These Corn Cakes are crispy and sweet on the outside and LIGHT textured and MOIST on the inside. They do lose the crispness on day two but are still mighty delicious.No worries…the 2nd day you can reheat them in the oven and get the crispness again if you want. They are light, sweet and very corn like in taste. They have that perfect sweet to salt to yummy corn flavor. They come out like you baked them in cast iron. I made a slight accident when I cooked them and I don’t know if that contributes to the yumminess. I accidentally topped up the cornmeal cup of flour with chickpea flour. At the time I thought I added cornmeal flour that looked funny but latter I figured out I used about a 1/4 cup of chickpea flour because I had my chickpea flour in the wrong spot in my pantry.

Well any who these are mighty flavorful and delicious. The come out sweet, moist, (day 1) crispy like fried and yummy.

Ingredients for 20 corn cakes 20 servings Extras can be frozen

3/4 cup corn meal

1/4 cup chickpea flour

1 cup flour

1 1/2 cup sugar

1/2 cup unsalted butter – melted

1 XL egg – beaten

1 cup sweet corn – fresh cooked

3 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon kosher or sea salt

1 cup non-fat Greek Yogurt

non-stick cooking spray

Directions

Set oven to 350 degrees F. Spray two muffin pans with non-stick spray and set to the side.  In your large bowl stir by hand with a fork your butter and sugar till mixed well. Now add your egg and mix well again. Dump in all your dry ingredients followed by the yogurt and mix well. Stir in your corn. Now fill the cups of your muffin pan a little over half way.

Bake for about 25 minutes. They will be brown on top and did look possibly raw but weren’t. I let them cool maybe 10 minutes. Gave each one of them a little turn to make sure they didn’t stick and then lifted each one out.

This is something that everyone would like.

 

 

 

Pumpernickel Bread is very similar to Rye Bread and is basically a dark rye made with coarse rye flour. There are many different styles of Pumpernickel bread. The varieties that I’m familiar with are American, German and Russian. The German style is very dense and is slow cooked all night long or possibly a day to cook. The Russian Style is a very flavorful dark and moist and is sometimes topped with garlic, onion, poppy seeds, sesame seeds and pretzel salt. The American Style is similar to rye bread but has molasses and coffee added to the dough. My style runs in-between American and Russian. I was just aiming for a delicious bread.

Ingredients for about 25 servings

3 1/2 cups bread flour (+ extra to rest your dough in)

2 cups dark rye flour

2 cups whole wheat graham flour

1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa

1/3 cup dark brown sugar

1 Tablespoon active dry yeast

1/4 cup caraway seeds

1/4 cup molasses

1/2 cup canola oil

1 1/2 Tablespoon kosher salt

1/2 teaspoon cumin

1/2 teaspoon coriander

3 cups hot water

1/4 cup semolina –  FOR RESTING THE DOUGH on

1 teaspoon granulated garlic

1/4 cup sweet onion – minced

1 teaspoon poppy seeds

2 big pinches course sea salt (one for each loaf)

1 XL egg beaten (to brush on loaf)

 

Directions

All dry ingredients (EXCEPT SEMOLINA flour, granulated garlic, sweet onion, poppy seeds, pinches of sea salt)  in your mixing bowl from your stand mixer. Now add all the wet ingredients (EXCEPT FOR EGG) and stir till combined.

Bring up your mixer to medium/high speed (on mine #6) and let your mixer mix the dough for 10 minutes till the dough is like elastic and pulls away from the sides of the bowl.

It should look like this.

Get out a large bowl and put in some bread flour for the dough ball to rest.

Pull the dough off the mixing hook and get all the dough out of the bowl and knead it a bit and make it into a dough ball using a little bit of the flour.

 

Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and leave in a warm place for about an hour or until it rises.

Divide the dough into three.

Put down semolina for the dough balls (or flat bread)…..I used some on an oiled pizza pan and some on a wooden board for the loaves.

You can make either three small loaves of bread or a non traditional pizza or sort of flat bread and two loaves of bread like I did.

The semolina that allows your bread to slide off easily and also makes the crust taste delicious and nutty.

Put the resting board in a warm place till the loaves double in size.

I did the pizza first and let the bread rise.

The NON Traditional pizza I put in a 350 degree F oven for fifteen minutes.

I took it out and flipped it over and then topped it with Swiss Cheese, munster Cheese, tomatoes, black garlic, padron peppers, extra virgin olive oil and salt and pepper.

Put it back in the oven just a few minutes to melt the cheese.

Now back to the breads. We ate two pieces for lunch and the rest can be frozen for another time.

Back to the breads.

They are nice and puffy so I mixed up the remaining ingredients and brushed them on the loaves.

I put one in the oven at 400 degrees F for thirty minutes and then the other for the same.

They taste great and are attractive too!

 

Moles come in various flavors and colors. Many recipes for mole are out there but the common ingredient is Chili Peppers. Classic Mole Sauce is called Mole Poblano that may be dark red or a brown color and is usually served over Chicken, Turkey or Pork. Usually Mole is made of Chili Peppers, Spices, Seeds, Nuts, Fruit, Toasted or burnt Bread and or Tortillas and a little chocolate. Traditional Mole Sauce can take a few days to prepare and usually will contain FOURTY or more ingredients. I added a few non-traditional ingredients to my Mole and that is why I’m calling this mole Non-Traditional Pumpkin Mole. I used fresh roasted Pumpkin and dates in addition to other usual Mole ingredients. I took liberties with the cinnamon and the anise seeds since they accent pumpkin so well.  Only two things that I would do different are that I’d put the sesame seeds in a food processor or spice grinder next time so they’d be smooth. You do need to know that mole doesn’t have to be smooth….I just prefer the smooth style. The other thing I might do different is to add mulato chili pods to the recipe. I didn’t have them so I went without but I assure you that I added plenty of peppers. I can’t say for sure how I’d change up the other ingredients if I used mulato chili pods so your on your own if you add mulato. I’m very pleased with the way it came out. I thought it went well with chicken but I think the sauce actually popped more when I served it over turkey breast that I pan fried in a pan. I served it very heavy over the chicken pictured because one of my favorite Mexican Restaurants serves it that way. They serve it that way with rice and tortillas on the side.

Ingredients for about Eleven Servings

3 oz guajillo chili pods (washed off, soaked a few minutes, stem and seeds removed)

2 oz pasilla chili pods (washed off, soaked a few minutes, stem and seeds removed)

non- stick spray ( canola or vegetable )

1/4 cup peanuts

1/4 cup pepitas

1/4 cup sesame seeds

3/4 teaspoon anise seeds

3/4 teaspoon cinnamon

1/4 sweet onions – chopped fine

1 cup dates – chopped – small

2 cup pumpkin – cooked and mashed

1/4 cup chipotle chiles in adobo

1 lb poblano peppers – (about 4 large) – roasted -remove stem and seeds and chopped small

4 garlic cloves chopped fine

2 Tablespoons tomato paste

1 Tablespoon coriander

1 Tablespoon + 1 teaspoon chili powder

1/4 cup masa

2 cup vegetable stock

1/4 teaspoon cloves

1/4 teaspoon allspice

1 teaspoon salt

1 oz Mexican Chocolate

Directions

Set your oven to 400 degrees F on roast.

Spray your baking sheet(s) and in a single layer lay out the guajillo and pasilla chilies. leave in oven until very fragrant (the peppers I had got that way in eight minutes)

Remove the pods from the baking sheet and boil them in water. (just use enough water to cover the chilies)  Then reduce to a simmer for about an hour.

Use immersion blender and blend them up as smooth as you can. Then strain the mixture. Use a spoon to squish out everything you can get out of it.

Set the strained mixture to the side and throw out the stuff left behind in the strainer.

In your sauce pot on medium heat and toast up the nuts, seeds, spices for about three minutes or until the pepitas and sesame seeds turn toasted looking. Put them on the side.

In your pot add onions and garlic and sauce till lightly browned.

add pumpkin, poblanos, tomato paste.

Add the seeds and nuts back to the pot.

Start blending.

Add masa.

Blend

Add stock

Blend

Stir and Blend….stir and blend…after about 1/2 an hour add the chili pod mixture. Stir and blend for about ten minutes and reduce the heat to simmer.

When you think it’s about done add the chocolate.

Stir and blend some more.

Take off heat and enjoy! Freeze leftovers.

Complex flavors with heat that you don’t get at first. Great for pouring over chicken, turkey or pork. I think it goes especially well with turkey breast.