Blueberry Muffins

Happy Fourth of July Weekend!

My mom, whose like the best supporter of my baking dreams, bought me a new cookbook and I decided I'd test it out this weekend. It's called Bake! Essential Techniques for Perfect Baking by Nick Malgieri, and I have to say it looks pretty awesome. It goes into every category, from yeast breads to quick breads, puff pastry to butter and sponge cakes.

And wouldn't you know it, there was a recipe for all purpose muffins that could be adapted for blueberry muffins! Which is a good thing, since I bought these lovelies a few days ago and had plenty for muffins. I never knew I liked blueberries until a few months ago actually, I always expected them to taste (now don't laugh) somewhat bluer than they do. Instead they're actually pretty mild and go really well in desserts.

So the recipe kept stressing the importance to not over mix the batter (or you end up getting muffins that have the density of hockey pucks) so naturally I was the gentlest mixer possible (for me anyway). I always thought though, that you mixed the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients, but this recipe called for the oppsite. It didn't seem to make much of a difference so in the grand scheme of things I'm sure you could mix it either way, as long as you stick to mixing until JUST combined.

Here's me pretending to be another one of my dream occupations, a food photographer. Seriously, how much fun does that sound? We want you to take photographs of delicious, mouthwatering food, oh and we want to pay you to do so. Um yes? When can I start?

But back to the muffins. My daydreams can wait until they are in the oven. Naturally I did not read the little tip about coating the blueberries in flour before mixing, so they don't sink to the bottom, until after the muffins were in the oven. Luckily the berries didn't seem to sink completely.

I think I will try that little flour-coating trick next time; I like it when there are more blueberries peeking through the tops of the muffins.

But the muffins are AMAZING. Seriously, if you're into muffins feel free to turn this recipe into your default (since I know I will). The base recipe is so easy to customize; I think I'll be making chocolate chip muffins for my little brother next week.

Recipe following the rest of the muffin photo shoot:

All Purpose Muffin Recipe Via Bake!

makes 12 regular muffins

2 cups all purpose flour

1/2 cup sugar

1 tablespoon baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 cup butter, melted and slightly cooled

1 large egg

1 cup milk

1 1/2 cups blueberries (or whatever else you'd like to add)

1. Whisk together dry ingredients in one large bowl.

2. Whisk liquid ingredients together with melted butter.

3. Combine liquid and dry ingredients, stirring until just combined.

4. Stir in (gently) any mix-ins, in this case blueberries.

5. Bake at 375 degrees F for roughly 20minutes, until golden and toothpick comes out clean.

6. Let cool completely in pan (or they run the risk of falling apart!).

I Demand More Donuts!

Hello everyone!

So good news: guess who got a new camera! Yep, I did. So be prepared to be blown away with high-def photos! (By high-def I mean photos that are just so much clearer than the ones I have been taking with my iPhone). After getting the new camera, I thought I just had to test it out, and what better way than with more donuts?

Since I did vanilla donuts for Father's Day, I thought I'd take my mom's tastes into consideration this time, and do chocolate donuts. I found a chocolate donut recipe in my nifty little BabyCakes Recipe Book (which comes with the Donut Maker) and got to work.

I am going to become so obsessed with this donut maker; I just know it. These only take 4 minutes! Well, it takes more like 30 minutes if you add in the prep time. Oh and before I forget, if you plan on trying this recipe (or any recipe that requires piping batter) you need to take this tip on filling the pastry/Ziploc bag from LovefromtheOven, using the glass to hold the bag open is genius.

Now, be prepared for a multitude of adorable donut photos!

So there you have it: more delicious donuts in under an hour. If you don't own the Donut Maker, I would suggest buying the donut pan, which might be more efficient since it has 24 donut molds as opposed to the 6 in my donut maker. As far as taste, I am much more inclined to vanilla donuts with chocolate frosting, but these were pretty good. My mom swears they are amazing, so I would take her word over mine since shes the chocolate donut aficionado.

BabyCakes Chocolate Donuts with Vanilla Frosting

1 1/4 cups flour
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup cocoa powder (I used Hershey's)
1 egg
1 tbsp baking powder
3/4 cup buttermilk
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 tsp vanilla

1. Whisk together all dry ingredients in one large bowl.
2. To the dry ingredient mixture, add the egg, buttermilk, oil and vanilla. Using a hand mixer, blend until just smooth.
3. Fill donut pan/maker cavities with approximately 2 tbsp of batter.
4. Cook 4-5 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean.
5. Let cool and then frost or coat with powdered sugar

Vanilla Frosting

1/4 cup melted butter
1 1/3 cups powdered sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1 tbsp warm water

1. Blend melted butter with powdered sugar.
2. Blend in vanilla.
3. Blend in warm water until it reaches frosting consistency.

Cinnamon Sugar Donut Muffins

I know what you are all thinking...donut muffins? Yes, there is such a thing, and apparently it's quite a big deal on the blogosphere (and by blogosphere I really just mean the baking blogs I follow). As soon as I saw a recipe for them on my FoodGawker App, I just had to try them. I mean really: donuts are awesome, muffins are awesome, donut muffins therefore must be uber awesome (and they were!).

The recipe I decided to use comes from KokoCooks and I have to say, they turned out pretty amazing. It's a simple enough recipe, though the slight lumpiness of the batter worried me (they turned out fine though). The only suggestion I would make, and this really depends on how much you like cinnamon, is to add some cinnamon to the batter in addition to rolling the muffins in the cinnamon sugar. I absolutely love the spice and can't get enough of it, but if you're indifferent, then just stick with the cinnamon sugar. It's delicious either way; trust me.

If you aren't a fan of cinnamon at all, then just go onto Foodgawker and search "donut muffins" and there are a good dozen recipes for just plain sugar donut muffins, chocolate donut muffins, and even (gasp) sugar donut muffins filled with caramel. These are definitely going to be a new staple in my kitchen. :)

Cinnamon Sugar Donut Muffins
from KokoCooks and adapted from BakingBites
makes 12 muffins

¾ c sugar
1 large egg
1 ½ c all purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
¼ tsp salt
¼ tsp ground nutmeg
¼ c vegetable oil
¾ c milk
1 tsp vanilla

for cinnamon sugar:
3 Tbs sugar
1 tsp cinnamon


1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F and grease (in my opinion heavily) a 12-cup muffin pan.
2. In a large bowl, beat together the egg and the sugar until pale yellow (roughly 1-2 minutes). In a separate bowl, sift together flour, baking powder, salt and nutmeg. 
3. In another bowl, combine milk, vegetable oil and vanilla.
4. Pour dry ingredient mixture over the egg mixture and stir until just combined, then add liquid ingredients, again stirring until just combined (batter will be slightly lumpy).
5. Fill muffin cups 2/3 full and bake at 350 degrees for 15-18 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.
6. While cooling, mix together sugar and cinnamon. While muffins are still warm (not hot) roll them in the cinnamon sugar and then let cool completely on a cooling rack.

Fumbling Around with Focaccia

Well, it's about time to take a turn towards savory baking. I had been dying to try out a focaccia recipe and my mom needed bread to go with dinner (penne with clam sauce!), and would you believe it's so much easier than I thought! Some students in my Foods Lab last semester made some using a basic recipe, which I tweaked quite a bit for this post.

So basic ingredients are: active dry yeast, flour (all purpose is fine but I happened to have bread flour handy), sugar, water, olive oil, and salt. Other than that, you can pretty much customize your toppings. I went with a basil, oregano and sea salt combo.

Here's how the dough looks once it doubles after 30 minutes of rising in a warm, dark place (aka my pantry). It's so awesome to see it expand like that in such a short time; although now my pantry does smell a whole lot like bread. Not that I mind. :)

I'll add the whole recipe at the end of the post, but I decided not to go completely step by step with photos since this recipe is really quite simple. I am not a bread baker, and this was my first time using yeast. But the good news is that this is a pretty forgiving recipe since formation of gluten is actually a good thing (not like in cakes). So knead away my friends!

Now the original recipe wanted me to mix the toppings with the olive oil, but I was worried that would clump and I wanted to make sure there was an even distribution of spices. So instead I brushed the entire top of the dough with olive oil and then sprinkled the seasonings over. At this point, it's time to pop it in the oven! Did I mention this recipe will fill your entire kitchen with the amazing smell of Italian spices and bread? Because it does, and it's downright awesome.

And there you have it! Fantastic Focaccia from your own oven. I have to say, now that I know I can do this, I plan on making this a lot more often, with dozens of different toppings (sundried tomatoes and mozzarella anyone?)

Focaccia

for the dough:
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp olive oil
1 tbsp active dry yeast
1 tsp sugar

for the topping:
olive oil (enough to coat the top of the dough)
oregano and basil (roughly 1-2 tbsp)
(feel free to add as much or as little toppings as is preferable to you; I just sprinkled both spices over the dough until I felt it was enough)


1. Mix 3/4 cup of flour with salt and olive oil
2. In a separate bowl, add 1 tbsp + 2 tsp of warm water to yeast and sugar. Mix thoroughly and let stand for roughly 10 minutes, or until frothy/foamy
3. In a large bowl, mix together flour mixture and yeast mixture with 1/2 cup of warm water
4. Knead the dough and add the remaining flour as needed to lessen the stickiness of the dough. If it becomes too dry, just add a little more warm water
5. Cover the bowl with a cloth and set in a warm, dark place to rise for 30 minutes
6. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F
7. Remove cloth and knead dough. Divide into two portions and roll (or stretch) out to 1/4 inch thickness, making either a round or oval shape. Place each on a cookie sheet and let rise in a dark place for an additional 10 minutes
8. Slash or poke the dough with your fingers (make sure to make indents over the entire dough)
9. Brush dough with olive oil and sprinkle toppings
10. Bake at 400 degrees for roughly 13-15 minutes, then turn the broiler on high and let cook for an addtional 1-2 minutes (watch carefully so it does not burn).
11. Let cool, cut into strips and serve!

Father's Day Donuts

Happy Belated Father's Day!

As I mentioned, I had originally planned to make a double chocolate layer cake for my Dad as his gift, but the pastry gods were not having it. The cake was extremely dry, so what was I to do?

Luckily, I had just acquired the BabyCakes Donut Maker!

What better way to solve the problem than to whip up some for dear old dad..who happens to LOVE glazed donuts. Since I am a complete newbie when it comes to donuts, I decided it would be best to stick to one of the recipes that was included in the kit.

The recipe was for Sour Cream Donuts with a Vanilla Glaze, which stressed not to over beat the mix. I was successful in mixing, although filling said donut maker proved to be another adventure entirely.

Turns out spooning the batter in is not the most efficient manner in which to fill the donut maker. So, next time around I was ready with a Ziploc bag filled with the same batter. Oh, and did I mention these donuts cook in all of 4 minutes?!

Ah, now that is more like it! Isn't it adorable? But, more importantly, it's delicious! I decided to coat the slightly overcooked first batch in powdered sugar, while glazing the second and third batches. The results = awesome. Also, since these are baked as opposed to fried, the calorie count isn't quite so bad. They are also tiny, so these are a much better (and more cost effective) alternative to Dunkin Donuts.

BabyCakes Sour Cream Donuts with Vanilla Glaze (makes about 2 dozen donuts)

1 1/3 cups all purpose flour
1/3 cup sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup milk
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1/4 cup sour cream
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla

1. Combine all dry ingredients in a mixing bowl.
2. In separate bowl whisk together remaining ingredients. Pour liquid ingredients over dry ingredients. Using a mixer on medium speed, blend until smooth.
3. Fill each cooking reservoir with about 2 tbsp of batter.
4. Bake about 4-5 minutes or until donut springs back when touched.
5. Glaze or coat with powdered or cinnamon sugar.

Vanilla Glaze

1/4 cup melted butter
1 1/3 cups powdered sugar, sifted
1 tsp vanilla
2-2 1/2 tbsp hot water

1. Combine melted butter and powdered sugar, stirring until well blended. Stir in vanilla.
2. Blend in hot water until smooth.