Cranberry Sweet Potato Muffins

This week's recipe is something of an unproven frankenstein. It started as a double loaf bread recipe that I cut down to make a single load, then I decided to change it from pumpkin to sweet potato based on last post's stellar results. Then I change it from bread to muffins. Next, I decided to use dried cranberries and cherries instead of cranberries and walnuts. I also soaked the dried fruit in boiling water to soften them prior to baking. I think it came out well despite bearing no resemblance to what the recipe started off as. Be aware this recipe in its current configuration only yields nine standards sized muffins.


Ingredients

• 1 heaping cup of flour
• 1/2 teaspoon ginger
• 1/2 teaspoon allspice
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 egg
• 1 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup sweet potato puree
• 1/2 stick unsalted butter, softened
• 3/4 cup dried cranberries and cherries, softened in boiling water and drained

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 and grease a muffin tin (or bread pan)
2. In one bowl combine flour, spices, salt and baking powder.
3. In another bowl cream butter and sugar. Add egg and mix thoroughly. Add sweet potato and mix until combined. Gently stir in dry ingredients, being careful not to over mix. Gently fold in cranberries and cherries.
4. Spoon batter into prepared muffin cups and bake for 15 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool on a wire rack.

Sweet Potato Spice Muffin

This week's recipe is a variation on the muffin that started it all. This past week was my 1 year anniversary, and in celebration thereof I had intended to bake the pumpkin spice muffins that I did on my first day. However, after visiting my local Winn Dixie, (I normally shop at Publix but had an errand in the same shopping center) I was unable to find pumpkin pie filling! However, they had a lovely endcap display with sweet potato pie filling; so I decided to make do. I find pumpkin pie and sweet potato pie so closely associated that they are hard to distinguish and figured that they would be interchangeable in the recipe. While they don't taste identical, sweet potato being somewhere between gingerbread and pumpkin, I believe it to be a solid success. Here is the recipe (if you wish to make the original recipe, substitute equal part pumpkin for sweet potato):

Ingredients

• 1½ c. dark brown sugar
• 1 stick softened unsalted butter
• 2 large eggs
• ½ lb. pumpkin puree (about ½ can)
• 1/3 c. buttermilk
• 1½ c. all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 1 tsp. cinnamon
• 1 tsp. ground ginger
• ½ tsp. nutmeg
• ½ tsp. allspice
• ½ tsp salt

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350°. Grease muffin tins, or just put those paper liners in.
2. Cream dark brown sugar and softened unsalted butter.
   
3. Add eggs, pumpkin puree, buttermilk.
4. In a separate bowl, sift together flour, baking soda, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, allspice, and salt.
5. Stir the dry ingredients into the wet pumpkin mixture.
6. Pour into muffin/cupcake tin and bake for 15-20 minutes or until a toothpick tester comes out clean.

Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Muffins

This week's recipe is founded upon the weatherman's promise of cooler air towards next weekend. Florida has been under an unprecedented weather pattern whereby a high pressure ride of hot air is keeping away cold fronts and leading to day after day of record breaking high temperatures. I've been waiting months to begin the Fall baking season and can't wait any longer. I started this baking journey with my signature pumpkin muffins, so it is fitting that nearly a year later I'm also making pumpkin muffins to kick off Fall. This recipe is a bit different in that it should be lighter and I've added chocolate chips to appease the sweet teeth at the office. The instructions say to add up to 1 cup of extra flour if your batter is runny but I didn't add any and think that 3 cups may even be too much batter. In any event, here is the recipe. It can also be used for bread, but I think the consistency is better suited for muffins.

Ingredients

• 1 15 oz. can pureed pumpkin
• 1 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, softened
• 3 eggs
• 3-4 cups all-purpose unbleached flour
• 2 tablespoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 2 cups mini chocolate chips

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350.
2. Combine the pumpkin, brown sugar, butter, and eggs and mix until creamy. In a separate bowl, combine all of the dry ingredients except the nuts or chocolate chips.
3. Mix 3 cups of the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients, then add as much of the 4th cup as necessary to achieve the proper consistency (moist, but thick enough to stand a spoon in).
4. Add the nuts or chocolate chips and stir in.
5. Pour or spoon the batter into greased muffin tins or bread pans. Bake on the center rack until a toothpick poked into the center comes out dry.
6. Muffins should take between 20 and 25 minutes to bake, small loaves between 25 and 30 minutes, and full sized loaves between 50 minutes and 1 hour.

Triple Blueberry Muffins

This week's recipe was born out of the ingredients I had on hand, which luckily included three delivery methods for blueberries. Once again I incorporated the incredible Ikea blueberry preserves, I also used blueberry yogurt (the real stuff, not fat free) and frozen blueberries. I started with a generic blueberry muffin recipe and then changed it to fit my limited ingredients. I also added a coating of turbinado for crunch, which I think came out pretty well.


Ingredients

• 3 cups of all-purpose flour
• 1 Tbsp baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 10 Tbsp unsalted butter (1 1/4 stick), softened
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 3/4 cup blueberry yogurt
• 1/3 cup milk
• 3 tablespoons Ikea blueberry preserves
• 1 cup frozen blueberries (or fresh)
  
• 1 Tbsp flour (if using defrosted frozen berries)

Directions

1. Adjust the oven rack to the middle-lower part of the oven. Preheat oven to 375°F.
2. Whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt and set aside.
3. In a large mixing bowl, cream butter and sugar together, beating until fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, beating until incorporated after each one.
4. Beat in one half of the dry ingredients until just incorporated. Beat in one third of the yogurt. Beat in half of the remaining dry ingredients. Beat in a second third of the yogurt and half of the milk. Beat in the remaining dry ingredients and then the remaining yogurt and milk. Again be careful to beat until just incorporated. Do not over beat. Fold in the berries. If you are using frozen berries, defrost them first, drain the excess liquid, and then coat them in a light dusting of flour.
5. Coat the cups of a standard 12-muffin muffin pan with butter or oil. Distribute the muffin dough equally among the cups. Sprinkle tops with turbinado, if desired. Bake until muffins are golden brown, about 20 to 25 minutes. Test with a long toothpick to make sure the center of the muffins are done.
   

Cinnamon Apple Studel

This recipe has been so modified from the recipe it started as, I can legitimately call it my own. It uses some of the tricks I learned with the caramel cinnamon apple ugly cookies. It starts with cooking down Gala apples in sugar, brown sugar and spice until they are half cooked. Then the mixture is mixed with a little flour, rolled in puff pastry and baked. When I pulled it out, it had some weird appendages of puff pastry. I have no clue what they are from. It goes into the oven looking a lumpy mess, and comes out looking like a giant hot pocket. Hopefully I will post reactions tomorrow. Also, congratulations to James and Becky on their new baby girl! We wish her and her parents the very best and can't wait till she visits the office!



Ingredients

• 1 sheet puff pastry, thawed
• 3 gala apples, cored and cut into small chunks
• 3 table spoons white sugar
• 2 tablespoons brown sugar
• 1/4 cup raisins
• generous dash cinnamon
• generous sprinkle allspice
• 2 teaspoons flour
• 1 egg
• 1 teaspoon water

Directions

1. Roll out thawed puff pastry dough to 12" x 16"
2. Cook apples, sugars, spices and raisins until apples are mostly tender.
3. Mix flour with apple mixture and place at one end of puff pastry. Roll into strudel and position in center of cookie sheet. There will be extra apple mixture left over, spoon that over vanilla ice cream while the strudel is in the oven.
4. Brush outside of pastry with egg and water mixture.
   
5. Bake at 375 until puff pastry is golden brown. The time will vary based upon how thin/thick your puff pastry is, mine took 15 minutes. Set your timer for 10 minutes and check every few minutes until done.
6. Cool on wire rack and serve warm.
7. Post a comment if you can figure out what those appendages are in the below photo.
   

Banana Crumb Muffins

Today's recipe was shared by a close friend. Normally I am mortally opposed to bananas; (it goes back to an early childhood spent watching my baby sister smash mouthful upon mouthful of banana into her mouth) but this recipe looked interesting. Instead of using butter I used unsweetened applesauce. This gives it a slightly stickier consistency and less rich flavor, but it retains the moisture provided by the butter. I also added a little bit of the brown sugar to the batter to give it a little color. The baking time was cut to about 16 minutes because my oven tends to run hot and cook fast.

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 3 bananas, mashed
• 3/4 cup white sugar
• 1 egg, lightly beaten
• 1/3 cup melted butter or unsweetened applesauce
• 1/3 cup packed brown sugar
• 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• healthy dash of ground cinnamon
• 1 tablespoon butter

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Lightly grease 10 muffin cups, or line with muffin papers.
2. In a large bowl, mix together 1 1/2 cups flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. In another bowl, beat together bananas, sugar, egg and melted butter/applesauce. Stir the banana mixture into the flour mixture just until moistened. Spoon batter into prepared muffin cups.
3. In a small bowl, mix together brown sugar, 2 tablespoons flour and cinnamon. Cut in 1 tablespoon butter until mixture resembles coarse cornmeal. Sprinkle topping over muffins.
4. Bake in preheated oven for (16)18 to 20 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into center of a muffin comes out clean.

Everything Breakfast Bars

After being hectically busy these past few weeks the mayhem died down today and I had the first lazy day in a while. As I scrambled to come up with something to make for today I ran across this recipe. My main requirement in the recipe was not leaving the house to go to the store and oddly enough, I had everything in it. Because I have never had good luck with recipes that call for oil as a shortening, I substituted unsweetened apple sauce. Also, I tried to sweeten it up a bit by using sweetened coconut flakes and substituting slivered almonds for heath toffee pieces. I've also been having complaints of overdone/dryness in my baking; which I attribute to my gas range. As a result, I cut about 5 minutes off the baking time. Also, I ran out of oats so I cut the oats and upped the flour a little bit. The original recipe calls for 3 cups of oats and 1 1/2 cups of flour.



Ingredients

• Butter (for the pan)
• 1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted
• 1/3 cup unsweetened applesauce
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 2 eggs
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 2 tablespoons honey
• 1 2/3 cups whole-wheat flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda dissolved in 1 tablespoon cold water
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 1/2 cups old-fashioned (not quick-cooking) oats
• 1/2 cup sweetened coconut flakes
• 1 cup raisins
• 1 cup chopped dates
• 1/2 cup sweetened dried cranberries
• 1 cup walnuts, coarsely chopped
• 1/2 cup Heath toffee pieces (in the baking aisle)

Directions

1. Set the oven at 375 degrees. Butter an 11-by-16-inch jellyroll pan. Have on hand a 12-inch sheet of foil.
2. In an electric mixer, combine the butter, applesauce, and sugar. Stir until the mixture is smooth. Beat in the eggs, vanilla, and honey until thoroughly combined.
3. Add the flour, baking soda mixture, and salt. Stir well until the flour mixture is moist. Beat in the oats, coconut, raisins, dates, cranberries, walnuts, and toffee pieces.
4. Have a bowl of cold water nearby. Tip the batter into the pan and spread it with a rubber spatula. Then dip your hands into the water and pat the dough to within 3 inches of one short side (so you have a rectangle that is 11 by 13 inches. Roll up the sheet of foil, flatten it to make a 1-inch-wide band, and press the band against the dough on the empty side to keep it in place. Alternatively, just shape it with a silicone spatula into a 1" thick square.
5. Bake the bars for 25 minutes or until lightly browned and firm to the touch.
6. Remove from the oven and set the pan on a rack to cool.
7. Make 4 lengthwise and 5 crosswise cuts to form 30 bars. Wrap them in plastic wrap and store in airtight container.