Lake Lure Cottage Kitchen

Sunday Brunch Part 5 – Charlotte Malakoff and Outrageous Brownies

May 28th, 2009

There are two dessert offerings for this brunch. The first dessert takes advantage of the fresh strawberries that are currently coming out of South Carolina. It also takes me on a trip down memory lane because Charlotte Malakoff was one the first gourmet desserts that I prepared in the 70’s. I bought a special tin charlotte mold and loved the contours of it and the heart shaped handles. Recently while unpacking kitchen boxes after our permanent move to Lake Lure, I unearthed this treasure and decided that charlottes of all description would be in our future.

A Charlotte Malakoff is made with Ladyfingers surrounding a filling of whipped butter, sugar, cream and strawberries. Sometimes the lady fingers are soaked in Kirsch. I chose not to soak them at all in this rendition. Another element in the flavoring is almonds; in this case ground almonds. Charlottes can be flavored with chocolate, pumpkin or peaches or any flavoring that appeals to you. If you do not have a charlotte mold you can use a souffle dish.

CHARLOTTE MALAKOFF

Enough Lady fingers to line the sides of the mold

1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened

1/2 cup sugar

2 ounce package of sliced almonds, ground

1/2 tsp almond extract

2 cups heavy cream, whipped

1 pint of strawberries

Line the bottom of a charlotte mold or souffle dish with waxed paper. Arrange lady fingers in a circle around sides of mold.

Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the ground almonds and almond extract. Gently fold the mixture into whipped cream.

Save 6 nice strawberries for the top. Cut the rest into fourths and fold into whipped cream mixture. Place the mixture into ther mold. Chill for at least 2 hours.

To serve, unmold the charlotte onto a serving dish and remove the wax paper. Decorate with the whole strawberries.

Since this is Barefoot Blogger Thursday, I decided to include Ina’s Outrageous Brownies as part of my brunch menu. Thank you Eva of I’m Boring for choosing this decadent dessert. I have actually made these brownies before so I knew that everyone would be in for a treat with this dish. They are rich, but very easy to prepare and there is nothing better than a little chocolate to round out a satisfying meal. Thank you for following me on the never ending (or so it seemed) brunch party. It was fun for me to put together and I enjoyed having all of you come along.

OUTRAGEOUS BROWNIES ( I halved this recipe )

1 pound unsalted butter

1 pound plus 12 ounces semisweet chocolate chips

6 ounces unsweetened chocolate

6 extra large eggs

3 Tbls instant coffee granules

2 Tbls pure vanilla extract

2 1/4 cups sugar

1 1/4 cups all purpose flour

1 Tbls baking powder

1 tsp salt

3 cups chopped walnuts

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Butter and flour a 12 x 18 x 1 inch baking sheet.

Melt together the butter, 1 pound of chocolate chips, and the unsweetened chocolate in a medium bowl over simmering water. Allow to cool slightly. In a large bowl, stir (do not beat) together the eggs, coffee granules, vanilla, and sugar. Stir the warm chocolate mixture into the egg mixture and allow to cool to room temperature.

In a medium bowl, sift together 1 cup of flour, the baking powder, and salt. Add to the cooled chocolate mixture. Toss the walnuts and 12 ounces of chocolate chips in a medium bowl with 1/4 cup flour, then add them to the chocolate batter. Pour into the baking sheet.

Bake for 20 minutes, then rap the baking sheet against the oven shelf to force the air to escape from between the pan and the brownie dough. Bake for about 15 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean. Do not overbake! Allow to cool thoroughly, refrigerate, and cut into 20 large squares.

Printable recipe – Charlotte Malakoff

Printable recipe – Outrageous Brownies

Sunday Brunch Part 4 – Minted Watermelon and Pineapple Stuffed Celery

May 27th, 2009

This is not a complicated brunch dish but it does offer a new taste sensation and a unique stuffing for celery. One of the blogs I follow is . . . thrice shy written by a high school classmate of mine. Sharon recently wrote about a simple appetizer of watermelon sprinkled with fresh mint and thought the combination was wonderful. It sounded good to me too so I tried the idea for this brunch. It turned out to be a very refreshing addition to some of the richer dishes on the menu and the mint and watermelon are indeed compatible.

An appetizer I have been making for years is Cream Cheese, Pineapple Spread. I usually serve this on crackers, but it is an excellent stuffing for celery. As a matter of fact, I like it better on the celery.

CREAM CHEESE, PINEAPPLE SPREAD

1 cup pecans, chopped
8 ounces cream cheese, softened
1 large can crushed pineapple, well drained
1 Tbls onion chopped
1/2 tsp salt

Mix all ingredients together and serve with crackers or stuff in celery.

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Sunday Brunch Part 3 – Sweet Potato Biscuits

May 23rd, 2009

No self-respecting Southerner would have a brunch without biscuits. They are a part of our culture. And sweet potato biscuits are even better. The usual filling for our biscuits is country ham, but since I have already used proscuitto with the egg dish I chose a lighter filling. I used Italian turkey sausage. The biscuits are served with a Dijon mustard sauce. There are many recipes for sweet potato biscuits but the one I really like is from Orangette’s blog. She adapted it from a Martha Stewart recipe. As an aside, I just finished reading Molly’s wonderful memoir, A Homemade Life. It is a lovely book that will bring tears to your eyes and make you laugh. She is such a talented writer that it is no wonder her blog has garnered so many awards and a devoted following.

What I like about these orange hued biscuits is the flakiness. The picture doesn’t do them justice but there are layers of goodness achieved by keeping the butter bits cold so that they create pockets of air as the biscuits rise. They slice easily and hold together when you eat them. I would say that this is a perfect biscuit recipe.

SWEET POTATO BISCUITS

1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour

2 Tbls light brown sugar

2 1/2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

1/2 tsp baking soda

6 Tbls chilled unsalted butter

3/4 cup chilled sweet potato puree ( I used refrigerated mashed sweet potatoes )

1/3 cup buttermilk

To make the dough:

In a large bowl, whisk together 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour, 2 Tbls light brown sugar, 2 1/2 tsp baking powder, 1 tsp salt and 1/2 tsp baking soda. Witha pastry blender or two knives ( or not too warm fingers ), cut in 6 Tbls chilled unsalted butter, cut into pieces, until mixture resembles coarse meal, with some pea-size lumps of butter remaining. In a small bowl whisk together 3/4 cup chilled sweet potato puree and 1/3 cup buttermilk; stir quickly into flour mixture until combined ( do not overmix ).

To shape the biscuits:

Turn out dough onto a lightly floured surface, and knead very gently until dough comes together but is still slightly lumpy, five or six times ( If dough is too sticky, work in up to 1/4 cup additional flour ). Shape into a disk, and pat to an even 1-inch thickness. Witha floured 2-inch biscuit cutter, cut out biscuits as close together as possible. Gather together scraps, and repeat to cut out more biscuits ( do not reuse scraps more than once ).

Baking the Biscuits:

Preheat oven to 425 degrees, with rack on lower shelf. Butter or spray an 8-inch cake pan. Arrange biscuits snugly in pan. Brush with 1/2 Tbls melted butter. Bake until golden, rotating once, 20 to 24 minutes. Yield: 8 Biscuits.

Form turkey sausage into patties small enough for the 2 inch biscuits and saute until done. Biscuits and sausage can be made ahead of time and warmed and assembled when ready to serve. Serve with mustard sauce of your choice.

Coming next: Fruit and Veggies and then Dessert.

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Sunday Brunch Part 2 – Proscuitto Egg Cups

May 22nd, 2009

Bacon and eggs are such an expected and loved breakfast entree. There are so many ways to serve them and I considered frittatas and stratas and even flirted with the idea of a savory clafouti. But in the end I chose this proscuitto egg cup dish. I saw it in Sarah Foster’s latest book Sara Foster’s Casual Cooking. I talked about Sara Foster here. This is just the kind of breakfast offering she would choose for Foster’s Market. For people on the run in the morning it makes a nice hands on kind of treat. But you can eat it with a fork if you serve it at brunch. The cups are in no way delicate and if you wanted to, you could serve them on a tiered cake stand. They have the advantage of being pretty to look at and easy to prepare. You can double the recipe for a crowd and you can assemble them ahead of time and pop them in the oven right before your brunch. Sara says that they are good warm or at room temperature. I liked mine fairly fresh from the oven.

PROSCUITTO EGG CUPS
6 paper thin slices of proscuitto
6 large eggs
1 cup shredded baby spinach
1 ounce cheddar cheese shredded, about 1/4 cup
12 grape tomatoes, halved
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 6 cup muffin tin. Line each cup with one slice of proscuitto, overlapping as you go. Break one egg in each cup. Top with shredded spinach, shredded cheese and as many halved tomatoes as will fit. I used 3 halves per cup. Bake for 15 to 18 minutes. The whites of the eggs should be set and the yolks should be just a little runny. Let rest in the muffin tin for a few minutes. Run a sharp knife around the outside of the muffin cups and ( I found ) using an off set spatula lift the egg cups out to a serving platter.

Recipe can easily be doubled. As a disclaimer, I did not have Sarah’s recipe in front of me, but this is as I remember it and the results were delicious.

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Sunday Brunch Part 1 – Corn Cakes

May 20th, 2009

Last Summer, after months of renovating our Lake Lure cottage, we hosted a brunch for friends and the people who helped us with all of our improvements. These people had also become our friends. You can’t spend every day with people without coming to know them and feeling an attachment to their lives. We wanted to do something to thank them for all of their hard work and a late morning brunch seemed like a fun and relaxing way to accomplish this. I enjoyed doing it so much that I decided that inviting friends to brunch should become a regular occasion and I have come up with a menu and a plan that will make it easy for anyone to host a Sunday brunch without a lot of last minute preparation. I hope you will follow along with me.

My first offering is corn cakes. This is something a little different than the expected pancakes and they have the advantage of tasting fresh even after reheating, so you can cook them the day before your brunch and then rewarm them in the oven right before serving. You can eat them slathered with syrup and cut with a fork or pick them up and eat them like corn muffins. I enjoyed making these because I got to use the griddle pan on my stove for the first time.

I adapted this recipe from Gourmet and it is so versatile that you can add anything that appeals to you. I fixed the basic recipe but you can add sauteed green peppers, onions, jalapenos, chives or jack cheese. You can serve the cakes with maple syrup or honey butter.

CORN CAKES

1 cup cornmeal
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon salt
2 Tablespoons snipped chives
1 large egg, beaten
1 cup buttermilk plus additional to thin batter if neccesary
2 Tablespoons unsalted butter, melted, plus additional for brushing the griddle
1 cup fresh or frozen corn, cooked, drained, and patted dry

In a bowl whisk together the cornmeal, the baking soda, the salt and the chives. Add the egg, 1 cup of the buttermilk, and 2 tablespoons of the butter and whisk the batter until it is smooth. Stir in the corn and let the batter stand for 10 minutes. The batter should be the consistency of thick pancake batter; if it is too thick, thin it with the additional buttermilk. Heat a griddle over moderate heat until it is hot, brush it lightly with some of the additional butter, and drop the batter by heaping tablespoons onto the griddle. Cook the cakes for 1 minute, or until the undersides are golden, turn them, and cook them for 1 minute more, or until the undersides are golden. Transfer the cakes to a heated platter and make more cakes with the remaining batter in the same manner, brushing the griddle lightly with some of the additional butter before cooking each batch. The cakes may be made 1 day in advance and kept covered and chilled. Reheat the cakes in a baking dish, covered tightly with foil, in a preheated 350 degree oven for 15 minutes. Makes about 16 corn cakes.

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