Yummy Cornbread

Well, it's been about a month since I last posted. Clearly, either I am totally lazy, or just a bit busy. Let's go with busy. It sounds better don't you think?

I'm still tinkering with the recipe for the Awesome Cake, but I think I'm really close. It's hard to try to make all these baked goods and keep my "girlish figure." (She says with tongue firmly in cheek.)

Today's recipe is for some excellent cornbread. The original recipe is copyright protected, but I will refer all you low-landers to Rosemarie Emro's book Bakin' Without Eggs. It's a terrific cookbook for people with food allergies- lots of great recipes.  Unfortunately, so far, they don't work at high altitude.

I know my mother won't approve of this particular recipe, because she likes her cornbread without any sugar in it. All I can say is, "Mom, at high altitude, it needs something to help it rise, or it will be more like a very thick tortilla chip." I did cut down on the sweetener from the original recipe and I don't think it tastes very sweet. The original recipe also called for more baking soda and less flour, but it just couldn't hold its own against the lack of air pressure.

So here's my adaptation for Easy Cornbread.

1     c cornmeal

1½ c flour

¼   c sugar

1    T baking powder

¼    t baking soda

½    t salt

1¼  c milk

2    T white vinegar

½   c vegetable oil

Pre-heat oven to 375°. Lightly grease an 8" x 8" square pan.

In a large bowl, combine all the ingredients. Stir with a wooden spoon until just mixed.

Pour out into prepared pan and bake for about 25 minutes or until golden brown. Let it cool a bit, then cut it up and eat it with butter!

 

Lauren's Luscious Pink Lemonade Cupcakes

All the credit for this recipe goes to Lauren. She did all the experimentation and figured everything out. All I did was adapt it for high altitude. These are some YUMMY cupcakes. They are sweet and tart and delicious and SUPER EASY.

Here's her original recipe and the EggFreeAtAltitude© adaptation all in one spot:

Mix 1½ cups carbonated lemonade (a 12 oz. can) with on boxed white cake mix. The lemonade MUST be carbonated for this to work. (High altitude adjustment: add ¼ cup flour)

Add one small pouch of Kool-Ade Unsweetened Pink Lemonade drink powder.

Add 1 tsp vanilla.

Beat with hand mixer on low speed for about 2 minutes.

Fill 18 cupcakes and bake according to box. Both Lauren and I had to bake these a little longer than suggested to get them lightly brown around the edges.

Let the cupcakes cool completely.

Mix half of a pouch of Kool-Ade Unsweetened Pink Lemonade drink powder into a can of vanilla frosting. 

Frost. Eat. Yum.

Throw away the remaining half pouch of drink mix, because only crazy hoarders keep little bits of cheap drink mix. ( Do you think Lauren was trying to tell me something???)

Not Totally Forgotten

No, I haven't totally forgotten to keep up with this blog. It's just been a very busy month. The casita is now done and we have moved all of our casita stuff out there. The process of moving uncovered boxes of stuff for the kitchen that I had forgotten about. I found the ice cream machine and the electric juicer. The electric can opener got broken sometime between the time it was packed last June and now. Since I paid about $12 for it years and years ago, I wasn't too broken up about tossing it.

I have been working on perfecting my favorite cornbread recipe lately. It is close, but not quite perfect yet. One more batch ought to do it. When I get it just right, you'll be the first to know. Until then, vaya con queso.

Molasses Cookies- YUMMMMMM Both Egg and Dairy Free

These Molasses Cookies turned out to be an easy win. The same old recipe that I got from my mother and have been using for probably going on 40 years works just great at high altitude! The only substitution I make to the original recipe is Ener-G in place of the egg. 

 Molasses Cookies

¾ cup shortening (melted and cooled)

1 cup of sugar

¼ cup of molasses

1 egg or Ener-G egg replacer mixed to 

      equal 1 egg

2 cups flour

2 tsp baking soda

½ tsp cloves

½ tsp ground ginger

1 tsp cinnamon

½ tsp salt

Melt and cool shortening.  Mixing all ingredients by hand, add sugar, molasses, and egg substitute (or egg).  Stir in remaining ingredients. Chill. Roll into balls and then roll in sugar.

Bake at 375° for about 8 minutes.

Yield: about 3 dozen

Three Tries at Banana Bread

After trying so hard for the last week to get a decent loaf of Banana Bread, I think I may have finally hit on the right combination of ingredients. I first made the Banana Bread as I always do. It fell. Tasted great. Not too pretty, but I wouldn't have been ashamed to serve it.

I made a second attempt and it looked a lot like the first try, but the third time was the charm. I changed a lot of things and it came out really pretty.

Here's the original recipe. This is an old family recipe that came from my mother:

2 c flour
1 t baking soda 
½ t salt
1 c sugar 
½ c butter
2 eggs
1 cup mashed bananas (about 3 medium) 
½ c chopped nuts (optional)

Bake at 350° for about an hour or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. This recipe works well by just substituting Ener-G Egg Replacer prepared as directed on the package for the eggs. I generally don't include the nuts.

This is the Eggless at Altitude©  Recipe:
2 c + 2 T flour
¼ t baking soda 
½ t salt
1 c - 2 T sugar
½ c butter
Ener-G Egg Replacer prepared to equal 2 eggs
1¼ c mashed bananas (about 3 medium)
2 T sour cream
½ c chopped nuts (optional)

Blend butter, sugar, bananas, and sour cream. Add dry ingredients and mix well. Add the egg replacer last. Pour into greased and floured loaf pan. Bake at 350° in the lower third of a preheated oven for about an hour and 15 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

*5/12/11 Breaking News: After sampling this loaf this morning, I think that it could definitely be improved by the addition of nuts, or maybe craisins, or something chunky. The texture is more cake like and it is very pale in color.

Both of these recipes can be made dairy-free by using shortening and substituting a dairy free sour cream. I have not tried them with soy margarine.

First Success

As I write this, I am scavenging the dropped cookie crumbs from the computer keyboard and Marco is sniffing around my feet hoping for some crumbs to land on the floor.

After an afternoon trip to Las Cosas to stock up on shiny new bakeware and an oven thermometer, there is finally a plate of Vanishing Oatmeal Raisin bar cookies cooling on the kitchen island.

I made a few minor adjustments to the recipe:
1. The original recipe recommended increasing the amount of flour for high altitude.
2. Of course, I used Ener-G egg subtitute for the 2 eggs.
3. The oven temperature was a little hot, so I cut back the baking time. Anyone know how to calibrate an all digital oven with a touch-pad?   Perhaps I should read the manual. Ha! Like that's going to happen!
4. And lastly, I substituted Craisins for the raisins. (Raisins are evil and an abomination to all things baked. But don't let me influence your opinion of the vile, shriveled things.)

As soon as they came out of the oven, I cut the cookies  into bars and promptly ate two big ones!

One minor success and I am inspired to try something else tomorrow.

Curses! Foiled Again!

Well, I managed to get most (some) of my chores for today accomplished, and feeling so inspired and just generally good about myself, I decided to make cookies. How hard should that be? I had all the ingredients to make Vanishing Oatmeal Raisin cookies (the recipe under the lid of the Quaker Oats box.) Found the mixer. I'm sure the beaters are here some place. Located the mixing bowl. Preheated the oven. All is good. There must be a cookie sheet here somewhere.  Nope. None.  "Aha!" says I. "Bar cookies it is!"  Now, where did I put that 13" x 9" pan?  None to be found anywhere. I even looked in the garage. There's LOTS of boxes out there still. No luck. Drat. No cookie sheet. No cake pan. No cookies.

Now to scour the internet for the closest local cooking store.

It's at least a good excuse to buy shiny new bake-ware.

Just getting started...

Well, we are just about settled in our new home outside of Santa Fe. The boxes are mostly unpacked now and we are starting on a whole new adventure in a place that we have always dreamed of living in. During our thirty-three years together, we have lived in Dallas, Boston, Austin, and now Santa Fe. People told me that living in Santa Fe would be very different from anywhere else. In fact, Santa Fe's motto is "A City Different." So far, the differences are fun and exciting. People are very friendly and the weather is gorgeous. The desert landscape is beautiful and I'm just really glad not to have to have a yard that needs to be mowed or even really watered. There are a lot more birds around than I thought there would be- and so many are blue!  As an amateur birder, I'm looking forward to adding a few new sightings to my life list.

The night before last, I decided to try to make cornbread from my favorite egg-free cookbook. I had been told that cooking at high altitude was difficult and that baking was especially fussy. Well, with a bold leap, I just dived right in. People have said that you should add a little extra flour for stabilization, so I increased the flour from 1/4 cup to 1/3 cup. The result was that the cornbread still fell a little, but not unpleasantly so. It still tasted pretty good. I didn't think to take a picture of it- I wasn't really thinking about starting a blog at that point. That was my son Chris' idea. As usual, he has some pretty good ideas. He also came up with the title of the blog.

I've bought some local cookbooks and I have my favorite recipes from sea-level land. So I'm ready to jump in with both feet and try to figure this whole egg-free at altitude thing out! 

Stay tuned for the next baking experiment.