Lemon Poppy Seed Pancakes

I found these on a neat site, http://www.pickycook.com/breakfastandbrunch/lemonpoppyseedpancakes.aspx.
I halfed the recipe, so we wouldn't end up with a million pancakes.  (With my family I can make pancakes for ever and they'll get eaten, but here its just me and Grandmom.)   I think it made 5 medium pancakes

Ingredients:
1 cup all purpose flour
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. baking soda
3 Tbsp. sugar
pinch of salt
3 Tbsp. poppy seeds  (They were pretty full of poppy seeds, so you could probably use about 2 Tbsp.)
1 cup buttermilk
1 egg
1 T butter, melted
zest from 2 lemons (I zested them all the way down to the juicy part pretty much as much as I could get off of them, made some nice and lemony pancakes!)

Combine dry ingredients.  Mix together wet ingredients, poppy seeds, and zest.  Combine wet and dry.  Cook on hot skillet for about a minute on each side, or until golden brown.

Serve with maple syrup or fresh strawberries.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cake in a Mug

I saw this recipe on Pinterest and HAD to try it.  But we didn't have Nutella so I used creamy peanut butter instead, and added some semi sweet chocolate chips.

I'm not really a cake fan, so I wouldn't make this over and over.  But if you enjoy cake, this is a quick and easy way to fix your cake craving! 

Be sure to use a very large mug if you decide to only use one.  I filled one mug about 3/4 full of batter and it still over flowed. :)

Ingredients:

4 tablespoons self rising flour
4 tablespoons white granulated sugar
1 egg
3 tablespoons cocoa powder
3 tablespoons peanut butter
3 tablespoons milk
3 tablespoons vegetable oil

3 tablespoons semi-sweet chocolate chips

Instructions:

Combine all ingredients in a small mixing bowl.  Coat either 1 large or 2 normal mugs with non stick cooking spray.  Pour batter into mug(s).  Microwave on high for 1 1/2 to 3 minutes, until baked through, and not runny.  Top with whipped cream and chocolate syrup. Enjoy! 

Oven-Puffed Pancake

1/4 cup butter
3 eggs, lightly beaten
1/2 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup milk
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup brown sugar, packed
2 tsp cinnamon, optional

Preheat oven to 450.  In a 10-inch cast iron or oven-proof skillet melt the butter over medium high heat.

In a medium bowl whisk together eggs, flour, vanilla, milk, salt until combined.  Mix well.  Pour over butter. Place skillet in the oven and bake for 10 to 12 minutes or until puffed and brown.  Remove from oven.  Sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar.  Bake 5 more minutes until sugar is melted and brown.  Remove from oven.  Cut, and serve warm with syrup and or fresh fruit.

Peanut butter coffee cake

Ingredients:

Topping:
1/2 cup brown sugar,
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup creamy peanut butter
2 Tablespoons butter, melted

Cake:
3/4 cup creamy peanut butter
1/4 cup butter, or margarine
1 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
2 cups all-purpose flour (I used whole wheat pastry flour)
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 cup milk

Preheat oven to 375.
In a small bowl mix topping ingredients until crumbly.  Set aside.
In a mixing bowl, cream peanut butter and margarine/butter.  Slowly beat in brown sugar.  Add eggs one at a time, beating until fluffy.  Mix together flour, baking powder, salt, baking soda, and chocolate chips.  Add alternately with milk to the creamed mixture, beating after each addition.  Spread batter in a greased 13 x 9 pan, top with crumb topping.  Bake for 30 - 35 minutes or until a toothpick come out clean.

Stromboli

So for all of you out there who've never had stromboli its sorta like a pizza...except its rolled up.  Pizza is
always great!  But sometimes its fun to do a variation of pizza too.  It seems as though stromboli wasn't even invented until the 1950's, so a lot of people missed out on this yummy meal!

As a side note...did you know there also is a volcano in Italy named, stromboli?

Crust ingredients:
1-1/3 cups warm water (110 - 115 F)
1 T active dry yeast
1 T sugar
3 T olive oil
1-1/4 tsp salt
3-3/4 cup plus 2 T all-purpose flour

Filling ingredients:
1 can pizza sauce
about 3 cups shredded mozzarella cheese
pizza toppings of your choice (olives, pepperoni, peppers, onions, sausage, etc)

Step 1:
In a stand mixer (I used our Bosch mixer, which eliminated the first rising time) mix water, yeast, and sugar.  Cover and let rest 5 minutes.  After 5 minutes, mixture should be bubbly and smell very yeasty.  (If its not bubbly and maybe stretchy then your yeast didn't proof, your water was probably too hot or too cold, you'll need to try again).


Step 2:
After, proofing your yeast (Step 1), add oil and salt, mix.  Add most of the remaining flour, and mix.  Dough should not be sticky to the touch, you may need to add slightly more or less flour, depending on your dough.
Mix for 5 minutes.

Step 3:
Cover dough and let raise until doubled.

Step 4:
Punch down dough, and divide into two pieces.  On a lightly floured counter top, roll dough into a rectangle, about 12 inches by 18 inches.  Spread sauce in a line lengthwise on the dough. (About 2 inches in from one edge, and about an inch in from the ends)  Top sauce with cheese, and toppings.  Fold smaller side over sauce line.  On top of that fold spread more sauce and more toppings.  Fold the other side over, and under the bottom of the roll, and tuck the ends in well.  Place on a greased cookie sheet. Stab a knife into the top of the roll 3 or 4 times, to make several slits.

Alternate step 4: If this all sounds too confusing, roll your dough into a rectangle, spread with sauce, sprinkle with toppings, and roll it up! Just keep the toppings about an inch in from the edges, and still tuck all the ends under well, so the cheese mostly stays inside!

Step 5:
Bake at 400 for 25 minutes, until top is golden brown.  Let cool for a few minutes, slice, and serve with heated pizza sauce.  Enjoy!!!

Here is my messy kitchen with a few raw strombolis...I made four, and they were all devoured for supper tonight. :)  I made a large batch of dough (about 11 or 12 cups of flour) and made 4 strombolis, and a small, medium, and a large pizza crust.  =D  Twas a lot of dough!

Flourless Chocolate Nut cake

Gluten free, dairy free chocolate cake?  Gotta try it then! It was a fantastic recipe to bake.  All those egg whites make the cake rise, even though it doesn't have any flour or leavening!  I got this recipe from King Arthur Flour 


Ingredients: 
10 large eggs, separated
3 ounces unsweetened baking chocolate
1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
heaping 1/4 teaspoon salt
2/3 cup granulated sugar (to mix with the egg yolks)
2 cups finely chopped pecans, or pecan meal (I used some finely ground walnuts too)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 cup granulated sugar (to mix with the egg whites)


Directions:

1) Lightly grease a 10" tube pan or angel food pan. For best results, cut a piece of parchment or waxed paper to fit the bottom of the pan, and grease the paper. Preheat the oven to 350°F.

2) Separate the room-temperature eggs, putting the whites and yolks in separate large bowls.

3) Melt the two chocolates together, stirring till smooth, and set aside.

4) Beat the egg yolks till smooth and lemon-yellow. Add the salt and 2/3 cup sugar, and beat again till thickened and lightened in color.

5) Stir in the melted chocolate.

6) Stir in the nuts. They should be processed as fine as possible; they'll probably be a bit pasty.

7) Beat the egg whites and vanilla till foamy.

8) With the beater going, sprinkle in the 1/4 cup sugar, beating till soft peaks form.

9) With the mixer at low speed, gradually fold the whites into the yolk mixture, mixing gently till no streaks show.

10) Spoon the mixture into the prepared pan.

11) Bake the cake for 35 to 40 minutes, till a cake tester inserted into the center comes out clean. Remove it from the oven, and set it on a rack. Loosen the edges, and let it cool in the pan for 1 hour. Loosen the edges again.

12) Invert the cake onto the rack. 13) Make your favorite ganache recipe*, and pour over cake.  Serve chilled. *I tried to make ganache by using equal parts hot milk and chocolate.  It didn't work so well.  I guess for every part milk you'd need at least two parts chocolate?  I just heated my (very soupy) ganache back up and kept adding chocolate till it was thicker.  The original recipe Flourless Chocolate Nut cake gives instructions for a glaze, which I think would work out well! So maybe give that a try!

Lemon Curd

Lemon Curd

I had never made lemon curd before today.  Its not really something we eat often. My parents brought some home from Door County.  It was good.

And then a few weeks ago, I saw a recipe for microwave lemon curd, on a site I follow, mybakingaddiction.com
I didn't want to use the microwave though, so I used a recipe from finecooking.com.
And well, you can eat lemon curd on lots of things: toast, biscuits, crepes, pancakes...but those are all full of carbs, so I made sort of a lemon parfait with my lemon curd.  Vanilla greek yogurt, lemon curd, strawberries, and whipped cream (Raw cream sweetened with a little Truvia..)   Delicious!



Ingredients:

6 T butter, room temperature
1 cup sugar
2 large eggs
2 large egg yolks
2/3 cup fresh squeezed lemon juice
1 tsp lemon zest

In a large bowl cream butter and sugar for about 2 minutes.  Add eggs and egg yolks, beat for 1 more minute.  Stir in lemon juice.  (Mixture will look curdled but it will cook away, and end up smooth.)
In a medium, heavy based saucepan heat mixture over low heat until smooth.  Increase heat to medium, and cook, stirring constantly until mixture thickens.  Temperature should reach 170F  The mixture should not boil (Well now things didn't go so well, and lo and behold, my curd started bubbling away while I was deciding if it was done or not.  I decided it was done, and quickly took it off the stove.  Didn't seem to hurt it. :)
Its yummy!