Muffin Monday: Blueberry Cinnamon Buns

My grandmother is almost like a storybook character (seriously the way I'm about to describe her will make you think that I'm just trying to be cool by inventing myself such a rockin' grandma). First of all, she does all of the great regular grandmother stuff like cook delicious meals, do fun crafts, bake wonderful Christmas cookies, and take you on exciting outings to the park- but with Tweetie (yes that's what I call my grandmother) the fun doesn't stop there- she also taught us how to meditate with the Buddhist monks (imagine listening to a tape in the car on the way to school of OOOHHHHHHHHHHMMMMM), she recites poetry off the top of her head, she marches in peace rallies, she sees far more movies in theaters than I do, she's a vegetarian, she gives historical tours of the French Quarter, she volunteers at the library and the hospital, and, at 72, she goes to a jazzercise class every morning.

That's a brief glimpse of Tweetie- so what has she to do with muffins? you might ask. Well along with being a vegetarian- Tweetie is always looking for little health tricks: a handful of almonds will give you your daily requirement of Vitamin E, soy wards of breast cancer, and one of her favorites- blueberries help with memory. Now Tweetie (who the other day was disappointed that she could only spout off about 9 of Eugene O'Neill's most famous plays-umm I was an English major and I only knew The Iceman Cometh) needs no help with her memory. However, she is convinced that the blueberries will help preserve her veritable pantheon of knowledge, and she is also dedicated to making sure that none of us fall privy to memory loss. As a result, my mom had about ten pounds of frozen organic blueberries in her freezer and with it still being hurricane season down here in New Orleans, we decided that we had to get baking (for you lucky folks who don't have hurricanes- you DO NOT want to have a freezer full of food when the electricity goes out for 3 days in 97 degree weather)!

So my mom suggested we make some good old fashioned blueberry muffins- and we have a really good blueberry muffin recipe- but- I, of course, found a different recipe in my old standard, Cookies, irresistible biscuits, brownies, and bars by Hilaire Walden (P.S. this is the last recipe I'm going to post from this book because I really think you should purchase a copy for yourself!) The recipe is called Fruit and Cinnamon Buns- they end up looking pretty similar to muffins- but they don't get that big muffin dome on the top. The crumb of these muffins is not as good as our old standby blueberry muffin but the cinnamon flavor is wonderful with the blueberries and it is hands down the easiest muffin I've ever made. You've heard of dump cakes where you just throw everything together and mix it up- well this is the dump muffin.

Fruit and Cinnamon Buns

1 cup all purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
pinch of salt
scant 1/2 cup light brown sugar
1 egg
3/4 cup milk
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 cup fresh or thawed frozen blueberries, or black currants

Preheat the oven to 350 F. Grease eight muffin pans (I highly suggest using paper muffin liners because the blueberries tend to stick to the pan). With an electric mixer, beat together the first eight ingredients until smooth.


Fold the blueberries or black currants into the other ingredients until just evenly combined. Spoon the mixture into the muffin pans, filling them two-thirds full (we topped them with raw cane sugar- which gave the top a great little crunch). Bake for about 25 minutes, until a skewer or cake tester inserted in the center of a bun comes out clean. Allow to cool in the muffin pans, on a wire rack, for 10 minutes, then transfer the buns to the wire rack and allow to cool completely.

My idea of a perfect date...square

Last Saturday I woke up late.


Just kidding, I haven't slept in for the last seven months.

But seriously, I did at least stay in my pajamas late, even if Helen Mae and I were not sleeping. So here we were in our pajamas at about 11am- I was looking through cookbooks and Helen Mae was chewing on a spatula.


Like I mentioned earlier I have a giant tub of chopped dates and now I'm looking everywhere for date recipes- so when I stumbled upon this lovely recipe from Cookies, irresistible biscuits, brownies, and bars by Hilaire Walden I decided to fumble through the kitchen and see if I could make it without having to change into real clothes and go to the grocery store. The recipe is called Date Crunch- but it honestly was not crunchy in any way- I would have called it Date Chew- but let's face it- that would be a very odd name and also not so appealing- so I'm calling them Chewy Chocolate Topped Date Bars. They were oh so easy to make and I had all of the ingredients in the house (except raisins-the ones in my pantry had expired in 2006). The bars were really good- they had a very clear date flavor that went really well with the semi-sweet chocolate (umm, what doesn't go well with chocolate?). Here is the recipe with my changes in parentheses:

Date Crunch (Chewy Chocolate Topped Date Bars)

8 oz package of graham crackers (I used graham cracker crumbs because that was all I had in the house- but I think crushing your own graham crackers might allow you to how a "crunchier" Date Crunch so I will use whole crackers next time and crush them myself)
1/3 cup butter
2 tablespoons light corn syrup
1/2 cup pitted dates, finely chopped (I use a little over a whole cup since I omitted the raisins)
3 oz golden raisins (I omitted these because I didn't have any- but I think they would really taste great in these bars)
5 oz milk or semisweet chocolate, chopped (I used semisweet chocolate chips- and just between you and me, I used quite a bit more than 5 oz)

Line a 7 inch square shallow cake pan with foil. Put the crackers in a plastic bag and crush coarsely with a rolling pin. Gently heat the butter and syrup in a small saucepan until the butter has melted. Stir in the crushed crackers, the dates and golden raisins and mix well. Spoon into the prepared pan, press flat with the back of a spoon and chill for 1 hour (I really pressed these down firmly and I left them in the fridge for about 2 hours).


Melt the chocolate in a heatproof bowl, over a saucepan of hot water, stirring until smooth (I melted the chocolate chips in the microwave on low). Spoon over the cookie mixture, spreading evenly with a spatula. Chill until set (I let mine sit in the fridge for about an hour). Lift the foil out of the cake pan and peel away. Cut the crunch into 24 pieces and arrange on a plate (you can arrange them in a ridiculous tower if you want to).

Delectable Plum...Nectarine? Galette

I found this beautiful fruit while at Sam's Club the other day. I thought they were plums- but then decided they might be too big and not quite dark enough to be plums. So then my mom suggested that they might be nectarines- so we did a google search and found that plums are in the same family as nectarines, peaches (no surprise) and...almonds. I guess that makes sense because the pit found in the center of stone fruit looks a lot like an almond. Anyway, I am still unsure about what these lovely fruit are- but they are delicious.

I found this recipe on one of my favorite blogs: Cream Puffs in Venice. Her galette is about 400 times prettier than mine- but mine did turn out tasty. I had never worked with pâte brisée, which uses butter instead of shortening. It is definitely more temperamental than my old standard pie crust recipe- but the taste was delicious- it ends up being more like a shortbread cookie than a pie crust. Anyway thank you Ivonne for this lovely recipe!

Doberge Cake

I really wish that I could tell you all about the joys and delights of baking a beautiful Doberge Cake for my sister's birthday... but I must humbly admit that I have never baked a Doberge on my own. I thought I'd share it with you anyway, because it is a traditional New Orleans cake and being a New Orleans gal- I feel the need to expound endlessly on the many joys of our rich cultural heritage. So anyway, I know that my family has always ordered our Doberge from Gambino's Bakery for every special occasion- from birthdays, to baptisms, to graduations- this rich and decadent dessert is always a must. The cake is not anything particularly unusual- it consists of six layers of a rather dense white cake with a pudding-like filing sandwiched between each layer. The cake is then frosted with white or chocolate buttercream and a glaze is poured over the buttercream. This beauty is all chocolate- but when my big fat Italian family gets together we almost always order a half lemon- half chocolate cake so that everyone's tastes will be satisfied. You can also find the cake in caramel- although I don't remember us ever getting one- I'm sure they are delicious. New Orleans Magazine ran this article earlier this summer about the history of this multi-layered treat.


I have recently obtained a recipe for this cake and I plan on trying it out later in the Fall even though my father told me that it won't be worth the work since we already know that Gambino's makes such a perfect cake- stay tuned to see what happens!

Apple and Date Wondermuffins

Today is my little sister's 17th birthday- so Happy Birthday Madeline! She was hoping for a car but instead she got these glorious apple and date muffins! I think I really one up-ed her expectations- and you will think so too when try these out. Seriously, I did not know how high to set my expectations for these muffins because they call for whole wheat flour and only 2 tablespoons of butter... and well... that sounded sort like a healthy muffin. But have no fear! These muffins are really really wonderful.

I found them in a giant cookbook called, Cookies, irresistible biscuits, brownies, and bars by Hilaire Walden. Now this book has yet to give me a bad recipe (honestly- everyone should go out and buy it) , in fact, it holds my all-time favorite snickerdoodle recipe, my mom's go-to decadent fudge brownie recipe, and a really fancy white chocolate macadamia nut chocolate chip torte (that is a perfect party pleaser). SO... I felt pretty confident that even this seemingly health conscious muffin would be somewhere between OK and good. Well, it blew me away. The cinnamon and apple really shine through and make it a good Autumn morning breakfast treat. It is sweet without being the least bit "sugary" and it is dense without being at all "buttery"- and it was easy to make too!

So without further ado- here is the recipe with a few changes I made in parentheses:

Date and Apple (Wonder)Muffins

1 1/4 cups self-rising whole wheat flour (I couldn't find self-rising whole wheat so I added 1 1/4 tsp baking powder and 1/8 tsp salt to regular whole wheat flour)
1 1/4 cups self-rising white flour
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon (I used a very generous teaspoon)
1 teaspoon baking powder
2 tablespoons margarine (I used butter)
1/2 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
1 eating apple ( I used a large, firm Golden Delicious apple and it worked beautifully)
1 cup apple juice
2 tablespoons pear and apple spread (I actually used an organic morello cherry fruit spread)
1 egg, lightly beaten
1/2 cup chopped dates
1 tablespoon chopped pecans (I used slivered almonds on half and left the other half plain)

Preheat the oven to 400F. Arrange 12 paper liners in a deep muffin pan (I found that because my muffin pan is not very deep, I got about four extra muffins out of the batch). Put the whole wheat flour in a mixing bowl. Sift in the white flour with the cinnamon and baking powder. Rub in the margarine until the mixture resembles bread crumbs, then stir in the brown sugar (I used my hand pastry blender to mix in the butter, just because its not as messy, and I love my pastry blender).

Quarter and core the apple, chop the flesh finely and set aside (now the recipe did not specify as to whether you are supposed to peel the apple- I did because thought the skin my get a bit chewy or rough). Stir a little of the apple juice with the fruit spread until smooth. Mix in the remaining juice, then add to the rubbed-in mixture with the beaten egg. Add the chopped apple to the bowl with the dates. Mix quickly until just combined.


Divide the mixture among the muffin liners. Sprinkle the chopped pecans. Bake the muffins for 20-25 minutes (20 minutes did it for mine), until-golden brown and firm in the middle. Transfer to a wire rack and serve while still warm (they are really good warm and room temp. too).


And Helen Mae loved them too! Just kidding, I'm not a psycho mom- she's still sticking to the baby food

I have a huge tub full of chopped dates from Sam's Club, so expect to see more date recipes in the near future...

Is it a doughnut? Is it a muffin? NO... it's a Doughnut Muffin!

When I was thinking about clever and witty food related names for my blog I suddenly remembered an odd little song that my younger brother, Jordan, and I had written in honor of our new baby sister, Madeline. The lyrics were simple and, well, meaningless- but it went like this:

She's a sandmuffin plump of a grape
dootdoot do
She's a sandmuffin plup of a grape
dootdoot do
She's a sand sand sand sand sand sandmuffin!
A sandmuffin plump of a grape
dootdoot do

Give us a break we were six and four.

Anyway, when I named my blog Sandmuffin it made me think about these delicious Doughnut Muffins that I found a few years ago. They don't taste like sand (in fact they are quite moist), but the pretty little dusting of cinnamon sugar on the top makes them appear to be sandy. Because I have a darling seven month old daughter there is pretty much no way on earth that I'll be able to make real doughnuts any time in the next 2-3 years- but these are a pretty fabulous quick substitute. Unlike most muffin recipes which call for making a "well" in the dry ingredients and then pouring the wet ingredients into it and then lightly folding them together, this easy recipe has you mix it more like cake-alternating milk and four with the butter and sugar. I'm no pastry chef, but I'm pretty sure that's why these little babies capture that cake doughnutty consistency.

The recipe came from a great little cookbook called Brunch, The Perfect Weekend Treat, by Jennifer Donovan- I really recommend it especially if you are like me and get excited by pretty color pictures of food!

Doughnut Muffins

6oz butter, softened, plus extra for greasing
1 cup superfine sugar
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
generous 2 1/2 cups ap flour
3/4 tbsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
pinch of salt
1/2 tsp freshly grated nutmeg
generous 1 cup milk

Topping
1/2 cup superfine sugar
1 tsp ground cinnamon
2 tbsp butter, melted

Makes 12 muffins

Preheat oven to 350 F/ 180 C. Grease a deep 12-cup muffin pan (I used cupcake papers). In a large bowl, beat the butter and sugar together until light and creamy. Add the eggs, a little at a time, beating well between additions. Sift the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and nutmeg (I used ground nutmeg, but I'm sure fresh would be even more delicious!) together. Add half to the creamed mixture with half the milk. Gently fold the ingredients together before incorporating the remaining flour and milk. Spoon the mixture into the prepared muffin pan, filling each hold to about two-thirds full. Bake for 15-20 minutes (mine had to go all the way to about 22 min), or until the muffins are lightly brown and firm to the touch. For the topping, mix the sugar and cinnamon together. While the muffins are still warm from the oven, brush lightly with melted butter, and sprinkle over the cinnamon and sugar mixture. Eat warm or cold (they really are good both ways).

Baby's Gotta Eat!

When Helen Mae was first born I had already decided that I would really make a concerted effort to breastfeed... exclusively if I could. Well, if you aren't familiar with the first two or three weeks of breastfeeding I can sum them up for you in a few simple words: pain, exhaustion, frustration- however, if you can make it through those first few very difficult weeks the rest of the experience can be best described as: the easiest, cheapest, most convenient, and healthiest thing to do.

Fast forward six and a half months and I became so at ease and dare I say lazy about the simplicity of feeding my baby dewdrop with the simple unhooking of my nursing bra that I sort of lost track of time with starting solids. It was easy to add a cereal- mixed-with-a-little-breastmilk to the evening- but the time has really come to start vegetables and fruits. So start I did.

Last night I finally dragged myself to the grocery store and purchased two sweet potatoes, two yellow squash, and a small bag of carrots.

I washed them, peeled them, and then... played with them a bit

Then I chopped them... and played a bit more

That last one reminds me of myself trying to demonstrate how to open your mouth for the "airplane". Anyway, then i steamed each of the vegetables separately. I did the carrots for about ten minutes and the sweet potatoes and squash for about 15 minutes- I think the carrots probably could have gone a little longer to get them a bit softer. Finally I pureed them in the food processor- adding a bit of water to both the carrots and the sweet potatoes.

And ta-da! Baby food! Just like out of the jar- except way cheaper and without preservatives!

A trio of delights!

WELCOME!!

Well. Here I am. Posting my first post ever on my first ( well sort of first ) blog ever. I want this to be a mostly food blog with soft floral undertones of my quotidian adventures- ha! Honestly, God knows why I'm creating this blog or how much I'll be able to do with it. All I do know is that I usually have about an hour and a half each morning while sweet Helen Mae sleeps to do something- and by something, I mean something that I can do without leaving the bed so that my little gumdrop doesn't roll onto the floor during her nap (yes, she sleeps in our bed not a crib- but more on that later). SOOO this is it- we'll see what it becomes or how soon it disappears or if anyone ever even stops by to read it at all!