Ancho Chilli - Date Popovers with Honey - Ginger Cream Cheese

So, this morning's experiment was ancho chilli-date popovers.  I wanted to bake something, helps my wife get up early to work on things on a Saturday. 

I made softened cream cheese with candied ginger and honey to spread on them.

I will post my recipes, with notes afterward on my thoughts about them.

 

Recipes

Popovers

1 cup all purpose flour
1/2 tsp kosher salt
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1 cup milk
1Tblsp melted margarine
1/2 cup chopped dates
1 cup white wine
3 dried ancho chillies

Pre-heat oven to 450.

Remove the stems and seeds from the chillies.  Place chillies in wine to re-hydrate.

In a large mixing bowl, stir together flour and salt.  Whisk in milk, margarine, and eggs until smooth.

Place dates and rehydrated chillies in a food processor.  Process until chillies are finely chopped.
Stir chilli and date mixture into batter.

Grease a popover pan.  Place in oven to pre-heat.  Remove as soon as hot. 

Ladle batter into hot pan, place in oven.  Bake at 450 for 15 minutes, then turn heat down to 350, and bake another 15 minutes.  Do not open oven during baking process.

When golden and puffy, remove from oven.  Run a knife around each cup, remove popovers from pan.

Ginger - Honey Cream Cheese

4 oz. softened cream cheese
2 Tblsp. honey
2 Tblsp. candied ginger, finely chopped
1/4 tsp. kosher salt.

Mix all ingredients together.

Notes

Flavors were really good.  Ancho chillies have a natural fruitiness, which matched well with the dates.  The chardonnay I used to re-hydrate the chillies added a little acidity, to cut the sweet just a bit.  The heat was there, but really mild, a nice background note.

The ginger - honey cream cheese really complimented the popovers.

On a down note, they did not puff up right.  There were two issues.  One, I missed the instruction to lower the temperature and continue baking.  Two, there was too much stuff in each popover, weighing them down.  I think I will cut the amount of date - chilli mix in half next time.

So, mostly successful, and worth tweaking and trying again.

Happy eating!

Introduction

Not at all sure the best way to start this.  I recently made a decision to make a radical change in my life, and this blog is my attempt to chronicle that change. 

I've worked in  technical fields for some time.  I have twice tried, and twice failed, to get a computer related bachelor's degree.  It's not that I am stupid, or lazy, or incompetent.  But, as I got closer to finishing each time, I dealt with escalating depression, anxiety, and panic attacks.  I've been unemployed awhile, and been dragging my feet getting back into the tech field.  then, I had a revelation.  I just didn't want to do that ever again.  I did it because I was good at it, but had no passion for it.

I realized thing thing that makes me happy, is feeding people. Food is a real passion, has been all my life.  I have no illusions.  I know that it is a tough field.  But, I'm tired of hating what I do.  I want to look forward to working, not dread it.  So, I'm going to try for culinary school. 

I will record culinary adventures here.  Recipes, restaurant reviews, how progess on getting ahead is going.  There may be non-food related posts, but that isn't the plan as of now.

Happy eating!