Category: Baked Goods + Desserts + Drinks

This is a Tasting Table recipe that I’ve adapted after I realized that I had all the ingredients in my pantry. I’ve made small changes like using frozen blueberries that I thawed out and gently patted down with a paper towel, and then I cut down the sugar and skipped the sugar topping altogether. All my changes are reflected below. This batch made 12 incredibly tasty muffins that I ate for breakfast, afternoon snack, and a late dessert!

Ingredients:
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsps baking powder
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cardamom seeds, grounded
1 stick of butter, at room temperature
3/4 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 eggs
1/2 cup whole milk
2 cups frozen blueberries, thawed, then gently patted dry with a paper towel

1. Preheat the oven to 375º and line a standard muffin tin with paper liners. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, salt and cardamom, then set aside.
2. In a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter with the sugar and vanilla, about 3 minutes. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well until incorporated before adding the next. With the motor running, slowly add the flour mixture in 2 additions, alternating with the milk, until a smooth batter comes together with the help of a spatula.
3. Remove the bowl from the stand mixer and fold in the blueberries. Divide the batter between the muffin liners. Bake until golden brown for about 30 minutes.

Recommendations:
There are a lot of cheap muffin liners out there, but I quite like these large ones for breakfast items because I like more cake in my muffins.

My god, it’s been a while, hasn’t it? It seems so cliché to say how fast time flies but it really is true when you look at the last time an update was posted on here: October 2014!

It’s been brutally cold here in New York City so there’s been a lot of cooking to save myself from running outside to pick up lunch during the week. For a while there, I was in no mood to cook. In fact, my new year’s resolution was to take more naps during the weekend. I’m not getting any younger and I’m trying to change the way I while away my free time. I don’t want to feel like I always have to accomplish something. It’s taking a lot for me to say to myself that it’s okay not to do anything. Instead of being unproductive, I now think of it as getting more me time.

Part of that is honing my baking skills. I’m not there yet but I’m trying. Lisa and I were talking about Louis CK’s Cinnabon shameless bit one day and it made me want to eat cinnamon rolls the next. I found a vegan recipe that I changed up because I only have the regular kind of butter in my fridge. This turned out not to be too sweet which I liked. It was excellent with hot tea.

Ingredients:
1 packet instant yeast
1 cup almond milk
1/2 cup butter, divided
1/4 tsp salt
3 cups flour
canola oil
1/2 tbsp cinnamon
1/4 cup + 1 tbsp sugar, divided

1. In a large sauce pan, heat the almond milk and 3 tbsp of the butter until warm and melted, but without boiling. Remove from heat and let it sit until it’s warm. It should not be too hot or it will kill the yeast.
2. Transfer mixture to a large mixing bowl and sprinkle on yeast. Let activate for 10 minutes, then add 1 tbsp sugar and the salt and stir.
3. Add in flour 1/2 cup at a time, stirring as you go. The dough will be sticky. When it is too thick to stir, transfer to a lightly floured surface and knead for a minute or so until it forms a loose ball. Rinse your mixing bowl out, coat it with canola oil, and add your dough ball back in. Cover with plastic wrap and set in a warm place to rise for about 1 hour, or until doubled in size.
4. On a lightly floured surface, roll out the dough into a thin rectangle. Brush with 3 tbsp melted butter and top with 1/4 cup sugar and the cinnamon.
5. Starting at one end, tightly roll up the dough seam side down. Cut the dough into 1.5 to 2-inch sections and place in a well-buttered round pan. You should have about 10 rolls. Brush with remaining 2 tbsp melted butter and cover with plastic wrap. Set on top of the oven to let rise again while you preheat oven to 350º.
6. Once the oven is hot, bake rolls for 25-30 minutes or until slightly golden brown. Let cool for a few minutes and then serve immediately.

I’ve never even been to Café Grumpy, but Noah brought a few slices of their breads and pastries to the office one day and I was blown away by this savory banana bread. I searched for the recipe and found it on Greenpoint Gazette but the measurements were in grams which is really annoying, Brooklyn! It’s easy enough to convert using a recipe calculator or use a digital scale, but the cook in me still needs to feel if everything is right after the conversion. I found myself rounding off the converted measurements, and in the end I realized I could have just used my usual banana bread recipe and added the yogurt, the black pepper and cardamom to the batter. So much for science.

I used a loaf pan for my version, but I had enough leftover batter to fill up a mini one. I lined the large pan with greased parchment paper to make it easy to separate the bread before serving. I always found that the larger loaves that I bake are more sticky. Sprinkle the top of your loaf with confectioner’s sugar if you want to be extra fancy.

Update: I baked this again using a muffin tray and the ingredients filled 18 regular-sized holes. I baked them in the same temperature for the first 30 minutes, but brought it down to 275º for the remaining 10 minutes.

Ingredients:
2 cups flour, sifted
2 tsps salt
1 tbsp baking soda
2 tsps black pepper, ground
2 tbsps cardamom, ground
4 very ripe bananas
1 4-oz plain yogurt
1 tsp vanilla
1 stick of butter, cut into smaller pieces
1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
3 eggs

1. Heat oven to 325º and grease a loaf pan. Set aside.
2. In a medium bowl, combine flour, salt, baking soda, black pepper, and cardamom. Set aside.
3. In another medium bowl, mash ripe bananas with yogurt and vanilla until well-combined. Set aside.
4. Place butter along with both sugars into a mixer fitted with a paddle attachment. Cream. Slowly add eggs, scraping down the sides of the bowl in between pulses to ensure that all ingredients are well-incorporated.
5. Alternating between the dry ingredients and the banana and yogurt mix, add everything to the mixer using a medium setting so as not to over-mix.
6. Pour batter into the loaf pan and place on a baking sheet. Bake for 45-55 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean and the cake is golden. Remove from oven and let cool for at least 30 minutes before serving.

Related post/s:
Greenpoint Gazette’s recipe
My very reliable banana bread recipe without the fixings

When I first tasted this dessert at my friend Rey’s house, I immediately had to have the recipe. I was surprised that it came from Williams-Sonoma but I guess that makes sense because they have to pair the wares they sell with the foods you can cook with them. (It’s not really a store I frequent.)

This has become my go-to dessert this holiday season. The combination of the Brie’s saltiness with the apple compote’s sweetness is great, and I think using green cardamom here is the standout. I just love that cinnamon was not the obvious choice.

You can make this ahead of time so you don’t have to worry about it if you’re planning on making dinner for a party. Go through all the steps until #4 and then wrap it in Saran and freeze it until you’re ready to bake. Only then do you proceed to the last step and brush the frozen pastry with egg wash before baking.

Ingredients:
1 tbsp unsalted butter
2 apples, peeled, cored and cut into 1/2-inch dice
1/4 cup sugar
1/8 tsp green cardamom, seeded, grounded
1 round Brie cheese, 6 to 8 oz
puff pastry dough, thawed ahead of time and rolled out to 1/4-inch thickness
1 egg, beaten with 1 tbsp water

1. In a small pot over medium heat, melt the butter. Add the apples and sauté, stirring occasionally, until the apples are tender, about 5 to 7 minutes.
2. Add the sugar and cardamom. Stir to dissolve and cook until most of the liquid has evaporated, 12 to 15 minutes more, while stirring occasionally. Remove from the heat and let the apple compote cool to room temperature.
3. Preheat an oven to 375º. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
With a sharp knife, cut the cheese in half horizontally. On a clean work surface, place one half of the cheese, sliced side up, and evenly spread 1/2 cup of the apple compote over it. Set the other half, sliced side down, over the compote and spread 1/2 cup compote over the top.
4. Place the dough on a lightly floured surface and set the cheese in the center of the dough. Fold the dough up over the sides of the cheese, pleating the upper edges to fit snugly around the cheese, like a huge dumpling. Pinch the dough together in the center to seal.
5. When ready to bake, brush the dough evenly with the egg wash and place on the prepared baking sheet. Bake until the pastry is golden all over and crisp, 40 to 45 minutes. Let it rest for 5 minutes, then transfer to a platter along with a sharp knife.

I’ve been making this cake for 10 years now and I’ve only had one fail, Haewon told me when she gave me a copy of this tried-and-true Martha Stewart recipe for lemon chiffon cake. Haewon’s version was so fluffy and light–it was the cake for me. Even after I stored mine in the fridge overnight, it did not harden.

You’ll need a tube pan for this, but I got away with an antique bundt pan that I bought for 50 cents at an estate sale and skipped step 6 below. If you’re using a bundt pan, make sure you invert it right away on a smaller bowl as soon as you take it out from the oven. (I thought that the air will still circulate with a bowl rather than inverting and suffocating it onto a plate.) It will only take a few seconds before it collapses and you want to avoid that as much as possible.

My cake did stick on the bottom a bit because of the old pan. The recipe does not call to butter or flour it and I didn’t want to experiment more by lining it with parchment paper. I had to make a more gentle effort to remove the cake from the pan. I could not make a prettier slice than this photo, but hey, it still tasted like a lemon chiffon cake!

Ingredients:
3/4 cup non-self-rising cake flour
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
3/4 cup plus 1 tbsp white sugar
3 large eggs, separated
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 tbsp lemon juice
2 tbsp grated lemon zest, from about 4 lemons
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 tsp cream of tartar
confectioners’ sugar, for dusting

1. Heat oven to 325º and prepare an ungreased 7-inch tube pan. In a medium bowl, sift together flour, baking soda, salt, and 3/4 cup granulated sugar. Set aside.
2. In a large bowl, whisk together egg yolks, vegetable oil, 1/3 cup water, lemon juice, lemon zest, and vanilla. Add to the reserved dry ingredients and beat until smooth.
3. In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat egg whites on medium speed until foamy. Add cream of tartar and beat on high speed until soft peaks form, about 1 minute. Gradually add remaining tablespoon of sugar and beat on high speed until stiff peaks form, about 2 minutes.
4. Fold egg-white mixture into the batter. Start by folding in 1/3, then fold in the remaining 2/3. Mix a little bit to combine. Pour batter into pan. Using a spatula, smooth the top.
5. Bake until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean and the cake is golden, about 45 minutes.
6. Remove cake from oven; invert the pan over a glass soda bottle for 2 hours to cool. Turn cake right-side up. Run a table knife all the way down between cake and pan; invert again, and remove cake. Dust cake with confectioners’ sugar before serving.

Related post/s:
Haewon bakes at Purplepops