Dutch Baby with Lavender Sugar

Sunday mornings for me deserve a special breakfast.  Often this means french toast, but when the only bread in the house is multi-grain (and let's be serious, a good french toast should be made with challah or French bread) sometimes you need to up the ante a little bit.  I have been seeing recipes for dutch babies for months and I've been dreaming about them but they look... intimidating.  All that puffed dough in a cast iron skillet? Sounds complicated.



Wrong.  SO EASY.  Healthy? Not so much. But definitely easy!  And delicious?  Of course.  It reminds me of the fried dough we used to get at Clowntown, my hometown's annual carnival, every year.  But it's breakfast food and on Sundays, I don't even feel guilty about it!  The lavender on top takes it from a cheesy carnival treat to something just a little bit more gourmet.  I loved this so much as is, I didn't even pour maple syrup on it.  Now that's saying something.



Dutch Baby with Lavender Sugar
from A Cozy Kitchen

Ingredients
3 large eggs at room temperature 30 minutes
2/3 cup whole milk at room temperature (I used skim and it worked fine)
2/3 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/8 teaspoon cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon grated nutmeg
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/2 stick unsalted butter, cut into pieces
1/3 cup sugar
1 tablespoon of dried lavender

Instructions
1. Preheat the oven to 450 F. Put a 10" cast iron skillet on the middle rack of the oven and let it heat up for about 3 minutes (if it gets too hot the butter will burn).
2. In the bowl of your stand mixer, beat the eggs on high with the whisk attachment until pale and frothy. Add the milk, flour, vanilla, cinnamon, and nutmeg and beat just until smooth. You'll have a very thin batter.
3. Carefully remove the hot skillet from the oven and add the butter, swirling to coat the bottom evenly. It may brown a little bit - that's OK.  As soon as the butter is melted, add the batter and immediately return to the oven.  Bake until puffed and golden brown, 18-25 minutes (mine was done in 18, so be sure to watch it).
4. While the pancake bakes, mix together the sugar and lavender in a small bowl.  Press the lavender into the sugar, breaking it up and making it fragrant.
5.  When the pancake is finished, remove from the oven and top with the lavender sugar.  You may not need all the sugar - I only used about half and saved the rest for another day.  Serve immediately.

Egg-free French Toast

On Sunday morning I was craving French Toast.  Of course, the roommate is the only one who ever buys eggs in our house and, since he'd been gone for a week, we had none.  I told myself I wasn't going out until I had done a deep-clean of the house, so there was no going to the store or our usual brunch spot.  It was time to get creative.

I figured if anyone knew how to make French Toast sans eggs it would be a vegan, so I did a quick search and found a vegan French Toast recipe.  We all know I am not a vegan chef so I of course un-veganized it - adding back in milk and butter.  It's a great way to make French Toast if you're allergic to eggs or, like me, a lazy grocery shopper.  It's crispy on the outside and soft on the inside.  It would be awesome topped with fresh fruit or berries.  Basically, it's just batter-fried bread, and who can complain about that?  Certainly not me!



Egg-free French Toast
adapted from chef chloe

Ingredients
1/4 c skim milk
1/4 c flour
1 tbsp maple syrup (plus more for serving)
1 tbsp ground flax seed
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 tbsp brown sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla
6 slices, 3/4" thick, french bread
1 tbsp butter

Instructions
1. Whisk together the milk and flour with a fork in a small bowl until smooth.
2. Add the maple syrup, ground flax seed, salt, cinnamon, brown sugar and vanilla and whisk to combine.
3. Dip the bread in the batter until both sides are well coated.
4. Melt the butter in a skillet over medium heat.  Once melted, add the bread, making sure not to crowd the pan.  If you need to do it in two batches, that's better than squishing the bread.
5. Allow the bread to brown on one side, then flip and allow to brown on the other side.  I like to press the bread while the second side is browning.
6. Serve with additional maple syrup, warmed.

serves 2

Lemon Poppy Seed Circus Waffles

He may not like that I'm admitting this, but this weekend, I convinced the Monkey Scientist to watch Water for Elephants with me.  I loved the book, and I'd wanted to see the movie for a while now. I sold it as a total chick flick, so when the movie turned out to have a lot less romantic development than the book, I think he was pleasantly surprised.  I enjoyed the movie a lot.  It had been a long time since I read the book, but I do think it missed a lot of the detail, as movies always do - but it was still entertaining.



The next morning, it only seemed appropriate to pull out the circus animal waffle iron that his mom gave him for Christmas.  I had actually been asking for a waffle maker for a long time, so when he received this one I was totally excited.  Obviously he got it because of the monkey waffle shape, but the elephants and giraffes were pretty adorable too.  I wanted to make waffles that were a little something special, so I decided to try this recipe out, since Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins are one of my favorite treats.



These waffles were very yummy.  They're reminiscent of lemon poppy seed muffins while still tasting distinctly like waffles.  I basically drowned them in some maple syrup (real maple syrup, none that corn syrup junk!) which made them totally delicious.  You can use any waffle maker to make these - the original recipe was for Belgian waffles - but they won't be this cute if they aren't shaped like monkeys.  I think some cousins of mine have an adorable waffle maker similar to this that my mom gave them - maybe my Auntie should pull it out for a special treat this weekend!!



Lemon Poppy Seed Waffles
From sugarcrafter

Ingredients
4 eggs
1 cup buttermilk
1 stick unsalted butter, melted
1 cup nonfat Greek yogurt
2 Tbsp poppy seeds
1 Tbsp lemon juice
1 Tbsp lemon zest
2 cups flour
2 1/4 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp baking soda
2 Tbsp sugar

Instructions
1. Preheat the waffle maker to medium-high heat. Preheat the oven to 200 degrees (for keeping the cooked waffles warm).
2. In a large bowl, whisk together the eggs. Whisk in the buttermilk, butter, yogurt, poppy seeds, and lemon juice and zest.
3. In a small bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and sugar.
4. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and whisk until smooth.
5. Pour batter into each well of the waffle maker (1/3 cup for Belgian waffles, adjust accordingly for smaller waffles) and cook until golden brown and crisp. Keep the cooked waffles warm in the oven until ready to serve. When you're ready to eat, slather in real maple syrup (preferably from Vermont).

Saturday morning pancakes!

The roommie and I woke up this morning and decided it was a pancake morning.  We didn't have a whole lot of ingredients in the house but I found a recipe that utilized exactly what we had (including only 1 egg, which is exactly what was left in the fridge after last week's quiche).

We added some chocolate chips and when we ran out of chocolate chips we added sprinkles (a la How Sweet's Cake Batter pancakes).  Turns out the pan didn't have to be sprayed with Pam because of the butter in the batter.

My roomie taught me her Dad's trick - you know they're ready to flip when the bubbles don't close.

DELISH!

 

 

 

 

 

Good Old Fashioned Pancakes
from all recipes

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 3 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon white sugar
• 1 1/4 cups milk
• 1 egg
• 3 tablespoons butter, melted

Directions

1. In a large bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, salt and sugar. Make a well in the center and pour in the milk, egg and melted butter; mix until smooth.
2. Heat a lightly oiled griddle or frying pan over medium high heat. Pour or scoop the batter onto the griddle, using approximately 1/4 cup for each pancake. Brown on both sides and serve hot.

Blackberry and Orange Zest Muffins

I have been thinking about these muffins ever since Jenna posted them.  When the blackberries went on sale this week I couldn't help but make them.  I decided to adjust the recipe to incorporate some whole wheat flour since I'm always trying to use more whole wheat flour... I would have added flax seed too if I had any.

They were good!  The whole wheat flour made them a little bit dense but they were still very good.  I think next time I'd substitute the blackberries for blueberries because blackberries were a little too sour, and I'd sub orange for lemon because they would make it a little fresher.


Blackberry Orange Muffins

adapted from eat, live, run
makes 8 muffins (I halved the original recipe)

Ingredients:
1/2 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flower
3/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp grated orange zest
1 cup fresh blackberries (or berry of your choice..use frozen if you can’t find fresh!)
1/2 stick butter, softened
1/2 cup sugar
1 egg
1/4 cup milk

Directions:
Preheat your oven to 375.
In a large bowl, combine the flour, orange zest, baking powder, salt and cinnamon together. Gently add the blackberries and stir so that the berries are covered with flour. Set aside.
Cream the butter and sugar together. Add the eggs, one by one, until thoroughly combined. Add the milk and blend.
Pour the wet ingredients over the dry ingredients and toss gently, being careful not to crush the berries. Scoop batter into 12 greased muffin tins granulated sugar over the tops.
Bake for 25-30 minutes until the tops are golden. Let cool for five minutes in the tins then pop out and cool completely.