Joy of Cooking Muffins

I've been baking from The Joy Of Cooking cookbook for longer than I can remember. This is one of those full compendium type cookbooks and it's from before there were photographs with recipes, although there are some line drawings here and there.

Another feature is that the recipes are written as directions, with the ingredients and amounts coming as part of the recitation of oven temperatures, bowls to use, pans to bake in, etc.

I prefer a recipe where the ingredients are listed first so that I can make sure at a glance that I have the stuff I need to make the item(s). Since I have a well-stocked kitchen it is very likely that I'll have the pan or pot or implement needed, but missing an ingredient is often a reason I decide to not make something.

Recently I made some healthy-ish muffins based on a recipe in the Joy of Cooking book. The recipe was for Cooked Cereal Muffins. Mine also included added nuts and seeds, plus dates.

The key thing to remember for this recipe is to cook the cereal (I used oatmeal!) far enough in advance that it can cool to room temperature. While it is cooling, the melted butter can also cool a bit. The egg and milk can use that same time to warm up a bit closer to room temperature. While those things are cooling or warming, you can chop the nuts and seed and chop the dates. After that it all goes together pretty quickly. I did use brown sugar instead of white, for flavor, and added a bit of baking soda because the muffins were baked in two batches in 8-pan tins.

This past weekend we had some major storms, including a cyclone. The winds toppled trees all over the county and beyond, which meant that many electrical wires also came down. There are still areas and thousands of customers without power today. Fortunately we were only without power for about 30 hours. We have generators which we ran for a couple hours twice a day to keep frozen stuff frozen, but not a lot more. The local internet provider also lost lines so it was even longer before that was back. Still, we were lucky that there was no damage to our property and only a few pretty small tree limbs came down.

Fortunately I had made these muffins the night before, so at least we had yummy date-walnut-oatmeal-seeds muffins to enjoy. I hope that you enjoy them, too.

Cooked Oatmeal And Seedy Muffins With Walnuts and Dates

Joy of Cooking variation

2 eggs at room temperature

½ cup rolled oats cooked in 1 cup water, then cooled to room temperature

1 cup + 2 Tablespoons milk at room temperature

4 Tablespoons/4 oz./ ½ stick butter, melted and cooled

1 ½ cups all- purpose flour

1 Tablespoon brown sugar

½ teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons double-acting baking powder

¼ teaspoon baking soda

¼ cup walnuts, chopped

¼ cup pitted and chopped dates

1/3 cup King Arthur Baking Harvest Blend mixed seeds

 Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Grease 16 muffin cups – baking spray works well.

 
Crack the eggs into a medium bowl, then mix the eggs with a fork to break them up a bit. Add to the cooled cooked cereal gradually and use the fork to break down any lumps as you combine the eggs and cereal. Add the milk and melted butter and combine.

 
In a large bowl whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder and baking soda and salt. Stir in the chopped walnuts, dates and the seed mixture. Pour in the liquid mixture and use the fork to stir until just combined.

 
Scoop batter into the muffin cups to about 2/3 full. If any of the cups are left unused, add a tablespoon of water to that cup instead.

 
Bake for 20-25 minutes or until muffins are golden brown and spring back when you push down gently.

 
Serve at once. Butter goes well with these muffins which are hearty and delicate at the same time.

 

Sunshine for the Babes

It's summer, so lots of sunshine, especially for the Bread Baking Babes. This month our delightful Kitchen of the Month, Cathy of Bread Experience has challenged us with a shaped bread that look like a sun. It uses sourdough starter and I changed things up by using freshly milled barley flour instead of the rye called for. The dough was easy to work with and shaping was fun. The bread was delicious, with both a nice crumb and great crust. I used bread flour, whole wheat flour and the barley flour and then kneaded in a mixture of seeds instead of using caraway. Caraway works well with rye, but since I wasn't doing rye, I went with mixed seeds. Delicious!

Be sure to visit the other Babes to see what they have done with this recipe. It's an easy on to make changes to, so I'll bet there will be variety!

If you would like to be a Bread Baking Babes Buddy...of course you would!...bake the bread, take a photo and email Cathy, including the photo and your experience and a URL if you have one. Deadline is August 29. She will do a round-up early in September.

In a few days I'll be having gallbladder removal surgery, so it may be awhile before I post again. I have a very good doc and lots of support, so I expect things will go well. Sweetie will be doing the cooking for most of a week. Maybe he'll want to guest post?

Be good to yourself until we 'meet' again...and wear sunscreen if you are going to be out in that summer sunshine!

Here is what we started with from Cathy:

Here is the formula for the Sourdough Sunshine Loaf:

Adapted from: BREAD: the breads of the world and how to bake them at home by Christine Ingram and Jennie Shapter. 

Makes: 1 Large Loaf or 2 Smaller Loaves

The directions below are for shaping one large loaf. Adjust accordingly to shape 2 smaller loaves.

Starter:

15 grams / 1 scant Tbsp. active sourdough (100% hydration)

60 grams / 4 Tbsp milk, lukewarm

55 grams / 4 Tbsp water, lukewarm

125 grams / 1 cup all-purpose flour

Dough:

250 grams / 2 cups unbleached all-purpose or bread flour (I used stone-ground bread flour)

440 grams / 4 cups rye flour (I used freshly milled whole grain rye flour)

480 - 550 grams / 2 cups + water, divided (I started with 2 cups (480 grams) water and gradually added more as I was mixing the dough. The whole grain rye soaked it up.

16-18 grams / 1 Tbsp. salt

Caraway seeds, or the seeds of your choice, for sprinkling

Milk or water for glazing

Day 1: Prepare the Starter

Mix the starter ingredients together in a medium bowl and stir thoroughly until there are no dry bits of flour. Cover and let rest on the counter at room temperature overnight until it is well risen, bubbly and starting to collapse; about 8 to 12 hours.  I mixed the starter at 10pm and let it rest at room temperature until noon the next day (14 hours) and it worked fine.  If your kitchen is hot, it may take less time to fully activate.

Day 2: Final Dough

The next day, when the starter is ready, add about half (1 cup / 240 grams) of the water to the starter and stir to break it up. 

Whisk dry ingredients together in a large bowl. Pour the starter over the dry ingredients and stir to incorporate.  Add in the remaining 240 grams of water and mix thoroughly to incorporate. 

Add in more water (or flour) gradually, if necessary, to achieve a workable dough. It is sticky dough so it’s best to use wet hands. I started the mixing process using a Danish dough whisk, and then switched to using wet hands and a bowl scraper.

Cover and let the dough rest for 20-30 minutes.  Stretch and fold the dough in the bowl using wet hands.  I added in a little more water at this point because the dough was tearing.

Cover again and let the dough rest at warm room temperature for 6 hours.  Perform stretch and folds every 45 minutes to an hour (using wet hands) for the first 4 ½ hours. Then let the dough rest undisturbed for the final hour or two. 

Continue with shaping the loaf or place it in the refrigerator overnight to cold ferment for 8-12 hours.  The cold ferment may not be necessary, but it worked better with my schedule.

Transfer the dough to a floured surface. Divide the dough into 5 equal pieces.  I had 1435 grams of dough so each piece was 287 grams.

Roll one piece into a 20-inch log. Then roll it into a spiral shape.  See notes on shaping middle spiral.

Divide the remaining pieces of dough in half (~143 grams each) and roll each piece into an 8-inch rope.

Place the ropes in a circle on a large baking sheet (See notes on using a greased baking sheet), spaced evenly apart. They should look like rays of sun. Curl the ends around, leaving a slight gap in the middle for the center spiral.

Place the center spiral on top.  Cover with lightly oiled plastic wrap, bees wrap, or a kitchen towel, and let rise in a warm place, for 30 minutes.

While the loaf is proofing, preheat the oven to 450 degrees F.

Brush the loaf with milk, or water, and sprinkle with caraway seeds. Bake for 30 minutes, or until lightly browned.

Transfer to a wire rack to cool.  I brushed my loaf with melted butter after placing it on the wire rack. See notes about brushing with milk.

Notes:

I used 4 cups of rye, and it was really sticky.  So I plan to reduce the amount of rye the next time.  I liked the flavor of the rye, but I think 3 cups of whole grain rye and 3 cups of white flour will be easier to work with.  If you use a lighter rye, that will probably help as well.

This is a really big loaf.  I had a hard time figuring out how to fit it on the baking sheet which is why I rolled the rays tighter than the picture. Unless you have a larger baking sheet, I think 2 smaller loaves will be easier to shape. 

Shape it on a greased baking sheet. I tried shaping the loaf on parchment paper, but the dough stuck to it, and the rectangular shape of the parchment didn’t lend itself to the shape of the loaf.  It wasn’t wide enough for the rays to fit on.  I used a greased baking sheet instead and it worked much better. 

Work fast when shaping the loaf. I shaped the pieces straight from the refrigerator and had to work really fast so the pieces didn’t proof too much before I got the loaf put together.  I probably shaped and reshaped it 3 times before I got it right and onto the baking sheet.  

*Shaping the middle spiral. The directions said to shape the middle section first, but I ended up having to reshape it when I transferred it to the baking sheet because it had been proofing the whole time I was shaping the other pieces.  This piece goes on last so I would wait to shape this piece until after shaping the other pieces.

I didn’t like the look of the milk-brushed loaf. I brushed the loaf with milk and sprinkled it with caraway seeds before baking, as the recipe suggested, but it looked pale once I removed it from the oven. So to give it some color, I brushed the warm loaf with melted butter. It looked much better and didn’t affect the flavor.   I used almond milk so perhaps regular milk would work better, but I’ll probably just use water next time.