Meyer Lemon-Cornmeal Loaf Cake

This cake is pretty much amazing. In fact, I had to make it twice in the space of a couple of days because it was so popular! It has a perfectly moist-yet-fluffy texture, and it's sweet from the cornmeal and sugar but also just the right amount of tart from the double dose of lemon. I love the technique of pouring a glaze over the hot cake. It makes the inside moist while icing the cake all in one, and it's totally non-fussy--no spreading icing or decorating. Maybe the best thing about this cake is that it's sweet enough to be a totally satisfying dessert, but not so sweet that I won't eat it for breakfast (well, I'll eat almost any dessert for breakfast, but this one doesn't feel so guilty!). Yum.

Meyer Lemon-Cornmeal Loaf Cake (adapted from Bon Appetit)

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1/3 cup yellow cornmeal
3/4 cup sugar
3 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup buttermilk
2 large eggs
1 T Meyer lemon zest
3/4 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted and cooled

Glaze:
1 1/2 cups (packed) powdered sugar, sifted
2 T (or more) freshly squeezed Meyer lemon juice

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Butter a loaf pan and set aside.

2. Combine flour, cornmeal, sugar, baking powder, and salt in large bowl; whisk to blend. Whisk buttermilk, eggs, lemon zest, and vanilla in small bowl. Pour buttermilk mixture and melted butter into flour mixture. Using rubber spatula, gently fold liquids into flour mixture until just blended (do not stir). Scrape batter into pan; spread evenly.

3. Bake cake until tester inserted into center comes out clean and cake pulls away from sides of pan, about 30-40 minutes. While the cake is baking, prepare the glaze: whisk together the sugar and lemon juice until you get a smooth and pourable sauce. Add more lemon juice as needed.

4. Immediately poke the top of the cake all over with a long skewer while the cake is still hot. Pour the glaze over the cake and smooth with an offset spatula. Some of the glaze will soak into the cake and some will stay on top as a glaze.

Fresh Pasta with Roasted Squash and Goat Cheese

I'm so excited that I just got a pasta maker! I'm still sort of figuring out how to use it, but it was still so much better than rolling out pasta by hand as we did for the March Daring Bakers challenge. I made an easy egg pasta and used the machine to roll it out and cut it into fettuccine. I ended up getting the noodles a little too thick, so I'll roll them a bit thinner next time, but otherwise they were really delicious and it was very satisfying to make my own pasta!

The fresh noodles went perfectly with the goat cheese and roasted butternut squash. Sweet and creamy, the cheese and veggies were really delicious and easy to pull together (crucial since I was spending extra time on the pasta). I think a hit of lemon juice would add a bit of needed acidity to the dish (I didn't think to use it at the time, but I've added it to the recipe below).

Fresh Pasta with Roasted Squash and Goat Cheese (adapted from The New York Times)
Serves 4

1 recipe Egg Pasta (see below)
1 butternut squash (about 2 pounds), peeled, seeded, and cut into cubes
2 whole garlic cloves, unpeeled
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 tsp chopped fresh sage
2 T extra virgin olive oil (more as needed)
4 ounces goat cheese
Juice of 1/2 lemon (optional)
1. Preheat the oven to 425ºF. Cover a baking sheet with foil. In a bowl, toss the squash with the garlic, salt, pepper, sage, and 1 tablespoon of the olive oil until all of the squash is coated with oil. Add more oil as needed so that everything is well coated. Transfer to the baking sheet, place in the oven and roast for 30 minutes or until tender and caramelized.

2. Remove the garlic cloves and carefully squeeze out the now-soft insides. Add them to a bowl along with the squash and the cheese.

2. Meanwhile, bring a large pot of generously salted water to a boil. Cook the fresh pasta for only 1-2 minutes until it is perfectly al dente. Ladle about 1/2 cup cooking water from the pasta into the bowl with the squash and cheese and stir together.
3. When the pasta is ready, drain and toss with the squash mixture and the remaining tablespoon of olive oil. Squeeze lemon juice over the top of the pasta and serve hot.
Egg Pasta (adapted from The Splendid Table)
4 extra-large eggs
14 ounces all-purpose flour
A few drops of water, as needed
1. Place the eggs and flour into the bowl of a stand mixer. Mix together with a rubber spatula or wooden spoon until the flour is mostly moistened. Place the bowl on the stand mixer, and knead with the dough hook on the lowest speed until the dough is satiny, smooth, pliable, and not at all tacky. Add a few drops of water if it looks like all the flour isn't getting incorporated.
2. Shape the dough into a ball and let rest 30 minutes to 3 hours at room temperature.
3. Work the dough through your pasta machine until it is your desired thickness (or roll it out with a rolling pin). At this point you can either cut it by hand or use an attachment for your machine to cut the dough into noodles. I made fetuccini but any long noodle shape would work.
4. You can use the pasta in the above recipe immediately or let it sit out for an hour or two with no ill consequences. Just make sure it is well floured so the noodles don't stick together!

I'm sending this recipe off to Presto Pasta Nights! Thanks to hostess Daphne of More than Words.  I'm also sending it off to BSI: Pasta!

BBA Challenge: Bagels and Brioche

I'm doing a double post for the BBA Challenge this week since I managed to delay so long on posting my bagels! I've had them made but have been busy setting up my new computer, which finally came! Yay. So, on to bagels!

These bagels were delicious. I made two batches, one a mini test-batch with all-purpose flour and brown sugar, and one with hi-gluten flour and diastatic malt powder. The test batch actually came out better because I under-baked the final batch by a few minutes (darn!). They looked done on top, but...not quite. They were still really yummy with salami and soft cheese, or with lox and capers. Here are some photos of how I made the bagels:

Here's the sponge before (above) and after (below) rising.

And here I've added the flour...

...Only to have it explode all over my kitchen when I accidentally turned my mixer up too high!

Here are some balls of dough kneaded and ready to be shaped into rings:

And here they are as bagels!
Boiling bagels...
Here are some shots of the final product! Mmmmm, bagels...

Overall, I enjoyed making the bagels but I don't know if I'd make them again because they were an awful lot of work. The mini-batch was more manageable, so maybe I'd make a half recipe for a special occasion sometime...my mixer seemed to be able to better handle a smaller amount of dough anyway.

I also made brioche. For this recipe, PR offers three options, all with different amounts of butter. Since we had another rich bread coming up (Casatiello, which I'll post about next week), I decided to go for the Poor Man's Brioche, which has the least amount of butter (thought it's still pretty rich!). I thought the bread was buttery enough to eat plain, and it was also delicious with jam or Nutella. We gobbled up both loaves in no time, and I will definitely be making this one again sometime! I would also like to see what it's like as a pie/tart crust, as PR says this is a possible use for the recipe. I didn't get any shots of the "process" for this one, but here's a photo of the finished product (the slice of bread is spread with Nutella).

I'm sending this post off to this week's YeastSpotting, a weekly round-up of yeast-y goodies. I've gotten so many great ideas from this round up...I definitely recommend checking it out! New round ups go up on Fridays.

Berry-Peach Cornmeal Muffins

Coconut & Lime is holding a 5 year blogiversary contest--wow, 5 years! Very cool, and even more so because this is one of my favorite blogs. To enter, you just need to make a recipe from her blog and post it to yours! I chose her blackberry-cornmeal cake because we had some berries in the fridge that really needed to be eaten. I didn't end up having quite enough blackberries, so I added some raspberries and a diced peach. I also baked the cake in muffin cups, just 'cause. :)

These fruity muffins were really delicious! I love cornmeal in muffins because it adds such a nice sweetness and texture. The muffins are on the sweet side (since the recipe was originally a cake), but still appropriate for breakfast (in my sweet tooth opinion). They're excellent plain, but also spread with a tangy fruit curd.

Berry-Peach Cornmeal Muffins (adapted from Coconut & Lime, original recipe here)
Makes 12

1 cup flour, plus more for berries
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup cornmeal
2 tsp baking powder
2 eggs
1/2 cup buttermilk
5 tablespoons butter, melted and cooled
8 oz mixed fruits (I used blackberries, raspberries, and a peeled, diced peach)

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees and grease a muffin tin.
2. Whisk together the flour, sugar, cornmeal, and baking powder in a large bowl. Whisk together the eggs, buttermilk, and butter in a small bowl, and then very gently fold the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients, mixing no more than necessary to combine.
3. Toss the fruits with flour to coat them lightly. Gently fold them into the batter, and then divide it among the muffin cups.
4. Bake the muffins until a tester comes out clean, about 20 minutes.

Pizza Night: Potato-Asparagus-Goat Cheese and Broccoli-Pepperoni

We had a great pizza night recently featuring two really interesting toppings. Above is pictured the broccoli-pepperoni variation. We had fresh broccoli from the garden, and it was amazing. You might want to use broccolini if you don't have it from the garden since it's a little more delicate. I steamed the broccoli briefly until just tender before topping the pizza.

Below is a really tasty potato-asparagus-goat cheese version. For this one, I didn't use tomato sauce and just spread a little olive oil on the crust. The pizza had excellent contrast between the creamy cheese, slightly crunchy but tender roasted asparagus, soft potatoes, and lemon juice for a little kick. Next time I think I would also roast the potatoes since I think roasting tends to lend a better flavor than steaming.

Potato-Asparagus-Goat Cheese Pizza (adapted from Bon Appetit)

1 recipe pizza dough (here are a few to choose from: Martha Stewart, Peter Reinhart, PR's Sourdough) Make enough dough for 2 medium or 1 extra large thin-crust pizza.
5 ounces Yukon Gold potatoes, cut into small cubes
1 bunch skinny asparagus (about 8 ounces), cut into 1 inch pieces
1 garlic clove, minced
3 T extra virgin olive oil
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
6 ounces fresh goat cheese, crumbled
4 ounces mozzarella, grated
2 Meyer (or 1 regular) lemons

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Toss the potatoes and 1 T olive oil in a bowl. Season lightly with salt and pepper, and then spread on a baking sheet. Toss the asparagus and garlic with an additional 1 T olive oil, and season lightly with salt and pepper. Place the asparagus on another baking sheet. Roast both vegetables in the oven until tender and browned.
2. After you remove the veggies from the oven, turn it up to 500 degrees. Stretch out your pizza crust. Spread the remaining 1 T olive oil over the crust. Top with the veggies, goat cheese, mozzarella, and a generous squeeze of Meyer lemon juice.
3. Bake the pizza until the bottom crust is browned and the cheese is melted and bubbling. Serve with more lemon wedges to squeeze over the pizza.

Contest Winner

Thanks to all who entered my contest to win Desserts by the Yard by Sherry Yard. The winner is Jill of Jillicious Discoveries! Congrats, Jill! :) Please get in touch with me to let me know your address and I will mail the book to you.

Sourdough Potato Bread

I was really craving potato bread a couple of weeks ago, but let me tell you--it's really hard to find a recipe for soft potato bread that also uses sourdough starter! I wanted that sort of soft sandwich-y bread, but also wanted to use some of my starter. I ended up adapting a recipe for Discovering Sourdough, and it really hit the spot! The bread was easy to make and it had exactly the tender texture I was looking for, along with really excellent flavor and a wonderful crunchy crust. I added some instant yeast so I could make the bread fairly quickly and some vital wheat gluten to make sure everything was perfectly soft and fluffy even with some white whole wheat flour. Yum! I will definitely be making this bread again. I'm also sending it off to the one-year anniversary edition of YeastSpotting!

Sourdough Potato Bread (adapted from Discovering Sourdough)

1 cup (9 ounces) sourdough starter
11 ounces bread flour, more as needed
5 ounces white whole wheat flour
1/2 cup (4 ounces) mashed Yukon Gold potatoes
1/4 cup (2 ounces) potato water, more as needed
1/4 cup (2 ounces) milk
2 T vital wheat gluten
1 1/2 T brown sugar
1 1/2 T butter, melted and cooled
2 tsp instant yeast
2 tsp salt

1. Combine all of the ingredients except the salt in the bowl of your stand mixer. Stir until just incorporated. Cover the bowl with a kitchen towel and let rest for 20 minutes.
2. Add the salt and knead the dough with the dough hook until smooth and supple. Add more water or flour as needed so the dough just clears the bottom and sides of the bowl. Place in an oiled bowl and let rise in a warm place until doubled in bulk.
3. Punch down the dough and shape into a round or oval shape. Place on a parchment or foil lined baking sheet, cover, and let rise until again doubled in bulk.
4. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 450 degrees. When the dough is ready, slash the top and place in the oven. Bake at 450 degrees for 20 minutes, and then reduce heat to 400 degrees and bake for 10-15 minutes more until the loaf sounds hollow when tapped on the bottom.