Big Crumb Rhubarb Coffee Cake

rhubarb recipe #2

rhubarb filling: 1/2 lb rhubarb, trimmed

1/4 cup sugar

2 tspns cornstarch

1/2 tspn ground ginger

for the crumbs: 1/3 cup brown sugar

1/3 cup white sugar

1 tspn cinnamon

1/2 tspn ground ginger

1/8 tspn salt

1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted

1 cup whole wheat flour

3/4 cup bread flour (or cake or regular)

for the cake: 1/3 cup sour cream or yogurt

1 large egg

l large egg yolk

2 tspns vanilla extract

1 cup flour (again, I used a mixture of whole wheat and regular)

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 tspn baking soda

1/2 tspn baking powder

1/4 tspn salt

6 tblspns softened unsalted butter, cut into 8 pieces

Preheat oven to 325 F, grease 8 inch square or round pan.

Slice rhubarb into 1/2 inch thick pieces, toss with sugar, cornstarch, and ginger. Set aside. 

To make crumbs whisk together the sugars and spices and then add melted butter until smooth. Then add flour with a wooden spoon. It will look and feel like solid dough. Leave pressed into bottom of bowl and set aside.

To make the cake, mix yogurt, eggs, and vanilla extract. Mix the dry ingredients separately and slowly add butter and wet mixture to the dry alternately. Scoop out half the batter and set aside. 

Scrape the rest of the batter into prepared pan. Spoon rhubarb over batter and dollop set aside batter over the top. It does not have to be even. 

 Break crumb mixture into 1/2 to 3/4 inch size crumbs. Sprinkle over cake and bake 45-55 minutes.

Raspberry and Dark Chocolate Muffins

I love raspberries and chocolate (like my mother.) I love making these dessert muffins, and they are perfect for Valentine's Day.

What you'll need:

2 C flour (or whole wheat)
1 1/2 t baking powder
1 C sugar
1 3/4 sticks unsalted butter
3/4 C plain yogurt
1/2 C water
2 eggs
3.5 oz dark chocolate, roughly chopped--the first time i made these i substituted regular chocolate chips and they worked fine
5 oz raspberries, fresh or frozen
2 T granulated sugar
powdered sugar for dusting



1. Combine the dry ingredients in a large bowl and make a well in the center.
2. Melt the butter and remove from heat. Stir in yogurt and water, then add eggs one at a time, stirring well.
3. Pour wet ingredients into dry well and combine.
4. Fold chocolate and raspberries into batter and pour into muffin tins. Sprinkle the tops with raw sugar and bake at 375 degrees for 30-40 minutes.





Remove from oven, let cool, and dust with powdered sugar.

Persimmon Bread (Muffins)

Every winter I somehow end up with a huge box full of locally grown persimmons. What the heck is a Persimmon, anyway? I am not really sure...Some sort of a fruit, obviously. I am also not really sure what they taste like. Every time I bake something just to get these things out of my house, the end product does not really taste like a 'persimmon'. And when I taste the fruit in its raw form, it has an awful bitter taste. According to wikipedia, the bad taste is due to the tannin, which doesn't go away until the fruit is all the way ripened. Oops.
Regardless, these muffins came out pretty awesome. Especially when they are fresh out of the oven.


Here's what you need:

2 cups white sugar
2 cups whole wheat flour
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup oats
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 teaspoon ground allspice
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 cups ripe persimmon pulp
1/2 cup applesauce
1/2 cup vegetable oil
3 eggs


To get the persimmon pulp, I simply cut up the ripest 2 persimmons from my box and then tossed the pieces into my food processor.
In a large bowl, stir together the sugar, flours, oats, salt, spices, and baking soda until well mixed. Set aside. In another bowl, stir the persimmon pulp with the applesauce, vegetable oil, and eggs until well blended. Combine wet and dry ingredients. Divide batter into two greased 9x5 loaf pans, or into 24 muffin tins.
Bake at 350 degrees until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. (About an hour for the loaf pans, and considerably less time if using muffin pan.)



Each muffin is approximately 206 calories with 2.7g of protein.

Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls

I decided to make pumpkin cinnamon rolls from scratch for work Wednesday for those of us laboring the day before Thanksgiving. We had anticipated a crazy day, so I thought a pre-Thanksgiving edible celebration would help take our minds off work for at least 10 minutes. As it turns out, the day was not so bad and the cinnamon rolls were extra delicious.

Tuesday after work I came home and started on the cinnamon rolls as soon as I had settled in. This was my first time making home-made cinnamon rolls and I wasn't really sure how much time it might take.
As it turned out...it kind of took all night, but it wasn't hard, just a tad time consuming.

There are three parts to the cinnamon rolls: the dough, the filling, and the glaze.


Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls:
1 package dry active yeast
1/4 cup warm water
4 2/3 cups whole wheat flour, divided
1 cup canned pumpkin (I used a 1/2 cup more to add more pumpkin flavor)
1/2 cup 2% milk
5 T butter, melted
2 T sugar
1 1/4 t salt
1/4 t nutmeg
1/4 t pumpkin pie spice


Dissolve the yeast in warm water in a large bowl. Add 3 and 2/3 cups flour, the pumpkin, milk, butter, sugar, and spices and mix until smooth. Knead dough on a lightly floured surface adding the remaining flour as needed. Shape into a ball and lightly coat dough-ball in olive oil. Place in a lightly oiled bowl, cover with saran wrap and let rise for 45 minutes. Punch down dough and let rest for another 5-10 minutes.


While your dough is rising, mix together the filling.

Filling:
7 T sugar
5 T brown sugar
3 T flour
3 t cinnamon
4 T chilled butter, cut into small pieces

Mix ingredients.

Flour your counter or table and roll dough out to a 12x10 rectangle. (Rolling dough into a particular shape--be it a rectangle or circle--can be more difficult than meets the eye...) Sprinkle evenly with your filling and roll length-wise towards you tightly. Pinch the seams and ends. I generously sprinkled extra cinnamon and sugar over the pre-made filling mixture as I saw fit. Feel free to do the same. Once you've got your log, simply cut into 1-inch thick slices. I loaded the slices into a round cake pan and then the leftovers into a square cake pan. Be sure to coat the pans with cooking spray. Cover with saran wrap and let rise for another 25 minutes.
This is when I put the rolls in the fridge and went to bed.



The next morning I made my glaze.

Glaze:

3/4 cup powdered sugar
1 T milk
1/4 t vanilla


Bake cinnamon rolls for 20 minutes or until golden brown. Drizzle generously with glaze and enjoy!

Ginger Crinkles

Continuing with my seasonal cooking and baking, I whipped up a batch of Homesick Texan's ginger crinkles before watching the new episode of the Walking Dead on AMC this evening. Earlier today I picked up a jug of apple cider at the grocery store and thought a gingersnap-type cookie would go great with this icy cold fall drink. Despite it being late November, the high was 80 degrees today. So while it's not quite cool enough for hot cocoa at the moment, I can still enjoy a warm cookie.

Here's what you need:

1 cup sugar
1/2 cup oil
1 egg
1/4 cup molasses
2 cups whole wheat flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon ginger
1/4 cup raw turbinado sugar for dipping

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.
Cream the oil, sugar, egg, and molasses in a medium sized bowl.


Mix the flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and ginger in a separate bowl and then mix the wet with the dry, creating your dough.


Roll out balls of cookie dough (about 1/2 tablespoon) and dip into the raw sugar before placing on a parchment paper lined cookie sheet.


Bake cookies until slightly brown. Do not over cook! The recipe said about 15 minutes, but I made mine in four batches and they ended up taking less than 15 minutes to cook each time.

Being my first experience with gingersnaps I think the cookies came out great. They are nice and crunchy, but soft in the center with just enough sweet. I will definitely be making these again.


On a separate note...Steamy Kitchen is giving away an amazing vacuum cleaner. The better to clean up crumbs with!

Pumpkin Bread

Quick breads are easily one of my favorite things to bake. They can be breakfast and dessert all at once and are so quick to throw together, considering I almost always have all the main ingredients on hand at all times. Today is Halloween and I've been cooking up a storm, including a moist and tasty pumpkin bread inspired by closet kitchen.

Here's what I used:

1 and 3/4 cups whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/8 teaspoon allspice
1 and 1/2 cups pumpkin purée
3/4 brown sugar
2 eggs (beaten)
1/4 cup oil
1/2 cup vanilla yogurt
1/4 cup chocolate chips


1. In a large bowl mix the flour, baking soda, salt, and spices.


2. In another bowl mix the pumpkin, brown sugar, eggs, oil, and yogurt.



3. Mix the wet and dry ingredients together, then stir in chocolate chips.



4. Poor in greased 9x5 loaf pan and bake at 375 degrees for about an hour, or until a toothpick stuck in the middle comes out clean.


Now...I really should have added chopped toasted pecans to this bread. Two separate co-workers have given me a bag of pecans from their yards, but unfortunately I wasn't able to crack or toast any in time for the making of this bread.


Mmm! Pumpkin bread and coffee for breakfast this week. Next week I'd really like to try this new apple and cinnamon oatmeal bread recipe from the same blog.

Strawberry Bread

A co-worker of mine had a birthday on 10-10-10, so I decided to make strawberry bread for her. I had made this bread once before probably about a year ago, and I had forgotten how freaking good it was. I should have been baking this bread all strawberry season. Instead, I was bad and bought 2 crates of california strawberries for one last taste of summer.

Here's what you need:


1/2 cup unsalted butter
3/4 cup sugar
3 large eggs
1 tspn vanilla extract
2 cups whole wheat flour
1/2 tspn baking powder
1/2 tspn baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 tspn cinnamon
1/2 cup plain or vanilla yogurt
2 heaping cups sliced strawberries

Here's what you do:

1. Cream the butter and sugar in a large bowl
2. Beat in the eggs and vanilla
3. Mix the dry ingredients in a separate bowl
4. Add 1/3 of the dry bowl to the wet, then add 1/2 the yogurt to the wet mixture, followed by a second 1/3 of the dry mixture, the last half of yogurt, and finally the remaining dry mixture.
5. Gently mix in the strawberries and pour into a lightly greased 9x5 loaf pan

Bake at 350 degrees for about an hour.

This bread is like dessert when fresh from the oven, and a healthy filling breakfast sliced up and cooled. I found myself wanting more after giving most of it away as a birthday present.

Carrot Raisin Muffins

For breakfast this week, it's carrot raisin muffins! Sound really healthy? I think they are pretty healthy. Sound not so yummy? Wrong there. They taste pretty damn good. I was a little afraid myself, but the result was quite satisfying. Think mini carrot cakes with raisins (minus that wonderful cream cheese frosting.)
I followed the recipe pretty much all the way through, adjusting the flour as usual, and I substituted the canola oil for applesauce.
Here's what you'll need:

2 cups whole wheat flour (or 1 cup regular and 1 whole wheat)
3/4 cup sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons cinnamon (I only used 1 since my applesauce had cinnamon, but if I did it again, I'd use the full amount)
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
3 eggs
1/2 cup buttermilk
1/3 cup applesauce (or canola oil)
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 cups finely shredded carrots
1 medium apple, peeled and shredded--here, I used a red delicious, probably my least favorite apple, just because that's what I had. If I make these again I'll probably try a sweeter apple.
1/2 cup raisins

Preheat your oven to 350 F

1. Mix your dry ingredients (flour through baking soda)


2. Mix the eggs, buttermilk, apple sauce, vanilla, and add in the carrots, apple, and raisins.

3. Mix the two together until just blended.
4. Bake 25-30 minutes.

Of course they are amazing warm out of the oven, but they are also perfect for a little breakfast with my coffee at work throughout the week.


Even better, the recipe I got this from included some caloric information, which is always helpful:

230 calories per muffin
5g protein
7g fat

Enjoy!