Rolling in Dough

Goodbye Gourmet...

2009-10-05T13:47:45-06:00

I saw the news earlier today on Serious Eats - Gourmet is ceasing operations after 70 years of publication. Not to be overly dramatic, but I felt a little bit like someone had died, and spent an hour or so combing the web for details, wondering what would happen to Ruth Reichl and Gourmet's savvy staff of writers.

I love the day when Gourmet arrives in my mailbox. The cover always has an amazing photo and even when I don't get around to reading it right away, Gourmet sits on my coffee table, silently luring me into the soft chair to spend an hour or two reading the recipes, living the stories and admiring the "obsessions". This is almost always followed by a lazy afternoon in the kitchen recreating my favorite of the month's offerings.

Saveur was once my favorite food mag, but I fell out of love after Colman Andrews left and it was overhauled. Shorter with fewer stories and less depth, I began to lose interest and let my subscription run out.

Gourmet took Saveur's place in my heart. Classier than Bon Appetit, less restaurant oriented than F&W, Gourmet is like Julia Child to me - they wrote the rules and never forgot how things ought to be done.

Gourmet - I'm going to miss you. This is for me the most painful example yet of the earthshaking changes the world of publishing is facing - today it hit home.

I'm wishing all of the Gourmet staff and writers well and will say a little prayer that you find jobs you love.

Go out and have a drink, you deserve it. Cheers, Gourmet, I'll miss you.

Denver Gourmet Tours

2009-10-02T14:19:25-06:00

Denver Gourmet Tours is coming!

Designed to give people an insider's look at Denver's great food destinations, Denver Gourmet Tours, is nearly ready to begin offering tours to hungry Colorado food lovers.

There are so many fun, artisanal food purveyors and producers who pour their hearts into making the most delicious and remarkable stuff, and too often, people don't know about them.

So my purpose is two-fold - to show people an extraordinary time letting them taste the best Denver has to offer, and to give these amazing, dedicated, independent small businesses some extra love.

The tours are themed - Tour du Chocolat, Cucina Italiana, Bourbon, Beer & BBQ, Just Desserts, Savory Denver and Colorado Gourmet. They will leave from a central location and take participants on a journey of the senses behind the scenes at Denver's delicious destinations.

At each location, we will learn insider tasting tips, pairing techniques, ideas for cooking with great ingredients, and of course, there are the samples. Mmmmm... samples.....

I've partnered with Denver's best gourmet destinations to give tour participants the finest taste of Denver's food scene:

Wen Chocolates - European chocolates produced by the magical and talented Chef William

Living the Sweet Life - Beautifully delicious baked cupcakes, pies, custom cakes and chocolate chip cookies to die for.

Little Man Ice Cream- Handmade, artisanal ice cream, sorbet and gelato in the best flavors ever.

Winejester- A NW Denver gem, this boutique wine shop boasts a marble tasting table and a wall of good $10 wine.

Great Divide Brewing Co. - 13 medals at the Great American Beer Festival and 22 noteworthy beers, perfect for pairing, cooking or enjoying on a hot day.

Stranahan's - Colorado's only whiskey, but when it's this good, you only need one. The smoothest, full-bodied whiskey around.

The tours will be ready to go in just a couple of weeks - just a few more details to iron out. Meanwhile, got a delicious place you'd love to get a behind the scenes look at? Email me and let me know. I'll see what I can do for you.

Check out the website: Denver Gourmet Tours.com.

Food Pairing Lessons From The Great American Beer Festival

2009-09-28T13:15:50-06:00

I had the pleasure of attending the Great American Beer Festival in Denver with around 50,000 of my closest friends this weekend. I'm generally pouring wine instead of beer, and did't really know much about beer going in (it's foamy, golden brown and comes in cans and bottles...). But I came away from the GABF with a whole new respect for the craft beer industry and the hundreds of brewers who pour their hearts into creating amazing, diverse and outstanding beers.

The event has two sides. First of all, to most of the attendees, the GABF is an opportunity to sport a pretzel necklace, jostle for a picture with Jim Koch of Sam Adams fame and to throw back as many 1 oz. samples of the 2100 available beers as possible before testing their groove at the Silent Disco. (see picture)

To the craft and home brewers who attend, the GABF is really the Olympics of Beer, where bronze, silver and gold medals are awarded in 78 different categories of beer styles. The awards are truly amazing - 3308 beers were entered into the competition. Several categories had more than 100 entries.

Entries are judged blind, beginning at 9:00 in the morning, and unlike wine tasting, there are no spit buckets. Judging can be contentious, as several disputes broke out in the judging room. And rather than a point system, as wine is judged, the gold medal beer is determined to be the BEST in its category. For a list of all of the medal winning brewers and beers, click here.

But the real surprise that I found at the GABF is how well beer pairs with food. I was lucky enough to attend a chef's luncheon pairing 7 different beers with a specially selected menu, where I got a lesson in beer and food pairing.

Some pairing rules:

*Beer can complement, contrast or cut the flavor of food

*Malt provides sweetness and mellows the heat in spicy food. It harmonizes with grilled, roasted and smoked foods.

*Hops bitterness cuts through fatty and rich foods.

*Carbonation prepares the palate by scrubbing the tongue.

*Match the strength of food with the strength of the beer.

*Look for harmonies, links and contrasts - India Pale Ale with Blue Cheese or Stout with Chocolate Cake.

Some pairing highlights:

The Bruery's Hottenroth Berlinier Weisse paired with an organic green salad with macadamia nuts, peaches, jicama and white balsamic vinaigrette. The beer had a acid-y yogurt lemon taste but when matched with the vinaigrette, it nearly sang. They complemented each other beautifully.

Deschutes Brewery Black Butte Porter paired with three day beef cheek, mashed potatoes and baby root vegetables. The chef had marinated the beef cheek in the porter for three days and used it to create a sauce. It was rich with a coffee scented depth that I had never tasted.

Rogue Ales' Hazelnut Brown Nectar Ale Gelato. The chef used the Hazelnut Brown Ale in the gelato to create a smooth, fragrant dessert that tasted of toasted nuts rather than of beer.

I also had the pleasure of seeing Chef Teddy Folkman prepare his signature dish, Hennepin Mussels. It was with this dish that he took down Bobby Flay in the Food Network Throwdown.

The recipe uses Ommegang Hennepin, a saison-style beer. A saison is an ideal beer to use in recipes. Brewed with grains of paradise, coriander, orange zest and ginger, it is full-bodied and brings a ton of exotic flavor to the party.

Teddy Folkman's Hennepin Mussels

11/4 pound rope-grown mussels

4 tablespoons blended oil (40% EVOO, 60% canola)

1/3 cup dices smoked bacon

1/3 cup thinly sliced shallots

1/4 cup creamy blue cheese

1/3 cup Ommegang Hennepin

Juice of one lemon

1/3 cup baby spinach

Heat the oil in a pan over high heat. Add in the bacon and cook until the fat is rendered out and the bacon is slightly browned. Add the shallots and mussels and toss together. Add the Hennepin and lemon juice and toss togther. When the mussels start to open, add half of the blue cheese, melting it into the broth. When the mussels are fully open, toss in the spinach. Season to taste with sea salt and black pepper. Plate mussels and top with the rest of the blue cheese.

Serve with a crusty French baguette and a glass of Hennepin.

Great American Beer Festival

2009-09-23T13:56:49-06:00

The Great American Beer Festival is in town. Hooray!

This once a year Denver tradition is a bacchanalia of brews, bringing 495 breweries together to compete for medals in more than 50 categories. This is the civilized, orderly and sometimes heart-breaking aspect of the festival. It's the Olympics of beer-making - many compete, few will win, some will cry.

In addition, the brewers come to meet the throngs of beer loving fans and serve samples of their combined 2100 different beers.

Kind of like a huge frat party - it starts with a crush of people pouring through the door and ends with someone body surfing through the crowd. Expect crazy hats, pretzel necklaces and some spontaneous singing.

The Great American Beer Festival, noted in 1,000 Things to See Before You Die, is the

hottest ticket in town. It's been sold out for months and in anticipation, Denver has planned an entire week of festivities.

Colorado is home to 103 breweries (and you thought we only brewed Coors!), making us the king of the beer world. And in celebration of our big party, it's difficult to walk down the street without someone handing you a glass of beer or inviting you to a party. The restaurants are offering special menus and the beer is flowing like water (clearly, this is a tough place to live!).

I was lucky enough to score a press pass to the festivities, compliments of the lovely folks at Foodbuzz, so I'll be posting updates here and on Twitter throughout the weekend.

Got any beer advice, questions, comments or anything you'd like me to check out for you? I'm on http://twitter.com/ChellyVitry, send me a DM ad I'll get right back to you.

Cheers!

Bittersweet - Mmmmm.... Chocolate

2009-08-20T14:34:28-06:00

I'm happy to announce my new project - Bittersweet, a site dedicated to searching out and critiquing the very best in artisanal, gourmet chocolate.

So many fantastic chocolatiers are now making confection delicacies that are capable of producing goosebumps and inducing proclamations of love. Artisanal chocolate is an industry 3,000 years in the making, whose time has truly come. And rather than laboring away in obscurity, to have their sweets loved and lusted over by only those lucky few who live in the surrounding area, Bittersweet aims to give those sultry candy-makers an international stage.

Drop by, check it out and sign up for the newsletter, so you'll be in the loop for all of the delicious chocolate reviews, tidbits and news to come.

Also, follow me on http://twitter.com/ChocTruff to get 140 yummy bits delivered throughout the day.

Thanks and I hope to see you there! Chelly

Foodbuzz 24,24,24: A Savory World of Spices

2009-07-26T23:46:39-06:00

Photo courtesy of Savory Spice Shop

I am lost and about to be late. In a flash of genius, I roll down the car window and the aroma of cinnamon and pepper fills the car, guiding me to a nearby parking spot, directly in front of the new headquarters of the Savory Spice Shop. In honor of Foodbuzz's 24,24,24 July event, Mike and Janet Johnston have agreed to give me a behind the scenes look at the grinding and blending that is involved in creating their very special brand of culinary magic.

Five years ago, Mike and Janet Johnston left their home town of Chicago seeking a new place to open the spice shop they had dreamed of. Denver was their first stop and after falling in love with the climate, the lifestyle and the blossoming food culture, they decided that this would be their new home. And boy, are we lucky.

Visiting Savory is a sensory experience unlike any other. The aroma of cinnamon rushes up to you from blocks away. A carnival of flavors, scents and textures, Savory is truly a foodie destination of the highest order.

Pushing open the old-fashioned screen door, wood plank floors creak under your feet as you enter the store. The walls are lined with shelves with row after row of bulk spices. At Savory, the spices are ground on-site and mixed by hand. Customers are encouraged to taste everything in the store, comparing flavors and contrasting textures. After making a selections from the bulk jars, spices are scooped and weighed for each curstomer. You can buy as little as ½ ounce or up to a pound of the more than 500 herbs, spices, extracts, seasonings and blends offered.

As a regular visitor to Savory, I can always count on receiving a suggestion that transforms an ordinary recipe into something amazing. The staff’s working knowledge of the culinary applications of the myriad spices and blends is simply amazing.

With herbs, extracts, 140 different spice blends, 8 varieties of cinnamon and 34 kinds of chili powder on hand, they are always ready with a recommendation, technique or something fun, new and usually fantastically tasty to try.

How is this mind-boggling collection of recipes created? In a lab by a team of scientists? In a factory by men in white coats with tiny spoons?

No, most of the recipes have been created in Janet and Mike’s kitchen through trial and error and a lot of cooking. Janet tells me that to create the Tikki Masala blend, they investigated the 43 known ways to combine the spices and then worked to perfect one for the shop. “We ate Chicken Tikki Masala for weeks, until we settled on the right combination of spices”, she said.

In creating the recipes that the shop would offer, the Johnstons spent more than a year mixing, grinding, cooking and tasting. They began with a list of “must-have” spices and blends. “We knew we needed a vindaloo, a garlic pepper, a lemon pepper, a Thai curry,” Janet said, “and then we added some classic recipes – jerk and Cajun seasonings, an Old Bay, and barbeque seasonings.”

"New recipes are inspired by different foods we eat. If we taste something, like Chimmichurri, that would be a good addition, we can recreate in here. It's just taking good flavors and understanding how they work together" says Mike. But translating liquid ingredients and flavors into a dried mix can sometimes be a challenge. "The blends have to taste good dry. It won't taste good in your food if it doesn't taste good in the dried form"

Curries were a bit more difficult. The curries contain the same basic ingredients: ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, mace, paprika, onion, garlic, turmeric, coriander, cloves, cumin, black peppercorns, fennel, fenugreek, anise seed, cardamom, asafetida, poppy seeds, mustard seeds, shallots, allspice, curry leaves, kaffir lime leaves, galangal, lemon grass, cayenne and other hot peppers, but the difference is in the details. “Every family has its own recipe that they have passed down through the ages. Every one is a little bit different and each family thinks that theirs is best. There are no hard and fast rules.” said Mike. So in response to customer requests for additional flavors and levels of spiciness, the shop now boasts 24 different curry blends.

During my visit, pepper was the spice of the day. A colorful mix of pink, black, green and white peppercorns were being mixed to create Savory’s signature Four Corners Pepper blend. Across the room, fragrant black peppercorns were churning through an almost deafeningly loud grinder, and a sifter sorted ground pepper into six different tubs according to the size of the grind. Pepper is sold whole, ground and is used in many of the shop's blends. And sales are good. Last year, Savory sold over 5,000 pounds of pepper and expects to double that this year.

In the storeroom, tubs of ingredients line the walls – chili peppers, nutmeg, star anise, cumin, thyme, parmesan cheese, honey powder, chocolate and salts, and burlap bags of newly arrived spices sit on the floor.

The Johnstons source most of their ingredients whole and grind and mix them as needed in the shop. This allows them to offer the freshest spices possible to their customers. The flavors in spices are volatile oils that start to dissipate as soon as the spices are ground, carrying away the spices signature flavor and aroma.

This is really the heart of the Johnstons’ business – educating customers about the benefits of freshly ground spices and how using fresh spices can really improve the quality and taste of the food their customers cook and eat.

To this end, the shop recently invited customers to trade in their old spice containers for a new, freshly ground spice. Then they did a side-by-side flavor comparison between the old spices and the freshly ground. People were astonished at the difference in flavor and aroma.

“It was a lot of fun. People brought in tins with 13 cent price tags that had been in their cupboard for decades” Janet said. “You would never keep a can of corn around for 30 years but people don’t think twice about keeping their spices around that long.” I asked what the actual shelf life of spices really is. “They will last about a year and a half” said Janet, “If you take good care of them. Store them somewhere cool and dark, not over the stove like most people do.”

I asked Mike and Janet about the many salts they stock. Savory has 16 different salts in a rainbow of colors that include pink, black, red, gray, brown and white. The shop sells rock and kosher salt and an array of exotic sea salts and flavored gourmet salts that have been raked, harvested and seasoned by hand.

Inspired by the beautiful salts, I was ready to run home and pitch my trusty box of Mortons, but Janet assured me that table salt still has a place in the cupboard. "It's what I use for baking," she says. Mike adds, "Otherwise you could use grey sea salt. It's really the only salt we carry that I would use to cook with. The others are finishing salts. Sprinkling them on your dish just before you serve them gives your food an extraordinary bit of color, flavor and crunch.”

And some of the salts really are extraordinary. Rich in minerals and trace elements, they last indefinitely. In fact, Himalayan pink sea salt is the oldest food on Earth. Mined by hand from ancient sea beds, the salt is then brought down the mountains on yak-back. It is a beautiful coarse salt with a color that looks like pink quartz.

The Fumee de Sel Chardonnay Oak Barrel is a real treat. With a sandy, almost velvety looking texture, this gourmet treat is raked by hand and cold smoke seasoned with fires built from the oak barrels used to age Chardonnay. It has a deep, rich and luxurious aroma, reminiscent of wine and citrus. It is magnificent sprinkled on roasted vegetables and to finish grilled meats.

Savory has been my culinary secret for years but the word seems to be leaking out. In fact, even The Food Network has discovered my secret. The Johnsons have appeared with their spices on Paula Deen’s show, Down Home with the Neelys and Road Tasted. (The Savory episode of Down Home with the Neelys premieres August 1!)

And if you are lucky, the Savory Spice Shop might be coming to a town near you. The Johnsons have begun looking for franchisees who would like to bring some spicy goodness to their own corner of the world. They are seeking a few good people who have a passion for food and educating others about how to eat well. And while growth is good, staying true to their customers is always their first priority.

“The effort, love and passion we put in has to shine through” Janet told me. And as many happy Coloradoans will attest, not only does their passion shine through, you can smell it all the way down the street.

You can visit the Savory Spice Shop at four locations in the Denver Metro Area or online. Their website is packed full of their delicious and exotic spices, with origins, history and recipes.

The 2009 Bake Your Own Bread Challenge

2009-04-18T16:12:38-06:00

I happened across The Baker's Bench the other day. It seems that Sandy has taken a stand and decided to bake all of her own bread this year. ALL OF IT - including bagels, hamburger buns and bread sticks, as well as everyday sandwich bread. Wow.

I am a bread baker, but I'm a lazy one. I usually start with wonderful intentions of a house filled with the sweet aroma of freshly baked bread, but then I get busy and end up picking up a baguette on the way home. I have baked hamburger buns and bread sticks (the latter with unimpressive results), but I generally buy these, too. I have never actually made a bagel.

But let's be honest, no store-bought bread can hold a candle to homemade. So I considered the possibility of accepting the challenge. Could I really bake all of my bread this year? Well, yeah, I can. So I'm in. I have joined the ranks of the BYOB bakers. Hooray!

Please check back for many bread recipes and follow me as I learn how to make bread sticks worth eating, perfect a "real" French baguette, discover some fun new grains and sprinkle sesame seeds on hamburger buns. I'll probably take another stab at nurturing a sourdough starter. Who knows, I might even try to make bagels.

Sandy hosts a roundup of bread recipes contributed by all of the BYOB bakers on the 1st and the 15th of each month. Visit The Baker's Bench to meet the others and see all of the bread recipes. Maybe you'll be inspired to join us.

Let's Bake!

E-Z Peanut Butter Cookies

2009-01-09T13:16:37-07:00

from Bakewise by Shirley O. Corriher

Have you read Bakewise? This is my new favorite cookbook! Shirley Corriher's new bible of baking science explains all of the ins and outs of baking ingredients and how to use them to your advantage to vastly improve your own results. Gorgeous pictures and recipes that benefit from her years of experience fill the pages and best of all, it's written in Shirley's soft, Southern down home voice - I can hear the words coming out of her mouth when I'm reading the pages.

So I've been baking and reading like crazy and learning all kinds of things that I never knew - like that you can make amazing peanut butter cookies without adding any flour. Who knew? I have a dozen peanut butter cookies recipes and I don't love any of them. Some of them spread out too much in the oven, some get hard too quickly and the rest are just uninspiring. Well, that's all changed now. Shirley has brightened my cookie jar with my new favorite peanut butter cookie recipe.

The weather has been chilly and just right for an afternoon of cookie making. Thumbing through the pages, I came across Shirley's recipe for E-Z Delicious Peanut Butter Cookies. While the oven preheated, I dutifully read through the paragraphs on flourless cookies so I could understand this brave new world, and got to mixing. The recipe only has 3 ingredients in it! Peanut butter, brown sugar and an egg. Unbelievable! I was done with the whole project in less than an hour and could get down to the really important part - knocking back three or four cookies with a warm cup of tea. Ahhhhh.... perfect afternoon.

E-Z Delicious Peanut Butter Cookies

1 cup (258 grams) extra crunchy peanut butter
3/4 cup (162 grams) light brown sugar
1 large egg

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Cover a baking sheet with parchment paper and spray with cooking spray.

Stir together the peanut butter, brown sugar and egg.

Use a teaspoon to scoop dough into heaping mounds on the baking sheet at least 1 inch apart. Grease the bottom of a for with baking spray and press down on cookies to make a criss cross pattern.

Bake one sheet at a time until the edges start to color, 9 to 10 minutes. Do not overcook. Cool 2 minutes on the pan and remove to a cooling rack.

Note: Shirley's recipe called for 1/2 cup of English toffee baking chips to be stirred in after the egg, but I didn't have any, so I added 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract instead.

Roasted Apple Strudel

2009-01-05T14:51:00-07:00

We have a tradition in our house of celebrating the New Year with a Money or Three King's Cake. Of all of the various crazy things people do to ensure good luck and prosperity in the New Year - wearing red or yellow underwear, burning their regrets, cleansing the house with burning sage or eating black-eyed peas (full disclosure: I have tried most of these), eating something sweet and delicious with a coin baked into it seems to make the most sense. This began in our house as a way to nudge my husband out of a financial slump. I told him that if he found the coin he would certainly have a good year. Of course he found it (do you think I'm silly?) and it re-energized his career. The money cake has evolved into something more than just hopes for prosperity. I now also make a cake based on someplace I'd like to travel to in the coming year, and bake a euro in it, rather than just a penny. This year by popular consent, we made an Apple Strudel, because everyone agrees that it would be lovely to go to Germany or Austria again.

Gourmet's Apple Strudel recipe boasts of being the real Viennese deal and it sounded delicious. Making strudel is time consuming but so worth it! I had always taken the easy route of using phyllo dough, but in the interest of improving my baking techniques, I decided to go for the Full Monty. The apples are peeled, sliced and roasted, tossed with chopped walnuts and golden raisins and rolled in a paper thin, butter basted dough that covered my entire countertop, hanging off three sides halfway to the floor. My kitchen was filled with the drool-inducing smells of cinnamon, apples and Calvados, as I danced around singing "Cream colored ponies and crisp apple strudel, doorbells and sleighbells and schintzel with noodles..."

When it finally came out of the oven, we all gathered around and chose what we hoped was THE piece that contained the cherished euro. The first bite transported me right back to Salzberg, where I was lucky enough to enjoy several warm world class strudels, sigh... The strudel was terrific - crispy dough surrounding soft, warm cinnamon apple filling, dusted with powdered sugar. Tiny bits of dough flaked off under the fork as I cut into it. Mmmmmmm. But no euro the first night. Early New Year's Day morning we each had another piece and this time Lovie found the coin.

It's funny, when Mike or I find it (actually I've never found it on New Year's Eve night), it portends good luck and prosperity. When Lovie finds it, I'm just as excited for her, but I tend to just write it off as a fun New Year's tradition. Maybe this is a defense mechanism. She's found it twice in the last three years - how much luck and prosperity does a six year old need?

Gourmet's Roasted Apple Strudel

for filling:
2 pounds Gala apples, peeled, cored ad cut into 3/4 inch pieces
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon finely grated lemon zest
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
dash salt
1/2 cup golden raisins
1 tablespoon Calvados
1 oz. walnuts
1/4 cup fine bread crumbs

for dough:
1 cup bread flour
1 1/2 teaspoon sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
5 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
1 large egg yolk
3 oz. lukewarm water
1/4 cup flour for dusting
powdered sugar

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Toss apples with butter, 1/8 cup sugar, lemon zest, 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon and salt on a baking sheet with sides until well coated, then spread apples out. Roast, stirring occasionally until apples are very tender and any liquid has evaporated, about 1 1/4 hours. Transfer to a bowl and stir in raisins and Calvados and let cool. Reduce oven temperature to 375 degrees.

Meanwhile, make the dough. Stir together the bread flour, sugar and salt in the bowl of a mixer. Make a well in the center and add 2 tablespoons butter, egg yolk and water. Mix at medium low speed with paddle attachment until dough becomes a soft, sticky ball and comes away from the sides of the bowl, 8 to 10 minutes. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and form into a ball. Lightly brush with some butter and let stand, covered with an inverted bowl, for 40 minutes.

Stretch the dough. Line a baking sheet with sides with parchment paper. Take off any rings, bracelets or watches. Cover a work table with a sheet and rub flour into it. Put the dough in the center and stretch it into a 12 inch round with your fingers. Using the backs of your hands and wrists, reach under the dough and begin gently stretching and thinning dough from center to edges, moving around the table as you work. Gradually stretch the dough into a 36 inch square, letting it rest for a few minutes when it resists. This will take about 20 minutes. Let the dough dry for 5 minutes.

Assemble the strudel. Combine walnuts, bread crumbs, 1/8 cup sugar and 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon in a food processor and process until nuts are finely chopped.

Very gently brush dough with butter and sprinkle evenly with walnut mixture. Mound apple filling in an 11x3 inch strip along the side of the dough that is closet to you, leaving a 4 inch border. Fold side borders over filling and holding the sheet taut, roll the strudel up, starting with the bottom flap.

With a long metal spatula, transfer the studel to the baking sheet. Brush with remaining butter and dust generously with powdered sugar. Cut 3 or 4 steam vents in the top.

Bake strudel until golden, 40-45 minutes. Cool 10 minutes on bakiing sheet, then transfer to cooling rack to cool completely.

This is my entry into "Make Your Own King Cake", hosted by Zorra at 1x unruhren bitte. Please join her to see how bloggers around the world celebrate the Epiphany with their own King's Cakes.

Perfect Blueberry Muffins

2009-01-03T13:39:24-07:00

from the King Arthur Flour Baker's Companion, The All-Purpose Baking Cookbook

Is anything nicer than a blueberry muffin? Torn apart with a melting pat of butter smeared across them, blueberry muffins are soft and homey, full of berries bursting with warm juice. Paired with a glass of freshly squeezed orange juice, there is no better breakfast to wake up to on a weekend morning.

Pulled from the King Arthur Flour Baker's Companion, this is a lovely recipe for the quintessential blueberry muffin. Soft, with a cake-like texture, these muffins are what all muffins should aspire to. Sunny and flavorful with a hint of lemony brightness, these are sure to get your morning of to a great start.

As an aside: Muffins taste best the day they are made, but who needs to eat 12 muffins at one sitting? After breakfast, I freeze the leftover muffins in pairs in a Ziploc bag. The frozen muffins are great to toss into Lovie's lunch box. By the time lunch rolls around, they have thawed back into their original soft, fresh, doughy goodness and combined with a cheese stick and some fruit, they are the perfect mid day snack. She is always thrilled to find a sweet muffin surprise in her lunch.

Classic Blueberry Muffins

8 tablespoons (4 oz) butter
1 cup (7 oz) sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs
Zest of one lemon
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 cups (8 1/2 oz) all purpose flour
1/2 cup (4 oz) milk
2 cups frozen blueberries

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

In a medium mixing bowl, cream the butter, sugar and salt together. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Stir in the lemon zest. Add the baking powder, and then add the flour, alternating with the milk, beating well after each addition. Stir in the blueberries.

Spoon the batter into 12 paper lined muffin cups.

Bake muffins for 30 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the middle of the muffins comes out clean. Remove from the oven and let cool in the pan for 5 minutes, then removing them from the pan to cool completely.

Notes: The original recipe called for 1 teaspoon of vanilla, 2 1/2 cups of fresh or dried blueberries and 2 teaspoons of sugar to top the muffins. I added the lemon zest, reduced the blueberries to 2 cups and skipped the sugar topping.

You could bake these in muffin cups without the papers, but I have found that blueberry muffins made with fresh or frozen berries tend to fall apart if not constrained by the paper cups. Too much fruit and not enough cakey part to hold it together to count on a good result.