fragrant spiced fig muffins with a pecan and brown sugar streusel

A friend and I went to visit a brilliant lady in Berkeley. Miz Agatha, our Berkeley friend, is an engineering student, a dancer, a writer, a master of the sewing machine; organized, thoughtful, and enthusiastic in her life.

We spent the evening in Miz Agatha's co-op's kitchen, a warm wide space with giant fridges, stainless steel tables, a monster Kitchen Aid mixer, and a closet-sized room for washing dishes. Their talented Friday night chef created a Korean soup of grilled onions and sea food (hot oil on the side), with rice noodles accompanying. Bok choi and a big tray of pork falling apart in its own juices rounded the meal out.

What does this have to do with fig muffins? I'm getting there. At breakfast, Miz Agatha slipped back to the kitchen and comes out of with a soft, ripe purple-green fig, sliced in two, and a small dollop of goat's cheese. Have you ever had a fig before? she said. I hadn't.

I bought a flat full the next day, had a platter of cheese and figs as part of dinner, and then made these muffins the next morning.

These muffins are soft, mellow, and richly aromatic. The sweet crunch of the struesel goes well with the ripe figs and moist, fragrant cumb.



Spiced Fig Muffins
Adapted from Alton Brown's Old-School Muffin recipe
3 large fresh figs, diced
1/4 C red wine
1 tsp cinnamon
a few grates nutmeg

wet goods
1/2 C sugar
2 Tb brown sugar
1/2 C vegetable oil
1 egg
1 egg yolk
1/2 C plain yogurt
1/2 C sour cream
1 Tb half n half

dry goods
2 1/2 C flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp allspice
a few grates of fresh nutmeg (this makes a BIG difference. Don't use that nasty stuff in the jar. Please).
a few grates of black peper
a pinch of salt

struesel
1/4 C brown sugar
1/3 C pecans, chopped
1/3 C flour
2 Tb butter, salted
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp of the leftover spiced wine
a few grates of nutmeg

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.



In a small, shallow dish, pour the wine and spices over the chopped figs. Let sit while you prepare the dough.

Beat the wet ingredients (sugars, eggs, yogurt, sour cream, and half n half) together for two minutes. Dump the dry goods (flour, baking powder and soda, and salt) onto the wet goods and stir until just combined. The batter will be very thick, don't worry.

In a small bowl, make the streusel: mash the sugar, butter, pecans, flour, wine, and spices with a fork until it forms a crumbly topping. If the crumbles are moist and bigger than peas, add more flour to dry it out. If it's too dry, add a little butter.

Fold the soaked figs into the batter. Don't add too much of the wine (you'll thin the batter out) but a little's fine and tasty.

Spoon the batter into the muffin cups. Fill them almost all the way to the top. I know most muffins are a 2/3-of-the-way-up the muffin cup affair, but I think the thickness of this dough means the muffins don't rise as much. Top with the streusel.

Bake at 375 for 18-20 minutes. The house will smell of cinnamon.

little sis's famous hashbrowns

These are little sis's specialty. (Could you tell by the title? Good. I'm proud of you). They are simple, relatively quick, and absolutely delicious. She takes hers straight, and usually about the size of a dinner plate. The rest of us like to top them with over-easy eggs and avocado (my favorite), or sour cream, salsa, barbecue sauce, or ketchup. Take this tasty platform and build to wherever your imagination takes you.



Little Sis's House-Famous Hashbrowns
I'm just writing it up per-hashbrown. Multiply this recipe by however many people you want to feed (or however many hashbrowns they're going to want to eat).
Serves one (~400 calories/30 carbs per serving).
2 Tb vegetable oil (not olive oil. It's burning point is too low and it won't fry to hashbrown properly)
1 medium potato (I prefer golden, but a russet or even a red would work alright)
salt and pepper to taste

Boil your potatoes for 12 minutes in salted water. I prefer to do this step the night before. It simplifies things.



Put 2 Tb oil over a frying pan, over high heat. Let the pan heat up until when you throw a few droplets of water on it, the water leaps, dances, and hisses. Grate some pepper and sprinkle some salt into the oil.

While the pan is heating, run one potato through the grater disk of your food processor. If you don't have a food processor, get out the box grater. My sincerest apologies to your arm, especially if you have lots of hungry friends at the breakfast table.



Drop all the grated potato into the hot oil and pat it into a disk. Don't smush it down, just shape it gently. Now set your timer for 4-5 minutes and DON'T TOUCH. You have to let a nice golden crust form. You want a nice golden crust, don't you? Don't you?

When the timer rings, flip the hashbrown over, carefully. Set the timer for 3 minutes. If you want to make eggs, now is the time, in a separate pan, so everything will be nice and ready and hot together.

When 3 minutes are up, check the other side of the hashbrown. If either needs to be more golden, then turn it to that side and give it another minute or two.



Serve piping hot.

sauteed shrimp, garlic, tomatoes, and mushrooms in a romano, parmesan, and herb sauce over a bed of spiral pasta, topped with crispy breaded shrimp

The description above is  copied almost word-for-word from the Marie Callendar's menu. I believe theirs reads "asiago-romano-parmesan" sauce, but I could only buy so much cheese and Papa doesn't like asiago.

Little sis and I went to Marie Callendar's a few nights back. As we ate our complimentary warm corn bread, we considered the menu. Little sis, who's normally the quick-decider of our pair, chewed her lip for a long time after I'd selected my quiche covered in bacon and cheese and my stomach was grumbling the order. "I want the double-shrimp pasta," she said. "But." But, every time she eats it, it disagrees with her.

I reopened my menu and took out a paper and a pen, and scribbled the dish's description down. "Or we could put our magic kitchen powers to work later," I said, "and make it ourselves."

She ordered fish and chips. The night went swimmingly.

A few days later, we held our grand sisterly endeavour to create the delicious dish, which has little sis's name written all over it: shrimp, mushrooms, tomatoes, pasta, a creamy sauce.

An Attempt at Marie Callender's Double Shrimp Pasta

1 large tomato
1 C mushrooms
4 garlic cloves
2 Tb olive oil

1/2 lb raw shrimp, peeled and deveined

2 Tb flour
1 C half n' half
1/2 C grated parmesan cheese
1/2 C grated romano cheese
pepper and salt to taste

1/2 lb raw shrimp, peeled and deveined
1 egg, beaten
1 C bread crumbs
1/4 C flour
1/4 C parmesan cheese
1/4 C romano cheese
1 tsp garlic powder
1/4 tsp salt
pepper

1/2 lb uncooked spiral pasta (use any kind you like-- this is just the kind they use at Marie's)

Bring a pot of salted water to boil, with a dash of olive oil to keep it from bubbling over. Add the pasta and boil according to the directions on the packaging.

Chop the mushrooms and tomato and mince the garlic. Saute in the 2 Tb olive oil until mushrooms and garlic are golden brown. Add 1/2 lb of the shrimp.



Immediately, add the 2 Tb flour and mix to combine. Stir constantly for 2 minutes, keeping the flour from burning.

Add the half n' half and bring to a simmer. Add the cheese and stir until the cheese melts and the sauce thickens a little. Remove from heat. Salt and pepper to taste.



Meanwhile, beat the two eggs together in a small bowl. In a separate bowl, mix the breadcrumbs, 1/4 C flour, garlic, salt, and pepper. Take out the second half-pound of shrimp. Dip each shrimp in the egg and then in the crumb mixture. Place on a baking sheet and bake at 400 degrees for 5 minutes.

To plate, mix the pasta and sauce together, then top with the crispy shrimp. Serve immediately, before the crispy becomes soggy.

cocoa waffles topped with whipped cream and fresh berries, a celebration of breakfast and summer

One of the best things in my unviersity dining commons are the row of waffle makers sitting next to a big tub of waffle batter. You ladle your own in, wait 1:30 for it to cook, then load it up with butter, thin sweet syrup, cinnamon sugar, whatever you want (smuggled in almond butter and honey; the once-in-a-blue-moon excitement of defrosted blueberries or big trays of strawberries). I love that they have this and I save my DC waffle binges for special occassions.

But these are better.



Chocolate Chocolate-Chip Waffles
Adapted from Alton Brown's Buttermilk Waffle recipe
Serves seven (470 calories/60 carbs per serving)
2 C flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 C cocoa

4 Tbs melted butter
3 eggs
2 C buttermilk
3 Tb sugar
1 tsp vanilla

1/2 C chocolate chips

1 C whipping cream
1/4 C sugar
(unless you really like whipped cream. Then double it...)

optional toppings:
fresh berries and sliced fruit
chocolate syrup
peanut butter
powdered sugar

If you like, mix and sift the dry goods (flour, baking soda and powder, cocoa) in a separate bowl. I do the dishes at my house, so I don't.



Beat the butter, eggs, buttermilk, and sugar together. Dump in the sifted (or not sifted) dry goods and chocolate chips and stir to combine. Let the batter rest while you work on the rest of the operation.

Beat the 1 C whipping cream and 1/4 C sugar together until soft peaks form. Do not overbeat! You want whipped cream, not butter. This takes me about 5 minutes; it depends on the strenght of  your mixer and how high your turn it up.



Lube up your waffle iron and ladle your batter over the preheated iron. (Follow your manufacturer's instructions, etc).

Spoon soft, sweet cream onto the piping hot waffle and top with berries. Devour gleefully, perhaps with a cup of hot cocoa or a cold glass of milk.

old-school muffins packed with sweet chunks of ripe banana and topped with a crunchy cinnamon, banana, and almond struesel

The base for this muffin recipe come from AB's "I'm Just Here For More Food: food x mixing + heat = baking," one of my favorite baking cookbooks. In the opening to his "Old-School Muffins," he complains about the tendency of coffeehouses (coughStarbuckscoughI swear I don't live in its comfy cushioned chairs inhaling the aroma of my coffee cupcough) to give you a cupcake and call it a muffin.

Cupcakes are sweet, delicately moist, and cake-like, when muffins should be tender but sturdy, with a coarser crumb than the tiny, even bubbles of cakes give you. A muffin has body and substance. It can stand up to thick slices of banana and bursts of struesel flavor.

Try it out and see for yourself.

One of the things I liked about this recipe was that it gave me some serious muffins. The stiff dough rose into big bakery-style domes, covered in cracked, sweet struesel, without overflowing or sagging in the centers. The crumb was tender, moist and sweet, without feeling like a birthday party treat. I think this is my new muffin-base recipe (I've been searching for a good one for awhile).

Added bonus: the tasty struesel that tops these is a touch healthier than most. I replaced most of the butter with banana, and it turned out quite tasty.



Banana-Nut Muffins
Adapted from Alton Brown's "Old-School Muffins"
Makes twelve (260 calorie/30 carb) muffins
2 1/2 C flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
a pinch of salt

1/2 C sugar
1/2 C shortening
1 egg plus one egg yolk
3/4 C plain yogurt
1/4 C sour cream
2 Tb half and half

2 yellow bananas, sliced and then quartered (reserve a few sliced for the struesel, below)

struesel
1/4 C roughly chopped almonds
1/3 C flour
1 tsp cinnamon
2 Tb banana
1 Tb butter

Preheat your oven to 375. Line your favorite muffin tin with paper cups or grease them. (I'm a lazy cleaner; I use my paper cups).

Good bakers weigh their dry ingredients and sift them (or run them through a food processor; you achieve the same effect as sifting). I'm a lazy baker. But, hey, if you aren't? Take those dry goods (that would be the flour, the baking powder and soda, and the salt) and sift them into a separate bowl. Good job. I applaud you and your soul, which is a better one than mine.

Next, beat the sugar, shortening, eggs, yogurt, sour cream, and half n' half together for a few minutes. When you get bored of watching it spin around (or, if you've a hand mixer, when your arm gets tired) and everything seems incorportated, turn off the mixer. Dump the dry good (sifted and mixed... or not) straight on top. Mix on a low speed for a few seconds, or until everything is just barely incorporated. It's OK to have some dry flour hanging about. Overmixing muffins is a serious sin, folks. It kills the tenderness. Just stir until everything barely hangs together.

This is very stiff, thick batter; it's almost more like a sticky dough. Don't worry about it.

Fold the bananas into the batter. Don't mix too much; just fold it a few times and let it be.



Now, spoon your stiff dough into 12 muffin cups. The cups should be full. I know this goes against all "fill-it-2/3-of-the-way-up" muffin logic we've been taught, but it works with this batter.

In a separate bowl, now, mix the struesel ingredients. I like smooshing them with a fork or a sturdy whisk. When it's crumbly enough to sprinkle, you're down. If it feels very moist and forms balls bigger than a pea, toss in a Tb or two of flour. Sprinkle on top of the muffins.

Bake for 18-20 minutes or until a toothpick comes out dry. (Careful: make sure you're not stabbing a banana piece when you're checking for doneness).

Remove from the muffin pan immediately to keep the bottoms from going soggy.

Let cool for as long as you can stand the gently wafting aroma of baked brown sugar and melting banana. Then, yeah, you can eat them.

whole striped bass roasted with herbs, lemon, vegetables, and garlic

The guy at the fish counter wasn't too keen on English, especially the too-fast, tripping-over-my-own-tongue type I speak. (Little sis speaks this way too; we understand each other perfectly. No one else does. We speak especially poorly if we're speaking to each other, or even if we're just in the same room).

So the fish guy and I played charades. I pointed at the striped bass (USA farm-raised) and held up two fingers. He pulled two shiny, fat, silver fish out of the ice, pointed at each--"Good?"--and I nodded.

Before I go on, I need to paint you a picture here, because it's lovely. Walk through the automatic doors with me, past a wall of rice cookers, and giant crates of giant bags of rice, down the aisles with the red bean mochi, Vietnamese fish sauce and Chinese oyster sauce, bok choi and fresh lychee berries, plucked whole ducks, and little tubs of Ben and Jerry's next to the frozen unagi.

(I love my town).

Half the back wall of this supermarket is sea food. A waist-high counter spans the length, full of buckets of ice topped with big, beautiful whole fish, pink, blue, silver; tiny thin smelt, oblong mudfish, massive salmon. Trout swims open-mouthed in big tanks, next to live lobsters. There are buckets of oysters, mussels, crawling red crayfish, snapping blue-ish crabs.

So that's where I am, pointing at a fish and trying to communicate that I want them cleaned, de-scaled and beheaded. He makes chopping motions; I nod, shake my head, and gesture, too. "No head, no scales. I want the tail."

Warning: description of blood and gore following. Fish blood and gore, but if it bothers you, skip a paragraph.

Then he takes it back to his workspace and hacks away with a circular scale-remover. Tiny, shiny silver scales go flying every which way. He takes out a cleaver, looks at me, mimes chopping off the head. I nod. He mimes chopping off the tail. I shake my head. He hacks of the head, slices out the gills and guts it. Then he washes all the blood and guts and fish heads off the back into a waste groove, wraps up my fish, and hands them to me.


Spikes are not good eats. Cut 'em off with a pair of nice big kitchen shears.

This recipe is based loosely on one of Alton Brown's, except I changed the herbs, and added vegetables and garlic. The mound of greenery is supposed to protect the fish from the hot hot oven, while gently infusing it with flavor.

Farmed striped bass is a delicious and sustainable fish. Take one home today.

Herb-roasted Striped Bass
2 whole striped bass

2 carrots, peeled and chopped
1 med turnip, peeled and chopped small
1 med yellow onion, peeled and sliced into thin rounds
1 bunch of asparagus, chopped into 2-inch lengths
1 head garlic, peeled and each clove halved
1 bunch each Vietnamese basil, dill, parsley
1/2 bunch cilantro
1/2 C sliced almonds

1 lemon, sliced into rounds
4 Tb olive oil

Have the bass de-scaled, beheaded, and gutted. Cut off all the nasty spiky fins, unless you like driving needles into you tongue. I don't.

Set oven to 500 degrees.



In a large roasting pan, make a layer of half the vegetables, herbs, almonds, and garlic cloves. Add 2 Tb olive oil and lay out half of the lemon rounds on top. Lay the fish on top of the lemon rounds.



Place the remaining lemon on top of the fish, then cover with the rest of the veggies and greenery. Douse in olive oil. Ideally, you should not be able to see any of the silver of the fish.



Cover the pan tightly in aluminum foil. In some ways, think about this as if we're steaming this fish.

Cook in the 500 degree oven for 30-45 minutes, or until your fish is 120 degrees on the inside.



Bones are cool.

You'll have to take out the major bones of the fish. First, just sort of brush off the skin on top. It should pull off easily. Then flake off one layer of meat. Now you can see the spine. Grab the tail and pull the spine out.

Serve with some white rice. The fish is tender, moist and fall-apart flaky.

a light yellow butter cake frosted with vanilla buttercream and decorated with dense, sweet fondant

Fondant is a smooth, sugary frosting that can be rolled out, colored and shaped. It's popularly used in wedding cake and the magnificent cake constructions made on about five different shows of the Food Network. Traditionally, it looks pretty and tastes terrible--it's considered a wrapper and is left discarded on most plates. However, this recipe, made with marshmallows (seriously) and powdered sugar, is quite tasty. This is my first adventure with fondant or any kind of fancy cake decoraintg.

First we must start with making the fondant. It lasts very well in the fridge (several weeks, some say), so I advise making it in advance so all you have to do on cake-constructing day is take it out and unwrap it. Making the fondant takes a goodly amount of time--or, rather, cleaning up afterwards does.



Marshmallow Fondant
http://whatscookingamerica.net/PegW/Fondant.htm
16 oz. white mini marshmallows
2-5 Tb water (a thought: change this out with a flavored liquid like orange juice for a slightly flavored fondant)
2 lbs powdered sugar
1/2 C Crisco, for greasing hands (I never said this wasn't messy, boys and girls)

First, put on an apron or some old clothes. Then, clear a space in your kitchen. Get a clean space to knead your fondant on (a cutting board works nicely) and put a small bowl of Crisco beside it. Grease the cutting board a little, too.

Next, melt the marshmallows and the water together. You can do this in a large glass bowl in the microwave or, as I did, in a metal bowl put over a small pot of simmering water. Dump about half the powdered sugar on top of the marshmallows and dump the whole thing onto the cutting board.

Grease your hands generously. Trust me, this sticky. Knead, carefully, until the sugar is fully incorportated, then add the rest of the sugar in batches until smooth. Knead until the fondant can be rolled into an elastic ball. If it's tearing or you see little patches of dry sugar, add a little water, but conservatively.

When you're done, roll it into a ball, coat it in a little Crisco, wrap it in plastic wrap (I suggest two layers), and refrigerate until you're ready to use it.



Now we have to consider the cake. I didn't want to do white cake, because that says weddings, so I went with a nice yellow. The difference between a white cake and a yellow cake is the white cake has egg whites and the yellow does not (sometimes; I'm sure there are different kinds of white and yellow cakes too). This recipe is from joyofbaking.com, one of my favorite baking sites (my favorite scone recipe hails from here, as does my lemon curd). The procedure is not the normal cake procedure; it's much more like a scone with extra liquid. The batter is not very smooth, and I was a little worried, even though I trust this site. The cake comes out fine in the end, however.


If anyone recognizes this symbol, you have excellent manga tastes. This cake was for a friend who definitely recognized this symbol.

I baked this in small straight-sided ramekins or custard cups. I wanted to be able to make several different cake designs; the major purpose of this whole endeavour was to practice my nonexistent cake decorating abilities.

Yellow Cake
I got about ten little cakes out of this recipe

joyofbaking.com
2.5 C cake flour
1/2 C AP flour
1 1/2 C sugar
4 tsp baking powder
12 Tb butter
4 egg yolks
1 egg

1 C milk
2 tsp vanilla

Preheat oven to 350.

Beat butter, flour, sugar, baking powder, 3/4 tsp salt (if using unsalted butter), and 1/4 C milk for about two minutes. Scrape down the sides of the bowl, then add the yolks, remaining milk (3/4 C), and vanilla. Beat to combine.

Fill baking dishes halfway and bake for 10 minutes or until a toothpick inserted at their centers comes out dry. Let cool.


For a bird-watcher friend.

Before doing anything with the fondant, you have to crumb-coat each cake with buttercream frosting. The frosting serves both to smooth out the surface of the cake and to act as an adhesive for the fondant.

Buttercream Frosting
Betty Crocker's Vanilla Buttercream recipe
3 C powdered sugar
1/3 C butter, softened
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
splash of milk (enough to just get it the right consistency, 1-2 Tb)

Beat sugar and butter together until smooth, then add vanilla. Slowly drizzle in milk until it reaches a soft, spreadable consistency. If you accidently add too much, just add a little more sugar.



Constructing the cakes

In the center of your serving platform, place a dab of buttercream. This will help hold the cake in place. Ease a cake out of the ramekin and place it on the frosting. Frost the cake with the buttercream. This does not have to be very pretty. Mine certainly wasn't.



Now, set up a playing-with-fondant area. You need:
a board to roll the fondant on; if you are coloring the fondant, get a second cutting board to roll out the colored fondant on.
a rolling pin
a bowl with a few Tb of Crisco
a bowl of corn starch
a few toothpicks
a pizza cutter
a paring knife or other small knife
a cake spatula, if you have one
food coloring of your choice

I'd also recommend an apron.



Grab a hunk of fondant and place on the board, which has been dusted with corn starch. Coat the rolling pin in corn starch and roll the fondant out into a large circle. Try to get it as thin as you can without it ripping when you pick it up. I got much better at judging this as the days went on (three of them! I like playing with my food).

Lay the fondant circle over the frosted cake and press it into the sides. Use the pizza cutter to trim away the extra at the base.

Now you can add decorations.



Color fondant by adding a few drops of food coloring and kneading it into a hunk of dough. If you don't like your hands being multicolored for days, wear food-safe gloves. I found coloring fondant made it more wet and likely to tear. Adding a little cornstarch dried it out and adding a little Crisco made it more flexible.

To make strips, roll out the fondant thin and use the pizza cutter to cut strips of whatever size you wish. Wet the cske's fondant lightly where you want to put the strip, and then carefully lay the strip down and press it into place.



If there are cornstarch sprinkles all over your cake, you can brush them off with your fingers or rub them into the fondant.

To make flowers, I liked using the scraps from the main fondant covering. Take a long thin strip of material and wrap it around and around, gathering at the base. Practice a little with scraps and see what happens.

Toothpicks can be used to adjust fondant on the cake or to make small details.

The letters were written with the flat of a toothpick. The sprinkles were applied with the wet edge of a spoon.

Be creative and have fun. If you do any playing, I'd love to see pictures!