Wow, have I been busy lately. Between working six days a week and having a sink overflowing because of a bad clog, I have not been in the kitchen at all. I finally got my drain fixed and set aside some time to make some bread and blog about it.

I used this bread on my tofurkey and cheese sandwiches I eat for lunch at work and it turned out pretty good. It was a bit crumbly but I completely blame that on the fact that I had a complete memory lapse while making it and forgot to add the molasses. I had it measured out and everything and after I put the loaf in the oven I looked back at the table and saw the molasses just sitting there and was like “woops”. The bread still tasted great, it just didn’t hold together very well.

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Whole Wheat Sandwich Bread
Adapted from The Tangled Nest

2 cups whole wheat flour (traditional whole wheat, or white wheat both work beautifully)
1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup (one stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
1/2 cup light brown sugar
2 large eggs
1/3 cup molasses
1 1/4 cups milk
2 tablespoons orange juice
1-1 1/4 cups chopped nuts (optional)

Preheat oven to 300°F and butter/grease a 9 x 5 loaf pan.

In a medium bowl, sift and whisk together the flours, baking powder, soda, and salt.

In a large mixing bowl, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.  Add the eggs one at a time.  Beat in the molasses. 

Add 1/2 the flour mixture, then about half the milk, then the rest of the flour, then the last of the milk and the orange juice, mixing until moistened after each addition. If using a stand mixer, scrape the sides of the bowl as needed throughout the entire process. Stir in the nuts.

Transfer the batter to the prepared loaf pan. Bake for an hour and 10-15 minutes. Check the bread in an hour–if it seems to be too dark on top, cover it lightly with foil for the last bit of baking. Let the finished bread sit 20 minutes before removing it from the pan, then allow it to cool completely before slicing.

I love lemon, it’s been great on these cool rainy days that have been happening. I put my last lemon to work and baked it into a delicious, moist pound cake with lemon glaze (the same glaze I used on my vegan doughnuts). I may actually make another loaf of it today, it’s so good!

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Lemon Pound Cake
Adapted from Music City Foodie

3 eggs
3 egg yolks
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups cake flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/3 cup granulated sugar
Zest from one lemon
2 sticks (1 cup) unsalted butter, room temperature

Preheat oven to 325°F. Grease a 9×5″ loaf pan and set aside.

Combine eggs, egg yolks, and vanilla in a small bowl. Set aside.

Sift and whisk flour and salt together in a medium bowl. Set aside.

Combine sugar and lemon zest in a small bowl and rub together with your fingers until combined and fragrant.

Cream butter on medium high speed with electric mixer or stand mixer for 20 seconds. Add lemon sugar and beat until mixture is light and fluffy, about 3 to 5 minutes. Turn the mixer down to medium and add flour mixture alternating with the egg mixture. Add slowly and gently, overmixing will produce a dry cake. If adding more than two additions, hand mix additions with a rubber spatula.

Add batter to prepared pan and back about 50-60 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Cool for five minutes in pan before unmolding. Sometimes I have to bake up to 70-75 minutes, just keep an eye on it after the 60 minute mark until the top of the cake looks and feels completely cooked and springs back when touched.

Lemon Glaze

Juice from one lemon
1 cup powdered sugar

Combine lemon juice and powdered sugar and stir until a glaze forms. Pour over slightly warm or cooled pound cake.

SweetBox Truck is the newest cupcake vendor in Philadelphia, boasting fresh cupcakes (baked daily) made with fresh ingredients and made completely from scratch. The truck can be found at 3500 Market Street in University City, though the location may change (keep up on Facebook and Twitter for up to date information).

The cupcakes come with the standard flavors of chocolate, vanilla, and red velvet but there is also a list of rotating flavors like cookie dough (a vanilla cupcake with a cookie dough center), chocolate peanut butter (chocolate cupcake with peanut butter frosting and a fudge center), Philly Hostess (a chocolate cupcake with chocolate ganache, Philly written in red frosting on the top, and a vanilla cream center), and a lot more. You can find the full menu on the SweetBox Truck facebook page.

The schedule for the truck can be found by following along on Facebook and Twitter.

Oh, and the cupcakes? They are fantastic. Pictured above is the vanilla cupcake with vanilla buttercream frosting. The cake part is super moist, has strong vanilla flavor, and is light, probably the best vanilla cupcake I’ve ever had (and I’ve tasted a lot, considering my favorite flavor is vanilla). The buttercream on top is creamy and fluffy, there isn’t too much piled on and there isn’t too little, and it isn’t overly sweet but it definitely isn’t lacking either. You’d think it ends there, but it doesn’t, on top of how great the cupcake tastes it also looks great, something very few bakeries (at least in this city) have been able to accomplish, let alone excel at like SweetBox Truck has.
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Before I start talking about these doughnuts, I wanted to thank you all for the donations and spreading the word about the Alex’s Lemonade Stand Event I volunteered for this past Saturday. The whole event raised over $1,300 for Alex’s Lemonade Stand!

I baked a couple hundred cupcakes in three flavors, one of which was lemon. I bought more lemons than I needed though and wanted to use them up, so logically I made doughnuts.

These are vegan doughnuts (though they can be made non-vegan, I recommend going the vegan route, they are better that way) with a really simple lemon glaze. If you wanted more lemon flavor, you could throw some zest into the doughnut batter. Or if you want to avoid lemon all together, replace the juice in the glaze with soy milk.
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This toffee looks like a failure. It was actually pretty scary to make. Adding the baking soda made it bubble up to more than five times its size and it overflowed out of my pan. Then it deflated and I didn’t quite get the look like on the blog I found the recipe at. Despite that, it was still really delicious.

I recommend making this but be prepared. Have all your ingredients ready and put paper towels underneath your prepared pan because it will really help because this WILL overflow. It has a caramel-ish taste and a crisp texture and would go really well dipped in chocolate or garnishing puddings or custards.

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Sponge Toffee
Adapted from Canal Vie

3/4 cup light corn syrup
1 1/4 cup sugar
4 teaspoons baking soda (fresher is better)

Prepare everything in advance, speed is crucial to the actual making of this candy.

Line an 8″ square pan with parchment paper and place some paper towels underneath in case overflow occurs. Attach a candy thermometer to a heavy saucepan and measure out all ingredients.

In the saucepan, add sugar and corn syrup and mix until combined and the sugar has soaked into the syrup. Heat over medium heat and bring to a boil. Do not stir, gently swirling the pan is alright but DO NOT STIR. Heat until thermometer registers 300°F (hard candy).

Immediately remove from heat and sift in baking soda (be careful, this will be very hot). As soon as the baking soda is adding, beat quickly with a whisk for 4 to 5 seconds and pour immediately into the prepared pan. Be very careful because the mixture will be rapidly increasing in volume. Scrape the saucepan with the rubber spatula to make sure it is completely empty.

Allow to cool for at least 2 hours at room temperature. Do not touch or move the pan at all. Once completely cooled, unmold toffee, peel the parchment paper away and crack the candy using a large knife or meat mallet. Dip pieces in chocolate if desired. The crumbs can be used to garnish puddings or other desserts.

Store up to 2 weeks in an airtight container at room temperature.

Tip for cleaning the pan, whisk, and spatula: let soak in hot water for 15 minutes and it should all come off easily!

Sometimes a dozen cupcakes is a lot, especially when you live alone. I bake for this blog a lot and I pawn a lot of the stuff off on friends but there are those days where I really don’t want to have to deal with a dozen or more cupcakes because the recipe can’t be cut down anymore. I halve and quarter recipes when I can but depending on the amount of eggs in the recipe, I can only go so low.

Then I found this recipe. It only makes two cupcakes, kind of like the chocolate mug cake recipe but these are actually baked in the oven.

I wanted to like them, I really did. I followed the original recipe and it called for a teaspoon of vanilla, I think that is what really did me in. I’ll definitely be trying these again and only use 1/4 teaspoon vanilla (like I’ve written up here). They also had a slightly weird texture, a little on the thick side, but they weren’t too bad aside from the overwhelming amount of vanilla.
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