Baking Again

What do you do when you are feeling angsty for some unknown reason?

I bake. Today I made a sour cherry pie. I bought sour cherries at Trader Joe's. I made a lattice crust, although it looks very amateur. I also made pumpkin muffins. I was short an ingredient for the muffins, which I only realized after starting to make them. I then improvised this recipe. I plan on making them more when fall comes.

Pumpkin Muffins

1 c. whole wheat flour
1 c. white flour
4 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. cloves
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
1/2 tsp. ginger
1 egg
1/2 c. pumpkin puree
1/2 c. oil or melted butter (I used oil)
1/2 c. maple syrup
1/2 c. golden raisins
1/2 c. chopped pecans

Preheat oven to 400 F. Mix flours, baking powder, salt, and spices in a large bowl. Mix egg, pumpkin puree, oil, and maple syrup in a smaller bowl. Add to flour, along with raisins and pecans. Stir quickly, and divide among 12 oiled or lined muffin cups. Bake 15-20 min.

Dining Al Fresco

Today, BB and I ate dinner outside! It was so nice. We ate garlicky greens and beans (mustard and collard greens from the garden cooked in olive oil and lots of garlic):
Home made foccacia (a recipe from The Greens cookbook). I used part whole wheat. The 0lives are for BB - I only put it on part, because I don't like green olives. This is the most successful foccacia I have ever made! I made a dipping oil to go with it (lemon pepper, oregano, dried basil, garlic powder, chile flakes topped with good olive oil):
All of this was eaten with pickled vegetables that BB made a week or so ago (carrots, cauliflower, celery, and broccoli) in the backyard, which looked beautiful after all the yard work that I did today!And, of course, I did not forget the dessert - chocolate banana cream pie! Well, we had some milk that was going bad, and what better way to use a lot of milk than to make pudding? I made a graham cracker crumb crust, sliced two bananas, and topped with chocolate pudding (flavored with a splash of rum):

Pear Cake

Today was cold and rainy, so I didn't want to go anywhere. I also happened to have too many ripe pears, more than I can eat on my own. My solution to these problems? Pear Upside-Down Cake! It turned out very delicious! The only things I would change for next time - make it less sweet (less sugar in cake and topping) and maybe add a spice, like nutmeg. I altered a recipe for pineapple upside-down cake from "The Cake Bible". Here is my version.

Pear Upside-Down Cake

4 pears, sliced
1/2 c. walnuts
4 Tbs. butter
1/2 c. brown sugar (next time I will use less)

3 egg yolks
1/4 c. sour cream
1/3 c. plain yogurt (or sour cream, I ran out so I used yogurt)
2 tsp. vanilla
9 Tbs. butter
1 c. white flour
1/2 c. whole wheat flour
1/2 c. sugar (next time I will use 1/4-1/3 c.)
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda

Preheat oven to 350 (mine was 300 using convection oven).

Add 4 Tbs. butter to a 10" cake pan or cast iron skillet and place in oven to melt butter. Add brown sugar and spread evenly over pan. Sprinkle walnuts over brown sugar/butter mixture. Lay sliced pears decoratively over top of walnuts. Set aside. Lightly mix egg yolks, sour cream, and vanilla in a medium bowl. In a large bowl, mix together white flour, whole wheat flour, sugar, baking powder, and baking soda. Add 9 Tbs. butter (make sure it is very soft) and yogurt. Mix on low speed until dry ingredients are moistened. Mix on medium speed another 1-2 min. Mixture will be very thick. Add the egg yolk mixture (in three batches), mix on medium speed. Dollop batter over pears, spread to cover all fruit. Bake for 30 min, or until top is browned and toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Use a metal scraper to loosen cake from sides of pan. Immediately invert cake, wait a bit to let all the juices out, and then remove pan.