Pumpkin Blueberry Muffins

Fall is here and its pumpkin season!  It’s like a pumpkin explosion in the stores this time of year with pumpkin spice latte, pumpkin spice candles, pumpkin spice Oreos, pumpkin spice M&Ms, pumpkin spice Ramen noodles, Doritos and so many others.

Unlike pumpkins, however, blueberries have a flavor that knows no season or food type. They pair well with just about anything, and pumpkins are no exception. Blueberries have just enough sweetness to complement pumpkin-y flavors and stay juicy during the baking process.

These pumpkin blueberry muffins make for an ideal autumn indulgence.

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Pumpkin Blueberry Muffins
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Course dessert
Cuisine American
Servings
LARGE MUFFINS
Ingredients
Muffins
Topping
Course dessert
Cuisine American
Servings
LARGE MUFFINS
Ingredients
Muffins
Topping
Votes: 1
Rating: 5
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Instructions
Muffins
  1. Preheat oven to 350 F. Line an 8 cup large muffin tin with parchment papers/cups
  2. In a large bowl, whisk together 1 2/3 cups flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon & allspice. In a small bowl, combine pumpkin puree with milk.
  3. In a large bowl, using an electric mixer, beat butter & brown sugar until creamy. Add egg; beat until fluffy.
  4. Alternately add flour & pumpkin mixtures to butter mixture, stirring just until blended. Combine blueberries with 1 Tbsp flour in a small dish. Fold gently into mixture. Spoon batter carefully into prepared muffin cups.
Topping
  1. In a small bowl, combine oats, flour, brown sugar, cinnamon & salt. Using a fork, cut in butter until mixture is crumbly. Add pepitas & combine. Divide evenly over muffin batter.
Baking
  1. Bake for 45 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Remove from oven, cool in pan for a few minutes then remove to a rack to finish cooling. Store muffins in a covered container.
Recipe Notes
  • If you would prefer smaller muffins, divide batter between 12 paper lined standard muffin cups. Bake for about 30-35 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean.

Apple Crisp Snack Cake

In Canada, apples are available throughout the year. About 100 species of apples are grown in the country. With their bright colors, crisp texture and clean, slightly spicy flavor, apples are the perfect fall icon.

Today’s blog recipe is a bit of a different take on a beloved old classic. Apple crisp is a North American dessert which combines tender apples covered with a delectable crunchy topping. It is one of the common desserts that does not have the regular bottom crust and uses sliced or diced apples, generously doused in cinnamon and sugar, as the bottom layer.

The streusel which covers the apples can employ a wide variety of different flour types, nuts, and oats, commonly combined with butter and sugar. It results in a crumbly topping, which usually completely coats the apples, allowing them to release and cook inside the flavorful juices.

Apple crisp is believed to have stemmed from the British crumble, and today these two classics merely differ in their names. Even though the North American crisp was particularly made with oats, which resulted in a crunchier coating, nowadays both varieties can employ various ingredients.

This warm and spicy ‘apple crisp snack cake’ is a comforting twist on the favorite fall dessert. Filled with apples and topped with more apples, cream cheese drizzle the perfect crispy streusel. Orange pumpkins might be more popular this month, but there’s no better time than now to take advantage of apple fresh season.

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Apple Crisp Snack Cake
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Course dessert
Cuisine American
Servings
SERVINGS
Ingredients
Apple Topping
Baked Crisp Topping
Course dessert
Cuisine American
Servings
SERVINGS
Ingredients
Apple Topping
Baked Crisp Topping
Votes: 1
Rating: 5
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Instructions
Cake
  1. Preheat oven to 350 F. Line an 8 x 8inch baking pan with parchment paper. Set aside.
  2. Peel, core & grate apples. Sift flour, cornstarch, baking powder, cinnamon, allspice, cardamom & salt together in a medium bowl & set aside.
  3. Using a mixer, cream butter & sugar until light. Scrape the bowl & add the whole egg, mixing on medium-high for about a minute. Scrape the bowl again & add the egg white & vanilla; mix for another 2 minutes.
  4. Alternately fold in flour mixture & buttermilk, then gently fold in grated apples.
  5. Pour/spread batter into prepared baking pan. Bake for about 30-40 minutes or until a cake tester comes out with just a few moist crumbs. Allow to cool in pan on a wire rack.
Baked Crisp Topping
  1. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper. Place all ingredients except butter in a bowl. Combine well then add softened butter. Mix until the mixture begins to form pea-sized clusters. Spread mixture evenly on the parchment lined cookie sheet, then bake at 350 F. for 5 minutes. Stir the topping around a bit, then bake for another 5 minutes until it begins to turn golden brown. Let crisp topping cool completely to room temperature. If crisp mixture is too chunky break it up with your fingers slightly.
Apple Topping
  1. Place apples , lemon juice & water in a small saucepan. Cook over medium heat until softened, but not falling apart. Add brown sugar, cinnamon & salt. Cook for a minute to dissolve sugar. Remove & cool until cake is baked & ready to top.
Drizzle
  1. Sift powdered sugar with salt. Set aside. Cream softened cream cheese & butter with a mixer for about 2 minutes. Add vanilla & mix to combine. Add powdered sugar & slowly incorporate into wet mixture. Add milk & beat to create a drizzle consistency.
Assembly
  1. When cake is cool, carefully & evenly spread apple topping over top of cake. Using a small piping bag, drizzle icing over apples (using a spatula, lightly spread a bit of drizzle on sides). Next, top cake with baked crisp topping. Slice & serve.
Recipe Notes
  • To make your own buttermilk, place 2 tsp of white vinegar or lemon juice in your measuring cup & add milk to equal 2/3 cup, stir & let stand until room temperature.
  • If you prefer cupcakes over the snack cake, no problem. Same idea just a different shape. Your choice!

 

Chicken Thighs w/ Grapes & Caramelized Onions

September is the bridge between summer and fall. The beginning of the fall season is just around the corner so it’s time to transition meals between the summer and fall. Turn the oven back on to embrace the changing season. For many, this means baking, but there’s also sautéing and slow roasting, braising and boiling. 

It’s National Chicken Month which gives Canadians from coast to coast another reason to celebrate their favorite protein. It’s the time to cook and eat all sorts of chicken dishes in salute of all the hard-working Canadian farm families that raise the chicken we love.

This recipe for skillet chicken with grapes and caramelized onions is an easy recipe that makes a perfect pair for a crisp green salad, quinoa, or fresh bread. Quinoa is still very much a small niche crop in Canada. The search for seed to produce quinoa varieties that can reliably flourish in Canada continues, and it is entrepreneurs as well as research scientists who are leading these efforts. Quinoa is a cool-season crop and is particularly sensitive to heat, which limits the areas of potential commercial production in Canada.

Its popularity skyrocketed in 2006/7 when restaurants began featuring this ancient grain on their menus, and it quickly won over people’s taste buds with its unique flavor and texture profile.

Serving quinoa with this chicken meal really makes it special.

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Skillet Chicken w/ Grapes & Caramelized Onions
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Servings
Ingredients
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Instructions
Caramelized Onions
  1. Heat butter over medium low heat in a heavy ovenproof skillet. Add the onions cook for 20 minutes or so, stirring occasionally. When the onions are a deep golden color, remove from the pan and set aside.
Chicken Thighs
  1. Preheat oven to 350 F.
  2. Combine the flour, salt, chili powder, thyme, allspice, & black pepper. Dredge each piece of chicken in the flour mixture, shaking off the excess.
  3. In the same pan as the onions, heat the oil over medium high heat. Add each piece of chicken & fry for a few minutes until golden brown; flip & cook for a few more minutes. Transfer to a plate (it will not be fully cooked at this point, just browned – it will finish cooking in the oven).
  4. Turn the heat down & let the oil cool off a little bit. Add the wine – this will definitely bubble & sizzle! Add the broth & simmer until the mixture is thickened slightly. Add the onions & chicken to the pan. Bake for about 20 minutes.
  5. Remove from the oven, add the grapes, baste with the sauce & bake for another 5-10 minutes. Garnish with parsley and serve.
Recipe Notes
  • To make without using wine:
  • Use 3/4 cup chicken broth (instead of the 1/3 cup wine & 1/4 cup broth). Add remaining flour (leftover from dredging chicken).
  • Make a roux with excess oil in skillet & dredging flour.
  • Add chicken broth & cook until a sauce forms.
  • Add the onions & chicken to the pan & bake as directed above.

Spiced Upside Down Peach Crisp

Fruit crisp is a classic dessert that has been around for centuries. The first known recipe was published in an 1828 cookbook. The recipe used frozen fruit instead of fresh and while fresh fruit is often used in baking, frozen fruit is a great alternative. 

Fresh fruit always has such appeal. It brightens the fridge and counter with cheery colors and sweet scents. Frozen fruit allows for some flexibility by extending a typically short shelf life. Both have their place in the kitchen.

 Frozen fruit may not have the same crispness or texture as it’s fresh counterpart but there are some great benefits to using it.

  • It’s available all year round
  • You can use it straight from the freezer
  • Convenience – it’s already washed and ready to go
  • Frozen fruit is generally quick-frozen at its peak and as soon as it’s picked

This peach crisp is amazing! The frozen peaches are enhanced with fresh lemon juice and flavorings and the spiced oatmeal topping has toasted pecans to add a little crunch. Yum!

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Spiced Upside Down Peach Crisp
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Course dessert
Cuisine American
Servings
Ingredients
Crisp Topping
Spiced Cream Topping
Course dessert
Cuisine American
Servings
Ingredients
Crisp Topping
Spiced Cream Topping
Votes: 1
Rating: 5
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Instructions
Fruit
  1. Preheat oven to 350 F. Line & lightly grease a 9-inch spring form baking pan with foil.
  2. In a large bowl, combine thawed & drained peaches, lemon juice, sugar, cornstarch, vanilla, almond extract & salt. Set aside.
Crisp Topping
  1. In a large bowl, whisk together brown sugar, flour, oats, pecans & spices. Add butter & mix with a wooden spoon until topping is crumbly.
Assembly
  1. Into prepared baking dish pour peach mixture. Sprinkle the crisp topping evenly over the peaches. Bake for 40 - 45 minutes or until top is golden brown. Remove from oven & allow to cool. When cool enough to handle, remove outside ring from pan then flip crisp over on a serving plate & slice.
Spiced Cream Topping
  1. Add heavy cream to a chilled bowl & beat until stiff peaks are just about to form. Beat in vanilla, sugar & spices until peaks form.
  2. Serve crisp with spiced cream topping or vanilla ice cream if you would rather.
Recipe Notes
  • Since there are just two of us, I made only half of the recipe, that's why mine is quite thin in the picture. Still gave us 10 pieces!
  • I baked it long enough to really caramelize the peaches. Yum!

Chai Spiced Hot Cross Bread Pudding w/ Vanilla Sauce

CELEBRATING GOOD FRIDAY!

Bread pudding always gives me reason to remember good things. Truly a comfort food for those of us that recall it from childhood days. It’s not that the dish was invented here — that honor likely goes to clever medieval or even ancient cooks in Europe and the Middle East who had a surplus of stale bread on their hands. The perfect embodiment of the virtues of frugality and indulgence: day old bread, too precious to waste, is bathed in a mixture of milk and eggs and made into either a sweet or savory bread pudding (with a few other additions) and baked into something sublime. What makes it special is the blend of spices mixed into it and the sauce.

The chai spice baking blend, which is sometimes overlooked, adds a distinct warm flavor and depth. It can include a number of different spices. Cardamom is the most common ingredient, followed by some mixture of cinnamon, ginger, star anise and cloves. Pepper, coriander, nutmeg and fennel are also used but they are slightly less common.

This bread pudding combines hot cross buns with spices inspired by the world’s love affair with Indian chai. The origins of hot cross buns may go back as far as the 12th century. According to the story, an Anglican monk baked the buns and marked them with a cross in honor of Good Friday. Over time they gained popularity, and eventually became a symbol of Easter weekend.

Bread pudding, when done right, should have the perfect balance of gooey goodness and chewy texture. That’s why stale bread/buns are important. The bread needs a degree of crunch otherwise you will have ‘mush pudding’. For additional flavor, the pudding is served with a vanilla sauce. Who says bread pudding has to be boring!

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Chai Spiced Hot Cross Bread Pudding w/ Vanilla Sauce
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Servings
Ingredients
Bread Pudding
Vanilla Sauce
Servings
Ingredients
Bread Pudding
Vanilla Sauce
Votes: 1
Rating: 5
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Instructions
Bread Pudding
  1. Place cubed hot cross buns in a greased 9 x 9-inch baking dish.
  2. In a large bowl, combine the milk, brown sugar, eggs, vanilla, spices & salt. Pour over buns, making sure that the bread is completely covered by the milk mixture.
  3. Cover & refrigerate for at least an hour or overnight.
  4. Set out the chilled bread pudding while you preheat the oven to 350 F.
  5. Bake 40 - 45 minutes, or until a knife inserted into the center of the pudding comes out clean. Remove from oven & serve with vanilla sauce.
Vanilla Sauce
  1. In a small saucepan, melt butter & add flour. Stir until mixture has a nutty aroma.
  2. Add salt, cream & sugar; stir until mixture becomes thick. Remove from heat & stir in vanilla.
  3. Spoon over servings of warm bread pudding.
Recipe Notes
  • You will notice I have only used 2 Tbsp sugar in the vanilla sauce to offset the sweetness of the pudding.

Chai-Spiced Peach Cobbler w/ Pepita Oat Crumble

Homespun desserts such as crisps, cobblers, betties, slumps & pandowdy’s are all variations on the same theme. As much as we like to be definitive, these old fashioned desserts are ‘folk-food’ passed down orally from mother to child and like all folk culture slight variations arise from kitchen to kitchen.

My spice drawer gets a good workout in the fall. I want to add fall spices to as many things as possible. Warm fruit desserts are a perfect candidate for doing just that.

The filling for this cobbler is a combination of peaches, brown sugar, butter and some added spices. All of that is cooked briefly to give it a caramel-like flavor. The topping is a simple one but the combination of spices adds such amazing flavor and is the perfect complement to the peaches. I’ve added cardamom to both the filling and topping. If you follow the blog, you are probably aware of my obsession with cardamom. Definitely feel free to use your favorite combination and ratio of spices.

I think this Chai-Spiced Peach Cobbler is everything you could ever want in a fall dessert.

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Chai-Spiced Peach Cobbler w/ Pepita Oat Crumble
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Servings
Ingredients
Pistachio-Oat Topping
Chai-Peach Filling
Servings
Ingredients
Pistachio-Oat Topping
Chai-Peach Filling
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Instructions
Topping
  1. In a large mixing bowl, combine flour, rolled oats, pistachios, ginger, cinnamon, cardamom & sugar.
  2. Using a pastry blender, combine flour mixture with butter until it resembles a coarse meal. Store the mixture in the fridge until ready to use.
Filling
  1. Preheat oven to 375 F.
  2. Place a large saucepan over medium heat & add in butter. Once the butter is melted, add in the (thawed) peaches, brown sugar, cinnamon, allspice, cardamom & black pepper. Bring the mixture to a simmer & cook for an additional 10 minutes.
  3. Pour cooked peaches into a large casserole dish & evenly top with the pistachio-oat crumble.
  4. Bake for 40 minutes, or until the top is golden-brown & the sauce bubbles around the edges.
  5. Once finished baking, serve warm with ice cream or whipped cream if you wish.

Easter Hot Cross ‘Scones’

Eostre is an obscure Germanic and Anglo-Saxon goddess of spring and dawn, and it is thought to be the namesake of the Christian holiday Easter. Because food has always had a close association with Easter, special dishes were cooked in her honor. Most important of these was a small spiced, sweet bun from which our ‘hot cross bun’ derives. These little spiced buns are a rather old English tradition, which are still traditionally eaten on Good Friday. They are marked on top with a cross which is of ancient origin connected with religious offerings of bread.

Hot Cross ‘Scones’ are an easy take on the seasonal classic bun. They are the best of both worlds; hot cross yeasted buns and a tender spicy scone. Scones work for me in the way that most of the time I have the ingredients on hand and they only take about twenty minutes or so to make.

As always, I enjoy the idea of variation in just about everything. I had three scone recipes in mind for today’s blog. One recipe is a hot cross scone made by changing out the regular flour for ‘Kamut’ flour. This flour is made from an ancient grain originally grown by the pharaohs of Egypt. It contains more protein, minerals and other nutrients than modern wheat.

The other two recipes are Spiced Orange & Fresh Apple Hot Cross Scones,  both made with a sour cream batter. Hopefully they will become part of your Easter recipe collection.


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Easter Hot Cross 'Scones' X 3

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Course Brunch, dessert
Cuisine American

Servings


Ingredients
Scone Batter

Glaze

Icing for Crosses

Course Brunch, dessert
Cuisine American

Servings


Ingredients
Scone Batter

Glaze

Icing for Crosses

Votes: 1
Rating: 5
You:
Rate this recipe!


Instructions
  1. Preheat oven to 350 F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. In a large bowl, whisk together flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda & salt. Add butter; using a pastry blender, blend until mixture forms fine crumbs. Stir in spices, dried fruit & orange zest.

  2. In a small bowl, combine sour cream, eggs, & vanilla; whisk until well blended. Add to flour mixture; stir until a soft dough forms.

  3. Scoop onto lined baking sheet. Bake 15-20 minutes until golden. Remove from oven, combine water & honey glaze. Warm very slightly in microwave; brush over tops of scones. When scones have cooled, decorate with icing crosses.


Recipe Notes

FOR VARIATIONS:

  • To make Kamut Scones use 1 3/4 cup kamut flour & 3/4 cup white flour instead of all white flour.
  • To make Apple Scones add 1/4 of a large apple, peeled & cut in 1/4" dice. to basic recipe.