Sunday, May 18, 2014

Intersession Week Of Cooking 1: Root Beer & Jam

Every year around December my school does a thing called "Intersession" Which is basically when students get to pick their classes of a list of available classes. Well a couple weeks ago, the juniors had to do testing and the seniors were in Santa Cruz for their senior class trip. The school decided to have a second intersession for the freshman and sophomores. I opted out of the testing, and did intersession instead. We made a variety of things, Pickles, pickled carrots, jam, yogurt, cookies, chips, bread, butter, and root beer. So, I'm going to talk about what we did and share the experience! (I'm going to do this in a few separate posts)

Day 1:
We started out making root beer, smelling the many things that go into it. Though not a lot of people could handle the taste of it, making it was very interesting, and it was fun to watch everyone's faces who tried it!
Root Beer Ingredients:

  •  1/4 cup sassafras root bark
  • 1/4 cup winter green leaf
  • 2 tablespoons sarsaparilla root
  • 1 tablespoon ginger root
  • 1 tablespoon dandelion root
  • 1 tablespoon hops flowers (4-5 cones)
  • 1 tablespoon birch bark
  • 1 tablespoon wild cherry tree bark
  • 1 teaspoon juniper berries
  • 1 cinnamon stick or 1 tablespoon crushed bark
  • 2 cups unrefined cane sugar, white or brown, 
  • 1 cup ginger bug, or fresh whey, or 1 packet keifir starter culture
  • Strainer bag
Root Beer Directions:
As you bring 4 1/2 quarts of water to a boil, measure the herbs into a strainer bag, then plop it into the hot water. Stir it a bit, making sure the bag is pressed down and wetted thoroughly. Reduce the heat low and simmer the bag for 20 minutes, stirring and pressing often. The room smelled really good after we had it brewing for a few minutes, with the herbal teabag.

Turn off the heat and remove the bag. Let it drain back into the pot by placing it on a drying rack set on top of the pot. s it cools a bit, press the teabag until little or no liquid remains. Stir sugar into the hot infusion and allow liquid to cool until blood temperature, or a little warmer.

Stir in the ginger bug or fresh whey and pour into individual bottles, leaving in 1-inch head space in each bottle. Allow root beer to ferment 3-4 days at room temperature, then transfer to refrigerator for an additional 2 days. When ready to serve, open the bottles slowly to release pressure. The ginger bug/whey/keifir help give the root bee a mild carbonation. 

This root beer DOES NOT taste like commercial root beer, no A&W or Muggs root beer. It is a healthy, natural root beer with a very earthy taste. 

After the root beer was brewing, we started making our jam. The jam turned out very well. It is a very low sugar jam so you cannot make this to sell it. Jams have to have a certain level of sugar to be deemed sellable.

Jam Ingredients:
  • 4 quarts mixed berries (blackberries, blueberries, raspberries) We used raspberries, blackberries, strawberries.
  • 4 tart apples, peeled, cored, and chopped 
  • 1 cup honey, more if your berries are tart
  • 2/3 cup sugar
  • 1/2 package pectin
  • Clean and serialized, jars, lids, and rings 
Jam Directions:
Put cleaned, stemmed berries into a large heavy-bottomed sauce pan. Pare and chop apples in food processor into applesauce, incorporating sugar, honey, and pectin. Cook over medium heat. Bring slowly to a boil and boil gently for at least 30 minutes or until it looks like jam and tastes like jam. Ours took about 45 minutes.


Take a bit out on a spoon and put it on a cold plate. If the juices are watery looking then keep cooking! Cook until when you put a little on a plate it has a more syrupy consistency. Let the dab cool a bit. It should set up a little. It doesn't have to look extremely thick. If there is a lot of foam, skim it off with a spoon. Turn off the heat and ladle the jam into the jars.

Fill them up within 1/2-inch of the top, add lids and screw down the lids. Put them in a canner for a 5-minute process and they are done! Let them cool, and tighten the lids. Within an hour they will seal with a pop!



My Experience:
After day one was over I just couldn't wait for the rest of the week. Everything was already so exciting to make. I haven't made a lot of the stuff we did so I was excited to try new things. The jam was excellent, and even though the root beer had a funny taste, it was still exciting to learn about all of the ingredients that went into it, and be able to learn how good each one is for the body. Overall day 1 was a success! I will be doing the next couple days that went into this week in different posts! 

Enjoy!xx












Wednesday, May 14, 2014

Lemon Lavender Cupcakes with Lavender Glaze

I made these to sell in a talent show I preformed in. The frosting is supposed to be for lavender butter cream frosting, but mine turned into glaze.
Ingredients:
For the cakes:
  • 1/2 cup whole milk
  • 1 tablespoon dried edible lavender
  • 1 1/3 cups (158 g) cake flour
  • 1 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 1/2 cup butter, softened
  • 1/2 cup + 2 Tablespoons granulated sugar
  • 3 Tablespoon honey
  • 2 large eggs
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 1/2 lemon (juice)
  • 1 teaspoon lemon zest
For the frosting:
  • 1 cup milk
  • 3 tablespoons culinary lavender
  • 1/2 cup butter, softened
  • 5 or so cups of powdered sugar
Directions:
For the cakes:
Gather ingredients.
Preheat oven to 350F


In a food processor combine milk, lemon juice and lavender and pulse about 1 - 1 1/2 minutes until lavender is well chopped. Scraping down the inside of the food processor once during processing. Pour into liquid measuring cup (be sure to scrape out all of milk and lavender from sides and lid), set aside and allow to rest.


In a mixing bowl whisk together cake flour, baking powder and salt for 30 seconds, set aside. In the bowl of an electric stand mixer fitted with paddle attachment, whip butter and sugar on medium speed until pale and fluffy, about 4 minutes, occasionally scraping down sides of bowl. Blend in honey. Add eggs one at a time and mix just until combined after each addition. Stir in vanilla. Working in 3 separate batches beginning and ending with flour mixture, add dry ingredients alternating with milk mixture, mixing just until combined after each addition.

Fill paper lined muffin cups 2/3 full.


Bake in preheated oven 19 - 21 minutes, until toothpick inserted into center comes out clean. Allow to cool several minutes in muffin tin before transferring to a wire rack to cool. Cool completely then frost with Lavender Glaze. Store in an airtight container.



For the frosting:
Place the 3 tablespoon of lavender in a coffee filter. Using kitchen twine or un-dyed cotton yarn, turn the coffee filter into a lavender “tea bag.”
Pour milk into a small sauce pan and put the lavender in the milk. Place over low heat and slowly bring to a simmer.


Just as the milk begins to bubble, remove from heat and let seep for 10-15 minutes. Squeeze excess milk from the lavender. Let cool completely before using.
Beat butter and 2 tablespoons of the milk together. Beat in a hearty pinch of salt (just under 1/8 of a teaspoon).Add 2.5 cups of powdered sugar and beat until well incorporated.Begin alternating between additions of more sugar (about a half cup at a time) and adding more milk (a couple of teaspoons at a time, at the most). Taste test frequently, if you find that you have hit just the right amount of lavender flavor but need more liquid, move to regular place frosting in a Tupperware container and chill in fridge for at least a 30 minutes before spreading on cupcakes. Chill about 45 minutes if piping on cupcakes. If piping frosting on to the cupcakes, do not completely fill the piping bag, otherwise you will need to frequently re-chill the frosting to keep it from getting runny. Instead fill it halfway and refill frequently. Also, keep an eye on how thick the frosting is becoming.

My Experience:
This was one of my favourite recipes to make. It turned out really well, and everyone that tried them seemed to enjoy them. I ran out of powdered sugar halfway through so I ended up having to make my own, which was a new experience for me as well. I have never baked or cooked with lavender before, but I think that I will defiantly try out more lavender recipes.
Enjoy!xx