Buttermilk Miso Maple Cake
This is a Dorie Greenspan recipe. This little cake is maple sweet and miso savory at the same time, or, as Dorie puts it “on the brink of savory.” In a preface to this recipe, she wrote that, were she to own a B &…
Author: Blue Cayenne
Beans on Toast With a Touch of Curry: It’s What’s For Breakfast!
I grew up thinking beans belonged in a bowl. (The cuisine in my childhood home was pretty devoid of spice and imagination. Mine was a meat and potatoes kind of family.) Then I grew up and went to India. There, in the Taj Mahal Hotel…
Scones!
Scones!
The biscuit-like quick breads originated in Scotland in the 16th Century. By the 18th Century, they were a fixture on the English afternoon tea table.
More recently, they were popularized by Queen Elizabeth II who reportedly adored them topped with bespoke strawberry jam from Balmoral and clotted cream. So proud was she of her scones, that she served them to President Eisenhower when he made a state visit in 1960. After he left, the Queen dashed off the recipe and mailed the note (shown below) to him.
Here is a variation on the Queen’s recipe from America’s Test Kitchen’s cookbook Boards: Stylish Spreads For Casual Gatherings. You can find the book at your local bookstore or on Amazon here.
For my “afternoon tea,” I enjoyed the scones with mascarpone and English strawberry jam (Tiptee’s Little Scarlet Jam) as Juliet sat corgi-like at my feet hoping to cadge a few crumbs.
I’m with Elizabeth R; they’re pretty wonderful!
Currant Scones
March 22, 2023
Ingredients
- 3 C. all-purpose flour
- 1/3 C. sugar (granulated)
- 2 T. baking powder
- 1/2 t. salt
- 8 T. unsalted butter (softened and cut into 1/2-inch pieces)
- 3/4 C. dried currants
- 1 C. whole milk
- 2 large eggs
Directions
- Step 1 Line a tray with parchment paper.
- Step 2 Preheat oven to 500 degrees F.
- Step 3 Combine flour, sugar, baking powder and salt in the bowl of a food processor. Pulse to mix ingredients.
- Step 4 Add butter and pulse until the butter is incorporated into the flour mixture and the mixture looks like crumbs. Pour this flour/butter mixture into a bowl, stir in the currants, and set the bowl aside.
- Step 5 Mix milk and eggs together in a separate bowl, (setting aside 2 T. of the milk mixture to be used later to brush the tops of the scones before baking).
- Step 6 Pour the milk and egg mixture into the flour mixture. Using a rubber spatula, fold the ingredients together. You want all the dry flour to be moistened. This mixture will be very crumbly.
- Step 7 Pour the crumbly flour mixture onto your counter. Use your hands to gather the mixture into a ball. Knead a few times until the dough is smooth. Form the dough into a disk.
- Step 8 Roll the dough out into a 9-inch disk (about 1 inch thick) with a floured rolling pin on a floured counter surface. Using a 2 1/2 inch round cutter, cut the dough into 8 round scones.
- Step 9 Place the scones onto the prepared baking tray. Brush the tops of the scones with the reserved milk/egg mixture. Reduce the heat in your oven to 425 degrees F. and bake for 10-12 minutes. Rotate the baking tray halfway through the baking. The tops of the scones should be a medium brown.
- Step 10 Once baked, remove scones from oven and let them cool for about 15 minutes. Serve warm or at room temperature with butter, jam or jam and mascarpone (as I did in the photo).
Oldies But Goodies: Happy St. Patrick’s Day!
Every month Blue Cayenne features recipes from our archive of more than four hundred recipes. These recipes are our “Oldies But Goodies.” Today’s Oldie But Goodie recipe is for a Chocolate Guinness Cake. You’ll find it here. You don’t want to miss this great recipe…again. Want…
Cold Comfort: Pistachio Cake With Strawberries in Lavender Syrup
“Then just when I thought I was going to really break down for a good cry, I remembered a large bag of pistachio nuts in the back of the pantry.” –Jeanne Ray Is there a connection between cold weather, being stranded indoors and…
Cream of Three Mushroom Soup
Humans have been consuming mushrooms for a very long time and for many reasons.
Greek warriors were fed mushrooms to make them stronger.
Mushrooms were used in traditional Chinese medicine for thousands of years–many times for the purpose of enhancing the immune system.
In the Americas, the Aztecs incorporated huitlacoche (a parasitic fungus that grows on corn during the rainy season) into their diets, savoring the smoky umami flavor it imparted to food. Today, the sought-after fungus is often called “Mexican caviar.”
During Napoleonic times. Parisians fell in love with the delicate color and flavor of white mushrooms, growing them in quarry tunnels near Paris.
Today, Americans consume about three pounds of mushrooms each year per person. Once hard to find, the modern American consumer has only to look to her local farmer’s market to find the likes of creminis, oysters , or even lion’s manes. And like those who have treasured the exquisite flavor of the fungus for hundreds if not thousands of years, many modern consumers continue to consume mushrooms for their purported health benefits. Here’s a piece from the well-respected Cleveland Clinic on the health benefits of mushrooms if you need a nudge to add more mushrooms to your diet.
Here is a Cream of Three Mushrooms Soup recipe that you are sure to love.
Cream of Three Mushroom Soup
March 11, 2023
Ingredients
- 6-8 T. butter or extra virgin olive oil (or a mixture)
- 1 large yellow onion (chopped)
- 2 stalks celery (chopped)
- 1 to 1 1/2 pounds of assorted mushrooms (I used cremini, shiitake and king's trumpet)
- 1 t. thyme
- 6 T. all-purpose flour
- 1/2 C. dry white wine
- 5 C. vegetable broth
- 1 C. heavy cream
- Salt
- Pepper
- Extra cream to garnish
Directions
- Step 1 Melt butter (or mixture of butter and extra virgin olive oil). Sauté chopped onion and chopped celery in the melted butter until the vegetables are soft and are just beginning to color.
- Step 2 Add the chopped mushrooms and thyme to the pot. Stir and cook until the mushrooms have softened.
- Step 3 Stir in the flour and continue stirring for a couple of minutes to cook the flour. Stir in the white wine to deglaze the pot.
- Step 4 Add the broth and simmer the soup for about 20 minutes. You want the flavors in the ingredients to mix and you want the liquids in the soup to reduce.
- Step 5 Add the cream and continue to cook (on low) for about 5 minutes.
- Step 6 Puree. I enjoyed this soup with some texture. I also thought it was pretty with some of the flecks of brown mushroom in the soup. You can puree your soup to the texture you like.
- Step 7 Add salt and pepper to taste.
- Step 8 The soup will be very thick–like a soup concentrate. You can serve it like this and savor the rich creamy soup or you can thin it with water or milk. I thinned my soup with water and decorated the top of the soup with cream at the time of serving.
Spicy Black Bean Chili
It’s the end of the month. It’s cold. What better time for a hot spicy bowl of chili? If you’ve been curious about some of those meat substitutes that have come on the market, here is a chance to try them out. Or, not. This…
Spaghetti WIth Asparagus, Peas and Saffron
I’m sitting here waiting for the big storm that is headed for Southern California. Right now it is sunny and the billowy white clouds drifting over my home are beautiful…the calm before the storm. Two nights ago, during the pre-storm wind storm, a couple…
Oldies But Goodies: Triple Chocolate Espresso Brownies
It’s Valentine’s Day!
Every month Blue Cayenne features recipes from our archive of more than four hundred recipes. These recipes are our “Oldies But Goodies.” Today’s Oldie But Goodie recipe is for Triple Chocolate Espresso Brownies With Strawberries. Here is the link: Chocolate Espresso Brownies.
You don’t want to miss this great recipe…again.
Want to dive deeper into our recipe archive? Just click one of the categories at the top of this page or use the category search drop down menu on the right side of this page.
And…here is a link to Blue Cayenne’s main page: Blue Cayenne. If you are in the mood to cook (or eat!), we hope you will take a moment to look at the many excellent recipes we have featured.
Spaghetti with Spinach, Pine Nuts, and Raisins
You want raisins with your spaghetti? Turns out that you definitely do. This Spaghetti With Spinach, Pine Nuts and Raisins is a knock-it-out-of-the-park variation on traditional spaghetti recipes. There is the silky smoothness of the noodles, the crunch of the pine nuts, the healthfulness of…
