Sour Cream Zucchini Bread . . . When There's Life Left in Your Zucchini . . .

I found a small zucchini languishing in my vegetable drawer yesterday. It was just on the precipice of being overly ripe. I'll bet you have one like it languishing somewhere in your kitchen too. (Come on, I know you do. Go back and check that refrigerator again. Look in the back, on the bottom shelf. See it? It's been camouflaged by that pickle jar.)

Not sure whether to use it up or throw it away? Assuming it's still perfectly viable, don't throw it out! Make yourself a nice loaf of sour cream zucchini bread. If you want to, you can jazz the loaf up with chocolate chips, or chopped nuts, maybe some raisins. Or heck, nothing wrong with leaving it plain. (You know, like Thoreau said: "Simplify, simplify." He really did say that, didn't he?)

This is a really easy recipe that can be thrown together in a hurry. It can all be done in two bowls, with no mixer required, just a spoon. It's a good, moist quick bread that makes a satisfying snack, breakfast treat, or light dessert. Tastes even better the second day (don't you just love it when your baked goods do that?).


Sour Cream Zucchini Bread, with Chocolate Chips (or not . . .)

Makes one loaf.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

1 1/2 cups of AP flour (bleached or unbleached)
1 cup granulated sugar
1/4 tsp. cinnamon
1/8 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt

2 large eggs, lightly beaten
1/2 cup sour cream
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 cup grated zucchini

3/4 cup of chocolate chips of your choice (I lean toward semisweet for this kind of thing)


Grease one 9 x 5 x 3 loaf pan (or use baking spray).

In a large bowl, thoroughly combine all the dry ingredients, except the chocolate chips.

In a medium bowl, mix together the beaten eggs, sour cream, oil, and vanilla.

Add the grated zucchini to the liquid mixture and stir well to combine.

Pour the liquid zucchini mixture all at once into the flour mixture and stir just to combine. (Don't overmix or you'll end up with bubbly tunnels in a loaf that's not tender. No fun.)

Add in the chocolate chips, stirring to lightly combine.


Pour the batter into your greased loaf pan. Put the pan on the middle rack of your preheated oven. Bake for about 45 minutes, or until the loaf is quite golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the top comes out clean. Cover the top of the loaf lightly with foil if the top is overbrowning at any point.

Let the baked loaf cool in the pan for about ten minutes, then turn it out and let it finish cooling on a rack.

Yummy if you slice it while it's warm, but the flavors really mingle and start to come out when the loaf has had a chance to rest and cool completely. And, like I mentioned above, this tastes really good, and the texture sorts of sets, by the next day. Kind of improves with age, I guess. Just like us.




*This is a recipe that I adapted from a version I found on a website called "Taste of Twinsburg." I made a number of changes, including halving the recipe. Then, I decreased the amount of oil, increased the sour cream, decreased the cinnamon, removed the nuts/raisins and replaced them with chocolate chips, and I completely revised the directions.

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Consider the Mango . . . Homemade Mango Ice Cream, That Is . . .

Ahh, the coy beauty of the mango . . . reclining placidly on my kitchen counter, unperturbed by the congregation of vine-ripened tomatoes mere inches away. What would mangoes say if they could speak? Would we hear a predictable, "Get me out of here!" or perhaps, "Wouldn't you rather have one of those lovely bananas over there?" No, I don't think so. It seems to me they enjoy employing reverse psychology, the bravest ones characteristically remarking, "You know, we're really good in ice cream."

Alas, glorious mango, you are indeed good in ice cream, especially when it's homemade.

There's a first time for everything and this week was my maiden voyage making homemade ice cream. Oh, I'd hovered in the background as a child when, for a few short years once or twice a summer, my father would make vanilla ice cream in one of those old White Mountain hand-crank, wooden ice cream freezers. Ours was in fact a gift to him from my mom, I believe for Father's Day. While recalling one day the exquisite creaminess of the ice cream he'd tasted as a child, he expressed the desire to own one. I'm sure my mother added a stipulation--or at least wanted to add one--upon presenting the gift, that he'd have to bear the primary burden of endlessly cranking the handle.

I didn't buy my family one of those old ice-and-salt manual-crank freezers, no sir. You may know by now how much I love and adore my KitchenAid mixer, right? Yeah. I do. Well, anyway, last week I broke down and ordered the ice cream-maker attachment from Amazon. It arrived amazingly fast I must say, as if it knew how curious I was to give it a whirl and couldn't wait to accommodate me. Give it a whirl I did. I happened to have two very ripe mangoes on hand so that's what I used for the test drive.

The recipe I chose came from a non-recent ice cream cookbook I picked up in the library called simply Ice Cream, Sherbets and Sorbets, by Mable and Gar Hoffman. I customized the recipe a tiny bit (slightly insane, I know, never having made ice cream before and here I am actually changing the recipe without trying it first . . . what can I tell you?), by doubling it, using more heavy cream than it called for (I had some I wanted to use up, okay . . . what's wrong with that?) and not really measuring the amount of mango I threw in. The result was an ice cream that was super, ultra creamy. Almost too rich, really, it was so good.

The mangoes, with their beautiful, bright, golden color and refreshing tropical aroma, lend a wonderful summery aspect. They're not even close to being overly sweet so the ice cream itself reflects that. Understandably though, some people may want more sweetness so I suppose there would be no harm in increasing the sugar. Because of this, it may be an ice cream with more adult-appeal than kid-appeal (I think that's at least the third time I've had to write that in one of the recipes I've posted . . . hmm . . . what's that all about? . . . don't I like giving kids food they'll enjoy? What kind of a mom am I anyway? I'll worry about that later.)

The hardest part about making ice cream is the waiting period. The creamy mixture has to refrigerate for at least eight hours before you can use it. Eight hours! Yeah, I know.


Fresh Mango Ice Cream

Makes about 2 quarts.

2 large very ripe mangoes
2 Tbsp. lemon or lime juice (or a combo, that's what I used out of necessity)
4 tsp. cornstarch
2/3 cup granulated sugar
3 cups heavy cream (or you can use all half & half, or a combo of some of each)
2 large egg yolks, beaten
4 Tbsp. light corn syrup

Peel the mangoes, cut the pulp from the seed, and put the pieces into a food processor or blender. Puree the mango pulp along with the lemon/lime juice. Set aside.

In a medium-size saucepan, blend the cornstarch and sugar. Pour the cream into that, along with the egg yolk and corn syrup. Cook and stir continually over medium heat until it becomes bubbly, then cook for one minute longer.

Cool the mixture. Stir in the pureed mangoes to completely combine. Put this mixture into a pour-friendly container, cover it, and refrigerate it for at least 8 hours.

After the waiting period, prepare it according to the specific instructions of your own ice cream maker. It will be really soft at first, and it's delish that way, but if you freeze it after it's done, it will come to closely resemble traditional "hard" ice cream and you'll be able to scoop it nicely.

Yum.



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Fresh Blueberry Pie . . . We Salute You!

Blue--what an incredible color. Blue ribbons, blue bonnets, blue suede shoes, blue moods, Marge Simpson's blue hairdo, the list just goes on and on. And blueberries . . . what a fabulous color for a fruit! I mean, how did nature ever come up with that? And how does one do justice to such an impressively blue fruit? How to honor it, pay it tribute, and appreciate it in all its indigo glory?

Bake it into a pie, of course. What berry wouldn't be proud to have a pie devoted to its very existence? No berry worth its juice, that's what berry.

I bought a few pints of blueberries this week for just such a purpose--a pie purpose, that is. It's been a while since I've made a blueberry pie out of fresh, vs. frozen, berries and my past attempts at fresh-berry pies have frequently yielded tasty but overly juicy results. That may not sound too bad, but in reality too much juice can turn the bottom crust into a spongy, soggy, non-crusty entity that is not attractive and that I do not like. So, in preparing to make this week's pie I figured I'd better try the method where you cook the fruit for a while to remove some of the moisture prior to putting it into the shell to bake. The recipe I used, just for the fruit filling, turned out to be a good one from King Arthur Flour. The only aspect of their formula that I changed was to decrease the recommended amount of cinnamon. Other than that, I think I adhered to the original pretty closely.

For the crust, I used my own adjusted version of a recipe for pate brisee that comes from the baking textbook About Professional Baking by Gail Sokol. I more or less doubled the recipe because I just like to have extra pie-crust dough available in the freezer. I reduced the amount of sugar indicated and I increased the salt. (Pate brisee's just a basic pastry/pie crust dough with a quaint French name. We should all have such quaint French names, don't you think?)

This is a crust recipe that's written to be used with a food processor, so that's what I used this time around. But I have to tell you that I am not fond of using this appliance for pie crust dough. Why? Well, I don't feel I have nearly as much control when I can't see into the bowl at all times and I can't just stick my hand in there whenever I want to. You see, I'm still into the joyous-though-primitive rapture of using a simple hand-held pastry blender for this task. Yes, I said joyous rapture. Call me crazy. Call me a cock-eyed optimist. I'm not a technology hater, I just like to have a close-up and personal relationship with my pie dough. I don't just like to, I need to, in order to feel like the dough is fully my own creation. I know I love my mixer, but I guess I only like my food processor. (There, it's out. I've said it. No turning back now.)


Fresh Blueberry Pie

For the fruit filling (enough for one 9" pie):

6 cups of fresh, ripe, firm blueberries that have been rinsed and lightly dried
1 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup corn starch
1 tsp. lemon zest
2 Tbsp. lemon juice
1/4 tsp. cinnamon

Place all ingredients in a large sauce pan, stir together gently, and simmer until the mixture has thickened. This may take a good while, since you'll be simmering on low heat, so just be patient. Check it every now and then and give it a stir. Don't let it get so hot that it boils or it may become overly thick and gelatinous, like canned pie filling--not our goal! After it's thickened to your liking, remove it from the heat, set it aside, and let it cool to lukewarm.

(See, initially the liquid looks like pink gravy, as shown above. Then, as shown below, it eventually starts to look more like blueberry preserves.)



For the crust (this makes enough for two 9" double-crust pies; you can always freeze the extra dough):

3 1/2 cups AP flour, bleached
1 tsp. salt
1 cup cake flour
1 Tbsp. granulated sugar
1 lb. minus 2 Tbsp. (that's 3 sticks plus 6 Tbsp.) of unsalted butter, cut into smallish cubes and put in the freezer for about one hour
1 and 1/2 tsp. fresh lemon juice
3/4 cup ice water, plus more on hand if needed

Combine the two flours, sugar, and salt in the large bowl of a food processor. Pulse until well combined. (Or, do the whole kit and kaboodle by hand in a big bowl with your trusty pastry blender. That'll work too.)

Scatter the frozen butter cubes over the top of the flour. Pulse the food processor until the cubes are no smaller than peas.

Slowly add the lemon juice and half the water, pulsing just until combined. Continue adding more water until the dough holds together when you test it by pressing a bit of it in your hand.

When the dough seems ready to you, dump it into a large regular bowl, or onto a clean flat surface, so you can gather it all up into a ball.

Divide the ball into four equal parts, and shape each one into a flattened disk. Wrap all of the disks individually in plastic wrap and refrigerate two of them (if you're making one pie refrigerate two; freeze or refrigerate the other two for future use) for about an hour or more so the dough can rest. Pie dough needs to nap, you know. Makes the gluten calm and relaxed.

Preheat your oven to 425 degrees.

When you're ready to roll out your dough, do it on a lightly floured surface. Cold marble works great, if you have it, as does using a marble rolling pin (if you've never tried using cold marble you might want to consider it; it's unbelievable how much easier it makes the whole dough-rolling experience).

If you like, use your pie plate, flipped upside down, to help measure the size of the circle you'll need. Trim off the excess crust with scissors or a sharp knife.

Transfer the crust to your plate. (I like to fold the dough into quarters before moving it over to the pie plate. This is a really easy method if your dough is resilient and flexible enough to handle it.)
Spoon all of the lukewarm berry mixture into your pie shell.

Dot the top of the berries with a several tiny dabs of unsalted butter.

Roll out your top crust and transfer it to your pie. Crimp the edges however you like, and cut slits in the top of the dough for steam to escape. Brush the crust lightly with milk or cream, and liberally sprinkle sanding sugar (or granulated sugar) over the crust. Sanding sugar will give the top crust a cute rumply appearance after it's baked.

Put the pie on an old cookie sheet, or on foil, to catch juice leaks. Bake it for 15 minutes at 425 degrees. Then, turn the oven down to 350 degrees and continue baking for anywhere from 35 to 50 minutes, until the pie is light golden brown. Cover the edges of the top crust if they seem to be over-browning at any point along the way.

When the pie is done, take it out and cool it on a rack for at least a couple hours before cutting it. (If you can resist.)

This pie was a big hit in my house. My sixteen-year old son inhaled most of it. He's a tall, skinny lifeguard this summer and teenage lifeguards gotta eat!


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Brown Sugar Shortbread . . . How Come You Taste So Good?

Shortbread is typically thought of as having a short season--it makes its appearance at Christmas time, right? It blends in with all the other buttery holiday treats, a perennial favorite occupying its customary place on the cookie platter. I'd wager that most people who make it at all only make it at Christmas. But that's too bad because shortbread is not only delicious, it's incredibly easy and quick to make, and it comes in more than just one flavor and variety. It really works pretty well as an accompaniment to a little dish of ice cream or sorbet, and it's also nice alongside fresh fruit. And, let's not forget how perfectly it compliments a simple cup of coffee or tea. Sometimes it's just the ticket. Another aspect of shortbread one can appreciate is its general neatness. Its dough isn't gloppy or sloppy. It doesn't require scoops or cutters. In fact, I like making it in tart pans best. You get that cute scalloped edge, you can make very small batches if you prefer, and it's easy to divide the portions even before the dough has been baked. It's practically burn-proof because it bakes on such a low temperature (300 degrees). Almost impossible to screw up!

I love the usual white shortbread, but my affection doesn't stop there. Have you ever tried brown sugar shortbread? Some recipes refer to it as butterscotch, but by either name that rich caramel taste is mellow and delectable. I suppose because of the added moisture inherent in brown sugar, the cookies come out less crunchy than you might expect. In fact, the batch I made yesterday has a nice, tender, chewy aspect and the flavor obviously deepened overnight. Yum.

The recipe below yields three 9" tart pans worth of shortbread; you can always freeze any cookies you don't want lying around to tempt you. That's yet another good thing about shortbread--it stores like a champ. Go ahead, give it a whirl!


BROWN SUGAR SHORTBREAD

Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Have ready three 9" tart pans (or you can use cake pans--this dough won't stick to them, so no need to grease, etc.)

1 cup unsalted butter, softened
1 cup vegetable shortening
1/2 granulated sugar
1 cup packed light brown sugar (or dark, if you're really into brown sugar)
4 1/2 cups AP flour, bleached
1 tsp. salt

In a large mixer bowl, beat the butter, shortening, and both sugars thoroughly (a couple of minutes).

In a small separate bowl, combine the flour and salt, then stir it into the butter and sugar mixture. Combine completely but use care not to overwork the dough (it will make the cookies rather tough if you do).

Divide the dough into three portions. Without compacting the dough too much, gently press each portion into one of your tart pans, urging dough into the scalloped sides so you'll have a nice clean edge.

With a thin sharp knife, carefully divide the dough into portions. Try not to make the cookies too large, as they are pretty rich. Using a fork, carefully pierce the dough here and there, down to the bottom of the pan; this helps the dough retain its nice shape by preventing it from puffing too much in the oven. Sprinkle a little granulated sugar evenly over the top, perhaps just a teaspoon or two for each tart pan.

Put the tart pans on a cookie sheet in the oven to help prevent the bottoms from getting too brown.
Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, until they start to color nicely, but not too much (the longer you bake them the crunchier they'll be). Cool shortbread in the pans for about five minutes, then remove them from the pan to cool completely on a rack.

The cookies may be kind of soft towards the middle until they're cool. Use care not to break them when you finally cut them apart.

(Now I find myself contemplating other shortbread variations. Maybe coconut? Or chocolate sounds good . . . how about almond? Then again there's always lemon . . . what about mocha . . . hmm . . .)

Note as of August '09: When I originally posted this recipe, I accidentally listed the salt quantity needed as "2 tsp. salt" A reader just brought that mistake to my attention. I've since fixed the recipe to read "1 tsp. salt" My sincere apologies to anyone who made this recipe and wound up with inedible shortbread!

Deep Dark Chocolate Cupcakes with Fluffy Mocha Frosting . . .

Chocolate and coffee . . . a well-established flavor match made in heaven, don't you think? I know you love chocolate, but if you also can't live without good coffee (I'm raising my hand; you too?), then you're probably a custom-made candidate for these cupcakes. They're the deepest and the darkest. Well fine, you say, but are they moist? Honey, does Betty Crocker like to bake? Yes, they're very moist! Made with sour cream, they're tender and delish.

They get their darkness from strong black coffee, and their deep chocolate flavor from a sizable portion of Dutch process cocoa (use the best kind you can get your hands on--really). The icing derives its fluffiness from whipping cream, its stability from shortening, its mocha flavor from coffee and a tiny splash of Kahlua (the latter is optional), and--of course--its unspeakable charm from chocolate. This is a ridiculously quick and easy cake/cupcake recipe. I've made it many times, and it's never let me down. I think you'll like it.


Deep Dark Chocolate Cupcakes

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Line two 12-cup muffin tins, or two XL muffin tins with six cups each. (You can also use this batter for a layer cake; two greased and floured 9 x 2" pans, or one 13 x 9" pan; increase the baking time accordingly.)

1 3/4 cups AP flour, unsifted

2 cups granulated sugar

3/4 cup Dutch process cocoa

2 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. salt

2 large eggs

1 cup brewed coffee, strong (not hot)

1/2 cup sour cream

1/2 cup sour milk or buttermilk

1/2 cup vegetable oil

1 tsp. vanilla extract

In a large mixer bowl, combine the flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda and powder, and salt. Into that bowl, pour the eggs, coffee, sour/buttermilk, sour cream, oil, and vanilla extract. Beat on medium speed for about two minutes.

Your batter will be quite thin, so you may want to transfer it to a spouted container in order to more easily pour it into the muffin cups. Fill the cups three-quarters of the way full. Bake for 17 -20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center of a few cupcakes comes out clean. Let the cupcakes cool for a couple of minutes in the pan, then finish cooling on a rack. When they're completely cooled they can be frosted.



Fluffy Mocha Frosting

2 cups vegetable shortening

8 cups (approximately 2 lbs.) of confectioners' sugar (If it's Domino's "10x" then you likely don't need to sift it, but if it's just about any other brand, you should really sift it well beforehand. Trust me. I speaking from sad experience.)

1/2 tsp. salt

2 tsp. vanilla

1 cup of heavy whipping cream

2 Tbsp. strong brewed coffee, very warm

4 to 6 Tbsp. grated chocolate, any kind you love (I usually use dark bittersweet, either Callebaut or Ghirardelli's)

1 tsp. instant coffee powder/granules (or espresso powder)

2 tsp. of Kahlua (optional)

In a large mixer bowl, cream the shortening on medium speed until light and fluffy (a few minutes).

While the shortening's mixing, in a very small bowl mix the warm coffee and the grated chocolate. Stir until the chocolate is completely melted and combined. Add the Kahlua, if using, only after the chocolate and coffee are combined. Set this little bowl aside.


Add the sugar gradually to the shortening, in the large mixing bowl, and continue creaming until well blended. Add the salt and the vanilla, still mixing at medium speed at this point. Pour 2 oz. of the heavy cream in, then pour in the chocolate-coffee-Kahlua mixture. Mix on low speed until just blended.

Pour 4 oz. more of the heavy cream into the bowl. Increase the speed to high and beat until the entire mixture is light and fluffy, a couple of minutes or more. Stop every now and then to scrape the bowl and the beaters; the shortening tends to stick to the bottom and the sides of the bowl.

Reserve the remaining 2 oz. of cream to use just in case the frosting seems too thick to you, or too dry. Add it in at your own discretion. Too thin? Add more confectioners' sugar gradually.

Refrigerate any leftover frosting. This recipe makes at least enough to frost a two-layer cake, and more than enough for 24 cucpakes.

(*The cupcake recipe is my own version of an old Hershey's classic, "Black Magic" cake. My changes include the addition of sour cream, halving the sour milk/buttermilk, and requiring Dutch process cocoa. The frosting recipe is an amalgamation of several recipes I've seen and used over time.)



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White Chocolate Mousse and Ladyfingers: Dream vs. Reality

About three decades ago, on a trip to Sweden, I met a man who told me that he felt the two most valuable qualities a person could cultivate are flexibility and a sense of humor. At sixteen years old, I suppose I'd never heard that before and his words, apparently, lodged in my psyche. As useful qualities for life in general, I know now that that's pretty good advice. As critical qualities for a baker, though, it couldn't be more true.

Why bring this up? Well, my culinary efforts ran aground this morning. One might say I hit a bit of an iceberg. (A white chocolate iceberg, to be specific, while sailing in a sea of whipped egg whites.) But because uncertainty is all part of the thrill of baking, that's to be expected now and then . . . right? I mean, one just never knows what's really going to happen. Sometimes victory can be snatched from the jaws of impending defeat. Then again, sometimes it's all you can do to snatch back your tattered dignity . . . never mind victory. In any case, you have to maintain a flexible outlook and, like it or not, just laugh it off and hopefully learn from it.

You see, I had high hopes of making a beautiful batch of traditional ladyfingers. Never mind that I'd never made them before. Never mind that I don't think I've ever met anyone who has reported having successfully made them. In my dreamlike state I thought that they would provide a charming accompaniment to luscious trifle dishes filled with silky white-chocolate mousse, which I--of course--would also concoct with great success on the same day (oh, the hubris . . . for shame!). I used a ladyfinger/madeleine recipe from the Baking with Julia cookbook--a wonderful book by all accounts. And, for the mousse, I turned to the Chez Panisse Desserts cookbook. Another truly classic dessert book, yes? (Affirmative.) Was I just a tiny bit apprehensive? Sure. But I recalled Eleanor Roosevelt's famous quotation about doing the thing you think you can't do. In other words, force yourself to do what scares you silly. It's one of my favorite inspirational quotes. (That Eleanor, she really wrote the book on getting out of your comfort zone, didn't she?)

I did everything right. . . um . . . well . . . as far as I could tell. I read and reread the recipes. I was very organized (you might say I mise-en-placed all over the place). I made sure I would have no interruptions. But ultimately my ladyfingers fell flat, and the white chocolate in my mousse must have cooled off in the final folding stage and that left zillions of little dibs and dabs of firm white chocolate suspended within the mousse.

Where did it all go wrong, you ask? Perhaps I have a naturally adversarial relationship with all recipes containing whipped egg whites as a central ingredient? No. I've made some fabulous cakes without destroying fluffy egg whites in the process. Do I handle beaten egg whites like a stevedore tossing empty crates aside, you wonder? No. I respect the fluffy egg whites. I treat them tenderly. I swear. Some of my best friends are frothy egg whites.

Oh, woe is me.

But enough whining. Enough!

Good bakers suck it up and soldier on.

So, how did I salvage the flat ladyfingers and the lumpy mousse? Well, once I'd confirmed that both items were truly palatable and even actually tasted good, despite being--ahem--unconventionally structured, I ceased the self flagellation and used a sieve to sprinkle confectioners' sugar over the pancake-like ladyfingers. Then I hunted in my cookie cutter collection for a cute flower-shaped cutter. The flower-fingers, if you will, turned out to look rather nice, I thought, and they were actually quite tasty. Delicately sweet, kind of soft, but firm enough not to fall over like a little floppy pancake.

As for the mousse, despite the little bits of firmed-up chocolate throughout, it too still tasted pretty darn good. It was completely obvious this stuff was still well in the mousse ballpark. The worst aspect was the mildly lumpy texture. (Hey, what's so bad about having to chew your mousse? Cows chew cud, don't they?) So what do we do when we want to disguise little lumps in mousse? Garnish the top of it, of course. With what? With raspberries, or blackberries, or a nice strawberry, or maybe with grated or curled chocolate, or with grated chocolate and raspberries, or even with something adorable like sugared violets. (Sugared violets . . . yeah. Easy for me to suggest. I've never made those before either! Hah!)

Well, you get the idea. Even something that veers dramatically from its original intention can still be worth saving . . . and, if you're lucky, even be worth serving. But I'm no fool. Next post, I think I'm baking something less stressful. And in the meantime, I'm gonna postmortem my process; a recipe autopsy is definitely called for!


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