Saffron-(Blood) Orange Bundt Cake

This cake was the product of a late-night craving for sweets. As I said to my partners when I made it: I am an adult. In theory this means I am capable of making healthy and responsible choices. In practice this means I am capable of making saffron-blood orange Bundt cake at midnight. Oh, and I used blood oranges because I had a bunch on hand, not because that's what the recipe required. Plus, it sounds even fancier with blood oranges in the name!

Saffron-Orange Bundt Cake

From The Perfect Cake by America's Test Kitchen

Ingredients

Cake

• 1/2 tsp. saffron threads, crushed
• 1/8 tsp. ground turmeric
• 1 Tbsp. boiling water
• 3/4 c. buttermilk
• 4 tsp. orange zest
• 2 Tbsp. orange juice
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
• 3 c. (425g) all-purpose flour¹
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1 tsp. baking powder
• 1/2 tsp. baking soda
• 18 Tbsp. unsalted butter
• 2 c. sugar
• 3 large eggs
• 1 egg yolk²

Glaze

• 2 c. icing/powdered/confectioners' sugar
• 1 tsp. orange zest
• 2-4 Tbsp. orange juice

Directions

Cake

1. Grease and flour your Bundt pan and place it on a baking sheet.
2. Adjust oven rack to lower-middle position and preheat oven to 350°F (180°C).
3. Combine saffron and turmeric and pour boiling water over them. Set aside for 15 minutes.
4. In a separate bowl, sift together flour, salt, baking powder, and baking soda. Set aside.
5. In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy (~3 minutes).
6. Break in eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each addition.
7. Beat in egg yolk.
8. Whisk buttermilk, orange zest, orange juice, and vanilla into saffron mixture.
9. Add the flour mixture to the creamed butter mixture in three additions, alternating with the buttermilk mixture in two additions.
10. Stir once or twice by hand to make sure everything is well mixed, then pour into prepared Bundt pan.
11. Bake at 350°F (180°C) for 50-55 minutes.
12. Let cool in tin for 10 minutes.
13. Invert onto cooling rack and remove tin.
14. Allow to cool for two hours before glazing.

Glaze

1. Combine icing sugar, orange zest, and 2 Tbsp. of the orange juice.
2. Add additional orange juice 1 tsp. at a time until desired consistency is reached. Glaze should be thick but pourable.
3. Drizzle glaze over cooled cake and allow to set for at least 10 minutes before serving.

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¹ Soft/plain/cake/standard flour should be fine here. But if you are going to swap out the flour, it's probably best to do it by mass rather than volume. ^Back
2 My eggs were on the small side (~55g), so I just put in four whole eggs. ^Back

I needed something quick and easy for dinner and this fit the bill. I was able to toss everything in the InstantPot and set it to cook while I went out to pick up the Kidlet from school. Next time I think I'd add a bay leaf to the pot (and hopefully actually remember to serve it with lemon wedges), but other than that it was pretty good. I know it might be veering away from the "Spanish" theme a bit, but I also think a cinnamon stick would be nice in this.

The original recipe calls for artichoke hearts, but since I didn't have any on hand and TF finds them completely inedible anyway, I swapped them out for Brussels sprouts instead. I think the Brussels sprouts work decently well here, but they ended up overcooked and much softer than I would've liked. Next time I might steam them separately and then just toss them in at the end.

Spanish Rice with Chickpeas

Slightly adapted from Budget Byte$

Ingredients

• 1 c. long-grain brown rice
• 1 Tbsp. olive oil
• 1 tsp. smoked paprika¹
• 1/8 tsp. cayenne
• 1/2 tsp. cumin seeds, ground
• 1/4 tsp. dried oregano
• 1 tsp. dried onion
• 1/4 tsp. garlic powder²
• black pepper, ~20 grinds
• 1 bay leaf (optional)
• 1 cinnamon stick (optional)
• 2 c. cooked chickpeas
• 400mL diced tomatoes
• 1 c. vegetable broth
• 12 Brussels sprouts, trimmed and quartered
• 1/4 c. fresh (flat-leaf) parsley
• 1 lemon, cut into wedges

Directions

1. Add rice, oil, paprika, cayenne, cumin, oregano, onion, garlic, pepper, and any optional spices to InstantPot or rice cooker and stir to coat.
2. Drain and rinse chickpeas if necessary and add them to the pot.
3. Add tomatoes, broth, and Brussels sprouts.
4. Cover and cook. Use normal cooking cycle for rice cooker and allow to steam for 5-10 minutes after cook cycle ends or 18 minutes on high pressure with a 10 minute natural release for the InstantPot.
5. Fluff rice and sprinkle with parsley.
6. Serve with lemon wedges.

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¹ I actually ended up using some hot paprika I had on hand instead of the smoked paprika. Instead of adding cayenne as well as hot paprika, I just tossed in a little sweet paprika. I think smoked paprika would've been good if I'd had any easily to hand. Next time (since I probably still won't have any smoked paprika) I'd use a mix of hot paprika and ground Kashmiri chilies instead of the sweet paprika. ^Back
2 Next time I think I'd add a clove or two of fresh garlic either instead of or as well as the powder. ^Back

Mongolian Beef Stir-Fry with Garlic Vegetables

A Hello Fresh recipe, this one didn't do much for me, but symbol absolutely loved it. And it does have the virtue of being easy to put together.

Ingredients

• Rice
• 375mL jasmine rice
• 4 green onions
• 15mL ginger paste
• Beef
• 570g beef strips
• 160g bell pepper, cut into 1cm pieces
• 450g brocolli florets, cut into bite-sized pieces
• 2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
• 15mL ginger paste
• Sauce
• 15mL cornstarch
• 125mL hoisin sauce/soy sauce mix
• 10mL sugar

Procedure

1. Rice
1. Sauté green onions and ginger in a bit of oil until fragrant, ~1 minute.
2. Combine with rice and cook rice as usual.
2. Sauce
1. Whisk together all sauce ingredients in 250mL cold water.
3. Beef
1. Heat a bit of oil in a large pan over medium-high heat.
2. Cook beef strips, then remove from pan.
3. In same pan, reduce heat to medium, add oil if needed, and cook peppers and broccoli, ~5 minutes.
4. Add ginger, beef, and any beef juices and cook until fragrant, ~1 minute.
5. Add sauce and cook until desired thickness is reached, ~5 minutes. Serve over rice.

Tunnel of Fudge Cake

TF was craving something sweet on the weekend, so I baked a cake!

Tunnel of Fudge

Slightly adapted from The Perfect Cake by America's Test Kitchen

Ingredients

Pan Coating

• 1 Tbsp. cocoa powder (any kind is fine)
• 1 Tbsp. unsalted butter, melted

Cake

• 1/2 c. boiling water
• 60g semi-sweet or dark chocolate, chopped
• 20 Tbsp. unsalted butter, softened
• 1 c. sugar
• 3/4 c. packed brown sugar
• 5 large eggs
• 1 Tbsp. vanilla
• 2 c. (280g) all-purpose flour¹
• 2 c. walnut or pecan pieces
• 2 c. icing/confectioners'/powdered sugar
• 1 tsp. salt
• 3/4 c. Dutched cocoa

Glaze

• 3/4 c. heavy (35%) cream
• 1/4 c. corn syrup
• 230g semi-sweet or dark chocolate, chopped²
• 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract

Directions

Pan Coating

1. Combine the melted butter and cocoa to make a paste and mix well.
2. Grease a Bundt pan by painting the butter-cocoa mixture onto the pan with a pastry brush.
3. Adjust oven rack to lower-middle position and preheat oven to 350°F (180°C).

Cake

1. Pour the boiling water over the chocolate and whisk until smooth. Set aside and allow to cool to room temp.
2. Cream the butter with the sugar and brown sugar until light and fluffy.
3. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each addition.³
4. Beat in the vanilla.
5. In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, icing sugar, salt, and cocoa powder and then add the nuts and mix well. Add the dry ingredients to the wet and mix until just combined. Or, if you're lazy like me and trying to avoid dirtying extra bowls, you can do what I did and just sift all the dry ingredients directly into the bowl with the wet and toss the nuts in on top. Then just take the electric mixer to it and mix for 30-60 seconds until everything is combined. (Make sure to get all the way down to the bottom of the bowl. There's a lot of batter here!)
6. Pour the batter into the prepared Bundt pan.
7. Place a baking sheet under the Bundt pan and place it in the preheated oven.
8. Bake at 350°F (180°C) for 45-55 minutes⁴.
9. Allow to cool in tin for 90 minutes.
10. Invert onto wire rack, remove from tin, and allow to cool for another 1-2 hours before adding glaze.

Glaze

1. Heat cream, corn syrup, and cocolate over medium-low, stirring constantly, until melted and smooth.
2. Remove from heat and stir in vanilla.
3. Allow to cool for 30-40 minutes so that glaze thickens slightly.
4. Drizzle glaze over cooled cake and allow to set for at least 10 minutes before slicing.

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¹ If you don't have AP flour, then swapping it out for soft/cake/standard/plain flour should probably be fine. I'm just not sure how the softer flour with affect the fudge-y centre. If you're worried about how the different flour will affect the crumb and fudge, then you could always mix hard and soft flours together to make an approximation of AP flour. I think 160g hard/bread/high grade/strong flour + 120g soft/cake/standard/plain four should be roughly equivalent to the 280g of AP flour called for in this recipe. ^Back
2 I actually used up the last of my dark and semi-sweet chocolate making the cake, so I had none left for the glaze. I ended up using a mix of unsweetened and milk chocolate to make the glaze and it seems to have worked out quite well. I used 120g unsweetend chocolate and 110g milk chocolate. ^Back
3 The original recipe has you whisk the eggs and vanilla together in a large measuring cup and then pour the egg mixture into the creamed butter-sugar mixture. Use whichever method you find most comfortable. I mostly just wanted to save dirtying the large measuring cup! ^Back
4 ATK say 45 minutes, but I ended up letting mine go for an extra 10. It's possible that it would've been ready to come out after only 45, but it still seemed quite underdone when I checked it. I know this cake is meant to be slightly under-baked by design. But I was worried that the centre would be runny rather than fudge-y without the extra 10 minutes. Use your judgement. I'm sure either way would produce tasty results. ^Back

I originally added this meal to the menu for the week because I had some green beans that needed using. I kept putting off actually making it though and, sadly, by the time I finally got to it, the beans had gone a bit fuzzy. I went ahead with the curry as planned, minus the beans and it was delicious! The beans would've been a welcome addition, but it was still really lovely without them.

My plan was to make this with dried mushrooms, bamboo shoots, tofu, green beans, and bell pepper as the inclusions. That said, it's a very flexible recipe and you could use lots of different things. If you're not worried about keeping it vegetarian, you can use fish sauce in place of some or all of the soy sauce and use meat or seafood in place of the mushrooms and/or tofu. If do want to stick with the vegetarian route, I don't recommend swapping out the dried mushrooms -- they add great flavour and texture! Do feel free to add other veggies as you please though. Depending on what's in season or what you have on hand, I could see lots of different things working well: carrots, onion, baby corn, bok choy, broccoli, sugar snap peas/mangetouts, spinach, eggplant, even pineapple if you'd like a sweet twist to your curry. Play around with it and see which combos you like.

Thai Red Curry

Adapted from Hot Thai Kitchen

Ingredients

• 8 dried shiitake mushrooms
• 2 c. boiling water
• 200-250mL tinned bamboo shoots (slices or matchsticks)
• 400-500mL full-fat coconut milk
• ~1/4 c. red curry paste¹
• 1 Tbsp. tomato paste
• 1 Tbsp. light soy sauce
• 1/2 Tbsp. dark soy sauce
• 2 Tbsp. jaggery, palm sugar, or brown sugar
• 6-7 kaffir lime leaves, bruised
• 1 recipe Extra Delicious Tofu
• 450g green beans, cut into bite-sized pieces (optional)
• 1 red bell pepper (optional)
• 1/2 c. Thai basil, bruised

Directions

1. Pour the boiling water over the mushrooms and allow to soak for at least 30 minutes.
2. Drain the bamboo shoots, rinse in cold water, then transfer to a small pot and add just enough water to cover.
3. Place pot over high heat and boil for 3-5 minutes.
4. Drain and rinse again. Set aside.
5. Once mushrooms are done soaking, squeeze to remove excess liquid (reserve the soaking liquid), remove the stems, and cut into slices ~4-5mm thick. Set aside.
6. Heat 3/4 c. of the coconut milk over medium heat until somewhat reduced. Ideally the oil will begin to separate, but apparently this doesn't always happen with tinned coconut milk.
7. Add the curry paste and the tomato paste to the thickened coconut milk, stir to break up and combine well, and fry for a minute or two.
8. Add remaining coconut milk and the mushroom soaking water and bring to a boil.
9. Stir in both types of soy sauce and the sugar.
10. Mix in mushrooms, lime leaves, and tofu. If you're using carrots or other long-cooking/firm vegetables, add them now as well. Simmer for 10 minutes.
11. Add any remaining (more delicate) vegetables and cook for another 2-5 minutes depending on what you've added and how firm/soft you like it.
12. Remove from heat and sprinkle with Thai basil.
13. Serve over rice.

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¹ If you need to make this vegetarian (or vegan) be sure to check the ingredients to make sure your curry paste doesn't include shrimp paste. Also, be sure you're getting curry paste and not "curry sauce" or similar that already has coconut milk and fish sauce added to it. ^Back

I got this recipe from an Easy Vegan video. I definitely want to play around with different seasonings and marinades, but it already represents a huge improvement over my standard tofu game. It does take a bit of prep work ahead of time but, honestly, I think it's worth it.

I'd heard before that draining/pressing tofu would improve the texture, but I never really found it made enough difference to bother with. I'd also heard that freezeing it prior to cooking improved the texture. Conveniently, because of this, I actually already had a package of tofu in the freezer as I was planning on trying out a tofu sandwich recipe soon. Apparently the secret to getting a really good texture is to both freeze and press it. The full preparation actually involves freezing it twice, pressing it once, and drying it off thoroughly at multiple points throughout the process. I know this sounds like a lot but, trust me, it's so worth it!

Extra Delicious Tofu

From the Easy Vegan

Ingredients

• 1 package extra firm tofu¹
• 2-3 tsp. light soy sauce²
• ~1/4 tsp. salt
• ~1 Tbsp. canola (or other neutral) oil³
• 2-3 tsp. cornstarch/corn flour

Directions

1. Place the tofu (still in its package) in the freezer and allow to freeze solid⁴.
2. Thaw the tofu, open the package and drain it.
3. Place the block with the long side facing you and cut vertically down the middle. Now cut each of these pieces in half horizontally. You should now have four (roughly) equally sized, flat, relatively thin pieces of tofu.
4. Wrap the tofu in a tea towel (or several layers of paper towel) and place a weight on top. Or use a tofu press if you have one. Set aside for 30 minutes to drain.
5. Cut the tofu into bite-sized chunks (or whatever size and shape you prefer) and return to freezer.
6. Once tofu pieces have frozen solid (preferably the next day) remove from freezer, separate, wrap in a tea towel (or more paper towels) and thaw. You can allow them to thaw at room temperature or you can thaw them in the microwave.
7. Pat dry, then toss with soy sauce (or seasoning of choice). You don't want to completely saturate the tofu. You're just looking to add a little flavour.
8. Sprinkle a little salt on as well.
9. Toss with canola oil (or whatever oil you prefer).
10. Toss with cornstarch. The tofu pieces should be thoroughly coated, but shouldn't have any white patches of dry cornstarch visible.
11. Place tofu pieces in a single layer on a baking sheet.
12. Bake at 350°F (180°C) for 20-30 minutes turning halfway through.
13. Add to your favourite saucy dishes in place of regular tofu or meat.

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¹ Mine was 350g. ^Back
2 I'm really pleased with how the tofu came out, but it definitely did have a distinctive soy sauce flavour. Not that I minded it. I like soy sauce and it worked well in the Thai curry I ended up using it in. But it would be interesting to experiment with other sauces and marinades. Especially for applications that might not marry so well with soy sauce. I think vegetable stock or mushroom ketchup would both make for interesting flavours. The soaking water from dried mushrooms might also be nice although it would lack the obvious salt component of the other choices. You could also get into building more complex flavours by combining various savoury and salty components w/ spices. Tomato paste thinned with some mushroom soaking water⁵ would add a nice hit of umami as well as colour. You could then try adding just a dash of light and/or dark soy sauce to this mixture for even more umami plus a bit of salt, but doing it this way you wouldn't end up (I hope) with an overwhelming soy sauce flavour.
³ Feel free to try more flavourful and/or seasoned oils if the occasion calls for it. ^Back
4 You can buy several packages of tofu at once and keep them in the freezer until you're ready to use them. Thaw out as needed. ^Back
5 Tomatoes and mushrooms are both high in glutamates. ^Back

I've been very much in the mood for baking lately, but I'm also fighting a cold which means I don't really have the energy to do much. In lieu of baking, I decided to peruse the Cooking in the Archives blog to see what they've been up to. I don't always agree with their interpretations of the recipes they post, but I do very much appreciate the work they do in posting them. I especially appreciate the manuscript transcriptions as I find trying to read 400-year-old handwriting quite difficult most of the time. And even if I would prepare the dish a different way, it's great that they're interested and enthusiastic and putting this stuff out there.

It looks like they most recently posted a seed cake recipe, which I plan on taking a crack at and posting additional commentary on in the near future. I wasn't up for doing anything too involved today though. But... just a little further down the page, they have a hot chocolate recipe. This one really got the creative juices flowing for me. After sitting down a putting together a few different flavour combinations on paper, I decided to give one a try. I went with dark chocolate and orange because TF is a big fan of that particular pairing.

So far it has been a rousing success. TF absolutely loves it! It's dark and rich and not too sweet with a distinct orange kick. I was going for something along the lines of the dark chocolate version of a Terry's Chocolate Orange in drinkable form and TF says I nailed it.

I've used quite a few different ways to add orange flavour to this recipe. I'm sure you could probably achieve the same or very close to the same effect with slightly larger quantities of just one or two of these. It's worth experimenting with before you go out and buy a load of ingredients just for this recipe. I mostly used all these things because I already had them on hand and this seemed like a fun use for them.

Dark Chocolate-Orange Hot Cocoa

Adapted from Cooking in the Archives

Ingredients

Mix

• 100g dark (70%) chocolate, chopped
• 1/2 c. Dutched cocoa powder
• 1/2 c. sugar
• 4 tsp. orange zest
• 1 Tbsp. Cointreau
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
• 1/2 tsp. orange flower water
• 1/2 tsp. orange extract
• 1/4-1/2 tsp. orange oil
• 1/16-1/8 tsp. ground cloves¹

To Prepare

• 1 1/2 c. milk
• 4-5 Tbsp. of cocoa mix

Directions

Mix

1. Combine all the ingredients and mix well, paying particular attention to make sure the liquid ingredients don't cause clumps.

To Prepare

1. Warm milk over medium heat until steaming, but not quite boiling.
2. Add cocoa mix and stir until all chocolate has melted and the mixture looks smooth and even.
3. Pour into mug and enjoy.

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¹ I only used a very tiny amount (1/16 tsp.) of cloves. I didn't want the finished mix to noticeably taste of cloves. I just wanted a tiny hint to round out the orange flavour. If you want more of a "spiced orange" flavour, go with 1/8 tsp. of cloves and consider adding 1/4 tsp. of ground cinnamon as well. ^Back