Vanilla Cupcakes with Tangy Orange Frosting

Kristin had a bad day at work one day this week.  These things happen when you work with underprivileged kids - the good times are good, and the rough days can be really, really rough.  I like to try to do a little extra something for her on bad days - nothing huge, but sometimes a favorite dinner or a pint of Ben and Jerry's can be helpful.  Unfortunately, her bad day was the same day that I had an evening seminar, and so wouldn't see her until well after 9 PM.  This didn't give me much opportunity to do anything before she had to get to bed for the next day of work.

The next day, a windfall: my afternoon seminar was canceled.  My original plan had just been to come home and get some extra work done preparing to teach my own classes for the week.  Instead, somehow, the idea of baking popped into my head, so I stopped by the store for a couple of ingredients, and set about inventing a cupcake recipe.  Kristin definitely approved when she got home - they ended up pretty tasty!

This recipe is a hybrid of various others I've used in the past.  The cake itself is a fairly simple vanilla cake.  The real star, in my opinion, is the frosting.  Again, it's quite simple, but the orange zest adds a fantastic, tangy flavor to balance out the sweetness of the buttercream.  All in all, it's a refreshing little cupcake, and can be a great pick-me-up after a bad day, or an equally good just-because treat.

Here's what you'll need for the cake: flour, sugar, eggs, butter, salt, baking powder, sour cream, and vanilla extract.  Nothing too shocking here.  The sour cream takes the place of some of what would otherwise be oil or butter, and helps to keep things moist and smooth.

First, soften or partially melt the butter.  No need for it to be liquid, just mixable.

Now add all of the dry ingredients straight to the melted butter.  Mix well until the texture is that of a boxed cake mix.

Now add the wet ingredients, and mix again until smooth.  This is a quite thick batter - you'll want a mixer of some sort.

Fill cupcake liners in a pair of muffin tins, and you're all set to bake.  Easy cake, no?  Bake at 350 for 22-25 minutes, until tops have just begun to turn golden-brown.

We'll see the finished cakes later, when it's time to frost them.  In the meantime, take advantage of the baking time to make your frosting.

The frosting is as easy as can be: just five ingredients: powdered sugar, butter, vanilla, orange juice, and orange zest.  The orange keeps it from being purely sweet, and adds some interest to what would otherwise be too "vanilla."

Yeah, I groaned too.

First, zest the oranges thoroughly - more zest is more flavor, here!  A microplane does the job nicely.  Melt the butter, too.

Next, just add everything to a large bowl and mix it together until it's smooth.  It's that easy.  You can add a bit more sugar to thicken things up if needed, or a bit more orange juice if it's too thick already.  In any case, throw it in the fridge for a short while until you're ready to cover the cakes - it'll be easier to spread without making a mess.

Speaking of those cupcakes, they should be done shortly after you've finished the frosting.  Pull them out, savor the aroma, and then let them cool completely.  Give them an hour or so.

Once they're cool, get to frosting!  Cover the cakes liberally with the frosting, and then find somebody to share them with.  Cupcakes are meant to be shared, you know.  Otherwise, you'll eat too many and end up with a bellyache.  Bring some to somebody who's had a tough day, or just ensure that their day goes better regardless.  Enjoy!

Recipe: Vanilla Cupcakes with Tangy Orange Frosting

Prep Time: 15 minutes | Cook Time: 25 Minutes | Difficulty: Easy | Servings: 2-dozen Cupcakes

Ingredients

Cupcakes

• 3 cups All-Purpose Flour
• 2 cups White Sugar
• 1 cup unsalted Butter
• 1 cup Sour Cream
• 3 large eggs
• 2 large egg yolks
• 1 tbsp Vanilla Extract
• 1 tbsp Baking Powder
• 1 tsp Salt

Frosting

• 3 cups Confectioner's Sugar
• 1/4 cup Orange Juice
• Zest of two Oranges (approx. 2-4 tbsp)
• 1 tbsp Vanilla Extract
• 1/2 cup Butter

Instructions

Cupcakes

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.  Line muffin tins with baking cups.

Heat butter in a large bowl until well softened.

Add flour, baking powder, and salt, and mix until texture resembles a boxed cake mix.

Add sugar, sour cream, eggs, egg yolks, and vanilla, and mix until well combined.  Batter will be thick.

Add batter to baking cups approximately 2/3 full.

Bake at 350 degrees 22-25 minutes until cupcake tops have just begun to turn golden.  

Cool cupcakes completely (1 hour minimum) before frosting.

Frosting

In a large mixing bowl, melt butter completely.

Zest oranges with a microplane or grater.

Add powdered sugar, orange juice, orange zest, and vanilla to melted butter.  Mix well 1-2 minutes until smooth.

Add additional sugar to thicken, or juice to thin as needed.

Refrigerate frosting until cupcakes are cooled to ease spreading.

Frost cupcakes when completely cooled.

Fish Tacos

It's not always the easiest thing in the world to get high-quality, interesting fish here in rural Ohio.  At least, though, we can count on the grocery stores in the area to have decent whitefish, be it sole, cod, halibut, or tilapia.  White fish isn't the most exciting thing in the world, though - it's not really the sort of thing that you just cook and let speak for itself.  Instead, it needs some help on flavor.

This recipe changes a bit every time I make it, but it's always exceptionally flavorful.  The basics are always the same: whitefish coated in plenty of powerful spices, and tempered by a creamy sauce.  The fish cooks quickly in the pan and gets a bit of nice crust on the outside, but stays moist and tender in the middle.  The interplay of heat with the cool sour cream and avocado sauce keeps things in balance.  You could jazz things up by adding more ingredients, but the simplicity here is a virtue, I think.

You'll need more spices than anything else, but it's nothing you don't likely already have on hand.  Ingredients include a pound or two of fresh fish filets, some light sour cream, a couple of limes, an onion, a jalapeno pepper or two, a ripe avocado, and plenty of tortillas.  For the spice mixture, you can get creative, but I like to use paprika, brown sugar, oregano, garlic powder, salt, cumin, and red pepper.

First, dice everything that needs dicing: the onion and the jalapeno.  Please be careful not to even think about touching your eyes as you do this.  Cutting onions can make you tear up, but you really don't want anything with a Scoville rating to even indirectly touch your eyes.

Combine sour cream and lime juice in a smallish bowl.  Open up your avocado and spoon out a good amount, then add it to the sour cream.  If the avocado is ripe enough, you'll be able to mix this into a smooth sauce with just a spoon.  If it's still too tough, a few pulses of a food processor will do the trick.

Add the onion and jalapeno to the sauce, and set it aside until serving time.

Combine all of those spices.  I like to put them together on a large plate, so I can just lay the fish flat in the mixture on both sides to coat easily.

Now liberally cover the fish with the spice mixture.  Don't be shy.

Cook the finish about 3 minutes per side in a medium-hot skillet.  Cast iron is a great way to go, here.  You'll know it's done when it flakes easily with a fork.  Don't overcook it!

Time to serve!  Spread a generous dollop of the sauce onto a tortilla, and top with a portion of fish.  That's all there is to it!  Serve nice and warm, and have lime wedges available if you want a bit of extra citrus zing.  A salad and/or some Spanish rice makes a great side.

Recipe: Fish Tacos

Prep Time: 10 minutes | Cook Time: 15 Minutes | Difficulty: Easy | Servings: 8-10

Ingredients

• 1-2 lbs Whitefish, filleted
• 1/4 cup light Sour Cream
• 2 tablespoons Lime Juice
• 1 Yellow Onion, diced
• 1 Jalapeno Pepper, seeded and diced
• 1 ripe Avocado
• 8 8-inch Tortillas
• 2 teaspoons Paprika
• 1 tablespoon Brown Sugar
• 2 teaspoons Oregano
• 2 teaspoons Garlic Powder
• 1 teaspoon Salt
• 1 teaspoon Cumin
• 1/2 teaspoon Red Pepper
• Lime Wedges to taste

Instructions

In a small bowl, combine sour cream and lime juice.  Add avocado and mix with a spoon until smooth.  Add diced jalapeno pepper and diced onion and mix again.

Combine paprika, brown sugar, oregano, garlic powder, salt, cumin, and red pepper.  Rub gently onto all sides of fish filets.

In  skillet over medium-high heat, cook fish with a bit of cooking oil approximately 3 minutes per side, or until it flakes easily with a fork.

Warm or prepare tortillas according to package directions.  Spread a generous portion of avocado mixture onto each tortilla, then top with fish.  Serve hot with lime wedges.

Cornbread

There's a little mom-and-pop restaurant in town called Call of the Canyon.  Despite being found in northwest Ohio, they serve food with a great Southwestern flavor - sandwiches, salads, burritos, nachos, and the like.  It's all perfectly fresh, and the menu is quite whimsical - my favorite dish name is "Go Further West, Young Man!" for a salad with Hawaiian-themed ingredients.  

Kristin and I both have our various favorite things to order, but we always make sure to get their corn muffins with our meals.  I love cornbread in general, but these corn muffins are really fantastic.  Sweet without being too cakey, perfectly dense, and moist inside with a nice crust on the outside.  They're good.  Since I was introduced, I've been on a quest to recreate them, and I think I've finally just about got it.

This cornbread is my standard accompaniment to chili.  Kristin likes to butter it, but I don't think it needs it - I prefer to dip it right into the chili, so the sweetness of the cornbread and the spice of the chili make a really nice balance.  Try it out, and I think you'll be sold.

This is a large batch, that can easily be halved and made in a smaller pan or in muffin form.  We'll need flour, cornmeal, sugar, eggs, butter, milk, vanilla, baking powder, fresh or frozen corn, salt, and pepper.  Using both flour and cornmeal keeps the bread from being too gritty, as it would be with entirely cornmeal, but also ensures plenty of flavor.

First, soften the butter, and cream together the butter, sugar, and vanilla in a large bowl.

Stir in the eggs and beat until mixed.

In another bowl, combine the flour, cornmeal, salt, pepper, and baking powder with the happiest mixing spoon you can find.

I was briefly excited to think that the "bowl of white powder" picture for this recipe might not be so white because of the cornmeal.  Oh well.

Now, add some of the flour mixture into the large bowl with the sugar and butter, and add some of the milk. Mix until they're combined, then keep adding dry stuff and milk a bit at a time, mixing in between.  This will keep you from sloshing milk or spraying flour all over the room while you try to mix it all at once, and ensure that things are more evenly combined.  Keep going until it's all well mixed and your arm is tired.  You might consider mixing by folding with two spoons once the bowl gets pretty full.

Now for the corn itself!  I like having some real corn in my cornbread.  It keeps the texture a bit varied, adds some nice flavor, and the fresh kernels add a nice element of moisture as you bite down on them.  If you're using frozen, just dump it on in.  If you're using fresh ears, carefully remove the kernels from the cob.

Add the corn to the batter and mix thoroughly.

Although you can make this recipe into muffins, I went with a pan this time for the sake of expedience.  Grease a 9x13 or 10x14 pan well, and pour the batter right in.

Bake 45-50 minutes at 375 degrees, or until the top is cracked and golden brown and a knife inserted in the center comes out clean.

Cool just a couple of minutes after removing from the oven, then serve while it's still warm.

Recipe: Cornbread

Prep Time: 10 minutes | Cook Time: 50 Minutes | Difficulty: Easy | Servings: 16-20

Ingredients

• 3 cups All-Purpose Flour
• 2 cups Cornmeal
• 1 cup White Sugar
• 2/3 cup Butter, softened
• 2 1/2 cups Milk
• 4 Eggs
• 1 1/2 cups Corn Kernels (approx. 2 ears)
• 2 tablespoons Baking Powder
• 1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract
• 2 teaspoons Salt
• 1 teaspoon Pepper

Instructions

Pre-heat oven to 375.  Grease a 9x13 baking pan.

In a large mixing bowl, cream together softened butter, sugar, and vanilla.

Add eggs, beat, and mix until combined.

In another large bowl, combine flour, cornmeal, baking powder, salt, and pepper.

Alternate adding milk and dry ingredients into wet ingredients, mixing well until thoroughly combined.

Cut kernels from corn cobs and mix into batter.

Pour batter into greased pan.  Bake 50 minutes at 375 until top is cracked and golden brown and a knife inserted into the center comes out clean.

Cool 5 minutes in pan.  Serve warm.

Barbecue Chicken Salad with Candied Almonds

I really love a good main-course salad.  The trouble is, it's hard to make a salad that's really interesting without going off the deep end in terms of complexity, cost, or both.  This salad is an attempt to split the difference - it's a main-course salad composed of very classic salad ingredients, but with enough added complexity to keep it interesting without breaking the bank.

I'm obviously a lover of barbecue, so I decided to carry that love into my salad.  The salad involves both barbecue chicken breast and a tangy, barbecue-based dressing.  The tang and spice of the barbecue are offset by sweet red pepper and carrot, and candied almonds add some crunch and another lay of sweet-and-meaty flavor.

It doesn't take a lot to make a decent salad.  I just use fresh romaine for my greens, but you can feel free to spice it up as desired.  Red pepper and carrots round out the vegetable array.  We'll cook the chicken in barbecue sauce to give it some flavor.  Candy slivered almonds in just a bit of sugar and butter as a sort of stand-in for a crouton.  You can dress the salad however you like, but I really enjoyed the simple barbecue dressing I made from barbecue sauce, lemon juice, apple cider vinegar, and olive oil.  

The chicken is the lengthiest part of this salad's quick preparation.  Toss it into a greased baking dish, cover with some barbecue sauce, and throw it in the oven at 400 for 15-20 minutes.  Turn it halfway to make sure everything gets nice and saucy, and take care not to overcook.

Once the chicken is on its way, we can prepare the vegetables.  Rinse your romaine well and chop it down to nice, bite-sized pieces.

Give the carrots and red peppers a good dice as well, and toss in with the romaine.  The vegetable portion of the salad is now complete!

It's surprisingly easy to candy almonds - all it takes is some careful attention.  That's why we did all of the other preparation first, as you really don't want to be tempted to turn your back on the pan and chop carrots - next thing you know, you'll have a pan full of burned sugar.


To get started, put a skillet on over medium heat.  Once it's warm, add your slivered almonds and toast for a couple of minutes until they start to darken.  The best way to judge when they're getting toasted is by smell - the whole kitchen will suddenly take on a deep, toasty, nutty aroma.

Once the almonds are toasted, add just a bit of butter to the pan, then slowly add some sugar.  Start with about a tablespoon, then mix well, keeping the nuts moving constantly.  The sugar will melt clear almost immediately on making contact with the pan, and will start to burn just seconds later unless you keep everything in motion.


After a minute or so, add a second tablespoon of sugar and continue mixing.  Add a touch more sugar after another minute if you think it's necessary.

Once the sugar starts to darken on the nuts, transfer your candied almonds to cool on some wax or parchment paper.  Spread them out on the paper, otherwise they'll all be stuck together in one lumpy ball of deliciousness.  That's not exactly a fate worse than death, but makes them hard to sprinkle over salad.

At this point, your chicken is probably about done, so it's time to get things ready to plate.

While you wait for the chicken to finish up, make some dressing.  The exact ratios to use depend on your barbecue of choice.  I like my dressing quite tangy, so I used quite a bit of lime juice and vinegar.  Combine barbecue sauce, apple-cider vinegar, lime juice, and a touch of olive oil in a small bowl, and mix well with a small whisk or a fork.  The dressing will want to separate eventually, but holds together for a good couple of hours after a good mixing,

Pull out the chicken, and slice it up.  Be careful, hot barbecue sauce is akin to napalm.

Now serve!  Cover your greens with the sliced chicken breast and plenty of candied almonds.  Dress lightly, to let the flavors speak for themselves.  Each bite should have lots of complex flavor - tender chicken, crisp lettuce, sweet red pepper and carrot, crisp, sweet, meaty almonds, and just a hint of acidic tang from the dressing.

Recipe: Barbecue Chicken Salad with Candied Almonds

Prep Time: 5-10 Minutes | Cook Time: 20 Minutes | Difficulty: Easy | Servings: 8-10

Ingredients

Salad

• 2 heads Romaine Lettuce, washed
• 1 lb boneless/skinless Chicken Breast
• 2 Red Bell Peppers
• 2 cups Baby Carrots
• 1/2 cup Almonds, sliced
• 1/4 cup Barbecue Sauce
• 1 tbsp Butter
• 2 tbsp Sugar

Dressing

• 1/4 cup Barbecue Sauce
• 1 1/2 tbsp Olive Oil
• 3 tbsp Lime Juice
• 3 tbsp Apple Cider Vinegar

Instructions

Pre-heat oven to 400 degrees.  Grease a large baking pan.

Add chicken breast to baking pan and cover with barbecue sauce.  Bake 20 minutes or until chicken tests done, turning halfway.

Chop romaine lettuce down to bite-sized pieces.  Dice red pepper and carrot.  Mix all vegetables in a large salad bowl.

In a skillet over medium heat, toast slivered almonds 2-3 minutes until beginning to darken.  Add butter and sugar one tablespoon at a time.  

Mix well, keeping almonds in motion, 2-3 minutes until all sugar is added and beginning to darken.

Cool candied almonds in a single layer on wax paper.


Whisk together barbecue sauce, olive oil, lime juice, and vinegar in a small bowl until no longer separated.


When chicken is done, slice carefully.


Serve sliced chicken and candied almonds over mixed greens and vegetables, topping conservatively with dressing.