Blueberry Swirl Muffins

I was a woman on a mission.

Partially inspired by the big, beautifully empty Moleskine notebook I got myself for Christmas as a brand new recipe book, I've been systematically hunting down and recording all of my best recipes for posterity and for easy transport. But there was one glaring hole: a solid, delicious recipe for blueberry muffins where the blueberries tasted like blueberries and the muffin was moist and enticing. The search, good friends, is over.

Clover Rolls

As you might remember, I promised everyone that I was going to go a little nuts this Thanksgiving. And I did. I made a ton of food which, for the most part, was gobbled down. There are certainly one or two things that I'm definitely going to turn into a yearly tradition, and this particular recipe was one of them. While I'm not usually the type of person who'll invest a couple hours into making dinner rolls for an everyday meal, these particular rolls are perfect for a special occasion. They're pretty and delicious and surprisingly un-temperamental to make.

Cranberry Orange Pecan Bread

Let's talk about gray, drizzly days, cups of tea and toast. Particularly this toast, from the Grand Central Bakery Cookbook, which is studded with sweet cranberries, crunchy pecans and bright and zippy lemon zest. It's just what you need when you require a little fall morning pick-me-up. 

Soft Pretzels

Pretzels have always held a soft, salty, comforting place in my heart. I can't tell you the number of times I've been schlepping through a train station in a distant Germanic country only to realize that I have just enough money/time to quickly snatch a pretzel and some mustard before I have to make a train. They've kept me going, and for this I thank them.

Fig, Olive Oil and Sea Salt Challah

This may be the most beautiful bread I've ever baked.

I'd written off challah for a long time because it looked a bit too complicated, but today I finally made the leap, and boy am I proud. My desire to overcome my challah fear was spurred on by two factors. One the fact that Peter got me The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook for Christmas and this recipe particularly stood out in all its sweet, salty glory (plus, there were really cool-looking weaving instructions!) The other is that as of late my sister and her architecture cohort has become obsessed with challah. The third fact, which I'm going to sort of nest as a subheading under facts one and two, is the amount of immensely rewarding "Holla!" jokes you can invent before/during/after making it.*

Carrot-Orange Muffins with Candied Ginger

There's a bakery in SE Portland called Tabor Bread that is definitely worth a visit if you're ever in the neighborhood. They mill their own flour and have wood-fired ovens and do lots of lovely nice things like leave extra bread outside on Sundays with a little box for donations. But my favorite thing about Tabor Bread are their muffins. Let me clarify: a muffin is not a cupcake. It does not need frosting. It isn't supposed to be a sugar bomb. The muffins at Tabor Bread are hearty, wholesome and not-too-sweet; precisely the kind of thing you need for a 5 a.m. airport run. I kept the Tabor Bread ethos in mind as I developed the recipe for these lovely little muffins; keeping them chock full of orange, carrot and little explosions of candied ginger rather than sugar.

Java Gingerbread

I'm still tinkering around a bit with food photography and lighting and all that, so please bear with me as I perfect my technique *sniffs snootily and samples a soupcon of snuff*. As usually happens, last night I got a bit antsy and started looking around for something to bake. My sister chose this recipe. I'm really rather glad that she did. Any baked goods I tend to make nowadays generally get sent either into a) our cookie jar or b) the hungry mouths of Piper's starving, sleep deprived architecture cohort. "It's a lot like giving to the needy," observed my good friend Ben Kruger-Robbins after dropping off the leftovers from our end-of-semester party at her architecture studio. The half-empty bags of Doritos were being set upon like wounded baby zebras by a pack of wild dogs.