A Spectacle of a Muffin

Berry Avalanche

Berry season is upon us! Ahhhhhhh! So much to bake, so little time! I'm completely overwhelmed with forecasts of heavy rain (perfect for baking!) and an abundance of raspberries that I think I'll end up jamming. Hundreds of thousands of strawberries that I-pick. Farmer stands popping up where there used to be dirt shoulders on roads. My neighbors chickens running around our yard, fleeing seconds before I run out in my camo with a rifle conjuring up chicken dinner recipes.
So I decided to take a step back.       
Deep breath. What's the most simple berry recipe?
Blueberry muffins. 
Easy to make, easy to eat, easy to love.

(adapted from Cook's Illustrated)
makes 10-12 muffins

1 cup flour
1/2 cup sorghum flour (if you can't find it, substitute with regular flour)
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda 5 tbls unsalted butter, room temp
1/2 cup sugar
1 egg
3/4 cup sour cream
1 tsp orange extract
1 cup blueberries


Optional Topping Ingredients
1/4 cup butter, room temp
1/2 cup flour
3 tbls brown sugar
1/4 cup white sugar
1 tsp sea salt (doubly optional)

Preheat oven to 375 F.
Grease a muffin tin (or line with liners). I like have the nice browned, smooth edges of a greased pan
In a small bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, and baking soda.
I recently found this awesome Icelandic butter at Whole Foods (Smjor) and decided to give that a whirl today (two thumbs way up). Beat the butter until fluffy and light.

Smjor from Whole Foods!

Beat in the sugar until light and fluffy.  Add the egg, scrape down the sides, and then add the sour cream and orange extract.
  

Carefully fold the flour mixture in, in two batches. Fold in the blueberries.

Scoop batter into muffin tin in large spoonfuls. Divide up evenly.

Pop the muffins into the oven. While they begin to bake, smoosh together butter, flour, and sugars. After the muffins have been baking for 10 minutes,  open oven and sprinkle the mixture unto the tops of the muffins. Sprinkle on salt if desired.

Bake for another 15 – 20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out with just a few crumbs attached. Cool for 20 minutes. Best served hot!

Sunday Morning Crepes

After a fairly exhausting birthday and championship meet, I found myself in great need of a sunday brunch. Luckily, my friends have a similar mindset. I guess that's why I like them.
As per usual, we didn't get together for several hours after we had originally planned to meet. Being smart, for once, I ate breakfast in advance, but poor Isaac did not foresee the problem and was starving by the time we arrived. Thankfully, we decided on a recipe fairly quickly. And, even better, there were three of us to make a breakfast that really only requires half a person to prepare it.

A hungry crowd

It's a lovely crepe and apple sauce recipe. The crepes are from Sequoia's family recipe which is easily convertible for various amounts of people. This is a REAL recipe, with only rough measurements, meaning each batch turns out slightly differently! More fun! More adventure!

Apple Sauce
2 tbls butter
2 tbls brown sugar
1 tbls water
2 large apples, chopped

Crepes (per person)

about 2 tablespoons of flour
 4 table spoons of milk
 2 eggs per person
splash of vaniller

So, for 3 people we used 6 tbls of flour, 2/3 cup of milk and 6 eggs

Begin by placing the apples and butter in a saucepan and heating them on medium heat. Let it thicken for about five minutes. In the meantime, begin mixing the crepes. Whisk the eggs lightly. Stir in milk, flour and vanilla. To get rid of lumps, strain. Always strain the batter for thinner crepes. If time is available, it's good to let the batter sit to get rid of bubbles.

Check in on the sauce, if it's looking to thick, add in some water. Stir in the brown sugar and let simmer on low as you make the crepes.

Sequoia, with proper flipping technique

With crepes, proper supplies and technique really make all the difference. I recommend a true iron skillet, if attainable. A wide, flat pan is necessary, regardless. Lightly butter between each crepe. Make sure it the pan is heated up to temperature before you begin. Butter should lightly sizzle and the batter should cook very quickly. If the pan is too cool the batter will absorb too much butter and be gross and soggy. Flip quickly and accurately. If you're seriously considering going into the crepery business, you'll want to be practicing wrist-flips nightly.

Bacon-Cheddar Scones

Gosh, I'm awfully sorry for not posting a recipe last night. Between Frankenstorm Sandy and college applications I lost track of time and next thing I knew I was back in school with no sweets. To make it up to you, I thought I ought to make TWO recipes today! With the extra hour the clocks have given us, I have a whole new hour to bake in! It's not even 10 and I am ALREADY more productive than I've been in perhaps the past month. I decided to start us out with a nice savory scone recipe - something I've never tried before. 
Scones are wonderful. They are as versatile as muffins, but the texture is more interesting and the flavors more poignant. I believe some get intimidated by the idea of making scones, but they are certainly as easy as a good muffin recipe and, personally, I think a lot more enjoyable to much. 

From cookinglight.timeinc

 Before we began, here's a couple helpful hints that any scone-maker should know:
1. Don't over mix. If you do the scone will be denser, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but the desired consistancy is light and fluffy.
2. Before I begin making scones, I always take a moment to take a deep breath and tell myself that there is only so much you can control in sconery. Scones have their own personality- by nature they need to be bumpy and uneven, therefore you can only control their appearance to a certain extent.

The Goal

Oven Temp: 400
Prep Time: 20 minutes
Bake Time: 22-27 minutes  
Ready In: 50 minutes

3 cups flour
1 tbsp baking powder

1 tsp salt
1 Tbsp freshly ground black pepper
1 stick chilled unsalted butter, cut into small cubes (you can freeze for 15 minutes before needing “chilled” butter)
1 1/2 cups grated cheddar cheese (about 8 oz)
4 green onions, thinly sliced
10 slices cooked and chopped bacon
 3/4  and 1/2 cup buttermilk (you'll be using them separately)
1 large egg
2 tsp water
Preheat oven to 400.
Because I had no pre-cooked bacon, I started frying it before I began and the timing was perfect. My dad, being a genius, rolls up the bacon before we put in the freezer so that you can take individual pieces out without having to defrost the lot.

\In a large bowl stir together flour, baking powder, salt, and pepper. Cut in butter slowly using a  pastry blender or two knives until the mixture resembles small peas. Stir in cheese. 

Add green onions, bacon and the 3/4 cup of the buttermilk to flour and cheese mixture.

  Mix by hand until all ingredients are just incorporated. Add 1 tablespoon of buttermilk at a time, until dough is pliable and can be formed into a ball. Stir as lightly and as little as possible. Remove dough from bowl and place it on a lightly floured flat surface. At this point the recipe says to pat dough into a ball and use a well-floured rolling pin to flatten the dough into a circle about 8 inches wide and 1/2 inch thick and cut dough into 8 to 10 equal wedges. I prefer to scoop up palm-sized balls and flatten them into rough rectangular shapes. Whatever you do, it will be okay.
Whisk egg and water in a small mixing bowl to combine. Brush each wedge with egg wash. Place scones on a Silpat-lined baking sheet and bake for 22 to 27 minutes, or until golden brown and no longer sticky in the middle.

Serve warm.

(The Latest and Greatest) Healthy Chocolate Chip Cookies

I love chocolate. In fact, I love it the point where my love is unhealthy. Some may call it an addiction, based on my symptoms of withdrawal when I have not had chocolate in a week. Yet, as summer surrounds me and my thoughts turn beachward I remember why people opt out of eating delicious, chocolate dessert made with gallons of butter. 

However, do to my reliance on chocolate, I cannot ignore my tummy's grumbles for cookies. So instead I decided to modify several chocolate chip recipes and produce something that vaguely resembles healthy. 70 calories healthy. 2 grams of fat. 
 I'm not one to watch my weight or anything, but I know that numbers like that NEVER come with this much choco-deliciousness. 


Now, when I first hear someone describe their recipe as healthy, especially when it comes to desserts, I usually think of something along the lines of this:

Ewwwww

 Let me set you straight. Think this:

Heavenly

Oven Temp - 380
Prep Time - 15 minutes (plus cooling)
Bake Time - 7 minutes
Total Time - 30 minutes

(Makes about 30 cookies)

2 and 1/3 cup oat flour
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
1 chocolate chips
2 tsp pure vanilla extract
4 tbsp vegetable or coconut oil (I love coconut oil)
1/4 cup to 3/4 cups milk

Special note! For those of you who, like me,  don't have oat flour here's an easy way to make your own. Take about 3 cups of rolled oats and blend them. They will turn into a very fine powder that should measure close to 2 and 1/3 cups.

Woah! Hold on a second - there's no eggs! Wait....but that means you can eat the raw dough.
Let me say it again.
You can eat the raw dough. 
That's right. Not only is this a healthy recipe, but it also makes an excellent snack. Alright, you can carry on now.

Combine dry ingredients and mix well.

Add the wet ingredients. For soft cookies, refrigerate until cold (otherwise, just bake right away).

Bake 7 minutes at 380 or until the cookies spread out and look slightly undercooked. The thing about this dough is that it will cook more easily on the cookie sheets than normal dough, so once you take it out, they will continue to cook for about 10 minutes.

Blueberry Crumb Muffins

I'll admit, I'm not a huge muffin person. I say breakfast is not only the most important meal of the day, but also the best meal of the day. You can eat anything for breakfast; half the time I eat pasta for breakfast. I love cupcakes. I don't want to eat a muffin when I could eat a cupcake. So, I don't like muffins that much. But I do like blueberry muffins. And I do like the crumby topping of banana crumb muffins. So I figured, why not take the only two redeeming qualities of muffins and make them into one muffin that I actually like better than cupcakes? I did. And here it is, just for you.

Yum

                                                                                 +

More yum

                                                                                 =

Yum to the high heavens

Oven at 375 degrees
Bake time about 20 minutes
Prep time about 20 minutes (especially if you have to run out and get blueberries)
total time? 45 minutes
Made about 11 muffins

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups blueberries

3/4 cup white sugar
1 egg
1/2 cup milk
1/3 cup butter, melted

I adore the smell of melted butter

 
Topping:
1/3 cup packed brown sugar
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 tablespoon butter
  
Prepare you're muffin tin for baking by setting in muffin liners or greasing each muffin maker. 

Mix together 1 1/2 cups flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. In a separate bowl, beat together sugar, milk, egg and melted butter. Stir the wet mixture, along with blueberries, into the flour mixture just until moistened. Spoon batter into prepared muffin cups. 

In a small bowl, mix together brown sugar, 2 tablespoons flour and cinnamon. Cut in 1 tablespoon butter until mixture resembles coarse cornmeal. Sprinkle topping over muffins. 

Bake in preheated oven for 18 to 20 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into center of a muffin comes out clean.

Look at those happy little campers

Good Morning, Sunshine!

Once, my family was staying a motel. It wasn't just any motel. When we go motel, we go for the real motel experience. This was a Motel 6. That's right - $6 per person per night.  To signify it was a no-smoking room, the little ash tray was turned upside down to reveal a no-smoking sign. It was swell.
In the one room we rented, there were two twin beds for the five of us to split. As the youngest, I was given the pleasure of choosing my sleeping spot last. After spending a grouchy night on the floor, I was woken up by my sister saying "Good morning, sunshine!". In response, I garbled out "Good morning, rain cloud of doom.". You must understand that I am usually a morning person, and she is...not so much. Neither of my sisters are, in fact.
This "good morning sunshine" has always been a joke in the family. One morning I woke up very early, around 5, to text my sister, 500 miles away "Good morning sunshine! The world says 'Hallo!'".
This is a breakfast she and I share together often. There's several name variations, but this is ours.



Fry up some bacon real nice.

                                                      Make the house smell like joy.

You'll need the bacon grease to increase flavor. Take some toast, we do two slices per muncher. Cut out a hole in the center - it can be any shape hole. Save the center for later. Fry one side of the bread in grease. Crack an egg in the hole.

 

Awwwww yeah, this is the good stuff

 Flip when needed. Do the same for all egg/toast slices. With the remaining grease, fry the unfried bread. It's a little gross - and very unhealthy, but ohhhh sooooo gooooood.