German Pancakes

I don't know about you, but I've never heard of German pancakes before. They looked really good on this blog Smitten Kitchen, made them and wow! They're like half omelet, half buttery pancake goodness, so good! This would be great served with strawberries in a brunch setting. You will love these.

NOTE: When you bake these, they puff up HUGE bubbles, then settle down when you pull them out, no one told me that, so I freaked when this started happening to me!

German Pancakes
From Smitten Kitchen
Yield 2 9-inch pancakes.

4 eggs
1 tablespoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
2/3 cup flour, sifted
2/3 cup milk
2 tablespoons soft butter

Heat oven to 400°F. Butter two 9-inch cake pans well. Put eggs in blender container, cover and process at “stir” until light yellow in color. Push “mix” button, remove cover and add remaining ingredients; process until smooth. Pour into prepared pans and bake 20 minutes; then reduce heat to 350°F and bake 10 minutes. Slide onto hot plates. Serve with lemon slices, powdered sugar and butter if you follow recipes to the letter, raspberry syrup or maple syrup and fresh berries would also work.

Enjoy!

UMAMI

You don't know what umami is. That's okay, I didn't either. Umami is what they are calling as the fifth sense of taste. There's sweet, savory, sour, bitter, and now umami, which is described as a fullness or meatiness. This umami taste is imparted by the amino acids inosinate and guanylate, so if a food has more of these naturally occurring levels, the more umami! Truffles are a good example of a food with a large umami flavor, which is why they are so expensive and sought after. So why am I telling you all of this?? Because of UMAMI BURGER!

This restaurant in Los Angeles is 100% dedicated to the umami taste. Everything in the burgers and on the menu is built to give you the greatest amount of umami possible. It sounds a little wierd and a little scary, but OMG. Tyler and I tried this place out after a long day at the LA Tennis Open, and it was amazing!

I had the original Umami Burger, which comes with custom ground beef, ketchup(I opted for none), caramelized onions, oven-roasted tomato, shittake mushrooms, and a Parmesan twill.

Tyler had the Truffle Burger with italian truffle cheese and a truffle glaze, and we split a side of sweet potato fries.

(p.s. thts not blood, its the delicious truffle glaze!)

I took a bite of my burger, and my eyes opened wide. After we each tried the other's burger, exchanged a couple of "that's really good"s: SILENCE. Burgers were gone, and we were happy. I have NEVER eaten anything like this before, where each aspect of the meal work together to create an experience. I am a huge fan of sweet potato fries, but no one seems to get the actual sweet flavor out of them. Umami burger had the BEST FRIES EVER. I could eat them for days. Since Tyler and I are both going to live in Orange County soon, we will be about a half hour closer to LA, and we are coming back here a million times over.

Pumpkin Cream cheese Muffins

Shame on me for not posting in forever. I apologize. Things have been stressful to say the least, working on things like

• Finding, applying for, and buying things for my first apartment.


• Studying for my pharmacy technician test (on Saturday, wish me tons of luck!)


• Taking my final MSJC class online


• Planning my courses in transferring to CSUF
• Searching for a CVS to transfer my job over

I'm sure I'm leaving some things out, but my blog and cooking have been the last things on my mind! I made these a few weeks back purely for Tyler. Starbucks makes these muffins in October/November, and Tyler spends every penny he has on their muffins because he loves them so much! So when I found the recipe online, I was required in the Good Girlfriend Code to make them! The hard part of this recipe is the cream cheese roll that you freeze, but I think I took it out too early so it fell apart. Other than that, the recipe is mix everything together, bake, and done! Great for when you miss Fall

Tip: I didn't have pumpkin pie spice. Here is the equivalent:
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon + 1/4 tsp ground ginger + 1/8 tsp ground allspice + 1/8 tsp ground nutmeg = 1 tsp pumpkin pie spice

Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffins (Like Starbucks)

SERVES 12 muffins

Ingredients
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice
1/16 teaspoon cardamom (optional)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
2 eggs
1 cup sugar
1 cup pumpkin
5/8 cup vegetable oil
4 ounces cream cheese
chopped pumpkin seeds (optional) or walnuts (optional) or pecans (optional)


Directions
Preheat oven to 350.
-Put the entire brick of cream cheese on a piece of wax paper or parchment paper and shape it into a long log.
-Put it in the freezer while you mix and fill the pans, up to an hour.
-Unwrap and cut with a sharp knife so each cream cheese disk equals 1-2 teaspoons. If the cream cheese disks are too big around, cut thick slices and then cut them in half. This lets you push it down into the batter easier.
-Mix all ingredients together (except cream cheese and nuts).
-Fill muffin tins (greased or paper cups) half full.
-Put cream cheese disc in the middle, pressing down.
-Sprinkle with 1 tsp chopped nuts.
-Bake at 350 for 15-20 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean from the muffin part (do not touch the cream cheese!).
-Let cool in pans for 5 minutes, then remove to racks to cool completely. Do not touch the cream cheese until it cools.