De Baking Psychopath

Happy New Year! I hope 2013 is a wonderful year for everyone.  To start the new year off on a healthy note, I bring you this veggie and fruit-packed wholesome breakfast cake. For those of you who may be familiar with Morning Glory muffins, this is the cake version of that hippie health food favorite.  Despite the health food origins, the cake is surprisingly light and flavorful and tasty. The cake itself is lightly sweetened and the fruit add just a touch more natural sweetness. It definitely is a breakfast or snack you can feel good about! Morning Glory Breakfast Cake (adapted from Coffee Cakes: Simple, Sweet, and Savory ) Ingredients: 1/2 cup quick-cooking or old-fashioned rolled oats 1/2 cup chopped walnuts or pecans 2 large eggs 2/3 cup firmly packed dark brown sugar 1 & 1/2 cups low-fat plain yogurt or buttermilk (I used nonfat Greek yogurt) 3 tablespoons molasses 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour ...

Well, the pumpkin granola was only Part I. In reality, I had my eyes set out on using up that last can of pumpkin pie filling (not puree) waiting patiently in the pantry with a recipe I found on Libby's website, Pumpkin Granola Muffins. Since I had also needed to get rid of the extra puree leftover from the pumpkin cookies, the granola was a two-fer: it used up the puree and also produced the granola that I needed for the pumpkin muffins! While I was at it, I figured I would try to adapt the recipe to make those oh-so-popular Starbucks copycat-recipe cream cheese pumpkin muffins. So I found a filling recipe to use and then added a bit of espresso powder to the muffin batter to pay homage to the pumpkin spice latte muffin recipes I've also seen lately.  These muffins were moist and had good texture from the granola, and the creamy ribbon of cream cheese running through the muffin was a great complement. Although it's a lot of steps, the recipe makes a lot of muffins (...

Happy holidays! I am still trying to catch up on recipes from the last couple of months, sorry for the delays! Back in mid-Fall, I had half a can of pumpkin left over from making the pumpkin cookies, but I didn't want to make just any old pumpkin bread with it. I scanned though my Google Reader and found this gem of a recipe from Sugarcrafter and set out to make this as my next installment of my granola addiction. Because the pumpkin makes up a good portion of the wet ingredients, this granola is more on the chewy side, and not as crispy-crunchy as other recipes. It's very fragrant and deep flavored, great on yogurt, and it is a good recipe to use up some leftover canned pumpkin. Pumpkin Spice Granola (adapted from Sugarcrafter ) Ingredients: 4 cups old-fashioned oats 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg 1/8 tsp cloves 1/4 cup pumpkin seeds (pepitas) 1/2 cup pecans, coarsely chopped 1/2 cup brown sugar 1/2 cup pumpkin puree 1/4 cup honey Ins...

So awhile back, my friend Shannon gifted me a great big jar of applesauce from her last big batch , and I used some of it for some awesome baked oatmeal , but I was even more excited to try out an applesauce cake recipe with the remainder! This cake is lightly sweet, very moist, and oh-so-fragrant from the ample oat-cinnamon streusel lining the bottom and rippling through the middle of the cake. It kept very well for several days in an airtight container, and if anything, developed more apple-y character and moistness over time! It is a splendid anytime cake and very versatile. Applesauce Cake with Oatmeal Streusel (adapted from Cake Keeper Cakes ) Ingredients: Streusel- 1 cup firmly packed brown sugar 1 cup old-fashioned oats 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon 6 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into bits or grated and chilled Cake- 2 & 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour 1 & 1/2 cups granulated sugar 2 & 1/2 teaspoons baking powder 1 ...

  Gus! Beloved Gus! In the last 9 months since I created Gus, he's fed our family so well! Bread, pizza, crumpets, pancakes/waffles, naan...everything has been tasty and fragrant! Long live Gus! It is therefore fitting for me to share this wonderful sourdough recipe as my 200th blog post, as in many ways this sourdough starter has represented the journey and learning curve of discovering and executing new baking recipes over the last few years. It has been a tasty and wonderful time of personal growth that you, my readers, have shared with me over the Interwebs.  This recipe was first used for its intended purpose: pizza. The pizza crust from this recipe is great--fluffy and stretchy and really fragrant from the "Pizza Dough Flavor" from King Arthur Flour (basically a blend of cheese powder).  Then we decided to use this recipe to make rolls to eat BBQ with, and that was a smashing success, so since then we've made this recipe as rolls a few more ...

Close, but no cigar. This past visit to Philly was a fruitful one, as we went to the Metropolitan Bakery to do another taste test of the now-legendary raspberry bars. I decided to be bold and ask the staff whether they knew whether the crust of the raspberry bars was of the same recipe as the lemon bars, or very different. They didn't rightly know, but before we left, the helpful staff member had dug out the ingredient list for all the bakery items and found the raspberry bars. We discovered that in contrast to the simple shortbread crust of the lemon bars, ground and chopped almonds were important components of the raspberry bar crust, and thus I had my next scavenger hunt clue to continue the chase. This recipe, which DOES include almonds in the crust, comes from the cookbook of another famous bakery, Tate's Bake Shop.  The crust is a bit crunchier than the last one I tried, but I think I will need to swap out some of the flour for almond flour to see if I can improve ...

It's Fall! I had a hankering to make something pumpkin-y, so I decided these soft, cakey cookies fit the bill! I sort of messed with the recipe, decreasing the sugar in the recipe by about 1/4 cup and throwing in an extra egg white that was left over from another recipe, as well as throwing in a handful of toasted pecans, so I am not sure if my cookies represented the correct texture, but regardless, they were soft and moist, gently spiced, and not too sweet. Definitely a repeater. Everyone enjoyed them very much! Pumpkin Toffee Cookies (Adapted from Two Peas and their Pod ) Ingredients: 3 cups all-purpose flour 1 teaspoon baking soda 1 teaspoon baking powder 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg 1/4 teaspoon ground allspice 1/2 teaspoon salt 1/2 cup unsalted butter (1 stick), at room temperature 1 & 1/4 cups granulated sugar (original recipe had 1 &1/2 cups) 1 cup canned pure pumpkin puree (unsweetened) 1 large egg + 1 egg white (origina...

My husband doesn't like muffins or quickbreads. But he likes coffeecakes. I think he finds the former to be too dry much of the time, and he prefers the moist plushness of coffee cakes due to the addition of yogurt or sour cream. I don't remember why I made this coffeecake but I had some cream cheese to use, and I decided to flavor the cream cheese with some freeze-dried strawberries I had no idea what to do with. The strawberry added a nice fruity flavor to this yummy crumb-topped cake.  This cake was husband-approved. I cut it into gigantic squares, and he ended up taking a square for lunch many a day! Cinnamon (Strawberry) Cream Cheese Coffee Cake (Adapted from Bake or Break ) Ingredients: 1/4 cup unsalted butter (1/2 stick), softened and cut into small chunks 1/3 cup all-purpose flour 1/2 cup packed light brown sugar 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon 1/4 cup chopped pecans pinch of salt 4 ounces cream cheese, softened 1/4 cup packed light brown sugar 1/2 t...

Here is installment 2 of the Pandora box of granola recipes that I have unleashed upon myself!  I don't remember what I was searching for, but I found online that the Metropolitan Bakery granola won a blind taste test at Epicurious.com . Looking at their ingredient list online, I discovered that the famed granola bore a strong resemblance to the contents "Almond Oat Cereal" recipe that is in their cookbook, so I decided to see what the fuss was all about. This granola, after eating the Bedford Springs Granola for a few weeks, felt sort of pedestrian due to the lack of fragrant coconut, but as I ate more of it, I grew to enjoy and appreciate the pure oat and nut flavor. The milk powder also lent a nice sweetness to the clusters. Also, the wheat germ was deeply nutty and fragrant. One thing that was not in the original recipe that I ended up adding was salt. Just a pinch of salt made a huge difference in the flavor and tastiness of the granola, so definitely don...

This summer, I had to drive out to a remote animal facility to do a special set of mouse experiments. This was a difficult task for me for a couple of reasons. One, I had not driven the car in over a year, and even when I had, I'd never had to drive by myself nor for the distance I would have to commute to reach this remote facility (about 12 miles each way). Two, because I'd never worked out at that facility before, I had to pack up all my materials (chemicals, tubes, solutions, etc) and have it shipped out there and back, so I had to be really careful I had EVERYTHING I needed, or else I was pretty screwed.  Luckily I survived on both accounts: the experiment went as planned, and I now have a new-found confidence in driving! Hooray! At the end of the month, to thank the wonderful veterinary staff who helped me through the process and made sure I had everything I needed and checked up on my mice, I baked up a couple treats and left them there on my last day. These capp...

This past Wednesday, I met again with my committee. This was my fifth committee meeting, and my mission in this meeting was the holy grail of all PhD candidates: seeking permission to write the thesis dissertation. In some ways, I was very blase about the meeting. I figured the more I stressed out about it, I was just going to give myself more pressure, so low expectations were in order to keep myself sane. Plus I had found myself responsible for two transient students in the lab, back-to-back leading up to and immediately after my meeting, eating up a lot of time trying to keep them organized and moving forward on their projects during their short time (why I am always in charge of students in the lab is a rant for another time). Lastly, I also have spent the better part of the last month writing a review article and JUST got it submitted, finally, so I frankly haven't had the time to focus on the presentation for my meeting.  I didn't make very much for the committee th...

This is the best granola I've ever had.  No, this may be the best granola in the world. About a month ago, my program had our annual retreat at the Bedford Springs Resort, a very very nice resort known for its golf course and mineral hot springs. It's almost like stepping back into time when you are there because it looks like a plantation house from the 1800s, and the halls are full of old-timey photographs from hundreds of years of visitors to the Springs. Anyway, I woke up insanely early on Saturday and couldn't go back to sleep, so we were the first ones there at breakfast and had a few one-on-one conversations with the kitchen staff, who were busily putting all the food out for the breakfast buffet. One kind staff member encouraged me to definitely try their granola, "it's house made and really good." Well. I didn't need more encouragement than that. So I got a container of yogurt, and tried this granola. It was crunchy, deeply caramel in...