Sweet Potato Pecan Muffins, and other adventures in baking.

So I posted on Twitter/Facebook the other day that I was making Sweet Potato - Pecan muffins. And suddenly (ok, maybe it took a few hours) I had a flurry (ok, it was two) requests for the recipe. Hey, that's a lot of feedback for me, so excuse me if I got excited. I'm easily excited.

Anyway, the recipe is from my The Joy of Cooking cookbook, which I (and by I, I mean we, GeekDad and I) got for our wedding from our friends Dan and Gail. Actually, they're really friends via the in-laws, but regardless, they are great people. Plus they helped out tons with the wedding, so we would owe them big time, even if they hadn't given me (us) an awesome cookbook. Which it is. The Joy of Cooking is like a how-to guide for almost anything you can imagine. Want step-by-step instructions on making pickles? How to plan a backpacking menu? Brine meat? It's all in there and then some, man.



Anyway, I've been drooling over this cookbook for awhile, but this is the first recipe I've made. And it was all I hoped it would be.

So it starts with a basic muffin recipe. I don't know if the people at Joy of Cooking will care that I am posting their recipe (modified by me). If they do, I figure they can let me know, and I'll take it down. So here goes.

Whisk in one bowl:
2 c. flour
1 tbsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
*1/3 c.sugar (I used white sugar here)
*1 tsp. cinnamon
*1 tsp. ginger

*These are the alterations to the basic recipe, which called for 1/4 tsp. nutmeg. I switched out ground ginger for the nutmeg and increased the amount, but my ginger wasn't very fresh, so it wasn't as prominent as I'd hoped. I think I need fresher ginger for my next batch.

In another smaller bowl, whisk together:
1 c. milk (or cream if you don't care about muffin hips)
2 large eggs
2/3 c. sugar (I used demerara here)
1/3 c. canola oil (You can use whatever oil or butter here, up to half a cup. The cookbook suggests that is you are making them to last more than a couple of days, you should use more oil/butter, to keep them from drying out.)
1 tsp. vanilla
*1 c. mashed sweet potato (In my case, it was a can of sweet potato puree. Because with a baby, I just do not have time to make sweet potatos and then mash them just for muffins. However, if you happened to make sweet potato anyway, and then happened to have leftovers, this would be a fabulous use for them.)

Then you mix the wet ingredients into the dry, being careful NOT to overmix. The batter should still be lumpy. After a couple of swipes, I added about a 1/2 c. of pecan pieces, and then finished mixing.

The muffins were good - moist, not too sweet, and with a bit of crunch.


For my next batch, I might add some crystallised ginger, because I love the chewy bite of it, and because in my mind, you can never have too much ginger. I might also leave in the nutmeg, because I like baking spices. The more the merrier, in my opinion. Also, if you wanted to fancy them up a bit, you could put a crumb topping on them, with a little brown sugar, butter, flour, cinnamon, and maybe some finely chopped pecans.

In case you're wondering about the wrappers, they are Wilton brand silicone cupcake/muffin tines, available from Michaels. They come in other shapes and colours, but the triangle-shaped pink and purple ones were on sale for $4.99, instead of the regular $16.99, which is why I have them. You simply put them on a cookie sheet, fill with batter, and bake.

I was quite impressed with these, actually. They baked up nicely, even though I filled them a bit over the fill line that is marked on the inside. They gave the muffins a nicely browned bottom, as you can see.



And they're reusable, which is cool, ecologically speaking.


These muffins are tasty, and you know what. THEY COUNT AS VEGETABLES. Seriously, how much better can you possibly get??!!!

Variations on a Theme: Spring might, maybe, be cometh-ing.

Once again, it's been too long since I've posted here. BabyA has been/is teething, or at least I'm assuming that's the problem, from the drool problem she's developed.

(Note the shiny chin)

She has been waking up every hour to hour and a half, needing soothing and/or nursing. Since she's usually a very sound sleeper, I'm assuming this is being caused by teething, although as yet we lack any concrete evidence. Whatever. All I know for sure is that waking up every hour to hour and a half is wreaking havoc with my sleep schedule. I've been up since 5am, which is wrong on more levels than I can tell you. However, it should give me a chance to catch you up on what's I've been doing.

1) I discovered The Pioneer Woman. She is high-LAR-ious, and obviously ridiculously talented, as she not only has four young kids, but also homeschools them. And blogs about it. And also about cooking, and gardening, and photography, and her enduring romance with her husband. What a show-off. Sheesh. Seriously though, you should totally check out her site, it's the awesome. So is her Chicken Scallopine, which I made this week.

2) I also made Fresh Strawberry Pie, with this recipe from Epicurious.com. It consists of fresh strawberries in a kind of homemade strawberry gelatin base, and a shortbread cookie crust, which is good because I DO NOT make pie crust.


This pie tastes like summer. It's a good thing the snow is finally starting to melt, or it might just make me cry.

3) I am working on quantifying the magic that is my homemade burger.


Seriously, if I am remembered for anything after I die, it will be these burgers, they are that good. But I've never actually measured any of the ingredients - it's more of an 'Add rolled oats until the mixture feels dry enough' sort of thing. But my Bonehead Brother asked for an estimate so he could make them, which inspired me to attempt to create an actual recipe. My Bonehead lives in Calgary, which means they were cooking burgers outdoors about a month ago, the jerks. But since the snow has finally melted enough for us to get to our BBQ, and the weather has been above zero (Celsius), I made enough burgers for 2 or 3 meals. I'm freezing some of them for later.

4) You may have discerned somewhat of a theme from my activities, all centred on the idea that it is finally starting to feel like spring around here. It's still early spring, mind you, because our yard still looks like this.


But that's a hell of a lot better than it was at my last post, and it's a close enough approximation of spring that I can bbq, and make strawberry pie without crying. Which also means, I can start to garden. Not outside, of course, at least for another month or so, but I have started planning our yard for this year, and I'm hoping to get my seeds started indoors this week. Yay!!

Our yard, and especially our flower beds, are going to be alot of work this year, as they've been kind of neglected for the past couple years. Last year was kind of torture for me, as I was teaching all of May, too pregnant in June for much gardening, and then spent the rest of the summer recuperating from my C-section. The only gardens I got to enjoy were my lovely cousins' and the ones in Dunvegan. This year, with a lot of luck and hard work, I'm hoping to get the yard back into shape. I'm starting a bunch of perennials indoors, and hopefully some veggies (especially tomato plants) in my mother in law's greenhouse. I will be soliciting suggestions, so stay tuned for pictures of my beds and yard.

5) And finally, there's this.


Which I'm always working on. Or with. Or whatever. However you say it, this project is the one I can't live without.

(Mis)Adventures in Baking Bread, also known as that ^#%#@@!!! Breadmaker.

It has been a bit of a rough week around Casa de la Maison. BabyA has been sick with a cold, and not surprisingly, cranky as all get out. The good news is that she seems to be past the worst of it. There was much less snot and crankiness today, and she seems to be able to nurse again, thank GAWD. I seriously cannot say how thankful I am for a healthy baby.

In other news, my *&(*&%&^$$%^&#$!!!!!!!!!!! breadmaker. My mom purchased us a breadmaker last weekend, and I've have yet to get a normal loaf out of the damn thing. I wish I had taken pictures of each loaf as I went, but that didn't occur to me until it was too late, so this picture of my most recent loaf will have to scar your psyche stimulate your imaginations.



Note the caldera-like crater in the top of the loaf. This is due, I believe, to an overabundance of yeast in the recipe, which causes the bread to over-rise. And by over-rise, I mean rise so much that it pushes up the lid of the breadmaker like a whole-wheat balloon, punctures the loaf, and then collapses back in on itself, all while leaving a rim of bread flopping over the top of the pan which subsequently burns and leaves the top of the loaf a doughy, under-cooked mess. GRRRRRAAAARRRRGGGHHHH!!!!

Seriously, I wish I could show you pictures of the first loaf of lovely Cracked Wheat Sandwich Loaf pushing up the lid of the breadmaker and leaking halfway down the sides of the f)(*(&%^$^%%^(^'n machine. (I think a picture of the look on my face when I came downstairs and discovered this state of affairs might afford you a few laughs, but I didn't get one of those either). This was the loaf where I used 1 1/2 x the called-for amount of yeast, on the advice of my mother, who said we live at a higher altitude, and therefore I would likely need more yeast, and her boss had baked a perfect loaf by doubling the amount of yeast called for. So I chalked that one up to too much yeast.

One the second loaf, I followed the recipe perfectly. And the result? Almost exactly the same as the first. Exploding dough? Check. Burnt crust? Check. Undercooked top? Check. Grrrarrrggg? Check.

For my third loaf, I used a whole wheat recipe from the internet, instead of from the instruction booklet. It was a smaller recipe, and used considerably less yeast, so I figured at most I'd have a too-small loaf. But no, I got ANOTHER perfect caldera-loaf.

Try number four was a white-bread loaf from the instruction booklet again. I figured maybe it was the flour I was using or something. I got a very pretty loaf of bread, tasty, nicely browned, AND AS DENSE AND HEAVY AS A GAWDDAMNED POUND CAKE. Seriously.



I know this picture looks all pretty, but my friend T actually gasped when I handed him a piece. It's ridiculous.



So this picture? Is try number five. This time again with the Cracked Wheat recipe from the instruction booklet, but with 1 3/4 tsp. yeast instead of the called-for 4 tsps. I'm talking less than HALF the amount the recipe says. But, as you can see, I've once again achieved a beautifully crusted, heavy as hell, caldera loaf. I think perhaps I purchased some kind of mutant over-achiever yeast or something, which is actually depressing, because by the time I've figured out this recipe, I will be out of yeast and may be right back at the beginning. I'm already running out of flour, powdered milk, and cracked wheat. Seriously.

I'm going to try this recipe one more time, this time with 1 1/2 tsps. of yeast, because I know that the dough only overexpanded close to the end of the cycle this time. I checked it with about 15 minutes left, and the dough was near the top but not touching it. So here goes. If I get a good loaf, I'll jump up and down for joy, have a celebratory drink, Twitter about it to all my followers, and blog about it asap. Come to think of it, I'll probably do the same if it fails again too. Ah, whatever. C'est la vie, or le pain, as the case may be.