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baking

Double Chocolate Scones

February 26, 2023 by Jill Foucre Leave a Comment

Double Chocolate Scones
2023-02-27 04:27:53
Print
Ingredients
  1. 2 c. flour
  2. 1/3 c. cocoa
  3. 1/3 c. brown sugar
  4. 2 tsp. baking powder
  5. 3/4 tsp. baking soda
  6. 1/8 tsp. salt
  7. 1/2 c. butter, cut into small pieces
  8. 1 egg yolk
  9. 8 oz. (1 c.) plain yogurt
  10. 1/2 c. mini chocolate chips
Instructions
  1. Mix together flour through salt. Cut in butter until butter is size of small peas. Mix together egg and yogurt and mix with dry ingredients and choc. chips. Roll into 2 discs about 3/4” thick. Cut each disc into 8 wedges. Put on cookie sheet covered with parchment paper. Brush with milk and sprinkle with sugar. Bake at 375 degrees for 15-20 minutes.
Marcel's Culinary Experience https://www.marcelsculinaryexperience.com/

Filed Under: Baked Goods, Breakfast, Recipes Tagged With: baking, cooking, recipe

Grandma’s Cornflake Cookies

January 5, 2023 by Jill Foucre Leave a Comment

Grandma's Cornflake Cookies
2023-01-06 02:43:16
Print
Ingredients
  1. 1/2 lb Butter
  2. 1 C Sugar
  3. 1 1/4 C Flour
  4. 1 tsp Vanilla
  5. 1 tsp Cream of Tartar
  6. 1 tsp Baking Soda
  7. 2 C Cornflakes
Instructions
  1. Heat oven to 350 degrees.
  2. Cream the butter and the sugar together in large bowl, stir in the vanilla. Sift together flour, baking soda and cream of tartar. Slowly add dry mix to the butter mixture.
  3. Take the 2 Cups of cornflakes and gently smash in Ziploc bag.
  4. Add the cornflakes last and mix well. Make small 1/2” balls and smash down with fork. Add holiday sprinkles for festive touch.
  5. Bake for 12 mins.
Marcel's Culinary Experience https://www.marcelsculinaryexperience.com/

Filed Under: Baked Goods, Desserts, Recipes Tagged With: baking, cooking, Dessert, recipe

Yogurt Pound Cake

April 18, 2018 by Jill Foucre Leave a Comment

Yogurt Pound Cake
2018-04-19 01:31:56
Print
Ingredients
  1. 1 cup butter
  2. 2 cups sugar
  3. 3 eggs
  4. 2 1/2 cups flour
  5. 1/2 teaspoon salt
  6. 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
  7. 1 teaspoon vanilla
  8. 8 oz lowfat vanilla yogurt
Instructions
  1. Beat together butter & sugar until well mixed. Add eggs, one at a time, beating thoroughly after each addition. In separate bowl, combine dry ingredients. Stir vanilla into yogurt. Alternately add dry ingredients and yogurt to butter mixture, beginning and ending with dry ingredients and beating well after each addition.
  2. Pour into well greased and floured Bundt or Tube pan and bake at 325 degrees for about 60 minutes or until tester comes out clean.
Marcel's Culinary Experience https://www.marcelsculinaryexperience.com/

Filed Under: Desserts, Recipes Tagged With: baking, Dessert, Glen Ellyn, pound cake, recipe, vanilla, yogurt

Beignets

February 15, 2018 by Jill Foucre Leave a Comment

Beignets
2018-02-15 21:33:48
Yields 24
Print
Ingredients
  1. 1 cup warm water, 110 degrees
  2. 3 tablespoons granulated sugar, divided
  3. 1 tablespoon instant or rapid-rise yeast
  4. 15 ounces all-purpose flour, plus more for rolling
  5. 3/4 teaspoon of salt
  6. 2 eggs
  7. 2 tablespoons of canola oil
  8. Canola oil, for frying
  9. Confectioners’ sugar for finishing
Instructions
  1. Combine warm water, 1 tablespoon granulated sugar and yeast in large bowl. Let sit, about 5 minutes, until foamy. In separate bowl, combine flour, 2 remaining tablespoons sugar and salt. Whisk eggs and 2 tablespoons canola oil into foamed yeast water. Add flour mixture to liquid and vigorously stir with rubber spatula until all flour is incorporated. Cover with plastic wrap and place in refrigerator to rise until doubled in size, about 1 hour.
  2. Place a wire rack in a rimmed baking sheet. Dust a separate rimmed baking sheet with flour. Add enough canola oil to heavy-bottomed Dutch oven to measure 1 1/2-inches deep. Heat oil to 350 degrees over medium high heat. While oil is heating (after dough has doubled in size), finish preparing beignets. Heavily dust clean work surface with additional flour. Place half of dough on floured work surface and gently coat in flour using a bench scraper to turn dough and to keep from sticking to surface. Pat dough in to rectangle with well-floured hands. Roll dough to 1/4-inch thickness, about 12x9 inches. Using a pizza wheel, cut into twelve 3-inch squares. Place squares on floured baking sheet.
  3. Fry beignets, about 4-6 at a time depending on size of pot, until golden brown, about 3 minutes total, flipping halfway through frying. Use slotted spoon to transfer beignets to wire rack on rimmed backing sheet. Repeat with remaining beignets, being sure to maintain oil at 325-350 degrees during frying. Generously dust finished beignets with confectioners’ sugar and serve immediately.
Adapted from Cooks Illustrated
Adapted from Cooks Illustrated
Marcel's Culinary Experience https://www.marcelsculinaryexperience.com/

Filed Under: Baked Goods, Desserts, Recipes Tagged With: baked goods, baking, beignets, cooking, Dessert, doughnuts, Glen Ellyn, recipe

My New Relationship With Yeast by Kelly Sears

January 4, 2018 by Jill Foucre Leave a Comment

After the cork pops, the ball drops, and all the decorations are put away, it’s time for the resolutions; the promises.  The time when we vow to turn the shoulda, coulda, woulda’s from the past year into motion in the new one.

The New Year to me is a clean sheet of white paper and a box of ten new pencils.  I love pencils, they allow forgiveness; a quick erase and the to-do list of twenty can become fifteen with just a flip upside down and a couple of sturdy set of swipes from left to right. Pencils allow for breathing room, edits, scratch outs and drafts.  Pen is permanent and seems super strict. For those of you under 25, a pencil is made of wood, has a strip of graphite running down the middle, starts sharp, after a series of bright ideas and big plans, whittles down to dull, can be sharpened again and you hold it in your hand and write on paper. Genius!

With the clean sheet of paper and the sharp new pencil, I write a list of things I would like to learn in the new year. My list rarely includes quitting a bad habit, losing pounds, or starting some new system.  These seem like processes to me; adjustments that require life changes to be successful, and a completely different blog post!

Some years the list includes things I fear, some years it includes things I haven’t made time for, in other years, on the list is something I think I should know, and yet others, that list includes something that seems really cool to know. In 2017 among other things, my list included learning to knit (epic fail), trying bungee Pilates (the comedic value alone was worth the effort), make a really good pie (satisfying), and baking a better loaf of bread (yes!!).

I’m not sure how I could have a friendship that has withstood forty years and a marriage of nearly thirty, and I couldn’t figure out how to have a relationship with yeast.  Sometimes, getting better at something starts with one move, deciding to do so. Whatever material you built the wall from to mentally stop you from doing it, is usually not made of kryptonite and usually crumbles once you make the decision to take action. Even doing nothing is doing something.

Back to bread, I enrolled myself in a four day boot camp in Ann Arbor at Zingerman’s Bakehouse.  For four days I surrounded myself with all things yeast and dough, shut my mouth and opened my ears.  Life Changing!

I embraced this new skill with gusto.  Soon I was baking six or seven loaves of bread a week and had multiple varieties of sourdough starter feasting. I purchased proofing baskets, lames, linen couches, and cast iron loaf pans.  My countertops continually had something rising at different stages and I asked my husband if he could build me a proofing box.  It was at this point, I got the look.  The look you get after nearly thirty years of marriage, the one that requires no words.  This look, in my world, usually translates to “perhaps we are taking this bread thing a bit too far;” grab some reins, apply the brakes.

He’s usually right.  My new found skills tend to teeter on obsession.  In my quest to master, I forget time and space, I forget the real reason I began the journey to begin with.  Learning a skill is all about empowerment; education + knowledge = power.  Once you learn how to do something you didn’t know how to do before, you no longer have to rely on others to do something for you.  Intrepidation is stifling. Remove hesitation and the results are unharnessed creativity and freedom.

As with most things one fears, once you face it, it’s never that scary, and the lessons learned transcend just bread making and baking.  On the journey to soft rolls, French loaves, cinnamon swirl breakfast bread, multigrain sandwich loaf, sourdough boules, crusty peasant bread, and warm brioche, this is what happened…..

Patience– like good conversation, friendship, wine, and marriage, a really good loaf of bread takes time

Renewed commitment – sourdough starter, when ignored for too long dies, if you feed it a little everyday it flourishes.  It only takes a little energy every day to keep the fire burning, without it, the light will go out.

Trust your instincts – even if the instructions say one thing, listen, smell, taste, adjust; follow your gut

Create a good environment – goodness thrives in a happy place

Recycle – stale bread = croutons, toast, and bread crumbs, heals are the best part of the loaf and make the best mop to sop of the bottom of the bowl, mistakes still taste good even if they don’t look good, save some of the dough to create the next loaf, old dough makes new dough taste better

Close your mouth and open your ears – it’s amazing what you can hear when you turn your voice off and your ears on!

Share – most recipes yield two loaves for a reason; eat one, share one.  They taste better that way.

Whatever your paper and pencil have in store for you this New Year, embrace the results.  Even with epic fails, you never stop learning. Keep tweaking; adjusting, trying new things, you just might learn something completely different along the way.

 

Warm Dinner Rolls
2018-01-04 14:35:38
Print
Ingredients
  1. 12.5 ounces water (room temperature)
  2. .375 ounces instant yeast
  3. 21 ounces bread flour
  4. 2 teaspoons salt
  5. 1 ounce sugar
  6. .5 ounce non-fat milk solids
  7. 2 ounces butter, softened
  8. Egg wash: one egg, one tablespoon milk
  9. Sea salt for sprinkling on top
Instructions
  1. In a large bowl combine the water, yeast and half the bread flour. Stir together until the mixture is shaggy. Add the rest of the ingredients.
  2. Using a bench scraper, spin the bowl as you scoop around the outside of the bowl, tossing the dough towards the middle of the bowl with each turn. Once the dough comes together in a rough ball, spill the dough out onto the counter (no flour!). Work the dough together into a tighter ball and then knead until the dough is soft and smooth. Press the inside of your wrist against the dough, if it doesn’t stick, the dough is ready to rest. (this process should take about five minutes or a little less if you put a little muscle into it)
  3. Place dough in an lightly oiled ball, cover and proof until double in size- about an hour in the right conditions – around 80-85 degrees.
  4. Scale the dough into 1 oz. size; Make up rolls into desired shapes. Place rolls 2 inches apart on paper-lined baking sheets. Proof until double in size (about 30-45 minutes).
  5. Egg wash; dust with salt, bake at 400 degrees until brown – about 20 minutes.
Marcel's Culinary Experience https://www.marcelsculinaryexperience.com/

 

Filed Under: Chef Talk Tagged With: baking, blog, bread, Glen Ellyn, new year, recipe, rolls, yeast, Zingerman's Bakehouse

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