Welcome to the reporting thread for one of our Fall 2024 BCOTMs, Baking and Sweet Recipes from New York Times Cooking. Please use this thread to discuss these recipes and your experience making them.
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A British war-time recipe for stretching staples such as flour and butter. I used hybrid mashed potato leftovers (spuds, summer squash, bacon, scallions, butter, milk, stock), switching around the order of ingredients: I grated the butter into the dry before whisking together the milk and potatoes, folding them into the flour-butter mixture. I cut the sugar in half and added 2 t. of dried herbs to the mix (thanks to @Rooster and @Saregama for the suggestions on ways to use Penzeys “Justice”). Given that they weren’t expected to rise much, I didn’t hesitate to re-roll the scraps (twice). Rolled out to about ¼”, I got 20 scones using a 2” cutter.
These came out nicely. Very much like an American biscuit in texture, they were fun and easy to make, and good way to use up (if only a small amount of) leftover mashed potatoes. I made the full batch knowing we are having fish soup later this week – I think the holdovers will do well floating in a bowl of creamy chowder. If anything, I would suggest salting the tops (if making savory) before baking.
Great minds, and all that! I’ve been eye-balling Scottish tattie scones, as well.
Here (NYT recipe) I would use a straight mashed potato (without the squash). The squash was good here, but it kind of dominated the flavor profile. I’d like to try it again with the bacon and herbs moving to the forefront. I did have to give them a couple of extra minutes to get the right texture and color.
My daughter requested a chocolate cake that wasnt too super chocolatey (as vague as only a newly six year old can be! Lol). With those confounding parameters I found this recipe and gave it a go. The cake was perfect and she approved. The cake itself has great chocolate flavor without being too sweet. It was on the lighter side (vs. dense) and the two layers weren’t gargantuan. The frosting was exactly what I’d hoped - good chocolate flavor but cut by the tanginess of the cream cheese… Yet not overwhelmingly cream cheesy. It was a good size for a crowd with plenty leftover. This is definitely going in my repeat folder.
We needed to bring a dish to share for a school feast. Aside from the very slightly fussy egg separating (which is admittedly necessary) this came together easily with excellent results. It had a full 24 hours in the fridge soaking and we whipped up the fresh ever-so-slightly sweetened cream just before serving. It looks like a dream and the taste is just right- milky and moist and creamy without being too sweet at all. Not too dense and held its shape just fine- not mushy. People were amazed that we made it ourselves - I found it far superior to any store bought version I’ve ever had. I will definitely make again.
Not baking but a bit sweet, so I’m putting it here! Maybe you’re like me and want to sneak some veggies in after all that cake
GREEN SMOOTHIE
I wanted to use up and ingest a large quantity of spinach that I had without actually chewing it, lol. So I found this recipe. I used cows milk. I think I would cut half the honey next time since the banana and vanilla gave some sweetness. My immersion blender handled this fine. But this was a great one portion smoothie that helped me get some veggies in. You can definitely somewhat taste the spinach but it’s oddly balanced by the banana, and I liked the interesting additions of ginger and vanilla. (I wouldn’t use a drop more ginger than they indicate - it’s well balanced the way it is.). My daughter tried it and liked it so that’s a win as well!
I am stress baking. The idea here is for at least half of these to go by mail to Lulu, but that might end up being 3-4 cookies because these are Ridiculously good. This is a recipe where it definitely helps to read through the comments. After doing so I knew to slightly flatten them once on the baking sheet, and even then they’re not flat. It would also help if the recipe instructed you to start by toasting your coconut (and pecans, in my mind) instead of just putting “toasted coconut” in the list of ingredients. But all is forgiven because I really really love these cookies. I am a big fan of German chocolate cake, so ymmv if you’re not. The batter is very dense, and I was a little worried. Kept relooking at the recipe to see if I had forgotten something. Also, I do not have a 2 tablespoon cookie scoop, and eyeballed it, and it wasn’t a problem. Only problem is not eating them all. Not a horrible problem to have. Chocolate cakey cookies with chocolate chips (I used dark instead of bittersweet), coconut, and pecans.
I didn’t make the pumpkin muffins in the recipe, but I was making some muffins with end-of-season farmers’ market peaches (yes, it’s late October, but we’re lucky that way here in NorCal) and supermarket organic blackberries, and decided I wanted a streusel topping when this recipe drifted across my radar. Cardamom is always a good choice in my book, so I went with it (sort of). Reading the reviews, it was frequently noted that the streusel has too much butter for the volume of other ingredients, and that it’s much more than you need for a dozen muffins. Since I was making a larger batch, these were my riffs: I kept the amounts of flour and brown sugar the same, added 100g of unblanched almond meal and another 2T butter, left out the cinnamon and used a heaping teaspoon of ground cardamom and a lesser amount of nutmeg. I popped the bowl in the fridge while I went about other business, then used a fork to break the chilled mixture into smaller clumps/sandy texture.
Conclusions: I baked my muffins at 375F, and ended up turning on convection for the last 5 minutes or so of the ~20-minute bake to get the streusel a little more golden. Once cooled, the streusel has a nice crispness at the top, and provides a sweet foil to my not-that-sweet muffins. With my changes, the streusel was still plenty sweet enough, and had a good amount of butter for the volume of dry ingredients. With a nice crown on each of the 21 muffins, but not a pile (no loose bits once baked), I still had about 1/3 cup left over (now stashed in my freezer). So if you use this recipe, I’d recommend halving it for a dozen muffins unless you like a big pile of crumb topping, and cutting back the butter a bit and possibly the brown sugar. I have my own favorite pumpkin muffin/bread recipe, but this one is highly rated overall.
I’ve made this one before. It’s my favorite kind of coffee cake, which would be one that uses common ingredients, is quick to mix, and is well suited to leaving on the counter for serving (or nibbling) from the pan.
I used buttermilk for the dairy, frozen blueberries from our garden, and added a teaspoon of blueberry brandy . I forgot to toss the berries in a little of the flour mixture to keep them from sinking, but nobody here cares.
It is yum, as expected. I’ve made a note make it next fall when our raspberries come in.
I don’t taste the booze up front, but I assume it adds to the complexity. I’ve tried to get into the habit of adding a teaspoon of booze to cake batter after making all those great cakes from Gateau (prior BCOTM).
I sometimes do too (and for that exact same reason!) but there are times when I taste it, and times when I don’t, and I can’t figure out what the difference is. Bourbon is my usual, but sometimes I use rum, as she does in that book.
EVERYDAY PANCAKES
This is our basic pancake recipe- it doesn’t require buttermilk, which we don’t always have on hand (or we don’t always have defrosted, since I tend to freeze it in smaller quantities). Instead of the optional sugar I pour in a similar quantity of maple syrup and I also add a splash of vanilla. It’s a great and fast pancake recipe- no frills but sometimes that’s what we need on a busy weekend morning.
Last slice of the cake I made on Saturday. Still moist and the spice flavour has deepened. I thought this was only okay on Saturday but am appreciating it more now. I used a different cream cheese frosting with just cream cheese, half the weight of the cheese in icing sugar, vanilla and a splash of dairy; milk this time but cream if I have it. Excuse the terrible snap—hard to get home before dusk these days.
. I forgot to toss the berries in a little of the flour mixture to keep them from sinking, but nobody here cares.
