Another blog for you to read!

Ever scratched your head at cookbooks when they say things like "Cream the butter with the sugar" or ever wondered why bread rise? I have created a new blog for you to read that will hopefully answer these questions. The new blog is Help me Happy! An Explanation of Cooking. I will probably not post there as often as here, but if you have any specific questions, just ask them as a comment on Help me Happy!
I hope it will be useful to you!

Light and Crispy Waffles

More pics!

This recipe is from Catherine Martineau, who says she got it from Bon Appetit the magazine. It's a great recipe if you are looking for airy and crispy waffles; they are not floppy or soggy.
The recipe Originally called for Self-rising flour, but since I don't believe in Self-rising flour, I translated it into all-purpose. If you have self-rising flour just leave out the baking powder and salt.
I made the 15-17 waffles batter and it fed about 7 people.

Here is a handy chart:

# of Waffles (7" diameter)	8-12	15-17	17-20
Flour	2 cups	3 cups	4 cups
Baking powder	3 tsp	4 1/2 tsp	6 tsp
salt	1/2 tsp	3/4 tsp	1 tsp
eggs	4	6	8
milk	1 1/2 cups	2 1/4 cups	3 cups
vanilla extract	1 tsp	1 1/2 tsp	2 tsp
melted butter	1/6 cup	1/4 cup (2 tbsp)	1/3 cup
oil	1/6 cup	1/4	1/3 cup

1. Separate the eggs putting the yolks in a large bowl and the whites in a medium bowl.
   
2. Add the milk and the vanilla extract to the yolks.
   
3. In another medium bowl whisk the dry ingredients (the first three) together, then add them to the wet ingredients (the egg yolks, milk ...).
   
4. Add the melted butter and oil to the batter and whisk until smooth.
5. Beat the egg whites, and fold them into the batter. To fold into the batter use a whisk and, with a rotary motion, gently pile batter on top of the egg whites and pull the egg whites into the batter.
6. Keep doing this until the batter is smooth.
7. Heat the waffles irons and cook to desired doneness. (I like brown and crunchy)

I recommend you use real maple syrup on these waffles. The Aunt Jemima's stuff just doesn't taste good. Powdered sugar or jams also work fine. If you are a fan of maple syrup, heating it in the microwave before pouring it onto the waffle helps retain heat and makes the syrup less viscous.

Revision of the Baked Sandwich Recipe

While making the Baked Sandwich for the second time, I decided to skip the second rise to see the outcome. Well, the result is that my sandwich was easier to handle and stretch out to form the sandwich, and it ended up being twice as high as the original version!
The second rise is unnecessary and actually bad for this recipe, so I have changed the main post accordingly.

The higher rise may be because the first time I made this sandwich, I let the dough rise in a oven that was too hot, but the dough rose so much this time with only one hour to rise that the second rise would be redundant.

In this sandwich I added cheese, and in the photo you can see it leaked a little.

The Recipe is here.

Nectarine (Peach) Cobbler

More pics!

It's memorial day weekend, we go up to Tahoe for three days. I visualize myself hiking under the sun in shorts and a T-Shirts. No such luck: the heater is broken and is lightly snowing. The temperature outside is 1 degree Celcius.

Whatever happened to Global Warming???

Since when does it snow at Tahoe in late May???

So what do I do? Make Warm Nectarine Cobbler! Served after Catherine Martineau's (a fabulous cook) delicious Clam Chowder, this dessert really warmed our bellies.

Nectarine Cobbler (adapted from Cook's Illustrated "Fresh Peach Cobbler"

Cobblers are different from crumbles; crumbles are made by covering fruit with crumbs, while cobblers are fruit with biscuits baked on top. The biscuits in this recipe are very soft and tender. I used nectarines instead of peaches because I did not want to bother peeling the fruit. Also, since the area around Lake Tahoe is very dry, I added another 2-3 tablespoons of yogurt to the biscuit dough because they wouldn't come together.

So, here's the recipe:

Ingredients

Filling
2 1/2 lbs of ripe but not mushy nectarines (about 6-8 small ones)
1/4 cup (less) sugar
1 tsp cornstarch
1 tbsp lemon juice (I used orange juice)

Biscuits
1 cup flour
3 tbsp sugar
3/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
5 tbsp cold butter cut up into small cubes
1/3 cup plain whole milk yogurt (like Pavel's russian, more liquid than greek-style)

Instructions:

1. Since you are using nectarines, you don't have to peel them! Just wash them and slice them into a 9" circular pan, or and 8x8" (glass is best, really) until the pan is full. You might not need to use all the fruit.
2. Transfer them to a bowl and toss them with the sugar. Let them rest for 30 minutes.
3. While the nectarines are macerating, pre-heat the oven to 425F.
4. After half an hour, check if the fruit has spewed a lot of juice. If you think there is more than 1/4 cup, drain a little of it.
   
5. Combine the lemon juice with the cornstarch and mix it with the nectarines.
6. Put them back into the pan and bake for 10 minutes.
7. While the nectarines are cooking, make the biscuits: Combine the flour, sugar, leaveners, salt.
8. Add the butter and either pulse it with the flour in a food processor, cut it in with a nifty gadget like the one in the picture (a pastry cutter), or use your fingers. Whatever the method, it should look like breadcrumbs(ish) (Kinda like >this)
9. Now add the yogurt and mix it until it forms a ball (blob).
10. When the nectarines are out of the oven, divided the dough into six and scoop it over the fruit. Don't let the blobs touch each other.
11. Bake for 16-18 minutes (20 in altitude)

So, we got this cool gadget, very useful for cutting butter into flour. Cutting butter into flour is used in pie crusts, biscuits, this recipe, and more.
It's extremely easy to use, just slice the cold butter into small cubes and press the pastry cutter in and out of the flour and butter until the butter is well incorporated.
Here is a good article.