Angel Food Cake

We had quite a few eggwhites left over from all the homemade custards we were making. What to do with the eggwhites? Le hubby answered that with angel food cake! He found Alton Brown's recipe and away [to the kitchen] I went.

Ingredients
1 3/4 cups sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup cake flour
12 egg whites (the closer to room temperature the better)
1/3 cup warm water
1 teaspoon orange extract, or extract of your choice
1 1/2 teaspoons cream of tartar

Directions
Preheat oven to 350°F.

In a food processor spin sugar about 2 minutes until it is superfine. I skipped this part. Sift half of the sugar with the salt and the cake flour, setting the remaining sugar aside.

In a large bowl (I used my stand mixer's bowl), use a balloon whisk to thoroughly combine egg whites, water, orange extract, and cream of tartar. 

After 2 minutes, switch to a hand mixer. Slowly sift the reserved sugar, beating continuously at medium speed. 

What I assumed "medium peaks" to be. FYI: The dripping stayed up, it didn't fall off the whisk.

Once you have achieved medium peaks, sift enough of the flour mixture in to dust the top of the foam. Using a spatula fold in gently. Continue until all of the flour mixture is incorporated. As you can see, my flour/sugar mix was not sifted...

Carefully spoon mixture into an ungreased tube pan. I just poured/dumped the batter into my pan.

Bake for 35 minutes before checking for doneness with a wooden skewer. (When inserted halfway between the inner and outer wall, the skewer should come out dry). My cake looked pretty! :)

Cool upside down on cooling rack for at least an hour before removing from pan. I did do this as I did not want a potentially flat dense angel cake. And I must've made it right because the cake held together as it cooled down upside down. Hooray!

This Angel Food Cake was superb! Light and spongy and airy, but not eggy like a sponge cake. 

Side Note: After the cake set, the top part became sticky when touched. I wonder if it was because I didn't mix the sugar in all that well or if it had anything to do with me not sifting the dry ingredients. Hrmmmm.

In my personal opinion, the cake was just a tad too sweet so I found another recipe that I would like to try sometimes in the future from Joy of Baking. (Uses less sugar and more flour)

Coconut Flour Biscuits

Le hubby was getting tired of the same old keto friendly foodies that I'd make for him to munch on, which was pretty much coconut bread and more recently the time-consuming custard. I felt bad for him so I surfed the net until I found something that had the potential to be delicious yet keto friendly. They are Coconut Flour Cheddar Drop Biscuits! Only, I made a couple of substitutions so it's more like Monterrey Jack Biscuits. heh.

All you need are 4 eggs, 1/4 cup melted butter with 1/4 tsp salt and 1/4 tsp Penzey's Bouquet Garni (or onion powder if following the original recipe), 1/3 cup coconut flour with 1/4 tsp baking powder and 3/4 cup shredded Monterrey Jack cheese. Yields 8 small biscuits.

Mix the melted butter/salt/spice with the scrambled eggs.

Stir in the coconut flour and baking soda mixture into the egg mixture. (If it looks kind of dry, feel free to add in 1 tbs of water).

Then, fold in the cheese.

Looks like dough.

I placed our biscuit dough in a muffin pan instead of dropping them on a cookie sheet. You want to spray or oil down any tin you are using really well...

Bake in preheated oven of 400°F for 15-20 minutes. When I first bit into the biscuit, it totally tasted like breakfast sausages. I think it was because I subbed the onion powder with the penzey's bouquet garni spice. It was kind of interesting at first, but easily grows on you. It was definitely a savory biscuit and le hubby enjoyed them! 

Homemade Custard

This is another one of hubby's creations where he likes to just "wing it." The custard is made with egg yolks, heavy whipping cream, sugar/splenda, a pinch of salt and vanilla extract. However, it takes a while to make for such a small serving... :( Welp, at least the hubby likes it and it comes out pretty darn good.

1 whole egg and 4 egg yolks, scrambled. Continuously stirred in a double boiler over medium to high heat. Add a pinch of salt. 

Continue to stir until slightly thickened as shown above.

Slowly stir in 1 cup of heavy whipping cream. Add in your sugar to desired sweetness. (We used about 2 tsp of splenda for a keto friendly version or 4 tsp of granulated white sugar). Add in 1 tsp vanilla extract. Stir, stir, stir until it's like super thick gravy.Then let it set in the fridge.

Comes out to be like pudding consistency, only it tastes like custard! :D Now we just need to figure out how to get rid of the lumps... maybe a hand blender or even a whisk? Btw, this is a 2 cup glass tupperware. And it took about a 1/2 hour of stirring to make this!!

Monterrey Jack and Spinach Quiche

I finally made a quiche with fresh spinach and let me tell you, it is just as delicious as the other quiches. You can truly sub the cheese with any you happen to have on hand! And I just love that it comes out wonderfully without a crust! It's also keto-friendly.

Here's what you need:
4 eggs
1 cup heavy whipping cream
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1 tablespoons coconut flour
1/4 tsp kosher salt
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/3 cup minced onions
7.5 ounces shredded monterrey jack cheese

0.5 ounces shredded parmesan cheese (we had a small block leftover)
6 ounces freshly chopped spinach

1. First off, preheat your oven to 350°F.

2. In a mixing bowl, mix the eggs, whipping cream, mayo, coconut flour, salt and garlic powder.

3. Then add each of the remaining ingredients, stirring each time.

4. Pour the egg mixture into your pan. (9-inch pie pan works super well too.)

5. Bake for 45 minutes - 1 hour or until top is golden brown.

Needless to say, it was DEE-licious!!

Toffee Pretzel Chocolate Bark

This is so easy even a caveman can make it... assuming there's access to a working stove and oven. :D I like this recipe because you don't need a candy thermometer!!! I'm so glad to have stumbled onto this recipe. Poor hubby. He's on keto for all of February and has no idea he's missing out!

8 oz mini pretzels (enough to spread out onto a large baking sheet)
1 C butter
1 C brown sugar, packed
2 C semi sweet chocolate chips

I did a half batch and used regular pretzels. I just crushed them a bit before spreading out on a baking sheet lined with foil. I've read that parchment paper works fine too. You'll want to preheat your oven to 375°F first.

This was 6oz of crushed pretzels. (I used a lil more pretzels)

This was the 1/2 cup butter and 1/2 cup packed brown sugar. 

Bring it to a boil over medium heat, stirring occasionally to make sure everything is blending together nicely. Once you have a rolling boil going, keep the heat at medium and stop stirring. Let it bubble away for 3 minutes. (Mine turned out a lil darker compared to the original website.)

The butter/sugar mix was poured over the pretzels as best as possible... the gaps were somewhat closed when baked for 5 minutes in a preheated oven. (I probably should've measured out everything proportionally. i.e. 6 oz pretzels, 3/4 cup butter and 3/4 cup packed sugar...)

Sprinkle 1 cup of chocolate chips. Let the chips rest for a minute or two until the chips softens.

Spread the chocolate evenly over the pretzels with a spatula. Then, place it in the fridge for about a 1/2 hour so the chocolate can firm up.

Once everything hardened, I broke them up into handheld pieces. They truly are irresistible! Great for an appetizer, snack, munchies, dessert, you name it! Great sub for dinner... ;D 

Here in SoCal, I kept them stored in a ziploc baggie in the fridge so I don't have to worry about the chocolate melting. But then again, they don't last long!

Pear Crisp

Peel, core and slice up 4 pears. Since my pears were hard/crunchy when bitten into and still green, I also added a 1/4 cup of granulated sugar. Add 1-2 tsp of orange zest, 1 tsp cinnamon, 1/2 tsp ground cloves, 1/4 tsp of ground nutmeg and some orange juice or water so that the pears don't brown on the bottom. Cover with lid and cook until the pears soften. Stir occasionally. Once the pears are soft and sweet to your liking, the sauce should be thickened with cornstarch. Should look like the below.

Pour your pear filling into a pie pan.

In a separate bowl, mix in 1/2 cup all purpose flour, 1/2 cup oatmeal, 1/2 cup granola, 1/4 cup brown sugar, and a 1/2 cup melted butter.

Spread evenly on top of the pear filling.

Bake in a preheated oven of 350°F for 20-30 minutes or until the top crisp is nicely browned. 

Dig in and enjoy! You could even top it off with whipped cream for a more decadent treat!! I'm happy to say that I received many compliments on this dish, especially since, there isn't a lot of pear desserts out there. It truly makes this one different and so awesome! :D