Savory Broccoli and Cheese Muffins

Confession: I actually made these muffins on Sunday, but... I've been too lazy to write up an accompanying blog post.

I have been finding it difficult to muster up any ounce of motivation at the moment. (I did finally sign up for my road test but uh yeah... I've been putting that off for three years.) What can I say. I am a master procrastinator.

In any case, Sunday night was the Confederations Cup final, and I really did stay at home, instead of going out with my parents to my favorite Chinese restaurant (well, the only good one in Ithaca), in order to watch Brazil beat Spain. I probably wouldn't have been too upset if Spain had won, since they're my second favourite national team, but the Green and Yellow are my number one.

I promise it was a coincidence that these muffins are also green and yellow, but we'll roll with it. (Accidentally on purpose!)

I heavily adapted this broccoli and cheddar muffins recipe, using larger florets to make a little broccoli tree in the center! I didn't trim my florets enough so some of them peeked out over the top of the muffins, but I mean, it's the taste that's the most important, and these are definitely some tasty muffins.

Anyway, since it's still very hot and humid right now, I think I'll just let the recipe and photos take it from here. (And let me tell you: I loved photographing these muffins. So photogenic!)

INGREDIENTS
- ½ cup broccoli florets, cut into bite-sized pieces
- 6 small broccoli florets
- ¼ cup vegetable oil
- 1 large egg
- ½ cup water
- 1 cup AP flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- ¼ tsp salt
- ½ or 1 tsp paprika
- ¼ tsp cayenne pepper
- ⅓ cup shredded cheese

NOTES: 
• This recipe yields 6 muffins.
• I used a ½ cup of bite-sized broccoli, but I think that if you wanted more, ¾ cup would still work.
• You could use buttermilk or milk instead of water, but I didn't have any on hand.
• Original recipe would call for ½ tsp mustard powder instead of paprika, but again, I didn't have any of that in the kitchen, and I think I would prefer paprika anyways.
• I used ½ tsp cayenne pepper because I wanted my muffins to be extra-spicy, but they're still spicy even with ¼ tsp.
• I used a mixture of Colby Jack cheese (I only had a little left in the bag, so might as well use it up!) and a Four Cheese blend.
• This recipe can easily be doubled if you're looking to serve more people and/or have more leftovers for breakfast, brunch, etc.
• I promise this recipe is not as difficult or lengthy as these notes and ingredient list are! :D

Preheat your oven to 350°F and either line a 6-cup muffin tin with paper liners sprayed with cooking spray OR simply spray each cup of the muffin tin, sans liners. (I tried both ways, and they work equally well.) Set aside.

Cut a handful of broccoli florets into bite-sized pieces, but leave 6 florets whole. (I ended up using just over half of a head of broccoli.) Then trim the 6 remaining florets down to size. (Mine were a little too large, so the batter didn't completely cover them in the muffin tin, but I'm okay with that.)

In a large bowl, mix together the oil, egg, and water.

In a large measuring cup or medium bowl, add together the flour, baking powder, salt, paprika, and ground cayenne pepper.

Add the dry ingredients into the wet, and mix until just combined.

Gently fold in the shredded cheese and bite-sized broccoli.

Pour out some the batter into the muffin cups until they are 3/4 full. Then place one of the broccoli florets in the center of each muffin cup. Top with remaining batter, filling the muffin cups. Try to spread the batter to cover the broccoli florets. Alternately, you could place the florets into the cups first, before pouring the batter around them. This way might make it easier to cover up the florets entirely. OPTIONAL: You could top with more shredded cheese.

Bake for approximately 30 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Voila! Tasty cheesy broccoli muffins.

These look so cute when cut in half, revealing the tiny broccoli tree!

I think these tasted best when still nice and toasty, about 30 minutes after coming out of the oven. However, they still taste good the next day. (and probably after that too, but they didn't last that long with me in the house!) You could even stick them briefly into the microwave or toaster oven to reheat them.

Yum. The broccoli is nice and soft, just like it would be in a cheddar broccoli soup, and the cayenne gives a nice kick to the tastebuds. (Ooh yes, I do love spicy food.)

(I immediately ate three. And I'm not remotely remorseful about that.)

Enjoy!

Popovers for One (in a muffin tin!)

Sometimes it's easy to feel sorry for myself when all my friends are off travelling and hanging out together. But you know what? I'm going to take the positive side of things for once.

Alone time means baking time.

It's so much more enjoyable to throw something into the oven rather than throw a pity party. I suppose you could do both, but I find that carbs don't weigh on my conscience so much when I'm smiling.

I was perusing through food blogs yesterday when I stumbled across popovers, and thought, wow- those look amazing!

I read somewhere that the popover is the show-off cousin to the Yorkshire pudding, and found the epithet quite pleasingly accurate. On one side, the British one being self-deprecatory and typically a side note to a meaty Sunday roast, while the American popover steals the show. Both have their merits.

(But secretly I admire the chutzpah of the popover.)

So many of the recipes that I subsequently googled were meant to yield a dozen or even two dozen popovers, or required a popover pan. I suppose this is a good thing if you're preparing for a large picnic or dinner party, but I ain't got time fo' that! I wanted popovers just for myself.

But even I have my limits. I don't think I can eat 12 popovers without feeling like a lump of dough myself.

So here is my version of this popovers recipe, adapted to serve one person! This means: 3 popovers in regular-sized muffin tins. Plus, the recipe requires pretty basic ingredients, and you don't need any yeast for these fun bread roll-like popovers! It's like magic!

INGREDIENTS
- ⅓ cup milk
- ⅓ cup AP flour
- pinch of salt
- 1 large egg
- just under ½ Tbsp vegetable oil *
- ½ Tbsp butter, melted (or cooking spray) **
- (optional) shredded cheddar or Colby Jack cheese

*You can substitute ½ Tbsp melted butter, but I used up the butter for greasing the muffin tins and was so repulsed by the smell (my mom too-successfully weaned me off of butters and fats) that I decided to go with oil instead.
** Optional: see comments below.

Preheat your oven to 450°F. It will take awhile for it to heat up, so do this before anything else. When you've done this, generously grease 3 muffin tin cups with melted butter or cooking spray. You can even forgo this step if you want, but the popovers will stick to the tins - I tried one without buttering the tin, and it actually didn't stick too badly; it only needed a little coaxing with a knife, but if you're going for perfection, better to oil up!) Note: it only took 30 seconds for my ½ Tbsp butter to melt in the microwave, so start out with a small increment of time.

In a medium-sized bowl, mix together the milk, flour, and salt. Don't worry if it's a bit lumpy! Batters come in all shapes and sizes, and still taste good :D

Add the egg, and stir well to make sure the egg is incorporated well into the rest of the mixture. (Alternately, you could beat the egg before adding it in, but I was too lazy.) I cracked the egg into the bowl with which I had melted the butter, so as to pick up any remaining butter.

Then add the oil, and mix. The mixture will be quite runny.

If you'd like to add some shredded or grated cheese, please do! I only added a little bit because I was wary of altering the recipe too much, but I'd say that a good handful of cheese would work. You could also try some ground black pepper, or chopped chives, or whatever else happens to inspire you at the moment!

Hopefully your oven will be preheated to 450°F by now, but if it isn't, it should soon be ready. (Meanwhile, I watched one of my favorite movies...)

The Breakfast Club

When your oven is ready, heat the prepared muffin pan in the hot oven for 1 to 1½ minutes. This is what allows you to use a muffin tin instead of popover tins, which capture heat more readily than the standard muffin pan. If you're too impatient to wait for the oven to heat up completely or if it's taking an extraordinarily long time and you don't want the butter/oil to evaporate, slide the tin in but keep a close eye (and nose) on it.

(The butter is apparently supposed to sizzle, but I think a little bit of egg mixture got into the tins and instead it was starting to burn, setting off the smoke detector. Oops! I quickly removed the tin from the oven and fished out the offending piece of blackened egg.  Crisis averted! This should not cause any problems for you if you don't spill egg into the butter/cooking spray.)

Take out your muffin pan carefully from the oven, and spoon your batter into the three muffin wells/cups. They should each be about ¾ full. (You may want to put a paper towel under the tin while you're transferring the mixture, because it can get kinda messy if you get distracted like I did.)

Bake the popovers at 450°F for 15 minutes without opening the oven. (Resist the temptation! If you open the oven door, the popovers will deflate, and will no longer be 'popovers.' If you must take a peek, turn on the oven light if you have one.)

Then lower the temperature to 350°F and bake for 15 minutes more. If you're making larger-sized popovers, you may need to let them cook for 5 minutes more.

Turn the oven off, and take your muffin tin out using oven mitts. Carefully remove the popovers from the tins, and check that the bottoms have browned. The ones that I buttered already popped out on their own, while I needed to apply a butterknife to the sides of the unbuttered popover.

Use a toothpick or thin chopstick to poke a hole in the top of each popover. This will let out a little bit of the steam that worked so well to puff up the popovers. (You can see a little bit of steam from the rightmost popover in the photo!)

There may be some gooey spots left, so let them dry out in the oven for up to 10 minutes. You can either keep them in the muffin tin for this or transfer them to a baking sheet.

Eat these while they're still warm!

These go great with jam and also all kinds of leftovers. I had them with a bit of shredded chicken and enoki mushrooms with peanut sauce that my mom made last night. The little air pockets in the popovers are good for loading the chicken into! (Ooh, these would probably be amazing with chicken salad or sauteed mushrooms.) They're also tasty enough on their own! Oh- and they are perfect for breakfast, brunch, lunch, dinner, or even a snack!

Popovers are definitely something that I want to try again. I'm even smiling just looking at these photos. :) Hope you like them too!

Moroccan Orange Cake

This Moroccan Orange Cake recipe is one of the first things I ever tried when I was learning how to bake, and it still remains one of my family's favorites.

It all began when we bought too much orange juice for a dinner party, and the rest is history. Or something like that.

Most of the ingredients needed for this cake are things I'd normally have lying around the house, which is good for when I've got an itch to bake something. It means it's also good for spur-of-the-moment stress baking.

I've slightly adapted the recipe from this meskouta recipe. Mine runs on the slightly less sugary side; as I've said before, my family tends to prefer desserts that aren't cloyingly sweet. You can experiment with the amount of sugar based on your own tastes.

INGREDIENTS
- 4 eggs
- heaping 3/4 cup sugar *
- 1/2 cup vegetable oil
- 2 cups AP flour
- 4 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/2 cup orange juice
- zest from 1-2 oranges
- 1 tsp vanilla extract

* original says 1 ½ cups

Preheat your oven to 350° F. Grease and lightly flour a cake pan (I used a 9"x1.5" round pan, but you could also use a tube pan. I've also made these into cupcakes and a small cake loaf, diminishing the baking time accordingly.)

Start by cracking open 4 eggs. (I used large brown eggs.)

Beat together the eggs and sugar in a large bowl until thick. (You can mix the entire recipe's ingredients in one bowl, if you like.)

Gradually beat in the oil.

Stir in the flour, baking powder, and salt. (I measured everything into one large measuring cup, but you could use smaller measuring cups as long as you don't lose count of how much of each ingredient you've added so far!)

(Add in the dry ingredients gradually, 1/4 or 1/2 cup at a time, to prevent the flour from flying out everywhere.)

Your batter should be fairly thick, enough to form ribbons when you lift your spoon/mixing utensil/hand mixer.

Now add in the orange juice.

The batter will become runnier, with faster-forming ribbons.

Add in the vanilla extract.

And now for the orange zest! (You can zest the oranges earlier on if you want.) I used zest from one orange. The time it was taking for me to use the grater was starting to grate on me (haha see what I did there?) so I eventually took to the orange with a peeler and then chopped the peels into smaller pieces using a rocking motion of the knife.

If you want extra bite, cut up some of the peel into larger pieces.

Mix well, so that the zest is evenly incorporated.

Pour the batter into your prepared pan/baking vessel of choice, and bake for approximately 40 minutes, or until the cake tests done. If your batter has bubbles in it, tap the pan gently against the tabletop.

(My cake got crispy edges when I baked it for 40 minutes, which my dad claims is the best part.)

Let the cake cool in its pan for 7 to 10 minutes, before turning it over onto a rack to finish cooling. (You could probably avoid the crack on the top of the case by using a slightly larger pan. I kind of like it though: reminds me of Doctor Who.)

Top with powdered sugar, if you'd like. I've also decorated with simple icing and orange slices before.

However, it is probably healthier and yet still unbelievably tasty without anything extra! Plus, it's fairly versatile as cakes go: makes for a great dessert and a tasty breakfast. And of course, it's good with fruit (like these fresh cherries) or fruit juice!