Madhu Knits and Cooks

Chewy Cinnamon Chip Oatmeal Cookies - An Unexpected Children's Treat

For a child's birthday party recently, I decided to bake simple, partly improvised cookies.  My target eaters were the party's adults who I thought would be more attracted to the multiple, deep cinnamon flavors of the cookies than the children.  Instead, these cookies were not only all devoured by young children, but I also received multiple recipe queries from them as well!

In hindsight, cinnamon-infused snickerdoodles are a childhood favorite, so I guess I shouldn't have been that surprised.  In any case, their reaction means that these simple cookies will be a feature at future child-attended events.

The substitutions that I made to the recipe were: used butter exclusively instead of a butter / shortening mixture, substituted Vietnamese cinnamon for regular cinnamon, and added in cinnamon chips (from King Arthur Flour), which I eyeballed when mixing into the dough.

I formed cookies that were slightly larger than the recipe called for because I ended up with 17 dough balls instead of 22 - 24.

Correspondingly, I baked for these cookies for 14 - 15 minutes to accommodate their larger size.  The cookies burst with deep cinnamon flavors, and the texture was otherwise a standard, thin oatmeal chewy cookie.  I look forward to wowing children again with these!

The Lightest, Most Delicious Chocolate Cake - Cake Flour Forever!

With a recent King Arthur Flour online order, I reached the point that so many of us do of needing to add one more item to my cart to get free shipping.  Just a few dollars to avoid a much higher shipping fee.  I decided to try something different, so I added a box of cake flour to my cart. 

I've actually bought cake flour in the past, but it's always expired before I've had the chance to use it.  So fresh cake flour entering my apartment, what to do, what to use it in during its prime?

As you can tell from the above image, I didn't end up looking too far - just as far as the back of the box.  And what an endorsement of box recipes this cake ended up being.  It really was the simplest, lightest, fluffiest, and most delicious chocolate cake (ok, maybe not the most delicious, but felt like among the best light cakes I've made in some time).

And the best part?  The cake was a cinch to prepare - mix together dry ingredients, then wet, and then mix together.  No special instruments needed.  In fact, when I re-made the cake today, I used a simple spoon to do all of the mixing.  I also ended up not brewing coffee for the recipe, instead using 1.5 teaspoons of the KAF instant espresso powder mixed with water in the wet ingredients.  The extra dark color comes from Hersey's Special Dark Cocoa, which is a mix of dutched and non-dutched cocoa.

After about 33 minutes or so, this cake (1/2 of the recipe, baked in one 9-inch round cake pan) was done.  After several more minutes of cooling, it was ready to eat!  I really liked not only its light texture, but also the lightness of the chocolate flavor.  It was just slightly bitter, not too sweet, and was made complete with the addition of some vanilla gelato.

When Modifications Go Awry - Buttermilk Pancakes that Didn't Deliver

As the title of the post succinctly states, this attempt at Buttermilk Pancakes (Cook's Illustrated "Best" no less) was a bit of a bust.  It wasn't a complete disaster because the pancakes were still "fine" (maybe even "pretty good"), but they weren't among the best pancakes we've ever had, including the CI Light and Fluffy Pancakes I made a few years ago.

The reason is most likely user error.  I definitely overheated the butter in the microwave, leading to a slight explosion and then too little butter for the batter.  I also substituted additional buttermilk for the sour cream, and added chocolate chips, which didn't really work with these pancakes (the bitter chips didn't quite meld with the non-super-sweet pancakes).  Finally, my pan was definitely not hot enough, resulting in the anemically colored pancakes featured in the post.  

Otherwise, these pancakes were as pancakes are - very simple to make and prepare on a weekend or weekday.  Just mix together the dry ingredients, then wet ingredients, loosely mix together, and you are ready for a pre-heated pan to start cooking.

And then after several minutes on one side (again, pan wasn't hot enough), flip to the other side.

Then serve - or immediately eat as you cook more up!

My First Scrambled Eggs - Perfect Scrambled Eggs with Herbs

I am not a huge egg fan.  Yes, I've been experimenting with frittatas of late, but it's been a very new (and unexpected) experience.  Eggs in my kitchen have traditionally only been used for baking, with some infrequent cooking by husband for himself.  But if one starts with frittatas, I guess it's only a matter of time before scrambled eggs appear!

For my first scrambled eggs, I followed - of course - a Cook's Illustrated recipe for Perfect Scrambled Eggs for Two.  It calls for a "low and slow" cooking approach to produce extra-creamy eggs.

I did make some modifications to their recipe, notably by substituting soy milk for half and half (and eyeballing the amount), and then adding in some roughly torn parsley and chives to dress up the eggs.

The low and slow approach worked pretty well for me, though I felt like I cooked the eggs for longer than the recipe directed.  Part of that is probably because I like my eggs to be more well done, but also that I likely didn't have the pan hot enough. 

I'm not sure if I will ever truly master this approach or scrambled eggs though.  While the resulting eggs were very tasty - slightly salty, light + airy texture, and nice crunch + freshness from the herbs - I don't think I'm a real convert to homemade eggs yet. 

We'll see where this egg journey takes me though - never thought I would end up making scrambled eggs myself, so we'll see what happens in the future!

Blue Cheese Buttermilk Dressing - Heaven is a Place in My Kitchen

I've consistently only made one type of salad dressing - vinaigrette.  I've made balsamic, dijon, and various vinegar-based vinaigrettes (red wine, champagne, apple cider, etc.), usually via eyeballed ingredients, but they are generally the same.  Oil, vinegar, salt, pepper, and sometimes herbs or garlic.  

Feeling a bit bored by this routine, and also maybe extra hungry, I decided to try making a creamy dressing at home instead.  I mean how hard could it be?

Turns out even easier than I expected.  I very loosely followed a Cook's Illustrated recipe, modifying it so much that it became my own simple and delicious dressing.  The dressing had tang from sour cream, saltiness and creaminess from gorgonzola crumbles, and a sharp tart flavor from champagne vinegar.  Coupled with a buttermilk base, this dressing really made my otherwise simple lettuce meal incredibly satisfying and comforting.

I don't even know if I can provide a proper recipe for this dressing.  I basically used equal parts sour cream and buttermilk, added in maybe a tsp. of champagne vinegar to taste, a pinch of garlic powder and sugar, and enough gorgonzola until it looked "right."

I look forward to making this 3-minute dressing again and again!

Perfect 10-Minute Weeknight Vegetable - Pan-Roasted Broccoli

Broccoli is my favorite vegetable by far.  I love the crunch of broccoli, its slight bitterness, and how it can be good no matter its preparation - boiled, fried, baked, roasted, or raw.  

My latest preparation favorite has been to roast broccoli - which works particularly well when I am pre-heating a baking stone for pizza or bread.  It also is a great hands-off approach for fresh or raw broccoli because once it's in the oven, you only need to turn it over once before it's ready to serve.  

However, for summertime when I don't want to have a hot oven on for that long, I wanted to find a new approach that wouldn't produce as much heat in my kitchen but also be relatively simple to prepare.

Enter Cook's Illustrated Pan-Roasted Broccoli, which really is the perfect weeknight approach.  Limited prep and hands-on time, and still results in a nicely seared, crunchy and flavorful broccoli.

To start, you cut the broccoli, and while the oil in the pan heats up, mix some water, salt and pepper in a small bowl.

After the pan is hot, first add the broccoli stems and then the broccoli florets a few minutes later.  Get them all nice and browned on the bottom, before adding in the water mixture and immediately covering the pan.  The broccoli then steams for a few minutes, and then season to taste.  That's it - the broccoli is now ready to serve!  Yum!

Collard Chips are the New Kale Chips (Maybe I'm a Few Years Late to the Trend)

A few years ago, collard greens replaced kale as the hot green superfood.  This declaration may not have been from a particularly reliable source of information, but instead from places like the Food Network.  Well, whatever collards are and however popular or trendy they may be, I learned that they make an equally delicious, if not more delicious, baked chip as kale.  

I simply ripped up some heavily wilting collards from the fridge, eyeballed some olive oil and kosher salt to rub onto the leaves, and baked them.

Eighteen minutes in a preheated 300-degree oven was all it took, with a simple toss of the chips at the 12 minute mark.  

I think I liked these chips better than kale chips because the slightly bitter flavor of the collards came out more in these chips, which made them feel more hearty and interesting than kale chips, which are blander in flavor.  So I can certainly see myself making these again!

Poolish Batard - My First Bread with a Dough Starter!

For several months, if not more than a year, I have had the lovely Breaking Bread book on my shelf.  The book by King Arthur Flour Head Baker Martin Philip contains a wonderful set of recipes, stories, and illustrations on how one can master several different types of bread.  

I have often taken the book off the shelf, admired the pictures, even read a story or two, only to days later replace the book on the shelf.  I'll admit that I have been intimidated by the complexity of Philip's yeast bread recipes as they require actual kneading, several rises, temperature checks, etc. - unlike my go-to no-knead bread approaches.

And then a few weeks ago, I finally resolved that I would finally attempt one of the feared recipes on a slow weekend, when I would have the time for multiple rises.  I settled on the Poolish Baguette recipe, but lacking baguette shapers, I decided to use the recipe to form a batard, a more rounded, rectangular shape than the skinny and long baguettes.

The result was declared by my husband as the best bread I've ever made, and I have to admit it wasn't THAT onerous as long as you have a full morning free to do all of the requisite shaping, rises and baking.

The bread was super crusty, and the inclusion of an overnight starter (poolish) definitely added more depth of flavor, a slight sourness and saltiness that made this feel like almost it's own main course instead of a bland and boring instrument to sop up other flavors and food.

The dough didn't have as many air holes as I expected, so it was fairly substantive.  This isn't a negative attribute of the bread, just a flag that like some no-knead breads, this will serve multiple people instead of airier baguettes.

I largely followed the recipe as is, though I halved the ingredients (using the metric grams to measure them out) to make just one loaf, and I used instant dry yeast, which I proofed before creating the poolish (apparently comes from Poland).

For the dough itself, I didn't pre-proof the yeast, just added the instant yeast as is.  One interesting feature of this book mentioned above is that you do have to measure temperatures of the water, flour, poolish, dough, etc. to get the "desired dough temperature" for the type of bread you are making.  So my instant read thermometer got a lot of unexpected use, which was relatively easy to pick up after reading through the directions.

So day 1, you may the poolish, or the starter for the bread, which is a shaggy dough mixture of flour, water, yeast, and salt.

Twelve to sixteen hours later, check your poolish and its temperature, before adding in additional temperature-appropriate water, bread, yeast, and salt.

Then begins the rises.  First, a two-hour covered rise.

Then a series of 15-minute folds and rises, which at each progressive fold, the dough became more flexible and smooth.

Finally, the gradual shaping, which also requires a number of interim rests and rises for the dough.

Finally, the baking, which I did on the parchment that I had shaped the bread on and did the final rises.  I baked the loaf for 32 minutes before it got a very dark brown crust.  I did back the loaf won a pre-heated baking stone, and did use steam.  

I look forward to making this bread again and again on calm Sunday (or Saturday) mornings.  It is a real winner, with more much sour, salty and rich flavors than no-knead breads!

Roasted Green Beans - Great Weeknight Vegetable Preparation

I'm not sure what inspired me to make this simple roasted vegetable recipe, but whatever it was, I was incredibly pleased with the result.  Salted and crisp green beans and red bell peppers that required almost no work.  Yum!

I didn't really follow any measurements for this 22-minute oven roasting approach, just tossed a bit of olive oil and kosher salt with the green beans and bell pepper slices before putting them in a 450-degree oven.  

I tossed them once halfway through cooking, and then served immediately.  I was surprised by how crisp the vegetables ended up via this method, and how much the natural flavor of the green beans and bell peppers came through.  I wasn't just eating overcooked vegetables, rather felt like a better version of both vegetables.  Heat really worked wonders!  I look forward to making this simple side again and again!

Improvised Red Bell Pepper and Chevre Frittata

I've been on a real frittata roll of late!  Using the successful Broccoli and Feta Frittata recipe as a base, I recently improvised a new frittata with the leftover ingredients in my fridge - red bell pepper, onion, garlic, and herbed chevre / goat cheese.  

The specific ingredient portions I used were 2/3 of a bell pepper, 1/3 of an onion, 2 garlic cloves, and 1.5 oz. of herbed goat cheese, cut into 1/2 inch chunks.

This improvised approach resulted in a truly delicious frittata.  Great creaminess and tang from the herbed goat cheese, subtle sweetness from the onion, and a bright, slightly bitter crunch from the red bell pepper pieces.  I can't wait to have a fridge full of similar leftover ingredients again to make a great weekend brunch frittata!