Chock Full o’ Cherries Coffee Cake

07/26/2010

maybe she meant, let them eat cherries

Or, “What to do with 14 pounds of canned cherries.”

Josh likes cherries.  Josh likes canning.  Josh cans cherries.  Lauren carries off two cans of cherries.  Lauren cooks cherry cake.  Cherry coffee cake.  Cherry coffee cake with canned cherries.  Josh is cheery.  Josh likes cherry coffee cake with canned cherries.

I was bored on Saturday and that’s usually a recipe for disaster deliciousness because when I get bored, I bake.  Only I was running low on ideas.  It’s amazing, really—there are seven hundred and fifty recipes in my Evernote cookbook and yet, not a single thing I wanted to make right then and there.  Well, that I could make anyway, with what I had on hand.

So I went offline and in search of my 40-something cookbooks.  I wasn’t inspired by much there that day either, until I went through a Tastebook I had put together several years ago.  If you’ve never been to Tastebook, it’s basically a site that lets you organize and print your own cookbooks—it’s rather nice, and I especially like it for gifts.  But anyway, I’d printed myself a cookbook of recipes I found online a few years ago and one of them–the very first recipe in the book, actually—was for a cranberry coffee cake.  Well I could do that, I thought.  But I don’t have any cranberries.  But I did have a basement wine cellar full of unfermented fruit (I know—I’m doing it wrong).  That is, full of cherries that Josh bought fresh and canned a few weeks ago.  Josh likes cherries.  Josh likes cake.  Cake likes cherries.  Lauren cooks cherry cake. Read the rest of this entry »

Banaberry Streusel Muffins

06/25/2010

Where do banaberries come from, you may ask?  Well *pats seat* come here and sit down.  We should talk.

You see, when a banana and a blueberry love each other very much, they go out on a date.  Sometimes drinking is involved and they end up doing some things they don’t remember in the morning, which is probably for the best as it’s most likely somewhat uncomfortable and disgusting.  Banana sneaks out in the morning to avoid awkward conversation.  And shortly later the fruit of their love is born: the banaberry.

Or…

In coming up with a more succinct name for these muffins I baked yesterday, I shortened the original lengthy moniker of “Banana Blueberry Muffins with Walnut Streusel” by combining the terms “Banana” and “Blueberry” into “Banaberry.”  But that’s hardly romantic now, is it?

Anyway, so I was home all day yesterday.  It was a planned day off to wait for FedEx to drop off my new iPhone (yes, I’m one of those).  What was not planned was that FedEx dropped it off a day early on Tuesday.  But hey, I’d already taken the day off.  Might as well be productive and bake something delicious.

Three somethings, actually.  I made a couple batches of les petits pains au chocolat for Josh, some more cornbread (sans the prosciutto this time) for both of us (but mostly me, really) and a batch of these rather lovely little muffins, which I took to work. Read the rest of this entry »

Are you ready for the coming aporkalypse?

06/23/2010

This post is Not Safe For Vegetarians.

I had a delicious dinner last night.  “But, Lauren!” you say, “You have a delicious dinner most nights.”  And you’re right, you crazy kid, you.  But last night was especially delicious.  I dunno, maybe it was the Lauren-friendly sunny, hot weather.  Maybe it was the light, fresh romaine salad straight from my Needle Lane farm share box.  Maybe it was the company of my husband and the relaxed atmosphere of our very old house.

Or maybe it was the pork wrapped pork with the side of pork-filled cornbread.

Oh yeah.  You read that right.  Pork wrapped pork.  Pork filled cornbread.

This whole thing got started because a) Josh’s department was having a picnic-themed potluck and b) I found a recipe for Savory Prosciutto Muffins on EatingWell.  I thought, hmmm, what kind of picnicky item can I make for Josh?  Muffins.  Muffins can be picnicky.  Muffins are an anytime food.  And these proscuitto muffins sound great.  But you know what’s better than regular muffins?  Cornbread muffins.

Cornbread.  Ain’t nothing wrong with that. Read the rest of this entry »

Build a Better Banana Bread

03/22/2010

what did they compare to before sliced bread?

I like to look at magazines while standing in line at the grocery store.  I like to see what’s going on in the world, get an idea of the general gossip, see the current fashion trends, etc.  I admit it.  I’ve flipped through glossy pages, drawn in by the irresistible headlines splashed across the front, with their tawdy taglines and giant airbrushed pictures.  “Classic Roman Food!”  “Healthy, Quick Recipes.”  “Decadent, Dark Chocolate Delights!”  “5 Million Ways to Make Chicken Taste Less Like Chicken and More Like Something You Want to Eat.”  Saveur.  Eating Well.  Cooks Illustrated.  And, previously, Gourmet.  I’ve thumbed through all of them.  I’m not ashamed.

I usually don’t buy them, though.  Let’s face it, I’m part of the reason print media is dying because I’m not going to shell out $5 or $8 for a magazine, glossy and beautiful though it may be, when I can find the same recipes online.  However, occasionally, I can’t help myself.  And by “I can’t help myself,” I mean that “Josh sees me staring and pressures me into buying something for myself even though I feel guilty about paying $8 for a couple dozen recipes I could find online for free.”

This is one of those instances.

The magazine?  The healthy recipes edition of Cooks Illustrated, which is the magazine for staunch food geeks, run by Christopher Kimball who, I imagine, is much like the intimidating, giant green head version of the Wizard of Oz. Read the rest of this entry »

My name is Muffin. English Muffin.

12/20/2009

I decided to do an experiment today, sort of as a way to ease my way into breadmaking with teeny tiny baby steps.  First, I ate a piece of bread.  Two actually.  On either side of a piece of cheese.  Grilled.  I mean, after all, if I’m maybe someday going to bake bread on my own, then I need to get adequately acquainted with it.  So I ate bread.  And then I made English muffins.  They’re not really bread.  I mean, they’re muffins.  It’s in the name.  But they’re bread-like and seemed like a reasonable amount of effort, so I figured, eh why not?

What I didn’t know, but maybe should guessed, is that English muffins are actually pan-fried first before being baked.  That’s how you get that nice dark color and crisp top and bottom.  Yeah.  The more you know (and knowing is half the battle!).

You, too, can follow along at home now by going to Pete Bakes and checking out the English Muffin Recipe that I used.

His come out way better looking than mine, but with time, they will soon be beautiful.  Like a bready, yeasty duckling who turns into a bready, yeasty swan with peanut butter on top. Read the rest of this entry »

Cinnamon Chocolate Bundt Cake: So Easy a Caveman Could Do It

11/08/2009

My love of chocolate, as you know, knows no bounds.  This is a super easy and very fast recipe for a chocolate bundt cake, although I actually made a regular cake because I have a bundt cake pan but my bundt cake pan is…um…a castle.  Yeah.  So it seemed a bit…grand….for this.  But don’t fear: while this is a small cake, comparatively, it’s big on flavor and happiness.  Delicious delicious happiness.

Cinnamon Chocolate Cake
1 c. flour
1 c. sugar
1/2 c. unsweetened cocoa
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 c. soft butter
2 large egg whites plus 1 large egg
1/2 c. lowfat milk
1 tbsp cinnamon
2 tsp chocolate extract (or use vanilla if you can’t find chocolate)

Preheat oven to 350F.

Beat butter and sugar together; add eggs one at a time, then chocolate extract, cinnamon and milk.  Add in the flour, baking soda, salt and unsweetened cocoa.  Mix until well blended.  Spray a bundt pan or 9″ round pan with cooking spray.  Fold batter into the pan and bake for about 30-35 minutes depending on your oven.

Top with chocolate ganache.  Eat.  Smile.  Be happy.  Share.

Do you know the muffin man?

08/15/2009

I’ve said before that despite evidence to the contrary, I don’t really like to bake.  I only do it because I like baked goods and so far as I know, you either have to bake them or buy them.  And really it’s better if you bake them.

Well today I wanted to use up some buttermilk and I figured, might as well make something for breakfast tomorrow–after all, Josh will be back late tonight, he’ll want to sleep in tomorrow morning; might as well have breakfast waiting for him already.  Muffins sounded about right.

Now, I am not the Muffin Man of this apartment.  That would be Josh.  Josh is the Muffin Man.  He makes delicious blueberry lemon muffins and someday I’ll get him write a guest post on that.  But he’s not here today.  So the muffin making is up to me.

I have this recipe I’ve been wanting to try for a while–raspberry cream cheese muffins—from MyRecipes.  Looked delicious AND they were healthy.  I adapted the recipe a bit, though, to make it fit my style more.  And by “fit my style more” I mean, “I added dark chocolate.”  Mmmm.  Chocolate.  I also added the seeds of half a vanilla bean and a bit more of a nice rum-based Tahitian vanilla.  But what’s really important here is the chocolate.  Let’s not forget that. Read the rest of this entry »

“It happens every time; they all become blueberries.”

07/21/2009

Josh is a fan of blueberries.  A picky, picky fan of blueberries who will only eat fresh ones in season, never in pancakes, and who makes delicious blueberry muffins.  Last summer we picked our own blueberries on a farm in West Michigan, near where Josh grew up.  Because of that, we now have stacks of frozen bags of blueberries in our fridge.  Stacks and stacks.

Flash forward to this summer.  I know the cycle will continue.  So I’m determined to use up some of those blueberry stores before Josh gets a hankering to go pick some more.  That, coupled with a request for more baked goods for his office, divided by my desire to procrastinate from doing the video work I should be doing and multiplied by the inspiration of a cupcake book I picked up from the library today equaled one thing: blueberry crumble bars.

Read the rest of this entry »