Tiny But Intense Chocolate Cake

 Ingredients:

6 TBS butter (plus more for pan)
4 ounces semisweet chocolate
3 large eggs, separated
1/3 C light brown sugar
1/4 tsp vanilla
1/4 sea salt
Pinch of cinnamon (optional)

To Finish:

1/2 C whipping cream
2 tsp granulated sugar

Preheat your oven to 350. Line a 6-inch round springform pan with a circle of parchment paper. Generously butter sides of pan and parchment round.

In a small saucepan, melt your butter over medium heat, stirring for even cooking. After the butter melts, it will hiss and spatter a bit as the water cooks off, and then fragrant brown bits will form at the bottom of the saucepan. The whole process will take about 3 minutes. Quickly remove from the heat and stir in the chocolate until it is melted and smooth. Cool the chocolate mixture to lukewarm, a process that can be sped up by transferring the mixture from the hot saucepan to a small bowl set in a puddle of cold or ice water. If quick-cooling the chocolate like this, be sure to stir it every minute or two for even cooling. 

With an electric mixer, beat egg yolks, brown sugar, and vanilla together until the mixture thickens and takens on a, frankly, kind-of icky pale-yellow-brown color. Slowly beat in the lukewarm chocolate mixture, and a pretty color will return. The mixture will become very thick but loosen significantly once we add the egg-whites. 

Wipe clean, wash, and dry your electric beater(s), and beat egg whites and salt in a separate bowl until firm peaks form. Add a pinch of cinnamon if using. Stir one-third of egg-white mixture into chocolate mixture. Fold the remaining two-thirds in gently, trying to keep the batter as light as possible. Pour into the prepared pan, and bake in preheated oven for 20-25 minutes, or until it is puffed with a lovely dome on top (which you shouldn't get too attached to), and a tester or skewer comes out clean or with just a couple crumbs attached. 

To Serve

Let cool on rack for 10 minutes--it will immediately begin to sink in the middle--then run a knife around the cake to make sure it's not stuck to the pan, and release the springform sides. Let it cool the rest of the way on its base. Once it's cool, flip out onto a plate or second rack, remove parchment round (if it's stuck) from the bottom, and flip cake back onto a small plate. To serve, beat whipping cream with granulated sugar until soft peaks forms. Dust cake with confectioners' sugar and dollop with whipped cream and berries. 

Smoked Pulled Ham

 Ingredients: 

1 Bone-In Ham Shank (un cut. Mine are usually about 9 lbs)
2 TB mustard 

Dry Rub:
2 1/2 TBS brown sugar
1/4 tsp ground red pepper
3/4 tsp cinnamon 
1/2 tsp ginger
1/2 tsp allspice
1/4 cloves

Glaze:
3/4 C brown sugar
3/4 tsp ground cloves
grated zest of 1 orange
3 TBS fresh orange juice
1 1/2 TBS dijon mustard
1 1/2 TBS apple cider vinegar

Additional Ingredients:
2-3 C Apple Juice

Preheat your oven to 300. 

Rinse your ham with cool water and pat dry with paper towels. Score ham as directed in recipe and then place in a roasting pan. 

Pour 2-3 C water (or apple juice) in pan. The exact amount is not as important as the water reaching 1/4-1/2" up the sides of the pan. Heavy duty foil is helpful here. Cover pan tightly with foil. 

Roast until internal temperature reaches 200-205 degrees. My 7lb shank was absolutely falling apart at 6 hours. I'd say 5-7 hours is a good target range for how long this will take depending on the size of your ham. If you have the time, let your ham sit, covered, for about 20 minutes out of the oven before you shred. 

Increase oven temperature 375. 

Remove meat onto a cutting board, discard fat, bones (or save bones for soup). I also discard the pan drippings because they tend to be salty, but you can taste yours and decide if you want to keep any to drizzle over your meat. 

Place your shredded meat in a 13x9 pan. Or if you have a particularly large ham and a smaller roasting pan, you can put them back in your clean roasting pan. 

At this point the ham is great as is! You could set some aside, or pile it on buns with bbq sauce. 

If you'd like to make orange brown sugar version, whisk together all glaze ingredients and drizzle over meat. This will not create a traditionally stick glaze, it will simply add flavor. Toss together, cover pan with foil, and pop back in the oven for 15-20 minutes. 

For Smoker: 
Preheat your smoker to 225. 

Lightly rinse your ham with cool water to remove extra salty residue from the juices its often packed in, and pat dry with paper towels. I like to place my ham on a foil-lined baking sheet for easy transfer at this point.

Use a knife to score your ham in a criss-cross patter across all sides. 

Rub ham on all sides with mustard. A 9-ish pound shank usually uses about 2 TBS.

Combine all spice rub ingredients in a small bowl and mix well. Sprinkle rub on all sides of ham. 

Place ham in your smoker at 225. Place some apple juice in a clean spray bottle reserved for food purposes and spritz ham every 2-3 hours. 

Continue to smoke until internal temperature reaches 155-165. (This generally takes about 6 hours).

While ham is smoking, whisk together the glaze.

Reserve 2 TBS glaze in a small container and set aside. The remaining glaze is what you will use in the following step. 

Transfer ham to a roasting pan. Add 1 1/2 C apple juice (or water) to pan. Use a silicone brush to brush perpared glze onto all sides of ham. Cover tightly with foil and roast in oven, or back on your smoker, at 350 until ham reaches an internal temperature between 200-205. This step usually takes an additional 3 hours. The thermometer should slide in and out very easily and you should be able to pull a piece of ham off and have it shred nicely. At this point, remove ham from oven, keep it covered, and rest for 20-30 minutes before shredding.

Remove ham from roasting pan and transfer to cutting board. (Avoid shredding your ham in the pan juices because those are often overly salty). If your ham is falling apart and hard to transfer, that's a good thing! Shred ham, discarding extra fat and bones. 

Add 1-2 TBS apple or orange juice to the small amount of glaze you reserved. I like to drizzle this over the finished ham and toss it before serving. Go by taste, you may not want to use all of it--its personal preference!

Christmas Morning Scones

Ingredients:

1/2 C very warm water
1/2 tsp sugar
2 packages of quick rising yeast
1 1/2 C hot milk
1 TB oil
3 tsp sugar
2 tsp salt
1/2 C cold water
4 1/2 C flour 

Oil for frying

In a large deep frying pan, fill with about 3 inches of canola oil or vegetable oil and turn on to medium high heat.

Add together warm water, sugar, and yeast. Stir and let sit until foamy (just a few minutes). 

Add the following to the hot milk: oil, sugar, salt, and cold water. Then add 2 cups of flour to start. Gradually add until it is soft and kneadable--approximately 4 1/2 cups. Let set for 5-10 minutes and knead lightly. Roll out very thick on floured surface. Let stand another 5 minutes. Cut into squares or rectangles. 

Slip the squares into the frying pan. They will go down into the oil and then pop back up to the top. Check underneath and when the bottoms are golden brown--turn them over. You will be able to tell when they are done they are golden brown color. Remove with slotted spoon and serve with butter, jam, honey or whatever! 

Angel Biscuits

 Oven: 400 Degrees

Ingredients: 

2 1/2 C flour
2 TB sugar
2 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp salt
1/2 C crisco 
1 C milk
1 TB yeast dissolved in 1/4 C warm water

Directions:

Combine dry ingredients in large bowl. Add shortening and cut in until mixture is crumbly. In separate bowl whisk together milk and yeast. Pour over dry ingredients. Roll dough into ball and knead onto floured surface 20-25 times. Pat in 1/2" thickness and cut with cutter. Bake for 12-15 minutes or until browned. 

Roasted Potatoes

 Ingredients: 

Oven: 450

1 envelope Lipton Onion Soup Mix
2 lbs potatoes--chopped into medium cubes
1/3 C olive oil

Directions:
In large plastic Ziploc, bag add all ingredients. Close bag and shake until potatoes are very well coated. Empty potatoes into shallow 13x9 baking dish (coated with PAM!!). Bake stirring occasionally 40 minutes or until potatoes are golden brown and tender. Makes about 8 servings.

Meat Loaf (Mom's Recipe)

 Oven: 350

Meat loaf Ingredients:
2 beaten eggs
3/4 C milk
2 TB dried onion
2/3 C fine dry bread crumbs
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp sage
dash pepper
1 1/2 lbs ground beef

Topping Ingredients:
1/4 C ketchup
2 TB brown sugar
1 tsp dry mustard
1/4 tsp nutmeg

Directions:

Combine all ingredients except meat and mix well. Add meat and mix well. Put into greased loaf pan. Bake for 1 hour. 

Mix topping ingredients and spread over loaf and bake for 15 minutes more. 

Granola Bars/Crumbles

 Dry Ingredients:

5 C regular oats
1 C brown sugar
2 tsp cinnamon
1 C coconut (I use unsweetened)
1/2-1 C sunflower seeds
1/2-1 C chopped almonds
1/2-1 C chopped pecans
1/2-1 C mini chocolate chips (optional)

Wet Ingredients:

1 C butter, melted
2/3 C honey
1 tsp vanilla
1 C non-fat dry milk (powdered milk is the secret sauce)

Preheat oven to 350. Combine dry ingredients in a large bowl and set aside. Combine butter, honey, vanilla, and nonfat dry milk in large mixing bowl and blend until smooth and thick, about 3 minutes. Pour over dry ingredients and mixw ell using either your hands or the dough hook (or a wooden spoon). Spread in a foil lines (I even sometimes spray with PAM) 12x18 or 11x17 baking sheet type pan (or 2 smaller ones). Bake 10 minutes, then use a spatula to flip over granola. Bake an additional 5 minutes. This will still look a bit wet when you take it out of the oven, and that's what will make chew granola bars or crumbles after it cools completely.

For crumbles: spread granola over additional pieces of foil to cool. Keep in Ziploc bags for easy munching.

For bars: press granola down into pan with spatula after removing it from oven. Cut into bars while still warm. Cool completely, then lift foil out of pan and cut bars again. Keep individually wrapped bars in Ziploc bags or in Tupperware. 

Recipe from Sarah Brown