The Sweet Geek

Monday, September 3, 2012

Breakfast of Champions: Raspberry Yogurt Muffins

For this week's breakfast, the fresh fruit was raspberries.  I've been all about raspberries for the last few weeks - I don't know why.  As with the figs, this was my first time having fresh raspberries.  I was pleasantly surprised with the softness and tartness of the berries.  After doing some online digging, I found a recipe for Raspberry Yogurt Muffins that met my requirements: low fat and no artificial sugar.  The recipe I used is below.  The original is from Reini Days.  The only changes I made were using 1 tbsp butter in the crumb topping instead of 2 and using half white/half wheat flour instead of whole wheat pastry flour.

Healthy Raspberry Yogurt Muffins

Muffins:
  • 1/4 C whole wheat flour
  • 3/4 C all-purpose flour
  • 1/2 tsp baking powder
  • 1/4 tsp baking soda
  • 1/4 tsp salt
  • 4 tbsp butter, at room temp
  • 1/4 C honey
  • 1/2 tsp almond extract
  • 1 egg
  • 1/2 C Greek yogurt (just shy of a 6oz container)
  • 1 C berries
Crumb Topping:
  • 1/8 C whole wheat flour
  • 1/8 C all-purpose flour
  • 1/8 C honey
  • 1/8 tsp cinnamon
  • 1 tbsp butter, at room temp and cubed

  1.  Preheat oven to 325 degrees.  Line your muffin pan with paper liners or spray with non-stick spray.
  2. In a large bowl, whisk your flours, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.  Set aside.
  3. In a separate bowl, beat your butter, honey, and almond extract on medium speed for a couple of minutes, or until light and fluffy.
  4. Add egg and beat again.
  5. Add in half your Greek yogurt and beat until creamy.
  6. Using a spatula, mix in half your dry ingredients with the wet ones.
  7. Add the remaining yogurt.
  8. Add the rest of the dry ingredients and mix until everything is incorporated.
  9. Add in your berries being careful not to mix too much.  You don't want to break up your berries.
  10. Divide batter among muffin cups.  If you use the mini muffin pan you'll get about 24 mini muffins.  If you use the regular size muffin pan, you'll get 6-8 muffins.
  11. In a small bowl, mix your crumb topping together.  You'll get almost a paste, which is fine.  Then crumble it on top of the muffins.
  12. Bake for about 17 minutes for mini muffins, and 25-30 minutes for normal size muffins (or until a toothpick comes out clean).
  13. Enjoy!



The nutrition, as estimated by this tool is:
213 Calories
8.6g Fat
43.5mg Cholesterol
142.5mg Sodium
79.9mg Potassium
30.3g Carbs
2.1g Fiber
14g Sugar
5.3g Protein

Sunday, August 26, 2012

Breakfast of Champions: Fig & Oat Bars

For September, my book club has started reading "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle" by Barbara Kingsolver.  The book is all about the Kingsolver family's effort to spend a year eating locally and sustainably - they lived on a farm and produced their own vegetables and meat.  Along with their story are lots of interesting tidbits on the benefits of being a locavore.  After about 7 chapters, some book-borne inspiration and a whole bunch of baking mojo combined to form this week's breakfast:  Fig & Oat Bars.

My aunt and uncle have 3 fig trees by their house that have been producing figs like nobody's business.  So naturally, I raided them.  They're local and I happen to LOVE figs, though this was my first time eating fresh ones.  I don't know what kind of figs they are, but they're about an inch across and a nice purple color when they're ripe.  I spent a lot of this afternoon doing all manner of stunts to get 15 or so out of the trees.  

And then I set about making the recipe I put below.  This recipe had all the various qualities I was looking for:  it called for fresh figs, it didn't add any straight sugar (just honey), and it made something easily portable that I could eat on the way to work.  I ended up a little shy of the 2 cups of figs called for in the recipe (mostly because I kept munching on them when I was dicing them), but the texture of the bars came out great anyway.  I was really pleased with the end result - they were sturdy enough to pick up and eat (I had my doubts when I was pressing in the crust) and the ooey-gooey-figgy filling is oh-so-good.



Fig & Oat Bars
(from Stetted)

2 C fresh figs, diced
¼ C honey
2 C oats
 C flour
¼ tsp salt
½ tsp cinnamon
1 stick butter

Preheat oven to 350 and line an 8x8 baking pan with parchment paper. 
Combine figs and honey in a small saucepan and cook over medium-low heat until honey is dissolved and figs start to break down.  Mash up a bit with a potato masher.  Set aside while you get the oatmeal mixture ready.
In a food processor, blitz oats, flour, salt, and cinnamon until the oats are broken up to your liking.  Cut butter in to cubes and add to mixture, pulsing until incorporated and the mixture is crumbly.
Take about half the oat mixture and press it into the pan evenly, forming the bottom crust.  
Spread the fig mixture over the top, then scatter the rest of the oat mixtures over it. 
Bake for 35-40 minutes, until golden brown.  Let cool completely before cutting into squares.


Assuming you make 9 bars, here's the nutrition breakdown (calculated using this tool):

265.4 Calories
11.6g Fat
27.1mg Cholesterol
139.1mg Sodium
49.8g Carbs
5.8g Dietary Fiber
17.9g Sugar
3.8g Protein

It's richer than a Poptart - more calories and more fat, but more fiber and protein.  Less sodium.  I'll take it.

And I just love having a little display like this in my kitchen:





Friday, July 27, 2012

Daring Bakers: Crackers

Our July 2012 Daring Bakers’ Host was Dana McFarland and she challenged us to make homemade crackers! Dana showed us some techniques for making crackers and encouraged to use our creativity to make each cracker our own by using ingredients we love.

I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this challenge - I didn't expect to get excited by making crackers, but it gave me a chance to try out a couple things that were already on my list of recipes to try.  And despite the lack of sugar in the recipes, I really enjoyed the results.

The first cracker I made was a spicy cayenne hand-rolled cracker.  I had some trouble finding a recipe and when I did, it was in Dutch.  I could tell the spices were exactly what I had in mind, so I went to the trouble of translating the recipe.  Don't be impressed - I just used an online translator.

The second cracker I made was a Rosemary-Parmesan icebox cracker.  Since cheese was most of the recipe, I splurged and bought real Parmesan cheese and grated it myself, and I'm SO glad I did.  These crackers were awesome, and the real cheese was more than worth it.

I had intended to make a third cracker - pita chips.  That's right, I had big plans to go above and beyond the challenge.  I was even going to make the pita bread from scratch.  Go me.  I had pictured making these amazing pita chips and posting on the Daring Bakers forum and having the other members ooh and ahh over the extra work I had put in.  What actually happened?  About 4 minutes into baking my pita bread, the smoke alarms started going off and I had to abandon the project.  Lesson Learned: my oven does not handle 500 degrees very well.

The pita was a bust, but I did successfully make the other extra item I had wanted to try:  white bean hummus.  That turned out to be a little bit of an adventure as well.  I had just bought a food processor to use for this, but it completely failed me - I didn't manage to get a single pulse of the darn thing (I'll be returning it soon).  Instead of using the food processor to mash the beans, I put them in a large plastic bag and went at 'em with a rolling pin.  That got them mashed pretty well and after moving them to my stand mixer and going a couple of rounds with the whisk attachment, I was able to get a pretty smooth humus.

Cayenne Crackers, White Bean Hummus, Rosemary-Parmesan Icebox Crackers

Overall, I liked the results very much.  The hummus turned out very smooth and the cayenne crackers went great with it.  The Parmesan crackers were better by themselves than with the hummus.  You know how great it is when scraps of cheese drip onto a frying pan and get crispy?  The Parmesan crackers tasted like that, except sturdier and less greasy.

Spicy Cayenne Crackers
(source: here) 


125 grams flour
¼ C (50 ml) milk
1 tbsp (15 grams) butter
1 tbsp lemon juice
½ tsp salt
½ tsp cumin
½ tsp coriander
1 tsp cayenne pepper

  1. Heat the milk, but do not let it boil.
  2. Preheat the oven to 400°F.
  3. Mix the flour, the herbs, and the softened butter.
  4. Mix the lemon juice through it.
  5. Gradually pour the hot milk to the flour mixture while you keep mixing.
  6. Knead the dough with your hands into a ball.
  7. Lightly flour a rolling pin and a worksheet with all-purpose flour.
  8. Roll the dough out as thinly as possible (but make sure that it is strong enough to stand out).  Use a round shape to cut out the crackers.  Put them on a baking tray lined with baking paper.
  9. Bake the crackers for 5-8 minutes until they are lightly browned and slightly raised.  Let them cool down for 5 minutes on the baking sheet.  Remove them from the baking tray and let them cool completely on a rack.

Notes:
  •     The dough will be very dry.  I had to knead with my hands, but I didn't have to add extra liquid.
  •     I was able to substitute soy milk for the milk with no problem.
  •     I was able to roll the dough out very thin (< ⅛ inch) and still have sturdy crackers.


Rosemary-Parmesan Crackers
(source:  Williams-Sonoma)
 
¾ C all-purpose flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp coarsely ground pepper
1 tsp chopped fresh rosemary
4 tbsp (½ stick) unsalted butter, cut into ½-inch pieces
1 C grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese
¼ C heavy cream 

  1. In the bowl of a food processor, combine the flour, salt, pepper and rosemary and pulse twice to mix. Add the butter and pulse until the mixture resembles coarse meal, about 10 pulses. Add the cheese and pulse twice to combine. With the motor running, pour in the cream and continue processing until the dough forms a single mass.
  2. Transfer the dough to a work surface and roll into a log about 2 inches in diameter. Wrap with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 3 hours or up to 2 days.
  3. Preheat an oven to 325°F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
  4. Cut the dough into 1/8-inch-thick slices and place on the prepared baking sheet. If desired, using miniature decorative cutters, cut out the center of each slice, then place the cutouts on the baking sheet. Bake until the crackers are light golden brown, 20 to 25 minutes.
  5. Transfer the baking sheet to a wire rack. When the crackers are cool to the touch, transfer them to the rack. Makes about 24 crackers.

Notes:
  •     I used my stand mixer with whisk attachment instead of a food processor and it worked just fine

White Bean Hummus

1 (24-ounce) can cannellini beans (or ½ pound dried cannellini beans*)
1 lemon, juiced
1 teaspoon ground cumin
2 garlic cloves, chopped
½ cup tahini paste
Salt and pepper
½ cup extra-virgin olive oil

*To cook the dried beans, soak them overnight in plenty of water. Drain, put them in a pot, and cover them with fresh water by 1-inch. Bring them to a boil, lower the heat, and simmer until they are tender, about 30 to 40 minutes.

Put the beans into the bowl of a food processor. Add the lemon juice, cumin, garlic, tahini paste, and salt and pepper, to taste. Turn the processor on and slowly pour in the olive oil. Process until smooth and thick.

Notes:
  •     Again, I did not need a food processor

Monday, July 2, 2012

June's Daring Bakers: Battenberg Cake

The June challenge for Daring Bakers was the cutest challenge I’ve participated in.

Mandy of What The Fruitcake?! came to our rescue last minute to present us with the Battenberg Cake challenge! She highlighted Mary Berry’s techniques and recipes to allow us to create this unique little cake with ease.

I spent a long time making up my mind about what flavors to use, but I ended up going with raspberry and almond cake with raspberry jam to hold the layers together.  I thought about using chocolate ganache instead of jam, but that seemed like it would too heavy for the cake.

The cake was easy enough to make – I think I spent more time making a wicked awesome divider for my cake pan than mixing cake batter.  Even as a software person, I like to show off my mechanical skills every now and then, and this is about as good as it gets:

Foil - expert level

The cake rose beautifully and I trimmed it down into even strips as well as I could and ended up with a plate a snacks, er, scraps…

Strips and "Scraps"

This was my first time ever working with fondant and I think it went pretty well.  I should have wrapped the cake in the fondant so that the bottom was covered too, but oh well.  I also should have rolled the fondant a little thinner – I like the taste of it, but it was definitely too thick.

Fondant aside, this is one of the prettiest things I’ve ever baked!  And it tasted as good as it looks.  The cake was really moist and the raspberry and almond flavors were perfect together.

Finished!

May's Daring Bakers: Challah

May’s Daring Bakers’ Challenge was pretty twisted – Ruth from The Crafts of Mommyhood challenged us to make challah! Using recipes from all over, and tips from “A Taste of Challah,” by Tamar Ansh, she encouraged us to bake beautifully braided breads.

Challah has been on my list of things to try for a while, so I was pretty excited for this challenge.  I love making bread (or at least trying to make it) and challah is just so pretty.  I also love the cultural aspect of this challenge – Ruth provided a lot of explanation on the significance of challah in Jewish culture, and I really appreciate that.

Challah Fail
The first time I tried this, it didn’t go too well.  I used the “Easy Challah” recipe because I only had 2 eggs on hand.  I could tell early on that something was funky – the dough was really wet, and the rising didn’t work properly.  The loaves tasted OK, but they didn’t even pretend to be fluffy.





Just the dough
After I got over my laziness enough to pick up more eggs, I went for the “Honey White Challah” (because anything with honey can’t go too far wrong).  I ended up using about 8 cups of flour total.  Lucky for me, that was noted in the recipe – I always get nervous when I have to add a lot more flour to a bread recipe.  Everything went smoothly until the braiding.  I’m braiding challenged.  As you can see in the picture, I didn’t quite manage even a 3-strand braid.  Something went wrong there in that middle section where I sort of have 2 super wide strands.  The ends look like braids though.  As for the round one, it’s a little off center but it’s round and I’m calling it a victory.

Braids no more :(
With a bigger work surface and little more practice, I could make them much prettier.  It would also help if I stopped nibbling on the dough while I was trying to shape it.  Is it crazy that I like bread dough?  I mean, cookie dough is understandable, everyone likes that.  But bread dough?  I don’t get it, but I like it.

My second and worst mistake was underestimating the magnitude of the second rise.  This is NOT a one-cookie sheet project!  I left the loaves on the same cookie sheet (because I only own the one) and after the rise, they were stuck together.  I had a tough time separating them, and I lost anything resembling a braid when I moved the round bread to different pan (I had to resort to a 13×9 cake pan).  It was a sadness – I had been pretty proud of that braid.


Despite the less-than-perfect appearance of my loaves, the taste and texture are amazing!  This is definitely a thing I will try again.The finished product:
The Finished Product



Saturday, August 27, 2011

Daring Bakers: Caramels and Buttercreams

My first Daring Baker’s challenge is now complete!

Accomplishment 1 – I made candy.
Accomplishment 2 – I used every bowl I own.

The August 2011 Daring Bakers’ Challenge was hosted by Lisa of Parsley, Sage, Desserts and Line Drive and Mandy of What the Fruitcake?!. These two sugar mavens challenged us to make sinfully delicious candies! This was a special challenge for the Daring Bakers because the good folks at http://www.chocoley.com offered an amazing prize for the winner of the most creative and delicious candy!

I’ve always admired the candies you see in little chocolate shops, so I was really excited about this as a challenge – especially a first challenge.  After a loooong debate with my sweet tooth, I decided on caramels and buttercreams, each in milk chocolate and white chocolate.  I skipped the tempering process, but tried filling and dipping candies (caramels were filled, buttercreams were dipped).  I’ll leave the tempering for a later adventure. 

Fillings first. 

Caramel:  (from Godiva)

1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons granulated sugar
1/4 cup water
1/4 cup heavy cream

  1. In a small heavy saucepan, combine the sugar and water. Bring to a boil over medium heat, stirring until the sugar dissolves. Then continue to boil, without stirring, 4 to 5 minutes longer, or until the syrup caramelizes and turns a deep amber color.
  2. Immediately remove the syrup from the heat and add the cream. (The mixture will bubble up). Using a wooden spoon, stir until completely smooth; if necessary, briefly return the caramel to low heat and stir until smooth. Scrape into a small bowl and let cool to room temperature. Refrigerate until well chilled, at least 2 hours.

It took me longer than 4-5 minutes to get any color in the caramel, but when it got going it went fast – I burned it the first time(in the picture above, the burned is on the right).  Even when I got it right though, something seemed a little off with the taste.

Buttercream

2 cups powdered sugar
½ tsp vanilla extract
¼ C butter (melted)
1.5 tbsp heavy cream

  1. Combine these four ingredients and mix well until smooth and firm.
  2. Form into balls and place on waxed paper covered trays. Chill.

The buttercream was delicious.  The site where I got the recipe had a couple of other buttercream variations...they all looked good.  As a side note, powdered sugar is one of those baking things that amazes me.  You can have so much sugar and so little liquid and yet the sugar just disappears.  It’s cool. 

(yes - those are hair clips in the photo)
Chocolate & assembly.

I used Wilton Premium Candy Melts for the chocolate. One package of milk chocolate and one of white gave me enough chocolate for two batches of buttercream and one batch of caramel.  I don’t know much about chocolate really, but these melted well and were pretty easy to work with (though, be sure to melt the chocolate in small amounts as you go so that it stays smooth).


Filling Caramels:  In a chocolate mold, fill each well about 1/3 of the way and then use a brush to paint up the sides.  Drop the chilled caramel into the middle of the well.  Wait for the caramel to spread out evenly in the chocolate (this will probably happen by the time you put chocolate in all the wells).  Then go back around fill the wells with chocolate. 

Dipping Buttercreams:  Melt chocolate.  Wing it.  Put dipped candies on wax paper.  I used a lot of toothpicks.  

Final Product:
I forgot to take a picture of the buttercreams before I ate them, but here are the completed caramels.
 



Lessons Learned:
  • Melt the dipping chocolate a little bit at a time so it doesn’t get stiff
  • Caramel should be amber not brown
  • Caramel is sticky and should not be eaten off fingers
  • Buttercreams should be small enough that the chocolate-to-buttercream ratio is in favor of the chocolate (the buttercream is crazy sweet and overwhelming even for me if they are big)
  • Tap the candy mold when you put chocolate in so that the candies come out without bubbles.
  • Do not start making candy at 9pm



Monday, August 8, 2011

Soup Crock Supper: Creamy Potato Bake

I had planned to skip dinner tonight.  Actually, I had planned to eat cereal for dinner tonight (I do that more than I should).  Do you ever just have times when you get chilled for no reason at all?  I do.  And when I get chilled, cereal doesn't work.  So I made this (sorry, I couldn't get a decent picture, but it's yummy!):

Creamy Potato Bake
1 smallish potato
1 4.5 oz can chicken (drained)
1/2 C chicken broth (hot)
2 wedges Laughing Cow light Swiss cheese
1 pinch pepper

Wash and peel the potato, then cut it into small chunks.  Cut the cheese into small chunks and add it to the the hot chicken broth.  Mix in the potato chunks and chicken.  When mixed well, add the mixture to a 6oz soup crock.  Bake at 350 F until the potatoes are tender (about 45 minutes).  After 45 minutes, it might still look like there's lots of liquid, but if you mix it, it's pretty creamy. 

(makes 1 serving)