I am the way, the truth, & the Muffin

Yes, it’s true. This Muffin is the son of God.  It is the holy Raspberry Cream Cheese Muffin made and created by your truly.  I mean God.  Whatever.  I get us confused.  It was immaculately conceived??  However it got here, it rules the world with truth and grace.

Up until recently, I managed a bakery in Chicago. Over the years I have picked up a wealth of “odds and ends” baking information and it’s helped in my home baking a lot. We used to make sour cream buns at the bakery a long time ago, so I looked over that recipe, reduced it from about 30 batches to one, then made some substitutions. They weren’t always perfect in the beginning, but now they rule. These are my favorite muffins of all time.

preheat oven to 350 degrees and gather round:

• 1 3/4 C. all-purpose flour
• 1 t. baking soda
• 1/2 t. baking powder
• 1/2 t. salt
• 1 8 oz. package cream cheese, softened
• 1 stick butter, also softened
• 1 C. sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 t. vanilla
• 1/4 C. milk
• 1/2 pint of fresh raspberries (may be substituted with blackberries, blueberries, or other fresh fruit)

Grease and flour or release spray a 12 cup muffin tin. 

In a medium bowl, mix flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt.  Set aside.

In the bowl of a mixer, beat cream cheese, butter and sugar together until fluffy (2 minutes or so).  Add vanilla and eggs, one at a time.  Add the dry ingredients, alternating with the milk until well combined. 

Fill muffin cups halfway.  Add 3-4 raspberries to layer of batter.  Fill remainder of cups with batter.  Press 2-3 additional raspberries into the top layer of batter until covered.  Make sure fruit is covered by batter and not exposed to heat. 

Bake 20-25 minutes, until golden and top springs back when lightly tapped. 

When removed from the pan, cool upside down on a wire rack.  The inside of the muffin is malleable when warm, so invert only when cooled completely.

Enjoy! 

Update: These look great with sanding sugar sprinkled on top before baking.  It gives them a much more finished look. 

sweet potato casserole muffins

Okay! So these are good muffins. Good, not great. They are from the Cupcake Doctor book, so the base ingredient of the muffin is from a cinnamon swirl mix. This is one of the exceptions where the add-ins are disappointing for the time they require. That is my doing, though. The recipe calls for canned sweet potato, but I much prefer to boil and mash the sweet potato. I hate canned foods. I really do wish the add-ins had left more flavor. I’m not even leaving the recipe here because of it–just use the mix. The topping were cute–cinnamon and sugar, chopped pecans, and mini marshmallows. They added a lot for the presentation. Overall, these were good, cute muffins, but just go buy the mix and save yourself some time!

No-Knead Bread: attempt #2

Success!  This bread is amazing, it’s perfect, it is the champion of easy bread!  Hell, it’s the champion of some fancy breads too.  This time I baked it for 30 minutes, lid on, but then only 5-6 minutes lid off.  It may just be my oven,  but yesterday I had pumpernickel-looking loaf after 15 minutes.  I should have learned by now to trust my gut, not the directions.  Especially if you’ve been baking for a while, you know how most things should look.  Anyway, I love this bread.  Everyone should make it. 

No-Knead Bread: attempt #1

I first saw this recipe published in the New York Times about a year ago, adapted from Jim Lahey at the Sullivan Street Bakery.  It recently resurfaced in the Oregonian with rave reviews, so I figured I’d give it a try.  It’s simple and practically effortless…who can argue with that?  I’ve made quite a bit of bread in the past, but traditional recipes can be terribly time consuming with an inconsistent outcome.  Half the time you fail, a fourth of the time you succeed, and a fourth of the time you have mediocre bread.  It takes a lot of trial and error, which doesn’t always work for home bakers who prefer variety over one perfect loaf.  This is just good bread.  

 Gather together:

• 3 C. bread flour or all-purpose flour, plus more for shaping dough
• 1/4 t. instant yeast (such as Fleischmann’s RapidRise brand)
• 2 1/2 t. salt, or more to taste
• 1 1/2 C. + 2 tablespoons tepid water
• Cornmeal or wheat bran as needed

1. In a large bowl combine flour, yeast and salt.  Add the water and stir until blended; dough will be shaggy and very sticky. Cover bowl with plastic wrap.  Let dough rest at least 12 hours, preferably about 18 hours, at warm room temperature, about 70 degrees.  Dough is ready when its surface is dotted with bubbles.
2. Turn dough out on a lightly floured work surface; sprinkle dough with a little more flour, and fold it over on itself once or twice.  Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rest about 15 minutes.
3. Using just enough flour to keep dough from sticking to work surface or to your fingers, gently and quickly shape dough into a ball.  Generously dust a cotton (not terry cloth) kitchen towel with flour, wheat bran or cornmeal; put dough seam side down on towel and dust with more flour, bran or cornmeal.  Cover with another kitchen towel and let rise for 2 to 3 hours.  When it is ready, dough will be more than double in size and will not readily spring back when poked with a finger.
4. At least 30 minutes before dough is ready, preheat oven to 450 degrees.  Put a heavy covered pot (cast iron, enamel, Pyrex or ceramic; anywhere from 31/2 quarts to 6 or 8 quarts) in oven as it heats.  When dough is ready, carefully remove pot from oven.  Slide your hand under towel and turn dough over into pot, seam side up; it may look like a mess, but that’s okay.  Shake pan once or twice if dough is unevenly distributed; it will straighten out as it bakes.  Cover with lid and bake 30 minutes, then remove lid and bake another 5 to 30 minutes (depending on your oven), until loaf is nicely browned.  Cool on a rack.  Makes one 1 1/2 pound loaf.

Next time I’m going to try using parchment on the bottom of the second rise, rather than a cotton towel.  I completely ruined the towel I used because the dough was too sticky.  Be warned!  The technique of baking the bread in a heated dutch oven or covered pot is a huge key to the success of this recipe.  The only problem I had was over-baking, thus this is attempt #1.  I would recommend keeping an eye on the bread once the lid is removed in the baking process.  My first loaf was too dark on the outside, even after 15 minutes.  It tasted amazing, the inside chewy and perfect.  You can try different flours, though for best results, substitute whole-grain flour for no more than half of the white (and use even less rye flour, which tastes great but is heavy).  Fold fresh herbs or olives into the dough as desired, or enjoy it as it is.  Voila!  Perfect bread and you’ve hardly lifted a finger.  What could be better?  Attempt #2 tomorrow…

April Fools’ Cupcakes

Oh strawberry cupcakes, how I adore you!  I know you’re a fake flavor, like grape soda, but I love you for that very reason.  I am a self-professed food snob and still you–least classy cupcakes ever–are irresistable.  I especially love your Spiderman cupcake liners and leftover Valentines non-pareils.  You make me happy, even though you are mostly disgusting.  Almost a joke.

For cupcakes, use strawberry cake mix and bake accordingly.  I don’t usually make a mix without adding something to it, but thse are the exception.    

For chocolate whipped cream:

• 1 C. (1/2 pint) heavy whipping cream
• 2 1/2 T. granulated sugar
• 5 T. dutch-process cocoa, sifted
• 1/2 t. vanilla extract

Combine ingredients in mixing bowl and stir to dissolve sugar.  Cover and chill ingredients (still in mixing bowl) and whisk for one hour.

Whip on high speed until desired consistency is achieved.  After cupcakes are completely cooled, top with the whipped cream.  Decorate if needed. 

Eat five of them all at once!  Just kidding, more than two would make you sick from all the whipped cream.  Enjoy!

Oatmeal Butterscotch Cookies

These cookies are a perfect spin on a standard classic.  My husband loves anything with butterscotch, so I thought I’d try these out.  I usually get kind of bored making cookies, but these were good for a rainy day.  The recipe, from the Buttercup Bakeshop Cookbook, is almost exactly the same as the Quaker Oats recipe and just as easy.   I’m not in love with butterscotch, so I tried adding currants and Vosges Naga baking chips to some of them instead.  I was very happy with the result!  Also, the currants in one of the cookies made a face, which is awesome.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

• 1 1/2 sticks butter
• 3/4 C sugar
• 3/4 C firmly packed brown sugar
• 1 1/4 C all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt (the recipe calls for 1/4, but I always prefer more)
• 2 large eggs, room temperature
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 3 cups rolled oats (not quick oats)
• 1 package butterscotch chips

Whisk together in a medium bowl flour, baking soda, and salt.  In a large mixer bowl, cream butter and sugars until fluffy (about 2-3 minutes).  Add the eggs one at a time, then the vanilla.  Add in flour mixture and beat thoroughly.  Stir in the oats and chips until incorporated. 

Drop rounded teaspoonfuls onto cookie sheets (I line mine with recycled parchment), leaving enough room for expansion.  Bake 10-12 minutes until lightly golden. 

Eat while warm…the butterscotch chips get all melty and, well, that’s delicious.

cookies and cream cupcakes

Yesterday was my mother-in-law’s birthday, so I needed to whip up something easy yet substantial.  I headed over to my friend Natalie’s baking blog, Bake and Destroy, to find the perfect recipe.  The cookies and cream cupcakeswere a perfect fit.  Crushed oreos folded into white cake batter, more oreos mixed into the icing, and an oreo half baked into the cupcake (placed in the bottom of the liner before baking).  The only change I made was using double stuf oreos and keeping all of the icing on one side for the cookies in the bottom.  So delicious…they were gone in two days.