Peanut Butter & Jelly Muffins

I started reading blogs about three years ago.  I started out reading a handful and now that list has expanded to a few dozen.  Some I scan quickly for recipes to pin on Pinterest but there are a few that I always read from start to finish.  One of my favorites (and one of the first I started reading) is The Way the Cookie Crumbles.  I don't know what it is about the blog, but I really like it - I like reading it and I've loved most of the recipes I've found on it.  Including this one.

I've made these muffins at least five times and every time I do, I love them.  This is in spite of the fact that I don't even really like jelly so that's saying something.  I decided to make this recipe this week because I had a bunch of leftover raspberry jam that I made last week.

This time, I changed things up a little bit and used cake flour instead of regular flour and the muffins were really outstanding - the best batch I've ever made!

PB&J is such a classic combination that these really can't be anything but delicious.  What I really like about them is that they're not overly sweet.  The peanut butter gives them a savory side and jelly sweetens them up and keeps them moist.  Every time I serve these, people compliment them and ask for the recipe.  I've also made them in a mini muffin tin for bite size treats and they come out perfectly.  I highly recommend that you add these to your brunch repertoire.

You can find the recipe here at The Way the Cookie Crumbles.  I recommend trading the regular flour with cake flour if you have it.

Enjoy!
Julie

Baking Bouchon - Recipe 59: Rum Cake

I'll give you three guesses what CA said about this cake.  You don't need a hint or multiple choice - if you know anything about CA, you know that he wants more rum in the rum cake.  Shocker.

There are three applications of rum in this rum cake.  There's about 1/3 cup in the cake itself, a few tablespoons mixed with simple syrup to soak the cake and another few tablespoons on the icing.  I tried to remind CA of this but he was convinced that it needed more rum.

Of course, when he first ate the cake he sat there for a few minutes hemming and hawing pretending that he wasn't sure what was missing... what could it be?  He's such a faker - he knew that I knew that he was going to say it needed more rum so he took his time.

Truth be told, I also think it needs more rum, but I'm not telling him that.

The cake batter contains A LOT of butter - just over four sticks.  Yes, four.  It's a lot.  It also has A LOT of eggs - 2 cups, which is approximately 11 eggs.  It's a lot of eggs. 

The dry ingredients consist of sugar, flour and almond flour.  I was pretty surprised that the ratio of almond flour to regular flour is 4:1 so there is quite a prominent almond flavor to this cake along with the rum flavor.

I was supposed to use Myer's dark rum in this cake.  I was hoping that I could find a small bottle of Myer's in the liquor store but I could not and we're not really Myer's rum people so I called CA to see if he thought I could substitute Gosling's dark rum since we already had that in the liquor cabinet.  He thought that I could but that it it might have a little less of a deep molasses flavor than the Myer's.  I decided to chance it so I didn't have yet another bottle lingering in the liquor cabinet (someday I'll take a picture of our liquor cabinet and all the random stuff that clutters it up so that CA can make his specialty cocktails and you'll know why another bottle is a bad thing).

There was a ton of batter and I was really worried when I put it in the bundt pan because I recently had a very messy incident with my bundt pan.  Luckily, this one did not overflow all over my oven.  Hooray!

It did, however, totally stick to the pan.  Boo!

I haven't used my bundt pan in at least a year and I've used it twice in the last week and both times I've made a mess.  The bundt and I are not friends right now.

Good thing I'm persistent so I scraped the broken scraps out of the pan and pieced them back together on top of the cake.

The baked cake gets brushed with simple syrup mixed with rum.  In hindsight I think I should have just used rum.  It would have amped up the rum flavor and kept the texture of the cake just right.  You see, the cake's texture was great - very moist with a great crumb that I attribute to the almond flour.  If there were more rum in the cake itself it wouldn't have had the same texture, so putting extra in the soak would help out in the rum department without messing with the texture.  The extra sugar in the soak was probably unnecessary because the cake was sweet enough, especially when you add the icing.

The icing is made from powdered sugar, rum and water.  When I made it according to the directions in the cookbook, it was way too thick to drizzle so I added a lot more rum which made it perfect.

I really loved this cake, even if I did secretly agree with CA that it could have used more rum.  The guys at CA's work loved it too and made no mention of a rum deficiency.

I took a lot of pictures of this cake because it was so pretty.  I think they turned out pretty well!

Enjoy!
Julie

Baking Bouchon - Recipe 58: Shortbread

Simple is sometimes quite wonderful.  These cookies are really very simple but also very delicious.  I've never been a huge shortbread fan but I could eat these every day.

Look at that!  Only five ingredients and I don't even think you should count salt or vanilla - so that's three.  What IS in here is a lot of butter.  That's just the way it goes, don't dwell on it or stress about it... it's just butter people. 

The butter gets whipped together with granulated sugar - add in some vanilla bean paste, then flour and salt and voila.  Shortbread.  You don't even have to refrigerate the dough overnight (just a couple of hours to make rolling it out easier), making this the easiest and fastest cookie to make in this book so far.

Shortbread is one of the few cookies that don't have any levener or eggs in them.  That makes them denser and crumblier in texture than other cookies.  This is generally not my cup of tea but for some reason I make an exception to my chewy cookie rule for shortbread.  Maybe because it's such a classic that I can appreciate that it's not meant to be soft.

One thing I love about these cookies is that you sprinkle a little granulated sugar on top of them before baking them.  It gives it a great added layer of sweetness along with a little crunch and sparkle on the top.  It's probably my favorite part... aside from the butter.

People were pretty ridiculously pumped about these cookies which I found surprising.  They're a little bit boring - but like me, my eaters seem enjoy a classic and these guys disappeared in the blink of an eye.  One of my friends even gasped when I told her I was making them so I made sure to set some aside for her.  I gave them to her husband (who is one of my coworkers) to deliver and almost all of them made it to her which says a lot about his character.  I appreciate boys who don't steal ALL the cookies.


 I took an unnecessary amount of pictures of these cookies... dozens really, but luckily I'm only posting the few best ones here so you don't have to endlessly scroll through cookie after cookie.  I'm trying to be better about taking prettier pictures of the finished product for this blog but I can't quite get the hang of it.  My camera is just OK and I'm not motivated enough to buy a really expensive one.  Not to mention that the camera is constantly caked with food - which is a hazard of picture taking while baking.  That is yet another reason I can't see investing in a super nice camera.

I struggle with the fact that I really want this blog to be about the process of baking and not just a site for food pics (aka food porn), but on the other hand I know that 90% of the time when I read blogs I scan through the pictures before deciding if I want to read the whole post.

What do you all think?  More pictures?  Better quality pictures?  Or would you rather I just burn more stuff or drop it on the floor so you can have a good laugh?

Enjoy!
Julie

Grilled Cardamom Naan

Cardamom is a spice that is popular in Indian cuisine.  I really like it and have been trying to figure out how to describe it to you.  Wikipedia says it's intensely aromatic - which is true because everything on Wikipedia is true.  The only thing I can think to say is that it is a very warm spice.

If you've never had cardamom you should try it - it's definitely a great spice and makes a great addition to a lot of Fall dishes (think pumpkin)... plus it's pretty awesome in this Naan bread.

If you've never had naan, you should try that too.  It's a flatbread that's popular in India and other parts of Asia.  Many cultures have their own versions of flatbread - like Greek Pitas and Mexican Tortillas - and I generally prefer them to regular bread.  Probably because they're generally used as a vehicle for other things like dip and tacos.  Regular bread is usually just a vehicle for butter which is not bad (I obviously have an affinity for butter) but I'll take some hummus, tzatziki or huevos rancheros any day.

The dough comes together like regular bread dough - yeast, water, honey, olive oil, bread flour, salt and cardamom get kneaded together, separated into individual naan and left to rise.

Traditionally naan is cooked in an oven, a tandoor to be exact, but these are cooked up in a cast iron skillet.  They cook up pretty quickly - just a minute or two per side.

I love the texture of this bread - it's like eating pizza crust.  I personally think it's a little aggressive on the cardamom flavor, particularly when you eat it by itself.  However, when you eat it with another food - like a tasty curry - the cardamom flavor blends in really nicely.  CA thought it had the perfect level of cardamom, so there's that.

You can find the recipe on Food and Wine.  It's pretty cardamomey so feel free to cut back on the spice if you want to.

I served this with a Beef Penang Curry, also from Food and Wine - the pairing was perfect.

I also served this with wine.... from the wine store...  a Gewürztraminer to be exact.  Which is a slightly sweet wine which is perfect with spicy foods.  It's also cool because it comes with an umlaut.  Google that.

Enjoy!
Julie

Chocolate Bar Bundt Cake

I've had eight Hershey's bars in my fridge for a month.  They stare at me and ask me what I'm going to do with them and then I shut the refrigerator door and forget about them. 

Treats don't usually sit around my house that long, I typically find excuses to wander by any idle treats and break off a little piece for myself.  That or I remove them from the house as quickly as possible to avoid the aforementioned wandering.  However, leftover candy is the exception to that rule.  I end up throwing out leftover Halloween candy (except Twix and those Peanut Butter Snickers which you can't throw away - they're too good).  I have a few bags of Gummi Bears that have been around for way too long - in fact, it's probably time to get rid of those.  I think this has everything to do with me being better at hiding leftover candy from myself so I don't just wander by it.  It's a bit more obvious when I "wander" past the china cabinet in the dining room and reach all the way into the back than it is to "wander" past the cookies sitting in that see through container on the kitchen counter.

There is another exception to the candy exception and that is mellowcreme pumpkins.  They are the reason I can't walk down the candy aisle during the entire Fall season.  I swear if those enter my house, they are GONE in about sixty seconds.  These are entirely different than candy corn which I don't like and people try to tell me are the same but they are not.

That was quite a digression to tell you that I made this cake on a random Wednesday night when I opened the fridge and saw those eight candy bars staring at me.  This particular Wednesday also happened to be a day when CA's coworkers had asked him if he brought in any treats (please note, they got treats on Monday but were ready for more on Wednesday).

This recipe happens to call for exactly eight candy bars which is exactly the number I had which is exactly amazing.  The batter comes together really easily - you cream butter & sugar together, add eggs, add melted chocolate and vanilla, add some flour, salt, baking powder and baking soda, then add buttermilk and some walnuts.  I didn't have buttermilk - but made it myself with regular milk and a little bit of vinegar (you guys know you can do that right?  You can do it with either vinegar or lemon juice - just go here and Emeril will tell you how).

I haven't busted out my bundt pan in a while so I was excited to dig it out.  Unfortunately, this cake made a giant mess when it oozed all over my oven because it overflowed the edges of the pan while it baked.  Oops.  Halfway through I stuck a sheet pan under it to catch the remaining overflow which worked OK.  I may have also scraped the overflow off the sheet pan and eaten it.

I had a hard time getting it out of the pan even though I sprayed and floured it.  Once it did let go, it looked like it was molting. 

My solution to that was to pick off all the outsides that it was trying to shed and eat them.  Once the evidence was disposed of, I sliced it up and no one was the wiser... except CA because I always yell at my baked goods when they don't cooperate.  I know he can hear me even if he does generally ignore me.

Despite the mess and slightly hideous appearance, this cake was actually pretty delicious.  It was like a giant brownie, especially with the nuts mixed in.  CA liked it and so did his coworkers who received it on Thursday.

I got the recipe on Food.com and followed it exactly - except for the milk substitution.  I would recommend using two loaf pans instead of the bundt pan to avoid making a giant mess in your oven.

Enjoy!
Julie

Baking Bouchon - Recipe 57: Plum Tarts

This has to be the easiest tart in the cookbook.  Actually, it IS the easiest tart in the cookbook - I peeked.

3 components make up this tart...

1.  Pate Sucree (for the crust)
2.  Almond Cream
3.  Plums

Easy right?  I guess you do actually have to make the crust and the almond cream but luckily I had crust made up and waiting for me in my freezer and almond cream is super easy to make.

If you remember, pate sucree is a crust that is pretty much like a sugar cookie.  Almond cream is just a mixture of flour, almond flour, butter, powdered sugar and eggs.

I ended up making these tarts more difficult that necessary because I made them miniature.  As I've mentioned a thousand times before I want to share my treats with others and things that are miniature are easier to share.

To assemble the tarts you layer crust, followed by almond cream and then sliced plums.  Bake. Done.

These were pretty good.  They weren't particularly exciting but they were good.  They certainly disappeared quickly when I took them to work so I guess other people liked them too.

Sometimes things that are easy surprise you and taste super amazing - sometimes things that are easy and taste like they're easy.  I think the latter is where I'd stick these.

Enjoy!
Julie

Baking Bouchon - Recipe 56: Cherry Whipped Cream Doughnuts

I'm so sad that this is the last doughnut recipe in this book.  I clearly remember the first time I made doughnuts and how terrified I was of frying them.  After the third iteration I feel like an old pro.

The dough for these doughnuts is the same as for the last two sets (vanilla-sugared doughnuts and chocolate-glazed diplomats) so I didn't take any more photos for you.  Sorry.

Everyone of these fried up perfectly!  No burning, no doughy centers.  Yeah for me!

These doughnuts were filled with the cherry jam we talked about a few days ago.  As far as jams go, the cherry was pretty good.  I've never had cherry jam or jelly before (since I don't actually like or eat it) and it wasn't bad.  What I did NOT like is that it looks like my doughnuts have been stabbed and are bleeding out.  The jam was probably a little too thin so it struggled to stay inside the doughnuts.

After filling the doughnuts with cherry jam, they get topped with sweetened whipped cream and a cherry on top.  Let's be clear that it was not my idea to pipe the whipped cream on top like this.  I was trying to match the photo in the cookbook (and did a pretty darn good job) but this is completely impractical.  You can't possibly eat this without snorting a bunch of whipped cream up your nose because you're laughing at the fact that you tried to pick it up and eat it and your husband is watching you because he knows exactly what is going to happen.  Snorting stuff up your nose hurts - don't do it.

My doughnut verdict is that I liked the vanilla-sugared doughnuts the best - to be specific I liked the doughnut holes.  Yes, they're simple, but you really get to appreciate the flavor and texture of the dough without getting distracted by miscellaneous creams and jams.

Enjoy!
Julie