The Better Cheesecake

Welcome 2022! I’ve seen a lot of complaining and griping about 2021, but honestly for me it’s been one of the best years of my life. My granola business seems to be a good fit for me in so many ways. I’ve learned so much in the past 8 months about bringing a product to market, and I’ve met so many wonderful people. It’s been an incredibly positive experience. Not that I wasn’t complaining, last fall when the Delta variant hit Oregon hard we had to wear masks outside at the markets! That was a bit much! But we got through it. So…cheesecake!

The Better Cheesecake. I named it as such because it is remarkably better than my other cheesecake recipe. I made this for the new year and we were absolutely blown away by the flavor and texture. I think it’s the added heavy cream. And the way it’s baked. The recipe below is adapted from an adapted version of a Dorie Greenspan recipe on NYTimes Cooking. 

I changed a few things but not much. I used salted butter (and added more for the graham cracker crust) I think it tastes much better. Also I used a combination of sour cream and heavy cream, rather than just sour cream, and lastly I kept the pan of water separate in oven rather than placing cheesecake in pan of water. This was a tip that was in the comments section. The original recipe has you double foiling the pan and then placing it in boiling hot water while it’s baking. But it’s so much easier to just put a pan of hot water in the base of the oven. I think the hot water helps with the cracking problem. Because this time I had only one not-so-big crack on the top of the cheesecake. My other one cracked all over the place! 

I still had blueberries and cherries in the freezer from last summer’s yard harvest. They held up well and tasted great. I still have more blueberries to cook with so maybe there’s a pie coming up next week.

I hope your new year is off to a good start! And you can’t go wrong with this cheesecake, it’s so good!

The Better Cheesecake

For the crust:

• 1 3/4 cups graham cracker crumbs

• 3 tablespoons sugar

• Pinch of salt

• 1 stick (8 tablespoons) salted butter, melted

For the cheesecake:

• 2 pounds (four 8-ounce boxes) cream cheese, at room temperature

• 1 1/3 cups sugar

• 1/2 teaspoon salt

• 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

• 4 large eggs, at room temperature

• 3/4 cup sour cream

• 3/4 cup heavy cream

For the berry sauce:

• 2 cups fresh or frozen blueberries and/or cherries

• 1/2 cup water

• 1 tablespoon sugar

Make the crust: Butter a 9-inch springform pan — choose one that has sides that are 2 3/4 inches high (if the sides are lower, you will have cheesecake batter left over.)

Melt the butter. Stir the crumbs, sugar and salt together in a medium bowl. Pour over the melted butter and stir until all of the dry ingredients are uniformly moist. (You can do this with your fingers.) Turn the ingredients into the springform pan and use your fingers to pat an even layer of crumbs along the bottom of the pan and about halfway up the sides. Don’t worry if the sides are not perfectly even or if the crumbs reach above or below the midway point on the sides. Put the pan in the freezer while you heat the oven. 

Center a rack in the oven, and have a rack on the bottom for a pan of water. Heat the oven to 350° F and place the springform on a baking sheet. Bake the crust for 10 minutes. Set aside to cool. Reduce the oven temperature to 325° F.

To make the cheesecake: Put a kettle of water on to boil. Working with a stand mixer, preferably fitted with the paddle attachment, or with a hand mixer in a large bowl, beat the cream cheese at medium speed until it is soft and creamy, about 4 minutes. With the mixer running, add the sugar and salt and continue to beat for another 4 minutes or so, until the cream cheese is light. Beat in the vanilla. Add the eggs, one by one, beating for 1 full minute after each addition — you want a well-aerated batter. Scrape down the sides of the mixing bowl as needed. Reduce the mixer speed to low and stir in the sour cream and heavy cream.

Give the batter a few stirs with a rubber spatula, just to make sure that nothing has been left unmixed at the bottom of the bowl, and scrape the batter into the springform pan. The batter will reach the rim of the pan. (If you have a pan with lower sides and have leftover batter, you can bake the batter in a buttered ramekin or small soufflé mold.) Fill a roasting pan with hot water and place in the bottom rack of the oven.

Place the cheesecake on a sheet pan and place on the middle rack and bake the cheesecake for 1 hour 30 minutes, at which point the top will be browned (and perhaps cracked) and may have risen just a little above the rim of the pan. Turn off the oven’s heat and prop the oven door open with a wooden spoon. Allow the cheesecake to cool down for another hour.

After 1 hour remove from oven and let the cheesecake come to room temperature on a cooling rack.

When the cake is cool, cover the top lightly and refrigerate for at least 4 hours, although overnight is better. At serving time, remove the sides of the springform pan.

Make the berry sauce: In a small saucepan add the berries, water and sugar. Bring to a boil then reduce heat to a simmer, cook for about 5 minutes. Remove from heat and allow to cool a bit before serving.

Blueberry Granola Loaf Cake

Hi there. I’m excited to share some news with you! I’ve been making granola on repeat all through the pandemic. It tastes really good so I had an idea a few months back to package and sell it (locally, at least for now). I set up a page here on Pixels + Crumbs with more info on Good Day Granola. I’m looking to be a vendor at some of Portland farmer’s markets over the next few months and I’ll be updating that page as things progress. I was at a Maker’s market last weekend and I managed to sell quite a few bags of granola. I had a lot of fun and I’ve enjoyed the whole process from recipe development, branding and packaging to being a vendor. It was also great to be around people. I’m fully vaccinated at this point and it feels so liberating! I know it’s not 100% guarantee but it gives me peace of mind. Once I can bake in a commercial kitchen I’ll be able to sell online and I’ll be sure to let you know.

So moving on to this Blueberry Granola Loaf Cake. It’s similar to the Blueberry Lemon Yogurt Cake I made way back in the beginning of this blog. Here I used sour cream because I accidentally bought too much and had to use it. But you could use yogurt if that’s what you prefer. And the topping is granola! It works great on top of the cake and makes it a little more breakfasty.

One more thing, my cake took 1 hour and 20 minutes to thoroughly bake! Not sure why it took that long, it may have been the loaf pan I used, it’s cast-iron and really not the best for baking cakes like this, but I think it looks cute for the photos, lol, so I would recommend testing the center of the cake 50-60 minutes and take it from there. It might need to go longer. Enjoy!

Blueberry Granola Loaf Cake 

• 1 1/2 Cups all-purpose flour

• 2 teaspoons baking powder

• 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

• 1 cup sour cream

• 1 cup sugar

• 3 large eggs

• 2 teaspoons lemon zest (about 2 lemons)

• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

• 1/2 cup canola oil

• 1 cup blueberries

• 1 cup granola

Preheat oven to 350°. Grease loaf pan, line the bottom and longer sides with parchment paper and grease the paper with butter.

Whisk the flour, baking powder and salt in a medium bowl.

In a large bowl whisk the yogurt, sugar eggs, lemon zest and vanilla until well combined. 

Mix the flour mixture into the liquid mixture.

Fold in the oil with a rubber spatula until thoroughly mixed then fold in the blueberries.

Pour the batter in the the pan, top with granola and bake for 1 hour, checking at the 50 minute mark until toothpick comes out clean in center.

Remove from oven to baking rack and cool for about 10 minutes leaving it in the pan, remove cake from pan with the parchment handles and let cool another 10 minutes or so until just warm.

Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

Here’s another treat to get you through the winter months. Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies! We had a big snow fall last week, 8-10 inches of snow (with a layer of ice sandwiched in-between) which is a big deal around here. The city practically shut down. Businesses closed. They don’t plow most streets because it’s… sort of rare, but not that rare! And they don’t use salt on the roads because it’s bad for the roads and the environment and will end up costing more money in the end with repair work. So you have to drive with chains on your tires or plan to walk to places, hunker down and light a fire. And maybe make some cookies if you have power. And we did! I couldn’t believe it. Huge snow/ice storm and we didn’t lose power. 

I was almost going to make the Peanut butter and Chocolate Blondies again, but they are so rich. Amazing as they are I really just wanted something a tad lighter. And these are just that. A little less butter, and a little less peanut butter. And also cookies, so rather than baked all at once in one pan, you can do as I did and bake small batches at a time. The dough stays fine in the fridge for a week and you can have fresh baked cookies in just a matter of minutes. Bake 6-12 cookies at a time. Whatever you want. Easy. You can freeze the dough as well if you want to take a break from cookie baking/eating. Since it’s just the two of us I find it makes more sense to do these small batch desserts. Some things freeze well post-baked and taste good defrosted, like cakes, but cookies? I think fresh baked is best.

The original recipe was named “Chewy” Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies, which mine were not, maybe because I used honey rather than corn syrup? I’m not sure. The only thing I changed here was that I used honey instead of Corn Syrup. But I don’t have corn syrup and didn’t have any plans to use it so I replaced it with honey. No complaints! These cookies were awesome! I would definitely make them again. Enjoy! And stay warm!

Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

• 1/2 cup butter, softened 

• 1/2 cup peanut butter 

• 1 cup packed brown sugar 

• 1/2 cup white sugar 

• 2 eggs 

• 2 tablespoons honey

• 2 tablespoons water 

• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract 

• 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour 

• 1 teaspoon baking soda 

• 1/2 teaspoon salt 

• 2 cups chopped semisweet chocolate 10 oz bag

Preheat oven to 375F° (190C°). Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

In a large bowl cream together the butter, peanut butter, brown sugar, and white sugar until smooth. Beat in the eggs one at a time, then stir in the honey, water, and vanilla. In a separate bowl whisk together the flour, baking soda, and salt. Then stir the flour mixture into the peanut butter mixture. Fold in chocolate chunks. Drop by 1/4 cupfuls 3 inches apart onto the parchment-lined baking sheet.

Bake for 12 to 15 minutes in preheated oven, or until edges are golden. Allow cookies to cool for a few minutes on the cookie sheet before removing to wire racks to cool completely. Makes about 36 cookies.

Cranberry Orange Pecan Loaf Cake

Cranberry Orange Pecan Loaf Cake. I had some fresh cranberries leftover from Thanksgiving and wanted to make some type of cake with them, I made a Cranberry Cobbler years ago but wanted something different, so here we are. This is such a great cake! I adapted the recipe from Sally’s Baking Addiction and made a few changes. For one, I melted the butter for the streusel, a lot of recipes say to use cold butter and crumble it into the flour and sugar, but sometimes I end up with flour that’s not quite mixed in with the butter after it’s done, I find it’s easier and more reliable to just add the sugar, spice and flour to melted butter. Also instead of buttermilk I used a mixture of greek yogurt and milk, and I added some Pecans to the recipe.

My baking time was a lot different than the 45 minutes to an hour suggested in the original recipe, it may have been due to the pan I used, a cast iron loaf pan, but in any case the total bake time for me was 1 hour and 20 minutes! It didn’t seem quite done after an hour so I took the temperature and let it go longer until it reached 200°. That worked! It’s a great cake, enjoy!

Oh and be careful out there friends, Covid-19 cases are going through the roof! We’re so close to getting a vaccine, it’s not that much longer, do your best to stay safe for you, your family, your neighbors, friends, we’re all in this together! 

Cranberry Orange Pecan Loaf Cake

Streusel

• 1/4 cup all-purpose flour

• 2 Tablespoons granulated sugar

• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

• 3 Tablespoons salted butter, melted

Cake

• 2 cups all-purpose flour

• 1 teaspoon baking soda

• 1/2 teaspoon salt

• 1 large egg

• 1/2 cup dark brown sugar

• 1/2 cup granulated sugar

• 2/3 cup milk

• 1/3 cup greek yogurt

• 1/3 cup vegetable oil 

• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

• 2 teaspoons orange zest (about 1 orange zested)

• 1 cup fresh cranberries (more for topping)

• 1/2 cup crushed pecans (more for topping)

Glaze

• 1/2 cup powdered sugar

• 1 Tablespoon orange juice

Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease a 9×5 inch loaf pan with butter, line with parchment paper and butter that as well.

Make the streusel: Whisk the flour, sugar, and cinnamon together in a medium bowl. Add the melted butter and stir with a fork until combined. Set aside.

Make the cake: Whisk the flour, baking soda, and salt together in a large bowl. 

In a medium bowl, whisk the egg, brown sugar, and granulated sugar together until combined. Whisk in the milk, yogurt, oil, vanilla, and orange zest. 

Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients, then fold with a rubber spatula to completely combine. Fold in the cranberries and Pecans.

Pour the batter into prepared loaf pan. Scatter the streusel on top, add a few cranberries and crushed pecans. Cover the baking dish with foil and bake for 35 minutes. Then remove foil and bake for an additional 25-45 minutes. Cake is done when cake tester or toothpick comes out clean (or at 200° temp, I started using a thermometer because sometimes it comes out clean and it’s not bake all the way through!)

Cool bread completely in the pan set on a wire rack. Then remove using your “parchment handles” onto serving plate or board.

The glaze! In a small bowl, whisk the powdered sugar and orange juice together. Drizzle over cooled bread.

Slice and serve. Cover and store leftover bread at room temperature for 1 day or in the refrigerator for up to 1 week.

Adapted from Sally’s Baking Addiction

Buttermilk Pull-Apart Dinner Rolls

Buttermilk Pull-Apart Dinner Rolls. Ok, so rarely on this blog do I insist “You have to make these!” but I am now. I made these Buttermilk Pull-Apart Dinner Rolls last week for Thanksgiving and they tasted so incredibly good! But on my second try here they are even better! Last week I made the original recipe, halved, 12 rolls (rather than 24) and they didn’t really fill out the 9” square pan, although they were really good, I didn’t get the pull-apart effect I was expecting and they were on the small side. So this recipe I made slightly larger rolls in a smaller 8” round pan and they came out great! The recipe is adapted from Alexandra’s Kitchen, she has a great blog and I recommend watching her videos, they’re awesome! 

If you saw my Instagram stories you remember I made a buttermilk-brind chicken for Thanksgiving, and also made the Dried Cherries and Sausage Stuffing. Along with that we had mashed potatoes with roasted garlic, Rainbow Chard, Cranberry relish, and a Butternut Squash Kaddu which I really should blog about. I made this apple pie but decided on a crumble topping instead, which I really liked, I like a pie that has three different flavor experiences - pie crust, fruit, crumble (and/or cream). 

Getting back to the dinner rolls, they are soft and airy and still have a bit of chew on the outside, they are just so good. 

I thought these were called Parker House Rolls, but the wiki page on them describes something quite different, something moon shaped! Going back to the 19th century with angry pastry cooks throwing unfinished rolls into the oven? Anyways you won’t be throwing these around and only into your mouth.

Good stuff! Enjoy and I hope to get you some more recipes before the xmas holiday.

Also, these tastes great with butter and jam for a snack. :)

Buttermilk Pull-Apart Dinner Rolls 

• 2 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for shaping

• 1 teaspoon kosher salt

• 1 tablespoon sugar 

• 1 teaspoon instant yeast

• 1/2 cup boiling water 

• 1/2 cup buttermilk*

• 2 tablespoons melted butter

• 1 tablespoon melted butter and flaky sea salt for topping

*You can make buttermilk by adding 1 tablespoon vinegar or lemon juice to a 1/2 cup of whole milk and let it sit for 5-10 minutes.

In a large bowl, whisk together the flour salt, sugar, and instant yeast.

In a 1-cup liquid measuring cup pour the boiling water over the buttermilk and let stand for 10 minutes, the buttermilk will look curdled then give it a stir.

Pour the buttermilk mixture and the 2 tablespoons of melted butter over the flour mixture. Stir until a sticky ball of dough forms. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and set aside in a warm place to rise for 2 hours or until doubled in bulk.

Grease an 8×8-inch baking dish or 8” round cake pan. Flour a work surface and sprinkle flour lightly over the dough and around the edges. Gently fold the dough out of the bowl onto the floured work surface and shape into a rough ball, if it’s sticky add more flour. Use a bench scraper to divide the ball into 3 equal portions. Shape each portion roughly into a ball, then use a bench scraper to divide each ball into 3 roughly even portions to create 9 small round pieces total. If the sizes look odd just tear off the big ones to get the smaller ones up to size, the dough is very forgiving and won’t ruin the rolls!

Place the dough balls into the prepared pan, spacing them evenly apart.

Preheat the oven to 375°.

At this point, you can cover the pan and refrigerate overnight. Otherwise let the dough rise covered with plastic wrap for 25 to 35 minutes, or until the dough pieces have puffed to almost fill the pan. (Note: If you refrigerate overnight, remove the pan 30 to 45 minutes prior to baking.) 

Place the baking pan in the oven and bake for 20-25 minutes, or until golden brown. Remove pan from the oven and immediately brush the surface of the rolls with one tablespoon of melted butter, then sprinkle flaky salt over top. Let the rolls cool in the pan for a 10 minutes or so, then turn the pan out onto a cooling rack and invert onto a plate or serving platter. Serve warm with more butter on the side. 

Oatmeal Raisin Molasses Cookies

First. Election. If you’re voting by mail and haven’t yet, please drop your ballot in a ballot box or at your local election ballot drop-off location, more info here! So you are sure your vote will be counted! Late ballots by mail might not be counted if they’re received late and your vote really does matter!

So cookies. I’ve been meaning to try out this recipe for a while. We had some incredibly good cookies from Costco recently, their oatmeal raisin cookies were amazing. I could taste the molasses. So I ventured onto this recipe. It’s really good! But it’s definitely heavier on molasses than the ones I had from Costco. Still, this recipe makes a great cookie, it’s chewy and falls somewhere between oatmeal raisin and gingerbread. I love molasses and wonder why I don’t bake with it more? I made a few adjustments with butter and sugar but I think you will like it.

And so, you know, we have this election coming up (which is a big freakin’ deal!) but I feel remarkably calm about it. I really think that Biden is going to win. I do. Obviously I could be totally wrong, but… everything is telling me that he is going to win. Trump will blame everyone and everything possible, because of course nothing is ever his fault according to him. But man, I want that moment next week where the American people can say to Trump: “You’re Fired!”

I want that so bad.

I didn’t expect Joe Biden to be the one that could make this happen. But the people have spoken and here we are, which I’m totally ok with. And also, Kamala Harris! Here we have a woman (also POC) running as vice-president and it’s like not even a big deal! How awesome is that?! :) I’m old enough to have voted for Geraldine Ferraro in 1984 and it’s kind of incredible that there has not been one woman on the Presidential ticket since then, with the exception of Hillary in 2016, but really, why not?

Let’s hope I’m right.

Good Vibes going into this. And good cookies to get us through. We can do this. #votebiden

Oatmeal Raisin Molasses Cookies

• 1 1/2 cups raisins

• 1/2 cup unsalted butter

• 3/4 cup sugar

• 3/4 cup brown sugar

• 2 large eggs, room temp

• 1/2 cup molasses

• 2 cups rolled oats

• 1-3/4 cups all-purpose flour

• 1 teaspoon baking soda

• 1 teaspoon salt

• 1 (heaping) teaspoon cinnamon

Plump the raisins, place raisins in a bowl, cover with boiling water and let stand for 5 minutes. Then drain and set aside.

In a large bowl (or stand mixer) beat together the butter and sugars until light and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each. Beat in molasses. In a separate bowl whisk together the oats, flour, baking soda, salt and cinnamon. Gradually add the oat mixture to the butter mixture with a wooden spoon and mix well. Stir in raisins.

Place a tablespoon of cookie dough 2 inches apart onto parchment lined baking sheet. Bake at 350° for 12-14 minutes (mine were done in 14 minutes). Remove from oven and let cool a few minutes, then transfer to cooling rack. This recipe makes a lot of cookies! 5 dozen at this size cookie. I make a couple batches then refrigerate the rest of the dough. You can also freeze the dough so you can make the cookies at your own pace. 

Recipe adapted from Taste of Home

Cherry Crumble pie

We had such a nice surprise a few weeks back. We have a cherry tree in our front yard that has been here ever since we bought the house several years ago, but it never really produced much fruit. Maybe a few at the very top for the squirrels to eat. But this year was a different story. Tons of cherries and within reach! So Jeff and I spent an afternoon picking cherries in our front yard. We ended up with about five pounds of cherries! We pitted and froze about half, and the other half I made into a pie which came out incredibly good! The recipe below is for a full-size pie that I made a few weeks ago, but you can make four mini-pies instead which is what I did this week. One thing I noted below in the recipe is to bake the pie in the lower third of the oven. Rather than pre-bake your pie shell to avoid “soggy bottom” you can refrigerate the rolled out pie dough in the pie pan prior to baking, add your filling and bake on the lower rack and it will brown the bottom. That is if your oven heats from the bottom up. I had read about this somewhere and tried it and it worked really well! Recipe below, enjoy!

Cherry Crumble pie

Crumble:

• 2/3 cup rolled oats

• 1/2 cup all-purpose flour

• 1/2 cup brown sugar

• 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

• 1/4 teaspoon Cardamom 

• 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

• 6 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled

Sour cherry filling:

• 3/4 cup sugar

• 3 tablespoons cornstarch

• 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt

• 2 1/4 pounds fresh sour cherries, pitted, or 2 pounds frozen sour cherries, partially thawed

• 1 Pie Dough, recipe here

Prepare your pie crust in advance so it’s well chilled. Roll out your pie dough, place in pie dish, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 1 hour. 

Preheat oven to 375°. 

Prepare the cherry filling by mixing sugar, cornstarch and salt together in a medium bowl, then toss in the cherries until well coated.

In another medium bowl whisk together the oats, flour, brown sugar, spices and salt. Pour the cooled melted butter over the flour mixture and stir to combine well (sometimes it’s easier to do this with your hands).

When the pie crust is good and chilled, pour in the cherry filling mixture, then top with the crumble mixture. Place the pie on a baking sheet and bake for 50-60 minutes on the bottom third of your oven (this helps the bottom crust to cook better). About 45 minutes for the mini-pies. Remove from oven and cool before serving.

Recipe adapted from Smitten Kitchen

Sourdough Focaccia with Flaked Sea Salt

Sourdough Focaccia with Flaked Sea Salt. Sourdough is totally new to me, for years I thought to try it out but felt intimidated by the whole process. And it is a process! But not nearly as bad I was expecting, I’m enjoying it quite a bit. A few weeks ago I got the sourdough starter from a local pizzeria, Red Sauce Pizza, I was purchasing flour and yeast there and they offer a free sourdough starter with purchase. They actually forgot to include it in my bag, I contacted them and they delivered it to my house the next day! That was so nice.

I put the starter (which was super sticky and not bubbly) in the fridge and fed it a few days later, then it started up! I kept it in the fridge and fed it once a week and had no problems at all. 

The recipe below is from Alexandra Cooks and I highly recommend going to her blog, she has so much experience and information that I couldn’t possibly explain here since this is so new to me.

The main things I want to point out about sourdough bread making:

• It’s not as complicated as it seems

• You don’t have to buy a sourdough starter, ask your neighborhood bakery, family, friends or neighbors, they’re all throwing away starter discard! .

• You can feed the refrigerated sourdough starter every 1-2 weeks to keep it active

• It’s mainly hands off, most of the time is letting it rise

• This focaccia definitely needs a non-stick pan like this USA Bake pan

• It’s totally worth it because the bread is amazing!

You may have seen on my instagram feed that I made some Focaccia for a fund raiser through The Side Yard Farm.

This week I’m participating in @bakersagainstracism with @thesideyardfarm’s local bake sale here in Portland to support Black United Fund of Oregon! 100% of the proceeds from this event will be going directly to BUFOR to aid in their mission to directly fund social and economic development initiatives in the underserved communities of Portland. I’ll be baking this Sourdough Focaccia with flaked sea salt.The bake sale will run from 11am Monday 6/15 through Friday 6/19. Pick-up of all purchased items will be at The Side Yard Farm on Saturday 6/20 between 10am-4pm, no shipping or delivery available.

Here’s where you can pre-order, it looks like a lot of great baked goods on the site! 

https://pdx-bakers-against-racism.square.site

It’s now Wednesday and they’re nearly sold out of everything! More baked items are being added I’m told and they are also accepting donations.

Just a friendly reminder when you pick up your baked goods be sure to wear a mask! Coronavirus cases are on the rise here in Oregon and we all want this to go away as fast as possible!

Below is the recipe for this fantastic Focaccia! 

Sourdough Focaccia with Flaked Sea Salt

• 50 g – 100 g (1/4 to 1/2 cup) active sourdough starter

• 10 g (about 2.5 teaspoons) kosher salt

• 430 – 440 g water, room temperature (about 100°F)

• 512 g (about 4 cups) bread flour

• 3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, divided, plus more for drizzling

• Flaky sea salt, such as Maldon

I recommend watching her video here, it helped me a lot! 

Place the starter, salt, and water in a large bowl. Stir with a spatula to combine — it doesn’t have to be uniformly mixed. Add the flour. Mix again until the flour is completely incorporated.

Perform one “fold”: 30 minutes after you mix the dough, reach into the bowl and pull the dough up and into the center. Turn the bowl quarter turns and continue this pulling 8 to 10 times. 

Drizzle with a splash of olive oil and rub to coat. Cover bowl with a tea towel or bowl cover and set aside to rise at room temperature (70ºF/21ºC) for 4 to 18 hours (the time will vary depending on the time of year, the strength of your starter, and the temperature of your kitchen — in summer, for instance, sourdoughs double in 6 hours; in winter, they double in 18 hours. A straight-sided vessel makes monitoring the bulk fermentation especially easy because it allows you to see when your dough has truly doubled. You will also see bubbles in the dough which is a good sign that it is ready.

When dough has doubled, place 2 tablespoons of olive oil into a 9×13-inch pan (use a non-stick pan if possible or guess what, it will stick!).

Drizzle dough with a tablespoon of olive oil. Use your hand to gently deflate the dough and release it from the sides of the bowl. Gently scoop the dough into the center of the pool of oil in your prepared pan. Fold dough envelope style from top to bottom and side to side to create a rough rectangle. Turn dough over so seam-side is down. (watch her video for better reference).  

Rub top of dough with oil. Leave alone for 4 to 6 hours (At this point you can also put it in the refrigerator overnight for a slow rise, just take it out prior to baking and proceed as below instructions, you will get a higher rise and I think it’s better!), uncovered, or until puffy and nearly doubled.  

Heat oven to 425ºF. Rub hands lightly with oil, and using all ten fingers, press gently into the dough to dimple and stretch the dough to nearly fit the pan. Sprinkle generously with a flaked sea salt. Transfer pan to the oven and bake for about 25 minutes or until golden all around. Remove pan from oven and transfer bread to a cooling rack. Cool at least 20 minutes before slicing.

Adapted from Alexandra’s Kitchen

Peanut Butter and Chocolate Blondies

Peanut Butter and Chocolate Blondies. These are so good! I made them about a week ago and they’re all gone now. Jeff and I finished the last one today. The serving size I show here can be a bit much (or not!), so I ended up cutting the nine squares in half for 18 pieces total. It’s a nice snack size. I had been craving peanut butter and chocolate for like two weeks and I finally made this recipe. The original recipe was more of a thin bar, baked in a 9”x13” pan for 20 minutes, but I wanted something at least an inch thick so I baked them in a 9”x9” pan for about 40-45 minutes and they came out great. What I like about this recipe is that there is an extra layer of peanut butter inside, not a lot but enough to make it really good! 

I hope you are all getting along well, we’re fine here and I’ve been working on the garden a bit more, I’ve started some herbs and vegetables from seed, which I might blog about if it all works out, I’m learning all the time over here. But so far so good. It has been a bitch trying to buy seeds online, either no stock or way overpriced on Amazon, but my local nursery was well stocked with curbside pickup, and my neighbor gave me some seeds for Parsley, Dill and Cilantro. I used to buy starters for herbs, but some tend to bolt sooner than you want, so it’s better to just grow by seed and stagger the planting (seeding) so you always have a fresh harvest. 

This recipe is pretty easy and straight forward, like I said I used a smaller baking pan for a longer oven time and was really happy with the results. But you could try the 9”x13” dish for 20 minutes.

If you love chocolate and peanut butter you will love this! I do!

Peanut Butter and Chocolate Blondies

• 1 1/2 sticks (3/4 cup) salted butter

• 3/4 cup creamy peanut butter, divided into 1/2 cup and 1/4 cup

• 1 cup light brown sugar

• 1/2 cup granulated sugar

• 2 eggs

• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract

• 2 cups all-purpose flour

• 1 teaspoon baking powder

• 1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

• flaky sea salt

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Grease a 9x9 inch baking dish lined with parchment paper.

In a medium sized pot melt together the butter and 1/2 cup peanut butter over a medium heat on the stove, stirring frequently until melted. Stir in the brown sugar, sugar, and vanilla, transfer to a large bowl and then whisk in the eggs gradually to temper them so that they don’t cook. Stir in the flour and baking powder until well combined. Transfer the bowl to the freezer and chill 5 minutes or the refrigerator for 15 minutes, until the dough is no longer warm to the touch. Stir in the chocolate chips. 
Spread 1/2 the dough out in the prepared dish. Dollop and swirl the remaining 1/4 cup peanut butter over the dough. Add the remaining dough overtop, don't worry if it doesn’t fully cover the peanut butter. Transfer to oven and bake for 40-45 minutes, until set in the center. Remove from the oven and sprinkle with sea salt. Let cool and then cut into bars. Store for up to 5 days in an airtight container.

Adapted from Half Baked Harvest

Cornbread

How is everyone doing? We’re ok here, adapting to the stay at home rule. Granted, Jeff and I have been working from home for some time now so this wasn’t any kind of huge transition, but staying away from grocery stores, restaurants and people has proved to be more challenging than I expected. Last week we could not get deliveries through Amazon PrimeNow for several days, rather than the same-day 2-hour window we’ve relied on. And all delivery services had massive delays. I was down to two eggs by the weekend and figured I would have to go to the grocery store. But I was able to find a local grocer that uses Instacart for delivery service and got a delivery on Saturday night! I was so happy. It really is the little things in life, like food! I’m trying to reserve my trips out to the store for only things I can’t get online or get delivered (hello Bourbon!). The less contact we have now the faster we can get through this Pandemic, and hopefully return to something somewhat normal. But I think that will be a long time from now. We’ll be toting around hand sanitizer until we’re like “Corona who? what?” Well, that day will never come because nobody in the whole world will forget this.

So, Cornbread! This recipe is adapted from Sprouted Kitchen Cooking Club. I’ve made Cornbread maybe a few times and it’s generally, ok. Nothing to blog about. But I’m really happy with how this came out. Not sure if it’s the type of cornmeal I used or what, I get very confused about cornmeal, there are so many different kinds, fine, medium, course, corn grits, corn polenta, grits/polenta, Masa Harina, it’s almost endless. I had Course Grind Cornmeal on hand so I used that. I was worried the texture would be too sandy, but it came out great, I really love it.

I made a couple adjustments to the original recipe, I didn’t have a can of green chiles and I forgot to add the cheese! I’ll keep those in the recipe as optional. I added some defrosted frozen corn which I highly recommend. Also Sarah’s recipe is for Cornbread Muffins, I’ve adjusted the recipe for a 10” cast-iron skillet, but you could make muffins instead, it will be about 10 minutes less bake time.

I made this for a Black-eyed Peas and Collard Greens dish we had the other day and I’ll be posting that recipe soon, it tasted so good! Take care friends.

Cornbread

• 1 1/4 cup buttermilk or to make it: mix in 1 tbsp white vinegar to 1 1/4 cup milk

• 2 eggs

• 1/3 cup avocado oil or other neutral oil

• 3 Tbsp. butter or ghee, melted

• 1/2 tsp. sea salt

• 1/3 cup cane sugar

• 1 cup cornmeal (course grind)

• 1 cup all-purpose flour

• 2 tsp. baking powder

• 1 tsp. baking soda

• 1 cup frozen corn, defrosted to room temp

• 1 4 oz. can mild green chiles, drained well (optional)

• 3/4 cup grated cheddar cheese (optional)

• A grind of fresh ground pepper

Preheat the oven to 375’ and grease a 10” cast-iron skillet or equivalent baking dish. 

In a large mixing bowl, whisk the buttermilk and eggs together really well. Add the oil, melted butter, salt and sugar and whisk until combined. In a separate medium bowl, whisk together the cornmeal, flour, baking powder and baking soda. Add the flour mixture to the wet ingredients, stir to just combine. Add the corn and some fresh ground pepper. (if using add the drained chiles, cheese and stir one more time). 

Pour into the cast-iron pan, top with a bit of sugar or honey if you like. Bake for 30 minutes or until done in the center (muffins will take 20-25 minutes). Remove and allow cool.