The Best Ever Crock Pot Boston Baked Beans

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If you have followed me on Twitter you know I have been away in Boston the past week. What an amazing city! Coming from Maryland, I thought we had the edge on seafood. But Bostons seafood was amazing, On a limited budget I ate very well and worked off all the good food walking and touring this most important of American cities . One thing I saw were these cute little bean crocks to make authentic Boston Baked Beans. I love a good baked bean. I have been to many a picnic where cooks try to perpetrate by doctoring up canned beans. One of my favorite cooking memories were my mother and I attempting to make out our own baked beans from scratch. I remembered it took hours to cook. Craving baked beans, but not wanting to run the oven in this summer heat , I opted for my crock pot/slow cooker.Many of my foodie friends associate slow baking beans with winter and fall. But isn’t a good baked bean dish quintessential to summer time and BB Q’s? While I cooked this via crock pot, I finished them of in the authentic crock for 45 min or so sprinkled with brown sugar in the oven. Let me say the house smelled fantastic turning the key and entering to find the beans cooked perfectly.Enjoy.

Crock Pot Boston Baked Beans

1 lb dry Navy Beans or Great Northern Beans

12 oz-1 lb salt pork with rind

3/4 cup molasses

3/4 cup dark brown sugar

2 tbsp Dijon Mustard

1 onion chopped

1 onion studded with cloves( about 1 tsp worth)

4 cups water

ground black pepper

Soak your beans over night covered in cold water. The next day drain water. In a small pot of boiling water, boil the cubed or cut up salt pork for a few minutes to remove excess salt. Remove salt pork from water and place on the bottom of crock pot. Place the clove studded onion in crock pot. Cover with soaked dried beans. Add mustard,ground black pepper, chopped onion,brown sugar,molasses. Pour 4 – 5 cups of cold water over the beans and spices. Beans should be covered but not excessively so. The slow cooking adds moisture.Turn on your crock pot/slow cooker to the setting of 10 hours.

After 10 hours you can finish of individual servings on mini crocks sprinkled with brown sugar in a an oven at 350 F for 45 minutes to 1 hour.

I think this perfect for this months My Legume Love Affair #14 hosted by the founder Susan of the Well Seasoned Cook.

Daring Bakers Make Coconut & Toasted Almond Mallows(Chocolate Covered Marshmallow Cookies)

The July Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Nicole at Sweet Tooth. She chose Chocolate Covered Marshmallow Cookies and Milan Cookies from pastry chef Gale Gand of the Food Network.
I was really freaking out that I wouldn’t get this challenge done for various reasons. Time really is flying this year and I have still not come to grips that we are in summer.We had a choice of two cookies, but I was only keen to Mallows( Chocolate covered marshmallow cookies). In Pastry Camp a few weeks back we made chocolate marshmallows and they are really fun to make.I decided to flavor my marshmallows with Coconut extract and top the chocolate shell with toasted almonds. Think Almond Joy.I loved the presentation. Banana extract would have rocked too. I ran out of chocolate as I was dipping and added some pink candy coating to the pan to finish off the rest of the Mallows.These I topped with Swedish Pearl sugar and purple sugar. How good were they? I think the pictures can speak for themselves. One note I find the recipe misleading in terms of the time frames. Be sure to set aside a few hours because this needs to be done in stages. And make sure your workplace is cool. A hot kitchen is not ideal for working with chocolate. Helene gave me a tip, to let the chocolate sit out for about hour after dipping before placing in the fridge to help set , so the chocolate wouldn’t bloom. She also suggested shortening as I didn’t have vegetable oil.

Mallows(Chocolate Covered Marshmallow Cookies)
Recipe courtesy Gale Gand, from Food Network website
Prep Time: 10 min
Inactive Prep Time: 5 min
Cook Time: 10 min
Serves: about 2 dozen cookies
• 3 cups (375grams/13.23oz) all purpose flour
• 1/2 cup (112.5grams/3.97oz) white sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 teaspoon baking powder
•3/8 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 12 tablespoons (170grams/ 6 oz) unsalted butter
• 3 eggs, whisked together• Homemade marshmallows, recipe follows
• Chocolate glaze, recipe follows
1. In a mixer with the paddle attachment, blend the dry ingredients.2. On low speed, add the butter and mix until sandy.3. Add the eggs and mix until combine.4. Form the dough into a disk, wrap with clingfilm or parchment and refrigerate at least 1 hour and up to 3 days.5. When ready to bake, grease a cookie sheet or line it with parchment paper or a silicon mat.6. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.7. Roll out the dough to 1/8-inch thickness, on a lightly floured surface. Use a 1 to 1 1/2 inches cookie cutter to cut out small rounds of dough.8. Transfer to the prepared pan and bake for 10 minutes or until light golden brown. Let cool to room temperature.9. Pipe a “kiss” of marshmallow onto each cookie. Let set at room temperature for 2 hours.10. Line a cookie sheet with parchment or silicon mat.11. One at a time, gently drop the marshmallow-topped cookies into the hot chocolate glaze.12. Lift out with a fork and let excess chocolate drip back into the bowl.13. Place on the prepared pan and let set at room temperature until the coating is firm, about 1 to 2 hours.
Note: if you don’t want to make your own marshmallows, you can cut a large marshmallow in half and place on the cookie base. Heat in a preheated 350-degree oven to slump the marshmallow slightly, it will expand and brown a little. Let cool, then proceed with the chocolate dipping.
Homemade marshmallows:
• 1/4 cup water
• 1/4 cup light corn syrup
• 3/4 cup (168.76 grams/5.95oz) sugar
• 1 tablespoon powdered gelatin
• 2 tablespoons cold water
• 2 egg whites , room temperature
• 1/4 teaspoon pure vanilla extract * I substituted Coconut Extract
1. In a saucepan, combine the water, corn syrup, and sugar, bring to a boil until “soft-ball” stage, or 235 degrees on a candy thermometer.2. Sprinkle the gelatin over the cold water and let dissolve.3. Remove the syrup from the heat, add the gelatin, and mix.4. Whip the whites until soft peaks form and pour the syrup into the whites.5. Add the vanilla and continue whipping until stiff.6. Transfer to a pastry bag.
Chocolate glaze:
• 12 ounces semisweet chocolate
• 2 ounces cocoa butter or vegetable oil
1. Melt the 2 ingredients together in the top of a double boiler or a bowl set over barely simmering water.

Mojito Cookies for Sugar Cookie Competition

Last year I entered the Pastry Chicago Sugar Cookie Competition. Of course this year I vowed to compete again. One day I will place and win. The theme of this years competition is citrus. Naturally lime or lemon curds came to mind. But Brainstorming one day while having a mojito, I thought how can incorporate this into a cookie? I traded some ideas with my Twitter sis Kayce and the basis for the Mojito cookie was conceived. The secret is the Mojito gelee.

The gelee recipe makes a large quantity but you can use the leftovers served in cubes and rolled in sugar like pate de fruit.

Mojito Cookies

Mojito Gelee
2/3 cups of key lime juice (approx 1 lb of key limes)
2 1/2 cups sugar , reserve 1/2 cup for later
2 cups water
3/4 oz fresh mint (1 package)
1 package Pomona’s Universal Pectin
1/3 cup Rum
Combine key lime juice, 2 cups of the sugar, and water into a heavy bottomed sauce pan.Bring to boil. Turn off heat. Add fresh mint and allow to steep and infuse for 20 minutes. After 20 minutes, strain liquid from mint. Add back to saucepan. Bring to boil. While waiting to boil, prep Pomana’s Universal Pectin according to package( you will use the remaining 1/2 cup of sugar to mix with dry Pectin). Add the Pectin and calcium water(activates Pectin) from package,to the boiling lime sugar mixture, stirring constantly until dissolved and well mixed. The mix will be very thick due to the ratios .Cook for a few minutes and remove from heat. Stir in Rum.Pour into a baking sheet or cake pan. Let cool until room temperature, and place in the refrigerator to chill until solid.
Cookie
1/2 lb Plugra European style butter or 16 tbsp
2/3 cup Confectioners sugar
1 tsp Nielson Massey Vanilla Powder
1 tsp granulated sugar
Zest of 2 Key Limes
1 1/4 cups All Purpose King Arthur Flour flour
*green food coloring gel optional
*green sugar optional
In a stand mixer beat butter, confectioners sugar, vanilla, zest and granulated sugar until fluffy. Gradually add flour. The dough will be crumbly but soft and buttery. With your hands finish mixing, forming into a solid ball. At this point with a wooden skewer you can spot the dough with green gel color and marbleize the dough. Do not over knead.You can either chill dough for 1 hour at this point to make rounds, or pipe straight away for star shaped cookies.
Preheat oven to 350F.
On a parchment lined baking sheet take a walnut sized piece of rounded dough or pipe, and indent with your thumb to create a well. You can then flatten the edges with a fork to refine shape. Repeat and space cookies apart by 1 inch. Take your Mojito Gelee and add approx 1/8-1/2 tsp of gelee into indentation. Sprinkle green sugar over the gelee pat of cookie. Bake at 350F for 10-15 minutes or until slightly golden and gelee starts to bubble.
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Not Quite Australian Meat Pies and How I Met Certain Someone


Who is this Woman and what does she have to do with Certain Someone?
Why this woman would be a Gabi, my dear Australian friend who is responsible for this blog and how and how I met Certain Someone. Gabi is from Australia, Adelaide to be exact. And she introduced me to world of blogging. After a dinner at my house she sat down at my computer started blogging and I was hooked. My first blog Diary of a Shop girl morphed into Coco Cooks.
So what does she have to do with Certain Someone? Well I had a disastrous affair with an Australian man, one of those bad boy phases every woman must go through before she finds that Mr. Right.That man was a good friend and colleague of Gabi’s. The man and I parted ways, but I gained a good friend in Gabi. Gabi had other friends too, a whole expat community in Chicago, and through them at a dinner party I met him. Certain Someone. A tarot card reader was at the table to even confirm it ‘was him’.So you see everything and everyone in your life has a purpose, no matter how short the time.
Gabi moved back home to Australia this month. Her father, a regular and somewhat quiet reader of Coco Cooks has been suggesting to me from the beginning to make some Aussie food. Real stick to your bones type of food. I always think of modern Australian food as a melting pot with heavy Asian and Greek influences due to the current populations.And lets not forget the incredible wines! But pure Australian food would conjure up vision of meat pies,pavlovas,lamingtons, lamb and such. I could take the meat pie even further and float it on split pea soup. Gabi was quick to say Australians do not” throw shrimps on the barbie, drink Yellowtail, or Fosters”. That’s some American stereotypes perpetuated by Crocodile Dundee and Outback Steakhouse. Although they do eat Kangaroo and Moreton Bay Bugs ( delicious if you get some by chance). So hopefully one day Certain Someone will take me to this fascinating Continent and country. In the meanwhile I leave with my version of meat pie which is more Jamaican meat patty than Australian. Those African roots keep slipping through my cooking. Australians use puff pastry on top and short crust on bottom. I wanted more of a hand pie so I used a short crust and colored it with with some Turmeric. I also used some Palm oil( another African ingredient) and some red lentils for the filling with the beef. Australian meat pies have beef and gravy fillings and are served with a squeeze of ketchup on top. Look and see most places on this each have a version of meat pies. Empanadas for Latin America, Jamaican meat patties, Cornish pasties, samosas,etc. All good stuff.

Coco’s Not Quite Australian Meat Pies



Short Crust
1 cup /100 grams all purpose flour
1/2 cup/50 grams Atora( suet) or butter or shortening
3 tbsp cold water
1 tsp turmeric
pinch of salt
1 egg beaten with milk for wash before baking
In a stand mixer mix flour, Atora, turmeric,salt and water until combined. Form into a disc, wrap ,and chill for a few hours.

Filling
1 lb ground beef
2 onions chopped fine
2 tbsp Palm Oil or regular vegetable oil
1 tsp curry
1 tsp cumin
salt and pepper to taste* I used Mrs. Dash salt free seasoning blend/Spicy Blend
1 tomato chopped
1 cup tomato sauce
1/4 cup red lentils
water
In a skillet brown ground beef with onions in Palm oil. Drain any excess oil.Add curry and cumin, salt, pepper. Add tomato and tomato sauce. Let simmer. Add red lentils and bit more liquid( ie: water if needed). Cover and let simmer until red lentils are done. 15-20 minutes.

Preheat oven to 350 F.
Take out pastry dough. Roll out on floured surface and cut into circles based on your size preference. I made small ones . Brush edge with egg wash and fill with meat filling. Turn over close and seal with a fork or crimper. Place on parchment lined baking sheet. Brush each pie with egg wash. Bake for 10-15 or until golden. Serve with ketchup if you like( Aussie style).We used German curry ketchup.


For a printable version click here.
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Check out my latest post on EbonyJet.com about my latest travel adventure in the Pacific Northwest ( Vancouver and Seattle).