Strawberries are not always an easy fruit to bake with because they lose some of their texture when they’re in the oven. One way around this is to puree your strawberries and then incorporate the puree into whatever you’re baking – just as I did in these Strawberry Coffee Cake Muffins. The light pink muffins are packed with fresh strawberry and topped off with a ... Read More »
Marmalade is a popular fruit preserve typically made from sugar and orange juice that has pieces of orange or orange rind suspended it it. Seville oranges, also known as bitter oranges, are the standard citrus used in marmalade, but you can actually make it with any kind of citrus and I’ve had some lovely marmalades made with blood oranges and grapefruits before. Marmalade has a very ... Read More »
Apples are a popular choice for crisps and cobblers, but pears are also an excellent fruit for making this type of dessert. Pears tend to be juicier and more tender than apples, especially once they’ve been baked. That means that when they’re put into a fruit dessert like a crisp, they bake up very quickly and produce a fruit filling that has a lot of ... Read More »
A basic cinnamon streusel is a classic topping for coffee cake, but coffee cakes, like muffins, are things that can easily be transformed by the addition of a few flavorful extra ingredients. There is no cinnamon in sight in this Cranberry Nut Coffee Cake, but there are lots of crunchy pecans, sweet-tart dried cranberries and a brown sugar streusel – all of which will make ... Read More »
I always liked Fig Newtons, but I find that many people like the filling and are a bit bored by the plain cake that surrounds it. I can see this because the cake doesn’t have a strong flavor to it and serves, primarily, to make the Newton easier to hold and eat. I was inspired by my last batch of Fig Newtons to make a ... Read More »
This Lemon Blackberry Coffee Cake is another recipe that takes advantage of fresh, summertime berries. I, obviously, used blackberries in this case. Blueberries are definitely more popular for muffins and coffee cakes than blackberries are, since they tend to hold their shape and not “bleed” too much juice into a baked good. But there are advantages to using bigger, juicer berries: the fresh blackberries give ... Read More »
It has been a while since I used raspberries in a recipe – not because I haven’t been buying raspberries, but because I’ve been unable to resist eating them right out of their box when I get them home! A bag of frozen raspberries is what it took to get me to break the cycle. Frozen raspberries are great for baking because they are just ... Read More »
Calling something a coffee cake is, more often than not, just an excuse to eat cake for breakfast. I don’t need an excuse to eat cake for breakfast, but I am a huge fan of coffee cake nevertheless. This coffee cake does have a little bit of redeeming nutritional value so, just in case you ever feel guilty reaching for that second slice with your ... Read More »
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