Category Archives: Dessert

Gluten-Free Butternut Squash Scones

Posted on January 15, 2012 by Ashley| 1 Comment

Scones

I AM BACK! Yes, it’s true, I’m really back.  And I know, promises mean nothing these days, because I’ve made so many of them, and broken them right after, but I really mean it this time.  Please baby, don’t go.  I need just one more chance!  It’ll be different this time!

Okay, but in all seriousness, life’s been kind of crazy.  Yeah yeah yeah, it’s crazy for all of us, I know.  I was definitely lazy during the month of December.  But I really intended on getting some serious Drunk Squash in during the month of January.  Unfortunately, though, I don’t have a bedroom right now and I’ve spent the past week living in my friend’s apartment.  To say that I haven’t been baking or cooking much at all would be an extreme understatement.  In fact, I would guess that 80% of my food intake has been quinoa mixed with hummus and hot sauce.  Well balanced, eh?

Squash

But I recently went through my pictures and found documentation of a really great scone I made back in December.  And I can call it “really great” without being accused of pride (or exaggeration) because it was quite a popular recipe on the interwebs a few months back.  In fact, I took it upon myself to follow the links to find as many documentations of the Starbucks Pumpkin Scones as I could:

Mix

There you go… 12 different places to find the recipe.  And I’m about to add the 13th.  Actually, no, I’m not about to retype the recipe, you can find it on twelve other websites after all.  So why am I even talking about these fabulous scones (besides simple pride in following the wise advice of many food bloggers)?  Well, I did mine a little bit differently and wanted to share the idea.

When I made these scones, I was preparing for my final thesis seminar.  My classmates and I had a breakfast potluck to celebrate finishing our theses, once and for all.  I decided that I wanted to make scones, but one of my classmates was gluten free and I wanted to make sure that she could eat them too.  I try to be inclusive, both because I have friends with gluten intolerances and know how much they miss out on during food events, and because, as a vegetarian, I also know the feeling of sometimes dreading potlucks.  So I grabbed myself some Bob’s Red Mill All Purpose Gluten Free Flour and used that instead of all purpose gluten-full flour.  Also, I didn’t have any pumpkin, but I did have a large amount of already-cooked butternut squash just begging to be eaten, so I used that instead.

Cut

I had never baked with gluten free flour before, and had always assumed that it would require a difficult task of mixing non-gluten flours in precise and confusing amounts.  After I heard about the pre-mixed, all purpose gluten-free flours, I wondered if they would be more finicky or stranger than gluteney flours.  To my surprise, using the gluten-free flour was so easy!  And when I brought the scones into our meeting everybody was surprised to hear that they were completely glutenless.  And that, my friends, is what I would consider a success.

Cookin

(Also, for the record, bnut squash makes a great substitution for pumpkin.  It’s a personal favorite of mine for its large ratio of squash meat to skin/seeds and its hearty natural sweetness.)

So there we go, I found a popular and foolproof recipe and, perhaps foolishly, decided to alter some basic parts of it.  However, the story ends happily.  You can turn the famous Starbucks Pumpkin Scones into successful Gluten-Free Butternut Squash Scones!

Scone

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Posted in Baking, Breakfast, CSA, Dessert, Recipe

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Mixed Berry Jam

Posted on August 14, 2011 by Ashley| 2 Comments

Berries

Like I mentioned in my last post, I’ve been staying at my parents’ house trying to keep myself busy.  It’s strange being back in town for such an in-between amount of time.  I used to live in the dorms at school, so every summer and winter break I’d live here and work.  Now that I live full-time in Oakland, however, I find myself feeling very in-between during these brief visits.  It’s not long enough to work, but not short enough to feel rushed.  Instead I watch too much tv, pray for the sun to come out, and ruin my sleep cycle.

Mixing

When I’m home, my mom and I catch each other up on our latest food obsessions (foodsessions?), whether it be her margarita cupcakes or something strange that I pickled.  Anyway, there’s a very cool store in town called Happy Girl Kitchen Co. that has lots of lovely pickled and fermented and jar-ed local produce, and my mom told me about a big flat of berries that she wanted to buy from them.  So a few days after she made the order, I went by the store and picked up a bright bunch of strawberries, raspberries, and blackberries.

Cooking

A day later, and after some serious mashing and simmering, we had six jars of some delectable mixed berry jam.  I used the Happy Girl Kitchen recipe that they sent my mom via email, so I’m not going to reproduce it in full here.  It was basically a very simple process: Mix all the berries (washed and de-stemmed) in a big bowl with 4 cups of sugar and the juice of two lemons, let that all sit overnight, and then the next morning mash it all together and simmer on the stove until the jam gels.  Tada!  We didn’t use any extra pectin, but had we the jam would probably be a little more like smackers jam and a little less preserve-ey.  I like it this way, though, and can’t help but mix it in with yogurt and slather it on any bread I can get my hands on.  A perfect companion for all of that tv-watching I’ve been doing…

Jam

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Posted in Baking, Breakfast, CSA, Dessert, Jars

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Real Butterbeer

Posted on July 19, 2011 by Ashley| 8 Comments

Butterbeer

So maybe you’re tired of hearing about this everywhere, but I’m one of those kids that wished and waited for an owl acceptance to Hogwarts and broke off many tree branches in order to find the perfect wand.  I had Harry Potter shirts, backpacks, and bookends, and couldn’t wait for each new book release.  When I was eighteen years old (and thought of myself as pretty mature and cool), I left a rockin’ party in order to hang out at Borders at midnight to get the FINAL book.  And then I proceeded to stay up into the wee hours of the morning reading.

So you’re probably not surprised that I went to the midnight showing of the movie.  And then decided that I had to make something Harry Potter themed.

 

Mix

I’ve seen a lot of fabulous Potter-themed treats out there in the food blog world.  Everything from chocolate frogs to acid pops.  And then, of course, there’s butterbeer.

Butterbeer always fascinated me in the HP books.  House elves got drunk off of it, yet these kids got to drink it?? Cool!  I always likened it to a kind of low-alcohol cider-like draaank.  But then I saw that all of the recipes basically just make a butterscotchy cream soda.  And that just doesn’t seem true to form.  Butterbeer’s supposed to be a little bit illicit, right?  Does cream soda really capture the coolness that is butterbeer?

I don’t think so.

Foam

So then I saw (on the almighty wikipedia, of course.  what a great use of legitimate resources…) that a real butterbeer drink used to exist!  And yes, it had beer in it.  So I located this great youtube video, and this random message board thread and decided to check it out for myself.

I don’t know if you’ve checked out the ingredient list yet, but it is a little bit scary.  Egg yolks, sugar, beer, and butter…  This is definitely not going to turn into an everyday drink.  But, hey, you only get to celebrate the official end of Harry Potter once.  It’s super rich, but if you get a few non-calorie-counting Harry Potter fans together I promise you will be pleasantly surprised.

So, without further ado, I give you (the real, non-wussy, alcoholic) BUTTERBEER!

Beer

Recipe: Real Butterbeer

Summary: This ain’t cream soda… this is rich, creamy, and a little boozy.

Ingredients

  • About 17 oz. beer (About 1 1/2 beers)
  • 2 whisked egg yolks
  • 1/4 cup sugar
  • 1 tbsp butter
  • dash of nutmeg or cinnamon

Instructions

  1. Heat a pan on medium heat. Once it’s heated add the beer.
  2. SLOWLY add the whisked yolks. You don’t want them to turn into scrambled eggs, so stir continuously.
  3. Add sugar and butter and stir into mixture.
  4. Finally, add your nutmeg or cinnamon.
  5. You can either let it cool or serve heated.

Quick notes

I used a sweet, malty beer, which helped the rich taste. Experiment with other kinds!
Because this is so very rich, I suggest that you get some people together to share.  This recipe could serve four small glasses.  And that amount would be more than enough for everybody.
Enjoy!

Drank

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4th of July Strawberry Pie

Posted on July 6, 2011 by Ashley| 4 Comments
hand Pies

Happy late Fourth of July folks.  Yesterday I headed to a friend’s house and enjoyed some lovely company as well as some tasty veggie dogs.  I’m usually not a big processed soy faux-meat fan, but there’s just something about eating food straight from the grill and loaded up with ketchup and mustard.  Especially on the Fourth.

Filling

To prepare for the festivities I ran out and bought some puff pastry and some strawberries.  Earlier last week I saw this recipe for Cherry Hand Pies on Tracey’s Culinary Adventures, and was stuck with the idea as a perfect treat.  I looove me some pie and the idea of bringing it on the go made me swoon.  No bothering with slicing or plates or forks for me, just a delicious handheld single pie.  It’s the sophisticated cousin to the poptarts of my childhood.  Oh and not to mention the fact that having a set size makes my inner food-hog very satisfied.  No waffling between big and small slices or trying to hide the fork from the (always stealing bites of my food) boyfriend…

In short, the hand pie is a perfect dessert.

So, not wanting to be one who shows up empty handed to a party, I hauled ass to the grocery store and bought a package of puff pastry and a quart of strawberries.  I liked that Tracey made her hand pies with cherries, but I was really feeling in the mood for fresh strawberries.  They were calling out to me from the berry stand.

Precooked Pie

I ended up following the recipe almost exactly.  I changed the cherries out for strawberries and just ended up cooking the entire quart.  It was more than I needed, but I froze the extra filling for another day (mini pie?  crumble?  ice cream mix-in?).  Also, oh by the way, I was amazed at how quick and easy the whole process was.  The only time I found myself nail-biting was during the “chill for 30 minutes in the fridge” moments.  And the only suggestion I have for the other impatient cooks out there is to put on a good show or pull out your current book.  The time goes by fast as long as you aren’t in a hurry to get to a barbecue.

4th of July Strawberry Pie
Print
Recipe type: Dessert
Author: very slightly adapted from Tracey’s Culinary Adventures
Prep time: 40 mins
Cook time: 30 mins
Total time: 1 hour 10 mins
Serves: 12
The perfect dessert for a summer barbecue, they’re handheld and simple, yet oh so delightful.
What Do You Need?
  • 1 1/2 tablespoons cornstarch
  • 1 1/2 tablespoons cold water
  • 1 quart sliced strawberries
  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla
  • 1/8 teaspoon salt
  • 1 lb puff pastry
  • 1 large egg white
  • 1 tbsp water
Make it Happen
  1. Combine the cornstarch and cold water in a small bowl and set aside.
  2. Add the strawberries, sugar, vanilla, and salt to a saucepan and heat on medium.
  3. You want to cook them for about five minutes until they get juicy, then add the cornstarch mixture.
  4. Bring to a boil, making sure to stir pretty consistently.
  5. When it reaches a boil, take off the heat and let cool to room temperature (I popped the pan in the freezer for a few hot seconds to speed the process up).
  6. Unfold your puff pastry (there should be two sheets in a package) and cut each sheet into 6 equal rectangular shapes (they’ll be adorably miniature).
  7. Place a spoonful of filling into the center area of each rectangle and fold over until you make a nice little pocket. Seal the edges with a fork’s tines and slice steam vents in the top of each mini pie.
  8. Beat the egg white and tablespoon of water together and then wash over the top of each hand pie. Then let sit in the refrigerator for 30 minutes.
  9. Preheat oven to 375F.
  10. Bake the pies for 30 or so minutes. You’ll know they’re done when they’ve puffed up and turned a nice golden brown color. Also the aroma in the kitchen will be driving you wild.
  11. Cool and devour!
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Pies

And, oh by the way, these babies were kind of a hit.  You’ll amaze your friends into thinking you’re some kind of genius baker.  And I guess making such a tasty yet easy dessert does make you some kind of a genius baker.  I give them two thumbs up, you should definitely try them next time you’ve got a barbecue to attend or an extra quart of strawberries.

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