Caramel Corn

If not for Halloween, when would we eat things that are sweet and sticky and bound to rot our teeth?
When you make this caramel corn...the answer might just change to every day.


I hope this recipe finds you in time.  It's Saturday evening, and you're probably preparing the final touches on your costume and getting ready to go to a fun Halloween party, or host one of your own.  But it's still not technically Halloween, so you have one more day to make this AMAZING caramel corn...and make everyone around you very, very happy.

Luckily, you probably have all of the ingredients for this on hand already.  It takes almost no effort to prepare, and is an instant hit.  The unique thing about this recipe is that once you dump the caramel sauce all over your popcorn, you bake it in the oven for an hour.  Orangette says "In the oven, the caramel, which had started to harden as you stirred it into the popcorn, gets a chance to soften again. You can now stir it into the popcorn more easily and evenly. The whole, gooey mess will crisp spectacularly as it cools, and the kitchen will smell outrageous."

She wasn't kidding.  I couldn't even bring myself to let it bake for the full hour.  I made it to 20 minutes, did the first stir, and let it sit in the oven another 10 minutes before I couldn't bear how amazing my kitchen smelled, and how I had to have that caramel corn now. (I ate it right then and there...without allowing it to cool as recommended...and it was still INCREDIBLE).

Caramel Corn
adapted from Orangette

Orangette's recipe notes:

• Be sure to have a whisk and a rubber spatula close at hand. You’ll need them both on short notice.
• Before you begin cooking the caramel, measure out the baking soda and the vanilla, and set aside in small bowls. You won’t have time to do it later.
• Do not try to make this recipe without a candy thermometer.

Ingredients

• 1 (3½-ounce) package plain (unbuttered natural flavor) microwave popcorn, or about 10 cups fresh popcorn popped by any method, lightly salted
• 1 cup packed light brown sugar
• ¼ cup light corn syrup
• 6 Tbsp. unsalted butter, melted
• ¼ tsp. salt
• ½ tsp. baking soda
• 2 tsp. vanilla extract

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 250°F. Line a rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper.
2. If using microwave popcorn, pop the popcorn according to the package instructions. Coat a large mixing bowl with nonstick cooking spray, and dump the popcorn into the bowl, taking care to pick out and discard any unpopped kernels.
3. In a medium saucepan, whisk together the brown sugar, corn syrup, butter, salt, and 2 tablespoons of water. Bring to a simmer over medium-high heat.
   
   
   
4. Continue to simmer, whisking often, until the mixture reads 250°F on a candy thermometer, about 3 to 4 minutes.

5. Immediately remove the pan from the heat, and whisk in the baking soda and vanilla.
6. Quickly pour the hot caramel over the popcorn. Use a rubber spatula to gently fold the caramel into the popcorn, taking care to distribute it as evenly as you can.

7. Transfer the mixture to the prepared baking sheet. Bake for 1 hour, stirring and turning the popcorn with a spatula every 20 minutes. Remove from the oven, and place on a cooling rack for 20 minutes. Gently break up the popcorn, and serve.

8. Store in an airtight container for up to 5 days (or thereabouts).

Halloween Sugar Cookies

It's that time of year! Time for pumpkin recipes, fall soups and chilis, and of course, decorated sugar cookies!  This was my first time using this royal icing technique.  I've seen it everywhere: beautiful cookies with a beautiful matte sheen layer of icing, decorated in every possible color.  I was lazy and only wanted to use one color (ok, two if you count the normal white).  I followed Annie's tutorial on how to flood a cookie with royal icing, but basically, you take normal royal icing, pipe it along the edge of your cookie, then let it sit for about 30 minutes. Then take some of the icing, add a little bit of water to it, until it is thinner and runs off your spoon, and then "flood" the interior of the cookie, using a toothpick to help bring the icing to the edge.

I made these cookies pretty late at night, so I didn't take any pictures of the process :(  But it's really easy to make a cool spiderweb design: before flooding the cookie, take some of the thinner icing and put it into another container.  Color it with black food coloring, and then proceed to flood the cookies with the white icing.  After flooding, while the icing is still wet, put some of the black icing into a pastry bag with a tip attached, and pipe a "target" onto the cookies (as shown in my horrible MS Paint drawing below).

Then take a toothpick and drag lines from the center of the cookie, outwards, pulling the black circles into a spider web!  Let the icing harden overnight, and you will have beautiful spiderweb cookies!

Sugar Cookies
adapted from Annie's Eats

Ingredients:

• 1 cup butter
• 1 cup powdered sugar
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1 ½ tsp vanilla
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 ½ cups flour

Directions:
Cream butter. Add powdered sugar. Blend in egg, vanilla, salt and flour. Chill dough until firm. Roll to ¼” thickness on well-floured surface. Cut with cookie cutters. Place on greased cookie sheets. Bake at 375° for 8-10 min. Cookies should not brown. Frost and decorate when cool. Yields ~24 cookies.

Royal Icing
from Alton Brown

Ingredients

• 3 egg whites
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 4 cups confectioners' sugar

Directions

In large bowl, mix the egg whites and vanilla with an electric mixer until frothy. Add confectioners' sugar gradually and mix on low speed until sugar is incorporated and mixture is shiny. Turn speed up to high and beat until mixture forms stiff, glossy peaks. This should take approximately 5 to 7 minutes.  Color if desired, and transfer to piping bags for use.

-Erin

Orangette's Wedding Cake

On Orangette/Molly Wizenberg: I've been a huge fan due to my old roommate and reading her book just made me a even bigger fan!! Another friend of mine saw her at Gregoire's and emailed her... too bad they didn't become friends, since I would have loved to meet her! I so want to go to DELANCY in seattle!!!

So, after reading A Homemade Life by Orangette's Molly Wizenberg, the first thing I wanted to make was her chocolate cake. Granted it was also her wedding cake and a cake she calls "the winning hearts and minds cake," I had great expectations. The recipe calls for 5 eggs and 1 tablespoon of AP flour something I have never run across with cakes. (I'm a not big cake fan, pie any day over cake, but I was intrigued as I usually am with reading new and different recipes!)

I decided to make this cake for a friend's belated birthday, she had strep and the flu over her birthday weekend and I thought I should add guinea pig to Eunice's attempt at Orangette's cake recipe. 

You are only supposed to use one 8" round cake pan but I was afraid it would puff up too much but then again I wasn't thinking about the ingredients so I put 1/5 of the batter into another cake pan so my sister who kept putting her finger in the batter could try some. BUT remember there wasn't any leavening agents! NOTE: all the pictures are of the cake from extra cake pan (1/5th of the normal size).

The Winning Hearts and Minds Cake
from A Homemade Life by Molly Wizenberg

Ingredients

• 7 oz bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped
• 1 3/4 sticks unsalted butter, cut into 1/2 inch cubes
• 1 C + 2 T granulated sugar
• 5 eggs
• 1 T unbleached AP flour

Directions 

1. Preheat the oven to 375F

2. Butter a 8" round cake pan, line the bottom with a round of parchment paper and butter the paper (this is important in order to have better ease at removing the cake at the end)

3. Put chocolate and butter in a microwavable bowl, microwave on high for 30 sec at a time, stirring until smooth (OR use a double broiler to do the same)

4. When mixture is smooth, add sugar and incorporate well

5. Set batter aside to cool for 5 min

6. Add the eggs one by one, stirring well after each

7. Add flour and stir to mix well (batter should be dark and silky)

8. Pour the batter into the prepared pan, and bake for about 25 minutes (set the timer to 20 min and check cake every 2 min). The top is lightly crackled and edges are puffed and the center only jiggles VERY slightly.

9. Remove the cake and cool for 15 minutes in the pan

10. Carefully turn it out of the pan then flip onto a serving plate so the crackly side faces up

11. Cool completely

END product: a very THIN, but very moist, dense CHOCOLATY cake like a flourless chocolate cake but with a subtle lightness. Molly says to serve some lightly sweetened with whipped cream.

** All the pictures where taken of the cake made from 1/5th the batter so the cake should not be as thin as pictured above **

- Eunice