Currently cooking out of Whole Grains Every Day, Every Way by Lorna Sass.
See those sad little hockey pucks? Those are my second attempt at Sass’ cornmeal biscuits using the modified recipe I found on her website. Alas, they weren’t much better than my first try.
Flat as the biscuits were, they were pretty tasty slathered with butter and raspberry jam. Still, I think I’ll hang up my cornmeal biscuit apron and move onto other things.
Chocolate things.
Currently cooking out of Whole Grains Every Day, Every Way by Lorna Sass.
Look at those muffin liners! They are called tulip muffin papers, and I love them. I need to open my bakery just so I can bake everything in them. Sadly, those muffin liners were the best part of this recipe.
The muffins weren’t bad. They were just kinda tasteless. They had a really nice texture and were dense and moist, but they were sadly lacking in the lemon flavor. And the sugar. My major beef about this recipe is the amount of sugar that is called for. Sass says to use 1/2 to 2/3 c of packed light brown sugar, to taste.
WTF?
To taste? How do I know how they are going to taste if I haven’t baked them yet? And once I bake them, it’s a little late to be adding more sugar. Deciding to error on the less sweet side, I used 1/2 c of sugar, and it wasn’t nearly enough.
Yet, I liked the texture enough that I’m going to play with this recipe. I’m going to cut down on the buttermilk and increase the amount of lemon juice. I’ll probably increase the sugar to at least 3/4 c. I also think a light lemon glaze would help up the lemonyness.
Stay tuned . . .
Note: I bought the tulip muffin papers from kingarthurflour.com. A simple google search revealed several more places that you can buy them at, including Amazon.
Currently cooking out of Whole Grains Every Day, Every Way by Lorna Sass.
I’ll never make a good southern gal. I can’t make biscuits to save my life, which is a shame, because they are easy, delicious and make a great side to just about every meal. And with some jam or jelly, they can double as dessert.
But, alas, my biscuits tend to fall flat. Or tough. Or tasteless. You get the idea, I’m sure.
My problems with this recipe started as soon as I added the wet (buttermilk and an egg) to the dry ingredients (cornmeal, spelt flour and leavening). According to the recipe, I was to mix the wet and dry, then turn it out onto the counter and knead the dough until it was smooth. Hah! This was no dough; this was muffin batter. There was no way I was going to be able to knead it, because it was just too wet, so I settled for patting it into a circle. I was able to cut out the biscuits with a biscuit cutter and get them transferred to my cookie sheet with only minimal distortion. I plopped them in the oven and waited, not really expecting much.
Well, ten minutes later I had round pucks. They didn’t rise like traditional biscuits, but they didn’t spread out nearly as much as I thought they would. I decided to serve them anyway with the soup I had made (Bryan, bless his heart, will try anything. Once.).
The biscuits weren’t bad, once we split them open and slathered on the butter. They tasted like cornbread (the southern kind, not the sweet, cakey northern kind). I thought they needed more salt, more sugar, more flavor. But adding some jam really helped. To be fair, Sass recommends serving these with sage butter.
I don’t know if I’ll try this recipe again. I’m confused why my dough was so different from Sass’. I don’t think I measured wrong. If I do, though, I’ll increase the salt and sugar maybe add some other herbs.
Are you wondering why there aren’t any pictures? I’m finding out that photographing grains is hard. Most things just look gray or brown and these biscuits were no different. Sass says they are a pale yellow and her picture shows a tall, pale yellow biscuit. Mine were dingy gray from the spelt flour.
Note: After a little internet research, I discovered Sass’ website which, coincidentally, had the recipe for these biscuits. On her website, she says to add 1/3 cup of buttermilk first, and then add more if needed. The book calls for 1 cup. Armed with that knowledge, I might give these another try this week.
Currently baking from The Art & Soul of Baking by Cindy Mushet.
My father hates nuts, especially walnuts and pecans. If I’m baking something that has nuts in it, I usually try to leave a corner nut-free, just for him. Unfortunately, that’s not possible with this bread, so I don’t think he’d touch it with a ten-foot pole. That’s okay; it leaves more for the rest of us.
Mushet promises that this quick bread is quick and easy, and it was. Two bowls and a spatula later, I had the batter in the oven. I didn’t even have to break out the heavy machinery (the stand mixer). The bread baked up nicely, though I did have to tent it for the last 10 or so minutes of baking because the top was getting awfully dark.
Once the bread had cooled down slightly, we cut into it. It was pretty tasty, slightly warm and slathered with butter. I imagine a slice of this would be good toasted. Unfortunately, I won’t be able to test that for you. The bread was so good that we ended up dumping it in the trash. Otherwise, we would have eaten the entire loaf by ourselves. And that’s not good.
My only complaint is that the pumpkin flavor wasn’t very strong. In fact, if I hadn’t known I was eating pumpkin, I might have thought it was a banana bread. That won’t stop me from making this recipe the next time I have some leftover pumpkin, though. I just need to make sure I have people close by who can help me eat it.