Banana Bread

I think my parents (and all parents for that matter) should get a medal for the hours, days, and years of energy, time, and effort they invested into us. I never fully appreciated the joys and energy-consuming process of parenting until being a parent myself! Little N is almost 6 months old and is developing a personality all his own. He laughs, smiles, plays, and sometimes scolds as well. He loves looking around, exploring his surroundings, and scanning back and forth, making sure he does not miss a detail. I look forward each day returning back from work to see him and his smile, to spend a few hours before he goes to bed and I rush to finish my work.

Hence … it’s been quiet around here recently.

I’m working through a backlog of recipes I baked and cooked a few months ago, and this banana bread from Flour bakery is one of them. While I previously had this go-to recipe, I decided to try this recipe from the cookbook given the foolproof success of other recently baked recipes.  

The secret ingredient of banana bread is using very ripe bananas—the blacker, the better. This banana bread obtains its moisture from oil and creme fraiche and a nice bite from almost a cup of toasted walnuts. I like to sprinkle a light dusting of granulated sugar on top of the loaf before it goes into the oven so that the top develops a crackling crust—my favorite part of the loaf.

Happy April—it’s amazing how quickly this year has already flown by!

Click for recipe

Gingerbread Cupcakes with Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting

I realize it’s been quiet around here recently, but we have been busy these last few weeks with our little guy, a loss in the family, and some nasty bugs being shared around the house. Meanwhile, my queue of recipes has steadily grown. It is nice to have a few minutes to take a deep breath and write this post.

Although I have not yet watched the show DC cupcakes, I had a taste of the cupcakes from Georgetown Cupcakes during my visit to DC last year. I immediately fell in love with their cupcakes—a nice balance between cupcake and frosting and a very large variety of flavors! Within days after returning from my trip, I told Nathan that I would like their cupcake cookbook for Christmas.

These are my first batch of cupcakes from the cookbook, which was quite fitting for the holiday season when I baked them *two months* ago. They are delicious, although may not be for everyone; there is a strong bite of spice from the ground ginger, cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg. But if you are a gingerbread fanatic (as my husband is), you will love the moist crumb and delicious frosting. I am one who tends to shy away from eating all the frosting off a cupcake, but I found myself dipping my finger into the frosting bag more than once after I finished frosting the cupcakes. I think cream cheese should be in all frostings—what a great ingredient!

I made these cupcakes for a potluck we hosted at our house and decorated them with edible red dot candies from Crate and Barrel. Be warned: contrary to what is written in the cookbook, one recipe of cupcakes yields at least two dozen cupcakes. This is one of the few criticisms of the book—the yield tends to be quite off and produces at least double of what is written. 

Happy early Valentine’s Day! If I had an extra six hours in the day, I would make red velvet cupcakes from the cookbook to celebrate, but at the moment, I’m just happy to be spending time with little N and my family.

Click for recipe

Oatmeal-Maple Scones

I love how food is more than just protein, fat, and carbohydrates for our bodies. It provides comfort and serves as a centerpiece around which old experiences are shared and new memories are made. This rings especially true now sitting here in California with my family as we celebrate and remember my grandmother’s life. We laugh as we retell the time when, driving over to dinner, we thought my grandmother’s face looked slightly different than usual. It was only when we arrived and sat down to eat that we and she realized forgot to wear her dentures! 

I think she would like these scones, just sweet enough to make them a special breakfast treat.

Just when you found your go-to scone recipe, here comes another one to challenge it. This is yet another great recipe from Flour Bakery; moist from the addition of heavy cream, these scones get a nice bite of texture from oats, pecans, and cranberries.

There is also maple syrup in and over the scone. After the scone cools, they get a drizzle or brushing with maple syrup icing to give them a little sweetness. 

These scones also freeze wonderfully. After assembling the dough, you can form them into 1/4-cup sized balls, wrap in plastic wrap, and store in the freezer for at least 2 weeks. They make a nice weekend morning treat after you get back from the gym and want something substantial to start your day.

Click for recipe

Roasted Pear and Cranberry Crostata

There is a back log of posts at the moment—all I need is a little more time, which tends to be a recurring theme these days! We made this roasted pear and cranberry crostata back in December to finish off a hot pot dinner with B and L. Hot pot is a quintessential winter meal; when it’s cold and wet outside, it’s nice to be dipping and cooking various meats and vegetables into hot broth and sauces.

The beauty with this crostata is that (1) the various components can be individually made ahead of time, assembled into the crostata, and then thrown into the oven when you are ready; (2) it’s a crostata, which means rustic (read: imperfection) is encouraged; and (3) it incorporates fruits of the season. 

A few days before our hot pot dinner, we roasted nine bosc pears with ginger and syrup and made the frangipane and crust. The day before, you can assemble the crostata in its unbaked form so that a few hours before dinner all you have to do is brush the edges with an egg wash, sprinkle sanding sugar, and throw it into the oven.

Pears and almonds have a nice affinity for each other and are complemented by a burst of tart flavor from the cranberries. The crust is a flaky pate brisee, which we have now used several times for quiches and pies. Given its versatility, it is probably worthwhile making an extra batch (or two) that can be stored in the freezer. 

An update on parenthood: we are amazed how quickly N has been growing—he’s over 2 feet now and just 3.5 months old! I do not think you can truly grasp how much your life changes with a new little one in your life—of course, all for the better (except for the sleep part)! He coos and smiles, which makes all those tired, cranky thoughts quickly go away.

Click for recipe

BBQ Pulled Beef or Pork Sliders

I realize that there is a disproportionate number of posts on desserts, which may raise questions about what we may be feeding ourselves for lunch and dinner. I usually am more excited trying and photographing new baking recipes, but when we recently were searching for a dish that could easily last several meals, this recipe from Paula Deen immediately caught my eye given its glowing reviews and straightforward steps.

We love the dry rub and liquid braising liquid for a pork or beef roast. We first made this with pork butt and then again for a dinner potluck with beef chuck roast. The dry rub can be put onto the meat the night before, wrapped, and then stored overnight in the refrigerator. About 6 hours before you plan to eat it, throw the meat into a Dutch oven with the apple juice, apple cider, Worcestershire sauce, and garlic powder, and step back for the next 4 hours while the oven does its magic. While the recipe asks you to brush the roast with the liquid every hour, I don’t think this is necessary. After you let it cool, the shredded meat can be flavored with your favorite BBQ sauce and served with coleslaw on a bun!

Click for recipe

Flour Bakery’s Double Apple Pie

I’ve been on an apple pie kick recently, as you may know. Truth be told, apple pie may be one of my favorite desserts: warm baked apples and a buttery crust—what’s not to love? 

I saw this recipe from Joanne Chang’s Flour cookbook, and I instantly resonated with her philosophy of apple pie. My ideal pie has a combination of both firmer (Granny Smith) and softer apples (Macintosh), which lends a variety of textures. The softer apples turn almost into mush after baking and provide a nice sauce, and the firmer apple pieces provide a nice bite. In order to pack as many apples as possible into the pie, you allow it to macerate in the sugar for 30 minutes. An ingenious idea!

The apples are flavored minimally with a pinch of cinnamon, brown sugar, and kosher salt, and the juices are thickened with all purpose flour. The crust—a pate brisee—is flaky and nicely withstands the heft of apples, although I found the dough softer and more challenging to work with compared with Flo Braker’s flaky pie pastry. 

We enjoyed this apple pie with friends on Christmas Eve and savored the leftovers for another two days. It keeps very well in the refrigerator, but I can tell you it won’t last very long if you love apple pie even half as much as I do.

Click for recipe

Ginger Molasses Cookies

As Nathan loves ginger-baked goods, gingerbread cookies regularly make their appearance in our household this time of year. We love the intoxicating smells of cinnamon, cloves, and ginger mixed with butter; it makes our home feel cozy and of the the holiday spirit.

While we have our go-to recipe for gingerbread cookies, we decided to give these ginger molasses cookies a try from my recently acquired Flour cookbook. Nathan jokes that because I have been baking through the book at a steady clip (more on a cranberry pear crostata hopefully soon), we will soon run out of excuses to take our walks to the bakery; we can bake all of their treats in the comfort of our own home. Ha! I will let you know if and when that day comes.

These cookies are delicious and are a new instant favorite of our household. And, as they are super easy to make, I am so happy we can eat these cookies whenever we want!

As promised by the recipe, they are not overly spicy. The cinnamon, cloves, and ginger are nicely accentuated by a healthy amount of kosher salt. The texture is just lovely; make sure to pull out the cookies when they attain just the slightest amount of firmness in the middle. They will continue to bake a little more once out of the oven, and you want to make sure that you have a gradient of textures (firm on the periphery, soft in the middle)! There is also the slightest crunch from a coating of granulated sugar. They store well in an airtight container, although honestly, they did not last longer than two days between the both of us.

As an aside, I am now a proud owner of a KitchenAid stand mixer! It was a generous Christmas gift from my in-laws (thank you)! I have already used it to make a batch of maple oatmeal scones (more to come on that soon, too), and it makes it so much easier to bake!

Click for recipe

Thanksgiving Dinner

I know—why am I blogging about Thanksgiving when we have just finished our Christmas dinner? While I sometimes can blog and record our food adventures in a timely manner, and there are many other times when I can not. This happens to be one of those times.

But rather than skip and move on to the next big meal, I find it helpful to record our meal: what we ate, with whom, and when. These are details that contribute to holiday memories. In this case, we celebrated N’s first Thanksgiving dinner with his grandmother and Nathan—an intimate dinner amongst the four of us. 

There was a bone-in turkey breast (per the butcher, the meat tastes better with the bone in, plus there are enough drippings for gravy!), a cranberry cornbread dressing, delicious brussel sprouts and carrots with a kick from cider vinegar, and sweet potato with garlic and fried sage. And for dessert, super pumpkin-y pumpkin pie.

My favorites were the brussel sprouts and carrots (which we had again tonight) and the sweet potato rounds. Both dishes are very straightforward and packed with flavor; I think they may make the rounds in future dinners to come …

As this (and every) day is a time for reflection, I would like to give thanks for the family and friends in my life. Thank you for the 60 minutes to myself so that I can unwind mentally and physically. Thank you for the calls and texts to check in and say hi. Thank you for the packages of nourishment. What a blessing to have all of you in my life.

Happy holidays! 

Click for recipe

Lemon-Ginger Scones

Here is yet another delicious baked good from Joanne Chang’s Flour Bakery cookbook: lemon-ginger scones. 

The weather in Boston has been variable lately—there are days with highs in the 60s, which rapidly may alternate to frigid 40-degree days. For east coast purists, the anomalous 60-degree-days are unthinkable for a Boston winter, but for a die-hard Californian such as myself, they are a welcomed gift to go outside and take a walk.

And so we recently took advantage of one these warm days to walk to Flour Bakery in Cambridge—Nathan, baby N, my mom, and I. This Cambridge location is the third bakery that Joanne Chang has opened and based on the two times I’ve visited, it is constantly bustling. We sampled their oatmeal maple scone (which I hope soon to bake!), cheddar scallion scone, and banana bread. Of course, I had to have another cup of their delicious hot chocolate made from dark chocolate ganache; in fact, I have been thinking about that hot chocolate almost daily for several weeks!

We did not see these lemon-ginger scones there, although in the cookbook Joanne Chang says that they are one of their most popular items. I can see why!

I have previously posted on how two commonly used liquids—heavy cream and buttermilk—are used in scones and how each gives the scones a different texture and crumb. Whereas buttermilk imparts a more cake-like crumb, heavy cream lends a lighter, biscuit-like texture. 

In this recipe, both buttermilk and heavy cream are used, which resulted in a moist, denser biscuit. This is not your British scone served with jam and clotted cream, but it is a substitute that I could also live with as well.

There are three types of ginger used: fresh grated ginger, finely diced candied ginger, and ground ginger. My mom, an avid, adventurous, and fearless baker, prepared the majority of the recipe as I was feeding the little one. As she grated the knob of ginger, she was worried that the scone would be overpowered by ginger flavor. But, as soon as we took a bite of the scone from the oven, we exclaimed how nicely the ginger flavor had mellowed!

The star of the scone, though, is the lemon glaze. Do not skip it! It is simply made by whisking lemon juice with confectioner’s sugar. You can drizzle or brush it on. For your humble effort, you will be amply rewarded.

These scones are best eaten within 24 to 36 hours from baking, which is not too difficult to do. Or, if you are like us and trying to be somewhat diligent with what we eat, they look very nice wrapped in cellophane and given to your friends later that night in appreciation of a nice dinner party!

One comment on the recipe: in the cookbook, the recipe says that with a 3 1/2-inch cookie cutter, you should get 10 scones, each 1-inch thick. I, for the life of me, cannot figure out how that is possible. I instead used a 2 3/4-inch cutter and got 11 pieces, which works well for me since I prefer a smaller-sized scone.

Click for recipe

Flour Bakery’s Super Pumpkiny Pumpkin Pie

I would venture that compared to other metropolitan cities, Boston’s food scene occasionally falls short with quality or value. There is a dearth of good ethnic food options, and while very good fine dining exists, the prices can be unpalatable.

However, we are quite lucky to have Flour Bakery, which was recommended to me more than once during my first year in Boston. Unfortunately, the original bakery is located in the South End, a neighborhood we rarely frequent. 

Fast forward almost seven years later: part of my daily morning commute for my three month-rotation at Boston Medical Center involved walking past Flour. Each morning, I saw the same couple sitting outside with the paper and their breakfast; the same dog patiently lying outside for his owner; and the growing line inside soon after the doors opened at 7 AM. 

An impromptu visit one morning to grab a treat for my pregnant self quickly escalated to an almost daily ritual. I methodically sampled their breakfast offerings—scones, muffins, croissant, brioche, sticky buns, and even their homemade pop tarts. I love their oat muffin with baked fruit, which at the beginning of summer contained peaches and then pears with ginger in the fall. On days that I needed something a little more indulgent, I had chocolate brioche. And there was certainly one (or two) times when I finished nearly half of their freshly baked golden raisin and walnut bread before lunch. Who can resist warm, slightly-crackly-on-the-outside-and-soft-on-the-inside bread full of raisins and nuts?

Moreover, their prices are very reasonable. I love their hot chocolate made from a dark chocolate ganache, and Nathan confirms that their coffee is very drink-worthy.

Not surprisingly, I put Joanne Chang’s Flour Bakery cookbook onto my Christmas list … in August. I would have had to wait another month and a half more, but thankfully, Nathan gifted me this cookbook just in time for Thanksgiving, when we had the opportunity to bake this very yummy pumpkin pie.

The cookbook, by the way, is lovely; I hopefully will have the chance to start baking other goodies from it very soon and to share them with you.

Joanne Chang mentions in the prolog to this recipe that prior to opening Flour, she had never tasted pumpkin pie, but this is what she would imagine it to taste like. Good taste, indeed! To concentrate the pumpkin flavor, you first reduce pumpkin puree with brown sugar until you have a golden brown paste. While the recipe calls for 16 ounces, we used a more standard 15 ounce can without any problems. The pumpkin custard filling is delicately flavored with cinnamon, freshly ground nutmeg, and a pinch of cloves. There is nothing overpowering about the spices, which can often dominate other pumpkin pies. Of note, not all the custard filling fits into a 9-inch pie plate.

The filling obtains its richness and smooth mouth feel from heavy cream and one of my favorite ingredients, sweetened condensed milk. Indeed, I noticed that the list of ingredients are very similar to that for making flan.

I opted to use Flo Braker’s incredibly flaky and tender pie crust recipe instead of the pate brisee. I was initially worried that the flaky crust would be too delicate for the custard filling, but the thought quickly vanished after my first bite. In order to ensure that the crust did not become soggy with the filling, I blind baked the crust and then lightly brushed egg whites over the bottom and sides. This worked out beautifully, although I am curious to try the pate brisee recipe next time!

The pie keeps very well covered in the refrigerator for up to two days. It may stay well for longer, but it did not last long enough for me to find out!

Click for recipe