This week’s recipe combines three different recipes to create one delicious breakfast treat, perfect for any Sunday morning. Seize the opportunity to learn how to create your own home-made buttermilk biscuits, a delightfully easy mushroom hollandaise sauce, and poached eggs. Stop by the market this week to pick up some fresh oyster mushrooms from Far West Fungi, a lemon or two from Twin Girls Farm, and some delicious cage-free organic eggs from Great Valley Poultry to delve into morning creativity! Recipe to follow after the jump!
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Mercado Kitchen: Eggs Benedict with Oyster Mushrooms
Mercado Kitchen: Navel Orange Pound Cake
The love that we express on Valentines Day does not have to be just once a year… Extend the love with this week’s Navel Orange Pound Cake recipe! Treat your partner every day of the week and show them (and their stomach) the love they deserve. And speaking of love… We are happy to welcome back Twin Girls Farm to the market this season! Come by their stall to pick up some delicious navel oranges, lemons, blood oranges, pomelos, and mandarins. Get ready for their wide selection of apricots, cherries, grapes, guavas, jujubes, nectarines, peaches, persimmons, plums, pluots, pomegranates, and more as the year goes on. Their amazing variety will change as the season moves into spring and summer. This week’s recipe features their sweet and juicy naval oranges, perfectly ripe and dangerously addicting. Try out our Navel Orange Pound Cake recipe, adapted from Ina Garten’s Pound Cake recipe, after the jump! Read more
Mercado Kitchen: Citrus Ginger Cookies
Orange zest and orange glaze add a fresh twist to these delicious ginger cookies. Pick up juicy navel oranges from Twin Girls Farm or mandarin oranges from Winters Fruit Tree to add this seasonal spin to a classic cookie. You can also make a variation substituting lemons for oranges. Try Meyer lemons from Winters Fruit Tree for their sweeter flavor.
The addition of citrus doesn’t mean these cookies are light on ginger flavor. Each chewy bite has a zing of ginger from the addition of three types of ginger: ground ginger, fresh grated ginger, and crystallized ginger.
Citrus ginger cookies are perfect for this time of year. Bake up a batch for a cookie swap or to share with friends and coworkers! And in the process fill your kitchen with the warm aroma of ginger, spices, and citrus baking in your oven.
Happy baking!
Citrus Ginger Cookies
Adapted from 101Cookbooks.com
Ingredients:
1/2+ c large-grain sugar (such as organic cane sugar or turbinado)
1 naval orange or 2 mandarin oranges or 2 Meyer lemons
2 c flour
1 t baking soda
1 t cinnamon
1 t allspice
1/2 t salt
1/4 t white pepper
2 t ground ginger
1 stick (1/2 c) unsalted butter, room temperature
1/4 c unsulphured molasses
2/3 c sugar
1 T plus 1 t fresh ginger, peeled and grated
1 large egg, well beaten
1/2 c crystallized ginger, minced
1/2 c powdered sugar
Instructions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Zest the orange(s) or lemons to yield a heaping tablespoon of zest. Juice the fruit and reserve 2 tablespoons of the juice for making the glaze. Save the remaining juice for another use.
Whisk together the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, allspice, salt, white pepper, and ground ginger in a large bowl.
Heat the butter in a saucepan until just barely melted. Stir in the molasses, sugar, and fresh ginger. If the mixture is hot to touch, let it cool until it is lukewarm. Whisk in the egg and pour the mixture over the flour mixture. Add the crystallized ginger and orange or lemon zest. Stir until just combined. Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.
Scoop a heaping teaspoon of dough and roll into a ball, then coat in large-grain sugar. Place sugar coated dough balls a few inches apart on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Bake for 10-12 minutes, until cookies puff up, get fragrant and crack. Cool on a wire rack.
Prepare the glaze by whisking together powdered sugar with 2 tablespoons orange or lemon juice. Dip cooled cookie tops in the glaze or use a pastry brush to apply the glaze. Sprinkle with more large-grain sugar.
Store in an airtight container. Makes about 45 cookies.
Mercado Kitchen: Persimmon Scones
Impress your family and guests this holiday season with freshly baked scones for breakfast! Studded with Fuyu persimmons available into early December from Twin Girls Farm and K&J Orchards, these delicious scones are sure to please.
It can be notoriously difficult to incorporate fresh fruit into scones without the fruit streaking and turning to mush. That’s why you most often see scones with dried fruit. But nothing beats fresh, seasonal fruit in baked goods. This recipe from America’s Test Kitchen has great tips to make adding fresh fruit to your scones a success. The squat Fuyu persimmons are a great choice because they are quite firm when ripe and ready to enjoy, making them easier to incorporate in the scone batter without breaking down. This recipe also has some great make ahead tips so you don’t have to get up at the crack of dawn to have freshly baked scones in the morning.
The full recipe is after the jump. Happy baking!
Mercado Kitchen: Pear Pomegranate Upside Down Cake
This gorgeous and tasty upside down cake is perfect for showcasing fresh, seasonal fruit. Forget any preconceived notions about upside down cakes – they don’t have to be made with canned pineapple and maraschino cherries. This recipe is topped with delicious Yali pears from K&J Orchards and organic pomegranate from Twin Girls Farm. By decorating with fruit, you can serve a beautiful cake without requiring a lot of frosting or fancy decorating techniques.
Don’t forget to also pick up eggs from Great Valley Poultry and almonds from Winters Fruit Tree to use in this recipe. Happy baking!
Pear Pomegranate Upside Down Cake
Ingredients:
For topping:
1/4 c unsalted butter
1 c packed brown sugar
2-3 pears (such as Yali pears from K&J Orchards)
1 pomegranate (available at the market from Twin Girls Farm)
For cake:
3/4 c unsalted room temperature butter
3/4 c sugar
3 room temperature eggs, beaten (available at the market from Great Valley Poultry)
1.5 c minus 1 T flour (measure 1.5 c and then remove 1 T)
1/2 t baking powder
1 T ground almonds (check out Winters Fruit Tree at the market for almonds)
1 T cocoa powder
3 T milk
Instructions:
Butter bottom and sides of a 9″ cake pan or spray with nonstick cooking spray.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Topping:
Melt butter in a sauce pan. Add brown sugar and whisk until well combined. Spread the mixture evenly over the base of the cake pan. Peel pears, slice in half lengthwise, and remove cores. Slice each half pear lengthwise into approximately 1/8 inch thick slices. Peel the pomegranate and separate the arils. (It’s easiest to slice the skin of the pomegranate and then place in a bowl of water to peel. The arils should sink to the bottom.) Arrange the pear slices in the cake pan on top of the brown sugar topping, around the edge of the pan pointing towards the center. It’s ok to overlap the slices slightly. Fill in the empty circle in the center with pomegranate arils. One pomegranate will be more than enough – reserve extra arils for another use.
Cake:
Cream butter and sugar in a stand mixture with a paddle attachment (or by hand with a wooden spoon) until light and fluffy. Add one tablespoon of flour and mix well. Add the beaten eggs a little at a time, beating between each addition until incorporated. In a separate bowl, combine remaining flour, baking powder, ground almonds, and cocoa powder and whisk to mix. Fold dry ingredient mixture and milk into the mix of sugar, butter and eggs. Mix until there are no streaks of dry ingredients but do not over mix. Spread the cake batter over the pear and pomegranate topping in the cake pan. Bake for 45 minutes. Remove from the oven and allow to cool slightly. Turn out onto a serving plate by placing the plate over the top of the cake pan, flipping over, and removing the cake pan. Serve warm or cold.