Category: baking

baking · Uncategorized

Cranberry-Chocolate Chip Biscotti

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Are you a dunker?  I not asking if you put people under water when you’re swimming, or if you can put a basketball through the hoops; I’m asking if you like to take a crisp cookie and dunk it in coffee, tea or milk?  If the answer is “yes!”  then you will love this recipe today!

Biscotti means – Twice baked.  This is a simple rolled out type of cookie that gets baked two times.  Let me give you a visual of how to make them, then I’ll share the recipe.

First the dough is mixed together.  It is dry and crumbly!  Press forward.  “Mush” it together.  That’s my not-so-technical word for “do whatever you need to do to make it into a ball of dough.  Then press it into two logs on a baking sheet.  Press down to make one-inch high rolls.

Bake those rolls for 30 minutes.  Let them cool for ten minutes.

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Slice the rolls into 1/2 inch pieces and lay on a baking sheet, flat side down.

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Put them in a lowered temp oven for 10 minutes.  Flip them over and brown the other side for 10 more minutes.

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Cool on baking rack.  They will harden up as they cool.  The crunchiness makes them perfect for dunking in that cup of coffee, because little pieces don’t fall into the cup!

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I’ve made all sorts of different kinds of biscotti and I love them all!  I hope you’ll try making a batch.  They make great gifts! Take some to your hostess, or make some for a coffee-loving friend for Christmas.  Fill a tin with the cookies or fill a cellophane bag and tie it with a ribbon, and you’ll have the perfect gift for the coffee drinkers on your list!

Here’s the recipe:

Cranberry-Chocolate Chip Biscotti

Ingredients

2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour

1 cup sugar

1/2 cup dried cranberries

1/3 cup semisweet chocolate chips

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/8 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon vegetable oil

1 teaspoon almond extract

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

3 large eggs

Cooking spray

Preparation

Preheat oven to 350°.

Lightly spoon flour into dry measuring cups, and level with a knife. Combine the flour and the next 5 ingredients (flour through salt) in a large bowl. Combine oil, extracts, and eggs; add to flour mixture, stirring until well-blended (dough will be dry and crumbly). Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface; knead lightly 7 to 8 times. Divide the dough in half. Shape each portion into an 8-inch-long roll. Place rolls 6 inches apart on a baking sheet coated with cooking spray; flatten each roll to 1-inch thickness.

Bake at 350° for 35 minutes. Remove rolls from baking sheet; cool 10 minutes on a wire rack. Cut each roll diagonally into 15 (1/2-inch) slices. Place the slices, cut sides down, on baking sheet. Reduce oven temperature to 325°, and bake for 10 minutes. Turn cookies over; bake an additional 10 minutes (cookies will be slightly soft in center but will harden as they cool). Remove from baking sheet; cool completely on wire rack.

 

Enjoy!

With love from my country kitchen,

Denise Signature 150 px

baking · breakfast · Uncategorized

Week-Long Muffin Batter

RefreshHer4 Comments

Muffin batter - Copy

Coming up with a great breakfast is difficult to me.  Oh, I know there are lots of options – French Toast, waffles, omelets, etc., but most people don’t have time to be stirring up great recipes first thing in the morning, myself included.  The best way to have a something good is to prepare ahead.

Years ago, I found a Bran muffin recipe that you stir together and put in the fridge.  I call them Morning Glory Muffins because they make the morning glorious!!!!  The batter stays fresh for a week!  During that week, you can heat up the oven, bake up as many as you need without having the work and mess first thing in the morning.  These are healthy and delicious!  This month during Sabbatical, I mixed up the batter and it was a great addition to my yogurt and fruit.  I took some batter with us when we went to Pigeon Forge for a few days, and it was great to have it all ready to bake!

muffin batter1 - Copy

 

Here’s the simple recipe:

Morning Glory Muffins

Ingredients

  • 1/2 cup boiling water
  • 1/2 cup bran cereal (not flakes, preferably a wheat bran)
  • 1/3 cup (vegetable oil
  • 1 large egg
  • 1 1/4 cups
  • 1/2 cup granulated sugar
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 3/4 cup raisins
  • 1 1/4 cups buttermilk
  • 1/4 cup brown sugar
  • 1 1/2 cups bran cereal – not flakes. (Though they say “not flakes” that’s what I had on hand and used, and they turned out great!)
  • 1 – 2 tsp Grated Orange peel

Instructions

  1. In a small mixing bowl, pour the boiling water over the half cup of cereal. When cooled, mix in the vegetable oil and egg.
  2. While the water/bran mixture cools, whisk together the flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder and salt in a large mixing bowl. Stir in the raisins.
  3. In a large measuring cup, combine the buttermilk and brown sugar, and stir into the dry ingredients. Stir in remaining cereal, then the softened bran mixture and orange zest. Cover the batter and refrigerate it overnight.
  4. When you’re ready to bake, preheat the oven to 375°F for 15 minutes. Line a muffin tin with papers, and spray the insides of the papers. Or just grease the muffin cups themselves, if you like a crustier muffin edge.
  5. Stir the batter once or twice, then scoop a heaping 1/4-cup of batter into each prepared muffin cup.
  6. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, until a tester inserted in the center comes out clean.
  7. Remove from the oven, cool in the pan on a rack for 10 minutes before removing the muffins from the pan.

muffins

 

If you want a nice hot muffin without having to be in the kitchen more than a few minutes, this recipe will be your morning glory, too!

With love from my country kitchen,

Denise Signature 150 px

baking · Bread

Perfecting the Biscuit

RefreshHer6 Comments

biscuit 2

I’m a southerner.  I’m a biscuit lover and I’m a baker.  Put those three things together and it means that over the years, I have tried to perfect both my recipe and results of homemade biscuits.  Where else would I turn but to Southern Living?  They are the cream of the crop, or in this case the best of the biscuits! 

I recently gave SL’s Best Buttermilk Biscuits a couple of runs and they turned out really good!  They have those buttery layers that are typified in a perfect biscuit.  They were simple to do and only required three ingredients – Self-rising flour, Buttermilk and Butter. No worries if you don’t have self-rising flour – just add 1 1/2 tsp baking powder and 1/2 tsp salt for each cup of flour.

The secret to the flaky layers is the folding of the dough.  Follow the instructions to fold and turn, fold and turn and you’ll get perfect results!  Here’s the recipe:

Buttermilk Biscuits

Ingredients

1/2 cup butter (1 stick), frozen
2 1/2 cups self-rising flour
1 cup chilled buttermilk
PARCHMENT PAPER
2 tablespoons butter, melted

Preparation

1. Preheat oven to 475°. Grate frozen butter using large holes of a box grater. Toss together grated butter and flour in a medium bowl. Chill 10 minutes.

2. Make a well in center of mixture. Add buttermilk, and stir 15 times. Dough will be sticky.

3. Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface. Lightly sprinkle flour over top of dough. Using a lightly floured rolling pin, roll dough into a 3/4-inch-thick rectangle (about 9 x 5 inches). Fold dough in half so short ends meet. Repeat rolling and folding process 4 more times.

4. Roll dough to 1/2-inch thickness. Cut with a 2 1/2-inch floured round cutter, reshaping scraps and flouring as needed.

5. Place dough rounds on a parchment paper-lined jelly-roll pan. Bake at 475° for 15 minutes or until lightly browned. Brush with melted butter.

buttermilk biscuits

Add a biscuit to a breakfast of scrambled eggs, bacon and fresh fruit, topped with yogurt and granola and you have a hearty start to your day!

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Have you mastered biscuit making?  I hope you’ll try this recipe and method if you’re still trying to find the perfect recipe!  It lives up to Southern Living’s reputation!

With love from my country kitchen,

 

baking

Icing That Makes the Cake

RefreshHer1 Comment

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I love making and decorating simple cakes and cupcakes.  Last week I got to make the cupcakes for Alli’s music recital. I kept it really basic since I was making 75.   Cupcakes are the star, in my opinion, only if the frosting is delicious. It can cover for a dry cake or one that is just plain with no extra filling.

I have used the Wilton Buttercream icing recipe for years and it always turns out, and it’s always delicious!  Here’s the simple recipe:

Buttercream Frosting

1/2 cup shortening
1/2 cup butter
4 cups confectioners sugar
2 tsp milk
1 tsp vanilla

Step 1

In large bowl, beat shortening and butter with electric mixer until light and fluffy. Beat in vanilla.

Step 2

Gradually add sugar, one cup at a time, beating well on medium speed. Scrape sides and bottom of bowl often. When all sugar has been mixed in, icing will appear dry.

Step 3

Gradually add milk; beat at medium speed until light and fluffy. Don’t over-beat, though.

Step 4

For thin (spreading) consistency icing, add 2 tablespoons water or milk. For piping, I add 1 tablespoon.

*To make the chocolate buttercream, add 1/2 cup cocoa powder.

I spoon icing into a large piping bag and then, using the large star tip, I pipe the icing on.  It’s faster than smoothing it on with a knife, and it looks so pretty! I like leaving a little border of the cake showing – it also keeps it from being too much icing.

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Aren’t the music note picks cute?  Alli cut two of them with a paper punch and then glued them together with a toothpick in between, then we popped them into the icing.

Here’s a helpful guide about the decorating tips and which one to use:

Understanding your piping tips will help you frost everything to perfection. Here is your guide to everything you need to know about piping tips.:
This guide came from here

 

There’s an excellent guide here on the technique of adding a swirl design with your frosting.

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This cupcake stand was made by a dear man in our church at the time of Whitney’s wedding.  Our church has used it many times since her wedding.  It holds LOTS of cupcakes, but we just spread them out for the 75 and spaced them out on the rows.

If you’ve never taken a simple cake decorating class, many craft stores offer them.  I took the Wilton class when my girls were young, and it was really helpful in creating special cakes for birthdays, anniversaries and events.

Even if you never take a class, you now have their yummy Buttercream Frosting recipe.  It tastes good, no matter how it’s applied to the cake!  I hope you’ll make it for your next cake!

I think my favorite combination is chocolate cake and white icing.  How about you?

With love from my country kitchen,

 

baking · Uncategorized

Breakfast Muffins To Start Your Day!

RefreshHer8 Comments

Muffin 1

I love to look at the reviews of recipes I’m going to make, but I have to laugh at people who give a great recipe a horrible review and then go on to share how they did NOT follow the directions!  Hello?  That’s what directions are for!
Try a recipe once.  If you don’t love it, then you can tweak the it a bit, then try again.  But give the recipe a chance!!

muffin 3

Saturday night I went strictly by the recipe I found in my Cooking Light Cookbook and I made their Lemon-Blueberry Muffins.  They were supposed to be used for Sunday breakfast.  I baked them   and “someone” smelled them from his office and came in for a taste!  Two muffins later  he returned to his office, declaring them, “Absolutely scrumptious!”  There were plenty for breakfast – and I love it when he wants to try what I bake!

Here are a few pictures of the process:

Be sure to add a tablespoon of flour to your blueberries before you add them to the batter. This will keep them from falling to the bottom of the muffin.

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muffin 6

Some people who reviewed this recipe said they left the glaze off and served them plain.  I would definitely add the glaze!  It makes them so good!!!  Here they are cooling, waiting to be drenched in that lemony glaze…

muffin 4

This is what I’m talking about….
Why would you leave that off???

Muffin 2

Finally, here’s the recipe.  You need these muffins in your morning routine!

Lemon-Blueberry Muffins
Ingredients

2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 cup butter
1 1/4 cups low-fat buttermilk
1 large egg
1 tablespoon grated lemon rind
1 cup blueberries
Cooking spray
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
1/2 cup powdered sugar

Preparation

Preheat oven to 400°.

Lightly spoon flour into dry measuring cups; level with a knife. Combine flour and next 5 ingredients (flour through nutmeg) in a medium bowl; cut in butter with a pastry blender or 2 knives until mixture resembles coarse meal.

Combine buttermilk, egg, and rind; stir well with a whisk. Add to flour mixture; stir just until moist. Gently fold in blueberries.

Spoon batter into 12 muffin cups coated with cooking spray. Bake at 400° for 20 minutes or until the muffins spring back when lightly touched. Remove muffins from pans immediately, and place on a wire rack to cool.

Combine lemon juice and powdered sugar in a small bowl. Drizzle glaze evenly over cooled muffins.

Note: You can make these muffins up to 2 days ahead and glaze them the morning you need them.

Muffin 2a

When you bake, do you go strictly by the recipe when you first try it?
Let me know if you make these!

With love from my country kitchen,