This raspberry walks into a bar..

I loved that Trader Joe's creativity so much.


So anyways. I've been meaning to bake with raspberries. I wanted to make muffins, but alas, the muffin forms were nowhere to be found. After a wild sort of a recipe hunt, I settled on oatmeal raspberry bars (RECIPE). Hot damn! I don't even like bars that are not lemon. And I especially don't like oatmeal. But this feels like the best dessert I've ever made. The crunchity-flaky exterior makes the edge pieces extra grand.

Mostly, I stuck to the recipe. I used a bit more salt. And I forgot to butter the 8inch pan before putting the buttered aluminum foil on it. Big whoop.

Biggest difference: I made my own filling. I took about a carton and a half of fresh raspberries and tossed them in a wide pan that had a bit of boiling water and a heaping tbsp-ful of honey in it. I boiled away most of the water, and was left with the most beautifully red and tangy "jam."



-Anna

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

If I Only Had a Food Processor...

So this is the closest I've gotten to the types of good bran muffins you find in coffee shops and bakeries and such. You know..the chewy, honeyed kind that's a deep chestnut color and filled with plump raisins. I got it from here, it's sounds kind of authoritative and revered, no?

Except, the part about food processing the raisins was not possible for me. Our blender is from the 70s and most of the knobs don't work anymore. Hopefully we'll get a replacement soon, but who knows.

I added some cherries and raspberries to some of them to get my fruit quotient up. I think next time I would just use cherries and not raspberries. Otherwise I only tweaked a few things: used 1/2 cup of apple sauce in place of the oil and added only a tablespoon or so of canola oil and for the buttermilk/yogurt part I used 1/2 cup of non-fat greek yogurt.

Instead, I squished the hot water-plumped raisin with a potato masher. It did a decent job, but, I would have hoped for better. Next time, I think it would be fun to soak the whole raisins in some sort of liqueur for five minutes before mixing them in, maybe kirsch?


Good with this?
-Amanda

L@te

There are always those nights. You try to fall asleep at 11. You end up leaving the wide-eyed world with the scent of cookies/cakes wafting through the house, at 4am.

My mom had an appointment with the hospital at 8am, so I decided she deserved a cake to wake up to.

Using this easy recipe, I whipped up a cake that actually rose a bit! I left a netting of flour on the sides of a cake pan, so that the batter can actually climb as it tries to escape my pan, rather than seeping through the (impenetrable) cracks which allow the bottom to fall out. Good thinking. ..

A nice sun in the middle for radiance!

I don't like cake with buttermilk as much. Yogurt is my favorite way. Soon to come: bomb blueberry lemon bread. so bomb. bomb bomb. i like it so much i'm saying the word bomb. over and over.



This recipe was not as fun for me. I was really excited, because I'd been craving pistachios like who knows what (after seeing this pavlova), and I had a nice thick amount of pomegranate molasses sitting around. These cookies were a hit, but not to my ears. I also didn't think they were attractive. So this is their mention. I'm sticking to using pomegranate molasses in savory dishes.

-Anna

I love parchment!

Butter your pan. Cut out parchment for the bottom. Butter again. Dust with flour. Tap out excess.

That is all.



Also make sure your frozen berry mixture isn't too juicy. I felt really proud of myself making this cake you will too.

Copy this recipe and revel in your whipped cream listening to this.



Kay, done!

-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

Tender Scone

Today I decided I wanted to make this recipe without using measurements; albeit I had the Joy of Cooking a list of ingredients and measurement in front of me, so it isn't as if I created the recipe, but oh well.
I've had the scone bug for a while, ever since I had a small bite of perfectly soft ginger scone several weeks ago. Now they are here, decked out in formerly frozen raspberries, ground ginger, and bits of crystallized ginger, my favorite. I haven't tasted them yet, so I'm crossing my fingers that I didn't over handle them and I guessed right on how much of each ingredient.
Enjoy!



Raspberry Ginger Scones adapted from the Joy of Cooking Cream Scones recipe
1 3/4 c. flour
2 1/4 tsp. baking powder
1/4 c. sugar
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. ground ginger (maybe not really sure, to taste)
2 TBL chopped up bits of crystallized ginger (ditto)
1/2-3/4 c. frozen raspberries
1 1/4 c. heavy cream (yay! you don't have to cut in butter/margarine/shortening!!)

1 egg for glaze
sugar for sprinkling

1.Preheat oven to 450 degrees Fahrenheit (hothothot).
2. Mix flour, baking powder, sugar, salt, and ground ginger together in a medium sized bowl. Make a well in the middle and pour in the heavy cream.
3. Mix together (lightly--too roughly=too tough scones) and add in crystallized ginger and raspberries.
4. Put the big glob of dough on a lightly floured surface. Shape it into a big circle that's about 3/4 of inch thick and 8 inches in diameter. Cut into 8 triangles and put on a baking sheet. (I guess you should grease the baking sheet? I put foil on mine since that was laying around.)
5. Crack open an egg and mix into together with a little bit of sugar and spread it on the 8 wedges. Sprinkle with a little more sugar.
6. Bake for about 15-17 minutes.
Eat early in the morning while listening to this song. Don't watch the accompanying video though, because it's creepy as all get out.





-Amanda