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Breakfast/Brunch

Breads, Breakfast/Brunch, Sweet Snacks

Baked Apple Cider Doughnuts with Sea Salt Caramel Glaze

The weather is definitely turning autumnish and we’re even expecting a Nor’easter here in Southern New England today and for the new 36 hours (remember: a nor’easter is not an indicators of snow; merely a strong wind event with the wind coming from an atypical wind directions … but I digress). So I went to the apple orchard one last time for the season yesterday which inspired me to make apple cider donuts today. And I have to say (no offense to the folks at Russell Orchards, mine were better. Here’s recipe:

And before I get a lot of questions again about “what is apple butter”, it has nothing to do with butter. It’s a old fashioned word for jam or a spread. You can buy it in the shops (not all of them, but I got this in a regular store), but if you can’t find it, take 3/4 cup apple sauce over medium heat for 10 minutes, stirring all the time to drive off any additional liquid. It will darken in color to almost mahogany, become thicker and after 10 minutes, you should have the 1/2 cup that you need. Stir frequently otherwise it will scorch.

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Breads, Breakfast/Brunch, Sweet Snacks

Banana Cinnamon Swirls

Like so many others, during the pandemic, I started making banana bread because all of a sudden, my eating and shopping activities were out of whack. I always seemed to have an extra banana or three. So after far too many loaves and variations, five years later, I decided to try something new: Banana Cinnamon Rolls. Sweet, light brioche dough, banana brown sugar and cinnamon filling. Walnuts, though those could be optional if you don’t like them or are allergic to nuts. Huge success. These will definitely be going on the “extra banana rotation”.

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Breakfast/Brunch, Sweet Snacks

Peach Currant Crumble Top Muffins

It’s a rainy Sunday morning here in Greater Boston, and I had fully intended to go on a “Kat-adventure” today (aka a mini-road trip), but it’s too yucky for that. I don’t mind the rain, but it’s really coming down. So instead I looked through the stuff” in my kitchen and realized there was a peach that was overly ripe and needed eating, and some frozen red currant that wouldn’t be enough for most recipes, so I combined the two. This is a pretty standard muffin recipe, so swap out the fruit berries for anything that you like, as long as it totals 1 1/2 to 1 3/4 cups.

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Breakfast/Brunch, Desserts, Sweet Snacks

Blueberry Almond Bundt Cake

This is a quick and delicious recipe that you can actually do with a few types of berries — blueberries of course, but also blackberries or currants or raspberries (although I would par-freeze raspberries before mixing them into the batter as them can be a little mushy. Also, this recipe as written is for a fairly small bundt cake (like smaller than your usual) so you can also double it for a regular sized bundt cake pan. If you like, this size can be made into a 4 x6 loaf pan though. Anyway, it is delicious, works well as a breakfast cake or a cake for tea and it travels well (isn’t too “fall-apart-y”) so would serve nicely at a potluck!

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Breakfast/Brunch, Desserts, Sweet Snacks

Wildbeer-Rhabarer Strudel for One

( also known as Mixed Berry Rhubarb Hand Pies)

As many of my friends and followers know, almost every time I go home to Germany, I go with a friend to Innsbruck, Austria to a very specific cafe for strudel. Yes, that strudel is that good. Well, it is also a good excuse to go on a road trip, but yeah, the strudel is perfection. Last week, he had the occasion whilst on his holiday in Austria to go to Cafe Kroll and in a fit of jealousy, today I baked my own strudel and went on my own little road trip to Cape Ann, here in Massachusetts, with my strudel in tow. Not quite the same and it’s really faux strudel because I used puff pastry instead of strudel dough, but it’s the thought that counts I suppose. It’s “wild berry rhubarb” which just means mixed berries — raspberry, blackberry, blueberry and rhubarb. Delicious and strudel craving sorted until the next Munich trip.

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