Two Novice Chefs, One Tiny Kitchen

Well I just couldn’t wait to try another Dorie recipe! The first one I bookmarked in my new cookbook was this recipe for lemon poppy seed muffins with a tasty looking icing. It didn’t take long at all to whip up a batch and they are SO GOOD. They are the perfect balance of tart and sweet, leaning more towards sweet with that delicious icing. Good news is that they are not terrible WW points wise! Much better than a muffin from Starbucks! I used fat free sour cream, that probably helped. I took most of these to work today and they were gobbled right up. My favorites were the ones with the raspberry jam in the center, I will probably put that in all of them next time.

Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins (from Dorie Greenspan’s Baking: From My Home to Yours pp.10-11)

Ingredients:

For the Muffins:
2/3 cup sugar
Grated zest and juice of 1 lemon
2 cups all purpose flour
2 t baking powder
1/4 t baking soda
1/4 t salt
3/4 cup sour cream (I used fat free)
2 large eggs
1 t pure vanilla extract
1 stick unsalted butter, melted and cooled
2 T poppy seeds

For the Icing:
1 cup confectioners’ sugar, sifted
2-3 T fresh lemon juice

Directions:

To Make the Muffins:
Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Butter or spray the 12 molds in a regular-size muffin pan or fit the molds with paper muffin cups. Alternatively, use a silicone muffin pan, which needs neither greasing nor paper cups. Place the muffin pan on a baking sheet.

In a large bowl, rub the sugar and the lemon zest together with your fingertips until the sugar is moist and hte fragrance of the lemon strong. Whisk in the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. In a large glass measuring cup or another bowl, whish the sour cream, eggs, vanilla, lemon juice and melted butter together until well blended. Pour the liquid ingredients over the dry ingredients and, with the wish or a rubber spatula, gently but quickly stir to blend. Don’t worry about being thorough-a few lumps are better than overmixing the batter. Stir in the poppy seeds. Divide the batter evenly among the muffin cups.

Bake for 18 to 20 minutes, or until the tops are golden and a thin knife inserted into the center of the muffins comes out clean (I baked mine for about 17 minutes since my oven cooks hot and my muffin pan is the horrible dark kind, which can make the bottoms burn if you’re not careful). Transfer the pan to a rack and cool for 5 minutes before carefully removing each muffin from its mold. Cool the muffins completely on the rack before icing them.

To Make the Icing:
Put the confectioners’ sugar in a small bowl and add about 1 1/2 T of the lemon juice. Stir with a spoon to moisten the sugar, then add enough additional lemon juice, a dribble at a time, to get an icing that is thin enough to drizzle from the tip of the spoon. You can then drizzle lines of icing over the tops of the muffins or coat the tops entirely, the better to get an extra zap of lemon.

Best if served at room temp, plain or with jam.

Variation: fill the muffin cups with half the batter and top each with a teaspoon of jam (I used raspberry in half the muffins) then spoon in the rest of the batter

Serving size = 1 muffin

approx. WW points per serving=4
(note: this is for the ones without jam in the center, depending on the jam you use it may or may not increase the points value)

Oh how I love pizza.  I probably could eat it every single day.  We’ve played around with making it at home before, usually using the Boboli pre-made crusts or the Pillsbury crust in the can.  Neither make a very good crust.  Tyler’s dad told us about the great pizza crust recipe he’d found in The Gourmet Cookbook we gave him for his last birthday, and then I saw Foodie Bride recommend the same recipe on her blog.  We figured it was about time to give it a try, despite my fear of yeast.  It’s best to just work through that, never let the yeast sense your fear (same goes for pie crusts, though I have not been as successful with those.)

This crust was absolutely worth the effort!  We may have overworked it a bit so it was kind of tough to cut, but still tasted amazing.  I found the most difficult part was transforming it from the ball of dough to the rolled out crust.  I’m sure practice will make perfect.  We topped our pizza with: green pepper, red onion, and mushrooms (sauted those 3 ingredients for a few minutes so they wouldn’t be crunchy), pepperoni, black olives, fresh grated part-skim mozzarella and goat cheese.  We used a canned pizza sauce that was actually very good.

I’m not going to repost the recipe, but you can check it out over at Foodie Bride’s food blog.  She shares a really cute story about that cookbook that I love!  I wish we’d had a cooking class in our premarital course!  I’ll just share my photo of our delicious pizza

Thanks to Amber for introducing me to this recipe, it was intimidating at first but I’m glad I took on the challenge! Kneading the bread and punching it down was good stress relief. It was an all day project but the bread turned out quite tasty though a little denser than I expected (this could have to do with the bread not rising as much as it should, who knows). This is a Williams Sonoma recipe that you can find on their website.

Ingredients:

3 3/4 cups unbleached bread flour, plus more
as needed
1 Tbs. (1 package) active dry yeast
2 tsp. salt
1 1/3 cups warm water
1/2 cup freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano
cheese
Extra-virgin olive oil for brushing

Directions:

In the bowl of a heavy-duty stand mixer, combine the 3 3/4 cups flour, the yeast and salt. Add the warm water and stir with a wooden spoon until just mixed together. Sprinkle 1/4 cup of the cheese over the dough. Fit the mixer with the dough hook and begin mixing and kneading on very low speed. When the mixture pulls away from the sides of the bowl, increase the mixer speed to medium-low and continue to knead until the dough is smooth and elastic, 12 to 15 minutes, adding more flour if the dough is too sticky. Transfer the dough to a floured work surface and knead by hand for 1 to 2 minutes.

Form the dough into a ball, brush it with a little olive oil and return it to the bowl. Cover with a towel and let rest in a warm, draft-free place until doubled in bulk, 1 to 1 1/2 hours.

Position a rack in the lower third of an oven and preheat to 425°F. Brush a 9-inch round pan with olive oil.

Place the remaining 1/4 cup cheese on a plate. Punch down the dough. Return it to the floured work surface and knead a few times. Then, using your palms, roll the dough to form a log about 12 inches long. Cut the log in half crosswise, then cut each half crosswise into 6 equal pieces. Knead each dough piece a couple of times, roll it between the palms of your hands into a ball, and then roll it in the cheese to coat lightly and evenly, shaking off any excess. As each ball is coated, place it in the prepared pan, resting it against the rim and pressing down slightly to form a 2-inch disk. Arrange 9 balls around the rim and 3 balls in the center. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rise again in a warm place until doubled in bulk, 30 to 40 minutes.

Sprinkle the top with the cheese remaining on the plate. Using a razor blade or sharp knife, cut a slash 1/4 inch deep in the top of each ball. Bake for 10 minutes. Reduce the oven temperature to 375°F and continue baking until brown and crusty, 20 to 30 minutes more. Transfer the pan to a wire rack and let the rolls rest in the pan for 1 to 2 minutes, then remove them from the pan; the rolls will come out in a single loaf.

Serve the loaf warm, breaking off the rolls at the table. Or let cool, top side up, on the rack. Makes 12 rolls.

Blueberry-Lemon Bread (made by Julia)
We love blueberry bread (I usually just use blueberry muffin mix) but I’m trying to learn to bake more things from scratch. This was an easy recipe and very tasty! I got it on allrecipes.com where I get most of my recipes. I love reading reviews from other people to get a good idea of how to tweak the recipe and get the best results. In this case I decreased the sugar to 3/4 cup to help the sweetness balance with the tart lemon flavor. I left off the sugary glaze because I wasn’t really in the mood for it.

INGREDIENTS

• 1/3 cup butter, melted
• 1 cup white sugar
• 1 lemon, juiced
• 2 eggs
• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup milk
• 2 tablespoons lemon zest
• 1 cup fresh blueberries
• 2 tablespoons lemon juice
• 1/4 cup white sugar

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour an 8×4 Inch loaf pan. In a medium bowl, mix flour, baking powder and salt together and set aside.
2. In a large bowl, cream the butter and 1 cup sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs, and beat well. Mix in the juice of 1 lemon. Add the flour mixture, alternating with the milk. Fold in the lemon zest and blueberries. Pour into prepared 8×4 inch loaf pan.
3. Bake for 60 to 70 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the cake comes out clean. For the glaze, combine 1/4 cup sugar with 2 tablespoons lemon juice. Drizzle over cake while still warm.