SHARLA's Fruit Pizza

I-phone photo by Michele

I have the best Granddaughter in-law in the world,  This girl can bake, cook, works a full time job, and then comes home and bakes cakes, decorate cakes,  The full show. She commissions out her decorating skills to different clients around the Palm Springs area.  Getting to the recipe and story.  One of the other grandkids had a birthday party the other night,  and of course Grandma and Grandpa were invited.  And Sharla the baker came with this dessert for all of us.  A "Fruit Pizza."  Never heard of such a thing.  Well anyway,  it's great.  (I must have lived a sheltered life)

INGREDIENTS:

• 1     each       sugar cookie dough  (Store bought, Pillsbury, the kind that is rolled up. It's not the pre-cut kind.)


• 2     each       8 oz cream cheese packages


• 1/2  cup         sugar


• 1     tbsp        lemon juice


• fruit of your choice, (strawberries, kiwi, grapes, blackberries, raspberries etc...)


• 1     jar           apricot preservatives 


• 2     tbsp        water

DIRECTIONS:

1. Pre-heat your oven to 350F with the rack in the middle of the oven.


2. Take a half sheet jelly roll pan and grease or spray the inside of if you have a non-stick, use that.  Take your cookie dough  and press the dough out to fill the sheet.


3. Bake for 10 minutes.


4. In a mixing bowl combine the cream cheese, sugar, and lemon juice.  Spread the mix over the cooled cookie crust.


5. Cut up the fruit and arrange like you see in the picture above.  


6. Mix the apricot preservatives with water and drizzle over the top of the pizza. 


7. Keep refrigerated,  after chilling eat that puppy up!!!

My SnickerDoodles

Photography by Michael Long

In all my years,  I've never had a snickerdoodle.  Never, Honest!!!  And today I found out what I have been missing.  I'd heard about girls making them in Home Ed classes,  and the boys going wild over them,  But No, I was out playing hide and sneak with my Chevy and the cops!!!  Should have been chasing the girls and they're cookies.  Anyway, that's another story.  I got an E-mail from Saveur Magazine the other day and they had a recipe on Snickerdoodles so I thought what the heck go for it.  I mentioned it to the wife, "boss, manager, tax consultant, etc..." and she told me that years ago in the home ed. class where they taught cooking or basic cooking, that was one thing the girls had to do was make snickerdoodles and she hadn't had them since.????  Doesn't make a lot of since to me either, but anyway her eye's rolled back and said oh please,  So I pounded my chest and said "yes my dear, I can do that" So I did that!





Anyway, now to the recipe,





INGREDIENTS:

• 3      cups       Flour


• 2      tsp         Cream of Tartar


• 1      tsp         Baking soda


• .25   tsp         Kosher Salt


• 1.75  cups      Sugar


• 16    tbsp       Unsalted Butter, @ Room Temp.


• 5      tsp         ground cinnamon


• 1.5   tsp         vanilla extract


• 2     each       eggs.

DIRECTIONS:

1. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, cream of tartar, baking soda, and salt;  and set that puppy aside.  Using a hand mixer or better yet a stand mixer on medium speed, beat 1.5 cup of sugar and butter together till pale and fluffy. (Don't you just love the fluffy part?) This will take about 2 minutes of your time.  Add 2 tsp of cinnamon and the vanilla; beat for about another minute more.  Add your eggs one at a time, and beat well after each addition of egg.  Add the dry ingredients that you sat aside to the mixer,  very slowly, or your going to have stuff everywhere! And don't over mix. If you over mix your going to have cinnamon flavored hockey pucks. Now refrigerate the dough for about 30 minutes. 


2. Heat the oven to 375F.  In a separate bowl combine the remaining sugar and cinnamon.  Remove dough from the frig, and using about 1 tbsp measure, spoon out about 48 portions.  I got 46. But anyway, you get the idea.  Take those portions and roll them into little balls and then over to the cinnamon bowl and coat each and everyone of those guys with the sugar/cinn. mix.  Place on a baking sheet lined with Parchment paper, about 2" apart.  Put those little guys in the preheated oven and bake for about 10 minutes.  What your looking for is some cracking on top of the cookies.  

Transfer to a cooling rack to cool.  and  then get your insulin out and eat till your silly.  

 ______________________________ 

I'm dedicating this recipe to my Granddaughter, Christina, that's living up in Santa Barbara, CA. And to her roommates. Eat up and enjoy,  Grandpa!

And More Helpful Hints

Here are some more helpful hints for the kitchen.  Tricks to keep you from running to the store at the last minute.

 Baking powder will go bad,  and the best way to check it is Mix 1 teaspoon (5gm) with 1/2 cup hot water.  The mix should bubble immediately.  If it doesn't toss it out.  You have bad baking powder

Baking powder should be replaced every 6-12 months

To test Baking soda, ¼ teaspoon to 2 teaspoons VINEGAR mix should bubble immediately

To make Baking Powder is a pretty simple thing to do.

• 1 teaspoon baking soda


• 2 teaspoons cream of tartar

Mix the baking soda and cream of tartar together until well combined. The yield is one tablespoon.

______________________________

Cream of Tartar

Cream of tartar is the common name for potassium hydrogen tartar and also tartaric acid salt.  It is obtained when tartaric acid is half neutralized with potassium hydroxide, transforming it into a salt. Grapes are the only significant natural source of tartaric acid, and cream of tartar is obtained from sediment produced in the process of aging wine. It is found on the insides of the wine barrels and sometimes at the bottom of bottles of wine. It crystallizes out as a hard crust in the barrels.

Cream of tartar is best known for helping stabilize and give more volume to beaten egg whites. It is used as the leavening agent in baking powder.

Normally when cream of tartar is used in a cookie, it is used together with baking soda. The two of them combined work like a double-acting baking powder. When substituting for cream of tartar, you must also substitute for the baking soda.

__________________________________

Self-rising flour

If your recipe calls for self-rising flour and you only have all-purpose, here's how you can save the day.. Measure out the amount of flour into a separate bowl and for each cup of flour add 1.5 teaspoon baking powder and one half teaspoon of salt, Mix that up and  POOF you have self-rising flour.

Can be stored in an Air tight container for Months 

______________________________

 Brown Sugar  

Your out of Brown sugar, but you have granulated sugar and you have molasses.  The formula or recipe is 1 cup sugar and 2 Tablespoons molasses.  In a stand mixer (can be done by hand with a fork).  Put the sugar and molasses in your mixer bowl and with the whisk attachment, start that puppy up..... run on medium speed till all mixed,  this may take a while to do. But it does go together. If you have some clumps that refuse to break up,  use a fork to break them up.  And POOF again,  you've made brown sugar.

 ______________________________

I hope these little hints will help,  everyone runs short on stuff, and just maybe this will help.

 

OLD-FASHIONED YELLOW CAKE

Photography by Michael Long

    This is the first recipe that I made out the book Small Batch Baking. This is going to be a first in a series of recipes that I'll do.

______________________________

    As Debby Maugans Nakos (author) called her Old-Fashioned Yellow Cake.  pp42. This makes two cakes and uses two 14- or 14.5 oz cans, To bake in.  I had some small cake pans that I used.  

 INGREDIENTS:

• Unsalted butter, at room temperature, for greasing the cans/pans. 


• 1/2 cup A-P flour, sifted, plus more for flouring the cans.


• 3 tablespoons buttermilk


• 1/8 teaspoon baking soda


• 1 egg Yolk (large egg)


• 1/5 teaspoon pure Vanilla extract


• 3 Tablespoon unsalted butter melted and cooled


• 1/3 cup sugar


• 1/4 teaspoon salt

DIRECTIONS:

1. Place oven rack in middle of oven and preheat oven to 350F 


2. Grease the insides of the cans and lightly dust with flour, tapping out the excess.  Place the cans on a baking sheet for easier handling and set aside. 


3. Place the buttermilk and baking soda in a small bowl, and whisk until the baking soda is dissolved.  Add the egg yolk, vanilla, and melted butter.


4. Place the flour, sugar, and salt in a medium size bowl and whisk to blend well.  Add the buttermilk mixture and whisk just until blended and smooth.


5. Spoon the batter into the prepared cans, dividing the batter evenly between the cans. Bake the cakes until a toothpick comes out dry.  (about 25minutes)


6. Remove the cakes and cool for about 15 minutes then De-can the cakes.  You may have to use a knife around the edges to loosen the cakes from the cans.  

 ______________________________

And that's all there is to it.......Poof you have cakes for dessert....... Is that cool or what.... and they taste pretty darn good too. 

BAKING FOR 2

I just got a book on Small-Batch Baking. By Debby Maugans Nakos. A super book. In the book Debby talks about Desserts for 2.  I made a yellow cake for tonights dinner and It came out fantastic.  I was very impressed.  She hit right on with the recipe. Time, Temp Measurements were right on.  It looks like most of the cakes are made in a 14.5 oz cans.  The cans that beans etc come in. I used very small cake pans for the cake below.  She goes into how to prep the cans to use for you baking molds. I made the yellow cake in just a few minutes, with 1 small bowl,  and one 3 qt bowl. and a wire whip.  The baking took right at 25 minutes. Ovens my vary on temp and time.

Photography by Michael Long

Here is what the Publisher had to say about the book.

Even the most enthusiastic home bakers may admit there are times when they really only need a few muffins for breakfast or a couple of cream puffs for a dinner party—not a dozen or more of each. When standard recipes won't reduce neatly (how do you halve an egg, for example?), frustration ensues. Nakos, a Shape, Southern Living and Cooking Light contributor, takes more than 250 classic cakes, pies, cookies, cobblers, puddings and breads and downsizes their proportions to yield just the right number of goodies for small families, singles, newlyweds, empty-nesters or the leftovers-averse (do such people exist?). Nakos certainly is creative: she uses tin cans to bake two-layer coconut cakes and chocolate cakes, jumbo muffin tins for Peach Pie and Pineapple Upside-Down Cake, and small loaf pans for Moist Fudgy Brownies. Meanwhile, a full-size loaf pan turns out Mississippi Mud Cake or Gingerbread Roulade, and one regular baking sheet does the job for Cinnamon Hazelnut Biscotti. Small-batch baking as formulated by Nakos is liberating: with quick mixing, baking and clean-up times, the whole process of producing, say, eight Pecan Snowball Cookies for tea time, or two Honey Apple Oatmeal Crisps for a sweet breakfast, is less overwhelming.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

I give this book a 4.5 star rating.  There are no pictures in the book. or at least none in the paper back edition.  I will be posting recipes from this book very shortly.

THE WONDERFUL CHOCOLATE WAFER

Always being a big fan of the Vanilla Wafer,  I have never found a good chocolate wafer.  But now I have one.. And it's way way over the top.  This thing is so good,  It makes your eyes tear up.  The only true way to enjoy these is with Brain Freeze COLD MILK or with Ice cream... However, these little guys can be eaten straight up also... But the Brain Freeze is so much better... 

    Alice Medrich wrote this recipe and it's from her book Cookies and Brownies, A Warner Books, Inc.  New York: 1999  Which I've adapted this recipe from.







Ingredients:

• 1 cup (130g)  AP Flour


• 1/2 cup (50)  unsweetened DUTCH-Processed cocoa powder


• 1/4 tsp           salt (kosher)


• 1/4 tsp           baking soda


• 3 TBS (45g)    unsalted butter, room temp.


• 3 TBS (45g)    margarine (NOTE!!!) 


• 2/3cup(140g) packed light brown sugar


• 1/2cup(100g) granulated white sugar


• 1 tsp               pure vanilla extract.  or 3 vanilla beans split and scrapped out I changed out the extract to vanilla bean.  Made big difference!


• 1 large            egg

Note the addition of the margarine!!!!

 Directions:

1. In a bowl whisk together the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt.


2. In your mixer bowl cream the butter and margarine until well blended.  Add the sugars (both the white and brown).  And the vanilla to the mix.  Beat on high speed for (1 minute).  Stop the mixer and scrap down the sides And beat in the eggs, one at a time. Then add the flour mixture. and beat until (JUST INCORPORATED)


3. Take the dough out of the bowl, and onto parchment paper form the dough into a log.  About 1-11/2 in dia.  And warp the dough you just logged with parchment paper.   Try NOT to Flatten the log too much.  And place the log in the frig. for at least 1 hour, but better if longer.  Like overnight.


4. Preheat the oven to 350F. and place your racks in the center of the oven.  Your only going to be able to do 1 half sheet pan at a time.   


5. Using a very sharp knife cut the log into quarter inch slices and space them about one inch apart on your cookie sheets.  OH FORGOT USE SLIPATS OR PARCHMENT PAPER TO LINE YOUR SHEETS WITH. 


6. Bake for about 10-12 minutes or until the cookies are puffy and tops have small crackles or ripples.  


7. Remove from the oven and let the cookies cool  on the baking sheet for about 5 minutes or so.  Then you can move those little guys over to a cooling rack. 


8. You can store this little guys in an airtight bag or container for about 10days or so.

This will yield about 36 cookies.   

The local testers for this recipe have been at least 4 stars, all the way up to a 5 star.

So you know these little guys are good... 

VANILLA BEAN SUGAR COOKIES

   HEY, Look at the picture above... Pretty cool huh!!!!  Those are VANILLA BEAN SUGAR COOKIES.  I found the recipe in Alice Medrich newest cookbook. CHEWY GOOEY CRISPY CRUNCHY COOKIES On page 38-40.  I ordered this book and didn't tell my wife about it.  So when she got home, she saw it... So to cover my tail I told her I would bake anything in the book for her... And she picked out this along with 50 or so other recipes...

    After making these little puppies,  I was hooked on them... Hey, the baker here has to test everything...!!!

______________________________

INGREDIENTS:

• 18 oz       (4cups) AP Flour


• 1   tsp      baking powder


• 1/2 tsp      salt


• 1/2 lbs      unsalted butter/slightly softened


• 14  oz       sugar


• 2  ea         eggs


• 1 Tlb         Vanilla extract or seeds from 3 beans

______________________________

DIRECTIONS:

1. Combine the flour, baking powder, and salt in a bowl and mix together thoroughly with a fork or whisk.


2. Beat the butter and sugar in bowl with an electric mixer until light and fluffy, (3-4) minutes. Add eggs one at a time and then the Vanilla bean seeds.  On low speed, beat in the flour (only until it's just incorporated)  Scrape the dough into a mass and knead it with your hands a few times until smooth. Divide the dough into 4 pieces and form each into a flat patty.  Wrap those guys up in plastic wrap and refrigerate the patties until firm enough to roll,  preferably several hours or overnight.


3. Preheat the oven to 350F and position the racks one at a third down and one a third up.


4. TO ROLL AND CUT THE COOKIES:  Remove 1 patty from the frig. and let it sit at room temp until supple enough to roll but still firm.  It will continue to soften as you work.  Roll the dough between two sheets of wax-paper. To a thickness of 1/8 of an inch.  Turn the dough over once or twice while you are rolling in out to check for deep wrinkles; if necessary, peel off and smooth the paper over the dough before continuing to roll it out.  


5. When the dough is thin enough, slide it (still between the sheets of wax-paper. On to a sheet pan and put back in the frig.  Remove the bottom (coldest) sheet form the frig.  Peel off the top sheet of paper and set it on the counter.  Invert the dough onto it and peel off the second sheet.


6. Cut cookie shapes as close together as possible to minimize scrapes, dipping the edges on the cookie cutters in flour as necessary to prevent sticking. Place the cut out cookies on a greased cookie sheet or parchment paper cookie sheet, or slipmat lined cookie sheet.  (IF THE DOUGH GETS TOO SOFT ANYTIME, SLIDE THE DOUGH INTO THE FRIG TO COOL.).


7. Bake for 8-10 minutes or until golden brown at the edges. 

______________________________ 

This recipe will yield about 90 cookies with a 2-1/2" cutter