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Craftsy Shoot, Day Two

8/13/2016

The ongoing account of taping my Craftsy class August 2 - 5. . .

Makeup call for the shoot was always at 8 a.m.--the stylist Lillian was a pleasure to work with and a good conversationalist. The biggest struggle of course was keeping the shine off my bald pate, and frequent blotting and powdering was required throughout the day. It wasn't as bad as when I shot Breaking Bread in St. Louis, which is the humidity sinkhole of the Midwest---all of the humidity of the Great Plains drains into center field of Busch Stadium. The air is so dry in Denver that I walked the 16th Street Mall in 90 degree heat and it felt like 75 degrees in Illinois.

Day One included the Basic Sweet Dough recipe (an adaptation of Best Ever Crescent Roll Dough) and rose rolls, but not made for dinner, but as cinnamon rolls with bright red frosting (see previous post). I've made the rose rolls for nearly every monastery holiday meal, but only as cinnamon rolls a couple of times, once on the feast of our Lady of Guadalupe, and another time for my mom's birthday.

Rose rolls with cinnamon filling and red frosting. Photo: Craftsy.com

We continued shooting the lessons in order, Lesson 2 being for jellyroll variations. The class is meant for advanced beginner or intermediate bakers, so I figured expanding on the jellyroll technique used for cinnamon rolls would be the next step. The first recipe was for Breakfast Butterflies, an old fashioned roll you don't see much these days. I like them with brown sugar cinnamon or almond filling, but we decided to use blueberry. You can find the recipe for the blueberry filling HERE, but I find that Solo Blueberry pastry filling also works well. The recipe for the rolls came from my book The Breadhead Bible.

Luscious blueberry filling--lemon zest gives it a fresh test, even with frozen berries. Photo: Craftsy.com

The segment for Sweetheart Coffeecake followed, which I featured in an earlier blog--find the photo tutorial HERE. Craftsy is the perfect platform for this kind of teaching, because a well-shot video is always better than my amateur photographs! The other feature on the Craftsy platform that Breadheads will appreciate is that at the bottom of the window where the lesson plays, there is a "30 second replay" button--click it and the last 30 seconds of the video plays on a loop for as long as you want. People learning to knit, crochet and quilt on Craftsy really like this feature!

Sweetheart Coffee Cake, with cherry filling and sliced almonds. Photo: Craftsy.com

Producer Jon Clark had scheduled one more segment for the day, so we went on to Lemon Fantans, another old-fashioned roll but usually made with butter between the layers and served at dinner. To make it into a sweet treat, I added granulated sugar mixed with lemon zest to the layers, and drizzled on a thin icing made with lemon juice. The cameraman Marshall declared this roll his favorite and would have consumed more of them if we hadn't had to keep some idea for product shots! My photo tutorial from last summer is HERE, and the results from the shoot are below.

The shoot ended about 6 p.m., after which I took off my apron and my habit, threw on a Rockies jersey and walked the four blocks to Coors Field---yep, that's how close the studio is to the ballpark! The Rockies pounded the Dodgers 12 - 2, a typical Mile High home run fest. DJ LaMahieu hit one that just barely cleared the wall, and Dodger center fielder Joc Pederson jump for it, missed, and lost his glove over the wall in the shrubbery around the fountains! As he stood there waiting for an usher to throw his glove back over, you could tell from his stance that he was NOT happy with himself. I celebrated by going back to the concession stands. Bread in the studio, bratwurst in the ballpark---not sure it gets much better.

Photo credit: www.denver.com

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Breakfast Butterflies

8/6/2016

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Recently I've been experimenting with breakfast breads and I remembered that it's been awhile since I made Breakfast Butterflies. Butterfly rolls are an old-fashioned recipe one never sees anymore in cookbooks but which needs to be revived. You can use just about any filling, from cinnamon sugar to pesto, but I like mine with blueberry or almond filling. (A quick aside--I highly recommend the Solo brand Cake and Pastry Filling, which comes in a great many flavors and is every bit as good as homemade, in my experience. They are a member of the Home Baking Association, which has sponsored some of my videos, but I've not been paid or otherwise compensated for this little plug!)

Butterfly rolls are not much much harder to make than cinnamon rolls, with just a couple of other steps. You can use your favorite roll dough and your favorite filling, so what's not to love? I find that they are plenty sweet without a powdered sugar icing, but if you want a nice finish on them, heat up some light corn syrup in the microwave for about 15 seconds and brush that over the tops. As you can see from the photo above, it gives them a lovely shiny appearance but without adding a lot of extra sugar that will obscure the taste of the filling.

So have I convinced you to make them? I hope so. Click HERE for the recipe page.

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Happy Birthday---have some spudnuts!

6/2/2016

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Yesterday was my buddy Ken's birthday (he's in the green shirt---his son Collin had his eyes shut for four successive photos, so I gave up trying!), so I invited him via Facebook to come out for some homemade donuts. He became a fan of my sour cream old fashioned donuts at a football game when Collin was a junior at our Academy. I decided to do a random act of kindness and make fresh donuts to give out to the fans. I made a big batch of sour cream donuts with my vintage Popeil donut maker (read about it HERE) and had Collin take them out into the stands. Naturally he took some to his folks, prompting Ken to abandon the game at half time and come into the kitchen for more donuts! He's been a fan ever since.

So after supper I mixed up a batch of my Best Ever Crescent Roll Dough, which is a pretty close approximation to the dough for "Spudnuts." I don't know if you can find Spudnut donut shops around anymore, but they used to be a franchise all over Idaho and the Pacific Northwest---I seem to remember seeing one at Pike's Market in 2004. Anyway, the addition of mashed potatoes or potato flour to a rich sweet dough makes for some mighty fine donut dough. I wrote a blog about it last year, which you can find HERE along with a link to the recipe I used. I blogged about donuts the year before, about this same time. Why?

Because tomorrow is National Donut Day. Get out the fryer.

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Sour Cream Fastnachts for Mardi Gras

2/7/2016

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Wow, it's been quite some time since I posted---my last blog post was before Christmas and here we are about to start Lent! But before the Lenten austerities get underway, treat your family to some deliciously rich Fastnacht fritters. I may have posted this recipe before, but it's worth it share it again.

The full name for these donuts is fastnacht kuchen, “Fastnacht” being the German word for the day before Ash Wednesday. There are as many different recipes for these Shrove Tuesday donuts as there are German grandmothers (the Polish grandmas call them paczki). The majority of them are made with a yeasted dough containing mashed potatoes. I offer here a simpler recipe, easily made and best served fresh.

Depending on the date of Easter, Fat Tuesday is often on or around Valentine’s Day. Using heart shaped cookie cutters for your fastnachts is a good way to combine the two holidays. Plain granulated sugar or powdered sugar may also be used to coat them. Without a sweet topping of some kind, fastnachts can seem a little bland to the American palate, as the recipe has far less sugar than the usual sour cream donut.

Fastnachts
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1/3 sugar
¾ tsp. ground mace or nutmeg
1 cup sour cream (room temperature)
2 eggs (room temperature)
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp. baking soda
2 tsp. baking powder
Vegetable oil for frying
Cinnamon sugar for topping

In a medium size bowl, combine oil, sugar, sour cream, and eggs and beat with a whisk for two minutes. In a separate bowl, sift flour and baking powder and stir until thoroughly combined. Add egg mixture and stir until just combined. With dough still in bowl, knead gently for 8 or 10 strokes. Allow dough to rest for 5 minutes. Preheat oil for frying to 350 degrees. Pat or roll dough out on a lightly floured surface to about ¼ inch thick. Cut dough into rectangles about 2” x 3” and cut a short slit down the center of each one. Fry in hot oil a few at a time, 2 minutes per side, until golden brown. Drain on paper towels, then toss in cinnamon sugar to coat. Best if served fresh and warm.

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Spring Valley Historical Society Recipes

11/23/2015

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Here's three of the recipes I presented at my demo for the Spring Valley Historical Society. You can find Bolo Rei on the "Recipes" page. Don't burn the scones!

Pumpkin Spice Donuts
with Chai Latte Frosting

1 cup pumpkin (not pumpkin pie filling)
2 eggs,
½ cup pumpkin spice creamer (liquid)
¾ cup packed brown sugar
¼ cup canola oil
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice
½ teaspoon salt

Chai Latte Frosting
½ cup sweetened chai tea
2 tablespoons pumpkin spice creamer (liquid)
¼ cup butter
2 cups powdered sugar

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Prepare two donut pans (12 donuts total) with cooking spray and set aside. In a medium size bowl, combine pumpkin, eggs, creamer, sugar and oil. In a separate bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, pumpkin pie spice, and salt. Add the flour mixture to pumpkin mixture and stir until nearly smooth—do not overbeat.

Transfer the batter to a large ziploc bag and expel excess air before sealing. Snip one corner of the bag and pipe batter into donut pans---each section will be slightly more than half full. Bake for 12-15 minutes or until donuts are lightly browned and spring back when touched. Allow donuts to rest about five minutes in pan before removing to cool on a wire.

For frosting
In a small saucepan over low heat, bring sweetened chai tea to a simmer and reduce to about three tablespoons. Cool completely and stir in creamer. Whisk in butter and powdered sugar until smooth. Use to frost donuts. If you want a light glaze instead of frosting, omit butter and use only one cup of powdered sugar.

Chocolate Raspberry Scones

2 cups all-purpose flour
¼ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
½ cup granulated sugar
1 Tbs. baking powder
1/8 tsp. baking soda
¼ teaspoon salt
½ cup (1 stick) of chilled butter
½ cup buttermilk
1 large egg, beaten
1/3 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips, chopped fine
½ cup raspberry preserves or cake filling
OR 1 cup of fresh raspberries

Preheat oven to 400 degrees, and lightly grease a baking sheet or cookie pan. Sift flour, cocoa, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt into a medium size bowl and stir thoroughly. Cut butter into small pieces. Using a pastry blender or two sharp knives, blend butter into the dry ingredients until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Stir in chopped chocolate chips. In another small bowl, whisk buttermilk and egg together until well blended. Pour into dry ingredients and stir with a wooden spoon until just moistened, but do not overmix. Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead gently for 8 or 10 strokes. Divide in half, and on a lightly floured surface, pat each piece into a flattened 8” round. Lay one round on the pan and spread the top with the raspberry preserves or fresh raspberries. Lay the second round on top. Using a large knife or metal spatula, cut dough into 8 wedges, wiping knife after each cut. Bake at 400 degrees for 15 to 20 minutes, or until round is firm on the edges but still slightly soft in the middle. Cool on a wire rack, then cut apart before serving.

Apricot Skillet Bread

1 cup yogurt (plain or flavored)
2 eggs (or egg substitute)

½ cup yellow cornmeal
1 cup spelt flour (or all-purpose)
2 Tbs. brown sugar or honey
1 Tbs. wheat germ
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp, ground coriander seed
½ tsp. ground ginger
½ tsp. salt

Preheat oven to 400° F. In a medium size sauce pan, warm yogurt over low heat until liquid. Remove from heat, and add apricots and eggs; stir until blended. In another bowl, mix all dry ingredients thoroughly. Lightly grease a 10" cast iron skillet, and place in the oven for five minutes. Pour yogurt mixture onto dry ingredients and stir until just moistened. Remove skillet from oven and pour in batter, smoothing the top with a spatula or spoon. Immediately place in oven and bake for at least 20 minutes. To test for doneness, insert a toothpick in the center of the bread and remove--if it comes out clean, the bread is done. If not, return to oven for five more minutes. Leave in the pan for five minutes after it comes out of the oven. Then, remove the flatbread by placing one hand (protected by an oven mitt or towel) on top of the bread and turning the pan upside down with the other hand, catching the bread in your hand as it comes out. If bread does not come out easily, allow to cool in pan for a few minutes, then try again. Allow to cool on a wire rack for 10 more minutes, then cut into wedges and serve.

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Breadhead Breakfast Countdown Day #113/120

10/12/2015

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Chocolate Mint Muffins

We’re getting down to the wire on my cookbook deadline, or as my publisher and I put it, “about to cross the goal line.” I don’t like to use the word “deadline” because it gives the impression that you have to kill yourself to get there, but “goal line” suggests the crowd going wild as you spike the ball and do your signature touchdown dance in the end zone! Only a few treats left, mostly tested recipes that just need a decent photo.

So I’m back to our little retreat cabin at Lake Thunderbird (near Henry Illinois), with its tiny sink, reliable oven, and back wall of windows that creates beautiful light for food photography. It’s Columbus Day, no school, so the abbot excused me from my monastic duties to come here last night and all day today to bake and take photos. I made chocolate mint muffins last night (recipe HERE) along with a batch of white bread.

A Pyrex Bake-A-Round and a portion of the resulting loaf

I baked the white bread in a vintage Pyrex Bake-A-Round, a glass tube in a metal rack which produces a cylindrical loaf of bread. I’ll be honest here: I have no idea why anyone would want perfectly round slices of bread. Hamburger buns, maybe, but the apparatus is so bulky and fragile that it hardly seems worth the effort to store the thing. That being said, it’s still one of my favorite piece of bakeware, no longer available except at garage sales and on eBay. And those round slices are ideal for French Toast Custard Cups.

French Toast Custard Cups

You can plenty of recipes for larger French toast casseroles, and they usually serve six to eight. But what if you’re single---do you have to host a brunch before you get to try that recipe? Or what if you have the whole family over for the holidays, but not everyone likes French toast? So I developed these individual serving casseroles, so you can make as few or as many as you like. Keep your eyes open at second-hand shops for soup bowls with handles—they are just the perfect serving size. You can find the recipe HERE.

The photos for those two recipes took up my morning, which exhausted my camera batteries, so I ran into town for a fresh set, dropping off samples at a local family and at the police station. Then it was back to the cabin to make Sunday Brunch Waffles. This past summer I found a brand new Cuisinart waffle iron at Goodwill for a whopping $5, and I’ve been using it ever since to make sourdough multigrain waffles every time my sourdough starter needs to be renewed.

The convenience of pancake mixes and frozen waffles make them ordinary breakfast foods these days, but my Grandma Tootsie taught me how to make waffles with whisked eggs whites, and the result is the lightest waffle you’ve ever savored. The ones I made today are certainly not to be considered health food---four eggs, three-quarters a cup of oil, topped with butter and syrup---which is why I named them to suggest a special Sunday treat.

Next on my list was Tropical Scones. I spent about two weeks in “The Scone Zone” testing scone recipes almost every day, much to the delight of the brethren and the lay faculty of our school. Scones are ideal for our busy modern schedules, because they can be mixed and baked in about 30 minutes and can be flavored sweet or savory. You can use just about any kind of dairy for the liquid; milk, cream, and buttermilk are the most common, but sour cream and yogurt can be used as well. Seeing coconut yogurt in the store inspired me to develop a scone recipe with tropical flavors. They are best served warm with a dollop of apricot chutney.

I finished off the day with a retest of Baked Chocolate Donuts. I used to make baked donuts with yeasted dough but that took more time than most people have in the morning, so I developed a baked cake donut recipe that can be done in half an hour. My first version, however, made too much batter and overflowed the pan, so I cut back on the amount of flour and buttermilk to make less batter. The results were much more satisfactory. The cookbook will have a recipe for mocha frosting, but I made these with a chai tea glaze instead. We had some containers of sweetened chai tea left over from a fundraising event, so I put a cup in a saucepan and simmered it until it was reduced to about a quarter cup. While it was still warm I whisked in a cup of powdered sugar and a pinch of salt, which yielded a scrumptiously exotic glaze for the chocolate donuts.

Now I have to pack up all my equipment and head back to the abbey. There are still a few recipes left to test, but it’s fourth and goal to go!

God bless and happy baking!

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Sausage Roll-Ups

10/5/2015

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Sausage Roll-Ups are an easy appetizer or brunch item.

For family potlucks, my mother often makes sausage roll-ups. These savory appetizers are a snap to make, and much of the prep can even take place the night before, so having them for breakfast or brunch isn't much of a chore. They can be made with any kind of bulk sausage: garlic, sweet hot Italian, maple, sage and onion, etc.

We're fairly certain my mom got the recipe from Pillsbury, since it uses their crescent rolls in a tube. My friend Julie refers to their biscuits as "whomp biscuits", since you peel the label off the tube and "whomp!" it on the edge of the table. You can certainly try that if you want, but allow me to say this: you can make exquisite homemade biscuit dough with far less fuss and get a much better result. Besides, as adorable as he is, Poppin' Fresh creeps me out a little. I just don't like to see my food animated. And we're almost the same age but he's virtually unchanged in appearance, which makes me wonder about all those preservatives.

So we're going to start with a basic biscuit dough. I say "basic" but what I'm really referring to is BISCUITS OF VICTORY! For many years I was unable to make a decent biscuit, but I finally found and adapted a recipe that worked for me every time. Hence, the epic name, which must be pronounced in a heroic voice like the voice over on Super Friends. The recipe for the dough is HERE, directions for the roll-ups are below.

Sausage Roll-Ups
One batch of Biscuit Dough
1 pound of bulk sausage, uncooked

Prepare biscuit dough. On a well-floured surface, roll dough out to 15” x 24”. Crumble sausage and spread evenly over dough (an offset spatula helps). Starting from the long side, roll up jellyroll style. Cut roll in half crosswise with a sharp knife. Wrap each half in waxed paper or parchment and again in plastic wrap. Refrigerate for one hour or overnight.

Preheat oven to 425° F. Lightly grease two 9 x 13-inch baking sheets. Remove wrapping from dough and cut into 1” slices. Place rolls cut side down on baking sheets and space them evenly. Bake for 12 to 15 minutes until sausage is cooked and rolls are golden brown on the edges. Serve warm.

Sausage Roll-Ups drizzled with honey--the perfect combination of sweet and savory.

I like to eat mine drizzled with honey or maple syrup, but for something a bit more savory, sprinkle the tops with finely shredded asiago cheese or a mixture of mozzarella and Parmesan as they emerge hot from the oven. You can make the jellyroll and slice immediately, but they are harder to slice that way and tend to spread out more when baking. But either way they are delicious and will disappear quickly from your buffet table. I've also had success baking them the night before and reheating the next day. Just let them cool completely on the pans, cover the pans with aluminum foil and refrigerate. Reheat the next morning, covered, at 375° F. for five minutes, then uncovered for another five to seven minutes until heated through.

One last comment: these are not a heart healthy bread! The dough is loaded with butter and sausage of course can be laden with fat, salt and calories. That's why my family only served these once or twice a year. But my oh my are they good!

God bless and happy baking!

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Pastry Blenders and Classic Strawberry Cream Scones

9/26/2015

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Strawberry Cream Scones--use the good china!

If I were going to choose a recipe to teach to a newbie baker an I had less than an hour, I would definitely choose scones as my ideal recipe: easy to make, infinitely versatile, using simple ingredients and prepared with ordinary equipment. AND you get to eat them, warm with butter, within forty-five minutes or less. What's not to love?

Vintage pastry blenders

Some people might take exception to the "ordinary equipment" part, since not everyone has a pastry blender in the drawer. I was surprised to discover this week that there are kitchens without a rolling pin! However, you can achieve the same goal (cold butter cut into small pieces blended with flour) with a pair of ordinary knives or (gasp!) a food processor. However, if you do have a Cuisinart and not a pastry blender or granny fork, I'm not sure we can be friends. I have several varieties of pastry blenders, and the one on the left with the metals "blades" seems to me to be the most useful. When you are using cold butter (necessary for really flaky pastry) the harder blades are more effective than the wires on the right, which tend to get bent.

Besides appreciating the time factor, I like scones because they aren't as sweet at other breakfast breads coated with glaze or slathered with frosting. Granted, I love caramel pecan cinnamon rolls more than most sugar addicts, but it's hard not to feel guilt afterwards. With scones, you feel like you've had "a treat without a cheat". Some commercial scones are about as healthy as a Krispy Kreme donut, but the ones you make yourselves are no worse than a biscuit. Just go easy on the clotted cream and you'll be fine.

This recipe will appear in my upcoming cookbook Breadhead Breakfast Treats, which I hope to have available by May 2016

Strawberry Cream Scones

2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons cold butter
1 cup chopped strawberries (1/4” dice)
¾ cup heavy cream

Preheat the oven to 425° F. Lightly grease a 9 x 13-inch baking sheet and set aside. Place flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a medium size bowl whisk together until blended. Work the butter into the flour with a pastry cutter until the mixture resembles coarse bread crumbs. Add strawberries and stir till evenly distributed. Add cream and mix until a cohesive ball of dough is formed; do not over-mix

Transfer the dough to a well-floured work surface. Pat or roll the dough into an 8-inch disk about ¾" thick. Use a chef’s knife, bench knife or large pizza cutter to cut the disk into 8 wedges. (You may also use a round or heart-shaped cookie cutter.) Transfer scones to the prepared pan, evenly spaced. Bake the scones for 20 to 25 minutes, until golden brown. Cool on the pan and serve warm.

Breadhead Backstory
I'm in “the scone phase” of recipe testing, and last week I discovered that we had several pints of fresh strawberries that needed to used up pretty quickly. As a practical baker, that was reason enough to make these! Strawberries and cream go together, and the richness of the cream means you can use a little less butter on this recipe. In a convection oven (with the blower on), there’s real risk of the strawberries on the surface of the dough getting scorched black, so if you are using one be sure to cover the pan lightly with aluminum foil until the last few minutes of baking. The strawberry flavor of these scones is rather delicate, so don’t serve them with an overwhelmingly strong coffee or heavily flavored tea—for the latter, I recommend Formosa Oolng.

This is fairly classic scone recipe, and you could substitute raisins, dried cranberries, or blueberries with equally delightful results. I like to use dried apricots or snipped dates with chopped pecans and serve them with clotted cream and a little spoonful of orange marmalade. When I tested the recipe, this strawberry version was enjoyed both by the monks at breakfast and some of the faculty at lunch, and the only criticism I received was that I hadn’t made enough for the whole staff!

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Orange Cranberry Rolls

9/18/2015

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The pinnacle of breakfast breads!

The Breadhead Breakfast project has been inspiring me to think of new variations on some of my old favorites. Although my monastic brethren love cinnamon rolls (a moment of silence as we all contemplate the glory of Fab's Nutty Goodness) I've been experimenting with different fillings in the last year or so. I've made Strawberry Rolls and little spirals of pastry and pineapple filling using Shortcut Croissant dough, and even added Chinese Five Spice instead of cinnamon. None of this is particularly adventuresome compared to, let's say, chefs of Chopped, but it is making me explore some new flavor profiles.

DON'T USE THIS STUFF!

For several weeks I've been planning to experiment with cranberry sauce, because I found a small can of it in the pantry. I DON'T mean the stuff that looks like cranberry jello and can be serve in slices. This was whole berry cranberry sauce---not as good as fresh cranberries, but it's what I had in the kitchen without having to to the store. I once enjoyed a delectable cranberry salad with mandarin orange slices, so I decided to add that flavor as well.

I made a batch of Basic Roll Dough but I used only 4.5 cups of flour, leaving the dough very soft. As it rose, I took the cranberry sauce (14-oz. can.) and stirred in a teaspoon of freshly grated orange zest (about half an orange--the rest goes in the icing), and 1/4 cup of orange juice. I thought the filling lacked tartness, so I added 1/2 cup of dried cranberries--much better. I rolled the dough out as usual (about 15" x 12"), spread the filling and rolled it up for slicing. I made 15 rolls, but you could do 12 and make more generous servings. They went into a 9" x 13" greased pan and rose for about half an hour. In my commercial convection oven they baked in 18 minutes at 350, but in a regular oven it would take about 30 minutes.

The icing was made with a cup of powdered sugar whisked with 1 teaspoon of fresh orange zest and two tablespoons of orange juice. I heated it in the microwave on high for ten seconds and then drizzled it over the rolls. Go easy on the icing--the filling is plenty sweet. They were much enjoyed by the monks and several lucky members of the faculty of our high school.

A little Internet research revealed that there are a wide variety of orange-and-cranberry-flavored breads out there, from rolls to scones to muffins. Some roll recipes use fresh cranberries in a food processor with orange marmalade, which made for a beautifully rich, red filling; some added walnuts for a little crunch. Plenty of recipes still to be explored. If there is leftover cranberry salad after this year's Thanksgiving feast, I have a pretty good idea what I'll be serving for breakfast the next morning!

God bless and happy baking!

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Chili for Breakfast?!

9/15/2015

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Nothing I like better than cornbread with butter and honey.

Earlier this week I made a batch of cornbread using a new recipe I found on Pinterest. The pinner claimed it was "The Best Cornbread"--moist and sweet, with a tender crumb. I'm usually a bit wary of such claims, because often what the baker has developed is a recipe for a cornmeal-flavored cake, with way too much butter and sugar. But this recipe made use of unsweetened applesauce, so I decided to give it a try. I'm glad I did. Although it had a texture that reminded me of yogurt cake and was a bit too sweet for my taste, it was definitely moist and flavorful. The recipe is HERE.

San Pasquale, patron saint of cooking, looks on from the background.

I don't know what inspired me to put my fried eggs on cornbread the next morning, because normally I'm a butter-and- honey kind of monk. But it was so good that I decided to take it even further and create the masterpiece picture here. I cut a large square of cornbread in half lengthwise and topped it with a slice of sharp cheddar. That went into the microwave for about 20 seconds, just enough to melt the cheese. Once it was on the plate, I added chili, jalapenos, and a fried egg. No salt, no pepper, no hot sauce--it had all the flavor it needed. I'm glad I didn't use the whole piece of cornbread, because that would have been far too bread-y. This was perfectly balanced, IMHO. The idea of chili first thing in the morning might seem odd at first, until you think about breakfast staples like biscuits and gravy, or eggs over grits and corned beef hash. You could do something similar with salsa, guacamole, or white chili, or make a variation on Eggs Benedict if you're awake enough to attempt hollandaise sauce at that hour.

Cornbread with chili, jalapenos, cheddar, and an egg sunny side up.

I should note that in taking this picture I had the assistance of Courtney and Destiny, two of my students who usually get to school early and graciously volunteered to advise me on food styling. They were rewarded with the plate pictured above and a pair of forks.

God bless and happy baking!

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