Mary Berry's Lemon Drizzle Cake

6/20/17
My absolute most favorite TV Food Show is The Great British Baking Show. Last week a new season was aired on PBS. Great Britain certainly has many talented home bakers. I usually feel I couldn't possibly be successful on this show. But last week one cake caught my attention as a recipe I would like to try: Mary Berry's Lemon Drizzle cake. This is not complicated. Just a quick cake with lemon zest, baked in a loaf pan, and drizzled when out of the oven with a granulated sugar/lemon juice glaze. This glaze forms a kind of crunchy crust. Oh my, sweet lemony goodness. The recipe is available on the show site.

On 6/21/17 I hosted my bridge club at Floyd's in Morehead City, NC and awarded three cakes as prizes. One for high score, second high and low score. Also, one cake for the staff at Floyd's.

Pam

Eleanor

Judy

A Fave TV Food Show

6/19/17 One of my favorite TV shows is the Barefoot Contessa with Ina Garten. This past weekend I watched her prepare a very simple pasta dish. With a 1/2 pound of cooked pasta added to 1 stick of melted butter and the juice of 1 lemon, you have delicious dish of pasta in about 20 minutes. I  sauteed chicken tenderloins and bake asparagus with olive oil and salt and pepper. These components came together for our dinner. Lemon zest garnished this dish. As I am posting, I feel the need to work on presentation! With white pasta and chicken, the dish looks lackluster. How are ways I could improve the look? It needs something red and maybe I would cut the asparagus into bite site pieces. Maybe sun dried tomatoes would perk this up!

Practice, Practice, Practice

6/21/17
Cooking at home. If I don't learn anything else at Culinary School, I know I must practice, practice, practice! This past semester I truly mommicked many eggs trying to make the perfect omelette. Since, I have been working on a better omelette. Here is the latest try. This has come a long way from the class at CCC when I burned and and stuck many in the pan.  This effort needed a better whisking and a little less cooking time. Pretty good fold. Chef Garnett, I am still working on it!!

Nags Head Reunion

6/13/17 Having a wonderful visit at Nags Head, NC with my Plymouth High School friends. Tonight I plan to serve dinner to everyone and everyone helped. As dinner preparations were underway, anyone passing through the kitchen ended up with a job! Here is our Menu:

Appetizer by Kay: Tuna Cucumber Swirls
Dinner: Risotto with Italian Sausage, Spinach and Sun Dried Tomatoes
            Arugula and Radicchio Salad with Vinaigrette
             Crostini

Here is Kay's appetizer. We both learned how to strip cucumbers and found spreading the tuna mixture was easier on dry cucumber.

Kay and the Swirls

The Risotto main dish was an success and I sliced and toasted the baguettes prepared in the previous post. While preparing the Vinaigrette, Emily helped drizzle the oil and the dressing emulsified perfectly. I just wished Chef Clark could have seen it!

Love my childhood friends!!

 

King Arthur Bakealong Challenge: Baguettes

6/11/17 King Arthur is a quality brand of flour. Sometimes at Food Lion, you can catch it on sale. If you are going to go to the trouble to bake, give your product every chance of success by using high quality ingredients.

Recently I found on the King Arthur website a baker's challenge with a different recipe to try each each month. Baguettes are the recipe for June. This is my first experience with a preferment. The preferment was a "poolish." Basically a dryer preferment, this poolish contains water, yeast and flour. Here is the final result: a very crusty bread with a softer interior. My crumb was finer than I would like.

King Arthur Flour June Bake Along Baguettes

Macaroons

6/6/17 Macaroons Not Macarons, O the Difference

Coconut Macaroon Cookies are one of my favorite cookies but they don't seem to be available in the grocery store anymore. These are the cookies made mostly of coconut, not the trendy French multicolored sandwich cookies with multi flavors. Been thinking of making them myself. A good beginning would be check out the bag of coconut at the store.

A simple recipe for Macaroons is on the back of the Baker's coconut bag.`Very easy to do.

Down East Light Rolls

6/3/17 An elderly member of my church died and her funeral was today. I joined a group providing lunch for family and out of town visitors. I prepared Down East Light Rolls for this event.

The dough was wet and rose beautifully. Note the plastic wrap from Costco with the slider for cutting. What a useful product. Rolls and cuts easily. I may win the plastic wrap battle after all.

Risen Dough

Rolls

Traditional Blistered Tops

Baguettes

6/2/17
Monday, 5/29, Elizabeth and Laura are coming by on the way home to Greensboro via the Cedar Island Ferry. Mom can we have dinner? Sure! How about spaghetti? Yeah!  Of course fresh baked bread is a match with spaghetti. Choosing the bread to make became easy when I realize all my Crisco was gone. The perfect solution: French Baguettes. The French and Italians love each other, Right??

Used my classroom textbook for this recipe. I finally figured out how to use a lame to slash the dough. Speed is the key. Slash and run!! French baguettes have 5 to 7 slashes. Chef Lindsay, my baking Chef Professor, would be so proud! One loaf went to Greensboro!

Tres Leches Cake

6/1/17 As I was driving home from school on my way to a luncheon, I called my friend Mary Lee and asked are we playing bridge tonight and where are we playing bridge. May Lee says we are playing and its my turn to host. Oh my! Well it doesn't take much to pull this together. Just need a clean house and bridge set up and then prizes and dessert. What to serve for dessert. It's always a dilemma with so many choices. I decide simple and cool. This is an opportunity to make a Tres Leches Cake. Always wanted to try this.

A plain cake is needed for the basis. There is always a box cake but I decide to make a scratch cake. The filling is 3 milks: Eagle Brand, evaporated and whole milk. When cool, top with real whipping cream. Garnish with macerated strawberries and blueberries. It was a hit with the clean plate Bridge Club!!

This recipe originates from Latin America. In order to promote sales of either evaporated or condensed milk, this cake recipe was on the label of the can.

Tres Leches Cake
1. Prepare plain cake in 13" X 9" pan.
2. When cake is removed from oven, cool slightly
3. Using a fork, perforate the cake
4. Pour a mixture of 2 cups whole milk, 1 can condensed milk, and 1 12 oz can evaporated milk over cake. Refrigerate 4 hours. Top with freshly whipped sweetened heavy whipping cream.
5. Use garnish of your choice.