Scones at Stardust

I’ve made scones for Stardust a couple times now during my Saturday baking stints.  I’ve made them with blueberries, but this weekend I’m looking to switch it up a bit by using raspberries instead.  Since they’re easy to make and don’t require a lot of ingredients, I can usually get these in the oven within my first hour at the ‘Dust.

The recipe I use is, no surprise, based on one for Cranberry Scones on MarthaStewart.com.  I had originally used cranberries when they were freshly sold in stores last November and December, when the recipe came out in an Everyday Food publication.  Everyday Food is probably my favourite pick from the ominous-sounding Martha Stewart Omnimedia, due to its small, compact size and “normal-people-friendly” recipes.  Good stuff for budding home cooks and bakers, with convenient time estimates to give you an idea of how long it takes to prep and cook the food.

With regards to making the scones, I don’t use a floured surface to work on the dough, as it calls for in the recipe.  I find that working with the dough on a flat surface covered with parchment paper seems to work just fine, rather than using more flour.  Also, the original recipe calls for half-and-half, which I use at Stardust, but when making the scones at home, I use what I normally have on hand: almond milk.  Since I don’t drink milk and only have a cup of coffee maybe once a week, I don’t have whole milk or half-and-half in my fridge.  Almond milk seems to be a fine substitute.

Anyway, feel free to experiment with your own scone making, or come over to Stardust to sample one of mine.  I’ll be there this Saturday, but starting next week, I may be working Sundays at the ‘Dust because of overtime at the Library.  Scones are best eaten the day they’re made, although the day after normally sees them in an okay state, just a bit more moist than before.

Stardust’s Saturday baker

Attention stalkers!  As of yesterday, I have been installed as Stardust’s Saturday baker, and my first day and my new little gig was good fun.  I made a batch of whole wheat buttermilk biscuits, a vegan cinnamon-raspberry cake and a “bothersome” molasses cake with “tiresome” tangy vanilla frosting.  The last piece was a debacle, because parts of the cake stuck to the tip of the Bundt pan, and to salvage the damn thing, I decided to use some frosting to cover up the mistake.  Well, the kitchen by this point was rather warm, especially with the wonderful addition of Tony (who literally jumped up and down and screamed “Yaaaaay!” upon seeing me in the back), one of Stardust’s cadre of cooks.  The kitchen was so warm, with the oven being on, the icing kept melting off of the damn cake.  I had to stick the cake *and* the icing in the beer fridge up front to keep it solidified.

So what was supposed to be an 8 am ’til 12 noon shift turned into me staying until 2 pm, with Tony and Casey, the regular baker who was working the front, battling with my inner Martha, who was going, “It’s not PERFECT!  AAAH!!”

The cake’s fuck-ups did enable me to kind of lose my mind in the kitchen, much to Tony’s amusement, and perhaps encouragement.  When I was making the frosting for the cake in a bowl, I looked down at the creamy-sweet goodness and remarked to him how I wanted to stick my face in the frosting.  “Do it,” he said, “and run around the building yelling ‘FROSTING FAAACE!’”

So, of course, we kept screaming “FROSTING FAAACE!” in the kitchen for the next two hours or so I was there.

As you can see, despite that damn debacle of a cake (that looked to have sold well later that night), I had good fun.  I’m excited to go back next Saturday.  I’m planning on scones and cupcakes this time around.  In the meantime, I hope to make some things at my new place in order to get in a bit of practice time, and to try some new recipes out.

By the way, Tony has dubbed me as the Butter Assassin, and from here on out, I’m going to use and abuse that new moniker as much as possible.  So, next Saturday, come over to Stardust from 8 am until noon (hopefully not longer… again), where you can see me puttering about in the mushroom apron my friend Melanie bought for me as a Christmas gift one year.  All the recipes I used were based on my well-worn copy of Abigail Johnson Dodge’s book, The Weeekend Baker, which is a rather apt title considering my new job–providing I can keep it.

FROSTING FAAAACE!!

Gettin’ all Martha up in my parents’ kitchen

I’m more exhausted than usual after making a cake, because I made this particular cake at my parents’ house. Since I’m living with them, this is the first time I’ve baked anything in their abode, and I admit, I was having some serious moments–shock and awe–upon realising how unprepared my parents’ kitchen was for me.

It all started with these wild lemons my parents got from my Aunt Becky’s ranch. These warty-skinned wonders looked up at me from the basket my parents have them in, and they begged to be made into a tart. Well, I haven’t tried my amateur hand at tarts yet, so the lemons and I agreed upon a cake instead. I looked at the ingredients of an orange cake recipe I had (which I had altered to create this Glazed Orange Spice Cake), and determined the only things I needed to grab was some sour cream and powdered sugar.

So it was off to the nearby Oviedo Publix, which had a lovely NASCAR display, nicely flanked by cubes of Molson Ice or some other nasty equivalent. I picked up the missing ingredients, calling as I meandered the aisles to ask my father how many eggs we had (”We got five!”), then threaded my way past the soccer and lacrosse moms to the check-out aisle, whereupon I believe I creeped the manager bagging my groceries with my “Candy from Strangers” reusable shop bag I got from BlueQ.

Anyhoo, so I get back to my parents, and grab a couple of bumpy wild lemons to zest. However, there’s a problem: my parents do not own a zester. They neither own a grater. Wait, they *think* they own one of the two… so a search ensues. My mother discovers here angel food cake pan, along with a little hand juicer she bought at Publix, but no dice with the zester or a cheese grater. So, after a poor attempt to zest with a steak knife, I moved onto an apple peeler, which produced less than the 4 teaspoons of required zest in an uneven fashion. Oh well, no big deal, it’s good enough.

Then comes the time to measure the ingredients, and so ensues another hunt for measuring cups and spoons. After much, much digging, and some suggestions I outright refused, including what appeared to be the cup for cough syrup (”Well, that’s a teaspoon right there at the notch.”), Ma finally procures a set of measuring cups and a lone measuring spoon–1/2 teaspoon. Lucky for me, the recipe didn’t need anything measured in tablespoons, so I pressed on, considering the irony of the Bed, Bath & Beyond gift certificate I received this past Christmas, when maybe my parents should have picked up a set of measuring spoons with it instead. And a grater, or even more fancy, a microplane.

When it came time for the eggs, I opened up the fridge and, sure enough, there were five eggs. I only needed two, but there was, again, another problem: the eggs had a “Best before” date of January 25th. Folks, that was a month ago to the day.

So, I went back to Publix at around 8 pm, which is around the time most of the single men tend to do their Publix shopping, loading their carts and baskets with frozen foods and Molson Ice. I plunked in my basket eggs (”Best before March 30 ‘08″), measuring spoons and a grater.

After that, I didn’t run into any more problems, and the cake looks good. My ma’s been sticking her face in the cake since it’s been done, and I have to shoo her away, and I poured a lemon glaze over the top. I’ve got to say, it can be pretty exasperating baking and cooking in someone else’s kitchen. I remember the last time I had this much trouble, it was when I was baking biscuits at Mike George’s apartment. The poor man didn’t even have any knives, aside from his pocket knife that he offered, which I declined. I had to wait for Clark to come with a knife from his house so I could cut the dough into little squares for the biscuits.

To be fair, though, everyone’s kitchen is suited to them and how they make–or in some cases, just heat or reheat–food. My parents’ kitchen works for them for the most part, and that’s the important thing. I don’t plan on baking on a daily basis here, although I’m sure my mother would love it if I did.

So what does this wild lemon cake taste like? To be honest… I’m too tired to try it out right now. I took a photo on my digital camera of it post-glaze, and I’m about to cut it in half so that I can take a portion to my someone tomorrow. Of course, I have to relate my tale of guerrilla baking to him in order for there to be an understanding as to all that I went through to make this lemon cake.

I don’t think he reads my blog.

But, apparently, my Granny does! Hey, Granny!

Vegan bakey-bakey

A recent Kitchen Window article from NPR entitled Vegan Valentine has a trio of delicious-looking recipes, with the Chocolate Cake with Chocolate “Butter Cream” looking especially fantastic. Along the same vein, I recently ordered a book through the library, The Joy of Vegan Baking, by Colleen Patrick-Goudreau, and I’m looking forward to receiving it. The website has a few sample recipes, including another chocolate cake with chocolate frosting. Really, you can’t have too much of a good thing.

In any case, I’m excited to get the book, although it might be a while, since I’m ordering it through the library and it could take as long as a month. At least I’ve found some people online who give it the thumbs-up; The Joy of Vegan Baking has been endorsed by Eat Air - A Vegan Food Log, and the photos they have up of their concoctions look yum, especially the cookies shaped like squirrels and acorns. I want squirrel-shaped cookie cutters. It would be even cooler to have squirrel and blue jay cookie cutters, then I can have the cookies fight each other, like I’ve seen them do in real life. Really, I think the two species have arboreal turf wars; I saw a blue jay chase a squirrel away outside my window before.

Anyway, I’m not vegan, but I’m interested in vegan baking because I’ve known a few vegans, and it seems to me that one of the hardest things about being vegan is dealing with baked goods: Does it have eggs? Does it have milk? Honey? Gelatin?

In the past, I’ve done my own vegan experimentations with some successes, like my Cinnamon Vegan Banana-Blueberry Cake, but also some misses. A batch of biscuits I made with vegan butter came out ghastly, which I suspect may have been due to the softness of the vegan spread in comparison to real butter in the same temperature–and the soy flour may have had something to do with it as well. Also, I can’t help but be annoyed with some vegan substitute products which, upon close inspection, hardly seem like suitable substitutes. I was using Tofutti’s Sour Supreme sour cream substitute in the “Cinna-gan-nana-berry Cake” until I read the ingredients, which included partially hydrogenated soybean oil. Apparently, the company now makes a non-hydrogenated version, but good luck finding it at Publix. My question is: Why don’t they just make the regular version non-hydrogenated? Should vegans really have to choose between dairy and trans-fats?

Orlando actually has a couple of vegan-friendly spots with baked goods. Earlier this evening I was at Dandelion, and there were vegan cupcakes in the display case. There is also Ethos, which I have yet to go to, but I’ve heard they have vegan baked goods as well, which their menu confirms.

If you want to try your hand at vegan bakey-bakey, there are quite a few online resources that put me to shame in how little I’ve buggered with egg- and dairy-free baking. The BBC has an article on New ways of baking with, guess what, a recipe for a chocolate cake, although this particular recipe is raising an eyebrow with its “2 tbsp tahini.” Tahini? Moving on, the Post Punk Kitchen has more vegan baking tips and recipes. Chocolate cake? Check. If you’re looking for recipes and baking tips, ChooseVeg.com has some, although one ought to be aware of the graphic photos of animal abuse on its home page (Aaah! The chicken has no eyes!), so if you want to go straight to the recipes, click here. Chocolate cake recipe? Hell, they have a video on making theirs.

Should you be too intimidated to bake from scratch, or if you really want convenience short of a drive to Ethos or Dandelion, Goodbaker and Black Sheep Bakery sell baking mixes on their respective websites, though I can’t attest for how good these are, having not tried them (thoughts, anyone?). You can go a step further and order vegan baked goods online for delivery. Go ahead and Google it or use the Kanye West search engine (I’m serious, it really exists), or go to Etsy and check out their vegan section in “Plants and Edibles.” Some of the Etsy photos for these foodstuffs are nothing short of sexy.

And on Valentine’s Day, who doesn’t want sexy food?

No, really, I do bake

I feel a bit odd about mentioning my baking hobby and not really having much evidence right away. Well, for the time being, I won’t be doing too much baking because, frankly, I’m low on flour and I don’t get paid until Thursday. In addition to mailing off my bills and getting that Edith Piaf CD I specially ordered at Park Ave CDs (I’m such a dork), I need to mosey over to Whole Foods–preferably when it’s not stupid busy–and pick up a nice, hefty bag of flour.

For a while, Publix was selling Gold Medal organic flour in a large 5-pound bag, but I haven’t seen them in the stores in a while. Depending on how active I am, I can go through a 5-lb bag in a month or about a month and a half. Publix still sells organic flour, but in smaller bags that cost damn near the same as my big bag. Tsk!

So yeah, I need flour. Organic flour. I try to buy organic when I can, provided that there isn’t much of a price difference and that the product is available. For example, I don’t really buy organic chocolate to bake with, as the availability is low where I live, and the cost is too much for me right now to spend. On the other hand, the organic vanilla and almond extracts at Whole Foods costs the same as the conventional versions at Publix, so I’ve been buying those, along with my flour and sugar, both brown sugar and the regular granulated kind, provided they’re available at the store. I get organic apples and pears either at the supermarket or delivered to me through Orlando Organics.

I recently got a digital camera for the intention of photographing the food I make to post here and on Open Source Food. Right now, I have an Open Source Food page that has only a few things linked to my profile when I was using my boyfriend’s camera. I’m hoping to expand that number once I get crafty enough in the kitchen, as well as have the time to fuss with the food placement, the plates and the lighting. “Vogue for me, cookie! Blue steel, bundt cake!”

Speaking of bundts, I made one last week for an interdepartmental pot luck at work. I used a recipe from Dorie Greenspan’s book, Baking: From My Home to Yours, which I am currently checking out from the library. It’s the first time I’ve baked with a bundt pan, and I overbuttered it, leaving pools of butter in the pan, causing the inverted top of the cake to be partially covered with buttery bubbles that looked like an odd growth on the rest of the cake. It was like a giant cluster of cake pimples. I covered it with a healthy heap of powdered sugar the night before, but when I unveiled the cake the following morning, the butter-zits had managed to expose themselves by absorbing the thick layer of dusted sugar. Alas. The cake was still eaten despite its blemish, but a lesson was duly learnt, and my next bundt pan expedition will be more easy on the butter.

Now that I think of it, it’s a shame I didn’t take a picture of the cake’s butter pimples.