November ABC challenge: Persimmon Muffins

 This month's challenge was color.  I'm not sure I achieved it, but I tried.  Persimmons have a deep orange color that definitely warms up the color of the muffins.  The seed envelopes, which are a brighter orange color and showed up well in the raw batter, however, turned darker during baking, so are not visible.  But don't count out the bits of cranberry!

I love these muffins -- I've made them several times.  As I recall, the first time I made them I misread the quantity of persimmon pulp and used twice as much, but otherwise followed the recipe.  The results were dense and rich and chewy and incredibly delicious.  Since then, I have always included extra pulp (until today), but I've tinkered with the rest of the recipe considerably.  I really have to question the amount of sugar and butter in the original and whether I ever followed that instruction.  It's a lot!  Regardless, this is a great recipe no matter how it's done!  One of my favorites.

The recipe calls for 18 muffins, but I made 12.  My changes are in italics and strike out.  Here's what I used:

1 cup persimmon puree (preferably Hachiya)

1 1¹/₂ teaspoon baking soda

12 4 tablespoons salted butter, room temperature

1¼ 1/2 cup sugar

2 tablespoons molasses 

2 eggs

1¹/₃ cup all-purpose flour (3/4 cup white, remainder whole wheat)

1/2 3/4 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 teaspoon ginger

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/2 teaspoon almond extract

2 teaspoons lemon juice

Zest of one orange or 1/2 teaspoon orange extract

1 cup walnut pieces

3/4 cup currants dried, sweetened cranberries

Heat oven to 325 degrees; grease muffin tins* on the inside as well as the top edge of each cup.  In a small bowl, mix the persimmon puree with the baking soda; set aside.  In a mixing bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until mixture is creamy and smooth.  Add eggs and beat well.  Sift together the flours, salt, cinnamon, and ginger.  Add to the butter, along with the persimmon, and beat until well blended.  Beat in the vanilla, almond extract, lemon juice, and zest until combined, then stir in walnuts and cranberries.  Fill each muffin cup and bake 45 minutes, or until a wood pick comes out clean when inserted into the center of a muffin. Remove from the muffin pans and let cool on racks.

*These are very delicate so difficult to remove cleanly. Try using paper or silicone muffin cups. 

I had to use vinegar in place of lemon juice, but that wouldn't have affected anything.  And I didn't have orange zest, so I used 1/2 teaspoon orange extract.  I used two defrosted persimmons that have been in my freezer for two years, unwrapped.  They turned into a liquid pool once they defrosted -- shapeless, deflated lumps of pulp in a sweet syrup.  I used only the pulp, but I lost flavor and sweetness by excluding the juice.  I probably should have added it, since it was original to the fruit, but the pulp was already so wet.

The batter is quite light and fluffy and seems like it would rise into stable, tall muffins, but actually they always come out flat-topped and looking a bit melted.  I overfilled the tins, which created a crispy/chewy ring where it overflowed -- delicious!  This time I had some trouble getting them out.  I had to break a piece of the outer ring off so I could get a knife down and pry them out.

Conclusion:  These are indescribably delicious, especially warm out of the oven.  As prepared, they are plenty sweet, and buttery enough to leave your fingers a little oily.  If made per the original recipe, I think they should probably be served warm with a dollop of vanilla ice cream!

Original recipe:  "Persimmon Muffins" via The Breakfast Book by Marion Cunningham

Spiced Butter Cookies: fall leaves

 It's good to have a dependable, delicious butter cookie.  Slightly spicier and a little sweeter than this version, these are lightly spiced and perfect for this time of year.

1¹/₄ cups sugar

1 cup salted butter, softened

1 egg 

3 tablespoons dark corn syrup or molasses 

1 teaspoon vanilla
3 cups all-purpose flour

1¹/₂ teaspoons baking soda 

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon 

1 teaspoon ground ginger 

1/4 teaspoon salt 

1/4 teaspoon ground cloves

Combine sugar and butter in large mixer bowl. Beat at medium speed, scraping bowl often, until creamy (1 to 2 minutes). Add egg, molasses, and vanilla; continue beating until well mixed (1 to 2 minutes). Reduce speed to low; add all remaining ingredient. Beat until well mixed (1 to 2 minutes). Divide dough into thirds, flatten into discs ½-inch thick and refrigerate until firm (1 to 2 hours) or up to three days.

Heat oven to 375F. Allow dough to soften slightly, then roll out on lightly floured surface to ⅛-inch thick. Cut with a 3 to 4-inch cookie cutter. Place one inch apart onto ungreased cookie sheets. Bake for 5 to 7 minutes or until set. Let stand one minute, then remove from cookie sheets. Cool completely.

 

In order to get the 6 dozen this recipe can yield,  you really do have to roll the dough quite thinly as directed and use the correct size cutter.  Rolled as directed, it makes very thin cookies.  The issue with that is that it's so easy to overbake them.  This cookie has a very delicate buttery flavor with light spices; they are still delicious when browned, but taste more like graham crackers.  They lose much of the delicate flavoring because the toastiness overwhelms it.  I'd be inclined to roll them slightly thicker (mindful of the fact that they're more likely to lose fine definition) so there's less chance of overbaking.  I checked the larger leaves at 5 minutes and they didn't seem as firm as I wanted.  I left them about another minute or so, and they were slightly overdone.  The small ones were still soft at 3 minutes but just about perfect at 4+.  (They might have benefited from using an airbake pan to reduce crisping.)

Conclusion:  Buttery, sweet, with delicate spices.  This is a great basic recipe and makes nice cutout cookies. 

Recipe:  "Twinkling Ginger Stars" via Land O Lakes butter

Baked Pumpkin Doughnuts

I love this recipe for pumpkin ice cream muffins-- to me they taste like doughnuts.  So I wondered how they would work if baked in a doughnut pan-- would they make decent doughnuts?  Today I finally tried it, and they were ...  underwhelming.  I've always been skeptical of doughnut baking pans because the key part of a doughnut -- what makes it so decadently delicious -- was the crispy fried exterior with that extra bit of fat.  It not only has a different mouth feel, but it has a different flavor as well.  In the absence of that, it's just another baked good.

The doughnuts tasted fine, but they weren't very substantial.  It didn't feel like I was eating a doughnut, but rather a skinny muffin.  So I gave up and overfilled the tins to make something more like a flat muffin.  One of these days, I'll have to try one of the recipes that claims to actually be a doughnut batter.

Pumpkin Swirl Bread

More explorations into pumpkin breads, this one from a magazine I bought last year.  Compared to this yeasted pumpkin bread, it's sweeter because of the swirl center, but otherwise similar in mild flavor.

Here's what I used:

2¼ - 2½ cups all-purpose flour 

1½ cups whole wheat flour 

1 cup quick-cooking rolled oats 

1/3 cup packed dark brown sugar 

1¼ teaspoons pumpkin pie spice

3/4 teaspoon salt 

2¼ teaspoons active dry yeast 

3/4 cup water 

1/2 cup canned pumpkin 

1/6 cup canola oil

1/6 cup unsweetened applesauce
1/2 Granny Smith apple, peeled and grated 

1 egg 

 

Filling 

1/4 cup packed dark brown sugar 

1/2 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice 

2 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened 

In a large bowl, combine one cup all-purpose flour, whole wheat flour, oats, brown sugar, pumpkin pie spice, salt, and yeast.  In a saucepan, stir together water, pumpkin, oil, and applesauce; heat to 120F to 130F.  Add pumpkin mixture to flour mixture; beat with an electric mixer on medium speed 2 minutes, scraping bowl occasionally.  Add eggs; beat on high 2 minutes.  Using a wooden spoon, stir in as much remaining all-purpose flour to make a firm dough; turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface. Knead 6 to 8 minutes to make a smooth and elastic dough; shape into a ball.  Place in a lightly greased bowl, turning to grease surface of dough. Cover with towel; let rise in warm place until double in size (about one hour). 

 

For filling, in a small bowl combine brown sugar and pumpkin pie spice. Set aside.

 

Lightly grease a 9 x 5-inch loaf pan.  Punch dough down, then turn out onto a lightly floured surface; roll into an 18 x 9-inch rectangle. Spread with 2 tablespoons butter to within 1/2 inch of edges; sprinkle with brown sugar mixture.  Cover with towel; let rise in warm place until doubled in size (about 30 minutes).

 

Preheat oven to 350F.  Bake loaf 50-60 minutes or until bread sounds hollow when lightly tapped.  Cool bread in pan on wire rack 10 minutes, then remove from pan to cool completely.

 

I didn't have applesauce, so I tried shredding the apple and cooking it with the other ingredients, the idea being it would turn into mush in the process.  It didn't exactly fail, but I'd try something different in the future.

Chocolate and pumpkin are always a good combination!

Conclusion:   Not especially pumpkiny, especially after spreading with butter and honey or cinnamon, but still tasty. The filling added just the right amount of sweetness so you didn't need anything more. Could have used a little more salt to counter the sweetness. My only real complaint is that the outside whirl is too dry. Perhaps it was overbaked? Didn't look it, and the sugar that spilled out wasn't burned. 

Recipe: "Pumpkin Swirl Bread" via America’s Favorite Pumpkin Recipes by Centennial Kitchen 

Streusal Coffee Cake I

 

I'm looking for my mom's recipe for coffee cake that I grew up with.  This was the first attempt.

1¼ cup flour
1 cup packed brown sugar
1/3 cup shortening salted butter
1/4 1/8 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 cup buttermilk or sour milk
1/3 cup chopped walnuts

Combine flower, brown sugar, and salt. Cut in butter until mixture is crumbly; set aside 1/4 cup crumb mixture. To remaining crumb mixture, add baking powder, soda, and spices; Mixed well. Add buttermilk or sour milk and egg; Mix well. Pour into a greased, 8 x 8-inch baking pan. Combine reserved crumbs with nuts; Sprinkle atop cake. Bake in a 375 degree oven for 20 to 25 minutes. Serve warm.

I reduced the salt because I used salted butter.  I also threw additional nuts on top, probably at least another 2 tablespoons.  I didn't even notice that the recipe called for a round pan; I used a square one.

This was so close, but not quite.  The cake was brown from the sugar, but my mom's cake was light.  Did she use white sugar instead?  I doubt it -- she rarely deviated from recipes.  It seemed like hers was thicker, and I think there was more topping.

Conclusion:  Pretty basic.  A little sweet -- I'd like the topping to be sweeter than the cake; these were about equal.  I would cut the cake sugar by half and increase the amount of topping.  It could probably withstand some whole wheat flour, too.

Recipe:  Spicy Buttermilk Coffee Cake via Better Homes and Gardens New Cookbook, ninth edition (1985)

May ABC challenge: Blueberry Muffins III

The challenge this month is… well, personal challenge.  My biggest personal baking challenge is simply my kitchen.  It’s small, with limited storage and nearly no counter space, which prohibits attempting certain things that require a lot of space, like croissants or strudel.  So while I’d like to attempt those challenges, they’re just not practical.

Outside of recipes that require a better kitchen, I can’t think of any technical challenge I’d like to attempt at the moment.  I do, however, still have quests towards finding the recipe for certain basic items.  One of those is the perfect blueberry muffin.  It’s a bit like chasing the end of the rainbow:   it’s a moving target.  On one recipe I’ll make a note that there are too many blueberries, while another recipe with exactly the same quantity will seem just right.  Perceived sweetness levels vary from bake to bake of the same recipe, textures of the same recipe change from day to day…  It’s a unicorn.

Previous attempts at muffin perfection can be found here and here.  Today’s recipe is from a cookbook I’ve had for a while but never used, although the recipes it contains are the down-home types I prefer.  True confessions, I didn’t follow the recipe exactly because I was in a hurry and didn’t want to be bothered measuring carefully and getting every ingredient exactly right.  Also, I wanted at least a small health benefit, so I was hoping to substitute some of the white flour for oat flour or bran.  (Not whole wheat flour because it adds its own flavor.) But digging through my dry goods, nothing oaty was making itself immediately apparent.  I did find an unlabeled jar of some pale grain with a coarse grind that tasted mild.  I hoped it was oat something and forged ahead.

I cut the original recipe in half to make 6 muffins and made a few alterations.  Here’s what I used:

8 6½ tablespoons all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons of a coarse dry good of choice (rolled oats, corn meal, bran, etc.)
1/2 tablespoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon ground cardamom
1/2 cup sugar
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
One large egg
3/8 cup whole milk
1/2 cup fresh blueberries

Preheat the oven to 350F. Lightly grease 6 muffin cups. Whisk together the flour, oatmeal, sugar, baking powder, salt, and cardamom; set aside. In a mixing bowl, whisk together the sugar, oil, butter, vanilla, egg, and milk. Add the dry ingredients to the wet and mix until nearly combined, then allow to sit for a few moments to allow the liquid to be absorbed. Once thickened, fold a few more times to combine. Gently fold in the blueberries, being careful not to overmix. Scoop the batter into the prepared muffin cups and bake for 25 to 30 minutes, until the muffins are golden brown. The tops should be firm to the touch and a toothpick inserted in the center of a muffin should come out clean. Remove from the oven and let cool for 10 minutes before turning the muffins out. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Well, these didn’t turn out anything like the photo in the book.  When I initially mixed the dry and wet ingredients together, the batter seemed WAY too wet, but it quickly started to thicken; I realized the grain was absorbing the liquid.  But fearful of ruining the muffin texture, I didn’t stir the thickened batter together as well as I should have.  Once in the pan, there was separated liquid floating on top that hadn’t been blended in.  The muffins didn’t rise much, and this liquid flowed over the edges.  It’s not a totally abnormal result, but it wasn’t what I was going for. (Pro tip:  break off all these edges while they’re still crisp and eat them immediately. By the next day, though still tasty, the high sugar content will make them sticky and chewy—almost candy-like.)

These did not come out of the pan nicely. I had to cut through the overflow and release that carefully from the pan, but even the greased cups didn’t release the muffins—they were too soft. I had to scoop them out with a spoon. Fortunately, they came out in one piece, although there was a fair amount of crumb left in the tin.

Despite everything, these had a nice texture, and I especially liked the nubbliness from the added grain. I was curious about the slight corny flavor when the obvious struck me—the mystery grain! It was a nice flavor (in fact I have a recipe for blueberry corn muffins), but did distract somewhat from the blueberry focus. They were sweeter than I would like, not as noticeable while warm, but far more so the next day. (Funny how that works. It’s the unicorn effect.) I would cut back by 2 tablespoons (for 6 muffins) to start. It was just the right amount of vanilla; I didn’t notice the cardamom at all, although it might have added something to the overall back flavor. I think the combination of using oil and butter is probably smart:  butter gives flavor while oil gives a moist crumb.

One bit of confusion was the intended pan size. I’m aware of only 3 sizes of muffin tins:  mini, regular, and jumbo, each twice the size of the last. This recipe called for “large muffin cups”, which to me would have indicated the jumbo size, but the recipe obviously didn’t make that much. The directions were to fill the tins only 2/3 full; mine were filled to the brim. I really dislike small, short muffins, which is how home recipes pretty much always turn out. So perhaps there is another, intermediate (i.e. “large”) muffin pan for professional use, something between the regular dozen and the 6-pack jumbo. If so, I’d like to get hold of one. Two-bite muffins are so anti-climactic.

Conclusion:  I really need to make these again, properly, following the recipe* (aside from reducing the sugar) to evaluate them adequately. They seem like a good contender, although more on the soft side than I would like. I think I’d prefer using salted butter, as I think it would bump up the flavor a bit and enhance the sweetness of a reduced-sugar recipe.

Recipe:  Blueberry Muffins via The Back in the Day Bakery Cookbook by Cheryl and Griffith Day

*I think I messed up.  If I recorded my measurements correctly, the recipe I made would have used only 1 cup of flour for 12 muffins, but the original calls for 2 cups.  That would explain why my muffins were so flat and the batter so thin, and why they were so sweet.  That's what I get for trying to bake first thing in the morning.

April ABC challenge: Meringue-topped Coffee Cake

 

This month's challenge is coffee. That takes me back to a little place in Charlottesville, Virginia called Sunshine Bakery. They used to have this coffee-flavored cake that was so good! I've never had anything like it before or since, and 30+ years later, I still crave that cake. For one thing, outside of panaderias, I never see coffee-flavored cake. (And trying to look up recipes for one gets you a lot of plain breakfast cakes with streusel topping.) But it also had the most unique texture -- firmer than normal, with really large air holes for a cake, almost like an English muffin. It would probably be considered inferior by a trained pastry chef, but it was delightful. It also had a whipped coffee (perhaps mocha) frosting, not too sweet. Unfortunately, that bakery is long gone, and with it the elusive recipe. Alas.

For this recipe, I halved the original, which called for an 8" x 8" baking pan. I used a pan slightly smaller than an 8" x 4", so the cake was taller, but was done in the same time.  Here's what I used:

1/3 cup milk, warmed
1 tablespoon instant coffee granules
1/4 cup unsalted butter, softened
3/8 cup light-brown sugar
1/2 egg plus 1 yolk, beaten
3/4 cup all-purpose flour, sifted
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/8 1/16 teaspoon salt

Topping
1 egg white
1/4 cup plus 1/2 teaspoon superfine sugar
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 tablespoon sweetened, shredded coconut

Preheat oven to 325F; grease and line a 7.25" x 3.5" loaf pan. Dissolve coffee granules in milk; cool. In a bowl, cream butter and brown sugar until light and fluffy. Gradually beat in egg. Fold in flour and cinnamon alternately with coffee-flavored milk. Turn out batter into prepared pan.

To make topping, whisk egg whites until soft peaks form. Gradually whisk in 1/4 cup of sugar; spread over batter. In a bowl, mix remaining 1/2 teaspoon of sugar, cinnamon, and coconut; sprinkle over the meringue. Bake 50 to 55 minutes, or until a fine skewer inserted into the center comes out clean and meringue is crisp. Cool in pan 5 minutes, then carefully remove and cool on a wire rack. 

This rose really weirdly -- only on one side. My oven is about 25 degrees hotter from back to front, but it's hard to believe it made that much of a difference across a 4-inch pan! Perhaps it had something to do with how the meringue attached to the pan.  (Was one side greased more than the other?) It also rose a LOT, rising well above the top of the pan, but sunk back down a bit as it cooled. And yet there was no noticeable difference in the crumb from one side to the other. Odd.

This cake was actually was more like a "coffee cake" than a dessert -- mild in flavor and sweetness.  The coffee flavor wasn't detectable, surprisingly -- it tasted more of cinnamon and molasses, even though it contained neither.  The coffee probably added a complexity to the overall flavor. I'd want to at least double the coffee quantity. The meringue was a nice touch, but the coconut topping was unnecessary -- probably more for appearance than anything else. To make this more rich, it could be nicely decadent with a dark chocolate ganache drizzle.

Conclusion:  The cake was very light and fluffy while warm, but firmed up and became more dense and moist the next day. (The recipe directs this to be eaten the same day it's made, probably due to the meringue, but I liked it better the second day and the meringue was fine.) I'd be inclined to leave off the coconut topping mixture entirely and perhaps serve this with a whipped coffee frosting instead of the meringue, particularly in the fall because of its warm spice flavors.

Recipe:  "Meringue-Topped Cake" from A Gourmet's Guide to Coffee & Tea by Leslie Mackley