How about some high fiber zero calorie cupcakes? I recently made these cupcake shaped oven mitts for a friend of mine who likes to bake cupcakes.  I used a pattern by Susie C Shore Designs.  They were pretty easy to make, except for the thickness of the layers which caused me to snap two sewing machine needles.  The potholder body and frosting pieces for the hand slot are both padded with one layer of quilt batting and one layer of Insul-Bright batting which reflects heat/cold back to the source.

A refreshing Jasmine Green Tea Lemonade is just what I need on a warm and humid day like we’ve been having lately.  It seems that we’ve skipped spring and moved right into summer this year.   I first had this delicious drink at Samovar in the Yerba Buena Gardens of San Francisco last year and have been on a quest to create it at home ever since.  I’ve come pretty close and it’s certainly easier than driving into the city!  This addictive floral iced tea is barely sweetened with coconut sugar, agave nectar or honey and flavored with fresh lemon.

]]> http://www.bakenquilt.com/2012/04/jasmine-green-tea-lemonade/feed/ 0 http://www.bakenquilt.com/2012/04/april-daring-bakers-challenge-armenian-nazook-and-nutmeg-cake/ http://www.bakenquilt.com/2012/04/april-daring-bakers-challenge-armenian-nazook-and-nutmeg-cake/#comments Fri, 27 Apr 2012 08:00:48 +0000 Rebecca http://www.bakenquilt.com/?p=2076 Continue reading →]]> Blog Checking Lines:  The Daring Bakers’ April 2012 Challenge, hosted by Jason at Daily Candor, were two Armenian standards: nazook and nutmeg cake. Nazook is a layered yeasted dough pastry with a sweet filling, and nutmeg cake is a fragrant, nutty coffee-­style cake.

For this month’s challenge, Jason from Daily Candor, who is of Armenian descent, challenged us to try at least one of two Armenian treats, Nazook (or nazouk, or nazuk) and Nutmeg cake. I chose to make both and I started with the Nutmeg cake, which was adapted from The Commonsense Cookery Book by the NSW Cookery Teachers’ Scholarship Fund.  The Nutmeg cake is a coffee cake that is flavored with freshly ground nutmeg and it couldn’t be easier to make.  The dry ingredients and some butter are pulsed in a food processor to create crumbs.  Half of these crumbs are pressed into a springform pan.  The other half are mixed in the food processor with the wet ingredients, fresh nutmeg, and leavening.  The batter is poured over the crust and sprinkled with nuts and then baked until done.  The amount of fresh nutmeg called for in this recipe is a little scary sounding, but the full amount turned out to be the perfect flavoring for this cake which is rich and sweet.  It definitely needs some coffee to cut the sugar a bit and I might reduce the amount next time I make it.

Armenian Nutmeg Cake

• 1 cup (240 ml) milk (Jason uses whole, but nonfat or lowfat should be fine)
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 2 cups (480 ml) (280 gm/10 oz) all-­purpose(plain) flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 2 cups (480 ml) (400 gm/14 oz) brown sugar, firmly packed
• 3/4 cup (11⁄2 sticks) (180 ml) (170 gm/6 oz) butter, preferably unsalted, cubed
• 1/2 cup (120 ml) (55 gm/2 oz) walnut pieces, may need a little more
• 1 to 1-­1/2 teaspoons (5 to 7 1⁄2 ml) (5 to 8 gm) freshly grated nutmeg
• 1 egg

1. Preheat your oven to moderate 350°F/175°C/gas mark 4 .
2. Mix the baking soda (not baking powder) into the milk. Set aside.
3. Put the flour, baking powder, and the brown sugar into your food processor. Pulse until uniformly mixed.
4. Toss in the cubed butter. Pulse until uniformly mixed into tan-­colored crumbs.
5. Pour HALF of the crumbs into your 9″ spring-form pan. Press out a crust using fingers and knuckles.
6. Crack the egg into the food processor with the rest of the crumbs still in it.
7. Grate 1 to 1-­1/2 teaspoon of nutmeg. Toss that into the food processor, too. Pulse until well-­incorporated.
8. Pour in the milk and baking soda mixture. Continue to mix until a slightly lumpy tan batter is formed.
9. Pour the batter over the crust in the spring-form pan.
10. Gently sprinkle the walnut pieces over the batter.
11. Bake in a preheated moderate oven for 30-­40 minutes. It’s ready when the top is golden brown, and when it passes the toothpick test (comes out clean).
12. Cool the cake in the pan, and then dig in. Yum yum!

Notes:  I had to bake this much longer than specified, about 15 minutes more, until the center of my cake was no longer jiggly.  I also had a little bit of a problem with sticking, so I might grease the pan next time.  Also, I thought this recipe could benefit from just a pinch of salt.  If you don’t care for nutmeg, cinnamon or cardamon may also be used as flavoring.

After scarfing down the coffee cake, we gave ourselves a few days to recover and then I tried making the Nazook which is a recipe from Jason’s Aunt Aida.  Nazook is a pastry made from a lovely sour cream dough that is rolled out and spread with a flavored sugar and butter filling and then rolled up and sliced with a crinkle cutter.  The result is a flaky and sweet pastry that reminds me of Rugelach but with a more dry filling.  The traditional filling is a mixture of vanilla, sugar and butter and some versions may include ground nuts or a powder made from cherry pits.  I made one traditional batch of Nazook with the vanilla sugar filling and then I strayed a bit with a filling flavored with concentrated cherry juice and ground almonds and one with cocoa nibs.  These were very sweet and rich and I found that I preferred the cherry/almond and cocoa fillings as they cut the sweetness a bit.  I sent a few of these to work with my husband to try out on his Armenian colleague and got good reviews.  In fact, he said that he liked them better than any Nazook he’d had before!

Nazook

Pastry dough

• 3 cups (720 ml) (420 gm/15 oz) all-­purpose (plain) flour, sifted
• 21⁄2 teaspoons (121⁄2 ml) (7 gm) (1⁄4 oz) (1 packet) active dry yeast
• 1 cup (240 ml) (225 gm/8 oz) sour cream
• 1 cup (2 sticks) (240 ml) (225 gm/8 oz) softened butter (room temperature)

Filling

•  1 1/2 cups (360 ml) (210 gm) (71⁄2 oz) all-­purpose (plain) flour, sifted
• 1 1/2 cups (360 ml) (340 gm/12 oz) sugar
• 3/4 cup (11⁄2 sticks) (180 ml) (170 gm/6 oz) softened unsalted butter (room temperature)
• 2 teaspoons (10 ml) vanilla extract

Wash

• 1-­2 egg yolks (for the wash; alternatively, some yogurt, egg whites, or a whole egg)

Make the Pastry Dough

1. Place the sifted flour into a large bowl.
2. Add the dry yeast, and mix it in.
3. Add the sour cream, and the softened butter.
4. Use your hands, or a standing mixer with a paddle attachment, to work it into a dough.
5. If using a standing mixer, switch to a dough hook. If making manually, continue to knead for about 10 minutes, or until the dough no longer sticks to the bowl or your hands. If it remains very sticky, add some flour, a little at a time.
6. Cover the dough and refrigerate for 3-­5 hours, or overnight if you like.

Make the filling

1. Mix the flour, sugar, and the softened butter in a medium bowl.
2. Add the vanilla extract.
3. Mix the filling until it looks like clumpy, damp sand. It should not take long. Set aside.

Make the nazook

1. Preheat the oven to moderate 350°F/175°C/gas mark 4.
2. Cut the refrigerated dough into quarters.
3. Form one of the quarters into a ball. Dust your working surface with a little flour.
4. Roll out the dough into a large rectangle or oval. The dough should be thin, but not transparent.
5. Spread 1/4 of the filling mixture across the rolled-­out dough in an even layer. Try to spread the filling as close as possible to the edges on the short sides, but keep some of the pastry dough uncovered (1 inch/2.5 cm) along the long edges.
6. From one of the long sides, start slowly rolling the dough across. Be careful to make sure the filling stays evenly distributed. Roll all the way across until you have a long, thin loaf.
7. Pat down the loaf with your palm and fingers so that it flattens out a bit (just a bit).
8. Apply your egg yolk wash with a pastry brush.
9. Use your crinkle cutter (or knife) to cut the loaf into 10 equally-­sized pieces. Put onto an ungreased cookie sheet.
10. Place in a preheated moderate oven for about 30 minutes, until the tops are a rich, golden brown.
11. Allow to cool and enjoy!

Well over a year ago, a friend and I went to the Houston Quilt Show.  We emerged from that show with a personal challenge – create a quilt with words on it by the same time the next year.  I missed that deadline by about 5 months, but it took me a long time to find a design I liked.   I struggled for a long time over what to say on my quilt, and ultimately decided that it didn’t matter if I made up the words, just that I was happy with the quilt.

In going through my folder of ideas and inspirations, I came across some artisan chocolate bar labels that I had kept.  I often buy artisan chocolate on vacations and my choice is driven as much by the art on the label as it is by the variety and flavor of the chocolate.  Crazy quilting has always been on my bucket list of quilts to make, so when I saw the chocolate labels I had a flash of inspiration to make cotton crazy quilt blocks that centered around chocolate labels printed on fabric.  I had such fun making this quilt!  With the exception of a few pieces of lace, some fancy chocolate beads and one chocolate bar, I was able to make this quilt entirely with things I already had on hand.  That’s always satisfying.  However, it somehow did nothing to diminish the stuff in my closets!

The finished quilt is 30.5″ square and is made up of cotton, ribbons, lace, hand-dyed rick rack and printed fabric photos.  The embellishments include beads shaped like fancy chocolates, seed beads, charms, embroidery and lace medallions.  The printed labels come from the following brands of chocolate bars:  Wild Boar, Chocolove, Lindt, Theo, Moonstruck, Trader Joe’s, Huckleberry Chocolates, and Seattle Chocolates.

Unfortunately, this cake had so many steps that I can’t really give instructions here for making one.  Although it was time consuming (2 full days of work), none of the steps were very hard and I think I came pretty close to duplicating our wedding cake from 9 years ago.    The cake was made from 2 8-inch rounds and 2 6-inch rounds of chocolate sour cream cake flavored with Fiori di Sicilia.  The filling is chocolate buttercream.  I used chocolate and vanilla marshmallow fondants to cover and decorate the cakes and the dots are vanilla buttercream.   I haven’t tasted it yet, but all the components were good on their own!  I should have taken a before and after of my kitchen as well.  I don’t think there was a square inch that wasn’t covered with powdered sugar!

To make these eggs, or felted stones/balls, wool roving is wrapped around a small form.  In this case, I used small plastic snap-apart Easter eggs from the craft store.  It’s best to use a non-Styrofoam object that will hold up to the handling, so plastic or stone works well.  Many layers of the wool roving is wrapped as tightly as possible around the object with patterns added in the last round or two.  It’s entirely personal choice as to how much wool is wrapped around the object, but you need to use enough to cover it well.

The egg is then carefully paced inside of a nylon stocking which is knotted around it.  This process is repeated with as many eggs as you want to make.  The  nylon encased eggs are then gently submerged in warm, soapy water.  Squeeze the wool gently around the eggs until the wool begins to compact.  Once it’s shrunk a little and seems stable, the nylon enclosed eggs are thrown into a low water level short hot wash cycle (or felted for hours by hand!) one or two times until the wool seems well felted around the object.   It can then be thrown in the dryer for a short cycle.

The nylon stocking knots can then be cut and the eggs carefully peeled out of the stocking.  Voila!

Blog Checking Lines: Sara and Erica of Baking JDs were our March 2012 Daring Baker hostesses! Sara & Erica challenged us to make Dutch Crunch bread, a delicious sandwich bread with a unique, crunchy topping. Sara and Erica also challenged us to create a one of a kind sandwich with our bread!

Dutch Crunch bread, if you’ve never heard of it, is a type of white sandwich bread with a unique crackled and crunchy topping.  I grew up eating Dutch Crunch bread, which I didn’t realize was regional to the San Francisco Bay Area.   I even made it a couple of times many years ago.  While I order it occasionally with my soup at a local bakery, I had kind of forgotten about being able to make it.  This month’s Daring Bakers’ Challenge was a nice reminder to try the home version of Dutch Crunch bread again.

For the challenge, we were provided with a very nice, soft, white roll recipe that goes together in a snap.  I’ll definitely be making the rolls again, even without the topping.  After shaping, the rolls are liberally covered with a pasty mixture made from white rice flour, yeast, vegetable oil and water.  The rolls can rise a little bit again or can be baked immediately.  As the rolls bake and grow, the topping cracks apart and crisps up.  While these rolls don’t produce as brown and crunchy a topping as the store-bought version, the homemade version is definitely more tasty!

Homemade on the left, store bought on the right.

As part of the challenge, we were also tasked to create a unique sandwich with our tasty rolls. I had a harder time with this part of the challenge since I’m not really a sandwich eater and these rolls are HUGE at about 4 oz each.  I ended up making a vegetarian sandwich by spreading my split roll with hummus and topping it with a tasty cabbage slaw made with red cabbage, carrots and cilantro that has been mixed with cider vinegar, chipotle pepper and oil.

This delicious peanut butter cup knock-off comes from Alicia Silverstone’s book The Kind Diet.   This recipe, which was featured in a newspaper article, has become a favorite of ours.  If you love peanut butter cups, you’ll love this recipe whether or not you are a vegan.  They’re easy to make (and no-bake) – peanut butter and graham crackers are mixed together with melted vegan “butter” and sugar.  This mixture is then poured into foil-lined muffin cups and ganache made from non-dairy chocolate and milk is spread over the top and sprinkled with chopped nuts.  The only hard part of the recipe is waiting for them to set up enough to eat!

]]> http://www.bakenquilt.com/2012/03/vegan-chocolate-peanut-butter-cups/feed/ 0 http://www.bakenquilt.com/2012/03/seasonal-watercolor-bookmarks/ http://www.bakenquilt.com/2012/03/seasonal-watercolor-bookmarks/#comments Sun, 04 Mar 2012 16:00:32 +0000 Rebecca http://www.bakenquilt.com/?p=1998 Continue reading →]]> I recently created these seasonal bookmarks as a gift for a friend.  I hope she enjoys them!  They’re painted on watercolor paper, then mounted on colored card stock.  The finished product is laminated to protect it and make the bookmarks more sturdy.

I recently became interested in felting and purchased a good book called Uniquely Felt by Christine White.   This interesting trivet idea was in the beginner section of the book and it seemed like a good gift for a friend so I whipped one up this week.  When I say “whipped up”, I really mean that I spent about 2 days on it, but I made the dryer do most of the work!

The process is pretty fun and easy and it’s interesting to see how it comes out because anything you plan in felting doesn’t necessarily come out the way you imagine!  To start with, about 1 oz of merino wool roving is laid out in flat sheets.  The layers are then rolled into a tube, jellyroll fashion.  About 3 more oz of the wool is then laid out repeatedly into thin layers and wrapped around the roll.  Once satisfied with the roll, it’s wrapped tightly in tulle and dampened in warm soapy water.

The felting is started by rolling the wool jellyroll back and forth on a shelf liner until it begins to compact and get smaller and harder.  More pressure is applied and more rolling is done.  The tulle is removed once it’s firm enough to hold together and work the roll.  The book recommends doing this by hand for at least 4 hours, if not more.  I lasted 20 minutes before my hands were raw and itchy so I switched to a wonderful dryer method that I learned in a recent class.  I continued the felting in the dryer for about 4 hours more, checking the roll at 20 minute intervals to make sure it wasn’t getting deformed.  I probably should have done a few more hours worth, but it’s hard to tell what you’ve got until it’s cut open.

One the jellyroll was very, very firm, I cut it into disks with a pair of strong scissors and left it to dry overnight.  It was still pretty damp the next morning and I needed the finished trivet for a gift by the next day, so I resorted to keeping the wool disks on a rack in my oven with the light on all day.  It made my oven smell a bit like wet sheep (which is remarkably similar to wet dog), but it worked like a charm and I was able to sew the disks together into a trivet by late that night.  Whew!  Nothing like a deadline…

Quick breads are sweet or savory breads that aren’t kneaded, don’t need to rise, and use baking soda/baking powder and eggs as their leavening.   This category of bread includes not only loaf breads, but also biscuits, muffins and popovers.   Quick breads are wonderful to make and should be in in everyone’s repertoire. Not quite cake and not quite bread, they mix together in a snap and are always moist and delicious.  As a result, the hardest part of the challenge this month was in deciding what to make!  As a lover of chocolate, I naturally chose to make a sweet quick bread.

When I was a kid, my mother used to make a wonderful Orange Chocolate Chip Quick Bread with a popular buttermilk baking mix.  This treat frequently made it into the care packages I received from home while I was away at school.  It keeps well and the flavors seem to only get better with each day which make it ideal to ship to a loved one.

As an adult, I seldom made this bread because I almost never had baking mix in my cupboard.  For this challenge, I decided to rework the recipe so that I could make the bread without a mix. The reworked loaf comes out much like the original – moist and dense, with a light orange flavor mingled with the chocolate from well-distributed mini chocolate chips.   If you can stand to wait, the bread really is much better a day or two after it’s baked.  Almost as delicious as the memory, this bread has become a rediscovered favorite!