Getting an MS in Baking- Whole Wheat Pancakes

One last muffin method recipe (for now) from I'm Just Here for More Food.

I made these two weekends ago for a hurried pre-church breakfast.  On the plus side, they are made with 100% whole wheat flour (you don't have to mix in white flour like with most recipes) so they are on the "healthier" side for pancakes.  On the minus side, they are kind of "healthy" tasting unless you load them up with syrup, etc.

Again, everything goes in the food processor to make (ostensibly) lighter pancakes:

The liquid ingredients- eggs, buttermilk (which will *hopefully* be featured in the 1st biscuit method recipe soon) and melted butter.

We don't have an electric griddle (#1 recommended method of cooking pancakes) or a griddle (#2 recommended method), but we do have a big sautee pan and a lopsided burner (#13 recommended method).  I made them too big; they didn't cook evenly; I burned two.  None of these things were the recipe's fault, but it definitely made me less excited about it than other things I've made.
 

Out of the whole batch, a few of them turned out pretty well.

  Just add syrup and a mad scramble to get to church in time, and you have breakfast from two weeks ago.

Getting an MS in Baking- Dutch Baby

Cooking through these recipes, it is not hard to understand how the before picture in this article happened:

Butter.  Lots of butter.  Too much butter.  You don't want to know how much.

Anyway, this is another muffin method recipe.  It was different from the ones I'd made before in that the batter came together very loosely.

I'm not sure exactly why this was a muffin method recipe except- I guess- that you don't beat the batter into submission with a stand mixer.

Note to my cardiologist- stop reading here.

Those are pieces of bacon in the batter.  The batter goes into a skillet filled with melted butter.

And into the oven for 20 minutes.  Except that after 20 min there was still a lot of liquid on the top.  We let it cook some  more and finally decided to pour off the extra liquid (aka butter juice) and eat it as it was.

Here's half of it.  You can see it started to puff up on the outside- it's supposed to be like a popover, but it got bogged down in the middle and couldn't pop up correctly.  I don't think I made a mistake following the recipe.  It still tasted really really good- especially with the maple syrup we brought back from Canada- but no poof.  I guess I can look online to see if I can find a correction to the recipe.  Otherwise "way less butter" will be my first liner note in the cookbook.

Getting an MS in Baking- Pineapple Upside Down Cake

When is a cake a muffin?  When it's pineapple upside down cake.  Why?  Because unlike, say, birthday cake, the cake part of pineapple upside down cake is supposed to be kind of course.  In the book, Brown says that pineapple UDC is probably a descendant of cornbread, which is also made using the muffin method.

The bottom/top comes together first.  Melt some (okay, a lot of) butter and stir in brown sugar.

Top with pineapple and marachino cherries, then sprinkle with nuts.

Then the actual muffin technique comes in.  Mix together the wet and dry ingredients (which have been weighed and sifted in the food processor, of course) until just incorporated.  I don't think I mentioned this before, but Brown recommends using a whisk for this part and walking away about 10 stirs before you think you should.

Here's the cake after 40 minutes in the oven.  Golden brown and bubbly.

And after it's been "right side upped".  I like this cake because it's easy but has a nice presentation, and it's different from other deserts that usually end up at picnics (which is where this one is destined).  

This picture looks a little bit like it came out of the Gallery of Regrettable Food, but I can assure you it looks delicous IRL.

Getting an MS in Baking- Chocolate Chip Cookie #10

This is the second in a series of posts about baking through Alton Brown's (the Good Eats guy) I'm Just Here for More Food.  See the first one here.

This book is the source of the information contained in this post.

Marathon Maiden asked a great question in the comments on my first MS in baking post: If everything gets mixed together eventually, why worry about doing the dry and liquid ingredients separately?

The answer is that it doesn't matter too much how the liquids are mixed with each other and how the dry ingredients are mixed with each other, but when the liquids and dry ingredients are mixed together, science happens.

The reasons to mix the dry ingredients in the food processor are 1. So the flour gets tossed around, which helps to make a light and fluffy baked good and 2. So the chemical leavening agent (the baking soda, baking powder, or both) gets distributed equally in the flour.

Next the liquid ingredients come together.  Here's one of my ice cube egg yolks.  I think this would work better if I had more forethought and let it defrost in the fridge during the day rather than delicately trying to defrost it in the microwave and not get scrambled eggs.

Here are the liquids together:  You can see tiny bits of cooked egg yolk that had to be scooped out.

Then the liquids are poured into the dry ingredients and the two are brought together with a minimal amount of stirring.  Why?  Because stirring distributes air bubbles evenly throughout the baked good, making it softer and more tender.  That's why you beat the heck out of the batter for a cake.  It makes it nice and delicate and soft.  Muffins, however, are not supposed to be too delicate.  Doing just a little stirring causes irregular air bubbles, leading to a more course texture.  Although most cookies are made using the creaming method, these are muffin method cookies.

Here's the batter together.  It's not nice and smooth like the slice n' bakes.

In fact, the batter was very loose, and I had to ball it together with my hands.  The result, however, was amazing.  I got a lot of compliments on these cookies.

It will be interesting to see the differences between these and cookies I will make with the creaming method.

Next up in Getting an MS in Baking: Pineapple Upside Down Cake

Expectations

I was not excited about going to volleyball last night, and I wasn't excited about staying up late to make shirts for our team.  I was praying for lightning, thunder, hail, anything so that we didn't have to play the game and could go back to our house sooner, eat, do shirts, and have me in bed by 8:30pm.  Fortunately none of that happened.

It was sprinkling when we started the volleyball game, but the weather stayed calm while we played.  It was chilly- I had to wear jeans, a sweatshirt, and shoes again- but actually a pretty nice night.  And it was my best game ever.  I served over the net about 50% of the time, thanks to a teammate's suggestion that I "serve it to the side like they tell you in elementary school".  I actually had one ace because I think the other team was so stunned my serve actually went over the net that no one went for it.  And I successfully passed a few times.  So much more fun to feel like a part of the team and not helpless dead weight just out there to fill a "girl" spot.

Then we came back for t-shirt time.  We had Target brand self-rising crust frozen pizza (cheap and tasty- highly recommended), green salads from lettuce from the garden, watermelon, an chocolate chip cookies.

No pictures of the whole spread, but these guys will have their own post as Getting My MS in Baking Part 2.

Here's my shirt, decorated by my much more artistically inclined teammate.  BTW- Our team name is My Arms Hurt Real Bad and the group we play with is from our church.  I'm planning to write "ouch" on each sleeve once the puffy paint on the back dries.

There was much "had to be there" hilarity, including our team captain decorating the inside of his shirt with fake abs and chest hair, which he promised he would wear inside out if we ever won a game.  There's nothing like good food and good times with good friends.

Which brings me to a little impromptu New Year's Resolution Review.  Two of my goals were to push myself to try new things and to have more get-togethers.  I'm pretty bad at volleyball, but I'm getting better, and I'm definitely enjoying it in a way I wouldn't have expected.  I know I love hosting others, but sometimes I convince myself it's too much work, no one will come, etc.  Obviously that's not true, and this is another data point that I should do it more often.  The point is, I'm not where I want to be with either of these goals, but I'm realizing more and more why they are important to me.

On that note, I'm off to run my last 6-miler before I do a mini-taper for my 10k on Saturday.

A little preview of upcoming posts I have planned:
1. Tackling phyllo dough and other kitchen adventures.
2. MS in Baking Part 2- Chocolate Chip Cookie #10
3. Bellin Run Race Goals/Recap
4. Marathon training plan/goals/etc      

Getting an MS in Baking- Old School Muffins

Until now I've been BS-ing my way through baking but no more!  I'm taking on a challenge to really learn the science behind baked goods by baking my way through Alton Brown's I'm Just Here for More Food.

The book takes you through the 6 major baking methods, roughly from easiest to the most difficult.  This week I started with the first recipe in the muffin method section, titled appropriately: Old School Muffins (recipe from a non-Alton site).

Honestly, the recipe is one of the least important parts of the project.  The goal is not just to dump some stuff together and call it baking.  The goal is to do things right.

First you have to weigh your dry ingredients- at least the flour.

Then sift all the dry ingredients together.  Brown recommends doing this in the food processor.  I recommend making sure you know all the safety lock features on your food processor before you get to this part so you don't have to pause for 20 minutes while your frustrated husband tries to figure out why the darn thing isn't working.

Then mix together the wet ingredients.

Add bits and pieces to the dry (I chose cinnamon, raisins and walnuts).

And the wet goes into the dry until just incorporated (lumps = okay).

Dish into muffin tins and bake.

Here's how the first batch turned out:

And for the real test, did the crumb of my muffins look like muffin (on the left) vs. cupcake (on the right)?

Answer: I have no idea!  You be the judge:

Daniel said he thought they were very muffin-like and not cupcake like, but he knows enough to flatter me when it comes to baking.

What did I think?  I thought the recipe was very quick and easy even with the added weighing and processing.  I loved dumping the wet into the dry because it kept the mixer from getting sticky, making clean-up quicker.  Not sure that the next recipe will be, but I felt successful with this one, and I'm ready for a new challenge.

Sold!

Reach Feast was fun last night, and I think (hope) it was very successful for the missions it supports.  I was amazed by how many people showed up and what was donated.  You could bid on a weekend storm chasing trip, an hour of skateboarding with the junior pastor, the 2007 and 2008 Holiday Barbies, shooting lessons, life coaching, a ride in a 1960-something race car, clothes, jewelry, art (some of it actually good!), all kinds of gift baskets, and even a wooden canoe someone had made.  We didn't bid on anything or stay to see who won, but it was quite the production.

As far as deserts go, I was able to try a bit of my red velvet cake, but they didn't put out the pineapple upside down cake until after we'd left.  The red velvet cake was good, but it definitely tasted like it had been made two days ago (which it had... I didn't have much choice about that).  I've already promised D that I'll make another for his birthday in June, though, and judging from the comments about the pineapple upside down cake, I'm going to have to make that one again as well.  I didn't try anything else because I just wasn't in a sweets mood, but D tried a few other desserts and said they were all tasty.

Otherwise not too much else is going on.  Work has been very quiet lately... too quiet.  I'm actually starting to crank through some projects that have been lingering in the queue rather than just dealing with things as they are thrown at me.  I think I overheard that the big bosses have something going on this Friday which has kept them occupied.  We have a staff meeting this morning so maybe we'll find out about it then.

Well, I'm off to crank through another tempo run.  I can't believe it's 48 degrees out already and it's supposed to get up to 80 again today.  Hope you all have a great Wednesday!

Let them eat cake

Tonight is Reach Feast (no good link, sorry) at our church, a dessert buffet and silent auction that benefits the church's international missions projects (mainly clean water and village development in Honduras, water and church support in Romania, and medical and AIDS relief in Kenya).  Because we have no $$$ to participate in the silent auction- one of the prizes is- no joke- dinner with one of the players on the Miracle on Ice hockey team and his wife, I did my part by baking a ton of desserts.

There are many great cookbooks and websites devoted to desserts, but you know who else knows how to make a mean cake?  Church ladies.  I used the cookbook from D's church from back when he was growing up in TN, and I can tell you from a few taste tests that the church ladies did not let us down.

Cake in pictures: 
Pineapple upside down cake

Red velvet cake

And what should you do with leftover icing?

Make brownies to go with it!

Fear not, all the deserts are still intact and ready for sampling tonight.

We had a healthy dinner brought to us by D and his mad cornstarch skillz.

Now all of the baked goods have to make it in the car with me to the church to be dropped off (and hopefully not dropped) this morning.

I had a good run yesterday am and am headed to the dungeon gym to lift at 6am so I can get back, shower, get to the church when it opens, and get to work in a timely manner.

Hope you all have a great Tuesday!

Mmmmmm, brownies

Quick post from my while brownies bake in the oven (mmmmmm). We're going to have pizza and play games at some friends' house this evening, and I felt like baking so we could bring something along. The Gator game is on in the background, but I don't get the impression it's going so well.

I did have a good run this morning. I did 9mi with 4x15 min at tempo pace. The tempo parts weren't as fast as I'd have liked them to be, but I felt strong the whole time, and the 9 miles went by really fast. I guess I'd rather have a strong but slow run than a fast but cruddy run (although strong and fast would be the best, obviously).

Good luck to Jess, who is running the San Antonio Rock N Roll Marathon tomorrow!

Boring Monday

I've been dragging my heels on posting today because I don't have anything super exciting to report. I didn't run today, although I did do my weight workout at 6:15am because for some reason I was awake and restless.

The progressive dinner last night was pretty fun. I enjoyed making brownies (another King Arthur recipe but I can't find the exact one online), and the kiddos seemed to have a good time.

Well, that's pretty much the news. Here's hoping I can figure out what's wrong with my program and why it won't run...

Edited to say: It did run with no problems. Weird.

Who am I? Martha Stewart?

Well, I've never been to prison, and my cookies are not perfectly round with the exact same number of raisins and nuts in each one, so I guess I'm not.

But I did make oatmeal raisin cookies today (and zucchini bread last week, remember?). These cookies were much more fun to make than the zucchini bread because I didn't have to wrestle with the food processor. It has that scary blade so it always wins.

Minor victory: I didn't eat any cookie dough. That's the benefit of baking right after lunch.

I had a productive and restful day yesterday, which is a nice combination. And despite Tim Tebow's brain rattling, the Gator game was good. The Badgers won, too, which makes my co-workers and therefor me happy.

No run today, but I did do the laundry, which is a workout in its own right, and a little bit of circuit-type strength training.

It's raining and is supposed to be chilly tomorrow... boooo. Oh well, fall is coming (I guess technically it's here) so I need to prepare myself mentally.

Hope everyone has a great Sunday!

YAY Friday

YAY! It's Friday. Even though this has only been a 3-day work week for me, I'm still happy to be off tomorrow. This morning was 45 min elliptical and weights. I decided to knock out my weights workout before work so I can hang out and listen to the marching band practice this afternoon. They are actually pretty good, and I hear them all the time from my office so it will be fun to actually watch them do their show.

No big plans for the weekend. Chores, errands, garden clean up, watching the Gator game, probably the 5k Sunday, making zucchini bread with our monster zucchini. Anyone doing anything exciting?