Pie Delivery | fruit+flour

By Nastassia on January 26, 2012

National Pie Day may have come and gone, but let’s be real. I don’t need a national food holiday to find a reason to eat pie. In fact I find myself celebrating National Pie Day at least once a week if I can: a slice of banana cream pie from Clementine, a cherry hand pie from Village Bakery, amongst others.

Coincidentally, I happened to get a very special delivery just in time for National Pie Day from Sarah Williams of fruit+flour, who happens to make the best pies in town!

True story.

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Muffin Mondays | Mocha Chocolate Chip Muffins

By Nastassia on January 23, 2012

Nothing like a rainy day to get you in the mood for baking. And nothing like a Monday to make you want to eat muffins!  For this week’s Muffin Monday I bring you mocha chocolate chip muffins with pecans.

We recently moved to a new house and are nestled in the hills. Things are a little chillier up here especially on a rainy morning, but all the more reason to get my new (old/vintage) oven going to warm things up. I am absolutely in love with my new kitchen, especially the vintage O’Keefe and Merritt oven and stove. They don’t make things like they used to, let me tell you. This oven is not only beautiful, it works like a charm. I get excited for each opportunity I get to bake in it.

So back to muffins…I’m generally not a huge fan of chocolate in the mornings unless it is wedged inside a flaky croissant, but this muffin may just be an exception. The bitter dark chocolate chips melt and fold into the fluffy muffin dough, adding a complexity and sweetness while the coffee gives the muffin a nice balance of flavors.

From past experience with using coffee in baking, I was sure to add a double dose of coffee as well as a sprinkle of coffee grounds to really give the muffins a nice coffee essence. These muffins are chocolatey, rich, toasty and warm and just perfect with a cup of coffee on a rainy morning.

Muffin Monday is an initiative by Baker Street. A culinary journey of sharing a wickedly delicious muffin recipe every week. Drop in a quick line to join her on her journey to make the world smile and beat glum Monday mornings week after week.

Mocha Chocolate Chip Muffins with Pecans

from Bon Apetite

  • 1/4 cup hot water
  • 1 tablespoon instant espresso powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon espresso powder or coffee grinds 
  • 1/2 cup buttermilk
  • 1/2 cup vegetable oil
  • 2 large eggs
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 1 3/4 cups all purpose flour
  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • 1/2 cup packed golden brown sugar
  • 4 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1 1/2 cups dark chocolate chips
  • 1 cup coarsely chopped pecans (about 4 ounces), toasted


Preheat oven to 375°F. Line twelve 1/2-cup muffin cups with paper liners. 

Stir 1/4 cup hot water and espresso powder in medium bowl until espresso powder dissolves. 

Add buttermilk, oil, eggs and vanilla and whisk until well blended. Mix flour, sugar, brown sugar, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt in large bowl. 

Add buttermilk mixture and stir just until combined. Mix in chocolate chips and pecans.

Divide batter equally among prepared muffin cups. 

Bake until tester inserted into center of muffins comes out clean, about 25 minutes. 

Transfer muffins to rack and cool.

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Muffin Mondays | Oreo Muffins

By Nastassia on January 2, 2012

Why hello 2012 nice to see you!

I know the start of a new year is usually ushered in by resolutions, many of which involving diets or healthier eating or the call for more hours spent in the gym. Well I’ve never been one for resolutions – making them or sticking to them – so instead I’m starting the year off with Oreo Muffins. You see I like my sweets and I just can’t fool myself into thinking that I’m going to eat less of them so I’m skipping the games and diving into 2012 sweets first!

It’s all in the name. Oreo muffins are everything you would imagine them to be. They have a rich chocolately flavor with a hint of smooth creamy decadence. The addition of  sour cream creates a soft springy texture. The cookies fold seamlessly into the muffin dough, permeating each bite with Oreo goodness. These muffins are decadent and satisfying but light enough that they don’t leaving you feeling too guilty, especailly if you bake them as mini muffins. Bake a batch of muffins and start the year off with some sweetness.

Happy New Year!

 

Muffin Monday is an initiative by Baker Street. A culinary journey of sharing a wickedly delicious muffin recipe every week. Drop in a quick line to join her on her journey to make the world smile and beat glum Monday mornings week after week.

 

Oreo Muffins

adapted from Food.com

1  3/4 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 cup granulated sugar

3/4 cup milk

1/3 cup sour cream

1 egg

1/4 cup margarine , melted

20 Oreo cookies , coarsely chopped

In a medium bowl combine flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. Add milk, sour cream, vanilla extract, melted butter and egg. Stir until combined. Fold in cookies. Spoon batter into greased muffin pan. Bake at 350 for 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.

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Muffin Mondays | Eggnog Muffins

By Nastassia on December 26, 2011

Happy Holidays everyone and Happy Muffin Monday!

Here is a great way to round out the holiday season and use up all of that extra eggnog. While I’m not an eggnog fan, I am definitely an eggnog muffin fan. The warm, nutty and sweet creamy flavors of this muffin scream winter. My favorite thing about these muffins is their bold nutmeg flavor, they just taste festive! They are perfect enjoyed with a hot cup of tea on a leisurely morning sitting around and enjoying holiday vacation, friends and family.

Everything tastes better in muffin form, even eggnog.

Muffin Monday is an initiative by Baker Street. A culinary journey of sharing a wickedly delicious muffin recipe every week. Drop in a quick line to join her on her journey to make the world smile and beat glum Monday mornings week after week.

 

Eggnog Muffins 

recipe adapted from King Arthur Flour

Batter

¼ cup butter

¾ cup sugar

2 large eggs

2 ½ cups King Arthur AP Flour

2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp ground nutmeg

½ tsp salt

¼ tsp eggnog flavor

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 ¼ cup eggnog or half and half

 

Topping

½ cup brown sugar

½ King Arthur AP Flour

¼ tsp eggnog flavor

½ tsp nutmeg

3 tbl sp melted butter

Preheat the oven to 425°F. Line a muffin tin with 12 paper or silicone muffin cups, and grease the cups with non-stick vegetable oil spray; this will ensure that they peel off the muffins nicely.
In a medium-sized mixing bowl, cream together the butter and sugar till smooth. Add the eggs, beating for several minutes and scraping the bowl, till the mixture is smooth and light colored. Beat in the baking powder, nutmeg, salt, and eggnog flavor or vanilla.

Stir the flour into the butter mixture alternately with the eggnog or half and half, beginning and ending with the flour and making sure everything is thoroughly combined. Spoon the batter evenly into the prepared muffin cups. 

Stir together all of the topping ingredients JUST till crumbly. Stir gently, and don’t overmix; you don’t want to turn this crumbly topping into a solid mass. Sprinkle the topping over the muffins.

Bake the muffins for 20 minutes, or until they’re a pale golden brown. Remove them from the oven, and serve warm, or at room temperature.
Yield: 12 muffins.

 

 

 

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Baking at The Market on Holly

By Nastassia on December 22, 2011

I’ve been doing a lot of baking lately. And I’m not talking about the usual holiday-season baking or muffin baking I do regularly. No, I’ve become a real, professional baker.

I wake up at 4am. I’m in the kitchen by 5. Croissants are proofing by 6, and all of the morning’s baked goods are ready by 7.

I’m not going to lie. It is excruciatingly hard to wake up so early and get working. But it is a labor of love. A laborious, labor-intensive labor of love. And why would I put myself through this? Well, I happen to be a big fan of the Market on Holly in Pasadena (if you haven’t checked out this lovely cafe it should be on your list of things to do). I also happen to think that their croissants are some of the best in the city. And I love their wonder bars and cinnamon rolls and lemon cakes. So when I was given the opportunity to bake there for the month my answer was, of course, yes!

So my last few weeks have been filled with intensively learning everything from their pastry chef. She is now away for the holidays and I am taking everything she has taught me and baking for the Market on Holly until the new year. Here are a few things I’ve learned from baking in a commercial kitchen…

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Blue Corn Muffins | Playa Rivera

By Nastassia on December 13, 2011

It has been a busy busy last few days! Between the Eat My Blog Charity Bake Sale, Artisanal LA Holiday Pop-Up Shop and work I haven’t had a moment to myself. And while I did bake muffins on Monday to share with all of you, I had no time to post about them. But rather than leave you muffin-less, I thought you might enjoy these blue corn muffins.

These are blue corn muffins with almond butter from Chef John Sedlar’s Playa restaurant, and they are hands down some of the best muffins I’ve eaten. They have a nice crunchy exterior with a buttery soft interior. They are sweet and nutty. Slathered with fragrant almond butter, there is nothing better in the morning (or any time of day for that matter.) I even enjoyed them tonight secretly in the kitchen with my pal Caroline on Crack, while a fancy party was happening outside. Being secret special muffins made them that much sweeter!

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Muffin Mondays | Blondie Muffins with Banana and Nutella

By Nastassia on December 5, 2011

Have you been missing your Monday muffin fix like I have? After two muffin free Mondays brought on by holiday travel, I’m excited to get back into the swing of things with these blondie muffins. Honestly, I don’t know if I can even really call them muffins or if they should be considered breakfast or dessert, but whatever time of day you decide to have them, these muffins will satisfy your sweet tooth!

This week’s Muffin Monday recipe was a decadent Brownie Muffin. I decided to change things up.

Since I’m not a huge brownie fan I opted to make the brownie’s (in my opinion) tastier cousin, the blondie. I’ve never seen a blondie in muffin form so this was a bit of an experiment for me. I took all the usual-suspect ingredients of a blondie and adapted them to my favorite banana muffin recipe. Instead of rich cocoa powder, blondies are full of brown sugar that gives them a warm, caramel flavor.

The muffins turned out to have a surprising density and chewiness – like a blondie bar rather than a fluffy muffin – but it was a pleasant surprise that I thouroughly enjoyed. The bananas added fragrant sweetness while the swirl of nutella gave the muffins an added depth. Nutty, buttery and sweet, these muffins were a happy accident.

Muffin Monday is an initiative by Baker Street. A culinary journey of sharing a wickedly delicious muffin recipe every week. Drop in a quick line to join her on her journey to make the world smile and beat glum Monday mornings week after week.

 

Blondie Muffins with Bananas and Nutella

makes 12 muffins

Ingredients:

  • 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature, plus more for pan
  • 2 cups all-purpose flour, spooned and leveled
  • 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1 1/2 cups packed light-brown sugar
  • 2 large eggs
  • 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
  • 2 bananas (1 mashed, 1 chopped)
  • 2 tbl sp nutella
Directions:
  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter muffin pan and set aside. In a large bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, and salt then set aside.
  2. With an electric mixer, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add vanilla, then eggs and beat until combined. Add mashed bananas and beat until just combined.  Add flour mixture, and beat just until combined (do not overmix). Fold in chopped bananas and nutella.
  3. Divide batter among prepared cups, filling each about 3/4 of the tin. Bake until golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the center of a cupcake comes out clean, 18 to 22 minutes.

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Pumpkin Ice Cream | Sweet Rose Creamery, Los Angeles

By Nastassia on November 28, 2011

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

I hope you enjoyed a wonderfully overindugent weekend as I did in Colorado.

Pie after pie after pie, I’m never really pumpkin’d out. However, when I’m not in the mood for pie (which – trust me – rarely happens) but am in the mood for pumpkin, I move on to the next best pumpkin option: pumpkin ice cream.

My favorite place for pumpkin ice cream is Sweet Rose Creamery. This small batch artisan ice cream shop is owned by the same dessert geniuses who own Huckleberry Cafe (salted caramel bar heaven!). If this fact alone did not get you out of your seat and into your car to try these creamy sweet treats I don’t know what will.  All the flavors at Sweet Rose Creamery are divine, but my heart belongs to their seasonal pumpkin. It has the perfect balance of pumpkin spice and sweet cream.  It is thick and luscious and everything you want a good scoop of ice cream to be.  Pumpkin ice cream in a waffle cone is a little scoop of heaven and a perfect pumpkin pie alternative. As soon as I get to LA I’m heading straight for Sweet Rose Creamery!

 

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Ice Cream Sundaes | 101 Coffee Shop

By Nastassia on November 17, 2011

Sometimes you just want a big ol’ ice cream sundae. And by you, I mean me. Rather than pick some Haagen-Dazs from the market as I so often do, I decided to have an impromptu sundae date. Yes, a sundae date. I texted my pal Adriana to see if she was interested in meeting me for sundaes. A quick response of  ‘yes!’ and the sundae date was born!

When I think of ice cream sundaes, I think of diners. And when I think of diners, I think of 101 Coffee Shop. I frequent 101 Coffee Shop for their awesome milkshakes, but prior to my sundae date I had never tried their non-shake ice cream treats.

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Muffin Mondays | Gingerbread Muffins with Pear

By Nastassia on November 14, 2011

Some of my favorite sweet flavors seem to center around the holiday season. I’m talking about pumpkin, apples, pears, anything mulled and spiced, and, of course, gingerbread. Oh gingerbread, I love eating you in December and then I somehow forget about you the rest of the year. I’m sorry about that and I promise to change things next year. I mean seriously, why aren’t there gingerbread desserts year round? There is nothing inherently seasonal about gingerbread, right? Molasses, ginger, brown sugar – these are all pantry staples for me. I’m making gingerbread more often, dang it, because I love that sweet, spicy, satisfying flavor.

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