Archive for the 'Baking' Category

©2008 Harry Kenney

How I came up with this dish has an odd little road to it. A couple months ago I had friends coming over for a get together and I had my cooking itineary planned, complete with an Italian dessert. No, not one of my own. I do do other people’s recipes at times too. Sometimes I make so many changes that they end up turning into something different and my own, but this was one of those times I was going to pretty much go along with the recipe I had. (At least that had been the initial plan.)

Listen up, this will teach you the value of reading something first, and all the way through and thoroughly. I was going to make this chocolate ricotta dessert (forget what, maybe was a cake, I seem to think it was going to be one of those custard things in ramekins. I had read the recipe throught and even did the two hour prep (again this was a while back, Iwrote down the recipe, but I didn’t write down this story, so bear with my fuzzy memory.)

Read the rest of this entry »

©2008 Harry Kenney

Here’s the second homemade cookie recipe I promised I’d get up to the site that I did over the holidays. Applesauce cookies. Yum! And while this is a good one to eat all year round, it definitely has those fall - winter spices we’ve come to associate with the Holidays. Moms take note: with fruit, nuts and raisins in this it’s no doubt a higher than average nutritional cookie too.

There is one important baking item I want to touch on though, and I should have done this with the butter cookie recipe probably, and that is the whole discussion or school of thought about salted versus unsalted butter in baking and especially cooking recipes. Salted butter, even though most of us don’t taste the salt, is the most commonly found one at markets and convenience stores. And against popular thought, it’s the one I use.

Read the rest of this entry »

I said previously that I had made some cookies during the Christmas holidays but had forgotten to get them up here. Well here’s the first of two cookie recipes. This is one of those classic, basic cookies. The butter cookie.

Now there’s a variety of things you can do with butter cookie dough. This particular recipe is (mainly — you’ll see what I mean at the end) for use with a cookie press or cookie “gun”. If you’re a woman you probably say press. If you’re a guy, you probably call it a gun.

Read the rest of this entry »

©2008 Harry Kenney

If you enjoyed my very recent Chocolate-Raspberry Lava Cake recipe, then you are going to love this “makeover” or redeaux as well. Remember the original lava cake was made as a mistake. And this dish came about when I messed up my lava cake. So much for the saying two wrongs don’t make a right!

Think of it almost as a crunchy chocolate pudding “slash” cake. Obviously since it never leaves the dish it can’t “lava” out like the original. And as you see the cracking on top in the photo, you see why I had to call this chocolate cave-in cake.

Read the rest of this entry »

Lava cake, aka molton cake, aka volcano cake (hmm, I sense a theme here) … whatever you want to call it, it’s fun and delicious, rich though lighter than you would expect — a chocloholic’s dream. Women want it and want to run away from it at the same time (because they want it, you see.) Kids love it, so do guys. What’s not to love about a miniature chocolate cake that oozes out even more liquid chocolatey goodness when you cut in to it?

There seems to be two basic ways to make this cake. The way that’s most difficult (patterned on the original “mistake cake”) that can easily fail, and the way that guarantee’s success every time. Being one of these crazy people who actually expects things to behave the way they are supposed to be — you know, purchasing a watch with the expectation it tells time, a refrigerator that stays cold, crazy things like that — my version falls into the latter category.

Read the rest of this entry »

What’s a great any-time appetizer and definitely a crowd pleaser? Stuffed mushrooms. Especially now, the “holidays” between Christmas and New Years when family and friends are more apt to come visit.

Want not one but two items that will not only impress guests but both are simple to make, taste delicious and can be done rather quickly? The first is Pancetta Wrapped Shrimp which can be done in under 20 minutes. And (bet you saw this one coming) the second one is stuffed mushrooms which can be made within 30 to 45 minutes.

Read the rest of this entry »

This year I wanted to make stuffing from scratch and I wanted to do something completely different from the usual, traditional Thanksgiving turkey and stuffing. I also wanted it to be something a bit more “modern”. Seems chorizo is all the rage, and as I finally got my hands on some — yes, it’s easier to find in the South and Southwest then here in the Northeast — so I decided that was where I would go with this recipe.

Now then we have the words “stuffing” and “dressing”. So what is what with that? Well, they’re pretty interchangeable, basically. In the US, stuffing is used more often in the Eastern and Southern areas, whereas dressing more preferable in the rest of the country. That said, none of this is written in stone by any means.

Read the rest of this entry »

There are so many combinations of meatloaf in the world. Use 100 percent beef. No, use beef and pork. No, has to be the tri-meat combination of beef, pork and veal. No, it’s lamb as the third, not veal. You can use milk-soaked bread, big crouton things purchased or made yourself. You can use breadcrumbs. Nope, use the oats in oatmeal. With and without eggs. Mayonnaise as an extra binder; no way, hold the mayo. Gotta have some gravy. Gravy has to be brown. No, it’s gotta be tomato. No gravy anywhere; that ruins it. … And the list goes on and on.

And then, like myself, many cooks have more than one meatloaf. Why? Same as above. There’s so many ways to do it and there’s no one right way. In fact, it’s pretty tough to mess up. Hope all you newbie cooks are listening up. Meatloaf is many things: The perfect comfort food being one. And an excellent dish to start on if you’ve never or rarely cooked before.

Read the rest of this entry »

Whew! The last three recipes were each a bit complicated and time-consuming in terms of preparation and cooking … got to do plenty of interesting cooking things though: turned a slab of beef into steaks, pounded meat thin, made a meat stuffing, created a custard in a pot, made a ganache, took a squash apart, made a puree with the food processor, oven-roasted vegetables, got to cook some chorizo…

Time then to switch things up and do something quick and a bit more whimsical. So for today, it’s pizza for kids. Yes, I know, kids like any kind of pizza; but that said, they’ll like these even more. Moreover, you don’t have to have kids, these are definitely pizzas for the kids in us all!

Read the rest of this entry »

Sometimes you just want to have it all. And sometimes you can — especially when you’re cooking. And in this case, baking. How this recipe came along was simple: I had a couple of bananas, I wanted to use them to make some kind of sweet desert, preferrably something baked and I wanted it to include chocolate.

While it’s true with this basis there’s a hundred things I could choose to do, the first thing that popped to mind was maybe a banana cream pie. Graham cracker crust, chocolate pudding (some folks do vanilla), sliced bananas and whipped cream. Yummy but way too easy. No challenge in it.

Read the rest of this entry »

First let me direct you to my recipe on Fruit and Cream Cheese Triangles as that covered a lot of the basics found in this recipe here. In fact, this recipe is in many ways a continuation or the next step after those delicious little triangles.

Using the same amount of puff pastry dough that made the nine triangles, one sheet, I was this time able to more simply create four large turnovers. Since I’ve never really played with puff pastry dough prior to these two outings, I saw no sense in making the filling from scratch, as I was more interested in getting the pastry correct and learning from what I was doing.

Read the rest of this entry »

I love this town. I love it for so many reasons, too many, I won’t even get into cause I might not be able to stop. But one of the reasons is food, baby. Philly is hometown to so many foods, it’s just crazy. Probably first that comes up on everyone’s list is the Philly Cheesesteak. If not that, it’s the Hoagie. Whats a hoagie? Ever have something called a “sub” or submarine? Ever have something called a “hero” or hero sandwhich? Well, if so, they are just pale, lack-luster imitations of a hoagie.

What else? There’s the Philly pretzel. Much superior to those things they burn in NYC and call pretzels. There’s scrapple, a mysterious and wonderful substance — sorta like haggis, not in taste, in mystery — that is a wonderful alternative to bacon, ham and sausage as a breakfast meat to go along with your eggs. And then, to my surprise, there’s the stromboli.

Read the rest of this entry »