Our friend Saket hosted an “Iron Chef” competition at his place earlier in the summer. He’d earlier held a brainstorming session to come up with theme ideas. When he’d been to a similar competition before, an ingredient had been picked and everyone had been expected to bring a dish including that ingredient. We decided to change things up and chose a much vaguer theme for this event — every dish must include either a cliche or a pun.

Matt’s and my entries included “American as Apple Pie” (apple pie shaped like a flag), “headcheese/cheesehead” (a cheeseball shaped like a head), and “toe jam” (boot-shaped cheese crackers with bacon-bourbon jam to spread on the toe). We didn’t ever pick a winner, but the highlight of the night for me was “cool as a cucumber” from Joey — ice cream flavored with cucumber and mint. It was so delicious that we decided to try to replicate it a few weeks later. Not sure if this is the same way Joey made it or not, but we thought our version turned out pretty well. A deliciously refreshing way to end a summer evening!

Cucumber mint ice cream

Loosely based on this recipe from Food52 and the vanilla ice cream recipe from Bittman’s How To Cook Everything

1 large cucumber, peeled, seeded, and diced
1/2 c granulated sugar
2 cups half and half or milk
6 egg yolks (can reduce down to 2 for a less rich ice cream)
2/3 c mint leaves, packed
1 Tablespoon vanilla
pinch of salt
1 cup cream or more half and half or milk
1/3 cup of chocolate chips or other mix-in (we used some chocolate “crunchies” we had on hand that are crisped rice coated in chocolate)

Puree the cucumber finely. Set aside.

In a double boiler over simmering water, heat 2 c half and half or milk and 1/4 c sugar. Meanwhile, separate the eggs and whisk the yolks with the remaining sugar until light in color. While whisking, gradually add about 1/2 cup of the simmering milk to the eggs to temper them. Add the egg mixture to the remaining milk and cook over a double boiler, stirring nearly constantly, until thickened. This will take about 5-10 minutes. The custard is thick enough when it coats the back of a spoon and you can run a finger through the custard on the spoon and see the “track” from your finger.

Remove from heat and add the pureed cucumber, mint leaves, vanilla extract, and salt. Let steep about an hour.

Add the remaining cup of cream (or more milk or half and half) and chill thoroughly. (Either chill in an ice bath or leave in the fridge for several hours or overnight.) Strain out the cucumber puree and mint.

Freeze in an ice cream maker. When it’s nearly frozen, stir in any desired mix-ins.

I had a little time Easter afternoon for baking, and I had rhubarb on my mind.  After discussing some ideas with members of the choir over breakfast between church services in the morning, I decided to try to make rhubarb squares.  The plan was for a shortbread crust with a rhubarb curd on top instead of the usual lemon.

As a first try, I thought these turned out really well.  I browned the butter, which made the shortbread crust extra-delicious, and they had a nice rhubarb flavor and were the right amount of sweet and tart.  Since I keep some on hand, I used vanilla sugar in both the shortbread and the curd, and the slight hint of vanilla goes really well with rhubarb.  However, there are a few things I’ll change for next time time: I think I’ll use more rhubarb and also cook it down a little longer to concentrate the flavor a bit more.  I’m hoping this might make them a little pinker as well — I ended up adding a few drops of red food coloring, and they still weren’t as pink as I wanted them to be.

All that said, these are delicious, and I’d definitely recommend trying them.  I’m sure I’ll be trying to refine them, too, so I’ll update the recipe here as I do so.

And I hope your Easter was as lovely as ours! I’ll leave you with a spring photo, and the recipe.

Rhubarb Squares

For the crust:
2 sticks salted butter (or use unsalted and add a healthy pinch of salt)
2 cups flour
1/4 cup sugar (vanilla sugar is nice)

For the curd:
3/4 lb. rhubarb, cut into 1 inch pieces
3/4 cup sugar (or vanilla sugar), divided
1 T flour
1/2 t baking powder
zest of one lemon
3 T lemon juice (from one lemon)
4 eggs

1/4 cup powdered sugar for garnish (optional)

Preheat oven to 350 F.

In a 13″ x 9″ glass pan, melt and brown the butter in the oven. (Browning the butter is optional, but it really adds a lot of flavor.) Stir together flour and sugar for the crust. When the butter is browned, stir in dry ingredients. Press into the bottom of the pan. Bake 15 minutes. (Crust will not be done.)

Meanwhile, place the rhubarb in a small saucepan with 1/4 c of the sugar and 1 T water. Bring to a simmer, and cook until the rhubarb has completely fallen apart. Stir in lemon zest and juice. Set aside.

In a medium bowl, whisk the eggs until light. Stir together the dry ingredients for the curd (remaining 1/2 cup sugar, flour, and baking powder). Whisk ingredients in with the eggs.

If rhubarb is still hot, add it to the egg mixture very gradually (a few spoonfuls at a time) to temper the eggs and keep them from curdling. Once it’s about halfway mixed in, you can add the rest of it at once. (If rhubarb was already cool, you can also add it all at once.) Optionally, blend the curd with a immersion blender so it will be very smooth. (You can also press it through a strainer, or just skip this step if you don’t care about the texture too much.)

Once the crust is done with its initial bake, spread the crust with the rhubarb curd mixture. Bake for another 30 minutes, until set and just beginning to brown on the edges.

If desired, sift powdered sugar over the bars while they’re still warm. (I really don’t think they need the sugar in terms of flavor, but it makes them look prettier.) Cut into squares and serve.

An update of one of our very firsts posts!

Growing up I often asked for a Red Velvet cake for my birthday. One year I remember Mom making a version with peppermint icing, with a recipe I think came from Southern Living. I decided to try something like that, but in miniature form, adapting the recipe Mom always used for red velvet cake, which I think came from my grandmother. I entered these cupcakes in the “Biochemistry Bake-Off” at work a couple years ago, when we first started this blog.  It’s become one of the most popular posts on the site, especially this time of year, but the photos were long past due for a remake — we’ve come a long way since then — and my birthday yesterday was the perfect excuse to make myself cupcakes.

My favorite part of Red Velvet cake is the cream cheese frosting, so I stuck with that for this festive version, but flavored it with peppermint.  I garnished some with a bit of peppermint bark (yes, I know I need to update that post as well…), and some of them I frosted with a candy cane swirl. To get the swirl effect, dye some of the frosting red with food coloring (it will take a lot!) and carefully fill one side of a pastry bag with the red frosting and the other side with white. Then, when you pipe it out of a star tip, you get a striped swirl.

You might also like:

• Red Velvet Cake Truffles
• Mocha Peppermint Bark Cookies
• Peppermint Bark
• Nutty Fingers

Peppermint Red Velvet Cupcakes
Makes 2 dozen cupcakes, or use the same recipe for a 3 layer cake.
Note that I never seem to get a nice domed top out of these cupcakes, but once you frost them it’s not a big deal, and the cake still tastes delicious.

For the cake:

1 c butter (softened)
2 c sugar
2 eggs (room temperature)
1 T cocoa
1 T vinegar
2 1/2 c cake flour
1/2 t salt
1/2 t baking soda
1 c buttermilk
1 t vanilla
1 oz red food coloring

Preheat oven to 350 F.

Cream butter and sugar. Add eggs and beat until fluffy.

Add cocoa to vinegar, and add to creamed mixture.

Sift remaining dry ingredients and gradually add to batter. Add buttermilk, vanilla, and food coloring.

Bake in cupcake wrappers (makes 2 dozen) or bake in three greased and floured 9″ round cake pans, at 350 F for 25 minutes.

Let cool completely before icing.

Peppermint Cream Cheese Frosting:

3/4 package of cream cheese (6 oz) (softened)
1/2 cup butter (softened)
1 1-lb. box of powdered sugar
1 t peppermint extract

Beat cream cheese and butter. Gradually add sugar, beating until smooth. Add extract and beat until blended.

I think this was probably Matt’s favorite of all the recipes we tested for Jess’s cookbook. And if you know how much Matt likes brownies, maybe that shouldn’t be surprising. On the other hand, what you may not know is that Matt loves brownies made from a box mix, but generally doesn’t really like brownies made from scratch. Invariably, they are too cakey, too chocolatey, too gooey, too something, and if he wants a treat, he’d rather you pull out the Betty Crocker box (or he’ll do it himself and hopefully learn from his mistakes and not forget to add one of the eggs and the water again … yes that’s right, Matt added only one egg and the oil to a box of brownie mix one time … not pretty). But these brownies from Julie Badger even Matt enjoyed, so I think they’re a keeper. I think the key may have been the secret ingredient spoonful of peanut butter. They really don’t come out tasting very peanut buttery, but I think it does just add that extra something.

Julie Badger’s Brownies

3 oz. unsweetened chocolate
1 1/2 c. sugar
3 eggs
3/4 cup flour
1/4 teaspoons salt
6 Tablespoons butter or margarine
1 ½ teaspoon vanilla
Large spoonful of creamy peanut butter (1/3 to 1/2 cup)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Coat 9” square cake pan with Pam.

Melt chocolate and butter over low heat. Stir in sugar, eggs, flour, salt, and vanilla. Add peanut butter if desired.

Spread in pan and bake 30 – 40 min. until dry on top and almost firm to touch. Do not overbake.

Believe it or not, I actually have a better reason than the usual, “Sorry, we’re busy” for not posting much lately. If you keep an eye on the flickr site, you might’ve noticed that food pictures have been appearing there but never migrating over to the site. Well, the reason is that I’ve had a side project going on — I’ve been making a cookbook! My good friend Jessica is getting married today, and as a wedding present for her, I gathered recipes from her friends and family and put them together in a cookbook that I had printed over at blurb.com. I didn’t have time to make everything myself, but we did test out and photograph some of the recipes, so those are what you may have seen show up on flickr. I wanted to share some of these delicious recipes with you, too, but I didn’t want to ruin the surprise for Jessica, who I think might read this here blog occasionally. But the beautiful wedding was yesterday today, so the cat’s finally out of the bag. The next several posts will be recipes shared by Jessica’s friends and family.

First up is this Irish cream poundcake from Katrin Baker, an advisor to both Jessica and me when we were in the Honors program at NCSU. I couldn’t resist adding some chopped chocolate to Katrin’s recipe, though I’m sure it would be delicious either way. As Katrin says, this cake actually gets better after it sits for a day or two. I especially liked it toasted. Thanks, Katrin!

Chocolate Chip Irish Cream Poundcake

adapted from Katrin Baker, originally from Cooking Light, she thinks

2 3/4 cups cake flour (about 11 ounces)
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup low-fat or fat-free cream cheese, softened
10 tablespoons butter, softened
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup packed brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 large eggs
3/4 cup Irish cream liqueur
3/4 cup dark chocolate, chopped, or chocolate chip (optional)
Cooking spray
2 tablespoons powdered sugar (optional)

Preheat oven to 325 F.

Sift together flour, baking powder, and salt.

Beat together cream cheese and butter with a mixer at high speed. Beat in granulated sugar, brown sugar, and vanilla. Add eggs, 1 at a time; beat well after each addition. Beat on high speed 1 minute.

With mixer on low, add flour mixture and liqueur alternately to sugar mixture, beginning and ending with flour mixture; mixing well after each addition. Stir in chopped chocolate, if using.

Pour batter into a 12-cup Bundt pan coated with cooking spray.

Bake at 325 F for 55 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes on a wire rack; remove from pan. Cool completely on wire rack. If desired, sift powdered sugar over cake.