You know what I like about these bars?  Everything.  They were easy to make, very fast, tasty, they made the house smell delicious and they are a perfect fall treat for noshing on with a good sized mug of hot cocoa and whipped cream.

They came about because I was sitting home alone, bored, getting over a cold and therefore in sore need of some comfort food.  I didn’t want the usual sort of snack–cookies, brownies, etc.  Or more honestly, I didn’t have enough chocolate on hand for the usual snack.  Instead, I sifted through the 300 or so recipes in my Evernote cookbook tagged with “dessert” and found a recipe for pecan pie bars.

I didn’t have pecans…but I did have a Costco-sized bag of almonds.  Plus I knew that with a bit of extra cinnamon thrown in, the bars would basically be like eating candied almonds atop a shortbread crust.  And yep, that’s pretty much what they are.  Delightfully, they’re not too sweet at all–so they won’t push you into sugar shock if you eat one or two with a good helping of my homemade cocoa.

Related posts:

1. Double Chocolate Chip Almond Cookie Pie
2. “It happens every time; they all become blueberries.”
3. Lemon Bars, or How Many Lemon Jokes Have You Got?

One of the perks of living in Michigan is fall.  I know, I know: I said in the plum tart post that I hate fall because it’s basically “pre-winter.”  It is.  It is pre-winter.  However, like any good femme fatale, there are certain things about it that you can’t help but be seduced by even knowing that it will end with gunshots and tears icy roads and snow-shoveling.  Like super crisp blue skies, shimmery gold and red leaves, corn mazes and most of all, Michigan apples.  Because where there are Michigan apples, there’s cider and donuts.  And wherever there is cider and donuts, you’ll find me, nomming out.

So this week will be my Ode to the Michigan Apple.  Starting with super-easy, super-tasty, super-cute apple dumplings.  Recipe Below.

Related posts:

1. Tart it up
2. “It happens every time; they all become blueberries.”
3. Apple French Toast Casserole

…of my summer vacation from blogging.  Did you miss me?  We’ll just pretend you did.  I missed you too.  In fact, I’ve brought you this gift.  This beautiful, delicious gift:

Do you like it?

It’s a plum tart.  I love plums.  I love stone fruit in general.  But I’d never actually cooked plums before, and I generally shy away from anything that requires me to make my own dough.  Today was a “Cook all the things!” kind of day though (I also made a chocolate cake, and cherry cobbler yesterday).  I must have been feeling ambitious.  I’m sure with a good night of slacking and a hefty dose of TV, it’ll go away on its own.  Not to worry.

Anyway, the tart.  It was delightful.  I got inspired by the good deals at the store and bought a bag of tiny little plums and thought, “Tart!” I perused a few recipes online to find something simple, no custards or whisking or large ingredient lists.  Finally, I found and adapted this recipe from Eating Out Loud.

Plum Tart
Adapted from Eating Out Loud

Crust
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup chilled unsalted butter cubes
3 tablespoons ice water

Plums
1lb plums
4 tablespoons raw sugar + 2 more tbsp
1/2 tablespoon cinnamon
1 tbsp vanilla extract or 1/2 tbsp vanilla bean paste
1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
1 egg, beaten with a tablespoon of water

Make Crust
Combine flour, sugar salt and cold butter in the processor; pulse a few times until you get that “coarse meal” kind of look.  Then drizzle in a few tablespoons of ice cold water and pulse until the dough comes together into a ball.  Wrap in plastic and store it in the fridge for at least an hour, or overnight.  When ready to use, roll out the crust into a relatively-circle-ish shape and put the crust on a cookie sheet or in a pie pan.  Sprinkle the flour and  1 tbsp of sugar over the crust.

Prepare Plums

Wash the plums, pit them and cut them into slices.  Mine were pretty small, so I cut them into quarters.  Cut yours however you like.  Honestly.  It doesn’t affect me at all.

Toss the plums with 4 tablespoons of raw sugar, the cinnamon and vanilla bean paste.

Arrange the plum slices in a pretty design, like concentric circles.  Or don’t.  Whatever makes you happy.  This is a happy dessert.  It’s the Bob Ross of desserts.  There are no mistakes; only happy, delicious accidents.  Just don’t set anything on fire.  Fold the crust in and pour melted butter over the plums and brush egg wash (egg and water) over the crust, sprinkling it with the last tbsp of sugar.  Bake it in the oven (cause really, where else would you bake it?  The tanning salon maybe) at 400F for about 40 minutes.

Let it cool, slice it up and serve it with a dollop of whipped cream and a sangria.  Consider it a toast to a happy pre-winter fall.

Bonus!
What’s the difference between a tart, a pie and a torte?
Pies and tarts are relatively similar, except that while pies sometimes have top-crusts, tarts usually do not.  Pies often have flaky crusts, whereas tarts usually have shortbread ones but that also has many exceptions.  However, a torte is completely different from either a pie or a tart.  A torte is a rich cake usually comprised of multiple layers that generally features a filling (jam, mousse, buttercream, etc) and is usually glazed or topped with something.  They also contain very little flour.

Related posts:

1. Oatmeal Cream Pies
2. “It happens every time; they all become blueberries.”
3. The New Apple Dumpling Gang

The story behind these scones is pretty simple.  Last night I wanted to bake something with chocolate in it.  I didn’t want to make another batch of chocolate chip cookies.  So instead I made something that looked like a chocolate chip cookie instead.  I don’t know what to think about this.  Granted, it’s a very good scone.  Airy, fluffy, sweet, delicious, easy to make.  Vanilla-y with little morsels of semisweet chocolate.  Everybody loves them.  But I’m starting to wonder how bad my obsession with chocolate chip cookies has gotten if I start making little cookie clones out of other types of food.  First the chocolate chip cookie pie and now scones?  Maybe I’ve given scones low self esteem, made them the Jan to the chocolate chip cookie Marsha.  I mean, maybe it’s always, “Cookie, cookie, cookie!” What’s next?  Will my other baked goods start making up fake boyfriends, maybe a George Glass of Milk, to try and convince me of how wanted they are?  What should I do about this?  How should I put this poor pastry out of it’s misery?

I’ll have to eat it.  It’s the only way. 

Chocolate chip cookie scones
Makes about 14 round scones
Adapted from Blog is the New Black‘s petit vanilla bean scone

2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1 cup cake flour
2/3 cup sugar
5 tsp baking powder
pinch of salt
8oz cold butter, cut into small cubes
1 large egg
3/4 cup heavy cream plus an extra 1 or 2 tablespoons
1 tbsp vanilla bean paste, or 2 whole vanilla beans, seeds scraped out
1 cup semisweet chocolate chip cookies

Preheat your oven to 350F.

Sift flour into a food processor that’s been fitted with the pastry blade.  Add in sugar, baking powder, salt and butter.  Pulse the processor a few times to cut the butter into the flour, until the mixture looks like course crumbs.

Add in the chocolate chips, large egg, the vanilla and then drizzle in the cream while you continue pulsing the mixture together until it starts to form a rough ball.

Dump the dough out onto a well-floured surface and gather into a ball.  Roll it out into a large circle about a half inch thick.  Cut out rounds using a biscuit cutter or, if you’re simple like me, the edge of a glass.  Place rounds on a baking sheet that’s been covered with parchment paper, a couple inches apart.

Gather up the leftover dough scraps, roll out again and repeat.  You may end up using two baking sheets total, but that’s fine.  You want room because these will get fairly large.

Put scones in the oven and bake at 350F for 18-20 minutes or until they’re just starting to lightly turn brown around the edges.  Remove them from the oven and let them cool for a minute before transferring them to a wire rack, if you have one.

Related posts:

1. Me Want Cookie or How I learned to stop worrying and love the (banana chocolate chip) bar
2. Double Chocolate Chip Almond Cookie Pie
3. It’s Peanut Butter Cookie Time! Peanut Butter Cookie Time!

This is a beautiful dessert, in so many ways.  First of all, it contains some of the most important ingredients known to man: chocolate, double chocolate, almonds, butter, pie crust.  All it’s missing is pork…and you could remedy that buy adding in crumbled bacon and/or using lard in your pie crust.  Just something to consider.  Secondly, it solves that terrible, gastronomical conundrum that is, “What do I want for dessert?  A cookie or a slice of pie?”  Welcome to the future, my good hungry friend!  Who needs flying cars?  You can have cookie pie.  That’s two desserts in one.  It’s like a culinary double rainbow.  Plus, it offers twice the opportunity for supplemental dairy.  I mean, pie needs to have one of two things to go with it: ice cream or whipped cream.  Or ice cream and whipped cream.  And cookies need milk.  So you could have a slice of cookie pie with some whipped cream and a glass of milk.  Boom. Done.  Third, think of all the neatly paired colloquialisms you could make.  “Any way you slice it, that’s the way the cookie crumbles!”  And uh…um….ok, well maybe that’s the only one.   Finally, this dessert is extremely easy to make, even for those of you who are baking-phobic.  And do you know what you get at the end of this easy process?  Flaky, buttery pie crust, crunchy top and a nice thick layer of chocolate in the middle. It makes a great alternative to the usual whipped chocolate or fruity pies.  And if you’re tired of eating pumpkin after Thanksgiving and Christmas, then I believe this one is calling your name.

Plus, it’s easily customizable.  Don’t like milk chocolate?  Use semisweet and dark.  Prefer white chocolate?  I think you’re a heathen, but whatever–use white and dark, or white and semisweet.  Don’t like almonds?  Use walnuts, pecans or peanuts.  Need more pig?  Add bacon.

Double Chocolate Chip Almond Cookie Pie
Adapted from Bakerella

1 9″ pie crust

Preheat oven to 325F.  Roll out pie crust into pie plate.

In a mixer, cream the butter and sugars together until light and fluffy.  Add in eggs, one at a time, and vanilla.  Sift almonds and flour together and add to butter mixture.  Finally, add in the chocolate chips.  Mix thoroughly and pour batter into pie crust.  Batter should be relatively liquidy (compared to regular cookies).

Bake for 1 hour, or until a nice crust has formed on the top.  Let cool.  You can eat the pie while warm, but it will be pretty soft and gooey.  Let harden completely for easier eats.

Related posts:

1. Me Want Cookie or How I learned to stop worrying and love the (banana chocolate chip) bar
2. Silly scone. You’re not a cookie.
3. Candied Almond Bars

But if I can’t have a personal automotive levitation device, I might as well have the next best thing this new year: brunch. I love brunch. First of all, it’s a delightfully crunchy-sounding word. Brrrrruncccchhh. It’s like weekend-in-a-bowl. It’s also flexible, relaxing, laid back, amenable to last minute plans, sociable and full of delicious flavors and my friends and I are indeed fans of delicious flavors (and also of the TV show Psych). Thus, we are big believers in the awesome healing powers of a good brunch.

Our last brunch was a bit last-minute. It was a couple weeks ago and the planning started on Friday, I think, with Paul messaging me as to whether we were interested in brunching at his place on Sunday. On Saturday, he laid out his menu ideas and we assigned tasks during a quick phone call and then we went grocery shopping for whatever items we didn’t already have in stock. On Sunday, Josh, myself, Brian and Rita trooped over to Paul’s house to get the party started, so to speak, with him and his roommates.

There were seven of us total, and Paul and I did the cooking. We had two versions of a chorizo-potato scramble (one with regular Mexican chorizo, one with vegetarian chorizo), red and green bell peppers stuffed with eggs, milk, veggies, herbs and cheese, refried beans, tortillas, various accompaniments, fruit, mimosas and cinnamon martinis. There was also pie. The godmother of all pies, in my opinion.

The night before, Paul had made two cinnamon pies (yes, Psych fans, inspired by the Twin Peaks episode) and we ate one with dollops of homemade whipped cream. None of us had ever had such a thing before and it was pretty fantastic. Sweet, delicate, light—sort of textured like tres leche cake–and the cinnamon level was perfect. It was the kind of pie you just want to eat and eat and eat, with a cup of steaming hot cocoa on the side, on a cold snowy day (or as we in Michigan call it, “November to April”). The recipe for that is at the bottom of the page.

None of the dishes we made were particularly difficult. For the scrambles, Paul parcooked chopped potatoes the night before. Then that morning, we cooked the chorizo, removed it from the pan, then sautéed onions, garlic and potatoes in the juices before adding the chorizo back in, topping it all with eggs and letting it bake in the oven until the eggs were set. The peppers were stuffed with about two eggs each mixed with some milk, herbs, veggies and topped with cheese and baked until set. We made mimosas and then martinis with vodka that Paul had infused with cinnamon and apples. It’s the way meals with your friends should be—low pressure, multiple people can do a little bit to help out (chopping, sautéeing, making drinks), there’s a good variety of easy to make dishes and plenty of opportunity to just hang out, relax, eat, drink and be merry. Simple. The way brunch was always intended.

Speaking of simple, let’s move on to biscuits. I think biscuits are, for people who don’t generally make them often–given a bad rap for being difficult. The taste isn’t there, or they don’t rise, or they fall apart or something. Or we think they’ll take forever to make…I mean, bread from scratch on a Sunday morning? Uh, no thanks. Goodbye rolling pin, hello Pillsbury. Right?

No. Do not be afraid. Biscuits are perfect for brunch.

Let’s count the reasons why:

1. Both words start with B. Clearly this means something important; alliteration is only ever used for good, and not evil.

2. Biscuits are deliciousness embodied in a delicate, flaky, buttery form. Food is art…and biscuits are like Botticelli’s Venus. They call to you. Look, over there. It’s a biscuit…in a seashell. Of awesomeness.

3. Biscuits are extremely flexible in terms of companions. I don’t want to say that biscuits have loose morals or anything, but they really get around the table, if you know what I mean. Butter, jam, gravy, cheese, grits, meats of varying stripes of fat. Even hollandaise. I know. I know. Even hollandaise.

4. Biscuits are easy to make and they can be made in 20 minutes or less. Yes. 20 minutes?! you say. But Lauren,  how can that be?

Never fear, dear anonymous internet person.  Let me take you on a fantastic voyage.  Picture yourself in the passenger seat of my nuclear powered flying car while we soar through the sky, flanked by pegasuses (pegasi?) towing lovely biscuits seated on giant seashells of butter. Or…just read the recipe below.
Buttermilk Biscuits
Adapted from What We’re Eating

2 c. all purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
4 tbsp cold butter, chopped, plus 2 tbsp melted (set aside)
3/4 c. buttermilk
1 tbsp honey

Preheat oven to 500F.

Put flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt in a large mixing bowl. With your hands or a fork, add in the cold butter a bit at a time, mashing it into the flour mixture until it all resembles a course meal with tiny lumps of flour and butter.

Add in the buttermilk. Mix everything together thoroughly but try not to mix too much–you don’t want to overwork the dough.

Gather the dough (it’ll be a bit sticky at first) into a ball and then dump it out onto a flour-coated surface. Roll into a 1″ thick circle.

Using a cookie or biscuit cutter, or the edge of a round glass, cut out the biscuits. Grab up the remaining edges of the dough, pat back into shape and cut out any more biscuits you can. You should get about 8 or so from one batch of dough.

Place biscuits on a cookie sheet that has been sprayed with baking spray, or laid with parchment paper. Mix honey with melted butter and brush onto the tops of the biscuits.  Bake for 10 minutes or until risen and golden brown.  Mmm. biscuits.

Paul’s Cinnamon Pie

1 cup white sugar
1 1/2 tbsp all-purpose flour
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 pinch salt
2 egg, beaten
2 tbsp butter, melted, plus a tablespoon solid to coat the crust with
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups half and half or milk
1 (10 inch) unbaked pie crust

Preheat oven to 400F.

In a large bowl, combine the sugar, flour, cinnamon and salt. Add the beaten egg, butter, and vanilla. Mix well and add the milk.

Coat the pie crust with butter.   Pour the cinnamon mixture into an unbaked 10 inch pie crust (a glass pie plate is best).

Bake at 400 degrees for 15 minutes, then reduce the heat to 350F and bake for an additional 45 minutes. Let cool and serve. (It may seem overly liquid-y, but it will set as it cools.)  Refrigerate any leftovers.

Related posts:

1. “It happens every time; they all become blueberries.”
2. Double Chocolate Chip Almond Cookie Pie
3. Chock Full o’ Cherries Coffee Cake

So the other night, I had one of these moments.  A little voice in my head said, “Bake something,” which I figure is better than a little voice in my head telling me to “burn things.”  Hopefully, anyway.  And after looking through my pantry, which is getting a little low on things–like eggs–, and then flipping through my Evernote cookbook, I finally settled on a classic: sugar cookies.

Like I said in the grilled cheese sandwich post, Fall totally revs up my need for comforting foods and sugar cookies are one of them.  While chocolate chip cookies are my absolute no-exceptions favorite cookie of all time, sugar cookies hold a special spot.  When I was a kid, my mom used to make sugar cookies at Christmas and I would help…so that I could steal bits of the raw dough and eat them while watching my sister play Super Mario Bros.  The 80s were a magical time indeed.  So I love them because of that memory but to be honest, I don’t like to bake them often because one, they often require a lot more time and rolling and whatnot and two, they don’t have chocolate on them.

Well this recipe addresses both of those points.  Both.

The cookie part is a recipe I got from AllRecipes.  Simple, easy, quick.  I used sugar-in-the-raw instead of plain white sugar, which gave them a darker, more speckled coloring.  Tasty all on their own, especially with milk.  But still lacking that all-important second point–lacking chocolate.

Luckily that’s an easy fix: drizzle chocolate on top! In fact, I’m of the opinion that most of baking’s (and life in general) problems can be solved by the simple phrase, drizzle chocolate on top.  Kids don’t want to eat their veggies?  Drizzle chocolate on top. Hate plain old boring chicken?  Drizzle chocolate on top.  Souffle caved in?  Drizzle chocolate on top.  Bam. Done.

The chocolate in this case was a cup of semisweet chocolate chips, melted, with a bit of canola oil added to thin it out a bit.  You don’t want to add liquids to chocolate that you’re melting, because it’ll just seize and get disgusting and unusable.  But you can add oil and that will thin out your chocolate sauce so that it’s easy to drizzle over the top of…well, anything.  (See previous paragraph)  And then you can make fun designs and edible ink-blot tests.

Easy Sugar Cookies
from Allrecipes.com

2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 cup butter, softened
1 1/2 cups white sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. In a small bowl, stir together flour, baking soda, and baking powder. Set aside.
2. In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until smooth. Beat in egg and vanilla. Gradually blend in the dry ingredients. Roll rounded teaspoonfuls of dough into balls, and place onto ungreased cookie sheets.
3. Bake 8 to 10 minutes in the preheated oven, or until golden. Let stand on cookie sheet two minutes before removing to cool on wire racks.
Chocolate Sauce for drizzling (on anything)
1 c. semisweet chocolate chips
1 tbsp canola oil

Fill a medium pot with about an inch of water and set over medium heat on the stove.  Put chocolate chips in a heat-proof bowl and place bowl on top of pot.  As the water simmers, the steam will slowly melt the chocolate.  Stir as needed.  Drizzle in oil slowly, mixing well, until chocolate has reached desired consistency.  Dip a spoon in the chocolate and then drizzle it over the top of cooled cookies.  (I usually put my cookies on a cooling rack that has a sheet of parchment paper underneath for easy cleanup.) Let sit and harden for at least an hour.  Eat.  Share.  Enjoy.

Related posts:

1. Granola Bar Cookies
2. Chocolate chip (and pumpkin spice) cookies: best in the world?
3. Hello. My name is Lauren and I’m addicted to cookies

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.

So I made a few tweaks to the recipe—cherries, lemon, lower-fat milk—and gave it a go.  My thoughts?

Pretty tasty.  Nice soft texture.  Maybe a bit delicate on the top where the sugar crystallizes a bit (not a bad thing).  Beautiful looking, especially with those two flavor lines of crushed cherries going through the middle.  And easy to do.  Extremely easy.  I like easy. I think we have a winner here.

Chock Full of Cherry Coffee Cake
Makes 1 Loaf

For the filling:
1.5 pint jars of pitted cherries
1/2 c. sugar

For the cake:
2 c. flour
2 tsp baking powder
pinch of salt
1/2 cup soft butter
2 large eggs
1/2 c. lowfat milk (not nonfat)
1 1/4 c. sugar
the zest and juice of 1 lemon

Preheat your oven to 350F.

Put the cherries and the sugar in a blender or food processor and pulse a few times until cherries are crushed up a bit but not pureed.  Place in a colander over a bowl and let drain. (You can toss the leftover juice but if you’re of a mind, why not use it for something tasty?  Reserve it until later or cook it down over low heat until reduced into a nice sauce.)

In a mixing bowl, combine butter and sugar until light and fluffy.  Add eggs, one at a time, lemon zest and juice.  In another bowl, mix flour, baking powder and salt.  Alternatively add flour mixture and milk to egg-butter batter, starting and ending with the flour, until all ingredients are just combined.

Coat a bread pan with baking spray.  Spread a third of the cake batter on the bottom of the pan.  Layer about about half the cherry mixture on top, smoothing out and keeping a short border along the edge.  Top with another third of batter, then the other half of the cherry mixture and finally, the last bit of batter.

Bake on center oven rack for about an hour and ten minutes.  Cook on a rack.  Eat.  Enjoy.  Cheer.  Cherries.  Cake.

Related posts:

1. Cinnamon Chocolate Bundt Cake: So Easy a Caveman Could Do It
2. Do you know the muffin man?
3. Apri-can: Apricot Crumbcake

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.

Now, I don’t make muffins usually.  Josh does it.  He makes very tasty little blueberry muffins with a recipe from Alton Brown, I believe.  I wasn’t sure how well it would turn out when I took a basic muffin recipe off AllRecipes.com and tweaked it to fit my liking but it turned out pretty good!  I are so smrt.  S-m-r-t!  But anyway, yeah, good fruity flavor, nice crumb, excellent texture from the streusel topping.  My coworker Chase proclaimed them, “Pretty awesome.”  So there, you see?  If you ever need to make muffins for Chase, these have his approval.  Not bad day’s work for a day off from work. 

Banaberry Streusel Muffins
Makes 12

For the muffins:
1.5 c. unbleached all purpose flour
3/4 c. sugar
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp baking powder
1 tbsp vanilla
1 egg
1/3 c. mik
2 bananas, unpeeled
1 heaping cup fresh or frozen blueberries

For the streusel:
1/2 c. sugar
1/3 c. unbleached all purpose flour
1/4 c.  butter, softened
1 tbsp pumpkin pie spice or ground cinnamon
1/4 c. walnuts, chopped

Preheat oven to 400F.  Place bananas, unpeeled, on a baking sheet and roast in the oven for 25-30 minutes, or until the peels are blackened and the flesh is soft.  Let cool.

Mix flour, sugar, salt, baking powder, vanilla, egg and milk until just combined.  Slit bananas open and scoop flesh into the batter, mixing thoroughly.  Carefully fold in blueberries.  Let batter sit while you put together the streusel.

Put sugar, flour, pumpkin pie spice and walnuts in a medium bowl and cut together until a crumbly mixture forms, making sure the butter is well dispersed.

Prep a 12-cup muffin tin with baking spray, or line with muffin liners.  Use an ice cream scoop to spoon out the muffin batter into each cup.  Sprinkle streusel mixture evenly over the muffins.

Bake for 25 minutes, or until done.

Eat!

Related posts:

1. Do you know the muffin man?
2. Vanilla cupcakes with roasted banana frosting
3. “It happens every time; they all become blueberries.”

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.

And thus an idea was born.  Nay, not an idea.  A stroke of genius.

I made up my usual, delicious batch of cornbread batter but then, taking inspiration from EatingWell, added chopped up bits of prosciutto that I crisped up in a bit of butter (what? I had to melt butter for the batter anyway and since there was residual butter in the pan after that I might as well fry the prosciutto in it, right?) and instead of the onions they used, I used diced chives from my farm share, which gave the muffins a delightful oniony flavor, as well as hearty doses of dried thyme and oregano.  I actually made two batches of muffins–some vegetarian, with just the chives and no prosciutto, and some carnivore-friendly.  Both are good.  But only one has pork in it.

these ones are actually pork-free...and it's a shame

Anyway, since I had leftover prosciutto and I was going to pan-fry/oven roast pork chops, I figured…might as well wrap the prosciutto around the pork.  I mean, that’s the logical conclusion here.  It’s not unusual to do this and you know why?  It’s logical.

Step 1: Have pork.
Step 2: ???
Step 3: Profit

You know what Step 2 is?  It’s “Wrap pork in pork.”

hot pork on pork action

Anyway, so first I got out my two boneless pork chops, nice meaty thick ones.  Then I rolled them in a mixture of grated Romano cheese, dried thyme and black pepper.  No salt, because the proscuitto is salty enough.  Then I wrapped each pork chop in two overlapping pieces of prosciutto.  Those went into my beautiful cast iron grill, which was lightly coated in olive oil, over medium high heat until the proscuitto was crispy and browned, then flipped and then put into a 350 oven along with the cornbread.  Twenty minutes.  That’s it.  To go with that, though, I made just a very simple balsamic vinaigrette to go over a basic green salad of Romaine and boom.  Done.  Delish.  Tasty, quick and full of pork.  That is the American way.

Sadly, the battery on my Nikon was dead–I forgot to charge it after we got back from Alaska–so I had to use my cell phone to take less-than-optimal-but-still-tasty pics.  But you should make it yourself so you can see it in 3D HD!  Remarkable how technology works these days…

Prosciutto and Chive Cornbread Muffins
Makes about 12 muffins

1 1/3 c. coarse stone-ground yellow cornmeal
1 c. unbleached all purpose flour
1/4 c. sugar
2 tsp baking powder
pinch of salt
1 c. buttermilk
9 tbsps melted butter
1 large egg, 1 large egg yolk, beaten
2 oz prosciutto, chopped and fried til crispy
2 heaping tbsps chopped chives
baking spray

Combine cornmeal, flour, sugar, baking powder and salt.  Temper the eggs by adding a little bit of melted butter at a time to bring them up to temperature, then add both eggs and butter to the cornmeal mixture.  Add in buttermilk and green onions.  Slowly stir to combine.  Let the mixture sit for about 25 minutes or until stiffened.  Stir in prosciutto.

Heat oven to 375F.  Prep a 12-cup muffin pan with baking spray.  Using an ice-cream scoop, dish out an equal amount of batter into each muffin cup.  Bake in the oven for about 18 minutes, give or take a few, or until just finished.  Serve with butter.  Yum.

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2. My name is Muffin. English Muffin.
3. Chili and Cornbread are the new Hall and Oates