Chocolate Yogurt Cupcakes

May 4, 2013 by

OK, so I probably should have gone grocery shopping instead of baking cupcakes. But, to be fair, I was doing my part to use up old ingredients so I could make room for new.

See, I haven’t been eating any of this Greek yogurt I stocked up on, and it’s set to expire this week. The cans of frosting in the pantry, however, have no danger of expiring in my kitchen. So I need to use up that frosting before I’m tempted to eat it without the excuse of a cupcake underneath. And, since I don’t have any eggs (remember, it’s time to buy groceries), it was time for an experiment.

The original recipe was called Red Devil’s Food Cake. But in this version, we’ll call them:
Chocolate Yogurt Cupcakes

1 cup Greek yogurt (replacing 1 cup mayonnaise in the original recipe. I used yogurt that had Strawberry-Banana Fruit on the Bottom – and honestly, you’d never know.)
2 cups flour
1 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup boiling water
4 tsp cocoa
2 tsp soda

Mix it all up. Pour into cupcake liners and bake at 350 for about 10 minutes.

I remember reading before that Devil’s Food Cake doesn’t make good cupcakes. Well, I’ve also never made Devil’s Food Cake with strawberry Greek yogurt.

The cupcakes came out of the oven with plump perfect cupcake tops…

chocolate yogurt cupcakes baking substitution

…which deflated and dimpled in minutes as the dense cake settled:
chocolate yogurt cupcakes baking substitution
Oh well; that’s what frosting is for. So I topped them off with Whipped Vanilla frosting from a can, and no one would ever be the wiser. In fact, no one who tasted them could guess the secret ingredient – which made them very moist and delicious.
Chcocolate yogurt cupcake recipe with whipped vanilla frosting
The bottom of the cakes do stick in the liner a bit, but other than that, I didn’t notice any Devil’s Food disasters in cupcake form. Besides, if you’re too proper to suck all the good crumbs off the wrapper, you’re not welcome in my kitchen, anyway.
Filed Under: cupcake recipes, dessert recipes, Food Tagged With: , ,

Quick, Easy Oven-Baked Salmon

April 5, 2013 by

I’m relieved to finally have salmon in my freezer again. When it comes to remembering to thaw meat, I’m terrible. So even as much as I love chicken, it’s usually frozen beyond my last-minute (self-inflicted) time constraints.

But salmon thaws in a few minutes under running water, making it a quick, easy go-to dinner. The preparation is a snap – a few grinds of salt, pepper and garlic, then a squeeze of lemon – and it’s into the oven for 15 minutes while my quinoa cooks and then, during the last half, the green beans steam.

 

Filed Under: dinner recipes, Food, seafood recipes Tagged With:

Baking Paska Bread for Easter

March 30, 2013 by

What a beautiful, productive, sunny, springy day-before-Easter-Sunday. Beautiful, sunny and springy because the mid-50s warmth was a nice break from Cleveland’s blistery winter hangover. Productive because it brought several firsts for me:

  • First time hanging laundry on the new apartment clothesline outside
  • First time baking Paska Bread
  • First time zesting a lemon
  • First time proofing yeast

With the laundry started and towels already flapping in the wind, I got busy baking Easter goodies. First, proofing yeast and dissolving sugar for my first venture into Paska bread baking. With the first few ingredients rising in a warm, dark place (which happens to be in the bedroom), I get a head start on tomorrow morning’s breakfast. Out comes the trusty old pastry cloth and pin, rolling out dough for mom’s legendary cinnamon roll recipe – which I can never quite master to her standards.

Then spread and sprinkle, roll it carefully, and cut. Perfect cinnamon spirals ready for the oven.

Now, what the hell is Paska bread again?

Apparently, a light, sweet Ukrainian egg bread traditionally eaten at Easter – that my boyfriend has been requesting for weeks now. And that I’ve been putting off because I know I can’t bake it like his Baba did.

Baking my family’s traditional treats is one thing. And don’t get me wrong – I love experimenting with different ingredients and new recipes. But when you have a very specific memory of your grandma’s special bread – that I’ve never even heard of – well, I don’t want to set you up for disappointment, but…

Fortunately, thanks to Google search and a comment calling this the best quality of any Paska recipe, we have it. A recipe for Paska bread I can handle – using ingredients on hand. I cut the recipe in half because I don’t need three loaves of bread.

I’ve been wanting to bake more bread, and I don’t know what about those measly little packets of living yeast freaked me out. But I have no excuses anymore. Proofing yeast, it turns out, just means dissolving it in water. And you don’t need a special zesting tools, just a small cheese grater, to scratch the zingy top layer from a lemon. This is easy.

Paska Bread Recipe

1 (.25 oz) package active dry yeast
1/4 cup warm water (110 degrees – warm, not hot)
1/4 cup white sugar
1 1/2 cups warm milk
2 cups all-purpose flour

Dissolve the yeast in the warm water until it gets frothy. Meanwhile, dissolve the sugar in the warm milk. When the milk cools, add it to the yeast with the flour. Mix it up with a wooden spoon (remembering, from our AFB baking, that metal reacts with the yeast). Cover with plastic wrap or clean cloth, and let it rise in a dark, warm spot for a couple hours till it bubbles and doubles in size.

The whole idea of dough rising is like an exciting science experiment to me – but then again, I’m a big nerd. The yeast is feeding on the sugar and turning it to carbon dioxide and ethanol, so in essence, you’re fermenting alcohol before you bake. Which is exactly why I drink while I bake.

Use your 2 hours wisely. Then add:

3 eggs, beaten
1/4 cup white sugar
1/2 cup butter, softened
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon lemon zest

Mix well, then add 6 cups of flour, one cup at a time. Personally, I got in a little more than 5 before I started struggling, so I moved to my floured pastry sheet early and worked in more flour as I kneaded (for about 10 minutes).

Place the dough ball in a greased bowl and turn to coat. Cover it back up, and put it back to bed to rise for another couple hours.

Now, this is my favorite part – and it tells you what a violent soul I am. Punching down the dough. If the kneading wasn’t enough release for you, this nice calm pounding will get the aggression out. Back to rest, rising for another half hour.

Divide the dough in half, shape each into a rounded loaf and place on greased baking stones. Let rise another hour on the pan, rising till doubled. Beat an egg with a tablespoon of water to brush over the loaves before popping in a 350-degree oven.

The loaves will be gorgeous golden brown after, well, 20 minutes in my oven but 45-50 according to the recipe. Give or take.

By midnight, my day ended with 16 successfully dyed eggs, 12 plump cinnamon rolls ready to go for the morning, and 2 golden loaves of experimental Easter bread. Bring it on, Easter Bunny.

Filed Under: breakfast recipes, dinner recipes, Food Tagged With: ,

The Super Bowl Party Spread

February 9, 2013 by

It was kind of a last-minute decision to host a small Super Bowl party. But I’m nothing if not resourceful in the kitchen, so it came together in a snap. So, without too much planning or investment, we’ll whip up a Super Bowl Party with a menu of fast, easy recipes dictated mainly by what’s on hand.

First, I took inventory of things in the fridge and pantry that could be used – vegetables for a veggie tray paired with the Tastefully Simple Fiesta Party Dip Mix, pickles and cream cheese (we’ll get to that combo later), salsa, hummus, pretzels, nuts and crackers – and lots of beer, liquor and wine.

To make this a true Super Bowl Party, though, we still needed a trip to the store. On the list: wings, mayo for the Fiesta Party Dip, chips, shrimp, lunch meat, and such. Only when we walked into the Dollar Store to get some extra wine glasses, as ours keep breaking for some reason, did we realize the list also included lots of snacky-snacks and candy. Pixie Stix and wax sodas would make a good addition to the Rolos and chocolate-covered mints I had, and the Twizzlers we loaded up on at Quaker Steak the night before.

That combination became a super-frugal Candy Buffet when guests first entered the living room.
The Snacky-Snacks came together on a platter of pretzels, 
iced animal crackers, pistachios and Fiddle Faddle caramel popcorn.
OK, now what’s any party – especially one centered around a game – 
especially one especially for The Big Game – without the Ultimate Snack: Chips & Salsa? 
So, in a handy serving platter spotted at the Dollar Store:
the salsa from the pantry with blue tortilla chips and, by request, Cool Ranch Doritos. 
On the Veggie Tray: green peppers, celery and carrots that needed to be used up anyway. 
I filled the last quarter of another Dollar Store platter 
with French Bread slices from the grocer’s bakery.
 The Tastefully Simple Fiesta Party Dip is, as you’d guess, pretty darn simple to whip up: 
2 tablespoons of the spice blend stirred with
1/4 cup mayo and 3/4 cup sour cream. 
After much internal debate, I agreed to also share the Sabra Supremely Spicy Hummus,
thinking an extra dip could help cut down on the expanding cracker collection in my cupboard.

Now, this isn’t a common Super Bowl Snack; 
in fact, it’s not really a common combination of foods at all.
I’m not sure what to call it other than my uncle’s nickname of “Amish Sushi.”
You start by spreading cream cheese onto a slice of ham 
(the softer the first and the thicker the latter, the better.)
(Sorry, but that calls for a: “That’s what she said.”)
If I haven’t made this dirty enough already, you slap a pickle on that.
Wrap the whole thing up – like sushi – then slice off sections.
Maybe it still sounds strange, but once you try one, you can’t stop.
 
And now, the Star of the Super Bowl Spread: The Wings.
Not sure what to call the sauce other than 
“Special Super Bowl Sauce,”
but I can show you how it started:
That’s some A-1 Steak Sauce, Sriracha, Open Bit BBQ, Worcestershire, Apple Butter, 
Mango Chutney, Teriyaki Marinade, horseradish, Fish Sauce, minced garlic, 
and – what you don’t see – plenty of additional spices and seasonings and salt and pepper.
As if that wasn’t enough food, we also thawed some shrimp 
and stirred up some cocktail sauce of ketchup and horseradish.
Then I started baking Peanut Butter Cookies, a family favorite of my BF
and his brother, who would be there. All in all, we put together quite a spread.
In the center sat my little splurge of a centerpiece: a $2.99 mini daffodil.
Nacho, unsure what to think of this sudden surge of cleaning, cooking and company, 
hides under the table until he recognizes a friend he can snuggle up to on the couch.

 And let’s not forget the liquor to wash it all down. The list was quite extensive, 
since we were playing a Super Bowl Drinking Game, so we made our own Drink Menu.

Super Bowl 2013 Drinking Game:
During the Super Bowl, drink when:
1. You hear the name “Harbaugh” – which is any mention of either head coach.
2. Either team scores any points.
3. Colin Kaepernick does his “Bicep Kiss”
4. You see a half-naked girl on a GoDaddy commercial.
5. Ray Lewis is seen praying, crying, or screaming (for any reason).

And, as an eco-friendly reminder for any party – especially one with a drinking game:

Filed Under: Food, snacks+apps Tagged With: , , ,

Sunday Eve Picnic: Mini Wine & Cheese Party

January 28, 2013 by
Today became “Use Up All the Gift Cards Weighing Down Your Wallet” Day.
Fueled by a scrambled egg/bacon/English muffin breakfast from The Shore Restaurant followed by a couple of West End Tavern Bloody Marys, we headed to Great Northern Mall.
First stop: DSW, where I stretched a $25 gift card (and then some) into two pairs of brown heels on clearance.
Next: Best Buy, where I lumped three gift cards toward a Magic Wand scanner.
Then: When starting to feel almost shopped-out, a quick stop by Starbucks cleared out the few dollars left on my Starbucks gift card with a Skinny Vanilla Latte. For the record, the taste difference between this and the Caramel Macchiato is as massive as the caloric gap.
Last stop: A tour through World Market, where a gift card more than pulled together a mini wine & cheese party for a Sunday evening picnic on the rug.
For less than $12, we present: Smoked Salmon Pate ($3.99); Sesame Water Crackers ($1.49); Sweet Mustard ($1.99); Spicy Sausage ($1.49); Tomato & Basil Cheese ($1.49); and Jalapeno Jack Cheese ($1.49). Paired with a $16 bottle of Cline Cashmere wine.
What a spread! The only thing I’d do differently is buy two of everything and turn a snack into a feast.
I noticed that the can of salmon pate didn’t expire for another 4 years, and the other foods were equally packaged to last, no refrigeration required. My plan is to restock, and prepare the classiest supply of long-term, protein-packed survival food you’ve ever seen.
Forget tuna and beef jerky – I’m going out in style, like this:
Filed Under: Around Town, Food, shopping, snacks+apps, wine Tagged With: , ,

“Double Treat” Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

May 27, 2012 by
I don’t need bookmarks in my cookbooks. They naturally fall open to the most oft-used pages, guided by oil stains and batter splatters and clouds of flour.
The page where this Double Treat Cookie recipe is located is one of these.
  
These come from the one and only Church Cookbook: the blue-covered “Brethren Favorites From Yellow Creek” compiled by members of Yellow Creek Church of the Brethren in Goshen, Indiana. I received my own copy of it (at last!) on my 23rd birthday by my mom.
It didn’t happen right away, but over the years, page 85 has become stained with grease and splotches of dough from various stages of mixing.  (You’re probably beginning to understand, now, why my sister doesn’t like me baking in her kitchen – or, at least, leaving behind the aftermath of my baking.)
I think my go-to chocolate chip cookies are still the chocolate chip pudding cookies (four pages before this recipe in the same cookbook), but I think the pudding mix starts to bring back bad memories of overabundant Amish Friendship Bread starters….More recently, my common chocolate chip cookie craving is accompanied by a peanut butter hunger. And those times call for these cookies.

Double Treat Cookies

2 cups flour
2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup shortening (2 sticks butter)
1 cup sugar
1 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup peanut butter
1 package (12 oz) chocolate chips
1 cup chopped peanuts, optional (I’ll pass, thanks.)
Beat together shortening, sugars, eggs and vanilla until fluffy.
Blend in peanut butter. Add dry ingredients.
Add chocolate chips (and peanuts, if you wish.)
Shape dough into small balls. Place on ungreased baking sheet (of course, I always use a silicone baking mat.) Flatten with the bottom of a glass that’s been dipped in sugar. Bake at 325 degrees for 8 minutes.
Makes about 4 dozen.

Filed Under: cookie recipes, dessert recipes, Food Tagged With: ,

AFB Chocolate Coconut Cream Cake

May 21, 2012 by
If you don’t know what Amish Friendship Bread is, then you didn’t grow up in the Midwest. If you’ve never had the daily task of “squishing” the bag, I’m not going to try to explain it to you. Just read this description from Friendship Bread Kitchen.
FBK is the ultimate site when it comes to AFB – even though the public posting of the supposed-to-be-secret original starter recipe probably tore a whole somewhere in the universe. But after one loaf of the original recipe loaf of AFB, you’ll get sick of the same ol’. Discovering this site – with hundreds of recipes to turn that gooey goop into the fanciest of cupcakes, muffins, scones, pancakes and other carbalicious delights – turns a tiresome pattern into a master chef experiment. 
So during my AFB starter possession, every time I saw a sale on Jell-O (one of the required ingredients in any AFB variation), I’d grab a few. And once I was stocked up on vanilla and chocolate, I’d go more exotic – or, in this case, tropical.
I give you:
Amish Friendship Bread Chocolate Coconut Cream Cake

Ingredients:

1 cup of Amish Friendship Bread starter
3 eggs
1/2 cup oil
1/2 cup applesauce
1/2 cup milk
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 cups flour
2 small boxes of coconut cream instant pudding
1/2 cup coconut flakes
Glaze
1 cup chocolate chips, melted
1 cup powdered sugar
1/2 cup coconut flakes

Directions:
Preheat oven to 325° F. I don’t know why this always is always the first step in a recipe, because it’s never the first thing I do.

In a large mixing bowl – for the sake of reminiscing, I recommend using vintage Pyrex – add the ingredients above. Yeah, directions aren’t really necessary for this recipe.

Grease two 8 x 8 pans, or line cupcake tins with liners like I did. Pour the batter evenly into whatever pans you’re using.

Bake for one hour – or, like, half that – until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.

While it’s cooling, mix the glaze. I made mine thicker, like a frosting. Once the cake cools, frost it up and top it off with coconut.

Filed Under: cake recipes, dessert recipes, Food Tagged With: , ,

BBQ Chicken Pizza

May 11, 2012 by
Dinner Idea #1: Fettuccine Alfredo with seafood…but no butter means no alfredo sauce.
Dinner Idea #2: The boyfriend suggests BLTs. Again. Promptly vetoed with a scowl.
Dinner Idea #3: Pizza, the constant fall-back. He suggests Chicken Bacon Ranch Pizza. But no ranch means no chicken bacon ranch pizza.
Dinner Idea #3.5: Sticking with the pizza, but how ’bout BBQ Chicken Pizza? Chicken, BBQ, crust, cheese, veggies – check!
Chicken BBQ Pizza
Filed Under: chicken recipes, dinner recipes, Food, pizza recipes

Seafood Pizza

April 23, 2012 by
Seafood Pizza:
shrimp + scallops + crab + bacon + red onion + garlic + white asparagus + jalapeno hollandaise
Filed Under: dinner recipes, Food, pizza recipes, seafood recipes Tagged With: , , , , ,

Pistachio Cupcakes with Pink Champagne Frosting

April 6, 2012 by

My new boss is crazy about her birthday. One birthday celebration lasts until the next birthday. That kind of partying calls for the fanciest of cupcakes, especially when the birthday girl loves cake as much as I do.

I know she loves her birthday, and I know she loves cake. But there was one small problem: I wasn’t sure what kind of cake. With aspirations of fanciness, I couldn’t settle for just chocolate. So, through Facebook, I sent her boyfriend on a covert op to find out, and he reported back the results: pistachio.

I found a lot of easy recipes for pistachio cupcakes, using white cake mix and pistachio pudding. That might cut it for some, but where’s the fun in that? I was raised to bake from scratch, and this festive occasion was certainly no exception. I want to bake pistachio cupcakes from scratch.

Some made-from-scratch recipes for pistachio cupcakes use pistachio extract or pistachio oil, and I don’t even know where to find those. I was considering substitutions until I finally tracked down this recipe that incorporates ground pistachios and almond extract, which tastes nutty just the same.

So, Pistachio Cupcake Recipe from Scratch, here we go. The directions for baking these cupcakes start from the top down, with this recipe for Pink Champagne Frosting, which I found paired with pistachio cupcakes here.

I recommend starting the frosting before you start making the cupcakes. The very first task is simmering 1/2 cup of champagne to reduce it to a couple tablespoons, making your champagne extract. I used Dibon Brut, but a rose would probably be nice. There, you have homemade champagne extract to sub into the frosting recipe, ’cause I dunno where you’d find that in a store.
how to make champagne exxtract for pink champagne frosting

 

 

But wait — you’ve just popped a bottle of champagne only to use half a cup, and you know it won’t keep. What to do? This is actually smart planning by the baker, because this way you can sip some bubbly while you bake. You also need to cook then chill the first few frosting ingredients, so you can work on the cupcakes while the frosting cools and you throw back a few.
Here’s the full recipe for Pink Champagne Frosting (of course, you can make it any color you want.)

Champagne Frosting Recipe:

  • 2 1/2 sticks butter
  • 1 1/4 cup sugar
  • 1 1/3 cup half + half
  • 1/3 cup flour
  • 1 1/2 tablespoons champagne extract
  • 1/2 tablespoon vanilla

In a saucepan, whisk half + half, extracts and flour until the lumps disappear. (Instead of half + half, I mixed heavy whipping cream and 2% milk after teaching myself the substitutionality of dairy.) Then, heat the saucepan over medium heat, whisking constantly until it boils. Keep whisking and cooking until it thickens. Remove from heat and stick in fridge.

I recommend making the cupcakes now while this cools. We’ll come back to the rest of the frosting directions at the end.

Now, for the cupcakes, the first step is to ground the pistachios, which I bought shelled to save some work. As you can see, my method for grounding nuts is the same way I crush ice: with a Ziploc bag and a hammer. Good aggression release, too. If you don’t need to release any aggression, you could always buy ground pistachios to start with, but I like having extra pistachios, extra coarsely ground, to top the cupcakes.
Tackle the rest of your baking prep work now, too: heat the oven to 350 and line cupcake tins with adorable papers, like these from Paula Deen (and she’d be proud, because together, these two recipes use almost a whole box of butter.)
a balanced diet is a cupcake in each hand paula deen cupcake liner
You’ll have several different bowls going to stir up your ingredients for pistachio cupcakes, so clear some space. Here’s a list of all the ingredients you’ll need to make room for:
Pistachio Cupcake Recipe from Scratch:
  • 2 1/4 cup flour
  • 1 tablespoon baking powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1 1/4 cup milk
  • 4 egg whites
  • 1 1/2 cup sugar
  • 1 stick butter
  • 1/2 teaspoon almond extract
  • 1/3 cup ground pistachios
The first bowl is for dry ingredients. Sift flour, baking powder, and salt into this one.
flour salt dry ingredients for baking pistachio cupcakes from scratch
In bowl No. 2, whisk milk and egg whites. Of course, I only use free range, hormone-free brown eggs (right from the coop when I can) and milk just as fresh, local and natural in jugs I can return to be refilled. Keep that in bowl #2.
eggs and milk baking pistachio cupcake recipe
 Now get bowl No. 3 (the dirty dishes are stacking up in your mind,  I know, but it’s worth it),
beat the sugar and butter for about 3 minutes, till creamy.
pistachio cupcake ingredients
Beat the ground nuts and almond extract into this bowl with the sugar and butter.
pistachio cupcake nut
Now, you alternate ingredients from the three bowls you’ve collected. Into a fourth and final bowl, beat in a third of the dry ingredients, then beat in a third of the milk mixture, then a third of the nutty butter, and so on, until it’s all mixed together. Keep beating for a couple minutes to make sure it’s good and blended.
Spoon the batter into your prepared cupcake tins, between 1/2 and 2/3 full. Pop into your heated oven for 15-20 minutes, until the cupcakes are springy and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Let them cool while you finish whipping up your cooled frosting.
Start by beating the butter and sugar 5-7 minutes until it’s fluffy and glossy. Take your cooled mixture from the fridge and add it to this. Beat 5 minutes. Add color, if you want, and frost. I added red and blue food coloring to make the frosting purple, my boss’s favorite color. Because this is such fluffy frosting, I packed it into a Ziploc bag, nipped the tip, and used that to pipe the frosting on top of the cooled cupcakes.
To finish, I ground some extra pistachios to sprinkle on top. The green and purple look really springy, great for an early April birthday.
Ta-da: Purple Pistachio Party Cakes.
pistachio cupcakes with pink champange frosting from scratch
So, you’re dying to know: What did she think? She was speechless. But maybe that was because her boyfriend orchestrated her birthday, down to the flavor of the cupcakes, all the way from Afghanistan. When it came down to the cupcakes, though, her reaction was simply one word: Perfect. She snapped this delicious picture of her Purple Pistachio Birthday Cupcake, before swiftly devouring it.pistachio cupcake recipe from scratch with pink champagne frosting
Filed Under: cupcake recipes, dessert recipes, Food Tagged With: , , ,