April 6, 2009 - Quickbreads, muffins, scones, cornbread, biscuits

My wish came true...we are off of soup this week! Dinner this evening was roasted eggplant sandwiches with the most delicious tomato chutney. I need to remind myself to get the recipe for that one.  This week we are learning about chemical leaveners (baking powder and baking soda), which react in quickbreads immediately, making the bubbles in the product bigger. These mixes have to be prepared quickly and go into the oven right away for best results. Yes....we do more than eat beautiful pastries here, we learn about the chemistry too. 

My assignments were a basic scone with dried fruit and streusel-topped raspberry muffins. We were using two different scone recipes and one ended up being vastly superior to the other. Sadly, I had the inferior one, so I didn't love my scones. In scones, you look for a flakey texture, but this recipe was much denser and very bready. And I swear it wasn't just me....everyone's came out this way! The muffins were much better, though I didn't love the tartness of the raspberries in a muffin. I am a classic blueberry muffin gal all the way.  There were some blueberry muffins which were amazing, along with some other scone varieties, and few savory products such as feta, roasted pepper, and basil muffins and corn sticks (like corn bread, but in a stick form, with jalapenos, roasted peppers).

Once again, everyone finished in time. We actually finished so much on time, that we were all assigned the first grouping of recipes from the next class -- biscuits.  Everyone picked a biscuit and we went to work. The basic buttermilk milk biscuit will always be my favorite. It's only been two weeks in class but I'm learning that I definitely have an appreciation for simple classics. When given the choice between a buttermilk biscuit or a cheddar and dill biscuit, I went straight for the buttermilk. With 13 students making 3 recipes each, you can imagine what a bread filled kitchen we had by the end of the night. For those of you wonder what happens to all of this food, we:

1. Taste everything
2. Create to-go bags of items we each would like to take home/to work
3. Box the rest up for pick-up by Food Runners to deliver to shelters and neighborhood programs for the hungry (www.foodrunners.org) 

And finally, to mix it up a little, I think I'll go with something savory today....

The Delicious Recipe of the Day: Feta, Roasted Pepper and Basil Muffins

(From The Art and Soul of Baking by Cindy Mushet)

• 10 oz all purpose flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 3 oz feta, crumbled
• 4 oz finely roasted red pepper, patted dry and diced 1/4"
• 3 Tbsp basil, finely chopped
• 8 oz (1 cup) buttermilk
• 2 oz (1/4 cup) olive oil
• 1 egg

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Lightly coat muffin tin with butter or pan spray. Whisk flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt in large mixing bowl and set aside. In another bowl, stir together feta, roasted red pepper and basil and set aside.

Whisk together buttermilk, olive oil and egg until well blended. Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients, pour buttermilk mixture into well, and stir gently with a rubber spatula. mix only until there are no more streaks of flour or pools of liquid and batter looks fairly smooth. A few small lumps are fine. Gently fold in the feta mixture  until evenly distributed. 

Using a large scoop, evenly divide the batter among muffin cups. Bake 18-20 minutes, until tops feel firm and skewer inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 5 minutes, then run a thin spatula around each muffin to release.