Never Bashful with Butter

Right now, you are thinking one of three things-

1.) WTF is a durian?
2.) OMG! DURIAN!
or
3.) Didn’t that guy who eats weird stuff on the travel channel try durian and almost throw up?

Well, let me start off by explaining what a durian is.

Known as the King of fruits in Southeast Asia, The durian covered in a thick, spiky, thorn covered husk. Inside, there are several lobes of a soft pungent fruit. The smell, as described in this wikipedia entry as abhorrent and revolting to some, while others may enjoy the flavour that has no equal. Somewhere between 2 and 7 pounds, they’re big, and not something us westerners see very often at all. Infact, if we want one, we have to go looking for it.

Back in January, my mom and I were making our monthly trip to the Asian grocery store. It’s about an hour and a half drive, so we carpool, and try to condense all shopping needs from this particular store into one trip a month. While we were there, my mom spied the cooler where they keep the durian in the produce department. Sneverbashfulwithbutter.comhttp://www.neverbashfulwithbutter.comhe picked one up and started talking about how she wanted one really bad. I talked her out of it, because I didn’t think she knew what she was getting into, and I figured she should probably do some research before purchasing something… like a durian.

Well, a few months passed, and during each trip, she would stare at the fruit. Contemplating purchasing it. Finally, a few days ago, she called me up and said she was going to get one, and asked if I wanted to take pictures of the occasion.

OF COURSE I DID!

So she bought one. We had planned to open it today, Friday, in the afternoon. She called me yesterday saying that the smell had taken over her fridge. I told her to wrap it in plastic and put it on the back porch. She didnt think this was a good idea, so she wrapped it in plastic, and put it in a big 5 gallon size tupperware container, and after removing a few shelves in her refrigerator to make room, placed it inside to wait until today.

She arrived around 5pm. My dad, little sisters and one of their friends came along for the occasion. NONE of us has seen the inside of one of these things. I’ve tasted durian flavoured candies (and marshmallows, heh.), but never tasted the actual fruit before. I guess I figured it was about time I got around to it.

And here is where our story turns to photos-

This is my mom suiting up for the occasion.

Note the apron and thick rubber gloves. (she hadn’t yet put on the goggles.)

In the backyard-

Note the billowing cushion of plastic that had previously been wrapped around the durian to try and keep in the smell.

In this closeup, you can see the seam where the husk can be most easily pried apart.

And the prying begins!

The fruit was very ripe when we got it, so it sort of makes sense that it would be pretty easy to open. Also, if you consider how far it has to be shipped, how long it takes to get here, and that it’s frozen during that travel.. I can understand why it would be super easy to open, and it was.

The smell hits my mom. You can see it on her face, she was NOT expecting it. Sure, the whole fruit smell,s but when you first open it, there’s this waft of strong odor that hits you.

She returned to the fruit to finish removing the first pod. There were three separate sections in this particular fruit.

You can start to see it’s… unusual texture. Its simular to that of an uncooked chicken, or pudding skin. The outside is like a thin skin, and the inside is soft like a banana.

She goes in for her first bite!

A moment to reflect on the flavour… (or maybe she’s trying not to gag.)

Wait, what? you’re smiling?

Once the fruit has been removed from the husk, it looks simular to chest cavity. It’s kind of strange.

Here you can fully appreciate the texture. Sort of like foie gras.. only.. its fruit, and to me, thats just wrong.

My little sister and I tried some of it. Here is a shot of her right before she threw up. Seriously.

I put mine on a spoon. I took a small bite, but I couldnt go any further than that. It just was NOT for me

And one more, just to PERK your senses…

So there you have it.

I can definately say the experience was unlike any other. My mom said it best when she described the flavour of our particular fruit as being like that of bananas and garlic, with a hint of swiss cheese. My little sister added “it smells like grandma” which I thought was REALLY funny. Not that my grandma has a particularly… durian-esque odor about her, but having lived with her lived with her a few years during college… I can totally appreciate what she was trying to explain. (mothballs and generic old people smell.)

I wasn’t so excited about the tasting as my mom was. I had previously experienced the flavour during a horrible mixup involving jelly filled marshmallows from the same Asian grocery store. I don’t know the language, so I was selecting the flavours based on the cute little drawings on the front. I got green tea flavoured, strawberry flavoured, and what I thought was Lychee flavoured.

When I got them home, my husband and I, who LOVE lychees, were so excited about the combination of lychee and marshmallow, that we played “chubby bunny” with them.

…Only they were durian flavoured.

So, we had gaping mouthfuls of marshmallows with durian flavoured jelly filling inside. Not what we were expecting. Infact, it was enough to keep my husband inside the house, watching the durian experiment from behind the smell barrier which is our sliding glass door. My dad was in there with him, I think the smell got to him too.

Anyways.. I saved a section of it in the freezer so I could try and come up with some sort of culinary concoction in which to use it as an ingredient. My mom said I should make some muffins, but I think she’d be the only person eating those.. I’m thinking if I add enough acidic fruits along with it, maybe it will cover up some of the more… unique flavour qualities of this very interesting fruit.

So, if I haven’t scared you away thus far, any ideas as to what I should do with this thing? it smells pretty bad when I open the container so… maybe cooking it isn’t such a great idea.. hehe..

-A.

I really want to blame this on the mixer. I want nothing more than to find out that I hooked up the ice cream bowl attachment incorrectly, or that I accidentally forgot a part while affixing the churn.

Or maybe I could blame it on my freezer. I’ve been sick the past week, so that means dear old hubby has been doing the shopping.

and the cooking.

…Suddenly I open the freezer and am confronted by a nearly solid wall of orange boxes. My husband is a big fan of stouffers lasagna and macaroni and cheese apparently, because thats what he’s been living off of the past week. I’m amazed he hasnt turned INTO cheese.

So, since our freezer is jam packed, the circulation hasnt been up to what it should be, and it takes longer for things to freeze. At least that what logic says. Or maybe its just what I want to hear.

In any case, I set out to make ice cream today.

I put the kitchen aid freezer bowl into the freezer yesterday morning, giving it over 24 hours in the freezer when it only requires 15.

I used a recipe straight out of the kitcheneverbashfulwithbutter.comhttp://www.neverbashfulwithbutter.comn aid recipe book. I followed it to the letter.

I put the mixture into the freezer to chill for about 3 hours. (it said 4-8 in the fridge, so I figured 3 in the freezer was pretty good)

I hooked up the bowl and the attachment. I turned on the ice cream attachment and poured the mixture in. I let it spin for 20 minutes.

Beneath a layer of what could be described as the most glorious tasting coffee creamer ever, I found a slightly gelatinous layer of “ice cream”

I poured off the liquid part and spooned the “ice cream” into another bowl and put that part in the freezer to set up for about another hour.

I dont know what happened.

BUT- Since I dont want to be one of those people that only documents their achievements.. I called upon Rodney to help me out with a little “ice cream” failure photo shoot.

*this is Rodney’s “I dont know what happened” pose.*

Wait.. Who’s that?

Silly Crabby, Ice cream’s for robo- oh. Thats right, its not really ice cream, is it?

This is going to taste AWESOME in my hot cocoa later tonight.

ts ok Rodney.. We’ll give it another try tomorrow. I promise!

I really dont know what happened. The only thing I can think of is maybe I didnt cook the custard long enough, or maybe I didnt let the mixture chill long enough.. I know its user error. Thats just how it goes. But I’ve got the bowl back in the freezer, and I’m going to make a new mixture tonight and let it sit in the fridge over night tonight, and tomorrow morning I’ll try again. We’ll see if I can conquer the ice cream hurdle!

In other news, I love my new kitchenaid. It sounds like perfection. I want to make all sorts of stuff in it just so I can listen to the motor run. I love this thing.

In other OTHER news.. Guess who’s featured on Slashfood today? Woot woot! That’d be me. So exciting! I love it when people like the stuff I do. I’m always happy to make other people happy!
So.. until tomorrow-

-A.

Over the past week I’ve lost the ability to eat solid food, and just yesterday I was able to finally swallow something slightly more solid than pudding. *pats herself on the back*

Its amazing when you think about it. What would you honestly do if you were unable to chew your food? What if you were able to chew, but unable to swallow anything solid? I never thought I’d be in such a situation. I’ve always been a “oh, what? people stop eating when they get sick?” kinda gal. I get the flu and I gain 10 pounds because I’ve lost the ability to gauge or sense my own fullness.

Well, now that I’m feeling a bit better, I decided its high time I get back to the kitchen and make me some muffins.

I wanted to make muffins that I could actually eat, which means they’d have to be super soft. Super soft and melty. Nothing crunchy or hard or chewy. I really wanted to make cinnamon raisin muffins, because even the thought of the smell of baking cinnamon raisin ANYTHING makes meneverbashfulwithbutter.comhttp://www.neverbashfulwithbutter.com drool, but I know I’d want to make those with oatmeal, and oatmeal is something I’m not able to eat just yet. (my tonsils are still swollen, so stuff gets stuck in there. ew)

I didnt want to just make PLAIN muffins, and I didnt just want to make cupcakes either. Plain muffins are boring, and cupcakes are too sweet. I havent gained my entire sense of taste back yet, so the sweetness would be entirely lost on my palate.

So.. I dug out one of my old recipe books and started searching.

Somewhere in the back of my 1960’s Bright Orange Betty Crocker Cookbook, I came across a recipe for super soft sweet cheese muffins.

…Ok, so thats not what they were called.

I think they were called something like “Light as air” muffins. Something cheesy. This is the same cookbook that has an entire section titled “organ meats and your health” So.. you gotta be careful. Anywho..

I sifted through the ingredients list. Sounded simple enough, (no organ meats either! haha) so I gathered the ingredients and mixed it all up in a bowl at the kitchen table. I’m still having dizzy spells, so… sitting is probably the best thing for me to do when I’ve got to stir something. heh. I fell over walking from the computer room to the bathroom yesterday.. so.. shuddup! *smile*

I mixed up the batter and spooned it into little muffin cups. I realized… AFTER I started pouring, that I was making boring plain muffins. I had planned to add some mascarpone cheese to the mix and some marmalade. Damnit. I forgot.

So… I finished pouring. I sat there and stared at the now full muffin cups and thought.. well… I could just put the cheese inside the batter and bake it up now.

And thats what I did.

I took my mascarpone cheese, added a little powdered sugar and some orange and lemon extract, whipped it up and spooned it into the center of the muffins, pressing down a little so the batter covered most of it.

I baked them for a few minutes, not the entire length of time that the recipe called for, because I wanted them to be light and moist and.. well.. I didnt want them crusty on the top or on the bottom. I wanted them to be JUST barely cooked.

I managed to succeed, and I popped one out of the tin and gave it a whiff. From what I could smell, it smelled delicious.

Upon further inspection, I discovered it not only smelled great, but looked great and tasted even better. This muffin Melted in my mouth. I barely had to do any chewing.

And dont worry, I had my husband try one too, to make sure I wasnt all wonky because of my illness.. He just finished off his 5th muffin in the last 2 hours. hehe. I think that means he likes them.

So here you have it, the muffins that have brought me out of kitchen exile-

In my hunt for foods I can make that classify as “melt in your mouth” I’ve come across a recipe for french breakfast muffins that I transformed into a delicious, soft, light and fluffy muffin recipe that truely does melt in your mouth.

mm..

2 1/4 cups cake flour
1 1/2 cups white sugar
3 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup butter
1 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
4 egg whites

You will also need-
3/4 cup mascarpone cheese
1 cup powdered sugar
2 teaspoons Orange extract
1 teaspoon lemon extract

My directions are simple, just how I like ‘em. Take all of the dry ingredients from the first list, and sift them together in a bowl. In another container, mix together all of the liquid ingredients. Slowly add the liquid ingredients, mixing between additions, until the batter is completely mixed. It will be a little lumpy, but thats ok.

Prepare your muffin tin with either paper cups or spray grease. Fill each cup about 2/3 full. Set aside.

In a separate bowl, mix together all of the ingredients from the second list. You’re trying to create a paste, and you do not want it to be liquidy. You want it more like a soft dough.

Once the dough is fully mixed- get out the muffin batter filled muffin cups. Drop a spoonful of the soft cheese paste into the center of each muffin. You can add up to two spoonfuls.

Bake at 325 for about 10-15 minutes. Just until they’re BARELY cooked through. Because you put cheese in the center, when testing for doneness poke a toothpick through the cupcake diagonally from one side towards the other. It should come out clean.

The cool thing about this recipe is that even though I intended to put the cheese in the original batter, putting it in the center sort of accomplished the same thing. The cheese melted and incorporated itself into the muffin, leaving it moist and soft. The top of the muffin had a slightly crunchy texture from the cheese as well. Everything about these muffins was awesome.

I managed to save one from my husband, and I intend to eat it with some marmalade for breakfast. mm..

Doesnt that sound delicious?

I finally got to use my new cotton candy maker!

My mom bought it for me sometime the week before I got sick, and I wasnt able to sit up long enough to use it before so.. I made some cotton candy today! I love this thing. Seriously, everyone should have a cotton candy maker!

So there you have it folks. Super soft sweet cheese muffins.

-A.

P.S.
Thank you everyone for your well wishes over the past week. I missed writing and taking photos so bad! I’m so glad to be feeling better. Also, I’ve been keeping up with my friendslist, so I have been reading your entries, I just didnt really have the right coordination to write many responses. I’ll do better this week!

My husband has been asking me to make these for a while. So, I figured now that he’s feeling better (even though I’m not doing too good myself) I might as well make him a batch to bring to work tomorrow for him and his cubemates.

They’re chocolate chunk buttercups with milk chocolate orange flavoured cream cheese icing.

Most of my old family recipes are basically just lists of ingredients. There is no directions on how to stir, in what order to mix or what speed the kitchen aid needs to be at. This is probably why I tend to throw caution to the wind when making simple things like cakes. I just dump everything into the bowl and mix it up. Usually this works fine..

..Someneverbashfulwithbutter.comhttp://www.neverbashfulwithbutter.comtimes it doesnt.

This time, it did!

So.. Keeping with that tradition, here is my recipe for Butter cups-

1 tbsp. vanilla
6 eggs
2 1/2 sticks butter
1 can Carnation evaporated milk
3 cups sugar
3 cups plain flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt

Dump all of that in a bowl. Mix it.

If you’re not alright with vague directions, then you could mix the dry ingredients together and the liquids together in separate bowls, and then mix them together in the end..

But whatever. Its simple.

I added about 2 cups of milk chocolate chunks, stir those in at the end or else you’ll end up with chocolate butter cups instead of buttercups with chocolate chunks.

Pour into greased or papered muffin tins, filling only about half way.

Bake for about 25 minutes at 350 (you might check after 15 minutes and then every five minutes after.) They’re done when a toothpick comes out clean.

For the Chocolate orange cream cheese icing-

2 tablespoons chocolate extract
2 tablespoons orange extract
1 package cream cheese
1/4 cup milk
2 drops brown food colouring (I know, I cheated, I could have used real milk chocolate, but I used it all in the cake!)
2 cups powdered sugar.

Beat the cream cheese in the bowl of a stand mixer until creamy. Add the flavouring extracts and then 1 cup of the powdered sugar. add a little drizzle of milk and then the rest of the powdered sugar. Only add the rest of the milk if the icing is too thick, otherwise you’re fine without it.

Refridgerate the frosting for about half an hour. When the cupcakes are cooled completely, pipe on the icing and sprinkle with chocolate jimmies.

mm.. They’re really good. I was even surprised.

-A

Ok.. So its not exactly Traditional Chinese food…

And they werent exactly leftovers…

But I was at the Asian market a few weeks ago and I knew that Chinese new years was coming up, so I thought ahead to buy some nifty Chinese takeout containers.

I had to use them today, so I whipped up my personal version of Fried rice Vs. Chicken Lo Mein.

Only I flattened the chicken, stuffed it with cheese and wrapped it in bacon before adding it to the lo mein. The fried rice isnt really “Fried” because I didnt feel like consuming the extra calories today. Instead I just steamed some white rice, added some fresh veggies (gotta have a little crunch) and shook it up in a container with a tiny bit of olive oil, garlic, sea salt and black pepper and added some scrambled eggs (because you cant have “fried” rice without the egg).

My chicken lo mein is the same as normal lo mein- only I precooked the chicken/bacon/cheese rolls and added them at the end.

it was really goodneverbashfulwithbutter.comhttp://www.neverbashfulwithbutter.com.

I’m tryin not to have too many gratuitous meat closeups.. Not only because they’re not pretty, but because.. well.. I dont really LIKE looking at meat close up. Rice and veggies are much more interesting….

…as far as non cupcake foods go. *smile*

Healthy “fried” rice Vs. Chicken/bacon/cheese roll lo-mein.

4 chicken breasts pounded flat
4 ounces whole milk fresh mozzerella
2 wedges garlic herb laughing cow process swiss cheese
8 strips uncooked bacon

Place one ounce of the mozzerella and half a wedge of the laughing cow cheese into each chicken breast that has been pounded flat. wrap like a burrito and then spiral wrap the “burrito” with a strip of bacon, flipping the chicken over and wrapping it again with a second strip of bacon. Place on a high sided baking dish. Repeat for the rest of the chicken breasts.

Bake for 30-40 minutes at 300 degrees. If the bacon does not look fully cooked, broil for a few minutes then flip the chicken over and broil the underside for a few more minutes.

Remove from the stove, set on a plate and let them sit while you prepare the rest of the dish-

You’ll need-

A handful of Chopped baby carrots
A little bit of Chopped ginger root
About 2 cloves Chopped garlic
Some Snow Peas
2 cups prepared white rice
2 packets chinese noodles or egg noodles
3 cups chicken broth, or 3 cups water and 2 chicken boullion cubes
2 eggs, scrambled
1 tablespoon olive oil
Dash pepper
Sea salt to taste

Bring the chicken broth/ boullion to a boil and prepare the chinese noodles. When straining, reserve about 1/2 a cup of chicken broth.

Put the noodles, the broth, and all of the above listed ingredients into a container with a lid and shake. Pour into two separate bowls (makes two servings.)

slice the chicken rolls into disks and place on top of the lo-mein/”fried” rice.

Eat and enjoy.

Rice and noodles together may sound strange, but the rice clings to the noodles and adds a textural element that enhances the flavour.. somehow. I know it sounds strange, but its true.

Besides, its a pretty simple dish.
-A.

So… During “Celebrate sweet treats”, I managed to acquire a nice big roll of phyllo dough. I only used a small amount of it, so into the fridge it went.

This morning I decided I wanted to try something different. I didnt really have access to the kitchen to make breakfast (my husband was in and out of there all morning, and he had his work cell phone practically sewn onto his ear, so I couldnt really bother him.)

So I went without breakfast. Actually, I had a bowl of cereal. I ate it too quickly to photograph it. *giggle*

Sometime around 2pm I found myself home alone and kinda hungry. Not neccessarily for a full meal, or anything heavy. I wanted something kinda sweet, but not OVERLY sweet.

I sought refuge in my refridgerator.

Somewhere deep under the contents of the cheese drawer, I found it stareing up at me. The box of phyllo dough. I told it that its not polite to stare, but it held its ground. Finally, I gave in. Something must be done with this phyllo dough. Afterall, it wouldnt be long before I’d totally forget about it and it neverbashfulwithbutter.comhttp://www.neverbashfulwithbutter.comwould go to waste, having to be thrown out because I didnt seal it up so well after the last time I used it.

Lo and behold, I had to trim about 2 inches around all the sides because it had dried up.

I returned to the fridge and got myself some butter and some apples. I figured I’d just make a couple apple strudel type dealies, and got to preparing the phyllo for the muffin cups so I could make little personal sized snacks.

I got to thinking, and I realized I wanted something other than strudel. wanted something a little milder in flavour.

Thinking back on last week’s desserts, I remembered how great the custards I had made tasted… so I thought I’d go with that.

But apples in custard?

Sure, why not.

I whipped up a little ‘custard’ and chopped up some granny smith apples, mixing it all up with some chopped almonds (which I also layered in the phyllo cups) Poured it into the phyllo cups and topped the mixture with another phyllo sheet.

I baked it for a little while, until it ‘looked done” and pulled it out of the oven.

The smell was HEAVENLY. Baked almonds, apples, custard. mmm..

I popped one of the filled phyllo cups out of the tin and figured what better to go with a hot apple ‘anything’ than a scoop of vanilla ice cream. We only have gelato at the moment, and it did just fine.

I drizzled some of my homemade butterscotch on top and paired it with some fresh sliced apples and voila!

Custards last stand-

I’m kind of amazed at how good it ended up tasting. I didnt really work from a recipe (though I wrote it down as I went) and I’d never had apples in custard before. The sweetness of the butterscotch really did help even out the slightly salty flavour of the phyllo dough as well.

In any case, I’m now the proud owner of like, 11 of these (I ate the 12th, hehe) so I think I’ll keep them in the fridge and bring them to my moms house to have with dinner tomorrow. Everyone will probably like these, they’re not overpowering at all, and really arent Super rich or anything.

here is my amazingly simple, original recipe-

2 egg yolks
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 teaspoon almond extract
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 medium/large sized (or 3 small) tart apples (I prefer granny smith)
1 roll phyllo dough
1/2 cup clarified butter
1-2 cups crushed roasted unsalted almonds
you’ll also need-
pastry brush
muffin tin (makes 12+ tarts, so you’ll want at least 12 muffin cups)
a clean damp towel that has most of the moisture squeezed out

Alright. This is simple.

pour the sugar into a bowl. Add the extracts and stir. Let it sit about 5 minutes. Add the egg yolks and stir, mixing the egg yolks in completely. Add the cream and stir until the sugar has completely dissolved. I use a whisk and fluff up the mixture a bit. Probably about 10 minutes of stirring. Put the mixture into the fridge.

Take out your thawed roll of phyllo dough. Cut into stacks of 4×4 inch squares. Any phyllo that you’re not working with needs to be covered with the lightly dampened towel, or it will dry up.

Prepare the muffin tin by buttering each of the muffin cups using the melted clarified butter and pastry brush. Place three layers of phyllo dough in each cup, butter again and sprinkle about a tablespoon of crushed almonds in each. Place another three layers of phyllo ontop of the almonds and butter the top. Repeat until all of the muffin cups are buttered and have the phyllo dough and almonds in them. Cover with lightly dampened towel.

Peel your apples. Slice and core them. Cut each apple slice into small chunks. How small is your preference. I like small pieces so I chop mine into approximately 1/2″x1/2″ pieces.

Place a layer of chopped apples in each of the phyllo cups. Sprinkle each layer of apples with another tablespoon or so of chopped almonds.

Remove the custard mixture from the refridgerator and pour just enough custard into the cupsu to completely cover the apples and almonds. If you put too much in, the custard wont cook before the phyllo burns. Top each custard filled phyllo cup with another layer of phyllo and either brush the tops with more melted butter or spray oil over top.

Place muffin pan on the third rack down (so there is plenty of space between the phyllo tops and the broiler) in a preheated 275 degree oven for about 20 minutes. Check to be sure the phyllo hasnt burned, and then turn the heat up to 350 for another 10 minutes.

take out of the oven and put directly into the fridge.

Once cool, top with a scoop of vanilla ice cream and butterscotch sauce OR, drizzle a little honey on top and sprinkle with some more almonds.

Both ways are tasty. mmm.. so good.

-A.

Nope. Not apple. Aeble.

Aebleskiver actually means apple slices in Danish. Infact, some people speculate whether or not the first aebleskiver actually had little bits of apple in them. The traditional way of serving them doesnt require apple bits, but you certainly could add them, if you want.

Personally I enjoy mine the good old fashioned way.. with a little jam and powdered sugar.

They’re made in a special pan called a ‘monks pan’ that you can find online or in specialty cookware shops. It’s usually a round cast iron pan with seven little half sphere pockets in it.

I bought my pan from a thrift store when I was in my teens. It had been a while since I’d seen one, let alone eaten aebelskiver, so I dont know exactly what I was thinking buying it back then.

When I was younger, after we moved, I managed to make friends with one of theneverbashfulwithbutter.comhttp://www.neverbashfulwithbutter.com girls that lived up the road from me. She was in the same grade as me, and since we lived so close to each other, it was easy staying friends with her. Her name was Kristen.

One of the things that was really cool about Kristen’s family was how family oriented they were. My family had started to spread out a little when my sister got into highschool, and we werent nearly as close knit as we had been previously. Her family would sit and have breakfast together every Saturday morning. I spent so much time over at her house that her mom started inviting me to come to it.

They were from Minnesota, and from what I understand, never having actually BEEN to Minnesota, the area they lived in had a very large population of Danish folk. Her family was actually of Danish lineage, but I never did ask much about that. I was too busy stuffing aebleskiver into my mouth.

I’d never heard of them before. I’d never seen them before. I was used to waffles and pancakes, and on occasion BELGIAN waffles, which was about as European as my family got when it came to different types of breakfast foods. Sure, we had canadian bacon (back bacon) but that was even less often then Belgian waffles.

It wasnt long until I became obsessed with them. I asked Kristens mom if she could show me how to make them, and I learned pretty quickly. It isnt nearly as hard as it sounds. You have to have pretty good timing and not mind hovering over a hot stove for a while, but once you start, it becomes like second nature.

There are many ways to enjoy aebleskiver. Like I said before, you could mix apples into the batter, you could serve them like you would traditional pancakes, with syrup and butter. You could cut them in half and make little breakfast sandwiches, You can save them for later and eat them cold or hot. They’re awesome.

Besides being delicious, they’re also a wicked cool way to impress your friends with pancakes that look like they came from outerspace. I mean, really.. who makes spherical pancakes?

Hehe.. I DO!

Here is the recipe that I have, even though there are tons of recipes out there for the same thing.

-Ingredients-
2 egg whites
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 tablespoon white sugar
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
4 tablespoons butter, melted
2 cups buttermilk

You will also need-
-Either liquid canola oil or an aerosol spray canola oil- like Pam
-A monks pan (a specialized aebleskiver pan) THIS IS REQUIRED.

Directions
Beat the egg whites stiff. In a separate bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder, salt, baking soda, sugar, melted butter and buttermilk and beat until smooth. Gently fold in the egg whites last.

Spray the bottom of each æbleskiver pan cup with a small amount of oil and heat until it sizzles. Fill each of the pan cups about half full with the batter. As soon as they get bubbly around the edge, turn them quickly by poking the wooden skewer into the edge of the batter and turning it up, allowing the uncooked batter to flow down into the cup. Alternatively, you can turn them halfway first, so that the baked crusts protruding from the pan will look like the Sydney Opera House. And after a while you turn them the remaining 90 degrees. This will give them a perfect ball-shape (this is how I do it) Continue cooking, turning the ball to keep it from burning. Spray each pan cup with oil before refilling with the batter.

It sounds difficult. The first couple tries it WILL be difficult, but sooner than later you will be an aebleskiver pro. Once you’ve gotten the hang of it, invite all your friends over, whip up a batch and watch the ooh’s and ahh’s come out as you present them with pancakes straight out of an episode of the Jetsons.

Traditionally, they’re served with a generous sprinkling of powdered sugar and some preserves-
But you can do just about anything with them that you’d do with normal pancakes. They’re just a little sweeter.
So go out, buy yourself a monks pan (its totally worth it) And wow your friends with spherical pancakes.
DO IT!

-A.

My husband is the sweetest guy around. I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again.

He knows I’ve been working hard for the past 13 days to create a different dessert every day. He knows I’ve been sacrificing time I could be doing other things (like sleeping) so that I could research recipes, shop for the best ingredients and make the desserts so they could be photographed at the peek of freshness while there was the perfect amount of daylight coming in the kitchen window, allowing me to photograph them without artificial lighting.

He didnt know that I had only planned to do 13 treats. He thought I was going to make one for Valentines day as well.

So last night, while I watched American Idol (damn reality TV) and House, he told me not to come into the kitchen, because he was making something for me.

He decided he would make the last treat of this 14 day odyssey of sweetness. He had been planning to do this since day one of the sweet treats celebration.

He presented ineverbashfulwithbutter.comhttp://www.neverbashfulwithbutter.comt to me last night, having concocted his own recipe, made a batch, baked the batch and then set up the batch, plating it himself.

Here is what he made-

The best valentine EVER.

So today’s treat isnt so much about the treat itself. Its about the thought process behind its creation.

Thats right, it may sound cliche, but sometimes the sweetest treat of all, is the love we have for one another.

My husband might not be the best baker, he might not have the best piping technique, he might not realize that you use cookie cutters BEFORE you bake the cookies, not after. He might make a crazy cookie flavour like mint chip and coconut brown sugar cookies (which, oddly enough is completely DELICIOUS)

But he put a lot of thought into what he was doing. He made something from his heart and it was so special. So much better than anything he could have bought for me.

I’ll take a heart shaped cookie on a plate with sprinkles and handwritten love notes in royal icing ANYDAY.

Because I know he means it.

*smile*

I hope everyone out there is having as great a valentines day as I am. Even if you’re not with someone, just enjoy the day for what it is. A celebration of love. Even if you have to buy yourself a box of chocolates. Do it. Love yourself, love your friends, love your parents. Love whoever. Just love.

-A.

When I was younger, every holiday had its own strange food related tradition.

April fools day brought jello filled eggs and peanut butter toothpaste tubes. St. Patricks day brought green milk and Green sandwiches. At Christmas time we ate copious amounts of meat and various cheese products in the days leading up to Christmas, culminating in the big breakfast where we gorged ourselves on waffles to sop up the excess acids that had built up in our stomaches in the days prior. New years was a big day where we not only mourned the loss of the old year, but also the loss of our winter vacation. One last night of pigging out and drinking sparkling cider straight from the bottle.

Valentines day being of no exception, we had plenty of traditions relating to the holiday.

My mom would wake up early and make me and my sister’s lunches. She would put a valentine in the box as well as one of those miniature boxes of chocolates. You know, the ones that have one caramel, one nut crunch, one maple and one buttercream. Those ones.

My favourites were the neverbashfulwithbutter.comhttp://www.neverbashfulwithbutter.combuttercreams. They made me so happy. I loved the fruit flavour and the chocolate together. It was strange, because I’d always been told that it was just frosting inside the chocolate coating, but I normally hated frosting. They were wrong though, its a little different than frosting. Not much, but a little bit different.

One year, our class had a Valentine party. Everyone came to school with their bags of treats and valentines to hand out to everyone in class. All week long we’d spent the last part of the day working on our valentine mailbox. Thousands of pounds of glitter and glue were used on our mostly pink, red, white and purple construction paper coated shoeboxes.

I remember mine, because I had a big shoe box. Everyone had to bring their own, and it just so happened that my dad had bought new shoes right before then, and my dad has huge feet. So it makes sense that his shoes are equally as large. Size 13 Triple E width. He has to special order them.

So, I had my jumbotron box, coated in glue and covered with pink construction paper. I then proceeded to cut out a bazillion red construction paper hearts, spread glue on them, dip them in chunky silver glitter and adhere them to my box. I think I had some other things on there, but it was mostly pink and silver. I loved it. I even cut a slot in the lid of the box so people could put the valentines in that way. My valentine mail box was the only one with that feature, and I thought that made me special.

So, it was Valentines day, and as per usual, my mom packed the mini box of chocolates. I had plans for it though, so I didnt eat it. I just left it in my lunch box and waited until it was time to hand out our valentines to retrieve it.

There was this boy I had a crush on. It was his first year at our school, and he had these beautiful light blue eyes. He was adorable, and he didnt seem to hang out with the kids that picked on me, so I thought he was safe. Rumour had it that one of the popular girls had a crush on him too, so I had to be careful. knew that if he knew SHE had a crush on him, he’d choose her over me anyday. I kept quiet, but I planned to give him the box of chocolates.. I didnt plan on putting my name on the box, because I didnt really want him to know they were from me. Sure, it sort of made it pointless to give him a special valentine if he didnt know who it came from, but I was so shy I probably would have passed out if I had done otherwise.

It was last recess, and the entire time, me and my two friends leaned up against the monkey merry go-round talking about the party. It was a big deal. Really. I knew that Katie had a huge crush on a boy named Raymond, and my friend Kristen had a big crush on a boy named Paul. They were planning on giving them letters declaring their undying love. It was funny, but hey.. more power to ‘em.

The bell rang and we all ran back to class. Once inside, everyone got into their backpacks and prepared their bag of treats and valentines for deployment. We sat in our seats barely able to contain ourselves.

Once our teacher came into the room, some people started getting up to hand out their Valentines already. She put a quick stop to that. We were to follow directions to the letter.

1. Place your name tag on the desk next to your mailbox.
2. Don’t open your mailbox until all the valentines are handed out.
3. If you brought candy to hand out, you were to pour it into a bowl and she would hand out the candy to each of the students while we were having our snacks and opening our valentines at our desks.

So everyone got up and put their name tags down and started putting valentines in the boxes. When I got to the desk of the boy that I had a crush on, I put the box of chocolates inside his mail box since he, like most of the guys in our class, did not make a lid for his mailbox. I finished pretty quickly and so did my friends, so we stood by the soda table waiting excitedly for everyone else to finish so we could return to our desks and open our boxes to find simular declarations of love from the boys we handed out our special valentines to.

A few sips into our sodas and everyone else was done. We hurried back to our desks (cupcakes in hand) and threw open the lids to our mailboxes, eager to discover what was inside.

While I was searching for a letter from the boy I was enamoured with, I noticed him walking sheepishly up to the front of the classroom. He handed the teacher the box of chocolates I had placed in his mailbox. OH NO! WHAT WAS HE DOING?!

Maybe he thought when she said ‘put the candy in the bowl and she would hand it out’ she also meant that kind of candy. NO YOU IDIOT! She meant little boxes of red and white nerds candy, or those peppermints with the little red hearts in the center. NOT SPECIAL ‘I’M IN LOVE WITH YOU’ BOXES OF CHOCOLATES!!

Then something truely awful happened…

Apparently my mom had decided not to write a separate valentine to me in my lunch box, she just wrote her valentine on the box of chocolates.

How did I know that?

Because the teacher looked at the box of chocolates, flipped it over and laughed. Then she addressed the class with “Sparkie? Your mom wishes you a Happy Valentines Day. Why did you put your box of chocolates on Jeff’s desk?”

Yep, thats right folks. My childhood nickname was sparkie. My mom had been calling me that since I was a baby, because I was so smily all the time. I was like a little spark of energy, was what she told me later.

I had a choice.. Not to say anything and just let everyone wonder who sparkie is, or speak up. I chose to stay silent..

…But my friend Kristen didnt. She said “oh, you mean Andrea.”

Now everyone knew my nickname AND they knew I had a crush on Jeff. I ran out of the room and hid in the hallway bathrooms. Everyone was laughing at me.
I hated Kristen. Why did she have to say anything at all?!

I was in the bathroom about 10 minutes before Katie came in after me. She knew I’d be hiding in there. She had a little white envelope with her.

She said that before I got all huffy about it, she thought I should read this letter that was in my mailbox. She slid it through the crack on the side of the stall and I grabbed it. It just said “To: Andrea” on it. It was about the size of a greeting card.

I opened it and inside there was a little white card with a picture of snoopy on it, holding a little red heart above his head. Inside it said “will you be mine” and at the bottom, it was signed “love, Jeff”

Ever since I was old enough to see the countertops, I’ve taken on another family tradition. Making buttercreams. I LOVE buttercreams. We make them for darn near every food related holiday, especially Valentines day.

So here you have ‘em. I made two flavours this year. The pink hearted one is Strawberry, and the orange hearted one is Chocolate Orange.

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The cool thing about this recipe is that you can make them darn near any flavour that you want. I usually make orange or strawberry or raspberry, but you could make them any flavour that you can find.

My mom is fond of banana flavoured ones, and my husband really likes cherry flavoured ones. No matter what flavour you want to make, the recipe stays the same.

So here goes-

Ingredients-

4-5 Cups powdered sugar
1/2 Cup Heavy Cream or Whole milk
1 Cup cold butter (2 sticks)

2 teaspoons Flavouring extract of your choice
(you could do dual flavoured creams by using 1 teaspoon of one flavour and 1 teaspoon of another)

About a pound and a half of milk chocolate, semi sweet chocolate or white chocolate, whichever you prefer to coat your creams with.

You will also need-

a handful of heavy duty ziplock bags
Cling film
A tray or plate or cookie sheet that will fit in your freezer
a pair of scissors
A heavy duty stand mixer (or very powerful hand mixer and a strong arm)

Directions-

First you need to soften the butter. Its important that the butter be cold, because warm butter just doesnt give the right creaminess. Place the two sticks of butter in the stand mixer bowl and pulse from low to high speed. Once the butter starts to soften and smoothes out enough that it no longer looks like a stick of butter, and there are no hard chunks, Add a bit of the powdered sugar.

Its important that you add the sugar slowly, or you’ll end up with a face full of it. You can integrate the sugar at a low speed on the mixer.

Once you’ve gotten about 2 cups of the sugar mixed in with the butter, it should be a hard dough. Now you want to add half of the whipping cream or whole milk, until the mixture softens up a bit.

Once the butter and sugar are soft again, whip them up a bit to a fluffier consistancy. Then add the rest of the powdered sugar.

Add the flavouring extract to the leftover milk or cream. If you want to add an artificial colouring at this time (I usually dont unless its for a child or for a party where the colour is important) This would be where to do it. I used 1 teaspoon chocolate extract and 1 teaspoon orange extract for the chocolate orange buttercreams, and I used 2 teaspoons strawberry extract and 1 drop (tiny tiny amount) of lemon extract for the strawberry buttercreams. The lemon enhances the flavour of the strawberry.

Pour the last of the flavour and cream/milk mixture to the bowl with the butter and sugar. Whip the mixture up for about 30 seconds and turn off the mixer.

Scrape as much of the mixture off of the blade as possible. spoon the mixture into one of the heavy duty ziploc bags and set aside.

Cover the tray/cookiesheet/plate with cling film. Snip one of the corners off of the ziploc and pipe little dollups of buttercream onto the cling film. Repeat this process until you’ve made a sufficient amount of creams. You can make large ones or small ones. whatever you’d like.

Put the tray in the freezer and leave it alone for about 20 minutes. The buttercream shouldnt be very soft in the first place, this just hardens it up enough that it wont separate when you dip it into the hot chocolate.

In a separate bowl Melt the chocolate. I usually use the microwave, heating in 30 second intervals, stirring and then heating again, but you can use a double boiler or a big bowl over top of a small pot with water simmering below it.

When you take the buttercreams out of the freezer, you should time it so that the chocolate is at the correct consistancy for dipping.

Using a regular dinner fork or special dipping fork (I use a regular fork) drop the creams one by one into the chocolate, cover them completely and then drop them back onto the cling film covered tray, or onto a separate piece of waxed paper.

Let them cool about 5 minutes, and then drizzle some white chocolate over the top, drop some sprinkles onto the top or roll them into cocoa or nuts. I usually just drizzle white chocolate over top, ’cause its easier and simple and it looks pretty.

I added a couple heart shaped sprinkles especially for valentines day.

Let them cool for another half an hour to hour before moving them from the tray into truffle cups or boxes.

Eat and enjoy! They’re delicious.

mmm. I think I’m going to go eat one right now- HAPPY VALENTINES DAY!

-A.

Admit it. You bake cookies to show someone you care about them. If you were making cookies for yourself, they wouldnt even make it to the oven, you’d just eat the cookie dough.

At least thats how I am. I could be wrong about all you guys.

My mom used to make cookies for my older sister and I when we were kids. Usually she’d make either chocolate chip or banana oatmeal cookies. She would make us cookies to take to school with us, She would make cookies for our friends birthdays, for our teachers birthdays.. She even made giant school bus shaped cookies for our bus driver’s on their birthdays.

Cookies were a way for my mom to show people that she cared about them. I guess I’ve started doing that myself. I make cookies for every occasion. I love making cookies for people that I care about.

So today I decided to bake my husband some cookies.

I wanted these cookies to be special. I wanted them to be full of the things that he loves, but different than most cookiesneverbashfulwithbutter.comhttp://www.neverbashfulwithbutter.com out there. I also wanted these cookies to be something that someone could make for anyone and have them be whatever flavour they chose.

It sounds much more complicated than it is.

Basically you make the dry ingredient base, add the “filling ingredients” and then mix it all together with the liquid ingredients.

I added rolled oats, shredded coconut, Milk chocolate chunks, white chocolate chunks, dried cranberries and crushed almonds.

So here they are-

I usually try to make smaller batches of the foods that I make. I usually end up with around 10 cookies or 12 mini muffins/ cupcakes or I’ll half the recipe and make smaller cakes or puddings or pies.

This recipe, since I made it as I went (though I did write it all down) ended up being HUGE! I used about 1/4 of the dough, and I made 12 cookies. AND THEY’RE HUGE!

So tonight after I finish baking all the cookies off and letting them cool, I’m going to save us a handful of them and bag up the rest and and attach little “happy valentines day” notes tied on with a pink ribbon and give them to my neighbours.

Something special for them, since if I leave them here, my husband and I are going to gorge ourselves on them, and thats never a good idea

The cool thing about this recipe is that you can add whatever dry ingredients to it that you want. Just use the base recipe, add the “filling” ingredients and then mix it all up with the liquid ingredients and voila! A great cookie.

I came up with this on my own. Its not a published recipe anywhere, and its not based off any other recipe either. So, here goes-

Ingredients-

*Liquids*

2 Tsp Orange extract
2 Tsp Vanilla extract
1/4 Cup Heavy cream
2 Egg whites

*Cookie Base*
1-1/2 Cup flour
1 Cup Powdered sugar
3/4 Cup Granulated sugar
1 Tsp Baking soda
1 Tsp Baking powder
3/4 Cup Cold butter

“filling” ingredients-

1 Cup Rolled Oats
1-1/4 Cup Chocolate (I used half white and half milk chocolate)
1 Cup Dried Fruit (I used Dried Cranberries)
1 Cup Coconut
1/2 Cup crushed roasted unsalted Almonds

Directions-

Measure all of the ingredients under “cookie base” (except the butter) into a large mixing bowl. Stir them to ensure even distribution of the ingredients.

Cut the butter into the dry ingredients, and using the same “crumbing” technique you would for making pie crust, Work the butter into the dry ingredients until the mixture resembles a bowl full of cornmeal or other coarse ground meal.

At this point, add your filling ingredients. You can be creative at this point. If you dont want coconut, add more nuts. If you dont want nuts, add more dried fruit. If you dont want chocolate.. well, I dont know what to do for you if you dont like chocolate, but I’m assuming you could add more coconut or dried fruit. Really, its a very versatile recipe. The oats add stability, so its kind of hard to sub them out for something, but you could play around with it and see for yourself.

Once all of the filling ingredients are in the bowl with the cookie base, stir the mixture and fold it around to distribute the filling amongst the cookie base. Once its fully integrated, set to the side.

Pour all of the liquid ingredients into a small bowl. Use a fork or a whisk to beat the mixture until its slightly foamy.

Pour the liquid ingredients over the rest of the ingredients in the bowl. Use a spoon or your hand to mix it all up.

When the dough is all mixed up and it appears as though all of the ingredients are fully integrated, place a small amount of flour onto a clean countertop and place the dough on the flour. Form the dough into a log, with a thin layer of flour all the way around the log. Wrap in cellophane and place in the refridgerator for about 30 minutes.

Remove the log from the fridge and remove the cellophane. Cut the log into small pieces and form into flat, round disks. Place about 2 inches apart on an ungreased cookie sheet and bake at 350 for about 10 minutes, or until the edges brown and the tops are level with the edges.

Damn tasty I tell you. DAMN TASTY!

-A.