With my dad's eye swollen by a nasty insect bite, I decided to do a bit of baking to cheer him up. Luckily, he had recently spotted a sale on blueberries during his last trip to the market, so I made his favorite breakfast item--blueberry muffins!
I came across several different muffin recipes, all calling for very different amounts of flour, fats, and sugar. It was a tough call, but I settled with this recipe because it had 2,141 votes of confidence. How can you really compete against that kind of support?
I skipped the crumb topping since everyone in my family is watching their sugar intake. Plus, I wanted to keep things simple. This recipe could not have been easier to recreate. I didn't even have to pull out a mixer to help do the work. These muffins were completely made by hand, and it was a strangely satisfying experience.
The muffins came out of the oven much paler than I anticipated, but they at least had nice, rounded tops. My dad thought that they were too sweet, but my mom and I enjoyed the taste of it. However, I had used skim milk instead of whole milk in the recipe so the muffins were dry. I really need to invest in whole milk, or as Cook's Illustrated claims, I could supplement the skim milk with some heavy cream to get the same effect.
I would love to try this recipe again because it was so quick and easy to put together. Next time, I will use whole milk and perhaps reduce the sugar by a teensy bit. I wouldn't mind experimenting with other fruits--strawberries, apricots, cherries. The blueberries tasted great in the muffins, much better than in the pie, and they produced such a lovely deep, royal purple-blue color.
Blueberry Muffins (from AllRecipes)
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
- 3/4 cups white sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1/3 cup vegetable oil
- 1 egg
- 1/3 cup milk
- 1 cup fresh blueberries
Mix together all the dry ingredients in a large bowl. In a measuring cup with the capacity to hold at least 1 cup of liquid, pour in the oil, milk, and egg until the 1 cup mark is reached; now stir in the cup. Incorporate the liquid ingredients into the dry ingredients, being careful to not overmix. When there is a trace of flour still unmixed, STOP and fold in the blueberries.
Divide the batter into the muffin tin. Bake for about 20-25 minutes until a cake tester comes out clean.
I hope you all have a great Thursday! The weekend is almost here!
Happy Monday!
As the picture above shows, I ran into some problems and all because I didn't read through the instructions. I had only one eggplant instead of two. I used 26 ounces of marinara sauce instead of 16 ounces. The eggplant was sliced too thinly and I failed to brush the slices with olive oil, so parts of the vegetable were charred and dumped in the trash. I layered the cheese mixture right on top of the tomato sauce. The baking dish was too small. It was inevitable that I would end up with something more akin to soup. Luckily, this Eggplant-Ricotta Bake soup had a pretty decent taste.
I haven't touched the dish since Wednesday night, but I will try to salvage its remains this weekend by drying it out in the oven. Considering that the taste was good and the soup provided for a solid meal, I wouldn't mind too terribly if I made this dish again. It came together very easily and quickly, which is nice when you want to have dinner all set before the start of So You Think You Can Dance.
Eggplant Ricotta Bake (from Everyday Food)
Ingredients
- 2 large eggplants, cut lengthwise 3/4-inch thick
- 3 tablespoons olive oil
- Salt and ground black pepper
- 15 ounces part-skim ricotta cheese
- 3 large eggs
- 1/2 cup Parmesan cheese, shredded
- 2 teaspoons dried oregano
- 16 ounces store-bought marinara sauce
In a large bowl, stir together the cheeses, eggs, oregano, 1 1/2 teaspoons salt, and 1/4 teaspoon black pepper. Brush an 8-inch square baking pan with olive oil.
Line the bottom of the baking pan with eggplant and spread marinara sauce on top. Layer on more eggplant slices and top with the cheese mixture. Repeat the layers, ending with the cheese mixture. Slide into the 450 degree F oven and bake for 20-25 minutes until the sauce begins to bubble. Let cool for 10 minutes before serving.
Happy Weekend!
This year was no different, and I was rewarded with one of the best matches I have ever watched. From 8 in the morning until 3:30 in the afternoon on Sunday, I was parked in front of the television to watch the championship final between Nadal and Federer. It was thoroughly enjoyable, but since the match went longer than expected, I wasn't able to join my parents at my future abode and help with the ongoing renovations. My parents understood my need to witness this match (I mean, I've been watching Wimbledon since Pete Sampras won in 1995), but I still felt guilty about lounging at home while they were doing some heavy duty stuff. To assuage my guilt, I decided to make the Double Crusted Blueberry Pie, which was this week's Tuesdays with Dorie selection as chosen by Amy of South in Your Mouth. I wasn't planning on making it because I'm not a big fan of blueberries, but my dad is.
The pie recipe was relatively straightforward. While I tossing the blueberries with sugar and lemon juice for the filling, my mom plucked a blueberry from the mixing bowl and tried it. No one in my family has ever had fresh, uncooked blueberries, so we were all curious. My mom liked it, but the blueberries were too tart for my liking. My mom enjoyed the mixture so much that she asked if I could forget about making the pie and let her eat the plain filling instead. My decision is obvious...
Happy Tuesday!
With the boss out of the office yesterday, my co-workers decided to have a small party to celebrate the upcoming three-day weekend. With everyone bringing one food item to share, I decided to make some good, old-fashioned brownies.
I woke up a little earlier than usual in the morning to whip up a batch of these basic brownies, using my go-to recipe. I put together this formula a few months ago by scrounging up some brownie recipes that use unsweetened cocoa powder. With the help of Microsoft Excel (yes, I'm a nerd), I compared the amount of ingredients that each recipe called for and came up with my own ratios.
Basic Chocolate Brownie
Ingredients
- 1 tablespoon unsalted butter
- 1 ounce semi-sweet chocolate
- 2/3 cup vegetable oil
- 1 1/4 cup white sugar
- 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 2 large eggs
- 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
- 2/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
Slowly melt together the butter and chocolate. A double boiler or a microwave can be used. If a microwave is used, be sure to heat the mixture for only 10-15 seconds at a time. Stir and set aside.
In a large bowl, mix together the oil, sugar, and vanilla extract until a consistent color and texture is achieved. Beat in the eggs.
Carefully fold the dry ingredients--flour, cocoa powder, salt, and baking powder--into the wet mixture. Do not overwork the batter; fold until the dry ingredients are just incorporated. Stir in the melted butter and chocolate.
Pour the batter into a 9-inch square baking pan sprayed with baking spray (I like Baker's Joy). Bake the brownies for 22-25 minutes, until a tester comes out with clean or with a few crumbs (if you like your brownies slightly gooey, go with the latter option). Let the brownies cool to about room temperature before serving.
These brownies were a winner the first time I tried the recipe, and the winning streak continued yesterday. My co-workers really enjoyed the brownies and loved how "chocolate-y" they were. I stole away from the party few a minutes for a impromptu photo shoot at my desk, resulting in the picture above.
I hope you all have a wonderful, wonderful weekend!
June's challenge, which was hosted by Kelly of Sass & Veracity and Ben of What's Cooking?, was a Danish Braid adapted from Sherry Yard's The Secrets of Baking. The recipe wasn't too difficult, but as with all things involving yeast, it required a lot of time and waiting. The Danish dough is layered, so there was much folding to achieve this effect. Four instances of folding to be exact. In between each folding, the dough had to be chilled in the refrigerator for 30 minutes and then rolled out into a large rectangle. Fortunately, it was the weekend, and I had nothing planned other than watching live Wimbledon coverage all day.
For the filling, I went for an apple filling for both braids. I like danishes and usually order cream cheese ones whenever I'm feeling indulgent, but I'm the only one the family that likes that flavor. With parents who don't like things that are overly sweet, I felt the apple filling would please everyone eating.
And it did. One Danish Braid was more than enough to feed my family for breakfast; by the time we finished our last bite, we were actually tired of the pastry. I could have done with more apple filling, and the pastry crust could have been crispier. I might have taken the braid out of the oven too soon because the dough inside was a tad soggy. The texture of the pastry was different than any other danish I have ever had; it was less flaky and was somewhere in between bread and puff pastry. I'm not sure if this is right or not, but it worked for my family. The braid didn't gain any big fans, but my family liked it. Plus, it sure looked pretty...
The tart was very easy to put together. Once the crust came out of the oven, I spread on some strawberry preserves, topped it with fresh strawberries, and served it right away. It was simple to make, and it had a very simple yet refreshing taste. I made the tart for my dad for Father's Day, and both of my parents really appreciated that the tart wasn't sweet. They were slightly taken aback by how hard the crust was because they are accustomed to softer crusts for fruit tarts, but it seemed to grow on them.
I made mini-tarts, using brioche cups to bake them. Since the sweet tart dough recipe detailed in Dorie Greenspan's Baking: From My Home to Yours was enough to make a crust with a 9-inch diameter, I had quite a few mini-tarts left over from Father's Day. I also happened to have a surplus of chocolate pastry cream from the cream puff ring... I have to say that I liked the chocolate cream-strawberry combination much more than the strawberry jam-strawberry one originally described in the book. Using jam is much easier, but if you have some chocolate pastry cream just laying around, I highly recommend trying that in the tart.
La Palette's Strawberry Tart (from Dorie Greenspan's Baking: From My Home to Yours)
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1/2 cup confectioner's sugar
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 8 tablespoons freezing-cold, unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
- 1 large egg yolk, stirred
- strawberry jam (OR chocolate pastry cream!)
- fresh strawberries, quartered
- white sugar
- golden rum
Press the dough into a buttered tart pan with a removable bottom, making sure to evenly distribute it across the bottom and up the sides of the pan. A little piece of tart dough should be reserved to patch up any cracks that may develop during the baking process (I didn't encounter this problem when I made mini-tarts). Freeze the dough for at least 30 minutes.
Butter one side of a piece of aluminum foil and then press the foil, butter side down, tightly against the crust right before putting it into an oven preheated to 375 degrees F. Bake for about 20-25 minutes. Carefully remove the foil. If the crust puffed up during the baking process, gently press it down with the back of a spoon.
Once the crust is cooled, spread on a layer of strawberry jam or chocolate pastry cream. Top with strawberry pieces that have been lightly tossed with some sugar and rum (to your own taste). Serve and enjoy!
