Granola-topped pumpkin bread

For years I thought pumpkins were only good for two things: Jack-o-lanterns and halva. Eventually soups and pies were added to the list.

There it stood for years: four uses, take 'em or leave 'em.

That is, until this year.

Mum handed me a 796ml tin of pumpkin purée, with the expectation of a Thanksgiving pie. The pie (well, tarte, if we want to be all foofy about it) was made...but that left about 2/3 of the purée unused. You see, she thought that entire tin would be used for one 8-inch pie. Umm...no.

I wasn't in the mood for a soup and I didn't have the energy or the time to make halva (even my easypeasy version). I didn't want more pies. Without the carcass, I couldn't make a jack-o-lantern...and if I did have it, it doesn't help me with the purée issue.

I've known for a while about pumpkin cakes and cookies, and after some research I found some ideas. Unlike some other ingredients, my instincts told me to trust home cooks (as opposed to FoodTV or cookbook writers) with this one. And I was right. In my dog-eared book by the good people at Harrowsmith, I found the recipe..which, true to form, I didn't follow exactly (grin).

I was very pleasantly surprised about how good it was.

It was like a a pumpkin pie had a love child with a poundcake...and the progeny had a thing on the side with some granola-loving hippies.

A nicer autumn breakfast (smeared with sweet butter, of course), I can't think of.


Pumpkin loaf
adapted from Pumpkin Yoghurt Cake from The Harrowsmith Cookbook Vol III, p252

350g ap flour
1tsp bicarbonate of soda
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ginger
1/4 tsp cloves
1/4 tsp cardamom
90 ml flavourless oil
200g sugar
2 eggs, beaten
1 tsp vanilla
250ml buttermilk
220g pureed pumpkin
a few handfuls of granola

Preheat oven to 170C/350F and line a 1-lb loaf tin with parchment paper.

Sift together flour, bicarb and spices.

Mix sugar and oil together, then beat in eggs and vanilla.

Mix in flour and yoghurt mixtures alternatly into the egg mixture (flour-yoghurt-flour-yoghut-flour), scraping the bowl's sides down as needed. Give everything a good mix and then pour into prepared loaf pan. Top with granola.

Bake for about 55-65 minutes or until an inserted skewer comes out clean.

Related post: Pumpkin Bread and Butter Pudding

cheers!
jasmine


I'm a quill for hire!

Comfort and Restoration: Chicken Broth

School's back in, the weather's turned cold and sniffles are everywhere. Add the current H1N1 meme to the mix and people are queued for injections, emptying shop shelves of antibacterial everything and screens of e-mails proffering "helpful hints" as to how to spot and avoid the 'flu, including giving up hugging and handshaking in hopes of "staying healthy." (Bah to that I say. Bah)

Watercooler talk has turned from the latest political discussions on pensions, media ownership and why Canadians didn't show up to greet Charles and Camilla to whether or not we'll be jabbed, whose child has been bedridden and what our individual bits of preventative and/or curative voodoo we each practise.

Regardless, when illness hits--whether it's a cold or a flu--many people turn to the revered chicken soup to, at the very least, make one feel all warm inside. Granted, some people grab a tin off the shelf and simply heat what marketers, bean counters and dieticians have dictated. Others zhuzh it up with bits of this and that. Others make it from scratch.

Me, I'll waver. If I happen to have any homemade stock in the freezer, I'll use that as my soup base, otherwise I'll doctor up store-bought.

Even though homemade soups are, I think, non-recipe recipes, mine generally start off the same way: chopped onions, sweated to translucency, garlic and then when it perfumes, add liquid, veggies, whatever meats, spices and herbs and then simmered until ready. That's what I call a "normal" soup.

Unsurprisingly, my curative broths contain a mélange of various peppers, seeds, herbs and roots. Little doubt remains of the South Indian under-, mid-, and over-tones in each spoonful. Veggies are whatever I have on hand, same for starches (noodles or rice), meat is (really) optional...but poaching a chicken breast or thigh in cartoned broth to give the illusion of a home made soup isn't unheard of.

Every once in a while, when I've collected enough chicken bits--wing tips, bones, bits of carcass--in my freezer, I'll start a stock.

No. I don't pretend to be some domestic goddess clad in a gingham dress feigning some ill-placed sense of moral superiority.

Stockmaking: It's easy. It basically looks after itself. It tastes better than what's found in tins or cartons. It's time consuming. It's cheap.

Stocks are also non-recipe recipes too. Put veggies, animal bits, and basic spices in a pot and more than cover it all with cold water. Heat, scum, heat some more, scum some more. Let it simmer until the veggies and bones have had all their innate goodnesses extracted...or as much as you want extracted. Strain, if desired. Use what you need within a few days; freeze the rest.

The recipe below is essentially the above, but quantified to a certain extent. I must admit to being sheepish about finished quantities, because of the variables of the amount of cold water you start off with and how long you let it boil (and, as a result, evaporate). Regardless, it's a worthwhile exercise, on a cool autumn night, before flu season sets in.

Golden Chicken Broth
yields 3 or more L of finished broth

1.2kg chicken, washed and jointed
2 medium cooking onions, skin on, quartered
3-5 garlic cloves, halved
1-2 carrots, cut into big chunks
1 celery rib, cut into big chunks
1 leek, cut into big chunks
2 sprigs parsley
1.5 tsp black peppercorns, crushed
salt

Place all ingredients in a stockpot or a Dutch oven and cover with 4-6 litres of cold water, depending upon the volume capacity of your pot. Set the hob to medium-low.

After about 30-45 minutes, a layer of scummy foam will set itself on top of the water. Remove and discard as much of it as possible, while trying to keep as much of the schmaltz in the pot. Increase the heat to medium and continue removing scum every 30 minutes, until there's no more to be scummed.

Let boil, uncovered, occasionally and lazily stirring whenever the mood strikes. From time to time slurp some from your tasting spoon checking not only for salt, but also for desired depth of flavour. By my books, the stock is done when all the veggies yield to the slightest pressure of tongs, a spoon or fork. The total cooking time could be anywhere from four to six hours, depending upon your kitchen gods and how deeply flavoured you like your stock.

When done, remove the chicken herbs and veggies from the pot. If desired, strain through cheesecloth to clarify the broth.

cheers!
jasmine

I'm a quill for hire!

Daring Bakers: Claudia Fleming's Macarons...or is it macaroons?

Recipe: Macaroons
Recipe origins: Claudia Fleming's The Last Course: The Desserts of Gramercy TavernHostess: Ami. S of Baking Without Fear

The 2009 October Daring Bakers’ challenge was brought to us by Ami S. She chose macarons from Claudia Fleming’s The Last Course: The Desserts of Gramercy Tavern as the challenge recipe.

Hosting a Daring Bakers' challenge is not an easy thing. Trust me, I know.

There's a wide range of abilities, experience and attitudes. From those who've never stepped foot into a kitchen (I could comment, but I won't) to those who probably own a professional kitchen. From those who try and keep to DB origins and follow a recipe exactly as written (unless there are financial, ethical or health reasons that force otherwise) to those who think of themselves as the sparkliest snowflakes of all, believing rules do not apply to them and will present a chocolate sponge as a completed challenge when the host called for a lemon meringue. metric vs Imperial, weights vs. volumes...it can be quite the tempest in a teapot.

Whenever I've come across a recipe I wasn't sure of I've done my best with it and have tried to post an accurate account of my adventures. Sometimes they are straightforward and produce fantastically tasty treats, sometimes as convoluted as Suicide Squid's origin story that sometimes produce the same fantastically tasty treats...but sometimes not so tasty treats.

When the results are good, they are very good. When they aren't, well, I try not to be unduly spiteful...quite honestly, I don't know how succesful I am at the not being unduly spiteful part.

So when it came to this month's DB challenge...well, I wasn't sure what to expect. Partly because I didn't know if I was making macarons...or macaroons. The write-up said "macaroon" but as the accompanying photos didn't look like the coconutty mini-mountains, and looked like a cross between 19thC nightcaps and happy little jellyfish, I assumed they were macarons.

Semantics, yes...but it's important.

Anyway...I've never made either before. I've eaten macaroons. I've never eaten a macaron.

I'm going on blind faith that whatever this recipe produces is a macaron.

The batter came together well enough, I suppose. I was a little concerned after the first third of the whites were incorporated as it just seemed too crumbly. By the final third, it looked good.

Which was probably the last time it actually looked good.

The first baking seemed okay...they were round and poofy, but rather lacklustre.

By the time the oven came to temp for the second baking the round, poofy lacklustryness collapsted into themselves...they kind of looked like a beanbag chair that lost the essence of being a chair.

When I took them out of the oven...they looked...rumpled. Like punching bags that had been punched one time too many.

Not all of them turned out--and that is, I think a fault of Beelzebub--of the 20 blobs (I scaled the recipe down to 40 per cent), 10 had charred bottoms: a hazard of using a stove possessed by the spirit of a lazy food-hating daemon who'd rather see me reliant upon big-box processed microwavable fud than...well...bake.

I will say of those that survived the baking process, most of them had the little feet or jellyfish skirt that I've seen in photos. For that I'm rather tickled.

So that left me 10 blobs, enough for five sandwich cookies. Given there's only one of me, five cookies are absolutely fine. Part of the challenge was to fill them and quite honestly, I wasn't very imaginative and reached for the last of the raspberry jam. Almonds, raspberries--very Bakewell Tart-like.


What did I think? Well, I'm not sure if they came out as they should. I'm also not entirely sure of the texture. I thought they'd be light and crisp not light-ish and chewy.

I've read a few Tweets by more experienced bakers than I voicing concern over the recipe, so maybe they're a better judge of this recipe than I.

But I do know I want to try my hand at macaron-making, but perhaps with a different recipe.

Click here for a list of participating Daring Bakers.

cheers!
jasmine


I'm a quill for hire!