Martha Mondays: 3/7

Desiree at SteakandPotatoKindaGurl has chosen asparagus with creamy mustard sauce for next Monday’s project.

Martha Mondays: New York Crumb Cake

My pick for Martha Mondays was the New York Crumb Cake from March Living. OMG. This was amazing, I thought! I forgot to sprinkle powdered sugar on top, but it was good anyhow. Here’s the recipe:
Topping:

3 1/2 c cake flour

2/3 c sugar

2/3 c brown sugar

1 1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp salt

2 1/2 sticks butter, melted

Cake:

1 1/2 sticks butter

2 1/2 cups cake flour

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1 c sugar

2 eggs and 2 yolks

1 tsp vanilla

2/3 c buttermilk

powdered sugar for dusting

optional 1 cup blueberry jam (I used this)

Mix dry crumb topping ingredients together. Pour butter over it and mix with hands until it makes large clumps.

Preheat oven to 325 and grease a 9×13 pan. Beat butter and sugar until pale and fluffy. Add eggs and yolks and vanilla. Add dry ingredients, alternating with buttermilk. Pour batter in pan. Top with jam (if desired) then crumb topping. Bake for 1 hour.

Yum. The amazing part is this thing sat on the counter at my house for 5 days (covered) and did not diminish in moisture or texture, which I cannot believe. Everyone here loved this. I am saving this recipe and it goes on my “Martha’s Best of” list for sure. Super easy to make and moist, delicious and gorgeous.  It was incredible.

Brioche Rolls

I’ve never made brioche before and this recipe from Cooking Light (from Dec 2010) sounded great, so I gave it a try.

1 packet yeast (2 1/14 tsp)

1/3 cup warm 1% milk (I used skim)

15.75 oz flour (about 3 1/2 cups)

1/3 cup sugar

1/2 tsp salt

4 eggs

8 1/2 tbsp butter

1 tbsp water

1 egg white

Dissolve years in warm milk and let stand 5 minutes. Add flour, sugar, salt, and eggs and beat with paddle attachment on stand mixer on low, scraping down the side, until smooth. Remove the paddle and put in the dough hook. Mix on low for 5 minutes until it is elastic and pulls away from the sides. Cut up 6 1/2 tbsp of butter into cubes and add half, mixing on medium. Add the other half and mix on medium until incorporated. Mix on medium for 4 minutes. Put it in a greased bowl and cover, allowing to rise for an hour until doubled (I had to put mine in a warm oven to get it to rise – it was just too cold in this house in February!).

Punch the dough down and return to the bowl and cover, and refrigerate for 8 hours or overnight (I did overnight).

Remove the dough and uncover allowing it to come to room temp (about 90 min). Divide into 4 sections and cut each section into 6 pieces. Roll each piece into a ball and place in a greased muffin tin. Cover and allow to rise 45 min (again, I had to use the oven).

Preheat the oven to 350. Mix water with egg white and brush the rolls with the mixture. Bake 14 minutes until golden. Melt remaining butter and brush the rolls with butter.

These were really, really delicious. Light, fluffy, and slightly sweet. My only complaint is that they weren’t very big. I would have liked them to be taller and just bigger. But other than that, they were great.

Updated Schedule for Martha Mondays

The updated Martha Mondays schedule is here: https://marthaandme.wordpress.com/2011/02/21/martha-mondays-9/, reflecting a new member (check out her blog, now listed in the Martha Mondays blog roll over on the bottom right of the site).

Cornmeal “Fried” Chicken

I love fried chicken, but it’s something I only make once a year. This quick recipe is a great healthy substitute which delivers an amazing crunch and great flavor. I feed 4-6 people with this.

3 boneless skinless chicken breasts (cut in half with the knife parallel to the counter so you get 6 pieces that are just half thickness of the original breasts)

1 cup buttermilk

1/2 cup yellow cornmeal

1/2 bread crumbs

1/2 grated Parmesan

1 tsp salt

1/4 tsp dried rosemary

pepper

1 egg beaten with 1 tbsp water

2 tbsp melted butter

Soak the chicken in buttermilk 2-4 hours (refrigerated) in a ziploc bag. Combine cornmeal, breadcrumbs, cheese, salt, pepper, and rosemary on a plate.

Preheat oven to 425. Place a rack over a baking sheet or roasting pan and spray with cooking spray. Dip each piece of chicken in egg wash then in cornmeal mix and place on a rack.  Drizzle melted butter over the chicken. Bake for 20 minutes.

I wish I had made more because everyone wanted to eat it for lunch the next day!

 

Martha Mondays: Biscotti

Ok, oven fixed, double chocolate biscotti made. Thanks to Ana at Sweet Almond Tree for picking this recipe. I had some trouble cutting mine – I don’t think it was baked enough – it was crumbling. I really need to get a thermometer in my oven to see what the temps are really like. It always takes my baked goods longer to bake than they should. Other than that, these were great. I used pecans and dried cherries. They’re really chocolatey and yummy! Now I’ve got to get these out of the house before I have a problem with them!

I posted the upcoming MM assigned dates in a previous post, so check there and let me know your picks once you figure them out.

Martha Mondays Schedule

I have a bit of a glitch here today with the biscotti recipe – my oven is broken. It’s being repaired today, so hopefully I will be able to make this and post it by the end of the day or, if not, then tomorrow.

It’s my pick for 2/28 (the last day of February – at last) and I’m choosing the NY Crumb Cake from March Living. I think I am going to make the blueberry version, but feel free to make the plain one. If you need the recipe, let me know and I’ll send it along.

Here’s the schedule following that:

3/7 SteakandPotatoKindaGurl

3/14 Megans Cookin’

3/21 I need to skip this week

3/28 Sassy Suppers

4/4 Perfecting Pru

4/11 Tiny Skillet

I need to skip 4/18 and 4/25

5/2 Sweet Almond Tree

5/9 Bizzy B. Bakes (new member!)

5/16 MarthaAndMe

If you would like to join, just let me know. All are welcome.

Martha Mondays

Just a reminder that Monday’s project is chocolate biscotti, chosen by Ana at Sweet Almond Tree.

Easter Carrots

I know I’m a few months early, but I’ve already decided what I’m making for Easter. I am in love with these carrots. There was a fight over the leftovers here.

half a bag of baby carrots

2 heaping tbsp brown sugar

2 tbsp butter

1 tsp dried dill

salt and pepper

4 tbsp white wine

chives or green onions

Slice the carrots into thick matchsticks – you want to get 4-6 per carrot. Boil until just tender. At the very end, drop in the green from green onions (scallions) or a handful of chives and just cook for a minute to wilt. Drain. Make little bundles of the carrots and tie with the chives or green onions (even if you only do a few, this still will look cute). Melt butter, sugar, dill, salt and pepper, and wine. Cook for a minute or two until combined and the wine has time to burn off and it thickens slightly.  Add the carrot bundles and gently stir, then serve. As you can see, I didn’t have a lot of success with the bundles, but I didn’t have much green onion here to work with. Next time I will have more and will be prepared. I just think this is so darn cute and will look wonderful for Easter.

Chocolate Creme Brulee

I spent a lot of time in restaurants as a kid. My parents were major foodies back when it was called being a “gourmet.” Creme brulee is one of my dad’s favorite desserts, so I’ve had more than my share of it even though it’s just not a favorite on my own list. He orders it a lot in restaurants. It was everywhere back in the 70s and 80s and seems to be everywhere yet again. The textures are great – crunchy top with cool creamy pudding, but I am a chocolate girl through and through.

Martha to rescue. Martha recently whipped up chocolate creme brulee on her show (this is also in February Living) and I was hooked. Had to try it! And I rationalized, it could be my Valentine’s present to myself since Mr. MarthaAndMe and I don’t really go overboard for this holiday.

The pudding was easy to whip up and it cooked nicely in the water bath. So far so good. I was nervous about making the top though. I don’t have a torch, so I had to broil it. The sugar sort of melted and then hardened. It had the right texture, but not the right color. And a lot of the pudding itself got kind of warm – it only stayed cold down at the bottom.

Despite that, this was good and if you have a torch, it would really be a snap to make. I liked it, but I think I’ve just had too much creme brulee in my life maybe. I would rather just have chocolate pudding!