The beauty of fall baking; I wish I could bottle up the smell of pumpkin spice emanating from my kitchen right now and take it with me. The last few weeks have been emotionally, physically and mentally draining -- and there are many more days to come. Whenever my stress levels go up, I find this urge to bake all things warm and cozy. In my two free days at home, I knew I needed to bake some variation of my mom's long-time pumpkin bread recipe. I decided on a muffin form, so I can bring them on my next couple interviews as little reminders of home. Beyond being super easy to make (and take to-go!), these muffins are moist, crumbly, not too sweet, and full of spiced flavor. There's no better celebration of autumn." Muffin Ingredients:
Streusel Ingredients:
1. Preheat oven to 350° F. Grease 30 muffin cups. 2. Combine flour, pumpkin pie spice, baking soda and salt in large bowl. Combine sugar, pumpkin, eggs, oil and juice in large mixer bowl; mix until just blended. 3. Add flour mixture to pumpkin mixture; stir just until moistened. Spoon batter into prepared muffin cups, filling 3/4 full. 4. To make the streusel. In a medium bowl, combine the flour, brown sugar and cinnamon. Add the butter and use your fingers to mix the butter into the flour until a crumble forms. Sprinkle on the unbaked muffins 5. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes or until wooden pick inserted in centers comes out clean. Cool in pans on wire racks for 10 minutes; remove to wire racks to cool completely.
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Senior year of high school, I made chocolate macarons every other day. But ever since I left for college, my macaron instincts have failed me. Batch after batch of feetless, flat, cracked cookies left me wondering if I should just cave in and buy them at $3/piece. This morning, I finally made my first batch of successful macarons! This time, pistachio flavored. After trying dozens of recipes and ingredient ratios, my original macaron recipe is still the one I swear by. Some tips to perfect these fickle desserts: Macaron Shells 1/2 cup almond meal (ground almonds) 1 cup pure icing sugar 2 egg whites 4 tbs caster sugar 1-2 drops green food coloring 2 tbs finely chopped pistachio kernels White Chocolate Filling 90g white chocolate (I usually use chips) 2 tablespoons thickened cream 1 tablespoon butter 1. Line 2 large baking trays with baking paper. Sift almond meal and icing sugar together in a bowl. 2. Using an electric mixer, beat eggwhites in a second bowl until stiff peaks form. Gradually add sugar, beating until dissolved. Add food coloring. Beat until just combined. Fold in half the almond mixture until just combined. Fold in remaining mixture until combined and mixture becomes glossy (this takes around 50 strokes). Be careful not to overmix! 3. Spoon mixture into a large ziplock bag. Snip 1cm from 1 corner of bag. Pipe 3 cm rounds of mixture onto prepared trays. Sprinkle each macaron with pistachio. Tap trays on the table to remove air bubbles. Set aside for 45 minutes. 4. Preheat oven to 300°F. Bake macarons, 1 tray at a time, for 13 to 17 minutes or until tops are firm. Cool on trays. Carefully transfer to a wire rack. 5. Make filling: Place chocolate and cream in a microwave-safe bowl. Microwave on high (100%) for 1 minute or until chocolate melts. Stir to combine. Refrigerate for 10 minutes or until mixture thickens. 6. Pipe 1/2 teaspoon filling over flat sides of half the macarons. Sandwich with remaining macarons. Set inside the refrigerator until filling sets. Serve. Let me start by saying that black forest cake was the ONE KIND of chocolate cake I avoided as a kid. The thought of mixing my favorite food — chocolate — and the cough-syrup like cherry flavor was pretty repulsive to me. So when my friend Amy texted me a couple days ago asking if we could bake black forest cake together, I was skeptical. But hey, I thought, maybe I haven’t given this dessert a chance. Maybe it was just one bad Chinese bakery experience. So last night, we embarked on our second major baking extravaganza. The first one was 7 years ago, when we baked a non-edible, baking-soda-flavored red (really purple) velvet cake from scratch. This black forest cake would be my first attempt at baking a cake from scratch since then. The night proceeded with minor complications, and we did bake a decent (and edible cake.) Minor problems included the cake sinking in when we removed it from the oven, which probably could be prevented by baking it for a couple minutes longer, and over whipping the cream. Amy and I worked around these obstacles, using chocolate to cover up weird frosting patches and stuffing cake crumbs in the areas where the cake sunk in a Frankenstein fashion. It was a little ratchet, but it certainly didn’t take away from the thing — my coworkers and family devoured the entire thing." Credits: Allrecipes Ingredients: 2 1/8 cups all-purpose flour 2 cups white sugar 3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder 3/4 teaspoon baking soda 3/4 teaspoon salt 3 eggs 1 cup milk 1/2 cup vegetable oil 1 tablespoon vanilla extract 1 (20 ounce) cans pitted sour cherries (recipe suggests 2 cans, but we only used about 1) 1/2 cup white sugar (recipe calls for 1 cup) 1/8 cup cornstarch (recipe calls for 1/4 cup) 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 3 cups heavy whipping cream 1/3 cup confectioners' sugar Instructions: 1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour two 9 inch, round, cake pans; cover bottoms with waxed paper. 2. In a large bowl, combine flour, 2 cups sugar, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Add eggs, milk, oil, and 1 tablespoon vanilla; beat until well blended. Pour batter into prepared pans. 3. Bake for 35 minutes, or until wooden toothpick inserted in centers comes out clean. Cool layers in pans on wire racks 10 minutes. Loosen edges, and remove to racks to cool completely. 4. Drain cherries, reserving 1/2 cup juice. Combine reserved juice, cherries, 1 cup sugar and cornstarch in a 2 quart saucepan. Cook over low heat until thickened, stirring constantly. Stir in 1 teaspoon vanilla. Cool before using. 5. Combine whipping cream and confectioner's sugar in a chilled medium bowl. Beat with an electric mixer at high speed until stiff peaks form. 6. With long serrated knife, split each cake layer horizontally in half. Tear one split layer into crumbs; set aside. Reserve 1 1/2 cups Frosting for decorating cake; set aside. Gently brush loose crumbs off top and side of each cake layer with pasty brush or hands. To assemble, place one cake layer on cake plate. Spread with 1 cup frosting; top with 3/4 cup cherry topping. Top with second cake layer; repeat layers of frosting and cherry topping. Top with third cake layer. Frost side of cake. Pat reserved crumbs onto frosting on side of cake. Spoon reserved frosting into pastry bag fitted with star decorator tip. Pipe around top and bottom edges of cake. Spoon remaining cherry topping onto top of cake. |
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January 2022
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