Pulla - Finnish Cardamom Bread

I have been spelling cardamom wrong for the past month!

Since I love it so much, I should probably spell it correctly.

Cardamom is a rich and decadent spice.

It adds flavor depth.

mmmmmmm

Ok Recipe.

This recipe is from The Winter Vegetarian by Darra Goldstein.

It's a great book.

But I think there is something wrong with this recipe.

She says to add between 7 to 8 cups of flour and knead the dough.

I added 8 cups of flour and had batter.

There was no possible way to knead it - I tried.

I added some more flour, but it was still to soft to knead.

Which is fine!

Egg/milk bread shouldn't be kneaded.

But then how much flour is necessary?

Who knows!

Someday I want to work this recipe out, but for now here is the recipe from The Winter Vegetarian

Finnish Cardamom Bread - Pulla

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2 1/2 tsp. yeast

1/4 cup lukewarm water

1 teaspoon plus 3/4 cup sugar

2 cups lukewarm milk

1 tsp. salt

2 tsp. ground cardamom

12 Tbs. butter (1 1/2 sticks), melted

4 eggs

7 to 8 cups flour

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1 egg white, lightly beaten

3 Tbs. pearl or colored sugar

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Dissolve the yeast in the water with 1 tsp. of sugar until bubbly. Stir in the milk, remaining 3/4 cup sugar, salt,cardamom, melted butter, eggs and 4 cups of the flour. Beat well. Gradually add just enough flour to form a soft dough. Turn out onto a floured board and knead until dough is smooth and elastic, about 10 mins. (Good luck with that!)

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Place the dough in a large greased bowl, turning to grease the top. Cover and leave to rise until doubled, 1 1/2 to 2 hours. Punch down the dough and let rise again until nearly doubled, about 1 hour.

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Divide dough into 3 pieces. Divided each piece into 3 balls of equal size. Roll each ball out between your hands into a rope about 12 in. long. Braid 3 ropes together, turning the ends under. Place the loaf on a lightly greased baking sheet. Repeat with the remaining dough. Cover the loaves and leave them to rise until slightly puffy, 20 to 30 mins.

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Preheat the oven to 375 F. Brush the loaves with the beaten egg and sprinkle them with the sugar.

Bake for 25 to 30 mins.

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I obviously didn't braid them.

I made 4 round loaves instead.

Chocolate Snowflakes or Russian Lace

This is a very old recipe.

As old as chocolate and snow.

There are 2 ingredients: fresh snow and chocolate.

It's perfect for snowy days when everyone is bored, because it's edible art.

Everyone likes to eat art!

I live in Minnesota where winter is at least 9 months long.

Winter always includes tons of snow.

However, we don't always get beautiful fluffy snow. You want dry, fluffy snow for this recipe.

Be a snow connoisseur! Hold out for the good stuff.

Anyway.

Melt some chocolate in the microwave (or over a candle/woodstove/something hot).

Put the chocolate into a plastic ziploc bag.

Snip one corner - to make a mini pastry bag.

Doodle in the snow. Make a snowflake shape or a word or a heart.

I did one layer of milk chocolate (chips) and one layer of white chocolate.

I liked the mini ones the best.




The chocolate will freeze very quickly.

I found this recipe when I was snowed in for a week.

We had a drift over the front of our house that covered the entire first story.

The power went on and off, but we had a woodstove and candles to keep us warm.

It was a lot of fun!

We built a doll house and ate Russian Lace.

Once the chocolate is firm (a couple minutes) pick up the snowflakes and take them inside.

Eat them right away or freeze them.

They really dress up a cup of cocoa.

They would also look nice on a cake.

They prevent cabin fever!

Every snowflake falling outside is unique and every chocolate snowflake is unique too.

DB's Challenge - Gingerbread House

The December 2009 Daring Bakers’ challenge was brought to you by Anna of Very Small Anna and Y of Lemonpi. They chose to challenge Daring Bakers’ everywhere to bake and assemble a gingerbread house from scratch. They chose recipes from Good Housekeeping and from The Great Scandinavian Baking Book as the challenge recipes....

Sooooo glad this challenge is over!

I had a lot of fun making it, but it was such a mess!

After 2 frosting explosions my kitchen is a disaster.

It smells nice though.

The gingerbread smells great, but I would never eat it, because it is super hard.

Remember how my sushi challenge ended?

Hee hee hee! (evil laughter)

The dough after chilling.

I made this twice.
I hated the first house, so I re-did it.
This is a picture of the first set of cut outs.







One of my apple trees.

This is the house after the first frosting explosion.

Now I know why the directions say to sift the powdered sugar.

There is only so much pressure you can put on a plastic pastry bag.

Ta da!

Finished chicken cottage, garden, trees and little pond.

I used jelly beans for the cucumbers, radishes and carrots in the first garden bed.

I used fondant to make corn, carrots and cauliflower.

Red hots for the apples and 'roses' on the cottage.

Starbursts for the stepping stones.

Pretzels for the fence.

Here are my fondant cauliflower, carrots and corn.

I'd never used fondant before.

It was fun!

Like play dough.

Oreo cookies for the dirt.

Jolly Ranchers melted for the windows.

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Ok, now are you ready?

What did I do with this cute little gingerbread cottage?

Gave it to the Ladies!

Of course!

At first they were curious.
"Hmmm, is that a real carrot?"

"Let me try a little of that."

"Do these apples taste weird to you?"

"What a tiny garden! I'm a giant chicken!"

"Ho hum, not that tasty..."

Smashed.

The End.

Anything Pie and Roasty Toasty Potatoes

Anything Pie

You should make this pie when:

You want to impress

Uninvited guests

Mother-in-law

You just got home from work

The cupboards are bare.

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You can put whatever you want/have on hand into this pie.

But this is what I did...

I started with the same sauce that I used for the Salmon en croute

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Some cream cheese, spinach, dried onions, dill, salt and pepper and a little cream.

Blended up.

I used the Secret Family Recipe for the crust.

1 cup flour

1/2 cup butter

1/4 cup filled with 1 egg and a little white wine

See Here again for more info.

Rolled out the dough.

It will make a top and bottom crust.

Roll it out really thin.

I used a greased round cake pan as my pie pan.

Leftover Roasty Toasty potatoes and 1 cup of frozen veggies.

Roasty Toasty potatoes are a double leftover.

I started with leftover baked potatoes - sliced them up and soaked them in 1 cup of fig infused vinegar.

Pre-heated the oven to 400 F.

After 15 mins I tossed the potatoes with savory, thyme, oregano, salt and pepper and a little olive oil.

Baked for 20 mins.

Added spinach sauce.

Covered with top crust and washed with egg wash.

Baked at 350 F for 20 mins.

Just until the crust was brown.

Winter Chickens and A Purple Girl

Here are a few pictures of the Ladies.

You can tell Winter is in full swing: cabbage and warm mash for all!

Cheap chicken entertainment - a hanging cabbage.

There's Butter!
She's busy catching that cabbage.

Zela and Lavender

And a purple chicken!?!

I nicknamed her Turkey.

She started moulting and her sisters picked on her, so.....I Blukoted her.

It's a spray that covers up the bare red skin and doesn't taste very nice.

There are a couple other Girls developing bare spots, so I might give them a little dash of Blu kote too, if Carol doesn't mind.

Winter is hard on a chicken. :(

Isn't she cute?!?

Little cutie!

I noticed her attitude changed, when she realized she wasn't going to be picked on any more.

She's more assertive and was *sigh* picking on the Barred Rock girl, while she was taking a dust bath, yesterday.

A lot of Carol's Girls are getting friendly, as you can see from this video.

They like to be held and snuggled.

The only problem - I only have 2 arms!

Cardamum Sugar Cakes

Cardamom Sugar Cakes

I love cardamom. It is especially wonderful in these light-as-air sugar cookies.

Watch out for the unusual combination of sour cream and baking soda.

1/2 cup sour cream (not nonfat)

1/2 tsp. baking soda

1/2 cup butter (1 stick)

3/4 cup sugar

1 large egg

3/4 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp. nutmeg

1 tsp. cardamom

2 tsp. vanilla extract

1 1/2 tsp. baking powder

1 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour

Coarse sugar, colored sugar or sprinkles for decoration.

In a small mixing bowl, whisk together the sour cream and baking soda. Set aside.

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In a large bowl, cream together the butter, sugar,egg, salt, spices, vanilla and baking powder. Add the sour cream mixture and blend well. Add the flour, blending until well combined.

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Pre-heat the oven to 400 F and lightly grease/parchment/silpat 2 baking sheets.

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Drop the dough by 1 Tbs. into the sugar, roll in sugar and place on baking sheet.

Work quickly or the butter will melt.

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Freeze rolled sugar covered cookie dough.

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Bake for 10 mins. - Watch carefully!!

After removing them from the oven, leave the cookies on the baking sheet for 3 mins.

DC's Challenge - Salmon en Croute

The 2009 Daring Cooks challenge was hosted by Simone of Junglefrog Cooking. Simone chose Salmon en Croute (or alternative recipes for Beef Wellington or Vegetable en Croute) from Good Food Online.

This was a fun recipe.

I enjoyed making and eating it.

It's also something I would make again.

Yay! Three out of three!

~

So basically it is salmon with a cream/spinach sauce in a pastry crust.

Now....I'm going to share a secret family recipe.

For crust.

3 ingredients

1 cup of flour

1/2 cup of cold butter

1/4 cup - with one egg

and if their is room in the cup measure liquid of your choice

I used orange juice this time, but I've used wine, other juices and milk in the past.

Grind your flour and butter together. Mix your egg and liquid together.

Mix egg/liquid into flour/butter. Form into a ball and refrigerate for at least an hour.

Roll out the dough.

This dough is very nice to work with and can be rolled out paper thin, if you want.

Cutting out some shapes for the top of the salmon packages.

I made this in November, so leaves seemed appropriate.

$1 fillet of salmon topped with cream cheese, spinach, dill, a little onion, salt and pepper.

Egg washing pastry cut outs on to the salmon packages.

Pastry leaves.

More egg washing.

After baking.

Yummy!

Looks fancy.

Was cheap.

Tasted great!

A++

Best Road Trip

A post on Points of Review about a road trip I took with my Mom 5 years ago in November.

It was the best trip ever!

We went to New Zealand, rented a car and drove around the North Island for a couple weeks.

This was the route of our trip.

We started out in Auckland.

My Grandma was born and raised in New Zealand.

And as a little girl my Mom lived in New Zealand for a while.

This is Mom and the car we rented.

She had never driven on the left side of the road, but she did a great job throughout the trip.

There were just a couple times when I thought she was going to run into the side of a mountain!

We loved the little self serve stands they had on the side of the road selling vegetables.



We went at the end of November - Avocado season, I guess.
There were avocados every where!
We even rented a cottage in an avocado orchard.




I shot a gun!
On a boat!
And I didn't hit anything.



This is our automatic clothes dryer.
We stayed over night in a hostel.
It was really nice.
We stayed in a lot of hostels.
Anyway, we washed our clothes, but didn't have time to dry them, so for a day we drove around with a backseat full of wet clothes.
Thankfully, they dried pretty fast!
And you could never do that in Minnesota in November!



The cows didn't seem to mind our car clothes dryer.


We saw dolphins!

And more cows!

This is Mom and Moana.

She is kind of an aunt.

We stayed in a really nice Bed and Breakfast in Auckland.

Breakfast.

Mom and me at another hostel.

Mom cooking at the hostel.

We cooked and ate our way across New Zealand!
The food and spending time with Mom were the best parts of our trip.

We tried to buy local (side of the road) food and try everything that we didn't recognize.

Like canned rice pudding, canned spaghetti, Lamb and Mint flavor chips (crisps), Burger Rings, freeze dried veg. and lots of candy.

Eating dinner al fresco.

In November!

We went to the New Zealand flower show.

Mom with another yummy meal of fresh fish.

Isn't that beautiful?

Spice Puffs

Spice Puffs

3 cups flour

1 cup sugar

2 1/2 tsp baking powder

1 1/4 tsp nutmeg

1/4 tsp salt

2 large eggs

1 1/4 cups milk

5 1/2 Tbs melted butter

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.

Mix together dry ingredients in a large bowl. In another bowl mix together wet ingredients. Ad wet mixture to dry and stir just until combined. Mixture will be lumpy.

Grease muffin cups. Fill each cup 3/4 full with muffin batter.

Bake for 20-25 mins. until muffins are golden.

Before I baked the muffins I added a tsp each of ricotta cream and pear sauce left over from my cannoli.


And I got to use my new autumn muffin tins.
They were very yummy!





They were so tasty that the chickies only got to try one muffin.
They gave it 9.5 beaks out of 10.

How I Learned To Cook

I started cooking before I was born. After all, I was a bun in my mother's oven!

Ok, let's rip that psychologically damaging imagery out of our minds.

On with my story....

This is my Mom and me. (I still have those big feet :P )

Looks like I'm eating some soup. Yum.

I still eat soup like that too - feet on the table.

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Before I was born, my Mom worked in a cafe.

After I was born, she took me to work with her.

She would rise hours before dawn, tuck me into a corduroy kangaroo-pouch-baby-carrier-thingy and jog downtown to the cafe.

Then, she would bake dozens of loaves of bread, sweet rolls, croissants, cakes, pies, soups and the special of the day - pot roast, lasagna, ect.

While she beat eggs and kneaded dough, I was still strapped into my snuggly kangaroo pouch picking up cooking tips (and probably napping).

Before I was one, I learned how to use a spoon..... to mix up homemade bread.

Later I progressed to using a knife.

Check out those peeling skills!

And the half chewed cucumber in the salad.

Baking bread with Mom.




And making pie crust.
I'm about 2 1/2 in this picture.





Frying up breakfast.

And here I am at four years old.

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This might look like a cardboard kitchen (or just a cardboard box, if you're really bad at imagining), but for me - this was my studio.

I wanted to be The Frugal Gourmet.

You don't know who that is?

What?!?

Ok, he was a TV chef with a cooking show and he had an assistant named John.

It was great!

For years and years Frugal Gourmet was the only game I would play.

My Mom was John, so....she did the dishes.

I had a little crock pot and all day long I would put things into it and stir it and put more "secret" ingredients into it.

Then, when my Dad came home we would have candlelight suppers and they would eat my Crockpot Delight.

It took me a long time to figure out why we ate by candlelight.

They must have loved me a lot.

Bearing in mind, I thought salt was a major ingredient and paprika was a magic flavoring.

I wrote a recipe for bread: Take 1 cup salt, 3 cup floer mix togeter and add hony, egg and milk. Beat and leve for 5 houers to rise. Bake at 560 degres for 3 houers.

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So, that's how I learned how to cook and love food.

Mostly from my Mom, with a little dash of celebrity inspiration a la Frugal Gourmet as a 'secret' ingredient.