Tag Archives: Butter

Bakery Miscellaneous

Brown Sugar Cookies with Buttermilk Glaze

First up, on Tuesday, nibbles of dark brown sugar cookies with plenty of chewy texture glazed with buttermilk and powdered sugar. The dough is a basic sugar cookie recipe made with dark sugar.  With the buttermilk in the glaze, this is a cookie of contrasts. Their soft centers balance with the crisp edges, their chewy texture pairs opposite the smoothness of the glaze, and brown sugar answers the  tang of  the buttermilk .  Contrast and complements all in one cookie.

Soften your butter early on then cream it with the sugar and an egg. Add in dry ingredients gradually, then bake and you’re all pau except for the glaze. Flavored with cinnamon and allspice, rich with butter, they bake quickly; just eight minutes was fine.  Let them cool completely before drizzling on the glaze

I found these tasted even better on Wednesday after sitting, airtight, overnight. Their mellowing set the most magnificent aroma wafting  when I opened the container, so be ready for that! The recipe made 3 dozen.  When you next have time, why not declare a cookie day and bake these, make a pot of fresh coffee, and sit down with your book?  Sweet nibbling!

Brown Sugar Cookies w/Buttermilk Glaze

Ingredients

2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. ground allspice
1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
12 T. unsalted butter, at room temperature
1-1/4 cups dark brown sugar
1 large egg, at room temperature

Directions

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Prepare baking sheets with parchment paper. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, salt, and spices. Set aside.

Beat butter and sugar until smooth and creamy. Add the egg and beat well. Add flour mixture and beat until well incorporated, scraping sides of bowl as you go.

Drop by large tablespoonfuls of dough onto prepared baking sheets, about 2 inches apart. Bake for about 8-10 minutes until edges are browned. Cool on the sheet for a nice crisp outside and a soft inside. Cool completely before glazing. Yields 3 dozen cookies.

Buttermilk Glaze

1-1/2 cups powdered sugar
3 tablespoons well-shaken buttermilk
1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract

Use a whisk to blend all ingredients until smooth.  Drizzle over cooled cookies with a fork.

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Recipes - Appetizers

Ham & Swiss Sliders

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ham & Swiss Sliders 4

This recipe from my cookbook is the one that Susie uses for her ham rolls. If you are planning on fixing just one appetizer for Super Bowl viewing, this one will get you a win-win! Made with King’s Hawaiian Rolls and seasoned with mustard, poppy seed, Worcestershire, and melted butter, these delectable slider sandwiches have the best of both worlds going on: ham and Swiss cheese, and a tangy sauce poured over for spiced flavor. These go down so easy that your gang might forget about the chips and dip! Serve warm with something really cold to drink.  Put out a few bowls of spiced pretzels too if you have them.  That recipe is here on my blog.

I halved this recipe also today but if you are having several people in for the game you will want to make 24 rolls. They will be all be eaten and appreciated I assure you.  Let the Big Game begin, y’all!

Ham & Swiss Sliders

24 slices of deli honey ham
6 slices of Swiss cheese, cut into fourths
1 T. poppy seeds
1-1/2 T. Dijon mustard
1/2 cups butter melted
2 T. Worcestershire sauce
2 packages (12 pc.) King’s Original Hawaiian Sweet Dinner Rolls

Directions  Preheat oven to 350.  Slice through rolls as one large piece. Place a slice or two of ham and a slice of Swiss cheese on bottom of each roll. Replace the top of the rolls and bunch them closely together into a baking dish. Prepare the sauce by combining the poppy seeds, mustard, butter, and the Worcestershire; whisk well, and microwave mixture until hot.  Pour sauce over the rolls, covering just the tops.  Cover with foil and let sit for 10 minutes.

Bake for 20 minutes or until cheese is melted. Uncover and cook for additional 2 minutes until tops are slightly browned and crisp.  Serve warm from the oven.

 

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Recipes - Appetizers

Cheese Bacon Bread Bake

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image

Super Bowl viewing requires something a little heavier than just dip and chips, and this bread bake, stuffed with bacon and cheese is a good place to start for a heartier appetizer. The outside of the bread bakes seasoned with the tang of dry Ranch mix and melted butter and the inside softens with slices of sharp Cheddar and bacon. An easy prep, only five minutes frying the bacon halfway then layering it into  the bread along with the cheddar slices, and just 25 minutes in the oven and you’ve got a hearty appetizer on the table, ready for sharing. The bacon will get crisper as the bread bakes and it is a sublime little bite you get along with buttery seasoning and the sharp melted cheddar.

Today I halved the recipe as given in my cookbook because I bought only a small loaf of sourdough but do use a pound loaf to feed a hungry and appreciative bunch.  Serve it up warm, add a few cold beverages and you’ve got ‘game on’ here!

Bacon & Cheddar Bread Bake

Ingredients

3 slices bacon
1 lb. loaf of round sourdough bread
(8 oz.) block sharp Cheddar cheese, sliced
1/2 stick butter, melted
1 T. Ranch dry seasoning mix

Directions

Preheat oven to 350.  Place bacon in a large skillet and cook over medium heat, turning occasionally, until halfway cooked, about 5 minutes. Drain the bacon slices on paper towels; cut crosswise into 1/2-inch wide strips.  Cut slits halfway through bread in two directions creating a checkerboard pattern. Slip Cheddar cheese slices and bacon pieces into the slits.  Mix butter and ranch dressing mix in a small bowl; pour over bread, allowing to drip into the slits. Wrap entire loaf in a sheet of aluminum foil and place on a baking sheet.  Bake in preheated oven for 15 minutes. Unwrap bread and return to baking sheet; bake until cheese is melted and bacon crisped, about 10 minutes more.

 

Direction Preheat oven to 350.  Place bacon in a large skillet and cook over medium heat, turning occasionally, until halfway cooked, about 5 minutes. Drain the bacon slices on paper towels; cut crosswise into 1/2-inch wide strips.  Cut slits halfway through bread in two directions creating a checkerboard pattern. Slip Cheddar cheese slices and bacon pieces into the slits.  Mix butter and ranch dressing mix in a small bowl; pour over bread, allowing to drip into the slits. Wrap entire loaf in a sheet of aluminum foil and place on a baking sheet.  Bake in preheated oven for 15 minutes. Unwrap bread and return to baking sheet; bake until cheese is melted and bacon crisp, about 10 minutes more.

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Recipes - Side Dishes

Southern Spoon Bread

cold, with syrup
cold, with syrup

Southern Spoonbread was a practical, and tempting, choice for supper tonight after spending the better part of the day cleaning and organizing the pantry. This simple dish, easily prepared any time with ingredients normally on hand, makes a fine side dish at any meal. Eaten warm, just out of the oven, it is best described as a spoonable cornbread pudding. The center is creamy with a top that browns and thickens enough to give texture.  Eaten cold, as a midnight snack, drizzled with maple syrup, the texture had firmed and it tasted a little like bread pudding.  With only a teaspoon of sugar, the dish is  not overly sweet, but it is rich with eggs and cornmeal.

There are dozens of versions of this classic Southern recipe and today I modified the one I normally use because I didn’t have corn meal other than the self-rising variety and that wouldn’t do for this dish. I used boxed Jiffy Mix as a substitute, and though the souffle was not as dry as when using plain white corn meal, the texture was still satisfying. The top will crack as the souffle bakes and that is fine. The hardest thing about making this is resisting the urge to eat it right out of the pan. I managed to do so only by walking out of the kitchen and occupying myself elsewhere for 15 minutes. This is comfort food at its Southern finest.

Do beat your egg whites separately and until they are stiff and firm and fold them into the batter gently to lighten it. This could easily be baked in a 2-qt. souffle dish also.

Ingredients

5 T. unsalted butter, softened
4 cups milk
1 cup fine-ground white or yellow cornmeal
1 tsp. sea salt
1 tsp. sugar
4 eggs, separated
1/8 tsp. cream of tartar

Directions Preheat the oven to 400. Butter a 1-1/2 quart soufflé dish with 2 T. of the softened butter; set aside. In a large saucepan, heat milk until just below boiling. Slowly whisk in cornmeal; bring to boiling. Cook, whisking constantly, over medium heat for about five minutes or until the mixture thickens and begins to pull away from the sides of the pan. Remove from heat; transfer to a large mixing bowl. Cool 10 minutes. Whisk in the remaining 3 T. butter, salt, and sugar. Beat in egg yolks until well blended.

In a separate large mixing bowl, beat egg whites and cream of tartar with a clean large whisk until they form soft glossy mounds. Stir one-third of the beaten egg whites into the cornmeal mixture to lighten. Gently fold in remaining egg whites. Gently turn into prepared soufflé dish; the batter will nearly fill the dish. Bake 30 minutes or until puffed and golden brown. Cool five minutes at least before serving.

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Recipes - Side Dishes

Bacon Bundled Green Beans

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Prep
Prep

Bacon Bundled Beans

Thanks to friend, Micki Welsh, for sharing this recipe with me last week. You tell me: what’s NOT to like about combining bacon and fresh green beans baked with a mixture of brown sugar and butter? Reading this recipe you know already exactly how this will taste. Admit it, you DO! And, it sounds wonderful, no?

Once I had the beans, I was SO excited about making this that I sashayed straight into the kitchen and fell to putting the dish together. Beans trimmed, bacon cut, bundles rolled and secured with a toothpick, and then OH, NO! I belatedly realized the recipe instructed blanching the beans before rolling them up in the bacon!

Yep, you got it: I had to unroll, blanch, and re-roll. Time wasted and a slippery mess! Take away Lesson #1: DO read a recipe thoroughly before beginning. In the end, however, these baked up perfectly and they are definitely a new “go-to” recipe for fresh green beans. The bacon crisps and the brown sugar-butter mixture caramelizes as the bundles broil the last five minutes of cooking time resulting in tender veggies AND tangy flavor that will leave you reaching for more.

This recipe is excellent for enticing the kiddos into eating their veggies and the prep time is minimal (IF you read the directions carefully!). The presentation is more appetizing and tidier than a simple bowl of green beans and all you need do is just sit back and accept the compliments.

Concerned that the beans might become overdone, I adjusted my oven to 325 and baked them for 37 minutes on my timer, broiling them the last five minutes. The beans were tender and the bacon crisp and I will be honest and admit that my supper turned into a little chowder and a whole lot of beans. I halved the recipe today and it yielded 9 bundles. I ate half of the halved recipe; they are THAT good!

Bacon Bundled Green Beans

Ingredients

2# fresh French green beans, ends trimmed
8-10 bacon strips, cut in half
1 stick butter
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 tsp. garlic powder, optional

Directions Blanch the beans for five minutes in a large sauce pot in boiling water to cover (or microwave them). Drain and cool. Bundle 10-12 beans and wrap each bundle with a strip of bacon, securing each bundle with a toothpick. Prepare the sauce by melting the butter in a small sauce pot on the stove, add the sugar and the garlic powder if using. Cook over medium heat until bubbly, whisking continually, then remove from heat and pour the mixture evenly over the bean bundles. Bake 350 for 35-40 minutes. Before removing from oven, place the baking dish under your oven’s broiler element and broil five minutes. Remove from oven and serve in a flat dish with shallow sides, providing tongs for picking up each bundle.

The bundles can be refrigerated, covered, overnight, once you have them wrapped and secured with the toothpicks. Remove from fridge the next day and allow them to warm slightly before baking. The bacon and sugar can produce a bit of a mess so I took Micki’s advice and prepared this using a throw-away aluminum pan for easy clean up.

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