December Baking

December is a busy month in the kitchen. Between Christmas cookies and homemade gifts, my sink is always full of measuring cups, spatulas, and cookie sheets. Short, dark, cold days left me yearning for the tastes of summer at the beginning of the month. I broke into my frozen blueberry stash from July to make a batch of orange blueberry poppy seed muffins on December 8th. 

These muffins are a twist on Joy the Baker's lemon blueberry poppy seed muffins. I swapped the whole milk in Joy's recipe for soy and the lemon zest for orange. These muffins are moist and full of blueberries. If your blueberries are frozen to start, toss them with 1-2 tablespoons of flour in a bowl. This will help prevent your batter from turning blue.

When you begin to sprinkle the crumb topping over your muffin cups, you will be hesitant to use all the topping. Don't stop sprinkling! I was hesitant too, but I was so very happy I used it all.

Experimenting with Infused Honey

Honey is one of nature's best gifts (if not the best). Between school, working as an environmental educator, and baking sweets, I've had the pleasure of getting up close and personal with honey bees and local honey. 

I found myself back on Swarmbustin' Honey's website (West Grove, PA) this week thinking about their flavored honey (did someone say GARLIC honey?!). Although I've tried several different varieties of honey, I have yet to try flavoring my own. That's the inspiration for this post. 

Extracting fresh honey for some excited taste testers at the 2011 Philadelphia Honey Festival.

I spent some time visiting a number of websites, mostly from fellow bloggers, about how to flavor and infuse honey. You have two choices in the infusion process but both end in the same delicious results. Think mint honey in your tea, lavender honey on vanilla ice cream, orange honey on your morning scone, pepper honey on your cheese, or cinnamon honey on your oatmeal. If that doesn't sell you, than you might be hooked on the perfect little gift for a hostess or your next best skin product.

Germantown Hives: For best results, use local honey! 

Flavoring Ideas

Lavender: up to one cup of lavender buds

Vanilla: 2 split beans 

Orange: zest of one orange (could also use lemon or grapefruit)

Mint: 1/4 to 1 cup loosely packed leaves

Ginger-Lime: 10 quarter-sized slices of peeled fresh ginger, zest of 2 limes

Cinnamon-Clove: 5 cinnamon sticks, 1 tablespoon cloves (let stand 24 hours before straining)

Hot Pepper: peppercorns or red pepper flakes

Chocolate Almond Biscotti

Covering my friends and family with icing and crumbs on their birthday is one of my favorite joys. What to do then, when a dear friend moves 3,000 miles across the country and the postal service won't accept your bribe to deliver a cake with 25 lit candles to their doorstep? You make birthday biscotti, of course.

Happy birthday Kenny!

I'm not a coffee drinker (or espresso, cappuccino, etc.), but I love biscotti. Why? It's another excuse to eat a cookie. I was first introduced to this recipe by an old co-worker at a morning meeting. Let's just say we spent more time raving about his delicious biscotti than we spent talking about work.

My favorite thing about these biscotti, besides the chocolate chip cookie taste, is that you don't have to dunk them in hot coffee in order to take a bite. They are a bit softer than coffee shop biscotti, which makes a non-coffee drinker quite happy.

Cookie Dough Bites

The best way to say "I love you" to a sweet tooth is with cookie dough. Trust me.

Greek yogurt is the secret to making this cookie dough recipe egg-free and granting you the permission to lick the bowl, spoon, your fingers, and eat as much as you like. Simply blend the ingredients together as you would a normal cookie recipe: blend butter and sugars, add vanilla and yogurt, mix in the dry ingredients, and lastly, the chocolate chips.

For quick cookie dough bites, drop the dough onto a cookie sheet using an ice cream scoop. Pop those bad boys into the freeze and you're done! For a more festive treat, spread the dough into a jelly roll pan and cut into shapes with cookie cutters after freezing.

Apple Butter and Appled Brandy for a Homemade Holiday

As soon as you become a pretty serious vegetable gardener, or spend that extra dollar or two to get the freshest produce at the local farmer’s market (or better yet, to pick your own!), you will realize the benefit of preserving the harvest.

I was intimidated by canning for a while. If you have ever read the introduction to a canning book, you know what I’m talking about. Better not screw up or you’ll give all of your loved-ones botulism, right? Wrong, if you’re smart and don’t break the rules. Start easy with acidic foods like fruit butters, jams, and jellies. It’s the low-acid foods like vegetables that are trickier.

What’s the best fruit to can in the fall? APPLES!

My friend Dawn and I ventured to Solebury Orchards in New Hope, PA for our apple needs this year. We hit the orchards in mid-October when the Stayman Winesaps were perfect for picking and both left with 20 lbs. of apples, cider, and the obligatory cider doughnut.