Fan Of The Cran

Back in November I was delighted to find ginormous bags of fresh cranberries at our local Costco. Hubs convinced me to get two bags—they were a great price, only available for a short time, and I could freeze any I didn't use for later—all the criteria necessary for justifying a bulk grocery purchase.

Forward to January and we still had quite a few of those tart little jewels socked away. While I could never have foreseen the big roasted turkey we now have in our midst, it's truly delightful to have some cranberry sauce with it and really do things up right. Cranberry sauce is the perfect counterpoint on a plate of turkey, mashed potatoes and rich gravy (and it goes great with a pork roast too).

For this cranberry go 'round, I wanted something quick and easy but a little bit special too–just not so special that I'd have to make a trip to the store...

A Perfect Pie For Epiphany

January 6th is a  pretty special day. Known as The Twelfth Day Of Christmas (regardless of how many drummers you  have drumming)... Twelfth Night... the first day, or Feast of Epiphany... and around here, we also remember it as Dad's birthday. It's a day to mark  transitions (maybe even more so than New Year's), as well as the revelation of something remarkable. To me, that's a date that deserves special observance.

This is the perfect pie for the occasion.* Sweet, but not too sweet. Festive, but without strict nostalgic ties to any other holiday. Comforting, as all apple pies should be. Sparkling, with surprising flavors to awaken your palate from all the hearty winter foods of late. A transitional pie. A revelatory pie.

Cookie Dreams (or is that kooky?)

Call it my end of the year cookie clearance. Call it early Spring cleaning. Call it me working on something random instead of what I should be doing. But I noticed that there were more recipes for cookies in my bookmark folder than I could possibly ever make (though it sure would be fun to try). Frankly, it was getting pretty crowded in there, with all the Molasses Whatnots, Chocolate Dilly-Bobs and Cranberry Crinkle-Puffs. And more scrumptious baked goods were being posted on my favorite blogs nearly every day this month. Part of my reason for starting this blog in the first place was to be able to organize all my recipes and bookmarks. Guess I took a left turn somewhere. I don't make New Year's resolutions, but if I did, this might be a good place to start.

So here they are... nearly all the cookies I've been dreaming of for the last year or so, not including the ones that are in my cookbook collection (that's something else entirely). Now... let me tell you more about my dream: I dreamt that there were 67 days in the month of December, and 53 pounds of butter in my fridge...

Life Is Just A Bowl Of Cranberries

Picture this: Thanksgiving morning, I sit with my mug of tea trying to clear the night from my eyes and focus on what I need to do: bake a pie and make cranberry sauce. Both are easy. The pie I've made before about a billion times, and the cranberry sauce... even the most complex of those are little more than chop-simmer-cool. Though I'm surrounded by a half-dozen excellent recipe options from holidays past, I decide to go online and look up more of them. I do stuff like that. Last night, too tired (and too cold) to want to stop at the grocery store on the way home for a couple oranges, I had decided to use Meyer lemons in the cran-sauce this year. They go great together in lots of other things, and I'd already seen one recipe in a Sunset magazine using that combination. Two results from my online search looked promising. One was from Bon Appétit and the other from Figs With Bri, a lovely food blog that overflows with warmth and deliciousness.

The holiday season is always a magnet for bittersweet emotions and this week has been the official start of them. Hubs and I are disappointed that we couldn't celebrate Thanksgiving with my family or his (all of them hundreds of miles away). We are overcome by the generosity of good friends offering to share their family table with us. We are concerned about friends who are having serious health issues. So, how do I handle all of this? Simple really, I sit and weep over a cranberry sauce recipe I found on the internet. But I never forget the sweet side of bittersweet: our relatives are relatively healthy and happy, we have loving, caring friends with big hearts, and we have food, clothing, and a roof over our heads. When you boil it all down, anything more than that is just sauce for the turkey... it's nice to have a little on your plate, but it's the meat that matters.

Everything's Better With Browned-Butter

Normally, I am not a superstitious person. Black cats can cross my path all they want (here-kitty-kitty-kitty!). When I find a penny, I'll pick it up with no expectations for the outcome of the rest of my day. I flagrantly disregard chain-letters. Rubbing a rabbit's foot only appeals to me if it is still attached to the rest of the sweet fluffy bunny. I have opened more than my fair share of umbrellas indoors.  And the only bad luck I ever got from breaking a mirror is that I had to clean up broken glass and buy a new mirror... but that's not luck. If I broke a wine glass or a crystal vase, it would have the same outcome. That's just cause and effect, action and reaction.

So I was looking to use up more limes the other day, when what popped up on one of my favorite blogs? Browned-Butter Cranberry Lime Muffins. Was it fate? Destiny? A sign? Does it matter? Not really. I did feel however, that the timing was too perfect to ignore (and they kinda sounded delicious)... I needed to make those muffins. Everyone needs to make these muffins. Here's why... the butter browning on the stove smelled so out-of-this-world good. Seriously, why don't they put browned-butter in everything?

Soft And Bittersweet

The situation in my kitchen early yesterday morning may be the only circumstance where anyone would be upset because their buns were too firm. To paraphrase a favorite movie, "We're going to need considerably softer buns!".* Here's the lowdown: I have two recipes from my mom for hot cross buns. I made one of them last year and it was a smashing success (they were just like mom used to make). This year, I couldn't remember which of the two recipes I had used before.** So I picked one. I may have picked wrong. Or perhaps it was user error and the fault lies in my execution of the recipe in question. We may never know.

Everything seemed to go like clockwork, without a hitch, every step of the way. Uh, except that the dough didn't rise. These were for brunch on Easter Sunday, and well, with yeast breads as well as with Easter, the rising is the most important part. They tasted fine (we ate them all up), but they were firm and dense when they should have been soft and wonderful. Clearly I'll need to make these again soon in order to figure out what went wrong. Oh darn.

One thing that went right was the candied orange peel I made to put in the buns. We were fresh out of candied orange peel, but you just can't have hot cross buns without it. We did have a box of oranges though... so I looked up a recipe and gave it a go. A little messy for sure, but it turned out fantastically well. The only thing better would be to dip them in dark chocolate. But then, what wouldn't be improved by that?

The syrup that the orange peel cooked in, was infused with orange essence and I just couldn't see pouring it down the drain. I used a little of it to sweeten some plain yogurt, then drizzled it over the fruit salad we served. I'll probably try it in my tea next and if it gets warmer out (which I hope will be soon), it would be great in lemonade. It should work pretty much anywhere you would use simple syrup. When all was said and done, the only things I didn't use up were the pith and the membrane from the oranges, and those went into the compost. A little fuss, a little muss, but no packaging, and no waste whatsoever. Sweet.

Hot Cross Buns page 56, Sunset Cook Book Of Breads, 1975
Here's a similar recipe, also from Sunset magazine... Orange Hot Cross Buns at MyRecipes.com

Notes: Plum out of currants, I used 1/3 cup each of golden raisins and chopped dried cranberries in addition to the chopped candied orange peel that I made (see below). I also put a tsp of dried lavender flowers in the scalded milk as it was cooling. I liked these changes/additions to the flavor, they were subtle but noticeable. And I don't believe they had anything to do with the dough failing to rise. That just may have to remain a mystery.

Candied Orange Peel, page 679-680, How To Cook Everything, Bittman, 1998

Notes: Recipe called for a small amount of corn syrup but said it was optional. We were out of corn syrup, so I opted not to buy a bottle of it right now and made the recipe without it. There is a lot of the candied peel left. Maybe I'll try dipping it in dark chocolate after all.

* The movie was Calendar Girls and it was the scene in which they were in need of "considerably bigger buns" for the sake of modesty (if that made no sense, go rent the movie and it will).
** This here is pretty much the reason I started this blog in the first place.

Grand Chocolate Chip Cookies

A long time ago in a far away land, I made a batch of chocolate chip cookies for an "end of semester" party that were so good, my teacher exclaimed in front of the whole class, "If I'd had these before I turned the grades in, I would have given you an A!". I had mixed feelings about her statement (and frankly still do), but that's a dialog for another day. These, by the way, are not those cookies. They are inspired by those cookies.

Tonight when I asked Hubs if we should make our "regular" cookies or try a new recipe, he enthusiastically said, "Try something new!"  As I randomly pulled out a cookbook, he asked if adding dried cranberries would be a good idea. Cranberries and chocolate? Definitely, yes, affirmative, and uh, ya-sure-youbetcha! My thoughts drifted to other flavors that would compliment, and I remembered that we happened to have a lone orange looking for something to do.

It was while I was zesting that orange into the cookie dough, that I flashed back onto those grade-changing cookies from my past. Grand Marnier... that's what was in them. And everybody knows that Grand Marnier and chocolate were absolutely designed for each other by divine decree. It's expensive stuff, to be sure, but you only need a tablespoon and we just happened to have some.*

These are really good cookies in their own right, but with the changes we made, the flavor was spectacular. Truly a chocolate chip cookie worthy of special occasions. When I get more organized, I will dig out that other recipe and give it another go. Until then, this one is top of it's class.

Chocolate Chip Cookies
page 321, The Silver Palate Cookbook (25th Anniv. ed.), 2007
Do you still not have this book? Seriously, go get it!
Until then, here is the Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe and another review of it at Over the Hill and On a Roll

Notes: To the Silver Palate recipe I added... 1 cup dried cranberries, 1 cup chopped pecans, zest from one orange, and 1 Tbsp Grand Marnier. Made approximately 6 dozen using my little cookie scoop. I baked one batch right off (12 minutes @ 350°) and they spread a great deal, making large but quite thin cookies. Not a bad thing, but I suspect it was to do with either the temperature of the butter or the temperature in the kitchen (making the dough too warm). Scooped the rest onto a sheet pan, froze them, then bagged up for later.

*I need to seriously think about moving the booze into the kitchen. I just love to cook with it, especially around the holidays.

Cranberry Orange Sauce

A not-so-very basic cranberry sauce that everybody will like... even people who say they don't really like cranberry sauce. Sections of orange give it some freshness, while the zest lends zip to compliment the zing from the ginger. Make this ahead of time because it'll give the flavors time to get to know one another and more importantly, it'll be one less thing for you to do on turkey-day...


Cranberry Orange Sauce
Adapted from: Page 206, Martha Stewart Living magazine, November 2005

Cornmeal Cranberry Scones

Last weekend a friend took me out to tea. How I love saying that! Took me to tea... maybe it's the alliteration, maybe it's because I love tea so much, maybe it's because it was such a terribly lovely surprise. It's no secret, I do so love tea. Not just the drink itself, but also the preparation of it, the vessels that hold and serve it, and the traditions behind it.

Tea is the perfect thing to drink in solitude and yet is even more enjoyable when shared with someone else. Tea can pick you up when you're down, and calm you down when you're wound up. Beautiful poured into a delicate bone china teacup; comforting drunk from a hand-thrown pottery mug. The nibbles that traditionally accompany tea offer up their own kind of comfort as well, whether dainty or rustic in nature. Some things are just so right together.

Cornmeal Cranberry Scones
Adapted from this recipe that I had torn out of an old BHG magazine but couldn't make because I didn't have: buttermilk, limes, or blueberries.

1 - 1/2 cups flour
2/3 cup yellow cornmeal
2 Tbsp sugar
2 Tbsp brown sugar, packed
1-1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/3 cup (cold) butter, cut into small pieces
1/2 cup plain yogurt
1 egg
zest from a small lemon
1 cup dried cranberries (or "Craisins" if, like me, you couldn't find plain ones at the store)

Preheat oven to 450°. Whisk together the flour, cornmeal, sugars, baking powder, baking soda and salt (or pulse a few times in a food processor). Add the zest and whisk into the dry ingredients (or pulse a couple time in the food processor). Using a pastry blender, cut the butter in until the mixture looks like very course clumpy sand (or add it to the food processor and pulse 10 or 15 times for the same result). If using the food processor, dump the contents into a mixing bowl now.

Add the yogurt and egg and mix them together a little bit in the bowl with a fork or rubber spatula. Add the cranberries to the bowl. Working quickly, fold everything together, scraping down the side and back up with one hand and rotating the bowl with the other. Do this only until the mixture is evenly moistened. It will be wet and clumpy.

Pat the mixture into a rectangle or circle (1/2 to 3/4" high) and cut into wedges, or use a biscuit cutter. Alternatively, you can drop blobs of it onto the baking sheet for "drop scones". Transfer scones to the baking sheet and bake for 12 to 15 minutes, or until golden on top. Make the optional icing while scones cool slightly on rack.

Optional Icing: 
lemon juice
powdered sugar
sliced almonds, toasted

Put 1/2 cup to 1 cup of powdered sugar in a small bowl and add lemon juice a little bit at a time while whisking together with a fork until thin "syrupy". Drizzle over warm scones and immediately sprinkle a few toasted, sliced almonds over each one if you like. If freezing the scones, leave the icing step until ready to serve.

Notes: In addition to not having the buttermilk, limes and blueberries for the original recipe, I also didn't really have the cornmeal. What I had was the course-ground kind for making polenta with. I measured it out and whirred it around in the food processor for 20-30 seconds. Probably could have used even more time, but it seemed to work o.k These scones are supposed to have a little crunch, right? I also used the food processor to cut in the butter (note to self: 1/3 cup is not the same as 1/3 of a stick). Instead of making drop scones, I patted the dough flat and cut out circles using an empty tomato paste can as a biscuit cutter. Ended up with 17 small scones.