Blythe's Blueberry Muffins

With a Kristen twist.

The Blythe in question is none other than Blythe Danner (Gwyneth Paltrow's mom who has some recipes featured in GP's cookbook My Father's Daughter).

There is a healthier blueberry muffin in the book that is vegan, but I didn't have the ingredients for that one.

I felt the need to make blueberry muffins today because I was gifted a bag of great big beautiful blueberries and, well, muffins were suggested and I'm a sucker for suggestions.

I did change the recipe to make it dairy-free.  I subbed canola oil for the butter (a 1:1 swap) and soy milk for the milk.  I used organic unsweetened apple sauce for the eggs (1/4 cup per egg) and I added about 1/2 tsp of lemon zest because I had fresh lemons and lemon and blueberry is a match made in heaven.

These were the best blueberry muffins I have ever eaten.  As of the writing of this post I have eaten 4 and will probably get another as soon as this is posted.  Easy, fast recipe...just go buy the book...you won't be disappointed.

Non-sliding Pizza

Lately I've been doing more cooking than baking.  I got a cookbook not too long ago that I love.  Every thing I made from the book has been super, but this recipe I think qualifies for The Big Bread Theory!

PIZZA!

Got this recipe from Gwyneth Paltrow's My Father's Daughter.

The recipe was for Wood Oven Pizzas, but who has a wood oven.  I definitely don't...and actually I don't have a pizza stone like it calls for if you are doing it in a regular oven.  With a slightly vague recipe (probably to do with the inaccurate nature of a wood pizza oven) I used trial and error...and only really error-ed (I know it's erred) on my pizza (See below).

I only used the dough recipe and not the sauce because I was using up some leftover pasta sauce.  I will say if you are using this recipe even without a pizza stone you should heat whatever pan you are cooking on  before putting the dough on and the pizza together.  My first attempt (also known as my pizza) went on a cold pan and stuck mightily to the pan when the rest of the pizza was finished.

This was a fun meal and a really delicious  pizza crust.  I saved some of the dough in the fridge overnight and had pizza again the next night.

By the way here's a clip of, probably, my favorite Gwyneth Paltrow movie Sliding Doors.

Non-Birthday Cake for Mom's Birthday

A month ago...

For my mom's birthday I wanted to do something really special so (of course) I went for my go-to dessert cookbook, Gesine Bullock-Prado's Sugar Baby!  I even had a little help via Twitter from the Master Baker herself.

I made a Vanilla-Pecan Swirl Tea Cake with Maple Glaze and it was amahzing!  I followed the recipe exactly (except for my substitution of grade A maple syrup for the grade B in the glaze (I made sure this was ok with @gesinebp).  Actually, I used the wrong Bundt pan because I couldn't find the awesome swirl one I was looking for.

I loved this and most importantly my mom loved it...