Duff Bakes!

Duff Goldman, from Baltimore's own Charm City Cakes, is coming to town to sign copies of his new book, Duff Bakes: Think and Bake Like a Pro at Home.

Date: Wednesday, November 11, 2015
Time: 7:00pm – 9:00pm
Location: Atomic Books
3620 Falls Rd.
Baltimore, MD 21211
RSVP: https://www.facebook.com/events/410758462465829/

Filled with must-bake (and must-eat) favorites, DUFF BAKES has chapters on different types of pastry dough, a variety of cookies, blondies, muffins, bread, biscuits, pies, cakes and cake decorating, a whole chapter of gluten-free and vegan desserts, and much more. The 135 recipes include nutter butter cookies, white chocolate blondies, apple streusel muffins, cereal bars, bacon jalapeno biscuits, banana bourbon cream pie, zucchini lemon cake, and savory bread pudding, along with a few classics, like a re-make of the childhood favorite, Twinkies. And, yes, there are a few fun cake decorating projects with step-by-step photos to make it fun for all ages. It’s the perfect book for enthusiastic home bakers, young and old.

Posted on Minxeats.com.

Mexican Blini

Why is it that buttermilk only seems to come in quarts? Most recipes call for a cup, maybe two, of the stuff, but there are four cups in a quart. What to do with the leftover buttermilk?

I happened to be thumbing through one of my many cookbooks, Vegetarian Planet, and found a recipe for masa cakes that require 1 2/3 cups buttermilk, plus masa, corn kernels, and a few other ingredients we already had on hand.

I don't know why I don't use that book more often. It's terrific.

We also had various other oddments in the fridge. A bit of smoked trout. Some leftover tomatillo salsa. Pomegranate arils. Rather than serve the masa cakes as a straight-up sort of Latino thing, I topped them with smoked trout and sour cream and made them blini-ish. Of course, they were nowhere near as delicate as a properly made blini, but they sure did taste good. And isn't that all that really matters?

Mexican Blini (adapted from Vegetarian Planet)

2 eggs
1 2/3 cup buttermilk
3 tablespoons melted, cooled, unsalted butter (divided use)
1 1/2 cups masa harina
1 cup white flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 cup corn kernels, thawed if frozen
Tomatillo salsa (recipe follows)
Sour cream
Smoked trout (optional)
Pomegranate seeds
Chopped parsley or cilantro

Beat the eggs and add the buttermilk and 2 tablespoons of the butter. Gradually stir in the masa, flour, salt, sugar, and baking soda. Stir well until the mixture forms a mass. Stir in the corn.

Add the remaining tablespoon of melted butter to a large skillet over medium heat. Make small patties with the masa dough, about 3" in diameter, and place in the hot pan. (If you have too many patties to fit without crowding, make them in two batches.) Cook until the undersides of the cakes are browned, 3-4 minutes. Flip and cook 4 minutes on the other side.

To serve: puddle some of the tomatillo salsa on a plate. Top with 2-3 masa cakes. On each masa cake, place a dollop of sour cream, a bit of smoked trout, and garnish with the pomegranate seeds and parsley or cilantro.

Tomatillo Salsa

4-5 tomatillos
2 jalapeno peppers
3 scallions
Handful fresh cilantro
1 small clove garlic
1-2 teaspoons brown sugar
Pinch cumin
Salt, to taste

Remove husks from tomatillos, rinse them and cut into quarters. Stem and deseed the jalapenos (leave some seeds in, if you want more heat). Remove root end from scallions and chop remainder into 1" pieces.

Put tomatillos, jalapenos, scallions, cilantro, and garlic into a blender and puree. Pour into a saucepan and bring to a boil. Stir in the brown sugar, cumin, and salt. Cook about 5 minutes, until mixture darkens. Taste for seasoning, adding more sugar or salt if you think it needs it. It should mostly be tart, but not sour.



Posted on Minxeats.com.

Chipotle Cherry Brownies

Regular Minxeats readers have to know that I am obsessed with brownies. Obsessed. (Well, not really, but that's one of those words you young'uns use all the time, regardless of its actual meaning. I'm trying to be hip with the lingo.) I've tried many brownie recipes over the years, and posted a good many of them here, including one abomination made with Splenda and black beans. (Go ahead, read that post. It's one of my favorites. Read the comments, too, while you're at it.) My all-time favorite brownie recipe is the one found on cans of Ghirardelli Sweet Ground Chocolate and Cocoa. The large sugar-and-fat to flour ratio makes for brownies that are gooey and messy, as opposed to cakey. (I suppose cakey brownies have their place, but why not just eat cake?) Mmm. So good.

I must confess that when I saw The Messy Baker: More Than 75 Delicious Recipes from a Real Kitchen in my Amazon recommendations, I put it on my wish list solely because of the cover photo. Of brownies. Deep Dark Cherry Chipotle Brownies, no less. (Yes, that's the link to the recipe on her blog. No need for you to buy her book, too, unless you want all of the other goodies inside.) Nobody purchased the book for me last Christmas, so I took it off the wish list and put it in my shopping cart. In January. But I didn't pull the trigger to buy it until August. Of course, the first recipe I tried from the book was for those brownies.

At first taste, when they were just a bit warm, I wasn't sure of the texture. They're very fudgy and dense. Which is fine, better than cakey, but not as gooey as I like. So I refrigerated them, and that made all the difference in the world. Cold from the fridge, they are like candy. Chocolate candy crack. They are spicy, but not too (and I added the full teaspoon of ground chipotle) and fruity from the cherries, which does help cut back the heat. I also added some walnuts, to add a bit of crunch, plus I like walnuts in my brownies. They are really, really good. Really good.

I think I found my second-favorite brownie. Try them. If you don't like spicy, then skip the chipotle, substitute ancho instead, or leave the pepper out entirely. And eat them cold, straight from the fridge, with a glass of milk (or a bourbon, if you're me). You won't regret it.



Posted on Minxeats.com.

Cookbook Review - Cheers to Vegan Sweets

While I don't bake often, I do enjoy whipping up something sweet and cake-like from time to time. I have plenty of baking cookbooks on my shelves, but couldn't pass up a review copy of Kelly Peloza's new one, Cheers to Vegan Sweets: Drink-Inspired Vegan Desserts: From the Cafe to the Cocktail Lounge, Turn Your Sweet Sips Into Even Better Bites! Talk about a specialty cookbook! Not only are the 125 recipes for cookies, brownies, cupcakes, and cakes inspired by beverages (both alcoholic and non-alcoholic), but they're all vegan.

Vegan, of course, means no butter or eggs. Instead, the recipes call for vegan margarine (like Earth Balance, which is actually very good and far far FAR tastier than any other of those margarine products that taste like fake-butter popcorn topping), and in some cases, coconut oil, both available at Whole Foods and some larger supermarkets. As for egg replacers - there are none, which makes this cookbook accessible for pretty much everyone, since there are few hard-to-find ingredients.

I wanted to try every recipe, well, all of them except for the Kool-Aid cookies, but started with the bourbon banana bread, as I had three very ripe bananas begging to be turned into something. The result was pretty delicious, with strong banana flavor and a hint of bourbon, and the texture was moist and fluffy. Rather than bake it in a large loaf pan for 1 hour, I used three smaller ones that I baked for 35 minutes. They were perfect.

If you're vegan, have vegan friends, or aren't vegan at all, Cheers to Vegan Sweets might be a fun addition to your cookbook shelf. After all, one can certainly substitute real butter for the vegan margarine if they want.

I won't tell.

* Any products in this post that are mentioned by name may have been provided to Minxeats by the manufacturer. However, all opinions belong to Minxeats. Amazon links earn me $! Please buy!



Posted on Minxeats.com.