basil sugar

Good morning world! It's Monday in Washington, DC, humid to the point that my house windows are fogged, and just hot enough to make the morning commute deplorable.

I'm trying to cling to the few moments and memories of a weekend that was beyond glorious. I went blackberry and blueberry picking in Maryland on Saturday, and despite heat and humidity it simply was one of the best things I've done in a good long while. Few things in life compare to the taste of a fresh warm blackberry, so juicy and ripe it practically falls off the vine and into your hand.

For years I've heard people extol blueberry picking, but after this weekend I think they're silly. Picking a blueberry was nice, fun, and occasionally rewarding, but the blackberries were bliss. A treasure hunt to find the very best, and a heart wrenching debate between putting the berries in the bucket or just eating them right there.

We spent our afternoon lounging in the warm shade pond-side, eating berries, ice cream, peach licorice whips, drinking root beer and trying to create a life plan that let us live in both the country and the city, to somehow get to pick sun-ripened blackberries before going to a museum gala. If only the end of the red line metro was a berry picking farm...and I owned it.

Coming back from berry picking, I wasn't ready to give up on the country life just yet. I went into the yard and perused my garden, finding a baby pumpkin, harvesting handfuls of thyme and rosemary for freezing, picking a zucchini and only just then I realized that my basil forest was out of control. To some degree I have the farm life in DC. I have an amazing and lovely garden that I'm very pleased with....it just doesn't have blackberries. Somewhere out there, one (or one thousand) of you are calling me a brat, and completely jealous (cough: Natalie)   and........yeah, you're right. I am a lucky person...I'll stop now before the threatening emails begin.

So with my basil bounty I had to do something. I already have a year supply of basil pesto ice cubes, so, I'm getting creative! Not sure just how to use the basil sugar yet, but oh I will and it will be lovely!

Basil Sugar

1 tablespoon basil pulp*
1 cup sugar

Preheat oven to 200.

In a stand mixer, on a medium speed combine sugar and basil pulp. From here you can get creative. Using molds, ice cube trays or forming sugar cubes. You can also simply spread the sugar over the baking sheet to create regular granular sugar. Bake for at least 15 minutes. Allow to cool completely and store in an airtight container.**

*to make basil pulp either use a food processor or mortar and pestle to grind handfuls of basil until the one tablespoon is reached. If there is excess juice, include the juice in the sugar mixture along with the pulp. 

**I store my basil sugar in the freezer, just in case. 

Apple Upside-Down Cake

Warm apple cider cinnamon sugar caramelized apple slices adorn the upside-down top of a light and airy vanilla cake. 

It was a very very busy weekend around my house this weekend. Nonstop action. I woke up and went straight to work with party prep for my third annual argyle party. All of Saturday was spent in the kitchen, or the grocery store (with a car that was finally dug out of the snow!).  Now, last Saturday waking up and baking a cake didn't go so well. My judgement making an apple butter cinnamon coffee cake was not at it's best. This weekend I avenged myself and made some better choices.....such as waking up completely before sticking a cake in the oven. Funny how much that can help the baking process!!! 

So this was my first experiment baking with my apple cider sugar. Complete success. I love the extra X factor that using a flavored sugar adds to an upside down cake. Instead of a basic buttery sugar goodness, this was complex. It tasted of caramelized buttery apple cider on top of the average goodness. The slight hint of cinnamon was the perfect addition. I don't think I can go back to making upside down cakes with....well....BORING sugar again. I'm over it. Sugar shouldn't just be sugar. Sugar can be so much more! And it will be. From now on. No more boring sugar. New edict. Decision made. Have I mentioned how much I am loving condiment year? Best theme year yet. 

Apple Cider Sugar Upside-Down Cake

1/3 cup unsalted butter

1 tablespoon butter melted and cooled

1 cup apple cider sugar

1/2 cup vanilla sugar

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1 granny smith apple

3 eggs

1 cup all purpose four

1 tsp. baking powder

1/4 tsp. kosher salt

Preheat oven to 350. Put the 1/3 cup butter in a 9 or 10 inch round cake pan** with a minimum three inch side. Place in the oven to melt for about 5 minutes. Add the apple cider sugar. Stir into melted butter and bake for another 5 minutes. Thinly slice the apple. Arrange apple slices on top of the butter apple cider sugar mixture. 

Separate the eggs, putting the white into a stand mixer bowl on a medium speed and the yolks into a small bowl. Whisk the melted butter into the egg yolks. In another bowl sift together the dry ingredients. Set aside. 

Beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form. Fold in the remaining sugars into the egg whites, then fold in the egg yolk mixture, and finally fold in the flour mixture gradually. Pour batter over the apple slices to cover evenly. 

Bake until a toothpick inserted comes out clean, roughly 40 minutes. Let stand for at least 10 minutes before running a knife around the edges to loosen the cake and invert onto a serving plate. 

Serve warm, cut into wedges.

**Do not use a springform pan! The butter will run out the sides and be a horrid mess. To make a 9x13 cake double the apples, butter and apple cider sugar, and then make one and a half times the cake batter.

Apple Cider Sugar

A fantastic finishing sugar for fall and winter desserts, this sugar has all the taste of apple cider, and a hint of cinnamon to add a little something extra to a dish. 

What a week! Still far too snowy for my taste. It's really interrupting my to do list. Not that I mind it putting off work, but if it interferes with my "Movies for the Cinematographically Deprived" night I'm going to be sad. My friends have started a weekly movie night....inspired by my general lack of movie knowledge. No, I have not seen Big Trouble in Little China, or Labrynth, or Caddyshack, or Top Gun, or .........anything really. I have a great lack of cinematographical education. We're clearing that up. Week by week I will have a much better knowledge of delightful 80s movies that everyone should see for some reason that they aren't really sure off. I made it. Luckily for me, I have friends with four wheel drive, snow tires, chains, etc., but still I'm not sure I can take another night in. 

But there are things I am sure of, that I am sick of snow, and not being able to get in my car and head out. Not that it isn't fun to try to cook with just what's in my house, but it's a little old after two days. Now, the apple cider sugar may not be the best thing to eat during a snow storm for health reason, but it does have a nice warm and cozy snuggle up in a blanket feeling that is absolutely perfect for being home on a snowy night. 

Can be used for:

• Apple Upside-Down Cake

Apple Cider Sugar

1/4 cup apple cider
½ tsp. cinnamon
1 cup sugar

Preheat oven to 200.

In a small pan over medium heat, simmer apple cider. Cook down until the mixture measure one tablespoon.

In a stand mixer, on a medium speed add sugar, cinnamon and a few drops of the apple cider reduction at a time. From here you can get creative. Using molds, ice cube trays or, as I did, shape into a rectangular disk about a fourth of an inch thick and place on a cookie sheet, cutting into cubes and gently spreading out to about two inches apart. Bake for at least 15 minutes. Allow to cool completely and store in an airtight container. 

Sugar can be used as cubes or crushed and used in replacement of granular sugar. 

Ginger Macarons with Orange Sugar Buttercream

My first stop for baking with my orange sugar simply had to be buttercream frosting to pair with ginger macarons.

 Baking with a new ingredient is always so much fun. Lately I've been in a macaron making mood. Ever since Christmas and making macarons with my mother I've been wanting to make more and keep perfecting this process.

It seems like every time I post a macaron recipe I get a lot of comments on the post about being scared to make a macaron! Let me clear this up: making a macaron is NOT hard. It's actually relatively simple, and takes very little hands on time! Can you whip egg whites until they have soft peaks? Can you sift and fold? Can you pour out a tester teaspoon to see if the batter will flatten slightly? Yes? Then you're going to be just fine!

If it makes you feel any better, the vast majority of the macarons I see sold around DC aren't done perfectly either. Their batter is undermixed. How can I tell? The lumpy tops are a dead give away. The batter never flattened properly. I have made that mistake myself. If you look at my chinese five spice macarons you can see that they are actually just slightly under-mixed. Is it a learning process? Sure! But so was cake right? Or making caramel? or Toffee?

Want me to talk you into it? Shoot me an email! Trust me, you'll be just fine! .....well.....one weird rule: if it's humid, don't bother. At least that's what I hear. I've just always followed that rule. One of these days I'll be a rebel and make macarons during a horrible rain storm.

Now as for using my orange sugar to make a buttercream, this took a bit of pondering. I had to put forth some effort to grind my sugar into powdered sugar. It took longer than I wanted it to. I'm not the most patient of people. Quality time with my food processor is not really what I look for in a Tuesday night. I succeeded. The orange sugar will in fact, after a while, turn into a powdered sugar that can be used in buttercream! So happy!

Hope you enjoy this little recipe, and more importantly I hope that if macarons scare you, you'll face the fear. They are a wonderful cookie!

Ginger Macarons

100 g. egg whites

25 g. white sugar

200 g. powdered sugar

110 g. ground almond meal

1 tsp. ground ginger
dried orange zest (optional)

Line two baking sheets with parchment paper. 

In a stand mixer, fitted with the whisk attachment, whip the egg whites into a foam, gradually adding the sugar. Continue to beat into a meringue. 

Sift together powdered sugar, ginger, and almond meal to remove any clumps. Gently sift into meringue gradually folding in, usually as few strokes as possible. Test a teaspoon of batter by pouring onto a plate. If it flatten slightly, you’re ready. If it remains stiff, give it a few more strokes. Err on the side of under-mixed.

Moving quickly fill a disposable pastry bag with the macaron batter with a 3/4 inch wide cut end. Pipe small rounds one inch in diameter and one inch apart, onto the baking sheets. Allow to rest for half an hour. Sprinkle the tops with dried orange zest.

Preheat the oven to 300. 

Bake for 15-20 minutes. My experience is that if the macarons are hard to remove from the paper, they need more time to bake. Allow to cool on the pan and then remove. Store in an airtight container in the refrigerator until ready to fill. 

Orange Sugar Buttercream 

1/2 cup butter
1/2 tsp. vanilla
1 cup confectioner’s sugar

1 cup powdered orange sugar (pulse sugar cubes in a food processor)

Whip with a paddle attachment: butter, and vanilla until creamy then whip in the sugars.

Orange Sugar

Orange flavored sugar is wonderful accompaniment to a cup of tea or way to perk up a favorite recipe. Orange sugar cubes would be a simple but impressive addition to high tea, or bottled gift for a tea lover. 

For a while now I've been wanting to make flavored sugars (it counts as a condiment for tea right?) and this weekend I finally had all of half an hour to try it out, in between the farmers markets and a glass blowing class (yes, I went to a glass blowing class and it was SO fun). I tried to do some reading on how to make flavored sugars and it turns out....there really isn't any. Okay, there is, but it can be summed up in a few words "add zest to sugar and let it sit for a few weeks." I actually did that a few weeks ago, and was not incredibly impressed by the results. Sure, the sugar had a little hint of orange...but it just wasn't enough. So, I had a little epiphany. You have to make sugar cubes by adding liquid so why not use orange juice!

To make regular sugar cubes you add a tablespoon of liquid to a cup of sugar and mix it so it feels like wet sand, shape it, and bake at 200 degrees to dry them out. The principle was so simple! So I tried it out using orange juice instead of water. I added some zest for kicks and giggles. The cubes were lovely, but didn't really have the zing I was looking for. It was time for round two: why not use an orange juice reduction? Et voila!

I'm already in LOVE with adding this orange sugar to my pomegranate tea, and all this week I'm going to be using it to bake into recipes! So excited to experiment with my newest ingredient!

Cheers!

Can be used for:

• orange clove snickerdoodles
• orange sugar buttercream

Orange Sugar

1/4 cup orange juice
1 tsp. dried orange peel or 1 tblsp. fresh orange zest
1 cup sugar

Preheat oven to 200.

In a small pan over medium heat, simmer orange juice and zest. Cook down until the mixture measure one tablespoon.

In a stand mixer, on a medium speed add sugar and a few drops of the orange juice reduction at a time. From here you can get creative. Using molds, ice cube trays or, as I did, shape into a rectangular disk about a fourth of an inch thick and place on a  cookie sheet, cutting into cubes and gently spreading out to about two inches apart. Bake for at least 15 minutes.** Allow to cool completely and store in an airtight container.

**I GENTLY flipped my sugar cubes after about 13 minutes so that the bottom of the cube was exposed and able to dry more completely, but I did loose a few sugar cubes in this manner. Be very gentle!

Disclaimer: My understanding through learning to can, is that 200 degree cooking kills bacteria and that sugar is a preserver in any event. So long as the cubes are thoroughly dried out I can't foresee the cubes going bad. Sugar and dehydrated orange juice seems like it should have a healthy shelf life. I'm keeping a few cubes in my cupboard to see if anything goes amiss with them. I'll update this post when I have a conclusion. If you're leery store the cubes in the freezer. :)