Elvis Muffins

While I don't think there is any direct connection between Elvis and Easter, I was inspired to make an muffin for our Easter brunch that the King would enjoy. That would be a muffin enjoyed by the latter-year's, somewhat bloated King. The one you want to avert your eyes from while you think longingly of the Elvis from "Blue Hawaii." When I was little, I thought Elvis was plastic and lived in the TV. I'm not so sure I was wrong.

The ingredients for these muffins are obvious....
Over-ripe bananas - check.
Peanut butter - check.
Chocolate chips - check.
Tom asked, rhetorically I think, 'you know what would be good on top of these muffins?' ....BACON! Even better, candied bacon.
Truly a muffin fit for a King.


Candied Bacon
6 slices thick-cut bacon
2 Tbs. plus 1 tsp. pure maple syrup
1-1/2 Tbs. light brown sugar

Put a rack in the center of the oven and heat the oven to 425°F. Cover a rimmed baking sheet with parchment and put bacon slices on it. Drizzle both sides with the maple syrup and then sprinkle both sides evenly with the sugar. Bake until browned and crisp, 20 to 22 minutes. Remove to wire rack to cool, then chop into small pieces. Try not to eat an excessive amount.

We didn't have maple syrup (how did that happen?) so we used rice syrup (why we have rice syrup but not maple is a mystery of impulse shopping I guess). We mixed the rice syrup with some whiskey.

Peanut Butter Banana Muffins with Chocolate Chips

Ingredients
2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 cup lightly packed brown sugar (I used light brown)
1 tbs baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup peanut butter (I used no salt/no sugar added)
2 eggs
2 tbs canola oil
3/4 cup milk
2 ripe bananas, mashed.
1 additional ripe banana (optional) 
1 cup (and some more if you like) dark chocolate chips

What to do
This first step is optional, but it does give you a bit of an extra kick of banana flavor. 
Put the milk and the extra mashed banana in a small saucepan. Bring to just under a boil and turn off the heat and let banana steep in the milk for 15 to 30 minutes. Strain the milk into the peanut butter mixture (below) and discard the banana that steeped in the milk.

Preheat oven to 375. 
Mix flour, sugar, powder and salt in a large mixing bowl and set aside. In a medium bowl, beat eggs, peanut butter, the other 2 mashed bananas, milk, oil and eggs until well mixed. Add the peanut butter mixture to the flour mixture, stirring until just moistened. Stir in the chocolate chips.

Spoon into well greased muffin tins. Sprinkle chopped bacon on top, and gently press into the batter a bit. I used mini-muffins tins, and the recipe yielded 42 mini muffins. In regular muffin tins, you'll get 12 muffins.

For mini muffins, bake 8-10 minutes. For regular muffins, 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean.

These are yummy little two bite morsels, with a definite banana-y, peanut butter-y taste. I read recently that the royal wedding reception next week will feature 2-bite appetizers, in case you need to greet a passing Monarch. I doubt we will have that need at brunch tomorrow, but you never know.

While these were baking, Jackson did a neat trick with his ear:

 

I Heart Standard Baking

Yum.

Errands this morning included a stop at Standard Baking here in Portland. This is one of the many food gems to be found in our great little city. Always a difficult decision, we settled on the fruit buckle.

It was still warm.

Nice crumb topping that didn't completely fall off as we ate it. Stuffed full of raspberries, with a dough that had a bit of a lemon tang.  Delicious.

Here's the aftermath of our delectable treat.

(Recycled) Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Coconut Cookies

Tonight, baking was more compelling than the work homework that I should have been doing. I hadn't made an oatmeal type of cookie in awhile and was jonesing on one with chocolate and coconut in it.

As I dug through the pantry, I realized that I didn't have all the chocolate chips that I needed. Hmmm. There were some chips, there was a chunk of dark chocolate, there was a chunk of white chocolate (both leftover from my chocolate bark from a few weeks ago). This wasn't quite enough, so I was pondering other add-ins, such as cranberries or cocoa nibs.

It was at this point that Tom reminded me that I had some chocolate chip cookie dough in the freezer (from a failed recipe experiment). The dough was not a success, but the consistency of it made it quite easy to pull out the chocolate chips (they were large and good quality). Yes, I pulled chocolate chips out of dough to re-use the chips in another cookie. I had been considering just tossing the remaining dough, so I thought that this was a good re-use, recycle approach to baking - and it is almost Earth Day.

About the time that I could no longer feel my finger tips, I had enough chip-age, in all of my varieties for the cookies. Finally, on to the baking!

Numb fingers have paid off, and I've hit my quantity.

Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Coconut Cookies
Ingredients

1 cup unsalted butter, softened
1 cup packed light brown sugar
1/4 cup granulated sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour (all purpose is fine too)
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon salt
2 cups rolled oats
1 cup sweetened coconut flakes
12 ounces semi-sweet chocolate chips (or alternatively, a combination of chips pulled from frozen dough, a partial bag of chips and leftover white and dark chunks, chopped into small chunks).

What to do   

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.In a large bowl, beat together butter and sugars until fluffy. Add eggs and vanilla and beat well. In a separate bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt. Add flour mixture to butter mixture and beat until well combined. Stir in oats, coconut, and chocolate chips.

Drop by rounded spoonfuls onto ungreased baking sheets (or line sheets with parchment paper) and bake for 10-12 minutes. Cool for a minute on baking sheet then remove to a wire rack to cool completely.

Orange Flavored Olive Oil Cake

Spring is making a shy appearance here in Maine. After perhaps the best April Fool's joke ever with a Nor'easter that dropped about 6 inches of snow in my yard, our temps have been climbing slowly.

We took advantage of the low 50's temps this weekend to have some much needed outdoor time. Tom took me on my first motorcycle ride of the spring on Saturday. I was safe and spiffy in my new helmet, gloves and jacket. Today was people-powered cycling, getting our road bikes out for a spin. Our shakedown ride to get the winter out of our legs ended up being a 23 miler. It was great to be out, the roads were in decent shape and other than very cold toes, I felt great at the end of the ride.

Ok, back to baking. We were having some friends for dinner Saturday night, and I had been wanting to try making an olive oil cake. I checked out a few different recipes and found this one on the Saveur site. I really like this site. It's comprehensive, providing both Saveur recipes, but also recipes they've found across the web. Great pictures make the recipes hard to resist.

I happened to have some blood orange olive oil on hand, so I thought that would be a good alternative to plain olive oil, and punch up the orange a bit.

To dress this up a bit, I decided to serve it with a blueberry sauce and honey whip cream. For a garnish, I attempted candied basil leaves.  The basil tasted good, but I was hoping they'd firm up a bit. My friend suggested dipping the leaves in slightly whipped egg whites before sugaring them next time.

The orange flavor in the cake was subtle, but noticeable, and the cake nice and moist. The berries and whip cream were a great add, and everyone finished happy and full.

Olive Oil Cake (from Saveur)
Ingredients
1 tbsp. butter
3 cups plus 2 tbsp. flour
4 eggs
1 cup sugar
1⁄4 tsp. lemon zest
3⁄4 cup quality extra-virgin olive oil
2⁄3 cup milk
3 tbsp. Grand Marnier
1 tbsp. baking powder


Blueberry Sauce and Honey Whip Cream instructions are below.





What to do:
Preheat oven to 325°. Grease an 11-cup bundt pan with butter and dust with flour. Set prepared pan aside.

Beat eggs and sugar together in a large mixing bowl with an electric mixer on medium-high speed until pale yellow, about 1 minute. Add remaining 3 cups flour, lemon zest, oil, milk, and liqueur and stir with a wooden spoon until well combined. Add baking powder and stir until thoroughly combined.

Spoon batter into prepared pan around ramekin or bowl or spoon batter into bundt pan and smooth out top with the back of the spoon. Bake until cake is deep golden brown and a wooden skewer inserted in center comes out clean, about 40 minutes. Transfer cake to a wire rack to let cool completely, in its pan.

Blueberry Sauce
Mix frozen (thawed) or fresh berries with some orange zest, the juice of half and orange and about 1/2 tbsp of honey. Heat on the stove over medium heat to reduce and thicken the sauce to your liking.

Honey Whip Cream
While mixing heavy cream, add 1-2 tsp of vanilla and then honey to taste. I warmed the honey up before adding to the cream, in order to help it incorporate better.

This cake is one of those that you'd be able to serve anytime of day. I think it would work well as a breakfast bread, definitely a mid-day tea or coffee snack cake, and dressed up for dinner with a good fruit topping and whip cream.

The sauce was blueberries, orange zest and juice and honey.

Crock Pot Banana Bread

Despite my best intentions, I'm an infrequent user of the crock-pot. It sits tucked away on a high pantry shelf, making access at best difficult and at worst, dangerous. The heavy glass lid threatens to fall on my head whenever I pull it down, and this scares me.

The most common applications for the CP in my kitchen are making apple or pear sauce, cooking farro overnight (makes for a great "instant" breakfast) or making a kick-ass bolognese sauce.

The best application though, is Crock-Pot Banana Bread. I'd never heard of such a thing until my husband made a batch in his CP while we were dating. He's the banana bread baker in the house, and has dabbled with and perfected this recipe. This banana bread is perhaps the favorite care package item mailed off to college, in great risk of not even making it in the door before consumption.

It's baked in this funky round "pan" that sits in the CP, and looks a bit like a big coffee can. I don't know if this insert comes standard with crock-pots or is a charming accessory. It makes a cylindrical loaf, and fun half-round slices. Cooking time is about 2 hours or so. The slow heat makes for a very moist bread, not as dense as pan based banana breads. Mini-chocolate chips (never optional), add to the deliciousness of this treat.

The size and shape of this loaf would also lend itself to a great little banana cake. I think it could probably be sliced into 3 or 4 layers, frosted with any number of frosting options...chocolate, rum butter-cream, some type of brown-butter cinnamon.....mmmm. I haven't tried this yet, but I'm looking forward to that adventure in the kitchen.

Crock Pot Banana Bread

Ingredients
2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup unsweetened apple sauce
2 tablespoons butter, melted
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
4 small ripe bananas, mashed
2 tablespoons plus 2 teaspoons milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2+ cup dark chocolate chunks 

What to do
Turn crock-pot on high. Grease and flour manufacturer's insert. Mix flour, baking soda and salt in medium bowl. In another bowl, cream applesauce with butter & sugar. Add eggs, one at a time. Add milk and vanilla. Mix completely. Stir in bananas until well mixed. Gradually add flour mixture. Stir until just combined. Stir in chocolate chips. Place insert into crock-pot. Carefully add batter. Cover. Put lid on crock-pot and bake, checking for done-ness at the 2 hour mark. Our crock-pot usually bakes this loaf in 2 hours or just a bit over.