Blue Cornmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

Sep 22, 2011 By Love & Flour in Cookies No Comments Tags: chocolate chip, cornmeal

Corn needs a catchy tag line, don’t you think? Eggs are incredible and edible. Everyone knows beef is what’s for dinner. And of course milk does a body good. But what about corn?

I like to eat the sweet corn that has both yellow and white kernels speckled along the cob. Multi-colored Indian corn will be popping up as fall decoration any day. Speaking of popping, the first time I saw an ear of popcorn was at my Grandma M’s house. The tiny ear was only about five inches long, and it amazed me to watch a little heat transform those hard, yellow kernels into soft, white puffs. The first time I encountered a tiny pickled ear of corn at a salad bar, I tried to eat it just like a regular ear of corn on the cob.

One year when I was a kid, I pulled my red Radio Flyer wagon into the fields that surrounded my home and filled the wagon with ears of corn the combine missed. I think I earned a nickel or dime per ear, maybe more. I remember those fall days as clear as yesterday; the sun’s heat still warm on my skin in the afternoon, a cricket’s chirp here and there punctured the silence, specks of dust looked like gold glitter as they floated through a ray of sun.

What’s all this talk about corn have to do with chocolate chip cookies? According to the bakers at Bob’s Red Mill, quite a lot. I found a recipe for blue cornmeal chocolate chip cookies when I made blue corn chips last month, and I knew it was just a matter of time before I tried this odd concoction myself.

I had high expectations for novelty and low expectations for taste, so I was pleasantly surprised with how nice these cookies tasted. They are hearty and the cornmeal lends a definite crunch, but I liked them.

I was less thrilled with their looks. The cookies did not look blue as much as they looked pale. In need of a tan but with the bake time at its max, I topped the cookies with melted chocolate chips. Delicious! Pour yourself a glass of milk and enjoy!

Blue Cornmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

Author: Bob’s Red Mill

Recipe type: Dessert

Serves: 12

Ingredients

½ cup blue cornmeal
½ cup all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon baking powder
½ cup (1 stick) butter, softened
⅓ cup light brown sugar, packed
1 large egg
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
⅓ cup chocolate chips
⅓ cup chopped walnuts

Instructions

Combine the blue cornmeal, flour and baking powder in a small bowl and set aside.
Cream together the butter and sugar on medium speed.
Add the egg and vanilla extract and mix until well combined.
Fold in the chocolate chips and walnuts.
Drop by rounded tablespoons onto a parchment-lined baking sheet.
Bake at 350 degrees for 8-12 minutes until lightly browned along the edges.

Notes

The cookie dough will be very thick.

White Hot Texas Sheet Cake

Sep 20, 2011 By Love & Flour in Cakes 2 Comments Tags: nuts, orange

Over the past few days, I traded the time I usually spend baking in the kitchen to bake in the Texas heat. Holy moly, Austin is hot. But now I’m back and baking up a storm. Sort of…

Friends with furry pets have told me their animals act out when they are away from the house too long. I think my kitchen is behaving the same way. I had an incredibly tough time pulling this cake together. I got the first batch of walnuts too toasty, I mixed the batter three separate times (that’s all I’m going to say about that), and I dropped my camera in the icing on a piece of cake. Not to mention the beautiful mess of dishes I created in the process.

When the dust had settled, I ended up with a white Texas sheet cake as a nod to my visit to the lone star state. The recipe caught my eye when I was flipping through a hometown cookbook a while back, and I knew I would make it someday simply because I had never encountered a white Texas sheet cake before.

Instead of chocolate, this cake gets its flavor from orange. It tastes very sweet and citrusy, and the light flavor would be the perfect sweet for a hot day. Enjoy!

White Texas Sheet Cake with Orange Frosting

Author: adapted from Recipes to Remember, printed by the Spencerville Historical Society

Ingredients

1 cup flour
½ teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon salt
½ cup (1 stick) butter, softened
1 cup granulated sugar
1 egg
½ cup milk
2 tablespoons orange juice concentrate, thawed
zest of one orange
Frosting
½ stick (1 cup) butter
3 cups confectioners’ sugar
2 tablespoons orange juice concentrate, thawed
2 tablespoons milk
Sugared Walnuts
1 cup walnuts
2 tablespoons honey
1 tablespoon granulated sugar

Instructions

For the cake, whisk together the flour, baking soda and salt in a medium bowl and set aside.
In a separate bowl, cream the butter and sugar.
Add the egg, milk, orange juice concentrate, and orange zest. Mix until well combined.
Slowly add the flour mixture and mix until incorporated.
Pour the batter into a greased, 11 x 17 jelly roll pan.
Bake at 325 degrees for approximately 30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean.
For the frosting, cream the butter and confectioners’ sugar on medium speed.
Add the orange juice concentrate and milk and increase speed to high. Beat until the frosting is light and fluffy.
For the sugared walnuts, place a baking sheet holding the walnuts into the oven after the cake has baked. Roast approximately five minutes.
When cool, transfer the walnuts to a bowl and mix with the honey and the sugar.
Return the walnuts to the baking sheet and roast until fragrant, approximately five to 10 minutes.
Frost the cake when cool and top with the sugared walnuts.

Tower Hour: How to Make a Cupcake Tower in 60 Minutes or Less

Sep 14, 2011 By Love & Flour in Crafts 2 Comments Tags: cupcake papers

To celebrate my niece’s first birthday last October, my sister borrowed about a dozen wire cupcake towers to hold the hundreds of cupcakes she baked. Thinking back to that event, I recently decided to make my own cupcake tower. Read on to learn the steps I took to make the thought a reality.

I chose to use cake bases as they are sturdier than cake boards. The downside: cake bases are sold in packs of two. The upside: you can share this project with a friend. Another upside is the foil that covers the cake bases eliminates the need to cut card stock or other decorative paper to cover the white cardboard cake bases.

Cover two cans with three rows of ribbon. A nine inch strip of ribbon will cover one section of a 14 or 16 ounce can, but the number of rows will vary depending on the width of the ribbon.

Though I used plain white ribbon, you could certainly match the ribbon covering the cans with the ribbon used to line the edges of the cake boards. You could also use decorative paper to cover the cans.

Notice I did not place the ribbon at the very top of the can on the right. Instead, I placed it just under the lip. This does not really matter once the cupcake tower is built.

Now, it’s time to measure. Find the center point of the 10 inch and the 12 inch bases and place the center of a can as near to the center of each base as possible. Trace the outline of the can with a pencil and remove the can. Double check the outline of the can appears centered on both the 10 inch and the 12 inch base.

Line the top rim of the can with hot glue, or trace the outline of the can on one of the bases with hot glue. If you love using a hot glue gun, go all out and double glue. Place the can on the cake base to secure. Repeat with the second can and base. You should now have cans secured to the undersides of the 10 inch and the 12 inch bases.

For the bottom base, space four foam balls equidistant along the bottom edge of the 14 inch cake board. Find the center of the board and glue a fifth foam ball there.

I chose to use foam balls simply because I thought the spheres would be a nice match to my decorative ribbon with a polka dot pattern. Foam disks are also available, so you can certainly use one disk or stack two disks (glue them together if using more than one disk) to act as a base. The same goes for substituting the foam disks in place of the cans as supports on the center tiers.

Once the bases have been secured, you are ready to stack your boards. Like you did when attaching the cans to the bottom of the bases, you will need to find the centers of the 14 inch and 12 inch base. Glue the can attached to the bottom of the 12 inch base to the center of the top of the 14 inch bases. Glue the can attached to the bottom of the 10 inch base to the center of the top of the 12 inch base. The idea is to build a tiered tower with a 14 inch base, 12 inch center and 10 inch top.

Be sure to match up the seams between the two tiers!

To decorate the tower, line the edges of the cake boards with decorative ribbon. A 3 yard spool of ribbon will be just enough if using 10-, 12- and 14-inch bases.

There you have it, your very own cupcake tower! Take care to move the tower by supporting the underside of the 14 inch base. Do not lift the tower from one of the cans as it will likely pull apart and break (~~I know this from trial and error.~~ I know this from experience.)

I had just finished placing cupcake liners on the tower for its photo shoot when my guardian angel (because that is what I like to believe) had a little fun. It was a still day up until then, but suddenly a little breeze blew nearly all the cupcake liners off the board. Regardless of the cause (an invisible breath or nature’s breeze), I wanted to share this story to let you know it’s okay if things go slightly awry during the project. Just take a step back and try again.

How about the price? I bought my supplies at Michael’s and, by taking the time to purchase the items over the course of a few weeks, was able to use a 40 or 50 percent off coupon for each item. In all, I spent about $15, which is about what Wilton’s dessert stands run at my local Michael’s store.

To give credit where credit is due, I was inspired to go ahead with this project after I came across a cupcake tower “how to” on Annie’s Eats. Annie built quite a lovely cupcake tower using cake boards rather than the cake bases you see in this post. Cake boards can be purchased in smaller sizes, so an 8 inch, 10 inch, and 12 inch tower is possible with cake boards. As for cake bases, they are also available in a 16 inch diameter, so a cupcake tower larger than the one seen here is possible.

To all your celebrations!

Cupcake Tower

Ingredients

6 yards of ribbon (2 spools)
2 soup or vegetable cans, labels removed
1 – 10 inch cake base
1 – 12 inch cake base
1 – 14 inch cake base
1 glue gun
6-8 mini glue sticks
5 foam balls (1 package)
ruler
pencil

Instructions

Wrap a piece of ribbon around one of the cans and secure with hot glue. Repeat with strips of ribbon until one can is fully covered. Repeat this process to cover the second can.
Use the ruler to locate the center points of the 10 inch and the 12 inch bases, marking the center points on the undersides of the bases.
Place the center of one can as near to the center of each base as possible.
Trace the outline of the centered can onto the underside of each base.
Line the top rim of a can with hot glue, or trace the outline of the can with hot glue.
Place the can onto the cake base to secure.
Repeat with the second base. You should now have cans secured to the bottoms of the 10 inch and the 12 inch bases.
Use the ruler to locate the center point of the 14 inch base.
Glue a foam ball to the center of the underside of the base.
Glue four foam balls spaced equidistant along the bottom edge of the 14 inch base.
Use the ruler to locate the center point of the 14 inch and the 12 inch bases, marking the center points on the top of the bases.
Glue the can attached to the underside of the 12 inch base to the center of the top of the 14 inch base.
Glue the can attached to the underside of the 10 inch base to the center of the top of the 12 inch base.
Line the edges of the cake boards with decorative ribbon, securing with dots of hot glue approximately every two inches.
Fill with cupcakes.

Notes

Card stock or other decorative paper can be used to cover the cans in place of ribbon. Foam cylinders can be used as a base in place of the foam balls, as well as substituted for middle supports offered by the cans.