Pumpkin Bread – Mini Post #4

I made this bread using half pumpkin and half pureed sweet potato because it was what I had on hand.  This moist and sweet quick bread was delicious.  I’m sure it would be equally good with all pumpkin or with another winter squash substituted (I’ve also made breads with acorn and butternut squash). In my cookbook this recipe was labeled as “spiced” pumpkin bread, and while I thought the amount of spice was perfect I’d recommend increasing the spices if you want something with a more pronounced spice flavor.

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Cornmeal Cranberry Scones – Mini Post #1

Last week I started a new job where I’ll only be working 3 days per week.  In my additional free time I plan to do volunteer work, study for the GREs, and attempt some more challenging baking projects like croissants or homemade pretzels.  I’m looking forward to devoting more time to the blog.  Before I kick off what should be a banner year of holiday baking, I wanted to share some of the recipes that I’ve made over the past few months,  but haven’t gotten around to writing about.  For the next week I’ll put up a mini post each day or so with a picture, recipe, and a sentence or two with notes.

Cranberry Cornmeal Scones

Pat’s great aunt clipped this recipe for me from the newspaper.  It’s from Ocean Spray and as I was mixing the ingredients together I suspected the scones might be a bit dry.  I made a few on-the-fly changes and  I’ve posted my modified version below and highly recommend it.  They’re easy to make and have a pleasantly moist and crumbly texture.  Like all scones they’re best fresh from the oven, but the next day they still tasted quite good after warming in the microwave for 20 seconds.

2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup cornmeal
1/3 cup sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup 12 tbsp. (1.5 sticks) unsalted butter
2/3 cup milk 2/3 cup heavy cream
3/4 cup 1 cup dried cranberries

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400º F. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.

Combine flour, cornmeal, sugar, baking powder and salt in medium bowl and stir until mixed. Cut butter into flour mixture with a pastry blender until coarse crumbs form. Add cream and stir with fork just until a sticky dough forms. Gently stir dried cranberries into dough.

Turn the dough out onto a floured surface and knead gently about 10 times.  At first the dough will be quite crumbly, but it will come together as you need it.  Pat dough into a ½-inch thick circle.  Cut to dough into 8 triangles like a pizza.

Arrange triangles 1 inch apart on baking sheet.  Brush with an egg and sprinkle with a coarse sugar.
Bake 14 to 18 minutes or until golden brown.   (Mine took 18 minutes to cook). Serve warm or at room temperature.

Cinnamon Chip Muffins

Recently we had a new member join our team at work.  I really wanted to do something nice to welcome her and thought a basket of muffins had the perfect “welcome to the neighborhood” vibe.  The muffins also had the added benefits that they only used ingredients that I already had in the house and could be thrown together in 20 minutes, which made them ideal considering I had to bake them on a night I got home from work at 9 pm.

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Blueberry Lemon Scones

In honor of the upcoming Royal Wedding today’s topic is SCONES. My mother is a huge fan of them and often has one with her tea. (which makes us 1/8 English right? perhaps an invitation to the wedding eh Kate?) I was out visiting them one weekend and up early doing my usual pantry/frigeadaire raid when I spotted frozen blueberries, what’s a girl to do? Ideas flew through my head, blueberry muffins, blueberry pancakes, blueberry crumb cake. I did some’ google-ing’ and Baking Bites popped up with this recipe for Lemon Blueberry Scones. I figured this would be easy enough to prepare before my mother woke up Saturday morning. What better gift is there than waking up to the smell of freshly baked buttery scones! Sure to nudge my brother out of the favored child slot even if just for a few hours.

This recipe brings us back to my love of zesting. A microplane or zester is one simple tool even the novice baker can use to add pizazz to a confection. I bought one for my parents and they now regularly make blueberry pancakes w/added lemon zest — you CAN teach an old dog new tricks! If you’ve never had a scone you may be surprised. Scones are NOT supposed to be overly sweet. You’ll notice these call for a scant 1/4 cup of sugar in them which for most baked goods is an extremely small amount. A scone is more of a dry biscuit-y bread to be eaten with tea or clotted cream, perhaps while watching the BBC or perusing Great Expectations. This is no doughnut or cinnamon bun; scones are serious, proper, tight lipped and British! Don’t try giggling around a scone, they would not stand for it. Read the rest of this entry »

Upside-Down Caramel Apple Muffins

Last weekend a few friends and I trekked out to Wickham’s Fruit Farm on the North Fork of Long Island. The weather was beyond amazing and the apple picking was superb.

I have been picking apples at Wickham’s Fruit Farm for the past few years. The orchard has a fleet of tractor wagons that bring you out to the latest crop of apples. Mr. Wickham is there every year, for every wagon, to explain how to properly pick them and where the best fruit is. It’s one of my favorite fall traditions and no trip to LI in October is complete with out some fresh apples and hot cider donuts. I always pick the Mutsu apples for baking, Mr. Wickham recommends them because they aren’t overly sweet and their ability to maintain their shape in a pie. We took back two huge bags and they have been sitting in my kitchen for the last week anticipating their purpose in life. Luckily while scanning through NYTimes.com this recipe for Upside Down Caramel Apple Muffins caught my eye.  I haven’t had much experience with upside down desserts. I made a apple tart tatin a few years ago with great success and a upside down pineapple cake in a coffee can once at boy scouts with my brother, but that pretty much sums it up. I had everything I needed already at home except for the sour cream so I picked that up, but in general this recipe is great because it doesn’t call for any unusual ingredients.

When I first saw the finished product I was worried because the apples didn’t seem to stick and the muffin batter didn’t meld with the slices, it was more like an apple cake with slices on top. But after I served them at work flipped, they got rave reviews from all the happy taste testers.

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Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins

Sometimes I purposefully buy products I don’t want.  Recently I was in my local supermarket and asked the store manager for help finding pumpkin puree.  He took me to the aisle and pointed in the right direction.  When I still couldn’t find it I asked for his help again.  This time he brought me straight to the display rack and I found myself face to face with a can of pumpkin pie filling.  Not what I wanted.  After all the trouble he’d gone to on a very busy Sunday night I couldn’t bring myself to leave without buying it.  The problem is all of my favorite pumpkin recipes call for pumpkin puree and most of them say in big letters, “NOT PUMPKIN PIE FILLING.”  Since the pie filling is already sweetened and spiced it won’t give you the same result.

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‘McQuade’ Banana Bread

I am one of those people who hunts down brown bananas like it’s her job. I look for brown spottiness and mushiness, to me this is a positive trait in a banana because it means delicious banana-y baked goods. Once a banana has reached the dark brown-black mushiness I peel it, ziplock bag it, and freeze it. Once that bag has reached three or four mushy disgusting brown bananas… it is time for some serious banana bread making.

People are very protective of their banana bread recipes. My roommate Stef always recounts the sad tale of the recipe lost in the family move… that has yet to be replaced or recreated. Whenever I make banana bread in the apartment this story comes up again, and we always shed a tear over the bread that will never reach our lips.  This particular recipe I am sharing with all of you has been in my family since the age of 10.  It was published in our Otsego elementary school cookbook submitted by Pamela McQuade, a good friend of my brothers.  To this day we still refer to it as McQuade Banana Bread.

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