baking
This did not start out as a project – it was just one of those idle irritations. Bill, who eats granola for breakfast, came home with some that was truly dreadful, up to and including the very strange pink bits of freeze dried raspberry. We will not discuss why he bought it; suffice it to say that even he didn’t want to eat it and of course then we got talking about the old days when you made your own and then the very next Wednesday there was Mark Bittmann in the Times with a recipe for crunchy granola.
Rather than simply following it, I decided to look at some of the competition, always a danger now that we are in the age of Google. When I asked it to find “granola recipe”, it came back with “Results 1 – 10 of about 1,420,000. ”
Uh huh. But when would it stop being granola recipes or literary references to granola recipes and start being the usual outer reaches: strings of words that start with g; science fiction pornography; entries in what looks like Chinese but isn’t.
Plunged in, leaping the longest intervals offered. On page 30, there was a lowcarb granola, a thought too scary to explore further. On page 46, an excerpt suggesting that nuts “should be rinsed in cold tap water to which vitamin C powder has been added”. Page 65 was still recipes, including one for a “vegan fusion ” version called Marley’s Hemp Granola, which I should have looked at, I guess, since what I remember about cooking with hemp is that the results were generally – how shall I put this? – more functional than delicious.
The plan was to stop at page 100 but google’s ” that’s it, nothing after this but repetition” kicked in after only 810 hits, on page 81.
Give or take a few, I think 81 is about the number of granola items sold by my local Stop and Shop. They have granola stocked in 3 places: the health/ organic (pay more here) area; next to the whole nutmeats and rice cracker snacks at the end of the produce aisle; and of course in cereal, which had the smallest number of granolas but the largest number of granola bars: 60 running feet of shelf space. Not wishing to piss away the time required I didn’t count varieties, but did notice that many were chocolate covered and one contained m&m’s. The one with the m&m’s was not, by the way, on a low shelf where small children would be enticed by it.
I could go on, and probably will, since there is a food-historical black hole between J.H. Kellogg’s Granola, which sold by the ton in the 1880s , and the tidal rise of the 1960’s product that made “crunchy” an adjective applicable to human beings.
For today, I will only say it’s surprising, once you start tasting alertly, how many variables there are, that plenty of salt certainly helps, and that so far the Corsican special is my favorite but Bill prefers good old Honey Nut.
GOOD OLD HONEY NUT GRANOLA
1 cup whole almonds
1 cup pecans, whole or in large pieces
6 cups old fashioned rolled oats
1/3 cup sunflower seeds
¼ cup toasted wheat germ
½ cup mild honey
3 tablespoons walnut oil (or peanut oil, if there’s no walnut already in the fridge)
2 teaspoons vanilla
½ teaspoon salt
1. Heat the oven to 325 degrees. Spread almonds and pecans in separate pie tins and toast until a broken nut is very pale gold; about 12 minutes for pecans, 15 or longer for almonds. When nuts are done, reduce heat to 300.
2. Spread oats and sunflower seeds on a large jellyroll pan and parch in the 300 degree oven, stirring occasionally, for about 15 minutes. Oats should crisp while scarcely coloring.
3. Turn oat mixture into a large bowl and stir in the wheat germ. Combine honey, oil, salt and vanilla, heat just long enough to liquefy/thin honey, give it stir and pour it in. Stir until all dry matter is coated, then add nuts and stir again ditto.
4. Turn the whole works out onto the oat pan, spread to the edges and return to oven. At 5 to 8 minute intervals, use a flat pancake turner to lift the brown edges into the middle and spread the paler material. Keep it up until the granola is a rich dark gold and a cooled nugget is properly crunchy, anywhere from 20 to 40 minutes, depending on pan, oven and sugar content of honey.
5. Store airtight. If you want raisins or other dried fruit , the time to add it is right before eating. There’s no reason to pre-mix something you want to keep moist with something you want to keep crisp unless you’re going camping.
Variation: The Corsican Special, aka Double Chestnut
(which was originally known as Italian recipe fanatic – there’s no way you’d have these ingredients handy unless you were really into it)
5 cups rolled oats
¼ cup sunflower seeds
3 tablespoons chestnut flour
2 tablespoons wheat germ
scant half-cup chestnut honey
3 tablespoons grapeseed oil
1 ½ teaspoons vanilla
scant ½ teaspoon salt
1 ½ cups coarsely chopped pecans
1. Heat oven to 300 degrees and toast oats and seeds as in 2., above.
2. In a large bowl, mix oats and seeds with flour and wheat germ, then add remaining ingredients as in 3, above.
3. Very slowly toast the living bejeeziz out of it, lowering the heat if it starts browning before the first half hour is past. It’ll be done in 40 minutes to an hour.
I’ve spent years evangelizing, insisting that the fruitcake-resistant have never eaten the real thing, and given that “real thing” means “good candied fruit,” an item that pretty much must be home made if not purchased from purveyors like Fauchon ($60.00 per pound, not including shipping), I’m reasonably sure that’s true.
But perhaps you are saying, “no, no, for years home bakers and first-class commercial makers like good ol’ Alice Perron up there in Vermont at Bienfait have simply omitted the candied part. They just mix classic, no-fakery batter with lots and lots of succulent dried fruit and generous quantities of fresh nuts and …
Well, okay. It’s good. But it still lacks a certain chewy, aromatic, sweet but not too sweet component, a component that’s easy to make by defining “candied fruit” as “candied citrus peel”: lemon, orange, and grapefruit , each delicious in a slightly different way.
There’s a detailed step by step recipe here and about 8 zillion more floating around on the web ( see below for cautionary notes), but the bottom line is that candying peel is no more difficult than cooking pasta – and no more expensive, either, since the peels come free with the fruit.
After reading this introduction, you may be expecting a fruitcake recipe. But then who’d eat it besides you? Better to make the always popular
Universal Suit Yourself Fruit and Nut Bars
Everything that’s good about fruitcake but not so damned much of it, all on a buttery, crumbly crust that cuts the opulent sweetness.
Crust:
1 ¾ cup all purpose flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1/3 cup sugar
pinch salt
½ cup butter, plus more for the pan
1 lightly beaten egg
Topping:
2 ½ cups fruit, cut in @ 1/3 inch dice. Any combination of : raisins; currants; prunes; dates; dried apricots, pineapple, figs, or cherries; candied ginger and candied citrus peel.
½ cup rum or brandy
2 eggs
1/3 cup each white and dark brown sugar
2 tablespoons flour
½ teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon each cinnamon, cloves, ginger and nutmeg
2 ½ cups lightly toasted whole nutmeats. Any combination of: almonds, walnuts, pecans , hazelnuts, pistachios, pine nuts and macadamias. Cashews and peanuts overwhelm all else, so either eschew them or rename the bars.
1. Mix the topping fruits and alcohol in a small bowl, cover tightly and set aside in a warm place until all the liquid is absorbed, overnight, more or less.
2. Heat the oven to 350 (325 for a glass pan) and thickly butter a 9x13x2 inch baking pan.
3. Put crust dry ingredients in a shallow bowl and mix thoroughly with a wire whisk. Cut or pinch in the butter until you have coarse meal, then make a well in the center and add the egg.
4. Pinch in the egg – or stir with a fork – just until the mixture is clumpy and holds together when pressed (resist the impulse to keep squeezing). Dump it into the pan, gently spread it around, then press it into an even layer on the bottom. Bake until pale gold, 12 to 15 minutes.
5. While the crust is baking, beat the topping eggs until frothy, then beat in everything else except the fruit and nuts. Stir them in last.
6. When the crust is ready, recombine the topping and spread it evenly, being careful not to cheat the corners. Return to the oven and bake until set and browned on top, about 30 to 35 minutes. Let cool completely before cutting in small – @ 1.5 inch – squares.
Yield: about 30 squares, depending on your cutting and on the true measurements of your pan ( “9×13” is precise on the page, but it means quite different things to different pan-manufacturers).
Judging a candied peel recipe:
* It’s probably wise to choose organic citrus; just don’t assume – as I did for years – that certified organic citrus is innocent of wax.
* The thick white pith is essential. Recipes that tell you to remove it are actually recipes for candied zest.
* Bitterness varies, which should be noted/allowed for.
* not all recipes stress the necessity of having the peel completely tender before adding sugar, but if it isn’t tender before you add sugar it will be tough for all time.
Sorry it took so long, but here are the muffins discussed at some length back on February 4th.
FULL BREAKFAST BRAN MUFFINS
Honesty compels me to admit the low-fat version was an accident ( I was melting the butter on the woodstove in another room, and you know what they say about “out of sight…”). But it turns out these muffins are very tasty – maybe even tastier – when the only butter you use is used to grease the cups. Just be warned that that’s tasty, not tender; texture is definitely better when you put the butter in. And muffins made with no added fat get stale a lot faster.
For 12 muffins:
1 cup wheat bran
1 1/3 cups whole milk yogurt
¼ cup butter (optional, see above), plus butter for the pan(s)
1 ¾ cups whole wheat pastry flour
1 ½ tsp. fresh* baking powder
1 ½ tsp. baking soda
½ tsp salt, or a bit more if it’s unsalted butter
2 extra-large eggs
¼ cup lightly piled* brown sugar
¼ cup molasses
3 tbl. wheat germ
¾ cup light or dark raisins or diced dried apricots or any combination thereof.
1. Set oven to 400 degrees.
2. In a small bowl, mix the bran with about half the yogurt. Set aside. In another small bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.
3. Melt the butter if using. Heavily butter a dozen* 1/3-cup muffin cups.
4. Use the whisk to lightly beat the eggs, then beat in the remaining yogurt, brown sugar, molasses, wheat germ and reserved bran mixture.
5. Switch to a large mixing spoon and quickly stir in the fruit lumps, then the flour mixture. Distribute among the prepared muffin cups, filling them 3/4 to 4/5 full (these don’t rise all that much). Bake until well browned and dry-toothpick producing, about 20 minutes. Cool briefly in the pan before turning out onto a rack or into the breadbasket.
* Fresh Baking Powder: Unless you’re really big for biscuits or belong to Cornbread Nation, it’s quite likely your can of baking powder has been around long enough to lose lifting power. If you have reason to suspect staleness, dissolve a teaspoon or so in a half cup of hot water and watch for vigorous fizzing. Medium fizzing is ok – just use 2 teaspoons. But languid bubbles or none at all mean it’s time for a new can.
*Measuring Brown Sugar: Because brown sugars vary so much in comparative loft, the famous instruction “tightly packed” helps ensure accuracy when you’re measuring by volume. But I can’t bring myself to call for “2 tablespoons plus 2 teaspoons tightly packed brown sugar,” which is about the amount you want. (In theory, tight packing also smooths lumps. In theory. )
* Muffin Cups: Hold quite different amounts, so it pays to measure. It also pays to use two 6-cup pans instead of one that holds a dozen. The 2 in the middle of a 12 cupper don’t get as much heat as those on the outside, so they tend to rise less and cook less quickly.
As a gardener whose life is nurtured by, centered in , moored to the earth and the passing upon it of the seasons, I have to say all this flapdoodle over the name of the evergreen in the living room really rankles my curd. Here’s what: it’s a holiday tree; the holiday is the winter solstice; and people have been celebrating it with these trees for more millennia than Christianity can claim.
The decorated holiday tree is a symbol of life in the midst of darkness that belongs to everybody, atheists included. The only people who might reasonably claim it has been hijacked are Druids – and at least so far most of them have had the good sense to just keep quiet and eat cookies ( another aspect of the celebration that is WAY older than certain religions).
‘nough said. And since by now you probably have your tree if you’re planning to have one, I will say only don’t forget to keep it watered, to minimize the risk of fire and to make sure it smells good for as long as possible.
THE COOKIE PART – SHORTBREAD DIVISION
Shortbread is “cookie” reduced to the absolute basics, you can’t get any closer to eating sweetened butter unless you do it with a spoon. And recipes don’t get much easier, either. This one spends a lot of words on the fine points , but the bottom line is a short ingredient list and about 5 minutes of work.
Because the ideal texture is extremely tender and crumbly, recipes typically call for mixing all purpose flour with something like cornstarch or rice flour to lower the overall gluten content. It’s easier to just use cake flour, which every baker should keep a supply of for just these occasions. (The good side of its being devoid of any meaningful nutrient content is that it keeps forever).
For about 40 cookies, depending on how you shape them:
½ pound butter – freshness is more important than either salt or fat-content
¼ cup brown sugar
¼ cup white sugar
¼ teaspoon salt or a pinch more for unsalted butter
2 ½ – 3 cups cake flour ( amount needed will vary with the moisture content of the butter, the way you measure, and how rigid you want the finished cookies to be. The less you can get away with, the better – within reason, of course. )
ok,
1. Take the butter out of the fridge and let it soften until it is claylike, neither slump-squishy nor hard.
2. Put the sugars, salt and a few tablespoons of the flour in a processor fitted with the metal blade. Process until you don’t hear any brown sugar lumps. Add enough more flour bring the total up to 2 ½ cups. Give it another whirl or two.
3. Cut the butter into 8 or 10 pieces, scatter them over the flour, then pulse until the dough forms large clots and is just about to make a ball. This is lots of pulses.
4. Let the dough sit in a cool but not cold place for at least half an hour, up to half a day ( remove from processor and wrap in plastic if opting for the latter).
5. When ready to bake, heat the oven to 325. Roll about a tablespoon of dough into a ball, then lightly flatten it into a cookie. Put it on a piece of foil; put the foil in the center of a small, flat pan ( bottom of a pie tin works fine) and put it in to bake. Check after 6 or 7 minutes. It won’t be done yet, but it will have done enough of what it’s going to do so you will know whether to knead in more flour. Do so if necessary – freestanding shapes often need a bit more to avoid puddlehood.
6. Shape the dough (see below) on an ungreased cookie sheet, preferably the double kind with the air-layer in the middle. Bake until the shortbread is pale gold clear through , 15 minutes for pressed cookies, 20 to 30 minutes for classic wedges or little molds. Do not underbake; if it looks like the edges are browning too fast, just turn down the heat.
SHAPING SHORTBREAD DOUGH
Classic: Gently roll into balls the size of tennis balls. Flatten into circles a bit more than ¼ inch thick in the center, slightly thicker at the edges ( they get more heat). Circles should be about 5 to 6 inches in diameter. Use floured fork tines to punch into 8 wedges, then punch the center of each wedge. Leave everything attached. After baking, repunch wedges while the cookies are still hot, then separate when cold.
Molded: This is a good dough to use in the tiny fluted metal cups – about 1 inch across the top – intended for candies and Swedish sandbakkelsen. Roll teaspoon size pinches of dough into balls, put ’em in the ungreased cups, then go back and press down in the center with your thumb. Dough should come about ¾ of the way up the sides. ( It will smooth out in the baking but still be a bit dimpled.) Be sure to let them cool completely before trying to unmold. Serve as is or put a dollop of tart jam or chocolate ganache in the dimples.
Pressed: Standard advice for pressed cookies is to use a cold sheet and warm dough. With these, it works better to have both items at room temperature. If you can’t get the pressed shapes to stick, use the star opening and make rings.
(Shortbread-Molded: fancy cookware stores sell clay shortbread molds with elaborate patterns. For best results, use the recipes that come with them. )
