-- From The Domestic Scientist

The Deathwing Cake is not a lie.

This cake from The Domestic Scientist makes me want to slay dragons.

Once a week, I’m selling sandwiches to Devon’s co-workers: homemade English muffins and sausage, cheddar cheese and eggs. Sometimes things like this just come out of nowhere, and I’m having a pretty good time with it. There are lots of recipes on the Internet for English muffins, but I like the one I linked to here because you can do the mixing and rising part in the bread machine. I’ve also used buttermilk instead of regular milk with good results.

Cultured buttermilk is about cultivating bacteria. You’ll need to make a fresh batch every week with some of the old batch, though. You can find the directions on Cultures for Health’s website, or probably at any number of stores, but that’s the one I used.

I like this solution because I end up wasting a ton of buttermilk. I need it rarely, and the stores around here sell it only in huge cartons. If you’re not into making buttermilk but have the same problem, I found the powdered buttermilk works pretty well, too, and it lasts forever.

The instructions don’t explain that the buttermilk may take longer than the recommended 12-18 hours to set. Mine took about 25 hours, so hang in there.

Note for bacteria geeks: There seems to be some debate about Streptococcus lactis’s name. I’m going with the name Cultures for Health used.

I’ve been getting lots of use out of our slow cooker, although the cats keep whining about how hot it is in there.

I kid! I promise!

This recipe is from “More Make It Fast, Cook It Slow: 200 Brand-New, Budget-Friendly, Slow-Cooker Recipes” by Stephanie O’Dea. All of the recipes in this book are gluten free and stupid easy.

Crab and Corn Soup

1 quart chicken broth
1 tablespoon butter
1 cup chopped onion or 1 tablespoon dried minced onion
1 (32-ounce) package frozen corn
2 garlic cloves, chopped
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 (6-ounce) can lump crabmeat, drained
1 cup half-and-half or heavy cream, to add later
1 avocado, sliced, to add later

Use a 4-quart slow cooker. Pour the broth into the slow cooker, and add the butter and onion. Stir in the frozen corn, garlic, salt, cayenne, and crabmeat. Cover and cook on low for 8 hours, high for 4 hours, or until the onion is cooked through and translucent. If you’d like a thicker broth, pulse a few times with a handheld stick blender, or scoop out a cup of soup and blend in a traditional blender, then stir it back in. Add the hald-and-half or cream before serving, and ladle into bowls with avocado slices.

The usual technique for cooking with the SVS involves vacuum-sealed bags, since it’s a water bath that keeps the food at a consistent temperature indefinitely. It’s useful especially for meat and chicken, for keeping them the same consistency throughout. Since vacuum-sealing yogurt is not terribly helpful because we’d need to add the starter later, we put the milk in a plastic resealable container.

We hit two problems: 1) There’s always some air in the container, which makes it float, and 2) We didn’t have any airtight containers that were the right size, so we had some milk spill into the water. (We saved it before water spilled into the milk.) The first problem ended up being not that big a deal. We tried to weigh it down with a marble mortar initially, but the mortar fell off during the heating. As I’m writing this, I’m kicking myself in the teeth for not thinking of using plastic zipper bags. I’ll do that next time. In the end, as long as the container was submerged up to where the milk was, it was fine.

We used the typical method for making yogurt. We heated the water to 185 F and put the container with the milk into the water bath. We left it there for about 20 minutes at that temperature. After 20 minutes, we took it out and put it into an ice bath to bring it back down to 110 F. While it was cooling, we dumped the water in the SVS, refilled it with fresh water and heated that water to 110 F.

When the milk cooled to 110 F, we added the yogurt culture. Adding the culture when the milk is too hot will kill it dead. You can buy starter, but I always use a few tablespoons of plain store-bought yogurt with good results. Buy yogurt with live active cultures, which is just about every yogurt I’ve ever seen in the store. Make sure it’s fresh. Some people add milk powder to make it creamier, but I find this isn’t necessarily if you’re making whole-milk yogurt.

When the yogurt is back at 110 F, let it sit for between 4 and 8 hours. We let it sit overnight, and we poured off the whey  in the morning. It’s now firming up in the fridge.

The SVS method is not any easier than doing it on the stove, but it’s not any harder, either, and it allows for more control over temperature, which makes me happy.

Below, the answer to all your cream-pie prayers, Butterscotch Cream Pie from “How to Bake” by Nick Malgieri.

But first, all pies begin with a good crust. I’ve adapted the recipes here somewhat because Malgieri offers a lot of info. The book is worth picking up. Some of the recipes are fairly involved,  but I haven’t been disappointed yet.

Nut Crumb Crust

1/2 cup (2 to 3 ounces) nutmeats (almonds, hazelnuts, walnuts, pecans)
1 cup bleached all-purpose flour (I used unbleached because it was what I had, and it turned out fine)
1/3 cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons unsalted butter

One 9-inch Pyrex pie pan, buttered

Set a rack at the middle level of the oven and bake to 350 F. Place the nutmeats into the bowl of a food processor with a metal blade. Pule until they are finely ground but not paste. Add the remaining dry ingredients, and pulse a few times to combine.

Add the butter and pulse a few times until the mixture is evenly moist and looks crumbly. Remove the blade and turn the mixture out into a prepared pan.

Using your fingertips, distribute the mixture evenly over the bottom and sides of the pan, gently pressing it into place. Make sure the crumb coating is even because thin spots will burn during baking.

Use the back of a spoon to smooth the surface and make the rim of the crust straight and even.

Bake the crust for 20 minutes or until it is a deep, golden brown. (This part took 15 minutes for me.)

Cool on rack.

*********************

Now, for the pie.

Butterscotch Cream Pie

1 recipe Nut Crumb Crust

Filling

2-1/2 cups milk
2/3 cup light brown sugar
pinch of salt
1/3 cup light brown sugar
3 large eggs
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Topping

1 cup heavy cream
2 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Prepare and bake the crust. Let it cool.
To make the filling, combine 2 cups of the milk, the sugar, and salt in a nonreactive saucepan; whisk once to mix and brig to a boil over low heat.
Place the remaining 1/2 cup milk in a mixing bowl and whisk in the cornstarch, then the eggs. Return the milk and sugar mixture to a boil over low heat, then whisk about a third of it into the egg mixture. Return the remaining milk and sugar mixture to a boil and whisk in the egg mixture, whisking constantly until the filling thickens and comes to a boil. Allow to boil, whisking constantly, for about 30 seconds. Remove from the heat, and whisk in the butter and vanilla; pour into a nonreactive bowl. Press plastic wrap against the surface of the filling and chill until it is about 75 degrees.

Spread the cooled filling evenly in the cooled crust.

Whip the cream with the sugar and vanilla until it holds a firm peak. Spread the cream over the filling.

I had some chocolate bits begging to be used, so I sprinkled them over the top, but that’s not necessary.

I made cream cheese accidentally when I let my yogurt drain too long in an effort to get Greek yogurt-like consistency. Most food surprises don’t turn out this happily. If you’re expecting the heavy, dense bricks you find in the supermarket, you’ll be disappointed. This cream cheese is lighter and spreads nicely.

Add a bit of salt and any flavorings you want, like  jam, for a  morning bagel topper.

Cream Cheese

• Yogurt recipe

Drain yogurt in colander lined with cheesecloth overnight, in the fridge. Scrape yogurt into airtight container. This will last up to a month if the container has a strong seal.

When you see how dead easy it is to make your own yogurt, you’ll buy the store-bought stuff only during moments of extreme desperation. It takes a bit of time, but most of that can be spent watching TV or organizing your underwear drawer while the milk and heat do their thing. Devon found that using yogurt instead of milk made for fluffier omelets. I like this recipe because it lets me have plain organic yogurt for half the price of the non-organic kind in stores.

If you’re looking for the sugary, gross stuff on the supermarket shelves, this isn’t it. This recipe will give you 4 cups of plain yogurt. Adding vanilla extract, sugar or jam will jazz it up a bit, and you control how sweet it gets. This recipe calls for a yogurt maker, but you can make it without one if you can find a consistent, low-temperature heat source, such as an oven that goes as low as 100 F. If you’re feeling experimental, you can buy your own yogurt culture, but I’ve always had good results with a small container of store-bought yogurt.

I also got my yogurt maker at Amazon, but they no longer carry the dirt-cheap one I have, and the ones they do carry are about twice the cost of the one I bought, so look around.

You can skip the dry milk if you’re using whole milk, but I recommend it if you’re making low-fat or skim yogurt.

Yogurt

• 4 cups milk (whole, lowfat or skim)
• ¼ cup dry milk powder (optional)
• ½ of an 8-ounce container of store-bought plain yogurt

Pour the milk into a medium saucepan and heat over medium heat to 185 F. Let the milk cool to 100 F to 110 F. While the milk is cooling, plug in the yogurt maker.

Add milk powder, if using, and half of the container of yogurt. (If you add the culture when the milk is too hot, you will kill off the bacteria that make the whole thing work.) Whisk the powder and yogurt in gently until they are incorporated and lumps are gone.

Pour milk into preheated yogurt maker, set up according to appliance directions, and let set for 4 to 7 hours. The longer you let it set, the tarter the yogurt will be.

When yogurt is done, drain off the whey, if desired, and cool in fridge.

Draining off a lot of the whey will give you a thicker yogurt, and I got pretty close to the texture of Greek yogurt by draining it over and over again until all the whey was almost completely drained off. Warning: This technique will cut your yield in half.