Margarita Cupcakes

I think I've found perfection in a cupcake. Margarita cupcakes. Just the name makes my mouth water. The cake part was delicious, I could eat them straight without frosting, but the frosting made the dessert. Oh my. I could eat this stuff with a spoon all day. Anyway, here is the recipe. I was inspired by this recipe, and basically used the same thing, with some additions, such as tequila.

Cupcakes
3C flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
1 stick butter, room temperature
3/4C sugar
1/2C limeade concentrate
3 eggs
1/4C oil
1/3C tequila
1/2C yogurt
2 tbs triple sec

Glaze
1/4C limeade
1/2C icing sugar
1/4C tequila
2 tbs triple sec

Frosting
8oz butter
8oz cream cheese
1/2 tsp salt
2 tbs limeade
2 tbs tequila
1 tbs triple sec
5C icing sugar
(I ended up adding a lot more tequila to the frosting, but I don't remember how much, so I recommend making the frosting, tasting, and adding more booze as needed)

Cream the butter and sugar. Add the eggs, oil, booze, limeade, and yogurt. Add the flour, salt, and baking soda, already combined together, and stir it in. Bake in a lined cupcake tin at 350F for 15-20min, until golden brown on top. This recipe made 24 full cupcakes.

Once the cupcakes are done, allow them to cool completely. Using a chopstick or something else that can poke holes (like a fork?), liberally poke holes in the cake and drizzle the glaze over the cupcakes, about a tablespoon of glaze per cake, making sure that it gets down into the holes. Let that dry for 5-10 minutes, and you're ready to frost.

As noted above, I kept adding tequila to the frosting, and occasionally more sugar to balance it, and it turned out wonderfully. Just go by taste. Whip your butter and cream cheese together, and add the powdered sugar one cup at a time. Once the frosting is at a consistency that you like, add the booze and limeade. You'll need to add more sugar after this. I also added 4 drops of yellow food coloring and two drops of green. Frost the cupcakes however you want to, the frosting makes enough for 32 mountains of frosting on top of cupcakes, or it will go much further than that if you just spread it on instead of pipe it. Your call!

Tuscan Style Beans and Chard

I was inspired to do a little Italian cooking after watching some cooking shows on WXXI, our local public broadcasting station. The nice thing about this dish is that it's so simple.


olive oil
onion
bell pepper
spicy pepper or red pepper flakes
2 cloves garlic
1 can of cannellini beans (or about a cup of presoaked/precocked beans)
1 can tomato paste
1 cup water
bunch of swiss chard
salt/pepper

1st saute your onion, pepper, spicy pepper, and garlic in olive oil. Add canned beans (along with the juices in the can - they help to thicken things a bit), tomato paste, and water and cook until bubbly. Add in the swiss chard and cover and cook on low heat for 10min. Salt and pepper to taste.


I made some flatbread with this following the naan recipe from Joy of Cooking. Pretty yummy!

The Staple Muffin Recipe

The King Arthur Flour Book is the holy grail of baking, as far as I'm concerned. I use this book pretty much every time I use flour, which, as you can probably imagine, is fairly often. Although I like to experiment and incorporate ideas from other people, books, and recipes, my fundamental idea of how flour works is based on the King Arthur Flour Book. On this blog, most of what I put up here are fancy shmancy muffins and stuff that seems complicated. I guess this is because I figure the simple things don't need a blog post. But the simple things are the best, sometimes. I mean, its hard to beat a blueberry muffin. Unless of course you make margarita cupcakes and they flip your world upside down... but that's another post. I figured I'd go through my basic "muffin method", as developed from both the King Arthur book, and from Alton Brown's I'm just here for the food. Alton Brown's book is much more of the science behind the cooking, whereas the King Arthur book has actual recipes, but you can fuse the two to get some pretty interesting ideas... What I really like about King Arthur is that they try the recipes before they print them, which means, they'll actually work. This is pretty important, in the world of Alex.

So, I figured I'd break down the "PDQ" muffin recipe from the King Arthur Flour book. I believe PDQ stands for "pretty darn quick". It is quick, because muffins are easy to make, and then they taste good. Always a bonus. This is the blueberry version.

Ingredients
2C flour (any combination of white and whole wheat)
1/2C sugar
1 tbs baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1C milk
2 eggs
1/4C butter, oil, or margarine, optional.
1.5C berries, of any sort

Preheat your oven to 500F. Once the muffins go in, you'll drop the temperature to 400. This causes them to get nice poofy tops. Grease a muffin tin.

Mix together the dry stuff, as long and vigorously as you desire. In a separate bowl, beat the eggs with the milk and oil if you're using it. According to the King Arthur book, the fat is optional, because it does not affect the taste of the muffin (and it doesn't, I've done the taste test), but it helps the muffin keep longer. So, if you're freezing these babies for future consumption, add it in, otherwise, no need. Butter is expensive these days!

Once you've got your wet goods thoroughly mixed, dump them into the dry stuff. Mix to combine, but only until the last flour streaks are gone. You don't want to overmix, because that will start to develop the gluten in the flour and make your muffins tough and bready. Add your berries. If you rinse frozen berries before throwing them in there, your muffins won't turn purple, but I like my purple muffins. I just throw the frozen ones in there, no need to thaw. This recipe can get away with just one cup of berries, but I also like my muffins berry-ful.

Fill the muffin cups almost full, if you want big tops, or 3/4 full for normal sized muffins. Stick 'em in the oven, turn the heat down to 400, and take them out after 15-20 min. If you want, you can sprinkle coarse sugar on top before baking.


This is the purple batter before baking.


Here they are in their muffin tins, sugar already sprinkled, ready to go into the hot box.


Out they come, all poofy and delicious looking.

Coconut Lime Muffins

More muffins! Ed said these were really good, so that must mean they're amazing. Which, they are. I found a recipe for orange-coconut bread, I don't think I was looking for it, but I found it, and I really, really, really wanted to turn it into muffins. So, I did. Only, with lime instead of orange. And, they were a success. Particularly the crunchy coconut on top. No, I don't understand the urge to make everything into a muffin. Maybe I like things to be small and handheld? Who knows.

Here is the original recipe, I've posted it below with my changes. I made these muffins really full, so that they would have big muffin tops, but the problem with that is the temptation to just eat the top of the muffin.

Ingredients

1.5C flour
1/2C whole wheat flour
1/4C flaked, sweetened coconut
2 tsp lime or orange zest
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
3/4C sugar
1 egg
1 tbs oil
1/4C milk
1C yogurt, plain
2 tbs orange juice
1/4C coconut for sprinkling on top

Thoroughly mix the flour, coconut, baking soda, salt, and sugar. In a separate bowl, mix all the wet stuff. Add the wet to the dry, stirring just until combined. Spoon into greased muffin tins, and top with the coconut.

Bake at 350 for 15-20min until golden brown on top and the coconut looks crunchy. Made 12 muffins with big tops (or 18 regular sized muffins).

Sparkling Cranberry Gems

I was a little misled by these cookies. I thought they'd be much more cookie-like, but instead they were very scone-ish. I guess the ingredients should have clued me in, but I kept waiting for them to spread out and become cookie-ish in the oven, instead of staying in their nice little balls. Don't get me wrong, they were FABULOUS. Just not exactly what I expected. A cookie-scone, I suppose. Anyway, I will definitely make these again. Cookie or scone, I like them both!

The recipe came from the King Arthur Flour blog, but they appear to have removed the recipe, or anyway I couldn't find it again. So here it is:

Ingredients
1C flour (whole wheat or white)
1.5C dried cranberries
2 tbs icing sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla extract
6 tbs frozen butter
3 tbs milk

Coating
1/3C coarse white sparkling sugar

Put the craisins and flour in a food processor and process until it looks like each craisin is in four parts. This didn't work so well for me, but I found that having whole craisins in the cookie was just fine. Add the sugar, salt, and baking powder. Using a cheese grater, grate the frozen butter into the flour mixture. Once it is all in there, rub it in with your fingertips for a bit. Then add the milk and vanilla and mix. It will seem pretty dry, I found I had to get in there with my hands to mix it all up, but don't be tempted to add more liquid.

Put the sugar in a ziplock bag. Form the dough into 1-1/4" balls. Put about six balls at a time into the bag, shake around until they're coated with sugar, then squish them to the final shape you want them in (they won't spread out) and bake at 350 for 16 minutes. I actually cooked mine longer because I kept expecting them to melt out. You want to take them out before they get brown anywhere.

Yields 36 cookies.

I put about 2/3 of the dough in the freezer in a cookie turd, I'll report how those turned out. I'm not worried with all the butter to keep them happy.

And, uh... don't eat them all at once. You'll get a tummyache.

p.s. I labeled them as vegan, because I figured it would be an easy substitution--use soy milk instead of milk, and margarine instead of butter. Why you would want to do that is beyond me, but hey, it takes all kinds, right?

Honey Whole Wheat Muffins

I ran out of sugar. It was a sad, sad, day. Actually, it was good, because it was while me and Patrice were making cupcakes and we had just enough. But since then I haven't had any. I wanted to make a strawberry-rhubarb type muffin, but I realized that without sugar, that just wasn't going to taste good. Then I realized that I had a massive bottle of honey from Costco, so I looked up some recipes for honey muffins. I ended up using this one, with some tweaks, as is normal for me. It was a fortuitous day, because I also had some orange juice, which I never have, and I got to use it up.

The honey muffin turned out really well. Unfortunately none of them made it long enough to see how they'd perform in the day-old test. It was light, not too sweet, not too grainy (given the amount of whole grain crap I put in it), and played well with other flavors. I'll be making this one again for sure! I made two variations this time--one with star anise and ginger (Ed's request, I don't like star anise because it tastes like black licorice), and one with walnuts. I left half the batter without nuts, though, because one of the girls in my office is allergic to them. Next I want to try one with lemon zest (or maybe lemon juice instead of OJ) and ginger, although maybe not candied ginger. And I want to see how this does with yogurt in it, I feel like that would work, too. These muffins weren't all that sweet, so they could work with a streusel topping, as well.

Ingredients
1C whole wheat flour
3/4C white flour
1/2C rolled oats
1/4C oat bran
3 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp vanilla
1C orange juice
1/2C honey
3 tbs oil
1 egg

Mix together the grains, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. In a separate bowl, lightly beat the egg, then add the OJ, vanilla, honey, and oil. Add the wet to the dry and mix until just mixed. Add any optional things (nuts, fruit, whatever you feel like), and bake at 350F for 15-20 minutes until golden brown on top.

Sushi

While Patrice was up, we also made some sushi. I first made sushi back in highschool, when Tiffany's mom tried to show us how to properly do the rice. All I remember is that she said not to use red wine vinegar, because it will turn the rice pink. I think that would be pretty cool!



The Rice

Alas, I was shut out in the quest for pink rice. Basically, for sushi rice, you need a high-quality short-grain rice. You want to have as little starch released as possible (or so I hear), so rinse the rice in cold water first, 3-4 times. Some rice says it doesn't need rinsing, like the rice we have right now. I tried it without rinsing and it was ok, but, better to rinse. A note on sushi rice- it works really well for risotto. Just sayin'. Once you've rinsed the rice, cook it according to the directions. For three people, we made three cups of rice, and used it all. And ate it all. And then rolled around on the floor in a food coma moaning about having eaten too much sushi. If you're only going to make rolls (no nigiri), you could probably get away with two cups of rice for three people, but, rice is cheap, so you may as well have enough.

Once your rice is cooked, fluff it and let it cool a bit, then add some rice vinegar and white sugar. You can use regular white wine vinegar or white vinegar instead, but use considerably less, since it is much stronger. This part is all to taste. I like my rice pretty well flavored, so I start by adding the vinegar and sugar in equal parts by the tablespoon. Adjust as needed, but don't overdo it. However, even if you think you're close to overdoing it, you're probably not, and it will work out fine.

Fillings

This is the fun part. Decide what you want to fill your rolls with ahead of time. While I love nigiri (and sashimi), I'll leave that to the pros, because they just cut the fish better, and because making rolls is fun! In my mind, there are three categories of stuff for sushi: fish, vegetables, and yummy artistic stuff.

The Veggies: My staples are avocado, cucumber, and scallions. You can have carrots, too, if you julianne them finely enough. Take the seeds out of the cucumber before slicing it. You can get creative and put other veggies in there, too.

The Fish: You need to get your fish from a reputable fish dealer. Ask for sushi-grade fish. Usually you can get tuna and salmon without much of an issue, sometimes you have to call ahead. We got our fish from New Deal Fish Market, and called the day before to ensure they'd have the fish we want. Ed picked up some tuna, salmon, yellowtail, and tobiko (this actually falls into the "yummy artistic stuff" category). We got about a pound of fish for three people. It was enough.

Yummy Artistic Stuff: This is the stuff that you garnish the rolls with or roll them in. I'd never gotten tobiko before to make my own sushi, I highly recommend doing that again (its like little fish roe). We also used sesame seeds and "crunchies". The crunchies were just toasted panko, a rough bread crumb, but you could probably make some of your own by crushing up croutons or something. We also made some spicy tuna mixture. In a bowl, combine maybe 1/3C of mayonnaise with about 2 tablespoons of soy sauce and a couple dashes of hot sauce. Keep adding hot sauce until it is spicy enough for your tastes. Dice some tuna, and mix it with the spicy mayo. It is now ready for assembly.


The nigiri is on the far side of the plate. A combination of tuna, salmon, and yellowtail. The rolls to the right and back are spicy tuna (garnished with scallions), and there are some yellowtail and scallion rolls, rolled in tobiko. Also there are some random veggie and fish rolls, based on the whim of the moment.

Assembling the rolls:
Once your rice is cool and mixed with its sugar and vinegar, you can start to assemble the rolls. Slice your fish up into small-ish slices, so that it will easily fit into your roll. Start with a piece of seaweed (nori), and tear it in half. Line your sushi rolling mat, or a clean dish towel, with a piece of plastic wrap. Put the shiny side of the nori on the plastic wrap, and take about a handful of rice and spread it on the other side. You want this layer as thin as possible, while still providing full coverage. If you keep your hands wet while working, the rice won't stick as much. Sprinkle a yummy artistic addition onto the rice, and sort of press it into the rice. Flip the nori over so that the shiny side is facing up now. Put your fillings along the side of the nori that is closer to you, eyeballing how much you should fill the roll. It might take a little practice to get it right. Then carefully but firmly roll it shut, using the mat/plastic to get a tight roll.

Once you have your roll, transfer it to a cutting board, and using a very sharp knife that is wet, cut your roll in half, combine the two halves and cut into 6-8 pieces total. Flip them upright and garnish with scallions if you want or just place them artistically on a plate. It is art, after all -- edible art!