Ladylike Marmalade Cake (with xylitol!)

This is surely the most demure dessert I've ever made. I mean, look at this little cake.


As you'll see in a later shot, I just had to brew a cup of vanilla-almond tea for the initial tasting. This snack just demanded an elegantly understated beverage and a seat by a sunny window.

This was my first foray into baking with xylitol, and some will probably say I took the easy way out with this little recipe. Xylitol (skip this part if you know all about it) is a natural sweetener made from plant fibers; it has a low glycemic index, fewer calories than table sugar, and an unfortunate tendency to cause mild gastrointestinal distress in the uninitiated. With this consideration, I decided to use it in conjunction with another sweetener.

Marmalade cake became my salvation in this instance. Not only does it combine the cane sugar in the preserve with another sweetener in the cake, but it also gave me chance to showcase some of my Three Citrus Marmalade. I found a recipe and got modifying.

The resulting cake was incredibly moist, quite light, and just kissed with sweet citrus flavor. If you're not a big marmalade fan, don't worry - you just taste the orange and almost none of the bitterness. It's also chock full of whole grain and moderately low sugar. And both Bean and I had a little wedge with nary a tummy ache in sight (which encourages me to be more adventurous with the xylitol in the future). I also found a ridiculously easy recipe for a yogurt/jam glaze. I think I'll do without it next time, but it does add a more pronounced marmalade kick to the cake. It's all up to you.

Now if you'll excuse me, it's tea time.

*******

Ladylike Marmalade Cake
Makes one very small cake (about four small servings)
Inspired by Jam and Clotted Cream (the cake) and The Pioneer Woman Cooks (the glaze)

I baked this in a 6 x 2 inch round baking tin, and it made a wide flat cake. I think next time I'll make this in my even smaller round tins or mini loaf pans. Actually, a mini bundt pan might be ideal. Anyway, I'll try it later let you know how it turns out. And as I mentioned, I don't think the glaze is strictly necessary, but it is easy and does add a little pizazz.

Cake:
1/4 C xylitol
2 TB butter or margarine, room temperature
1/4 applesauce (or any other fruit puree)
Full 1/4 C plain Greek yogurt
Full 2 TB marmalade (more if you want a more pronounced flavor)
1 TB orange or lemon zest
2 TB orange juice
1/2 C whole wheat pastry flour
1/4 TS baking powder
dash salt

Optional: Marmalade Glaze (recipe below) or powdered sugar

1. Preheat your oven to 350F (toaster oven works fine). Grease and flour a mini baking pan(s) of your choice.

2. Cream together the butter and xylitol as best you can (mine tended to melt a little into the butter - not a bad thing, just different from sugar). Add all of the ingredients through orange juice and stir to thoroughly combine.

3. Combine the dry ingredients (ie, the rest of them) and sift into the wet. Stir gently to combine; the batter will be lumpy and thin. Pour into the prepared pan(s).

4. Place the pan(s) in the preheated oven and bake for about thirty minutes. The cake will be done when it passes the clean toothpick test and the top is golden brown and beginning to pull away from the sides of the pan. Set the pan on a wire rack and let it cool for a few minutes, then turn it onto a plate. If you want to glaze it, do so now. If not, let it cool to room temperature and dust with powdered sugar before slicing.

Marmalade Glaze:
4 TS marmalade
2 TS plain Greek yogurt

1. Heat the marmalade in either a bowl in the microwave or a pan on the stovetop. Get it to the gently boiling point (about 30-45 seconds in the microwave) and then remove it from the heat.

2. Stir in the yogurt and keep stirring until you have a creamy light orange glaze.

3. Pour it over the warm cake. Be generous, and don't worry if it spills over the sides. Let it sit a few minutes to set a little, and then dig in.

Vegan Variation: The yogurt in the cake recipe replaces an egg, so I'd bet any of the usual vegan egg replacers - silken tofu, soy or coconut yogurt, or commercial egg replacer - would work fine in its place. And I haven't tried it, but I'd wager that almost any nondairy yogurt would work in the glaze.

Bread mania: wheat sandwich bread, pita, and naan

Yes, indeed, I have been busy this week. Besides the earlier jam-up, there's been quite a lot of baking and a little griddle action going on in the Recluse household.


First up, there's that tasty wheat bread that shared the spotlight with the Carrot Cake Jam. This is a nice easy 100% whole wheat recipe available on the King Arthur website, which I've linked at the end of the post. I've made it before with moderate success, but this time I added a new ingredient: diastatic malt powder (check out the link to see exactly what it is and does). This stuff definitely gave it a nicer rise this time and a better shelf life. Three days after baking the loaf pictured is still awfully moist.

Next - naan! I've been craving Indian food recently, and my choices are to either drive to Jacksonville or try to cobble things together myself. I don't know exactly how authentic this recipe was, but the ingredients were available and the execution was simple as could be. Tender, crisp, and delicious. I mean, look at those puffy beauties with their nice charred exteriors.




Finally, a staple of the Recluse house and a personal favorite of Bean: pita. As recently as December I had never even attempted these. But now, thanks to a decent recipe and some practice, I have them down to almost a science. These are probably the easiest yeast breads ever. And they're fun, too - if you do it just right, they puff like blowfish in the oven.


Then you have a pocket for stuffing with all sorts of goodies. Here's my take on that fast food paragon, the Wendy's spicy chicken sandwich (Morningstar Farms buffalo "wings" are standing in for the bird). Beans likes them smeared with strawberry jam. No pics of that, but be assured - it's luscious and epically messy.

The recent bake-off also included a xylitol dessert, but I'm saving that for a different post. This one is enormous already, and about to get a little bit longer. To the recipe links!

*******

Recipe Links (and Mods):

100% Whole Wheat Sandwich Bread
- I added 1/2 TS of diastatic malt powder with the dry ingredients. Also, I successfully subbed potato flour for the dehydrated mashed potato flakes, because those things are delicious cancer in a bag. I made smaller loaves, too - the recipe will make 3-4 mini loaves depending on pan size. Fill each one about 2/3 full and bake them for 1o minutes uncovered, 30 minutes tented in foil. It keeps at room temperature for a few days and freezes well, too.

Naan
- I fiddled with this recipe quite a bit. First of all, I cut the thing in half because a woman and a toddler don't need that much naan (want it, but don't need it). In my hands the flour became 1 1/2 C whole wheat and 3/4 C all purpose. I replaced the egg with 1/4 C of plain Greek yogurt (I bet coconut yogurt would be scrumptious, too). I also knocked the sugar back to 1 tablespoon and added it to the water/yeast in the proofing stage. The garlic got 86-ed, and I used ghee in place of butter. And as you saw above, you can cook those in a cast iron skillet. Mine took about a minute per side. I'll check back with you in a few days about how well these keep or freeze.

Edit 3/2/2010 - Turns out these freeze not well at all, and they do not keep very well in either the fridge or at room temperature. Just have a naan orgy and scarf them all hot off the pan.

Pita
- Once again, I fixed the flours here: 2 C whole wheat to 1/2 C all-purpose (you can go all whole wheat, but the little bit of regular white flour just adds that extra little bit o' tenderness). Also, I didn't bake these on foil as Susan directed. I found I got a more reliable puff when I put these on metal cooling racks and then placed those on the oven rack. The top rack, toward the back of the oven is my pita sweet spot - it may be different in yours. Mine puffed and browned in 3-4 minutes.

[Edited to correct some measurement errors for the naan modifications. That's what I get for watching curling while I'm typing (Go USA!). But all should be well now.]

Can Jam for February: Carrot Cake Jam

"Carrots?" I thought as I looked at the screen. "Carrots?"

What on earth could you water bath can with carrots?

Carrot pickles? Carrot...carrots?

I should have trusted Doris and Jilly more. Well, and the Ball book, too. It turned out that I had a wonderful selection of recipes at my fingertips. Yes, carrots starred in pickles. But there was also conserve, marmalade, and ultimately...

"Carrot cake jam? Oh, that sounds good!"

The lovely lady at our local Ace hardware enthusiastically helped me find the last flat of eight ounce canning jars. We rhapsodized about that jam all the way to the cash register.

"Let me know how it turns out next time you're here!"


I assembled the required ingredients and felt a small flush of shame. I really should have picked a more local-food friendly recipe. Pineapple from the Philippines, bottled lemon juice from California, pears from Washington. The only things I could possibly source within the south were the sugar and carrots - and the farmer's market let me down on the main ingredient. So I took my supermarket West Coast root veggies and went to work.

The smell of the spices was intoxicating. The colors were magical.


The first taste out of the almost-empty pot wasn't too encouraging. Carrot Cake Jam isn't meant to be eaten hot.

But on whole wheat bread, it is a sunset smear of heaven. The only thing that could complete the faux carrot cake experience would be some cream cheese, methinks.


So I'll say here as I will say to the nice lady at Ace: It is all good, my fine canning friend.

Three Failures and Foxy Flaxy Tortillas/Flatbreads

1. My sourdough starter...sigh, where to begin? The first three days were magic. It bubbled, it grew, it made all of my little dreams come true. Then it staunchly refused to do anything more. I fed it more rye flour, I moved it to the warmest spot in the house (the laundry nook, in case you were wondering), I moved it to the coolest spot in the house. Nada. I finally dumped the remains down the drain yesterday. I've decided to blame the lack of progress on our newest cold snap. I'll try again in a few weeks. And if that fails, I'll break down and order myself a surrogate from King Arthur (check that out, actually - it's got a neat story).

2. Stevia, it turns out, gives me a pretty lethal stomach ache in larger doses. Not to mention it imparts a kind of aspartame flavor to chocolate cake (even if you do follow the substitution rules). Luckily I didn't buy a large jar of the stuff, and my mom has a friend who'll take the rest off my hands. That's one alternative sweetener down, however many more I can stomach to go.

3. Everyone knows you need a tortilla press to make decent corn tortillas, right? Never the one to let common knowledge stand in my way, I decided that this dictum only came into being because no one else was ever as super resourceful as me! I devised this perfectly idiotic scheme to improvise my own tortilla press out of a Ziploc bag, a cast iron skillet, and a rolling pin (please, don't ask). The end result was pretty grim, and not just because I forgot to add salt to the masa dough. Payday was yesterday, and I splurged on a press from Amazon. Once more, I shall try again later.

And now, the success of the past week...


... though I have to admit that it doesn't look very successful there (Bean is my bread baking buddy, and she took those into hand). In any case, I present to you: flax and whole wheat tortillas.

*******

Foxy Flaxy Whole Wheat Tortillas
Makes 8 eight-inch tortillas

[I cobbled these together from recipes posted here, here, and here (if you're a fan of regular white flour tortillas, you should try that last one; it's Tex-Mex heaven). You can replace the whole wheat pastry flour with regular AP if you like in my variation, or any other finely ground flour your heart desires. I also have a variation that will give you a flexible flatbread style affair, similar to those Flatout thingies you can buy at the grocery store without all of the preservatives. Both the tortillas and the flatbreads freeze fairly well.]

1 C whole wheat flour (regular stone ground)
3/4 C whole wheat pastry flour
3 TB ground flax seeds
1 TB vital wheat gluten
1 TS salt
1 TS baking powder
2 TS canola oil
3/4 C milk of your choice, lukewarm (both oat and almond are nice)

1. Mix all of the dry ingredients in a medium sized bowl. Add the oil and milk and stir until a soft and very sticky dough forms. Generously flour your counter and turn out the dough. Knead it for two minutes, adding only enough flour to keep it from attacking your hands. This will be a moist and tacky dough, so don't worry if it seems a little gross; it will get more cohesive with a little resting time. Put the dough back in the bowl and cover it with plastic wrap or a damp towel. Go away for 20 minutes.

2. Remove the dough from its resting bowl and divide it up into eight balls. I tended to have about a pound of dough at a time, so each of my divided balls weighed about two ounces. Put them on a plate, cover them again with the wrap or towel, and go off for 10 minutes.

3. Place a heavy (preferably cast iron) skillet over medium high heat. Place a couple of clean towels or napkins nearby. Lightly flour the counter and roll out each ball into a roughly eight inch circle, as you would a pie crust. Work quickly and evenly; if you roll them too much they'll turn out stiff. Place the rolled out tortilla in the skillet and cook for 20-30 seconds per side; it will puff a little when it's done. Stash the finished tortillas between the clean cloths. Enjoy warm and delicious. I used a few to make oven-baked flautas for dinner:


If you fancy something chewier (and are willing to go on recipe alone - no pics of this one), try:

Foxy Flatbreads
Makes 8 six-inch flatbreads

1 1/2 C + 1 TB whole wheat flour
2 TB chickpea flour
2 TB toasted wheat germ
2 TB ground flax seeds
1 TB vital wheat gluten
1 1/2 TS baking powder
1 TS salt
2 TS canola oil
3/4 C lukewarm milk

Follow Steps 1 and 2 above.

3. Heat a heavy (preferably cast iron) skillet over medium high heat. Lay out two clean towels or napkins nearby. Lightly flour your counter and roll each dough ball into six inch long ovals. Once again, work quickly and gently, since too much handling will make them brittle. They should be a little more than an 1/8 inch thick. Cook each flatbread for about 30 seconds per side; they will puff and bubble a little as they heat (you can deflate the bubbles with a fork if you want). Stash the cooked breads between the clean cloths and enjoy them warm and delicious.

Baking Extravaganza Begins: Natural Sourdough Starter

That's right:


I'm getting yeasty up in this joint!

(Oh, that didn't sound good at all. Let's pretend that sentence never happened).

This month I've decided to focus on flour. I'm going to finally put my money where my mixer is and bake and griddle my little heart out. The plan is to work through a short list of breads that I've always wanted to try, yet have never had the time or fortitude to tackle. The assortment is mostly flat breads, although I do have what might be a disastrous idea for a tangy dark rye loaf. And of course, I've finally followed through on a two year goal of making my own sourdough starter (see picture and ignore unfortunate sentence above).

Sourdough, I found out a few years ago, comes from wild yeasts one catches in a flour/water mixture. If you're lucky you can ask an accomplished bread making friend to donate a little starter toward your kitchen cause. As for me, I'm following the instructions from The Fresh Loaf (not many bakers in my acquaintance, I'm afraid). This is only day one in my quest but things are looking pretty good so far. The possibility of fiasco is definitely there, though, since Florida's heat and humidity tend to wreak havoc on all bread recipes. That, and there's the distinct possibility that my local wild yeast may not be as tasty as, say, that of San Francisco. I'll just have to wait and see.

I'm also going to be playing with dessert - mainly with some new alternative sweeteners (new to me, that is). I've never baked with stevia, xylitol, or erythritol, and I figure now is a good a time as any to remedy that situation. I don' t think I'll be creating any recipe sensations that shall take the web by storm, but I'll definitely have fun.

So stick with me. I'll be starting on some Tex-Mex classics this weekend, which should be a good time for all. I shall report my findings - and my starter progress - at a later date.

Other People's Recipes: January Roundup

I really, truly meant to post this yesterday. As you can see, it didn't happen. So let's just gloss over my good intentions and sloppy follow through and glide right into the good stuff.

A few weeks ago I mentioned to my good buddy Inky that I was planning on highlighting cookbooks more in 2010. Originally this plot included an entire month devoted to each book, but I ultimately decided that I'm just too mercurial for that kind of shit. A lifetime with one man? Can do. Twenty years with a single house? If God and Bank of America are willing, so am I. Eighteen plus years to raise a child? Gladly!

But thirty days on a single cookbook? As we say in the South: Seriously, y'all?

So instead I'm going to dip into my nicely developed list of cookbooks as it so pleases me and highlight successes and failures in a round-up post at the end of the month. Included will also be shout-outs to fellow blogger recipes. It should be some good eating.

So for January, I have:

1. Individual Hash Browns from Vegan Brunch by Isa Chandra Moscowitz.
Delicious, but not quite crispy enough for my taste. I like the concept, I just need to tweak it a little.

2. Peanut Butter and Chocolate Beer Waffles from Vegan Brunch.
On a breakfast tear, you ask? Yes, I was. I'm happy to report that the hash browns and the waffles appeared at separate meals, though. The peanut butter waffles were hearty and not too sweet, whilst the chocolate ones were decadent and had a tendency to burn. Next time I'll adjust the waffle iron accordingly.

3. Banana Cupcakes from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World, Terry Hope Romero and (once again!) Isa Chandra Moscowitz
I long ago pledged to work my way through this cookbook, and with bananas do I renew my vow. Cakes were good; would have been great but I think I used too much banana. Did half a recipe in two mini bundt pans, which worked out splendidly (pictured below).


4. Spaghetti Squash Gratin from Clotilde at Chocolate and Zucchini
I substituted tofu bacon for the regular stuff and left off the mozzarella. Tasty, but I might try smoked mushrooms as a filling next time.

5. Nuggets from Joanna at joannavaught.com
Chewy little chunks of chicken stand-in. I'm crazy in love with Gardein's Seven Grain Crispy "Chicken" Tenders, but these are a perfectly acceptable substitute on days when I can't stand the soy or I'm between shopping trips. They're especially good with barbecue sauce.

6. Homemade Oat Milk
A find over at Recipezaar. I made it unflavored and only lightly sweetened. Next time I'll add more water and strain it meticulously, but it was dandy for a first attempt. Almond milk, I still love you with my cookies or cereal, but oat milk is my new cheapie baking buddy.

Thanks to all the lovely authors and bloggers who made my culinary adventures possible.

And check back with me a little later in the week. I have some new baking experiments underweigh in the kitchen. Disaster is predicted, but I may surprise everyone yet...