Boxcar Kitchen - Breakfast of champions

The last of the plums - A short story in scones

esther — Sun, 18 Nov 2007 21:28:00 +0100

If long hours at work, the inkling of winter weather and the many days of grèves (strikes) aren't reason enough to keep you holed up at home on the weekend, then I don't know what is. Hibernating is exactly what I have been doing, spending weekend after weekend, snuggled up on the couch reading cookbooks and browsing blogs. Lately, it’s been all about the kinetic energy. And although I didn't manage to get myself out to the market to scour the shelves for cool new ingredients, I did manage to move my slippered feet into the kitchen and whip up something simple and hearty.

Basically, I was in the mood for a treat to go with tea and I had a fresh bag of oatmeal and a bowl of plums sitting on the counter. Not really divine intervention, but inspiration nonetheless. A lot of times, scones are filled with dried fruit: raisins, cherries, currents, apricots. Why not use fresh fruit instead? I attempted a bready version of a granola bar. The experiment just so happed to work out and a half hour later, we were back on the couch enjoying warm scones and hot tea.

Oatmeal Plum Scones

2 cups flour
1 1/2 cups rolled oats
1 Tbsp. baking powder
1 tsp. sugar

5 1/2 Tbsp. butter
1/2 heavy cream
1 large egg
3 fresh purple plums
1/4 cup almonds

3 Tbsp. turbinado sugar

Spread the rolled oats out onto a cookie sheet and toast in the oven. In a large bowl, combine all the dry ingredients. Cut in butter and then blend in heavy cream and egg.

Pit and dice the plums. Chop the almonds and add both to the batter.

Lightly flour the work surface and turn out the scone batter. Add in flour if it is too sticky. Form into a rectangle. Sprinkle with the turbinado sugar and roll up to form a long log. With the string, cut the dough into rounds.

Bake at 425°F for 15 minutes.

Make about 1 dozen scones

Jelly and a Real Job

esther — Sun, 14 Oct 2007 22:46:00 +0200

...are two things that I have started waking up to on a regular basis.

Raspberry current jelly is a family favorite. It was always the first flavor opened and very often the last one hoared in the back of the pantry to be opened only in the throws of winter. The combination of the sweet tart fruit on warm toast was enough to blow away any February storm.The soft pop of the lid was a reminder of warmer days, grass growing between your toes and the hours spent crouched on the ground scouring for fruit that always seemed to multiply by the minute.

Although I adore almost everything current, I do not have a passion for picking them. Tedious, is how I would describe a current harvest and little green worms always seem to make their way into my picking bowl. Currents are best when they are shiny red in the sunshine in a bowl, already removed from the bush. So when my dad called me to tell me that he had sacrificed his Saturday afternoon in the yard picking currents for the Greater Raspberry Current Jelly Good, I was excited and relieved.

Since I wasn't going to be back for a few more weeks, my parents cooked the berries down , pressed them and froze the juice. The actually jelly process was like the passing of the family torch. Prior to this, I had only been on the eating end of things but this time, I was the one hunched over the stove in 80 degree weather - an alchemist of sorts- surveilling the rumbling red fruit under the watchful eye of my mother.

Raspberry current jelly

5 cups current juice
1 1/2 cups raspberries
4 1/2 cups sugar
1 pack sure gel

jelly jars
lids and rings

Begin by sterilizing the jars in a hot water bath. Once the water has boiling for 10 minutes, remove the jars from the water. Turn them upside down on a clean towel. Wash the rings and soak the lids in hot water.

In a large pot combine current juice, raspberries and the sure gel. Stir the juice until the mixture begins to boil. Add the sugar. Continue stirring the jelly until it comes to a rolling boil. Once the jelly reaches a rolling boil, cook for one minute. Remove from heat. Foam will have formed on the top of the jelly and it should be skimmed off reserved for eating.

Begin filling the jars. This step needs to be done quickly because the jelly starts to set right away. Fill the jars, place the lids, and screw on the rings. Turn the jars upside down on a clean towel. Leave the jars until cooled; they should seal themselves.

Share the smaller jars with only the most deserving friends and hide the others in your panty. Bring out on a gray and tired day for a dose of pleasure.

Five spice sweet potato muffins

esther — Fri, 27 Apr 2007 16:09:00 +0200

I am totally not a Bangles fan but ever since I started pulling this post together I have been not stop humming Manic Monday, only in my head it's Muffin Monday. Maybe it should be this event's theme song...or maybe not, and maybe I should just put some music on to get this out of my head. So yes, it's another Muffin Monday and this time Elena has made a shout out for unusual and unique muffins: Muffins that make you go Ohhhh!

This theme was actually pretty hard because I can't even remember the last time I had an Ohhhh! muffin. I guess I'm a pretty run of the mill, boring muffin maker. Not to say that I don't have some mouth watering recipes, because I do. My last entry being one of them. But to use something in a muffin that doesn't normally belong in a muffin? That could be serious cause for a major baking disaster. Although my cooking and baking range is pretty wide - Indian, Asian, European, American, I lean towards classic. I don't usually go all crazy and I tend to respect, for the most part, the simplicity of my flavor pairings. So finding something unusual but still really tasty and uncomplicated was a challenge.

Needless to say, I am really pretty happy with what I came up with: Chinese five spice and patate douce. I love saying sweet potato in French because it is such a cool word and really makes me happy. Hence the saying, ''ça donne la patate" perhaps??? Anyway, I made a first test batch by just kind of throwing strange amounts of things together. I did do some internet research beforehand and to my surprise, sweet potato muffins already existed! I chose to start with raw shredded potato because I didn't have the energy to cook it down and I thought it might end up to pumpkin-ish. The oats add some texture and the sugar and the potato caramelize and melt into the batter which makes for a dense but not too dense and very moist muffin. The five spice and nutmeg turned out to be best friends with the sweet potato and they will continue to get together on a regular basis, at least in the muffin pan.

Five spice sweet potato muffins

1 cup rolled oats
1 cup flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
2 tsp. five spice
1/2 tsp. grated nutmeg
6 Tbsp. salted butter
2/3 cup tubinado sugar
1 egg
5/8 cup buttermilk
1 1/2 cup shreddded sweet potato

1/4 cup oatmeal
1/4 cup flour
1/4 cup brown sugar
2 Tbsp. butter

Sift together oatmeal, flour, baking powder, baking soda, five spice, and nutmeg. Set aside.

Cream together butter and sugar. Beat in the egg. Alternately mix in the dry ingredients and the buttermilk.

Peel the sweet potato and then shred it in a food processor on the smallest setting. Squeeze out the excess liquid and add to the batter.

In a bowl add all the crumble topping ingredients and work together by hand.

Fill each muffin cup about 3/4 full and top with crumble.

Bake for 15 minutes at 400° F (200°C)

Makes 8 large muffins.

Everything old is new again

esther — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 16:04:00 +0100

Perfect timing! A muffin craving just in time for Elena's from Experiments Muffin Monday!

Marion Cunningham's The Breakfast Book makes reading about breakfast feel like eating breakfast. Everything is soft, warm and inviting. Probably one of my favorite recipes is her Last Word in Nutmeg Muffins. The simplicity of the recipe makes it one of those things that you don't necessarily have to get up early to make. For the longest time we just made them straight up. The soft creamy nutmeg crumble left nothing else to be desired.

But then we started thinking like little scientists and our desire to one up got the better of us. What else could we add? My mom and I went through a whole gammet of ideas: apricots, rolled oats, dried cherries, figs, etc... In the end we decided not to mix anything in the batter for fear of weighing it down. The winning combination was coarsely grated coconut on top and turbinado sugar for the sides.

The sugar dusted sides resulted in two delicious surprises. First, the sugar on the tops of the muffins crystallized and was the perfect additional crunch to the toasted coconut. The sugar coated muffin bottoms almost caramelized to form a sticky sweetness. They tasted like doughnuts, little joey bag o doughnuts as we called them, but even better.

Nutmeg Crunch Muffins

2 cups flour
3/4 cup sugar
1 Tbsp. baking powder
1 1/2 whole nutmegs
1/2 tsp. salt
1 egg
3/4 cup heavy cream
3/4 cup skim milk
5 Tbsp. melted butter

Grate fresh nutmeg and combine with flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. Beat egg in smal bowl and then stir in cream, milk and butter. Blend well with a whisk.

Add the cream mixture to the flour mixture until there are no streaks of flour left. Be sure not to overmix.

Butter the insides of a mini cupcake pan and then dust with turbinado sugar. Fill each cup 3/4 full. Top with coursely shredded coconut.

Bake for about 20-25 minutes at 400 F or until tops are rounded and coconut is toasted.

Let muffins cool almost completely in the pan and then remove. If you remove them too early the sugar bottoms will crumble.

Makes about 2 dozen.

Muffin 007

esther — Mon, 22 Jan 2007 16:04:00 +0100

You start out making these muffins on special occasions, as a thank you to a friend, or for a whole rowdy group over for weekend brunch, or for a quite birthday breakfast. But once you make them a few times, you start finding excuses to make them again and again. My excuse this weekend was waking up early. Not much of an excuse really, but Sunday morning tasted so much better over a warm muffin.

For these muffins, I like to use my round silicone mold for miniature cakes. Usually, I'm a die hard for my aluminum muffin pans that were passed on to me by my mom because they give you that really nice browned bottom. In this case, the silicone bakes a softer, denser muffin which is a good counterpoint to the crunchy crumble topping plus they come out looking like elegant little blueberry pillars of cakey goodness.

Keep in mind though that these babies do pack a punch with fourteen tablespoons of butter, one egg and a whopping 1/2 cup of crème fraîche. So bake them for no reason, enjoy a few yourself and then send the rest off with the first unsuspecting neighbor you come across.

Blueberry crumble muffins

(a slight variation on my mom's recipe)

Muffin ingredients
1/2 cup salted butter
1/2 cup sugar
1 large egg
2 cups flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup crème fraîche
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/2 cup wild blueberries

Topping ingredients
1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup rolled oats
1/3 cup brown sugar
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/8 tsp salt
6 Tbsp salted butter

Cream butter and sugar until fluffy then add egg. In a separate bowl combine dry ingredients. In a second bowl combine milk, crème fraîche and vanilla.

In yet another bowl, combine all the dry topping ingredients and then with a pastry cutter, cut in the butter.

Combine flour and milk mixture alternately into the creamed butter. Fold in blueberries. Do not over stir. Finish with topping. Pour mixture into forms.

Bake at 200°C (400°F) for 30 minutes.

Rainy morning breakfast

esther — Wed, 09 Aug 2006 13:45:00 +0200

Nothing can get you out of bed faster on a cool rainy morning than fresh English muffins. We've had unusually wet weather these past couple of weeks after an equally unusual heatwave. The autumn like chill in the air has brought back a hankering for all things warm and baked.

These oat muffins, sea salt butter and homemade almond butter are the perfect mix to accompany a bowl of Irish oats.