Strawberry Cupcakes: Recipe

I have a cupcake confession. I made a LOT of cupcakes in order to get this recipe right. I ate cupcakes, fed them to Lee and even delivered them to friends. I have my sister to thank for testing the recipe who declared them a success with not only adults but kids. It happily passed the test with cupcake eaters from age 4 to 45 (but I'm fairly certain those over 45 will enjoy them too).

What did I learn from my cupcake trials and tribulations? I learned that by adding a little chopped fresh strawberry you get a lot of strawberry flavor. Baking with yogurt allows you to use less sugar and less butter and still get a sweet tender cupcake. It's not the healthiest cupcake in the world, but it's not too bad either. Once a cupcake gets too healthy it's nothing more than a muffin. I also learned that one person can only eat so many cupcakes before screaming "uncle".

Cupcakes are fun to make, to share and to eat. Cupcakes are not particularly fun to photograph. Unhappy with my first attempts, I turned to the world of pop art. My inspiration for this photo were the cake paintings by California artist Wayne Thiebaud. Eat them or just gaze longingly at them, I hope you enjoy them!

Strawberry Cupcakes

1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) unsalted butter
1 large egg
6 ounces Dannon® All Natural Vanilla Lowfat Yogurt (or any other fruit flavor of yogurt)
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. kosher salt
1/4 tsp. baking soda
1/2 cup fresh strawberries, diced

Frosting:
2 Tbsp. butter, softened
1 cup powdered sugar
2 fresh strawberries, about 2 Tbsp. mashed

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a muffin tin with paper liners. With an electric hand mixer, beat the sugar and butter until light and fluffy. Add the egg, Dannon® All Natural Vanilla Lowfat Yogurt and vanilla, blending until smooth.

2. Measure the dry ingredients into the bowl and blend, then fold in the strawberries.

3. Divide the mixture equally between the 12 paper-lined cupcake cups. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until cake tester comes out clean.

4. Beat together butter, powdered sugar, and mashed strawberry in medium-size bowl until creamy and smooth. Chill frosting for 15 minutes or until thick. Frost cupcakes with a spatula. Keep cupcakes in the refrigerator loosely covered.
Yield: 12 servings

Enjoy!

READ MORE Over at the Dannon Kitchen is my post on Mother's Day.

FOOD + YOGURT + CUPCAKES

Cranberry Coffee Cake: Recipe

You know it's Fall when fresh cranberries appear in the supermarket. I always buy a few extra packages and throw them in the freezer. One more culinary confession? I still have a package left from last year! Ok, I'm not sure exactly when I bought them, but it wasn't in the past couple of months so I can only assume...

Cranberries are grown in bogs in the Massachusetts, Wisconsin, Washington State and Oregon. Native Americans were using cranberries when the pilgrims arrived here--they cooked with them, used them to dye fabric and even used them as medicine. Cranberries are most commonly used in sauce served with turkey at Thanksgiving but the introduction of dried cranberries has made them more popular year round. They are tangy and filled with vitamin C. Fresh cranberries freeze very well, though I suggest not waiting a whole year to use them!

With the weather cooling down, it's a perfect time of year to bake a coffee cake. This one is not too sweet and has a lovely cranberry stripe through it. I baked it in a bundt pan, but you could also use a springform pan if you like.

Cranberry Coffee Cake

2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter
1 1/4 cup sugar, divided
3 eggs
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
3/4 cup sour cream
2 cups cranberries (fresh or frozen)

Spray or butter a bundt pan or 8 inch springform pan. Chop the cranberries coarsely and add 1/4 cup of sugar. Set aside. In a small bowl whisk together to combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and cinnamon. Set aside.

In a large mixing bowl cream together the butter and one cup of sugar until fluffy, using an electric mixer. Add the eggs one at a time, beating together the mixture after each addition. Add the sour cream and vanilla and mix. Add the dry ingredients and mix thoroughly. Place have the batter in the pan then place the cranberries on top of the batter, leaving a little space between the berries and the side of the pan. Spread the remaining batter evenly over the top of the berries.

Bake at 350 degree for 50 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.

Enjoy!

Black Russian Bundt Cake:Recipe

Holiday party season started officially last weekend. We had so many events to go to we needed most of the week to recover. This weekend was much the same. One of the best events last weekend was a tree-trimming open house at Elizabeth's house in Palo Alto.

Elizabeth is a managing editor at Weldon Owen, a publishing house that is responsible for the Williams-Sonoma series of cookbooks among other things. While Elizabeth doesn't work on cookbooks (at least not yet!) she is a terrific home baker. The spread of baked goodies she prepared looked bakery beautiful and I felt a personal responsibility as her friend to try absolutely everything. That's just the kind of friend I am.

The biggest hit was the Black Russian cake. You may know about doctoring cake mixes, and you may have even heard of adding Kahlua to a cake, but the vodka in this cake really gives it a holiday kick! Elizabeth not only came up with the recipe (after doing much research online) but she chose to make the cakes in very pretty mini bundt pans (see photo above this post). You could just as easily make this in a large bundt pan or as sinful cupcakes...

Black Russian Bundt Cake

Cake:
1 package plain devil's food cake mix, without pudding
1 three-ounce package instant chocolate pudding mix
1/2 cup Kahlua
1/4 cup vodka
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup vegetable oil
4 large eggs (room temperature)

Glaze:
1 cup sifted confectioners' sugar
1/8-1/4 cup Kahlua

--Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
--Lightly grease (Crisco) and flour a 12-cup bundt pan.
--Combine cake mix, pudding mix, Kahlua, vodka, water, oil, and eggs in a large mixing bowl. Beat for three minutes with an electric mixer. (Scrape sides of bowl halfway through.)
--Pour batter in the pan and bake for 45 minutes or until done.
--Cool 10 minutes and transfer to a plate.

--For glaze, add Kahlua to the confectioners sugar until honey-like consistency (you can use a fork to mix it).
--Drizzle glaze over cake.

Note: For mini bundt cakes, adjust cooking time to about 25 minutes (check with toothpick, cake tester, or--Elizabeth's usual fallback--spaghetti for doneness).

Blackberry Pecan Crisp:Recipe

When I was growing up I knew all the best places to pick blackberries within walking distance of my house. Wild blackberries are relatives of the rose, and like rose bushes, blackberry bushes or brambles have thorns making the prize difficult to reach. But so worth the effort. I had a basic formula that I kept to back then--one berry for me, one for the bucket, another one for me, another one for the bucket. Somehow eating them while picking them, they tasted even better than when eaten at home. Of course it also lead to purple stained tongue and fingers as evidence of my consumption.

When asked what my favorite fruit is, I usually say raspberries or peaches but in truth, I probably love blackberries most of all. Because they are in season for such a short time and are usually terribly expensive, they seem like rare jewels and I tend to forget about them. Until they're in season again. Such an intense fruit and so delicate too, they are best used immediately. If stored gently preferably in a single layer, they can be kept in the fridge for a couple of days or frozen. In addition to being delicious, blackberries are a good source of vitamins A and C and also provide vitamin E and minerals such as magnesium, phosphorus, selenium and zinc.

I like blackberries mixed with other fruit, they combine well with all other berries or with peaches. Last week my friend Alton brought me several containers of blackberries from his cabin in the woods. In asking around for a great blackberry recipe I was given one that originally came from Nanci Main of The Ark Restaurant in Washington State. I modified her recipe greatly and this is the result.

Blackberry Pecan Crisp
Serves 4

3 cups fresh blackberries
1 Tablespoon flour
1 1/2 teaspoon butter in bits

1/4 cup old fashioned oatmeal
3 Tablespoons flour
pinch salt
2 Tablespoons brown sugar
2 Tablespoons white sugar
3 Tablespoons melted butter
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup coarsely chopped pecans

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Gently toss blackberries in flour. Put in shallow pyrex baking dish. Dot with butter. Combine all dry ingredients and pecans in a mixing bowl. Add melted butter and vanilla all at once. Spread crumbly topping over the fruit and bake for 15-20 minutes or until crispy and brown on top. Serve warm with vanilla ice cream.

Enjoy!

Cinnamon Balls: Recipe

Oh the trials and tribulations that come with spending holidays with the family! Will they never cease? The trials and tribulations that is. With so many relatives around it's easiest to just go with the flow. This year due to some changes in plans, it looks like Lee and I will be celebrating Passover three times. Oh joy! Lee loves the holiday so it's no big deal for him. And actually we will be spending the first night together just the two of us which will be a first in our five years of marriage.

A first time celebrating the first night of Passover means I can try a bunch of new recipes. New to me anyway. I have a couple of books I am eager to try out. One is Jewish Food: The World at Table and the other is The Healthy Jewish Cookbook. Both books have tons of exotic recipes that will allow me to wipe out the memories of the Jewish food I loathe most--gefilte fish. Neither book has a Passover section, so I will delve into each book to find recipes that fit the specific holiday requirements (no leavening including anything that contains barley, wheat, rye, oats, or spelt) And perhaps this year I will actually keep kosher for the entire week of Passover. We'll see.

I'm always looking for a delicious Passover dessert recipe, Cinnamon Balls are a perfect fit and also use up that bag of almond meal I've been wondering what I was going to do with... This recipe is getting a trial run this week and then it will premier at three Passover seders. If anyone tries it before I do, please report back.

This recipe reprinted from The Healthy Jewish Cookbook courtesy of Frog, Ltd. North Atlantic Books

Cinnamon Balls
serves 4-6

3 egg whites
1 heaping tablespoon ground cinnamon
5 ounces ground almonds (about 1 2/3 cups)
7 ounces brown sugar (about 1 cup)
Rice flour, for dusting (or powdered sugar)

Method
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Beat the egg whites until very stiff. Add the cinnamon, almonds and sugar and mix well. Roll the mixture into balls about the size of a large plum, set on a greased cookie sheet and bake until set--about 20 minutes. Dust with rice flour before setting aside to cool.

RECIPE UPDATE!
I made this recipe tonight and the egg whites have to be beaten until stiff and dry.

I don't know what "large plum" size is, but I made them using a tablespoon and they were a bit too big. I think a teaspoon would be better.

Also don't roll them, just lightly shape them, a rough surface is more attractive on the finished cookie.

Finally tablespoon size cookies made 23, way more than enough for 4-6 servings! I'll try again with a teaspoon and report back.

For a more detailed review of The Healthy Jewish Cookbook and a recipe for Orange Olive Salad, check out my post at Bay Area Bites.

FOOD + JEWISH

Chocolate Fondue:Recipe

Lee's biggest complaint regarding my cooking is that I "never repeat", meaning I never make the same thing twice. Which isn't true of course, but I know what he means. I'm always looking to improve upon recipes and try something new. So for Valentine's Day I let him choose the menu, something new or a repeat of an old favorite.

For celebratory meals it seems eating in is at least as romantic as eating out, maybe more. And with a few possible exceptions, no matter what ingredients you buy, you'll be hard pressed to spend more than you would dining out. One year I even made platters of seafood--oysters on the half shell, poached shrimp, mussels, smoked salmon, etc. But the biggest hit was the time I made cheese fondue followed by chocolate fondue. So after deciding we'd rather do Valentine's Day dinner at home this year, Lee expressed his desire for "Fondue x 2", which is our menu du jour.

While making cheese fondue can be tricky, making chocolate fondue is practically foolproof and can be whipped up at a moment's notice. Even if you do end up going out for dinner tonight, I highly recommend coming home for this dessert. It's tres romantique. It would also be a lot of fun for kids. There are lots of recipes around for chocolate fondue, but this one is the easiest. I found a version of it in Michael Bauer's The Secret of Success Cookbook, which is a terrific book, by the way. Whatever way you celebrate, have a wonderful Valentine's Day!

Chocolate Fondue
Serves 4
1/2 cup of heavy cream
8 ounces of the best quality dark chocolate, broken into small pieces
A couple tablespoons of liquor, optional

Heat the cream gently, take it off the heat when it gets hot, then add the chocolate and leave it alone for a couple of minutes to let the chocolate melt. Then whisk in the liquor and voila! chocolate fondue. The choice of liquor is up to you--Grand Marnier, Kirsch, Kahlua, whatever you like.

As far as equipment goes, you will need a fondue pot or a butter warmer to keep the chocolate the perfect consistency for dipping. What you use to dip is up to you but I like cookies or pound cake, banana chunks and raspberries.

Enjoy!

Chocolate Chunk Cookies: Recipe

Is there a cookie more American than the chocolate chip cookie? I can't think of one. It was invented in Massachusetts after all. There certainly can't be a more popular cookie. I recently read that 80% of all cookies baked in American homes are of the chocolate chip variety.

Like so many before me, I've been on the quest for the perfect chocolate chip cookie recipe. I think the sheer variety of recipes signifies one of the many reasons chocolate chip cookies are so appealing to Americans. They are really all about individuality and an expression of personal cookie preferences. After trying many recipes, I decided to develop my own. I used a bit of oatmeal for texture, a bit of molasses for chewiness, walnuts for crunch and some chocolate bars broken into chunks instead of chips. No matter how good your chips are, it's tough to beat chunks of a high-quality chocolate bar. You end up with a cookie flavored with whatever flavor the chocolate bar was, my batch today was mocha chip.

Breaking up a chocolate bar into chunks is good fun. I've been watching Nigella Lawson's latest cooking show on TV and it seems in every episode she finds a reason to bash something with a rolling pin. She makes it look so satisfying and you know what? It is! So is the smell of these cookies fresh out of the oven. Yum.

Chocolate Chunk Cookies
makes about 20 large cookies

1/4 Cup oatmeal
1 1/4 Cup flour
1/2 teaspoon soda
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 Cup sugar
1 stick butter, softened
2 Tablespoons molasses
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 egg
4 ounces chocolate bar (broken into chunks with a rolling pin)
1/2 Cup chopped walnuts

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In the food processor whirl the oatmeal for 10 seconds. Add the flour, soda, baking powder and salt and whirl to combine. Move dry ingredients to a large mixing bowl.

Cream the butter and sugar in the food processor. When light and fluffy, add the molasses, vanilla and egg. Blend for a few seconds. Dump the dry ingredients back in the bowl and pulse to combine. Put the dough into the mixing bowl and fold in the chocolate and walnuts.

Divide dough into tablespoon sized balls and place on a parchment-lined baking sheet, leaving about 2 inches between each ball as the cookies will spread while baking.
Bake for about 10-12 minutes or until golden but still soft. Cookies will firm as they cool. Cool for about 2-3 minutes on the baking sheet, then remove to a wire rack to cool completely.

Enjoy!

FOOD