Ricotta muffin リコッタチーズマフィン

This is, again, my wife's baking. I may have to change the title of the blog to reflect the fact my wife's baking is more frequently featured. In any case, she baked this from La Brea Pastry cookbook. This is a muffin with fennel flavor stuffed with ricotta cheese/cream filling. It is topped with pecan.

The stuffing got mostly absorbed in the muffin. I asked my wife to take over from here.

Ingredients:
for the batter

2 tsp. fennel seeds
2 cups All Purpose Flour and 1 cup +2 Tbs cake flour (or 3 cups AP flour)
3/4 cup sugar
1 Tbs. plus 1 tsp. baking powder
3/4 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 cups plain yogurt
3/4 cup vegetable oil

for the filling
1/2 cup (4 oz.) ricotta cheese)
1/4 cup plus 2 Tbs. sour cream

for the garnish
1/2 cup toasted walnuts or pecans

Directions:

Toast the fennel seeds in a pan until slightly brown and fragrant. Cut or crush into fine bits.
In a large bowl add the dry ingredients including the fennel seed. In another bowl mix the yogurt and vegetable oil until blended. Add the wet ingredients to the dry and mix until blended.

For the filling mix the ricotta cheese and sour cream (for a thicker filling just use the ricotta cheese).

Spoon the batter into greased muffin cups to fill about 1/3 full. Spoon the ricotta cheese filling on top #1, then cover with more batter #2.  (It doesn't matter if the filling seeps out the sides, put in a healthy amount). Sprinkle with chopped nuts (#3). (Press the nuts into the batter otherwise they will just fall off after the muffin is cooked.) Cook 20 to 25 minutes in a 350 degree oven #4 & #5.

The muffin had a nice section of filling #6. I was cautious about adding the filling and I had a lot left over. In retrospect I will be more aggressive in adding the filling and use it all up because I adds a very nice texture and flavor to the muffin.

We are not sure we really like fennel flavor in the muffin. Other spices like cinnamon may work better. For the stuffing, my wife thought straight Ricotta cheese may work better instead of a mixture of cream and Ricotta. In any case, this is a good muffin especially for a breakfast.

Spiced apple with nuts インド風のリンゴのデザート

Among apples we like Fuji apples the best. So when we see them we tend to get them. Some of them stay in our refrigerator for quite sometime. Although apples last for long time, we decided it was time to make room for the new crop apples which should appear in the stores soon. So we used the apples from last year, that were somewhat past their prime to make this spiced cooked apple with nuts.

This comes from an Indian cookbook but my wife reduced the butter and sweetness. She also tamed down the spices a bit to our taste. Since we happened to have a Ricotta and cream mixture, we topped this with it.

Ingredients:
6 apples (we used Fuji apple), peeled, cored and cut into small wedges (see below).
1/4 cup butter, unsalted enough to lightly saute the apples
1/3 cup honey or to taste
1/8 tsp. Cinnamon,
1/4 tsp. ground cardamon,
1/8 tsp. ground cloves
Roasted blanched almond slivers
Walnuts, toasted, skin removed and chopped

Directions:

On low heat gently saute the apples in the butter. (The more butter you add to more sauce you'll have.  The apples will start to exude juice. Cook slowly until they start to soften and become partially translucent. Then add the spices stirring until the apples are coated. Finally add the nuts. Remove from heat. (The apples will keep cooking as they cool so keep that in mind if you would like an apple with a little bit of crunch in the center.)

This is a nice desert. Not too sweet but pleasently sweet with mild spices. The apple still maintains some crunch. My wife overdid it with the two kinds of nuts. Next time she can reduce or even eliminate the nuts.

P.S. We have had long days of rain and clouds. One afternoon, this totally wet red tail hawk landed in our cherry tree. Although this was a rather small hawk, it looked fierce. It specializes in squirrels.

Honey corn muffin 蜂蜜とコーンフラワーのマフィン

This is my wife's baking. This is a corn muffin using finely milled corn flour and honey. She made in two different sizes.

To the left are larger ones and to the right are smaller ones.

Ingredients:

2 cups pastry flour
2 cups corn flour
6 Tbs. sugar
4 Tsp. baking powder
2 Tsp. salt
4 large eggs
1 1/2 cup buttermilk
2/3 cup vegetable oil
2/3 cup honey

Directions:
 Mix the dry ingredients in a bowl (four to salt). Mix together the wet ingredients (eggs to honey). Mix until blended. Scoop into greased muffin tins. Bake at 350 for 18 to 20 minutes until skewer comes out clean. Let cool for 5 to 10 minutes before attempting to take out of pan.

This is something between desert and breakfast. It has a nice delicate (not crumbly) texture with strong corn flavor but it is a bit sweet. Since my wife used buckwheat honey, the assertive taste of honey is apparent. We really like this muffin. We can choke it down either as a breakfast or desert.

Pistachio nut bread ピスタチオのパン

This is another of my wife's baking projects. This is unusual since half of the flour is actually ground pistachio nuts and Greek yogurt is used as a part of the wet ingredients. It has a very nice unique taste and we love it as a breakfast bread.

You can see small pistachio nuts on the cut surface of the bread.

When finished baking some fissures appeared on the surface but the texture was quite tender and delicate.

Ingredients:

1 cup sugar
4 tsp. orange zest
1 tsp. orange flavoring
1/2 cup orange juice
2 2/3 cup pistachios roasted
2 cups all purpose flour
4 tsp. baking powder
2 tsp. cardamon
1 tsp salt
8 eggs
1 cup greek yogurt (my wife strained the regular yogurt).
1/2 cup olive oil
4 tsp. vanilla

Directions:
Roast the pistachios. Don't skip this step the flavor and texture of roasted pistachios is different from un-roasted. Grease and flour 2 bread loaf pans. Cut some parchment paper to fit the bottom of the pans and grease it on both sides. (This will make it easier to get the bread out of the pan).

In a food processor combine the sugar and orange zest. Process until the sugar is damp and fragrant Put aside in a bowl (#1). Add the pistachios to the food processor and pulse until coarse. Add the flour, baking powder, cardamon and salt and process with the nuts until finely ground (#2). Whisk the eggs, yogurt, oil, orange juice, orange flavor and vanilla into the sugar mixture previously set aside. (#3).  Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients. Fold until blended. Put into the previously prepared bread pans (#4). Cook in a 325 degree oven for 50 to 55 minutes until a skewer comes out with moist crumbs. Cool in pan for about 15 minutes before removing. Let cool completely before cutting into pieces.

This bread has a nice orangey overtone from orange zests, juice bolstered by the flavoring. My wife reduced the cardamon so that this was not too overwhelming. The texture is extremely rich and moist. The flavor is very complex. The pistachio nuts added some nuttiness but we could not pinpoint that this is the taste of pistachios. Nonetheless, this is very flavorful bread with nice texture.