Earl Grey Blueberry Muffins

Let me say up front that the addition of earl grey into this recipe is still within the experimental stage. Even without the flavor of tea that I tried to extract, this muffin recipe is certainly wonderful and is my favorite (and reliable) muffin recipe. Thank you to Smitten Kitchen for sharing it!

A word about tea

Besides the green tea tofu chocolate pudding that I made years ago, I have little experience incorporating tea into cooking. With pudding, a recipe that required liquid, it was easy to steep the tea and extract those flavors. But it's a bit more difficult with muffins. In this recipe the closest you get to liquid is yogurt, but of course you'll denature yogurt if you try to heat it up. Fortunately I recalled a conversation that I had with a friend who told me about what was involved in making cannabis brownies. While the properties of tea are much different, it did make sense to attempt to steep the tea in heated butter. Sure enough, a few minutes of loose leaf tea submerged in hot butter produced a very pleasing aroma. Unfortunately this flavor did not translate as well as I hoped into the final product. 

The second method I tried was to create an extract. However, again, the results were less than stunning. This is likely due to the short length of time I allowed the extract to form. I also did not have vodka on hand so I used rum which, of course was too fragrant in its own right. Despite these shortcomings, the extract I produced did carry the scent of my tea, but perhaps it was not potent enough. Another variable could also be the strength of tea. Something that I would also like to experiment with. 

Nevertheless, I really am intrigued by the idea of cooking with tea and I think it is worth further experimentation to produce a tea muffin. If any readers have any ideas about using tea I would love to hear about them. 

This recipe comes straight from Smitten Kitchen, unmodified by myself (nothing wrong with these guys), originally adapted from Cook's Illustrated.

Makes 9 to 10 standard muffins

5 tablespoons (2 1/2 ounces or 71 grams) unsalted butter , softened
1/2 cup (3 1/2 ounces or 100 grams) sugar
1 large egg
3/4 cup sour cream or plain yogurt
1/2 teaspoon grated lemon zest
1 1/2 cups (6 3/4 ounces or 191 grams) all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoon (7 grams or 1/4 ounce) baking powder
1/4 teaspoon (1 gram) baking soda
1/4 teaspoon (2 grams) salt
3/4 cup (3 3/4 ounces or 105 grams) blueberries, fresh or frozen (if frozen, don’t bother defrosting)

To steep tea, measure 7-8 tablespoons of butter (you'll lose some when straining it) then heat over the stove until it becomes fully liquidized. Then add in about 3 tablespoons of your favorite loose leaf tea.
Let the mixture steep over low heat for 5 mins (you may want to try more). Pour mixture through fine strainer press, quite hard, the leaves, to extract as much butter as possible. Let butter solidify.

Preheat oven to 375°F. Line a muffin tin with 10 paper liners or spray each cup with a nonstick spray. Beat butter and sugar with an electric mixer until light and fluffy. Add egg and beat well, then yogurt and zest. Put flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt into a sifter and sift half of dry ingredients over batter. Mix until combined. Sift remaining dry ingredients into batter and mix just until the flour disappears. Gently fold in your blueberries. 

The dough will be quite thick (and even thicker, if you used a full-fat Greek-style yogurt), closer to a cookie dough, which is why an ice cream scoop is a great tool to fill your muffin cups. 

You’re looking for them to be about 3/4 full, nothing more, so you might only need 9 instead of 10 cups. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, until tops are golden and a tester inserted into the center of muffins comes out clean (you know, except for blueberry goo). Let cool on rack (ha), or you know, serve with a generous pat of butter."

Hot Dog Buns

For whatever reason it is hard to find a good set of hot dog buns at the grocery stores nearby our apartment. Sometimes we have to settle for New England style buns (see photo here if you're not familiar) which, as intriguing as they may be, just don't do it for me. It was about time I tried making my own buns. So I came across this recipe from annies-eats.com. With the addition of our bagel bomb seasoning mix, this turned out to be a great batch of buns. 

Hot Dog Buns

Yield: 9 buns
Ingredients:
1 tbsp. sugar
2¼ tsp. instant yeast
¼ cup warm water (105-110˚ F)
1 cup warm milk
1 tbsp. vegetable or canola oil
1 tsp. salt
3 cups all-purpose flour (aproximately)
1 large egg beaten with 1 tbsp. water
Top with a mixture of: 

    Black Sesame Seeds, White Sesame Seeds, Onion Powder, Garlic Powder, and Poppy Seeds. 

Directions: 

In a standmixer bowl combine, sugar, yeast and warm water. Then add milk, oil, salt and 2 cups of flour. Mix on medium low with a dough hook, slowly adding flour until you get a tacky consistency where the dough has pulled away from the sides of the bowl. Keep adding flour until you achieve this consistency. In total you should have mixed for about 8 to 10 minutes. The dough should be smooth and elastic. Tacky not sticky. 

Spray or spread a bit of oil in the same bowl and replace dough. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise until doubled in bulk. About 1 hour. 

On a lightly oiled work surface, divide dough into 9 equal pieces. If you have a scale, each piece should be around 80 grams. Shape each piece into a ball first then roll into a cylinder 4 1/2 inches in length, flattening the tops a little. 

Please each bun on a cooking sheet prepared with parchment paper or a silicone baking mat. I made the mistake of placing the buns too closely together, which created more of a New England style bun. Try placing buns about 1/2 inches away from each other side by side. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise until almost doubled, about 45 minutes. Ideally the buns will bump up against each other a bit during this final rise.  

Meanwhile, preheat oven to 400 degrees F. After the buns have finished rising, brush the tops with the egg wash and then sprinkle the seasoning mix on top. 

Bake 18-20 minutes, or until golden brown. 

Pita Bread

Every now and then we have the tendency to think that any recipe involving flour will be an ordeal and not worth making for the everyday occasion. Of course some recipes are impractical to whip up for lunch, many bread recipes require a minimum of two days of preparation. Even good pizza dough falls into this category. Fortunately there are breads that can be made quickly. This pita bread recipe only requires a 30 minute rise, making it the perfect recipe if you don't have a lot of time. It is an extraordinarily simple recipe and fun to make. It is perfectly well suited for those days when you just don't feel like taking a bike ride to the bakery or making a loaf of bread yourself. I like to celebrate pita bread's versatility and sometime use it outside of the hummus/falafel circuit. Why not wrap up a veggie dog in it? Or even make a pocket of peanut butter and jelly? Today I ate my pita with black beans, cheese and salsa, but tomorrow why not try stuffing it with a spicy garlic tofu mix (like Seattle's Paseo wonderful sandwich)? On thing is clear, this is a bit more versatile than your basic sandwich loaf.

The Recipe:

1 tablespoon Instant Yeast
1 ¼ cup warm water (about 100 degrees F)
1 teaspoon of salt
2 cups of Bread Flour (or all purpose flour, unbleached)

1 cup of Whole Wheat Flour (or white flour if desired)

Dissolve yeast in water for about 5 minutes in the bowl of an electric mixer. 

Add salt and 1 cup of the white flour and 1 cup of the wheat flour and mix with the dough hook. Then slowly add additional AP flour until a rough, shaggy mass is formed. Continue to knead with the dough hook or by hand for about 8 minutes until dough is smooth and elastic. Feel free to use enough flour as it takes to achieve a tacky, not sticky, dough.  

Turn dough onto a lightly floured surface and divide into six pieces for large pitas or ten for smaller. Shape dough into balls, then flatten with a rolling pin into ¼ inch thick discs. Try to make the thickness as even as possible. 

Let rest on the floured surface 30-40 minutes, they will slightly puff. Meanwhile Preheat oven to 425F.

With a large spatula or dough knife/paddle, flip the rounds of dough upside down on to a baking sheet. Bake 10-15 minutes until light golden. 

These store for up to two days well wrapped or frozen for three weeks.

Adapted from under the highchair

Stuffed with black beans, salsa, and cheese, burrito style.

Reinhart Cinnamon-Raisin Bagels in Montreal

      New York or Montreal? While the debate over which city has the best bagels persists, I suggest that you just make your own. Whatever happens it will taste great and if it doesn't live up to your expectations then try again after tweaking your recipe a bit. 
      A few weeks ago while showing a guest around Montreal we stepped into Fairmount Bagels. It wasn't my first time there, but this was the first time we picked up a bag of freshly baked bagels. Biting into a cinnamon-raisin bagel hot out of a wood fired oven while walking around in 10˚F weather did just the trick to rekindle my interest in bagels. Of course to indulge in a fresh bagel is not always a possibility or convenient, so why not try making them at home?
      Like a lot of other types of bread recipes this one involves a two day process or could possibly be condensed into one long day. Peter Reinhart, the author of this recipe, stresses the importance of the delayed fermentation to allow the bread to develop more complex flavors and cannot be recommended enough. 

Field Trip: San Francisco

   This past summer, we had the opportunity to visit some friends in San Francisco. Because Tartine Bakery is located in San Francisco I was especially thrilled to make this trip. Last spring I was gifted the Tartine Bread book and ever since I have desperately desired to make this bread. I've had some issues and have not completely been successful, but I was pleased to find out that the flavor that I achieved at home was similar to Tartine's own bread. If you are ever in the San Francisco area, I can't recommend Tartine enough. The croissants alone are reason enough to visit. While the staff may not be the friendliest and you will most likely have to wait in a long line that goes out the door, you'll forget about all this once you're biting into the flakiest croissant you've ever had or what I feel is simply the best bread ever produced. 

   A note about the bread. If you do plan on picking one up, you will need to know that the bread comes out of the oven at 5pm. It is said by the staff that they do run out from time to time, so be early or pre-order a loaf (or three). I highly recommend the rosemary olive bread. Don't let the $7 dollar loaf shy you away, it's a large loaf and completely worth it. 

Pizzette Neapolitan: where in which I ditch my pizza stone for a skillet

      Since my last pizza post, I have periodically been experimenting with dough recipes and perfecting my technique. If you search around online you'll notice that there's a lot to learn and to keep up on- as there are currently theories being tested regarding best methods and fermentation processes etc. for home pizza making. This should not be new territory if you have been involved with other types of bread making. The objective I have taken lately is to perfect the simple, to meet the bar in pizza making: the margherita pizza, the essence of Neapolitan pizza making.

Potato Rosemary Bread

Over the past year or so, I've tried a few recipes from Peter Reinhart's book, The Bread Apprentice. It's a very useful book for learning how to bake bread. Until now, I have not made too many breads that go beyond essential ingredients. Early on it wasn't that interesting for me as I was just trying to get a handle on bringing out the rich flavors of wheat. But as my bread-making has improved, I thought it would be nice to venture a bit. Now as the aroma of roasted garlic and rosemary consume my home, it's hard to imagine not recommending this recipe to a beginner. This will make you fall in love with bread-making.

With that said, it's not the easiest or quickest way to make bread. Take a look at this no-knead recipe I posted back in September if you need a easy recipe for bread.

This recipe will require a few special preparation steps, one of which will need to be completed at least a night before you plan to bake.

One special prep that can be cut out is the preparation of Mash Potatoes if you have leftover mashed potatoes. Post-Thanksgiving is a perfect time to try this recipe as you will no doubt have leftover mash potatoes from Thanksgiving! But then again, you're family will definitely not mind if you make these pre-Thanksgiving and you bring a stack of these delicious dinner rolls to the dinner table.

The Recipe:

1 1/4 Cups (7 ounces) Biga (see below)
3 cups plus 2 tablespoons (14 ounces) Unbleached bread flour
1 1/2 teaspoons (.38 ounce) Salt
1/4 teaspoons (.03 ounce) Black Pepper 
1 1/4 teaspoons (.14 ounce) Instant Yeast
1 cup (6 ounce) Mashed Potatoes, at room temperature
1 tablespoon (.5 ounce) Olive Oil
2 tablespoons (.25 ounce) Coarsely chopped fresh rosemary
3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons to 1 cup (7 to 8 ounce.) water, at room temperature
4 tablespoons (1 oz.) coarsely chopped roasted garlic (see below)


Semolina flour or cornmeal for dusting
Olive oil for brushing on top

(Recipe originally printed in Peter Reinhart's book, The Breadmaker's Apprentice)

So as you see from the recipe above you'll need to prepare a Biga, this is a pre-ferment. Do this the night before baking or up to three days before, as it will keep in the fridge.
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To prepare the Biga:

Makes about 9 ounces
1 1/4 cups unbleached bread flour
1/4 teaspoon instant yeast
1/4 cup to 1/2 cup water, at room temperature

1) Stir Together Flour and Yeast
2) Add Water Slowly. Mix with a metal spoon or use a paddle on a stand mixer. Dough should form in a course ball. Adjust water and flour so that the dough is neither too stiff or sticky. It should be tacky.
3) Sprinkle flour on the counter and knead for 4 to 6 mins or use a stand mixer with a dough hook for about 4 minutes. Dough should be very soft and tacky. Add more flour if it is too sticky to work with, but try to only use enough to prevent dough from sticking terribly to your surface.  The internal temperature of the dough should be 77 to 81 degrees F.
4) Lightly oil a bowl with spray oil (vegetable or olive oil is fine; spray or non spray).  Role dough into a bowl and coat with oil in the bowl.  Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let it sit at room temperature for 2 to 4 hours or until it nearly doubles inside.
5) Remove the dough, pressing on it gently to degass the dough. Knead it lightly to do this. Then return it to the bowl. Place bowl in the fridge, let sit at least overnight.
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In the morning,
Remove biga from the fridge and cut into about 10 small pieces with a serrated knife or a pastry knife.  Let the pieces sit out covered in plastic for at least 1 hour to allow them to de-chill.

MEANWHILE . . .

Get roasting some garlic.

You can do this by taking a head of garlic and removing the skin to expose the cloves, keep the skin covering the individual cloves.  Then cut about 1/4 to 1/2 inch of the ends of the cloves off, opposite of the end that holds the cloves attached. You will need about to heads of garlic for this recipe.
Put the head, cut end up, into a small oven proof container, I use a crème brûleé ramekin. Then drizzle with olive oil making sure to coat cloves entirely. Then put a cover or tin foil over the top.
Bake in oven at 400 degrees F for 30 to 40 minutes.

Garlic, Roasted.

Set the garlic aside to let cool. When it has cooled, you can squeeze or carefully pull out the garlic from the skin.

Now it's time to make mashed potatoes unless you are using leftovers. If you are using leftovers, measure out 1 cup and let it come to room temperature.

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The Bread Dough
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1) Stir together flour, salt, black pepper, and yeast into a 4 -quart mixing bowl (or in the bowl of a stand mixer) After you have combined these dry ingredients add the biga pieces, mashed potatoes, oil, rosemary, and 3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons of water. Continue to stir together or if using a stand mixer, put the dough hook on and begin mixing. Add flour if dough seems too sticky.

2) Sprinkle flour on counter to knead the dough by hand or continue mixing with the electric mixer on medium speed with the dough hook. Knead for approximately 10 mins or about 6 mins by machine. Again dough should not be terribly sticky but rather tacky and very supple.

3) Flatten dough out and sprinkle the garlic into the dough, folding it in. Continue to knead by hand a couple times so that the garlic is well-distributed. You may need to add more flour as the garlic will likely add more moisture to the bread.

4) Roll dough in a oiled bowl to coat it with oil.  Cover with plastic wrap and let it ferment at room temperature for about 2 hours. If your room temperature is on the warmer side expect the dough to double in size closer to the 1 hour mark.

5) Once dough has doubled in size remove it carefully from the bowl, divide it into 2 pieces. With these two pieces I made both rolls and a round loaf, but feel free to make all rolls or 2 loaves.  Either is great.

6) Shape Dough: if you are new to bread making I suggest looking into shaping techniques online. I recommend making this loaf into a Boule, the round loaf. Once shaped, place the boule seem side down onto a baking sheet either using parchment paper, or by first heavily coating the pan with cornmeal or semolina flour. If possible use a proofing basket (a basket lined with a floured dish towel) This will help the bread maintain its shape during this proofing stage.  Cover the dough with a towel or plastic wrap.

Shaping rolls are a little easier. You can place them on a parchment paper or directly on a baking sheet using cornmeal on the bottom. Cover with plastic wrap and let the rolls proof.

Feel free to experiment with shaping. For my rolls, I placed the rolls close together so that when they rose they would join at the edges and create a pull-apart set.

This is now a good time to pre-heat your oven to 400 degrees.

7) After dough has nearly doubled in size at room temperature, this should take 1 to 2 hours. Uncover the dough and place in the oven.

If your baking rolls: these will take about 20 mins. Rotate the rolls half-way through so they brown evenly.

If you are baking a loaf: this will take about 40 mins. Rotate after 20 mins.

Bread will be done when they reach a rich golden brown and register at least 195 degrees F internal temperature.

They should feel light and make a hollow sound if you thump them on the bottom.

8) After baking allow bread to cool on a rack for at least 1 hour before cutting or trying. You should allow the rolls to cool for about 20 minutes.

Multi-Grain Bread

Bread-making may conjure up plenty of unpleasant thoughts for some people. The vulnerability of yeast, the stickiness of dough, the strenuous task of kneading are some of the things that may come to mind.  And unlike most baked goods and cuisine, the French word for bread, 'pain', does not help the reputation of bread-making.  I'm sometimes deterred from what I feel will be a laborious process. In the past several months I have made bread on occasion in a bread machine after struggling with sprouted grain bread. With a bread machine there is absolutely no excuse to not make homemade bread.

I'm not sure if it has been the recipes that I've tried but I haven't been all that impressed with my bread-machine bread. Crust seems to be  too thick and the notch from the mixing blades at the bottom of the loaf has been annoying.

After making artisan type bread in the past, I was eager to try a basic bread-pan style loaf. Something I could actually use for a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. So after reading a simple recipe in Martha Stewart's magazine I got to work crafting a multi-grain loaf. The results are quite good. And really, a not-so-painful experience it was.

Ingredients, what you'll need. 

The Flours:
3 cups of whole wheat flour
1 cup of rye
3 cups of all purpose flour (white unbleached, all that good stuff)

The Grains:
1/3 cup bulgar
1/2 cup of rolled oats
1/4 cup of raw sunflower seeds (shelled)
1/4 cup of flax seeds (whole or processed)

Water:
1/2 cup warm water (110 degrees) FOR YEAST
1/2 cup warm water for Bulgur
1 1/2 cup warm water for mix


Other things that you'll need:
1 tablespoon plus 1 1/2 teaspoons active dry yeast (two 1/4-ounce envelopes)
3 tablespoons honey
2 teaspoons honey FOR YEAST
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
2 tablespoons coarse salt (sea salt please)


Optional:
Spray olive oil


Tools:
Bowls
Mixer
Thermometer (digital is the way to go here)
4 1/2 x 8 1/2 inch loaf pan. 
Plastic wrap



Bulgar!
1. Prepare the bulgar by letting it soak and absorb water for 20 mins.

Get the yeast going:

1. Sprinkle yeast over 1/2 cup of warm water (watch the temperature with the thermometer you want to have water at 110 degrees F or whatever your yeast package recommends)

2. Add honey (2 teaspoons)

3. Whisk until all the yeast has dissolved. Then let sit for about 5 minutes. It should froth like crazy.

The mixing bowl:

1. Add yeast mixture
2. Add melted butter
3. Add 1 1/2 cup of remaining water.
4. Add 3 tablespoons of honey.

In another bowl:

1. Combine all flours.
2. Combine Salt
3. Dry mix thoroughly

Back to the mixing bowl:

1. Add two cups of flour/salt mix to the Yeast/honey/butter mix.

2. Attach dough hook and mix with stand mixer until smooth.

3. Add the remainder of the flour mix and the grains one cup at a time. Slowly over several minutes combine all ingredients while mixer is running.

4. Mix on low until dough comes away from the sides of the bowl and forms a ragged and slightly sticky ball.

5. Knead dough on a floured surface (or baking mat) for 5 or so minutes until the dough is smooth and elastic but still slightly tacky.

6. Spray or apply a thin layer of butter to the mixing bowl or another large bowl.

7. Work the dough into a ball and transfer to the large bowl.

8. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise for about 1 hour in a warm place. The dough should double in volume.  (And should not spring back when poked)

9.  Transfer dough back to work surface and punch down dough and divide in two (using a sharp knife to do this works best)

10. Grab half of the dough and work into a rectangle (nearly sqaure) about 8 1/2 inches in length.

11. Fold ends toward the center, slightly overlapping eachother.

12. Pinch together the seam.

13. Place dough seam down in the oiled/buttered loaf pan.

14. Sprinkle with flour and cover pan with plastic wrap. Set in warm place to rise, about 45 minutes or until dough is about 1 inch above the top of the pan.

15. Preheat oven to 450 degrees. And wait for dough to rise.

16. Reduce heat to 400 degrees. Remove plastic then bake bread. for about 45 mins or until tops are golden brown. Rotating pan after 20 mins.

17. Transfer to wire racks, Let cool slightly then turn out loafs and let them completely cool before slicing.

Sprouted Wheat, Wheat Bread

I finally got around to having a go at making sprouted wheat bread. Sprouting was pleasant fun, and only took a few days. I will post about the sprouting process in greater detail in the future. It's a fun activity and children especially would have a fun time watching the little seeds begin to grow tails.

The bread itself turned out quite well considering I had to improvise from the recipe I was following. When I sprouted my wheat berries I did not have the recipe in mind so after processing the sprouts, I only had about 1/2 cup of sprout pulp. The recipe called for 3 cups of sprouts. I decided to just continue with substituting the remainder with whole wheat flower. My deviation from the recipe was promising and I was left with a tasty and wholesome bread.

Here is my altered recipe:

1/2 2 1/2	cup wheat, sprouted and then processed into a pulp. cups of whole wheat flour
1/2	cup plus 2 tablespoons vital wheat gluten
1 1/2	teaspoons salt
2 1/4	teaspoons instant yeast
2	tablespoons honey (or other sweetener for vegan)
1 3/4	cup warm water (100-110 degrees, or what yeast calls for)
1/2	cup mixed sesame, pumpkin, sunflower, and flax seeds (optional)
	Vegetable oil (for the bowl)