• from Kris B.

Parmesan Puffs

I haven’t been baking loaves of bread lately because I don’t want to be eating entire loaves of bread, but I wanted a littler something more interesting than crackers to have with soups and salads.  In my search of the King Arthur website, I found these Parmesan Puffs.  They seemed to fit the bill!

I am traveling this weekend so I had to bake before I left.  Because of a crazy work and performance schedule, the time that I had to do this was at 9:00pm on Tuesday evening.  I wasn’t thrilled about this, but you gotta do what you gotta do.  As I look back, this was actually a good thing.  It made me realize just how quick and easy this recipe is – an hour from start to finish!

To make the dough, water, butter, salt and pepper, are placed in a saucepan and brought to a rolling boil.  At that point, the flour is added immediately and stirred until it forms a cohesive ball.  The moisture is then removed from the heat and transferred to a mixer bowl.  The cheese is beat in and then the eggs, one at a time.  You want the dough to be smooth and shiny, with a pudding-like texture.

My daughter, you is a professionally trained pastry chef, asked if I did “the snot test” on my dough.  “The what?” She said that in school they were taught to do this dough to test the dough of their Gougeres (the fancy names for these puffs).  To perform this test, pinch a small amount of dough between your thumb and index finger.  The dough should stick and stretch as your fingers are moved apart.  If it does, your dough passes the snot test and should puff in the oven.

Using a tablespoon scoop, the dough is portioned onto a parchment-lined baking sheet.  The recipe makes 30 puffs.  You will need two baking pans to allow space between the individual puffs.  PLace them in a 425 degree oven and bake.  The instructions say to bake for 35-45 minutes.

I feel like my oven is on the “cool side,” and I baked mine for a little over 30 minutes, with both pans in the oven), and they puffed nicely and were plenty done.

Oh my goodness!  This things are delicious…and addictive!

As a testament to that, tonight while visiting my friend, we decided to make these again.  The catch was there are only two of us and we didn’t need thirty of these things!  We tried making only a quarter of the recipe.  The only problem was that we ended up with such a small amount of dough that it didn’t warrant breaking out the big mixer.  I whisked it by hand, but I didn’t do as good a job as the mixer.  This small batch did not puff as much as the full batch that I made at home, but they were equally as flavorful.

If you are looking for a snack, an appetizer, or a side for soup or salad, give these Parmesan Puffs a try.  You will not be disappointed!

from Tracey G.

Deviled Eggs

I was going to be making some Deviled Eggs this week one day, and then I saw King Arthur Flour’s recipe for Deviled Eggs, and I figured I’d kill two birds with one stone! The treat for Jeremy and my recipe for the week! Boom! Done!

I also happen to think that Deviled Eggs are another one of those recipes everyone should have in their recipe arsenal, because for me it seems, it ‘s been one of those things that have always eluded me in getting the end result I was after. In discussing making said Deviled Eggs, Jeremy made the comment “Well, you can’t go wrong with Deviled Eggs right?”. Well, yes, yes you can. I made the same mistake over and over it seems, through the years, of trying to make them too “fancy” or something, different seasonings etc. And usually they were a fail. I have found, that most, but most certainly not all, prefer a good old-fashioned Deviled Egg.

This is a really good basic recipe, not much different than my usual go-to recipe that I’ve recently discovered, by the way. The difference mostly in this one is it adds the sweet pickle relish – which also is totally optional, and Worcestershire Sauce – again, that too is totally optional. But I used both because they sounded like good additions. Another addition I do like that isn’t on the “plain” side, but doesn’t overpower the Deviled Egg’s integrity, is chopped green pimento-stuffed olives.

This recipe was super easy, the only difficult part was I had a couple eggs that were difficult peelers, but had I read this blog post on the KAF site in their Flourish blog, entitled “Deviled Eggs: Simple Tricks For Perfect Results”, I would likely have not had as much of hard a time with them!! It’s a great post, with a lot to great ideas that make total sense, and made me shake my head and say “why didn’t I think of that?”!

This recipe calls for:

• 6 eggs, hard boiled
• 1/4 cup mayonnaise
• 1 to 2 teaspoons prepared mustard; or 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon dry mustard
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 2 to 4 tablespoons sweet pickle relish, pressed dry; optional
• 1/2 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce, optional, for enhanced flavor

The preparation involves peeling and halving the eggs. I then mashed the yolks with a fork and then added the rest of the filling ingredients. It then gets spooned  back into the egg halves. Then, garnish as desired (I did the tried-and-true paprika and little bit of dried parsley for color). I used a pastry bag fitted with a tip, and I’ve also put the filling in a zip-top bag and snipped a corner off and piped it into the egg half that way. Plus,I’ve also read that you can just mix by mashing all the ingredients together in a zip-top bag, then snipping the corner off and continuing from there, I’ve not tried that yet – but I will!

These were deemed very good by my taste-tester, Jeremy. Although the comment “I’m not sure I care for the crunchy bits” was made in regards to the sweet pickle relish. But that’s ok , I can do with or without it as I like them both ways!