Tag Archive for: southern baking

House-Autry Mills Seeks Recipes for 200th Anniversary Cookbook

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Heat up the oil, gather the tasty ingredients and bring on the good food – the search for the best Southern-style recipes starts now! To celebrate its 200th anniversary as the choice of Southern cooks, House-Autry Mills is asking the public to submit delicious Southern recipes for a chance to be included in an upcoming House-Autry Mills cookbook.

House-Autry Mills is looking for Southern recipes that incorporate at least one House-Autry product. Additionally, the company hopes to learn the stories and traditions behind these special recipes. The best recipes will be included in the cookbook and possibly featured on the House-Autry Mills Facebook page, YouTube page or website at http://www.house-autry.com.

“House-Autry Mills will be celebrating its 200th anniversary in 2012, and we wanted to do something special,” said Jamie Hall, House-Autry Mills business development manager. “Compiling a Southern cookbook gives us an opportunity to hear from the people who have supported us for all these years and preserve their recipes for future generations.”

To submit a recipe and the story behind it, visit HouseAutry.com – calling all southern cooks.
The deadline for submissions is November 1, 2011.

About House-Autry Mills:

Based in Four Oaks, N.C., House-Autry Mills has been the choice of Southern cooks since 1812. The company’s extensive product line ranges from corn meal and breading to hushpuppy and biscuit mix. Today, House-Autry Mills’ products are available through thousands of grocery stores in 37 states, as well as foodservice distributors, restaurants and restaurant chains throughout the United States.

For more information on House-Autry, visit www.house-autry.com,
find us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/HouseAutryMills
or follow on Twitter @HouseAutryMills.

Glazed Gourmet Opened Today!!

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We now have a gourmet doughnut shop in Charleston- I am beyond excited! Glazed Gourmet (www.glazedgourmet.com) opened on Upper King Street, and I hear they have a pumpkin doughnut that is extremely tasty.  Can’t wait to check it out for myself! Will post with a picture and an update when I make it there. 

Cattle, Football, and Petit Fours

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I am back from a trip to Oklahoma and Arkansas, and what a trip it was- I saw the sunrise three out of the four days we were gone! We spent two days in Oklahoma at the Drummond Ranch, where Corby’s oldest friend, Ladd and his wife, The Pioneer Woman (www.thepioneerwoman.com) Ree, and their four children live.  It is so beautiful!  The first day we spent with Ladd, the kids, and the cowboys shipping cattle.  Cowboy Tim, Cowboy Sam, Cowboy Josh and the kids rounded up all the cattle from nearby pastures and brought them to a pen where they were divided into sections and weighed.  Then the 18-wheelers backed up one at a time to the shoot, where the cattle were then herded and loaded into the trucks.  They shipped over 400 cattle in about three hours.  It was amazingly efficient, and I only had to be on a horse for about ten minutes.  It was terrifying.

That night, Ree and Ladd came over to the Lodge where we were staying and cooked us amazing steaks and Delicious, Creamy Mashed Potatoes.  That is actually Ree’s name for the dish in her cookbook, and the recipe is below!

The next day, after watching the sunrise again- this time from my bed in the Lodge- which was much better, we drove to Fayetteville, Arkansas to visit Corby’s family and watch the Arkansas vs. Auburn game.  Two very good things came from this trip- first, Arkansas won- which while I don’t really have any passion for football what so ever, it makes Corby wildly happy.  Second, and more importantly, we went to Rick’s Bakery (www.ricksbakery.com) which was very much deserved after the extreme trail run Corby took me on Saturday morning.  Wow!  Of the many things I tried at Rick’s- donuts, petifores, cookies, and cake, I think the petifores with the Razorback decorative icing were my favorite, and who knew they were such a hit at tailgates.  Everything was so good!!  If you are in Fayetteville, AR for any reason, make a point to go there, and you will not regret it!

 

Delicious, Creamy Mashed Potatoes

Ingredients:

5 pounds Russet Or Yukon Gold Potatoes

3/4 cups Butter

1 package (8 Oz.) Cream Cheese, Softened

1/2 cup (to 3/4 Cups) Half-and-Half

1/2 teaspoon (to 1 Teaspoon) Lawry’s Seasoned Salt

1/2 teaspoon (to 1 Teaspoon) Black Pepper

Instructions:

Peel and cut the potatoes into pieces that are generally the same size. Bring a large pot of water to a simmer and add the potatoes.  Bring to a boil and cook for 30 to 35 minutes. When they’re cooked through, the fork should easily slide into the potatoes with no resistance, and the potatoes should almost, but not totally, fall apart.

Drain the potatoes in a large colander. When the potatoes have finished draining, place them back into the dry pot and put the pot on the stove.  Mash the potatoes over low heat, allowing all the steam to escape, before adding in all the other ingredients.

Turn off the stove and add 1 ½ sticks of butter, an 8-ounce package of cream cheese, and about ½ cup of half-and-half. Mash, mash, mash! Next, add about ½ teaspoon of Lawry’s Seasoning Salt and ½ teaspoon of black pepper.

Stir well and place in a medium-sized baking dish. Throw a few pats of butter over the top of the potatoes and place them in a 350-degree oven and heat until butter is melted and potatoes are warmed through.

Note: When making this dish a day or two in advance, take it out of the fridge about 2 to 3 hours before serving time. Bake in a 350-degree oven for about 20 to 30 minutes or until warmed through.

Mississippi Mud Pie

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On top of working with the Lee Brothers last week, which was the best experience ever, I also moved.  As all of you know, moving is not fun- at all!  However, I now have a much bigger kitchen, and I also got some old Pyrex mixing bowls from ebay.com which are fantastic.  My son asked me whether I was more excited about the new house or my new mixing bowls.  The house wins by a slim margin.  As a treat for all of my hard work this weekend during the move, I decided on chocolate. Nothing quite beats it- except for maybe cheese- but those are two totally different categories.  I found this old recipe for Mississippi Mud Pie, and it is delicious!

Mississippi Mud Pie

Use a chocolate or vanilla cookie crust, or a graham cracker crust, to make this Mississippi mud pie
(I used chocolate- so good).

Ingredients:

1/4 lb. butter, 1 stick
2 (1 oz. each) squares unsweetened chocolate
3 eggs
3 tablespoons white corn syrup
1 1/3 cups sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
9 inch graham cracker, chocolate or vanilla wafer pie shell

Preparation:

In a saucepan, heat butter and chocolate, stirring often, until melted and well  blended. 
Beat eggs; stir in the corn syrup, sugar and vanilla. 
Add the chocolate mixture to egg and sugar mixture, stirring well. 
Preheat oven to 350°.  Pour filling into prepared pie shell. 
Bake 35 to 40 minutes, or until top is slightly crunchy and filling is set.
Serve  warm with a scoop of vanilla ice cream or dollop of whipped cream.

Gouda Grits and Seafood Goodness

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We spent a long weekend down on Wadmalaw Island, just 30 minutes south of Charleston, SC.  The weather couldn’t have been more beautiful, and we ate some good food!  Here are two of the best things we had.  First- the crabs!  I am not actually going to write a recipe for this as we caught fresh crabs, and a lot of them, put them in a pot with some seasoning, and boiled them.  Then we ate them.  I am using “we” rather loosely, as I am allergic to shellfish, but I did help catch the crabs and lived vicariously through everyone else watching them eat, and they are a lot better in pictures than grits (and here is the sunset thrown in as well)!

Next came the grits, which I ate. And ate. And ate.  I am not sure if it has come across yet how much I love cheese.  But I do.  I love it so much!  So Gouda Grits sounded pretty amazing when I ran across the recipe in Southern Living magazine.  I have grown up eating my mother’s amazing cheddar cheese grits, and I have never strayed from that recipe, but this sounded too good to pass up, especially now that I am writing this blog, which gives me an excuse to try just about anything!  Here is the recipe.  The next time I make this, I will cut it in half if not quarters, because it made so much!

Gouda Grits

4 cups chicken broth
1 cup whipping cream
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
2 cups uncooked quick-cooking grits
2 cups (8 oz.) shredded Gouda cheese
1/2 cup buttermilk
1/4 cup butter
2 teaspoons hot sauce

Preparation

Bring first 4 ingredients and 4 cups water to a boil in a Dutch oven over high heat; whisk in grits, reduce heat to medium-low, and simmer, stirring occasionally, 15 minutes or until thickened. Remove from heat, and stir in Gouda and remaining ingredients.

All the Buzz- Caramel Cake

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I read the book, “The Help” when it first came out and absolutely loved it!  I have not had a chance to see the movie, but it is on the long long to do list.  However, I have had a chance to sample the actual Caramel Cake that was featured in the movie which is clearly the most important part!  The cakes in the movie were provided by Caroline’s Cakes in Annapolis, MD.  She is a native of Charleston, SC and will hopefully be opening a shop here soon!  Her bakery is centered around her Caramel Cakes, and they are phenomenal!!  She has over 120,000 people on her list that order them every year!  She obviously keeps this recipe pretty well guarded, so I am going to post another and quite tasty recipe for a Caramel Cake that comes from Eudora Garrison’s Favorite Carolina Recipes.   Eduora Garrison was food critic and editor for the Charlotte Observer.

Caramel Cake

1/3 cup plus 1-1/4 cups granulated sugar, divide and use
1/3 cup boiling water
3/4 cup butter
3 eggs
3 cups sifted cake flour
3 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions

Melt the one-third cup of sugar in a heavy skillet, stirring constantly until a deep-brown syrup is formed- a process called caramelization.
Remove from heat and slowly stir in boiling water, being careful that steam does not burn your hand. Set the syrup aside to cool.
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Grease two 9-inch cake pans, place parchement paper in the bottoms, then grease and flour the cottoms and sides.
Cream butter in bowl with electric mixer. Add 1 and 1/4 cups sugar and continue to beat until light and fluffy.
Add eggs one at a time, beating until each is well incorporated.
Stir in 4 tablespoons of the reserved syrup.
Sift together the cake flour, baking powder and salt.
Combine milk and vanilla.
Add flour mixture to the batter alternately with the milk mixter, beginning and endin with the four mixture. Beat until smooth.
Divide batter evenly among the two prepared pans and bake for 25 minutes, or until wooden toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
Remove pans from oven and let stand about 10 minutes, then turn out cakes onto wire rack, peel off paper and cool completely.

Caramel Frosting

3 cups (light) brown sugar, firmly packed
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons half and half
1/2 stick of butter (4 tablespoons)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Mix sugar and half and half in a heavy saucepan and cook, stirring over low heat until syrup reaches the soft-ball stage,
235 degrees on a candy thermometer. If lacking a thermometer, check doneness by dropping a tiny bit of syrup into a cup of cold water. When the syrup can be gathered up in fingers and will almost hold its shape, it has reached the soft-ball stage.
Remove pan from heat.
Stir in butter, then let syrup cool.
Add vanilla and beat until frosting reaches spreading consistency. A little cream (or half and half) may be add if mixture is too thick.

Cheerwine Cake- who knew cooking with soda could be so good!!

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This past week was the first week of third grade for my 8 year old son, Walker.  As a, “yay school is back in session” celebration, I decided to try a new recipe I was sent by The 1861 Farmhouse Restaurant in Valle Crusis, NC.  They just added this cake to the menu and were so generous to share the recipe with us!!  It is a Cheerwine Cake, and it is amazing!!  My mother has a recipe for a Sprite pound cake, and I have a recipe for apple fritters using Mountain Dew, but this was the first I had heard of baking with Cheerwine.  Needless to say, I think the people at the 1861 Farmhouse Restaurant are incredibly smart.  For more of their yummy goodness, go check out their restaurant at www.1861farmhouse.com.   Here is the recipe and a picture of how it turned out.  I didn’t use the nuts in the icing because I don’t like them, but I would think that if you did, it would be delicious.

Cheerwine Cake

1 box chocolate cake mix
1 cup Cheerwine
1 tsp. almond extract

Icing:
1/3 cup Cheerwine
21/2 cups powdered sugar
1/2 cup margarine
1/4 tsp. almond extract
1 cup chopped nuts
1/4 cup cocoa

Directions

Prepare cake as directed on box, except substitute the water for the Cheerwine. Add almond extract, mix well. Pour into greased bundt pan.

Icing: 

Heat Cheerwine, margarine and cocoa until it comes to a boil. Pour mixture over powdered sugar, blend til smooth. Stir in almond extract and mix in nuts. Let cool, pour over cake.

Sour Cream Blueberry Cake

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We used to have blueberry bushes on the hill at my grandmother’s mountain house, and it was so marvelous to have blueberry pie, blueberry pancakes, blueberry muffins etc. all from blueberries that we had picked that morning.  The bushes have unfortunately gone away, but I still have kept my love for blueberry treats.  I came across an old recipe for a Sour Cream Blueberry Cake that is delectable.  If you decide to make it, please let me know what you think!!

Sour Cream Blueberry Cake

1 stick butter
1 cup of sugar
3 eggs
2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup sour cream
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup blueberries

Directions

Beat the butter, sugar and eggs together until the sugar is dissolved, and it is a light creamy mixture.
Then add the vanilla.  Mix all of the dry ingredients together in a separate bowl.
Add half of the dry ingredients to the mix then half of the sour cream and stir.
Then add the remaining dry ingredients and sour cream and stir.
Pour half of the batter into a large greased and floured pan.
Cover with blueberries and top with remaining batter.
Bake at 350 for 40 minutes.  Sprinkle with cinnamon sugar and enjoy!!

Cracked Pepper and Cheddar Cheese Biscuits

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I am not sure what is better than waking up on a crisp summer morning in the mountains to homemade cracked pepper and cheddar cheese biscuits. I found a wonderful recipe in the Charleston City Paper from Robert F. Moss who has a fantastic blog! We have tweaked it a little bit to add the cracked pepper and cheddar, which so far is my favorite combination, but earlier in the week we tried bacon and cheddar and jalapenos and cheddar, which were also delicious!

Biscuits

2 cups flour
1 T baking powder
1/2 t salt
1/4 t baking soda
1/3 cup of cold butter
3/4 cup of buttermilk
1 tablespoon of cracked pepper
1/2 cup shredded sharp cheddar cheese

Directions

First, combine the flour, baking powder, salt, and baking soda in a large bowl and mix together.

Next, cut in the butter- it is important to use cold butter. Cover the butter lumps with flour and squeeze them between your fingers to break them down into smaller bits and rub the butter into them. What is left in the bowl looks like broken crumbs.

Stir in the buttermilk and mix up the dough until the liquid is all absorbed by the flour.

At this point, you add the cheese and pepper or whatever combination you choose.

With your hands, knead and shape the dough until all the flour is worked in and the dough is of a single consistency.
It should be still be slightly sticky to the touch, but not so sticky that it clings to your hands and the side of the bowl.

Now you’re ready to roll out the biscuits

Bourbon Panna Cotta. Run, don’t walk.

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I don’t know what sounds more Southern than Bourbon Panna Cotta, do you?

Mmmmm, ramekins. 🙂

Therefore, since I can’t seem to keep my hands off anything from A Yankee in a Southern Kitchen (a delicious little blog by Kim Morgan), here’s a recipe I found there for this delight, which came originally from Frank Stitt’s Southern Table:

 

Bourbon Panna Cotta

1 cup plus ½ cup sugar
½ teaspoon fresh lemon juice
2 tablespoons water
4 cups heavy cream
½ cup pecans, toasted and chopped
3 tablespoons good bourbon
2 cups whole milk
2 envelops unflavored gelatin

Directions

Set aside eight or ten – 8-ounce custard cups or ramekins.
Combine the ½ cup sugar, lemon juice, and water in a small heavy saucepan and bring to a boil over high heat, boiling until the sugar dissolves. Reduce the heat to medium, brushing down the sides with a wet pastry brush to remove any sugar crystals, and cook, shaking the pan to swirl the caramel, until the caramel is a mahogany in color 10-20 minutes. Do not stir the caramel mixture.