Cornmeal Honey Muffins

If you want to impress your friends with baked goods, then I highly recommend these sweet, yet somewhat savory cornmeal muffins. The first time around, I misread the recipe and included significantly less cornmeal than the recipe called for! The muffins still worked out and I am inspired to come up with a cross between the sunken, moister version I originally served up and the chewier version that is more aligned with the original recipe. For dinner, a thick and creamy baked batch of Scalloped Potatoes with Best Ever Mushroom Sauce would be optimal.

Cornmeal Honey Muffins
Adapted from Once Upon a Tart

4 tablespoons of unsalted butter, melted and cooled for a few minutes
1 1/2 cups of unbleached white flour
1/3 cup of spelt flour or whole wheat flour
1 cup of cornmeal
1/4 cup of sugar
1 tablespoon + 1 1/2 teaspoons of baking powder
3/4 teaspoon of sea salt
3 large eggs
1 1/2 cups of milk
2/3 cup of sesame oil
3 heaping tablespoons of honey (I used Tawari honey from New Zealand)
2 teaspoons of vanilla

Grease 12 muffins cups generously with butter.

In a large bowl whisk together the flours, cornmeal, sugar, baking powder and salt.

In a medium bowl, beat the eggs and then whisk in the milk, melted butter, oil, honey and vanilla.

Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients, add the moist ingredients and stir until just combined. Divide the batter evenly into the prepared muffin cups.

Bake in a preheated 400 degree oven for roughly 20 minutes, or until golden brown and the muffins are nicely browned on top. Cool on wire racks and serve warm or at room temperature. Just divine when smeared with some butter!

Makes 12 large muffins.

More cornbread muffin recipes from Lisa's Vegetarian Kitchen:
Quick and Easy Cornmeal Muffins
Blueberry Goat Cheese Muffins
Raspberry Cornmeal Muffins

On the top of the reading stack: The National Post

Audio Accompaniment: St. John Passion by Johann Sebastian Bach (Absolutely divine!)

Sugared strawberry jubes

Before I started the blog I used to spend hours at imdb.com reading the movie trivia – I’d go from one to another, then another...

I still do that sometimes, but nowadays I usually share my browsing time between movies and recipes – one thing I love is to go to Gourmet Traveller’s website, click on a recipe and then check the end of the page, where there are four related recipes. I go from

Ivan the Terrible’s Scalloped Potatoes

I would like to introduce my readers to Fenris Badwulf, a sweet and savory friend of mine who has been cultivating his culinary skills for the past while. With a little help and inspiration from Lisa's Kitchen, Mr. Badwulf has become an accomplished cook and so I invited him to write a guest post for the blog.

This is a recipe for scalloped potatoes favoured by Ivan the Terrible, Czar of all the Russias. As you will quickly discover, this potato dish, spiced with paprika and a favourite of the fierce horse barbarians of the steppes, is not technically a scalloped dish. Scallopes are baked; this is a sauté.

Ivan the Terrible's Scalloped Potatoes

2 teaspoons oil
1 tablespoon butter
3 small potatoes
1 onion, thinly sliced
1 jalapeno pepper, minced
2 tomatoes, diced
1 cup of cooked chickpeas
1 / 4 teaspoon chili powder
1 teaspoon turmeric
2 teaspoons paprika
1 teaspoon sea salt
1 / 2 cup grated cheddar

Method:

Slice the potatoes thinly. When the oil in the pan is hot enough, heated over medium heat, add them in. Now potatoes are treacherous and will stick to the pot, so stir them with a wooden spoon. After a short while, when the potatoes have a ‘French fry’ aroma but are not completely cooked, add the thinly sliced onions and jalapeno, along with the butter. Turn down the heat and cover, stirring on occasion.

When the onions are softened and translucent, add the tomatoes, which should be cut into smallish cubes, along with the chickpeas, turmeric, chili powder and paprika and sea salt. Let sit and simmer on low heat for a bit. Just before serving, cover with grated cheddar, but do not blend the cheese into the mixture. Just let it melt into puddles.

Serve.

The foodie who introduced Ivan the Terrible to this dish, the Scottish rogue Robert the Scot, neglected to tell Ivan the Terrible the difference between sauté and scallope.

Subsequently, it was a secret, a dark secret kept at his court, especially in the kitchens of Ivan the Terrible. He never knew that the name of this dish, Ivan the Terrible’s Scalloped Potatoes, is not quite right. For that matter, potatoes, and tomatoes were unknown at that time in Europe. One can only suspect the courtier who wrote this recipe down …. the eponymous Robert the Scot, who flourished in the late 19th century.

Crowd-pleasing chocolate cake

As one of my favorite people in the food world says, there are times when only chocolate will do.

If your heart is broken, if you’ve had a miserable week at work, or if you have no job at all – a slice of this cake will make you feel better. Even if just for a little while.



Crowd-pleasing chocolate cake
from Australian Gourmet Traveller

125g hazelnut meal (ground hazelnuts)
½ cup + 1

Babas with lime syrup

I did now know what babas were until I saw this post on Helen’s blog, a good while ago – her beautiful citrus version immediately caught my eye, but for some reason I did not try my hand at making babas until very recently.

Discovering new desserts is always a good thing, especially when they are very tender and drenched in a lovely syrup – yum! :)

The recipe comes from here – the only change

Mushroom Oven Pancake with Chive Sauce

As promised, here is the baked mushroom pancake I served as part of a birthday dinner for a dear friend. If you like mushrooms as much as I do, you will want to try this easy pancake that can be served for brunch or a light dinner. I always enjoy pancakes and the baked versions take so little time to prepare but are just as good as their fried cousins. The chive sauce especially compliments the earthy flavour of the mushrooms and custardy eggs. I filled it out with some biscuits and a decadent dessert of Peanut Butter and Blueberry Shortbread Bars.

Mushroom Oven Pancake with Chive Sauce
Adapted from The Best Quick Breads by Beth Hensperger

For the pancake:

6 tablespoons of unsalted butter, divided
1 pound of wild mushrooms, sliced, or a combination of button mushrooms and wild mushrooms
2 shallots, minced
sea salt to taste
freshly cracked black pepper
4 large eggs
1 1/4 cups of milk
1 cup of unbleached white flour

For the chive sauce:

1/3 cup of yogurt
1/3 cup of sour cream
2 tablespoons of fresh chives, finely chopped
1 tablespoon of olive oil
1 tablespoon of Dijon mustard

In a large frying pan, melt 4 tablespoons of the butter over high heat. When hot, add the mushrooms and the shallot and saute until the mushrooms are just cooked and and start to brown. Season with salt and pepper, remove from the heat and set aside.

Grease a glass pie plate with the remaining 2 tablespoons of butter.

In a small bowl, beat the eggs until they are frothy. Add the milk and flour and beat until smooth.

Spread the sauted mushrooms over the bottom of the prepared pie plate. Pour the batter over the mushrooms and bake the pancake in a preheated 400 degree oven for roughly 25 minutes or until the pancake is firm and golden brown.

To make the chive sauce, whisk together the yogurt, sour cream, chives, olive oil and mustard in small bowl.

Serve with spoonfuls of the chive sauce.

Serves 4 - 5.

Other baked pancakes from Lisa's Vegetarian Kitchen:
Baked Whole-Wheat Strawberry and Blueberry Pancakes
Baked Strawberry Pancakes
Baked Blueberry and Peach Pancakes
Baked Coconut and Mango Pancakes

On the top of the reading stack: The National Post

Audio Accompaniment: Drive By The Necks

White chocolate and cinnamon crème brulée

I have a new toy and, according to my husband, it has turned me into a very dangerous woman. :)

One of my bosses gave me a kitchen torch as a Christmas gift after his wife read my eggnog brûlée post – how lovely is that?

I thought that using my favorite spice – which happens to be very Christmassy as well – would be a great way to use my gift for the first time; to be on the safe side, I