Simple Wheat Crackers

One evening not too long ago, feeling rather bored, I decided to open a can of ravioli to feed the four kids I had home.  They asked me if I would be having any, and I told them I'd just look in the refrigerator for some leftovers.

I lied.

I knew I didn't have any leftovers, but I am so little fond of canned ravioli, I was willing to work a little harder to get something to eat.  Cheese and crackers sounded about right, but unfortunately, I had no cheese to speak of, and I had no crackers.  What's a girl to do?

Make them!!  I made a quick and easy cheese called paneer in India and queso fresco in Mexico, and while it was draining, mixed up some wheat crackers.  (I really was rather active that night.  I had milk heating for yogurt in the crock pot and wheat grinding in my Kitchenaid grain mill attachment while I was stirring milk on the stove for paneer.)

I found my cracker recipe some time ago on Allrecipes.com.  It's a very simple and easily adaptable base, good "as is" or with some flavoring additions.  This time, I added some garlic powder and Italian herb blend, and instead of sprinkling them with plain salt, we used a grinder with garlic and sea salt.


The Master Kitchen Helper is hiding behind a kitchen towel . . .



Ingredients:

1 3/4 cups whole wheat flour

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

3/4 teaspoon salt

1/3 cup vegetable oil

1 cup water

Salt for sprinkling

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

Start by putting the dry ingredients into a mixing bowl.  (Medium-size will do, but I only had large available because my medium one was in use catching whey from the paneer-making process.)  Add any spices or dried herbs you will be using at this time, as well.

Pour in the vegetable oil and water and mix until just blended.

Take a portion of the dough and on a lightly floured surface, roll out the dough as thinly as possible.  (Less than 1/8 inch thick.)  If you do not have a baking stone, place the rolled dough on an ungreased baking sheet at this point.

Mark cracker edges by scoring the dough with a knife, without cutting completely through the dough.  Prick each cracker with a fork a few times.  (This part is not "rocket science", so let your Master Kitchen Helper go to town here.)  If you are using a baking sheet, go ahead and sprinkle the crackers with salt.

If you are using a baking stone, roll the scored and pricked dough onto your rolling pin to lift it.

Then roll it back out on the baking stone and sprinkle with salt.  If you are using a baking sheet, place it in the oven.

Bake the crackers for 15-20 minutes, or until crisp and light brown.  With the baking stone, I found 15-18 minutes worked well.  The time will vary, depending on how thinly that particular bit of cracker dough was rolled.

Now THAT's crispy!

When the crackers are cool (or at least, cool enough to touch without burning fingers), separate the crackers.

Not sure why the color in this picture didn't work out.  They look cheesy.

My daughters would tell you the best part about cracker-making is eating the edges, because they are the only parts I will let them munch with abandon while the crackers are being produced.  The younger ones have been known to stare in the oven window, waiting for the next cracker to finish baking, so they can mooch the edges as soon as possible.

I finally sat down around 8:00 that evening, paperback book held open by a convenient potholder, hands occupied with cutting salted paneer to put on fresh crackers.  Simple bliss.

Aebleskiver!!

My husband and I first encountered aebleskiver in the tiny tourist trap of Solvang, California.  We had gone to California on a business trip for my husband to San Diego and LA, and stayed a little longer for the fun of it, riding a motorcycle along the scenic coastal or mountain highways.  Originally, we had thought to go a little farther north, but when we rolled into Solvang, we knew that was as far as we were getting.

It was cute to the point of adorable, aimed at bringing a little bit of Denmark into the United States.  The motels had character, with names like "The Viking Motel" or doorways sporting quaint tole-painted flowers.  Between my Danish ancestry and my husband's Norwegian ancestry, we felt we somehow belonged, and we knew we would have an absolutely wonderful time exploring the shops and the food.

And explore we did.  We ate a wonderful Scandinavian-style supper that night in a small restaurant in the middle of the tourist trap.  It was there, for dessert, we first tasted the roughly spherical, apple-filled, powdered-sugar-covered pancakes of Danish origin called aebleskiver.  (Raspberry jam on the side.)

Oh.  My.  Goodness.  Yum.

As soon as we got home, I did some research.  I had seen an aebleskiver pan hanging on the wall of the restaurant, so I knew they were made in pans with about 7 half-sphere indentations, or "wells".  But I had no idea there were so many kinds.  There were cast iron ones, aluminum ones, ones with solid bottoms, ones supposed to be more ideal for glass-top ranges, etc.  There was even an electric one you could put on your table and make aebleskiver as a spectator sport.  Unfortunately, the ones recommended for electric stove tops ran somewhere between $35-40, and I just couldn't see the sense in spending that much money on a pan for a single dish.

About a year later, my husband and I visited a more local (100 miles away) cooking supply store.  The stock was rather sparse, and I commented, "What are the odds they have an aebleskiver pan?"  We laughed, figuring there was no way.  As we were about to leave, we passed on the other side of one of the shelves we had passed before, and lo and behold, there was an aebleskiver pan, staring at us.  It still set us back about $35, but we figured it was money better spent, because it was helping the local economy, instead of just ordering something on the Internet.  (The things we do to justify buying things we want, hm?)

When I showed my daughters the aebleskiver pan, they had an unexpected reaction.  "Ooooh!" they cried.  "Pancake puff!"

Apparently Billy Mays used to market a pan billed as the Pancake Puff pan or something like that--an aebleskiver pan in disguise.  What followed was rather predictable.  My daughters insisted it was a "Pancake Puff" pan, while I, determined to have my daughters embrace their Danish heritage, insisted they repeat after me, "Ae . . . ble . . . skiv . . . er."  (Yes, I finally won, but throughout the evening, if they wanted to see me cringe, they would say, "Pancake puff!"  It's kind of like my reaction when people have no idea how to pronounce "karaoke", which is what usually happens in the United States . . . How someone came up with "carry-oky" is beyond me.)

So one fine fall evening, armed with my aebleskiver pan, Granny Smith apples grown on my in-laws' tree, and a wooden shish-ka-bob skewer in lieu of a steel knitting needle (which might scratch the surface), I set out to learn the fine art of making aebleskiver.

I found an aebleskiver recipe to try at the About.com section on Scandinavian Foods and gathered my ingredients.

2 apples, peeled, cored, and chopped into 1/2-inch pieces
2 Tablespoons butter, plus extra to grease the pan
2 teaspoons cinnamon
2 eggs
1 Tablespoon sugar
2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 1/2 cups buttermilk  (I use a standard substitution called "soured milk":  for each cup, 1 T. vinegar, plus milk to make up one cup.  Let stand 5 minutes before using.)

Preheat the aebleskiver pan over a medium-high burner until it is hot enough for butter to sizzle on the surface.

In a separate pan, lightly saute the apple pieces in the 2 Tablespoons butter until they are softened, but still firm.  Sprinkle them with cinnamon.  (By the time you're done, it's more than a sprinkle, but you really do want that much.  Next time, we might add some cinnamon to the batter recipe, too, just for giggles.)

Separate the eggs, then beat the egg whites until they form stiff peaks.

In a separate bowl, whisk the eggs yolks with the sugar until they are creamy.  The directions say to sift together the flour and baking soda, but I find that cumbersome.  Instead, I take the trace item--baking soda--sprinkle it evenly and mix it in.  Then I proceed as normal.  Gradually stir flour and buttermilk (or the soured milk substitution above), alternating with each 1/2-cup addition, into the egg mixture.

Gently fold the beaten egg whites into the batter.

Yes, it will be evenly distributed, more or less, by the time it is done.

Reduce the heat under the aebleskiver pan to medium, and place about 1/8 teaspoon butter in each well.  Use a pastry brush to make sure the wells are coated evenly.

After watching me put the butter in the wells, my husband leaned over my shoulder.  "Remember what Julia Child said in that movie," he said. "'More butter!'"  I put in more butter.  It was a good choice.

Spoon batter into each well, filling half-way (about one teaspoon, not kidding).  Place an apple chunk on the batter.

Spoon enough additional batter over the apple to cover it and fill the well to the top.  (About another teaspoon, maybe a little more.)

Allow to cook until the edges of each aebleskiver begin to brown and pull away from the sides of the wells.  You may not be able to see this happening very well, actually, but if you take your knitting needle, skewer, or whatever, you can check it out to see if it has reached this point.  Don't let it cook too long, however, or you won't end up with terribly round aebleskiver.  (Because all the batter on the inside will set, and nothing will move down into the well when you turn it over.)

The directions told me to run the knitting needle (ok, skewer), around the edge of each aebleskiver, then flip it over.  Unfortunately, the directions neglected to tell me exactly how this flipping was to be accomplished.  After a lot of trial and error (mostly error), I discovered what worked best for me.

I ran the skewer around the edge of the aebleskiver, just to make sure it wasn't sticking, then ran the skewer down along the inside curve of the well, straight across the middle of the half-sphere.  (Basically, I traced a half-circle through the middle of the well, my skewer following the interior edge.)  This flipped the aebleskiver over just fine.  Sure, a little bit of the batter got on my skewer, but nowhere in the directions did it say my skewer would remain batter-free.  After flipping all the aebleskiver, I quickly rinsed and dried my skewer, and all was well.

I'll get better with more practice.  ;)

Remove the aebleskiver to a plate and sprinkle them with powdered sugar to serve.  None of these lasted very long on the plate, as they were snatched up quickly by various members of the family and munched, usually with fingers.  Although I've usually seen people eating them with a fork, it was all right in this case; I was making them as a treat to go along with a movie.  (And how can you argue with such enthusiasm?)

After tasting these fun little treats, the girls no longer try to call my pan a "pancake puff" pan.

If I had stayed in Solvang any longer, I might have started begging the ladies at the Danish bakeries for secrets.  Instead, I guess I'll just have to do a little more research before I start on more Danish bread adventures.

I just had a sudden brainstorm . . . I wonder if this technique is somewhat similar to how the Japanese make takoyaki, much smaller batter-made spheres with a bit of octopus in them.  The street vendors used to flip them with toothpicks, and I absolutely loved them whenever I could get them.  Hmmmmmm.  Wonder if I can find a takoyaki pan (and some octopus . . . and the right sauce . . . figure the odds . . .)  A dream for another day.

Turkish Flat Bread

Turkey!  The name conjures up images of Crusaders, ancient warriors, and exotic spices.  (Along with, I'm afraid, a catchy little ditty . . . "Istanbul was Constantinople . . .")

Not too long ago, I received an e-mail from my sister, who had moved to Turkey about a week or so earlier.  She expressed surprise at not finding pita bread in the stores, but also mentioned she was having a hard time finding the traditional flat bread of Turkey.  (Hadn't had time to do enough exploring yet.)  Naturally, I was intrigued.

After a certain amount of Internet research, I found what seemed to be a few different kinds of basic flatbread from Turkey.  One seems to be an awful lot like a tortilla, with olive oil instead of lard or shortening.  Another is also cooked on the stovetop, but includes yeast and yogurt.  But the one I tried first was this one, baked on my baking stone and producing more of a flat loaf, instead of individual portions.

I'll be frank:  we didn't like it.  But I figured I'd made enough mistakes in the process, it might well be attributed to my errors.  I timed things incorrectly, resulting in some of the risen dough drying out in spots.  I also, against my better judgement, actually followed the directions which said to put all the flour in a bowl, then pour in the liquids, then mix.  (Yes, I was mixing by hand.)  The resulting dough was supposed to be sticky, but instead, was about as dry as a biscuit dough which hasn't had that last required tablespoon of milk added.  It took a lot of kneading to get the dough anywhere near pliable.  The final product was rather dense (although the dough had risen), and thicker than I really thought it should be.


You can see the poor bread looks like the dough didn't manage to get very smooth . . . It was very dense.


I suppose I should have tried the recipe again (preferably with my stand mixer and not adding all the flour at once), but I decided to try a different recipe, instead.  (At least this author talked about mixing the dough in a mixer . . .)  When I saw the temperature at which the bread was to be baked, I decided to try the baking stone again, instead of following the directions to use a baking sheet.  (Hey, I followed the directions on that other one, and look what it got me!)

The results?  Well, I don't know if it is authentic, but I sure liked it!  (I'm not sure anyone can go wrong if there are sesame seeds involved . . .)  My kids even asked for seconds, which they certainly didn't do last time, so it wasn't just me.

Soooo, here's how it went.  <rubbing hands together>

Ingredients:
2.5 cups flour (I think I ended up using only about 2 cups, actually)
2 packages dry yeast (a little over a Tablespoon, with the yeast I use)
1 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
2 tbsp olive oil
3/4 cup warm water

Have ready:

1/4 cup warm milk
Sesame seeds

The preparation of the dough in a stand mixer is very similar to most yeast doughs.  But there are a few differences.  For one, after the yeast and water are mixed, it should be allowed to sit for about 20 minutes before it is added to the mixer.  (No idea why, but, hey, it worked.)

For another, when the dough is ready to rise, instead of just covering the bowl with a paper towel, it should be covered with a wet towel or cheesecloth, or covered with plastic wrap.  (I had accidentally purchased inferior plastic wrap, so I ended up going with the wet towel.)  Why?  Well, this dough rises a long time, and we really don't want that problem I ended up with the previous time, ie., the dried dough parts.

The first rise is about an hour, at which point the dough is very nice and fluffy.  Punch down the dough and allow it to rise for another half hour.  (Counting?  We're up to an hour and a half of rising time.  Now you know why we need that wet towel.)

Turn on the oven and preheat it to 475 degrees Fahrenheit.

In the mean time, divide the dough into two portions and roll each into balls.  Allow the balls to set on a floured surface for about 15-20 minutes.  (Nice time . . . just enough time for my oven to finish preheating, actually.)

After the dough has risen . . .

Flatten the balls with your hands and start stretching them into a round or oval shape.  (I picked round.  I probably should have picked oval, as I ended up not being able to fit both rounds on my baking stone at the same time.)  If you are using a baking sheet, instead of a baking stone, shape them on the baking sheet, with a little flour beneath them.  I shaped them on my pizza paddle, even though I ended up picking them up to put them on the stone, instead of sliding them.

I was a little puzzled as to exactly how I was supposed to shape this dough until I remembered my extremely bad form in making pizza dough.  Suddenly, it all became clear, especially as the author of the blog instructs the baker to press fingers in places in the dough to make it uneven.  Hey, with the way I shape pizza dough, it's automatically uneven!  I've got this down!

After the bread is shaped, if it is on a baking sheet, it can be immediately brushed with milk and sprinkled with sesame seeds, then placed in the oven.  As I was using the baking stone, I waited until the bread was placed on the stone before brushing it with milk and sprinkling the seeds.

Bake on a baking sheet for 20-25 minutes, brushing again with warm milk every 5 minutes, until golden brown.  I found that on the baking stone, 15 minutes was closer to the mark.

At any rate, the bread ended up crispy/chewy on the outside, fluffy on the inside, and very delicious.  (Seconds?  My kids asked for thirds . . . The recipe says it is best enjoyed warm, so I indulged them.)

I'm looking forward to trying the Turkish loaf recipe posted by the same blogger.

An Pan

Japan traditionally has relied on rice as their staple grain, so breads haven't played a large role.  In fact, when I was in Japan, in the early 90's, most people I knew didn't even own an oven larger than a largish toaster oven.  (Try baking bread in that . . . I did . . .)

But despite the lack of bread varieties in Japanese history, one of the great pleasures I had while there was eating a bread which can only be described as Japanese:  an pan.  The word "pan" comes from Portuguese and is the Japanese word for "bread".  "An" is also known as "anko", a sweet bean paste.

An pan is made in many forms.  In any grocery or corner store, there are sold pre-packaged an pan looking something like two small pancakes, with an anko filling.  At certain vendor stands (or in the lower-level section of certain department stores, sort of like a deli section) there are people who make an pan in molds, pouring in a batter and adding a dollop of anko in the middle, which is covered with more batter.  The an pan is commonly in the form of a circle, but my favorite was actually shaped like a fish.

Last February, my family and I went to a Japan cultural festival in Phoenix, where my girls got to taste, for the first time, anko in a yeast-raised sweet bun.  When we returned home, I looked up a recipe.

It was not terribly easy to find, and when I did find a couple, I ended up synthesizing them to make one I really preferred, which is why I am not providing any links.

First, however, in order to make anko buns, you need anko.  If you are lucky enough to live near an Oriental mart which carries canned anko, life becomes much simpler.  If, however, you are like me, or if you'd rather just learn to do the whole process from start to finish, you will have to make your own anko.  Rather than make this page enormously long by including the anko recipe, as well, I am putting it in its own post, which can be found here.

Once you have your anko, you're ready to start working on the dough for the bun.

Ingredients:

1 package active, dried yeast (about a little less than a Tablespoon of the kind I use)
1 1/4 cup of warm milk (or warm water and the amount of powdered milk to make it milk)
3 Tablespoons margarine
1/2 cup sugar
3/4 teaspoon of salt
2 eggs
4 1/2 cups flour (as needed)
2.5 cups anko

For topping (optional):
1 egg yolk or melted butter
Toasted sesame seeds

Dissolve the yeast in the warm milk (or water, if you're using powdered milk), with the sugar.  Remember to have the milk at around 105-110 degrees Fahrenheit, so the yeast will dissolve nicely, but not be killed.  Slightly melt the margarine in a cup in the microwave.  (It doesn't have to be totally melted.)

In a stand mixer, add 2 cups of the flour and the salt.  Add the yeast mixture and stir.  Add the margarine and the eggs.  (If you are using a bread hook, it's a good idea to beat them a little first.)  Continue adding flour until the dough pulls away from the sides of the mixer bowl.  Pour a little oil in the bowl, allow the dough hook to turn the dough around to spread the oil, then stop mixing.  Remove the dough hook, turn the dough upside down, and cover the bowl with a damp cloth.  (For more detailed directions on mixing a yeast dough in a stand mixer, visit this page.)

Before rising . . .

This dough is rather slow-rising.  Check it after an hour and see if it has more or less doubled in size.  If not, make sure the cloth is still damp and check it 20 minutes or so later.

After rising . . .

When the dough is finished rising, turn it out on a lightly floured surface and divide into fourths.  This recipe ends up making roughly 3 dozen buns, but as I find dividing doughs in thirds to be cumbersome, I settle for 32.  In this way, I can divide in halves, then halves, etc.  Each fourth will be divided into 8 portions.  Roll each portion into a ball.

Roll each ball to a circle about 4 inches in diameter.

Place about a rounded teaspoonful of anko into the center of the circle.

Bring the dough around to cover it, using water to seal the dough, if necessary.  (I find it necessary.)  I bring the dough around in much the same fashion as the center of a pinwheel, bit by bit, all the way around.  (There has to be a proper cooking term for it, but I have no idea what it is.  I learned it by examining steamed Asian buns . . .)

Place the bun, seam side down, on a greased baking sheet.

Allow the buns to rise, covered, again, by a damp cheesecloth or paper towel, for about an hour or so.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit.  If desired, brush the buns with melted butter or egg yolk and sprinkle with toasted sesame seeds.  (I used melted butter and skipped the sesame seeds this time . . .)

Bake in the 375 degree oven for 15 minutes, until golden brown.

Remove from the tray and allow the buns to cool.

This makes a fun snack which my daughters love.  I prefer to heat mine a few seconds in the microwave, if they have cooled completely, but they are also good at room temperature.

Anko (for An Pan)

(This post is a companion post to An Pan.)

The first step to making an pan is getting anko.  If you live near an Oriental mart, you may be able to purchase canned anko, but if you do not, or if you would rather make it yourself, this post is for you.

Anko is a sweet bean paste used in several Japanese desserts.  It's not as sweet as most Western tastes may expect, so the first time the uninitiated taste it, it may take some adjustment in thinking.  The first time my 10-yr-old had anko, it was in a store-bought mochi treat, and she hated it.  But when I made anko buns at home, she ended up asking for seconds and thirds.

"Wow, Mom," she said, considering her anko bun, "Homemade anko sure tastes a lot better."

To be honest, most things taste better homemade, anyway.  The advantage to making your own anko is, of course, you can control the amount of sweetness in it.  If you just can't stand it as the recipe is, you can alter the amount of sugar or salt to taste.  (My teenage helper whose hands you see in these pictures frequently just omits the salt entirely.)

The anko recipe we use is one we found in a book my daughter received for Christmas, called The Manga Cookbook (wonder who bought that for her . . . /whistles idly . . .)

The Manga Cookbook

It's actually very cute, playing on her love of all things anime and manga and her love of Japanese food.  (For her birthday, I got her a "Japan Bento Lover's Club" t-shirt from Thinkgeek.com . . .)

Isn't it adorable!?

You'll need azuki beans, sugar, and salt.  Azuki beans are small, red beans frequently prepared in Japanese sweet dishes.  (Some people spell them "adzuki", which makes absolutely no sense in Japanese pronunciation.)

Ingredients:
2 cups azuki beans
2 cups sugar
2 teaspoons salt (we actually use a little less)

Short version:  cook the beans as you would any other dried bean, until they are soft enough to squish between your fingers.  Longer version:  put the beans in a pot after rinsing them an d cover them with a lot of water.  (You'll want much more than just covering them.)  Bring the water to boil.  Remove the pot from heat, cover with a lid, and let it sit overnight or so.  (Technically, you only need to have them sit a couple of hours if you do this, but I prefer to just let them sit overnight.)  After soaking, drain the water out of the pot and replace it with clean water, again, quite a bit over the beans.  Bring the beans to a boil and boil them until they are soft enough to squish between your fingers.  (This is not, I might add, how the book tells someone to cook the beans.  But let's face it--soaking the beans, then just cooking them in a pot with no water for an hour will result in a horrible mess, not to mention uncooked beans.  My daughter tried.  We decided to go with the tried-and-true method of cooking beans.)  After the beans are cooked, drain the beans.

With a wooden spatula, potato masher, or whatever tool you find handy to the job (in our case, a tortilla roller made from a piece of dowel), mash the beans to whatever consistency you desire.  Those who want their anko really smooth may put it through a strainer or sieve, but we prefer to keep the natural fiber of the beans, so ours is more lumpy.  That's ok . . . there are as many varieties of anko as there are makers.

Add half of the sugar and stir over low heat.

Interestingly enough, when the sugar is added, the beans go from being just a bunch of mashed beans to being something more like a quite liquid-y soup.  (Wonder what chemical reaction is happening here . . .)

Cook and stir until it starts to thicken a little, then add the rest of the sugar and the salt.  Continue to cook and stir (You really don't want burned beans and sugar!) until the mixture reaches the consistency of sticky mashed potatoes, rather on the soft side.

The anko will thicken as it cools and should be stored in the refrigerator.  BUT, if you are about to make anko buns, don't refrigerate it just yet.  (Ever tried to rise a bun filled with a refrigerated filling?  I have . . . Not a good idea.)

Where else can anko be used?  In pita, of course . . . or just spread on bread . . . or with vanilla ice cream (yep, believe it or not) . . . or with rice . . . or . . . anywhere else your imagination can take it.

Strawberry Muffins, Yum!!

Muffins have got to be the simplest "quick bread" to ever dress up a bland meal.  It is my comfort food secret to making a relatively boring, lazy meal something special.  Want to serve a dinner soup in the wintertime?  No problem--bake up some muffins to go with it.  Feel like crockpotting a pork roast on Sunday, with sides of rice and a veggie?  Just add muffins to make it extra-special.

The muffin recipe I use comes from my copy of the New Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook (2002), carefully working around the cover which should be duct-taped before it falls off completely.  It happens to be the very first recipe in the Bread section and includes a few variations.

I'd made and enjoyed the plain muffins and even cheese muffins several times.  Then one day, I got my hands on a #10 can of freeze-dried strawberries . . . and had one of those "a-ha!" moments.  Strawberry muffins . . . yum . . . 

Knowing the freeze-dried strawberries were a little tart (munch a few and you'll find out), I modeled my strawberry muffin recipe after the cranberry muffin variation, figuring they would benefit by a little more sugar than, say, the blueberry muffin variation.

The experiment was a success!  The muffins were eaten up very quickly, and I was pleased to have learned something I could do besides smoothies with freeze-dried strawberries.

Ingredients:

1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/3 cup plus 2 Tablespoons sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 beaten egg
3/4 cup milk
1/4 cup cooking oil
1 cup freeze-dried strawberries, reconstituted

The freeze-dried strawberries need to be reconstituted for this recipe.  For each batch of muffins (I doubled it this time), measure out a cup of freeze-dried strawberries and cover them in warm-hot water.  After about five minutes, they will be ready to be drained and used.

The texture of the reconstituted freeze-dried strawberries is not the same as fresh--much mushier.  While I wouldn't want to just eat a bowl of reconstituted strawberries, they are perfect for using in baked recipes.

The recipe is very simple.  Mix the dry ingredients in one bowl, and the wet ingredients (except the strawberries) in another.  If you use powdered milk, as I do, you can put the dry milk in with the dry ingredients and the requisite water in the wet ingredients, rather than mixing it all up.  (On the other hand, if I use powdered eggs, I seem to have much better results reconstituting the eggs first, rather than separating the dried eggs and water into the wet and dry ingredient bowls.)

Pour the wet ingredients into the center of the bowl with the dry ingredients and mix them.  Because the idea is to mix until everything is moistened, but not until everything is perfectly smooth or whipped, a wooden spoon is the ideal tool to use for this step.

Then fold in the drained strawberries.

Make sure your muffin tins are greased well or lined with cupcake papers.  I prefer greasing the tins, despite the extra effort for clean-up, because we like the crispiness of the finished product.  Using cupcake wrappers leaves the bottom part of the muffin soft instead of slightly crispy.

Fill each cupcake cup about 2/3 of the way full.  It is simple to do this by using a spatula to scrape the batter off a spoon.

Bake the muffins in the center of a 400 degree Fahrenheit oven for about 18-20 minutes.  (20 for me.)  The color should be nicely golden when they are done.

After about 5 minutes out of the oven, loosen the muffins in the muffin tins by sliding around the edge of the muffin with the back edge of a butter knife.  Allow the muffins to fall (gently) into a bowl lined with clean kitchen towels.  Cover the muffins with towels to keep them warm for serving.

Serve warm with butter or jam.  (Although, to be honest, I've never put jam on the table for strawberry muffins.)  Any cooled leftovers (ha! figure the odds) can be put in a plastic zipper bag and heated up later for a few seconds in the microwave when the kids decide they need a snack.

Simple, but delicious.

My Cooking Style

In the corner of my kitchen counter, I have a quilted bread carrier.  It was part of a Christmas exchange gift at last year's company party.  To be honest, it only ended up in my hands after the festivities were finished, when another woman in attendance and I decided to swap.  (Given that my final gift in the exchange was a gourmet coffee set, and I can't drink coffee . . .)

I've never used this quilted carrier, but I found I thoroughly appreciated the sentiment.  It's very similar to the well-known "Live, Laugh, Love", but it was only recently I understood how appropriate the substitution really is for me.

A few months ago, I picked up a book via Amazon called Cooking For Geeks.  I can hear you now . . . "What?  Geeks?"    Yep, geeks.  You know, those people who get completely distracted by science (fiction or fact) and who can't keep themselves from reading about the cool new stuff in technology . . . The ones who, in junior high, read all the James Blish books on the original Star Trek series enough they could identify any episode by title before the teaser was complete.  Or the ones who, in high school, back when computers were only just starting to make it into homes, completed home-study courses in Basic programming and in soldering.  (In my case, my dad had me do them, suggesting that geeks are made, not born . . . maybe.  Love you, Dad!)  At any rate, I went into absolute ecstasy reading about the science of cooking when I got my hands on Cooking For Geeks, and I still get distracted if I open the cover, so I must be in the target audience.  (Note to self:  remove said book from my office desk . . .)

In the introduction, the author includes an interview with Brian Wansink, professor at Cornell University, in which he discusses cooking styles.   There is also a short self-questionaire and explanation about five basic "Cooking Styles".  What is it which motivates the various cooks out there to cook and to select the foods they do?

When I went through the questionaire, it was clear one style dominated my thinking:  "Giving".  This is the description of the "Giving" style after the questionaire:

Friendly, well-liked, and enthusiastic, giving cooks seldom experiment, they love baking, and like to serve tried-and-true family favorites, although that sometimes means serving less healthful foods.

Now, that's not to say everyone fits completely into a category.  I do some experimenting, or, at least, I obviously like to expand my baking horizons, which would fit into the "Innovative" category.  And I do try to make our food a bit more healthy, substituting in some whole grains and lower-fat ingredients whenever possible ("Healthy").  But of the available categories, "Giving" is the one into which I fit the best.

Which brings me back to that quilted carrier and "Live, Laugh, Bake."  Professor Wansink refers to "Giving" cooks as those who "see the food they make as giving love."  So it would seem that for me, "Live, Laugh, Bake", is actually very similar to "Live, Laugh, Love".

Gotta love it!  (Or would that be "bake it" . . . ?)

(The part of the book dealing with this topic is from pages 8-15.)