I find back of the box recipes to be reliably good and easy to put together. This recipe, from the back of the Albers' cornmeal box, is a dream to make: put the wet ingredients in one bowl and the dry ingredients in another, then mix them together and bake. They pop out of the muffin tins with ease and are a mix of crisp edges, light crumb and crunchy cornmeal. I also add a dollop of raspberry jam in the center of the muffin batter before baking to really tart up the muffin and turn it into breakfast food with a bit of heft.
Ingredients
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2/3 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup cornmeal (yellow or white)
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/4 cups milk
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
1/3 cup vegetable oil
3 tablespoons butter or margarine, melted
1/3 cup raspberry jam
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease or paper-line 18 to 20 muffin cups.
Combine flour, sugar, corn meal, baking powder and salt in medium bowls. Combine milk, eggs, vegetable oil and butter in small bowl; mix well. Add to flour mixture; stir just until blended. Pour into prepared muffin cups, filling 2/3 full. Drop in 1 teaspoon raspberry jam onto center of muffin batter.
Bake for 18 to 20 minutes or until wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool in pans on wire racks for 5 minutes; remove to wire racks to cool slightly. Serve warm.
Tuesday, December 4, 2007
Monday, December 3, 2007
Salted Chocolate Caramels
Making candy always seems intimidating and difficult, which, I have to say, it definitely is. This never stopped me, since I remember begging my mom to let me make english toffee from The Joy of Cooking when I was fourteen or so. I remember us dancing frantically around a stockpot of amber molten sugar trying to discern the difference between hard ball, soft ball and threads fished out of cups of, admittedly, room temperature water. Then my mom poured in a glug of rum, we turned it out onto the counter, waited for a moment, then rolled it up into wax paper bits. They turned out pretty well, as I recall: rich, creamy and slightly grainy, which I find appealing. Sadly, though, there was no trace of rum. The desire to make candy reared its ugly head again last year when I happened upon the Gourmet Christmas issue and a feature for salted chocolate caramels. I hate things that are too sweet, but the salt on top promised a more balanced sort of candy. There were some stressful moments in making these caramels, specifically the point I had to decide whether the candy was soft-ball or hard-ball, but the cooking times given by Gourmet are extremely reliable and now I just cook the candy for fifteen minutes after adding the chocolate and cream. This candy is a little challenging to eat, as it is not the forgiving golden squishy kind, but a hard, stick-to-the-teeth sort that eventually melts into a rich, complex-tasting, chocolatey goo.
Ingredients
2 cups heavy cream
10 1/2 oz fine-quality bittersweet chocolate (no more than 60% cacao if marked), finely chopped
1 3/4 cups sugar
1/2 cup light corn syrup
1/4 cup water
1/4 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into tablespoon pieces
2 teaspoons flaky sea salt such as Maldon
Vegetable oil for greasing
Special equipment: parchment paper; a candy thermometer
Grease the the bottom and sides of an 8-inch straight-sided square metal baking pan and line with 2 long sheets of crisscrossed parchment paper. I definitely recommend this step, as I neglected it and was forced to dig out the cooled candy at the end with a knife, sweating and panting.
Bring cream to a boil over medium high heat, then reduce to low and drop in chocolate shards. Let it sit for a minute or two to let the chocolate melt into the cream, then stir till the chocolate is completely melted. Remove from heat.
Place sugar, corn syrup, water and salt in a 5- to 6-quart saucepan. This is very important, because when you add the cream mixture to the sugar mixture the volume of the candy mixture will increase dramatically. At this point, I use a step from The Joy of Cooking: clamp a lid down on top of the saucepan and bring the sugar mixture to a boil over moderate heat. Boil for 3 minutes, or until the condensation washes down the sides of the pan, dissolving any sugar crystals that can ruin the candy. Then take the lid off and cook the mixture until deep golden while swirling the pan occasionally (I don't use a spoon to stir at all at this point). Then add the chocolate cream mixture very carefully. Cook the mixture for another fifteen minutes, stirring with a spoon, till it reaches 255 F on a candy thermometer. I don't have a candy thermometer, so I use another Joy of Cooking trick: I drop bits of syrup into ice water till I get a hard ball that needs to be squished down with my fingers to achieve flatness. Add the butter, stirring until completely melted, then pour the candy immediately into the baking pan, without scraping the pan. I scraped the pan onto another sheet of waxed paper, then broke those bits up for snacking later. Sprinkle the candy with sea salt and cool completely in the pan, about 2 hours. This is very important because candy that is still warm has a tendency to stick to the pan and is then very hard to dig out.
Invert the caramel onto a clean, dry cutting board and peel off the parchment. Then turn the candy sea salt up and cut into 1-inch squares.
Ingredients
2 cups heavy cream
10 1/2 oz fine-quality bittersweet chocolate (no more than 60% cacao if marked), finely chopped
1 3/4 cups sugar
1/2 cup light corn syrup
1/4 cup water
1/4 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into tablespoon pieces
2 teaspoons flaky sea salt such as Maldon
Vegetable oil for greasing
Special equipment: parchment paper; a candy thermometer
Grease the the bottom and sides of an 8-inch straight-sided square metal baking pan and line with 2 long sheets of crisscrossed parchment paper. I definitely recommend this step, as I neglected it and was forced to dig out the cooled candy at the end with a knife, sweating and panting.
Bring cream to a boil over medium high heat, then reduce to low and drop in chocolate shards. Let it sit for a minute or two to let the chocolate melt into the cream, then stir till the chocolate is completely melted. Remove from heat.
Place sugar, corn syrup, water and salt in a 5- to 6-quart saucepan. This is very important, because when you add the cream mixture to the sugar mixture the volume of the candy mixture will increase dramatically. At this point, I use a step from The Joy of Cooking: clamp a lid down on top of the saucepan and bring the sugar mixture to a boil over moderate heat. Boil for 3 minutes, or until the condensation washes down the sides of the pan, dissolving any sugar crystals that can ruin the candy. Then take the lid off and cook the mixture until deep golden while swirling the pan occasionally (I don't use a spoon to stir at all at this point). Then add the chocolate cream mixture very carefully. Cook the mixture for another fifteen minutes, stirring with a spoon, till it reaches 255 F on a candy thermometer. I don't have a candy thermometer, so I use another Joy of Cooking trick: I drop bits of syrup into ice water till I get a hard ball that needs to be squished down with my fingers to achieve flatness. Add the butter, stirring until completely melted, then pour the candy immediately into the baking pan, without scraping the pan. I scraped the pan onto another sheet of waxed paper, then broke those bits up for snacking later. Sprinkle the candy with sea salt and cool completely in the pan, about 2 hours. This is very important because candy that is still warm has a tendency to stick to the pan and is then very hard to dig out.
Invert the caramel onto a clean, dry cutting board and peel off the parchment. Then turn the candy sea salt up and cut into 1-inch squares.
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