Cherry-Poppy Seed Muffins

My friend Kristen is stopping by to see me tomorrow morning (she's calling in sick to work...way to go, K!!!), so I decided this was a good enough reason to get in the kitchen to bake something for my rebel-child pal. She has two favorite things to eat...brownies and muffins. Brownies and muffins are the "fruits and vegetables" in her diet. Seriously. Since I usually send her home with a batch of brownies, I figured I would be a rebel-child myself and bake her muffins instead this time. Whoa, settle down, Mindy...you're out of control!!!

We both have a mutual love of poppy seeds, and since I had all of the ingredients on hand to make Cherry-Poppy Seed Muffins, it was a given what recipe to make. She gets six to take home and I get six to last me the next six mornings for breakfast before I leave for France next week.

I ate half of a muffin tonight, and it was yummy. Who knew poppy seeds, orange zest and dried cherries combined made such a delicious muffin? I can't wait to see what they taste like in the morning after the flavors have more time to sit overnight.

Cherry-Poppy Seed Muffins

Source: Adapted from Tyler Florence's Real Kitchen

1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted and slightly cooled
2 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting the cherries
1 cup sugar, plus more for dusting the tops of the muffins
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup milk
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
1 tablespoon poppy seeds
Zest of 1 orange, finely grated
1 cup dried cherries

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Grease a standard 12-cup muffin tin, preferably nonstick, with butter.

In a large bowl, mix the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt together until evenly combined.

In another bowl, whisk together the milk and eggs; then add the melted butter, poppy seeds, and orange zest.

Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients. Pour the wet ingredients into the well; fold everything together to form a batter.

Toss the cherries with some flour (about 1 tablespoon) in a zip-top bag (this helps to prevent them from sinking to the bottom of the muffins when baked), and then fold them into the batter.

Spoon the batter into the prepared muffin tins, filling them two-thirds full. Dust the surface of the batter with a little sugar to form a crust as the muffins bake.

Bake for 20-25 minutes, until a wooden toothpick comes out clean when inserted into the center muffin. Place the muffin tin on a cutting board to cool.

Yield: 12 muffins

Notes: I sprayed the muffin pan with butter-flavored cooking spray instead of using butter. Use an organic orange since you are zesting the peel.

Sunday Brunch

Since I actually woke up early enough to eat brunch today, I thought I would try two new recipes from two cookbooks I've never used before. (To be fair, I just got one of them in the mail this week, so there's good reason for not using it sooner.)

The Best Bacon comes from the cookbook Celebrate the Rain. The salty flavor of the bacon along with both the bite of cayenne pepper and freshly ground black pepper and the sweetness of the brown sugar makes this bacon recipe a winner. The brown sugar mixture carmelizes the bacon strips with a heat and sweet flavor combination. Delicious!!!

The Best Bacon

Source: Celebrate the Rain - The Junior League of Seattle

2 tablespoons packed light brown sugar
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 pound thick-sliced bacon

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F. Line a rimmed baking sheet with foil. Set a wire cooling rack or other slotted rack on top of the foil-lined pan.

Stir together the brown sugar, cayenne, and black pepper in a small bowl until well blended. Lay the bacon strips in a single layer on the rack. (Use 2 pans if all the bacon will not fit in a single layer.) Sprinkle the bacon with the brown sugar mixture. Bake until the bacon is browned, 15 to 20 minutes. Transfer the bacon immediately to individual plates and serve warm.

Makes 6 servings.

Notes: I halved this recipe. Make sure you use a rimmed baking sheet as there is a lot of fat that bakes off the bacon as it cooks. Use freshly cracked ground black pepper, too. The shaker kind would be too fine and too overpowering for this recipe.

Roasted Cornmeal Blueberry Muffins comes from the cookbook The Family Baker. The toasted (and beautifully fragrant) cornmeal adds a nice crunch, and the maple syrup adds a nice sweetness and flavor that regular sugar cannot. Make sure you use real maple syrup (not maple-flavored pancake syrup). I used No. 2 Amber and it was perfect. I also only used one cup of blueberries and the muffins were fine. Of course, you can use the 1 1/2 cups the recipe calls for, but if you only have one package of blueberries like I did, there's no need to run out to buy more. Also, I forgot to sprinkle sugar on top of the muffins before baking, but they were fine without it. Of course, I'm sure the sugar on top would add a nice crunchy sweetness and make them even better, but again, if you forget to sprinkle the muffin tops like I did, it's no big deal. The muffins are dense and just the right texture...not too moist, not too dry.

These two recipes were made to go together. Try them. You'll see. Enjoy!!!

Roasted Cornmeal Blueberry Muffins

Source: The Family Baker - Susan Purdy

Muffins
Butter-flavor no-stick vegetable spray
1 cup yellow cornmeal
1 large egg, at room temperature
1/2 cup pure maple syrup
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, melted and slightly cooled
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup milk
1/4 cup sour cream or plain yogurt
1 cup unsifted all-purpose flour
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups fresh blueberries, picked over, rinsed and blotted dry on paper towels (or whole frozen unthawed berries with all ice particles removed)

Topping
Granulated sugar

Position a rack in the center of the oven and preheat it to 400 degrees F. Coat a 12-cup muffin tin with cooking spray. Roast the cornmeal. (To pan-roast cornmeal, place cornmeal in an ungreased frying pan over medium heat and stir the cornmeal on and off for 7-10 minutes, until it begins to turn a light tan color and smells aromatic. Or, roast the meal in a metal pan at 350 degrees F about 20 minutes, stirring often.)

In a large bowl, whisk together the egg, maple syrup, melted butter, vanilla, milk, and sour cream (or yogurt). Directly on top of this wet mixture add--but don't stir in--the flour, baking powder, salt, and roasted cornmeal. Stir the dry ingredients all at once into the wet, mixing just to combine; do not overbeat. Add the berries and stir once or twice.

Divide the batter among the prepared muffin cups, filling them generously three-quarters full. Sprinkle some sugar on top of each muffin. If you have any unfilled cups in your muffin pan, carefully ladle a little water into each empty cup.

Bake the muffins about 20 minutes, or until they rise, look golden brown on top, and a cake tester inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean. Cool the muffins in the pan for 5 minutes, then coax them out of the pan with a fork and serve warm.

Notes: I used non-fat plain yogurt.

Breakfast for Dinner

Coconut milk, cinnamon and quick oats are just three of the numerous ingredients in my pantry that need to be used up before I move to Vancouver in three months. Since I was seeking an easy-to-make dinner tonight, I thought I would make this recipe that I've had in my "to try" pile for almost a year. And since I missed breakfast this morning due to staying up too late last night and the time change one hour ahead, I figured, "Why not have breakfast for dinner?" And so I did.

This oatmeal is creamy, delicious and requires only a short amount of time to prepare. I adapted a few amounts of the ingredients and cut the original recipe yield in half. If you need six servings to feed a crowd, just double the amounts below. Note my ingredient changes in parentheses, too.

Horizons Breakfast Oatmeal

Source: Gourmet Magazine - April 2006
Adapted from Horizons at the Ritz-Carlton, Montego Bay

Serves 3

Substituting coconut milk for part of the regular milk gives this oatmeal an undercurrent of tropical flavor.

2 cups whole milk (I used 1%)
1/2 cup unsweetened coconut milk, shaken and well-stirred
2 T. packed light brown sugar
1 (3-inch) cinnamon stick
1/8 tsp. salt
1 1/2 cups instant oats (I used quick oats)
1 1/2 tsp. unsalted butter

Bring milk, coconut milk, brown sugar, cinnamon stick and salt to a boil in a 3- to 4-quart heavy saucepan, stirring. Reduce heat to moderate, then stir in oats and return to a boil. Cook, stirring, 1 minute. Stir in butter, then remove from heat and let stand, covered, 5 minutes (oatmeal will thicken as it stands). Remove cinnamon stick and stir oatmeal before serving. (Sprinkle with cinnamon sugar for extra sweetness.)

The reason you will see so many recipes in the next few months that have cinnamon as an ingredient: