Category Archives: food

Fancy Breakfast Friday:Clementine Cake

Do you ever have that situation where everyone in your family loves clementines until that one day that they don’t? I buy bag after bag and I can’t stay ahead of the demand, and then one day someone gets a bad one in their lunch and then suddenly people are choosing apples or bananas instead and you are stuck with 5 lonely clementines in your fruit bowl. You can pack them in a lunch but you know you are going to see them 7 or 24 hours later, depending on when the lunch bag gets cleaned out.

No? Just me? Well I had my sweet revenge and turned those sorry clementines into a delicious cake last week. The recipe is here on Smitten Kitchen, and yes it does involve boiling the clementines for 2 hours, but that is not hard. It also calls for ground almonds… and I have to admit, I used homemade almond flour that has been in my freezer since my friend Ann Marie was making almond milk last summer and giving me her extra almond-flour-by-product. I’m not sure how long home made almond flour is supposed to last but as far as I’m concerned, if it was in the freezer, it’s fine. I also used some of this flour in this raspberry cake.

I had planned to share some clementine cake with Ann Marie, but… we just ate it all instead. (Sorry!)

The cake was good! I had to make Luke an egg/cheese bagel to go with it, but that’s a story for another day.

I made this cake the night before, because it’s obviously a time consuming process. But it was very fresh and moist tasting in the morning, and for the next several days. Very good with some strong coffee. This cake is gluten-free if you are into that sort of thing.

I didn’t do a very good job of putting my photo shoot props back in place, which led to this picture happening:

That puppy will use the oddest things for a pillow.

DIY: Candy Hearts

Have you ever thought, “What is the craziest thing I could make from scratch, instead of easily buying it for less than $5”? If the answer is yes, then I have a couple things to share with you. The first is DIY candy hearts, and the second is homemade hostess cupcakes. I have a draft blog post written for the hostess cupcakes from so long ago, the cultural references are no longer valid. Everyone go re-watch a couple years of Mad Men and I will share the hostess cupcake post.

In the meantime, get to work on these candy hearts because Valentine’s day is right around the corner, and this is a multi-day thing.

There are quite a few recipes out there, but here is what I did – this is mostly adapted from this Food Network recipe.

1 1/4 -ounce packet unflavored gelatin powder
1 tablespoon light corn syrup
1/2 cup boiling water
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 1 -pound boxes confectioners’ sugar (about 8 cups), plus more for kneading
Assorted food coloring
Assorted extracts (such as peppermint, strawberry or almond) – I used just peppermint because that’s what I have in my house.*
Cooking spray
Food decorating pens – I bought these.
Parchment Paper

*I may branch out if I make these again. Our grocery store remodel was a couple years ago, and I just now ran across the extract-secret-hiding-place.

Steps:

Throughout this process, you want to keep the dough covered and work quickly enough that it doesn’t dry out. On the other hand, they won’t be totally dry for a couple days, so don’t stress too much.

Add the the gelatin, corn syrup, salt and the half cup of boiling water and whisk together. Do this in the bowl of your electric mixer, with the whisk attachment, or in that same bowl with a regular whisk.

Once the gelatin is dissolved, switch to the paddle attachment. Turn the mixer on low – medium and add the vanilla and then slowly add the confectioner’s sugar. You can add a cup at a time, adding more as the prior cup gets incorporated.

Take the dough out of the mixer when it is smooth and tacky. If you plan to do 4 colors, separate it into 4 sections. I did white, purple, green, and pink. Roll the white into a disk and cover with plastic wrap. Keep all sections of dough that you aren’t working on under plastic wrap. Add the food coloring to the other sections, as well as the extra flavor. All I did was add a little peppermint with the green food coloring. You can mix the color in the mixer, or by hand as you knead the dough. I did it by hand because my mixer doesn’t handle very small amounts of dough very well. I added a couple drops of color, and rolled the dough between two pieces of plastic wrap, kind of folding it over itself a couple times.

As you get the color mixed in, start to roll the dough out to a thickness of about 1/4 inch. Roll it between two pieces of parchment paper. You may need to add extra powdered sugar so the dough doesn’t stick to the paper. Cut the dough with cookie cutters and leave to dry on a cookie sheet covered with parchment paper sprayed with cooking spray.

Repeat for each color.

Leave the hearts to dry. I read that it takes 24 hours, but ours took a little longer.

Write your messages when the hearts are dry.

Don’t think they will look like the hearts in the box or the hearts on pinterest. Don’t be discouraged.

Fancy Breakfast Friday: Activist Muffins

I have been taking solace in baking lately. If I get elbow deep in some dough, I won’t try to read the latest news on my phone. After I took the boys to see Screenagers last night, I deleted Facebook and Twitter off of my phone and made a plan to cut way back. We definitely have a “do as I say, not as I do” situation going on. Screenagers was a very interesting documentary about screen time, the brain, teenagers, rules, self control, and learning. It was good.

So how did these muffins turn out? Ok. I should have soaked the oats in milk longer. I kind of threw these together and they were actually pretty good, but nothing to write a blog post about.

If you must know... Follow the oatmeal version.

The cake was amazing.

I also made this fancy appetizer for a party, which was in the latest Sunset Magazine. I recommend making this.

Fancy Breakfast Friday: Sweet Corn Cakes

Did I forget to take a picture of the corn cakes? Yes I did. Plan b was to take a picture of Luke eating the one leftover on a lift ride but I did not share this plan with him and he ate it before we even got out of the car.

This recipe is based heavily on Feed Zone Portables: A cookbook For On The Go Athletes.

It’s like a regular pancake recipe if you use an alternate flour, soy milk instead of regular milk, coconut oil instead of butter and so on. I happen to have coconut oil as a homeopathic treatment method. I’ll leave it at that. (It’s for treating lice.) And I have rice flour because my Christmas shortbread recipe calls for it. I have a ton of Masa Harina from when I tried to make my own tortillas.

These corn cakes were so delicious. I want to take the recipe and make it into a muffin recipe and save myself the time at the stove flipping pancakes, but I’m not there yet. If I made them again for breakfast, I might cut back on the sugar and serve them with syrup. But as a snack for school or cycling, they were so yummy. I doubled the recipe and we had enough for breakfast with a side of bacon, then the boys each took one or two for a snack at school and we had one left for a snowboarding snack. The recipe below is the non-doubled version and it says it serves 4.

Sweet Corn Cakes

1 cup masa harina
1/4 cup raw sugar (I just used regular sugar)
2 tablespoons rice flour (recipe calls for brown rice flour, I used white rice flour)
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
dash of kosher salt
1 egg
2 tablespoons melted butter or coconut oil
1 cup milk (recipe calls for soy, I used whole cows milk)

Mix dry ingredients
Put milk in a measuring glass, and beat egg into it. Add melted butter or coconut oil. Mix the wet ingredients into the dry and allow the batter to rest while you heat up a griddle.
Cook these as pancakes, but plan a little lower temp and a little longer cook time.

Enjoy!

Fancy Breakfast Friday: Pumpkin Waffles

I was rummaging in my cupboards last week and I found a can of pumpkin. I recalled that every time I made a pumpkin dish last fall, Luke mentioned that pumpkin and chocolate is a good combo. Poor Luke – I never made anything with pumpkin and chocolate. But it’s a new year so…

I based this recipe on a carrot waffle recipe from The Skratch Feed Zone Portables cook book. The carrot waffle recipes sounds like a great and health snack, but it calls for carrot juice which is not something I can make at home and don’t see myself purchasing. So this is less healthy and possibly more delicious, but we’ll never know.

I got another opportunity to use my awesome waffle maker from Aunt Suzy, and the waffles that it makes are pretty big. This recipe made 8 or so. Jack and I were happy with 1 each. Dave would have had 2, but I needed to save one for photographs. They were pretty good, but I am still getting used to my waffle maker, and these can easily be undercooked because of pumpkin. I gave Luke the first one I made because it was the softest and he just started life with rubber bands on his braces and was feeling some pain.

Pumpkin Waffles

1 cup flour
1 tablespoon sugar
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
pinch of salt
1/2 cup milk
2 eggs
2 Tablespoons melted butter
1/2 cup pumpkin
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
chocolate chips

Mix the dry ingredients in a bowl. Add milk, eggs, vanilla and butter to measuring cup and whisk. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients. Cook waffles.

I doubled the recipe I think. I messed around with adding chips to the waffle as I put it in the waffle maker, but ended up deciding it was easier to put the chips on top after it came out.

Delicious. I have quite the stack from the library right now, so I need to do another book post.

Fancy Breakfast Friday: Diet

I’m sure no one wants to hear about the 3-day “cleanse” I did, so this is going to be a short post. I will say that part of the cleanse included oatmeal, which I already love and I have continued eating it so I will share that recipe.

Make this the night before and refrigerate it. On the cleanse I think I was supposed to eat it cold, which I did the first day. But come on. It’s January, I want a hot breakfast.

1 cup almond milk *
1/3 cup oats
1 T chia seeds
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 cup blueberries

Mix in a bowl before bed, cover, refridgerate
In the morning, microwave for 30-60 seconds.

*I have been using almond milk because I bought it for my “cleanse” but I will switch to regular milk now that I have run out. I have been experimenting with chia, and this recipe has the best results so far. It’s very filling and I have been able to live on this until lunch time. I have also substituted the blueberries for cut up apple. (I cut the apple in the morning.) This recipe has more milk and fewer oats than what I normally make, but I like it better.

I am going to be honest and say I never sweeten my oatmeal, so if you like your oatmeal sweet, this may not be for you. However, the enormous amount of cinnamon did make it taste sweet to me. I did the full teaspoon during the cleanse, but have cut it in half since then.

Don’t worry, real FBF will be back next week. I have something delicious cooking right now.

Fancy Breakfast Friday: Buttermilk Waffles

Last Friday we had big plans to snowboard at Copper so I rescheduled FBF for New Years Day. I mean, no one knows what day it is over winter break anyway. We had fondue for New Years Eve, as you can see from the uncleared table in the pic above. I told the fam to go easy on the chocolate so we’d have some for breakfast. For some reason, that sounded like a healthy choice at the time.

I got a new waffle maker for Christmas (THANKS AUNT SUZY) and I made this Smitten Kitchen recipe for our New Years Day breakfast. They were delicious. My favorite waffle recipe is still the Liege Waffle, but I had buttermilk so I wanted to try something different. They were really yummy. A little complicated with extra steps but pretty worth it. I served the waffles with leftover chocolate fondue that I warmed in a double boiler, and strawberries that had been sliced and mixed with sugar.

Jack was awestruck to see his. We had delicious waffles and then headed to Eldora to try out my new birthday snowboard that you can see in the background.

Fancy Breakfast Friday: Cinnamon Rolls

Happy Early New Year! If you have time for one last indulgence before your new year’s diet, then I recommend these cinnamon rolls from Smitten Kitchen.

Over the holiday, I also made blueberry scones, I reheated some frozen croissants, and I made a quick batch of waffles. I just threatened the kids that maybe Fancy Breakfast Friday is over and we’ll start something new in 2017, but I just commissioned Luke to make a logo for me, so maybe I’ll keep it up. I did get a waffle maker and a breakfast cookbook for Christmas.

Fancy Breakfast Friday: Gingerbread

I’ve made gingerbread houses, decorated gingerbread cookies, made gingerbread waffles… are you sensing a theme here? Everything but actual gingerbread. It was probably last Christmas when it occurred to me that gingerbread, as in a bread type item, was a thing. A thing that I should, in fact, make. Fast forward a year – I needed to come up with both a treat for a third grade party and something for FBF. I went with gingerbread. It is amazing. And festive. It makes your house smell like a special wintery holiday.

Of course I couldn’t follow the recipe because I do not have a 9×9 pan. I have 2 8×8 and one 9×13. I started to do the math and then I decided to go with two 8×8 since I needed half the gingerbread to be portable. I doubled this recipe and I cooked it about 5-8 extra minutes to accommodate the smaller pan/taller bread.

I will admit that I added a little extra sugar because I got cocky with my digital scale. One of the things I love about the King Arthur Flour website is that you can toggle between volume and weight for ingredients. I always use my scale for flour because I hate measuring flour – the scale is life changing. But then once I had the flour in the bowl, I zeroed the weight and started dumping in sugar and I went way over. It was kind of hard to remove the extra sugar because it was a thin layer on top of the flour. So. This may be a little sweeter that the actual recipe. (As in 14o grams of sugar instead of 100 – or 70 instead of 50 if you aren’t doubling.)

I would say it got mixed results from a class of 3rd graders who may have been expecting a brownie. On Friday, I thought it had a strong molasses aftertaste which I didn’t mind, but didn’t LOVE. A day and a half later, it’s perfect. Or maybe it has grown on me.

The boys had a side of gingerbread for Fancy Breakfast Friday with whatever else they wanted for breakfast that day. (Within reason.) Luke had a fried egg on toast and Jack had oatmeal with blueberries, almonds and maple syrup.

MetaMegan

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