour, and salt in a large bowl. Add oat mixture, stirring with a wooden spoon until a soft dough forms. Turn out onto a well-floured surface and knead with floured hands, adding just enough of remaining unbleached flour to keep from sticking, until dough is smooth, soft, and elastic, about 10 minutes (dough will be slightly sticky). Form dough into a ball and transfer to an oiled large bowl, turning to coat. Cover bowl loosely with plastic wrap and a kitchen towel; let rise at warm room temperature until doubled in bulk, 1 to 1 1/2 hours.
4. Lightly butter two 8″x4″ loaf pans. Turn out dough onto a lightly floured surface and knead several times to remove air. Divide dough in half and shape each half into a loaf, then place 1 loaf in each buttered pan, seam side down, tucking ends gently to fit. Cover loaf pans loosely with a kitchen towel and let dough rise in a draft-free place at warm room temperature until doubled in bulk, about 1 hour.
5. Put oven rack in middle position and preheat oven to 375°F. Lightly brush tops of loaves with some of egg wash and sprinkle with oats, then bake until bread is golden and loaves sound hollow when tapped on bottom, 35 to 40 minutes. (Remove 1 loaf from pan to test for doneness. Run a knife around edge of pan to loosen.)
6. Remove bread from pans and transfer to a rack to cool completely, about 1 1/2 hours.

Cinnamon Buns

Who doesn’t love a great cinnamon bun smothered in a coma-inducing sugar glaze?  I do! I do!  For months and months and months I’ve been dying to try my hand at cinnamon buns and when I finally had what I thought was a great opportunity to do so, my mom informed me that she would already be making a breakfast with cinnamon buns for Thanksgiving. Thus my homemade cinnamon buns would have to wait.  It turned out that holding off on these buns wasn’t a bad idea since we didn’t actually make it anywhere but the Emergency Department on Thanksgiving so thank goodness they weren’t wasted.  And oh yeah…Kyle turned out to be ok after a few days rest and some good pain meds too.

So Christmas came around and I offered to bring them for Christmas breakfast with my parents and brother.  Well, they didn’t make it to that breakfast either.  I guess I underestimated how exhausted I would be from prepping for a full Christmas Eve dinner at our house for Kyle’s family and getting everything ready to bring down to Long Island for Christmas Day (including my frozen cheesecake that never made it down for Thanksgiving dessert). So I set my mind to make these buns during my week off after Christmas and I finally did it.

They turned out to be a wonderful way to welcome in the new year on New Year’s Day morning!  We just loved them!  The process was a simple one and of course, Peter Reinhart’s instructions are always straightforward and easy to follow.  I’m starting to feel much more comfortable working with yeast and this was the recipe that made me feel confident enough in my abilities to try out some bagels. I took Rebecca’s suggestion of pairing the rolls with some cream cheese icing rather than Reinhart’s sugar fondant glaze and while I thought the icing tasted fabulous, I think the sugar fondant glaze would have added the additional amount of sweetness these buns needed, believe it or not.  The recipe calls for raisins and since I wasn’t sure how Kyle would feel about them in the rolls, I made half of the rolls with and half without the raisins.  Next time all of the rolls with have raisins since we absolutely loved the plumped up raisins with the cinnamon-sugar filling.  I also lathered the dough up with some melted butter before sprinkling on the cinnamon and sugar which added a bit of richness that the dough didn’t have on it’s own since it wasn’t a brioche dough (this addition is shown below).  Thanks to Rebecca for this suggestion as well – genius!!  I will definitely make this recipe again and next time I think I’ll give Reinhart’s brioche recipe a chance to pair up with the awesome cinnamon-sugar-raisin-sugar-glaze combination that is this recipe.

Cinnamon Buns

Printable Recipe

source: adapted from Peter Reinhart, The Bread Baker’s Apprentice

Makes 8-12 large or 12-16 smaller buns

• 6 1/2 tablespoons (3.25 ounces) granulated sugar
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 5 1/2 tablespoons (2.75 ounces) shortening or unsalted butter, room temperature
• 1 large egg, slightly beaten
• 1 teaspoon lemon extract or zest
• 3 1/2 cups (16 ounces) unbleached bread or all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons (.22 ounce) instant yeast
• 1 1/8 to 1 1/4 cups (9 to 10 ounces) whole milk or buttermilk, room temperature
• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly
• 1/2 cup (4 ounces) cinnamon sugar (6 1/2 tablespoon granulated sugar plus 1 1/2 tablespoons cinnamon)
• 1 cup raisins

1. In a standing mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream the sugar, salt and shortening on medium-high speed. Whip in the egg and lemon extract until smooth. Then add the flour, yeast, and milk. Mix on low speed until the dough forms a ball. Switch to the dough hook, and increase the speed to medium, mixing for approximately 10 minutes, or until the dough is tacky but not sticky. Lightly oil a large bowl and transfer the dough to the bowl, rolling it around to cover it with oil. Cover bowl with plastic wrap.

2. Ferment at room temperature for approximately 2 hours, or until the dough doubles in size.

3. Mist the counter with spray oil, and transfer the dough to the counter. Roll out the dough with a rolling pin, lightly dusting the top of the dough with flour. Roll it into a rectangle about 2/3 inch thick and 14 inches wide by 12 inches long for larger buns, or 18 inches wide by 9 inches long for smaller buns. Brush melted butter over the dough then sprinkle the cinnamon sugar over the surface of the dough.  Sprinkle on the raisins and gently press them into the cinnamon-sugar. Roll the dough up into a log, creating a spiral as you roll. With the seam side down, cut the dough into 8 to 12 even pieces, each about 1 3/4 inches thick for larger buns; or 12 to 16 pieces each 1 1/4 inch thick for smaller buns.

4. Line 1 or more sheet pans with baking parchment. Place the buns approximately 1/2 inch apart.

5. Proof at room temperature for 75 to 90 minutes, or until the pieces have grown into one another and have nearly doubled in size.

6. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F with the oven rack on the middle shelf.

7. Bake the buns for 20 to 30 minutes, or until golden brown.

8. Cool the buns in the pan for about 10 minutes, and then glaze the tops. Remove the buns from the pans, and place them on a cooling rack. Wait at least 20 minutes before serving.

Cinnamon Bun Glaze
source: adapted from Molly Wizenberg, “Bon Appetit”(March 2008)

• 4 ounces cream cheese, room temperature
• 1 cup powdered sugar
• 1/4 cup (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

In a standing mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, combine cream cheese, powdered sugar, butter and vanilla. Spread glaze on rolls.