Dorie's Cornmeal and Fruit Loaf

Sticking with the cornbread theme I decided to make this loaf to use up the rest of my buttermilk and cornmeal. It came together ridiculously quickly (just like yesterday's muffins) and smelt amazing in the oven!

I went with fresh granny smith apple and dried apricots for both the colour and sweetness.

Cornmeal and Fruit Loaf
From Baking - p43

1 cup buttermilk
5 tbs unsalted butter, melted
2 large eggs
1 1/4 c plain flour
3/4 c cornmeal
1/2 c sugar
1 tbs baking powder
1/2 ts baking soda
1/2 ts cinnamon
1/4 ts nutmeg
1/4 ts salt
1 apple or pear, peeled cored and cut in a small dice
1/2 cup diced dried apple or pear (or apricot in my case)

Centre a rack in the oven and preheat to 180 degrees. Butter and line a 9 x 5 inch loaf pan (i never place cake pans on a rack as Dorie suggest because everything burns that way).

Whisk together the buttermilk, melted butter and eggs.

In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, cornmeal, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt. Fold in the liquid ingredients using a large rubber spatula until everything is just moistened. Stir in the fruits and scrape batter into prepared tin.

Bake for about 1hr (or 45 minutes in my case) or until a thin knife inserted into the middle comes out clean. Cool in the pan for 10 minutes then invert onto a rack and cool right side up.

Delicious warm out of the oven or freeze in slices for making great toast the next day!

Tuesdays with Dorie: Savoury Corn & Pepper Muffins

Much as I loved last week's pick I was very happy with something simple and savoury this week!

I am not a huge fan of chilli, preferring warmth to heat in terms of spiciness so I did make a few changes to the recipe. I also jumped on the bandwagon and served these with Beef and Bean Chili. They were the perfect accompaniment.


The taste test ...

Fresh out of the oven when it was almost too hot to handle and smeared with butter ... yum! My one issue would be that I think there was too much baking powder. Or too much combined with the baking soda? Once they cooled down I could really taste it and the crumb was very hard despite not over-mixing.

I'm glad I left out the jalopenos and most of the chilli - I only used 1/2 ts of mexican chilli powder and that was perfect to give a hint of warmth which contrasted beautifully with the more spicy Chili.

Overall a thumbs up! Thanks to Rebecca of Ezra Pound Cake for this week's pick.

Tuesdays with Dorie: French Pear Tart

This week's recipe was chosen by none other than Dorie herself! How cool is that? And even better she selected a recipe I have been eying off for ages - the French Pear Tart.

I absolutely adore pears. I have some on my cereal every single morning, fresh when available and canned for the rest of the time. Being the middle of summer fresh pears aren't available so I went for the best quality canned ones I could find.

This recipe was a cinch to pull together, although the pastry was slightly tricky. I hate blaming everything on the weather but the heat and humidity really do play havoc with pastry! It took 3 attempts to roll it out properly (with chilling time in between) but I eventually got there. I pre-baked it as per the recipe and although the crust got a littler darker than I would have liked the end result was perfect.

The taste test ...

Absolutely divine. I lost count of the number of times N said 'this is really good. you should make this again.' Admittedly it was very sweet but I think this sweetness comes from the pears themselves. Perhaps there would be more contrast with fresh pears? Either way, we loved it and will definitely be making this again sometime. Thanks Dorie!

N's First Omelette

When I first met him, N was allergic to egg. This was staggering because it meant he had never tried cake, quiche, custard, meringue or pancakes. Can you imagine?? We did some research and found a treatment which cured his egg allergy (and yes it was a true, medically diagnosed food allergy from birth which played havoc with vaccinations etc) once and for all.

I'm amazed I hadn't cooked one for him before but he assures me that after more than 6 years together this was his first omelette. And he liked it!

After all my whinging about the weather the temperature has dropped about 10 degrees since yesterday which made it perfect to have an omelette on hot buttered toast for dinner.

We filled them with sauteed onion, garlic, mushroom, ham and asparagus with a smattering of chedder.

Delish!

Tall & Creamy Cheesecake - Take 2

So my last attempt at this delicious cheesecake resulted in a rather ugly (albeit tasty) concoction. But the fact that I didn't get to take any decent photos because we were at someone else's house, in poor light, with no time to prep and I didn't even get to cut it myself bothered me so much I made it again.

This time I decided to make minis and keep the flavours simpler. I halved the crust recipe and quartered the filling and this made 2 perfect minis (although they were very full and this amount of crust and filling could have stretched to 3).

I made 2 different types...

Lemon with Passionfruit (added juice and zest of 1/2 small lemon to basic filling)

Vanilla with Reese's Peanut Butter Cups (1/2 ts vanilla with chopped up Reese's)

Again no problems at all making these. I baked them for 40 minutes at 160 degrees and then let them 'luxuriate in their water bath' (oh how I wish that were me!) for another 30 minutes.

The taste test ...

In a word ... YUM!

I can see this recipe becoming my go-to cheesecake recipe. I didn't have any problems with browning or the crust cracking so they tasted just as good as they looked this time around!

Tall and Creamy Cheesecake
Adapted rom Baking From My Home to Yours, by Dorie Greenspan

Ingredients
For the crust:
250g plain sweet biscuits
Pinch of salt
100g unsalted butter, melted

For the cheesecake:
4 packs cream cheese, at room temperature
1 cups sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
4 large eggs, at room temperature
1 1/3 cups sour cream or heavy cream, or a combination of the two

Procedure
To make the crust:

Butter a deep 9-inch springform pan and wrap the bottom of the pan in a double layer of aluminum foil, then put the pan on a baking sheet.

Blitz the biscuits and salt in a food processor then add the melted butter and whiz until well combined. Turn the ingredients into the prepared pan and use your fingers to pat an even layer of crumbs along the bottom of the pan and about halfway up the sides. Put the pan in the freezer while you preheat the oven. Wipe out the bowl and blade of the food processor with paper towel.

Center a rack in the oven, preheat the oven to 160 degrees celsius fan-forced and place the pan on a baking sheet. Bake for 10 minutes. Set the crust aside to cool on a rack while you make the cheesecake.

Reduce the oven temperature to 140 degrees celsius fan forced.

To make the cheesecake:
Put a kettle of water on to boil.

In the food processor beat the cream cheese at medium speed until it is soft, about 4 minutes. With the mixer running, add the sugar and salt and continue to beat another 2 minutes, until the cream cheese is light. Beat in the vanilla. Add the eggs one by one, beating for a full minute after each addition. Finally add the sour cream and/or heavy cream and process for another minute.

Put the foil-wrapped springform pan in the roaster pan.

Give the batter a few stirs with a rubber spatula, just to make sure that nothing has been left unmixed at the bottom of the bowl, and scrape the batter into the springform pan. The batter will reach the brim of the pan. (If you have a pan with lower sides and have leftover batter, you can bake the batter in a buttered ramekin.) Put the roasting pan in the oven and pour enough boiling water into the roaster to come halfway up the sides of the springform pan.

Bake the cheesecake for 1 hour and 30 minutes, at which point the top will be browned (and perhaps cracked) and may have risen just a little above the rim of the pan. Turn off the oven's heat and prop the oven door open with a wooden spoon. Allow the cheesecake to luxuriate in its water bath for another hour.

After 1 hour, carefully pull the setup out of the oven, lift the springform pan out of the roasting pan and very carefully remove the foil. Let the cheesecake come to room temperature on a cooling rack.

When the cake is cool, cover the top lightly and chill overnight.