a blue dot kitchen

My New Sister Site Romancing Recipe

9/24/2019

Check out my Sister Site: Romancing Recipe

I’m writing more recipes than ever, still teaching and even working on a cookbook. Life took me away from a blue dot kitchen, but I’m back. It’s helped to take the time to evaluate what I wanted out of a blog and how I share. I burned out, because I felt like a recipe machine, instead of a person sharing my love of food from the heart. Finally, I started a sister blog, devoted to short edible essays, with audio, about my relationship to creating recipes, cooking, and all the places that takes me. I link my essays to recipes here, and I’ll post more new recipes from classes and my upcoming cookbook. I’m shocked and delighted at how much this site still gets used, because I really have ignored it.

Thank you, everyone for your loyalty and support it’s appreciated!

Helen's Honey Apple Cake

12/4/2017

Helen’s a musician

she was celebrating her 80th birthday, with a concert for around 60 friends, and asked me to make appetizers. I choose a Slavic theme because Helen spent time as a citizen diplomat in Russia in the 90’s.
She couldn’t find anyone locally to make her birthday cake, so I signed on for a cake for 60 on top of everything else. Yikes. I’d never made a cake that large, but oh well. It was an intense week of cooking, and I hope to post the lovely recipes that came out of it. Everyone loved the cake. I was also quite happy with how it turned out, and thought you’d appreciate the recipe.

Some notes of interest about the cake

Equal parts of rye and potato starch make an excellent cake flour.
The freshly ground spices are important and are carried well with the honey.
Acid, i.e. Apple Cider Vinegar awakens the flavors. It's surprising what you can’t taste until you add acid and salt. This goes for baking as much as for soup.
Real Buttercream that isn’t too sweet makes the cake.
I liked the simple decorations of candied orange peel, blanched almonds and buttercream.

The big cake was three times this recipe.

Helen’s Honey Apple Cake

makes one 10 inch round or square cake
serves 10
A balanced cake, not too sweet, spicy yet demure with tart apple. It’s moist yet light. The secret to its texture are equal parts of rye and potato starch, plus the boiling water. Because it uses honey, it’s a long keeping cake and improves with age. I must say, it’s a favorite and the European style buttercream a good addition.

Ingredients
1 ¼ cup /175g rye flour
1 ¼ cup /185g potato starch
2 teaspoons baking soda
½ teaspoon sea salt
all of the spice mix
½ cup soft unsalted butter
1 cup /320g local raw honey
2 flax eggs (2 tablespoons flax meal + 5 tablespoons water)
1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
1 cup /237 ml boiling water
1 cup /125g /one tart apple peeled and cut into a small dice

Spice Mix for Helen’s Honey Cake
1 teaspoon coriander seed
5 green cardamom pods
½ teaspoon allspice berries
4 whole cloves
Scant ¼ teaspoon black peppercorns
1 teaspoon fennel seed
2 teaspoons cinnamon
2 teaspoons powdered ginger

Instructions
Preheat oven to 350F/180C
Ready a 10-inch round springform buttered with parchment on bottom
Gather all ingredients together
Make the flax eggs by adding 5 tablespoons water to 2 tablespoons flax meal
Grind spice mix and sift through a sieve
Measure out dry ingredients including spices and sift into a large mixing bowl
Heat water, cut up apple, measure honey
Whip honey and soft butter together using a mixer until light and fluffy
Add flax eggs and continue to whip
Add vinegar to boiling water
Alternating boiling water with dry ingredients, mix both into butter honey with mixer on low speed until completely combined
Pour into springform and bake immediately on a middle rack for
30 minutes
A toothpick will come out clean inserted into the center
Let cool for 15 minutes and then release from springform and completely cool before decorating with buttercream.

The recipe will make a cake this size.

Buttercream

makes about 2 cups
Buttercream should be served at room temperature.
Ingredients
1/2 cup/115g sugar
1/4 cup/60 ml of water
2 eggs plus 2 egg yolks
4 softened sticks (1 lb.) 454g unsalted butter
1 vanilla bean
pinch of sea salt

Instructions
In a heavy bottomed sauce pan– Measure out sugar and water
Add the scraped out insides of a vanilla bean to it.
Cook to the softball stage 240°F/ 115C on medium low.
Take off heat
Beat eggs and egg yolks together until frothy and thick
Slowly Add the sugar syrup to the beaten eggs while whipping in a standing or handheld mixer
Add butter pats plus salt and whip until light and fluffy

With Love Enjoy!

Pumpkin Pie with Pecan Date Crust

11/22/2017

Super easY Way TO start with the WHOLE PUMPKIN for Pie

It’s a crisp October day, I’m walking down the road to Colinwood Farm where they have pumpkins I’ve eyed for a week. I meet up with a friend and her young step-daughter, both eager to pick out a pumpkin so they can bake a pie. We choose our perfect pumpkins weighing them on a hanging scale and paying on the honor system.
We’ve been taught to open a can of pumpkin if we want to bake a pie, but it’s time to update that habit so we won’t miss an enjoyable seasonal tradition.
Red Dog Farm, the first tent on the right entered the Uptown Farmer’s Market, had nine varieties of winter squash last Saturday. Their names inviting serious consideration: Acorn, Black Futsu, Buttercup, Butternut, Delicata, Hubbard, Keri, Baby Pam Pumpkins and Spaghetti. I bought
a 2.5 lb Baby Pam Pumpkin from Alice for $3.75 and headed home to slow cook it. Our local winter squash have such outstanding flavors. I like to mix and match squashes in a pie, or feature one I’ve never tried.
I have the world’s laziest way to process winter squash. I stab it a couple of times, like you would a baked potato, add 3 cups of water in the bottom of a large oval slow cooker, put the whole pumpkin in and set the cooker on high for 4 hours. When it’s done it’ll be soft enough to slice open, scoop out the seeds, peel off the skin and puree the flesh. That’s it. You can use the puree right away or freeze it for pies, breads or soup for winter.
And remember, don’t throw out those seeds, guts or skin! Put them right back in the slow cooker, add a quart a water, maybe some ginger slices and set on low for 10 hours. You’ll have some incredible stock to use for soup.

Pumpkin Pie with Pecan Date Crust

Featuring an easy delicious press in crust. Delicious and Easy
Pecan Date Crust
1 ½cup/200g pitted deglet dates
1 ½cup/170g pecans
¼ cup/30g ground flaxseeds
4 tablespoons unsalted butter melted
2 tablespoons maple syrup
¼ teaspoon sea salt

Pie Filling
1 1/2 cups/400g pumpkin puree (from 2 ½lb pumpkin)
1 ¼ cups 10 fl oz/300 ml unsweetened canned coconut milk
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/8 teaspoon powdered white stevia
(or 1/2 cup/50g brown sugar without stevia)
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon whole allspice berries
1/4 teaspoon whole peppercorns
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground nutmeg
1 whole clove
1 tablespoon fresh ginger paste
3 large eggs

Instructions
Pierce a 2.5 to 3 lb pie pumpkin several times, like for baking a potato
and roast in a large oval slow cooker on high for 4 hrs with
three cups water. The skin will be soft and easily cut open when done.

Spice Mix
Grinding fresh whole spices is fast and well worth the effort!
Grind whole spices together in a coffee or spice grinder
with cinnamon, sugar, salt and stevia
Grate fresh nutmeg add to spice mix
Sift spice mix through fine mesh strainer and set aside

Liquids
Measure coconut milk and eggs into a bowl add ginger paste refrigerate until ready to use

Crust
Measure ingredients into food processor run machine until a sticky mass forms
Press dough evenly into bottom and sides of a removable bottom
tart pan or a regular pie plate
Chill crust until ready to blind bake

Baking the Pie
When whole pumpkin is soft remove from slow cooker, and cool enough to handle. Slice it open scooping out the seeds and reserve them to roast or for use in stock. Scoop out flesh for pie and reserve leftover peel
for stock.
Measure out pumpkin and puree with coconut egg mixture and spices.
Preheat oven to 425F /220C
Blind bake chilled crust for 10 minutes (put pie plate on a baking sheet)
Reduce heat to 350F/180C and pour filling into hot crust
Put foil guard around edge of crust to keep from getting brown
Bake for 45 minutes or until set
Cool to further set
EnJOY!