Barley Baking

Although the banana cake I'm about to share with you is quite delicious, it worries me. Or rather, the amount of kitchen cabinet space that I have been dedicating to alternative flours is worrying me. At this point, what was once the appropriately-sized home of a tub of all-purpose flour and a sack of whole wheat has become the dangerously small hideaway for white whole wheat, whole wheat pastry, barley, cornmeal, vital wheat gluten, garbanzo...you get the idea.

Every time I open the cabinet, I invite the risk of being overwhelmed by an avalanche of tenuously-positioned flours. I don't even want to think about what the clean-up for that disaster would be like. Unfortunately, though, as long as I continue to find new and exciting ways to use them, the flours are here to stay. Maybe we'll have to figure out a better storage solution.

The flour du jour today is whole barley flour, which is slightly less caloric than whole wheat, contains a decent amount of soluble fiber, and has a slightly sweet, oatmeal-like flavor. It is similar to rye (ooh, another denizen of the flour cabinet!) in that it contains gluten, but not quite as much as wheat. This makes it an appropriate choice for quick breads and other baked goods with a crumbly or cake-like texture, but won't work so well for yeasted breads.


So back to that cake. I've made this quite a few times now, mostly because it is easy and tasty, but also because it provides the perfect opportunity to use up past-their-prime bananas. We had two such specimens on the counter this morning, and the rest is history.

This cake is inspired by a traditional coffee cake, and is made with an oat-y, chocolate-y, walnut-y streusel layer that lends a lovely texture and medley of flavors. Unlike most coffee cakes, though, the cake itself is very light, low in fat, and sweetened primarily by the bananas. That's why I call it a "snack" cake - not exactly a decadent dessert (although it does make a nice dessert), but perfect for breakfast, brunch, or general all-purpose snacking. I challenge you to bake it and make it last for more than a day.

I've made the cake with 100% barley flour, although I like the texture that a bit of wheat imparts. I suppose you could also make the cake with 100% wheat, but barley is so fun, and goes quite well with banana (and not just because of the alliteration). The streusel is also flexible; you can leave out the chocolate or walnuts if you are so inclined (note that I am in no way endorsing this inclination). So go crazy - buy some barley flour, let some bananas languish on your counter, and treat yourself to this tasty snack.

Banana Barley Snack Cake

For Cake:
1 c. barley flour
1/2 c. whole wheat pastry flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. ground ginger
1/4 tsp. cardamom
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 c. brown sugar
1 egg
1/2 c. buttermilk
2 mashed ripe bananas
1 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
2 tbs. melted butter

For Topping:
1/4 c. rolled oats
1/4 c. chopped walnuts
1-2 tbs. brown sugar
1 1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1 tbs. melted butter
handful chocolate chips

Directions:
Mix flours, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and spices in a medium bowl and whisk to combine. In a separate bowl, mash the bananas, and then add the melted butter, buttermilk, vanilla, and egg. Mix well. Pour wet ingredients into dry ingredients, and stir until combined. Batter will be thick. Prepare topping: melt butter, and then add remaining ingredients and stir to combine. Pour about 3/4 of the cake batter into a greased 8x8 square pan. Sprinkle topping evenly over the batter. Drop remaining batter by spoonfuls over the oat topping. Bake cake at 375 F for 20-25 minutes, until tester comes out fairly clean (a few bits of topping may stick).

Daring Slackers!

Oh yay! That time of month again - the Daring Bakers strike again, and the culinary blogosphere is dotted with all manner of adorable frozen cheesecake pops. The pops were this month's challenge, hosted by Deborah, of Taste and Tell, and Elle, of Feeding My Enthusiasms.

I was delighted as I did my usual food-blogs-of-the-world tour yesterday evening, as I had the chance to see some lovely photos and some insanely detailed cheesecake-pop decorations. Alas, this month's challenge wasn't meant to be over here at Red Ramekin, and I didn't get around to participating.

It's not that I didn't want to try the pops, but honestly, all of that chilling, freezing, tempering, beating, dunking and drying - not to mention the FIVE, yes FIVE (5), packages of cream cheese required for the recipe - made me into a Daring Slacker this month. Besides, cheesecake just doesn't really do it for me. I have a sweet tooth to write home about, but I'd rather sink it into something like cookies, brownies, cake, or ice cream than cheesecake. Next month I promise to make something spectacular, though.

In the meantime, I encourage you to check out some of the creations of my fellow Daring Bakers: Jen, as always, serves up the most impressively-photographed pops, with some biting wit on the side. Peabody's pops are so ridiculously cute they should be illegal. And then there's Tartelette, who takes decorating to a whole new level. It's probably better that I sat this one out; there is no way I was taking the time to put rainbow-colored sprinkles and cautious little drizzles on things I wasn't even excited about eating.

That's not to say that I haven't been concocting sweet treats of my own design lately. Jonathan and I made frozen yogurt in the ice cream maker (astonishingly, our first batch of fro yo!) not once, but twice. The first time I used mostly full-fat Fage Greek yogurt, which, in taste and in nutritional profile is shockingly similar to sour cream. Hmmm....all I can say is that those probiotic cultures better be pretty damn healthy...

The second time around, I used non-fat Fage. Still yummy, but not quite as, um, creamy as the first time around. Definitely delicious enough to make again, though, and maybe next time it'll stick around long enough for a photo!

The more interesting dish, though, was my submission to this month's Royal Foodie Joust, another blog event hosted by my totally blog-eriffic e-friend, Jenn (aka the Leftover Queen). The premise of the Foodie Joust is this: each month, last month's winner chooses three ingredients, which have to be used in a creative recipe. Bloggers vote for the most creative/delicious entry. I've been wanting to participate in this event for a while, because I love creating a good recipe now and then, and this month I finally got around to it. The ingredients this month were mango, cardamom, and brown sugar. Um, delicious? Obvio.


I decided on a mango-sticky rice variant, and created a bruleed, cardamom-scented brown sticky rice with fresh mango slices. I wanted to keep the mango fresh, because we've been lucky enough to find some unbelievably delicious Mexican mangoes at Whole Foods recently. I've also been itching to try sweet brown sticky rice, which seems to be nutritionally indistinguishable from regular old brown rice, but is much more delicate and ever-so-slightly sweet.

Some friends came over on Thursday night, and mercifully helped us to devour the yogurt and the mango-rice number. Some nuked and juicy frozen blueberries were the perfect complement both to the yogurt and the mango sticky rice.


A real recipe isn't necessary for the mango sticky rice, but here is a brief description of how to recreate it: Prepare sweet brown sticky rice in a rice cooker, using a 2:1 water:rice ratio. Add about 6 green cardamom pods to the rice and water before cooking. Once cooked, allow to cool. Place about 1/4 c. cooked rice in each well of a muffin tin, and sprinkle tops generously with brown sugar. Place under the broiler until caramelized and bubbly (this happens quickly!). Allow to cool, then remove each rice patty to a plate. Top with freshly sliced mango and your choice of other toppings: whipped cream, yogurt, ice cream, thawed frozen blueberries, etc.


I loved the combination of the spiced rice and juicy mango, and have since realized that this "dessert" is actually much healthier than the typical American breakfast. The only added sugar is the sprinkling of brown sugar on the rice, and it includes both whole grains and fresh fruit. Get where I'm going with this one? Serve it for dessert, or brunch, or breakfast...in any case, it is definitely worth a try. The cooked rice also keeps pretty well, so make some the day before you plan to serve the dessert to save yourself some prep time. Hey, I may be a Daring Slacker, but nobody who ate this was complaining.

Nibby-licious

I promised nibs, so here they are:


Making their rounds through the culinary blogosphere, cacao nibs seem to be everywhere these days. They are folded into buttery and chocolatey cookie doughs, sprinkled atop chic pasta dishes, and here at Red Ramekin, tucked into my favorite treat: biscotti.

I was so excited about using cacao nibs that I made two batches of biscotti with them. One was adapted from David Lebovitz's very dark and chocolatey biscotti, (featured in the pictures below) and the other was an adaptation of my regular almond biscotti recipe, enhanced with a touch of cocoa, spices, and of course, the nibs themselves. I'll admit it, though, we gobbled up the second batch so quickly that we kind of, um, forgot about the whole taking pictures thing....so use your imagination. They looked like a cross between the almond and the chocolate varieties, with visible chunks of nib speckling the dough.


Before getting to the biscotti, though, let's talk nibs. The cacao nib is a wholly worthwhile culinary experience, even at $9 for a smallish-sized box from Scharffen Berger. The nibs are simply roasted and crushed cacao beans, which are usually used to make the smooth and sweet chocolate that we are used to eating. The nibs, though, are unadorned, and on their own taste intensely chocolatey and bitter, like unsweetened baking chocolate. You might say that they are an "acquired taste," or if you aren't a total and unabashed food snob, you might just toss them into some cookie dough and enjoy the chocolate crunchiness that they impart when paired with something sweet.


In cookies the nibs seem to lose their harsh bitterness, and taste almost like very dark chocolate bits. The texture is quite different though, and the visual effect is much more interesting. In our first batch of biscotti, I timidly chopped the nibs to soften their harshness, but this proved unnecessary; in the second batch, I tossed the pieces in as they were, and they struck just the right balance of subtlety and bite.

Until it is definitively shown through dubious medical evidence and sensationalized New York Times articles that cacao is the most anti-oxidant rich substance in the world, though, I'm not sure I'll go out of my way to acquire more nibs. A little bit goes a long way, so we still have a few handfuls of these little treasures left. I'm trying to dream up a new use, but then again, I never tire of cookies. Once we've worked our way through this box, though, I doubt we'll be seeing another one until our next lazy afternoon spent meandering through the Ferry Building.

Our first batch of biscotti (pictured in this post) were quite yummy, but a bit too chocolatey for me. If you are looking for a relatively healthy chocolate cookie, though, these would work just fine. I prefer my biscotti to be a bit lighter, thus facilitating my habit of eating 10-20 of them per sitting. Keeping this in mind, I made the second batch with just a couple tablespoons of cocoa to complement the nibs, and some spices to heighten the flavor without going overboard. I enjoyed these cookies much more, and found that the nibs were really the star ingredient. In batch #1, the nibs were all but lost in the hefty dose of cocoa powder and smattering of dark chocolate chunks that I added to the dough.


If you are looking for a biscotti-making tutorial, check out my earlier post on almond biscotti. And if you get your hands on some nibs and are looking for a recipe, try this one. (To put things in perspective, we devoured the entire batch in two days.) I happen to love the combination of cocoa and warm spices, but you can tweak the recipe according to your tastes. I also added some liqueur to this recipe, which makes the dough supple and easy to form into logs. I think the nutty-fruity scent of frangelico works really well here, but amaretto, brandy, or perhaps even Grand Marnier would work. These biscotti have just a small amount of sugar, perfect for a snacking/dunking cookie. If you like sweeter cookies, increase the sugar to 2/3 c. For recipe directions, see the post mentioned above.

Nibby Spiced Biscotti

2 1/4 c. whole wheat pastry flour
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. baking powder
2 tbs. unsweetened natural cocoa powder
1/2 c. sugar
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. ground ginger
pinch of cloves
1/4 tsp. salt
3 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1/2 tsp. almond extract
1/4 c. frangelico
2/3 c. whole toasted almonds
1/4 c. (or more, if desired) unsweetened cacao nibs

Daring Bakers Challenge: Dorie's Perfect Party Cake, San Francisco Style

Remember the epic French bread post? And all of those amazing Daring Bakers? Well this month's challenge has now come and gone, and I managed to pull it off at the last minute, during our trip to California.

The recipe this time was decidedly less involved, and allowed for plenty of adaptations and creativity: Dorie Greenspan's Perfect Party Cake. The host of this month's challenge was Morven, whose blog can be found here.

I won't include the entire recipe here, but you should invest in Dorie Greenspan's Baking: From My Home to Yours if you are curious. The original recipe is for a lemon-flavored white layer cake, complete with raspberry filling and a thick, luscious buttercream meringue frosting. We're talking 3-sticks-of-butter-luscious. While this may sound tempting, though, buttercream isn't really my thing....and neither is lemon-flavored cake, for that matter. I knew after reading the recipe a few weeks ago that I wanted to get the creative juices flowing, and make something a bit more in tune with my tastes.

Given that we were in the Bay Area for the past week, we made multiple trips to the Ferry Building Farmers' Market, in San Francisco. Trust me, this is really a farmer's farmers' market, and features heaps upon heaps of fresh vegetables, juicy citrus, and handmade breads, cheeses, and jams. We got up early yesterday morning after a 2-day romp in Big Sur to head on over, hoping to find some baking inspiration from the dizzying array of delicious foodstuffs.

We stumbled upon success at the second stand that we passed, which featured handmade quark. Quark is a mascarpone-like soft cheese, and this particular vendor sold it in a variety of flavors, including the utterly delicious vanilla bean. We tried a sample and promptly bought it, with visions of it oozing from between layers of soft, white cake.

A while later we happened upon a sample-happy vendor selling almond brittle which, crunchy with butter and sugar, made an obvious choice for our cake. And so, with quark and brittle in hand, and a jar of raspberry Bonne Maman in the fridge at home, I was ready to go on a baking binge.

I stayed true to the cake recipe, although I replaced the lemon extract with vanilla, and baked it in a sheet pan instead of in layers. I opted for a mini cake sandwich instead of a big layer cake; I wasn't sure if I could stretch the quark far enough to frost a whole cake. Besides, I can't resist making miniatures.

Once baked, I cut a small circle of cake, and sliced this circle in half to form two layers. I then spread each layer with thinned raspberry jam. Next came a hefty dollop of quark whipped cream, which I made by (surprise!) whipping the vanilla bean quark with some heavy cream to get a smooth, spreadable consistency.

To really push it over the edge, I crumbled up the almond brittle and tossed in a few Scharffen Berger cacao nibs (obtained during a prior Ferry Building visit), and then sprinkled this mixture over the cream.

Then a bit more cream, the final cake layer....

A touch more jam, and voila! A nutty, nibby, berry-y, creamy cake sandwich.

Take a look at this cross-section and tell me this doesn't look good:

Jonathan certainly enjoyed it, as did I. And in case you were wondering: no, I did not have the patience nor the time to make a whole bunch of these little creations. I cut the rest of the cake into cubes, whipped the rest of the cream and quark, and made a trifle which we gobbled up for dessert later that evening. It was heavenly.

So, another challenge down, and I'm anxious to see what next month's challenge is. Thanks to Morven for giving us a little wiggle room in this challenge; I had so much fun picking out flavors and ingredients to make this cake.

And now that I'm back from spring break, stay tuned for more adventures with cacao nibs...

Itty-Bitty Biscotti: Why I'm the Biscotti-Eating Champion of the World

I really can't believe that I haven't posted about our incredibly delicious, itty-bitty, whole-wheat biscotti. We've made them several times now, and for various occasions: Thanksgiving, Christmas (they make fantastic gifts), dinner parties, and that time I felt like eating 20 biscotti in one sitting. Ok, that happens every time we make them, but I'd still call it an occasion.

Jonathan posted about pumpkin biscotti a while back, but these little dunkers are a whole different animal. And by "whole" I mean "whole-wheat." Yes, that's right, these are biscuits of pure health. And I like making them really small, so they're pretty darn cute, to boot.

Our latest excuse to make biscotti was an assignment from one of my favorite food bloggers, Jaden, of Steamy Kitchen. Eminently famous and highly esteemed, Jaden was recently asked to test a new food product: single-serve spices. The spices come in little packets (1 teaspoon each) and include everything from green cardamom to ancho chili powder to anise seed. Which is where we come in.

Jaden asked her readers with some help with the testing, and we jumped at the chance to a) get some free anise seed and make delicious biscotti, and b) hopefully make an appearance on her blog, thus making this blog famous and increasing its readership 10-fold. So far, a) has worked out really well.

We got the wee packet of anise seed in the mail last week, and whipped up a batch of anise-almond biscotti last night. We even got to test out our new mortar and pestle:


They are half gone already, but it's ok because we've already taken the requisite pictures. Hopefully you'll be able to check us out on Jaden's blog sometime soon, but until then, you can contemplate the marvels of itty-bitty biscotti:

1. They are SO cute
2. They have no butter or oil
3. They are a blank canvas - add any flavors, fruits, nuts, or chocolates you want
4. They are perfect with tea
5. You slice them up after baking them, and then you bake them again!
6. They are tasty

I'll post the exact recipe at the end, but here is a biscotti-making primer for any first-timers out there: Measure and then mix the dry ingredients together (look at our anise seed!).


Add the eggs, extracts, and tidbits (nuts, raisins, chocolate chips), kneading if necessary to incorporate all of the dry ingredients. The dough will be pretty sticky, so flour your hands if necessary before forming the dough into two long, thin logs. Place them on a parchment-lined baking sheet, flattening them a bit so they get that nice biscotti-shape when they bake.


Bake until cooked through and no longer soft, then let cool for a few minutes. Once you can handle them, slice them into biscotti. You can slice on the bias if you'd like, but I go straight and slice them thinly, so that they are quite small.


Tip them all on their sides and return to the oven for 10 or 15 minutes, until lightly golden and crisp. Flip if necessary (I usually don't flip them).

Itty-Bitty, Anise-Almond, Whole-Wheat Biscotti

2 1/4 c. whole-wheat pastry flour
1/4 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. baking powder
pinch of salt
1 tsp. anise seed, crushed
2/3 c. sugar
3 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 1/2 tsp. almond extract
2/3 c. whole almonds, lightly toasted

Instead of going through the instructions again, I'll just give you the basics: Form the logs so that they are about 12-14 in. long. Bake at 375 degrees for 25 minutes, then remove and slice. Return to 375 degree oven for 10-15 min. more, until crisp. Eat continuously for the next day and a half.

Cremolata, or How to Show Up One of America's Best Chefs

After a holiday hiatus, we are back in the ice cream making business. Well actually, it's not really a business, and in fact, it's not really ice cream, either. Our latest creation is a dangerously delicious almond milk cremolata, which is a frozen custard that uses almond milk instead of cream as its base.

We were first introduced to the concept of cremolata during dinner at Oleana, which I can confidently say is one of Cambridge's best restaurants. Even though a cremolata is of Italian origin, the food is Mediterranean, with a heavy Turkish influence. To be fair, it wasn't exactly love at first sight between me and the cremolata. I liked it, but the flavor was a bit too subtle for me.

In any case, we thought it might be an interesting challenge to recreate it at home. So, after a few months of procrastination, out came the ice cream maker and a quart of unsweetened almond milk, and a new recipe was born.

Coincidentally, Sortun's recipe for her cremolata is available online, but it seemed unnecessarily laborious - homemade almond milk! We opted for a store-bought version, and several scoops later, I'm not complaining. The only ingredients in her cremolata are almond milk and a smidge of sugar (hence the blandness), so I made some tweaks and additions to get a more robust flavor (see below).

The almond milk custard is simple to make, and it freezes to a delightfully custardy texture in the ice cream maker. Plus, it's low-fat. Even though I made this cremolata with an egg yolk, it could easily be omitted (perhaps in favor of more cornstarch) to make an unusually good vegan dessert.

I'm trying to think of some more tips and tricks for this, but it is pretty close to perfection just as is, perhaps with an almond biscotti or cookie on the side. If you have an ice cream maker, definitely make this. If not, buy one, and then make this. It's that good.

Almond Cremolata

2 1/2 c. unsweetened almond milk (I used Almond Breeze)
1/2 c. sugar
1 tbs. corn starch
1 egg yolk, beaten
pinch of salt
dash each of vanilla and almond extract

Mix 1/4 c. almond milk with corn starch and whisk until thoroughly combined. Heat remaining (2 1/4 c.) almond milk and sugar over low heat, stirring until sugar is dissolved. Once mixture is hot, add a bit of the liquid to the egg yolk, whisking vigorously so that it doesn't scramble (this is called tempering). Add the egg yolk mixture to the almond milk, continuing to whisk to avoid scrambling. Add cornstarch mixture, salt, and extracts, and continue stirring until mixture thickens slightly. Remove from heat, allow to cool, and refrigerate for several hours or overnight. Before freezing in an ice cream maker, strain custard through a fine-meshed sieve to get rid of any rogue lumps. It is best served right after churning, but freezes well, too.

Secret Ingredient Hot Cocoa

I used to think of hot chocolate as something that I really, really looked forward to when I was backpacking. Of course, the thing about backpacking is, when you get home, you realize that all those special backpacking treats - the 5-day-old gouda on stale pita, the 151-proof rum mixed with tang served in an unwashed mug that recently held coffee and lasagna, and yes, the hot chocolate served over the remnants of last night's mashed potatoes - just don't seem as delicious when you return to civilization. They all go straight into the trash, to be bought again in 358 days. Hot cocoa was a backpacking delight, and perhaps as a result, it had no place in my normal life. That was until Mia made us homemade hot cocoa recently.

Mia and I were enjoying ourselves, sitting at the table with my friend Josh and his girlfriend Andrea. When Mia suggested homemade hot chocolate with amaretto as a dessert drink, I readily agreed, but I didn't think about it too carefully. Josh and I continued our self-indulgent discussion about the secret lives of famous economists while Mia tended to the stove just beyond my field of vision. She soon placed the mug in front of me, but not until I put it to my lips did I recognize, finally, the enormousness of the moment.

Homemade hot cocoa is to Swiss Miss as raw milk cheese illegally imported from France is to Cheese Wiz, as 1982 Chateau Margot is to Thunderbird. The only remotely comparable experience was when, in high school, my Venezuelan friend Adrienne gave me a cup of her mother's homemade hot cocoa. That particular cocoa tasted like a melted bar of chocolate - it was incredibly flavorful, rich and thick. But it turns out it was missing something - a secret ingredient or two.

Mia made the cocoa in two ways - a more traditional version with cocoa powder, and one inspired by the South American tradition known in Argentina as submarino, which is milk served hot with a chocolate bar. Both drinks begin with heating skim milk. Then you add the chocolate, either in the form of powder or a bar. Finally, you flavor it with cinnamon and vanilla. Feel free to omit these secret ingredients for the "classic" hot cocoa experience, but we think that you'll find that vanilla and cinnamon elevate hot cocoa to new highs.

Secret Ingredient Hot Cocoa

1 c. milk
1 1/2 tbs. unsweetened cocoa powder (preferably Ghirardelli's or another high quality brand)*
1 1/2 tbs. sugar*
dash of vanilla extract
generous shake of cinnamon
splash of amaretto

Heat milk over medium heat in a small saucepan. Add cocoa and sugar, stir or whisk to remove lumps and combine. Add cinnamon and vanilla. Continue stirring until hot. Pour into mug and top off with amaretto. Serves 1 and leaves others jealous.

*Note: For submarino-style hot chocolate, substitute about an ounce of bittersweet chocolate for the cocoa powder and add sugar to taste.

Searching for Sherbet

With nearly a quart of leftover buttermilk in the fridge, we got thinking. You can make ice cream out of cream, milk, ricotta, and yogurt, so why not buttermilk? Some cursory internet searching made it obvious that this was not an original idea, and we quickly came upon a David Lebovitz (the reigning ice cream king) recipe for lemon buttermilk sherbet.

I have vague memories from my early childhood of recoiling at the sound of "sherbet" (though I remember it as "sherbert") because it just meant some poor imitation of its more delicious cousin, ice cream. But what exactly is sherbet? In Australia, it means beer. In England, it describes a (different) fizzy drink. Wikipedia has an entire entry entitled "Sherbet (disambiguation)." In America, sherbet can, it seems, mean anything from sorbet to ice cream. I guess we can stick with the dictionary.com definition of

A frozen dessert made primarily of fruit juice, sugar, and water, and also containing milk, egg white, or gelatin.

It couldn't be easier to prepare – the only ingredients are water, sugar, lemon juice, lemon zest, and buttermilk – and boasts a tart and grown-up taste. Directly out of the ice cream maker, the sherbet was delicious and refreshing, even if the texture left something to be desired after a few days in the freezer. I guess we've learned a few things about sherbet.

Honest-to-Goodness Ice Cream

If you had stopped by 20 Ellery St. a few weeks, you would have found me and Jonathan waiting anxiously, like 10-year-olds with upcoming birthdays, for the UPS guy. We startled at every faint rustling coming from the direction of the front door. We raced down the stairs at every ring of the doorbell. We almost became hysterical when, on the day that our package was supposed to arrive, the UPS guy was late and didn't make our delivery until 3pm.

What, you ask, could possibly evoke such giddy enthusiasm from two jaded and sarcastic 20-somethings? Well I'll tell you: it was an ice cream maker.

Jonathan picked out a wee Krups machine, which has a removable freezer bowl and a cute plastic churning paddle. I can't say I'm completely confident that the whole contraption will survive much longer than a few months, but as far as I'm concerned, the pure excitement surrounding its advent is worth the price (which, as you might imagine, was not very steep).

Just a couple weeks into our ice cream-making careers, we have already turned out several successful batches. Our first go was a low-fat mocha gelato, which we thickened with cornstarch instead of egg yolks, and which was speckled generously with grains of freshly-ground espresso powder. Rave reviews, although even I, the obsessive healthy-food taste rationalizer, can't say that low-fat is the same as the real thing.

We opted out of dairy for our second experiment: apple cider sorbet, made with fresh apple cider and locally-grown MacIntosh apples. The sorbet was a deep caramel color, with the unmistakeable taste of real New England apples (the best).

Next came an attempt at frozen yogurt....but we have decided that it shouldn't be spoken of again. So we'll update you when we've found a post-worthy fro-yo recipe.

Last night, though, was our crowning achievement: thick, delicious, perfectly-textured, honest-to-goodness ice cream. We made banana (flecked, of course, with a little Valrhona 70%) because we had a few ripe specimens in the kitchen. We started the egg-based custard late Friday night, chilled it overnight, and churned it to creamy perfection late yesterday afternoon. We popped it back into the freezer for a few hours (after a preliminary tasting), and it was ready to scoop and serve by dessert-time. We invited some friends over to share in our culinary joy, but most of them couldn't make it. Too bad - we had to eat it all ourselves.

More delicious pictures and anecdotes to come. But for now:

Pumpkin Biscotti

The other night, I, alone, and by myself, with no help whatsoever, made pumpkin biscotti, using a slightly modified recipe from Simply Recipes.

Ingredients:

• 2 1/2 cups of white whole wheat flour
• 1 cup of sugar
• 1 teaspoon of baking powder
• 1 teaspoon of cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon of nutmeg
• Pinch of ginger
• Pinch of cloves
• Pinch of salt
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup of pumpkin purée
• 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
-some raisins, chocolate chips, and/or walnuts

1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Sift together the flour, salt, sugar, baking powder, and spices into a large bowl.

2. In another bowl, whisk together the eggs, pumpkin purée, and vanilla extract. Pour the pumpkin mixture into the flour mixture. Give it a rough stir to generally incorporate the ingredients, the dough will be crumbly.

3. Flour your hands and a clean kitchen surface and lightly knead the dough. Add the raisins, walnuts, and chips. Lightly grease a baking sheet or line it with parchment paper. Form the dough into a large log, roughly about 15-20 inches by 6-7 inches. The loaves should be relatively flat, only about 1/2 inch high. Bake for 22-30 minutes at 350 F, until the center is firm to the touch.

4. Let biscotti cool for 15 minutes and then using a serrated knife cut into 1 inch wide pieces. Turn the oven to 300 F and bake for an additional 15-20 minutes. Cool completely.
Biscotti may be still a tad moist and chewy, so if you prefer it crisp let it sit uncovered overnight in a dry space. Serve and enjoy.
Makes approximately 15 cookies.