Category: Baking

Pignolis- An Heirloom Recipe from a Friend's Mother

The one thing I can tell you is, don’t mess around with the confectioner’s sugar amount as it is needed to make the cookie take shape!

Parchment paper is key, too.

You can see I should have put this recipe in a plastic sleeve. It is well used and always appreciated.  People devour them.

Thinking of how wonderful it is that Esther was so generous to share her hand written recipe at least twenty years ago.  Her daughter, Diana,  will take her iPad to show her this post on Tuesday as we have no school due to the storm winds and rain predictions.  I called and asked if it would be okay to post and Diana said, “Yes” so thank you Diana and her mother, Esther.

I baked these for Laura’s wedding last year and made them for the House Concert for my gluten-free friend.

(Smidge, this recipe is for you, too!)

Little Green Apples

It’s an iPhone photo story and the bowl of peelings didn’t come out.   This was last Thursday.

Recipe for a summer afternoon.

Generous neighbors with an apple tree laden with fruit- a couple of boxes waiting  to be filled. (We filled one.)

A friend to help pick, peel, core and slice.

The crust was butter, flour and salt, a few tablespoons of ice water- mixed up in the food processor, rolled out.

Four open face pie/tarts and one quart of applesauce that looks almost green to me.

We took one of the pies down to the owners of the apple tree and were they ever surprised.   I brought one out to Ohio for the family. Along with the applesauce.

Small apples, tart and sweet, firm flesh and delicious.  A sprinkle of lemon, dots of butter and light on the cinnamon.   A bit raggedy looking but tasty.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Carrot Cake, Paleo/Primal Style

You may remember I mentioned my being surrounded by friends and  family eating different ways. Here is one, highlighted.   My son and daughter-in-law have gone Paleo since January 1st. Meat and plants, no grain is the basic plan. A radical change.  They are taking it pretty seriously and I don’t believe it’s a diet I could adhere to totally.   But when I arrived Friday night the dinner was diced and sautéed rutabaga, shrimps on a skewer that were delicious,salad,  and  a cauliflower, broccoli, carrot medley (my name for it, not what it is really called) This cake was the dessert pictured below.

Mark never really baked anything I can ever remember. But he was proud of this carrot cake. After dinner he went out to the garage (where it is cool) and brought in in on a cakestand with a dome!  I asked him how he made it since the diet doesn’t have any wheat flour or refined sugar.  I mean, it looked like a carrot cake. He said he’d soaked 5 grated carrots in maple syrup and then drained the liquid off.   He used coconut flour, an item I don’t have in my pantry. There were some  dates in it.  And if I heard him correctly, TEN eggs.   The icing was whole fat cream cheese and grated ginger.

Whoa, no worries… I just searched found a link with the recipe for the Paleo/Primal Carrot Cake  which sounds just like the ingredients he listed. I’m at Laura and James’ tonight so can’t check Mark and Erika’s cookbook and it is too late to call or text to ask.

Proud of the Paleo carrot cake he baked.

It was sweet but not too sweet. Incredibly moist. Satisfying. It reminded me of eating a baked good in Europe that was unfamiliar yet delicious.  The ginger flavor was more pronounced on the second day which was okay by me but if you don’t like the pungent zing of fresh ginger you might want the vanilla in the frosting. I have no plans to go Paleo but enjoyed perusing their new cookbooks and finding Italian Pot Roast that sounded great for winter .  I see they’re enjoying cooking and planning meals together, shopping for new ingredients. Real converts!  Tonight for dinner there was spaghetti sauce on zucchini that had been cut on the mandolin and was used instead of pasta.  They are feeling good and looking good and pleased with their change of eating habits.

In 1977 and my parents lived in Philadelphia and I lived there for a year with Mark when he was one, I remember there was a restaurant  that specialized in a rich carrot cake if you want to compare recipes.  What I remember about that carrot cake was how you didn’t want to eat a whole piece. It was too much.

My mom used to bake an occasional sourdough carrot cake in a Danish green enameled lasagna type pan and I found a recipe for that online.

I would feel comfortable serving the Paleo/Primal carrot cake to dinner guests. Thinking about carrot cakes. Diets. Nutrition. Ingredients.  Eating together with family is the best, no matter what is on the plate!

3 Sleeping After Dinner at Lala’s & See if You Can Find Murphy

Dinner at Lala’s and James’ home. Building with Lego.   I’m “grandmaing” the three youngest grandkids this weekend as the eldest is at a swimmeet in Cincinnati.  With her parents, of course.

So we watched Laura and James’ wedding video they received this week and Jack and Michael were ring bearers and Anna and Maura flower girls so they liked seeing themselves but then  Jack(4) goes in the kitchen at seven and says, ” Could someone please start making dinner!”  We were caught up in reliving the November wedding.  Laura baked some homemade pizza and I had taken a spinach pie.  For dessert I’d made the Farm Journal Blue Ribbon Banana Cake with buttermilk and real butter instead of the shortening the recipe calls for.

We piled into the van and I drove home and barely a block away and all three kids fell asleep! When we got home I  carried each one in, made a stop with them and then took off their shoes and put them in their beds.  I’d sat in the van for a moment when we got into the garage and thought to myself, okay, now what will I do with all of them asleep.  Michael really came in on his own power once I got him guided a bit.  And Murphy was so excited to accompany the family for the evening.

I didn’t have a plan of what to blog tonight and thought WordPress would have posted the Weekly Photo Challenge by this time but they didn’t and I was “on duty” with the kids so hadn’t thought about what to put up.

Can you see Murphy? He is wide awake.

Yes Sir, It’s National Pie Day!

 GUEST BLOGGER Rob Bard, Pie Judge

(-and good friend!  Our eldest sons went to school together when stationed at Ft. Knox, Kentucky in 1986 -87)    

Here is what Rob says:

 
January 23rd is National Pie Day so I wanted to send some photos along to commemorate this historic day.  Here is the website for the American Pie Council regarding National Pie Day.  It also has links to the Crisco National Pie Championships and the American Pie Festival which is held in April in Orlando.  I will be judging again this year.  This will be my 5th year.
The Crisco National Pie Competition is being held this year April 27-29.  Friday is the Commercial Division of pies and those are your wholesalers, pies like you buy at the grocery, Walmart, etc.
 On Saturday is the Amateur Division and these are the best.  These pies are made by people like you and me.  They are made with love and they are truly your “homemade” pies.  I love judging that day.  With over 900 pies entered, judges are divided up and we sample just a certain type of pie.  There are 18 categories.  I try to always select the cherry pie, my favorite.  The most pies I have ever judged was 28 different cherry pies over 2 days.
 Sunday is the Professional Division and these are just that.  This category are those individuals that have “made a living” selling pies and the professional pastry chefs.
I have met some nice people along the way.  Pie has a way of bringing people together.
 Met Keegan Gerhard, Food Challenge, from Food Network.
Willard Scott
Gale Gand from the Food Network and owner of Tru restaurant in Chicago
For a little get together in the neighborhood I baked this pie
(and it was so pretty I had to take a photo).
This recipe (not me) was a winner in the competition one year.  It is called, US Rt 1, Maine to Key West, Blueberry/Key Lime Pie.  I can see why it was a winner.  Recipes for winning pies, and others, can be found on the American Pie Council website.
Did you notice the photo on my shirt?  That is a photo of my grandson, Owen.  It drew lots of attention at the competition.
I should mention that the motto of the American Pie Council is, “In Crust, We Trust“.
Eat More Pie!

Have a great day,
Rob
Thanks Rob for guest blogging today and sharing your photos. You might remember Rob took the photo of the wine glass on the patio table by the lake.
And he was part of my Gallery of Veterans post.  (I am still waiting for some friends to send their photos for that Gallery’s future posts.)
I think sour cherry pie might be my favorite pie, Rob.  Hope you will send an update on your judging experience this year.   xxoo Ruth E.  

Watching Her Sisters Make Their Mother’s Nut Roll Via SKYPE

Yes, that is a bowl of melted butter used to brush on the dough

Marlene was in Virginia. Her sisters- Linda, Theresa and Georgeann were in Pittsburgh.  I dropped by with the camera to document the occasion and made a slideshow of the beginning to end effort.  I think there were fifteen long metal pans waiting for dough.  They were rolling and filling and letting the dough rise to bake.  Southwestern PA is known for perpetuating nut roll tradition.  Not to be confused with nut horns or nut crescents.

The Pans Waiting for the Yeasty Dough

 

 

 

Vanilla Buttercream on a Six Layer Cake in Winter

You might remember the  vanilla buttercream white cake on the front porch in late summer. The one I posted for Marlene’s birthday. (looks good in summer light- click here )

I made this cake by baking 1 cup of batter in 3- 8″ baking pans at a time. (350 degrees)

Did that twice to make six layers.  Vanilla buttercream icing.

The insides of the cake will be revealed another time.  I used the 1-2-3-4 cake recipe

1 cup unsalted butter, room temp

2 cups sugar

3 cups of cake flour (with 2 tsp baking powder and 1 tsp salt)

4 eggs

1 cup of milk + 1/2 cup warm water

I used the Cake Bible method of mixing all dry ingredients with the butter and then adding the vanilla, egg and milk mixture to the dry mixture. Apologies to  Rose Levy Beranbaum  as she describes it so well in her cookbook but I gave Laura that volume and so it is in Columbus now. Laura and I did Face Time and she showed me the cookbook in her hands but when she read the recipes in the back for the wedding cake proportions and the breakdown for a smaller cake, I just decided to go with my grandmother’s and mother’s old 1-2-3-4 recipe.  I couldn’t refer to the other recipes as I mixed and baked.  I will have to borrow that cookbook back and commit it to memory, too.

Molasses Cookies Mystery

Sunday, a beautiful box of homemade molasses cookies was left on my doorstep.  My friend Steve brought them into the house.  The sugar on the cracked tops is the fancy kind.  I drove back from Ohio Monday night.  Ate a couple with some hot tea. Mmmmmmmmm!  Reminded me of the cookies my mother used to bake.

I have called three friends to ask if they are the one who dropped off these delicious cookies. My friend V said that another friend came to her mind when I told her I didn’t know who made them.  I called.

Wasn’t her either!

Thank you for the delicious molasses cookies.  Whoever you are.

(and then I got worried and had to look up grammar rules- whoever/whomever?? )

Most people knew I was away with the family.  But maybe they thought I was driving back Sunday night?

Olga Melynchek Muraska’s Nut Horn Recipe Baked by her Daughter

My cell rang as I was in the check out at Giant Eagle. I was buying cheese and crackers and Clementines for the Photography Class reception that started in a little over an hour. Marianne said that she was baking her mother’s recipe for nut horns right then if I wanted to photograph them.  She had made the dough the night before and refrigerated it.

I looked at the time. It was 4:44.

I was in the South Side but figured I could drive to the West End and then make it to the North Side for the last class/reception.

Make the dough the night before and refrigerate
Confectioner's sugar!

When I got there she had three pans of the cookies in different stages, just like a cooking show.

I started shooting to tell the story of the making of her mother’s recipe.  I was amazed to find out that is confectioner’s sugar on the board where she rolls them out.  Not flour!

The recipe says Nut Crescents but Olga always called them Nut Horns.

Marianne gave me a half dozen in a ziploc bag. Delicious.  Remembering Christmases past.

Here is the recipe.

Remembering Olga link.