For Your Holiday Table: Stuffed Dates
This wonderful Stuiffed Date appetizer is a snap to make, freeing you to enjoy your event and to party with your guests. Here is the recipe from Blue Cayenne’s archives Dates Stiffed With Walnuts.
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For Your Holiday Table: Ellen’s Pull-Apart Rolls
My friend Ellen Hoffman runs a wonderful Internet and You Tube site for bread making, Ellen’s Bread Machine Recipes. . Her specialty is using her bread machine for the mixing of the bread through the first rise. Here is one of her recipes for pull-apart dinner…
Wow! Apple Cider Donuts
What’s better than enjoying freshly-baked donuts as the early morning sun streams into your kitchen and you read your morning newspaper. Throw in a cup of steaming Darjeeling tea. Just wow.
You won’t be alone enjoying. your donut, either. According to an article about the history of donuts in Smithsonian Magazine, Americans enjoy 16 billion donuts a year. (Another wow!)
The origins of American donuts are interesting, too–yet another immigrant story.
Most sources credit the introduction of donuts to Dutch immigrants who made olykoeks (oily cakes) in 17th Century Manhattan.
By the 20th Century, donuts were fully embedded in American food culture to the extent that volunteer “donut lassies” traveled to France to bring that taste of home to American soldiers in World War One.
This is a New York Times recipe by Erin McDowell. You can find the original recipe here.
‘Tis the season.
Make these!
Here is the Apple Cider Donut recipe as I prepared it in my kitchen.
P.S. National Donut Day is November 5. Don’t wait until then to make these.
Apple Cider Donuts
December 9, 2024
Ingredients
- 1 3/4 C. all-purpose flour
- 1 1/4 t. baking powder
- 3/4 t. fine sea salt
- 2 t. ground cinnamon
- 1/2 t. freshly-grated nutmeg
- 1 C. unsalted butter (room temperature)
- 3/4 C. light brown sugar
- 3/4 C. granulated sugar
- 2 large eggs (room temperature)
- 1 t. vanilla extract
- 1/2 C. apple cider
Directions
- Step 1 Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
- Step 2 Grease (or use cooking spray) on a donut pan. Alternatively, you can use muffin tins to make this.
- Step 3 Whisk flour, baking powder, salt, 1 t. cinnamon and nutmeg in a bowl. Set aside.
- Step 4 Using your stand mixer and the paddle attachment, cream 10 T. butter, brown sugar and 1/4 C. granulated sugar until it is light in color and somewhat fluffy. This will take about 5 minutes. Add eggs one at a time, mixing after each addition until the egg is fully incorporated into the batter. Mix in the vanilla extract.
- Step 5 Add the flour mixture to the butter mixture on low speed, scraping down the sides of the mixing bowl as necessary. Slowly, drizzle the apple cider into the batter.
- Step 6 Spoon the batter into the donut tins. Alternatively, and this works better!, put the batter into a piping bag and pipe it into the tins or the muffin cups.
- Step 7 Bake at 350 degrees F. for 12 to 15 minutes, rotating the pan halfway through baking. (If you are making muffins, bake for a few minutes more.) Check donuts for doneness with a toothpick inserted into the middle of the donut. Remove the donuts from the oven and let them cool on the counter for 5 minutes.
- Step 8 While the donuts are cooling, assemble the ingredients for dipping the donuts. Whisk remaining 1/2 cup of granulated sugar with 1 t. cinnamon in a wide bowl. Set aside.
- Step 9 Melt the remaining 5 T. butter. in the microwave.
- Step 10 Unmold the donuts from their baking pan. Brush them generously with melted butter and dredge them in the cinnamon sugar. You want to do this while the donuts are still warm so that they absorb the butter. Enjoy immediately.
Christmas Cookies? Swedish Shortbread Cookies!
Here is a great cookie for your Christmas cookie tray. It is a delicate Swedish Shortbread Cookie. Here is the link: Swedish Shortbread Cookies.
Need A Vegetarian Entree for Thanksgiving? This Stuffed Eggplant in Curry and Coconut Dal would be perfect!
This Stuffed Eggplant in Curry with Coconut Dal would be perfect as an entree for the vegetarians at your Thanksgiving table. Actually, it would be perfect for anyone at your Thanksgiving table. Here is the link: Stuffed Eggplant In Curry and Coconut Dal.
Green Beans For Thanksgiving?
Are green beans on your menu for Thanksgiving? Try this delicious take on the holiday tradition.
Here is the link to this great Green Bean With Dried Cherry Vinaigrette dish from Blue Cayenne’s archive of more than 400 recipes: Green Beans With Dried Cherry Vinaigrette.
Need Rolls For Thanksgiving?
What is Thanksgiving without soft yeasty rolls? Here is a great recipe from Blue Cayenne’s archives: Soft Dinner Rolls.
Oldies But Goodies: Cranberry Sauce
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 popular holiday Cranberry Sauce. It would be perfect for your holiday table. You will find…
Dolci: Apple Torta
Since 2020, Americans have consumed between fifteen and nineteen pounds of apples per person per year. Whoa!
Time to amp up your apple consumption if you haven’t been doing your part.
This apple cake is tasty as a simple breakfast cake with a steaming cup of tea or delicious served at the end of lunch or dinner with a dollop of whipped cream or, better, a scoop of your best vanilla ice cream.
This recipe is from one of Renato Poliafito’s five cookbooks, Dolci! American Baking With An Italian Accent. You can order the cookbook through your local bookstore or at Amazon here. The photography, both food and scenic, is especially beautiful in this cookbook and the recipes are delicious.
Poliafito is a two-time James Beard-nominated chef and the owner of Caio, Gloria Bakery and Cafe in Brooklyn, where this Apple Torta is a fall favorite of customers. Of his recipes, famed cookbook author Dorie Greenspan wrote “The recipes are roadmaps to making every day more delicious.” Who could want more than that?
This Apple Torta is reminiscent to the traditional Italian torta di mele
Here is the recipe as I prepared it in my kitchen:
Apple Torta
November 13, 2024
Ingredients
- 3 large apples (Granny Smith or Honey Crisp
- I used Granny Smith)
- 2 C. all-purpose flour
- 1 1/4 t. baking soda
- 1 t. fine sea salt
- 1 t. ground cinnamon
- 1 C. granulated sugar
- 1/2 C. dark brown sugar (packed)
- 2/3 C. canola oil (I used grapeseed oil)
- 3 large eggs (room temperature)
- 1 t. vanilla extract
- 2/3 C. yogurt (or sour cream)
- Powdered sugar to decorate (optional)
Directions
- Step 1 Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Prepare a 10-inch round cake baking pan by spraying it with cooking spray and lining it with parchment.
- Step 2 Grate 2 of the apples. Thinly slice the other apple.
- Step 3 Sift flour, baking soda, salt and cinnamon together in a bowl.
- Step 4 Using the bowl of your stand mixer and the paddle attachment, mix granulated sugar, dark brown sugar and oil together. Add eggs one at a time. Add vanilla and scrape down the sides of the mixer bowl.
- Step 5 Add the sifted flour mixture one third at a time and alternating with addition of yogurt (or sour cream) to the sugar/egg mixture . Scrape down the sides of the bowl as you are mixing these ingredients.
- Step 6 Fold in the grated apple. Mix to combine. Spoon the batter into the prepared cake pan and smooth the top with an offset spatula. Arrange the sliced apples attractively on top of the batter. Bake the cake for 80-90 minutes until it is puffed and a skewer inserted into the middle of the cake comes out clean. Let the cake cool in the pan before removing it to a serving plate. Dust with powdered sugar and serve. Cake becomes more moist as it ages and is best on days 2 and 3.
Pumpkin Cake: It’s a Keeper!
My Chief Quality Officer (CQO) Juliet and I wish you a happy Halloween and a happy season of fall baking. This Pumpkin Cake With Maple Frosting is perfect for both occasions. This cake recipe is from Deb Perelman’s Smitten Kitchen Keepers. You can buy…
