Banana Blackberry Muffins

There is something about fruit being available only in season that suddenly elevates berries to the upper reaches of culinary bliss. Raspberries are good for two weeks in August, blueberries for one week in September, strawberries for three weeks in May. The rest of the time, the rest of the fruit. Sure, I like it when shiny green pears are in season and when limes stop costing as much as an entire Chipotle burrito, but when it comes down to it, berries are my favorite.

So you can imagine I was pretty excited when I saw frozen blackberries at Carrefour, the new French grocery store in town. Berries?! But I didn't freeze any last summer! What a gift!

I suppose I will lose some of these thrills next week when I return to the U.S., and every single fruit is once again available at all times, in or out of season. But I hope to retain a bit of my wonder and enjoyment for all things berry. I have a feeling that now that I know what goes with what season, I'll always at least be influenced in my choices by an actual knowledge of the fields and orchards.

Anyway, all this is leading up to one delicious recipe. I didn't want to waste all my blackberries at once on a cobbler or a pie, so I've been spreading them out over many, many muffins. Today, the combo is worthy of the blog. Banana + Blackberry = Just about Right.

Banana Blackberry Muffins

adapted from the most delicious banana bread recipe from my Grandma Helen

1/2 cup butter

1 cup sugar

2 cups flour

1 tsp baking powder

2 TBSP milk + 1 tsp baking soda (combined)

2 eggs

2 squishy brown bananas

1 cup (or more) blackberries, thawed and drained

1. Preheat the oven to 350 F. Line 12 muffin cups with paper liners.

2. Cream the butter and the sugar in one bowl. Mash the bananas in another.

3. Stir the eggs into the butter and sugar, then add the milk/baking soda and baking powder. Stir in the bananas.

4. Stir in the flour until just combined. Add the blackberries. It's OK if the batter is streaked with purple. Personally, I think they look prettier that way.

5. Spoon into muffin cups until they are all the way full. This will give them nice domes on top.

6. Bake for about 22 minutes, rotating halfway, until golden brown on top and a fork inserted into the center comes out clean.

7. Cool in pan, then store in a tupperware. You may freeze these if you wish.

A Shortbread Crust, Two Ways

It all started when I had leftover caramel and four lemons in the fridge. You might think there's no way two such separate ingredients could ever be connected. "Lemony caramel popcorn?" "Citrus Caramels?" you say, mockingly. I might have agreed with you before I found the following AMAZING shortbread recipe and started putting ingredients on top of it willy nilly.

I may never make a different shortbread crust, and I plan to continue experimenting with possible toppings, because apparently you really can't go wrong.

So, with no further ado, I give you...

The Shortbread Crust, Two Ways

Begin by making The Shortbread Crust (from Joy of Baking)

3/4 cup butter, softened

1/4 cup granulated sugar

1/2 tsp vanilla

1 1/2 cups flour

1/8 tsp salt

1. Preheat the oven to 350 F. Butter a 9 X 9 " pan.

2. Cream together the butter and the sugar. Stir in vanilla.

3. Add flour and salt and combine.

4. Press mixtures into the bottom of the prepared pan.

5. Bake for 20 minutes until golden brown.

Now, it's time to choose your adventure. Your first option is for almond caramel bars.

Almond Caramel Bars

Shortbread Crust (above!)

1 cup caramel, warmed

1/2 cup chopped toasted almonds

1 chocolate bar

1. Let the shortbread crust sit and cool for an hour.

2. Pour the almonds evenly on top and pour the caramel over them.

3. Break the chocolate bar into pieces and scatter them across the warm caramel. After ten minutes, use a butter knife to spread the soft chocolate over the bars.

4. Let cool and then cut into triangles.

Option #2, my personal favorite, though it's hard to choose, is Lemon Bars.

Lemon Bars (topping from Epicurious)

1 shortbread crust, still hot

4 large eggs

3/4 cup fresh lemon juice

1/3 cup all-purpose flour

Powdered Sugar

1. Whisk together the eggs and sugar. Add the lemon juice, then the flour.

2. Pour over hot shortbread base. Reduce oven temperature to 300 F and move a rack to the middle.

3. Bake until set, about 30 minutes.

4. Let cool before dusting with powdered sugar and cutting into squares. Store covered and chilled.

Strawberry Bread

Strawberry season has come and gone in Bulgaria. It was lovely though brief. I should have known when the cherries took over the front of every store and stall that I should just let the strawberries go. But I didn't. Surprise. I bought two more pretty looking baskets and stuffed them in my fridge below all the cherries. When that first bit of berry hit my mouth...

ICK. They had that slightly acidy chemical taste I associate mainly with trying to hold various plaque-removing washes in my mouth at the dentist.

What was I going to do with two giant baskets of acidic strawberries?

So far I've come up with a use for just one, though I have another possibility on the horizon. Strawberry-using device #1?

Strawberry Cream Cheese Quick Bread from My Baking Addiction.

1/2 cup butter, room temperature

4 oz cream cheese, softened

1 cup sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

2 cups flour

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 cup buttermilk (or 1/2 cup milk + 1/2 TBSP lemon juice)

1 1/2 cups strawberries, rinsed, dried, chopped

1. Preheat the oven to 350 F. Grease and flour a bread pan.

2. Combine cream cheese, butter, and sugar. Mix in eggs, one at a time, then vanilla.

3. In another bowl, whisk flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.

4. Stir flour mixture into butter mixture, until just combined. Stir in buttermilk.

5. Fold in the strawberries. Pour into prepared pan.

6. Bake 50-60 minutes, rotating half way, until golden brown on top and a fork inserted in the middle comes out clean.

BBQ Thai Chicken Pizza

Start with the...

Pizza Dough

(adapted from the Smitten Kitchen)

1 1/2 cups warm water

2 TBSP olive oil

1 tsp brown sugar

1 cup whole wheat flour

1 pkg active dry yeast

3 cups all-purpose flour

1 1/2 tsp salt

1. Put your warm water in a small bowl and sprinkle the yeast on top. Set in a warm place and cover with a towel for 5 minutes. Stir to dissolve yeast.

2. Stir together the wheat flour, brown sugar and oil. Add yeast and water.

3. Add the flour and salt.

4. Knead 5 minutes IN THE BOWL (why mess up your counter?), adding a bit of flour here and there to keep it from sticking to your hands or the bowl. Then lift up the dough and dribble a generous dash of olive oil into the bowl, using the dough to spread it. Turn over the dough so it is now coated with olive oil too. Cover the whole shebang with a towel and place in a warm kitchen corner for 1 1/2 hours.

Now, the toppings for the BBQ Thai Chicken Pizza

(from The Pioneer Woman)

Mozzarella, in thin slices

Purple Onion, sliced thinly

Chicken Breasts

BBQ Sauce

Chopped Cilantro

1. Coat the chicken breasts in BBQ sauce and bake for 25 minutes at 375 F. Dice and coat in more BBQ sauce.

2. Spread out the pizza crust on an oiled pizza pan. Spread the mozzarella on top.

3. Scatter the onion over the top. Then the diced chicken.

4. Sprinkle on more BBQ sauce.

5. Bake until cheese is bubbly and the crust starts to brown at the edges, between 15-20 minutes.

6. Sprinkle on the chopped cilantro.

The Birthday Cashew Bars

Yesterday was my husband's 35th birthday surprise party. Some of his favorite foods are green olives, cashews, and caramel frosting. Since I couldn't figure out a way to work in green olives to a birthday dessert, I went with cashew bars with caramel sauce. I posted about the (somewhat finicky but tasty) caramel sauce earlier this week, so here's the recipe for the (delicious and incredibly buttery) cashew bars.

Cashew Bars

from Baking Bites

1 cup butter, softened

1 cup granulated sugar

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 cup salted cashews, coarsely chopped

1. Preheat to 375 F.

2. Cream the butter and sugar, then gradually beat in the flour. Stir in 1/2 cup of the cashews.

3. Press the dough into a 10 X 15 '' pan, making it relatively even. Then scatter the remaining cashews over the top and press them in neatly.

4. Bake for about 25 minutes, until the dough is golden brown but the edges aren't too dark. Watch those edges!

5. Let cool for 10 minutes and then slice. This is vital. The bars will become too crisp to slice neatly if you don't do it while they are still warm. Then let them cool completely before you remove them to serve.

Making Caramel

I've always ignored the idea of making "dessert sauces." What do I need a sauce for if I have a good dessert? But I've recently changed my mind. I made some cashew brittle shortbread this week, and planned to serve it with ice cream. But then I thought of those caramel cashew paws I used to sell at my college candy store job. Then I thought of the homemade caramels my friend Kelsey used to make in high school. Then I thought, cashew shortbread over ice cream drenched in caramel sauce!

So I scoured the internet, reading post after post about how intimidating caramel is and how it shouldn't be so intimidating. How it's really hard but actually not that hard. How you have to trust your nose and eyes and wear protective safety gear.

My first batch, featured here, worked out pretty well. For some reason one of the jars looks better than the other, but that jar looks and smells amazing. I think the cooking would've been more even if I had a sturdier saucepan, but such is life.

In the recipe below, I am drawing on David Lebovitz for the safety ideas, and Smitten Kitchen for the main recipe.

Caramel Dessert Sauce

1 cup sugar

6 TBSP butter

1/2 cup + 2 TBSP heavy cream, at room temperature

1. Use a large (2-3 quart) saucepan. Don't use a smaller one, the mixture will eventually be foaming like crazy. Be sure your saucepan is very clean. Put on oven mitts, a long sleeve shirt, and sunglasses or glasses. Fill a bowl with ice water in case you get a bit of the hot hot hot sugar on you and need to stop the burn. (I didn't have any trouble, but I was prepared!)

2. Pour the sugar into the saucepan and begin heating it over the highest setting of your medium heat.

3. Let the sugar melt to achieve a coppery color, swirling it around in the pan so it cooks evenly. You'll be tempted to stir it a lot, but this will just cause grainy clumps. You can draw the sugar back a bit from the edges of the pan at first (with a whisk or high heat spatula) so that the same sugar isn't always exposed to high heat at the edges.

4. Once the sugar is melted to the a deep dark orange-red but before it burns, whisk in all the butter (still over the heat). The mixture will foam, just keep stirring.

5. Then remove the butter/sugar mixture from the heat and whisk in the cream.

6. Let cool and thicken for a while, then pour into a glass jar or over ice cream or over whatever your caramel-complementing dessert might be!

Store in the refrigerator.

Weekend Herb Blogging: All about Cherries

The cherries have arrived here in Bulgaria, and probably to wherever you are as well. I've seen them at the store, at the fruit stands, and overflowing from crates next to trucks on the side of the road. So on Wednesday when I visited my favorite fruit stand in Mladost, I decided to buy a giant bag of them and see what I could do with cherries for the latest edition of Weekend Herb Blogging, hosted this time by Cook Almost Anything.

So here are the results - cinnamon cherry jam, cherry jam bars, and lemon cherry muffins with lemon glaze. One bag of cherries can lead to many great things...

Cinnamon Cherry Jam

adapted from the Wandering Chopsticks Blog

1 1/2 cups cherries, washed and pitted

1 TBSP + 1 tsp sugar

1 tsp cinnamon

1. Sprinkle the cinnamon and sugar over the cherries and let sit for as long as you have, anywhere from 45 minutes to several hours.

2. Transfer to a saucepan and heat over medium high heat until they begin to boil, stirring frequently.

3. Reduce heat to low and simmer for about an hour, stirring occasionally. You can simmer them as long as you like, either to have a chunky ice-cream toppingesque jam, or longer so the fruit breaks down.

4. Pour the hot jam into a sterilized jar and seal for long term storage, or into a tupperware or regular jar if you plan to eat it in the next week or two.

Cherry Jam Bars

from Cooking with Amy

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 cups sugar

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 cup cold butter, cut into cubes

1 egg

1 cup cherry preserves (I used the jam from the recipe above)

1. Preheat the oven to 375 F and butter a 9 X 9 glass dish.

2. Whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt.

3. Either cut the butter in with two butter knives, or massage in with your fingers, until the dough comes together as a crumb-like mixture.

4. Stir in the egg with a fork.

5. Press 3/4 of the mixture into the bottom of the dish. You may have to flour your fingers to keep them from sticking to the mixture. Pour the jam on top, not quite going to the edges. Sprinkle the remaining mixture over the jam.

6. Bake for 30 minutes, rotating halfway through, until golden brown. Cool before cutting into squares.

Lemon Cherry Muffins / Bread with Lemon Glaze

adapted from Sweet Mary

2 1/4 cups flour

1/4 tsp salt

1/4 tsp baking soda

2 tsp baking powder

5 TBSP butter, softened

1 cup sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

Zest of 2 lemons

1 cup - 1 TBSP milk

Juice of 1 lemon, divided

3-4 TBSP Powdered Sugar

1-2 cups cherries, washed, pitted, and cut in half (if thawed from frozen, drain first)

1. Preheat the oven to 375 F. Butter a bread pan and a muffin pan (or use liners).

2. Combine the milk and 1 TBSP lemon juice in a small bowl. Let sit.

3. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt.

4. In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugar until combined. Stir in eggs, then vanilla, then lemon zest.

5. Stir flour mixture and milk/lemon juice mixture into the large bowl, alternating between the two several times.

6. Fold in the cherries.

7. Divide the batter between the muffin pan and the bread pan.

8. Bake muffins for about 25 minutes, bread for about 35 minutes, until golden on top. Meanwhile, stir together remaining lemon juice and enough powdered sugar to make a glaze.

9. When your remove the muffins and bread, drizzle lemon glaze on top so it melts and spreads.

10. Cool for 15 minutes and then run a knife around the edges of both muffins and bread and remove.