Sunday, November 27, 2011

RMRF has moved

Hey Moms:

In case you missed my email message earlier this year, Real Moms Real Food has MOVED. Old recipes will remain here, but updated recipes and new recipes can be found at:
http://realmomsrealfood.wordpress.com/

Besides being easier to follow (if you sign up, you will receive an email when I post), I'm also able to attach easily printable versions of recipes.

Happy Cooking,
Karen

Sunday, March 20, 2011

COFFEE CAKE

Coffee cakes are such a nice simple thing to bake and bring to morning meetings, as a hostess gift, etc. Though I have been accused of brown-nosing with my baking, I love the feeling of making people happy with fresh, homemade coffee cake (or muffins or cookies).

Like most simple baked goods, the ingredients are all things that you probably have around. Besides the typical baking staples, (good quality) cocoa powder, buttermilk, lemons and sour cream or plain yogurt are great to have to use in all kinds of things and keep well. My children are convinced that buttermilk that is a little past its "use by" date actually makes better pancakes.

Two very yummy coffee cake recipes follow.

BLUEBERRY CRUMB CAKE

Adapted from a MarthaStewart.com recipe heavily influenced by a Ina Garten recipe with my usual changes. I used frozen wild blueberries (from TJ’s of course).

Struesel Topping
½ cup butter, diced and chilled
½ cup brown sugar
½ cup pecan pieces
¼ cup AP flour
1 teaspoon cinnamon
¼ teaspoon salt

Cake
2 cups AP flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
3 teaspoons baking powder
1 ½ teaspoons baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
½ cup plus 2 tablespoons butter, room temperature
1 ½ cups sugar
2 large eggs, room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla
zest of one lemon
1 1/3 cups buttermilk
2 cups blueberries, rinsed and allowed to dry a bit

Preheat oven to 350. Butter and flour a 13 by 9 inch pan.
Make Streusel Topping: Combine all ingredients in food processor, pulse until mixture forms large, moist crumbs. Chill.
Make Cake: Whisk together first 5 ingredients in a large bowl. In a separate large bowl, cream together butter and sugar with an electric mixer until fluffy. Beat in eggs one at a time, then vanilla and zest. Mix in flour mixture and buttermilk, alternately. Gently toss blueberries with about 2 tablespoons flour, then fold into cake mixture and spoon into pan. Top with Streusel. Bake 45 – 50 minutes, until a tester comes out clean. Cool, cut into squares and serve.

CHOCOLATE MARBLE COFFEE CAKE

Adapted from a MarthaStewart.com recipe.

9 tablespoons unsweeted cocoa powder
3 tablespoons sugar
1 ½ cups AP flour
½ cup whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 stick butter, room temperature
1 cup sugar
2 large eggs, room temperature
1 cup sour cream (or Greek style plain yogurt)
1 teaspoon vanilla

Preheat oven to 350. Thoroughly butter and flour a bundt pan.
Make marble filling: stir together cocoa powder and 3 T sugar in a small bowl; set aside.
Make cake batter: Whisk together next five ingredients. Cream together butter and 1 cup sugar. Beat in eggs one at a time, then vanilla. Mix in flour mixture, alternating with sour cream.
Spread about one third of batter in bundt pan. Sprinkle half of filling. Spread another third, then other half of filling, then final third of batter. Swirl batter and filling slightly with a knife or skewer.
Bake 35 – 40 minutes, until a tester comes out clean. Cool 30 minutes, then invert onto a plate.

Sunday, December 19, 2010

LAST MINUTE CHRISTMAS BASKET

I think my Christmas baskets were pretty successful this year - so if you're still looking for a hostess gift, neighbor gift or work gift - I got ya covered. There are many sources of good value baskets and other containers like Cost Plus and Ross (mine were low buckets that I found in the $ section at the front of Target, but bowls or actual baskets would also work- or recycle a basket that someone just gave to you!). In an effort to be green, I bought festive - but not specifically Christmasey so they'd be more useful - kitchen towels at Cost Plus and used them to line the basket. Found fun holiday muffin cups at Cost Plus as well. Then I made four different kinds of muffins, piled them in the baskets, added a holiday gift tag and was ready for delivery. After a few trial runs (with disaster Oatmeal Raisin muffins and so so Gingerbread muffins) I ended up making CHOCOLATE MUFFINS, SWEET POTATO & PECAN MUFFINS, APPLE PECAN COFFEE CAKE MUFFINS (note that the latter 2 require softening butter ahead of time!) and, I confess I made Trader Joe's Cranberry bread mix into muffins. Added the zest of one orange to spice it up, divided among about 16 muffin cups and cooked for about 16 minutes. As a timing note, I cooked the sweet potatoes and made the CHOCOLATE MUFFINS the night before, cooled them completely, then put in tupperware. Then I got up, started with the TJ's mix to get things going in the oven, then made the other two muffin batches. One batch of each of these rounded out three baskets nicely. Happy Holidays!

APPLE PECAN COFFEE CAKE MUFFINS

Adapted from bakedbyrachel.com who I found on tastespotting.com. Lots of steps, but pretty darn yummy.

Muffins
1 cup AP flour
1 cup WW flour
1 teaspoon cinnamon
½ teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon baking soda
½ cup butter, room temperature
1 ½ cup brown sugar
2 eggs
1 cup plain (preferably Greek) yogurt
1 large tart apple
½ cup golden raisins
½ cup pecan pieces

Topping
4 tablespoons butter, very soft (or melted ok too)
½ cup brown sugar
½ cup AP flour
½ teaspoon cinnamon

Line 18 – 24 muffin cups in your pans. Preheat oven to 350 F.
In a medium bowl, whisk together first six ingredients. Cream butter and sugar, then beat in eggs one at a time. Mix in half of dry ingredients, then half of yogurt, repeat. Core, peel, and dice apple, then stir it in with raisins and pecans. Fill muffins cups about 2/3 full.

Mix topping ingredients together with a fork until you get about pea-sized bits. Spoon over muffin batter, dividing evenly. Bake for about 18 minutes, switching half way through if you are using two pans. Muffins are done when they spring back easily to the touch.

CHOCOLATE MUFFINS

Not over the top decadent – just enough chocolate flavor to make you happy without sending you into overdrive. Nice and fluffy. These were great for several days. Adapted from a recipe by Nigella Lawson.

1 cup AP flour
1 cup WW flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
2 heaping tablespoons excellent quality cocoa powder
1 cup chocolate chips, divided
1 egg, beaten
1 cup buttermilk
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 teaspoon vanilla
¾ cup sugar

Line a 12 muffin tin with paper cups. Preheat oven to 400 F.

Whisk together first six ingredients in a medium bowl, then mix in ¾ cup chocolate chips (reserve the rest). In a larger bowl, whisk together remaining ingredients. Fold dry into wet; don’t overmix. Spoon into muffin cups. Sprinkle remaining chocolate chips on top of muffins. Bake for about 16 minutes, or until the muffins spring back to the touch.