Tag: baking

Posted on by — Leave a comment

Christmas Cookies With a Twist

By Laura Johnson Andrews

Deb Mehrer demonstrated her family’s ammonia cookie tradition at a gathering of the Germans from Russia Society in Kaylor.

Don’t eat the cookie dough if Deb Mehrer of Scotland is running the mixer. It’s not due to any health scare, like salmonella from raw eggs or E. coli in the flour. What you want to watch out for is her secret ingredient. Before it’s baked, dough made with baker’s ammonia, also known as hartshorn or ammonium carbonate, is guaranteed to leave a bad taste in your mouth.

Ammonia may seem like a rather toxic cookie addition, but the unusual ingredient has been used in Germany and Scandinavia for centuries. Once made from deer antlers, ammonium carbonate acted as a leavener in the days before baking powder and baking soda. The white powder, which is a close relative to the smelling salts used to revive fainting ladies, has a nostril-piercing aroma that bakes off in the oven, creating cookies that can be thin and crispy or soft, thick and cakey, but leaving no unpleasant cleaning fluid aftertaste.

Ammonia cookies are a beloved tradition in Mehrer’s family — one that she recreated last June for a meeting of the SoDak Stamm chapter of the Germans from Russia Heritage Society in Kaylor. The aroma generated by the baking cookies was very familiar to the livestock farmers in the audience.”When you get that smell in the chicken barn you clean it out,” joked Eugene Weidenbach of Lesterville, as he watched Mehrer prepare her dough. Another audience member recommended moving pet birds out of the house before baking a batch, as the ammonia fumes might kill them.

But the end result is much more appetizing than that first hot blast of ammonia gas escaping from the open oven door might indicate. Not overly sweet, the thick, pale, frosting-coated cookies are so soft that they won’t hold up to a good coffee dunking.”It’s almost a little cakelike,” Mehrer says.

A nurse at the Scotland Medical Clinic, her love of her culinary heritage started young — she’s been baking since she was 10 years old. Though her mother, Betty Faller, gave Mehrer a handwritten cookbook containing the recipe for ammonia cookies, she had to experiment a little in order to recreate that childhood taste.”It was missing some key instructions, like how much flour, at what temperature and how long you bake them. I remembered the taste of them, so I had to try it out for myself,” Mehrer says.

Mehrer’s family celebrates their Germans from Russia heritage at their annual holiday feast, which they dubbed German Fest. The menu is a mouthwatering assortment of German-Russian dishes. Kuchen, sausage from the Blue Bird Locker in Delmont and German potato salad are always served.”My sister-in-law is 100 percent Dutch and makes the hot potato salad — not bad for a Dutch girl,” Mehrer says. Butterscotch pan dumplings are another favorite, prepared in a cast iron pan by her 83-year-old aunt, Rosemary Laib of Armour. Fleisch kuechle, deep-fried pockets of dough-covered meat, knoephfla soup, cheese buttons and spaetzle have also made appearances on the German Fest table. German flags, Oktoberfest napkins and German beer add to the festive atmosphere.

“We wanted to celebrate the foods my mom used to make for us growing up,” Mehrer says.”The first bite takes you back to your childhood.”

Ammonia Cookies


Recipe by Betty Faller

1 teaspoon baker’s ammonia

1 cup milk

2 cups sugar

1 cup shortening or lard

4 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla

3+ cups of flour — enough to
stiffen the dough

Soak baking ammonia in milk for 10-15 minutes. Cream shortening or lard and sugar together. Mix in milk, eggs and vanilla. Add three cups of flour, then add more flour, 1/2 cup at a time, until the dough stiffens but is still somewhat sticky. Use your hands if you have to. Place dough in the refrigerator to rest — at least overnight, but four or five days is even better.

Preheat oven to 360 degrees. On a floured surface, roll dough out to between 1/4 and 1/2 inch thick and cut with a flour-dipped cookie cutter, glass or a tin can without the lid. Place on an ungreased cookie sheet and bake about 6 to 8 minutes, until lightly browned on bottom but still pale on top.

Let cookies rest on the cookie sheet for 3-5 minutes, then remove to a baking rack. When cool, frost with white frosting and decorate with sprinkles, if desired. These cookies are better if you wait a couple of days before eating. Store in a sealable plastic container or freeze. Makes approximately six dozen.

Note: Baker’s ammonia probably can’t be found in your local grocery store’s baking section. Check with your local pharmacy, a specialty food store or order online. Because baker’s ammonia evaporates with prolonged exposure to air, store it in a tightly sealed container.

Editor’s Note: This story is revised from the November/December 2016 issue of South Dakota Magazine. To order a copy or to subscribe, call (800) 456-5117.

Posted on by — Leave a comment

The Buzz from Prairie Moon Farm

By Laura Johnson Andrews

The Freemans of Prairie Moon Farm include (from left) Harry, Willa, Elena, Grace and Harrison (not pictured).

Grace Freeman might be one of the calmest people we’ve ever met. Nothing seems to faze the Clay County beekeeper. When a mouse jumps out of the brome at her, she doesn’t blink. If she’s posing for a picture with a chicken and the bird leaves a deposit on her shirt, it doesn’t erase the friendly smile from her face. Put her next to a hive with thousands of stinging insects, and she’s happy as can be.

A Cincinnati native, Freeman fell in love with beekeeping in 1985 through a work-study job with an entomologist at the University of Montana.”We would go and collect bees and study them to see if they had picked up pollutants,” she says. When she and her husband, Harry, moved to Madison, Wisconsin for grad school, Freeman worked for a large-scale beekeeper, managing up to 1,000 colonies. After Harry took a job in the psychology department of the University of South Dakota, the couple settled in a farmhouse on Frog Creek Road, where they have lived for 21 years with their children, Elena, Willa and Harrison.

The Freemans’ home, Prairie Moon Farm, is a back-to-the-lander’s Eden. Chickens and guinea fowl roam freely, a trio of penned-up rescue llamas provide manure to fertilize her garden and scare away deer, and a friendly dog named Saige welcomes visitors. There’s a shed full of kayaks for paddles on the Missouri, a greenhouse and a small but fragrant structure where Freeman creates tinctures and blends herbs for teas she sells at the Vermillion Farmers’ Market.

Freeman’s hives are in a little glade a short walk away from the buildings, past a pond and a stand of honeysuckle bushes. She puts on her veiled beekeeper’s hat and sets the smoker filled with smoldering brown paper scraps and wood chips on the ground. The smoke fools the bees into letting their guard down, making it less likely they will sting.”They think there’s a fire and they have to travel,” Freeman says.”They fill up on honey, and get so full that their stinger goes down.”

When working with bees, Freeman recommends wearing white or light-colored clothes.”Bees get angry if you wear dark colors,” she says.”It reminds them of bears.” And be sure to tuck in your clothes.”You don’t want them crawling in your shirt,” she tells us. Some beekeepers wear a protective suit and gloves, but after decades of working with bees, Freeman has developed a more casual style — a long-sleeved white shirt over a tank top and shorts.

Freeman uses Langstroth hives, which consist of a stack of wooden boxes, each of which contains hanging wooden frames upon which the bees build their comb, raise young and store honey. The supers, shallower boxes at the top of the hive, will hold harvestable honey. The queen, the brood and the colony’s food storage all go in the deeper, lower boxes. A metal rack called a queen excluder separates the two portions of the hive. The rack’s slats are big enough to allow worker bees to pass between sections, but keep the larger queen down in the brood cells where she belongs. After all, no one wants bee eggs mixed in with their honey.

Freeman inspects a frame from one of the hive’s supers. She harvests honey in late summer.

The hive’s lid is stuck on tightly with propolis, a gluey yellowish-brown substance that bees make from tree resins and beeswax. Freeman uses a mini crowbar called a hive tool to break through the glue and help manipulate frames as she checks on the bees and their activities.

The queen is the only female in the hive that mates and lays the fertilized eggs that develop into worker bees, so Freeman looks for fresh eggs to make sure the queen bee is doing her job.”Eggs change every day,” she says.”If you can see the one-day-old eggs, then you know you have a viable queen. Even if it’s a two-day-old egg, something could’ve happened to her.”

Bee society is fascinatingly complex and overwhelmingly female. The only males are the drones. They have no stingers and do no gathering — their only job is to be available to mate with a virgin queen bee. After mating, they die. The worker bees, all female, cycle through a series of roles — foraging, building, housekeeping, childcare, attending the queen, guarding the hive. There are even mortuary bees, who haul the colony’s dead away from the hive. With so much to do, it’s no surprise that the life of a worker bee is short. During the busy spring and summer seasons, they might live a brief four to six weeks.

Under most conditions, bees manage themselves, but there are critical points during the year when a beekeeper should pay attention. In spring, Freeman helps the bees get ready for the season, making sure that they have food to last them until the flowers really start blooming and that there’s plenty of space to make new honey. In June, when the clover blooms, she watches for signs of swarming.”If you haven’t provided them with enough room, then they’ll divide,” she says. The bees will create a second queen and fly off in search of a new hive, leaving the old queen with a few guards for protection. A divided colony means less honey, so Freeman destroys any potential new queen cells she spots.

Once the fear of swarming is over, Freeman’s bee work slows down a bit. When the bees fill up the existing frames, she adds supers. Honey is harvested in August.”Then they have time in the fall to put on enough winter weight so you don’t have to feed them so much sugar water,” Freeman says. After that, it’s time to winterize the hive.

Winter and early spring are tricky times for beekeepers. Freeman lost one of her two colonies last spring due to uncertain weather.”I can get them through until March and then the temperature warms up and they start moving more — they get excited,” she says.”Moisture builds up, the temperature drops and they freeze. I have really been trying to figure out how to ventilate and still keep them warm enough.”

In a good year, Freeman harvests 50 to 100 pounds of honey per hive, selling it at the Vermillion Farmers’ Market along with garden plants, culinary and medicinal herbs, teas, tinctures, salves and lip balm made from her own beeswax. When she’s not gardening, marketing or beekeeping, she works as a registered nurse. How does she juggle it all?”Oh, I’m not very good at it,” Freeman says.”We’re always busy. My summers are just nuts.”

But no matter how crazy life gets, the bustle of the hive serves as an oasis. Bee stings hold no fear, and the sounds of the hive have a calming, meditative effect.”For me, it’s very relaxing to have that noise going all around you, all the bees flying,” she says.”It’s very loud, but you’re focusing so hard on looking for those eggs that you don’t even hear them, and it gets very peaceful.”

Meloamak·rona (Honey-dipped Cookies)

Honey is a major component of Greek cooking. Freeman’s husband, Harry, who is half-Greek, makes baklava and meloamak·rona, or honey-dipped cookies, using recipes found in a community cookbook from his mother’s hometown, Seattle.

Cookies

1 cup butter, softened

1 cup salad oil

6 tablespoons sugar

1/2 cup plus 1 tablespoon fresh
orange juice (divided)

Grated peel of one orange

2 eggs

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

3 teaspoons baking powder

6 to 6 1/2 cups sifted flour

Nut Topping

1/2 cup very finely chopped nuts

1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

1/8 teaspoon nutmeg

1/8 teaspoon cloves

Honey Syrup

2 cups honey

1/2 cup water

In large bowl of electric mixer, beat butter until light and fluffy. Add oil slowly and continue beating for 10 minutes. Gradually add sugar, 1/2 cup orange juice and peel. Add eggs, one at a time, and beat an additional 5 minutes.

Combine 1 tablespoon orange juice and baking soda; add to butter-oil mixture. Add baking powder and enough flour to make a soft dough. Remove beaters; knead slightly to make a dough that does not stick to hands, adding more flour if necessary.

Roll a heaping teaspoonful of dough into an oval-shaped cookie, tapering the ends slightly. Press the melomak·rona lengthwise with fork tines to make indentations to hold the nut topping. Bake at 375 degrees for 20-25 minutes. Remove cookies from baking sheet and cool on wire racks.

Mix ingredients for nut topping and set aside.

When cookies have cooled, bring honey and water to a boil. Dip melomak·rona into honey syrup, being certain to thoroughly soak the cookies. Sprinkle tops with nut topping.

From Greek Cooking in an American Kitchen (Makes about 5 dozen)

Editor’s Note: This story is revised from the September/October 2018 issue of South Dakota Magazine. To order a copy or to subscribe, call (800) 456-5117.

Posted on by — Leave a comment

Luck of the Irish Soda Bread

By Fran Hill

Happy St. Patrick’s Day! Are you celebrating the wearing of the green today? While Hubs and I aren’t really the green beer type, this day for the luck of the Irish is probably one of our favorites. Why? Of course, it’s the food.

Ten days ago, I brought a mix of fragrant spices and salts to a boil and added ice water to create a brine bath for a big chunk of trimmed brisket. After soaking for several days, that brined beef is slowly simmered with onions, carrots and celery until fork tender. Homemade corned beef really is so very delicious and something that we look forward to every March … especially the leftovers for Reuben sandwiches.

On the side with that corned beef, we always have buttered and steamed cabbage (much better than boiled, in my opinion), my version of Colcannon made with garlicky mashed potatoes and whipped with wilted spinach instead of cabbage or kale, and usually a mustardy cream gravy to top it all. Often, I also bake a moist and rich Chocolate Guinness Cake that is layered with Bailey’s Buttercream to end the meal. Our St. Patrick’s Day feast is a rival to all food holidays.

Back before I really began exploring cooking from scratch, I would have pulled the box of baking mix from the pantry to stir up a pan of Quick Irish Soda Bread. These days, it only takes a couple extra steps to create an equally simple loaf from scratch that has a tender crumb and golden-brown crust. Slices of this warm soda bread beg to be slathered with salted butter and served alongside everything from our favorite corned beef dinner to rich Irish lamb stews and even as a sub for biscuits with our favorite sausage gravy.

May your day be touched by Irish luck and a lot of good food.

Enjoy Irish Soda Bread topped with salted butter or alongside your traditional corned beef and cabbage St. Patrick’s Day dinner.

Cast Iron Irish Soda Bread

(adapted from Cooking Channel)

4 cups flour, plus more for dusting

3 tablespoons sugar

2 teaspoons baking soda

1 1/2 teaspoons cream of tartar

1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt

1/2 cup currants

1 egg

1 1/2 cups buttermilk

1/4 cup unsalted butter, melted, plus more for greasing pan

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Lightly butter a 10-inch cast iron pan, set aside.

In a large bowl, whisk together flour, sugar, baking soda, cream of tartar, salt and currants. In a large mixing cup, beat together egg, buttermilk and melted butter.

Gradually add the liquid ingredients to the dry ingredients while stirring with a rubber spatula. Stir just until ingredients begin to come together into a shaggy dough. Lightly dust countertop with additional flour and turn dough out onto surface. Gently knead the dough a few seconds to pull together into a 6–8-inch round (dough will still be somewhat sticky, do not overwork). Place dough round into the prepared cast iron pan. With a sharp knife, carve an”X” into the dough ball.

Bake at 400 degrees F for 30 to 40 minutes, until golden brown and center is baked through (test with a skewer). Serve warm with salted butter.

Fran Hill has been blogging about food at On My Plate since October of 2006. She, her husband and their three dogs ranch near Colome.

Posted on by — Leave a comment

All Things Pumpkin

By Fran Hill

I love autumn. The chill in the air, the smell of wood smoke drifting from chimneys, and the brilliant leaves are all cozy comforts for me. Of course, I can’t forget about the food of fall. Crisp, fresh apples, roasted winter squash, braised hunks of beef swimming with root vegetables, steaming pots of soup, herb stuffed chicken with the crispiest skin, and, of course, the quintessential pumpkin.

I love pumpkin. Pumpkin pie, pumpkin bread, pumpkin seed salsa, and pumpkin and black bean soup; pumpkin in any shape or form is vying for my attention during the fall months. I gleaned the recipe for pumpkin cornmeal muffins from a magazine almost 20 years ago and blow the dust off it every autumn. It has become a staple of Thanksgiving morning served with a spicy chile relleno egg bake and fresh fruit, a sweeter side with soups, and a filling snack for chilly afternoons. The muffins are dense, moist and hearty. Serve warm and slather with butter for a perfect addition to fall.

Pumpkin cornmeal muffins are an autumn baking staple for Fran Hill.

Pumpkin Cornmeal Muffins

(adapted from Real Simple)

1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened

3/4 cup light brown sugar

1/2 cup milk

4 eggs

1 (15 ounce) can solid-pack pumpkin (NOT pie filling)

1-1/2 cups whole wheat flour (AP flour will work and produce a muffin with a little less nuttiness and density)

1 cup yellow cornmeal

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon ground cloves

2-4 tablespoons roasted pepitas

Heat oven to 350 degrees F.

Lightly coat muffin tins with vegetable cooking spray or line cups with muffin papers.

In a large bowl, beat the butter and brown sugar until light and fluffy.

Add the remaining ingredients and beat until smooth.

Spoon the batter into the muffin pans.

Sprinkle with pepitas.

Bake 25 to 30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into a muffin comes out clean.

Cool on a wire rack. (12 muffins)

Fran Hill has been blogging about food at On My Plate since October of 2006. She, her husband and their three dogs ranch near Colome.

Posted on by — Leave a comment

Brunch on the Farm

By Fran Hill

It’s been a minute since I shared a recipe here with South Dakota Magazine. Allow me to reintroduce myself. I am Fran, and I like brunch. No, let’s revise that. I LOVE brunch. I am not an early riser, if I can help it, and savoring a slow multi-course meal mid-morning while sipping coffee with a splash of a little something-something is heaven for me.

The reality is that my husband’s farm responsibilities don’t allow for us to dip into this brunch fantasy on a daily basis. The sheep get fed before the humans around here and are waiting at the feed bunks for their breakfast every morning in rain, snow, sleet or shine. My husband is a sport, though, and does try to indulge my brunch desires one day a week. Sundays, he returns home after morning farm chores, and finds me elbow deep in eggs, bacon, sausage and fruit.

Sometimes, I get elaborate with my brunch spread and bake quiches layered with vegetables, cheese and even salmon. Sometimes, I just boil eggs. We are lucky enough to have a freezer full of locally raised pork which allows bacon and sausage to rotate through my menus. I try to include some vegetables, even going as far as finely chopping kale or spinach and adding to my rich homemade sausage gravy that we ladle over fluffy biscuits. Trust me. It IS still delicious. And fruit is a mainstay for a Sunday brunch. I love that citrus is such a bright seasonal spot in the winter.

A good brunch needs something sweet as a finish. What would a decadent meal be without some kind of dessert? Baking muffins seems to be a no-brainer, and I try to search out small batch recipes that don’t leave the two of us with extra baked goods for days and days.

I have a Small Batch Blueberry Muffin recipe that I make so frequently, the cookbook falls open directly to the page. I have slightly altered the original to suit ingredients that I usually have on hand, and the large, bakery-style paper baking cups I long ago ordered in bulk and may never run out of only make five muffins instead of the intended six. No matter how they are baked, I always love that first bite of tenderly caked muffin dotted with tart berries. THIS is what Sunday brunch should be.

This small batch recipe for blueberry muffins is perfect for “brunch for two.”

Small Batch Blueberry Muffins

(adapted from Dessert for Two)

4 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted

1/2 cup sugar

1 large egg

3/4 cup Greek yogurt (I use plain or vanilla)

1 tablespoon milk

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

1 cup flour

1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 cup fresh blueberries

For the streusel:

2 tablespoons brown sugar

1 tablespoon flour

1 tablespoon unsalted butter, cold

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Line a muffin tin with 6 paper liners (if you have the larger bakery-style liners, there will only be enough batter for 5).

Combine melted butter, sugar, egg, yogurt, milk and vanilla. Stir in flour, baking powder and baking soda until incorporated. Gently fold in blueberries.

Fill each paper muffin liner with batter.

For the streusel:

Combine the brown sugar, flour and cold butter using your fingertips to slightly warm the butter and create a crumble. Sprinkle liberally over each muffin.

Bake for 16 to 18 minutes, or until a toothpick tests clean. (Larger muffins may take longer to bake through.) Allow muffins to rest in tin for a couple of minutes before transferring to wire rack to cool. (Yields 6 muffins)

Fran Hill has been blogging about food at On My Plate since October of 2006. She, her husband and their three dogs ranch near Colome.

Posted on by — Leave a comment

A New Thanksgiving Dessert

By Fran Hill

Thanksgiving is just around the corner, and in case you don’t have your menu finalized, I am here to offer yet another dessert option for your meal of gratitude.

Many years ago, my husband introduced me to the concept of a little something salty with the sweet. We can’t enjoy an evening bowl of ice cream without pulling a bag of chips, or at least a sleeve of saltines from the pantry. There is science behind the fact that salt enhances other flavors, but I am not going to attempt to explain that. I am just going to tell you that it tastes good.

Enter Salted Nut Pie. This rich and gooey pecan pie-ish filling is flavored with warm spices and the addition of salted mixed nuts. It is rich and decadent, but there is also just a hint of a salty finish to cut the sweetness. Served with cinnamon ice cream or a dollop of whipped cream, Salted Nut Pie is a delicious ending for the Thanksgiving meal.

Polish off your Thanksgiving meal with a nut pie that’s both salty and sweet.

Salted Nut Pie

(adapted from Real Simple)

1 1/4 cups flour

10 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cubed

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/3 cup ice water

3 eggs

3/4 cup dark brown sugar

1/2 cup light corn syrup

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1/8 teaspoon nutmeg

1/8 teaspoon ginger

1/8 teaspoon cloves

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

3 cups salted roasted mixed nuts

flaked salt (optional)

Pulse the flour, butter and salt in a food processor until the mixture resembles coarse meal.

Add 1/3 cup ice water. Pulse until the dough is still crumbly but holds together when squeezed.

Press evenly into the bottom and up the sides of a 9-inch pie plate.

Decoratively crimp the edge with a fork or your thumb.

Freeze the piecrust until firm, 30 to 40 minutes.

Heat oven to 375 degrees F.

Beat the eggs with the brown sugar, corn syrup, spices, and vanilla.

Stir in the nuts.

Scrape the filling into the piecrust and place on a rimmed baking sheet.

Bake until the pie is mostly set but still slightly wobbly in the center, 50 to 55 minutes.

Let cool completely.

If desired, sprinkle with a little flaked salt just before serving. (Serves 8)

Fran Hill has been blogging about food at On My Plate since October of 2006. She, her husband and their three dogs ranch near Colome.

Posted on by — Leave a comment

Wall Drug Wanderlust

By Fran Hill

I can’t remember ever having a Wall Drug doughnut. As a kid, we often stopped at this iconic West River tourist destination on our trips to the Black Hills. I very well could have sampled a doughnut along with my cup of free ice water. However, I was a child with finicky eating habits, and food didn’t hit my radar. I was probably entranced with some brightly colored T-shirt or flashy trinket that my parents refused to purchase for me. I have had my picture taken with a concrete saloon girl, but don’t remember any doughnuts.

As an adult, it has been several years since I have made a trip across the Badlands and passed Wall Drug. When I do venture west, my schedule is usually rushed and not doughnut-stop friendly. I need to amend this. How can I consider myself a connoisseur of South Dakota foods without having a few Wall Drug doughnuts under my belt?

Until I get a chance to head west on a doughnut quest, I am going to have to make doughnuts in my own kitchen. The Wall Drug cake doughnuts are fried and served either plain or frosted with chocolate, maple or vanilla glaze. At home, I am not going to compete with these classics. Baked Apple Cider Doughnuts rolled in cinnamon sugar are as simple as baking muffins. Autumn is the perfect time to lean into apple cider as an ingredient, and warm spices are perfectly cozy for a crisp fall day. Let’s just hope I don’t get too cozy and forget my wanderlust for the Wall Drug doughnut.

Apple Cider Doughnuts are a fine substitute for Wall Drug’s famous cake doughnuts.

Baked Apple Cider Doughnuts

(Adapted from Food Network)

For doughnuts:

1 1/2 cups flour

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

1/3 cup apple cider

1/4 cup buttermilk

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/2 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup granulated sugar

2 large eggs

For dipping:

1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted

1 cup granulated sugar mixed with 1 teaspoon cinnamon

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Coat doughnut pans with nonstick baking spray. (I use 2 six-cavity doughnut pans and bake my doughnuts like muffins, but some recommend 4 pans and after filling the first 2 pans, clamping the other 2 empty pans over the batter to form a mold for the doughnuts.)

Combine the flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg.

In a liquid measuring cup, combine the cider, buttermilk and vanilla.

With a stand mixer, beat butter, brown sugar and granulated sugar. Mix on high until light and fluffy. (Walk away and make a cup of coffee here. Let that butter and sugar cream to be REALLY fluffy.)

Add the eggs, one at a time, mixing well between each addition. Add one-third of the flour mixture and then half of the cider mixture. Continue alternating between the two until the batter is just combined. Remove bowl from the stand mixer and give the batter a few folds with a rubber spatula to make sure the ingredients are well distributed.

Transfer the batter to a piping bag or a large zip-close bag with a corner snipped off (don’t snip the end until AFTER the bag is filled with batter), and pipe into two of the doughnut pans. Bake 15 to 20 minutes. The cake should spring back when gently touched.

Turn the doughnuts out onto a cooling rack; immediately brush with melted butter, then dip in the cinnamon sugar. (I have skipped the melted butter and just immediately rolled the warm doughnuts in cinnamon sugar with great success.) Yield: 1 dozen doughnuts.

Fran Hill has been blogging about food at On My Plate since October of 2006. She, her husband and their three dogs ranch near Colome.

Posted on by — Leave a comment

The Garden’s Last Hurrah

By Fran Hill

I spent much of yesterday picking the last of the peppers, digging carrots, pulling beets and cutting fragrant bouquets of herbs in preparation for forecasted snow. My social media feed was full of other gardeners frantically salvaging their last harvests. Tomatoes, zucchini, beans and squash were all piled into buckets and boxes ahead of South Dakota’s first winter weather.

We hoped the meteorologists were wrong. We wished that the cold would stay away and not end our growing season. Those hopes and wishes were dashed when we awoke this morning to much of the western part of South Dakota covered in at least some snow. At my house, we had a 4 a.m. thunderstorm with rolling, freight train thunder that dumped hail and sleet and made the ground white, followed by more drizzly rain, and a light skiff of snow. My garden is done.

Snow in October does encourage baking. I am going to take the last of those summer zucchinis and my garden-fresh carrots and bake some veggie loaded muffins. When I baked these Carrot Zucchini Muffins last month, Hubs declared them to be delicious as his favorite carrot cake. I am glad to be able to still enjoy the bounty of my now frozen garden with some baking to warm up a cold day.

Warm carrot zucchini muffins are a good remedy for the early winter blues.

Carrot Zucchini Muffins

1 cup flour

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon ginger

1/8 teaspoon nutmeg

1/8 teaspoon cloves

1/4 cup sugar

1/4 cup packed light brown sugar

3 tablespoons vegetable oil

3 tablespoons unsweetened applesauce

1 large egg

3/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 cup finely shredded carrots

1/2 cup unpeeled finely shredded zucchini

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a muffin pan with 6 paper muffin cups.

Beat together granulated sugar and brown sugar, canola oil, applesauce, eggs and vanilla.

Stir in flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and cloves.

Add carrots and zucchini to flour mixture, folding batter until just combined.

Divide batter among prepared muffin cups filling each cup nearly full.

Bake in preheated oven until toothpick inserted into center comes out clean, about 20-24 minutes.

Cool in muffin pan several minutes then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. Store muffins in an airtight container. (Yield: 6 muffins)

Fran Hill has been blogging about food at On My Plate since October of 2006. She, her husband and their three dogs ranch near Colome.

Posted on by — Leave a comment

RASDak Treats

By Fran Hill

Summer is here! I had planned to share another amazing salad with you this week. However, my last post was a salad, and while I don’t believe you can ever have too many great salad recipes in your arsenal, variety is the spice of life. So I checked my calendar to see what else was of note and decided that RASDak making a pit stop here in Colome was absolutely noteworthy.

RASDak, or Ride Across South Dakota, is an annual bicycle tour that allows riders to enjoy the beautiful scenery and hospitality of South Dakota. This year’s route began on June 2 in Custer. Other host communities include Hot Springs, Red Cloud, Martin, Mission, Gregory, Wagner and Yankton. Along the way, numerous other small towns and organizations, like my home of Colome, open their parks and even just the hatches of their cars along the road to provide pit stops with homemade goodies and other refreshments to fuel the cyclists‘ rides.

Last month, the Colome Area Farmers Market sent out a call for volunteers to donate baked goods, jerky, beverages and other snacks for the lush, shaded rest stop in the Colome City Park. I knew immediately that I wanted to make my Midlife Crisis Blondies for the crew. The name is not a reflection of the cyclists but comes from a time in my own life when I baked multiple pans of these decadent treats and added a purple streak to my hair. My past also includes dabbles with cycling events. Those experiences educated me on the crazy amount of energy consumed when cycling long distances. Soft, sweet cookie bars dotted with not only semi-sweet chocolate chips but also butterscotch and white chocolate hit the mark for quick and easy fuel.

If you happen to be in Colome, or anywhere along the RASDak route, please be mindful of appropriately sharing the road with the cyclists, and feel free to check out the hospitality of the South Dakotans that make this event possible. You might even be able to snag a delicious Midlife Crisis Blondie without pedaling a single mile.

Soft and sweet Midlife Crisis Blondies might be the motivation cyclists need to pedal those last few miles into Colome.

Midlife Crisis Blondies

1 1/2 cups unsalted butter, softened

1 cup sugar

1 1/4 cup brown sugar, packed

1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

3 large eggs

3 1/2 cups flour

1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

1-1 1/2 cups chocolate chips (I used semi-sweet, but if you prefer a sweeter bar, milk chocolate would be good.)

1-1 1/2 cups butterscotch chips

1-1 1/2 cups white chocolate chips


Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Line a 17×12 (half sheet) pan with parchment paper and coat any surface not covered by the paper (edges) with cooking spray.

Beat the softened butter with the sugars until light and fluffy.

Add the eggs and extract and combine well.

Gradually stir in the flour, baking soda and salt.

Add the chips to the batter.

Spread in the prepared pan. Bake 20-22 minutes, or until golden brown. DO NOT OVER BAKE.

Cool in pan completely before cutting. (2 dozen BIG bars, or 4 dozen smaller)

Fran Hill has been blogging about food at On My Plate since October of 2006. She, her husband and their three dogs ranch near Colome.

Posted on by — Leave a comment

Comfort, Joy and Cake

By Fran Hill

Christmas is less than a week away, and I may jinx things by stating this, but I am crushing it. I am so on top of my game.

To be totally fair, I did change the game a bit this year. I am trying to practice more comfort and joy and less panic and hassle. I am not killing myself with baking, decorating, shopping and hosting. When the logistics of a holiday situation prove difficult, I am not gritting my teeth and digging in. I am looking at what is comfortable and what brings me joy. Crossing things off my usual lists, outsourcing, and downsizing have been my gifts to me.

Don’t worry. There are still plenty of twinkling lights strung on every solid surface. I can’t have a Christmas without sparkle. There are still sweet treats, but I may not be making them all. There are still gifts, but they are more carefully selected (and even more simply wrapped with brown paper … because I have that commercial size roll of craft paper leftover from some other event). There are still get-togethers, but the gatherings are smaller and simpler. No one has complained.

I haven’t checked out many new recipes this season. I am falling back on the comfort of the tried and true and the joy of knowing what people like and appreciate. Old Fashioned Pudding Cake fits that description perfectly.

It isn’t a fancy, pretty dessert, but the magic of a cake that makes its own pudding is absolute joy. A dessert that begs for ice cream seems like true comfort. Sometimes, I drizzle a little Irish cr’me over the cake when serving. Occasionally, I have added pecans or walnuts to the batter, and crushed candy canes dusted over each serving add some fresh sparkle. Always, Old Fashioned Pudding Cake proves that comfort and joy are really the best gifts of the season.

Old Fashioned Pudding Cake adds warmth to the holiday season.

Old Fashioned Pudding Cake

For the cake:

1 cup flour

3/4 cup sugar

2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup milk

2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted

1 teaspoon vanilla

For the pudding:

1/2 cup white sugar

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1 cup cold water

Heat the oven to 375 degrees F. Grease an 8-by-8 baking pan or comparable skillet.

Combine flour, sugar, cocoa powder, baking powder and salt. In a measuring cup, mix milk, melted butter and vanilla. Pour the liquids over the dry ingredients and stir gently just until combined. Spread batter into pan and smooth top.

For the pudding layer, combine the white sugar, brown sugar and cocoa powder. Pour dry mixture over the cake batter.

Carefully, pour cold water over the sugars. DO NOT STIR. Bake for 45 minutes. As it bakes, the cake will rise to the top while the pudding forms beneath. The cake is finished baking when the edges of the cake turn dark brown and crispy, and when the top of the cake is shiny and dry to the touch.

Sprinkle cake with powdered sugar, if desired. Allow cake to cool for at least 10 minutes before serving. Scoop portions of cake and pudding into individual bowls and top with ice cream. Leftovers will keep refrigerated for up to a week and can be reheated for 20 seconds in the microwave. (Serves 6-8)

Fran Hill has been blogging about food at On My Plate since October of 2006. She, her husband and their three dogs ranch near Colome.