November 2011 Note from Marcy Bakers Stash

Dear Friends and Fellow Bakers,

Welcome to the Harvest season of the year. It’s not quite take-stock time but there is that what-have-you-done, where-have-you-been feeling to November. Unless you are in the North East of the States and it’s more a matter of where’s your snow shovel and when are they taking that tree out of your living-room window.

Free!!! BB's Complete Thanksgiving Complete Recipe Menu
My annual free offering: all-the-recipes-you-need for classic Thanksgiving from turkey to trimmings. Print it out, mess up the pages, cook and qvell. Cornbread, gravy, stuffing, turkey, potatoes, and even that green bean casserole and world's best cranberry sauce. It's all here.

Pumpkin Ravioli with Sage Butter and Shitake BÃ©chamel
I toiled for hours to make this recipe extra special and just right. The result is a dish as fine as any bistro offering. Make as many ravioli as you want and then freeze them and pop them in simmering water when you want a special meal or a unique Thanksgiving offering. You can also use squash to replace the pumpkin.

Pumpkin Pie Blondies
Deeply delicious, gooey blondies with a crowning touch of pumpkin pie. Could anything be more sublime?

Pumpkin Bran Buttermilk Cranberry Muffins
Moist, rustic, healthy muffins with a deep-autumnal flair. Healthy, flavourful, bit tops – absolutely gorgeous and superb taste and an amazing crumb.

Pumpkin Buttermilk Pancakes
There’s just a bit of spice in these unbelievably tender, crisp, light, simply amazing pancakes.
If the beautiful golden hue doesn’t seduce you, the flavour will be your undoing. One of the best recipes to come out of my test kitchen in…..days.

Butterscotch Cranberry Bread Pudding
Warm butterscotch sauce anoints brioche (ok, challah, white bread or old croissants will do) bread-pudding. You have sweet and buttery along with bits of bright red, tartness – no wonder they call it Thanksgiving. This dessert is something to be grateful for. Warm, it’s bistro-dessert decadence. Cold, in squares? It’s indescribably addictive. I suppose you could add butterscotch chips to this or pecans but I like it as it is: pure and sweet.

FREE!! Baked Camembert in Filo with Cranberry Chutney
Always have to start with a nibble. This also makes a great take-with gift (bake it at the host’s house)

Vermont Country Inn Pumpkin Cheesecake
Silky smooth and spun with pumpkin pie spices, this beauty is a crowd pleaser. Pumpkin Pie spices come in the spice section of your supermarket. But any combination of cinnamon, allspice, mace, nutmeg, and cloves (as per taste) will do. This is a bit more modest a pumpkin cheesecake than my Pumpkin Cheesecake 'opus', Pumpkin Eruption Cheesecake (now in an upcoming cookbook) but it is still rather decadent.

Angel Biscuits (Overnight Flaky Buttery Biscuits)
An overnight rise makes them ready-to-bake. A combination of yeast AND baking powder (but no kneading is involved!) makes these biscuits extra light. An overnight rise makes them ready-to-bake. Prepare the batch and refrigerate. Portions of dough can be baked (or fried) as required. If you want to imitate the fast food version, this is the recipes to use. This is a crowd pleaser.

Canned Cranberry Sauce Bundt Cake
I never use a Bundt cake for this but of course you can. I use an angel food cake pan. But the main deal here is that you get to use up one of those cans of Ocean Spray cranberry sauce you have stocked your Thanksgiving pantry with. This makes a fine textured cake with saucy hints of cranberries and oranges in a wonderful waltz of the ‘bog’, that is citrus and Cape Cod’s finest fruit. An orange glaze cascades over the moist cake for a refined holiday treat. Great with a cup of mulled cider or even eggnog.

Cranberry Sally Lund or Brioche Americana
Similar to a classic buttery brioche or a Sally Lunn. This slightly sweet loaf is wonderful fresh, or toasted with butter and honey. It's a perfect side bread or for using in Butterscotch Cranberry Bread Pudding

Cranberry Orange Iced Sweet Tea
Pack your thermos or Mason Jar (what could be more homey?) with this ambrosial elixir. You can fiddle with the juices you choose when making homemade iced tea. The key is to use room temperature spring water when making iced tea, as well as a Simple Syrup for a sweetened tea that is ‘cleanly’ sweet and delicious. Cranberry juice gives this a Nantucket zing but orange juice, apple, or raspberry are divine.

Greek Restaurant Vinaigrette
You are probably wondering: why is there a Greek Salad Dressing in the Thanksgiving issue of BB? Because this is the best salad dressing in the world making it a tradition at any holiday meal because it whips up fast, coats a green salad just so and has been known to upstage even roast turkey and one of my famous cheesecakes. You need this recipe. Trust me. This is a classic, lured out of a Greek restauranteur whose staff makes 80 gallons of this every three days. It stays creamy (but it does not include eggs).

Previous Monthly Essays from A Note From Marcy:

Essays to tickle your funny bone, wake up your inner baker, twinge on your heartstrings, or make you smile and say, ‘I’ve know the feeling; I know the place”. If you missed an essay, or a season in baking or inner sensibility, we invite you to stroll through our archived Notes From Marcy.

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