Watermelonade!

I know it's September and summer is gone, but we recently had a heat wave.  We took this opportunity to have one more taste of summer and started with an Agua Fresca recipe, but ditched it last minute.  Instead we made Watermelonade!  In short, we cubed a ton of watermelon, stuck it in the blender, added some sugar, and chilled it.  We originally tried to strain it, but it wasn't straining very well.  All the better, I love when my fruit juice is pulpy/meaty!

Ingredients:
Approximately 4-5 cups of watermelon (seeded and cubed)  We used a seedless watermelon to make this step easier
1-2 cups of water, as required to help the watermelon blend
Sugar to taste
Mint leaves for garnish


Directions:

1. Fill a blender with cubed watermelon.  Add a little water to help the watermelon blend.  We used less water so that we could get a stronger watermelon flavor.
2. (Optional) Filter the watermelonade using a strainer.  The unfiltered drink has a thicker consistency.
3. Add sugar.  We used 1 tablespoon of sugar for every cup of watermelonade.  The sweeter the watermelon, the less sugar you need to add!
4. Serve chilled, with a sprig of mint to garnish

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Bad A$$ Blueberry Muffins

Blueberry Muffins, originally uploaded by Dessert Night.

How do I capture that last taste of sweet, summer bliss? Store bought blueberries are a passable substitute for the pounds of pick your own blueberries I just enjoyed last month. This muffin batter is uncommonly thick and gooey. The batter is so thick, you have to wonder how the blueberries don't get crushed in the folding process. The result is delightful. No rock hard muffins posing as paper weights here! The first bite is that AH-HA moment you’ve been waiting for - a touch of a crunchy-cinnamon-sweet-crumble topping, followed by a burst of tart blueberries mixed with the delectable soft, moist cake. Where have you been my whole life?

The recipe has been adapted from here


Ingredients for 8 muffins

Batter
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup white sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 egg
1/3 cup milk
1 cup fresh blueberries (plus a few for munching while you wait)
1/2 cup white sugar
dash of cinnamon

Crumble Topping
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons softened butter, cubed
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F
2. To make the batter, mix together flour, sugar, salt and baking powder with a dash of cinnamon. Add the vegetable oil, milk and egg to the dry ingredients and mix together. Fold in the blueberries.
3. For the crumble, in a separate bowl, mix together sugar, flour, butter, and teaspoons cinnamon.
4. Fill the muffin cups with the batter and top with the crumble topping.
5. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes in the oven.

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Chocolate Cupcakes... with Beets?

Vegan cupcakes came to my attention, at least twice in the last week.  I'm intrigued by the idea of a vegan cupcake, although I am in no way a vegan.  Then today I came across spring around the bend's can't be beet chocolate cupcakes and I think DN may have to try that one out because I LOVE beets.  I'm not too keen on buying beet powder, but maybe, just maybe I will so I can try that cupcake.  Anyway, I'm in the market for a basic, moist, and very delicious white cake (for cupcakes) recipe.  I think I found some today that I will try, but that adventure will have to wait until next week perhaps.

Before I head to bed, I do want to say I love the idea behind spring around the bend's blog: cooking with home grown ingredients... in DC!  Right around the area from DN!  I like when I come across local blogs of local people.

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Congrats to Tina and Joel!

DessertNight would like to congratulate our friends Tina and Joel who got married last weekend! They are one of the coolest couples and they are so cute together! They had a beautiful wedding reception at the Hyatt overlooking Baltimore Inner Harbor, and their cake was delicious! I had a slice of the white cake with raspberry filling, which was heaven.  In fact a couple of people had to get seconds.  Many blessings to the happy couple!

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