The quest for homemade Mayonnaise

I had a tea date with my friend Carol and I offered to bring the sandwiches. I mulled for days over what kind I would make. I finally decided on cheese and onion; egg salad; smoked salmon with cream cheese; chicken salad and cream cheese and cucumber. Unfortunately, many things worked against me:
1. I didn't have time to prepare the night before
2. Ariana stayed up late so didn't wake up until late so we were 1.5 hours late for our 10:30 date
3. Nica ate all the mayonnaise.

Say what?! ALL the mayonnaise you say? yup. All of it. And it was boxing day so a lot of shops were closed. But have no fear. I had eggs. 5 of them. I had watched loads of youtube videos about making homemade mayonnaise. How hard could it be since I have a fancy new food processor (Merry Christmas to me).

Well, it's hard.

Attempt #1 after watching Gordon Ramsay make it on youtube:
Result: FAIL. I put three egg yolks and a bit of dijon mustard in the food processor. Whirred it for a bit and then added sunflower oil VERRRRRRRRY slowly. The end result was a gross mess. Super runny and it didn't emulsify. Tossed it down the toilet. Figured I must have added the oil too slowly and overwhipped it.

Attempt #2 after watching this guy on youtube:
Result: FAIL again in the food processor. I used up one more egg. Still runny and gross. Tossed it down the toilet.

Attempt #3 after deciding I would hand mix it and use lemon juice instead of mustard to stabilize the yolks initially. I whisked and whisked. The husband at this point had woken up. He tried to give me advice by telling me how it didn't look right and it was too runny and how I should whisk it until it was thicker. Lemme tell you something... NOT helpful! Well, definitely not helpful when I'm down to my last egg, my last bit of sunflower oil and out of time for a lunch date. So I threw it all at him and told him to do it and retreated to my bedroom. Yes, I am that mature. He came in a little while later and you know what? He had beautiful mayonnaise in the bowl. I reluctantly took it and mumbled thanks and went on making my sandwiches (clearly I didn't have any eggs leftover for egg sandwiches so I just used it for the chicken salad instead). The husband tried to tell me that the secret was whisking in the same direction. I thought that was total baloney since it really shouldn't make a difference what direction you whisk it in. Eggs are eggs. At the molecular level it doesn't care which direction it's being beat from.

Successful thick mayonnaise!

So a few days later I found myself needing mayonnaise again. I am lazy enough that I wanted to try an appliance to make this stuff so I didn't have to use my arm muscles whisking. The food processor was getting one last chance. I added two eggs and a splash of lemon juice and dijon mustard and watched the processor go. This time I watched it more closely to see if it was actually mixing everything together. And... it wasn't. I have an 11 cup food processor and the blades weren't reaching the yolk/juice/mustard mixture. It was just splashing it around or just beneath the blade. So I tossed in another yolk to see if the slightly larger volume would help the blades grab it. Nope.

Beater Blade

So I scooped everything out of the food processor and put it into my kitchenaid mixer bowl. Used the wire whisk attachment and turned it on. Still not enough volume for the whisk to grab onto the liquid. So I took it off and whisked it by hand while slowly adding the sunflower oil. Much better. By hand seemed to do the trick. When the volume had increased enough, I thought I'd try the stand mixer again. The whisk attachment seemed kind of useless so I used the flat beater instead. Worked beautifully - I could control the whisking speed and it picked up all the mix. I should note that I don't ever use the Kitchenaid flat beater that comes with the stand mixer. I bought this after market beater blade that has silicone sides that help scrape food along the sides of the bowl for thorough mixing and it is worth every penny I spent on it (~$30).

I am definitely going to try this again with my kitchenaid in the future and forget about the food processor. That appliance is awesome, but not for mayonnaise.

Lemony Lemon Brownies

Damn you, Pinterest. It's visual crack and I can't stop pinning!

A friend Victoria recently pinned a recipe for "lemony lemon brownies". Sounds gross, right? Brownies to me mean chocolate. Don't worry - this recipe doesn't have any of that. It's more a lemon-bar, really. Anyway, wanted to bake something to take to a Christmas party and this recipe seemed super simple.

The original recipe site:
https://sites.google.com/site/beckycharms/cakies/lemony-lemon-brownies

The "Brownie" Batter

3/4 cup all-purpose flour {King Arthur All-Purpose Flour}

3/4 cup granulated sugar

1/4 teaspoon salt {Sea Salt}

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened

2 large eggs

2 tablespoons lemon zest

2 tablespoons lemon juice

Tart Lemon Glaze

1 rounded cup powdered sugar

4 tablespoon lemon juice

8 teaspoons lemon zest

Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease/Spray an 8-by-8-inch baking dish with butter/cooking spray and set aside. 

Zest and juice two small/large lemons; set aside. {whatever you have}

In the bowl of an electric mixture fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the flour, sugar, salt, and softened butter until combined. 

In a separate bowl, whisk together the eggs, lemon zest, and lemon juice until combined. Pour into the flour mixture and beat at medium speed until smooth and creamy, about 2 minutes. 

Pour into baking dish and bake for 23-25 minutes, or until just starting to turn golden around the edges and a toothpick inserted into the center of the brownies comes out clean. Allow to cool completely before glazing.  Do not overbake, or the bars will be dry. {even with the yummy glaze}

When brownies are cooled completely, make the glaze...sift the powdered sugar, add lemon zest and juice, and whisk together all three ingredients. Spread 1/2 the glaze over the brownies with a rubber spatula.  Let glaze set.  Spread the remaining glaze over the bars, and let it set.  This glaze does not harden like most.  Cut into bars, and serve!

The batter looked heavenly after it was mixed. I wanted to eat the whole thing! It was like whipped lemon heaven. 

 

Unfortunately, I don't own an 8x8 pan only a 9x9 one and so the end result was kind of thin (like a little over a cm) after about 18 minutes. It didn't rise any. I used a silicone pan which made the brownie/cake tear when I popped it out. The glaze was runny (as warned) and it took about 4 small lemons to make it. Anyway, I used one of those flat scrapers to try and cut it and what a mess that made. I switched to a pizza cutter about 3/4's of the way through and that was a much, much better idea. Less mess and clean cuts!

 

The husband said it was tasty and my 2 year old toddler kept sneaking in and taking them. The people are the party I went to gave it high reviews too. Next time I make it I'd like to try and find a smaller pan.

Update March 3 2013: I've made this three more times since my initial attempt. I use my rectangular baking pan lined with parchment paper which works a lot better. Especially since I can just lift the parchment and put into a re-purposed chocolate tin. 

The first time I took it to a friend's house for her Oscars party. Either the lemons weren't super fresh or I stored them too close to a squash or used a knife that I had used to make squash soup (which I admit I made that same day), because it had a squashy flavour about it. Or maybe it was just the piece I got? One guy couldn't stop eating them. Nica said the last time I made them the bars were better.

The second time I took them into work. Weren't bad. I think I still overcooked them by a minute but the frosting really saved it. I selectively gave them out so had leftovers and when Nica and I ate them a couple of drunken nights later they were AWESOME. 

The third time I made them I used Trader Joe's gluten-free flour which you can use "cup for cup like real flour".  I wasn't sure of the chemistry of everything because after beating the butter, flour, sugar and salt, the resulting mixture was more solid and moist than crumbly like it normally is with regular flour. And after adding the lemon and egg mixture, it wasn't fluffy and creamy and almost looked like the lemon curdled. But I baked it anyway and it turned out super moist!  Thumbs up gluten-free recipe and in fact, I think I almost prefer it to the regular flour kind. Upping the rating from 8.5 to 9 out of 10. 

So my tips with this recipe?
* Use parchment paper to line whatever you're baking it in. Easier to transfer out of the pan (and clean), easier to hold in the glaze and easier to cut.
* Use a pizza cutter to slice the cake.
*  I used a KitchenAid mixer to mix everything. Probably not a tip since I'm sure you can still use an electric beater. I just wanted to point out that you don't HAVE to.
* You will need 6 (small) lemons to make this recipe and you will have leftover juice that you can freeze in ice cube trays for future use. 2 lemons for the cake, 4 lemons for the icing.

This is a super simple recipe that I can even get my toddler involved in. The hardest part is getting the rind off the lemons.

Cinnamon Rolls

lo and behold, Sandy has given me yet another recipe that is another go-to. She recently purchased a bread machine and tells me that it's on practically every single day in her house. One of the most requested items? Homemade cinnamon rolls!

before the rise

Now I'm sure if you were as daft as me, you're sitting there scratching your head wondering how a rectangular contraption like a bread machine, can produce cinnamon rolls. As in, how you toss in all the ingredients, walk away and POOF, voila, out come a dozen perfectly formed cinnamon rolls in a couple hours. Yeah, not one of my finer moments. Apparently you only do the dough until after the first rise (the dough needs to rise twice). After it rises the first time, you have to take it out, roll it, sprinkle the cinnamon and sugar, roll and then wait for it to rise again.

Well, I haven't convinced myself to buy a bread machine yet so I had to use my parents. Now, my parents own EVERYTHING under the sun. Unfortunately, that doesn't mean that what they own is new, or even usable. So when I attempted to make this for the first time at their house, I made a few key errors:
1. The order in which you add ingredients to a bread maker is CRITICAL. I did not realize this and apparently dumped everything in the wrong order.
2. Everything needs to be room temperature. I was trying to rush it and added the eggs in cold.
3. The yeast was kinda expired. Ok, it was expired but only by a month so I figured it would be ok.
4. They only had whole wheat bread flour.
5. My mom wasn't 100% sure if the bread maker worked.
6. It doesn't help if you fall asleep and then forget about the contents of the bread maker for a day. Ok, ok, I admit I didn't' *forget* about it, but when I took a peek inside and realized it was nothing like how it was suppose to look, I couldn't face it and escaped to work instead.

It was probably a combination of all the errors above that resulted in my failed first attempt. So gathering my wits about me (and after a few emails to Sandy), I summed up the courage to try this again at home. Without a breadmaker!

after the second rise, before the oven

And you know what? It worked! I took them to work and got thumbs up all around. I personally thought they were above average but not GREAT.

Then I made it again at my parents house. Then again at home, then again at my parents house, then again for a girls night. In a week. Yup, Nica overdosed on cinnamon rolls the last couple of weeks and now he's in recovery mode. lol.

After the oven

If I get it right, I'd give this a solid 9.5 out of 10. I did a couple of batches with whole wheat bread and it wasn't too bad. I have to research how to substitute whole wheat bread flour for regular because it seems like whenever I use it, it's always more moist and sticky before the rise. Also, for one of the batches I made (for girls night), I took some cream cheese out of the freezer and let it come to room temp naturally. Unfortunately, after whipping it in the kitchenaid for practically ten minutes, it still had lumps. When Ali put it in the toaster oven for a couple minutes, the lumps melted but still - lumps in cream cheese icing? Yuck. Next time I'll remember to nuke it right off the bat to melt.

All in all, it's actually a pretty straightforward recipe, it just takes a LONG time because of all the waiting you have to do because of the double rise.

So let me finally get to it. Here is the link on the allrecipes website:
 http://allrecipes.com/recipe/cinnamon-rolls-iii/detail.aspx

and as usual, here is the recipe for laziness sake:

Ingredients:

1/4 cup warm water 1/4 cup butter, melted 1/2 (3.4 ounce) package instant vanilla pudding mix 1 cup warm milk 1 egg, room temperature 1 tablespoon white sugar 1/2 teaspoon salt 4 cups bread flour 1 (.25 ounce) package active dry yeast

1/4 cup butter, softened 1 cup brown sugar 4 teaspoons ground cinnamon 3/4 cup chopped pecans 1/2 (8 ounce) package cream cheese, softened 1/4 cup butter, softened 1 cup confectioners' sugar 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract 1 1/2 teaspoons milk

Directions:

1.	In the pan of your bread machine, combine water, melted butter, vanilla pudding, warm milk, egg, 1 tablespoon sugar, salt, bread flour and yeast. Set machine to Dough cycle; press Start.
2.	When Dough cycle has finished, turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface and roll into a 17x10 inch rectangle. Spread with softened butter. In a small bowl, stir together brown sugar, cinnamon and pecans. Sprinkle brown sugar mixture over dough.
3.	Roll up dough, beginning with long side. Slice into 16 one inch slices and place in 9x13 buttered pan. Let rise in a warm place until doubled, about 45 minutes. Meanwhile, preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
4.	Bake in preheated oven for 15 to 20 minutes. While rolls bake, stir together cream cheese, softened butter, confectioners' sugar, vanilla and milk. Remove rolls from oven and top with frosting.

This one reviewers comments was the most helpful for those who don't own a bread machine:

Reviewed: Sep. 25, 2006

Absolutely wonderful!!! I used the traditional method, without the bread maker. I dissolved the tbs. sugar (I used brown) in the water, along with the butter. If you use cold butter, just boil the water, and pour it over the butter while stirring. By that time the temp is quickly brought to the ideal temp for adding the yeast. Cover with plastic wrap, and fix the pudding while the yeast foams. I add the egg, pudding mix and milk together and stir. Then, I measure out the flour, adding 4 tsp of vital wheat gluten to all purpose flour, (I had no bread flour). By that time, the yeast is ready for mixing. I add the pudding mixture, mixing well, followed by the flour. I knead the dough until it forms a ball-all done in same bowl. After I remove the ball, I pour a bit of oil in, and replace the dough and roll it in the oil. The rest is pretty self-explanitory. After rising for about 1 hr. I roll out, spread filling, cut, and rise again. I cook for my boyfriend and the mechanics at his shop and they wont stop raving about them! My boyfriend says that it's the only time the ENTIRE SHOP just sits in silence, awing over how good they are!! A++++ recipe! Thanks Miss Alix!

815 users found this review helpful

Update Feb 2013:

The sad, never-rising defrosted bun.

I wanted to give these to a friend who likes hot cinnamon buns but how to get this to him right out of my oven?!. I thought I'd give him frozen ones instead that he could bake at home so he'd have warm cinnamon buns. I froze the dough after I had rolled it out with the cinnamon and sugar and before the second proofing. I had it in the fridge for a few days but when I took them out to try and bring them to room temp and have them rise again... it never happened. The rolls looked so pitiful I didn't even bother trying to bake them in the oven. I don't know when in the process you're suppose to freeze this, but I have decided I will never freeze baked goods ever again. Fresh is best! Frozen is gross.