Category Archives: Breakfast/Brunch

January 27, 2012 · 11:56 am

Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins

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Looking for a banana muffin that is moist and full of banana flavor? This recipe (slightly adapted from Cook’s Illustrated) is your answer. It packs FIVE bananas into a single loaf of bread (or batch of 15-18 muffins).

I like bananas, but only if they are on the slightly green side. Once they are completely yellow or start to brown, I won’t touch them. I can push them on the kids for a little longer, but none of us are squishy banana fans. So I regularly have one or two bananas from a bunch that go “bad” before we eat them. So I peel and throw these overripe bananas into my freezer in Ziploc bags. Eventually those bags get to the bursting point, and I know I need to do some banana baking.

This recipe is one of our favorites. The bananas are cooked (in the microwave) until they are liquidy, and then the liquid is reduced to concentrate the banana flavor. You can add chocolate chips and/or chopped nuts to your liking.

The muffins also freeze nicely if you happen to have A LOT of bananas to use up and want to make multiple batches!

RECIPE:

Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins (or Bread)

Servings: 15-18
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1 ¾ cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
½ tsp salt
5 large very ripe bananas
½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly
2 large eggs
¾ cup light brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup chocolate chips
½ cup walnuts (optional)

Preheat oven to 350°F. Line muffin tins with 15-18 paper liners, or grease muffin tins.

In a large bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, and salt.

Place bananas in a microwave-safe bowl; cover with waxed paper. Microwave on high power until bananas are soft and have released liquid, about 5 minutes. Pour bananas into a strainer placed over a medium saucepan. Allow to drain, stirring occasionally, for 15 minutes. Set banana pulp aside.

Place the saucepan with the banana liquid over medium-high heat and cook until reduced to ¼ cup, about 5 minutes. Remove pan from heat and stir banana pulp into the reduced liquid. Mash with a potato masher or a fork until fairly smooth. Whisk in butter, eggs, brown sugar, and vanilla.

Pour banana mixture into flour mixture and stir until just combined. Gently fold in chocolate chips and walnuts, if using.

Pour batter into the prepared muffin tins. Bake for 15 minutes, or until toothpick comes out clean.

Makes 15-18 muffins

FOR BANANA BREAD: Spray a medium loaf pan with nonstick cooking spray. Pour batter into pan. Bake at 350°F for 55 to 70 minutes, or until toothpick comes out clean. Cool bread in pan on wire rack 15 minutes, then remove loaf from pan and continue to cool on a wire rack.

adapted from Cook’s Illustrated

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October 14, 2011 · 10:20 am

Pear Cardamom Bundt Cake with Lime Glaze

I love the smells of fall baking. That combination of fruits like apples and pears with heavily fragrant cinnamon, cardamom and other spices. This recipe makes a highly adaptable batter that can be made into a bundt cake, quick-bread loaves, or muffins. Or if your bundt pan is on the small side, like mine, a combination of both cake and muffins. Breakfast and dessert all in one shot!

The lime glaze provides a tart, but sweet contrast to the fragrant fall flavors in the pear cake.

I love cinnamon, but I don’t enjoy large amounts of nutmeg. Small amounts are fine, but I find that it can be very overpowering. One of my favorite fall spices to bake with is cardamom, and I will often swap out nutmeg in a recipe and replace it with cardamom. Cardamom is in the same family as ginger, but it is the seeds and pods that are ground and used for cooking, unlike the root with ginger. It is often used in Indian cooking, but is also a great compliment to cinnamon. It is a versatile spice that can be used in both sweet and savory cooking.

The recipe below makes enough batter for a 12-cup bundt pan. My bundt pan only holds 10 cups, so I use the recipe to make 6 muffins (measure these out first) and the smaller bundt cake. Without the glaze, the muffins make a great breakfast, and they bake up light and airy.

The pears in this recipe are very finely chopped, or grated. I use a food processor to chop them finely. Pear skins are very thin, so I leave those on. They are not noticeable at all in the baked goods.

RECIPE:

Pear Cardamom Bundt Cake with Lime Glaze

Cake:
3 medium pears
about ½ cup buttermilk, milk or plain yogurt (see recipe for exact amount)
¾ cup butter (1 ½ sticks), softened
1 ½ cups brown sugar
3 eggs, lightly beaten
2 tsp vanilla extract
3 cups flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
¼ tsp baking powder
2 tsp ground cinnamon
½ tsp ground cardamom
1 cup finely chopped walnuts or pecans

Lime Glaze, recipe below (optional)
—

Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease and flour desired pans: one 12-cup bundt pan; one 10-cup bundt pan plus 6 muffin cups; 2 loaf pans; or 24 muffin cups.

Core pears. Finely chop or grate unpeeled pears (I use a food processor) and place in a 2-cup measuring cup. Use a fork to slightly mash the pears (you should have about 1 ½ cups chopped, mashed pears). Add buttermilk to the pears to equal 2 cups. Set aside.

In a medium mixing bowl, beat butter and brown sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs and vanilla. Mix in pear/buttermilk mixture.

In a small bowl, combine flour, salt, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon and cardamom. Mix into pear batter just until combined. Fold in nuts. Pour batter into desired pans and bake as directed below.

FOR A 12 CUP BUNDT PAN: Bake for 50-60 minutes.

FOR A 10-CUP BUNDT PAN: First scoop batter into 6 muffin cups. Pour remaining batter into 10-cup bundt pan. Bake bundt for 35-45 minutes and muffins for 18-20 minutes.

FOR TWO LOAF PANS: Bake for 50-60 minutes.

FOR 24-26 MUFFINS: Bake for 18-20 minutes.

—

Lime Glaze (optional):
2 cups powdered sugar
2 Tbs heavy cream
1 Tbs lime juice
zest of one lime

Combine all glaze ingredients and mix until smooth. Add additional lime juice or cream until glaze can be drizzled over cake. Cool cake or loaves completely before drizzling with glaze.

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September 21, 2011 · 3:10 pm

Nutella (or Cinnamon) Swirled Buttermilk Coffee Cake

Nutella Swirled Coffee Cake

Last week we were swimming in coffee cake around here. Unfortunately, it was not the kind of swimming that helps trim inches off of my waistline. Good thing there were lots of hungry skinny children lurking around!

I was bringing breakfast to our seminary class on Friday, and wanted to try a new recipe, so I had to give it a test run at home earlier in the week. I ended up making quite a few changes to the original recipe, including swapping out the traditional cinnamon topping on one batch with one made from ooey, gooey chocolaty Nutella.

The first batches I made for home (shown in the pictures) used pecans, but I used walnuts the second time around for our class. I preferred the walnuts, but I almost always prefer walnuts over pecans, so choose whichever nut you prefer. Both the cinnamon and Nutella topped varieties were really good. The cake part was moist and light, and just slightly tangy from using buttermilk.

Cinnamon Streusel Coffee Cake

To distribute the chocolaty/cinnamony goodness throughout the cake, I layered half of the batter in the pan, added half of the topping, then repeated the layers. The Nutella topping was very sticky; it was easiest to just use my fingers to drop small amounts onto the batter. It melts nicely into the cake while cooking.For an extra dose of chocolate, sprinkle some chocolate chips (not shown in this picture) on top of the Nutella layers.

The cinnamon topping is crumbly and can be sprinkled easily.

I split the batter and made one of each variety in two 8×8” square pans, instead of one large 9×13” pan. Just an FYI: the full batch that I made later in a standard 9×13” pan rose right to the top edge of the pan when baked, so be sure to use a pan that doesn’t have low sides!

The only down-side of this recipe is that it uses a lot of mixing bowls (four!), but the end result is definitely worth an extra run of the dishwasher.

Recipe:

Buttermilk Coffee Cake

Servings: 12-15
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3 cups flour
4 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt

3 egg whites, beaten until stiff

1 ½ cups buttermilk
1 tsp vanilla extract

¾ cup butter (1-½ sticks), softened
1 ½ cups sugar

Nutella Swirl or Cinnamon Streusel Topping

Preheat oven to 350°F. Prepare topping in a small bowl; set aside.(Choose your topping below for a 9×13” cake, or make one of each in two 8×8” pans, halving topping amounts)

Sift together flour, baking powder, and salt; set aside. Beat egg whites until stiff; set aside. Stir vanilla into buttermilk. In a separate bowl, cream butter and sugar with a mixer. Add flour mixture and buttermilk alternately until barely combined. Beat just until flour is incorporated; do not overmix. Using a rubber spatula, fold in beaten egg whites.

Spread half of the batter in a well-greased 9 x 13” baking pan (I used baking spray with flour). Sprinkle with half of the topping. Spread remaining batter into pan; sprinkle with remaining topping.

Bake for 40-45 minutes, or until center is set.
_____

NUTELLA SWIRL TOPPING:

¾ cup butter (1-½ sticks), softened
¾ cup Nutella
½ cup flour
½ cup brown sugar
1 scant tsp cinnamon
1 cup chopped walnuts or pecans
½ cup chocolate chips

Mix together all ingredients, except chocolate chips. Mixture will be sticky. Using your fingers, drop small amounts of Nutella filling onto first layer of batter. Sprinkle with half of the chocolate chips. Repeat layers.

CINNAMON STREUSEL TOPPING:

½ cup cold butter (1 stick)
½ cup flour
1 cup brown sugar
1 ½ Tbs cinnamon
1 cup chopped walnuts or pecans

Mix together all ingredients, except nuts, using a pastry cutter or two knifes until crumbly. Stir in nuts. Sprinkle half of topping onto first layer of batter. Repeat layers.

Recipe adapted from Pioneer Woman

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June 7, 2011 · 9:48 am

Strawberry Nutella Muffins

After bringing these muffins to our early morning seminary class, I have had several requests for the recipe. So I am going to take a break from days full of never-ending weeding in my yard and nights full of endless softball games to share them with you. Strawberries are just beginning to arrive at the farmers markets and pick-your-own farms here in western PA, so it is a perfect time to make these muffins. And everything tastes better with a little Nutella swirled in!

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I found this recipe on Two Peas & Their Pod, and just couldn’t resist making them. The only changes that I made to the recipe were to add more strawberries than called for, and probably more Nutella. I didn’t actually measure the Nutella; I just scooped it out of the jar to put in the center of the muffins.

As with most muffin batters, to keep them from being dry and dense, you do not want to overstir the batter. There should still be some streaks of flour in the batter.

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Fill the muffin cups halfway with batter. Place a dollop (about a tablespoon: I just used a soup spoon straight from the jar) of Nutella on the batter. You do not need to spread it around. Nutella can be kind of thick at room temperature. I warmed the Nutella first in the microwave for about 30 seconds. This made it really easy to drizzle the Nutella from a spoon onto the batter. My jar was almost empty, so I just heated the Nutella in the jar. If you are only using part of your jar, you might want to spoon some into a small bowl before heating it.

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Top with another scoop of batter, until the muffin cups are about 3/4 full. Sprinkle with Turbinado sugar. This is a coarse raw sugar. You could use regular sugar if you don’t have it, but turbinado sugar does make a nice crystally (I’m sure that’s not a real word, but it should be) crust.

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These are best served warm while the Nutella is soft and gooey.

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Here is the original recipe from Maria, with my notes at the end on the slight changes that I made.

RECIPE:

Strawberry Nutella Muffins

Servings: 9-12
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1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking powder
½ cup sugar
¼ cup canola oil
1 large egg
1/3 cup buttermilk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup chopped fresh strawberries
1/3 cup Nutella
Turbinado sugar, for sprinkling on top of muffins

1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Line a muffin tin with paper liners or grease well. Set aside.

2. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, salt, baking powder, and sugar.

3. In a small bowl, combine canola oil, egg, buttermilk, and vanilla. Use a fork or whisk and mix until well combined.

5. Incorporate the wet ingredients into flour mixture. Add slowly and gently stir, you don’t want to over mix. The batter will be thick. Carefully fold in the strawberries.

6. Fill each muffin cup half way with batter. Next, add a small spoonful of Nutella to each muffin cup. Cover the Nutella filling with the remaining batter. Sprinkle each muffin with turbinado sugar.

7. Bake muffins for 17-20 minutes, or until muffins are golden brown and a toothpick comes out clean. Remove the muffins from the pan and let cool on a cooling rack.

Makes 9 muffins

Kelly’s notes: I used coconut oil instead of canola oil. I didn’t measure the Nutella, I just used a spoon and scooped straight from the jar, but I probably used a little more than 1/3 cup. I heated the Nutella for about 30 seconds in the microwave before using (to make for easier drizzling). I also used more strawberries than called for (about 1 ¼ – 1 ½ cups). I ended up with 12 muffins, and I needed to bake mine for 23 minutes before they were cooked through.

Recipe from Two Peas & Their Pod

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Tagged as bread, breakfast, buttermilk, dessert, fruit, muffins, Nutella, recipe, strawberries, swirled muffins, Turbinado sugar

June 1, 2011 · 8:22 pm

Triple Berry Syrup

Servings: Makes 3 cups
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4 cups mixed frozen berries
1/3 cup raspberry jam (I used this homemade Raspberry Nectarine Jam)
¼ cup sugar
¼ cup water
½ Tbs cornstarch

Combine berries, jam and sugar in a saucepan. Mix together water and cornstarch and mix into berries in pan. Over medium heat, cook sauce until thickened and just barely beginning to boil. Serve warm or cold. Refrigerate leftovers. Serve over Waffles, Pancakes, Cheesecake, Ice Cream

Makes about 3 cups syrup

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May 30, 2011 · 8:15 pm

Homemade Maple Syrup

2 cups granulated sugar
¼ cup packed light or dark brown sugar
2 Tbs honey or corn syrup (dark or light)
1 cup water
1 tsp pure maple extract
1 tsp pure vanilla extract

In a large 5-6 quart pot, combine the sugars, honey and water. Bring the mixture to a boil and reduce the heat to low so the mixture gently simmers. Cover the pot and simmer the mixture for 15 minutes. Remove the pot from the heat and let it cool for 5 minutes before stirring in the maple and vanilla extracts. Pour the hot syrup into a mason jar and immediately seal with lid and ring. As it cools the jar seals. Store unrefrigerated for 1-2 weeks, or in the refrigerator for up to 2 months. Reheat before serving, if desired.

Makes about 2 ½ cups

Recipe adapted from Mel’s Kitchen Cafe

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