It's a loaf! It's a Challah! No! It's SUPERBREAD!

This is one of two baked goods that I make without looking at a recipe. 

Mostly due to the fact that I've made it so many times I don't need it anymore, but partially because it really does require a lot of adapting to the specific dough at hand.  It is the best eggless challah recipe, and when I want a good bread in the middle of the week (like I did with this one) I just put it in a loaf pan and voila!  It magically becomes the perfect loaf for a sandwich or french toast.

I have given this recipe out more than any other one I own, and I received it from a rebbetzin (a Rabbi's wife) in Pittsburgh.  I've since adapted it to my own liking, but I always think of her when making bread because mine rarely achieve the same state of perfection that her eggless challah never failed to meet.

The basic thing to remember for this recipe are:
Don't worry about adding more water and flour, the consistency of the dough is what's important
Kneading more is better than kneading less
Double rising is awesome

And with that forewarning, away we go!

Ingredients:
4 cups + 2 cups flour
3/4 cup sugar
1 packet yeast
1/4 cup oil (I use olive but vegetable works just fine too)
1 Tb salt
1-3 cups water
1 Tb vanilla (optional)
cinnamon
2/3 cup walnuts chopped
1/2 cup raisins

Directions:
First you're going to want to go get some patience.  I'm serious.  Don't do this quickly or it will fail.  And failed challah is so horribly depressing.  Sometimes I get in the mood to make bread, but have to talk myself out of it because I'm too hungry and I know I'll mess it up.

Now that you've go that on hand you can focus on the actual baking.  Start by putting the whole packet of yeast in a glass and sprinkle a pinch to a tablespoon of sugar on top of it. 

Now fill the glass halfway with lukewarm water.  Too hot and you'll kill the yeast, too cold and it won't necessarily activate it.  Basically, if it's burning your hand when you put your finger under the faucet, it's too hot.  If it's cool enough that you'd still drink it, it's probably too cold.  Now set the glass down (no need to stir it) and get out your flour.

Mix the flour, sugar, and salt in a large bowl.  I always like to add in a few teaspoons of cinnamon at this point, though this all depends on how much you like cinnamon.  If you add more than a two teaspoons it starts to color the dough a bit and sometimes by the time it comes out of the oven it looks like you've used whole wheat flour.  Not a problem at all, but just be aware that the more cinnamon you add the darker the dough will look.

Now you can add in the yeast which should look like this:

Along with the water/yeast mixture you can add the oil and vanilla and start to mix it all together.
Refill the empty yeast glass with warm water and slowly pour it in as you continue to mix the dough.  Once the flour is fairly mixed into the dough you can stop adding water and start kneading. 

I like to put a little flour on the counter top and continue to slowly knead in more flour to the dough as I go along.  Kneading for at least 10 minutes is ideal.  You're literally pushing air into the dough so that it can rise, so the more air that you get in there, the fluffier the dough will be.  I guess if you're going for a very dense loaf you could choose to knead it for less, but even though 5-8 minutes is the minimum you'd want to do.

Now coat the mixing bowl with oil (you can use pam too) and drop your rounded dough into the bowl. Turn it over once or twice so the whole dough is covered in a nice layer of oil.  This prevents it from sticking to the bowl or towel and from drying out.  Cover the dough with a towel and let it sit for at least 8 hours.  I like to make the dough at night and then leave it out while I'm sleeping.  It helps because otherwise I'd spend the 8 hours thinking about how much I want to make my bread RIGHT NOW. 

In the morning I punch the dough down

and roll it out into a large rectangle (this is pretty similar to the apple bread recipe I posted earlier).

Sprinkle with a nice layer of cinnamon, walnuts, and raisins. 

Now roll it up like a cinnamon bun and squish it into a loaf pan. 

If you're making challah I recommend making a much long and thinner rectangle, rolling it once so the nuts are inside, and then snaking it in like a snail shell or the challahs around Rosh HaShanah.  Once you have your shaped loaf, cover it and let it sit for another 2 hours.  I went out to the Library of Congress to distract myself because two hours is a very long time and watching bread rise is less fun than watching water boil.

Once the loaf has properly risen, preheat your oven to 350 degrees.  I like to add a coat of oil, butter, egg yolk, or pam to the top of the loaf so it colors nicely but this step is not necessary.  Bake for 20-30 minutes or until the loaf is golden on top.  When you slice it open it's all so nice and pretty.

See, now wasn't it worth all that effort?  I challenge you to buy a loaf that looks this good at any old Safeway. Really.  Go ahead and try.

This Cake is Bananas! B-A-N-A-N-A-S.

Don't you want a piece right now?  Those of you who don't like Bananas may not particularly enjoy this cake, but for everyone else, this is an incredible and tasty alternative to the usual banana bread that graces many a tables after finding a banana or two that have seen better days.

Ingredients:
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
3/4 cup milk (skim is fine)
3/4 cup mashed ripe bananas (about 2 medium)
1/2 cup walnuts finely chopped

Frosting:
2 Tb unsalted butter, softened
1 (12 oz) package cream cheese, softened (reduced fat is fine, fat free is not)
1 ripe banana, mashed
1/4 tsp freshly grated nutmeg
2 tsp vanilla extract
3 Tb cream or milk (skim is fine, cream just makes it richer)
1 lb confectioner's sugar

After the obvious preheating of the oven to the standard 350 degrees, I chopped up a few handfuls of walnuts, because the crunch adds a lot to any cake or bread.

Next I mixed the flour, baking soda, and baking powder in a bowl.  You'll see why I did this later, and you know there's a reason because I always leave out extra bowls if I can help it.

In another bowl I mixed the softened butter, egg, vanilla, and sugar.  Don't they look so pretty all in a row?

Use the beaters and mix it up until you have a nice smooth, thick, batter.

Meanwhile you'll want to mash up your bananas.  Mine weren't really ripe enough, but I was firm in my fork usage so it worked out alright anyway.

Now you're going to slowly add in the flour mixture alternately with the milk, starting and ending with the flour.

Now some milk:

And then the last bit of the flour!  See how pretty it curves?  You can go surfing on it, it's that smooth.  Man, can you imagine surfing on cake batter?  It's the stuff of dreams I tell you.

Now fold in your chopped walnuts:

Pour it in a greased cake pan (I used a bundt, but any pan will do) and bake for 30-40 minutes or until it has a nice golden top:

This is actually just half the cake recipe.  The original recipe makes a three layer cake, but that's a lot of cake and I was having a small meal so I didn't want to over-do it.  That said, it's super easy to double the recipe and make twice as much.  If you love bananas, cake, and people, I say go for it!

Now onto the frosting.  I should warn you, I'm actually pretty terrible at frosting.  For some reason, with cream cheese frostings especially, I always get a liquidy glaze, not a thick frosting.  This was no exception.  But I went with it and it totally worked.  So I guess if you do exactly what I did, you'll get the same results.  But if you're a great cream cheese frosting maker, feel free to go wild with your own recipe.  What makes this special is the fact that is has a banana in the frosting and nutmeg which majorly brings out the flavor.

So to start with, throw the butter, cream cheese, and mashed banana in a bowl.  I used the amount of butter recommended in the original recipe and it was unnecessary.  Usually the only way I can get a cream cheese frosting to work at all is to completely remove butter from the equation.  So you can either use 4 Tb of butter (what I did but wouldn't do again), use 2 Tb (which may still be more than you need), or use none at all.  But if you use the 4 Tb it will look like this:

Then when you mix it all together and dash the nutmeg on top it looks like this:

Pretty right?  Now you'll add vanilla and the milk (you can probably skip the milk if you want, or at least use half as much as this recipe claims you should use):

Now add confectioners sugar.  This is where it started to look kind of more like a glaze than a frosting for me.  But maybe yours will work better than mine.  I did add in the entirety of the sugar in the 1 lb bag. 

But despite all my besting, it was to no avail.  So I ended up refrigerating it overnight and then in the morning when it was still pretty thin I just poured it over the cake anyway, sprinkled some walnuts and cinnamon on top, and served it for dessert. 

Despite by best efforts to apologize for the runny frosting, my guests assured me it was delicious.  They all had seconds, and over the next few days, I had thirds, fourths, and perhaps went as far as fifths.  So like I say, make this at your own risk.  Because I can vouch for how good it is, but not for how slim your waistline will stay while it's in the house.

A Vegetarian Goes South

I like chili.  I also like cornbread.  Putting them together is a mild stroke of genius.

Especially when it saves you an extra pan.  I got this rather amazing cookbook from my sister several years ago when I was still in my Vegan Period (somewhat like Picasso's Blue Period but with food) and I swear everything I made from it was delicious.  I used to lie and tell my friends it wasn't vegan because apparently vegan food is scary and makes you fart.  This IS chili and therefore it will very likely make you fart, but it isn't scary and it IS delicious and incredibly easy.  So I highly recommend it.


Side note: I got too excited and forgot to take pictures until the end.  But I am going to trust you can imagine imagine it all or base it off my descriptions.

Ingredients:
1 large onion, chopped
1 vegetable of your choice, chopped (I used a zucchini, you can use a pepper, mushrooms, butternut squash, really anything you want.  I've tried them all and they're all equally great.)
Olive oil or cooking spray
1 1/2 cups mock ground beef (you can use real beef if you want to go the non-vegetarian route, but I've found that Boca fake ground beef tastes amazing and works very well in this recipe)

1 14-oz can diced tomatoes with juice or three large juicy tomatoes chopped
1 19-oz can beans of your choice, I like black beans personally
1 cup frozen corn (fresh if it's in season)
1 hot chili pepper chopped
2 tsp cocoa powder
2 Tb chili powder
2 Tb honey
cumin, salt, and garlic powder to taste

Cornbread topping:
1 1/4 cup milk
1 Tb apple cider vinegar (rice vinegar works too)
1 cup flour
1 cup cornmeal
2 tsp baking powder
2 Tb sugar
1/2 tsp salt
2 Tb oil

Directions:
Most of the effort of this recipe is in the chopping before you even start cooking.  Once that's all ready, saute the onion and chopped vegetable of your choice in oil or cooking spray until the union is translucent and the vegetable is halfway cooked.  If you're using squash you might want to cook it a little before throwing it in with the onion or chop it into fairly small pieces to begin with.  Then add the remainder of the chili ingredients and simmer for 5-10 minutes.  At this point you can turn the oven on to 400 degrees.

I don't usually measure anything in this recipe which is weird for me because I love things to be exact.  But with chili you really just have to go with the flow.  Think about what you'll like to taste and put more or less of that in it.  I like spicy so I buy bigger chili peppers, if you don't like spicy avoid it.  I also just throw in random amount of cocoa powder, but it adds a really nice flavor so try not to leave it out if you can help it.

Once the chili is simmering you can turn to the cornbread.  Pour the milk in a small bowl and add the vinegar.  Let it sit while you mix the rest of the dry ingredients.  The vinegar will curdle the milk and allows you to avoid using an egg (see, it's egg-less for those with allergies!).  Mix the flour, cornmeal, sugar, baking powder, and salt together.  Sometimes I add in a dash of cayenne pepper or nutmeg if I want the cornbread to have a little extra flavor.  Then add in the oil (it doesn't have to be exact, you just need a little fat to make it work) and the milk/vinegar mixture and stir until just combined.

Pour the chili into a baking dish.  Size may vary depending on how much vegetable you used.  If you use a lot it might take up a 9x13 inch pan, I made a smaller 9x9 inch pan.  But I also like the cornbread thicker.  Once the chili is in the pan pour the cornbread mixture on top.  If the batter is thick you can spoon it on top and smooth it out.  Then bake for about 15-20 minutes until the cornbread is nice and golden.

Now invite all your vegetarian hating friends over and let them drool while you enjoy a nice southern-inspired meal.

Honey, you're sweet!

 I think by boss is pretty awesome, and she was having a rough week.  Then I realized it was her birthday, and from experience I know that crappy birthdays suck.  Probably I don't need the experience to know that, but I have it.  And I wanted to do my best to prevent a sucky birthday.  My best being baked goods.  I decided to make brownies and decorate her desk as a surprise.  Of course I was the one who received the shock upon discovering that I had only one egg in the house.  How this happened is beyond me.  But it did.  I also did not have any of my usual egg substitutes (applesauce, tofu, flax seed, etc.).  I searched for an eggless brownie, but I didn't really like anything I found.  In the end I came up with a recipe I liked and found the whole ordeal to be a great learning experience.

First lesson: always keep more than one egg in the house.  Especially if you like to bake.
Lesson two: Two tablespoons of water and one teaspoon of oil and two teaspoons of baking powder can be substituted for an egg.  Who knew?
Lesson three: Honey is a great addition to frosting.

Let's start with the ingredients:

Ingredients:
1/2 cup butter
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1/3 cup cocoa powder
1/2 cup flour
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp baking powder

Frosting:
3 Tb butter
3 Tb cocoa powder
1 Tb honey
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup confectioners sugar

I listed all the ingredients you SHOULD have.  Not what I actually had.  As I explained, I had to substitute an egg.  But first, of course, I preheated the oven to 350 degrees.  Next, I poured the water into a small glass, added the oil, and then mixed in the baking powder.  It did a cool science-class-esque fizzing, and then mixed into a rather nice and gooey liquid:

Next, I melted 1/2 cup butter in a microwave safe bowl.  It's always better to melt butter on the stove top because the mixture is smoother, but I hate extra messes.  So I melted it in the bowl, and then mixed in the sugar, egg, egg substitute, and vanilla until well blended.  If you have two eggs, obviously I recommend you use both of them.  If you're allergic to eggs, this might be a great new lesson for you too.  I didn't try substituting both eggs though, so I can't make any promises that it will work perfectly.  Might be worth a shot though.

Next I measured in the cocoa, the flour, the salt, and the baking powder (I didn't include the baking powder or oil used in my egg substitute in the list of ingredients, so either way you should now add 1/4 tsp baking powder to your batter).

Spread batter into an 8x8 inch greased baking pan and place in the oven for 25-30 minutes. 

Don't over cook, especially if you like super gooey brownies.

 When I got to the frosting, I realized that I didn't have any more cocoa powder.  This was clearly not my day for baking.  But I had a birthday to celebrate and no time for the store.  I just decided to melt some chocolate I had on hand instead.  I melted about 3 tablespoons of chocolate chips over the stove and then removed the chocolate from the heat.  I dropped in the butter:

and then added the honey and vanilla.  Using beaters I mixed t together until well combined and then slowly added confectioners sugar until I got a consistency I liked:

I know that using chocolate chips instead of cocoa powder meant the frosting might be too sweet, but it didn't really bother me.  And in a pinch, it got me what I wanted (i.e. a chocolate frosting)  The original recipe recommends you frost while the brownies are still warm.  I tried this and it didn't entirely work.  I recommend waiting for at least an hour before frosting the brownies.  Then let the frosting set for a bit before serving.  I brought them to work the next day and they were gone by noon.  Most importantly, my boss went home happy.  And as far as I'm concerned, that's what spells success.

The 'I can't believe it's not butter(y)!' cookies

As promised, here are the sugar drop cookies that I dream about, drool over, and give away with love.  I made them a few days ago for an after-work party. 

It turned out that the day of the planned party ended up being horrible and shitty.  Stupid cuts in government funding lead to stupid cuts in already-promised grants which lead to stupid lay-offs at work.  When everyone is watching their friends back up their desks and wishing the damn recession would just stop, a very good cookie no longer becomes a nice thing to have.  It becomes a damn necessity.  So it was lucky I had them on hand.  Sadly I didn't have mint chips to go in them (and mint is one of my favorite added flavors to any and everything) but they were still incredibly awesome and drool-worthy.  Perhaps one day I will make enough money to buy mint extract by the pint and add it at will to whatever I want, but until then I reserve it for special occasions or days when I unexpectedly find $20 on the ground.

What makes these cookies even more awesome is the fact that they have no butter in them.  They are by no means healthy, don't get me wrong here, they just use oil instead.  Don't try to replace it with anything healthy though.  In these cookies, the oil is a necessity for texture and consistency so if you take it out they won't work.  But if you happen to be cutting dairy out of your diet they're perfect.

On to the making of the cookies.

What you'll need:
3 to 3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp salt
1 1/4 cups sugar, divided
3/4 cup vegetable oil
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
1-2 cups chocolate chips.  Mint flavored if possible.

Directions
Another reason these cookies are great is because they're so darn simple.  First preheat the oven to 350, the lovely and universal cookie temperature.  Then combine 1 cup sugar and the vegetable oil in a bowl and mix well.  You can use beaters but it's not really necessary (another perk about using oil instead of butter). 

Add in the eggs and vanilla. 

Now slowly beat in the flour, baking powder and salt.  Technically you should mix the baking powder in with the flour first and then mix the baking powder and flour mixture into the oil and egg mixture.  As you know by now, I like to cut out the use of unnecessary bowls so I usually just pour half the flour into the egg mixture and then add the baking powder into the measuring cup with the last half of the flour, mix it in there, and pour it into the egg mixture.  It looks silly but it makes me feel like I'm not skipping a step and I get to wash one less bowl so I highly recommend it.

Now mix the chocolate chips into the cookie dough.  Sometimes I think the dough is too wet and I add a little extra flour.  It can vary so add flour until you have a dough that you can roll nice balls out of, it should be somewhere between a total of 3-3 1/2 cups but don't worry about getting it exact.

Pull small amounts of dough out and roll them into little balls, these don't expand much but they're pretty rich so you shouldn't need a lot of dough for each cookie.

Now pour the remaining 1/4 sugar into a small bowl (or do what I do and just put it in the one-cup measuring cup).  Roll small balls of dough in the sugar until they're completely covered, then place them on an ungreased cookie sheet. 

-

They don't spread out much so you can pack them pretty closely.  If you want to get extra fancy you can throw some cinnamon in with the sugar, but I kind of like how white the cookies are if you just roll them in plain sugar.

Bake them for about 10 minutes and then eat them while they're hot (without burning your tongue if possible).  It's impossible to eat just one.  Go on and try it, I dare you.  If you do manage to resist, you're probably one of those crazies who are allergic to chocolate and/or love and happiness and I want nothing to do with you you.

Okay dears, go eat, bake, and be merry.