beauty in the backyard - buttermilk fantails

And the white period continues. It's a bit like Picasso's blue period, but sub out paint, canvas and universally famous artist for butter, flour and an at home baker. I'm on a roll, pun intended. I can't explain it and I find it especially weird considering that hot and humid days typically steer me away from the oven and towards a fruit salad, but alas there were buttermilk fantails baking in the oven yesterday. My grandmother came over today and saw the leftovers and exclaimed, with that special grandmother charm and intonation, 'Oh, how lovely, Parker House Rolls,' so perhaps they have another name and a life outside my little kitchen.

I've had this recipe bookmarked since I saw those fantails grace my computer screen. They are just asking to be peeled apart and eaten. All of these rolls I've been baking up in the middle of the summer would be perfect alongside turkey and stuffing at Thanksgiving dinner. Is it too early to talk about Thanksgiving? We won't be home for Thanksgiving, so perhaps this is my subconscious getting me ready to prep our own little Thanksgiving dinner in Zürich.

These steamy swampy days leave me dreaming about crisp fall days and apple cider. Apparently my dreams are being answered, but in Zürich not in Connecticut. Zach tells me that it was a perfect day today, one of those early fall days when students are just heading back to school and the tips of the leaves are just beginning to chance. Heaven. I snuck outside earlier this morning, before the backyard morphed into Swamplandia! (great book if you haven't read it) to snap some pictures.

There are two things to remember when making this recipe: #1 make sure your yeast foams, if it doesn't start over, and #2 have patience. These rolls are easy but they do require two fairly long rising periods.

Recipe from Gourmet

ingredients

- 1 stick + 2 tablepsoons unsalted butter, melted, divided

- 2 teaspoons active dry yeast

- 1/4 cup warm water (105-115F)

- 1 tablespoon mild honey or sugar

- 3 cups all purpose flour

- 1 1/2 teaspoons salt

- 3/4 cup well shaken buttermilk

Begin by buttering the muffin pan with melted butter.

Stir together the yeast, warm water and honey in a large bowl and let it sit until foamy, about 5 minutes. If it doesn't foam, start again with new yeast. Set aside. Mix the flour, salt, buttermilk and 6 tbsp melted butter (I melted the stick down and then scooped out 6 tablespoons) into the yeast mixture. On a lightly floured surface kneed the dough until smooth and elastic, about 6 minutes. Form the dough into a ball, coat lightly with olive oil, place in a bowl and cover it with a kitchen towel. Let it sit for about 1 1/2 - 2 hours until it has doubled in size.

Turn the dough out on to your work surface and punch down, do not kneed. Halve the dough, setting half aside while you work on the other half. On a floured surface roll out to a 12" x 12" square, about 1/8" thick (its hard to get is square, just do your best). Brush the dough with melted butter and then slice into six equal strips. Place the strips one on top of the other, butter side up, and then cut the long strip down into 6 smaller squares. Place those squares into the muffin tins, gently fanning out the dough. Repeat with the other half of the dough. Cover with a kitchen towel and let rise for about 1 1/2 hours.

Preheat the oven to 375F and bake for 20-25 minutes or until lightly golden. Remove from pan and brush lightly with melted butter.

It was nice to spend a little bit of time outside before the damp heat really settled in for the day. I tend to fall into a routine of eating breakfast inside, but it was nice to break things up a bit and venture outdoors, especially since now, in the mid afternoon, it's simply too icky to enjoy being outside. Here's to Turkey's roasting and biscuits baking...fall is that you?

storm king - almond biscotti

These days, solitary days, I need to make food that lasts, food that tastes good stale. Biscotti is born stale. It's the perfect food for solo living. I'm a grazer when I'm alone, making toast and pasta and little else, but even when I'm alone, especially when I'm alone, I need something sweet. Recently I've been eating chocolate chips straight out of the bag, little handful after little handful. I haven't quite finished a bag, but it's close. I figured that if I was going to eat the entire bag I might as well use the remaining chips, not by the handful, but by the cookie!

With all of this white food I've been making I needed a little something green. I've been wanting to go to Storm King Art Center for a long time, and what better time than now, when I'm home with not much to do. My favorite sculpture was the Storm King Wall by Andy Goldsworthy, which takes a serpentine approach to the typical New England stone, pastural, wall.

I was rummaging through my mom's many magazine stacks last night and I came across Gourmet's Italian Kitchen special edition. There are a ton of recipes I want to make from this issue, especially the mushroom risotto arancini and the chicken ragu over polenta, but recipes will have to wait until there is someone else to eat them with me. I kept flipping, past the appetizers and entrees and into the dessert section and thats where I found the 'favorite' biscotti. If the tasters at Gourmet say this is their favorite biscotti recipe then I figured it was worth a try.

What caught my eye about this 'among the best we've ever had' recipe was the three tablespoons of brandy that found their way into the dough. Brandy in biscotti - mmm delicious. I raided my parents liquor cabinet and came up empty handed, but then I went back for another looks and found amaretto, and considering the biscotti have almonds in them I figured heck, gotta be good, so I went for it. It worked and I'm not sure I'd go for brandy even if I did have it. Amaretto just smells so good, I might start adding it to more recipes, kinda like I do with vanilla, which goes in basically every dough even when it doesn't call for it. The same goes for chocolate chips...this recipe didn't call for them, but I added them anyway because biscotti is a type of cookie and all cookies need chocolate chips, it's a rule.

ingredients

- 1 cup sugar

- 1 stick unsalted butter, melted and cooled (cool enough so it won't melt the sugar/chocolate chips)

- 3 tablespoons amaretto

- 1 tsp vanilla extract

- 1 cup whole almonds, lightly toasted and coarsely chopped

- 1/2 cup chocolate chips...or more if you want!

- 3 large eggs

- 2 3/4 cups all purpose flour

- 1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder

- 1/4 teaspoon salt

Start by melting the stick of butter so that it has a bit of time to cool. Mix together the sugar, amaretto, vanilla and melted butter when it has cooled. Once mixed stir in the three eggs one at a time, then follow with the almonds and chocolate chips. Stir in the flour, baking powder and salt until just combined. Cover the dough and chill in the refrigerator for 30 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 350. Halve the dough and form each into a 16" x 2" loaf on an ungreased baking sheet. Bake for about 30 minutes or until top is lightly toasted. Take out of the oven and cool the loaves on a rack for at least 15 minutes. Once cool place on a cutting board and slice into 3/4" slices. Place those slices on a baking sheet and back into the oven for 20-25 minutes.

Enjoy with coffee at breakfast, midday as a snack or after dinner for your chocolate fix.

I think I've already eaten one whole log so I'm not sure I'll really get to sample them stale. I ate most of that loaf before it even went back into the oven for the second round of baking, when they were still a bit more chewy and cookie like.

happy weekend everyone!

cinnamon swirl part 2

If I lived in this lighthouse-esq house and the mist was rolling in on an August morning, I think I'd have no choice but to make cinnamon-swirl rolls. The smell of baking cinnamon and sugar would hover downstairs until it slowly wafted up to the lone room under the small pyramid pitched roof. The breakfast table would be strewn with newspapers, coffee mugs, bowls of berries and cinnamon rolls, that is if there is actually enough room for a breakfast table in this house. But really, who needs a sitting area when you have a kitchen, so I think the couch would give way to a small farm table style table, which would likely take up the entire first floor, but that's okay with me.

These cinnamon swirl rolls were made from the leftover dough from last weeks cinnamon-swirl loaf. I decided to skip making another loaf and settled on single serving rolls.
I followed basically the same process, except after I sprinkled the rolled out dough with cinnamon-sugar I then proceeded to slice it into narrow strips and rolls those. I cut the mini rolls in half and placed each half in a buttered muffin pan. Once in the pan I let them sit for about an hour and a half or until they had doubled in size and roughly filled the pan. Bake at 375 for about 20 or so minutes (I actually didn't really time them...just check them until the tops are a bit hard to the touch then take them out and test)
I think this is a house that calls for cinnamon-sugar swirl french toast. The frisbees would fall to the ground and little kiddies would run towards the porch and into the green door and straight for the kitchen for their warm breakfast on a summer Saturday. Dreamy, no?These little rolls were delicious. A guilt free cousin to the cinnamon bun. Since it's made with bread dough and not buttery cake dough, it's light, but still just as tasty.
This is the home I sometimes dream about. We are ages away from ever buying a house, let alone a vacation house, but this one just speaks to me. I love the arched blue door and the wrap around paned windows. I imagine a big farm table behind the house for outdoor meals under the shade of the trees with dear friends and their cutie-pie kiddies.

blackberry buttermilk cake + a hay bale

I was only in Zürich briefly on my last trip, a quick week, but I was there long enough to sense the early arrival of fall and the accompanying sense of panic. Not a weather related panic because really the cool and wet days were a nice relief from the heat dome that had settled on the East Coast during the third week ofJuly, but rather the panic that arrives when you realize that the vibrant berry season is coming to an end. Is it really true? If fall arrives in July, as it has in Zürich, does that mean there won't be any August berries? panic panic panic I had the urge to buy my local markets out of every type of berry and quickly teach myself how to can and make some serious jam.

Typically my morning yogurt is 60% yogurt, 20% blueberries and 20% muesli, but for the last few days it has been 10% yogurt and 90% berries. I've been eating blueberries like they are going out of style, or rather out of season. I have been keeping a bowl out on the counter and eating them by the handful.

At this point, in full panic mode, I am stuffing berries into any and all places - salads, scones, quinoa, couscous, corn salad, and buttermilk cake. I spotted this buttermilk cake on my friend Darcy's blog, shortly after I had made a berry buttermilk cake that turned out terribly, and I immediately marked it as a 'to-make-soon.' But then when the panic really set in, I bumped it up from soon to now. I suggest you do the same! The recipe called for blackberries, which I used, but I think it would be good with any berry, or a mix of berries, and perhaps even stone fruit such as peaches and nectarines.

If you are in Zürich and feeling the panic too, the go buy some berries, make this cake and then go visit My Girlfriend Guide to Zürich (where this recipe is the recipe of the week) and distract yourself from the early onset of fall by browsing all of their great ideas for activities in Zürich.

I'm currently back in the steamy states, but I'm enjoying a bit of respite in Little Compton, with Zach's family, but without Zach. This is our favorite summer retreat. When we were living in New Haven we came up almost every weekend. It's a simple place, but that is exactly what we love about it. Zach does the jumble in the morning while I read the style section, then we go to the beach and jump off the bluff and do some reading under the umbrella and then we come home, hang in the shade, play a little tennis and have an amazing homemade dinner. It's bliss and it's probably one of the things we miss most living in Zürich.

Unlike the last buttermilk cake I made that was dry and bland, this cake is incredibly moist and flavorful.

blackberry - buttermilk cake from Bon Appétit July 2011

ingredients

- 3/4 cup unsalted butter at room temperature + more for pan

- 2 1/3 cups cake flour, sifted then measured

- 2 1/2 fresh blackberries, or raspberries/blueberries

- 1/4 cup plus 1 1/3 cups sugar

- 1 1/2 tsp baking powder

- 3/4 tsp salt

- 1/2 tsp baking soda

- 3 large eggs at room temperature

- 2 tsp vanilla extract

- zest from one medium orange

- 1 cup buttermilk

- powdered sugar for dusting

equipment - 9"-10" springform pan

Preheat the oven to 350F and place the rack in the middle. Butter your springform pan; line the bottom with a round of parchment paper (use pan as a stencil and then cut out the circle and place in bottom of pan). Butter the parchment paper and then dust the pan with flour, tapping out the excess. Arrange the berries in a single layer on the bottom of the pan and then sprinkle with the 1/4 cup of sugar.

Sift the flour, baking powder, salt and baking soda in a medium bowl (not the bowl of your standing mixer), set it aside. In your mixing bowl mix the 3/4 cup butter and remaining sugar on med-high speed until light and fluffy, about two minutes. Mix in the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add in the vanilla and orange zest, mix and then reduce the speed to low. Alternate adding the flour mixture and the buttermilk, beginning and ending with the flour mixture. Pour the batter over the berries and smooth with a rubber spatula.

Bake until the cake is golden brown and a tester comes out clean, roughly 1 hour 25 minutes. Let it cool in the pan for 15 minutes, then run a thin knife around the edges. Release the spring edge and invert the cake onto a wire rack. Remove the pan bottom and the parchment paper. Let the cake cool completely and only add the confectioner sugar dusting just before serving.

It was twilight when I took most of the outside photos and now it's well into evening and I'm ready to go to bed and wake up to full day in Little Compton. I'll likely have a piece of cake for breakfast, for although it looks like dessert, it doubles as a breakfast cake. After breakfast, before the heat settles in for the day, I think I'll go for a long, leisurely walk with my camera to some of my favorite spots and then, of course, to the beach for a jump off of the bluff. Blissful, really.

help calm my panic and let me know if you have any creative ideas for berries!