Pastitsio (Greek Lasagna)

3 onions, finely chopped

2 lbs ground beef or ground turkey

3 oz or 1/2 can tomato paste

1/4 C white or red wine

1 1/2 t salt

1/4 t cinnamon

1 lb Greek macaroni (looks like spaghetti-length ziti!)

4 C shredded cheddar

4 C grated parmesan or romano
4 eggs, divided

3/4 C butter

188 g flour

6 C whole milk

Olive oil

Italian bread crumbs

1/2 t nutmeg

The day before, make meat filling.

Sauté onions and turkey.

Add tomato paste, wine, salt, and cinnamon.

Store overnight.

Boil pasta until al dente.

In a large bowl, combine about 2 1/2 C each cheddar and parmesan.

Mix with pasta and 4 egg whites; set aside.

In a saucepan, melt butter.

Add flour and cook roux for 2 mins.

Whisk in milk, cook until uniform, and turn off heat.

Whisk in remaining cheese.

Whisk in 4 yolks.

Preheat oven to 350.

In a large deep dish lasagne pan, brush with olive oil.

Line with Italian breadcrumbs.

Arrange pasta.

Evenly spread meat over top of pasta.

Evenly spread bechamel over meat.

Sprinkle with nutmeg.

Bake, uncovered, 1 hour or until bechamel begins to brown.

Let cool 1 hour before cutting.

Christina Sutherland

Baguettes

720 g bread flour

2 t salt

1/2 t instant yeast

2 C lukewarm water

nonstick spray

semolina or cornmeal

In a large bowl, weigh out bread flour.

Add salt and yeast; drizzle in water.

Knead just long enough to make a shaggy dough.

Place dough in a lightly greased bowl.

Cover and let rest, folding dough several times within the hour.

Let rest a second hour and fold at the end of the hour.

Cover and refrigerate overnight.

The next day, let dough come to room temp.

Transfer dough to a lightly greased surface.

Shape dough into six 10x8" ovals.

Fold each oval lengthwise and seal the edges with the heel of your hand.

Grease 2 Emile Henry baguette pans and sprinkle with semolina.

Place baguettes, seam side down, into pans.

Cover and let rise 90 mins or until very puffy.

Preheat oven to 450°.

Right before baking, remove lid and slash baguettes.

Spritz baguettes generously with water.

Bake 20 mins, remove lid, and bake 5-10 mins or until golden.

Let baguettes cool on a wire rack.

kingarthurbaking

Peanut Butter Cream Cheese Frosting

8 oz package cream cheese, room temp

12 T butter, room temp

480 g powdered sugar
1/4 t salt
2 t vanilla

260 g (1 C) peanut butter with emulsifiers

Beat together cream cheese and butter.
Add sugar, salt, vanilla, and peanut butter.

Beat on low for 30 seconds and high for 3 mins.

LTK

Note 1:

To make a Hedgehog Cake,

Make chocolate cake, using black cocoa for half the cocoa.

Pour into 4 9" rounds instead of 3.

Wrap individually and freeze.

Thaw completely before assembly.

When assembling, you'll need 3 of 4 rounds.

Carve into the shape of a hedgehog.

Make a double batch of this frosting for all the cake.

Make peanut butter chocolate ganache for all the cake.

Use 2 72% pound plus bars, 2 C cream, and 60 g peanut butter.

Crumb coat, layer, and shape with peanut butter frosting.

Let peanut butter ganache cool completely to room temp before piping.

To get the best quills, pipe onto cold parchment and flash freeze.

Press quills onto hedgehog, filling any holes with hand piping.

Eyes and nose can be chocolate covered peanuts.

Assemble leftover cake, frosting, and ganache for family.

Snickerdoodles

80 g sugar
1 1/2 t cinnamon

375 g flour

2 t cream of tartar
1 t baking soda
1 1/2 t cinnamon
1/2 t salt
1 C butter, room temp
267 g sugar

1 egg

1 yolk
2 t vanilla

Preheat oven to 375 and line two baking sheets.
In a small bowl, combine 80 g sugar and 1 1/2 t cinnamon, and set aside.

Separately, whisk together flour, tartar, soda, cinnamon, and salt.

Cream sugar and butter 2 mins or until fluffy.

Add egg, yolk, and vanilla.

Add dry ingredients just until combined; dough will be thick.
Scoop 2 T scoops and drop into cinnamon sugar.

Arrange on baking sheets; will yield 2 dozen cookies.

With no resting, bake 10 mins.

Lightly press down on them with a spatula to flatten & crack.

Let cool on baking sheet 10 mins.

Store in an airtight container.

sallysbakingaddiction

Alice's Lemon Basil Cookie Sandwiches

780 g flour
2 t baking powder
1 t salt
2 C butter, room temp

4 oz cream cheese, room temp
400 g sugar
2 eggs
1 T vanilla extract
1 t lemon extract

3 T finely chopped fresh basil
2 T lemon zest

44 g warm water

23 g fresh lemon juice
1 1/2 t oil free vanilla extract
26 g meringue powder
450 g powdered sugar, sifted
15 g or 1 T light corn syrup

1 C butter, room temp
540 g powdered sugar, sifted
2 T heavy cream
1/8 salt, finely ground
2 1/2 T lemon juice
1 T lemon zest

Sep 30: Make Cookie Dough
In a large bowl, whisk together flour, powder, and salt.
In a stand mixer, cream butter, cream cheese, and sugar.

Beat in eggs, extracts, basil, and zest.
Incorporate dry ingredients just until combined.
Divide dough into two discs.
Wrap tightly in plastic wrap and let chill at least 4 hours.
Roll dough onto a floured surface to a quarter inch.

Oct 01: Make Royal Icing & Shape Dough
Combine warm water, lemon juice, and vanilla extract.
Weigh meringue powder into stand mixer bowl.
Pour liquid into meringue powder.
Mix on medium low for 1 min, or until homogenous and frothy.
Add sifted sugar and mix until combined, still on medium low.
Turn speed to medium high and whip 3 mins.
Royal icing should be thick and hold stiff peaks.
Stir in corn syrup.

Cover and let rest overnight.

Roll dough to 1/4" in four batches.
Cut and freeze cookies using a 2" biscuit cutter.
Can re-roll leftovers; will yield 120 cookies.
Using a 1 3/4" circle cutter, score the tops of 60 cookies.
Freeze cookie dough overnight.

Oct 02: Bake Cookies & Flood

Once icing has rested, it's easier to remove air bubbles.
Stir about 2 T of royal icing with very little water.
Fit to a piping bag with a PME 1.5 tip.

Separately make a 20-25 second flooding icing.

Distribute into 2 silicone piping bottles.

Let flooding icing rest so bubbles rise to the top.

Arrange 20 frozen cookies per tray.
Bake from frozen at 325° convection bake for 11 mins.

Store unscored baked cookies in airtight container and set aside.

Gather the 60 cooled, scored, cookies.

Pipe borders around/outside scoring.
Store piping royal icing in an airtight container with a damp rag.

Flood bordered cookies, piping in center and scribing outwards.
Fill about 2/3rds the area with twice the height of the finished icing.
Piping in the center prevents border spillage.
More importantly, it raises the middles for "EAT ME."

Pop bubbles with scribe tool as needed and let cure overnight.

Oct 03: Decorate Top Cookies
Stamp and fill in unstamped areas by hand with food color pen.
Fit yesterday's piping royal icing with a nice fat Wilton 2 tip.

Pipe around icing joint.

Drop upside down into a bowl of sparkly sugar.

Using a very small spatula, adjust sparkles if necessary.

Cover loosely; can move on to next day's tasks if there's time.

Oct 04: Make Frosting, Sandwich Together, & Store

Beat butter until creamy.
Add sugar and heavy cream on low speed.
Dissolve salt into lemon juice.
Add lemon juice and zest.
Beat on high for 3 mins.

Generously pipe buttercream onto bottom cookies.

Gently top with decorated cookies.
Let buttercream crust for several hours.
Once stable, wrap tightly with seran wrap and store at room temp.
Allow a couple days for moisture to migrate from frosting into cookies.
(Maturing like macarons, even though sugar cookies are less spongy!)

Meringue Mushrooms

170 g whites, from 5-6 eggs
255 g toasted sugar

1/4 t salt

1/4 t cream of tartar

1 T vanilla extract

4 oz dark chocolate

Adjust oven racks to upper middle and lower middle positions.

Preheat oven to 225°.

Line two baking sheets with parchment.

Fit two large pastry bags with a 1/2" tip and a 1/4" tip.

Fashion a stand mixer bowl into a double boiler.

Combine whites, sugar, salt, and cream of tartar.

Stirring constantly, cook 8-10 mins or until 175°.

With a whisk attachment, whisk 5 mins or until glossy stiff peaks.

Reduce speed to medium low and add vanilla.
Pipe mushroom caps and stems with at least 1/2" space between.

Smoothing with a wet finger will both soften and deform the shape.
This makes them look more like mushrooms :)

Bake 3 hours or until meringues are dry and pull easily from parchment.

They will have turned a light beige.
Turn off heat and cool 4 hours or until room temperature inside oven.

Lightly dust each tray with a high-fat cocoa powder.

Use fingers to rub cocoa powder into caps and stems.

Match caps to stems.

Organize 2 trays filled with sugar.

Temper chocolate and put in a piping bag.

Nestle a mushroom cap into the sugar.

Flatten top of mushroom stem by twisting it into a flat surface.

Glue flattened stem onto cap with tempered chocolate (Wilton tip 5).

Let mushrooms cure upside down.

Mushrooms must be kept at cool room temp in a totally airtight container.

When ready to serve, us a foodsafe paintbrush to knock off excess sugar.

seriouseats

Toasted Sugar

4 lbs sugar

Adjust oven rack to center.

Preheat to 275° fan.

Pour sugar into 9x13 Pyrex.

Toast 1 hour or until sugar turns ivory.

Stir and continue roasting.

Stir every 30 mins to mix sugar and release steam.

Roast 2-5 hours.
Let cool to room temp, stirring occasionally.
Transfer to an airtight container.

Use in any recipe as a substitute for white sugar.

seriouseats

Note:

If the temps are too high, your sugar may start to become caramel.

The recommendation is to pour the toasted sugar off the top.

I think not; I stir it all together and then sift out my toasted sugar.

Then I take my pieces of hardened caramel.

Separately, I food process those into caramel granules.

Two products for the price of one!

Use this instead of sugar on crème brûlée or for any instant caramel.

Caramel granules liquify with heat better than toasted sugar.

Toasted sugar dissolves in water better than caramel granules.

LTK