The Great Blueberry Muffin Showdown of 2010-Results

    

Batch Three

Batch 5

The votes have been tallied and the gift muffins were delivered, so I can now announce the results of the Blueberry Muffin Showdown.

And the winner is................a tie between batches 3 (Martha Stewart) and 5 (Nigella Lawson)!

We just couldn't narrow it down any further.  Batches 3 and 5 were in all the judges top 3 lists and had an equal amount of first place votes.  We just couldn't decide between them, so I made them both.

Now I did know my cousin prefers a muffin with a sugar topping, so I added on to batch 5 (batch 3 had one already).  Since batch 3 has normal sugar on it, I used sanding sugar (which is much coarser than regular, granulated sugar).  It was very good and, if I do say so myself, an improvement.

The Great Blueberry Muffin Showdown of 2010

   

Clockwise from top left: batch 2, batch 4, batch 5, batch 3, batch 1

This showdown was a little different than last year's brownie showdown.  Instead of searching for my favorite brownie, I was trying to find the best blueberry muffin recipe as a gift for my cousin even though I don't like blueberries and, as such, never eat blueberry muffins.

I made 5 batches of a dozen full size muffins each (plus a few mini muffins) using recipes from 5 different cookbooks.

The contenders:

• Batch 1: From the French Culinary Institute cookbook.  Medium difficulty.  No topping.  Makes 12.
• Batch 2: From Culinary Institute of America cookbook.  Complex recipe.  (Note I substituted walnut oil for vegetable oil, because I was out of the latter).  Sanding sugar topping. Makes 12 normal plus 12 mini.
• Batch 3: From Martha Stewart's Baking Handbook. Plain sugar topping.  Relatively easy.  Makes 12 normal plus 7 mini.
• Batch 4: From Williams Sanoma Muffins cookbook.  Relatively easy, but with the added step of making the topping.  Crumble topping.  Makes 12.  
• Batch 5: From Nigella Lawson's How to be a Domestic Goddess.  Easy.  No topping.  (Made in muffin papers.)  Makes 12. 

The judges:

• Myself: I admit I was slightly biased towards muffins that were less blueberry-ish, so I may not have been the best person to judge this showdown.
• My mom: loves blueberries and baked goods, so she was quite helpful.
• My pops: a bit (and only a bit) picky when it comes to sweets, which is helpful for a showdown, but also biased toward crumble topping which probably hurt his objectivity.
• My friend, Adriana: I wanted one extra person outside the family to get a wider sample.  She took her task as a taster very seriously!

The results:

• Batch 1: A basic, staple, buttery blueberry muffin.
• Batch 2: Very nice, simple, cakey muffin.  The sanding sugar on top is a plus.
• Batch 3: Sweet, dense muffin.  The crust of sugar on top is a plus.  
• Batch 4: Great crumble.  Basic muffin with a nice flavor from the spices.
• Batch 5: Buttery, soft, very nice.

The winner has been announced!

The Great Brownie Showdown of 2009

  

(I wrote this for the blog I was keeping back in 2009, so it is mainly written in the present tense, but was, in fact, written in summer of 2009.)
The Challenge: I LOVE brownies! But as it turns out, I have yet to find a good brownie recipe. I have recently purchased two new cookbooks and between them they have 3 plain chocolate brownie recipes (not to mention swirled and flavored brownies). So my goal is to compare the 3 different types of brownies and see which I like the most. To do so I will make all 3 brownies today. On a rather related quest, I have always wanted to make brownies that can transport easily. Then it hit me, they don’t have to be made in a pan and cut up, they can be individual sized to start with. So now I just have to find the right pan to do that in. I am going to try mini muffin and regular muffin pans. Hopefully this will work.

The Contenders:
Batch 1: Ghirardelli Fudgy Chocolate Brownies. These were quite simple to make and only use one bowl and no electric mixer, so clean up was a breeze as well. They bake on a low heat for a long time, so they seem like they will stay very moist even in the minis, always a good thing.
Batch 2: Ghiradelli Classic Chocolate Brownies. These were slightly harder to make. Still no mixer, but you have to sift the flour before you mix it in, which isn’t hard, but an extra step none the less. I substituted bittersweet chocolate chips for semisweet, because the batter seemed overly sweet. In future, I’ll have to use dark brown sugar instead of light brown (the recipe says you can use either, and I am currently out of dark brown, so I used light brown which seems to have made the batter a little too sweet). But you never know, an overly sweet batter doesn’t always mean an overly sweet brownie.
Batch 3: Martha Stewart Double Chocolate Brownies. The double chocolate part had to do with using melted semisweet chocolate AND unsweetened coco powder. Even though these use less chocolate than batch 1 (and more than batch 2), the coco powder should make them the most chocolate-y of all the batches. It’s important to note that these are the hardest to make, I used 3 bowls, and an electric mixer, but still they’re not difficult and the batter tastes the best, though that doesn’t always indicate the best final product...

The Outcome:
Batch 1 is indeed fudgy. They are slightly cake-y, but only around the edges, the center is fudgy, almost to the point of gooey. Not too sweet, quite chocolate-y. It made 6 regular-sized muffins and 12 mini-muffins.
Batch 2 is definitely more my cup of tea than batch 1. They aren’t too sweet. And even though the batter is slightly less chocolate-y, the chocolate chips added enough chocolate to the mix. They were cake-ier than batch 1 but were still soft and a little fudgy in the middle. It made 6 regular-sized muffins and 18 mini-muffins.
Batch 3 is my favorite. They are chocolate-ier than batch 2 and cake-ier than batch 1. Really, they are the perfect balance of cake-y and fudgy through out, rather than cake-y around the edges and fudgy in the center. The only downside, is I do miss the chocolate chips from batch 2. I think in future I’ll make these with chips added in. That will make them close to perfect! It made 6 regular-sized muffins and 18 mini-muffins.
As for the muffin sizing, it worked great! The regular size muffins cooked almost as long as the brownies would cook for normally, but the minis cook for significantly less. They all came out moist and delicious. Maybe they all would have been slightly better baked normally in a brownie pan, but I don’t mind. The convenience of the little 2 bite brownies out weighs any imperfection making them mini might have caused.

The Votes are Tallied:
Batch 3 was my favorite with batch 2 a close second and batch 1 bringing up the rear with a bronze metal. But I’m only one person, I wanted to know what other people think. I happen to be lucky enough that my mom, pops and 4 family friends were all willing to taste them! 3 of the 4 adults agreed with me that batch 3 was the best, however one voted for the dark horse in the competition, batch 1. Both kids preferred batch 2, they loved the oozy chocolate chips. I also asked another friend his opinion, and while he liked batch 1 the most, I believe his exact words were “but I’d eat another of any of them!” I also received one last round of results which added three to batch 1. So, batch 1 was the favorite with the public, followed closely by batch 3, with batch 2 as the favorite of all the kids but coming in third among adults.  (Note: all but that first vote for batch 1 were from later days, perhaps that means that batch 3 is still the best on the day of baking, but that batch 1 ages better.)

Clockwise from top: Batch 1, Batch 2, Batch 3

Sorry I've been gone so long...

I know, I promised when I got out of classes I'd get back to writing.  I didn't, sorry!  However, after some delay, I'm ready to get posting!

As you may have noticed I finally published a my mincemeat pies, which I accidently saved as a draft (instead of posting it) way back in January.  I will definitely be posting some more tonight and tomorrow, including the Great Brownie Showdown of 2009 (held before I started this blog).  So check back soon!

Mince Pies

I somehow never published this post, even though I wrote it quite a while ago, oops!  Anyway, here are my very belated mini mince pies.

These miniature mince pies are as delicious as they are adorable (albeit, a bit rustic looking).  I found the recipe in one of Nigella Lawson's cookbooks, I believe it was in her new Christmas cookbook, but it might have been in How to Be a Domestic Goddess.  They both have mince pie recipes.  Anyway, the mincemeat is made with cranberries, which I love in almost anything, so it has a nice tartness along with the sweetness.  Plus, the cranberries give the mincemeat a lovely red color.  I found the dough (also from Nigella) a bit hard to work with, but it tasted wonderful, so it was worth it.

By the way, I tagged this as a dish involving 'fruit'.  I realize that might be a stretch as the fruit is stewed with sugar and liquor as does not really resemble its original form anymore, but too bad, it does have fruit in it, so it is getting that label!

Flourless Apple Almond Cake

   

I found the recipe for this cake in Nigella Lawson's cookbook Feast.  There is a whole section with Passover recipes.  What I love about this cake is it is actually flourless.  I have found that many Passover cakes and cookies use matzo meal instead of flour, rather than going completely flourless.  This is inconvenient because I don't keep matzo meal in the house and because it doesn't tend to make a great cake.  Anyway, this cake, made ground ground almonds and applesauce, is deliciously moist and tasty.  In fact it is so tasty it would be a good cake to make anytime of the year (especially if you can't eat gluten).

P.S. I apologize for the bad picture, I completely forgot to take a photo before I cut it up last night, so I had to take one today with the leftovers.  Oops!

Charoses/Charoset/Haroset~With recipe!

Ok, I realize that this is not a dessert, it is actually the apple nut mixture that is part of the Passover seder.  That said, it is really yummy and makes a good snack or even dessert.  Every year I ask, "why don't we make this during the year, not just at Passover." My mom replies, "I don't know, we should make it more often."  And then we don't.  We should though.  It's really quite good.  You can eat it on matzo or crackers (when it isn't Passover) as a nice afternoon snack.  It also works well on top of vanilla frozen yogurt (or ice cream).

My ingredients are just a starting point.  Play around with quantities and even different flavors if you want (for example a pinch nutmeg might add a nice taste).

Ingredients:
5 cups of chopped apple-this translates to about 4 apples, a mix of crisp green and red apples works nicely, but whatever you have lying around is fine.
1 1/2 cups of chopped walnuts-you can cut back by about 1/4 cup if you'd prefer, but I like it nutty.
9 tbsp red wine-we used a Rioja, because that is what we had.  If you use something sweeter, you might want to cut back on the sugar.
6 tsp sugar
5 tsp cinnamon
Zest of one small lemon, or to taste-or none at all if you'd prefer.

Mix all the ingredients together in a large glass bowl.  Taste it.  If it is too dry add a little more wine.  Too tart or winey?  Add more sugar.  When you have adjusted it to your liking, cover the bowl with plastic wrap and put it in the fridge.  Let it sit for at least 2 hours before you eat it.  This give the flavors time to blend together and the apple to soak up some of the wine.

Cinnamon Sugar Muffins

  

The day I brought the Thumbprint Cookies into my class, one of my classmates brought in amazing cinnamon and sugar coated mini(ish) muffins from a local bakery.  They were so good that I ate two.  I had to figure out how to make them.  Turns out that my Williams-Sonoma Muffins cookbook has a recipe for cinnamon muffins topped with cinnamon sugar.  I made them, and I think they turned out just as yummy!  (Although the coating to muffin ratio wasn't quite as good...the ones from the bakery were fully coated in cinnamon sugar and these were only topped with it.  Next time I'll make them mini muffin size and roll them in the sugar.)

Basically these are a heavy, cinnamon and nutmeg flavored, buttermilk and baking soda leavened dough.  It is almost a doughnut dough, but the taste of the final product differs from doughnuts quick significantly, since it is baked instead of fried.  The key is, once they are cool, dip the top of the muffin in melted butter, then in a cinnamon sugar mixture.  This makes the top beautiful and sparkly and really tasty!

Cranberry Thumbprint Cookies

   

I had to make them a little smaller to make them fit in the muffin papers.  As you can see, this resulted in a boatload of cookies.

I haven't posted in ages, sorry!  I mention that because this post is technically about cookies I made for Valentines Day.  The cookie itself is a buttery vanilla cookie.  I rolled the dough into a ball and put it into a mini muffin paper.  Rather than using my thumb to make the indentation (because they were too small) I used the end of a wooden spoon.  Then I put about 1/8 of a teaspoon of cranberry jelly (real jelly, like for toast, not the cranberry jelly from a can that you eat with turkey at Thanksgiving) into the indentation.  The recipe I used called for berry jelly (strawberry, I think) but I thought the cranberry would be nice and winter-y, plus I really like cranberry.

Usually thumbprint cookies are made like regular cookies, flat on a baking sheet, but I decided to make them in mini muffin cups.  I did this because I was bringing them into my political science class and it seemed more sanitary this way.  I think they look cute this way!

Baked Apples~With Recipe!

   

A few nights ago my mom asked me to make dessert (well, whined at me to make dessert), but she wanted it to be healthy-ish.  I was tired, so I didn't want to make anything that would be too much work.  What was I to do?  Then it hit me, baked apples!  They are quite easy to make and you can really get creative with the flavors if you want.  I used walnuts and dried currants, but you can substitute other nuts, or dried fruit or leave them out all together.

Ingredients:
Granny Smith Apples-I usually allow 2 per person, but 1 is fine if you are making dessert for a lot of people or just don't want to eat a lot
Brown sugar-2 tsp per apple, or to taste
Cinnamon-1/4 tsp per apple, or to taste
Chopped Walnuts (or any other nut you want)-1/2 tsp per apple, or to taste
Dried Currants (or other dried fruit)-1/2 tsp per apple, or to taste

1. Pre-heat the oven to 400*F and grease a pyrex dish or other oven proof pan.
2. Wash, dry and core the apples.
3. Score the apples' skin all the way around the center.  This will keep the apple from exploding.  Put them in the pan.
4. Mix the sugar, cinnamon, chopped nuts and dried fruit together in a small bowl.
5. Divide the mixture evenly between the apples, packing it into the cored hole in each.
6. Cook for 35-45 minutes, depending on the size of the apple.  Until the inside of the apple is soft and the skin is somewhat browned but still shiny.
7. Serve immediately, plain or with vanilla ice cream.  Or if you are being fancy, with a vanilla creme anglais.

Dense Chocolate Loaf Cake

This is an amazing cake! It is from Nigella Lawson’s “How to be a Domestic Goddess”. As she describes it, it is rather like a chocolate version of gingerbread, dense and moist and aromatic and amazingly flavorful. I think that pretty much sums it up. That all said, I don’t make this very often because it is a bit of a pain to make. You have to add the dry ingredients a tablespoon at a time alternating with boiling water. It really isn’t hard to do, but it’s tedious.  I got over that tonight though, because I know that once I take one bite of this delicious cake it will all be all worth it. This is great served with vanilla ice cream, fresh berries and white chocolate sauce or just plain (which is what I usually do).

P.S. I'm sorry I haven't written for a while, I started the second semester of my junior year of college last week and it hit me like a ton of bricks.  But I've managed to crawl out from under them and I'll be posting plenty more soon.

New Year's Eve Trifle

This is similar to my Thanksgiving trifle, but better.  Instead of store bought pound cake, I used my home made pound cake.  (And lucky me I had a whole extra pound cake left over!)  I know I said that store bought pound cake was fine for trifles, and it is, but wow homemade pound cake is really good!  I layered the cake with raspberry jam, sliced strawberries and homemade chocolate mousse (the type made with whipped cream and melted chocolate, rather than the egg based type).  The trifle dish fit three layers of cake/jam/berries/mousse.  I just piped some whipped cream dollops on top and topped the dollops with strawberries.

Leftovers, they aren't just for casseroles!

I had left over pound cake from New Year's that was getting a little stale, so I didn't want to eat it plain.  I also had left over ganache from the anniversary cake which I needed to use for something and I didn't want to make truffles.  So I melted the ganache in a glass bowl over a pot of boiling water and added some warmed up skim milk until it was a very thin sauce.  But I decided it needed more, so I mixed in some cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg...sort of a spiced hot chocolate taste to it.  Then I cubed up the left over pound cake, put it on top of some vanilla frozen yogurt and poured a ton of the chocolate sauce over it. YUM!

P.S. I'll post a photo at some point, I promise.

Anniversary Cake, con't

 

This is the Anniversary Cake I posted photos of before.  It is a chocolate genoise cake, a traditional French sponge cake, imbibed with Frangelico, a hazelnut liquor, covered in a chocolate ganache, and topped with marzipan roses.

A genoise is nothing, I repeat NOTHING, like an American sponge cake.  It is actually quite dry and, when made properly, light.  I mention made properly, because I had some trouble in that area.  Genoise is not an easy cake to make (or at least not the easiest) and this was my first attempt.  Everything went well at the beginning.  I was able to use the bowl of my new Kitchen Aid (thank you mom!) over a pot of boiling water to heat the eggs then transfer them to the mixer.  They fluffed up just as they were supposed to.  My problem came as I folded in the dry ingredients.  I forgot to turn the bowl periodically, so when I went to pour out my nice light batter, I found a large pocket of unblended dry ingredients.  To mix them in after starting to pour the batter, I had to deflate it significantly.  This meant that my cake was a little too dense, didn't rise as much in the middle as it should have, and had large 'tunnels' in addition to the small delicate air bubbles that it was supposed to have.  It still tasted excellent and I didn't really want to make another cake, so I used it.

As I said above, I imbibed it with Frangelico.  I used it because I thought the hazelnutty vanilla taste would be a nice compliment to the chocolate cake, not to mention the marzipan roses.  I was right, if I do say so myself.  And like my cookbook said, the dry genoise sucked it right up.

I coated the cake with a layer of ganache (basically heavy cream and melted chocolate).  The trick to getting a nice even, thick layer is to freeze the cake for 30 min before you pour the ganache on it, that way the ganache hardens quickly, thus it doesn't pour off the sides too much.  To get a even and bubble free layer, it is important to mix the ganache as little as possible before you pour it on the cake.  The more you mix, the more air bubbles get trapped, which will pop on your cake when you spread on the ganache.

Finally I made the marzipan roses.  These were easier than I expected, though they were still hard.  The trick is to work with it between 2 layers of plastic wrap.  That way it doesn't stick to anything, and you can make it as thin as it can be.  Anyway, I'm not going to give a blow by blow description of making a marzipan rose.  If you want to know, post a comment telling me so, and I'll post the instructions.  Basically, I made a cone of marzipan to attach each carefully hand made petal to.  I flattened one edge of the petal more than the others to make it realistic but still stable.  Each successive row of petals had to be slightly larger than the one before it, to make the rose look like it was blossoming.   I made one open blooming rose, one slightly open bud, and one closed bud, which I arraigned on the cake.

It took many hours to make all this and so little time to eat.  If it wasn't so delicious, it would almost be sad to eat it.

Homemade Pound Cake

I have made pound cake before, but never just plain old traditional pound cake.  It was a little tedious (but mainly because the cook book I was using has all the quantities in grams/ounces, so I had to weigh all the ingredients).  It is flavored with a bit of orange and lemon zest, so it has a subtle, mild, citrus taste that was really excellent.  Interesting trick to make a good looking pound cake: about a third of the way through cooking, cut down the center almost end to end.  This will make the crack that forms along the top of the pound cake even and nice looking.  Also, if the cake browns too much before it is fully cooked, you can tent it with some tin foil.  I didn't end up having to do this, but my cook book says it will work (and experience with Thanksgiving turkeys tells me they are right!)

I made this to use in the trifle I made for my New Year's party, which I will write about later.

Cream Cheese Mints (with recipe) a.k.a Christmas Cookies, con't

I made these mints for Christmas, but I also make them year round.  They are festive, but also delicious and not specific to the holidays, so why not!  They don't taste like cream cheese at all, it just acts as a nice base for the sugar and mint.

The only problem with them is the recipe is affected by the weather.  If it is dry out it takes as much as a cup less powdered sugar than if it is humid or damp.

Ingredients:
8 oz full fat cream cheese (yes it should be full fat, the low fat just doesn’t work quite as well)
6-8 cups powdered sugar
3/8 tsp good mint extract
Food coloring (optional)

With an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment (or by hand with a wooden spoon if you are feeling like a work out) mix together the cream cheese and the powdered sugar, adding the sugar in 1/2 cup at a time. Once about 75% of sugar is fully incorporated, add the mint extract.  Mix well and continue to add the last quarter of the sugar.  When the dough it finished, add food coloring if you want (I often just leave them plain, they are so pretty when they are a pure, snowy white).  If you don't think they are minty enough, you can add more mint extract now.  Mix on a very low speed until the color (and extra flavor) is mixed through.  The dough should be soft enough to mold into balls but not sticky--almost like play-doh.

Here’s where it gets fun. Using a small ice cream scoop or a melon baller or your hands make shooter marble size balls of the dough. Put them on a parchment paper lined baking sheet with a little space between them (you’ll need it later). Once you have done about a dozen, flatten the mints slightly with the tines of a fork to make them a thick disk with nice little ridges on them. Continue until you have used up all the dough.

Leave them to set on the counter for at least 4 hours. Once they have hardened on the outside (not like hard candy hard...in fact hardened may not be the right word, but trust me you’ll know when it happened, even if I’m not describing it well) feel free to stack them and store them on a plate covered with plastic wrap in the fridge. Don’t worry, you don’t have to get them in the fridge right away, in fact if you have the space, leave them out over night, then you’ll know they are set properly when you go to store them.

If you don’t have time to wait, throw them in the fridge on the baking sheets. They firm up enough to eat, but they don’t get the nice coating that makes them stackable and keeps them from turning back into soft pliable balls of dough when they are out of the fridge for any length of time.

What I do, is put a dozen or so in the fridge so I can have mints soon (about 30 minutes) and leave the rest to set on the counter (about 4 hours, give or take depending on the temperature of your kitchen). That way I have the instant gratification of eating what I’ve made in less time than it takes to bake a cake and still have the nicer, properly (and patiently) prepared mints too.

Makes about 90 1-inch diameter mints

White Chocolate, Cranberry, Pecan, Oatmeal Cookies a.k.a. Christmas Cookies, con't

These are the white chocolate, cranberry, pecan, oatmeal cookies I made for Christmas.  It may seem like an odd combination, but it is darn tasty!  The tartness of the dried cranberries balances the sweetness of the white chocolate chips.  The pecans are very nice with both flavors.  The recipe called for walnuts or pecans, I personally like pecans more and I think the flavor is a little nicer with the cranberries, but walnuts work too, I'm sure.  As for the oatmeal, it is quick oats so it has a texture similar to a normal (not oatmeal based) cookie, but it still has an oat-y taste.

Orange Butter Cookies a.k.a. Christmas Cookies, con't

I flavored these buttery Christmas cookies with a hint of orange extract.  The flavor was subtle, but still distinct.  I dyed them green and coated them with egg wash to make them look like Christmas trees (of course the cookie press shape helped with that!)  They really did look green in person and even in the photo.  But for some reason when I uploaded it, it made them look lighter and browner...sorry about that.

Anniversary Cake

Details coming soon, but for now here are some photos of the anniversary cake I made for my mom and pops.

A close up of the marzipan roses

The whole cake

Cakey Chocolate Chip Cookies a.k.a. Christmas Cookies, con't

Mini cookies

These are the chocolate chip cookies I mentioned in the Christmas cookies post.  I found the recipe in Martha Stewart's Cookies.  They have less butter and brown sugar than normal chocolate chip cookies, plus they have baking powder.  All together, this makes the cookies cakey and lighter than normal chocolate chip cookies.  I have to admit I really like the cakey-ness.  If I sound surprised, it's because I am.  I love a good old-fashioned gooey chocolate chip cookie, but I love these too.  The photo above shows the mini version of these cookies I made this Christmas.  The photo below shows the normal size ones I made over the summer.  (They are the same cookie, but more than twice the size and a little less puffy.)

Normal size cookies