Tag Archives: baking

Do you know The Muffin, Man?

Perfect Muffin,
I’ve been hunting for you. I’ve been dropping serious dime in cafés everywhere to find out where you are. What makes you so dangerously irresistible? I’ve been asking around, and I’ve been tipped off by professionals in your kind of business. I’m on to you, Muffin. I’m on to you. I finally know what makes you tick. And I’m about to expose you for the greater good of all muffin lovers everywhere. Consider yourself found.
~ Gal Foodie

For years, the perfect muffin has eluded me. I don’t consider myself a prolific baker. I tend to shoot from the hip when I’m in the kitchen, and baking is so, well, safe. But to be able to wake the house up on Sunday morning with the smell of perfectly moist, fresh baked muffins? I’ll risk playing it safe. Sort of.

I have used mixes. I have used recipes from Joy of Cooking, Fannie Farmer, Stonewall Kitchen, the Internet… the list goes on. I had yet to make a muffin that wasn’t flat on top, with the consistency and taste of dry cardboard. And then my friend Jean Kerr gave me a copy of her cookbook Windjammer Cooking: Great Recipes from Maine’s Windjammer Fleet, and after I was done deftly identifying all the schooners I had sailed or worked on in my “former life,” I discovered the recipe on page 82 for Orange-Chocolate Muffins.

I didn’t make them.
But the recipe intrigued me because unlike other recipes, it required very little butter, the liquid was orange juice, not milk, and it had very few other ingredients. It also didn’t have “penalty of death” warnings of over-mixing, although I will tell you that through trial and error, over-mixing muffin batter usually does result in lead-like muffins that are better suited for Tom Brady-style practice throws off my deck.

I decided to use this muffin recipe as my baseline, and started switching things up, experimenting with different liquids and measures and ingredients. I shared an almost perfect batch of the modified muffin with Jean and the cookbook’s co-author, Spencer Smith, and both gave it a resounding “Delicious!” But I wasn’t done. It still wasn’t right.

Batches later… Victory was mine. I captured the Perfect Muffin.

Strawberry Banana Peach Muffins
Makes 5-6 Jumbo Muffins

2 cups Flour
1/2 cup Sugar
1 tbsp Baking Powder
1/2 tsp Salt
2 Eggs, beaten
1/2 – 3/4 cups Peach Juice
3 tbsp Melted Butter
1 tsp Vanilla
1 Very Ripe Banana, mashed
2 cups Sliced Fresh Strawberries
Sugar In The Raw for sprinkled topping

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 400. Lightly grease a jumbo muffin tin – I use jumbo muffin cup liners to make it easier to clean.

2. Combine all dry ingredients in a large bowl, making sure to mix well.

3. In a separate bowl, mix together all wet ingredients, including the banana.

4. Combine all ingredients in the large bowl, add strawberries, and hand mix until just combined. The batter should be wet but not runny. If it seems too dry, add touches of juice until it is mixable. Do not over mix unless you want to practice your football passes later.

5. Fill muffin cups completely to the top. This will result in a nice round top. Sprinkle with raw sugar.

6. Bake for about 30 minutes, or until centers are firm to the touch, and tops are just beginning to brown. I have found that this particular recipe yields about 5 jumbo muffins. Smaller muffin cups can be used, just reduce the cooking time, but still fill cups to the top edge for a full muffin experience.

Variations on a Theme:
I have used 1 cup of fresh chopped cranberries with orange juice – just add a little extra juice to accommodate for the missing moisture the banana would provide – or add a banana! I have also used 2 cups of Maine blueberries. I added them frozen right to the batter. I used milk but preferred using orange juice. Banana nut? Carrot raisin? What’s your poison? The key is making sure the batter has enough liquid, but isn’t runny.

Light, moist, sweet deliciousness is all mine.
Now that the hunt is over, I plan to sleep in next weekend.
~ Gal Foodie

P.S. There’s still time to enter the Dishin’ Up Love Recipe Contest!

P.S.S – Still need a sweet treat for Valentine’s Day? Check out last year’s blog post For the Love of Cheesecake.

Happy Birthday! Love, New Zealand

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What I love about old family recipes is that there is usually a story. Over time, the story inevitably gets diluted. The handwriting gets smudged, the facts get a little flour on them, the names become a mystery. But the story always ends the same. “This is a food I know.” And with time-traveling delight, these are the recipes that keep our traditions strong, and the tale of the person who made it before us, tangible. In my family history book, there is a cake. And you can be sure there is a story.

My Grandmother, Marjorie Cattley, 1940

New Zealand is a far away, mythical place for most of us. For my Grandmother, it was home the first few years of her life. While I don’t know the whole story, I know the parts that have helped me understand who I am and where I get my strength and independence. It is the story of Great-Grandmother Lucretia Cattley, who alone, in 1919, packed up her 4 children and a few keepsakes, and crossed a giant sea from New Plymouth, New Zealand, to a small town called Melrose, in the State of Massachusetts. Without a husband to speak for her, she convinced a local bank to lend her enough money to buy a house. With a meager income from odd jobs, she made payments of 50 cents a week to the man at the bank, and alone, she paid for that house, and in it, she raised her 3 daughters, Amy, Eleanor, and Marjorie and her son, Henry.

I love that story.

Surviving the adventure across the sea is a recipe for New Zealand Birthday Cake. My Grandmother’s handwriting on an otherwise neatly typed card in her recipe box states that this is her Grandmother’s recipe. How many women in my family wrote that recipe down, or recited it in a kitchen far away to be made on someone’s special day? That’s a lot of years in one cake pan. At least five generations of my family, and nary a birthday has been celebrated without it.

Happy Birthday to us! November 27th, 2004

My beloved Grandmother is gone now, but for 32 years she and I shared a birthday. Every year she made the two of us the New Zealand Birthday Cake, and never once, did she forget to tell me where it came from. Everything, including the recipe, had been committed to memory, and the most important task in making the cake was telling the story. Last night, for my father’s 63^rd birthday, my sister made the cake and the story was shared again. And all of those women were sitting with us for a slice.

There are no directions on this recipe card, save a scribble from my Grandmother that tells me to cream the first 3 ingredients together, and that 3/4lb of something equals 1 1/2 cups. I have always used my Grandmother’s 9×13” pan. The comment from my Mother is that this is one of the driest cakes she’s ever had the “pleasure” of eating. At the risk of altering the story, I am experimenting with cooking times – thinking that if I increase the temperature and significantly reduce the time in the oven, it may not be so “pleasurably” dry. No matter what, this story always ends with gobs of plain white frosting and homemade vanilla ice cream.

Grandma Cattley’s New Zealand Birthday Cake

¾ lb butter or shortening (1 ½ cups)
¾ lb sugar
4 eggs
4 cups sifted flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp lemon juice
1 tsp mace
1 tsp salt
¾ cup milk
1 jar of citron and ½ cup nut meats
Bake at 340 degrees for 1 ½ to 2 hours.

Find your recipes and share their stories.
Happy Birthday, Dad!

Love, Gal Foodie

Gal, Interrupted.

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I’ve been away awhile. Well, I’ve actually been right here all along, but just this morning I’ve been trying to figure out how to explain to you the analogy between life and running a restaurant. How they are so frighteningly similar, that I wonder why I ever bothered with a restaurant at all, when I already had a life.

Every day is defined by who walks through the door, both in and out. The people who run the place and the people who are just passing through looking for a little comfort, and a little sustenance. Someone quits and there’s a scramble to make up for the lost set of hands, and sometimes something you need doesn’t show up, but something else arrives in it’s place, and you make do with what you have because that’s the best you can do on short notice. Sometimes it’s a perfect night, and sometimes the morning comes way too early. You put your whole heart into it. And then something important breaks and you have to let it all go until you can figure out what it’s going to take to fix it. You stand up, you show up, and you go to your station and begin again every day, because there are expectations to be met and things that need doing.

You just do.
And that is where I have been.
I couldn’t have guessed that I would have had the life or the experiences that I’ve had in my short 36 years, and I couldn’t have seen the life I would be living these last few months for all the tea in China. But it happens, life. And restaurant or not, there’s always someone coming, or going. And there’s always something to do. And plenty to write about.

To begin at the beginning would be a story far too long for a blog post, but to begin at the end, well that’s something I can wrap my head around, because it’s as fresh as today’s bread, and all the stuff between then and now has caused me to take a lot of notes. So here’s what happened next…

I moved and it started to rain. It rained so much that Summer barely had a chance to get here before the Fall. And in the torrents, the love of my life left for greener grass. Even coated in fresh paint, my new kitchen was too dark and depressing to feel good in. I ate by myself, and I cursed the rain. And then I decided that there was too much to be missed, rain be damned, and I ventured out into my new food world and instead of cooking, I met the people who cook. I visited restaurants and started asking questions. I was asked to be a judge for the State BBQ competition, and in so doing, met a wonderful group of very accomplished chefs and restaurant owners who opened more doors. (Not to mention I learned that oysters and BBQ sauce don’t mix) I became the co-host of a radio show about food with a gal I had imagined would be a soul mate if only I could meet her. I ate fried olives and fluke ceviche with yuzu ver jus, pickled fresno chili, and sea beans and wondered where they had been all my life. Kitchens were bustling in my presence and tables were filling up. And Gal Foodie was getting her gazpacho back.

And then a phone rang with the horror – a child had been killed in a terrible car accident, and my world screeched sideways all the way back to my beloved Mount Desert Island. The only thing I knew how to do to make it all better was to cook. And cook, and cook. Until everyone at least had a decent meal in their stomachs even if their hearts were bleeding out of their chests. It was that same child that I had fed in my old kitchen for so many years whom I had already said goodbye to a few months earlier. Goodbye to my island, the life I’d built, my sweetest love – No – this eclipsed any farewell I’d ever known. I kissed the tops of their heads and fed their souls but the child was gone, the kitchen was gone. No amount of food could fill that hole. With all the heartache-encrusted strength I could muster, I headed once again from the old to the new, determined to find the recipe for moving on.

I made cheese for the challenge of it. I spent time on the Eastern Shore of Maryland and made crab cakes with the real thing and drank cheap beer at a place called Lucky’s Last Chance. A cookbook idea led to fairgrounds across the Northeast, where I consumed foods with names like the Craz-E-Burger. Despite the implied calorie count (who was counting?) there was a story there and so I grabbed for extra napkins and I kept eating. As a judge at the local chili festival, I met even more people who cooked, and people who published magazines about it. I learned how to make bean hole baked beans for 1,000 people, and roast an ox on a spit. I was recognized in public. And I finally started cooking in my new kitchen.

There is no recipe for this. There is no one way it can go. Sometimes you get lucky. You keep trying new things, testing new ingredients and hoping it turns out OK. And you don’t always get to decide who stays and who goes. You can only trust yourself to keep showing up and doing what needs to be done – the rest is left to Chance.

Life is so short,

~ Gal Foodie

Irish Soda Bread is Good for You.

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It’s one of my favorite food-oriented events, St. Patrick’s Day. It’s also a “holiday” that makes me laugh at my own country, because only us Americans celebrate it with a fervor not seen since the Gladiators entertained Rome. It’s our big excuse to leave work early and show back up the next day with a story about playing pool with a deaf man in zooba pants and a raging hangover (well, I guess St. Patrick’s Day has stiff competition with Cinco de Mayo). And of course, everybody is Irish on St. Patrick’s Day.

I’ll admit it. I’ve had my share of pub crawling on this very day – dodging work, wearing green and sporting a button or two declaring my desire to be kissed based on my heritage. I am, in fact, quite a bit Irish. My red hair, freckles, pale skin and name are the first giveaway – and a black and white photo of Nana Murphy on the lap of my Great Grandparents, fresh off the boat from Roche’s Point, has led me back to County Cork once already in my lifetime.

Alas, lassie, since we’re all a little Irish today it would only be fitting to drink a little Guinness and bake a little Irish Soda Bread. This is one of my favorite family recipes. I got it from my cousin Molly, who got it from her mother, Sara, who got it from her Grandmother somewhere in between County Cork, Ireland and Boston, Massachusetts. I’ve modified it slightly to be a little healthier and heartier (at this I give you the mischievous look of a leprechaun who just told you a tricky limerick). And suggest it be eaten warm, and completely saturated with sweet cream butter.

Murphy Family Irish Soda Bread

5 tbsp unsalted butter
3 cups whole wheat flour
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 tbsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
3/4 cups sugar
1 cup dried currants
1 3/4 cups buttermilk (No buttermilk on hand? See my cool sub below)
2 eggs, well beaten
1 tbsp caraway seeds

Directions
1. Smear 1 tbsp butter evenly in a 10″ cast-iron skillet. Line the buttered skillet with wax paper. (The skillet is pretty important here, but a round baking pan will work)

2. Sift dry ingredients together. Add currants to dry ingredients and toss well to coat.

3. Melt 2 tbsp of butter and whisk together with buttermilk and eggs. Add to the dry ingredients, along with the caraway seeds, and mix just until blended, being careful not to over mix.

4. Spoon batter into the skillet and dot the top with remaining 2 tbsp. of butter. Mmmmm. Butter.

5. Bake at 350 for about 60 minutes until golden brown. Cool slightly before removing from skillet and cooling completely on a rack. Or, cut it into wedges and serve it warm. With lots and lots of butter.

Buttermilk Substitute: Instead of using real buttermilk, which can be hard to find, and harder to use up if you don’t need much, try this: Add 1 tbsp of white vinegar or lemon juice to a cup of milk and let it stand for 5 minutes. I used this trick with skim milk for my bread today and it worked great. You’d never know the difference! (Although I wouldn’t dare you to drink it straight!)

I needed to speed this recipe up today to expedite to the eating part, so I threw the wet ingredients into my KitchenAid Professional 600 Series 6-Quart Stand Mixer and whisked them well, then changed to the paddle and tossed in all the dry ingredients, starting with the flour. I mixed on medium speed until just combined and then spooned it into the prepared skillet. It came out just as good as it always does, but I could sense my Grandmother rolling over in her grave because I didn’t sift…

Today, may the road rise to meet you feet first. And for the sake of tomorrow, stick to overindulging in the soda bread. It’s good for you.

~ Gal “Ali” Foodie

Another Foodie Joins the Blogosphere…

Gal Foodie®

Life Is Short! Eat Well!