Knitter in the Kitchen

Happy New Year!  I hope you had a wonderful holiday with your family and friends.  I have been enjoying a lovely time off from work, and there has been much baking going on in the last couple of weeks.  In addition to the Espresso Chocolate Shortbread Cookies, I also made Swedish Visiting Cake, lemon bars, oatmeal raisin cookies, and apple crisp.  The apple crisp recipe is new to me and came from a colleague who adapted it from The California Cookbook (1970) by Jeanne Voltz.  The crisp is simple but delicious, and is now my go-to recipe when I don’t feel like rolling out the dough for apple pie.

6-8 apples to yield approximately 6 cups (I used 6 small golden delicious apples)
1 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
3/4 cup water
1 1/2 cup sugar
1 1/8 cup flour
10 1/2 tablespoons butter, cold (I diced the butter right before using it)

Peel, core, and cut apples into 1/2 inch slices and place in a buttered 7 x 11 baking dish. Stir cinnamon into water and pour mixture over apples. Work together sugar, flour, and butter with fingertips until crumbly and distribute over apples. Bake uncovered at 400 degrees for 35-40 minutes (I baked it for about 45-50 minutes because I wanted my crust a little more golden). Serve warm or cold with vanilla ice-cream.  Enjoy!

One great thing about reading food blogs is that I get inspired to try recipes I would otherwise overlook. Deb of Smitten Kitchen posted about the Espresso-Chocolate Shortbread Cookies from Dorie Greenspan’s Baking: From My Home to Yours, and three days later I made them myself.

When perusing Dorie’s book, I never really looked at the shortbread recipes because I didn’t think I liked shortbread. Well, I was wrong. I love these shortbread cookies — they have an excellent coffee flavor and are surprisingly light in texture.

I can’t eat too many of these — they contain a fair amount of butter so I gave half the batch away — but even one of these cookies after dinner is such a treat! In case you couldn’t tell, I am a huge fan of Dorie. If you would like to try the recipe, you can find it in the Smitten Kitchen link I provided above.

I love Dorie Greenspan’s Swedish Visiting Cake, so when she posted a variation called the Swedish Apple Cake, I knew I wanted to try it. The two cakes definitely do taste different, but the Apple Cake is just as easy and delicious! We loved the mild flavor with just the right amount of sweetness.  Next time I have to remember to use more apple slices.
Modifications: used 9.5 inch pie dish and reduced baking time by about 7 minutes.

Last week I baked a Peach Crumble, which was essentially another version of the Plum Raspberry Crumble I made in July. I liked this one much better as it wasn’t nearly as tart as my first attempt.

Modifications:
:: 3 medium-large peaches in place of plums
:: omitted raspberries
:: increased amount of white sugar mixed in with peaches. I eyeballed this, but instead of 1/6 cup I probably added almost 1/4 cup.

I am curious about whether you all remove the skins from peaches prior to baking, and if so, how? I used a knife to score the bottom of the peaches with an X, and then immersed them in boiling water for 1 minute. The skin wouldn’t budge. I’ve read in multiple places that this is the way to remove skins, but it didn’t work for me. Perhaps it was the type of peaches? I used tree ripe. But the skin didn’t bother us so we still liked the crumble a lot.

Next time I hope to show actual knitting content!

Recipe from Dorie Greenspan’s Baking: From My Home to Yours. As you may have noticed, I am a tad addicted to her book right now!

This very chocolate-y biscotti reminds me of a brownie, except harder. My initial reaction was slight disappointment. There wasn’t anything wrong with the biscotti, but it didn’t make me swoon and exclaim that it was delicious. However, after a couple of days the flavor grew on me, so perhaps this is one of those items that tastes better overnight.

I baked the original recipe in the book, but I came across a few very talented and inspiring food bloggers who modified it with success. You can find them at Cream Puffs in Venice, Tartelette, Veronica’s Test Kitchen, Jumbo Empanadas, Culinary Concoctions by Peabody, and La Mia Cucina.