Muffin Mondays: Cranberry Vanilla Muffins

I'm a big believer in breakfast, lunch, and dinner (I won't even mention dessert, but that's another meal I believe in). Dinner isn't usually an issue, there are so many recipes to try that it's likely I'll never get through all of them. Breakfast is a different story. I'm a pretty picky breakfast eater. I don't like eggs for breakfast, nor pancakes, waffles and such. I generally like my breakfast to consist of some cross of carb and coffee. Once the weather turns the slightest bit cool, I move from cereal and smoothies to oatmeal with Greek yogurt and fruit. The trouble is, I eat that breakfast daily starting in October, and by the middle of January, when it's really cold, I'm sick and tired of it. I ate toast with butter and jam for a bit, and then I started in on the muffins. I'm a huge fan of muffins for breakfast because they're something that I can make on Saturday mornings and enjoy all week long. They're portable, there are infinite possibilities for muffin creations, and they're lovely with your (my) morning cup o' joe (or even tea or OJ). I've been on such a muffin kick that I decided it'd be fun to post them here on the Singleton. And, because I'm a suck for alliteration, I decided that it's only fitting that muffins be posted on Mondays.

 

The recipe for these muffins comes from a cookbook called Cold Weather Cooking by Sarah Leah Chase. I don't know how I found out about this cookbook, but I know that I purchased it used off of Amazon for about $1 right after I moved to DC. I've looked at the book quite a bit, but this was my first time using a recipe out of it. I don't know what's going on around the country or the world, but in DC we're digging out from a serious snowfall, and the title of this book seemed very apt for my weekend muffins.

These flavor base for this recipe is a vanilla sugar made by processing 1 cup of sugar with 1/2 of a vanilla bean. I almost skipped the vanilla bean because it seems like a pretty pricey ingredient for my morning breakfast, but then I decided to go ahead with it. The vanilla sugar was fabulous, but I do think I'll try this again with vanilla extract in place of the vanilla bean. The only change I made to the recipe was to replace half of the butter with an equal amount of Greek yogurt. I do this almost every time I make muffins, and I've never had a bad result. I used 1% milk in place of the whole milk and I think that there wasn't a noticeable difference. The real reason I decided to make these muffins is because the recipe calls for fresh cranberries. I love fresh cranberries in baked goods, and any time I see them on the ingredient list it amps up my interest in a recipe. 

 

The verdict on these muffins? They are absolutely delightful. I just loved every single aspect of these little goodies, from the light fluffy texture to the contrast of the sweet batter and the tart bits of fresh cranberry. The topping is a nutmeg sugar topping and I had my doubts about adding nutmeg to this flavor combination but it works. Of all the baking spices, nutmeg is really far down on my list, but I liked the way the flavor of the nutmeg enhanced these muffins. They're red and white and a perfect addition to any Valentine's breakfast or brunch.

Cranberry-Vanilla Muffins

Cold Weather Cooking by Sarah Leah Chase

Ingredients

Batter:

1/2 vanilla bean, cut into small pieces

1 cup sugar

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter (I used 4 tbsp unsalted butter and 4 tbsp nonfat Greek yogurt)

2 large eggs

2 cups unbleached, all purpuse flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup milk

2 1/2 cups fresh cranberries, coarsely chopped

Topping

2 tablespoons sugar

1/2 teaspoon grated nutmeg

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Line 12-14 muffin cups with paper liners.

2. Prepare the batter:  Place the vanilla bean and sugar in a blender or food processor and process until the vanilla bean is ground into tiny flecks.

3. Using an electric mixer, cream the vanilla sugar with the butter in a mixing bowl until smooth. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.

4. Mix together the flour, baking powder, and salt. Add the dry ingredients to the creamed mixture alternately with the milk, mixing until smooth and fluffy. Fold in the cranberries. 

5. Divide the batter between the muffin cups, filling each one almost full. Mix together the sugar and the nutmeg for the topping and sprinkle generously over the muffins. Bake until puffed, light golden brown, and a toothpick inserted in the center of a muffin comes out clean, about 25 minutes. Serve the muffins warm or at room temperature. 

Makes 12-14 muffins (I got 12 muffins from my batch).

For a printable version of this recipe, click here.

TWD: Milk Chocolate Mini Cakes

Happy Groundhog Day! It's snowing outside of my window as I'm writing this post, and this morning Punxsutawny Phil saw his shadow. You know what that means, right? My thin-blooded Texan self is in for another 6 weeks of winter. I want warmer weather so badly I feel sort of like a junkie right now. I need some serious heat and sunshine in my life. In the meantime, I think that the heat around here is going to come from my oven because one thing that cold weather is good for is baking!

Baking is always fun, but it's great in the winter when the house is already cold and you don't have to worry about excessive kitchen heat. To help direct my baking fix, this week's TWD is milk chocolate mini bundt cakes. Now, I have a lot of kitchen gear devoted to minis because when you're a singleton, mini is often the name of the game. I do not, however, have mini bunt pans so I made mine in muffin tins. I thought that the cake batter was reasonably easy to mix together, but I did notice that it was very, very stiff and heavy (I'll attribute that to the 7 oz of melted milk chocolate in the batter). I left out the swirl because it just didn't appeal to me, and I added mini chocolate chips instead. I got 10 muffin size cakes out of this recipe, but I could easily have gotten 11 or 12 -- my cakes rose very high and nearly overflowed! These little cakes were delicate, and about 3 of them broke as I flipped them out. I was kind of concerned about making this recipe in muffin tins simply because it doesn't have the hole in the center and I wasn't sure how that would work out as far as cooking all the way through. I did have to bake my cakes about 10 minutes longer, but other than that the transition was seriously easy. 

Now, let's talk about the glaze. Or should I say chocolate tar? This was some serious tar -- I accidentally got some on my pants and I really feel like I need a can of WD-40 to get it out. I used high quality bittersweet chocolate. It was melted and smooth and I added the corn syrup and, so far, so good. And then, it just got really thick. It didn't exactly seize, but boy howdy, it was so thick. Thick like taffy, so thick that I really had to manipulate my "glaze" to even attempt to have it artfully drip down the sides of my cake. Thick like tar, really. 

 

These are some seriously tasty cakes, even with the chocolate tar on top. I tried to ask Dudley what he thought of the cakes while he was eating one, and I could just tell that the glaze was really impeding his ability to chew, let alone speak. The glaze just sort of stuck to everything in your mouth and it was really difficult to consume. I ended up eating around the glaze, but Dudley seemed to enjoy the whole kit-n-kaboodle. I absolutely loved the cake part -- it was chocolatey and moist and delicious. The milk chocolate that I used is Endangered Species and it has a 52% cocoa content, which I think might be part of the reason that I could really taste the chocolate. Thank you, Kristin, for choosing this recipe! I will definitely make the cakes again. As for the glaze, I'm sure it was user error, but I think next time I might just leave them plain or try ganache. If you'd like the recipe, you can check pgs 188-189 of the book or visit Kristin's blog, I'm Right About Everything.

BaBa's Cheese Bread

Shortly before Christmas I was contacted about a wonderful project called A Blending of Bittersweet Memories. This is a cookbook project “dedicated and designed to share stories of people that have lost loved ones, the lessons they’ve learned, and the food and recipes of those that have passed on.” Food is so closely tied to the memories of loved ones in my life, and I was immediately taken with what I think is a wonderful project. I would encourage anyone who is interested to visit the Bittersweet Memories website and submit your own memory and recipe.

One of my earliest kitchen memories is helping my great grandmother, BaBa, make cheese bread and cinnamon rolls. BaBa lived in the tiny town she was born in, Miami, Arizona, but she would come to Houston every year for Thanksgiving or Christmas. I have so many wonderful memories of BaBa, but oddly enough my favorite memory doesn’t belong to me but to my mom’s two youngest sisters, Jennifer and Suzy. You see, BaBa and Grandpa Jimmy would drive from Miami to Houston, and Jennifer and Suzy would wait for hours (at least in their version of the story!) in the front yard waiting to see their car heading towards my grandparents’ house. I love that story because it sums up the excitement that I think everyone felt when we knew that BaBa was coming to visit.

It wasn’t long after BaBa would arrive in Houston that she was in the kitchen cooking and baking, and I think one of the first things that she made was always a big batch of cinnamon rolls and several loaves of cheese bread. She would make one huge batch of dough that would eventually become both cinnamon rolls and cheese bread. I remember standing in the kitchen with her and helping her kneed the dough for what seemed like forever, and I vividly remember the transformation of the dough from a sloppy mess of yeast, liquid, and flour to a silky smooth dough. We’d set the dough aside to rise with a clean cotton towel covering it, and like magic, when we came back it would fill the bowl to the top. BaBa always let me punch down the dough, and then the real fun could begin. The dough was split in two. Half was rolled out and sprinkled with lots of cinnamon and sugar, and the other half was rolled out and spread with a cheese and egg mixture. After another rise, the bread went in the oven, and soon the house was filled with the smell of fresh bread.

Making bread with BaBa taught me how soothing bread making can be. When I think back on it, I’m amazed at her patience. Having a small child in the kitchen was bound to slow her down, and I remember spilling my fair share of flour, but she was infinitely patient with me. As we made and baked the bread she would tell me stories, and our time in the kitchen created a bond stronger than our blood ties. In making bread with BaBa, I shared a part of who she was. To this day I don’t stick my hands in a bowl of dough without thinking about her, and the smell of fresh baked bread brings her face to my mind. BaBa died when I was a sophomore in high school, but she is always with me in my kitchen.

On days when warmth is the most important need of the human heart, the kitchen is the place you can find it; it dries the wet sock, it cools the hot little brain.
--  E.B. White

BaBa’s Cheese Bread
Note:  I don’t have the recipe for BaBa’s cheese bread. To the best of my knowledge, she kept the recipe in her head. The following is a recipe that I’ve worked on and tweaked, and while it’s not an exact replica, I think it’s fairly close. I have no idea why there’s an egg beaten into the cheese, but that’s the way BaBa did it, and I’m loathe to change the one thing that I remember so vividly.

1 1/2 cups water
1/2 cup buttermilk (you can substitute regular milk if you like)
5 cups bread flour
1/4 cup granulated sugar
2 tablespoons butter melted and cooled
Two 1/4-ounce packages instant yeast (I use SAF instant yeast. If your yeast is in bulk like mine is, then 2 ¼ tsp = 1 package)
1 tablespoon salt
3 cups coarsely grated cheese (BaBa used cheddar. I use cheddar or sometimes Pepper Jack. I've also been known to get a little over zealous with the cheese.)
1 egg
optional:  pinch cayenne pepper, fresh black pepper, or chopped fresh herbs

1. In a 2 quart saucepan, heat the water and the buttermilk over medium low heat to 105°F - 115°F.
2. In a large combine the buttermilk mixture, flour, sugar, butter, yeast, and salt. Using a wooden spoon or your hands (BaBa always made bread exclusively with her hands) combine the ingredients into a shaggy, but cohesive ball of dough. Remove dough from the bowl the a clean countertop dusted with flour and knead until silky smooth, about 10 minutes. (Note:  this step can be done from start to finish in a stand mixer with a dough hook if you like. Knead the dough with the dough hook for 5-7 minutes.)
3. Form the smooth dough into a ball and place in an oiled or buttered bowl. Make sure the dough is covered with oil or softened butter on all sides. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap or a clean cotton towel and set aside to rise until doubled in bulk (about 1 hour depending on how warm your kitchen is).
4. When the dough has doubled in size, punch it down to degas and remove it from the bowl to the counter. Divide the dough into two equal portions. Roll each portion of the dough into a rectangle (I generally shoot for 8” x 10” or so). If the dough is difficult to roll, you can let it rest for 5 minutes and then roll it out.
5. In a bowl, beat one egg. With a rubber spatula, fold the grated cheese into the beaten egg. If you like, you can flavor the cheese egg mixture with herbs or pepper.NB: If you want your bread to be even cheesier, you can add extra shredded cheese, as I have been known to do on occasion.
6. Spread the 1/2 of cheese mixture over each rectangle of dough, leaving a 1” border on all sides. Roll the dough into a spiral from the short (8”) side of the rectangle. When the dough is rolled into a spiral loaf, carefully pinch all of the seams of the dough together to prevent any cheese from seeping out.
5. Lightly grease 2 - 81/2 inch by 4 1/2 inch loaf pans Transfer the dough to the prepared pans Put the pans in a warm place, cover with a towel, and let rise about one hour, or until doubled in size. (I like to grate a little extra shredded cheese over the top of my loaves. If you want to do this, add the grated cheese to the top just before you put the loaves in the oven.)
6. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Bake for 30-35 minutes, or until golden brown. If you feel that the bread is getting too brown on the top, you can tent it with aluminum foil after about 15 minutes. It’s VERY important to let the bread cook, otherwise the cheese spiral in the bread will collapse (this has happened to me many times). Turn the loaves out of the pans onto a rack to cool. The bread needs to cool completely before slicing, otherwise the cheese will ooze out (this has also happened to me many times. It’s still very tasty, though).