Bolognese Sauce
Bolognese sauce is sauce that everyone seems to love, but few people make. I’ll assume that the lack of Bolognese sauce making has something to do with the 2-4 hours of pot-watching, liquid-adding, and stirring that typical Bolognese sauce recipes call for. Personally, I know that’s the case. I don’t mind spending hours in the kitchen, but it gets pretty boring keeping an eye on a pot for that long.
I’ve read/tried many “quick” Bolognese sauces, but each and every one of the fails miserably in the taste department. Good Bolognese sauce gets it unique taste from the long cooking time. Failure to allow the sauce to cook prevents it from developing that unique taste.
I came across this recipe at The Kitchn, but honestly, I didn’t have much hope as I have seen too many Bolognese sauce recipes fail when trying to take shortcuts. Well, it seems as if this recipe is a keeper, as it takes most of the pot-watching out of the equation. A slow cooker (Crockpot) seems to be a perfect idea to use for Bolognese sauce, but you still need to do some of the cooking yourself before dumping it into a slow cooker for the long, slow cook.
The results? Well, you don’t have to tell anyone you cooked it in your slow cooker; they’ll never know you didn’t spend hours making this recipe. [click to read more…]
Banana chocolate peanut-butter ice cream
I usually eat a banana a day, so I end up buying a big bunch of them every week. Unfortunately, sometimes my banana eating gets thrown off track, whether it’s life, they get put behind something, or as in this week, they get put in the fridge (!?) and I end up with a bunch of way-to-ripe bananas. They usually get put in a freezer, waiting for me to make banana bread. I make way to much banana bread to be honest, but hate throwing them out. Well, now my to-ripe bananas have another use.
Three ingredients: bananas, Dutch-processed cocoa, and natural peanut butter are all that’s in this “ice cream”. No heavy cream, whole milk, egg yolk, or even sugar. Perfect for those trying to watch their weight, lactose-intolerant, or vegan.
Banana chocolate peanut-butter ice cream
4 bananas, slightly overripe
2 tbsp creamy natural peanut butter
2 tsp Dutch-processed cocoa powder
- Peel bananas and cut into 1/2″ slices. Place sliced bananas in the freezer for 1 hour.
- Put banana slices in a food processor and pulse. It resemble tiny rocks, but will eventually turn into a frozen mush.
- Scrape down the sides of the food processor and add peanut butter and cocoa.
- Pulse again, until the peanut butter and cocoa is incorporated, scraping down the sides of the food processor about about 15 seconds.
- When done, it will resemble soft serve ice cream; when frozen, it will be pretty hard to scoop. Let the container sit on the counter for a few minutes to thaw and it will scoop very easily.
- Top with your favorite ice cream toppings (I used homemade strawberry syrup).
Makes 1 pint.
Source: single ingredient ice cream – use real butter
Baked Alaska
The August 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Elissa of 17 and Baking. For the first time, The Daring Bakers partnered with Sugar High Fridays for a co-event and Elissa was the gracious hostess of both. Using the theme of beurre noisette, or browned butter, Elissa chose to challenge Daring Bakers to make a pound cake to be used in either a Baked Alaska or in Ice Cream Petit Fours. The sources for Elissa’s challenge were Gourmet magazine and David Lebovitz’s “The Perfect Scoop”.
Baked Alaska has a reputation of being difficult to pull off. Well, after making this one, I can tell you that’s not true. The key is not to be in a hurry, and to allow the ice cream and base (typically a sponge cake) to refreeze after layering the two.
This is a very fancy looking dessert, sure to impress anyone who gets a slice put in front of them. If you want to be super-impressive, make a flambe Alaska, by dark rum over the meringue after torching, and light the rum on fire. [click to read more…]
Having made browned butter for chocolate chip cookies in the past, I knew how much flavor browned butter could add to a recipe. I wasn’t disappointed in the results.
Used as a base for the Baked Alaska.
Brown Butter Pound Cake
19 tbsp (9 1/2 oz) butter
2 cups (7 oz) cake flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup (3 3/4 oz) brown sugar
1/3 (2 2/3 oz) cup sugar
4 eggs
1/2 tsp vanilla
- Preheat the oven to 325°F. Butter and flour a 9”x9” square baking pan.
- Melt butter, in a traditional (not non-stick) skillet, over medium heat. Brown butter until the milk solids are a dark chocolate brown and the butter smells nutty. As it gets darker, watch it very very closely, as it goes from light brown to burnt in less than 30 seconds. Pour into a shallow bowl and chill in the freezer until just congealed, 15-30 minutes.
- Whisk together cake flour, baking powder, and salt.
- Beat the brown butter until light and fluffy, about 2-3 minutes. Add the brown sugar, and sugar in an mixer and beat further until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Beat in the eggs one at a time, mixing well, and then the vanilla.
- Stir in the flour mixture at low speed until just combined.
- Scrape the batter into the baking pan. Smooth the top with a rubber spatula and rap the pan on the counter. Bake until golden brown on top and when a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, about 25 minutes.
- Cool in the pan 10 minutes. Run a knife along the edge and invert right-side-up onto a cooling rack to cool completely.
Source: Epicurious.com
