Baking Bonanza Snow Day!

Carrot Muffins

     It is my youngest daughter's birthday today AND the second snow day of the school year. The kids have MLK Day off on Monday, so a four day weekend for them! I, of course, start back to class at the local community college on Monday. Needless to say, I have been in the mood to get my baking "on" and spent the afternoon making muffins and a raspberry "jellyroll," something I have never made before. My kitchen is nice and toasty, and the house smells just divine. I'm lucky my kids like to eat my cooking/baking (usually), and hope to freeze some of the muffins for breakfast and their lunches for the next couple of weeks.

Raspberry Jellyroll

     My oldest son saw all the food porn on facebook and asked if we planned to go for a long run after eating all these goodies, and I had to laugh if he thinks we will eat ALL of this in one day! If you want the recipes, just click on the caption, except for the Blueberry Bran muffins, I'll add it to the end of my post, that one is not online. I also modified the Carrot Muffin recipe by substituting 1/3 cup melted butter, 1/3 cup Greek yogurt (full fat) and 1/3 cup vegetable oil for the corn oil. It took an extra 10 minutes for them to bake due to my modifications, so keep that in mind.
     With all the snow, gingerbread sounded so good, I had to find a recipe for gingerbread muffins. I modified the recipe I found to make just a third of the batter, since I wanted to try them first before making so many. Although the flavor is excellent, I let mine go an extra 5 minutes since they did not seem close to ready at the original time. However, 5 extra minutes was probably 2 minutes too long, they were just a little dry. However, a smear of butter will fix that. My birthday girl loved them though, without any butter or glass of milk. The Gingerbread muffins did not include a glaze, but I added one. It is just the juice from half a lemon mixed with enough powdered sugar to make a thick glaze, really simple. Just be sure to stir until there are no visible lumps of sugar left. Drizzle while muffins are still warm, but not hot.

Gingerbread Muffins with Lemon Glaze

     The Raspberry Jellyroll was something I have never attempted before. I had no concept about how to do this, though I have admired them for years. This recipe was posted on another blog, Cook Can Read, using a recipe from Martha Foose, a lovely chef I had the pleasure to meet at the Epicurean Classic a few years ago. It is from her latest cookbook, A Southerly Course. Its actually her Blackberry Jellyroll recipe, but I did not have blackberry jam on hand, so I used raspberry jam instead. I had to push it through a strainer first, in order to get rid of all the seeds. I have to say, I am pleased as punch at how it turned out! I added some fresh blackberries, which I did have, and whipped cream. It was sublime. The cake is light, flavorful and a perfect foil for the jam. I can't wait to make this again, though I will try to use blackberry jam next time.

Blueberry Bran Muffins

The hardest part of making the jellyroll was beating the room temp eggs for at least 6 minutes on high, which is the minimum that Martha suggests. I beat it for 7 minutes and then quite a bit more after adding the sugar. Other than that, the ingredients are simple and the directions are easy to follow. If you have never made a jellyroll before, I urge you to give it a whirl. One last tip though, beat the eggs in a medium to large bowl, they seem to triple in volume.
     The Blueberry Bran muffins are the healthiest muffins I made today. I have made these before, usually during blueberry season though. They have wheat bran, whole wheat flour, and applesauce in place of butter or oil. I love these for breakfast with a glass of milk. I modified the original recipe to include some lemon zest, cinnamon and an extra 1/2 cup of fresh blueberries. I have made them with frozen, and they turn out just fine. Here is the recipe if you are so inclined to make them...

Blueberry Bran Muffins                   Makes 12 muffins

Preheat oven to 375°F

Ingredients:

1 ½ C bran (I use wheat bran, but don’t see why you couldn’t use oat bran or another type)

1C milk (I use skim)

1 egg lightly beaten

2/3 C brown sugar

½ C unsweetened applesauce or plain yogurt (could try vanilla, lemon or blueberry I bet)

1 tsp lemon or orange zest (optional)

1 tsp vanilla

½ C whole wheat flour

½ C unbleached all purpose flour

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp baking powder

¼ tsp cinnamon (optional)

½ tsp salt

1 ½ C fresh blueberries (original recipe calls for 1 cup, but I like a LOT of blueberries in my muffins!)

·         Combine bran and milk in medium bowl and soak for 10 minutes.

·         Combine egg, sugar, applesauce (or yogurt), lemon (or orange) zest and vanilla in a separate bowl and then add to bran and milk mixture.

·         In a medium bowl, whisk together remaining dry ingredients: flours, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon and salt.

·         Add wet mixture to dry mixture and mix until just combined.

·         Gently fold in blueberries.

·         Fill lined or greased muffin tin.

·          

Bake for 20 minutes or until toothpick or knife inserted into center of muffin comes out clean.

Happy Baking Y'all!!!

Feeling Better, Baking and Journaling

Orange Pecan Muffins

     So far so good. I keep feeling better each day and thanks to my Mom and family, I think I'll be in great shape by next weekend for my daughter's graduation party. The morning seems to be the roughest time for me, the incisions ache then, but after some motrin and moving around, they feel much better by noon. Since I have to spend time upright, but can't go far, I spent some time baking today. Orange Pecan Muffins and a "cherry" version of Carrot Raisin Bread, both recipes featured in the October 1998 issue of "Cooking Light" magazine. Although both recipes are low in fat, I think the Carrot Raisin Cherry bread came out much better than the muffins. I replaced the raisins in the bread with dried cherries from Benjamin Twiggs

Cherry Carrot Quick Bread

and used Eggbeaters in place of the one egg in both recipes. The bread tasted a lot like carrot cake, my hubby loved it! The muffins were just ok, kind of on the dry side and not very flavorful, maybe they needed the fat from that one yolk. Still, I made an orange glaze for the muffins and that did make them better. It tired me out though, I had to go lay down after all that baking!
     I pulled out my visual journal train case full of art supplies for a while today. I worked on some of my pages in the journal I created in Teesha Moore's class. It felt good to play again. I hope to start using it daily now that I'm feeling up to it. So many things I want to do, this surgery stuff is so very inconvenient! Also need to get ready for the Wine, Food and Art show on the 21st this month. Right after my daugher's party I'll be in jewerly fabrication mode. So short post today, off to work on the "Honey-Pecan Crusted Chicken" with my mom...hope it tastes as good as it looks...