ONE BLUEBERRY MUFFIN! NOW! (Small Batch Baking)

One Blueberry Muffin.  Now. 

My 7 yr old loves blueberry muffins.  The trouble is no one else in the household is that crazy about them.  

What in the world would I want to bake a whole batch of 12 muffins for when I know most of it wouldn't get eaten right away?  Muffins are meant to be eaten fresh out of the oven anyway.  When they are a day old they aren't that great.  When I spotted these cupcake-shaped ramekins at Crate and Barrel the other day I thought they would be perfect for small batch baking.  The thing is Bib is a sort of immediate gratification sort of girl and not much for waiting around.  She's the One Muffin Now instead of the 12 muffins later person.  Yah. don't know how that happened there because I'm all about delayed gratification myself.  

7 yr old making her one muffin.  All. By. Herself.  I'm the guide on the side.

Summer is prime cooking and baking training time.  I had her write out a test recipe for her one muffin and told her to take notes in case something did not turn out right. 

Costco. Love you. But this is one HUGE bag of pancake mix.

I wrote out the basic proportions and let her do everything from measuring, mixing and baking.  I did help with removing the hot ramekin dish from the microwave but will let her do it next time since she watched me and noted how hot it was. 

How easy was that?

Who hasn't bought that HUGE bag of pancake mix from Costco at one time or another?  I did.  My bad.  What was I thinking?  I bought it because I hate pancakes and my kids love them.  Besides, this mix isn't gluten free (I'm the only GF person in the house).  They make their own breakfasts with the mix all the time.  Since the kids are the only ones eating pancakes the bag is not being depleted as quickly as I would like.   Cue:  recipes with pancake mix!

Sprinkling with extra coconut sugar before "baking"

Bib's Verdict?  This One Blueberry Muffin recipe was fast to make and she said it was fun.  The crumb was tender and yummy. She finished eating the muffin and said next time she won't put as many blueberries in there because she likes the cake part best and she might try other fruit like strawberries from our garden, or bananas. 

Notes:  you feel like turning on the oven for ONE muffin? ok. go ahead.  You can do that.  Think of the environment though:  350degrees F until the oven comes to temp, then at least 12-15 minutes to bake.  What a waste of energy.  Yes, the texture will be better and some caramelization of the top will occur, but who can deny One Muffin Now?  I think the whole point here is Immediate Gratification. One muffin now!

If you would like to tweak the fruit to batter ratio go ahead.  This is a high fruit to batter ratio (which she said she didn't like as much and will reduce next time).  You can reduce the fruit or switch to other fruit like chopped strawberries, peaches, banana etc.

ta daa! wait at least 5 minutes for the muffin to cool.  Delay that gratification just a bit

CAKEBRAIN'S ONE BLUEBERRY MUFFIN

3 tablespoons pancake mix [Krusteaz]

1 tablespoon coconut sugar, plus extra for sprinkling

1 tablespoon milk

1 tablespoon coconut oil

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

1 tablespoon blueberries (or other fruit) [use less fruit if you like]

Coconut oil spray or Pam for preparing ramekin

1.  Mix dry ingredients in a pyrex measuring cup

2.  Add all wet ingredients and mix

3.  Toss in blueberries and gently toss. 

4.  Spray ramekin with Coconut oil spray or Pam.  Alternatively, line with a paper liner.  Pour in batter.  Sprinkle with coconut sugar. 

5.  Place in microwave from 60-90 seconds (TIME DEPENDENT ON YOUR MICROWAVE). Test with a toothpick.  Remove ramekin with oven mitts to cool for at least 5 minutes.  

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CHRISTMAS IN JULY COOKIE CONTEST: Vanilla Pod Butter/Tiffany Snowflake Cookies

Christmas in July Cookie Contest!

Can you believe I've been blogging since 2007 and this is the 1st contest I'm entering?  I'm submitting my butter cookie recipe to the Eat In Eat Out 3rd Annual Christmas in July Cookie Contest

Christmas Cookie Box

I decided to enter my Vanilla Pod Butter/Christmas Tiffany Snowflake Cookies because they are awesome and also a cookie I made the first year I started this blog.  They were part of the 1st boxes of annual Christmas cookies I gave away for gifts and they have proven to be very popular on the internet since then as I've seen them on everyone else's blogs now.   Technically the Tiffany Snowflake Cookie is just the Vanilla Pod Butter Cookie recipe blinged up with royal icing.  So the recipe in question is the Vanilla Pod Butter Cookie.  The Tiffany Snowflake Cookie is simply technique to make the cookie over-the-top.

Ah how time has passed and my food blog has morphed into something else.  The 1st year of blogging was bumpy.  I was still using my tiny Sony point and shoot camera.  I didn't bother to photoshop and left all the time stamps on my pics.  I look back at that first year and cringe but I think it's important to leave posts as they are rather than update and fix them because I like to see my growth.  I also went through a phase where all my food pics were with my Nikon D700 and macro lens in high res and I spent several hours photoshopping.


Today I have ditched the expensive lenses and opt for my iphone5.  Yes,  I have lower res pics because high res pics don't really matter especially since the episode of everyone stealing my Coconut rice pudding brulee picture and attributing it to another recipe.  After several months of trying to fix it on Pinterest, Google, Facebook and various food sites by reporting it as an image stolen from me, I gave up. I even watermarked my pics for a while and today I have simply given up.  I'm just not going to put high res pics online.  I have the ability to, and want to, but it isn't worth the grief.  Truthfully, the picture wasn't that great and today I could do way better.  But, it is the principle of the thing.  It's mine dagnabbit.  To this day there are several sites that still have my picture taken from my post and used for another recipe.  It peeves me still but I've moved on.

For the recipes for my other Christmas Cookies, click HERE

ONE recipe: two totally different looking cookies!

Vanilla Pod Butter Cookies: the one recipe you need to make it all!

VANILLA POD BUTTER COOKIES 
NB: if you cannot get your hands on a fresh vanilla bean pod, substitute with 1 teaspoon vanilla bean paste or pure vanilla extract...it'll taste good but of course it won't be exactly the same.

• 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
• ¾ cup granulated sugar
• 1 large egg plus 1 egg white, beaten
• 1 whole vanilla bean pod (for grinding with the sugar)
• 2 ½ cups sifted all-purpose flour
• ¾ teaspoon coarse salt
• ½ cup fine sanding sugar

1. Split vanilla pod if it is fresh and scrape out the seeds for creaming with the butter. Place empty pod in food processor with granulated sugar to grind. Sift out the larger chunks of the bean. If you have a stash of dried vanilla pods, use that and supplement with 1 teaspoon vanilla extract.
2. Put butter and vanilla seeds into mixer with paddle attachment, mixing until seeds are distributed thoroughly. Add the granulated sugar/vanilla pod mixture into the bowl and continue beating on medium speed until pale and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Mix in whole egg and vanilla extract, if using. Reduce speed to low. Add flour and salt and mix until combined.
3. Halve dough; shape each half into a log. Place each log on a 12-by-16 inch sheet of parchment. Roll in parchment to 1 ½ inches in diameter, pressing a ruler along edge of parchment at each turn to narrow log. Transfer to paper towel tubes to hold shape, and freeze until firm, about 1 hour.
4. Preheat oven to 375ºF. Brush each log with egg white; roll in sanding sugar. Cut into ½-inch thick rounds. Space 1 inch apart on baking sheets lined with parchment. Bake until edges are golden, 18 to 20 minutes. If you want great flavour, go golden-brown and bake longer.  It's a fine line between browned-butter flavour and burnt so watch it!  Let cool on sheets on wire racks. Store in airtight containers at room temperature up to 3 days.

TIFFANY SNOWFLAKE COOKIES

For intricate snowflake cutouts:

1. Halve dough; create discs and wrap one in plastic wrap.
2. Take the other disc and roll out the dough to the desired thickness (usually 3-5 mm) out between two pieces of parchment paper. I place the whole sheet of parchment/rolled-out cookie dough onto a plastic cutting board and pop it in the refrigerator to firm up (about 30 minutes).
3. Take other disc out and roll out as above. Pop that into the refrigerator to firm up too.
4. When the rolled dough is firm enough, take it out and use your snowflake cutters to make as many cuts as possible. Transfer to a parchment-lined cookie sheet. With the tiny cutters, you can now make more cuts into the cut cookies on the parchment. This way you won't have to transfer delicate snowflakes and avoid tons of frustration.
5. Do leave a proper amount of space between the cutouts (about 1 inch) to allow for a little spreading. Lift off the surrounding dough carefully. You may need a pointy knife, thin spatula or other such tool to assist you in this endeavour. I use the tip of a plastic kiddie chopstick to poke out the dough from tight crevices. If you leave marks, you can always flip the cookie upside down onto the parchment to bake.
6. Place snowflake cookie-laden cookie sheet back into the fridge to firm up again before baking.
7. Ball up the remaining dough and do it all over again.
8. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Bake the cookies on the middle rack until golden, about 18-20 minutes--more or less depending on the size of your snowflakes. Just keep an eye on the first batch for an indicator.
9. Decorate with royal icing, if you wish (see below for recipe and instructions)

TIFFANY-COLOURED ROYAL ICING RECIPE

• 3 tablespoons Meringue Powder
• 4 cups (about 1 lb) confectioners' sugar 
• 6 tablespoons warm watter
• blue or teal gel food colouring
• toothpicks

1.  Place all ingredients into a stand mixer and beat until stiff peaks form.  (7-10 minutes at low speed with a heavy-duty mixer, 10-12 minutes with a hand-held mixer)

2.  Place 1 cup of the icing in a small bowl; cover and reserve (this will be for piping the white lines on the snowflakes).  
3.  Tint the rest of the icing with blue or teal food colouring.  Use a toothpick and gradually add gel food colouring until you get the desired tint of the special jewelry box you and I know very well.  Beat well after each addition of colouring.
3.  Thinned Royal Icing:  To thin for pouring add 1 teaspoon of water at a time and beat with a spatula by hand; checking the consistency each time.  There are two types of consistency you'll need to make for the Tiffany Snowflakes.  I will direct you to this wonderful post about flooding and piping consistencies.  
In total you'll need 3 bowls of icing: one white piping bowl, one blue flooding bowl and one blue outlining bowl.  
4.  Outline your cookie perimeters with the blue outlining bowl.  This consistency should be stiffer than your flooding bowl.  Then use the blue flooding bowl to cover your cookies.  Allow the cookies to dry thoroughly.
5.  With the white piping icing, pipe decorations on top of the dried flooded icing.  Be creative.  I like to use straight lines and add dots of icing because it's easier on my hands. 

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Matcha Coconut Mochi (GF)

Matcha Coconut Mochi.  An excellent Japanese sweet to serve with tea or coffee.

Summer's here and I have the kids full-time.   Aside from locking them out of the house once because they were fighting, I think I've been able to keep them busy enough to stay out of trouble.



Locked out? Bad mommy! haha.  I told them that they were to stay outside until I heard them having fun.  Eventually, I let them in after I noticed they were playing badminton in the back yard together.  I think they had forgotten what the argument was about by that time too.

The 7 yr old is always wanting to do baking.  In particular, she's really into the mixing part.  Unfortunately regular cake recipes are too difficult for her but this Matcha Mochi is perfect.  Without any gluten to develop, there is no danger of overmixing.  If you are not familiar with Mochi, it's a Japanese sweet made of sweet rice flour (glutinous rice flour).  Glutinous rice flour is a misnomer because in fact there is no gluten in it.  The term describes the texture that results when you cook with it.  It's sticky and chewy and quite dense.  You can use either the Chinese sweet rice flour, which is substantially cheaper, or the Japanese kind.  I used a whole box of "Mochiko" Japanese sweet rice flour.

In the end, I had to actually help her a bit with the mixing because there were big pockets at the bottom of the bowl that hadn't been incorporated.  All was well, albeit lumpy as the coconut sugar seemed to stay in little clumps.  I smushed those as best I could and the resulting "cake" was perfectly smooth.  No lumps.

For those people who want a stronger matcha flavour, just double the matcha powder.  This matcha mochi dessert is actually not as sweet as others because I used some coconut sugar.  If you'd like it sweeter, just use straight cane sugar.   The lovely subtle coconut flavour comes from coconut milk.  If you want to dust the top with more matcha you can do that too.

So the kids made this dessert all by themselves from prepping, to measuring and baking and washing.  I even taught my 11 yr old how to properly take out the hot pan from the oven and where to place it to cool without burning herself or my counter.  You'd think that it was obvious, but really this should be directly taught.  This little baking exercise was fun and they were very proud of their cake.  The bonus for me was it was gluten free so I had a piece too.  Very yummy!

COCONUT MATCHA MOCHI CAKES
1 16 oz box Mochiko flour [I used Blue Star brand]
1 cup organic cane sugar
1 1/2 cups organic coconut sugar
2 tablespoons matcha powder
2 tsp baking powder
1 12-oz can Evaporated milk
1 14-oz can Coconut milk
3 eggs
2 tsp pure vanilla extract
1 stick butter, melted

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.  Spray a pyrex pan (13 x 9 x 2") pan with coconut spray.
2.  In a large bowl, sift together mochiko flour, sugars, baking powder and matcha.  Mix well.
3.  In a separate bowl, combine the evaporated milk coconut milk, eggs and vanilla and mix well.
4.  Pour into the prepared pan
5.  Bake for 50-60 minutes or until golden brown.
6.  Cool to room temperature before cutting.

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LAZY SUMMER LOCAL STRAWBERRY & VANILLA ICE CREAM TARTS

Fresh local strawberry & vanilla ice cream tarts 

In keeping with my "Lazy Summer" theme I started with my last post, I thought I'd show you a sneaky-delicious treat to use up those local strawberries that are so juicy sweet this month.  After we visited the driving range in Richmond, we noticed the blueberry & strawberry farm next door to it had a "U Pick" sign.  It didn't take much to convince the kids to pick berries.  They were half-way across the strawberry field before I could finish "Do you want to pick..."

Frozen tart shells are an economical and time-saving trick for making summer berry desserts.  Keep a sleeve on hand in the freezer for the summer.

I pre-bake my tart shells and leave them on the counter to be assembled as needed.  Assemble only what you'll eat or you'll have soggy tarts with melted ice cream flooding your plate.

local strawberries are dark, sweet and juicy right now!

Slice the strawberries in half if they're small; in quarters if they're large.  I like to use medium-sized strawberries because they fit perfectly on the tarts.

Use a good quality vanilla ice cream. If you're in a rush and need to feed a crowd, you could assemble the tart shells up to filling them with ice cream...then freeze them all on a sheet pan until ready to serve.  Then, just slice and top with the berries.

7 yr old is taking pictures for me...so expect some fuzziness and weird focussing occasionally

Fill the pre-baked tart shells with vanilla ice cream.  [If you are going to need a lot of these, fill them all and place on a sheet pan and re-freeze to harden the ice cream and store until needed for serving]

The pictures have an interesting perspective taken from my 7 yr old's height.

I'll be making just 3 tarts for serving so I had to hurry as the ice cream melts fast in the summer!

Just one more strawberry half to complete the dessert and ready to serve...

Enjoy your family and friends...and the local berries! Don't sweat the small stuff

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Matcha Madeleines (GF)

Matcha Madeleines (gf).  Note the "hump"...a good thing 

Madeleines are one of the most beautiful little cakes I've ever seen and positively scream of lazy days on the patio.  Perfect for afternoon tea or coffee.

Summer is a funny time of year for me.  It's a time when I actually get to LIVE like a regular human being and it's a time when I actually feel like I have a life.  I delve back into my hobbies: baking, photography, running, knitting and all things crafty. Don't get me wrong, I do live during the school year too; but I have absolutely no time to actually do the things I love to do in my spare time like read and immerse myself in my passions.  Most of my spare time from September to June is spent marking English essays, shuttling kids to extracurricular activities and prepping for teaching.  All of my hobbies fall to the wayside. Summer for me is a time for HUGE professional development.  I get to recharge.  I get re-inspired.

my rarely-used nonstick madeleines pan

an espresso from my Gaggia Titanium. good crema. perfect with a madeleine

During summer, I begin to shed the "working weight" I carry from November to June.  I'm a good 10-15 pounds lighter by the end of summer because I'm simply able to do all the activities I can't do in the winter!  

I used the good stuff here: Trader Joe's unsalted butter 

These past few years have been rough with the full-time load teaching/marking and mentoring for the district but the crazy thing is I simply LOVE teaching English and I also LOVE mentoring educators in Learning Technologies.   I have one more year in my contract with the district in the part time tech mentoring position.  The best part of mentoring other educators has been visiting the classrooms all around our district; being able to teach students K-12 in their classrooms and giving workshops to teachers.  The personal connections I've made have been so fulfilling and as I have one foot in the classroom and one in the district position, I have come to realize a few things from my experiences and 23 years teaching.  BC's public education system rocks. We have passionate teachers out there.  These teachers are reaching out to me and asking for learning tech mentoring to help engage their students in a meaningful way.  These teachers care about readying their learners for the 21st Century...even though they are in classrooms designed for 20th Century learning. I truly have so much fun on my classroom visits.  The students in the various schools I've visited actually remember me when they spot me in the hallways months later.  I mean really...they call me by my name!   I teach them how to create iMovie projects to show their learning, I help them learn how to blog or create an iBook anthology of their poetry or science project.   Everything I do is fun and educational.  I am going to miss this job so much next year when my contract's up.  I don't know what I'll do.  I might have to start baking and blogging again to fill the void.

melt that butter down in the microwave

Which brings me to today's post:  Matcha Madeleines! 

I've been meaning to experiment with matcha in my madeleines...but of course I've been trying to stick to my gluten free diet so I needed to make sure the flour I used was GF.  I used my trusty all-purpose Sweet Rice Flour GF flour blend in this recipe and adapted a Greenspan recipe for this purpose.

here's the 7 yr old taking pics for me.

my cool new camera: the FujiX100S

Proust wouldn't stick his nose up at these matcha madeleines. They are slightly bitter from the matcha, and they go wonderfully with your morning espresso

Matcha Madeleines (GF) adapted from Dorie Greenspan's Paris Sweets

3/4 cup (105 grams) GF Flour Blend [OR all-purpose flour if you're not GF] *NB see bottom of post for GF flour blend recipe

1/2 teaspoon double-acting baking powder

2 large eggs, at room temperature

1/2 cup (100 grams) sugar

2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

2 tablespoons organic matcha (spend big bucks and splurge on the good stuff)

5 tablespoons (2 1/2 ounces; 70 grams) unsalted butter, melted and cooled

1. Sift together the GF flour, matcha powder and baking powder.  

   

   mix the (gf) flour mixture with the matcha powder ensuring there are no matcha lumps  

2. Working in a mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, beat the eggs and sugar together on medium-high speed until they thicken and lighten in colour, 2 to 4 minutes.  
3. Switch to a large rubber spatula and gently fold in the dry ingredients, followed by the melted butter [I prefer a whisk].
   

   
4. Cover the batter with plastic wrap, pressing the wrap against the surface to create and airtight seal, and chill for at least 3 hours, preferably longer--chilling helps the batter develop its characteristic crown, known as the hump or bump.  

   

   that's one thick batter.  after refrigeration for at least 3 hours, it's even stiffer. btw, you DO have to refrigerate the batter for at least 3 hours to get that tell-tale hump in your madeleines.  

5. Center a rack in the oven and preheat to 400degrees F.  Spray the pan with nonstick spray (I used coconut oil spray from Costco).  
6. Divide the batter among the molds, filling them almost to the top.  
7. Bake large madeleines for 11 to 13 minutes [mine took 11 min], small ones for 8-10 minutes, or until the cookies are puffed and golden and spring back when touched.
   

   

   fresh out of the oven, they have the tell-tale hump!
   

8. Pull the pan from the oven and remove cookies by rapping pan against the counter or gently running a butter knife around the edges of the cookies.  Allow the madeleines to cool on a cooling rack.  They can be served ever so slightly warm or at room temperature.

CAKEBRAIN'S FAVOURITE GF FLOUR BLEND RECIPE:

2 1/4 cups superfine Thai Rice Flour (Asian market)

1/4 cup potato starch

2/3 cup tapioca starch

3/4 cup sweet rice flour (Thai brands are best)

1/3 cup cornstarch

2 teaspoons xanthum gum

• In a large airtight container, combine the flours together well.  I use a large wire whisk to mix the flours thoroughly.  Be particularly vigilant about distributing the xanthum gum as it is a small quantity compared to the rest of the flours.
• Use this GF Flour Blend in place of regular cake flour or all-purpose flour.  
• You do not have to worry about sifting as it's not lumpy
• You do not have to worry about overbeating as there's no gluten to develop.

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LAZY SUMMER CUCUMBER SALAD (GF)

This Lazy Cool Cucumber Salad is what I look most forward to during a bbq each summer. 

Chop the cucumber in 1 cm rings and then in quarters

I don't know about you, but hosting a bbq for a crowd is so much easier when you take a few shortcuts à la Costco. Yes, a homemade tzatziki is surely delicious but hey, these days I intend to relax with a cold drink and chat with my guests.  Of course I can make everything from scratch which is easy enough, but sometimes shortcuts rock for efficiency and economy.  And you can focus on more important things like putting up your feet (or making a dessert!)

I bought long English cucumbers (3 in a pack), sour cream and tzatziki (2 containers in a pack!) at Costco to make my salad.  

1. Take 2 washed English cukes and chop up thusly...

2.  Place the chopped cucumber in a colander and sprinkle with kosher salt.  The cucumber will release a good deal of liquid so I sit the colander over my sink.  

3.  Ready your dressing culprits:  use one tzatziki container (500ml) and 2 cups of sour cream.  

4.  Mix the dressing thoroughly.  If you want to get fancy, you can add more finely chopped garlic, dill or chopped scallions.  I don't bother usually because that defeats the purpose of this being a Lazy Salad.  Less chopping=lazygood. 

5.  After approximately 20 minutes, take the cucumber and place on paper towels or clean dishtowels.  

6.  Squeeze the cucumbers gently to dry excess moisture. 

7.  Place the cucumber in the bowl along with the dressing. 

8.  Mix gently to combine.  Cover and refrigerate for at least 2 hours for best flavour.  Serve with grilled meats, seafood  as an accompaniment.  

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