A Sweet Surprise in the Muffin

Most muffins are OK, but sort of boring. Fortunately there are small things that you can do to make them more interesting, like substituting some rolled oats for part of the flour, adding citrus zest to take them from stodgy to zippy, and adding mix-ins like dried or fresh fruit for additional flavor, texture and fun. An added surprise is putting in a teaspoon or so of flavored ricotta, then covering that with the batter that included fruits. It isn't until you are well into eating the muffin that you discover the lovely tangy and creamy center that goes so well with the soft muffin and sweet fruit. These are very similar to a muffin that I invented over 40 years ago when I had a muffin business in the East Bay. I only had a few café outlets and it was before retail muffins became popular. They were called MegaMuffins because I overfilled the baking cups so that the excess spread out over the pan. You had to cut them apart before serving, so you had circular muffins with sort of square tops where the pan had been, and then a mound in the middle.

This Strawberry-Lemon-Oat-Surprise Muffin recipe brings lots of flavor, plus the surprise, to a dozen muffins.  There is oat enriched batter, a secret center of sweetened lemon flavored ricotta cheese, and sweet, fresh strawberries baked into the top layer. If you like you can add a bit of crunch and more sweetness with some sanding sugar sprinkled on right before you bake them.

You don't need added butter or jam...or anything really...for these because they are delicious just as they come from the oven. Unless you are feeding a crowd, that means some for now and some for later! If you're keeping these, I recommend an airtight container and that they live in the fridge. That way the secret ricotta cheese part will stay delicious. You can wrap a muffin or two in foil the next day and warm it for 10 minutes in a 300 degree F oven and it will be almost like having a freshly baked muffin.

As with all muffins, there are a few tips to remember. Everything should be at room temperature. This helps the ingredients blend together as they should. This means setting eggs and buttermilk and cheese out before baking time to allow them to warm up. The melted butter also needs to cool off. It might be a little warmer than room temp, but it shouldn't be by very much...don't want to scramble the eggs when you add it to the egg mixture.

Another tip for this recipe is to be generous with the lemon zest. The zingy lemon flavor really helps the strawberry flavor pop. This is important because cooked strawberries are not quite as flavorful as fresh ones.

The last tip is to be fairly gentle with the batter when you are mixing the dry and wet ingredients. You want to mix it so that there aren't any clumps of dry ingredients, but only mix until just combined. This will keep your muffins nice and tender.

It might seem like a lot to have batter, cheese mixture, then the berry/batter mixture having to be put into 12 cups. I have found that if I use a 1/4 cup measure and only half fill it for the first batter layer, and also put that into all the cups quickly, then a tablespoon of the cheese mixture roughly in the center of the cut, also into all 12 cups one right after the next, then pretty much fill the 1/4 cup measure for each of the cups for the final better/berry mixture that it comes out right. Each cup should be about 3/4 filled.

You are going to love these muffins! The secret filling is also the secret to their popularity. Try it and see. If you are like Sweetie, you won't want to stop at one muffin. 

Strawberry-Lemon-Oat-Surprise Muffins
Makes 12

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup rolled oats (not instant)
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup granulated sugar
finely grated zest of 1 1/2 Meyer lemons (or regular lemon if Meyer unavailable), divided

2 eggs, beaten 

1/4 cup unsalted butter or margarine, melted and cooled

juice of 1 Meyer lemon, seeds removed

1 cup buttermilk

1/2 cup ricotta cheese
2 teaspoons milk or soy creamer
2 teaspoons powdered sugar

1/2 pint fresh strawberries, washed and drained, hulled and sliced
about 1 tablespoon clear sparkling or sanding sugar (optional)

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Spray a 12 cup muffin pan with baking spray. Set aside.

In a bowl, sift or whisk the dry ingredients together. Add half the lemon zest and stir or whisk to distribute.

In a second bowl, whisk together the egg, cooled butter, lemon juice and  buttermilk.

Prepare the filling by stirring together the ricotta cheese, milk, powdered sugar and the remaining half the lemon zest in a small bowl until completely combined. Set aside.

Add the wet ingredient mixture all at once to the flour mixture and stir together with a fork, just until all the dry ingredients have been moistened. Don't overmix.

Scoop enough of the batter into the prepared muffin tins to cover the bottom - about 2 tablespoons. Dollop about a tablespoon of the ricotta mixture on top. Stir the sliced strawberries gently into the remaining batter, then top the ricotta mixture in the pans with the berry-rich batter, distributing evenly. Sprinkle with sanding sugar, if desired, distributing evenly.

 Bake in preheated oven for 17 - 25 minutes until tops are golden brown and the center springs back when pressed down with a clean finger. Remove from the oven and cool on a rack 3-5 minutes, then removed carefully from the muffin tin and serve.

Small Batch Dutch Baby with Spring Fruit

 

Some mornings, usually on a Wednesday, Sweetie and I head to the Washoe House for breakfast. It has a long history for the West, having started life as a stage coach stop and then going through different parts of the journey, as a hotel, as a brothel, as a speakeasy, as a bar and restaurant with an small event space upstairs...the latter now describes it pretty well. It's not a white table cloth place, but it was recently purchased by a new owner and the food has improved. Whomever is in the kitchen knows what they are doing and they have a lot of great breakfast items, sandwiches and salads and burgers for lunch and the lunch items plus some dinners like a lovely plate of fish and chips or pork chops with seasonal veggies and fries. As with most restaurants, the pandemic was a challenge, but they tented over a large part of the parking lot and brought in musicians on the weekends and spaced picnic tables far enough apart to be OK, so they are OK. I like the Senior Platter on weekdays and Sweetie loves their crepes with blueberries. Sometimes, though, we want to eat at home, so I figured out a dish that is a bit like the blueberry crepes, but better.

Those crepes are first cousins to a Dutch Baby pancake, especially if you add fresh fruit, like blueberries, to the pancake when you put the batter into the oven. That's what we did last week, using a recipe for a 9-inch cast iron skillet (that's the small batch) and adorning it with both fresh blueberries and fresh strawberries. It was wonderful! There is the fragrance of butter and cooked berries, the puffy pancake when it comes out of the oven, then the tender pancake and soft, almost melty fruit. I like mine with a small amount of maple syrup drizzled over. This serves 4 if you each have a quarter as shown in the photos, but often we find room for a half each. Good thing for my waistline that we don't make these often!

German Pancakes with Blueberries and Strawberries  (smaller version)

Serves 2-3

3 tablespoons butter (or non-dairy margarine or 'butter')
3 large eggs
1/2 cup milk (or nut milk)
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
dash salt
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
a few drops lemon oil (optional)
1/4 cup fresh blueberries, washed and drained and picked over for stems or over-ripe berries
1/4 cup fresh strawberries, washed, hulled, and sliced
1/2 tablespoon granulated sugar (optional)

Preheat oven to 425 degrees F.

As oven preheats, put the butter in an ungreased 9 or 10-inch cast iron skillet (or a 9-inch cake pan with high sides) and place in the oven, just until the butter is melted. (Mine started to brown slightly at the edges)

Place the eggs, milk, flour, salt and vanilla, (and lemon oil, if using) in a blender and process until smooth. Scrape down the sides, if needed, and process again for a few seconds.

Pour the batter into the hot baking pan, over the melted butter. Sprinkle with the blueberries, strawberries and with the sugar (if using).

Bake, for 16-22 minutes or until edges are golden brown. Pancake will puff up, but will sink down again as it cools once removed from the oven.

Serve at once. Can sprinkle with powdered sugar, with lemon juice, or serve with maple syrup and/or more berries.

Note: you can make this without berries, too, and it will still puff up gloriously and taste wonderful.

It's the Season for the Garden

 Every April and May, especially, I struggle to blog about food as much as I do the rest of the year because the garden calls to me. If I'm out in the garden I'm not in the kitchen baking.

We've had a long, cool spring which has meant more time to be able to pull weeds and trim things and then, the soil finally warmed up, so I could plant the seedlings that had been waiting...and waiting...and waiting.

This year Sweetie really helped me so much getting new irrigation to the area between the house, driveway and studio. That allowed me to plant more veggies since that is one of the sunnier spots. Since we are gopher city very few things get planted in the ground. That means a lot of work filling planters and pots with potting soil before you can even do the irrigation or plant the seedlings.

In February when I was weeding an area near the iris raised bed near the barn I decided to plant some red poppy and golden California poppy seeds since I had some and that area gets sun for most of the day. Life got in the way, so I never did pull out the seedlings that I should have to allow space between plants. Same with a rectangular planter opposite heading toward the studio. Imagine my delight when they didn't seem to care and I now have bunches and bunches of scarlet poppies and lots of California poppies! Of course there are still some weeds...I never seem to get them all. Added to the charm are the nasturtium that self-seeded last fall and are now overrunning the edges of most of our sidewalks.

The roses and iris have also been a delight and some sweet pea plants that I bought at a nursery in February are blooming, too.

Here are some photos of the different areas of the garden, all taken about a week ago in mid-May. Don't worry, I'll get back to posting cooking and baking adventures soon!

                                                    roses and iris

new veggie area

this photo and the one below are near the front steps

This photo shows the Just Joey rose and one of the irises near the barn

A Perfect Time for Scones

I love scones year 'round, but spring is really a perfect time to have some baked and ready to serve with berries. For Mother's Day we had some for dinner dessert as a shortcake, with local strawberries and Strauss Dairy (also local) whipped cream...heavenly! We ate it up quickly - no photos.

To go with tea in the afternoon, it doesn't get much better than a warm scone with some home made lemon curd (recipe HERE) and some more of those delicious, juicy strawberries as shown in the photos.

Scones are easy to make as long as you remember that the less handling the better, especially once the butter in blended into the flour mix. I tend to make a well, add the liquid, then stir gently with a fork. Once you turn it all out onto a lightly floured board or work surface, you'll be able to see if you need a bit more buttermilk once you've gently pushed the dough together. I just pour a few dribbles of buttermilk over the places that seem to have a lot of undampened flour bits. Gently knead there just to dampen those bits and push them into the dough mass. Knead, again gently, only two or three turns and you should have a cohesive dough to divide and shape into two rough circles.

The only other tip is to watch them carefully and to remove them from the oven once they are just golden brown. That way you will have moist and tender scones, full of buttery flavor and ready to pair with any spring fruit you desire...or just some fruit curd or jam.

Simple Scones

Heat oven to 425 degrees F. Grease two cookie sheets.

½ cup sugar
1 tablespoon grated lemon peel
3 cups all-purpose flour
2 ½ teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon baking soda
¾ cup unsalted butter, at room temperature (no substitutions)
1 cup buttermilk


Glaze: 2 tablespoons heavy cream
2 tablespoons sugar (I used white sanding sugar)

In a small bowl use your fingers to rub together the sugar and lemon peel until fragrant.
Combine flour, lemon-sugar, baking powder, salt, and baking soda in a large bowl. With pastry blender or two knives, cut in butter until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Pour buttermilk over crumb mixture. Stir together with fork just until mixture comes together. Gather dough gently into a ball; knead 4 or 5 times. Cut dough in half and transfer pieces to prepared cookie sheets. Shape each piece into two 6 inch x 1/4 inch thick circles, 2 inches apart. Using floured knife, cut each circle into 8 wedges.

For glaze, brush tops with cream and sprinkle with sanding sugar.

Bake 20 – 25 minutes until toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Makes 16 scones.

If you are going to freeze these to re-heat later, bake them just short of golden brown and re-heat, thawed, for 5 minutes at 425 degrees F.

Cookies for Breakfast

 The little kid that still lives inside me became very excited when I saw this recipe on Dorie Greenspan's Substack newsletter. Cookies for breakfast just sounds like fun. These are full of all kinds of good-for-you things, but they are still delicious. Sweetie loves them because they are moist and chewy in the middle, not dry or crisp, although the outer edges are crisp enough for me to enjoy them.

As I usually do I made a few changes, mostly because I had millet flour but not millet and I also had flaxseed flour but not the whole flaxseeds. Because the millet is part of the topping and meant to be crunchy, I substituted some white sesame seeds for the topping part, then used the flour in the part that became the dough. The flaxseed flour became part of the dough, too. Below is a photo of an unbaked cookie. You can't really see the sesame seeds but they are there, along with the sunflower and pumpkin seeds, the dry unsweetened coconut, and a piece of dry fruit, probably a dried cherry.

The flavors are reminiscent of a granola that includes banana. When I make them next time I'm going to try substituting unsweetened apple sauce for the banana and maybe up the cinnamon a bit to see how that goes. It's not that I don't like banana, but I find it fun to see how things change with different ingredients. For part of the batch I also added some small M&Ms for the times when these would be afternoon tea cookies and so could use a bit of chocolate. Obviously you can change these up to suit your preferences...prefer dried apricots to dried cherries? Chop up the apricots and swap them out for some or all of the cherries. Like golden raisins better than dried cranberries? Same deal. For any of the dried fruit, just remember to refresh them if they are dry by soaking them for a few minutes in boiling water, then drain and towel dry. 

If you use a 1/4 cup measure to dollop out the dough, each cookie should probably be all you need for breakfast. I decided to freeze the extras so that I can have a cookie for breakfast whenever the spirit moves.

Nutty Seedy Breakfast Cookies, adapted from Pastry Love by Joanne Chang

3/4 cup (90 gr) walnuts, roughly chopped
1 cup (2 sticks) butter at room temperature
1/2 cup (170 gr) maple syrup
1 teaspoon vanilla
3 large eggs at room temperature
1 ripe banana, thoroughly mashed (about 1/3 cup, 100 gr)
3/4 cup (100 gr) raw unsalted pepitas (pumpkin seeds)
3/4 cup (40 gr) unsweetened flake coconut
1/2 cup (45 gr) raw shelled sunflower seeds
1/2 cup (45 gr) flaxseeds (I used 1/2 cup flaxseed flour in the dough mixture)
1/4 cup (50 gr) millet (I used 1 tablespoon raw sesame seeds in the seed mixture for the top and 2 tablespoons millet flour in the dough mixture instead)
1 1/2 cups (150 gr) rolled oats
1 cup (120 gr) dried cranberries
2/3 cup (100 gr) whole wheat flour
1/2 cup (100 gr) dried cherries
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Toast the walnuts on a baking sheet for 6-8  minutes in the preheated oven until light golden brown and fragrant. Set aside to cool and turn off the oven.

Melt the butter in a medium bowl. Whisk in the maple syrup and vanilla until well combined. Whisk in the eggs and the banana until totally homogeneous. Set aside.

In a large bowl stir together the pepitas, coconut, sunflower seeds, and sesame seeds (or millet and flaxseeds). Remove 1/2 cup (50 g) and set aside.

To the large bowl with the most seeds add the toasted walnuts, oats, dried cranberries, whole wheat flour, dried cherries, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg. Stir well to combine.

Make a well in the center of the seed and flour mixture. Stir the egg mixture to make sure it is fully combined, then pour into the seed and flour mixture. Stir well to combine. It will be a soft batter, not stiff like cookie dough.

Cover and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes up to overnight. The flours and seeds will soak up some of the liquid and the batter will be stiffer after refrigeration.

When ready to bake, preheat the oven to 350 degrees F and remove the batter from the fridge. Line a baking sheet with parchment. Wet your hands and scoop 1/4 cup of cough from the bowl. Roll dough in your wet hands into a rough but tight ball, dip the top of the ball into the reserved seed mixture (I used a pie pan to hold the seed mixture to make the dipping easy), and plop it seed side up on the prepared sheet. Repeat with the remaining dough, placing balls about 2 inches apart on the sheet.

Press each cookie ball down with the palm of your hand to make them flat. See the second photo down to see how they should look. These make fairly large cookies...but you only need one.

Bake in the preheated oven for 20-22 minutes until golden brown at the edges and firm when pressed in the middle. Cool 1 minute on the sheet, then transfer to a rack to cool.

Using a cool baking sheet, repeat with the remaining dough.

Can be stored for 2 days in an airtight container.

Puff Pastry Tops a Chicken Pot Pie

 

There's a restaurant in Graton...the Willow Wood Market...that makes a delicious chicken pot pie with a pie top that I think is puff pastry. I've been known to make a delicious chicken pot pie myself, but I usually top it with a pie dough crust. A few nights ago I decided to try the puff pastry topper.

First I made the chicken filling part. Since I had already grilled chicken thighs, it was just a matter of chopping a few veggies like onions, celery, garlic, and mushrooms, and sautéing them to get things started. If you can make a white sauce from scratch then you'll have no trouble with that part. A key thing to remember is to add all the liquid at once and then stir like mad. The stirring allows the liquid to combine with the partly cooked flour/oil bits so that it all can turn into a thickened, silky sauce. When you first add the liquid it looks like lumps in a thin liquid, but keep stirring...a lot!...and you, too, will end up with a nice sauce to hold your bite-sized chicken pieces and the rest of the veggies. Don't forget to season the sauce and taste to make sure you have enough salt and pepper. I even added a bit more thyme to mine since it didn't seem to have enough herby flavor. 

The rest of the filling ingredients is up to you. I like the combination of cooked Yukon potato chunks, frozen mixed veggies, and some roasted red pepper (and extra frozen green peas!), but you could also use fresh or frozen green beans, asparagus cut into bite sized pieces, blanched broccoli florets, or even sautéed greens. Just keep the proportions similar. Rice could be substituted for the potatoes, too, or you could use boiled chunks of red potatoes or Idaho potatoes. See what you have on hand, then go with it to make this your own!

So we're down to the topper. Already made pie dough from the refrigerator section of the market is the easiest. You can make your own puff pastry or rough puff, but I found frozen puff pastry to be just fine for other projects, so decided to try that.

It was defrosted so I could unfold it, but I didn't roll it out any. I cut out a circle that would fit just inside of the baking dish. If I were to do it again, I would bake it until puffed on a baking sheet, then transfer to the baking dish with the chicken mixture to finish browning (as shown in the directions below!). The reason is that I put the raw puff pastry right on top of the hot chicken filling in the baking dish and returned it to the oven right away. The temperature was 425 degrees F and it should have puffed up fairly quickly. Instead I think that the filling kept it from puffing very far by making the bottom of the pastry too wet. It was still browned and lovely, but not as airy, nor crisp, as I would like. This is one reason why baking continues to fascinate me...I keep learning. The instructions below are how I should have done it!

Chicken Pot Pie with Puff Pastry Topper

1-2 yellow Finn potatoes, washed and cubed

3/4 cups chicken broth

1/2 yellow onion, chopped

2 stalks celery, sliced

2oz. cremini mushrooms, sliced
1/2 teaspoon, or to taste, minced garlic

2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons olive oil

1/3 cup flour

1/4 teaspoon poultry seasoning
1/4 teaspoon dried thyme
salt and pepper

about another 1 1/2 cups chicken broth

1/2 cup milk I used evaporated milk, undiluted)

2  - 2 1/2 cups cooked, cubed chicken (I used grilled skinless thighs)

1 cup frozen peas

2 cups frozen mixed vegetables
2 tablespoons roasted red pepper, cut into small pieces

1 sheet (half package) frozen puff pastry, thawed

1 egg, beaten with 1 teaspoon water

In a medium pot with a lid, add the chicken broth to the cubed potatoes. Place over high heat, bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer and cover. Continue to simmer for about 20 minutes, until potatoes are tender when pierced with the point of a sharp knife.

Meanwhile,  prepare the onion, celery, carrots and mushrooms. When potatoes are cooked, drain them, reserving the cooking liquid for another use.

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F.

Melt the butter in the pot the potatoes were cooked in. Add the onion, celery, mushrooms and garlic. Over medium heat, cook, stirring often, for 5-8 minutes or until onion is translucent. Be careful to not have the garlic burn. If this has been an issue for you in the past, add the garlic after the first 4-5 minutes.

Add the flour, poultry seasoning, dried thyme and salt and pepper to taste to the sautéed veggies. Stir for 1 minute to allow the flour to cook a bit.

In a large measuring cup, add chicken broth to the 1 3/4 cups mark (OK to use the potato cooking broth as part of this, or to just use fresh broth). Add the milk. Over medium heat, stir this mixture, all at once, into the veggie/flour mixture and continue stirring over medium heat until the mixture thickens slightly. It's OK if mixture bubbles a bit once it has thickened.

Add the cubed chicken and stir to combine.

In a microwave safe container, cook the peas and mixed vegetables for 1-2 minutes to warm. Add warmed peas and mixed vegetables to the pot with the chicken and sautéed veggies. Add the cooked and drained potatoes and the roasted red pepper pieces. Stir to combine everything, then spoon mixture into a greased 9" x 13" casserole or 9" round deep baking dish.

Cut the sheet of puff pastry into 9 rectangles, or one 9-inch circle if using round baking dish. Place pieces on a parchment lined baking sheet. Leave at least an inch between them (if using squares). Use a small pastry brush to paint the top of the puff pastry with the egg wash, being careful not to have the egg run down the sides. If using the 9-inch round, cut a 1-2-inch slash in the top in 4 places with a sharp knife to let steam escape.

Bake puff pastry in preheated oven. When pastry has puffed but is not yet brown, put the casserole into the oven to heat (put it on a lower shelf if you can).

When puff pastry rectangles are puffed and golden brown, remove them from the oven. Remove the casserole from the oven. Place the rectangles on top of the casserole mixture. Serve at once.

Makes 4-6 servings.