Irish Cream

Posted on March 17, 2012 by Kathy

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.

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.

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.

Hyper Local Brew Fest

Posted on March 16, 2012 by Kathy

If you have been reading my blog for any length of time you know that every summer and fall I drop down the Boston Local Food Festival rabbit hole. You can barely pin me down for an evening and BF thinks I’m merely a ghost for about a month leading up to BLFF. So naturally, when the organizers contacted me about a summer event to promote the festival and find more awesome brewers I was thrilled and immediately said yes.

So, in June the Boston Local Food Festival team with Sustainable Business Networks of Boston is presenting the Hyper Local Brew Fest! This will be an evening of fun I assure you! Our line up is looking more and more robust every day and as we speak we already have wineries, meaderies, and breweries signed up and excited to show us their wares.

So when is this fabulous event?, you ask. It’s June 16th at the Somerville Armory where it will be set up in a very similar fashion to our Brew Fest last year. There will be two sessions of tastings with tickets priced at $30 each. There will be music, there will be delicious nomables, just like at the festival $5/serving. In general it’s going to be a magical experience. You should come. You can get tickets here. And, if you use the code HYPERLOCAL today only (March 16, 2012) you get 10% off your ticket!

Cheesy Semolina Bread Fail

Posted on March 12, 2012 by Kathy

Not everything I make is a resounding success. I frequently try recipes and end up throwing them out or pretending they never happened while trying to come up with something better. This state of mind leaves me one of two ways, I am either sobbing and trying to figure out why I failed or I feel like a totally mediocre cook who can’t do anything right. Though, sometimes I am trying a new recipe and it just falls flat, like in the case of this bread. It looks tasty right – the cheese is golden and crispy on top and the whole thing is a lovely golden brown? It’s not. It’s dense and chewy and sits in your belly like a bowling ball, just making you feel full but not satisfied in terms of flavor or texture.

I’ve had semolina flour sitting on my shelf for quite a while now, initially it was there as a pasta making addition but more and more I’ve been coming across semolina breads. These breads, when I buy them, are fluffy and airy – like a baguette or ciabatta but with a little more texture to the crumb and I am a fan. So one day last week I decided to try it out, make my own semolina bread. So I looked in all of my cookbooks, I looked on the internet – I looked everywhere and found one recipe for semolina bread. It was a recipe on the King Arthur Flour website and it only called for semolina flour, so I was wary of it but went for it.

The dough was a cinch and mixed up in just a few minutes, it rose well, and then rose well after shaping – but in terms of flavor it was flat and disappointing. Will I try semolina bread again?, of course, I’m nothing if not persistent. Will I use this recipe again, no. It needs work – too much semolina flour created a dense bread that weighed heavily and didn’t do either my baking skills or the bread any justice. I’ll definitely be trying semolina flour again, and maybe then I’ll find a recipe worthy of sharing. In the meantime – here are some pictures of this bread.

Barrio is Popping Up

Posted on March 8, 2012 by Kathy

I know, I know it’s a cheesy title. But it’s true! Last Thursday I had the privilege of attending a dinner at Barrio. Barrio is Chef Wheeler del Torro’s vegan-Cuban street food pop-up that is set to soon descend on the Boston area. I went into this pop-up a little warily, if you read this blog much you know how great my affinity for all things butter and (in general) not vegan. I found the idea hard to grasp. I shouldn’t have worried.

The dinner was awesome, though. From our secret meeting place (shhh, you’ll know if you go!) to the fantastic champagne to the world class dessert (I can’t tell that either, it’ll give too much away) I was in love. Check out my awesome visual recap! If you want to go, you should probably go put your name on the email list!

Getting to chop up a pineapple and play in the kitchen with a chef! #dreamsihavehad

The wild blueberry, goat cheese Ice cream. Megan would have died for this!

The plantains – how is it I have gone 27 years with eating so few plantains????

The pork taco (made by a chef friend of Wheeler’s), it was juicy and delicious

Perfect champagne. A great end to a great evening.

Discalimer: I attended this pop-up dinner (my first, and definitely not last) for free, but all opinions posted here are my own.

Cinnamon Sugar Pull-Apart Bread

Posted on March 3, 2012 by Kathy

I love to bake yeast breads. I find the smell of rising bread dough reminds me of being little and making dough with my mom on snowy days. When we were growing up we always made the same bread – a standard white bread recipe that always made six loaves. We would make the dough and I would stand on a chair to turn the handle of the dough kneader – a big steel bucket with a dough hook that we turned with a worn wooden handle. Now when I make dough I use the dough hook attachment for my Kitchen Aid and it takes two or three minutes, it’s quick and does a great job – but I still kind of miss turning that big crank to watch the dough turn into a perfect ball.

This bread is not from the recipe I used as a child – it’s a sweet dough, so there’s sugar there and some spices too. This is a recipe that Elly used in my high school baking class to teach students about yeast risen dough. It’s rich in all the right ways and makes a perfect loaf of pull-apart bread. I’ve mentioned Elly on here in passing a couple of times, she gave me the best recipe for Ginger Snaps I’ve ever tried and she is one of the reasons I still cook. I remember her coming to school suppers and serving baked beans when I was little and staying until the very end of the meal – making sure everything was put away and the kitchen was spotless. She was a woman who cooked because she loved to do it, not because it was a chore or something her family needed – sugar and butter were her lifeblood.

Every year when she showed her intro baking classes this recipe she talked about getting up at four in the morning to bake perfect cinnamon buns for her kids and husband because it was the best smell to wake up to. She’s right, it is the best wake-up smell. I make this bread every other month or so for BF and I, and even though I don’t get up at four in the morning to have the bread ready by 6:30 I understand her meaning. That magical scent of cinnamon, sugar, and butter baking in the oven always makes me happy to be awake. And I know I say this often – but there’s nothing more satisfying on a lazy weekend morning than kneading bread dough and playing with yeast. It takes a bit of time to bake a yeast risen dough, but the payoff is totally worth it. I promise.

Cinnamon Sugar Pull-Apart Bread
Adapted from my introduction to baking cookbook where it is written in purple, sparkly pen.

For the Bread:
1 cup warm water
1 Tbs yeast
1/4 cup sugar
2 Tbs butter, melted
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp salt
2 1/2-3 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp cinnamon

For the filling:
4 Tbs butter, melted
1/4 cup sugar
2 Tbs cinnamon

Combine the water, yeast, sugar, and butter in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the dough hook attachment and allow the mixture to get a little frothy.
Stir in the vanilla and the salt.
Add 2 cups of flour and combine, on low, with the dough hook. Continue to add flour in 1/4 cup increments until the dough comes together as a ball.
Continue to stir the dough with the dough hook for another two minutes.
Place the dough in a lightly oiled, large bowl covered in plastic wrap. Put it somewhere warm to rise until doubled in volume, about an hour.
When the dough has risen dump it out onto a lightly floured surface and roll it out until it’s a rectangle about 9″x15″.
Lightly grease a loaf pan with butter.
Combine the melted butter, sugar, and cinnamon so they become a paste – I’ve spread the butter then used cinnamon sugar as well, but prefer the paste method.
Spread paste evenly over the rolled out dough.
Cut the dough into strips about 3″ wide. Stack them on top of each other. There should be about five.
Cut the stack of dough strips into thirds.
Stack the cut dough in the loaf pan so that the cinnamon side of the dough is touching the non-cinnamon side.
Cover the pan with plastic wrap again and let it rise somewhere warm.
While your dough is rising, preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
When the loaf is ready, about 30 minutes later – it doesn’t need to double this time, we were just letting the flour relax a bit – pop it in your preheated oven.
Bake the bread for 30-35 minutes, until it’s golden brown on the top.
Allow it to sit at room temperature for 5-10 minutes before eating.
This is ideal with a cup of coffee.
Share with a friend.