Madhu Knits and Cooks

Mini Lemon Bundt Cakes - Dry but Flavorful Summer Dessert

Unfortunately my cookbooks have remained largely closed the past few months as I have instead gravitated to whatever shiny object comes my way - usually in the way of New York Times Cooking, Cook's Illustrated or King Arthur Flour emails.  These companies produce really wonderful content, complete with perfectly composed, beautiful pictures.

This latest baking effort was inspired by such an email from King Arthur Flour featuring Mini Fluted Lemon Cakes.  These cakes seemed like a perfect accompaniment to a small summer dinner party we were hosting in June.  And while I don't have a fluted cupcake pan, I do have a mini bundt pan that has not nearly gotten enough use to justify its place in our kitchen.  

And so to work I went on mini lemon bundt cakes.  They were actually perfect to prepare for a dinner party because they took virtually no time to prepare.  

I simply greased the mini bundt pan with grapeseed oil spray, and blended the dry ingredients.

I then turned to creaming together the wet ingredients.

Finally, poured the final batter into the greased bundt pan.

I baked the mini cakes for approx. 16 minutes to account for the greater volume of these six cakes to the mini cupcakes the recipe envisioned.

And then I was able to easily remove the bundts to cool and serve.

The cakes had a great lemon flavor, but unfortunately the texture was fairly dry.  Other recipe makers commented on this challenge for their attempts, and I had tried to adjust the recipe to compensate by substituting lemon juice for the lemon powder and by using cream instead of milk.  However, my cakes were also quite dry so unless I can figure out how to further alter, I'm not sure if I will make them again.  That being said, the cakes were still well enjoyed at our dinner party!

Simple Baby Blanket for Charity

At my (relatively) new workplace, a group of knitters and crocheters spend a month each year producing full blankets or component squares for charity, specifically homeless shelters, hospitals and/or other direct care organizations.  I was excited to participate for the first time this year, and set out to make a full baby blanket within a condensed 2-week time period (!).  

Thankfully, I got a bit of a reprieve in that the organizers pushed back the deadline by a week - otherwise, I definitely would have had very sore hands and fingers with the pace I was working at!  While this was a relatively short project from a duration perspective, the result was great - bouncy, light and simple enough for many a child to enjoy.  Project details follow below.

2016 Charity Baby Blanket

Pattern: Newborn baby blanket by Altadeena Green, c/o 101 stitches

Yarn: Red Heart Super Saver in color 0373 Petal Pink

Needles:  One US9 Circular

Measurements:  Blocked in washing machine / dryer with 26.5 inches by 26.5 inches square final shape

Coconut Macaroons - Gluten-Free and Passover-Friendly Treat!

For a work party earlier this year, I had the twin task of figuring out a dessert that could meet both the dietary restrictions of a c0-worker with celiac disease and the needs of co-workers observing Passover.  Thankfully, there is great overlap in practical terms of what those restrictions mean for baking purposes, so my search easily led to coconut macaroons.  

I've never made these treats before and was excited to try a completely new dessert.  I ended up using a Cook's Illustrated recipe after looking at a few different approaches on the internet.  Unlike many recipes, this version did not use sweetened, condensed milk or other additives.  Rather, it had just four ingredients - flaked coconut, granulated sugar, egg whites, and almond extract.  

While it was pretty easy to blend all the ingredients together, the result wasn't quite what I had hoped for.

Namely, these perfect little balls that went into the oven:

Came out like this:

While they tasted delicious, the spread cookies were definitely not the outcome I was expecting.  I still don't quite know what happened, but potentially it was over-processing the mixture, the lack of cornstarch, or even the humidity?  Or could it be that my food processor couldn't fit all the ingredients, so I had to hand stir the contents?   I also had to bake the cookies for longer than expected for them to set, but that was well after the spreading had occurred.

Next time, I'll probably try the cornstarch first and then move on to diagnosing what else could change to result in round macaroons.

Blanket for Baby Irene

Baby Irene, the child of two friends, was born in late April, about a week past due.  For my knitting purposes, that delay meant that I accomplished a rare feat - completing a baby knit item before a baby is born!

The resulting knit item was a Sugarplums Blanket, a beautiful pattern that I've had my eye on for a few years.  The pattern features interlocking wide cables, which were perfectly highlighted by the superwash wool I chose for the blanket.  I really hope Irene can use this blanket for years - it was such a treat to knit that I hope it's a treat to use as well!

Sugerplums Blanket for Irene

Pattern: Sugarplums Blanket by Danielle Chalson

Yarn:  Cascades 220 Superwash in color 392 (Spaceneedle), ~3.1 skeins

Needles:  One US 7 Circular

Measurements:  Pre-blocking measurements of 19 inches wide by 26 inches long, and post-blocking measurements of 25 inches wide by 27.5 inches long.

 

Miso Soup with Tofu and Kale - Healthy and Easy Weeknight Soup

With a large tub of low-sodium white miso paste in my fridge, a result of the Miso, Polenta and Kale soup , I have been thinking of more ways to use miso.  While I hope for more innovative miso experiments in the future (e.g., salad dressing, glazes for tofu or vegetables, or even miso cookies), my latest miso attempt was...miso soup.  With kale.  And tofu.  So basically the Miso, Polenta and Kale soup without the polenta.

While completely uninteresting from the innovation agenda, the resulting soup is actually quite good and easy to make during a weeknight.  In addition to using the Serious Eats polenta soup recipe as a guide, I also took inspiration from Martha Stewart and the Minimalist Baker and improvised the soup.  

The only change I will make to the below recipe in the future is to omit some of the salty inputs to create a more balanced output.  So that could mean removing the bouillon or reducing the sea salt.

Miso Soup with Tofu and Kale

Ingredients

• 2 tbsp. olive oil
• 3 tbsp. diced onion (optional)
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 tsp. minced ginger
• 2 tsp. Better than Bouillon
• 1 package silken firm tofu, cubed into 1/2 inch pieces
• 4 tbsp. reduced sodium white miso paste
• 2 cups ripped / coarsely chopped kale
• 2 scallions, diced
• 6 cups water
• 1 - 2 tsp. soy sauce (to taste)
• crushed red pepper (to taste)

Directions

• Heat oil in a medium soup pot on medium-high heat, and when warm, stir in onion
• When onion becomes translucent (3 - 5 minutes), add the ginger and garlic and saute for approx. 45 seconds - 1 minute or until fragrant
• Add water and bring to a boil.  When boiling, add bouillon, tofu, miso, kale and scallions.
• Cook until kale is to your preferred consistency, and add soy sauce / red pepper to taste.

Florentine Lace Cookies - Divine Treats for a Special Occasion

As I think about what spurred my latest baking attempt - Florentine Lace Cookies - I have to admit that my memory is a bit fuzzy.  I think that my husband may have seen these cookies at a bakery (or maybe on the Internet?  or TV?) and wanted me to make them at home.  Or maybe it was me who came across this cookie recipe and decided to make it?

In any case, for a spring weekend dinner party, we decided to try these delicate, brightly flavored orange, nutty cookies.  I used a Cook's Illustrated / America's Test Kitchen recipe I found online and prepared the cookies in the afternoon before starting the dinner courses.

The recipe was relatively easy to follow, and thankfully didn't take up too much time, allowing me to complete my dinner main dishes well before guests arrived!  First, I pulsed the slivered almonds into a meal while heating up the liquid ingredients.  I then removed the cooked liquid ingredients from the heat to stir in the dry ingredients, thus forming a warm, sticky dough.

This warm dough was exceedingly easy to shape and flatten into rounds for baking.

This is when the trickiest part of the process occurred - for how long to bake these treats, and at what temperature?   The first batch at 350 degrees were definitely way over-baked (if not burnt) and so for the second batch, I reduced the oven temperature to about 310 - 315.

I baked the second batch of dough for 14 minutes on the top rack, and it resulted in a much better browned (not burnt) cookie.  So definitely heed online warnings to use a lower oven temperature for these cookies, and watch them closely to avoid over-baking.

The texture of the cookies was perfect - lightly crispy throughout, but still showcasing the almond and orange flavors of the component parts.  The chocolate added a great bitterness to this sweet cookie, and I can definitely see this becoming a standard winter treat in our home.