Daring Bakers February Challenge: Quick Bread

The Daring Bakers’ February 2012 host was – Lis! Lisa stepped in last minute and challenged us to create a quick bread we could call our own. She supplied us with a base recipe and shared some recipes she loves from various websites and encouraged us to build upon them and create new flavor profiles.

Wow! First time I completed a challenge on the first day! And luckily I did as I've spent the rest of the month in a cast.  It's still on, making typing a chore...

The day the challenge was issued, I had an apple on the counter that needed to be used, so I made an apple cinnamon quick bread. I mostly followed the Serious Eats recipe, but I substituted a little spelt flour for regular flour, upped the spices, and sprinkled the top with turbinado sugar before baking. 

Yum!
I love the sparkly top and the deep rich flavor. This pairs up well with a straight shot of espresso, especially after the second day when the bread becomes just a little drier.
The next bread I made was inspired by the Barefoot Contessa. I have her gorgeous book "Barefoot Contessa Parties!" and refer to if often--if for no other reason than to droooooool. Luckily, the recipe for her lemon cake is also available online. (Lemon cake, we DB'ers decided, becomes a healthy bread if you bake it in a loaf pan...)

Now, I had no fresh lemons in the house, so I just substituted the stuff from a jar.  Amazingly, it still tasted divine.  The pretty yellow color comes not from rind, which I didn't have, but from the wonderful eggs my chucks are laying.  They've adjusted to the move and are back on track with their egg-provision duties. 

Okay, the fingers are cramping up, the dog is tangled in the keyboard cord, and the pain meds are wearing off.  I'll leave you to drool over the other Daring Bakers' challenges, which you'll find right here!

Pucker-up Sorbet (by Kat)

For my birthday at the beginning of the month, my dear sweet wonderful husband gave me a very fancy ice cream maker--a Cuisinart ICE-30BC series ice cream maker, to be exact. It was a bit of a selfish gift, really, since he couldn't stand the noise of our old maker. And he eats way more ice cream than I do. WAY more than I do...

He's also as skinny as a rail...a string bean...a long cool drink of water...who can eat all the ice cream he wants and not show any signs of indulgence. Let's all take a moment to hate on that, shall we?

Oh, but wait, the sweet guy gave me a really fancy kitchen toy. He's forgiven!


Our old maker required salt and ice and a safe place for all the ice and salt to slosh out. It was a back-deck kind of machine. Except that it was a machine--i.e. a motorized piece of equipment--needing electricity to drive the motor. Our deck ain't got no 'lectiricty, though, so I'd just sit in in the kitchen sink and we'd retreat to the furthest point possible and put in ear plugs.

My new maker has a bowl that stores in the freezer. It requires no salt, no ice, and almost no time! I was concerned about giving up the freezer space for the bowl. You see, we bought half a cow and a full lamb this past fall, and we have so very little room in the freezer. This is actually good from a conservation perspective, as a full freezer requires less energy to keep cold than a partially full freezer requires. But from an ice-cream maker bowl perspective, I admit to having qualms. But, when I realized the bowl was just the right size to corral the Ziploc bags of frozen huckleberries from the woods and strawberries from the garden I realized that this bowl was a welcome multi-tasker!

The first recipe I made was "Simple Chocolate Ice Cream." This did not taste simple, and will be my go-to recipe for chocolate ice cream from here on.

1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2/3 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1 1/2 cups whole milk
3 1/4 cups heavy cream
1 tablespoon vanilla

Combine sugars and cocoa in a very large bowl. Add milk and whisk until smooth. Add cream and vanilla, mix well, and freeze according to your maker's instructions.

Now, you know very well I can't follow a recipe to save my life. So, I used a combination of half and half and 2% milk to make the whole milk. Also, I added some espresso grounds to the mix. Oh, and when I added the vanilla, I didn't' use a measuring spoon, and a cat ran underfoot, and I used a heckuva lot more vanilla than called for.

I'd bet you like to see pictures, eh?

Sorry. I made you a chocolate ice cream but I eated it all up.

So, I went to make another batch, because this is fast and easy cooking, people! But I didn't have enough dairy. What I did see in the fridge were three lemons who had been de-zested earlier in the month. Those needed to be used! I looked through the recipe booklet and found "Fresh Lemon Sorbet." Perfect! Well, almost perfect. The recipe calls fro 2 1/4 cups of fresh lemon juice. I figured I could get about half that from my lemons. Okay, half batch--perfect!


Except that I forgot to cut the water and sugar in half...

So, I decided to add a cup of bottled lemon juice. Except I didn't have a cup. But I did have lime juice!


So here's the "recipe."
3 cups granulated sugar
3 cups very hot water
2 1/4 cups of citrus juice (from freshly squeezed lemon juice, bottled lemon and lime juice)

Dissolve sugar into the very hot water. You might need to put it on the stove or in the microwave for a minute to completely dissolve the sugar. Add the juice, stir well, and freeze according to your maker's directions. I strained mine into the freezer to catch any seeds I might have missed. I'm glad I did!

straining out the seeds

after 10 minutes

after 15 minutes

after 25 minutes--done!

This came out very puckerish! I think it would have been okay to leave the juice at half strength, or maybe three quarter strength. It's good, but wowza!


Oh, and one more thing. I never showed you the cake my daughter decorated for me. I made the cake from Smitten Kitchen, and frosted it myself. Then my daughter stepped in and took it over the top!

Lemony Cheese Tart with Sour Cream Glaze (by Kat)

At the library last weekend, a bright orange cookbook caught my eye. I swear it was the color, and not the big beautiful chocolate cake on the front.

You believe me, right?

Good.

The book is called "The Modern Baker," and is written by Nick Malgieri. In the introduction he announces that "This book focuses on showing you how much fun baking can be, and encouraging you to make it an everyday event in your home..." He sounds like my kind of guy!


I fell in love with a photo on page 172 of a gorgeous and simple lemon cheese tart. I've wanted to try a sour cream glaze on a cheesecake, but never seemed able to risk it in the past. But on a tart, well that's a different story, right? I could take that risk.

No, there really isn't a difference. But let me pretend there is, ok? Because it's the allowance for pretending that lets me take risks.

Here are the ingredients for the filling. Aren't they pretty? Aren't they FEW in number?


First, cream the cheese and the sugar. Yum. Creeeeeamy!

Add the eggs and yolks. Scout's promise, my hands were clean!

Here's what the crust looks like, just prior to filling. This type of tart pan could win me over, since I don't have to worry about fluting the edge of the crust. It was the first time I'd used it, because it was bought just for this adventure.

Any adventure requiring the purchase of new pans is an excellent adventure. My friend Bill said that. Or maybe it was Ted?


And finally, this is what comes out of the oven and the glaze has been spread over the top. You should definitely test carefully for doneness of the cheesecake, as mine took much longer than the book called for. Had I not been on the telephone with Bet, I might have noticed it wasn't thoroughly set when I took it out. As it was, I was busy practicing my verbal restraint, dealing with the burns on one hand and the phone in the other.

The light in the kitchen faded over the course of the phone call, so I had to find another place in the house that had remaining daylight.

Ta da! I give you tart in my living room!


My cat says "I'm in the light. Let me get myself cleaned up and you can take a picture of me."


A finished slice of tart, for you.

Ok, all right. But really, you weren't around to eat it, and I couldn't let it go to waste, right?

So, here's my modified recipe from "The Modern Baker" by Nick Malgieri.

16 oz cream cheese (room temperature)
1/2 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
zest from one lemon
2 eggs
2 egg yolks
1 cup sour cream
unbaked 11" tart crust*

Cream the first two ingredients, add the second two ingredients and cream some more.
Beat eggs together and slowly drizzle into mixer.
Add sour cream and give a final mix.

Bake about 30 minutes (45 minutes for me) or until center is set.

Combine 1 cup sour cream, 3 tablespoons sugar, and 1 teaspoon vanilla and spread over top of still-hot tart.

Cool completely before serving.

*Tart Crust
1.5 cups flour
1/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons cold butter, in small pieces
1 egg plus 1 yolk
1 tablespoon water

Combine dry ingredients in a food processor, add butter and process until homogenous, add egg and water, and mix until a ball forms. Best if chilled before using.