Popovers

Popovers are one of my favorite additions to a weekend breakfast.  These airy, eggy breads look impressive, but are fairly easy to prepare.  The one caveat is that, in my experience, investing in a real popover pan like the one pictured makes a huge difference. In an effort to avoid a single-use piece of equipment, my first popover attempts used muffin tins and yielded disappointing results. (I now use this popover pan from Chicago Metallic.)

Popovers

Makes six popovers

Ingredients

1 3/4 C half-and-half, warmed*
2 C flour**
3/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking powder
3 eggs, at room temperature
2 Tbl butter, melted
1 Tbl Dijon mustard

Method

Heat the half-and-half in a saucepan over medium heat until just warm. In a large bowl, combine flour, salt and baking powder. In a second bowl, combine the eggs, milk, butter and mustard - beat well to combine.  Add the flour mixture to the egg mixture and stir until just combined. Let batter rest at room temperature for at least 30 minutes and up to 60 minutes.

Preheat oven to 450F with a rack in the middle of the oven. Heat the empty popover pan for 5 minutes.  Carefully remove from the oven and, working quickly, spray the pan with a nonstick cooking spray and fill the cups almost to the top with batter.

Bake for 15 minutes without opening the oven door. Reduce heat to 375F and bake for another 20 to 25 minutes, or until a rich golden brown. Remove popovers from oven and pierce the sides with a sharp knife to let steam escape (to ensure they won't collapse). Serve immediately with butter.

(*You can substitute whole milk. **I've used both all-purpose and bread flour (high-gluten) with good results.)

Popovers

Popovers are one of my favorite additions to a weekend breakfast.  These airy, eggy breads look impressive, but are fairly easy to prepare.  The one caveat is that, in my experience, investing in a real popover pan like the one pictured makes a huge difference. In an effort to avoid a single-use piece of equipment, my first popover attempts used muffin tins and yielded disappointing results. (I now use this popover pan from Chicago Metallic.)

Popovers

Makes six popovers

Ingredients

1 3/4 C half-and-half, warmed*
2 C flour**
3/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking powder
3 eggs, at room temperature
2 Tbl butter, melted
1 Tbl Dijon mustard

Method

Heat the half-and-half in a saucepan over medium heat until just warm. In a large bowl, combine flour, salt and baking powder. In a second bowl, combine the eggs, milk, butter and mustard - beat well to combine.  Add the flour mixture to the egg mixture and stir until just combined. Let batter rest at room temperature for at least 30 minutes and up to 60 minutes.

Preheat oven to 450F with a rack in the middle of the oven. Heat the empty popover pan for 5 minutes.  Carefully remove from the oven and, working quickly, spray the pan with a nonstick cooking spray and fill the cups almost to the top with batter.

Bake for 15 minutes without opening the oven door. Reduce heat to 375F and bake for another 20 to 25 minutes, or until a rich golden brown. Remove popovers from oven and pierce the sides with a sharp knife to let steam escape (to ensure they won't collapse). Serve immediately with butter.

(*You can substitute whole milk. **I've used both all-purpose and bread flour (high-gluten) with good results.)

Maple and Dried Cranberry Granola

We are moving at the end of this month into the main floorof a beautiful old graystone mansion on one of Chicago’s tree-lined boulevards. It’s the kind of place that I would often enviously eye as I walked to my uninspiring, white-walled home - wishing for a bit of that old hardwood and sunshine. Four of us will be sharing the enormous space and saving on rent in the process.

As we begin to plan our move and start another cycle of security deposits, I have a renewed interest in finding inspiration in my stockpile of dry goods. While I didn’t have the proper combination of dried fruits and nuts on hand, Melissa Clark's recent olive oil granola inspired me to throw together my own version. I still stand by the Harrison House granola as my favorite, but I thought I would share this perfectly delicious, less expensive recipe with you. The lovely thing about granola is that you can add almost any type of nuts and dried fruits to the basic recipe.  Feel free to modify.

Maple and Dried Cranberry Granola

Ingredients

3 C old-fashioned rolled oats
1 C roasted sunflower seeds, hulled and salted
¼ C ground flax seed*
¾ C maple syrup
½ C extra virgin olive oil
½ C packed brown sugar
1 tsp kosher salt
½ tsp ground cinnamon
½ tsp ground cardamom
¾ C dried cranberries

Method

Preheat oven to 300F. Mix all ingredients in a large bowl, except the dried cranberries. Pour mixture onto a heavy baking sheet in an even layer and bake for 45 minutes, stirring every 10 minutes. Stir just enough to ensure the granola won’t burn, but not so much that all the delicious clumps of granola break apart (this is a matter of preference, of course).

When well-toasted and fragrant, remove from the oven and allow to cool. Mix in the dried cranberries and store in an air-tight container.

(*If you don't have ground flax seed stashed in your freezer like I do, omitting this ingredient will not dramatically change the final product.)

Apple and Almond Oatmeal Clafoutis

The Kitchn looked at make-ahead breakfasts this past week, and pointed me toward this recipe at Chocolate & Zucchini for Oatmeal Clafoutis.  I never like to eat too soon after waking up on a weekday morning, so having something quick and portable to throw in my bag saves me time and money.  This is a great recipe to make a big batch of on a weekend morning to freeze for the week.  It calls for relatively few ingredients and was in the oven before my coffee had finished brewing.  Next time, I am making a double batch.  

I made a few changes to the recipe.  I'm not a fan of raisins in most baked goods, so I omitted any dried fruit. I also don't peel fresh fruit unless there is a good reason to.  I think the apples with their peel work wonderfully here and look visually pleasing as well. For the nuts, I used about half a cup of sliced almonds.  This recipe accepts modifications and substitutions well and your final product can highlight what you have on hand.  Next time I am going to try adding some frozen berries to the mix. The clafoutis taste great either warm or cold, so these are a great breakfast option even for those without a microwave at work.

Easter Recipes

 

I'll be spending Easter with my family this weekend. I'm looking forward to seeing Neil Simon's Barefoot in the Park at our beautiful local Opera House with my mother, going for a long run on low-traffic rural roads, meeting the new baby my cousin and his wife recently added to the family, and spending time with my paternal grandparents who just returned from their winter sojourn in California. And all this will take place before Easter Sunday.  

Growing up, Easter was the big holiday that my family hosted.  We are light on culinary traditions, but the house was always full of family and well-hidden Easter baskets. Our numbers have dwindled over the years as people move away or add to their own families.  This year we are having a small group and my mother is hoping no one fusses too much over the food. She has the menu mapped out, but I may still try to sneak one or two of my favorite recipes into the spread. How does one best travel by train with a popover pan?

For those of you planning your holiday table, here are a few recipe ideas that may complement your main course.

Sides

Beet, Arugula and Goat Cheese Crostini

Boozy Fruit Salad

Broccoli and Red Onion Salad

Grape and Almond Salad

Napa Cabbage Salad

Pea and Chive Soup

Breads

Cheddar Gougères

Chive and Sour Cream Waffles

Greek Easter Bread (pictured above)

Popovers

Potato and Cheddar Biscuits

Desserts

Almond and Pear Tart

Clementine Cake

Petrie Family Applesauce Cake

Raspberry Chocolate Torte

Orange-Raspberry Scones

We celebrated Nick's birthday this weekend with a visit to the Art Institute of Chicago, a party at home with some friends, and a superb dinner at the Publican. As the weekend rounded out, fresh baked scones seemed like the ideal accompaniment to our snowy Sunday afternoon.

Orange-Raspberry Scones

Ingredients

2 C flour
2 Tbs sugar, plus more for sprinkling on top
1 Tbs baking powder
Grated zest of 1 orange
1/4 tsp salt
4 Tbs cold unsalted butter, cut into pieces
2 large eggs
1/2 C cold milk or cream
2 Tbs raspberry jam

Method

Preheat oven to 400F and line a baking sheet with a Silpat mat.

In a medium bowl combine the flour, two tablespoons of sugar, baking powder, orange zest, and salt. Rub in the butter with your hands (or cut in with a pastry cutter if you prefer) until it resembles a coarse meal.

In a second bowl whisk the eggs, milk and jam.  Add to the dry ingredients and mix into a shaggy dough.

Knead gently a few times and separate into 3 balls.  Form each into a 6-inch round (about 1-inch thick) and cut into 4 wedges.  Evenly space the wedges on the prepared baking sheet and bake for 15-20 minutes or until a golden brown crust forms.  Serve warm if possible.

The Best Granola

About one year ago I made my first batch of homemade granola using the Rancho La Puerta recipe.  The results were good and I gave away small gift bags of it around the holidays. I spent some time trying to modify the recipe to exactly suit my tastes -- but on a recent vacation to the San Juan Islands, I found that the Harrison House Bed and Breakfast had already done the work for me.  They served us the best granola I have ever tasted.

On that first morning I decided that I wasn't leaving without the recipe.  Luckily, this was an easy task thanks to the cookbook they sell, which one of our party purchased.  (They also sell their granola on their website.)

This hearty granola is heavy on the nuts, light on the grain, and has the perfect spice and sweetness.  It won a blue ribbon at the San Juan County Fair.

Harrison House Granola
Adapted from La Cucina Anna Maria

Ingredients

7 C steel cut oats
.5 C brown sugar
.5 C light olive oil
.5 tsp sea salt
.5 C almonds
.5 C pecans
.5 C cashews
.5 C raw pumpkin seeds
.5 C sesame seeds
.5 C flax seed meal
.5 C millet
.5 C oat bran
.5 C unsweetened coconut
.5 C raw sunflower seeds
.75 C honey
1 Tbl vanilla extract
2 tsp cinnamon

Method

Preheat oven to 300F

Combine all ingredients in a large bowl.  Clumps are OK.

Spread mixture on two large baking sheets, lined with silicone mats.

Bake about 30 minutes, stirring every 15 minutes, until lightly toasted.

Remove from oven and let cool on sheets, stirring periodically.  The granola will continue to cook.

Store in airtight containers when cool.

(More photos of San Juan can be found here on my flickr site.)

Matcha Pancakes

From the archives.

There's nothing like a warm pancake on a cold morning.  My father, while he doesn't cook much, has a curious natural talent for breakfast foods.  His pancakes were a common feature on weekend mornings when I was growing up and they always included fresh sliced strawberries and real maple syrup.

I find myself craving warm, butter-fried dough in the winter months. I recently shared my recipe for savory Chive & Sour Cream Waffles with you.  In keeping with this theme, here is my recipe for fluffy Matcha Pancakes.

Matcha Pancakes

Ingredients

1.5 C flour
2.5 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
3 Tbl sugar
1 Tbl matcha powder
.25 tsp ground ginger
.25 tsp ground cinnamon
1 C milk
3 eggs
4 Tbl unsalted butter, melted and cooled (plus more for greasing the pan)

Method

Whisk or sift together all dry ingredients in a medium sized bowl.
Whisk wet ingredients in another medium sized bowl.
Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and gently mix until the batter just comes together. Do not over mix or your pancakes will be flat and dense.
Let batter sit for at least 15 minutes.

Heat a pan on low-medium heat.  Melt some butter in the pan.  I used my crumpet rings to give these pancakes their uniform shape and height.  If you are doing so, be sure to grease the insides of the crumpet rings as well. (Crumpet rings are also great for cooking uniformly shaped eggs.)
Fill the crumpet rings halfway with batter.
When bubbles begin to form on the tops of the pancakes and the bottoms have nicely browned, flip them.
Cook about one more minute or until golden brown.

I mixed together some vanilla yogurt and a few pinches of matcha powder to make a complimentary topping. A small dusting of matcha powder over the pancake stack makes for a pleasing presentation. Real maple syrup or fresh fruit would also work well.

Banana Muffins

From the archives.

These golden brown muffins owe their airy crumb and glossy exterior to egg whites used in place of full eggs (it also makes them healthier too, but that's not really the point).  Serve them warm with butter or jam for a delicious breakfast or in addition to a brunch menu.

Banana Muffins
Makes about 12 muffins

Ingredients

1 C sugar
4 egg whites
1/2 C butter, softened
2 ripe bananas
1/4 C milk
2 C flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda

Method

Preheat oven to 350F and butter a muffin pan.

In a large bowl mix the butter, sugar and egg whites.

In a second bowl mash the bananas and milk together.

In a third bowl mix the flour, baking powder and baking soda.

Add the one third of the banana mixture to the butter mixture - combining gently.  Add one third of the flour mixture to the butter mixture - combining gently.  Repeat until all ingredients have been incorporated.  Do not over-mix.

Pour batter into the prepared muffin tin and bake about 40 minutes. 

Baked and Fried Stale Breads (IMBB #25)

IMBB#25 is hosted this month by An Obsession With Food.  Head over to the Is My Blog Burning? website to learn more about this and other food events.  Derrick chose the excellent theme of stale bread.  As a home bread baker and a bread addict, I tend to have a fair amount of the stuff around.  Once in a while a baguette, or more rarely some delectable levain, will end up fairly stale.  Panzanella, pain perdu, croutons, and bread pudding are all excellent and frequent uses, but for this IMBB I chose to mimic a cooking technique that I recently saw a friend in Moscow use. 

I tried both a fried and baked version.

Fried Stale Bread with Pseudo-Coddled Eggs

The moistened bread, coddled eggs, and butter created a lovely creamy texture and taste.

Serves 2

Ingredients

4 slices of stale French or Italian style bread (I used D'Amato's Home Style Filone)
1 C hot water
1 tsp salt
4 Tbl butter
4 eggs
1 Tbl shredded cheese (I used mozzarella)
1 Tbl grated Parmesan
1 tsp dried rosemary
2 Tbl greens or julienned vegetables
salt and pepper to taste.

Cut the bread into 1 inch slices.  Make a small depression in the center of each with your thumb.  Mix the hot water and salt in a bowl and dip each side of the bread slices into the water -- do not soak.  Place on a paper towel to get rid of the excess moisture.

Butter the sides without the depressions liberally and place into a frying pan over medium heat.  Break an egg into the depression of each slice.  The egg will spill over the sides.  Sprinkle on the rosemary. Cover and let cook for about 5 minutes.  In the last minute add a bit of each type of cheese to the tops.  The eggs are ready when the whites are opaque.  (You may cook them longer if you prefer more solid whites, though it is best to leave the yolks runny.)  Season to taste, top with greens or vegetables and serve warm.

Stale Bread Baked with Eggs and Tomato Chutney

Serves 2

Ingredients

4 slices of stale French or Italian style bread (I used D'Amato's Home Style Filone)
2 eggs
4 Tbl butter
2 Tbl shredded Cheddar
4 Tbl homemade tomato sauce or tomato chutney.
Salt and pepper to taste

Preheat over to 350F

Slice the bread into 1 inch sections.  Remove the very center from two of the slices.  Liberally butter one side of the intact slices.  Place buttered side down on a baking sheet, top each with one of the remaining slices, and break an egg into the holes in the top slices.

Bake for about 10 minutes, watching carefully.  When the whites are just set add the cheese and chutney to the tops of each.  Bake a further 3 or 4 minutes until toppings are warmed.  Season to taste.

English Muffins

These English muffins were one of the last yeast breads that I made in our old apartment. I used a recipe from The Old West Baking Book by Lon Walters. This is also what I used the last of my sourdough starter on, though I have learned from my readers that I had a plethora of other options.

I used my molds to get the shapes correct and to encourage tall and fluffly muffins. Be careful not to fill the molds too much, or you will get thick and cakey muffins instead of light ones.

Enjoy, of course, toasted and with plenty of butter.

Apple, Banana, and Strawberry French Toast

As you read this post I should be arriving in London to begin our journey. Today, Saturday, my mother made a delicious breakfast of french toast using apple bread that is sold at a coffee shop in Woodstock. She also added some bananas to the egg mixture and topped the stacks with fresh strawberries and whipped cream. Mmmm, this was a great meal to have as my last breakfast with them for a while. I will miss my mom and dad.

IMBB #17: tasteTea: Matcha Pancakes with Matcha Yogurt Sauce & Matcha Soda Biscuits with Matcha-Ginger Butter

A La Cuisine is hosting this month's IMBB and the theme is tasteTea. I am quite a fan of using tea in cooking and was very pleased to see this theme.

Due to the events of late, I was expecting to have to miss this IMBB and was quite disappointed. However, my lovely friend Aviva has lent me her camera for the day so I am back in the game. (Thank you Aviva!).

I became a bit over-zealous when I expected to be unable to participate and therefore have made two items. I hope this does not annoy my fellow IMBB participants.

First, I decided to make matcha pancakes with matcha yogurt sauce. I based my recipe largely on Kate Habershon's Simple Pancake Stack recipe from her cookbook Pancakes and Waffles. I tried a crumpet recipe from this book a while back with mediocre results. The results of this pancake recipe were fantastic, however.

I added matcha powder, ground ginger, and a pinch of cinnamon to Habeshon's recipe. I then cooked the pancakes in a well buttered skillet on low heat and employed crumpet rings to produce the desired height and shape.

Meanwhile I combined a dash of vanilla extract and a bit of matcha powder with plain yogurt to create the sauce. These pancakes were a welcome departure from the Saturday morning pancake routine while still being full-fledged comfort food.

For my second item I made Irish soda biscuits with matcha powder based on a Martha Stewart recipe. In addition I also made matcha and ginger butter (by simply bringing unsalted butter to room temperature, incorporating the ginger and matcha to taste and chilling in waxed paper) and used this in the place of the butter called for in the recipe.

The butter was nice. I think I will experiment more with flavored butters. However, I could take or leave this soda biscuit recipe.

I would like to thank Molly, a fabulous woman from the LTH Forums, for sending me this high quality matcha powder. It was a generous and well-timed gift!

Bonnie's Chocolate Zucchini Muffins

For much of our childhood my brother and I were members of 4-H.  If you know anything about the organization you are most likely conjuring up images of cattle, funnel cake, and horse shows right now, however we started our own little group and we were more involved in arts and crafts and service projects (the real treat was camp).  Every year we would show our products at the county fair and my mother would help me to prepare a baked good entry.  One year we came upon a superb recipe from a bed and breakfast in Wisconsin for chocolate zucchini muffins. I have not looked at a zucchini the same way since. 

Far and above simply earning a blue ribbon, the muffins were selected to represent our county at the state fair in Springfield, IL (this was quite a big deal to me at the time).  There, they received top honors and the requests for this recipe still come in a few times a year.  Thanks Bonnie, your recipe has left a lasting impression around here.

Visit the White Lace Inn and find the recipe here.

(For the muffin you see above I had to substitute grated chocolate squares for the chips.  Go with the chips if you have them around, it makes a much tastier muffin. Also, I usually forgo the nuts.)

Cheddar Biscuits

This morning I made biscuits to go with our breakfast. I sometimes forget that warm and tasty bread can be created without yeast and hours of dedication. I haven't baked bread in quite a while due to time constraints, so it was nice to pull warmed baked goods from the oven after about 10 min. of work. I have decided I should make more biscuits. They are so quick and very versatile. This morning I simply added some shredded Cheddar cheese, but in the past I have experimented with dried herbs, other cheeses, and jams. I based these biscuits on this recipe. I used milk in place of the heavy cream and I replaced 1/3 cup of the all-purpose flour with semolina flour. I added a 1/3 cup of shredded Cheddar to the dry ingredients before adding the milk. Also, a food processor is fairly unnecessary, hands work just fine and there is less to clean in the end.

We split our biscuits and stuffed them with a thin slice of Cheddar and a bit of fried egg. Some soft goat cheese is also tasty as a spread or the biscuits can be eaten plain.

These don't keep that well, so make just enough to be consumed within a few hours or a day. Ideally, eat them warm right out of the oven.

Crumpets

My mother gave me a sweet little cookbook when I was home a few weekends ago entitled Pancakes and Waffles by Kate Habershon. In thanks I took her waffle iron to begin experimenting.

This morning, in order to coax myself out of bed, I decided to make crumpets using Habershon's recipe. I have made crumpets in the past using various recipes which have produced crumpets with a varying degree of integrity. While this is not my favorite recipe, it did make a perfectly acceptable crumpet.

Crumpets are best warm, right off the griddle, and rubbed with butter so it fills the tiny pores. However, one of the many lovely things about crumpets is that they can be nicely revived in a toaster to enjoy at a later time as well.

Crépes

While at Renn Fayre this past weekend I had the opportunity to eat some of the crépes that the French department makes as a fundraiser.  They have a nice operation with tasty filling choices and fancy crépe makers. 

I hadn't made crépes myself in about 2 years, but I was inspired to make some for dinner last night.  Mine aren't nearly as light and thin, but they were tasty.  Here is the batter recipe that I use:

Crépe Batter

(Makes fifteen, but the recipe can be easily multiplied to the desired amount)

In a saucepan melt 1 C milk, 2 tbl butter, a pinch of sea salt, and 1/4 tea of sugar.  Whisk until the butter is liquefied and remove from heat.  Allow to cool slightly, but keep whisking it every few seconds or so to keep it smooth and skinless.  After a few minutes add 1/4 C of beer. ( I used New Glarus Uff-Da Bock.)

On the counter or in a bowl add a generous 3/4 C of unbleached all-purpose flour.  Make a well in the center of the flour and add 1 large egg (or 2 smaller eggs) and 1/4 Tbl of a fruity olive oil or a plain vegetable oil.  Combine the egg and the oil and begin to incorporate the flour until you have a coarse dough.

Add the milk/beer mixture to the dough and combine with a whisk until smooth.  This will take some time, the goal is to work all of the coarse dough into the milk mixture.

Heat a pan with a nice gradual lip (helps to flip the crépes) over medium to medium-high heat.  (The first crépe will likely be lousy, the temperature has to be just right, adjust your burner accordingly.)  Once evenly heated, coat the pan with butter and add about an 1/8 C of batter to the pan.  Do this quickly and begin to move the batter around in the batter to coat the bottom. 

Let cook about a minute and a half on each side.  When the crépe is ready to flip you will notice the edges turning golden and pulling away from the sides and the center looking dry rather than wet.  Work your magic flipping the crépe or turn it manually, but do so gently.  Now add any fillings and cook until the second side is done.

For fillings we used:

Granny smith apple and brie

Spinach and dill havarti

Spinach and morel & leek jack cheese

Bananas and sugar

While the ordinary jam is nice, the combinations are endless so why not be creative.

Sage, Pine Nut, and Pecorino Scones

I really wanted to bake something this morning, but it is so nice out that I couldn't bring myself to devote a lot of time to it. I hadn't made scones in a long time and they seemed to be the perfect midmorning baking event for me.

I ended up throwing together some delicous scones. I am impressed. Here is the recipe:

Sage, Pine Nut, and Pecorino Scones

Preheat oven to 400F

In a large bowl combine 1 3/4 C unbleached all-purpose flour, 3 teaspoons baking powder, and 2 tablespoons sugar.

Work in 5 tablespoons unsalted butter with your hands until you have a coarse meal.

Then incorporate 2 tablespoons pine nuts, 3 tablespoons grated pecorino, and 1 and a half tablespoons coarsely chopped fresh sage.

In another bowl mix 1/2 cup milk and 1 tablespoon prepared pesto.

Make a well in the center of the flour mixture and add the milk/pesto.

Combine all into a sticky dough, do not over mix. When just coming together knead a few times with lightly floured hands.

Press the mixture into the bottom of the large bowl you are working in to form a smooth circle under an inch thick and cut into 8 equal triangles (as you would cut a pie).

Carefully transfer these pieces to a baking sheet lined with a silpat mat or parchment paper, brush the tops lightly with water, and let rest for 5-10 minutes.

Bake for about fifteen minutes or until the tops are turn golden brown. Cool on a wire rack.

These turned out so well I can hardly believe it. Of course, you can be creative and add whatever extras you please. I love savory fillings with a sweet dough. Serve warm with butter.

Cranberry Vanilla Almond Biscotti

I wanted to bake a semolina loaf tonight, but realized late in the evening that I was out of yeast. . .
Instead, I decided to make Cranberry, Vanilla, Almond Biscotti. I made biscotti for the first time about 6 months ago and I am still amazed how easy it is.

Craberry Vanilla Almond Biscotti

I based this recipe on Martha Stewart's Pecan Cranberry Biscotti Recipe.
Here is the recipe with my modifications:

Preheat oven to 350F

In one large bowl combine 2 and 1/2 C unbleached all-purpose flour, 1 tsp baking powder, a pinch of salt, and 1 and 1/4 C sugar.

In a second bowl whisk 4 eggs and 1 and 1/2 tsp vanilla.

Combine all and mix until a dough begins to form.

Add 1 C dried cranberries and a 1/2 C slivered almonds. Stir to combine.

Once the dough begins to smooth out, use floured hands to further incorporate the dry ingredients.

Form into a log (about 12 inches long, 4 inches wide, and 1 - 1 and 1/2 inches thick).

Dust with sugar.

Bake on a prepared baking sheet for 25-30 minutes or until golden brown.

Remove from oven and allow to cool (this allows it to firm up before cutting).

Reduce heat to 285F

With a serrated knife cut short-ways into 1 inch pieces.

Return the pieces on their fat side to the baking sheet and bake for 20 min or until golden brown.

Remove from oven and flip each biscotti piece over and return to the oven for another 20 min.

Remove from oven and allow the pieces to cool on a wire rack.

Place in an airtight container.

Biscotti keeps for quite a long time. It will become harder, but all the better for dipping in coffee. Keeping the same basic recipe, other ingredients can be substituted for the cranberries and almonds. I've tried chocolate pieces and walnuts or lemon zest and almond before with success. Also, once baked the biscotti is easy to dip in melted chocolate.

banana muffins (IMBB13)

John and I went to Trader Joe's this morning and bought $lots$ of delicious stuff. Upon our return home some major kitchen reorganization was in order. While cleaning out our freezer we noticed a bulk of frozen over-ripe bananas. I used Clotide's Banana Pecan Muffin recipe---with 2 little changes. I omitted the pecans because I didn't have any on hand and I used 4 egg whites instead of regular eggs because I had some left over that needed to be used up.

This yielded a light and airy interior that I was quite pleased with.