Bacon Jam Shortbread

A trip to Seattle always stirs up memories of living, working, and eating there. Mmmmm. Eating there...

Sometimes, at about 11:25 on a Thursday, I'd get an email from Adam containing just a single, magical word. Skillet. Not a question, not a command, an affirmation. At the sight of that word my stomach would begin to growl in anticipation, scarcely able to wait the agonizing half hour until I could bolt out of the office, speed down the hill to Fremont, and join Adam and a crowd of similarly jonesing Seattleites in the line for Skillet Street Food. Skillet hasn't yet parked their gleaming airstream trailer on the streets of Berkeley, and we haven't yet found a local hamburger to rival their mouthwatering combination of grass-fed beef, arugula, cambozola, brioche, and bacon jam. Luckily, we can open up a jar of Bacon Jam anytime we're craving a taste of home.

Bacon Jam is potent stuff. The aroma alone is enough to tempt vegetarians back to the dark side. Packed with Niman Ranch bacon,  onions, and a sweet zing of balsamic vinegar, Bacon Jam is usually the loudest taste on your plate. I wondered how it would do in a more understated role as an ingredient.

My Bacon Jam Shortbread is an elaboration on my basic Savory Shortbread recipe. The essential ingredients are the same: 1/4 cup of grated parmesan, 1 1/2 teaspoons of kosher salt, 1 3/4 cups of flour, and 2 sticks of cubed unsalted butter. I rounded out the recipe with flavors that wouldn't take no nonsense from bossy Bacon Jam.

This shortbread is the condensed version of the ultimate sandwich. A teaspoon each of onion powder, caraway seed, and black pepper with a tablespoon or so of chopped fresh dill replicates the taste of rye bread. Every sandwich needs a slice of cheese, so I used 1/4 cup of finely diced swiss. If you're a mustard fan, why not add a teaspoon of mustard seed? And, of course, you'll need 2 tablespoons of Bacon Jam.

The amount of butter in this recipe is variable due to the oil in the jam, so watch your dough carefully as you're mixing. From there, proceed with my Savory Shortbread directions: roll, chill, chop, bake at 350º for about 15 minutes. Are you wondering why I have no cutely styled final product picture? They didn't last that long.

Kitchen Chemistry: Savory Shortbread

Happy Friday, readers! Here's my easy (and tasty) recipe for Parmesan Thyme Shortbread to try out this weekend...

Enjoy! See you on Monday...

(Amateur) Kitchen Chemistry: Peach Crumble

Because the internet failed me yesterday, I've got two posts in queue today! This one's about dessert, but I'll be posting a real treat this afternoon... Happy Friday!

Adam's not the only one who plays mad scientist in our kitchen/laboratory. I've been conducting research of my own and making important advancements in the field of baking.

I'll have you know I suffered goggle lines for the sake of this corny picture!

When I bake with strawberries or apples I use the bruised, overripe, mealy, or otherwise homely fruit that doesn't make the cut for raw snacking. However, an icky peach makes an ickier pie (and don't even get me started on canned peaches). One of the perks of living in California is the abundance of gorgeous organic peaches. After last week's trip to the farmer's market I found myself with more ripe fruit than I could eat- so I decided to stage a peach crumble experiment.

The texture of a fresh peach is just as lovely as the flavor, so it's a terrible waste to reduce it to jam in the oven. My solution was to halve each peach, placing one half in the center of the dish and filling the gaps with slices of the remainder. I then poured in a mixture of sugar, flour, and a few drops of lemonade- just enough to coat all of the fruit and pool a bit at the bottom. The resulting filling was just like a bite out of a sun-baked peach. Success!

I used pyrex lab glass for my observation, but standard ramekins will work nicely.

Half of any good fruit crumble is the crumble, so I tested several formulas. The Classic Crumble featured an oatmeal cookie topping similar to the one that I used on my Strawberry Rhubarb Pie- substituting even more cinnamon for the ginger and lemon. The Honey & Ginger variation had a light and spicy topping consisting of flour, honey, sugar, baking powder, and plenty of crystalized and powdered ginger.  The Oatmeal & Maple crisp was my Eureka! moment. The topping is merely a packet of Quaker instant maple & brown sugar oatmeal!

Of course, my favorite part of any baking trial is the taste test (it was all very scientific, I assure you). My findings? The Honey & Ginger was innovative and the Classic Crumble yielded an impressive amount of "yum" per bite... but the Oatmeal & Maple crisp is a Nobel Prize contender.

Birthday Bits

Hello Friends! I took the day off yesterday to celebrate (and/or mourn) my 25th birthday. It wasn't an incredibly special day, as special days go, but I did have a "Happy Birthday, myself" cupcake and Adam took me out for a first-rate hamburger at Gather. 

My family sent me a package of goodies for me to unwrap. Lavender earl grey tea, a pretty shirt, and kitchen gadgetry like this shiny new set of measuring cups and spoons- just the thing for all of my baking adventures!

My Mom always picks the right gifts for me. Just look at this guy...

Seriously, just look at this guy! Isn't he perfection? Thanks, Mom!

Elizabeth's Sunnier Outlook Pie

Adam's Mom recently gifted us with several stalks of home-grown rhubarb. I was skeptical. My earlier impressions of rhubarb were, well... sour. And just look at the stuff! You know that rude phrase "beaten with the ugly stick?" Rhubarb could very well BE that stick. It's rough, tough, offensively red, and basically looks like celery gone to the dark side. Pretty much the last thing I'd grab to throw in a pie.

But, I did, and here's how I did it.

The filling is about as simple as can be: strawberries and rhubarb (at a 1:1 ratio and roughly chopped so they won't just liquify), 1/2 a cup of sugar, a few tablespoons of flour, a pinch of salt, and the juice of a particularly rotund lemon.

The topping is like a spicy oatmeal cookie: a stick of melted butter, a cup of flour, 1/2 cup of Stone Buhr 4 Grain Cereal Mates (as an aside: I did NOT buy this cereal. I don't even know how it got in my cupboard. I only eat cereal that gives me sugar-related heart palpitations.), 3 tablespoons of sugar, 3 tablespoons of brown sugar, a drizzle of molasses, a generous pinch each of nutmeg and ground ginger, an obscene amount of cinnamon, a sprinkling of diced crystalized ginger, and the zest of the above-mentioned lemon.

Baked for 45 minutes at 375º, until the pie dish could barely contain all the goodness within.

Garnished with lemon slices and festive lemon zest confetti.

Served on vibrant red glass plates.

My not-so-humble opinion? It's brilliant. I've never eaten a pie so delicious. It has none of the nasty bite that I'd associated with rhubarb. It's tart, to be sure, but the addition of the lemon creates a multi-tonal sour flavor that seems to sparkle across the palate. It tastes uncannily like strawberry lemonade! As for the crumble topping... it's light but satisfyingly crunchy (thanks to that weird healthy cereal), and the array of spices play well with the sweet-tart fruits.

A wholesome, happy pie.

Adam gives the pie 8 stars, and I (very modestly) say 9- because this pie will change your mind about rhubarb.