Week 12 - Coffee Caramel Cake (Don't get excited; this was a recipe fail)

Coffee Caramel Cake

Recipe 12 - 52 in 2022

Dessert #2

    This recipe comes from Simple Delights - Coffee & Tea published in 1996 by Salamander Books in London, UK.  I had high hopes for this cake. However, the recipe calls for 'self rising' flour. I had 'all purpose' flour and didn't think about it making a difference, until I was realized that the recipe doesn't call for salt, baking soda or baking powder. I baked the cake anyhow and it definitely didn't rise. I tasted it and it didn't taste awful, but it wasn't worthy of making the frosting for it. So, this was a FAIL for me. No fault of the recipe though. I may try it again sometime and it sounds like it would be yummy, so even though it didn't work out for me, go ahead and try it. 

Cake Ingredients:

2 cups self-rising flour

3/4 cup butter, softened

3/4 cup superfine sugar

3 eggs, beaten

7 tablespoons strong coffee

Frosting Ingredients:

1/2 cup half and half

1/2 cup plus 1 tablespoon butter

3 tablespoons superfine sugar

3 3/4 cups powdered sugar

chocolate-covered coffee beans, to decorate

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease 2 8-inch round cake pans. The original recipe calls for lining the bottoms with waxed paper, which I did not do. Sift flour three times and set aside. Beat together butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs a little at a time. Fold in flour and coffee, a little of each at a time. Divide batter between your pans and bake for 30 minutes, until slightly shrinking from the sides of your pans. Cool in pans for five minutes and then transfer to wire racks to cool completely. 

For the frosting, warm half and half and butter in a saucepan. In another pan, heat sugar over low heat until it dissolves and turns a golden caramel color. Turn off the heat, stir in warmed half and half. Take care, as it may splatter. Return to heat and stir until the caramel has dissolved. Remove from heat and slowly stir in powdered sugar. Beat until frosting is smooth for spreading. 

To decorate, lay one layer on a cake plate and frost the top. Gently lay the 2nd layer over top and spread the frosting on top and around the cake. Decorate with the coffee beans. 

Bonus Recipe - Apple Fritter Bread

Bonus Recipe 

Apple Fritter Bread 

    This Apple Fritter Bread recipe is one cut out from a newspaper, but I do not know which paper. It was part of some packing paper an aunt of mine used when sending me a box of things. My aunt lives in sort of Southwest Central Iowa; Southwest of Des Moines, so it would be a paper local to her.  I also don't have an exact date, but the most recent year noted in an article related to hog farming, is 2017. I believe this is from late 2017 or early 2018. Anyhow, I'd made this bread at least one time before and I don't know what I did different this time, but it turned out really good this time around. I made this on March 19, 2022 and shared some with friends and co-workers. I would not change a thing about this recipe. Try it and enjoy it. It's fabulous with coffee and tea, or milk. I really love this recipe and I hope you do as well. 

Ingredients:

1/3 cup brown sugar

1 tsp ground cinnamon

2/3 cup white sugar

1/2 cup butter, softened

2 eggs

1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

3/4 tsp baking powder

1/2 cup milk

1 apple, peeled and chopped (any kind of apple is fine), mixed with 1 tbsp sugar and 1/2 tsp cinnamon

Glaze: 1 cup powdered sugar, plus 1 - 3 tbsp of milk or cream (I used 3 tbsp)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees; grease and flour a 9x5 inch loaf pan. I used cooking spray and flour. You could also grease and then line with parchment paper, but I didn't see a need for that. 

Mix brown sugar and cinnamon in a bowl and set aside. Beat white sugar and butter together using an electric mixer (if you have one) until smooth and creamy. Beat in eggs, one at a time and add vanilla. Combine flour and baking powder in a bowl and stir it into your creamed butter mixture. Stir your milk into batter until smooth. Pour half the batter into your loaf pan; add half of the apples and half of the brown sugar mixture. Pat your apples lightly into the batter. Pour the remaining batter over the apple layer and repeat the process with apples and cinnamon mixture. You can swirl the brown sugar mixture through the apples using a knife or fork. 

Bake until a toothpick (I used a long wooden kabob skewer) inserted in the center of the loaf comes out clean; this should be 50 to 60 minutes. For my oven, I left it in the full 60 minutes. While the loaf cools, make your glaze and after 15 minutes, drizzle glaze over the loaf. 

Apple Fritter Bread

Beautiful Slices Of Apple Fritter Bread

Week 11 - Green Peppers, Roman Style (Peperoni a Pomodori)

 Green Peppers, Roman Style (Peperoni e Pomodori)

Recipe 11 - 52 in 2022

Side Dish #2

    This recipe comes from Better Homes & Gardens - Meals with a Foreign Flair, published in 1963. I think this cookbook is interesting, because it feels to me like the early 1960s is when the basic, American housewives and their families started experimenting with foods from other cultures. I personally love trying foods from different cultures and I enjoyed looking through this book for a recipe. I've made Italian food before; I've just never made a dish with the main ingredient being green peppers. The recipe calls for only 1 teaspoon of basil, but a little more would be fine also. It was pretty easy to make and would be tasty with a side of or on top of your favorite pasta and chicken or beef. I didn't have pasta ready to make, but I did have some leftover sirloin steak, cooked to medium rare, so I just had a simple dinner of the peppers and the steak. You could have this as a meal, just with garlic bread.  

    I thought this sauce was good and it would work with other vegetables as well. Maybe some sliced zucchini or yellow squash, or maybe even served as sauce on spaghetti squash. I liked this with the green peppers, but would be interested in trying it with zucchini or yellow squash. Whatever you decide, green peppers or substituting zucchini or spaghetti squash, I hope you enjoy this side dish.  

Ingredients:

1/2 cup thinly slice onion

2 cloves, garlic, minced (I used 3 cloves)

1/4 cup olive oil (I forgot I bought olive oil and used canola)

2 cups stewed tomatoes

2 teaspoons sugar

1 teaspoon salt

Dash pepper (I used about 1/8 teaspoon)

1/2 teaspoon basil

4 to 5 large green peppers, cut in strips, 3/4 inch wide (4 cups) (I used 5 peppers)

Directions:

Cook onion and garlic in 1 tablespoon oil in a large skillet until tender; add tomatoes and seasonings. Simmer uncovered for 20 minutes. In a separate large skillet, cook peppers in the remaining oil, turning often, until crisp-tender. The original directions say to "Remove to warm dish; season. Pour sauce over." However, I simply used a large pair of tongs to move the peppers into the skillet with the sauce and combined.  Serve with parmesan cheese and red chili flakes. Serves 5 to 6. 

Green Peppers, Roman Style (Peperoni a Pomodoi)

Green Peppers, Roman Style (Peperoni a Pomodoi)
with Parmesan Cheese

Bonus Recipe - Potatoes with Paneer cheese and Leeks

 Bonus Recipe - Butter Chicken Seasoned Potatoes with Paneer Cheese and Leeks

    I had ingredients I needed to use before they went bad. Small potatoes and one leek. What to do? I had chicken broth (you can use vegetable broth) and Patak's - Butter Chicken Seasoning Paste in my refrigerator and decided to make this. I really liked how this came out, but I would try to make it spicier next time. 

Ingredients:

small/baby potatoes or large potatoes (However many you want to cook up; I had about 15 small/baby potatoes)

1 leek, chopped leek

2 cups chicken broth

1 cup cubed paneer cheese

3 tablespoons butter chicken seasoning paste

oil or cooking spray

Directions:

Cube potatoes and cook until soft in boiling water. While your potatoes are cooking, heat a large skillet, add about a tablespoon of oil or generously coat your skillet with cooking spray. When your oil/cooking spray is heated, add the cubed paneer cheese and cook until softer and there are bits of brown on the cubes. Add the leek; cook for a couple minutes and add the chicken broth. Heat till bubbling and thicken with corn starch or flour. Drain cooked potatoes and combine the paneer cheese mixture with the potatoes. Serve with additional chopped leeks (if you like) or even crushed peanuts, raisins, sweet relish or coconut flakes. 

Butter Chicken Seasoned Potatoes with Paneer Cheese and Leeks 

Butter Chicken Seasoned Paneer Cheese and Leek Sauce 

Week 10 - English Muffins

 English Muffins

Recipe 10 - 52 in 2022

Bread #2

    Bread recipe #2 is "English Muffins" comes from the same 1941 (fourteenth printing) of The Household Searchlight Recipe Book that Recipe #9 "Chicken Salad" came from.  So, yeah, I had fun making these, but they didn't turn out like I'd hoped. I thought there'd been too much flour in the first attempt and the batter/dough wouldn't drop like the directions, so I made a second attempt and used one cup less flour. It was obviously a thinner batter and I let that batter set for longer to "get lighter", which I guess meant for it to rise a bit. While that second attempt was "getting lighter", I did make one last muffin with the first batch of batter/dough and that muffin came out much thicker and looked more like a store bought English muffin.  The texture of the muffins with the original batter/dough, were more like the store bought English muffin texture, with the nooks and crannies. The texture of muffins from the second attempt, did not have the nooks and crannies.

    In the recipe's directions, you are supposed to soften the yeast in the milk and I didn't know how long to do that for. The first attempt, I didn't let it soak for long and the second attempt I soaked the yeast for like 20-30 minutes (guesstimate) 

    The taste on both batches of English muffins was fine, but again, they also turned out mostly flat, looking more like pancakes. Even though these didn't turn out like I wanted, they'd be great to serve with a thick stew or curry. Would I want to try making these again? Kind of/ sort of. I want English muffins, but I think it would/will take several attempts to 'perfect'. 

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups milk, scaled and cooled

1 tablespoon sugar

3 cups flour

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 cake compressed yeast or 1/2 cake dry yeast (I had to figure out an equivalent for a 'cake' of yeast; that answer is 1/2 of a packet of dry yeast (I used 1/2 a packet of Fleischmann's dry yeast)

1 egg, well beaten

1/8 teaspoon baking soda 

Directions:

Soften yeast in the cooled milk and add the sugar and salt. Add flour and mix thoroughly. (The original directions say to "Add sufficient flour to make a drop batter.", but the directions also calls for three cups of flour. I chose to use the full three cups flour in the first attempt and just two cups flour in the second attempt.) Set in a warm place and "allow to become light" (which I took to mean let the batter/dough rise). Add egg and baking soda. Mix thoroughly and drop on to hot griddle (If you have muffin rings, drop batter/dough into the ring, to help with making that round shape). Cook slowly on one side, then turn and cook the other side. 

Split muffin from the first attempt

Split muffin from the first attempt, served with homemade cherry preserves

Sad muffin from the second attempt

Muffins from the second attempt

Split muffin from the second attempt