From Denny: Can I tell you that brisket is a huge favorite in the South? Definitely it is in Louisiana as it feeds a lot of people inexpensively, often employed for football season in the fall yet enjoyed for family reunions and summer barbeques too. With the global economy the way it is currently this is a great recipe to share with your friends in many countries!
While it is a dish that is slow-cooked for hours it is not labor intensive, one of those "wrap it up to cook and forget it" situations - my favorite! This recipe comes from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
From John Kessler: Here’s a version of the brisket that won Richard Blais high marks on “Top Chef.” For garnish, you may want to forgo the star anise mashed potatoes his teammate served alongside and instead opt for some plain boiled new potatoes or noodles to soak up the ample sauce. Also, a vinegary pickle or salad would be welcome with this sweet dish.
You’ll need to find a brisket untrimmed of its fat, which bathes it during the slow braise. Your best bet is to find a butcher who will unwrap a fresh whole brisket and cut you a lengthwise half, which makes for a beautiful presentation.
Richard Blais’ 14-Hour Brisket
Hands on time: 30 minutes
Total time: 14 hours and 30 minutes
Serves: 8
Ingredients:
1/2 of a whole untrimmed brisket, cut lengthwise (about 6 pounds)
Coat the brisket liberally with the Cajun seasonings and salt. Fire up a grill and grill the surface of the brisket aggressively, searing it well on each side for maximum flavor. Place the brisket, fat side up, on a large length of heavy-duty aluminum foil. Preheat oven to 225 degrees.
Combine the mustard and sugar and slather it well over (and under) the brisket. Close it tightly in the foil and then double wrap in a second piece of foil. Place in a roasting pan with sides at least 1 inch high. Place in the oven.
After 12 hours, carefully unwrap and check the brisket. While some clear molten fat will have collected in the pan, the sauce should be trapped inside the foil. If the brisket isn’t fall-apart tender, then return to the oven for 1 or 2 hours. Slice and serve with the pooled sauce.
Notes: Total time includes 12-plus hours of oven time.
From Denny: Looks like I will be exploring and downright plundering this wonderful recipe database over at PastryWiz.com! Wonderful array of recipes over here at this extensive database.
Repeat after me:Louisiana LOVES lemon! Louisiana people LOVE lemon recipes! We even planted a lemon tree in our back yard a couple of years ago. Of course, we named "him": Lemoncello (how original)
This lower fat version of a Lemon Bundt Cake sounded really good. OK, I'll probably not go for the margarine which I find a revolting taste but at least those with special diets who adjusted their tastebuds could enjoy this recipe. I'll just use clarified butter (or ghee when I can find it on the grocery shelves).
Cooking spray: substitute your own like placing canola oil in a spray bottle to get the same "less is more" effect. Canola oil is a thinner oil than most and can be sprayed.
By using egg whites they eliminate the extra fat and calories, same with using skim milk over low fat or whole milk.
And icing, well, I'd probably use half to none at all as I've never been a huge fan of sugar icing (now chocolate ganache is another matter...).
Better yet I would prefer to serve the icing as a puddle on the side of the sliced cake so you could dip a piece of cake in it or take your fork and lightly drizzle the icing over your slice of cake.
Louisiana people LOVE their sugar icings and call them "Cream Cakes" when used like the one below.
Lemon Cream Cheese Streusel Bundt Cake Image by pirate johnny via Flickr - why couldn't they put a recipe with this yummy photo? :)Of course, this is the fattening version. That's why it looks so appealing, right?! All right, everyone, get your eyes peeled back on to the prize goal: low calorie for today! ;)
Directions: Preheat oven to 300 degrees F. Spray a bundt pan with cooking spray.
In a large bowl, combine yogurt, corn syrup, sugar, vanilla, egg whites, lemon juice, and lemon rind and mix well. In a medium bowl, combine flour, powdered sugar, baking powder, and salt. Mix well.
Add a the dry mixture to the wet mixture and mix well. Pour batter into pan. Bake for about 1 hour and 20 minutes.
Let cake cool for about 10 minutes before removing from pan. Remove cake from pan and cool in the refrigerator for about 15 minutes before icing.
Combine icing ingredients and mix well. Pour or spread icing over cake until it's completely covered. Cool completely before serving.
Nutritional Info: Cal: 386 Fat: less than 1 gram
Following are some more lemon cake recipes to enjoy!
From virtualchocolate.com where you can become a member and become a card carrying chocoholic with your very own 12-step program for overcoming addiction:
Seen recently on a tee shirt ~ "EMERGENCY ALERT: If wearer of this shirt is found vacant, listless, or depressed, ADMINISTER CHOCOLATE IMMEDIATELY."
From Denny: OK, yum! We Southerners love our biscuits which to the uninitiated or folks in Britain, Australia, India and the like, these are little breads not the sweet cookies you call biscuits. What a confusion! :)
Usually, they are basically a baking powder-risen (though some versions are risen by yeast) quick bread cut into 3-inch rounds. They are a close cousin of the scone and can take anything on them but most often it is butter and jam of choice. At our house we even enjoy them with lemon curd!
Southern biscuits are the stuff of legends in many an eatery across the Southeast of America. Few homes make them any more so most people go out to eat them at breakfast with a side of ham or sausage and over-easy fried eggs.
Well, I do know how to make them and quite well. No one else in the family ever got the hang of it. This recipe is a bit different than what I use because I don't use lard but rather clarified butter or canola oil for the cholesterol benefit. But lard, well, it tastes divine and you ought to try the original version at least once in your life! :)
When I make them I often pop the unbaked extras into the freezer. They live to feed us the Divine for another day, baking up beautifully from freezer to oven!
The bonus in this recipe too is that it teaches how to make your own baking powder - which is a first for me, cool!
Kneading Note from Denny: Since he does not mention here, and I rarely see it in biscuit recipes, is a trick I learned a long time ago. When making this bread you don't want it to be too tough but rather light and fluffy. To achieve that, when kneading the dough, slowly and carefully flipping it over, gathering it up and folding down onto itself, make sure you don't allow but a sprinkle of flour to be found inside that fold.
Many people put too much flour into the fold and then wonder why their biscuits are hard as rocks and tasteless. Less is definitely more! I don't use a rolling pin either, too much work, just use my hands like most cooks as it gives you that tactile awareness of how the dough is developing and when to stop working the dough.
From the Atlanta Journal-Constitution they offer a version closer to the historical. Here's Scott Peacock's comments from the article: "Biscuits are the stuff of legend. The mere mention of them conjures images of hearth and home, kindly grandmothers and good-smelling kitchens. A particularly well-made biscuit has been known to inspire proposals of marriage.
People love eating biscuits. They love talking about biscuits. But when it comes to making them, the sad truth is that many people, even Southerners, are often too afraid to try ... Experience has taught me that, in the end, a good biscuit really boils down to a few basics: mainly a hot oven, cold fat and a gentle but knowing hand.
But it’s the details that make a great biscuit, and simple as they are, they are important and should be followed closely. To my taste, a biscuit should be crusty and golden brown on the top — and even lightly browned on the bottom — with an interior that is soft, light and tender but not too fluffy. It should be slightly moist, but not so moist that it becomes gummy when you eat it, and dry enough to absorb a pat of good butter as it melts. It should be flavorful and well-seasoned, with a slight buttermilk tang, pleasing on its own but an excellent vehicle for other flavors as well.
Ratio of crusty exterior to soft interior is important, and I’m no fan of those big, Hollywood-pumped-up-on-steroids-looking biscuits. I prefer a biscuit no larger than three inches or so in diameter and not much more than an inch in height."
Hot, Crusty Buttermilk Biscuits
From: Scott Peacock
Hands on time: 10 minutes
Total time: 22 minutes
Serves: 15
Ingredients:
5 cups sifted White Lily flour (measured after sifting)
1 3/4 cups chilled buttermilk, plus a few tablespoons more if needed
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
Instructions:
Preheat over to 500 degrees. Put the flour, homemade baking powder and salt in a mixing bowl. Whisk well to thoroughly blend. Add the lard and, working quickly, coat in flour and rub between your fingertips until about half the lard is coarsely blended and the other half remains in large pieces about 1/2 inch in size.
Make a well in the flour mixture and pour in the buttermilk. Stir quickly, just until the dough is blended and begins to mass. The dough should be soft and a bit sticky and there should not be large amounts of unincorporated flour in the bowl. If dough is too dry, add a few tablespoons more buttermilk.
Turn the dough immediately onto a generously floured surface, and with floured hands knead briskly 8 to 10 times until a cohesive dough is formed.
Gently flatten the dough with your hands so it is of an even thickness. Then, using a floured rolling pin, roll it out to a uniform thickness of 1/2 inch. (If the dough begins to stick to your rolling pin, dust the pin — not the dough — with flour. Flouring the dough at this point will result in dusty-looking biscuits.) With a dinner fork dipped in flour, pierce the dough completely through at 1/2-inch intervals.
Lightly flour a 2 1/2- or 3-inch biscuit cutter and stamp out rounds. (Do not twist the cutter when stamping out biscuits.) Cut the biscuits from the dough as close together as you can for a maximum yield. Arrange cut biscuits on a heavy, ungreased or parchment-lined baking sheet so that they almost touch. Do not re-roll the scraps. Just bake as is and enjoy as a treat.
Bake in upper third of the oven for 8 to 12 minutes until crusty golden brown. (Check about 6 minutes into baking and rotate the pan if needed to ensure even cooking.) Remove from the oven and brush with melted butter. Serve hot.
Notes:
Homemade baking powder recipe: Sift together three times 1/4 cup cream of tartar and 2 tablespoons baking soda. Transfer to a clean, dry, tight-sealing jar. Store at room temperature, away from direct sunlight, for up to four weeks. Use in any recipe calling for commercial baking powder.
From Denny: Pastrywiz.com is a fascinating site with lots of chocolate recipes! This is something new to me though I've made similar cakes I was unaware of this German version. Cheese and chocolate in a cake, who knew? Take a look!
***
"Sour cream cakes are a dime a dozen, but using, German-style quark (a low- or nonfat fresh cheese that tastes like a combination of sour cream, yogurt, and cream cheese) takes this ordinary chocolate cake into the realm of the memorable. It's fudgy, yet slightly easier on your conscience.
If you can't find quark, which is available in some supermarkets, you can make this cake with sour cream. Since this is a three-layer cake, plan to serve a lot of people or to have a lot of leftovers. This cake is best eaten the day it's made, though it will hold, covered, for twenty-four to forty-eight hours at room temperature. Do not refrigerate."
1 cup quark, such as Ellen's Nonfat, stirred until smooth
To make the frosting:
In a medium-size saucepan, heat the cream and sugar. Stir until the sugar has dissolved. Add the chocolate and stir until it is thoroughly melted. Remove from the heat, cover, and let cool for about 10 minutes.
Using an electric mixer, mix the butter on medium-high speed until it is smooth and creamy. Turn the mixer to medium-low and add half of the chocolate mixture along with the vanilla. Mix well. Add the remaining chocolate mixture and mix until smooth and creamy.
Set aside until it hardens slightly, to become a spreadable consistency, 1 to 2 hours. (Or, you can refrigerate the frosting for about 30 minutes, or until it becomes thickened and spreadable. Bring it to room temperature before frosting.)
To make the cake:
Preheat the oven to 350 F. Generously grease three 9-inch round cake pans. Cut a piece of waxed paper to fit the bottom of each pan and place inside the pans. Grease the waxed paper, and dust the pans with cocoa powder until well coated. Set aside.
In a small heatproof bowl, pour the boiling water over the 1/2 cup cocoa. Stir until the mixture is very smooth, and set aside to cool.
Melt the chocolate in a double-boiler or in a stainless-steel bowl set over a pan of hot, but not boiling, water. Stir occasionally until smooth. Remove from the heat.
Into a medium-size bowl, sift together both flours, the baking powder, and salt. Set aside.
In the bowl of a stand mixer, beat the butter until smooth and creamy, about 5 minutes. Add 2 1/4 cups of the sugar and beat until well blended, about 5 minutes. Beat in the whole egg and egg yolks, one at a time. Beat in the cooled cocoa mixture until very smooth, scraping down the sides as you go.
Turn the mixer to medium-low and add the melted chocolate, beating until well incorporated. Add the vanilla. Turn the mixer to low and add half the dry ingredients. Then add the quark, mix well, and add the rest of the dry ingredients. Beat until smooth and creamy, 2 to 3 minutes.
In a copper or stainless-steel bowl, and using clean beaters, beat the egg whites at high speed. When frothy, add the remaining 1/4 cup sugar and continue beating until the egg whites form stiff peaks, 5 to 6 minutes.
Using a large rubber spatula, fold about 1 cup of the chocolate mixture into the egg whites. Then gently fold that mixture back into the chocolate mixture, just until the egg whites are well incorporated. Do not overmix.
Distribute the batter evenly among the pans, and bake in the center of the oven for 20 to 25 minutes. Do not overbake. Cakes are done when the tops are just beginning to crack and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out with a few crumbs clinging to it. Let cool on a rack for about 15 minutes. Remove the cakes from the pans and let cool completely on a wire rack.
To assemble:
Place the first layer on a serving plate and frost the top only. Place the second layer on top of the first and frost the top. Repeat with the top layer. Spread the remaining frosting along the sides until the cake is completely covered with frosting. Cut and enjoy!
Source: The New American Cheese by Laura Werlin
Here is a wonderful small 6-inch easy chocolate cake when there are just two of you at home and don't want the bother of making a traditionally-sized cake that feeds 8 - 10.
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