Variations on a Banana Muffin

Posted on May 31, 2022 by Samantha

One of the things I really appreciate about basic recipes, such as a basic banana muffin recipe, is that I can mess with the flavoring and see if I like the result.

I don’t add nuts to banana muffins. As a kid, I didn’t like nuts in baked goods. For that matter, I didn’t really like any nuts besides peanuts, period. That’s changed. I now really like nuts with chocolate–not just hazelnut, but pecan, almond, and even walnut. I even like almonds with green beans, and walnuts in spinach salad with craisins, just like a real grown-up. And chocolate-pecan torte is now my preferred birthday cake (the pecans are ground, not chopped). But I still don’t like chopped nuts in most baked goods.

On the other hand, I have always been enthusiastic about chocolate, so I frequently add chocolate chips to banana muffins (and to oatmeal cookies, and to oatmeal, for that matter.) Sometimes I add orange zest as well as chocolate chips, or by itself. Banana and orange is a good combo. Banana and orange and chocolate are great.

I had four overripe bananas, just enough for two batches of basic banana muffins, and some leftover peanut-butter chips in the pantry. So, in the spirit of experimentation (and because bananas and peanut butter go together so well), I made one batch with chocolate chips and the other batch with peanut-butter chips.

Here you probably expect me to rave about how delicious peanut-butter chip banana muffins are. And they did taste good, but I didn’t think they were anything to get excited about. My husband actually liked them more than I did. I thought they were… subtle. Good, but I could barely identify the added flavor as peanut. That surprised me.

And that’s why it’s fun to try adding flavors to basic recipes. You just don’t know for sure how you’ll like the result till you try it. I really expected the peanut flavor to jump out more. But now I’m eager to try something different the next time I make banana muffins–vanilla. There’s no vanilla in my basic banana muffin recipe, and vanilla is delicious in a banana milkshake. But I’m not going to stop there. I’m going to add spices as well, probably nutmeg, maybe cinnamon, maybe even cardamom. No idea how the cardamom will turn out.

You don’t really need my banana muffin recipe, since you can find a perfectly good one with no trouble at all, and maybe a better one than mine. But I’ll copy it here anyway, in case you’re curious. It’s from the 11th edition of the Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book (the one with the plaid cover.)

Banana Muffins

Preheat oven to 400.

Grease or line 12 standard size muffin cups. (That is to say, neither jumbo nor mini size. I like foil liners because they peel right off without stealing any of your muffin.)

Mix dry ingredients in a big bowl.

1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/3 cup sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt

Squash two very ripe bananas with a fork, hopefully resulting in 3/4 cup well-mashed banana. Mix wet ingredients in a separate bowl or large measuring cup. I suggest this order:

1 egg, beaten
1/2 cup milk
3/4 cup mashed banana
1/4 cup vegetable or canola oil

Add the wet to the dry, along with

1/2 cup nuts (except I would never add nuts–I’d rather add 1/2 cup chocolate chips)

Mix gently with a spoon till all combined. Scoop into muffin pan and bake about 20 min till golden (or 18 in my oven, which tends to run hot.)

Hot Cross Buns–New Twists On My Old Recipe

Posted on April 16, 2022 by Samantha

A mixture of citrus, cinnamon, and nutmeg–plus butter–is one of my favorite flavor combinations. It started with a hot cross bun recipe long ago, when I used lemon and orange zest in place of some candied citron. Of course, citrus zest is not the same thing as citron, but I thought the candied fruit mix sold in the stores looked weird and unappealing, while citrus zest, either orange or lemon, sounded pretty good. So I used both.

I’ve been pretty happy with my hot cross buns, but I have to admit that they seem to dry out too quickly. So this year I decided to try something new. Earlier this year, I made a recipe for Kanelbullar (Swedish Cinnamon Buns) using a recipe from Cook’s Illustrated (Jan/Feb ’22). They were enormously buttery and sweet, and also very soft. I thought I’d borrow the technique called tangzhong , as well as some extra butter, but keep my favored flavoring and traditional hot cross bun shape.

The tangzhong technique, which seems more or less the same as one called yudane, involves heating some of the flour and liquid together to make a flour paste, then using that in the dough. It’s kind of entertaining and reminds me of making playdough, though the paste wasn’t as stiff and hard to stir. On the other hand, my dough turned out too wet, so maybe I should have cooked the paste till it was like playdough.

Shows that the flour paste mixture was still sticking to the pan, which is wetter than a playdough mixture. — The tangzhong.

Here’s what I baked:

Hot Cross Buns, 2022 version

Soften 4 T butter. Use a microplane grater, if you have one, to zest part of a lemon and part of an orange till you have about 1 tsp mixed citrus zest. (The proportions are up to you.) If you don’t have a microplane grater, just do whatever you usually do for zesting citrus. But if you like to add citrus zest to dishes, I really recommend the microplanes. Add the zest to the butter (you can just put it on top so you don’t forget it.) By the way, this is twice the butter of my usual recipe.

Heat 3/4 cup milk with 1/4 cup (1-1/2 oz) bread flour to make a paste. I found it easiest to warm the milk in the microwave just to lukewarm or so, then mix in the flour briskly, then heat it on the stove and stir with a wooden spoon. I think it’s faster than starting on the stove, but easier then pulling the mixture in and out of the microwave to stir it. (Plus, my microwave keeps beeping even after you open the door… a bad design, I think.)

I moved the paste to the stand mixer and add 1/2 cup cold milk, then whisked till smooth. This should avoid the problem of the mixture being too hot for the yeast, but check to be sure.

Add 2 cups (~11oz) bread flour and 2-1/2 tsp yeast. Mix it in. Use dough hook on low for a minute or two. The dough is supposed to look dry. Mine did not look particularly dry, and in fact I had to add more flour later. But if it does look a bit dry, you’re probably on the right track. Then let it stand 15 minutes.

While you’re waiting, mix together 1/3 cup white sugar, 1 tsp cinnamon, 1/4 tsp nutmeg, and 1/4 tsp salt. My usual recipe only uses 1/4 cup sugar, but I thought it could be a bit sweeter. I like to mix the spices with the sugar because I worry that the cinnamon will clump together otherwise. It probably doesn’t make a difference in this case, though.

Add the sugar mixture to the dough and mix on med-low for 5 minutes.

Now add the softened butter (cut in pieces) and citrus zest. Mix on med-low, scraping as needed, at least 5 minutes. You want the dough to clear the sides of the bowl, but stick a little on the bottom. Mine was way too wet and left sticky dough along the sides, so I had to add more flour, a spoonful at a time, until it was about right.

At this point I could have tried my usual procedure for hot cross buns–let dough rise an hour, cut and shape and rise another 30-45 minutes before baking. Instead, I followed the kanelbullar procedure, even though I didn’t really need to end up with a rectangle since I wasn’t going to use a sugary, buttery filling.

Oil a 13×9 pan (I used a glass casserole) and squash the dough in there, flip it and squash some more into an approximate rectangle. Cover with plastic and refrigerate for 1 hour.

While I didn’t use a sugary filling, I did need to add raisins. Soak 1/4 cup raisins in warm water. Before using, drain and pat dry with paper towel.

Put dough on floured board. Arrange raisins evenly over 2/3, then fold plain dough over onto raisins, and fold over again. I’m not going to try to explain this better, because really the point is just–add the raisins to the dough so they’re nicely distributed.

Usually I cut the dough into 18 pieces. This time I decided to try 24 (divide in 3, then each in half, in half again, in half again.) In hindsight, I think these buns are too small. I recommend dividing it into 18. (thirds, then thirds, then half)

Arrange them on a baking sheet, cover with a damp towel or such, and let rise for 1 hour.

Before they finish rising, preheat the oven to 425.

I don’t usually put egg wash on my hot cross buns, but I did this time and I think I like it. Mix one egg with 1 t water and a pinch of salt. Brush some on top of buns. Cut a cross on the buns. (This didn’t work very well as the dough was soft and wet with egg wash. Maybe I should have done this before the egg wash.)

Bake till golden, 13-17 min. Let cool on sheet on a rack for 5 min, then remove from sheet and cool on rack at least 10 min more.

Egg-washed buns have golden, somewhat shiny tops.

I’m not going to include a recipe for the icing. I usually use an icing made from powdered sugar, a little hot milk, and lemon extract. This time I tried royal icing with lemon extract. I have two things to say. First, if you store these buns in a plastic container, the royal icing will get damp and runny just like the regular powdered sugar icing. I guess it’s all the moisture in there. Second, lemon extract doesn’t last. The flavor changes over time. So if your lemon extract is old, get a new bottle, even if you haven’t made it halfway through the old one. My husband and I compared the new and old extracts and could both detect a difference in how they smelled. I’m pretty sure that translates into a difference in flavor. I did add some fresh lemon zest to the icing to improve it, and maybe using zest alone, or zest plus lemon juice, would be better.

Hot cross buns with royal icing while it is still firm, before excess moisture in the bun makes it runny.

You may notice I’ve been messing around with the format of the recipe, using bold in places and putting a dash so that 1 tsp and a half becomes 1-1/2 tsp. I’m not sure if that’s actually any clearer. If you have an opinion on this, let me know.

Till next post.

Stay at Home and Have Cake

Posted on January 15, 2021 by Samantha

“Stay at Home.”

Back in April I was experimenting with decorating cake using the batter itself, thanks to watching too many episodes of the Great British Baking Show. I was trying a technique that seemed to have many names: joconde imprime, Japanese Jelly-roll, and inlay cake. The writing above was not made with that technique. Rather, I took the leftover vanilla batter and piped it on top of the chocolate batter to express the concerns of the moment.

I never did write a blog post about the decorating technique, or at least, I never finished one. But the motto is even more relevant now than it was back in April.

Not everyone has the option to stay home, but for those who do, it is a contribution to fighting the pandemic. I know we went over all this back in March and April, but to repeat–if all you can do is avoid getting COVID yourself, you have still done something to help stop the pandemic. You have created one less source of infection, one less draw on the increasingly limited COVID-related resources.

(That should have been “fewer”, shouldn’t it?)

Everyday life goes on… and on… and it isn’t possible to postpone everything. There are dental visits, doctor visits, and sometimes you have to call the plumber in. Sometimes you really want to pick out your own groceries, and sometimes you want to see a friend–even if it has to be from a distance, masked. But you can still choose to be careful and limit your exposure, especially right now when the risk is higher than ever for most people. If it made sense in April, it makes even more sense now, when there is almost ten times the risk, on average, of catching it.

In the interests of ending on a positive note, I’m going to tack on some of the photos from April’s baking experimentation. Maybe eventually I’ll have another try at the technique, but till then…