The Baker's Dozen: Orange Raisin Muffins

 

The Baker's Dozen: Orange Raisin Muffins

I seem to have chosen good recipes so far, because this was another winner! The recipe had one issue, but I was able to fix it before it caused a disaster. I'll explain when I get there...Meanwhile, here is the recipe:

Orange Raisin Muffins (source unknown)

2 cups sifted flour

3/4 tsp. baking soda

1/2 tsp. salt

1/3 cup sugar

1/2 cup raisins

1 egg, well beaten

1/3 cup orange juice

1/2 tsp. orange zest

2/3 cup buttermilk

1/3 cup shortening, or butter, melted

Sift the flour with the baking soda, salt, and sugar. Add raisins. Combine egg, juice, zest, buttermilk, and shortening. Mix wet ingredients into dry ingredients and mix just until dry ingredients are dampened. Fill a muffin tin lined with liners, 2/3 full. Bake at 425 degrees for 25 minutes.

Makes 1 dozen

I didn't have shortening, so I used butter instead. This where my previous muffin-baking experience came in handy, because the recipe originally says just shortening. But if you are supposed to mix the wet ingredients together and then pour it into the dry and quickly mix it all, then you can't have solid butter to mix in with it. It has to be melted. So, I did this, and I know it turned correctly, so definitely melt the fat, whether you use shortening or butter.

I also didn't have buttermilk, so I made my own out of white vinegar and regular milk. This is pretty common for me, as I don't really have a need for buttermilk outside of small amounts like this, on occasion. It's more cost effective to just make it this way on the times when I need it, than to buy cartons of buttermilk.

The instructions say sifted flour, and then you sift it with the other ingredients. I decided to do this exactly as it said, which means ultimately double sifting the flour, and I think it turned out perfectly this way. So, definitely sift the flour before measuring the two cups, and then sift it again with all the other dry ingredients. I also recommend using fresh orange juice for this, since you have to use fresh zest anyway. I bought a giant orange and drank the rest of the juice for treat once I'd measured out what I needed. I also used the entire orange's worth of zest, even though it was more than 1/2 tsp. Why waste it, right?

Here is the mixed version. It's very light in color, and the orange smell is so vibrant!

Here they are in the muffin tin. Ready for baking!

And here is the final product! I think they got over-baked, when you see how dark they are. The flavor is amazing though. I would probably do 20 minutes in the oven and then test it for doneness. If I make these again, that's how I'll do it.

This is a still-warm muffin, before the butter went on it. I really love how these turned out. They're not overly sweet, and the raisin and orange flavors both come forward really well. The texture is still good as I ate one for dessert tonight and it was still soft. It's a little harder on the outside, but again, that's cuz it baked too long. Tomorrow I'll reheat them by wrapping them in wet paper towels and microwaving them for a few seconds to steam them. If you ever want to reheat bread products in the microwave, always, always wrap them in wet paper towels first. It's the only way to do it.

Muffins are fun to make because the variety is endless, and they're super fast to make. If yeast breads intimidate you and you don't want an entire quick bread lying around, then muffins are perfect for you! And I know some people really hate raisins baked into things, so this might not be for you. I think if you left them out of this, there wouldn't be much to these muffins. They'd be pretty one note. But, if you do like raisins, definitely try this one out. You won't regret it!

The Baker's Dozen-Coconut Milk Scones

The Baker's Dozen-Coconut Milk Scones

Today's recipe ended up fitting into the Veganuary category, though that was not my intention. I was intrigued by the idea of a scone with coconut milk as the fat, instead of butter, but it never occurred to me till I was prepping the ingredients, that this is in fact, a vegan recipe! So, all you vegans out there, check this one out!

Coconut Milk Scones(Source unknown)

2 cups flour

1/3 cup sugar

1 Tbsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. salt

1 tsp. orange or lemon zest (optional)

1 1/4 cup canned coconut milk, chilled

1 cup dried fruit

Extra coconut milk and sugar for topping

 

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

In a mixing bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. Pour in coconut milk. Gently mix with a wooden spoon or rubber spatula just until it's combined. Fold in dried fruits. Transfer dough onto a floured surface and shape into a disc about 3/4" in thickness. Using a sharp knife, cut into 8 or 12 wedges. Place onto prepared baking sheet 2" apart. Brush the tops with coconut milk and sprinkle generously with sugar. 

Bake for 15-20 minutes or until golden brown. Serve immediately or store them in an airtight container after they have completely cooled. They can be reheated in a toaster or microwave.

Makes 8-12 scones

My signature gathered-ingredients shot to start off with. This one has delightfully few ingredients, which is really nice! This is a good recipe if you only have a few things on hand.

Here is the dough after you mix in the coconut milk.

The dried fruits I used were blueberries and cranberries, which I reconstituted in water for a bit. I also used some more of my candied lemon peel, orange peel, and citron from my Christmas projects. I didn't have fresh citrus, but I had some dried lemon peel and threw that in as well. 

 

You will also notice that this dough looks really loose. I used light coconut milk, the only kind I had on hand, and I suspect it would have been different if I'd used the full fat kind, which would have had chunks of coconut fat to mix in, like butter. Mine was more like cream, so it was much looser. I added nearly 1.5 more cups of flour to the mix and still should have added more. Just be on the lookout when you make this, to make sure it ends up like a proper scone dough.

You can see this looks much more like a proper scone dough. It was still quite wet when I moved onto the next step, but I was just determined to use it like this and not add more, but I probably should have added more flour. Just do what feels right for you.

You can see how wet it still is when I patted out the dough. It made it quite difficult to cut and move around. I should have added more flour. But I was just lazy.

I was going for 12 wedges, and wasn't paying too much attention, and ended up with 16. It was fine, because they're so sticky, I thought smaller would actually bake better, in the long run.

Use the rest of the coconut milk from the can to brush on the top. I still had some leftover, but one can will be more than enough for this recipe. And I sprinkled sugar on top. If I had coconut sugar, I would have put that on.

I ended up having to do this for about 23-24 minutes to bake all the way through. They got nice and golden on top, as you can see.

And here is a close up of the interior. It has a nice texture, just like any other scone.

This recipe turned out really well. The fruits I used taste amazing, and even though they smelled really coconutty, it didn't taste very coconutty at all. It just tasted nice and sweet. They came together really fast, and it was a really easy recipe. This is something beginners could make.

I obviously cannot eat 16 scones, so I wrapped them up in two packages and froze them with hopes of giving one to my parents to try, and keeping one to enjoy a special treat once in a while. My parents tried the harvest bread I made last week, and enjoyed it, so I hope they'll like these too!

Well, so far I've had a lot of success with my bread recipes! I'm enjoying finally trying some of these recipes that I've collected forever but never have had a chance to try. I might need to make this an annual project!

 

 

 

The Baker's Dozen-Harvest Bread

 

The Bakers's Dozen-Harvest Bread

Welcome to my new winter baking project! Those of you who have been following along with my Christmas project got a taste of it last week. Each week, I will be testing a recipe of mine to see how it turns out, and sharing the experience here. Last week was the bonus week, so this is the start of the true project, which will go for the next 12 weeks. This week, I made a quick bread. Here is the recipe.

Harvest Bread(source unknown)

Cooking Spray

2 cups flour

2 tsp. baking soda

2 tsp. cinnamon

1/2 tsp. salt

2 cups sugar

3/4 cup vegetable oil

3/4 cup buttermilk

3 eggs

2 tsp. vanilla

2 cups grated peeled carrots

1(7oz) pkg. flaked sweetened coconut

1 cup chopped walnuts

1(8.25oz) can crushed pineapple in heavy syrup, drained

Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Spray 9"x5" loaf pan with cooking spray. Cut 15"x4" strip of parchment paper. Line bottom and narrow sides of loaf pan with parchment paper, leaving overhang. Spray paper with cooking spray.

Whisk flour, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt in large bowl. Whisk sugar, vegetable oil, buttermilk, eggs, and vanilla in medium bowl to blend. Add sugar mixture to flour mixture; stir just to blend. Add carrots, coconut, walnuts, and pineapple; stir to distribute evenly.

Transfer batter to prepared loaf pan. Bake until tester tests clean, about 1.5 hours. Cool 10 minutes. Run sharp knife around edges of pan. Invert bread onto rack; remove parchment paper. Turn bread over and cool completely.

(Can be prepared 2 days ahead. Store in airtight container at room temperature.)

Makes 1 loaf

I always have to start off with the obligatory shot of all the ingredients gathered around because I think it's fun to see how much goes into making something!

Here we have the wet ingredients and the dry ingredients. One of the biggest changes to the recipe that I made was with the sugar. I couldn't in good conscience add two whole cups of sugar to something that only makes one loaf. One of my tricks I've learned over the years is that you can replace some of the sugar in baked goods, with unsweetened applesauce, and it doesn't affect the texture too much. Back in the 90's, people replaced fat in recipes with applesauce and it was disgusting, but that's because they were replacing the wrong ingredient. I cut it down to 1 cup of sugar, and used 1 cup of unsweetened applesauce.

Here is the dry and wet ingredients mixed with the add-ins ready to be mixed in. This is basically a carrot cake in bread form. If I had it to do over again, I would have added raisins as well, because I am one of those people who does like raisins in baked goods.

The fully-mixed batter. You will think it's impossible to fill one pan, but it works.

As you can see, it goes right to the top of the pan, but not over. I actually had to stop at this point and move on to some other stuff without baking the bread, so I just covered it in plastic wrap and threw it in the fridge till I was ready to bake.

It took a lot longer than 1.5 hours for this to bake through. After that time, I turned up the oven to 350 degrees and put foil on the top to keep it from browning too much. I don't know if it's because I changed the sugar amount in the recipe, but it just took a lot longer. I don't see any reason why you couldn't bake this at 350 degrees for the whole time. That might take just the 1.5 hours. Just keep an eye on it, and you'll be fine.

This was actually a little hard to turn over once you take it out of the pan. It's very hot and dense and heavy, so you need to turn it quickly so you don't lose momentum and tear it in the middle.

Here is what the bread looks like once you cut it open. There's a lot going on with this bread! The coconut, carrots, pineapple, and walnuts all add textures and flavors to the bread. There's not a lot of flour in this recipe, compared to all the other stuff you put in it, so it's really important to wait until it's thoroughly cooled to help the shape hold up, and the flavors set. And of course butter on this is a must!

This was not a difficult bread to make, most quick breads are super easy to make, which is why we love to make them! This one is very different from zucchini bread or banana bread. It's fancier and in a way, it feels healthier because of all the carrots and walnuts. I do think it's a bit healthier than the original recipe when you cut out half the sugar, but don't convince yourself that this is health foods cuz there's plenty of unhealthy stuff in it!! You do get a little exercise from this too, with all the grating you have to do. That way you can put extra butter on the bread and not feel too bad about it!

The 12 Weeks of Christmas: Week 12-Italy

 

The 12 Weeks of Christmas: Week 12-Italy

(Source: Britannica.com)

Well, here we are, at the very end of this Christmas food blog project. Twelve weeks turned into fourteen weeks! I started this back in October and now it's January!! Italy showed up as a very small percentage on one of my two DNA tests when I was planning this project, but by the end of October, it had updated and Italy was no longer on the test results. Because it was there when I planned it, I decided to keep it because I really, really wanted to make this recipe. It's one of my favorite Christmas foods and I always buy it because I didn't think I could make it myself. Luckily, it worked out really well! So, I decided to think of this week as the honorable mention. I'm also thinking of it as the beginning of my next food blog project. More on that later...

Today's recipe was panettone. Every year I buy a mini panettone from Trader Joe's because most of the ones you find in the stores are gigantic and would go bad before I could eat it all. They're also really expensive. The mini ones are a bit more affordable. It always seemed like a really fancy and tricky bread to make, and I never bothered looking into making it for myself. They are made in special paper molds and I had no idea how to get my hands on one, so I just never considered it. But as I researched it for this project, and talked with one of my Twitter friends, I was inspired to track down the papers and just order them online, which I did. I now have enough molds to make one of these every Christmas for the next ten years probably!

This bread is way easier to make than I thought it would be. It was ridiculously easy. And I think it turned out really well. I am extremely excited to end this project on this note. I purposely didn't buy a mini panettone this year, so I finally got to enjoy it, at long last!

Here was my baking experience:

 

So, the recipe calls for this to be made entirely in a mixer. The mixer does all the kneading for you. But I think bread is better when you mix and knead it yourself. It might sound really hippie dippie of me, but I think when you make bread with your own hands, you pour your energy into it. The love and enjoyment of making it affects the food, and there's just something missing when you let a mixer make it for you. But if a mixer is a better option for you, by all means, go for it!

This is what the dough looks like after you add all the water. It's gloppy and really weird-looking and the recipe doesn't say to, but add more flour and keep kneading, and it'll be just fine. I added about a half cup more flour.

This is what it looks like once you finish kneading it. You want to keep adding flour and kneading for several minutes, until it's really too tough to knead any longer.

Here is the paper mold. You've probably seen the commercially-made versions in the store with this type of paper mold. It turns out you can just by them online!

Here is the dough, after I added the fruit. I used half raisins that I soaked in hot water, and a blend of diced candied orange peel, lemon peel, and citron, and the smell was amazing! I know a lot of us think we don't like this candied fruit in baked goods, but it's really delightful. I quite enjoy it!

Post first rise, post second rise. I find that turning my oven on a low temp and setting the bowl or whatever the dough is in over the vent on the stove is the best way to let the dough rise.

The mini version I bought at the store doesn't have this topping. It's basically a crumble topping.

I was also unsure about adding the powdered sugar before baking it, but I followed the recipe exactly and hoped for the best.

And as you can see, it turned out perfectly! I did it for 40 minutes, then put it back in the oven for a few more minutes for good measure.

Here is what it looks like from the side when I tore open the paper mold to get a good look at it. It's just perfect!

And here is a slice of the finished product. The texture is great, very much like the panettone I used to buy. The flavors were a bit muted, but it was still too warm to really be eating yet. I wanted to get a picture of the final product, and a taste so I could write this up tonight. Otherwise, I would have waited longer. This didn't come out of the oven till 6pm.

I am so happy with how this turned out! I don't think I'll ever need to buy one again. I have ideas for how to add even more flavor next year. Soaking the raisins in orange juice, or brandy will definitely add more flavor. It's not typical, but I could see adding diced candied cherries to this too, but that might make it lean too fruitcake-like. If we're able to get together as a family again this next Christmas, I might have to make one for Christmas Eve!

Well, if you have read along with me this whole time, thank you for sticking around! I have had a lot of fun with this project. I have a few recipes that I might incorporate into my Christmas traditions. I had several total fails that probably won't become tradition! But it was all fun, regardless of success or failure. I even have an idea for another addition of the project later this year!!

And that leads me back to what I was saying earlier about this recipe being the segue from this Christmas project, to my next project. I have decided to do a winter baking project that will focus on bread! I'm calling it The Baker's Dozen. This is the "bonus" week, so starting next weekend, I will be beginning a 12-week project that focuses on different bread recipes from my files. Not just yeast breads. There will be scones, muffins, and quickbreads as well! So, make sure to keep tuning in each weekend to see what I make next!!

Buon Natale!

The 12 Weeks of Christmas: Week 11-Western Europe

 The 12 Weeks of Christmas: Week 11-Western Europe

(Source: mapofeurope.com)

General Western Europe shows up on my DNA tests, and it makes sense when I have mostly English, French, and German in my tests, that there would be a blend of other nearby places. I chose two countries that my bff and I have found evidence of in my family tree: Austria and Holland. One recipe from each was selected. Sadly, only one turned out, so I'm only going to share that one. I had a recipe in my collection for a Linzer Torte, a classic Austrian dessert, but the recipe was badly written and it turned into a huge hot mess. I highly recommend Linzer torte, but look around the internet for a good recipe to try out because you don't want to try the one I had!!

The recipe from Holland turned out great. It was my dinner and will be tomorrow's dinner as well! The recipe is called Boerenkoolstamppot, which basically means, sausage with mashed potatoes and kale. I used this recipe.

Mashed potatoes are made just like any other mashed potatoes, except you add a bay leaf to the water. Just make sure to remove it before you mash them after the potatoes are cooked and you drain them. It's just like normal, with butter and milk, though you also add a small pinch of nutmeg too.

Here is the kale and shallots. The shallots are already cooking and I just added the kale but not the water. The water helps it start to steam, but it will cook down and more of its own water will drain out of the kale. In the front is the kielbasa I used. I had no way of getting the special Dutch sausage, though I'd love to have tried it if I could. I at least found a fancy holiday kielbasa to make it special.

This is what the kale and shallots cook down to. You start with a huge pile, but it really gets down to so little by the time it's over!

The sausages fry up really nicely. I have a lot leftover for tomorrow and to freeze for other uses.

Typical mashed potatoes, as you can see.

But it really looks amazing when you mix in the kale. There's something fancy about it.

All the elements arranged on the plate.

And I made some chicken gravy to put on top because it was easy. It was really satisfying as a meal. The kale mixed with the mashed potatoes is a really great way to eat the kale. The texture just blends into the mashed potatoes. The shallots are always delicious. This is a really good comfort food meal, which makes it a great Christmas dish! I can see myself making this throughout the winter. Change the entree for variety maybe, but I really like mixing the kale with the mashed potatoes. And the dish ultimately came together relatively quickly, which is also nice. You can pretty much prep it as you go, if you want. I will definitely be doing this again!

Well, Christmas just keeps on going here! I have one last week next week, but it will also segue into my next food blog project. I'm going to start a winter bread baking project, and next week's item will fit right into that! So, enjoy that Christmas spirit for another couple weeks, at least! Merry Christmas!