Gentle Readers, some people don’t like chocolate. I know, this is practically like cursing in church, but I have it on good authority as truth. What to do when you’re charged with bringing dessert to a crowd of varying tastes? Variety, with a cherry on top.
Variety is the spice of life and the key to an impressive quick dessert spread.
Sour Cherries on Top: One Ingredient, Three Ways
1. Chocolate Pound Cake: Yes, I heard and ignored the part about the chocolate. Chocolate and cherries are natural matches. I purchased a half loaf of chocolate bread (which was terribly dry, and needed a sauce), and slathered it with the sour cherry preserves.
2. Vanilla Pound Cake: Opposites attract. For the fan of sweets who doesn’t like chocolate, vanilla. Also to be served with the cherry preserves.
Brie pairs well with fruit and preserves, making it a great option for dessert.
3. Brie and Bread: For the true dessert contrarian, let there be brie. Cheese courses are a great dessert choice, but to continue the them, try baguette, brie at room temperature, and sour cherry preserves. It is like a less sweet cheesecake. Discerning eaters claimed to enjoy it more than expected. Great with wine, it’s a winning combo.
Composed dessert: brie on baguette with sour cherry preserves on top.
For less than $20, dessert is served a variety of ways. Are you a fan of fruit and cheese courses in lieu of traditional dessert? Post a comment in the box below or Tweet my way!
Gentle Readers, it is practical confession time once more. I love marshmallows. Like really love them. Sometimes I make hot chocolate to cover this up. For the last few years, I’ve kept a bag in the cupboard, enjoying them at the varying stages of staleness straight from the bag.
Hot cocoa with a few marshmallows added. No, a few more . . .
I love them as much as I hate Peeps, and that is saying quite a lot. I don’t consider Peeps to be part of the marshmallow canon. (Here’s Exhibit A, Me Microwaving Peeps.)
Marshmallows: I love you big or small.
But I digress. How else can you enjoy marshmallows?
One Ingredient, Three Ways: Marshmallows
1. Raw. Though wikipedia warns us of the dangers of playing “fluffy bunny,” I do wonder how much is myth or urban legend. Marshmallows are sugar bombs, but the beauty of them is you get full very quickly. It’s not a half a bag type situation. So the caloric spend is not so crazy for a little boost.
Marshmallows in the wild.
2. With Peanut Butter and Apples. Previously turned into “Apple Smiles,” perhaps you could combine this same group of ingredients in a heart shape for Valentine’s. I would certainly love that. Do not be fooled, these are delicious.
Wife of Bath Apple Smile (the gat-toothed woman)
3. Toasted. Traditional and a completely different taste, the toasted marshmallow transforms from vanilla to caramel notes. Plus it’s squishy and toasty and awesome. If you’ve not toasted a marshmallow recently, run, don’t walk. It’s always the right season. Perfect alone or as the glue for s’mores.
S’mores are a great marshmallow delivery system.
Because my craving is strong, I want to hear your ideas! What’s your favorite way to eat a marshmallow? Post a comment or Tweet my way!
Send your Peeps (for microwaving), cooking questions, and restaurant recommendations to practical cook at gmail dot com. Connect on Facebook: The Practical Cook Blog. (Thanks in advance for spreading The Practical Cook Blog word. Press “like” on Facebook today! Also, follow the food pictures on Instagram @amylewi.)
Gentle Readers, this past Thanksgiving, I was asked to bring a dessert to the family meal. Pumpkin pie was covered. Chocolate was covered. Whipped cream covered most everything. What was missing? Butterscotch.
Oatmeal Scotchies with Macadamia Nuts for the win!
So often butterscotch and caramel are distant thoughts on the dessert tray. And cookies at Thanksgiving, outrageous! Team Practical Cook marches to their own beat, however, and we tend to heart butterscotch and caramel even more than chocolate. Oh I know, I said that out loud. Also, cookies: they are portable, crisp/chewy, and frankly perfect in every way.
Stop. Cookie Time.
I have none left. Which is good. Considering how many I tested for quality assurance.
Oatmeal Scotchies with Macadamia Nuts Recipe
I will openly admit I used the recipe from the back of the package, with a few amendments and additions. Here’s the Oatmeal Scotchies recipe from the people at Nestle. I swapped in 1/2 cup of lightly toasted macadamia nuts for the same amount of oatmeal. I used the vanilla instead of the orange peel. I cranked the cinnamon slightly. And I used salted butter and backed off the salt a bit (I like a saltier cookie, though, and think you could use salted butter and the full amount, maybe a scant 1/2 teaspoon, and be fine).
Oatmeal Scotchies at Rest. Cool down, my pretties.
Tips:
Toast the chopped macadamia nuts in the microwave for a minute or so, watching carefully.
Refrigerate the cookie dough between batches.
Resist eating the cookies hot. I know, sacrilege, right? But I found these cookies are the rare exception that makes them an IDEAL holiday cookie. They taste better the next day. The butterscotch chips are not as flavorful in a melted state, and the macadamias were hard to detect.
Refrigerating between batches helps cookies stay fat.
I’ve already restocked on the butterscotch chips, and I plan to make them again soon. After all, with so much oatmeal, they’re practically as nutritious as some of the more scandalous cereals on the market.
Butterscotch vs Oatmeal? Where do you stand? Vote now by posting a comment below!
Gentle Readers, today’s topic is a bit off the beaten path. Having spent a lot of time over the last year on the run, literally and figuratively, I was spending some time reflecting over a manicure. That’s when I realized how important various spa services have become in my life, and why.
Forced relaxation for the win!
Food and kitchen time have always been key elements to my happiness, and they still are. However, with my revamped lifestyle, I can’t always cook as much or for as long as I want, and I certainly can’t eat every single thing I want in quantities I might desire (talking to you pecan pie). But nature abhors a vacuum (and a vacuum cleaner too, but that is a blog for a different day).
Pretty nails do not mean giving up dessert. — My new saying
Over the last year, work/life demands have forced me to make choices about my time. One of them has been to get a monthly massage. Yes monthly. It’s great for muscles that ache from chopping, lifting, plane-sitting, running, Tweeting, etc. It’s a great self-care choice, and it replaces my natural tendency to “reward” myself with food.
This is not to say I don’t still see food as a reward, I do. Good food is a reward, for either making it or finding it. The challenge is not to file every dessert and fried item into the “reward” column, but expand the definition to include great meals with great company. I’ve found that spa services, in all their forms, help me do that. They provide balance.
Feet take a beating in the kitchen and beyond. Treat them nicely.
A luxurious manicure, pedicure, or massage is restorative. It forces me to reflect, gives me so me time, and makes me a better cook, mom, employee, you name it. Knowing I have some rewards built into my life makes it that much easier for me to make balanced choices about food. I love food, a whole lot. It will always be a priority for me. But I’m feeling good about making it one I can live with, in all senses of that phrase.
How do you reward yourself for a job well done? Post a comment below, or Tweet my way!
Gentle Readers, The Practical Cook can find a doughnut like a heat-seeking missile finds a target. Even in Heathrow airport, worlds most labyrinthine series of terminals. Yes, though many of my fellow passengers were native North Carolinians, I alone spotted the pillowy wonder. A deep fried ambassador’s work is never done.
Krispy Kreme in Heathrow
So my compatriot, HoldMyPurse, and I stopped for a breakfast treat. I went with original glazed, she tried the new dark chocolate and the original glazed. She agreed, in the end, original was best. It wasn’t quite hot now, but it was soft and authentic. Good job England.
The Hot Now Sign, a Siren Song for Me
Further irony, this was the day before the running of the Krispy Kreme Challenge. Yes, it’s real. No, I’ve never competed. Hats off to my friends who did (one of whom was on my flight, jet lag and all!!)
Doughnut cart in London!
At the event I was working in London, they brought in a doughnut cart. Great concept, average doughnuts. I felt compelled to try them, with their choices of smothering sauces (I went dark chocolate, though the caramel was tempting). I found them to be a notch below the standard funnel cakes of the N.C. State Fair. Apparently I have a hometown Fried bias.
Deep Fried Doughnuts, London style.
I didn’t determine whether my Deep Fried Ambassadorship granted me international immunity, but they were amazingly unfazed by my leaning in to snap this photo. In the end, my heart belongs to Krispy Kreme, with their brilliant marketing. In truth, I would prefer a dozen original glazed to a dozen roses this Valentine’s. And a little doughnut was just the taste of home I needed when traveling.
Deep Fried Marketing Genius!
Are you a Krispy Kreme fan? Have you taken the challenge? Post a comment today, I can hear you licking your fingers.
Gentle Readers, though The Practical Cook is fond of chocolate, deeply fond, she does not think it goes with every fruit under the sun. Yes, there, I said it. There are some fruit/chocolate combinations of which I’m not fond. As the Golden Globes are going on, let’s nominate our favorite fruit and chocolate pairings, shall we. And in some cases, it is not an honor to be nominated.
Chocolate-Dipped Strawberries
In the category of fruits that pair well with chocolate, we have:
1. Strawberries. This is a clear winner. Easy to make, delicious to eat. Love them. Dearly. Here’s a simple recipe for chocolate-dipped strawberries.
2. Cherries. A favorite since childhood. I would show you a picture of the box I got for Christmas (thanks Mom!), but I ate them all.
Sticky Popcorn: Chocolate Almond Cherry
3. Bananas. Banana splits, I put them in my chocolate yogurt, they’re frozen and dipped in chocolate for the fair! A clear front-runner.
4. Apples. Rolled in caramel and then dipped in chocolate and a variety of candy. Brilliant invention. Yes, please.
The Caramel Apple That Eats Like a Meal
5. Boysenberries. Just trust me on this. I had a chocolate torte on a black walnut crisp with boysenberry sauce. It was as good as it sounds.
For fruits I don’t want near chocolate, we have:
1. Oranges. Yeah, you heard me. Though I have admittedly consumed several pieces of chocolate orange from the holidays, it was a matter of chocolate desperation, and I was unhappy with myself. This combo doesn’t work for me.
2. Raspberries. I know, you can boo me off the stage on this one. I think it goes back to the days of the Whitman’s sampler, when I would always manage to get the “raspberry gel” no matter what. Ugh and double ugh.
3. Peaches. This just came to me as an extremely unfortunate pairing. Having never tried it, I can’t say for certain. I would add kiwi and mango to this category as well.
Okay, the nominations are in, it is time to vote! Post a comment below, or Tweet with #chocofruit as the hashtag.
Gentle Readers, as noted yesterday, The Practical Cook is not afraid to step into the ring on occasion, particularly in the field of ice cream. Thankfully, the flavors of today’s review blend more tastefully than my metaphors. Down to business, who will reign supreme, Jimmy Fallon’s Late-Night Dream or Stephen Colbert’s Americone Dream.
Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream: Late Night Snack vs Americone Dream
Let’s roll the tape, shall we?
So for me personally, after some follow-up research, Late Night Snack pulled into the lead for sheer potato chip value. I enjoy the salty sweet combo, and the novelty is yet to wear off. For my go-to ice cream, it’s still going to be something in the peanut butter or German chocolate families, but I’ve willingly resampled both of these fine ice creams.
Team Salt Lick vs Team Chunks
If you’re a chunks fan, then Americone Dream is the way for you, as it’s much chunkier and sweeter. Both very respectable entries into the ice cream pantheon.
Jimmy Fallon's Late Night Snack Ice Cream from Ben and Jerry's, Unveiled
They are at their core, vanilla ice cream with add-ins, so there is not a lot of additional commentary to be made.
Americone Dream, with it's caramel and waffle cone pieces, is a chunk lover's dream.
So until the next controversial flavor rolls around, I’m laying off the ice cream. Because here’s what the food pyramid looks like in my freezer currently:
Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream Pyramid: I have more selection than the corner store.
So what’s your favorite Ben and Jerry’s flavor? Post a comment below in the comments section (if you’re reading on email, you have to click through to the site to post)! C’mon lurkers, I know you like ice cream. Speak up.
Gentle Readers, The Practical Cook adores fusion cuisine, and what could possibly be better than the heady blend of Southern food and Latin food? (Answer, nothing.) Better still, the recipe being reviewed involves figs, which I love, and which come from a family fig tree. Roots, new and old, are everything in cooking.
Prepping for Fig Cake from The New Southern-Latino Table
First, the cookbook from whence this recipe comes, The New Southern-Latino Table by Sandra Gutierrez is inspired and inspiring. I love the opening where she discusses her own journey down a blended path, and some of the interesting connections between the foodways of the South and her native Guatemala. And lots of very practical cooking tips are wedged in these pages, and you know I love that. Sometimes it takes someone learning a cuisine from scratch to break old dogs of bad habits.
Pecan Rum Cake with Figs
So I spent an afternoon perfuming my house with the smells of allspice, figs, and rum. Not a bad pursuit. This recipe completes a wonderful virtual meal. Visit my fellow bloggers Tara Mataraza Desmond (Crumbs on My Keyboard) for starters with Peach Salsa, and Jill Warren Lucas (Eating My Words) for the main Chicken Enchiladas with Tomatillo Sauce. So brew a strong cup of coffee, and let’s finish this meal.
Roll the tape for a video review of the first bite:
Pecan Rum Cake with Figs Recipe
Though I’m notorious for meddling with recipes, to the point that the Eldest Practical Cook Junior noted what a difference it was that I was following one exactly, I pretty much stuck to the letter of the law here. Except (sorry, couldn’t help it) that I don’t own a 10-inch springform, so I baked in a 9-inch, which needed a little more time at a little lower heat to finish. Also, I toasted the pecans briefly in the microwave before chopping to heighten their flavor. Though the recipe implies stand mixer, I successfully used my trusty hand-held 3-speed electric mixer.
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup cornstarch
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon allspice (I had to grind my own due to a planning fail, effective!)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup sugar
6 eggs, at room temperature
1/3 cup dark rum
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 tablespoons mayonnaise (Hellmann’s Light was used here)
1/2 cup chopped pecans (toasted lightly, my addition, as noted above)
1 1/4 cup fig preserves (see recipe below)
1/4 cup confectioners’ sugar
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Butter the bottom and sides of a 10-inch springform pan, line the bottom with parchment paper, and butter the paper. Sift the flour, cornstarch, baking powder, allspice, and salt into a large bowl; set aside. Using an electric mixer, beat the butter and sugar on high speed for 2-3 minutes, or until light and fluffy.
Add the eggs one at a time, and blend thoroughly. Farm-fresh eggs will give you great color!
Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition, stopping to scrape the sides of the bowl. Turn the mixer to low and add the dry ingredients; blend until well incorporated, stopping occasionally to scrape the sides of the bowl. Add the rum and vanilla and mix until combined. Add the mayonnaise and beat for 30 seconds, or until the mixture is smooth.
The batter will be thick and smooth.
Stir in the pecans and preserves. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake for 50-55 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean and the cake begins to pull away from the sides of the pan.
Bake until the cake is golden brown. If it cracks, fear not. It eats just as well and sugar covers all flaws.
Remove from the oven and cool on a wire rack for 10 minutes; remove the sides of the pan and cool completely. Invert the cake to remove the bottom of the pan and the parchment and transfer it, right side up, onto a platter; sprinkle liberally with confectioners’ sugar. Makes 1 cake (10-12 servings)
Success! The Pecan Rum Cake with Figs is beautiful and delicious.
Fig Preserves Recipe
Because I only had 2 pounds of figs, I made a 2/3 batch of this recipe. Worked perfectly. Also, I used dark brown sugar here. For the record, I used my trusty Thermapen to test the temp, and my immersion blender to smooth the mixture out at the end.
Beautiful fresh figs go on the kitchen scale.
3 pounds ripe figs (about 60) washed and dried
1 pound piloncillo or dark brown sugar
1 stick Mexican cinnamon (canela)
Bubble, bubble syrup pot.
Using a small paring knife, cut a small X in the bottom of each fig; set aside. In a large, heavy-bottomed saucepan, combine the piloncillo, cinnamon, and 3 cups of water; cook over medium heat, breaking up the piloncillo as the mixture heats. When the piloncillo has melted (about 8-10 minutes), add the figs.
Add the figs to the syrup.
Increase the heat to medium-high and bring the mixture to a boil. Reduce the heat to medium; cook, uncovered, for 18-20 minutes, or until the syrup registers 210 degrees F on a candy thermometer (it will be bubbly and frothy). If the bubbles are rising too quickly, reduce the heat a bit. When the syrup reaches the proper temperature, reduce the heat and simmer until the syrup is thick, about 10-15 minutes; remove from the heat. When the figs are cool, remove them from the syrup, chop liberally (or process until almost smooth), and return to the syrup. Transfer the mixture to a clean container. Store well covered in the refrigerator for up to 1 month. Makes 4 cups.
Fig Preserves: A Thing of Beauty Homemade
Don’t let the fact that this includes a secondary recipe throw you. You can substitute store-bought, but if you’ve got access to figs, it would behoove you to preserve them, and the preserves are the simplest of the two recipes. Overall, I enjoyed the cake immensely. It has a strong rum flavor, so be forewarned if that’s not your thing.
Pecan Rum Cake with Figs, Sliced and Ready
Additionally, this is not a cookbook for beginners, you need to know some basics. That said, The Practical Cooks Junior had several altercations during the making of this cake, but declared truce in the end and called this cake delicious. Point being, you can start and stop the process and still bake a great cake.
On a personal note, this one goes out to Blended Familia, who defines this new fusion of cuisines and lives for me in my real life. Thank you.
Are you a fan of Southern-Latino fusion? Post a comment, or Tweet!
This will be the last in my ode to German Chocolate series. If you’re not familiar or a fan, avert your eyes. I’m in it for the coconut and pecans. For my birthday, The Practical Cook’s Mom made this for me, stuck candles in it, and led the traditional song. It was awesome. So much so, that I’m sharing, somewhat unvarnished, her recipe.
Thanks Mom, you truly are the best.
German Chocolate Cake and Frosting Recipe
From the files of The Practical Cook’s Mom, enjoy.
Well, just use a box of German Chocolate cake mix.* Then make the frosting. (*The Practical Cook’s Notes: You can doctor the box mix by adding grated German Chocolate, chocolate chips, sour cream, a few Tablespoons of strong brewed coffee, etc. Go crazy.)
1 cup evaporated milk
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup butter
1 tsp vanilla–maybe more
1-2 tablespoons cornstarch for thickening
Combine all ingredients in saucepan over medium heat. Bring to boil and stir, cooking until thickened, about 12 minutes.
Remove from heat and add 1 1/2 cups coconut and 1 cup chopped toasted pecans. Then fiddle with the recipe. Toast pecans, etc.
(It actually called for 3 egg yolks instead of cornstarch, but who wants to waste whites?)
*****
And now you see how I turned out like this. I simply can’t avoid meddling with recipes, it is my birthright. There would be pictures, except I ate it all too fast. What’s your favorite cake? Share a comment below!
The Practical Cook 