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Week 12: Rugelach

Alex’s Pick: When Alex and his brother Jon were kids, they made a recipe book of their Grandma Reinstein’s greatest hits to present to her for Mother’s Day.  When we were last in Florida (in the Before Times of January 2020), I took photos of all of the pages so we could reference them at home.  Somehow, we hadn’t pulled them up until now but I have since put them in my Favorites folder on my phone to easily reference - especially after these little beauties.  We didn’t send any back to Grandma for approval this time but hope that we still made her proud!  We certainly enjoyed them.

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Coming Up in Week 12: Rugelach

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Week 11 Ella & Alex: Mochi is deceptively easy to make - aside from sourcing the flour, which you can find online or in an Asian grocery store.  We stocked up at Mitsuwa so we could make this again / try other forms of mochi from our new book!

One of our favorite flavors of mochi ice cream (and also in general) is matcha so that is what we made.  Our trusty friend David Lebovitz once again came through with a seriously delicious ice cream recipe.  I actually followed the instructions to make the custard with egg yolks instead of shying away and using 100% cream and man … I’m glad that I did.  It was the silkiest ice cream I’ve ever made and just as delicious without its mochi cover.

So get this - you can make mochi in the MICROWAVE.  It is basically: Pour flour in bowl, add water, add flavor, stir, microwave, stir, microwave, roll, cut, eat or STUFF WITH ICE CREAM and then eat.  Amazing.  The result is probably not the same that you would get from the traditional methods but this way will hold us over until our next trip to Japan.

Mochi:  I also used Just One Cookbook as an additional resource for mochi ice cream

Ice Cream:  The Perfect Scoop by David Lebovitz, adapted here by Just One Cookbook

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Week 11 James & Kaitlyn: For the ice cream centers, we went with our old standby recipe from Serious Eats, but reduced the vanilla extract to 1 tsp and steeped ½ cup of thai tea in the base for 15 min, per the method in this recipe. The mochi dough and shaping technique came from Food52

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Week 11 Willy & Kathryn: We bumbled our way through this recipe: https://www.biggerbolderbaking.com/homemade-mochi-ice-cream/

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Week 11: Mochi Ice Cream from Hawaii

Alex’s Pick: Ella and I were fortunate enough to travel to Japan in the Winter of 2019, right before the pandemic hit.  It was an incredible trip and we can’t wait until we can go back. In the meantime, we’ll have to make do with what we’ve got here, so we took a trip out to Arlington Park and visited Mitsuwa Marketplace where we loaded up on all kinds of delicious Japanese snacks, noodles and whiskey.  While perusing the bookshelves, we stumbled upon a Mochi recipe book and figured that would be perfect for this week’s challenge!

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Coming up next week: Mochi Ice Cream from Hawaii!

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Week 10 James & Kaitlyn: When I first heard that we were making Hush Puppies I didn’t really understand what the deal was. I’ve never had them before and was intimidated by the second week of frying. 

BUT, I am SO PUMPED to share that I was completely wrong and my attitude towards Hush Puppies AND frying has completely changed. I’m a new person! I’m frying everything! 

We followed this recipe and stayed true to it but took the option of adding jalapeños. It didn’t really specify an amount so we added maybe ½ cup of pickled jalapeños and could have added more. We probably could have added fresh for an additional kick. 

In reading about them, I read they might have originated with Native Americans who boiled them, which I then tried. Don’t do it. I do not advise this move. It tasted like a rubbery corn dumpling in the least appetizing way possible. 

All in all WOULD TOTALLY FRY AGAIN!

James made the dip. It was some combination of vegan mayo, ketchup, smoked paprika, garlic powder, some dill pickle, salt and maybe some apple cider vinegar. 

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Week 10 Ella & Alex: We followed this recipe for our hush puppies. 

If we were to do them again, we’d probably skip the stuffing and make simple hush puppies.  These were tasty, but freezing the stuffing made the oil temperature too volatile.  Also, after removing the cheese mixture from the freezer, we found we had to work quickly. Otherwise, the cheese would become too soft and slip out of the batter in the oil, so that didn’t work well when we had to wait to reheat our oil. 

These were very tasty, but also VERY rich.   We tried to do a couple non-stuffed hush puppies,  but I don’t think this recipe works well for that, where the batter is meant to envelope the cheese.  It couldn’t really stand on its own. 

While this was fun, we probably won’t be making these again any time soon.  The tastiness was outweighed by the shame felt after we ate just a handful...

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Week 10: Hush Puppies from the South

Willy’s Pick: I couldn’t participate in this bake, but /i’d be damned if I wouldn’t live vicariously through my friends. I’ve always loved any variation of fried dough with some kind of zesty dip, and hush puppies in particular intrigued me for a few reasons.

First, no one can seem to agree on their origin. Georgia? Possibly. Florida? Sure, why not. This food item has many origin myths, and any food with origin myths feels quintessentially American to me.

Second, they’re pretty open to interpretation. You can fill hush puppies with just about anything, and I wanted to see what the gang would come up with.Third, they feel like summer to me, and last week, we needed all the summer we could get. Some of the best hush puppies I’ve had can be found at Parson’s Chicken & Fish in Chicago (don’t @ me, I’m sure other and more traditional eateries have better versions. I just haven’t visited them), and Parson’s was a go-to summer hangout spot for me for many years. Cream cheese and ham hock-stuffed Hush puppies served with a cocktail at a picnic table on a July evening? Yes please.

So yeah, I didn’t come out of this challenge with any hush puppies of my own. But maybe, if I’m lucky, Alex and Ella saved some for me.

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Coming up in Week 10: Hush Puppies!

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Week 9 Ella & Alex: Like all sane people, Alex and I love doughnuts - and we’re (maybe mostly me) a little snobby about it. We know most of “the” places in Chicago and will only settle for the likes of Dunkin’ when it’s the coconut one or it’s a last resort (in the end, doughnut is better than no doughnut).  So, we were a little worried that Kaitlyn threw us a real doozie this week. And she did - these things are no joke, with the dough and the perfect rise and the cream filling and the chocolate ganache and THEN there is the challenge of living with a whole batch of doughnuts for two people that don’t leave the house (thank goodness for our neighbors!). But we did it and oh boy, were the results sweet (but not TOO sweet).

Also, we cheated a little. Alex and I happened to sign up for a virtual cooking class with World of Whirlpool and Bon Vivant Cakes to make Emily Nejad’s signature Galaxy Doughnuts Thursday evening. So we had professional coaching for how to fry doughnuts although it was a completely different recipe. But having never actually fried in oil on the stove, it was a seriously helpful (and delicious) demo!

Our Boston Cream recipe was a bit of a Frankenstein. We took the doughnut dough from Salt & Baker (start a day early and let it proof overnight, it’s worth it!), the crème pâtissière (Crème pât!  Like on Bake Off!)from Serious Eats (The perfect amount of sugar and creamy and vanilla-y. Would make again to just eat from the bowl.) and the chocolate glaze from Yay Kosher (mostly because I had this tab up from my extensive Googling and it was pretty straightforward but honestly rocked so use it - we skipped the corn syrup and the glaze set fine). Every recipe was super easy to follow and we made limited substitutions. The only thing that we would do next time is pipe in the crème pât from two sides of the doughnut instead of one. We did this for a couple and found a better distribution of filling and my piping technique could use work but overall we were really happy with the results and received glowing reviews from our official taste testers next door.

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Week 9 James & Kaitlyn: It was my pick and I half still support the decision and half somewhat regret the choice. I foolishly didn’t realize doughnuts would be so difficult! We somehow managed to stumble our way through only setting off the fire alarm once and with only one oil burn. Success? 

I followed this recipe and deduced the following issues: 

1. I really should have rolled thicker (and fewer) doughnuts 

2. The oil shouldn’t be that hot! 

Other than those two things, everything else went well. If I were to make them again, I’d add a pinch of salt and possibly even a touch more sugar? They weren’t as sweet as I was expecting. Not bad, just not as rich as I think I hoped they would be! 

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Week 9: Boston Cream Doughnuts from Boston, MA

Kaitlyn’s Pick: I wanted doughnuts. I’ll be straight with you. I just wanted doughnuts. 

Since James picked Texas for the last bake, I wanted something regionally different. I had also stumbled upon the Dunkin Donuts list of most popular donuts (glazed is #1) and saw that Boston Cream was number #2 or #3 (I got conflicting information) That was enough for me! It seemed like it would be a slight challenge BUT it would give us the chance to hone our piping skills. And we’d get doughnuts. Win-Win-Win. 

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Coming Up in Week 9: Boston Cream DOUGHNUTS (from Boston)

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Week 8 Ella & Alex: Texas Peach Cobbler by David Lebovitz (adapted from The Pastry Queen by Rebecca Rather)

I love cobbler but have generally steered toward the biscuit-y, Southern style - mostly because that is what I know and what my mom has always made from Betty Crocker cookbook that has to be at least 50 years old and honestly can’t be beat. But!  I’m coming around to other, non-biscuit cobblers thanks to this recipe. 

We turned to David Lebovitz for our recipe, who adapted his Texas Peach Cobbler from The Pastry Queen by Rebecca Rather. This came together SO easily. Almost too easily - dangerous but also highly convenient if you ever find yourself with extra fruit on hand. The only changes we made were to add the remainder of an open bag of frozen mixed berries (more fruit = good, who needs to measure) and a splash or two of bourbon (and also sent some down the hatch, because why not).  

We also made ice cream!  And, as I’m just now realizing, that also was thanks to David and his book The Perfect Scoop (also highly recommend). My go-to is his Philadelphia-style vanilla (no eggs) but while David likes to use cream and whole milk, I go all-in on the cream. Mostly because we never finish regular milk but also I love how thick and creamy it is. 

End of story - make this. Save the corners for yourself or favorite people because that caramelly goodness from the brown sugar can’t be beat. And get yourself some ice cream to go on top. 

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Week 8 Willy: Wow, this Texas-style blueberry cobbler was an easy bake. In a sort of happy accident, I let my fresh blueberries sit in the sugar and lemon zest for about an hour before adding the fruit to the batter; I think it enhanced the flavor. As is tradition, I cobbled (pun intended) this recipe with an addition from another, more traditional Texas recipe, adding about 1 teaspoon each of ground ginger and ground cinnamon to the fruit mixture.

The recipe above calls for a bake time of 45-50 minutes, and in my case it took the full 50. Once it cooled, I enjoyed a slice by itself because I didn’t have any vanilla ice cream on hand. I think it’s just as good without--or with a cup of black coffee the next morning--but I’m sure plenty of purists would disagree.