Stuffing Gallons Into Quarts

I don't know how we do it. I don't know how we can keep squeezing gallons of activity into pint jars of Time when the holiday season rolls around. Okay, maybe they're quart jars. But we still have more "stuff" than jar. There is probably an obscure scientific law that explains how that can be but it's so obscure, nobody knows what it is.

One of the things that has been taking a lot of my time has been the yearly -- obsessive -- search for new and different recipes for holiday occasions and gift giving. I might compare a dozen or two recipes for a single dish, trying to decide which one sounds like The One. And that's just for one item. You would not believe the number of various and assorted cranberry recipes I've been scanning, drooling and slobbering as I go.

Like, for instance, the one I found at the Joy of Baking web site. It turns out to be easy to put together and utterly delicious when done. This one's a keeper, Coffee Mates.

You can copy the recipe from the above link if you want, or grab it from here, whichever is easiest. It goes pretty much like this:




CRANBERRY SHORTBREAD BARS
9" X 9" baking pan, buttered -- preheat oven to 375 degrees fairy height

For the filling: In medium-sized sauce pan, put:
2 1/4 cups (8 ounces or 225 grams) fresh or frozen cranberries
2/3 cup (130 grams) sugar
3 tablespoons water
On medium-high heat, bring to a boil and continue boiling until mixture is thick and syrupy. This will take about 5 or 6 minutes. She didn't say, but I stirred the mixture the whole time, just in case. It's amazing to watch all the resulting liquid cook down and thicken. Once it's thick, remove from heat and set aside to cool.

For the crust: In a mixing bowl, whisk together:
2 cups (270 grams) all purpose flour
2 tablespoons corn starch
1/4 teaspoon salt (I used a teaspoon of salt.)
In the bowl of your stand mixer, cream 1 cup (2 sticks) butter until smooth.
Add 1/3 cup (70 grams) sugar, beat 2 minutes, add 1 teaspoon vanilla, blend in.
Gently stir in the flour mixture just until incorporated.

The dough will still look very crumbly. That's okay. With all that butter, it'll come together just fine in the pan. Dump two thirds of the dough into the buttered pan and pat it into a reasonably level layer with your fingers. See? It holds together just like it knew what it was doing.

Now you take the cooled filling and spread it over the layer of crust, leaving a quarter-inch margin all around the edges. Then take the remaining third of the dough and crumble it over the filling. It's okay if there are little gaps that show bits of the filling. Gently press the crumbs into the filling, put it in the oven and bake for 30 minutes, or until crust is golden brown.

When you take it out of the oven, set the pan on a cooling rack and cut the squares/bars while it's still hot. Then let it cool completely in the pan. Cutting it while hot enables you to wiggle out each gorgeous little bar without excessive crumbling and unseemly deterioration of your culinary artistry.

Just in case you didn't get a good enough look up top, here's a closer view of these tasty morsels.

Mmmmm! Look at that tender crumb. Gaze with delight on that lush, tart-sweet filling. Wipe the drool off your chin and head right into the kitchen to whip up a batch for yourself.

Listen, I would love to share this batch with you, really. Oh, WHEN will they invent email that allows you to send real live food attachments? Geez, if the hackers would just consider the benefits to themselves, I'll bet they could come up with such a program -- I'd be happy to keep sending attached Cheetos to such genius persons.Wouldn't you?



 

 

Humbled by Excess

HEAD SYBARITE REPORTING FROM DECADENCE CENTRAL: This, Coffee Mates, is what happens when you get carried away and forget to moderate your immoderate behavior. That breathtaking pie in the above photo is the banana cream pie I mentioned in last night's post. It really should have been topped with whipped cream but all I had handy was a partial tub of Cool Whip that had been lurking in the freezer for months. It tasted somewhat flat and greasy and there was no way I was going to sully a perfectly good pie with something like that. (Radiating Huffy and Self-righteous.) No. A different topping entirely was surely required. Which is why I hunted down a recipe for hot fudge sauce and used that as topping.

I went too far.

Separately, each component of the above semi-masterpiece was wonderful. Really. Up to a certain point, the combination of components worked in a grand complementary chorus that added dimension to the whole. Until I added the choccy topping. Never thought I'd say this but, truthfully, the topping was -- uhmm -- over the top. Mae West assured us there was no such thing as "too much of a good thing." She was wrong. Darn it.

With that caveat, I will share the recipes for each of the aforementioned components. It is up to you to maintain the self-discipline to use the hot fudge topping on ice cream, where it belongs.

Have you ever been in the mood for a pie but just didn't feel in the mood to mess with the muss and fuss of a crust? Yeah, me too. Which is why I decided to go for a shortbread crust that went directly from mixing bowl to pie pan and could be patted into place. It goes like this:

SHORTBREAD PIE CRUST

1 cup flour
1/4 cup powdered sugar
1/3 cup ground nuts
1/2 cup butter, melted and cooled
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon salt

Mix dry ingredients together. (For nuts, I used honey-roasted cashews with sesame seeds. Just drop your choice of nuts in a blender and pulse them until they're the texture of corn meal.) Add butter and vanilla and mix until dough gathers together and cleans the sides of the bowl. Drop into lightly buttered pie pan and press into place as evenly as possible. Prick crust with fork and chill in freezer for 15 minutes or refrigerator for a 1/2 hour. This will keep the crust from poofing up so you don't have to blind bake it. Bake in 350 degree oven for 15 to 20 minutes or until it becomes golden brown. Let cool before filling. This is how it will look when you're done.

Okay, next step is the filling. Something easy and quick but high in the delicious factor. For that, I would urge you to click over to the BellaOnline site where Karen Hancock has an outstanding recipe for microwave cream pie along with some of the several variations possible -- including the banana version I did. I only had to use two bananas, chopped and tossed with lemon juice, to fold into the filling. Oh -- it only took 3 minutes to cook the filling (I boiled the milk on the stove.) and I gave it a good whisking at the end of each minute.

Okay. Pie crust -- check. Filling -- check. Topping -- ahhhh. I really believe this project would have been rendered a complete success had I used a light, fresh whipped cream topping. But, nooooo, I had to commit a chocolate felony. Ah well. At least I did end up with a most excellent recipe for fudge topping. And here it is:

MICROWAVE HOT FUDGE SAUCE

1/2 cup sugar
2 tablespoons baking cocoa
1 1/2 tablespoons corn starch
1/2 cup cold brewed coffee
2 tablespoons butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Mix dry ingredients together, then whisk in coffee. (You can use water or, for a richer sauce, milk or cream.) Microwave 1 minute, whisk well, microwave 1 minute more. The sauce should be nicely thickening now. Whisk in the butter and microwave another 30 seconds. If it's now the degree of thickness you want, add the vanilla, whisk and serve. (The original recipe specified "2 to 4 minutes" cooking time. Your mileage may vary.)

After I made the sauce (which is every bit as good as it looks), I let it cool while I sipped a mug of coffee. Then I pulled the pie out of the refrigerator and slathered the fudge sauce on top, trying not to moan with anticipation. Then I chopped up a handful of the candied pecans and artfully scattered them over everything. What followed was a dutiful photographic session, cutting the first slice out of the pie and sitting down with a fork and a healthy degree of lust.

Well, it's delicious and scrumptious and ... and ... awesomely, overwhelmingly rich. See where I stopped to take the last photo? That's also where I stopped eating. Could not bring myself to take another bite. I have been blissed out and brought to my knees. Later tonight, I'm sure I can work up enough appetite to finish it off. And I've learned a valuable lesson.

Hot fudge topping is not for cream pies. It is for ice cream or for body painting.