Jorgen's English Muffins

My little brother, the artisan baker and bread enthusiast, has selected this recipe to share with you. English muffins! They look so good. I wish I could be eating one right now. Enjoy!

Traditional English Muffins
1/4 cup warm water (105 - 115 degrees)
1 tablespoon (1 package) active dry yeast (or a little less than a tablespoon of instant yeast)
Pinch of sugar
4 to 4 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons salt
1 egg
1 1/4 cup warm milk
2 tablespoons melted butter
Cornmeal (for dusting)

If using active dry yeast, combine the water, yeast, and a pinch of sugar in a small bowl and let stand until foamy, about 10 minutes. If using instant yeast, mix the yeast in with the flour and omit this first step and the sugar.

Combine 2 cups of the flour and the salt in a large bowl. Make a well in the center and pour in egg, milk, butter, and yeast mixture. Mix until creamy, about 2 minutes. Add the remaining flour a 1/2 cup at a time, stirring in each time, until you have a soft dough that just clears the sides of the bowl.

Turn the dough out onto a floured work surface and knead for 3 to 5 minutes. Return the dough to a clean, greased bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and allow the dough to rise until doubled in size, about 90 minutes.

Sprinkle a work surface with cornmeal. Pour the dough out of the bowl and onto the surface. Sprinkle the top of the dough with cornmeal and then roll the dough into a rectangle about 1/2 inch thick. Use a large round cookie cutter or an upside down drinking glass to cut the muffins out of the dough.

Cover the cut dough and let rise for 1 hour.  

Heat a large skillet over medium heat. Place the muffins onto the skillet and let the bake for 5 to 10 minutes until quite dark before flipping.

An optional step, if you are concerned about baking them all the way through (which I was), is to have your oven heated to 350. After baking the muffins on the griddle for 5 minutes on each side, place them on a cookie sheet and place them into the oven for an additional 5 to 10 minutes. This assures that they are baked through.

Bon Appétit!

Apple Cake Consortium

Lindsey's Apple Cake Experiment (LACE)

This union of apple cake recipes was arranged for the common purpose, beyond the capabilities of either single recipe, of being completely delicious, utterly delectable, and unavoidably devoured by anyone who has the good fortune to cross it's path.

Credit is principally due to the two original parent recipes, without whom, the end result would never have been born into existance.

Mom's Apple Cake, from the Smitten Kitchen blog and Apple Bundt Cake, contributed by RavenTresses from the I Like Big Bundts group on  Mixing Bowl were the inspiration for my creation, which will, henceforth, be known as Lindsey's Apple Cake Experiment or LACE.

The properties of LACE are as follows:

3 Fuji apples, chopped
1 tablespoon fresh squeezed lemon juice
2 tablespoons cinnamon
2 C sugar
2 1/2 C flour
1 tablespoon baking soda
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 C vegetable oil
4 eggs, beaten
2 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
powdered sugar

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a bundt pan. Peel, core and chop apples into chunks. Toss with lemon juice, 1 tablespoon cinnamon, 1/4 C sugar and set aside.

Stir together flour, baking powder, baking soda, remaining 1 tablespoon cinnamon and salt in a large mixing bowl. In a separate bowl, whisk together oil, eggs, remaining 1 3/4 C sugar and vanilla.  Mix wet ingredients into the dry ones, until batter is smooth. Scrape down the bowl to ensure all ingredients are incorporated.

Add half of the apples to the batter. Spread the remaining apples in the bottom of the bundt pan. Pour the  batter over the apples. Bake for about 1 hour, or until a tester comes out clean.  Let cool for 10 minutes before transferring cake onto a serving dish or cake platter and sprinkling with powdered sugar.  

Optional quality enhancements to LACE could include the addition of walnuts, pecans, raisins, or even the elusive craisin.  Also, a maple glaze would be a viable alternative to the powdered sugar sprinkle.

Christmas Cookie Bake-Off: Day 2

Gingersnaps

I really liked this recipe because you can refrigerate the dough for up to 1 week. I made one batch on Sunday and then baked the rest today. I can't tell what tastes better, the dough or the cookies themselves. The weirdest ingredient: black pepper. Do all gingersnaps have black pepper in them? Here's the recipe (also from December Sunset). See my tips in yellow.

Makes 100 cookies

Time 1 hour, plus chilling time

1 cup butter, at room temperature

1 cup packed brown sugar

1/2 cup unsulphured molasses

1 large egg

3 1/2 cups flour

1 tsp. baking soda

1/2 tsp. salt

2 tsp. ground ginger

1 tsp. cinnamon

1/2 tsp. each ground cloves, nutmeg, and freshly ground black pepper

1. Beat butter and brown sugar together in a bowl with a mixer on medium speed until well blended. Mix in molasses, then egg, until blended, scraping bowl as needed.

2. In a small bowl, combine flour, baking soda, salt, and spices; add to butter mixture on low speed, mixing until combined.

3. Divide dough in half. Shape each into a disk, wrap in plastic wrap, and chill until firm, about 3 hours. (Or throw it in the freezer for 30 min.)

4. Preheat oven to 350. unwrap dough. On a very generously floured surface, roll out each disk 1/8 inch thick. Using round or square 2 1/2-to-3 in. cookie cutters, cut out dough and arrange about 1 in. apart on baking sheets lined with parchment paper or just greased (use a small spatula to transfer). Reroll scraps as needed.

5. Bake cookies until dry looking and just starting to brown on edges, about 8 minutes. Let cookies cool in pans on racks. Or just eat them :)

Another tip.. dogs love these! Riley jumped up on top of the oven and ate 5 while my mom and I were out for a walk. nice.

Tomorrow's Entry: Orange Cream-Filled Honey Crisps

Christmas Cookie Bake-Off: Day 1

I'm on a baking kick at the moment and my current exploit is the Christmas cookie. I'm going to try to bake a different cookie everyday either until my butter supply runs out or I just get bored of baking cookies or I become disgusted by the amount of butter that I am using to make the cookies.

Before my first entry, I must point you towards this life-changing article that I read last Christmas, which has since altered my entire world view of butter. It brings me back to a Food, Science and Technology intro course that I took at Davis in order to satisfy my general ed requirement. Remember, E? Anyways, read the article here first, before you even think about baking your own cookies this Christmas. You will thank me.

Raspberry Window Shortbreads

This recipe is from my December issue of Sunset. I guess they turned out pretty well because they've already disappeared. I didn't even have to go to the store to make these. I already had all of the ingredients at home and you probably do too! What I would do differently next time is to roll the dough out a little thinner, maybe use different kinds of fruit preserves just to mix it up a little, and also, make sure you're putting the bottoms of the cookies together. It just looks nicer. Also, I can't find any cookie cutters since our move, so I just used a wine glass and then a wine stopper to make the little cut-out. (You can tell that my most important tools have been unpacked :)

INGREDIENTS
2 cups flour
1 cup cold unsalted butter, cubed
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
Raspberry Preserves (or any other type)
Powdered Sugar
Milk

PREPARATION
1. Put flour, butter, granulated sugar, and salt in the bowl of a stand mixer. Mix on low speed until blended, then increase to medium and mix until dough is no longer crumbly and just comes together. Form into a disk, and chill 30 minutes.

2. Preheat oven to 325°. On a lightly floured work surface, roll dough 1/8 in. thick. Use a selection of 1½-in. decorative cutters to cut as many shapes as you can, making sure you have an equal number of each shape to form a top and a bottom, and rerolling scraps as needed.

3. Arrange cookies 1 in. apart on baking sheets. Use a variety of smaller cutters to remove center from half of cookies (the tops). Chill on sheets 15 minutes; then bake until light golden brown, 12 to 15 minutes. Let cool.

4. Spread each whole cookie with about 1/2 tsp. raspberry preserves. Sprinkle powdered sugar over cut-out cookie tops, or glaze them with a mixture of 1 cup powdered sugar and 21/2 tsp. milk. Set tops on jam-topped bottoms. Makes 26.


Tomorrow's Entry: Gingersnaps