Girls' Cabin Weekend

Last weekend, I headed north to a cabin on a lake with about 12 girls for the weekend. Perfect excuse to do some baking!

In charge of breakfast treats, I made blueberry muffins, biscotti and banana bread. All things that I have done before - so I know they'll work. But - in order to change it up a bit I decided to try a few new techniques that I found.

Blueberry Muffins I used my favorite recipe from the American Test Kitchen book. However, I used some of Joy the Baker's tips from her Browned Butter Blueberry Muffins. I browned the butter and used the topping from Joy's recipe. The topping just makes the muffins look so much better - and it's just flour, butter, and sugar. So easy! I used a pastry cutter instead of my fingers to mash up the topping ingredients. To make it travel worthy - I baked the muffins 95% of the way at home, then popped them in the oven at 250 for 30 minutes right before serving. This browned them up a bit more, took away the tackiness from traveling airtight, and let me serve them warm without a mess in the kitchen.

For the biscotti, I followed another favorite recipe and used dried cherries, toasted whole almonds and chopped white chocolate for the 'add-ins'. I formed the logs more narrow than I usually do - and was sure to chill the dough logs before baking to help them hold their shape (just like cookies.) I love this recipe - the addition of butter keeps them soft enough to eat without dunking into coffee first. Nice when sharing with a crowd - it eliminates the need to post a warning to avoid broken teeth!

The banana bread got rave reviews! I stirred in 1/2 cup each of toasted coconut and walnuts (instead of chocolate chips) and topped the bread with melted bittersweet chocolate. The add-ins really boosted the texture and helped differentiate it from the blueberry muffin texture.

A nice way to have 'variety' with cookie-like biscotti, perfectly sweet blueberry muffins and nutty banana bread with coconut and chocolate.

Breakfast Treats for a Crowd

I felt like I won the lottery when H. asked for home baked goods for a morning meeting with his non-profit board. It's been a few weeks of no work place - meaning no team of office workers ready to eat my baking. I can't eat it all myself!

I decided to make two different items that could then be paired with fruit and coffee as desired.

Blueberry Ginger Bundt Cake
Banana Bread (and muffins) covered with bittersweet chocolate frosting

Cherry Cream Cheese Weekend Muffins

My step sister was in town from Denver - and wanted to stop by on Saturday morning. She hasn't seen our place yet and it would be great to have coffee and chat. So -what goes well with coffee on a Saturday morning? Muffins of course.

Muffin Batter

1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour

1/3 cup whole wheat flour (oatmeal could be used here too)

1/2 cup plus 1 tablespoon granulated sugar

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt 1/2 cup cold butter

1 egg

3/4 cup sour cream

1/4 cup buttermilk

1 teaspoon almond extract

1 32 oz. jar morello cherries drained

Cream Cheese Filling

8 ounces cream cheese, softened

1 egg

1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla

In a bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Cut in butter until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs.

Beat the egg, sour cream buttermilk and extract until smooth; add cherries to wet ingredients, stir into dry ingredients just until moistened (batter will be thick). Combine flour and sugar in a small bowl; cut in butter until crumbly.

In a mixing bowl, beat cream cheese, egg, sugar and vanilla extract until smooth. Fill papered muffin cups half full with batter. Divide cream cheese filling evenly between muffin cups. Cover with remaining batter.

Bake at 350 degrees F for 22 to 25 (30-35 for jumbo) minutes or until muffins test done. Cool for 5 minutes before removing from pans to wire racks.

Makes 14 regular sized muffins, or 7 jumbo.

Optional pwd sugar frosting: stir 1/4 cup softened butter, 2 TBSP milk, and 2 cups pwd sugar until smooth. Spread on top of cooled muffins.

Breakfast Reigns

Breakfast for a crowd takes planning, proper timing and a flexible sleep schedule.  Wednesday morning was a large group monthly meeting hosted by my 7 person team. Having the baking bug, I volunteered to bake everything needed for this breakfast and everyone else could just pitch in for the ingredients. I get to bake and everyone else just has to show up - it's a win-win!

The Plan: make everything "mini"

This will encourage people to actually eat MORE than they would if everything was normal size. I don't want to bring food home or 

have leftovers to throw away. Make things mini - and people will eat 2 or 3 or 5 instead of just 1. 

Menu: Cinnamon Rolls, Blueberry Muffins, Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins, Biscotti (see last post), and fruit salad (made by another 'doer' 

co-worker.) Click on the links above for the recipe.

The Timing:

Weekend: read recipes, write shopping list and go shopping

Monday evening: bake biscotti

Tuesday: run after work, shower, start baking.

7pm: make double batch cinnamon roll dough (recipe posted is a 

double), let raise for 1.5 hours

7:45: make blueberry muffins (makes alot - 

3 pans!)

9:00: make banana chocolate chip muffins 

(2 batches)

9:30: punch down roll dough, cut into 1/4 portions, make filling, roll - cut - 

space out 

in jelly roll pan

10:30: finish filling, rolling, and cutting buns - put filled pans into fridge

10:45: make cream cheese 

filling - put into fridge, 

pack up plates 

- silverware - oohh, placecards - I can use those for labeling the goods!

11:00: go to bed - try to sleep. I hope I don't miss my early alarm.

3:30am: pull buns out of fridge onto the counter to come up to room temp. Go back to sleep. I love baking. 

6:30am: put still-cool buns into cold oven, turn on to 350. Buns RISE during the prehe

ating - it worked! I LOVE BAKING.

7:10: Condo smells GREAT. Timer has not gone off, but it smells too good... SH**

7:11: pull out rolls, throw away the edges that got burned on the bottom. Quick - remove from

 pans to help stop the cooking. Smear with frosting to help keep buns soft. Place in gift boxes lined with parchment (easier to throw away at work than a rubbermaid).

7:35: throw hair up, make-up on - late for work!

8:35: People are eating. Did you actually make this? This is the best breakfast we have ever had. THANK YOU.

Fav Things: SCOOPS

Stainless Steel Spring-Loaded Scoop
$12-$18

The scoop comes in many sizes. I have 2 in my tool drawer - one small and one bigger. I used the bigger one to make some Banana Chocolate Chip muffins recently. You can squeeze the handles and it releases your dough very easily. It is a great way to ensure equal portions so your baking is complete at the same time!

Good uses: muffin batter, ice cream balls, chocolate truffles, cookie dough, sandwich filling (think pretty appetizers!)

What do you use your scoop for?
muffins for the office

Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins
adapted from epicurious.com

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
2/3 cup sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup mashed ripe bananas (about 2 large)
1 large egg
1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted
1/4 cup milk
1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup white chocolate chips
1/2 cup walnuts: chopped, toasted and cooled
* note: I freeze my bananas and put on defrost in the microwave for about 1 minute. great for this recipe!

Preheat oven to 350°F. Line twelve 1/3-cup muffin cups with foil muffin liners. Mix flour, sugar, baking powder and salt in large bowl. Mix mashed bananas, egg, melted butter and milk in medium bowl. FOLD banana mixture into dry ingredients just until blended (do not overmix). Stir in chocolate chips and walnuts.

Divide batter among prepared muffin cups, filling each about 3/4 full. Bake muffins until tops are pale golden and tester inserted into center comes out with some melted chocolate attached but no crumbs, about 32 minutes. Transfer muffins to rack; cool.