Tuesday, April 17, 2007

After reading such good reviews and seeing the goodies that Joe from "Culinary in the Dessert" made, I just had to check out the King Arthur Flour Whole Grain Baking book from the local library. And I am so glad I did!
The book is awesome, full of baked goods, from muffins to tarts, pies, and all sorts of yeast breads. It even has an assortment of cracker recipes, including my favorite: graham crackers!
And the best thing about this is that all, and I mean ALL the recipes are made with whole grains, yay! I am the BIGGEST whole grain fan!
I loved the book, need to return it this week, and am already talking the husband into getting a copy for me so that I can try all the recipes I marked on the library book. Even if I had renewed it 3 times, it would not be enough time, there are tons of my very favorite: oat recipes! (I have even gotten oat and barley flour in order to try some of the recipes in the book!)
The first recipe I tried was an absolute hit at our home. First imagine me, opening and checking out recipes from a baking book, what could I possibly go look at first?? Muffins, of course!!!
I am not sure how this would be called a real muffin, as to me its mixing method is not as a muffin making should be. However, these Sour Cream Muffins were sooooo delicious that after the first bite the way it was made didn't even matter anymore to me.
They were stated as being very versatile in terms of flavoring and additions you could incorporate to the batter, and at my first trial I already put its adaptability to the test.
These were made by creaming butter and sugar, adding eggs and incorporating the rest of ingredients rather than how a "usual" muffin would be done (separately mixing dry and wet ingredients, adding wet to dry and mixing just until everything is wet enough, never minding a few lumps here and there). This different process resulted in a sort of coffee cake batter, more dense and compact, the opposite of how a muffin batter would look like (more loose and "lumpy")
But even though it was different at first, the end result was a super nice and tender muffin, the flavor was delicious, even with the simplest ingredients it called for.
We just loved the muffins! They had the greatest texture and tenderness to it, plus the right amount of sweetness.
I divided my batter in two and added chopped frozen cherries to half of it and toffee bits to the other half. Both came up delicious and tasty; the husband liked the cherry muffins, and me and Matheus were all about the toffee bits ones. Oh my, I can't say how good they were!
I found a bag of toffee bits in my pantry that I have bought a while ago in order to try in baked goods and decided to use for this muffins. It was the happiest idea ever, the muffins were incredibly tasty and delicious, plus I think that the toffee flavor totally complemented the flavors in the batter.
As we were eating the last two toffee bits muffins for breakfast the other day, Matheus asked if I could make more of them as those were the best toffee bits muffins he ever had!(it was his first time eating the toffee bits!). Then I said, of course, and that I could try adding the bits to our favorite oatmeal muffin recipe since I didn't have any sour cream on hand that particular day, I barely finished saying that and he stated "Oh no mommy, you have to make this recipe, these are the best"!!! Is he cute or what?!!! I mean, the muffins were good, really good!
I bought sour cream today to make this again, and just had to come here and share the recipe with you. Really delicious, it seems these are jumping to the top of our list!
The recipe says that letting the batter rest for one hour may provide even better results, I didn't have the time and ended up just letting it rest for about 20 minutes.Truly, I can't imagine these being better than they came out, so I might even try the 1 hour in the fridge thing next time to see if it makes such a difference. Oh, and my change for this one was to use 3/4 cup sugar.... and they were plenty sweet for us!
Enjoy!!
Ana

Sour Cream Muffins
(Adapted from the King Arthur Flour Whole Grain Baking)

2 cups white whole wheat flour
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
4 tablespoons butter, room temperature
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup sour cream
1 1/2 cups any fruits you might like, fresh, frozen or dried.
Sugar for sprinkling (optional)

Grease muffin tins, reserve.
Mix together the flours, baking powder, salt and baking soda, set aside.
With a mixer cream butter and sugar until creamy and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time while beating. Add vanilla and sour cream, beat until all incorporated. Add dry ingredients mixing just until the batter is smooth. Fold in fruits and refrigerate batter for one hour.
Preheat oven to 375 F. Scoop the batter into the muffin cups, sprinkle tops with coarse sugar if desired and bake for about 22 to 26 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.


14 comments:

Elvira said...

Os seus bolinhos continuam maravilhosos! :-)

simplesmente eu said...

oi,gostaria\que se pudesse me ajudasse a traduzir a receita que me mandou de ncobertura para os bolos de aniversario,não estou muito dentro dos termos culinarios em ingles pois não tenho treinadfo muito. envie email para receitasesegredos@gmail.com
beijinhos
helia

Anonymous said...

i love that book too. ive made SOOOOO many things from it, next time you need to make pie/tart crust try the barley pie crut from the buttery pear tart on p 452. i dont think im going back to regular white pie crust anymore!!!! yeah ive made sooooo many amazing things from this book i dont even knw where to begin! and 90% have turned out fabulously oooo and the sesame barley bread on p 236 is fabulous, o and my mom is OBSESSED with the salted cashew cookies on p 307. yeah this book is AMAZING i highly recomend it!
-katrina

Anonymous said...

oooo yeah and i you like ginger cookies/ ginger snapps you HAVE to try the molasses rye snaps! they are fabulous!! i made them in Jan and people are STILL asking me to make em again!
sry im obsessed wit this book if you couldnt tell already hehe
-katrina

Ana said...

Elvira, thanks, and these were just as good as they look, we loved, loved them!!

Mae H, vou traduzir e te mando ainda essa semana, pode deixar!


Katrina, Wow, seems like you really liked this book too!! I am so glad you posted here and gave me some reviews on things you have made and enjoyed. I love hearing from others about things they made from the books I like!
I ordered my copy yesterday and can't wait for it to get into my mailbox! I still have the library book at home and it was due yesterday... I just couldn't let it go! hehehe!
This book is great, and I can see myself trying many recipes in the near future too, thanks for the tips, especially on the barley pie crust, sounds too good!

Ana

Karen said...

Também já tinha ouvido falar nesse livro e fiquei bastante interessada! Pode ir testando e postando as receitas! Elas são todas bem-vindas!

Anonymous said...

hey just wanted to come back today and say thta i made the "going with the grain wreath" today, its in the shaped bread dough section.one word FABULOUS!!! its probibly the best bread ive made in a long time, and i make bread almost every sunday. its got a crispy kinda thick crust and is soooo light and fluffy and tender on the inside... its insane. just thoguht i'd let ya know hehe
-katrina

Ana said...

Hi Katrina!
Thanks for coming back and letting me know about the bread, one more to my list of good reviews from the book!!
What do you think about communicating through e-mail? Do you have a blog too?
Send me a message and then we can exchange ideas and recipes we have tested from the book, I am loving to know about the things you have made!
I am planning on making the pretzels this week with my son! Yum!
Ana

Anonymous said...

thanks for posting the muffin recipe.

I have most of the ingredients on hand... but instead of eggs, I have egg sub, and lf sourcream. I wonder if that will make a difference. I will definitely try them and will check out the book at the libary.

Thanks,

Ana said...

Hi Anonymous!
Go for the egg sub and the lf sour cream, I bet they won't make m much difference at all.
In fact, I used light sour cream both times I made, and as I said, the results were amazingly delicious!
Do check out the book, it is awesome!
Hope you like the recipe as much as we did!
Ana

urban vegan said...

I love that baking book. I've given it to a few folks as gifts, too.

You can buy the Chocoreale (Nutella-like spread sans transfats) at VeganEssentials.com.

Ana said...

Urban Vegan, thank you so much for coming here and telling me about the spread, seems like I will be ordering mine pretty soon!
Ana

Flor de Sal said...

Oi Ana!
Adorei a receita, mas não consigo descobrir o ke é "sour crem". Se poder passe no meu blog e me deixa a tradução!
A big Hello from Portugal

Anonymous said...

sorry it took me so long to get back to you... ive had one heck of a week or two... anyway, id love to talk thru email, but i dont know what yours is... right now im in the process of making the spelt currant cookies, honey oatmeal bread, and just made the fruit bars... o and the cream cheese molasses bread too! my email is katgould (at) optonline (dot) net