The leading authority on basketball cupcakes and Basil-Lime martinis…
Great all-purpose, easy, spicy and moist pumpkin bread recipe. I doubled the batch (it was Girl’s turn to bring snack to school), which required two cans of pumpkin, with one cup left over (which I froze) for another batch in the future. I may try the Pumpkin Bread Pudding recipe (listed in the link), possibly for Thanksgiving.
Recipe here.
These (recipe here) were delicious and SO easy.
Recipe here. These were fantastic. I didn’t make the Bourbon Molasses Butter, but I might, the next time I make these. The toasted pecans in these were delicious.
These are from Marion Cunningham’s fantastic “Breakfast Book.” Recipe here.
, lemony, gingery, buttery.
These are a recipe that my mom used to make for me when I was a kiddo. When I saw all of the beautiful, fresh cranberries in the store this year, while preparing for Thanksgiving, I finally thought to ask her for the recipe. They are SO good: crispy and crunchy on the outside and moist and zesty on the inside, with the gorgeous color and tang of the cranberries punctuating throughout. Yum.
FYI: Fresh cranberries can easily be frozen for future use (you can even toss them into this batter while still frozen.) Just rinse them with cold water, discarding any unsightly withered ones, then gently spin them dry in a salad dinner. Spread them out on a cookie sheet to freeze them. When they’re individually frozen hard, store them in a tightly sealed ziploc until you need them and you can easily pour out just the amount that you need.
Cranberry Orange Cornmeal Muffins
1 cup flour
1 1/2 cup cornmeal
1 cup sugar
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. baking soda
1 cup fresh cranberries, washed and patted dry
1 cup vegetable oil
2 eggs
2/3 cup buttermilk
2 Tbsp Grand Marnier liqueur or orange juice
1 tsp freshly grated orange zest
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Grease 12-cup muffin tin or use paper muffin liners. (Good idea to have a second tin on hand, as I find that the recipe actually makes 15 or 16 muffins. Also a good idea to grease the top, flat surface of the pan, even if you use liners, as they might stick a little there.)
Whisk together dry ingredient (flour, sugar, cornmeal, salt, soda.) In a separate bowl (or 4-cup glass measuring pitcher,) whisk together the remaining wet (buttermilk, oil, eggs, liqueur or juice and zest) ingredients, reserving the cranberries to the side.
Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ones, then add the cranberries. Stir gently until the batter is moistened, but still lumpy. Measure into muffin cups (an ice cream scoop with release lever works beautifully to ensure consistent size) and make until the tops are golden brown (about 20 minutes.) Let sit in the pan 5 minutes before removing.
I also made a batch with blueberries, for my son and Hubby, who aren’t cranberry fans. Silly boys.
Recipe here.
I absolutely love ginger, so these were a big hit (3 different kinds of ginger? At the same time? Yes, please!). The fact that the batch makes 12 was a plus, as well. We had 4 for breakfast one morning, shared some with parents and still had 4 to put in the freezer for another morning. Highly recommend for ginger lovers. The ginger flavor is pretty strong for people who aren’t ginger fans. But, if you’re not a ginger fan, why would you even consider making a recipe that has three different kinds of ginger, anyway?
Recipe, from Fine Cooking magazine, here.
These were so delicious. The ginger flavor isn’t super-strong, but we still loved them. Sweet and tangy at the same time. Crusty and buttery on the outside and soft and tender on the inside.
Recipe here.
Yum. Moist and rich and the perfect balance between salty and sweet. We will definitely be making this again. Terrific for breakfast, but we’ll also use this as a snack. I doubled the batch and sent some off with Girl this morning, who was going on a field trip with her Mandarin class.
Recipe here.
These were absolutely fantastic. Seriously; you MUST try these. You can’t have more than about three on the griddle at any one time, just because the bananas have to be pressed into the batter fairly quickly after getting the batter down and you have to move fast, but they’re wonderful. They’re a little more labor-intensive than your average pancake recipe, but well worth it. The tart blueberries are the perfect foil for the banana, which gets even sweeter as it cooks.
I didn’t want to have to worry about cutting the banana to fit the pancake and what to do with the leftover banana stumps, so I just made the pancakes large enough to accommodate a quarter of a banana each (the same length as half a banana, just split lengthwise, as well.)
