Apple Almond Streusel Mini Muffins

I made these for a Halloween treat for my office. They disappeared from the kitchen almost immediately. Here we have apple almond streusel mini muffins!



The original recipe calls for Amaretto which usually I'm all for, but I didn't have any on hand. Someone must have drank it all...hmm... I've noted the substitution below! Also I suggest increasing the streusel topping, I wish I'd had more, so I've bumped it up in the recipe below. It's hard to have too much crumb topping. :o)

Apple Almond Streusel Mini Muffins
Adapted from ButterYum

For the streusel topping

3 tablespoons all-purpose flour

3 tablespoons brown sugar

1/4 teaspoon plus a pinch extra ground cinnamon

3 tablespoons sliced or finely chopped almonds

3 tablespoons butter, chilled

For the muffins

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

3/4 cup sugar

2 ounces cream cheese

4 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened

1/4 - 1/2 teaspoon almond extract OR 2 tablespoons amaretto (almond liqueur)

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 large egg

1/2 cup sour cream

1/4 cup milk

3/4 cup finely chopped apple apples

1 tablespoon all-purpose flour

Make the streusel topping

1. In a small bowl, combine flour, brown sugar, cinnamon and almonds.
2. Cut in the butter using a pastry cutter, fork or by hand until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs.
3. Place in fridge until ready to use.

Make the muffins

1.  Preheat to 350F and line muffin pan with paper liners. 
2. In a small bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, salt, and baking soda and set aside.
3. In a second small bowl, combine apples and 1 tablespoon flour and also set aside for later.
4. In a third small bowl, combine sour cream and milk and set aside for later.
5. In a large bowl, cream together the cream cheese and butter.
6. Add the sugar and beat until fluffy. 
7. Add almond extract (or Amaretto), vanilla extract, and egg and beat until well blended. 
8. With the mixer on slow, add 1/3 of the flour mixture, then 1/2 of the sour cream mixture, the another 1/3 of the flour flour, then the remaining 1/2 sour cream, and finally the remaining 1/3 flour mixture. 
9. Stir in apples and spoon into prepared pan.
10. Go get your streusel topping and sprinkle it generously on top of the unbaked muffins.
11. Bake for 10 - 12 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
12. Cool in pan on wire rack for 15 minutes, then remove from pan and cool completely.

Week Night Cherry Almond Macarons

Macaron success! I've made French macarons with varying degrees of success, and I think this time may have been the most successful so far. Around the holidays I bought Martha Stewart's holiday cookie magazine in line at the grocery store, specifically for the macaron recipe, since the others I'd tried so far had mostly let me down. :o(

Lucky for you her recipe is also on her website, so I'll share it with you here. :o) Plus a recipe I made for cherry almond buttercream. Yum.



In the past, I went out and bought almond flour. But having been burned by my last 3 batches, I didn't want to put the time or money into another shopping trip, so I ground up some slivered almonds in my blender, which is why you can see a bit of the almond skins here. Also...shame on me...I didn't sift my ground almonds and sugar. Shame! All they do it get stuck in my flour sifter and make it impossible to clean! Plus I could only grind the almonds so fine before they would start turning to almond butter instead. So I just whisked the powdered sugar and almonds together really well and went with that.

Before you go ahead with the recipe, I should note that while this was my best attempt, it wasn't perfect. I read somewhere that you should only put one tray of macrons in the oven at once (some say it doesn't matter, and maybe it didn't this time), so that is what I did. The first batch came out perfect! Look at those sexy macaron feet! (The little ruffle that pops up at the bottom.)



But the second and third batches turned into crazy, topsy-turvy, Dr. Suess macarons. Yikes!



OMG! My best guess is that perhaps the batter dried out slightly in the piping bag, then in addition I let them dry too long after getting piped on to the tray, and instead of rising, one side or the other stuck? Maybe? Also I misread the instructions for baking about heating the oven for 5 min to 375 between each batch before putting in the next tray. Instead I raised it to 375 each time and made sure it was 375, then lowered to 325, waited 5 min, then put a new tray in. Those are instructions used below since as I said, the first batch was lovely! Either way, no matter how they looked they still tasted good and weren't a cracked, burned mess like some others. So sad.

So keeping that in mind, here goes the recipe!

Cherry Almond Macarons

Vanilla Macaron Shells
Adapted from Martha Stewart

1 cup confectioners' sugar
3/4 cup almond flour (or finely ground almonds)
2 large egg whites
Pinch of cream of tartar
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1. Pulse confectioners' sugar and almond flour in a food processor until combined. Sift mixture 2 times. (Shame on me, I didn't sift, just whisked together)
   
2. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
   
3. Whisk whites with a mixer on medium speed until foamy. Add cream of tartar, and whisk until soft peaks form. Slowly add in the sugar.
   
4. Increase speed to high and after a few moments add the vanilla extract. Continue whisking until stiff peaks form.
   
5. Sift confectioners' sugar mixture over whites, and fold until mixture drips slowly, ribbon-like, from the spoon. Don't overwork.
6. Transfer batter to a pastry bag fitted with a 1/2-inch plain round tip, and pipe 3/4-inch rounds 1 inch apart on parchment-lined baking sheets, dragging pastry tip to the side of rounds rather than forming peaks.
   
7. Tap bottom of each sheet on work surface to release trapped air.
   
8. Let stand at room temperature for 15 minutes or until tops are dry to the touch.
   
9. Reduce oven temperature to 325 degrees 5 minutes before putting the macrons in the oven.
   
10. Bake 1 sheet at a time, rotating halfway through, until macarons are crisp and firm, about 10 minutes.
    
11. After each batch, increase oven temperature to 375 degrees then reduce to 325 degrees again 5 minutes before putting in a new tray.
12. Let macarons cool on sheets for 2 to 3 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack. (If macaroons stick, spray water underneath parchment on hot sheet. The steam will help release macaroons.)
13. Prepare filling below, and once completely cooled, pipe a bit of frosting onto one macaron shell then sandwich with a second shell.
14. Store in fridge in an air tight container

Cherry Almond Buttercream Frosting

1 6 oz jar maraschino cherries (Approx. 2 1/2 tablespoons pureed)
Approx. 1 tablespoon milk (more or less as needed)
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
1 package powdered sugar (16 ounces)
1/2 cup butter, softened (1 stick)

1. Drain cherries and reserve juice.
2. Puree cherries in a blender.
3. Cream butter and slowly add confectioners sugar
4. Add pureed maraschino and almond extract
   
5. Add reserved juice from cherries and milk alternately to achieve desired texture.
   

Matcha Cookies with Candied Ginger and Toasted Almonds

I love tea. I drink lots of it, and all different kinds. The last time I stopped into Teavana I was surprised to see they had matcha powder. I'd been waiting for Dave to get back to the Asian supermarket to pick some up, but here it was, and I was there, so I got it.

I have plans for green tea ice cream, but in revisiting one of my Martha Stewart cookie books, I rediscovered a recipe for matcha tea biscuits and had to make them promptly.



They came out delicious although not as perfect as Martha's. There are quite a few steps to making them, aside from toasting the almonds, chopping the candied ginger, etc. You have to take them out of the oven, slice them, sprinkle with sugar, put em back in the oven, take out, sprinkle, etc. It is Martha after all...

They were a little crumbley to slice and I would totally double the recipe next time to make more!

Plus they need more ginger somehow. I'm considering candying my own ginger to get ginger to sugar to sprinkle them with.

But they definitely tasted like sugar coated green tea deliciousness!

my first french macarons: pumpkin with cinnamon buttercream filling

I love mini desserts. I haven't known about french macarons for long but they're so damn cute I had to learn how to make them. in googling some recipes I saw another blogger mention this book, I Love Macarons by Hisako Ogita which is apparently the macaron bible. Although I have a wishpot which is mostly books, I've sort of sworn off buying baking books or magazines, since there's ssssooooooooo many recipes online. But since my new obsession I decided to stop by Barnes and Noble to see if they had any macaron-ing books, and it was there!

I actually brought it home and read it. Like from cover to cover. I read a review on it later which said something about it originally being published in Japanese? Then translated...this was clearly translated. :o)

Anyway, on to the macarons!


I am pretty impressed they worked the first time around! It was not without incident though. In the book, she describes this method for making butter cream where you make syrup (I guess) by microwaving the hell out of sugar and water for 4 minutes!? This is crazy, I actually did it and burned the hell out of the sugar, surprise, and thought my measuring cup was not going to be salvaged. It was, but that's just a bad idea.

I stuck a bunch of sticky notes all over the pages as well, here are what some of them said, in case you're a first time macaron maker as well:

1. Seriously...just sift it (she says sift the almond meal and powdered sugar twice, i half assedly did it once...but it makes it much lighter and fluffier...so just sift it, once should do it...)
2. Cut the damn parchment so it's flat, otherwise macarons may run when piped
3. Don't pipe onto the same side as the circles are drawn on, it comes off on the macron, oops. Either flip parchment over or make a template on a new piece of paper that you remove after piping.
4. When getting ready to stir 15 or 20 (or whatever gets the job done, hello) times, add the food coloring at this point
5. When piping, don't swirl. pipe straight down until it spreads out and fills the circle
6. Really, make sure the oven racks are in the center, my bottom rack burned. And check em! Mine baked way faster than 15 minutes

Those are my macaron gems of wisdom for you.


But beware when good macarons go bad. Here's what happened to mine that were on the bottom rack and piped by swirling, it's hard to look at...


Yikes! Sad... this one is better. :o) They even baked up with the little "foot," without which they can't be called macarons apparently. They're (by "they" I guess I mean the French?) referring to the little crinkley baked up looking part at the bottom of the macaron.


Oh, by the way, to get the pumpkin flavor I used two teaspoons of pureed pumpkin added to the meringue. I have many many bags of pumpkin puree, as it is also the first year I've pureed my own pumpkins and Dave bought me 3. :o) We'll be having pumpkin treats until into the new year I think. :o)

Also here is the recipe I used for the cinnamon buttercream. Good, but super sweet, maybe too sweet? I made a note to try with less sugar next time. Dave confirmed the macrons over all had a nice pumpkin pie taste, so for my first time these were certainly a success. I've decided this winter will be the year of the macaron, so I have more macaron plans to come.

One more sexy macaron picture and the rest are on flickr.

cherry almond tea cakes

my grandma turned 94 earlier this month. 94! And she's doing well! She lives with my parents, but she always has, and she doesn't go on trips anymore but she still goes out to bingo every Friday! I need to take up bingo.

Anyway, she likes cherries, so I made these cherry almond tea cakes for her birthday dinner.


They call for fresh bing cherries with the stems, but the one store I was able to get to the day I had to make them did not have them. So I wouldn't be stuck with cherry-less almond tea cakes, I got a bag of frozen dark sweet cherries. Then stopped by the drug store for some cherry cordial candies, which I thought would be brilliant.

First, some notes from the recipe... (I've been adding notes to recipes I bookmark using delicious, it's really proved very useful!)

The 1-1/2 cup plus 2 Tbsp (1-1/4 sticks) butter confused me...it's 1 and 1/4 sticks, I consulted Martha's recipe she amended. Bad baker that I am, I've never heard of almond meal, nor was it at the A&P, surprise. I chopped up almond slivers, worked fine. Skipped the brandy as I had none and added vanilla extract instead. In the end I definitely needed more cherry flavor. The frozen cherries baked up fine but didn't so much taste very cherry-ful, and the cordials, those were a disaster.

Here's what it looks like when it works, and when it doesn't.

First, the frozen cherry variety. Again, not enough cherry flavor, would definitely be better with fresh cherries. But look at that cute little cherry in the middle! :oD


And here's the cherry cordial chocolate disaster.


Some of them actually did make it out of the pan, and while they were warm and gooey they tasted delicious. But the issue is the juice that surrounds the cordial is not supported by the cupcake. It melts away and bubbles out of the cups and on to the pan. Where as it cools is becomes hard candy.


Nightmare. But here's one more of the pretty ones to even it out. More on the flickr page as usual!