Lemon Ginger Blueberry Cake

I started a new job in January of last year which sadly has not left me much time for cooking.  However, with the excuse of wanting to bring something yummy to a lovely get together in the backyard of one of the lovely volunteers I used to work with, I decided to try this recipe from The Step-By-Step Instant Pot Cookbook by Jeffrey Eisner.  This is a recipe that looked intriguing and got good reviews on the Instant Pot Facebook group, so I hoped it would be a winner.

Lemon Ginger Blueberry Cake

Ingredients:

1 box lemon cake mix

1/3 cup vegetable oil (I now realize in typing this out that I misread this for the recipe and actually ended up using 1/2 cup)

3 large eggs

1 cup ginger ale or ginger beer (for a more intense ginger flavor) or 1 cup water (if you don't want a ginger flavor)

1 cup fresh blueberries

Glaze:

1 cup confectioners' (powdered) sugar

2 tablespoons (1/4 stick) unsalted butter

1/2 teaspoon lemon or vanilla extract

Zest of 1 lemon (optional)

Procedure: 

1) In a mixing bowl, place the cake mix, oil, eggs, and ginger ale or beer. Beat with a hand (or stand) mixer until no lumps remain.

2) Generously spray the entire inside of a 6-cup Bundt pan (which will fit your 6- or 8-quart Instant Pot) with nonstick cooking spray and then pour the batter into it, making sure not to overfill it (you may have some extra batter, which you can discard). Add the blueberries and let them rest on top of the batter (they will sink in as it bakes).

3) Cover with aluminum foil and puncture a hold down the center of the Bundt opening for steam to pass through.

4) Add 2 cups water to the Instant Pot followed by the trivet.  Rest the Bundt pan on the trivet, secure the lid, move the valve to the sealing position, and hit Manual or Pressure  Cook at High Pressure for 50 minutes.  Quick release when done, remove from the pot, remove the foil, and allow to cool for 30 minutes sitting on the trivet on the counter.

5) About 30 minutes before you're ready to serve, make the glaze.  Sift the sugar over a large mixing bowl.  Separately microwave the butter for 20 seconds until melted.  Add the melted butter, 2 tablespoons warm water (use 3 for it to be very thin), the extract, and lemon zest (if using) to the mixing bowl and whisk/beat until totally smooth, forming an icy-glaze consistency.

  That was it.  At first, I scoffed at this recipe because it uses a boxed cake mix.  However, I will admit, it did make things a lot easier.  I think in the future I would maybe add some ground ginger into the batter, layer the blueberries (they really don't sink down to the bottom like the recipe says they will), use the right amount of oil (how embarrassing!), and maybe try swapping out the warm liquid in the glaze with lemon juice instead.  But this was a very good cake and, I'm happy to say, a hit at the party!  Thank you to all of my lovely friends who asked for the recipe and inspired me to write up this blog post.  I'm so glad we're staying connected! <3

Grasshopper pie

 

Frozen Grasshopper Pie

     I had never heard of Grasshopper pie, until I had it during Thanksgiving 2016 at Scott's cousin's house (thanks, Edie and Becky!).  Grasshopper pie is a delicious chocolate mint frozen pie (named after the popular grasshopper drink and grasshopper cookies).  I quite enjoyed it (I'm a sucker for chocolate mint food combinations!), so I asked for the recipe.  I decided to make it (along with a pecan pie) for Christmas this year to share with my housemates.  Boy, am I glad I did!

Frozen Grasshopper pie 

Ingredients:

2/3 cup milk

24 larger marshmallows

4 tbsp. creme de menthe (green)

2 tbsp. creme de cacao (white)

1 cup heavy whipping cream

1 chocolate pie crust

Procedure:

1) Prepare the chocolate pie crust.  The author says she bought the Oreo brand in the section with graham cracker crusts.  "I always finish with egg white and bake for 5 minutes or so on 350.  Then, let the crust cool down."

2) Heat milk and marshmallows and stir until thoroughly melted (about 10 minutes).  Remove from heat and left cool about 15 minutes.  Then, pour into large mixing bowl.

3) Add Creme de Menthe and Creme de Cacao to the marshmallow mixture.  Stir well.

4) Whip the whipping cream until firm ("you will need your mixer for this").  Fold this in with everything else and stir a few times.

5) Pour this in to the crust and freeze overnight.  Garnish with chocolate shavings, chips, or sauce.

Our abundance of pies during Christmas.  From left to right: pecan pie, grasshopper pie, and apple pie à la mode 

  A few substitutions.  Wanting to avoid going to a lot of stores, I used what I had at home.  Instead of green creme de menthe, I used Peppermint Schnapps and green food coloring.  I used a chocolate-colored Cocoa creme we already had at home.  I also decided be slightly lazy and purchased a pre-made Oreo crust.  I followed the pre-baking advice as suggested.  For my garnish, I used mint oreo cookies and broken up Andes mints.  
  Overall, the pie came out very good and refreshing, although the peppermint taste was almost a little too strong.  I think next time I will just go out and buy creme de menthe to see if that will give it a smoother minty taste.  The only unfortunate thing about making the Grasshopper pie is that I made an excellent pecan pie, so it did not have a starring role during the Christmas feast.  Ah well, an abundance of delicious pies is the kind of problem I like to have!

Spoon butter

      While watching a video on America's Test Kitchen cutting board comparison (or was it reading an article from America's Test Kitchen on cutting boards?), I came across the term spoon butter, a mixture of mineral oil and beeswax that is supposed to be even better for your wooden cutting boards/utensils than mineral oil alone.  I was intrigued for although I oil my boards on a semi-regular basis, they were still looking a little dry.  I decided to try to make it.  After rediscovering that our favorite farmer's market was open (Downtown Campbell) and that the honey stand there sells beeswax if you request it in advance, I had all of the ingredients I needed and decided to make spoon butter last night.

Spoon butter

Spoon butter (based off of a recipe from https://creative-culinary.com/wood-butter-wood-utensils-bowls-recipe/)

Ingredients:

4 oz mineral oil
1 oz beeswax

Procedure:

1) In an large pot (I used my Instant Pot on saute), bring water to a low boil.  There should be enough water to cover the bottom third or so of two mason jars.

2) Put the beeswax in one mason jar and the mineral oil in another.  Put them both in the boiling water.

3) Once the beeswax is melted (this will take a little while), pour the mineral oil into the mason jar with the beeswax and mix them with a spoon.  Let the mixture cool.

4) Use a paper towel to apply the spoon butter to your wooden utensils/cutting boards and let it sit for hours to absorb the oil.

Before (to the left) and after (to the right).  Shown immediately after applying spoon butter.  The picture doesn't do it justice, but you can see the the before picture is a lot dryer looking than the lovely sheen after applying the spoon butter.

  I just made this last night, so am applying it to my wooden utensils for the first time today.  I didn't have the exact amounts listed in the original recipe, so I just measured out the amount of mineral oil I had left (about 4 oz) and weighed 1/4 of this (1 oz) of beeswax.  Turns out beeswax is very difficult to cut if it is in block form, but a heated knife eventually did the tick.  Once you apply the finished product, the difference is immediately apparent.  The wood has a nice sheen to it and looks moisturized and non-dried out.  Plus, your hands feel lovely and moisturized after applying it too; an added bonus! I am going to let it sit overnight and might remove the excess oil if it hasn't all absorbed in by tomorrow.    Although I don't remember from which America's Test Kitchen source it was that originally inspired me, I did find this article on spoon butter if you're curious: 

https://www.cooksillustrated.com/how_tos/8625-caring-for-wood-cutting-boards-and-utensils-with-spoon-butter.

Dried Persimmons

     I have never been the biggest fan of persimmons on their own (see this post for my first experiment with persimmons), but love persimmon cookies. During a socially distanced Tech volunteer/former staff get together at the house of the lovely volunteer Sharon, we got to talking about the awesome tree we were gathered around in her backyard. It turned out it was a hachiya persimmon tree, and Sharon said that she always had too many persimmons, so we could help ourselves when they were ripe in the Fall. Come November, Sharon let us know that the persimmons were ready to pick and Scott and I went over and had a lot of fun picking persimmons to our hearts' content. Of course, that meant I had a lot of  persimmons to deal with, so I thought I'd try a new recipe.  I knew that I had loved dried persimmons when I randomly came across them at a grocery store years ago, so decided to try breaking out my food dehydrator for the first time and drying persimmons.  Here is the recipe I followed:

Dried Persimmons (okay, I need to remember to plate my final produce better for my blog pictures)

Dried persimmons (from https://www.mountainfeed.com/blogs/learn/101744903-dried-persimmons-an-easy-winter-snack) 

Ingredients:

Persimmons (duh!)

Procedure:

1) Wash and slice the persimmons.  Fuyu or Hachiya will both make delicious dehydrated slices; if using Hachiya, choose fruits that are fully orange but not as ripe as you would choose for fresh eating; they need to be firm enough to slice. The astringency that is unpleasant to taste in an unripe fruit disappears during the dehydration process.

Slice the persimmons about 1/8" thick. Since persimmons have no core to speak of, you can slice all the way through the center, and enjoy the whole fruit! There is a lovely star shape at the center of each persimmon.

2) Dehydate. Dehydrate on screens in the dehydrator, at about 135 degrees, until the slices are dry, slightly tacky to the touch but not sticky. This should take around 6-8 hours.

3) Store and Enjoy.  Store the slices in mason jars, where they will keep for 6 months or more.

Persimmons in the dehydator

  Boy, was this easy!  It really makes me question why I've waited so long to use the dehydator.  This was also a really good first fruit to dehydrate, as other than removing the top stem, there wasn't any other processing to do (e.g., peeling, removing seeds, etc.)  Use the food processor to slice them into thin pieces (a mandoline would have been perfect for this, but I'm not quite sure where mine is) and put them on the trays.  My dehydrator didn't have precise temperature settings, but medium seems to be the equivalent of 135.  Six hours seemed to be perfect every single time.  If I remembered it, I tried to rotate the trays as the ones on the bottom dried quicker than the ones on the top (they're closer to the heating element).  Also, I did find out that, unlike what the above recipe says, it's not quite true that the astrigency dissapears when you dry the persimmons.  It's still there, but much milder.  However, if you're at all sensitive to this astringency, I would not recommend using Hachiya persimmons.  Use fuyu (the tomato shaped ones) instead.  Poor Scott could not eat these slices without feeling pretty much instantaneously dry mouthed.  I felt so bad for him that I went out and bought fuyu persimmons so he could enjoy dried persimmons as well.

Sharon's awesome persimmon tree

Look at those beautiful persimmons just waiting to be picked

Scott picking persimmons

With the fruit picker and our stash

Look at all of the beautiful fruit!

  A huge thank you to Sharon for so generously sharing her bounty with us.  We're still enjoying your persimmons in December!

Chocolate (and other) desserts in October

      I've been trying new recipes over that past month and a half, but haven't blogged about them yet.  I wanted to put all of them together in one blog for your enjoyment.

Giant Peanut Butter Cup

     Do you ever get a random craving for something and you don't know why?  Or you get obsessed, at least for a little while, with one particular type of food?  Well, that food has been peanut butter cups for me for the last couple of months.  Plus peanut butter in general, I suppose.  So, when I saw this recipe from Tasty to make a Giant Peanut Butter Cup, I just knew I had to check it out.

Giant Peanut Butter Cup (from https://tasty.co/recipe/giant-peanut-butter-cup)

Ingredients:

4 cups milk chocolate chips, divided
2 cups creamy peanut butter
2 cups powdered sugar, sifted
8 tablespoons butter, softened

Procedure:

1) In a small bowl, place half of the chocolate chips.

2) Melt in the microwave in 30 second intervals, stirring in between, until fully melted.

3) Pour melted chocolate into a 10-inch (25 cm) tart pan making sure to coat the entire pan, including all sides.

4) Refrigerate until set.

5) In a large bowl, place the peanut butter, powdered sugar, and softened butter and mix until smooth.

6) Pour the peanut butter into the tart pan and smooth the surface.

7) Melt remaining chocolate and pour over the peanut butter.

8) Smooth out the chocolate making sure it covers the entire surface.

9) Refrigerate until set, about 1 hour.

10) Slice and serve.

A slice of a giant peanut butter cookie

     The verdict?  Certainly delicious, but maybe not quite as delicious as a Reese's peanut butter cup.  If anything, it was almost too sweet.  If I were to make it again, I would not add sugar to the peanut butter.  I don't think it's necessary.  Also, it makes A LOT!  We were eating it for weeks afterwards (not necessarily a bad thing).

Hocus Pocus themed rice krispies treats

     My next dessert comes to you courtesy of Halloween, a movie night, and wanting to use up the leftover chocolate chips from the giant peanut butter cup recipe.  I thought it would be fun to make a themed dessert for our watching Hocus Pocus with the housemates and found this recipe and fell in love.  (In case you haven't seen the movie, this is the book of spells that the devil gave the Sanderson witch sisters in Hocus Pocus)

Hocus Pocus Rice Krispies Treats (based off of a recipe from https://apumpkinandaprincess.com/hocus-pocus-rice-krispies-treats/) 

Ingredients:

3 tbsp butter

4 cups miniature marshmallows

6 cups Rice Krispies cereal

10 oz milk chocolate chips

12 candy eyes

1 black icing

Procedure: 

1) Cover a 9x11 baking sheet with parchment paper.

2) Prepare rice krispies treats by melting together butter and marshmallows on the stovetop over low heat.

3) Stir in cereal and spread over baking sheet. Allow Rice Krispies treats to set for a couple hours.

4) Cut treats into squares using a square cookie cutter.

5) Melt chocolate chip in a microwave safe bowl, stirring every 30 seconds.

6) Dip rice krispies treats into chocolate, shake off excess, and place back on parchment paper covered baking sheet.

7) Add candy eyeball to the center right side of the square. Allow chocolate to set before decorating.

8) Use black icing to add detail, like the snake and stitches on the book. Allow icing to set before serving.

Okay, so I'm not a decorating queen...

     These came out tasting really good (very rich, filling, and chocolatey). I found out a few things, however.  One: I'm not a professional decorator.  As much as I'd like to be, I couldn't quite get things to look the way I wanted them.  Two: Chocolate is hard to evenly distribute amongst Rice Krispies treats.  The first one got the most chocolate, with the sixth one getting hardly any chocolate at all.  I have about half a dozen more of just leftover Rice Krispies treats that didn't have any chocolate, as I had run out.  Three: Candy eye balls and black icing is surprisingly really difficult to find around Halloween.  Four: How have I never made Rice Krispies treats before this?  They're so easy and so delicious!  Five: If you leave the Rice Krispies treats out and tell your housemates that they can help themselves, they disappear very very quickly!

Carrot Cake Pancakes

     Okay, this next one is technically not a dessert but is based upon one, so I'm including it in this list.  If you know me, you know that I love carrot cake.  When I saw this recipe (also from Tasty), I knew I had to try it!

Carrot Cake Pancakes (from https://tasty.co/recipe/carrot-cake-pancakes)

Ingredients:

2 ½ cups all-purpose flour
¼ cup brown sugar
2 teaspoons kosher salt
1 ¾ teaspoons McCormick® Ground Cinnamon
¼ teaspoon McCormick® allspice
½ teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 cups buttermilk
1 stick unsalted butter, melted
2 large eggs
1 ½ cups carrot
5 tablespoons unsalted butter
¼ cup walnuts, chopped
10 tablespoons cream cheese
10 teaspoons maple syrup

Procedure:

1) In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, brown sugar, salt, cinnamon, allspice, baking powder, and baking soda.

2) In a medium bowl or liquid measuring cup, whisk together the buttermilk, melted butter, and eggs.

3) Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and fold with a rubber spatula until just combined. 4. Gently fold in the grated carrots.

4) Let the batter rest for 15-30 minutes at room temperature.

5) Melt 1 tablespoon butter in a medium skillet over medium-low heat. Once the butter is bubbling add ⅓ cup (75 g) of batter to the pan. Cook for 2-3 minutes, until bubbles start to appear on the surface. Flip the pancake over and cook for another 1-2 minutes, until golden brown and cooked through. Repeat with the remaining batter, adding more butter as needed. As you cook the pancakes, keep them warm in a low oven or cover with foil.

6) Serve the pancakes with a pat of cream cheese, a drizzle of maple syrup, and a sprinkling of walnuts.

  The verdict?  Maybe not as good as I might like.  Part of that was that I didn't have any buttermilk, so used buttermilk powder with whole milk instead.  I think my buttermilk powder has gone bad, if such a thing is possible, as the pancakes had a slightly off? extra tangy? taste to them.  Also, I ran out of regular flour so substituted in some whole wheat flour, but that was okay.  The cream cheese topping was a little out of place.  I think it would have been better either being skipped all together or made into something like cream cheese frosting.  It was tasty, though...

Blueberry muffins

Homemade blueberry muffins

     I've been feeling a little blue today so decided to make some muffins to cheer myself up (I can't be the only one who bakes to make herself feel good, am I?).  I have been thinking about making blueberry muffins for months, and thought that today should be the day to make some homemade muffins and, in the process, use up another item from my pantry (the blueberries from the freezer and some frozen whey I had).

Look at all the blueberry goodness...

Blueberry muffins (from Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything)

Ingredients:

3 tablespoons melted butter

2 cups AP flour

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt

3 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 egg

1 cup milk (I used frozen whey from my cheese-making)

1 cup frozen blueberries

1/2 teaspoon lemon zest

Procedure: 

1) Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.  Grease a standard 12 compartment muffin tin.

2) Mix together the dry ingredients in a bowl.  Beat together the egg, milk, and butter.  Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and pour the wet ingredients into it  Using a large spoon or rubber spatula, combine the ingredients swiftly, stirring and folding rather than beating, and stopping as soon as all the dry ingredients are moistened.  The batter should be lumpy, not smooth, and thick but quite moist; add a little more milk or other liquid if necessary.

3) Stir 1 cup of fresh blueberries and 1/2 teaspoon of lemon zest into the batter at the last minute.  You can also use frozen blueberries here; do not defrost them first.

4) Spoon the batter into the muffin tins, filling them about two-thirds full and handling the batter as little as possible. (If you prefer bigger muffins, fill the cups almost to the top.  Pour 1/4 cup water into those cups left empty).  Bake 20 to 30 minutes, or until the muffins are nicely browned and a toothpick inserted in to the center of one of them comes out clean.  Remove from the oven and let rest for 5 minutes before taking them out of the tin. Serve warm.

     And that was it.  It came together in a breeze and was a very delicious treat that I could share with everyone.  These are homemade muffins as I like them: fresh, moist, not too sweet, not too large, and filled with juicy blueberries that pop in your mouth.  I honestly forgot to add the lemon zest on this round and it still came out delicious.  My only regret is I've rediscovered how easy it is to make homemade muffins... a dangerous thing when you're sheltering in place at home most of the time!

Spicy cold kimchi noodles and smashed cucumbers

Spicy cold kimchi noodles with smashed cucumbers

     Here's another recipe that I discovered in the process of trying to clear out my pantry.  I figured something cold and refreshing would be really good on a hot summer night.

Spicy cold kimchi noodles

Spicy Cold Kimchi noodles (modified from https://mykoreankitchen.com/spicy-cold-kimchi-noodles/)

Ingredients:

1 package of bean thread noodles (8 ounces)

1/2 cup kimchi, pulsed in the food processor

1 English cucumber, chilled, rinsed, and cut into large matchstick size pieces

1 hard boiled egg, halved 

Bibim Sauce (Mix these in a bowl)

2 Tbsp gochujang (Korean chili paste)

1 Tbsp rice vinegar

1 Tbsp honey

1 Tbsp cane sugar

1 Tbsp sesame oil

1 Tbsp toasted sesame seeds

Procedure: 

1) Boil water and cover the bean noodles.  Let soak for ten minutes.  Drain the noodles and cool down under cold running water for about 1 minute. Stir the noodles with some tongs or your hand while it’s under the water. Drain the noodles well.

2) Put together the noodles, cut up kimchi, and bibim sauce in a large mixing bowl and mix well.  Serve it in a bowl. Place the cucumber and egg halves on top of the noodles and enjoy!

     This was a lovely and relatively quick recipe.  It was nice and refreshing on a hot evening.

Smashed cucumbers

     I was thinking that some kind of Asian pickles would be good to have as a cool relief after the spicy kimchi noodles.  After looking at various sources (including a very frustrating look for an Asian Pickle cookbook that I just came across and subsequently lost again!), I came across this recipe for smashed cucumbers.  I had first seen it on an America's Test Kitchen YouTube video and had always been curious to try it.  So, tonight was the night.

Smashed cucumbers (modified from https://www.splendidtable.org/recipes/smashed-cucumbers and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Oj4DagwRQI)

Ingredients:

2 English cucumbers

1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt

4 teaspoons rice vinegar

1 teaspoon garlic, minced to paste (I used 2 cloves of minced garlic)

1 tablespoon soy sauce

2 teaspoons toasted sesame oil

1 teaspoon sugar

1 teaspoon sesame seeds, toasted

Procedure:

1. Trim and discard ends from cucumbers. Cut each cucumber crosswise into three equal lengths. Place pieces in large zipper-lock bag and seal bag. Using a small skillet or a rolling pin, firmly but gently smash cucumbers until flattened and split lengthwise into 3 to 4 spears each. Tear spears into rough 1- to 1 1/2-inch pieces and transfer to colander set in large bowl. Toss cucumbers with salt and let stand for at least 15 minutes or up to 30 minutes.

2. While cucumbers sit, whisk vinegar and garlic together in small bowl; let stand for at least 5 minutes or up to 15 minutes.

3. Whisk soy sauce, oil, and sugar into vinegar mixture until sugar has dissolved. Transfer cucumbers to medium bowl and discard any extracted liquid. Add dressing and sesame seeds to cucumbers and toss to combine. Serve immediately.

     This was very fun to make and used a lot of the same ingredients as the kimchi noodles, so they complimented each other nicely.  I really liked the salty crisp garlicky taste of the cucumbers and kind of wish I had made more.  The original recipe calls for Chinese Black Vinegar, but since I didn't have any and was trying to use up what was in my pantry, I used rice vinegar instead.  Yum yum yum!