Savory cheddar-chive biscuits

Who doesn’t love a warm, flaky biscuit? These cheddar-chive biscuits make a nice accompaniment to soup or stew—even egg dishes. Omit the chives for a simple cheese biscuit. Or omit both cheddar and chives for a plain, old-fashioned, baking-powder biscuit.

Because in an earlier post I explained the science of baking soda, I feel obligated to discuss the kitchen chemistry of baking powder, a leavening agent composed of sodium bicarbonate and an acid, such as sodium acid pyrophosphate. As soon as moisture is added to baking powder, gas, which creates leavening, begins to escape, so you want to bake the mixture as soon as possible.

Cheddar-Chive Biscuits

2 cups flour
4 teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons chilled butter, diced
½ cup shredded cheddar cheese
1 tablespoon chopped chives
¾ to 1 cup milk

In a large bowl, sift dry ingredients. Add diced butter and work in with pastry cutter or fingertips until mixture resembles pea-size crumbs. Add cheddar and chives. Slowly mix in milk until dough holds together. The amount of milk you use will depend on the flour. Knead just a few times to make sure all ingredients are incorporated. Don’t overwork the dough, or the biscuits will be tough. Form dough into a disc. Place on floured surface, and, using a rolling pin, roll dough to about three-quarters of an inch thick. Cut rounds with a biscuit cutter or the rim of a glass dipped in flour. Place on ungreased baking sheet and bake in 425-degree oven for 15 minutes, or until lightly browned. Makes six three-inch biscuits.

                                                                                                                                                        

Peachy keen: summer fruit crisp

When summer fruits like peaches and nectarines are perfectly ripened, the only way to eat them is out of hand, the way nature intended. But once in a while, you get a disappointing batch: mealy and tasteless. Throw them out? No! Cook them. I believe this is why cooked-fruit desserts were invented: to use and improve the taste of inferior fruit. This week, I bought between two and three pounds of beautiful-looking but utterly tasteless peaches. Rather than toss them, I combined them with some just-picked wild blueberries to make this fruit crisp. In the past, I've substituted backyard raspberries for the blueberries with good results.

Blueberry-peach crisp

2 to 3 pounds peaches (about four to six)

½ cup blueberries

¾ cup granulated sugar

½ cup packed brown sugar

¾ cup flour plus a tablespoon

½ cup oatmeal

6 tablespoons chilled butter, diced

Immerse peaches in boiling water for a few seconds to loosen the skins. Peel and slice them into thick wedges. Place in a bowl and sprinkle with ¼ cup granulated sugar and one tablespoon flour (more, if really juicy). Add blueberries and mix gently. Let stand while you make the crumble topping.

Combine remaining flour, sugars and oatmeal in a bowl. Add diced butter. Using hands, work this into a crumble.

Pour thickened fruit mixture into an 8-inch-square buttered baking dish. Top with crumble. Bake in preheated 350-degree oven for 40 minutes, or until browned and bubbly. Best served warm with whipped cream or vanilla ice cream. Serves four.

Fluffy blueberry buttermilk pancakes

Buttermilk pancakes are lower in fat than pancakes made with regular whole milk, sometimes referred to as sweet milk. Traditional buttermilk is the liquid that remains after butter is churned from cream. Its consistency is thicker than sweet milk, but its taste is sour. This is because it is fermented to facilitate butter making. Sweet milk cannot be substituted in recipes calling for buttermilk because these recipes contain baking soda as a leavening agent. Baking soda works with acid to release carbon dioxide. If you’ve ever done the baking soda-and-vinegar experiment, you’ve seen this process. Sweet milk doesn’t contain the acid to facilitate the process. Sweet milk pancake recipes call for baking powder. Here’s a recipe for fluffy buttermilk pancakes with wild blueberries. You’ll notice buttermilk batter is quite lofty:

Blueberry buttermilk pancakes

2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
2 eggs
2 cups buttermilk
¼ cup cooking oil
½ to ¾ cup of blueberries

In a large bowl, sift or whisk together dry ingredients. In a separate bowl, beat eggs lightly then add buttermilk and cooking oil. Add the wet ingredients to the dry and stir until the dry ingredients are completely moistened. Do not over-mix. Fold in blueberries.

Pour batter by the half-cup measure onto a hot, buttered griddle to form pancakes. Flip cakes when bubbles appear and edges begin to firm up. Cook until golden. Serve with maple, or other, syrup,  if desired. Makes approximately 16 four-inch pancakes.

 

 

Homemade crème fraîche

Crème fraîche, the French version of sour cream, may sound fancy, but it’s a very simple condiment. And, yes, the early Plymouth colonists could have made it, although there is no record of this. Making crème fraîche requires only buttermilk and cream. Francis Cooke, who came to America on the Mayflower in 1620, kept at least one cow, according to Plimoth Plantation historians. The re-creation of his cottage at the living history museum includes a stone-floor milking parlour. His wife, Hester, was a French Huguenot from Lille. She could easily have known how to make crème fraîche. You can, too, by adding two tablespoons of buttermilk to two cups of heavy cream. The acid in the buttermilk will eventually thicken the cream and give it a tangy taste.

Here’s the process: Shake the buttermilk bottle or carton before measuring out your portion. Thoroughly mix two cups of heavy cream with two tablespoons of buttermilk in a medium-sized bowl. (I prefer glass.) Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let it stand at room temperature overnight or until the mixture has thickened. You now have crème fraîche. Store it in the refrigerator, where it will continue to thicken and keep for several days.

Queen of tarts: raspberry

Every July, the raspberry patch offers its gift of edible red gems. And I make a raspberry tart to celebrate. While the Pilgrim colonists baked tarts and pies, a raspberry tart would have appeared in the New World later. Raspberries are not native to the area, although they have since naturalized. I baked my first raspberry tart in the traditional way, which calls for cooking the fruit, but because raspberries taste best in their natural, just-picked state, I soon settled on an unbaked version. This tart calls for a sweet pastry crust and whipped crème fraîche. If you don’t have crème fraîche, you can substitute whipped cream, but you’ll be missing the tangy element that contrasts with the fruit.

Cool raspberry tart

Pastry:
1 to 1-1/4 cup all-purpose flour
6 tablespoons unsalted butter, chilled and diced
1/8 teaspoon salt
½ cup confectioners’ sugar
1 large egg, lightly beaten

Sift one cup flour, salt and confectioners’ sugar into a large bowl. Cut in diced butter with two knives or a pastry cutter until mixture is pebbly. Add the egg and mix until pastry begins to hold together. If the dough is too wet, add more flour. When the dough makes a ball or disk, transfer it to a loose-bottom tart pan. Press the dough in place with your fingers dusted in flour. Cover with foil and refrigerate for at least two hours. When ready to bake, preheat oven to 375 degrees. Remove the foil from the dough and set aside. Prick the bottom of the shell with a fork. Snugly line the shell with foil; then add rice, dried beans or other baking weights to prevent shrinkage. Bake for 20 minutes. Remove from oven. Remove the weights and foil and continue to bake the crust for another 20 minutes or until golden brown. Cool completely on a rack before filling.

Filling:
Whip a cup of crème fraîche with a tablespoon of confectioners’ sugar until stiff. Fill pastry shell with whipped crème fraîche and top with fresh raspberries. Serve immediately or refrigerate. Sprinkle with confectioners’ sugar before serving, if desired. Serves six.

 

Bread and meat: corned beef sandwich

Sandwiches have likely been around for as long as there have been bread and meat. However, the marriage of the two didn’t become known as “a sandwich” until the 1760s, according to legend, when John Montagu, the Earl of Sandwich, requested meat between two slices of toast to be eaten at the game table. NPR’s Ian Chillag reports that the sandwich the Earl ate consisted of salt beef (corned beef) on toast.

Whenever I have leftover corned beef from a New England boiled dinner, I like to make grilled corned beef sandwiches with sauerkraut and Swiss cheese. The reuben sandwich is admittedly more New York deli than New England Yankee, but it’s delicious, so who’s complaining? I substitute honey mustard for the traditional Russian or Thousand Island dressing.

Corned beef sandwich

Leftover cooked corned beef
Pumpernickel or rye bread
Honey mustard
Canned sauerkraut, drained
Sliced swiss cheese

Spread mustard on one side of each slice of bread. Atop one slice of bread, mustard side up, layer corned beef, sauerkraut and a slice of swiss cheese, folded. Top with another slice of bread, mustard side down, and grill the sandwich on both sides until the cheese melts.

Pumped for pumpkin cake

Pumpkin, or “pompion,” as the early English settlers called it, has long been a New England staple. The fruit grows easily—almost too easily—here, where it can take over the garden. John Josselyn found several kinds of pumpkin growing here in the late 1600s. In his New-England Rarities Discovered (1672), he writes, “They are dryer than our English Pompions, and better tasted.” Pumpkin is such a diverse fruit: It can be served as a side dish, as was the Pilgrim custom, or it can be baked in a dessert.

This moist pumpkin cake, topped with cream cheese frosting, is one of my most-requested desserts. If you use fresh pumpkin, you’ll need to cook it first and then place it in cheesecloth fastened over a bowl to allow excess moisture to drain. It’s far easier to open a can. Freshly ground clove in the frosting is the surprise ingredient that brings this cake to the next level:

Pumpkin cake

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 cup sugar

2 teaspoons baking powder

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon baking soda

¼ teaspoon salt

¼ teaspoon nutmeg

4 beaten eggs

1 15-ounce can pumpkin

1 cup cooking oil

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a large mixing bowl, stir together the flour, sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, baking soda, salt and nutmeg. Stir in the eggs, pumpkin and oil until combined. Pour batter into an ungreased 9- by 13-inch pan. Bake for about 30 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool completely on wire rack before frosting.

Cream cheese frosting

One 3-ounce package cream cheese, softened

¼ cup butter, softened

2 cups sifted powdered sugar

One teaspoon vanilla

¼ teaspoon freshly ground cloves

Using a mixer, beat together cream cheese, butter and vanilla until fluffy. Gradually add powdered sugar and beat until it reaches spreading consistency. Add ground cloves and mix just until incorporated.

Note: This cake must be stored in the refrigerator.