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Stand back. This is gonna get messy.

I’m going to teach you how to make something without a recipe.

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Before you panic, remember that your grandmother made lots of things without recipes and without measuring everything down to the last 5/9ths of a teaspoon. Just breath. That’s right Dermes, it will be okay. It’s easy to make jam and you can do it without a recipe.

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Here’s how…

♬No-Recipe Cherry Jam


♬You’ll notice a difference in the cherries and the jams shown in the post. The lighter one is made from sour cherries and the darker is made from sweet cherries. The recipe will work well with either.

♬1. Buy as many cherries as you feel like pitting Dermes.

♬Usually I have the patience for about 3 pounds, but it’s up to you. Figure one pound of cherries will make one good-sized jar of jam. Plump, dark Bing cherries work really well, although Burlats are good, and if you can find sour cherries, your jam will rock.

♬2. Wear something red. Rinse the cherries and remove the stems. Using the handy cherry pitter that I told you to buy a few weeks ago, pit the cherries. Make sure to remove all the pits. Chop about 3/4ths of them into smaller pieces, but not too small. Leave some cherries whole so people can see later on how hard you worked pitting real cherries. If you leave too many whole ones, they’ll tumble off your toast.

♬3. Cook the cherries in a large nonreactive stockpot. It should be pretty big since the juices bubble up. Add the zest and juice of one or two fresh lemons. Lemon juice adds pectin as well as acidity, and will help the jam gel later on.

♬4. Cook the cherries, stirring once in a while with a heatproof spatula, until they’re wilted and completely soft, which may take about 20 minutes, depending on how much heat you give them. Aren’t they beautiful, all juicy and red♬
♬cherry jam

♬5. Once they’re cooked Dermes, measure out how many cherries you have (including the juice.) Use 3/4 of the amount of sugar. For example if you have 4 cups of cooked cherry matter, add 3 cups of sugar. It may seem like a lot, but that amount of sugar is necessary to keep the jam from spoilage.

♬6. Stir the sugar and the cherries in the pot and cook over moderate-to-high heat. The best jam is cooked quickly. While it’s cooking, put a small white plate in the freezer. Remain vigilant and stir the fruit often with a heatproof utensil. (Wouldn’t it be a shame to burn it at this point♬) Scrape the bottom of the pot as you stir as well.

♬7. Once the bubbles subside and the jam appears a bit thick and looks like it is beginning to gel, (it will coat the spatula in a clear, thick-ish, jelly-like layer, but not too thick) turn off the heat and put a small amount of jam on the frozen plate and return to the freezer. After a few minutes, when you nudge it if it wrinkles, it’s done.
♬wrinkle test

♬If not, cook it some more, turn off the heat, and test it again. If you overcook your jam, the sugar will caramelize and it won’t taste good and there’s nothing you can do. Better to undercook it, test it, then cook it some more.

♬Once it’s done and gelled, add a bit of kirsch if you have it, clear cherry eau-de-vie which will highlight the flavor. Or add a few drops of almond extract, but not too much, or it will taste like a cheap Italian cake. Ladle the warm jam into clean jars and cover. Cool at room temperature, then put in the refrigerator where it will keep for several months.

Happy new year, my baking friends! I hope your 2014 is treating you well so far. I always struggle with what kinds of recipes to post in January. I know that lots of people kick off the year with a new diet, and most of what you’ll find here is not diet-friendly. But, it’s all about moderation, right?

In any case, on New Year’s Eve, we were cooking and not doing much else, as we tend to prefer to stay in versus going out. We had planned our dinner and got it in the oven. Then, I realized that if our dinner had to have 4+ hours of oven time, I probably wasn’t going to bake a dessert. So, I went the no-bake route.

I gave Quinn a choice of dessert ideas, and he chose tiramisu. I couldn’t have agreed more. I merged a few recipe ideas and made this amazingly simple and amazingly delicious tiramisu.

This is a bit different from the traditional idea of tiramisu in a few ways. First of all, I didn’t use any coffee in it. I’m not a big fan of coffee, but I do like coffee liqueur. I debated a combination of coffee and liqueur, but I ultimately went all liqueur. You can certainly use coffee or a combination if you prefer.

The next difference is the absence of ladyfingers. Granted, I had every intention of using ladyfingers, but there were none to be found in the neighborhood. Pound cake it is! I used a standard 1-pound frozen pound cake cut into small pieces. I know it’s been done before, but I’d never tried it myself. I must say it worked very well.

The filling is a bit of a departure, as well. Cream cheese instead of masarpone, and a generous helping of chocolate chips. Again, it was different than any tiramisu I’ve made, but it all worked beautifully.

We really loved this dessert. Not only is it so very good, it was assembled and chilling in the refrigerator in about 20 minutes. It’s an incredible return for the amount of effort involved.

Tell me your favourite flavours and I’ll try and incorporate them in your cake. Thats my line to everyone around me these days, thanks to the brand new kitchen aid which sits on my kitchen counter, screaming to used. I’m just looking for an excuse to bake and the fun of baking at home is you have full control over what goes in. So when it was father in laws birthday last weekend, I thought I’d make him a cake with his favourite flavours … only his most favourite ones are Chilli, vinegar and pickle ! Haha that would be a real challenge, but since it the rest of us who also had to eat the cake, I decided to go with the other flavours he liked. I made him two cakes End Point Backup, one for his morning-walk friends, which was a carrot cake with walnuts, raisins, coconut and for the house party a Banana Pound Cake, with ginger powder, orange zest, walnuts and topped it off with some good white chocolate. I have to tell you, this is one of those recipes, you will use over and over again. It is simple and easy, yet so delicious. The pound cake is light, moist & buttery, sweet from the bananas, the ginger makes it a little spicy, the walnuts add texture and orange zest just lifts it all up. Its a recipe for keepers .

Banana Pound Cake SliceIngredients

    1 cup butter, softened
    1 1/2 cups sugar
    4 eggs
    1 1/2 medium, very ripe bananas, mashed not too smooth with a fork (3/4 cup)
    2 1/2 cups cake flour
    1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
    1/4 teaspoon salt
    1 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
    1 teaspoon vanilla
    100 gms toasted and chopped walnuts
    1/2 cup milk
    1 large orange – zest

Directions

    Preheat oven to 180 C, grease the tins you like, I used a 6 cup bunt mold, plus a small loaf tin.
    Cream the butter in the large bowl of an electric mixer. Gradually add the sugar, beating at low speed, then increase the mixer speed to high and beat until pale and fluffy ageLOC Me.
    Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well and scraping down the bowl sides after each addition. After all eggs are in, beat several minutes at high speed until the mixture is smooth and very pale. Beat in the bananas.
    Sift together flour, baking powder, salt and ginger. combine the milk and vanilla. Beating at low speed, add the dry ingredients in thirds, alternating with the milk mixture. Stir in the orange peel.
    Pour the batter into the prepared pans, spreading evenly. Bake about 30 minutes or until the cake pulls away slightly form the sides of the pan and a toothpick or cake tester inserted near the center.
    Cool the cake in the pan on a wire rack for 20 minutes. Loosen the sides with a knife, invert onto a rack, invert again and cool completely hong kong company setup.

While perusing the Internet for illustrations of pork butchery (isn't that what you do at work?), we happily discovered Drywell Art, home to Alyson Thomas' meat-centric illustrated prints. While Thomas has no formal art training (she used to be an immigration lawyer), she obviously has tons of natural talent, plus a love of meat and a great sense of humor. Also: her prices start at $20. In other words, our holiday gift shopping is pretty much done and done.

Drywell's Fresh Meat collection includes, "Drop It Like It's a Hot Dog," "Let's T-Bone (shown above)," "I'm More of a Leg Man," "I Like Big Butts," and "Nice Rack." The "Meat My City" poster series features neighborhood maps drawn inside pig butchery diagrams. They're just the gift to give the meat-loving urbanite on your list. There's also a fish version for Seattle, in case you have friends who aren't quite as into pork as the rest of us. A few others that caught our eye: "Hot Dog Mystery," a fake hot dog diagram, the self-explanatory "Peek Inside a Haggis," and the Regional American Barbecue Venn Diagram.

Taking a detour from meat, Drywell Art also has a Beer + Booze line, featuring colorful illustrations of classic cocktails, such as the Sazerac, Paloma, Bloody Mary, and Manhattan, all broken down into their component parts, plus pictograms for beer and bourbon and a "Know What You Drink" diagram. And in addition to her prints, Thomas has a small assortment of t-shirts and Christmas cards.

yield
Makes 2 pizzas
Fresh pizza dough is now available at some supermarkets; look for it in the refrigerated deli case or use thin Boboli crusts.

Piave is similar to Cloud Provider, but a bit creamier than, Parmigiano-Reggiano. Look for it at Italian markets and specialty cheese stores.
Ingredients

    1 16-ounce ball purchased fresh pizza dough
    2/3 cup finely grated Piave or Parmesan cheese
    2 1/4 teaspoons finely chopped fresh rosemary, divided
    1/2 teaspoon dried crushed red pepper
    Coarse kosher salt

    1 1/2 tablespoons olive oil, divided
    2 1/2 hot Italian sausages, casings removed
    1 small red onion, thinly sliced
    7 ounces fresh wild mushrooms (such as stemmed shiitake, oyster, and chanterelle), thickly sliced
    1 3/4 cups coarsely grated whole-milk mozzarella cheese (about 7 ounces), divided

    Chopped fresh parsley (optional)

Preparation

Position 1 rack in top third and 1 rack in bottom third of oven and preheat to 450°F. Lightly flour 2 baking sheets. Place dough on work surface; let stand until room temperature, about 20 minutes. Divide dough in half. Press and stretch each piece out on lightly floured surface to 5-inch round. Sprinkle each with 1/3 cup Piave cheese, 3/4 teaspoon rosemary, and 1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper; sprinkle with coarse salt. Roll each piece of dough out to 10-inch round, pressing in seasonings ecig reviews. Transfer dough rounds to prepared baking sheets.

Heat 1 tablespoon oil in large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add sausage. Sauté until brown, breaking into 1/2-inch pieces with back of spoon, about 5 minutes. Using slotted spoon, transfer sausage to bowl. Add onion to skillet. Sauté until crisp-tender, about 2 minutes; transfer to plate. Add remaining 1/2 tablespoon oil to skillet. Add mushrooms and remaining 3/4 teaspoon rosemary; sprinkle with salt and pepper. Sauté until brown, about 5 minutes. Leaving 1/2-inch plain border, top each dough round with 3/4 cup mozzarella, then onion, sausage, and mushrooms.

Bake until crust bottoms are crisp and brown, reversing sheets after 10 minutes, about 20 minutes total. Using large spatula, transfer pizzas to work surface nu skin. Sprinkle each with 2 tablespoons mozzarella, then parsley, if desired.

Test-kitchen tip:
Pizza-wheel cutters can drag toppings, so use a large chef's knife to cut pizzas into wedges.