Afternoon Delight

Oh no I have not forsaken you, blessed of days, the day of the muffin!  This week gets a wee bit of indulgence in the sweet tooth.  Here’s a good for everything, not sweet muffin that has been studded with semi-sweet chocolate.  **Nom Nom**  I’d write more but I’m too busy totally NOT eating these.

Chocolate Chip Muffins

Adapted from Alton Brown’s “Old School Muffin”

• 2 cups flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp baking soda
• salt–pinch
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup [vegetable] oil
• 1 egg + 1 extra yolk
• 1 cup buttermilk
• 1 cup semi-sweet chips
• 1 whole nutmeg + grater

Preheat the oven to 375 and prep a muffin tin for 12 good sized muffins.    In one bowl mix the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.  AB claims that to acheive maximum fluffyness in muffins, these should be sifted together or zapped for 5 seconds in your food processor.  Sadly I don’t have a large food processor (just a mini 2-cup capacity model) so I did it the old fashioned way.

In a separate bowl mix the sugar, oil, egg+yolk and buttermilk.  Pour the liquids over the dry goods and mix JUST until blended while tossing in the chocolate chips and a smidgen of freshly grated nutmeg.  I slightly overmixed mine so the texture of the muffins wasn’t perfect.

Bake the muffins in your muffin pan at 375 for about 20 minutes or until golden on top and a toothpick comes out clean.  New trick I picked up: turn the muffins sideways as soon as possible (without breaking them) after you remove them from the oven.  This lets steam escape and keeps your bottom from getting soggy, er, bottoms.

Make your man drool

With some delicious, juicy pink steak.  A perfectly prepared steak should make any man weak in the knees whether you’ve been together for years or have only broached the second date.  Unless of course you’re dating a vegan, in which case I can’t help you.

As far as red meat goes, it’s essential for people prone to fainting (me) to make sure that an adequate amount of iron is consumed.  Nothing is better in that situation than red meat.  You can supplement with vegetables but the total iron contained is NOT how much your body absorbs.  Iron in vegetables is only 5% bioavailable as opposed to 30% in beef/lamb.  Other phytochemicals in vegetables can also interfere with your bodies ability to absorb the iron so you should eat it with plenty of vitamin c in your diet, preferably in the same meal as the intended vehicle for the iron.  Most people can’t put this much thought into what they eat, hell most people can’t spend more than ten minutes going through a drive through which is part of the US obesity problem…but that’s an entirely different rant.

Simple Grilled Steak

• 1 new york strip (mine was about 1.5 inches thick!)
• 1/4 tsp Cayenne
• 1 Tbsp finely diced garlic
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp pepper
• Olive oil

That’s it.  It doesn’t take much to make a perfect, simple steak.  Salting the steak and letting it sit for a minute before you grill it also helps draw out a little of the steaks juices–natural lubricant.  This way you can minimize the amount of olive oil you use on the pan!  In order to acheive a perfect “grilled” steak indoors you will need a good cast iron grill pan.

Heat that pan up on high and sear the steak on each side for about two minutes.  If you want to get the criss-cross grill marks then you should move the steak after two minutes at a 45 degree angle and let it go for another minute.  My steak was VERY thick so I moved the pan into a 375 degree oven and left it in there for about another 5 minutes and it still came out pink and delicious.

**I rubbed mine down with that mix of spices but please keep in mind I’m estimating the amounts here.  I don’t measure usually when I’m cooking (rather than baking) so this is my mental list of roughly how much I used.  More garlic is always a good thing in my kitchen and the important thing is to not be afraid of salt.  I’ve noticed that a lot of people tend to underutilize this spice even though it brings out the natural flavors of steak more than anything else can.

I ate mine with rosemary cornbread for ultimate orgasmic deliciousness but that’s a recipe for another day.

Don’t squash my summer dreams

Today is my only free Monday for the summer.  It’s the first time in weeks I haven’t had classes to worry about (well aside from worrying about finals scores)  and will be the only Monday I’m not getting up to go to work.  I had all these plans, wanted to get up early and enjoy the day…then what do I do?  I sleep in until noon.  Oh well.  Today’s Monday muffins are a “take two” on my whole wheat, fat free recipe from a few weeks back.  This time I added in a half a cup of buttermilk so they aren’t entirely fat free but at 3.5 grams for 12 muffins total, it’s pretty much negligible.  If I wanted to really amp up the nutrition value of these muffins I’d find local, raw honey rather than processed.

Raw honey is a powerful food; it’s highly anti-bacterial/anti-fungal/anti-viral and these properties are lost in the commercial process.  It does have one downside in that it’s more likely to contain spores of clostridium botulinum but this is only a problem for infants.  The spores aren’t harmful unless they can be induced to grow and this happens in an infant’s intestinal tract which differs from that of an adult.  Commercially processed honey could still contain these endospores and thus is considered a no-no for those under the age of 2 so there’s no reason to avoid raw honey if you are old enough to read this blog.

The compound in raw honey that is a strong antibacterial agent is called propolis which contains a variety of phytonutrients and is manufactured by bees to protect their hives.  This substance has even been found to have anti-cancer properties in certain studies with colon cancer; certain nutrients in the propolis halted the activities of two enzymes in test animals that induce tumor formation.

Zucchini Muffins

• 2.5 cups whole wheat flour
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 1.25 cups shredded zucchini
• 1/2 cup buttermilk
• 1/2 cup orange blossom honey
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon and nutmeg each
• 1 teaspoon freshly grated orange zest
• 2 large egg whites lightly beaten
• 1 cup dried apricots
• Sliced, toasted almonds (optional)

Preheat your oven to 375 degrees and prep a muffin tin that makes a dozen muffins.  In a large bowl mix the whole wheat, baking powder, cinnamon and nutmeg.  In a second bowl whip the eggs and add the honey, buttermilk, orange zest and shredded zucchini.

Add the wet ingredients into the  bowl with the dry ingredients and mix just until there is no more loose flower.  Lumps are O.K.  Toss in the dried apricots, pour batter into the muffin tins, top with slivered almonds and bake for approximately 20 minutes.

You calling this kaiser a bulkie?

Vienna rolls, Kaiser rolls, Bulkie rolls, Hard rolls…how can something so common have so many names and yet most people don’t seem to recognize a single one?

Kaiser rolls are a traditional yeast bread found in real delis you tend to only find in major cities across the country.  The local Nugget here, or whatever “high-end” grocery store you have nearby, might carry them but why spend money on a classic when I can try to make it myself?  The kaiser roll was supposedly invented in Vienna, Austria (hence the alternate name Vienna Roll) to honor Franz Joseph I who reigned in Austria, and Hungary, from 1848 – 1916.  Franz Joseph was the uncle of Archduke Franz Ferdinand– you know, that guy who got shot and his subsequent death started WWI?  Ferdinand was actually supposed to succeed his Uncle to the throne, even though Franz Joseph wasn’t very fond of the archduke, and after a Serbian assassin killed Ferdinand Austria-Hungary and Germany went to war.  Franz Joseph I died before the war ended and two years later it was lost so Austrian-Hungary Monarchy dissolved.

Maybe it’s the Austrian link to Germany that lead to the term “kaiser” for this roll.  I’m not really sure where it came from but I do know that my few loyal readers don’t come here looking for a prolonged history lesson.  You’re here for the food so let’s get to it!

Typically when shaping this rolls, a mold is use to achieve the desired effect.  Kaiser roll cutters seem very nice but they seem to only come in the form of cheap plastic varieties or overly expensive forms.  Who spends 100+ dollars on a tool that is used only to form bread buns?!  Do it by hand, it works just fine and so long as you’re not making a triple batch, it won’t take much longer.

Kaiser Rolls

from Peter Reinhart’s The Breadbaker’s Apprentice

• 8 ounces pate fermentee
• 10 ounces bread flour
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 tsp diastatic barley malt powder
• 1 tsp instant yeast
• 1 large egg
• 1 1/2 Tbsp vegetable oil
• 10 Tbsp lukewarm water
• Sesame seeds (for topping)
• Cornmeal (for dusting)

Take pate fermentee out of the refrigerator, cut it into ~10 pieces and let these rest at room temperature for at least an hour before making the dough for the rolls.  After this hour, mix the pate fermentee in a large bowl with the flour, salt, malt and yeast.

Mix in the egg, oil, water and form the dough into a ball.  It should be tacky but not impossibly sticky.  Knead the dough for about 10 minutes, cover and let it rise at room temperature for 1.5 – 2.5 hours.  The dough should double in size.

Prepare the rolls after this first rise and now, pay attention, there will be 2 more.  First put the formed rolls with the top side down and proof for 45 minutes.  Then flip these over and proof for another 45 minutes.  Altogether this process, 3 risings, should take approximately 4.5 hours.  Now add and desired toppings, prep a pan with some light cornmeal to keep the dough from sticking to parchment paper and preheat the oven to 425F.

Bake the rolls at 425F for approximately 20-25 minutes.  Then voila!  Done. I used mine for some yummy BLT sandwiches with this amazing homemade avocado sauce.  I fully intend on making the avocado spread again so I promise a [shorter] post in the nearby future with that recipe.

<3 and Good Baking!

A refreshing bite

We interrupt studying for finals to bring you these messages:

Honeydew Lime Sorbet infused w/Mint Syrup

• 2 cups sugar
• 2 cups water
• 1 Tbsp minced mint
• ~1/2 large honeydew, chopped into cubes
• Zest and Juice of 2 limes

Bring the sugar and water to a boil in a small saucepan.  Add in the mint leaves and reduce the mixture to a simmer for approximately 5 minutes until the sugar dissolves.  Let the syrup cool to room temperature.

Meanwhile put the cubed honeydew in a food processor and puree.  Mix in grated lime zest, juice and the mint syrup.  Let this whole mix sit in the fridge overnight to chill it and prep an ice cream machine.

The next day prepare the mixture according to your machine’s specifications.  I’ve got a cuisinart ice cream machine so it ran for about 20 minutes and then I had delicious sorbet.  My machine only makes about 6 cups at a time though, and this took two runs, so I’d venture a guess that this makes about 11-12 cups of the sorbet.

You may now resume your textbook reading.

I got finals blues

Exam numero uno is this afternoon on human evolution.  The subject matter isn’t very hard at all so the tests in this course seem to compensate by being needlessly wordy and trick question-y.  If only I were nearly as confident at test taking as I am in the kitchen, I’d be impervious to self-doubt when facing my multiple choice demons.  Of course the best ways to ensure that you’re going to do best on a test have nothing to do with studying but getting your mind in the right place:

1. Get lots of sleep – yeah fat chance of that.  I suffer from serious anxiety and an overly active brain.  Any sleep I do get is usually filled with really vivid dreams; my dreams are at their worst when I’m under stress a.k.a. FINALS week.
2. Don’t Panic! (Points to anyone who knows what I’m referencing.  Seriously, maybe I’ll mail you some cookies.)
3. Eat a good breakfast – ah now this one I can manage!

Aaaaaaaand since it’s Monday, plus I’ve got some serious exam bumming going on, why not bake up some Blues-berry muffins?  I bought myself a nice giant muffin baking tin so I only made 6 but they are ample, fist-sized breakfasts full of carbohydrates and sugars.  The brain needs glucose for energy, although don’t go carboloading before an exam since too much can slow you down and cause a food coma.  These are perfect for breakfast before a test, not overly sweet, full of fresh blueberries and extremely satisfying.

Blues-berry Muffins

• 1 cup buttermilk
• Zest and Juice from 1-2 lemons (mine was large so I only used 1)
• 2 eggs, lightly beaten
• 8 Tbsp butter, melted and cooled
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 2.5 cups AP flour
• 2.5 Tbsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• Pinch of freshly grated nutmeg
• 1.5 cups blueberries

Preheat an oven to 400 degrees and grease up your [giant!] muffin tin.  Whisk the buttermilk, butter, eggs, lemon juice and lemon zest together in a small bowl.  Set this aside.

Mix the dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt) in a large bowl.  Pour the liquid ingredients over the dry and mix just until combined.  The batter should be lumpy.  Then grate some nutmeg over the mix and gently fold in the blueberries.  I definitely recommend using a spatula and not a whisk for this if you are trying to avoid breaking the blueberries–otherwise the insides of your muffins will be blue, though they will still be tasty so don’t worry if you pop a few.

Pour the batter into the muffin tins and fill them up about 3/4 of the way. This made 6 large muffins for me so it should work fine in a 12 muffin tin.  Bake these babies for about 20 minutes.  The tops should be golden and as usual the muffins should pass the toothpick test.

Playing with my ramekins

I just got some really pretty ramekins on clearance at World Market.  I love that store.  Two dollars each?  Yes please!  In the future I think these will make some pretty perfectly portioned chicken pot pies.  I can see preparing a couple of them and storing them in the fridge, like homemade tv dinners, however they must be properly broken in. How else would I christen them but by using up leftover cheesecake batter from a dinner party?  I portioned it out and popped these babies in my fridge, ready to heat up and use whenever I so desired.  Cheesecake is a pretty good standard dish to make if you have company that requires gluten free desserts.  Typically I’d make a nut crust instead of cookie crust, but if you are out of nuts, just make it crustless!  I promise you that with some homemade raspberry caramel sauce, no one will miss it.  (I’ll post instructions about making caramel at home sometime later on.)

Crustless Chocolate Cheesecake

• 24 ounces cream cheese
• 2 eggs
• 2 egg yolks
• 1 cup sugar
• 8 oz melted bittersweet chocolate
• 1 tsp Vanilla extract
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 cup sour cream
• 1/2 cup heavy cream

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees and prepare a water bath for the ramekins.  The upside to using these babies is that there’s no need to wrap them with aluminum foil to prevent seepage unlike a springform pan.

Bring the cream cheese and eggs to room temperature.  Beat the cream cheese and sugar for 3 minutes until light and fluffy.  Add in the eggs one at a time, followed by the egg yolks; beat for a minute after each addition.  Follow this with the sour cream, heavy cream, vanilla extract and finally the melted chocolate.  You want to make sure the mixer speed is on low when you add in the sour cream and rest to avoid splashing.

Portion this out into your ramekins.  I had enough leftovers to fill 2 about 2/3 of the way so I’d guess that this recipe would fill 4-6 ramekins depending on how big they are.  Bake these for about 45 – 60 minutes in the water bath.  I only did two, so your cooking time might vary if you do more.  Just check to make sure that they jiggle in the middle but are set on the outside.  Remove from the oven and cool for a few hours or overnight.

Getting your money’s worth

Give me any word and I’ll tell you how that word comes from Greek Hebrew!  What’s funny is that I had made that joke to some friends earlier, more than once, and this time I’m completely (or at least mostly) right.  Succade is a term that applies to candied peels of citrus–Succade may have come from the word Sukkah a temporary structure built during the Jewish holiday Sukkot.  Citron (known in hebrew as etrog) is essential to the holiday and according to wikipedia, it’s fairly common that the fruit is candied at the end of Sukkot.

That’s enough history for today, I have finals coming up dontcha know.  Yeast Genetics and Food Enzymology are kind of kicking my ass but I do at least have some yummy candied orange peels to eat while I study for them.  Think I can get extra credit with all this food knowledge I’ve aquired via cooking?

Candied Orange Peels

• Sliced peels of 3-4 oranges
• 1 1/2 cups of water
• 2 1/2 cups of sugar

Slice the oranges on top and bottom so you have a stable surface, then following the curve of the fruit, cut large sections of peel off the oranges.  Once you have these, slice them into long, rectangular peels.  If the fruit has a lot of pith (the white, bitter lining between the flavorful peel/flesh of the fruit) try to trim some of it off.  Don’t worry about removing all of it however because you 1) Do not want the candies too thin and 2) The bitterness of the pith is reduced with 4 rounds of blanching.

Place all the peels in a saucepan and cover with water.  Bring the water to a boil and let sit for 5 minutes.  Drain the water, refill and repeat this another 3 times, for a grand total of 4 rounds of blanching.  This will pull out the bitter flavor from the peels.

After the fourth round add in the 1 1/2 cups of water and the sugar.  Cook this over medium or medium-low heat for approximately 1 1/2 hours.  The liquid will reduce to a thick syrup (I’m going to need to think up a way to use this too) and the peels will become translucent and quite pretty.  Now you’ve got a few options:

1. Let the peels and sugar come to room temperature and store in a jar together.  You’ll have really pretty, sticky, peels to garnish with or bake into dishes.
2. Place the peels on a drying rack for 24 hours and then roll loosely in sugar to make sugared peels.  These are delicious to eat alone or bake into cakes.

Do this with any citrus fruit!  Lemons, Limes, Oranges, Grapefruits…on and on the list could go.  Now you never have to let a single bit of citrus go to waste.  Well, except for the seeds, but I’m not a gardender or a miracle worker so don’t look to me for 100% use of the fruit.

Never leave food on the table

At least not if you have an ornery, 3 year old cairn terrier with a sweet tooth.  I made my batch of Monday muffins to eat throughout the week and then went on campus to study.  Well apparently these were especially delicious because my dog decided to hop up on my dining table and wolf down ALL of them.  So much for having breakfast ready for the next week.  I’m going to have to figure out something else because I am out of strawberries.  As you might imagine I was pretty annoyed because these muffins were great for indulging my sweet tooth, it’s like strawberry shortcake for breakfast, but slightly better for you.  I imagine substituting in whole wheat flour would work quite nicely in the future…especially with an extra tablespoon of honey.

Grapefruit Strawberry Muffins

• 1/2 cup softened butter (8 Tbsp)
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 1 Tbsp orange blossom honey
• 2 eggs
• 2 cups AP flour
• 1/2 cup buttermilk
• 2 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp salt; another 1/4 tsp for strawberries
• 1 to 1 1/2 cups diced strawberries
• Zest and juice of 1 large (or 2 medium) grapefruits

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F and prepare a muffin tin (this will make 12 generous sized muffins).  Meanwhile chop up the strawberries and sprinkle with 1/4 tsp of salt.  Strawberries are very watery compared to other berries so a little bit of salt will help them expel some of that excess water in a strainer if you let them sit for 15 minutes or so.

Beat the sugar, honey and butter together until smooth either by hand or in a stand mixer.  I used my stand mixer bowl for this first step.  Whisk in: eggs, buttermilk, grapefruit juice and zest.  When making muffins it’s important not to overmix the batter (lumpy is GOOD) so I did the rest of this by hand.

In a separate bowl mix together the flour, bp, bs and salt.  Gently stir the dried goods into the first bowl (wet ingredients) but don’t over mix it.  Stir in your strawberries and then pour the batter into the muffin tin.

Bake for approx 20-23 minutes.  The muffins will have big, golden tops and pass the toothpick test.  The crumb will be very flakey/cakey but the muffins won’t be overwhelmingly sweet.  If you want to make them sparkle a bit more top with some sugar.

**Tip: rub the sugar with some extra grapefruit zest for a couple of minutes to get a little bit more of a grapefruit flavor.  I like the tart with the sweetness of the strawberries.

Pretty in Pink!

Muffin Mondays: Go bananas and get nutty

Pecan Banana Nut Muffins

• 2 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
• 1 1/2 tsp nutmeg
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 8 tbsp soft butter
• 1/3 cup buttermilk
• 2 eggs
• ~1 1/2 cups crushed pecans
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1 1/2 tsps baking soda
• 1 1/2 cups mashed, overly ripe bananas

Preheat your oven to 375 degrees.   Grease a muffin tin (again I made minis) this recipe should yield 12-15 regular sized muffins.

In one bowl mix the flour, nutmeg, baking soda, and the salt.  In another bowl beat the butter and sugar until fluffy; add in the mashed bananas and then beat in the eggs one at a time.  This mixture might look a bit curdled but that is O.K.

Add 1/2 in the dry mix, followed by half the buttermilk, followed by the remaining dry mix and finally, did you guess it, the last of the buttermilk.  Fold in the pecans and pour the mixture into muffin tins.

Bake for approximately 15-18 minutes or until the muffins pass the toothpick test.  If you want them to be a bit sweeter (this isn’t an overly sweet recipe) sprinkle the tops of the muffins with a mixture of some brown sugar/granulated sugar.