Friday, December 26, 2008

Grilled Chicken Pizza

First, make this Pizza Dough below.

Pizza Dough

- 2.5 cups flour
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 tsp sugar

- 3/4 cup warm water
- 1 packet active dry yeast

  1. Make dough, let sit 1 hour in olive oil coated bowl.
  2. When doubled in size, punch down.
  3. Then roll out into pizza form, top with grilled chicken, peppers, onions, cheese, etc..
  4. Brush crust with olive oil.
  5. Bake at 500 degrees C for about 20 min.


Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Sweet Potato Cake with Brown Sugar Icing

Adapted and slightly modified from epicurious. Didn't have time to make the brown sugar icing, but the cake was already sweet enough. This was a good use for sweet potatoes, since I baked a batch of them this weekend, and they were unfortunately rather bland tasting.

Cake

Wet ingredients
- ~ 2 cups mashed sweet potatoes
- 1.5 cups vegetable oil
- 4 large eggs
- 1 tsp vanilla extract

Dry ingredients
- 2 3/4 cups AP flour
- 2 tsp all spice
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 1/4 cup sugar

Icing

- 1 cup powdered sugar
- 3/4 cup dark brown sugar
- 1/2 cup whipping cream
- 1/2 stick unsalted butter

  1. For the cake, first mix the wet ingredients together, adding in the eggs one at a time.
  2. In a separate bowl, mix the dry ingredients together. Then slowly combine with wet ingredients.
  3. Bake at 325 degrees F ~ 1 hr and a half. I cover them for the first hour with aluminum foil, then take the foil off in the last 30-45 minutes to get a nice crust.

  1. For the icing, add brown sugar, cream, and butter into saucepan over heat. Stir until butter melts, and sugar dissolves.
  2. Bring to boil. Boil 3 minutes.
  3. Remove from heat, add in vanilla if desired.
  4. Pour brown sugar mixture over powdered confectioner's sugar.
  5. Whisk icing until smooth.
  6. Cool icing until lukewarm, whisking often, ~ 15 minutes.
  7. Spoon over cake.

Pumpkin Cheesecake

I've been tinkering around with my basic cheesecake recipe for some time now, here's the variation with pumpkin. Makes enough for 1 x 7.5" diameter springform pan. I didn't add any pumpkin spices because my intention is not to make a pumpkin-pie like cheesecake, just a pumpkin cheesecake.

My cheesecake crust is just graham crackers, butter, cardamom, ginger.

Do not over-bake; let cool completely before putting into refrigerator. You should have a perfect, no-crack cheesecake!

Spiced Cheesecake Crust
(Make this the day before)

- crushed graham crackers
- sugar
- melted butter
- cardamom powder
- ginger powder

  1. Mix crushed graham crackers, sugar, cardamom/ginger powder together.
  2. Add in melted butter.
  3. Press into bottom of springform pan.
  4. Bake ~ 10-15 min. at 375 degrees F.


Pumpkin Cheesecake

- 2 x 8oz. bricks of cream cheese.
- 1/2 cup sour cream
- 1 cup sugar
- 3 XL eggs (or 4 large eggs)
- 6 oz (~ 3/4 of an 8 oz. can of packed plain pumpkin)

  1. Mix room temperature cream cheese and sour cream together.
  2. Add in pumpkin.
  3. Add in sugar.
  4. Add in eggs one at a time.
  5. Bake bain marie ~ 1.5 hours. Cover with aluminum foil while baking.
  6. Let cool completely.
  7. Refrigerate ~ 2 days before attempting to remove from pan.

Sunday, December 14, 2008

Corn Bread, Part II

My last corn bread was a little on the dry side- lack of buttermilk, the sister pronounced. Well, not having any buttermilk handy, I sought to use a substitute. Most buttermilk sold in stores these days is not true buttermilk, rather it's cultured from bacteria, like yogurt. Aha, so why not use some yogurt in place of buttermilk!

Makes a 3" thick cornbread in a 9" x 13" pan.

Corn Bread, Part Deux

Dry Ingredients

- 4.5 cups yellow cornmeal
- 1.5 cups AP flour
- 1/2 cup white sugar
- 3 Tbsp baking powder
- 1.5 Tbsp salt

Wet Ingredients

- 1.5 cups milk
- 1.5 cups plain yogurt
- 1/2 to 1/3 cup vegetable oil (you kinda have to eyeball it)
- 6 large eggs, beaten

  1. Mix dry ingredients together.
  2. Mix wet ingredients together.
  3. Mix dry and wet.
  4. Pour into pre-buttered pan.
  5. Bake 400 degrees F until tester comes out clean, about 30-45 min.