Category: Breads

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Morning Glory Muffins

Obviously this picture was taken when I was in my enchanted-with-Instagram-filters-phase, which Insta tells me was October 26th, 2014.

Anyways this is my version of the notorious – at least for a time in probably the 1980s – Morning Glory Muffins. The most delicious versions are fairly high in sugar and fat. There are also lowfat healthier and less-tasty versions.

My version is a compromise.

Makes 12-14 muffins

  • 1/2-3/4 cup raisons – brown or yellow – or use King Arthur fruit cake blend, with yellow raisons, currants, diced pineapple, cranberries, and dates
  • 2 large eggs
  • 1 cup brown sugar
  • 2/3 cup vegetable oil OR 10 tablespoons of melted butter
  • 2 cups grated carrots – I like them peeled before grating
  • 1 large apple, peeled or un-peeled, grated or diced
  • 1/3-1/2 cup nuts – toasted walnuts are very nice
  • 1/2 cup coconut – I prefer sweetened, but unsweetened works
  • 1/2 cup yogurt (vanilla or plain) or buttermilk or a combination, or the non-dairy milk or yogurt of your choice
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 2 teaspoons cinnamon
  • 2 teaspoons vanilla
  • good-sized pinch of Kosher salt
  • 2 cups of unbleached flour OR 1 cup unbleached flour and 1 cup whole wheat flour OR 1 1/2 cups unbleached flour and 1/2 cup wheat germ or bran cereal

Heat the oven to 375° and grease a 12-well muffin tin, or line it with paper liners. You may need an extra custard cup or silcone pan or two.

Optional – Put the raisons into a small heat proof bowl, and pour boiling water over to soften them.

In a large bowl, beat the eggs, and add the sugar and oil.

Add the carrots, apples, nuts, and coconut, and mix.

Stir in the yogurt.

Measure the baking powder and soda and vanilla into the bowl, add the salt, and give it a stir.

Add the flour, and drain the raisins and add them, and fold it all together until there are no dry spots.

Scoop the batter into the prepared pan(s), and bake for about 25-30 minutes until they’re raised and firm.

Eat plain, or with butter or cream cheese and/or honey. These muffins are known as grab & go car food, but I prefer to eat them seated, even at my desk.

Adapted from a recipe written on the back of a notebook I had in library school (1989-1991) that John, aged two or three, scribbled on

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Apricot & White Chocolate Chip Scones

Mark and I split an apricot & white chocolate scone at Colectivo a few Saturdays ago. It was good, but we agreed that we’d have preferred a scone with lots of chopped apricots, like theirs had, but instead of a white frosting that didn’t taste particularly of white chocolate, white chocolate chips IN the scone would be better.

So I made some on Sunday morning.

They’re a little bit like this King Arthur Flour recipe, but less butter and cream cheese, more like my cinnamon scone recipe.

3 cups unbleached flour
1/3 cup sugar
pinch salt
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
4 tablespoons butter (half a stick)
4 oz. cream cheese (half an 8 oz. bar)
1 egg
about 2/3 cup buttermilk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
1 cup dried apricots, chopped
3/4 cup white chocolate chips
a little extra buttermilk for brushing the tops, and coarse or granulated sugar for sprinkling on top

Heat the oven to 400°.

Place the flour, sugar, salt, baking powder and baking soda in the work bowl of a food processor, or your stand mixer, or a mixing bowl. Pulse 2-3 times, or stir a bit, to blend the dry ingredients. Slice the butter and cream cheese into chunks and put them on top of the flour. If using a food processor, pulse; mix with the paddle blade of the mixer; or use a pastry blender to cut the butter & cream cheese into the flour until the mixture looks like coarse meal.

If using a food processor, dump the mixture into a mixing bowl. If using a mixer remove the bowl, and if you’re blending by hand you’re all set. Add the apricots and chocolate chips to the flour mixture, and toss together.

Break the egg into a 1 cup measure with a spout, beat with a fork, and add enough buttermilk milk to make 1 cup. Add the extracts to the egg and buttermilk milk and pour the liquid into the bowl. Mix with a fork, and keep stirring until it clumps, and there are no pockets of dry flour, adding extra buttermilk or water as necessary.

Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface, and knead until you have a homogeneous dough. Divide the dough in half, and flatten each half into a disk. Brush the top of the disks with a little more buttermilk, and sprinkle with sugar. Use a knife to divide each disk into 6 wedges and place on an ungreased baking sheet, and bake until firm and nicely browned – about 20 minutes. You can also make the dough into one bigger disk for 8 larger scones, but I like the small ones.

Originally posted in 2018 – but the picture is from 2012, and the cinnamon scone recipe is from the ’90s – so I’ve obviously been baking scones for a long time

Apricot Scones. It doesn’t look as if these have any white chocolate in them.
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Blueberry Muffins

We had an AFS student from Germany the 2013-14 school year, and her parents and little sister came to pick her up in July. They’ll travel for about 2 weeks in the US before going home. Their last morning here, I made blueberry muffins for breakfast. They asked for the recipe, and it made me realize I have never really done my blueberry muffin recipe. It’s changed over the years influenced by this and this, but usually with butter rather than oil, and cinnamon, and the crumbcake method, of cutting the butter in first, a little richer than my “everyday” muffins.

And now, 10 years later (January 2024) I tried out a whole wheat version that is proving quite popular.

Ingredients:

  • 2 1/2 cups of flour
  • 1 cup granulated sugar
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 2 tsp. baking powder
  • 1 tsp. cinnamon
  • 1 stick, 8 TBLS, 4 oz. butter
  • 1 egg
  • 1 cup 2% milk
  • 2 cups blueberries, fresh or UN-thawed frozen (1 pint basket)

Heat the oven to 375°. Grease the wells of a 12-well muffin tin, or line with paper liners. Measure the flour, sugar, salt, baking powder, and cinnamon into a large mixing bowl – or the bowl of your stand mixer. Slice in the butter. Cut the butter into the flour mixture, with the paddle attachment of your mixer, or a pastry blender, or your fingers, until you have what looks like coarse meal. Remove 12 TBLS about 8 TBLS – half a cup – of the crumbs and set aside for topping. Make a well in the center for the dry ingredients, and break in the egg, and our in the milk. If you were using the mixer before, do this part by hand with a rubber (silicone, really, probably) spatula. When all the dry goods are wetted down, add the blueberries, and mix gently just till everything is combined. Scoop the batter into the muffin tin, dividing evenly (A muffin scoop is great for this). Top each muffin with a sprinkle of the reserved crumbs. Bake 15 – 20 minutes until raised, firm and lightly browned.

Originally published June 2014 – edited Feb. 2019

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Black bread a la deb & Deb

This recipe was formed by the merger of a Smitten Kitchen recipe, and Pumpkin Rye Bread Angerer, submitted to the November 1990 issue of Gourmet magazine by Robert C. Angerer, of Rochester, NY.

Makes 2 loaves

The sponge:
1 cup warm water (105 to 115 degrees)
Pinch of sugar
5 teaspoons (2 packages) active dry yeast
1 cup unbleached white flour

The flavoring:
1 cup water
1/4 cup minced onion
2 teaspoons caraway seeds
1 teaspoon fennel seeds
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, sliced
1 tablespoon salt
1/4 cup molasses
1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
2 TBLS dark brown sugar
2 teaspoons instant espresso powder
1/4 cup cocoa powder

The bread:
1 cup pumpkin (or winter squash) purée
2 cups whole-wheat flour
3 cups medium rye flour
2 -3 cups unbleached, all-purpose or bread flour

a handful of cornmeal, or parchment paper
egg wash – 1 egg beaten with a bit of water
2 tablespoons Charnushka or caraway or poppy seeds

To make the sponge, measure the water into the bowl of your stand mixer (or a big bread mixing bowl) and add the sugar. Sprinkle the yeast over , mix and then let stand a few minutes till foamy. (if the yeast doesn’t foam, start over with new yeast!) Add the flour, and whisk to a smooth batter. Cover with a plate or a lid, and set aside to rise for 40 minutes to an hour depending on how warm your kitchen is, until the mixture has lots of big bubbles – like a sponge!

For the flavoring mix – Combine the minced onion and water in a small saucepan, stir in the caraway and fennel seeds, and bring to a boil over medium heat. Boil for one minute. Remove the pot from the heat and stir in the butter, salt, molasses, apple cider vinegar, and dark brown sugar. Measure the espresso power and cocoa into a smallish container (Like the spouted glass measuring cup you’ve been using for the other liquids) and stir spoonfuls of the liquid from the saucepan into them, to make a smooth paste. Scrape the paste back into the saucepan, and set aside to cool.

To make the bread dough, add the flavoring mix and the pumpkin puree to the sponge. Add the whole wheat and rye flours, and 1 cup of the white. Mix with the paddle attachment, adding enough of the remaining flour to make a firm but sticky dough. It might not clear the sides of the bowl at this point, but it should when you continue to knead, as follows. Switch to the dough hook if you like (I usually use the paddle), and knead/mix on medium speed for three minutes. The dough should clear the bowl, but it’ll still be sticky because of the rye flour.

Turn the dough out onto a floured surface and knead it into a smooth ball. Put it back in the mixing bowl (most recipes say to grease the bowl; I usually omit this step, not liking to deal with a greasy dough ball – but do what you like), cover with a damp towel, plastic wrap or a lid, and let rise until doubled – 1 1/2 to 2 hours, depending on how warm your kitchen is. Turn the dough out onto that floured surface, deflate, and divide it in half. Shape each half into a ball, and place on cornmeal-sprinkled or parchment-lined baking sheets. Brush the tops with the egg, sprinkle with the decorating seeds, and brush again to seal the seeds on. Cover with a damp towel or plastic wrap and let rise until puffy – probably not quite  doubled, but bigger – 40 minutes to 1 hour. During the last 15 minutes of rising, heat the oven to 350°s. Bake for 45 – 60 minutes until well-browned – checking frequently, since oven temperatures do vary. My favorite doneness test for bread is to turn the loaf over and see if you can hold two fingers against the bottom for a few seconds – if it’s not done, it will be too hot from steam coming out of the wet middle of the loaf for you to touch it – put it back in the oven for a few more minutes.

Eat sliced thin spread with salted butter – or cut thicker and toasted with butter and jam – or topped with slices of cheese – or plain!

Originally published between 2010-2016

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