Tag Archives: almond milk

Bread, Cakes, Dessert

Oatmeal Cranberry Walnut Muffins

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This is a merging of two recipes in my old Betty Crocker’s New Picture Cook Book (1961): “Cranberry-Orange Muffins” (p. 88) and “Oatmeal Muffins” (p. 90). The recipes are so similar in amounts of ingredients, that it didn’t take much to combine them. The only big decision I had to make was whether to use white or brown sugar, so I compromised and used half of each. Oatmeal takes the place of half the flour in the cranberry muffins, a formula you can use to add oatmeal to a variety of muffin recipes.

Soaking oats in almond milk
Cranberries and walnuts
…chopped
Finished muffins

Oatmeal Cranberry Walnut Muffins

  • Servings: 12 muffins
  • Difficulty: easy
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Preheat oven to 400°; line a muffin pan with paper liners or butter the cups.

Ingredients
  • 1 cup old fashioned rolled oats
  • 1 cup almond milk (or any kind of milk, even buttermilk)
  • 1 cup fresh cranberries (thawed, if frozen)
  • 1/2 cup shelled walnuts
  • 1/3 cup softened butter
  • 1/4 cup brown sugar
  • 1/4 cup white granulated sugar
  • 1 large egg
  • orange zest from one large orange
  • 1 cup all purpose flour
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1 teaspoon salt
Preparation
  1. Mix oats and milk; let soak for about 20 minutes while you prepare the other ingredients.
  2. Add cranberries and walnuts to the bowl of a food processor and pulse about 10 times until the ingredients are roughly chopped. Don’t worry about uniformity.
  3. Cream butter, sugars, and egg in the bowl of a mixer until creamy. Mix in orange zest.
  4. Add dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt) and oat/milk mixture. Carefully mix on low speed until combined.
  5. Stir in cranberry/walnut mixture.
  6. Fill muffin cups at least 2/3 full.
  7. Bake for 20-25 minutes. Remove muffins to rack to cool.

Bread, Dessert

Heavenly Lemon Ricotta Muffins

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I was going to make my Lemon Blueberry Ricotta Cake for the department get-together, but my husband didn’t like the look of the blueberries I picked up, so I whipped up my Sparkling Molasses Ginger Cookies. That left me with lemons and ricotta. So I merged the following two recipes into one that resulted in a muffin with a fluffy texture and a rich lemony taste:

Giada’s Lemon Ricotta Muffins

Lemon Ricotta Muffins Full of Sunshine

Heavenly Lemon Ricotta Muffins

  • Servings: 12 muffins
  • Difficulty: easy
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Preheat oven to 350°; line a muffin pan with paper liners.

1 cup sugar

1 stick (1/2 cup) butter, room temperature

lemon zest from 3 lemons

juice of 1 lemon (about 2 tablespoons)

1 cup whole milk ricotta cheese

1 large egg

2 cups all purpose flour

2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/3 cup almond milk (or cow’s milk or water)

decorating sugar

  1. Beat sugar and butter together until light and fluffy.
  2. Add zest, lemon juice, and ricotta and beat until combined.
  3. Beat in egg.
  4. Add dry ingredients and beat at low speed until combined.
  5. Slowly pour in milk until batter thins but still remains a thick batter. I used the entire 1/3 cup of milk.
  6. Scoop batter into liners in muffin pan. Sprinkle with decorating sugar.
  7. Bake for 18 minutes. Cool in pan on rack for at least 15 minutes before removing to completely cool. Did you ever try to pick a hot muffin out of the tin and pull the top right off? Better to wait.

Dessert

Chocolate Panna Cotta

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I bought the wrong almond milk. I only use the unsweetened on my cereal, but picked up the regular by mistake. What is regular about a product that is sweetened, anyway? I would think that the product with the least interference is the regular product. Well, so, it has to be used up, and you’re always complaining that I don’t make nearly enough chocolate things for my husband (or maybe it’s the voices in my head complaining), so the chocolate panna cotta is in the fridge waiting to set up.

When I made the vanilla version, I made raspberry sauce; not so today, but a variety of sauces would elevate the dessert a little. What kind of sauce would you use? I’m just going to sprinkle some shaved coconut flakes on it. This recipe differs a little from my previous recipe, where I used a little less sugar and half and half instead of heavy cream.

Do you like the image with the cool filter or the warm filter?

Do you like the cool filter?
Or the warm filter?

Chocolate Panna Cotta

  • Servings: Six 1/2 cup servings
  • Difficulty: easy
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Because the chilling can take so long, this is a good make-ahead dish. If you plan to unmold the panna cotta, spray or brush your custard cups with a light oil first.

1 1/2 cups almond milk

1 envelope unflavored gelatin (0.25 oz)

1 1/2 cups heavy cream

1/2 cup sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

4 oz bar semi-sweet chocolate, broken up

  1. Sprinkle the gelatin over the almond milk set aside.
  2. Mix the cream and sugar over medium-high heat until the sugar is dissolved and the mixture comes to a boil. It’s safe to boil the cream and sugar because the gelatin is not mixed in yet.
  3. Remove from heat and whisk in chocolate and vanilla until the chocolate is melted. I did not let the mixture cool before the next step and it all came out fine.
  4. Whisk the warm chocolate mixture into the almond milk and gelatin. You can use a hand mixer or hand blender to get any remaining bits of chocolate blended in. I was not concerned about those little flecks of chocolate in the final version.
  5. Pour into custard cups and walk away for 4-6 hours, at least.
  6. Unmold by tilting the cup onto a plate and garnish with fruit, sauce, whipped cream, or just eat it plain.

This is a very creamy and flavorful panna cotta without being overpoweringly chocolatey.

Dessert, Fruit

Panna Cotta with Almond Milk

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I had heard the name panna cotta before but never looked into it until I read about it on And She Cooks. The pictures made me look, but I was fascinated to find out that it is like a custard, only made with gelatin instead of eggs. That sounds easier, but then I read elsewhere about people not dissolving their gelatin enough or boiling it to death (literally) so that it doesn’t set. As I write this introduction, I am not confident that mine will set and four hours seems like a long time to wait.

I made a simple raspberry sauce to go on mine—really, it took about five minutes—and grated chocolate to go over that as garnish. I figure even if it doesn’t set up, I can pour it in a bowl and it will be like a sweet soup with raspberries and chocolate.

Voila! It worked.

Coffee cup molds
Berries and powdered sugar
Easy and pretty

Panna Cotta with Almond Milk

  • Servings: 6 half cup servings
  • Difficulty: easy
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Panna Cotta

This recipe is adapted from “How to Make Panna Cotta” at The Kitchn.

From the original recipe, I substituted a combination of almond milk and half and half, and I used vanilla bean paste* instead of regular vanilla.

1 1/2 cups unsweetened almond milk

1 1/2 cups half and half

3 teaspoons gelatin

1/3 cup sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla*

a pinch of salt

I tried to follow the instructions, but was a little put off by the warnings not to boil the milk and gelatin mixture or to boil the milk at all, so I hovered over the pot and was afraid the gelatin might not have completely dissolved. Here’s how I did it:

  1. Measure almond milk and half and half into large measuring cup. Pour about half of it into a saucepan and sprinkle the gelatin over the top. Wait 5 minutes.
  2. The surface of the milk really does wrinkle, as the instructions state, so I turned the heat to low and whisked for 2 minutes while the milk warmed.
  3. Add the sugar and continue to whisk and warm the mixture. It did not seem to dissolve as quickly as the instructions stated, but when I saw steam rise from the milk, I did take it off the heat, as instructed, hoping that it was dissolved. I continued to whisk it in the warmed pan for another few minutes, just to be a little more sure.
  4. Add the rest of the milks, vanilla, and salt, whisking until well mixed. See the note below on why you should stick to regular liquid vanilla instead of the vanilla bean paste I used.
  5. Pour into small dishes that have been sprayed lightly with cooking spray—I used 6 coffee cups that are part of our dinnerware set, because when else would I use those cups?

Now they chill in the refrigerator for at least four hours.

*I tried using vanilla bean paste, but it would not suspend in the runny liquid, and the vanilla seeds fell to the bottom of the cups, on top when unmolded. Just use vanilla. Save the paste for an egg custard which is thick before you pour it in molds. It didn’t affect the taste, except that all the seeds are in that one bite at the top.

Quick Raspberry Sauce

2 pints fresh raspberries

2 cups powdered sugar

splash of lemon juice (maybe a tablespoon)

grated chocolate for garnish

Save a few raspberries for garnish, if desired. Add the rest to a small saucepan. Add sugar and lemon juice and set the pan over medium heat, stirring as soon as the sugar starts to dissolve. Simmer for about 5 minutes, mashing the berries with a potato masher, and stirring occasionally until slightly thickened. Strain the sauce into a bowl and chill, covered, until ready to use.

Serve over unmolded panna cotta with grated chocolate. I’m going to use bowls, whether the panna cotta has set or not.

And She Cooks is right about what a great dessert this is. It’s simple, but looks fancy, and it tastes great. My husband tried to guess what it was, first guessing custard, one of his favorite desserts. Now I’m trying to figure out all kinds of other things to do with panna cotta.

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