TBB - Cran-Apple Upside Down Cake

Although I'm super late with this post, I couldn't get myself to not blog about it. It will be a brief post though.

Hubby doesn't like sour things. So I knew he wouldn't like the fresh cranberries in this recipe, so I split up the cake in two: one half with cranberries for yours truly, and one half with thinly sliced Gala apples.

Cranberry-Apple Upside Down Cake. Why choose when you can have both? :o)

TBB - Swedish Apricot Walnut Bread

I was excited about baking a yeast recipe this week. The Swedish Apricot Walnut Bread needed a few tweaks to suit my taste and allergies, but turned out great in the end!

I loved the soft, light and airy crumb of this bread. The sweetness from the dried fruit was just the right amount!

ABC - Orange, Date & Almond Biscotti

I love biscotti and lucky for us, so does Christina Marsigliese. Her blog, Scientifically Sweet, contains many biscotti recipes. The one that caught my eye immediately was the Orange, Date & Almond Biscotti, probably because my favorite biscotti is one that a close friend shared with me, many years ago. It's a Cranberry, Almond and Anise Seed biscotti.

Delicious cup-a-tea with a biscotti. Notice the scalloped top. I explain later how I did that :o)

If you'd like to join the ABC bakers in their monthly baking adventures, please go to the ABC blog for more information.

TBB - Golden Orange Panettone sans Chocolate Sauce

I was really looking forward to this week's challenge for Rose's Alpha Bakers. The Golden Orange Panettone, our first "bread" recipe of the bake-along. I baked my first Panettone a few years ago with Jenn, blogger behind Knitty Baker and also one of Rose's Alpha Bakers. We baked it together (virtually). It turned out really good. You can find my blog post and recipe here.

A couple weeks ago, Marie, our fearless group leader, referred to me as Miss I-Never-Met-a-Recipe-I-Couldn't-Change Hanaa. And so this week too, I didn't want to disappoint:

• I "Hanaa-tized" the Panettone by applying a Moroccan twist. I added orange blossom water and 1 tsp crushed anise seeds. There's a sweet Moroccan roll called Krachel which has this flavor profile, and I really like it.
• Since my dried fruit was very plump already, I skipped the soaking step, and used 1 Tbsp of orange blossom water to replace the "drained liquid" from the raisins.
• Instead of candied orange peel, I used the zest of 2 oranges and 75 grams of dried cranberries. I also increased the amount of golden raising to 50 grams.
• I also ended up baking the Panettone in a tube pan which reduced the baking time and the risk of the bread sinking after baking. I just could not afford any chances to have this bread fail after working on it for 5 days.
• Some shortcuts were taken where necessary and applicable :o)

Both hubby and I were very pleased with the end result:

Panettone with golden raisins, dried cranberries, orange zest and anise seeds.

TBB - English Dried Fruit Cake

This is my inaugural recipe for a new bake along called Rose's Alpha Bakers. We will be baking our way through The Baking Bible by the queen of baking, Rose Levy Beranbaum. I had the honor and pleasure to be one of the recipe testers for the book. Rose was kind enough to mention us by name in the acknowledgement section of her book, which is totally awesome!!!

Unfortunately I missed last week's official inaugural recipe which was the Kouign Amann. You can read all about the other bakers' adventures in Marie's round-up post. But I won't let that spoil the fun for this week's English Dried Fruit Cake. I don't recall ever eating fruit cake. It's usually too dense for my liking or doused with some sort of alcohol. And since not a lot of people speak kindly of said cake, I didn't miss eating it or bother baking it.

And then Rose developed this fruit cake recipe. I was immediately intrigued by the unusual batter preparation technique which has you cook some of the ingredients on the stove.

Does that look like wet sand?

One bonus: no mixer required. Everything is done by hand. It's also easy and quick to make. I was heating up leftovers for dinner while whipping up the batter for this cake. One more thing... Even with all my substitutions and not using any of the recommended cake pans, it turned out awesome!

English Dried Fruit cake baked in my new vintage Bundt pan :o)

ABC - Cranberry-Pumpkin Rolls

I can't help but love Fall. The changing of the colors around us, brisk weather but not too cold (except for late last week where the temps dipped below freezing, brrr), and of course baking with apples, pumpkins and lots of spices. Last month's Cinnamon-Apple Twist Bread was a big hit with the ABC bakers. This month we moved on to another Fall favorite: pumpkin. Although pumpkin played a big role in these dinner rolls, let's not underestimate the other side kicks: craisins (and for some of us, golden raisins too), and lots of warm spices like cinnamon, ginger and cloves. I'm talking about this month's Cranberry-Pumpkin Rolls. They're soooooo good! Thanks to a tip from my ABC buddy, Paula, I doubled the spices in the recipe, which transformed these dinner rolls into something even more fabulous.

They may look humble but these babies pack a big flavor punch!

This is making me feel a bit sentimental. All (well, most) King Arthur Flour recipes have been so good to us these past two years. But, as the song goes, "every new beginning comes from another beginning's end". I'm sure this won't be our last time baking KAF recipes in our kitchens. But for right now, I won't say goodbye yet. I'm very much looking forward to making next month's Chocolate Eclair recipe. Are you?

With that, I have an announcement to make. Starting in January 2015, we will be baking recipes from the wonderful blog, Scientifically Sweet, written by food scientist Christina Marsigliese. Her recipes are awesome, and I really dig her scientific approach to baking (yes, I'm a nerd, if you didn't know already).

If you'd like to join the ABC bakers in their monthly baking adventures, please go to the ABC blog for more information.

ABC - Tuscan Coffeecake

Two mini Tuscan Coffeecakes

What's a Tuscan Coffeecake, you ask? This fruit and nut studded coffeecake/bread really stood out when I was looking for a King Arthur Flour recipe for our ABC February challenge. Although I don't have European-style flour (and assumed that most of you wouldn't), the recipe says that you can use all purpose flour as well, so it was a GO :) I also find the KAF blog posts very helpful. You can find a lot of step-by-step picture there.

If you'd like to join the ABC bakers in their monthly baking adventures, please go to the ABC blog for more information.

ABC - No-Knead Chocolate Cherry Pecan Bread

Chocolate Cherry Berry No-Knead Bread

This month's recipe for the ABC bakers was the ever-so-popular No-Knead bread. The King Arthur Flour recipe we made was a Chocolate Cherry Pecan bread. I made some changes by using mini chocolate chips and instead of just dried cherries, I used a mix of dried cherries and other berries (cranberries, blueberries and strawberries). Since I can't eat pecans, I simply omitted them. I briefly considered substituting almonds and although I love almonds, I'm not too crazy about them in bread because they get a bit soggy.

There may have been a bit of confusion around this KAF recipe. The recipe on their site differed slightly from the recipe on their blog. They have a pretty good explanation as to why that is. I decided to go with the recipe in the blog because I liked the step-by-step pictures :o)

If you'd like to join the ABC bakers in their monthly baking adventures, please go to the ABC blog for more information.

ABC - Panettone Muffins

Happy New Year everyone!

Panettone Muffins

I hope everyone is ready for another year of ABC. This year is different in that we're not baking from a book, but rather from the King Arthur Flour website. The first recipe this year is the Panettone Muffins. I've only had Panettone once when my friend Jenn (Knitty Baker) and I decided to do a virtual bake-together. I liked it a lot so when I saw this muffin variety on the KAF website, I knew it had to be on the ABC recipe list.

If you'd like to bake along with ABC, please email me at HanaasKitchen [at] live [dot] com.

ABC - Cranberry Orange Scones

Cranberry Orange Scone with Orange Glaze

This month's ABC project is: scones! As you know, we're baking from The Weekend Baker. The author, Abby Dodge, gave us several flavor options: plain, chocolate chips, dried fruit, etc. I love dried cranberries and when paired with orange zest, any baked good turns into a delicacy, in my opinion. These Cranberry Orange Scones sure fell into that category. They were a big hit!

If you would like to join the ABC baking club, please email me at HanaasKitchen [at] live [dot] com. You can find more info about our baking club on the ABC blog.

Panettone

A few weeks ago, my friend Jenn of Knitty Baker, and I decided to do a little baking project together. We came up with the idea to make Panettone, an Italian yeast bread, that's studded with dried fruit and is lightly sweetened. Neither one of us had made Panettone before, so we were pretty excited about it. Jenn chose a recipe from AllRecipes.com. It had high ratings and the recipe had weight measurements. Perfect!

Panettone baked in a Bundt cake! Que bella :o)

ABC - Eggnog Pound Cake with Crystal Rum Glaze

This is the last ABC recipe from Flo Braker's "Baking for all Occasions": Eggnog Pound Cake with Crystal Rum Glaze. This cake is on the cover of the book and looks absolutely lovely. When I read it had eggnog in it, I was intrigued. I've never had eggnog before so to the store I went, and I picked up a quart of Kemps Golden Eggnog. It smells great, very vanilla-y. I had a sip but didn't really like it much. I was hoping it would give a nice aroma to the cake and it did. For the Rum Glaze, I subbed orange juice for the rum which worked great!

I have really enjoyed baking from Flo's book and I have no doubt I will be going back to it and make several recipes again and again, as well as try new ones. If you haven't seen this book yet, definitely check it out. I love the variety of recipes in it, Flo's well-written instructions, and an ingredients list in both volume and weight measurements. A big thanks to Flo Braker for writing such a wonderful baking book!

 Starting in January 2012, we will start baking from The Weekend Baker by Abby Dodge. If you have this book, please feel free to join us by emailing me at HanaasKitchen [at] live [dot] com.

SMS - Cranberry and Almond (and Flax Seed) Biscotti

First, I'm saddened by the fact that my home country lost the World Cup today - in sympathy, I colored this announcement Orange... :o(

Ok, back to baking business... This week's Sweet Melissa Sundays recipe was chosen by Tracey of Made by Tray-Tray. She selected Sour Cherry and Almond Biscotti, however, I turned them into Cranberry and Almond Biscotti. I already have a favorite Cranberry and Almond Biscotti recipe in my repertoire but I was curious how Melissa's recipe would compare. Although hers are pretty tasty too, they didn't trump my recipe. Regardless of that, a big thanks to Tracey for such a great pick and a chance to experiment with a new biscotti recipe.

Yummy! Cranberry Almond and Flax Seed biscotti.

Click on the link below to continue reading the rest of this post...

SMS - Caramel Apple-Cranberry Tart

This week's Sweet Melissa Sundays recipe was chosen by Susan of Baking with Susan. She picked the Double-Crusted Apple Pie, however, I decided to bake a tart instead. No messing around with 2 layers of pie dough and consequently less calories. To add more flavor to the apple filling, I added orange zest, dried cranberries, and cinnamon.

Apricot Cranberry Oatmeal Muffins

I was in the mood for something “healthy” to snack on so I decided to make these oatmeal muffins. The last time I made these muffins, I used dried apricots and almonds. This time around I substituted sweetened dried cranberries for the almonds to make the muffin fruitier. The original recipe uses the oats as-is which is what I did when I first made them. I wanted to try something new and decided to grind them finely, to give the muffin a less coarse texture.

These muffins are not overly sweet (which I enjoy). They are wholesome and delicious. Wrap the muffins in a couple layers of plastic wrap and freeze them, to enjoy them later. Just take however many you need from the freezer, pop them in the microwave for a few seconds and you’ll have a great, fresh muffin.

Apricot Cranberry Oatmeal Muffins

Recipe adapted from Blue Ribbon Baking by Marjorie Johnson

Ingredients:

1 cup all-purpose flour

1 tsp baking powder

½ tsp baking soda

½ tsp salt

1 cup old-fashioned oats, ground (I used a spice grinder)

1 cup buttermilk

½ cup dark brown sugar

1 egg

½ cup dried apricots, chopped (cut into small pieces with scissors)

½ cup sweetened dried cranberries

2 tsp turbinado sugar (natural raw sugar) for decoration, optional

Instructions:

• Preheat oven to 375 F.
• Line a 12-muffin pan with paper cups.
• In a medium bowl, combine ground oats and buttermilk. Let sit while getting other ingredients ready.
• Combine the apricots and cranberries in a bowl and cover with hot water to plump them up. Set aside.
• In a small bowl, sift flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Set aside.
• Add brown sugar and egg to the oats and buttermilk mixture. Whisk until smooth.
• Drain the apricots and cranberries. Add to batter and stir to combine.
• Add flour mixture to the batter and stir to combine for about 10 seconds. Do not over mix.
• Using an ice cream scoop, fill each muffin cup about ¾ full.
• Sprinkle a little turbinado sugar on each muffin.
• Bake for 19-24 minutes or until a skewer inserted in center of muffin comes out clean.

Yields: 12 muffins.

Happy Baking!