Chai Tea Mini Cupcakes

This is a recipe from Martha Stewart's Cupcakes book that I have been meaning to try for a while. Since they make so many, I never really had the right occasion for them until this past week, when I brought them into the office to share with my co-workers. They were tasty but I didn't necessarily associate their flavor with chai tea. But an interesting twist on traditional cupcakes, for sure.

Cupcakes:
3/4 cup milk
2 bags black tea
1 cup all purpose flour
1 cup cake flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 tsp coarse salt
1 heaping tsp garam masala
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temp
3/4 packed dark brown sugar
2 large egss, room temp

Preheat oven to 350. Line mini muffin tins with paper liners (I used 1 mini muffin tin, and 6 regular-sized muffins). Bring milk to simmer over medium heat, add tea bags and let steep for 15 minutes. Remove bags, squeezing over pan, and discard. Cool milk completely. Whisk together both flours, baking soda, salt, and spices.

Cream butter and brown sugar until pale and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating until incorporated, scraping sides of bowl as needed. Reduce speed to low and add flour mixture in three batches, alternating with two additions of tea-infused milk. Beat just until combined.

Divide batter evenly among cups, filling each 3/4 full. Bake, rotating tins halfway through, until tops spring back when lightly touched and are pale golden in color, 10-12 minutes. Cool completely un wire racks before dipping the top of each cupcake in the icing.

Condensed Milk Icing: 4 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temp
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons sweetened condensed milk
Pinch of coarse salt
3/4 cup confectioner's sugar 

Whisk together butter, condensed milk, and salt until smooth, whisk in confectioner's sugar 1/4 cup at a time until combined. Use immediately. I colored my icing with 6 drops of red food coloring, aiming for a light pink color but got more of a Pepto pink instead. Should have only used half that amount! 

Peter Hunt's Blueberry Muffins

The very first vacation I went on with Eric was to Cape Cod. We stayed in Wellfleet, and had a lovely - albeit rainy and unseasonably cool - time cycling on the bike paths, eating our weight in fried seafood, exploring Provincetown and stopping at every little bookstore that we found along the way. I can't remember exactly where I found this little cookbook by Peter Hunt, but I was drawn to the charming illustrations, Hunt's folksy tone, and the picture he painted of his social circle and culinary adventures on the Cape in 1940s-50s (the book was published in 1954). He includes many traditional Portuguese recipes - there was a large and thriving Portuguese fishing community in Provincetown - "Old New England" recipes, and what I imagine to be "Cape-centric" recipes which include a lot of fresh fruits that grow on the Cape, like strawberries, beach plums and of course, blueberries. 

               

                                                   

This is a very simple recipe that is probably delicious as-is, but that I altered because I wanted to use up some different flours I had on hand. I am sure if I had access to a basket of sun-warmed Cape blueberries these would be really incredible, but I had to make due with a combination of fresh and frozen blueberries (both from Trader Joes, though the "fresh" blueberries there are really not that great). I used a cup of blueberries as Hunt instructs, but as you can see from the finished result, the blueberry-to-batter ratio seems a little scant. When I try these again, I might up the blueberry content to 1 1/2-2 cups if I can. These muffins are very light, fluffy, and tasty. 

2 cups flour (PH calls for pastry flour. I used a combination: 1 cup all purpose flour, 1/2 cup pastry flour, 1/2 cup almond meal)

3 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt

1/2 cup sugar

2 eggs

3/4 cup milk 

4 tablespoons melted butter 

1 tsp almond extract

1 cup blueberries

Preheat oven to 400. Mix and sift dry ingredients. Stir eggs, milk, butter, almond extract and blueberries together, and mix with flour mixture. Spoon into muffin tins. Bake for 15 minutes.

Chocolate Walnut Cookies

Well, I went from last week's cake wreck disaster to a decided WIN with these Chocolate Walnut Cookies. I bought a 6oz package of Guittard's bittersweet chocolate bars, not having a plan in mind of what to do with them, and was poised to start on a Dorie Greenspan recipe for a chocolate cake, when, opening the package of the Guittard chocolate, I saw there was a recipe printed on the inside of the box. I had all of the ingredients on hand, and the recipe seemed straightforward and way less labor intensive than the DG cake, so I scrapped my original plan and made these instead. They were AMAZING. Yes: caps again. They were that good. The perfect balance of crispiness, chewiness, and chocolatey-ness. They were excellent right out of the oven and still good a day or two later, but as day 3-4 rolled around they lost their character. So when I make these again I'll have to remember to eat them up quick!

6oz bittersweet Guittard chocolate, broken into pieces
2 tablespoons butter
2 large eggs
7/8 cup sugar
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 cup flour
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 cup chopped walnuts

Melt chocolate and butter in a double boiler. In large mixing bowl, beat eggs, sugar and salt at high speed for 2-3 minutes until light. Add melted chocolate on low speed to blend.

Mix in flour and baking powder. Scrape sides, then mix in walnuts. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and chill until firm enough to scoop, at least 30 minutes or overnight.

Preheat oven to 350. Line baking sheets with parchment. Drop heaping spoons of batter onto lined sheet, leaving 2" between cookies. Bake for 12 minutes or until puffed and crinkled on top but soft in center. Cool on the pans for 2-3 minutes or until cookies release easily from parchment.

My bad photo doesn't do these justice! 

CAKEWRECK: Orange-glazed polenta cake

I had high hopes for this one. Alas, it was not meant to be. I did not even photograph the end result because it was such a disaster. But you can see how it is supposed to look here. David says it is OK to use coarse polenta - which is what I had on hand - but I think a finely ground polenta would create a better cake. It's really too bad that this one did not work out, since I bought the Grand Marnier and almond flour required - and at $9.99 a bag, this was an expensive mistake to make! I also might have been too hasty in removing the cake from the loaf pan, since it completely fell apart for me.

All that said, the flavor was good. Orange-y, almond-y, and not too sweet....it had all the elements of something that could be amazing. When I work up the nerve to by another expensive bag of almond flour - and try to find a finer polenta - I might try this one again.

Banana Oat Muffins

This recipe is an example of how a survey of what is on hand in the pantry can be combined to make an absolutely delicious snack! I had oats, I had bananas, I had chocolate chips, I had coconut...and I just needed to find a way to combine them. I used this recipe as a starting off point to get an idea of proportions and cooking times and then altered it to include the ingredients I had. They came out great. The poppy seeds were inspired by something I read in Dorie Greenspan's book as adding a surprise bit of crunch to a recipe and they were a wonderful addition to the muffins.

2 cups flour
1 cups old-fashioned oats
1 cup brown sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
2 tablespoons poppy seeds
1 tsp cinnamon
2 ripe bananas, mashed
2 eggs
1/2 cups coconut oil
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup chocolate chips
1/2 cups shredded coconut

Preheat oven to 375. In a medium bowl, stir together flour, oatmeal, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and poppy seeds. In a separate bowl, combine bananas, eggs, vanilla and coconut oil. Add the banana mixture to the flour mixture, stirring just until combined. Fold in chips and coconut.

Spoon batter into muffin cups and bake for 15 minutes. Toothpick inserted into center should come out clean. Let cool in pan for 10 minutes, then remove from pan to finish cooling on a rack.

Dorie Greenspan's Granola Cake

Continuing on my perusal of Basking Chez Moi, this recipe for Granola Cake sounded like the perfect workday snack. I am pretty satisfied with my results here, but used a store-bought granola that was more like a muesli. I think if I make this again I will have to use a crunchier granola with bigger clusters to get the effect that Dorie describes in her recipe.

1 cup all purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 cup granola
1/4 cup chocolate chips
1/2 cup shredded coconut
1 stick unsalted butter, room temp
1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
1/4 cup sugar
1 egg, room temp
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/4 sea salt

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Butter an 8" square baking pan and line the bottom with parchment.

Whisk the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and cinnamon in a small bowl. Toss granola, chocolate and coconut in another bowl.

In a mixer, beat butter at low-medium speed for 2-3 minutes until soft and creamy. Add both sugars and beat for 2 more minutes. Add egg and beat until smooth, about 2 minutes more. Beat in vanilla and salt. Reduce speed to low and add flour mixture, mixing only until it disappears into the batter. Add the granola mixture, until just incorporated. Scrape the batter into the prepared pan.

Bake for 35-40 minutes until top is honey-brown and sugar-crackly, and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Let cool for 10 minutes, then run a knife along the edges and unmold onto a rack to cool completely.

Dorie Greenspan's Spiced Honey Cake

While I have not posted anything here in over a month, I have been baking every Sunday as usual. Hopefully I can get all caught up here and then post weekly again. For Christmas, I received a copy of Dorie Greespan's book, Baking Chez Moi. It's a impressive collection of recipes ranging from simple everyday cakes to labor-intensive fancy cakes, from classic French recipes to goodies that Dorie invented on her own, and everything in between. The pictures are drool-worthy (my only complaint about the book is that more pictures should be included, since many recipes don't have any accompanying photo). I have flagged dozens of recipes I'd like to try, but I started with a traditional French recipe called Spiced Honey Cake. Dorie classifies the texture of this cake as being "breadlike" or even "firm like a cookie" so I was expecting a denser cake; but my version came out almost too dense. There are no eggs in the cake at all which I thought was a typo , but I left a question on Dorie's website and she confirmed that there are no eggs in this recipe. Dorie instructs to make this in a loaf pan but I used muffin tins. I might try this cake again in a loaf pan and with a different mix of spices and dried fruits to compare the results.

1 orange
3/4 cup water
1 1"-chunk fresh ginger
1 tsp cardamom pods
1 cinnamon stick
1 tsp white peppercorns
1 tsp cloves
1-2 star anise
6 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
1/3 cup honey
1/3 cup sugar
2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 cup chopped figs

Add a fat strip of orange zest, and the various spices, to the water and bring to a boil. Cover and remove from heat to cool for one hour. Strain the spiced water and discard the solids. Stir in the honey and the melted butter.

Preheat oven to 300 degress. Grate remaining orange zest in a bowl and combine with the sugar. Rub the zest into the sugar with your fingers. Add flour and baking powder and whisk thoroughly to blend. Pour the liquid ingredients into the dry ingredients, and mix everything together quickly and gently. Stir in dried fruit. Scrape batter into pan.

Bake for 60 minutes (Dorie's instructions say to bake this for 75-85 minutes but these muffins were definitely cooked through at 60 minutes, and probably a little overcooked at that point).

This cake is supposedly better a day or two after it is baked.