Leftover hard-boiled egg yolks

I think hard boiled egg yolks are gross.  Sorry but they just don't appeal to me.  If I have a salad with hb eggs on it I leave the yolk behind.  But when I make a dozen hb eggs to snack on throughout the week I end up with a bunch of hb egg yolks and I love to repurpose things...  but try to find a recipe that uses them besides egg salad!  I ended up with a lot of butter-cookie recipes, kind of like shortbread but you press the hb egg yolk through a fine sieve to make egg confetti and add it into the dough.  The result is a very light shortbread, rather than the dense biscuit that you are used to.

Polish Cookies
Recipe adapted from Cooks.com


Ingredients:

• 5 hard boiled egg yolks (sieved)
• 3/4 c. sugar
• 1 c. butter (at room temp)
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 2 c. flour
• zest of one orange

Method:

Press the hb egg yolks through a sieve so you end up with hb egg yolk confetti.  Cream the butter and sugar in the bowl of a stand mixer.  Add yolk confetti, then vanilla, then salt and flour.  Lastly, add the orange zest, you are beating to combine in between each addition.  Separate the dough into 2 logs rolled in plastic wrap and chill in freezer for 15 minutes.  Preheat the oven to 350 and remove dough logs from freezer.  Slice the logs into 1/4 inch cookies and bake on tin foil-lined cookie sheets, you will need 3 sheets.  They don't really spread so you can put them fairly close together.  Bake for about 12-15 minutes or until they are your desired brown-ness.  We like ours pretty toasty.  Let them cool on the sheet a bit until they set up.  

I made up this recipe (sort of)

For Bruce and Molly:  these are healthy so you don't have to feel bad about loving them.

Blueberry Orange Muffins

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup canola oil
• 1/2 cup apple sauce
• 6 egg yolks
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup or more OJ
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 2 mashed bananas
• zest of one orange

• 2 cups whole wheat flour
• 1 cup ap flour
• 2 tsp. baking powder
• 1/2 tsp. baking soda
• 1 tsp. salt

• 1 pint blueberries

Method:

Preheat oven to 430.  Paper a 12-cup muffin tin.  Mix all wet ingredients in one bowl, all dry in another.  Pour dry into wet and mix, then mix in blueberries.  Divide batter into muffin tray and bake at 430 for 7 minutes, then reduce temp to 400 and bake another 12 minutes until muffins are cooked through.  

More fun with cherries: a coffee cake

I have been obsessed with blueberry cakes recently.  I keep downloading all of these recipes for thick fluffy blueberry coffee cakes.  Is it because it's blueberry season or am I just in a cake phase?  It's probably because the pictures of these cakes are amaaaaazing!!!  So basically I got stuck on this one recipe for days because the photos were so gorgeous.  I switched out the blueberries for cherries because I still had some left over from my very dense cherry brownies.  I also changes from lemon zest to orange zest because I didn't have any lemons.

Cherry Buttermilk Coffee Cake
Adapted from Cooking Bride

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
• 2 teaspoons lemon zest (zest from 1 large orange)
• 3/4 cup plus 3 tablespoons sugar, divided
• 1 egg, room temperature
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 2 cups all-purpose flour, divided
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt
• 2 cups pitted and quartered cherries
• 1/2 cup buttermilk

Method:

Preheat oven to 350 and grease and flour a 9x9 pan.  Cream the butter, zest, and all but one tablespoon of sugar in your stand mixer.  Add the egg and vanilla to the mixer and beat just til combined.  In another bowl mix the flour (minus 1/4 cup reserved for later), b powder, and salt, set aside.  Toss the pitted and quartered cherries in the reserved 1/4 cup of flour, set aside.  Measure out the buttermilk and then add 1/2 the flour mixture to the mixer, alternating with 1/2 the buttermilk, mixing slightly in between, until all flour and milk has been added.  Add the cherries and beat on low til just combined.  Pour batter into prepared pan, sprinkle reserved 1 tablespoon of sugar on top, and bake for 45-55 minutes or until top is getting browned and a toothpick tester comes out pretty clean from the center.  

Mini- muffin madness

Let the mini-muffin baking begin!! My mom's school is having a breakfast tomorrow and I am in charge of baking the muffins. Four kinds in two hours, the only thing that held me up was that I only have two mini-muffin pans and I was making the batter way faster than I could bake and cool the previous batch. So I got a little backed up, but they came out great! I also ran out of muffin papers so I had to start spraying the pans with Pam and you know how that goes when blueberries are involved.

Honey Orange Corn Muffin with Raspberry Jam
Adapted from Eat Good For Life

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup canola oil
• 4 egg yolks
• 1/2 cup honey
• 1/8 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup orange juice
• Zest 1 orange
• 1 tsp vanilla

• 1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
• 3/4 cup yellow cornmeal
• 2 teaspoons baking powder

• raspberry jam

Method:

Preheat oven to 450 and paper 2 mini-muffin tins.
Mix all wet ingredients in one bowl and all dry in another.
Pour dry into wet and combine, don't over-mix.
Fill 32 of the muffin cups half way full with batter, then spoon a dollop (about 1/2 tsp) of jam on top of the batter and then spoon more batter on top of the jam.
Don't use too much jam or it will just spill out all over the pan and burn.
Bake at 450 for 3 minutes, then turn down to 400 and bake another 6 minutes or so, until they bounce bak to the touch.

Chocolate Chip Muffins
Adapted from Crumbs and Cookies

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cups ap flour
• 1 tbsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp salt

• 2 egg yolks
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1/3 cup oil
• 1/3 cup milk
• 1 cup chocolate chips

Method:

Preheat oven to 450 and paper mini muffin tins.
Mix all dry ingredients in one bowl and all wet in another, then pour dry into wet and stir until just combined.
Stir in chocolate chips.
Fill as many cups as you can to the top, or a little over.
Put them in the oven at 450 for 3 mins, then turn down the oven to 400 and bake for another 6 mins or so.

Carrot Cinnamon Muffins
Adapted from My Fudo

Ingredients:

• 2 cups ap flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

• 2 1/2 cups grated carrots (one bag of baby carrots buzzed up in cuisinart)
• 4 large eggs
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 1 cup canola oil
• 1 teaspoon vanilla

Method:

Preheat oven to 450 and paper mini muffin pan.
Buzz up the carrots in your cuisinart or grate them, one bag of baby carrots yields about 2 1/2 cups.
Mix the carrots with the rest of the wet ingredients and set aside.
Mix all dry ingredients and add to wet, stir to combine.
Pour batter into prepared pan and bake on 450 for 3 mins.
Turn down oven to 400 and bake for another 6 mins or so.

Blueberry Lemon Muffins
Adapted from Kitchen Lane

Ingredients:

• 2 cups ap flour
• 2 ½ teaspoons baking powder
• 1/8 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1/3 cup canola oil
• 3/4 cup milk
• 1 large egg
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• zest of one lemon

• 2 cups blueberries

Method:

Preheat oven to 450 and paper your mini-muffin pans.
Mix all dry ingredients in one bowl and all wet in another, add dry to wet and combine.
Mix in blueberries, don't over-mix batter.
Pour into prepared pan and bake at 450 for 3 mins.
Turn oven down to 400 and bake another 7 mins or so, until muffins bounce back to the touch.

Notes:

*Some of the batters came out a little bit wetter or dryer than I like, if it was too wet I added a little bit of ap flour, and if too dry I added a little extra milk.

**I have been baking my muffins starting out really hot for a few mins and then turning them down to finish because it makes them get big and crusty on top and nice and high.

Whole Wheat Orange Olive Oil Rosemary Muffins

From a random fruity cake recipe- that looked delicious- I was inspired to make this muffin. I was just going to bake the cake in muffin tins, with peaches or something, but muffins with fruit in them don't hold up more than a couple of days in the fridge. They start to get soft and mushy from the water in the fruit.

The inspiration came from The Eccentric Cook's apricot breakfast cake. Interestingly enough, I just read an article in Lucky Peach Magazine about how terrible the commercially grown apricots that are available to us taste compared to the ones they have in Europe and Asia. Ours look really pretty but are completely tasteless. So I got rid of the fruit all together, backed off on the sugar, used half whole wheat flour, olive oil instead of butter, OJ and milk instead of just milk, and threw in some rosemary from my garden to compliment the orange. Also, I have perfected the baking temp to get the ultimate crusty muffin.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup olive oil
1 cup OJ
1/2 cup milk
zest from 2 oranges
zest and juice from 1 lemon
big handful of brown sugar
5 egg yolks
1 tsp vanilla

2 cups ap flour
1 3/4 cups whole wheat flour
4 teaspoons baking soda
2 teaspoons salt

big handful of fresh rosemary, chopped

Method:

Preheat oven to 450, grease 12 cup muffin pan.
Mix all wet ingredients in one bowl and all dry in another bowl.
Add dry to wet and stir til almost combined.
Add rosemary and mix the rest of the way.
Pour batter into muffin pan and bake on 450 for 7 minutes.
Turn oven down to 375 and bake about 8 more minutes, until muffins are done in the middle- check with a knife.

Whole Wheat Rubarb Raisin Muffins with Nutmeg

So I figured out a way to use up all of the rhubarb... I took this Armenian Nutmeg Cake and made it into a muffin of sorts. I added rhubarb, raisins, orange zest, made it half whole wheat and half white flour, and accidentally added some cardamom. I backed off on the sugar and changed the cooking time and temp.

Ingredients:

1 cup soy milk
1/3 cup canola oil
1/4 cup sugar
1/3 cup buttermilk or you can sub applesauce
2 tbs hot water

1 cup ap flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
¼ cup polenta (to add crispness)
Just under 1 tsp baking soda
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp cardamom
½ tsp cinnamon
1 tsp nutmeg
1 tbs ground chia or flax
1/4 tsp salt

1 cup raisins
rhubarb- as much or as little as you like- I used more than 2 cups
zest of one orange

Method:

Preheat oven to 400.
Mix all wet ingredients in the bowl of your stand mixer.
Mix all dry ingredients in a separate small bowl.
Pour dry into wet and mix just until dough comes together.
Stop mixer and add rhubarb, raisins, and zest.
Turn on mixer for like 5 seconds just to incorporate.
Pour muffin mix into paper- lined muffin tin.
Bake about 20 ish minutes until muffins bounce back to the touch and have a little color on top.

Muffin Thursday: Mandarin Orange Chocolate Chip Muffins

So muffin Thursday is being blogged on Friday morning this week. This recipe from Brooklyn Gallery is supposed to make an orange quick bread but I adapted it to be a muffin recipe by changing the cook temp from 350 to 400. Mikey said this was one of the best muffins I've ever made- almost as good as the Jewish Honey Cake he loved so much. And Mole and my Aunt Nan visiting from NYC liked them too!!

Makes about 10 muffins...

1 cup white flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/2 tsp ground powdered ginger
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons butter (melted in microwave)
1/2 cup sugar
1 egg
1/4 cup orange juice
3/4 cup hot water
zest of one orange
zest of one lemon
1 1/2 can mandarin oranges
1 cup chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 400°F.
In a large bowl, mix together the flours, baking powder, baking soda, ginger, and salt. Set aside.
In another bowl, mix the butter, sugar, egg, OJ, water, and zests.
Pur the dry bowl into the wet and mix until almost combined.
Add the mandarin oranges and chocolate chips and finish stirring, just until combined. You don't want to over-mix a muffin or it will deactivate the baking soda and powder and you'll have a flat dense muffin. Grosssssssss!
Portion your muffins into a regular-sized muffin pan and add a few extra chocolate chips or some sprinkled sugar to the top.

Bake for about 15-20 mins until they are golden and bounce back to the touch. Watch out these cooked quicker than I thought!!

Adapted from James Beard’s American Cookery

Muffin Saturday: Honey Orange Cornmeal Muffins

This recipe is adapted from Eat Good 4 Life's Cornmeal Cake Recipe. So I guess muffin Thursday turned out to be muffin Saturday (right before I had to go into work). I made the chocolate chunk cookies first and had an hour of time to kill so I busted these out. I usually like to put whole corn kernels in my corn muffins but I didn't have any cans lying around today. In the summer I like to use leftover fresh corn from the farm-stand.

I didn't have any honey so I used maple syrup instead, also I didn't have orange extract so I just left it out. My batter was reallllllly wet so I actually ended up putting in around 3/4 C of oats to soak up some of the liquid. I also added about 2 Tsp of crushed dried rosemary just for fun. And I changed the baking temp from 375 to 400 because muffins like it hot.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup olive oil (canola or vegetable oil will also work)
2 eggs
1/2 cup honey
1/8 cup sugar, plus 2-3 tablespoons to sprinkle the top of the cake
1/2 cup orange juice, plus 2-3 tablespoons
1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
3/4 cup yellow cornmeal
2 teaspoons baking powder
Zest 1 orange
2 teaspoons orange extract (optional)

Preheat oven to 400 F degrees.

In a large bowl, whisk together oil, honey, eggs, sugar, extract and orange juice. In another bowl mix flour, cornmeal, baking powder, and orange zest and then combine with the wet ingredients. Then add the oats if you need to, the rosemary, or if you want- some corn, nuts, or craisins.

Pour batter into prepared muffin pan and sprinkle the top with remaining 2 tablespoons of sugar. I used a giant muffin pan to make larger muffins. They will cook around 20 mins, maybe 25. Mine came out a little dry because I wasn't paying attention!! I hate a dry muffin. I guess that's why god made butter and jam. These would be awesome toasted with some raspberry jam.

My First Pie: Fin

It's doooooone! Took almost an hour, and we ended up turning it up to 375 to finish because the fruit was still not bubbling. But then I heard the sizzle of it boiling over onto the bottom of he oven and we knew it was over. Pulled it out and now it's cooling.

So my impressions of this crust recipe is that it's not quite what I want in the end. Light and flakey but it was kind of hard to roll and it's not sweet enough. I will be experimenting for the next one but otherwise- nice first try!

My First Pie: Part Deux

So the pie is in the oven and here's how we did it:

I cut up 5 apples: 3 granny smith and 2 fjui (each apple cut into 12 pieces), and a quart of strawberries (each cut in half). To that I added:

zest from one orange
2/3 C Sugar
1/4 AP Flour
1 Tbsp Lemon Juice

Mix up that mixture and then toss the fruit in it and set aside.
Then take your pie doughs out of the fridge and let stand for 5-10 minutes. Put a little whole wheat flour on your counter and dust your rolling pin and your work space. Using the weight of the rolling pin roll from the center out moving your dough clockwise until it is big enough to cover the bottom of your pie plate with plenty of room for the sides and the crimping around the edges. This lady on youtube does a good demo. Roll the dough over your rolling pin and use it to get it on the pie plate. Make sure that it's slightly pressed into the bottom corners and use egg whites to glue any pieces that fell off. Throw that baby back in the fridge and roll out your top using the same method- or make a crumble for the top and save that other half of dough for another pie with a crumble top. Once your top is rolled take the bottom from the fridge and pour in the fruit. Make sure that you don't have a mountain of fruit- make it kind of level or it will never cook all the way through. Using the rolling pin again roll the top layer onto the pie and crimp the edges. Here's a demo on crimping. Then, I scored the top to get 9 slices so it will be easier to cut later. I also cut 2 little holes in each top to let the steam out. Then it went in the oven at 450 for 10 minutes and then I reduced the heat to 350 for 35 minutes, or until the fruit is bubbling and the apples are tender but still have a bite to them.

Let cool then cut or your fruit will not be set and will run everywhere.

Cranberry Oatmeal Bars

My mom and I made these from Natalie's Killer Kitchen for my mom's school. When we made the crust we doubled the crumble part of the recipe to cover the top of the bars- the original recipe didn't make enough to cover the top. But when we baked them the filling absorbed all of the top crumb so next time we will try to stick the original recipe and let the top be a little naked.

Crust

1 cup AP Flour
1 cup Quick Cooking Oats
1/2 cup Brown Sugar
1/2 tsp Salt
1/2 tsp Cinnamon
1/4 tsp Baking Soda
6 TBS Butter, melted
3 TBS Orange Juice

Filling

1 1/2 cup Dried Cranberries
3/4 cup Sour Cream (I used light)
1/2 cup Sugar
3 TBS AP Flour
1 tsp Vanilla Extract
1/2 tsp Orange Zest
1 egg, lightly beaten

Preheat oven to 325 degrees

1. Combine the flour, oats, brown sugar, salt, cinnamon, baking soda, in a large bowl and combine with a spoon until clump free and evenly mixed. Add the butter and orange juice and mix with a spoon until fully combined. Press half of the crust mixture into a prepared 11×7 inch baking dish.
2. In a separate bowl add the cranberries, sour cream, sugar, flour, orange zest and egg. Mix until fully combined. Spread cranberry mixture over prepared crust; sprinkle reserved oat mixture evenly over filling. Bake for 40 minutes, or until edges are golden. Cool completely before cutting.

Photo Credit: Natalie's Killer Kitchen

Orange Hazelnut Olive Oil Cookies

I made these cookies for my friend Maya who is gluten free, using the bulk gluten-free flour at my local cooperative market. She loved them so much she told me I should start selling them on Etsy, which I tried to do for about a week and then gave up.

Anyway, I made this recipe with ground almonds, once with walnuts, and with carob chips- she is also allergic to milk. Basically it's a really versatile recipe and heart healthy because of the olive oil. I found the recipe on Fine Cooking's website.

Yields about 6 dozen cookies.

2 cups toasted and skinned hazelnuts
10 oz. (2-1/4 cups) unbleached all-purpose flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. table salt
3/4 cup plus 2 Tbs. granulated sugar
1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil
2 large eggs
Finely grated zest of 2 medium oranges (about 1-1/2 packed Tbs.)
1 tsp. pure vanilla extract

Tip:
For the best results, measure your flour by weight instead of volume. (1 cup of all-purpose flour equals 4-1/2 oz.) If you don’t have a scale, use a measuring cup meant for dry ingredients, not liquids, and don’t scoop the cup into the flour. Instead, stir the flour to aerate it, spoon it lightly into the cup without packing, and sweep the cup level with a straight edge. Learn why it matters.

Finely grind the hazelnuts in a food processor. In a medium bowl, whisk the hazelnuts, flour, baking powder, and salt to blend. With a hand mixer or a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the sugar, oil, eggs, zest, and vanilla on low speed until the sugar is moistened, about 15 seconds. Increase the speed to high and mix until well combined, about 15 seconds more (the sugar will not be dissolved at this point). Add the dry ingredients and mix on low speed until the dough has just pulled together, 30 to 60 seconds.

Divide the dough in half. Pile one half of the dough onto a piece of parchment. Using the parchment to help shape the dough, form it into a log 11 inches long and 2 inches in diameter. Wrap the parchment around the log and twist the ends to secure. Repeat with the remaining dough. Chill in the freezer until firm, about 1 hour.

Position racks in the upper and lower thirds of the oven and heat the oven to 350°F. Line four cookie sheets with parchment or nonstick baking liners.

Unwrap one log of dough at a time and cut the dough into 1/4-inch slices; set them 1 inch apart on the prepared sheets. Bake two sheets at a time until light golden on the bottoms and around the edges, about 10 minutes, rotating and swapping the sheets halfway through for even baking. Let cool completely on racks. The cookies will keep in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 1 week.

Photo Credit: Fine Cooking