Hello, muffin – what’s that you’re hiding?
Under your cheesy crispy exterior, inside your fluffy buttery crumb, I spy a hidden broccoli tree!
When I made pepperoni chili, I wanted to pair it with a muffin. I knew from the tastes as it simmered all day that this chili was going to be epic – I needed an equally knock your socks off muffin to accompany it.
The recipe I found is epic, this I guarantee.
The flavor is buttery and cheesy and if comfort was a flavor, I’d say that too.
These are crispy yet soft, light yet substantial. The extra fun is a full tree of broccoli inside each muffin - always a popular trick.
The original recipe is the genius of Kate from Food Babbles.
The changes I made:
full trees of broccoli inserted into muffin rather than chopped broccoli mixed in
apple cider vinegar + coconut milk in place of buttermilk
gluten free all purpose flour, plus 1/2 teaspoon xanthan gum
vegan cheddar cheese, flax egg
See full recipe here.
and then make these muffins as soon as it is possible.
When I was growing up, my favorite cookie was something like a meltaway. My mom made these perfect cookies that had finely chopped walnuts in them, and they were boomerang shaped and coated in powdered sugar.
Mom called them butter crescents. I called them boomerangs.
She rarely made them – they were from a cookbook that had it’s own flour blend. Then every recipe simply used a certain measure of that flour blend. Hmm, I wonder if mom was ahead of her time and these were gluten free? Sounds like many gluten free flour blends I hear about now…
These cookies are a bit reminiscent of those old boomerangs of my youth (although now I know those boomerangs are more like a wedding cookie, only shaped differently) in that they melt in your mouth. These have that added zing of citrus I love.
Mildly sweet, with a crunchy exterior and a soft middle – these are quick to make and perfectly delicious.
This past Monday, my friend Liz shared her orange cooler cookies. We had a snow day on Monday, so I made these that very same morning. We ate some warm, while watching the snow.
Liz and I both love to bake, and I love every thing she makes. We once talked about how fun it would be to open a bakery together. This has now become the basis for many of our conversations – we keep adding things to our menu. We decided our bakery needs several flavors of this cookie.
Notes on my changes:
grapefruit juice and zest in place of the orange
gluten free all purpose flour (to which I added 1/4 teaspoon xanthan gum as well)
dairy (and soy) free butter substitute to keep vegan
That’s it! Everything else was following her recipe – go see that here. Then go make them, as soon as you can.
What is your favorite cookie?
I have had a huge interest in baking since college. My first real job, I would wake up early to make fresh bagels to bring to the office (fairly easy once you get a routine), and frequently hosted pageant parties where girlfriends would wear crowns while enjoying wine and dessert treats.
After many successes with established recipes, I must have felt my ego needed a check – I started to write my own. Years before I knew what a blog was, I created recipes. I still shudder when I think of all that was lost with a laptop death a few years ago – chills as I type that now.
Fast forward several years, adding a new challenge of baking vegan and gluten free. Friends and family subjected to enjoying flat loaf cakes with a smile, and a good stretch where all I made was variations of brownies “because I wanted the result to be dense and fudgy”. Well, that part is still true.
French macarons were something I did not attempt as a vegetarian, when I could have easily used eggs. Nope, I had to wait until the challenge would be much greater. After a couple not so pretty fails, I summoned the willpowder to keep going.
With attempts at clever jokes came success! With this amazing product I created a cardamom macaron and filled it with dark chocolate ganache. Then I resumed breathing. Whew.
Before I share a recipe I will be making more batches. While these tasted amazing and had the similar textures to a classic macaron, I want to perfect their appearance while hopefully making them less delicate. I want to make other bright colors (for cardamom flavored I chose a pale green). I just want more excuses to make these and have that elation again! I was giddy all day. After I resumed breathing.
What was your last elated success, in cooking or otherwise?
