Cornmeal Pancakes and Wonderful Sunday Mornings

My favorite time of the entire week is Sunday morning. Sundays have absolutely no strings attached - no place you need to be, and the entire day ahead of you to take care of things, leaving the morning-time carefree. That's why Sunday mornings are the one time where you can truly appreciate the morning for all that it is meant to be, no matter how you approach it.

Sometimes you feel like lazing in bed, drinking a cup to Irish Breakfast tea, reading a good book. The sun seeps in through your curtains so you can see dust dancing in the air, you can hear your neighbors beginning their days, taking morning walks and letting their toddlers explore the world around them, and best of all your blankets are nice and snuggly warm. You know that your world doesn't have to start until you close your book, finish your tea, stretch out your sleepy muscles, and slowly climb out of your covers.

But other times, you anticipate the early morning, eager to wake up and see the dew-covered grass and grey, cloudy sky, for the sun hasn't made its appearance yet. It's on mornings like this where you have to grab a comfy sweatshirt and slippers because the air inside is still chilly. You can open the curtains to let in the greyish light of dawn and smile because the world feels like it's yours - no one else is up to enjoy the small pleasures of the morning.

And the best part about it? Sundays are perfect days for baking. No matter what time you wake up, you can revel in the fact that there is nowhere you need to be, so you can spend your time creating something wonderful in the kitchen. It's the one time during the week where you can indulge in making a breakfast so involved that by the time you're finished, the sink is piled high with dishes.

While these cornmeal pancakes aren't necessarily complicated, they are so unique and yet quintessentially classic that I thoroughly enjoyed sitting down in front of my window to eat my Sunday pancake breakfast and watch the world go by. These pancakes are so hearty and lightly sweet, that I literally felt like I had traveled back to the days of covered wagons and was sitting at a carved wood table inside of a log cabin. I closed my eyes and savored every bite's complex flavor and wonderful, spongy texture.

So next Sunday morning, whether you choose to spend some extra time snuggled up under the covers or get up early to greet the sun, try these pancakes. I can assure you that they will be a delicious addition to what is sure to be a most wonderful Sunday.

Recipe:

 Print Me!

 Adapted from Joy the Baker

Makes 16-20 pancakes

1 large egg
1 1/4 cup buttermilk
1 generous Tablespoon honey
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 cup unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 cup yellow cornmeal

1. In a small bowl whisk together egg, buttermilk, honey, vanilla extract and butter.  Set aside.
2. In a medium bowl whisk together flour, salt, baking soda, and baking powder
3. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and stir to combine.
4. Add the cornmeal and stir until just mixed. The batter may be a bit lumpy.
5. Drop a large spoonful of batter onto a hot, greased griddle or cast iron skillet.
6. Flip when browned and cook through.  Place on an oven proof plate in a 200 degree F oven to keep pancakes warm while you cook the rest of the batter.
7. Serve with maple syrup, molasses or blackberry syrup.

Sunday Tea Party (with scones, of course)

Wow. It's been quite some time since I last posted. I wish I could fool you all into thinking that my head is hung in shame and that my feeling of guilt has been plaguing me since I last posted, but guess what? That would be a lie.

Don't get me wrong - I enjoy blogging, taking pictures of food, baking, and well let's be honest: I like eating, too. But this summer I was a camp counselor where computer access was limited to 5 minutes here or there on my daily 2 hour break, and this isn't even taking into consideration where on earth I would find time to bake things for this blog anyway. Needless to say, baking blogs weren't one of my priorities.

 

But let me take this time to tell you all of the things that DID happen this summer that will stay with me for the rest of my life:

- I canoed for the first time ever and made up songs to commemorate my groups extremely leaky canoe
- I made a hat of stegosaurus spikes and wore it all day long. And got many compliments, thank you.
- I made better friends in the course of three months than I thought was possible
- I ate lots of smores. Lots and lots and LOTS of smores (which taste suprisingly good with peanut butter. Give it a try sometime).
- I conquered my fear of horses and spiders (well... sort of)
- I saw a family of racoons
- I stopped being intimidated by my scary co-workers

However, camp is over for the summer, and despite my week of post-camp depression, the time has come to return to school, restart my real-world life, and, of course, begin baking once again.

Today was such a lazy Sunday - I stayed in bed reading until 10 and had absolutely no qualms about it. The rest of the day I lazed about in the same fashion, and it wasn't until around 3 that I started getting restless to do something productive. That's when the brilliant idea hit me: TEA PARTY! (And not the political kind. Let's not even open that can of worms today...)

Now, here's what I envision when I think of tea parties: frilly dresses, bouquets of flowers, dainty teacups, and beautiful platters of delectable pastries.

Well, considering that this tea party was taking place in the teensy apartment of two college students, we had to make a few modifications. Instead of dresses we wore sweats (I suppose we could have worn dresses, but I'm not going to deny that sweats are just like... ten times comfier), we put trimmed flowers from our yard in an old peanut butter jar, we drank teabag-tea from coffee mugs, and had old fortune cookies from last night's takeout. Pretty legit substitutions, I think, right?

Err... Let's just skip to the highlight of the ragtag tea party, shall we?

THE SCONES!!!

I made orange cranberry scones and they were absolutely amazing. The recipe called for buttermilk, and it gave it this slightly tangy flavor that matched so well with the sour-sweetness of the dried cranberries. Flavor aside, the texture of these scones was what I've always expected a scone to have: a nice, crusty, flaky shell and a moist and fluffy inside. Perfection, scone-ified.

All in all, I thoroughly enjoyed our little tea party. We talked about life while drinking tea and eating scones. I felt very sophisticated (wouldn't you?). After we had drained our cups and finished the last crumbs of our scones, it was time to get back to reality: cleaning up the apartment and dredging through homework. Ah well, such is life; at least until the next time you have a tea party.

Print This Recipe!

Recipe:
Adapted from marthastewart.com

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, spooned and leveled
3 tablespoons sugar
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon finely grated orange zest
5 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
1/2 cup dried cranberries
2/3 cup low-fat buttermilk, plus 1 to 2 tablespoons more if necessary

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment or waxed paper. In a large bowl, stir together flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and orange zest.
 2. With a pastry blender or two knives, cut butter into flour mixture until it resembles coarse meal. Stir in dried cranberries.
 3. Make a well in the center of the mixture. Add buttermilk, and stir until just combined; do not overmix. Use a little more buttermilk if dough is too dry to work with.
 4. Transfer dough to a lightly floured surface; shape into an 8-inch round. Transfer to baking sheet. Cut circle into 8 wedges; space them 1/2 inch apart (to prevent sticking, dust knife with flour). Bake until golden, 18 to 20 minutes.

Brown Sugar Pound Cake

Personally, I find that using dessert recipes that claim to be "light" is a bit amusing - it seems like a complete oxymoron. Normally, this just results in an underwhelming product with nearly all the calories of a non-"light" sweet. However, this dessert surpassed any expectations I had for it, given its origins (a Cooking Light cookbook). 

I admit that I chose it because I was desperate - the only cookbooks I have available to me are severely lacking in the sweets department, and I was just too lazy to print something out from online. (Yes, the printer is a mere 15 feet away from the computer, but this should clue you in to just how sloth-like I am during summer vacation.) 

Anyhow, I picked up the cooking light book and was pleased to find the Brown Sugar Pound Cake recipe: it looked nearly as unhealthy as regular pound cake, and the book's writers claimed it was a staff favorite, so I decided to give it a go.

It was simply delectable.

I can't say I was expecting much, mostly I thought it would taste like a regular pound cake with a slightly darker flavor due to the brown sugar. What I got instead was a cake that was rich and creamy, and tasted like caramelized maple syrup. So. Gosh. Darn. Good.

So please, for the love of all things pound cake, try this recipe. You won't be disappointed.

Recipe:

Adapted from Cooking Light Annual Recipes 2001

3 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

3/4 cup butter, softened

2 cups packed light brown sugar

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

3 large eggs

1 cup fat-free milk

1 tablespoon powdered sugar (optional)

1. Preheat oven to 350 F. Position oven rack to lower third of oven.

2. Coat a 10-inch loaf pan with cooking spray and then flour all sides. (The original recipe uses a 10-inch tube pan, but I found that the loaf pan worked fine if you don't have a tube pan available.)

3. Combine flour, baking powder, and salt in a medium-sized bowl, stir well. Beat butter in a large bowl at medium speed until light and fluffy. Gradually add brown sugar and vanilla, beating until well-blended. Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating well after each addition. Add flour mixture to sugar mixture alternately with milk, beating at low speed, beginning and ending with flour mixture.

4. Spoon batter into prepared pan. Bake at 350 F for 1 hour 20 minutes or until a wooden toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool in pan 10 minutes of a wire rack; remove from pan. Cool completely on wire rack. Sift powdered sugar over top of cake. (If using a tube pan, reduce cooking time to 1 hour 5 minutes)

Cinnamon Raisin Bread (aka A Way to Make the Whole House Smell Wonderful)

To me, one of the best smells in the entire world is cinnamon. No matter what time of year it is, what kind of mood you're in, or what type of sweet you feel like eating, cinnamon is the superhero of the spice world. So when I combined the magical aroma of cinnamon with they heavenly smell of rising yeast to make this cinnamon raisin-swirl bread, the entire house smelled amazing for the whole afternoon.

This bread definitely took quite a bit of time to make: an 1 1/2 to rise, another 1 1/2 rising in the pan after the loaf was formed, and then 45 minute in the oven, but it was worth it. It turned out looking beeeautiful, and it tasted light and sweet, too. 

The dough takes a bit of work, but aim to have your dough springy (when you lightly poke it, it will make an indent, but then retake its original form), and not too sticky.  I found that I had to use almost the entire amount of recommended flour to make my dough not be sticky.

In order to get the beautiful swirl shape when you cut into the loaf, you treat the dough sort of like a jellyroll: put the cinnamon/sugar mix and raisins on the rolled out dough, and then start at a long end and roll it all up! Make sure you pinch the seam closed, so that it won't fall apart later.

When you have made your jellyroll-ed dough, put it in your bread pan and let it rise again (so much rising!). Once it has risen, brush the top with egg and sprinkle with the leftover cinnamon/sugar mix. The egg on the crust made it a little crunchy, but I thought it gave the crust a nice, varied texture.

Then you put it in the oven and bake it until it looks wonderful and your whole house smells like cinnamon - yum!

Cinnamon Raisin Bread Recipe

Adapted from Joy of Cooking

2 1/4 teaspoons active dry yeast 

3 tablespoons warm (105 F to 115 F) water 

1 cup warm (105 F to 115 F) milk

5 tablespoons melted butter

3 tablespoons sugar

1 large egg

1 teaspoon salt

2 cups bread flour

1 1/2 to 2 cups all purpose flour

1/2 cup raisins

2 tablespoons brown sugar

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

1 1/2 teaspoons melted butter

1 egg

Directions:

1. Combine yeast and warm water in a large mixing bowl and let stand until the yeast is dissolved, about 5 minutes.

2. Add milk, 5 tablespoons melted butter, 3 tablespoons sugar, 1 egg, and 1 teaspoon salt. Mix by hand or on low speed for 1 minute.

3. Gradually stir in bread flour. Gradually add all-purpose flour until the dough is moist but not sticky. Knead for 10 minutes until the dough is smooth and elastic.

4. Transfer the dough to an oiled bowl and turn it over once to coat with oil. Cover loosely with a damp towl and let rise in a warm place (75 F to 80 F) until doubled in volume, 1 to 1 1/5 hours.

5. While dough finishes rising, place raisins in a small saucepan with enough water to cover by 1/2 inch. Bring to a boil, drain well, and let cool. In a small bowl, stir together brown sugar and cinnamon.

6. Grease an 8 1/2 x 4 1/2-inch (6 cup) loaf pan. Punch the dough down. Using a rolling pin, roll the dough into an 8-inch-wide rectangle, about 1/2 inch thick. Brush the surface of the dough with 1 1/2 teaspoons melted butter.

7. Sprinkle all but 2 teaspoons of the cinnamon mixture over the dough, then spread the raisins evenly over the surface. Starting from one 8-inch side, roll up the dough as you would a jelly roll. Pinch the seam closed. Place seam side down in the pan. Cover loosely with oiled plastic wrap and let rise in a warm place until doubled in volume, 1 to 1 1/12 hours.

8. Preheat the oven to 375 F. Whisk 1 egg and brush over the top of the loaf. Sprinkle the top of the dough with the remaining cinnamon mixture.

9. Bake 40-45 minutes until the crust is deep golden brown and the bottom of the loaf sounds hollow when tapped. Remove the loaf from the pan to a rack. Let cool completely before slicing.

Celebration Crepes

What did I do today, you ask? Okay, well you didn't ask, but I bet you're wondering now. And now that you are intensely curious, I shall tell you what I did. Are you ready for this? Today I did... nothing. Absolutely nothing, and it was wonderful.

I finished my last final of Spring semester last night, and when I woke up today I felt oddly light and carefree knowing that I didn't have any homework to work on, essays to write, or tests to study for. I started the day by sleeping in and reading in bed until way too late, and when I finally left the comfort of my covers, I turned my computer on and spent two hours watching archived episodes of America's Test Kitchen online. Be jealous. Be very, very jealous of my day of pure bliss.

But what is the perfect end to such a wonderfully lazy day? By making sweet chocolate crepes for dinner, of course! It was my first time making crepes (I get to check them off my list of recipes I want to make - woo hoo!), and it went surprisingly well. It took a few crepe-sacrifices to finally get the swirling technique down to spread the crepes thin enough, but then it went down without a hitch. I made a chocolate sauce to go along with it because there's nothing else to eat in the apartment, and I was much too comfortable in my pajamas to go to the store for other ingredients.

So enough of me gloating about my excellent kickoff to summer, let's get to pictures and recipes, shall we?

Basic Crepes
Adapted from allrecipes.com


Serves 4

INGREDIENTS
1 cup all-purpose flour
2 eggs
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup water
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons butter, melted

DIRECTIONS
1. In a large mixing bowl, mix together the milk, water, and the eggs; gradually whisk in flour, stirring to combine. Add the salt and butter; beat until smooth.

2. Heat a slightly oiled griddle or frying pan over medium-high heat. Scoop the batter onto the griddle using a 1/4 cup measurer. Tilt the pan with a circular motion so that the batter coats the surface evenly.

3. Cook the crepe for about 2 minutes, until the bottom is light brown. Loosen with a spatula, turn and cook the other side. Serve hot.

Chocolate Sauce
Adapted from helpwithcooking.com


Makes about 1/2 cup

INGREDIENTS
3 oz chocolate, chopped
3 oz water
1 tablespoon powdered sugar
1/2 tablespoon butter
dash of vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon cornstarch


1. Combine all ingredients in a small saucepan. Heat over low heat, stirring often.
2. When sauce beings to bubble, continue stirring until it thickens. Once thicker, remove from heat. The mixture won't be really thick, but it should resemble hot Hershey's syrup.