Fall for flavor
Seasonal sweets bring festive tastes to kitchen
Published: November 11, 2015 in the Press Enterprise.
Fall is a great time to start baking for fun and for the holidays. (Thanksgiving is creeping up on us.) So try branching out with some familiar flavors used in different ways.
• • •
Halloween may be done, but pumpkin season rolls on!
You can find kaffir lime leaves in Asian grocers, online and often at natural foods stores. You can find them fresh (they freeze and store well), or even thinly sliced and jarred.
Deliciousness aside, pumpkin is a smart choice for dessert. Canned or fresh, it’s full of carotenoids and fiber, and it boasts more potassium than a banana. And a cup of canned pumpkin has just 80 calories.
Using fat-free evaporated milk gives the dessert a lovely creaminess. Combined with the coconut milk, as it is here, it delivers the kind of creamy texture that defines a custard... without all the fat and calories. In the end, nobody will suspect that they’re digging into a “light” custard.
Thai Pumpkin Custard
Start to finish: 7 hours 30 minutes (20 minutes active)
Servings: 6
3 large eggs
1/2 cup packed brown sugar, preferably dark
1/2 cup lite coconut milk
5 ounces fat-free evaporated milk
2 teaspoons finely minced Kaffir lime leaves (or 11/2 teaspoons freshly grated lime zest)
11/2 tablespoons lime juice
2 tablespoons dark rum (optional)
Seeds from 1 vanilla bean or 11/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon table salt
1 cup pumpkin puree
Chopped crystallized ginger or toasted coconut, to garnish
Heat the oven to 350 degrees.
Bring a kettle of water to a simmer.
In a large bowl, use an electric mixer to beat the eggs.
Add the brown sugar and beat just until any lumps have dissolved.
Add the coconut milk, condensed milk, lime leaves, lime juice, rum, if using, vanilla seeds or extract, salt and pumpkin puree.
Beat just until smooth.
Divide the mixture between six 1-cup ramekins.
Set the ramekins into a rectangular baking pan (such as a lasagna pan), pour enough simmering water into the baking pan to come half way up the sides of the ramekins.
Carefully transfer the baking pan to the oven’s middle shelf and bake until a knife inserted at the center comes out clean, about 30 minutes.
Remove the ramekins from the water bath and cool on a wire rack.
Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate until well chilled, about 6 hours.
Serve each portion topped with some of the crystallized ginger or coconut.
Recipe from Sara Moulton for the Associated Press.
Nutritional information per serving: 170 calories; 30 calories from fat (18 percent of total calories); 3.5 g fat (1.5 g saturated; 0 g trans fats); 90 mg cholesterol; 26 g carbohydrate; 2 g fiber; 23 g sugar; 6 g protein; and 170 mg sodium.
Showing posts with label brown sugar. Show all posts
Showing posts with label brown sugar. Show all posts
Friday, November 20, 2015
Sunday, March 30, 2014
Whole-grain Gingerbread
Gingerbread — it's not just for dessert. Especially if you ask breakfast-lover Megan Gordon , whose recipe from Whole-Grain Mornings relies on three forms of ginger (ground, crystallized and fresh) to give it a rich spiciness."This bread gets even better with time — and, to me, tastes best on the third day," she says. "It gives those dark molasses flavors time to settle in."
Whole-Grain Gingerbread
3/4 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup spelt flour (or all-purpose flour)
1/2 cup packed muscovado sugar or brown sugar
1/4 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. kosher salt
1 tsp. ground ginger
1/4 cup chopped crystallized ginger (optional)
1 Tb. grated fresh ginger
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
2 Tbs. grated orange zest
1/4 tsp. freshly ground black pepper (optional)
8 Tbs. unsalted butter, plus more for greasing the pan
1/2 cup unsulfured molasses (Gordon uses blackstrap)
3 Tbs. honey
1/2 cup whole milk
1/4 cup plain whole-milk yogurt, homemade (see recipe below) or store-bought
1 large egg, beaten
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Butter and flour a 9-inch square pan.
In a large bowl, whisk together the flours, sugar, baking soda, salt, the three kinds of ginger, cloves, cinnamon, orange zest, and pepper. Use your hands to break up any clumps of sugar, and whisk well.
In a small saucepan over medium-low heat, melt the butter. Add the molasses and honey and cook, stirring, until the mixture is warm but not boiling. Pour into the flour mixture and stir to combine. Add the milk, yogurt, and egg and fold together until combined. With a little arm power, the mixture will soon look like a loose brownie batter.
Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake until the edges pull away from the pan slightly and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, 35 to 40 minutes. Let the gingerbread cool completely in the pan before slicing and serving. Any leftovers can be covered and stored at room temperature for up to 4 days.
Yield: 9 servings
Per serving (3-inch square piece): 333 calories, 54g carbohydrates, 6g protein, 12g fat (7g saturated), 3g fiber, 50mg cholesterol, 172mg sodium
From USA Weekend
Sunday, March 23, 2014
Baked Challah French Toast
From MyJewishLearning
 Last
spring, I received quite the shock upon opening my freezer for its
annual pre-Passover cleaning. Inside, bag upon bag of forgotten scraps
and ends of challahs-past sat shivering and waiting for redemption. I
hadn't meant to let my leftover challah situation grow so ugly, but
there it was, staring me in the face. With only a few days before I
needed to be hametz-free, I decided to feed some of the challah to my
compost worms, and dump the rest of it (guiltily) into the garbage. But I
promised myself that next Passover I would Of course, there is little I can do about the weekly surplus of challah that builds up after Shabbat. The real conundrum is what to do with all those odds and ends that accumulate into a freezer full of old challah. Conventional Jewish wisdom seems to suggest one acceptable option: French toast. |
|
Directions
The Night Before: Melt butter in a pan. Crumble brown sugar
into butter and stir until combined. Spread mixture to cover the bottom
of a glass baking dish. Double layer the challah into the dish.
Whisk eggs and milk together in a bowl. Add cinnamon and vanilla and stir to combine. Pour mixture over the bread, soaking it all the way through. (The wet mixture should almost cover the bread...if there's not enough mixture, make a little bit more.) Cover baking dish and let set over night in fridge.
In the Morning: Uncover dish and bake in 350 degree oven for 40 minutes-1 hour. Serve warm with maple syrup.
Whisk eggs and milk together in a bowl. Add cinnamon and vanilla and stir to combine. Pour mixture over the bread, soaking it all the way through. (The wet mixture should almost cover the bread...if there's not enough mixture, make a little bit more.) Cover baking dish and let set over night in fridge.
In the Morning: Uncover dish and bake in 350 degree oven for 40 minutes-1 hour. Serve warm with maple syrup.
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