Honey Cornbread Muffin

These cornbread muffins are extremely versatile and can be made days ahead of time and stored in an airtight container. Even more importantly however, they're moist! For some reason, the result of many cooks' attempts to create cornbread is a combination of dry and flavorless bread. This recipe will provide 12 regular sized muffins.

**A handy way to measure things like molasses, honey, and maple syrup, spray your measuring cup with baking spray before pouring in the ingredient and it will pour out much easier.

1 cup yellow cornmeal
1 cup all purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder (yes, a tablespoon is correct)
1/3 cup sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup soymilk
2 eggs
1/4 cup earth balance butter replacement
1/4 cup honey

Preheat the oven to 400. Melt the butter and let cool. In a large bowl, mix together the cornmeal, flour, baking powder, sugar, and salt. Then in a medium bowl, combine everything but the butter. While whisking the wet ingredients, slowly pour in the butter. Don't be concerned if the butter solidifies in little balls because it will melt while cooking and produce steam.

Stir in the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients just until incorporated. Now here comes the trick that I picked up from Alton Brown. Once the batter is made, it's best to scoop out the batter into the muffin tin and then let it sit for a half hour. DO NOT TOUCH THIS once you have dolled it out. The baking powder will begin to work its chemical magic and produce little bubbles throughout the batter that will give it a more even rise that will stay risen after baking.

After the batter has rested for a half hour, bake for about 15 minutes until golden brown.

Pistachio Marzipan

This is a very versatile recipe. It'll impress anyone because it's completely homemade, it is a great alternative to almond if someone is either allergic or just doesn't like almond, and it just tastes spectacular!

1/4 cup shelled pistachios
3 ounces confectioner's sugar
1 ounce corn syrup
1/2 teaspoon flavorless oil

You want to first toast the pistachios in a 350 degree oven for 5-10 minutes (NO LONGER because if they burn, they're trash). Cool and then put the pistachios in the food processor and blend until they're a powder. Next, add in the confectioner's sugar and blend until they make a paste. Add in the corn syrup and oil and process until they come together as a dough. At this point, pat the dough and tightly wrap with plastic wrap and place in an air tight container. If you wanted to color this, you would want to place a few drops of food coloring in the just made dough and knead it in until the dough is the right color, then wrap and let rest.

This will keep well in the fridge for 6 weeks or so wrapped tightly in the air tight container. You can roll it out to cover a cake (this recipe will make one 9" disk so if you want to cover a cake, you should double this recipe). You can also use like I did to fill a cake and make marzipan flowers.

The Best Vanilla Cake

This recipe is great for a number of reasons. Number one, it's an adaption of a great recipe by Cake Boss's star and baker Buddy Valastro. Second, while sometimes a vanilla cake can be dry or flavorless, this one is incredibly moist and oozing with flavor. Third, this is more of a baseline recipe that can be easily altered for different flavored cakes (i.e. the addition of chocolate, or almond extract, rum, etc.) Finally, and arguably most importantly, this recipe shows that you can have a spectacular cake that is completely dairy free.

2 1/2 cups cake flour
2 cups granulated sugar
2 cups silk live vanilla yogurt (this is important)
3/4 cup vegetable oil
2 1/4 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon salt
4 eggs (room temperature)
1 cup soymilk

Butter and flour 2 9" cake pans and insert parchment rounds that are buttered and floured to make removing your cakes a simple task. Preheat the oven to 350 and this is important. Do not think about placing these cakes in the oven as soon as it beeps. Your oven may say it's preheated but truth be told, it is almost certainly not at the right temperature and placing your cake in an under heated oven can ruin a baked good. I suggest you get an oven thermometer and not insert your cakes until it reads 350, however, if you don't want to do this you should simply preheat and wait at least 15 minutes after it beeps to place the cakes in.

I suggest you leave the yogurt and soymilk out for an hour or so before assembling to bring them closer to room temperature.

In the mixing bowl of a stand mixer with the paddle attachment, place in the cake flour, sugar, yogurt, vegetable oil, baking powder, vanilla, and salt in the standing mixer and mix on slow just until the ingredients are mixed in (a few seconds). Then increase the speed to low-medium and mix for a minute until the mixture is smooth.

With the motor on, mix in 1 egg at a time adding the next egg in as soon as the previous has been absorbed. Stop the motor periodically to scrape the sides and bottom with a rubber spatula.

Then with the motor running, add the soymilk 1/2 cup at a time, stopping after each addition to scrape the batter. Mix for a final minute or so to make sure everything is thoroughly mixed (however make sure you are not mixing on high speeds).

Now here is the tricky part of this recipe (but absolutely worth the extra step). To keep these cakes from crowning, the batter needs to be between 70 and 73 degrees (or if your house is a bit colder like mine is, you want the batter to register at room temperature). To test this, plunge the thermometer in the middle of the batter and if it's too cold, leave on the counter for a few minutes and if it's too warm, let cool in refrigerator for a few minutes.

Evenly distribute the batter between the two pans and bake for 25-30 minutes (I can almost guarantee that it will take at least 28 minutes but you should check the cakes at 25 minutes). You can insert a toothpick into the cake to see if it comes out clean but I'm not a huge fan of doing this. The tops of the cakes will be slightly springy and it should be a little golden on top when the cakes are done.

Rest the cakes in the pan for about 30 minutes and then invert them onto a cooling rack and remove the parchment paper and let the cakes completely cool. Here's the cool thing that I learned from Mr. Cake Boss - freezing cakes. Once the cake comes to room temperature, placing the cake in the freezer for an hour or two is important for a few reasons. First of all, by freezing the cakes they will be much easier to level and divide into layers (just make sure you don't freeze them into rocks because that's very dangerous as your knife may attack you after bouncing off the boulder you call a cake). The other cool aspect (forgive the pun) of freezing the cake is that unlike refrigerating a cake which leeches out moisture, freezing the cake locks the moisture in.

Shortbread cookies

As you can tell by the picture, I made these into adorable santa cookies as was pictured in the magazine (Best Holiday Cookies). For the sake of time, I'd suggest simply rolling these out to about 1/2" and bake. You can eat these unadorned because they taste great but you can also use the butter cream recipe in the Strawberries and Cream Cake to frost these and they will be great.

As far as the number of cookies this makes, once the dough is rolled out you can use any cookie cutter or simply cut it into any size squares you want. You are the master of your cookie size.

1 cup dairy free margarine at room temperature
1/2 cup sugar
1 tablespoon soy milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 1/4 cups all purpose flour

Preheat your oven to 325. In your stand mixer, beat the margarine on medium to high speed for 30 seconds. Then scrape the sides of the bowl and beat the sugar into the margarine until combined. Then scrape the sides again and beat in the milk and vanilla until combined. Reduce the speed to medium low and slowly beat in the flour until your mixer starts shaking (and looking like it can't take much more - this depends on the quality of your mixer but since I don't have a thousand dollar professional grade mixer and you probably don't as well, this dough is a little tough). Once you reach that point, use a spatula or wooden spoon to incorporate the rest of the flour.

Now you can roll out the dough to 1/2" and cut out the shapes you want. Bake them for about 12-15 minutes until the edges are very lightly browned. I would absolutely suggest you take these out a little early verses a little late because if these overcook, they will be dry, stiff, and horrible.

If you REALLY want to spend a long time making cookies and want to make the santa cookies, when you finish making the dough, remove 1 cup of dough and set aside and then with the remaining dough, work in red food coloring until it's the right shade of red. This will make 12 cookies so for each one, roll one 1" ball of red dough, five 1/2" balls of red dough, one 1" ball of regular colored dough and four 1/2" balls of regular dough. To put them together, flatten out the 1" red ball to about 1/2" thick and flatten the 1" regular colored dough ball to same thickness and attach. Attach four of the red 1/2" balls for legs and arms and then attach the four 1/2" balls of regular dough to those. Next, use the remaining 1/2" red ball to form into a little hat and attaching to the head. Finally, use mini chocolate chips for eyes and buttons and bake these for 12-15 minutes at 325 degrees. Once the cookies are cool, use butter cream to make the beard and hat decorations and use a red cinnamon candy for his nose.

Maple Glazed Chicken

This recipe is mentioned in the mashed sweet potatoes and is extremely easy.
This recipe serves 4

2 tablespoons maple syrup
4 chicken breasts
salt and pepper to season

Heat a pan to medium high heat and place a little oil to coat the pan. Season the chicken breasts and place them in the pan. Depending on the size of the chicken breast, cooking times will vary. For the medium sized ones I used, it takes about 3-4 minutes per side. Once the chicken is cooked, brush the tops with maple syrup and flip and brush the other side. Then flip, cook for 5 seconds and remove from heat. If you wait too long and let the maple syrup cook, it'll burn fast. No more than 5 seconds a side. I served them with the mashed potatoes and a nice salad.

Wasabi Chicken Pastries

The pastry dough for this recipe is from Rachel Allen and it is spectacular. Not only is it wildly easy to make, but it can be filled with anything you want and can be used for both sweet and savory applications. The only thing to remember is that if you plan on filling it with something that has a decent amount of liquid in it (therefore producing condensation while it cooks), make sure to make a few slits in it so the dough doesn't pop.

If you need to clear your sinuses and love wasabi, this is a great recipe but like I said, you can fill it with whatever you want for a wonderful dinner. I provide the measurements for flour and water by weight because when you're making something like a pastry dough, accuracy is vitally important.

6 tablespoons earth balance butter (I prefer the stick kind because it's easy to measure)
8 ounces flour
4 ounces water
1 egg
2 chicken breasts
1 tablespoon wasabi paste
1 tablespoon stone ground mustard
1 tablespoon kethup
1/2 cup diced onion
1/2 cup diced pepper
extra egg for the egg wash
For the pastry, sift the flour into a large bowl and make a well in the center. Place the butter (cubed) in the 4 ounces of water in a sauce pan. Heat gently over medium high heat until the butter has melted and bring the mixture to a boil. As soon as it comes to a rolling boil, take it off the heat, scramble the egg and pour it in the well in the flour, and aggressively stir as you pour in the hot liquid until it comes together as a dough. Spread the dough out onto a large plate and let rest at room temperature for 15 minutes. Then cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for a half hour.

While the dough is refrigerating, season and cook the chicken breasts on the stove top on medium high heat (cooking times vary depending on size). Once the chicken is cooked, remove them and place them in foil. Then reduce the heat to medium, and saute the onions and peppers until they're soft and cooked (about 5-6 minutes).

In a bowl, place the wasabi paste, ketchup, and mustard and whisk together. Then dice the now cooled chicken and place in the bowl with the sauteed onions and peppers and mix together until fully incorporated and let cool. You don't want this mix to be hot when you put it in the dough. WARNING - when the wasabi paste comes in contact with the hot onions, the steam will burn your eyes and be wildly uncomfortable (I found out first hand). Keep your head back when you mix all of these.

Once the dough is firm, preheat the oven to 425 and lightly flour a surface and roll out to 1/16" and cut in 4 1/2" circles (this dough will make 12 pastries each being .75 ounces of dough). On one half of the circle, put a tablespoon of the chicken salad mixture down. Then, use the egg wash to fold over the dough to make a crescent and seal this with your fingers. Then use the fork tines to close the seal and make a nice pattern. Brush the pastries with egg wash and bake for 15-20 minutes until the tops are beginning to brown. If you're not sure if the pastry is cooked at 15 minutes, place a toothpick in and if it comes out clean, you're good to go.

You can serve them while they're hot or room temperature.