Super Moist Strawberry Bread

Posted in Breads, Breakfast, Simple and Delicious by serendibbeginnings

Strawberries?? In January??? Not great, I know! But, they made it into my kitchen and now I needed to find a way to use them up. My kids, who would normally devour them at the first sight, didn’t seem to care too much for them! Perhaps with good reasons!

I could have frozen them for future smoothies, but I had an urge for baking last weekend! My quest for a good recipe landed me at glazed strawberry bread. Sally’s Baking Addiction has bunch of great recipes and this one in particular hit the chord for using up my berries.

I give her full credit for the recipe, although I did alter it a bit with substituting half the flour with whole wheat and adding in lemon zest in lieu of cinnamon. Also, I don’t like to overdo with the glaze, so my glaze is just a light drizzle.

Like it is mentioned in the original recipe, this is a very moist strawberry ~~cake~~ bread. I will probably reduce the sugar a bit next time around – perhaps by a 1/4 cup. It is a great recipe to keep for a few days – that is if you can resist the temptation. Although I didn’t particularly detect the flavor getting more intense after a day (could be because my berries were not at their prime), the taste was still great after 3 days. Yes, we managed to keep ourselves in check!

Do give this a try. It will be worth it!

Servings: ”12-14
Time: ”75
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Ingredients:
1 cup all purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 large egg, preferably at room temperature
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup dark brown sugar
1 cup buttermilk (I made mine using vinegar and milk)
1/3 cup canola oil
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 teaspoon grated lemon zest
1 and 1/2 cups fresh strawberries, rinsed and diced into 1/4 inch cubes
1 tablespoon flour

Citrus Glaze (optional)
1/2 cup confectioner’s sugar
1 tablespoon heavy cream
1-2 tablespoons lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon grated lemon zest

Preparation:
1. Preheat oven to 350F. Spray a 9″ x 5″ loaf pan with a cooking spray and keep aside.
2. Combine first 4 ingredients in a large bowl and set aside while you mix the rest of the ingredients.
3. Whisk together the sugars and egg until well combined. Add buttermilk, oil, vanilla and lemon zest.
4. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and gently fold to combine. Take care not to over mix.
5. Toss the chopped strawberries in a tablespoon of flour. Slowly fold in the berries into the batter, leaving a few to top the batter, if desired (as you can see, I did not do that in my attempt).
6. Transfer the batter to the prepared loaf pan and bake on the middle rack for 50-60 minutes. If you see that the top is getting brown too fast, loosely cover the pan with a piece of foil half way through and continue baking.
7. Test for doneness using a toothpick. Remove pan from oven, let cool for about 10 minutes. Invert onto a wire rack and let cool completely.
8. While the bread is cooling, prepare your glaze. Combine all the ingredients for the glaze till they are smooth and of desired consistency. Once the bread is completely cool, drizzle the glaze over the top.

12Aug2014

Blueberry Cheesecake Cupcakes

Posted in Desserts, Simple and Delicious by serendibbeginnings

So, this is really part 2 of the 2-part cupcake posting! I have been meaning to make some sort of treat using the blueberry preserves I had recently made. What better way than to test it as a filling for cupcake! So, that was going to be the second cupcake flavor. Vanilla cupcake with blueberry preserve filling and lemon cream cheese frosting! Yummmm!

I am not sure where I came upon this recipe! Since I wanted to stick with the “made from scratch” spree, I decided to whip up this quick cupcake recipe. One warning – be gentle with your mixing if you want to avoid big air pockets in the cake. The cake was totally amazing – especially the frosting! Just the right amount of sweetness with a bit of citrusy tang! Delicious! And the bit of blueberry preserve you get in each bite is just perfect!

(BTW, if you are have leftover frosting, use it as a drizzle for a breakfast treat (sweet rolls or as a spread for crepes!)

Blueberry Cheesecake Cupcakes

Servings: 12
Time: 30 min plus decorating
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Ingredients:
6 tablespoons soft unsalted butter
2/3 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
2 eggs
1 3/4 cup cake flour
1/2 cup milk

Cupcake filling
1/4 cup blueberry preserve

Lemon Cream Cheese Frosting
1 8-oz reduced fat cream cheese
1/3 cup unsalted butter, softened
2 cups powdered sugar
1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice
Lemon zest from 1/2 lemon

Preparation:
1. Preheat oven to 350F. Line a cupcake pan with paper liners and set aside.
2. Using an electric hand held beater, combine butter, sugar till light and fluffy.
3. Add one egg at a time, mixing well.
4. Combine cake flour, salt and baking powder.
5. Add the flour mixture alternating with milk in two additions.
6. Divide the batter among the 12 cupcake “wells”. Bake for about 20-22 minutes till the top is lightly golden and the center tests done.
7. Remove from the oven and let cool in the pan for 5 minutes. Remove the cupcakes and let cool completely on a cooling rack.
8. To decorate, slowly and carefully cut out a 1/2 inch piece of cupcake in the middle as shown in the picture above. Reserve the cut out piece. Fill the hole with a teaspoon of blueberry preserve and place the cut out cake back on top. Now, cover the top with lemon cream cheese frosting.

Lemon Cream Cheese Frosting
Combine all the ingredients in a medium bowl using handheld mixer. If frosting is too thick, you can thin it by adding few drops of lemon juice.

26Apr2014

Layered Cherry Coffee Cake

Posted in Breakfast, Desserts, Simple and Delicious by serendibbeginnings

Last night was one of those busy evenings when I was trying to make multiple treats almost simultaneously – occasionally confusing myself as to which sifted flour mixture went with which recipe! 🙂 All fun though! I ended up baking a batch of funfetti sugar cookies, low sugar almond-orange biscotti and this amazing layered cherry coffee cake.

You see, I have had this canned lite cherry pie filling in the pantry for couple of months waiting for me to do something with it. I would think of many ideas, but never really took the next step to actually making them. So, in an effort to bake some sort of a little breakfast treat, I looked for ideas when I came across this amazing recipe (courtesy Rose Garden Inn Bed and Breakfast). I made a few minor changes such as using lite cherry pie filling, light sour cream and half white whole wheat flour. Also, I toned down the topping by using half the sugar and just about 1/3 cup of flour.

I have to make a special note about this recipe/batter. My batter was very thick, so after starting to spread half the batter in the 13″X9″ pan, I started to wonder if I should scoop it out and bake as layered muffins. It just didn’t seem like enough batter. Also, after layering the cherry filling, the top batter layer was even more challenging. As you see in my pictures, there are swirls of red from trying to smooth out the batter to cover the entire top surface of the cake. I figured if the taste is good, who cares about the looks. However, to my pure joy and satisfaction, the cake baked perfectly.

I am planning to make this again over summer with fresh summer berries lightly coated in sugar instead of pie filling and also baking them in individual muffins cups/liners. Who knows, maybe I will even replacing all of the flour with white/regular whole wheat. Can’t wait! In the meantime though, I hope you guys give this a try at your earliest! It will make even an April showers day seem enjoyable!

Layered Cherry Coffee Cake

Servings: 13x9 cake
Time: 1 hr 15 min
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Cake Ingredients1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
1 cup granulated sugar
2 eggs
1 cup light sour cream
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup white whole wheat flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 can lite (low sugar) cherry pie filling

Cake Topping
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup chopped pecans
2 tablespoons butter

Preparation
1. Preheat oven to 350F. Lightly grease and flour a 13″ x 9″ baking pan and set aside.
2. Sift flours with salt, baking powder and baking soda.
3. Cream butter. Add sugar and beat till creamy and light, adding eggs one at a time.
4. Add sour cream and extracts and mix well.
5. Slowly add dry ingredients, mixing well to incorporate. You can use a spatula or your electric beater on low setting.
6. Spread half the batter in the prepared pan, smoothing with a butter knife or spatula to cover the bottom. This will be a thin layer.
7. Spread the pie filling over the batter. Follow with the remaining batter, again smoothing to cover the pie filling.
8. Combine all topping ingredients to resemble bread crumbs and spread over the top of the cake.
9. Bake for 50-55 minutes till cake is done.