Potlikker

back in the day bakery

Back in May, when we drove to Florida, I so wanted to stop in Savannah so I might visit Back in the Day Bakery and sample their signature baked goods. That was not to be. On our trip south, we missed them because we drove through Georgia to late, after they closed and on driving north the bakery was closed that day. So, another time, for sure, we'll stop in Savannah. 

I received gallies for the Back in the Day Bakery Cookbook : Cakes, Pies, Cookies, Bars, and Breads from the Best Little Bakery in the South sometime ago, but haven't had a chance to cook from it until last week. I have a serious backlog of recipes that I want to make, and not enough egg money on hand to make them all. 

Almost every time Elsa and I visit Earth Fare she grabs one of the mini shopping carts because she enjoys grocery shopping, picking out produce, and navigating the aisles. It's mostly a harrowing experience for me. I correct her "Mind the endcaps!" "Don't bump that person!" "Slow down!" and all sorts of other cautions escape my mouth. She asks for bananas and apples and strawberries, and carrots and all sorts of veggies, even if she doesn't eat them herself, she knows I like them. Invariably we have bananas on hand. We bring them home, and then she won't necessarily eat them. So I'm always seeking recipes using bananas and had flagged the Brown Sugar Banana Bread recipe early on. 

My banana bread baking experiences have been spotty in the past. Thus I approach banana bread recipes with trepidation. I perked up when I read the ingredients list and saw mace and sour cream listed. Mace is unusual. I have it on hand, for the rare recipe that calls for it. And, if you don't know what it is, it's the bright red lacey outer covering of nutmeg. But it appears orangish when its dried and in a glass container. Naturally, the sour cream keeps the bread super moist. And another peculiar thing, was that the recipe called for toasted pecans. Most banana bread recipes I've made in the past have you throw them in untoasted. 

Undoubtedly, the addition of mace, sourcream, and toasted pecans combined to make this banana bread the Most Fantastic banana bread recipe I've come across yet. I'm not a banan a bread fan at all. I make it and I might taste a bite. Then I expect others in my house to eat the rest, or foist it off on folks at work or I take it to my Dad who gets little homecooking anymore since my step-mother returned to the workplace several years ago. But I ate slice after slice of this banana bread. And my dogs ate it too. Of course, they'll eat almost anything.

Late in life I've come to appreciate sweet potatoes. They never appealed to me earlier I think because of how they were presented. My aunt made a candied sweet potato dish at Thanksgiving which was topped with marshmallows. Tempting as the marshmallows were, I was repelled by what was underneath: oily orange muck. It didn't appear appetizing at all. 

Suddenly, I've made sweet potato pie, and I love it. Same thing happened with pecan pie and me, also. Must be a personal food pattern. Or, it's just this fantastic recipe. I think it's mace. Must be the mace effect. Gotta love a cook who uses mace liberally in her recipes. And that's what I really appreciate about Cheryl Day, her mace in your face attitude toward cooking. 

Bring on the mace! What's in this pie, you ask? sweet potatoes, heavy cream, eggs, molasses (or sorghum---I didn't have sorghum on hand, but I really want some Muddy Pond Sorghum, I may have to make a special trip up there because no store nearby sells it.), light brown sugar, cardamon (my favorite, btw!), cloves, mace, ginger, and sea salt.

Time for a confession: I almost constructed this pie with an out-of-date Pillsbury piecrust. I didn't want to go to all the trouble of making a crust from scratch. It would take too much time. Yeah for readymade! The box had been sitting in my fridge for sometime. I won't tell you how long. I glanced at the use by date, and thought I'd try it anyway. Once out of the plastic packaging though I couldn't peel the dough apart, it was mushy. Ugh. 

I almost gave up on making this Sweet Potato Pie! Then I looked more carefully at the list of ingredients and saw that Shortcut Piecrust was listed. So amazing. Flour, butter, and sugar (white or brown sugar). This will be my go-to pie crust. Ian asked about the piecrust, even. He LOVED it. Super easy and a time-saver. No rolling, you don't have to be easy with it or anything. Just pat it into the pie dish.

The only thing I didn't do was make the Fresh Whipped Cream topping. Didn't have enough heavy whipped cream for the recipe. Surely, it would have been a heavenly addition. But the pie was thick and luscious and rich alone. Yeah, so it was a bit stringy, but that's because of the sweet potatoes fiberousness. Ian thought it was quite similar to pumpkin pie, so it's possible that you could pass this off as a pumpkin pie to your family and friends. 

With these three recipes to go on I conclude that the rest of the book is sure to please me, and anyone else with with a range of traditional Southern baked good like Blueberry Buckle, Pecan Sandras, and more. Nouveau baked goods such as Buttermilk Biscones, Guava-Sweet Cheese Turnovers, Creole Brownies, and a slew of savories including yummy Vegetable Potpie and a Pancetta-Fontina Bread Pudding dreamed up by Griffith Day.

The photography (125 color photos as indicated by the gallies) and styling looks amazing, from what I can see of the black and white galley images and so I cannot fully comment on the effect of the published book. I love food photographers and food stylists and follow their work. Reviewing their work and what it brings to each cookbook is as much a part of my review as the recipe. Many cookbook readers browse the pages and have visceral reactions to the photography and styling. Sometimes the right photograph compels a reader to her kitchen to replicate a recipe by her own hands. Obviously, that passion and emotion was lacking in my experience with the gallies. Squire Fox shot the photos for Back in the Day Bakery Cookbook. 

southern desserts (giveaway!)

Several desserts from the recent reprint of Southern Living Classics Southern Desserts caught my eye after a publicist contacted me inquiring whether I wanted a copy for review. Naturally, I said yes, please, and thank you very much. 

The book is sticky-noted to death. There were many recipes I wanted to try. And as I wended my way through them I wondered, what makes a dessert southern? Okay, so obviously, there are certain desserts associated with the South, like Key Lime Pie, Hummingbird Cake, Pecan Pie, Red Velvet Cake, Sweet Potato Pie, what else? I feel as though I'm missing something. Oh, for me, that would be Bread Pudding. It's one of those essential coastal recipes every Carolina, Georgia, and Florida eatery.

So mostly it comes down to ingredients and availability. Like, peach pie in Georgia, Key limes in Florida, pecans in South Carolina, and whatnot. I guess? Anyone have any other clues? It's not as if I deeply researched it. I could, but I'm not going to. Not for this blog post.

Anyway, this edition has every recipe you possibly could need in a southern dessert repertoire. It has pies, cakes, cookies, cobblers, and puddings, too. Including bread puddings, rice puddings, and banana puddings. And THAT's a real southern standard for Sunday dinners and church socials and any other event you can think of.

Recipes I've tried so far are Blueberries and cream cheese coffee cake, Lemon tea bread, and Luscious lemon cake.

Baked this and tried it out on my fellow workers at our local election the first week of August. Poor dears. They were sweet to try it. The first bite I took I was disappointed, and the further we cut into it I realized what happened: I undercooked it. My dial was set too low: I cooked it at 325 instead of 375 and the cream cheese didn't melt like it should have and the cake batter was all soggy in the center. No matter, I'm a batter girl anyway, so I ate the soggy center right up and let others eat the cooked edge-pieces. So come November, I'll have something else delicious to bring, another dessert, no doubt. And perhaps an appetizer as well. Ian made cowboy beans in the crock pot, and they were popular, as usual.

I cooked it a second time, at the correct heat, and it came out much better, but the cream cheese still didn't melt or blend as much as I'd like for it to. So, while I like this recipe, I think if I continue to make it, I'll tweak it more and more by blending the cream cheese in with the batter more. The instructions say to stir/fold them and the blueberries into the batter as the last step before pouring it into the pan. Delicious though, and substituting another fruit with this, or a preserve, would be simple, indeed.

Then, the next item to try was the Lemon tea bread. I've been made about lemons lately. Love their taste. They're simple and elegant. Nothing seems more pleasing to the palate than a lemon. Naturally I gravitated to a lemon bread. It's base was the coffee cake...a deja vu moment. Cream sugar and butter together, alternate adding flour and milk. It seems that is all I do these days.

The bread was a bland pound cake and the icing was powdered sugar and lemon juice. Then you have lemon zest mixed with granulated sugar to sprinkle atop that. Those two toppings add the sweetness and lemony flavor to the bread, although there is some lemon zest added to the batter. Sadly, this tea bread disappointed. When I make it again, I'll add more to the batter, perhaps an extract or two to give it more oomph.

And the crowning achievement thus far was the Luscious lemon cake. Which was such fun to make. EIGHT egg yolks in this super rich batter. And its icing is so dreamy. The trouble with this cake is that it called for three eight inch in diameter cake pans. I only had two. So we dropped by Target. They only had nine inch pans.

Then we tried Kroger, because they usually have the basic kitchen utensils, right? Wrong. So I ended up buying two sets of two nine inch cake pans from Kroger so I'd have at least one set of three cake pans in the same diameter. I didn't want to drive all over tarnation for cake pans. I wanted get it on with this three-layer luscious lemon cake. 

You'd think it would be perfectly yummy and rich. Undoubtedly, it would be, except I had a brain lapse.  I forgot to cover my tins after I removed them from the oven. I wasn't planning to ice the cake after each layer cooled an hour; I wanted to construct and ice the cake the next morning. So the air ruined them overnight and instead of rich yummy cake, it was dry cake.  After all that driving and wasting of gas. Dry Cake. No matter, I have a husband who eats most anything I eat, dry cake and all. He liked it. Does anything else matter? I'll make this recipe again.

I blog about my kitchen failures because being real in the kitchen means not candy-coating it and letting a pretty pictures make everything seem idyllic when in fact, the cake don't taste as good as it looks. My integrity is one of the few things I can control in my life. While I'm not perfect and make stupid mistakes, learning from them and trying not to repeat them is important to me. I'm still learning in the kitchen at 41. And I hope that next time, I'll be smarter and not leave my cakes out uncovered for them to go all dry and dusty in the night.

But then I made two pies. There were more than two that I liked, but there were two I had to make right away: Banana Pudding Pie and Pineapple Pie. The problem, and yes, there is always a problem, is that I didn't have five straight hours in which to construct the crusts, fillings, and meringues. That's one of the reasons I avoid meringues: Too much fuss, too much time, and I really don't love eating them anyway; it's just frou-frou. I usally scrape 'em off. Empty calories, right?

So I made the crusts, baked them, then put them in the fridge and let them sit a day until I had time to make the puddings. Then made the puddings and let that sit in the fridge until I had a day to make the meringues and bake it all proper-like in the oven. It all tasted great, but it didn't set up like it should and the result was a great soggy mess.

Another lesson learned. Gee, I wish I had time to make these kinds of pies from scratch. 

So. You want a copy of this totally awesome southern desserts book? I know you do. Here's what to do.

Follow me on twitter @re3ecca and tweet "i want to win southern living classics southern desserts @re3ecca #giveaways #cookbooks". A randomly selected winner will be notified by e-mail. Odds of winning depend upon the number of entries received.

And if you don't have a twitter account, just leave a comment to that effect below and tell me your favorite southern dessert. A randomly selected winner will be notified by e-mail. Odds of winning depend upon the number of entries received.

The winner will be randomly selected from entries after 7 September 2012 12 noon EST and will be notified after that time.

I received a review copy of the cookbook from a publicist, just to let you know, so I'm in accordance with the new FTC regulations, but otherwise, I received no other form of compensation. And, they will provide and mail a copy of the cookbook for the winner of the giveaway.

 

cruze farms & southern food writing conference

No way was I missing out on a field trip to Cruze Farms. Their buttermilk was hyped so much during the Southern Food Writing Conference that I wanted some of that for myself.

I can't recall the last time I was so motion sick. I was so glad to be off the tour bus. I was hot. I thought I might vomit. No buttermilk cocktails were offered on this jaunt. Boooo.

So Cruze Farms was an oasis of dairy delight after being cooped up on a miserable rocking tour bus. It is an oasis no matter what circumstances brought you there, mind you. The farm is located inside Knoxville city limits, but falls within the historic (think National Register) Riverdale community, one of the oldest parts of the county first settled given its prime location at the crotch of the French Broad and Holston Rivers. Just not enough occasions to use the word crotch.

Although dining at Blackberry Farm was a once in a lifetime experience, being at Cruze Farms was like coming home, even though most of my farm experience is recent and equine in nature. I could have spent all day there. We were treated to hoecakes hot from the griddle which we drizzled or drowned with as much honey as we could stand. Jaanki flipped the hoecakes and I chatted with her a bit later, after the freak lightening storm popped up. Turns out she spent time growing up in Johnson City, so we were on the same plane comparing notes with that. 

The longest line was for buttermilk biscuits. Oh. My. Golly. Had to be the best biscuits I've ever eaten in my life. They were HOT out of the oven and ooooozzing butter. It was one of those die-and-gone-to-heaven biscuit experiences. Better than the ones at the Loveless Cafe. Hmmm, trying to think of other places where I've had stellar biscuits. Cracker Barrel's are fairly good, actually. Where else? I make darned good shaggy biscuits. And I learned a thing or two about biscuits from Nathalie Dupree and Cynthia Graubart from their panel at the conference. 

Pair all that biscuit eating with samples of buttermilk and the one percent (I think?), and the chocolate, that I didn't sample. Despite my chocolate aversion, I would have drank the chocolate milk if Cristina made another round offering them. She didn't. Her primary role as milkmaid came to an end when the thunderstorm hit. 

Ayaka was busy scooping salty caramel ice cream when the downpour hit. Everyone scrambled to squeeze under the two tents, but I sought cover under the farm-shed close to where Cristina doled out the milk, which was well protected and gave me a birdseye view of everything. 

The rain and the lightening turned our biscuit party into a danger zone given the electrical cords and other items that could easily shock any of the Cruze farm workers if they stepped in the wrong direction. Colleen scrambled, shoving the tent covering Ayaka closer to the shed I sheltered in so that there was no gap to let water cascade down her back. Alas, Ayaka was drenched, but she cheerfully kept scooping while Cristina, in the true spirit of teamwork, held the roof of the tent so that it would not drip water down Ayaka's back.

As soon as everyone had adjusted for the storm, it stopped and the sun shone almost immediately. Emma left the protected cover of shelter and offered everyone a biscuit. She helps Colleen assemble the buttermilk biscuit dough. What a charmed chore that is! Lucky girl.

While some may think that a thunderstorm "ruined" the biscuit party, I don't. It offered a lovely interlude. Mother nature is unpredictable. Learning to roll with it offers the best learning environment for everyone. As far as I can tell, all were in good spirits. The storm cooled the day and offered visitors a memorable experience. 

Going on this field trip was part of the Southern Food Writing Conference that I paid for so in accordance with the new FTC regulations, I received no other form of compensation for the udder love and affection I show for Cruze Farms and their bovine products. 

how to bake your way into a business

If you're a librarian or someone with excellent research skills, then How to Start a Home-Based Bakery Business is not for you because in a matter of minutes you'll discover the information you seek. But if you're like ninety per cent of wannabe bakers and don't know where to begin your research into the ins and outs of a home-based bakery business, this is the book for you. If readers can get past the red-tape aspects of working out of their home and complying with rigorous guidelines, then they'll be well on their way to success after absorbing wisdom shared in this book. 

Detra Denay Davis shares her twenty-five year's of experience in this practical guide to getting your rolling pin in the door in the home bakery business. She lives in Atlanta now, but specifically cites North Carolina laws since she operated in that state for most of her career. Most of the business basics like writing a business plan, financing, and marketing, are easily found in any guide to small businesses. But Davis shares information specific to bakers such as cakeboss and how to locate kitchen incubators.

Because, let's face it, after reading this book, would-be bakers may decide they don't want to start a home-based bakery in their home, but may want to rent time/space in a commercial kitchen. It's not like everybody wants "the man" traipsing through their home, inspecting the bathrooms, etc. And then there's product labeling to consider.

Davis talks generalities about setting your prices. She poo poohes the practice of charging two or three times the cost of ingredients, which seems to be the standard advice given to newbie home-based bakers. She touches on social networking as an aspect of your business as well as offering information about establishing an online presence allowing customers to order products securely. She mentions, several times, how some bakers operate "under the table" in that they aren't cleared to bake and sell potentially hazardous items like cheesecake. She thinks they'll get caught someday and advises operating your bakery business above-board, by the book. Further, she writes about recipe development and marketing your products to a niche, such as sugar-free, gluten-free, etc. 

The first place to start, after finishing How to Start a Home-Based Bakery Business, is to check with your local SBA. They are familiar with foods start-ups in your area and can save time. Cottage laws vary from state to state, as do the particular departments, whether it be Agriculture or the Health Department that your business operates under. Davis points out that often these agencies are unaware of restrictions and guidelines of each other and can give would-be bakers conflicting advice. Check out your SBA office first.

After reading How to Start a Home-Based Bakery Business I'm not sure I'm up for all the problems described with having a home-based bakery in my kitchen. Keeping ingredients, utensils, appliances, etc. separate sounds like a hassle, especially for those with small kitchens and storage space. I'd be more likely to go whole-hawg with a bricks-and-mortar bakery, or rent time/space in a commercial kitchen. Too, I have dogs, and Davis was pretty explicit in saying that, for the most part, home-based bakeries must be animal-free.

Good luck to you in your home-based bakery business. Reading the materials covered within How to Start a Home-Based Bakery Business will undoubtedly convince you one way or another whether this endeavor is worth attempting. This is an excellent resource. The only improvement I'd make would be to include more interviews with home-based bakers. There was one. Showing multiple paths to success is the best model to follow and would have strengthened the book.

banana nut mush

This time, I thought I had this recipe down. As you recall, a few days ago I tried the Wal-Nutty Marbled Banana Bread. And failed.

I bought another six organic bananas at the grocery store to try again, but this time, without the chocolate marbley goodness. Made it this morning to take to the annual holiday party at the library. Last year, I don't think I brought a thing. So I wanted to contribute something. Something homemade, not something picked up from a grocery store, because that's just the way I am.

We were on a two-hour snow day today, so I had the time to bake this morning. I whipped it together (using the same ingredients and instruction as before expect for all the chocolate business), let Elsa tap the baking soda and salt into with the flour and whisk it, popped it into the oven, and then got myself dressed, Elsa dressed, the car started to warm and melt the ice sheet covering it. I removed it from the oven, popped it into a basket and covered it. I brought it along in the car to cool while I took Elsa to her Grandy's house. I finished my Christmas shopping, and made my way to work just in time to turn the bread out onto the lovely plate.

Only... that didn't happen. It oozed out onto the plate. Boom. Another failure. This time, I didn't cook it long enough. I think my recipe printouts got mixed up. Thirty-five minutes is not enough time for a bread to bake. Don't know why I didn't figure that out ahead of time.

So I didn't bring the bread to holiday party. It sat on its pretty plate on my desk about a foot from my pc. I nibbled it. Even sucked down a bit of the gooey batter that hadn't fully cooked. 

Regardless, it's a delicious bread. I'll make it again. But I'll bake it at least another 20 minutes.

Try and fail. Try and fail. I'll try again. Hope not to fail. But we learn more from failure than from success.

nutmeg cinnamon toast

The broiler on my oven hasn't worked in years, so we bought a toaster oven as a quick-fix. I forgot how odious broiling in the toaster oven was until this afternoon. Elsa and I awoke from our nap in need of a sugar-injection. I suggested cinnamon toast. I quite believe it may be her first.

I learned this recipe from my grandmother. Only, I never loved the toast she made because the pats of butter she dabbed the bread with were cold. She kept her butter in the fridge and that always made for difficulty in toast-making because, as you know, cold butter does not spread across the tender white flesh of un-toasted bread. Thus, there was no even spread of butter across the toast's surface. And I've only ever liked the very buttery spots; the ones that aren't brown, but a light honey color. Also, I never ate the crust. 

Set your oven to broil.

Take a piece of bread and butter it however you like it, generously or frugally.

Sprinkle cinnamon over the toast. Again, to suit your taste whether you light it lightly cinnamony or overwhelmingly cinnamony. And if you don't know, and you have a loaf of bread to spare, then you can experiment all you like with the amount.

Grate fresh nutmeg over the toast. If I had to guess, I'd saw, perhaps one-eighteenth of a teaspoon per slice. Nutmeg is my favorite spice. It's versatility amazes me. It's perfect in savory and perfect in sweet. Did you read the most recent issue of Savuer (number 134)? There's a nutmeg feature with several recipes. Fabulous article, do read it.

Finally, distribute light brown sugar atop the toast. It's simple layering.

When anything broils you must watch it closely because it can burn in an instant. My toast took less than five minutes to broil. And actually, it was a tad under-cooked, but Elsa, my two-year old daughter, was ready to eat it before we cooked the toast. She helped sprinkle cinnamon and brown sugar and got her fingers all buttery during the process. Like her mother, she eats butter plain, off her fingers, or from a spoon.

beer bread yall

Bread can be expensive to buy each week, especially if you're drawn to those $4 loaves. We're going through ours by the end of the week. But cheap white bread abounds for ninety-nine cents. How healthy is that? Love my white bread, but I do try for enriched varieties.

I love bread. Toast is easily my favorite food. When I lived in Alaska I didn't realize how much I missed toast until I went home with a friend for Christmas and had access to her toaster. And bread. And butter. It wasn't like I was living in an igloo; c'mon now people, hasn't Palin dismantled all those stereotypes about Alaska? I was at college there living in a dormitory and only had regular access to a communal microwave. I passed on that. Anyway, we make a lot of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for Elsa...and ourselves. 

Instead of eating out so often and spending all our money in restaurants, we've had to eat at home more often to save dough and to eat healthier. In fact, I've dusted off my baking stone and returned to making pizza dough and freezing it for later. 

But then working with the dough was so much fun I decided to make sandwich bread as well. I've got the ingredients on hand anyway, so it's basically all paid for already. What is there to lose, other than time? 

My cookbook library lacks titles strong on the bread baking variety, and none of the general ones feature them. I found a stout beer bread recipe in Bon Appetit Y'all.Surprisingly I didn't review it when it was published in 2008. But I sure like this little beer bread recipe. It's quick and easy. A trained monkey could make it.I'll stick with it for a while, though she offers a more complex honey wheat in which you actually use YEAST.

Instead of using stout, I used Red Stripe. It was on hand and it was at room temperature--one of the recipe's requirements. And I didn't want to wait hours for beer to warm. Normally I have oodles of Guinness on hand because it is the best beer to cook with when making DYI mustard or chocolate cakes.

The first loaf was Red Stripe. The photo documents the last piece. We ate it when it emerged from the oven. Oh we're fools for hot bread. Sorry, we actually waited a bit for it to cool before sawing off a piece or two. Delicious. Thick and dense, almost like cake. That's the way I like my bread. Not thin and airy. It was great, really. A wonderful treat.

 

Then I made another loaf the second night and used Killian's which is my most favorite beer of all. Naturally, the bread was excellent. A bit darker, but not quite stout. So when the next paycheck is deposited into the bank, I'll likely stop by the grocery store and pick up an assortment of six beers to further my experiments in beer bread. 

I could wait for a while. I've got a bottle of each of these in the fridge: Sam Adams, St. Terese's Pale ale, Pilsner Urquell, Peroni, Warsteiner, Budweiser, and St. Pauli Girl. I used to say that St. Paulie Girl was my favorite. And I do do love Sam Adams. Actually, they've been in the fridge for a long time. Does beer expire? 

A few other beer-related tidbits. Um, I was in this group at university called Women's Issues Forum. It was for burgeoning feminists. One of our social events was meeting at a member's house and baking bread. One of the breads we baked was beer bread, but I was not so impressed with it. We were more interested in drinking the beer and socializing than baking it.

Something else: Ian's grandfather drove a beer truck. Ian doesn't drink beer though.

There was one more...I don't particularly like beer, either. But I prefer imports to domestic beer, unless the domestic beer is a locally produced item. I'll sleep on the beer anecdotes and perhaps something scintillating will appear in my dream and I can share it with you here.

Oh, I drank a lot of beer in Alaska. Mostly Rainer because it was cheap. I never really liked its taste. It was a means to an end.

It takes me longer to remember what my next point is these days. So I have this Amish cookbook and I threw some water and three packages of yeast into a container in my fridge. I'm making a sourdough starter! Tomorrow would be day 3. There's a 3 to 5 day window when you feed the starter, and then I don't know what because I haven't read that far in the recipe. 

So I would be grooving on my sourdough starter tomorrow except I've got to go out of town for the day to KnoxVile (misspelling intentional). Boo the Vile Knox. But at least I have feeding my sourdough starter to look forward to on day 4 or 5.