English Muffins
English Muffins are fun and easy to make. They also taste so much better than store bought. What you might not know, if you never made them, is that English muffins are not baked. They are actually cooked in a skillet, over medium low heat, until done.
The dough is pretty much a bread dough. Once they have gone through their first rise, you roll them out and cut them out in circles. They rise another 30 minutes, then are cooked in the skillet. You can use a 4-inch cutter for full sized muffins. I used a 3-inch cutter and got a few more out of the recipe.
The recipe is correct when it says to roll them a bit under 1/2-inch thick. They rise and then get thicker when cooked.
English Muffins
2 packages yeast
5-6 cups bread flour
2 T. sugar
2 t. salt
2 c. milk
¼ c. butter
Cornmeal
In large bowl combine yeast, 4 cups of the bread flour. Warm milk and butter and add to flour mixture and beat 3-4 minutes. By hand stir in enough flour to make a moderately stiff dough. Turn onto floured surface and knead until dough is smooth and elastic, about 8-10 minutes.
Place dough in greased bowl and turn to grease top. Cover and allow to rise until doubled, about 1 ¼ hour. Punch dough down and allow to rest 10 minutes. On lightly floured surface roll dough to just under ½-inch thick. With 4-inch biscuit cutter cut out rounds of dough, re-rolling and cutting scraps. Dip both sides in cornmeal and cover, allowing to rise about 30 minutes. In ungreased griddle pan or skillet cook muffins over medium-low heat, turning frequently, until they are golden on both sides and cooked through. This will take about 20-25 minutes. If they are browning too quickly, turn down the heat a little. To serve, split and toast. Makes 12-18, depending on the size you cut them.
Russian Tea Biscuits
Russian tea biscuits are like a kind of cookie. A magical cookie, filled with jam and raisins and nuts. The are crispy, tender and rich. They also are not all that sweet, which appeals to me. You can serve them as a dessert, but also serve them with breakfast or brunch. And of course, with your tea or coffee.
I can remember the first time I ever had a Russian tea biscuit. It was at the Cedar-Lee theater. I guess you could say I got my love for foreign films and Russian pastry at the same place. I found a recipe in my mother’s recipe collection. I tried them and they were pretty close to the ones at the Cedar-Lee. I did tweak that recipe a bit.
My only regret was not having raspberry jam. That is my favorite. The swirl of red in the biscuits is very pretty. I used what I had- peach- and am happy with them. Not as colorful, but very tasty, all the same.
Here is the recipe. I think you might want to try these with that next cup of tea.
Russian Tea Biscuits
3½ c. flour
½ c. sugar
1 t. baking powder
1 t. baking soda
¼ t. salt
1 c. butter, softened
2 eggs, separated
½ c. orange juice
1 1/3 c. preserves, (strawberry, raspberry, plum or apricot are favorites)
1 c. chopped walnuts
1 c. raisins, dark or golden
1 t. cinnamon
3 T. sugar
Combine dry ingredients in a mixing bowl and cut in butter until mixture is the size of peas. Stir in egg yolks and orange juice. Knead until dough is well blended. Divide dough into 4 equal pieces. Roll out a piece of dough 1/4 -inch thick into an 8×10-inch rectangle. Spread with 1/3 c. of the preserves and sprinkle with 1/4 c. each of the raisins and nuts. Roll up jelly roll fashion and set, seam side down, on ungreased baking sheet. Repeat with remaining dough. Beat egg whites until foamy and brush on dough. Combine cinnamon and sugar and sprinkle on dough. Bake in a 350-degee oven for 25-35 minutes, or until golden. Use a toothpick to test for doneness. They can be golden, but a little under baked in the middle. Slice while warm into 6 pieces for each roll. Makes 24.
Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream
Mint chocolate chip ice cream is a favorite of mine. I have tried a lot of mint chocolate chip ice creams, but was not always happy. I wanted to make my own and see how that turned out.
The tricky part is getting chips that aren’t hard chunks, but rather, little flecks of chocolate, that melt on your tongue when you eat the ice cream. In the past, for chocolate chip ice cream, I have brushed melted chocolate in thin sheets, chilled it, and then broken it into tiny pieces. It worked, but kind of a pain to do.
I tried something different this time, and with a few adjustments, it worked out great. In the past, I posted a recipe for homemade chocolate magic shell. You remember magic shell, the chocolate syrup that hardens when you drizzle it on ice cream. The recipe is quite simple. Chocolate, coconut oil and powdered sugar, melted together. It remains a liquid at room temperature. So, to create the “chips”, I just added some of the magic shell to the ice cream as it froze in the ice cream maker.
After a little playing around, I got the knack of drizzling it slowly. The end result, little flecks of chocolate through the ice cream that were tender and melted as you ate the ice cream. We had the ice cream served on a homemade brownie, then topped with more magic shell and some whipped cream. You will note that my “mint” ice cream is not green. I opted to omit food coloring, but feel free to add some, if you prefer. And, if you just want chocolate chip ice cream, don’t add the mint extract.
Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream
2 c. half and half
1 c. whipping cream, or 1 more cup of half and half
½ c. sugar, or to taste*
2 t. mint extract
1 t. vanilla extract
About ½ c. magic shell- recipe follows
Combine half and half, cream, sugar and flavorings. Stir until sugar dissolves. Add more sugar, if needed, to suit your taste. Place mixture in an ice cream maker and start freezing it. Once it starts to thicken, drizzle the magic shell in slowly as the machine is running, to create little flecks of chocolate throughout the ice cream. I have to guess that I used about ½ a cup. Add until you have the amount of chips you like. Once ice cream forms, place in freezer until ready to serve. Makes about a quart.
*The mixture might taste a little sweet to you, but when you freeze it, it will taste less sweet. When making ice cream, the base should be a little”too” sweet to allow for the taste change after freezing.
Homemade Magic Shell
1 c. chocolate chips- I used dark chocolate chips
3/4 c. coconut oil- I used the unrefined
1/2 c. powdered sugar
Heat all together until melted. I melted mine in a microwave for 1 minute, but you could also melt over a double boiler. Stir until smooth. Store at room temp. To use, drizzle over ice cream, wait about 10-20 seconds- and it will harden.
Coffee Cake Muffins
These came about when I was playing around with an old family recipe. The original recipe was for a coffee cake that my Busha ( Polish grandmother) taught me to make when I was about 12. I wanted to make something more portable, so the muffins seemed like a logical option. The recipe was changed a bit from the original, but I was very happy with the end result.
The dough is rich, but not heavy or too sweet. Sour cream is the magic here. It makes for a moist, tender muffin. Then they are topped with a nutty crumble. I added a drizzle at the end which worked well. Your family and friends will love them!!
So here is the recipe.
Coffee Cake Muffins
Topping
½ c. light brown sugar
3 T. butter, softened
2 t. cinnamon
½ – ¾ c. chopped nuts
Batter
3/4 c. sugar
1/2 c. butter, softened
1½ t. vanilla
3 eggs, room temperature
1 c. sour cream
2 c. flour
1 t. baking powder
1 t. baking soda
Drizzle
1½ c. powdered sugar
1/2 t. cinnamon
1 T. milk
1 T. lemon juice
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line 24 cupcake tins with paper or foil liners. Set aside. Mix first 4 ingredients together and set aside. Beat together sugar and butter until fluffy. Add vanilla and beat well. Beat in eggs, one at a time. Stir in sour cream. Combine dry ingredients and add to egg mixture. Stir until just combined. Divide batter in the cupcake pans. They will be half full, or a bit under. Top with the topping, crumbling to spread evenly. Bake for 15-18 minutes, or until toothpick inserted comes out clean. Once cooled down, combine drizzle ingredients and pour over the muffins. Makes 24.
Creamy Spinach Pasta Sauce
The sauce reminds me of creamed spinach, a favorite childhood dish of mine. The recipe makes enough to generously sauce a pound of pasta. It is very tasty and easy to make. Great when you need a home made meal, but don’t have a lot of time. You can also use this sauce on hot cooked rice or baked potatoes. I could see adding chicken to the pasta, too.
The recipe uses frozen spinach, but you can use fresh spinach , if you prefer. Just cook down 12-16 oz. of fresh spinach and use like the frozen spinach.
There is Parmesan cheese in the sauce. I like to serve extra on the side.
Creamy Spinach Sauce
1/4 c. butter
1 (10 oz.) package frozen spinach, thawed and drained
1 t. salt
1 c. ricotta cheese
1/4 c. grated Parmesan cheese
1/4 c. milk
Heat spinach in butter for 5 minutes. Add remaining ingredients and heat gently until warmed through. Do not boil sauce. Toss sauce over hot, cooked pasta. Makes 2 1/2 cups, enough for about a pound of pasta.
Mom’s Jelly Doughnuts
I thought for Mother’s Day I would share one of my mother’s favorite recipes. They were a real treat. I remember how fun it was to watch my parents making doughnuts. The making of the dough, then cutting the dough into circles. The dough circles would then rise on the counter, under linen towels until puffed up. Gently they would be fried, then set on paper towels to drain. Once cooled, the filling would be piped into them through a pastry bag filled with some wonderful jelly or jam.
I also remember learning to fill them. Squeezing the jelly from the pastry bag into the doughnut was tricky. You wanted to make sure there was enough filling, but not so much that they split open. After a couple of tries, I realized you could figure it out by the weight of the filled doughnut in your hand.
My parents were both excellent bakers. My father had even been a professional baker at one time. I thought it was normal to have parents who made doughnuts. It was the norm in my family.
My folks only made them for special occasions. Unless my Mom got a taste for homemade jelly doughnuts. Then, my dad would make them for her. She loved jelly doughnuts. More than pretty much anyone else I knew.
You can fill them with any number of jellies, jams and cream fillings. I had fresh strawberries and dried apricots so I used them to make both a strawberry filing and an apricot filling. Once fried and filled, the doughnuts can be eaten plain or topped with a drizzle of powdered sugar glaze or just rolled in powdered sugar. They are a bit of work, but well worth the effort.
Jelly Doughnuts
Dough:
4 c. flour
2 T. sugar
1 t. salt
½ c. butter
1 packet yeast
¼ c. warm water
2 t. sugar
1 c. evaporated milk
2 eggs, beaten
Combine flour with sugar and salt. Cut in butter and set aside. Dissolve yeast in warm water and 2 t. sugar and set aside. Combine milk with eggs. Stir in yeast mixture and add to flour mixture stirring well. On lightly floured surface knead dough until dough is smooth, about 5 minutes. Dough will be very sticky. Cover and let rise until doubled, about 1½ hours. Remove dough from bowl and punch down. Using about a third of the dough at a time roll dough out to about an ½ -inch thickness and cut out with a 2½ -inch biscuit cutter. Re-roll scraps and cut out. You should get about 2 dozen. Place dough circles on a floured surface and cover with a towel until doubled, about an hour. Heat oil in a deep pan until it reaches 375 degrees. Cook doughnuts a few at a time until golden on both sides, about 1 minute per side. Drain on paper towels and cool before filling.
Note: You can also refrigerate the dough after kneading it if you would prefer. Just place dough in an oiled bowl, cover with plastic wrap and chill overnight. Roll and cut dough into doughnuts when cold from the fridge. Allow to rise, covered, until doubled in bulk, about 2-3 hours. Fry as directed.
To fill doughnuts use a pastry bag fitted with a long tube tip for filling. I have these handy plastic syringes which are easy to use. Insert tube tip into doughnut and squeeze gently until doughnut is filled with jam. Be careful not to overfill or doughnut will split. Once filled doughnuts are topped with a powdered sugar glaze or rolled in powdered sugar.
Apricot Filling
12 oz. dried apricots, chopped up
2 c. water
2 c. sugar, or to taste
Combine apricots with water in saucepan and simmer, covered until apricots are really tender. This will take at least an hour- add more water, if needed. Add sugar to taste and cook until thickened. Puree mixture in a blender.
Strawberry Filling
1 lb. strawberries
1½ c. sugar
½ c. water
3 T. cornstarch
Crush berries and place in saucepan with the sugar. Cook until berries are tender, about 10 minutes. Combine water with cornstarch and add to strawberries. Cook until thickened and bubbly. Cool. , Puree. Makes 2 cups.
Tahini Salad Dressing
I love this salad dressing. The combination of tahini, garlic and lemon juice really works. It is also very simple to make. Tahini is a paste made from sesame seeds. Think of it like peanut butter, but made with sesame seeds instead. I asked a few friends who do a fair amount of cooking, about how they cook with tahini. The answer was the same, they use it in hummus. That was about it. But tahini can be used in more dishes than just hummus or baba ghanoush. It can be the base for any number of sauces, dressings and dips. Tahini can be found in most larger grocery stores and in specialty stores. You can also make your own by combining sesame seeds with a little olive oil in a blender and mixing until smooth.
Tahini Dressing
1/3 c. tahini
1/3 c. water
1/4 c. lemon juice – or a bit more if using on fish or other seafood
2 garlic cloves, chopped or more
3/4 c. olive oil
Salt to taste
Combine all ingredients in a blender until smooth. You can also place all the ingredients in a jar with a tight-fitting lid, and shake well to combine. Use on green salads or on fish dishes and falafel.
Note: Tahini is a sesame seed paste used a lot in Middle Eastern and African cooking. It can be found in specialty food stores and in some grocery stores. You can also make your own, in a pinch, by blending sesame seeds in a blender with a small amount of oil, and blend until smooth. I use olive oil. Store home-made tahini in the fridge or freezer to keep longer. I freeze in ice cube trays then pop them out when frozen and store the tahini cubes in bags in the freezer. I can just grab a cube or two as needed.
Asparagus and Yellow Split Pea Soup
I love asparagus and when it is in season I pretty much eat it every day. I love it just steamed with a little butter but it seems I end up using it in lots of stuff. Omelets, salads, stir fries and soup to name a few. Today I wanted a soup using yellow split peas but something more evocative of spring than winter. I cooked the split peas separately in salted water until just tender. That took about 25 minutes. The idea was to have peas with texture not peas that had cooked to mush. This is what I came up with. I was really happy with the soup- I think you might be, too. I did a vegan version but feel free to use chicken stock, if you prefer.
Asparagus and Yellow Split Pea Soup
1 c. yellow split peas, rinsed*
2 T. olive oil
1 onion, chopped
2 ribs celery, sliced
1 sweet pepper, any color, seeded and chopped- I used yellow
1 qt. vegetable stock- or whatever stock you like
1 lb. asparagus, bottoms trimmed
hot sauce to taste
salt and pepper to taste
Place peas in medium saucepan and cover with water. Add salt to taste. Simmer until tender, about 20-30 minutes. Meanwhile heat oil in soup pot and cook onion until tender. Add the celery and peppers and continue cooking until they are tender. Drain peas and add to the pot along with the stock and bring to a simmer. Slice the asparagus into 1-inch pieces and reserve the tips. Place stems in the soup and cook for about 4-5 minutes. Add the tips and cook until they are just tender. The tips cook faster so I leave them out for the first few minutes the stems are cooking. Tenderness is a subjective thing, sometimes. I want the asparagus to still have a little “bite” to them. If you prefer them more tender cook as long as you like. Serves 3-4.
*Note: If you can’t find yellow split peas the green ones work fine, too. I just like the way the yellow worked with the green of the asparagus.
Mandarin Orange Sorbet
This is one of those dishes that is so simple, but so tasty. In the end, its just frozen mandarin oranges, blended up in a food processor until creamy. You can add some sugar, if you like, and a little vanilla. then finish off with a pinch of salt.
I served this sorbet to a friend after dinner the other night and she loved it. The color is beautiful and the flavor is refreshing. Served with a scoop of vanilla ice cream, it would taste like an elevated version of a creamsicle. I could see adding a scoop to a cold drink on a hot summer day. But it is good enough to serve all on its own.
I make a lot of fruit-based sorbets. An abundance of mandarins were my inspiration for this one. I needed to use them in something!! I will certainly play around with adding other flavors or perhaps adding some zest next time. I already have frozen more mandarins to use later.
For now, I am very pleased with this simple and flavorful dessert. Here is how I made it.
Mandarin Orange Sorbet
10-12 mandarin oranges
1-2 T. sugar, optional or to taste
1 t. vanilla, optional
Pinch of salt
Peel and freeze the mandarins. Once frozen, place them in a food processor and process until mixture becomes smooth and creamy. Taste and see if you want to add a little sugar. Sweeten to taste and add the vanilla, also optional, and just a pinch of salt. Combine well then return to the freezer until you are ready to serve it. Makes about 1 pint.
Vegan Banana Muffins
I first made these for my vegan niece and her boyfriend. Bananas are often listed as an egg substitute in recipes. I figured they should work well in these muffins, providing both flavor and moistness. The muffins came out great and you would never miss the eggs. I’ve been experimenting with vegan baking. It’s fun working with alternative ingredients.
The recipe makes a lot of muffins, but you can easily cut it in half, or just plan on freezing some.
Vegan Banana Muffins
3 c. flour
1 c. brown sugar
2 t. baking powder
2 t. cinnamon
1 t. nutmeg
1 t. baking soda
1 t. salt
2 c. mashed bananas
1 c. oil
1 c. almond milk – could use other non- dairy “milks”
2 t. vanilla
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line 24 muffin pans with paper liners, or grease lightly. Set aside. Combine dry ingredients in large bowl and set aside. In medium bowl combine bananas with oil, milk and vanilla until smooth. Make a well in dry ingredients and pour in banana mixture. Stir until smooth, but don’t over mix. Spoon batter into muffin tins, filling just over half full. Bake 28-30 minutes, or until tester comes out clean. Cool a little before serving. Makes 24. Freeze well.
