Category: Recipes

Raisin Bran Muffins

Yup, I whipped up some muffins made from raisin bran cereal, of which we had much, and of the mostly stale variety!  I love finding a new use for things I’d otherwise have to throw away, and as often as we found ourselves with a partial box of stale raisin bran sitting around (shall have to investigate that), I just never got around to making these before.

Raisin Bran Muffins - ©Kristen N. Fox, www.foodfollies.com

I took the basic recipe from the web and then tweaked it a little to add a bit more flavor and pizzazz – raisin bran muffins just SCREAM pizzazz, don’t they. ;)  Here’s the recipe …

Raisin Bran Muffins

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
3 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 cup sugar
1/4-1/2 tsp. cinnamon
3 cups raisin bran cereal
1 1/4 cups milk
1 egg
1/3 cup vegetable oil

(also need some crumbled bran flakes and sugar for topping)

Mix the first five (dry) ingredients together in a medium sized bowl and set aside.

In a large mixing bowl, mix cereal with milk, and let set for a few minutes to soften the cereal. Add the egg and vegetable oil and stir until blended.

Add the flour mixture to the cereal mixture, stirring only until ingredients are blended well.

Either use cooking spray in a muffin tin or line the muffin tin with paper muffin liners. Then divide the batter between all twelve muffin spots – they will be pretty full.

Before putting the muffins in the oven, sprinkle a little bit of crumbled bran flakes and then sprinkle a little sugar over each muffin, for a crunchy topping.

Bake at 400F for 25 minutes. Cool on wire rack.  (recipe from foodfollies.com)

Banana Pancakes

I know these LOOK like regular, ordinary pancakes…

Banana Pancakes

But they are really BANANA PANCAKES! Didn’t see THAT one coming, did you!  Did you!!?? Did…. never mind.  Anyway, they were delicious. We even had a special tiny pancake left over for the dog, who also approved.

Here is our recipe, adapted from a basic one we found on the web.

Banana Pancakes

2 1/2 cups Bisquick
2 cups milk
2 eggs
1 cup mashed bananas
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon sugar
1/4 c. wheat germ/ground flax (optional)

Beat ingredients until well blended. For thinner pancakes add more milk, a little at a time, as needed. Pour by 1/4 cupfuls onto hot griddle – we recommend greasing the griddle beforehand. Cook until edges are dry. Then flip and cook until golden. Yields 12-13 pancakes, depending on size, etc.

Kiwi Sorbet

It’s 85 degrees with 100 percent humidity. You happen to have a nice bunch of fresh kiwi fruits in the refrigerator. Do you just cut them up and eat them?

Well, you could. And it would be delicious. But even better because of the high temperature, make kiwi sorbet! Here’s the recipe we used, pieced together from various versions found online to make our own:

Kiwi Sorbet Recipe

4 or 5 kiwis
2 tablespoons lemon juice
3/4 cup sugar
2 tablespoons corn syrup
2 cups ice cold water
ice cream maker of some sort

Cut your kiwi up into small pieces into a medium sized bowl. Sprinkle the lemon juice over it. Then sprinkle the sugar over it and mix it up a bit. Cover it and put it in the refrigerator for an hour.

Take the kiwi out of the fridge, and put it in a blender or food processor and blend/mix until it’s puree. Some chunks are okay. Add the corn syrup and the cold water and mix until blended – won’t take long – a few bursts is all. Final concoction may seem a little liquidy, but that’s just right.  (If you don’t want the little seeds in your sorbet, this would be the best point to put the liquid through a strainer – if you still had chunks in your puree though you’ll have to manually make sure those get into the final mix of course.)

Pour it into your ice cream maker and follow manufacturer directions. Put in freezer!

And *poof* – hot day deliciousness…

Crumb Top Apple Pie

This Crumb Top Apple Pie recipe is just the thing if you don’t have enough apples to make a regular apple pie; the recipe originally called for three cups of sliced apples instead of the usual six cups. Of course, this recipe requires a lot more butter for the topping than the basic apple pie recipe too, but we actually HAD butter we needed to use up (long story involving a malfunctioning refrigerator) so it worked out for us.

I started with the recipe from the The Complete Magnolia Bakery Cookbook and made a few changes – you can see our modified version below.

And here’s the glorious outcome!

Crumb Top Apple Pie by FoodFollies.com

The topping was nicely crisp, and since the apple filling layer is thinner, it’s not QUITE as much sticky-sweetness as a normal apple pie. I’d recommend eating it with a scoop of vanilla ice cream to round out all the flavors nicely.

Crumb Top Apple Pie

This pie is two equal depth layers – apples on the bottom and crumb topping on the top.

Crust Ingredients
(or use one part of a prepared crust)
1 1/3 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cups butter, slightly softened
3 tablespoons ice water

Filling Ingredients
1/2 cup sugar
1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
1/8 teaspoon cinnamon
pinch of nutmeg
3 cups tart apple slices (we recommend Granny Smiths)

Crumb Topping
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cups lightly brown sugar, NOT packed
1 cup of unsalted butter, softened, cut into small chunks

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

Crust: Measure the flour into a large bowl. Use a pastry blender
(or two knives) to cut the butter into the flour until you get very
small chunks. Add the ice water, by tablespoon – not all at once,
into the mixture, tossing with a fork until integrated into the dough,
and the dough is moist all around. Using your hands, form the dough
into a ball, and roll it out on a lightly floured surface, large
enough to fit the bottom of a 9-inch glass pie dish. Fold and crimp
the edges to finish.

Filling: In a large bowl, combine sugar, flour, cinnamon and nutmeg.
Add the apple slices and mix gently until all of the apples are coated.
Scoop the apple mixture into the pie crust.

Topping: In a medium or large bowl, mix the flour and brown sugar together.
Using a pastry blender (or two knives), cut in the butter until the mixture
LOOKS like a coarse crumb topping. Sprinkle the mixture over the filling
in the pie pan – make sure it’s well covered.

Bake at 425 degrees for 10 minutes, then turn the oven down to 375 and
bake for 25-35 minutes longer, or until golden brown on top. Serve with
vanilla ice cream or whipped cream.

Delicious Ginger Cookies

Our friend Tom not only gifted us with a fantastic (and fantasically heavy) new cookbook, Chewy Gooey Crispy Crunchy Melt In Your Mouth Cookies by Alice Medrich, full of all kinds of amazing cookie recipes, he got us started by baking up some of the most amazing ginger cookies – with THREE kinds of ginger: candied ginger, minced ginger AND ginger powder. They were sooo delicious – with that cracked and sugared exterior and the soft, chewy insides, and the sweetness mixed with that hint of hot ginger spice. Just AWESOME. What? You want a photo? FINE…

We’ve only started to delve into all of the deliciousness promised in this cookbook, but even just on these cookies alone I highly recommend it! Click on the cookbook below to go to amazon and check it out in greater detail!


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Lemon Blackberry Thumbdrop Cookies

Had the urge to bake cookies today!

I used our usual Thumbdrop Cookie Recipe (below) but swapped out the almond extract for two teaspoons of lemon extract, and filled the cookies with blackberry jam.

They’re very tasty, and imagine they’d be really nice with ‘afternoon tea’ or the like, as they are somewhat delicate in flavor with that burst of berry. Happy Friday!

Thumb Drop Cookies

3/4 cup margarine
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
2 3/4 cup flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/8 tespoon salt

Mix oleo and sugar till well blended, add eggs, mix well. Add extract. In separate bowl mix flour, baking powder, and salt. Add to margarine mixture, mix well. Roll into small balls on a greased baking sheet. Put finger into center of cookie and put in jelly or jam as desired to fill hole. Bake 350 degrees 10-12 minutes or until done.

Chewy Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

Last week I made soft and chewy peanut butter cookies, with chocolate chips. They came out SO good. If you want to try an alternative to the more traditional crunchier type peanut butter cookies – this’ll do ya.

 

I started with an online recipe and made a few small tweaks, as usual. Here’s the recipe:

Chewy Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

1/2 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup smooth or chunky peanut butter
1 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
2 eggs
2 tablespoons light corn syrup
2 tablespoons water
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 cups chocolate chips or chunks

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

In medium size bowl, combine flour, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.

In large bowl, combine butter, peanut butter, brown and white sugar until creamy.

Add eggs. Stir well.

Stir in the corn syrup, water, and vanilla. Gradually stir in the flour mixture. Stir in chocolate chips.

Place loaded teaspoons of the dough on ungreased cookie sheets. Even when the dough is soft these cookies do not spread, so if you want your cookies a little flatter, pat each teaspoon of cookie dough down into a flatter cookie shape before baking. You can leave each drop of dough as is if you want them a little bumpier and irregular.

Bake each sheet of cookies for 9 minutes or until the edges are golden brown. After baking, cool for 1 minute on the cookie sheet, then transfer the cookies to a wire rack to finish cooling.

Mmmm… cookies……

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Banana… Er… Blueberry Bread

Four+ days of hot, humid weather did not shine kindly upon the three bananas we had in the kitchen, but I didn’t realize that until I was half done making the batter for banana bread. The peels had only the usual amount of black and spots for ‘just’ overripe bananas, but the insides were unusable – bleh. After a quickly passing state of panic where I considered hightailing it to Canada and leaving the recipe remnants for the next person passing through the kitchen (probably the dog), I, instead, thought of what else I could make this bread into. I almost decided on applesauce bread since I spotted two apples in the fridge, but then, glowing like a beacon, with heavenly trumpets sounding, I saw them…. blueberries! Yes!

Instead of the bananas, I added a little milk for the necessary moisture, then mixed in a cup and a half of blueberries, spread it in a pan with a sprinkling of sugar on top for crust, put it in the oven, and crossed my fingers. (Yes, I know it wasn’t THAT much of a stretch to switch the recipe from banana to blueberry, but allow me my drama, dangit!)

Here’s what it looked like when it came out of the oven, just a little while ago:

Looks like it has a light crusty top, so that’s a good thing. And as soon as it’s cooled and I can take it out of the pan, the taste testing will begin! And continue on until it’s been tested into oblivion.

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Blond Brownies or Congo Bars Recipe

A few weeks ago I made a pan of blond brownies, or, technically Congo Bars. They were very tasty, and luckily I got a photo of one before the pan was gone:

This is an awesome recipe – just mix everything all together, and you don’t even have to grease the pan!

Congo Bars

2 2/3 cups sifted flour
2 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teasspoon salt
2/3 cup shortening, melted
2 cups brown sugar
3 eggs
1 cup chopped nuts
1 6 oz. package of chocolate chips

Mix all ingredients. Pour into a 9X13 inch pan, bake at 350 degrees for 25 to 30 minutes.

Cinnamon Twist Cookies

I have been baking quite a bit for the holidays this year, and the other day decided to make some cookies that I hadn’t made in a LONG while – Cinnamon Twists! They’re a little more time intensive and messy than other cookies, more of a pastry in some ways, but they’re also not as sweet and go really well as a classy side to hot beverages. And they look fancy:

Here’s the recipe – enjoy!

Cinnamon Twists

4 cups sifted flour
1 1/2 cups margarine
3 egg yolks
1 cup sour cream
1 teaspoon vanilla
3 egg whites
3 tblsp. sifted confectioner’s sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
sugar and cinnamon

Place in a large bowl: flour, margarine, yolks, sour cream, and vanilla. Cut in (as for pastry mix) well and chill overnight. When ready to bake, divide dough into eight parts. Roll each part onto a board dusted with confectioner’s sugar. Cut into 8 or 12 wedges. Then beat the egg whites until fluffy; gradually add sifted confectioner’s sugar. Fold in vanilla. Brush rolled dough with egg mixture. Sprinkle with sugar and cinnamon. Roll each wedge loosely (starting at wide end). Brush rolled slices with egg mixture and cinnamon and sugar. Place on greased cookie sheet in oven at 400 degrees. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes or until golden brown. Supposedly, this serves about 30 people.