Megan’s Sweet Potato Cupcakes with Vanilla Cream Cheese Frosting

17 December 2008 Filed In: Christmas, cupcakes, Desserts, Soy-free, sweet potato, Thanksgiving, Vegetarian




Now that making mixed tapes is a lost art, I’m left to find other crafts, like recipe writing.  My old friend Megan wrote me last week inquiring how she’d go about making a sweet potato cake that she used to order all the time at a restaurant in Greenville, South Carolina, The Brick Street Cafe.  She described it as very light and not too sweet.  (She, apparently, shares my tendency to gag when overly-sweet cream cheese frosting is involved).  All the recipes she found involved pineapple and looked like they’d be about as light as a brick.

“Bout like a yellow cake or more like a banana bread?”
“Not as heavy as banana bread.  Fresh.”
“Color?  Bright orange?  Yellow?  Sunrise?  Sunset?  Canary?”
“———!”
“Oh for the love of God, just send me a picture.”
You see, Megan and I have known one another since her older brother and I had a kindergarten romance.  We tap-danced together as minis, ended up at the same high school, and even once built a house together.  She’s an old friend, and she’s a new mommy.  You KNOW that I couldn’t resist taking on this yummy mummy’s challenge.  
So, armed with only Megan’s description and a picture from the cafe’s website, I made my best rendering of a light sweet potato cake.  My family woofed these cupcakes down-surprise, surprise.  
We’re headed off to Cali for a couple of weeks to visit my parents but will have a guest blogger tomorrow and a meaty post on Friday.  In the meanwhile here are the cupcake details:
Megan’s Sweet Potato Cupcakes with Vanilla Cream Cheese Frosting

For the Cake:
*1 1/4 c. whole-wheat flour
*1 T. cornstarch
*1 t. baking powder
*1/4 t. salt
*1/2 t. ground ginger
*1/2 t. ground cinnamon
*3/4 c. sugar
*4 T. vegetable oil, like canola
*1 c. buttermilk (yogurt would work fine, too)
*1/4 c. sweet potato, pureed till absolutely smooth
*1 egg+ 1 egg yolk
*1 t. vanilla

For the Frosting:
*6 oz. cream cheese, room temperature
*6 T. butter, room temperature
*1 t. vanilla 
*1-2 c. powdered sugar

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.  With your mini-chef, paper or butter 12 muffin cups.

Let your mini-chef whisk together all the dry ingredients in a medium bowl.  Set that aside.

Cream the butter and sugar with an electric mixer.  Then add in the egg, egg yolk,buttermilk, vanilla, and the sweet potato puree and beat on high for a couple minutes.  Scrape down the bowl and beat another minute or so.  Turn the mixer down to low speed and add in all the dry ingredients slowly.  Beat for a minute to make a very smooth batter.

Spoon batter into the prepared cupcake cups.  Fill each cup a little more than 3/4 full.  

Big Person: Put these in the oven and bake about 30 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Then make the frosting by beating the butter and cream cheese together till fluffy.  Add the powdered sugar and vanilla and beat for several minutes at high speed, till very smooth.

Wait till the cupcakes are completely cool before you frost them.  
And, if all else fails, call the Brick Street Cafe and beg them to divulge their secrets.



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Guest Bloggers Meredith and Alison Make Green Salad with Pears, Fennel, and Pear Vinaigrette

15 December 2008 Filed In: Christmas, Fall, fennel, guest blogger, pear, pomegranate, Salad, salads, Thanksgiving, Winter




We love us the sweet stuff over here, but it’s all about balancing healthful meals with the treats.  I have to tell you that when my friend Alison, author of the blog Alison’s Lunch that will surely have you salivating, offered to do a salad post with her mini-chef Meredith, my whole body gave a resounding WHOOP of joy.  So here is her whole post for a healthy, bright, and beautiful salad-and I swear that I didn’t pay her or Meredith to say such nice things about Tribeca Yummy Mummy.  They’re just cool like that….

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This time of year, we all have so many traditional sweet treats to make-for our friends, family and ourselves!  I remember making lots of special holiday cookies with my mom when I was little. Some that come to mind are the spritz butter cookies that I loved to squirt out of the press in the green wreaths and decorate with red hot candies, the krumkake that we made in a special waffle iron and then rolled around a wooden cone, and the peppermint-flavored dough that we rolled into pink and white snakes and then twisted into candy-cane shapes.  For a few years, my mom even made rosette cookies, with the heavy iron molds she dipped into the cookie batter and then deep-fried in her electric wok.  Remember those?  Dusted with powdered sugar, they left a grease slick on the roof of my mouth… With all those fond memories, plus plenty more of my own favorite cookie recipes, it’s pretty easy to think of holiday treats and cookies to make with my four-year-old, Meredith.  I’m sure it’s the same for you.
But why do we only think about including our kids when we’re making treats and sweet things?  I didn’t learn how to cook until I went to college-my mom didn’t think to include us kids when making dinner-I think she just wanted to get dinner on the table, and didn’t need us underfoot.  So in the interest of teaching Meredith to cook healthy, delicious meals (not just desserts), I try to include her in all sorts of cooking projects.  She’s not always quite as interested in making a salad as making treats like graham crackers (eating raw dough is one of her favorite hobbies), but there is almost always a fun part in even the most ordinary meal.  If I’m not rushing to finish lunch or dinner, I’ll ask if she’s interested in helping.  And usually she is-for a little while, anyway!
My greatest inspiration for Meredith-inclusive cookery is my friend Cate, who writes a fabulous blog about cooking with kids: Tribeca Yummy Mummy.  She is all about including our kids in cooking real food-using real, raw ingredients, and making meals and FOOD, not just treats.  Thank you, Cate, for encouraging us to raise our expectations of what we assume our kids are interested in, and are capable of doing in the kitchen!
For this salad, Meredith chopped up the pears for the dressing with a table knife, helped measure the rest of the dressing ingredients into the blender jar, and then picked the pomegranate seeds.  (Oh, and then she helped eat it!)
Green Salad with Pears, Fennel, and Pear Vinaigrette

For the Dressing:
*1 medium very ripe pear, peeled, cored, and chopped coarsely
*6 T. pear vinegar (or 4 T. apple + 2 T. apple juice)
*1/2 t. sea salt or kosher salt
*3 T. olive oil
*sugar, as needed

Place the pear in a blender with the vinegar and salt; puree it until smooth.  Drizzle in the oil while the blender is running.  Unplug the blender!  Taste for salt and sweetness.  If your pear wasn’t very sweet, you might want to add a little sugar to the dressing, or you can add more olive oil to tame the vinegar’s sharpness.  Refrigerate until ready to serve the salad.

For the Salad:
*2 large heads of lettuce, or about 10 cups of baby salad greens
*1 large fennel bulb, cut in half, cored, and sliced very thinly crosswise***
*1-2 ripe pears
*Optional garnish in winter: 1/4 c. pomegranate seeds

Wash and dry the greens.
Cut the pear in half, cut the core away and slice thinly with a table knife.

Put the greens and fennel in a bowl and toss them with dressing to your taste, then add the pears and toss gently.  Arrange on individual plates and top with the pomegranate seeds.

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Treat Week Day 4: Peek-A-Boo Chutney Muffins

12 December 2008 Filed In: bread, Breads, Christmas, cranberry, Desserts, Fall, jam, muffins, Soy-free, Thanksgiving, Vegetarian, Winter



When it comes to preschoolers-or come to think of it, people in general-it seems like you can never have enough muffins around.  In our home, we make muffins weekly, using up leftovers and packing whole grains, seeds, and nuts into little packages that our children gobble down.  Most of the time, if it’s in a muffin, even picky eaters will eat it.  They’re fun to make with children, and even the smallest mini-chefs can help make them as long as you assemble and measure out all of the ingredients before they do their part of the cooking.

These special muffins, though, are pleasure muffins.  The basic muffin is spiked with orange zest and juice and surrounds a dollop of luxurious cranberry-grape chutney.  An added benefit?  They will fill your home with an uplifting and essentially holiday scent: baked goods and orange.
The chutney recipe was inspired by an Everyday Food recipe from a few years back where you make cranberry sauce with a mixture of cranberries and red grapes.  It is delicious on its own.  I did, however, do a little dolling up by adding some spices and other good things and changing the amount of sugar/grapes just a tad.   The chutney is a treat unto itself, and what you do not use for this recipe, you can serve alongside duck, chicken, or turkey or spread on tasty bread.  
Peek-A-Boo Chutney Muffins

For the Chutney:

*3/4 c. water
*12 oz. cranberries
*4 c. seedless red grapes
*3/4 c. sugar
*1 star anise
*1 cinnamon stick
*2 one-inch long strips of orange zest
*1/2 t. salt

For the muffins:

*2 c. unbleached all purpose flour
*1 c. whole wheat pastry flour
*4 t. baking powder
*1 t. ground cinnamon
*1 t. salt
*1/2 c. sugar
*2 T. freshly squeezed orange juice
*zest from one medium orange
*1 c. milk, room temperature
*1 c. buttermilk or yogurt, room temperature
*4 eggs, room temperature
*8 T. (one stick) butter, melted
*2 t. vanilla

Assemble the chutney ingredients with your mini-chef, place them into a medium saucepan, and give them a good stir around.  Then, Big Person will put that saucepan on the stove over a medium flame and bring the chutney to a boil.  Turn the heat down and, stirring occasionally, simmer the mixture until it the fruits are beginning to fall apart.  Take it off the heat and cool to room temperature.  Pull out the star anise, the orange peels and the cinnamon stick and discard.  Note: If you’re making mini-muffins, then you might want to puree the chutney till moderately smooth.  

Preheat your oven to 375 degrees F.  Butter or paper 24 muffin cups (or 48 mini-muffin cups).   Either way, grease the tops of the tins as well since we are filling the cups all the way to the top so that the top of the muffins will spread out and bake onto the tin.

Together: In large bowl, whisk all of the dry ingredients.  In a medium bowl, whisk together all of the wet ingredients.  Make sure to sniff and enjoy the scents of the orange and cinnamon.  

Now, pour the wet ingredients into the dry, and let your mini-chef “make slow circles in the bowl” to gently stir the ingredients till just combined.  

Spoon or scoop some batter into each of your prepared muffin cups, filling them about a quarter of the way up.  Next, spoon a little dollop of the chutney on top of the muffin batter, right in the center of each muffin.  Finally, layer another scoop of the batter, filling the tins right to the top of the cup.  

Big Person will pop these into the oven, baking about 20-25 minutes for big muffins, and 12-15 minutes for the minis.  You can test whether they’re done by sticking a toothpick or cake tester down into one of the muffins.  If it comes out clean, they’re ready to pull out of the oven.  

Cool the muffins at least 10-15 minutes to make sure that the chutney won’t burn little tongues.  

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Treat Week Day 3: Chocolate-Hazelnut Spread Homemade Nutella

11 December 2008 Filed In: chocolate, Christmas, Dairy-free, Desserts, Fall, Gluten-free, Halloween, hazelnut, Side Dish, Snacks, Soy-free, spreads, Spring, Summer, Vegan, Vegetarian, Winter




Please pardon the small interruption in treats.  When you’re working with Yummies, and in this particular case a one-year-old and 12 two-year-old  Yummies, your plans sometimes go awry, your camera gets highjacked, and Treat Week comes to a screeching halt.  On the plus side, there will be future posts on the chaos and fun that ensued when I stopped by our favorite local preschool to bake gingerbread men and houses with the many mini-chefs.

This recipe, I hope, will make up for everything, because it’s HOMEMADE chocolate-hazelnut spread, a.k.a. homemade Nutella.  We’re making it with dark chocolate (think anti-oxidants) and roasted hazelnuts, and organic extra-virgin coconut oil (definitely buy organic and extra virgin since processing destroys the many benefits of the oil).  My son, our taste-tester, can assure you that this should be on your homemade gift-making list.  
Before you make this recipe, please pull out several small jars to fill for friends.  One, because this is so good that it must be shared, and Two, because it’s so delicious that you’re not going to want a whole vat of it hanging around the house with you for too long.  A small jar of this spread, delivered with some crusty bread, would make anybody’s holiday.
Chocolate-Hazelnut Spread

*4 c. (18 oz.) hazelnuts, shelled
*3 c. ground bittersweet or semi-sweet chocolate, the best you can afford***
*2-3 c. powdered sugar, to taste
*4 T. extra virgin coconut oil

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F.  With your mini-chef, spread out the hazelnuts on two rimmed baking sheets.  Big Person with slide these into the oven and roast for 20-25 minutes.  Shake the pan every 10 minutes so that the nuts will be evenly toasted.  The hazelnuts will be dark dark brown when you pull them out and will have been fragrant for a several minutes.

Big Person will wrap each baking sheet full of nuts in a clean kitchen towel.  You can let these cool down a little bit if you’d like your mini-chef to help you, or you can immediately begin rubbing the hazelnuts with the towel so that the bitter skins come off, revealing the meat of the nut.  While you do not have to be super duper concerned that every teensy speck of skin is gone, be thorough.

Place the hazelnuts in the bowl of a food processor, let your mini-chef press the on button and process until it’s like butter, 5-6 minutes.  Now, Big Person, pour in the chocolate, sugar, and coconut oil, let your mini-chef press the button again, and let everything blend together.  This should take another minute or two.   You’re done! 

***To make ground chocolate yourself, chop up the bar/block chocolate with a serrated knife, place this in the bowl of a food processor, and process until powdered.

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Treat Week Day 2: Guest Bloggers Cal and Lecia Make Dana’s Orange Biscotti

09 December 2008 Filed In: Christmas, cookies, Desserts, Fall, guest blogger, Halloween, orange, Soy-free, Vegetarian, Winter




Yummy Mummy has some guests today, and I couldn’t be more excited to introduce you to Lecia, who writes the adorable A Day That is Dessert blog, and her son and mini-chef Cal.  For Treat Week they offered to share this beautiful and easy holiday recipe for biscotti that they make every year at their home in Seattle.  
Lecia writes:  “Thanks, Cate for inviting me over!  Every December we make several types of cookies for the holidays, including this biscotti recipe, which is by far our favorite.  The secret is the large quantity of orange extract, combined with orange zest.  I usually double the recipe in order to have some to eat at home, and some to give away.  These make nice gifts alone in a cookie tin or cellophane bag, or with a pound of coffee or some tea and/or a mug.  Sometimes we drizzle melted chocolate on some of them.  To do this, simply put chocolate chips in a saucepan over boiling water until melted.”
Ok, in our home, the drizzling of chocolate would not be optional, and I cannot wait to make these with my own Yummies.  Thank you so much for swinging by, Lecia and Cal!
Orange Pecan Biscotti
from Lecia’s friend Dana and re-written in TYM style

*2 c. chopped pecans
*2 1/4 c. flour
*1 1/2 t. baking powder
*1/2 t. salt
*3/4 c. sugar
*1/4 lb. unsalted butter (8 T. or 1 stick)
*2 eggs, room temperature
*2 T. orange extract (note: NOT orange flavoring)
*2 T. orange zest

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F.  Line a couple of baking sheets with parchment or nonstick mats.

Together: In a medium sized bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt.

In a large bowl, beat together the butter and sugar.  Let your mini-chef crack the two eggs into a separate small bowl so that you can fish out any shells while the butter and sugar are getting light and fluffy.  Add the eggs one at a time, beating after each addition.

Turn your mixer down to low speed and gradually add the dry ingredients.

Now, by hand, fold in the pecans, orange zest.  

Divide the dough into two equal parts.  Shape each into a log, and place each onto one of the parchment-lined baking sheets.

Big Person: Put the sheets into the oven and bake 35 minutes or until lightly browned.  Set aside to cool.  Turn the oven down to 275 degrees F.

When cool, place on a cutting board, cut with a serrated knife width-wise into 1/2-inch slices, approximately a dozen per log.

Together again:  Have your mini-chef place the biscotti on the baking sheets.

Big Person: Bake these about 30 minutes more, or until golden brown and crispy.  Cool completely before drizzling any chocolate onto the biscotti.

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