Like Strawberry Wine...

Back to Baking GALS!  August is always a hairy month for me in the kitchen – I feel like I’m running around non-stop the whole month between vacations and generally just spending as much time outdoors as possible…not to mention just being exhausted when I get home from work after being so busy doing catch-up work when I actually am in the office.  At any rate, I got my shipment out for September and this was a good one, in my humble opinion.

If I haven’t mentioned it, I’m Norwegian (well, nearly half anyway) and my mom being very proud of that heritage has trickled down to me.  Enough so that I’ve recently even started a little bakery business called what else, Bakeri – the Norwegian word for bakery. I’ll do a full post about the business very soon so stay tuned (and start thinking of what you’d like to order!), but as I’m creating the menu, I of course need to make sure I have a couple Norwegian staples on it right?  Enter these pepper cookies.  Scandinavians like things with a little kick – think of all those Swedish ginger snaps that are out there…slow, warm heat.  Same idea here.  Mix some black pepper with the favorite ingredient of cardamom and again, slow, warm heat.  Sweet, savory and spicy all at once – it’s unique and delicious.  I found this recipe while searching online and I’m declaring it a keeper!

Recipe adapted from Embassy of Norway, Washington DC

Ingredients

1 1/8 cups butter

1 cup granulated sugar

¼ cup heavy whipping cream

1 tsp baking soda

3 ¼ cup AP flour

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1 tsp ground black pepper

1 ½ tsp ground cardamom

1 tsp baking powder

Water

*Note, it is not an omission – this recipe does not call for eggs.

Instructions

I spent the last unofficial weekend of summer at a beach house in the Outer Banks with several friends.  It was a great time.  We all contributed food for the weekend and one thing I brought was Trail Mix.  I love the Costco brand – I don’t like very many types of nuts and this one has all the ones I do like…cashews, almonds and peanuts.  Add raisins and M&M’s and bingo – an awesome concoction.  However, when there are 6 people bringing food, you have lots of leftovers.  I think I came home with about 498 of the 500 cups in that bag so I am trying to figure out what to do with it all, short of laying in a pile of it and eating my way out...though I’m not sure I’d have time for the exercise routine I’d need to counteract that.

In scrounging around the kitchen I found a bag of marshmallows from a camping trip a couple months ago.  That made me think of Rice Krispies treats, but of course I don’t just have Rice Krispies lying around.  Now Kashi, on the other hand, well I always have a couple varieties of that.  And hey, no harm in making a slightly healthier version of the classic, right? 

So here’s the mixture, and yeah, it works – it’s quite good, almost like a granola bar - almost.  Now only 496.5 cups to go…

Ingredients

3 Tbsp butter

1 bag Jet-Puffed marshmallows

4 ½ cups Kashi Puffs Cereal

1 ½ cups Trail Mix – I used Kirkland brand from Costco

Instructions

Melt butter over medium-low heat.  Add marshmallows and stir to coat.  Stir occasionally until completed melted.  Add cereal and trail mix and stir until everything is coated in the marshmallow mixture.  Spread evenly into a greased 9”x13” pan and let cool completely (you can put them in the fridge for a little to speed things up).  Cut into squares and serve.

Is it me or has fruit been extra good this year?  I swear, for whatever reason, this summer I just can’t get enough.  My 100% made-up unscientific theory is that everything has been super juicy and delicious due to all the rain in the area.  It’s not too much so that the fruit is supersaturated, but it’s not too little to produce small tasteless fruit….it’s been juuussst right.  Seriously, I should have documented how much I’ve spent on watermelon, strawberries and blueberries alone.  Not to mention all the plums, nectarines and pineapple.  It’s all made for some damn fine fruit salads for lunch throughout the work week.  I’ll be sad when the season comes to an end, which is pretty much any day now.  I can only hope the winter citrus will be good enough to tide me over until next summer.

Since I couldn’t even go a week without it, I bought a bunch of berries at a store on the way to visit my parents in Cape Cod.  The strawberries turned into the scones I wrote about recently and the blueberries – well here’s what happened to them…

I found this recipe for a blueberry buckle – it called for 4 cups of blueberries – yowza!  Usually recipes use 1.5-2 cups of fruit, so I was excited to try this one and see how it turned out.  Basically there is just enough batter to hold everything together, which works for me.  Makes it more appropriate to eat cake for breakfast this way!  

Unbeknownst to me, making this for my parents yielded a story I’d never heard (nor had my mom, even after 47 years!) from my dad about the first time he ever had, and fell in love with, blueberry cake.  A cute story about childhood antics while working a blueberry stand…long story short, a load of berries ended up on the ground and therefore couldn’t be sold, so his mom cleaned them up and made a cake.  This is one of the reasons I love food, not only does it bring people together, but it also invokes heartfelt memories.  Someday I’ll pass that story on to the next generation of my family.

This cake is easy to prepare and really tasty.  The three of us downed half of it straight away.  With some scrambled eggs, it made for a delicious breakfast.  Make it before all the local blueberries disappear for the year!

Ingredients

Topping:

½ cup AP flour

½ cup light brown sugar

2 Tbsp granulated sugar

¼ tsp ground cinnamon

Pinch of salt

Pinch of nutmeg (my addition)

¼ cup unsalted butter, softened and cut into pieces

Cake:

1 ½ cups AP flour (I used ¾ cup AP/¾ cup whole wheat)

1 ½ tsp baking powder

10 Tbsp unsalted butter, softened

⅔ cup granulated sugar

½ tsp salt

½ tsp grated lemon zest

1 ½ tsp vanilla extract

2 eggs at room temperature (removing from fridge when you start assembling everything is fine)

4 cups fresh blueberries

Instructions

It’s been a while since I’ve offered up a new scone flavor.  This one has been lingering in my mind for a while.  In reading recipes, I’ve seen strawberries and balsamic vinegar mixed in lots of ways.  I make an awesome salad with arugula, strawberries and balsamic vinaigrette among other things.  You can reduce the balsamic down to a syrup and pour it over vanilla ice cream topped with strawberries.  You can do the same but over French toast or pancakes.  Believe it or not, I haven’t made strawberries scones before and I thought I would amp them up right from the start by incorporating this popular flavor combination.

So how’d it go?  Uh yeah…it was hard to stop eating them.  Sweet and savory at the same time, they really just hit the spot whether you have them with some scrambled eggs for breakfast or just as an afternoon snack.­  My trusty taste testers were a little skeptical, vinegar in a scone?!  Until they tried one and were immediately sold.  The final verdict…really good warm without glaze, but even better at room temperature with glaze.  After all, you know how I feel about glazes.  When I mentioned this recipe to another one of my usual taste testers, he said he needed “a pool of balsamic”, well I didn’t deliver on a pool per se, but I think this glaze will satisfy what he’s looking for.

Get these while they’re hot – meaning make them now, while the strawberries are in season and full of flavor.  I might even push it and make these into the fall, they’re just that good.

Recipe adapted from Strawberry Scones on Annie’s Eats (www.annies-eats.com)

Ingredients

1 large egg

¼ cup plain or vanilla yogurt (I used nonfat vanilla)

½ cup milk (I used skim)

1 tsp. orange or lemon zest (I used and recommend lemon)

2 ¼ cups AP Flour (I used half AP flour and half Whole Wheat Pastry flour, hence the darker color – use what you like)

¼ cup sugar

1 Tbsp. baking powder

½ tsp. salt

8 Tbsp. cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces

1 ½ cups diced fresh strawberries

¼ cup balsamic vinegar

Glaze

1 cup powdered sugar

1 tsp lemon juice

Balsamic Vinegar – add 1 tsp at a time

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 375º.  In a 9”x13” pan, mix the strawberries and balsamic vinegar.

When the oven is hot, roast the strawberries for 10-15 minutes, stirring once after 5 min.  Let cool for about 15 minutes. 

In a small bowl whisk together the egg, yogurt, milk and zest until blended, then set aside.

In a large bowl, combined the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt.  Add the butter pieces to the dry ingredients and cut it into the flour using a pastry blender or two forks (this can also be done in a food processor).

Using a slotted spoon, strain and transfer the strawberries to the flour mixture and gently toss to coat.

Add the wet ingredients to the dry and fold until completely combined.

Transfer to a well-floured surface and gently pat into an 8 inch disc.  Cut into 8 wedges and carefully place on parchment lined baking sheet.  Or, if you have a scone pan, just fill each section evenly with dough – it filled my mini-scone pan perfectly (makes 16 small triangles).

Bake in a 425º oven for 10-15 minutes, until lightly browned on top and a toothpick comes out clean.  Let cool on wire rack. 

**Note** If the dough looks a little too wet, freeze the shaped scones on/in the pan for 30 minutes and move directly from freezer to oven. You will need to increase the baking time by a few minutes. 

For the glaze, mix all ingredients until desired consistency.  Drizzle over each scone with a spoon, fork, piping bag, or plastic squeeze bottle, whichever method you prefer.  Let set before serving.