Merry Christmas! and Lemon Pineapple Zucchini Bread

December 25, 2011 | Filed Under Baking, Bread, Christmas, Holidays, Lemons | 10 Comments 

 

 

A funny thing happened on the way to the oven to bake this bread. 

I saw this Lemon Pineapple Zucchini Bread recipe on mischief mari’s blog.   The idea of how the flavors of the main ingredients would taste intrigued me.   Lemon, pineapple and zucchini?  Together?   Hmm… I don’t know about that.   Would it really taste good?  I wanted to know and set out to make my bread.

Following the instructions, I put all the ingredients together.  As I mixed the batter and looked at it, I kept thinking to myself, “Hmm… I don’t see any green.”  The batter was the normal pale yellow.  I could have sworn that I’d used all the ingredients, so I dismissed my thoughts and poured the light-colored batter into the baking pan. 

After I put the batter in the oven, I started cleaning up.   I washed the bowls, measuring cups, spoons… and put them away.  I wiped the sink and stove top and looked around the kitchen to see if I’d missed any other dirty dishes.  That’s when I saw the two cups of zucchini, patiently waiting to be mixed into the batter.  Yikes!   I’d forgotten one of the main ingredients of the bread!  Fer cryin’ out loud!  I chastised myself.  This recipe is called Lemon Pineapple ZUCCHINI Bread NOT Lemon Pineapple Bread.    I, quickly, pulled out the hot bread pan and placed it on the stovetop.  By this time, the bread had been baking for about 10 minutes.   It hadn’t taken shape yet, so I mixed the zucchini into the heated batter, returned the pan to the oven, and prayed that I wasn’t too late to save the bread. 

My Lemon Pineapple Zucchini Bread did not turn out nicely.   The zucchini didn’t spread in the batter and stayed mainly on the top.  The rest of the bread had baked properly but the zucchini portion of the bread didn’t bake all the way through.  I returned the loaf into the oven.   The top portion of the bread never completely baked, while the rest of the bread became over-baked and even turned too dry.  What a mess!  We ate pieces of the bread but no one wanted to finish it.

The next day, I was determined to try again.   Luckily I had extra zucchini and pineapple to use.   I put the ingredients together, attentively, and placed them in the oven.   Voila!  A perfect Lemon Pineapple Zucchini Bread loaf.  I’m happy to write that we were able to eat and enjoy this second loaf of bread.  The lemon, pineapple and zucchini taste good together.  Mari’s description was accurate, "It’s got a nice, light, slightly zingy flava.  So yum."  Yup!  Delicious.  The bread tasted perfect with a nice, hot cup of tea, Ovaltine or hot chocolate.

 Morals of my story:   1- Don’t bake (or cook) if you’re tired or pre-occupied.   2- If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. 

Thanks Mari, for the recipe.  By the way, folks:  Mari has a recently published book called the coolest cookies on the planet.  It’s a gem of a book!  I enjoyed reading her stories that inspired some of her cookie designs.  Her baking and design tutorials are easy to follow (I like easy!) and the photos are absolutely fantastic.   Check it out HERE. 

MERRY CHRISTMAS, everyone!  I wish you all a wonderful celebration.

Paz

 

 

My first bread did NOT turn out well.  Portions were unbaked.  So, I tried again.

 

I’m so glad my Lemon Pineapple Zucchini Bread turned out well the second time around.  Yay!

 

 

Lemon Pineapple Zucchini Bread

as seen on  cha no ma-ri

original recipe from Feral Kitchen

 

3 c. all purpose flour
1 1/4 c. sugar
4 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
4 eggs
2/3 c. canola oil
1 8 oz. can of crushed pineapple, drained well. (I found fresh pineapple at my local store. Chopped it up in with a super sharp kitchen knife. Perfect).
2 c. zucchini grated
1 Tbls. lemon zest

Directions:

Mari’s recommendations:

*I recommends having your zucchini grated, your pineapple crushed and your lemon zested BEFORE you start. Just makes the combining of all ingredients easier. Grate the zucchini with the grating blade on a food processor because it’ll take you ages if you do this by hand.  And I sure hope you have a super sharp microplane zester because dull ones are no fun.

  1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.  Grab two 4″ X 8″ baking pans and grease well.
  2. In a medium-sized bowl mix the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. Mix well.
  3. In a separate bowl, whisk together the eggs, oil, pineapple, zucchini and lemon zest.
  4. Add wet ingredients to the dry ingredients.  Mix until moistened.  Do not over mix. This will look like a thick cake batter, and that is okay, it’s supposed to be that way.
  5. Add the mixture to the two baking pans and bake for 1 hour.
  6. Cool on wire racks then remove loaves from pans.  Makes two fabulous loaves.

 

A fabulous loaf of Lemon Pineapple Zucchini Bread!



The Coolest Cookies on the Planet

December 16, 2011 | Filed Under Baking, Books, Cookies, Mischief Mari, Mischief Mari Cookies | 9 Comments 

A silhouette cookie of me. 

Unless we meet in person, this is the only likeness you’ll see of me.  You can thank mischief mari for this sneak peek of me.  LOL!  I actually love this cookie design.  It is very accurate.!  Mari did a special post entitled ‘The Three Pazes‘ and provided a tutorial on these type of cookies, which you can find HERE.

 

Book available HERE.

 

For the past few years, I’ve been enjoying mischief mari cookies and her blog, cha no ma-ri.  Mari has made me several different cookies, which I’ve mentioned on my blog.   I can’t say I have a favorite because I truly love them all.  Each cookie design is creative, artistic, beautiful, amazing, fun, funny, cool and more.   Oh, and they taste terrific, too.  They truly are the coolest cookies on the planet. 

Well, Mari has recently published a book, the coolest cookies on the planet by mari pfeiffer.  In it, she shares cookie and icing recipes, baking and cookie design tutorials, and stories that inspired some of her most popular cookie designs (like her Jane Austen and Obama Hope cookies).  That.  Is.  SO.  Cool.  In addition, the book features eye-catching photos by her husband, Aasulv Austad.

You can find the book HERE.  Go check it out!

Thanks Mari for sharing your creative cookies and now your book with us.  I can’t wait to bake and designing my own cookies.  It’s going to be a lot of fun.

Paz 

One of the first cookies Mischief Mari made for me.  They were so fun to look at, that I didn’t want to eat them.  Well, that feeling only lasted a few hours.  We gleefully gobbled the cookies after that.   They were delish!

 

If I were to run for presidency, I’d hand out these mischief mari cookies.

Surely, no one will forget me.   ;-)

 

Whimsical cookies in honor of my dogs that mischief mari made for me.  

This is Menina wearing glasses.  LOL!

 

 Cookie portraits of my other dog, Cadeau.

Everytime I see these fun dog portrait cookie photos, they make me smile and happy, especially because my dogs are since gone.  My sister was in the hospital when Mari made these cookies.  I took some to her.  Everyone — my sister, the hospital staff and other patients in her room got a kick out of them.  They loved the cookies.  One of the doctors began to speak to my sister on a more personal note and mentioned his dog, which he loved a lot.  If it weren’t for the mischief mari cookies, he would have never become more personable and compassionate with my sister. We would have never known that he was a dog lover.

 

 

This is a package of animal cookies that mischief mari sent me one year. 

This is a wonderful package to receive in the mail.

 

A close up of one of the animal mischief mari cookies.

 

 

One of mischief mari’s popular cookies (She made McCain cookies, too.).



Cranberry Muffins

August 15, 2011 | Filed Under Baking, Muffins | 11 Comments 

 

Actually the title of the original recipe says “Raisin Muffins”. That is what caught my eye since I like raisins. I like muffins, too, but I avoid the ready-made/store-bought ones, since the ones I come across are normally filled with preservatives and who knows what else. It’s been a while since I’ve eaten a muffin and felt like eating a raisin muffin. However, I didn’t have any raisins in the pantry. <Pause for dramatic sigh> Instead, I had dried cranberries, which I’d bought earlier in the week for a salad recipe I made. Ugh! I didn’t like the cranberries in my salad. They didn’t enhance the taste of the salad. Since the dried cranberries were all I had, I decided to go for it. Boy, was I glad I did!

 

The recipe calls for soaking the raisins (“or any other kind of dried fruit that loves to be plumped”). So, I soaked the cranberries. What a big difference in the taste for me. They became succulent and I discovered that I liked the cranberries, after all!

Surprise!

I loved the taste of the cinnamon and nutmeg in the muffin!

Mmm!

I loved how delicious the muffins tasted straight out of the oven (I immediately ate two).

Yum!

The muffins tasted just as good, maybe even better, the next day.

Yum, yum, yum!

All in all, I think I’ll be making muffins more often.

Yes!

Paz

 

 

 

Raisin Muffins

from Bake My Day!

 

Recipe:
1.1/2 cup water
1 cup raisins (or any other kind of dried fruit that loves to be plumped)
1 ts baking soda
1.1/2 flour
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 ts nutmeg
1 ts cinnamon
1/4 cup vegetable oil (4 tbs)
1 egg, somewhat whisked

  • In a small saucepan get the water to a soft rolling boil, add raisins, turn down the heat and let simmer for 20 minutes.
  • Drain, reserving the liquid!
  • Add baking soda to liquid and stir to dissolve
  • Combine and whisk dry ingredients, add raisins, give a quick stir
  • Mix wet ingredients (reserved liquid, oil and egg)
  • Add wet to dry and stir like any muffin batter; not too much, just until combined.

Using a muffin tin, bake these for approx. 20 minutes at 350F or 175C.

 



Chocolate Mint Cake (Also Called “Thin Mint” Cake)

August 2, 2011 | Filed Under Baking, Cakes, Chocolate Cakes | 13 Comments 

 

I’ve never really cared for chocolate cake (or chocolate frosting).  I’ve always been more of a yellow- cake-vanilla-icing kinda gal.  Up until the past year or so I started making chocolate cakes (like the one here) and spreading lots of chocolate frosting on them and eating them all!  I’m not sure what happened, but I’ve started enjoying the taste of chocolate.  I guess it’s never too late to like chocolate, huh?  

 

The other day, I saw an enticing-looking chocolate cake on Cha no ma-ri.  It was a Chocolate Mint Cake, covered in an electric green frosting with multi-colored sprinkles.  Oh, what a fun-looking chocolate cake.  I liked that not only was it chocolate but mint as well.  I wanted to try it. 

 

It turned out that the ingredients were easily available and the preparation method was simple.  Best of all, the cake tasted really good.    The mint flavor in the chocolate cake made it an extra special-tasting cake. 

 

I had enough icing to cover both layers of cake, but I only spread the icing on the top of both layers of cake.  I didn’t place it around the cakes.  I liked the brown and white look and less icing allowed me to enjoy the mint in the cake.  Delicious!

 

Initially, I had planned to make my cake look exactly like Mari’s.  However, I never got a chance to add the dye to the icing.  I never got to use the sprinkles.  That’s okay, though.  It gives me another reason to make the cake again.

Paz    

Ed. Note:  In the comment section, Mari brings out a good observation that she found the amount of the peppermint extract a "scant too much".   I forgot about that when I first wrote this post.  I would have to agree that I, too, found the amount a tad bit much.  It wasn’t overwhelming and no one complained about it.  Everyone truly enjoyed the cake.  However, the next time I make this cake, I will experiment and see if I can come up with the perfect peppermint amount to my liking.  The ingredients call for 1 Tbs. + 1/4 tsp peppermint extract.  Next time, I may just try 1 Tbs.  (and leave out the 1/4 tsp) and see how that works.

  

 

 

Chocolate Mint Cake

from Cha no ma-ri

 

    1 box chocolate cake mix

    1 cup water

    2 sticks butter (softened)

    4 eggs

    1/2 ripe banana (I mashed mine before adding to avoid banana lumping)

    1 tbsp. cinnamon

    1 tbsp. + 1/4 tsp peppermint extract

    1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil

 

Directions:

    Heat oven to 325 degrees.

    Combine all ingredients in a mixer on low for thirty seconds, then increase speed to medium and mix until just combined. I recommend first creaming the butter, then adding the ingredients in the order listed above until just combined.

    Pour into prepared pans (I used two 8in pans) and bake for 30-40 minutes or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean. I recommend buttering and flouring the pans. Also, use a wax paper liner. I baked mine for 35 minutes and everything turned out perfectly.



Challah, again

November 23, 2010 | Filed Under Baking, Bread, Challah | 9 Comments 

 

The other day, I felt like baking.   I felt like baking challah.   I’d baked challah only twice before — one sprinkled with sesame seeds and a honey-vanilla challah.   My braids always turn out very interesting-looking.   This current braid improved but I could still use more practice.  Also, I didn’t care for the color of my challah.  It seemed to come out darker than my last two.  I wasn’t sure what I’d done differently.  When I complained to Simona, she gave me some tips, which I’ll use the next time I bake.  I learned from her that the color of challah depends a lot on the kind of egg wash used.  She uses Peter Reinhart’s recipe and he specifically recommends not to use the color to estimate the doneness.  Instead he recommends that you use your thermometer.  Simona mentioned that she makes her egg wash with whole egg and her challah comes out a nice color.  Last tip was that the crust softens after it is allowed to cool.    Thanks, Simona!  I’ll keep that in mind for the next time I bake challah.

Paz



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