Black Raspberry Muffins

We just got back from a whirlwind two weeks of traveling. We spent a weekend in Indianapolis celebrating my goddaughter Maggie's half-birthday (necessary every year, with a birthday only days after Christmas). Then we flew to San Francisco for a magnificent 5 days of coastline drives, catching up with dear friends, stone fruit (a couple weeks early! such a treat!), and not enough sleep. We were home just long enough to unpack, do laundry, and re-pack, and then headed up to Traverse City for a week. We packed in all of the things a summer in Northern Michigan is made of: a hike in the Sleeping Bear Dunes to a spectacular Lake Michigan view, bonfires, fireworks, the Cherry Festival, ice cream, s'mores, swimming, paddleboarding, and cherry picking. On our last night, we sat on the dock, leaned back, and stared at the sky, velvety black and full of stars.



Our neighborhood farmers market happened during the two days when we were home in the middle, so I had to stop by. Thank goodness I did, because black raspberry season is incredibly short, and there they were, plump and perfect. I picked up two pints and dragged them home, and got to work making them into delicious goodies. My priorities are suspect, sometimes. I really needed to be cleaning and packing. But you know what? Black raspberries only happen once a year, and I needed to celebrate their magic while it lasted.



I have no regrets.



Black Raspberry Muffins

I made these with red raspberries a few weeks back, so feel free to substitute your favorite berry. The lime zest is the thing that sets these muffins apart. You could use lemon or orange, but the lime is really unusual and special. You could also sub in ricotta cheese or plain yogurt for the sour cream.

3/4 cup sour cream
2 large eggs
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted and cooled
2/3 cup sugar
Zest of a lime
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups black raspberries

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees and butter a standard-size muffin tin. Whisk together the sour cream, eggs, and vanilla. Add the melted butter. In a small bowl, combine the sugar and lime zest and use your fingers or a fork to work the zest into the sugar, releasing the citrus oil (and flavor). In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and lime sugar. Add the wet ingredients, and fold together until barely combined. Don't over mix! Fold in the berries gently.

Scoop the batter into the muffin tins, and sprinkle with coarse sugar, if you like. Bake for 20-25 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Remove the muffins from the tins and cool on a rack. Serve warm.

Makes 1 dozen. (When completely cooled, these can be frozen. Your future self will thank you for the quick and easy muffins!)

Pear-Raspberry Pie

There's something about a pie. It's homey. Nostalgic. Comforting. The cozy interior of Hoosier Mama Pie Company is tiny: a couple of tables and chairs, an old sea-foam green dresser serving as a checkout counter, and a display case full of pie. But it's where I want to go when my spirits need lifting. I made my husband take me there after some careless knife handling necessitated a trip to the emergency room a few years ago. I sat there with my mom, sharing buttery pie and hot coffee after I found out I had lost a baby, only 8 weeks into my first pregnancy, almost exactly two years ago.

Paula Haney's new cookbook, The Hoosier Mama Book of Pie, is a veritable encyclopedia of pie knowledge. Step-by-step photos of important, hard-to-describe processes (pie crust, anyone?), funny stories, and page after page of fantastic recipes. Pear-raspberry was the first one to jump out at me, because the window for both fruits at the farmers market is happening right now. I know it won't come as a shock to you that I love to cook, and that time in the kitchen is relaxing and very rewarding for me, but making a pie is a special sort of culinary meditation. Mix the dough. Wait. Roll out the dough and shape it into a crust. Peel and slice the fruit. Toss. Wait. Bake for a long time. Wait. Wait. Slice and eat. It's almost a full day from start to finish, and so worth it. Every step is magic. And then, of course, there's pie for breakfast the next day: one of the highest pleasures in this life.



Pear-Raspberry Pie

from The Hoosier Mama Book of Pie



Make sure to use soft, really ripe pears. I didn't, and while the flavor was still amazing, the pears were a little crunchy. This recipe is printed as is from the cookbook. I'm not going to print any other recipes from this book, and I'm not including the crust recipe, because I think you should just go buy it. It's awesome. Go.

1 9-inch double-crust pie dough (preferably from page 24 of the cookbook linked above)
5 cups ripe pears, peeled, cored, and chopped into bite-size pieces
2 cups raspberries
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
3/4 cup granulated sugar
2 1/2 tablespoons cornstarch
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
pinch kosher salt

Place the pears, raspberries, and lemon juice in a medium bowl. Do not mix. Place the sugar, cornstarch, ginger, and salt in a small bowl and whisk until thoroughly combined. Gently fold the dry ingredients into the fruit, until most of the mixture is absorbed. Take care not to break up the raspberries. Sprinkle Crust Dust (a mixture of equal parts flour and sugar, designed to absorb some of the fruit juice and ensure a not-soggy bottom crust) into the empty pie shell. Pile the fruit into the shell and smooth the top with a spatula. Finish the pie with a lattice top, and freeze for at least 20 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Brush the lattice with Pie Wash (equal parts cream and whole milk) - be amazed at how easily you can brush a slightly frozen pie crust without smashing it - and sprinkle liberally with coarse-grained sugar. Bake for 60-80 minutes, rotating 180 degrees every 20 minutes, until the crust is dark golden brown and the juices are bubbling thickly. Cool for at least 2 hours before slicing.

Chocolate Raspberry Cheesecake

I thought about making a different cake for my hubby's birthday this year.  I found a recipe for a chocolate layer cake with pink raspberry buttercream frosting and chocolate ganache that was just calling out to me.  But the suggestion that I might be making a different cake (but maintaining the chocolate and raspberry elements) was met by heartfelt disapproval by the birthday boy, so I scrapped my delicious pink plan and stuck with what I knew.

It was the right thing to do.  Why mess with perfection?

Chocolate Raspberry Cheesecake

For the crust:
1.5 cups chocolate wafer crumbs
3 tablespoons sugar
3 tablespoons melted butter

For the filling:
2.5 8-ounce packages cream cheese (Neufchatel works perfectly)
1 cup sugar
1.5 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 vanilla bean, seeds scraped and reserved (or 1 teaspoon vanilla bean paste)
3 tablespoons flour
3 eggs
1 cup sour cream
8 ounces melted semisweet chocolate

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Lightly grease bottom and sides of a 9-inch springform pan.  Mix cookie crumbs, 3 tablespoons sugar, and butter and press into bottom and sides of pan.  Beat cream cheese, sugar, vanilla extract and vanilla bean seeds in an electric stand mixer until light and creamy.  Add flour and mix.  Add chocolate and sour cream and beat until well blended.  Add eggs one at a time, mixing on low speed until well incorporated after each addition.  Pour into pan and bake 1 hour to 1 hour and ten minutes, until center is almost set.  Run a sharp knife around rim of pan and allow to cool on wire rack before removing rim.  Refrigerate at least 4 hours.

Don't worry if there are a couple of small cracks in the top - it will taste so good nobody will be able to see anything anyway.  And you'll put some homemade raspberry jam on top to complete the magic experience, which will fill in any possible cracks!

For the raspberry topping:
2 pints fresh raspberries, rinsed
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1/2 cup sugar
3 tablespoons corn starch

Stir all ingredients together in a small saucepan, and cook over low heat 15-20 minutes until thickened.  Transfer to a bowl, cover with plastic wrap and cool completely.