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The healthy morning glory muffins

by Eva on April 19, 2013

Once someone told me, if you have nothing to say at all, talk about the weather. Well I have a bucket load to talk about but the weather is the most exciting thing right now. It’s like summer in Germany but in the South we call it spring. I am still not used to it and it feels weird especially if I talk to my family because they just stopped wearing boots a couple of days ago. And it is awesome at the same time, how nice is it to sit outside at night, chatting with neighbors and having a beer? We have the windows wide open all day and my lab Lily is sleeping outside in the sun, just coming in to cool down from time to time.

After all the renovation, moving and getting settled, we finally are ready to enjoy our new city. I am still feeling like a stranger in a strange town but getting to know what Atlanta has to offer, will hopefully help me to feel more like home. We started to get our bikes ready, that means I bought some spare parts and an air-pump and Mr. F is going to fix everything, division of work is very necessary in life.

Back in Germany our Sunday morning bicycle tours were legendary. We would get up as early as possible without alarm clock, jump in our sport clothes, pack something for a later breakfast and we were out and about. Without aiming for a target, we left our neighborhood, when the city, passing by fields and meadows until hunger struck and we found a nice place for an impromptu breakfast.The healthy morning glory muffins would be something we would pull out of our backpacks. Just filling enough and with loads of energy. Coffee out of a thermos jug completed the breakfast. And after a short break we heated home again, ready for shower and lunch with our family. What a great way to start a Sunday! I am looking forward to get on my bike again and explore Atlanta in the morning hours while most of the city is still sleeping.

The healthy morning glory muffins

ingredients

100 g / 3.5 oz. old fashioned oats (1 cup)
100 g / 3.5 oz. whole wheat flour (¾ cup)
150 g / 5.3 oz. all-purpose flour (1 ¼ cups)
2 tsp. baking powder
½ tsp. fine sea salt
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
150 ml / 2/3 cup milk (2%)
60 ml / ¼ cup vegetable oil (I used walnut oil)
100g /3.5 oz. honey (70 ml / 1/3 cup)
50 g / 1.8 oz. light brown sugar (¼ cup)
2 large eggs
¾ Tbsp. orange zest (use organic if available)
100 g / 3.5 oz. grated carrots (from about 2 midsize carrots, again organic so I can skip the peeling)

instructions

Preheat your oven to 190 C/ 375 F and line your muffin tin with paper liners.
In a medium bowl add flours, oats, salt, baking powder and cinnamon (yes all dry ingredients beside sugar please) and stir.
In a large bowl add milk, oil, honey, sugar, eggs and mix well, a little stirring with a rubber spatula is well enough.
Add orange zest and grated carrots and stir again.
Add dry ingredients and stir just until incorporated.
Scoop into muffin cups and bake for 18 to 20 minutes.
If you like to add a glaze:
Heat 3 Tbsp. orange marmalade (microwave oven works great) to liquefy. Brush on top of cooled muffins. Enjoy!

{ 3 comments }

sunshine bars

by Eva on April 20, 2012

All this started with ordinary lemon bars, I was eager to create my own recipe. Here in my casa we love them and after trying a lot of recipes and thinking: good… but… too sweet, too tart, too thin. And don’t even make me start with the crust! Just not the real deal. So I started to tweak every time a little bit here and there. I took the crust from one recipe and mixed it with another and this went on and on since many months. At the end I have to admit, I never created the “perfect” lemon bars and any way isn’t perfect very boring?

Once I used a little bit orange juice because I was running out of lemons, I think this was the beginning, there I added ingredients which don’t really belong in there. More orange juice and some flour which I didn’t had in the beginning. The last addition in my long-term experiment was cream cheese, I started with too much. The cream cheese was not invited to this party to take over and it shouldn’t come out like a cheese cake with citrus flavor.

So here we go nearly perfect but not boring at all and not lemon bars anymore. Although the main citrus fruit season is during the colder month, this bars are definitely great for the outdoors like garden parties and picnics. They bring a little sunshine to your plate, you got the hint?

Some notes: Make sure the cream cheese is very soft or you end up with a flaky batter, a few seconds in the microwave oven will help. A mixer produces air bubbles, which rise to the surface and makes it uneven and wavy, that’s why I use a wire whisk. I save dirty dishes and use the same bowl for the crust and the topping, just a whip with a paper towel. I use Valencia oranges (also called summer navels) sweet, very juicy and in season right now. And as always if you use the peel of a citrus fruit, try to buy organic.

sunshine bars

for the crust

ingredients:

110 g / 1 stick unsalted butter, melted

65 g / 1/3 cup sugar

1/4 tsp salt

150 g / 1 1/4 cup all purpose flour

instructions:

Preheat your oven to 180 C / 355 F and line a 18 x 28 cm / 11 x 7 inch baking pan with parchment paper.

In a large bowl stir melted butter, sugar and salt with a (wooden) spoon. Add flour and continue stirring until everything comes together. With your fingers press the batter into the baking pan and bake for 20 minutes until golden brown. Remove from the oven and reduce the oven temperature to 160 C / 320 F.

Meanwhile make the topping

ingredients:

3 large eggs

265 g / 1 1/3 cups sugar

50 ml / 3 Tbsp + 1 tsp lemon juice (from 1 lemon)

100 ml / 1/3 cup + 1.5 Tbsp orange juice (from 1 1/2 orange)

1 1/2 tsp grated orange peel (only the orange part of the skin)

110 g / 4 oz. softened cream cheese (half package)

5 Tbsp all purpose flour

instructions:

In a large mixing bowl mix eggs and sugar with a wire whisk, add the remaining ingredients and continue whisking. You get a very runny mixture, don’t worry. Pour over the baked crust and bake for 25 to 30 minutes (160 C / 320 F). The center might be a little soft but not liquid anymore. Let cool on a oven rack before removing from the pan, cut into bars and sprinkle with powder sugar if you like.

{ 1 comment }

orangey sweet bread

by Eva on March 29, 2012

Everyone around here love this orangey sweet bread but I have to admit, for no reason I make this recipe only from time to time, mostly because I got buttermilk around that has to be used up. And this is exactly why I made it last weekend and since then I am suffering from a creative block. I got the recipe ready for you, all the pictures and can’t force myself for some more words. Of course there are all the good reasons I should mention why you should try this and what’s so good about it… So I thought we should get filled in by the one who knows best: the orangey sweet bread itself, further mentioned just as “OSB”. Read the interview:

me: How are you?

OSB: Peachy!

me: How would you describe yourself in three words?

OSB: Three words? Adventurous? Creative and loyal. Let’s say I would be the unloved child of snow white and dopey the dwarf. I am just kidding…

me: Tell us about yourself and about your strengths and weaknesses.

OSB: Well I think I am underrated by many people, they stop thinking about me after their breakfast. But I can do more than that. I can fulfill your sweetest dreams! I am very experienced in french toast, bread pudding or sweet panzanella. It concerns me that some guys want to limit me to their breakfast. Weaknesses are obviously, don’t put salami on me and I am not following the whole grain movement.

me: What is your dream car?

OSB: Like the vast majority: ice cream truck.

me: Tell me about your hobbies and interests, outside of work.

OSB: I tried some water sports, but I hate to get soaking wet and never found the right bikini. I am traveling well, did you ever tried to eat a cinnamon roll in your car? Frosting everywhere! I hate to gossip about my colleagues but I am the smart way. Oh and I am reading a lot.

me: What is the latest book you have read?

OSB: The baking oven manual, nerve-racking stuff.

me: What is the most embarrassing thing in your bedroom?

OSB: The question should be who… it’s the clover honey bear, he sticks to me like… glue. He has a crush on me and you have to admit we match perfectly, he gives me the orange peel effect, you know what I mean.

me: If you had only six months left to live, what would you do with the time?

OSB: That’s beyond my imagination. Sometimes they slice me up and freeze me for a couple of month. It’s like time traveling, I go to sleep in winter and wake up it’s suddenly spring. Always freaks me out, when they do that. Properly handled I can survive up to one week thanks to the good butter in me. You know the drill, keep me airtight and I am a joy for everyone after a warm up in the toaster.

me: Explain a time you went above and beyond your duty at a certain position.

OSB: When they forgot to freeze me in time and let me go stale… I toss myself (editor’s note: cubed orangey sweet bread) in melted butter, roast for some minutes in the oven and jump in a bowl of fruit salad. Who else would do that for you?

me: What is your favorite color?

OSB: Certainly not green, it clashes with my skin tone. It’s raspberry jam red.

me: If aliens landed in front of you and offered you any position on their planet, what would this be?

OSB: Sometimes I dream big: the secretary of food.

me: If you were a type of food, what type of food would you be?

OSB: I am dreaming about becoming a sweet lasagna, I am in training for this position.

me: What would I find in your refrigerator right now?

OSB: Iced latte.

me: Thank you for talking with me.

OSB: I can’t believe I left my cozy bread box for this crappy interview. By the way things are living in there, green and fluffy.

orangey sweet bread

You need a loaf pan approx. 23 cm / 9 x 5 inch. A stand mixer makes your life so much easier if you are handling yeast doughs but if you are a purist use your hand and add more flour that it won’t stick.

600 g / 21.4 oz. (about 5 cups) all purpose flour (unbleached)

100 g / 1/2 cup sugar

1 tsp salt

3 tsp active dry yeast

400 ml / 1 3/4 cups buttermilk

100 g / 7 tbsp melted and cooled unsalted butter

1 egg

1 egg yolk

15 g / 2.5 tsp orange zest (approx. 1 orange)

1 tsp vanilla extract

Make sure all ingredients are at room temperature. Put everything in the mixing bowl of your stand mixer with a hook attachment and knead for 3 to 4 minutes but start slowly you don’t want the flour all over your kitchen. The dough should be sticky (at the bottom) but clears up the sides of the bowl, add more flour or buttermilk if necessary. Cover with plastic wrap or a clean kitchen towel and let rise for 45 minutes.

Prepare you loaf pan, grease or use parchment paper. Carefully punch down the dough and dump it into the loaf pan. Cover and let rise for further 30 minutes.

Preheat your oven to 175 C / 350 F and bake for 1 hour. Let cool for 5 minutes before you remove the bread from the pan, put on a rack and let cool completely before slicing.

{ 4 comments }

flan de naranja

by Eva on January 23, 2011

Lazy on a Sunday afternoon. We spend nearly the whole day at home, cozy not far away from the couch and nice food on the hand. Can it be any better than today? Outside shivering -7 C / 20 F with grey clouds, inside cloudy sofa cushion and coziness. And of course NFL playoffs are on. You may not believe it but that was not our plan for today. Actually we left the house early for doing some workout but found our gym closed, we were to early. Ok I am not going to lie to you guys, we would had to wait 10 minutes, thought about that for a second and headed home for a big breakfast with the promise to make some sport in the afternoon. That didn’t happen as we know now.

I got a big pot of hearty soup in the refrigerator, waiting to be reheated. The only thing missing was the dessert. That didn’t took me long and I found this flan de naranja in my Casa Moro cookbook. Oranges are in season and taste great. This is an effortless, easy recipe but it took 1.5 hours in the oven and 30 minutes outside in the snow, totally worth the waiting.

Casa Moro is the second cookbook from Samantha and Samuel Clark, owner of the famous Moro restaurant in London, UK. They merge the taste of Eastern Mediterranean, Spain and North Africa in an easy and uncomplicated way.

This recipe calls for caster sugar, this is a very fine sugar used in Britain, it is called superfine sugar in the USA. If you don’t have any on hand, use granulated sugar instead but not powdered (confectioners) sugar because it usually contains cornstarch to keep it from clumping.
A bain-marie is also called water bath or double-boiler, a bigger container filled with water holds the ramekins (in this case) to heat them gentle and prevent them from burning.

flan de naranja

spanish orange flan
adapted from Casa Moro: the second cookbook from Samantha and Samuel Clark

6 large egg yolks (organic or free range preferred)
60 g caster sugar
300 ml freshly squeezed orange juice

Preheat the oven to 120 C / 250 F

Whisk the egg yolks with the sugar until thick light and fluffy. Gradually add the orange juice whisking all the time making sure you scrape all the whisked egg yolk from the sides and bottom of the bowl.
Pour into four ramekins and place them in a bain-marie: make sure the water in the bain-marie is cold to start with and comes up to the level of the top of the orange/egg mixture. Bake for 1.5 hours.
The top will become a nice caramel color and the flan, which only just sets will be deliciously creamy and orangey with a clean flavor. Refrigerate before serving.

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orangettes

by Eva on December 20, 2010

I know many of you are already done with Christmas cookies baking, but make an exception for this guys. No I am not insane these are not chocolate covered french fries. Although I am not sure about this one…?

How I get the idea of making this goodies? Well, long story short: we got adopted by a lovely big family even before we moved to Kansas City. This is one of the best things that can happen to you if you are stranger in a foreign country. Our new Grandma had been in Germany many many years ago and is still in love with this orangettes which she had eaten there. So I made them for her and yes they are all gone now, I just kept a handful of them because they sticked to my plate, where I put them to let the chocolate get firm. Lessons learned: let chocolate get dry on parchment paper. Orangettes are a lovely present for Christmas, you can keep them airtight for many days.

I don’t want to fool you they are not very simple or easy to make and it will take some time. But they are also not very difficult and totally worth the effort! I would not recommend to double this recipe, 4 to 5 oranges are quite ok to handle more could be tough.
They taste sweet and bitter, citrusy and chocolaty. You can’t go wrong with chocolate and orange. The other good thing is the “leftover” orange fruit which is great for marmalade or crepes suzette.

orangettes

use organic oranges, they are not waxed and sprayed with pesticides

5 oranges
280 g / 1 1/4 cups sugar
400 ml / 1 1/2 cups water and more for blanching
200 g / 7 oz. semisweet or other dark chocolate

about 1/2 cup mix of sugar and powdered sugar to cover after cooking (optional)

Cut the orange skins in quarters, peel them. First cut off the edges of the peel and then cut into thin slices.

In a medium size saucepan bring water to boil and add the orange peel slices. Blanch for about 5 minutes and then rinse and repeat to blanch a second time, use fresh water. This is necessary to remove the bitterness of the orange peel.
After rinsing again bring 400 ml / 1 1/2 cup of water and sugar to simmer and make a syrup. Add the peel slices, make sure they are all covered with the syrup, if not add some water and sugar. Cover with a lit and let simmer for an hour. Stir occasionally.

Remove the peels from the syrup and let cool on a rack or a baking sheet lined with parchment paper or kitchen paper towels. Try to separate them. Then they are half way dried toss them in the sugar mixture, this prevents them to stick together.

Make sure the chocolate is shopped into similar pieces, so it can melt evenly. Avoid contact with water. Melt the chocolate in a double boiler. Dip the candied orange peels into the chocolate, shake off excess and let them dry on a piece of parchment paper.

Store in an airtight container.

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The healthy morning glory muffins