Chipotle Cornbread

Ah, my first from scratch corn bread. Ain't she a cutie sittin there on the base of my spring form pan?This isn't your everyday ordinary cornbread, it's chipotle cornbread . I snagged it from the blog Baking Bites.

Normally when I want to have some cornbread I just grab one of those Jiffy Cornbread boxes. Those babies make some mighty tasty cornbread. Wanna know why? Lard. Yes. Lard is like the 4th ingredient. Lard, like bacon, can make anything taste rockin awesome.

Awesome as the lardy mix may be, I'm in this phase where I want to make things from scratch. Most of the time it's cheaper and better for you than the prepackaged version. I already had all the ingredients on hand so I don't know how this compares in price to Jiffy. I'm going to guess that it was cheaper though. At least if I made a similar version using corn and chipotles as additives to the Jiffy box mix. I mean with the box you still have to add egg and milk. Sugar and corn meal are much cheaper per ounce in bulk than per ounce by the prepared mix.

I did not use fresh corn for this recipe. It's winter and there isn't any "Fresh" corn. Frozen tasted just fine. I also used powdered buttermilk. I don't have the best luck using up the buttermilk in the carton before it goes bad. So far the powdered buttermilk has not lead me astray. For me, the powdered buttermilk is still saving me money in the long run, and I'm not wasting food by having to toss out the spoiled stuff.

The recipe calls for 2 tablespoons of minced chipotle. This turned out to be about 1 largish chipotle pepper. If you like, and can handle the heat, throw caution to the wind and add 2 peppers. As is, the cornbread was about as spicy as Blockette could handle. She ate it, but there was a lot of milk drinking and comments about how spicy the cornbread was.

This was also the first time I've made cornbread in a springform pan. It weirded me out at first because I usually make it in a square pan. There was just something fun about cutting the cornbread into wedge slices that was very satisfying. Cutting the cornbread this way also made it seem like the cornbread went farther. Maybe because it was easier to cut smaller pieces?

Being a Yankee, I don't care either way, but I guess this technically isn't cornbread, it's corn cake. I don't fully understand the difference. I think it might have something to do with the amount of sugar? All I know is it seems like corn bread to me.

Chipotle Cornbread from Baking Bites
1/4 cup butter, room temperature
2 tbsp minced chipotle peppers
1 1/3 cups all purpose flour
1 cup yellow cornmeal
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 cup sugar
1 large egg
1/2 cup buttermilk
3/4 cup milk
3/4 cup fresh corn

Preheat oven to 350F. Lightly grease a 9-inch round cake pan or springform pan. In a small, microwave-safe bowl, combine butter and minced chipotle peppers. Melt the butter in the microwave.
In a large bowl, whisk together flour, cornmeal, baking soda, salt and sugar. Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and add in egg, buttermilk and milk. Whisk until almost combined, then add in the butter-chipotle mixture and stir just until no streaks of dry ingredients remain. Stir in corn. Spread batter into prepared pan. Bake for 30-35 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Remove the sides of the springform pan, or turn the bread out of a regular pan onto a wire rack, and allow the cornbread to cool. Cornbread can be eaten while slightly warm or at room temperature.

Thankful Thursday 8.11

This week I'm thankful for:

1. A great visit with my mom.
2. Enjoying a nice quiet dinner out with Mrblocko.
3. Teasing Blockette about being a Ninja.
4. How well behaved Blockette has been and the improvement in her behavior as a whole over the past 6 months.
5. Finally ordering new glasses.
6. Mrblocko finding the running shoes he has always wanted and they were 40% off (and not ugly as sin.)
7. My budding theologian.
8. Blockette's self confidence
9. My mom getting home safe driving in the nasty snowstorm.
10. When I dropped the 5 pound unopened jar of peanut butter only the lid broke into 2 pieces, and I was able to duct tape it back together.

Coconut Carrot Cake

I've dreaded writing about this cake. The cake wasn't a failure, it was just a disappointment. I think perhaps I had my expectations too high. I found this recipe for carrot coconut cake from Simply Scratch. Everything on there always looks so wonderful. I'm not sure if the end result of the cake was because of something I did (Or didn't do), or if that was the way the cake was supposed to turn out.

I've made Carrot cakes exactly two times before. See, Carrot cake is Mrblocko's favorite kind of cake. He usually asks for it for his birthday. I don't always make it for him because, the past 2 times have resulted in disaster.

My first attempt at Carrot cake was 8 or 9 years ago. Mrblocko and I were still newlyweds and I had gotten it into my head that I was going to make him a cake from scratch. Never mind that my culinary skills were not up to par for such an endeavor. I foolishly decided to grate the carrots by hand. To this day, I have no idea why. I had a food processor with a shredding blade. The cake took forever to prepare, and I wound up shredding part of my knuckle into the batter. I can't even remember how the cake tasted. I do remember not wanting to eat any of it because I spent so much time working on it, I just didn't want to look at it anymore.

I vowed never to make a carrot cake again.

Fast forward about 5 years...Blockette was about 2 years old. We were going through a very rough financial patch and money was beyond tight. Mrblocko had lost his job just a few days after Christmas and Mrblocko's birthday was only a few weeks after that. (See I told you I was
dreading writing about this cake. I made it all the way back in JANUARY!) I knew that I couldn't get Mrblocko the birthday present he deserved, so I thought that at least I could make him his favorite cake. I wasn't brave enough to tempt fate and make a cake from scratch. I thought I'd get myself a box mix, what could possibly go wrong with that?

All the stars seemed to be in alignment, the cake mix and frosting were on sale for mega cheap. I baked the cake and set it out to cool. I assembled and lovingly frosted the cake and set it on the counter so the frosting could set. Not 5 minutes later I hear Mrblocko walk into the kitchen and call out, "Honey, what happened to the cake?!"

Yes. What did happen to the cake? I'll tell you. Our cat Boo happened to the cake. Our cat who only likes to eat cat food and carpet fuzz licked half the cream cheese frosting off of the cake. I don't know which I was more upset over, Mrblocko's cake being ruined or the possibility of our cat being seriously ill.

Luckily Boo survived with no symptoms worse than a bad tummy ache and a nasty case of diarrhea. (Yeah I just wrote diarrhea on a food blog. ew.) Since the cake was just for Mrblocko and myself, we made the decision to spread the remaining frosting over the rest of the cake. Neither of us minded a little cat spit. The cake tasted fine except for the fact that it needed more frosting.

I vowed to never make a carrot cake again. I was jinxed. Jinxed I tells ya.

So why did I decide to break my promise (again) and make Mrblocko a Carrot cake for his birthday this year? Well, I felt that my kitchen skills had improved, we now own a cake dome for the specific purpose of preventing future frosting licking incidents, and that carrot cake recipe on Simply Scratch looked and sounded so good.

I knew the cake would be a lot of work, but it would be a labor of love. So I mixed and chopped and baked and frosted and presented the whole thing to my sweet darling husband. I waited for the lavish praise he was going to heap on me for my masterpiece of a creation.

He took the first bite. Then another.

Nothing.

His eyes didn't roll back in his head or nuthin!!!

With tears in my eyes (OK and rolling down my face, I'm a big cry baby) I asked him what was wrong. Did the cake not taste good? He assured me it did, but it was just not what he was expecting. Well, what was he expecting?

At this point I had not taken a bite of my own work. I get weird about my cooking and like someone else to taste it first. It's dumb but one of my many wonky quirks.

So I took a bite. It was just OK. The cake was very moist but it was very very dense. I get that carrot cake, especially one with nuts and pineapple in it can get a bit on the heavy side, but this was more compacted than I expected. You can sort of tell by the picture below. See how thin the layers are?

The cake did taste OK. It just wasn't what either of us anticipated. I won't be making this carrot cake recipe again, but I am not going to boycott carrot cakes completely. At this stage in my cooking adventures I see this disappointment not as a reaffirmation of a jinx, but as a challenge.

I'm now on the hunt for Mrblocko's perfect carrot cake! I have found a few and now I just need the time and an occasion to prepare them. Of course Mrblocko says a day that ends in "y" is a cause for celebration, but we all know he just wants to be lavished with mountains of carrot cake. Even I, who doesn't fancy carrot cake nearly as much as my husband and cat do, think mediocre carrot cake is still pretty tasty.

Carrot Coconut Cake from Simply Scratch
2 cups Unbleached All Purpose Flour
2-1/2 teaspoons of Baking Powder
2 tsp. ground Cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon Nutmeg
3/4 cup (1-1/2 sticks) Unsalted Butter, softened
1-1/2 cups Sugar
3 whole Eggs
1/2 cup Whole Milk
2 cups grated Carrots
1 cup flaked Coconut
1 cup (8 oz.) fresh Pineapple, crushed
1 recipe for Cream Cheese Frosting
Optional: 1/2 cup chopped Walnuts

Preheat your oven to 350°F. Butter and line two 9 inch cake pans with wax or parchment paper. Mix flour, baking powder, cinnamon and nutmeg until well blended; set aside. Add a cup of fresh pineapple to a mini food processor with any juices and puree until it measures 1 cup, adding more if needed. Pineapple should be slightly chunky and resemble "canned" crushed pineapple. Set aside.
Beat butter and sugar in large bowl with electric mixer on medium speed until light and fluffy. Add eggs, 1 at a time, mixing until well blended. Add flour mixture alternately with milk, beating until well blended after each addition. Add carrots, coconut, and pineapple {walnuts too if you're using them}; mix well. Pour evenly into 2 greased 9-inch round cake pans.

Bake for 35-40 minutes or until toothpick inserted in centers comes out clean. Cool in pans 10 to 15 minutes. Remove from pans; cool completely on wire racks. Place 1 of the cake layers on serving plate upside down, remove wax paper and spread with Cream Cheese Frosting. Cover with remaining cake layer {upside down} remove wax paper again and spread top and side of cake with remaining frosting. Cut a huge piece for yourself and enjoy! Like any cream cheese frosted goodie, make sure you store this cake in refrigerator.

French Bread

I have the opposite problem that the Swedish chef does in this video. Our house is always so cold, the dough just does not want to rise.


I did figure out that if I preheat the oven to the lowest setting for 3 minutes, and keep the oven light on, it maintains a nice heat for the length of the dough rise.

This french bread from Gourmet Mom on the Go was a really simple fairly speedy bread recipe. Although, I would not have attempted this recipe before I had my stand mixer. Kneading the dough by hand for 8 minutes would not have worked for me. I would have gotten bored and tired and the dough would not have been kneaded enough.
My dough did spread out and get quite flat at the final rise. I think the next time I make this recipe I will create some sort of long French bread shaped containment thingie out of several layers of foil. Maybe then it will look more like a traditional French bread loaf. The bread did taste wonderful though.

I froze one loaf just to see how it would taste defrosted. It was pretty good. Obviously not as good as the fresh ones, but if you are going to slather it with butter and garlic and pop it under the broiler it doesn't really matter if it's soft and fresh or not.


No Fail Quick French Bread from Gourmet Mom on the Go
1 T shortening
1 T salt
2 T sugar
1 C boiling water
1 C cold water
1/3 C lukewarm water
1 T yeast (cut your yeast in half if you are at a high altitude)
4 1/2 C - 6 C flour
1 egg

1. Place the 1 C hot water in the microwave for 3 minutes to get it boiling.
2. Dissolve the yeast into the warm water. Stir it around until it is all mixed.
3. Combine the salt, shortening, and sugar in the bottom of your mixer with a fork.
4. Pour the boiling water over the shortening mixture.
5. Pour the cold water over the mixture.
6. Pour the warm water and yeast into the mixer.
7. Begin to add flour, 1c at a time, until dough pulls away from side of your mixer.
8. Let the dough mix on high for 8 minutes.
9. Let the dough rise in the mixer for about 20 minutes. (This step can be skipped)
10. Separate dough into 3parts and place on a large jelly roll pan sprayed with cooking spray. Let the dough sit for about 5 minutes.
11. Roll into long rectangle with the long side closest to you
12. Roll rectangle away from you so you have a long snake.
13. Then bring the ends over and layer them on top of each other.
14. Turn the loaf so the seam side is down. Repeat these steps with the other 2 parts of dough.
15. Spray a sharp knife with cooking spray.
16. Make your egg wash by whisking the egg until frothy.
17. Cut three diagonal slits in the top of each loaf. Cover with the egg wash being sure to get it into all of the slits.
18. Place the loaves in a warm 170 degree oven and let rise for about 15 minutes.
19. Turn the oven up to 375 degrees for a convection oven, and 400 degrees for a regular oven. Leave the loaves in while the oven increases in temperature.
20. Bake for 10 minutes convection or 15 regular oven, or until the loaves are golden brown and crusty.
21. Turn the oven down to 325 for convection, 350 for regular and turn the pan around in the oven. Bake for another 7 minutes convection or 10 minutes for regular.

Mock Raincoast Crisps

Are you aware of the deliciousness that is Lesley Stowe's Raincoast Crips? My mom brought a box of the rosemary raisin pecan crackers one time when she came to visit. Oh my goodness. They put the crack in cracker. However, just like crack, they are expensive habit to maintain.

At least they were until I found a recipe for rosemary raisin crisps at Dinner with Julie. They taste exactly the same...and at a fraction of the cost. I had to buy a few ingredients that I don't normally buy, but the cost of the supplies were much less than an entire box of crackers. Seriously...there is a store by me that sells them for $9. Nine. Dollars. For. One. Box. Ngaaaaa.

Anyways...I baked this recipe in 4 mini loaf pans. Do not eat the bread before you slice and bake it a second time, it is not anything spectacular. Wait until you crisp the crackers in the oven. Trust me! The loaves really need to be frozen in order to slice them thin enough. For this reason, the recipe is a lot of hurry up and wait. The actual prep is easy, mix everything together. Wait while it bakes. Wait while it cools to room temp. Wait while the loaves freeze. Slice then bake. I like these crackers enough that they are worth the process.One mini loaf yielded about the same as one box. Did I mention that one recipe makes 4 mini loaves? And you keep them in the freezer until you need/want them. So awesome.
So far, I've only found 2 negative things about this recipe. First, you have to eat the crackers fairly shorty after baking since they contain no preservatives. This really isn't too much of a problem because I like to eat them a lot, so they go quickly. If you aren't a mega cracker eater then it might be a problem for you. The second problem was that the raisins sunk to the bottom of the loaf. Maybe coating them with flour mixture first would be a good way to prevent this? Once I work my way through the rest of the loaves I will give that a shot.

Rosemary Raisin Pecan Crisps from Dinner With Julie
2 cups flour
2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
2 cups buttermilk
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup honey
1 cup raisins
1/2 cup chopped pecans
1/2 cup roasted pumpkin seeds (optional)
1/4 cup sesame seeds
1/4 cup flax seed, ground
1 Tbsp. chopped fresh rosemary

Preheat oven to 350° F. In a large bowl, stir flour, baking soda and salt. Add buttermilk, brown sugar and honey and stir a few strokes. Add raisins, pecans, pumpkin seeds, sesame seeds, flax seed and rosemary and stir just until blended. Pour the batter into two 8”x4” loaf pans that have been sprayed with nonstick spray. Bake 35 min, until golden and springy to the touch. Remove from the pans and cool on a wire rack. The cooler bread, the easier it is to slice really thin. You can leave it until the next day or pop it in the freezer. Slice loaves as thin as you can and place slices in a single layer on an ungreased cookie sheet. (I like to slice and bake one loaf and pop the other in the freezer for another day.) Reduce  oven heat to 300° F and bake 15 min, then flip over and bake 10 min, til crisp and deep golden.

Thankful Thursday 7.11

1. Warm weather
2. Mrblocko and Blockette were both healthy enough at the same time to go sledding before the snow melted.
3. Helping out at Blockette's class for Valentine's day.
4. Blockette liked watching The Princess Bride, and didn't even mind when I fast forwarded through the yucky Giant Rat part that I hate...not that she was scared or anything.
5. My mom is coming to visit!
6. Our budding little math wiz.
7. Mrblocko coming home unexpectedly for lunch because Internet was down at work.
8. My best friend's husband was able to recover all the data on my computer and get rid of the virus!
9.Getting the grocery shopping done speedy quick.
10. Using the computer virus as an opportunity to discuss forgiveness and change my own attitude about those who behave maliciously.

Mystery Ham Glaze

They had bone in hams on sale a while ago and Mrblocko loves bone in ham. They are right up there with steak in his book. I told him that if I bought a ham it would be his job to figure out how to cook it.

I have no idea where he got this recipe but it is delicious. It is probably my new favorite glaze for Ham. I should let him pick out recipes from the Internet more often. If you know where this recipe came from, please let me know and I will credit it here.

Mrblocko's Mysterious Ham Glaze from the Internet
1/3 c prepared yellow mustard
1/3 c maple syrup (we used the fake stuff)
2 T Br sugar
2 t onion powder

Preheat the oven to 325F. Mix all the ingredients together and cover the ham with the glaze. Make a foil tent over the meat. Cook the meat, basting every 20 min until the glaze is gone. Cook til internal temp is 160F. Remove the foil and place under the broiler for the last 5 min to get the outside caramelized and crispy.

(There may or may not have been a picture of the finished glazed ham. My computer got a nasty virus and it is at a friend's house right now seeing if any of the data can be retrieved. I felt like posting anyhow today, with or without pictures. Mrblocko was nice enough to leave me his laptop so I wasn't completely disconnected from the world. YAY!)