Family recipe Monday: muffins and popovers

Bird runes on the front porch

For straight-out mental exhaustion on a grand scale, the sort that makes your loved ones seriously debate the merits of having you placed in a nice home for the bewildered for a while, very little stacks up against unrelenting weeks of grant-writing interspersed with a few building emergencies. Times being what they are, there is no let-up to grant-writing in sight. In order to be the flagship institution I think we can be within the next ten years, we absolutely must re-think, re-plan, re-tool, and find the resources to do that. But that work is in addition to, not instead of, everything else that is going on. We plan strategies. We plan budgets. We teach and grade and advise. We serve on committees. And we write grants.

On Friday we moved most of the bones of a mammoth from the old building to the new one. Yeah, they're big. And they had to go down a story's worth of outdoor steps. In the snow. That led to a great discussion on how we should be commemorating these events for the participants--grand-tour-type rock band T-shirts, or Scout-type badges? It's been an astounding year when viewed in retrospect. Opened a new building. Moved steel cases with our bare (OK, work-gloved) hands. (My grandmother always did want me to wear gloves during the day....) Moved a library and a half. Packed thousands and thousands of rocks and fossils. Bought a forklift (for this I went to graduate school?). Mopped up a flood. Mopped up other leaks. Gave tours to a couple of thousand people even before the building opened. Moved giant sculptures into place. And, in the process, got blessed with one of the best groups of students, faculty and staff ever, anywhere.

My new plan in to start bringing in some kind of baked goods every Friday to keep everyone happy, or at least fed. I'll post a running chronicle here on Thursdays. With any luck and a few good breaks in the weather, we can get this move completed by the summer. I've posted some of my favorite cookie and muffin recipes already; it's time to start baking them for the troops here.

This is another of my favorite big-batch mix recipes. Nice to have on hand at the end of a frenetic week, and easy to load up with fruit so that we can call it a health food....

Oatmeal mix

7 cups flour
3½ cups sugar
2 T salt
¼ cup baking powder
2¼ cups shortening
18-oz. box rolled oats

Combine dry ingredients in very large bowl. Sift. Using a pastry blender, cut shortening into mix until mix is consistency of cornmeal. Store in airtight container in cool, dry place. To measure, spoon lightly into cup and level off with spatula. Yield: 22 cups mix.

Oatmeal muffins

1 egg
½ cup milk
3 cups Oatmeal Mix (above)

Beat egg until light. Add milk and mix well. Pour into oatmeal mix. Stir just enough to moisten, Fill greased or papered pans 2/3 full. Bake at 425* F for 20 minutes. Yield: 1 dozen.

Variations: Add ¾ cup chopped dates, ¾ cup simmered raisins, 1 cup blueberries, ¾ cup chopped nuts, or 1 cup diced apple and ½ tsp cinnamon.

Popovers don't keep long enough to be brought to work. They are steam-puffed and collapse soon if they're not eaten first thing. But they're wonderful dinner breads and not all that difficult to make. You need the right kind of baking pan and a very hot oven. You can experiment with them a bit; savory popovers with onion and dill are especially nice with seafood.

Perfect popovers

2 eggs
1 cup milk
1 cup sifted all-purpose flour
½ tsp salt
1 T salad oil

In mixing bowl, combine eggs, milk, flour and salt. Beat 1 ½ minutes with rotary or electric beater. Add salad oil; beat ½ minute. Don't overbeat. Fill 6 to 8 well-greased custard cups ½ full. Bake in very hot oven (475* F) for 15 minutes; reduce heat to moderate (350* F) and bake 25 to 30 minutes or until browned and firm. A few minutes before removing from oven, prick each popover with skewer or two-tined fork to let steam escape. For drier popovers, turn off oven and leave them in for 30 minutes, door ajar. Serve hot.

Happy Monday. Four weeks until we see cranes in the skies....

Cranes at sunrise.

Family recipe Monday: baked goods: muffins

Three states in the United States of America have adopted official muffins. Minnesota has adopted the blueberry muffin as the official state muffin. Massachusetts in 1986 adopted the Corn Muffin as the official state muffin. Then in 1987 New York took on the Apple Muffin as its official muffin of choice.
http://www.world-foodhistory.com/2007/04/history-of-muffin.html

I must admit here that I did not know that there were any state muffins. South Dakota doesn't seem to have one, though it does have a state bread (frybread) and a state dessert (kuchen). (Of course, I'm still trying to wrap my brain around the fact that South Dakota's state bird is the Chinese ringnecked pheasant, making SD the only state in the Union, as far as I can tell, whose state bird is 1. a non-native, introduced species, and 2. a major game bird in the state. We can shoot and eat our state bird. But I digress.)

These are unofficial but great muffin recipes from the Simple Gifts file. Muffins have an interesting history, particularly in terms of leavening. They are batter breads rather than dough breads and depend on a chemical agent (first pearlash, now baking powder) to leaven the batter. The best muffins are mixed quickly and baked in sturdy mold pans. I am a fan of cast-iron muffin pans, personally, as they seem to yield the lightest muffins. For best results, let them cool in the pan for 5 minutes or so before removing them.

Here's the recipe from the card at the top.

Sour cream muffins

1 cup sour cream

1 tsp baking soda
1 cup sugar
1 tsp cream of tartar
2 eggs
Flavoring
2 cups flour
Salt (1 tsp)

Beat all ingredients together and bake at 400* F.
--Vada Johnson Brooks

"Flavoring" could be any extract or essence desired: vanilla, lemon, orange, almond and rum were particularly popular. 

I have not tested the claim below that this muffin batter will keep for six weeks, and am I ever glad that someone corrected the recipe. 8 cups of sugar and no flour would be a bit much...This makes a huge batch of muffins, and my inclination would be to make it up all at the same time rather than trying to save the batter. With sufficient friends, family and colleagues, you can get these distributed quickly, and be far more popular in the process than the zucchini reverse bandits of late summer. (I actually, out of desperation, made zucchini muffins and teabread two years ago...but I digress again.)

Six-week muffins

1 10-oz box Raisin Bran
3 cups sugar (or use brown sugar)
5 cups flour
2 tsp salt
5 tsp baking soda
1 quart buttermilk
4 beaten eggs
1 cup Crisco (melted)

Mix Raisin Bran, sugar, flour, salt and baking soda. Add buttermilk, eggs and Crisco. Use a very large mixing bowl and mix well. Store covered in refrigerator and use as desired. Fill muffin tins 2/3 full and bake at 400* F for 15 to 20 minutes. This batter will keep for 6 weeks.
--Gladys Strickland

A couple of other favorites:

Blueberry muffins

1 cup fresh or frozen blueberries
1 ½ cups sifted unbleached flour
2 tsp baking soda
½ tsp salt
½ cup granulated sugar
1 egg
2 T unsalted butter, melted
½ cup milk
Grated rind of 1 medium lemon

Wash and dry blueberries thoroughly. In a mixing bowl, sift together flour, baking soda, salt and sugar. Add blueberries and stir to mix, being careful not to break blueberries. In a separate bowl, beat egg lightly. Mix in melted butter and milk. Stir in grated lemon rind. Add liquid ingredients all at once to dry ingredients. With a spatula, stir and fold only until dry ingredients are barely moistened (only a few seconds). The batter will be slightly lumpy and quite thick. Fill greased or paper-line muffin tins 2/3 full and bake at 400* F for 20 to 25 minutes, or until golden brown. Cool in the tins for 2 to 3 minutes, then remove and cool on a rack. Makes 10 to 12 muffins.

Interesting how blueberries and lemons always pair well in taste and complement each other.

Cranberry orange muffins

1 cup all-purpose flour
½ tsp salt
1 cup sugar
1 tsp baking soda
1½ cups yellow cornmeal
1 cup cranberries, washed and patted dry
½ cup salad oil
2 eggs
2/3 cup buttermilk
2 T Grand Marnier (optional)
1 T grated orange rind

Preheat oven to 375* F. Grease bottoms of 12-cup muffin tins. In large bowl, sift together flour, salt, sugar, and soda. Add cornmeal and cranberries. Stir to mix. In smaller bowl, combine oil, eggs, buttermilk, Grand Marnier, and orange rind. Beat until well blended. Add liquid ingredients to dry ones, stirring until flour is moistened but still lumpy. Do not overbeat. Divide batter among 12 muffin cups. Bake 20 minutes or until tops are peaked and golden. Let sit in pan for 5 minutes before serving. Serve warm with butter.

Dinosaur corn muffins. Take that, Massachusetts.

Happy Monday.