Lemon Chiffon Cup Cakes with Fresh Berries

2 cups all purpose flour
1½ cups granulated sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
½ cup vegetable oil
8 eggs, separated
¼ cup lemon juice
¼ cup water
2-1/2 tablespoon grated lemon zest
Lemon Glaze
6 tablespoon butter, melted
1 tablespoon grated lemon zest
2 cups powdered sugar
3 tablespoon lemon juice
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 325°F.

In large bowl, add flour, granulated sugar, baking powder and salt. Add oil, egg yolks, lemon juice, water and lemon zest; whisk until well combined. In large bowl, beat egg whites until stiff peaks form.

Fold ⅓ of whipped egg whites into the batter to lighten. Gently fold in the remaining egg whites until mixture is combined; do not over mix or batter will deflate. Pour into ungreased pan; tap gently on counter to release air pockets.

Bake 50-60 minutes or until cake springs back when touched. Invert pan immediately after removing from oven and allow to cool completely. Run knife around the sides and center of cake to loosen.

For glaze, combine butter, zest, powdered sugar, juice and vanilla in medium bowl; stir until smooth. Pour over cooled cake and spread with spatula. Glaze will set hard within 30 minutes.

For Berries and Cream

Whip 1 pint fresh heavy cream and fold in sliced mixed berries.

Makes 24 cupcakes or 1 large Bundt cake

Courtesy of Martha Stewart

Photo: Marcus Nilsson

Chocolate Covered Strawberries

2 / 11 / 152 / 11 / 15

Most chocolate covered strawberries, if just dipped in melted chocolate, will crack when you bite into them. Here’s a recipe for Ganache Covered Strawberries that can be refrigerated and eaten without the chocolate falling off the berry. Ganache is simple and easy to make and it stores well in the refrigerator for days. Use it to frost a cake, cupcakes, dip all kinds of fruit or make delicious truffles. Send me a comment if you’d like me to post a truffle recipe! Happy Valentines Day!

Chocolate Ganache Covered Strawberries

1 # large stemmed strawberries

12 oz. (by weight) dark chocolate

1 cup heavy cream

½ tablespoon butter, unsalted (makes the chocolate shiny)

Wash and dry strawberries carefully, set aside on a towel. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

Chop the chocolate into small chunks using a serrated knife. You could use dark chocolate chips instead if desired.

Heat the cream slowly in the top of a double boiler, add the chocolate pieces and stir until the chocolate is nearly melted, add the butter and remove from the heat, continue to stir until the chocolate and the butter have melted.

Dip the dry strawberries into the melted chocolate (Ganache) mixture and lay on parchment lined baking sheet to dry.

You could sprinkle the berries with finely chopped nuts if desired or drizzle with a little melted white chocolate. When the chocolate is dry place strawberries into paper cups and place in a chocolate box or on a platter to serve or give as a gift.

Here’s a great gift from Melissa’s Produce, Chocolate and Strawberries!

Citrus Olive Oil Cake

12 / 28 / 1412 / 29 / 14

Citrus Olive Oil Cake

You can make this cake with any flavored or un-flavored olive oil that you like. Instead of poppy seeds try adding some dried cranberries or cherries. For serving dust with powdered sugar or make a citrus glaze with orange or lemon juice mixed with some powdered sugar and drizzle over the top of the cake, I like serving this with fresh raspberries on the side and a dollop of freshly whipped cream wouldn’t hurt either!
I’ve used cake pans, bundt cake pans and small Mason jars for this cake, just be aware of your baking time, test by inserting a clean toothpick into the center of the cake and it comes out dry.

2 cups flour
1 ¼ cups sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon salt
3 large eggs, beaten
1 ½ cups whole milk
½ cup Orange olive oil, or any flavored olive oil
1 orange, zested
1 teaspoon vanilla
½ cup sliced almonds
1 tablespoon poppy seeds, optional

Preheat the oven to 350°.

Sift together the flour, sugar, salt, baking powder and baking soda Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and whisk in the eggs, milk, olive oil, zest and vanilla.  

Add the almonds and poppyseeds to the batter, and mix with a spatula or wooden spoon.  

Pour the batter into a greased Bundt cake pan. Bake for 55 to 60 minutes, until the cake is golden on top. Cool the cake, invert on a plate and dust with confectioners sugar if you like.

If using Mason jars, spray the inside of the jar with oil spray and fill only 2/3 of the jar with batter. Place jar on a baking sheet and when all jars are done place the sheetpan into the oven and bake accordingly. Check the cakes at 30 minutes and then every 5 minutes until a toothpick comes out clean.

Clafoutis

12 / 5 / 1412 / 7 / 14

Photo: Merlin Menu

Clafouti

I am all about easy baking and this is about as easy as it gets. This country-French dessert adapts well to almost any fruit and is topped with a batter and baked til bubbly brown. It can be served warm or room temperature.

Batter
1 cup milk
1/4 cup heavy cream
2 tablespoons sugar
3 eggs
1 tablespoon vanilla
½ teaspoon salt
2/3 cup all-purpose flour
Fruit
2 tablespoons butter, melted
2 tablespoons sugar
3 cups fruit, if whole, peel and chop or slice
Confectioners' sugar for dusting

Heat the oven to 400°F.

Beat together all the batter ingredients until smooth and frothy. Set aside to rest while preparing remaining ingredients.

Pour melted butter into a 9 or 10” shallow pan, quiche pan or cake pan and sprinkle with the 2 tablespoons of sugar spreading evenly. Place fruit over the sugar and cover with the batter.

Bake for about 30 minutes or until the clafoutis is puffed and brown on top. Dust with confectioners sugar and serve immediately.

Clafoutis will collapse quickly but will still be delicious.

Apple Crisp

12 / 5 / 1412 / 5 / 14

Apple Crisp

Such a quick, easy recipe for a seasonal dessert; can be a great breakfast treat for those with a sweet tooth! Use an apple that is best for baking such as:

Jonathans and Jonagolds, Honeycrisp, Granny Smith, Melrose, Winesap, Braeburn, Rome Beauty.

Serves: 8
4 cups sliced or diced apples
1 tablespoon flour
½ cup sugar
¾ cup brown sugar
⅓ cup butter
¾ cup oatmeal
¼ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt

Preheat oven to 350°. Combine the first three ingredients and place in a greased 8×8 baking dish.

Combine the remaining ingredients and sprinkle over the top of the apple mixture.

Bake 30 minutes. Serve warm

Photo: All Recipes

Pumpkin Cranberry Bars

10 / 10 / 14

My aunt-in-law gave me this great recipe and I’ve adapted it by adding cranberries and powdered sugar frosting; although the bars a great without a frosting too!

1          cup flour
1          teaspoon baking powder
½         teaspoon baking soda
1          teaspoon baking spice (nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves etc.)
½         teaspoon salt
1          cup dried cranberries or other dried fruit
2          eggs
¾         cups sugar
½         cup canola oil
1          cup pumpkin puree

Frosting:

1          cup powdered sugar
½         teaspoon vanilla
1          tablespoon milk

Preheat oven to 350 °.

Sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda, baking spice and salt. Stir in cranberries; set aside.

Using an electric mixer beat together eggs, sugar and oil; add pumpkin puree and mix until just blended. Add dry ingredients and mix until combined.

Spread mixture into a 9 x 11” pan and bake for 15 to 20 minutes.

Frosting:

In a small bowl, add powdered sugar and vanilla. Drizzle in milk, stirring until you have a smooth mixture.

Cut the bars and place them on a cooling rack over a piece of parchment paper. Drizzle with the powdered sugar frosting and let set for a few minutes.

Pate Brisée

9 / 4 / 1412 / 3 / 14

Pate Brisée is French term for a short crust, sweet or savory, and used for many pies, tarts, quiches and more. A standard pie crust could be used instead.

2 ½ cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon sugar, for sweet dough or

1 tablespoon fresh herbs, chopped, for savory dough

1 cup unsalted butter, chilled and cut into 1” pieces

4 tablespoons ice water, or more if needed

In a food processor, place the flour, salt, and sugar and process until combined. Add the butter and process until the mixture resembles coarse meal (about 15 seconds). Place mix into wide bowl. Add 3 Tb. water and toss to combine. If needed, add more water 1 TB. at a time until dough just comes together. Don’t overwork dough, be light and gentle for a flaky crust.

Turn the dough out onto your work surface and gather it into a ball. Divide the dough into two equal pieces, flatten each portion into a disk, cover with plastic wrap, and refrigerate for 30 minutes to one hour before using. This will chill the butter and allow the gluten in the flour to relax. At this point you can also freeze the dough for later use.

For each disk of pastry, on a lightly floured surface, roll out the chilled pastry to fit it into a 8 or 9 inch tart pan. To prevent the pastry from sticking to the counter and to ensure uniform thickness, keep lifting up and turning the pastry a quarter turn as you roll (always roll from the center of the pastry outwards to get uniform thickness). To make sure it is the right size, take your tart pan, flip it over, and place it on the rolled out pastry. The pastry should be about an inch larger than your pan.

When the pastry is rolled to the desired size, lightly roll the pastry around your rolling pin, dusting off any excess flour as you roll. Unroll on the top of your tart pan. Never pull pastry or you will get shrinkage (shrinkage is caused by too much pulling of the pastry when placing it in the pan). Gently lay in pan and with a small floured piece of pastry, lightly press pastry into bottom and up sides of pan. Roll your rolling pin over top of pan to get rid of excess pastry. With a thumb up movement, again press dough into pan. Roll rolling pin over top again to get rid of any extra pastry. Prick bottom of dough (this will prevent the dough from puffing up as it bakes). Cover and refrigerate for 20 minutes to chill the butter and to rest the gluten.

To blind bake (bake without ingredients) the tart shell: Preheat oven to 400° and place rack in center of oven. Line the unbaked pastry shell with parchment paper or aluminum foil. Fill tart pan with pie weights or beans, making sure the weights are to the top of the pan and evenly distributed over the entire surface. Bake crust for 20 to 25 minutes or until the crust is dry and lightly browned. Remove weights and cool crust on wire rack. Proceed with desired recipe that calls for a pre-baked shell.

Makes two – 9 inch tart shells.

What To Do with all those Luscious Summer Peaches!

7 / 30 / 1412 / 4 / 14

Oh all those beautiful rosy peaches from the farmers market! They smell like summer and I don’t know about you but I wait all year for them to show up!
I have a peach tree but that in no way yields enough peaches to satisfy my sweet tooth. Seasonal peaches are available in California from June to Sept.. Peaches from other parts of the world are usually picked hard and mostly premature and will never develop that sweet summer flavor.

The following is part of the prologue to David Mas Masumoto’s book ‘Epitaph for a Peach’, he is talking about the Sun Crest peach but I think it reflects all good peaches. “Sun Crest is one of the last remaining truly juicy peaches. When you wash that treasure under a stream of cooling water, your fingertips instinctively search for the gushy side of the fruit. Your mouth waters in anticipation. You lean over the sink to make sure you don’t drip on yourself. Then you sink your teeth into the flesh and the juices trickle down your cheeks and dangle on your chin. This is a real bite, a primal act, a magical sensory celebration announcing that summer has arrived. “ That sounds like a juicy summer peach to me, what about you?

Choose peaches that yield slightly to pressure, hard fruit isn’t ripe and though it will get softer, it won’t get tastier. Peaches need to develop flavor and sweetness while still hanging on the tree, color will vary with peach varieties but avoid peaches that show any sign of green. Smell the peach for sweetness and you’ll be fine.

Peaches should be kept at room temperature until soft and then refrigerated but don’t wait too long to eat them or they’ll over ripen.

I find it pretty easy to peel a ripe peach with a sharp paring knife or you can blanch in boiling water for a few seconds, don’t over do or you’ll start to cook the fruit flesh.

Here’s my favorite cobbler recipe that I pieced together from two different recipes that I love. One from my favorite boysenberry pie and the cobbler batter from Marcy Masumoto’s ‘French Peach Cobbler’ recipe in the Masumoto Families new book, The Perfect Peach: Recipes and Stories from The Masumoto Family Farm.

Peach Cobbler

Filling

4          cups peeled, chopped fresh peaches
1 cup sugar, approximately
¼ cup cornstarch
pinch sea salt
1          teaspoon cinnamon
1/3      cup Grand Marnier
1          tablespoon fresh lemon juice

Batter

½ cup unbleached all-purpose flour
1/3      cup sugar
½ teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon sea salt
2          tablespoons unsalted butter, room temperature
1          egg, lightly beaten

Preheat the oven to 375°. Butter a 9” square baking pan and set aside.

Filling:

Add peaches to a medium sized bowl and toss gently with sugar. Depending on how sweet the peaches are, add more or less sugar.

In a small bowl, mix together the cornstarch, sea salt, cinnamon and Grand Marnier. Toss the peaches with the cornstarch mixture and lemon juice.

Add the filling to the prepared pan.

Batter:

Combine the flour, sugar, baking powder and sea salt, mix well. Add the butter and egg, stir together until the batter is smooth.

Drop the batter by spoonfuls onto the fruit mixture and bake 40 – 45 minutes or until bubbly and golden.

Remove from oven and cool before serving.

Lavender Shortbread Cookies

6 / 29 / 1412 / 3 / 14

Lavender Shortbread Cookies

Photo from Central Coast Lavender

Makes about 50 cookies

1 tablespoon dried lavender blossoms

1/2 cup plus 1 tablespoon granulated sugar

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature

2 ½ cup all-purpose flour

1/4 teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons heavy cream (or 1 egg whisked with a little water)

extra lavender sugar for sprinkling on top

In a medium bowl, whisk together flour and salt. Set aside.

In a small spice grinder (I use my cleaned out coffee grinder) to grind up 1 tablespoon lavender and 1 tablespoon sugar. Grind it up! You could also use a mortar and pestle to grind the sugar and lavender together.

In the bowl of an electric stand mixer, fitted with a paddle attachment add butter, ground lavender mixture, and remaining 1/2 cup sugar. Cream on medium speed until slightly more pale and fluffy, about 5 minutes. Stop the mixer and add the flour, mix on low speed until dough comes together. The dough will be crumbly, then begin to form when it continues to mix. Dump dough mixture out onto a clean surface and form into a ball with your hands. Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.

Line cookie sheets with parchment paper. Set aside.

Divide refrigerated dough into quarters. On a lightly floured work surface, roll dough out to a 1/4-inch thickness. Use a 1 1/2-inch round cookie cutter to cut cookies, or use a pizza cutter to slice cookies into squares. Use a fork to prick cookies. Brush very lightly with cream or egg wash and sprinkle with sugar. Refrigerate cookies while oven preheats.

Place racks in the center and upper third of the oven. Preheat oven to 350° .

When oven is preheated, bake cookies for 8 to 11 minutes, until just browned around the edges. Remove from oven. Allow cooling on the cookie sheet for 10 minutes then removing to a wire rack to cool completely.

Cookies last, in an airtight container at room temperature, for up to 4 days.

adapted slightly from Party Like a Culinista

Boysenberry Tart

5 / 30 / 1412 / 3 / 14

Pastry:
1 cup all purpose flour
1 Tablespoon Sugar
1 pinch salt
6 Tablespoon Unsalted butter, cold
1 Egg yolk, slightly whisked
1 Tablespoon Lemon juice
Filling:
3 Tablespoon Cornstarch
1 Tablespoon Grand Marnier, or more if needed
3/4 cup Sugar
1 cup boysenberries or more as needed

Pastry:
In large bowl, stir together flour, sugar and salt. With pastry blender or food processor, cut in butter until it resembles tiny peas. Mix together egg yolk, lemon juice and 1 tablespoon water; sprinkle over flour mixture. Stirring with fork, add a little more water if necessary to hold dough together. Using hands, gently shape pastry into ball. Press dough 1/8″ thick into flan pan. Refrigerate while making filling.

Filling:
Preheat oven to 425°.
In small saucepan, stir together Grand Marnier & cornstarch till smooth. Stir in sugar. Add boysenberries and cook, stirring, over medium-low heat for 10-15 minutes or till thickened.

Let cool; spoon into shell, filling no more than 2/3 full. Bake in 425° oven for 10 minutes. Reduce heat to 350° and bake 15 minutes longer or till pastry is golden brown. Let cool 15 minutes before removing to rack.

Deep Dish Apple Pie

11 / 11 / 13

Ingredients

Pie Crust

1 ½ cups flour (I recommend King Arthur flour)
½ teaspoon sea salt, or Kosher
½ tablespoon sugar, optional
6 tablespoons frozen unsalted butter
2 ½ tablespoons cold shortening such as Smart Balance
3 tablespoons ice water

Filling:

4 pounds mixed apples
1 Deep Dish Uncooked Pie Crust
1 tablespoon Cinnamon,
3 teaspoons apple pie spice
½ cup flour
5 tablespoons corn starch
1 cup granulated sugar

Instructions

Pie Crust:

Place the flour, salt and sugar if using into the bowl of a food processor, pulse to blend. Add the butter and shortening and pulse until they are about the size of peas.
Pour out the mixture into a bowl and add the ice water a tablespoon at a time. Toss until the dough comes together in a ball. Wrap in plastic and refrigerate for 30 min. or until cold.
On a rolpat or well-floured board, roll the dough into a circle large enough to fit the pie pan. Keep moving the dough around as you roll so that it doesn’t stick to the board or counter. Gently roll the dough onto the rolling pin and lay into the pie pan, lifting and securing snuggly into the pan.
Preheat the oven to 425°.
Combine the cinnamon, apple pie spice, flour, cornstarch and sugar in a bowl and mix them well.
Wash the apples in cool water, peel, core and slice the apples. Toss the apples with a little of the dry mixture and layer them into the pie crust and sprinkle with the remaining dry mixture.
Bake for 10 minutes, turn heat down to 375° and continue baking for about 45 minutes or until you can pierce the apples with a knife.
Let cool before slicing.

Pumpkin-Cranberry Bars

11 / 9 / 13

Ingredients

1 cup flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking spice (nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves etc.)
½ teaspoon salt
1 cup dried cranberries or other dried fruit (Optional)
2 eggs
¾ cups sugar
½ cup canola oil
1 cup pumpkin puree

Frosting:

1 cup powdered sugar
½ teaspoon vanilla
1 tablespoon milk

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350 °. Sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda, baking spice and salt. Stir in cranberries; set aside.
Using an electric mixer beat together eggs, sugar and oil; add pumpkin puree and mix until just blended.
Add dry ingredients and mix until combined.
Spread mixture into a 9 x 11” pan and bake for 15 to 20 minutes.

Frosting:

In a small bowl, add powdered sugar and vanilla. Drizzle in milk, stirring until you have a smooth mixture.
Cut the bars and place them on a cooling rack over a piece of parchment paper. Drizzle with the powdered sugar frosting and let set for a few minutes.