Bedhead Breakfast

Morning deliciousness.

Both on my head and on my plate.



P.S. How does YouTube decide what screenshot gets to be on the play screen? Because... seriously.

Cheating on ice cream with...

this guy?

Yap. And it's delicious.


Take a few frozen bananas, slice them up, toss them into a food processor (do as I say not as I do, the personal blender sucked for this task) with a dollop of Nutella (optional), and blend.


Voila. Frozen treat that you won't believe is just... fruit. Well... and Nutella. But Nutella is a fruit too, right?

Right. And since this cup of goodness is sooo ridiculously healthy, you can splurge with the toppings. Like... say...


Some of that leftover red velvet cookie dough? Yes... yes, I think that will do nicely.

Don't judge this treat by my poorly lit pictures. Go ahead and buy some bananas, peel and freeze those suckers, and try this for yourself. Next time I'm even skipping the Nutella. (o_O)

Cranberry Walnut Bread Leftovers

So did you come up with your guesses for my Cranberry Walnut Bread leftovers?

Evan got one of them. So he gets all the points.

With my half loaf of Cranberry Walnut bread, I made...


French toast in the usual way.

and...


Bread Pudding a la Pioneer Woman. I went without the Whisky Cream Sauce this time and none of my coworkers complained.

Both were quite delish. The bread pudding was bomb. Make it now. ; )

Step-by-Step Braided Bread

It's been a while since I wrote up a labor-intensive step-by-step post of a complicated kitchen endeavor. Well, good sirs and madams, wait no longer. What follows is the 11 pic procedure for baking a gorgeous loaf of braided bread. I made the Cranberry Braided Bread by Two Fat Als with only minor changes.


Whisk 3 c. bread flour, 1/4 c. sugar, 2 envelopes quick-rising yeast, 1 1/4 tsp salt, and 2 T buttermilk powder together in a large bowl.


Add 1/2 c. water, 2 eggs, 2 T melted butter, 1 1/2 T vanilla extract and stir until combined. Gradually add 1/3 c. hot water until the dough forms a soft, sticky ball.


Knead dough until smooth. This will take about 7 minutes. Mine wasn't uber-smooth but I knew I'd keep kneading it in the next step.


About 1/4 c. at a time, knead 1 c. cranberries and 1/2 c. chopped walnuts into the dough.


Place dough ball in lightly greased bowl, cover with plastic wrap and a dish towel, and place in a warm place to double in size, about an hour and a half. (While kneading the dough, I heated the oven to about 200 degrees and then turned it off. The residual heat works like a dream.)


See what I mean? Punch down the dough and...


divide it into four equal(ish) parts. Set one part aside and roll the other three into about 13'' long snakes.


Braid the three dough snakes together and turn both ends under. Move the braided loaf to a lightly greased baking sheet. Beat one egg and brush the braided loaf.

Divide your remaining dough ball into three equal parts and roll them into about 10" snakes. Braid the snakes and place this smaller braid on top of the larger. Brush the small braid with egg and allow the loaf to rise a second time, about another hour or so.


After the second rise, brush the loaf with the beaten egg again and bake for 45 minutes at 325 degrees.


And it's just that easy. Two Fat Als insist that you allow the loaf to cool for at least 45 minutes before you slice it, but that didn't happen for me. I was already late to the party since I mis-timed the rises, so I hack the loaf in half and ran out the door. No one was any the wiser.

The bread itself was quite good. The cranberries brought a sweetness to the bread that was refreshing. I'm sure this would have only been bettered by the orange extract that Two Fat Als used (I substituted vanilla extract here), but I didn't have any of that in the house. For me, the bread toed the troublesome line between sweet and... bread... so the next day I used the second half of my loaf to make two other dishes.

I bet regular readers already know what those two dishes were. I'm nothing if not consistent. (I'd appreciate any comments to the contrary. Things like "No way, Amanda! One of the things I love about you is your spontaneity!" will do nicely.)

Strawberry Shortstacks

Mmmmm... delicious sleep of the weekend. How I love it.

I meant to put together an overnight yeast pancake batter before I went to bed last night, but I forgot about it when I decided to turn in around 11pm. No worries though! This morning, I met some friends at the farmer's market and before I ran out the door, I mixed up this recipe for Yeast Pancakes* so it could do its thing while I browsed.

Please note the little yeasty beasts in the dry ingredients.


So you don't get worried if you make these yeast pancakes on your own, I'll tell you that the batter (when it first comes together) is extremely thin and liquidy.



See?

Ah, but after a couple of hours, the batter is a bit thicker and definitely weirder. After I gave it a quick stir, it looked like normal pancake batter.


While I fried up the pancakes in the usual way, I cooked down some strawberries in a little bit of sugar. I threw in some cornstarch at the end to thicken the juices and... voila!


Strawberry Shortstacks.

I layered the strawberry sauce between the pancakes too... just because I felt like it. It was a delicious Spring-is-here-and-Summer-is-around-the-corner! breakfast.

*If you use this recipe, I'd recommend cutting the amount of salt in half. I thought it looked like too much when I was adding it, but I checked the recipe again and decided to trust it. The pancakes were a bit saltier than I'd prefer. This was another reason I schmeared the strawberries throughout. I also made some subtle Amanda changes to this recipe by swapping out the whole milk in favor of soy and replacing a third of the white flour with whole wheat flour. It's how I roll.

Cranberry Walnut (Fail) Bagels

If you caught yesterday's post on my bagel flub-up, then you can probably guess where this post is going. : )

My cranberry walnut bagels are... tasty... but, as improperly yeasted bagels will be, they are flattish.


The flavor is great and actually pretty close to the Panera original, so I'll try these bagels again with the proper Active Dry yeast. Lesson learned!

Overall, I count this bagel-making experience as a success, despite the yeast faux pas, because the bagels are 1) beautiful and 2) breakfast for the next two days. Allllright.

Blueberry Pancakes with a Crunchy Twist

Recently, I ate an amazing brunch at J. Christopher's in Savannah. My life was changed a little bit by what they call "Blueberry Crunchcakes." The menu describes these wholesome gems as their "delicious blueberry pancakes made with crunchy granola mixed in," and that just seemed way too simple to not try to duplicate at home. My version isn't perfect... but it's definitely something I'll make again.

I started with my go-to pancake recipe:


Wet
I cup of water
1 egg
2T canola oil

Dry
1 cup flour
4T buttermilk powder
1t baking powder
1/4t baking soda
1/4t salt

For these crunchcakes I added a glug (no, I can't be more specific) of vanilla extract to the wet. I also smashed up a bunch of Kashi granola cereal and pulled some frozen blueberries out of the freezer.


My workstation, clockwise from top: water boiling for much needed coffee, skillet of fantastic squareness, canola oil and silicon brush for surface of skillet of fantastic squareness, frozen blueberries, crushed granola.


Now this picture is more of a tease and, I guess, a hurdle to those who just look at the pictures without reading the text. Because... well... the process that you see laid out so carefully here... well... failed. Sprinkling granola on the griddle before topping it with batter, blueberries, and more granola results in burned granola on the top of the pancake. Hmph. So, I learned that only having crunchies on one side (the bottom side once flipped) was better than having crunchies on both top and bottom, half of them burned black.


Like I said before, my attempt at Blueberry Crunchcakes was successful only to a point. The pancakes were tasty and the granola provided a textural contrast that pancakes don't usually have. However, J. Christopher's Blueberry Crunchcakes were better, and given the chance, you should try them for yourself.


That said, I am not going to complain about saying good morning to something this gorgeous.

(And, no, I don't know how I managed to line up four blueberries in four different pancakes and slice directly through all of them. If you asked me to do it again, I wouldn't be able to.)

Now for some honesty and a question: I love breakfast and brunch foods soooo much, but even writing this post felt like deja vu. I think I need some new material... What is your favorite breakfast or brunch food?

Panini is the New Cupcake

My name is Amanda and I'm a panini-holic.

Sigh. It feels better just to say it, actually.

But I'm serious. Take good ingredients and smash them between two pieces of bread for 3-4 minutes and they become something entirely different. A vacation. An escape. A drug.

And I'm hooked.

So here's the latest in my panini adventures...

The Boston Mass

You'll need:


An apple
Cheddar cheese
Honey mustard
Bread

Here's another thing I love about paninis...the ease of assembly. For this one, you'll need to slice the cheese and apple, but that's it.


Spread honey mustard on both pieces of bread. Layer apples, cheese, and more apples on one slice and then cap it with the other.

After a quick 4 minutes in the press on medium heat...


a new panini is born.

And it's a good one. The apple & cheese pairing is not new (hence the Boston Mass monacre), so if you like that flavor combo you'll love it toasted up in sandwich form. The honey mustard may seem like an odd choice of spread but it really isn't. It's just tangy enough to counter the sweetness of the apple and richness of the cheddar. Mmm... I wish I had slowly eaten it as wrote this post like I planned instead of scarfing in the first couple of sentences.

Ah, well. There are worse things.

And, yes, I have started naming my paninis. I figure it's easier to do as I go along than to try to come up with all of them at once when I open my paninis-by-day, drinks-by-night, cupcakes-all-hours bakery... bar... thing.

In the meantime, I'm going to try to bring you a new panini each weekend. Sound good?

Julie, Julia, and Amanda (Part 2)

So...

Umm...

Earlier this week I shared my Julia Child-inspired cookies. They weren't a Julia recipe, but they look like Julia. What I have to share with you today is pretty much the Willy Wonka ("strike that, reverse it") of those cookies. These cupcakes come from a Julia Child recipe, but you wouldn't necessarily know that by looking at them. Just something interesting I thought about...


Anyway...

Julia Child's Gateau A L'Orange et aux Amandes (Orange and Almond Sponge Cake for those who, like me, do not read French) was actually not terrible to put together. The experience of making the cake and icing was a lot like making my first Martha Stewart cupcake. A lot of steps, none of them impossible. Let the record show, however, Julia Child's steps are significantly more difficult and delicate than Martha Stewart's.

The first thing that Julia got me to do that Martha never did was assemble and measure all my ingredients ahead of time.


Mise en place, she calls it. Here's what I had:

1/2 cup butter
2/3 cup sugar
3 egg yolks
zest from one orange
1/3 cup orange juice, strained
1/4 tsp almond extract
3/4 cup pulverized almonds
1/2 cup cake flour
3 egg whites
pinch of salt
1 tablespoon sugar

I do not have Mastering the Art of French Cooking, so I followed Danielle's very carefully posted recipe at Cooking for My Peace of Mind. Since I was largely baking for my peace of mind this weekend, it just all felt right.


I began by gradually beating 2/3 cup of sugar into the egg yolks until the mixture formed a ribbon when I pulled the beater up.


Note the ribbon in the bowl there and the amount of left-handed, perfectly timed picture taking skill it took for me to capture it.


Next I added the orange juice, orange zest, and almond extract. The orange et amandes bits. (Is that at all right, French speakers?) After the mixture became light and foamy, I added the pulverized almonds, mixed, and then added the flour, mixed again.


In another bowl, with another mixer, I beat the egg whites and pinch of salt to soft peaks. Once the soft peaks showed up, I added a tablespoon of sugar and continued to beat to stiff peaks, the ones you see in the picture there.


Back to the batter, I added one stick of melted butter and stirred yet again.


Finally, I folded the beaten egg whites into the gorgeously fragrant orange almond batter.


Julia and Danielle said I could fill my cake all the way to the top, but my fancy cupcake liners were quite a bit taller than my tin. So I kept it conservative and I'm glad I did. You'll see in a minute that the cakes rose perfectly.

Now for the topping bit...

I followed the recipe for Julia's Italian Meringue in Julia's Kitchen Wisdom. This book I actually do have. :)

Here's what I gathered (and forgot to photograph):

2/3 cup egg whites (4-5)
1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar (I didn't have this so I went without)
pinch of salt
1 and 1/2 cups sugar
1/2 cup water

Julia's instructions: Beat egg whites, cream of tartar, and a pinch of salt to soft peaks and turn machine to slow. Meanwhile, boil water and sugar to the thread stage. (Amanda's note: You'll know you've reached this when you drizzle a bit of sugar water off a spoon into a glass of water. The sugar should form a thread in the water. Also... don't ever stir the sugar... Idk why... but it must be important b/c everyone stresses that.) Beating the eggs at moderate speed, slowly dribble in the hot syrup. Increase speed to moderately fast and continue beating until the meringue is cool and forms stiff, shining peaks.


Let me just say... this takes a hot minute. You can go ahead and walk away. And then walk away again after you check it. And then walk away again when you talk yourself out of checking it.

I'm just sayin... it takes a minute.


But... oh em gee... when it works? It's a thing of absolute beauty. This meringue is Julia's basic meringue. She provides variations for making this into a buttercream, flavoring it, and all sorts of other things... but honestly... this pure form is better than my attempt at her buttercream.


I frosted my mini cupcakes with an offset spatula and they look almost as if they were piped. Gorgeous. I'm... in love. I cooked sugar - I cooked an icing - and I'm in love with the result. I am as surprised as you are.


And what of the cupcake as a whole?

Well... I told you the batter was fragrant and lovely? The cake was just as nice. The sponge is light and fluffy and just slightly sticky. Both the orange and almond flavors are noticeable but delicate. Pairing the fresh, airy sponge with meringue was an excellent choice, since I'm certain anything heavier (an American buttercream, for instance) would have killed it. The Italian Meringue, on the other hand, provided sweetness that was as subtle as the cake itself.

Mmmm...

In the words of my idol, Ms. Paula Deen, "Y'all are gonna have to excuse me while I finish makin love to my tater."

World Nutella Day!

Decadence, thy name is Nutella.



Per the World Nutella Day website:

Sara from Ms. Adventures in Italy and Michelle from Bleeding Espresso (and Shelley from At Home in Rome, in spirit) solemnly declare Friday, February 5th “World Nutella Day 2010″ – a day to celebrate, to get creative with, and most importantly, to EAT Nutella.

Because I like to do what I'm told...


Disclaimer: (Is it still a disclaimer if it comes after the thing it's disclaiming? Or does it technically have to come before and warn you of the badness ahead? Anyways...) Video is 7 and a half minutes of Amanda time, largely uncut, until the ending at which point there is a large, abrupt, dramatic cut that is jarring at best. I understand but I'm too tired to do any better. Remember that the time between when I learned of Nutella Day and the time of posting was about three hours.

For the readers among you, here's the recipe:

gather...
Two slices of pound cake
Smathering of Nutella (As much as you can handle... It's a holiday after all.)
Banana slices (six fit on my slices)

do...
Make the sandwich, kids. I really should have to explain it, right?
Panini that thing on the middle setting for 2 minutes.
Eat and enjoy.

Almond Butter: Take Two (this time there's a cupcake)

On Tuesday, I told you about my almond butter fiasco. Well... after that disaster, I found almond butter at Bi-Low. (Who knew?!) I used the almond butter to put together my Cupcake Hero November: Nut Butter entry.

Blackberry Almond Cupcakes
A moist, vanilla almond eggless cake topped with almond nut butter icing and a sprinkling of powdered sugar.

But wait... just beneath the surface lurk...



Two different fillings. I was inspired to double fill these cupcakes by a donut I had at a Tim Hortons in Maine. This ridonkulously decadent donut was filled with both jelly and icing. Having enjoyed the experience very much, I decided to cupcake it. And why not cupcake it with a nut butter icing?

For the icing bit, I made up a thick almond butter icing. To complement that icing, I chose a blackberry jam.


As you can see, the result is visually fantastic. And though one taster thought the effect was a bit peanut butter and jelly, she loved the flavor of the almond butter icing.

All other tasters were unavailable for comment, as the cupcake rendered them speechless. There were a lot of "oh man"s and "wow"s and "ungh"s. High praise indeed.

Without further ado, here are the recipes.

Super Moist Vanilla Almond Cake
modified from Love and Olive Oil

1 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup almond meal
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1/3 cup oil
1 cup almond milk
1/2 tablespoon vanilla bean paste

Preheat oven to 350.

Mix flour, almond meal, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and sugar together in a large bowl.

Whisk oil, almond milk, and vanilla bean paste together in another bowl. Then pour into a well in dry ingredients. Stir until mostly smooth and pour 1/4 c of batter into each liner. (Cupcakes will dome up nicely.)

Bake 20-22 minutes or until cake tester or toothpick comes out clean.

Almond Butter Icing (for filling)
based loosely on allrecipes' Fluffy Peanut Butter Icing

1/4 cup unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup almond butter
1 cup confectioner's sugar
1 tablespoon almond milk (use more if icing is too thick to use as filling)

Blackberry Jam
adapted from Sandra Lee

Stand in jam/jelly aisle for a good few minutes.

Debate worthiness of different fruit jams as they pair with your vision of an almond butter cupcake.

Pull jam (any jam) from the shelf, examine it at length, replace it on the shelf, and leave the grocery store with a jar of Blackberry Jam.

Almond Butter Icing (for frosting)
adapted from this girl

Take remaining almond butter filling and slowly add almond milk until icing is thin enough to spread easily.

Bag Lady Muffins

I'm alive! And I'm baking! In the new kitchen, of all places.


(Go ahead and note the storage containers to the right... my kitchen, like the rest of the place, is still largely packed.)

But I think you and I both know that won't keep me from baking. So let's do this thing.

The actual descriptive name for these muffins got ridiculously long, so I'm calling them Bag Lady Muffins. There are several reasons that these muffins scream "Bag Lady!" to me.

1. There are oats.


2. Assembling the ingredients requires several bags just to get from the cabinets to the counter.


3. Spice and tea are involved. I'm told those are old and stuffy ingredients.


4. My plan is to bake these muffins and freeze a good portion of them for later breakfasts. This is, by far, the most spinstery thing I have ever done with baked goods. And I'm doing it on purpose.


Ah, well. There is nothing wrong with being a bag lady. Or a spinster!

So go ahead and embrace your inner spinster and try out these Bag Lady Muffins if you dare. Heck... freeze them and I'll love you forever.

Bag Lady Muffins (I started with the Applesauce Oatmeal Muffin recipe I found here and made a bunch of changes)

Here's what you'll need:

1 c. old fashioned rolled oats (not instant)
3/4 c. Tazo chai latte concentrate
1/4 c. milk
1/2 c. applesauce (mine was Cranberry Raspberry Plus! Fiber, but I won't hold you to that)
2 egg whites

1 c. whole wheat flour (!!)
1/2 c. brown sugar
1 t baking powder
1/2 t baking soda
1/2 t salt

dark chocolate chips

Here's what you'll do:

1. Soak oats for one hour in milk/chai mixture.
2. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
3. Combine oat mixture with applesauce and egg whites. Mix.
4. Measure and mix dry ingredients in separate bowl.
5. Add wet to dry and stir just until mixed. Add dark chocolate chips. I added about 1/3 cup but next time I'll add more.
6. Bake in greased and floured (all in one can, I recommend) muffin tin for 15-20 minutes. One recipe made exactly 12 muffins for me.


So how, you might ask, did my sophisticated palate find these muffins?

Well... honestly, I was hoping for a little bit stronger chai flavor. I only used 3/4 cup of the concentrate because I was concerned that the spiced chai flavor would steamroll the poor muffins and outspice me. However, the flavor was really really light. Perhaps even undiscernable. Next time I'll up the chai concentrate to a full cup, nix the milk, and see what happens.

And... just as in other applesauce cakes, the applesauce disappears when baked so I didn't get any sort of kickback from the apple/cran/ras combo. What brought this otherwise pretty plain muffin home for me was the chocolate. The oatmealy muffin may be basic, but the chocolate chips make it intriguing.

Overall, these muffins get a thumbs up from me. They aren't as schizo-crazy flavor-wise as I was hoping they would be, but I think that just makes their Bag Lady name even more appropriate.