English Muffins

I love English muffins, and all sorts of breakfast toast things. I found a recipe on the internet, and got obsessed with the idea. I was intimidated by the idea of getting special crumpet rings, what if it didn't work. And then I stumbled on someone's suggestion online of using the rings for canning jam. Easy to find, easy to do something else with if you don't like making English muffins or crumpets (crumpets are also on my list of things to figure out making.)

I mixed up the dough, and then let it sit out to rise and did other things around the kitchen, like dishes. Like pancakes, do one first, to make sure the frying pan is the right temperature. Lightly grease the frying pan and pour cornmeal all over the place. (I used polenta, because that is all I had. It works fine.) Place the jar rings in the pot, and scoop batter in. The batter is very glutenous, stringy and stuck together. I put about one ice cream scoop worth of stuff inside.

If you have the rings greased well enough, when you flip the muffins, the rings will come off in your tongs. That's fine; you can be done with the rings. They should be cooked with a lid over the frying pan, to keep the heat in. When they're well cooked, put them in the oven, to ensure that they're cooked all the way through.

 

 Serve them warm. Split with a fork. Slather with butter, with jam, or experiment with Biscoff Spread. (Biscoff Spread is totally weird and delicious, it tastes like a cookie spread over your English muffin.) Mine were a little denser than store bought, and they didn't have quite as many holes, but they were still delicious.

English Muffins

Adapted from Alton Brown

makes 10-12 English muffins

Ingredients 1
1 Tbsp sugar
1 Tbsp butter
1 tsp salt
1/2 c milk
1/2 c water

Ingredients 2
1 envelope of yeast (or 1 1/2 tsp, if you're like me and don't buy yeast in packets)
1/8 tsp sugar
1/3 c warm water

Ingredients 3
2 c flour


Microwave the water, milk, and butter for Ingredients 1. Add sugar and salt, stir until dissolved. Let cool. Meanwhile, mix together Ingredients 2, stir until the yeast is dissolved. Mix 1 and 2 together, and add flour.

Let rise at least 30 minutes.

While frying pan is preheating, grease jar lids.

Grease the frying pan, pour on corn meal. Put down the jar lids, with the flat part on top, like the top of the jar. Pour put the batter into rings, using an ice cream scoop. Cover frying pan with lid, and cook five minutes. Pick up the rings with tongs to flip, if the ring comes up, use a spatula to flip like a pancake. Cover, cook another five minutes. When the outside looks thoroughly cooked, take out of frying pan and put in oven at 300.

Lemon Lavender Curd

I am on a lemon curd kick. I bought a jar of it at Trader Joe's a few months ago for the first time in ages and I have been obsessed with it ever since. I mix it into Greek yogurt and calling it breakfast. It tastes like dessert. It is better than jam, tart and sweet and blending in so perfectly. Also, I became obsessed with the idea of mixing it with meringues, in some form. I wasn't remotely sure what that form was going to be. (In the end, it was macarons, which I will post about later.)

There are recipes that involve a candy thermometer, and recipes that use corn starch. This one does neither; the temperature is eyeballed and guessed at, and eggs do all the thickening. They are cooked eggs. (I hate working with cornstarch, and I avoid it as much as possible.)


I try to buy organic citrus if I'm using zest, and fortunately Trader Joe's had dirt cheap bags of organic lemons. I wash them off, too, before zesting. It's taken me a while to figure out how to make citrus curd that isn't painfully sour. I like sour, and it took me a while. I think my new microplane helps. It makes zesting so easy. I used four lemons, and most of the zest for all of them. Because I have 1/4 pound of culinary lavender buds (seriously. I ordered online and didn't really realize how much that was going to wind up being until it showed up) I decided to throw of those in as well. One of the wonderful things about making lemon curd is that it doesn't matter what is in there, so you juice the lemons straight in and don't worry about seeds. Or lavender flowers. You strain it all in the end. (This is the other trick that Ina Garten didn't teach me.)


Cook this all up until it bubbles a little. It doesn't take long, it's not that much lemon juice. While it's cooking, crack your eggs, and whisk in sugar. When it bubbles, slowly pour the hot lemon juice into the eggs, whisking the whole time. This takes two hands. Adding the hot lemon juice too quickly will just get you strings of scrambled eggs. The eggs need to cook slowly. Once it has all been whisked together, pour it back in the pot.


Stir constantly, using a heat proof rubber spatula. When it's mostly thickened up, add cubes of cold butter. Don't stop stirring. Never stop stirring. When it's ready, the curd will stick to the spatula.


Pour the curd through a mesh strainer into your prepared bowl. A strainer + cheese cloth is unneccessary, and it's almost impossible to get the curd through both. (Believe me, I have tried.) I am impatient, and I push the curd through, leaving behind long pieces of lemon zest, lemon seeds, and lavender flowers. This is the other trick to keeping the curd from going too crazy.



Let it cool some, and the pour it into a jar. I have no idea how long it stays good. Mine always disappears into stomachs long before it turns.

Lemon Lavender Curd

Ingredients
1/2 c lemon juice
zest from all the lemons
1/2 c sugar
3 eggs
1/4 c culinary lavender blossoms
6 T butter, cubed
pinch of salt (optional)

Zest the lemons and mix with lavender blossoms, juice and pinch of salt. Cook on medium low temperature until bubbling.

Meanwhile, whisk together the eggs and sugar.

Slowly pour the hot lemon juice into the egg mixture, whisking constantly.

Return everything to the pot. Stir with rubber spatula. Add cubes of butter.

When mixture sticks to the back of the plastic, it is done. Pour it through a mesh strainer. Let cool at room temperature. Put in jars, and refrigerate.

Biscuits for Breakfast

Food first thing in the morning usually turns my stomach. I usually pack yogurt with my lunch intending to eat it for breakfast, and then I eat it as a midafternoon snack. But on Sundays, I wake up and I want toast. I have been known to bake loaves of bread in desperation if I don't have any bread or reasonable bread facsimiles about (crumpets, English muffins, Trader Joe's frozen naan), but that tends to a lot of time. But biscuits are a perfect blend of speed and toast.


I got the recipe from my sister, and I think she got it from our stepgrandmother. I have been known to fail at biscuits and make things that turn out more like crackers than biscuits, tasty, but not light and flaky. The trick is to not overmix, and the trick to not overmixing is to be fairly sure that you are undermixing. Also, the food processor. Mixing the ingredients in the food processor is fantastic. I think part of the trick is to keep the butter away from your fingers as much as possible, it should do all the melting in the oven.
I never keep buttermilk in the house. I've only ever used it for biscuits, and I don't make them that often, so if I need it, I mix acid with milk. The trick is to add one tablespoon of acid (lemon juice or vinegar) to the bottom of your cup measure, and then fill it with milk. Let it sit for five minutes, and you have a fantastic buttermilk substitute. I usually use lemon juice, since I also tend to not keep white vinegar in the house. I tried once with balsamic vinegar, and you could taste it in the finished biscuits, totally disappointing with the cheddar cheese biscuits I was shooting for. While the milk is setting, pulse the dry ingredients to mix them in the food processor, set the oven to preheat, and cut the butter in cubes. Use cold butter, fresh out of the refrigerator, or even better out of the freezer.

Add the butter and the buttermilk to the dry ingredients and pulse only until it all holds together. Because, remember, the trick is to mix as little as possible. Dump out the mix onto a floured surface, and knead quickly (less than 30 seconds). Roll (or pat) to 1/2 to 3/4 of an inch thick.

After cutting up and putting them on a baking tray, butter the tops before baking. While the biscuits are in the oven, put the kettle on for tea, and do the dishes to keep your roommates happy. Remove from oven when golden brown.

Short Instructions

Yes, I did write out long detailed instrcutions, but I tend to write things up short instructions, especially for things I've cooked multiple times, that are more like guidelines. My notes look like this, and slightly more written out instructions are at the bottom.

Buttermilk Biscuits

This makes about ten 2 inch biscuits. For egg sandwiches, I would recommend making fewer, larger, biscuits.

Ingredients
2 c flour (sifted)
3 t b.powder
1/2 t salt
1/2 t b.soda
5 T cold butter, cubed
1 c buttermilk

Directions
Preheat oven to 450.

Mix dry ingredients. Pulse in butter cubes and buttermilk. Mix just until blended. Dump out on floured surface, and knead 30 seconds. Roll or pat to 1/2 - 3/4 inch thick. Cut up, and put on baking sheet. Place a small slice of cold butter (or butter with soft butter) on the each biscuit. Bake 12-15 minutes until golden brown.

Serve hot, with butter. Any other toppings, jam, honey, lemon curd, or nutella, as you wish. I tend towards straight up butter.