Pumpkin Crepes

This fine and lovely Saturday morning I awoke dark and too early at 5:45 am.  Alas, these are the sorts of thing one has to deal with when your bed time the night before was 7:40 pm.  But I would never complain, especially since it gave me the chance to make some pumpkin crepe batter, let it rest for a generous hour, go through the ceremonious first couple of faulty crepes, and have a small stack ready just in time for my family of early risers.

Being pumpkin crepes, they came out thicker and moister than their non-pumpkin counterparts.  This made them perfect for folding, drizzling with maple syrup, and a handful of toasted pecans.

 If only I woke up at 5:45 am every day.

Pumpkin Crepes

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups whole milk at room temp
• 4 eggs at room temp
• 3/4 cup pumpkin
• 2 tablespoons melted butter
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 cup flour
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg, freshly ground if possible
• 1/2 teaspoon ginger

Preparation

1. Mix together the wet ingredients in a bowl (one with a little spout for pouring if possible!)
2. Mix together the dry ingredients in a small bowl so that the spices are evenly distributed.
3. Mix the dry into the wet a little at a time with a whisk.
4. Cover and let rest for 30min-1 hour.
5. Preheat a non stick skillet over medium heat.  When hot, season the pan with butter and then pour 1/4 cup of batter, swirling around to make an even and thin crepe.
6. Cook for 1 minute, then flip over (careful!  since they’re moister they’re more fragile) and cook for another 30 seconds.
7. Continue cooking the rest of the batter, seasoning the pan with butter before each crepe, and stacking the cooked crepes on top of each other on a large plate.
8. Enjoy with whatever fillings/topping your taste-buds desire!

Daring Bakers Challenge: Yeasted Meringue Coffee Cake

I began my excursion into the unexplored land of yeasted meringue coffee cake early one morning – my ultimate destination of a brunch consisted solely of coffee cake seemed further away than a fuzzy robe when you wake up and get out of bed on a chilly winter morning.  It turned out, the road to yeasty, sweet, doughy, crunchy bliss was evenly and smoothly paved with an incredibly cooperative, rich dough that was perfectly content without a sprinkle of flour when being kneaded and rolled out.

The rich dough lay naked, awaiting a smooth layer of sticky sweet meringue, a generous sprinkling of cinnamon sugar, and an even more generous sprinkling of toasted pecans and chocolate chips or any other combination of filling one desires.  Being a yeasted coffee cake virgin, I chose to stick to the basics – I didn’t want to overwhelm myself the first time.

The smell of the baking coffee cake was overwhelming.  After an excruciatingly delicious-smelling 25 minutes a wonderfully yeasty creation emerged from the oven.  And as the still warm loaf cooled, my fingers played along it’s marvelously browned crust, I bent down to inhale its intoxicating incense, and my eyes drank in what was soon to be in my belly.  Very soon.  A little too soon for my taste buds in fact, which suffered from a mild first degree burn.  However, a mildly singed tongue was so worth this bready, yeasty, sweet, crunchy, creation.

Thank you Jamie of Life’s a feast for a marvelous challenge and an even more marvelous recipe!

Check out her blog for the recipe, and as a note, I needed a lot less flour when I was in the final mixing stage of the dough – I only used about 1/2 cup more of flour.  I also used a blend of half whole wheat pastry flour and half bread flour.

Chocolate Caramel-Pecan Souffle Cake

Have you ever had something that tasted like more?  Have you ever gotten so full to the point where you thought you would never eat again but yet continued to eat that something as if there were no tomorrow?  That something was this cake.

I made this for my mother’s birthday and if someone had time to take out a timer then they would have been able to time how quickly this cake disappeared, even after a full three course meal.  But alas no one had a timer, let alone the time to take one out because everyone was busy attacking this cake – most of the attacking was done by yours truly, my mother, and her chocolate obsessed best friend.  Those in my family who weren’t able to handle the intense chocolate highlighted by the subtle taste of bourbon found the remains of their cake eagerly eaten within seconds of me spying their uneaten crumbs and globs of caramel.  No crumb was left behind.  And I must say this caramel was outstanding.  I would make this alone and eat it by the spoonful if it were socially acceptable.  The huge pecan chunks and sweet caramel and slight undertone of bourbon could make a girl go crazy.  So can a pound of chocolate.  Which this cake has by the way.  Tempted yet?

Chocolate Caramel-Pecan Souffle Cake from Sticky, Chewy, Messy, Gooey by Jill O’Connor

Since I used a 9-inch instead of 10-inch pan my filling didn’t cook completely and was still gooey when we cut into it but in the end this was a good thing because it added a nice variation of texture.  And it’s very fitting since the title of this book has the word gooey in it.

Ingredients

For the cake

• 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, cut into tablespoons, plus extra melted for brushing
• 1 cup superfine sugar, plus extra for sprinkling
• 1 pound bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, finely chopped – I used 72%
• 8 large eggs, separated, at room temperature
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 2 tablespoons bourbon
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar

For the Caramel-Pecan Sauce

• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 3 tablespoons water
• pinch of cream of tartar
• 1 cup pecan halves
• 3/4 cup heavy cream
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 2 tablespoons bourbon

Directions

1. Position a rack in the middle of the oven and preheat to 350.  Brush a 10-inch springform pan with melted butter and coat the bottom and sides of the pan with superfine sugar.  Tap out any excess sugar.
2. To make the cake: combine the chocolate and butter in a bowl over lightly simmering water.  Melt the chocolate and butter together until melted.  Remove from heat.
3. In a large bowl, using an electric mixer set a medium speed, beat the egg yolks and salt until smooth.  Gradually add 1/2 cup of the superfine sugar to the egg yolks, beating until the mixture is thick and pale yellow and forms a slowly dissolving ribbon on the surface of the batter when the beaters are lifted, 4-6 minutes.  Whisk in the bourbon and vanilla.  Gradually whisk the egg mixture into the melted chocolate and butter.
4. In a large, clean, stainless-steel bowl, beat the egg whites and the cream of tartar with an electric mixer set at low speed until foamy.  Increase the mixer speed to high and continue to beating until the egg whites form soft peaks.  Keep beating, adding the remaining 1/2 cup superfine sugar 1 tablespoon at a time, until stiff peaks form.
5. Stir one-third of the egg whites into the chocolate batter to lighten it.  Using a rubber spatula, carefully fold the remaining egg whites into the chocolate batter just until blended.
6. Spoon the batter into the prepared pan.  Bake until the cake rises and appears puffy and firm, 25-30 minutes.  The cake should still be moist, but not liquid in the center, so a wooden skewer inserted into the center of the cake should not come out clean, but with very moist crumbs clinging to it.
7. Meanwhile, make the topping.  Combine the granulated sugar, water, and cream of tartar in a large, heavy saucepan.  Cook, gently swirling the pan occasionally over medium heat until the sugar dissolves and starts to turn color.  Increase the heat to high and boil until the syrup turns a deep amber color, 4 to 5 minutes.  Watch carefully as it can burn quickly.
8. Immediately remove the pan from the heat and stir in the nuts, then the cream and salt.  Using a long handled wooden spoon to carefully stir in the cream, as the caramel has a tendency to hiss and splash as the cold cream hits it.  Place the pan over low heat and cook, stirring constantly, until the caramel thickens, 3 to 4 minutes (this took longer for me, just keep cooking it until it reaches a thick caramel consistency).  Remove from heat and stir in the bourbon.  Set aside and keep warm.
9. Remove the cake from the oven and let cool on a wire rack for 15 minutes.  The cake will fall slightly as it cools.  Remove the sides of the pan.  Spoon the warm caramel-pecan topping over the top of the cake and allow the cake and the topping to cool completely at room temperature before serving.
10. Using a long, sharp knife dipped in boiling water and wiped dry to cut the cake.  Dip knife in boiling water and wipe clean for each slice.
11. Prepare yourself for a cake eating frenzy.

Apple Cinnamon Oatmeal

You know those little brown packets filled with over-processed oats and pathetically, dry, shriveled up dehydrated apples, and stale cinnamon?  Well, this isn’t it.

Take the flavor of instant oatmeal and multiply it by 100.  Then take the the time it takes to make instant oatmeal and multiply it by 10.  Flavor outweighs time by 90.  Therefore, if you wake up just 10 minutes earlier you can have a delicious, healthy, hearty breakfast that will start off your day better than a pathetic little packet of dry oats and apples could.  And that is the extent of my mathematic abilities.  Here I come SATs.  Especially if I have this brain-fueling oatmeal before, those SATs are going down.

Apple Cinnamon Oatmeal

Ingredients (serves 1)

• 1/2 cup dry, rolled oats
• 1 cup milk (any kind you have)
• tiny pinch of salt
• two pinches of cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and ginger
• 1 apple cored and diced into small cubes
• 1 Tablespoon ground flaxseed
• 1 tablespoon chopped pecans
• 1 Tablespoon brown sugar (divided in half)

Directions

1. Put oatmeal, milk, and pinch of salt into a small saucepan over medium high heat.
2. Once it boils turn it down to medium and simmer.
3. While oatmeal simmers, heat canola oil (or butter) in a small skillet over medium high heat and toast pecans in toaster oven at low temp (200-250) until lightly browned.
4. Toss the cubed apples with a pinch of the spices and 1 1/2 teaspoons of brown sugar.  Sauté apples until caramelized (about 5 minutes).
5. When almost all the milk is absorbed add a pinch of each spices, ground flaxseed, toasted pecans,brown sugar, and apples.  Mix until combined, spoon into a bowl, and enjoy your well-earned breakfast!