mix, mix…stir, stir

I had muffins for breakfast this morning, thanks to the Tuesdays with Dorie baking group. I have made these tender spice muffins once before, but failed to capture a photo before they were all eaten so I couldn’t skate by this week without baking. Not such a hardship, after all, look what I got to eat for breakfast as a result.

With a little frosting I think these muffins could pass as cupcakes, not because they are sugary sweet, but because they have such a nice tender crumb. They perfectly showcase allspice as a standalone spice too. The wonderfully complex flavor of allspice combines warm sweet notes with spicy elements that works beautifully with sweet and savory foods alike. Besides the fact that these muffins are really good, if you are not familiar with allspice I hope you will make these just to discover all that these beautiful brown dried berries can bring to your cooking. Visit our Spice Library to read more about allspice and how to use it.

The first time I made these muffins I only used half of the crumb topping because it seemed like so much. After they were baked, I realized they could have used more topping. I diligently made a note in my book to my future self, “Next time use all the topping even though it seems like a lot.” As I was making them this morning I saw my note and began sprinkling on the topping and thought this is way too much topping, but I trusted the note to my future self and proceeded to pile it on. I’m happy to say I gave myself some good advice, so it’s my recommendation to use all the topping even thought it seems like a ridiculously large quantity.

Thank you to Kayte of Grandma’s Kitchen Table for picking a recipe that made a nice breakfast for me today. You can find the recipe posted on her blog. Dorie Greenspan also joined in on posting about the weekly the recipe pick, so visit her blog too.

Over 350 baking bloggers are baking our way thorough Dorie Greenspan’s book, Baking: From My Home to Yours . 95 recipes completed 126 to go!

I had  fun over the weekend doing a cooking demonstration of low cost meals at a community fair organized by The City of Lake Forest Park, WA. They brought together all sorts of community resource agencies sharing information to help people navigate these difficult economic times. 

One of the agencies participating was Solid Ground, an organization I volunteer with. In partnership with Share our Strength, a national anti-hunger organization, Solid Ground runs a free six week cooking and nutrition program called Operation Frontline, designed to help people on a low income build skills to maximize their resources by learning to cook healthy low cost meals

All of the meals in the program are designed to cost less than $1.68 per serving, which is the amount of money a person on food stamps has to spend for each meal. In the demo I made a White Bean and Chicken Chili with Fresh Basil and a Northwest Apple Salad. These are quick and really flavorful dishes that aren’t fussy to make and can easily be adapted to all kinds of variations. These dishes won’t remind you of your starving student days, in fact I wish I had eaten like this when I was a starving student.

The chili is finished with fresh lime juice and basil, which delivers a bright flavor and fresh satisfying aroma.  The apple salad is simply dressed with a little plain yogurt, but of course I turn to spices to take it in a variety of directions. At the demo I had three versions for sampling, one with cinnamon, one with ground fennel, and one with ground coriander. All work great with apple and it was fun to see apprehension turn into delightful surprise as people tasted the different versions. The different spices pull differnt flavors of the apple forward and lend a nice flavor complexity to what couldn’t be a simpler salad.

It might seem like cooking with a variety of spices would be too extravagant when on a limited budget, but I did some research to show that’s not the case at all if you know where to shop. I expected bulk spices to be cheaper, but I didn’t realize how much cheaper, even when buying from a specialty spice store. The difference in cost per ounce is dramatic enough, but when you consider that with bulk purchasing you only buy what you need for a few months, which in most cases an ounce is more than enough, so cash isn’t tied up in large expensive jars of spice that just sit in the cupboard. The jar of grocery store brand cinnamon was priced at $3.89 (1.75 oz.) , whereas buying an ounce of bulk cinnamon only requires  $0.41, or a $1.00 out of pocket.

Share our Strength partners with different organizations all over the country to implement the Operation Frontline classes. Visit their site to see if there is a group in your community you can get involved with. It’s a great program.

Our Spice Library is growing! Check out the new entries I just added for black, green, white, and pink peppercorns.

Learn about the flavor profiles of different peppercorns, how they are grown, harvested, and processed. Do you know which countries produce the most highly regarded black and white peppercorns? Did you know that pink peppercorns come from a completly different plant than other peppercorns?  What gives pepper its pungent heat? What can turn your spicy pungent black pepper into flavorless dust? Check out the Spice Library and read all about it.

Once you’ve become a peppercorn expert, try this recipe for Braised Peppercorn Shortribs from Rouxbe, my favorite cooking site on the web. Pick up some fresh aromatic peppercorns and treat your friends and family to this hearty peppery dish this weekend.

And for dessert? How about White Pepper Shortbread? Its tender and melt-in-your-mouth delicious. In one of our past Spice Inspiration features Gale Gand shared this recipe along with her love for using pepper in her famous pastry creations.

Pudding seems so appropriate for the back-to-school time of year.  Maybe it’s because when I was a kid it was a rare and thrilling treat to get Snack Pack pudding in my lunch bag. This week’s Tuesdays with Dorie recipe isn’t school yard pudding, it’s elegant enough to be a fitting finish to a fancy dinner party.

What’s so fancy about this pudding? The layer of chocolate under the creamy rich vanilla pudding, isn’t more pudding, it’s chocolate ganache. The rich dark chocolate is not only a perfect flavor contrast to the silky vanilla cream, but a luxurious textural contrast. The dense ganache tastes like a decadent chocolate bonbon and the sweet creamy vanilla pudding plays like a luscious crème anglaise. This is quite possibly the most elegant pudding I have ever had, despite being served in votive candle holders from Ikea.

I remained true to the vanilla pudding and decided to play with the flavor of the ganache. I added cinnamon, ancho chile, and cayenne pepper in pinches until it reached just the right balance of cinnamon comfort and chile heat. Given that it is paired against a very soothing vanilla pudding, I was fairly aggressive with the spices and the result was fantastic. I really look forward to serving this at a dinner party, maybe even in the Ikea candle holders. They’re actually a perfect size.

The method used for making the pudding, seemed to be more complicated than it needed to be. Ingredients were transferred in and out of the food processor, resulting in a very nice pudding, but not any better than pudding made in a single pan right on the stove and then strained through a sieve.

Garrett from The Flavor of Vanilla chose this week’s recipe. Once again I’m happy to have the TWD group expanding my dessert selections, because I quite likely would have flipped right past this recipe.  To never have discovered the delightful result of hiding chocolate ganache at the bottom of pudding dishes would have been unfortunate. This recipe is posted on The Flavor of Vanilla, but you can also apply the concept to any favorite pudding recipe you like to make.

Over 350 baking bloggers are baking our way thorough Dorie Greenspan’s book, Baking: From My Home to Yours . 94 recipes completed 127 to go!