Irish Soda Bread (TWD: BwJ)

The second March recipe for the Tuesdays with Dorie group is Irish soda bread, chosen just in time for St. Paddy's Day. But March 17 came and went around here, and there were multiple grocery shopping trips after which I realized that I'd forgotten the buttermilk yet again, and I decided to pass on this one. The one and only time I made Irish soda bread was also the one and only time I'd ever tasted it, and I was not a fan. I think most of it ended up in the garbage.

But...when the first several posts started popping up this morning, everyone talked about how incredibly quick this recipe was, so I decided that if I was going to skip a recipe, this would probably be a pretty silly one to choose. The little girl and I stopped at the grocery store on the way home and picked up some buttermilk, and we were on our way. This truly was the easiest recipe ever: flour, salt, baking soda, and buttermilk, all stirred and kneaded and formed into a round. That's it. I made a half recipe, and decided at the last minute to go the traditional route and not use any of the extra add-ins. My little boule baked for 35 minutes (thanks, Nancy!) until it reached an internal temperature of 180º.

The bread smelled amazing, and we didn't wait long to cut into it. Surprise, surprise, we loved it! How could four simple ingredients bake up into something so tasty? It was delicious as a pre-dinner snack with a little butter, and yummy (even if a little incongruous) with our dinner of chicken-sausage gumbo.

Please check out our hosts' blogs for the recipe (and to see their creative variations): Cathy of My Culinary Mission and Carla of Chocolate Moosey, and check out here to see the other TWDers' creations!

Pumpkin dinner: Pumpkin muffins

We've had such intense seasons over the past year: the coldest, snowiest winter in ages, followed immediately by weeks of blisteringly hot, humid summer, and now, all of a sudden, it's over: the leaves are changing, the furnace is running, and the squashes are overwhelming the CSA box. (Actually, although the furnace was running when I first wrote this, today we are experiencing record high temperatures, perfect weather for ice cream. Our weather is so bizarre!)

Happily, right after we got our first pumpkins in our CSA box, I got an invite from Phyl to participate in a virtual pumpkin dinner. There wasn't a lot of debate about what to make; the second my kids saw the pumpkins, they both yelled, "Pumpkin muffins!!!"

We have a favorite family recipe, based on a recipe that one of hubby's oldest friends gave us when we got married. This is the first time I've used fresh pumpkin, though.

I took two pumpkin-like squashes (our CSA grows many heirloom varieties, so I'm not always exactly sure which kinds we've gotten), cut them in half, and roasted them on a foil-covered pan in a 350º oven for about an hour. The skins slid off easily after roasting. Then I processed them in my food processor until they were smooth. I had a cup of puree to use for our muffins, plus another three cups to freeze for future pumpkin adventures.

The next morning, the kids and I got to work!

Julie's pumpkin muffins with cream cheese frosting
made 6 regular muffins + 20 mini-muffins

 for the muffins
2 c (260 g) all-purpose flour
1 c (220 g) packed light brown sugar
1 tbsp (10 g) baking powder
1 tsp (3 g) ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp freshly ground nutmeg
1/8 tsp ground cloves
1 c (200 g) pumpkin puree
1/2 c (125 g) milk
2 eggs
1/3 c (75 g) unsalted butter, softened

for the frosting (adapted from ATK's Family Cookbook)
2 1/2 oz (30 g) unsalted butter, softened
4 oz (110 g) cream cheese, softened
1/2 tbsp (8 g) sour cream
1/2 tsp (4 g) vanilla extract
5/8 c (80 g) confectioner's sugar

for the muffins
1. Preheat oven to 350º.
2. Whisk 1 c (130 g) of the flour with the brown sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, baking soda, nutmeg, and cloves in a large mixing bowl.
3. Add the pumpkin puree, milk, eggs, and butter. Beat on low until blended.
4. Beat on medium speed for 2 minutes.
5. Add the other 1 c (130 g) of flour and mix on low until blended.
6. Spoon into greased (or papered!) muffin cups.
7. Bake regular muffins for 25 minutes, mini muffins for 16 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out with just a few crumbs attached.
8. Cool in the pan for 5 minutes and then move muffins to a cooling rack.

for the frosting
1. Process the butter, cream cheese, sour cream, and vanilla in a food processor until combined, about 30 seconds.
2. Add the confectioner's sugar and process until smooth, about 10 more seconds.

Check here for the complete pumpkin dinner round-up. I have been on a pumpkin roll (pun intended) lately: pumpkin ice cream, pumpkin knotted dinner rolls, pumpkin seafood curry. And with six more small CSA pumpkins waiting, there will be more to come! :)

Bake! Coconut cakes

My next Bake! rewind recipe is one that Kayte, Phyl, and Margaret made shortly after they started baking through the book: individual coconut cakes.

I cut the recipe in half, and with my slightly-larger mini-muffin pan, I made nine cupcakes. My little girl helped me. First, she stirred together a bit of sugar, a tiny bit of flour, and some coconut (I used sweetened and cut the sugar a bit). Then she whisked egg whites, salt, lemon zest, and melted butter. Once combined, we filled the muffin pan, and she sprinkled a bit of coconut on the tops.

The kiddos didn't like them (I think it was a texture issue), but the hubby and I both thought they were tasty little treats!

Modern Baker: Quickbread Recap

The Modern Baker Challenge (baking through Nick Malgieri's The Modern Baker) assigns three months to each section of the book. Some people are baking through every recipe, others are just baking as many as they can.

I'd really hoped to bake most - if not all - of the recipes in our first section (quick breads). However, with the crazy pace that comes with the end of the school year, combined with finishing the BBA Challenge and keeping up with the Mellow Bakers, I ended up only baking about half of the recipes. Hopefully I'll get to the rest of them at some point!

Part of the problem may have also been the butterscotch scones . . . I made those so frequently that they got in the way of making anything else!

Anyway, here's my summary of the first three months:

Will make again!

1. Chocolate spice bread, p. 45

2. Real Welsh scones, p. 52

3. Butterscotch scones*, p. 55

4. Blueberry crumb muffins, p. 58

Might make again

5. Whole grain apple raisin bread, p. 48

6. Pecorino and pepper biscuits, p. 51

7. Triple chocolate scones, p. 57

8. Cocoa banana muffins, p. 60

Still need to try

1. Fennel fig and almond bread, p. 42

2. Whole wheat currant bread, p. 46

3. Date walnut bread, p. 47

4. Spicy jalapeno cornbread, p. 50

5. Ginger scones with almond topping, p. 54

6. Irish soda bread muffins, p. 59

7. Sweet rusks for dunking, p. 62

Next up: Breads (July - September). My official bread for this section is Fougasse: Pierced French Flatbread, so stay tuned!

Modern Baker Challenge: Whole Grain Apple Raisin Bread

This is another easy quick bread from The Modern Baker. The only difficult part of preparing it was the number of dishes it created.

I mixed the dry ingredients in one bowl: whole wheat flour, all-purpose flour, cinnamon, and baking soda. I whisked the wet ingredients in another: egg, safflower oil, and brown sugar. I grated the apple into another bowl, chopped up the walnuts, and measured out the raisins. Then I combined it all with a rubber scraper and dumped it into a pan.

I baked it for 35 minutes (the shorter end of the time frame), remembering how my blueberry muffins were a little overdone and dry. Checked it again after 40 minutes. Then I remembered Andrea's post (over at Family & Food) in which she talked about how she needed to bake this bread for 50 minutes before it was cooked all the way through.

I got a dry toothpick after 45 minutes, so I pulled the bread out and we let it cool for about 5 minutes before slicing into it. The first few slices were great: we loved the nutty flavor of the whole wheat mixed with the apple, slightly sweet raisins, and crunchy walnuts. But about three slices in, we ran into a problem: uncooked batter. Argh.

The oven was still on (I was making granola), so I threw the bread back into the pan and back into the oven for another 13 minutes. But it was obviously too late in the process. We ended up cutting off slices from both ends and then having to throw away the middle section of the bread. Very sad.

I'm not certain why it took so much longer to bake; I had even squeezed a lot of the excess moisture out of the apples before adding them to the batter. Still, the taste (of the cooked parts) was delicious and we will likely try this one again.

Modern Baker Challenge: Chocolate Spice Bread

One of the best things about the Modern Baker Challenge (at least for now, while we're in the quick breads section), is that if I feel like baking something but don't have a lot of time, I know there's a perfect recipe just waiting for me. And most of them use ingredients that are sitting right in my cupboard, so I can get right to work!

This morning I felt like whipping up a quick bread while the kids were eating breakfast. I let the little guy choose, and he picked chocolate spice bread.

This was an easy recipe: whisk flour, sifted cocoa, salt, baking powder, cinnamon, ginger, and fresh nutmeg. Whisk eggs and sugars in another bowl; add sour cream and melted butter. Stir it all together. Pour it in a pan. The kiddos even got to help with the whisking from where they sat at the breakfast counter. The only thing that surprised me was how thick the batter was; more like a thick fudgy cake rather than a quick bread.

I baked it for a few minutes longer than required until I got a dry(ish) toothpick (I didn't want it to be too dry). We (barely) waited a few minutes until we sliced into it; I sliced off a chunk to leave with hubby and the kiddos and grabbed the rest to take to the Lunch Bunch as I headed out the door.

I'd been on the road for five minutes when hubby called me. "Why didn't you leave us a bigger piece of the bread?!? It's already all goooooooonnnnne!!!" Needless to say, it was a hit at work, too. Moist with a slightly spicy, lightly chocolately, complex flavor: much loved all around!

The official blogger for Chocolate Spice Bread was Phyl over at Of Cabbages and King Cakes. (He's actually already finished a bunch of the Modern Baker recipes; check it out!)

Modern Baker Challenge: Cocoa Banana Muffins

I'm enjoying my self-imposed flexibility with the Modern Baker Challenge: baking the breads from The Modern Baker that seem interesting when they fit my schedule (or fit the ingredients in my house) rather than sticking to a strict schedule or order.

Up especially early this morning, with three brown-spotted bananas on the counter, I decided to make cocoa banana muffins, which came highly recommended from Andrea over at Family & Food (the official Modern Bakers poster for this recipe).

This was a very easy recipe; the only time-consuming step was the fact that it required three separate mixing bowls (only a problem because I had to wash the dishes before leaving for work!). Into one went sifted cocoa, flour, baking soda, and salt. In another, I mashed up the bananas and mixed them with sour cream. Meanwhile, my stand mixer took care of the softened butter, two types of sugar, and eggs. Then I combined it all and put it into muffin tins. Just as with the blueberry crumb muffins, my batter made many more muffins than the twelve that Nick Malgieri said it would: I ended up with twenty-four mini-muffins and ten regular-sized muffins.

The kids loved these and kept asking for more. The hubby said, "They're just like chocolate-covered bananas, only you don't get to that annoying stage where the chocolate is all gone and there's only banana left." We both brought muffins to work, where most people seemed to like them, although a few were a little weirded out by the banana flavor in chocolate muffins. Will I make them again? I'm not sure . . . because the kiddos like to eat muffins for breakfast, I'd rather have fruit or veggie muffins instead of chocolate ones. But these were a fun treat today!

Modern Baker Challenge: Blueberry Crumb Muffins

As bakers have been finishing up the BBA Challenge (I still have nine breads to go), many have been asking: What next?! Thankfully, two BBACers came up with two new challenges: Paul came up with Mellow Bakers (the first bread was Hot Cross Buns), and Phyl came up with The Modern Baker Challenge. Happily they were different enough from each other that I thought it would be fun to participate in both.

The Modern Bakers are a group baking their way through The Modern Baker by Nick Malgieri, an enormous (150 recipes!) and beautiful book that includes not only yeasted breads, but quick breads, sweet tarts and pies, savory tarts and pies, puff pastries, cakes, and cookies, bars, and biscotti. I took a little longer to commit to this challenge because, while I'm new to bread baking and have a ton to learn, I've been baking quick breads, cookies, and cakes since I was a kid.

Four things convinced me to join: #1, I have very little experience baking tarts, pies, and puff pastries; #2, I really enjoy group baking/blogging/discussing; #3, the group offers the option of not necessarily baking all of the 150 recipes, which makes it much less stressful; and #4, my husband (who loves baked goods of every variety) fully supported the venture.

Part of #3 above is that instead of blogging about all recipes in a section (sections are divied up by months: April through June is devoted to Quick Breads), we each pick a bread that we want to be responsible for. My family loves muffins, especially blueberry muffins, so Blueberry Crumb Muffins were an easy first choice for me.

Nick Malgieri says that his ideal blueberry muffin is "a sweet muffin, but one that's not overly sweet, and it must be packed with blueberries." Indeed, he calls for a pint of fresh blueberries. I suppose I could've waited until June, but they sounded so good, I was impatient to make them now. Unfortunately, given that I live in the frozen North, it would've cost approximately twelve dollars to buy a pint of blueberries . . . um, I don't think so. So I subbed in frozen. I think the frozen blues are probably bigger than fresh, which means I ended up with fewer blueberries and the muffins weren't so jam-packed as Nick Malgieri would've liked.

The recipe was easily made during morning breakfast time, especially since he indicates using the stand mixer (which I don't think I've ever used for muffins before). So into the mixer went softened unsalted butter, sugar, and light brown sugar; then the sugar; and finally milk and the flour mixture. The flour mixture included freshly grated nutmeg, which I've recently discovered, and which really is the best!

I thought the next step was interesting. He has you add the blueberries and run the mixer for a few seconds to "crush some of the berries slightly." Blueberry muffin recipes often have you take a lot of precautions to prevent the blueberries from staining the batter, so I was intrigued that he wanted them a little crushed.

I then put the muffins into the prepared muffin cups. He says that the recipe yields twelve standard sized muffins, but I had quite a bit of batter left. (I haven't made the leftovers yet, but I'd imagine it will make about three or four more muffins.)

While all of this was going on, I also made the topping: melted butter mixed with brown sugar, then flour, baking powder, and cinnamon. I crumbled the topping on the muffins, not quite sure how much to use. I ended up sprinkling maybe two teaspoons on each muffin? I still had a ton of topping leftover; I mean, at least two-thirds of the batch. I would definitely halve the topping recipe next time.

I put the muffins into a 375 df oven for thirty minutes. I checked them at about twenty-seven minutes, and they definitely looked golden. In retrospect, I should have removed them then, but I gave them the called-for thirty minutes. The result was a lightly sweet, deliciously topped, very flavorful blueberry muffin . . . that was a tad dry. I think they probably would have been perfect at twenty-seven minutes; I'll try that when I make the rest of the batter.

The kiddos gobbled them up, and my stepmom, who loves muffins almost as much as the kids, said they were the best blueberry muffins she'd ever had. I believe that with fresh blueberries and a slightly shorter baking time, this will become my new go-to blueberry muffin recipe. Oh yes, I will definitely be baking them again!

Here are some of the other quick breads that have been baked by Modern Bakers so far:

• Andrea: Cocoa Banana Muffins
  
• Sara: Fennel Fig and Almond Bread
• Phyl: Chocolate and Spice Bread
• Astheroshe: Real Welsh Scones