Maine Sourced Granola

This is a celebratory post. It is it my hundredth post here – I feel like it should have shown up sooner and there should be a greater fanfare, but I’ve been busy. I worked really hard and threw an epic beer fest with some absolutely fantastic people, I started a new job (more on that later), and I’ve just been sort of lazy. I know I’m not supposed to admit that here – where I show you pretty pictures of food and make you think I eat like that all the time – but I don’t. Most nights I eat pasta with butter and Parmesan on it or instant mac and cheese. I have plenty of knowledge but a low threshold for motivation. Occasionally that comes out here. This post is about the awesome though, this is a celebration of this little blog – this corner of the internet I have claimed as mine and proudly declared to be KATHY CAN COOK. I’ve covered it in 8-bit sprites, I’ve met some amazing people, and I’ve eaten SO.MUCH.GOOD.FOOD.
This is not me signing off – please don’t think that as I wax nostalgic about how great keeping this blog has been. I’m not giving up on it, at least not yet, I’m not even taking a break. I’m just sharing how loved this makes me feel – and how great it is to have made friends, actual friends, through blogging. That’s what this recipe is – new to me comfort food that is a little bit of home and a whole bunch of love. I made it with my big sister on a Monday afternoon that she’d taken off to hang out with my kid brother and I. It was a perfect leisure activity.
This granola is made with rolled oats sourced from Aurora Mills in Maine, and alone they are great and nutty oats – in granola they have just the right flavor and give while still being chewy and filling. This is not-too sweet granola either, it’s maple-y without being in your face and it holds its own against the tang of Greek yogurt.
I say this granola is home because it is. I feel a special connection to pretty much anything sourced from Maine and even now, when I don’t live in Maine anymore I still refer to myself as a “Maine kid” it gives me a sense of identity and place. I love it – so this granola is a perfect example of blogging for me – it’s new, my first homemade granola (win) paired with some old (a few Maine oats to make me feel like I’m home).

Home-Made Granola

Note: This recipe is loosely based on one from the Cooks Illustrated Cookbook in that I looked at that cookbook for ideas of what ratios to use and what temperature to cook my granola at. Please consider this a broad guideline to create your own granola recipe though, it’s totally adjustable I used the flavors and textures I really liked when I made this, as such you should adjust in your own way. It does make a lot of granola though, so be prepared to share!

  • 3 1/2 Cups Old Fashioned Rolled Oats – small batch rolled oats will be nuttier and more flavorful
  • 2/3 cup Pepitas, hulled pumpkin seeds
  • 1/3 cup sesame seeds. raw
  • 1/3 cup flax seeds
  • 2/3 cup nuts (I used pecans and they were AWESOME)
  • 2 tsp cinnamon
  • 1/2 tsp nutmeg
  • 1 tsp salt (I use coarse kosher, but go with your preference)
  • 1/3 cup high heat oil (I used peanut, but you can use safflower, sunflower or whatever else too)
  • 2/3 cup Real Maple Syrup (The corn syrup stuff will not work here)
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • 1/4 cup Honey (the honey/maple syrup ratio is really forgiving and can be modified to what you have)
  • 1/2 cup toasted coconut
  • 1 1/2 cup dried fruit (I used cranberries, tart cherries, and candied ginger)
  • Preheat your oven to 300 degrees farenheit.
  • In a large bowl combine the dry ingredients (oats, nuts, and seeds) and mix until evenly distributed.
  • In a small pan combine the oil, honey, vanilla, and syrup. Heat them over low heat until the liquids are fluid and easily mixed.
  • Pour the liquid over the dry ingredients and mix until everything is evenly coated
  • Put the granola in a large pan (I use my turkey roaster) and spread it out evenly so it is an even layer (mine was about 3/4 inch thick).
  • Toast the granola in the oven for about an hour – stirring every 10 to 15 mins to prevent large clumping. THe granola will be golden brown and fragrant when it is done.
  • Allow the granola to cool completely, for at least an hour.
  • Mix the toasted coconut and dried fruit into the toasted granola.
  • Eat over your favorite yogurt or by the handful!

Irish Cream

Irish Cream

Irish cream, it makes me think of college and ill-formed ideas, a chilled liqueur poured over ice and sipped on a spring evening and, of course St. Patrick’s Day. As long as I’ve been old enough to drink I’ve loved Irish Cream, mostly Bailey’s but occasionally St. Brendan’s or another slightly lower shelf product. Last year, or was it two years ago?, BF started to develop a taste for irish cream as dessert. Pouring himself a small glass over ice in lieu of sweets or baked goods.

Whiskey

So in January while reading the Eat Boutique website I came across a recipe for homemade Baileys by Maggie and immediately started plotting – as far as I could tell I had all the ingredients on hand and it seemed like a perfect afternoon pick-me-up. So I made it. It was a resounding success and a perfect Friday afternoon snack.

Ingredients

So, now it St. Patrick’s Day and all I want to do is share this recipe with you. It’s 4 in the afternoon, but I’m in Boston and drinking early on St.Pat’s is totally respectable, right? This has rapidly become my go to in lieu of Bailey’s, and it means I always have an excuse for good irish whiskey to be kicking around. And I have zero problems with that!

Irish Cream

Adapted from Eat Boutique by Maggie Battista

 

  • 4 eggs (I use pasteurized or very fresh eggs)
  • 1/2 tsp almond extract
  • 1 1/2 tsp real vanilla extract
  • 2 tsp instant espresso
  • 1 tsp boiling water
  • 1 tsp Irish Whiskey
  • 1 can sweetened condensed milk
  • 1 1/2 cup Irish Whiskey (I like to use a good whiskey, like Jameson or Bushmills)
  • 1 cup heavy cream (1/2 and 1/2 works too, it’s just not as rich)
  • Combine the boiling water, the instant espresso, and the 1 tsp whiskey together in a small bowl and set them aside to cool (I like to make this in batches of 1/4 cup of each ingredient and use it like extract in everything).
  • In the bowl of a stand mixture fitted with the whisk attachment combine the eggs, extracts, sweetened condensed milk, and cream or half and half.
  • Whip on medium until everything is frothy and fully incorporated.
  • With the mixer on low (on my KitchenAid I use the 2 setting) gently stream in the whiskey and continue to mix everything until fully blended.
  • Enjoy over ice, preferably with a friend, preferably today.

Six Layer Salted Caramel and Chocolate Truffle Cream Cake

Thanks for the picture Rachel!

I wasn’t going to post this recipe initially.  The cake recipe is an old one (a favorite that I use all the time) and the salted caramel frosting is directly from another blog – but BF told me I needed to share it because a six layer confection of frosting and cake should be shared.  Because I hadn’t initially meant to blog this there are only pictures of the cake as it was built, but don’t worry about that.  Marvel at the cake – six layers of yellow cake, salted caramel frosting sandwiched between each layer, coated with decadent chocolate truffle cream frosting, and topped with drizzles of caramel sauce.

I had been playing with the idea for this cake for quite a while – it’s a take on Smith Island cake, which just had chocolate frosting and filling.  But BF isn’t the biggest fan of that much chocolate and I’ve been wanting to make salted caramel frosting, so it seemed a natural fit.  I made this cake to bring over to Rachel and Joel’s as a pairing with a fantastic meal of braised lamb shanks and potatoes au gratin.  Which meant I baked all day and left an obscene amount of dishes in the sink.  But it was worth it.

I am one of those people that will bake to soothe whatever stress I’m under, whether it be in relation to job-hunting or doing my taxes, baking calms me down.  So on Saturday, while BF struggled with his taxes and I paced impatiently from the kitchen to the office and back again, I baked a cake, I made two different kinds of frosting, and I fell in love with salted caramel sauce all over again.  As I watched sugar melt and boil to a beautiful amber color and hoped against hope that it would come out right this time I fell into a state of ease – I shook off the tension of the week and indulged in a cake scrap drizzled with caramel sauce.  So perfect, so confidence inducing, so satisfying to see a pot of caramel and say, “yeah, I did that, TWICE.”

Let us not forget the chocolate truffle frosting, either.  This frosting is sort of a mantra for my mom who tells me that it is THE chocolate frosting I must make if I’m looking for it.  My mom found this frosting about nine-and-a-half years ago, while she was pregnant with ‘Tonio and swore she wouldn’t ever make another one.  I tend to agree with her – it’s fantastic, decadent without being too sweet, and rich without being overpowering.  It paired perfectly with the salted caramel frosting.  Now if only we all had enough room to eat a whole 3″x14″ six layer cake, instead we all had thin slices and cursed the epic amount of cake I made.  Oops.

Six Layer Cake with Salted Caramel frosting and Chocolate Truffle Cream Frosting
The cake is all my design!  The cake recipe I used is one I put up here a long time ago.  The salted caramel frosting is from this post, over on My Baking Addiction, I made just the caramel sauce to put on top too.

Chocolate Truffle Cream Frosting
Adapted from the Joy of Cooking
This recipe makes enough to frost and fill a two layer cake.

4 egg yolks
1/4 cup sugar
1 tsp espresso (1 tsp espresso powder + 1 tsp boiling water works)
1/3 cup boiling water
6 oz finely chopped chocolate (about a cup)
8 Tbs unsalted butter

In a wide heat-proof bowl (I use a shallow metal bowl) whisk together the yolks, sugar and espresso until fully combined and frothy, about 30 seconds.  Add the boiling water 1-2 Tbs at a time, whisking between additions, until fully incorporated.  Place a bowl in a frying pan with at least an inch of water in it (the idea here is basically a wide flat double boiler).  Bring the egg, sugar, espresso, water mixture to a temperature of 160 degrees, stirring occasionally, and remove it from the heat.  Add the chocolate and butter, mix until smooth.  If you find that the chocolate/butter aren’t melting you can put them back in the pan with water in it (turned off, the water should still be warm enough to melt chocolate).  Allow the frosting to cool, in the fridge, fro about twenty minutes if you want to use it as a spreadable frosting.  Or just pour it over your cake if you just want a glaze.  Enjoy.

Assembly


This cake was a bit tricky for me, in that I created the whole thing specifically for a platter I had in mind, hence it’s Kit-Kat like appearance.  This meant cooking the cake in cookie sheets/jelly roll pans and then cutting each sheet of cake down to a specific size, in this case 3″x14″.  I found that cutting the cake down to be uniform sizes was the hardest part, mostly because I just can’t cut in a straight line.  Regardless, when all of your cake pieces are uniform (or you think they are) stack them to make sure.  Then you can start the real assembly.  It’s best to have both frostings all ready when assembling, then you don’t have to stop.  Start with a cake on the bottom then add a hefty amount of caramel frosting – I found that one recipe made just enough for me to fill between the layers. Smooth out the frosting then add another layer of cake, continue to alternate until it looks like the “image” below:

Cake
Caramel Frosting
Cake
Caramel Frosting
Cake
Caramel Frosting
Cake
Caramel frosting
Cake
Caramel frosting
Cake
There should be cake on the top and bottom of the whole thing.  After you have filled the cake go around the edges with an offset spatula (if you have one, I used a butter knife).  Then coat the whole cake in chocolate frosting. If you made the above frosting (which I can’t recommend highly enough) then you should have enough for about 1/8inch think frosting over the whole cake.  You should check out Test Kitchen for tips on cake frosting, they’re awesome.  Last of all, top the whole cake with a drizzle of caramel sauce in whatever pattern you want.  Adding this caramel helps tone down the richness of everything else and is an important step, don’t skip it.  Then take this massive cake and share it, with at least ten other friends.  You will want to eat it all by yourself, this is a bad idea.  Also, taking it on a long, packed train/bus ride is not a good idea.  Trust me, I tried it, the cake got, well, smooshed.

Hazelnut-Chocolate Biscotti

I love to make homemade food gifts.  I find it rewarding to give someone something I made from scratch specifically for them.  One of my best friends and I were preparing to swap Christmas gifts and had both decided that homemade was the way to go.  So I started hunting for recipes.  I had initially wanted to make biscotti for my step dad as a Christmas present, but he was on a diet – the idea for homemade biscotti lingered though.  I went through all of my cookbooks searching and narrowing recipes for the delectable coffee pairing until I found the one that would be perfect for B.  A cinnamon-chip biscotti was calling my name.  I swapped in some chocolate chips for the cinnamon and I was good to go.

 I have a confession to make – I don’t really care for biscotti, I find it too dry and hard most of the time, leaving me with a sore roof of the mouth and an unpleasant after taste.  But homemade biscotti is entirely a horse of a different color, it’s tender while still firm and left me craving more with every bite.  B loved it – or said she did to save my feelings 😛 But in all seriousness there are some things I will change about my next batch – I’ll coarsely chop the hazelnuts because whole was just too much and I’ll leave out the chocolate chips – they were delicious but they also made it just not pretty.  I’ll just dip them in ganache next time instead, besides that will give a better cookie to chocolate ratio.

Regardless – you should probably take an afternoon and make these, soon.  They’re that good.  Like overgrown chocolate-chip cookies and they’re just perfect with a good cup of coffee.  Perfect.

Hazelnut-Chocolate Chip Biscotti
Adapted from Baked: New Frontiers in Baking by Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito which I borrowed from Megan and love!
Note: The original recipe calls for cinnamon but I really wanted a Nutella feel to these so I omitted the cinnamon.  I also cooked mine for slightly less time than they called for because I prefer a more tender biscotti.  Also, the original recipe calls makes 24 huge biscotti – I would make them a bit smaller next time and have changed the recipe below to indicate that.  I also nixed brushing egg whites on top of the fully cooked biscotti log before drying them.  It felt unneccessary to me and mine were toally fine without it.

1 1/3 cup sugar
1 1/4 tsp baking powder
1 1/4 tsp salt
4 large eggs
2 tsp vanilla
3 1/4 cups flour
1 1/2 cup blanched hazelnuts,  toasted and coarsely chopped
1 3/4 cups semisweet chocolate chips (optional)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and line a large baking sheet with parchment.  In a small bowl whisk/sift the sugar, baking powder and salt until fluffy.  In the bowl of an electric mixer cream the eggs and sugar mixture together until it’s ribbony – about 45-60 seconds. Add the vanilla and beat until incorporated – 5-10 seconds. Add one half of the flour and beat to combine.  Add the second half of the flour – mix until everything is just combined – about 30 seconds.  Add the nuts and chips (if using) on low speed, mix until evenly distributed.  Turn the dough out onto the parchment lined baking sheet and separate it.  Shape one log into a 12 inch log 2 inches across and 3/4 inch think.  Do the same thing with the other log on another baking sheet.  Bake the logs for 20-25 mins, until firm to the touch but not hard (I cooked mine about 18), then let them cool on the pan for 10 mins or so, until handle-able.  Lower the oven temperature to 325 degrees.  Cut the logs into 1/2-3/4 inch slices, however wide you like your biscotti, I’m more on the half inch side myself.  Lay the sliced biscotti back on the baking sheets cut sides up/down  and bake them for 20-25 mins, until they are firm (again if you want more tender biscotti don’t cook them as long on this step, 18 mins is what I did).  After the biscotti are cooked remove them from the oven and let them cool fro at least five minutes on the pan before transferring them to a wire rack.  Let the cookies cool completely before eating/storing them.  These will keep for about two weeks in  an airtight container.  They are fantastic dipped in a jar of Nutella for dessert.

Dark and Stormy Cookies

I love a nice spicy ginger beer, something that leaves a lingering heat in the back of my throat.  Now pair the spicy ginger beer with a nice dark and spicy rum and a touch of lime and I will be there.  A dark and stormy is a perfect drink at pretty much any time of year – in the winter it’s got that kick from the ginger beer warming you from tip to toe and in the summer serve it with a big glass of ice and it’s insanely refreshing.  I’ve always been a little bit obsessed with the dark and stormy –  maybe it’s because i’m just obsessed with that gingery bite and the warmth of the rum.  But I do know that more than anything since that first sip of dark and stormy I’ve wanted it as a cookie –  not too sweet an with a nice crunch.  Never did I imagine this.

I created these cookies on a whim – they had been germinating in my head for a VERY long time but the timing was never quite right.  I couldn’t find the right base recipe or I was out of ginger, there was always something missing.  And then, this year I signed up for the Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap (you can sign up to do it next year here) that Julie and Lindsay organized – a monumental collection of bloggers coming together to pack cookies in boxes and ship them all around the country was a perfect excuse to do what I wanted to do – try recipes and make dark and stormy cookies!  So I did what any responsible adult that grew up in a household of cooking will do, I called my mom.

I asked for a recommendation as to what sort of base to make while flipping through my copy of Cook’s Illustrated Cookbook and came across a recipe for Glazed Lemon Cookies – a slice and bake that looked easy enough and that I had all the ingredients for (win).  So I threw the recipe out there – what if I used this recipe and swapped out some flavors for others, did Mom think it would work?  She said yes and then goodbye in rapid succession (she had to go to the farm for turkey time).

So, without further ado – Dark and Stormy cookies inspired by my tendency to be a bit of a lush and encouraged by a great many people along the way.

Dark and Stormy Cookies
Adapted from the Cook’s Illustrated Cookbook recipe for Glazed Lemon cookies and the glaze recipe for Cornmeal-Lime Cookies from Flour by JB Chang.


Cookies:
3/4 cup sugar
1 Tbs grated Lime zest (about 1 lime)
2-3 Tbs finely minced candied ginger
1 3/4 cup flour
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp baking powder
12 Tbs unsalted butter – cut into 1/2 inch cubes and chilled
1 large egg yolk
1 Tbs good ginger beer (Reed’s has a great spice, or Barritt’s if you want to stay classic)
2 Tbs dark spiced rum (I adore Kraken – there’s an octopus on the bottle but it also happens to be awesome)

Glaze:
1 cup confectioners sugar
2 Tbs rum
1 Tbs ginger beer
Zest of one lime (optional)

In a food processor combine the sugar, zest, and ginger, pulse until the sugar looks a little damp – about 7 pulses, this will be a little bit sticky.  Add the flour, salt, and baking powder to the sugar mixture, pulse until fully combined – about 10 pulses.  Add the butter cubes and pulse until the whole thing looks like fine cornmeal – 15 pulses should do it.  In a small bowl mix the egg yolk, ginger beer, and rum together until fully combined, pour this into the food processor, run the processor for another 20-25 secs until the whole mixture starts to come together in a ball.  When the dough has come together turn it out onto a parchment lined counter and gently knead whatever loose flour is still a bit loose into the dough.  Form the dough into a log 12-14 inches long by 2 inches wide.  Wrap this log in parchment paper and stick in the fridge for two hrs or up to two days, on the inverse if you want to cool your cookies quickly you can also stick this log in the freezer for 45 mins – but be careful with this as it can get far too firm if left too long.  Once the cookies have firmed up, preheat  your oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit and pull the cookies out of the cold place.  cut the cookies into 3/8 inch wide rounds and arrange them on 2 baking sheets about an inch apart, they don’t spread if they have firmed up enough in the fridge.  Bake the cookies fro 12-16 mins, mine took twelve, rotating the pans halfway through baking so that they are on different shelves of the oven and back to front.  When the cookies have golden brown edges and have puffed a bit in the center they are done.  Pull them from the oven and allow the to cool completely.

For the glaze mix the confectioner’s sugar, rum, and ginger beer together in a small bowl, the mixture should be quite runny.  Line the counter under your cookie racks with parchment paper.  Using a  pastry brush paint the glaze onto the tops of the cookies, in two layers (the first should pretty much soak right in).  While the glaze is still liquid sprinkle lime zest on the tops of the cookies, only do this if you are eating the cookies that day or else the lime gets a bit overpowering.  Now go and share these with someone who loves rum and ginger as much (or more so) than yourself.  they will say thank you.