Scratch Cooking October 18th

This weekend was all about going through piles of papers and baking stuff in between. You know the piles I'm talking about. We all have them. They're the piles that we make of "I'll deal with this later" papers, mailings, letters, notices. This weekend, I whittled them down to next to nothing. Hooray! Okay, so my next to nothing is like 4 piles, but still, you can see my desk again!

Ah, but who cares about piles of paper, it's the cooking in between that matters.

Yesterday I made mini quiches again. This time the filling had 1/4 cup chopped chantrelle mushrooms, 1 chopped small onion and 1/4 cup of thinly sliced basil leaves sauteed in about 2 tablespoons of butter until it was dry. I crumbled in some blue cheese, put in some filling and poured the custard over it (1 1/2 cups half and half, cream or milk with 3 beaten eggs and a pinch of nutmeg, salt and pepper.) The extra I baked in a dish so I could try it. Oh, how I love blue cheese!

I also made a recipe I hadn't tried in years. It's the Norwegian Coffee Cake from the Tassajara Bread Book (the whole book is available on Google books). It's a sweet yeasted bread with cardamom. If you follow the original recipe, it makes a LOT of dough. The first time I made it, when I was in high school, I used the maximum proportions of ingredients (8 eggs, 12 cups of flour) I have no idea why other than I didn't have a good sense of how much that would actually make. I baked it in a giant red pot (It might have been a lobster pot!) and even then, it was overflowing. It looked like a giant popover from the tea party in Alice in Wonderland. I had never heard of cardamom before that and the fragrance was totally intoxicating. And the taste, too!

Here's the recipe for a much smaller version, small enough to bake in a bundt pan!:

First you mix 1 1/2 tablespoons yeast (2 packages) with 1 1/4 cups whole milk, scalded and cooled to lukewarm, 1 1/2 cups white flour and 2 tablespoons brown sugar. Set aside and in a mixer, beat 1/2 cup brown sugar, 1/2 cup butter and 3 eggs. Fold egg mixture into dough. along with 1 teaspoon salt, 1/2 teaspoon cardamom, 1 teaspoon lemon peel, 2 cups whole wheat flour and 1 1/2 cups white flour. Knead, let rise 40 minutes. Put in a greased pan. Let rise 30 minutes and bake at 375 for 45 minutes. You can also use the dough to make cinnamon buns or any kind of sweet, yeasted pastry. You can also put icing on it, or just toast it with butter and jam.

Speaking of cinnamon buns, I also wanted to make something I could eat, so I made a variation on the cinnamon roll recipe in the Complete Gluten-Free Cookbook. Mix 1 cup sorghum flour with 3/4 cup garfava (or other whole bean) flour, 2/3 cup tapioca starch, 1/2 cup cornstarch, 2 tablespoons potato flour (NOT starch), 1/2 cup sugar, 1 tablespoon xantham gum, 4 teaspoons yeast, 1 1/4 teaspoon salt and 1 teaspoon dough conditioner (optional). Set aside. In a mixer with the paddle attachment, combine 1 cup milk, 2 tablespoons safflower or other vegetable oil, 1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar and 2 eggs. Beat until well mixed. Add the flour and mix for about 4 minutes.

Split the dough in 2, make into a square about 1/2 inch thick and wrap in plastic wrap dusted with sorghum flour. Refrigerate at least 2 hours (I left mine over night).

Combine 1/2 cup melted butter, 1/3 cup brown sugar and 1/3 cup cornsyrup. Pour into 13 x 9 inch pan and sprinkle with pecan and walnut halves.

For the filling, combine 3/4 cup chopped walnuts, 1/3 cup brown sugar, 1/3 cup soft butter, 1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon and 1 peeled and chopped apple.

Take out one packet of dough. Put it on a piece of parchment paper sprinkled with sorghum flour. sprinkle more sorghum flour on top and put a piece of parchment over it. Roll out into a rectangle about 1/4 inch thick. Remove the top piece of parchment. Spread half the filling on the dough. Roll up the long way, like a carpet and cut into pieces about 2 inches thick. Put each piece cut side down in the pan on top of the syrup and nuts. Repeat with other packet of dough.

Let rise about 2 hours until double in size. Bake at 350 for 40 minutes. Cover with tinfoil and bake another 10 minutes. Remove from the pan after 5 minutes, otherwise they will stick! And believe me, you won't want to lose any to the pan, you will want to eat every bite!