Plum Squares with Marzipan Crumble

I made these to use up a bunch of ingredients I had before leaving on a long vacation, and brought them to Thanksgiving dinner with our neighbors.

Notes:

• I made my own almond paste. It was super easy. My almond flour was ground quite finely so I didn't even have to use the food processor. The recipe I linked makes about 7 oz. I put the extra in the bottom of the filling as the recipe suggests.
  
• I could not resist sprinkling some ground cinnamon into the plums.

Verdict: It was a bit more work than many things I make and it was good but maybe not enough to justify making regularly.

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RECIPE: Plum Squares with Marzipan Crumble (Smitten Kitchen)

RECIPE: Almond Paste (Wild Wild Whisk)

Soul Cakes

My partner is in a band and organizes an annual "thank you donors" private concert with a snack potluck, and this year, these Soul Cakes showed up on the snack table. I had no idea what a soul cake was or that they are a traditional Samhain/Halloween time item in England, but I liked them so much that I brought several home with me and tracked down the person who made them, and she was kind enough to share her recipe and methods with me.

Notes:

• SKULL PANS: The ones BurntCookie and I used are made by Wilton, or Holiday Home if you get the knockoff version. It has 6 cavities and the size of each cavity is about 4 in tall x 3 in wide x 1 in thick. The original recipe calls for 3" diameter circles that are 1/4 in thick. I find the cookies made with this pan to be quite big. If you get a different skull shaped pan, remember to adjust the baking time (less time if they're smaller) and check often to make sure they don't get too dark.
  
• I greased the pan lightly with the paper the butter was wrapped in as a precaution, but I don't think it was necessary. I think they would have released from the pan just fine even if I hadn't. It did make the top surface nice and golden brown though, which made the shape details a little easier to see.
  
• The person who made them for the party (BurntCookie) made quite a few changes to the initial recipe but didn't have exact amounts for some things, so I have approximated them here. Disclaimer: I did try this recipe as I wrote it below, but halved everything.
• I put in about 1/2 cup dried fruit total, but would use more next time. (If my partner's food mantra is "Yes! Ham!" mine is "More Fruit," haha.) I used dried cranberries and raisins because they're what I had in the house, but I think other dried fruits like apricots, prunes, or cherries would also taste good.
  
• I think some orange or lemon zest (1 teaspoon or so) would also taste delightful in these depending on what dried fruit you use.
• A teaspoon of vanilla or almond extract in the dough might also be tasty and I plan to try this in future batches.
  
• I finished them both ways that were described, and while both tasted good, I prefer the glaze since the cakes are already kind of dry and adding a powder to the top adds to the dry feel.
  
• I might slightly increase the amount of spices next time because their flavor wasn't as prominent as I would have liked. But the ones I used were kind of old so maybe that was why.
• I would use either lemon juice or vanilla in the glaze, but not both together.
  

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RECIPE:

Soul Cakes
adapted from Cooking Journey Blog by BurntCookie and me
Makes about 10 (4 in x 3 in x 3/4 in) skull shaped cakes, or about 18 round cakes

Cakes:
175 g butter, room temperature (6.1 oz, about 1 1/2 sticks)
175 g white granulated sugar (about 3/4 cup)
3 egg yolks
450 g all purpose flour (about 3 5/8 cups)
2 tsp cinnamon, or mixed spice (= 1/2 tsp each ground cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, ginger)
85 g (about 3/4 cup) dried cranberries, raisins, or other dried fruit of your choice, chopped in small pieces
6-7 tbsp milk

Glaze:
120 g (about 1 1/2 cups) confectioner's sugar
1 1/2 tbsp milk, water, or lemon juice
1/4 tsp vanilla extract (optional)

Special equipment (optional): Mini skull shaped nonstick cake pans (see above note for details)

Preheat the oven to 375 F/190 C. Place butter and sugar in a stand mixer bowl fitted with paddle attachment. Cream butter with sugar until lightened in color and fluffy. Add egg yolks and mix again until well blended. In a medium bowl, combine flour and spices. Add flour mixture into the butter mixture in 2-3 additions, mixing after each one. Add milk in several additions, until the dough comes together. Mix in cranberries/raisins/dried fruit on low speed (or by hand with a spoon or spatula) until well combined.

Press dough into each cavity in your skull pan about 3/4 full, up to about 1/4 inch (0.6 cm) from the top. (If you don't have skull cake pans: Transfer the dough to a silicone mat or other surface, dusted with flour. Roll the dough with a flour-dusted rolling pin to about 1/4 inch (0.6 cm) thickness. Cut round shapes with a 3-inch round biscuit cutter or other similarly sized cookie cutter, score a cross onto the top of each [optional], and place on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.) Bake 18-22 minutes, or until the edges are golden. (For rounds, bake for 15-20 minutes.) Remove the pan from the oven and place on a cooling rack. Let cool completely, then turn cakes out onto the rack or other flat surface. Dust cakes with powdered sugar, or dip in sugar glaze (see next paragraph). Soul cakes will keep up to 4 days in an airtight container at room temperature.

Glaze: Mix glaze ingredients in a medium bowl until the glaze is thick and will coat the back of a spoon but not immediately run over the sides. (If too thick, add milk/water in very small increments; if too thin, add more powdered sugar.) Dip each cake face down in the glaze to coat it, and set on wax paper glazed side up until glaze has dried and hardened completely.

Mushroom, Caramelized Onion, and Spinach Pizza with Blue Cheese

Inspired by a pair of new friends that made and served us delicious vegan pizza for dinner when we went to visit them a couple of weeks ago. They made a mushroom and caramelized onion pizza and I kept thinking about it. I also had a big tub of spinach in my fridge that needed consuming, and some blue cheese crumbles I also needed to use up, and all of these things sounded good together so I got to work.

I tried a new from-scratch pizza dough recipe for this that was both quicker than my bread machine can make and tasted a lot better too, so I am likely to use it from now on when I make pizza.

Notes:

Dough

• I used all purpose flour.
• I only had active dry yeast so I did let it proof for 10 minutes in warm water mixed with the sugar before adding it to the rest of the dough ingredients and it worked great.
• I added dashes of garlic powder and thyme with the dry ingredients.
  
• Since it's winter and it's cold where I live, I proofed the dough in a very slightly warmed oven. I let my oven preheat to its lowest temperature (170 F), then turned it off as soon as it reached temperature, and let the dough proof in there.

Toppings

• For sauce I used about 1/2 cup jarred alfredo sauce because I had it and it sounded good, but you could also just drizzle/spread the top of the rolled out crust with some olive oil.
  
• I chopped 8 oz crimini/baby portabella mushrooms into bite sized pieces and sauteed them in olive oil with some salt, pepper, and garlic powder until soft but not until all their liquid had been released.
• I caramelized 2 small-medium sweet onions in a couple tablespoons of butter with a pinch of salt for ~20 minutes.
• I wilted about 6 oz spinach in a saucepan with a tiny bit of water, sprinkled some garlic powder and salt on after cooking, waited until it was cool, then squeezed out most of the water. I then chopped it roughly.
• I used about 3-4 oz blue cheese crumbles. These went on last.

Verdict: I was really impressed with the pizza dough! It was pretty straightforward to make, easy to work with and shape, and tasted great (significantly better than my previous go-to recipe). I was especially happy with the texture. The combination of toppings was also better than expected, really wonderful for a clean-out-the-fridge creation. I would gladly make this dough again and even this exact pizza.

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RECIPE: Pizza Dough (Sugar Spun Run)

Carrot Cider Cake

I really liked my wedding anniversary carrot cake, but also wanted to try this because apple cider in a cake just sounds lovely.

Notes:

• I used the large holes on my box grater to grate the carrots.
  

Verdict: This was delightful, especially with some leftover cream cheese icing spread over the top. The coworkers I shared it with also really liked it. I would absolutely make it again, and maybe add some raisins and pecans or walnuts because I love the kitchen-sink type carrot cake with all the things in it. I still dream about one my mom's friend brought us one time when I was a kid, and want to try to recreate it if I can. This might not be it but it's getting closer.

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RECIPE: Carrot Cake with Cider and Olive Oil (Smitten Kitchen)

Plum Almond Cake

Another try on my quest for the perfect plum cake for me. My first attempt had nice flavors but was maybe a bit too dry and needed just a little more sweetness. I have generally had good luck with Leite's Culinaria recipes before and plum + almond is a fantastic combination so I decided to give this a try.

Verdict: I think I messed this up because it seemed underdone/a little raw in the middle. The almond topping just melted and baked into the rest of the cake, which was disappointing. It was just almonds, butter, and sugar though and I think it needed some kind of flour to soak up the butter and keep its shape as crumbles. Maybe the butter from the topping melting into the cake is why it seemed underdone (especially since I used 1.5 times the recipe for topping). I might try it again because I really liked the flavors, but I might also just keep looking elsewhere for my forever plum cake.

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RECIPE: Plum Almond Cake (Leite's Culinaria)

Chicken Paprikash, easier

I tried this different recipe for chicken paprikash and it turned out to be a lot easier/quicker than the first one on this diary and still tastes pretty good, so we're likely going to use this one from now on.

Notes:

• I feel like the entire 1/2 cup of flour mixture is a lot and I didn't want the sauce to be too gloopy so I left out a couple tablespoons of the mixture and didn't miss it.
• I used a mix of dried sweet paprika (a lower quality kind, mostly for color), fresh jarred paprika (about a tablespoon each of Edes Anna and Eros Pista for some but not a ton of spicy heat), and very generous sprinkles of some nicer dry smoked paprika because I like the taste.
• I used boneless skinless chicken breast, and only simmered the dish for about 20 minutes because I knew the chicken wouldn't need 45 minutes to cook.
  
• I mixed in the sour cream off the heat so that the sauce wouldn't break.
  
• We didn't have egg noodles but I cooked some gemelli pasta and we ate it with that and liked it.
  

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RECIPE: Chicken Paprikash (Chisel and Fork)

German Plum Cake with Streusel

It's prune plum season again and I was looking for something new to try with the small cache of fruit that my partner was able to get for me. I went back to the store to get more a few days later and they were GONE. The secret is getting out!

Notes:

• The recipe called for a 27 cm (10.5 in) diameter pan but I only had a 9 in/23 cm one so I used that.
  
• I didn't end up buying enough prune plums to make this (only enough for about half) and when I went back to get more they were gone, so I used red plums for the rest. They were firmer and crisper, and did not break down as much while cooking. They let out a lot less juice than I thought they would.
  
• This is best when left to stand for at least a few hours after cooking. We ate some right away and it was kind of dry, but when I had some the next day more of the liquid had seeped into the bottom part with the bread crumbs and it tasted better.
• I think we could have done with a little more almond extract in the crust. Apparently some people make this with a shortbread type crust and I think I'd like that better, though I like the bready aroma of the yeasted crust.
• The streusel crumbles seemed to have too much butter in them -- they were really soft when I made them and especially after the cake softened they were really soggy. Maybe if I used less melted butter, or if I used cold butter to make them they might turn out better.
• I think I may have overworked the crust dough but it was really hard to knead in the butter. Maybe I didn't knead it enough? I'm bad at bread.
  

Verdict: I would try this again but make some changes. I think I'd like to try it with all prune plums first before I make too many changes, though, because the prune plums seem to let out a lot more liquid and are more intensely flavored. This is a really delicious flavor combination, especially with the little hits of lemon and almond and vanilla in addition to the cinnamon. I feel like it's awakening ancient memories in my cells.

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RECIPE: German Plum Cake with Crumbles (Sabrina's Table)