Naked Cake: Tres Leches

Tres Leches is supposed to have whipped cream on top.
I'm not supposed to gawk at my RSS feed while making whipped cream, because whipped cream turns into butter, which with sugar and vanilla is really nasty.

Anyhow this cake was kind of bomb anyway so it's okay. Especially since I used kirsch instead of regular brandy (and too much of it).

Also, I put blueberries on top but only to distract from lack of whipped cream. Make this: time consuming, but not too much effort.
Credits to here.



(switched shot)Changeling?

-Amanda

I like Molasses!

But these aren't my favorite brans. See "muffin in the rough," ça c'est très bien. Cette recette a été au dessous de mes attentes.



Cependant, c'est bon.

I got it from this book from the seventies (like everything else in my parent's kitchen) called Laurel's Kitchen.

Her recipe is for apple bran muffins, but we didn't have apples, so I used strawberries and blueberries instead.

She recommends eating these muffins with cheddar.
I say no.


Recipe: Bran Muffins
2 cups whole wheat flour
1 1/2 cups wheat bran
1/2 tsp. salt
1 1/4 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
1 TBS grated orange rind
1 cup apple ( I subbed blueberries and strawberries)
1/2 cup raisins
1/2 cup chopped nuts/seeds ( I left out.)
juice of one orange
scant 2 cups clabbered milk!
1 egg
1/2 cup molasses
2 TBS oil

1. Preheat to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Mix flour, bran, salt, soda, and nutmeg together. Stir in rind, fruit, and nuts if using.
2. Pour juice of orange into a 2 cup measure, fill the rest up with the clabbered milk. Add to egg, molasses, and oil and stir it all together a lot.
3. Combine, but not too much.
Bake for 25 minutes.
Should make about 2 dozen small muffins

This is what I do.

-Amanda

Muffin in the Rough

Muffin went for a hike and found a maze. Actually there were two kinds of muffins. Muffins with just raisins (à la recette) and muffins with goozed banana, blueberry, raspberry, and strawberry.



These are moist and the best bran so far. And they're rugged!


-Amanda

I Thought I Didn't Take Pictures, But I Did

These are Nigella's blueberry muffins. They're from How to Be a Domestic Goddess. I'm too lazy to write the recipe, but basically they're her blueberry muffins except I added grated orange and ground cardamom.

There's melted butter too.


And there we go. Heehee.

I'm clever.

-Amanda

Wonderbread

I woke up and my mom wanted something with banana. I remembered my roommate making some banana bread that I had thought was funky upon first bite. It tasted yogurty. 10 seconds later, I had wanted to find the recipe. So I looked up banana yogurt breads--they existed! Of course, now that I'm back in Berkeley, I asked my roommate about that banana bread, and she claims that it had zero yogurt. None.

Point is, it turned out we only had one banana left, but I still wanted yogurty bread. Since I got a good grip on zesting, I went for an all-out lemon yogurt loaf. I pumped it full of blueberries, soaked in a tangy glaze, and had myself the tastiest, moistest yogurty loaf of my life.



I found this zesty lemon bread recipe and modified.

Differences:
I used a LOT less sugar. And it was still too sweet.
I used low fat yogurt.
I used more lemon juice, and less powdered sugar, for the glaze. The cake soaked it up nicely, but you had to be very careful slicing/lifting. Maybe you didn't have to be, but I was. This loaf was precious to me.
I used blueberries, of course. There are few bloods more tantalizing than that of the blueberry.

Spongy and glorious.



Please make this and feed it to anyone who needs a smile. I'd recommend making a couple loaves at once--I was sad that I only got a slice and a half.
-Anna

These Muffins are to Bran, Like Charade is to Hitchcock

So I made these as my muffins of the week. Success? I think yes. But they have no bran, even though I'm branding them as such. Yeah, I did just say that. They have quinoa instead, which is a fluffier substitute for bran...maybe?

They don't give you the weighted down feeling bran does, which maybe or good or bad depending on what you're going for. The berries really make them though--the cherries specifically. I used this recipe , except I
a) skim milk instead of soy, though I'm not opposed
b) Honey for most of the maple syrup since we only had a little bit left
c) Regular whole wheat flour instead of whole wheat pastry flour, since where are you supposed to find that stuff?
d) I replaced the dried fruit with a heck of a lot of fresh cherries, blueberries, and strawberries.


I realized that I ate the last of these on Saturday morning without taking a picture--that's how good they were I guess. Here's a picture of a hedgehog and tea, which I thinks makes up more than enough for it.


Mornings are best with these and this.

-Amanda

The Muffin Cup Conundrum

Wrapper versus naked? Naked is difficult to remove, but paper means a lot of the muffin outer layer is left clinging... I think in the end the extra effort is worth it to get the whole muffin.



These are my third batch in my search for the perfect bran muffin. More bran-y than the last. These call for wheat bran--of which I bought a HUGE bag. They're not as sturdy as the first though. But I I got the right portion of fruit finally!

I adapted the recipe from here, except I
a) Zested a huge orange and put that all in: reminds me of fruit cake for some reason.
b) Used a sprinkling of pumpkin pie spice instead of the recommended pinches of cardamom, all spice, and cinnamon.
c)Uped the apple sauce to 1/2 a cup instead of 1/4.
d)Used splenda instead of regular sugar.
e) Added a banana that was going bad.
f) Added maybe 3/4-1 cup of fresh blueberries.
g) Used only maybe 2 teaspoons of oil.
h) Used skim clabbered milk, instead of low-fat buttermilk.
i) Used almond extract instead of vanilla.

I would say more almond extract and maybe to make it sturdier add flax seed?

And I think this is a good song for them in the morning, it especially complements the tartness of the cranberries.
Anna made a few of these in her pixie muffin pan, yummy. They bled and it was beautiful.



Countdown to True Blood?

-Amanda

Brighter Bran

Banana Berry Bran Muffins



So this bran is a little bit lighter, maybe it's because it's oat bran instead of wheat. These are simpler to make than the other bran muffins, a bit less interesting. Again, I should have put more fruit, maybe some spices too.. I wonder what would be good to put in a banana berry bran muffin, ginger? Cardamom? Cinnamon is over-used, nutmeg, allspice, or cloves, would have been too much...Oooh maybe almond extract?

Here's the original recipe. You could nibble listening to this song.



-Amanda

Pixies in Your Breakfast Dish

Finally! An original recipe!

So I was feeling down, and decided to walk through the glistening heap of (unaffordable, just now) surprises that is Sur La Table. And I made my first purchase--a pixie muffin pan (and a cookie cutter). I also talked to someone who went through culinary school who used that cookie cutter to shape his rice.

Anyways, I had no idea what pixie muffins were, but they had little flower patterning, and muffins are always too large for me, so I gave them a try.



Lemon Berry Pixie Muffins
yield:24

2 heaping (and I mean huuge) tbsps of flour
1 tsp baking powder
2 (slightly smaller) tbsps of sugar
1 heaping (bigbigbig) tbsp of yogurt
half an egg's worth of egg white liquid
1 tsp fine lemon zest
blueberries and raspberries (i used less blueberries than there were muffins, and ripped the raspberries up into pieces)

Preheat oven to 350F.

Combine flour and baking powder, then add combined yogurt and sugar, and finally add combined egg and lemon zest. Then throw in as many berries as needed--I liked my muffins rich and juicy, oozing out deep blues and purples.

Fill well-buttered (I used my finger to get into the crevices) pixie muffin pan either 2/3 of the way or completely with batter, depending on the size of muffin you want. Bake until just before it would start to brown (the muffin will feel nice and springy to the touch). There you have it!

These did not last long at all, so don't plan on serving them to anyone. Just show someone how pretty they are, and then devour them.



I also attempted to make banana nut yogurt pixie muffins, but I was not a fan, so you don't have to suffer through the recipe and consequent disappointment in muffin taste.

But here's a photo for y'all. I still like their figure.


-Anna