Chocolate Walnut Biscotti

This is another baked good I'd never tried before, so I didn't know what to expect. I'm here to tell you biscotti are super easy to make. If you're a coffee drinker you should think of making them a regular part of your repertoire. First of all, this is another recipe that doesn't require butter. The cookies are very crunchy and hold up well to dunking. They'll also stay good for 2 weeks or more without a problem, which is good because the recipe makes a lot. They're extra good dipped in more chocolate. The raw dough is also very tasty. It addition to the nuts, there are chocolate chips and cocoa powder in the dough. Jeremy liked it so much he requested I create an ice cream cake based around it.

I did an egg wash on these, but I don't think it's necessary. It just gives them a pretty gloss around the edges. Nerdy fact: the word biscotti comes from a Latin word meaning "twice-baked". The basic technique is to make a long loaf, bake, slice on a diagonal, and bake again. The only tricky part about these is you'll want to check them often toward the end of the second baking time because the dough is dark, it's hard to tell when they're browning around the edge. I came close to burning quite a few. Luckily even the semi-burnt ones tasted good.

Chocolate Walnut Biscotti
Yields 45 or more biscotti, depending on how thick you slice them
Cooking Time: Approx. 90 minutes (30 active)
Barely adapted from this recipe by David Lebovitz 

Ingredients

2 cups (280g) flour
3/4 cups (75g) top-quality cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt

1 cup (200g) sugar
3 large eggs, at room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon almond extract

1 cup (125g) walnuts (or almonds or pecans), toasted and very coarsely-chopped
3/4 cups (120g) chocolate chips

For the glaze (optional)

1 large egg
2 tablespoons coarse or crystal sugar

Directions

1. Preheat your oven to 350 and line two cookie sheets with baking mats or parchment.

2. In one bowl, sift together the first four dry ingredients.

3. In another bowl, beat together the next four ingredients (sugar plus wet ingredients).

4. Gradually stir the dry into the wet. Then mix in the walnuts and chocolate chips.

5. Flour your hands and you work surface. Divide the dough in two.

6. Form two flattened logs the length of your baking sheet and approximately 4 inches across.

7. Beat the egg for the glaze and brush the tops of the logs. You'll have egg left over. Sprinkle the coarse sugar over the top of the wash.

8. Bake the logs for 25 minutes until the tops feel firm to the touch. Remove and let cool for 15 minutes.

9. Slice the logs on a diagonal and place biscotti on sheets cut side down.

10. Bake 15 to 25 minutes until the cookies feel mostly firm. (My biscotti were blackening around the edge before 25 minutes, so keep an eye on them.)

11. Cool completely and store.

Skillet Fried Banana Bread

This is what happens when I leave my husband alone in the kitchen.

Really I should know better. Jeremy has the demented superpower of being able to take something reasonable like low fat banana bread and turn it into complete decadence. Diets are ruined, whipped cream stores are depleted, and sweet sweet awesomeness always ensues.

This banana bread recipe is like a regular banana bread recipe except instead of using butter I used more banana and a little coconut milk I had left over from another recipe. I replace butter with pureed fruit/vegetables a lot in quick breads and I think they come out better for it. They taste fruitier and are moister too. My pumpkin spice bread recipe doesn't use any butter either. If you don't have any coconut milk just add a few more ounces of mashed banana. I didn't use enough for the bread to have a coconut flavor anyway. As with most fruity quick breads, this tastes way better day two. So bake your bread the day before you want to fry it.

The frying is basically the technique we use for grilled cheese sandwiches. Butter both sides and brown in a skillet.  Then Jeremy went totally bananas (har har) and made some sweetened whipped cream spiked with bourbon. The whipped cream gets all melty and the boozy taste soaks into the bread. The taste is bananas foster meets bread pudding. If I'm confessing all the sugary sins we committed with this bread than I have to tell you on a couple of pieces I also added a little cider syrup I canned around the holidays. A little drizzle of caramel or butterscotch would be equally excellent.

Skillet Fried Banana Bread
Yields 1 Loaf (About 12-16 slices)
Cooking Time: For the bread: 80 minutes (20 active) Make a day ahead. To serve: 10 minutes or less
Adapted from this recipe on joyofbaking.com

Ingredients

For the bread:

1 cup (115 grams) walnuts or pecans, coarsely chopped

1 3/4 cups (230 grams) all-purpose flour

3/4 cup (150 grams) granulated white sugar

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

2 large eggs, lightly beaten

3 ripe large bananas (approximately 20 ounces or 567 grams), mashed with a fork 

1/4 cup coconut milk

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

For the whipped cream: 

a few tablespoons heavy cream

bourbon or rum, optional

a few teaspoons sugar 

butter, for frying

Directions

Make the bread:

1. Grease a loaf pan. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

2. Stir all the dry ingredients together in a large bowl and all the wet ingredients together in another bowl.

3. Pour the wet into the dry and stir just until all the flour is moistened. 

4. Pour into the loaf pan and bake for 55 to 60 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean from the center.

5. Cool in the pan on a rack.

To serve:

1. Using an electric mixer, whip a few tablespoons of heavy cream to soft peaks.

2. Add sugar and bourbon to taste. Start with just a teaspoon or less of alcohol because it can easily become overpowering. Whip to stiff peaks.

 

3. Slice the bread 1/4 to a 1/2 inch thick depending on how many slices you want.

4. Spread both sides of slices with a very thin layer of butter. 

5. Fry in a skillet over medium heat until golden brown, about 1 minute per side.

6. Serve hot with dollops of whipped cream on top. And if you want to be really bad, add a drizzle of caramel, butterscotch, or even maple syrup.

Cinnamon Pecan Coffee Cake

I love baked goods in the morning. An awesome cup of coffee + coffee cake = a happy Katelyn. Dessert for breakfast? Heck yes. (Don't look at me weird, my friend Sam likes to eat cannolis for breakfast when she visits Italy. I call that smart calorie prioritization.)

This recipe is not healthy, but it's not a complete diet wrecker either. That's because the moisture content comes from applesauce, yogurt, and butter rather than butter, butter, and more butter. There is no sacrifice in taste however. The cake has a great moist crumb and tastes mildly of vanilla and the topping is cinnamon-pecan-brown sugar crumbly awesomeness. It reminds me of the cinnamon swirl coffee cake they serve at Starbucks, but better because this has pecans and doesn't cost $3 a slice. You can go even lower on fat/calories with this recipe by replacing the stick of butter with more applesauce, but the cake will taste pretty apple-y and be drier, without as much of the delicate vanilla flavor. You could also scale back the sugar in the cake significantly if you don't like your dessert-for-breakfast super sweet.

To start this cake, you beat a stick of butter until it's nice and fluffy. Add the applesauce and yogurt. Beat in the sugar and vanilla.
Then you beat in the eggs one at a time. Sift the dry ingredients over the top and gently fold the mixture until it's just combined. You'll have a fairly thick, lumpy batter to spread in a greased 9 by 13 pan. (This would also be really good baked in a bundt pan with the crumble layered in the center, but you'd probably need to adjust the baking time.)

The topping is simply a little butter stirred together with brown sugar, cinnamon, and chopped pecans and sprinkled over the top.

 Half an hour or less of baking time and you've got this:

Cinnamon Pecan Coffee Cake
Yields 16 small servings (3.25" by 2.25" slices)
Cooking Time: 50 min. (20 active)
Adapted from this recipe


For the cake:

2 cups flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon baking powder

1 stick (4 ounces) butter (room temp. is easier to beat, but not strictly necessary)
1 cup good quality, unsweetened Greek Yogurt or sour cream (I use Fage 0% in all my recipes!)
1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce (often snack sizes come in 1/2 cup portions so you don't have to worry about using up an opened container if you go that route)

1 1/2 cups sugar (or less)
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
2 eggs

For the topping:

2 tablespoons butter, melted
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1 cup pecans, roughly chopped
1 tablespoon cinnamon

Directions

1. Grease a 9 by 13 pan and preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

2. In a flour sifter, stir together the flour, salt, and baking powder. Set aside.

3. In a large mixing bowl, beat the butter until it is light and fluffy. Beat in the applesauce and yogurt.

4. Beat in the sugar and vanilla. Beat in the eggs 1 at a time.

5. Sift the flour mixture over the wet ingredients and gently fold them together by hand until just combined.

6. Spread the batter into the prepared pan.

7. In another bowl stir together the topping ingredients. Sprinkle evenly over the cake.

8. Bake for about 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. (Using the convection setting on my toaster oven it takes exactly 25 minutes for me.)

Yogurt Scones

A few weeks back I posted a Meyer Lemon Curd recipe and briefly mentioned these scones. And the more I made them, the more I felt they deserved their own post for multiple reasons:

1. They are awesome and make the perfect vehicle for curd, jam, clotted cream, etc.

2. They're consistent. You will always get a crumbly golden brown exterior and a moist, fluffy, layered interior.

3. They require a little technique. You need to freeze butter and press the dough together by hand. (Not hard, but requires a little explanation).

4. They're an excellent primer on how to bake with a scale, which if you don't do, you should. It's waaaaaay easier and cleaner than using volume measurements.  

I'm going to show you how to do this (mostly) with a scale, but don't fret if you don't own a kitchen scale, there's volume measurements below too.

First you get out a mixing bowl, slap it on the scale, zero it, and add 10 ounces of flour. (On average a cup of flour weighs 5 ounces, give or take, depending on the humidity and how long it's been hanging around your pantry.) Then you stir in salt, baking powder, and baking soda. For these I use a measuring spoon since they weigh a tiny amount that my kitchen scale is probably not accurate enough to measure. Then you zero the scale and add 2.5 ounces of sugar. Zero again and grate 4 ounces (1 stick) of frozen butter into the mixture.
Yes, you could use a pastry blender and incorporate the butter at room temperature. But grating gives you really small pieces of butter that distribute evenly throughout the flour, giving you the most tender scone interior ever!
Then your going to zero the scale again and add about 5 1/2 ounces of good quality Greek yogurt (I like Fage). Add 1 egg and stir everything together. If you're like me, you will panic at this point because you will have a crumbly mixture like the one on the right that will seem like it will never form a dough. Fear not! Flour your hands and knead the dough together until it just hangs together:


See how the dough has a few cracks and there's still some flour mixture left in the bowl. That's good! Lightly flour your counter and press the dough into an 8 inch circle. Then dump the remaining dry mixture on top and gently press it into the top of the round. Dust with some more sugar and cut into 8 wedges:
Arrange the wedges in a circle on a parchment lined baking sheet and bake for about 15 minutes.
And devour! These are stellar right out of the oven, but they'll reheat really well in a toaster oven too. If you store them more than a couple of days I would freeze them because they tend to absorb moisture and lose their crispy exterior after that. If you're not planning on slathering these with something sweet they'd be awesome with your favorite mix-in. Half a cup or more of raisins, chocolate chips, etc.

Yogurt Scones
Yields 8 scones
Adapted from this recipe.

Ingredients

2 cups (10 ounces) flour, plus extra for dusting
1/3 cup (2 1/2 ounces) sugar, plus extra for dusting
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt

1 stick (4 ounces) butter, frozen for 10 minutes plus

1 large egg
generous 1/2 cup (5 1/2 ounces) good quality Greek yogurt like Fage (or substitute sour cream)

Directions

1. Preheat your oven to 400 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

2. Mix together the first 5 ingredients.

3. Grate in the butter and stir. Add the egg and yogurt and stir with a spoon. At this point the mixture will be very chunky.

4. Flour your work surface and your hands and knead the dough a few time until it just hangs together. There will be some dry flour mixture left in the bowl.

5. Press the dough into an 8 inch round on the floured surface and press the rest of the dry mixture into the top. Dust the top with sugar.

6. Cut into 8 wedges, arrange in a circle on the baking sheet, and bake for about 15 minutes.