Gingerbread for a drizzly Portland Friday

I was a bit of a whirlwind in the kitchen this weekend, and a lot of great stuff came out as a result.

First off, I am sure you may be anxiously wondering what I did with my Alma’s caramel sauce.  As suggested by a reader, I first sampled it warmed up with fresh Concorde pear slices which was quite good and simple.

Thinking about ginger + caramel + pears, which is one of my favorite dessert combos, I decided to make gingerbread which seemed fitting for the drizzly Portland Friday that faced me.

I recently got this book from the library:

Picture of book courtesy of delish.com

If you are an NPR fan, you may be familiar with Lynn Rossetto Kasper’s Sunday night cooking/food show, The Splendid Table.  It’s also available as a podcast for your bus-riding pleasure!

So far, I am really enjoying this book.  It has some great simple recipes, with a focus on weeknight cooking, so most of the recipes are not too fussy & require only a handful of ingredients.  It’s also the kind of cookbook that’s perfect for just curling up in a chair and reading – if you’re a cookbook fan, you’ll understand what I mean.  I also like how frequently they will have a recipe, then a variation or two on the same idea.  I’m going to give a few more recipes a spin, but this may be a contender for adding to my shelf.

I have already made a chowder from it – using a great suggestion from the book to add both smoked & fresh salmon.  I decided to next try the “Dark and Moist Gingerbread” and furthermore, the variation called “Apple Chunk Double Gingerbread” as I had both some apples and candied ginger clunking around in the kitchen.

It was fantastic – just what I like in a gingerbread – dark and smoky and moist.  Perfect with tea, and even better with a little of that previously mentioned caramel sauce & a few Bartlett pear slices to scoop up the extra sauce bits.

Molasses meets the egg

Gooey gingerbread and caramel sauce, with pear wedges

Dark and Moist Gingerbread – from The Splendid Table’s How to Eat Supper

2 cups minus 2 Tbsp flour

1 generous tsp baking soda

generous 1/2 tsp salt

1 Tbsp ground ginger

3/4 tsp ground cinnamon

1/4 tsp ground cloves

1/4 tsp ground black pepper

6 Tbsp unsalted butter, melted

3/4 cup mild or dark molasses (I used Aunt Patty’s Blackstrap – from Fred Meyer’s natural foods section)

3/4 cup very hot water (190 F – I just boiled water in my tea kettle & let it rest a few minutes while mixing the other stuff)

1/3 cup dark brown sugar, tightly packed (I used light ’cause that’s what Trader Joe’s sold me!)

1 large egg

Variation for apple chunk – double ginger: 2 Tbsp finely chopped candied ginger & 1 apple, peeled/cored/cut into small chunks (the book suggested Granny Smith, but I used a mystery apple from the produce drawer)

Preheat your oven to 350.  Butter & flour an 8-inch square light-colored metal baking pan.  (To flour: dump some flour in your tin and then shake around over a sink, tapping it so that the flour just barely coats the sides & bottom).

In a medium bowl, whisk together dry ingredients (flour, baking soda, salt) and all spices.  Add apples & ginger, if using, at this point.

In a large bowl, beat together butter, molasses, hot water, and brown sugar till somewhat frothy.  Add egg and beat well, then gradually add the flour mix.  Stir till just mixed in.

Pour into prepared pan, and bake for 35 minutes or till a tester in the middle comes out clean.  Mine was a still a little gooey, but I decided to go with it, as the edges were done and pulling away.  It set up well, and I kinda like my baked goods a little soft in the middle.

Cool on a wire rack, but be sure to eat some while still warm!  It gets even better in a day or two if it lasts, as the flavor just deepens.  Great with caramel sauce, if you got it, pears, and/or fresh whipped cream.  Or just plain with hot tea.

Read Full Post »

Alma Chocolate has won me over…

In early December, a piece in the Oregonian’s A & E section about places in Portland serving fancy hot chocolate drinks caught my eye.  It named a few places I was familiar with already such as Cacao (great chocolate drinks & addictive 50 cent salted caramels by their register – hello, storefront by the Heathman!) and Pix Patisserie.  I noted one I had to yet to try – Alma Chocolate – located in one of my favorite neighborhoods I’ve lived in Portland along the restaurant row of NE 28th and Burnside.   Mmm… fancy hot chocolate on a gray Portland winter day, yes please!

I had the luck to enter a drawing while waiting for my drink, and the even better luck to actually win!  I was quite shocked to get a message on my cell phone one Sunday in January summoning me to pick up my prize bag, with the instructions that today was best to claim my prize, as something about “fresh cookies being baked.”

Needless to say, we fit that into our errands for the day and arrived at Alma at the same time as the other drawing winner.   We went through swift negotiations that would impress the U.N. as we determined that I would take the “salty/smoky” bag and she would take the “spicy” bag.  Okay, there wasn’t much to negotiate over – either way, we were going home with a bag of loot, chocolate loot.

Contents of my bag from Alma Chocolate

I was quite stunned actually at my winnings and mumbling something that hopefully sounded like “thanks” as I high-tailed it out of there, before they could decide they’d made a mistake.  Once safely in the car, I delved into my findings and felt giddy like a contestant on the Price is Right.  I had about a 1/2 dozen fresh cookies (one of each kind offered that day), 3 packages of various chocolate barks, a small bag of tea, and a jar of Alma’s housemade caramel sauce, all with a salty or smoky tea theme.

My share of the Alma cookies

Once home, cookies were sampled with our afternoon tea.  It gets a little fuzzy here as let’s be honest, we basically gobbled them up, but let’s just say they were good!  In particular, I believe it was a salted peanut butter chunk one that made me especially pleased.  The size of the cookies was just right – I split each with my fellow and still had a good taste of each.  They weren’t over-sized either – which means you can easily try a few at a time, an option I always like as I like to try everything!

Over the next few weeks, I rationed out my prize, nibbling little chunks of the various bars:

*Salted Nutty Toffee Mini Bar – a small candy bar of dark chocolate speckled on top with crunchy chunks of nuts & toffee & sea salt

*Pistachio Toffee – a layer of thin dark chocolate sandwiched onto crunchy toffee thick with pistachios

*Salted Peanut Milk Chocolate Bark – my favorite of all three – the chocolate in this one had a slight peanut buttery taste, like a really excellent Reese’s Peanut Butter cup

So I’m trying to be critical here, but I really found little fault in any of the items.  To me, there are few combos more divine than chocolate + salt. This bag of treats has only made me more excited to return and sample more of their items, especially their truffles.  Some of their goods like the chocolate icons gilded in 23k edible gold leaf are amazing to look at, and they also do fun seasonal shapes like owls or Day of the Dead skeletons.

As an added bonus, my Chinook book (I keep mentioning this book, as it’s got some awesome deals at local businesses) has a coupon for a free truffle with purchase of a drink.  Uh, twist my arm?

I have two items left in my bag o’goodies – a small baggie of bulk lapsang souchong tea and lapsang souchong caramel sauce.  The sauce’s first ingredient is cream, followed by sweeteners and butter — I think this will be to my liking!

The only dilemma is what to serve it on, besides spooning it straight of the jar.  Vanilla ice cream seems obvious, but I am also think it might be nice drizzled over some roasted pears or a simple cake of some sort.  Ideas, anyone?

I’ll share in my next post a surprising use for the lapsang souchong tea.

Essential Details:

Alma Chocolate

140 NE 28th Ave

Portland, OR 97232

www.almachocolate.com

There is an online store if you don’t live in PDX, but if you are one of the lucky ones, current hours of their shop are Mon-Sat 10am-6pm, Sun 11am-4pm

Read Full Post »