mexican cornbread with jalapeño and chorizo

I saw Padma Lakshmi make the Mexican Cornbread with Jalapeño and Chorizo from her cookbook Tangy Tart Hot and Sweet on a news/chat show last weekend and was intrigued. So in honor of Cinco de Mayo, I made it last night. Although I've always been curious about cornbreads with ingredients beyond the basics (cornmeal, flour, etc.) I've never tried making one. This recipe has corn pieces, chorizo, pickled jalapeño, Jack cheese and dillweed. It was quite the explosion of flavors. And best of all, this morning P. grilled the leftovers and served them with fried eggs for our breakfast -- YUM.

chocolate raspberry nut bars and baker's one bowl brownies

I was the mistress of the baked bars yesterday. First off, I made Chocolate Raspberry Nut Bars for C.'s school's Teacher Appreciation Luncheon. This is my second time making them, so I thought I'd tweak a mistake I made last time when I misread the recipe and used regular chocolate chips instead of the mini chocolate chips the recipe specified. But 12 ounces of mini chips seems like a hell of A LOT more than 12 ounces of regular chocolate chips. So I think next time I'll go back to doing my original (incorrect) recipe. I also somewhat unintentionally decided to substitute 2/3 cups of sliced almonds for the 1 cup of slivered almonds. When I was at the grocery store looking at almonds, the sliced looked prettier and came in a bigger package than the slivered for the same price. Furthermore, in the spirit of full disclosure, I also have to say that I had written the wrong quantity of almonds on my shopping list -- I wrote 1/2 cup when I in fact needed a full cup (which is why I had been hung up on the package size). I also rationalized that I must have used sliced before, when now I suspect I did used the slivered as the recipe called for. Anyhoooo... regardless of what I did, they were yummy once again. And I'm not one for mixing fruit flavors with chocolate ordinarily. I cut them up to put in the disposable pan for the teachers, but really I cut them up so I could sneak a few squares.

I also made Baker's Chocolate's One Bowl Brownies. My primary (actually, sole) motivation was that I've had this partial box of unsweetened baker's chocolate kicking around my pantry since Christmastime and I'm on a mission to use up stuff in my pantry, particularly since the weather is getting warmer and chocolate does not age well in an overheated kitchen. C., my brownie afiocionado, proclaimed them "not as good as your regular recipe" and refused to even finish one. Sadly, my "regular recipe" is a boxed mix (not even any particular mix, just whatever is on sale the day I go to the store). I explained this fact to him, and I tried to point out to him how these "from scratch" brownies (while admittedly not very chocolatey compared to the mix) are better for us (yes, I really said that) and automatically trump the mix just by virtue of being from scratch. He was unswayed. I then explained to him that it is my ultimate goal to come up with a brownie that's as good as the mix and that it's going to take a lot of experimenting and testing before I get to that point. In the end, he (somewhat reluctantly) agreed to continue being my brownie tester.

crusty italian bread, parte due

I made another batch of King Arthur Flour's Crusty Italian Bread, this time with a (light) sprinkling of sesame seeds. Here's the biga yesterday morning, about 12 hours after mixing:

(The biga is just flour, water and yeast. Note the lovely bubbles!) After adding additional water, flour, yeast and salt, and a nice kneading, the dough rises for an hour and a half, turning after each 30 minute period. Here is the dough before the third turning:

After the third turning, I divided the dough into thirds and braided it, and then left it to rise for another hour. Here it is following that rise, before the egg wash and sesame seeds were added.

And finally -- the finished bread!

raspberry-white chocolate scones

I've been having a hankering for scones, but they are hard to find out here in the sticks and I can't really stomach spending $5 on 6 scones that aren't even scones (they're dry, dusty biscuits with fruit in them) at the supermarket bakery. For some reason, the raspberry - white chocolate combo sounded appealing although I can't remember ever having that combination in my scone-eating life. So after spending considerable time searching for a scone recipe that seemed authentic and that I liked I decided to make the Simple Scones recipe from the King Arthur Flour website. I added 1 cup of frozen raspberries and 2/3 cup of white chocolate chips to the dough. In the future I'll probably add the raspberries in after all the other ingredients are blended since they did "bleed" a bit (I thought that by not thawing them in advance that wouldn't be such a problem). Also, I opted for the mounding method rather than using a scone pan and they did spread a bit more than I would've liked (all that butter!). So maybe they're not the most attractive -- but they were YUMMY. L. had to be rousted from bed to eat them warm, but ended up wolfing down 3. So I guess that means he liked them!

crusty italian bread

From the King Arthur Flour Baker's Companion, yet another recipe that doesn't require a stone.

The recipe calls for sprinkling sesame seeds on top when you are applying the egg wash, but C. asked me to leave it off. Later when I was explaining this to everyone else over dinner, he recanted. So the next one I bake will be with sesame seeds!