BROWN BUTTER ESPRESSO CHIP MUFFINS

While on a phone interview yesterday morning, a woman asked me if my cooking style has changed since I started the site 3+ years ago. First off, I am not a quick draw on those types of questions. I fill silence with a few "ums" and "well..." but it doesn't buy me the time I need to give an adequate answer. I said that I've taken into account what readers seem to respond to, where they comment the most (which I really appreciate), and I try to keep simplicity in mind as that always seems to be the overall theme of popular posts. People like simple - I get that. I like simple too.

I later thought about her questions and the passage of time in this space, and I realize that my cooking here has only changed as my life has changed first. A response to the different chapters of our story - my food somehow emotionally connected to other things going on. In posts of years past, I had mentioned a number of times how I did not like baking. I don't care much for precision or seeing the amount of butter in my cookies (I like to eat it, but maybe I don't want to see it). I would bake because I was building variety here and I wanted to learn, but it was motivated by an obligation of sorts. Those were days where I lived alone in a studio apartment and I mostly cooked for myself. Hugh and I worked on blog posts in my parents' kitchen on days off from work and the last thing my devil of a sweet tooth needed was a bunch of baked goods around. But after a wedding, a full apartment kitchen, and a stand mixer of my own, I now bake pretty frequently. My will power isn't any stronger, but I show love with food. It's a communication tool for me, and if you know anything about love languages this may make more sense and seem a little less eccentric. I bake because it's a way of care taking, it isn't for me, and I didn't really notice it until that lady asked me that question.

Hugh is a sweet-in-the-morning-with-his-coffee guy so I experiment with breakfast goodies (we don't even eat bananas, I just keep them around to go bad so I can make tasty banana bread. I really have gone to the dark side huh?). I tried these muffins for a little something different, as coffee seems to be the way to my husbands heart. The crumb is pretty light, the sweetness is subtle and we've already gone through half of them before a breakfast has passed so I will assume that means they're alright.

BROWN BUTTER ESPRESSO CHIP MUFFINS // Makes 8-10

Inspiration from Cannelle et Vanille and La Tartine Gourmand

These could easily be made gluten free with one quick change - just substitute GF all purpose flour or rice flour for the spelt. Spelt is wheat free, but not gluten free. I would suppose this would also come out well in a smaller sized loaf pan, but I can't attest to this from experience. Let me know if you try it.

• 1/2 cup/ 8 Tbsp. unsalted butter or coconut oil

• 2 eggs

• 1/3 cup plain whole milk yogurt or applesauce

• 1 tsp. vanilla extract

• 2/3 cup packed muscavado sugar (or light brown sugar)

• 3/4 cup, spelt flour

• 1/3 cup oat flour (just grind up some rolled oats)

• 1 cup almond flour/meal

• 1 tsp. baking powder

• 1/2 tsp. baking soda

• 1/2 tsp. sea salt

• 1 tsp. cinnamon

• 1 Tbsp. espresso or finely ground coffee

• 3 oz. dark chocolate, chopped

• // streusel //

• 1/2 cup old fashioned rolled oats

• 2 Tbsp. unsalted butter or coconut oil

• 1/4 cup turbinado sugar

• pinch of salt

Preheat oven to 350'. Grease a standard muffin tin or fill with paper liners.

Melt the butter in a small pan over medium heat. Cook, stirring occasionally until the solids turn a light brown color, it's a nice shade of amber and it starts to smell nutty. About 10 minutes. Remove from the heat to cool. If using coconut oil, skip this step.

Whisk the eggs, yogurt or applesauce and vanilla together. Once the brown butter is slightly cooled, whisk that in as well. Go ahead, put your nose in there, that smell is all sorts of amazing. In another large mixing bowl, stir the muscavado, spelt flour, oat flour, almond meal, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, espresso together to combine. Add the wet ingredients to the dry and stir to mix. Stir in the chopped chocolate but do not overmix.

In another small bowl, for streusel, combine the oats, butter, turbinado and pinch of salt. Press it together with your fingers to mash everything together.

Scoop the batter into the tins about 3/4 full. You will get somewhere between 8 to 10 depending on how you fill them. Sprinkle a bit of streusel on top of each muffin. Bake on the middle rack for 20 minutes or until centers are just cooked through. Remove to cool.

WHEAT BRIOCHE BUNS

sprouted kitchen buns

Our fridge is jam packed with produce from a recent CSA basket pick up. I have lettuce heads so large they are taking up the entire bottom shelf and beets and their greens poking out their cramped heads from the crisper drawer. This abundance is what sparks creativity in me. As someone who thinks about food consistently, I enjoy the challenge of using what I have to make something different, despite there being swiss chard in EVERY.SINGLE.BASKET throughout the year. Hugh on the other hand sees chaos, not food. To use up some of my loot, and to prove there are, in fact, meals in there, we made some bahn mi style burgers (tofu or turkey as you choose). A tender homemade bun with dressed cucumbers, shaved carrots, cilantro and avocado. I regret I don't have a picture of that to share with you, but the recipe for the buns is not to be missed. 

If you want a successful recipe, Deb is your lady. Something tells me you're probably not a stranger to her site. If her dependable recipes and clean photos don't intrigue you, her wit and dry humor are sure to keep you coming back. There are rave reviews of the burger buns she featured and if there is anyone to be trusted, it is her. I tried to add some grains to them without risking a rock of a bun, and I think we did pretty well (you can find the original on her site). They have a bit of the heartiness that whole wheat products have, while still being gentle and delicate in structure. They make an ideal vehicle for a veggie burger, grilled salmon sandwich with greens and aioli or whatever you wish. Much like making pizza dough, it is a simple process, it's just the waiting time between rises that takes some planning ahead. Maybe it is not a quick weeknight endeavor, but there is no comparison to the storebought kind, and another bbq weekend is just around the corner. 

sprouted kitchen buns

sprouted kitchen buns

sprouted kitchen buns

WHEAT BRIOCHE BUNS // Makes 8 buns

Adapted from Smitten Kitchen (who has a book coming!) via The New York Times

This recipe below reflects the amounts for 8 buns, though the pictures show I did make four. If you only want four, simply halve the amounts below. I meantion it in the direction, but it bears repeating. Form the final buns into a more height focused ball than a wider one, they spread during that second rise and I found mine to be flatter than I'd have hoped.

3 Tbsp. warm milk

2 tsp. active dry yeast

2 1/2 Tbsp. natural cane sugar

2 eggs

2 cups unbleached bread flour

1 cup white whole wheat flour

1/3 cup wheat bran

1 1/2 tsp. sea salt

2 1/2 Tbsp. unsalted butter

sesame seeds, for topping

sprouted kitchen buns

sprouted kitchen buns

sprouted kitchen buns

sprouted kitchen buns

sprouted kitchen buns

sprouted kitchen buns

In a glass measuring cup, combine one cup warm water, milk, yeast and sugar. Let stand until foamy, about five minutes. In a small bowl, beat one egg.

In another large bowl, whisk flours with salt. Add butter and rub into flour between your fingers, making crumbs. Stir in yeast mixture and beaten egg until a dough forms. Scrape dough onto clean, well-floured counter and knead, just turn and fold and tustle it around, until smooth and elastic, about 8 minutes. The dough will be on the sticky side so it can be a bit messy, but the more flour you add, the tougher the buns will get. Let it stay a bit tacky. 

Shape dough into a ball and return it to bowl. Cover bowl with a dish cloth and let rise in a warm place until doubled in bulk, one to two hours.

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Divide dough into 8 equal parts. Gently roll each into a ball (a taller ball, not a flat one, they flaten and spread on their own as they rise) and arrange two to three inches apart on baking sheet. Cover loosely with the dish cloth and let buns rise in a warm place for one to two hours. 

Set a large shallow pan of water on oven floor. Preheat oven to 400 degrees with rack in center. Beat remaining egg with one tablespoon water and brush some on top of buns. Sprinkle with sesame seeds, if using. Bake, turning sheet halfway through baking, until tops are golden brown, about 15 minutes. Transfer to a rack to cool. 

Keep buns in an airtight container. Should last about 3 days, getting firmer as days pass. 

sprouted kitchen buns

LEMON PANCAKES WITH YOGURT + BERRIES

There was a time when I thought pancakes only came from Bisquick boxes. Pancake creativity maxed out at throwing in some chocolate chips or blueberries into the batter on a weekend morning, but my parents were no-fuss kind of cooks. To be fair, I likely wouldn't have recognized boxed from homemade as a kid, but I've found myself fascinated by the more deliberate kind lately. I mean the variety of recipes is endless, with ratios of dry to liquid varying greatly. You can really get fussy about the art of the pancake. Should they be cakey? Thin? Custardy inside? Sweet enough to stand alone or less so, assuming they'll be covered in maple syrup? I'll chalk it up to personal preference, but the vote around here is thin and tender, and faintly sweet. I've used all sorts of grain flours, liquid sweeteners, some dairy free versions with coconut milk, and others bound with flaxmeal... and to think at one point, they only came from a yellow box.

This naturally gluten free recipe from Bea's cookbook is just lovely. They have some volume to them from the whipped egg white, which I appreciated more than I thought I would. She calls for lemon extract, and this would have made that flavor more obvious, but instead of yet another trip to the market, the fresh juice and zest lent a gentle brightness. They are tender from the yogurt and the care taken to not overcook them. You flip when you just begin to see the bubbles and no longer than a minute on the other side. I am sure maple would have worked, but the lemon was begging for creaminess and berries on a sunny spring morning. 

Happy long weekend ahead. Hope there is a slow morning with pancakes in your future. 

LEMON PANCAKES WITH YOGURT + BERRIES // Serves 4, makes about 12 small pancakes

Loosely adapted from La Tartine Gourmande by Beatrice Peltre

I didn't have all the ingredients from Bea's original recipe, but I worked with what I had, still keeping them gluten free. She uses rice flour, quinoa flour and quinoa flakes, which I image would produce a pancake that is slightly more delicate than mine. She suggests in her headnote that buttermilk, milk or yogurt can be used in the batter. I used a mix but you can use whatever you happen to have on hand. 

You don't need to have packaged oat flour. It's a quick whizz in the blender of some rolled oats and poof, you have oat flour. If you don't need or want them to be gluten free, 1 cup total of your preferred flour should work just fine. 

1/3 cup almond meal

1/3 quinoa flour

1/3 cup oat flour (ground rolled oats)

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

pinch of salt

2 1/2 Tbsp. natural cane sugar

2 eggs, seperated

1 cup buttermilk, yogurt or milk (I used half yogurt and half milk)

1/2 tsp. vanilla extract

3 Tbsp. fresh lemon juice

zest of one meyer lemon 

1 Tbsp. melted coconut oil, plus more for cooking

// topping //

1 cup whole or lowfat yogurt

1 Tbsp. fresh lemon juice

2 tsp. honey

blueberries

In a bowl, combine the dry ingredients and stir to mix. 

In another bowl, beat the egg yolks with the buttermilk/yogurt, vanilla, lemon juice and zest, and the oil. Add this wet mixture to the dry and stir to combine. 

In a stand mixer or with hand mixers, beat the egg whites until soft peaks form. Fold the egg whites into the batter. 

In a frying pan, heat a small pat of oil over medium heat. Pour a scant 1/4 cup batter in the pan and repeat with as many pancakes as you can without overcrowding. Cook until bubbles form, flip and cook another minute until golden. Repeat with remaining batter. 

Mix the yogurt with lemon juice and honey. Serve the warm pancakes with a lemon yogurt drizzle and fresh blueberries.