November 26, 2024

Basbousa

Posted by HI Cookery under 11 November | Tags: , , , |
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Basbousa (Semolina Cake)

November 26: National Cake Day

It was a dream come true to travel to Egypt for Islander’s 50th birthday a couple of years before the pandemic shut the world down. We stayed at a nice hotel in Cairo and cruised on a small ship along the Nile River. At both places there were buffets featuring the best Egyptian, Middle Eastern and Mediterranean foods. Basbousa, a syrupy semolina cake, was always on the dessert menu.

Back in Texas, we celebrated her real birthday at an Egyptian restaurant. We ordered basbousa for dessert and put a little candle on it as a remembrance of Islander’s milestone birthday trip. For National Cake Day, she made basbousa to share with her food club friends while also sharing memories and photos of the land where this sweet and simple cake originated.

Recipe
(Adapted from Food.com)

For the semolina cake

  • 1 stick (½ cup) butter, softened (plus extra to grease baking dish)
  • 1 cup sugar, granulated white
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 ½ teaspoons vanilla
  • 2 cups semolina flour
  • 1 tablespoon baking powder
  • 1 tablespoon baking soda
  • 1 cup milk

For the syrup topping

  • 2 ¼ cups sugar
  • 1 ½ cups water
  • 1 lemon, juiced
  • 1 teaspoon honey
  • 1 teaspoon orange blossom water (optional)

Directions

In a mixing bowl, cream the butter and sugar. Beat in eggs. Stir in the vanilla. In another bowl, combine the dry ingredients (semolina, baking powder and baking soda). 

Gradually add to the egg mixture. Stir in milk and mix until smooth. Pour batter into a greased baking dish (10×10 inches or 9×13 inches). Bake in a preheated oven at 350 degrees F for 30 minutes or until golden brown.

While the cake is baking, make the syrup. Combine the sugar and water in a saucepan and stir to dissolve. Add the lemon juice then bring to a boil. Stir in honey and orange blossom water (if using) and reduce the heat. Boil for 8-10 minutes. Remove from the stovetop and cool slightly. When the cake is done baking, remove from the oven. Pour the syrup all over the hot cake until the syrup is absorbed. Cool for 20-30 minutes. Cut and serve.

Notes

  • Islander served for five years as president of her local cake club. Two years didn’t really count as members did not meet in person during the pandemic. Although they tried to Zoom, it just wasn’t the same as we could not taste each other’s cakes. However, sharing recipes and socializing online kept everyone’s spirits up!
  • Other basbousa are decorated with almond or pistachio pieces and cut into diamond shapes. We kept ours simply square.
  • Search our blog for other cake recipes.
 

November 5, 2024

Election 2024 Cookies

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Election 2024 Cookies

November 5: Election Day 2024

Oh, here we go with the election craziness again! The United States sadly seems divided if we watch the candidates’ antics. We pray for a positive outcome for the sake of our citizens. We stay neutral on endorsements on this blog (besides, Highlander is a Canadian and cannot vote here). While people can agree to disagree and try to be civil about the election results, we turn to a sweet distraction: cookies! 

Although the Presidential Cookie Poll by the now defunct Family Circle magazine has ended, our friends (whether Democrats, Republicans and independent or Americans and non-Americans) still look forward to participating in our little home baked cookie contest since 2008. Other professional bakeries (such as Alessi, Busken, Lochel’s and Three Brothers) across the nation have their own competitions. 

When we lived on the mainland, we baked election-themed treats for Islander’s brother’s prayer group. This year in Hawaii, we found new guinea pigs voters at her mom’s liturgy council meeting. In the past, we baked cookies from recipes submitted by the prospective First Spouses. If no recipes were available, we searched online for cookies associated with the candidates.

This year, we featured monster cookies for the Democratic nominee Vice President Kamala Harris and “three-peated” the sour cream star cookies for the Republican nominee former President Donald Trump. 

Harris’ cookies are very similar to former Republican nominee Mitt Romney’s wife Ann’s recipe that she submitted to Family Circle back in 2012. Harris admitted she never tried monster cookies before she made them with a campaign volunteer. But now this recipe is featured on a card from The Presidential Culinary Museum and Presidential Service Center in North Carolina and is called “Kamala’s Monster Cookies”. We could have chosen to make lemon bars, like in the children’s book, “Kamala Harris” by Nikki Grimes. But this recipe shows Harris on YouTube making the cookies.

The sour cream star cookies recipe makes its third appearance on our blog in an historical first. These cookies are actually from Donald Trump’s wife Melania who ate them during her childhood in Slovenia (formerly Yugoslavia); many Eastern European cookie recipes feature sour cream in them and treats there are less sweet than American cookie recipes. These cookies may be frosted and decorated but we followed the information that was provided in Family Circle.

In this volatile election environment, bring people together for a fun food activity and bake monster oatmeal and sour cream star cookies. God bless America!

Recipe

(Adapted from YouTube)

For Harris’ Monster Cookies

Ingredients

  • 1 stick (½ cup) unsalted butter, softened
  • 1 cup white sugar
  • 1 cup brown sugar
  • 3 eggs
  • 1 tablespoon vanilla
  • 1 ½ cups peanut butter (see Notes)
  • 4 ½ cups oatmeal
  • 2 teaspoons baking soda
  • ½ cup nuts, chopped (see Notes)
  • ½ cup chocolate chips
  • 2 cups M&M chocolate candies (see Notes)

Directions

In a large mixing bowl, cream the butter with the white and brown sugar. Beat in the eggs. Stir in the vanilla.

Beat in the peanut butter. Stir in the oatmeal, baking soda and nuts.

Fold in the chocolate chips, then the M&Ms. Mix well. Scoop into a baking tray lined with parchment paper. Bake in a preheated oven at 350 degrees for 15-20 minutes, adjusting the time based on your oven temperature. Remove from the oven and cool completely. Cookies will be soft and chewy. Store in airtight container until ready to serve.

For Trump’s Star Cookies

(Please see our 2016 blog post for the recipe.)

Notes

  • See our election day cookie posts for 2012, 2016 and 2020. We started making cookies for 2008, too, but did not start blogging until 2010.
  • We used creamy peanut butter. Chunky peanut butter may be used. Natural peanut butter will yield different results.
  • We used peanuts instead of other nuts to enhance the peanut butter taste.
  • We could not find red, white and blue M&Ms this time. So we bought regular mix M&Ms and individually picked out the red and blue ones from the other colors. We had to divide the dough in two before mixing in the separated M&Ms. The final food photo shows the Harris cookie with red and blue M&Ms.

 

October 31, 2024

Pumpkin Soup

Posted by HI Cookery under 10 October | Tags: , , |
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Pumpkin Soup

October 31: Halloween

Halloween night is always a busy time. But we always want to have something festive to make and eat for dinner before taking the “kids” (Islander’s senior citizen parents) out for trick-or-treating a look around our neighborhood where the homes go all out with decorations.

This pumpkin soup is easy to make and, when served with buns or bread, can be a quick and simple meal to feed our little family for the fun night around the neighborhood. It is a healthy choice and not a heavy dinner to weigh us down while walking and enjoying the sights. The ingredients are full of fall flavors: apples, warming spices and, of course, pumpkin!

And inspired by the houses we see, we add an EXTRA decoration to our soup—instead of a dollop of sour “scream”, we drizzle concentric circles on top and use a toothpick to pull out a spider web design.

Serve up some spooky spiced pumpkin soup for a simple Halloween meal.

Recipe

(Adapted from Two Peas and Their Pod)

Ingredients

  • 2 tablespoons oil
  • 1 small onion, chopped
  • 1 apple, peeled, cored, seeded and chopped
  • 1-2 teaspoons minced garlic
  • 1 bay leaf
  • 1 can (29 ounces) pumpkin puree
  • Salt and pepper to taste
  • ½ teaspoon ground nutmeg
  • ½ teaspoon paprika
  • 1/8 ground cloves
  • ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • 4 cups vegetable broth
  • 2 tablespoons pure maple syrup
  • ½ cup heavy cream
  • Sour cream, optional garnish

Directions

Heat oil in a large pot over medium high heat. Saute the onions and apples for around 5 minutes or until softened. Add the minced garlic and continue sauteing until fragrant. Add the bay leaf.

Pour in the pumpkin puree. Season with salt and pepper. Add the spices (nutmeg, paprika, cloves and cinnamon). Stir in the vegetable broth. 

Mix and lower heat to simmer for 10 minutes. Discard the bay leaf. Transfer to a blender (or use an immersion blender) and blend until liquefied. Pour soup back into the pot. Stir in the heavy cream and maple syrup.

Ladle into bowls and serve hot. For the optional spider web decoration, fill a piping bag with sour cream and draw concentric circles on the soup. Use a toothpick to pull outward designs. Garnish with a toy spider (remove before eating). Store cooled soup in containers.

Notes

  • Thanks to our friend Karen B. who gave us the Two Peas and Their Pod cookbook. Culinary and cake club members often referred to Islander and Karen as two peas in a pod because they played/worked so well together in their pods (kitchens).
  • Heavy cream may be substituted for coconut milk in this recipe.
  • If not decorating with a sour cream spider web design, sprinkle toasted pumpkin seeds on the soup.
  • Try another spiced pumpkin soup recipe that we made for National Pumpkin Day on October 26.
  • Search our blog for more Halloween recipes.
 

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