lemon pancakes with blueberry syrup

09/12/2008 By

I haven’t made plain pancakes in a very long time. I guess, to me, it’s like eating bread – sure it’s good plain, but it’s so much better with Stuff. For pancakes, that Stuff mostly involves fruit. You could make lemon pancakes and put the blueberries right in them, but why not do something different with those blueberries and make a syrup out of them?

This is another Emeril breakfast recipe, and this one, I made more complicated instead of simplifying it. Emeril’s blueberry syrup is just a combination of blueberries and corn syrup, which I think sounds too one-dimensionally sweet. I have a recipe for blueberry syrup that I’ve been making for a long time that I’m really happy with, so I made that one instead, even though it involves a few more ingredients.

You can see that my pancakes came out a little thin. I’ve been experimenting with Saco powdered buttermilk, since I don’t generally keep liquid buttermilk around. The recipe uses the same ratio of flour to milk that most pancake recipes do, so I don’t think the pancakes are thin because there’s too much liquid. I think the powdered buttermilk reconstituted with water as per the instructions on the container create a thinner liquid than regular buttermilk.

But I don’t mind thin pancakes, and you really can’t go wrong with a lemon-blueberry combination. The syrup is great – the sweetness is balanced by a spritz of lemon juice and pinch of salt, so the flavor of the blueberries can shine.

Lemon Pancakes with Blueberry Syrup (adapted from Emeril Live)

Serves 3-4

Pancakes:
1 cup all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
¼ salt
1 cup buttermilk
1 large egg
2 tablespoons butter, melted
2 tablespoons fresh lemon zest, finely chopped
½ stick (4 tablespoons) butter, cut into 10 equal slices

Blueberry Syrup:
1 cup sugar
½ cup water
pinch salt
1 tablespoon cornstarch
2 tablespoons water
1 cup blueberries
½ teaspoon lemon juice
1 tablespoon butter

For the pancakes:
In a small mixing bowl, sift the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt. In a medium mixing bowl, whisk the buttermilk, egg, and butter until fully incorporated. Add the sifted ingredients to the milk mixture and whisk until it is slightly smooth, but still has some lumps. Fold in the lemon zest and allow the batter to sit for a couple of minutes. Lightly grease a griddle over medium heat. Cooking in batches, pour ¼ cup of the batter onto the hot griddle for each pancake. Cook for about 2 to 3 minutes or until the batter bubbles and is golden brown, flip over and continue to cook until golden brown. Repeat the above process with the remaining batter. Stack the pancakes on each serving plate. Place a pat of butter between each layer. Drizzle the pancakes with the syrup and garnish with the confectioners’ sugar.

For the syrup:
Bring ½ cup water, sugar, and salt to a boil in a small saucepan. In a small bowl, mix 2 tablespoons water and cornstarch until cornstarch dissolves. Add cornstarch mixture to sugar mixture and stir to blend. Stir in blueberries and boil over medium heat until berries start to pop and syrup turns blue, 5-6 minutes. Remove from heat and add lemon juice and butter.

Filed Under: breakfast, citrus, fruit, quick bread

chocolate banded ice cream torte

08/26/2008 By

Oh, I’ve been looking forward to someone picking this recipe for a while. I’m so glad Amy chose it for TWD this week. Alternating layers of rich dark chocolate and creamy tart raspberry ice cream sounds like a winning combination to me.

It was also great timing, because it was chosen shortly after I got The Perfect Scoop, so instead of trying to squeeze in an ice cream recipe between all the TWD and Daring Baker desserts plus my insatiable craving for chocolate chip cookies (dough, actually), I was able to make a David Lebovitz recipe for TWD. The book has so many recipes that I’m interested in trying, but of course I was limited by what would go with the chocolate. I decided that Blackberry Swirl Ice Cream was at least somewhat fun and new, and it was similar but not identical to the raspberry ice cream Dorie suggests.

The torte may look fancy, but the recipe isn’t much work to put together. The chocolate mixture was easy to make, so it was just an issue of waiting around for each layer to freeze solid enough before adding the next layer. I worked on it while I slow-roasted some cherry tomatoes.

One thing I thought was odd about this recipe was that Dorie keeps referring to the chocolate portion as “ganache.” I’ve always thought ganache was just chocolate and cream mixed together, but the recipe included only chocolate, butter, sugar, and eggs – basically brownie batter without the flour. I did some scouting around the internet, and all I came up with was ganache = chocolate + cream. So ganache doesn’t seem like to right word to use, but maybe someone who knows more about pastry can enlighten me.

Dictation aside, I liked the torte even more than I thought I would. Unfortunately, the ice cream didn’t have enough blackberry flavor to stand up to the chocolate. Dave didn’t even know I had used the blackberry ice cream until I told him, after he’d eaten his slice. The only other thing about this torte that I wasn’t really thrilled about was the texture of the chocolate portion. It seemed a little gummy. I wonder if reducing the number of eggs would help? I know some people had problems with their torte being too hard to slice, but my freezer is apparently weak. If the eggs are there to keep the chocolate soft enough to slice, I could stand to lose a few.

Regardless, yum. This is an impressive, easy, and creative dessert. The recipe is posted on Amy’s site.

Filed Under: cake, chocolate, custard, dessert, fruit, tuesdays with dorie

blackberry swirl ice cream

08/24/2008 By

I recognize, as I think most food bloggers do, that there are copyright issues with what we do. It’s all well and good to put a note saying where we got the recipe, but ultimately, it’s often unlawful to reprint the recipe at all. There are loopholes, of course. Rumor has it that ingredient lists can’t be copyrighted, so if the instructions are rewritten in our own words instead of the original author’s, everything is supposedly okay. But I’m generally too lazy to rewrite the instructions.

Cookbooks authors can respond to the copyright issue however they see fit. They can try to fight each of however many thousands of food bloggers are out there copying recipes, or they can do what I think is wiser – adopt the “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em” mentality. Both David Lebovitz and Dorie Greenspan have clearly chosen to join us. They are both good about leaving comments on other blogs, in addition to keeping up their own blogs. Dorie has supported Tuesdays with Dorie from the beginning, when over a hundred bloggers published her recipes every single week. As well she should – I would not have bought, or even heard of, Dorie’s famous book if not for food blogs.

Neither would I have bought (or heard of) David’s The Perfect Scoop. Food bloggers love David, and while it is nice that he leaves comments on other blogs, what it always has to come down to is the quality of the recipes. David isn’t known as the master of homemade ice cream without reason.

The day before I decided to buy this book, I was saying that as much as I like ice cream, it’s just not as fun for me as baking with flour and butter and the oven. Furthermore, David has so many recipes on his website that I questioned whether I needed an ice cream book at all.

Um, apparently I do. For one thing, The Perfect Scoop is stuffed full of interesting ice cream recipes that I would never have considered trying but now can’t wait to make, including Guinness-Milk Chocolate, Olive Oil, Fresh Fig, Green Apple and Sparkling Cider, and I could go on and on. But the real reason I decided to buy the book can be attributed to a savvy move on David’s part and how cookbook authors can take advantage of having a food blog – he has a recipe for basic vanilla ice cream on his website. I’ve tried it. It is the best vanilla ice cream I’ve made, out of 4-5 recipes by some of my favorite recipe writers. So now not only do I have this book full of interesting recipes, but I have good evidence that the recipes will actually be good.

This blackberry swirl ice cream is a basic vanilla recipe with crushed blackberries swirled in. This certainly isn’t the most original recipe in the book, but I needed something that would go with chocolate for the next TWD recipe. Dave (um, my husband, not Lebovitz this time) loves blackberries and they’re at their peak right now.

It was as good as I expected. Dave and I agree that we might prefer a bit more blackberries stuffed in there, but we’re big fruit people, so that’s no surprise. Other than that, the vanilla portion was creamy, the blackberry portion was balanced between sweet and tart, the ice cream was beautiful, and the directions for the recipe were clear. I’m as excited as ever about this book.

Blackberry Swirl Ice Cream (from David Lebovitz’s The Perfect Scoop)

Ice cream:
1 cup whole milk
⅔ cup (4.6 ounces) sugar
pinch salt
1½ cups heavy cream
5 large egg yolks
½ teaspoon vanilla extract

Blackberry swirl:
1½ cups (5.6 ounces) blackberries, fresh or frozen
3 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon vodka
1 teaspoon lemon juice

1. To make the ice cream, warm the milk, sugar, and salt in a medium saucepan. Pour the cream into a large bowl and set a mesh strainer over the top.

2. In a separate medium bowl, whisk together the egg yolks. Slowly pour the warm milk into the egg yolks, whisking constantly, then scrap the warmed egg yolks back into the saucepan.

3. Stir the mixture constantly over medium heat with a heatproof spatula, scraping the bottom as your stir, until the mixture thickens and coats the spatula. Pour the custard through the strainer and stir it into the cream. Add the vanilla and stir until cool over an ice bath. Chill thoroughly in the refrigerator.

4. An hour or so before churning the ice cream, make the blackberry swirl by mash the blackberries together with the sugar, vodka, and lemon juice with a fork (if you using frozen blackberries, let them thaw a bit first) until they’re juicy but with nice-sized chunks of blackberries remaining. Chill until ready to use.

5. Freeze the ice cream custard in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer’s instructions. As you remove it from the machine, layer it in the container with spoonfuls of the chills blackberry swirl mixture.

Filed Under: custard, dessert, fruit

banana nutella crepes

08/22/2008 By

I ate Nutella, a chocolate hazelnut spread, for the first time just about a month ago. I’d been hearing great things about it for years, but I never got around to trying it until a friend sent me some. (Along with a jar of Marmite, which is so good.) I can see what all the hype about Nutella is for – this stuff basically tastes like milk chocolate, so of course everyone likes it!

I’ve been putting it on all kinds of things, but mostly I eat it on bananas to break up the monotony of my daily banana. And how much better would bananas and Nutella be if they were wrapped up in a crepe?

Crepes are one of those recipes that seem scarier than they really are. I’m always hearing stories about how the first crepe will have to be thrown out, and they’re so delicate, and all these things, but I’ve never had any problems cooking crepes. Maybe that means I’m doing something wrong, like making them too thick, but since I’m happy with the way they turn out, I see no reason to change anything.

I used Jess’s crepe recipe, as she describes her family as quite the experts in crepe-making. But, I didn’t trust the 100% whole wheat flour idea, so I used half white and half whole wheat. I also had to make them tiny, because I was between medium-sized nonstick pans at the time.

This seems like a great crepe recipe! The bananas and Nutella were really good, and I sprinkled over some hazelnut praline I had leftover from the filbert cake. I’m eager to see what else I can come up with to put in crepes. Sweet variations are almost too easy, and I know sausage and maple syrup are delicious in crepes. What about savory options? I need to do some exploring.

Whole Wheat Crepes (adapted from hogwash)

Jess implores her readers to eat the crepes as soon as they come out of the pan, but I didn’t. I stored them in a 200 degree oven until they were all cooked, so that Dave and I could eat together.

6 servings

2 cups milk (plus more, if needed)
2 large eggs
8 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted, plus more for the pan
1½ tablespoons sugar
½ teaspoon salt
1⅔ cups (8⅓ ounces) whole wheat flour (or a mix of white and whole wheat)

6 bananas, sliced
6 tablespoons Nutella

1. Combine the milk, eggs, melted butter, sugar, salt and 1 cup flour in a blender, and whirl until smooth, scraping down the sides of the glass, if necessary. Add all or most of the remaining flour, a bit at a time, until the batter has roughly the consistency of drinkable yogurt (very thin for pancake batter, but not runny). Let the batter sit at least 30 minutes at room temperature, or overnight in the refrigerator. (Bring the batter back to room temperature before continuing.)

2. Before cooking, thin the batter with a bit more milk, if it seems substantially thicker.

3. Preheat a crepe pan or large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. When hot, grease with a dollop of butter (using a stick of butter to smear some directly on the skillet works nicely), and add enough batter to coat the skillet in a thin, even layer when you swivel the skillet around in your hand. Cook for a couple minutes, until you see bubbles in the center of the crepe and the bottom side is nicely browned. Flip carefully and cook another couple minutes on the other side. Fill as desired (in this case, with the sliced bananas and Nutella) and serve immediately. Repeat with the remaining batter.

Filed Under: breakfast, chocolate, fruit, nuts

granola grabbers (twd)

08/19/2008 By

No classic cookie recipes have been chosen for TWD since I joined. I like making cookies, so I was looking forward to Michelle’s choice for this week.

With all of the ingredients in this recipe, I thought at first that they’d be similar to Magic Cookie Bars. And then I looked closer at the recipe – 3 cups of granola and almost 3 more cups of other healthy-ish stuff compared to only 1 cup of flour. These were some sort of melding of granola bars and cookies. Hmm…that sounds…healthy.

And it tasted healthy. Too much granola! Too many raisins (any raisins in cookies is too many), too many nuts. I added 1 cup of chocolate chips to the recipe, and it was the saving grace. It also might have caused some problems – the cookies were a little crumbly, I think because there was just too many add-ins, and not enough dough to hold them together.

Dave and some other friends are going backpacking this weekend, so I baked (most of) the cookies as bar cookies, which hold up better with being squashed at the bottom of a pack. Unfortunately, in a rare move for me, I made the whole recipe. I was only able to pawn about half of that off on the backpackers, so I threw the rest in the freezer until further notice. I have a feeling they’re going to get sent to Iraq, which I feel kind of bad about, but I just don’t know what else to do with them. They’re not bad, they’re not good enough to bother eating. Plus, they’re not healthy – they just taste like it.

If you’d like to check out the recipe, Michelle has posted it.

Filed Under: chocolate, cookies, dessert, fruit, nuts, tuesdays with dorie, whole grains

black (and pink) and white chocolate cake

08/17/2008 By

I thought long and hard about what to make for my birthday cake. The thing about this obsessed-with-baking phase that I’m going through is that the eating of the cake is almost secondary to the fun of making it. I had a fairly long list of desserts I was considering, split almost evenly between cheesecakes and somewhat-elaborate layer cakes. I settled on Dorie Greenspan’s Black and White Chocolate Cake because it seemed like a good balance between fancy and not so much work that I’d spend all day (the day before my birthday) baking. Or so I had hoped.

The cake consists of a straightforward buttermilk-vanilla cake, layered with chocolate pastry cream and vanilla cream. The chocolate pastry cream was easy and delicious, and the cake itself came together without any problems.

The white chocolate cream, unfortunately, was not so smooth (literally). This was one of the first TWD recipes, back when there were only a handful of members, so I had scanned a few of their entries and seen that the white chocolate cream might be a problem. I knew enough to use high quality white chocolate, which is less prone to problems in baking than cheaper versions. Valrhona and Guittard are recommended most often, but both require a special, out-of-my-way trip to either Whole Foods or Williams-Sonoma, and I’ve had good experiences with Green and Black’s White Chocolate, which is available at my regular grocery store.

The white chocolate cream is made by melting white chocolate with cream, then adding that mixture to cream that’s been whipped to very soft peaks and continuing to beat until firm peaks are achieved. Firm peaks. Not stiff peaks. I guess I should have considered the difference between those two more carefully. I knew, knew, that there was the potential to overbeat the mixture and cause curdling, and I was so careful, only beating for about a second at a time, then checking the consistency. I was waiting until the peaks could hold their shape.

But the mixture curdled first. I tried to save it, the same way I’ve saved curdled buttercream in the past, and I thought for a while that it might work, but it didn’t. I kicked myself over and over for not stopping whipping the cream mixture early enough. Then I mentally berated Dorie for not being more specific. She gives such wonderful detailed instructions sometimes, describing exactly what the food processor should sound like when tart dough is ready, but she can’t add a warning about this “firm peaks” issue. Bleah.

Even if I’d had the right ingredients, which I didn’t, I wasn’t enthusiastic about trying the white chocolate cream again. Instead, I made a white chocolate buttercream. But I accidentally only made enough to give the cake the thinnest of coatings. I was tired of dealing with fussy white chocolate, and I’d already incorporated raspberries into the cake, so then I made another buttercream, this time flavored with raspberries. But I was frustrated and bored by this time, so I screwed up the buttercream, twice (cooked the egg whites), because of I was inattentive.

So much for my relatively straightforward cake. To assemble, I mixed a portion of the white chocolate buttercream with some raspberry pastry cream I had leftover from another project, and used that as the white chocolate layer in the cake. I used the white chocolate buttercream as a crumb coat and the raspberry buttercream as a final layer.

I wasn’t disappointed in the final product. For one thing, it was really pretty. The cake itself was tasty, although it probably could have used a quick brush with a simple syrup. The dark chocolate pastry cream was fantastic. I wasn’t totally happy with either the white chocolate or the raspberry buttercream, but neither detracted from the final product, even if they didn’t add much. All in all, a satisfactory birthday cake.

Black and White Chocolate Cake (from Dorie Greenspan’s Baking: From My Home to Yours)

Makes 10 servings

For the Cake
2 cups cake flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
⅛ teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon salt
1¼ sticks (10 tablespoons) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup sugar
3 large eggs
1 large egg yolk
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
¾ cup buttermilk

For the Dark Chocolate Cream
2 cups whole milk
4 large egg yolks
6 tablespoons sugar
3 tablespoons cornstarch, sifted
¼ teaspoon salt
7 ounces bittersweet chocolate, melted
2½ tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into 5 pieces, at room temperature

For the White Chocolate Whipped Cream
6 ounces premium-quality white chocolate (such as Valrhona Ivoire or Guittard), finely chopped
1½ cups heavy cream

Chocolate shavings or curls, dark or white or a combination, for decoration (optional)

Getting Ready:
Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Butter two 9-x-2-inch round cake pans, dust the insides with flour, tap out the excess and line the bottoms of the pans with parchment or wax paper. Put the pans on a baking sheet.

To Make the Cake:
Sift together the cake flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.

Working with a stand mixer, preferably fitted with a paddle attachment, or with a hand mixer in a large bowl, beat the butter on medium speed until soft and creamy. Add the sugar and beat for another 3 minutes. Add the eggs one by one, and then the yolk, beating for 1 minute after each addition. Beat in the vanilla; don’t be concerned if the mixture looks curdled. Reduce the mixer speed to low and add the dry ingredients alternately with the buttermilk, adding the dry ingredients in 3 additions and the milk in 2 (begin and end with the dry ingredients); scrape down the sides of the bowl as needed and mix only until the ingredients disappear into the batter. Divide the batter evenly between the two pans and smooth the tops with a rubber spatula.

Bake for 28 to 30 minutes, rotating the pans at the midway point. When fully baked, the cakes will be golden and springy to the touch and a thin knife inserted into the centers will come out clean. Transfer the cakes to a rack and cool for about 5 minutes, then unmold, remove the paper and invert to cool to room temperature right side up on the rack.

To Make the Dark Chocolate Cream:
Bring the milk to a boil.

Meanwhile, in a large heavy-bottomed saucepan, whisk the egg yolks with the sugar, cornstarch and salt until thick and well blended. Whisking without stopping, drizzle in about ¼ cup of the hot milk – this will temper, or warm, the yolks so they won’t curdle – then, still whisking, add the remainder of the milk in a steady stream. Put the pan over medium heat and, whisking vigorously, constantly and thoroughly (make sure to get into the edges of the pan), bring the mixture to a boil. Keep at a boil, still whisking, for 1 to 2 minutes. Remove the pan from the heat.

Whisk in the melted chocolate, and let stand for 5 minutes. Then whisk in the pieces of butter, stirring until they are fully incorporated and the chocolate cream is smooth and silky. Press a piece of plastic wrap against the surface of the cream to create an airtight seal and refrigerate the cream until chilled, or for up to 3 days. Or, if you want to cool the cream quickly, put the bowl with the cream into a large bowl filled with ice cubes and cold water and stir the cream occasionally until it is thoroughly chilled, about 20 minutes.

To Make the White Chocolate Whipped Cream:
Put the white chocolate in a heatproof bowl and put the bowl over a saucepan of gently simmering water. Stir frequently to melt the chocolate evenly. Meanwhile, bring ½ cup of the heavy cream to a boil.

When the white chocolate is melted, remove the bowl from the pan. Pour the hot cream into the melted chocolate and let it sit for a minute. Using a small spatula, stir the chocolate gently until it is smooth. Let it sit on the counter until it reaches room temperature – it can’t be the least bit warm when you add it to the whipped cream.

Working with the stand mixer with the whisk attachment or with a hand mixer in a large bowl, beat the remaining 1 cup heavy cream only until it holds the softest peaks. Turn the machine to high, add the cooled white chocolate all at once and continue to beat until the whipped cream holds firm peaks. Turn the whipped cream into a bowl, press a piece of plastic wrap gently against the surface to create an airtight seal and refrigerate for at least 2 hours, or up to 6 hours.

To Assemble the Cake:
If the tops of the cake layers have crowned, use a long serrated knife and a gentle sawing motion to even them. Slice each layer horizontally in half. Place one layer cut side down on a cardboard cake round or on a cake plate protected by strips of wax or parchment paper.

Remove the dark and white chocolate creams from the refrigerator and whisk each of them vigorously to loosen and smooth them. With a long metal icing spatula, spread enough dark chocolate cream (about 1 cup) over the cake layer to cover it completely. Top the cream with another cake layer, cut side up, and cover this layer with white chocolate whipped cream, making the white layer about the same thickness as the dark layer. Cover with a third layer, cut side up, and cover with another cup or so of the dark chocolate cream. (You’ll have some dark chocolate cream left over – use it as a dip for madeleines or sables.) Top with the final layer of cake, cut side down, and frost the sides and top with the remaining white chocolate whipped cream. If you’d like to decorate the top with chocolate shavings or curls, do it now.

Refrigerate for at least 3 hours, or overnight.

Serving: Remove the cake from the fridge about 20 minutes before serving. Use a serrated knife and a gentle sawing motion to cut it. Though the cake is particularly good with coffee or tea, it also goes well with a sweet or sparkling dessert wine.

Storing: While both the dark chocolate cream and white chocolate cream can be made ahead and kept tightly covered in the refrigerator, once assembled, the cake is best after about 3 hours in the fridge. However, it can be refrigerated overnight – just cover it loosely and keep it away from foods with strong odors.

The Raspberry Buttercream is the same recipe used for Dorie’s Perfect Party Cake, with raspberry puree substituting for the lemon juice. The White Chocolate Buttercream is the ingredients in this recipe using the method for Dorie’s buttercream.

Filed Under: cake, chocolate, custard, dessert, fruit, tuesdays with dorie

fruit bruschetta

08/15/2008 By

Lately I’ve been on a major breakfast kick. It seems like I want to try something different every weekend morning. This fruit bruschetta is definitely different – it doesn’t even fit into my simple sweet versus savory categorization of breakfasts. (Obviously it’s a sweet option, but it isn’t the standard pancakes/waffles/French toast offering.)

The bruschetta are easy to make. Toast and butter bread, sprinkle with cinnamon sugar and broil until the sugar caramelizes, top with fruit and yogurt. And except for the bit of sugar and butter, it’s actually healthy. As much as Dave loves the croque-madame, I think if it was up to him, we’d eat breakfasts like this far more often.

I used the last loaf of pain a l’ancienne for the brushetta. I noted when I made the pain a l’ancienne that the crust was too thick, and that, combined with maybe overtoasting it a bit, caused my bruschetta to be way too crispy. That’s an understatement – I worried for my teeth, eating this. But if you’re using normal bread, I’m sure you won’t have the same problem.

I think these would be perfect for a brunch. They can sit at room temperature for a while without a problem, and they’re easy finger food. They’re simple, they’re fairly healthy, and they’re certainly an original option.

Peach, Strawberry, and Banana Bruschetta (from Gourmet August 1994, but really epicurious.com)

Bridget note: I used vanilla yogurt to drizzle over the toasts instead of plain yogurt, so I skipped the honey and sprinkled lemon zest over the yogurt instead.

Makes 16 bruschetta

16 ½-inch-thick slices crusty Italian or French bread
2 tablespoons melted unsalted butter
1½ tablespoons sugar
1½ tablespoons cinnamon, or to taste
1 peach, peeled, pitted, and cut into fine dice
½ banana, cut into fine dice
8 large strawberries, cut into fine dice
3 to 4 tablespoons plain yogurt
honey for drizzling

Preheat oven to 375°F.

Arrange bread slices in one layer in a shallow baking pan and bake in middle of oven until golden, about 10 minutes. Brush toasts with butter on one side. Toasts may be made 1 week ahead and kept in an airtight container.

In a small bowl stir together 1 tablespoon sugar and cinnamon and sprinkle evenly over buttered side of each toast. Broil toast about 5 inches from heat under preheated broiler 30 seconds, or until tops are bubbling, and cool.

In a bowl stir together fruit and remaining ½ tablespoon sugar and mound about 1 tablespoon on each toast. Top each toast with about 1 teaspoon yogurt and drizzle with honey.

Filed Under: bread, breakfast, fruit, healthy, summer

blueberry sour cream ice cream (twd)

08/12/2008 By

The blueberry sour cream ice cream that Dolores chose for TWD this week sounded interesting, and I wasn’t really sure how I’d feel about it. I had never tried sour cream in ice cream, or even really heard of it being used. I remember mixing sour cream into whipped cream for the cream puff filling and being surprised by how much I liked it, so I had high hopes for this ice cream.

The recipe itself was very simple. Bring sugar, berries, and lemon to a simmer, blend it with heavy cream and sour cream, chill, and churn. No one seemed to have any problems putting the recipe together this week, so that’s something. A few people even went ahead and made it without an ice cream maker.

I really liked it. Dave thought it was too sour creamy, but that might be my fault – I told him it was blueberry ice cream, and he said that the sour cream detracted from the blueberry flavor. But this is definitely blueberry sour cream ice cream – the sour cream gets equal billing with the blueberries.

The texture was smooth, not grainy at all. Some other TWD members have complained that the ice cream was too rich and left an unpleasant coating behind each bite, but I don’t really agree.

The ice cream admittedly isn’t a classic choice; the sour cream flavor definitely stands out. But I thought it was really good, and I enjoyed trying something different. Plus, it’s super easy.

Check out the recipe on Dolores’ site.

Filed Under: custard, dessert, fruit, tuesdays with dorie

banana coconut muffins

08/08/2008 By

Dave’s been eating muffins everyday, which is good for me because it gives me an actual reason to bake. Plus, I buy enough bananas for Dave and I to each eat one per day, but I’m so freakin’ bored of bananas that I never eat mine. I eat batter or dough instead. Did I mention that I bake a lot?

If I’m going to be making banana muffins constantly, I figure I might as well make some interesting ones. The recipe for these banana coconut muffins has a lot of great reviews on epicurious, which is always a good sign. Also, Dave likes coconut more than I do, and since I do all of the cooking for us, I don’t think he gets to eat it as often as he’d like.

I was really happy with the muffins. I can never resist eating one after I bake them, even though I’m making them for Dave to bring to work. They were light and tender and flavorful, with a good balance of banana and coconut flavor. Some of the coconut shreds on top of the muffin fell off, so next time I’ll pat those into the batter a bit. Other than that detail, these were perfect.

Banana Coconut Muffins (from epicurious.com)

Makes 8

1¼ cups (6.25 ounces) all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon salt
2 very ripe bananas, mashed (¾ cup)
1 stick (½ cup) unsalted butter, melted
⅔ cup (4.65 ounces) sugar
1 large egg
½ teaspoon vanilla
¾ cup sweetened flaked coconut

Put oven rack in middle position and preheat oven to 375°F. Line muffin cups with liners.

Whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt in a bowl. Whisk together bananas, butter, sugar, egg, vanilla, and ½ cup coconut in a large bowl until combined well, then fold in flour mixture until flour is just moistened.

Divide batter among lined muffin cups and sprinkle with remaining ¼ cup coconut. Bake until muffins are puffed and golden, about 25 minutes. Transfer muffins to a rack and cool slightly.

Filed Under: bread, breakfast, fruit, quick bread

black and white banana loaf (twd)

08/05/2008 By

I couldn’t figure out at first whether the banana loaf Ashlee chose for TWD this week was supposed to be a cake or a quick bread. Eventually I realized that it’s in the cake section of the book, only a few pages after the pound cake recipe. But that didn’t stop me from baking it in a muffin pan.

Other TWD members had a lot of problems with this recipe, claiming that the batter was too liquidy. I didn’t really have any issues, although the batter was curdled at the end and looked really gross. Also – for something that I thought would be pretty straightforward, this used a surprising amount of dishes.

My correctly-sized loaf pan is in the freezer full of mushroom lasagna, so I had to bake the recipe in smaller dishes. That meant I could play around with some different methods of combining the batters. I was eager to try polka-dots.  It was fairly successful; I think they’d work better in a larger pan, but this was a good learning experience.

But I thought it was really good. Dave said that it was good but not something that he’d ever really ask me make, so I must have liked it more than he did. I thought the little cakes had a nice texture – they’re really moist, but also nice and firm. The banana flavor is pretty subtle, which I don’t prefer in banana bread, but I liked in this cake.

The recipe can be found on Ashlee’s blog.

Filed Under: cake, chocolate, dessert, fruit, tuesdays with dorie
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