Popovers via Julia Child!

So ever since we visited my aunt and uncle in San Jose and they made us popovers with jam, we've been obsessed. They're fun and easy to make and now they're a semi-regular weekend tradition. We decided to try out Julia Child's popover recipe from the book Baking with Julia.

Autumn says, "Popovers! Yay!" (I swear the cupcake onesie was completely coincidental!)

Ingredients:

1 cup all-purpose flour (unbleached)

1 cup whole or 2% milk, at room temp (I used 1%, worked fine)

1/2 tsp salt

3 large eggs

2 tbsp unsalted butter, melted

So first, you grease up the muffin pan. You can use a special popover muffin pan (the holes are larger) or ramekins, but we don't have all of that so we use a regular muffin pan. It works just fine. Position the rack on the lowest rung of your oven and preheat to 425 degrees. If you do use ramekins or custard cups, put them on a jelly roll pan and leave space between the cups. 

Pour all of the ingredients into a blender and whirl until smooth. (can also be done in a food processor or with a hand mixer). Strain batter if it is at all lumpy.

For muffin cups, use 1/4 cup of batter per cup, filling alternate holes so each popover has puffing space. 

Bake without opening the door for 25 minutes until they are puffed, nicely browned and crisp on exterior. Turn the temp down to 350 and bake another 15-20 minutes to help dry out the interior, which no matter what you do will always be a little doughy in the center. (Some pull this out, others it's their favorite part - I love it).

Serve immediately.

We serve them with jam. You could also have them with butter or honey.

You can wrap them airtight and freeze them for up to a month and reheat them at 350 for 10-15 minutes. 

Sponge Layer Cake with Jam

I recently received two fantastic books for mother's day. One is the Baking Bible; From the Oven to the Table and the other, 1001 Cupcakes, Cookies & Other Tempting Treats. Bored and wanting to try something out I picked out a recipe from the Baking Bible for Sponge Layer Cake.

Ingredients:
3/4 cup unsalted butter at room temperature
3/4 cup sugar
3 eggs, beaten
1 1/2 cups self rising flour
pinch of salt
3 tbsp raspberry jam
1 tbsp confectioners' sugar

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees

Grease 2 8" cake pans and line with wax or parchment paper. (I greased and floured them and they did fine)

Cream the butter and sugar together in a bowl using a wooden spoon or handheld mixer until the batter is pale in color and light and fluffy.

Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition

Sift the flour and salt together into a separate bowl and carefully add to the batter, folding it in with a spatula.

Divide the batter between the pans and smooth over with a spatula. (the batter is very thick)

Place pans in the center of the oven and back for 25-30 minutes until well risen, golden brown and beginning to shrink from the sides of the pan.

Remove from the oven and let stand 1 minute.

Loosen the cakes from around the edge of the pans using a palette knife. Turn the cakes out onto a clean dish towel, remove paper and invert the cakes onto a wire rack.

When completely cool, sandwich together the cakes with jam and sprinkle with confectioners' sugar.


Well, this turned out good, but it didn't look like the picture. I had 9" cake pans instead of 8" for one so my cakes were bigger but thinner. Also, I didn't use "self-rising" flour. I thought it wasn't really important, but it is. My cakes were so flat! Whoops. Lesson learned. At least it still tasted good. I bet it would be even more delish if I had actually followed the directions.

In other news, I must admit that I have a slight obsession with Chai tea. Now that it's hot out I love it iced but it's so STINKIN expensive. Seriously, $3.60 for a grande? Ouch. So, thrifty as I am I bought a whole box of Tazo Chai tea at target on sale (for under $3, and decaf I might add!) made a small pitcher at home and pour it over ice and milk. I had a delightful cup of iced chai at my house that was just as good as Starbucks for the cost of less than fifty cents. 

Yummo.

Petite Pochettes

This recipe looks and sounds really complicated, but it's not. It's actually so easy that I prepared the dough with one hand while I held my daughter just out of her baby-arm's reach of the butter. These are delicious, flaky and amazingly sweet. Think kind of like mini-pies. But better.


The recipe is from the food network magazine and can be found online here: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/melissa-darabian/petite-orange-and-raspberry-pochettes-recipe/index.html


(But I'm also posting it here with my pics and notes)

Ingredients

• 2 sticks unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 8 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature
• 2 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting
• 1/3 cup orange marmalade
• 1/3 cup raspberry jam
• Confectioners' sugar, for dusting

*My friend made me some pineapple preserves with coconut and lime (I know right?! Amazing) so I decided to use her preserves in these little pochettes because it deserved something yummy. Wow. One word to describe that decision: epic. 

Directions

Beat the butter and cream cheese in a bowl with a mixer until light and creamy. Slowly add the flour, mixing just until a dough forms (do not overmix). Divide the dough into 2 balls, then flatten each into a disk. Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate until firm, at least 1 hour.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Roll out 1 disk of dough on a floured surface with a floured rolling pin to 1/8 inch thick. Cut out as many rounds as you can using a 3-inch-round fluted cutter. Top each with a heaping half-teaspoonful of orange marmalade. Brush the edge of the dough with water, then fold the dough over to make a half-moon and press to seal. Place on an ungreased baking sheet. Reroll the dough scraps and repeat, then repeat with the remaining disk of dough, filling with the raspberry jam.

Bake the cookies until golden, 20 to 22 minutes. Transfer to a rack to cool completely. Dust generously with confectioners' sugar.

So delish. One thing to know is this recipe only makes about 2 dozen of these so plan accordingly. They're pretty sweet so you don't really want more than two, but still, doesn't make a ton so you may want to double the recipe if you're making them for several people or an event. Enjoy!!!