Rhubarb coffee cake with rolled oats crumble topping

Made this in Ireland with raisins and apples. Today I made it again, but with rhubarb. I made a double recipe. Here is the recipe below as a single recipe with my changes.

Mix in large bowl
1/3 cup melted margarine
3/4 cup packed light brown sugar
2 large eggs (did put them in this time)
1 cup plain yogurt
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Mix in medium bowl
2 cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 1/4 cups peeled, chopped rhubarb

Crumble Topping
1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
1/2 cup rolled oats
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 tablespoons melted margarine

Add dry ingredients to wet and fold in. Sprinkle crumble topping on top of batter.

Took about 38 minutes this time without the convection oven. Use a toothpick to test when done.

Brownies - Irish adaptation

I made these when we were in Ireland. The flour I had was self-raising. Self raising flour has baking powder and salt added to it. So I didn't add the baking powder and salt to the recipe.

Such different flours in Ireland. Whole wheat flours are also different. Some recipes call for coarse ground whole meal flour as they call it. You can't get the coarse ground in Canada.

I had difficulty getting the right temperature, and figuring out when the recipe was done. Never mind that the temperature was registered in Celsius. 350 f is about 176 c, good grief.

The oven we had was a convection oven, and didn't seem to have a bottom element. I had a hard time understanding the different settings on the dial. Deciphering the little pictures was fun. And the Google didn't help. I should have taken pics of the dials but didn't think to.

The brownies seemed to be a bit softer inside than I would normally want. But they turned out great especially since there was so much fiddling to do to make them.

Ingredients

1/4 cup butter, softened
1 1/4 cups sugar (I think I used 1 cup of sugar)
2 large eggs (The stores don't seem to refrigerate the eggs in Ireland. Weird)
1 tsp. vanilla (I didn't use as I didn't have any)
1 tsp. instant  coffee, dissolved in 1 tsp. water
1 cup all-purpose flour (I used self raising as that was what I had)
1/2 cup cocoa
1/4 tsp. baking powder (I didn't use)
1/4 tsp. salt (I didn't use)

Directions

Preheat oven to 350°F.

In a large bowl, mix together butter and sugar until well combined. Add eggs, vanilla and coffee and stir until well blended and smooth.

In a medium bowl, combine flour, cocoa, baking powder and salt. Add to the egg mixture and stir by hand just until combined.

Spoon the batter into an 8X8 greased aluminum pan. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes, until puffed but still soft to the touch. Do not over bake Cool in the pan on a wire rack.

Makes 16 brownies.

Mom's bran muffins

My mother used to make these muffins when we were young. They were the best.

I still make them all the time, and every time I do they seem to be a bit different.

The recipe below makes about 24 muffins (actually I made 23, and probably could have made 22 as they weren't that big). You could halve the recipe if you only want 12 muffins.

Today when I made them, I wanted to use up some crumbs from some finished bran flakes, and from some mini wheat cereals. Otherwise the crumbs would just go into the garbage. Who wants to eat cereal crumbs with milk? It would just get mushy and mushy makes me want to gag.

So I just poured the crumbs into a measuring cup and I had 1 3/4 cups of the crumbs. I substituted those crumbs for the equivalent amount of bran in the recipe. Mom would be proud. She never wasted anything.

Mix together in medium bowl
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
3 1/2 cups high-fibre bran cereal
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 1/2 cups raisins (Or not if your name is Johanna or Jennifer. Maybe substitute walnuts?)

Mix together in large bowl
1/2 cup canola oil
3/4 cup molasses
2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 cups buttermilk (I usually just sour milk with vinegar but today I actually had buttermilk)

Fold dry ingredients into wet ingredients just until mixed.

Spoon into 24 paper lined muffin pans.

Bake for about 15 to 20 minutes until toothpick inserted comes out clean.

Apple coffee cake with rolled oats crumble topping

I wanted to make an apple coffee cake so I found this recipe and used it as a guide. I am currently in Ireland and they have self-raising flour here which already has baking soda in it (I think). So I didn't add any soda to it. At the last minute I did add a tsp of baking powder, which I am glad I did because I forgot to add the eggs.

Here is the recipe as I made it. It was quite crumbly and not very high because of the lack of eggs, but it is very good, although too sweet. The original recipe had even more sugar than I used.

Mix in large bowl
1/3 cup melted butter
1 cup packed light brown sugar (I think 1/2 a cup would be enough)
2 large eggs (I forgot these)
1 cup sour cream (I used milk because I didn't have any sour cream)
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract (I didn't use this either because I didn't have any)

Mix in medium bowl
2 cups all purpose flour (I used self raising)
1 teaspoon baking soda (I didn't use because self raising flour has it)
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 cups peeled, cored and chopped apples (I used one chopped unpeeled granny smith apple and 1/2 cup raisins)

Crumble Topping
1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
1/2 cup rolled oats (called for flour)
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 tablespoons melted butter (called for 4 tbsp)

Add dry ingredients to wet and fold in. Sprinkle crumble topping on top of batter.

I baked it at about 350 in a convection oven and it took about 25 minutes. If it had been a regular oven it would probably have taken more than that. The original recipe called for 35 to 40 minutes.

Raisin Oatmeal Banana Muffins

When we went to Ireland in 2013, one of the restaurants there served a great banana bread with dinner. It was so good. So when I came home I sent them an email asking them for their recipe.

Below is an adaptation of that recipe (sorry I can never leave a recipe alone). The original recipe included cinnamon and raisins, which I had never seen before in a banana bread recipe.

My recipe below maintains those two ingredients, and in this version, I also changed the recipe to include oats. I have to say I have a hard time not including raisins, oats and cinnamon in many of my recipes. I also reduced the amount of fat that was in the original recipe and exchanged some of the white flour for whole wheat.

Mix into medium bowl:
2 cups whole wheat flour
1 cup white flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
2 tsp of cinnamon
1 1/2 cups raisins

Mix into large bowl:
2 cups rolled oats
1 cup of buttermilk or soured milk
1/2 cup canola oil
4 eggs
2 tsp vanilla
1 cup packed brown sugar
2 cups mashed bananas

Pour dry ingredients into wet ingredients and mix just until moistened.

Scoop into lined muffin pans. Bake for 20-25 minutes at 350 until a toothpick comes out clean.

Makes 21 muffins. You could probably make 24 muffins, they would be a bit smaller.

Maloney Family BBQ 2015

Photos courtesy Pat

Video courtesy Maureen

Bridge courtesy Mike and Dave

Tremblay/Taracha Baby courtesy Johanna, Mike and God

 

Carrot cake

Johanna and Mike's wedding cake
September 25, 2010

Carrot cake
2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
2 tsp cinnamon
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt

Combine above ingredients in medium bowl

1 1/2 cups packed brown sugar
1 cup drained crushed pineapple
3 eggs
3/4 cup buttermilk
1/3 cup vegetable oil
2 tsp vanilla
3 cups grated carrots

Combine above ingredients in large bowl

Add dry ingredients to wet ingredients and combine

Cream Cheese icing
1/2 container of light cream cheese
2-3 cups icing sugar

Makes 1 9 inch round cake

I made three recipes of this cake for Johanna's wedding. One was 9 inches. The other was twice that size, also round. The original recipe called for a 9X13 pan.

I made a couple of test cakes. The first ones were too wet. So I didn't put in the applesauce called for in the recipe. I kept track of my cooking times. Below are the times for the two final cakes I made.

9 inch round took 76 minutes. I took it out 5-7 minutes past when a toothpick first comes out dry.

Double round cake (not sure of the diameter) took about 115 minutes. Temp was between 300 and 325 since 350 was too hot and the perimeter was getting too brown.

The recipe originates from the Crazy Plates cook book by Janet and Greta Podleski. I omitted the applesauce called for in both cakes including my test cakes. One test cake was in a bundt pan and it overflowed the pan. I also omitted the walnuts called for.

The cake was decorated with cream cheese icing which is terrible as it doesn't hold its shape. It was beautifully decorating by my sister in law Judy. The icing was fantastic though, and way thicker than I would have made it. Everyone loved it. In fact both cake and icing were fantastic, a huge hit.

I'll be making this cake again for Maude's wedding. Judy did a fantastic job of making cream cheese icing, considering that it kept melting on her. But this time Judy will decorate one layer with proper decorating icing. I'll ice the other cakes with cream cheese icing.

Quantities for five cakes
2 1/2 cups all purpose flour (12.5 cups)
2 tsp cinnamon
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 cups packed brown sugar (7.5 cups)
1 cup drained crushed pineapple (5 cups)
3 eggs (15 eggs)
1/3 cup vegetable oil (1.67 cups)
2 tsp vanilla
3 cups grated carrots (15 cups)

Cream Cheese icing
1/2 container of light cream cheese (2.5 containers)
2-3 cups icing sugar (12 cups since one cake will not be iced by me)