Pumpkin cornmeal cake

I was sort of hoping that this recipe would be appropriate to serve for dinner, but it's really too sweet as is.  I'm definitely thinking about redoing it in a more savory quick-bread form, but in the meantime, it really is quite delicious as a cake!  Check out the recipe for Pumpkin Cornmeal Cake in Hannaford's Fresh magazine.  I found that I needed to raise the temperature to 375 in order to keep the middle of the cake from falling.  

Apple chai muffins

When you end up with an apple harvest like we had this year, you've got to figure out what to do with all the Applesauce you make besides just slurp it down!  I always end up making several types of apple cake, apple dumplings, and apple pie, but this year I experimented with the spices a bit and made my Apple Muffins into chai spiced apple muffins.

Apple Muffins

3 c flour
2 t baking soda
1/2 t allspice
1/2 t ginger
1/2 t cinnamon
1/2 t salt
1 c light brown sugar
1/2 c sugar
1 1/2 c unsweetened applesauce
1/2 c butter, melted
1/2 c sour cream
2 large eggs

Heat oven to 350.  Combine flour through sugars in a medium bowl.  Beat the applesauce through the eggs together in another bowl and add to the flour mixture, stirring until just combined.  Divide the batter into 24 muffin cups.  Bake for about 30 minutes.  Add a nut-based icing to make them into cupcakes.


For the Chai variation, reduce the brown sugar to 1/2 c and replace the allspice through salt with the following mixture:
1 t cinnamon
1 t ground ginger
1/2 t allspice
1/2 t cardamom
1/4 t freshly ground black pepper

The best buttermilk biscuits

There are so many variations on Buttermilk Biscuits that it's not even funny.  Want to make the very best?  Then follow my recipe :-)

Buttermilk Biscuits

2 cups flour
1 t sugar
1 T baking powder
3/4 t baking soda
3/4 t salt
8 T (1 stick) butter, softened to room temperature
3/4 c buttermilk

Preheat oven to 400.  In a large bowl or food processor, combine flour through salt.  Cut in the butter with your fingers or processor until mixture looks like crumbs.  Make a well in the center and pour in the buttermilk, stirring just until it comes together.  Pour out onto a piece of parchment paper and knead a few times.  Fold dough over on itself 4 to 5 times and form into a rectangle.  Cut into 12 pieces and round corners gently with hands.  Place each biscuit into a sprayed muffin cup.  You can bake them on the parchment paper, but they may fall over.  Bake for 12 to 15 minutes, until light gold on top. 

Note - can also be cut into rounds or dropped by spoonfuls if desired. 

Fennel and honey cornbread

It seems that I collect cornbread recipes.  I didn't mean to, because I've always loved my plain old Whole-Kernel Cornbread, but it's just seemed to have happened.  And then I bought the antique cornbread pan...

My most recent variation is Fennel and Honey Cornbread.  It's sweet enough to be a dessert, or you can cut back a bit on the sugar and serve it along with poultry or pork. 

Here are links to the other cornbreads that we most love:
Whole-Kernel Cornbread
Cranberry-Almond Cornbread
Cornbread with Figs and Feta


Fennel and Honey Cornbread

1 1/4 c coarse yellow cornmeal
3/4 c all-purpose flour
1/4 c sugar
1 T fennel seeds, lightly ground
1 t salt
2 t baking powder
1/2 t baking soda
1 stick plus extra for skillet
1/4 c milk
1 c buttermilk
2 large eggs
1/4 c honey

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Heat a 10-inch cast-iron skillet in oven for about 10 minutes while you mix the batter.

In a large bowl, whisk together the cornmeal, flour, sugar, fennel, salt, baking powder, and baking soda. In a large glass measuring cup, melt 1 stick butter in the microwave.  Add the honey to the hot butter, and stir till dissolved.  Stir in the milk, buttermilk, and eggs. Stir milk mixture into cornmeal mixture until just combined.

Remove skillet from oven and add butter, swirling to coat. Pour in batter, and bake until cornbread is golden, 20 to 22 minutes. Let cool at least 30 minutes before cutting into wedges. Serve warm or at room temperature.

If baking batter as muffins in either muffin cups or cornbread pan, it will take about 18 minutes and make approximately 20 muffins. 

A taste of summer on a dark day

Scones make everything better.  And summer fruits, if you can get some that have a decent taste at this time of the year, will brighten up even the most dismal November day.  Forget the fruit and go straight for the ice cream :-)

My new favorite scones

I forgot to take a picture!!  So I'm borrowing Martha's.

I've tried lots of recipes for scones, but I now have a new favorite for the basics: Rich Cream Scones from Martha Stewart.  I did make a few tweaks, using my food processor to cut up the butter into the flour in the first step, subbing light cream for the heavy cream, and skipping the additional sugar on top.  Just be careful if you use the processor not to over-chop the butter.

For future use, I would cut back on the sugar if the scones were going to be used in place of biscuits at dinner.  These are not overly sweet, but they definitely do have a sweet taste that may not be completely to your liking for dinner.  But as a breakfast treat, for tea, or for dessert, these are excellent.  I can think of lots of different ways to "dress them up" in the future.

Cornbread with figs and feta

The November 2011 issue of Food & Wine Magazine had an interesting looking recipe for cornbread that was all decked out with figs, feta cheese, and rosemary.  Plus, it was baked in a skillet.  Although I usually make my cornbread in a cast iron skillet, this recipe called for a pan size that I don't own, so I used an 8x8 glass baking dish instead, and baked it for 25 minutes instead of the 20 called for.  Check it out and decide for yourself how you want to bake it!

Gingerbread

 
There's a reason that almost all traditional gingerbread recipes have you mix in boiling liquid near the end of the mixing phase, just before placing the batter into the oven.  I recently tried a method that skipped the boil, and I was extremely sorry that I did!  Even though the flavor of the bread was excellent, the middle was wet and the edges were tough and dry.  Nope.  Back to boiling for me, but I'll be using milk instead of water from now on!

Gingerbread

2 1/4 c all-purpose flour
1/2 t baking soda
1/2 t salt
1 t cinnamon
1 t allspice (or half cloves, half allspice)
1/2 t nutmeg
1 t dark cocoa powder
8 T butter, softened
3/4 c sugar
3 T grated fresh ginger
3 T crystallized ginger, minced
3/4 c mild molasses
1 egg
1 c milk
1 t white vinegar

Prepare an 11 x 7 glass baking dish with cooking spray and parchment paper.  Heat the oven to 350.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour through the cocoa powder.  In a large bowl, cream the butter with the sugar.  Mix in the gingers, molasses, and egg, stirring well.  Stir in the flour mixture, scraping the bowl well, but not over-beating.  Heat the milk to boiling (glass measuring cup in the microwave helps to prevent burning) and add the vinegar.  Stir the liquid into the batter, stirring until just combined.  Pour into the baking dish and bake for 42 to 45 minutes.  The top should spring back; a test toothpick will not always come out completely clean.  Let it cool for at least 10 minutes before serving.

Triple O Bread

Our Triple O Bread goes really well with all the Italian food we've been enjoying lately!

Blueberry scones

Scones!  Most people either love 'em or hate 'em, and I'm convinced that most of the ones who hate 'em have only had the dry crumbly hard version.

Well, these ain't them.

Between the hefty butter content and the full-fat heavy cream, there's almost no way these could possibly dry out!  Martha Stewart had this recipe in one of her recent magazines...I can't remember which one, but you can find it online at the link. 

Blueberry-lemon muffins

I forgot to get a picture!  Dooooooh!  I'll have to steal Martha's...

These are very moist and are just packed with flavor.  Make them when the blueberries are at their peak.  I found the recipe in Martha Stewart Living magazine, but I made mine as muffins instead of tea cakes.  The recipe made 24 muffins that baked for 22 minutes.  I added a sprinkle of raw sugar to each top before serving. 

Irish soda bread

Many people that I talk to claim that they don't like Irish soda bread.  I'm supposing that's because they haven't tried mine yet ;-) 

OK, seriously, one of the biggest mistakes that I think many American bakers make with soda bread is adding an egg to the mix.  99% of the Irish recipes I've seen don't use any eggs.  So why do we add them?  Because we think that an egg will make the bread moister and keep it from being crumbly. 

Uh, news flash...Irish soda bread is supposed to be crumbly, but it's not supposed to be dry.  By adding an egg, you now have to bake it longer, so you've got more of a chance that it's going to end up dry anyway.  Just bake it until it's done but not overdone and you'll like it just fine.  Also, don't use bread flour...it forms more gluten, and you actually don't want this bread to do that.  It's supposed to be crumbly, remember?  :-) 

The options that I listed below are all variations that I've tried: the amount of sugar you use is up to your personal taste.  Take a little taste of the batter...it won't hurt you because there are no raw eggs in there!  As for baking powder plus milk vs baking soda plus buttermilk, the buttermilk will give you a slightly (but only very slightly) tangier bread.

Irish Soda Bread

3 c flour (1 c cake flour plus 2 c AP flour preferred)
1 T baking powder (or 1 1/2 t baking soda and 1 1/2 t cream of tartar, plus buttermilk instead of milk)
1/4 t salt
1/2 to 1 c sugar
2 T softened butter
1 c raisins or currants
1 T caraway seeds
1 c milk (or buttermilk if using baking soda)

Whisk the flour, leavening, salt and sugar together.  Work the butter in with your fingers until it's evenly distributed.  Stir in the raisins and caraway seeds, and add enough milk to make a thick dough.  Mix only enough to moisten all the flour.  Form into a big biscuit or into several smaller rounds and place on parchment paper on a baking sheet.  Bake at 375, turning the pan partway through.  It takes approximately 35 minutes for 3 small rounds, approximately 45 to 50 minutes for one large round.  Test with a wooden skewer.   

Cranberry bread

With a touch of almond flavoring, this has become our new favorite of all the cranberry breads we've tried! It's a sweet holiday bread which goes well with afternoon tea.

Cranberry Bread

1-1/2 c dried cranberries
Boiling water to cover

1 c flour
1 c whole wheat flour
1 c sugar
1 T baking powder
1/2 t baking soda
1 t cinnamon
1/2 t nutmeg
1/2 t salt

1/4 c canola oil
3/4 c apple juice concentrate, thawed
2 eggs
2 t almond extract
1 t vanilla extract

Cover the cranberries with hot water and let them soften for about 15 to 20 minutes. Mix the dry ingredients in a large bowl, and the wet ingredients in a glass measuring cup. Add the cranberries to the dry mix before adding the liquids. Mix thoroughly and scrape into a loaf pan. Bake at 350 for 50 to 55 minutes.

Triple O bread

Onions, olives, and oregano! This quick bread is packed with flavor.

Triple O Bread

Olive oil
1 onion, chopped

2 c flour
1 1/2 t baking powder
1/2 t salt
2 T butter, melted
3/4 c milk
2 eggs
1/3 c olives, chopped
1 T fresh oregano or 1 t dried

Saute the onions in olive oil until soft. Mix the flour through salt in a large mixing bowl. Melt the butter in a glass measuring cup. Add the milk and eggs, and whisk together. Add to the dry ingredients and stir until just moistened. Add the onions, olives, and oregano and mix in.

Bake in a well-greased 8 x 4 loaf pan at 350 for about 50 minutes. Cool slightly and remove from pan.

Popovers with gremolata

Gremolata (an Italian garnish) is made from flat-leaf parsley, lemon zest, and garlic. It's a wonderful thing to add to the basic popover recipe!

Popover recipe
1/3 c fresh flat-leaf parsley, chopped
2 t grated lemon zest
Large clove of garlic, minced fine

Add the gremolata to the batter. No other adjustments are needed.

Scallion scones

I found the original recipe for these delicious savory scones in the January 2009 issue of Cooking Light. You can see it on the CL website at the link above. I made a few modifications to suit us better, and found that I needed to bake them longer than the test oven called for.

I usually associate scones with sweet toppings and fillings, so these are a tasty change, and thanks to some fancy ingredient substitution, they're moist but not overloaded with fat. It's delicious warm, fresh from the oven, and is pretty good the next day too!

Scallion Scones

1 1/2 c all purpose flour
1/2 c whole wheat flour
1 T sugar
2 t baking powder
1/2 t baking soda
1/2 t salt
1/4 c butter, cut into small pieces
1/2 c scallions, thinly sliced
3/4 c plain yogurt
1 large egg

Mix flour through salt in a large bowl. Cut in butter. Stir in the sliced scallions. Combine the yogurt and egg, and stir it into the flour mixture. The dough will be sticky. Knead it very lightly on a floured piece of parchment paper. Shape it into an 8 inch circle and place it on a baking sheet, still on the paper. Score the circle into 12 wedges, not cutting completely through the dough. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes at 425.

Plain old-fashioned popovers!

My goodness, I love these things! And for once, the food that I crave is super-easy peasy to make and takes only FOUR ingredients. Make them to supplement dinner, or stuff their empty puffy centers with tuna, chicken, or vegetable salad for a quick and easy finger meal.

Popovers

4 eggs
2 c milk
1 t salt
2 c flour

Whisk eggs until light yellow. Whisk in the milk and salt. Dump in the flour and stir with a wooden spoon just to moisten. Don’t try to work out all the lumps…they won’t hurt anything. Pour the batter into well-greased large muffin tins, filling almost to the top. Bake at 450 for 30 minutes. Do not open the oven door while baking. Remove when done and stab each to release the steam. Let them cool for a few minutes and then remove them from the tins. Makes 12 popovers.

Cranberry - almond cornbread

Here's an amazing variation on basic cornbread, especially good in the fall. Follow the recipe for whole-kernel cornbread, but replace the corn and milk with 1 c of milk and 1/2 c each of sliced almonds and dried cranberries. Bake at 425 for 20 minutes. Yum!

Whole-kernel corn bread

I've experimented with a lot of cornbread recipes, and this is the one that my family likes the best. It's moist without being wet and has kernels of corn throughout it for terrific texture.


Whole-Kernel Corn Bread

1 c flour
2/3 c cornmeal
1/3 c whole wheat flour
2 T sugar
2 t baking powder
1/2 t salt
1/4 t ground red pepper

1 15 oz can of whole corn
Liquid from corn plus milk to equal 1 c
1 egg
3 T oil

Butter or oil a cast iron skillet and heat it in the oven at 425 while you mix up the rest of the ingredients. Stir the dry ingredients together in a large bowl. Add the wet ingredients and mix together. Pour into the hot skillet. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes.

Raspberry Corn Muffins

These are best if you can make them with fresh raspberries, bursting with summer flavor, but frozen berries can be used if necessary! You can have these mixed, baked, and ready to eat in thirty minutes easily. They are hearty enough to enjoy with dinner, sweet enough to have for dessert…your choice! This recipe makes 12 delicious muffins.

Raspberry Corn Muffins

2 eggs
1 c milk
1 t vanilla
4 T melted butter or canola oil

1-1/2 c flour
3/4 c cornmeal
3/4 c sugar (less if you’d like)
2 t baking powder
1/2 t salt

1-1/2 c fresh raspberries

Blend the eggs through butter in a small bowl. Mix the flour through the salt in a large bowl. Remove about 2 T of the flour mix and use it to flour the raspberries. Make a well in the flour and pour in the egg mixture. Mix until just moistened.

Fill each muffin cup about 1/3 full and add raspberries to each. Fill another 1/3. Bake at 400 for about 17 - 18 minutes.